I apologize for how long this chapter took. Writing it was... emotionally exhausting.

In episode 19, we got the backstory.

I don't remember much, really.

...?

Hmm... the most recognizable one was... trepidation?

"S-So, how long do you think it'll take them to recover?"

The horses vanished when they emerged on the other side of the storm. Not 'vanished', where they broke off and changed direction or something, but vanished. Disappeared from existence. Gone. Poof. Into thin air.

Like the ghosts from her memories.

They all saw it happen. One second, they were there. Then she blinked.

Nobody wanted to talk about it, which, her exhausted mind emphasized, was a perfectly reasonable position to take. These things didn't happen. They were physical, corporeal beings. The snow marred their coats and their hooves left prints on the ground. Water vapor from their breathing condensed in the air upon exiting their nostrils. She didn't see any injuries. They weren't in pain.

The animals existed, and then they did not.

Ichigo dared not let her mind ponder the implications. Her stress levels were too high already. Instead, she listened in on Futoshi's conversation with Naomi. The helmets' radios came with a channel linked to whatever strange machine she was flying, probably thanks to their previous owners. A small blessing.

"Miku's arm is still weak, but from what I understand, she's improved leaps and bounds since their arrival," their missing teammate responded. "Zorome, though... I'm gonna be blunt with you, Futoshi, it's bad. Real bad. He's gonna be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. His spirits were high when we left and he's trying to take it in stride, but..."

She trailed off. Futoshi's pale palms rubbed along the helmet's exterior; the rebreather butchered his wheeze. "Stupid idiot. Zorome, you stupid idiot..."

Ichigo attempted to change the subject. "U-Um, Naomi, about Hiro - he... uh... found a new partner..."

"Yeah, I know. Zero Two, right? Wish we could've met. Doctor told me all about her!"

...Huh? "You - you know about Zero Two?"

The girl sputtered over the radio. "Mitsuru! You never told them?!"

"I forgot, okay?" he grouched. "We were a little preoccupied trying figure out Hiro's situation."

Naomi grumbled. "Yeah, yeah. Anyway - yes, I know about Zero Two. I was never meant to be Hiro's partner. I was there to watch him and make sure he didn't do anything stupid... and keep him sane until the doctor brought Zero Two."

Goro grunted in realization. "That's why you joined our squad so late."

"Yep. Hell, I can't even pilot a Franxx! The doctor faked my tests and everything!"

"We're here," the driver interrupted. The armored vehicles screeched to a halt, and the door opened with a hiss. "This is your stop. Welcome home, kids, glad to have ya."

...Home?

"I'll give the grand tour!" Naomi cheered. "Let me just land this thing first. I'll meet you guys by the gates!"

Gates?

They filed out into a sizable clearing; Futoshi supported Goro's exit. The overcast sky muted the surroundings, but at least it wasn't snowing. No flakes on the ground, a light breeze. Cool, chilly even, but not uncomfortable or life-threatening like it'd been at Garden. Fields of green dotted the distance, broken up by a variety of strange buildings. The unusual sight provoked yet more questions.

"Where are we?"

090 sighed. "The last city on the planet."

"We were told Papa rescued everyone," Ikuno responded. The medic girl helped with her helmet. "That was a lie, then."

"It was. At the time of civilization's collapse, the human population exceeded eight billion."

"E-Eight billion?!" Futoshi sputtered. "There's no way they could've fit that many people inside the plantations! Those bastards, they probably left them all to die!"

Once Ikuno removed her helmet, 090's partner moved to Ichigo, helping her undo the straps. It came off with a click and hiss, and for the first time she was able to get a good look at what Mitsuru called the 'red eyes'.

Chipped, scratched and dinged, but solidly constructed. The whole surface was a muted, faded gray, a shade lighter than the strange rifles Squad 26 carried. The goggles themselves were situated in the middle of additional plating, which seemed to lock in place against the mask and helmet to form an airtight seal. One unit, environmentally secure. Rounded and lacking of any ornamentation, a stark contrast to the decorated and angular clothes so common in APE's civilization.

Utilitarian. Constructed for one purpose only. Hollow emptiness filled her gut.

"They knew what was happening."

"Yes," 090's partner replied. She turned to Kokoro next. "They did."

Mitsuru looked from his own helmet to the fields. Some stray locks dangled from his normally well-groomed head. "The survivors can grow food out in the open? Is the local climate stable enough?"

090 nodded. "It is, and it seems they don't know why. This city, Asphodel - it's lucky. Some of the townsfolk we've talked to since arriving here weeks ago claimed this is what the weather was like before the apocalypse. According to their ancestors, that is."

Kokoro's curious gaze turned up the hill, locking on the city's wooden gates. "And... how many people live here?"

090's expression fell. Crestfallen exhaustion overtook his form, and he turned onto the dirt path, waving them to follow.

"You do not wish to know. Come."

Squad 13 exchanged depressed glances. Goro watched the young man's back. "What about your squad? Shouldn't we wait for them?"

"They will enter through a separate gate, to keep the prisoner secure and out of the public's eye."

To the side of the steep hill rested some enclosed spaces, in which a variety of animals grazed. Ichigo counted a few dozen of them, but found herself wondering about their purpose. Why were they there? What were they used for? Companionship? How did they survive?

"Naomi!"

Ikuno's cheerful exclamation brought her attention to the gate, where their long-lost squadmate waited. Ikuno and Naomi were always close, and the girl's sudden departure soured the former's mood for weeks. Seeing them smile again lifted Ichigo's spirits. The brunette beamed at them and waved the group to the entrance.

"Welcome, guys! You made it! Let's get you all checked in and then I'll show you around."

The gate guards, to her surprise, were a boy and girl around their age. The girl's blonde ponytail jostled and bobbed when her eyes sweeped dramatically over Naomi's form.

"Hey, Sam. You look like you just got dragged out of New York's sewers."

...Sam? What was a 'Sam'? Her name was Naomi! Was 'New York' a location? Could locations even be 'new'? What made it new? Why not 'Old York' or just 'York'?

In reply, Naomi turned up her nose and huffed. "Tu t'es vue ? On dirait un crapaud japonais radioactif !"

The strange sounds spilled from the girl's lips faster than Ichigo could blink. A foreign, awkward sort of confusion weighed on her mind. She found the noise familiar, but... it wasn't? Were they words of some sort? What was she saying?

The gate girl recoiled in horror. "Quelle insulte !" But then her eyes found something of interest and her demeanor changed immediately. "Qui est celui-là ?"

She was looking at... Goro?! This stupid blonde bitch adjusted her shirt, leaned on the counter and flipped her ponytail over her shoulder! Ichigo's teeth clenched. She was smiling at him!

"Hey there. Welcome to Asphodel! I'm Lily, nice to meet you! Need a tour?"

Poor Goro just looked confused. She, however, felt this... murderous feeling once before. Way back when, during their first breakfast with Zero Two, before Ichigo knew about the other girl's relationship with Hiro. When she sat on his lap, the way she blushed, the way he held her hand - but this was worse.

About a million times worse. Infinity times worse. Infinity and a half times worse!

She opened her mouth to lay down the rules, because there were rules! Why did this blonde thing think she could just flaunt herself like that and talk to Goro?!

"Cherche pas, il est maqué."

Naomi beat her to the punch... apparently? The blonde thing leveled a deadpan stare in her direction. "Avec qui ? Toi ?"

Their squadmate bit her lip to stifle laughter. She thumbed in Ichigo's direction. "Non, avec elle."

The stare became a glare, leveled at her. A growl worked its way up her throat. She puffed out her chest and clamped her hand around Goro's.

Finally, the male guard intervened. He maneuvered blonde bitch away from the counter. "Lily, Lily, please! You're scaring the guests." He cleared his throat. "Sorry. I take it you're the new arrivals we've been expecting? Squad 13?"

"Yes," she muttered. "We are."

'Lily' - what an ugly name! - beat her fists against the taller man's back, to no avail.

"You're telling me, out of all the APE runaways to come through these gates, the first genuinely good-looking guy is TAKEN?!" She loosed a defeated wail and Ichigo's ego soared. She knew she was smirking. She didn't care. "Bullshit! It's bullshit! Sam's lying, Santiago! Don't believe her lies! They don't even know what dating is!"

