The room resembled a ward in a mental asylum. The floor, walls, and even the ceiling were covered with soft padding.

  In the middle of this soft room, measuring five square meters, lay a disfigured body that looked like a long-decayed corpse, with protruding bones and torn flesh. It only vaguely resembled a human being, as its limbs were twisted at unnatural angles and its mouth was torn open to its ears.

  It writhed and screamed with its mouth, wanting to break free from this shell where it felt nothing but pain.

  All four of them watched, wounded and exhausted after the battle. Tsuna and Makoto, clearly unprepared, had frozen expressions of horror and disbelief that someone could turn a human being into something like this.

  Suoh barely managed to hide the pain showing on his face, and it was not because of his injuries.

  Only Minato stood with a blank expression, showing absolutely nothing. After all, he had seen it in a photograph. And such a sight was by no means rare in the past.

  The hideous, rotten-fleshed creature that had once been just a little girl was screaming. Pitifully, painfully, trapped in a cocoon of misery and pain. The sight of it made Minato's heart ache.

  The daughter of Suoh and Aranagi, the reason why the latter was willing to walk over dead bodies, no matter what.

  “I'm sorry, I'll try to make it quick and painless.” Minato said with a deep breath, looking at what was once a human being.

  Clenching his bandaged, blackened hand, black sparks burst from his fist, bringing death.

  A clap of thunder rang out in the room, along with a scream full of pain.

  Aranagi slowly opened her eyes, which seemed to burn with a scarlet flame.

  She expected to see the gray ceiling of a prison cell, or to be strapped to a couch before receiving a lethal injection. But all she saw was the white ceiling of a single hospital room.

  The bright midday sun shone through the slightly open window, from which a faint breeze blew.

  At the slightest attempt to move, a piercing pain paralyzed her, like a reminder of what she had done. The realization that she had lost weighed heavily on her. Every sacrifice she had made on this path of self-destruction had been in vain.

  "I wouldn't move if I were you, the wounds could open at any moment. Your body is like a mosaic held together with old glue." muttered the bandaged guy sitting next to her, his face covered with a half-read issue of Jump.

  On the table next to him was a half-empty bowl of candy. The person responsible for stealing the other half was sitting on a chair next to her, not even thinking of hiding.

  “If you keep eating so many sweets, you'll have diabetes by the time you're twenty.” Aranagi said weakly, struggling to sit up. Looking at her watch, she realized she had slept for two days.

  “You're in no position to accuse me of self-destruction. Far from it.” said Minato, grabbing the magazine and placing it next to the bowl.

  Right now, he looked like a mummy that had escaped from a museum. A mummy whose sleep had been interrupted. Aranagi couldn't look at this mummy. She couldn't bring herself to look him in the eye.

  “Are you here to get what you're owed? If so, I won't resist.”

  “You think I’ve got nothing better to do? The serum case is closed, so trying to take my anger out on you would be like kicking a dead horse.” Minato said wearily. He would be lying if he said he didn't feel the slightest bit of anger, but it wasn't directed at her.

  "I think you'll be happy to know that everyone who took the serum is alive and well, with no side effects. They no longer have their abilities, but I'm sure they'll have something to think about.“ Putting his finger to his chin as if thinking, Minato continued, ”Those two Specialists were able to dodge at the last moment and got away with only minor burns and fright, and our names didn't come up anywhere. An ideal outcome, in my opinion.“

  ”Why?“

  ”Huh?“

  ”Why are you having a casual conversation with me as if nothing happened?“ Aranagi asked in a trembling voice. ”I've hurt so many people, including those you care about. I didn't care about morality, I was even ready to kill you.“ Her voice trembled more and more. ”So why don't you just hate me? It will be easier for both of us!"

  It was clear that she simply didn't know how to feel. The reason to fight was gone; she had lost. But the pain was still there. It still tormented her inside. And without a reason to go on, that pain would simply destroy her from within, turning her into a faded, transparent copy of herself.

  Minato just sighed at her desperate question, tapping his bandaged finger on his crippled leg. He didn't have a deep, dramatic reason.

