By evening, Dale visited my room again but this time, he was on his own. I was drawing on a sketchbook I'd requested from Ayesha while Ludwig, seemingly, had indulged himself in reading novels after novels just before Dale came.

"Ayesha's off to see the injured right now, little miss. She's treating those that came back from the recon missions. The girl's a medic too, you know."

"...Recon missions?"

"Ah, you don't have to know what it is, yeah? Eh, it's adult stuff."

Ludwig smiled when I simply nodded at his reply. Gently, I put down the tip of my mechanical pencil on my sketchbook paper and moved my hand to the left a few times to create a layered curved line. It connected to another curved line to its right, and I then carefully pressed my pencil onto the intersection point, blackening it further. This created a contrast to the two scribbled lines and I ran the pencil's tip all over the lines again to smooth the edge. The sketch would not look messy this way, and I continued drawing varied lines on the paper.

"What are you drawing?" asked Ludwig.

He raised himself from the floor and took large strides to my side. But before he could see my sketch, the room's sliding door opened and Dale popped in with two bags of potato chips in hand.

"Ava! Sorry to intrude," he said as he stepped inside.

"Oh, little Dale," greeted Ludwig, "Bored by yourself?"

"Yeah. There's nothing to do in our room, so I asked my parents if I could come here. Ah, I brought this." Dale put one of the potato chips on the study table I was using. "I got it from this nice lady I met on my way here."

"A nice lady? Ha! It must be either Ayesha or Arisa," said Ludwig as he crossed his arms, veritably confident in his on-the-spot answer.

"She said her name's Jessica."

"...I forgot about her," admitted Ludwig.

"Hm?" Dale leaned to my right when he saw my sketchbook on the study table. "What you drawing?"

"...Leaves."

"Huh?"

Ludwig whistled when he, too, looked at my unfinished drawing. Their gazes made my heart thumped faster and I pulled the sketchbook on the table closer to me out of discomfort. I never once showed my drawings to anyone except for Mommy and Daddy, so them staring at one I was making perturbed me.

"Quite detailed. You have a talent in creativity," said Ludwig.

"But drawing leaves are boring. Why leaves anyway?"

Dale's statement narked me at first and I refused to look at him nor answered his question. He prodded me into answering, but I obstinately held firm in not doing what he wanted me to do.

"Hey, so you draw when you're bored? I visited your home a few times and I didn't recall seeing you draw. So, this is a first," said Dale as he sat on my bed and munched on his potato chips.

"...I don't like to draw in front of many people," I said, almost a whisper.

My right hand picked up the mechanical pencil again and I continued fleshing out the details of my leaves. Varied in sizes and shapes, I drew the leaves slowly, enjoying the scratching sounds when I made small, sharp strokes across the paper.

"Hmm, Ava is ignoring me," said Dale with a pout, his hand rummaging through his bag of potato chips.

"She's concentrating, little Dale. I think you come at the wrong time. How about you go to the nursery where the cute little kids are at? You'll find a partner to play while you're there."

"Oh, where is it?"

"Come, I'll show you."

Dale waved me goodbye before he followed Ludwig to the nursery, leaving me alone. By the time Ludwig returned, I had already finished my drawing or more precisely, a sketch.

"Oh, this is nice."

Ludwig lifted my sketchbook and tilted it every few seconds. He then brought the drawing close to his face and his eyes squinted at the drawing. Did the leaves look weird?

I supposed it was since I drew mostly spades—one of the four suits in playing cards—instead of actual leaves. I tried to make it look like one, but it ended up in such a way the more I erased and drew over the old sketch.

"They are simple triangles, some of them anyway, but still... the shading on these leaves are excellent," commented Ludwig.

"I-Is it? Thank you..."

"Where do you learn to shade like this? Your school teacher?"

"...I learned by myself."

"Oh! Interesting," said Ludwig as he placed my sketchbook on the study table, "That must mean you'd drawn a lot during your spare time. When you feel like it, you can show the drawings you'd made to others."

"Like Ayesha?"

"She would love it, I'm sure."

Ludwig grabbed the bag of potato chips Dale gave me and pulled it open with a pop. He peered inside the content, handed the bag to me, and smiled.

"Oh... There's not that much. Only half of the bag is filled," I said, somewhat dejected.

"Business strategy. They make you think the package is full of chips by filling the inside with air until it's full, but in reality, only fifty-percent of it is filled with chips. Makes you think how much can they push this before people stop buying anymore."

Ludwig continued, "But that's what makes us human. While we do want to think positively about people, in truth, they too have dark secrets just like us. And when we're confronted by people who found out about these secrets, believe me... we as humans can be far more depraved than what we ourselves could perceive."

