He fell through the darkness, not fully weightful, but not quite as if he was floating. The last thing he had seen was the terrified look in her eyes, the last thing he heard was the deafening roar of a cannon alongside the frantic beat of his own heart trapped within his head. Everything was calm now, the nothingness around him allowing him to rest, or at least he thought he was resting. He had given thought to the end, considered his own mortality, but had decided that if anything would come after life, it would surely not be this. Everyone talked about the end, but none of them had ever considered what might come after; it was just too much to bear to consider your own death, let alone fathom the consequences. God he wished he wasn't gone, he had so much left to do; so many things left to say.

What would he say? When he woke up, if he woke up, would it all go back to normal, all go back to the way things were? That didn't sit well with him. He ached at the thought of his last battle being a loss, cringed that Hiro would inevitably surpass him. His fists tightened in rage the more he thought about what he would leave behind, how much of himself he would leave behind. He was a winner, a champion, the greatest! And anything short of that would be a failure, he would be a failure. She would reject him, move on from him, forget him. The blood in his veins boiled and he trashed in the void. What he wouldn't give for one more fight.

He stopped, and laid motionless; it was futile to do anything in his present state. He laughed, it was so tragic it was kind of funny. Here was the most ambitious, talented, renegade parasite to ever pilot a Franxx, and how does he get taken out? Not even in his machine, he's cut down in front of the silliest girl to ever wear a military uniform. My life for hers; my everything for her who knows what. He started to weep, and laugh, and scream all at the same time. He didn't know what to think or how to feel. He was as lost with his thoughts as his body was lost in this place.

Eventually he calmed down enough to clear his horse throat, and open his bleary tear stained eyes. A small pale blue dot, bathed in faint white light appeared a great distance in front of him. He was transfixed by this new entity taking over his vision; he couldn't look away even if he tried. It was new, and yet when he gazed upon it, it seemed very familiar to him. When he looked at it, he couldn't feel a single bad emotion, it gripped his soul warmly and wouldn't let go. After a while it became obvious that he was moving towards the pale blue dot, and that the distance had previously obscured its true nature as a much more fascinating moving object. As he came closer, new details seemed to emerge spontaneously. It wasn't just blue, but many other earthy shades, and it didn't move, but rather what was on the object was moving.

He had little control over how he approached the object. He tried swimming, or walking through whatever substance or space he was enveloped by, but try as he might, he moved towards it at the same pace and in the same direction no matter what he did. This became mildly concerning as the object now loomed large, covering most of his field of vision. What has even more concerning though was what the object had become. It spooled out like a movie projector in front of him, a cinemaesque scene, but through a first person perspective. Soon despite his struggles and protests his vision became its vision, and all the blackness faded away.


He was standing in line, staring at the back of the person in front of him as he heard the faint sound of counting. 385, 386,387,388,389….390. His hand uncontrollably shot up, he could feel it even if he had no agency over his action. His vision turned to see a tall man dressed in a white cloak and a mask that covered his eyes and extended far above his head. The mans lips moved but he could make out no distinct words, only that this man had been the one counting. Eventually he turned back and the counting continued, and continued, 550,551,552,553,554,555….556. His head snapped again to look far down the line of people. They were parasites, or rather parasites in training, wearing the type of dress he used to wear as a little kid, lined up for as far as the eye could see. Suddenly his vision was engulfed by an angry adult with a raised hand, he couldn't make out her words, but they were loud. As her hand moved with the obvious intent to hit him he tried to raise his arms to block, but to no avail, he was paralyzed. As the slap around the face came closer he resigned himself to the pain and closed his eyes to flinch, but nothing ever came.

When he opened his eyes he was sitting in front of a large desk. A woman, another adult, was sitting behind it sternly speaking to him in the same muffled tones as nearly everything and everyone else. He listened inattentively for what seemed like forever, he almost fell asleep, until he heard a powerful scream come from off in the distance. The adult's head turned, and so did his to an open door only a few feet away which seemed to enter into a grey hallway. Loud bangs and animal like noises added to the chorus of sounds as it became clear several people were fighting and struggling.

What he saw next deeply unsettled him. As the sounds came to crescendo, he could feel the intensity of the space as they awaited learning what all the commotion was about as whatever it was, crossed in front of the open door. And what he saw was not possible. His eyes feel open a small boy, a boy so familiar to him, he could not mistake him for anyone else. He saw himself.

