Flower vase

Leaning against the wall I stood next to the closed door. I've watched the man in the white coat for a while now, who sat alone in the room at his desk with the back against the door, working. The whole scene intensively reminded me of me having visited Kurosu, although he had noticed me very well and had just ignored me strictly every time. When I was sure that the man in front of me wouldn't turn around in the near future, I finally revealed myself.

"Hello Shuichiro."

He sat up at once hearing my voice. Long seconds passed by as he then finally turned around and stared at me with eyes wide opened in shock as if I was a ghost.

"You still exist." His words were a mixture of surprised statement and disbelieving question. My assumption struck home it seemed.

"It depends on the definition of existence, I think", I answered and teleported to the left side of the door in the blink of an eye. "But why so surprised about it?"

"I acted on the assumption that, after the incident of Lost Christmas … Well, everything went wrong, so I thought that Da'ath … well, you … would have retreated … or dissolved …", he answered hesitating and still visibly shocked.

"Lost Christmas?", I asked with raised eyebrows.

He nodded. "This is what the incident gets officially called now. What had happened back then, actually?", he dug deeper. He seemed to slowly recover from his shock because his face became so calm and imperturbable as it was used to be.

I sighed deeply. "Eve got rejected by her chosen Adam on this day and the emotional release caused her losing control over her power, so she got destroyed by it at the end", I summarized shortly. "It would have happened sooner or later anyway. Mana was just too young."

"I understand. The apocalypse failed, as I assumed." He looked daggers at me with his dark eyes. "So why do you show up in front of me after more than six months?"

His words startled me, even if I didn't show it. I didn't know at all that I had spent so much time in Hades. It seemed that the time had gone much faster as I thought when I had been in Cocytus. But I didn't have to be worried, I calmed myself down. Humanity's will guides me. Apparently, it wanted things to settle down first after this unfortunate incident.

"Isn't it obvious?", I answered offhandedly. "I want to continue from where we left off back then." I noticed with pleasure, how my words disconcerted Shuichiro again.

"But haven't you just said that Mana Ouma died that day?"

"Yes. So?"

"So how can the apocalypse start without Eve?"

A big grin appeared on my face because I knew exactly how Shuichiro would react. "We are going to retrieve our lost Eve and revive Mana Ouma."

Shuichiro kept silent for a long time. Then he was finally able to speak again. "Da'ath is really able to do this?"

"It's humanity's will which let Eve get reborn again and again until she will complete her task and start the apocalypse", I answered. "Your so-called Lost Christmas was no proper apocalypse, because only a small area around Tokyo had been affected and Mana hadn't even an Adam by her side." Inevitably I remembered the events on the viewing platform from where Mana really had in mind to start the apocalypse without her Adam, if not … Yes, if Scrooge wouldn't have prevented it. I took a deep breath and then continued to speak. "Usually such a rebirth doesn't take very long, but one of your created monsters, Scrooge, keeps her imprisoned in Cocytus with his power of kings."

"Scrooge is involved, too?!"

"Exactly." I cocked my head. "And that's why I come to you again, Shuichiro. Disregarding we are something like business partners, it's attributed to your incompetence as a scientist that Scrooge had been able to wreak such a havoc with his incomplete power of kings." I almost expected that he would emphatically exculpate himself, but he didn't grant me this satisfaction. He just stared at me in silence, even if I could almost hear his anger seething inside him. "But even if Scrooge obstructs her rebirth", I finally continued, "he isn't able to prevent it in the end. Will you help me, Shuichiro?"

"My goals haven't changed since then", he answered after shortly hesitating. "I still want to see the apocalypse with my own eyes. So yes, I'll help you. What are you going to do?"

Instead of answering I teleported on his desk, so he had to turn around to me. Relaxed leaning back and crossing my legs, I finally focused him with my ice-blue eyes. "First tell me what had happened since the incident. This is not your usual office. Was it destroyed?"

