"He won't come," Mitsuari Ayu muttered. She reached her two hands into sticky red fluid a moment later, with a trail of bubbles following from her hands.

"He won't come. He won't show up like that! After all…he didn't reach me. He didn't catch up to me. He didn't make it in time for me! Being our hero doesn't make him almighty. If the conditions aren't just right, he won't show up. Because you got in his way, my hero failed to show up!"

Her hands wrapped around the neck of Shokuhou Misaki who lay floating in the fluid and squeezed with all of the strength she could muster.

She had to stop Shokuhou from breathing. Getting the data of Shokuhou's AIM Dispersion Field for the FIVE_OVER no longer mattered.

As the sound of Shokuhou's breath escaping her windpipes reached Ayu's ears, she could feel a sensation of ecstasy spreading throughout herself. She would definitely make Shokuhou feel the same despair she felt, sinking ever deeper into the darkness as she waited in futility for that boy to arrive and save her.

"You won't be saved! No help is coming! It won't arrive in time! Just like with me. Just like I lost everything. The only path left for you is to be destroyed as you long for someone who will never arrive!"

Shokuhou would sink into despair. Ayu would make absolute certain of that.

But, a strained voice escaped from Shokuhou's mouth as she reached her arm up out of the liquid to point behind Ayu. "Then…who…is…that…?"

The feeling of ecstasy left in an instant as did all of the force in Ayu's fingers. She turned her head slowly, leaving her hands in the red fluid and pleading to herself in hopes that it would not be him…and she saw someone.

"It can't be." She wanted to deny it.

"Why not?"

"Because this is District 21. It's so far from District 7 and no one would come to an unmanned power station deep in the mountains while out on a walk!" She had to deny it.

"That's what I did."

"Both of us have vanished from his memory, he would never think to come save you, and he shouldn't have any way of learning about this or even imagining it could be happening!" She needed to deny it.

"He doesn't have to start from the beginning. It isn't uncommon for him to show up midway to save someone."

"He didn't make it in time for me. He didn't arrive because he lost his only hint." She could not maintain herself is she did not deny it.

"But…But…" She could not deny it.

"There's more to him than just that."

"But why… Why did he make it this tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime!?"

As Ayu cried out, the scenery began to distort around her. The throbbing sense of despair and anger began to overwhelm her as she once again watched Shokuhou take something else away from her.

The moisture in the air compressed as the microscopic phenomena of Ayu's Mental Stinger began to take an effect on the macro scale as her anger overturned all precedents. Any living being within the territory where moisture was being drawn from would be crumble away…and this absolute killing territory was continuing to expand around Ayu. The magnetically controlled monitor dust turned into a pure white as it engulfed everything in sight in tandem with the absolute killing territory.

As the storm of Ayu's territory and the monitor dust encroached upon the the other figure, he simply swung his arm to the side. The cast on his arm broke apart and his hand met the absolute territory. The attack was brought to zero in an instant. The figure was without a doubt Kamijou Touma.

Ayu's lips quivered as she forced out a single question, looking straight at the boy who's eyes were fixed solely on her and Shokuhou. "Why?"

With that utterance, Shokuhou's voice mercilessly resounded from the fluid. "This is your homework. Go get his help. Get enough of his help that you'll actually accept it this time."

The voice stabbed into Ayu. Accept his help? How could she do that? After her suicide had failed, she could never even bear to show her face to him. After all, she had become a monster who no longer deserved that warmth. But, Kamijou began running straight towards them.

As tears began to fall from her eyes, she cried out. "JUST STAY AWAY!"

The FIVE_OVER OS dashed right in between Ayu and the boy. The magnetic monitor dust began to move around, coagulating and dissipating in various places in the vicinity.

"Please…I don't want you to see me like this."

He saw an eye. Whatever that octopus-like machine was, he saw an eye on the spherical portion of its body and he froze mid-run. He could not understand what that eye was but he could tell that a sense of revulsion had paralyzed his body mid-run.

In that moment of pause, the landscape began to change before his eyes. However, unlike the previous storm of the dust, it had not been stopped when the dust came in contact with his right hand. Whatever was happening was definitely not of supernatural nature.

After the storm of dust had subsided, the area looked almost completely pristine with the exception of the Ground Geo plant in the background. Mitsuari Ayu, Shokuhou Misaki and the two FIVE_OVERs had completely vanished.

Kamijou's foot hit the ground as his advance came to a complete halt. The right arm that was broken was now hanging limply at his side.

Part of his mind just wanted to tell him to walk away. There were two giant mobile weapons along with a landscape that could be manipulated at will.

