Wrath that had cooled to old ash beneath the idle months and winter snows reactivated inside of 9S and oozed from within like molten iron seeking a place to pool and burn. It flared through him in search single target that he could blame for the way his life had spiraled out of control in the past few weeks. 8E she should have been more than enough. The moment she appeared, things started to change for the worse, and her actions were directly responsible for both his arrest and his extended stay in the camp. Yet even though 9S would have hacked her into pieces given the opportunity, he didn't hate her half as intensely as he hated himself.
More specifically, his programming.
In a mere four syllables, V had opened old, dangerous cracks in 9S' being. He wanted to be angry with V, the way he would have been if he were only an android. V deserved so much worse than 9S had managed. But his base protocol kept an absolute perimeter around that one precious human presence. It cost 9S an incalculable effort to walk away. Every step was a steep climb over a different objection.
'Go back'.
'Apologize'.
'V was only trying to protect him.'
'Wasn't that enough? Didn't that make him happy?'
9S bit down until his silicone teeth gouged the inside of his cheek and his mouth filled with the taste of oil. Pod 153 once told him that primitive humans thought they could cure madness by drilling holes in their skulls to let spirits out. If he wasn't sure it would kill him, he might have taken the risk to reach inside his chest and physically remove the component of his OS chip that generated those stupid, docile impulses.
Regardless of the absurd suggestions from the base protocol on what he should feel, nothing about V's actions satisfied him.
It didn't make him happy and it wasn't enough.
V claimed he was protecting 9S from demons and from himself. 9S believed that. But he did not believe that was the whole truth. Strong emotion was disruptive, but it had no bearing on the sub-processes that logged his memories or those that identified patterns. For example, V's unusual increase in concentration when it came to Theta. Or his agitated but unsurprised response when 9S brought up problems bigger than he could handle.
9S should've known better. He should've known things would just repeat one way or the other if he let himself pretend V could occupy the space 2B left behind. So what if V was never going to kill him? So what if V was never going to take his treasured memories away? If it just ended with someone else getting hurt or dying for a stupid reason like protecting him, he didn't want that either. 2B had done it. Devola and Popola had done it. Even A2 had directly exchanged her life for his. And he was supposed to feel happy about it happening again just because V was human?
What a hilarious fucking joke. He could just die laughing.
His furious march weakened. Soon he slowed to a halt in the middle of the snowy road. Why did everything just keep repeating? Why did it always end like this? He couldn't do this again.
And he didn't have to.
Every sound, every sight, every single byte of external information filtering through 9S' processors sharpened until they were as crisp as a shard of polished glass jutting from a broken window. He didn't have to accept this. V himself had said as much. 9S hadn't thought of him as a god worth dying for—or even a god at all—in ages, but what was the use of being so infuriatingly beholden to V if he couldn't take his word as permission?
V wanted to keep secrets about himself? Fine. 9S had plenty of his own secrets and could forgive being tight-lipped about personal problems. But V keeping secrets related to 9S? That was… Frustrating? Unfair? Not V's place? That one sent sparks flying up and down his back, so it must have been right.
His whole life had been hidden from him. It had to stop somewhere. If not with V, then he would make it stop elsewhere first. Fear was no longer a consideration. Clashing so hard against his protocols left him smoldering with the desire to know himself. To know he had control over himself.
And to take it if he didn't.
In the camp, Theta greeted him with an expectant look. She must have wanted an update or debrief but he didn't have time to explain the existence of demons to her. He had two jobs while he was in camp, and the first was to talk to Anemone about Aconite. No one would have questioned what happened to her after they'd just fought a bunch of dead YoRHa, but that wasn't the point. The point was that he first thing Anemone had asked him was if V had been the one to kill her people, and 9S had promised it wasn't him, and that was no longer the case. V had killed Aconite and he that could only create problems if 9S kept it a secret.
She made a difficult face when she saw his severed finger, the clenching of her jaw shifting and dimpling her cheeks. If she blamed V or was angry with him at all, she didn't say. All she did say was that Aconite went AWOL and that her death was on her for attacking an innocent party. Whatever else she might have thought about the matter she kept to herself.
9S let it lie with that. Job one complete. He re-attached the finger with only a wince at the mild sizzle. It wasn't a neat wound and the lines didn't match up like they were supposed to. It would need proper repair later, but hand dexterity wasn't a priority where he was going.
Job two was to find Jackass.
'I'm not Nero.'
