Hello folks and welcome back to The Rising Jian!

It's been a while since the last chapter and this one isn't even as long, but I do sure hope you like it nonetheless.

I know some people who are reading this fanfic have their fair share of problems with the VIRM/Alien thing, but I just couldn't bring myself to simply erase them from the story, so I decided to just write them a bit differently than they were depicted in the anime. In all truth ... they aren't really depicted anyhow in the anime. They simply are there ...

So I tried to flash them a bit out as characters, even though they cleary are the antagonists of this story. But I believe you have to know a bit about the enemy to really understand him and his motives.

As for grammar and stuff, I can not encourage you enough to point out all the worst mistakes on my end, so I can eradicate them.

Thanks to all the people who have given me feedback and positive reviews or even speculate about possible future events of my story! You keep this fanfic alive.

And now ... have fun.

A new morning was heralded by a single siren in far distance. By that and a few sunbeams, who came shining down to earth through some first little cracks in the still very dark and cloudy sky. One of those happened to fall directly into the wreck of an APE transport ship's crushed cockpit, which lay several steps away from the rest of the ship's carcass.

Inside, there were piles of wrecked machinery, parts of the crushed hull - which looked like a very angry child had smashed a toy onto the floor - and of course three bodies, of which two were obviously human – given by the fact that they had been splattered across their seats by the armatures and could clearly be identified as such.

The other body – despite the damages done to his clothes – was seemingly unharmed, as there were no signs of blood or ripped apart limbs.

The mask covering his face was damaged, but not to the extent that one could see through from the outside.

But way more important to the Vice Chairman was what was going on inside of his head.

"I order you to open your soul to the collective! Now! And don't you dare disobeying me now, after making me go to these lengths to finally reach you!"

The very angry voice, echoing inside of his very soul, shouted at him in a maddening loud tone.

But he was afraid.

He was afraid of the fact that he was afraid, too.

Never in at least a hundred thousand years had something made him feel like this.

Until he had witnessed the giant Klaxosaur himself, he had always thought of himself as kind of immortal. He knew of course that he could in fact die, but the possibility for it to really happen was unimaginably low.

But as long as he stood on the cursed ground of this damned planet, he had only access to a tiny amount of the collective. And if his body should die here, the Chairman – or Papa, as the humans called him – would not and could not retrieve him, as there were no resources available to store his soul until he could receive a new body.

To return to the collective – the real collective, out in space – was impossible as long as they hid among the humans to cover up their actions. If the Klaxosapiens would discover their involvement in the current fighting, a second great war would erupt on the planet the humans called "earth" in their language, the Klaxosaurs called "lost paradise" in theirs and which VIRM called "Assimilation-Target B3". Not that they could actually return to the Great Collective. Their connection to the homeworld or any other planet under VIRMs control had been disrupted many millennia ago. And now there were only three of them left.

The Vice Chairman shuddered internally as he realized what he had done to cover up their being here. He had screamed in silent terror at the sight of that "thing", but had had the presence of mind, to cloud his soul while doing so. That meant he had severed his connection to the collective, stayed hidden in the collapsed ship for hours and had fallen into a state of self-pity and fear, caused by the sudden withdrawal. So that monster should not have been able to spot him as what he really was. At least in theory. In all truth he was less than certain that he had been quick enough to cover himself, or if the beast had in fact spotted him and was reporting back about his real nature right now.

The reason he couldn't bring himself to get back to the collective on his own was his state of mind. Once he was taken back into the group, Tarsier and Papa would instantly recognize his fear and the fear of what might have happened to their entire operation on this planet.

But there was one thing even scarier than the thought of what might happen once they found out … and that was what might happen to him when he didn't return willingly.

With all the strength he could muster he carefully reached out with his mind to search for the others. Just one human heartbeat later his mind was already being grabbed and pulled in by a tremendous force that swallowed his entire existence within a second.

The Vice Chairman stopped existing as Papa and Tarsier scanned through every bit of information of what had happened at the Gran Crevasse after the victory, as seen through the eyes of their former partner.

Way up in the stratosphere, where the aerial fortress Cosmos was slowly moving in a circle, Papa leaned back in his seat. Tarsier was the only other Sage in the council's meeting room, as it was deep in the night on board the station and the human members were all asleep in their chambers.