But he could feel something stinging at him from the bottom of his heart, telling him not to leave yet. As soon as he had recalled the face of the brown-haired girl, he could feel tears streaming down his face. "What…?" He muttered. "Why do I feel so relieved…?"

It was as if he had seen the face of someone who he had thought he had lost forever. No matter what his mind told him, he could not let himself leave the girl who was crying out alone.

He could not control the smile that was emerging on his face. He simply walked forward. That crying girl was there in front of him. He would definitely save her this time.

"Please…just go away…I don't want you to see me like this…I can't let you of all people see what I've become!" It was a muffled voice, but it was definitely the voice of that girl. Kamijou was certain about that.

In the next instant, the magnetic monitor dust layering the ground began flashing a bright red before another storm of it erupted in front of him.

But he pressed forward, as best his two legs could take him. Imagine Breaker may be useless against the flying monitor dust. It would not raise his scores on tests. It would not let him defeat even a single delinquent. It would not make him popular with girls. But that did not matter. There was a girl who was crying out in front of him, a girl who was rejecting the hand reaching out to pull her out of a deep abyss.

"I'm not going to abandon you here." He said as he continued to walk through the storm of magnetic dust.

"But, I…don't deserve it…" The girl struggled to speak as she stood in a wide safe zone where none of the dust was flying.

"Why wouldn't you…?"

"I've become nothing more than a monster consumed by revenge! DO YOU HONESTLY THINK THIS MITSUARI AYU IS SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T DESERVE TO BE ABANDONED?! I FAILED TO BECOME A LEVEL 5! I FAILED TO BE SAVED WHEN I WAS READY TO TAKE MY LIFE! I FAILED TO EVEN TAKE MY LIFE HERE WHEN PLUNGED INTO THAT LAKE! I DID NOT EVEN WANT TO BE SEEN SO BADLY THAT I HID UNDERNEATH THE OUTSIDER! THIS VENGEFUL FAILURE OF A MONSTER DESERVES TO BE ABANDONED ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD AND LEFT TO ROT!"

But as Mitsuari Ayu finished her tirade, she saw Kamijou Touma standing in front of her. All she could see was the smile of that boy in hospital clothing standing inside that safe zone with her. "If you honestly think you deserve to be abandoned…" The boy spoke, while lifting up that broken right arm above her head. "Perhaps, I should destroy that illusion first." With those words, his hand simply dropped onto the head of that crying girl. As if that storm of dust had merely been a part of her illusion, it dissipated in an instant, leaving multicolored magnetic monitor dust falling around the two.

"You still came for me…"

"Of course I did."

"You have no reason to. You have no memory of me. Even if you did, I'm not the Mitsuari Ayu you knew anymore. I'm just a hollow, vengeful girl with nothing left but to sink further down and drag others down with her." She took a step further back, letting the boy's hand slip off her head.

The boy's right hand fell back down to his side, hanging loosely as he dared not move it around too much. He put the other hand to the back of his neck for a second and then sighed. "That doesn't matter."

The girl turned her head to look back into his smiling face.

"Honestly, it does not really matter." His face darkened as the smile dropped into a straight face. "I'm not going to absolve you of your own actions. You did drag the girl in that fluid down with you and tried to kill her after all."

"Exactly. That's why-"

"Did I not just say that it does not matter to me?"

Ayu stared back at the boy while using one of her arms to try and wipe off her tears.

"I could have been manipulated into doing so for all I care. But there's a girl standing in front of me crying her eyes out while being unable to even utter the words 'help me.'" He smiled again and walked one step forward as he, ignoring the pain, put his right hand back on top of the girl's head. "As long as I can help the crying girl in front of me, that's more than enough."

The girl stopped wiping her tears and let her hand drop back down. "You idiot…"

The boy tilted his head in confusion.

"You haven't changed… You're still the same Kamijou Touma…" It was strained and shaky, but the expression on that girl's face was definitely one of genuine happiness. With that smile on her face, she walked in and wrapped her arms around the boy. "You really haven't changed at all…"

"Is that a bad thing?"

"No. It isn't a bad thing. It's not a bad thing at all."

"I see. " He said, allowing her to stay her embrace. "Feel free to stay like this as long as you need to."

He could feel her warm tears pressed against his chest, but he did not mind. For that girl, this moment was something she had been longing for for over a year. He did not want to take that present away.

"Happy Birthday, Mitsuari Ayu."

A/N: Call this short fic my way of giving a hug to a character who was desperately in need of both a hug and some closure. Touma and Ayu are likely the most tragic couple in this series so I could not help but want to fill in the gap between the end of Chapter 4 and the Epilogue of NT11 and finally allow this poor girl to be saved, even if it was just a little bit.