It was the worst day of Ankh's life. Yes, even worse than when he was sealed—he at least had a proper body then, as well as nine medals. Now, reduced to a single medal and only an arm, he was struggling to grab hold of the radiant light before him—a second red medal, centimeters from his fingertips. Some oaf had not only picked it up where Ankh and the other Greeed had been revived, but had managed to inadvertently evade Ankh's pursuits. He then had had the gall to drop it under some giant, heavy box-thing—hell if Ankh knew what it was, but he couldn't quite squeeze under it—and now Ankh's wings were stuck on the edge, and he couldn't lift it, either.

The human had decided to retrieve the medal as well, tilting the box on its rear legs, and inadvertently reducing the space Ankh was trying to squeeze through, trapping him. Frustrated, the Greeed was forced to listen as his opponent called someone over and had them retrieve the medal. Slim, fragile-looking fingers slipped under the bane of Ankh's existence and deftly swept the medal out of his sight. The box was lowered soon after, and Ankh shot out from under it as swiftly as he could manage.

He had been trying to avoid confrontation so far, for many reasons. He had never seen so many humans in his life, and in such a weakened state, he wasn't sure if he could handle one let alone a horde. Ankh was also unsure if they were more effective at fighting Greeed than before. Moreover, this was a completely different world than eight-hundred years ago, and he was on his own this time, having stolen some of the other Greeed's medals—he had stood against them before, but a former difference in allegiance was relatively forgivable. They had never gone after each other's medals before, as an unspoken law. Ankh needed them, however—he didn't have enough of his own medals to give power to the OOO driver, and a combo was dangerous, anyway—if he managed to find a human he could use, he didn't want them dying immediately.

At this rate, though, Ankh couldn't escape the risk required to retrieve his medal. He charged the two humans, despite being unsure which one had his medal. It didn't matter—the girl screamed and ran, while the guy Ankh had been chasing kicked him and followed suit. Like he had suspected, Ankh didn't have the power to fight a human in his current state, and the blow left him dazed longer than it should have. By the time he shook it off, both humans were gone, and several people were nervously eyeing him from a distance. Focusing as best he could, he managed to locate the direction his second medal was in. Regardless of who had it, he needed to get it back, using any means at his disposal.

—-

Hina hadn't meant to take the weird coin, but there it was, still very much in her hand. The guy that had been trying to retrieve it had run in a different direction than her, and as she was left with no way to contact him, her best option was to bring it to her brother's police department's lost and found. She could at least describe the person and how she got involved, although she figured she'd leave out the bit about a flying hand thing attacking her. Hina frowned as she realized she couldn't omit that part—how else would she explain how she got separated from the coin's owner? She didn't have to ponder for long, as the rather disgruntled arm from before swooped down from above, blocking her path.

"Return my medal—" it caressed her face, clawed fingers tracing their way over her skin, "—I'll let you live until then."

Two things crossed Hina's mind—surprise that a disembodied hand could talk, and complete rejection of its demands. Moreover, wasn't asking for something and threatening death afterwards rather contradictory? Why not kill her and take it, or offer to spare her if she handed it over? No, something told her that this hand-monster couldn't just take the medal, that she had the upper hand. And that meant that she didn't have to put up with its antics.

Hina grabbed the monster by the wrist and flung it away as hard as she could. It let out a grunt of pain as it collided with a nearby building, and she felt a little bad for it, in a way. She watched as it hit the ground, righted itself somewhat pathetically with its fingers, began levitating again, and seemed to shake itself off—she could have run away, but it had already proven able to find her—she was a bit curious, too, and as she clearly had the upper hand against this thing, she had nothing to fear.

Someone suddenly spoke up from behind her, catching Hina by surprise.

"The core medal… Hand it over." Hina was sure by now that the medal was the weird coin she had picked up, but why did everything seem to want it all of a sudden?

She turned around, only to discover that this voice's owner was much more grotesque than a floating arm—a sick fusion of mantis and human, it looked like something from a horror movie or a freak show. Instinctively, she recoiled—this one was a threat, if only because it had an actual body, and long, nasty-looking blades melded with its hands. She wasn't sure how she would escape when these things seemed able to track her, but simply giving them the coin—medal—seemed like a bad idea. She might be able to outrun them long enough to get to her brother's workplace, though, and the only place nearby with the weapons and personnel capable of fighting these creatures.

