Her headstone was right next to what used to be the Specially Administered Zone of Japan, beside her husband's. It was simple, but elegant. An apple blossom tree stood tall beside them, offering shade and covering the ground in its colorful petals.
Nunnally Kururugi
October 25 2003 a.t.b. - April 4 2101 a.t.b.
Beloved Mother, Friend, Sister, Leader
Zero's One
Under the apple blossom tree, two figures sat. The taller, with raven black hair, had his back against the tree and his arms wrapped around the small, green haired woman in front of him. They sat in silence; him staring at Nunnally's headstone, her leaning her head back against him and looking up at the flowery tree branches.
Neither heard the small figure approaching them.
"Hi! I'm Luella! I'm seven. Seven and a half." The raven haired man turned to see a small girl, standing a few feet away from them. She spoke very quickly and had a giant smile plastered across her face. "Do you like that tree? It's my favorite. Apple blossoms are so pretty. I want one for our backyard, but mommy and daddy say we live too far north and it'll get too cold. I don't think it gets that cold, but I guess trees can't come inside and have hot coco when they get tired of being cold outside. Do you like the tree? My great grandma planted it when great grandpa died."
"It's very nice," the man said.
"I think so too! It makes great apples, too! But we'll need to wait a few months for that I guess. Why're you here? Did you know my great grandma?"
The man tilted his head slightly. "Are you Luella Kururugi-Weinburg?" At this, the green haired woman turned her head to also look at the girl.
"I am! What're your names? How'd you know great grandma?"
A young dark haired woman, presumably the girl's mother, walked up behind Luella. "I'm sorry, is she bothering you?"
"Not at all," replied the man, smiling. "I'm Julius, it's nice to meet you Luella." He held out his hand for her to shake. Luella darted up and shook the man's hand so excitedly that she pulled him off balance. The green haired woman caught them both from falling by putting her hand out on the ground to stabilize.
"Be gentle!" Luella's mother reprimanded. The girl dropped his hand and looked at the ground.
"That's quite alright, we're both okay," Julius said. "Luella, this is my wife, C.C."
C.C. did not offer her hand, but did smile. "That's a weird name." Luella's eyes went wide as she seemed to realize what she'd just said, and her mother glared at her while the couple chuckled. Luella waved to C.C., her cheeks glowing tomato red. "You're very pretty!"
"Thank you. I like your dress."
Luella blushed even harder and looked back at the ground.
"Go find your brother and father please."
"Okay!" The girl was off like a shot.
"I'm sorry again. She's very… excitable. I'm Sora Kururugi by the way."
"It's nice to meet you, and that's really quite alright," Julius said, as he C.C. stood up and dusted themselves off. "I'm sorry for intruding on a family space."
"Nonsense. My grandparents touched a lot of lives, and all of them are welcome here. Did you ever meet her?" Sora asked, her head gesturing towards Nunnally's headstone.
Julius seemed to almost freeze, but his wife responded easily "She was… well, she was an inspiration to Julius." She took her husband's hand. "To both of us, really. But Julius went through a phase where he never shut up about her. It was kind of annoying at times, to be honest," she smirked at him and he glared in return. "We've spent a fair amount of our time in Russia of late, and the public food, housing and transportation initiatives she's set up… They've really helped us and our… family. We just couldn't visit Japan without coming to offer our respects."
"She would be happy to know she'd helped you. She had a very kind heart to her last day. What brings the two of you to Japan?"
"My sister passed recently," Julius responded. C.C. turned to look at her husband but he avoided her gaze.
"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. It's such a tragedy when people die young." Sora said.
"Thank you. It wasn't unexpected, at least."
"Still."
"Do you visit here often?" C.C. asked, clearly changing the subject.
"We try to make it for Grandma Nunnally's birthday each year, though we're obviously a few days late this year. It's a bit of a drive, so school days are prohibitive at this point."
"That makes sense. Is Luella old enough to remember her great grandmother?" Julius asked, looking off towards the child in the distance.
