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Chapter 13

Worlds colliding

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Not even fully through the wide overhead door, a thrilling call filled with fear deafens their eardrums.

"Yoruichi!"

Ikuno, Futoshi, Kokoro and Code 376 halt immediately on the spot, suddenly startled. Their nervous gazes bounce off the dark walls hidden by the piles of shelves and tables full to the brink of electronic doodads, looking for the source of such outburst still ringing deafly in their ears. Silence propagates inside the service elevator room as they scan for any hostile reaction coming from the piles of junk abandoned on the tables lined up on the wall in front of them until a sudden movement magnetizes their attentions in unison. A dark silhouette was looming towards them, generating from one of such tables.

As the light from the room with holographic stations climbs the floor and reaches the opposite wall, the room's twilight dissipates, revealing a little girl roughly almost in her teens sitting by the far wall, half-hidden among white bed covers, shivering in fear while blending among the general confusion. The black shadow closes in and stops between the group and the little girl, until the light Black center-parted long hair tied back in a long tail, angled, thick, black eyebrows over jet-black eyes squinting for the sudden flash, canine eyes passing over the group while glowing from the overexposure of the room, until the overhead door open fully and the warm yellow room lights suddenly switch on. A stamen more than halfway in his teens blocks their path with fists clasped shut and his body's muscles tensed up, standing like a guardian statue carved out from a slab of pure hostility.

"Who are you? What do you want? You're not welcome here," he addresses the group with a rasping growl.

Ikuno instinctively takes a step back, taken completely by surprise, while Kokoro, stricken by a sudden surge of fear from the guardian's leering eyes, scuttles behind the safe wide back of an open-mouthed Futoshi. The blond-haired pistil, Code 376, doesn't step back and ends up locking eyes with the boy in front of her. "E-ehm...!" she fidgets, then presents her vacuum broom to him.

"C-Cleaning duty!" she acutely stutters, bending her face into a clearly insincere smile. Everyone stops in their tracks and turn their heads towards her in complete disarray.

"H-Haaah...?" The boy's right eye starts twitching uncontrollably.

"Y-y-you want to live here, i-in this complete mess!? Hahaha, d-don't make laugh! Don't you see...?" She ducks and passes a finger on the floor, that comes right up stained of red dust. "T-the sandy dust! This belongs to the desert outside Bird Nest! And, why would you want to stay in this disorder anyways? Why aren't you in the Sph-"

"It's not your business," he plainly states in an ice-cold tone, hastily recovering from Code 367's bent throw. "Also, don't give me that crap. Why are YOU here?"

Her shoulders jump and her chastised gaze falls to the floor. Ikuno tries to speak up, but she's interrupted by Futoshi's severe interjection. "Hey! Watch your tone!" he barks.

"I talk as I please."

"You absolutely don't!"

"No, wait... let me do the talking." Ikuno grabs his Stamen's shoulder to interject the back and forth between the two, trying to avoid the discussion to spiral down into a wordfight... or worse. Futoshi hangs his mouth open, then collapses it shut, forcing himself to relent his tongue at Ikuno's request.

"...Sorry."

She nods, then turns to the long-haired stamen and looks at him straight in the eye. After a long second of silent weighting one another, she speaks up.

"I'm... I'm Code 196, Ikuno. If you remember, we've met at breakfast."

"I know," he interjects, lapidary.

"...Yeah. And, we know of Code 723, too." She points to the little girl watching her from under the stark white bedsheets. Code 121's left eye twitches, but he doesn't break the stare.

"We were searching for both of you. Back at breakfast, when you brought her out, we were very much surprised."

"Surprised? Were you... surprised that I was telling the truth about her and not getting more rations? Are you here to give your apologies?" A contemptuous grin paints on his face.

Ikuno's mouth angles a little. "Well... no. I was expecting you to return eventually, but... not with her."

"What do you mean? Heh, never seen a little girl before?"

Ikuno mouth angles some more, bent by annoyance. "...Of course, I did. But that's not it... matter of fact, I expected someone healthy instead."

"Well, daaamn." The stamen opens his arms wide to drive his point further. "Ever thought that, maybe, I went to get her breakfast in her stead because she wouldn't feel good doing the queue with all that crowd?"

"Yeah, well... Maybe the rules for getting the rations are too strict, for this I apologize on our behalf. But even then... why would she be in that state in the first place?"

"She's sickly. It's normal for her."

"Normal? I don't know about that, nothing was recorded of her on the medical side of things." Ikuno pushes her squared glasses up her nose. "Look, I can understand if it was an accident or anything... but we know everything." After weighing the tense silence of the room, then she continues. "She's injured and needs help."

His eyes suddenly narrow up and his head slightly inches to the side. "Injured...? What are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb, we know enough! What did you do to her? Spit it out!" Futoshi shouts, pointing at him in an accusing tone.

Code 121 shakes his head, aghast. "What I've done to her...? What the hell are you talking about! She's my Pistil! Why would I do something to her?" he asks the group, visibly taken by the quick.

"Are you that blind you didn't realize that your pistil looks white as a ghost? Don't play dumb, why is she like that? If it isn't your fault, then why are you hiding her from everyone!?"

"That's none of your business, big boy. Cut to the chase! Why did you track me down? Do you want to take her away? Hell no, over my corpse you will!"

