Nine grew up knowing names were for other people. So were toys and ice cream and other useless frivolities.
He could survive without those things. They would have only been a dead weight on him as he struggled to tread water. It was logical for people like them to do without those.
Yet for some reason he couldn't help but cling to family of all things. It was such a foolish concept: using blood to decide who you should care for the most. Like something out of a horoscope. It made the least sense of things.
Still somehow he found family in Twelve. It was a slow gradual change he could barely describe. One day they were simply banding together to survive, the next, brothers. It was an attachment Nine thought he could get away with having. He acted stupid when he tried including Five in as well.
The night of the escape, they lost her. They couldn't have stayed behind and helped her if they wanted to survive, but that didn't dull the pain any less. How funny was it that Nine thought the drugs had made him numb, only to find he could still be hurt beyond compare?
He swore off family after that. Twelve would stay, but they could never let someone else possible join. He could never inflict someone else with this burden, knowing they weren't long for this world.
Even so, he found that Lisa Mishima looking him dead in the eye and begging to become one of them. It was so foolish, but he found himself wanting her to for half a second. Still he hardened his heart before it could be taken advantage of again.
"We'll travel separately," He spoke as if only confirming the weather. She couldn't become his family, but he might as well humor her for now.