The man ignored her. Good. "I take it Sagi's squad didn't, uh..."

It took Naomi a moment to reply. "No. You know how they were."

He sighed. "Yeah. Well, they didn't record any next of kin, which means you guys-" He pointed to Squad 13. "-are their official inheritors."

Mitsuru asked the question on all of their minds. "Why us?"

"You have their helmets. They gave them to you, correct?"

She dared not question why he was able to make such an accurate deduction. "Yes."

"In Asphodel, a scavenger's helmet is considered a will of last resort. Should they have no children, will or anyone they deem worthy to inherit their possessions, the person to claim their helmet shall be considered their next in line. That is how it has always worked. You will receive everything they owned, whether it be tokens, property or physical belongings."

Kokoro couldn't help herself. "Um... who were they? Why did they come for us?"

Naomi scratched her cheek. "It's... complicated."

"Make no mistake - those helmets and backpacks are yours, legally, and will be denoted as such," the guard clarified. "However, the city would appreciate it if you found it in yourself to return them to the armory. You would be compensated for your trouble. They are... relics, I guess you could say. We can't make them anymore. They're unique, all of them, and each helmet or suit we lose means one less scavenger we can field. They're from the old world. Passed down by our ancestors - the ones who led us here, defended us and saved our civilization. They remind us of who we were."

Ichigo traced the red-tinted goggles with her thumbs, watched the way the shadows highlighted the headgear's scratches and dents.

It was heavy.

"We'll... we'll think about it."

"Of course." The man grabbed some sort of feather, dipped it in ink and scribbled something across a piece of parchment. "You guys are free to go. Welcome to the city."

Mitsuru arched a brow. "That's all? No paperwork to fill out? No applications for citizenry?"

"Are you human?"

"I would sure hope so."

"Are you APE sympathizers?"

"Hell no!" Futoshi barked.

The guard grinned. "Then you are citizens of Asphodel."

Naomi cheered and urged them into the city. "C'mon, c'mon, let's go!"

090 lifted his hand in farewell; he and his partner turned towards an intersection. "We're going to go link up with our squad and make sure the APE soldier stays secure. We'll meet with you later."

Ichigo returned the wave. "Thanks for your help, Code 090! Seriously!"

"Kyuma," he corrected with a grin. "My name's Kyuma. And this is Higosa."

...Name? Oh! They must've named themselves while in the city!

Higosa, the medic girl, followed after him. "Have fun showing them around!"

As they walked away, the blonde thing shoved the man down and craned her head over his body. "Sam! SAM! You better give them a proper tour, your hear me?! If you don't, I will!"

Ikuno gave their squadmate a weird look. "What's that about? Sam?"

The girl blushed and scratched her cheek. "Ah, uh... well, in case it, ah, wasn't obvious enough... I'm not actually a parasite, you know? I'm... natural born. Sam is short for Samantha. That's my birth name, the name my parents gave me. Those guys-" She thumbed behind her. "-are my friends. My other friends, the kids I grew up with. Before I met you guys!"

Ichigo pouted.

Naomi shot her a bashful, apologetic grin. "S-She means well Ichigo, really. Lily's just... stir crazy. You can't really go anywhere in this city, you know? I was the same way."

"Is that why you..." Kokoro trailed off.

"Yeah. Asphodel's leadership knows the doctor. They don't always see eye to eye, but on occasion he came here looking for help with some things, because he knows the people here have no love for APE. My family descended from the old world military and has always taken great pride in it, so I was trained and such already. I saw an opportunity to get out and explore the world! Then the old man introduced me to Mitsuru, who apparently never told you guys afterwards."

"I was preoccupied!" he retorted.

"Uh huh, uh huuuuuh." Naomi rolled her eyes. "He faked my history, got me a code, introduced me to my 'partner'-" She made air quotes. "-Hiro, who promptly named me Naomi. I like it better than Sam... but don't tell anyone I said that. My job was to keep him from going off the deep end until the doctor was ready to bring Zero Two to him. I was the only one, besides her, who could survive piloting with him, because I, well, don't have YBCs in the first place! So the test Franxx wouldn't even start up!"

Futoshi scratched his cheek. "What were those noises you were making earlier?"

Goro elbowed him in the gut.

Naomi blinked. "N-Noises? Oh, oh! You mean French!"

...

Together as one, excluding Mitsuru: "What's French?"

She hadn't expected such a question, judging from her startled expression. "U-Uh... it's a language."

To the parasites, it was a nonanswer. "What's a language?"

The poor girl shot Mitsuru a pleading look. He groaned. "You know more about this than I do."

"You're better at explaining things!"

His eye twitched, but he relented all the same. "Think about how we communicate. Humans form complex grunts with our lips, tongues and teeth, right? We assign meaning to the sounds we produce. Those are words, and a language is a collection of words."

Ikuno mulled over the concept. "So we're speaking a 'language' right now, then?"

"Yes. We speak..." He looked to Naomi for confirmation. "...English, was it?"

She nodded. "Yep!"

"Languages were named for their country of origin," Mitsuru continued. "French, for example, originated from the country of..." He paused, searching for the answer. "...France, I believe."

Naomi took over from there. "When civilization collapsed, most of the world's languages disappeared as well. The citizens of Asphodel trace their heritage from all over. They're a proud bunch, you know? So they try to teach their kids the surviving languages and such."

So 'French' was one of those languages, huh? Ichigo surveyed the city as they walked. People glanced at them on occasion, probably due to their APE clothing, but it seemed everyone was busy with... whatever it was people did here. How did they make food without the hidden caretakers? Mitsuru said they grew it, but what happened after that? Where did their clothes come from?

How did they defend themselves against the klaxosaurs?

"This is weird," she whispered.

"So did your family come from this 'France' place, Naomi?" Futoshi asked. He did a double-take when they passed a bakery filled with racks of bread, but had the decency to look sheepish when Goro stumbled and groaned.

"My great-grandfather was the original pilot of that helicopter," she explained. "That machine I flew, I mean. He was American. A few months after the settlement formed, he met a nice French girl. She traveled over the French-German border with another refugee party escaping out of Paris and... well, yeah! It's a common story. Most of the American blood in Asphodel's mixed with other ancestries because there weren't many American women among the survivors."

Kokoro stared her partner down. "Mitsuru? What's a... u-um... French-Germohn border? What's an... Amer... Ameri-uh..."

Mitsuru groaned.

Naomi grinned and scratched her cheek, "I'll show you guys a map later. It'll make more sense."

Ichigo struggled with the new adjectives. "Were... uh..." Hang on, restart. "These people were human too, right?"

Naomi halted, so they stopped too. She sighed, looking between them, then turned to Goro. "Hey, Goro? Lemme see your helmet real quick?"

"H-Huh? Yeah, sure..."

He handed her the disconnected helmet, then they moved off the dirt street to a few nearby wooden benches. The traffic passed them by. Naomi ran her eyes across the headgear before thumbing a sizable dent by the left temple.

"Itan," she whispered. She glanced at Ichigo's helmet next. "Which means that's Inyo."

She didn't understand. "Naomi?"

The girl shook her head. "N-Nothing. Sorry Goro, I'm gonna get something from your backpack. Hold still!"

She rummaged through his pack for a few moments. When she backed away, she held two items: a small plastic bag in her right; some dangling chains in her left.

"What're those?" Kokoro inquired. Naomi didn't reply. Instead, she turned into the circle they'd formed around her and held out the plastic bad and its contents.

A picture.

More specifically, a group photo of seven men. The image faded a bit towards the edges, but overall its condition remained pristine. She guessed it'd been a while since it saw the daylight. She didn't recognize the people, but the armor was a different story. They held the same helmets in Squad 13's possession, wore the same gear they saw on that other squad. But compared to her helmet's current state, the ones in the picture didn't have nearly as much wear and tear. Dirty and dusty, fewer scuffs and scratches. Behind the soldiers, in the background, stood a line of trees, a handful of tents, and several military vehicles.

Ichigo's breath caught in her throat. "They're..."

Naomi wiped the mist from her eyes. "They were human first and German second. Yeah, people came from different places. All the separate languages made it hard to communicate at times, sure. But despite all of that, all their past grudges and cultural peeves, they banded together and made it work."

