Battle Between Maturity and Ideals

Meiru supposed Laika had been right, in a sense. The archive was a lot for a teenage girl to take in. It was a lot for all of them to, really.

They'd all scattered under various excuses, lost in their own thoughts, and Meiru's feet had brought her to the balcony of the hospital floor she and Enzan had been sleeping in. It was right on the water, where the waves could provide white noise to fill the spaces between her thoughts.

It seemed impossible for them to just leave the situation as it was. It was so unfair to the people living in Afrikku that even Meiru, just a bystander compared to everyone else, couldn't bear the thought of not doing something about the Dimensional War.

Yet that was not why they had all been on this trail to begin with. Had Netto truly been hoping to end the Dimensional War, or was that just the scientists' and Enzan's guilt at finding themselves tangled up in its web? The Netto who had given her the cherry blossom necklace she wore now had intended it as a parting gift. What might have been, not what could be. If the Darklish seaplane had made it out of Densan Harbor, he wouldn't have had enough time left to do much more than expose the Silver Division. Not even what they'd been up to, just that they existed and it was where he had been.

The more Meiru thought it over, the more certain she was that Laika had intended them to use this information only as evidence that Darkland did have a reason both to want Netto captured and to maintain something like the Silver Division. Or perhaps he'd arranged it so she and Enzan would see how far out of their depth they were and turn back.

But of course Netto would want the War ended, even if it hadn't been something he could do alone. He was involved in this, too, even more deeply than anyone at the Ministry. At the harbor, he'd looked at her like she'd learned something terrible about him just by being there.

This doesn't have to be real, he'd told her even earlier than that, as though she could just erase all her memories of both him and the past five years and go back to being an ordinary girl. But it had remained real enough to him that he'd called himself her villain.

Of course Meiru felt sympathy for Netto; he obviously felt ashamed of what he'd been doing in his time away from Japan. But was that a good enough reason for him to hide away from her like he had? It wasn't like she'd been spending the time since that horrible day he'd been presumed dead frozen in place. Of course she had found out what was really going on; she'd resolved to do what she could in his memory all those years ago, and she'd never even considered stopping. When she'd had to fight for her life against Marino, she'd been ready. She knew she could help. But Netto had treated her and Enzan incredibly patronizingly, like they were stumbling over something they couldn't be expected to comprehend rather than two capable Net Saviors investigating a lead.

I'll be the one to protect you this time, she imagined him saying, but instead he was twisting a knife in her heart.

Even when they'd fought each other to a standstill, he'd never considered her Meiru, the person; just Meiru-chan, the idea. A pleasant memory for him to defend against what had really happened to him.

Would the Netto who came back to her ever be a true friend again? Would he ever see her properly?

She knew it was awful of her, but after he'd run away at the harbor, she no longer wanted to know the answer. Better to think that maybe he would have with time than to know for certain that he hadn't.

But the people who truly cared about her, and who she cared about just as much, did still want to find him. And they needed to know that someone saw them not for what they seemed to be in light of this crisis, but for who they'd always been.

Hikari-hakase, not just a man who had thoughtlessly made such terrible weapons of war possible, but who was a gentle and patient mentor to everyone at the Ministry.

Meijin, not just the scientist who had assisted Hikari-hakase and who was involved in a program that cared nothing for those without power, but a free spirit willing to give her a chance as a Cross Fusion Member when even she hadn't quite believed in herself.

Enzan, not just an heir whose family's current wealth and influence was partially built atop military connections, but a partner whose kind heart had never been fully extinguished by the coldness of the world he navigated.

For their sake, she assumed her usual gentle smile, then left the balcony behind to go find them.

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When the Net Saviors finally managed to get discharged from the hospital and everyone was able to be called together for a meeting, night had fallen and a meal was waiting for them at the Ministry of Science. It was still hard for Enzan not to feel like absolute garbage about everything. The nightmarish archive and what he'd pieced together between it and IPC's internal documents had snapped him out of the bullheaded intensity he'd been working under to reestablish contact with Netto; reality was setting in, and it was not nearly as easy to navigate as they'd all been trying to pretend it was. But Hikari-san and Todoroki-san's cooking did at least help level things out enough that he could keep his outward mood under control.

Still, the topic at hand was by its nature quite grave. "The Silver Division must have been at least partly founded to stave off Darkland's rivals, especially Ameroupe," Meijin surmised, once everyone with findings to report had reported them. Mary had been awfully cagey about the 'help' she had found, though. "But as a consequence, it's also gotten entangled in this Dimensional War."

