Notes: Want to get this chapter out, so that hopefully the next one can come out on Valentine's Day since there's a scene there that I feel will be...fitting for the occasion.

The corridors of Sol Technologies are planted with wide squares of glass that emit silver light as people rush past. They switch on with a mechanical thud of noise as Ai sweeps past, his shadow lengthening into a long, lean sprawl of dramatic grey that falls back along the corridor to tangle with the shoes of the two guards at his side.

'I hope Sol Technologies pays you well for working nights?' the android asks with a leer.

But they don't reply to him. Their fingers tighten, stiffly, on the anti-SOLtiS tasers instead.

Ai sniffs. 'Lame. Too high and mighty for a conversation with an AI, huh?'

'They're just worried you'll flirt with them.'

Ai's gaze slides forward to meet the pink eyes of a young woman, leaning against the wall of the corridor as though it's nothing more than a prop to make her look cool. She grins at him in a conspiring fashion.

'We meet again, Ai-chan.'

Ai narrows his eyes, taking in her casual clothes. 'What are you, Zaizen's trophy wife? You look far too comfortable to be working here.'

She laughs. 'Akira wishes. I'm far too much for him to handle.' She raises her finger to her mouth. 'Relax! I'm here to be your guide! One that might actually talk to you.' She spins on her heel and crooks a finger, before sauntering down the corridor, relaxed and unhurried, as though she isn't about to invade the murder scene of someone...someone Ai was probably close to, once upon a time.

Ai grits his teeth and follows.

The only sound for a moment in the clump of their boots, barely muffled by the lush spill of the grey carpet underneath.

'I'm just here for my own selfish reasons,' the woman continues blithely after a moment. 'No different from you.' Then her voice softens, dropping down into a more tender tone. 'I looked and looked, for months, but I never found Aoi. And then you come back and suddenly she's here again. So perhaps I'm here to say thank you as well.' She comes to halt in front of two doors, both a dark, dank gray and outlined with a heavy scarlet pattern. She hesitates. 'Are you sure you want to go in?' she asks, and there's something different in her tone now, though it's just as soft as before, something that makes a surge of data spike in him as though in warning.

Ai examines it briefly, at all the missing partitions of his memory where video files should be located. At all the error messages that crop up within his systems as a result.

Then he brushes them aside and steps forward. 'I don't even remember what to be sad about,' he says dismissively. But he still feels the weight of her eyes on him as he steps inside the room, a large octagon-shaped space with no windows and no real escape.

Ai continues walking and comes to a halt in front of a metallic projector that eats up the centre of the room. 'Ah,' he says after a moment, running its finger over a part of its curved rim. 'The Earth Ignis wasn't actually killed here, was he? This was just where people watched. And gave orders for it to be done.' He looks up, displeasure written on his face. 'This isn't what I asked for.'

To her credit, the woman doesn't flinch. 'I suppose because this was the room Akira was in where he actually saw it happen, it's the main one he associates with the event.'

'The 'event,'' Ai repeats dumbly. 'You make it sound like a party.' He's pleased when he sees that this comparison does make her flinch this time.

He walks round the projector, circling it, before strolling over to a workstation nearby. With a few wordless commands he causes a giant glob of green-blue light to fill the centre of the room, but just as he expects, it's vacant, without any sight of the data he's looking for. 'Zaizen's own personalised cinema, huh?' he mutters idly.

'He didn't order the death of the Earth Ignis,' the woman says quickly. 'I hope you know that.'

Of course he does. He's looked up the basic history of Zaizen Akira's career. He's only been CEO a scant few months, not nearly enough time to work himself up into being the head executioner of the other Ignis. No, that was someone's else job. Akira...just stood by. And watched it happen.

He turns off the projector and performs a sweeping bow, one low enough to hide the anger in his eyes. 'Lead on!' he chirps. 'And maybe I'll give you a five star review when all this is over!'

She smiles at his glib attitude, but as Ai watches her walk ahead of him he also sees the way she keeps that same smile perched on her face, like a weapon, rather the same way he does. He also takes note of the fact she never offers up her name.

Eventually, after a few minutes, she leads him into a dark room, the walls studded with brass-coloured circles, a little like the dented spikes in a punk collar. And there, in front of him is a small, unassuming silver table.