  It was simple and painfully selfish.

  “I don't want to.” Minato replied calmly. “Maybe after what happened, it really will be easier for you to be hated, punished, but I won't give you that privilege.”

  Unwrapping one of the lollipops he had stolen from the bowl a few minutes earlier, he looked at the bright, blinding sun for a second.

  He knew. He knew how painful it was to live with guilt, and part of him wanted to curse. But not Aranagi, but those who were to blame for all this. Kosaku, Zero. All those who remained silent about the atrocities and whose silence only allowed blood to flow like a river.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  He wanted to curse this wrong world, where this was considered the unspoken norm. But not her. Because if it weren't for her, he would never have found his own answer, without which he would not have been able to move on.

  He was selfish, just like her, if not worse. And he was not ashamed of it. Just this understanding that they were no different was enough to keep him from hating her.

  “I think I'm starting to understand.” Minato thought, remembering Aya-nee's words. He looked at Aranagi, who looked as if she was about to break from the despair that had built up over many years.

  “You're in darkness now, aren't you?” Minato asked. Even just blinking, for a moment, he saw impenetrable darkness and mutilated bodies reaching out to him, with a white door visible somewhere in the distance.

  “In the darkness of self-flagellation and hatred, you don't have the strength to go on because you don't consider yourself worthy of it.” Minato said with a slight melancholy and self-flagellation, as if addressing these words to himself.

  “The night is darkest before dawn. And now, in the abyss of regret, closing your eyes, you turn away from the rays of a new day, a new beginning.”

  Her reddened eyes were finally able to look at him. Wounded and tired, he tried to reach her, like a priest reading a sermon.

  "It's not so easy to escape pain and regret. But maybe it's time to accept them, acknowledge them, and move on, no matter how hard it is? To look at the sun with pride that you are still alive, despite the endless darkness? And, as silly as it may sound, just Let It Be?" For a second, it seemed to her that his mouth was about to form a smile, but it was only an illusion.

  Even now, his face was as empty as a doll's.

  He rose from his chair, limping slightly, and headed for the open door. Looking over his shoulder, he looked into her eyes one last time with his dull emerald eyes, from which all life seemed to have been sucked out.

  “If hatred for this world and yourself was your only reason to live, maybe it's time to find a new reason? One that has been there all along?”

  Without letting Aranagi say a word, Minato left the room, allowing Suoh, who was pushing a wheelchair, to enter. The girl sitting in it looked about fourteen years old. With long red hair, she was extremely thin, just skin and bones.

  But she was alive, and with her blue eyes, she looked at the woman lying down. She knew her, knew her better than anyone else. Because despite her ugliness, her deformity, her animal aggression, this woman had always been there. She cared, she loved.

  "... It will be sad if they don't see you next to them when they wake up." Minato's words floated back into her head like a block of ice that wouldn't sink. Hot, salty tears that had accumulated over the years flowed down her face without her consent.

  The girl wanted to say so much, so many words. But only one came out of her mouth, the word she had been trying to say with her broken mouth all these years.

  “Mom...”

  Standing behind the closed door, Minato heard loud crying. Initially, he planned to go in because he had forgotten the unread Jump he had paid for.

  “Damn, it would probably be awkward if I interrupted a touching moment, right?” Minato asked himself, walking away from the door with a frustrated sigh.

  Tsuna and Makoto were standing on the stairs, as if waiting for him. Their faces made Minato expect a barrage of questions.

  “How did you know it would work, MiMi-san?” Tsuna asked in an unnaturally loud voice, his head still splitting as if he had been stuffed into a ringing bell.

  "I didn't know. I just bet that the girl had been transformed by ability. Although, maybe I just wanted a happy ending, I've always liked those.“

  ”Yeah, that's such a phenomenal level of going with the flow that I don't even know whether to admire it or sigh," said Makoto, limping slightly, as she threw Minato a paper envelope like a playing card. “Yours is left.”

  Without asking any questions, Minato opened the envelope with the letter, expecting the worst. Knowing his luck, it could be a declaration of war or a notification that someone had taken out a loan on him.