"There were profound political changes." He crossed his arms in front of his chest and leant also back on his chair. "Lost Christmas spread the virus over whole Japan and triggered an epidemic around Tokyo. Countless people died at once, many others enveloped heavy symptoms. Roppongi got destroyed completely. The national state of emergency got declared on the same day and the UN, the United Nations, appeared on the scene. Providing funds and human resources they founded the so-called GHQ, an organization with absolute authority about everything that belongs to national or military sectors of Japan." He spread his arms. "And this is their headquarters. It isn't finished yet, but in the end it's a big complex with a military area, some research facilities, a hospital, some …"

"What is your job?", I interrupted his explanation.

"As an eminently respectable scientist I was requested to assume control of a quarantine unit whose members are called Anti Bodies. We are allowed to eliminate every infected person immediately."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "I thought, after the events of Lost Christmas every person is infected?"

Shuichiro shook his head. "Soon a vaccine was found which suppressed the developing symptoms, if you take it regularly and the cancer hasn't progressed too much. The research facility Sephira Genomics is in charge of the vaccine production and every further investigations of the apocalypse virus. It's based here, too." His look got serious. "Haruka is its leading scientist."

I smirked. "Has your sister already forgiven you her husband's murder?" Shuichiro looked at me in shock. Apparently he hadn't anticipated that I knew this fact. I saw him swallowing frantically, his hands trembled slightly.

"Where … do you know it from?"

"Scrooge had mentioned it back then", I answered shortly.

"I understand." He swallowed again. "And no, Haruka doesn't know the culprit. She joined up to … fulfill Kurosu's wish."

I sighed deeply. The Ouma family causes trouble all around. Every single member of them. But I had found out, what I wanted to know, so I was satisfied. "So you are in a leading position – I think, we can work well with this." I teleported back to the door, buried my hands in the pockets of my coat and paced up and down in the room, deep in thoughts.

"So what are you going to do?", Shuichiro asked after a while. "How can we revive Mana, if she had destroyed herself after all?"

"I need a room." I stopped and focused him. "A very large room which nobody will ever enter." He looked at me, shortly surprised, but then nodded.

"I will order it under the pretext that I need it for top secret research purposes. It won't be a problem and won't draw somebody's attention."

"Fine." I continued to walk. "I'm going to connect this world with the Cocytus in order to transfer Mana's consciousness into this world again. Scrooge can retain her body, but not her soul."

"Does Eve's consciousness suffice to start the apocalypse?", Shuichiro asked.

"No." I stopped again, turning my head to him with a smile. "And at this point you come in, Shuichiro. You will create a body for Mana."

Every other person in his stead just would have stared at me in shock, trying to stutteringly explain that this was impossible. But not Shuichiro. He had already done much worse things to living beings in order to create an Adam, so creating a human body probably wasn't a big challenge for him. Nevertheless, his seriousness surprised me at this moment. He examined me disparagingly, before he asked his question.

"Why creating a new body and not using an existing one?"

"Because an existing one has already a consciousness", I explained objectively. "It's already a person with memories, thoughts and feelings. An external consciousness would never be able to settle down there. And this leads us to another restriction …" I paused for a while and examined him. "We have to guarantee that the body won't reject her consciousness, but merges perfectly with it."

"A clone", Shuichiro completed my thought. "I still have Mana's DNS from the tests back then. The sample should suffice for a clone."

"Excellent."

"Am I right in assuming that the body has to have the exact same age as Mana at the time of her death?"

"It can be a little bit older", I answered. "Her consciousness will probably advance in Cocytus, but this difference in time won't get in the fusion's way. You can't determine it exactly, anyway." Shuichiro nodded and turned around to his desk, where he seemed to take some notes. "And combine Mana's DNS with Carol's", I added, causing him to turn around to me with a raised eyebrow.

"Why? Wouldn't be a pure clone better?"

"We have no choice." In my mind's eye I watched the boy called Triton confronting Mana with her symptoms. "Mana's body itself was already infected by the virus back then. It would be stupid to breed this already half destructed body again. Carol, however, was immune to the virus, that's why she was the only one Scrooge was able to touch with his right hand without causing her to crystallize immediately. Add as much from Carol's DNS until Mana's DNS isn't infected by the virus anymore, not more."

"All right." He turned around to his notes again. After a while working in silence he finally proclaimed his result. "Even if I had the accommodation and the equipment I need", he emphasized, "and the accelerated growing process is already considered, which can be used without any big genetic mutations, it will take about seven to nine years to create a body with such preconditions."

