"Is everything all right, Echo?"

Echo looked up from the book she was reading. Alice stood in front of her, a bucket of chicken underneath one of her arms, looking down at her with what looked like concern in her features. "Echo is… fine."

It had been a few days after Zwei had started talking again. Echo had been avoiding everyone again, worried about what Zwei would do if she was let out. While it had been many years since Zwei had taken over Echo's body, what had happened then had broken Echo.

She definitely did not want Oz to see Zwei, or for Zwei to see Oz. She couldn't bear the thought of Oz, good-natured and kind, to be face to face with the sadistic, cold hearted killer that shared Echo's mind.

"You've left the house early every day and come home late… even though you normally never converse, you shake off everything and everyone. Oz is worried about you."

Echo blinked, then turned away, eyes downcast. "Sorry, Alice, but Echo needs to deal with this."

Yes. Echo certainly knows how to deal with me. She certainly knew 6 years ago. Say, I haven't had as much fun as that time.

Echo shook her head. "Echo?" Alice asked, although her voice sounded far away to Echo's ears.

You can't resist forever, Echo. And when you falter… well, I'll paint you a masterpiece myself. A masterpiece that is painted with blood!

"Echo!"

She flinched as Alice bit her cheek. "A-A-Alice?" She stammered. "What are you doing? People are watching!"

"I am cheering you up," came the simple reply. "When you bite someone's cheeks you make them happy, right? I see Jack do that to my sister when she's sad. Even Oz does it to you."

Echo wondered at Alice's intelligence. "Alice… it is not a bite… it is a kiss."

Alice laughed. "It can't be a kiss. A bite sounds and feels better, so it surely must be that." She leaned away from Echo and sat down beside her. "Meat?"

Echo nearly jumped in surprise. It was unheard of for Alice to share any of her precious food. "No thanks."

They sat in silence for a while, Echo waiting while Alice at. After she swallowed her last piece she cleared her threat. "Let me be clear on something. We don't have the best relationship. We aren't the best of friends. And I'm jealous that Oz spends more time with you than he does with me."

Echo tilted her head at her. Kill her now. Kill Oz too. "But?"

"But… you're important to Oz. And if Oz is sad, I get sad too. He wasn't always so happy. He was lonely, until he met Gil. Until Jack brought me over to play with him. He gets lost at times. Except for when he's been with you."

Oz? Lost? "Echo… Echo does not want to hurt Oz-sama. Therefore it is just easier to stay away from him. Echo must bear the burden placed upon her."

Yes, Echo. Tear yourself away from those you love. Smash yourself until nobody can put you together ever again!

"What burden?"

Echo pushed herself to her feet. The book slammed shut and she tucked it under one arm. "The burden of being Echo."

Do you love him that much? Love him enough to skewer your own feelings to thwart me? Love him enough to push him away whenever he comes?

"Yes. Because Oz-sama… made Echo feel… special. Happy. Loved."

Echo sat by one of the streams in the nearby forest. The weather had turned fine for once, a few clouds lazily flowing through the sky, and the surrounding, peaceful sounds of water flowing, of animals and nature, and the tranquility of it all calmed her down. Or, rather, she hoped that maybe it calmed Zwei down.

Echo… an unwanted child that should have never have been born. Scorned and never loved by her parents. Alone and hurt. Alone until Zwei came along and fixed your life. But all you did was toss poor Zwei away.

"Echo knows that Zwei cannot be let free. Echo would rather Zwei not be alive."

You would rather return to that hellhole you endured for 12 years? Where would you be now? Would you have met your precious Oz-sama if I wasn't here to do what you couldn't do?

We can't live without the other. We're inseparable, bonded by what you suffered through. I know you better than even your twin. I should be your twin.

Echo glanced down at her lap. There was a long, sharp instrument sitting there, the metal gleaming in the sunlight. "If Echo dies, so does Zwei," she whispered.

"If Echo dies, Oz would be sad."

The voice rang out and Echo whirled around, on her feet and the blade in her hands. She noticed that the weapon sat in her hand quite comfortably, which unsettled her. She blinked as she saw the speaker, and then blushed and looked down. "Oz-sama?"

