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Viral doesn’t know how this human cub found him, but once she starts to cry, he wants her gone.
“How did a human even get in to the Capitol?” he snarls. It’s no easy feat; his quarters these days are near the top. They overhang even the clouds; the surface is far below. For this girl to have made it so far unharmed…
She cries louder. Viral casts a frantic search around the hallway — it’s clear of other Beastmen who might think him a traitor — before he shushes her. “Be quiet!”
Surprise catches her wails, and she blinks up at him with big blue eyes. Her pupils are pink and petal-shaped — strange. He’s never seen a human like this before. She can’t be older than three, in human years, and her two-tone hair reflects a sky fluffed with clouds as much as her eyes do the Earth’s yield. Where did she come from? Viral wonders.
Then she sobs again.
“Shh!” he scolds. It wins him four seconds of quiet before her mouth opens again; threatening. “Human! You need to stay calm.”
“No!” she squeals.
In his panic, Viral falls back on the familiar. “Listen! Have you ever heard the story of Enkidu?”
“En… ki-du?” She sniffles; rubs her hand against her snotty nose.
“Yes,” Viral says. He nudges an oversized finger into her — clean — palm and pulls her down the hall. She’s quiet — now, if he could only find the exit and send her back to the surface… “He was a wild man, and a powerful warrior who went on an epic adventure…” The tale distracts her from her worry well enough, until they turn a corner and run smack into Cytomander.
“Cytomander!” Viral greets with an instinctual bow. He doesn’t realize his mistake until he’s standing straight up again. Dread curdles in his stomach as he remembers the vile taste of life beneath the Capitol.
But Cytomander doesn’t look angry. His brow lifts in surprise instead. “Viral. How did you manage to find the lost Princess Nia?”
Princess… ?
Viral glances at Nia. She stares back at him, her eyes finally calm. “I… it was an accident,” Viral explains. It’s the truth — though that doesn’t matter to Cytomander. “She was outside my quarters. I didn’t know she was the Princess.”
Cytomander huffs an entertained sniff. “Right. Well, I’ll take her back to the Spiral King myself.”
Viral has no argument. He hands the Princess over, and doesn’t stick around any longer.
He’d told only the beginning of Enkidu’s story — but had no idea what was to come.
꩜
Viral doesn’t know how Nia found him, but he wishes she hadn’t. “Commander Viral,” she says, from the entrance of the cave he’s holed up in.
He slinks further into shadow; tries to disappear.
Nia’s undeterred. “Commander Viral, the nearby village chief informed me of your whereabouts. I know you are here. May I speak with you?”
Viral holds his breath.
Still, Nia presses forwards. “That is acceptable. I understand why you may not wish to speak with me. But I’ve come here to ask: why have you not pursued your role as a storyteller?”
Something in Viral snaps. “Storyteller,” he growls. It blows his cover — not like he had much to begin with — and Nia’s eyes find him. “That’s an insult! I’m a warrior; a distinguished guardian of the Capitol! I —”
“The Capitol has fallen. It does not exist anymore.”
“And yet you still call me commander,” he sneers.
Nia frowns. “I only wish to offer the respect you earned in the past.”
Viral spits to the side. She found him disgraced in a cave, wearing shredded robes and a layer of dirt thicker than even Simon the Digger found himself caked in. The thought primes his next attack. “Did Simon send you?”
Nia tilts her head. Towards the better, the light, the sun; flower she is. “I am here of my own will,” she says. “I know you far better than Simon. Did you not tell me bedtime stories, many years ago?”
And even in Simon’s absence, it clicks. It’s no coincidence Nia is the one to match the boy who toppled the Spiral King beat-for-beat. The grit in her voice is impenetrable; her childhood determination spun up into battlements.
Still, Viral tries. “Is that a challenge?” he snarls.
“Is that what you need it to be?”
Viral bares his teeth.
But Nia doesn’t give him time to recover or attack. “I hope you will reconsider. Goodbye, Commander,” she says. She bends down, sets something on the ground — then vanishes.
Viral refuses to look at what she’s left until the sun sets. It’s clear, even in the pale light of their half-moon: a small bunch of cut purple flowers.
Their edges have already started to wilt.
꩜
Viral doesn’t know how these human — and Beastman — cubs found him, but he’s not surprised they did. His previous cadet classes had all shown up on his doorstep after-hours at least once. “What do you want?” he growls.
Their leader — a wide-eyed girl named Kaichi with hair twisted into twin plaits and long eyelashes she hasn’t yet grown into — salutes first. The others follow. “Captain Viral!” She puffs her chest out; uses the voice of a leader. Or a beacon. They work best in tandem, anyways. “Miss Littner told us that you were around during the Earth’s emancipation, and you can share the legend of Gurren Lagann with us!”
Viral’s jaw tightens. Yoko hasn’t been around for decades; of their old crew, only Lagann keeps Viral’s company. But Littner has become a title as much as it is a name; passed between generations of teachers with sharp minds and sharper aim — and a penchant matched only by Viral’s for taking in wayward cubs. “Did she now,” he challenges. He crosses his arms over his chest. “Don’t you know that story already?”
Kaichi deflates, but recovers and stands taller in a half-second. What she says next doesn’t matter; she’s passed Viral’s test. “Best practice is to seek out a primary source!”
Viral lets his chuckle escape under the mask of a tired sigh, and steps aside to let the cadets in. Once they’re gathered in his home and sat patient on the floor, he asks, “What do you know about flowers?”
“Flowers?” Kaichi frowns. Her classmates share her confusion. “A normal amount, I’d say. Why do you ask?”
“Because there’s a flower at the heart of this story,” Viral explains. He’s told this one to the point of muscle memory — including the muscle at his chest’s core, which floods with warmth as he remembers. “And you need to understand her before anything else.”
Kaichi nods. “Okay. Flowers. They bloom in the sun, feed on water and air…” She trails off, directionless.
And isn’t that fitting? Across space, across time, across life, Nia is a north star; a guiding light. Viral smirks. “That’s true, but it doesn’t matter.”
Kaichi’s jaw drops. “It… it doesn’t? Then what…”
“Flowers are important because they evolve,” Viral explains. “They’re not spiral life-forms, but they act like they are.” Here, he meets the eyes of each of his fellow Beastmen. They’ll need to hear what comes next more than their peers. “And tougher for it.”
“Wait, but —” another cadet interrupts. “Captain, what does that have to do with Gurren Lagann?”
“If you listen, you’ll find out.”
The cadet shrinks.
Viral continues. “Flowers don’t live very long, but with the time they have, they make life better for everyone. That’s why they’re important. And every flower you saw on your walk here was planted by — or in honor of — a member of Team Dai-Gurren.”
The cadets look between each other in awe.
There are some quiet whispers, which Viral cuts off quick. “Her name was Princess Nia; the daughter of the Spiral King. And all the best stories start with a princess locked in a tower…”