"Daddy, why are we here?"
"Because I love you Mariko, More than anyone else,"
"Even big Sister?"
"I love you both, it wouldn't be fair to love you more,"
Mariko squirmed around in her fathers arms, fluttering her big eyelashes through her brittle straw hair. Another reminder of her treatment. Another sin that Papa was guilty of. And he was guilty of so many flaws. But not to Mariko, do her he was her all knowing Daddy. He was perfect.
"Daddy, when were you last happy?"
"I was happy last with your Mother,"
"Are, you happy now, with me?"
"Yes, I am happy,"
Mariko wanting to please her father. Wanting him to love her and fill her empty heart. To be the Daddy she had dreamed of. The Father who would take her out of the dark room and bring her out into the light. He would say "come out," and there he would be with mommy and they would take her home so they could be a family. Like they were supposed to be. And here they were, just like in her dreams.
"Daddy, where are we going?
"We are going to a place where your mother is,"
"What is Mommy like?"
"She is beautiful like you,"
Little Mariko, with her thin Strawberry hair on an overly large head. Limbs too thin to support herself. Little horns hidden by threadbare ribbons. Clothing made of a thin fabric, Goosebumps all along her pale little arms. Delicate features with sad eyes. Eyes that took up the whole of her face. Eyes that saw everything. Haunted red eyes.
"What is it like?"
"It's beautiful. It's in the sky and everyone has wings so you can fly,"
"Like my Arms?"
"Yes like your vectors, but soft, and covered with feathers, soft as a breeze past your face,"
Mariko had never heard of an angel. Never of Hell or Heaven. All she knew of was life or Death. She knew little of that. All she knew of life was her dark prison and pain and suffering that she had gone through. And in return she had inflicted on others. All good things taken by her Daddy. The man she never knew.
"Daddy, how are we going to get there?"
"It'll be painless"
"What's painless?"
"Nothing, it's a feeling of nothing,"
Mariko never knowing what the absence of pain was. Always being alone, cut off, lonely not knowing comfort and solstice. Her amputated arm. Her threads of vectors.
"Daddy?"
"Mariko, you should know this much, I'm happy I have a chance to tell you. Your Mother loved you so much. She loved you until the last breath she took. Both of us loved you. More than you could ever realise.
Tears ran down Kurama's face onto Mariko's. She outstretched a tentative hand and placed it on her fathers chest, holding his shirt she leaned onto him.
The bomb made a sound from within Mariko. Both gasped. Flashes of Markio as a baby in her mothers arms. A toddler eating with the aid of her parents A little girl crying over a scraped knee. A piggy back on her father's back. Her first day of school. A happy family. What could have been?
Boom.
Nana, in the shadows watching from afar. The only mourner at the funeral for the mutant and the baby-killer.
