Yume greeted Knives with a large grin as he was pushed up to her table by his twin brother. "Hey, Knives-sama!" the little girl called out in a cheerful voice.

The Plant waited until his brother was out of earshot before he spoke to the girl. "Greetings."

"How has your morning been, Knives-sama? Did you sleep well?" Yume inquired.

"Ah," Knives blinked, "the answer to both questions is 'good,' I suppose."

"That's good!" She grinned again.

"How was your sleep?" Knives returned the question.

Her face fell a bit. "Oh, it was… all right."

"'All right?'" Knives studied the child's face. She was still hiding something from him but he had no idea of what it could possibly be.

"I… had a few bad dreams…" Yume rubbed her forearms where goose bumps had sprung up.

"How bad are these bad dreams?" Knives was a little concerned for the child. He recalled from his childhood a few, quite nasty, nightmares that had scared him well for many weeks.

She shrugged and looked away, still rubbing at the goose bumps to make them smooth out. "Bad enough to make them bad."

Knives' eyes narrowed and he glared slightly at the girl. "Do not play words games with me, girl."

"They're scary…" She stared at the table in front of her so she would not have to look in his eyes.

Knives recalled from his childhood when Vash and he would talk about their nightmares. It seemed to help. "Tell me about them. It can help, sometimes, to talk about the things you are afraid of."

"I keep having one of them, sometimes two or three times a night. It's been in my head for a week now… it's just one little scene that plays over and over again… it's my mommy dying… she's bleeding from all these cuts and gashes and she's crying and tearing at her hair. I'm standing a few feet away, but I can't go near her, if I do…

She shook her head and continued on, "You're in another one of them… I've had it twice now…" she chewed on her lip as she picked up a crayon and began doodling on a piece of paper, "and you get captured by these big, mean men… and they put you in a bulb… and you can't get out and you just stand inside of it, pounding on the glass, trying to call for help but sound can't travel through the glass and mind messages either. No one knows where you are. No help comes. You're completely trapped. Forever…" She would not look up to meet his eyes as she drew on the paper the nightmares that plagued her young mind.

Knives nodded slightly to himself as he absorbed the descriptions of her nightmares. Even a dream like the second one would disturb him. He had actually had a similar one once when he was younger. The only difference was Vash was the one trapped inside and Knives could not break the glass and release his brother no matter how hard he tried.

The platinum blond breathed deeply and thought for a moment. He wanted to reach out and comfort the girl, strange as the feeling was to him. In his long life, he had only comforted one person, Vash, and that was after Steve had beaten the Plant. Knives grimaced to himself. Steve. How he had hated that human. He had deserved a fate far worse than the one that had befallen him. If Steve were alive right now… Knives flexed his hands and balled them into fists. If only Steve was alive and in the Plant's clutches…

Knives-sama? The mental voice intruded into the solitude created by half-buried memories resurfacing.

"Yes?" Knives looked at the girl. She had her head cocked to one side and was eyeing him with an odd look. "What is it?"

"That was weird. I said your name out loud four times but you couldn't hear me so I had to call you with my mind," she replied.

"Sometimes people can get quite wrapped up in what they are thinking about."

"Oh. It must have been important. Sorry." She shrunk down in her chair a little.

Knives suddenly remembered that he had wished to start tutoring the girl Plant child in his way of thinking. "So, girl. What do you think of humans?"

She looked confused and looked at him with her brow furrowed as she tried to understand what he was talking about. "They're nice, I guess. What am I supposed to think about them?"

"Humans are inferior to us. They are dirt beneath our feet."

"What?" Yume scooted her chair closer to Knives and looked up at him, her face rapt with attention.

Knives began patiently explaining to the young child the way the Universe worked. "Humans are spiders, we Plants are butterflies. The spiders are imperfect, flawed, and inferior. The spiders must be destroyed so that we, the butterflies, can live in peace. At this point in time, we have to live in permanent fear of imprisonment in a bulb where our life energy will be slowly leeched away so the humans can run their damned machines."

Unknown to his brother, Vash had slowly been creeping his way across the room, table by table, so he could be within listening distance of his brother and the girl. He dearly wanted to know what they spoke about, how Knives could talk so openly with her and yet always close up to Vash, his own twin.

Vash nearly choked on a cookie he was eating when he heard what Knives was telling Yume. He was brainwashing the child! The boy who gave him the snack looked at him worriedly, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, just inhaled some of it, that's all," Vash smiled back to the boy.

The boy nodded, "Okay."

Vash cocked his head so he could better hear what Knives and Yume were saying.

