As the elevator started moving towards the top, A2 lifted her head towards the sky, or rather, what she could see of it, this tower was so big that everything on sight was white and more white.

"I wonder… what becomes of us when we die?" A2 spoke out loud, she didn't mean to, but it had become a habit due to how used she was to talk to 2B, or Robin, by now.

To think that for years there were times she didn't say more than a few words, usually curses to whatever YoRHa had been sent after her, or machines. She never thought she would have gotten used to talking with other people again.

"What do you mean?"

"I was just thinking…" she sighed. "Robin told me stories about humans, that when a human died they would say that they would end up in the sky, among the stars, it was a common thing to say particularly to young people."

"We can't see stars here, night doesn't exist, but I was thinking if she was among them, and if she's watching over us."

Wishful thinking, probably, but what else did they have by now, when everything and everyone was falling to pieces around them, one after the other.

What if they were next?

"I wonder where us androids end up, we have no soul, do we just get lost in the wind? As if we never existed?"

2B wanted to give her an answer, but she had none. Technically she was still somewhat alive only because A2 accepted and shared her consciousness with hers, but if she hadn't? Where would she be now?

Neither could say much on the topic, because they didn't know.

… And because that damn sphere of before, the one A2 faced in the library, was back.

"Is this thing seriously still kicking?" A2's frustrated growl came through, how? She had literally stabbed it in the eye.

"Speculation: It is driven by the remaining data within the enemy server." Pod explained.

"So it just keeps going until I kill them all?" she took Virtuous Contract in hand, ready to fight once more.

Did machines not know the meaning of giving up? Then again, androids didn't either, since she was still here.

But she did know about wanting to stop and lay down and not fight anymore.

She had to admit, she had thought about giving herself up before. At first, her anger, her pain, her grief were too strong to even think about surrendering, she had just wanted everything and everyone that took all she had away dead.

But the more this continued, it eventually became almost meaningless, if it hadn't been that she had the duty to keep the memory of her fallen companions alive, no matter the cost, she could have considered to stop fighting against the world that wanted her gone.

So she had started neglecting herself, only resorting to repairing the essentials when needed, and not much more, she barely rested, driving her body on the brink of exhaustion more times than she'd admit, in hopes that being weak would have helped whoever enemy she'd come to face kill her. It never happened.

No machine killed her, no android did either, nor successfully captured her and brought her back to YoRHa.

And then Robin came along, and she gave meaning to her life once more.

Upon knowing her, and the different person she was under the cold Executioner facade, A2 had devoted herself to protecting the woman.

And now she was gone too, and if it hadn't been for 2B being with her, then she may have just laid down in some remote place, and probably deactivated herself, until time and nature themselves did enough damage to her body so it wouldn't function anymore.

No more risk to wake up again and face the harsh truth.

That anyone she had known and loved was gone, and she was destined to be alone, forever.

"This… hole…" the machine muttered in a broken voice.

"Someone… fill this hole…"

Damn it… this thing just had to say that? She didn't need a reminder on how she was feeling.

She felt so… empty…

So alone…

So lonely…

"A2, get a hold of yourself!" 2B's voice rang in her head, snapping her out of her trance, just in time to avoid being hit from the two electric charged appendages the machine had.

No, she was not entirely alone, and she still had something to do.

She was going to destroy this server, for the sake of everyone that died before this moment. She owed them at least that.

Before she could finally be at peace…

And as the rumble of the engine could be heard as it flew past the elevator, she was reminded that there was yet another thing to be settled. 9S was still here and was heading straight for the top like she was.

Then she better get rid of this machine quickly and reach him.

She was not going to let this sphere destroy her or her only way to the top of the Tower.

With renewed vigor, she slashed at its body again, trying to get the thing off the elevator, the sphere staggered from her strength, but didn't fall. Instead, it summoned other machines, stubbies, flyers and whatever else.

It didn't matter, they wouldn't stop her.

Not when she was so close at accomplishing what androids couldn't do in ten thousands of years of fighting.

Rolling to the side, she dodged the bigger flyer coming straight at her, rotating like a saw blade. She had Pod shoot it down with a laser to the center, while she planted her sword in the head of a shielded stubby, and kicked it away among its simlars.

They collided and exploded to pieces.

But as the last smaller enemy fell, the sphere was back again, with more friends, it was helping itself to keep up with the elevator using linked spheres.

One of the types of machines A2 liked the least for how hard it was to take them down, and being most of the time only able to use short range attacks only made it worse.