He stepped forward. He was not smiling, she noticed, out of the corner of her eye. Oz only looked pained and upset. "Echo-chan. Can we… can we talk?" She nodded, placing the scalpel down. They both sat down, side by side, their feet dangling over the edge and resting just above the clear, running water. "Is Echo-chan avoiding me? Have I done something wrong?"

"No!" Surprised at her outburst, she turned away. "Nothing is Oz-sama's fault. It is because of Echo's own troubles that Echo must cease contact with him."

Echo felt Oz's arm slide around her body. "Echo-chan, the very first time I saw you, I wondered how someone so perfect could have been in front of me. From that moment on I knew that only you would have a place in my heart. So please, please lean on me. Tell me what it is that has saddened you and I'll try to help you. Isn't that… isn't that what friends do?"

Friends eh? Does he not love you back?

Echo shook her head. "Echo… Echo can not." A tear dropped down from her eyes. "I cannot burden Oz-sama with my troubles. Because…"

She choked up. Because I love you, she had wanted to say, but the words clogged in her throat, refusing to be announced, and all she could do was stare at the water and wait.

"Echo-chan." His voice made her turn about, and Echo was surprised at the tinge of sadness and anger in his eyes. "I've heard bits and pieces from Noise and Vincent. Your sister refused to tell me anything until I described how you were acting. But I would rather hear it from you."

Echo shook her head. "If Oz-sama knows, then he knows how despicable Echo is, and how Echo doesn't deserve Oz."

"That's nonsense!" He grabbed her shoulders and spun her body to him. "That's nonsense, because Echo-chan is strong and pure. I won't judge until I hear it from you. Please. I want to hear you even when you don't want to be heard. I want to share your burden."

"E-Echo… can't tell Oz-sama. Oz-sama will only look at me with pity, or hate, or-"

"I won't!" He interrupted. "Please, Echo, please trust me. Please."

Yes. Tell him everything. Pour your soul out and let it devour you. Let him know who you are and let him face you with fear and disgust. There's no running away now.

Echo wished Zwei would choose her moments better. But she knew that the psychopath was correct. She could not keep it bottled up and hidden from sight any longer, not with Oz giving her an intense stare. Echo took a deep breath and told her tale.

Echo's parents had been scientists that worked for a company specializing in Freudian thinking and the psychological consequences and backlashes of practices in early childhood. Both like-minded, methodical and believing that emotion were a disadvantage to those in pursuit of true science, they had tried for a child only to carry on their legacy. Upon realizing that they had a spare, they had decided almost immediately on using their extra child as art of an experiment created and conducted by them that could lead them to fame.

Which was how Echo was treated for most of her life. Kept locked up, with barely any social contact outside of her family. While her parents gave her tutoring, they never showed any warmth at all towards her. It was also important to them to see Echo's interactions from time to time, and so they observed her as she was allowed to visit her sister, who lived a better life than she did. They carried out many trials, mental, emotionally, and, at times where they believed that it was right, physical harm to see the effects it had on Echo and how she would react to it when she was in the company of another.

Echo never hated her sister. Even as she grew up Echo seemed incapable of hating, which surprised her parents. But soon they saw that Echo had nearly no feelings. She showed respect and love for her sister, Noise, who treated her just as well and pitied her sister. But Echo had no anger, no joy, no sadness, and no interest in much.

It was around the age of 7 that Zwei started to take form. Echo didn't remember how Zwei appeared. All she did know was that a voice started to talk to her, to fill her thoughts, and to keep her company. By the age of 9 Zwei had taken a form in Echo's mind, looking like a copy of her and Noise, the most important person in Echo's life.

At first, Echo thought that Zwei was a blessing. That she would have someone who understood her, who could help Echo understand Echo, and that maybe she would be just like her sister Noise. With the help of Zwei she started to discover her own emotions, and soon began to smile like her sister.

But Echo, as time went on, noticed the difference between herself and Zwei, and between Zwei and Noise. Echo was the quiet, observant blank; Noise, the kind and gentle girl that snuck out to play with the boy from next door; and Zwei, sadistic, cruel, and always searching for something to keep her attention.

Her parents also noticed a change in Echo. Most of the time she would be the same, observing with her blank eyes, as if awaiting for an order to act out. But at rare moments they caught a glimpse of a hideous, twisted smile that paired with the vicious malice in her eyes. Sometimes, they heard screams of maniac laughter that pelted across the halls and echoed throughout the house. They also found, much to their bafflement, the signs of Echo learning in, what appeared to them, solitary confinement the skills that children learnt when around others their age.

