Long Live The Queen 7 : Folly

by Gojirob

A rogue state has its own Diclonius, and the power once closest to it feels its hand is forced. Kouta faces a challenging new job and a very crowded Maple House. The girls change their sights; Yuka makes a choice. The War Of The Horns begins in earnest.

4. Chapter 4

Folly

by Rob Morris

Chapter Four - The Folly Of Great Nations

1

WASHINGTON, DC, 2005

He was called the most powerful man in the world, and as one might guess, there were an endless variety of things that often made him feel not so powerful at all. But conversely, it was exceedingly rare that he felt truly powerless. Until recently, that is.

"Hey! It was an honest mistake."

In the Oval Office with him were two of his predecessors, each of them one of a group of not fifty men to hold that office. One he got along well with, despite being of the opposite political party. Then, there was his own father, who at present was snickering at him unapologetically.

"They said Kaede-Sou, not Al Qaeda, you dope! It means Red Maple House. I ate there once, with your Granddad. Big place, relative to Japan. You'd know that if you travelled a bit more."

The former president loved his son dearly, but believed in sharpening him to rise to crises like the one they saw now. As their wives and First Ladies silently agreed, his methodology sometimes left a bit to be desired on that front.

"You know, you could show me the respect that this man does. He and me don't agree on a damn thing ideology-wise, but we can actually put things aside. Why do I even have to request this from the man who gave me life?"

The man who was not their kin but who had shared their burdens showed once more how he had risen in his native Arkansas.

"Guys-we have some special little ladies out there who may or may not want to destroy the world, and I think they deserve our attention."

Again, both father and son got on better with the man who sat the two terms of office between them than they ever would with each other, so things got down to business. The eldest of the three statesman, also a former CIA Chief, gave what he had.

"Our people have been raiding Kakuzawa holdings for months now, since the Japanese made their request. So far, no hidden armies of Diclonius, nor any signs that they were being held or being birthed there. Which leaves a big mystery, but also gives us some relief."

The man who it was said could talk to anyone had done just that, and helped his successor out.

"The Chinese are saying-well, a lot. Like that the newest births age very rapidly, are very smart, and are very aggressive. The late Vice President, rest his soul, spoke with a Doctor Kurama, who's saying that these girls may have complete immunity to radiation. Now, that may mean an option is off the table, but I can't say I mind that."

The oldest of the three shook his head.

"Always bad to have options taken off the table. Even The Hammer. Blast wave could do what the radiation couldn't."

The current President was seen as the hawk of the group, but he saw and moved on the opportunity to correct his father.

"Nah, we have conventionals now that are close if not better than the Big One for anti-personnel clearing. Sides, I doubt we'd get clearance to use it where there's still a government to object. Who'd want to give that order?"

The man in the middle cut in before this generational feud could keep on.

"None of us, I think. The Bomb is always a nightmare weapon, and like as not, by the time you use it, it's all done anyway. Plus, too many people think we're hot to drop it. Bad as this thing is apt to get, Mister President, I'd like those people to be proven wrong."

The current President may or may not have lacked sharpness, as some alleged. But even if the worst of that were true, some things were just plainly obvious.

"Well, what would we do, anyway? Bomb Maternity Hospitals? Although-some members of my party say I'm doing just that-right?"

The eldest of them actually rose to his son's defense in this. Despite their party differences, all three had at some point seen the ire of those much farther to the political right than themselves.

"You can't please the crazies. I'm conservative, you certainly are, and our friend here is more conservative than half his party. The people trumpeting these objections don't deserve to be called conservatives. They're reactionaries, plain and simple. They proved that when they staged those damned parades! Yes, by all means, let's have a Diclonius recruitment drive."

Predictions that America would once more be the land of witch hunts, with young girls checked for horns and killed summarily, proved to be inaccurate, but this brought no one any joy when an opposite and potentially far more deadly attitude emerged. The middle President of the group, nearly removed from office by the very people his predecessor described, seconded these ideas.

"I gave them the gun to shoot me with. But just like Old Elmer Fudd, they shot up two of their own House Speakers doing it. I used to respect some of them."

Again the eldest, castigated hard by many of the same people, let loose his opinion.

"There used to be something to respect. They had their beliefs, other people had theirs. Then they got to demanding it all...aw hell. Let's not do this. Mister President, if we don't have true military options against the Diclonius, what do we have, because we need something. Our hands have been tied otherwise, haven't they?"

The Supreme Court Of The United States had, in 1973, undertaken a momentous reproductive rights case that many opposed to the decision had called an attack on unborn children. The decision had reverberated throughout American politics ever since, and the Diclonius War would prove no different, and , this war and its losses would pivot on that very factor.

"Lord knows I tried. Talked till I was blue in the face and then some. I kept explaining how this thing was like a million 9/11's waiting in the womb. Nixon had the cred to talk to China, but I can't talk to people I've dined and prayed with two decades?"

His direct predecessor reminded him of a simple fact.

"It's always easier to talk turkey with the enemy camp than your own."

He was right in this. The vocal, well-heeled and well-organized camp known by its own as Pro-Life and by those not its own as Anti-Choice had seen the President's decision to enact the WHO's call for a birth ban as a betrayal, nothing more. The President had gone out of his way to describe both his disgust for and the brutal necessity of this choice, when their nation's future, that of the world, and of Humankind itself had been weaponized against them. Most denounced him with gusto ; a few confided that they understood why he had made such a choice, but felt that allowing it would 'embolden' the other side in their struggle. They were making a stand, but sadly for them, that stand was Little Big Horn, with all that implied.

"Talk turkey? I'd settle for one of their leaders taking my damned calls. I should have the lot of them arrested for treason!"

This was no idle enraged talk, either. Immediately, when the President had told the representatives of these groups his intent to enact the birth ban, they had mobilized. The Congress-members in their sway would be of help, but with Executive Orders looming, they took a controversial step, and asked individual soldiers to refuse to back up their Commander In Chief in the enforcement of such orders. Not too many had, but enough of these were officers of rank that certain bases flatly refused to send soldiers to aid in any mission or task that could involve 'The President's Agenda' as those opposed called it. These soldiers and officers were not all in one place, and some of those who would have arrested the others were also these quiet mutineers. That at least some of these soldiers had ended up having Diclonius children was obviously also a factor.

In short, it was a moral stand in a moment of history that could ill afford it. The older of the three shook his head once more.

"No, no-you'd just make them martyrs. The nuts out there already think this is the beginning of our moving on them. Remember how well Waco went? Or Ruby Ridge? You'd have Oklahoma Cities all over the map. But they do have to be gotten around."

Close to fuming as his options dwindled before a single order had been issued, the President stared at a piece of shrapnel that had once been part of The St. Louis Arch. It had been found in Wyoming.

"You know whose fault this really is? The Peanut Farmer, dammit!"

His immediate predecessor glared at him, as did his father.

"Mister President, I'm gonna have to ask you to defend that slander on a fallen comrade. My wife is attending his funeral as we speak."

The President stood his shaky ground.

"You want that? Alright? This thing started with North Korea playing with these girls. Otherwise, it'd have stayed in Japan. Bad, but contained. In 1994, sir, you were set to take out North Korea. An end to the posturing, the posing, and all the mind games. The Kims in prison or dead, no nukes, and definitely no Diclonius. But what happens? Peanut Man goes in behind your back and talks it all down. Perfect opportunity, gone for good. Pissed away, and the Kims live to light the match on this little apocalypse of ours."

The President's father called him to task on this line of thinking.

"The Japanese caused this, and that was because they trusted the wrong man. Kind of like we did with old J. Edgar. As to calling a former occupant of this office KINDERGARTEN names? He was a great man. I ran to unseat him in 1980, Yes, because I felt our nation could do better and needed better. But the man you denigrated gave us Camp David, and when fifty-two of our citizens were held by Iran, he tried to get them out, and failed. But that failure involved a gutsy move, and I said so at the time. Am I glad the President I served unseated him? Yes. But that man while he lived did so as a true Christian gentleman, and any of us should do so well, seeing to the needs of the poor with our own hands."

While the president's father calmed himself, the other former President tried to find something useful to say.

"Mister President, you lost your Vice President, a man who had an influence upon you. You're facing a mutiny, something I feared for my lack of standing with military folk. I have suggestions for both, and then I have to ask your forgiveness."

The man had the gift of gab, his flaws aside, and the other two listened as he spoke further.

"Thanks. First thing is, you have a very able lady as Secretary Of State. Get her in the VP Slot, and then ship her to Cheyenne Mountain with the blast doors closed. It needs to be. Don't bother with confirming her. Even as Secretary Of State, she's high enough in the succession list for it to not matter. Get her to agree, then get her safe."

The President liked what he heard. He had actually considered his predecessor for the job, feeling that in such a huge crisis, Americans would appreciate having a Vice-President who could walk right into the job more than most. But with his party already walking away from him, it could not be even mentioned.

