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When the World falls down around her, she doesn’t remember much.
Not that it matters. Not that it has ever mattered. She’s an experiment. A fusion of creatures. They tell her later that she is Agito , she is Fangire . She is… a third thing that they refuse to describe.
Big words for a nobody.
They tell her that the leader of the coup saved her. She learns her savior’s name just months before her savior is killed.
(She learns later of a more complicated truth.)
She’s smart, is the thing, this gives her a chance to rise. Slowly. Carefully.
Not too fast. Not too high. Keep your wits about you when getting a degree in cybernetics because half your coworkers want to do an autopsy on you, and half of the others want to cut you apart while still alive.
Survive.
This is how she meets another survivor. One of the first people who supported the coup, in the aftermath. They say he was Kadoya Ishi’s student.
His name is…
Yuki Joji.
“I don’t think they made the right choices,” Yuki will say. “When they killed Great Leader.”
“Why’s that?” She will ask.
“I think,” Yuki will say. “That the first question that should be asked is if they all wanted the same kind of change.”
Her twelve year old eyes, because even so young, she’s had to fight for herself all alone, will widen.
She understands.
She will be several years older when she learns she had a father, of sorts. Kadoya Ishi’s own words echo with weight as this no one goes through cloning research.
Clone has been terminated. Although incomplete due to complicated with the eye development, he has been serving as surrogate parent to a creature called Project N—
She drops the files.
She cries.
A first memory. More of an echo. Something before a Dai-Shocker orphanage for non-humans.
“Oh my little miracle,” the echo says, and there is warmth, in its deep yet gentle voice. “Isn’t this unfair? I love you so much. Why doesn’t he see it?”
Soft, warm pressure, as the echo holds her in its arms.
“I can’t even see,” the echo says. “And I’m the only one who can protect you. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry my N%&%…”
“Are you alright?” Yuki asks, when she goes back to work with him later. She nods.
“Do you ever just want to get away from here?” She asks. “This whole damn World is rotten.”
Yuki laughs.
“It probably is,” he says. “But where would we go?”
She shrugs.
“I wonder if there’s a World of Video Games,” she says. “Or like… junk food that doesn’t make you fat. We could hide out there.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard of either of those,” Yuki says. “Sounds fun.”
She grins. He puts a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m going to assume you’re joking,” he says. “Because you’re a smart girl. But just know… I’m here for you.”
A promise. She nods.
“I understand.”
She’s 15, when she takes the leap of faith, and she regrets it for the rest of her life.
Yuki goes first, and he’s captured. He told her to go anyways.
She just couldn’t do it. He’s been a mentor to her, if not a father. She had one of those, and Shocker killed him.
When the higher ups are done with the defectors, the science division can take the scraps. Oh, to the new Great Leader’s credit, he has all these rules about what can be done to them, but not many follow them.
She isn’t caught, so she can rescue Yuki.
Her specialty is tech, so as he slowly recovers in fits and bursts, she crafts an arm for him. She can only afford so much medicine, when she’s tried to stay solidly middle tier.
And the synthetic skin costs a fortune.
“You don’t need to do this,” Yuki says.
“Yes, I do,” she says. “So shut up, Yuki-Sensei, and let me save your damn life.”
He collapses back down on the couch.
“Fine,” he says. “I can make a weapon one, myself.”
“If that’s what you want,” she says.
“I want revenge.”
“Fair enough.”
Great Leader disappears, and Great Leader comes back, and now Yuki disappears.
She can only assume that he failed.
When the World falls, she considers just running, but for some reason, she stays. Helps people get out, hundreds of people.
She takes them from the prisons, from all the worst places, because these are the people she considers most worthy of life, when she is forced to choose.
She brings them to a World that offers care to them and rewards to herself.
“But to join the program,” says the lead medic helping her. “We’ll need a name.”
She’s had many names. Only one, left in the depths of memories, ever truly fit her.
“Nico,” she says. “That’s my name.”
(She later learns that Great Leader became Decade, that he sacrificed his World and lived happily ever after.
She doesn’t think she can ever forgive him for that.)