This type of enemy made her miss the presence of Number 16, or anyone else proficient with a gun. Something she hadn't been made for.

But she did have a Pod aiding her, so she'd use it. How ironic that she had hated it at first, the only one she could tolerate was 007, and now she knew why from the documents they had found, and for how it had helped her in a desperate situation too, on its own.

She sometimes wondered where it ended up, after Robin died.

So then she told 042 to occupy itself with shooting those things, as she resumed attacking the main target instead.

A2 slashed at the ball machine with both swords, leaving sizable cuts and dents in its chassis, however, she didn't know if it was the programming that kept it going as if it was feeling nothing, but the machine didn't relent one bit in attacking her.

Finding herself having to resort on defense rather than offense.

The electric appendages were annoying to deal with, and more times than not she had to jump over them, to avoid getting hit, and hated how the residual energy felt near her legs. If she were to get hit, she'd be paraylzed and she didn't want to deal with any of it.

Especially not with the linked spheres still around. Pod was doing a good job at keeping them at bay, but he was outnumbered, so A2 found herself having to dodge their attacks too as they flailed around.

And she didn't feel like being crushed nor being hit and risking falling off the elevator. Not now that she was so close to the top, she could almost see it.

Also she would never survive a fall from this height, no matter how advanced her android body was.

But this could eventually become a solution later on…

A solution to everything.

If she survived whatever else this place had to throw at her, but at this point, she cared little about surviving. Once she got to the main server, then the meaning of her existence would vanish.

And herself with it, she decided.

Where was this willingness to die when she had to?

But first this machine had to die, and as it lifted itself towards the sky, A2 jumped after it, meaning to cut it in half with 2B's white sword, however the round machine held its front appendages and covered itself, so she collided with them and was sent backwards.

At least there was no longer the small space of the elevator to risk falling from, as she realized they arrived at the top, and on the other side she could see another similar machine to the one she was fighting, running away from a hail of bullets of the flying unit that was chasing it.

And she knew just who was in that suit, even before he ejected and landed in front of her.

He wasn't wearing the visor anymore, and in his eyes she could see how much fury they held, towards her, towards everything…

She knew those eyes… hers had been like that long ago…

A2 wanted so much to tell him that she understood what he was going through, that she knew the feeling of losing everything dear to you, and no matter what you can't do a thing but watch the world crumble around you.

But she knew he wouldn't listen, as just a mere look was enough to have him point his sword at her, while she wasn't even moving, or showed any signs of being willing to fight.

And she wouldn't, if she could help it, not only for 2B's sake, but because it was the right thing to do.

Before neither could say a single thing, the two machines they had temporarily forgotten began moving towards one another, and they watched as they fused into one bigger machine.

Right, there was still this threat, before dealing with 9S, who also appeared to have turned his attention towards the fused spheres.

Perhaps he'll aid her in fighting them, hoping he wouldn't try to shoot her in the back while they were at it. She was still determined to try and get through him with words first.

As she threw herself at the machine, she watched him order his Pod to shoot, and mentally she did the same thing with 042, and then he extended a hand towards the machines, she knew that gesture, he was trying to hack them.

Well, as long as he didn't hack her it would be fine, reminding herself that he would probably see 2B's presence within her consciousness, and his reaction had been something Robin had protected them from already, and A2 wasn't willing to find out either.

She resumed attacking the machine, slashing at whatever body she came closer to as 9S did his thing, this reminding her of all the times she and her comrades used themselves as distractions to allow Number 21 to hack into things, successfully, because she never failed once.

And now with 9S being an even more advanced Scanner, she had no doubts he could succeed, and that made him even more scary, and even scarier was the thought that soon enough he may even try to do that to her.

Again, because that hadn't been the first time, and she still could recall the terror when he had been so close to succeeding, before she upgraded herself, with his own systems and chips, to be more resistant to hacking.

But all encounters with him had hardly been ever pleasant, including this one.

Probably this one was the worst, she would say.

And also very much likely to be the last.

A2 welcomed it, if there was anyone she could die to, then he would be a good choice, and he would get his revenge too.

They would both be happy, right?

It was the last thing she asked herself, before she slashed at the fused machine, this time successfully cutting it in half like she wanted, throwing herself down towards the ground a second later, narrowly dodging the laser beam from 9S' Pod.

Okay, so he was definitely trying to kill her then.

Tired from all the fighting, they looked at each other with glaring eyes and hard breaths, but it looked like 9S had no intentions to stop.

