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Chapter 16

What love really means

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The silence in the grand ring corridor encompassing the Bird Nest complex is sharply cut by Hisui's running footsteps, slowly and slowly decelerating as his breath is getting heavier with every step. While desperately running along for the main tower, he stops in his tracks, bent in two by his breathless lungs while interiorly cursing his feeble stamina pitted against the urgency of the situation - an ill-suited pairing indeed. The small shoulder bag he's carrying is proving to be his most dire foe in this hurried moment.

"Daaamn… who misses the personnel transports, eh? Huff... huff… this one right here! Twelve minutes I said-! Hah… hah… I was joking too soon!"

While silently cursing himself, he forces his back upright and takes long breaths to give relief and some oxygen to the muscles of his last lower limb still attached to him. Not that the other one, now completely mechanical, protests. In fact, it's working even too fine, to the point that all the other muscles of his body are on fire in his stead, the back ones especially. With a slight point of regret, Hisui thinks it had been better if he had taken more seriously those rehab lessons because now he's totally paying those twice. Not that he has to run like that every day, though, but the thought of his mechanical body part somehow overshadowing the other remaining organic ones makes him a bit uneasy. Not that he asked for them to break down anyways…

"Ahh… c'mon, just some more…"

He glances down at the large corridor, to only find its infinitely repeating wall patterns bending into a slight left-curve, without any sign of it ending. Being almost arrived at the destination seems like exactly like not having moved a meter… the ultimate illusion of a never-ending road.

"I hate this place…"

With his last dry complaint, he resumes his jog and dials it down to a fast walk, better to reach the Tower's hospital in one piece. After a couple of minutes, he flips out his communicator, opens its holographic screen mid-walk and summons with some gestures the overhead map of the Nest. To his full relief, the green chevron placed on the Ring's orange-colored outline shows he's currently closest to the Tower bridge he was minutes ago, coming up on his right just in about… more of a hundred meters.

"Figures…"

Some stifled curses later, he finally reaches a wide T-cross section of the corridor, where an opening in the wall, past two sets of big bulletproof glass sliding doors, give way towards a wide suspension bridge crossing to the other side of the base. At least fifty meters long, at the other end of the walkaway could be seen another set of sun-glaring glass doors encrusted into a humongous stark-white wall, the front of the bird-shaped tower overlooking Bird Nest. Without any ado, the photocells trigger and he quickly cross into the light of the day, with the tepid help from a sun shining from atop the sky. As just out of habit, Hisui's gaze climbs upwards, counting the hundreds of windows rows neatly arranged on the forward-facing side of the main skyscraper-like section of the Nest. Right in the middle of it, spanning on a dozen multiple floors lies the Nest's hospital, a both familiar and foreign place, silent and chaotic at the same time. But strange as it sounds, it's not his next destination. First, he needs the elixir's syndrome retardant, then simply the time to apply it. But as much as he could easily manage the former, he knows perfectly how time escapes to never return.

As he reaches the other side in a hurry, the other set of glass sliding doors make way to a brief corridor of glassed displays of various fake plants paired with golden information plates, then to a bigger arched door, and finally to the Tower's lobby. There, lies the omnipresent iron tree sculptures and the main elevator, ready to be used… not actually, it's not ready to be used. Someone's already using it!

"Daaamn, tough luck-! Who might be…?"

Even if built with the last technologies available, the elevator still takes at least a minute to come down from the top of the tower to the lobby, and such time is completely wasted in just staring at the control's holoscreen, where the cabin's floor can be accurately tracked. Hisui approaches the elevator control buttons and pushes the call down button, then crosses his arms and begins to nervously tap his robotic foot on the floor, all the while silently cursing the one that designed the Tower for not having the common sense of at least making a pair of them. Eventually, though, the cabin reaches the lobby, and by his most eager surprise, the doors open to the face of Hachi.

"Oh!" Hisui smiles. "How come you're down here?"

Hachi glances at the white-coated stamen and then plainly explains, "I decided to get down from the Tower."

"Mh…? Did you unlock the engineering section's elevators as I requested?"

"Yes. If you have another issue, just forward it to Nana, she stands in as the Controller now and has management access. She knows this tower better than me, actually."

"Nana? O-Ooooh- yes, the other officer… red hair and bob cut… sly eyes… a bit of a character…"

"Perfect description."

"Ah! OK, then."

Hachi walks out of the elevator in a puissant, stoic but slightly robotic stride, but Hisui doesn't move from where he stands to let him pass. Instead, he keeps his stare up and shoots another question.

"May I ask you where you are going?"

Hachi stops, blocked by both his person and his intruding attitude, and his mouth angles slightly.

"Just a little curiosity, you know."

"I'm going there."

Hisui's eyes narrow. "And… then? What are you going to do?"

"I'm pent on evaluating what's happening… more thoroughly."

"I hope you don't have any intention to crash their meeting."

"Their?"

"Ikuno and his followers."

Hachi's eyes, solid like rocks, finally blink.

"Are they…?"

"They're already negotiating."

And then, twice more.

"Negotiating…?"

"Yes, you know… that one thing that Papa never did."

The commander's breath pauses for a moment, then his brow frowns.

"I see, but I will be there regardless. If I can also be helpful and reason with the Stamen, I will try so."

The young doctor smirks, "Eh… do you? I would be careful at putting at least a smile before that, just so that they know you're… you know…"

"I will also try that."

"Don't tell me-?"

"Keyword: try."

"Pfff-! Heh-ehehehehe! Always the same, Hachi!"

"As you are, Thirteen."

"Ah, if not, that would be a tragedy!"

"Or a miracle."

"Woah, cmoooon-! That's meeeean, man…"

"Kidding."

"Hehe! Sure…"

Hisui steps aside, and Hachi nods as he intrudes the way forward with his strong stride. As he's about to pass by him, the doctor gets up his right hand upright, hand closed and vertical with its knuckles facing towards Hachi, waiting for his move. The commander notices it with the corner of the eye and mirrors his pose, without ever breaking his stern attitude. At his passage, their knuckles collide with each other in an impromptu salute.

"Libertas virorum," Hachi begins,

"…fortium pectora acuit," and Hisui follows with his mouth arching in a smile. As soon as Hachi is past him, he takes a moment to observe the commander's poised but confident walk, heading towards the glass doors he just went through himself. Yes indeed, freedom ignites the hearts of the valorous, and he does look like a certain general of the old world in his prime matching over to quell a rebellion in a distant land... too bad that who said those words actually referred to the rebels that general was going to crush, so the doctor can't help but wonder if he was actually praising the white-haired girl and her little insubordination. At the end, he did change since he saw him last, the Hachi he knew wouldn't do such thing, that's for sure…!

After seeing him off, the young doctor intrudes into the elevator cabin with his index finger crossing all the upper floor buttons to eventually settle on the negative floor numbers. With a little hesitation, he pushes the one that corresponds to the second subterranean floor: the button shines green, and cabin slowly starts to close. Before both metallic door frames shut together, Hisui shoots a last glance to the disappearing black-clothed silhouette with golden epaulets fading onto the stark-white bridge, just almost outside his viewing range. Suddenly, the cabin plunges with a jerk, and Hisui does the same into his own thoughts.

"Some things eventually change..."

His right hand slowly intrudes into the small shoulder bag he's carrying and reemerges holding a pistol-like device. Its body coated in shining silver, black rubber on the grip and clear glass on its tiny orange displays, the jet-injector in Hisui's hand clacks open with the flick of the thumb, ready to house the drug pellet supposed to be shot under the patient's skin. Staring at the end of the nozzle, his eyes darken and the smile he wore just seconds ago vanishes in an aggravated mumble.

"…but some others just refuse to."

...

...

After returning to the storage room with Kokoro and witnessing the little girl's status to the far wall behind her overprotective guardian, Ikuno takes a moment to assert the situation. It's just minutes from when she retreated temporarily to the front room opposite the couple's hiding spot, and the situation already turns out as not as desirable as she wished from the bottom of her heart. Futoshi is still trying to… 'convince' his own way the reluctant Code 121 of letting the little pistil free, but instead of gaining any progress, his constant antagonizing is making matters worse and worse.

"Back down and release the girl at once!"

"I'm not gonna-!"

"Do what I say, otherwise-!" Futoshi growls

"You're no authority to me, fatass, get lost!", the stamen that was called 'Yoruichi' by his little pistil barks back. Ikuno's brow jolts upwards. One thing that she's not prone to do is straight up intimidate Code 121 and have him more nervous than necessary, but that can't be really helped right now. How she's going to convince the stamen of their good intentions after the mess Futoshi is doing…?

"Injuring and kidnapping your pistil down here like a maddened animal, what the hell you're doing!"

"I said that I never hurt her!"

"Then why don't you bring her to the hospital so you can back your worthless words with some facts, huh?"

"I don't need to give any fact to you shits! You're no-one to me, you won't lay a finger on her!"

"You don't have any self-respect, you're supposed to care for your pistil…!"

"I am caring for her!"

"Is that supposed to be care!? You're dishonoring your own legacy!"

"Respect, legacy… empty words! You don't know what both actually feels like, so every one of you should go to hell already!"

"You're not above the rules!"

"Rules? To hell with you and your stupid rules!"

The way Futoshi reacts to that last sentence is like receiving the deepest insult ever.

"How… You…! How dare you-!"

Futoshi makes to charge again towards him, but a quick movement from the sidelines takes everyone by surprise. The beaming blond-haired girl by the code 376 suddenly throws herself in the boy's path like a missile and intercepts his chest with the shaft of her broom. Her orange rubber boots slide on the metal floor as she grinds him to a halt in the most primal of the moves a girl can muster, under Ikuno and Kokoro's incredulous eyes.

"Ughn-uhhh!" Futoshi's arms flail outwards as he staggers back a couple of steps. It felt like a wall suddenly appeared from thin air in the form of a thin-built girl and her cleaning broom.

"Don't misbehave, boyo. No violence on my watch, I said." Code 376's thrilling shout fills the room, and a glare extrudes past her wavy hair towards him. "Don't make it worse than it is already-!"

Her dreamy attitude she displayed in the short time they met is promptly replaced with severity while she pushes him back where he started his charge. With his eyes wide from surprise, Futoshi immediately relents in trying to force his way through the girl.