Writhing for control between two adults, he kicked and punched and screamed, he even tried to bite one of them to no avail. It was surreal, how could he see himself somewhere else? He was in this deep black void, or maybe he was in this char, but he certainly wasn't the one fighting those two adults. Even more mistitifying was that he was looking at a much younger version of himself, barely even 10. He would have called out to himself, but he was silent, and soon the door was slammed shut. He heard the adult left in the room speak to him again, the only word clear to him being 'devil', and nodding his head up and down as if to wordlessly assent. The adult then proceeded to open the door again, but instead of a grey hallway, it opened into blackness. Nonetheless his body moved of its own volition, got up off the chair, and walked into the blackness as if nothing were amiss.


"You heard him right?" he heard a girls voice ask.

"No, she SAW him" said another.

"Wow, it's a miracle your alive" chimed in a third.

She? What the fuck? I am clearly a man you dumb little children.

"What are you guys talking about?" asked an eerily familiar voice.

They scoffed and giggled, "Haven't you heard of him 556?".

He couldn't see her, but he could tell she was apprehensive, "Heard of who?" she asked in response.

"The devil!" all three of the other girls replied in unison.

556 yelped, scared of such an evil sounding being, and took a few steps back from the others.

"They say he's half feral animal" one said.

"No, it's even worse, he's half Klaxsosaur" another corrected.

"He'll kill you if you make eye contact with him" she continued.

"Yeah, they feed pistils who misbehave to him as punishment".

556 was terrified at this point and had fallen back onto the ground, or at least that's what it sounded like. He was hearing all of this like voices in his head amidst the eternal darkness.

Then he heard it, her.

"Pfft, as if guys, stop scaring Kokoro with your nonsense gossip, it's not even remotely true".

It was Miku's voice, for sure. Although it was slightly higher pitched and more childish than he remembered, even for the Miku he knew.

Just than, an image of a young Kokoro sitting on the ground and an outstretched hand appeared before him. He tried to look around to find Miku, but just like before he had no control over how his body moved or what it looked at. Once she had stood up, his eyes turned to look at the young group of pistils that he had heard before, none of which he recognized.

"He's not a devil, he's just a crybaby" said Miku, although he did not see her among the group of girls and did not see her anywhere around them.

"I could take that bastard anytime I wanted to, and i'd never let him hurt any of you" she continued, as if speaking directly into his head, her voice having no apparent direction nor drop in volume from distance.

The girls continued to talk, he could see their lips moving, but no sound came out. Slowly the image of them began to fade, and they began to melt away before him, but it had no apparent impact on them, as if they didn't even know they were disappearing from existence. This is getting really weird was all he could think about the increasingly bizarre things he was seeing.


Black again, how original, he thought as the ubiquitous black returned and didn't seem to immediately turn into anything else. What kind of dumb afterlife was this where he lived the disembodied experiences of some strange young parasite. Worse than that, he was having auditory delusions of Miku, and visual ones of a young Kokoro. If he ever woke up he really needed to see a psychiatrist about his minds odd choice in unconscious imagery.

He began to feel a burning sensation in his hands, a sharp and almost unbearable feeling as if a knife was being slowly plunged into them. I take it back, i'll have the delusions, this is not an improvement. But wishing had no impact on the sensation. Soon his eyes opened onto a much more recognizable scene, he was piloting a Franxx, or on more careful inspection, a Franxx simulation machine. In front of him was a small girl in a plain Pistil uniform with long pink hair, and was clearly experiencing the same kind of pain he was in.

Her chest was heaving as if she was desperate for breath, she was sweating profusely, and yet she was holding on. She wouldn't take her hands off the controls, or yank the ones attached to her hips away from him. It felt like a thousand Franxx were hooked into his body and he was trying to control all of them at once. It was the kind of electrical feeling you got when you first connected, but as if the disequilibrium would never end. Something like that would kill any normal pilot, because of the necessity of equal input from pistil and stamen, but somehow they were both enduring it for much longer than anyone could hope.

The pain was almost unbearable but eventually it began to fade and turn into the energized flow of two expertly synched parasites, however this would not last long as the connection broke down. A loud alarm rang and the girl collapsed into her seat in the Franxx. A team of adults opened the cockpit and ran in to unseat her from the machine and strip her of her pilots uniform, she was unconscious. He couldn't see her face, but his heart began to beat unreasonably fast. He was overwhelmed with the desire to reach out to the brave girl whom he had been piloting with, her determination was unbelievable. However, for not the last time that day, he was frustrated by his inability to move his arm or effect his world in anyway.

He was alone for a moment before another recognizable face appeared before him with a beaming smile.

"Good work 666" spoke the deep and reassuring voice of , "you'll get the hang of it eventually.

666? That was his number. What on earth was happening now. Was he viewing something through his own eyes now?

