Octovern, since that's where all the cool kids are.

[teamblue]

Rated R for violence.

1.

It's a good thing all those wanted posters show a black haired angry twin of Vash the Stampede, because the one with hair so pale it might as well be white hasn't been noticed yet by anyone of the Federal sort. Just one more dust covered caravan cockroach in a city full of them.

It has taken Knives the better part of three months to get here.

On foot for almost all of it.

Being picked up a few iles out was nice but almost pointless by then, still, he'd hitched a ride, gotten dropped off and promptly relocated to the nearest restaraunt, bar or otherwise useful source of water and food, neither of which he actually needs.

Pretend to eat and drink, even if you don't have to

He also has no need for human clothing, but he's at least bothered with that, and is dressed in depressingly ordinary bluejeans and boots, black turtleneck shirt and sky blue crop top jacket, fingerless gloves on his hands and dark sunglasses more often than not hiding his both eyes and a twisting pale scar. It hides every single glowing line he struggled to easily obscure or that could catch an unexpected reflection of the light. He could be anyone, if 'anyone' paid for every single transaction in coins instead of paper bills, but nothing flags to humanity as obviously NOT human, which is the point. He doesn't think to hide from his own kind. Why would he?

And so he sits, a careworn bag sitting at his feet, working very slowly through a blueberry muffin and a tall glass of water with a lone icecube in it. Nothing to see here, move along.

2.

Knives, pack once more over his shoulder and map in hand, is losing the fight with navigation. The map's several years out of date and does not at all have all the modifications and camp outs and construction that's happened since the worlds merged. Which leaves him standing on the side of the road at a crossroads that simply doesn't exist on the map, scowling at the grid-marked map in his hands.

This is absolutely Ann Street. Ann Street should run right to North Street, but it does not. Not anymore.

Now there's an entire gun shop in the way and several shanty-town level buildings, and he's not entirely sure North Street even exists anymore. A trio of armed Federal troops march past; they ignore him and he only gives them a cursory look until they stop to update the wanted posters nailed to the gun shop's wall. While they might be on the lookout for a certain pair of notorious outlaws, he just doesn't fit the profile.

The names on some of those posters, though..

He crosses the street, dodging a tomas-pulled wagon, and stops in front of the dozens of posters to study them with a furrowed brow. Whoever's coming up with these things clearly is a terrible artist, while that's his name it looks nothing like him except for the beauty mark. "...Really? Not even a price tag?"

Aren't these supposed to come with a bounty, instead of 'Reward Upon Capture'?

Comments

1.

[louboutinjudas]

A familiar face -- minus the cross that usually hangs across his back -- drops into a seat just two tables down, looking exhausted and annoyed. There's something wrong with the plants here, he's decided. The fight's over. Why do they keep bringing people here? It doesn't make any sense! Octovern is the last place he wants to be right now, with the local feds and Earth forces both looking for any of Vash the Stampede's cohort. At least his face isn't the one they're looking for, but that'll only buy him soo much leeway, given how many duplicates of people are wandering around.

He digs in his pocket for cash, but only manages to scrounge up a handful of coins. Is it enough for a cup of coffee? Maybe. Probably not. Goddammit.

[teamblue]

The fighting could be ramping up, out of sight and out of mind. The things that could be going on in the wastelands were endless! One such duplicate that Wolfwood's worrying about looks up from his blueberry muffin as someone else enters but sits a bit further down. Hearing about duplicates and seeing them in person is somehow very different, and that is not the same merciless killer he knew of that looked a little similar.

Those look like flesh and blood hands. There's no whir of mechanics when he passed by either. Knives spends a minute comparing the two in his mind; they could be the same in personality, or completely, wildly different though he decides shortly that probably there's more similarities than differences. Without the similarities, that man would still be a teenager.

Knives rises from his seat, picking up his muffin and water and giving his bag a boot in the direction of Wolfwood's table; for better or worse there's only one way to really assuage his curiosity! The glass is set back down there instead, and the muffin, and when he sits it should have come with asking if it's alright.

Instead of asking he sets a stack of glossy coins on the table in the middle, shiny and new and absolutely not in his hands or pockets a minute ago. Enough for a drink, maybe a small snack. The economy is a ridiculous notion to begin with, so despoiling it with counterfeit but otherwise flawless coins is not a problem.