She opened her other palm to reveal seven pairs of oval-shaped metal chips, attached to chains.

DEU

210400-R-22357

Naomi offered a sad grin. "They had numbers and codes, too."

"So we're all the same."

She returned the items to Goro's backpack, shaking her head.

"Nah. You were conscripted. You didn't have a choice. They did. They chose to fight, of their own free will. And when they grew too old, they trained the next generation, taught them what they knew and gave them the means to survive. They made sure we never forgot who we are and where we came from."

"They saved the species," Mitsuru paraphrased.

Naomi led them back onto the road, then down an intersection.

"They couldn't save everything. Asphodel's problem has always been, well, technology. Stuff. We don't have enough stuff!" She huffed in annoyance. "It sucks, you know? We're not idiots. Isn't like this is one of those old disaster movies where people have to relearn how to make a wheel. We know how to, I dunno, install clean plumbing. A sewer system! In theory, anyway. But we don't have the equipment to actually make it happen."

Futoshi scratched his cheek. "Is it hard for people to talk to each other with all those languages?"

The girl shook her head. "That was one of the easiest things. The first generation solved it almost overnight! In the old world, when people needed to communicate, they apparently defaulted to English. Don't ask me why, though... some political crap about empires and cultures and whatever. But it was the language of business, so in public everyone uses English. In private they all speak their own stuff. Spanish, German, uh... Polish, Chinese? Whatever, there are a bunch."

She came to a sudden stop. Ichigo stumbled to keep from walking into her back.

"We're here!"

The group looked around. Goro offered an exasperated grin. "Uh... where's 'here'?"

Naomi spun around, a cheeky grin highlighting her features. "The hospital. Well, the hospital's dorms."

Futoshi's eyes widened. "W-Wait, is this where..."

"Yep! Take off your packs, put 'em in the foyer along the wall. The lobby staff'll hold them. Goro!"

"Huh?"

"Come with me! We gotta sign you in and get that leg stitched! Won't take long, maybe an hour or two!"

They did as requested and left the helmets and backpacks against the wooden wall. This whole place was wooden, actually. Was that sanitary? A women smiled at them from behind the desk. Ichigo shuffled forward.

"U-Um... are Zorome and Miku here?"

The lady's eyes traced a quick line across her body, obviously taking note of the APE jacket and uniform. Her expression was guarded steel.

"Your name, miss?"

"I-Ichigo. Squad... Squad 13?"

Her features softened considerably. "Ah! We've been expecting you. Name your companions, please?"

Ichigo turned around to point them out. "Kokoro, Mitsuru, Futoshi, Ikuno, ah..." She glimpsed another nurse leading Goro and Naomi through a separate door. "Goro is with us too, but he's wounded, so..."

The receptionist checked off the names as she spoke, nodding. "Good. That's everyone. You're free to enter, dear. Fifth room on the right, 1-5-A."

"Thank you!"

She waved the squad forward and relayed the information. Futoshi cut in front of them, his steps urgent.

"No running in hospitals, idiot!" Ikuno snarled. He slowed his mad dash, sufficiently chastised, but still sped down the hall with a speed rarely seen. Futoshi turned into the noted doorway and screeched to a halt. Misty tears brimmed at the corners of his eyes.

"Zorome..." he whispered. Then, louder: "Zorome!"

He barreled forth into the room. The rest of them picked up the pace upon hearing a pair of startled exclamations.

"F-Fu... hey, jackass! T-Take it easy!"

Squad 13 stumbled into the cramped bedroom. Something lurched inside her; vainly, she tried to fight away the sniffles.

Futoshi's heft all but obscured Zorome wheelchair-bound form. His arms wrapped around the other boy in a massive bearhug, one Argentea's stamen tried to return. Both of them cried. Off to the side sat-

"MIIIIIIIIIKUUUUUUU!"

The way the girl's auburn pigtails bobbed and weaved almost collapsed Ichigo's exhausted body into a puddle of emotions. Kokoro barreled into her, sending them both to the ground in a frenzied hug.

Mitsuru turned away, trying to hide his puffy eyes, but a glare from Ikuno made him reconsider. He rubbed his neck and went to greet Zorome. Chlorophytum's pistil rubbed Ichigo's back, and together they approached Miku.

It was one thing to be told they still lived. It was quite another to see them in person. Zorome had no legs. A sling supported Miku's left arm. Argentea's final stand left them maimed; they were no longer parasites.

But none of them were, and that was fine. They were alive.

Everyone was alive.

"How did you survive?!" Kokoro sobbed. "That klaxosaur stabbed the cockpit! It cut Argentea in half! We all saw!"

Miku shot Zorome a weird look, one that caught Ichigo off guard. It wasn't one of her usual glares. It was... softer.

The boy in question huffed, then crossed his arms and looked away. A light blush stung his cheeks. "I... think I pulled her out of the way. Maybe. I dunno, it's fuzzy." Then he stopped to mull something over. "H-Hey, hey, wait a minute! You guys were there?!"

"Of course we were there, dumbass!" Futoshi roared. He shook Zorome's shoulders. "Idiot! Asshole! You think we'd just leave you there?! When Nana told us what was happening, we-agh!"

His outburst stopped with a yelp. Vice-like fingers clamped around his ear, and Ikuno pulled him back with a sharp tug. Zorome slumped in the wheelchair, whimpering.

"Futoshi."

Futoshi began sweating. "Y-Yes?"

The glasses flashed. "He. Is. In. Jured."

"S-Sorry..."

...

Her hands began shaking.

Miku's distant voice barely reached her. "Hey, where's Goro?" A pause. "...Ichigo?"

She walked to the bookcase. Should she sit? She felt faint - no. No, she was seeing things. That's all.

Ikuno's eyes traced her back. "Goro's fine. He was wounded while we were escaping, but it wasn't bad. Naomi took him to get stitches. Ichigo, what's wrong?"

'The Beast and the Prince'

In the deepest, darkest part of a forest lived a tribe, hidden from all. They had large wings on their backs and were beautiful, but they were what would be called beasts. Among them was their princess, who had huge, ashen wings. Their law said that once one turned sixteen, they would be allowed to fly outside the forest.

Impossible.

And on her sixteenth birthday, the princess took flight to the world beyond the forest. She crossed the steep mountains and the surging rivers and reached a world of humans. The moon shone brightly in the sky.

She landed in a castle garden, where she found a young man gazing up at the moon. The princess hid in the bushes and stared at the young man, and for the first time, love bloomed in her heart. But he was clearly of a different race. A beast and a human could never be together.

Impossible.

And so, the princess went to see a witch who lived in the same forest and said, "I want to live as a human. I want to be united with him." The witch replied like so: "I can help you if you offer me your wings. But keep this in mind. No matter how you disguise yourself, you are a beast, and you will consume the prince's life one day."

The princess ripped off her wings and was assaulted by pain far more intense than she had ever felt. She could never fly again.

Even so, she smiled happily, with tears of joy streaming down her face. "I'm human! I'm human! I'm the same as him now!

Impossible. Impossible. Impossible. Imposs-

"Ichigo? Are you okay?"

Ikuno's gentle touch slammed her heart into her rib cage. She yelped and stumbled back to the group; her knuckles were white from the strength of her grip around the pages. All eyes landed on her.

"H-Huh? Oh, um, I'm - M-Miku? Have you seen this b-b-book before?"

Miku's brow furrowed in concern. "Yeah, Zorome and I were talking about it earlier. I don't like it. It's super sad. That old librarian down the street lets me borrow it occasionally."

Librarian librarian librarian she needed to find this librarian!

"A l-librarian? Where... where is he?"

C'mon c'mon why was everyone so damn quiet?! She needed to know! This was important!

"The l-library's... uh... take a right when you leave, past the intersection, a few buildings down on the left. You can see the little cafe from the... Ichigo? Are you sure you're feeling alright?"

She pushed past them to the door, book clutched against her chest. "Y-Yeah, I'm fine! I'll be right back, I just wanna check-"

"Ichigo."

Mitsuru's grip latched against her shoulder. Sweat tumbled down her cheeks.

He frowned. "Is that the..."

She swallowed her spit and choked out her words. "P-Please let me go, Mitsuru. Please, I gotta..."

