And so as if they had won the lottery, Hiro, Sora, Tadashi, Cass, Donald, Goofy, Honey, Go Go, Wasabi, and Fred all came out of the building with a cheer, swinging the doors open to a whole new life of respectfulness. Hiro lifted the acceptance letter in his right hand with a victory pose, Go Go pushed the right door open while Fred kicked the other one open with his left foot and lifted his arms up while Wasabi pulled on his hands with a "Whoooooooo!" as though he was straightening the invisible straps on his shirt. In the back, Honey was excited, giving the younger Hamada son a cheer and a look of pleasurable concern while Tadashi just smiled as his aunt jumped up with raised hands in synchronization with Fred's.

As they walked down the steps, Sora patted Hiro the back with his left hand while Donald and Goofy cheered on for Hiro with a "Congratulations!" "Many happy returns!" (Though Goofy did not know Hiro's birthday) and "Good luck with your schooling!" At the bottom of the stairs, Cass raised her left fist in the air with zeal, shouting in sing-song. "Dinner's on me!"

Fred was so excited, he practically jumped off the second step of the staircase. "Yeah! Whoop! Nothing is better than free food unless it's moldy!"

While the four friends, the duck and the dog went on ahead, Sora and the Hamadas stayed behind while Tadashi asked, "Aunt Cass?"

She turned around.

"Is it all right if Hiro and I be alone for a few minutes?"

Cass could not help but agree in all of her boiling excitement. "Sure," she said sweetly.

Then, hammering her hands with vehemence, she added, "I'm so proud of you!"

She grasped her arms behind Hiro before her left arm pulled Tadashi into the hug. Cass placed her head in between Hiro's head and Tadashi's right elbow as she quipped. "Both of you! So proud!"

"Yes," the brothers chorused.

Free from the triple hug, Cass scooted in between her nephews and ran off to join the others, gasping quietly to contain her uncontrollable enthusiasm.

Sora, who had been watching the whole scene, couldn't help but giggle at the over loving nature of Ms. Hamada's mama bear-like personality. He lowered his eyelids for a split second and turned his back to avoid seeing Hiro and Tadashi's reaction at getting embarrassed over a hug, but by the time he turned back to face the brothers, they were already walking away with Hiro following Tadashi to a dark corner of the campus grounds behind a bush and over a small pond.

Hiro winced at his brother. He was gazing out at the Ito Ishioka Robotics Lab from the garden bridge.

"I know what you're going to say," He lowered his octaves to match a pretty deep impression of Tadashi. "I should be proud of myself because I'm using my 'gift' for something important."

"No, no." Tadashi confessed. "I was just going to tell you that your fly was down during the whole day."

Hiro's reply, like any other response to his sense of humor was sarcastic and completely dry of enthusiasm.

"Ha-ha, hilarious."

But just to make sure. Hiro looked down at his tan trousers to see that his brother was telling the truth.

"What?!"

Tadashi let out a short laugh and poor Hiro, full of distress and embarrassment, zipped it back up to the top. While he was getting dressed earlier that morning, Hiro had neglected pull his fly up, since it was already unzipped the last time he had used it. For such a genius that he was, the young boy had several flaws, and neglecting his clothes was one of them. After Tadashi's laugh had died down, Hiro slammed his right fist into the left arm for such mannerisms of a crude comment. The older brother chuckled a little more, reacting to his pained arm before peace had been established in his self-control.

Tadashi had a satisfied breath of fresh cool air when he looked at the lab, quietly uttering to Hiro: "Welcome to nerd school."

They looked out at the picturesque view of the Ito Ishioka Robotics Lab, which glowed like a shining star; basking the light in darkness and illuminating Tadashi's face with a fluorescent blue when he looked at Hiro with a quiet "nerd".

Hiro smiled and Sora, who had been sitting on the opposite railing from the Hamada brothers, shook his head with pleased reactions all over his smile. Then Hiro said:

"Hey, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you, so… thanks. It's what I came here for. I guess bot-fighting really is a path that can result into just… wasting your life in prison."

Tadashi could only agree. "You don't have to say that. I mean it's true, but you don't have to say it. I am proud that you finally learned your lesson."

The Hamada brothers smiled and nodded at each other for a moment. Sora turned away, gazing at the details of the pond that lay underneath the bridge: a black surface of water, a couple of lily pads, three lotus flowers and a statue of a toad that could be seen more clearly in the daytime.

Suddenly, there was an alarm, which threw a loud "BEEP!" one second after the other.

Sora looked around for the source of the noise, saluting his left hand over his forehead, he turned left, then right before he saw what appeared to be smoke coming from the distance. He did not wish to believe what he was about to expect.

"I hope it's just a tailgate party," Sora whimpered.

When they turned back to go and collect Hiro's microbots, they were surprised to see black smoke billowing from the showcase hall. It seemed impossible, but the hall had burst into flames! Crashing and exploding shards of debris, glass and rubbles of concrete filled the air.

As Hiro and Tadashi ran towards the burning building, they saw people running to get out of the way, gasping and coughing. The front windows were nearly engulfed in flames as the brown smoke had pressed against the pagoda roof, trying to free itself from the frames that turned the glass into flash paper. Sora and the Hamada brothers could not believe what was happening, everything was going so well until it had turned into one of the worst catastrophes the institute had ever seen; smoke was rising over forty to fifty feet in the sky. It was a terrific display of smoke and flame that came crashing down to face reality with its cruel heart and not having any second thoughts for humanity to share and be left alone on Earth without a blast of death to torment their ever so perfect lives like a serial killer who was jealous of those who lived in a happy little town with perfect houses, perfect families, perfect children...perfect everything, and that killer struck it's blow hard, by killing it's beloved ones...

Pushing their way through the panicked crowd Tadashi stopped before a judge, the dark haired female named Sally came into his arms. She was holding her right hand over her heart as if she had suffered a heart attack and Tadashi could see a bruise on her left cheek.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

Sally tried to breathe, the smoke taking effect of her lungs. "Yeah, I'm okay. But Professor Callaghan is still in there!"

As the words processed into his hearing, Sally ran off with the crowd and Tadashi looked out at the building for a second, then he rushed to the entrance at an intense pace, out of fear and out of reach from his mentor. He was still unaware of Breathless' departure, and began to consolidate the fact that she too was still inside the building. Hiro knew his brother was going to try and save the professor, and to do it, he would have to be so brave and so selfless, that he dreaded the thought of Tadashi giving up such a fine life for another's. So just as the elder was about five feet away from the steps, Hiro grabbed the olive sleeve of Tadashi's left arm and held him back as hard as he could, shouting to the point of tears.

"Onii-chan, NO!"

Tadashi tried to pull away as he reasoned with his brother. Hiro could see that his expression was pure of fear and unpredictable concern for the fellow teacher he saw as an adoptive father and a blonde chanteuse whom he had been trying not to fall too deeply in love with for three years.

The older brother turned his head back at the pale red light emitting from the windows of the very same doors that they had just left behind a few minutes ago looking happy and carefree at Hiro's success. Tadashi hid his desperation with a clean and exciting thought that he could top it all off by trying to save Professor Callaghan and Breathless from the fires of Hell that threatened to disintegrate their entire existence into ash (even though he was completely unprepared for such a dangerous task like this one).

He turned his head back to the worried face of his brother. They were both scared of losing one another, but Tadashi had to be brave; just as he always was.

"Callaghan is still in there! Someone has to help! Breathless could be in there too!"

Hiro just kept holding on like the immature child he used to be, thinking of a better alternative.

"Can't we just wait for the fire brigade?! They could help too, you know!"

Tadashi calculated the fire department's estimated time of arrival: 45 minutes. The showcase hall was known to have been equipped with heavy duty air conditioning and gas tanks that, if short circuited by the flames, would explode in a matter of minutes.

"It will be too late by then!"

"What about me?!"

He turned back, to face his brother as though he had been drafted into the army. Going to war...and never to be seen...again.

"Take care, otouto."

Hiro reluctantly let his hands go of his brother's arm and he silently watched him go up the stairs and into the showcase hall. A brave fool just asking to end his life at such a young age. 21 years was too early. As he made it to the top of the steps with the sound of his feet dying away, a strong gale of wind followed by the velocity of his run had caused Tadashi's San Fransokyo Ninjas cap to blow away from his head and flew on for yards until it landed in Hiro's hands. Observing all of the details, colors and some strand of Tadashi's hair that was stuck in the threads, Hiro knew that he could not wait forever, he and Tadashi did almost everything together like the true brothers they were and wherever Tadashi would go, Hiro would follow.

So what was he waiting for? He still had enough time to convince onii-chan that firefighting was for professionals only, so he sprinted forwards and ran up the steps to where his and Tadashi's destiny would lie.

Sora, having seen everything from afar as he had been trying to help the crowd to safety, looked over the heads of young men and women to see Hiro running into the hall. As one of the lucky few to have been chosen by the Keyblade, Sora's instinct to help the people he saw with universal personality kicked in, and pushing through the bodies of five more men and three more women, he charged towards the entrance, shouting for Hiro just as he opened the front door...and into the burning hall.

"Hiro! Don't be a fool, Hiro!"

Inside was an inferno, with flames licking the walls like parasites. Some of the inventions were partially destroyed, ruining the other contestants' chances of entering the school, even though their dreams were already crushed when Hiro won the acceptance award. But through the heat scorching his eyes and the black vapor of smoke clouding his skin, Tadashi saw the figure of Professor Callaghan standing in front of the stage where Hiro's microbot presentation had taken place just a few minutes earlier with his back turned to the young man. Before Tadashi could move a step further, there was a loud noise that sounded like a bullet coming out of a gun, and then a split-second later, he cried out, feeling a sharp pain in his forehead as if it had been struck by the bullet and covered it with his left hand.