"…Sorry. I was too eager to pound his head in!" Despite such admission, though, he points his finger directly at the boy across the room. "You! Remember that you took the oath!"

"What the hell? What oath are you talking about!"

"There's no way you can forget it!" Futoshi's gaze drops to the floor, angry like his voice, but then his throat is quickly filled by sadness. "Stepping so low, you're unforgivable… It was supposed to be different. It was our, our-our… place… in…"

Futoshi's face darkens while incapable of continuing the sentence. Code 376 drops her combat stance and takes the broom's shaft off his chest, useless as of right now at not meeting any resistance at all. The girl's puzzled face bounces between Futoshi and the boy behind her, wondering.

"Oath…?" Her puzzled expression is met with lost frowns, clearly unable to tell the reason why of that very vague mention. Eventually, though, Code 376 suddenly jolts with a new understanding. "Oh! So… so, you guys know each other," the girl asks the boys at light speed with curiosity painted all over her face, "Right!?"

The gazes of both boys just grind to the ground like rocks, as like her question made them completely lose their bearings.

"Right…?"

Across their visibly distraught faces lingers the feeling of being lost into an endless desert with no directions to follow, no landmarks to guide them in the path that leads for an answer in the utter desolation of their memory. That hesitation was enough for them to get stuck and delve deep further into silence, but for Ikuno though, such moment was enough for everything she wanted to say. This sudden isle of tranquility seems the perfect moment for her plan to spring through.

She reaches to her side, for Kokoro's hand.

"Are you ready?" Ikuno whispers as her fingers find their own.

"Hm," the meek girl's voice scarily vibrates. She's actually trembling, but her hand grasps back Ikuno's nonetheless. Her warmth, paired with her courage, manages to calm Ikuno's encroaching nervousness. If everything goes smoothly, this is going to be the turning point of the situation. Or, at least, she hopes.

Finally, Ikuno steps forward while pulling her friend forward. Futoshi doesn't even react properly to the two girls' decisive stride passing right beside him, and even the sun-haired girl waivers the broom is stunned by their sudden move. "H-Huh? Where…?"

"Ikuno, Kokoro!" Futoshi yells, but the two ignore his worried voice and instead veer in a direct collision course with the duo. As Ikuno closes in further and further to them, all the fears pent up inside waver her heart, but she doesn't stop. The little girl hides under the white sheets, visibly sobbing, and the bewildered look across Code 121's face transforms into hostility once again as his shoulders stiffen in a gut reaction as the two girls stop just a couple of dangerous meters before him.

"What are you…" he asks, but as soon as Kokoro stops beside her friend, he finally notices they are holding each other's hand and his frown fizzles in disconcerted perplexity. "…gonna do?"

In trying to keep it together, Ikuno takes a slow breath. "Show you something."

"Show me… what?"

"Look, I really didn't want to chase you all the way down here until I found out what happened inside your room. Normally, I wouldn't have any problems with you going wherever you want to go, for whatever the reason you might have, but…"

Code 121's eyes narrow like blades. "Don't think so, I wouldn't be allowed, but…"

"No, I'm serious! I didn't come here to chase you because you decided to leave the Spheres, or desert, or anything of the sort... that's not why I'm here. Actually, I came here even without the commander's consent! It's just me and life-long friends, for a good reason: what we found in your room was… horrible beyond belief. I have never seen in my entire life so much blood in one place at once, and I was worried that something was happening to you and your pistil just below my nose, and you were in need of help. Our commander asked me and my squad to be present for everyone, and since I felt I had everyone onto my responsibility, I felt… no, had to do something, I wanted to make a difference and help others to begin our new life!"

"New life…?" Code 121's bewildering visibly aggravates in his own eyes. "That's grand, where's this life you're talking about…"

"I'm talking about the fact that, as parasites, there's no one to serve anymore."

"Huh? No one to serve?" Code 121 shakes his head in hilarity. "Hehehe! Don't be kiddin' me, no one to serve…!"

"Yeah…? Didn't you notice when staying here? Didn't you notice it's awfully quiet all the time? Did you ever wondered why there's just… no one around, outside the Spheres? No guards, no maintenance, no engineering staff, in a place supposed to be teeming with them?"

The boy stares her with a meek display of distrust.

"Where are the adults in charge?" she asks, trying to pique his attention. He blinks once, and after a brief evaluation, he shrugs.

"'The hell would I know? How am I supposed to know in the first place? They must have fled, as expected from them..."

"So, you don't know?" Ikuno adjusts her glasses. "I thought everyone knew."

He blinks once more, and after a brief pause, this time the question begs itself out of his throat.

"…Then, where are supposed to be the adults in charge?" he finally asks.

"In the hospital's morgue," Ikuno plainly answers.

"Morgue?!" The stamen's face instantly petrifies, and his eyes slowly blink countless times as a cold shower fell on top of his head.

"Yes. Hospitals have morgues, you know. For people that don't make it."

"I know what's a morgue! But-!"His mouth remains open looking like a fish shoved out of the water, but eventually he snaps out of it to wear back his skeptical frown, a bit cracked this time. "You're kidding me!"

"No, not one bit. Everyone was killed by their own helmets. Cooked inside, more like. You know, the visors that everyone wears inside here apart from officers and us parasites? At first, we didn't tell anyone about this to not make everyone panic, but the guys up in the hospital that assembled the emergency area back at Gran Crevasse entered before everyone and saw the situation. After the briefing inside the Sphere Three lobby, we helped them to bring their corpses in the hospital, where the commander tried to hide them before coming to rescue us from the battle. He took a while for that reason."

"You must be joking…"

It was clear as day that such revelation shook him to the core.

"No, I'm not. I'd take you there, right now if you want, but you seem to be worried about that place somehow."

The long-haired stamen briefly tries to reason with those facts in his head, but…

"I just… can't even imagine that such a thing would happen. It feels too convenient... They must have gone somewhere else to weather out until the commanders try and get a grip on everything again, and we're everyone back on track… yeah, must be…"

"…Won't you come and check…?"

"I'm not going anywhere, I said."

"You know, you'd make even your pistil a favor, believe me." She nods to the little one behind him, and he finally notices her white complexion dangerously blending with the white blanket she's tucked into, and sobbing away her tears into the soft cotton wrinkles. "I know you care for her."

At that statement, Code 121 turns to Kokoro and Ikuno with his face transfigured by his own insecurity. "It… It's not your business…" He diverts his gaze to the side, not wanting his emotions to be seen in plain sight.

"I know how it feels, I understand what it means to care for someone," Ikuno presses on. "I know what it means having to see that someone suffer…"

"Nah, I don't think so, otherwise you'd leave us in peace."

"I don't think that's how it works…"

"More importantly, why are you holding your friend like that?"

"Hm... no, why would I?" Ikuno smiles. "I just want to… touch her. Is there a problem?"

"Physical contact is against Papa's rules. If someone happened to denounce you, would you be happy if I would report you?" he devilishly sneers.

"Heh, no, I'm fine!" Ikuno crosses thoroughly her fingers between Kokoro's other hand, securing her palms against hers. Then, her other hand reaches to her friend opposite and ends entwined together with it. Both girls face each other, holding both hands and smiling towards him. "Absolutely fine!"

"Are you mocking me?" He sneers.

"No… I'm serious," Ikuno nods. "There's no one who's going to separate us, I can assure you. And that's because… there's no one left to enforce those rules. "

"I… I'm…" Code 121 is completely our of retorts.

"Also, since you think that we're all brainwashed or mind-controlled in some way, there's something I'd like to bring to your attention. We're aware that there's a practice of punishing parasites with the deletion of their memories because we actually experienced it."

"So, you aren't denying it!"

"I… never denied it in the first place." Ikuno glances to her friend, who she had still her hands attacked to her own "We confirmed it first. Didn't you, Kokoro?"

"Yeah! I… I did get… my memories wiped." Kokoro explains. "A-at one point, I was coming back from the after-battle routine maintenance to my squad, and for some reason, this stamen kept following me since the infirmary saying we were going the same place. I ignored him, of course, but then when I got inside the Spheres, everyone met me and him! And they also told me he was my stamen! I honestly thought he must have been a new member of our squad, but then he proceeded to ask me if I was the newcomer! I just couldn't believe it! After talking it over, we discovered we both knew our squad at the same time and we both remembered every detail of our past missions, but we didn't know each other…! That didn't make any sense!"

Ikuno nods. "After the first battle of Gran Crevasse, when our plantation's mobility was disabled, we lived inside our Cage for a month straight. Without basic services, we had to make do with what the land gave us while thinking everyone abandoned us. Then, the Nines came to oversee us."

"Nines-? The same invincible Nines, the special forces under Papa's direct control?"

"Yes… and it wasn't long until they decided to denounce us. After they left, a group of Black Guards suddenly assaulted our boarding house with no warning, beat us up until we couldn't move, and kidnapped Kokoro and her stamen… the rest you already know.

"Weeks later, here at Bird Nest, we saw them coming back like that, and since that day, we felt the ground collapsing from beneath our feet. The Papa that we praised and cared for us was no more. In reality, for him, we were just pawns, sacrifices, disposables, and most importantly, we didn't have a right to our own thoughts and feelings."

"That episode was the turning point of it all. It was the point on which we lost faith in Papa," Futoshi joins in.

"It was so… mind-breaking…" Kokoro wavers, "why Papa did that to me… what did I do to deserve that…? I've always tried my best…"

"What…!" Code 376 staggers and gasps. "What are you guys -!"

"Then you understand how powerful is mind cleansing! Everyone each of you could have been brainwashed as well, you could be just playing in their hands for all this time and didn't know!"

"I don't think it's like you're telling," Ikuno confidently argues. "You know why? Because if they wanted to manipulate our memories to condition and control us, then I shouldn't be even aware that something wrong happened in the first place. If they wanted us to tag along with it, why either Kokoro or her stamen wasn't deleted from our memories, too?"

Yoruichi's eyes narrow. "What do you mean?"

"After all, if you alter one team member's memories, why wouldn't you alter all his teammates' memories as well? Why would you leave the others alone? If the objective was to purely control someone's actions by modifying their brain and implanting dummy memories, why wouldn't you act on the entire squad as well? Isn't it just… odd?"

"Wh-Why so?" Code 121 asks.

