The Life that Could Have Been

Six weeks since appearing

Nishimura walked into the ICU wing, where the patient he was calling "Akiko Ishitobi" had been transferred to. In the past few weeks and enough blood and plasma transfusions, the patient seemed to finally be responding to supporting care, though still remaining in a coma. Of concern to him was the EEG readings they were recording; when they had first gotten her set up, they were seeing a surprising amount of activity, suggesting that she was going through some kind of traumatic experiences, which was highly unusual in a coma.

By this point, he had identified and confirmed that the poison was primarily a nerve agent, attacking the neuropathways and brain functions. Assuming he was correct, in low doses, this compound would probably cause hallucinations, memory distortions or possibly revival of past traumas. Higher doses would shut down the nervous system completely, causing rapid and certain death, which was probably what the assailants were going for.

He greeted the night staff nurse, "Good morning, any change in our mystery patient?"

"Her brain activity has continued to stabilize," the nurse reported. "Whatever's going on in her head, maybe the worst of the storm is fading."

"Have anyone heard from Dr. Sato?"

"We received word that he should be arriving before noon."

Dr. Nishimura breathed a sigh of relief. Once he had a chance to go over this substance with an expert, he had hopes he would be able to tackle the worst of the problems, then finally start making progress.

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Mitsuha opened her eyes once again in fearful anticipation... another unfamiliar ceiling... where am I now...? She sat up and looked around; she had been in a bed, in what appeared to be a well-furnished apartment bedroom. Just next to the bed was a desk with a stack of textbooks and a satchel. Getting out of bed, she examined the stack more closely... 'Japanese National Government', 'Political Science', 'Advanced Constitutional Law'... was someone studying to be a lawyer here? She then looked at the satchel and froze at the butterfly patch and the name "Mitsuha Yamano" embroidered on the back. What the hell was going on...?!

"Mitsuha, are you up yet?"

Micchan...?! Mitsuha recognized her voice instantly coming from the next room. The door opened and her childhood best friend poked her head into the room, with a mixture of bemusement and confusion.

"Oi, oi... you and Ken-kun must have partied hard last night," Michiko said with a mischievous shake of her head. "Well, coffee's in the pot and there's a couple biscuits in the oven. I gotta meet Takemori-sensei before class so I'll see you tonight. Ja ne!"

"Wai...!" Mitsuha barely managed to get out of her throat, but not before Michiko had left the apartment. This... can't... be... happening...! She got up and looked around the apartment; all around the furniture and on the walls, she saw framed photographs of both the Yamano and Nakamura families and their friends from years past, along with miscellaneous personal items she recognized belonging either to herself or Micchan. She then dug through the backpack that was ostensively belonged to her. In it, she found a few notebooks, a smartphone, a tablet, and a pencil case that she recognized as her belongings.

This apartment... her parents and the Nakamura's had talked about getting an apartment for the two girls once they both got into college. But this isn't right! I failed the entrance exam because... because... Mitsuha began to shiver as the memories of that awful night came back... and yet... here I am. And who was... 'Ken-kun'? She turned on her smartphone and blinked at the lockscreen. It showed a picture of herself grinning and flashing a 'V' with her right two fingers, and a handsome young man with his arm draped over her in an affectionate manner making a similar hand gesture. I have no idea who this is... is that who I would have met... had things not gone horribly wrong?

Mitsuha unlocked her phone and pulled up her calendar, which listed her classes for the day, then looked at the stack of books. Sure enough, the listed classes lined up with the textbooks... so those were her's... or were supposed to be. I'm a Pre-Law major? She knew Micchan... at least in the timeline she knew... was an Economics major.

Mitsuha opened the oven and pulled out the tray of biscuits, sniffed one, and took a bite. Shichi-mi tōgarashi biscuit with cinnamon sugar butter... yup, that's one of Micchan's biscuits all right. If this is some kind of trick, they've covered the details. She finished the biscuit, poured a cup of coffee, and looked back to her phone, opening up the list of contacts and started scrolling through. She stopped on an entry... 'Kenji Yamazaki', and opened the contact. There were a ton of text messages and phone call history. A quick review revealed a fairly typical back-and-forth of social interactions and get togethers dating back to the beginning of the semester. It looks like things hadn't gotten serious just yet, at least not if I'm reading these right... wait a minute...! What am I saying... none of this is real! This was some kind of fever dream... or induced nightmare...! It just has to be, right...? This couldn't be real... could it...?