[louboutinjudas]

Wolfwood's just about accepted that he's going to need to beg for work in order to pay for his lunch (and, given the number of refugees milling about, chances are that nobody's hiring and he'll just have to be hungry for awhile) when somebody's duffle slides across the floor to park itself at the seat across from him. It's such an obvious, stupid start to a fight that he's quite frankly embarrassed for whoever it is -- they're gonna pretend that he tried to steal their stuff, and then try to shake him down for whatever he's carrying, it's pathetic -- but the man who rises from the table across the way, the man who sets his drink and lunch down on the table opposite Wolfwood, the man sitting right there, alive and hale... that's not a man.

His stolen gun is a comforting weight in the small of his back, but he doesn't dare reach for it. He doesn't dare breathe. That's Millions goddamn Knives sitting there in a pair of blue jeans, casual as anything. Helping himself to a seat like they're friends.

Wolfwood swallows hard, hands flat on the table where Knives can see them. Behind his own sunglasses, his eyes are wide with panic. Can you blame him?

"You're supposed to be dead."

Hi, boss.

[teamblue]

Ordinarily when dealing with twitchy humans, offering empty hands was a good idea, they'd just assume he's unarmed and thus safe, but that's not going to work on someone who knows what he is. In light of that certainty, he returns to picking at his muffin with excruciating slowness. It's going to take a while to actually eat the whole thing, unless a worm happened by and stole it.

"And you're supposed to be a cyborg, but nary a gear or wire to be seen." One pale eyebrow rises above the edge of his sunglasses. "Why don't you get yourself a drink, it might settle your nerves a bit."

It's not the fear, really, that gets to him. That's a perfectly sensible reaction for anyone not used to contending with him. But his own servants shouldn't be among that number, so someone has been naughty! Or some other double of himself is a lot more temperamental, and given the Punisher's antics in the past he really isn't sure which he should go with.

[louboutinjudas]

Look, the serial killer angel sat down next to him instead of just tearing him to shreds along with every other person in the place, so maybe acting like he's not thinking violent thoughts will let him live a bit longer? He's got no illusions who -- or rather, what -- he is to Knives, just a bit of filth shaped like a man who can be sent out on tasks Knives is above doing himself.

At least, that was his role with the Knives he knew. This one is... different. This one is eating.

"I don't have any money." He's not budging one inch, thanks, although behind those glasses he's taking in every detail of Knives's appearance and behavior, gears -- metaphorical, not mechanical -- churning away in his head as he tries to figure out what the actual fuck is happening here. Nobody else in the place seems to recognize Knives, somehow, but it's really only a matter of time before that changes, right? "And I don't know what the fuck a cyborg is." They're going to recognize him, and then things are going to get very bad.

He has to get Knives out of here. He has to get him out of town as far away from all these people, from Miz Melanie and the kids, everyone, before he murders them all. His face twitches in something resembling a smile. "You wanna take a walk?"

[teamblue]

The only thing he's tearing to shreds right now is the muffin he really doesn't want to eat. If he could just will the thing into disappearing LIKE it was being eaten he'd be a lot happier about the entire effort. "Use those." He gestures to the small stack of coins he'd set in the middle of the table. "They can't tell the difference."

No one's recognized him yet, and it might be because while Vash The Stampede flagrantly ran around in a long red jacket that just screamed 'notice me!!', Knives doesn't have any such reputation. He favored blue, that's for certain, but he had yet to encounter a single poster advertising a blue-clad rampaging outlaw. "Cyborgs have mechanical parts; limbs, organs, eyes, whatever they need. Some can even swap them out when they want to do something different." Pointless conversation.

It's helping him piece together a bit exactly who he's dealing with, since Nick the Punisher he may or may not be but all the mannerisms are not exactly right. If this were the Punisher, then this request to take a walk would have dangerous ulterior motives.

"..Maybe after I finish lunch." Which is going to take him a very long time, okay. He could work on the same sandwich all day, he can do the same with a muffin. "If I'm supposed to be dead then you already know I'm not who you think I am. Relax." Though Knives is willing to bet his last counterfeit double dollar that Wolfwood is NOT going to relax, even saying it might make him less likely to. "If I wanted to hurt you I'd have done so already."

[louboutinjudas]

He's still eating. Slow as molasses in January, sure, but it's still happening. Wolfwood's incapable of relaxing around any version of Knives, but he has to admit, it does seem like this one isn't like the one he knows. Knew.