To make matters worse, he heard a large beam crack above his head. The infrastructure had been weakened from the flames that immolated it to the breaking point. The broken beam could not hold anymore and falling to its end, pinned Tadashi's legs down, causing him to fall face first along with slabs of strong concrete that fell from the eruption of the beam and plummeted to the floor, surrounding Tadashi and covering him with pieces of metal, kicking up dust and smog as he was partially buried underneath the slabs. Holding his breath to keep any of the fire, dust and smoke from entering his lungs, Tadashi was certain that the slabs could possibly keep him safe...but only for a little while.

Inside the front hall, Sora was still trying to convince Hiro, grabbing his left hand like a strong rope trying pull a beached shipwreck out from the low water.

"We must get out before it's too late!"

"I'M NOT LEAVING TADASHI!"

Sora looked over Hiro for about a minute. He could almost hear something that went...

Tick, tick, tick...

And then, sensing the approach of doom, his right hand lifted the Kingdom Key into the air and he shouted a very short incantation the moment it stopped.

"Reflega!"

A spray of light formed from the tip of the Kingdom Key and created a dome of hexagonal shapes that surrounded Sora and Hiro until they were hit by a bright light that did not seem to have any ounce of strength to break the shield. Hiro shut his eyes, waiting for the end in silence as the fire and smoke had rushed past him and feared that if it would break the shield, they would be consumed by the flames.

Outside, the immolated expo hall looked like the gates of Hell, with its burning characteristics of flame and doomed souls, slowly writing in agony for their sins. Cass and Tadashi's research team, along with Donald and Goofy, had seen the explosion from her pickup and, fearing for the brothers, ran to the scene of the disaster just as the fire brigade arrived in their truck after forty five minutes, exactly as Tadashi had predicted. The Crimestoppers had followed them to the scene in Dick Tracy's unmarked Crown Victoria, and the detective himself had pushed the door open to feel the heat of the burning building coming down upon him like a hot monsoon in Georgia.

Inside the hall, Hiro broke away from Sora before the older male could react and went further into the flaming room in search of his brother. In a ring of flames that was completely dry of fire, he looked through the black surface of fragments and Hiro knelt down on his knees, staring at the injuries inflicted on his brother in horror, but he could not scream at what he had to see.

Three streams of red and black blood trickled down Tadashi's nose from a big splotch on his forehead. A seven-to-three inch scar had lacerated his left cheek, almost resembling a Glasgow smile. Broken bits of slab, rusted steel, ceiling fixtures, overhead lights, cracked embers and the dust of cinders trapped the lower half of his body up to his waist. Worst of all, a purple shiner was located on the bottom of his right eye and the rest of his face was peppered and singed with smoke, sweat, ashes, grease burn marks and black soot.

Opening his eyes, he smiled at Hiro, relieved to see his brother. His was vision was blurry, but he could tell that it was Hiro, and in his left hand was his favorite cap.

"Hiro…"

His vocal chords were weakened from the dust and the blast that were filling his lungs when he tried to laugh.

"I see you found my cap."

Hiro smiled back to see that his brother's heart was still beating with the breaths of his lungs.

"Yes, I did," the younger brother replied tearfully.

Tadashi closed his eyes, letting the warmth of the fire sooth the cold interior of his pain. The beam had struck his head so hard, that he did not know where he was anymore.

"Are we safe?"

Hiro moved his head closer, determined to keep Tadashi alive at all costs and wait for Sora or anybody from the outside to come to their rescue.

"Yes," Hiro wept, trying to keep his brother's hopes up. "We'll be safe until someone finds us."

The older Hamada smiled, it didn't matter if he wanted to be rescued or even wish to die from the exposing heat of the "fireplace", which made his blurry vision look like it was in all directions.

He tried to lean in closer, but the rubble was holding his legs back, so Hiro moved a few inches closer until Tadashi's free hands were caressing the younger sibling's face. He croaked...

"Hiro? Daisuke."

Recognizing it as Japanese for "I love you", Hiro replied, "I love you too, Tadashi" in his native tongue.

"Totemo, Tadashi daisuki da yo."

Tadashi smiled, he was at peace and so was his brother (or so he thought). Satisfied, he closed his eyes for what would be the one... final... time...

Hiro felt Tadashi's head going limp, and in spite of the heat of the fire surrounding him, he tried to shake the lifeless head by the temples.

"Tadashi? Tadashi!"

Hiro had hoped that Tadashi was just in a deep sleep...

But his eyes were already closed as the younger Hamada took in the hard truth, rigor mortis had set in... and he was dead.

The scars and dust on Tadashi's face, his lifelessness, his closed eyes of eternal sleep and the loss of color from his tanned skin had left Hiro completely inconsolable. Quivering his lower lip, he unleashed a scream so loud the whole city of San Fransokyo could hear.

"TADASHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!"

He buried his face against the sooty markings of Tadashi's tarnished features, and some of the blood leaking from the splotch on his forehead was staining Hiro's hair, nose and eyelids. Fresh tears of grief mixed the blood with liquid and they fell directly in-between the living and the dead as Hiro moaned out of agony, drowning in angst over the very person he loved in all the universe.

"No... I don't want this..."

Then he lifted his head up, where the black smoke travelled all the way to the distant heavens.

"OKAASAN! OTOUSAN!"

He lowered his head back down again.

"Please save Tadashi..."

The volume increased.

"Someone...someone help! HELP TADASHI!"

Then it lowered.

"Nii-san-"

But Hiro had to admit reality, for a life without Tadashi was becoming too unbearable. He collapsed in front of his brother's corpse and shut his eyes, waiting for the flames to overtake him and Tadashi and incinerate their bodies to a crisp.

But it never came...

At the Club Ritz, Big Boy was waiting in the conference room, checking his left hand watch to see if Breathless, Flattop and his gang had made it back from the heist. The watch read 6:15 and the reception was supposed to have ended over an hour ago according to the showcase schedule. For the actual time it had taken for the showcase to transpire, he remained sulking in the conference room, eating small servings of chicken chow mein and egg foo young as he read the morning newspaper. The headline "Tech Mogul To Build Headquarters In Financial District" showed a picture of Alistair Krei with eight business associates behind a scale model of the proposed building on a sleek wooden table.

That bastard's gonna get what's comin' to him. Big Boy glared as he turned the paper over. He was ready to admit that the phone call had affected him greatly and he was ready to spill bloodshed in what was to be another "crime of the century".

But then, he was relieved to see the door open. Standing in the doorway was Flattop and Measles with Itchy, B-B Eyes, Mumbles, Crewy Lou and Breathless crowded behind them.

"I was wondering when you were goin' to show up," Big Boy exclaimed.

"What makes you say that?" asked a perplexed Flattop.

"I saw it on the news."

He pointed to the flat screen TV that was stationed above the fireplace. On the screen was a helicopter shot of the SFIT expo hall in flames that were was big as a brush fire in Argentina.

"Would any of you boys like to tell me what caused the fire?" asked Big Boy, drumming his fingers together.

Breathless stepped in-between Flattop and Measles, explaining. "It was a bomb, or so I think."

"And why didn't you find it?"

Measles spoke first. "We didn't have a chance, Big Boy. We didn't know where it was and we didn't have the time for it. At least we managed to get Breathless out before the whole thing went up like a fuckin' Roman candle."

The men continued to watch the television screen in awe as Breathless pushed herself against her fellow companions and sat down on the very end of the table next to Big Boy to get a closer look.

"Authorities are currently investigating if this was arson or an accident," the newscaster spoke. "Two casualties, Professor Robert Callaghan and 21 year old robotics engineer Tadashi Hamada have been pronounced dead at the time of the explosion around 6:10 P.M."

Breathless was in shock and disgust when she saw the pictures of Tadashi and Professor Callaghan displayed on-screen. She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes as she concealed her face with her left hand.

If only I had warned him about that bomb. She moaned in her head.

Big Boy had seen this, and he decided to leave Breathless alone with her thoughts. Checking his watch he added, "Well, gentlemen. Time for bed. We can discuss this tomorrow while the funeral's goin' on."

He pushed Flattop and Measles out of the room, and shut the door behind him, leaving Breathless in a broken mess of angst.

Sometimes I wish I wasn't so much of a hopeless romantic.

At 5:55 in the morning, Dick Tracy oversaw a makeshift memorial placed on the front steps of SFIT. It consisted of two framed photographs: one of Tadashi on the left side and Callaghan on the right side. In between the photographs were seven candles made from mokurō, with one of them placed a step down from the other six in a wooden bowl. A bouquet of calla lilies were placed next to the candle by Sally and a bowl of miniature bamboo plants sat in-between the candles, flanked by cherry blossoms; symbolizing the cycle of life and death.

A clap of muffled thunder came overhead in the surly blue sky of dark clouds and Tracy looked up in a surprised reaction. He did not hear the weatherman mention any rain, but if the funeral was today, a dark shower and grey skies would be very appropriate for a day of mourning.

So Tracy walked back to his two-room apartment in the Ashbury District after a short ride on the cable trolley and let himself into the cold, but nicely refurnished room where the radio was playing "Love the World" by Perfume on a quiet volume. Tracy could see that Tess had already been showered and dressed for the day, but she was still asleep in her husband's red easy chair from neglecting to drink coffee, her head nestled against the left arm like a discarded doll. When Tracy put his hat on top of the dresser, he woke Tess with a kiss on the right cheek and she yawned, "What time is it?"

