"Hello, welcome to Quindecim….." His voiced sounded more mechanical and detached than usual. Judgements, souls, the hopelessness of the deceased. One group after another bearing their souls to him. Offering up their lives unwillingly. Judging was all he knew. All he could know. Up until she had entered his existence and shattered its meaning. Destroyed confidence, opened new doors. These judgements were becoming more exhausting than usual. Draining, tiresome. It didn't used to be like this. They used to hold a certain neutrality. Of course, lives that were lived to the fullest he respected, but not much beyond that. A perk of being emotionless it would seem. Those days were over now. Emotions, humanness, they owned him now. How much could emotions interfere with judgement? Quite a substantial amount it would seem. Perhaps emotions were forbidden because they were physically draining. An arbiter that could feel a human's pain might be in too much pain themselves to ensure a proper judgment. He felt them dragging him down. Again the question invaded his thoughts, could he truly become human?
After his judgements were completed Decim hurriedly made his way to Nona's realm. She faced him when he entered, mildly startling him. It seemed as if she had almost expected him. "Decim, is something wrong?" She asked in a way that implied she already knew the answer. Her look was one of interested concern. It seemed her experiment was turning out to be more of a problem that it was worth. That or, maybe this is what progress felt like. After all, the emotions were working, what did she expect? Maybe some part of her wished the experiment would fail, that arbiters could never understand the workings of a human. Oh well, move on, business as usual. But this, this experiment had worked! Perhaps arbiters would understand humans, maybe even become one themselves…What an upset this would cause. Oculus must not find out about these new developments.
Yes, best to keep the results of this experiment to herself. However, it hadn't been completely successful. Decim was still far from human, but his current progress was not something to be ignored. She could see it in his eyes. The first signs of his change. No longer did he possess those cross-shaped irises. No, now his eyes were expressive, warm, almost alive. She realized with a start that she'd been staring directly at him. "Oh, sorry, yes? Was there something you need to ask me?"
"I wanted to make a request. I don't know if any arbiter has been allowed to do this, but please, if there's any way allow me to retain my memories of Chiyuki." She winced. Ah, another sign of humanness, attachment. Never before had he attached to any of his guests. Sure, he had that "interesting" hobby of creating mannequins of his patrons. But asking to retain a memory? This was simply unheard of. "You know it's standard procedure for all arbiters to have their memories completely wiped. A clean slate so as to ensure proper judgements." "Yes, of course." His small beacon of hope was slowly falling out of reach.
She studied him for a moment, carefully planning the next step to her experiment. "However, I think we can make an exception, there's still something I want you to do." Decim perked up. Yes, he'd do anything just to allow that one memory to exist. All her fears of ruining him an arbiter were slowly falling away. She would make him something better. She would make him human study the effects, how it progressed. He would be her greatest achievement. Oculus couldn't do a thing about it.
She smirked. "Decim, instead of a memory, a fleeting thing, how about an actual face to face meeting, a reunion of sorts." He didn't understand where she was going with this. "Would you like to be human, Decim?" Her emphasis on the word "human" made something inside him tighten. "Yes."