His hold on her weakened; Ichigo used the opportunity to break away and dash down the hall. She heard Ikuno call after her.

"H-Hey! Ichigo?!"

She gulped down the air, raced out the door and down the street. Stop hyperventilating! Stop hyperventilating!

"Hey, watch it!"

"S-Sorry!"

Across the intersection! A few houses... on the left... cafe in... in the...

She flung the door open. The bell chimed. An elderly man behind the counter glanced up from washing a glass.

"...Yes?"

Ichigo doubled over and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to catch her breath. Her trembling hands lifted the book into view.

"Do... do y-you... know anything... about this book?"

He stared her down, offended. "I did not loan that to you. Who are you?"

The explanation tumbled from her lips and tripped over her tongue. "I h-h-have a f-friend! She had... she h-had this exact same book! A girl! A g-girl with... with horns!"

...

Something shattered.

When she looked up, the man was pale as a ghost.

"...What did you just say?"

Two sets of memories warred for control. Tears stung her eyes.

"She couldn't speak! She didn't know how to talk! She l-looked at the book's pictures! She had red skin and red horns and pink hair! She met a boy and... and f-fell in love! They escaped together! Please! Please sir, I... I need to know! I don't know why and-"

"Take this!"

Through her blurry vision, she made out the elder leaning over the counter, holding out a piece of paper. She approached and took it after putting down the book.

Directions?

"Listen to me."

His spectacles fogged.

"I don't know what you will find in that cursed place. Miku and her friends did not stay for long. I understand why. But that is where you will find the truth, whatever it is. It is where... she... they grew up. It was their... home."

She stared at the tiny piece of paper. Goosebumps rose across her flesh. Her whole body shook from the adrenaline.

The... truth...?

"Before you go, please, I beg you, tell me something!"

Her eyes returned to the old man, waiting.

"That girl, your friend - is she - is she... safe? Is she healthy? Happy?"

"Yes." Then, stronger: "Yes. She is."

...

Her words took a moment to register. Then, effort expended, the librarian slumped. He held his head, crying and whimpering.

"Thank God. Oh, thank God!"

Ichigo began running, and this time she did not stop.

The trip had been quiet. They put shrouds over the windows. Kept noise in the cabin to a minimum, flew fast and low. You know how it is.

"How many children do you want?"

Honestly, he had no clue. Not that many... maybe? Hiro suppressed a shudder. Their guide probably expected them to pump them out like rabbits, but... yeah, no. He didn't care about restarting any species, he just wanted a family with the girl he loved. Three maximum? Although...

"That depends on how many you want. It's your body!"

She knew he'd say that.

Zero Two huffed and plopped against his chest. "I knew you'd say that!"

Heh.

They watched the river. The weather improved over the past few hours - wasn't as cold, no more breeze. But the sky was still overcast, the sun would soon set, and then they'd need to head back to the cave. For now, they based in their much needed alone time. The klax girl had departed further downstream half an hour ago, hunting for fish.

"I dunno," she continued while playing with his knuckles. Her brow furrowed in that cute way he adored. "No more than three. I wanna dote on them!"

Some days he wondered if it was odd. They were too similar, too synced. Their brains worked the same way. But those thoughts lasted for a moment and no longer. It didn't matter if it was unusual; he wouldn't change it for the world.

"What hair color do you think they'll have?"

The color of their hair? Hmm... what would their children look like? He tried to visualize.

"They'll be... girls. Girls with green eyes, pink hair and red horns."

The peck on his cheek told him what he'd done. "You're describing me, silly."

Oh. Oops.

He turned away to hide his blush. "Not my fault you're so cute."

Grinning, she cupped his chin and pulled his gaze back. "Here, we'll rule two out. One will be a mini-me, the other will be a mini-you. What'll the last one look like?"

Hiro concentrated on her features. Would the child have her jawline, or his? Blue or green eyes? A boy or girl?

"...Purple horns?"

Zero Two blinked. Then she released him and turned away, thinking hard. "Waaaait. Do horns work like that?"

Did they? "Maybe we should..."

A metal bucket impacted the ground nearby. In unison they turned to the noise, only to see their klax companion dart into the forest.

"...ask the girl..."

Her reactions to seeing them like this had worsened over time. Barely perceptible at first, then came the shifting of her eyes. If she couldn't turn away, she glared her disapproval. Those were directed at Zero Two. She treated him better, and on the rare occasion they held an actual conversation, she talked to him like she knew him.

But she didn't know him.

Zero Two watched the treeline, her shoulders stiff.

"Zero Two, I've been thinking-" "Darling, about the-"

Yeah.

This was strange.

He swallowed his nerves. "You first."

His soulmate spun off his lap so they sat face to face. She took his hands in her own and looked him dead in the eyes.

"Do you... do you remember those pictures I mentioned? The ones I saw when we were in that house in the city?"

So that's what she'd been thinking about all this time. They hadn't had the chance to talk about them, but what did they have to do with that girl's odd reactions?

"Yeah. Do you think they're related to her behavior?"

Zero Two chewed on her lip and glanced at his chest. He tilted her chin up, so he could look her in the eyes. She was being silly again.

"It's okay."

She sighed. "I wanted to talk with you about them, but... that girl's always in earshot. Uh... signal range?"

"Is it that bad?"

She nodded and squeezed his hands tight. "I think... I th-think..."

His thumbed rubbed her knuckles. Zero Two took a breath.

"One of those pictures, darling - it was that girl and a... boy."

...

Wait.

"Did he..."

"Yes."

His heart stopped. Zero Two wiped at her eyes, then flashed him a sad smile.

"Not so much your face. But... your bodies, darling. Your builds. Your shoulders, your postures, it's..."

The other girl's words played back in his mind. Hiro's breath came out in a raspy gasp. "'Angry and overprotective'?"

"At the time, when the doctor told - lied to us about what happened, I thought it was good enough. I was fine with it! But... but..."

Mint orbs locked onto his horns.

Yeah. She was right. "Blood doesn't work that way."

"You have blue horns, not red horns! They keep lying to us about this! I don't know why and I don't care! I don't care, darling! I fell in love with your soul and everything else is a bonus! Your hair, your eyes, your body, it's all just... just honey on the ham!"

The weight lifted and he felt himself sigh in relief. Her grip tightened.

"If it's true, I don't care. If it's something else, I don't care! It's a coincidence! If it was someone else - if it was true and it was someone else, and he came for me, I would fucking kill him!"

He knew it in his core, now that he thought about it. It was too convenient. All of it: the way the doctor treated him as he grew up; the constant tests and experiments and physicals, separate from the other parasites; the feeling of emptiness in his body, until he reunited with her and began changing; that girl's behavior.

She was Zero Two's genetic donor.

Hiro bowed his head, overwhelmed by the emotions. "We're lucky. This could've turned out so differently."

Her hug engulfed him, which he returned on instinct. Zero Two choked out her words.

"I'm the luckiest girl in the world. Let me talk to her, okay? We're... we're similar. I know what she's thinking, and she'll react poorly if you confront her. We need to figure this out."

They needed the truth.

He pulled back and kissed her, long and deep. She melted into it, sighing, then parted after a long minute.

"Thanks. Love you."

"Love you. Good luck, shout if you need me."

No more secrets. No more lies. No more bullshit.

Within that picture frame hid their answers.

Ah! Sorry if I missed some details. It's always been foggy. I don't remember if others were there. Maybe we went in separate groups?

...?

Like, a location? I'm not sure. I remember the hallways, though. The hallways were unnerving. Long and dark.

I recall the man's footsteps clapping against the floor. I think it was cold, too. But... maybe that was my fear. I'm not sure.

...?

Yes! They talked to me about fear quite a bit, actually. Wanted to know if I thought about the future, the things I wanted to do. Offered their advice - oh! Sorry, sorry! I'm getting ahead of myself.

The wind howled. A storm brewed. She cared not.

Exhausted legs propelled her into the clearing of dead grass. Two sets of stolen memories rampaged through her mind, vying for control. At the end of the field stood the bunker; her answers beckoned.

Hands dragged her away, though she kicked and screamed. The fingers clamped around her wrists and tugged at her clothing.

"Raa? Ra ra! RARA!"

