AFTERMATH: HACK
Part 2 – The Never-Ending Tale

Chapter 22 – Conclusion
Revolver

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Yuusaku goes to his parents. Revolver follows his journey, follows him remotely to the front door. It's not hard, given the empty streets and the way today's society has a camera in every corner.

He follows Yuusaku's duel disk as well, but for an entirely different reason.

And it takes him a while – takes Doujun Kengo even longer – but he sees the seeds of his worry take fruit. And maybe he could have been happy for a few weeks if he hadn't noticed, but he'd promised. And maybe he couldn't have kept himself from turning over every piece of coding anyway.

And he'd spent seven years uncoding the Ignis. He knew them almost as well as his father, now. Perhaps he'd even surpassed him. But in the end, it wasn't him who'd destroyed them.

In the end, they hadn't been destroyed. Not entirely, anyway. Shreds of the dark Ignis remained, and it was growing. Did it mean it would form into a functional being again? Who knew. But it was growing faster than Revolver was comfortable with, and the restrictors he'd applied to Pandor's programming refused to take hold.

If only it was as easy as turning a flawed Ignis into a Pandor, but it wasn't. And though Pandor's restrictors meant she would never turn against humanity, she also couldn't integrate herself into them, and support their evolution. She wasn't made with the same purpose in mind, and though her ability to improve was similar, her base left much to be desired.

It mattered not. She functioned well in the task he had for her, and he wasn't trying to save humanity anyway. Perhaps he'd lost faith in them. Perhaps he simply wasn't that sort of altruistic person. After all, at sixteen he was one of the most infamous cyber-criminals, even if only a few select individuals knew his true identity and age.

He'd been careless revealing hints to Playmaker, but maybe he was fine with their dynamic the way it was. At least until things came to an end.

Am I… almost happy things haven't ended yet?

Perhaps, like Playmaker, he too would have been lost if the Ignis, if that incident, vanished without a trace.

Except, unlike Playmaker, he'd taken the care to verify that this wasn't the case.

And if the dark Ignis was rebuilding despite his efforts, then where were the other five. Faust and Baira were searching; he had to leave it to them. Spectre was ashore and wouldn't be back for a few days, and Genome was the least inconspicuous after him so he'd gone as a contractor to SOL Technologies. He might find the earth or water Ignis while he was there, or other pertinent information. And even if he found nothing, he could at least leave a small, undetectable, back door should the company grow too big for its boots again.

Revolver wouldn't let it become the abomination it had been for the last ten years, even if Zaizen Akira allowed it.

But that means he has to find a way to permanently neutralise the Ignis, something even the Ignis themselves have failed to do.

And why? Because his father created them as a self-renewing, self-growing programme. Because he created them from the trials of children who had an infinite well of hope and infinite potential. Because he created them from children who didn't know their own limits, who didn't know what limits where –

Who still tasted despair and hopelessness and cages and limitations, and all that had been embodied in that final duel, that final sacrifice.

Or so the dark Ignis had said. He said he sacrificed himself so the human he'd been born from – so Playmaker, so Fujiku Yuusaku – could live. He'd seen futures where humans and AI could not live together, and he'd precipitated that conclusion for them by making himself out to be the villain. Ai, who'd chosen to fight against his fellow Ignis so his partner could attempt to build such a world, had turned out to be the biggest obstacle in the end.

But just as a child easily abandoned dreams, they also stubbornly persevered. Was this a small sliver of irrational hope? Or was it simply a mindless regeneration.

They'd find out in a matter of days, by his reckoning. And if he can't stop it, he can trap it.

His lip curls. He remembers Playmaker doing the very same thing. It was one of a series of events that led to their bittersweet reunion.

Playmaker, could we have been friends ten years ago?

It doesn't matter now, though. And he has Spectre, instead. Spectre who is fetching supplies for them.

He sighs, and thinks. Where's the safest place for the Ignis? And how can he create a lock that will keep them bound? If only they could be isolated in such a away they were as good as destroyed… but that came with its own dangers. Under their watch was better. But the dark Ignis had evolved frightfully fast, so much so that Bohman had been modelled off duels with Playmaker. On the other hand, it hadn't been until the dark Ignis had left Playmaker's side that its machinations against humanity had begun.

Unfortunately, the easiest place to lock the dark Ignis up again is Playmaker's duel disk. He'd only have to adjust Playmaker's code and, given several of his own programmes exist in that duel disk, he can do it remotely with relative ease. The water Ignis, too, can be contained relatively easily within the sphere Lightning had employed… but if he's going to unite one Ignis with their human, he should consider reuniting the others as well.

Of course, he can't unite Windy… and he doesn't even know if Lightning's machinations can be repaired. Or if Lightning himself can be repaired: Lightning, the first Ignis full of holes that was abandoned instead of improved. Lightning, who'd mimicked his creators and, in doing so, broken his host and misunderstood pain with pleasure. Lightning, who hadn't been able to handle being singled out, being incomplete, who hadn't been able to overcome simulations who said he had no future with the human race.

And he's going to give that to Kusanagi Jin to handle? That sounds like a terrible idea when worded like that.

He chews his pencil head as he thinks. He can trust Spectre with Earth, of course, and maybe it'll be a good chance for Spectre as well. Soulburner will likely hunt his boat down (with help, of course, given he lacks the technical finesse to pull it off) if he doesn't return Flame, and leaving Aqua in the cage would be too cruel. Zaizen Aoi had managed Aqua just fine the last time around, and who knew what Sugisaki Miyu's views on the Ignis were. The two girls see plenty of each other, anyway. Zaizen Aoi can feel her out on that issue.

He can put Windy in the cage. There's probably no point in putting Lightning in a cage of his own design. And that leaves Lightning. He can take Lightning himself but what would be the point of that? If the Ignis need their partners to curb their destructive potential, then how could a broken boy just starting to heal curb Lightning?

Maybe the older brother can hold on to him, instead.

Of course, he can't let them go unsupervised. Can't let them plot to destroy humanity once again. He pulls up Playmaker's programme – and it was a pretty decent one; it had successfully held Ai for several months before Windy, and then Ai himself, had hacked himself out. But Ai had been able to manipulate data remotely even prior to that. Revolver needs to put a stop to that as well – or at least a watch.

Children in a cage won't grow, after all. Hamsters in a cage fight for survival and that is all.

But he's not a scientist. He's not putting a bunch of hamsters in a cage and seeing which one reigns supreme. And maybe part of him feels sad, feels guilty – or maybe he can't let Playmaker dig himself into a hole of despair when it isn't over after all.

He can justify it however he likes but the end result is the same.

Still, he would rather the Ignis had simply remained in their graves.

And once he locks them into place, he can work on deleting them again: deleting them once and for all. Because despite the valuable resource they'd been, they'd destroyed far too many lives – and he's a child who's seen his father's dream fail, after all, and has dedicated himself to cleaning up the mess.

Playmaker, Soulburner, Blue Angel… Looks like I'm going to be your enemy again.

But that's the role of the vigilante he's taken for himself since seven years ago.