"I like it. Now the second one?"

The former President's look bespoke the desperation of this second part of the plan.

"Bypass the mutineers. Enable every soldier who holds to their oaths more than a belief or ideology to form new units under loyal officers, if they must. Take no direct action against the mutineers, unless they interfere with these orders. If they even try, full loss of rank, pay, and pension, immediately. Courts-Martial later, if there is a later in all this."

This was an ugly solution that was apt to have ugly consequences. But with talk now saying the mutineers might refuse to even fight against Diclonius attacking citizens, it was literally all they had.

"Nasty one, but the lesson needs to be brought home. So why am I forgiving you?"

The former President recalled the last time he was forgiven, this by his wife. He hoped the current President knew less swear words.

"Your late Vice President consulted me, and I agreed it was a good idea, to have you meet and talk with the young lady Japan is calling The Diclonius Queen. The Japanese already believe it was your idea."

In a world of No, the President was being offered an option. He seemed to calm at actually having one.

"I'll do it. We need talks. We need something. But you two are for Cheyenne Mountain, in case this little lady tries to do a decap strike."

The man from Arkansas shrugged.

"Sir, I was thinking that all three of us should be here, for support and for-well, motivational reasons. See, if she is not the little angel this Kurama claims, and all three of us die by her-arms-then the American people will have no doubt of the Diclonius threat. They'll have no choice but to do what must be done."

The President's father echoed his own words.

"It's a gutsy move. Either she's legit and we at least gain some kind of knowledge, or our loss unifies the country. There are worse ways to go. Waddya say, son?"

The President had sometimes resented somewhat his late second's interference. He now realized he would never resent it again, and wondered about the road ahead.

"Well, I could use both support and motivation. But what do we know about this Queen? Is she savage and ruthless?"

The President's father was also curious.

"Bet she's some kind of business-trained ninja. In Japan, business is war."

Their colleague gave father and son what little he had.

"They call her-Nana."

2

KAMAKURA, JAPAN, THE MAPLE INN

The two playthings flew out from little Hana's hands, and back onto her older sister.

"Hana, stop stealing Nana's limbs! It is not funny!"

The giggling little girl was on the verge of falling over.

"But the look on Nana Onee-Chan's face is so hilarious! Hana can't promise that..."

The little girl was seized by an unseen force, and held upside down in front of her loving but exasperated half-sister.

"Hana will promise not to take Nana's limbs!"

"NO!"

Nana frowned.

"Then Hana leaves Nana with no choice at all."

The child's screams roused their napping mother. Arika-San rushed over, and found the scene she expected.

"MAMA! Nana-Chan is tickling Hana to DEATH!"

The same power that could potentially level mountains was now doing an effective job of Onee-Sama smackdown. Arika grabbed Hana up, and looked at her.

"Were you taking Nana-Chan's limbs again, while she was asleep?"

The laughing child calmed instantly at the sight of Mama's glare.

"Just her arms."

While her oldest child's power frightened Arika, she had to concede that she knew how to use it well.

"Well, it seems like Nana still has arms even then, and that she punished Hana for doing something she knew was wrong. Now apologize to us both."

"Mama, Hana is sorry for what she did, and for doing it again when she was told not to."

She turned to the current Diclonius Queen, who struggled not to smile at this recently-discovered treasure in her sad life.

"Nana Onee-Sama, Hana is sorry. She just wanted to have fun, but she only annoyed you. Please forgive me?"

Nana kneeled down to go eye-to-eye with the girl.

"Nana needs her limbs, okay? Now, get us each a cup of milk and all will be forgiven. Okay?"

The happy child, having learned her lesson, went to do just that. It was then their mother addressed a concern with Nana.

"You handle her so well. Nana-chan, when you lost your limbs to Lucy-San, couldn't they have performed micro-surgery, to put them back on? Your stepfather had a finger put back like that."

Nana herself had only recently asked Kurama about that, when she learned that this was possible.

"Nana had to use her power to keep from bleeding to death. This messed up the veins and arteries enough that it made things difficult. Lucy also used her power, when she chopped off my limbs, to kind of explode them from within, I guess maybe to prevent them being reattached, if her victim survived. That made the bones like shrapnel in the muscles and veins."

Far from a tale of woe, Nana's narrative was startlingly matter-of-fact. Arika was happy that her daughter was strong, but thrown that such a horror was spoken of so casually.

"My girl is remarkable, and I am proud to be her Mama."

"I got the milk!"

Arika eyed the brown liquid in the glass in Hana's right hand.

"Did Hana put cocoa powder in her milk?"

"Umm-maybe."

"Did she ask permission to?"

Another gentle admonition followed, and when Hana and Nana had drunk their milk (and Arika her nerve-calming tea), Hana spoke her mind, as a small child might.

"Why does Mayu Onee-Chan hate Papa?"

Nana felt the milk inside her go a bit sour.

"Hana is being silly. Mayu does not hate Step-Papa. After all, he is her real Papa."

Hana once again showed her family that they should guard their words when around her.

"Mayu Onee-Chan hates her Mama, because she was a bad Mama, who let her Step-Papa be mean to her. Hana didn't even know there could be bad Mamas before that. But Papa is a good Papa."

Arika tried to cobble together an explanation.

"Well, Mayu-Chan is just adjusting to having a Papa again. It had been a long time for her since she had one, especially one who wasn't..."

Arika almost choked. Once she learned what Mayu had endured in what had become Hana's room, getting out of that house was a huge priority. Certain things cannot be un-learned or un-remembered, and before they left, Arika swore she could feel the hate that house had seen inside its walls.

"...mean to her."

Yet still, her younger child showed she was perhaps even more savvy than her mother's older daughter - not that this was all that hard at times.

"But Mama? Mayu and Nana had Kouta-San as their Papa, and he is a good Papa. When he called here from where he went away to, Mayu-Chan insisted on talking with him, and she lit up whenever she did. Our own Papa-San here she seems to run away from, and she won't talk to him much. I think maybe she really hates him, and a girl shouldn't hate her Papa, like I told Nozomi-Chan!"

As if to punctuate the awkwardness that had Nana struck silent and Arika pledging to, if need be, play Wicked Stepmother with Mayu, Hana blurted something else out.

"Is Yuka-San going to keep being a dummy with Kouta-San? Because if she is, Hana will need a husband one day. I'll be seven before you know it, and a girl can't wait forever. But Nana-Chan and Mayu-Chan will not have to call me Step-Mama. Because that would just be weird."

Nana's eyes now seemed as wide as saucers.

"Mama? Some of that Herb Tea, please?"

3

Yuka walked, and walked, unknowingly following the same routes Mayu had used when fleeing her Mother's home.

*I have to go to him. Tell him. Make him understand.*

Had she finally pushed Kouta away for good, she wondered? Had she, through her nerves and lack of confidence, done what Nyu's unthinking murderous act had failed to do?

*If he knew, then he would hate me. But he must know. But how can I tell him something like this? Especially now, with what we all know?*

Several times in the last week, she had been within a quarter mile of him, but hadn't found the nerve to approach him and simply have it out.

*We both loved him, Nyu-and somehow our expectations keep making him miserable. You wanted him to be perfect, and lost your mind when he wasn't. I wanted his return to be perfect, and became this horrid shrill thing when it wasn't. Maybe I should turn away, and let Nozomi or even one of the girls have him. Maybe at last, I owe him that much.*

It wasn't quite a voice, and it certainly wasn't what the girl Yuka had known as Nyu had heard. But the words were no less deeply felt, as a response came forth.

**Yeah, except you promised me you would take care of him. You. The only other one to really get that loving Kouta makes you crazy. Not because he is a saint, but because the effort to be one is always in him. There is more love in him falling flat on his face than in a thousand successful smooth proclamations. **

Yuka responded to the voice of Nyu, even if that voice could not possibly be there.

*Were-were ever really friends-Lucy?*

**Nyu was the only way I could live among you. At first, it was just to be near Kouta. But all of you grew on me. Yuka, that crazy house needs both its Mama and its Papa, and they need to be on the same page. Bad things are coming.**

Yuka kept silent, and so, whatever the origin of the other in this conversation, that one kept on.

**Tell him, Yuka. How he could hate you anymore than he hated me?**

*But-it's not just-that. Kouta-San deserved someone stable, with a level head.*

The Nyu-voice seemed to echo a smile as it faded.

**Yet he chose to love us. Whatever he deserves, we seem to be what he wants. Now go to him.**

Yuka shook off her reverie, and spoke out loud.

"Whether you were my friend, Nyu-I was yours. So now my friend-watch over me as I try to finally grow up."

Yuka sang under her breath as she remembered the resolve of Olivia Newton-John in her favorite movie.

"Look at me, There has to be something more than what they see. Irksome and raw,
Oh so scared and unsure, a pawn then, Sandra Dee. Sandy, You must start anew,
Don't you know what you must do, Hold your head high, Take a deep breath and sigh
Goodbye to Sandra Dee."