The new monster started gathering energy or something along its blades—Hina didn't care what it was, but she was backpedaling as best she could without looking away from her enemy—she had an obstacle course of tables and pillars around her, but she had no chance of dodging whatever attack this thing threw if she wasn't watching it closely. Even so, she was caught off-guard when the monster fired several projectile beams at her—surely, movies had taught her that supernatural attacks needed to look more intense than that to be launched—and with a pillar to her left and an ill-placed table to her right, panicked indecision struck her.

The attack, however, did not.

Hina flinched in anticipation, but when she took a second look at her opponent, the arm from before stood between her and the new monster—and it seemed to have defended her.

"Ankh." The new monster spat at her savior—his name?

"Don't stick your hand in this," Ankh scolded the mantis-creature. Hina winced at the inadvertent pun—it was inadvertent, right?—and squeezed the medal in her hand protectively; she had no idea what was going on, nor why these monsters wanted the medal, but without it, she wouldn't have been saved just now. She needed to think quickly, however—from firsthand experience, she knew Ankh couldn't put much of a fight.

Sure enough, the newcomer had little difficulty knocking the arm away—Ankh managed to parry a few blows, but mass was very much against him, and Hina's earlier assault had taken its toll. Unable to even levitate, he was completely at the mantis's mercy as it knocked him around violently. Hina winced empathetically—no matter how rude or strange, it was a weak creature, and the beating it was getting would have seemed cruel on even a much stronger opponent. With these thoughts, she joined the fray—this time, the element of surprise was on her side. She grabbed the monster, being careful of its blades, and jerked it away from its victim with all her strength. She might be self-conscious about it, but was glad to have that power for crisis situations. It proved effective, too, catching the mantis off-balance.

Unfortunately, holding a large, armed, squirming and irritated monster was out of Hina's expertise, and the sudden shift in momentum gave her opponent an opening to knock her away. It had the advantage again, and having decided that Ankh was no longer a threat, was now coming after her. Survival instincts in full-throttle, she tried to find an opening in the monster's defense or a route to escape through, but had no idea what to look for in the first place. The sound of gunshots interrupted her thoughts and the mantis's approach, and they both looked to the source of the noise—a black police car with a red flashing light on top, and the shooter, a balding middle-aged man leaning out the window. The world slowed to a crawl around Hina—she recognized the gunner.

No. Not that car. Anything but that car.

The monster shrugged off the bullets and re-oriented itself, gathering energy along its blades again. Something inside her screamed at Hina that this wasn't going to end well, that she needed to attack the mantis before the car got any closer—but for all her inhuman strength, she had only the defensive endurance her appearance suggested, and she couldn't get up in time. The monster landed a solid hit on the car, causing it to swerve and wreck. Disbelief and rage flooded Hina—the mantis had made a grave mistake—the car it had attacked was her brother's.

Neglecting all survival instinct, she scrambled towards her brother's side of the car as best she could. Shingo had managed to get out of the car and drag himself a short distance towards the monster, gun in hand, but his injuries had left him out cold. Hina could only see a little blood on his face—too little, in fact—it meant most of the injuries were internal, and of a much more serious nature. She looked up at the sound of footsteps—the mantis was advancing toward them, readying another attack. Faced with a decision, Hina did the only thing that she could.

She planted herself firmly in front of her brother, ready to defend him using any method at her disposal.

What—exactly—that meant, Hina wasn't sure, but the mantis's approach was interrupted by Ankh, sparing her from having to formulate something. It was a hit-and-run attack, a brief assault to the face before flying to Hina's side.

"What's your name?" he asked, catching her off guard.

She saw no reason to lie, but was now really the best time? "Hina Izumi."

"Hina." He seemed to mull the sound of her name over, "You've impressed me. I'll lend a hand."

She was taken aback—despite the situation, this arm-creature really was intentionally making puns. It made her want to launch her new ally into a wall again. If Hina's thoughts showed on her face, Ankh made no acknowledgement of it. Instead, he produced a weird rock—somehow—from inside him, and pressed it to Hina's stomach. She spared it a glance—rectangular and boxy, with three slots. It started glowing and the rock shattered—just an outer shell. A band extended around her waist, and a thick Frisbee and a tiny round chest materialized on either side of her. It was heavy, surprisingly so, and she wasn't sure what this toolbelt-like contraption was supposed to do against a monster.

"The seal—why do you have that?!" The mantis seemed surprised at the toolbelt's appearance.

Ankh turned toward their opponent, his attitude sounding like he hadn't taken a severe beating only moments ago, "My hand held more than just core medals."

Seriously? Was he never going to stop?

With a twist of the wrist, he produced two more medals—one green and one yellow—and pressed them into Hina's hand. He pointed at the belt around her waist, "put them in there, and—" he grabbed the Frisbee from her side and held it out for her, "—scan them with this."