There's a dozen versions of Vash here, and at least one of them is so unlike Vash as to be unrecognizable. And if there can be a Vash who delights in killing, then maybe there's
a Knives out there who doesn't. Maybe there's a Knives who went a different route, like the little one is going to. Maybe this Knives isn't a threat.

And maybe he's just playing things close to the chest. Maybe he's out of power. Maybe... maybe guessing isn't going to get him any answers and he should stop it already.

"You're still him though, aren't you?" It's not a question so much as an accusation. Wolfwood's gaze darts away from Knives just long enough to take a quick tally of the rest of the patrons and staff of this little place, and still, nobody's looking at them at all. It feels like sitting on a powder keg. Like walking through worm country barefoot. "One in a million."

I want you to know I struggled to not introduce him as Bill Nai.

[teamblue]

What went differently, that this man still walks around flesh and blood, unaugmented in any fashion that Knives can tell? He must be, or he'd be a child even by human terms, and yet there's not a sign he can see of any kind of modification, and he's paying sharp attention. Maybe things were vastly different, and the proof was in the lack of a three hundred pound machine gun. With no cybernetics to lighten the weight, those weapons would be impossible to operate.

But clearly, he knows him, and that keeps Knives wondering and a bit distracted with the wondering. He could just demand answers, but that wouldn't be as interesting. "Just one? If I'm just one in a million then based on current estimates I'd be.." He taps the table thoughtfully. "One of three or four." That might even be likely, if the rumor that there's at least two Stampedes in the city right now is true.

"But you're not wrong. Don't worry about them. Whoever they're looking for, I don't match up." He knows this isn't exactly true, since posters tended to be artists' interpretation anyway, but they're still not looking for a guy slumming around in jeans and cropped jackets, working on the same glass of water for an hour.

science rules!

[louboutinjudas]

Oh, Wolfwood's augmented. It's just that all his augmentations were done in flesh rather than machinery, his DNA irradiated and mutated into something other than human, with untold surgeries to complete the process. He's not human anymore, not really -- he just looks like one.

The one of three or four joke goes right over Wolfwood's head -- is he commenting on the number of Vashes that are wandering around? The number of humans that this world's Knives left alive? "They're not the ones I'm worried about," he snarls under his breath. Now that the fear has faded somewhat, the anger is coming to the surface, and Wolfwood's already calculating just how many second it would take him to draw his gun and shoot Knives right between the eyes. So far, the answer is 'too many', but he's keeping the idea on the back burner, just in case.

Besides, if he hasn't killed his way through town yet, maybe he can't. Maybe he's out of juice, his batteries drained or however it is that plants work. "I'm more worried about some brother obsessed psychopath getting nervous and pulling ribbons of razor wire out of his ass to slice this place up."

(2) clash of the aus! (also I will be slow I have inlaws visiting for a week)

[procreation]

He does not like to be teleported around by these reality shifts, but he can't blame the sisters any more. Things were more important than him, the other Nai-but-not said. It's a remnant of desperation, and what point is there to be angry with his beloved family?

It's still pretty damn inconvenient, though, especially now that he's more and more tired, energy drained constantly and a painful depression, loneliness in his heart. Vash has to make decisions, he has to protect himself, he has to fight. It all just makes him even more tired.

The new independents are almost fully formed, too... and still no brother.

Midnight cloak closed around himself, hood up to hide that blonde hair, he walks through the damn streets of a human settlement, feeling like he's stepping in filth. Do not fight, the other Nai had said. Be discreet. Patience.

Patience is running out.

...and then he rounds a corner and the world turns on it's axis, some kind of desperate relief coming over him that nearly knocks him to his knees.

"Brother!"

[teamblue]

Knives reaches for the twin posters and pulls them down with a frown; he'd think if they were really so wanted there'd at least be a bounty involved. For all 'the humanoid typhoon' was feared, clearly he wasn't that much of a terror if he didn't even qualify for a bounty as much as the petty criminals posted here! Thinking about it that way, in disconnected other-ness, made it easier to accept that somewhere out there, in some reality or other, his brother lived. Lived, and even thrived, a nightmare to humanity alongside his own twin as The Stampede. It's ironic that as soon as he turns his thoughts to what he'd do if he ever came across his brother's living echo from another universe, that a voice shouts. He doesn't recognize the voice, childhood tones do not match adult ones, and Vash never grew up; except they're plants, and they didn't always need voices, and he turns, map and posters still clenched in his hands. Hypotheticals and what ifs fade away against reality, and he finds himself unable to do anything at all except gape like a stranded fish, any thoughts of how calm and in control he'd be, how cooly, confidently unaffected by facing someone he'd only ever been able to see in half-nightmare dreams. He was strong, he'd always been strong, and against the impossible that strength cracks, as does his voice, the map and posters crumpling in his grip, forgotten. A century and a half of buried pain and grief threatens to split open.