"Time is irrelevant for Da'ath", I answered with a smile. "Only results count. Can you give us results, Shuichiro?"

His look got serious. He turned around to his desk, took something out of one of the drawers and threw it to me. It was a black notebook on whose binding "2022 – 2032" was written in golden letters.

"This is Kurosu's notebook", he explained grimly. "There it is written in detail how to create the void-genome, your power of kings."

Looking at the notebook for a while, I finally threw it silently back to him without even opening it. "Then Kurosu really did make it. And you adorn yourself with borrowed plumes now?" To my astonishment a slight smile appeared on his face.

"I thought for Da'ath only results count?"

I had to grin involuntarily. "That's true. I don't want to criticize your methods, anyway, as long as you'll finally give the demanded results. But first, we have to care about our queen. The power of kings can wait. Anyway, the void-genome is just its basic and has no use without a fitting candidate for Adam, and because of Shu's death …"

"He isn't dead", he interrupted me, causing me to stop in surprise. "He survived the apocalypse. My sister Haruka still cares for him."

"How is that possible?", I replied. I had definitely seen him in front of Mana, shortly before she had destroyed herself and everything around her.

"He was found in the ruins of the collapsed church in Roppongi back then", he answered. "There I was also able to identify some parts of Past's red Endlave, so I think …"

"The famous maternal instinct", I chipped in and laughed, although I wasn't sure yet, if Pasts had done me a favor by saving this boy out of all things, who had rejected Eve's love. Shuichiro seemed to guess my thoughts.

"However, he had lost his memories", he added. "Probably a protective mechanism because of his trauma. He doesn't even know that he had a sister, Haruka told me."

"Well, then we don't have to care about him anymore, it seems", I replied offhandedly. "He definitely won't become Adam. I will take care of a new one in due time." I just wanted to turn around to the door, when something else came to my mind. "Apparently, all of my ghosts are dead or forever trapped in Cocytus. What has happened to your other test objects?" Because the formula for developing the void-genome had been found, the former research facility was barely useful now. I wanted to make sure, though, that there wouldn't be any more incidents with unbidden monsters in the future. Scrooge had wreaked enough havoc.

"I took care of it a long time ago." Shuichiros eyes twinkled shortly. "Or do you really think that the UN would have ordered me in a leading position, if they had found out about my little experiments? I removed all traces."

I nodded in a satisfied manner. What an ice-cold man you are, Shuichiro.

"Then I give things up to you here for a while." Relaxed I stepped up to the door as if I really had in mind to use it, when suddenly something else crossed my mind. I stopped at once, turning my head just so much aside he could hear me well. "Although Kurosu didn't want to cooperate with us, be aware of this, Shuichiro: Never eliminate someone Da'ath is interested in by yourself ever again, understood?" Without waiting for his response I teleported away and let him back alone, paralyzed.

. . .

. . .

The material beneath my fingers felt cold and hard. Although the vessel's surface was completely smooth, it seemed to be chiseled and rough on the inside. Turquoise light spots twitched over the surface like lightning, causing an almost surreal view. The spheres spinning around and the bright light shining from the inside to the outside let the figure in the vessel just barely seen.

"How old is the vase already?", I asked the man standing behind me without averting my eyes from the pink hair.

"Hard to tell", Shuichiro answered, running over the pages of his documents on his clipboard. "The accelerated growing process doesn't act consistently and distorts the results this way. About 12 or 13 years, I assume."

"Very good." Smiling satisfied I threw a last look at the sleeping girl floating in the vessel like in a protective cocoon, and turned around to Shuichiro. "Were there any problems so far?"

"No."

"The color of her hair seems to be slightly brighter than Mana's."

"That's because of Carol's genes", he answered. "But the congruence with Mana's DNS is over 93 percent."

I nodded. "That's sufficient. I think the vase is ready now for a first try to contact Mana's consciousness. Is the room prepared?"

"Already for a while now."

Nodding silently I turned around to the vessel again. First I wanted to stretch out my hand for a second time, but then I decided to burry them in the depth of my pockets. "So we can tell our beautiful queen that we found a fitting vase for her which will allow her to bloom in this world again soon."