My whole existence has been wrapped from a chain of violence and bloodshed ever since I was born. It holds me tightly around the neck, threatening to choke me.
It doesn't matter what I am, who I was, or who I want to be.
I wonder... if one day I will ever be able to cleanse my name from all the deaths I have caused, and if I will ever be forgiven…
The voice of 26E invaded 9S' ears as soon as he hacked into her, finding himself in the familiar white scape he was so used to.
He expected resistance, some kind of really high tech defense system for such an important and top of the line android.
But instead he stood alone, before him, trapped in a bubble and apparently asleep, sitting on her knees, was 26E.
Or rather, it looked like 26E, but a smaller version that looked like her.
A child wearing a purple dress…
Yet it had all the resemblance with the android he had been used to seeing, if the same hairstyle was of any indication.
Her eyes were closed, so there was no way to know until he saw them.
Whatever, it didn't matter, he finally had the occasion to know what secrets the woman held, because he was sure she did, learn all and use them against her.
Raising a hand he accessed her memory region, once more meeting little to no resistance.
What he saw was nothing he ever expected. There was one again that child that was still in front of him, rain poured down on her as she ran through the gray streets of some kind of place. Maybe a city of sorts?
"There she is!"
"That's the Devil's Child!"
"Don't let her escape!"
9S was almost startled to hear voices, angry and loud voices. In what he was seeing, there was a group of men dressed in some kind of white and blue uniform, some were wearing coats that on the back had a writing that read the word "Justice" on them.
All armed with what 9S knew being rifles, he'd studied human culture rather well.
He did not think that those men would actually start shooting at the child.
Most of the shots hit nothing, but he could very well hear the pained sound the girl made as one of the bullets grazed an arm. He saw blood, was she a true human?
He felt a pang in his chest, but it passed as quickly as it came, replaced from an angry snarl. Why the hell was everything willing to torture him with the voice and the looks of a child today?
The first time had been an accident…
26E's voice reached his ears again. He saw the girl of the memory, if memory it was, hiding away between some old and dirty barrels, clutching her wounded and still bleeding arm, as the rain washed away the blood from it.
She looked safe from those men that were chasing her, even if their voices could still be heard in the distance.
That was until one of them showed himself in front of the child, and 9S didn't like the mad grin he had on his face.
"Finally found you, runt."
He watched as the girl shook, her terrified mismatched eyes closing in fear as the man reached for her… and then all of a sudden, arms appeared from the ground, taking the legs of the man in uniform.
Thrown off balance from the hold of the arms and the wet floor from the rain, the man fell, hitting his head on the cold floor hard. Way too hard…
Blood poured from the wound on his head, as he laid there, dead.
What in the damn hell he had just seen? The human child and those arms… how? Why? Weren't humans supposed to protect their young ones too?
I didn't mean to, and little I knew, this would have been just the beginning of it all…
9S watched as the girl stood in a cabin of a ship, in front of some other person and others around them, that could be described from what he saw and read in books as pirates, given the bandanas and the eyepatches, the one in the chair seemed to be the captain, and even had a peg leg.
Words were exchanged, apparently the girl was trying to join the crew. One of the pirates seemed to be wanting to test her, as he pointed a gun to her head and…
… She didn't move.
Just stood there looking back at the man with impassible eyes, it was scary the way she didn't seem to care about the weapon pressing against her temple.
I quickly learned to not show weakness in any situation, by the time I turned 10, I learned to stare at a gun pointed at me without flinching anymore.
I learned to hide my emotions, push them away in the depths of my mind, they were no use to me.
I began turning into a monster, a demon, a devil, like the title that had been given to me.
9S looked, as the girl had somewhat grown up since the last thing he saw, she was taller, and most likely older, her eyes even more hardened than before.
Before her on a wall, there was a wanted poster, on it, the same child he'd seen before, with those same eyes that spoke of sadness.
Wanted: Nico Robin.
79 Millions… of a type of money he didn't know of.
That was what the poster said. The older girl reached for it, and tore it away from the wall with a furious glare.
If the World Government wanted a devil, then I'd give them one. It had been their fault, always was and always will be…
Pictures of that same girl rowing away in a boat as she looked as a pirate looking ship sunk invaded 9S' vision. And then more similar ones, sometimes it'd be similar, with a ship sinking, sometimes just broken, other times on fire, and others again those men in white and blue firing at it, and killing the pirates on it.
They must have been what the military force was here, or something similar, 9S assumed.
Even more horrible pictures of said girl showed up, he watched as more often than not, pirates would abuse the girl, just for the simple fact she was a female. Disrespecting her in any kind of manner, physical and verbal.
He would have wanted to vomit, had he been capable of it.
Pirates would have sold me out at the first occasion, didn't matter what I offered them.
Sometimes I killed them of pure spite for what they would make me do for their own entertainment.