"Vash?" His question is faint.

[procreation]

"Nai-!" His voice cracks and Vash rushes towards his brother and throws his arms around him, tears in his eyes. Something tells him that it's not quite his Nai - he would never deign to wear human clothes or even be in a human city like this - but it's the one that is the closest to what he knows.

"I missed you... it's so hard without you. I never know what you would have wanted me to do." The hollowed-out shell of a man that used to be Vash the Stampede looks almost manic in his joy, tears finally spilling down his cheeks. It's a loving reunion - or would be if it wasn't for the vines that snake up behind him like Knives own blades.

Pretty purple-blue blossom along them.

[teamblue]

The people of this city are looking for a Vash. The Humanoid Typhoon, destroyer of July, the ruination of Augusta, the demon who sundered Jeneora Rock and put a hole in one of the moons. And as an afterthought, his brother. It's so hard for Knives to find a proper comparison of how Vash looks and behaves, there should be alarms ringing at such words, but it's been so long and maybe that's just how it is, how it's supposed to be. Maybe Vash is supposed to be smaller than him, maybe he's supposed to be desperately confused without him, the boldness of childhood buried under adult thoughts and behaviors. Knives doesn't let go of his posters or maps but does return the embrace, in the same movement pulling backwards as soon as there's a flicker of motion that doesn't come from a human shape but a root or vine. Alleys, doors, it'll do, any cover is fine and he's not interested in private conversations where just any vulgar eye might roam. There were posters. People might be looking. Vines and beautiful flowers' origin takes time to grind its way through his shock. "Stop, stop. Hold on. Let me.. .. let me look at you."

His brother was dead, dead, small and fragile and buried, and this is not his brother but he can put that away and for a little while pretend that miracles do happen and he's been given the impossible. Something is profoundly wrong here and he ignores it. There's still to his searching gaze enough similarities that he could imagine that small brother grown, they share a mark beneath one eye, his hair is the appropriate shade of burnished gold, and there's a vine with stars trapped in petals to go with it. Vash was a geoplant, the thought's a triumph and confirmation, of course Vash wasn't useless, of course he had powers like any plant should, of course it'd be flowers, beautiful and strange. Now that he knew it, it seemed impossible to ever have thought otherwise.

[procreation]

Vash has all those titles, and he sees those wanted posters sometimes when he moves in this mess of mixed worlds... but it's from a time that he was sick, caring more about humans than his own kin. Nai had fixed him, made him perfect. Almost as perfect as those arms enveloping him, and Vash looks like he's going to completely break down into sobbing. He lets his brother pull him back into the nearby alley without any question - it makes sense, Nai always makes perfect sense. This reunion isn't for human ilk to witness.

'Stop', Nai says and Vash immediately obeys, taking a step back, vines and flowers disappearing. He's a little shorter and a lot less bulky, even if his wide shoulders help. He has all of his limbs, but he does look haggard, thin and sporting dark bags under his eyes. He's working himself to the bone to care for their future.

...but those blue eyes are full of joy and he's smiling like a beam of sunshine, just as his childhood self did.

"I missed you so much," Vash says with a soft tremble in his voice, "It's been so long and I was so lonely."

He didn't have to think for himself any more. Nai always took care of everything.

[teamblue]

Vash looks unhealthy and sleepless, bordering on sick. Could they get sick? He doesn't have old habits to fall back into, one year in over a hundred not enough to burn patterns of behavior into place but he is immediately worried anyway, a frown tugging at his lips while he raises a hand to gently rub one calloused thumb over Vash's cheek. "It's been a hundred and fifty four years," he says, the guilt of that time span strangling and unhappy. "since I've seen you in anything but dreams. Imagining what you would have looked like grown, what you might have sounded like." Though nightmares would be more accurate, a decades long affair with knowing he killed the only close family he'd ever have, and this was guilty too, a twisted mess of painful joy and loss and how dare he even think about being happy when his brother was still dead? "Imagining who you might have grown to become."