Out of breath. It didn't matter. Her muscles cursed and cried and it didn't matter and-

Face down in the dirt now, with a stinging knee. The girl freed her foot and tried to get her bearings. She looked to the rock over which she had-

death of

Chiseled...

sAfEr iNsiDe

01-12

She did not understand.

believed to be

gO nOw

So she ran.

the cause

AM-01

In the howls echoed the chosen dead. She forced her way into the murky depths, clammy and out of breath. Her scraped knee drew attention to her frozen, sore ankle.

HOLDING CELLS

TESTING

LABS

APE AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

IDENTIFICATION VISIBLE AT ALL TIMES - COMPLIANCE MANDATORY

TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT

shot shot shot shot shot shot

"The holding cells," she whispered to herself in between gasps. "The holding cells!"

No time to rest, no time to pause. Further she ran, ever onward to her unseen destination. An opened door caught her attention, a cliff to send her sanity into freefall.

A dangling mobile. A dangling precipice.

Torn wallpaper. Torn dreams.

Broken toys. Broken childhoods.

A rusted chain. The shackles of her stolen memories.

Shaking hands tried to touch it, to acknowledge its existence. Body and mind collapsed. Sobbing and crying and lamenting and-

mOtHeR uSeD tO SAY-

"I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't!"

Eyes spun. Body disassociated. Chafing steel around her ankle and rags around her shivering form and she couldn't talk and she couldn't cry and why why why why-

"yOu ARe sO-"

A book.

"ssspeeee...shuuuul..."

Gone.

Vomiting onto the floor and choking and gasping she couldn't get it she didn't get it-

"What... was..."

The wind howled through the bunker.

Delusional. She was delusional. She could handle it she was okay she was okay so get up damn it and keep going-

Tears streaming down her face, she stumbled to the door and turned down the hall.

bang

"Who..."

bang

It was-

BANG

-hitting its head against-

gUiDe ThEm

Gone. Away from the wall. At the door, far end, leading to the-

pAss tHeiR tEsTs

"WHO ARE YOU?!"

It clawed at the door and struggled against the handle. The thing's head snapped back, its eyes, its eyes its eyes stop looking don't look don't look-

mY nAmE

She could not understand.

iS iChiGo

Static. Crying, stop crying stop it hurt it hurt so bad please!

Her fingers tore at her hair. She screamed to drown out the noise.

wHaT's YoUrS?

Gone.

Like the wind - gone.

Summoning all her remaining willpower, Ichigo gulped down an open-mouthed breath and sprinted on shaking legs to the far end of the hall, through the intersection. The testing area. Her answers were in...!

On the metal slab of the door:

A.P.U.S.

ASSESSMENT OF PROPERTIES AND UTILIZATION STRATEGIES

It was unlocked. It was locked. She knew it was locked so why was it unl- no no no open it find answers get-

Stark white walls. An operating table dominated the center.

"Get those straps secured!"

"Aaaah... h-huh? Wha... wha..."

"Anesthesia? No, the doctor doesn't know if there will be an adverse reaction. Place a clamp over his to-"

Ichigo keeled over at the waist and dry heaved onto the floor.

In place of the boy sat a crumpled up piece of paper. Unfolding it revealed a letter, filled margin to margin with bulky, uncomfortable handwriting. Her hands wouldn't hold it steady. Reading it proved a struggle.

To good doctor, Werner Frank:

I, 01-06. Dying. Okay. All dead. Okay. Girl-

"NEED... FOOOOOOOOOD!"

Whirling around, a struggle at the exit.

doors locked

"SHE... HAWNGRY!"

bang

precautionary measure

bang

Read the letter ignore it it's not real it's not real it's not real please ig-

BANG

ignore ignore ignore ignore ignore ignore

"OPEN DOOR NOW!"

Read! Read!

-dying. Not-

"NOT! OKAY!"

BANG

Her hands did not stop shaking.

"LET OUT!"

BANG

"LET! OUT!"

BANG

yOu wiLL bE tHe sTrOnGeST

She read the words before the static overwhelmed.

-okay. Bad. Have studied. Have learned. Long time. Made fix. Please. I beg. I beg. I beg.

Her eyes traced the last sentence, right before the incessant trembling tore the paper from her hands. It fluttered to the floor and landed on its reverse side. Something else caught her attention.

You will find the truth in the lab, in the third drawer from the left, underneath the line of computers.

Ichigo tripped over herself on the way out and dared not look to the entrance. The letter's words tumbled through her frayed mind.

Please-

LABS

subject 01-6

-save-

Her heart, her heart, beating too fast, stop stop calm down calm down. Too much can't breathe so sweaty gotta breathe!

demonstrating

Lights flickering. The creature, slumped against the wall. It painted with a bloody blue hand, moaned in horrific agony.

-girl.

A DNA helix.

She blinked.

irrational behaviors and thought

Gone.

SAVE HER

Ichigo broke down and sobbed.

bUt wHat If i cAN't Do iT?

The static seared her shattered mind, spurred her on with painful shocks and spasms.

nOnSeNsE

Third... drawer... on the left...

yOu MuSt bEliEve iN yOuRsELf

The tears mixed with sweat. Her eyes stung. Somehow, she managed to count the line of computers and locate the drawer. She licked at dry lips, choked against the dust and pulled open the final barrier.

wE wiLL aLwAyS hAvE fAiTh

A blank and nameless folder, filled to the brim with papers. Hyperventilating. Vision swimming. Hands twitching. Panicking panicking panicki-

ThAt yoU aRe cApAbLE

She opened the file and began reading.

A.P.U.S.

tHaT iS wHY...

Her own sore voice finished the line.

ASSOCIATED PROJECTS TO UNIFY OUR SPECIES

"...you... chose me..."

A beep rang out, originating from the computer. The monitor flickered and hummed.

[VOICE COMMAND RECOGNIZED: DELPHINIUM. LOADING PLAYBACK.]

Her eyes never read the screen. They were too focused on the faded image attached to the bottom of that first page - a still frame taken from a security camera, of a boy and a horned girl playing.

Together.

With some toys.

The date in the lower right confirmed their ages. They were three years old.

The file slipped from her hands. Countless papers and reports scattered in the stiff air.

"I am not a religious man."

The voice, one she recognized, came from the computer. It was a video featuring the doctor, who sat behind a cluttered desk, in a room filled with equipment and computers. The surroundings matched Mitsuru's description of the man's office on Plantation 13.

"I never have been. I never will be."

She fell to her knees.

So many reports. So many pictures.

Over a hundred of them. All relatively young. Some her age. Big horns, small horns. Tall and short. Wide and skinny. Men and women.

All of them, in some way, physically deformed or stunted.

"Perhaps... perhaps it was due to arrogance."

Dissections.

"I thought science held all the answers."

Dismemberment.

"What use was faith, when nature and the cosmos could supply every answer we needed?"

Drugs.

"Pah. Ridiculous."

Experiments on both the living and the dead.

Another dry heave. Her muscles burned. She turned to stare at him, the villain, through blurry, tearful eyes.

He did not look back.

"I..."

Ichigo forced the words out in a dry, venomous rasp. "How could you?"

He held his head. The time ticked by.

Every single one, tortured. Dead.

"I am not so sure anymore. I can't believe."

The man turned to the back wall, fiddling with a remote. On the giant monitor displayed the identification numbers and faces of those who no longer walked the Earth.

"I don't know if my sins will be forgiven."

Endlessly, they scrolled. Deceased. Deceased. Deceased. Deceased.

Murdered.

"In... in the old religions, one of the oldest tales is that of the world's creation. One the sixth day, God made man."

The monster slumped in his chair and wailed.

She didn't bother to wipe the tears from her cheeks. Another image caught her eye. Not a frame from a security camera, like so many of the others, but rather a... picture? An actual picture. The lighting was horrible, the backdrop pitch black. Some sort of building? A storage facility?

Newborns, wrapped in sheets, slept together on a giant hand of black metal.

A single blue horn illuminated the darkness.

"I envy him! In one day! A single day, without a drop of failure!"

Frank stumbled to his feet, clicked through the images like a madman. When he stopped, a lone picture displayed on the back wall.

Zero Two sat at a desk, a large book clamped between her fingers. Back hunched and the epitome of focus, she squinted at the pages, but clearly struggled with comprehending its obscure contents.

