Epilogue

"You're leaving me," Yatagarasu stated more than asked.

"Yeah, I am," Sonomi answered resisting the temptation to be snarky.

It was obvious they were leaving because Senji and Ganta were loading up the rented truck with boxes of the few things they owned. Senji had found them a nicely furnished four bedroom house to rent. Today was moving day, and he was glad to see it had finally come. He leaned against the truck carefully watching the dark haired doctor he had once foolishly trusted. He wanted her to say good-bye to the man then he would be out of their lives. His objections had been kept silent because Dr. De Sade was responsible for saving her life and that of his child more than once and had helped save them all in the end. Regrettably, after that things got weird, well more so than usual, and it was time to leave. It was his turn to save his wife and his marriage. He tousled Ganta's hair, his new and unexpected 'son,' who was holding Akio.

"Good-bye, Yata," Sonomi murmured, staring at her sandal clad feet. Although a warm breeze surrounded her on the sunny spring day, she still felt chilled.

"Good-bye, Sonomi," he returned, pulling her to him for one last kiss.

Senji's face turn red as he watched, refusing to look away. He would step in if necessary should the kiss linger too long. When the doctor let his wife go after a brief kiss of farewell on the lips, he could breathe again. It even amazed him he had been able to hold his temper long enough not to kill the man. With any luck, this would be the last time they ever saw him.

Five years later…

Sonomi sat on the couch preparing to breastfeed her newborn daughter while eight year old Akio entertained his little brother, Haru, who had been born a year after they moved into the house. He had just celebrated his fourth birthday. She glimpsed at Ganta who was on the computer taking a practice test to prepare for his college entrance exams.

There was a knock on the door and she was relieved when Ganta jumped up from the computer to answer it. He had grown up to be tall and strong over the last five years, being in his early twenties at this time. She was proud of him for having the strength to continue on with his life and strive to make it better. Over the last several years, there had been a major explosion of information about the corrupt prison and how most of the prisoners that were incarcerated were actually innocent and had been falsely accused. Through the years, more and more prisoners were being vindicated and freed from their guilty verdicts with the new information being exposed. Ganta, along with Senji, had both been disclosed as being innocent. Where all the information was coming from they were not sure but they had a really good idea of whom the source could be.

"Mom! It's a package!" Ganta announced, setting the box down on the coffee table.

"Will you open it for me?" Sonomi requested, putting Megumi over her shoulder to burp her.

"Sure," he replied, pulling out the knife from his pocket.

Sonomi observed inquisitively as he cut the thick tape and opened the box to reveal its contents. There were several discs on top of a huge stack of papers. Ganta took one of the discs to the computer to load it up and see what was on it. They both watched with fascination a file opened up and began constructing an animated model of a DNA strand. Rather than using ten letter long medical terms, the traits represented by each gene were listed in plain terms. Everything from eye color to the mutant traits like the modified pituitary gland was listed. Once the strand was complete, a picture of Sonomi popped up.

"Oh, my god!" they both gasped. The program continued run, constructing the sequences for Senji, Yatagarasu, and many more people who were used for test subjects in the lab.

Sonomi went to the box and shuffled through the papers quickly. The top sheets contained the information she had begun to collect and the rest were the details she had not yet found. She and Ganta spent the day going through the wealth of material to unravel a mystery that left them breathless. All of the test subjects had been given a common mutation that linked them all. It could be likened to a family trait such as blood type; more specifically it was a genetic marker, a 'tag' that identified them all as science experiments from the lab of Hagire Rinichirō.

Sonomi stared at the paper that listed the family tree of Yatagarasu and Senji. Their names were listed side by side and they were identified as brothers. Her suspicion had been true. That explained so much. However, they had been purposely separated not only because of their different functions in the experiment but they were also supposed to be a case study in nature versus nurture as well.

Sonomi gasped, pressing her fingers to her mouth when she looked at the name below Yatagarasu's: Ganta. Pressing her hands to her stomach, she willed herself not to vomit when she looked at the mother's name because it was hers, not Sorae. How could that be? Rifling through the stack of papers, she found the doctor's notes detailing the conception of Ganta. He had been a test tube baby formed from the necessary components harvested from the young pubescent bodies of Yatagarasu and herself. He was the first of the many babies they were supposed to have. The genetic mutation of his branch of sin had been spliced to his DNA during his development as an embryo. Sorae had taken him to raise him as her own so he could be closely watched and monitored; just like Sonomi when her 'parents' who were lab assistants also had agreed to take her. When the Wretched Egg had found him years later and implanted the crystal within him, it had awakened the dormant modification.

"Oh, god," Sonomi murmured, crumpling the paper in her fist.