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Dr. Tatsuya Sato arrived in Fujikawa Hospital and walked to the administrator's office to check with the staff and present his credentials. He was Otsuki's best medical toxicologist, specializing in clinical research and the development of cutting-edge anti-toxin treatments. Upon arrival, he was pointed to the ICU department and notified that people were waiting for him there.

Upon arrival, Dr. Nishimura shook hands with Dr. Sato, "Thank you for coming."

"Your case sounded rather dire," Dr. Sato observed. He took a moment to look around the room; in addition to his colleague from Otsuki, Dr. Minatsuki and a few nurses were present, but more notably, so were some of the local police, which made his face grimace. "Is there something relevant you left off your referral?"

After a brief pause, Dr. Minatsuki chimed in. "A firearm was found at the scene in her possession.

That earned a tsk and a shake of the head from Sato. "So, there might be a criminal element involved? Is this poison some kind of assassination attempt?"

"I don't have the details," Nishimura replied. Which was entirely true, he thought, since he honestly had no idea what plight Lady Yamano had escaped from. "We're not entirely sure the pistol's even her's since it apparently wasn't fired, nor was there any evidence connecting them such as fingerprints or powder burns. But even if it does belong to her, which is something we can determine later, all of that is irrelevant if she doesn't survive."

Sato shrugged, "True enough, I suppose. What do you have so far?"

Nishimura produced a stack of medical reports, along with some notes he had written from his initial attempts at analyzing the toxin's effects on organic tissues. "We have a limited amount to work with, and this compound appears to be... highly unusual in how it reacts to the traditional methods to counter it."

Sato read through the high points of the patient and toxicology reports and frowned. He would need some time to go through the details, but he was already not liking what he saw. "Any idea where this attack took place? I mean... where they got the poison?"

"She was found just a few blocks from here," Minatsuki clarified. "The police so far haven't found any signs of the attackers though... no additional footprints at the scene during the initial canvas, despite the significant amount of blood spilled... no sign that she had been dragged or transported... it's as if she had just appeared out of thin air, dying of her wounds and dropped on the ground."

Probably exactly what happened, Nishimura thought, but couldn't say, so he changed the topic. "As for the poison and why it's so virulent and unusual, I have a working theory. Tell me, Dr. Sato... what do you know about 'dragon research'?"

Sato blinked at the term. Roughly a year ago, research started circulating among the scientific community about a mercenary team bringing back the body of an actual dragon, rumored to be from 'another world'. Since then, academic and industrial papers had been quietly published detailing the research and development of revolutionary new inventions, products and discoveries from those materials*. As this was already public knowledge, Nishimura figured he could let this little nugget slip without violating his oath to the Viscountess.

* see Manga Chp49 / LN Chp20

"You're suggesting... this poison is a product of otherworldly biological components," Sato mused.

"Think about it," Nishimura offered. "The toxin acts contrary to standard protocols, doesn't react to organic chemicals in a manner consistent with most other toxins, and doesn't show up on any of the known databases. That means it's either something Top Secret, from a military lab perhaps, something natural that hasn't been discovered yet, which I find highly unlikely, or..."

"Or it's from that other world, where dragons are a real thing," Sato finished the thought. "If that's actually true, then using a toxin out in public like this would be a massive breach in isolation protocol. Any animal, plant or even base component from another world needs to be isolated to prevent possible contamination into the eco-sphere. Bad enough it's affecting one person; the risk becomes far greater if it spreads beyond this point."

"I agree," Nishimura nodded. "That's why I believe it's important to develop a working anti-serum for this toxin. More than just saving Ishitobi-san, if this toxin has been used once, it's possible for more cases out there."

"Just a minute," Minatsuki chimed in. She had kept quiet when the conversation had veered off into what she felt was science fiction territory, but at some point, she felt the need to assert herself. "You're suggesting there may be more cases of this... unknown poisoning out there?"

"No, I'm not saying that," Nishimura clarified. "In fact, I really hope we never see this substance ever again. But the fact that someone out there chose to use it once means the medical community needs to be prepared as a whole for that possibility. Baseline research to these kinds of biological compounds will allow us to respond quicker if that eventuality does occur."

Dr. Sato leafed through the rest of the document while they spoke, then sighed. "You said you have an actual sample of the toxin separated from her blood?"

Nishimura nodded. "It's in protective isolation in the lab. We don't have enough to do actual animal testing, but judging from its molecular composition, we can surmise how it works."