"Because then it would just happen as it happened to us: the remaining squadmates would complete each other the black spots in their memories! So, in the end, did they just do something… rather pointless? Why deleting someone's memory when they're going to regain it back up again! And worse, upset the whole squad against you, the one that's supposed to fight for you, in the process! That seems beyond stupid!"

"Yeah… Yeah, I agree! Heh, in fact, yes it is pointless! Can't argue against that!"

"Yeah! But, you know, I wasn't convinced that Papa would ever do pointless things, I thought that they did it for a reason I just couldn't understand at the time. So, I did my research to cobble everything together in the time we had before coming to Bird Nest, and what I've found led me to also believe that my memory wasn't modified at all, maybe ever."

"…Why?"

"Because Adults have their - how you'd call them - rituals. Nothing is casual, it just seems like that if you'd limit yourself at seeing things at the surface level. What you have to do, is just interpret how everything works, right?" Ikuno points her finger right towards him, "I mean, how Papa's Protocolswork?"

"Papa's Protocols? What about them?"

"You may remember what's written in the Second Protocol… we all had to learn all of them by heart, after all. Did you?"

Yoruichi, after a second of recollection, recites the passage in the same reverence one would recite a holy text.

"Form of Mind, Grace of Logic. Reason before Emotion, Perfection before Ruin. Humanity beyond Humanity."

"Good! Now, can you tell what's this passage refers to?"

"Reason stands for perfection, and it's antagonizing… ehm…"

"…Emotion and ruin." Ikuno picks right up where he left. "Logic is the optimal form of the thought process, and makes humanity anew, casting away its barbaric past to give us hope for a brighter future."

"So… emotion is… bad?"

"Yeah!"

"…So?"

"So… that's it! Exactly, precisely it!"

"…"

"Kokoro and Mitsuru were brainwashed because… they developed feelings for one another."

"Huh? Feelings…? What kind of…"

"They tasted love."

"Oh? What's… «Love»?" Code 121 finally asks, cautious but curious at the same time.

"Ehm…" Ikuno blushes a little. "Love is, most of all… an emotion. Ehm…"

What is love?

"…"

Ikuno's brain freezes.

"…!"

Darn, she curses internally, just now it had to! Is she going to botch the entire argument for this simple question, for patience's sake!? One thing she never planned for is for this one, tiny detail…! Although this feels a normal word to say for Ikuno, she shouldn't just assume everyone automatically knows the meaning of the word «Love»! It wasn't even in her vocabulary until she heard it from Zero Two and Hiro just some months ago! It's actually more likely that she and Squad 13 are the only ones in the world that have used such word in a long time! Shouldn't it be the easiest concept to grasp? Maybe, but to explain? That's another thing altogether! She has to get this through, otherwise, he might not believe her and understand the situation…

Well, to not hinder this high moment, she might urgently need some kind of… inspiration.

Ikuno suddenly turns to Kokoro, still firmly attached to her hands, and looks deep in her eyes. Mere seconds pass, and Ikuno search deep into the blue irises of her friend's confused eyes.

"…I-Ikuno…?"

Kokoro fixates Ikuno's eyes behind her glasses for a brief second, but both of their gazes eventually drop off in a mist of shame.

"Doesn't work…"

"Huh… what…?"

Ikuno leaves her friend's hands. Half-demoralized and a bit lost in embarrassment, she turns to the other two behind her still intent in observing her half-assed performance to find a slightly upset Futoshi wearing a superlatively funny face - she did just held both of Kokoro's hands in front of him, by the way - and the cleaning girl's… beautiful ocher eyes.

Such perfect shape, the brows, their expressiveness… in a mere instant, Ikuno feels utterly devastated and awestruck. Those two windows of the soul rapture her senses whole. When she first met her, back in the Ring, a maddening warmth enveloped her instincts with an irresistible desire, and now the same rapture is tearing her chest apart. Like the first moment she met her, Ikuno is fighting hard against the urge to get close to her with every inch of her body.

Is this… love? Does love at first sight exist? She definitely has to know! She can't keep it hidden any longer! What's there to lose? There's plenty to lose if she wouldn't just try…

Ikuno extends her slender hand towards the blond girl.

"Could you help me?"

"A-ah?" she utters, surprised. The white-haired girl with thick glasses walks to Code 376 and stops just inside her vital space with her hands reaching towards her own.

"I need you-ehm, I mean, your help…"

"Eh? Ehm…" She fidgets away with her broom between her chest, completely thrown off by Ikuno's proposal. "Wh-what're gonna do?"

"I won't hurt you, I swear!"

"Ehm…"

"Please trust me…"

"Ehhhh…! F-f-f-f-fine… Fine! Alright…"

Code 376 gives her broom to Futoshi without many ceremonies and slowly reaches out with her hand. Ikuno, taken by a sudden urge, quickly takes her hands and pulls her over to her.

"Waaaah-!" The blond girl wails as she's been dragged to the center of the room. As soon as they are facing each other with their hands in each other's, Ikuno takes both of her hands inside hers as she did with Kokoro.

"E-ehm, is it really fine… that we're touching…"

"Yes, absolutely!" Ikuno whispers without a hitch, "Now, I'm going to embrace you."

"Whaaaa?! It's too-!" Code 367's cheeks lit on fire!

"I know, but it only works this way!"

"…W-works? W-what works?"

"Ehm… yeah! Ah wait, maybe these are in the way…" Ikuno frees her left hand for a brief second and hurriedly takes off her glasses. Then, with her free fingers she had left, she pinches off the butterfly hairpin holding her silvery hair at the back of her head and, with a twirl, detaches it in a single outward motion. Her pearl-white locks part in two, twirl free and fall on her shoulders like soft silk strands lost in the wind as she puts them away in her blue uniform' side pocket.

"Better!"

With that taken care of, she slowly takes back the girl's hand she previously left, but Ikuno promptly notices that the girl's fair cheeks are now tinged in peach and, some inches above, her eyes half-hidden by her wavy, short locks are intently looking at her with a mix of amazement, fear, bashfulness, and awe. "Your hair… is… beautiful…"

At this moment, Ikuno's green irises plunge into Code 376's golden glances and reflect like infinity mirrors mixing their shining light into each other.

"Ah…" Ikuno feels utterly lost and captured whole. As interlocked in an incredibly slow dance, both girls inch forward towards each other.

"Woow-!" Kokoro covers her mouth, Futoshi's mouth hangs over, Code 121 has a brow high up in the sky and the little 723's big and curious eyes witness the situation unfolding, but Ikuno doesn't even register a thing. She doesn't care anymore about anything else other than the beautiful girl in front of her, slowly lodging between her arms… in her funny reflector-orange cleaning dress! Ikuno's mind is a tangled vortex of confused arousal as the object of her desire is coming very dangerously close to her. She passes the arm behind her sweet one's back and presses her against her own body and Code 376 does the same. Finally, they are locked into an embrace and engulfed each other's warmth… inches from each other's noses while breathing the same warm air, with their lips few centimeters from each other…

This was just supposed to show that proper physical contact is not forbidden anymore… but…

"I'm…"

Her lips!

"We just… met…"

She wants them! They're hers!

"You're…"

All hers!

Yeah, this is going bad very fast! Past her clothes, she could feel her heart beating like madness, but its tempo is matching that of her own. So excitingly…

"…Beautiful…" Ikuno ends the girl's phrase, and their lips softly touch.

Their eyes are still locked into a dance of made of powerful feelings, but the one feeling of her lips making contact around Ikuno's… is… just…

Eventually, their mouths start moving and caressing each other out of sync in a humid, overpowering sensation. They both don't really know how or what they're doing, but it's clear what's to obtain in this slow but exciting dance.

Pure. Ecstasy.

Both of them finally close their eyes and enter each other's graces, savoring the maelstrom of emotions crossing their inexperienced minds screaming and demanding for more of everything, all at once. A little faster, then slower, trying to find a rhythm, a shared cadence to carry on the dance enveloping their lips. Then, after a moment that seems an infinity, both girls separate from each other commanded by their lungs crying for oxygen in order to supply their drunk, fibrillating minds… to then plunge again into each other with even more vigor.

It's after another round of pleasure and another forced pause dictated by their inescapable apnea that they separate and look at each other in the eyes again, to find they were crying out from the emotion, and with cheeks so funnily red they look like shining tomatoes…!

"Eh-ehehehe…!" Both girls loudly laugh in unison with their voices wrapped in a loving tone.

"What… what was this…" Code 376 asks.

"Yes…?"

"Does it have a name?"

"Ah-! It's called… a kiss!"

"It was a-m-a-z-i-n-g!" the blond girl thrills. "Where did you learn this?"

"Ehm… it's… It's something I saw someone doing," Ikuno smiles out of her chest. Indeed, she saw it the first time when Zero Two did it with Hiro, and totally something she planned to do with Ichigo… but who cares about that anymore? "Isn't it beautiful? He-he!"

She feels flying right now! This is the most beautiful moment she ever experienced! It's real! It happened! It finally happened! Her first one, with this girl… who's this beautiful girl? She wants to know more about her, definitely-! She's Ikuno's now, she can't let her escape, no-no!

"You're Code 376, right?"

"Yes! You're I-Ikuno?"

"Yup, nice to meet you… darling."

"Eh…?"

"…N-nevermind." That was slightly embarrassing, but felt such a satisfying and nice ring to it… you set a good example, you devilish girl-!

Ikuno detaches slightly from the blond girl, regaining the absolute minimum space to be comfortably savoring into each other's breath while still wearing their moronic smiles. Then, the moment suddenly escapes when the girls realize that everyone was still right there staring at them. Slowly, Ikuno swallows her saliva and looks around, ready to discover the effects of her impulsiveness.

Futoshi is… well, his expression is between total surprise and deep aghast. He just stands there with his mouth hanging open… Hello? Anyone there? His neurons left for good! On the other hand, Kokoro is red as a pepper, batting her eyes like crazy between her fingers like trying to hide her gaze from a deeply disturbing thing but failing spectacularly. Oh dear, if you'd just remember what you did with Mitsuru while you were stranded at Mistilteinn, Ikuno sideswipes in her mind…

Looking the other way, the little Code 723 is looking at the two girls silently and curiously, like she'd discovered a new thing and, about Code 121… his brow is arched so high that almost reaches the ceiling, and his discomfort is visibly morphing his face like the subject of a cubist painting.