It was a little bit odd how quick Vash was to obey, but he probably would do exactly the same if a request was made of him, so it passes by. There's so much that would be strange and unnerving if he'd spent even a moment after the Fall with his brother, Knives has so many easy excuses why that come to mind without ever thinking anything is wrong. "I .. I don't know what to say. You're .. alive." Alive is a whisper, afraid if it was said louder the moment would shatter and the cold reality of absence would set back in.

[procreation]

He leans into the touch on his cheek, cowl fully falling away to show off that golden hair. It's really not his brother, and that makes Vash's heart ache so badly - but even worse, it's a Nai who never had him by his side. "There's no apology that's good enough, but I... I'm sorry he hasn't been with you. I'm sure he wanted to be, more than anything." Unlike his own treacherous self until his brother fixed him.

"I might not be your Vash, but I love you so much, Nai. There are many versions of me here, realities beyond our imaginations created by our sisters, but... most of them are not on our side. You'll have to be careful." Vash doesn't want him to be hurt, emotionally or physically by all these sick, nasty versions of a brother who should love him, serve him, adore him.

Vash is fully Knives' puppet, twisted to be the perfect Independent to his cause.

2.

[cowgoesmoo]

Who knows why it happens? Perhaps the sisters in Octovern, seeing a lonely little plant and a grown one missing his brother, decided to bring them together. Perhaps it's a residual bubble of energy from the initial event that brought them all here, and it's pure luck that they've ended up near each other. Perhaps there's deeper powers at work here, far beyond anything that Vash can understand. He doesn't know.

All he does know is that one minute he's in his front yard, the carcass of July behind him, taking a break from practicing with the little pistol that his other big brother has left him to instead work on his feather control... and the next, he's in an unknown city, absolutely surrounded by humans. He scrambles for cover the instant he realizes where he is, feathery right arm stuffed up under his shirt hem -- did anybody see him? Is he safe?

Where is he?!

[teamblue]

Every poster that lacks a bounty on it is being torn down, and not just his own and Vash's. It's insulting somehow, rankles him like sand in his boots that whoever printed these out couldn't be bothered to care enough to put a price tag on their fury, if they can't do the bare minimum they don't get to have their wanted signs posted! By now people appearing and disappearing isn't as much of a surprise as it had been at first, and with Vash suddenly appearing in the crowd a lot of them simply go around him like he's no more remarkable than human out here. To Knives though it's an immediate buzz in the back of his mind, the sudden proximity of one of his own kind where one really shouldn't be, and stuffing the handful of posters into his pack he turns and begins hunting it through the throngs of people going about their small, pointless lives. In the tangle of humanity is a blond child, frantically trying to hide feathers. Feathers?

Knives too is just one more person in the crowd, the people of Octovern too used to looking for black hair when looking for the one who shares his name and not his own proper coloration, but nobody else except him in the crowd stoops to try to simply pluck this little child right off the ground and into a nearby shop labeled Vegetables And Wams. It's possible to protest, kick or struggle but he's not letting go until the door swings shut again.

[cowgoesmoo]

He's nearly to cover, nearly to the end of that alleyway where he can hide, and reassess, using the skills big brother taught him to stay calm and think rationally, when somebody grabs him and hurries him into a nearby shop. He doesn't scream, only because he doesn't dare draw any more attention to himself, but the instant the man grabs him Vash starts kicking and clawing and biting like a wild animal, frantic to get away. Somewhere in the back of his mind there's the awareness of a nearby plant, but he's too scared yet to make the connection between that feeling of family and the man holding him.

There's a new burst of panic when the door closes between them and the rest of the street, because as dangerous as a large group of humans is, being isolated with just one feels somehow worse. If Knives comes in contact with any of those feathers on Vash's arm through any of this, he might be able to hear the boy's fear -- he's going to be eaten, he's going to be put into a bulb, plugged in like his sisters and drained until he's a shriveled skeleton, he's going to die, he doesn't want to die he doesn't want to die!

But for all this, Vash doesn't make a sound. If Knives lets him go once that door is shut, Vash will immediately scramble for the nearest cover, behind a shelf or the counter, anywhere that he thinks the man can't reach him. It still hasn't registered that the man is his brother, sorry -- he's terrified, and all he can think is to run away.

