Asura's POV

"A bomb!" Hope exclaimed. I followed him as he ran, pretty bravely I could add, back to the Gran Pulse rally.

Was there ever a dull moment with him?

The site of the rally was littered with rubble. The stage we'd stood on minutes ago was charred and barely recognizable and while a fair bit of the mob had fled, plenty was still here. It was a scary thought: we'd almost suffered the same fate as Governor Estheim.

"We need to help them!" I shouted, frantic. I recognized a few of them, not too many, but I saw other had-been l'Cie: plenty, like me, branded by Anima. Most of the others were before my time; being crystallized billions of years before I was even born. I even saw the l'Cie I'd thought of as idols. Now they looked terrible, attacked whilst spreading hatred. Times change. A lot.

"You ok?" Hope knelt by some other Gran Pulse protester, using whatever first aid training he had. I couldn't remember too much of that, but I'd been taught some remedies back in the day. God I sounded old.

"You mind?" I tugged gently on a bloodstained, torn jacket sleeve, looking at my patient: a youngish Gran Pulse inhabitant, skin very dark. That meant he was-I searched my memories-from up North. We'd heard of a few tribes, scattered and small, surviving up there, so he might've been one of the rare, hiding never-l'Cie Pulse survivors.

"Feel free" he remarked, heavily accented.

I ripped the rest of the sleeve off, tying a tight bandage over the wound.

"Did you mean what you said?" the man asked, wincing, "about being the daughter of the Chosen Vanille?"

"Yep" I nodded, checking his body for any more wounds.

"Strange, but I never heard of Vanille conceiving"

"Everyone says that" I laughed a little; "I am her daughter though" That was one thing I was sure of. Oerba Dia Asura. Daughter of Vanille.

"We can't just believe you at face value"

"I've been told I look like her, and I'd be all too happy to do a genetic test if you can get a sample of her DNA"

"Who's your father?" The thick accented voice of the man caught me off guard.

"What?" I muttered, bandaging a wound on his knee.

"If you're her daughter, then who was the father?"

I felt an odd urge to say Fang, but I shook it off, unsure of where it came from.

"I don't know" I sighed; yet another thing I never learnt about mom: "She died when I was one. I never knew her"

"I'll give you one thing" the man got to his feet, grimacing slightly, "you're the most convincing performer I've seen"

"It's no performance" I groaned, watching the patient limp away. "It's who I am." Why did no one believe me? I felt like a kid swearing blindly that they'd seen the monster under the bed. It was just my word, and with so many preconceptions…

I turned, to see Hope staring at me.

"Do you mind?" I asked, mildly irked, before laughing at his guilty face. Caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Sorry" he blushed slightly, "it's just, well, you look a lot like her" he shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant.

"Thanks" I grinned back.

Hope's POV

I walked through the injured crowd, shoulders sagging when the ones that could crawled away. Where they so afraid that, even this injured, they'd flee from anyone Cocoon citizen? I shot a quick glance at Asura; she was already working on one guy.

"Some of us would like help, y'know?" a wheezing voice came from one man lying on the floor. His garb, a series of jacket like drapes, were ripped and torn, and his chest was incredibly grazed.

"I hope so" I murmured, kneeling next to the Pulsian activist.

"Hope, is it? I'm Sollo. Oerba Del Sollo if you're being fussy"

"Oerba?" I queried

"Yep. We lived near our own fal'Cie remember? Anima. That's why plenty of us survived: getting a Focus in a few steps and then sleeping" he laughed a little, gasping as I knotted my bandanna over a gash in his elbow.

"Traitor" some face in the sore mob groaned, lying on the ground, in too much pain to get up like most of the activists.

"You're not like the rest" I commented

"I accept help wherever it comes from, pet or otherwise. Hey, don't look at me like that. You made a statement, a good point if I'm honest. Besides, you once served Gran Pulse: you carried the same brand as me. I can recognize a kindred spirit"

"Thanks" I nodded

"Though I wouldn't be too sure about that friend of yours, Asura, right? I can tell you one thing; I lived in that era, I even followed Vanille for a day or so when she was a l'Cie. I lived in the same village as her right from when she was a teenager. One thing I am certain of, is that she never carried, much less had, a child" Sollo glared into my eyes.

