Chapter Text
I discover the anime some like four days ago and i love it...like anyone else it broke me...a little..i'm very new in fics i made some little ones so this is another rookie test if things work i'll be continue
Ichigo Saitou could tell you about the two or maybe three most important moments of his life. The first was when he discovered his love for the show business. The second, which was difficult but equally important, was when he realized that he lacked the talent to shine. And the last and best moment was when he met Ai Hoshino, a young woman with a troubled past similar to his own, but with the potential to shine and attract everyone's attention. He had initially hoped to take advantage of her to maintain the delicate stability of his manager company, but unexpectedly, she had entered his heart to the point where he saw her as his daughter. However, he could never tell her that their association had ended.
That's why the current moment hurt so much. As he listened to the emergency nurse on the other end of the line, he dropped the drink he was holding, which shattered against the floor. He made a desperate dash out of the dome to his car, without time to explain to anyone, not even Miyako, what was happening.
He ended up outside the operating room, with no soul in his eyes, just waiting. Suddenly, something snapped him out of his trance.
"Excuse me, are you Saitou-san?"
Ichigo snapped back to reality and looked at the doctor. It took him a moment to reconnect his mind, and then he stood up, adrenaline taking over as he grabbed the doctor by his shoulders.
"How is Ai?!"
The doctor was caught off guard but quickly regained his composure.
"You'd better come with me."
Something was wrong. Today was supposed to mark a before and after for Strawberry Productions, and Ai was meant to become the most famous idol in Japan. But instead, she was lying on a bed devoid of her sparkle. If it weren't for the monitor, Ichigo would have thought she was dead.
"We managed to give her an emergency transfusion and reactivate her heart with a defibrillator. However, her brain was deprived of oxygen for at least five minutes, causing severe damage. We don't think she will wake up, and if we don't operate on her again within two hours, she will inevitably die. She is clinically dead."
"No..." The doctor sharpened his gaze in confusion, and Ichigo exploded with rage.
"She's not dead yet! Do the operation and find a way to help her!"
"Even if we do the operation, she has suffered brain damage that is lethal to proper functioning. She won't wake up, and if she does, she will have a horrible life. Do you want that?"
For the first time, when it came to Ai, Ichigo didn't know what to say. Was he being selfish? Would she want to live like that? Ai, who wasn't sure what love was? He couldn't doubt her like that. If anyone could want to live despite everything, just to see her children, it was Ai. He looked at the doctor and knew he would accept whatever he said. Ichigo was the only one legally responsible for Ai, even if he didn't like it.
"Do the operation."
Without looking at him, the doctor nodded and left the room. Ichigo leaned against the wall in despair. She was worth fighting for.
Dr. Masahiro Tendo, an emergency doctor unofficially specializing in cases on the verge of death, had seen situations like this several times in his career. There were always two reactions: resignation, where he was authorized to let a patient die to spare the suffering of those close to them, and cases like this, where they clung to hope. But what the man in front of him was proposing was beyond any of his previous experiences.
"Saitou-san, what you are proposing is highly illegal."
The face of the girl's legal guardian had changed from the anxious and desperate doubt he was used to seeing to a firm will...but this was too much!
"You are proposing that we declare her deceased so that you can take her for illegal treatment abroad...as a doctor, I can't... I can't accept that."
That was when the man's screen shattered.
"Then you're suggesting that I let her rot here without trying anything!" Saitou shouted.
"That was your decision not to accept that she's hopeless!"
"According to you! She's already clinically deceased! What difference does it make if you declare her as such to the media!.... Listen... Ai... she was in her private apartment, which is out of public knowledge... the man who attacked her... that fanatic found out somehow, I don't know how! If I leave her in this hospital, whoever planned this has the means to try again no matter how secretly I hide her... but if I leave her here where her stay will be public in minutes... it will leave her at their mercy... someone will come to finish the job... the only way to keep her safe... is if they think they got what they wanted..."
Tendo looked at him in shock... this man... was telling... or at least he thought he was telling the truth... they, as a hospital, couldn't guarantee her safety if someone with those resources wanted her dead... and anyway... she was already gone, as far as he was concerned....
"Mr. Saitou... if I do this... no one can know... never, if... she wakes up... if you succeed in what you set out to do... the story will be that you sabotaged the medical equipment and as a consequence kidnapped a 20-year-old comatose girl... you will be sent to prison..."
He couldn't read Saitou's mind, but he knew Saitou must have already thought of it himself if they were having this discussion... it was because Saitou had already decided everything beforehand.
"Yes, I know... I already bribed the ambulance driver and the secretary of the deceased legal service... I just needed to see how much you ask for..."
Tendo looked at the inert figure of the girl before shaking his head.
"I don't want money for doing something like this... but if it's of any use, even though everything in me tells me it's impossible... I wish you success... Ai Hoshino will be pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital and will be cremated per her wish." Setting off on his way out of the room, Tendo knew he was committing the biggest irregularity in the history of modern medicine, and if discovered, he would go down in that same history as one of the most infamous... still... if there was any hope for that girl out there, it was his duty as a doctor to let her take that hope.