Hina eyed him skeptically—no matter what he said to do with it, the disc used for scanning looked an awful lot like a children's toy. Still, she fumbled the medals into the three slots on the belt; they had lines on the back, corresponding to lines on the tops of the slots—and took the scanner from Ankh. He dropped down and gave the belt a twist, moving as Hina mercilessly brought the scanner down across the slots.

Hina jumped in surprise as the belt started yelling animal names at her. The shock was replaced with confusion as it started singing and launching an accompanying light show. A sort of suit materialized around her—tight, but comfortable, like an extension of her own skin. Before anything else, though, one question mercilessly nagged at Hina;

"Ankh... What was that song?"

"Don't worry about it—just fight."

Hina let out a frustrated sigh, but her brother's clock was ticking, and the sooner she took this monster out, the sooner she could get him medical help.

—-

This wasn't how she had wanted her day to go. She just wanted to greet her brother when he came home from work, to tell him about the new part-time work she had gotten, all the themed clothes she would be able to wear because of it—she clenched her fists and charged the mantis. And what had her brother ever done to deserve this? He was an honest cop, after all, a hard worker and idolized as a hero by all the kids that knew him. It was a general feeling, directed at the world, but in front of her stood the perfect target for her wrath. She had never been this frustrated and angry before, and so she had never known how satisfactory a fight could feel. No, with her strength, she'd avoid a fight with a pacifistic rigor, for the other person's sake—but against a monster with no qualms about injuring others? She had no issues going all-out.

Hina brought her fists down again and again, not even noticing when the suit extended its claws and turned her punches into slashes and stabs. She gathered all her emotions in one last blow, shattering her opponent into hundreds of silver medals. Satisfied with her work, she fiddled with the belt, finally getting it to twist back to its original position and dissipate the suit. This would probably go down as the weirdest day in her life, and Hina was sure her brother would like hearing her side of it, once the hospital was done treating him. She pulled out her phone and punched in the emergency number as she turned to check on Shingo.

Hina noted with a dreamlike clarity the feeling of her decorative charms passing over the back of her hand as her phone slid out of her grasp and clattered on the ground. What stood in front of her certainly looked like Hina's older brother, with two exceptions—the golden hair inexplicably covering not-quite-his-entire-head, and the now-familiar monster forearm replacing part of his right arm. Hina mentally returned to battle mode. Her brother was off limits, and no matter what the situation was, she was not going to stand for this.

Ankh, in all his smug glory, was even admiring how his body looked against the rest of Shingo's arm—how it moved, turned, the way light reflected off of it. Hina seized the opportunity—or rather, the foreign hand—and yanked this strange parasite off Shingo. Simultaneously she reprimanded Ankh,

"Leave my bro-" the artificial consciousness removed, her sibling collapsed, and Hina barely managed to catch him, "-ther… alone." She frowned, somewhat taken aback by the situation.

"Tch. Are you sure you want to do that?" Despite being held, Ankh gestured as he spoke. Hina could feel the movement in the forearm, and the realization that she was holding something's random body part was creepy. "Without me, he'll die in a few minutes." Shingo's unconscious face said nothing to counter that statement.

"And how, exactly, do you prevent that?"

Ankh turned his palm upwards—the hand equivalent of a shrug. "How should I know?"

Angrily, she released Ankh—something told her that he wasn't lying. Hina gave her brother one last, long look—he looked so peaceful—but he also looked very delicate. Very breakable. She turned toward Ankh, floating quietly—just out of arm's reach, she noted. They stared at each other for a few seconds. Realizing Ankh wasn't moving, she made a gesture towards her brother, as if to say 'Well? Are you going to do this or not?'. The way Ankh moved to return to Shingo's body was surprisingly satisfying—he was cautious, almost humble about it. Yes, he needed Shingo about as much as Shingo needed him. Hina just had to put up with his apparent attitude until her brother recovered—being possessed probably didn't affect cell division, after all.

—-

Sometimes, the best things happen in a crisis. At least, that was how it felt to Ankh. He hadn't expected the new OOO user to be a girl, but she was only the second person to use it—who was to say it didn't suit her? And oh, did it suit her. Hina had ripped apart a Yummy like it was second nature—the evidence of this was scattered at Ankh's feet. Under her wary gaze, he strolled over to the cell medals with his new body, squatting to pick them up. Having a body was nice. Having a human body was even nicer; the world was a lot warmer, a lot brighter—a lot more.