"She's injured! She's gonna get ill more if she's not treated properly!"

"Wh-! Stop saying she's injured, it's not goddamn true! You don't know jack shit about her, don't you act as you know more than me on what I have to do! I know what are you getting to, and my answer is NO. Now, get out from here and leave us alone, no one called you here!"

"Not true...? What... are you... playing at! This is not a game!" Ikuno remains speechless in front of the impenetrable rubber wall of the long-haired guy built in front of her. Is this guy for real? Lying straight at their faces like that?

Futoshi grit his teeth in rage then points again his finger at him in an accusing manner. "You're an awful liar! There was a sack full of bloodied bed covers inside your room! Tell me now, how she's not injured?"

"Y... Y-You've...!" Code 121's face, whitens and his eyes widen dramatically like hit by a cold shower. He loses his previous controlled composure to uncover his canine eyes, trembling in a swirl of rage. His fists clasp and his shoulders aggressively arch forward to ragingly blurt out "Y-You trespassed in our room! How dare you!"

"Gotcha! If she's not injured then explain that one, you ass!"

"Ch-! You...! You shouldn't have done that! No one gave you permission! Who do you think you are? It's our place! It's not yours to raffle through! Were you stalking me? Since when?" Code 121's stare drops to the floor like a rock, although glaring like lasers are beaming off his eyes. Ikuno understands that Futoshi's intervention fished him out of the waters, but instead of a fish, they pulled out a raging monster. Appealing to his responsibility as a Stamen didn't work, but it didn't look like his objective was to hide it, he's way more pissed about his room being trespassed. Correction, their room. And to be watched upon, too.

"Of course. I would that over and over, you have something suspicious to hide! Drop the act and spill the beans! What have you done to her?!" Futoshi orders him.

"Futoshi, he didn't-"

"Grr! Thieves! There's nothing to spill out!" Yoruichi's face morphs in walks long strides towards the group with an ire that would move aside mountains. "Now get the hell out of here! IMMEDIATELY!"

Everyone steps backward, completely taken aback by Code 121, striding forward like a train in a collision course, except Futoshi. As soon as he picked up the sense of danger of the stamen striding menacingly towards him, his head starts to swell again and an instinct surfaces from deep inside him, telling to not move. Even more, the pressure in his head urges him to step forward to intercept the aggressor, to not back down and use his body. As soon as his foot closed further the gap between the two, something in his brain switched on and his body tensed up like a stone.

"Halt." A different voice gravely resounds from his throat.

Yoruichi halts on his tracks before the big figure blocking his way, double the size he was a second before. His ire fades for a second, then revamps back up in a last-ditch attempt at sounding menacing.

"Else?"

"Else your brains are gonna spill on the floor, instead."

"Futoshi...!" Ikuno gasps. The room freezes below zero while the rest of the girls covers their mouth in shock. The little girl, sitting at the opposite side of the room, suddenly hides her face under the white sheets she was tucked into with a rabbit-like squeal.

"Whoa! OK, OK, big boy, message received..."

His hands raised in a sign of yield as he slowly retreats, taken by surprise by Futoshi's sudden change in... about everything about him. The big guy's previous mellow and tranquil eyes are now engulfed up in raw, primal emotion, with his body seemingly enlarged twice the size... even his voice seemed different. He thought the group would just leave if he had shown them some little intimidation, but he gravely misjudged his opponents, flipping the situation on its head. Realizing he made a mistake, he backs to his previous spot and tries to engage with him with words instead.

"...Who are you?"

"Futoshi."

"Huh...?" His left brow suddenly arches. "Your nickname... sounds familiar."

"I don't know you."

"Yeah..." The black-haired stamen looks pensive to him, then lightly shakes his head, taken aback like surprised by his own words. The two stand in front of each other, judging one another while trying to decide who is prey and who's predator. Kokoro's hands tremble as she's gripping her chest, scared of belonging into the animated discussion, but almost misses Code 376 stepping forward and standing beside Futoshi, imposing like she never appeared.

"Could you please stay calm? I don't want to use violence, but I know very well how to defend myself," she addresses the black-haired stamen, purposely resting her long broom vertical on the floor, like a lance. "But honestly, what do you think we would have done when that little one is hurt like that?" she points the little girl sitting on the wall opposite to her, still hiding and softly wimping under the white blanket. "As soon as I heard about it, I could not stay put and do nothing about it. Sorry for intruding, but please understand why they've been looking for you. Could you blame our situation, really?"

"Nah, I don't buy this even for a moment. Just searching a kilometer-wide base and just casually stumbling on this room seems like quite the stretch. How did you know where I live? And who told you I was here? Who helped you find me, huh?"

"If I told you, will you trust me?" Ikuno interjects.

"Depends."

"...The Commander Hachi."

"Hah... as expected. Are you working for him?"

"We volunteered on checking the place for him."

"Hah...! Hahaha! Thanks for admitting it, finally!"

"Wh-What do you think I'm admitting? Who distributed the food, who kept the place running, who took care of the injured? We did! What do you think we were doing all the time?"

"Playing his game, of course."

"His game...? We've been running this place on our own since Gran Crevasse!"

"On your own? Hah! A parasite, talking about free will...!"

