Disclaimer: It's all CLAMP's. All of it.
Continuity/Spoilers: Set between Angelic Layer and Chobits, with spoilers for Kaede's fate. Manga continuity only.
Everything will be alright. It has to be.
That's what Minoru tells himself as the nights go on. He doesn't know how, not yet, but his sister assured him so. Even on her deathbed. And so it has to come out alright.
He's been holed up in her room for days now. He knows it's not what she would want, if she were here, but she isn't here, and he can't bring himself to go on without her. He's given his persocoms instructions to maintain the house, and he knows they do it because their programming has no concept for disobedience. They bring him his meals, as well, and Minoru thinks he could live like this forever. He's only distantly aware of the paperwork that needs to be done. Kaede had custody of him.
She was his only family.
There's a way Minoru can live legally on his own, but the research seems monumental, and he's too overwhelmed to start. He doesn't want to ask one of Kaede's friends to take him in, either. He just wants his sister back.
He'll do anything, if it means she'll smile at him again.
It's the middle of the night when the realization hits him. Minoru jerks up from his sister's pillow – he's shocked right to his core.
He can't believe he didn't think of it sooner.
Kaede doesn't have to disappear.
He is perhaps the only one who can recover her. Other than the famed Ichiro Mihara, of course – Minoru has no doubt he would be able to accomplish something like this.
But Minoru doesn't know how to get in contact with him, and if he's going to save his sister's life, he needs to do it himself.
All he has to do is upload her personality into a new body. A body that can't fall ill. One that won't change. A persocom body.
Minoru is more awake than he's ever been. Maybe he'll never sleep again.
He slips out of bed, pads barefoot to the study. There's no time to waste – he has to write the program that will preserve his sister's soul.
There's a rumor on the message boards about "Chobits" – persocoms created with souls of their own, that don't rely on their programming. That's what Minoru needs to find, to learn how to create for himself, but until he does, his sister will be relying on his programming skills. He can't let her down.
By the time dawn comes, he's exhausted. He's been writing code for hours now, and neither his eyes nor his mind will focus the way he wants them to. This is too important – he can't afford to waste another moment – but his head aches with the strain. Even his hands are shaking. He knows, deep down, that he has to stop for a little while.
Kaede was always insistent about that. "It doesn't matter what you're doing," she'd say gently. "You'll do a better job if you're not tired and hungry." She always made sure he remembered to take breaks, not get caught up in what he was doing to the point that his focus became a detriment.
Minoru writes that into the program too.
He knows she's right, but he's afraid to stop. What if he takes a break, even a short one, and loses all his momentum? He might never be able to pick it up again – might never finish this project at the level Kaede needs. Minoru pushes himself longer than he should, but by the time he's nodding – can't quite focus – needs to take a break before he ruins everything he's done so far – he has a reasonably accurate model of her personality.
It's a start. A solid enough base for him to build on later. Minoru backs it up to several places before he goes to bed and collapses. For the first time since his sister fell sick, he sleeps without disruption.
He wakes up hungry, and it's a good thing he installed a cooking program on his persocom maids, because he doesn't know how to cook at all. Kaede was the one who knew how to cook, and she could add a special twist of flavor that the persocoms never manage.
He'll have to figure out how to write that into her program, too.
He doesn't know what he has for breakfast – he eats without even tasting it. His new project fills up his mind to the point of overflowing. He's made a good start on the program. He needs to look over his work from the night before and work out a more organized approach. He has to be clear on what he needs to do so that he doesn't miss anything. The program running his sister's soul will never be finished. Minoru will have to keep updating it until the day he dies.
In other words, if he tries to perfect the program first, he'll never get around to designing or building his sister's new body.
(And there will be deadlines for the legal matters. Minoru doesn't want to think about those just yet. It's easy to convince himself that this is more important.)
Minoru pushes his dishes away and goes back to his study. He needs to design Kaede's new body and develop her personality program. That's his highest priority, but he knows he has to teach himself how to take care of the household finances, clear up his living situation so he can stay here at home, and find a way to support himself. It won't help Kaede at all if he succeeds in reviving her, but is in foster care or on the street.
He draws up a schedule for himself so he doesn't forget anything and turns his attention to his sister's medical records. There are some pages he can't bring himself to look at – more will be in the mail, to arrive at his home far too soon – but all he needs right now are the proportions to build her new body to.
It has to be perfect. She'll find it hard to adjust if her body is too clunky.
One of Minoru's maids sits on the desk beside him. He draws his schematics on a tablet, but he wants the extra processing capacity. The others obey their programs to handle the household chores. Minoru has given them instructions that he's not to be disturbed except in case of emergency – or any news about his sister.
He expects the hospital to be in contact with him soon, and lawyers, perhaps Piffle Princess as well. He has to deal with those even if he puts everything else off.