On the day of their death, Echo's parents had been put under pressure from their work. Determined to find fresh results, they tortured Echo, scarring her body and looking to break her for some data. It took them several hours and many different techniques, but they were successful.

What they hadn't predicted on, however, was setting loose the demon that was locked inside of Echo. While Zwei had only managed to occupy Echo's body for moment or two before, when Echo slipped into unconsciousness when the last brand was pressed into her body, Zwei took control.

Echo remembered nothing of the night. Bits and pieces overflowed into her subconsciousness from Zwei. But when she came to Noise was holding her and crying. The bodies of their parents lay against the wall, their eyes open in shock and terror, blood still pouring out of the rents that tore their body apart. Clutched in one of Echo's hand was a blade covered in blood.

It was then that Echo knew that what had happened had been the work of Zwei. Zwei had not been a blessing, but a curse, and she locked away Zwei, locked away the emotions that Zwei had given her, and had reverted back to who she had been before Zwei had formed in her mind. She locked away the memories too, as they had been too much for her to handle, but she kept with her the knowledge that she was doomed, cursed, broken, so she would always remember what she had allowed to happen.

And, until that fateful day that Oz Vessalius had offered to walk her home, Echo had believed that she could live a life without letting anyone else into her mind.

Except that the blonde haired heir was all that occupied her mind from then on.

Echo had stopped talking minutes before. She waited nervously for Oz to speak, to denounce her and to leave. But he did none of that. Instead, he sat in silence and seemed to be lost in thought.

Echo mumbled something that was even incoherent to her own ears. A sense of dread weighed down on her, dulling her senses even further than they had been. In the back of her mind, Zwei sniggered to herself, amused at the events that were playing out.

Echo's noise, however, had been noticed by Oz. "What was that, Echo-chan?"

She froze. Go on, Zwei urged. Tell him how he should feel now that he knows who, no, knows what you are. You aren't a person anymore, are you, Echo? Not after the atrocious acts that you committed.

"Disgusting. Echo is disgusting. Now Oz-sama knows what Echo really is. Echo is only a thing. Echo killed its parents. Echo is a curse to everyone around Echo." She turned away, the words burning in her throat. "Oz-sama should stay away, or else he will also suffer a gruesome fate."

A long pause followed her tirade, and Echo found herself, for some reason she could not fathom why.

"Okay."

Oz's voice was heavy and cut through the air. Echo heard his clothes rustle as he stood, and allowed tears of sadness to leave her eyes as she imagined his smiling face, trying to capture it in her mind once more…

She gasped as she felt Oz grab her from behind. He pulled her towards him, sitting her onto his lap and spinning her to face him. "Oz!" She protested.

"There is no way," he replied angrily. "No way that you can believe that you are 'cursed'. You may have done a terrible act, but you had been severing years of mistreatment at the hands of your caretakers."

He spat the word out. Echo watched, amazed, for it was rare at all to see Oz lose his temper.

"There is no way you are a curse to people around you," he continued, wiping away her tears. Echo found herself staring into his brilliant green eyes, steady and holding volumes of emotions in them. "Because whenever I'm with you I feel blessed. I feel alive with you, Echo. You make my life significant enough to see through."

His words were enough to make her tears start up once more, but this time she held them back. "Why?"

He smiled. "Because I fell in love with you, the girl that never spoke, never was spoken too, that looked on with painful eyes and smiled like it didn't matter. Because I loved that girl who spent her time dedicating herself to her studies, who I could never find a moment to talk to, who seemed as unreachable as the stars to me. Until I finally reached you." He leaned closer. "I love you, Echo. So please, don't leave me."

No! The outburst caused Echo to flinch and shudder as she felt the ferocious scream tear through her skull. You should not be happy! I… I was the one who made you who you are!

"Echo? Is Zwei in there now?" Echo nodded. "And she can use your body to communicate?" Another nod.

"Then can you let me talk to her?"

Echo stared at him in shock, admits the hysterical giggles that had overcome Zwei. "But why?"

"So that I can prove my point and to end the suffering that has you gripped. Don't worry," Oz smiled. "She won't kill me."

Yes, let me speak to him. I'll show him what it's like if he causes pain to us!