"I don't think Netto's goal was to stop the whole war at once, just to expose the Silver Division," Meiru added. "Though, to think he was being forced to help design weapons for it…"

"On top of the destabilizing things Darkland was doing in other regions, like aiding the Irregulars." Netto had certainly been very busy. Enzan was quick to amend his thoughts: it was more that Netto had been given an impossible choice, and had been very busy trying to live. They had, after all, pulled apart the two halves of Marino's necklace and analyzed the pill inside.

After that, Kaita had been adamant that they not let Marino remain unattended for any long span of time. Since Marino was still recovering from having a hole ripped through her guts, it was no danger to leave Gateman behind to watch over her for the span of this meeting; but Meijin still wanted to return as soon as possible to be absolutely sure both of them remained among the living.

And the Silver Division's members were in this position where they could either carry out orders or die because of businessmen just like Enzan. After all, Darkland had been kidnapping children in order to raise a secret group of specialists that had needed to remain so secret because other nations like Ameroupe were engaged in the same behavior, only their specialists were contained in not-so-secret defense contractors such as IPC which got friendly treatment in allied parts of Afrikku and in exchange for that manufactured equipment for Ameroupe which used that equipment against anyone who wouldn't bend the knee—

The entire chain of kickbacks whirled round and round in Enzan's head. Cut it off from IPC's end, and another company would take its place at the trough, making the situation no better and only winnowing IPC's own market share. An unstoppable ouroboros of greed.

He still had to try and talk his father out of it somehow. Out of contracts that, in many cases, he knew his father had closed himself. In the inevitable circumstance that Enzan failed, he would then have to decide how complicit he could stand to be.

Meiru gently nudged his shoulder, bringing Enzan back to the present. "If we expose it all, we'll save Netto and shed light on the participants in the Dimensional War," Meijin said. "But… we can't be seen doing it ourselves."

"What do you mean?" asked Kaita with the guileless aura of someone who'd never been anywhere near a businessman or a politician for more than a few minutes. There had been a brief moment when they'd first crossed paths where Enzan had thought Kaita was just putting on an elaborate act, but the younger Netbattler really did seem to be that innocent. It had been a somewhat bizarre realization for Enzan, who wasn't sure if he himself had ever been so innocent in his life.

"As a group, we're acting on behalf of the Japanese government," Enzan explained. "We can't claim responsibility for something like this." This, steeped in political realities as it was, did not seem to answer Kaita's question sufficiently.

"That's where I come in, sounds like," said a new voice. A fluffy, Moloko-like Navi appeared in hologram form on the table. "I've got all the virtual backup you need and the channels for you to disseminate information, all in one. …Though I never imagined we'd be using it to help Net Saviors."

"The feeling's mutual," Meijin said, recovering from the surprise first.

"Um, this is Sheepman," Mary explained. "He's the figurehead of a group, sort of, called the Flock."

Just as nervously, Meiru clarified, "We knew that. You're, uh… a lot cuter in person, Sheepman!"

Enzan sighed. Was this what they were reduced to?

"Sounds like the biggest problem we have left is how to get at this Citadel network," Sheepman surmised. "A lot of these secret government networks aren't actually connected to the greater Internet for us to break into. Someone's gonna have to manually plug in and link us."

As if summoned there by the topic at hand, Blues discreetly alerted him to an incoming phone call from Laika.

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"I'm surprised you contacted me," Enzan told Laika once he'd picked up, his voice too easy. It seemed Enzan had wanted to have this conversation in private; Laika could see the darkness of the night sky overhead, a certain sign Enzan was on the Ministry roof. "Aren't you in plenty of trouble already, after you got us into that archive?"

"I still owe Netto for what he did in Sharo, and it's obvious you and Meiru aren't shying away," Laika explained. "The Princess and I want to rendezvous with your group, to make sure we time this properly and Netto doesn't get retaliated against by Darkland." After a moment, he pointed out, "And besides that, the vice president of IPC can't grind his own company's supply chain to a halt."

"Oh, I'm sure it won't be that extreme. The current situation is too profitable for everyone involved. The people in charge will sweep this under the rug, just like they obviously have been for years," Enzan said bitterly. "With enough time and a few pithy statements, this will all disappear from the public consciousness while nothing actually changes. And whoever finds themselves attached to this when the music stops will disappear, period." When Laika didn't immediately respond, Enzan added, "There's no need for you to further endanger your career over our inane exercise."