"6:25,"

Then he told her the sad news.

"Did you hear about the fire last night?"

"Yeah, it was on TV."

"Tadashi Hamada and Robert Callaghan died in that explosion."

Instead of feeling doleful like she was supposed to be, Tess leapt from the chair and snapped into action. She grabbed her green coat from the rack and hastily put it on.

"Oh, I have to get to the greenhouse! Where there's death, there's a funeral and where there's a funeral there's flowers that need to be picked out, like calla lilies and delphiniums."

In her hurried breaths, she looked down to make sure she was wearing shoes. Her black slippers were fine but her emerald green dress was too natural to fit the gloomy atmosphere.

She continued to ramble her motormouth monologue as she reached for the door.

"Tell Junior I won't be home until I get the flowers, and make sure to invite some people over for-"

"Tess-"

She turned back at the sound of her husband's voice.

"There's no need to rush."

"I know I shouldn't," smiled Tess. "But I'm just trying to be a good wife and good mother since, well…I haven't made my own nest."

Tracy knew that he and Tess had not yet been blessed with any children of their own and the chances of pregnancy were 20 to 60 in his mathematical mind. By any rate of sexual activity, it would be a year or two before their own child would be conceived in Tess' womb.

As he leaned in to kiss her, Tess said, "Do you want me to make the arrangements as well?"

Tracy shook his head no. "Not yet. I think Ms. Hamada will do it for us."

Tess grinned. "Call the Plenty family, then Mrs. Steele, Toby, Vitamin-"

"He's going to visit Snowflake in L.A.," Tracy interrupted.

Tess' smile dropped into a frown of realization. "I see. When Junior gets up, go to Goorin Brothers and get two veils: one for me and Lizz. And don't plan on calling my mother, I'll tell her if I get the chance. When Cass makes the arraignments, tell everybody what time the funeral begins and I should be back around…"

She checked her watch.

"Ten o'clock."

He leaned in and gave her a soft, sweet kiss. Then with a glowing smile, Tess was out the door and out of sight.

"By the way Tracy," she called back. "It might rain today, so you'd better get your umbrella!"

Tracy closed the door and frowned with an upset sigh. Getting a black umbrella for a funeral was one thing, but the arraignments were something he had to talk about with Ms. Hamada. So he went over to the phone and made sure that Junior was still in bed. The kid had been sawing logs since nightfall based on his position. Walking back to the phone, he dialed Cass' number and after a three second dial ring, her snarky voice came over the line.

"Hello?"

"This is Detective Tracy, ma'am."

"Oh, Mr. Tracy, I…Are you calling to talk about the funeral?"

He pulled out his notebook and prepared to write down the time.

"Yes, what time is the funeral?"

Thirteen minutes later, Tadashi's funeral was all planned out. Twenty people were invited to the Sunset View Cemetery at eleven and so was the police department. At Mike's Diner, Mary Steele and Toby Townley were having plans of their own. They sat behind the counter as Mike was washing the windows, looking out at the crestfallen sky from the safety of indoors.

"Do you have a black dress?" asked Toby.

Mary sighed. "None, unfortunately. I sold my last one after Hank died."

"I can get you one," Toby assured her. "What size are you?"

"Size 10."

"Veil?"

"Not really. Mr. Tracy bought one for his wife."

"Gloves?"

"Size 7."

"Shoes?"

"I'm all right with these."

Mary clicked her black boots two times to show Toby the size she was wearing. A size 12 to be exact.

"And I don't see the need for a handkerchief," Mary resumed. "But if they have a tissue box, I'll get one from there."

A while later at St. Agnes Catholic Church on Masonic Avenue, Mary and Toby brought rental umbrellas for the occasion. As they got out of the car, the rain came down on them, pouring thin sheets of water on the black fabric of the parasols. By then, a few people were there: Diet Smith, Brilliant, B.O. Plenty, Gravel Gertie, Sparkle, Chief Brandon, Mr. Patton, Mr. Catchem, Mrs. Worthington-Grove, the Tracys, and two news reporters from SBN: Christmas Early and Wendy Wichel.

Christmas Early was an attractive woman with long black hair held by a red bow tie and was known for her flamboyant outfits with animal patterns like cheetahs or tigers (on this day, she wore the pattern of a black panther). Wendy Wichel also had dark hair and slim features, but she was not seen without her salmon colored hat with a large floppy brim and a small feather from a duckling that stuck out from the top of the band. She also wore a red turtle neck sweater and a simple dress made to match the pigment of her hat. Last, but not least, she wore sensible shoes and had a strong anti-Dick Tracy bias ever since he used excessive force on the criminal Shoulders during an attempted hijacking at San Fransokyo International Airport. The plan was a simple kidnapping and ransom case, involving Shoulders taking the shanghaied passengers upstate to Washington for a hefty ransom of $5 million. Tracy, who was on-board for similar reasons the other passengers had, refused to co-operate with the criminal's demands and took Shoulders out with a fierce beating. This, along with Tracy's record proved to be a controversial subject for Wendy, and she saw the hard-boiled detective as nothing more than an out dated mindset toward justice and police conduct, with some friends at the Tribune calling her a traditionalist with a heavily modern mind.

As she took her seat in the last row, Wendy looked back to see Ms. Early standing three feet within shooting range of a cameraman and a microphone in her left hand, ready to report the scene. Then, four seconds later, the door opened to reveal Cass Hamada wearing a black dress and by her side was Hiro in a suit with a white shirt and black necktie. Ms. Early turned to address the cameraman as Hiro and his aunt sat down in the front row, eyeing them with a considerate look before she spoke into the microphone.

"Good morning, San Fransokyo, this is Christmas Early reporting live from Saint Agnes Church on 1025 Masonic Avenue where we find a funeral in progress. The science world was stunned today by the sudden deaths of robotics scientists Robert Callaghan and Tadashi Hamada in last night's explosion at the Institute of Technology's expo hall after the annual student showcase for new applicants. The cause of the explosion has been attributed to either arson, sabotage or a minor mishap. In just a few moments, we will switch to Wendy Wichel to get an inside scoop on the late Tadashi Hamada, who is survived by his aunt Cassandra and younger brother Hiro."

The funeral was growing hard for Hiro. He was feeling the emptiness in his body since last night when he was pulled out of the flaming wreckage by Detective Tracy and woke up in the morning wishing that it had been all a dream. After he was recovered, Cass' dinner plans were cancelled and Tadashi's research team went home to mourn for their best friend and leader of the club. Hiro went to visit the morgue with Cass, but seeing Tadashi lying there in that coffin only gave him the pain of cancer (or at least his own metaphor of grief). He wanted to have him back in any way that he could…but he could not.

The undertaker had placed Tadashi's body in a thin layer of candle wax, because of what the fire had done to his skin. Even with a ton of scars and injuries, Hiro still needed him. If Tadashi was disabled, Hiro still needed his comfort. If Tadashi was mentally injured, Hiro would always be there to give him the comfort. All the same Hiro felt as though he could not exist without Tadashi and looking at his corpse made him wish, that in terms of bearing the greatest loss, he too would have his own coffin and his own tombstone, right next to his brother.

Then, along came Sora in a black outfit that was given to him by the three good fairies from eleven years ago that were said to have special powers called "Drive Forms" that would grant him a separate set of abilities and an alternate color pattern to his clothing. He decided not to bring Donald and Goofy to the funeral, thinking too much of how their lighthearted personalities would clash with the other mourners.

After three quarters of a minute Go Go, Wasabi, Honey and Fred all came to sit with Hiro in the front row. Fred, lacking his beanie and upbeat personality, wore a suit looking exactly like Hiro's and so did Wasabi, who wore a grey bandanna for the occasion. Honey's outfit was compromised of a black, long-sleeved dress with a belt and a white peter pan collar, with black stockings and her hair sown up in a modest bun. Go Go's dress was nothing compared to Honey's and it looked very similar to Cass' dress, which was the same dress she wore on the day her brother and sister-in-law died in that car accident from no more than a decade ago.

After sitting down next to Aunt Cass, Fred was the one to speak first. "You should have seen the cars parked, I almost thought that no one was coming to this funeral."

Go Go shifted her eyes to the right in confusion of Fred's unrelated comment. "Don't explain it to her, Fred. It's not his aunt's funeral that we're here for, now shut up and be respectful."

Go Go would have loved to say "shut the hell up" in front of a congregation, but seeing the statue of Christ, in his crucified form, made her think twice before uttering one word of profanity in God's house, even though she and the other Asian-Americans of San Fransokyo were Buddhists.

Respectful as they were, Honey and Wasabi had nothing to say. Wasabi just preyed in silence while Honey dabbed her eyes with a coal black handkerchief.

After the pastor made his prayer, Wendy Wichel walked up to the front with Christmas Early's cameraman and held the microphone in front of Hiro's mouth.

"Mr. Hamada, any words for your late brother's demise?"

Hiro dared not to look directly into Wendy's eyes. He just continued to stare at the coffin and could only lower his voice to a volume that only she could hear.

"He was a good man."

"Anything else?"

"Taught me right from wrong?"

Hiro's reply was pathetic in his own mind.

"Well, that's what our readers buy, Hiro. A person who is bought up right."

The boy wanted to share his thoughts with not just one person, but the entire crowd, so that everyone present in the cathedral could feel his pain.

He told Wendy, "I've got the eulogy all planned out in my head."

