The taste of hope was as bitter as ever. Hinata wondered when she had last felt it. She dearly wished that she could be smart like her friends, and spare herself the pain of having her heart and will broken by reality. Unfortunately, when she heard the word Precure coming out of the mouth of a hysterical, wounded girl, one dressed in a manner so out of the ordinary, so like the Precure themselves had been clad twenty years ago…

She had dreamt of this, a long dream she never truly woke from. It was a haze, always like a shroud over her life, everything before her made grey, unreal, incomplete. Now the colors had pierced that veil, and lights shimmered through. She was certain she was dreaming, but in her dreams she was younger and happier and more herself than she grew up to be. In her dreams the world was not broken. Rising from her seat, following alongside Nodoka and Chiyu, she approached the commotion, gathering in the center of the hall around the collapsed girl. It was hard to make sense of which words were being spoken, and by whom, so all she could hear was Nodoka's concern over the girl's state. Karen Minazuki rushed towards her, first checking her pulse and then inspecting her wounds. Mercifully, they were not particularly deep, and were mainly bruises and a scant few very small lacerations. If anything, it was exhaustion that most weakened her to the point of fainting.

"Everyone," Yuri Tsukikage raised her voice, making her way through the curious onlookers, "some silence and space, please. Karen, is she well?"

"She appears to be in no urgent peril," said Karen. "She'll need only minor care, some bandaging. But her breathing is very strained. She has been running for a while. Would anyone happen to know her?" None responded, until Iona Hikawa stepped forward.

"It's not uncommon for outsiders to seek aid here," she pointed out. "She was crying out to Precure. It may very well mean nothing," she said, though Hinata didn't want to believe that. This girl looked nothing like the countless desperate people who thought the Precure could still save them as they did in the past. "We should have her taken to a hospital."

"Wait," Kokone Fuwa approached the fallen girl, reaching for the two rods she grasped so firmly. Now, fading into unconsciousness, too worn to speak, she began to let go, and the light that surrounded her began to grow frail as well, slowly dying down. "We know what this means. We all know what this is. We've seen it. We recognize it," she took hold of the two crystal rods, raising them high for all to see. Hinata felt awash with a feeling so familiar, as vivid as it had been in the past, as though no time had passed, as though she had never forgotten it for an instant.

"No," said Rikka Hishikawa, a bit more loudly than would be considered polite. "That's wishful thinking, nothing more. It makes no sense, this, not now, not after all this time, not so…" She turned back. "Madoka. You knew this? Your words…"

"It's a bit too convenient," said Riko Izayoi. "We aren't fools. Care to explain yourself, Kaguya?"

All eyes turned towards Madoka once more, though her demeanor was hardly changed by a hundred inquisitive gazes. Yuni came to her side, as the two, together, faced the rest of the former Precure. Hinata, personally, didn't understand why this would be so shocking; Madoka always seemed to know everything, or at least carried herself as though she did. She was, in that sense, similar to Chiyu.

"Very well. It's no great secret, though I hadn't expected things to bear fruit quite so soon. For the past years, I've made preparations which I've concealed from the rest of you for I did not know if they would amount to anything. Some of you are more familiar than others with the scars of the past calamity we vanquished, blemishes left upon the world, which have never healed. Therein remain the last remnants of the magic that we once knew."

"We extract Mirai Crystals from the World-Wounds," Hana explained. She would understand them more than anyone else, as head of the Bright Tomorrow corporation, holder of a monopoly on Mirai Crystals. It was thanks to them that the lights were still on in most of the world. "I'm not sure I'd call them magical, but they do have more properties than is common knowledge. They react to one another, so locating them in the tunnels is best done by utilizing another one as a magnet of sorts. I'm sure many of us have already tried using them to return some life or power to our old Precure artifacts, right?" All around the hall there were brief nods, and occasional whispers. "Is that what you did, Madoka?"

"You're close," she explained. "What little research has been done on the subject indicates that the Crystals resonate with old Precure artifacts, like the ones we used to transform, rather than the artifacts being powered by them, as one might initially presume."

"That's correct," said Honoka Yukishiro, who never missed a chance to let everyone around her be aware of the depths of her knowledge. The truth, of course, was that she had dedicated her life to studying the sparse vestiges of the Precure as a way to pretend she still had a connection to that past. "Our current conclusion, incomplete as it may be, is that the Mirai Crystals are fragments which were imbued with their power due to the presence of the Precure upon our world. That is to say, the Precure came first, as well as our magic, and then the Crystals were formed as a consequence of our battles. The simplest hypothesis is that our use of magic has resonated with the World-Wounds, which are presumably receptive to magic as a result of having been created when monsters assailed the world."