She was ready now to face him, and the future he carried with him.

4

The beach was cleaner than it had ever been. This was chiefly because people now stayed away from it, for fear of who lurked there.

"Suits me. Though why I'm doing this when the little bitch is dead is beyond me."

Bando closed (or dimmed ) his artificial eyes and imagined.

**Think I'm dead, Bando? You only wish. Ricky? Lucy's Home!**

Bando frowned.

"Geez. That the best I can do? An 'I Love Lucy' reference? This life has gotten old, and it was never that young to start with."

For perhaps the first time, he wondered what a hunter did without his best prey. Not a man for deep thoughts, he wished Mayu would come back.

"I'd even play with the mutt-Hey!"

Wanta was indeed there, but Mayu was not.

"Hey, Papa!"

The Agent had come to see her father and teacher, with Nozomi in tow. Bando as usual found a way to defuse any sentiment that might arise.

"Midst of an evolutionary apocalypse, and you find time to visit your gimpy old man? Duty much, little girl?"

Agent Bando hugged her Father nevertheless, and then got right down to business.

"Duty calls me here. You interested in doing for the planet what you're trying to do for this beach?"

Bando responded as Bando well might.

"This beach might somehow someday get cleaned up. This world? Not bloody likely."

He had mainly been a memory that his child had adhered to, and sometimes, idealized as a child might. But the girl knew how to get to him, and the woman she had become was no less savvy.

"Pops, they want and need you to get the troops ready for what they're going to face."

Top-Kicking entire armies had its appeal to the cyborg. But his natural resistance was always there.

"They want to make ready for the Diclonius? Tell them to find a giant blender and climb in - set to chop, then puree. Whatever makes it out, you've got your men."

"But Pops - you look like a blender right now."

Bando resumed cleaning the beach without further comment, an indicator that he was thinking it over, at least. Nozomi asked her new friend a question.

"Agent-San? Just how old are you?"

Her sunglasses went a bit askew to hear that asked.

"Hmm? I'm Twenty-Three. Always big for my age, boy or girl."

Nozomi appeared to be doing some math.

"Bando-San doesn't seem old enough to be your father."

The line of questioning, while personal, was a welcome break from war and horned girls, so she allowed it.

"Yeah, well, he lied about his age to get recruited. He was always really big for his age. He was like, sixteen when I was born. Maybe."

Nozomi continued her mental calculation, which now included an image of Bando having always looked pretty much as he did in the present.

"And your Mama was even younger than him? Young enough to still get him in trouble?"

"Yeah. Umm-the point in this?"

Nozomi turned to Bando the elder.

"Sir?"

Nozomi saw him turn. She drew a number in the sand beneath them.

"Was this the age of Agent-San's mother when she had her?"

Bando scanned the number, then nodded.

"Yeah. Why do you ask?"

Despite her still-meek general nature, and despite the toughness of the two Bandos with her, Nozomi frowned and slapped Bando the elder across the face.

"Pervert."

Agent Bando was prepared to rescue Nozomi, but her father just laughed.

"Hey, we waited a whole year. And for her? For her, I was proudly a pervert. So when are you two hooking up?"

A question which had Nozomi fainting, and Agent Bando blushing.

"Pops, we're just friends!"

Bando shrugged.

"Then make sure you know that yourself. If she's not interested, I know some officers. One chick kneed me after a game of Risk. She'd be good for you. But an artist? An opera singer? Not our style, Girlie."

The Agent helped Nozomi up as she revived.

"Maybe all I want is a friend. Thanks to your alien giant genetics, I never had too many."

Bando sighed.

"Look, I'll make a choice on your little offer. But I need to see Mayu first. I do my best thinking when she and the mutt are both underfoot."

Nozomi looked like she wished she could faint at will, rather than answer this unstated question.

"Mayu-Chan has been different of late. Wanta-has been avoiding her, and staying near little Hana. The look on her face when I last saw her-"

Bando focused on her, and he did not need to tell her she had better finish her statement.

"...sorry. But her look reminded me of Nyu, when she left Maple House for the last time. It became really bad after she spoke to her mother."

Bando knew. Knew that eventually, certain traumas catch up with you in one of two ways : Either crippling pain or purest rage. If rage, then this was accompanied either by lashing out or making vain attempts to control the world around you. Lucy, he knew, had done both in her time, and it hadn't gone so well for anyone.

"Kid just needs her space, and some time to figure it all out. Just hope she doesn't do anything too stupid in the meantime."

But he had seen the signs when he spoke to Mayu before. She was apt to break something before she got her head on straight.

"Tell those dickless shits that this dickless shit will bail them out - but I got terms for them to meet."

5

At this point, it wouldn't take much to set Mayu off, and quite a bit was coming her way.

Only a few months earlier, things like their home being invaded, the attack from that horrible man, Mister Bando dying and Nyu revealed as some kind of world-killing monster seemed as crazy as things could get. Then Nyu had died, killed by Kouta-San when she was in too much pain to live any longer. Nana reuniting with her real family seemed like a dream come true, and Mayu was of course delighted for her. But Nana's family was also Mayu's, her mother Arika being Mayu's aunt and stepmother, and Nana's stepfather and uncle Kenjiro being Mayu's real father. To top this joy off, the two cousins (relation unknown till recently) who had long been like sisters had a little half-sister who was just a treasure. To her mind, she should have been deliriously happy.

Yet she was anything but happy. Mayu knew Kenjiro-San was trying, but she was now rubbed raw emotionally. The call from her mother should have finally released her, turning away the vile woman so ready to put her interests ahead of her child. Instead, it only brought back every bitter memory, those months when being cornered and alone meant pain and shame.

Mayu wondered if something was wrong with her, and while there was, there were also many reasons beyond this why she felt like hell in the midst of her family's literal reunion.

"Mayu-Chan? I need to speak with you."

Arika looked upset.

"I'm not fit company, right now, Arika-San. Please excuse me."

But while Mayu looked equally upset, if not more so, Arika was not backing down.

"No. I will not excuse you. Not when your behavior is causing your Papa pain."

Mayu met her glare inch for inch.

"I am sorry that Kenjiro-San is in pain, but I don't see what that has to do with me."

Arika felt like she was walking through a mine-field. But her ability to let this matter go had ended when little Hana had picked up on the tension between father and daughter.

"There you go. You won't even call him Papa."

Mayu felt cornered and alone once more, but she was fighting back this time - sadly, at the wrong time.

"My Papa is not in this house. He's staying at his work, while he and my Mama work things out."

Arika was only trying to help. But the feeling that Mayu was disrespecting and insulting her husband couldn't be ignored.

"I am grateful beyond words to both Kouta-San and Yuka-San, for taking you and Nana-Chan in and caring for you. But Kenjiro-San is your Papa, and your distance and coldness is hurting him."

Mayu unwisely chose not to build up her argument, and instead went straight for the jugular.

"Tell me, Arika-San? Would you be so quick to urge this, if it were Hana he abandoned?"

The thought had occurred to Arika. She was not proud of her man's actions toward his older daughter, and getting Hana out of the spot where Mayu knew such pain was again most of the reason the family had moved into Maple House. But pride of place demanded a like response.

"You little brat! Your Papa-who loves you-weeps every night that he did not protect you when he possibly could have. He has even prayed that Heaven somehow take away what you suffered and inflict it instead on him."

Mayu wasn't seeking to make an enemy out of her stepmother. But she was in a fighting mood.

"What good does that do either of us? It isn't going to happen, and do you think I'd want anyone else to be hurt like that?"

Arika retreated, just a bit.

"Your father has told you that he remembers your mother as once being a good woman. I must say I don't remember that at all. She was from the start manipulative, very good at lying with a straight face, and interested almost exclusively in herself."

Arika once more looked Mayu in the eyes.

"I think he also forgets that she actually did file some of those charges against him that she threatened. There was no evidence, but she swore to find such evidence by making it up. Think, Mayu-chan. This woman who eventually discarded you was willing to walk into a courtroom and perjure herself in order to beat your father, and tell everyone who could hear that he had hurt you. This was the monster we faced, and when Hana arrived, the threat seemed twice as dire."

Mayu was not having any of this.

"Her true self would have easily come out in court, under scrutiny. It would have been easy for Kenjiro-San to take me away from her, but out of fear alone, he chose not to. I gave Kouta-San the hardest time imaginable on his road to becoming my Papa, but he never fled. You ask me to honor your husband as my father? Yet you tell me by this to dishonor the man who has earned that title-and perhaps more."

Going for a knockout blow, a Mayu who in some measure already regretted her words moved in.