"Love!" Ikuno proudly announces. "It's a very strong emotion, and… it's so, so beautiful! It's- It's definitely between two people! An emotion so enticing, that it makes you place someone before your own life, before everything! Something exciting that makes you act irrationally, and… recklessly! Your whole world… becomes that person… and mostly, you wish that person to love you, too! It's like a pair of wings has grown on your back! A ground-breaking feeling, starting from your heart- you want to be one with the other, in the most intimate way possible… and… be accepted…"

"What in the… Wh-wh-wh-what the hell was that!?" he yells, "What y-y-you! That's…!"

He's completely losing it. Yeah, she went a little overboard, but jeez… why is everyone breaking down like that? Isn't it normal to feel-

"T-t-t-that's absolutely illegal!"

Ah, yes, that would be the problem.

"You're INSANE! You're both going to be arrested, what's floating in your brains! You're going to be-"

"We're going to be fine," Ikuno plainly states.

"What!? No!…"

"I told you before, there's no one in the whole Nest that will stop us, not anymore."

Code 121 confused gaze bounces between everyone in front of him, like a gigantic revelation finally fell onto his head with the brunt of all its implications. "…That can't be true…"

"Oh, come on! Just get a hint, will ya!" Code 376 detaches from Ikuno's embrace, visibly irritated. "Everyone knows it! Everyone's at the Spheres is on the same page! Everyone already knows there's no one here apart from the commander and us, so quit being that thick-headed and understand already-!"

"Everyone… knows…?"

"Yeah…? Wait, are you serious? Where did ya live up until now, under a rock?"

"Eh…" Code 121's awkwardness is palpable as he opens his arms wide, outward.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Wait…" Ikuno urges the blond girl to stop on her offensive, "…he's actually showing us where he lived up until now."

"Are you ser-" Code 367's retort is abruptly interrupted by the vision in front of her. Now that they are closer to the other end of the room, a different picture of the backroom reveals itself. Among the stashed work tables and confusion, there's more to the naked eye to see than it was apparent before.

All the roller chairs lying around against the tables have their synthetic cushions ripped off and organized on a pile in the corner like a comfort area. Beside it, various clothes stacked onto each other, a computer case acting as a trashcan, a table with still healthy chairs acting as a dining area. Ikuno notices something under one of said workshop tables, and something like a white mattress pops up on her vision… no, it's more like a gathering of said chair cushions enclosed by a blanket like a makeshift bed. No, two for being exact… the other one is under the now smiling little girl. The room now feels like everything lies there for a particular reason, extruding a sense of order nonetheless.

Kokoro winces, "That's why you've ordered so many things recently…! You wanted to…"

"I wanted to move here," Yoruichi plainly says, and Ikuno immediately understands.

After so much banging her head around, now Ikuno finally understands. Code 121 didn't come here to escape from something he did or anything of the sort. He didn't do anything wrong or strange, or horrible. This place was most likely planned from the start... this parasite couple just wanted to disappear from everyone else and live on their own, down here, to avoid anything that might hurt them and break them apart. Ikuno didn't know anything about the fear, the hopelessness, the solitude that they felt, but now she completely does.

When she accepted Hachi's request to be some impromptu police in order to keep an eye on all the parasites in the Spheres, she didn't know or had any association to the people she was supposed to watch over, and she never would have anticipated how bad the situation is, and how much everyone actually feels disconnected from each other.

Who would have thought that there was so much hiding behind the veil of her own ignorance? Ikuno thought that maybe she knew just a little bit of the world outside with the telling of the countless stacks of books she read that told tales of brotherhood and fraternity, where friendship trumps all, but she was utterly wrong. It was like… no, it was exactly like experiencing life through white paper inked in black letters illuminated by the window's sunlight. When those books were even written? It's almost that they talk about a place that doesn't actually exist, or of another dimension altogether…

The real reality that Ikuno finally experienced is something else, more precisely the one that transpired to her from the countless downcast glances of the other parasites back in the Spheres. Something very, very lonely and unspeakable, shrouded by such dripping atmosphere, such uncommunicable animosity, reigning supreme and chocking even the most lively of thoughts...

Everyone does nothing but isolate themselves in their own cubicles, with their squad or worse alone, silently, like in a soporific daze, acting like despair is the only solution. The entire body of the surviving parasites feels their end is near they feel can't do anything to fight it, so they let themselves waste away in body and mind. It's scary, but at the same time reassuring, thought that Code 121 and 723 represent the biggest miracle to ever happen in the entire Nest in a span of a single week, someone that breaks free from their shackles of doom and looks for more… even if ultimately in the wrong way.

"By the way, I don't know about what you think about it, but I'd bet that you're feeling about your pistil something akin to «love»." Ikuno duly notes.

"WHA-WHAT!" Code 121's face suddenly lights up as he just touched boiling water, "SHE'S LIKE…! W-W-Why would I think about her like that, are you dumb!? W-with the «kiss», and the stuff about «be one together» and «most intimate possible»? Geez, that's sickening, she's just a kid!"

Ikuno's just stepped on an awkward landmine. "Oh, no, no! I mean, not with kisses and all that stuff, I meant that you want to stay with her and protect her with your life, don't you? That's also to «love», I think!"

"Damn, what's with this «love» definition constantly expanding…" Code 121's eyes light up with something else than rage, something more… gentle and tame.

"…But, It's… It's not like I don't want to protect her…"

Ikuno smiles gently. "Yes, I see that. You're here because of those feelings, aren't you?"

"Mh-hm, yeah. It might be possible…" he pouts.

The boy turns to the little girl. As soon as their gazes cross, the little girl shoots him a warm smile. "Yoruichi!"

Kokoro softly laughs. "She calls you 'Yoruichi'? That's really cute!"

"That-! That's just her way to speak! She always says my code wrong-!"

The little girl comes out from her alcove made of covers and shoots her arms up towards her stamen and yells, "YORUICHI! KISS!"

"Agh-sh-shut up, kid… What are you asking… geez!" The boy named by his pistil Yoruichi is visibly irritated by her request and crosses his arms in staunch denial. The little girl's smile switches into a somewhat angry pout. After a soft sigh, the boy corrects his aim. "Grow up, first."

"Yes!" the little girl's smile instantly comes back!

Ikuno softly laughs, then continues. "Don't you have a squad?"

"…No. They were gone a long time ago."

"Really? I'm sorry… But someone else? Anyone…?"

Code 121 shakes his head. "I was alone. Up until Gran Crevasse, at least. Now all I have is her."

"That's… I see." Ikuno perfectly acknowledges that his eyes, albeit full of determination, deep down hide something else entirely. "I see she helped you a lot."

"Yeah…" After all the rage and insults she'd thrown their way, the long-haired boy is finally smiling! Part one of her plan, successful!

She'd almost bet that, deep down inside him, something broke apart… and the little girl helped him to collect back the pieces together. Up until minutes ago, she didn't even fathom why this parasite couple had been behaving like this, up to the point of endangering their own well-being… but now it seems painfully obvious from where such desire comes from.

It's no secret now that parasites are treated as lesser beings by the adults. Looking at the level of dazzling technology littered everywhere in the Nest, such denigration comes to the point that being treated as an object can be considered equal if not more edifying… Brainwashing, denying a sense of self, oppressing the unwilling, removing the unfit, are the many treatments reserved solely to them and them alone. Each parasite is constantly driven to the brink of mental and physical capacity, then thrown away like a used plaything when not useful anymore. It's no enigma that such kind of self-awareness would render anyone scared and distrustful, on top of closing down their minds to feel emotion. These two parasites' whole situation is probably linked to the desperate need to escape from such hell… probably? No, most certainly.

"I wanted to protect her, at all costs."

Ikuno is convinced fully well that quitting is not something that Papa would allow, so they resorted to some kind of plan to secretly detach from everyone without causing unwanted attention aided by the confusing moments after the second battle of Gran Crevasse. Due to Ikuno's insight and intervention, though, the plan ultimately failed. It must have been such a cold shower for them the moment her group opened that service door, Code 121's hostility can be fully explained by that. And to make matters even worse, if his Pistil is injured and can't really drive, that would have meant that she would be torn off from him and replaced with another pistil, to never see her again. They are hunting me, so they must be an enemy, he might have thought.

"We don't want to harm any of you, that would be the exact opposite of what I'm here to," Ikuno tells Yoruichi. "The adults and Papa have left us in this mess… but I can't really do anything other than gather those pieces up to try and fix this situation with everything I can."

From when she was a child, she was told she was destined to be someone that created a future for humanity. But now she doesn't care about what those faceless adults wanted from her. Now, the future that she wants to create is the one that she desired all along, the one that also everyone deserved! It's on her honor as a parasite to ensure that everything will be fine from now on… Yoruichi doesn't know the extent of the hatred she developed for the adults and Papa, so he must come to understand, little by little! They need to know that they don't need to escape anymore, as they will be forever the masters of their own destinies!

Although, there's a little problem. The little girl's situation. Ikuno can understand that the distrust he has for anyone else is ultimately founded and grounded in reality, but it's a real double-edged sword. That distrust is the ultimate thing that's going to hurt the object of his own love if someone doesn't wake him up to the current situation. That's the ultimate obstacle to clear before the situation can be regarded as saved, and it's better to bring the fact of his pistil's health to him before anything worse happens.

So, it's with a worried voice that Ikuno begins that painful and very scary part of her discourse.

"Yoruichi… there's something I need to tell you."

"What about it?"

"It's about your pistil," Ikuno passes her fingers between her white hair. "She is terminally ill."

Somehow, Yoruichi's eyes lighten, "…Terminally?"

"The blood in the sheet was hers, and... I think you know that better than me."

"Yeah." Yoruichi's eyes darken. "She has this horrible cough, and… sometimes some blood comes out. And she has some… talking problems. The caretakers told me the cough is normal, that's just a problem with her throat, and she has these fits… they told me it's like a slightly worse version of the parasite flu and it's going to be better over time... but…"

"About that, I think that they were wrong," Ikuno's expression aggravates. "I'm afraid it's not just some parasite flu or anything even close to that."

The parasite flu is one the lesser illness a parasite can get while on service. Although is similar to a viral illness that was very common in the old world, no one really knows how it happens or how you get it. It just comes and goes, with fever, muscle weakness, and dizziness… a far cry from what that little pistil is actually experiencing.

"…It's a life-threatening syndrome that's going to worsen over time. It's something related to her being made a pistil earlier than normal."