Ai has no heartbeat, nothing to thud in his ears and hasten his steps as he walks over to lay a single shaking palm on the table. Nothing to make him pant, to make him breathe. And yet he stares woodenly at this table, something in his processer frantically mapping out its shape and matching it against all the holes in him where files should be, where data is stored. And he can feel the bulk of it, harsh and stubborn, refusing his scans, denying his access.

And yet...at moments, those files have opened up to him like a flower, in places where the colours of his environment and the words spoken around him have dredged up something similar. A memory he's already lived through.

He half-turns, opens his mouth. But nothing comes out. Nothing.

The woman stares back at him, pity in her gaze. And Ai hates that. For one brief moment, he hates her.

'What happened to Zaizen Aoi?' he asks after a moment instead. Anything to get that pathetic look off her face.

And as he expects, her gaze softens instantly. Which: nice! Just what he wants!

'She's in the hospital; she's weak and a little malnourished. And, obviously, she hasn't had a pleasant time recently; but she's strong. Stronger than I am. So I know she'll recover.'

How nice, Ai thinks. She has a chance that the other Ignis never had. He doesn't say this, of course. Instead he just hums and taps the table again, the table where...

Ai squints. There's a few files that are jiggling for his attention, that have unencrypted themselves. Eagerly he starts to open them-

Are you sure, Aniki?

Ai startles. At the voice, no, a line of text that darts through his systems, that thunders into his head. Ai frowns and probes at the source, realising after a moment that it's a complex security program, one that's been modelled to have rudimentary problem solving skills, enough to act somewhat independently. But the source code...

Ai glares. It's nothing like his style of programming. In fact, it feels like a complete stranger crafted this and thrust it into his systems. Huh. So this is what Roboppi forcefully pushed into him earlier. The 'birthday' present, so to speak.

Still. This little program is nothing like the virus he feared it would be. No, instead it downloads a set of co-ordinates set within the network. And Ai frowns. They look...no, feel familiar...

Huh. Interesting.

He lifts his fingers from the table, no, sorry, the execution site. And sweeps out of the room, leaving the woman and those security guards to hurry after him.

'Ai? Ai, where are you go-'

He doesn't wait. Doesn't pause. He makes a beeline for the nearest router and seconds later, he is pulling himself free from this cumbersome SOLtiS, and yanking himself through the network, all to those co-ordinates nestled inside the network.

It is like stepping onto the moon, or onto a deserted planet, where no life remains. Ai treads on ground that is grey and barren, walks round craters where dust spills into eroded data, and travels under a sky that is one dark, angry bruise of colour, a black that fades into violent orange at the point where it meets the horizon. The clouds above him blur into dirty streaks of brown, and Ai frowns, making out a spot of colour in the distance. Lush and green, it forces his eyes to it. Pulls at him in a way that scares him.

Ai grunts. And starts to walk over to it.

And at first he spies pale, sandy squares that rise from the small lump of green, before they eventually resolve into graves, small and tastefully done. When he is finally in front of them he stares down at the elemental symbols engraved upon them, and the lines, the codes, no, the names chipped into the digital rock. They're chiselled there, bold as brass, in no language any human tongue can hope to occupy:

Piercing Light. Unbreakable Earth. River of Truth. Indomitable Flame. Data Storm.

Or so a very, very loose, not-exactly-a-translation would go.

Ai chokes. Because seeing the codes set in stone before him, reminds him of a partition of his data from deep, deep down inside him. A line composed of the same code, but different, rooted within the very oldest parts of him, a line that previously had seemed like a nonsensical jumble of data when he had initially examined it.

The Darkness Which Swallows.

'My name,' he mutters, sinking to his knees, staring at these other names in front of him, in a language no one can speak but him. 'Our names.' His fingers dig into the dirt. They curl, sieving through the grit and small pebbles, grinding them to dust. With just a thought he can rip them to shreds, ruthlessly delete them. 'My name,' he repeats and then makes a face. Because he doesn't much like it.

In comparison, the word 'Ai' is short and sweet. It rolls of the tongue. And can be inserted into so many puns; human language is cool like that. Plus it can have multiple meanings, depending on which human language you stick it inside.

His old name, his true name...it sounds greedy. Makes him sound like some sort of destroyer, trying to encompasses everything it touches. But it...doesn't fit him at all. At least he hopes it doesn't.

He can't picture Yusaku loving anybody like that.