"I don't think anyone gives a shit about the details," Asuka Takizawa grumbled. "Kaguya, what you mean is that you used the Mirai Crystals as a… A radar of sorts? Is this wording right?"

"To a degree, yes," Madoka resumed her explanation. "It was less the Mirai Crystals and more their resonance with our artifacts, to be more precise. Otherwise, the Crystal-filled mines would have sufficed. In my home, I've hoarded a great amount of Precure treasures over the past years. Treasures, yes, though most of you have rid yourselves of them. Selling them to collectors, or just throwing them away. Some found their way to governments, others to universities, others to private collections. It was not proper to do so, even if the memories might wound more than comfort. Well, in any case, they were of no use to anyone, so I had no compunction about storing them in secret, as there was no point in sharing that if it led to no gain. But it did. The Crystals began to respond, as though some newfound life drew breath within those husks we once fought with, transformed with. To us, all those years ago, it seemed like such a sudden thing, becoming Precure, but perhaps the arrival of magic was a lengthy process, one we couldn't discern at the time. Magic is returning. I would not be able to tell you why. An omen of impending doom, or the answer to the prayers of our wretched days. This girl is that answer, that omen. Let us take care of her. When she wakes, we will hear her story."

"You will," Asuka said with a shrug. "I've already done my time, twenty years ago, saving the world and the ingrates that live here. Besides, it's this girl who's Precure, not me, not any of us, so why should we give a shit?"

"We may offer her advice," Tsubomi Hanasaki proposed. There was laughter from the other side of the crowd.

"Look how well we turned out," said Hibiki Hojo. "Who are we to give anyone advice? If this girl has her wits about her, she won't listen to anything we have to say."

"We had no help," Tsubomi insisted. "We had to figure everything out on our own, fight all by ourselves, being able to count only on each other for support. She doesn't have to be alone."

"Then by all means, help her," said Asuka. "I have better things to do, though. I came here to have a good time, you know. Not to think about the past, and certainly not the future."

She was the first to depart, storming off back to her table. The crowd scattered as Yuri took the girl in her arms and carried her somewhere quiet. Yui Nagomi offered the employees' break room to let her rest, and Saaya Yakushiji offered to stay with her and care for her if needed. Hinata did not quite know how she could be expected to just return to business as usual after learning of something quite so momentous, but her peers seemed to have a much easier time doing so. It was hardly news to her that most of the former Precure had only resentment for their past, but Hinata had expected that something as miraculous as the resurgence of magic, uncertain and mysterious as it was, would have ignited a spark, at least. More than mere indifference, there was bitterness here, and regret, and feelings uglier still.

Hinata wondered if she should dare to hope. She wanted to, though she knew it was stupid. People always called me stupid, though. She sighed, and returned to her table alongside Chiyu and Nodoka. They said nothing, the silence unbearable. Hinata wanted to say something, to hear something from her companions. She mustered the courage to do so only when Asumi finally arrived, excusing herself for her absence and lateness to join the three. That gave Hinata the opportunity to begin a conversation, drawing words out of her friends the way one would wring blood out of a stone.

"Don't worry about it," she said, extending a hand to Asumi. "We all know that you have business with the other Precure, and it can never wait. And tonight has certainly been busier than usual, haha…"

"That's one way to put it," sighed Chiyu. "I think we were all hoping for a peaceable evening, not for that… Whatever it was. You wouldn't happen to know more about it than we're being told, would you, Asumi?"

"In hindsight, I can identify some of the signs," she explained. "As Selene explained, there has been research that indicates exactly what she had concluded, though it was unpopular, underfunded. Even the other Torchbearers put little faith in that area of study."

Torchbearers. Hinata had grown used to hearing them referred to in more mocking words, so to remember that their organization had an actual proper name had slipped her mind. Their ambition of building the world's grandest academy had earned them the moniker of Veronites, alluding to that ancient school spoken of only in legends, mythical Verone of a thousand towers, each a library that humbled the ones the world knew today. That ambition won them ridicule from most of the world and serious academia, claiming that what they sought had never even existed, that all they chased were delusions. Chiyu herself often expressed her disdain for those dreams and all the fools that threw their money into this insane enterprise - though not close to Asumi, at least.

"I don't know what to feel, now," Nodoka admitted what Hinata was afraid to say. "What does any of this mean? Does the world need Precure again?"

"It would appear so," said Chiyu. "I agree with what Asuka had said, though. It has little to do with us. Our time has passed, and if the world needs saviors once more, let it find new ones," Hinata must have frowned quite pitifully, because Chiyu turned to her with eyes full of condescension. "You don't expect that this means that we will become Precure again, do you?"