Papa looked at him and said:

"Those are dire news for our cause on this planet. We have to assume that the enemy now is being informed of our being here. If that comes to pass, we will have no other option than to wage all-out war against their entire population at once."

Tarsier agreed.

"That is correct. We would have to make use of more than just the few human clones we're using as Parasites right now. We would need to erect an entire military, outfitted with the necessary technologies and weapons to take down Klaxosaurs on mass. That would take quite some time."

"Not only that. If we give the humans the means to defend themselves against an enemy like no other, there will always be the possibility that they might fend off our own fleets, once the time of their arrival nears. I want us three to be the forerunners of VIRM's victory on this planet. Not the reason of its second demise."

He paused and took a long look at the planet beneath them.

"It's been a long time, Tarsier. Do you still remember how great the old days in the central collective had been? Our first invasion of this place?"

Tarsier nodded slowly.

"I remember it. I had just been given back the function to think for myself again, after nearly three hundred thousand years of service as a drone trooper. Then I was instantly dropped on the front line as a section commander. The entire war was one glorious experience for me. To finally think again was … quite enjoyable."

Papa nodded, but said nothing about his own experience of getting back his intelligence.

He never did that, Tarsier knew that by now and didn't expect to ever hear the story.

"The great defeat was not quite as enjoyable though", Papa added, "How long has it been? Fifty million years, of us being trapped on this planet, unable to get in contact with the central collective?"

Tarsier slowly shook his head.

"It's been roughly sixty million years by now."

Papa nodded.

"That's more likely. It feels like all eternity. That's the downside of being immortal. You can get stuck in a prison for forever."

Tarsier tried to get back on topic, with asking: "Well, what are we going to do now? And how long are we planning on letting the poor bastard be split apart in our little collective of two? It's getting straining on my mind to keep his identity intact."

Papa nodded again.

"I think he had his warning. He may live. We need him anyway to pull through with this until the end."

With that he released the iron grip around the Vice Chairman's soul and threw him back into his ethereal body in the destroyed transport ship. But his connection to their collective was renewed.

"I understand. I gratefully accept this mercy by you and ask for forgiveness for my late reaction in face of the enemy. If it has indeed harmed our operation, I am truly …"

Tarsier cut him off mid-sentence.

"That is nice and all, but could we get to the subject at hand? We need to find a way into their underground networks. We need to find a hint on where they brought the princess after our last attempt to kill her has failed miserably. The next time I'm going to do it myself, just to be sure. She is dangerous for us."

The other two agreed to that.

Meanwhile at Plantation 13, Hachi marched towards his desk and found what he expected to find there. A massive amount of data pads and sheets of paper.

Without any reaction whatsoever he sat down and stared at the little mountain of work before him. Then, nearly hesitantly, he grabbed randomly unto one piece of paper and scanned over its content.

It was a hastily written report by an army Sergeant, who had got beaten up at one of the barricades yesterday. Basically he reported to have seen a red flash, coming out of nowhere, and knocking him unconscious before he did even realize he got attacked.

Hachi's eyes narrowed down to a line as the sudden urge to just grab a few men and storm Mistilteinn returned. He threw the sheet away and didn't even realize how it landed on the floor and not – as intended – back on the pile before him.

He then grabbed unto one of the data pads.

"Report of stolen archived data", read the title of the only entry.

He opened it and found an incredible long list of documents. Not actually the documents themselves, for they were in fact stolen, but at least the names of said stolen documents. It would take him days to look through them. He shook his head. That was too long. He would simply resolve the situation by force. For a last time he scrolled down a chunk of entries, before finally laying the pad back at the desk. He then opened up his top drawer and took out the pistol he did never need to use before. Deep inside of him, in this very moment, as he inspected the weapon carefully, he realized that he didn't want to go up there. For their sake … and his own. For he knew what could be asked of him if he did. But his duty was clearly lined out for him and there was nothing he could do about it.

Slowly he rose from his seat, reaching for the intercom to summon some soldiers to accompany him.

Until he suddenly stopped.

While reaching over the data pad with the list, he had spotted an entry out of the corner of his eye.

