Part of Ryūko wished that more of her fight with Nui had been seen. When Nui first attacked the crowd, they all dispersed and were smart enough to not gawk too long. The same happened with the second crowd that left the train. Why did that have to be the one time people didn't sit around filming everything on their phones? Not that their phones would have caught anything given how fast Ryūko's and Nui were fighting, they were so fast that even the security cameras didn't see anything. Well, it didn't really matter; the security cameras were destroyed in the collateral of Ryūko's and Nui's rumble.

In the end, since the destruction was on such a large scale that there was no way anyone would think two people could cause it in a brawl, it was assumed that the damage was created by explosives. Nui was billed as a terrorist and her strange appearance was an enigma. Ryūko was praised for doing her duty as a security guard, but that was it. As for how Ryūko survived the chaos, she just said she got lucky and was outside of the blast zone when the 'bomb' went off. Nobody would believe Ryūko if she bothered telling the truth anyway.

Ryūko, Satsuki, Inumuta, and Iori performed a long and intricate sweep of everywhere they knew Nui had been to make sure there were no remnants of her remaining she could revive from. In the end they concluded Nui really was gone.

Given the damage to the subway, Ryūko was on vacation until it was repaired. That was the only silver lining to Nui's attack.

Mako still had to go to work though, so Ryūko spent most of her recent days alone at home. Instead of enjoying her free time, she could only spend it dreading having to eventually go back to work. She sat on a couch, her head in her hands. Dryly sobbing, Ryūko desperately tried to think of a way she could escape her mundane life without facing negative consequences for doing so.

Like always, Ryūko couldn't think of anything.

Ryūko rocked forward and back. The walls were closing in and the air grew thick. Hopelessness consumed Ryūko.

"I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life."

Now that Ryūko was temporarily freed from her job, she had absolutely nothing getting in the way of her facing the full brunt of her despair.

The misery Ryūko felt was born from a mundane horror, one so common that Ryūko felt guilty over just how unbearable it was for her when so many other people dealt with it without such a fuss. The lack of uniqueness in Ryūko's suffering made her feel worse, like her problems didn't matter. Other people were living far worse lives, so what right did Ryūko have to complain?

"I can't keep doing this. I have to tell Mako how I feel. But what would I tell her? I'm sad? I don't like having to do work? That I guess I'm just lazy? How could I say that to her? The worst part is that she'd think my concerns were valid. She'd drop everything and make any concession possible for me. She'd work three jobs if it meant I didn't have to work when I don't like to. She's so nice."

Both Ryūko's legs were bouncing as she rocked her upper body more frantically than before. She couldn't stop her tears from coming out.

The emotions inside Ryūko rampaged. She needed to do something other than sit around panicking or she'd lash out.

Ryūko was on her feet and grabbing her keys before she had time to question herself. Bursting through the front door, she scrambled to the bottom floor of the apartment complex. A rumbling was released from Ryūko's motorcycle as she raced away on it.

Driving allowed Ryūko to focus on things other than her problems. She could be distracted by maneuvering her vehicle, following the laws of the road, and enjoying the feel of the wind against her skin.

As she began acting on autopilot, Ryūko felt something akin to peace. The universe became quiet, everything drowned out by the sound of the motorcycle's engine.

The zen state Ryūko entered was almost euphoric. She was experiencing a waking sleep, a conscious dreaming.

Then Ryūko hit traffic and she had to stop in place. Now Ryūko had a moment to think, and thus a moment to be overcome by her worries again. The crawl that the drive became no longer served as therapeutic for Ryūko. It was getting difficult for Ryūko to focus on the road, so much so that when she did have a chance to drive more quickly, she nearly got hit by a truck as she tried to change her lane. The truck blared its horn, and Ryūko swerved back to the lane she started in. Nearly getting into a car crash made Ryūko feel even worse than she already did.

Eventually Ryūko stopped driving. She arrived at a closed off bridge that stretched across Tokyo Bay. It once led to Honnō City and Honnōji Academy. While it wasn't legal to do so, Ryūko snuck under the bridge, parking her motorcycle next to one of the pillars holding the structure up. Ryūko walked to the edge of the water and inhaled deeply, sucking up a lot of air with her superhuman lungs.

With a jump and a dive, Ryūko entered the water before rapidly kicking her legs. Ryūko was a human torpedo that traveled parallel to the bridge. She remained underwater to not attract attention, though her great speed resulted in the surface of the entire bay becoming choppy, so it could be argued that her attempt at laying low was less than perfect. She should have swam more slowly, but she was compelled to reach her destination as quickly as possible.

Ryūko curved her path downward after a while, plunging deeper into the water. Soon Ryūko saw the ruins of a sunken island city. Buildings of varying degrees of opulence sat crumbled and shattered across the bottom of the bay. The ruins were split down the middle from Ryūko's final attack with her Scissor Blades a decade ago. So much of Ryūko's life was defined by events that occurred in this city.

