Hiro.

[A soft, but firm voice. There's something that could be called resolve in it, but even Ai is struggling to keep her composure.]

I need to say it. At least let me do that much. I know it's selfish, but I just want to let you know even if it hurts the both of us.

[She puts her hands down into her lap and the heartache is beginning to creep within her, threatening to strangle her insides.]

... People here will be gone. We'll be separated, probably forever. I won't see them ever again and maybe I won't even remember them. I won't remember my friends who supported me, who I cried with, who I fought with. There's nothing here that I've experienced here that will ever be mine. I'll have nothing again.

Nothing was ever mine.

[Her fingers are trembling as she says this. Ai is more acutely aware of certain things than people have given her credit for because inadvertently, the lessons she learned in her commune, the ones where they tell her to vanquish certain emotions and concerns in order to move on had embedded itself and had a degree of effectiveness.]

And I know this. And I know we can't even be in the same world in the future.