Eight hours later, Saitou was reunited with Miyako and the twins... he had decided to hide everything from them... on one hand, Miyako...she knew about Ai's address, and although it was unlikely that it was her who... leaked her location, the risk that someone had followed her or worse, tracked her phone was serious... and the twins... if all went well, he would eventually return their mother to them... if not, he wouldn't give them hope and then take her away from them. Ichigo was not so cruel... the funeral... was difficult... mostly because of keeping up appearances... and for the painful possibility that it was still Ai's eventual fate... that thought ironically reinforced his performance... 24 hours later... he was saying goodbye to Miyako... to take a plane......if Ai had really left....Ichigo was sure he would have left everything behind to hide and drown his sorrows in something silly like alcohol and fishing...but not now, if he had to pay for some eccentric experimental treatment for Ai, he would need money...the show must go on...by her.
United States, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, and now Switzerland...Ichigo had never given up...for more than 10 years...well...11 years and 11 months, but finally...he had gotten somewhere. No matter where you went, black market doctors and experimental treatments were more common than anyone would think...but none of those treatments had what it took for what Ai needed. They had helped here and there; his brain had recovered enough to operate his vital organs without life support, but it wasn't enough. The area in charge of his personality and memory needed something else to recover it...that's why he was here, in a secret hospital in the mountains of Switzerland, in front of the best doctor in the country, who, behind the scenes, accepted deals with millionaires like him for cases like this. By chance of fate, his most recent project had been rejected in human tests...and it was Ai's last hope. If this failed, the process itself would kill her. But in the last few years, Ichigo was getting more and more hopeless...it was now or never!!!
"I want you to understand the process in broad strokes...this is a particularly violent cranial insertion into the brain...the time since you suffered these injuries indicates that tissue will need to be removed...then we will inject a serum of stem cells, generically altered, which will debulk the cells that are unfixable and replace them with new ones...if all goes well, in about 48 hours, her brain will be almost restored...but if it fails and the cells attack her entire brain, she will die long before the cells begin to heal...I need your authorization to proceed..."
Ichigo nodded...one last time to a doctor and looked at Ai in what might be the last time he would see her breathe...
His dreams...or rather nightmares, were always the same...so, in reality, he hadn't really cared about them for a long time...after finishing his call with Miyako, he set about getting dressed to face another day...there was just over a month left before the twins would begin their next stage in education...and Ai had missed it all...if only he had seen through it and better ensured her safety...this wouldn't be...
The vibration of his phone buzzed in his hand again...maybe Miyako had forgotten...something under his gaze and recognized the unregistered number as the secret number of the doctor. He rushed to answer with his heart ringing in his ear.
"Mr. Saitou...the procedure was successful...brain activity has rebounded to normal levels...and present movements characteristic of a slight somnambulistic state...she is dreaming...she could wake up at any moment..."
He hung up the call and ran for the exit, slamming the door of his hotel room, and jumped into the car he had rented.
Ai felt light...like floating on a cloud...her mind felt mushy...like she had a heavy headache...but the pain seemed to lessen as time went on...she couldn't remember how she had gotten into this situation...she was...with her children...her precious children...ready to go to the concert, and suddenly...the doorbell rang, and she opened the door...and...she was attacked! She was sure she had been mortally wounded...there was no way she would survive.....she said goodbye, telling them she loved them...and she had not lied! In truth, it was love! But had she left them...was this death? No, it couldn't be...she had never been dead, but she was sure it wasn't the same as being alive...she could feel that she was slowly regaining control of more and more parts of herself...and it was exhausting. But if she wanted to see her children again, she had to try harder! And...finally, she could open her eyes...she saw a very intense, blinding light...white...expected in a hospital...that is, she should be hospitalized...she didn't know for how long, but her children and Saitou would be waiting for her...she turned her head to see, blurry, as a nurse took her face and opened her eyelid with a flashlight...before she turned back in surprise, Ai was confused too...so serious was she that they were surprised to see her alive?
Ai, with more control over herself, turned to the nurse and tried to speak...but could not....her throat felt atrophied as if she had not spoken for a long time...she tried again and again, giving little whimpers until finally, she was offered a glass of water, and after a little effort, once sharp and tired, it came out of her throat.
"Where... where am I...?"
The nurse smiled tenderly at her, gently stroking a bandage on her head that Ai had only noticed until now.
"You are in a private hospital in Switzerland, Hoshino-san."
Ai noticed her accent...clearly, she was telling her the truth...although it was common for hospital staff to know another language to attend to foreigners...but Japanese was not one of those emergency languages...that would be English...the other was...her location...what was she doing in Switzerland...if she was as serious as she remembered, a transfer to Switzerland would be infeasible...
Ichigo was escorted into the room by a nurse who seemed quite excited...finally, they stopped in front of the door, and the nurse looked at him seriously.
"She is disoriented, Saitou-san...her throat has been out of use for a long time, so her voice is somewhat atrophied...and her muscles weakened. But eventually, with therapy, she will be able to be herself again...but I'm sure she will be happy to see you."
