On the other side of the world, Nagisa was running as if fleeing from hordes of the undead—locked in a race against time itself.
He collided with passersby without apology or even a glance back. Nothing mattered to him now but his wife—what if she desperately needed him while he was still far away?
He pushed himself to run even faster until he reached the hospital.
The glass door hadn't even fully opened when he burst inside without hesitation.
His eyes darted around in panic; everything around him spun in frantic circles.
He searched desperately for any sign—any clue—that could lead him to his wife, or to someone connected to her.
Then his eyes landed on Dr. Saki, the physician overseeing Nyoko's case.
Without hesitation, Nagisa rushed toward him, his long strides unstoppable.
"Doctor!"
He called out in a trembling voice. The doctor stopped, and the nurses around him turned as well, all eyes falling on Nagisa as he approached breathlessly, stopping face-to-face with the physician.
He swallowed the lump in his throat and asked, his voice cracking.
"How is she?"
The doctor lowered his surgical mask and looked down at the white hospital tiles beneath his feet, silent.
He ran a hand through his graying hair, then exhaled a long, heavy sigh, as if the weight of a mountain pressed down on his chest.
Finally, his eyes met Nagisa's, and he spoke in a soft voice.
"I'm sorry to say this, Mr. Nagisa…But your wife is nearing her end, and there's no hope for recovery."
Time stopped for Nagisa.
In a single moment, the entire world fell silent.
All the doors slammed shut in his face at once.
"No hope…"
That phrase, which he had so often tried to convince himself was false, now echoed loudly, sinking into his ear and carving itself into his memory... into every part of his body.
His body trembled all at once, shaking as if it didn't know whether it should cry... or surrender to his knees, pleading to collapse from sheer exhaustion.
A sudden warmth stung the corner of his eye, like tears trapped for so long, begging to be released. Yet, he kept staring stubbornly into the doctor's face, searching for a shred of hope...
His voice broke, barely holding together, as though his very soul were about to shatter.
"But... but you said there was hope... that the spine surgery could help... what happened? What changed?"
The doctor lowered his head, avoiding Nagisa's broken gaze. Yet, he couldn't leave him without the truth.
In a hushed voice, he explained.
"The surgery could've helped her regain some of her mobility, but the progression of the disease… I've never seen anything like it before. No one here has. It's spreading rapidly, and unfortunately, it has caused complete paralysis, along with some dangerous blood clots...
She won't survive."
Those words were the hardest Nagisa had ever heard.
Every cell in his body stopped, incapable of processing the shock.
Nyoko... the love of his life, his wife, and the mother of his only child... she would die.
His face drained of color, paling to an almost ghostly white. His body slumped, his legs shaking as he walked toward room 56—the room that had once cradled the most beautiful moments of his life... and where now, it would host the worst of them.
He stopped in front of the white door, hesitating to open it, afraid to see the pain and disappointment in Nyoko's face... the pain of the disease, the disappointment in him for failing to keep his promise to save her.
With a trembling hand and a heart heavy with grief, Nagisa wrapped his fingers around the metal handle and slowly turned it. The door creaked open, and he pushed it gently to let it swing fully.
Then, he looked inside...
There she was, his wife, lying on the hospital bed, her body frail and weak...
All the machines connected to her, all the money spent, all the hope he had clung to... had evaporated.
As if none of it had ever mattered at all.
Here she was now, before him, breathing her last breaths ... motionless.
He knelt beside her bed, holding her hand between his, as if it was the most fragile thing in the world.
He lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a warm kiss onto it, filled with longing and endless love.
He whispered to her words he knew she would never hear, for her awareness was gone.
But his heart, overwhelmed with unbearable weight, felt as if he had to share what burned inside him, before their last moments together in this world slipped away.
"Oh... if only I could turn back time, I would have stopped you from getting pregnant... if I had known this would happen.
You're not just someone in my life; you're the most important person in the world to me.
And if I could have died for you, I would have done it without hesitation... I would have let you live, but fate had other plans for our love."
Nagisa lowered his head, resting his forehead against her hand, utterly broken, as if the entire world had collapsed around him in that single moment.
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