Why did Ryūko come to this place? She couldn't remember. Did she ever have a particular reason, or did she simply follow her instincts?

When Ryūko won her final battle against the fake Satsuki at Honnōji, she thought she had graduated and moved on from that place, but she was wrong.

Even now, Ryūko hadn't truly graduated from Honnōji Academy.

Descending to the sunken streets, Ryūko swam through them, tracing paths she once walked, often with Mako. Ryūko and Mako spent so much time together in this city. It was where they met and fell in love.

Ryūko traced her fingers across walls and the ground. Everything was eroded and muddy. Nothing felt how it used to.

The highest point of the ruins was a split mound, the remnants of the Honnōji Academy courtyard. Despite how unrecognizable it was, Ryūko was able to recall every battle she fought there as soon as she arrived. Images of those fights, echoes of Ryūko's past enemies, overlaid with the courtyard and reenacted the battles from ten years ago.

Ryūko touched her feet to the mud as if she was standing in the courtyard before it sank below the waves. In front of her stood an imagined Satsuki, the girl wielding an unbroken Bakuzan and bearing Junketsu in its Life Fiber Override form. It was Satsuki from when she and Ryūko first fought.

The image charged at Ryūko and swung for her neck, but the blade was shattered between Ryūko's fingers. A flick was all that was necessary to send Satsuki flying, and as it did it changed.

It became Ragyō Kiryūin who wore Junketsu and had a sewing needle-like sword in each hand.

Ragyō's attack ended up being just as futile as Satsuki's, Ryūko's hand shoving into her fake mother's chest and ripping out her heart.

Once again the image changed, this time becoming Ragyō wearing the final form of Shinra-Kōketsu. Multiple spikes of cloth thrust towards Ryūko with velocity beyond what Ryūko could evade, and with force that Ryūko could not endure.

Finally a true opponent, a challenge that couldn't be easily overcome. For a second Ryūko fell into her delusion and awaited having her body blown to pieces by her mother's attack, but the spikes simply passed without mass through Ryūko's body. Ragyō wasn't really there, it was just a vivid memory stronger than the real thing that Ryūko got lost in due to her thirst for a thrill.

"I'm losing my mind. I shouldn't have come here. What am I even doing?"

Despite positing a question, Ryūko knew why she came to the ruins. She felt the compulsion to return to the place where she spent what may have been her halcyon days, a place that made Ryūko feel truly alive.

But returning to Honnō City just made Ryūko feel worse, because it forced her to confront how impossible it was to return to her past life. Ryūko was torturing herself due to her inability to let go of the past.

She needed to leave. She kicked her legs to shoot herself back to the edge of the water, her body bursting to the surface which created waves that drenched the underside of the bridge.

Ryūko ran over to her motorcycle and drove off, heading back home in order to get away from the ruins that made her remember the life she could no longer live.

The problem was that Ryūko had just run away from her home because being stuck in her apartment left Ryūko with nothing but her dark thoughts. Both the ruins and Ryūko's home made her feel terrible, as did every moment Ryūko spent on the road waiting at a stoplight or in traffic, every instance where she wasn't distracted by the act of driving. No matter where Ryūko ran to, she couldn't escape her own mind.

"I need Mako."

The Sun had set. Mako would have been home from work at this point.

By the time Ryūko got home, she had a feral way about her movements. Her limbs whipped about as she went up the stairs to the floor her apartment was on. Her breathing was ragged and not from exhaustion.

Ryūko opened her apartment's door.

"Hey, Ryūkooooooooooo! Where'd you go-wah!" When Mako launched out of the doorway to embrace her beloved like she usually did, she was met with a hug from Ryūko who ran at her. The two women hit the ground, Ryūko holding Mako tight and nuzzling her face into the crook of her lover's neck. Ryūko's body was still wet and salty from the bay, so now Mako was getting damp from Ryūko's embrace. "Is it sexy time? Are we having sexy time in the doorway? With the door open?"

"I need to hold you right now." Ryūko's voice was uneven.

"Wuh? Did something happen? Are you okay?"

"I'll tell you later. I just need to hold you for a while. Okay?" Ryūko was shaking.

A brief pause. Ryūko sharply inhaled as she worried about what Mako might have been thinking, that Mako might insist that Ryūko spill her guts about whatever was upsetting her immediately.

"Take however long you need." Even if Ryūko couldn't see her face at that moment, it was clear Mako was smiling.

"Thanks."

Ryūko carried Mako into their home and onto a couch. They held each other tight as they reclined on their sides, Ryūko just letting herself enjoy Mako's touch as she was sandwiched between the back of the couch and her beloved. Neither woman spoke, instead they embraced the silence and the peace born from being in the arms of the one you loved most. It didn't truly make Ryūko feel good, but it was a salve for her melancholy.

