-Prologue-

It's been two years since that day, yet I still find myself waiting. Waiting for the two of them to walk back through that door. Waiting for him to walk back in to my life.

But I know that can't happen. They both died that day to save us, and the world.

I don't know if I can move on anymore… but that doesn't mean that everyone else hasn't. We've disbanded, this time, I think, for good. Almost everyone's gone back to their home countries. Albert decided that because his body worked against him back in Germany, he'd rather stay here. And baby Ivan has nowhere else to go…

It's hard to imagine I'd get lonely, with all these friends around, and yet somehow I am. I don't see much of anyone else anymore. I know they're off trying to live normal lives again. That's impossible, but they have the right to try and be happy.

It just feels like a part of me has been ripped out and taken away forever…

There's nothing I can do about it.

-Meine Kinder-

-My Children-

(English)

All of my children

Who have lost their way

Caught in the darkness

Of this tainted night

(German)

Alle meine Kinder

Wer ihre Weise verloren haben

Verfangen in der Schwärzung

Von dieser verdorbenen Nacht

-The Visitor-

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Knock. Knock. Knock.

"Coming!" Françoise called, dislodging a very comfortable cat from her lap and reluctantly left the blazing hearth. 'Who would be coming all the way out here in the middle of winter?'

When she opened the door, she found herself looking in to the amethyst eyes of a shivering teenage girl. Françoise, taken aback, hesitated for a moment before the girl spoke.

"C-can I c-come in?" She asked, holding the cloth of the hoddie she wore tighter around her.

"Oh, of course! You must be freezing!"

"D-danke…" she murmured as she stepped within the house.

Françoise did a double take on the girl. By all rights, she was a human, inside and out. And yet there was something unusual about her…

"How can you walk around in the middle of winter in just a sweater and a skirt?"

"I kinda got lost…" the girl admitted sheepishly as Françoise lead her to the fire, where the cat had taken the prime seat. She sat down in a free chair and sighed.

"Lost?" She frowned. Kozumi's house wasn't completely in the wilderness, but it wasn't downtown Tokyo either.

The girl nodded. "This place was harder to find than I thought it would be." She grinned.

"Oh! I haven't introduced myself yet! My name is Mitani Engel Tahama, but you can just call me 0018."

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Revised Edition – March 29, 2009. Please see chapter ten, "The Battle", for latest author notes!

Side note: The first few chapters are painfully short, but they get longer as you go on. It just wasn't worth it to try to combine chapters and I didn't want to lose reviews. D8