Younger, perhaps twelve or thirteen. The headband gripped her horns and held them tight. Blotches of pasty white haphazardly dotted her otherwise red skin.

The doctor stared at her, his posture one of mute fascination and wonder.

"They always... even in biology, they always focus on Eve, whether it be biblical or mitochondrial. The woman, the mother. Her health is of paramount importance, because she is the one who gives birth. She is the progenitor."

Another tap. Genetic information. The anatomy of the girl. Everything from her height and weight to the make-up of her chromosomes, recorded to the tiniest of details.

002

[ELISTRE]

[KARINA]

"But for all of humanity's beloved individualism, we fail to recognize one thing."

Another page, another picture. Where the others had paragraphs upon paragraphs of reports attached, this paper remained oddly blank - just the picture and nothing more.

A horned boy... and a horned girl, wrapped around his arm, smiling bright.

These children were not Hiro and Zero Two. Their skin was blue.

Ichigo tugged at her hair, unbelieving. "They were... who y-you were trying... t-to..."

"Humans cannot be alone."

She twisted back to the monitor. He met her gaze this time, and he, too, was crying.

"There cannot be just one."

No.

Without looking, he pressed the button.

A mirror image.

The boy sat at a desk, in a different location, reading the same book. With the same bunched back. With the same focused gaze.

"No," she blurted. "No! I don't believe you! I don't!"

The crazed lunatic, the man behind years upon years of madness, choked out his words. "To create the world, he required two. So if there is an Eve..."

The words of a fellow pistil ripped and clawed through her soul. She sputtered them out in a futile attempt to rid herself of the poison.

"M-M-May... maybe... he was... a-always..."

No.

No, no, no.

Ichigo scrambled away from the computer, crumbling his crimes under hand and foot.

Click.

No!

She curled up into a ball, pushed her head against the floor and clutched at her skull.

Please, no!

Crying and sobbing and screaming and willing the world to be correct again.

Why? Why?

She wished they had never been created!

Because love didn't exist.

And wished she had never borne witness!

Because it was all a lie, and what they had wasn't real.

And wished for a purpose to her meaningless, cursed, pathetic existence!

Because they were designed to adore and designed to obsess.

And so, Code 015 had, at last-

With no free will, from birth until death.

016

[UNKNOWN]

[WERNER]

The girl and the boy, a slave and her tool.

-found her truth.

"...there must also be an Adam!"

The man, though... I remember how tight his grip was. He wasn't one to show many emotions, but he seemed nervous about it. Looking back, I can understand why.

But I was curious, as children tend to be. So as we walked, I asked him, "Where are we going?"

madman in the franxx

murderer in the franxx

MaStErMiNd iN tHe FrAnXx

ePiSodE 19

zErO

onE

SIX

And the man, dignified, replied:

"To meet your parents."

She found the girl curled up in the fetal position by the river.

Mhm, made sense. Trying to close herself off from the world and stuff. She knew the feeling well.

She could do this, yup! Time for The Talk.

"Hey."

Ah! Her shoulders stiffened a bit! Good, so she wasn't dead. That was a start.

...

Yeah, she... um, wasn't good at this. Okay, think. Run down the checklist. Before she reunited with darling, she was:

Depressed.

Pissy.

Very, very lonely.

Against interacting with the world in generaaaaaaaaal wait, that still applied. Nevermind!

Prone to outbursts of homicidal rage and property destruction.

Lacking in the 'will to keep living' department.

Oh boy. Okay.

"Um... can we talk?"

No.

Hnnnnn! Maybe she should go back and - no! No. This was girl talk. Darling was the topic, yes, but she could do this by herself! She didn't need him for everything!

Only most things, mhm.

Zero Two bit the bullet and implied the obvious.

"That boy in the picture, was he your dar-"

SHUT UP!

Okay! Shutting up now!

The girl's body shook from head to toe. Fingers dug into calves, teeth grit and ground.

I... am so sick of hearing that word! 'Darling' this and 'darling' that! It never ends with you, you stupid robot!

...Huh? "R-Robot?"

The klax whirled around, seething.

You don't even know how programmed you are, do you?! You think the human didn't mess with your head?!

"What are y-"

Do you even know his name? Or did that old lunatic just think it would be a cute reference if you said 'darling' every three seconds? Are you his princess too?

"Slow dow-"

The girl alternated between hyperventilation and choking out tears.

You're just a mockery! A fake! A bag of programmed genetics made to pump out baby after baby! I should've never given him the information! I should've killed him instead!

Three was the limit, damn it! Three!

'This one will be your darling,' he probably said! 'And you'll love him and worship him and do whatever he wants!'

tHis liTtLe Bi-

"HIS NAME IS HIRO!"

The girl recoiled, as if struck. Zero Two clenched her fists, seeing red. The lava vaporized her veins and scorched her soul.

"His. Name. Is. Hiro. Not darling. Not master or mate or whatever the hell else you think I call him! That is how he introduced himself. That is the first word I ever learned! Hiro is my darling. The second is attached to the first! Not the other way around!"

A long pause ensued. They glared at each other and caught their breaths. Zero Two spoke up first - she needed to, before the other girl exploded again.

She knew the signs and saw the patterns and it was so damn frustratiiiiiing! Attack attack attack, pause, attack some more. Vulnerability could be masked with pure offense. Pushing people away stopped them from getting close. If they got too close, they could hurt you. The last thing someone wanted after being hurt for so long was getting hurt again.

She stared into the mirror and the mirror stared back!

"My name is Zero Two. His name is Hiro. What's your name?"

Her reply was immediate.

Princess.

Aaaaaaargh!

"Stop lying! How can I properly apologize if you never tell me your name?!"

That caught her off guard!

The girl sort of stumbled over herself and turned away. She chewed her lip, then, after a moment, kicked a stray rock into the river.

...Elistre. My name is Elistre.

Finally!

"Elistre, look, I'm sorry! Really! I didn't mean to bring up those memories! I never meant to mock you! Hiro never meant to mock your-"

He wasn't my darling.

"...H-Huh?"

The rage dissipated and her whole body slumped. Elistre collapsed to her knees and stared into the water, her expression blank.

He... wasn't my darling. He was going to be.

That feeling from his absence, all those years, multiplied infinitely. She guessed the situation to be bad, but this...

I still called him it, though. Since we were kids. I picked up the habit from my mother. She thought it cute.

Carefully, ever so carefully, Zero Two lowered herself to the ground beside her...

Beside the original.

The failure, the one who lost.

"I'm sorry," she choked out.

We were going to be bonded!

The floodgates opened.

We had everything prepared! A date! All the steps, done! Citizen service was mandatory for the men, they all had to help defend what little we had! He was... why? Why then? Just a few months later, it would've been fine! He wouldn't have been at the base! He would've been with me, where he belonged! We could've become a klaxosaur! Together!

The princess of the klaxosaurs, the one who so clearly heard the voices of her people, didn't want to hear them at all.

She heard so many, yet was so alone.

All those people in the pictures - gone. Her friends, her betrothed, her...

"What... what happened to your parents? Did they become a klaxosaur too?"

A strange, ugly gurgle clogged Elistre's throat. A broken laugh.

Oh. Kivala didn't tell you, did they?

She regretted asking the question as soon as it left her mouth. "About what?"

The klax named their children by breaking up their names and combining them into new forms. My halves were 'Eli' and 'Stre'. When they all became klaxosaurs, they named themselves using the same process.

Elistre. Stre-eli-

Those people in the vision-

'They were. It was.'

A wave of pure, undiluted agony washed over every aspect of her being. She'd felt similar levels of nausea exactly one time before this moment: the day she thought she murdered her darling.

The girl who lost everything fixed her broken, tear-stained gaze on the distant shadow of a watchful guardian.

They never even said goodbye.

...!

Right? That was my same reaction! Your mother's told you a bit about it, hasn't she? We didn't have parents. It was artificial fertilization. We formed in tubes, made from a selected combination of preserved genes from dead donors. They told us Papa was our father, but he didn't raise us - Garden's staff did. So imagine my surprise!

I asked him, "Really? I'm meeting Papa?"

But the man shook his head and led me down the hall.