"I ask you again - what if this were Hana he had let go of? Nana you had no choice in. But all I learned of was hunger, exposure and uncertainty. And Arika-San? You lived all along right here in Kamakura. He and you knew where my mother lived, and could guess from that where I went to school. Couldn't you have inquired to some of my classmates, or a teacher, or someone, and found out what you needed to know, sent me a message, like how I had a little sister, how my real Papa was alive, and wanted me back? The worst thing in the world for me, Arika-san, was not what Stepfather did - it was feeling that I was alone, and that there was no one to turn to. Even when I came here, I had nightmares, in which Kouta-san would hurt me, while Yuka-san watched, smiled and handed Wanta off to that woman who said he was hers. You task me for being a bad daughter, but where do you call your husband to account - and once more, what would you do if this were Hana you faced, in the same circumstance as me?"

If Arika-san was about to back off, realizing her words had made things worse, another stepped in, trying to help and walking down the path of good intentions to where that led.

"Step-Papa is Mayu's real Papa. She should show him that respect and forgive him. We were ready to keep living with Nyu, even after knowing all Lucy did, and tried to do. Is it so hard to accept Step-Papa, like you did for Kouta-San and Bando-San?"

Nana waited for an explosion, but this did not come. Not precisely.

"Nana, I do forgive him. My Mama was a scary person, and since she lied so long to me, I can believe she would have lied again because keeping me made her look good to people. But Kenjiro-San cannot be my Papa again, and it will be a long time before I feel anything at all for him. I don't want to hurt Hana. But you two are asking me to embrace someone who left me behind as he ran - someone who didn't even fight for me."

Arika's dander had been raised yet again.

"Do you have any idea what those charges can do to a man who doesn't have a powerful organization like a teacher's union behind him? We could have risked losing Hana, Mayu-chan. Then she could have been placed in a foster home, and maybe hurt as you were. Do you want that?"

Mayu now began that build towards an explosion.

"Again and again you tell me to merely understand and accept. Well, I say that is all I have done, and that I am done with that. I have worth, and I am owed more than just shrugging off all that has happened to me."

Pride and ego had for now replaced the unity the two women felt. Mayu was perhaps badly out of sorts (more than anyone knew), while Arika had pushed too hard too fast, seeking only to complete her family's happy reunion. Things could not end well at this point.

"You-you are acting just like your mother. Thinking only of yourself!"

The shift on the gentle girl's face was arguably the second most terrifying in the history of Maple House, and would have had even that first most terrifying girl bringing up her defenses.

"If-if you ever say that again, then I swear, even if it is in front of little Hana, I will-"

Mayu felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Mayu-chan must stop. Nana will not let you speak that way to Mama."

Mayu was now uncaring of who her wrath was spent on.

"Your Mama. Not mine. Will Nana-chan call me selfish, too, for not praising the man who wouldn't fight for me when it mattered? When it could have changed things?"

Nana knew her first and best friend all too well.

"Mama didn't ask that of you, but perhaps she did ask too much. Nana asks only that you make a meal and bring it to Kouta-San. As upset as she is, Mayu-Chan should not be here for awhile, when it can only make things worse."

Mayu slapped Nana across the face.

"You moron! Do you understand anything at all? Did your mind go soft, as the man you call Papa chained you to a wall and fired cannons at you? Does that tiny brain of yours filter every lesson through cartoons of her empty-headed hero and his crybaby son, making wishes to make everything all right again? Well, sometimes, when the world blows up, you can't make it all right again!"

Mayu was set to continue, till she heard sounds behind her. They were the sounds of tears, and the sounds of growling. Behind Hana and Wanta, Kenjiro, Nozomi and the Agent stood stunned.

"Hana begs Mayu-Onee-Chan not to hate Mama and Papa-it's wrong and it hurts to hear."

"Reerreaar-BARK!"

Mayu felt her stomach turn as two of those she loved best now regarded her with fear and hatred. She darted into the kitchen, emerging a moment later with a box lunch she had already made to bring to Kouta at school. She was out the door in seconds. Nana rubbed her cheek where Mayu had slapped it. Arika breathed and spoke to her daughter.

"Why didn't you stop her from leaving-and for that matter, why didn't you use your unseen arms to stop her from slapping you?"

Nana stared at the door, hoping Mayu would be all right, despite the argument.

"Nana did try - both times. But it didn't work-sorry Mama."

Nana flipped Arika's ponytail with her vectors, and shook her head.

"It worked that time. Mama, Nana loves and cherishes you. But you should not have spoken to Mayu-chan, when she wasn't ready to do it."

Arika once more found her defensive reflexes kicking in.

"She-is disrespecting your stepfather-her own father, and hurting him by her silence. Am I to allow that? Why can't she be more like you? You've taken me back, despite me giving you up."

Nana subtly used her vectors on the hair of everyone there, and only one present failed to react to the touch. Nana took note of this as she kept on.

"Mama forgets - she had no choice with Nana. Papa Kurama took Nana from you, and Nana would have been taken away even without him. Meeting you again, and learning that you always wanted me? That was Nana's dream come true, topped off by Hana and a good step-Papa in Kenjiro-San. But while for Nana your return brings answers she wanted, for Mayu-Chan it brings questions she never wanted."

Kenjiro, stunned until that point, spoke up.

"Questions of me, Nana-chan?"

Nana tried to smile, but failed.

"So long as Step-Papa-san was dead, Mayu knew he had no choice in leaving her. But now that he is alive, she knows there was a choice, and that it did not go for her. Step-Papa had reasons, and since Mayu's wicked Mama was able to fool her into thinking she was loved for so very long, Nana has no doubt she would have lied in court, too. But was Hana really in danger? Nana can't say. But Nana thinks Mayu saw her fate as unavoidable, and accepted it as what sadly had to happen."

Kenjiro picked up on the sorry thought.

"I understand only too well. I thought Mayu lost forever, maybe moved to Hokkaido with her mother - I never believed her stories about my daughter becoming a street walker. But as I feared this, with it came a sad acceptance. Now that I know what I left her to face, the what-ifs torment me. They must be even worse for Mayu-chan. Arika, I beg you. From now on, let Mayu move at her own pace on me."

Arika shook her head.

"I don't like to see you in torment. I am your wife, and I have to defend you."

She then closed her eyes.

"But obviously, my approach didn't work. Will she ever come back, or have I driven her away forever?"

Nana held her mother close.

"Mama needn't worry. Something is wrong with Mayu-chan, and it wasn't just your words or her memories that set her off. Mayu will come back to us."

Nana now managed a smile.

"Besides, everyone leaves Maple House, but everyone always comes back as well. Kouta-San always brings us back here. We will all be together again very soon-and then one or more of us will leave again. It's pretty much how it always goes."

Her parents stared at Nana. She shrugged.

"Well, it does go that way."

As Kenjiro and Arika talked and calmed themselves, Nana stared at Wanta.

"Wanta-chan, where did Hana-chan get to?"

Nana then got an inspiration and tried to pet the small dog with her vectors. After about ten seconds, Wanta tilted his head in a puzzled way, till Nana petted him with her artificial hands.

"Nana is sensing a pattern here."

6

Hana hid as Nozomi and the Agent passed by.

"Felt like I had something in my hair for a second."

Nozomi shrugged.

"I didn't feel a thing. Maybe it's your shampoo? If you don't clean it all out, it can be like that."

Not wanting to be seen by any adult, Hana ducked into a room not her own. She turned and saw its resident.

"Anna-Chan? Hana didn't mean to come into your room where no one is supposed to go into."

Anna did not chase the little girl out.

"Hana-chan doesn't have to leave. Anna would appreciate the company. Want to play a board game? Agent-San says no electronics."

The dice were cast, and the figures moved around the board. Hana became concerned.

"We're not gonna end up in the jungle or in space, are we? Cause Hana hates monkeys that take stuff and laugh at you."

Anna tried to remember a time of magical thinking like Hana's. Now, when she did this, her father's face, once a reminder of such wonderful times, was in the way. The young ladies of Maple House were finding fault with the men they had once respected and worshipped as no other. Unlike Mayu and Nozomi, Anna Kakuzawa was unlikely to find peace with hers anytime soon.

"No. Agent-San would have checked for such things."

Hana moved her pieces, got her rewards, and dealt with the consequences.

"Anna-Chan? Is Kouta-San now your Papa as well?"

Anna blushed.

"I don't think he took me seriously, but I confessed to him and proposed marriage. I guess he does do a lot of the things a Papa does for me, though."

Hana chuckled.

"Anna-chan is silly. Kouta-San is going to marry Hana. Because Yuka-San hits and kicks him five times a day and comes into his room every hour and insults him, then says he is a pervert for no reason. He should have shot her and not Nyu-chan."

Anna put down her board pieces.

"Where did Hana get such-an interesting point of view on Yuka-San?"

"Well, Hana likes Yuka-San. But Nana and Mayu Onee-Chan said all this while Hana listened after Yuka-San scolded them for burning the evening soup. They said after that Hana shouldn't pay them mind, but Hana would advise Yuka-San not to walk in front of them in a dark alley."