Sato frowned. "Without animal testing, it could take several weeks... maybe months to develop a working anti-serum from scratch."

Ouch... months... Nakamura grimaced. He knew it was going to be challenging, but he didn't think it would be that long. Even if Lady Yamano did eventually survive and wake up, she's looking at a very long recovery. People who woke up from extended comas would inevitably need physical therapy, assuming they didn't suffer long-lasting brain damage. Some patients sadly never regained their full mobility. We'll do our part, but I sure hope that healing power you spoke about is up to the task of finishing the job of getting you back to full health.

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Sergeant Kobayashi read the canvasing report for the third time that day, looking for anything he might have overlooked. He had visited the reported site where the victim, now identified as 'Akiko Ishitobi' had been discovered and looked around himself, but by then, the local weather had rendered any chance of incidental DNA or clues all but worthless. Too many passersby had rendered the scene useless; even if he did find anything, the evidentiary chain had been broken long ago and nothing would have stood up in court. Running the name through the system had been equally of no value; just some local high school girl in the Otsuki region, with no criminal record. One might question why she was in Fujikawa and her listed age being 18 made him raise an eyebrow, given her youthful appearance, but those were hardly crimes, and with it only an hour away by car or train, there were no doubt a limitless number of plausible reasons. Nonetheless, even if it was for his own curiosity, he had to try.

The one bit of good news that had come back in the intervening weeks was he finally had an answer to the strange gold and silver coins Ishitobi-san was carrying. His investigative team had finally traced the design of the coins to match the coins that were flooding the international black market the past year or so, suspected to have been professionally laundered by an overseas private military company called "Wolf Fang", which had rumored connections to the whispered "Princess Nanoha". While he scoffed at the notion of an otherworldly magical princess... sounded like silly anime nonsense... the notion of laundered money was certainly real enough. So, our girl victim had somehow gotten her hands on black market precious metal currency, in addition to the pistol. She was beginning to look more and more like someone connected to the underworld, despite the clean record. To him, that meant her attempted murder was almost certainly a professional hit, which meant solving it was more important than just some random street crime.

He stood at the site where the girl was apparently first discovered; it was an alleyway between two buildings directly across the street from the Hoshibi Bank*. He frowned; this made no sense. From this angle, we can see the bank's surveillance cameras pointed right this way. We know this incident was no mere robbery gone wrong; the sheer brutality, unusual weapon and poison made it clear this was an assassination attempt. But no one in their right mind would conduct such an action right in view of a bank's surveillance cameras, unless they deliberately wanted to be caught. He thought for a moment... did anyone actually...?

* see Anime Epi2

Kobayashi stood up and walked across the street and entered the bank. A bank officer soon approached him. "May I help you?"

Kobayashi produced his badge. "Sergeant Seiryu Kobayashi, I'm following up on an investigation of a crime from a few weeks ago. Has anyone from the police department come to you requesting security footage from that time period?"

The bank officer called for the branch manager and repeated the question. The manager shook his head, "I'm sorry Sergeant, I don't recall anyone's actually come to us about that incident. I do remember seeing an ambulance and police response sometime that morning, but the local patrol didn't come to us."

Kobayashi silently cursed... talk about a missed opportunity. "Would it be possible to pull up archival footage from that time period for the two cameras pointing towards the street? It could provide us with vital clues on solving an unknown murder attempt."

The bank manager and loan officer both blanched at the mention of 'murder'; in their peaceful town, such acts were extremely rare. They had heard of the occasional robbery or an argument getting out of control, but full-scale murder was almost unthinkable, so the manager nodded. "Our security officer will provide you a copy of what you need."

____________________________________________________________________________________

Inspector Aozuka tried to relax as he ate his lunch at the Carina Il Chianti, a small little eatery featuring Italian food, featuring dine-in and delivery. Being an Italian restaurant, it was one of the few places being of European ancestry wouldn't stick out quite as much, as several of the foreign tourists and businessmen often dropped by in an attempt to find a piece of home. Aozuka shook his head... didn't make sense to me... if you're going to take the time and expense of coming to Japan, why not try our food as well... but it's their money, so to each their own.

"Inspector, thank you for taking the time to meet with me," came an English voice from behind him.

Aozuka turned around, nodded and gestured to the empty chair. "Please, by all means," he offered in accented English. He rarely spoke the language, but just knowing it had been useful for getting ahead in his career, opening doors that would have otherwise not been available.

