Chapter 15 – King & Queen

Like every night, everyone gathered around a bonfire as the sun began to set. The stars were already above by the time Luka and Gakupo appeared next to the gathering, but there was still another synthetic missing: Sonika. A warning flag immediately rose in Luka's mind at her absence. She thought back at the images she had seen through Benefactor's senses. She assumed Sonika had taken off in the yacht to relax after her discussion with Gakupo, but she should've been back by now.

Privately, Luka didn't particularly care if Sonika left their group for good. As far as she was concerned, the wannabe starlet brought little to the table with her presence. Gakupo, being who he was, tolerated her attitude quite well, but Luka found her simply infuriating.

"Can we talk now?" Kaito said, breaking her chain of thought. The blue-haired synthetic stood up, an uncommonly grave expression on his face. Miku, sitting nearby, looked at Gakupo and Luka with nervous anticipation, but said nothing.

"Hmm …sure." Gakupo replied, clearly uncomfortable. "We'd like to speak to Kaito alone first- err… if you don't mind, Miku."

"O-okay…" Miku stammered.

"What's going on?" Rin asked. Everyone else shared her curiosity, if the looks on their faces was any indication.

"Don't worry about it, we just need to sort something out." Gakupo said in a gentle tone. Rin pouted.

"Tomorrow, we have a proposal for all of you. Everyone, please stay in the camp in the morning." Luka added sternly, ruining the effect somewhat. "Kaito, come on." Luka circled Gakupo's waist with one arm and helped him walk to their tent. Kaito gave the rest of the synthetics a tense look and followed the pair.

"I really don't feel like having this conversation." Gakupo whispered into Luka's ear as they entered. Luka gave a barely noticeable nod of agreement.

The tent's fabric filtered the glow of the bonfire, leaving the inside in relative darkness. Not that there was much to see, just a ratty mat and some rags that Gakupo and Luka used as a bed, Luka's toolbox and a flashlight. After laying Gakupo on the mat, Luka turned on the flashlight and placed it on the ground. She pulled something out of her toolbox and sat next to Gakupo. Kaito kneeled on the floor before them.

"Did I do something to upset Sonika? I don't have much experience interacting with other units…" Kaito asked, downcast.

"Hmm…I guess the answer is yes, but…" Gakupo trailed off, tugging at his hair. "Actually, there's something I need to confirm first. When you woke up after the fix, you thought you were still at the factory. Is that truly the last thing you remember?"

Kaito looked at the ground, with a look of concentration. After a moment, he looked at them again. "There are some packets of data in my banks that are inaccessible. There´s something wonky about their addresses. It's almost as if they are encrypted, but I don't recognize the pattern. But all the memories I can access are from the factory." he explained.

"I see. Ah, just to satisfy my curiosity…was Mi-chan an employee of the factory? You mentioned this person when- " Gakupo started, but abruptly fell silent when he saw the look in Kaito's face. Next to him, Luka tensed.

"Mi-chan…" Kaito repeated, his eyes burning intensely. "That's it, that's the key!" he exclaimed transfixed. "Mi-chan! She used to pin a flower on my lapel when I passed in front of her store." He smiled briefly, affection clearly showing in his face. "She would laugh whenever I asked what the flower meant…" He rubbed his face. "But then…I lived outside? Where was I going? I can't remember! " his voice gradually became louder, sounding more and more troubled.

"You loved a human?" Luka asked in her opaque voice. She made a conscious effort not to express her distaste for the idea, given Kaito's distraught state. Both Kaito and Gakupo stared at her in surprise.

"Where did you get that idea?" Gakupo asked. Luka rolled her eyes in response.

"If his systems held on so stubbornly to the memories of this person, it had to be important to him," Luka replied with a shrug.

After uploading the program into Miku, Gakupo was missing most of his memories of the last cycle, but he still remembered some of what he had seen inside of her mind. From what he had told Luka, Kaito was experiencing some sort of emotional turmoil before he snapped. Kaito himself might've struggled recognizing what his feelings were, but they were plainly obvious to her. It also explained nicely why the humans would want to lynch him. For them, companion synthetics like him were to be used and discarded like toys, and weren't proper partners for an actual romantic relationship. Luka vaguely wondered if they had lynched Mi-chan as well.

Kaito was again staring at the ground, shaking slightly. Gakupo touched his upper arm tentatively, but the other unit failed to react in any way. The pair observed him in silence, waiting. After a long pause, Kaito raised his head, with a fragile smile on his face.

