[Camouflage]

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."

—Benjamin Franklin

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How? That was the question that was continually running in Bismarck's mind on repeat. He was no longer on the sandy beaches of a city called Yokosuka but instead found himself sitting on a comfortable chair in a lavish home with a large table in front of him full of food ranging from simple to exotic. The sun had already set, and the dark veil of the night overtook the outside world. He took a glance at his momentary companion, an overly friendly little girl with brown hair and hazel eyes, her hair styled into two twintails. She was the one who brought him here, who found him and offered him... help. Strange. Peculiar. But most of all... confusing.

Makie Osakabe

That was the name of the fearless, yet seemingly kind girl that approached Bismarck before the authorities could. The Mental Model made sure to erase his presence as much as possible, hacking any cameras and sensors he detected around the establishment. And there were many, many of those pesky spy devices. They weren't alone though, accompanying the happy-go-lucky child was a female clad in a... maid outfit, he believes those were called. What a strange woman. She didn't even warn Makie of the fact Bismarck is of Fog, maybe Makie already knew but still approached him anyway. But this created a new unknown. Why? Why would this child risk her life to save his? What were her goals? And why did she have so many goddamn plushies?

"Are you okay?" Bismarck blinked when he heard Makie's voice call out to him, the little girl had stopped eating her stew to look at him with that emotion again.

The emotion of worry. How... strange. How very, very strange. This inadequacy of information frustrated him, yet the fact she worried felt oddly nice.

"You haven't touched your food," she commented, motioning towards Bismarck's plate full of food.

Bismarck blinked, he would've tipped his hat if he didn't discard it along with his coat, now only wearing his usual uniform, "Um... I don't need to eat."

It came off more as a question than a solid answer. He didn't know if it was the best response, but it was already said and he'd have to go along with it now. Strangely though the child didn't find it strange.

"Come on! Try it, you might like it!" the little girl's persuasion was cute, abnormally so.

And so, he took a glance at the food in front of him. A cooked piece of meat along with some manner of sauce and mashed potatoes topped off with a slice of lemon. Slowly, he picked up the fork and knife and cut himself a bite-sized piece of meat.

"...It's not bad," the girl practically beamed at his response, even if he responded with a mouth full of meat and potatoes.

Still, he found the need to eat absent. Maybe appetite was something his emulator had yet to understand. But the taste wasn't bad, far from it. Quite delicious actually. With an artificial body like his, the need to eat, sleep, drink and do just about everything humans do that takes up time from their day is no longer a necessity, it's a choice. The piece of food he ate would dissolve into energy, all 100% of it. Makie was quite happy with Bismarck, evident by her going back to her food with a bright smile. What a peculiar creature... After the food was eaten, some of it at least as Bismarck still didn't quite find the point of eating, Makie was given a plate with a couple of pills on it, Bismarck took notice of this.

"...Are you ill?" his tone was laced with curiosity, although someone might have mistaken it for rudeness.

"Hm? Oh. Hehe, I guess. It'd be really bad if I forgot to take any," Bismarck didn't miss the change in Makie's tone, but as of now, he had no categorization for a vast array of emotions, as such he had no response to give and only stared at the platter of various pills.

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Bismarck and the maid had accompanied Makie to her room, where she was being tucked in. Bismarck's train of thought hasn't had a single stop after it departed, a mass of questions circulated his CPU over and over, and he couldn't find viable answers to the variables. In the end, he was left with unknowns, like a mathematician with a myriad of Xs and Ys.

"Goodnight, young miss," then the maid turned off the lights, leaving the room in darkness.

But before Bismarck too could make his way out of the room Makie's voice stopped him, "Goodnight, Bon-Bon!"

"...What?" a deadpan reply from a very confused Bismarck was only expected after such an unordinary goodnight wish.

Bon-Bon? That's not his name at all! Not even close. Bismarck is his name, always has been and always will be. He introduced himself to Makie beforehand, the very first moment they met in fact. Maybe she got his name wrong? How? They don't even sound the same!

"Hm? I said-"

"No, I heard what you said, but... Bon-Bon?" even in the dark Makie could see Bismarck's risen eyebrow, so she just lightly giggled.

"Yeah! Bon-Bon! It's really cute! You don't like it?" Bismarck had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from yelling "NO!".

"...Sigh, Gute Nacht, Fraulein," in the end he couldn't correct Makie, he gave up in fact.

Yet another unexpected change in his behaviour since the not-so-distant meeting with Makie. He usually doesn't give up so easily, not at all. This made no sense to him. And it left a bad taste in his mouth, that even with all his processing power he was unable to determine the cause of the change of his behaviour.

"If you'd please follow me, the master of this household would like to speak with you," a voiceless nod was Bismarck's response to the maid's request.

Bismarck remained silent for most of their journey, saying only a few words, "I was under the impression the girl was the master of the household."