Dmitry Ivanov smiled and took a seat. The dirty little secret was that he was actually fluent in Japanese, but had hidden it most of the time. This had afforded him quite a few opportunities to eavesdrop on the unsuspecting locals, who would continue their sensitive conversations in front of the 'ignorant foreigner'. "I'm so happy you could take the time to meet like this. Have you been here before?"

Aozuka shook his head; truthfully, he preferred his own country's food. "I'm afraid I've not had the chance."

Ivanov nodded, "Their beef tongue with Marsala wine is very good. If you'd like something lighter, then maybe one of their risotto dishes."

Aozuka settled for the garlic chicken, while Ivanov order the beef. Such was the benefits of having the ability to expense his meals to the Embassy when on official business. "So... how are things?" Ivanov started off lightly.

Aozuka tilted his head, then lowered his voice. "What you're asking for... " he trailed off and sighed. "Can you at least say what this person has done? If there's an actual crime involved, that would make it easier to obtain a detention warrant."

Ivanov regarded the man with an outward friendliness that both men knew to be fake and clicked his tongue. "Well, I don't have the specifics, but I do have something you can use." He produced a file that had recently been obtained by ELINT or electronic intelligence. "It's recently been brought to our attention that the package is a suspected member of organized crime, and that they had a falling out due to some turf wars. Their condition is a result of what we believe to be a botched assassination attempt." He smiled with satisfaction; some of that was true, but a lot more was... embellished for the Inspector's benefit.

"I see," Aozuka muttered. He picked up the file and leafed through it. He had no idea who this 'Akiko Ishitobi' was and why the Russians wanted her so badly. And he knew it had to be very important to them; otherwise, he would be meeting with a low-level officer right now, and not the Embassy Station Chief himself. "I may need some... additional resources to make this happen. What kind of time table are you looking for?"

"I have officers already in town ready to receive the package and accompany it out of the country. Succeed in this, and I'll make sure that you'll be well rewarded for your efforts."

Aozuka nodded; it's not like he had any real choice. If he objected in any real way, one anonymous release and his career, not to mention his life was ruined, never mind what his family would go through. Why did I take that money? He shook his head... it was far too late for regrets. All he could do at this point was live with the consequences of his choices.

____________________________________________________________________________________

"... and make sure to be ready for the quiz next week," Professor Yamakawa announced. "Class dismissed."

The bell rang as the class stood up almost as one, all around Mitsuha who had been among the throng of students. In front of her was a notebook and a digital audio recorder. She looked down on the notebook; there were notes in her handwriting, highlighting the key points of a discussion of Japanese Constitutional Law. She packed up her satchel almost in a daze and slowly walked out of the classroom and into the hallway... this all had to be some kind of dream... a fantasy... a life that might have been, had things... taken a different turn...

Mitsuha's phone chirped, signaling an incoming text. Out of reflex, she opened the app and stopped in her tracks as she read the message... "Looking forward to tonight!😜"--Tsuyoshi Yamano. Her blood ran cold as her heart began to pound... for all the loss from her family tragedy, losing Tsuyoshi-oniichan hit the hardest. She had often thought that had he survived, the pain would have been so much easier to bear. And now...? The thought of seeing him again...? She checked her phone's calendar... "Apartment warming party, 7:30pm" showed the listing near the bottom of the day's schedule, with shared calendar entries to Micchan, the Nakamuras and... the Yamano family.

Do I... do I really want to be there? See the faces of my family again... even though I know they've been gone for more than a year? It took so much of myself to get past that trauma... to make a new life. Nothing but pain can come from going to this party, but... just the chance to hear Okaasan's sweet voice one more time... to feel Otoosan's strong hand of assurance on my shoulder... hear one more random tidbit of trivial from Oniichan... do I really want to miss the chance for that?

"Oi, Yamano-san, I'm glad I caught you; a moment?" Coming from the classroom, Mitsuha saw Professor Yamakawa coming towards her, with books under his arm.

"Ah, un, of course sensei," Mitsuha acknowledged and bowed briefly.

"I had a chance to review your team paper on historic governmental influences and how they shaped modern law and wanted to give you my critiques for your group presentation next week," the older man said pleasantly as he handed Mitsuha a small stack of papers. "Overall, I think your team is on the right track. I've attached a few recommended sources to reinforce your premises, and annotated my suggestions on the side."

Mitsuha glanced at the sheet and nodded, then bowed again, "Thank you sensei, I'll bring them to our study group. We'll be ready for the class presentation next week."