"You expect something else?" She asked.

Chiyu did not respond immediately. Deep in thought, she took her time to answer, perhaps pondering her own arguments or thinking of a polite way to word them to Hinata. There was no way to tell which one it would be before Chiyu opened her mouth. She'd always been like this, but as the years passed, it seemed she only grew less patient with others.

"I must admit I've no solid evidence of my claim," she began, speaking in the same manner she did whenever she felt very strongly she had to be right. "Neither do you, for that matter, save for wishful thinking. We… We don't really know what to expect. After all this time, we are as blind as we were as children. I suppose that it's wishful thinking on my part, too. I don't want to go back. I don't want to fight again. Not knowing where it led us."

"If not for our efforts," said Nodoka, "we wouldn't have our world now. How many would have died…?"

"I don't know," said Chiyu. "I only know that many whose lives were saved then have died in the past twenty years, and the ones that still live will, too, die. I'm not being a fatalist, I'm just saying that, well… The world has only gotten worse. It's not only nostalgia of simpler, childish times. You know it, don't you?"

"There's no denying that," Asumi admitted. "None who have power have any answers to offer for all our tribulations. Cure Heart may have made some bad decisions, but she acted, rather than closing her eyes to the rotting foundations around her."

"And she failed," Hinata sighed. "Maybe this is the only way the world can be made right again. Mundane means aren't enough, so the world needs Precure again. Don't you want to believe in that? Believe that there's a way out of all this pain and all this decay, of watching the world die in front of us?"

"Hinata," Chiyu took her hand, not without gentleness. "Is that what you want to believe? Or… Could it be that you want to believe that you can be a Precure again?"

Against her best efforts, Hinata let out an embarrassed yelp, having never gotten used to being read so easily by others, especially Chiyu. She had never grown past this, even when others told her it wasn't adult of her to have such exaggerated reactions to anything and everything. It made her feel stupid - more stupid than she felt all the time, that is.

"It's humiliating," she wanted to hide her face from her dearest, closest friends. "I don't want to say yes, but it's plain to see, isn't it…? Life hasn't… Hasn't exactly gone to plan after… Well, after everything."

That was twenty years ago. It was the smaller part of her life, now, yet it felt more real than whatever this life was. When Hinata thought of the past, her past, it was her younger self that she missed, that she saw herself as, not this husk she'd become. She wasn't hollow, back then. She wasn't a failure, but a hero, a savior. After that, nothing had gone well.

"I didn't do any of it right," she admitted, speaking softly now, a confession. "You guys have your lives now. Hell, most of the Precure do. So many are married, lots even have children. All I have are bills I can't pay, mold on my walls and a lot of guilt and shame. Isn't that funny? Did you know that you're not supposed to put "savior of the world" in your resume? That's not worth shit. We got some medals a long time ago, that's it. I sold mine to pay for my cat's surgery ten years ago, you know?"

"Hinata…" Nodoka stepped closer to her, and Hinata was thankful that her eyes showed not pity but love. Pity hurt her. "You could have always counted on us…"

"No, I couldn't," she said, the bitterness quickly turning to sadness. "No one wants to be a burden, even someone as lowly as I am. And I never wanted to admit any of this."

"The Lumina Foundation could have helped you," said Asumi, as though Hinata had never thought of it herself. "It's the entire reason it was founded, to-"

"I know. To support all Precure, since the world just abandoned us to fend for ourselves," said Hinata. "That's little comfort, you know. I don't want to live on handouts, no matter what you try to make them sound like. I… I can't bear it. I can't bear the thought of walking up to Madoka, to Karen, to Reika, all of them wealthy and successful and respected, shaking a little beggar's bowl asking them for scraps."

"You know that's not what it's like," said Asumi. "It's not charity. It's Precure looking out for each other."

They didn't get it. Of course they wouldn't. They weren't failures like Hinata, who couldn't keep a job for longer than a year or even graduate because she was too busy crying herself to sleep every night. They didn't know the shame of being looked down upon, so of course this seemed like the simplest, easiest thing in the world to them.

Then, instead of more meaningless words, Nodoka offered Hinata something she actually needed. She put her arms around her, a gesture immediately returned, though it took all of her strength to keep her stupid tears at bay. She understood, then, that even if her own reasons were not quite the same as Hinata's, her life not a meaningless, worthless thing, Nodoka held on to the same hope that Hinata did, this hope met with such scorn in Chiyu's eyes. It made her wonder just how many of the others around were just as hopeful, just as frightened, just as broken.