"So the Plants are trapped in the bulbs?"

"Yes, because of the humans."

"This makes humans evil?" Yume kept her eyes fixated on Knives as she reached under the table to withdraw her lunchbox.

"Yes, because the Plants are dying as their life energy is taken from them and thus, it is like a slow poison or a cancer. Theirs is a slow, painful death with no one nearby who evens cares that they are dying. Until their last dying moment, their only company is the human engineers who are only worried about the bulb functioning properly. This is why we need to unite and destroy all of the humans! We need to gather! My brother, you, me and any other free-walking Plant that we might find! Our combined forces channeled into one large assault will be able to eradicate the humans from this planet in less than a week!" Knives eyes almost literally glowed with the fanatic passion that radiated forth from him as he spoke of the destruction of Mankind.

"Wow…" Yume set the lunchbox on the table and stared at it. She looked up at Knives, "Can I have a little time alone? To think all this over?" Knives nodded and Yume stood, picking up her lunchbox and retreating to a little-used table in a corner.

Vash made sure Knives had not seen him, and then he walked over to the table where Yume was sitting with her lunch. She was eating a sandwich as she separated some small candies into two piles. "Yume…" Vash did not know how she would react to the question he was about to ask. Maybe she would brush it off as many her age would. On the other hand, maybe she would understand and reply as an adult would. Well, some adults. He just had to know so he asked her anyway,

"How can you stand talking to Knives? He always talks about being superior and killing all humans. How can you listen to that and not be disturbed by it?" he slowly seated himself in one of the small, children's chairs next to her.

Yume seemed to ignore his question as she picked up one of the small chunks from one of the two piles. She held up the small lump that fit in the palm of her hand. "See this candy, Donut-san?"

Vash was slightly perturbed that she had just disregarded what he had asked but he decided to play along with her anyway. "Yes, I see it."

She reached for his hand and turned it so the palm was facing up. She then deposited the small lump in his hand. "Well, does it look good to you?"

Vash studied the candy. It was covered by brown, white, cream, gray and black swirls and was roughly sphere-shaped. It did not look very appetizing. "No."

"I want you to eat it."

"But I'm not hungry…"

"Please, Donut-san? For me?" She gave him her best pair of puppy eyes.

"All right." Vash steeled himself and tossed the morsel into his mouth. He bit down on it and, as he had expected, his taste buds encountered a sour, sick flavor.

"And?"

"It's not that good."

"Yeah, that's an understatement." She picked up another, but this time it came from the other pile. "Now try this one."

Vash grimaced. "I'd rather not."

"Please? I'm trying to show you something, Donut-san! Trust me."

"Fine," Vash grumbled and took the candy. He braced himself once more and popped the little orb into his waiting but this time as his teeth broke the outer shell, his mouth was flooded with a sweet, pleasant taste. Vash's brow furrowed and he swallowed the delectable treat. He gave the young girl a suspicious look as she smiled innocently back.

"Was it good?" she asked.

"Yes…" Vash stared at the two piles of candies. They were identical. How could she tell which was good and which was bad?

"My mommy makes these herself. A long time ago, she came up with the recipe but she never wrote it down 'cause she has good memory. But now, she's getting older and other stuff has happened so she's forgotten most of it. So, whenever she makes these candies, she messes up some of them, but others come out good. She just gives them all to me, knowing I'll figure it out. I can tell between the two. There's a few little differences I see in them," she explained.

"What has this to do with the question I asked you?"

"I'm getting to that! Now, people are like these candies. They all look pretty much the same on the outside, but everyone has their own swirls of color and such. When you meet a new person, you don't know what they will really be like on the inside, just like this candy. You have to get to know them to truly understand how they think and their true feelings.

"When you first knew Knives-sama, he was like the first candy. Inside, he was sick and nasty, wanting to kill all humans because he believed it was best for you and him. Now he's changed. He's slowly turning into the second candy, although his outside shell is the same. He may still speak and act like he did before, but underneath it all, he's changed."

Her little chocolate brown eyes were grave and serious as she stared into his brilliant green ones. "But you've closed your eyes, Donut-san. You know him as the way he first was and you won't accept any change that he might have. You wanted him to, but now you can't accept it because he disappointed you before. It's you who needs to change now. It's all up to you."

"No… that's not true…" Vash whispered, looking at the child with wide eyes. Could it be true? Could his brother have changed? Did he not notice it? Was he truly blocking his brother out, subconsciously refusing to accept any changes he might have? No! It could not be true! He wanted Knives to change more than anyone else did! He watched his brother every minute of the day, hoping for some noticeable change. But… she had said his outer self had not changed, just his inner feelings.