Suddenly, the little girl's bubbly recounting of one bad moment faded and she began to look sad.

"But Nana-Onee misses her Papa Kurama so much, and Hana thinks Mayu-Onee maybe hates our Papa for leaving her, so maybe they're confused too."

Only in her father's sight had Anna been able to escape the practiced selfishness that posed as traditional values in her family, and now she doubted even that. Most families demanded that their children do well, both for themselves and as a reflection on them. But Anna felt that most of those didn't have initiating the apocalypse and then ruling over the ruined Earth on their agenda.

"What troubles Hana?"

The words were simple, but Anna already felt more regard for and from this acquaintance of a few weeks than for her brother and most of her clan, and what troubled her concerned the older girl.

"Anna-chan, Hana doesn't understand how her Papa could fail to protect Mayu-Onee, and how Mama let Kurama-San take Nana-Onee away from her. Hana doesn't understand how Mayu-Onee's first Mama, who was Papa's first wife, wouldn't care that the evil new Papa was hurting Mayu-Onee. Hana doesn't understand how Mamas and Papas can ever fail. Hana tried Googling this one time, but all she got was a picture of some hippies sitting in a bathtub, and a song about a lady who kept getting fat."

Needless to say, little Hana was starting to take after her Diclonius half-sister in many respects. Anna had found herself in a 'Hana Moment'.

"Those Mamas and Papas were from a different time and place, Hana-Chan. One with lots of pharmaceutical aids. As for the rest, Anna doesn't know any better than you. My Papa will end up hurting a lot more people than Lucy-San ever dreamed of. He took Anna's arm and replaced it with a machine that was also a bomb. But Anna still loves him, even though she would never want him to come back."

"Huh? Why not?"

Anna closed her eyes. She didn't want to scare the poor child, but there was no way around this.

"My Papa is in Hell now, Hana. Kami-Sama doesn't like people who try to take his throne. Even if he got let out of there, he would be taken to prison here on Earth. Anna prefers to hold onto what good memories there are of him, but wherever his spirit went, he would know harsh punishment."

Hana rushed into her arms, and the two held each other for comfort in a confusing world.

"But Hana-chan needn't worry. Her Mama and Papa are people of a good character, and her Onee-Chans love her. Plus, we have Kouta-San and Yuka-San - if they ever come back."

Hana held back tears.

"Nana Onee-Chan says people always leave Maple House, but Kouta-San always brings them back, and then everyone eats and is happy, even if only for a short time, like when Agent-San kicked down the doors and shot people with rude soldiers and dead girl copies."

Anna felt more Hana moments on the horizon.

"Agent-San has promised not to do that again. But remember, this is a place that made even a killer like Lucy-San want to give up being who she was. There is love here, Hana-chan. We who have been invited to dwell here should appreciate that."

"Hana will remember - Anna Onee-Chan."

Sleeping with her new little friend beside her, Anna found at least some counter-weight to her feelings of guilt and overall uselessness, while the disaster engineered by the one she once loved best of all drew ever closer to their walls.

7

"We won't follow you!"

One group of Diclonius faced down another, in a small town just south of Hokkaido.

"You will. You just don't know it yet."

The one called Antonia imagined herself a threat. She was just not the threat she imagined herself to be. For all that, she was both vicious and clever.

"You girls have to join us. You're old-line Diclonius. Not like these fast-agers. Haven't you gotten that there's no place for you in the Human world?"

The others stood silent while the oldest of the other group again shook her head.

"We all know that. Our Mamas and Papas and siblings explained to us how men tried to take us away when we were born. This village is separate from the town, because it has to be. They bring us food, and make sure we have everything we need. What people like you are doing may mean we can't be a secret anymore. But we stand firmly with our families below. As they stand firmly with us."

A human girl's head was tossed to the group from the village, and Antonia grinned.

"Funny, they seemed kind of squishy to me."

One Diclonius from the village, a rather young one, cradled the head.

"Onee-Chan...Onee-Chan!"

As they frequently were, Antonia's group was horrified as she taunted the grieving child.

"Hey, Crybaby? Soldiers are coming to kill us. But they'll find all those dead Humans, and then they'll find you. Think they'll want to hear explanations? Armies like mine expand their power two ways. Be smart, and pick the first one-"

The grieving girl turned a death-glare on Antonia, who gestured and promptly sectioned her into eight pieces, each landing at the feet of the sickened villagers.

"-unlike your little friend here."

The village leader fought back tears to think of her older brother, who made the trek up the hill each day to see her, no matter what, and of the littlest one, now gruesomely destroyed.

"We fight-for what we had here, that you've taken away, and we fight, just to oppose evil like yours."

Antonia knew how to mock opponents before destroying them. She showed this again now.

"Heh. Why don't you all put on Fukus, and swear by the planets? Because that at least might distract me by way of amusement."

Behind the village leader, all she had known was shredded to bloody confetti in an instant. Her look was almost too dumbstruck to be horrified.

"I didn't sense any arms from your people. How did you do-"

The question was cut off along with her head, which Antonia caught.

"You chose the second way. You chose poorly."

Antonia began her final grisly work in this place, keeping on until one of her people risked questioning her.

"Antonia, the soldiers will find this place soon. Shouldn't we move?"

No death followed, but the dismissal was nearly as sharp.

"I want them to always just miss us. Besides, I've nearly completed my third message."

Only when she did, they finally moved on, in a march towards Kamakura and their supposed queen.

"I considered leaving one in Chinese, but reports from there make that less of a priority, right now."

When the military arrived, they found dead Humans, as they had come to expect from the growing horde of Diclonius. But to their true shock, they also found dead Diclonius, their heads lined up, and a message drawn in their blood, in Katanka, Kanji, and English :

"THEY REFUSED TO JOIN - DUMBASSES."

Antonia's army had indeed expanded their power in the first way, through recruitment, willing and otherwise. Now, thanks to the Diclonius who had only wanted to live quietly and opposed them, it expanded the second way as well.

Through a reputation born of purest fear.

8

One can be beaten down by dreams frustrated, just as easily as one can by a false parent or a girl-goddess who had trouble understanding a lie told to avoid hurt from a lie expressly meant to hurt. But the young woman called Yuka had come to realize that, just as her scars were less obvious, so were they more easily overcome. What she had done to herself, she could undo, and thereby make a negative a positive.

Before entering the accessway that led to what was now Kouta's office suite at the university, she hesitated, gathering her strength, and she would need this as a not incredible yet still surprising truth was revealed. Unlike so much else that went on at that point, it would not change the world around her but telling it would give her peace. But peace is a funny thing, and just before it takes hold a few stray rounds are fired, sometimes by accident, sometimes not.

"I will tell him. Tell him about me, and about..."

Someone entered ahead of her, a wrapped meal in hand. It was the girl who had become like her own daughter, once a sad refugee of abuse, now growing strong and even fierce in her love for the 'Papa' who had endured suspicion and mistrust for a time.

*Mayu-chan? What are you doing here?*

Agent Bando had said that they should all stick close to home, after what happened in North Korea, China and now America. The big woman had said that not even she could guarantee what members of their own government might try as things got more desperate. But as it had been since a tearful Nyu fled Kouta's anger, Maple House residents staying put was more of a pipe-dream than Lucy being able to avoid killing : you could want it with all your might, but something would quickly push that desire aside like a panicked crowd in an old Gojira flick.

Realizing that lingering outside while Mayu visited might result in her nerve leaving her, Yuka followed Mayu at just enough of a remove so as not to be heard by her. This would prove to be a very wise choice.

In the downstairs lab itself, Mayu immediately smelled bleach - lots of it, used at full strength.

"Kouta-San?"

"Oh, hi, Mayu. Watch your clothes - obviously I went a little overboard."

The two were immediately pleased to see each other, the girl's joy and safety always on the young man's mind, and her desire to thank and honor him for those concerns now foremost in hers. As with many things in Mayu's mind at that time, this had taken a not entirely desirable turn.

"So much chlorine - did you drain the swimming pool?"

Kouta mopped up some water and wrung it into a pail.

"The late Professor Kakuzawa evidently never undertook to clean this place. I'm about to head back home, and it seemed appropriate. Oh-is that meal for me?"

Since it was, he cleared a spot and quickly ate much of it down. His head clearer, he could now see the sad look on Mayu's face.

"Is there something wrong? You can tell me."

Mayu wanted to talk about the fights she had with those she held dear, and how her head hadn't been right even before her mother called - really since Nyu's death. But saying all that meant confronting a fear greater than her stepfather rising from the grave on a dead Earth where only Mayu remained. So dread and madness ruled her words, however measured they might seem at first.

"I have come to Kouta-San to talk about my future. I need order in it."

Kouta sat down and drank some water.

"That might be a lot for me to guarantee for anyone, Mayu-chan. What do you mean by this?"

Mayu surprisingly took his hand, though only gingerly.