There she was...Ai...weakly standing upright, she looked out the window overlooking the mountain scenery with her classic curiosity...the burning in his eyes was too much, and Ichigo began to cry with happiness at the sight of her...it must have been noisy because Ai turned to him and opened her eyes with surprise.
"President...Saitou?"
That was all; he couldn't take it anymore, he ran to her and wrapped her in a hug, surprising the girl who looked oblivious to the situation.
"God, girl...don't dare to ever open the door to anyone again! What the hell, you'll never be without someone by your side!...(Ichigo squeezed a little tighter in his embrace) I was sure I had already lost you...."
Even without being able to speak and weak as she was, Ai managed to return a fragile hug towards the president...this feeling in her chest...before, she couldn't say for sure...but this warmth was like the affection she had with her children...but different this time, she was the one receiving that love...and...it was gratifying.
Ichigo finally broke away from the embrace and looked at her...despite the years..., all the care had kept her skin young and glowing, but until recently, it was empty. Her eyes, though tired, had that glow in them again, fainter of course. But no matter what, Ichigo swore he would be with her until he saw her regain that glow.
"I missed you so much... my girl..." Ai looked at him perplexed.
"Ah, that's right. I guess I never treated you like this before. I myself wasn't even aware of how much I love you, Ai... until you almost died..."
"W-where... are... Aqua... and... Ruby..."
Ichigo took her hand gently.
"In Japan, Ai... I don't have the heart to lie to you... now that you're back... it's been more than 10 years since that attack on the day of the concert."
Everything was crumbling around her... 10 years? Her children had grown up... and she had missed it all? No, it wasn't true. She had just told them she loved them, she told them the truth only to miss out on their entire childhood afterwards... The sting of sadness came as she felt her tears.
"Ai... I know it's hard... but you are alive... you have a chance to go back to them... with Aqua and Ruby... as soon as you are recovered, we will go back to Japan... I'm... I'm sure they will be so happy to see you, they will cry with you for hours and celebrate that you were so strong to go back to them."
Ai did not stop crying, but her hiccups calmed down. She looked at him and noticed the changes that she did not even perceive when she saw him for the first time. The president had wrinkles that were not there before. His hair had lost some of the shine that characterized him. But what amazed her was the pure happiness and hope that was in his eyes, a shine that competed with that of her own eyes. But this one... it wasn't lies in his eyes.
"I-I... want... to... start a-as soon... as... soon as possible."
Ai wasn't very vain if you asked her. Before she met him, she didn't dress up much. She had a natural beauty. Denying it would be pretentious; it was the truth. So if more... her skin looked good, she didn't look like she had aged a day. But her hair... she would have accepted gray hair. Despite being a little over 30, it would be expected one or two... but she was practically bald! Her fear must have been very obvious because the president let out a soft chuckle.
"They had to cut almost all of it off in order to operate on you... but don't worry, you'll look much better when we're ready to go back to Japan."
She hoped so!
One month... she had been here for one month... she knew her body was weak, but this surprised her. Now, if it had been 12 years since... well, that... her progress had surprised the doctors, which was infuriating. Ai was an idol, damn it! She could do 2-hour routines. Her stamina, though diminished, was one to note, and her knowledge of voice care was extensive. That was the fastest she had recovered. She still couldn't reach those high notes of before, but she could speak normally. Her feet and arms, on the other hand, walking had proved exhausting, holding things almost impossible. But in the third week, she had taken her first steps and eaten lunch for the first time without help. The last few days, she had improved like a rocket and she was allowed... a little exercise routine of her own... which more or less meant:
"Mr. Saitou... Miss Hoshino... we believe you have been able to perform the remainder of your therapy... for yourselves..."
Ai opened... her eyes, and her stars shone as of old with her fierce determination...
"That means..."
"You are officially discharged... but before you leave, you must sign this. This document exempts us from any legal circumstances that led to your treatment here... and stipulates that this medical facility does not exist. Your treatment took place in a private clinic in Zurich, with which you have proof of the success of the program..."
Ai looked coldly at the document. Before, she would have signed it without reading just to see her children... but since a discussion she had with the president... he... told her the truth... he had practically committed kidnapping to bring her here in a procedure that could have killed her... but knowing the type of people who practiced this medicine... the contract was a formality. They would not let her leave without signing...
She signed quickly before standing up... next to the president... and leaving the office... her hair now reached her neck just above her shoulders. She said goodbye to the nurses... and walked out into the fresh mountain air she had grown so accustomed to... the president in front of her opening the car door.
"We have a flight scheduled in 6 hours... we will arrive tomorrow..."
Ai closed her eyes, inhaling the air, and opened them with her classic smile, with her eyes sparkling as they always should be.
... Aqua... Ruby...
Edit: i found a little grammar mistake and other timeline mistake...so ...i delete them and fix them
Edit 2: now i fix most of them....next step fix chapter 2 , and the future chapter 3 will not have those ...and in chapter 3 i will put the user bame of those who comment and like this work even with those...war crimes in grammar