Uninstall

Making his way towards the large console nestled away in the furthermost right hand side of the training room, Zack held a strong sense of determination even though his eyes showed a small, curious wetness to them. Taking a deep breath, steeling himself against the throbbing ice-like pain in his chest and throat, he slowly started entering a long line of text once the screensaver had cleared.

[cmd run]. E: \SHINRA\... he began, systematically running through the lines of code Kunsel had taught him, as though doing so would somehow ease the hurt building in him at what he was about to do.

E: \SHINRA\TroomLvl49… he paused.

Was he really going to be able to do this? His fingers hovered over the keyboard, uncertainly. This would be his last chance to back out of what he was about to do. Surely, he could log out, turn around, and walk away without anyone being the wiser. He could lie and say that he erased the program (if Kunsel asked) and as far as he knew, Sephiroth still thought he had deleted all traces of his friend's existence from the mainframe months ago. No one other than Zack knew the passwords, yet alone the existence of BanorasHonor. exe. If Zack turned back now, no one ever would know.

Except for himself, he would know and it would nag at the back of his mind until he either died or erased the program. He would know he had been too much of a coward o do something as simple as press a simple button. He would know he was weak, relying on a digital projection of a man he had and still looked up to and adored to calm his turbulent heart. He would know and it would haunt him.

That was not something Angeal would have wanted for his student and Zack knew that too.

With that though in mind, he lowered his shaking fingers back the 'home row' (he wasn't sure when he had removed them, actually) and began typing.

E: \SHINRA\TroomLvl49\BanorasHonor. exe [Run]

Watching as the room around him shifted in a flurry of oversized pixels, changing from a large spartan square containing only a few computers behind specialized Plexiglas planes into a simply furbished three room apartment. Even after having not seen in the months following his mentor's demise, Zack was aware of every inch of space, from the small but well stocked kitchenette behind him to the main bedroom behind the heavy wooden door to his left.

Flirting against the very edges of his consciousness, he could feel the presence of another person, though the presence lacked the full feeling like that of a living person. Walking away from the console, which had now faded into and masked itself as a small side table displaying a vase Zack had never really liked anyway, he slowly approached the bedroom door. However, before he could make it past the tan leather couch and halfway through the space Angeal and Zack had once designated as the living room, the heavy oak opened and a familiar figure walked through. His mentor hummed softly to himself as studied the sheaf of stapled papers in his hand. Something lodged itself in Zack's throat as he watched the man fiddle with the pair of glasses that kept threatening to slide down the man's nose, remembering how he always thought the thick plastic frames complimented the dark haired man's face well.

Hitting the door closed with a foot, clad in what appeared to be his favorite pair of fleece socks, the taller man continued to purse his papers without any sign he noticed Zack's presence at all. The copy even continued to mumble distractedly to himself, as the original often did when he was deep in thought about something. Seeing the man so relaxed and in his element, Zack felt his heart pang. For a second, he could believe nothing had changed and it was just another day in their busy SOLDIER lives. For a second, he could believe his Angeal was alive and well, waiting for his faithful puppy to come and pull his mind away from his mounds of paperwork—some of which he insisted on bringing home to finish, much to Zack's chagrin.

Watching the sight before him, Zack doubted his ability to go though with deleting the program. This was all he had left of the man, besides his memories and the man's prized Buster Sword. Would he really be able to give this up? The real Angeal would be ashamed, he realized. The thought did nothing to make his task easier. It only added to the pain.

It expressed itself in Zack's voice as he called out to the First.

Almost as though surprised, the digital Angeal looked up at his student. It took a second for the program to recognize Zack, but once it did, a faint smile quirked the man's lips. Zack was amazed when he noticed that for once the hologram's smile reached his eyes—that was the problem with digital representations of people, Zack thought. They never really captured the person's personality right—and had to chastise himself for getting caught in the moment.

"You're back early, Zack. Did something happen?" the hologram asked as he set down the papers he had been just reading on one of the many smaller tables placed around the perimeter of the room. He then placed his glasses on top of them.

"No. I… I just… I wanted to see you," Zack forced out, finding it hard to speak when the other man was looking at him in that concerned way. He quickly took a seat on the couch, looking for anything else to do to avoid looking into the digital man's eyes. They were too blue, too close to the real thing, for Zack to tolerate long. He often wondered why he had let Kunsel help him program it. Originally, it been intended to help Zack get over the intimidation and trepidation he had felt towards the First at the beginning of their student-mentor relationship. How it had become a replacement for a dead man, Zack didn't want to think about it too deeply.

