It wasnât too hard to recognize the Directorâs uniform, as oddly flashy as it was. Reassurance overwhelmed the seeress as she called out to him and, once heâd turned around, she had snatched his own hands up into her own. "Hope! Itâs really you!â It took a few seconds for her, however, to look down at her hands intertwined in his own to realize how silly she must have been to jump him. In fact, hadnât this same pose been initiated by him before, when she and Noel had first met him in the Yaschas Massif? The familiarity was uncanny.
      âOh! Sorry about that,â she said, ducking her head down and releasing the otherâs hands from her grip. âItâs just, well. Iâm glad to see a familiar face." Much too nervous to face him headfirst, Serah quickly swiveled around, deciding to gaze up at the skyscrapers that towered over them. âThis place, though. Doesnât it remind you of Academia? Maybe it wonât be too hard for us to readju--?âÂ
      Snippets of a certain hunter seizing her hand and the uncanny presence of a dark aura swirling over a city someone had pained their way to craft flooded her memories then. Cupping a gloved hand to her lips, Serah retracted and took a step back. She was shocked, if not disappointed in herself for letting such optimism come so easily to her. â--Oh, I. Perhaps I...shouldnât have.â Uttering a small, yet regretful laugh as an apology, her eyes glanced up at Hope only to flit away and dip back down to cement, ashamed. âMaybe Iâm getting a little too ahead of myself.â She was happy to see him, though: plain and simple. Perhaps she should have kept it at that. Though she was curious to know what he had been up to â and, perhaps, what he remembered from that time.Â