Akihiko wasn't sure he had heard that correctly - not until she checked her heartbeat, in a way that suggested she thought it was impossible for it to exist. That couldn't be right, though, could it? Suicide was the first thought that came to mind, but with her ability to heal as quickly as she could, that didn't seem possible.

A moment later, the full breadth of the statement hit him, like a punch to the gut. If it was true - and he suspected it was, from the way she approached the subject - that Chidori had actually died before coming here, that meant a few things. The first was that whatever had happened was so serious that she hadn't been able to heal herself. The second...if they could bring her back, that meant they could bring others back. They could bring you back, Shinji. I don't think you'd want that, though. You said it yourself...

He took a deep breath, pulling his thoughts together, and then looked at her with a stoic expression. "I'm sorry to bring up such a difficult and strange subject. I didn't know. The reason that I asked is that the people responsible for bringing us here have the ability to pull us from different times. Ken and I remember the same thing - the night Shinji died. But Mitsuru's last memory is six weeks later. I was trying to piece the timeline together."