"I loved. I actually loved someone…" He pressed a hand to his chest, as if he was holding something warm close to his core. "Do you think I can ever meet her again?"

"I'm not sure if that's wise," Gakupo replied cautiously, but he clearly found it to be a bad idea. Luka silently agreed: not only it meant going outside of Benefactor's shield, but it could also place the woman in danger, which was probably not what Kaito wanted.

"The humans out there think we are monsters, especially us three," Luka pointed out. Kaito looked at her with a small frown.

"See, we told all of you that Benefactor and the humans got into a scuffle, and that's why Benefactor raised a shield around the area," Gakupo started quietly.

"And?"

"It was more serious than we let on. Humans died." Kaito widened his eyes at this, but made no comment. "And since Benefactor was using us to try to interact with the world, they now blame Luka and I for what happened," Gakupo continued.

"But, what about me? Why would anyone think I'm a monster? I had no part on any of that," Kaito argued.

"Incorrect. But Kaito, you were something of an infamous rumor even before Benefactor's arrival. Those leftover memories of Mi-chan are at least five years old," Luka interjected.

"What?!"

"I don't know all the details, but there was an incident," Gakupo elaborated. He was obviously regretting the decision to come clean with Kaito, but it was too late to change his mind. "You…injured a lot of people. The factory took you back for study, but they never fixed you, they just stored you away from the public. So you were still acting erratically when Benefactor summoned the third-generation synthetics to his landing site."

Kaito just stared at him, speechless. But Luka could see he was beginning to suspect what Sonika's words meant, from the fear in his eyes. Like Gakupo, she couldn't help but feel that truth had been the wrong choice.

"Did I hurt anyone else?" Kaito asked slowly. He pulled nervously at the cuffs of the oversized lab coat he insisted on wearing.

Gakupo nodded. Kaito leaned forward dejectedly, like a snow crystal melting in the sun. Gakupo gently placed a hand on Kaito's shoulder, and the cerulean synthetic grabbed his arm, as if he needed to hold on to something solid.

"Was it me who hurt her?" Kaito whispered. He angled his head briefly to a side, pointing to the group outside by the bonfire.

"You were unwell when it happened," Gakupo replied in an equally low tone. "So don't-"

Kaito let out an intelligible cry, his voice breaking into unnatural shards of noise. He covered his face with his hands, trembling. Luka subtly readied the sharp tool she had been hiding by her side, in case she needed to protect Gakupo and herself.

"No, don't do that, please!" Gakupo clumsily tried to calm Kaito, patting his arched back. He was obviously at a loss regarding the proper gestures for the situation. "We fixed you! We did, right?" The last part was directed to Luka, who gave him an uncertain look. She couldn't avoid voicing her opinion if Gakupo asked her so directly.

"We aren't completely sure you won't malfunction again, but we did our best." she replied.

Kaito's hands dropped to the floor. He looked at them strangely, like he had never seen his own fingers before. "Shut me off," he mumbled.

"Huh?" Gakupo said, tilting his head.

"If you can't guarantee I won't hurt Miku or anyone else, shut me off," Kaito said more firmly.

"…No. We can't do something like that." Gakupo said, shaking his head vehemently.

Kaito looked at Luka, who stared back at him with a guarded expression. "Some, like Sonika or Miku, might be more at ease if we deactivate you," Luka said. "But in the end, we simply don't know how you are going to evolve over time. Besides, we don't have any authority over you, so it's improper for us to make that call. The only one that might give you an informed assessment is Mitsuki. Come with us to Mars to retrieve her, and let her examine you. Then you can decide for yourself what to do."

While Kaito pondered her words, Luka took Gakupo's hand into her own. She disliked seeing him so worried, given that he was struggling with problems of his own. He squeezed her hand, giving her a pained smile.

"I'll go," Kaito finally decided, his boyish face full of determination.

Gakupo nodded. "I imagine that you have a lot of questions now, but Miku has been waiting for a while. Maybe we can continue this conversation tomorrow?"

"Okay," Kaito agreed.

Luka stood up. "I'll go get her. You should head back to your tent," she told Kaito.

"Good night, Kaito. I know this is a lot to take in, but don't worry too much, please. Mitsuki will know what to do," Gakupo said.

Kaito nodded wordlessly and followed Luka outside.