I bandaged a separate wound, somewhat tighter than I intended.

"Ow! Alright, don't believe me?" Sollo seemed exasperated, "tell you what, come see me once you finish here. I'll be at 46 New Sunleth if you're interested. I've got something you might want to see." Sollo sighed, getting to his feet slowly, "Good job, by the way" he looked at the bandages, one being the now bloodstained bandanna I usually had around my neck.

I watched him pace off, sighing a little. Everyone found it so hard to believe Vanille was a mother and yes, while she never mentioned Asura, Asura was just too similar to Vanille for it to be dismissed on coincidence alone.

I looked at Asura, aware I was staring but not stopping. There was just something enchanting about watching her comfort the stranger, helping him recover.

"Do you mind?" She turned around quickly, irate

"Ah, um, sorry" I blushed, trying not to make a fool of myself, "it's just, well, you look a lot like her"

"Thanks" her mood quickly flipped until she had a broad grin. I relaxed, slightly less embarrassed now.

Bang.

I whirled around, looking over the few remnants of the Pulse crowd, wounded and groaning on the ground. Looking past the men, women and children that were already leaving. Looking past Asura, as she stood upright, black and red hair frozen as if in fear.

A bullet embedded itself in the stone ground between us.

Asura span around, seeing the barrel of a gun poking out from a window pane. The person holding the gun shifted the weapon slightly, pointing in our general; direction. I darted out of the way, Asura running the other way. It followed Asura, pointing straight at her.

Bang.

No bullet came from that gun; instead, someone else fired at the window holding the sniper. In a blur of pink and white, a woman leapt and fired several gun shots from a weapon resembling a sword, straight at the sniper. When she was satisfied the sniper had stopped, she turned and looked at me.

"They said I'd find you here. Like father like son, hm?" she seemed annoyed, but I could see past that façade.

"Thanks Mom" I grinned.

"Mom? Mrs Estheim?" Asura frowned looking from me to her.

"Not by a long shot" the pink haired woman laughed; "Hope just calls me that. You can call me Lightning."

"Thanks Light" I grinned, thanking her again.

"Such gratitude. You wouldn't need my help if your friend wasn't being hunted" she sighed dismissively

"What?" Asura stumbled

"You can't tell me you didn't notice. That sniper was aiming for you, and two bombs have gone off at rallies you were just at. A Pulse and a Cocoon rally"

"Could you look after her? I need to see someone" I thought of Sollo, unsure of why I felt the need to see him. I guess I was just curious about Asura after all.

"She's not as scary as she looks" I whispered to Asura.

"I hope not" she murmured back. "But why am I being hunted?" Asura seemed to have become instantly serious, as opposed to her normal cheerfulness.

"Vanille's daughter, so I've heard. Bound to raise a few eyebrows" Lightning finished surveying the rally, before sheathing her weapon. The victims of the bomb were to injured and weak to protest against another Cocoon citizen.

"I guess so" Asura seemed somehow muted.

I watched the two of them walk off together. I suppressed the guilty excitement I was feeling, trying not to seem suspicious as I loitered. I just needed them so I could go to… New Sunleth wasn't it? Sollo said he had something I needed to see. And frankly I was curious.

It took a little while to navigate the streets of Cocoon City. In the last four years much of the wildness of Pulse had been removed, and Cocoon City was a sturdy, pretty well built capital of the empire spreading across Pulse, but to me it just never seemed right. I knew Pulse as it was: Gran Pulse. It was stunning. We'd seen wyverns and Adamantoises ruling the plain, and the huge simplicity of the natural field. But now it had all become artificial: long, winding roads leading to nowhere, a condensed representation of Cocoon. Which meant, past the Vile Peaks Junkyard, round a few alleyways, and there was the road taking its name from Sunleth Waterscape: New Sunleth.

Sollo had said 46, right? I walked down the smooth, grey street, watching a few bikes shoot by. By the time I'd reached number 41, the stream of bikes had subsided, so I quickly darted across the road, walking ahead a little and seeing number 44. Next to it, on a deep, dark green door, were the golden, ornate numbers 46.