Echo felt a sudden shove as Zwei came to the forefront of her mind, seemingly taking over. She could feel all control leave her, making her powerless as she watched through her own eyes.

"Oz Vessalius," Zwei giggled. "Are you really sure that you want to face the death that aided your precious Echo-chan?"

Oz smiled. "You are as every part to Echo as she is. You were born out of the suffering and hatred that Echo tried to throw away on her path to becoming like her sister."

"Oh?" Zwei tilted her head. "And what does this point prove?"

"That you, underneath the words and the talk of killing, will not kill me, because you were created to take care of Echo. You were a personality that nobody anticipated, not even the scientists knew of your existence until that fateful night."

Zwei bent over as hysterics overtook her. "Not kill you? What nonsense is this?" In her hand appeared the blade once more, and with frightening speed it raced towards Oz's throat.

It stopped, barely an inch away. Oz hadn't flinched at all. "I want to thank you, actually." Zwei blinked at that. "From what I can tell, you were the only reason Echo was allowed to live. You saved her from a life of solitary confinement, you taught her to laugh and to smile. If it wasn't for you she wouldn't have made it this far, and I wouldn't have ever laid my eyes on her."

"I…"

"But, and I assure you, that you can go back to your slumber. You arose because of Echo's feelings for me, right? You remembered what happened before and didn't want Echo's heart to shatter, so you warned her off me and wanted to preserve her life. Being asleep for so long, you probably forgot what you had been created for.

"But I'll guide her now. I'll teach her beauty, even though she is that, and love, and wonders that she couldn't fathom until now. She will prosper with me, Zwei. I promise."

He looked her straight in the eye. "And if you think I'm lying, then please, slice my head off this instant."

Echo gasped, and rushed forward, ready to try and take over in case Zwei began the killing blow. But nothing happened. Zwei just stared at the boy across her, determination rolling off him, and began to laugh. "I see now why she likes you. Goodbye, Oz. Beware, when we meet again, blood will be spilt."

"I don't intend to make you appear," he whispered slowly, arms outstretched as Echo's body fell against him, Zwei retreating back into her place inside Echo's mind, as Echo slowly regained control of her body.

Echo… don't lose someone precious like him.

Echo blinked, but Zwei had faded, leaving her mind empty. A sense of regret and sadness welled up inside of her. But why? Was she not glad that Zwei had stopped?

"Echo…" she felt him murmur as he gripped her tightly.

"You…" She tried to find what had been different about him. "You said Echo's name correctly."

"I did?" He moved his head so that they were eye to eye, and then smiled brilliantly. It filled her with warmth, and a sense of belonging. "My mistake… Echo-chan."

She hit his shoulder. Huffing, she pocketed the blade that had fell beside them, and stood. The sun falling quickly towards the horizon, and Echo did not know how well they could navigate in the dark. "We should get back, Oz-sama."

"Wait." She turned to see him hold out something. A teddy bear. "This was meant to be a gift during the party last week, but I forgot about it. It's a limited edition Jouta Bear. Noise said that you had a toy when you were younger, something that was similar to this, and Alice and Alyss agreed that I should have given you a gift, so…"

Echo stared at it, and then smiled. "Thank you." She accepted it, but then a thought crossed her mind. "But Echo does not have anything for you, Oz-sama."

"Just seeing my Echo-chan smile is good enough!"

Echo searched her memory to the party. When Jack had told her about presents and what would make Oz the happiest.

She leaned in and kissed him.

"There. Echo had given Oz something. Shall we leave?"

Oz nodded, flabbergasted, a sight that made Echo giggle a little to herself as they walked back, hand in hand.

I love you, she thought, looking across at him. Thank you for coming.

An email was sent. Across the world from where Echo was being mercilessly teased by Oz back at the mansion, a man picked up his phone to make a call.

"Hmm… I see… so it seems he's finally… it's too bad… not standard at all…"

The man looked out of the window. It was a view that many would describe as breathtaking, a view that surveyed the city and its entirety, but to him it was only a landscape of which he could see what was his and what was not.

"I want you to separate them. Whatever it takes."

He paused. He took a look at a picture on his desk. A blonde boy embracing a white haired girl. A snarl formed on his lips.

"Remove the girl at any cost. Kill her if you need to. Kill him if it is necessary."