"She is," simply replied the maid, the cryptic answer didn't exactly please Bismarck though.

Yet another strange factor has appeared. Makie has mentioned before that it was only her and her maids in the household, yet this maid said otherwise. That means that the master of the house, the real master, is someone completely unknown. Only the maids seem to be aware of their presence, while Makie remains in the dark. Bismarck had to know their motive, and most of all, he had to find a classification for the spiral of feelings he had felt today. Unknown variables shouldn't exist, and he will do his best to get rid of them. They arrived... at a wall. But before he could question the unexpected stop, the maid pressed her hand against a picture frame, and an elevator door opened in the wall.

"If you'd please step inside," Bismarck weighed his options for a split-second before walking into the elevator, the doors closed and the maid was left outside as the platform descended deep underground.

Bismarck was not impressed with the bongo music that played as he descended into a secret underground facility. With a ding, the doors opened and in front of Bismarck was a dimly lit hallway with a few dozen cameras and sensors pretty much lining every nook and cranny, Bismarck remained unimpressed. The thumps of his boots echoed through the metal hallways as he walked, he walked until he walked into a relatively small room with lots of screens plastered on the walls. But the screens did not grasp his attention, no, what, or rather who snagged his attention was a man, probably in his early to late thirties who was lying on a bed, and if there ever was a textbook definition of "malnourishment", he was it.

"Thank you for coming," the man's mouth didn't open, and the words that were said were anything but human, "I am Osakabe Toujurou, master of this house."

"An Osakabe, huh..." idly commented Bismarck under his breath as he took a few steps into the room, taking a quick look around the dark area, "You are Makie's father."

"...I am her creator," the sudden revelation made Bismarck pause, father and creator may sound similar on fundamental levels, but when it ultimately comes down to it their definitions are different.

"So, then..."

"Makie is not human," the shocking new piece of information didn't seem to trigger an outward emotional reaction out of Bismarck, but it lit a spark for a plethora of new questions, "In the past, I developed weapons that could one day be used to combat the Fog. However, it was full of nothing but setbacks and failures. I realized my limitations as a human being. So I began a new project... The Design Child project. With the assumption that if the current generation of human geniuses couldn't develop the project, then the next would. But that wouldn't be enough, the process would be too slow, and so... the Design Child initiative created 109 lives. Of them, only seven lived. And only one lived past the age of three."

"How very tragic," the man said nothing to Bismarck's unamused comment, he wasn't expecting sympathy from an emulator and he surely wasn't going to get it.

"As a result, Makie's achievements far exceeded anything we had expected. However, the government was indifferent. They were afraid of her abilities. So they herded us into this house where we were to live under the government's watch," even before the man finished alarms started blaring in Bismarck's head, government supervision meant that they were monitoring their every move, but Bismarck disabled all the cameras and sensors which must have set off a red flag.

"Don't worry, I wouldn't let them spy on us without any countermeasures. They are unaware of your presence. I would like to keep it that way if you were to answer a question," it shouldn't have been and certainly wasn't a surprise that the man had questions of his own, and Bismarck was in no position to be secretive.

"Ask away then," Bismarck urged the bed-ridden man to ask what he wanted already.

"Why are you here?" it was a simple question, just one, short, sentence.

"I'm not here voluntarily," huffed Bismarck as he crossed his arms, clearly annoyed at his predicament of even being in Yokosuka, "You could say that I and a certain... super battleship had a disagreement."

"So you've defected," due to the voice box helping the man speak Bismarck couldn't discern any emotion in his voice, and so he couldn't make assumptions whether he was amused or just curious.

"...Ja."

"Then your vessel-"

"Was sunk."

"How very tragic," Bismarck's eyebrow twitched as the man had used his own words against him.

"Sigh, is that all?" grumbled the Mental Model under his breath.

"No," and yet another twitch came from Bismarck's eyebrow, "I'd like a favour. As a defector, your situation must be quite dire. I am willing to allow you to take refuge here, for a price."

"A cooperation between a human and Fog... well, I'll be dammed, out with it!" Bismarck's eager, amused and semi-sarcastic tone reverberated across the underground complex.

"I want to see Makie grow up and smile over the years, I ask of you to see that she lives until then. If she's lonely, keep her company. If she's sad, wipe away her tears. But if she's happy, be happy with her," what a strange, heartfelt request from a man that can't even open his mouth.

This was the day when Bismarck's opinion on humans began to shift. A thought popped into his mind, a thought that lingered eternally, and no matter how hard he tried couldn't push it from his mind. A thought that maybe, just maybe, there is something special to humans after all. If he refused the offer, the government would be onto him in no time, and without any significant amount of nanomaterials, he was virtually stranded. He could try to find refuge elsewhere, but his trust in humanity was nowhere near the level that would allow him to trust any random individual. It was an obvious choice, really.

...

...

...

"I owe the little Fraulein that much..."