"B-but what are you-"

"You're just his disposable chess pawns, like every Parasite ever. Why would I trust you? Your word doesn't mean jack ass compared to his power. You obeyed his orders and fell right into his hands!"

"Disposable... chess... pawns? Wh-What the...? What in the world...! We're... we've been asked to help because we've had the experience to do it! We lived alone, in our Plantation's Mistilteinn for months since it was disabled, alone and without any help! Also, Hachi never considered us... pawns..."

"What? You, alone? Hahaha, don't bullshit me! Are you telling me you've been left on top of a disabled plantation living your merry way while we were preparing to battle? At least put some effort, will ya?" Yoruichi snarkily remarks. "Also, could you be more naive? Are you seriously thinking someone like an Officer could have treated you more than such? Where did you live until now, on the moon?"

"It was true! Stop disrespecting my friends, you asshole!" Futoshi yells. "We managed to do it, all alone! We don't need someone like Papa to manage to live on! We can do it ourselves! And Hachi never treated us ill, Papa did! It was all his fault, he never respected us!"

"Pfffff. You don't even..." Yoruichi theatrically shakes his head, "Who do you think the 'Perfect future' they had us believe was for? For us? Ha! Hahahahahahaha! Hahaha... No." He closes his eyes and squeezes his nose's neck in his fingers, then releases a sigh, "I truly goddamn wonder where you lot lived because, for me, it was clear as day where my place was. I knew very well that my duty ended... was exactly where my life ended. Day after day, it became as clear as the glass of my cage, from the day I learned that the hard way, that we were just bodies to throw away, stepping stones for their ideals and toys for their pleasing, fighting a war we didn't begin and didn't understand, to earn no more than a grave... while covered in empty praise.

"So tell me, why would I trust him? And... you? What about you? Why would I trust someone that is friends with such a kind? Did you get on his good side? Did you give him favors? Did you work with the special forces, so you got a merry beautiful life in the comforts of being a good son of Papa, seeing that you were so pampered? Do you think I would trust you, given this?"

"We... we were just a normal squad..."

"Normal my ass. You're far, very far from normal. You're abnormal as heck."

"Right back at you." Futoshi remarks.

"Hum..."Among the bickering, Kokoro takes the word from behind Futoshi, taking a little of courage to face him. "S-Sorry... but... I can vouch that what Ikuno said is true. We are just a simple parasite squad. We had been left stranded there since the first battle of Gran Crevasse, with the promise that they would pick us up... it took a long time before we would be able to leave, just before the start of the second battle. We learned how to get food, to cook, to mend our clothing... to live by ourselves."

"..." Yoruichi stays silent.

"B-But... why are you behaving like this? I mean... I don't know you, how you've... lived until now, but... please, try to make an effort and give us a speck of trust. I don't want to harm her, your pistil, and not even you of all people. When I saw there were injured parasites that couldn't go out from their rooms and take what they needed, I couldn't help myself and wanted to do something for them, and... Hachi agreed with me and said he would have asked us to help anyways.

"It's true... Hachi... did some wrong things in the past too, and maybe even recently... but I think it's because he's... not like us, he does things... mostly his way. B-But-! I think he needs someone to make him notice he's looking at problems in the wrong way. I know him for a while and I would never call him cruel or uncaring. He... he has compassion. I think that we need to talk this over and... understand what's wrong and... change it. I believe...! I believe we can all live together without fighting or hating between ourselves. Please believe me!"

Yoruichi squints his eyes at her, "I know you. You're... Kokoro, the girl that went room to room to bring stuff to others?"

"Yes. We've already met... but I'm pleased to meet you again, Yoruichi. I never intruded in your life, but hearing what they found inside your room, the blood inside the trash sacks, and then that you both disappeared... I started to worry a lot because I thought there was something wrong, and wanted to make sure you were well."

"I see." Yoruichi daftly smiles to her, softening his previous hard as stone expression. "I kinda understand where you're coming from. I thank you for worrying about us, but...I think your kindness is being used."

"No one is using me...! I'm here because I want to!"

"You just don't realize."

"But...! She's not well, I can see it right now! She needs to be looked over by-"

"No. Sorry." He shakes his head. "That's not going to happen."

"Why...!" Ikuno gets back at him. "She's in your care, Code 121! Why won't you take her to the hospital! Why don't you want to help her!"

"I told you, I'm already helping her," Yoruichi glares at them, "because those people... commanders, caretakers, doctors or nurses, everyone that runs the place... are monsters in human clothes."

Ikuno's head jolts backward in complete aghast. "Monsters?" She shakes her head vigorously. "Hachi is not a monster! He managed to pull us through our Parasite service without disrespecting or abandoning us! You don't know him, so don't tell me how to feel about him! Yes, he may be managing badly, but I'm sure he's not doing this out of ill intentions, just as Kokoro said." Ikuno does a step forward to look properly the thin-eyed stamen. "And what about Code 013? I agree he's an ass, but not a monster in the slightest. Are you even remotely aware is that it's thanks to him and the others in the hospital camp back at Gran Crevasse that the injured Parasites are still alive and kicking? He's arguably the sole Parasite that helped us all going through the first days without a single death, and does his best to get everyone away from illness! Why would you call him a monster of all people?"