I gulped at his words. Dark secrets.

That meant, in Ludwig's case, he would have one or two dark secrets of his own.

Ludwig smiled when I took a modest bite of a potato chip in hand. Looking at the doctor, I'd only known him for two days right then, and so far, this bespectacled man struck me as someone who took things casually. He approached (almost)every situation with a calculating gaze and pretentious smile. Calm, knowledgable, Ludwig seemed nice the more you were to spend time with him. Despite this, my heart thumped whenever we were by ourselves.

As if it heralded some unpleasant scenarios that could happen during the short span of time.

"Little miss."

My body jolted straight when Ludwig called my name, eyes opened wide. "Y-Yes?"

He took a step towards me and his upper body shadowed my sketchbook. When he lowered his head to look at my drawing again, my heartbeat went faster and faster as I held my gaze.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

I held a hand over my chest and gripped the dress in the next moment.

"What will you do from now on?" Ludwig asked softly.

"..."

"There must be something that you want to do after everything is over, right?"

"..." His question caught me by surprise and I found myself staring back at him. Though I recollected myself as soon as possible afterward, shaking my head a couple of times before I answered in haste.

"I-I want to find my parents," I said under my breath.

"Hm, as expected. Though if you would allow me, perhaps I can help too."

"...Thank you."

His statement was like a warm balm so I took the opportunity to ensconce myself within it.

"Oh, look who's here," said Ludwig when the sliding door opened.

A figure entered through the door followed by two other figures behind him. I turned my head and gasped at the sight of the three.

"...Grandpa?"

Grandpa swept a quick glance over the room and his stern eyes softened when he saw me. Beatrice and Hope were behind him, and they smiled as I held their gaze.

"Grandpa... Grandpa."

I stood up from my seat at a moment's notice. My feet sidled towards Grandpa, my hands reaching. When I was at his side, my fingers tugged his red collared shirt and tears wet my cheeks.

"...Sorry that you have to wait for some time, Ava. There were urgent matters that I'd to attend. But now, I'm free for a while." Grandpa's hand ruffled my hair and I wiped the tears on my face.

"G-Grandpa, I need to ask you something."

"I know."

"...Who am I? W-What am I really? Where's Daddy and Mommy? Why... Why were those people trying to..."

"I'll be frank to you, Ava. I haven't found Bart nor Alicia even though I'd sent scouts to check the invaded city. Currently, their whereabouts are unknown."

"Find them!" I vociferated, "You must find them no matter what!"

"A-Ava..." Hope held both hands in my direction and Beatrice raised an eyebrow at me.

"Find them, please! Grandpa! I'll do anything you want of me but please, find Mommy and Daddy!!"

Grandpa shook his head and sighed. Seeing that, I felt my chest tightened into a knot as my head throbbed with immense pain. Why did Grandpa refuse to find Mommy and Daddy for me? Were they not important to him in the slightest?

Thoughts slipped into my mind seemingly trying to make me hate Grandpa. I realized the anger building up and I took a step back from him. In and out, slowly, I took a few deep breaths with one hand over my chest.

"I'm continuing the search regardless so don't worry. I'll find Bart and Alicia," said Grandpa.

"But don't get your hopes up for it, is what Richarde is trying to say," added Ludwig.

"D-Don't say that in front of her!" said Hope, "And it's supposed to be Boss, Gray. Calling him by his first name is disrespectful."

"About your question regarding who you are..." Grandpa lowered his head and stared hard into my eyes. "I guess it's time for you to know the truth. About what happened ten years ago when your father came to my door with you in his arms."

Gray clouds repleted the sky as time passed and after a while, the mild rain it brought turned into a heavy downpour. Lightning flashed for a moment overhead followed by a series of ear-splitting thunder which managed to blanch a lady running along a dirt road. A few brick houses dotted the residence they had ran into.

The lady with a short bob paid no heed on the rain and continued to run, her eyes focused on a man's back in front of her. He too was running as if his life depended on it and in his arms, was an infant covered in an already soaked white blanket.

Their shoes stepped into muds as the earthy scent from the soil touched their olfactory receptors, but neither cared in the least about it. Both individuals felt the stinging pain in their legs, threatening to tear them mentally if they so much as to move two to three more steps.

"Huff... Huff... Huff..."

It appeared the man carrying the infant was the first one to catch a sight of a familiar wooden fence. He turned to look at his wife behind him and tilted his chin towards a white brick house three hundred meters in front.