"On the subject of difficulties with the current Code 007/Nana, regarding her indoctrination"

And just below that:

"On the subject of difficulties with the current Code 008/Hachi, regarding his indoctrination"

Nearly instantly he dropped back at his seat and picked up the data pad again.

He knew that there had been some complications with the two of them, but he couldn't remember any of it. And suddenly here there were the documents who could tell him everything about it. Everything about his current state of mind. Everything about Nana's sudden outbursts of emotions. It had been in the archive the entire time.

The only reason he never thought of checking it for information on the matter had been his clearance. He was allowed to walk into nearly every corner of the Plantation. But there were still a very few places where his clearance wouldn't get him into. The basement of the archive was one of those. For there lay information, not even he was allowed to see. But now everyone higher up the ranks was dead. Everyone safe for the Doctor that was. And the Doctor wasn't the kind of person who would involve himself in a case of breached protocol. It was really simple now. Not a single soul would care if he looked through the actual stolen documents, right? In fact, wasn't it even his very duty to check on the data those silly brats had gotten their hands on?

Thoughts like those kept creeping into his mind, as suddenly the door opened up and Nana walked in.

He was amazed and terrified at the same time, upon feeling somewhat caught in the face of his thoughts.

Hastily he got rid of those and tried to get some order into the pile before him.

"Good morning", he than greeted her, as monotone as always.

Nana raised an eyebrow as he usually did not greet people.

"Yeah, you too", she said in a somewhat surprised tone, that even Hachi realized what he just had said. But before he could say anything else, Nana suddenly picked something up from the ground. It was the piece of paper from earlier.

"You're getting messy with your work now?", she asked. Still somewhat surprised.

He nearly ripped the sheet out of her hand and stuffed it back into the – now somewhat sorted – pile in front of him.

"Yeah, well, thanks for picking that up. Didn't even realize it fell from the desk. It has been a kind of hasty night and morning. You got word of what happened at the archive yesterday?"

She nodded and her face turned grim.

"Yes, I heard. You are in charge of the case now?"

"They didn't stop begging me to look into it and as it seemed they couldn't find anyone other than me to do it, I gave in. And now I have this."

Hachi made a gesture with both hands, as if trying to embrace the entire pile of work in front of him.

Nana looked at it again and raised an eyebrow.

"You are very thorough with this. Are those security camera files?"

She pointed at a certain data pad.

"Why not leave at least some work to the military? You don't have to look through everything on your own now, do you?"

He tried to shrug it off: "You know I'm thorough with everything I do. This is a strange case. A break in in a military building right the hour after a giant Klaxosaur destroys most of the Plantation? That isn't normal I'd say. So yes, I have to look through it all myself. But that reminds me of something. Would you take over as Overseer for … say … a few days? Just until I am finished with this. You don't have much to do, other than assigning some duties and explaining basic functions of living on their own to them."

Nana sighed.

"You really are into this case, aren't you? Well, I guess it won't hurt if I take over the part of teaching them how to wash their clothes from you."

He threw her a somewhat comical monotone look.

Grinning she put another data pad on top of his pile and turned towards the door.

"I originally just wanted to bring you that. Have fun with your crime case, Hachi."

Just as the door closed behind her, Hachi let out a long pained sigh.

He had with no word lied to her, but to keep her out of this like that was … odd, to say the least. It felt wrong. But he could not tell her. Not until he hadn't decided how to proceed.

Then he picked up the data pad he had hidden beneath his desk the whole conversation and looked further into the section where he had found his and Nana's names.

Maybe there was more.

And in any case: he needed those stolen files.

Hachi stood up from his desk, unlocked his pistol and requested a dozen soldiers to wait for him at the central elevator.

He had finally found what he had been searching for years now.

According to the copy of the file register there was a ton of information about the indoctrination process on that stick. Information that was usually way more classified. But the security measures had become a joke over the last decades it seemed. Without any incident whatsoever even highly classified files hadn't been deleted after their retention period was over.

Finally he rose from his chair again, his pistol in the right and the data pad in the left hand. With long steps he began his way to Mistilteinn.

At the same time Zero Two was strolling through the boarding house.

She wore her usual formal attire and the sternest face she could muster, to make sure her Darling would immediately recognize her readiness to pull through with their infiltration until the very end.