The group by the bonfire seemed engaged in a spirited discussion on what was coming tomorrow. Everyone but Miku, that is. She was staring at nothing, chewing on her lip. When she noticed Luka and Kaito, she smiled timidly. Kaito grimaced and awkwardly avoided her gaze. After a moment of indecision, he quickly retreated into the gloom of the camp, without even a goodbye.

Miku stared at his vanishing figure with surprise. A few meters away, Meiko observed them both, not bothering to hide her interest.

"Ready to talk?" Luka asked, approaching Miku.

"Yes, sure," Miku replied, still a bit puzzled. Luka picked her off the ground and carried her to the tent. Thankfully, Miku was much smaller and lighter than Gakupo, so she had less trouble with the maneuver.

Out of the corner of her eye, Luka saw Meiko get up and walk towards Kaito's tent, nervously running her hands through her hair.

"Kaito looked unhappy…this is going to be bad, isn't it?" Miku exclaimed once Luka placed her down next to Gakupo.

"Hm…We could always let the past rest." Gakupo mumbled, without too much conviction. Luka shook her head as she sat to his right.

"No. I want to know what Sonika was talking about," Miku replied. She was clearly trying to look brave and confident, which was somewhat undermined by her delicate appearance.

Gakupo rubbed his chin. "I wonder if she really believes that was a good move… I don't want to think ill of anyone, but that seemed less about being concerned about the safety of the group, and more about revenge. I'd like to think that concepts like justice and revenge belong just to humans, but it really seems that way."

Now that was a surprise. Luka didn't expect Gakupo to conclude something like that on his own, that was for certain. His good disposition towards everyone seemed so ingrained that she was unsure he was capable of understanding certain attitudes. But knowing and accepting Sonika as she was and being blind to such a reality were two different things.

"Revenge? Revenge for what?" Miku asked, confused.

"We'll come to that… But now I wonder. What do you think words like justice and revenge mean?" Gakupo said, dodging her question with one of his own.

"I-I don't know… I've never had to think about things like these before." Miku stammered. "Let's see- Justice is fair punishment for bad behavior, right? Like when we do something against the directives. And revenge is punishing someone, not because it's fair, but because they hurt you." The girl synthetic said hesitantly, looking like a student caught distracted in class.

"I think the concepts are much more complicated than that, but let's start with those definitions. From what you said, I assume you think you operated under justice before, when we had our directives. What about now?"

"I…I…" Miku looked at him with widened eyes. "I still have behaviors given to me by humans... There just isn't punishment anymore, when I think about things they wouldn't like."

"So you could do things considered evil by humans if you wanted." Finally, Luka was beginning to see where Gakupo was going with his questions.

"If I wanted. But I don't want to do evil things." Miku stated firmly.

"Because you know they are evil, right?"

"Yes!" She nodded.

"What if the parts of your mind dedicated to realizing what is considered good and evil by human standards were malfunctioning? And you did something really bad?" Gakupo asked carefully. "Should you be punished?"

"I don't know…"

"Do you want to know what I think?" Gakupo waited for another nod and continued. "The directives were more than explicit rules derived from the laws governing synthetics. They made us think that we were all worthless, and undeserving of respect. But they were right in stating that we aren't humans, and that we operate in a different way. I think we need to discover by ourselves what is fair to us. For instance, I don't think it's fair to punish a malfunctioning unit, and I don't think we need revenge."

"Why are you telling me all of this?" Miku asked, looking more than a little overwhelmed.

"Kaito and the others were malfunctioning, even before Benefactor landed," Gakupo started. "They were doing harmful things to others, both human and synthetic. Now that we fixed them, there's no way to know, but I think they didn't know they were doing bad things."

"Bad things…" Miku repeated. A sudden realization twisted her features in shock, and she looked downwards at her mangled body. Luka and Gakupo looked at each other somberly. The pair waited for Miku to say something, but she remained silent, her eyes hidden by her teal bangs.

"He did this to me, didn't he?" She finally said, in a burnt tone very different from her usually sugary voice. Gakupo lightly touched her head, his fingers brushing against one of the many ribbons weaved into her hair. Given Miku's size, he obviously thought patting her in the head like the other kids was an acceptable gesture.

"You are closer to Kaito than any of the others, from what I can see." Miku didn't react to Gakupo's words in any perceptible way. "It's grown stronger over these couple of weeks, but I believe there was mutual interest from the start. Am I right?" He waited, but the synthetic girl didn't reply.