"Ah, Ikuno-girl... what if they didn't want you to see that?" Yoruichi pointed his finger at his own eyes. "Are you a hundred percent sure that the doctors didn't hide their deaths or suddenly started to cull the unfit without anyone noticing? I bet you didn't even think about it, so engrossed you were at obeying their orders. Of course, you know nothing... because you can be led to believe everything they want." Yoruichi points his finger past Futoshi, pointing directly to her like a lecturer. "Like the others, you either don't understand or you refuse to see what they did, and what they are capable of. But that's still OK because I don't need your permission to do as I see fit. I saw in first person what happens to the unusable parasites... and to be honest, that's enough for me for a lifetime."

Yoruichi turns his back to the group and proceeds towards his little pistil, "Now, since her condition hit once again, she may not be able to pilot now, so I don't want to risk it." He squats in front of her, takes her cloth up to her eyes to dry the tears pearling her cheeks. She meekly smiles to him and grabs his sleeve, hanging onto it like an anchor, while his other one passes onto her thin hickory hair in a caress. Getting up again, he once again positions himself between her and Futoshi.

"I don't want her gone. You can do everything you want to me. Beat me, curse me, or remove me from existence. But not her. So... she's going nowhere. End of the line," he states calmly but with determination.

"But there's no Papa anymore!"

"Hahahahahaha! Yeah, Papa is gone! Good riddance, the monster of monsters! But... I bet you won't even think about a little, itty-bitty detail."

"Yeah...?"

"Where are the Klaxxosaurs?"

"The Kl... Klaxxosaurs...?"

"Yeah, the blue monsters. Papa is gone, but what about them? Do you think that they just disappeared from thin air -poof!- like that? Are you beyond serious? Heh... hehehehe..." Yoruichi softly laughs covering his mouth with his hand. "Did you forget why we're here in the first place?"

Ikuno hangs by his lips.

"We're tools. Weapons. Just that, nothing more, nothing less."

"..."

"We exist to be used."

"This is..."

"This is reality, my very own reality. Since some time ago, it has been in the back of my mind constantly. Then..."

"No..."

"Yes. History is gonna repeat again, whatever we want it or not. And I'm not up for it."

"No! It's not gonna...!"

"Yes, it will. Did you think for a second about the predicament we're in? Nothing changed from before, the Klaxxosaurs are going to return for our lives. We have killed countless of them, and they had never stopped coming. Now that we're at our lowest, there's nothing to impede them to deliver the final blow, but the Adults are not gonna just stand by and let themselves be killed. They're gonna round us up again, brainwash and make meat shields out of us, as they had always done. And finally, become what we were grown to be... dead."

Yoruichi looks inside Ikuno's eyes. "There's no world made for us here."

Ikuno slumps her shoulder, at a total loss for words.

She never encountered such an impenetrable and single-minded person in her whole life. His world view is shaped in a completely different way compared to hers, so much different that a very clear doubt materializes inside her. Was it true that their life was considered just a tool? Was it true they would be thrown away without regard when useless, discarded as soon their combat capabilities failed them? She couldn't tell that she was pampered and treated more fairly than their peers of other plantations, mostly because... she never interacted with anyone past her surroundings.

After born into the garden, reaching mature age, she was shipped directly into their roaming city fortress completely in the dark. She was taught everything about math, physics, science, computers, all the necessary details of the logic behind their FranXX, but she was never told about the world outside and the and humanity's predicament. Most importantly, she was kept away from what happened in the background of the society she was grown into, then by extension, she didn't know what happened inside the other Plantations and how was the life of the Stamen and Pistils that lived there. They were essentially left in the dark of everything and encouraged to not follow their natural curiosity, because a good Son of Papa would blindly trust his word and serve his demands in exchange for an idyllic life into the biosphere on top of their roaming city-fortress, containing the last verdant remnants of the biology of Earth, a planet now reduced to an ashen battlefield. Maybe... in other plantations, tragedy was the norm. Maybe... the life she lived was just a one-off, a happy product of chance and opportunity. Maybe... past their glass cage, the terrifyingly unthinkable happened.

No... she actually did encounter someone from outside, apart from Zero Two and the Nines. The Plantation 27's Parasites, which she carried out a joint operation with months ago. She never saw them again after they separated... At that time, before the operation, they looked gravely beat up, wearing bandages and walking aids, silently carrying themselves with slight apathy, very formal and almost characterless, essentially ghostly presences floating about. She waved off their personality as a sign of seniority, having developed a mind of steel among constant battles against the Klaxxosaurs, but now... if Yoruichi is telling the truth, then the emptiness of their eyes wasn't a product of something to be proud of, but a sign of a soul crushed into ground, viciously and systematically.

Would anyone blame himself for this kind of ignorance...?

She realized she cursed the world for wanting to illuminate the wide dark spots of her ignorance, while she didn't even make a significant effort to do so. Unlike Hiro, that always had an impulse for curiosity and constantly risked his health to satisfy it, she didn't even try the simpler things looking past her cage. All her books were about stories far removed from reality, fantasies of hope and camaraderie, duty, adventures in the name of discovery... but in the end, she was fine with the little life she had. Ikuno just asked to stay with her best friend and most important person in her life, Ichigo, in the very probably short life she had still available. Even if clad in blissful ignorance, she was happy... so was it worth to throw it away just for a fleeting curiosity...?