Other pictures, this time of those he supposed were government officials were being outrageously tortured, from the woman with the many arms.
She'd strangle them, break their bones, sometimes quickly, like their spines or necks, others she'd take her time with it, breaking things that wouldn't kill someone, like arms and legs, until she finally decided to put them to rest.
Other times she'd even use a little pocket knife she kept hidden, cutting and stabbing to her heart's content. Until her victim eventually perished, whether she'd finish it off or not and leave them to die from blood loss.
She decided whether to make the person suffer or to be brutal and be done with it in one single strike.
She had the smile of someone that enjoyed hurting people.
The World Government… The Marine…
All of them had to pay for what they did to my home. They deserved it.
My island… Ohara… destroyed in an inferno of flames until nothing was left of it…
Before him, stood an island with a giant tree in flames.
The lives of many people were brutally sacrificed that day with nor regards for anyone… to be made an example for the rest of the world.
An entire island canceled from the map.
You can't see living beings through a piece of paper.
They destroyed the hopes and dreams of all of us. Destroyed the life of a single child that dared to survive to this cruel slaughter.
Hunted her to the end of the sea like the most precious prey. Treated her worse than a mere animal.
Everyone did.
Civilians bribed her for the money, pirates wanted to hand her over, marines and the government wanted her imprisoned.
The whole world wanted her gone, for the single sin of existing…
9S saw many images, all of them just as cruel as the other, but in them, each and every time the child, who grew into a teen, and then into a woman, survived.
Always.
Now he also recognized her look, being exactly the same as 26E was.
In the end, it had always been just about my own survival.
I did many deplorable things for it, sold myself and killed just for a little food and empty promises of protection that I never had.
Liars, all liars…
Even me…
A giant man the size of a Goliath with red hair and beard appeared in front of 9S' eyes, he was kneeling, no, he seemed stuck, not even, frozen to the ground by something.
"The sea is vast, one day you'll find friends that will protect you!" he said.
Saul… I waited and waited for so many years… but no one ever came…
I am all alone…
The visage of another woman in tears, identical to 26E but with longer, wavier white hair showed up.
"Live Robin!" she cried.
Mother… I tried…
I just wanted to make you proud…
This vision that appeared was really confused and blurry, as if it should have been deleted, but not entirely. A ship in flames, 26E, Robin, 9S didn't even have any idea how to call her anymore, was on it.
The woman was hurt, her skin charred and bleeding from the fire, she was dying.
A pair of white boots were barely visible through the vision, it was all so confused, as if the owner of the memory had been too weak to remember.
A woman dressed in white with long blonde hair, 9S knew her…
"I will give you a new life."
That was White… YoRHa Commander White…
As if this couldn't get more puzzling than it already was, between the human girl and her strange powers, all the cruelty, and then those two people he saw…
Now even the Commander herself was in the middle of this all?
What did this all mean?
Was it even real or was it 26E making things up somehow?
Was she just playing with him like she did with her victims?
It should have been the end of it all, my life and my dream, my mother's dream lost forever…
And yet they weren't, at least not one of them.
9S watched as White introduced herself to the YoRHa android he knew, now finding herself in the Bunker.
I was scared, confused, I had no idea what she wanted from me, why I was here, and why me.
Over the years I had grown used to following orders, whatever they were, and so I did.
I didn't bother questioning, I stopped too long ago.
I did what was asked of me like other androids did, I abandoned who I was back on the planet where I was born.
Or so I thought.
The curse of my name follows me everywhere I go, all the people I have known have died, and all it remained was me.
Always just me.
Doesn't matter how much I try to run, it always finds me.
This darkness in me, it will never go away. It is always with me and it will hurt the people around me, whether I want it or not.
The androids… I thought I had finally been part of something worth…
They have been the only ones that have shown me kindness and love, but they were just all lies, once again.
They wanted me to kill, she wanted it!
So I killed, and killed and killed again and again, and I will kill some more.
I'm a monster, I have no heart, never had one.
My feelings, long buried and forgotten, as if they never existed.
Androids have no soul, I sold mine when I was born.
A weakling with no willpower like me could only settle for this false sense of happiness and belonging.
Until… I saw her…
9S' mouth twisted in a furious snarl as he watched 26E look at the android before her when they encountered the first time in the forest.
A2…
Her and I…
We are similar. Two mirrors looking into each other.
Both of us, survivors of fate.
Alone and unwanted in a world that only desired our deaths and wouldn't stop until that happened.
Damn right, 9S thought.
He wouldn't stop until A2 was laying dead at his feet. He'd make her pay, he'd make her suffer, he'd kill everyone that hurt 2B, he'd kill everyone that loved 2B.
2B was his and his alone…
They took her from him.
A2 had to pay. 26E would pay too, didn't matter what he saw, didn't matter what she said, didn't matter what she knew.
