Summary: Ariana explains more about her twin bond with Aridai.
Chapter title is a haiku from the Raiden Shogun Genshin Impact character demo.
Note: Warning: Night terror/Nightmare mentioned but not going into depth
The Firsts were woken up by Ariana crying out in the middle of the night.
Angeal was the first to spring into action, nearly breaking the door to the room the twins were sleeping in.
Ariana was shaking her brother, who had an alarmingly blank stare from half lidded eyes.
Aridai's mouth was slightly open, the normally upbeat boy looking awfully pale and wasn't reacting to her attempts to wake him.
"Ari, wake up!" Tears from watery green eyes spilled as the girl was doing her best to wake Aridai up from his nightmare.
"Ana? What's going on?" Angeal was at her side in an instant, trying to decipher his daughter's blubbering.
"Aridai's not—he's not snapping out of it!" Ana sniffled, doing another shake, before throwing herself at the man, tears soaking into the Angeal's nightshirt.
"Ange? What's happening?" Genesis entered the room, the normally immaculate redhead looking frazzled.
"Aridai? Ariana?" Sephiroth popped up from behind, analyzing the situation with a cursory sweep of his gaze.
"Ari is—he's having a night terror," Ariana finally stuttered out, still teary, "Ever since I—we broke out, he can't see the difference between—between dreams and real life."
She pulled herself out of Angeal's arms, before reaching out for Aridai's forehead. Her eyes slipped closed for a moment, trying to use their bond to root out the main part of Aridai's personality.
"It—we…he—Ari, he was born Blank," Ariana's tongue, so normally quick-witted and silver, failed her, making her stutter through her panic.
"Blank?" echoed Angeal.
"Aridai doesn't exist. Not really. Not in the—the start."
Ariana cut off, having successfully found where Aridai had buried himself to escape.
Aridai's eyes flew open, a shine coming to his once soulless gaze.
"Ariana?" he gasped, as if he'd stopped breathing, alarm coloring his pale face.
"Oh, Ari," Ariana sighed in relief, throwing her arms round the boy, "I thought you weren't gonna come back!"
"I—I'm sorry," Aridai had a half confused, half scared expression on his face, alarmed at Ariana's clinginess.
"No, don't be. It wasn't fair to you or to us," Ariana sniffled, snot still bubbling in her nose.
"Ariana. Could you please explain what is going on?" Angeal had the girl refocuse on the confused adults, Ana biting her lip while looking up, then glancing back down at Ari.
"Aridai shouldn't be awake for this."
Reaching through the bond, Ariana forced Aridai's mind to shut down, effectively knocking him unconscious.
Aridai slumped over, limply falling back onto the bed like a marionette with its strings cut.
Ariana rubbed at her eyes to brush away the remaining tears, taking deep breaths to calm herself down.
When she was sure Aridai wasn't going to wake up anytime soon, she pulled herself off the bed, padding on the floor with bare feet.
"We should go to the living room," she said, and wiggled passed her parents, who followed after the three glanced between each other.
Ariana sat down at one end of the sofa, drawing her knees to her chest, and wrapping her arms around them.
"Ana, explain," Angeal said first, sitting next to the girl with a soft sigh.
"Aridai…no, Subject A2. He wasn't born with a soul," Ariana answered quietly.
"A soul?" Sephiroth's eyebrows furrowed, trying to figure out what she was getting at.
"Mhm. Or, at least what I think was a soul. When we were kids, like really kids, in the early single digits, I couldn't differentiate between myself and him. I called him blank because he really was blank. No personality, nothing even remotely resembling a living person. He could breathe but didn't speak. He could get injured but didn't feel."
The words just started pouring out of Ariana's mouth, the shock making her words short and clipped.
"Subject A2 was nothing more than a doll, a mere puppet that couldn't function on its own. I couldn't let Dr. Hojo know that he was essentially…that A2 was a failure. Or maybe, that was what he wanted. I couldn't…there was no way I was going allow them to take him away from me."
Ariana shuddered, her mind already going through the possibilities already.
"When we were young, I just knew I had to protect him. So…I did. I think we're a little bit psychic. The bond I have with him, I established it. Goddess, I was…about five? In body that is, when I realized that Subject A2 didn't act like me or the other medical staff. I stole a copy of Loveless from a nurse that oversaw us and used it to teach him how to say words on his own. When we were in tests, I used our bond to control his body and built a personality on top of it. I kept up the charade of having A2 as a real person, even though I was pulling the strings. And I got good at it, so no one could tell that he wasn't all there. It was like... he lived, but he didn't feel anything. No emotions, no preferences, or anything that makes a person real."
Ariana quieted, her words coming slower as her arms tightened around her legs.
"It was when we were seven that things started to stick. A stilted laugh here, a broken smile there. And next thing I know, he was a person. I didn't have to constantly monitor him, and he could react and speak on his own. I didn't have to pretend to be one person while actually being two people anymore. I didn't need to teach him anything else, except how to sneak and be crafty, and eventually he was better at it than I was."
"Ariana…" Genesis breathed, his expression softening minutely, approaching the girl, and kneeling slightly in front of her so their eyes could meet.
"Aridai came a long way. I was—I am so proud that he was able to think for himself. But…sometimes, when he has nightmares, he reverts back. Back to old memories and scary stuff his brain cooks up. He never got them in the labs, probably because both of us knew it was too dangerous to make noise at night. And now…I can't do much but hope he wakes up normally, or I have to dig him out of his head."
Tears escaped Ariana's eyes, before Genesis wiped them away with a steady hand.
"Hey now. Both of you were in a shitty situation, but we won't let you two go through something like that again. My friend, the fates are cruel."
"There are no dreams, no honor remains," Ariana recited the next line, nodding, "I know. But it doesn't erase the fact that we're different."
"Ariana, all of us are different," Angeal disagreed, "That is a fact of humanity. If not a single person wasn't different in some way, humanity itself would be made of clones. Neither of you asked for this."
"…Thanks, Papa," Ariana gave a weak smile, which was matched by the black haired man.
"Any time," Angeal ruffled Ariana's hair, his fingers scratching lightly at her scalp, the girl tilting her head.
"I think we should head back to bed," Sephiroth decided, relieved that the other two Firsts seemed to have everything in hand.
"Would you like me to carry you?" Angeal asked softly, unsurprised when Ariana nodded.
Genesis got up with a sigh of relief, still mentally cursing Hojo for committing such…heinous crimes against children.
It must've been a difficult thing for two genetically engineered children to keep under wraps. Even more for young ones with no external support and only each other.
Angeal stood up, picking Ariana up from under her armpits and cradling her close to his chest.
There wasn't much else to say, with the black haired man bringing the girl into the twin's room, and settling her beside Aridai, who hadn't so much as twitched since Ariana had knocked him out.
Ariana got herself comfortable as the covers were raised to her shoulders, the girl clinging onto her brother like a very friendly squid. Or maybe a squid that was trying to eat a scuba diver.
"I love you, Aridai," she hummed sleepily, the panic from earlier only feeding into her exhaustion. The girl burrowed her nose into his hair, closing her eyes as Angeal lingered for a moment before leaving the room.
"I…I'll burn this world away if it makes you happy. I promise."
End Note: The squid thing about trying to eat a scuba diver does happen in real life. Not often, but does happen.