This wasn't right. This wasn't how things should have gone. I was supposed to come back and reunite with everyone, and we would go back to protecting others together. This would become a story we could laugh about someday. Everything was supposed to go back to normal.
Dammit, I hadn't fought to restore my systems from the brink of death, then rebuilt myself (quite literally) single-handedly, just to come back to this. This shouldn't have happened.
This isn't fair!
"X, look at me!"
The others- they had tried to warn me. To prepare me. When I'd shown up at Maverick Hunter Headquarters out of the blue, everyone had rejoiced. There had been some disbelief, of course, and plenty of questions. But after the initial shock, everyone had been happy and excited. My friends embraced me, and someone sent out the call to my unit that I was back, and then my unit was there too. Everything was all that I'd dreamed of during those long, lonely months repairing myself; it was everything that had kept me going and kept me fighting to come back for. Until I asked, smile still on my face, where X was.
Apparently some higher power has decided that things aren't ever allowed to go my way.
Everyone froze and went silent, like someone had flipped a switch. A few looked to each other, unsure of what to say. My heart sank and I began to panic, fearing the worst. Was X dead? Missing? Captured? I was quickly assured that no, X was alive and well, and currently safe on base between missions. Again, there was silence, as if no one wanted to be the one to tell me what was wrong. Eventually Alia (calm and cool, levelheaded under pressure Alia) stepped forward.
A safeguard, she called it. A mental block, rejecting all information about me, and locking X out of his past memories of me. He wasn't even aware those memories were there. Where it had come from and why it had appeared were still unknown, which was alarming. After all, X was supposed to be unhackable. For someone to access his systems and put such a safeguard in place should have been impossible. The safeguard itself only added to the mystery. No other information was missing or tampered with, only anything involving me. X wasn't aware of the safeguard's presence either. He had no memory of anything unusual happening to him. Apparently he barely remembered anything about the Eurasia crash at all. A few days after, long after we'd both been presumed dead, he'd just stumbled right through the Headquarters' front doors, dazed and low on energy, but otherwise completely unharmed. After being recharged, he'd come back online with no knowledge of what had happened to him, or how he'd found his way back, or me.
Alia had continued to explain that, while all of this was concerning, what had everyone especially worried about X was how he reacted to everything. Or rather, how he didn't. X acted as if everything was fine; as if losing several days worth of memories wasn't a big deal. And whenever someone tried to talk to him about me, it was as if he didn't hear them. He scoffed at the idea of some magical mental filter that had just appeared in his mind, protecting him from memories of someone who didn't exist.
Obviously he'd been rushed to the Medical Ward for a thorough examination and series of scans, but they all came back normal. No mental damage, no signs of tampering, nothing. Just the safeguard, which was nearly undetectable among X's other systems. It was as if he'd been built with it. And it was just as unhackable as the rest of his systems.
X had taken their findings in stride, assuring everyone that this was proof he was fine. Still, they had continued to look into it, in hopes of finding some way to restore X's lost memories. The Hunters' best scientists and researchers had made helping X their top priority. Until the Nightmare Virus reared its ugly head.
Now the whole issue with X had been pushed aside in favor of more urgent and deadly problems. Some people had even reasoned that X losing his memories of me was a blessing in disguise. After all, the last thing they needed was to lose their best Hunter to grief in the middle of a war. X didn't know I was gone, so there was nothing to hold him back from focusing on the Nightmare and fighting with his all.
Until I was suddenly back in the picture.
Despite everyone's warnings, it all hadn't seemed possible until I saw X with my own eyes, and he didn't see me.
And it sure didn't feel like a blessing in disguise.
"X, I'm right here! Look at me!"
I now walked beside X in an otherwise empty hallway. He hadn't taken long to track down once I'd run off to find him, but when I had come up behind him and called his name, it was as if he didn't hear me, and he kept walking. I kept pace beside him, but I might as well have not been there. He didn't slow, even when I waved my hand in front of his face.
Eventually I grew frustrated and stepped in front of him. Finally he stopped, but just long enough to try walking around me. I grabbed his shoulders and held him in place, and finally he seemed to resign himself to standing still, although it was as if he couldn't understand why.
"X, it's me! It's Zero! C'mon, don't you remember me? I'm your partner. We've fought Sigma together. We've been by each other's sides for decades, I'm your best friend!"
X just stood there, staring straight ahead and straight through me.
"X! I'm here, I'm right in front of you!"
I looked into his face, searching for something, anything. And I was met with a gaze so empty, it was as if he'd shut down the moment I'd started talking to him.
No. No, this wasn't right. There was no way this could be happening. I hadn't survived dying to save X, just to come back and still lose him.
This wasn't fair!
It was as if, in that moment, all the anger and frustration and loss which had built up in me throughout the years decided to manifest, and I snapped. I grabbed X by his shoulders and shook him, hard. Then I did something I had never done before. I yelled at him.
"Why can't you see me?!"
The realization of what I was doing struck me, and I took a horrified step back. I watched him carefully, afraid I'd hurt him, but X was as unfazed as ever. He stood still, as if his mind refused to process anything that I did. It seemed as though I could knock X to the floor, and he'd just get up and continue about his day.
And then the reality sunk in that yes, that was exactly right. It didn't matter what I did. I could say anything to X, do anything to X; I could yell and scream and beg and plead until I broke; I could shake him until I rattled the wires in his brain. None of it would matter. X couldn't, and would never, see me. I never existed to him, and I never would. I had survived death and come back a ghost.
My mouth hung open as I tried in vain to comprehend. Unsure of what to do or how to react, I finally sank to my knees, staring in shock at the floor in front of me. X seemed to take this as his cue that he could finally continue walking, and he did just that, stepping around me as though I was no more than an object that lay in his way.
From his position on the floor, Zero couldn't see X as he walked away. Nor could he see a single tear stream down X's face. X moved his hand up to wipe it away, then stared at his hand for a moment in confusion. He dismissed it as dust in his eye and continued on.