Chapter 1: Saving Hoshino Ai

"Those words…were definitely…not lies…"

"Ai…"

"…"

"Ai…?"

"AI!"

A muffled voice…a fading one calling out her name echoed through a tube of intangible darkness.

Her mind was still conscious but Ai no longer felt anything remotely physical nor could she register anything related to her senses once the voice decayed into an indescribable ambience. The impermeable surroundings composed of a chimeric void, by some means, had her total attention as the ether of nothingness flowed against what was left of her being.

It was…strange.

"This is…this is…"

Try as she might, she couldn't find a single word to describe the situation she had found herself in.

It was as if she was caught between different planes of existence, one where the only thing left of her was her consciousness as anything else remotely attached to her was shifting in and out of paradoxical lucidity.

"What is all this?"

Clarity slightly returned, allowing her to begin a process of comprehension. Firstly, she was cognizant of the horrifyingly peaceful void that was embracing her.

It wasn't that she couldn't see anything…it was because there was nothing to see.

It wasn't that she couldn't hear anything…it was because there was nothing to hear.

It wasn't that she couldn't smell anything…it was because there was nothing to smell.

It wasn't that she couldn't feel anything…it was because there was nothing to feel.

There was nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

A formless thought in the back of her mind told her the physical state she previously possessed was no longer with her. A sense of loss entered her train of thought next.

"…This is..."

Gradually, the lull of the void held her closer and closer like the unexplainable warmth of a mother's embrace. Emotions, from the strongest to the weakest, ceased to exist with each passing second.

Space and time no longer formed an integral part of her understanding of whatever reality she had found herself in. Not that it mattered, given how a sense of tranquility in the imminent entropy existing around her had kept her from manifesting thoughts that bought with it further questions.

…

But after an infinitesimal amount of eternity had passed, it all came back to her.

Memories, emotions, feelings, existence.

Everything she was about to leave behind for a never-ending journey through the void returned. From her heartbreaking upbringing, to her toiling through everything for her idol career, to all of the decisions she had made and then finally, the end of her life.

"R-Ruby…Aqua…"

The first thought that her mind created was of her children, reflecting the last words she spoke before her life was taken from her.

"I…I…"

A returning sense of singularity in the middle of the void manifested again and she found an overwhelming sadness following it.

The façade she had expertly donned for years during her career, one that she based her life of lies upon no longer mattered in the place she was in. Without anything and anyone left to deceive, she finally released the flood of emotions she had kept at bay up until her death.

"I...I have to get back to them…m-my children…"

The consciousness that called itself Hoshino Ai wept non-existent tears as it longed for a second chance and a way to return to the physical shell it left behind; continuing on with the life she had always dreamt of having.

A life that was ripped from her…just like so many of the desires she had in the past.

"…it…i-it's…so…unfair…"

She could feel the lull once again trying to relieve her of what made her human so she could flow in the void forever.

But letting go was no longer a choice, especially when she remembered the genuine love she had for her children.

"I-I need to be there for them!"

With an imaginary arm, she tried to pull back the curtain on the impassable darkness that shrouded everything around her. It was futile but she was prepared to give whatever she had left to fight her way back to them.

The tears streaming down her face couldn't be felt or seen but she was sure they represented the emotional state she was in.

Even if she was just an abstract construct, she wasn't going to let go.

Not even by a single bit.

"I…need…they need me…"

The inner voice the consciousness possessed slowly turned low.

"Aqua…Ruby…"

And softer…

"I…love you…"

And softer…

Trapped in between the impregnable obsidian walls, floating in an ethereal mixture that no words could describe, Ai's resolve was wrecked by an awful sensation of peace and despair as she tried to hold onto what she had left behind.

She understood she was dead…that was all.

The nothing in front of her would not help her, her efforts swallowed by the chaotic ambience rumbling in the unobservable distance.

…

But in the midst of all of it, a speaker would emerge.

"How has the afterlife been for you so far? Seems a bit rough from a glance."

Surprise. Another emotion she was able to form.

She checked her immediate vicinity for signs of the voice which definitely had not originated from her imagination nor from the wall of darkness that had been her company for what felt like eons upon eons.

"W-Who…who's there?"