"Kouta-San can guarantee this by being my future. I wish Kouta-San to cease being my father, and instead become my husband."

Kouta's eyes went wide, first with shock, then with some horror, and then finally with some suspicion. But Mayu cut off a probable line of dismissal.

"Mine is not the glowing crush that little Hana, Anna or even Nozomi-chan have. I love and adore Kouta-San, and know for a fact that I am the only one who can possibly make him happy."

Kouta knew from experience he could not treat her raw feelings lightly. But some sarcasm leaked through his response.

"You know this? How, exactly, do you know this?"

Mayu turned away from him, as though to gather more strength for her dodgy argument, away from Kouta's doubting eyes.

"I also adore Yuka-San. She is the only mother I have known. But she is not like us. She is not of our kind."

She now turned back to him, as firm in her resolve as she could be.

"We two have known betrayals by those we cared for. My mother ripped what was left of my heart out. Nyu, maddened by her traumas, made you pay for them by taking your family. Neither of us have any clue on how to proceed in matters of the heart. But if we proceed together, we will each understand the time it takes for the heart to regrow. I will be a good wife, Kouta. You will be patient with me as my body unlearns the mistrust of other people. I will be patient as you reason out a woman who actually can be reasoned out. I won't yell at you, cry at your every misstep, or beat you just because my puppy-love daydreams failed to come true. "

Kouta held back some of his anger at these words.

"Is that how you see Yuka?"

Mayu pressed her attack, but not viciously.

"It isn't her fault. She clucks about your cluelessness, but what did having clues do for either of us, when facing people too trapped in their own concerns to keep from hurting us? What clue could have told either of us what was to come? I don't place poor Nyu with my mother, but the result is the same, isn't it? You and Yuka might be married by now, or maybe you would have broken up as young teenagers. I might have grown into one of those popular catty girls, mocking the awkward and the needy. But because of the fire we were cast into, we are both too far scarred for people like Yuka to comprehend. You will wait on my body's confidence, and I will wait on your mind's, as both rebuild."

Kouta seemed to look at her in an odd way. Then, he rose and walked over to her. He placed his fingers underneath her chin, raising it as if to kiss her. A moment later, Mayu pulled back, and Kouta nodded.

"See? I wasn't trying anything. I only gave the barest hint that I might do the slightest intrusion possible. But your body reacts to me like I would hurt you, and I know you trust me. I hold a certain place in your life, Mayu. But it will never be as a husband. Perhaps - you will never really want a husband, or any man."

Mayu looked furious for this trick, but kept a tone lighter than this indicated.

"Are you saying that maybe I only like girls? Is that what you're saying, Kouta-San?"

He sighed. A whispered subject had come out in the open.

"You were hurt by a man, and though you now trust me and I think have forgiven Kenjiro-San, you still visibly shake even when approaching a male merchant or simply a boy from school. I don't know what your heart wants, Mayu-chan, or even if that has any bearing on anything. But people need companionship - they need to not be alone - and if you fear one group, as you well always might - you might seek the company of another. It doesn't matter to us, your family. Yuka-San and I will love anyone that you do, so long as they are treating you right."

If Kouta's words were less than perfectly expressed, and if they fell short in encapsulating what he wished to, they were still welcomed by Mayu, for whom the very notion and the fear of once more being scorned by those she loved had been very much on her mind. Yet this small peace did not deter her from her present, misguided quest.

"I can't live in fear of half the Human race, and I know who will have enough patience with me to make our union a true one. If I am a girl who likes other girls, I will still act in every way as Kouta's wife and mother to his children. I will not flee from men, making my stepfather's victory complete. Besides, even if I sought another girl, they will still not have known the world I have. They might hate Diclonius, and one such girl is my sister. My history and yours makes our marriage the best thing for all concerned."

Kouta was beginning to lose all patience with her circular logic.

"Again, what of Yuka-San? Do we put her in storage?"

Mayu's answers were flawed, but hardly empty of thought.

"Yuka-San is sharp and smart-and very beautiful. She chose to limit herself and her prospects by chaining herself to a childhood dream of you. She will do very well for herself once that dream is shown to be over. In a way, we will have done her a favor."

Like Kurama before him, Kouta gave the only response that could shut down this simplistic notion once and for all. He looked Mayu straight in the eye.

"Mayu-chan is my daughter. I have tried to be a good Papa. You have of late praised me for being a good Papa. Now you ask me to become the same kind of Papa that hurt you so badly? Because make no mistake, Mayu-chan, whether such a thing is savage or tender, it is in the end a Papa destroying his little girl so he can feel like a man, while forever making himself less than nothing."

Mayu didn't seem as badly upset as one might think.

"Bando-San said almost the same thing. With him, I had no recourse, no way to change his mind."

"As you have none with me. Let this subject drop, Mayu. I will gladly pretend it was never brought up."

But Mayu was not through.

"Oh, I have something. I believe in my cause, Kouta-San. I believe again, it is best for both of us. I believe in this so much, I am willing to hurt you now to give you comfort later. So these are my terms."

Kouta felt trapped by his lack of desire to hurt Mayu, but this was at an end.

"Go on."

She looked almost cold as she spoke, and her next words made Kouta wonder if Mayu had not been replaced with a clone, like those of Kurama's daughter.

"If Kouta does not accede to my wishes, then I will speak to Yuka-San and convince her that we two have had an affair lasting back several months. She can leave you amidst the search for a better life, or amidst the ruin of you both. Even Emiko-Dono, your own Aunt, will scorn you, and I can't see anyone else you know standing by you."

Kouta wanted to slap her, but being the first member of Maple House to know the truth of her past, he had once sworn to try and never make Mayu cry.

"You'd honestly do this?"

Her look was warmer now.

"Not to hurt you, but to show you where your future lies. The woman you're pursuing is wrong for you. She's slapped you when you spoke of love and marriage. What could be more clear?"

Kouta shook his head.

"You want me, but you would ruin me and destroy our family to get this?"

Mayu again showed strained logic.

"Nana has her family back, and Nozomi will reconcile with Haruto-San. Even the Bandos are back together, and Agent-San cares for Anna. I wouldn't permit you to go to prison, but you are the one choosing to hurt Yuka, not me. You hurt her by keeping to the fiction of your relationship."

Unable to look at her any longer, Kouta turned away, this time earning her raw fury.

"Look at me! Damn you, look at me! I have been patient long enough, and for my patience have been bounced around by fate and by the whims of others. I have taken it all on the chin, and everywhere else you can name. You are my path to a more certain future, and for the actions I may have to take to get there, I offer no apologies. Now will you agree to my terms, or will I call Yuka?"

When reality kicks apart dreams or nightmares that seem like dreams, it is usually quite unsparing. So it was now for Mayu.

"Why bother calling me, Mayu-chan? I'm right here - and I've been right here for this whole sorry thing. I'm sad that you believe I'd denounce Kouta on your word alone, but maybe I deserve that. Now let's get some things straight."

To Mayu's shock, Yuka pulled her close and held her before looking her in the eye. Mayu withered under that gaze.

"I intend to talk with Kouta right now, and resolve things between us. I intend that this resolution end with the idea that I will NEVER go away. He is mine, and I mean to fix all that stands in the way of that, including my own foolishness. As for you-"

Mayu looked down.

"I will leave, Yuka-San. What I have done can never be forgiven."

Yuka pulled her face back up.

"No. You will go upstairs to the classroom area and rest up, while Kouta and I have it out. You will wait for me, and you must not leave, if you wish to still be a part of this family. I am Mama. I will decide what and who can and can't be forgiven. You must have the courage to face me after this, or I will lose all respect for you. Will you obey my word?"

Mayu began to look like a drunk who just realized all the things they had said and done during a bender. His anger aside, it hurt Kouta to see her like this.

"I will, Mama. I will wait for you and Papa, and accept your judgment on me."

Before Kouta could reach out for her, Mayu was up the stairs and in the classroom area, hours away from scheduled classes that were now being frequently cancelled.

There, she sat, shaking like a leaf, thinking of things she had said, and not only to Kouta. The mental replay had her weeping, wondering what dark part of her soul these had travelled up from. But if Mayu felt alone, there was one who would never leave her side for too long.

"Who's-there? Wanta-chan?"

The small dog licked her face and then nuzzled against her, the thing he had hated in the soul of the one he loved now gone. But Mayu couldn't be sure of that.

"Maybe Wanta doesn't want to be around Mayu anymore. I-I always feared this might happen, and now there is no denying it."

The dog kept close, and nothing could chase him off. But now Mayu was tormented by a singular thought, again one of her greatest fears.

"I think now that I'm crazy in the head - like Mama was."

Sadly, the Mama she referred to was her birth-mother, and not Yuka.

Downstairs, the girl's true Mama and Papa prepared to have it all out.

9

Emiko awoke to find Haruto placing a poached egg over some boiled rice, one of two bowls he had prepared. He smiled at her. He wasn't a bad or an ugly man, but this almost made Emiko ill.