"What…?" Yoruichi's legs shudder at the mere thought. "Who… who told you that!"

"The… the head doctor at the Tower's hospital."

Yoruichi's stops in his tracks. Then, a grin paints his face.

"Ehe… ehehe…"

And slowly…

"Hehehehe-eee-ehhehehehe!"

A maddening laugh resounds from his throat.

"AAHAHAHAHHAHAHA-!"

The group stands on edge as the boy laughs out of his belly like he's completely lost his reason.

"Hahahahahahahaha… I see, I see! They knew all along! That's so… so-! And I just believed you for a moment Heh, hehehehe!"

"…What? Who?"

"The doctors! Who else may?"

"Ah? What do you mea-"

"IT'S ALL THEIR FAULT!" Yoruichi yells on top of his lungs, and his thunderous voice quakes the floor and the walls of the workshop, and everyone standing before him has their chest shaken as like a shockwave hit them head-on. And for good measure, because Yoruichi's eyes turned into the ones of a demon's.

"They killed my squad! They took them in, injured like heroes, and the doctors fucked them up as they pleased! They were supposed to save them, and instead, THEY KILLED THEM ALL!"

A scared Ikuno fully experiences the first time in her life and at the very front seat nonetheless, the effects of bottled rage when left unbridled to express itself.

"IT WAS THEIR DOING! THEY ARE MONSTERS!"

The walls quake once again to his ill-charged voice.

"If you are thinking… that I'd just leave… my precious Natsumi in their care… you'd be mighty wrong." Yoruichi comes closer to Ikuno and Code 376, but both scuttle back like a molten object was advancing on them."Don't ever talk in front of me about those... people? No… they don't qualify as such. They are the ones who stand in as absolute evil."

"W-ha-t…"

"The world doesn't need them! The moment one of those comes even close at arm's length to me, I'd kill them without hesitation or remorse! If there's someone that deserved to die, that's them! Not my teammates!"

This time, instead of a controlled hostility, his eyes reflect the absolute rage that only a soul deeply marked by the fire of hatred can show.

"Are you… absolutely sure… that…"

"They were treated worse than beasts. They tortured them until my friends stopped yelling! AND THEY KEPT WATCHING!"

Ikuno's eyes, in turn, fill with distilled panic. "No-!"

"Yes, yes! Without the shadow of a doubt, they are pure evil! They misuse their knowledge for unspeakable things, they treated their bodies like playthings! If you just think that there can be any peace with them at the helm, responsible for us all… then you're ALL WRONG!"

So… this is the real problem. This is the reason because he avoided going to the hospital…

"I actually believe you… Ikuno, you're no fake to me, you're a pistil deserving respect for your beliefs and for what you want to achieve… but you're underestimating them. If you are on their side, then ourfuture, the one for me and my pistil, doesn't belong with you all."

This grudge.

It's Ikuno's time to feel a cold shower now.

"Is it… really true?"

"Yes. I swear on my squad's memory."

Ikuno takes an actual second before something unresolved from one year ago pops up in her mind, from when she began her FranXX service at her Plantation, Cerasus. Before Zero Two entered the team as a transfer pilot, there was another girl assigned to her team, Hiro's original pistil. A girl with wavy chestnut hair with a very strong attitude and always ready to give you an ear or a shoulder whenever you needed. One fated day, she disappeared.

"I… I had a friend that was also my squad-mate… Her nickname was Naomi. She got injured in a transport pod next to our plantation… and she was hospitalized." She can't possibly be…

"Did you ever see her again?" Yoruichi asks.

"…No."

"Then, your friend was put at their mercy."

Ikuno's expression breaks in a million pieces. After all this time of having the fate of her friend in the back of her mind, and learning this horrible reality… The girl whom she passed a lot of time with when she was young… is actually gone.

"Now you know what happens to who ends out of service for a reason or another."

"I… I…" Her hands suddenly shudder and then, like a tree breaking from his own weight, Ikuno's legs stop to function.

"Ikuno…!" Both Code 376 and Kokoro hurry to catch her from falling straight on her knees, just centimeters from touching the ground with the help of Futoshi's reflexes. He grabs Ikuno's sides and helps the other girls with stabilizing the desperate white-haired girl sitting onto the floor. While covering her mouth, tears stream off her eyes.

"Naomi…" Ikuno mumbles inside her hands while covering her face from the pain.

"I'm very sorry."

"I thought that… I thought that-!" Futoshi cries out incredulous.

"If she ended up in their maws, most probably…"

"No…!"

"N-Naomi…" Kokoro mutters with a broken voice, and Futoshi silently grabs both girls in a teddy-bear embrace, with Code 376's hand caressing both heads to give a little comfort herself.

"Deep down, I wanted her to be happy… wherever she might have gone…" Futoshi says with his voice struck by agony.

"I'm sorry…" Yoruichi, looking now at Ikuno's pained reaction, is struck with deep regret for the news he just delivered, but the picture of the trio while huddling together to soften the blow of acknowledging their teammates' demise is such a healing vision that no mourning is enough to overshadow it. A strangely soothing and warming feeling takes lodge into his heart… but the moment is rapidly interrupted by a sudden movement, caught with the far tail of his right eye. A white blur with chestnut hair barely clearing a meter off the ground comes trotting towards the three.

"I'm sowwy!" The little girl, in her long white nightdress, has just come out from her alcove made of covers to charge the trio with open arms to join them. Both Kokoro and Ikuno, caught by surprise by her small arms enveloping them, welcome the little girl's smile like a ray of light cutting the thick black clouds in a droopy sky.

"Oh-! Thank you!" Ikuno smiles to her, then proceeds to pat her head… but on the other side of the room, his stamen's expression petrifies in fear.

"Ah-! Natsumi! No, don't!"

In a span of a literal moment, the long-haired stamen dashes towards the group and tears with force the little girl from them, like she just hugged a pile of burning firewood and didn't realize.

"No! What are you doing, you can't!" He picks her up by her legs and runs to back to her alcove in a maddening hurry.

"B-But I wanted to hug…!" The little girl, still offering her arms towards Ikuno, is placed back in the covers and forcefully wrapped back into the bed. Yoruichi grabs gently her cheeks with both hands to get her full attention and make her look inside his eyes.

"No, Natsumi, no! They're going to take you away! They're going to bring you to them! They're going to hurt you!" Yoruichi begs her with the most terrorized but softest voice everyone ever heard from him. It was almost like the long-haired boy that was talking to Ikuno just seconds ago switched with his good but scared twin without anyone noticing.

"I'm… I'm…" The little girl weeps, scared from her stamen's violent reaction. As soon as she starts to sob and her eyes to moisten, the still-immensely scared boy hesitates at first, then hugs the girl he calls Natsumi right against his chest and lulls her between his arms.

"Natsumi, I'm sorry! But, I'm doing this for you…!"

"But, she's… she's the butterfly…"

"She might be, but she's working with them! They are bad! Natsumi, please, don't do that again! Please, don't I don't want to lose you, please, please, please, please…!" His voice breaks further and further like he's experiencing the most painful of trials, being forced to watch in his mind the little girl being tortured like his former teammates were.

"Uhhh… Yoru…"

Seconds pass. Ikuno, Kokoro, Futoshi, and Code 376's attention is now completely captured by the parasite couple at the end of the room. A negative silence permeates the room, erratically broken the sobbing of the little girl muffled by her carer's chest intruding violently in everyone's ears. Slowly, after having calmed down his most precious treasure, Yoruichi's head turns towards the group. In his look lies pure, irrational instinct, a fear bigger than any. His showing teeth shaking, his two eyes widened by fright mixed with a shade of violence that can only blossom when one's mind is put to the extreme test.

The look of maddening, deep desperation.

"They will have her... over my corpse-!"

Having said so, he slowly turns back to the embrace with her pistil and places his cheek onto her head, holding silently her small pistil to reassure her of his presence and to make her forget the awful world that he knows it's out there.

Sitting on the ground as lost as she was when she started this conversation, Ikuno feels in complete disarray. She just can't think anymore, her head has become a royal mess. She got out everything she could muster, she tried everything she could think of, she pushed herself to the limit, she did everything she could try to bring that boy, Code 121, Yoruichi, to the side of understanding. She cried, felt, argued, quarreled, pleaded… and everything in-between, to lead him on the side of compromise, but… this may be it. This may be, by the matter of fact, the high ceiling of what she can do at this very moment. This situation surpassed her expectations even further from what she would call possible.

This stamen…

In Ikuno's perception, Yoruichi did nothing wrong. In his stead, she would totally act as he did. If someone would threaten her most valued person's life, the person she'd care most, she would break her bonds, as violently as it requires, as alienating it might be, grab their hand in hers and escape… far, very far, until breath or endurance of both allows, to never return, to never look back. She would cast everyone else behind, abandon her former life and connections to the point of even casting away her own name. Then, take on another... one that would represent the bond that she would share with such love. Then, with time and patience, create a world tailored for both, made for them at the center, and them alone. To live on forever, with their lives in the loving arms of the other.

A world where everyone understands each other, where every need is satisfied. Isn't it similar to the one she had in mind for… how much? Too much at this point.

The difference is, she pictured a world with many people understanding each other, not just two. In such a world, she believed that everyone would be accepted by the other. In such a world, even Ikuno would feel wanted and understood. But in this horrifying reality, where everything is opposite of what it's meant to be, was Ikuno just being made of massive levels of naive in thinking it was possible to achieve? Was all of this trying and trying worth the effort? Is it ultimately impossible, or… if she would just try again… would she manage to succeed next time? How many tries would it take? In a perfect world… it would take a moment. But…

This is not a perfect world.

Ikuno feels her shoulder being grabbed, and she comes out from her thoughts to find a Futoshi still holding onto a downcast Kokoro and her. He was looking straight in her eyes. His look, a mixture of regret and foreboding, carried more meaning than any combination of useless words.

You've done everything you could.

Ikuno sadly nods. In the end, she lost her battle. It's obvious what's going to happen next, what she tried so much to avoid, but now all there's to do is to wait for the hospital parasites to come and do their thing. The couple will be separated by force by them and the girl will get cured and the stamen will be… dealt with. The only hope is that, at least, the little Natsumi will ultimately get well in the future, the only silver lining left of this slow-motion disaster. Or… will she?