He spends the morning in a draft program, designing his sister's body. He makes it as close to her own original body as he can, though he can't resist giving her longer hair, and blue instead of her original mousy brown. She won't mind.
Once that's done, he draws up a list of the parts he'll need for the frame and sends off an order to Piffle Princess. For now, he can still use Kaede's discount, but he doesn't know how much longer that will last.
He adds a few notes to the program for her personality, and then gets to work on her hard drive. He needs the best possible, with the fastest speeds, the most processing capability. Anything less won't be able to house his sister's personality.
The days start to blur together. Minoru wishes he could devote himself entirely to resurrecting his sister; he's still afraid that if he takes too long, he won't be able to bring her back. Certainly it's only a matter of time before the money from Kaede's endorsements will run out. Minoru will have to start doing freelance programming work, or something of that nature, to support them. He's determined to do his best by her – Kaede started taking care of him when they had nobody else, when she was barely grown herself, and he owes it to her to do the same now.
It's all far too much for one boy to do on his own, but Minoru has no one left to rely on. He doesn't even have friends, and he can hardly impose on Kaede's friends. He has to manage somehow.
He sticks to his schedule rather than let his impulses reign; that's the only way he can be sure to get everything done. He starts by going over the mail during breakfast. The legal paperwork has to be gone through right away, no matter how painful it is, while everything else can be piled up until he has more time. He spends the rest of the morning building Kaede's new body and hard drive, and in the afternoon he writes more of her program. He's often developing it in his mind while working on other things anyway.
In the evening he studies more legal matters: how to keep his house and persocoms, what is required for a minor to live alone, work he can do, how to handle his school transcripts and enrollment.
(He's essentially dropped out of elementary school, but Kaede wanted him to get an education. He's sure he's smart enough to get into the same private middle school she went to, even without graduating from elementary.)
Whenever he has a spare moment, he trawls the internet for information on the Chobits series and posts requests for more on the message boards.
He can take care of everything. He just needs the time.
Some days he has to go out. There's the funeral for Kaede's original body, and hearings for his appeal to live on his own. He knows they're necessary, but Minoru resents the time it takes away from his work.
It's starting to look more and more like he'll succeed. This is the most complex persocom he's ever built, yet it's also come together the fastest. The frame stands exactly to his sister's height, with her hard drive nestled in the torso as if wrapped in the ribcage of an organic human. Minoru runs wires through all the joints, up to the cameras in her eyes, the mics in her ears, joins the wires to the connection points in the touch-sensitive artificial skin he carefully swathes her in.
She looks almost real, like an actual person. Like his sister, back from the dead.
The sight of her makes Minoru want to cry, but he pushes it back impatiently. There will be time enough for that later. He has too much to do now.
The personality program is coming along as well; he adds more and rewrites what he has every day. Minoru installs the same OS he has on his maids, and adds the data for Kaede's personality. This is only the beginning; he still hasn't learned anything useful about the Chobits.
He still has to do more research. He knows full well his programming abilities aren't nearly what they have to be, not yet. He'll have to improve Kaede's programming for years to come, to allow her to truly live again.
But that's in the future. Right now, Minoru has to find out if he's succeeded, if this is a dream he can chase at all.
Minoru takes a deep breath. He has to take another before he can steel himself to press the power button on his custom-made persocom.
His fingers clench into fists as she boots up. He has to physically stop himself from clutching at her in desperation. He forces himself to look at the screen he has connected instead – the bootup is going fine – but can't keep his attention there long. Like a magnet, his gaze is drawn back to the persocom herself.
This is the persocom who will become his sister. She will be as human as it is possible to be.
Finally, finally the startup is complete. The persocom's eyes flick open. She turns to look at him, and she smiles. The curve of her lips is just like Kaede's, so much so that Minoru's heart clenches.
This is her. He's done it. He's brought his sister back from the dead.
There is a feeling of euphoria spreading through him, as Minoru begins to run his tests to make sure all her systems are working properly. He doesn't feel like he needs them. That smile told him everything he needs to know.
He does it anyway, because this is for his sister's sake and she deserves the best. He can't cut any corners. All systems run smoothly, and the time comes to input a name.
Minoru hesitates with his fingers over the keyboard. Kaede's name should be so easy to type, only three kana. He can't quite bring himself to do it.
This isn't his older sister. Not yet. His program still needs so much more refinement before he can call this persocom by her name.
Instead, he types in Yuzuki. A placeholder name. He can change it once he's finished developing the program. Once she's truly his sister revived.
He adds a password and watches Yuzuki process the last necessary bits of information. Her eyes light up. "Good afternoon, Minoru."
She sounds just like his sister.
A/N: This is the story where i reveal that i know literally nothing about computers and should not be writing from the perspective of a computer genius. XD It might turn into a series, too, i haven't decided yet.