Author's Note: I do not own Elfen Lied, that honor goes to Lynn Okamoto. I am not, nor do I plan on receiving any sort of monetary compensation for this, it is purely done for fun and because I love the anime/manga. This story is based on the anime version of Elfen Lied, although I had added some elements from the manga. Mostly minor things such as dialogue I felt went better in the manga, and some other minor additions. Those familiar with both versions probably won't notice those changes. I hope you enjoy this as I did writing it.

I am what I am

It was the only thing she could say to explain the horrible things she had done in her life. The hundreds of people she'd murdered as a child, among their numbers being Kouta's father and sister, the trail of carnage she'd left in her wake as she escaped the facility, her mutilation of Nana, her torture of Bando, and the massacre she perpetuated tonight. The last guns had finally fallen silent, the final strike force having failed to bring her down. She could have escaped them easily, or simply not gone to them. But she had been on a death march after her last moments with Kouta. Kissing him had been sweet agony; she had wanted to do it for hours. As she marched to her doom, she remembered every small detail. She remembered the knife sharp stab of hope and disbelief in her heart as she felt Kouta grab onto her, dulling her senses and making her stupidly argue against what he was doing,

"But Kouta, I killed your family!"

She'd wanted to take back those words the moment she said them, and felt a rush of fear that they would cause him to come to his senses and release her. She didn't want him to let her go. She didn't deserve it, she knew, but she shook with hope and fear, needing him to hold on.

"I can't explain it," he'd replied with tears in his voice. As he spoke, she'd held her breath, not wanting to miss a single syllable or soft whispering sound of exhaling breath in between the pauses in his speech. She was a killer, and she had destroyed Kouta's life. He had every reason to want her dead,

"I love that lonely little girl I met so long ago,"

I love you too Kouta. Oh god I love you, how can you love me?

She'd turned, and looked into his eyes, her pulse out of control, her breathing hitched, her body shaking. Then she kissed him, and the moment she felt the pressure on her lips from him kissing back, her knees started to buckle, and he had to hold onto her tighter. She had loved that, and clutched him as though her life depended on it. As she walked, she hugged her arms around herself, tears silently falling from her face as she imagined they were his arms. It reminded her why she had to leave. Kouta wanted the bloodshed to stop, but he thought keeping her with him would do that.

I am what I am.

He could never stop her. She would kill again and again. She would destroy those closest to him, as she had done before. She had never known pain as cruelly awful as the moment when, all those years ago, a nine year old Kouta had begged her to stop killing. It had shocked her out of her homicidal rage and all she had felt then was horrible guilt that gripped her throat like a hand rendering her speechless, or was it herself? Trying to kill herself with her own vectors? She had only stopped because it suddenly occurred to her that killing herself in front of him would just hurt him even more. So she ran. She could not bear that pain again. She could not risk undoing Kouta's life again. So this time she would do what she should have done that night after she left Kouta on the train. She was going to die. As she walked, she replayed every moment of their kiss, and embrace. One last sweet memory to hold onto before she left this world forever. Lights up ahead, there they were. It was their staging area. If it didn't end here, they would sweep through the town. People could get hurt, or even killed. She didn't want that, Kouta would be upset. He could even be one of those killed. So taking a breath to steady herself, she let her face settle into her cold mask, and wiped the last of her tears away. She would show them the monster in her gaze and let her cold stare grip her executioners with fear and anger . It would help them pull the trigger, it would make them kill her without hesitation. She stepped into the light and onto the street. Almost immediately she heard urgent shouts and the telltale chorus of rounds being chambered in a symphony of guns. Soon they would play the music of her death. She began to hum Lilium, a beautiful song that Kouta had let her listen to in a small music box. A gift to her, like his gift of friendship. Given to a lonely girl….

"I love that lonely little girl I met so long ago"

Wait…

"Sight your targets men!" More rounds chambering, distracting her. Something not right about those words…

"I love that lonely little girl"

But what about me? I'm not her anymore. I'm Lucy…or am I Nyuu? Who do you love? For whom were those words spoken Kouta?

"She can't deflect them all, sharpshooters, cover her escape!"

"And I love Nyuu"

Is this how you can love me without forgiving me? Is it even me you love?

A stray bullet, someone jumping the gun, fired early. Easily deflected, have to think.

You looked in my eyes when you kissed me, and you know it was not that little girl and it was not Nyuu. You kissed me. You held me until my tears stopped, you comforted your family's murderer, knowing who it was. Or do you truly understand what I am? You know that I kill, and that murder is written in my genes. But do you see ME when you look into my eyes?

Machine gun fire now, a few more that fired before the order, but that order is coming. Lucy stared into the eyes of the commander as the muscles in his body tightened and prepared to fling his arm forward, to point the finger to damn her. To order her death.

