[Epilogue 1] I love you

“You might be the most reckless human being I have ever met in my entire life.” My head was throbbing, but I just about made out the words I heard when my consciousness first came back to me. “Do you know how many floors I had to search through to find you?”

“Toki…”

“The answer is all of them, Fuji. You fell through 190 god damn floors. The fact that you’re alive is a fucking miracle, woman.”

Despite the pounding in my head, I just about opened my eyes and looked up to see Toki’s face, drenched in blood. I wasn’t sure who that blood belonged to.

Judging by how close she was, she was probably bridal-carrying me out of the wreckage.

Damn. I’d hoped to save that for the wedding night.

“Toki… did you…”

“...yeah. Aki’s gone.”

“And Space?”

“Time dragged him away somewhere at the start of the fight. I haven’t seen either of them since. But… I believe in her.”

“I see… that’s good…” God, my head was fucking killing me. I could hardly even be glad. “And… Ryou and Nabiki?”

Her face went sombre, and she gently shook her head.

“I… can’t tell exactly what happened. But it looks like Ryou sacrificed herself to kill Z, and Nabiki did the same for W. We… owe them both our lives. And we’ll never get to repay that debt.”

Toki looked on the verge of tears. My heart hurt just looking at her. And damn, I can’t say I wasn’t gonna miss those two as well. Especially after everything they did for us.

“...our work isn’t done yet, y’know,” she said after an agonising silence. “The corpos aren’t gonna just grow hearts and lift the slums out of poverty. We’ve cut the serpent’s head off, but it’s body is still gonna thrash like hell.”

“So much for our early retirement I guess,” I chuckled. An action that I immediately regretted, as it caused an immense pain in my chest.

“Once all this business is done… when we’re sure we’ve left the world a better, fairer place than it was when started… I still intend to marry you. We’ll get our quiet life together, one way or another.”

“I’ll be waiting with bated breath.” Before coming back to Toki, I really never thought I would even entertain the idea. Me, sitting out from the fight? That just didn’t seem in character. But with her… suddenly it all sounded so appealing. Like it’s all I had ever really wanted. “Hey, Toki?”

“Yeah?”

“...I love you.”

“...I know.”