And she would do so right now.
At least he could be thankful to her for showing him actual methods of torture, he thought, a wicked grin making its way on his face.
With said expression he reached for the sleeping girl before him. He'd take her and erase every trace of 26E's personality from existence once and forever.
He'd just been so close, his fingertips could almost touch the child…
When a set of arms appearing from nowhere snatched him from his prize, holding him back with his spine bent. They held his ankles, arms and two of them were even on his neck, threatening to choke him.
He could hear steps from behind him, turning his neck for what he could, there was 26E with her arms crossed in front of her chest in the posture he saw that other woman with the many arms do many times just before.
"Did you have fun, 9S?"
Not much time after Robin had been turned into an android and sent to the very first missions, she'd noticed how hard it was to get rid of Scanner types, their hacking abilities were too much a threat to her.
And the risk of them finding out unwanted information too high.
She got to know from 21O that usually E types had some sort of defense system that allowed them to protect themselves. But upon an inspection, she found out she was very lacking.
She thought the Commander wanted to protect others from finding out the truth about her.
So she took the matter directly to the woman in question.
"Usually Executioner types such as yourself, have a defense system that relies on installing a dormant logic virus, a small thing, but built to infect the source of hacking should it get to the memory region, and also the unit bearing said virus." White had explained.
"However, given how… special you are, I couldn't allow any risk of corruption of your data, or of your personality, even minimal, given your specific case, I decided to not equip you with such a system. Currently we are working to find a solution."
It was then that Robin had the idea to attempt and restore her old powers, even in some weirder way. She explained the whole devil fruit concept, and how the Hana Hana no Mi used to work for her, and asked White if it would be possible to implement something similar. as self defense.
Even if just in her own mind it would be fine.
Having those powers saved her life many, many times before, maybe they could aid her some more.
"I believe it should be doable, since I suppose you do have memory on how those powers work. We would have to run tests though, and be very thorough with them too, if we wish to implement that, if you'd be willing to collaborate."
So she did, she sat through many sessions and tests and diagnostics to make sure all worked properly. White even tested the system out herself, by hacking into her.
It had been a long process, but always better than being mentally defenseless.
No Scanner ever expected something like that, and that allowed her to gain advantage over all of them, and subdue them the way she used to do with the people she killed.
It worked perfectly every single time.
"What the hell is this?" 9S struggled in her digitally made phantom limbs.
"Struggle all you want, you're not getting out." she had enough strength as a human to hold people much bigger than her even as a child, now that she had the strength of an android it was even easier to hold down the much smaller and weaker Scanners.
She made her point by tightening the hold she had on him.
But he was having none of it.
"What the hell are you even? Why do you have the data of a human? Why do you two look alike? Who are you?"
She couldn't see his eyes but she could tell he was glaring daggers at her right now.
Not that she cared.
"You're no human!" he yelled at her.
Humans are dead, all dead, he wanted to scream, but couldn't do it…
That was just a secret meant for 2B and 2B alone.
"You're right, I am not." Robin slowly walked closer, relaxing her own two arms and holding them down at her sides.
Still she kept him trapped, her hands around his throat tightened, but not hard enough to cut off air entirely just yet.
"And I have no will nor time to explain anything to you."
He could make of what he saw whatever he wanted, she was done keeping things and even justifying it. But he did not deserve an explanation.
Her own hand joined the phantom ones on his neck. "I could kill you so easily right now, I killed for so much less than for the things you dared to accuse me of."
She recalled well how he accused her of not caring about 2B, or anyone else. If she never cared then he wouldn't be here right now.
She could just snap his spine or neck, or even choke him and be done with it, but no, she would not do that. Because he said she didn't care for her student, then she'd prove him to be wrong, by leaving him alive and alone.
For 2B's sake.
Just because she wouldn't want her nor A2 killing him.
He would have to prove them if truly there would be no other choice by living on. His actions would determine his fate.
So she summoned more limbs at the back of his head..
"Don't come looking for me or A2." or you're dead. She didn't voice the last part but she was sure he knew that.
And then she hit him.
She came back to the actual real world with a gasp, being hacked was always so annoying and uncomfortable. Both she and 9S were lying on the dirt of the forest's soil, him unconscious a few steps away from her.
Whatever, she made her point.
What happened later was none of her concern. She wasn't going to try and save someone that would much more gladly cut her head off, or make her black box explode.
Or many more even worse things.
The ability Scanners had to hack and control someone's body at will, had to be one of the scariest things she ever had the misfortune to experience.
Certainly one of the least pleasant, and she experienced way too many unpleasant things to tell.
Regardless, better if she escaped now, before he woke up.
Only he would decide if he would be stupid enough to try and find her and A2, or attempt to live his own life like 2B would truly have wanted from him.