Character Profile: Rico

From the time she was born, the girl who would be know as Rico was confined to a hospital bed due to birth defects. While her mother desperately wanted to keep her alive, her father didn't like all the hospital bills as a result. Then her parents signed her off to the Social Welfare Agency, where her body was rebuilt and conditioned. The fratello (meaning sibling in Italian, though here it's used to mean "handler") assigned to her, Jean, had given the girl a boy's name... Rico. She shares a room with another assassin, Henrietta.

Rico receives the most conditioning of the girls, mostly because Jean regards her and the other child assassins as little more that tools of the trade. However, even when Jean abuses her, Rico still retains a cheery, upbeat attitude, mostly from the fact that she is not confined to a bed all the time. However, because of the heavy conditioning, she follows her orders to the letter... even if she has to kill innocent bystanders in order to keep her work a secret.

Rico spent her life, up until her 11th birthday (which was stated in the manga), in a hospital bed. The manga said it was because her limbs were all deformed, but in both the manga and anime they show her on a respirator. Her episode takes place 2 years later (she says "then two years ago on my birthday I got a new body"). Which says that she's 13 at least.