"I'm sure you will," Yamakawa said pleasantly. "After all, can't let the Kingdom fall, can we?" he added lightly.

Mitsuha's head snapped up and whispered sharply, "Wh... what did you say...?"

Yamakawa gestured at the stack of papers. "Your Kingdom... the one in your presentation... bad law has led to anarchy many times in history. If someone's not there to save it..." he shrugged, "...who knows what'll happen, eh?" He smiled, then turned and walked away, with his next class already in mind.

Mitsuha stood in the hallway as students, teaching assistants and staff flowed around her like a stone in a river. That's right... the Kingdom... if I'm living my life here... then that means... She shuddered slightly as her breath became unsteady. If everything else remained the same... She shook her head... but there's no way to know that... in fact, changing one thing means everything else downstream from that could change. Was it arrogant to believe that the fate of the Zegleus kingdom depended solely on me? Maybe if I had never gone there, the invasion wouldn't have happened? Or it would have been stopped earlier at the borders? Or the various nobles who betrayed the King would have remained loyal... who knows?

She leaned against the hallway wall and slid down to a seated position on the floor. The assuredness that she felt that this was all a fever dream was slowly beginning to fade into doubts... two years ago, she didn't believe in alternate worlds, yet now they were a regular part of her life. Things that would have once been considered madness had become her daily norm. Was it possible this... other life... was just another world...?

____________________________________________________________________________________

Sergeant Kobayashi poured himself a fresh cup of tea as the IT technician from the precinct took the thumb drive from him and prepared to upload it to the station servers for his review. He looked slightly guiltily at the growing stack of case files on his desk; virtually all of them were the run-of-the-mill citizen complaints of petty theft, minor property damage and the very rare assault. Those cases needed solving as well of course, but these couple of weeks, he had been passing them off to other members of the precinct, as he focused his energies on this particular case. He told himself and others of the department that a murder as gruesome this needed priority, lest it happen again... sometimes he even started to believe it. He sighed... this case better get a break soon, or he'd be facing some uncomfortable questions from his supervisors. For them, it was a numbers game, and his were falling behind because of this.

"You're ready to go," the tech chimed, with a thumbs up.

Kobayashi tapped the keyboard to open up the video viewer and started the surveillance file. For the first several minutes, nothing of note happened, as the sunset slowly came down to the right of the screen. Then, just as the last of the sky faded to night, he saw it; what the hell...? He hit the pause key and clicked the feed back a minute and played it again. There! He blinked; was he seeing things? On the video screen, he saw the girl seemingly appear out of thin air and immediately collapse into a heap. But where did she come from? Where were her attackers? There was no sign of any prior transport, attack, nor other persons. Truthly, it looked like a video glitch more than anything, so he motioned for the tech.

"Yeah, what's up?"

"Did you have any issues uploading those files from Hoshibi Bank? Maybe some kind of file corruption or something like that?" Kobayashi asked.

The tech shrugged and shook his head, "Not as far as I could tell. They uploaded just like any other file, no errors on the log."

"Take a look at this." Kobayashi cued the feed up from the beginning and allowed it to play. When it got to the critical section, he pointed at the screen. "Tell me that doesn't look like a glitch."

The tech frowned. "Let me take a look." Kobayashi obliged, allowing the tech to take his seat. The younger man restarted the feed, and activated a few advanced features, including a scrolling timestamp, and digital framing. When they got to the key moment again, he stepped through the sequence frame-by-frame, making a note of the time, then shook his head. "Nothing's missing from this feed; if there had been a file corruption, we'd have some dropped frames and distortions, but there's nothing here. This feed has all its frames, down to the tenths of a second, with no drops."

"Then explain that," Kobayashi pointed at the screen captures, showing an empty alley, followed by the girl appearing in the very next frame.

"Best guess... this feed's been digitally altered, and from the looks of it, by someone who knows what they're doing. Normally when people try video editing to remove existing objects from a feed, they leave artifices on the image, inconsistent lighting and shadows that don't match the original image." He looked at the image again and frowned. "There's no sign of that here... that's the work of a pro... unless you believe that girl just appeared out of thin air."

Kobayashi gritted his teeth and shook his head... what the hell was going on...? First, there's an assassination attempt with seeming connects to organized crime, and now a professional-level cover up of the evidence. Have I stumbled onto something far larger than just a small-town grievance?