The happy Ikuno, enjoying her little, perfect world.

Unforgivable.

A brief silence takes the room while a distraught Ikuno fixates the steel pavement, bitterly lost in her thoughts.

Tickled by restlessness, Futoshi angers again and sternly addresses the stamen with long, black hair gathered in a long tail like words were throwing themselves out of his throat, waking Ikuno up, "Protecting... Is this really your version of protecting someone? It's more like planting your head into the sand!"

Yoruichi's face petrifies as his bewildered eyes suddenly widen. Regaining his senses back, he grins back to him like after being stabbed in its weakest. "Why would you care in the first place? You're just following orders!"

"No, we're here because we want! It's our duty..." Futoshi suddenly stops talking and his hand passes over his red parted hair, then resumes, "...our duty and responsibility that everyone makes it through this situation. I would have done this even without anyone else telling me. We might be just a few now, but together we can make the difference!"

"Hah-! Duty...!" Yoruichi vaguely shakes his head, as he's bothered by something. "The duty they've been shoved onto us until now? We were just sacrifices, that's our duty."

Futoshi's eye twitches and narrows into a fit of disdain. "I don't care about them, I said I would do it regardless or of or not! It's not wrong in wanting to protect everyone!"

"So, you play yourself in their hands and further their plans?"

"So, you crawl up in the first remote corner of the Nest to hide and wait for everyone to be killed by a Klaxxosaur?!" Futoshi shouts, "You're not protecting anyone besides yourself! You're unforgivable!"

"Ah-!" Ikuno's gasps and, along with all the other girls, widens the distance between her the burly boy. To her fullest surprise, his behavior once again falls very far from his normal self. Normally Futoshi is tame and tender, unwilling to hurt anyone even when ticked off, but now...! His hands are shaking, clasped in serrated fists while his eyes morph in hate, trudging his body forward, showing to be just on the verge of tearing apart the stamen in front of him in a conscious effort to restrain himself. He's unrecognizable, carrying the face of another person altogether- if that would be even called a person...! Hard face lines, showing teeth... Somehow, this whole situation is touching him in the personal, to a point that it's transforming him... into a deranged beast!

Ikuno asked herself when did her Stamen changed like that overnight, wouldn't she had a hunch of it since in the FranXX they were connected?

...Huh? Wait a moment.

Didn't this already happen a week earlier at Gran Crevasse...? Didn't isn't this the same as when he activated Chlorophytum's weapon in front of the Nines? Being connected to Futoshi's mind, she could witness it all happening in front of her. His mind felt a swirling of compressed rage dripping red with hate, suddenly imploding with a clear intention of doing harm, to tear apart everything. As soon as she caught a glimpse of those feelings, a fear far greater than the Klaxxosaurs engulfed her. She forcefully disconnected herself from her FranXX was escaping from a steaming hot bathtub, leaving him to yell and curse at the screen from where the Nines finally argued him down...

No, wait! Is it because of those headaches? Maybe it's the pain that's driving him ferocious! But... Ikuno notices she almost left out another detail. Just with his words, he's managing to get under his skin with pinpoint accuracy. How is he doing that? Damn if she knew that.

Ikuno pinches her nose in anger. Questions, questions... always questions. The more she wants answers, the more she gets even more questions. After all this time, she doesn't have a clue for anything at all. Ikuno feels dying of worry for his FranXX partner and her friends...

When will this end?

"I'd rather be killed by a Klaxxosaur than leaving her with them!" The response of Yoruichi comes out like a bark. "To hell with the Adults! They could die for all I care! This is the way I want to protect what I want to protect, better than do the bidding of those up in the tower and give her away!"

"FOOL! You're just taking her down with you! She will not be pruned, no one in the Nest ever was! You're just making this up to run away from everyone while hurting your pistil! What's your damn problem!"

This is too much. Ikuno closes to his partner from behind and places her hands onto his back.

"Futoshi, please calm down," she says with a speck of severity.

At his shoulder being touched, Futoshi turns his head around to find his pistil hanging from his shoulders, looking inside his eyes. His expression changes completely, going from the ire of just seconds ago to the Futoshi everyone knew. He makes to reach her hand, but his hand halts halfway and retracts again. His head then turns the other way with a guilty expression that only his gentle side can deliver.

"I'm sorry, Ikuno... but... this one is personal." His almost whispered words hang proudly in the air. "If I let this go, I would not be able to look myself in the mirror ever again. I have to protect... No. I want to protect our new world. And everyone inside it, even from themselves. Because there's someone inside it that I want to protect the most." He glances to Kokoro, who cups her hands onto her mouth after being moved by his words. Her mellow eyes look at Futoshi in complete adoration shining in tears of commotion.

"Futoshi...!"

Ikuno's expression mellows. Futoshi's speech sounds awfully familiar to her. In fact, she reminded her of herself some months ago, during the brief time atop her Plantation, Cerasus. The Mistilteinn, the glass cage where her boarding house lied in the center of a natural paradise, was her whole world. For her, what created such paradise was neither the verdant nature growing inside it nor the animals or the clean water and fresh air, nor the comforts and the idyllic atmosphere, but because Ichigo was beside her.