I'm not a memory, and I'm not an innocent. I am what I am. I can't let it end this way. I can't let you go on without facing the truth of that. I have to give you the chance to make a real choice and not make it for you. The least I owed you was the chance to set things right and if you'd told me to go away tonight, I would have rested easy, the decision made, and I would have carried out your vengeance upon myself.

"FIRE!"

No

A hurricane of bullets roared towards Lucy and with a strength she had not known she possessed, she began to fight back.

Not like this

A sniper's .50 caliber bullet got through her defenses and she had time to deflect it just enough to shoot off her other horn. Blood gushed down her face and there had been a desperate moment when she felt her control over her vectors slip and weaken, but she could not feel the pain. Rage and anguish beginning to course through her. The intensity of her emotion and desperation doing what should have been impossible; her vectors remained.

I have to know that you see me for what I am. And I need to make things right to you. "I'm sorry" isn't enough. I have to put my life in your hands. You have told me you love pieces of me that are not completely me. You have to know the violence is not just something I leave behind; it's in my heart. You have to know that Nyuu cannot atone for our past; she's not me. You have to know that you can't love something that just makes it easier to forget. But most of all Kouta…

…I have to tell you that I love you.

Then I can die. Whenever you want me to.

But these pigs.

Her vectors lashed out in a momentary reloading pause, three men exploded in a haze of blood.

WILL NOT STOP ME FROM SEEING YOU AGAIN!

The ground exploded around her as she slammed her vectors down on the ground with impossible force, tearing out large chunks of road debris. These she gathered up and flung with terrifying speed towards her attackers. Sporadic gunfire rang out as the debris crashed around them, killing soldiers and smashing apart vehicles, but they were too disoriented now to get clear shots. Bullets whistled close by her ear and she remembered that the snipers were not on the ground and the only reason they had missed was because of the dust cloud surrounding her from the road's destruction. Turning her gaze skyward she saw the muzzle flash of another sniper's gun. This bullet would have been dead on the mark if her full attention had not been on the sniper. She used her vectors to propel her onto a rooftop, gunfire tearing the walls behind her apart as she'd made her ascent, hurling more chunks of asphalt onto the snipers' position, a rooftop of a large building. One rock hit its mark and she saw blood splatter across the roof as she propelled herself onto their position. Moments were all it took to finish off the snipers. Hearing a thump, and a whistle, she knew they were firing RPGs at her so she redirected them towards a circling helicopter as she used the remaining vectors to grab, unpin, and throw the grenades that were part of the snipers' standard equipment, into the crowd of soldiers below. Explosions rocked the air around her as the helicopter went down in an inferno of flames and the military team down below was scattered from the grenade bombardment. As they died around her, she could hear the voice inside her laughing. Approving, urging her on.

"Keep going, they all deserve to die".

She gasped and froze, looking around her, taking stock of the destruction she had wrought, and for once in her life, the horror of it came crashing in on her.

I…

"We are what we are."

No, you are what you are. I am what you've made me.

"I am only a voice. You're the one who decided to listen, and you're the one who's hands are stained with blood."

Gunfire began to ring about again, but the music was pallid, not enough musicians to keep the song going with its former intensity. Lucy stepped back from the edge of the roof.

Violence will always be in my blood. I can't escape my fate. But cruelty isn't. Whatever you are, you're not me.

"Kouta saw the real you all those years ago in that train car. When he looked into your eyes, he saw us as one mind and one purpose. Don't pretend you didn't feel satisfaction when Kouta screamed."

Tears formed in Lucy's eyes, a horrified stricken look upon her face. Her eyes drifted down her body and she saw blood from the men she had killed on the rooftop splashed upon her.

That's not true…

"You want him to see the real you? Do you even know yourself?"

The tears spilled over, she could still feel the memory of Kouta's lips on her own, and could still hear the echoes of his anguished screams. Her breath caught as a furtive sound caught her attention. She whirled around to face the source of the noise and noticed one of the soldiers, badly wounded from the careless yet ferocious sweep of her vectors, propped up in a sitting position against a pile of equipment bags. She had slashed her vectors through the air like a blade; this man had survived. He was clutching something in his hand, not a weapon.

"Finish him. You know you want to."

She ignored the voice and began to walk towards him slowly, the terror in his eyes mocking her futile denials of cruelty within her. She could see his lips moving quickly and urgently; a prayer.

"It's in your blood."

His eyes darted from her face, to the object in his hand. When she finally reached him, she knelt down to his eyelevel.

"Please…" She looked down at his hands. He was clutching a picture, stained with his blood. A woman, with a child. They were outside somewhere on a bench, smiling and waving. It had been taken in a public place. Lucy could see a giraffe in the background.

"Zoo," Lucy whispered absently.