Right now she was on the way from her own to his room, to ask him if he had an idea on how they could read the data on the stick without using their own wrist bands, which were certain to be controlled by APE. She wanted to ask him to accompany her to their first breakfast as squad mates too, of course. It was true that she made up with everyone, but being alone with those people still made her feel really uncomfortable. She wanted her Darling to smooth her in over the next days, so she could get accustomed to it.

While reaching the boys wing, she noticed that seemingly nobody else was awake. Or at least not outside of their rooms. She got instantly nervous as she recognized it. Had the squad been summoned somewhere? Had she forgotten some meeting?

But as she past the door to the room where Zorome, Mitsuru and Futoshi were living, she could clearly hear some loud snoring coming from that direction. Immediately she calmed down.

They are probably still really tired from the battle yesterday, she thought to herself, It was their first one after all and they all made it back alive. That's quite some feat to rest upon.

Belatedly she realized that she had just praised her squad, fellow parasites, for something other than dying valiantly. She had never done that in her live before.

With a little smile on her face she finally reached the door with the sign reading: 'Goro and Hiro'.

I guess he really has a name, other than Darling, she smirked and carefully knocked on the door, Hopefully he is even awake, otherwise I stood in front of the mirror the last hour for nothing …

But after a little while she could hear footsteps nearing the door.

She set up a beaming smile and prepared herself to give her Darling the heartiest morning kiss in all of history, as suddenly Goro opened the door, still in his sleeping attire and with a confused look to his face, to see her in front of him. But he wasn't nearly as unprepared for this encounter as Zero Two, whose smiling face quickly turned to a flustered mess.

"Aaah … good morning", he eventually said, while trying to hide the fact that he must have just fallen out of bed to get to the door. He even straightened his back and tried to look somewhat dashing with a weak grin and wild hair. But it failed miserably because of the pajama.

Zero Two in response had to snort a little and slowly her nervousness was fading.

"Good morning to you too, Goro. May I … borrow my Darling from you for a moment?", she asked in her politest tone of voice.

Goro scratched himself on the back of his head and looked back into his room, before turning towards her again.

"Well, you see … I actually thought he was already with you since earliest morning. He left around four or five o clock. I haven't seen him since, I'm sorry."

Upon hearing that a shocking thought crossed her mind.

What if he has already found a means to access the files? What if he is already reading them for hours? Oh hell no, I have to find him! He is not prepared in the slightest to read that damn thing on his own …

With a little panic in her voice she asked: "Goro, you are Hiro's best friend, right? Where would he be if he wanted to be alone and without anyone interrupting him?"

Goro finally got a little more awake, after hearing her say that. His eyes sharpened as he thought a while over that question. He finally answered: "Well, that usually doesn't happen. The very first time I ever noticed him trying to be alone was after he rode with you for the second time and had gotten really sick. He didn't wanted us to worry about him. But even then he would just go to the bathroom or stay in our room until he felt better. I'm, again, sorry. I don't know where he would go. But … is something the matter? Your face kinda tells me I should worry about him. Shall I help you search for him?"

Zero Two's face told him before her reaction how conflicted she was on that.

"Errr … I think … Maybe. Maybe it's nothing, but …"

Goro finally was awake enough to recognize for sure that something was wrong.

"Ok, please talk to me. What in the world is going on and why would he go hiding somewhere?"

She sighed and answered vaguely: "He may be only thinking about something we spoke about yesterday really hard and sought some place he could do that without someone interrupting him. But … the other possibility is that he came to a conclusion that could drive him very, very fearful and if it comes to worst, insane. In any case, the latter would require that we find him right now, so I can speak to him."

"What on earth kind of topic could have such consequences?", he asked with widening eyes, while hastening back to his bed and putting on his uniform over his pajama.

Zero Two's face grew ever more nervous again, while she shifted her weight from one leg to the other and back again.

"Errm … you know how he and I have something going on, he hadn't had the time to tell you guys about? How we got so close and all that? It has something to do with it. I really can't tell you much more on the spot …"

Goro came out of his room, closed the door behind him and muttered some silent curse at no one in general, as he started to hastily walk towards the stairs, Zero Two tailing him.

"I assume you don't want this to get into a squad-wide search then? Well, if it's only us two searching for him, we should split up. I'll take the garden outside and you search all interior, alright?", he asked over his shoulder.

