Variante - requiem for the world is a Japanese horror manga by Iqura Sugimoto. The manga focuses on Hosho Aiko, a girl who is brought back to life by the left arm of a "Chimera", a grotesque human-derived species that can drastically alter the shape of their own body parts.
Story
Hosho Aiko should be dead. To be precise, when she came back home one day, she found her entire family slaughtered by a grotesque monster. The creature attacked and killed her as well, but she finds herself awakening in a mysterious room, taken care of by Dr. Kochigawa. She has amnesia, but when another monster appears before her in her room, she regains her memories and her left arm changes into a powerful weapon, very similar to that of the monster, which she destroys. Sudo remains as the closest person to Aiko, actively taking part in her missions and supporting her. He is alerted by a mysterious person of the existence of a girl named "Nana", about whom Sudo reacts with shock. It is revealed that Nana was a girl Sudo had found sitting before his house and had taken her in, only to discover that she was a Chimera and had killed her. But because of his awareness, he is hired by Atheos at a young age and his sickly mother is kept in Atheos's hospital, serving also as a bargaining chip to keep him in Atheos. Sudo leaves to find the present Nana in Code045, an experimental facility in a rundown hospital in the mountains. On the other side, Aiko is sent there on orders to kill a Chimera, feeling uneasy without Sudo's presence. They find Sudo held by the Chimera, Nana, who attacks them. Sudo asks Aiko to destroy the two together, as to kill Nana would hurt him and to leave Nana would mean in his being devoured, but she pulls him out of Nana, telling him to live. Nana is killed in the process, and Sudo is fired from the case for his actions and is put on house arrest. Okuda reveals his intentions to use Aiko to give birth to a "Goddess" who will renew the human race. His hate for the current human race was spurned by his father, who was a scientist of war; enemy soldiers had broken into Okuda's home and killed his mother before his eyes. His father gave up his part as a war scientist and began to research an antibody, which resulted in the creation of Chimeras. Sudo criticizes Okuda's scheme and Okuda shoots him, but Aiko's Chimera arm intercepts the bullet, before telling Okuda that she will kill him if he proceeds to steal anything precious from her. The Executive Board sends in an army at this moment to destroy Okuda's plans, giving Sudo and Aiko a chance to escape. Sudo, Aiko, and the Chief escape to the surface, but encounter Chimera soldiers who shoot Aiko. However, Sudo takes the blows and dies in Aiko's arms, shortly before he tries to kiss her. After seeing his death, Aiko goes berserk, killing the soldiers as the Chief holds Sudo's body, watching. The building then self-destructs, and Aiko loses consciousness; the rest of the people, including the Chief, then disappear for reasons unknown after the building exploded. While unconscious, Aiko dreams of her parents, the people she has met and made friends of, and Sudo, most, if not all, of them she loved are dead. She then wakes up alone, having lost her left arm and both legs. A person who looks like Sudo then kneels in front of Aiko and pats her on the head, where he disappears moments later in the following panel after she smiles joyfully with some tears in her eyes. The story ends with the public informed of Atheos and the Chimeras, and a somehow fully regenerated and healthy Aiko walking in a heavily populated area. Someone calls her name, and she turns around towards this person with a smile. Whether Aiko was able to stay alive from her near-death state, escape from the destroyed building complex, heal to her healthy state and move on to live a new life with new friends, as seen as she is in a heavily populated area at the end of the story, is unknown, especially since it's unclear whether the Aiko seen at the end of the story is the real and living Aiko, and not a ghost of her. It's very possible that Aiko is very much alive as seen in the ending where she's alive and well, but the events on how she was able to stay alive and recover, from the time she was awake heavily injured to her walking in a city with all her limbs back where someone called her, are unexplained. It's quite likely that the author intentionally made the ending open-ended, so that the audience can interpret whether Aiko is still alive or not. However, it's quite likely that Aiko is still alive as we see her alive and well at the end with her meeting with the person who called out to her, but there's no confirmation whether she is alive. Regardless, it's up to the audience to interpret whether Aiko is still alive as seen at the ens of the story when we see her walking in a city sometime after the public knows about Atheos and the Chimeras. Although, a good reason why this is unexplained is because of the very short length that the story has, with only 19 chapters in total, not enough to actually explain how Aiko was able to be in a city alive and well sometime after the public exposure of the Chimeras and Atheos; this shows that the ending was quite rushed due to this lack of explanation.
In Jason Thompson's online appendix to Manga The Complete Guide, he regards the protagonist's "emo and paralyzed by doubt" nature as being due to the influence of Neon Genesis Evangelion on manga and anime.