Hina didn't—couldn't—understand how jarring being separated from this body was; the senses he had with only one medal—there was more visual clarity in swamp water. His other senses were similarly elusive—touch was limited to "pain" and "not pain", smell simply didn't exist, and what passed for hearing sounded like—Ankh paused, unsure of something that normally sounded that bad. A cheap radio, only half-tuned to the station, something whispered to him. A radio—what's a radio? What does that sound like? Memories suddenly flooded him—knowledge, irrelevant information, general understanding—he could access his host's mind. He could survive in this world so foreign to him. Ankh smiled and absentmindedly picked up another medal, only to feel it tug back.

A tiny bird stared at him from across the cell medal. Ankh frowned. Some birds liked shiny things, sure, but this was not one of those birds. Not a bird he knew, at least. What's that? he prodded, but there was no response—it was unfamiliar to Shingo, too. Ankh settled for glaring at the bird until a flock of flapping wings drew his attention—the bird had friends, those friends had medals, and those medals were being flown away. Ankh snarled—suddenly the fight for this lone cell medal became that much more important.

It was a tug-o-war that Ankh lost—his hand's scales and talons were no match for the bird's grip, and it was deceptively strong. He whipped his attention back to Hina.

"What was that?!"

She shook her head in response. Ugh. Someone was after the medals, Ankh didn't have a clue who, and apparently it wasn't something the average human knew about. He'd find out eventually, he was sure of it, but being robbed of his spoils was still infuriating.

He wanted to storm off, to feel like he was making progress by relocating, but he couldn't leave his OOO user. Instead, he began ransacking Shingo's mind while Hina called an ambulance for the other officer in the car wreck. Humans had come a long way while he had been sealed, and possessing this knowledge gave him an advantage over the other Greeed. It was a sufficient distraction for all of five minutes—he then resorted to pacing irritably until Hina finished up with the EMTs.

"Let's go home," Hina announced when the ambulance pulled away, "I bet brother hasn't eaten yet. Besides-" she cut off Ankh before he could protest, "you have a lot of explaining to do."

—-

The Izumi apartment was carefully maintained—by Hina, Shingo's mind added—with the only clutter localized to his room. It would be re-purposed as Ankh's room, and he was free to rearrange the contents as long as he threw nothing out. He wasted no time in extracting a new phone from Shingo's hiding place for it, much to Hina's anticlimactic dismay—such purchases were clearly commonplace for her brother. As he wasn't present, though, she couldn't scold him this time.

Hina began cooking, with Ankh frequently snacking on the raw ingredients. As she worked, she pestered him with questions—what was he, what was the monster she fought, were they the same thing—and many more that Ankh answered with varying degrees of irritation and scorn. She had quite the attitude with him, despite it all, but he didn't regret choosing her for OOO. After all, he held her precious brother's life in his hand—she would at least listen to him, if not obey completely. It was much better than, say, someone whose morals would make them concerned for a stranger's life. That kind of righteous attitude could interfere with Ankh's agenda rapidly.

They were both quiet through the first few minutes of dinner—Ankh savoring his newfound sense of taste, Hina mulling over the situation. She was the first to break the silence.

"So why, exactly, aren't you with the other Greeed?"

Ankh decided that eating was considerably more enjoyable than answering. Hina didn't let up.

"Why are you helping me?"

Ankh snorted derisively. "Don't get full of yourself. You're helping me." Hina took another bite of her meal and chewed thoughtfully before replying.

"Why is your situation so bad that you can't ask the other Greeed for help?" When Ankh ignored her, she continued, "Why do you need the help of a human when you're supposedly so powerful?"

Why did she have to be so perceptive?

"That doesn't concern you—just worry about fighting Yummies."

Hina glared at him, but didn't pursue the topic.

—-

The next day, Hina realized she had forgotten something rather important—the guy that had had Ankh's core medal in the first place. She couldn't exactly return the medal—even if she had it in her possession, Ankh would probably attack him to get it back, and she'd rather not have her brother charged with assault. Unfortunately, Hina only remembered this problem when she went to her part time job—and found the person in question working there.

They recognized each other at the same time. Hina was thinking of how to apologize for the medal when he started speaking excitedly.

"I'm so glad you're okay—"

What.

"—I looked for you after we split up, but you lost me completely." He let out a relaxed laugh, "Ah, I never introduced myself, did I?" he had a really free smile, Hina thought. And yet, he gave off the feeling of someone that knew the world. "I'm Eiji Hino."