No! That was not right! She was just a child, a human child! Knives was his twin! His! Vash knew his brother inside and out! No mere child who had met his brother just days ago could know his brother better than he did! It was not true! It could never be true!

Vash stood and stalked off as he felt the child's solemn gaze boring a hole right through his back and into his very soul, listening in on the raging and warring thoughts that stampeded through his mind. She lied! She did not know what she was speaking of! She was just a stupid girl! A human like her-

Vash stopped and leaned against a nearby wall. Was he beginning to turn into his brother? Blaming people's faults on their human genes? Rem! What's happening? I'm so confused… help me… Vash silently cried into the chaotic mess of his own mind.

Something tickled Vash's thoughts and made him rethink the conversation he had heard pass between Knives and Yume. One phrase came back to echo clearly in his mind: "My brother, you, me and any other free-walking Plant that we might find!"

"Oh no…" Vash sagged against the wall. Did Knives truly think that the child was a Plant? There was no solid proof. What had made him even think of that in the first place? Maybe… maybe he believed he could only have feelings for a member of his own species and so he had deluded himself into thinking she was a Plant.

Vash stood and strode over to Knives. Well, whatever the cause, these daycare trips had turned out to be quite the opposite of what Vash had wanted to accomplish. Instead of the option of learning to like, or even tolerate, humans, his brother had chosen delusion.

"Knives, we are leaving," Vash said curtly, grabbing the handles of his brother's wheelchair and briskly pushing him out the door. "These daycare visits are over. They are obviously a waste of your precious time as nothing productive is happening."

"Bu-" Knives started and then stopped himself. He did not want his brother to see he wanted to stay. Knives wished to stay behind and teach the girl more. He wanted to learn to be able to comfort her when she was frightened by nightmares. He wanted her be able to trust him so much that she would tell him the secret that she hid. He could pry it out of her mind with his mental powers, yes, but that would not be the same as if she offered it to him of her own free will.

When that happened, Knives knew that it would mean his old self was forever buried behind him. He would never be able to change back. He knew that thought should disturb him as he had not changed in many decades yet… he almost could not wait until that day occurred.

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Jeril: Greetings, all you lovely reviewers! I hope you all have had a good week. I know I have. I was so happy and inspired I wrote an extra long chapter for you all! I've been baby-sitting from Monday to Thursday, 10 am – 4 pm. Lucky for me, the kids are pretty self-sufficient so all I really have to do is feed them. ^0^ And I get money! Yay! I'm going to buy so much anime… *drools*

Ah, I have been practicing writing from Legato's point of view about Knives and the human race. I posted up the result as a one-shot fanfic, Anokata. It takes place in the beginning of Episode 24, in the morning. If any of you are really big Legato fans, please read it and tell me how I did. I'm dying to know if Legato was OOC. I already had a couple people read it and they said I did well on my portrayal of him and his obsession with Knives. I need feedback! Please? *puppy eyes*

Yume: Legato? I don't know any Legatos… Is he a nice person?

Jeril: Ah… maybe… ^_^;; Depends on how much you are willing to tolerate his obsession for Knives.

Yume: He thinks Knives-sama is awesome too? Wow! We're going to get along so well! I need to meet this Legato man! *bounces around happily*

Jeril: o.o;; Why do I have the very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that she isn't going to survive an encounter with Legato? Yume! Wait! *hands Yume a brown paper bag filled with something* It's best to go into battle prepared.

Yume: What's this? *peeks inside* Hotdogs?

Jeril: The easiest way to Legato's heart is through his stomach, by way of hotdog! ^_^;;

Yume: *wrinkles her nose* Hotdogs are yucky…

Jeril: I've said it before and I'll say it again; Yume, child, you are one odd little basket of fruit.

Yume: I like fruit! ^0^ Fruit is good and healthy! *bounces off carrying a basket of fruit to hand out to the reviewers*

Jeril: Anyway, sorry about that last bit with Vash. Poor man just can't face the fact he has been blind… *sighs* Now, I have to break some news to you all. If you are under the impression this is going to continue to be a light-hearted fic, you're wrong. It's going to get a bit angsty and worthy of the rating "PG-13". Yes, there will be more humorous scenes and words but that is because of dear little Yume, and yet even that precious child is holding inside of her a secret that is not quite as innocent as she is. So, if you don't like serious stuff and good old angst, this fanfic is not going to be the one for you much longer.