"I-I'll open the gate, Bart," shouted the wife to her husband, wondering if he heard her in the rain.

She watched as Bart jogged past the metal gate and then she followed from behind. At that time, the house's owner was ensconced in his leather couch with a book in one hand.

He flipped a page slowly and squinted at the words. The man in his sixties, Richarde Andersson, sighed at a rather conspicuous fact he had tried to avoid before he closed the book. 'I need to get reading glasses tomorrow', he thought.

Knock, knock, knock.

"Hmm?" His eyebrows raised, the man stared at the wooden front door for a few seconds. "Did I just heard—"

Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.

Bart's wife then slammed her fists against the wooden door as hard as she could repeatedly. The lady did not care how much force she put into it and kept slamming the front door. Her fingers felt like it would break sooner or later.

"Dad!!" shouted Bart in the rain, "It's me!"

The front door was pulled open and a man with slightly grizzled hair emerged from inside the house.

"....Bart? Is that you, Bart? My son, where'd you been all this time?"

His blue eyes fell on Bart's wife and then the infant. Immediately, he allowed the three to come inside and closed the door.

"...I can't believe you. This girl is just a few weeks old, isn't she? You brought her here despite the rain?" said Richarde as he covered the infant in a new, dry blanket.

The four of them were in the living room—surrounded by gloomy dark walls and a fireplace on one side. Richarde walked up to both husband and wife who'd changed their clothes and were sitting on the couch. He gave the infant in his arms to Alicia.

"You can tell me what happened after you left five years ago at some other time, Bart. But now..." Richarde looked at Alicia. "I want to know what you'd gotten yourself into. There must be a good explanation as to why you're coming back, with a wife and a weeks-old baby at that. It's like you're running away from something."

"...A lot happened, Dad. I promise I'll tell you the full story later, so, can we rest—"

"Eaaakk!! Uwaaaah! Uwaah! Waaah! Waaaaaah!"

The baby's toothless mouth opened wide as she cried, and Alicia hastily hushed the baby to deaden her cry while stroking her scalp.

"Shhh. It's alright, Ava. Mommy's here."

Alicia's hand gently grabbed a part of Ava's blanket to cover the infant's hair, and when she did so, a peculiar thing happened. Ava's cry got louder by the moment due to the persistent thunder booming outside, when...

"What in the world!?"

A deep red object protruded out of Ava's right arm and Richarde stumbled and fell to the floor. The object grew larger, taking the form of fine, irregular lines that connected and jutted toward no direction in particular like roots. But for Richarde, it was as if he was looking at a bolt of red lightning captured in the very moment when it flashed.

"Ava! Don't worry, Mommy is here with you. Nothing will hurt my sweet daughter as long as you're with me. It's gonna be alright, okay?"

Alicia leaned her head towards Ava and their nose gently touched, tears trickled down from the mother's green eyes. The thunder-like crystals Ava had produced slowly dissolved into particles in the air as Ava went to sleep. After some time, the rain dissipated into fine drops, allowing everyone in the living room to gather what they wanted to say.

"...What kind of monster have you brought back?" asked Richarde who was still on the floor, his eyes opened wide.

"She's not a monster!!" retorted Alicia.

"Alicia..."

"S-Sorry. I didn't mean to raise my voice."

Bart assuaged his wife's anger by saying that Richarde did not mean what he just said. Later, he explained to Richarde about the Aegis.

"That thing you saw. The red crystals sprouted from her arm were a result of her Aegis... And we were..." Bart's voice trailed off in the end when his wife leaned on his shoulder.

"Aegis...? Why does she have this thing inside her?"

"...Keep this a secret, please, Dad. Everything you've seen and heard today only stays here. I'll tell you about Ava and Alicia someday."

Richarde tried to ask for more information about how Ava came to possess such a 'weapon', but they didn't respond. Both husband and wife ignored the man's question every time it was asked. This was why no one except for Bart and Alicia knew about the secrets behind Aegis and how it worked in reality, much to Richarde's chagrin.

"I don't know anything else about your Aegis. If you want to know more, there's no other way to this than finding them," said Grandpa after giving me his lengthy story.

"........I have Aegis from the very beginning?" I said to myself.

Ludwig, Beatrice, and Hope were silent, no words uttered. The only sound resounded inside my room was Grandpa's voice when he explained about Daddy and Mommy.

Though, as much as I thought about it that night, nothing seemed to make sense for me. Why was I different? How could I end up with such a thing inside me? What exactly happened before Mommy and Daddy came to Grandpa?

These questions remained unanswered as I closed my eyes to sleep, a solitary tear ran down my cheek as I called for my parents.