That place she wanted to be in with every inch of her being, the one where Ichigo and she lived happily while loving each other. Also, the one she wanted to protect the most. In order to do so, she needed to protect the world outside her cage, so she obeyed the Adults and killed the Klaxxosaurs. She did it for all her life inside it, living beside her and hoping one day that her dear friend looked her way and realized her dreams.

But... some dreams are bound to remain such.

One day, under the warm spring sun, she discovered that such world did not exist. Ichigo refused her love. Her little world crumbled, unsupported by reality. That world was just... a fantasy she built for herself where she was loved and cared for, a wishful lie written on sand, a paper castle ready to be blown away. She yelled, cried, and despaired, but that illusion still slowly faded away until it left only painful ruins. One day, after the bitterness subsided, she tentatively looked past of what she lost and found another world, bigger, scarier and equally full of lies.

The world she was protecting since now, the adult's world. The one made of endless deserts and blue screaming monsters. Since when it became such a nightmare...? She couldn't remember. Maybe it was already like that... and she just didn't notice.

Now Ikuno finally understood why Futoshi was so adamant in his belief and aggressive in upholding it. He has his own world to protect, too. The only difference is that his world it's the real one. The reality that connects all the other ones. If that world crumbles, all the wishes around it will collapse with it, and there will be no going back. At this moment in time, there are no glass cages to shelter them, no Adults to take care of their mistakes and no more filters to deny them to see how horrible the reality outside really is. Now it's all up to them to preserve that world. Once that last layer falls, there will be no more dreams and hopes, just pain and fear. And then... the bitter end.

Futoshi saw his own world crumble first, being refused by Kokoro in favor of Mitsuru. Ikuno felt his despair and his pain and took care of him, from the only place she could manage: the FranXX cockpit. The direct mind connection gives you a clear window inside your partner's mind, so she took care of him until he managed to walk on his own again. Ikuno was dreaded the day she would have to let him go, but eventually, she would have to step aside to let him have another chance. She still has her own insecurities, but she couldn't weight him down anymore. Now t's the time for her to step aside and let him try again to care for the world he wants to protect. Ikuno regains her strength and just says the only thing she is bound to say in this situation.

"I understand, Futoshi."

Futoshi turned at Ikuno, with the mellow eyes of his usual self, and smiles to her.

"Still... please, try to convince him until the end," she continued, releasing his shoulders and returning back where she was. Futoshi vaguely nods to his pistil, but just for the time to turn back towards his opponent and redeliver his glare.

"Meaning! Release Code 723 at once before you hurt yourself and your pistil! You're a menace to everyone around you, this cannot go on any further!" Futoshi thunders.

"To the hell with that!" Yoruichi waves him off. "Everyone's the problem! Leave us alone!"

"No! Everyone's the solution, you're the problem!" Futoshi yells and suddenly closes the gap between himself and Yoruichi. Somehow, that statement ticked him off again. "If we act alone, we're going to die! Together we are stronger, alone we are just dead meat! We must band together in a Un- AH-AHH!"

A bigger fit hits Futoshi's head. He clamps his temples with both hands while his knees bend slightly forward, "Uhhhg...! What's happening to me?"

Yoruichi snickers. "Heh, you've got headaches? In the end, you've been thought-corrected, too?"

Futoshi, still holding into his temple, he shoots the boy a conflicted look. At that statement, Ikuno's back straightens and a bright light crossed her eyes. "Thought-corrected?"

Yoruichi gives her a strange look. "Yeah...! What, you don't know? The protocol for dealing with -heh!- 'Dangerous thoughts that subvert the search for Perfection', as straight from the High Manu-Ahhh!" The long-haired stamen suddenly grabs his own head. "Oww... Well, see? Here we go again. I have those fits, too."

"High Ma- UGH!" Futoshi tries to repeat what he was saying, but his migraine intensifies.

"The... the headache...?"

"Yeah, that's a dead giveaway. They call it 'the Pain of Truth'... hah! Truth my ass! Your memories are deleted and others are implanted to fill the gaps left by the removed parts of your memory. You don't remember anything after the operation. Excellent tool for controlling others, isn't it? Do you realize... that everyone could be mind-washed without even noticing?"

Ikuno shivers. "What... what did you just say? Controlling others...?" Ikuno realizes this describes completely what was done to Kokoro and Mitsuru.

"Yeah, but it's not perfect. There's that... vague feeling of something amiss, something that you feel was always there because it left a hole...when you start noticing it, the migraines start happening. Then, you believe in things that no one remembers and eventually, you notice that part of your memory is missing. Little by little, something gets back into your mind and you want more because you feel being... whole again and... Bah! What I'm explaining stuff for. Talking is useless, because no one really understands... like always. Heh..." Yoruichi covers his forlorn smile with his hand, silently lost in thought.

Code 376 sees Futoshi becoming increasingly confused, then glances back to the Kokoro half-hiding past the main door's jamb returning eyes wide open like a deer caught in headlights. Slowly but surely, she comes out from her hiding spot and walks forward, placing herself to the side of the group.