"…You no longer think there's any viable path to success," Laika realized.

"Of course there isn't," Enzan said, smiling bitterly. "The sort of behavior that feeds the Dimensional War is precisely what it means to 'act rationally' and 'compromise'. It's doing whatever benefits the bottom line without caring who gets crushed beneath it, so long as the right things get said. Really, this entire situation's just the cost of doing business. It just so happens that this time, someone we know has paid the price." It was hard for Laika not to see his smile as being exactly like a fighting stance; one was for doing battle hand-to-hand, the other for combat with words. "You weren't that much younger than I am now when we were working together, Laika. I bet you had already witnessed that contradiction between what we were actually upholding and what we said we were first-hand, even then."

"I had," Laika admitted. "Often from authority figures I had trusted."

Enzan nodded. "It's just me who hadn't fully figured it out."

Laika pressed on, "But I have to believe that justice will win out eventually, even in the halls of power. The alternative scarcely bears thinking about."

"…I can't believe that anymore," Enzan said, no longer looking at Laika's face. "I've been around enough of these kinds of people to know that there's no appealing to their conscience—"

"Who else is already helping to rescue Netto and carry out his wish?" Laika asked. When they'd been working together as Net Saviors, Enzan had already been IPC's vice president. By now, he undoubtedly had enough experience in the business world to go down some incredibly dark lines of thinking, which wouldn't help anyone at that moment. "I see you're at the Ministry."

"Everyone. Even Meijin and Hikari-hakase. They shouldn't, but—"

"And are all of us wrong?" Laika asked sternly.

"Not wrong, but too idealistic. This whole thing, thinking we can even begin to stop this when that's not how the world works, it's so… immature." Enzan sighed. "…And yet here you are."

"Here I am," Laika agreed. "No matter how the rest of the world will paint it, I know that what we're doing—helping a friend in need—is what's right."

"You do realize you can't effect change from within the system if you get thrown out of it for this," Enzan pointed out next.

"I'll worry about that after it happens," Laika said. "You can try to be the adult in the room all you like; I've still made up my mind."

"Since when are you so childish?" wondered Enzan, frustrated.

"From my perspective, less than a year ago," Laika pointed out. Decisively enough to forestall any further dithering, he said, "We'll see you within the hour."

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"He's right, Enzan-sama," Blues pointed out as Enzan closed the call.

"About what, that he's not thinking?" Enzan snapped, sinking to a crouch. "He should know better. I should know better!"

"Enzan-sama." Blues's next words were horribly in sync with what Enzan was trying not to admit to himself. "You are not your father. You are kind enough to have ideals that conflict with the way he does business, and you are strong enough to act upon them as you wish."

"Do you know what you're saying?" Enzan asked, head in his hands. "Don't you know where that leads…?"

"You'll land on your feet," Blues said with conviction. "And, if I may be frank, I believe this was inevitable."

"…Why am I so afraid, then…?"

"Because this's been your whole life for as long as I've known you, and now you sound like you need to throw it away," came Meiru's voice from behind him. "It'd be crazier if you weren't scared."

Enzan turned to see a very blurry Meiru taking a seat on the roof next to him. "You were eavesdropping on the whole thing, weren't you," he accused her dourly as he wiped his eyes clearer.

"Yup!" Meiru patted the roof next to her. "C'mon, sit down, get your pants dirty. Let's be childish together."

"I still want to at least try to engage with him on the level he'll expect from me," Enzan decided, even as he accepted Meiru's offer. Hopefully the gravelly rooftop wouldn't leave a permanent mark on his jeans. "I need to see that it's hopeless with my own two eyes first."

"Will that make you feel any better?" Meiru asked. "I mean…" The telltale breathy sigh of Serious Meiru preceded the kind of observation only the two of them had the life experience to make to one another. "…Sometimes, we get away with things because nobody's paying attention."

"In this case, the right decision may simply be what is right for you, Enzan-sama," Blues added.

"It might make things even worse, but I can't just not try," Enzan explained. "I'll always wonder, otherwise."

Meiru hummed an acknowledgement. "Well, I'll drop in now and then and see if I can help," she decided. "And I'm sure everyone else will, too, you know how things are around here."

