A Farewell to All Futures

Of Fires and Envy

Warning: mentioned murder/death, phantom pains, drugs

***

Dragging Kanade by the hand, the painter pulled her into her room, with the second bed empty and well-made while Iroha's remained messy. "Okay, you get to s-stay with me from now on! How cool is that?" The brunette chirped.

Kanade looked at her mutely with depressed eyes. Looking around, she went over to the desk and took the notepad sitting on its surface as well as a pen. Quickly writing in it, she turned it around to show Iroha. 'Why do you believe in me so much? I failed you and everyone else.' The paper had on it.

"What do you mean? You didn't fail me..." Iroha asked, a puzzled expression clear on her face.

'I failed all the goddamn rehabilitation I'd been doing and relapsed into how I was back then TWICE.' Kanade added to the paper. 'Once thanks to Junko, and the other because of Despair Mikado.'

"B-But neither of those were by your own free will! You were brainwashed and your memories had been removed!" The painter protested. "And you know what you've done wrong and you regret it, so can you say that nothing's changed?!"

'Even so, I tried to frame you for murder, and I did it without a second thought!' Kanade retorted. 'How can you forgive me after that?!'

"A-As I said, you had your memories removed, and you didn't know me back then! My memories were removed too, so we weren't the people we are now!" Iroha argued before calming down. "But things are different now. We're both ourselves again, and we're with the Kisaragi Foundation. So, let's be positive!"

Kanade shook her head. 'I don't know if I can. I fucking ruined everything.'

"You're talking about becoming a better person, right?" Iroha asked. "Well, I've heard someone say before that 'redemption is a process, not an endgame', so I don't think you have much to worry about! Anything's possible if you put your mind to it, right?"

The guitarist breathily chuckled and shook her head, amused by her girlfriend's hyperactivity. 'At least you're the same.' She wrote.

"Alright, how about we get you into bed?" The painter suggested, changing the topic. "Even though you just woke up, you must be really tired."

Kanade looked at her in surprise for a few seconds before writing down 'You sure that you want to sleep with me? I doubt it'll be comfortable for you with my oxygen machine."

"I'll...I'll manage!" Iroha continued, and Kanade rolled her eyes lightheartedly before sitting down on Iroha's bed, placing the backpack with the breathing apparatus on the floor. She laid down on her back, figuring that she should at least play along if only to appease Iroha.

Though an oxygen mask was strapped to the guitarist's mouth, the brunette was not deterred as she climbed up onto the bed and placed herself on top of Kanade, lying between her legs with her head on the guitarist's stomach. Iroha wrapped her arms around her girlfriend's waist and nuzzled her head into a comfortable position before drifting off to sleep.

Kanade looked down at the dozing painter and sighed, using one of her hands to rub the other girl's head. She continued the action, even when she heard soft, contented snores from Iroha, until she joined her in sleep.

***

The next day, Kakeru and Mikako paced the capsule room as they waited for another person to wake up. They had heard that it was an everyday occurrence for someone to wake up, so they had prepared a stretcher in case somebody was too injured to walk to the medical wing.