Surprisingly enough, though, it's with a meek expression that Futoshi grabs both Kokoro and the snow-white haired girl's shoulders in an embrace without any foreboding.

"Futoshi?"

"What's up, Futoshi?"

"Oi…"

"Shhh…" he whispers in his teeth and gestures Code 376 to intrude inside the group embrace. She promptly does so, but with coming closer from Ikuno's face, she becomes inadvertently magnetized by her lips, rendering her at first incapable to focus on the conversation. Her face turns steaming red like an overcooked water boiler!

"Is it true… that the girl is very ill?" Futoshi asks in a very veiled whisper.

"Yes?"

"Who told you?"

"Code 013. He called me when you were not looking. He said that she needs medical care immediately and that she can't wait any longer... He mentioned hours apart from being too late and that he would come back here with more people."

"Reinforcements, I see! In how much?"

"Fifteen."

"Since when?"

Ikuno hesitates, then gets her communicator out and sees that the call was more than twenty minutes ago.

"He's late-!"

"Huh-uh…

Then, a strange sound grabs everyone's attention.

"Coof…!"

A muffled cough comes from behind the group.

"Cough… Cough!"

Everyone turns. It was the little girl coughing against his stamen's chest. That wouldn't be a thing to be worried about… only if that was your run-of-the-mill cough. Instead, the sound of her lungs was like they were trying to expel something, but they couldn't.

"Natsumi…!"

"Yoru… Cough!… I feel it's coming back! Cough, Cough!"

Yoruichi startles. The little girl painfully cringes and holds her chest at each cough like she's getting stabbed over and over, and she can't control it. Soon enough, tears begin to race down her cheeks, now whiter than ever before.

"Natsumi, hold onto me…!"

She does, and in a blink of an eye, she suddenly winces. The uncontrollable spasms of her chests, as she continues to cough, sound more and more like her lungs are being filled with what seems water.

"Cough!, Cough!, my chest hurts…! COUGH!"

The stamen hurries to gather the white sheets the girl is wrapped with to make a ball out of it, and proceeds to place it beneath the girl.

"Cough… Cough… Cough…! Cough-!"

The girl's chest continues to shudder, until…

"Ch-gah! Gahh! Guhh!"

Until she vomits a mix of water and blood onto the covers, one, two, three times, until the white cotton tinges deep red from the stark white it was just seconds ago.

"Hiii!" Kokoro yelps.

"Oh…!" Futoshi's face whitens, like everyone else. Code 376 clenches her broom so hard that begins to shake, Ikuno's delicate hands start to spasm like the girl's shoulders rocked by a pain greater than could be managed by a little mind. Her lips were tinged red… blood red.

"Ch…ghack! Coof! Cough!"

Under everyone's silent and horrified stare, the girl continues to cough out her bowels onto her bed, until the fits get rarer and rarer, and the unholy hacks stop tearing everyone's heart apart. In a minute or so, as the little girl's crisis ends on its own for good. Yoruichi then takes a limb of the blanket and wipes her lips from the remaining blood, crumples the covers to prevent the contents to spill out and throws it out of the way, next to some black trash sacks which contents could be guessed as the one up. After being done, the boy goes back hugging the girl to try and calm her down, although each of her breaths means sharp knives stabbing endlessly her back.

Ikuno's soul shudders at the sight of blood, and an incredible heaviness takes lodge onto her chest and bowels, telling her that she's going to be the next to throw up. The girl diverts her gaze, turns back towards Futoshi, Kokoro, and Code 376, then silently storms out to the front workshop with them in her suit, leaving the couple alone in their embrace. As soon as she waltzes out of hearing range, Ikuno blurts out her thoughts like they are flung out from the whirlwind of her own emotions.

"She just-! She's dying right in front of our eyes!"

Her companions' serious looks address her in agreement.

"More like, that guy is killing her with his own hands," Futoshi sneers, irate.

"What… what have I got myself into?" says Code 376 with a broken voice, while wiping fruitlessly her constantly sweating forehead. "Is this… real? Is this actually happening-!?"

Meanwhile, Kokoro is wearing her most traumatized of expressions. "This… I can't bear to watch anymore…"

Ikuno nods. The way that the stamen reacted to that horrible scenery boggles her mind.

"She's going to die like that if she doesn't get cured-! How could he just stay calm in front of so much blood? Does that guy actually have a missing marble in his head?"

He seemed so unfazed in front of such an episode, all the more if coming from the person that he loves-! He acts like it's one of the most menial of things in the world to see… Yes. Futoshi is right. That stamen is indirectly killing her pistil while blinded by his past, being unable to see any reality that doesn't confirm his own biases.

"Also, do you remember that he said he was instructed to do this from the caretakers?" At that prospect, rage like no other is mounting from the depths of Ikuno's bowels. "Did theyknow the girl's condition? Did they just decide to shove her into a battlefield regardless, thinking she was just a disposable body? Did they actually do that? How could they just divert their eyes-! Did you see her, she's not fit for service! How would they put her into a FranXX like this…!"

"We need to do something…!" Kokoro begs her eyes out.

"Talking to him is useless." Futoshi, once again, conveys his thoughts by the aid of a scowl written all over his face. "Now, there's only the other way left."

"I know…" Ikuno grimaces.

The other way... it's the way Ikuno didn't desire to take, but now it has become the necessary way, the natural evolution of such decision, the next logical step to make. Death is something final. You can't just work with hindsight, you just can't. If someone doesn't do something right now… there won't be no going back. They have to take the situation in their hands right now, not ten minutes, not an hour later, right now. Who knows when the hospital staff might come? Will it be too late?

"I want to trust that Code 013. He was right all along."

Ikuno feels that Code 013 he's not a bad person like Yoruichi paints him. During the previous call with him, she got the impression that Code 013 is hell-bent on saving people, despite the context of an alleged and extremely heavy stigma that is carried by the people like him.

It's actually quite a while that I can't look myself in the mirror.

Maybe such stigma is real after all… but he resents it. Maybe he just wants to clean his conscience and find a way to start over again, like Yoruichi and Natsumi, but the difference is that those two are going about it the completely wrong way. Escaping together… it does sound very beautifully romantic. Fleeing from everyone, starting over, finding happiness… heh, that story sounds like coming out of a fable book, Ikuno shakes her head. It all sounds just like a wish-fulfilling fantasy…

A fantasy like that can lull you to sleep and make you dream beautiful things, but it still doesn't hold a candle to anything that is grounded in reality. Abandon everyone, and the next thing you'll know is distrust, refusal, and the bitter pain of isolation. And then, where would you flee? Where would you go? Where would you find happiness out there, where endless deserts span to the eye's end? Is that really called happiness? Is happiness just supposed to be found inside the jaws of klaxxosaur? That's so stupid, Ikuno sneers. Such fantasy is completely stupid, illogical, bold, and irrational, but nonetheless…

Down deep, isn't this what love actually means?

"I agree," Futoshi says, "I'm ready for anything!"

Ikuno nods to him. "Indeed, we can't wait for Code 013 and his merry group of white coats anymore. They have to take things into their own hands before the girl's health worsens. She is too little, she can't properly go against his stamen… We need to take responsibility for her, and lead her to a better tomorrow. We need to act now... with any means necessary."

Such a phrase leaves a sudden harsh taste in her mouth, but… Futoshi, Kokoro, and Code 367 nod in unison.

"We've gotta prepare, then," Futoshi whispers, as his hand goes to his leg pocket. "Kokoro, listen here..."

"Huh…?" The soft girl with ashen-blond hair looks meekly at Futoshi, a bit over-conscious of his arm wrapping around her shoulders as he comes closer to her.

"I don't know how everything will go from now on, but… I can trust your aim."

"Pardon…? H-Huh?" Something hard is pushing against her ribcage. She looks down to find something made of black vulcanized rubber… a rubber pistol grip that shapes out in a keen and mirror-shining anodized metal body. What is now offered to her is the same one that the burly boy extracted from the security station just around the door of this place. That thing looks awfully like a handgun.

"I want you to be ready."

"Futoshi-!" Ikuno protests, "Is that… a firearm!"

"Shhh-don't be loud!"

Without any ado, he shoves the weapon into Kokoro's hands, and at grasping the rubber against her palms her instincts suddenly fire up in surprise and make her fingers waver, but eventually they close firmly onto the grip.

"This is a stun gun. Pull this side lever, align the sights with the target, then… pull the trigger. Just like you do with Genista!"

"But… but… are you sure I… I can…"

The meek girl, at the simple thought of the power she's holding into her hands, starts to feels very uneasy. But soon enough…

"This feels… familiar," Kokoro tentatively says. That small thing in her grasp feels exactly like Rook Sparrow, Genista's main artillery rifle, only with significantly less weight and bulk. "How… come…"

"Ah, beautiful Kokoro…!" Futoshi giggles.

"Oh come on…" Ikuno sternly protests Futoshi's drooling idiot expression.

"Ehe," Futoshi smiles innocently. "You do have a good aim! Just don't fire it while he's in contact with someone else, or you could zap them also. Electricity doesn't discriminate good from bad!"

I could be just Ikuno's imagination, but she's positive that Futoshi is talking about the little girl and the possibility that Yoruichi might be still attached to her when the gun had its effect on him.

"Uhm… But, he's a parasite like us…"

"Just… just imagine he's a klaxxosaur!" Code 376 incites Kokoro. At that statement, countless exclamation marks pop into Ikuno's head.

"C-code 376…!"

"I know, but… if it makes you feel better…"

"Hm…" Futoshi agrees. "He might as well be like one, he's hell-bent in doing damage like them."

Somehow, that sentence stirs Ikuno's insides. No parasite would ever dare to hurt someone else with their own hands, but a pervasive and very known fact puts a crack in that.

Every parasite is grown up in a place where combat is the main part of their daily occurrence and an unmovable landmark of what their duty is actually about. For a good part of their life, they have studied and prepared to drive something that interfaces directly to their instinctual subconscious to be able to use extremely lethal weaponry in the most natural way possible - a FranXX, a war machine so complex and powerful to be capable of leveling entire mountains with just a fraction of its output. So, one thing, in particular, stands correct: even if they never actually experienced it with their own real bodies, their minds do remember how to use violence… and it's inebriating feeling.

"I'm ready to go whenever you want," Code 376 tells to Ikuno.

"Same," Futoshi does the same.