  "From Suoh Takeshi. Perhaps I owe you the most, as much as I hate to admit it. I wish to thank you...“ Minato didn't read any further, as he immediately tore the letter into dozens of small pieces so that no one could even glue it back together.

  ”I don't even want to think about it," Minato thought irritably, throwing the scraps into the trash can, ignoring the strange looks.

  On leaving the hospital, Makoto separated from the group, saying that she was going to tend to her wounds, but warning Minato that even after seeing his power, she would not give up and would not renounce her claims. But there was no threat in her words, rather a childish playfulness with which she returned to everyday life.

  “And just when I was starting to think better of her, she reverted to the archetype with a personality slightly more complex than a match head,” Minato thought disappointedly, but he would not have accepted any other outcome, because this scenario had become painfully familiar.

  Walking silently down the hot street with Tsuna, who looked depressed.

  “Mimi-san?”

  “Hm?”

  “I want to become stronger. I don't want to feel so powerless anymore,” Tsuna said quietly, his voice sounding as if he was about to cry. But Minato could clearly hear the determination built on his own blood that he had shed.

  Tsuna had seen the darkness in people's hearts while connected to the network. He had seen how ugly the human heart could be. That was why he wanted to become stronger.

  He wanted to become a person who could be a guiding light for those mired in despair, someone who could dispel the darkness.

  It was arrogant, but he couldn't help it.

  Minato could only look at his wounded arm once more.

  It was at moments like these that he realized that the people he had met were almost without exception bright lights that shone brighter than the sun.

  They effortlessly eclipsed him. And these bright, blinding lights were part of his life. A part he would not trade for anything. A life he wanted to protect.

  After all, these lights illuminated his dark soul, became part of him, were part of his heart.

  That didn't mean he would stop feeling guilty and live as if nothing had happened. No. It would continue to eat away at him, and the words he had said to Aranagi were hypocritical.

  But watching the brightness of all these lights, he himself wanted to believe in them, he himself wanted to live on, no matter how difficult it was, no matter what difficulties awaited him.

  That's why he wanted to be stronger. Not just physically.

  “You know, you already have that strength. It doesn't matter how hard you hit, it doesn't matter how strong your ability is. That's not where strength lies.” Minato muttered thoughtfully.

  “Really? Are you saying that the strength that helped us survive isn't important?” Tsuna asked suspiciously, realizing how silly he sounded.

  “Okay, I'll go along with your trick. Where is true strength then?”

  He understood that Minato's words would be absurd, denying basic logic. However, he would sincerely believe in them. Yet he intended to believe them wholeheartedly. Just as Minato had spoken those outrageous words to him back then, when they first met.

  That words were so naive, yet so earnest. Coming from a someone who couldn't even manage a small smile. And yet, he was the one who cared the most.

  “Is it necessary to say something so obvious out loud?” Minato asked, pointing his thumb at his chest. “It's here.”

  Bonjour to all who have read this. (I doubt there's anyone at all, and I'm just talking to myself)

  To be honest, I am burning with shame as I write this text. Or rather, not just the afterword, but the entire volume.

  Contrary to popular belief, storytelling is the oldest profession and one of the most common. After all, people who publish their works on the internet or on paper live among us.

  But I digress.

  In essence, this story is a stream of consciousness that makes no pretensions. It is just a shoddy story I wrote based on the works I read while under artillery fire.

  To keep myself from going crazy, I quickly came up with this story. It was the elaboration of the details and the overall narrative that distracted me from my obsessive thoughts, that threatened to make things go ugly.

  Those who want to call me a bastard because of the very existence of this parasitic story will be right. It is just a stream of consciousness, interspersed with my reflections and an attempt not to go crazy.

  This is not a product for any particular audience, nor does it claim to be anything great, or even mediocre or decent. It is just a little story by a little human.

  To the people who decided to spend their time reading this nonsense, I can say only one thing.

  Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart. I am immeasurably grateful to anyone who has endured my clumsy style and endless graphomania.

  As I conclude this off-topic digression, I can only hope that this unremarkable story will live on in your hearts, at least a little.