"I just had some free time and thought we… w-we could… you know, spend some time together," he finished lamely, staring at his boot clad feet. He heard, rather than saw, the other man approach. After a few seconds, the taller man seated himself next to his student and waited. Zack had never needed much time to spill his feelings and thoughts to the other man, so it wasn't a surprise when the teen started on a tangent either could barely understand—even if one of them wasn't born from a computer.

"The thing is… well, you're not real," he blurted, his voice breaking on the word 'real'. "You might look like Angeal… and sound like him… and act like him, but you're not him, no matter how much I wish you were."

He had to take a moment to collect himself. He watched as his fingers intertwined themselves and twisted into painful knots before separating and starting the motions again. He refused to chance a glance at the other man, knowing that if he did, he would never be able to go through with it. Instead, he focused on his hands until a much larger one stilled them with a feather light squeeze. Zack found it ironic that while he was debasing the program, it was still trying to offer comfort in its own way. That was before he remembered that it was programmed to do so.

Still, it felt nice.

"I know you have no clue what I'm talking about but…" here his voice hitched, thick with tears. Trying not to gag and choke on his own words, Zack protested none when a thick corded arm wrapped itself around his shoulders and he found himself with his face buried in a familiar braided nylon sweater.

"You are dead. I watched you die. I killed you." He said finally, more for his own benefit, than for the copy's. In the darkness, hidden from the world in the unusually silent man's sweater, the teen let the tears fall and sobs he had been holding since the man's death out. Nothing more was said and they stayed like that for a long while, before Zack reluctantly pulled away and wiped is eyes on his arm.

"If that's true," the hologram began, as though trying to calculate what would be the most appropriate response. Watching in near silent awe, the teen watched as the computer generated First seemed to take his words in stride—well of coarse, he's a computer program Zack scolded himself—and continued in his directives to bring comfort to his creator.

"If what you say is true, and I am dead, then what is all this?" he concluded finally, motioning to everything around them with a hand. Zack couldn't help but smile a watery little grin. Even after everything, Angeal was still trying to help his student.

"A simulation," he answered, feeling a little better in face of the familiarity and calm his digitized mentor was displaying. "We're in the level 49 training rooms. Kunsel helped me set it up."

"I see," the man replied, getting up. "I would offer you something, but seeing as this isn't real, I'm not sure if there's really a point."

There was just something so nonchalant in the way the words were said that caused Zack to laugh just a little. Leave it to Angeal to take his own death and apparent digital resurrection in stride, as though as it was nothing. As he thought about it, he laughed harder until he was a quivering mass of giggles. It was the hardest and longest he had laughed since his mentor's passing. Realizing this, Zack instantly sobered and cast a glance towards the man standing only a few feet away. He didn't expect what he saw.

There, with his arms crossed and with a small –sad- smile on his lips, stood the older dark haired man looking for all the world as though he had just figured out the meaning of life. Zack had only seen that took on the man's face one other time—when he had figured out that it had been his DNA that had lead to his best friend's degradation—and was somewhat happy to see that it wasn't in that same self depreciating way it had been before.

"You really meant it when you said you missed me," the copy said, uncrossing his arms.

"…y-yeah." Zack looked away. "I do. Every minute of every day."

Nodding, the older swordsman tilted his head in thought for a moment, in a way that would have reminded Zack of Sephiroth, had he been looking anywhere but his feet. With a sigh, the older man continued, "But that's not the only thing troubling you. You haven't come to see me for a while."

"The last time was about two and a half weeks ago," he amended after another minute in which Zack was sure the computer was looking up his last log-in date. "That means either, my death was rather recent… or you have been avoiding me. I have a strong suspicion it's the latter."

Even in digital form, Angeal had a way of figuring out Zack in a way better than he could ever himself. The thought brought something warm to Zack's aching heart. It had been Angeal's way of reading through Zack and offering his expert advise in his worse moments that Zack had needed in the face of everything that had happened. But, with his mentor's defection and subsequent passing, Zack had lost that support guidance that he had relied so heavily upon. Without it, he hadn't known how to deal with the loss of the man who had given it so freely.

"So that begs the question, why are you here now?"

Zack froze.

So that moment was finally here, the moment in which he would have to follow through with his decision. Would he really be able to look into those intense blue eyes he had loved so much and finally say a proper good-bye? Would he be able to smile one last time to the man he respected and cared about before parting ways for good –at least until he himself joined the lifestream—and erasing the program he had relied so heavily on for so long?