Wendy smiled and standing aside, let Hiro walk in front of the coffin where he tried not to look at Tadashi's pale body that contrasted with the night black of the suits they wore. Avoiding Tadashi's embalmed aroma of typical men's perfume, he stood in front of the pulpit, letting the priest stand by his right hand side in military fashion, and delivered his eulogy to the congregation without a single feedback from the microphone, unlike last night at the very showcase that changed his life for eternity.

"Aunt Cass…everyone else I know…today, is the day I cried real hard for the first time. And I say this not only on behalf of my brother, but the death of our future. Tadashi was the light that showed me the way out of bot-fighting and into the field of science and robotics where I truly belonged. I had no other way to thank him for that other than the stuff we created in the past: microbots, a nursebot, and maybe even a makeshift airplane just for two."

Hiro and Cass smiled at the happy memories, she dabbed at a tear sprouting from her left eye. She felt a strong heartthrob when Hiro's tone slowly began to carry a mean streak.

"Tadashi wanted to help a lot of people, but our dreams were dashed by the fires of destruction that blew that showcase hall and my brother to ashes. Never again will I be able to feel love, but agony, and I'll be happy again-when I'm dead and buried next to my brother."

Cass gasped at such negativity. Sora cringed. Tess and Lizz exchanged glances, thinking otherwise about the latter of Hiro's speech before the young Hamada continued.

"At least there is one upside I can think of…"

He paused and cloaked his Adam's apple with his left hand, what he said next was something that inspired every member of the congregation.

"Tadashi is not really gone…as long as we remember him."

A standing ovation, a loud applause sparked by Aunt Cass and Sora and a wreath of white roses followed later. Wendy, the only one who didn't clap but held a mutual respect for Tadashi, turned to face Detective Tracy, who just glared at the upcoming thought of a controversial question that Miss Wichel had ever so adored in asking him about.

"I understand that you were only able save the kid and not his brother," Wendy piqued. "So tell me, Mr. Tracy: are you happy with what you've done to make the child so miserable by not saving his brother?"

Tracy tried to reason with her. "It's not my fault Wendy, I didn't get there in time. Now why don't you be a good reporter and find someone else to pick on?"

Wendy was insulted and unarguably upset over the off-handed insult, but she didn't feel any sympathy for anyone who did not deserve it. After Hiro's eulogy was praised for the iconic final line, she shoved the notebook into her leather handbag and stormed out the door. She had better things to do besides attending a disheartening funeral.

When Breathless heard about the funeral from the morning obituary, she told Lips "I'm just going out for some fresh air" and he excused her. She swaddled into her black mink coat, and headed out the door, intent on walking all the way to the cemetery since her lavender colored sports car, a 1935 Auburn Speedster, was too bright and cheery for such a dour occasion and therefore would clash with those who were dressed in mourning.

At the very moment Breathless opened the club door, she received a shot of the cold air rain that came down upon her head. She brought an umbrella that matched the texture of her coat, shielding herself from more than just the cold, but her downtrodden emotions as well. With only $5 dollars and a penny to her name, she walked to the florist shop on Powell Street and bought a bouquet of white roses for a $1.95.

Then she settled off on foot in the direction of the Sunset View Cemetery, pushing through a forest of crowds as the raindrops fell upon her face and began to smear her makeup. Her mascara turned to blue water, her eye lashes became black paint and her red lipstick transformed into a trickle of blood that went right down the middle of her chin. Breathless didn't matter what was happening to her anymore, all she wanted was to get out of the vicious wind that stung her eyes. She couldn't even tell the difference between a raindrop or a tear that was leaking down her left cheek as she walked, head bowed, eyes closed, without a single complaint as she practiced her prayers for the young man she would never have again.

Everyone around her seemed too busy with their own lives to even notice a beautiful starlet, except for a pedestrian who admired the cover of her album I'm Breathless and took a quick shot of Breathless from across the street. He had recognized her fur coat from a photo-shoot six months ago and were posted online on the photographer's portfolio website. Breathless was too far away to acknowledge the young fan, her head was entirely lost in thought.

At the Sunset View Cemetery, Detective Tracy checked down the position of those who would be partaking in the funeral procession, his fellow officers Murphy, Mulligan, Milligan and O'Malley agreed to act as pallbearers. They had known Tadashi on the day he and Hiro were caught and arrested at the bot-fight, which struck their hearts very hard when they heard about his death. Hiro, Sora and Cass went first behind the coffin, followed by Tadashi's club, then Tess, then Junior, followed by the Plenty family and the other mourners. Tracy, the chief and his fellow Crimestoppers led the way in front of the coffin to a small hill where Tomeo and Maemi Hamada lay resting in peace.

Sora motioned a very quiet and despondent Hiro over to the coffin and flat granite tombstone reading "Tadashi Hamada (2011 – 2032)" written in traditional Japanese script that was situated next to his parents on the left hand side.

At least he's with Mom and Dad now. Hiro thought to lift his spirits, but his heart sunk when he realized that Tadashi was the only person he believed to have had a true connection to his mother and father. Never again would he hear any more stories of Mom and Dad, the parents he could hardly remember, the two people he had been with for the first four years of his life who wound up being killed in an auto accident. He did not think about his aunt, he did not think about Sora, he did not think about anyone else but Tadashi and he still remained that until after the burial was finished.

"Don't feel like you're being left out," Detective Tracy assured him later on. "I lost my brother, too."

"Gordon Tracy?"

"Yep, and I promise you this: if what happened at the tech was an arson case, I will find the person responsible for this."

Hiro heard him, but he did not take the comfort too seriously. He just stood there with Aunt Cass's left arm holding his right shoulder, emotionless, continuing to observe Tadashi's coffin being lowered into the grave until it was covered with dirt turned to mud from the rain.

After the coffin had been completely covered with six feet of brown earth, the other mourners returned to their cars while Hiro stayed alone by the grave, resting his knees in the fresh mount and the caretakers didn't seem to mind at all about any ruin of the fresh tomb.

Why did you leave me? Hiro whimpered in his head. Fresh tears combined with the raindrops that fell upon his face and washed his wild hair could only describe a dark shade of loneliness in the pit of his heart.

He remained there for at least seven minutes, clutching the tombstone like it was an actual person and a groundskeeper came up to him with a bouquet of white roses wrapped in transparent foil. Turning to face the groundskeeper, he asked, "Whose it's from?"

"Some blonde lady in a fur coat," the man told him.

It became clear to Hiro that he knew who it was: Breathless Mahoney was the only blonde in Tadashi's life who wore fur and Aiko Miyazaki was not seen with anything animal related on her person unless if it was plastic or linen. Then, getting a cold from the temperature and the rain soaking his head, he slowly walked back to join his aunt and the other mourners back at the Lucky Cat Café where the wake was to be held.

By the time Breathless had arrived at the cemetery, Tadashi's coffin was already buried and the mourners were leaving. A few of them looked up to notice her, Tracy apologized to her for missing the funeral, Sora looked at her with sympathy and Aunt Cass waved her left hand with a small and tearful "Hello." Breathless could not find Hiro in the crowd and she wanted to know from him about the gory details of Tadashi's demise, she turned her head back twice to make sure that she did not miss him and came face to face with a brown haired groundskeeper who asked politely, "May I help you?"

Breathless shoved the white roses into his personal boundary.

"Would you mind placing these on Tadashi Hamada's grave for me, please?"

The kind man took the flowers and they both turned away from each other in the opposite direction, never looking back and after a two minute trolley ride, Breathless sadly returned to Broadway Street, downtrodden and dismayed.

She strode her way up the street where she was greeted by the blue neon sign of Club Ritz, glowing in the shower with a warm, friendly light. The dim lights sourcing from the third floor windows told her that Big Boy was having a meeting and she walked inside the showroom to see the band playing "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?" in the middle of a rehearsal.

Hanging her coat on a rack by the front door, she walked across the empty showroom and greeted the orchestra with a smile. Then she headed up the stairs to the conference room to find the others, hands clasped, eyes closed and heads bowed in a long moment of silence. Nobody seemed to notice her and no one seemed to flinch at the mouse-like squeak of the door opening when she came in. All of the male criminals were dressed in black tuxedos while Crewy Lou wore a simple black lace dress and Texie Garcia wore her casual outfit with her red gloves, shoes and earrings replaced with black ones. Taking her seat next to 88 on the left side of the table, Breathless copied his position very carefully and prayed for a long period of remembrance, but unfortunately for her, it did not last very long.

After five minutes, Big Boy snapped out of mourning and slapped his right hand on the table to make his next announcement.

"Allright! Put the word out! Tadashi Hamada and Robert Callaghan's territory is our territory now! Any invention of those who were working for him will soon belong to us! And everything that they owned...WE OWN!"

Giorgio Spaldoni, sitting on the opposite end of the table as usual, raised the glass of whiskey in his right hand, "Well said, Big Boy."

Lips did the same. "To the Apparatus."

With all of their glasses raised to propose a toast, the criminals chimed in unison, "To the Apparatus."

Then they all clinked their glasses from the opposite sides of the table and took a swig of the whiskey, letting the beverage clear their throats. Flattop and Crewy Lou, who were sitting next to each other on the right hand side of table, clinked their own goblets and took an extra sip. The two smiled at each other for the successful robbery even though Flattop's mind was preparing on a confession to Crewy for making her ride in the trunk, while she was thinking the same thing.

Big Boy, in the meantime, just sighed and began to wonder about what he was going to say next: the truth. His following comment sparked a conversation on his ultimate goal.

"I never thought that such a thing would happen. But you cannot intend things the way you want 'em to be."

Crewy Lou had realized the full impact of his remark. Smirking, she said, "You didn't think this up?"

Flattop mopped his brow before he added, "So you're not the arsonist?"