Ai blindly asked, her voice growing slightly stronger but lacking the usual confidence her façade provided.

"You know, the afterlife isn't the same for everyone. I have seen mine and it's much worse than yours. Though no official theory has been made, I suppose it has something to do with your ideals and beliefs."

Once again, she heard the voice of the man loud and clear, as if the speaker was right next to her.

But she couldn't find him in the maddening serenity of the void.

However, she managed to converse with him in a more composed tone, realizing that, by some means, she wasn't alone.

"Are…are you dead too?"

There was a bit of hesitation before the answer came to her.

"Does it matter? You can't really gage the spiritual workings of this world with life being a "1" and death being a "0". My existence is more complicated than that but I guess you could say I am alive."

Ai was rocked by the revelation.

Though it seemed impossible, she wasn't afraid of grasping for even a small bit of belief that there was indeed a link between the afterlife and the world of the living.

The person's existence alone gave her hope that there was a way out of the void.

"I…I need to get back to my children…I need to live!"

She shouted a plea into the nothingness in front of her, wishing for the voice to answer her.

Fortunately, it did.

"Well…just know that things don't work as we intend, alright?"

Before another thought could form in her mind, the man added.

"Wake…"

"…up."

The sound of fingers snapping brought with it an end to the horrendous enigma.

A different kind of darkness clouded Ai's vision but a second later, everything returned like a flashflood.

The rays of sunlight and the warmth it imparted could be felt on her skin once more. A steady breeze with a hint of chill passed through her body and she could feel the strands of her long hair swaying along with the moving air. The fabric of the clothes she wore brushed against her chest and abdomen as she breathed in and out.

Her ears picked up the sound of a light wind blowing past her. The rustling of leaves in a nearby tree and the roar of a car's engine driving past on a road to her left reinforced the fact that her auditory functions were capable of registering sounds once again.

As soon as she smelled the fresh air through her nose, she made the decision to open her eyes.

At first, a blur welcomed her but as her vision cleared up, she no longer found herself ravaged by the awful void.

Ai immediately saw that she was standing in front of a concrete wall that had gone through several rounds of weathering but was still standing nevertheless. The shadow of a tree's branches fell upon the wall's surface with sunlight from above illuminating every other place that the shadows missed.

A chain-linked fence was running across on her left, separating the area she was in from the road just past her.

As a gasp escaped her mouth, Ai realized what exactly she was experiencing.

Moving her fingers and the toes within the confines of her shoes, she was welcomed by the discovery that all of her senses were working. She was no longer just a conscious floating in an ethereal plane nor was she left at the mercy of the horrible pain in her abdomen.

Another painless but euphoric breath confirmed it.

She was alive.

By some miracle, she was alive…albeit feeling a bit different but that wasn't a concern.

Another snapping of fingers nearly made her jump out of her shoes.

"Rise and smell the air."

Ai recognized the voice but unlike the previous time she had heard it, she could immediately tell it was right behind her.

Without wasting a moment, she turned to face the speaker, the owner of the voice, who was the last entity she interacted with before she was ripped away from the void. Her heart beat quickened, reminding her of the mystery surrounding the person she had yet to uncover.

While she had half-expected to be met by an otherworldly entity given the nature of his presence, Ai was astonished to be met with only a modest-looking man with a decently formal attire and a completely normal appearance.

He was wearing a brown suit over a white shirt and red necktie and he gave off the impression of a man in his 40s given the wrinkles on his face and his slightly hunched stature. There was a neutral expression on his clean shaven face and his light-brown eyes were fixed on her.

Behind him, she could finally see the vast blue sky with patches of clouds all over it as well as the fence extending to the other side of the area. Several four wheeled vehicles were parked close to the fences, instantly giving her the impression of the place they were in to be a parking lot.

After briefly inspecting her surroundings, Ai faced the man once again.

"How alive do you feel right now?" he asked in neutral tone.

Out of instinct, Ai moved the fingers on her hands once more before answering.

"As alive as I was before…" she stopped herself as she remembered what had happened before she was thrown into the void.

The man folded his arms and waited for her to finish her sentence.

"…before I died…" her eyes widened for a moment before she shook her head, "…how…how is this even possible?"

