Chapter 50: Traitor vs Traitor
"Hey. Any chance you'll just… go back to the village?" Devola asked hesitantly.
"What you are trying to do is very dangerous," Popola added.
"Shut up, you traitorous bitch!" Kainé snarled, readying her swords. "I'm gonna rip your fucking head off!"
"We don't want to fight you," Devola said.
"It's true. We don't," Popola added.
"But you will?" Nier asked. "…Why? Why did you do all of this?!"
"You want to initiate Project Noir, don't you?" the Shadowlord said. "That's why you sent my Replicant after the Sealed Verses."
Devola pressed her lips together and Popola looked away, their expressions speaking volumes.
"Why, you lunatics?!" Weiss yelled. "Don't you know that it will destroy the minds of every Replicant in existence?!"
"You have no cause to speak so with us, Grimoire Weiss!" Popola exclaimed. "You are a traitor!"
"Traitor?!" Weiss scoffed derisively before falling silent. "…Oh, but I am. I am a traitor… because I refused to go along with your plans! I wanted to find a different way… So you took my memories!" He laughed, loud and disbelieving, "You still needed me and you needed the Sealed Verses, but you couldn't go after them yourself, fearing that such close contact would force my memories to return and I would refuse you once again. So you locked me in the Lost Shrine and waited until you had a pawn to send after me!"
"We wanted to wait until the next generation came along," Popola said with a glance at Nier. "But you have found Grimoire Weiss and we had to change our plans."
"Wait?" the Shadowlord scoffed. "That's all you do! Wait and wait and do nothing! People die but you don't even care, do you?"
Popola flinched, looking away, and Devola scowled, "Big words from another traitor! You abandoned your duty! If you just did your job, none of this would've happened! We would've had more time, but you just had to run. I'm surprised you still hadn't taken your shell back. Isn't that what you ruined all our plans for?"
"A shell, huh? Is that all I am to you?" Nier asked bitterly. "What about Yonah? …Oh, that's right. We're not people to you, are we? We are just Replicants. Kill one of us, and you can just make another. Replicants, Grimoires… All of us are just tools to you!"
"As if Gestalts are any different to them," the Shadowlord scowled. "They certainly had no qualms against letting us all kill each other!"
"Please, don't be angry with us. We are only doing our duty," Popola said.
"You murdered half of my village!" Kainé hissed. "Who the fuck did it help?!"
The android glared at her, "They came to us on their own accord. The Gestalts wanted to take their shells back and we needed a testing ground. We had warned them about the dangers of possession, yet they were already close to relapsing, so all of them had agreed to try."
The Shadowlord growled, "Half of them had no idea what was going on!"
Something like doubt flickered on Popola's face, "They told us-"
"They lied!" Kainé screamed. "They fucking lied! And you didn't even care enough to check! You don't give a shit about us, Replicants? Fine! But it's your fucking job to look after Gestalts and you can't even do this without fucking it up!"
"Don't you dare talk to us like this! How many people have you and your kind murdered?!" Popola screamed. "All of you are covered in blood!"
"We didn't know!" Nier yelled back. "We couldn't even talk to each other! But you knew! You knew everything and you stayed silent while everyone tried to kill each other! You could've told us! At least part of the truth, to stop the fight between Gestalts and Replicants. Why the hell didn't you?!"
"What makes you think we didn't try?" Devola snapped. "No one believed us!"
"None of our attempts had worked," Popola added. "Even the Shadowlord Project ended in failure."
The aforementioned Gestalt froze and arched his wings, "…The Shadowlord Project?"
"There was already a minor cult built around your ability to prevent Gestalts from relapsing," Popola explained. "We facilitated its spread."
"We set you up as the savior of Gestalts," Devola continued. "So that while they rejected us, they would obey you."
"But once you were awakened, you have proven to be far too volatile," Popola said. "We had to abort the project."
"Volatile?!" the Shadowlord snarled. "You blackmailed me! Kept me prisoner! Used my daughter's life to force me into compliance! So what the hell did you expect?!"
"Two lives against millions?" Popola said. "That's just math."
Devola crossed her arms, "And the moment you ran off, you have sided with Replicants! So all our attempts to keep you away from them were correct."
"This isn't about taking sides! We're trying to stop people from killing each other!"
"And none of it really matters," Popola said. "If Project Noir is not initiated, then it is all pointless."
"Pointless?!" Nier growled. "Do you have any idea how many people have died already?! How many more will die in the future? And you say that their lives don't matter?!"
"And if Gestalts are not returned to their shells, everyone will die anyway!" Devola cried. "So what's the point?!"
"We tried to do this without Grimoire Weiss," Popola continued. "But all our attempts to bypass the double lock have failed. There is only one way for Grimoire Noir to be activated."
"You. Fucking. Bitch!" Kainé screamed. "So that's what you did in the Aerie?! It was all just a fucking experiment?! And if it succeeded, you were going to kill even more people?!"
"You are delusional if you think I am ever going to help you!" Weiss snapped.
"You will not have a choice, Grimoire Weiss," Popola replied. "It is our duty to save humanity and we will do everything in our power to achieve this goal."
"You were supposed to find a different way!" the Shadowlord growled.
"We tried!" Devola cried. "We tried and tried, but there is no other way! If we don't initiate Project Noir, then everyone will die! All the Gestalts will relapse and all the Replicants you care so much about will die from Black Scrawl!"
"So fucking what?!" Kainé snarled. "It doesn't give you the right to kill us all!"
"You can't do this," Emil said quietly. "You can't sacrifice so many lives. We won't let you."
"None of us will," Weiss added. "There has to be a different way and we are going to find it."
"You might have given up," Nier said. "But we won't. We never will."
Popola shook her head, uncomprehending, "So you will keep searching for a solution that doesn't exist until the world ends? Why?!"
"Because we are human," the Shadowlord said. "And it's human to hope. Because no matter how many times we fail, we refuse to give up."