Maybe, she could try to dissuade him by telling him the truth about this server, after all, getting rid of machines was his reason for existing as much as it was hers.

"This tower is a giant cannon aimed towards the human server on the moon. If we don't do something, all of humanity's remaining data will be destroyed." or at least, of the humans that were once on this planet.

But, 9S reacted in a way she didn't expect, but that perhaps she knew very well… he laughed…

"So what? None of it matters. Or didn't you know? We aren't required in this word anymore. Humanity is extinct. That moon server you're so worried about was invented to give us androids something to fight for. And YoRHa was created to perpetuate the lie."

These words should have had a big impact on her, and yet, somehow she had expected them, perhaps it was because of all the assumptions Robin made so many times, about White hiding something, and about never seeing any other human, not even their face through communications.

She and Robin were two people that became suspicious of everything by nature, because others imposed it on them, so perhaps it was this trait that made the news somewhat easier to hear.

A2 however had already known that android lives, especially YoRHas were worth nothing, White had been very much clear on that when she abandoned her and her squad, and all she did later only reinforced the thought.

"But in order to make sure no one ever learned the truth, we were designed to be killed. They built a backdoor in the Bunker and programmed it to activate after a certain amount of time."

So that must have been how all the androids ended up being infected in mass, she and Robin being fugitives were disconnected from the server, that was how they didn't end up like that.

Neither did 2B, or 9S, but some of them hadn't been that lucky in surviving the infection later on.

"The Commander? Me? 2B? Even 26E… sacrificial lambs. All of us."

There were so many more people that died that no one else knew about but her, and very few others, people that had been forgotten from the world, but from the very few that remembered.

"Isn't that hilarious!? Doesn't it make you laugh!?"

She'd laughed once, at the first 2E that came after her, once the truth of her and everyone else having been just a toy in someone else's hands came out. She wouldn't be laughing now, but she understood the reaction.

The will of wanting to deny everything despite all…

"9S, we…" she wanted to say they were the same, but he cut her off.

"Shut up! You killed 2B. That's all we need to kill each other."

So he still wanted her dead, she accepted that much, but, there was another truth she felt he had to know, one someone else had wanted to tell him for so long, and to all the other 9S and then it would be what it would be.

"2B hated to keep killing you. It caused her so much pain."

All the memories of her younger twin in tears came flooding to her mind. How cruel it had been to use her own data, the data of a person who loved her comrades and would have done anything had she been capable, to a more advanced unit designed to kill the person she loved most over and over again?

"The 9S type is a high end model. They knew you'd discover the truth eventually."

And again, if YoRHa knew Scanners and their curiosity would have been so problematic then why make them that way? Why make them suffer so much?

"But the model designation "2B" was just a cover. The official designation… is 2E. Number 2 Type E."

Robin had explained that they had two roles, some were like her, and others were like 2B, but none ever loved their designation, and what it implied.

"They were a special class of members designed to execute YoRHa units. Some of them like 26E were loners, designed to track down deserters, and others were assigned to a partner, and acted under cover, like 2B."

She explained, however…

"But you already knew that… right 9S?" he'd seen Robin's memories, she told her so, he must have known, and for how smart he was, there was no way he didn't find out already.

She was just certain of it.

"Shut up… shut up!" he pointed his sword at her, and when he looked at her, there was something she no longer wished to see…

The red eyes of a logic virus…

"That can't be…" she heard 2B mutter, both of them refusing to believe that it had to end this way, again.

"What do you know? You don't know anything at all about us!"

Wrong, she knew everything, and so much wanted him to know too, but now it would just be useless.

"The woman with you, 26E, she was a liar and a murderer, I don't care what she told you, it's wrong! Because she never cared about any of us!"

She clutched Robin's visor around her neck as he said that, if only he'd listen… there was so much wrong in his words, that was hurting him so much.

At that point, his black Pod decided to speak up.

"Proposal: cease combat." was it trying to protect him? "Fighting her at this point would be irrational and…"

"Pod 153, I order you to halt all logical thoughts and speech! This order shall remain in effect until you confirm the death of either myself or unit A2."

Clutching Virtuous Contract in her hand, she had no other choice, but to fight him.

"I'm sorry." she whispered.

Resigning herself, she raised the weapon at him, accepting the duel, much to 2B's horror, and… acceptance.

All they wanted to avoid happened, again.

Was A2 never destined to do anything good?

But perhaps there could have still been one way.