They spent the next few minutes running on the bridge towards the park, with A2 literally dragging Robin by the hand. At least she had little difficulty keeping up with her speed, however she was still very confused at her behavior.
And she still wouldn't tell her what she was thinking about, for taking her there.
Once they made their way to the park, A2 took her where they had found that tall tower thing, a resource unit now she knew the name, only that unlike when they saw it the first time, it was nothing more than just a pile of rubble.
"Why did you take me here?" she asked, again, after doing so at least another ten times while on the way.
Only that this time she actually got a response that honestly she almost gave up on receiving.
"Remember when we climbed this thing? You said that before we got thrown off, you saw someone in there. There was indeed a person."
Perhaps someone she knew then? This would explain why A2 insisted she'd come along.
"When I came here after… well you know… 9S was here, and someone attacked him, it was a woman, entirely corrupted from the virus, it must have been the person you saw."
As she explained, A2 started climbing up on the leftovers. "2B told me who she was, and I know she was very important to you."
"Who was it?" she did recall seeing blonde hair, but a lot of people at YoRHa had that hair color.
But specifically…
"Your Operator."
21O? But why was she here? Though she was corrupted, so maybe the machines led her here in the first place, knowing 9S may have attempted taking down the structure.
To torment him with it.
"I thought she died in the explosion of the Bunker, Operator units aren't allowed to leave it." as far as she knew.
"She had the heavy battler armor on her, I saw plenty of those to tell."
Robin nodded, she knew those armors, she too had worn them a few times, whenever she had been assigned to bigger operations requiring a squadron. Not the comfiest thing, if she had to admit.
She very much preferred her long dress if she had to choose a uniform.
Point was, why would 21O wear such a thing? Did she purposefully disguise herself as a battler to come down on Earth? Or had she requested an official body swap? And why?
"Anyways, I thought that, if we could find her, maybe she could be repaired too." for her and for 9S too.
But mostly for Robin, A2 longed to see her truly be happy after everything she went through.
And besides, the more people that could be taken back or saved, the better. Perhaps, for her companions it was way too late, but other YoRHa didn't have to be guilty for it. It took Robin's intervention for her to even consider that they were just victims too, she'd been too mad back then...
In their own way, they all deserved a life, after being lied to for their entire existence, and being treated like nothing but toys, it was time they actually lived, by themselves, making their own decisions, and choosing their own future, now that they could do so.
Robin watched as A2 started moving chunks away with her bare hands, and she did not want to leave all the work to her, after all, she was the one that cared for 21O here.
The fact that she wanted to see if she could be salvageable, now explained why A2 needed the help of the twins too, as healers, they were definitely more competent than themselves.
"Pod, keep an eye out for Devola and Popola, and if necessary lead them to us."
"Understood." she watched her purple companion take off high in the air and into the distance, before resuming her task.
It wouldn't be so easy to find a corpse under the pile of scraps though, but if the Pods could find A2 after she fell from the Tower, that was a much bigger place than this one, then they could find something here.
"At this very moment I wish I still had my old powers." how useful would they have been?
She could have easily spawned a few dozens of hands to move everything away, and with the strength she had now it would make the task even faster.
"Your powers?" A2 frowned. Right, she had never explained them, did she?
"Right, you don't know about them." she sighs, lifting yet another piece of metal. "It's something peculiar of my world, I'd dare say magical even."
A bit hard to explain, but if A2 believed her when she told her she'd been human without faltering, then she could believe this too.
"There are some kinds of weird fruits in my world, no one truly knows where they come from, but if you eat one it gives you some kind of power. Every single one of these fruits is unique and there are no duplicates, so there aren't people with the same ability either."
"And you ate one of them?" Robin nodded. "It was long ago, back when my island was still standing, I found it on the shore, probably lost from some ship."
She remembered it clearly, finding abandoned wooden boxes, either lost or forgotten from someone, and…
"Well… for my aunt I was just an added weight, she always gave me little to eat, so… I searched into those boxes and found it."