V grimaced. He was aware of that. Just as he was aware that was a cheap, reflective retort that wouldn't have been out of place in a playground. An eye for an eye, dish and take exchange. Quick and incisive and basic and childish.
And he'd lost. Decisively.
God damn it.
Still, he took in his abrupt solitude with a measure of relief. He couldn't imagine trying to explain the unexpected and undesirable ways he began to come apart at the seams only moments after 9S stalked off.
The tattoos went first. They exploded from his body and splattered against the rubble like a tattered net dragged from the oil-clogged sea. Then came the uneasy heat flushing through his body. The twinge above his navel and the creeping sweat that raised goosebumps between his shoulders. His thoughts began to flash and cycle, but it wasn't images of his burning home or his mother that raced through his mind.
It was the sound of bells. There was a rhythm to these that did not match the peals that had drawn him into the woods. A stronger sound that clanged in his ears and played on his bones. He saw a red sky full of white infants, their mouths packed with gnashing salt-block teeth. The white giant was among them, shaped like a woman but inhumanly swollen as she lay among the burning ruins of a city. He saw the moment of passage when all became white light and white skies and a new world.
The dragon had told him a great many things when they spoke. A great, great many trifling things spoken in cryptic lines that interested him far less than making her power his own. Most of it he had ignored or already forgotten, but the cornerstone of their present arrangement was that 'they' (a term left as indeterminate as her name, but which he guessed to mean dragons and gods) were natural enemies. And now it seemed 'they' were waging war in him.
It was her memories that flashed through him like fresh splashes of blood while her power and the maso shoved and churned against one another. A clash of salt and fire that made a hell of his body. The mark in his palm burned beneath the bandages in red and violet waves as they sought dominance within him.
Both seemed to be forgetting that the body they were fighting over was his.
"Be silent."
The two powers snatched back from one another, forcibly parted by the reserve of demonic energy he'd received in the basin and the deadly edge of his foul impatient mood. Once more, he was alone with himself.
The taste of salt hovered at the back of his tongue. He wobbled as he dragged both himself and the dead weight of the tattoos toward the rubble. For being practically immaterial, they were heavy enough to have him scraping his cane along the stones just to stay upright. Beneath the dragon's cooling temper, her power wove around him like a cocoon and overlaid his own. It was still unsettled. Unfinished. She was more than capable of winning if it must come to that, but V wasn't sure that was the ideal outcome. If the maso burned from within him all at once, there was no telling what might happen, what doorways might open.
He'd have to go to the church as soon as he was able, rid himself of the gods and their maso before their squabbles grew beyond his ability to quell. For now, he let himself fall back onto the first stable stone he came across. The tattoos were creeping back into place on his body and he was perfectly content to sleep away his fatigue right there in the open.
'I'm not Nero.'
He pinched the bridge of his nose. God damn it.
V lacked the extraordinary hubris of a demon, but he had human pride enough to be stung by his own complacency. If he'd wanted any chance at all to deny 9S, even just in the privacy of his own thoughts, all he had to do was have the discretion to not drunkenly compare him to Nero. Better yet, he should have never considered he resembled Nero at all. It wasn't all that long ago he would have been baffled that he had any paternal inclinations to spare, much less misplace so egregiously onto an anxious mechanical adolescent. But eight long, fruitless months digging through wreckage and rubble in search of a way to cross a distance ten thousand years deep and multiple dimensions wide made for curious circumstance. Too few enemies to fight. Too much time alone with his memories. With his regrets.
Pod 042 hovered over him in silence. Never judging, but always calculating, and likely neither surprised nor worried. It was possible that this battle may have been lost the moment V admitted the familial similarity to the support unit, and Pod may have been more the victor than 9S. From the very beginning, Pod had gone out of his way to facilitate 'understanding' between them.
All so he could appeal to V's sentiments.
Naturally, he had objected to the Pod's request. V's only concern was that 9S was away from him until he could be sure he wouldn't have another maso-fueled transformation. Putting demonic problems on 9S' shoulders meant saddling him with things he couldn't change, and in the same fashion V wasn't interested in a YoRHa problem he could barely understand much less effect. But Pod was reasonable and didn't not ask V for a solution. With it coming to light that 9S was not the only survivor of his kind, Pod only asked that 9S be protected, particularly from information that might cause him to break down. V's memory was a thing of flesh and blood that 9S couldn't access by any means if V wasn't willing to speak.
Who better than him to entrust with the knowledge that Project YoRHa had one last cruel protocol in wait?
