Tip Of The Iceberg

Family Home, Sumida City, Tokyo
February 15th
12:00 PM

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Maria POV
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When I woke up, it seemed that everyone else had time to be in their daily activities. My mother tried to make lunch for the others when she should have been at work, using the early morning shooting as an excuse to take the day off. My brother Cesar got up in the morning and drank about a liter of coffee before going to school, because even though he was recovering, someone had to go and take care of Haru, Tamamo wanted to go with him, but he told her that it was better for her to stay and take care of the house, because he was still afraid that the same thing would happen again now that he was gone. The twins sat in the living room and listened to Tamamo talk about his past. While Momo sat next to me, also waiting for dinner. We both talked about everything to pass the time.

"You know, now that I think about it"
"Don't you think Cesar is too used to being a girl?"
"I mean, it's supposed to be something that happened recently, but don't you think it's strange that he knows how to take care of his long hair, he knows how to put on a bra, he brushes his foxtail from time to time. "
"He knows how to put on women's clothes, even though his tail doesn't seem to make it difficult for him to have them."
"Hell, he didn't even ask how to use the bathroom!"
"These are things a man would never pay attention to."

"Cesar?"
"Well, that actually has an explanation," Momo said while trying to fix a rice cooker.

"Wait, what?" I said surprised.

"Well yes, although I think it is something he would not like to talk about face to face."

"Really?"
"That just makes you want to know more!?"
"He's not here right now, can you talk about it?"

"You too, Mom?"

"Well, I mean, I was wondering about it too"
"But I don't think it's a good idea to ask him how he knows so much about the subject if he managed to get back".
"You know how he is, he likes to be treated as if nothing has changed in him, but the truth is that we need to know how he is coping with his current condition of being a girl now".

"Well, I can talk about it now that he is gone."
"But I warn you, you never heard this from me before."
"We agree?"

"'Agreed!"

Tamamo and the twins also stood next to us now to hear Momo speak.

"I was not there, but I managed to hear the details through Rafael."
"Well, I think the best way to start is to mention that Cesar was married before, even before Tamamo."
"This girl was called Nanami, and she was the empress of a very old kingdom, Atlantis."
"In that place, the royal family was very important, they were worshipped as gods."
"During the war against the dragons, this kingdom was the most important point of the whole war, if the humans lost it, they would have no way to win, and the same for the dragons."
"So the cooperation and morale of the kingdom of Atlantis was vital to winning the war."
"Their marriage was secret, no one knew."
"If it was known that Nanami had married a foreigner from outside the kingdom, the protests would not be long in coming."
"Though I don't know how long they were together"
"During a moment in the war, I don't know how, Nanami died and Cesar was trapped in her body, just like now."
"Only three people knew it was Cesar and not Nanami.
"One was Rose, the head of the I.S.C. and the army of humans on Earth."
"The other was an angel named Lisa who worked for the security department and helped them a lot."
"And finally, one of Nanami's personal guards, who noticed it himself"
"Because Nanami's death would have caused enormous chaos among the Atlanteans, causing them to lose the war."
"Rose decided that Cesar should pretend to be Nanami at all times to hide the truth."
"He had no choice but to start acting like a lady and an empress in no time."
"Although this happened a long time ago, I am sure he still remembers the basics of that time."

"Okay, I didn't expect this to be such a sad story," I said aloud.

"Well, that explains why Goshujin-sama doesn't talk about it much. I would also be sad to wake up every morning and look in the mirror to see the face of the person I love who has died".

"The biggest problem is that after we learned of Nanami's death, her spirit never reached heaven."
"We, the Angels, have been searching for her ever since, but we haven't found any clues as to what happened."
"THE BOSS didn't mention anything about it except our inability to search for her."
"So if it is clearly the Celestial Security Section's fault what happened?"
"This is quite a serious matter, as even the pride of the angels is at stake."

"That's what my son goes through every day when he gets up, it must be hard for him too."

"César believes that we will find her one day, but the truth is that it is a difficult case when it has already taken so long to find her."

"So he has another mystery to solve besides Luna's Core".

"Well, now that I think about it, the whole world knows how I met my darling".
"But what about you, Momo?"
"The first time I saw you, you both knew each other"
"How did you meet Cesar?"

"Who me?"
"I don't think you want to know."
"It's not that interesting," Momo said and put her hands to her face, I'm sure if she wasn't transparent right now her face would be completely red.

"A story with Cesar?"
"It's impossible that it could be something normal or boring".
"Besides, I'm sure a normal person wouldn't know a glass angel by chance," my mother mentioned, also trying to find out a little more at the expense of the embarrassed Momo.

"Well, that's fine, just because my mother-in-law asks me to," she tried to hide in a bad way that she wanted to tell the story of how they met.
"But I assure you it is not what you expect"
"It was a few years ago during the Continental War, as you call it."
"Cesar was flying a fighter jet patrolling Italy when he was shot down by a surprise attack from an enemy plane, the captain of the HellFire squadron."
"He was in a vineyard and his plane crashed into a shed."
"The plane caught fire and he was seriously injured."
"Undoubtedly, a normal person would have died in a matter of minutes in those conditions."
"But since he was working with us to find the Codex, we couldn't let that happen."
"So we sent a team of the best doctors available to treat him and save his life."
"I was part of this group."
"Although, as you can see, I am a mechanic, not a doctor."
"My job was to fix up the plane a little bit to make it look like a less serious accident so that people would not see that it was a miracle that he got out of that situation alive."
"But unfortunately, the doctors also had that job, so they only healed him enough so that the humans would not doubt how he survived the accident."
"The idea was to treat him quickly, and then an Alliance patrol would come and pick him up, as they always do with jet pilots."
"But as you know, the battle of Italy became bigger than we thought, so we had to take care of him for much longer than the original."
"We took turns taking care of him, resting and watching the surroundings, waiting for the patrol to pick him up".
"And well, when it was my turn to look after him, he regained consciousness.
"I remember the first thing he said when he woke up and saw me.
He said: "Well, of course I messed up, even the cute angels came to pick me up".
"..."
"At the time, I was so ashamed that a human had seen me naked."
"But I was also glad that he did not ask the first thing that everyone sees me with".

"And since then, Momo was never ashamed of herself and never wore clothes again," Tamamo mentioned.

"It's not because of that"
"Because of these folds I have in my body, it even looks like I am dressed when I am not"
"I've never been able to wear clothes in my life."

"Ah, so you are one of those"
"A natural stripper"

"What!!"
"Of course not!"
"I just do it because of my body!"
"It's like plants!"
"They don't wear clothes either!"

"You know what you're talking about won't help you, right?"

"You know I don't like to talk about this subject!"
"Ok, let's put it aside"
"Please!"

"Dad also mentioned that we should take Momo as our other mother"
"But maybe he was wrong, after all she does not seem to be the person who can teach us with a good example"

"You too Kazumi?"
"I already told you, this is not my fault! I was born this way!"
"Why does no one believe me?"

"Don't worry so much"
"I've already accepted my son's sex change, I can accept a nudist daughter-in-law"
"In this house we do not judge"
"At least not too much"

"You girls are bullying me!"
"I'll tell Cesar when he comes!"

With that Momo ran into the room. The rest of the day nothing unusual happened. Except for my brother, who laid down in the living room as soon as he arrived and didn't move until the next day. We did not mention anything we had talked about as we had agreed, even Tamamo did not mention anything to our surprise.