[teamblue]

All Knives can really process as Vash struggles in terror to escape is this is the most adorable thing he has ever encountered. This little independent is so fierce and bitey, trying to be ferocious like an alley kitten picked up off the street, and much like holding onto a squirming, biting and clawing kitten, it's actually a bit of a challenge to keep from letting him go too soon. By the time he gets the door closed he can't actually manage it anymore without potentially hurting Vash, and watches as the small shape darts for cover, following at a leisurely stroll. He knows right where the small plant is even when he doesn't have line of sight. "Contrary to rumors, I don't actually eat my own kind. Won't you come out and say hello?" He also could really use more experience with children, this isn't the most friendly way to get to meet a frightened kid.

[cowgoesmoo]

As soon as he's got a barrier between himself and the man (who seems familiar? But he'll investigate that in a moment), Vash starts looking around for anything to use as a weapon. What can he throw? Can he push this big shelf over? Are there any other people in the building that he'll need to run away from too? Why won't his feathers go down!?

But then, finally, the man speaks, and Vash realizes that he knows that voice. Or rather, he knows that person, just in different forms.

Cautiously, he pokes his head out of his hiding hole, still ready to run should it prove a trap. "Big brother?" No names, never names where humans could hear, he learned that lesson the first day he was allowed to use the radio. Is it really Nai, all grown up?

[teamblue]

His mind should go right to Vash as the child peeks around the shelving, but there are just enough differences where that isn't his immediate conclusion; he hasn't seen his brother since the Fall, and time distorts things relentlessly. But a plant is a plant is a plant, and he feels obligated to all of them, and if one of his dependent, soulless sisters produced another free-thinking child, then he'd see to that child too! "We are brothers," he confirms, a smile crossing his face. Oh god, were he and Vash ever this small and cute? How did Rem stand it? "Are you having a little trouble with your gate? Maybe I can help." All the maliciousness, all the hatred and scorn reserved for humanity is entirely absent, as if it never existed; he could remember warmth and affection, even if it's dulled after these long years. It's been a long time since he could speak to his own kind and have any kind of response at all.

[cowgoesmoo]

He's neither small nor cute! He's nearly two and very brave and strong! He's just scared of being around so many humans, and rightfully so!

Are there really no other people in this shop? Vash climbs to his feet, keeping his feathered arm hidden behind himself as he emerges, looking around intently for any humans who might overheard them. His other big brother taught him a neat trick for communicating without words, and he tries it now, concentrating on the man in front of him and mentally calling out to him, the way he'd talk to one of his sisters in their bulbs.

Are you Nai? Can you hear me?

There's a few feathers even poking out of the collar of his shirt on the right-hand side. It really is adorable.

[teamblue]

There isn't anyone around right now, it could be lunch break or someone stocking in the back, which Knives doesn't mind at all since it's one less person he'll have to kill if a human stumbles in and interrupts. It's taking all his willpower not to scoop Vash back up and ruffle his hair and feathers into complete disorganization. Maybe, he thinks, he should be less critical of the human impulse to dote on children. Suddenly he's beginning to understand why they do, somehow it's just different when it's one of his own kind. Or maybe it's something deeper, that recognizes his twin even from another world and displaced by a century and a half, but he all but lights up with delight and misplaced pride when he can feel the touch of a mind on his. Better than he was doing at that age, telepathy took a while to get the hang of! It had ever been Vash's forte, he could hear, but speaking was harder... With Vash coming out of his hiding spot, he crouches and sits on the balls of his feet to bring them a little closer to the same height.

I can hear you, and I'm very sorry for frightening you like that. You can call me Nai if you want to, that was my name when I was about your age. How did you know?

[cowgoesmoo]

It is him! Vash's relief is evident, but he still keeps his feathered arm behind him as he coming out of hiding to stand before Knives. His hands itch to reach out and touch, though! He can see Nai in there, so much more than he ever could see himself in the quiet Vash with the floppy hair who lived at the station house with him. His other big brother is who Knives would have grown up to be -- will grow up to be, he quickly corrects himself. Wherever he is, he's got Rem, and all their sisters on the ships. He'll be okay. He has to be okay.

But this isn't Knives. He shakes off the wave of grief, because this is Nai, this is his brother now! He's older, broader... he stifles a giggle. And with a much better haircut!

My brother here is Nai. He said Vash could call him Nai if he wanted to, so... was that not his name? Are you Knives now too?

For all his delight in finding another brother, Vash can't help but be aware of the number of humans outside, and the risk that, any moment, they'll be discovered. We shouldn't be here. This is a human place.