"Where… where the hell is she gone now?" A2 wheezed, still holding the wound on her abdomen.

White just ran away while they were distracted, how did no one stop her from doing so? They were all focused on Robin to notice her leaving, she supposed. That goddamn woman was being such a pain.

"I'll deal with this." Robin announced, wiping her eyes to clear them from all the tears she cried. "You guys watch over A2 okay?"

If there was anyone skilled enough to find anyone, it was her, besides, she couldn't have gone too far, it must not have passed that much time.

"Don't let her hurt you again…" A2 pleaded, taking hold of her hands for a moment. "I won't."

Robin kissed them softly. "You just focus on healing now."

She then turned in the direction of her Pod, and the other two as well. "Keep your Pods close just in case."

2B and 9S nodded at her just before she turned tail to leave, her purple floating companion tailing behind her.

Besides, there were still many things she wanted to ask White, many questions, but not for herself. The reason why she wanted to keep the communicating channels between the Pods open was so that they could hear her and White speak.

If her hunch was correct, then maybe there was hope for forgiveness, even for her.

"Marking location of Commander White on map." her Pod chimed in.

"Thanks Pod." she gave a small smile.

"This Pod has concerns over unit 26E's safety, however it refrained from acting violently towards the Resistance due to unit 26E's dislike of unnecessary acts of violence." did he want to protect her too? She guessed she should have expected it, but hearing about it felt… nice.

"I appreciate it." she stopped to give him a small pat. "I do feel that I am not thanking you enough." she whispered.

After all Pod 007 had been with her through everything since the beginning, watching her kill, smile and cry, he'd been there for every mission, supporting her like the reliable ally he was supposed to be. And even worked to get her back as much as the others.

"Your gratitude is welcomed, unit 26E." he chirped, with that young voice she got so used to hearing.

"Just call me Robin."

"Affirmative… unit Robin." she gave a small chuckle, maybe one day he'll call her properly and less formally.

"Now, let us find White before she does something stupid, shall we?"


White stared down at the pit before her, she took in the state of how the ruins of the war looked up close with her eyes for the first time in years, since she'd been created. She knew of the crater that had been created from the Engels units that had fallen in the city, and from where they found that alien ship.

Where the human with 2B and 9S found it, actually.

Though she was unsure what all that white debris was meant to be, she'd known nothing of what had been after she died.

Shouldn't have been better this way?

She had delivered her knowledge, her ex soldiers and the Resistance knew the truth now, what else was she good for still here?

She'd watched from the sides how protective Number 2 and the others became towards Nico Robin, the rogue even willing to take a bullet for her. She heard all of the words that were spoken after too, from everyone, even that supposed machine ally, and the weird grinning skeleton head.

She'd said her own just because it wasn't correct for anyone to blame any of what all YoRHa soldiers did on them, she gave the orders, even if it had been the council deciding, the fact she didn't oppose made her just as bad.

No matter how she regretted it.

She watched the human fall apart and her friends curling up around her with hugs and consoling hands. Their group was so tight and understanding with each other, her being here would just ruin their harmony.

Wasn't that why her feet carried her here to this pit?

It would be so easy… she just had to let herself fall and let the wind carry her body to the bottom.

Rebuilding her had been just a waste of useful resources.

Just as the tip of one of her boots passed over the edge, she heard a voice.

"That pit is not tall enough to kill an android, Commander." she could just see Nico Robin walking towards her as she turned.

Neither she nor 9S died from it, so White wouldn't either.

For some reason, she wasn't surprised to find her here, nor seeing her attempt suicide either. Not when she too had struggled with those thoughts in the past.

Eventually she joined White at her side, sitting down on the edge of the ravine, prompting her former Commander to do the same. With a heavy sigh, the blonde woman sat next to her, realizing there was no way the human would let her go in peace.

"How did you know I was going to…" to kill myself? But somehow White couldn't bring herself to speak those last words.

"Do you think that you're the only one that ever felt like ending it all, because it was too much?" so much responsibility on her tiny shoulders when she was a kid, too big and too heavy even when she became an adult.

It still was now.

But everyone had their burdens to carry, she learned, and sharing the pain helped more times than not, that also she learned here, because of the people surrounding her.

"I've caused so much pain… why still keep me around?" White passed a hand through her long hair. "You all seemed so… happy. I could ruin everything with my mere presence."

"Maybe." it was the reply she got. "I have ruined the lives of so many people too, living like me didn't give me space to do anything else but to protect myself, end them before they kill you. For almost 20 years."

"They call me the Devil's Child." Robin allowed herself to gaze at the sky, where beyond the sun and the stars there was the planet she once called home, referring to the people there.

"After I woke up on the Bunker, for the first time in my life I felt myself truly growing close to those around me, but in the back of my mind there were always those voices, the voices that reminded me that I was just a monster, that my existence was a sin, like many people loved to tell me at every occasion. I was a walking curse that doomed everyone I came in contact with, they all died because of my hands, or for indirect causes my name brought."