Her anxieties remained, and she had a new anxiety since she had to tell Mako later about what was wrong. Should Ryūko be honest? Ryūko knew what would happen if she was honest, and that was why she had been avoiding admitting that she felt like she was dying inside.

The couch was getting wet since Ryūko still had yet to shower after her dip in the Tokyo Bay. Hopefully the briny smell would come out, otherwise the couch might get unbearable to sit on. Ryūko really had a knack for ruining things, and that was why she didn't want to involve Mako in her inner turmoil.

But it was too late to run. Ryūko had revealed that something was wrong. Would a lie work? Could she just make up a dumb and easily fixable reason for Ryūko's current sadness? Maybe. It all depended on Mako. She hadn't noticed Ryūko's depression before now, or at least she never commented on it. Perhaps she did know, but then why didn't she say anything? Did she not care? That was impossible. Mako was the biggest sweetheart Ryūko knew, she would never just ignore Ryūko's misery. There was no way that Mako already knew in that case.

That didn't mean Mako wouldn't see through a lie from Ryūko now that it was established clearly that there was something wrong. Now that Mako had been prompted to be more aware, there was no sneaking the truth past her.

Ryūko knew she couldn't run anymore, she couldn't endure anymore.

It was time to just tell the truth and take things one step at a time from there.

"Mako."

"Yes, Ryūko?"

"I'm not happy. I haven't been for a long time."

"Really?" Mako didn't speak with her usual energy. Ryūko expected Mako to be bouncing around the room in a panic at hearing Ryūko wasn't happy. Instead she was just…listening…waiting. "Why?"

"I think I have depression or something. Every day just feels…empty. I go do a job I hate and I barely have any free time anymore. When I do have free time I just spend it dreading having to go back to work. But I can't quit or anything, we both need to make money to live half-decently. I used to get angry when I got yelled at during work, but now I just feel scared that I might get fired."

"You could get another job."

"Are there even any other jobs left I could try? I'm too stupid to actually be good at anything. I'm not smart like you. You've always been good at normal kinds of work, like when you ran the fight club back in the day. I just know how to hit things."

"You're good at other stuff."

"Like what?"

"You're good at rescuing me."

"I don't think I could make a career out of that. In the end the problem really isn't the specific job, it's that I have to work at all, and I know that sounds super dumb and entitled. How could I be upset that I have to work for a living? There are people who'd kill to have a job like mine, one where they can make enough money to buy food whenever they're hungry. What's wrong with me? Why can't I be happy with what I have? Why can't I be appreciative?"

"You're depressed, and being depressed is, like, a brain disease. It's not that there's something wrong with you as a person, you just have a sickness. When you're sick you go to the doctor, so you should go to a doctor."

"You mean a psychiatrist or whatever?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know if that would work for me. I doubt I'd jive with anyone trying to unravel how my brain works, and I don't know if any medications would even work on me since I'm a weird Life Fiber person."

"It's worth a shot though."

"I guess so."

'You should also keep looking for a new job."

"But there's no job that could make me happy."

"You don't know that. Your dream job might be right around the corner. Even if it takes years to find it, you should still look for it."

"I don't even know if I'd have time to look for a job, get psychiatric help, and also keep working as a security guard. I barely have any free time as it is. If I did figure out how to fit everything in, I'd have to sacrifice spending time with you, and moments like this with you are the only reason I haven't lost it completely yet."

"You could take a leave of absence from work, that would give you some extra time."

"I doubt they'd let me do that with my track record at work. I'm already on thin ice and we're currently on a forced break right now because of the crap Nui did. Once the subway's up and running again, they aren't gonna give me a break in a long time."

"Then maybe you should just quit. I can support us both if I pull extra shifts."

"No you can't, and even if you could I don't want you to suffer for my sake."

"We could get a loan, or we could ask some of our friends for help."

"Getting a loan would cause more problems in the long run, and I don't want to drag the other people in our lives into this."

"We could ask if we could move back in with my parents in exchange for helping to pay their bills."

"I don't want to inconvenience them, especially after they took care of me for so long with no charge when I was basically a stranger."

"You wouldn't be inconveniencing them, they love you! Plus dad would be extra happy to have someone helping with the bills."

"That's true."

"So let's ask them!"

"…Okay."

"Great!" Mako put her hand on the back of Ryūko's head and began petting her. "We'll figure this out."

"I'm sorry, Mako. I'm ruining everything." Ryūko wasn't sure when she began crying.

"No you're not. I want to know when you're facing problems so I can help you. It would hurt me way worse if you kept pretending things were fine when they weren't. You're allowed to not be happy and to say you aren't."

"…Thanks, Mako."

"You're welcome!"

"I love you, Mako."

"I love you too, Ryūko."

Despite Ryūko having little faith that things would work out, some of the tension in her was released. Her body was so loose it was like she had turned liquid.

Sleep stole upon her in seconds.

Ryūko dreamed of nothing in particular.