"No privacy, yes," Enzan agreed sardonically.

"It is better than doing something like this on your own, though," Meiru pointed out, amused. "And we'll be planning things out with Laika and Poipu-chan, too, so that when we find Netto we can get going straight away." She scooted a bit closer to lean her head on his shoulder, looking up at the night sky. After a moment, he shifted his weight so his head rested on hers, her soft hair brushing against his cheek.

It really was the best view in Densan City.

"When Laika gets here, let's make a plan where no one has to shoulder all the risk," Meiru said dreamily.

So this was what they were reduced to: practicing an idealism as tremendous and beautiful as the cosmos.

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The next morning came about with no attempts from Atsuki to turn Rockman into an appliance. Rockman watched the two of them eat the last of the curry in a comfortable half-awake silence. Then, ignoring Netto's protests that he certainly could not cook and wouldn't know what to buy, Atsuki plucked the facial hologram projector they were using to disguise themselves out of Netto's hands and left to gather ingredients for their next two days of meals.

It was little wonder that Atsuki had decided to give it a try—the warehouse was still and dark, with only an electric lantern to provide light. Netto seemed worryingly used to the silence, staring into space with his knees drawn to his chest. Rockman idly read the warning label on the back of the lantern while he waited for a conversational topic to appear to him, sitting cross-legged in hologram form next to it, tapping his thumbs against one another.

"Rockman." The blue Navi was taken aback by the seriousness of Netto's voice. He hadn't sounded this stern since the beginning of their new partnership. "Are you really… okay with this?"

"What do you mean, Netto-kun?" Rockman asked, confused.

"Don't just follow me because you were my Navi," Netto said.

"Where did this come from?" Rockman asked next. "I can handle what's going on, and I don't care how many times I have to prove myself before you see that."

"…'Stockholm syndrome'," Punk recalled from the distance of the PET. "It's nothin' like what you're sayin', Rocky. He thinks you've gotta be insane." Punk shrugged. "Maybe we both are."

"Netto-kun," Rockman scolded. "I know exactly what I'm doing here, okay? You haven't actually tricked me. I came here of my own free will, and I'm staying here whether you like it or not."

"Just me, then," Punk said with certainty.

Rockman rounded on the PET Punk was still inside next. "And you're fine! Atsuki isn't here any longer, so stop hiding."

"You were lucky to be outta Atsuki's sight," Punk grumbled, though he did materialize. "You're the crazy one, throwin' that away."

"…How are you holding up?" Netto asked, tilting his head to the side. "We haven't had enough privacy to talk lately."

"It wouldn't be such a problem if you two weren't so afraid of how Atsuki would react," Rockman pointed out.

"Atsuki's really volatile, is all," Netto explained. "I really don't always know how he'll react. With things… how they are, I don't want to provoke him." There was clearly something more to it than a mere temper problem.

"Are you really feelin' that much better?" Punk asked before Rockman could pry. "After all that crap at the harbor?"

"I…" Rockman considered just saying he was fine, that he was more concerned about how Netto was doing. But that was what Netto had been trying to do all along. Could he really ask Netto to tell him the truth if he wasn't honest himself? "Seeing what those girls did to Papa's research, and hearing those people suffer… it hurts just thinking about it…"

Netto hid his head in his knees. "I'm sorry I got you into this position, Rockman."

"No, Netto-kun. You have nothing to apologize for," Rockman said vehemently. "It's all Darkland's fault!"

"But it's mine for going along with it," Netto protested, though there was no force behind his words.

"When they were spying on you and hurting you? Stop talking like that!"

"What do you expect?" Netto asked quietly, deflating Rockman's mood further. "I know what I did. I can't blame it on a Dark Aura or whatever. And when I tried to protect my friends from it, so they could just go on remembering the old me, I failed at every turn." That tired smirk Rockman hated so much stretched over Netto's lips. "Some hero I turned out to be, and now they all know it."

"Your friends aren't just people you need to protect," Rockman said, floating into Netto's line of sight. "I feel terrible for not being able to protect you, too. And when Roll started going out on Net Savior missions instead of me, I worried about her every time until she came back. But you know what? She's doing just fine. More than that, she's saved me a few times."

Netto still looked tired and sad up above Rockman's head. "Having friends means that sometimes you rely on them, and sometimes they rely on you," the Navi explained. "You help each other. You don't need to protect them from something you need help with."