"Yeah, alright. If you find him and he's obviously not well, then try to find me as quick as possible, ok?"

The really concerned undertone of her voice made him a little nervous too by now.

"Yes, yes … geez … you're making me all confused and worried here."

She looked down as they arrived at the entrance to the building.

"I don't mean to. I am really thankful for your help with this. I … am sorry I can't express myself correctly."

He turned towards her while opening the door and tried to look a little bit more encouraging: "Oh forget that, I'm just worried is all. No need to apologize. I'm sure he'll be all right and we will find him in no time at all. I mean … where should he go? Mistilteinn isn't that big."

"Yeah", she managed to smile back at him, "I guess you're right. Good luck finding him Goro."

"You too, let's find our little troublemaker."

Still smiling they parted ways and began to search in their respective areas.

Hiro sat at a small table in the library.

It was early midday and up until now he hadn't met any other parasite today, as he was locked in here since round about 04:00 am. In front of him on the table he had placed the data stick, which was connected to the device on his wrist, which showed him the content of the stick via a holographic interface on his own palm.

Slowly he worked his way - entry after entry - through the list. In the hours he had spent searching for the answers he wanted, he had already seen things he knew would never again leave his mind. And time after time he had asked himself how in the world they all had been fooled all this time by APE, the caretakers and the adults all together.

Just after he had arrived in the library he had learned that the average lifespan of a parasite was somewhat between eighteen and twenty-five years, depending on how much active combat he saw in his life. Apparently the death toll in younger ages was rising, due to the amount of pilots who died on the front lines without enough new cadets to replace all lost personal, resulting in more active combat for all parasites still alive, who in return would die faster of the effects of drained yellow blood cells.

Later on he had learned about the so called "production" of new parasites. There were multiple facilities like the Garden scattered across the continents, who were cloning children in some kind of mass production, to train them as parasites. From that point on it was only a small step to the truth about all the vanished children in the Garden. They didn't make it. They had simply been somewhat faulty to the people running these processes and were thus replaced by more promising specimen. Simple as that. Whatever happened to those children afterwards was a topic, which never had been given enough priority to make it into one of the entries on the list.

Hiro's stomach was turned as he finally reached the peak of what he was able to digest in one session of reading those damned files.

He nearly had smashed the stick against the nearest wall on several accounts, but then he came across the title "Tests on the durability of Parasite Code 002". For a good ten minutes Hiro had sat in his chair without doing anything after finding it. In that time he asked himself several times if he really wanted to open this file. And every time all of his mind screamed "No!" at him. Then he finally opened it.

The file was basically a list. A long list that is.

Halfway through, at an entry called "Response to severe burnings on all limbs at once", Hiro had already read through things like "Response to multiple fractured legs", "Response to multiple stabs in the chest, safe for primary vital organs" and the like. But he had read more than enough already.

He closed the interface on his palm and finally, after hours of just stuffing his mind with the most gruesome and darkest of truths, his emotions broke free. Tears started to flow over his cheeks as his entire world crumbled around him. Again and again he wished that he could undo the stealing of that data, so that he'd never know any of this. But it was way too late for that. He knew it all.

For quite some time he simply kept weeping. He didn't want to think about the reason why. And no feeling of hate or anger was strong enough to stop him. He just sat at the table, the face buried in his palms, and cried for all those poor parasites, regardless of whether they were still in training, active pilots or already dead. He felt like the entire world had just declared war on him and his friends. But he was the only one who knew of it. Well, he and …

Someone rattled at the closed door before realizing it was locked. A gentle knock followed.

"Darling? Are you in there?"

Hiro's face hastily turned towards the door. His tears suddenly stopped coming.

Slowly he rose from his chair, knocking over the bottle of water he had brought with him and forgotten beneath the table. With a loud noise it fell over.

"Are you alright Darling? Answer me! I'll break through this door if necessary!"

Hiro arrived at the door the next second and opened up.

"Please don't. We don't want them to come and install cameras in here too now", he answered with a weak smile.

Immediately her hands went over his cheeks, while she made a face of guilt and sorrow.