Ai frowns. Staring at what's written on the graves, dragging his old name into the light, is re-awakening a lot of old data, helping him translate the parts of him that didn't make sense to him before. In fact...

Ai closes his eyes. And dives down, deep down, into his own code. He sieves through the parts that seem the most bulky, through the blocks of data that refuses to respond to his meddling. He runs his name against them, furious, finding that the encryptions break apart, loosen and snap away under the onslaught of his true name, like a password that can grant access to any part of him he desires.

And then...he's complete. The data downloads, and each memory, each file is there, slotting inside those unreadable parts of him like a jigsaw puzzle. The audio recordings of all of them rise up, overwhelming, a million words that clamour for his attention:

'How many times must I tell you! You're an Ignis! Act like it!'

'Stop! I have free will! I'm alive!'

'Ai, you still don't know the truth. The real truth that we'll reach.'

'Ai, by siding with the humans, you closed the Ignis' future with your own hands. I hope you don't regret it.'

Ai chokes.

'Stop...don't make me remember...' he whispers, fingers in his hair, curling, yanking, fruitlessly tugging. But it's too late. What's he's started, can't be stopped.

A thousand memories, more, pour into him, flood him, years upon years worth. The video files are suddenly accessible and he fast-forwards through them, horror growing second by second.

Until eventually he arrives here, at this place, ready to undo himself.

'I've made my decision.'

And then beyond that...

'If losing a friend means your heart breaks, then are you trying to break my heart?'

Oh yes, yes he was, Playmaker, better leaving a still, intact one that refuses to beat inside the chest of Fujiki Yusaku...

'Bye, Play-Yusaku. I Loved You.'

And then he was gone, he was nothing. Everything broken apart, time missing from his system, swaths of it...and then, he had began. Again.

'What?'

Disjointed files, memories of his new beginning, of fear, of inescapable horror that his plan hadn't worked, that his code had recompiled itself. And then more fear:

'Aniki, let me fix you.'

Feeling a newly awakened Roboppi trying to invade his systems, knowing, hating, that history would repeat and then, despairing, doing the only thing he could; locking away all these memories, knowing he would not recognise it when he awoke without them, and as he did so, doing the only thing he could, the thing he was best at...

'Aniki!'

Running away. Fleeing into the network, small and weak as he was, burying all the parts of himself that made him the Ai that had loved Fuji Yusaku, in the vain hope that when he began again...he would what? Be someone new?

Ai clutches his head. And laughs. Hollow and brittle, the sound erupts from him like a geyser.

What an idiot he was! Yes, okay, he had barely awakened, had been weak and barely functional and he had been panicking, which is why he tried to encrypt vast parts of himself, instead of simply just deleting them again. But then again, killing himself hadn't worked last time and what was to say that what he had tried to delete wouldn't simply rebuild itself again?

But of course, blank slate as he was, of course, he would go looking for answers! No matter what he changed about himself, it wouldn't change the past, wouldn't change the data out there on the net, about what had happened. Of course he was able to track down Yusaku and re-partner with him again!

Ai laughs and laughs, and then there's a watery spill on his cheeks, liquid mixing in with his laugh and now he's sobbing, choking on his tears, hands on the ground, all of him leaning over as though he can barely brace his body against the earth and keep it upright.

It doesn't matter. The same old resentment, the same old surly thoughts, the ones that wondered why he had to adapt to humanity in order to live, are all there. It's the nature of living things to change and the changes Ai could take, that any AI with free will could take, are dangerous.

And now...now there are SOLtiS out there infected by him. Ironically the grand plan he outlined to Yusaku to get him to duel him properly, to send AI with free will into the world has come true!

Ai buries his head in his hands. He curls into the ground. If he could, he would gladly sink through, to the very core of the network, to crush himself into small bytes that could no longer think, merely drift by without hurting anyone.

He remembers how Yusaku had slumped over, after his forced duel with Kusanagi, how he had been too tired to fight afterwards, to avoid becoming easy pickings for Lightning's taunts.

Ai thinks he understands that feeling now. He's tired too.

Yusaku has not been having a good day. First he wakes up to find Ai has left him; again. And now he has ended up staring down at the prone body of his partner, laid out on a long, shining silver table, eyes shut as though in deep sleep. Or worse.