I knocked on the door twice, hearing the hollow noise echo slightly.

I heard a rustle and a few murmurs. The door slowly opened, Sollo peering through the crack. "Hope!" He nodded, looking around outside hastily. Good, come in then, quickly"

I followed his instruction, slightly disturbed by how paranoid he appeared by having a Cocoon citizen on his doorstep. Inside his house, it was dark and slightly musty, the smell of dry paper invading the air. I followed Sollo through the thin corridor, reaching a wide room a few steps down the brownish path. The room was circular, a lone chair sitting in the centre, surrounded by huge whitewashed walls. The walls were virtually completely covered with scraps of paper.

"It's my Focus" Sollo smiled, almost nostalgic, hooking a thin wire frame pair of glasses over his ears. "Back then I had to protect the records. They detail every l'Cie ever created, and everyone who lived in Oerba: the other records are either lost of other once-l'Cie have them"

"So?" I looked from wall to wall, slightly taken aback by the volume of scrawled, inky writing and crumpled parchment.

"I've got details of every l'Cie made by every fal'Cie, from Anima to Titan. I never heard of Vanille having a child, and one thing I can tell you: she wasn't close to anyone. The apparent father never existed as best I can tell. There was no sign of a relationship in Oerba, and you can look at those records" Sollo pointed to the row of flip charts along the wall. I looked at them, seeing the names of fal'Cie written at the top. The sheaths of paper varied a great deal; some were barely more than one sheet long, such as the list of Titan's l'Cie, while some were split into several volumes. I moved across until I found the list of Anima's l'Cie, where I flicked through it. On the last but one page, at the very top, 'Vanille' and 'Fang' were written. I read down through the text, reading plenty of names I'd never seen before. I reached the end of the list of Anima's l'Cie.

Asura wasn't there.

"She could have just been branded by another fal'Cie" I tried to make an excuse, "Or maybe the records are incomplete"

"Believe me, these records are the real deal" Sollo looked up, over the rim of his glasses: "I went into crystal sleep over the top of these records. There's no way they could've been changed after I slept, and Anima had been taken from Gran Pulse by the time I fulfilled my Focus. See, I'm there" Sollo pointed to the second to last name on the list. 'Oerba Del Sollo.'

"Who's that?" I pointed to the last name on the list, or at least, the last name before it said 'Serah', 'Snow', 'Sazh', 'Lightning' and 'Hope'.

"A Cie'th I should guess. Her brand was as good as complete by the time I decided to fulfil my Focus by sleeping over the records."

I still wasn't convinced.

Sollo sighed: "If you want the honest truth, I don't think Asura has ever seen Oerba, I'm not totally sure she even existed back then. She may well have come from one of the Northern tribes, generation upon generation beneath the ground or atop the mountain, away from the prying eyes of Cocoon. Look at this" Sollo dragged me across the room, pointing to a floor-to-ceiling spread of crumpled paper. "Chronological order of every family in Oerba dating back twenty generations" Sollo pointed to Vanille's name. It marked the end of the list. "As best I can tell, Asura never existed."

"Maybe Vanille just never signed Asura up" I didn't know why I was so defensive of Asura's parenthood, it was just, well, she looked so much like Vanille. And really, I needed to know some of Vanille had survived.

"You still need proof?" Sollo sighed

"Well, yeah" I chuckled

"Very well then" Sollo knelt down, pushing the chair in the centre of the room back a metre. He lifted and scraped a floorboard away, revealing a thin compartment. Pressed in it were two clear, plastic satchels, both with a white sticker on. One read 'F', while the other said 'V'.

Sollo gave me the bag labelled 'V'. It contained a long strand of orange hair.

"It's the Chosen Vanille's" Sollo smiled, "When we found out Oerba had the Chosen l'Cie in, we took hair samples from both. A ritual really, some way to remember the two that gave their lives. They were kept with the records"

I looked at Sollo, slightly mystified.

"Get some hair of Asura, or something. Go to your fancy Cocoon vets: do whatever genetic tests you need to."

I nodded slowly, looking at Sollo, before he continued.

"For I can tell you one thing, which I am as certain of as I am of my own name. The chosen Oerba Dia Vanille never, ever conceived or delivered a child."