She fixed her sights upon the man once more, hoping that the mystery surrounding him would aid her in getting the answers she wanted.

"How did you speak to me while I was…at that place?" her voice got a bit higher.

"It's a bit of a lengthy explanation you don't have time for" he replied before asking a question of his own, "Do you feel different?"

Feeling slightly disappointed that he withheld on his answer, she pondered the question he posed.

There was definitely something different about her which she couldn't quite put her finger on. Something amiss about an important aspect of her being was certainly there but she couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was.

"A bit" she said softly.

The man then pointed at the nearest car parked next to them.

"You might want to use the side mirrors on that."

Confused by the suggestion, Ai raised an eyebrow at him first before understanding he was adamant on her following what he said.

Not knowing what he meant, she walked over towards the nearest car and leant a bit so she could get a clear look at her face.

While she expected to see something wrong with her face or her clothing, she was met with a terrifying discovery.

"W-What!? H-Huh?"

Ai backed away immediately, shock taking over her entire being as the face being reflected on the mirror no longer had her blue-purplish locks and pinkish-purple eyes.

The person looking back at her instead had an inverted gradient of the colors she was used to seeing. The hue of the hair was a faded green while the color of the eyes were lime green. The pair of glasses affixed on the face further cemented that she was not staring at her reflection.

"W-Who? W-Wha!?"

At first, she wanted to believe it to be an optical illusion but as the image on the mirror perfectly matched every movement and facial expression she made, she could no longer deny the truth.

Her racing heart continued beating rapidly but her breaths were no longer erratic. Her vision started stabilizing as she kept her eyes on the mirror once more.

Cautiously, still wishing for an answer she wanted, she approached it again.

"This…this really is me?"

The young girl, no older than sixteen, gazing back at her as she put a hand to her cheek was truly her. The image she had for twenty years had been suddenly shifted to a totally different one, but there was no doubt left that she had a completely new body.

"H-How is this possible?" she asked herself before turning her attention to the man, "My mind…inside, I'm still me…but I…I am different on the outside! How is this possible?"

The man simply sighed and shook his head in a reserved way.

"We'll get to the explanations later" he told her, "Just try to accept that that is you from here on out. Besides, you are alive, Ai-chan…"

The mention of her name almost caught her by surprise.

"Isn't that what you wanted?" he asked.

She was unsure on how to answer that question.

Every fiber of the body she was now in control of, every senses and every single thing about it indicated the unmistakable truth that the girl was her.

But the memories she had…the image she had seen staring back at her in the past twenty years told her that it wasn't Hoshino Ai she saw as her reflection right at that moment.

That internal turmoil, plus the experience of death and life after death had made it extremely difficult to come to terms with everything that had happened to her since her last memory of being alive.

"I…it is…" she nodded lowly.

"Then, why the long face? You should be happy and ecstatic right now" the man told her as he pulled out a rolled-up newspaper, "The weather today's too fine to be spent having negative thoughts."

Ai nodded once more before she stared at her hands and her clothes. She was wearing a dark blue sweater and a pair of black pants. The sneakers she had on her feet weren't a brand she recognized and she quickly found out that the glasses she had on her face were simply for decorative purposes.

"It's just…" she muttered, still to process it all, "…I…I don't see myself when I saw my reflection…yet…it is still me!"

"You'll get used to this eventually" the man answered casually, "But we're running out of time."

Ai stared at the man quizzically.

"What do you mean?"

The man didn't answer right away. He instead gestured towards the whole area they were in.

"Haven't you recognized this place yet?" he inquired.

The girl then had a better look at exactly where the two of them had found themselves in.

It was a modest parking lot right next to a small mall. Residential buildings and apartment complexes were right next to the spacious area and she instantly had a hunch that they were not exactly in the heart of whatever city they were in, but rather on the outskirts of it.

As a sense of familiarity crept in though, Ai let out another gasp of pure shock.

Wasting no time, she dashed towards the road next to the parking lot. If she was where she thought she was, then it wouldn't be far from where they were.

Stopping at the edge of the sidewalk, she looked across the street and at the row of buildings going across on the other side of the road.

What she beheld was unmistakable and she could not believe her eyes.

"N-No way!...T-There's no way! T-This can't be real!"

The footsteps behind her stopped and the man's voice could be heard again.