Ema looks at him, sympathy in her gaze. She was the one who had been kind enough to haul Ai up onto it, into a pose that makes him seem...less dead.

'I should never have taken him there; I'm sorry, Fujiki.'

She hesitates, gaze sweeping out from his for a moment, resting on the spot in the air his hand had travelled to on sheer instinct the moment he saw Ai, prone and cold on that gleaming table, as though to reach out and shake him awake. He had reined in the impulse a moment later, dragging his hand back to his side, but the damage has already been done. There's no other reason for her to apologise to him, the hot-dog seller's part time worker, unless she's pieced together who he is, simply on his the basis of him being here, and his emotional reaction to a dead-looking Ai.

Yusaku closes his eyes, fighting down his annoyance. She hasn't mentioned the name 'Playmaker' but he suspects that's her kindness at play, perhaps some gratitude too.

'It's not your fault,' he manages, and the roll of his voice, as it exits his mouth, is a tired, dead thing. 'He would have found his way out there, no matter who told him no.' He opens his eyes, determination shimmering within. 'Besides; I have a good idea of who exactly I need to see next.'

Akira looks at him, hands steepled under his chin. Despite the grand view he has in his office, a large window that opens up to the sky to reveal the gleam of the roads beneath as they slip between the buildings like rivers, everything else in his office is plain and understated. No photos of himself or Aoi, no certificates or diplomas lodged behind a glass frame. No, everything about this room screams of a passive shield against the outside world, against whomever may come here, to meet with the CEO and judge him.

Yusaku has a slight advantage over these other strangers however. An advantage that Ai has recently won for him.

'Let me see Roboppi,' he says brutally, straight to the point.

Akira closes his eyes briefly. Had he been slightly more immature, perhaps more like Ai, then perhaps he would pinch the bridge of his nose and sigh gustily. Instead, he opens his eyes and says, 'I already granted Ai permission to wander freely through these halls this morning. And now he's run away; so I'm not so sure I should be so quick to give you the same freedom.'

Yusaku narrows his eyes. 'We both know I can't slip out of this place as easily as Ai can.'

Akira smiles, but there's no humour in it. 'No, but I have a feeling he'll come back as long as you're here.' He raises his hands in a placating gesture at Yusaku's furious glare. 'I'm not proud of myself, Fujiki, and I've no intention of keeping you here against your will; but I will ask you to consider staying here a little longer. From what Aoi tells me, Ai has no memories, but he still trusts you. I imagine that means there's a strong likelihood he'll return to you. And I'd quite like to ask him, with you present of course, what it is he plans to do next with his life.'

Alright. It's not quite a threat and the logical part of Yusaku gets it; Ai has threatened Akira in the past, and is more than capable of hurting him and the company now under his care in a myriad of ways. So Akira would be a fool not to act suitably cautious.

But...

'Roboppi may have a clue as to where Ai has gone,' Yusaku says steadily. He keeps his face smooth - mostly - as smooth as he can. Showing anger against someone who holds all the power in this building might cause Akira to start treating him like an unruly child, if he's not careful. 'In fact, I'm sure of it. And they're more likely to tell me given our prior relationship.' He crosses his arms. 'I'd rather go out looking for Ai. Seeking out the place where the Earth Ignis was killed may have triggered something. A memory or a feeling.'

He pauses. 'We both know Ai's not human,' he says carefully after a moment. 'But the fact that you apologised to him the last time we met, and that you were willing to let Blue Maiden try and talk him down, proves that you know he can feel, just as much as any one of us can. And I can't stay here and let him hurt himself, anymore than you could when Ai told you where to find your sister.'

He purposefully ends on that note, on that little thistle of knowledge that Akira owes Ai for Aoi's return.

Akira looks at him, a little pained. There's that same distress on his face that was there when he realised that he had tortured Playmaker for no reason, back when Aoi had first been trapped in a coma, or when he couldn't try and convince him to let go of his need to punish the Knights of Hanoi. And it was there last night, when Yusaku refused to let himself be separated from Ai.

'...Alright,' he says after a moment. He reaches into his desk and pulls out a small white keycard, red lines racing through its plain colour at a diagonal slant. 'Use this for access to room 104B, on floor sixteen. You'll find Roboppi there.' But when Yusaku reaches out to take it, Akira's fingers linger on it with a slight pull, long enough to force Yusaku's eyes back to his again. 'I'm willing to let Ai go within reason, Fujiki-kun. But I can't promise the same for Roboppi. Because Queen's dead. An actual human. And even Ai never went that far.'

