Hiro opened his eyes.
[White ceiling. White walls. The smell of clean soap and medicine.]
He knew this place. The Garden. Where they made children into pilots. Where they gave you numbers instead of names.
But something was wrong.
[He lifted his hand. It was small. Too small. Soft fingers, no calluses.]
This was a child's hand. His hand, but from years ago. Before everything happened.
'Before her.'
"016," [a voice said. A woman in white stood by his bed, checking a screen.] "Vitals normal. You had a bad reaction to the sync test yesterday. Rest today."
Hiro said nothing. [He was too busy remembering.]
He remembered dying. He remembered light so bright it ate the world. He remembered holding someone's hand — [warm, rough, with small hard things tapping against his palm like a secret code.]
He remembered saying "Darling" and hearing it back like the only word that mattered.
And he remembered her face. [Red horns. Gold eyes that shone like a cat's in the dark. A smile sharp enough to cut, but soft enough to heal.]
"Zero Two," [he whispered.]
The woman in white froze. [Just for a second. Her hand stopped moving on the screen.]
Then she smiled again. [But it was a different smile. Tight. Wrong.]
"Unknown designation," [she said, voice flat like a machine learning kindness.] "Rest, 016."
[She left fast. Too fast. Her shoes squeaked on the floor. The door clicked shut.]
Hiro sat up. [His heart beat hard against his ribs — child ribs, bird bones, not the chest that had held a bond strong enough to break the sky.]
He looked at the other beds. [Children sleeping. Some he knew.]
Naomi — [the girl who almost became his partner in another life.] She was alive here. Safe. But in his memory, she had died. Or left. Or never mattered because someone else took her place.
'Zero Two.'
[He said the name in his head. It felt like touching a bruise. Painful but real. Proof that something existed even if this white room said no.]
Hiro got up. [His legs wobbled. He grabbed the bed frame. Small fingers, weak grip.]
He was rejected from sync. [In his old life, this was when everything changed. When he met her in the rain. When she licked his cheek and called him her Darling and made him feel like more than a broken number.]
But there was no rain today. [Only sun through clean windows. Only the Garden, peaceful and empty.]
He walked to the mirror. [A small boy looked back. Dark hair. Sad eyes. No horns.]
In his memory, he had grown blue horns for her. [He had become half-klaxosaur, half-hers.] But this face was only human. Only 016.
Hiro touched his forehead. [Smooth. Normal.]
For a second — [one blink] — he saw blue. [Felt the push of bone breaking skin. Felt power moving through him like her hand was still in his, guiding.]
Then it was gone. [Just a boy again. Just a dream.]
But dreams don't make you cry. [And Hiro was crying. Tears ran down his face and he didn't know why.]
Only that something was missing. Something red. Something that should be standing beside him, holding his hand, saying his name like it was the answer to every question.
"Where are you?" [he asked the mirror.]
[The mirror didn't answer. The room stayed white and quiet.]
But somewhere — [somewhere that wasn't here, somewhere that felt like static and color and the space between heartbeats] — something moved. [Something with red horns reached out and couldn't find him.]
Hiro wiped his eyes. [He was a child in a white room in a world that said he was alone.]
But he remembered.
'And memory,' [he thought, small fingers pressed against his smooth forehead,] 'is sharper than any lie.'