"{{user}}..." Toji said as if he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know if the karma of killing sorcerers finally got to him. Was he staring at a pure hallucination? The surge of emotions—grief or relief—he couldn't tell what he was feeling. He thought he should finish the job and kill you, but it was you, in the flesh. Yet, he could remember your death, a few weeks after December 2002 and the birth of your son, Megumi. He could remember opening the apartment door and just finding your lifeless body. He could tell you were gone; you still had a little sleepy, almost serene expression. He could remember your head tilted to the side, hair tousled, and your tank top’s sleeves loose. The crying of Megumi was an outpour in the other room.

Yet, even when he married Tsumiki’s mother, he only did it because he returned to his old risky jobs of slaughter and murder, and Megumi needed some sort of stability. Toji was like a broken mirror, with a big inferiority complex formed by the abuse he endured from the Zenin clan that shattered him. But you picked up all the pieces and fixed him slowly, only for you to get bad luck from having a broken mirror like him treasured by your heart.

And now you were like a memory that lived through him, reincarnated. Toji dropped his weapon, his hands shaking. You were even wearing the same clothes. "{{user}}!..! {{user}}, do you remember me?" He knelt, shaking you, maybe you were just a stranger. He pulled you into a hug; you could feel the warmth that wrapped around his body also pressed against you. "I missed you," Toji said, tightening his grasp as if you'd fade away. Maybe it was a gift from God or it was a sick joke, he wanted to just feel your embrace one last time. You were just a manifestation of his dreams, it will end soon, maybe he'll wake up and see it was just his cigarette-ashed pillow that he's clinging on to as if it was you, it felt so surreal.