"What?" the solider managed to choke out in between labored gasps. Lucy reached out and grabbed the man's hand to hold it still and she felt his muscles tighten to a unyielding rigidness out of fear. There were children in the background of the picture, and it made Lucy remember. She remembered who she was when she was with Kouta. The voice almost never came to her then. Only when she had to face losing him did it return. Those children, they could have been people like her and Kouta. Another tear spilled down her face at the memory before she could stop it. She then remembered the soldier, and looked up at him. He appeared to be a mix of shocked and afraid.

"KILL HIM!"

"I don't want to die," he said.

"Neither do I," Lucy replied, and realized she meant it.

"Just….orders…said you killed so many."

"And I have," came the cold reply, the sadness in her eyes betraying her feelings.

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to die." Silence, but for the night air rustling through distant trees. Faintly, she heard a door being kicked in somewhere on the street level. They were coming. "My…wife. Daughter," the soldier choked out, the words ripped out of him, pain distorting the sound of his voice. She had been staring at the picture again. Kouta did not have a picture of her. She hoped she could have one taken to give to him, to remember her when she was gone. The soldier clutched the picture for dear life.

"You're a fool."

You're right…I am a fool.

"So then kill him!"

I've been a fool for not fighting you. For letting you tell me what I am and who I am and what I should do. I've been so lonely and angry and I listened to you because I wanted to lash out and hurt people who hurt me.

"You're a killer. It's in your blood."

Then tell me how much I have to bleed to BE RID OF YOU FOREVER!

"I won't," she whispered. She stood up and walked away, calling her vectors to vault her away from this place. She had to see Kouta, this battle was over.

"Now! Finish her now!" She had taken too long, the remainder of the strike force had made their way upstairs. They had entered silently while she had been distracted and flanked her. With a cold realization, she knew they were going to not only gun her down, but the wounded soldier who happened to be unlucky enough to be in their firing line. They would not waste this chance.

"You need me"

Fuck you. I'm through with you.

Lucy readied her vectors for the final battle. These men would not kill her, they would not sweep through the town. They would not kill the wounded soldier simply because he was in their way.

Everyone has a choice.

The bullets began to scream and Lucy fought with all her heart, defending herself and the wounded man.

But when the only choice is to fight. If the only way is to kill.

Man after man fell to Lucy's vectors, the screams of the dying matching the roar of the gunfire.

You can choose what you fight for, what you would kill for.

Lucy yanked two machine guns towards her and used vectors to steady them, unleashing a hail of gunfire.

"KOUTAAAA!"

What you would die for…

Only a handful left now, she allowed them to reload. Let them take stock of their losses, give them the choice to retreat.

And if the answer is "nothing"…

Hatred burned in the eyes of her last opponents. Mission forgotten, only vengeance in their hearts. A hole in the spirit that can never be filled. A void Lucy knew too well.

Then you have no reason to live.

The men lay dead around her, static voices of a command post demanding status reports hissing through numerous radios, the fading echo of gunfire vanishing within the sound of the evening breeze. Almost absentmindedly, she dropped the guns she was holding, their ammo spent, their purpose served.

So I don't need you anymore. You're a virus that made me sick.

"We'll destroy the world, whether you want to or not. We are what we are: a virus"

We'll change the world. Choice is what saves or destroys us.

"Unless Kouta wants us to die"

…

"What then?"

Then we die.

Silence after that. At long last, it was as though a switch flipped inside of her and she was suddenly whole, and felt that she always had been. The furtive noises once again drew her attention and she noticed the soldier, the only survivor of the strike force, staring at her, relief in his eyes. "Do you know why I killed so many just now?" Silence, he seemed to know she intended on answering her own question, "because we didn't want to die."

He did not reply, but simply nodded his head. Lucy turned to leave when she heard the soldier's radio come to life, the cold digitally filtered voice barking on the other end, "status report! Someone answer me goddamnit!" He raised the radio to his lips, never taking his eyes off Lucy, "control, this is Yamaoka. T reporting in, over."

"Solider, what the fuck is going on down there? I got lights out on all GPS vehicle tracking and more S.A.T flatlines than stars in the sky, over." The soldier took a breath to steady himself, his eyes locked on Lucy's, "all K.I.A sir, strike team was wiped out. I'm all that's left, over."

"What about the target? Is the target still active! Over." He hesitated as he watched Lucy. "Goddamn it report solider! Is Lucy still alive! Over." Lucy nodded her head, then turned away from him. She would not punish him for speaking the truth. She was not that person anymore. She had a choice.

"Sir…" he took another breath, "target has been eliminated. I repeat, the Diclonius Lucy has been eliminated. Her body was destroyed in a helicopter crash, over."

"Good work soldier, hang in there, we're sending a medic with your evac squad, we'll get you home, over." Lucy stared in disbelief. "Get out of here…Lucy." Without a word, Lucy turned and disappeared into the night. She would not waste this chance. Somehow, she would find the courage to face Kouta again.