The more she spoke, the more White felt horrified at the tale, and the fact that she may have had caused even more grief on this woman than she ever knew. Why hadn't she bothered to ask her who she'd been before? She could have done something…

"When YoRHa fell, these thoughts came back in full force. I was scared, terrified to lose what little remained, so I tried to run away thinking that if I were to be alone again, I couldn't hurt anyone." she shook her head, yet she had a smile on her face. "She forgave me, they all did."

"I am not proud of who I was, and neither of who I am now, but they know, and they still chose to stay by my side." White listened, though she had little idea where she was going to end up with this discourse.

"For the simple fact that I have regrets." the human's mismatched eyes stared deep into her green ones. "I didn't mean to cause pain."

"When I met A2, her eyes reminded me of mine of when I was just one lonely fugitive betrayed from the world, and now I see them in yours, Commander. I see those regrets that eat you from the inside, your choice if you want to let them do so."

White had to look away from the intensity of the look Nico Robin was giving her, but each word she spoke resonated with her all too well. This woman was too smart, but because she was using her unfortunate past to her advantage, she understood how this felt because she had felt it too.

Just like she watched her do just a while before, White felt tears prickle at the corner of her eyes, years of lies and words she couldn't say kept hidden inside were about to spill out all at once… and she no longer was willing to fight them back.

"I was… I never intended to sacrifice any of them…" she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I watched those young prototypes grow and get stronger, and work together for their important mission.

"They should all have died during the descent, even Number 2 and her other three companions, the only ones that made it to Earth. I was not allowed to fire the Bunker's laser to destroy where the missiles that were killing them came from."

It had been a moment of weakness, but she truly did want someone to survive.

"I thought the council would have been okay with it, for the sake of progressing the mission along, I hadn't had the time to ask for permission. When I had contacted them the girls had arrived at the mountain, and were under attack, I did try to convince them to send someone to help them, I truly did… they rejected every single one of my demands."

Even…

"I wanted to leave my position of Commander, if this meant just watching my soldiers get slaughtered and me watching without being able to help them…" again she could feel tears coming, and this time she lost the battle.

"We decide if we will remove you from your position. That was what they said."

And they didn't allow her to leave through the whole time YoRHa existed, Robin assumed. White shouldered all the responsibility of the evils the council did, when in reality she didn't want any of it.

Much like she'd imagined, after hearing it had been the council making decisions about taking her here, she couldn't help but think those people must have been behind a lot more than that.

Her hunch was correct, just like many others she had before.

But this time perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad thing. Not if it meant that old wounds could be mended.

"I was… secretly happy when we picked up Number 2's signal, but also terrified at the prospect of whatever those people had in store for her. Every time we'd send someone after her, she always exceeded my expectations and kept surviving, and even if you lied to me about her, I couldn't help but think that it had been for the better, even for as much as it was making things complicated for me."

It wasn't correct that Number 2 had to go through that, so for what she could, she shouldered the pain that came her way each time she kept on killing any soldier sent after her.

It wasn't much, compared to what she put her through, but it was something, it was a punishment, and she'd take it for being such a coward.

She could have tried disobeying orders again for the sake of those four girls, and the people of the Resistance with them, but no, she had to be a good little pawn and follow instructions…

To please humans that weren't even alive anymore.

She was such a stupid person.

"When you failed your mission, they wanted to impose a reset on you, to modify your personality so you wouldn't lie again. I begged them to give you a chance in favor of the loyalty you've always shown us, so they came up with that punishment… that humiliation…"

She couldn't forget that night even if she tried to cancel it manually from her brain, for how dirty she felt that she had to force a human to serve her that way…

"When we took you from your planet and made you what you are now, I swore that I wouldn't let anything change your memories and personality if I could help it but I didn't want it to end up that way."

That was why as a last ditch effort she modified her Pod to absorb her consciousness and memories, so they'd be safe, from anyone, even the council.

"Well… if it's of any consolation, that was far from the worst kind of humiliation I had to face." White's tearstained face turned to face her.

Had this woman been through that too? Was there something she didn't experience? Of the negative kind of course. White was starting to believe there was not.

"While it was not pleasant, I understand this was a necessary evil in this case, and you couldn't have known it would have triggered those memories."

If anything, these words made White feel even worse about it, now knowing her actions made her remember things she didn't want to remember at all.

"Those people just took and used me and my body the way they pleased, however while giving orders, you've never laid a hand on my body, I think it is what has allowed me to think about it a little more clearly." White hadn't touched her at all, beyond the occasional hand on her head, but even so she never hurt her, or pulled her hair.

She still wasn't happy about it, but if the option was to lose herself forever, and everything that had been created after, all the bonds and friendships, then it became somewhat easier to accept it had been a dire situation.

In her own way, White was just trying to protect her, for how weird and bad it had been, the other option would have been a thousand times worse.

White hadn't done to satisfy one twisted desire either, there was also that.

She had her hands tied as much as Robin did.

"I've been happy when you left us, so neither myself or the council would harm you this way again." White gave a sigh.

"I have always hated resets, and 9S' case didn't help the cause. When a unit is reset, everything fades away, yet their personality remains the same, and so do their quirks. I do not know what the council was thinking when they created him, why make someone so curious when trying to cover such a big secret? And force him and who was around him to suffer each time?"