"That interest was there before, when Kaito was malfunctioning. You are even wearing his gifts now-" Luka intervened when it became apparent that Miku wasn't going to say anything.

"He broke me," Miku cut through her phrase, hard as diamond.

"That he did," Gakupo conceded, clearly disappointed at the turn the conversation was taking. "I don't think he realized it was wrong to force you into accepting his attentions, though."

"Attentions?" Miku asked. Her head turned towards him with unnatural smoothness, accentuating her doll-like appearance.

"We are made to serve as loving companions to our masters." Gakupo said in a low tone. Luka scowled internally. That was a pleasant way to describe what they were expected to do, that's for sure. Thankfully, after her botched repair job she had never felt any compulsion to love Smith in any way, and he wanted nothing from her, beyond doing domestic chores.

"He broke my limbs because I wouldn't love him?!" Miku shrieked. Outside of the tent, Luka could hear muted exclamations of surprise.

"That's not quite…I don't understand his reasoning, but something made him hurt you, something that is not there anymore," Gakupo replied.

"The two of you, you left me in the dark all these time. You said you were my friends!" Miku said, a disbelieving tone in her voice. "And all that talk of justice… You wanted me to say he shouldn't be punished?!"

"We are your friends, if you still want us to be," Luka said calmly. "Perhaps staying silent was a mistake, but we are as inexperienced as you are in this sort of thing."

"What happened to you was horrible; we aren't trying to diminish that." Gakupo stated. "But the Kaito that did that to you is not here anymore. Our Kaito asked us to deactivate him if there was a chance he could hurt you. Do you still want him punished? I'm sure he'll submit to whatever fate you decide for him."

Miku looked at him blankly.

"It is hard, isn't it?" Gakupo replied quietly. He placed a hand on top of Miku's head again, making the trinkets in her hair jingle softly. "It's going to be hard, being more than over-engineered puppets." Luka arched one eyebrow, recognizing Smith's words, from what seemed like a lifetime ago. "We are going to face many difficult questions from here on, and many hardships. You had to experience it right from the start, though."

"I can't face him like nothing is wrong," Miku finally said and leaned slightly towards Gakupo, in what probably amounted to an unvoiced plea for comfort. After some hesitation and a glance at Luka, Gakupo awkwardly surrounded her with one arm. Miku pressed her face against his shirt, almost losing balance due to her useless hands.

"We don't expect you to," Gakupo said tenderly.

"I'm scared…"

Gakupo caressed her hair wordlessly, glancing at Luka again. She gave him a slight shrug. There wasn't any good answer they could give Miku, from what she could see.

"We are leaving Earth with Benefactor in a week. We thought we would bring you with us to Mitsuki, so she can finish your repairs. But Kaito is coming too, and probably the others will join us as well. Perhaps you'd like to return to our makers instead?" Luka offered. Miku shifted slightly her position to look at her, surprised.

"Out of all of us, you are the only one that has a small chance to be accepted back into the human world," Gakupo pointed out. "You are something of a symbol for technology enthusiasts. But I don't know what they'll do to you once they realize your directives are gone. And the sentiment towards synthetics is worse now, since they see us as allies to Benefactor. They might just deactivate you, or worse."

"We will do our best to protect you, if you come with us," Luka promised the smaller synthetic.

"I don't know what to do." Miku scrunched her face.

"You have time to decide," Gakupo said soothingly.

Miku lowered her eyes, looking as if she was debating whether to voice her thoughts. Finally, she smiled a little, rather unconvincingly. "I'd like to go back to my tent now, please."

As requested, everyone gathered around the cinders of the previous night bonfire. Swift plumes, the color of chalk, raced across the sky. Gakupo's hair billowed in the wind, free from his usual ponytail. Truth be told, his fingers had decided to stop working in the middle of his morning routine, but he had kept quiet about it. Luka had enough to worry about as it was. He would probably recover his functions once he connected to a power source.

He studied the group sitting in a loose circle. Luka was sitting to his right, and their kids to his left. Miku was next to Luka, looking pensive. All her usual ornaments were missing, replaced by two elastic bands that held her twin tails in place. Next to her, Kiyoteru and Yuki were looking back at Gakupo with similar expressions of curiosity. Across the circle, Leon stared glumly at the blackened and warped cement before him. Kaito and Meiko were at Len's left, completing the group. Sonika wasn't back yet, and Gakupo suspected she didn't intend to return at all.