"Who was that girl?" He asked, sure that whoever was speaking it must have been him to Dr. Franxx as there was no one else around.

"Curious? That's new" Dr. Franxx said with a light chuckle. "She's just another pistil, not worth your time really" he finished.

"But she held on for so long doctor, more than any other!" he said emphatically to him, desperate to see her again, or learn more about her.

"No, she didn't hold on longer, you held off for longer 666", he said with a proud smile on his lips, "I don't know why yet, but for some reason your power was brought down an immense amount when you piloted with her, I'm sure with the proper training, you'll be able to replicate the results with a much more suitable co-pilot".

As the world faded to black once more, he couldn't help but feel a pain in his heart. Who was that? He wondered, unlikely to be given any answers. These...whatever he was experiencing, never lasted that long, and left him with many more questions than answers every time. At this point he just wanted them to end. If he had to float in endless black like he had been until he either died or woke up, he would prefer that to any more of these confusing delusions.


"He's beautiful don't you think?" he heard a feminine voice say.

"Beautiful?" another voice said, "he's an abomination".

The female voice gasped at the suggestion. "How could you say that about our own son?".

"They'll kill us and him if they ever find out!" he said in rising anger, "I love him more than anything in the world, but he is endangering our lives, and won't live a very long one of his own if the authorities ever find out" he finished.

The woman began to weep quietly, "what can we do?" she asked.

"We'll take him to the garden, I can easily hide him there by blending him into the mass of artificial humans, they'll just think his paperwork went missing" he replied, laying out his plan.

"But..but that means he'll grow up a parasite! He could die before he even makes it that far, and he most surely will die in those barbaric units they use to defend the plantations".

"Any price he pays there will be the cost of him not being immediately executed here" he replied, "We have to give him the best chance we can, and he has the chance to live a good life there, if he is even half as great as we think he is, he'll be the greatest pilot ever and honored all over the world".

"When will you do it? I want to spend at least one night with him before he has to leave forever" she begged, desperation clear in her voice as if her heart were being ripped in two.

"I'll start off tomorrow, i'll tell them I have to take an unplanned trip to inspect the garden, they won't think twice" he replied.

"What should I do?"

"It'll be hard, but you must try and act as normal as possible or they will suspect something. I know it will be unbearable for you, but go to work, smile and laugh, don't give them any reason to suspect what happened, it is our son's only hope".

She nodded her head unable to form words as she sobbed and tried to hold in her screams and tears.


1100 Hours APE Coordinated Time

The Boarding House, Cerasus.

He blinked several times, his eyes were incredibly dry, his mouth was incredibly dry, everything felt dry. He needed water, and a lot of it, It was all he could think about.

"Wa…" damn it was hard to form the words, almost as if he forgot.

"Wa..ta" he tried again, still not quite getting it right, fuck.

He wiggled his fingers, he tried picking up his arm but it was of little use, he could barely lift it off the bed before it flopped back down.

"I...nee...waa" more and more was coming, but just not enough.

Suddenly the sound of a book hitting the floor and a gasp could be heard nearby. He tried speaking again, sure that someone might hear him now.

"Wa...ter" was what he was finally able to have sputter out of his mouth, sure that was his limit at this particular moment. Thankfully for him, it seemed to be enough, as water finally touched his lips moments later after considerable commotion.

What began as a slow sip he soon turned into a full on guzzle as he gulped down glass after glass as he begged for more and more water.

Once he was finally done, whatever angel was providing him with the cool crisp water he so desperately desired wiped his lips clean for him.

"Zorome?" asked the voice tentatively.

After travelling through whatever he had been going through for so long, he was so glad to hear a familiar name, his own name.

He opened his eyes to see the violet strands of hair and glasses that framed the gentle face of Ikuno. Even if they weren't on the greatest terms he was ecstatic to see her, it was proof that he wasn't dead. He knew he would go to heaven, and in his heaven, there would be no Ikuno.

He began to giggle, and it soon transformed into a full blown laughing fit. He was so thrilled to be alive, he skipped right past happiness and went straight to unbridled joy.

"HAHAHA, Zorome enters the fray! HAHA".

He was alive. He was alive!


(A/N) Gomen, Gomen. It took me a while to develop how the story was going to progress from where I left it. I knew I wanted to do something different then what I had been doing to explore Zorome's psyche and also to keep in interesting for you guys. I hope the ending isnt too corny, I wanted to get it in somewhere, and I knew that it would be very him to wake up from a coma with a line ready.

Next chapter shouldnt take as long as this one, but who knows!

Thanks for all your continued support!