"Papa is too busy," he told me. "Another couple has offered to raise you. They have wanted to meet you for a very long time."

"The first klaxosaur humanity recovered for study was a deactivated quadruped in the shape of a lion. When the sensors detected the magma energy circulating inside, they called me and any other biologist they could find."

She heard the words, but they didn't register. In one ear and out the other.

She didn't understand. Why was she still alive?

No point. None at all.

"Its construction defied all known physical laws and engineering principles. Something so large should have collapsed in on itself long before we dug it up."

She thought they were real. She strove after them, sought to emulate what they had. That happiness, that love... she wanted it! They all did!

"We tried to take it apart. Nothing would budge. The klaxosaurs continued to rampage through the world. Small victories did nothing to halt the collapse of military doctrine and strategy. Papa refused to use any more nuclear weapons."

She beat her fists against the floor, screamed so loud her eardrums rang. Threw chairs, sneezed from the dust, clawed at her head until she found herself bruised and exhausted.

The wretched creature tapped the remote again. Another slide, one she vaguely recognized. It looked like a Franxx.

"We reverse engineered it as much as possible and built a prototype from the scrap we had. It-"

The hideous crack in his voice stopped her tantrum. His shoulders slumped.

"My... my wife and I, we - we hated it. We knew it was to be a weapon. Everything continued to just... just go away. Vanish, disappear."

All fake!

No point to... anything...

"The world was dying. All we had studied, all we watched and recorded and loved - it faded a bit more every single day. We couldn't stop it. We thought the magma related, but... but there was no way to test. No way to secure a sample and study it, not before they called us back, again and again."

again and again and again and again and again-

"Test pilots came and went. It never moved. And then, one time! The one time it blasted, FUCKING MOVED!"

With trembling, lifeless hands the monster returned to his desk and grabbed a square object from a drawer. Tears descended his ugly face; he cried out and fell into the chair, pushing it against his forehead.

"It shouldn't have happened! It should've been me! Why couldn't it have been me?!"

Why couldn't it have been him?

Maybe then they'd have never been made. Maybe then she'd have something to live for.

When he continued, he was eerily calm.

"Karina's death destroyed me. I threw myself into my work, hellbent on making her dream - our dream - a reality. I would find some way to reverse everything we'd ever done to this forsaken rock, even if it killed me. A few weeks later, I received a call from one of the staff at the facility housing the lion."

Click.

Wait, that was...

"When I arrived, I found not a lion, but a woman."

Her head spun and spun and spun and she just let it keeeeeep spiiiiinning.

"It took years to finally decipher and translate the chemical signals detected in that room. Always the same pattern, always the same intensity."

That... that one sheet she'd stepped on... where was it?

"The message said, 'Help us'. I can't remember how long I spent figuring out a system of communication. I studied the make-up of the molecules, created synthetic variants that we could control and inject into future pilots. Those chemicals were the key to everything: getting the prototype to move... and devising a plan. I kicked everyone out, had them fix the prototype to buy myself time. I heard they named it after me. 'Frank's machine'. Franxx."

Where was it? Where was-

"Upon exchanging introductions with the lion-turned-woman, I learned 'it' was actually 'they'. Not one, not even two, but three beings in one body. A man, a woman... and something else."

She stared at the paper.

"Delphis... and Niumi..."

STRELLIC AND ELIZIA

A picture, an x-ray, of the inside of the machine. Dozens, if not hundreds of wires, cables, synthetic tendons and fibers coursed through its innards. They connected artificial organs, muscles and ligaments into one lifeform. All originated - or returned to - one location.

The man and the woman, their bodies ripped apart and vivisected, knelt face to face, hands intertwined and horns touching.

And yet, from what little she could make of the faded image, they did not appear to be in any pain.

"They told me everything. About the klax, about the magma, and about the death of Earth. I learned this had all happened once before. Strellic and Elizia were not warriors. Like myself and my wife, they were scientists, the lead experts in magma energy during their civilization's heyday. They, too, had lost all they'd known."

A cycle.

"Madness," she lamented to herself. "It's madness!"

For no reason, for no purpose, for no goal. Self-inflicted wounds. Over and over and over again.

No reason for their childhood. No reason for the decades of torture. No reason for the fake love she found herself admiring.

Ichigo curled up into a ball and laughed at her foolishness.

"They managed to fix the problem, back then, but they could not do it again. Their body failed them. They were tired and weak. But these people shared my goal, so I offered my assistance. They asked of me two things. The first was to find their companions, the klaxosaurs who threw aside their mortal coils and followed without reservation."

A cycle.

A gut-wrenching gag tore her throat asunder.

"Us. They were us!"

"The second..."

She lifted her head from her arms. The doctor took a haggard breath, then brought up a new slide.

Her life was a cycle. This horrid, awful world - a loop. Repeating for eternity, unbroken.

Everything was tied together.

The girl in the-

"The second task they asked of me was to find their daughter, Elistre, the princess of the klaxosaurs."

He paused. His weary body creaked and groaned.

"I could not take the communication devices with me... so I attached them to my person. And then, once I recovered, I departed on a journey."

I didn't know what to expect, but I was excited as only a child could be. He led me through a set of doors, and on the other side was the biggest room I'd ever seen. I didn't know where it ended! The walls stretched on and on and the ceiling reached the clouds!

...

That's the thing! They had no choice but to make it that big. I didn't know why at the time, but now it makes perfect sense.

"You're so strong."

Huh?

Where she won, Elistre lost. They were the same, yet opposite. She started at the bottom and went up and up, but this girl...

"I don't know how you've managed for so long. I would've killed myself long before this point."

I should've!

No parents to mourn. Her darling came back to life.

Zero Two whirled and grabbed her shoulders. "No!"

The princess shook her head and tried to pull away.

I defiled his memory! I'm worthless! I should've never entrusted the human with it! I should've ended my life instead, but now I can't! I can't even face him in the afterlife!

She didn't get it! "Look at me! Elistre!"

The tears traced the black lines on her face.

"Without you, I would not be alive," Zero Two whispered. "Neither would my darling. And you're wrong, about - about two things!"

What are-

"I didn't steal it from you!" She knew she cried, but tried smiling anyway. "That word, I didn't steal it from you. I don't use it to mock you. Our darlings are different."

The klax's exhausted slump proved her too tired to counter.

No friends to lose, when all she had was him.

"You said you got it from your mother. I don't have one. The doctor never kept us together. We were raised separately and found each other ourselves. The only thing I owned was a book, and that book was where I got that word! He named and promised to marry me. I wanted to name him too. I wanted to call him something that belonged to me and me alone. So I named him darling."

...

And... and the second thing?

Yes!

"We're - we're not fakes! You said it yourself, we're not just klax. Darling - Hiro and I, we're hybrids. I'm not a copy of you and he's not a copy of your darling. Hiro's right, we're sisters. He's your darling's brother. We're related. We're family! And that means you aren't alone."

The poor girl struggled with the concept. Zero Two tightened her grip.

"You can't keep it bottled in, Elistre. You need to... to let it out. It isn't healthy. I get it. I thought my darling died, too. I thought I killed him. Before I found him again, I pushed everyone away. I was scared."

She squeezed her eyes shut.

I can't!

"You can! It's just us! I told Hiro to wait, so he won't come here! It's just Strelizia and those two klaxosaurs!"

The poor girl trembled. Zero Two sniffed away her tears and tried one last push.

"I won't let you go. I promise."

Elistre's smaller form rocked forward into her chest. She wrapped her arms around her back.

And after so many centuries, so many millennia of pain, after so much loss and heartache, the princess of the klaxosaurs finally let it out.

There was a really weird blue glow coming from the center of the room, but I couldn't identify it. It was too dark, you know? They noticed that too, I think, because way up above, the lights on the ceiling blinked on. They were bright and powerful, but even then they barely lit the floor.

I had to squint, and then I recognized the glow's source. A machine! A big robot, and it looked like a lady! I wanted to know more about it, so I turned to the man holding my hand and asked, "What's that?"

Instead of replying, he let me go and nudged me forward.

"Goro! Goro! Slow down!"

Like hell he would slow down! That stupid girl! Damn it all! She kept doing this to herself!