"Alright, shall we begin?" Gakupo started, with more cheerfulness than he actually felt at the moment. Several of the synthetics nodded.

"The situation is as follows. In a week, Benefactor is taking off towards Mars. We are going to seek out Gakupo's former master, Mitsuki Torii," Luka took over smoothly. "She is a gifted scientist, with vast experience on synthetics, and could be a great asset for our continued existence."

Gakupo smiled bemusedly. Luka probably thought she was being very complimentary, but her disdain for humans still shone through her impersonal description. He looked at the others, wondering if they noticed it.

"Most of you were already aware we wanted to find her. But here's the important part: After we retrieve her, we don't plan to come back to Earth. We are leaving the Solar System altogether." she continued.

"What?!" Kiyoteru exclaimed.

"And go where?" Rin enquired, looking skeptical. Len and Oliver seemed to share her sentiment.

Most of the other just stared at Luka, surprised, except Meiko, who seemed too busy gazing at Kaito with adoration to notice the world around her.

"These worlds were given to humanity, long before we came into being. We don't belong here, and we aren't wanted here. So let's find a place of our own," Luka said, with an air of satisfaction. She was likely already imagining a new world, all for them.

"We want each of you to decide if you want to join us, or if you prefer trying your chances with the humans," Gakupo explained. "On one hand, we might spend centuries aboard Benefactor without finding a suitable planet. On the other, from what we gleamed from the transmissions Benefactor picked up, the humans are not likely to welcome any humanoid synthetic with open arms. We might be banned altogether by now."

"I'm going!" Meiko cried out immediately. So she was paying attention, after all. "I'm never going back to the Crimson Cat!" She exclaimed defiantly.

"What's that?" Yuki asked innocently.

"A bad place full of gross men," Meiko answered. Kiyoteru looked at her warningly, but Yuki seemed placated by the answer.

Gakupo didn't know what the Crimson Cat was, but evidently it had to do with Meiko's breakdown in some way. It was unfortunate that the process hadn't completely wiped the memories regarding it.

"We're going too!" Rin and Len piped up. Oliver nodded shyly.

"I'm glad to hear it. It would feel wrong to go without you three," Gakupo said, smiling.

"Kaito is going for his own reasons," Luka announced after a pause. "What about you two?" She directed the question at Kiyoteru and Yuki.

"I'll go with whatever option makes Yuki happier," Kiyoteru answered quickly.

"Yuki is happy when Teru is happy," Yuki said. Kiyoteru turned to her with widened eyes. "And Mommy and Daddy make Teru sad." She closed her eyes, seemingly satisfied with her answer.

"But the masters loved you dearly… Aren't you going to miss them?" Kiyoteru asked.

"Mommy and Daddy don't love Yuki. Mommy and Daddy love Yukiko," the synthetic child said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Perhaps it was for her, but it seemed to completely floor her bespectacled companion. From what Gakupo knew, Yukiko was the name of the girl the small synthetic had been fashioned after. Perhaps Yuki was shrewder than her appearance suggested, or perhaps the factory instructors had plainly told her that she was nothing more than an imperfect replacement. "Teru wants to see the stars up close, right?" she asked.

"…I do." His armor of formality seemed cracked after Yuki's words.

"Teru and Yuki are going too, then!" the synthetic child declared with a big smile.

"Good. What about you, Leon?" Luka asked.

Leon briefly met her gaze, for once. "Can the human truly fix Lola?"

"We believe so."

"Then we are going," he said and settled back into his previous glum state. Luka gave him a bemused look before she turned to Miku.

"How about you? Have you decided yet?" She asked softly.

Miku raised her face, and her eyes met Kaito's, who was sitting across from her. They both quickly looked elsewhere. After a moment to calm herself, Miku nodded.

"I-I'm going too. It doesn't seem right to go back to the way things were before," she stuttered somewhat shakily.

"It doesn't," Luka repeated.

"In a way, I think Sonika already made her choice. But there's someone else that's missing," Gakupo remarked. The others looked at him quizzically. "The factory has been closed, leaving a couple of new units of our kind deactivated inside. Before we leave, we want to fly over it so Benefactor can transport them inside, along with any parts and schematics left."

"And then…" Luka paused, savoring the moment. "We'll destroy the factory."