"U-Um...! I... I understand your pain," she says while bringing her joined hands on her chest. "I'm feeling the same things, too. At first, I couldn't believe it, but now, after hearing your words... I fell the same pain you're feeling!" She fidgets, then her eyes tear a little.

"I don't know what to do... Everything feels scary and... I don't recognize anyone or anything anymore! Everyone says I've done doing things I don't remember and said thing I never said, it's all so confusing! If that's why reality feels fake to you, then I completely understand... I can't sleep, I'm so scared... Sometimes I've had the fear that one day, I'd wake up and see everyone disappear and never notice it...! It's like I've lost my own reality!"

Yoruichi exchanges her teary gaze with a streak of sadness in his eyes. "So, you too? That's sad..."

Suddenly, Code 376 face lights up. "Whoa, wait a sec. There are loads of people in the spheres that have those strange fits!" the golden-haired girl announces. In a split second, everyone freezes on the spot like statues. Futoshi, Kokoro, and Ikuno slowly pan their gazes onto the golden-haired girl, whose freckles fire up with a blush.

"Wh-What's the matter? It's true...! Everyone is complaining, and the hospital staff with medical apparatus were recently running around to cure those with head...ache...s..." Her voice grinds to a halt. "Oh..."

"Hah...! HAH! HAHAHAHA!" The boy thunders a deranged laugh holding onto his belly. "Not even a week in...! Looks like I was right after all- they already got everything under control! It's over already! Sure they didn't waste time, they already won, they got everyone thought-corrected and ready to go!"

He turns to Ikuno. "So how's that 'I am free' argument? Holds up still?"

Ikuno exchanges a brief and significant stare with the boy, only to then let it fall onto the floor like a rock.

"I can't... This..." She covers her mouth with her hands while her eyes wide open, like Death in person appeared before her smiling. A thought clicked inside her head and made her realize that the pieces of the puzzle that she was gathering until now are slowly connecting, but her instincts are refusing to accept the picture before her, the scariest image she could ever imagine.

A lot of parasites with constant migraines.

Hospital staff with medical equipment running around the Spheres.

Hachi behaving coldly, staying inside the tower and keeping his distance while not giving them the answers they need, and seemingly 'taking care' of anyone even suspected of anything suspicious.

A single stamen that knows too much, running away and isolating himself from everyone and hiding his young, ill pistil from pruning, saying that the migraines are deeply connected to the brainwash.

Does that mean that... he's right? Is Hachi planning to brainwash everyone... and use us as shields?

Didn't Goro and Ichigo go to the hospital earlier...?

Oh, no.

Is this the beginning of the end...?

No, please, don't be like this...

"I'm a fool," Ikuno curses herself between her teeth.

Then, her legs start to tremble visibly like she was about to be shoved off a tall cliff without retentions.

Even if unknowingly, she contributed to this.

It's totally her fault.

"What can I do..." asks in a whisper. Fears and insecurities long-buried in her chest resurface in a whirlpool, wiping out the last glance of rationality tethering her to reality. In a last-ditch effort, her mind instinctively veers towards the only thing able to keep her afloat.

"Help! I need help! Someone...!"

She shoves her hand inside the side pocket of her overalls and grabs her communicator with her trembling hand, lights its holoscreen up.

"That's useless." Yoruichi's voice stops Ikuno in her tracks. "We're alone, as it always had been. No one's going to help us."

Her fearful eyes look into Yoruichi's sad ones. Her arm holding the communicator hovers in the air, then falls dangling from her shoulder, taken by dread.

"NO!" Futoshi thunders. Everyone's shoulders jump from his outburst. Ikuno and Code 376's expressions are wiped off their faces as Kokoro scuttles back like she was shoved back by his shout. "Those are plain lies! With your words, you're disrespecting our duty! What would... he say about this whole situation! What would... the Sergeant say about you...! UNFORGIVABLE!"

Ikuno's brow bends in an angle. Who?

"The...?" Yoruichi's eyes suddenly light up with a pain surge, then mellow into sudden surprise. "...The Sergeant?"

Who are they talking about...?

"Yeah...! The... Ser... Sergeant...!" Futoshi echoes him, only to narrow his eyes like his interlocutor from across the room. "How could you forget what... he taught us, was it just a game for you? Even when everything falls apart and all hope is lost, we are the ones that charge forward! We don't have to despair when things go wrong, we can overcome anything... by working together! No task is impossible... when we act as a unit! We are the last line of defense, past us there's only the bitter end!" Futoshi proudly declares, chest forward. "Remember who we are and what we represent! Remember our oath!"

Ikuno's left eye narrowed. What's happening between those two right now?

"Oh..." Yoruichi's iron front instantly crumbles and, suddenly, his eyes reflect into regret. "That's right. What am I thinking? I... I'm a fool. I'm s... so...", but only for a brief second. "Ah-! No! No, no, no! That's not true! I'm not sorry, I'M NOT SORRY!" His body twitches forward as his shouts fill the room, his hands grapple his scalp with strength as his own body suddenly goes awry. In a fit of induced craziness, he grabs with both hands some keyboards close to him and violently throws them against the wall.

«CRASH!»

The input slabs of a light carbon alloy bang against the wall and release a shower of splinters and flying keycaps rolling all over the floor. "No one understands! The Sergeant didn't understand!"