"I searched for you the entire morning. I thought you might try to let me out of this and search for your answers yourself, but …", she looked at Hiro and her mouth was trying to form the correct words, "… I couldn't bring myself to visit you yesterday evening. I was so happy and the thought of everything bad that might be on this stick … it was scaring me away. I … I didn't want to leave you alone with it either so I came by early in the morning to check on you, but … you were already long gone. I am so sorry Darling! I didn't want you …"

He gently pushed her hands away and lay a single finger on her lips. Then he pulled her into the library and closed the door behind them, locking it in the process.

After that he finally let out a sigh and wiped away some of the tears that were still on his face.

"You know … for someone who didn't used to care too much about other people in the past, you sure are compassionate. Thank you. I think I'm better now."

She threw him a doubting look and still stayed very close to him, so if as she tried to block all the negative things he must be thinking about.

"I sure am compassionate with you, Darling! You know, in case you forgot, I do love you after all. I feel horrible when I think about you, sitting alone between all those books and reading this stuff that must make you feel terrified of everything. I don't know what exactly is written in these files, but I can take a good guess. Tell me, seriously, how do you feel? Are you ok?"

Her worrying face came a bit closer again and inspected every inch of his own.

Hiro stood in silence for a long moment. His eyes were staring into hers.

All the information on the torture experiments came back up. And a single tear rolled down his cheek as he looked into the worrying eyes of his girlfriend, who was thinking only about him, instead of her own misery.

"No", he finally whispered, "I am not ok. And I don't think I'll ever be ok again …"

His already shaking legs gave in after that confession. He fell on his knees, not crying anymore, but staring into nothing. In this moment, he just wanted someone to come and safe him from this nightmare he had inflicted on himself.

And there was someone who was just made for that task.

Zero Two instantly dropped in front of him and hugged him like no one ever had before. She didn't say a thing. She just embraced him and gently wipped to and fro with him, to comfort him all she could. It all felt very much like yesterday, just that she was now comforting him, instead the other way around. And just like that her lips started saying: "It's all going to be ok, Darling … it's all going to be ok …".

Several minutes later Zero Two had taken away all the immediate pain on Hiro's mind and he finally let out a somewhat relieved sigh.

"Thank you. I feel better now", he finally said, yet he didn't let go of her. Instead he began to return the hug and now they sat on the cold floor of the library, hugging each other and resting their heads on each other's shoulders.

"I'm glad to hear that Darling", she whispered back, while closing her eyes for a moment, "You are strong. Really strong."

He snorted for a second and shook his head a little bit.

"No, I am not. I just have an amazing guardian angel who protects me."

And the way he raised his head and looked into her eyes he made it very clear as to whom he was referring. He then proceeded to kiss her gently on her slightly trembling lips, which she immediately answered.

In this moment of peace and of love, of compassion and of comfort, a strange thing happened to Hiro. He suddenly didn't feel pain or loss anymore. He felt courage. Whether it was the magic of this kiss, the influence of some higher power or just the second his true self awakened to its fullest, Hiro knew what he wanted to do.

And what he wanted to do was to make this girl happy for the rest of her life and to live with her to explore the world like they always had wanted to, since they both had been children. He wanted to safe her from a world of pain and cruel experiments and from a life that only could end one way: in the death in battle. Hiro wanted to create a place where his friends, his love and he could spent their time without the constant fear of death or the everlasting shadow of APE-Command.

He chuckled as he realized how much of a utopia that would be. And how much would have to change to make that possible. But he had made up his mind. He would strife to reach that utopia or die trying. They all deserved to be happy. Each and every one of his squad mates deserved better than what APE had planned for them.

Zero Two let go of his lips and raised her eyebrows as she realized how much his facial expression had changed since they had begun to kiss.

"Was it that good?", she asked half-jokingly.

He just smiled back at her, gave her another quick kiss and rose to his feet, pulling her up with him.

"It was amazing. You made me finally realize what I want to do, now that I have all this information. You just gave me a goal, my angel, that's way more than I could have asked for."

She snorted and got a bit flustered.

"Well, it was my pleasure Darling. And stop calling me your 'angel' already. What kind of angel has horns, hmm?", she said while touching the tip of her right horn.

"My kind", he said with such confidence that she raised both eyebrows and never again said anything against that.

And while Zero Two stood still, still touching her horn and thinking about his words, Hiro had returned to the place of horror, where the cursed data stick still lied on the table.

