Stand or Die

This was different.

It had been one thing to be forced to watch, helpless, whilst a bullet sailed through Motoko's cyberbrain with the ease of a ship at sea, with the grace of an angelfish. It had been one thing to watch her blood, dyed red for the purposes of continuity, paint the side of the Cessna learjet via which they had almost fled the country.

But this was another matter entirely.

With the resolution of Section 9, with Motoko's death, he had at least had the power to shout, to call for help, to check the body for signs of life. Or whatever it was that full-prosthetics had. Signs of operation. Signs of cyberbrain functionality.

Now you don't even have the constitution to stand.

This was how Batou thought. In the second-person, and in a derisive tone.

If there was any time he deserved the self-scorn more than now, he couldn't think of it. This would be one of the great lows in his lifespan, he decided. Watching his partner, one of his closest friends – one of his only friends – put a bullet through his own head in front of his own daughter. Watching Togusa's body fall to the ground, limp. Almost as if he were being dropped gently to the polished linoleum of the hospital floor by the physical manifestation of his own Ghost. Almost as if he were floating down into the vast sea.