"Um… I guess it's time…" Kokoro says while passing her fingers on the stun gun's mirror-like finish… smiling just a little. Ikuno's gaze lingers on the distant back of Code 121. She feels like she's about to cross a terrible threshold… but nonetheless, the only one that in this situation she wouldn't regret. Eventually, she nods to his squad.

"Let's go."

At her signal, all three face the couple on the other side of the room. With absolute concentration and seriousness, the group locks in the stamen, still unaware of his own fate while hugging his softly crying pistil. Slowly and silently, with small steps, they surround the couple with the same type of encirclement they are used to do while on the field, driving their FranXX. Futoshi readies his fists, Code 376 wields firmly the shaft of her broom and Kokoro points the gun forward, assuming the firing stance she'd learned with countless hours of driving experience. At this moment, you wouldn't think everyone to be these levels of professionalism, but this is somewhat expected from everyone. After all, this is everyone's element, what they trained for all their life for, the culmination of their raison d'etre for being part in a world where the dawn wouldn't break lest their blood is promptly offered in sacrifice each day.

The group slowly advances on the couple like predators and, in slowly releasing his embrace, Yoruichi's eye corner finally notices them. In a gut reaction, his back tenses up and his mouth slowly comes undone at the sight of him being surrounded by four people at once in combat stance, wielding weapons.

"You…" he whispers from his throat.

"After all we've seen, we can't let this go," Ikuno announces. "I'm sorry, but… this is the best for your pistil. I've tried to make you reason, but… this all ends here."

The long-haired boy turns back to the wall. The four of them keep inching forward, ready for any sudden movement. Slowly and carefully, they eventually get only half-a-dozen meters from his back… but he keeps hugging the little girl, immobile.

"Natsumi… we might have to go sooner…"

Ikuno's ears catch that whisper, so she glances at their teammates, who nod in unison.

"Don't try anything funny!" Futoshi barks at him.

"I'm… I'm very sorry," says Yoruichi in a strange tone, his right arm suddenly reaching for something besides the girl's bed. Are those… crayons? No, the hand reaches over them and grasps something past them…

"HEY! What's in your hand! Show it!"

"Sure…"

He glances towards them, and what Ikuno finds in his eyes… is pure anger.

"Catch."

He backhand-throws something at Kokoro, something looking like… a ball.

«Tick», «Tick», «Tick», «Tick»…

"Uh…?"

A round, LED-shining ball the size of a palm, rolling towards her ankles.

Futoshi's face morphs in extreme fear.

"GRENADE!" he shouts on top of his lungs.

In a split second, he breaks formation and charges Kokoro with a speed he's never shown himself to have. "GET DOWN, GET DOWN!" He dashes to her, kicks the ball at her feet towards the other room and grapples the girl's shoulders to drag her down to the ground with him.

"Waah-!"

Instinctively, Ikuno and Code 367 do the same. As soon as everyone sprawl onto the ground and cover their heads, a sharp and eardrum-popping explosion follows…

«BAM-FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!»

Ikuno yelps as her ears start ringing. She peeks at the strange fizzle that followed the bang, to witness that the ball has begun spinning everywhere in the floor in circular motions, completely on its own as powerful jets of thick, white smoke blast away from its insides. In the bat of an eye, the back workshop is filled with unbreathable air and nothing can be seen inches from their noses.

"Cough! Cough!" Code 367 covers her mouth inside her cleaning uniform.

"Don't breathe it…!" Futoshi desperately yells from inside the smoke.

Among the general confusion, Ikuno hears rapid running footsteps crossing the room somewhere inside the impenetrable smog going.

"He's escaping-! Everyone! Get out of here," the girl yells to her companions, trying her best to also preserve some oxygen in her lungs. Ikuno rapidly gets up and, while orienting herself purely by memory, she manages to stumble inside the front workshop filled with display holograms glittering against the minute particles of fog filling the room. Being the first to get out from it, she manages to catch a glimpse of Yoruichi dashing out of the door with the little girl wrapped in covers onto his back.

"Stop-!" She dashes after him, and almost trip onto a roller chair. She shoves it aside abruptly, "Out of my way-!"

Back into the glass-domed control station with countless of terminals giving full view to the vast FranXX maintenance chamber, Ikuno can spot the boy running on the catwalks linked to the door to the side of the room, following along the humongous metal walls towards an open-access lift installed onto the most distant left corner. As soon as she reaches the correct door, she fumbles a little with the door control panel to jump out on the rafters to give chase.

"STOP! You're going to kill her!" Ikuno shouts at the boy, running the faster she can manage- but the boy already reached the open glass lift. As an answer, he triggers the cabin controls and metal bars close the now-vacant elevator access door. Beaming her a contemptuous glare, Yoruichi starts the descent towards the base of the humongous workshop with the scared Natsumi grappled on his shoulders.

"Uugh…!" Ikuno's dash suddenly collapses. Her body gives up mid-run and forces her to a ruinous slide on her knees as her breath goes out of control and her head starts to spin vigorously. "Haah… haah… What… Oww…"

"I-Ikuno?" Reacting slowly to voice behind her, the white-haired girl almost doesn't recognize Code 376's metal-sounding running footsteps coming towards her. "Are you OK? Ikuno? Did he hurt you!"

"N-No… my body… is… just weak…"

The girl picks up the confused Ikuno from the floor and cradles her in her arms while frantically looking inside her eyes to assert she's conscious and well. Slowly, Ikuno's vision stops being blurred and allows her to focus the other girl's extremely worried face.

"Hang in there, I'm gonna smash that guy's head open!"

"3-367… Don't…" Maybe out of her dizziness, Ikuno's hand inexplicably reaches caresses onto the girl's blond and wavy hair to calm her spirits.

"Ah-!" Code 367 instantly blushes at her gesture.

"Aw… s-sorry… it-it was just a reflex…"

"Oh, no, no! Don't worry, I love it!" She smiles with a thousand's suns power.

"Ah-aha…" Ikuno nervously giggles.

"IKUNO, 376!" A male shout could be heard from the glassed command station. That voice is Futoshi's. "WHERE DID HE GO!"

"HE WENT DOWN!" Code 367 yells back to him, pointing to the lift going down.

"DARN!" Futoshi curses, and turns back to Kokoro, still holding to her stun gun and dryly coughing to get rid of the smoke dust she inhaled back at the workshop. "We need to give chase!"

"Cough…! Ahn… where are they going…?"

"…I think I know, Kokoro! Come, follow me!"

Without any warning, he takes Kokoro's hand in his and leads her back outside the same broken door they came in the first time, then dashes along the catwalk to reach for the exit. Opening the door, both parasites are jump-startled as a statuesque figure, taller and bigger than them, barred his way like a guardian.

"C-Commander!" Futoshi startles.

It's Hachi, entering the FranXX workshop area, and almost being ran him over by Futoshi and Kokoro after the sliding doors suddenly opened.

"Code 224, what's happening…?" he asks the boy while caught by surprise. He scans both of them, and his tone suddenly cracks while pointing at the stun gun she's wielding. "OH! Code 556! Where did you find that-!"

Like a deer in headlights, the girl freezes in a panic due to the commander's loudly bass and upset voice. "U-Uh! Commander Hachi…!"

"It was my initiative, commander! I'll assume full responsibility!" Futoshi promptly saves her from his chastising tone.

Hachi squares Futoshi up in the little dismay he can express. "Where did you get it?"

"From the security station, officer, where else?" the boy plainly says back to him.

"Wh-?" Hachi's voice tinges deeper and deeper with distress. "Are you serious?"

"Yessir! And commander, in the end, we failed at negotiating with Code 121, he has a terminal prejudice against the System and has abducted his pistil using restricted equipment! He just now managed to broke off our perimeter and fled towards the FranXX cages! We need to go after him, otherwise, the general alarm may escalate!"

Hachi looks straight in his eyes, coldly calculating. "…Where did you learn that lingo?"

"Huh…? Ah-! Ow, geez…!" Futoshi blinks, as a sharp fit envelope his head, but he shakes off the pain and powers through the daze with his willpower alone. "Commander…! We need to act now and quickly-! Ow…"

Hachi squares Futoshi with his most concerned look, and a sudden hint of understanding crosses his mind. "I see. Code 224, don't mind that question, I need you lucid and prepared. Code 556, remember to re-engage the safety. Both of you, follow me. If he's escaping to the FranXX cages, we're about to be in a bind."

Hachi turns to the same way he came in and quickly descends the set of stairs giving to the Inner Ring. The two falter a little, but the mature voice of their commander urges them. "Come!"

Futoshi and Kokoro look at each other, then back at Hachi. After Kokoro engages the gun's safety as instructed, they run after their commander rapidly descending towards the center of the Nest. As soon as the sign says they've managed to reach the end of the engineering section, the set of stairs ends abruptly to a couple of double sliding doors back to the endless inner Ring corridor that they previously left behind themselves. Hachi stops just outside the last door and looks up, with the two parasites curiously observing him, and addresses the thin air in front of him.

"Tower! Are you listening?"

«I am always listening,» a female voice resounds from everywhere at once.

Kokoro and Futoshi startle at the sudden speech, then begin looking around for its source, but left and right there's just the infinite bend of the Ring, and no one in sight. "Loudspeakers…?" Kokoro whispers to an agreeable Futoshi.

"Requesting a security TMV at my position."

«Sure, handsome… ETA thirty seconds.»

Hachi's mouth angles ever so slightly at the voice's catcalling.

«Hachi, why does the girl… have a gun?»

"Don't worry, I vouch for her."

«You do trust them, and at that level? Woow, that's rare!»

"Yes," Hachi plainly states.

Futoshi tentatively asks, "Is that… the other Nana?"

The tall commander turns to the boy and nods. "She's acting as the Tower now. If you want her support, just call her denomination, she'll hear you anywhere you are."

«Sure I will, big boy! Tower's gonna take care of you~»

"Haaah," Hachi pinches his nose while looking to the side, "just, don't take her completely seriously, though."

«Meanie~!»

Futoshi and Kokoro smile in sync, both quite a bit on a mixed wavelength of both worried and amused, then switch back to their serious selves as soon as Hachi turns back to them.

"So… If they're running to the cages, then we have a problem. Tower, where's Code 121 and 723's FranXX docked at?"

«About a quarter Ring length down to your right.»

"Got it. We've got some time before anything happens, then. Thanks."

