Chapter 3: First Steps into the Light

Nier gasped and swayed on his feet, the teleportation rougher than he expected. He looked wildly around and flinched back from the sunlight falling dangerously close to his feet. Thankfully, Yonah's stasis pod had the necessary filters against UV light.

Nier shook his head, trying to regain his equilibrium and stubbornly ignoring the amazing sight of the sky and the faraway mountains.

They weren't free yet.

He could feel that the blood covering the stasis pod was rendered completely inert, the demonic element inside it burning up during the teleportation. He opened the other containers, pouring the rest of the blood out, and prepared to teleport again before the androids caught up to him.

His magic flared out, instinctively seeking out a safe place, and he followed its path, teleporting away.

He reappeared in the silent darkness, breathing in the stale air of a cave. It was hard to accurately judge the distance during teleportation, but with so much blood to serve as an amplifier and without a dimensional lock to bypass, they should be far enough to hide from the overseers.

At least for a time.

Gestalts required neither food nor water, needing only magic to function, so Nier could afford to stay in hiding, only teleporting out of the otherwise unremarkable cave to explore his surroundings. It was slow going, the sunlight a constant hazard even if he was more resilient than an average Gestalt.

Thankfully, the sky was overcast now, allowing Nier a degree of safety.

He was still careful, of course, keeping to the shadows whenever possible, ready to teleport away at a moment's notice, but there were other dangers aside from sunlight.

Nier couldn't help but flinch, immediately materializing his sword at the sight of a gigantic shambling monster made of several relapsed Gestalts fused into one. The thing had many other Gestalts skittering at its feet, no doubt relapsed as well.

He wasn't looking forward to this fight.

Nier tensed and stretched his wings, ready to use his ability to fly to his full advantage.

The monster shambled closer…

Nier raised his sword, dark magic gathering around the blade…

…And the fused Gestalt walked away, ignoring him completely.

What.

Nier still twitched slightly, more than a little uncomfortable around relapsed Gestalts, but they didn't seem to care, either ignoring him completely or poking around with nothing but animalistic curiously. A far cry from the berserker attacks he remembered.

Was this the effect of stable maso? A sign of a proper Gestaltization rather than the corruption of the black book? Nier didn't know but he certainly wasn't going to complain.

Now if he could only find someone capable of talking…

Ah, there it was.

Nier stared at the documents he stole from the overseers, satisfaction from solving the mystery warring with cold dread from what it revealed.

All attempts at reuniting Gestalts with their Replicants ended in failure. The Gestalts always relapsed, some faster than the others, and went on a rampage, killing everyone and everything in their path, often fusing together into powerful, destructive monsters.

The document didn't go into much detail regarding the possible causes of this, but the leading theory was that it was caused by some sort of inherent flaw in the Replicants. The same flaw that allowed them to achieve sapience.

Thus unification was strictly forbidden and the overseers were tasked with finding another way to save humanity.

The Replicants were fascinating.

Nier hid in the shadows, watching from above as the Replicants in the village walked around, going on with their day. If he didn't know any better, he would've thought they were human.

The documents said that Replicants displayed almost the same personalities as the Gestalts they were based on and he was inclined to agree.

…So why did they also say that coexistence was impossible?

Stealing directly from the overseers was the right choice. He had hit a goldmine with those documents, even if what he found made his skin crawl.

Project Noir.

If what he read wasn't more lies, then there was a way to safely unite Gestalts with their Replicants.

By completely suppressing their minds.

That was what the problem was: Replicants were supposed to be nothing but empty vessels for Gestalts to inhabit, but sapience they developed threw a wrench into the plan. They fought back the possession and the strain inevitably drove the Gestalts to relapsing.

And if their Gestalts relapsed, the Replicants died soon without any hope of recreation.

So was this it? Either Replicants were sacrificed… or everyone died?

Wasn't there any other way?!

Nier shifted uncomfortably, his back and wings still stinging from the sunlight. It was his own fault for being so engrossed in his observations that he stopped paying attention to the weather.

The cave he was hiding in was blessedly dark, and while he could teleport 'home', the distance would leave him exhausted, considering he had already wasted some magic both to get away from the sun and to regenerate his injuries. So waiting it was.

At least the company was good.

"You look weird!" one of the Gestalts stuck there with him said, their small shape and squeaky voice showing they were still a child.

"Don't be so rude, Kintarō!" another Gestalt, this one an adult, chastised. "Apologize immediately!"

"It's fine," Nier replied, his own voice sounding odd to his ears after weeks of silence. "I do look strange."

Unlike regular Gestalts, he was far more solid and the shadow skin only partially covered his body, rippling in upward waves. Not to mention the wings he certainly enjoyed using.

The Gestalt introduced herself as Yaegiri and the other two as her son Kintarō and younger sister Yama. Nier's social skills were close to nonexistent, so his attempts at small talk quickly transformed into grilling the woman for information. Thankfully, she didn't appear to mind, seemingly happy to just talk to someone.

Her words didn't paint a pretty picture. The small family was on the run, having to move constantly even in the wilderness in order to avoid Replicants, without knowing a moment of peace. Yaegiri talked of other Gestalts trying to make a stand, but she wasn't a fighter and she didn't want her family to get hurt, so she ran.

Nier could sympathize. This was hardly different from his own past, hiding in the ruined buildings and running away from the monsters until there was nowhere to go and nothing to do but fight back.

Still… "Why are the Replicants attacking you?" Nier asked.

"Because they are a bunch of goddamn monsters," Yama scoffed. "Why else?"

"Yama, please…" her sister sighed.

"Well, it's true! They come and they fight and they-" her voice trembled, "And they kill everyone for no reason! We- we never did anything wrong, they just hate us and want us dead! I hate them!"

Yama breathed heavily, her hands curled into fists. Then she flinched, seeing Kintarō curl miserably into his mother's side, and reached out to gently pat his head, "…Sorry, Kintarō. Your aunt just really likes yelling. Everything will be fine, I promise."

No matter who he talked to, it was always the same story. Replicants always tried to kill Gestalts, attacking them and their families without mercy, and any attempts at negotiation were met with hostility.

So if it really came down to one side over the other… Hadn't Nier already killed others for survival?

A/N: A lot of names in this game are based on different stories, depending on location. For example, the characters in the Junk Heap have names based on Pinocchio, the Aerie on Peter Pan, and Seafront on The Little Mermaid. So here's me keeping to the tradition.

I based these names on a Japanese folk-tale Kintarō ('Golden Boy'). Kintarō is the name of a child hero with superhuman strength. In one version of the story, he was raised by his mother, Princess Yaegiri, in another version, he was raised by a mountain witch Yama-uba.

And yes, I did spend several hours choosing the names for OCs that have like three lines each and won't appear again, why do you ask?