*Yeah, I handled this as well as I always do. Now I know where Yuka acquired her genius in affairs of the heart. Sheesh.*

Looking like his daughter Nozomi was the farthest thing from his mind, Haruto sat down to his bowl after putting out Emiko's.

"You had some olive oil and cheese, so I topped the rice with it. Makes a nice treat."

Since she was hungry, Emiko sat and ate, but she proved to be not much of an actress, and Haruto read her face all too well.

"I should leave, shouldn't I?"

Emiko shook her head.

"No, sit and eat. Nothing happened here that I didn't agree to. We're both adults - or at least you are."

Haruto had seen this woman's comfort well before things went perhaps too far, and would not allow her to be so hard on herself without dispute.

"If I recall, I was the crybaby, before that, the wild accuser, and before that, a foolish father. I can't regret what just happened too much. But I do regret being so pitiful that you felt you had to counter this."

Emiko felt it was time for some truth.

"Haruto-San, you almost buried a daughter. Well, I did. I loved Nyu, and, with all we found out, I think I still love her. So don't think I'm not vulnerable myself right now. But my weakness for men in a sorry moment goes back a long way. I first met Yuka's father in school. He was a track meet athlete - a rising star, until one day every last bit of bad dumb luck struck at him all at once."

Haruto shrugged.

"How much bad luck are we talking?"

Emiko said two words.

"Charlie Brown."

Haruto need be told no more after that.

"So you comforted him?"

Emiko looked down, almost ashamed of this story.

"To the point I ended up marrying a man I cared for, but couldn't love, and who had issues with my family's properties being our income source. So he took a job with a hideous commute, to the point we were becoming one of those couples - existing in name only. He drove a too-cheap, poorly-maintained car too great a distance with too little sleep on one too many occasions. Within three weeks of this, I was told my sister, who ignored her doctor's warnings about having a second child, had left her new daughter and son without a mother - and her strong husband without a wife. I tried to show restraint - this man was almost my brother, after all. But in his lonely grief, I found I had none."

She kept on, these two trading family secrets like family recipes - which ironically, are usually the better kept of the two.

"We invented reasons to meet, to be together. That one summer was meant to perhaps prepare our children for becoming one family. But at the last minute, he said he wasn't yet ready. He was prepared to move on from his wife, but not with her own sister. It felt too much like a betrayal. Since it felt that way for me as well, we talked about the next summer."

She chuckled very lightly.

"As often as I rode Yuka for not moving on from Kouta, I envied my own child. For her dreamboat might one day come back. Mine never could. At times, I've had dreams of him in Heaven. He says my sister didn't scorn us. But I've never relied on dreams. So you see, Haruto-San, men in bad positions elicit my sympathies - but the results are never what anyone might like."

Haruto managed a smile, and a small confession.

"You are the first woman I have touched since I found my Nomi's body that day."

Which told volumes to Emiko about maybe why relations in the Watanabe household had deteriorated. For her own part, Emiko had been careful, discreet, but hardly chaste. But now she had a notion how to solve Haruto's problems.

"Things are awkward now, and you need to get your child back. May I suggest we take whatever tender energies have been brought up and figure that part out?"

When her world had fallen apart some years back, Emiko got too close to a man who wasn't quite ready to be close. Now, while the world itself fell apart, she vowed to not do with Nozomi's father what she had done with Kouta's.

Vows are funny things.

10

Kurama was giving in to his very worst, and most dangerous indulgence, something he hadn't allowed himself in years, and arguably something that could be least afforded as the plaster fell off the walls of creation.

*That girl died. We tried our best to save her.*

But the captive girl in this fantasy retelling was as always, not cooperative.

**Her name was Aiko Takada, and she died because you killed her.**

As with explaining his job to Hiromi, attempting to raise Mariko correctly, and successfully standing up to the Kakuzawas, this idle retelling was fraught with facts he could not fantasize away. In his mind, if Lucy was a captive, then the girl who'd been with her was dead, whether he or a security trooper shot her.

*We wanted to capture you. If you had just surrendered...stop.*

Cursing himself, Kurama withdrew and began the statement anew.

*We wanted to capture you. You were hurting people. Killing some, making others have babies who later attacked them, in part because their powers arrived much earlier than they did for you.*

If this had just been a fantasy, Kurama would have had happy chatter on both sides, leading to breakthroughs and lives saved. But he wanted this logical. It was not just a fantasy, it was an exercise.

**So instead you torture them in this place. I can hear their screams. Feel their pain.**

Kurama drew in. From talks with Kouta - one alliance he would never regret, if simply for awaking and unleashing the young man's mind - he knew that while Lucy might somewhat regret this or that action or consequence, broadly speaking, personal responsibility was not a concept she grasped properly outside of her circle of friends and family.

*Yes, but didn't you make them to replace Humans? They are perhaps doing what they were meant to, but as they do this, don't you think we would at least be curious as to why, and try to stop them from pushing us out?*

He could almost feel the breakthrough in her hesitation. Yet now her voice shifted from one of memory to almost one of the present day.

**This is pointless, Kurama. We both made dumb-ass choices. I'm going to Hell for them now, and you'll meet me there. That isn't me hating you. That is a fact. We hated, and we let ourselves be played by someone who will at least roast deeper than either of us will. You and I were sick partners in a hideous crime. I made and then abandoned the babies that you killed. If you have any use for my memory, don't write fiction with it. End this war. Kouta is the key. He can stop this war, just by being himself. If you can end this war with a livable world around us, our shades can pass by each other in Perdition's Light with all old business done, and that is all such as we can hope for. Now go.**

Kurama's eyes snapped open.

"Lucy?"

He was sitting bolt upright in his rest area aboard a US Navy aircraft carrier. A young woman, a USN Lieutenant, stood before her. Her look was severe, and oddly, both her head and her eyebrows were shaven. She wore a uniform he would have thought more a male's, and had a standard cap just slightly too large for her head size. He guessed it might have been armored somehow.

"Doctor Kurama? We're almost ready to fly your daughter to meet with the President. We've been forced to arrange a route almost entirely over water, due to Diclonius attacks. They like to throw debris into air routes, sometimes very high. I'm LJG Julie Kyle. I will be your and Queen Nana's escort and bodyguard, should it come to that."

As Kurama watched, an MP carrying what looked like a metal valise walked up.

"Lieutenant Kyle? The emergency vaccine cache is ready. Where should I secure it?"

Kyle looked at the valise. It was a look of utter disgust and disdain.

"Harriman, get that -abomination- away from me. Keep it at the secure entry station to the reactor area. That casing will keep radiation off it - though I'd like to see it tossed straight into the core."

As a sheepish Harriman left, Kyle explained.

"Every major carrier has a couple of samples of the vaccine your Doctor Arakawa cooked up. These are kept in case somehow all the others are lost."

Since that was as sensible a precaution as Kurama had yet heard, he commented on something else entirely.

"You don't care much for the vaccine, Lieutenant?"

"No, Doctor, I do not care for it at all. So far as I am concerned, it is the weapon meant to slaughter The Holy Innocents, and all respect, I feel like I'm staring at King Herod himself."

When the young woman did not simply reach for her sidearm and ventilate him, Kurama continued.

"What I have done cannot be undone. God will see me to my reward, such as it may be, in his own due time. You are anti-abortion, I take it?"

Her hard stare kept making Kurama wonder.

"I am Right-To-Life, sir. But if you are concerned, understand that, unlike certain traitors, I will not jeopardize America's safety by an unthinking adherence in a dire situation. The girls out there - and let's pray that it stays just girls - are the pawns of a maniac worse than your worst sins, and may simply be lost. That alone is not your fault. Now please follow me, sir. You have a meeting with three of our own scientists. They've completed the work-ups you requested, based on the individuals of concern."

Kurama followed her, not entirely certain that the light she saw him in wouldn't be a danger to himself or Nana. He reminded himself he still had his sidearm, but against a trained soldier, would it matter?

"KYLE! Get back-get-UUUUUHHH!"

Army Scientist Major Doctor Francis Lavon staggered forward, a hole in his chest. The girl behind him pushed over his corpse. But instead of Kurama, she stared at Kyle.

"What are you doing here? YOU shouldn't be here. How can you do this to-"

Kurama now made good use of his weapon, felling the attacker with a bullet to the head. Kyle seemed to aim her sidearm at him, but instead fired twice past him at two more Diclonius. Securing the area with some arriving MP's, Kyle shrugged.

"I have to find out how the hell they got aboard. Doctor Kurama, you now have a meeting with two Army Scientists. Doctor Lavon is not gonna make it."

Her words seemed humorous on the surface, but they were tinged with bitter regret, and notably, no change in her disdain for Kurama.

*But then, that would have been a suspicious leap, if made.*

Inside the now-heavily-guarded lab area, Kurama saw two US Army officers, rugged-ized laptops displaying the results he had come to see. One was dark-haired with a prominent Roman nose, and the other had blondish, curly hair.