"And then… W…What happens…?" Kokoro asks.

"Well… they reach their FranXX."

"But, can't you just lock down all the doors?" Futoshi asks.

"There are no doors on the external elevators below the workshops. It is meant to be always accessible by maintenance staff and their machines. It's a design strength, and a flaw also."

"But, their FranXX should be docked down, isn't it?"

Hachi squares Futoshi up. "It hardly matters."

Futoshi and Kokoro gasp. "W-why? Isn't there a… uhm, some sort of security mechanism to stop them to turn the FranXX on? There should be, right!"

Hachi continues to square him up, expressionless.

"Right…?"

"Did you ever use a password to access your FranXX? Or biometrics like fingerprint or retina?"

Futoshi and Kokoro look at each other, once again confused.

"No…? B-But! We needed your clearance to get onboard…!"

"Clearance to access the prep rooms, the lockers, the briefing room, the waiting room before the FranXX cages, and another to access the Integrated Command and Diagnostic System inside the FranXX… but did the procedure ever stated that you needed some sort of authorization from me to start up your FranXX?"

Futoshi's brows frown a little as he recalls his countless times inside the cockpit, "…No?"

"Indeed. I always notified you that you could 'proceed with the connection', and I never stated that you were 'authorized' to do so."

Both the parasites look at him with mouths hanging over, completely confused about what Hachi said to them. Just before any implications of that trivia would pop up in their minds, a revving sound happens to echo louder and louder towards their left down the long corridor, catching everyone's full attention- something black and bulky is quickly approaching them, and by the sound, it's on wheels. A big, solid jet-black vehicle with very bulky wheels with a suspension clearance of at least the height of their knees stops in front of Hachi.

"Whoa!" Futoshi marvels and Kokoro's O-shaped mouth tells she completely agrees.

The vehicle in front of them is an extremely-solid-looking armored service vehicle wrapped in thick kinetic plating and interspersed by - what would seem - orange curved glass covering the front of the central driver seat and the squared spy-holes along the body where the passengers' seats would be. The plating of the vehicle curves is made from an extremely slanted and futuristic mesh of shaped triangles in fractal-like patterns, up to the nose where a two-handled steering wheel protrudes to the front of a reclined and minimalistic racing-style seat. Without any ado, Hachi hits a button on its side, and half of the plating comes open from the top like a wing, inviting them to get inside. After witnessing the demented looks of Futoshi and Kokoro, he just puts a hand onto the handlebar protruding from the vehicle's top and hoists himself up crouching towards the driver seat, due to the very reduced head-clearing.

"Are you coming?" Hachi asks from inside.

"Ah-!" Both Futoshi and Kokoro wake up from their astonishment and hurry to climb right inside.

"Wait-! Does that mean… I could go on and pilot Chloropythum without anyone's permission…?" Futoshi asks as he hoists himself right inside. There were eight passenger seats in the rear, all lined up and cramped along the sides of the vehicle, behind some alcoves shaped out from more kinetic plates.

"Yes, you totally could."

"WHAT-?"

"I'm not telling you that you should do it, of course, but you could open the faceplate of Genista if you just asked her." He says as he gestures to summons the holographic heads-up display of the rover and the seat beneath him adjusts to his body shape automatically.

"Asked…?" Kokoro wavers while dragging herself inside.

"Yes." Hachi hits a holographic button on the HUD, and the door closes back. "And it might open only if the FranXX knows you. That means, Chloropythum for Code 224 and Genista for you, Code 556. And, with quite the probability, I might also take a bet that Genista still remembers 224. It hasn't passed that much from the last time he connected to her," Hachi explains.

"Oh-! But then… how would you connect without suits or interfacing equipment!"

"What equipment?" Hachi turns to Futoshi, looking at him straight in the eyes. "You don't need anything else to connect to a FranXX… apart from your consent."

Kokoro and Futoshi just can't mentally keep up with what their commander just told them and wander off deeply lost in thought.

"So… anyone could just… waltz inside their own FranXX and…?"

"If there's nothing barring you to reach your FranXX… yes. You would be free to do anything you want with it." Hachi's voice aggravates. "And with anything, I mean… anything."

Both parasites freeze on the spot as their eyes widen at such realization.

"I mean, using your personal FranXX, how much would it take you to reduce this place in a pile of smoldering ashes?"

Even if Kokoro and Futoshi relent to give their answers, in both of their minds the answer pops out in a blink… and it says seconds.

"Anyways, I hope you've got some gist of what you've never told about the FranXX system. Hang on to your seats and grab the roof handles on your side… we're in a hurry."

The young look around themselves and find other handlebars protruding from the seat's edge and the top of the rover's canopy, so Futoshi takes Hachi's hint to heart and grabs onto both of them, and Kokoro also does the same, after putting down her handgun inside a crevice into the plating that looked like it was shaped just for that. The engine, albeit very silent, revs up with an acute hissing as Hachi drives deep the pedal to the metal and screeching wheels launch the vehicle forward.

"Whaaah!" Kokoro yelps as the acceleration almost pushes her off her seat.

"Ugh!" Futoshi, though, slides to three seats over.

As soon as the vehicle is in full throttle along the Inner Ring, Hachi resumes his speech.

"We need to cut them off. The engineering section next to the FranXX cages has quite the complex layout and security is very light… so it's very suitable for hiding and passing through unobserved… and more importantly, perfect for ambushes," Hachi informs the two. "Coming out with a quick plan, I'd set you two off between what I'd consider a good vantage point to cut off their escape. Meanwhile, Code 196 and the other pistil that was with her could get from behind and act as a pincer."

"Wh-what about other doors leading out of the section? Could they just return into the ring and skip our blockade?"

"I wouldn't do that. Even if they'd manage to bust another door to get out, cameras are all over the Ring and we'd pinpoint them with no issues. Looking at the way how Code 121 easily dealt with the security cameras, he's aware that he needs to avoid detection… so, from now on, we will work with the assumption he will play this out optimally and try to navigate Engineering silently."

"Engineering… is it next to the whole Outer Ring," Kokoro asks.

"Yes, it runs all along with the FranXX cages, as like the repair and FranXX equipment manufacturing stations. You were inside one, earlier."

"This place… is humongous…"

"Hm." Hachi agrees, looking at the rear camera on his driving display. "Anyways, Code 556, take a look between the seats on your left."

"Huh…?"

Kokoro peeks between the two protection plates that merge with the seats, and something triangle-shaped embedded in some sort of retention mechanism promptly piques her attention.

"This one…?" She grabs it, and with a sounding «CLACK!» the retentions immediately disengage, "Haaah…?!" and out comes a black, long buttstock, a trigger group and following that an entire chromed, long rifled barrel, with a half-detachment and a squared virtual scope.

"That's yours."

"Ah-Ah! B-But commander-! I-I-I don't want to hurt anyone-!"

"That's a dart gun, don't worry."

"Ah… B-but! It still shoots bullets!"

"Chemical, nonlethal ammunition. The clips are somewhere around there. Sleeping darts, " Hachi explains. "I'd bet your former stamen can tell you a little about how it works, certainly way better than me…"

"I-I'll do my best, sir!" Futoshi says while making an old-fashioned military salute.

"Haven't seen that type of salute in a while," Hachi notes. "Drop-off is near, so before anything else, I'd ask you to put on your communicator's earpieces."

Still fumbling with the dart rifle and the bulky ammo package, Kokoro and Futoshi eventually pop out the single earpiece device out of their holographic phones to wear them inside their earlobe.

"Tower."

«Yes, commander?» this time, the mysterious female voice comes out from next to the driving seat.

"Follow closely Code 556 and 224, advise them, and provide for any tactical need they might encounter. Lead them to target and make sure they have a clear shot."

«Right away. It'll be like I'm right beside you, nestlings!»

"Ah-uhm… Nice to meet you, miss Tower! I'll be in your care!" Kokoro bows towards the voice.

«Oh! Such politeness…! I like you already,» the voice now resounds crystal-clear inside their earpieces, with the full surprise of both.

"Good. We're almost there." Hachi takes a glance at the rear camera, where he sees both of his pupils finding and trying out some other equipment lying around the vehicle. In particular, under Futoshi's suggestion, Kokoro is trying to wear a tactical belt with a black leg strap holster and ammo carrier under her uniform and was red as pepper from having to pull her skirt up in front of the burly boy's… very watchful gaze.

"Futoshi, please…! Don't look, it's embarrassing!"

"S-sure, Kokoro-! I would never-UHHHM…!" the boy tries to say while hugging the back of his seat to force himself with every inch of his willpower to not peek her white and supple leg curves as she buckles the holster's black retentions onto his white porcelain skin.

Eventually, the rover slowly decelerates, then comes to a halt and opens its side door just before another anonymous double door in the middle of the vast Inner Ring's nowhere. "We've arrived. I'll be seeing you shortly."

"Yes! Count on us, commander!" Futoshi proudly says as he gets out of the vehicle, with Kokoro warmly smiling and following suit with her bulky rifle. The couple steps out of the car and, without any hesitation whatsoever, run along the passage leading to Engineering to try and intercept the couple just before they reach their FranXX.

It will be a very difficult operation, Hachi thinks as the side door closes and his pensive gaze lingers onto the rubber wheel in front of him. Down in Engineering, the layout looks like more of a maze… possibly that of a certain, very ancient mythos, where both the hero, Theseus, and the princess, Ariadne, must find their way inside it to slay the minotaur. Even if he can't properly convey it, the commander is very much amazed at the carefree attitude of their pupils in front of the unknown, even with having to do without their own FranXX. Isn't it a year and change that the parasites of Plantation 13 are under his command? Yes, indeed. And each time he left them out on a mission on their own, he started to feel more and more a certain type of uneasiness while seeing their backs going away from him, into a place, he could no longer follow.

"Forgive me. Once again, I'm asking out of you way more than I should," he whispers.

...

What love really means :: END

...

(1) "non libertas solum agebatur, quae virorum fortium pectora acuit […]" Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita. XXVIII, 19. This maxim says: "freedom ignites only the hearts of the valorous" and it refers to the ardent defenders of the city of Castulone in Iberia (ye-olden Spain) almost toppling the punishing force of Scipio Africanus, consul and commander of the Roman Empire, sent to avenge his father and uncle amid a heinous rebellion in the Second Punic Wars.