Quickly he connected to it again and searched for the file he had stopped at earlier.

Hiro stood there for a second, just looking at it. He took a deep breath and then finally let himself sink into the chair again. Zero Two followed him and drew another chair close to his.

„So, Darling, you say I have given you a goal", she sat down, laid her chin on his left shoulder to have a good view and looked onto his palm, „Care to explain what exactly that would be?"

She threw him a curious look and raised an eyebrow.

Hiro had by now sorted his thoughts and banned all the atrocious things he had learned today into the back of his mind. His face had turned from showing fear and despair to a look that reminded Zero Two of the face he usually wore in battle. The Look of a warrior. And she knew that he was one. She was certain that her Darling was already overcoming the ugly truth of this world.

He answered by showing her an open document. He said nothing. He simply showed it to her. His eyes met hers. They were apologizing to her.

Curious Zero Two read the first line … and froze, as she saw her own name.

Silent she skimmed over the entire list. Here and there she snorted or winced at a cruel joke only she could understand. She wanted nothing more but to look elsewhere and to hide her face in her Darlings back, but she knew that he wanted her to read it all. And so she did. She had allowed it to happen that he read it all on his own. Now she wouldn't back down from the truth herself.

Pain, long forgotten, returned with each and every one of the lines she read.

Pain of body and mind equally.

At one point - the line read "Test 3 on survival during extensive gassing with open wounds" - she had to close her eyes for a moment and had to calm her breathing. Hiro looked like he really wanted to close the file but did not say a thing. Nonetheless she kept reading the entire list until the very end.

Afterwards she finally leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes again. Pictures of the cruelest torture possible with modern machinery kept crossing her mind. Never before had she actually read a list of all the things they had done to her over the years. While those tests had happened she would only sort them by the amount of pain that was inflicted on her that day. A pain-meter for keeping her sanity so to say. Yesterday was a 'much pain' day, so today is going to be a 'not so much pain' day, and so on.

While thinking back and slowly regulating her breath back to normal, she suddenly realized that her cheeks were wet. Unknowingly she had shed a few tears while reading. With a trembling hand she began to wipe them away, but Hiro already was doing that for her. The list had vanished from his hand, back into the hell pit that the data stick really was.

Had she known what cursed things were on this thing, she wouldn't have let him keep it even for a second. Hell, who knew what things may still be hidden on it or the other stick she carried in her pocket?

"I'm sorry", Hiro muttered finally, his face a combination of swollen eyes from his crying earlier, of a very apologizing look and at the same time a nearly frightening readiness for all things to come, "I had to show you what made me decide my fate."

She rolled her head over in his direction, steadied her voice and replied immediately: "Our fate. Whatever you plan on doing, you know I'm with you, Darling."

He smiled at her for a second but got earnest right away again.

"I know. I really don't want you to be a part of this, as it is going to get really dangerous, but that probably goes for the both of us, so … let's not try to keep the other out of it and do our best to stay alive, ok?"

She nodded. The way he talked he hadn't finished yet. And it sounded like he really thought of doing something crazy this time.

"In short: I plan to free the parasites of this unit and of as many units as possible out of the slavery that High Command and APE have born them into. I plan to find a place where said parasites can live a peaceful live, without the fear of getting torn or blown to pieces any day. I plan to take revenge for the atrocities committed by APE to all parasites alive or dead. That means I plan to overthrow the Sages and everyone who follows them willingly. And I won't promise not to simply shoot them when I get the chance. I plan on an all-out revenge campaign against the leaders of humanity. And I know exactly how much I sound like a madmen saying that."

He took a breath and looked in her face, as if he was searching for a sign that she wasn't with him on that. But her face was an empty mask. He couldn't make out what was going on inside her head. So he simply sighed, took a long sip out of his water bottle and then looked back at her.

"I know it sounds cra …", he began again, but was almost instantly disrupted by her asking: "Darling, do you know how to take a human life?"

He closed his eyes, his face stern and shook his head.

"No, I don't. But I made up my mind that I will have to kill people if I want to reach the goal. So … I am willing to learn it. As hard or brutal as that may sound."

She simply nodded, her face still empty and without emotion.

"You know that we could try to escape this system on our own, right? Why open rebellion? Out of hate?"