The technicalities involved in V's humanity were going to come to light sooner or later. His arm could be blamed on the dragon if needed, but 9S had fought demons and was insightful as Pod when he chose to be. He would piece it together eventually. It seemed clear to V, through some intuition he wasn't too quick to try and name, that 9S was growing up in some sense. Whether he destroyed himself or not, it was neither his business nor Pod's to keep him a child.
Well, for V it just meant he had to start figuring out what his next steps would be when 9S went his own way. Considering what he'd seen in the dragon's memories, he had ideas. In fact, it was possible he might be gone very soon. Perhaps it might be wise to settle his debts and go alone.
He'd never been one for goodbyes in the first place.
At first, I am surprised when Pod 042 comes to retrieve me. I didn't think it would be so soon. If I'm honest, I didn't think he would come back for me at all. I release a long breath, unsure if I am venting relief or preparing myself. Even if V isn't calling me back just to let me know I'm not needed anymore, he remembers all my attempts to snap him out of his trance the past few days. There's no way he isn't furious with me. I spend most of the crossing replaying my actions and feeling my nerve sensors prickle.
When I reach the other side and don't find him waiting, I start to worry. V was sleeping before the fight woke him. Maybe it was too soon. Maybe he's collapsed again and that's why Pod came to me.
I'm half right. V has managed to lay himself atop a stone near the bottom of the slope. Did he not have the strength to reach the top?
I can only see his hair spilling over the edge of a silicon block, his face turned away from me toward the sun. I suspect that he must have already fallen asleep again, but his arm reaches out with the steady deliberation of a bird spreading its wings. The handle of his cane glints in the light, pointing at the far side of the courtyard.
The gouges in the stone are the first thing to catch my attention. The massive, dark claw marks bring to mind all humanity's tales of monsters and nocturnal predators. I think fleetingly of his changed arm, avert my eyes, and tell myself it was just Shadow. A body on the ground helps me to believe it. For one moment I think it's the YoRHa boy, and a sickly feeling chokes the air from my chest. I identify confusion, fear, something that might be triumph or might be pity at the thought that V may have killed him. But these things all trample through me like animals fleeing a fire, until all I am left with is the churned mud in their wake.
It doesn't last long. It's not the kid, only a resistance member.
"Dispose of that."
He's never used that tone of voice before. It's heavy. Like he could make the words cast their own shadow if he wanted them to. I don't think he sounds like that because of me, but it's not as though I can really ask what's wrong. I count myself lucky he's asked anything of me at all.
The body reeks of fried wiring and heated metal. It's a hot ozone smell I have come to associate with Griffon, but the damage seems extensive even for him. I do not think about V's arm while I march back to the bridge. There's no need to. As I shift the body to throw it into the ravine, the head lolls back and reveals a woman's face. The shock was enough to crack her lenses. Her blown pupils look like shattered doll eyes. There are tags around her neck, partially sunken into the melted skin above her collar. One reads Lobelia and means nothing to me. Another reads Aconite and scratches at something within me.
I used to know that name. I used to know this android.
In a different camp in a different sector.
She used to call me Ivy.
Just the thought of this name that was once mine is enough to send a cold shock through my systems. I lose my grip and drop the body. It slumps over the edge without falling and I wrestle an urge to rescue her even though she's already dead. I knew her once, I'm sure of it. But she's only a bunch of fried parts now, and V asked me to get rid of her, so I do not understand why I feel I am about to throw away something important. Were we friends? Allies? She couldn't have been my lover or I probably would have…
Would have what? Would have what?
I clench my teeth and shove my boot against her back. She makes no sound as she falls. The roar of the waterfall swallows everything like she never even existed. I close my eyes and focus on that endless rumble. I try to imagine what V will need when he wakes, but the possibilities don't come as fast as I would like. Food? Water? After that?
What then?
What then?
What then?
What then?
I close my eyes and hold my breath. Heat builds up in my body without the extra ventilation. I release it and am momentarily lost in the cloud.
What I used to be called, who I knew, where I was, what I was doing—there's nothing to gain in remembering those things. Even the YoRHa boy is not important. He's gone now. I'm just Fern, and no matter the reason, I'm still the one V has chosen to stay with him. He will go back to sleep and he will wake up. He will need me for whatever he needs me for. I will do what he asks.
The cloud clears. I am alone on the edge of the ravine, and at the end of the path I took to arrive, V is expecting me.
That's all I need.