"Gentlemen-I'm sorry for the loss of your colleague."

The dark-haired one spoke first.

"Doctor Kurama, I'm Alphonse D'Abbrozzo and this is my colleague, Wayne Pernell. As to Francis, well, we're grieving, but, he had a penchant for ignoring procedures. Our late CO, Colonel Edgar Stevenson, once wrote him up for that. He ignored protocol about going outside without escort. By the way-please address us by 'Doctor', and not our rank, if you could."

Doctor Pernell nodded.

"Everyone knows the difference, but the rank of Army Captain on a Navy posting can still cause some confusion. We feel like there's enough of that going around."

A sentiment Kurama could not help but agree with.

"Doctors, I will willingly offer all I have. I'm told that you were forwarded the medical work-ups on the residents of Maple House?"

D'Abbrozzo pulled up some of the results on the screen before him.

"Well, they're all healthy, and they're all Human, excepting your daughter of course. But I dunno-certain anomalies show up. I might almost call them isotopes - kind of like Human Plus. No extra abilities, but definite alterations to their intrinsic field - or I would say that, if I actually scanned them myself and had the equipment to do so. Sorry, Doctor. It's just that the only thing I can define about these kids is that something has changed from the baseline. They all lived with this Lucy?"

Kurama had been forced by events to more and more see Lucy as a real person, and this was not a view he was entirely comfortable with. The pain between them ran deep enough that it had been easier to see her as a walking storm, a Gojira of evolution. He still refused to feel sorry for her. She had actually attempted to kill the girl, Mayu, as close to a little sister as Lucy ever had. Nana had obviously made her peace with Lucy's presence, but Kurama still saw her bloody limbless form while Lucy cackled. Yet the visceral story of the stray pup had resonance he could not deny, and the final fact remained : Lucy so wanted to stay with these people, she was willing to effectively cease to exist to make it happen.

"They were, Doctor, her family. I believe she loved them, one and all, or at least in that limited way monsters sometimes care for others. Two people she wronged very deeply still wanted her to stay on with them. At the same time, Lucy's situation at Maple House was unique on several levels, and whatever she did to them, deliberate or accidental, is also apt to be unique."

Doctor Pernell was next, and he took this conversation to the next level.

"Well, while my pal here took a gander at Lucy's bunch, I've been poring over the DNA of our fast-ageing Diclonius. Gents, I think I have you both beat. This is some unbelievable stuff. This Kakuzawa was either a medical genius himself or a master at tapping just the right people. I don't know whether to stand in awe or run to the Head-I mean, Latrine to throw up."

Kurama found the man's words and humor crude, but empathized in part.

"He was likely both types of genius, Doctor. Your reaction to gaining insight into his work is a common one, I fear. I wish I'd had it sooner."

Pernell continued.

"Likely, you never could have seen it coming. This stuff is so carefully embedded, you have to know it's there to be looked for - if that makes any sense. I thought for a while there might be animal DNA mixed in here. I swore I saw scorpion, mongoose-piranha-"

Looking annoyed, D'Abbrozzo interrupted his friend.

"Look, Hunter - we don't need a Sci-Fi Channel marathon - especially an original movie."

Pernell looked to have great impatience with what Kurama guessed was a tendency of his colleague.

"Hey, Uncas? Give me some credit for brains. Not even the bunch on that island really knew how to effectively mix animal and Human, outside of some very limited stuff. They came close, from what we've gotten back from Kakuzawa's House Of Pancakes. But they couldn't get a real mix going - not on the level that keeps somebody looking and acting mostly Human and surviving three hours past birth. So instead of actually mixing it all in a genetic blender, they manipulated the Human and Diclonius samples that they had to emulate all those species I just mentioned-and probably a few more. I said mongoose before, right? Well, I think this newest born batch of Diclonius see us as snakes - and a mongoose will pursue a snake till the end of time, if that's what it takes. In other words, they couldn't put unrelated species in the mix, so they aimed at enhancing the aggressive, defensive and territorial behavior of other groups."

Kurama now understood 'Hunter' Pernell's desire to purge his last meal.

"Gentlemen, I have twenty-four hours before I and Nana must leave for Washington. Creatures of aggression can also be too aggressive for their own good. It seems what I once thought true of all Diclonius is finally true of the weapon-breed Kakuzawa's virus launch has created. Since all knowledge is power, I am convinced we can use that information to counter the late Chief's plans and schemes. I have only one unrelated question before the longest research day of our lives begins. Doctor D'Abbrozzo-Uncas?"

The Doctor nodded.

"It's from 'The Last Of The Mohicans' - it was my father's favorite novel, growing up in Vermont."

Studying both sets of results, Kurama looked for something that could be used in battle, or even something to avoid battle altogether, though he began to doubt the possibility of that. Having never read the novel in question, he would borrow a paperback copy Doctor D'Abbrozzo had for reading on the flight.

The story by James Fenimore Cooper, which showed one culture fading while a newer one took hold, proved to be another bit of irony during the current war. During the tenth hour of their work, Kurama stood upright and called for his reluctant escort.

"Lieutenant Kyle, get all the Diclonius Attack Craft off of and away from ships holding vital equipment and materials."

Kyle was all business, at least this time.

"That's a hard sell for the brass, Doctor. Uncas, Hunter-you in on this?"

D'Abbrozzo shrugged.

"First I've heard of it. Not that my brains are firm enough to take it in if I had."

Pernell gave the same look of confusion.

"Sorry, Julie. Doctor Kurama here is damned near tireless. Right about now, we're the waterboys and maybe not even."

Kyle's job was to keep Kurama safe and pass messages to her superiors about the same. But contacting them for this task seemed a very unsafe bet.

"Doctor, are you sure your findings aren't influenced by fatigue? I've seen you take no breaks."

Kurama was firm in his resolve.

"As you observed, Lieutenant, I have much to atone for. My work is one means of that. Now, please tell the Navy to get those attack craft away from vital positions."

Kyle was still no more inclined to listen.

"Those Diclonius tanks may not be great weapons, but they are our warning system, Doctor. The only means we have of telling when we face attack by these girls."

D'Abbrozzo gained a stunned look on his face, which seemed to wake him up. Pernell followed soon after.

"Better do what he says, Jules. My God, how could we have not considered this?"

"Kid, Kurama here has the right idea. Move on it."

Kyle stared at the three with utter incomprehension, till Kurama realized he hadn't explained himself.

"My apologies. You are correct. Those bio-machines are how we sense Diclonius attacks. In this, they are very powerful. But since all Diclonius have this innate sense to recognize one another, what senses them can also be sensed-"

Kyle pulled out her radio.

"Kyle to CO! We have a compromised resource on board. Need autho to act."

The response was immediate.

"Attention all personnel. Lieutenant Kyle will supervise the immediate removal of a compromised resource. She has all due authority to act upon this with all deliberate speed. That is all."

Kyle prepared to meet the men who would take what had become an enemy magnet off the vessels of the Fleet. She looked at Kurama.

"Is it true they built those things from one girl, cloned over and over again?"

Kurama pulled out a picture.

"This girl. My girl. The one I failed to love until it was too late."

Kyle stared at the sweet little face.

"Maybe you were only one of Herod's soldiers."

She went off to do her work, and Kurama resumed his.

"Hmph-warn Kouta and Yuka-try to explain this to Mayu-chan-no. Could it be that simple?"

11

Kouta wanted to check on Mayu.

"She seemed so hurt."

Yuka stopped him.

"Let her stew for a time. Children know it in their cores - Papas mean fun, Mamas mean business. Our girl is smart, and is already reconsidering everything she did - maybe even from before she got here. She'll stay up there till we go and get her. Which is good."

Kouta thought he understood.

"What do you want to talk about?"

He prepared to raise objections, but then she stunned him by quietly stripping off everything she was wearing.

"Yuka-chan?"

She walked up and kissed him, placing his hand on her breast.

"I don't want to talk. I want you to make love to me. And if you think of her while we do - don't fight it."

The 'her' Yuka referred to was obvious. Before he kissed her back, he held the sides of her head.

"I will think only of you."

A chapter between the couple ended that night, and another began at last. When the first page was fully written, and they lay together, Yuka wrote the second in bold letters.

"You weren't my first."

Kouta's look was one of surprise, but not anger.

"A boy you knew from school?"

She cupped the cheek she once would have slapped for asking that.

"Not a boy."

His eyes went wide.

"Nozomi-chan? Owww!"

Two fingers lightly slapped his cheek.

"Do you think I would abuse my Kohai like that?"

Kouta felt like he knew the answer, but couldn't form it in his head.

"Who? Someone we know?"

Yuka sighed, but did not chastise him.

"Someone we knew. Someone we loved."

Kouta knew now, but it still hit him with the force of a hurricane when she confirmed it.

"Someone you killed."