Big Boy tried to hold his temper over the god-awful question as he explained, "Well, I was an arsonist, but that was a long time ago, and I always put the past in the past where it belongs."

He stared at the criminals for eight seconds, making sure that no one else would asking anymore dumb questions.

"What the hell do you think this is? A game of 'wrongfully accused'?"

"Of course it is!" answered Flattop. "What's the point of murder if you don't know what really happened?"

"Before we get onto that subject," Big Boy announced with a strict right index finger, "Let's get down to detail."

Everyone prepared to listen.

"When I said that Callaghan and Hamada's territory was ours, I was just euphemizing the fact that my wish to have the both of them popped came true. They, along with Alistair Krei, were a part of my secret outfit to rebuild the Apparatus when I told everybody I was reformed. A project on residual payment of the workers union that I like to call 'the people's silent partner'. Every time some citizen bought a pound of hamburger, we got a nickel and we gave it them. Every time some guy got a haircut, we got a dime and we gave it them. And every time someone donated his blood to the hospital, we got a dollar and we gave it to them. All by controlling unions. It's sorta like a backwards deposit. They were like my own version of the rotary club and the Chamber of Commerce. But it was not their deaths last evening that ended my involvement with 'em. It was lot earlier than that."

Ribs Mocco reflected upon this. "I remember it too. So do Lips, Breathless, 88, Spaldoni and Texie."

The criminals who were unfamiliar with Big Boy's secret unit wanted to know more, especially Sketch Paree who asked him, "When did it end?"

"When Tadashi decided to tell me that he had enough money to support himself and... left the business," Big Boy continued. "He and Callaghan found out about my true colors and went back to their business at the Tech. I didn't know what Callaghan's problem was, but all he ever said was that the criminal network was all thoroughly a cheat in life. For some reason, he and Hamada never spoke to me again and I thought that it was unjustified to leave us-invalids in our time of need to fit into this oh-so perfect society of American and Japanese combustion."

B-B Eyes was trying to understand his words with sensibility, "If the Hamada guy was a saint, why didn't he or Callaghan report you and your actions over to the authorities?"

"Tadashi and Callaghan had half of my protection money before they left, and being scientists, they decided to put the dough to good use, to clean 'em of their sins and make some helpful robots out of it. Or, so I have been told."

"And what was their role in all of this?" asked Measles.

"I gave them whatever money Lips and I could get our hands on through extortion and legal enterprises. The kind of enterprises we understand."

The criminals who were unfamiliar with Big Boy's secret unit wanted to know more, especially Sketch Paree who asked him, "When did it end?"

"When Tadashi decided to tell me that he had enough money to support himself and... left the business," Big Boy continued. "He and Callaghan found out about my true colors and went back to their business at the Tech. I didn't know what Callaghan's problem was, but all he ever said was that the criminal network was all thoroughly a cheat in life. For some reason, he and Hamada never spoke to me again and I thought that it was unjustified to leave us-invalids in our time of need to fit into this oh-so perfect society of American and Japanese combustion."

B-B Eyes was trying to understand his words with sensibility, "If the Hamada guy was a saint, why didn't he or Callaghan report you and your actions over to the authorities?"

"Tadashi and Callaghan had half of my protection money before they left, and being scientists, they decided to put the dough to good use, to clean 'em of their sins and make some helpful robots out of it. Or, so I have been told."

"And what was their role in all of this?" asked Measles.

"I gave them whatever money Lips and I could get our hands on through extortion and legal enterprises. The kind of enterprises we understand. I gave the secret outfit what they wanted, whether it was protection from bullying or a fund to the American Cancer Society. But it was a big mistake on my part, so I wrote a serious demand to make them think twice before crossing the line with gangsters, but they never answered me and I did not hear from anyone else about them ratting off on my enterprise system. Lips and I were still makin' profit-"

He trailed off to observe the stolen documents which were locked away in the safe.

"And it seems, that the price of their silence...was that we stole all of those invention plans for nothin'."

"Except for the microbots," Breathless reminded him.

"But the microbots are useful only to our benefactor," Big Boy corrected. "And to sum it all up: Their turncoat behavior along with Tracy putting an end to my old business preyed upon my mind and created a vision: A new San Fransokyo where everyone is completely imperfect."

"The way I see it," Pruneface said. "It's already got an imperfect society."

"But, as I said two nights ago, my John Q. Public is like all of us; ugly, discriminated and twisted," Big Boy said. "It was also because of my short time in prison that I resolved to have Tracy and the traitors face the death sentence themselves. It seemed to me the best way to do it-and to free you all from the same burden of social outcasts-was to get us all face to face, make our business with the rogues of this nation, wage war on the law, confront Dick Tracy and his Major Crimes Squad, detract him of his rights and punish him along with the rest of everyone who's been so mean to you."

Relieved at the understatement, Spaldoni nodded at Lips, who said. "So...everything is explained?"

"Well nothing's explained," Breathless spoke, shaking her head. "We still don't know what caused the fire. Even if it was a bomb."

"So what they do for a livin' again?" asked Oodles dumbfoundedly.

"In case your hearing wasn't so good Oodles," Texie replied impassively. "They were scientists for San Fransokyo Tech. Robotics division."

"What were they really like?" inquired Spots. "Influence told me he got kicked out of that school because of them."

"And my contact lenses were the core reason," Influence explained emotionally. "But that does not make me a murderer."

"A lot of students got kicked out because their inventions were too hazardous," said Mole. "And to continue the question Texie, what were they really like?"

"I didn't know too much about them other than in parties and social gatherings and such, but from what Big Boy told me before they left was that Tadashi was a very optimistic Samaritan and Professor Callaghan was a smart cookie who had a lot on his mind, like tragedy. His wife died of cancer and he had a daughter, didn't quite catch her name, who um...I forget."

Texie was unable to say it, but the men looked at her in suspicion before she continued.

"Why shouldn't I be held responsible in this game of 'misplaced accusations'? I was at the movies when it happened."

Coffyhead took a sip of his cappuccino before he asked her out of curiosity, "What was showing?"

"Public Enemies."

"Sounds very fitting," approved Itchy.

Big Boy's reply was irreverent. "You confess your innocence?"

"Why should I care? Now that they have accepted the big sleep, we can just move ahead and carry on with the plan."

Caprice smiled and the criminals left their seats in hushed whispers, leaving Breathless and 88 Keys to themselves without a word.

A while later, Breathless was alone in her dressing room, gazing at the bulb-lined maquillage mirror and observing the portions of her makeup that was smudged by her tears and raindrops from being in the deluge for two hours. As she stared at her guilty facade, she thought about Tadashi. Her face seemed to harden, almost bursting into tears at any moment.

She heard the door open and knew that it would be 88, about to comfort her with sweet nothings into her ears, but this time he did not.

"Hi, baby," she said, looking at his reflection. "Come to sooth me?"

"Yes, I have," the pianist replied. "How are you holding up?"

Breathless turned in her seat. "Not so good. I didn't even get to say goodbye."

"You must have loved him a lot more than me."

Breathless could almost feel the jealousy and rancor in 88's reply.

All she said was, "Jealous much?"

"Not really."

She sighed in relief.

"If you liked him so much Breathless, why not sing for him in his honor?"

A sudden mixture of an epiphany and an inspiration had crossed her mind.

"Exactly my point."

She sat up and strutted towards her black Shoji screen to change into something more suitable for the performance that would honor the memory of the young man she cared about the most.

As many subjects have done before in the event of one's passing, Cass had to close the café when the funeral party decided to spend the wake at her house. At first, she thought that serving her best meals would be enough for the rainy afternoon as the skies grew darker with shades of black and grey, but halting the business only justified in disrespecting the dead (or so she thought).

Someone up there has got it in for me, I think it's fate. Her jade pendant which represented protection from evil seemed to have failed her, and when Tadashi's research team comforted her with a cup of hot chocolate courtesy of Honey Lemon, the warm liquid consoled her throat and her bothersome stomach, her stress eating mood having calmed down. Surrounded by Honey, Go Go, Wasabi and Fred, she made peace compared to Hiro, who was sitting at the top of stairs, jacket removed and too depressed to speak to anyone else as he listened to the various comments and statements about Tadashi that resonated from the living room.

He heard Chief Brandon's voice, almost sounding as though he was talking with the Crimestoppers as he said, "The worst thing about this is that Tadashi will never get to be at my retirement party."

Then he heard Detective Tracy having a falling out with Tess.

"I'm going to work this case first thing tomorrow morning, and the least you can do is give them your best support!"

"Support? When my father died, Mother and I had to mortgage the deli."

Tracy's reaction was far less upsetting than what Hiro had imagined.

Tess continued to ramble. "I have been by your side for five years and I have put up with those who have seen me as nothing more than the average woman who cooks and cleans and washes rather than something more risky, like a private investigator!"

He heard footsteps that told him she was leaving before he heard Sora confronting Donald and Goofy.

"How was the service?" Goofy asked him.

Sora's voice was broken. "Well…Hiro made a speech…we gave our best wishes…and that's about it."

Donald spoke next. "And you didn't bring us?"

"I didn't want to embarrass the others, with you two acting like fools and such."

Sora began to sniffle. "I'm sorry, I-"

After three seconds, Donald asked, "What?"

"I think we should leave him alone for a while. It'll help with the pain."

Hiro began to understand that he could not talk to anyone anymore, and so, after Sora left the café for home, he decided to walk back up to his room and curl himself into a ball on his bed sheet.