"It's too much, though," Netto said. "I didn't want them to have to know about what I've done or anything like the things Two and Four make." He sighed. "I don't even know how they found out about the harbor…"

Rather than let yet another secret fester, Rockman confessed, "I told them."

Netto's first reaction was horror, sitting up straighter as he stared at Rockman like he'd never seen him before. "What…?"

"What are you doing?!" Punk snapped at the same time. "You can't say shit like that to a human!" To Netto, he explained, "I helped him. We couldn't quite understand what the plan was, we apologize."

"No, we don't. It was my idea, and we aren't following any plan that involves you dying at the end, Netto-kun," Rockman said firmly. To calm down his fellow Navi, he explained, "You know Netto-kun isn't like those other Operators, Punk. He won't shut us off over this."

"I'd never," Netto said immediately. He was trying to reassure Punk even through the shock. To Rockman, he asked, "Why did you tell them to go there?! You knew how dangerous it was!"

"I didn't tell them to do anything, I just told them where you were. They went on their own," Rockman explained. "Punk even tried to get them not to go themselves, because of the danger."

"But you knew if you told them, they'd just run right in without thinking—"

"And why do you think that is?" Rockman asked pointedly.

Netto tried again to hide his face from sight; again, Rockman's little hologram came as close as it could. "That's too far for me," he said. "Don't–they shouldn't do that for someone like me."

"You're still the same you," Rockman said. "Just trust us on that, okay? You wouldn't feel so bad about it all if you weren't still you."

"This's… too much, you're right," Punk said. "But it's too much for you to face alone, too. So don't sideline us, or go off alone to die in some castle somewhere. We'll never forgive you if you do, okay?!"

"…Of course you figured that out, too," Netto sighed. "But… You still don't get it, do you. I'm a part of this, too. I'm a monster, too. I should disappear with the rest of it."

"That is more than enough putting yourself down," Rockman cut in sternly. "You–" He couldn't finish asking if Netto believed those words, because he already knew that his Operator did. Netto had been stuck in this nightmare for years with no outside contact and no room to simply be himself, and it had twisted him just as surely as it had Atsuki and the rest.

"A monster wouldn't feel remorse," Rockman said instead. "Someone who truly belonged here wouldn't be so haunted by it. And I still accepted you, didn't I?" Rockman pointed out. "I'm still here, Netto-kun. I don't think you're a monster, or a failure, or even that you didn't do everything you could. So… from now on, can you trust me on that?"

"What do you mean?"

"You have to stop thinking that other people shouldn't help you," Rockman said. "We're not misguided, and you certainly haven't tricked us. Promise me that you won't forget that you aren't a bad person, no matter how horrible things may look." With that, Rockman looked into Netto's eye, waiting for that promise.

Netto looked away. "That's so dumb," he muttered.

"Promise me," Rockman insisted.

"Okay, okay, fine, I promise," mumbled Netto halfheartedly.

Rockman sighed. "…It's a start," he conceded.

"Y'got told to do that stuff 'cause that was your role," Punk said. "There's no helpin' what people make ya do when they've got that kinda hold over you. Believe me, I know all about that."

"Actually, I… really want to hear more about what you were doing in that role, before you met Punk," Rockman said. "Not all at once or right now or anything, we've already talked about plenty for one night," he added hurriedly, noticing the flinch that produced from Netto. "Think of it as trying to scare me away."

"That would be safer for you, but…" Netto sighed. "The truth is, having you and Punk around feels right to me." It was at once reassuring and eerie, how similar he sounded to his younger self when he let his guard down like this. "I don't want you to go."

"Then I'm going to make a promise, too," Rockman decided. "I promise you that I'll stay by your side, no matter what I hear about your time in Darkland. Because I won't forget that you're a good person, even now." He looked back at the other Navi standing next to the lantern. "You, too, Punk, get out here," he chided lightly.

"I don't need to," Punk said bluntly, though he did float over to where the other two were. "I'm a Navi, I can't leave even if I wanna. Which I don't."

"It's the gesture!" Rockman explained.

His face slightly flushed, Netto said, "I… I get it." For a second, Rockman didn't realize what Netto was doing, one hand to his chest and the other around his wrist; then, he realized that Netto was hugging the PET, whether that was intentional or instinctive. He took Punk's hand and floated up to symbolically hug back, his arms wrapping around Netto's knuckles.