Futoshi's goes up in fumes again. "Hey, hey! Respect the equipment, you rabid dog!"

Ikuno included, apparently. What are they talking about...?

"He was wrong!" Yoruichi yelled on top of his lungs with eyes full of hate. "He had his chance to understand that everyone is a threat, but he refused to see what was in front of his own eyes! He failed to teach us!"

"Don't you dare to say that!" Futoshi steps forward like a bull ready to charge into him.

"FUCK OFF! That's why he, until the end-Ah! Ough!" The long-haired stamen's hand lulls onto his forehead almost like his own voice spurred a fit of migraine.

"I said to SHUT-UP! Ahh... YOU!"

Code 376 barges in front of Futoshi with her broom, barring his way to reach Yoruichi with his fists on the ready. "Futoshi, you're jumpin' the gun! Remember why we're here!"

The boy relents his charge and smiles to her, gleefully passing his hand onto his reddish hair. "Ahaha! Don't worry, I will be over spanking his ass before the Appointed retur-Uh!" His head jerked sideways, like being smashed square in the head by something invisible, stopping his taunts immediately.

Code 376's surprised look bounces between Futoshi and her broom. "I... I didn't do anything!"

Futoshi lulls his head in surprise, then admits his situation, "I guess I've got the same stuff as him. But...! I feel I'm in the right!"

After hearing this exchange, Ikuno's mind further freezes as her hands start shaking like her knees. She knew no one that was called a 'Sergeant' and 'Appointed', the only ones she was taught from were called 'Professors'. No one ever told them anything of the stuff he's saying he was talking of. Aren't those phrases sounding like the doctrine she always read in the ancient armies of humanity inside military-themed books? Also, one thing is completely wrong from how she had been taught: as a FranXX pilot, she is the first line of defense. Not the last.

To Ikuno, it was almost as she was witnessing a second Futoshi, a radically different person, taking shape before her eyes. When he extracted that pistol-thing from that 'security station', she could see in his eyes that the gentleness in his eyes flashed out of his pupils and something more unhinged and scarier took its place. After finding Code 121 and 723's hideout, he said something along the line of 'I'm still myself', but she didn't believe him at all. She felt surprised, blindsided like she never really understood the person she was sharing her own mind with inside the FranXX cockpit. Something was hidden under the surface, or...? Is he just confused by the pain or...?

Or they implanted fake memories in his mind?

Is he the Futoshi she always knew, or a brainwashed tool for destruction? Something on the verge to explode, like now, cursing and yelling without any restraint?

"In the end... the Sergeant... he really was a soft, old fool! Hahaha!" Yoruichi taunts Futoshi across the room.

"Again...! How about I pound that concept in that empty head of yours, you rabid dog!?"

"Heh, you just try it! Let's see if you can shove out anything than your stupid beliefs, you fat panda!"

"Just wait in a sec and your head's going to fuckin' roll with all the things I'm gonna shove inside it!"

The two launch their taunts past the increasingly preoccupied Code 376, now more than before unable to quell their yells and feeling more and more uncomfortable in being between the two heavily quarreling boys. Meanwhile, between Kokoro's extremely scared and confused eyes, scanning the scene from the wall she's pressing her back into, and the little girl, lying in the white covers on the opposite wall while covering her ears with her hands and profusely crying her heart out, Ikuno's blank mind barely registers anything more than her racing heartbeat. The panic is making her unable to make a decision. This should be the time to make a decisive move to save the situation, but her fingers hover upon the communicator's holoscreen, paralyzed.

A question is restraining her.

A very basic question, but nonetheless fundamental.

And incredibly hard and scary to answer.

Who is she going to call?

Who's she going to place her trust in?

Endless moments pass, and her mind still remains blank.

...

Worlds colliding - END

...

Hot, so damn HOT!

My brain's on fire, man! You try and write with this humidity levels, I dare you!

No, wait, scratch that, I'd rather you survive through August with functioning eyes, so you can still read through this very heavy chapter of mine where multiple realities and points of view melt and swirl together, while making Ikuno rapidly lose her sanity points! I hope your sanity is still intact too, among all that heavy back-and-forth between the group and the -let's say- very informed Yoruichi. His personality comes off as a total jerk (because that's totally what I've made him look as) but don't be put off, he has a big heart of gold underneath that hard skin, you just have to dig quite a bit. Also, you'd think that Futoshi is getting the long stick in this story, with Kokoro weaving back her relationship with him and being all lovey-dovey, but... ehhh... you will see. Things are more complicated than they appear, especially after this chapter's reveals.

So, despite Hell descending on Earth and the endless fight between me and the electrical bills to keep the Angel of Air Conditioning always active and pumping the heat out of my flat, I managed to remain a little productive and to deliver a good portion of this chapter in a month and a half later. Sadly I wanted to write three scenes, but I guess that, since I'm already late, it's time to push a single-scene chapter and leave everyone -once again- on a steep cliffhanger. Will Ikuno manage to save this situation, on the verge of free-falling into violence? Who will she call? Will her hope and prayers for a better world be heeded? Will the 'outside world' refuse her?

Find out in the next chapter, out in September.

Also, since August 3, Learn to Fly is a year old! Hurray! I'll be pushing a special chapter at the end of this month, so be tuned for a surprise!