Tadashi's room was all that was left to him, now that his brother, his dreams and their future had vanished overnight. He looked at the journal on his desk and flipped to his latest entry with weak loathing and strong denial, writing slowly, "I'm gonna go celebrate with Tadashi and his friends. I can't wait to start classes!"

After a second or two, Hiro wanted to tear it up, knowing that it was a silly dream that would never come true, but he could not find the métier to accomplish it. Preserving it as a sign of what almost was, he turned to the next page and violently scribbled a black void of emptiness to represent the emptiness, sorrow and acrimony in his heart. The poor thing could not believe the events of yesterday, had he had known what was to happen he would have grabbed Tadashi's arms and go back to the café with his aunt and friends for dinner, but of course, he could not change the past. After purging the two pages into darkness, Hiro went to the next page and placed a few items in the last moments he had with his brother: Tadashi's obituary from the Tribune, and a violet rosemary from the funeral to symbolize the essence of remembrance. It was pressed and wilted with tape as he placed it on the new page, writing underneath it:

"RIP Tadashi, I miss you.

I just can't believe it. Tadashi is dead. Gone. Forever.

I'm DONE with this journal, I'm DONE with inventing and I'm DONE with life. What's the point?"

Hiro could feel his thoughts and emotions speak back to him as he wrote, grasping a mixture of anger and sadness that was created by the very moment Tadashi's soul left his body and was summoned straight up to Heaven above his charred remains.

He was sitting at the foot of his bed when Aunt Cass came in an hour later after everyone else had gone home.

"I just wanted to let you know that Tadashi's friends sent their regards."

Hiro could not hear her in his traumatized state, he just kept staring at the floor as though a puddle was there and he was looking at his reflection inside the spilled water, although he did manage to utter a small and quiet complain that grew louder with his angst.

"Why did he have to die? Why did he have to go in there? Why couldn't he stay with me?"

Cass sat down behind him on the bed and gently stroked his hair with her left hand.

"Sometimes these things happen, Hiro. We can't all be immortal."

Hiro stiffened at the words and his face was a mask of woe.

"Why can't we be?! If there was a way to be immortal I would find it like the genius I'm supposed to be! Tadashi and I could even find a cure to stop people from dying of cancer."

"Hiro-"

"It's all my fault! If I just held on a little longer…he would still be with me."

He finished by slamming his fist down on the bed sheet. Cass could hardly believe what she was hearing as he sobbed quietly, forming small, indescribable tears.

"I just can't forgive myself…I can't…I can't."

Hiro wanted to break down, but instead he turned to his aunt and buried his face against her soft chest, not wanting to lose her either.

"He just wanted to make your mom and dad proud by going in there and rescuing his favorite teacher," Cass assured him.

"You mean if he got out in time," Hiro was quick to reply, and his eyes were squeezed tight, letting the tears stain Cass' black dress, knowing that his aunt would be there to comfort him, soothe him and tell him that things will get better in the end, just as Tadashi had once done a long time ago when he told his then four year old brother after Mom and Dad died that everything would be all right.

After she left the room, a newfound thought and motivation came into Hiro's mind. He turned back to his journal and wrote an additional eleven words under his last entry:

"I wish everyone would just leave me alone. Why? WHY? WHY?"

That night, amidst rain, overcast skies and neon lights, the Club Ritz was completely booked with no vacant seats. Guests from high estates were greeted by the round faced mustached bouncer who wore a bottle green uniform as a waiter in a red jacket trimmed with black and gold parked a limousine near the periphery of the private garage. For the kitchen staff, it was one of those nights where the orders were frantic and they did their best to cook whatever food was already prepared in the stove, fridge and oven, not having that much of a capacity since the opening night many years ago.

The showroom of the club was decorated with a black marble dance floor, with a stage for the band, a red carpet floor surrounded by glass and chrome fittings, three lanterns, cream white walls, a bar table on the left and a red ceiling. A caravansary of fifty-eight people played roulette and blackjack games in the back, losing money over a charity fund for the two victims of the fire and a revolving wall with a table for two on one side and a 21 table on the other appeased two socialites for its functions. Cigarette girls passed out chips and cigarettes with trays that could easily be flipped without spilling the contents and a slot machine located on the right was also attached to a revolving wall. It was the perfect place for a modern day speakeasy.

The orchestra, consisting of two saxophonists, two trumpeters, a drummer and a guitarist with 88 Keys leading on the piano, were warming up for Breathless' upcoming performance with an instrumental rendition of "Cocktails for Two", followed by "I Get a Kick Out of You". Breathless, on the other hand, had been sitting at the mirror in her dressing room for ten whole minutes, applying her red lipstick and face powder for a ghostly complexion. Her hair shimmered with a pinch of glitter and so did the sequins on her skintight backless black gown.

She had been practicing and memorizing her new song for almost four hours, making sure that not a single lyric was to be missed, all the while feeling like she was about to make her farewell performance. She frowned and pouted at her reflection in the mirror, scraping at it with her right index nail, but did not leave a permanent scratch, assuming that Big Boy (who had gone home with the other criminals to their apartments) would not approve of a lounge singer trying to undertake the beauty of a film actress.

Despite this, she put on a strong face for Tadashi and when 88 came knocking on the door saying "Five minutes to show time," Breathless stood from her perch and strode her way to the dance floor. There she was bathed under an ocean blue spotlight and gazed out at the unrecognizable faces that were either too busy gambling in the back to notice her or were fixated on her appearance. She almost had stage fright as she stopped for second before the bandstand, having second thoughts as she saw Lips at his favorite table like always, eating a plate of oysters with small slurps that turned loud with cringe-worthy efforts. Keys handed the DPA microphone over to her as he set up his own mike, a portable one, for the radio broadcast.

When Breathless reached the center of the stage, he tapped the microphone sitting on the cover of his piano and made the announcement as he always did. The crowd went silent as feedback from the tapping attracted their eyes and ears.

"You're listening to the tunes of Club Ritz, here's a new one from Breathless Mahoney in honor of the San Fransokyo Tech fire victims Robert Callaghan and Tadashi Hamada."

The crowd applauded. 88 started the opening notes and Breathless took a deep sigh. Then, ever so smoothly, poured the hurtful lyrics into the microphone.

"Everywhere I turn I hurt someone..."

She turned her back to the crowd and hugged herself as though she were hugging Tadashi or even her mother Elia, whom she had not been in touch with since the day she came to work at the club. Lost in thought, she remorsed on the depressing background of her torch number.

"But there's nothing I can say to change the things I've done..."

Lips, 88 and several of the club's patrons (thirteen of them at least) observed her odd turn before she turned back to face the crowd with her left hand on her hip and her right arm hanging low. The power of her voice was growing stronger with emotion as she continued with the lyrics.

"I'd do anything within my power, I'd give everything I've got. But the path I seek is hidden from me now..."

As Breathless' song echoed into the night, an awful truth dawned for poor Hiro: There was no way he could bring Tadashi back through scientific means, and he knew that whether it be cloning or robotics, was futile. Or at least that was what he thought, because now he was on his own, in the night, the second night without Onii-chan to comfort him. But by putting his thoughts to focus on the positive side of his energy, remembered back to the times when he and Tadashi were carefree and happy. Doing things like, observing the Tech showcase from afar, building that bouncy bed or even building rocket boots for Mochi.

"Brother bear... I let you down..."

Like any other kid would do whenever he was sad or scared, Hiro would climb in bed with Tadashi, who told him that dreams would go away whenever there were two people in bed, because it would be much too crowded the dream to enter. This only proved to be half correct, as Tadashi was the one who turned Hiro's bad dreams into good ones.

"You trusted me, believed in me and I let you down..."

He even missed all the times of Tadashi punching him in the nose whenever he whined like the brat he was on certain days and nights until he matured greatly over the years. Onii-chan was very strict, but very loving, which how he ended up at the institute in the first place.

"Of all the things I hid from you, I cannot hide the shame…and I pray someone, something will come, to take away the pain..."

He didn't want to even think about that dreadful place, the place that claimed Tadashi's life with the cruel nature of life itself. If he hadn't gone there in the first place, Tadashi would still be alive but his words was firm that he do something with his brain and it was his intelligence that paid the price.

"There's no way out of this dark place. No hope, no future…"

Hiro, lost in darkness with no energy or motivation to live for, saw nothing in his life but gloom and doom. Then he went unhappily to sleep in the comfort of his room as the raindrops vanished away from the windows.

"I know I can't be free. But I can't see another way. I can't face another day…"

Finishing her song with a strong exhalation of her lungs, Breathless gave a standing ovation and an applause from the patrons, the staff and the band members. To them, it was her best performance yet, despite the short nature of the song. She walked across the dance floor over to Lips' table and sat down on his right side where he slurped the last oyster. At least she would not get to see him eat loudly this time, she was more interested in the 14 karat gold case of cigarettes that he had been saving for her on the table. The case was already open with eight cigarettes placed on each side and she grabbed the first one on the left.

"Cig me," she said holding the cigarette in her right fingers.

"Sure," He snapped open the gold Zippo lighter and placed the flame on the rolling paper to light it up. Relaxed, Breathless inhaled and blew a smoke ring over her hair. Lips found it classy while she herself appeared uninterested, remembering that Tadashi was one of those "anti-smoking activists" who never had a weed of tobacco in his life.

"Breathless," he said to her. "That was beautiful as always."

Breathless tried not to shed a tear, the strong emotions of her song were starting to overwhelm her.

"I'm so happy you liked it," she replied.

"I love it. You're singing great."

"Aren't I always?"

Then Lips thought of something that had been buried in the dark caverns of his mind when Breathless started her singing career.