Already he was out of breath. Excruciating pain arced up his leg, like someone had taken a knife and stabbed it right into his thigh. It hurt to walk, it hurt to blink, it hurt it hurt it hurt aaaaaargh!

"Goro!"

No! Fuck that! Fuck that! Ichigo! Not this time! He wouldn't let her, not this time! He'd be there! He'd definitely be there!

Move, move move move move move move!

A crack of lightning, a howling gust. Black skies threatened to wash away all he held dear. Faster and faster he raced against the storm, through the trees and over the sticks and rocks.

The sutures rubbed against his skin to an agonizing degree. His heart hammered in his chest, his vision swam, his lungs burned. But it didn't matter. It didn't matter, not while she was out there without him and suffering and damn it, damn it damn iiiit move move move faster, faster body move MOVE MOVE!

The clearing appeared before him. The dead grass swayed. Inside that bunker! Inside that damnable, infernal bunker!

He hissed pained, labored gasps through clenched teeth and powered through the volcanic misery.

"Ichigo...! Ichigooooooo!"

Yes, a bit! Nervous, too. It was so big! Compared to that robot, I was an ant, a bug! I thought it would step on me!

...?

Of course it didn't! Instead, it knelt down and lowered its hand. I got the impression it wanted me to climb on, so I did. And then it lifted me up high, until I stared at its head.

...?

Its face opened up. This big cable - as big as my arm, I think - came out and approached me. I thought it was cool, so I poked it with my index finger.

...!

Really? I don't think so. Children do silly thing when they're curious, you know!

...

Oh, right! It pricked my finger and this strange static ran through my head. I jumped a bit... but the machine wanted me to touch the cable again, so I did.

...?

No, no. I think it wanted to apologize, maybe? But the next thing I heard was a voice. It said, "Hello."

"I discovered the princess to be a kindred spirit of sorts. Our lovers had both been crushed to death."

The pieces, all connected. But instead of being relieved, all she felt was a vague emptiness.

"Though her body was that of a teenager, she demonstrated a wisdom far beyond her years. She bottled her grief, the same as I, and focused on the bigger picture. Elistre wished to save her species. Drinking the magma energy robbed from her the ability to procreate. But after some discussion, our deal was finalized."

Click.

A launch facility.

Nothing surprised her anymore. Idly, she recalled that day, long ago and far away, in which she expressed the desire to be more like the other children. She was too emotional. Hiro convinced her that was fine.

Funny and ironic. It didn't matter. She finally got her wish.

"You've caused so much death."

"She tasked me to create two beings, a boy and a girl, containing the DNA of the fallen klax race and able to procreate. In return, the klaxosaurs would prevent what little magma remained from leaving the surface of the planet."

And here they were, back at the beginning.

"The latter proved infinitely easier than the former."

The monster reclined heavily in his chair, taking a moment to collect himself.

"I used the most stable human DNA we had in storage. Elistre's genetic code was fresh, as expected - she still lived, after all. Her mate's was a different story. The women tended to last longer than the men. The closest I came was the sixth subject created, but despite her overall stability, she could not have children. She became the caretaker of the hybrid children... and saw them live and die."

Live and be murdered.

"I..."

Murdered!

"Morals do not matter when the... when the fate of the world is... at stake."

He said that, but he couldn't even look at the camera!

"I had to figure out what was wrong. I had to identify problems and make adjustments for the next batch. The only way to do that was..."

He struggled to validate himself, but even he knew the reality. He knew the truth.

She hoped this God was real, so he could face his judgment.

"It... it adversely affected 06, psychologically. She obsessed over finding a solution, some sort of magical cure to heal the hybrids. She asked me questions, begged me for information in one breath and their safety in the next. I ignored her. But... but eventually, I reached my limit. I said I would never use our DNA in the process, but... but I-"

His voice cracked again.

"I knew of no fresher source! My... Karina and I, early on, decided to store one of her eggs - for later, so we could..."

Click.

The same picture as earlier, but clearer.

The newborns, wrapped up and bundled, on the hand of a giant.

"They could... they were healthy, they could reproduce! But not with each other! I did all I could! I thought the pairing went flawlessly! But somehow, somewhere along the line..."

The doctor buried his face in his hands and groaned, weary and tired.

"Hybrids, the both of them, with no deformities besides some odd coloration! But she was too klax, and he was too human! I took them to Strelizia, asked them for advice, anything! But all they told me was... was that it would be okay. They told me all I needed to do was wait. Wait! Just wait, they said! They were the ones they picked, so we proceeded to the next step, all while I continued to doubt!"

His elderly, wrinkled face stared at the ceiling. Defeat encompassed his form.

"The next step... was to bond them to the machine, and murder the only friends I had left."

Everything the man touched died. His grotesque existence cursed those around him. Ichigo felt his rancid presence hang in the air, but no longer cared enough to be bothered.

"I watched them for years. Watched them play and grow... but not change. So I lost hope. Back to the drawing board. I gave the girl to 01-06. The boy passed as a human, but I knew not what code to assign. 003 would have been too obvious. But I recalled Elistre and her dead mate. She refused to tell me anything about him. No name, no characteristics of his personality. The only thing she told me was the date of his death, which, when translated to the human calendar, came out as October 16th."

Even his birthday was a lie. Everything, all of it, fake. Nothing mattered!

"Strelizia could no longer be bonded to potential successes, so I attempted to make variants. I prepared new batches, using the girl as a basis. And when I received word that 01-06 had finally expired, I sent men to recover the girl and bring her to Garden for experiments. The soldiers gave me a vial and a letter. 06's ramblings - her final, delusional claims of a 'cure'. Against my better judgment, I decided to keep it."

The final slide was not a slide at all. It was a video. Another security feed.

She didn't react to the footsteps echoing in the hall.

The fifth of November. Three days after. Hiro strapped down to the operating table. A staff member filling a syringe with blue, vacuous liquid, from the vial.

"And the rest, as you are aware..."

Injected into the arm-

"ICHIGOOOOOOOOO!"

...Huh? That sounded like-

Strong hands grabbed at her and tried to pull her away. She couldn't be bothered. Heard his screams, saw the blue veins bulge and...

"LOOK AT MY FACE!"

Goro was crying.

Wait.

Wait, GORO?! What the hell, why wasn't he in the hospital?!

"G-Goro? What are you..."

Warmth surrounded her. He buried her head into his chest and engulfed her in a hug.

"You stupid girl! You stupid idiot! What the hell are you thinking, Ichigo?! You can't keep doing this!"

"I... I wanted to..."

"I know what you wanted to do! Mitsuru told me everything! Why didn't you find me first? Stop doing everything alone, damn it!"

Panic clogged her soul. She tried to push him away. "I-I can't! I can't do this! It doesn't exist!"

He looked sufficiently confused. "Eh? What're you talking about?"

"IT'S FAKE!"

Tears stung her eyes. His brow furrowed, so she tried to explain.

"What they have! It isn't real! It's all a-"

"I don't care."

...

H-Huh?

He grabbed her cheeks and looked at her. Odd warmth spread across her face.

"I don't care about what those idiots do or do not feel! None of that applies to me, none of it applies to you! What I feel is real, Ichigo!"

But! But! But!

"But I saw things! I'm delusional! You don't want to like a crazy person! I'm a weirdo!"

A crack of lightning reverberated, high up in the sky. Rain tumbled down upon the bunker and its surroundings, delivering much needed moisture to the dry and dying foliage.

"That's why you need to talk to me more, damn it! You never talk about the things you see or hear! How am I supposed to help you if I don't know the signs?! They're gone and I'm not! Look at me!"

She looked at him. She sniffled. Her tears carried away the panic and the weight of the world.

"I love you!"

Like her demons and like her nightmares - gone. She wrapped her arms around his torso and collapsed into his shirt, wailing.

"Don't go! Please don't go!"

The thunderous rain and the safety of his arms blocked out the boy's heart-piercing screams.

"Never. I promise."

And though they hurt, the stitches on his thigh held.

Eventually, I worked up the courage to introduce myself.

The cables retracted into the machine, and its face closed. I heard it speak again, but this time it had two voices, not one - a man and a woman, speaking in unison. They said:

"We are Delphinium. That man has told us much about you. Would you like to be our daughter?"

...?

Isn't it obvious?

I said yes.