"Hina… Izumi." Hina was still reeling from his unexpected response, "About that medal you found, um," some crazy monster actually owns it, "did you happen to just find that somewhere, or—?"

Eiji nodded, "So it's a 'medal'? Mmn, I thought it seemed a bit large for a coin. Oh-" a customer walked in behind Hina, and they both remembered that they were supposed to be working at this café.

Hina gave her new co-worker a smile, "I'll go get changed." Eiji nodded and waved back before welcoming the guests.

The shift went smoothly, and Chiyoko, the manager, proved to be easy to work with—that Hina and Eiji had a knack for service was a bonus. During lulls in seating and food orders, Hina managed to piece together Eiji's situation. He had wandered the world, more often than not with only the clothes on his back. He spoke several languages, but only at a rudimentary level—he had no formal education in any of them, and most of his teachers had been children; they were patient and curious enough to put up with a weird foreigner that couldn't communicate well. He had come back to earn funds for more travel—or so he said. He couldn't seem to make eye contact when he talked about it, which seemed odd for his otherwise earnest nature.

Eiji's side of Hina's weird little story was—as expected—much tamer than her own. While he had been in the area when the Greeeds were revived, he had been out cold. As far as he knew, a gas main had exploded, he woke up holding the medal, and then a flying hand had attacked him out of nowhere. They laughed about how strange it all was as they bussed tables and helped with closing the café. Hina couldn't bring herself to even try to explain her side of the story. Instead she settled on a similar tale—she didn't see Ankh after running away, and couldn't find Eiji afterwards, but happened upon "the original owner of the medal".

When he said "It's so good that you found him!" with an honest smile, she wanted to tell him the full truth—but then what? If she mentioned OOO, he'd probably want to spare her from the fighting. She had already decided to fight for her brother's sake—it was something that had nothing to do with Eiji. In fact, if circumstances had been different—namely, Ankh pursuing Eiji instead of Hina—Shingo would have died.

Her decision made, Hina nodded to herself as she finished wiping a table. Behind her, she heard the door open, and Eiji calling out to whoever had ignored the café's operating hours sign.

"Sorry, right now we're-" he recognized the person—a pleasant surprise, "-Detective?"

With a wince, Hina realized that she knew exactly who had just walked in. Sure enough, when she whirled around, Eiji was chatting excitedly at an incredulous-looking Ankh.

Hina had to act quickly, and that meant not thinking when talking.

"Eiji, this is Ankh. He looks a lot like my brother, doesn't he?" she smiled—reassuringly to Eiji, threateningly to Ankh—the latter needed to keep his mouth shut if she was going to dig herself out of this one.

"You have a brother, Hina?"

"He's a police detective—actually, he mentioned you, now that I think of it. Back when, uh-" she pretended to be recalling a story, but was really stalling for time, "-that gas line exploded, I think?" Eiji nodded as she spoke, "Yeah, that was it."

Eiji looked back at Ankh thoughtfully. For the first time, Hina was thankful for his bizarre hair—it would help sell whatever insane lies she spun.

"Then… You said this isn't your brother?"

Hina forced a laugh, "it's a weird resemblance, isn't it? He's the owner of that weird coin you found-"

Ankh gave her an offended look for calling his medal a 'weird coin', but she didn't notice—she was too busy trying to pre-maturely explain Ankh's quirks.

"-Actually, he's a foreigner." Hina smiled and nodded energetically, but was internally kicking herself—that was the most unnatural topic change I have heard in my life. At least she had explained his hair color—but what about his behavior?

"His language skills and manners are awful so please excuse him if he says or does anything weird." But why? "He was abandoned as a child."

Hina knew she was sunk. Being a foreigner would automatically excuse rude lingual quirks—Eiji of all people would understand that—so why had she added that last bit?! It made no sense, yet Hina was going to have to sell it.

"He grew up in the slums—poor thing, my brother found him during one of his shifts and brought him home… a week ago." She might as well walk out the door with Ankh right now and never come back—no one in their right mind would believe this garbage.

And yet, Eiji's expression said that he had. He pitied this weird, abandoned, foreign slum kid. So did Chiyoko, apparently, as Hina heard her boss sniffle back tears in the other room. It was completely insane—and she was going to have to live this lie until her brother didn't need Ankh anymore. She was so shocked at her success that Ankh had to shake her shoulder to get her attention.

"Hina. Yummy." He whispered to her while giving the now-emotional Eiji a bewildered glare.

Chiyoko poked her head out from the hall, "Go on ahead, Hina, we can handle the rest—don't worry about a thing."

Still dazed, she excused herself and left with Ankh.