"You know something? After Big Boy pulls this job off with the benefactor, I'm gonna get you a movie deal. You'll be a lot happier on the big screen where they can see you and it'll make you a lot famous than you are now."

Breathless tried to sound interested. "Oh, and when might that be?"

"Soon. After Big Boy turns this burg into our haven for the invalids, the mutants and the outcasts. For now, we've just gotta lay back for a few days after the dust settles, hire some new recruits and we'll be back in business."

"That's nice," she said, not wanting him to look at her tears.

After three seconds of silence, Breathless asked, "You mind if I go to bed?"

"So soon? It's 8:30."

She turned to reveal the tear marks.

"I think the tobacco is starting to hurt my eyes."

"Suit yourself."

Luckily for her, Lips didn't seem to care if she was crying. He just ordered a glass of champagne and let Breathless excuse herself from the showroom with her head bowed in narcolepsy.

Well, that was a poor excuse. She thought as she entered the dressing room and dropped down on the bed in a tangled position.

Try as she might to publicly address her response to the late Tadashi Hamada, Breathless' song had become a sleeper hit by the time all of San Fransokyo was awakening. Hiro woke up in his bedroom feeling bright and early. The screen to Tadashi's side of the room was halfway open, so he walked over to the bed on steady feet, hoping that the events of yesterday was just a dream, and his brother would be there to hug him and liberate his self-conscious depression from the reality that had been a nightmare, but the bed was empty.

He must be at school.

Then he remembered what happened.

A parade of images flew into his head, each one showing a graphic method of Tadashi's death by an unseen killer: a knife wound, a shot to the stomach, poisoned by drinking, a hammer bashing his crown, black hands crushing his throat, the final one ending with Tadashi being hit by a truck.

Reality had come back to remind him that nii-san had died on the very day of his acceptance into the school. The irony of good and bad all in the same combination.

And so, Hiro spent the rest of the day with dread, thinking of a sorrowful life without Tadashi by his side. He limped to the bathroom, and knowing that Tadashi wanted him to take extra care of his teeth, brushed up and down like a stock-boy who was already losing his energy from the hard labors of handling a crate. He only touched a morsel of his ham and eggs for breakfast and did not dare to acknowledge Aunt Cass who was sitting alone and dreary in the kitchen, and did not seem to care about her impatient customers due to the empty hole in her life that was Tadashi. Mochi was resting by her legs, curled up into a ball and resting without a single doubt in his life, but to Hiro, he felt that Mochi did not carry a drop of sympathy over the fact that Tadashi was dead and the life of a cat was nothing compared to humanity in all of its tragic losses and downbeat memoirs.

As Hiro made his bed around 6:15 p.m., it was hard to ignore that Tadashi sadly, would no longer sleep in his own bed. And so, feeling bad for it, Hiro walked over to Tadashi's side of the room and landed face first into the pillow. His pajama clad leggings pulled the blanket down to his waist and his arms pulled it up to his neck. Snuggling his face into the pillow, he smelled the sweet scent of Tadashi's cologne and caressed it into his lungs with placid huffs. Looking up at the poster of Breathless Mahoney in her black and white debut poster with the words "Vogue" in a large font, Hiro, wondering if she too was as mournful as he was feeling right now, hoped that another song of hers would sooth him to sleep. He switched on Tadashi's boombox radio (at a low volume so that Aunt Cass could not hear) and made sure that it was tuned in on the call sign CRR. Just as he hoped, he heard the voice of Breathless preforming the near tear-jerking tune of the classic song "Over the Rainbow".

"Somewhere over the rainbow…way up there…there's a dream that if you can't dream…really can't come true…"

But while she tried her best to remain strong, the thought of Tadashi on her mind was causing her to mess up some of the lyrics, and Lips, knowing that something was wrong with her, sought help from Shaky. Even though he was her stepfather, Shaky simply explained, "She gets it from my side of the family."

Following the events of that night, Breathless regained composure and amended her audience at the club with a strong recovery, and preformed her next song "Everlasting Love" without a small crack in her voice. The next night she performed "Somewhere That's Green", "Blue Moon" by Dean Martin the night after, and five nights later, "Open Your Heart to Me". By the next week, after her rendition of "True Blue" proved to be a favorite among her backup dancers, the Ritz Girls, she remained clad in her skintight dresses of dark and shadow. In fact, like many women before her, Breathless had decided to go through a long period of mourning by wearing nothing but black straight from her wardrobe, from a tight black leather dress to a waist-high side slit festooned with feathers around the neck. As it was customary for women to go through a long period of mourning, like queens for instance, a songstress of her stature would go through a month of black. She began calling herself "chanteuse de la noir".

Of course, Hiro wasn't the only one going through the stages of grief, but his friends/club members were also in remorse for their fallen friend.

Honey Lemon spent the first week moping in her room over the countless photos and selfies of her and Tadashi together at college from her iPhone: the campus, the prom, Tadashi's graduation, the completion of Baymax and the showcase, the last photo of Tadashi alive (not counting the autopsy and the pictures of his coffin). She spilled a few tears over the man she loved, and did not dare to leave her room until college started back up again. This was so that she could rediscover a peace of mind, a peace that told her not to give up on her life.

Go Go had taken Tadashi's death with a hard blow, which subtracted every ounce of her fast paced personality down to a mile. She was slow in doing her bike messaging deliveries, going at least 20 miles an hour and things always went wrong when she had to make a twenty nine minute guarantee. The week before she returned to SFIT, her delivery of mobile phones to the Shell Building were five minutes late and her boss nearly fired her. Resurged, Go Go knew that as always, she had to "woman up".

Wasabi was slow in cutting up the food at Tako Taco, as with many others who are deeply affected by the loss of a friend or family member. The staff was faced with pitching in to help their top chef and executed a two minute amount of preparations for the meals served to waiting customers. After his motivation was restored, Wasabi's father rewarded his son with a makeshift James Beard award for best chef in the whole city.

Fred had been moping with the rest for some time, making his position at SFIT on a meaningless level. With Tadashi dead, he would no longer be a lab rat and all he could do was serve as a mascot for the Gators and a student coach for the Ninjas, who were in need of a team support. Then it hit Fred like a pebble when he saw how rightful it was of needing to be needed. Unlike the regular coach, who had his own limitations, Fred wished that he could have the superpower of being in two places at once. Though again, he had added this to his list of "not-science" formulas.

Detective Tracy had been at the site of the inferno for twelve days amongst a crowd of silent students, who were flying the flag of SFIT at half-mast in Tadashi and Callaghan's memory. He was joined by his fellow crimestoppers in the search for what caused the fire, but so far they could not find any evidence that the expo hall had been rigged with an explosive. Tracy later called up his old friend FBI agent Jim Trailer from Washington DC about the incident and the inspector confessed that he was preoccupied with the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation for a similar case involving the Giri Industrial Corporation, a quasi-public consortium in league with the Japanese government. Now on his own, Tracy's investigation was like trying to solve the Hindenburg disaster all over again. While interviewing the students and staff members who were inside the hall when it was set ablaze, the guard who had been taking the night shift in the robotics lab, stuck to his story of seeing six armed figures trespassing into the building, then leaving it. Although Tracy did not see a connection between these two events, despite some unclear security footage, he found it very coincidental that a robbery had taken place while the expo hall was alight. But at last, they gave up, and the cause of the fire had been ruled out as an electrical discharge. Only Lizz stayed behind for an extra day and found some evidence leading to a tunnel that had been dug from the center of the hall to the outside of the school, but the trail ended without a sign of perpetrators. She decided to leave the tunnel intact as her only evidence that the hall had been destroyed by an arsonist.

As for Sora, he went back to Destiny Islands while Donald and Goofy returned to Disney Castle. As promised, he visited Hiro once a week and did not say anything to upset him over Tadashi's death. Back at home, however, he often talked about Hiro when alone with his mother, and sometimes with Kairi and Riku. But Riku was too excited with the preparations of Kairi's 24th birthday the following month, seeing how his own birthday party was a disappointment when Sora was absent last week. He was curious, though, and often wondered if he too would get the opportunity of visiting San Fransokyo with King Mickey.

And after two weeks of facing the psychological symptoms of anorexia, insomnia, as well as fighting a losing battle to the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, Hiro's mood went from gloomy to worse as he awoke to the sunlight of week three without Tadashi that came from the square bay window. It was clear to him that the only way he could be with Tadashi again was to commit suicide by hurling himself from that window and fall to the pavement dead, blood leaking from his forehead and spreading out into the street. He imagined Detective Tracy comforting an inconsolable Aunt Cass, telling her that the whole thing was accidental, just like his brother's death. He did not think of what Tracy had to do to make the entire event look like an incident, but an honest cop always has to tell the truth, based on what he had seen in depictions of crime scene investigations and court trials in fiction where the witness would place his or her hand on the Bible and swear the truth.

So he crawled over the opposite side of the bed and steadied his back from the left end of his computer desk where he would gain the right velocity to brake the glass. After a split second, he charged but slowed down at the very moment he came within a foot of the windows, using his hands as a shield to keep himself from braking the glass as the very thought came into his mind: Is suicide really the right option?

Hiro tried again, but this time he stopped within three feet of the window, defeated and embracing his mind into an epiphany. Even if he tried to slit his wrists or even take some of Aunt Cass' diet pills to make him feel woozy (at which point he would die of an overdose), Hiro began to think twice before he would take action into any of those methods of killing oneself, but then again, if Tadashi had such a short life, why couldn't he himself have a life that was much shorter than the other?

That being said, Hiro knew that Tadashi would want him to live a long, healthy and happy life, but it was his brother that was the missing link.

