After a certain ending where Hiruko burned to death in the company of the one she loved, she spends the beginning of her next chance checking up on Takumi.
For unrelated reasons, of course.
The sensation of burning to death somehow managed to evade Hiruko no matter what. Sad, really. It was the only punishment the universe dared to give her.
At least, to her memory. In every failed timeline, whenever she found herself unlucky enough to be trapped on the surface of Futurum when the missiles touched ground, her memories cut out right as the flames immersed her, turning a living breathing body into dust—no, not even that.
Rendered to nothingness, as nothing as the time they spent in that loop. Before the reset—before she remembered on Day 3. She spent the night drenched in sweat as she tossed and turned in bed. In most loops, the day she remembered it all brought a sense of deathly resignation in her. It only changed the meaning of these moments. It only brought a sense of emptiness—never dread for what came next.
But last time.
Amidst the kiss she shared with Takumi as the world burned, as his devoured brain kept the vestiges of the G’ie at bay.
The G’ie which traveled through time…
She shot out of bed.
She needed to make sure.
She had to make sure.
And so—
“Shizuhara?”
Takumi rubbed his tired eyes as he opened the door, first a sliver, then entirely at the sight of the woman before him. He relaxed into a smile—a smile Hiruko’s seen too many times to elicit much from her.
She nodded. “Sumino. I need to speak with you.”
Her urgency shone through: he yawned and let her in. She zipped past him and went for the shower, taking off the vent cover as Takumi snapped back to the living world and slammed the door shut.
“Hey—what’re you—hey!” He went over and grabbed her shoulder, but she brushed him off with ease and pried the cover off fully, sticking her head in and looking for anything incriminating.
Of course no one died yet, but for all she knew, the G’ie could have already started to stockpile weapons to finish the slaughter faster. Someone could be dead now, she could’ve been the next target.
She gasped; turned around to an exasperated Takumi.
“If my air conditioning’s broken, can’t it wait ‘till tomorrow?” he grumbled, not an iota of change in his demeanor. Hiruko waited for something to happen. Waited too long, if Takumi’s sigh told her anything. “What’re you up to?”
Hiruko hopped down and looked Takumi in the eye. In his empty, empty eyes. Eyes which carried the same feelings Takumi did during every loop’s beginning, knowing so much yet holding steadfast to ignorance.
Did those eyes hold their angel of death?
Did his grimace hold another doomed timeline?
And if it did…
Did it matter?
Did Hiruko care?
No—of course she did. Last time…only happened because it was a doomed timeline. She had to tell herself that. She needed to tell herself that now, if she didn’t want this nice, normal conversation with Takumi to break down utterly.
She shook her head.
“I thought I heard something skittering around,” she said. “Maybe an invader slipped in somehow and planned to take us out in our sleep.”
“Oh.” Takumi smiled. “I mean, nothing like that happened the first time around. So we’ll be fine. But, just in case…” He cupped his chin in his hands. “We could make some rounds? Dunno if everyone’ll appreciate being woken up, but we gotta do what we can to win this war without losing anyone.”
She tried not to laugh when he said that.
A timeline with no one lost—so gentle and malleable, and so useless of a wish. Anger flashed in Takumi’s eyes, and he crossed his arms.
“Hey, I’m serious. Let’s just—” he moved past Hiruko, toward the door, and threw it open, exasperation leaving with every breath, “—let’s just go.”
“Hmph.”
“What’s that mean!?”
“What’s what mean?”
“C’mon, Hiruko.” Takumi yawned. “It’s too early for this.”
“Too early for what?”
“To play twenty questions!”
“I’m only asking questions that need immediate answers.”
“And I need you to answer my questions first.”
“What questions?”
“The…”
Hiruko relished in the moment where Takumi’s brain short-circuited. His half-lidded eyes brought a smile out of her—a real smile. He snapped back to reality just in time for someone else’s door to open.
“What’s with all the noise?” Takemaru grumbled, cleaning out the inside of his ear. “Did you two spot an invader? I’ll kick it into the Wall of Flames myself if it’ll quiet things around here! We gotta get our eight hours if we’re gonna be ready to go!”
“Hey, we haven’t seen any yet,” Takumi began, only for his uncertainty to pull another outburst out of Takemaru. Hiruko stepped away as the two talked, Takumi trying and failing to calm down an agitated Takemaru as more doors opened and more annoyed voices lashed out at the two. She gripped the fence, eyes locked onto the satellite, their guillotine hanging over their heads, eager to taste flesh, neck—bone.
They’d never get there.
No matter how hard they tried, they’d never become part of it. Sometimes Hiruko wondered if the only endings which meant anything were the ones where they died before they ever grasped the hope of making it back.
But. Regardless. However.
She had nowhere else to aim. Nowhere but that beautiful light—amidst the darkness and searing flames.
She kept an eye on Takumi for the next two weeks before she gave up. Though his cognitive functions displayed an odd decline, and he passed out a bit too long sometimes for Hiruko to register it as normal, he showed no symptoms of G’ie possession. And, when people died, they died to the Futurans, or to a trap, a surprise, a disease, someone else. Takumi never had anything to do with it. She saw no possibility of it.
Perhaps the G’ie consciousness failed to sustain itself across another leap. Or maybe it laid stagnant, until Hiruko let her guard down. Maybe in another loop, he’d become infected again, and she’d watch as it ate Takumi inside and out to the point where he never returned again.
Maybe.
Time would carry her forward no matter what, though. And if that dreadful thing seized him again, she’d be there. Waiting.
Waiting for a precious moment between the two of them, blood-stained hand with blood-stained hand.