"I was going to show it to yourself but I suppose finding out yourself ain't so bad" he mused.

Finally, Ai found her voice and with a tone full of anxiety, anticipation and worry, she asked him a question.

"T-That's my home, is it not?" she pointed at the apartment complex just across the street.

Ai found it too good to be true that just beyond the road was the place she had just moved into with her family: Ruby and Aqua. Her heart was certain that it was exactly the same place she had recently called home but as she couldn't suspend her disbelief, she needed someone else to confirm that for her sake.

"M-My kids are there, right?" she added, her eyes glistening, asking for him to answer in the affirmative.

To her relief, the man nodded.

"Yes, that is your home over there" he told her.

A bright smile, coming from a place of sheer relief formed on Ai's face. Her heart was still thumping inside her chest and she could not keep it calm owing the impossible discovery she had made.

Only a number of meters separated her from the two people in the world she truly loved and there was nothing to stop her from being reunited with them.

She could not even give a thought about questioning the man about him knowing where her new home was as she was brimming with excitement and pure happiness.

However, the smile quietly disappeared, giving way to a frown.

"B-But…" she mumbled softly, "I…I'm not me anymore…I'm someone else now…"

Her line of thinking reflected how she felt.

Even if she showed up at her doorstep, she no longer resembled the person her children would call "their mother". Though her heart, her soul and her spirit still showed that she was Hoshino Ai, the change in her appearance might prove too jarring for her kids to accept and that could certainly complicate things.

The man narrowed his eyes at her.

"You are you" he sighed, "You're still Hoshino Ai…just in a different package."

Ai tried to open her mouth to argue but as she stared at herself at the traffic mirror near her, she knew that she couldn't muster something for her case.

He was right.

The green-haired sixteen year old girl staring back at her may have been someone completely dissimilar to the last physical body she had but the love she had for her children, all the lovely memories she had with them and the warmth that filled her heart whenever she thought of them were concrete reminders that Hoshino Ai was still her identity.

Like he had said, it would take time for her to accept the new reality she had.

"Alright…I get it…" she sighed and nodded.

Ai then stared back towards her home, an urge to cross the road building up inside of her. But she remembered that seeing her children while she still felt conflicted inside regarding who she was.

It was a dilemma she had been familiar with, even while she lived as an idol. It was a problem rooted deep within her which others never understood since she had developed layers upon layers of lies to make sure no one ever knew she was struggling that way.

But after her endless jaunt into the afterlife and subsequent revival as a different person, she, strangely, had no qualms about showing the emotions she used to suppress.

"Now, you have to head towards your home" the man told her in a stern tone.

"Huh?" she arched her eyebrow, "My home? Why? No one around there will recognize me…"

"It's not about being recognized…"

Putting his hands on her shoulders, the man pointed her in the direction of the apartment where she lived.

Initially, Ai was unsure as to why he sounded so adamant on her going to her apartment. But as she kept on observing the building and its immediate vicinity, she could pick out a figure walking up the stairs from the ground level, holding a bouquet and wearing a hooded jacket.

It took her a moment but she identified the strange person. She gasped audibly, looking on in horror as she realized exactly what she witnessing

"T-That…t-that's…"

"This is just a minute before you died by the way" the man told her nonchalantly.

"R-Ryosuke…" Ai muttered, trying to control her trembling body as her throat began to dry up, "H-He's going to…"

She swiftly turned to the man, hoping for an advice as she understood that, by some means, she had been sent back to the time when she met her end at the hands of the same man she was observing.

"H-He's going to do it again?" she asked in despair.

The man briefly glanced at her before staring at the apartment.

"Yes" he answered, "But this is exactly why you're here, Ai-chan."

Ai watched Ryosuke reach the floor below her apartment, briefly stopping to check his phone, possibly to make sure he had the correct address. She was beginning to tear up as she placed a hand near her abdomen in reflex, understanding what was about to follow.

"C-Can't we do something?" she asked meekly.

The next moment, she felt her companion's reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"Go" he simply told her.

Through her tear-soaked eyes, she stared at him once again, trying to understand what he meant.

For the first time, he exuded a sense of compassion and confidence.

"Save Hoshino Ai. Save yourself."