____________________________________________________________________________________

Mitsuha waved goodbye to a group of three other students as she left the library. Somehow, she had known their names and recent history working together... or maybe it was just more of her imagination filling in the gaps? She had shown Yamakawa-sensei's suggestions to the rest of her team, and they had spent the last two hours in one of the University libraries reworking sections of their presentation scheduled for next week. From an outsider's point of view, it looked like a fairly solid presentation of how the rise and fall of historical governments gave rise to the concepts and codifications of modern law as they were known today. Why, it even gave a hypothetical example, presenting a Kingdom... where the lack of... certain houses, led to the rise of an... Empire... Mitsuha's thoughts trailed off from there. Was her mind playing tricks on her? Or warning her of the truth of what was going on? Part of her wanted so dearly for this life to be true, and yet, so much of her kept drifting back to that... other life.

Mitsuha slowly walked up to the apartment that somehow looked familiar and unknown to her at the same time. This was one of the places where we were talking about choosing, right about a year before the... tragedy. She saw in the parking lot that the Nakamura's were already there and the light coming from the window made it clear that Micchan had already returned from her classes; no doubt setting up for the dinner for both families. She went up the stairs and opened the door. "I'm back," she announced.

"Hey, just in time," Michiko called out. "Can you pull the onigiri out of the refrigerator and start warming those up? I'm working on these tonkatsu. Also, the curry terrine should be ready too, if you want to pull that out."

"Ah, sure..." Mitsuha said as she headed to the kitchen. Memories of so many years of similar times when the two of them worked together in kitchens all flooded back. Looking on with fondness, the Nakamura parents smiled at seeing the girls prepare dinner.

"Oh my... with two such skilled chefs living here under the same roof, it's going to be difficult not to put on weight with so much good food," Mrs. Nakamura said with an amused but proud expression.

"Okaasan...!" Michiko retorted indignantly.

"Now, I'm sure they'll be fine dear," Mr. Nakamura said.

As he said that, Mitsuha pulled the terrine out, then noticed the Japanese chestnut cream cake roll on the top shelf. That's right... Micchan made that last night in preparation for tonight. She smiled a little... not sure I pull that out now after that little quip from her mom... but it would taste better at room temperature... too cold and the flavors would be flat, so she decided it would be worth the chance.

The Nakamura's watched as Mitsuha placed the richly frosted roll on a serving plate. Mrs. Nakamura looked at Michiko with a knowing expression, which caused Michiko to give Mitsuha a cross-eyed look. "Really...?"

"Well..." Mitsuha said, with her hand behind her head with embarrassment, "it does taste better when near room temperature."

Just then came a knock at the door. Mitsuha froze, knowing who it had to be, which left Mr. Nakamura to respond. "I'll get it." He walked to the door and opened it. Although she couldn't see the front from the kitchen, Mitsuha could hear the voices of her parents and Mr. Nakamura greeting each other, and the latter man welcomed the family in, along with... Tsuyoshi. Her breath became shallow as the voices came closer until they came into the main room in view of the kitchen.

"Oh, there you are...!" Mrs. Yamano declared and came to greet the two girls. Michiko immediately bowed and gave her a quick hug, but Mitsuha stood frozen with her jaw slack. It just felt so... right... this moment... with the six of them all together, as they had so many times growing up. Her eyes began to well up; just hearing her parents voices again after so long. The notion that all of this was just a fever dream slowly faded...

"O-okaasan... Otoosan..." Mitsuha came forward to hug them both. The sounds and scents from her parents, almost forgotten by this point came flooding back as her parents hugged her back. Then came the moment she both feared and longed for...

"Hey, save some for me," Tsuyoshi said, with a box in his hand.

"O-oniichan..." Mitsuha whispered, then hugged Tsuyoshi and began to cry.

"Hey there..." Tsuyoshi gave Mitsuha a reassuring pat. "You're acting like we haven't seen each other in years."

"I... " Mitsuha shook her head. How can I possibly explain it...? Does it even matter at this moment...?

"Oh, I got you something for your apartment," Tsuyoshi declared and handed the box over, revealing a snow globe, displaying a medieval castle. "Pretty sweet, eh?"

"Um... " Mitsuha's eyes looked over the castle in the globe... it looked strangely familiar... but...

"What do you think? It's a first-edition castle from that latest RPG set," Tsuyoshi beamed proudly.

"It... it's very pretty," Mitsuha said, then put it on a shelf with other decorative ornaments. "I'm... so happy to see you here..."

"Come on... do you think I'd ever miss this? I told you," Tsuyoshi said as he hugged Mitsuha. "I'll always be here for you, Imoto-chan..."