"Of course not. If I wanted to just desert APE, I would tell everyone in Squad 13 what's going on and try to flee with them. But that's not going to happen. APE has all resources they need to stop and kill us shortly afterwards. Even if we would fight them in our FRANXX, they would simply wear us down. So nothing would be gained that way. Besides, I want the other parasites to have a chance to live their lives as well. They don't deserve what's being done to them any more than we do", he answered with a shaking of his head. He understood that those questions were meant to test his resolve in this matter. He didn't plan on failing any of them.

Zero Two nodded a bit.

"Why kill the sages and not have them openly judged and sentenced?"

Hiro's left eye twitched for a second, because there was only one true answer to that.

"Out of fear that they may live somehow. I want any of them dead for their crimes against you … and of course for other things too, but not as much."

His last sentence had a very dark undertone to it, which was absolutely untypical for him to speak like. Hiro suddenly realized that his darker side had finally gained enough control to take over. And it only had took a day. For the first time since he had made up his mind, he was shaking in his resolve. Was this really for the best?

But Zero Two's eyes widened for another reason.

"Do you plan to do all this just because you want them to pay for what they have done to me? What about you? And the wiping of your memories? Your life in slavery, you just talked about …"

He shook his head resolutely.

"No. For all of that I would have them judged and sentenced, just like you said. But I want them dead because of your torture on their command. Nothing more and nothing less. If you don't want that, I …"

"Oh, I want that alright", she finally gave in and showed such a dark face, full to the brim with anger and hatred, he nearly lost his resolve all at once, "I want Papa and his fellow vermin to have the most gruesome death humanly possible."

She took another breath and calmed down a bit, her facial expression smoothing up.

"But I wouldn't go to war over it. Darling, I just yesterday got the official permission to be with you and your squad again. I … I have a somewhat hard time to just say yes to another war, after it feels like I just came home from one", she calmly added, but became more nervous now that she had said something against his plans.

Now it was Hiro's turn to ask a question.

Silently he murmured:

"Would you prefer it to keep our live like it is? Despite knowing all those things and how we are going to die in at least a few years? Please, just say you want it to stay like that and I won't tell anyone in the squad what I learned today. I don't want to endanger everyone. But I will have a hard time coming to peace with that. Nonetheless I'll try if you want that. I would never do such a crazy thing without you by my side."

Zero Two slid down in her chair and covered her face in both palms, while making a frustrated noise.

"I don't want to, but I want to. You understand? I really wouldn't want anything more than bursting through Papa's door and making him pay for everything. But one other thing I want as much as that is my life with you. And doing the former will endanger the latter. I know everything would be better if we tried and succeeded, but who can tell if we both or even one of us will live to see it?", she took her hands out of her face and threw him a miserable look, "I want to be with you, damned! And I don't want to ever, ever wake up knowing that you have been killed and I'm still alive. I want us to be happy together and doing lots of funny things and hugging and kissing and stupid things like that … I don't want us to be …"

She looked like she would start crying at any moment now again and Hiro wasn't all too sure he could keep his tears back for much longer at that rate either, but nothing like that happened, as suddenly a strong fist hammered on the door.

"This is APE Command, Code 008, Hachi. You are under arrest. Open the door immediately."

As none of them had seen that in any way coming, they both stared unbelievingly at the door, which was shortly after being kicked in by Hachi himself, a pistol in one hand, a data pad in the other. In the corridor behind him there were many more soldiers to be seen.

"I repeat, you are hereby under arrest and accused of treason against APE Command. Don't try to resist or we will use deadly force to stop you."

One after the other Hiro and Zero Two stood up and put their hands behind their heads, while making grave faces. This was a turn towards the worst possible outcome and Hiro felt like an absolute idiot for his big speech about rebellion from earlier. He wouldn't rebel against anything if they decided to just execute them on the spot.

And here we are, at the end of another chapter.

Thank you for reading and please do tell me what you think of the story so far. My mein concern, though some of you have told me it's been all fine up until now, is the depiction of Hiro and Zero Two. I still often do find me asking myself if I write them correctly and in-character.

But regardless, the two of them sure have gotten themselves into trouble now. And the big question of the day seems to be: what will Hachi do?

I'm sure we will see about that in the next chapter. See you there fellas!