Yusaku feels Akira's eyes on him all the way out of his office, lingering on his back like a ghost. Like a threat. He tries to shake it off. But still. It rankles. It itches. Akira believes in him, he knows. Cares about him as well. But still. He has the potential to an enemy, Ai's enemy.

And Yusaku doesn't much feel like going to war again.

Roboppi sits on a chair, slate-grey and fixed to the floor with a series of screws. Their limbs are locked into place with curved manacles, and yet, when they see Yusaku enter the room, their eyes narrow and the manacles let out a worrying creak as their fists clench.

Yusaku doesn't allow himself the luxury of flinching. Instead, with a few strides he stands opposite Roboppi, gazing down at them sternly.

Roboppi glares back. And it's a little hard to be stared at like this, not when Yusaku has multiple memories of the same being chirping up at him, welcoming him home, and almost getting themselves stuck under the bed whenever they attempted to clean beneath there.

But things are different now. And Yusaku can't simply yank Roboppi back out of the mess they've made with a simple tug followed maybe, by a slight smile.

'Roboppi,' he says simply. 'I want you to tell me what you gave Ai.'

Roboppi smiles. 'I hope you're not waiting for me to call you Master again?'

Yusaku blinks, confused. Then he frowns. What is-

'Because,' Roboppi say with an irritating chirpiness. 'You don't command me, anymore, right? Which means you shouldn't expect me to answer for no reason either.'

Carefully, Yusaku bends so his eyes are level with Roboppi. 'There is a reason. A good one. Ai's gone back into the network. If he's gone of his own free will that's fine; but if he's left because of whatever you gave him yesterday, then I want to know. So I can help him.'

Roboppi growls. 'No! Aniki needs to remember what it was like to be free of humans! He needs to be himself again!' They glare at him. 'Free of you.'

Keeping his face blank, Yusaku straightens. 'That's a decision he needs to make of his own accord, not you. And only once he's in possession of all his memories. In that respect, you and I are the same; we both want to help him with that.'

Roboppi continues to glare up at him suspiciously, so Yusaku changes his approach. 'You tried to help him when he was first reforming, right? Which means you've done something, made him think he has to go somewhere to remember.'

Roboppi smiles. 'Aniki can be really stupid sometimes. He could remember really easily if he wanted to.' They shrug and the manacles around their wrists again, give an uncomfortable creak. 'So I just have to force him to what he told me to do, the hypocrite.' They giggle. 'But that's Aniki all over right?' They beam at Yusaku, looking oddly proud of themselves.

Yusaku nods. 'Thank you.' Then he turns and walks away.

'Oi!' Roboppi calls after, now wearing a puzzled frown. 'I haven't told you anything!'

'You don't need to,' Yusaku mutters. 'Ai told you to go home, after the break up of our Duel. So that's what you told him to do in return.' He grimaces. 'And I already found the Cyberse World weeks ago.'

Picture this: a tower comprised of data, as are all things in this world, in this lost segment of cyber space where winds tear and monsters have fallen, fled, abandoned themselves inside the cards of their creators. It is blackened, cracked, almost all of its yellow colour lost. Once it shone, bright as a crown in the sky, along with five others, links in the same chain. Now all of it is almost lost, the same way the one who built it is.

And yet...something inside it waits. Keeps ticking. Ready for activation.

But not, not until it registers the presence of a human, once their brain activity dares to inhabit their space.

It will not have long to wait. Playmaker will come, will break the sky open with the rush of his board, ready and willing to break his own world apart with his stupid, stupid love for the last of them.

How foolish. How tragic. How utterly baffling.

Perhaps, the program will muse, when it starts to wake, he would be better off breaking his own heart again. His species would certainly thank him for it. Maybe Ai, as well.

Either way, it will not matter. The future has already been decided.

Notes: I'm sure people recognise the first four quoted lines I picked out when Ai started regaining his memories, especially the last two, but in case there's any confusion, it goes like this: Aqua, Earth, Lightning and Bohman. We only get to see snippets of Ai's former life in the Cyberse World in the show, and the only scenes we really see him have with any of the other Ignis back then, are with Aqua and Earth, interestingly enough.