By ten o'clock, Cass invited Hiro to have lunch at Mike's Diner with Tess and Junior. Hiro had to agree as the effects of his anorexia were starting to thin his body at an unhealthy rate and suggested an exercise across Buena Vista Park to work up an appetite. Cass couldn't agree more, and when they came to the diner after walking for thirty minutes, they found Tess and Junior sitting at the third booth by the window. They sat down on the left seat opposite from Tess and Junior while Cass ordered chili, using half of the dinner money she had been planning to spend on the night Hiro was accepted into SFIT. Tess ordered the Blue Plate Special and a cup of coffee, Junior paid for a dish of meatloaf and a mug of milk with his weekly allowance from making good progress in the Crimestoppers Club while Hiro was having a piece of apple pie with a bottle of soda and a glass of water for his aunt.

Hiro, sitting closer to the window, reflected back to the days when Mike's Diner had the best food that Tadashi suggested in working up a healthy appetite of convenient foods, and with Tadashi being the type of person who always took great care of his body via a balanced diet, would always order the Blue Plate Special and some chicken soup (given the nutritious ingredients) and a cup of water so as not to overindulge on the three flavors of ice cream unlike Hiro, who would order nothing but hot dogs and the ice cream to top it all off and it was a wonder that no matter how many sweets he ate, he did not show any signs of obesity. It was only after the relentless exorcising that onii-chan reasoned with otouto that he needed to stay in shape after polishing off a dish of Buffalo wings, cleaning out a bag of gummi bears, and consuming a cherry flavored lollipop that would have otherwise, along with the other sweets from the vending machine in the garage back home, induced his stomach with a little paunch from all those fats and sweets. Smiling, Hiro always remembered at how Tadashi paid great attention to the food pyramid, and that he would only give Hiro a lollipop of any flavor if he behaved well at school, or handled a manful process of trying not to cry whenever he got hurt, an old habit that had remained from the day he took the theorem and got a bunch of other students jealous for being the smartest boy in the classroom.

In reality, Cass gave a once-over at Hiro's meal and so did Tess. She looked at the sad boy, barely poking at his apple pie. Junior, the former overeater he was until his adoption, only took a forkful of his meatloaf, taking in what was going on in Hiro's mind as Cass and Tess exchanged sad smiles at each other. Unbeknownst to them, Mike was at work behind the shiny counter, viewing his customers with a certain tolerance before he went back to cleaning the dishes. Mary and Toby were by the cash register, counting the dollar bills for their own paychecks.

As much as Tess had wished that her husband could be with them, instead of at work like always, she lifted her mind off of Dick Tracy and broke the silence.

"How are things going?" she asked Cass.

"Just fine," Cass insisted. "Hiro hasn't been out of his room since last week, and since this is week three, I thought that maybe we could spend the day with you two."

Tess nodded. "Oh. How are things holding up at the café?"

"Good, all except for Hiro. I asked him if he could help out in the kitchen, but all he said was 'that's Tadashi's job, not mine.' You remember when Tadashi worked at the café before he went to college right?"

"I do, it was right after Tracy went on the Flattop case, four years ago."

"I remember that too. We also had your anniversary there."

"When Dick and I came in shouting 'Merry Christmas'?"

"That was after."

Junior interrupted the conversation with his own relationship with the Lucky Cat.

"And when you and Tracy took me in," he said to his adoptive mother. "The café was the second place I had the best food at. This diner is only the first. I think I'll rate Mike's Diner as my number one while the Lucky Cat is my number two…or I could just have it the other way around."

Tess nodded at the factual nature of the memory. Then Junior brought up another subject.

"You know something, Tess? I think Hiro and I should have a sleep-over, maybe it'll make him feel better."

Hiro's ears were mentally far from Junior's vocal range, his head was swirling but he did not show any dizziness…just a glimpse of what could have been Tadashi sitting on the counter with his back turned to his brother and wearing the same outfit he wore on the night he died, cap and all. But blinking his eyes twice, Tadashi had immediately vanished into thin air.

"Hiro?"

He turned to hear the sound of Junior's voice.

"How does a sleep-over sound to you?"

Hiro was completely confused. "With me or…you?"

"Either way," Junior confessed. "Will it get your mind off of Tadashi?"

Maybe he's right. The young genius could tell that Junior was willing to help, but he dare not dream to lose any memory of Tadashi. He turned to his aunt and asked.

"Could I be excused please?"

Cass stood up to let Hiro aside. "Done so soon?" she asked.

"Y-Yes," Hiro stuttered to prevent insanity. "Why not I have that sleep-over some other time, Junior? I need some fresh air."

And he left the diner with his hands hidden in the pockets of his trousers like the moody kid he was. Mike watched him go and motioned to Tess if the check was ready to be paid. Noticing this, she reached into her handbag for two ten dollar bills and three ones.

"How was the pie?" Mike asked.

Cass looked at the pie, only a half of it was eaten.

"I think he loved it," she grinned as Hiro walked out the door.

Hiro was in turmoil, all that time in his room with three weeks of nothing but an empty stomach and lack of an eight hour sleep was beginning to corrupt his mind over Tadashi to the point where he was beginning to see illusions. He didn't know if it had happened with other people who lost their loved ones (he didn't know Tadashi went through a similar experience when his parents died). He was outside of the diner, across the street and at the mouth of Buena Vista Park. He stopped to wait for Aunt Cass and turned counterclockwise to greet her when she came out the door, but the moment he stopped turning did his gaze meet not with his aunt, but his brother sitting by the window to a cup of hot chocolate, lacking his cap and twisting his mouth into a friendly smile before a moving van out of state passed by and disintegrated the image. For the second time, Tadashi was gone.

Another hallucination? Hiro turned his back to the diner as a wild thought crossed his mind:

What did Mike put in my food? Some type of happy pill that makes you see the dead?

He couldn't tell if it was that or if being in that room for almost three weeks had poisoned his mind. Now desperate for some fresh air, he ran up the steps and worked off the half piece of apple pie being digested in his stomach as his legs hiked his upper body through the trail that would take him back to the house. Through the long pine trees that passed his way came a fit young man wearing white t-shirt and dark blue shorts with a jacket wrapped around his waist. He also had black hair…was it Tadashi? No. It was either another illusion or perhaps, someone else. When he came to the middle of the park where visitors would often have picnics and romantic getaways, he sat down on the left side of a steel bench to rest his legs for the remaining half of the walk back to the Lucky Cat when the view of his legs were obstructed by a box of Kaori chocolate and a voice that said: "Want some chocolates?"

For the third time, Hiro saw Tadashi, alive in perfect shape and health, sitting next to him with a box of chocolate in his left hand. He was dazed and almost delighted at how real it felt when Tadashi said.

"Life is like a box of chocolates, Hiro. You never know what you're gonna get."

Hiro's eyes filled with liquid, it was the famous bench scene from Forrest Gump where Tom Hanks, playing the titular protagonist, tried to offer some chocolates to a woman, but declined. His right hand made a snacking gesture like a Venus fly trap catching a fly. But just as his hand made contact with the chocolate he was aiming for-a square piece on the top left corner, it melted into a brown river along with the box and Tadashi itself.

Another hallucination.

Hiro must have been losing his sanity on that day, for when he ran all the way to the end of the park where it led to Haight St. there was a tall figure blocking the way.

Please let this be real. Hiro pleaded in his head. All he wanted was to attack his brother from behind with a great big hug and a kiss on the neck. He grouped his arms and…Tadashi disappeared into secondhand smoke. In great distress, he ran straight home, into the house and landed on the pillow of his bed face first, whispering to himself, "It's not real, he's dead." Three minutes later, Aunt Cass returned and immediately went back to work.

Thus as to fill his empty heart, he locked himself in Tadashi's bed behind the screen, clutching his cap very tightly and was refusing to let go as he curled himself into a fetal position, gritting his teeth with heaved breaths.

"Why did you leave me?" he wondered. "All I see are a bunch of false memories."

But his brother had died with valor, and the other half, Hiro the yang himself was forced to live in a world without his yin. His illusioned eyes turned toward the bookcase of Tadashi's famous stories.

"Maybe I'll read a book," he sighed. "It will get my brain back in shape."

The books Tadashi had owned were pretty interesting works of fiction, a total of 70 including The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud by Ben Sherwood, The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson, Into the Forest by Jean Hegland and The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky – all of them based on the subject of brotherly relationships. It made Hiro wonder if the reason why Tadashi liked these particular books was because they reminded him of their own relationship, especially the ultimate climax of The Brothers Karamazov where Fyodor Karamazov, the father of the three Russian brothers, had to be killed off.

He looked at the bottom shelf to find Tadashi's taste in classic literature, and at the bottom right corner he found the copy of Gone with the Wind he had been reading on the night he and Tadashi planned out their inventions…and ended up as crumpled pieces of paper.

"Washed up at fourteen. So sad."

Hiro almost teared up at the memory, smiling. He longed for Tadashi's sarcasm, he longed for his Frankensteiner and even longed for another hug, another hello, and another good bye. Not another good bye, he needed more hellos that echoed over the parting ways of good bye. He looked into the pages of Margaret Mitchell's magnum opus and gazed into the text, until he found the very page he was looking for. The same moment that he remembered from the 1939 film adaptation where actress Vivien Leigh brought the character of Scarlett O'Hara to chilling, powerful life with her famous line "As God as my witness, I'm never going to be hungry again." in chapter 25.

Raising his right fist to the ceiling, chin up and strong-minded like his character, Hiro made a vow that was as real as his own take on the prayer.

"As God as my witness, I will never leave this room again."