The seeds of doubt began to grow inside him.

As if sensing his student's inner turmoil, or simply by reading the teens bio-patterns, the render locked his too blue eyes on Zack. Slowly and carefully he answered his own question as well as verbalized what Zack knew he needed to do. Gently but firmly he made a statement, "You need to move on."

Not even waiting for Zack to respond, he continued.

"But to do that, you need to cut ties with anything that can hold you back from doing so," though the voice was not ungentle, there was a seriousness there that booked no room for argument. It was so much like the real Angeal; Zack couldn't help but to listen with his full attention of the figure that had come to stand directly in front of him. Zack recognized the tone and words for what they were: an order. Angeal's last order.

"You came because you wanted to say good-bye." He finished simply. Nodding because he was unable to form words that did not stick to his throat, Zack tried to give his mentor his best smile, all the while feeling as though a hole was being ripped open deep inside of himself. It was the same tear that had torn itself asunder as he watched his mentor's face relax after that final battle. Now, however, it felt like the scabs that formed over the tear were being ripped off and the tear itself was being torn apart once more. The small ratty patches he had haphazardly applied to the wound and already malformed scar tissue began to fall away and leave the hole ready to heal properly. Idly, Zack realized that anything worth anything did not come without price or without pain.

He didn't even notice the tears streaming down his face as the render guided his hand to his pocket and to his phone.

"You don't need me anymore, Zack," he said, helping the teen to lift and open his handheld.

"YOU'RE WRONG!! I DO need you, Angeal!" Zack startled himself with the intensity of his outburst, his final struggle against the futility of the situation, even as he realized the program was right and he was being childish. As the words tumbled out of his mouth, Zack felt the pain ease just a little more. Having the man here—in any form—and being able to express the feelings he had suppressed for so long in his heart felt good. "I've missed you so much! Why'd you have to go run off and die like that?! Why the hell'd you have to leave me alone like this?! I thought you cared about me!! I need you here with me, so why aren't you here?!"

For the most part, the render seemed content to let the boy rant, rave, yell, and scream at him. And if not for the built up pressure and pain in his soul which needed to be expressed in some way or form, Zack would have felt terrible even if the man he had just taken to punching was little more than modified data. It wasn't until his voice was almost gone completely and his fists sore—he still wasn't sure how that worked—that he calmed down enough to notice that he was being held tenderly in a pair of strong arms.

Weakly and with his head again a chest without a heartbeat, he looked up hoping his eyes would reflect his heart. "Why? Just why?"

The man, as Zack predicted, had no answers.

"I loved you. I still do." He admitted, pressing his aching head back against the solid chest in front of him. Gathering a deep breath, Zack was disheartened when he could not detect any hint of apple or cinnamon or feel the man's chest rise and fall. It felt like some of Zack's favorite things were missing and it drove in the fact that he was standing –alone- in the level 49 training rooms.

"I'm sure he knows." Looking up, he saw the man before him for what he truly was. This man was not Angeal Hewley, no matter how much he may have looked and sounded like him. This man was a computer, using old data to determine what the teen was most likely wanting to hear. Still, there was a kindness of sorts surrounding the render that made Zack feel at peace.

Stepping away, Zack looked at the device in his hand. Risking a glance at the render and after receiving a nod in turn, he flipped it open and read the screen, surprised at the options presented to him. He poised over the "Accept" command before letting his hand fall to his side for a moment and locking his eyes on the entity that reminded him so much of his mentor but was slightly different, he smiled in gratitude.

"Thank you," he said with a slight nod of his own. Pressing the "ok" button, he watched as the world around him glowed vividly for a second before falling away in a mess of pixels from the ground up to reveal the training rooms around him. All the while his eyes were locked on the unique entity he had given life to. He did not turn his eyes away until the last pixel had fallen away, leaving him alone in a room that was too quite for his liking.

Glancing at his phone before quickly pocketing it, the walked back to the main console. The command panel he had been using previously was replaced by a simple black screen with white blocky text.

Program Successfully Terminated

Pressing a series of keys, another panel came up. His fingers only hesitated a minute. He typed with determination and a resolve to grow stronger not only because of the promise he had wordlessly gave to two men wearing the same face, but for himself as well. Hitting the enter button, one last message displayed before him. When it did, Zack felt a relief and lightness he hadn't felt since before his mentor had left Shinra.

Deleted

Turning, he left the training room without looking back. He was going to move forward just as he promised. He was going to live his life well, so that when he did meet Angeal again, he would have no regrets.

The End