And not only him, other Scanners and other units in general went through that treatment, but he was still the biggest example she could make, and well, he was still alive too.

"That was their way of dealing with this problem, whenever someone that wasn't me knew too much, they'd reset them, so they wouldn't remember." she'd seen it the first time with the two poor Operators that with her were overseeing Number 2's mission.

They just had wanted to aid the soldiers they watched for months survive.

"Perhaps it was for the best that those girls never came back to the Bunker, Number 2 and her friends. I am not happy about them having been sacrificed, but maybe death was a better option for them than anything the council had in store for them."

"A unit that knows too much would have caused a mutiny between the newer soldiers." it was Robin's dry comment.

"Not any different from trying to eliminate her, but at least in that case she had a chance of survival." and White was glad she kept surviving, no matter if she lived to hate her.

If that gave her a reason to keep going, then so be it.

"I've done so many horrible things… given so many awful orders…" White buried her head in her knees, feeling the tears return once again.

"But the point is… do you regret that?"

The answer was given with no hesitation.

"Yes. All of it."

"Well then, from my side of things, consider yourself forgiven." Robin spoke, serious and unwavering.

If she could be forgiven for her own past and who she had been, because she regretted and despised her actions, then White deserved just as much, at least from her way of seeing things.

They both did a lot of cruel things, but if one deserved forgiveness, then the other did too.

It was what A2 taught her, in their similarity. If one didn't have to be punished, then it was true for both of them.

All or nothing.

"But… I've hurt all of you so much…" White stared back, no longer bothering trying to hide the tears falling freely on her cheeks.

"Perhaps. But earlier you spoke about use being such a tight group, do you think it would have happened hadn't we been suffering? Our experiences are what allowed all of us to bond, and grow closer." she explained.

"And you've been the cause of this all, so if anything, all of this evolved into what you see now."

Robin watched as White hid her face some again, shoulders shaking as she cried freely probably for the first time in her life, much like she'd done a while ago, but it wasn't good to keep everything inside, she'd been told, so she just let her be.

Giving a nod to her Pod, watching as the orange light in his head blinked, she now waited for the results of her little plan.


"So this is how things truly are." 9S commented, they all sat around A2's cot while the twins fixed her, Pod 042 and 153 displaying the conversation for all of them to see and hear, unknown from White.

Robin's intuition had been correct once more, A2 realized.

"I told you she wasn't that bad." 6O spoke up, she'd been correct too, being the closest Operator to the Commander, but she did understand the resentment the others felt too.

"I never imagined that things would be that complicated between you androids." Pascal commented, after all, machines were just made to obey orders, they had developed a sense of self so much later, and still now it was incomplete.

But androids were made with it.

"No matter how I look at this, we are all victims in this world." Anemone's eyes laid on Number 2's sitting form, Emil's head cradled in her lap, her expression unreadable.

"This is Robin's power, her knowledge, this is why she understands us so well." it was what she said.

Her past allowed her to understand all of them at an almost personal level, because she'd been through what they did before them, and knew exactly what they needed to hear, and what they desired, because those things were what she had wanted and been denied all along.

It was what allowed the human to spare her when they met, and made them grow closer, and closer still.

Anemone was also correct, much to her dislike, because she so much wanted to hate White for her cowardice…

A2 put a hand to her chin, deep in thought, before raising her head to meet Pod 042.

"Pod, I need your map."

He did as he was asked, floating closer so she could reach the screen with her hands, as she moved the projection with her fingers, she looked at Anemone, who stared at her, but understood.

"Would it be doable?"

"It would take more than the trip we took to the Bunker, but with your girlfriend's knowledge I would assume so." Robin had shown to be able to steer a ship pretty well after all.

"What do you have in mind?" 2B asked as she watched her older sister get out of the cot, heading in the direction of the camp's entrance, Anemone at her side.

"You'll see."


White did not expect to come face to face with Number 2 immediately as they returned to the camp, after she allowed that pure display of weakness, but by now did it matter? She was no Commander anymore.

Her green eyes turned towards the human, who had a knowing smile on her face.

"They heard everything." she gestured to her Pod, of which White had completely ignored his presence.

She had transmitted the entire conversation to the other two, so the rest of the group knew what she had to say, probably thinking that she would never dare to speak of those words in Number 2's presence, because she wouldn't believe her.

But this way she could be honest with herself, and Number 2 could hear it too.

"White." Number 2 almost barked her name. She was almost startled by it.

"Yes?" she forced herself to meet those furious blue eyes, but that now seemed more tame.

Though White wouldn't dare assume that Number 2 could ever forgive her, no matter how many words she spoke, or how many apologies she gave.

"I have a proposition for you."

This got a raised eyebrow even for Robin, but Anemone didn't look worried, in fact it appeared that she knew what A2 was planning. Which made her all the more curious about it.

"If you truly regret what you've done, then come with me to pay them respect in the place where they died."

With much surprise from both her lover and best friend, A2 raised a hand in White's direction for her to take. A2 didn't mean she forgave her for this, but if she accepted, then it was a way to truly show that White was truly sorry for what happened to them.

As White's hand closed around A2's own, their next destination was taken.