The Voidwalker Chronicles

Disclaimer: This is a non-commercial fan work. All rights to Darling in the Franxx and its characters belong to their respective creators. This story is written purely out of admiration and for creative exploration.

This is a tribute one-shot set during the climax of Darling in the Franxx.

I wanted to explore a different ending—one where someone stepped in before the final sacrifice.Someone not from this world.Someone who doesn't believe in fate.

Enter Nero Angelo: the boy who rewrites tragedies with silence, not sermons.There will be no final goodbye this time. No need.

Let's begin. 

The world is ending.

Burning skies streak above as the final battle rages in the void of space. Strelizia Apus—fused, twisted, desperate—launches toward VIRM's core, dragging Hiro and Zero Two deeper into annihilation.

She's no longer human. Not really.

And neither is he.

But they remember.

Clutching fingers through glass.

A promise whispered through pain.

A bond forged in blood and devoured tomorrows.

On Earth, the Parasites—those who survived—watch from the ruins. Eyes raised. Throats silent. They can do nothing but hope. And hope has long since become a foreign language.

Then—

The stars blink.

Time stutters.

The war pauses.

A tear slices the edge of space.

And through it…

A boy walks in.

He steps into a battlefield that has already forgotten the living.

Void, frayed and silent, stretches around him.

His coat drifts behind like the mourning veil of a god too tired to keep playing.

Hair white. Eyes empty.

He walks where no gravity binds.

And on his shoulder, a rooster—still as a statue, silent as a tomb.

Nero Angelo.

No introductions.

No questions.

Just presence.

"You feel that?" Zorome whispers from Earth, voice trembling.

"Like the stars just held their breath…"

High above, VIRM's armada looms. Its core pulses. Cold. Hungry.

But it does not see him.

It cannot see him.

Not until it's already too late.

Nero raises a single hand.

And unmakes them.

No light. No sound. No grand declaration.

Just… absence. As if they were erased from the script of existence altogether.

The Strelizia form begins to collapse.

Zero Two's monstrous frame is breaking apart, claws reaching for Hiro even as her consciousness flickers.

He clutches her tighter.

"I'm not… letting go," he rasps.

"You promised," she breathes.

"I still do."

A shadow crosses them.

They both look up.

A man—not old, not young—but timeless, floats above them. His white hair drifts in silence. His coat ripples like it doesn't belong to this world.

Eyes that have seen the end of gods meet hers.

And for a moment, she sees it:

Not power. Not wrath.

But grief deeper than galaxies. A loneliness that even eternity couldn't outrun.

Then—

Her monstrous flesh peels away like ash in wind.

The claws, the armor, the pain—it all melts.

She becomes Zero Two again. Just a girl. Bleeding, breathing, crying.

Hiro collapses into her arms.

Alive.

Back on Earth, the sky blooms with aurora.

And then—

The impossible happens.

Children emerge from the mist.

Small, broken, forgotten names return like dreams remembered at dawn.

Ones they buried.

Ones they failed.

Ones they couldn't even mourn.

"They're…" Kokoro chokes. "They're back."

Zorome sprints forward, shouting every name he can remember, arms outstretched like a child again.

Mitsuru falls to his knees.

Ichigo just stares upward.

"… Who was he?" she whispers.

No one answers.

Because the man is already gone.

But not quite.

The next day, in silence, the children begin to build something.

A small stone circle, in the field near their settlement.

At the center, a crude statue—barely shaped right, with white stone hair and a scratch-marked coat. A chicken, carved from driftwood, rests on its head.

It's not beautiful.

But it's real.

"He didn't stay," says Futoshi.

"No," says Ichigo, placing a white flower beside the stones, "but he saw us."

Kokoro ties a ribbon around the statue's neck.

"He brought them back," she says, her voice trembling. "That's more than the world ever did for us."

Far, far away—

At the edge of everything, Nero stands at the brink of a new fold. The wind pulls at his coat. Clucknor perches on his shoulder once more, head tilted slightly.

The stars do not speak.

Neither does he.

They vanish.

Without a word.

Without a goodbye.

Just the memory of a man who erased the apocalypse…

And kept walking.