"Only just. Luella was three when she passed. Her nickname comes from her great grandmother, though."
"Oh?"
"Yeah she always called -" a loud CRASH followed by the sound of a small boy wailing cut her off.
Sora turned to face her children, hands coming up to her hips. "Lulu! Play nice with your brother! How many times have I told you to share?"
With her back turned, Sora didn't see it, but Julius' face crumpled. His hand moved to cover his mouth and his eyes visibly started to tear up. C.C. grabbed his arm, turned him away and handed him her phone, whispering something to him and shoving him to move away from them. He walked a few steps away and continued facing away from the others, with the phone to his ear.
Sora turned back a few moments later. "I'm sorry about that. They're normally good kids, but sometimes they're little monsters."
"Such is the way of children."
"Don't I know it," Sora said, as a very tall man, carrying more than a human should probably be able to, walked up. Luella and a smaller boy trailed behind him.
"C.C., this is my husband Gino and my son, also Gino."
"I'm Gino Jacob Kururugi-Weinberg The Fourth!" the boy yelled.
"Yes darling, but I suspect Miss C.C. could have heard you at a slightly lower volume."
"If you'd like to join," the elder Gino started as Julius rejoined the group, "We're going to have a bit of a picnic with a few members of the extended family. A bit weird, perhaps, but they always liked seeing the family together."
"I get to introduce Nana Kallen to C.C.!" called Luella. The girl turned to face C.C. "Nana Kallen is really old. She's done about a million things, she can fly a robot, she's a knight, and she used to know a witch. But she won't tell me about any of it until I'm older."
"Did she now?" Julius asked.
His wife gave him a skeptical glance. "As much fun as that sounds like, we really should be going."
Julius sighed and looked a bit sad. "I suppose we should be."
The two said their goodbyes to the disappointed children and nice young parents and started walking away, hand in hand. Within twenty steps, C.C. stopped walking and turned a skeptical face to her husband.
"What?" he asked.
"You're very unhappy that we couldn't say something to Kallen."
"It's fine."
"You're not a very good liar, husband mine."
He arched an eyebrow incredulously at her. "Even if we had something to say, which we don't, there's no telling how she would react to seeing us after all this time. She could call the authorities and it would make things complicated if they believed her. Imagine for a moment she had the presence of mind to take a photo of us." He shuddered. "It could endanger the entire Zero Requiem. We can't absolutely be seen by her. Besides, we do have matters to attend to."
C.C. shook her head. "The things I do for you," she replied, rolling her eyes while digging around in the small purse she was carrying. Said husband waited patiently as she pulled a small card out of her purse. A smile broke out on his face as C.C. called little Lulu over.
"Nana Kallen! Nana Kallen!" the young girl called as she ran over and climbed up into Kallen's lap.
"Well hello there Lulu," Kallen said, hugging the young girl. "And how're you doing today?"
"I'm great! I brought you a present."
"Oh? Did you make it yourself?"
"No. I got it from Miss C.C."
"Miss C.C., hmm?" Kallen asked, as Sora walked over. "Sora, I thought we weren't telling the kids about C.C. until they were older?"
"Who?"
"The one from my childhood?"
"I'm sorry, I'm blanking on how all the names work out. You know how bad I am with ancient history," she said, winking at Kallen.
Kallen rolled her eyes. "That's fine. Let Gino III know I'll want to talk to him later."
"Oh, we did meet a C.C. today. That's who Lulu is talking about."
"Ahh okay. Well, I suppose that's fine then. So what did this C.C. give you?"
Lulu handed Kallen a small beat up plastic card with the mostly rubbed off backside strip facing up. "Oh, is it a gift card? Thank you. You've done a great job as a deliver -" Kallen stopped talking as she flipped over the card and saw the front.
It was an old, beat up Pizza Hut rewards card. Nowhere had carried cards like this in decades, and Pizza Hut had rebranded long before that. Across the front in black marker was written "BE WELL".