This was why she had given up her search for facts. She knew it would only bring more emotional hurt. These were the kinds of things she did not want to know. Turning anxious eyes to the computer screen, she watched in horror as a tree was drawn on the white background. Names began to appear on the branches. Ganta had stumbled across the information she had just read.

"NO!" she screamed lurching for the computer. She went for the power cord, snatching it out of the wall.

"Mom! What did you do that for?" he asked, his large gray eyes fixed on her face.

Mom. He had taken to calling her the maternal title out of respect and comfort. He also wanted to teach his little brothers to call her mom as well. It would have been too confusing for them if the person they viewed as their older brother called her by her first name. But it was true. She really was his mother.

Sonomi dropped to her knees, dissolving into tears. She did not want him to know because of how devoutly he had loved Sorae as his mother. She was not sure how he would take it knowing she was really his mother. The thought of him despising her made her sick. Although the fault of his origin was no more hers than his, sometimes it's difficult to make the human emotions understand hard scientific facts. She would rather not risk him hating her for a truth that did not matter anyway.

"We need to get rid of this stuff. We need to burn it. Help me, Ganta," she stated in a low, raspy voice. Her eyes were wild with fear and shock. She crawled across the floor, picking up the papers she had scattered to throw them in the box. Grabbing the papers in a desperate hurry, she did not care if she wadded them up because they were going to be destroyed anyway.

"Sonomi, stop it!" he yelled, grabbing her and pulling her into his arms.

Ganta held her tightly to keep her from moving until she calmed down. She was acting crazy, and it frightened him. He had already seen the information she was trying to withhold from him. When he told her so, he felt her body shudder before she released a mournful wail as the tears came.

"It's okay. I don't have any bad feelings toward either of you. I still love you, Mama," he whispered, calling her the more intimate term for mother.

Sonomi could not hold back the loud bawling that ensued afterwards. She wrapped her arms tightly around him trying to get herself under control before her wailing woke her other children from their naps and scared them.

"Do we tell Senji anything?" he asked her, once she calmed down.

"I honestly don't think he cares. He loves us no matter what. He's told us both that many times, right?" She squeezed Ganta's hand, glancing around at the mess in the living room. Papers were strewn everywhere, the desk chair had been tipped over, and discs were spread across the floor from where they had fallen off the desk.

"I'll gather up this stuff and take it outside to burn it," he told her, giving her a small hug before standing up.

...

When Senji arrived home after work, he found his little family outside by a roaring fire. It was a cool autumn evening so he wondered what they were doing outside despite the fire to warm themselves.

"Daddy!" Akio and Haru shrieked in joyful unison as they rushed to their father.

After greeting them with hugs and pats on the head, he went to his oldest 'son' next who was sitting beside Sonomi and Megumi. Once he had acknowledged him, he went to his two favorite girls who were bundled together under a blanket. He kissed his lovely wife who looked pale and a little upset. Taking the baby from her, he put his baby girl inside of his leather jacket to hold her close and keep her warm at the same time.

"What are all of you doing out here?" he asked, stroking his fingers across Sonomi's wan cheek. What the hell had happened today? Ganta had the proverbial deer in the headlights look on his face for some reason.

Sonomi took a deep breath to fortify her courage to tell him the truth, part of it anyway. "We received some news today. A box of files about our origins from the lab. I – "

"Sonomi, dammit!" Senji growled, shifting when the baby kicked his stomach. He imagined it had been much worse for his wife when Megumi was inside her body and would kick her. It was only a momentary distraction from his irritation with his wife.

"We burned it, Senji. We're out here warming ourselves by the fire made with a past we didn't want to know about," Ganta assured him, throwing another limb on the fire to make sure the discs melted. The papers had been used to start the fire initially so they had long since burnt up. "It was Mama's idea."

Senji picked up on the new use of mama quickly. He shrugged his shoulders assuming it was because that was what the little ones called her, and Ganta had finally given in to do the same. A smile played at the edges of his lips as he looked at her. He knew her well enough to know that she had read some of the data and seen something that did not set good with her. But he would leave it alone. Whatever she had seen, she had regretted it so he did not want to make the psychological damage worse by fussing at her about it.

"So are you satisfied now? You're okay with the past being the past?" he asked, nuzzling his baby girl's soft silky head.

"Yep. A wise man once told me the past doesn't matter, only the future. The future will be what we make it. So far what we have made looks great, don't you think?" Sonomi queried, giving her husband a demure smile.

The future lay snuggled against his chest along with the three others poking sticks into the raging fire. At least the girl had potential of being a genius. If the other three survived without hurting themselves or others he would be pleased. His smile broadened with the thought. His boys had plenty of book smarts but what they lacked was common sense. However, his wife had always been that way and he loved her beyond reason. Yep, their future looked pretty good indeed.

The End!