"So you ate it out of hunger then." A2 passed over the whole thing about her being hungry caused by her own family, Robin had told her enough of human's cruelty that she no longer doubted anything of it.
"I did, and then I discovered it was what is called a Devil's Fruit, and I had just acquired its powers." something that in the end proved more useful than hindering. It had been thanks to Professor Clover that she discovered what it was, and what strength it gave her.
"Mine was the Hana Hana no mi, and it gave me the ability to copy any part of my body on any surface I wanted, and multiple times too. But I no longer have said power, since my body is… well I don't know but even if it was in the Bunker it's probably gone now." not that she could somehow turn back anyways.
Also she doubted that White would keep evidence of her somewhere, given that she had prompted her to get rid of the posters not long after she awakened in the Bunker, because the 9S of that time found them, she couldn't imagine keeping a whole body around.
"So you could clone yourself?" sounded creepy even to A2 who technically did have a sort of clone in 2B, and that as an android her consciousness could be transferred into other bodies, but it was still a different thing.
"I hadn't gotten that far with mastering that power, but I suppose so." she shrugged. "For what it was worth, it was useful to me, probably I wouldn't have survived that long if I didn't have it."
She probably wouldn't have been strong enough, especially for as young as she'd been, in fending off people that wanted her head, that were so much bigger and numerous than her alone.
She'd been really lucky that no one succeeded in throwing her into the sea, or that she didn't fall in it by herself, as no one would have saved her. She was of better use dead than alive to everyone after all.
"I could make eyes and ears everywhere I desired, so I could keep an eye on the people around me and hear all they said, so as soon as things got dangerous, I could act in advance. The habit of listening to other people never truly disappeared." she recalled many times just hanging around the Resistance's camp, just listening to people talk. The enhanced hearing YoRHa gave her made it even easier. Old habits die hard.
She always had to be aware of her surroundings and of the people around her, all the time, to protect herself from any potential harm.
But she supposed that A2 could relate to it, after all, you don't become so hard to chase down without awareness of the world around you. Robin was sure she knew what it meant to be alert all the time.
Just thinking back at how they met, and how she immediately spotted her from where she was hiding, when many other YoRHa had failed to do so too many times.
A2's perception was way better than most she'd known, and not just for spotting danger, but for reading people and situations.
And here she was told she was lacking mental capacities, maybe it was true, but her heart and innate instinct made up for everything her mind wasn't able to comprehend.
"Do you miss them? Your powers I mean."
"Well I didn't exactly have time to dwell on the loss when I woke up in the Bunker, eventually I stopped thinking about them, I wasn't going to get them back. But sometimes I do believe they could have proven useful in getting things done faster, like now." she shrugged as she spoke.
She wasn't sure if she truly missed her powers, they had been a part of her, and crucial for her survival, but now she was also so much stronger, thanks to this new body and its functions.
"But I do have to say that androids have fewer weaknesses than humans do." just for the simple fact that they were made out of metal, and much less needs too.
Though as sturdy as they were, if they broke entirely they died too. It was the same thing being stabbed in your chest, through your heart of black box didn't matter, since an android's body imitated a human's, it held the same weak spots, physically speaking.
"There are many things that can't affect me anymore, such as heat, I can't be burned from the sun, or the cold can't make me sick. I can't be poisoned, I have no blood. If I break my limbs I can get replacements instead of waiting for them to recover, if they ever will. If I get cut I don't risk infections, bacteria affect me." she explained.
"I no longer need food to sustain myself, just a bit of clean water." though she knew androids could eat, albeit with some restrictions.
She knew of the incidents involving mackerels.
Though she did miss the taste of food, if she had to be honest. Ironically, she'd tasted more things while she'd been on the run than as a kid, because her aunt didn't allow her to eat anything she and her family were having. Ever.
The need for water was also kept at bay, as androids could run for days without needing to recharge their supply, especially YoRHas, while humans could die just after a few days without drinking.
And she had no risk of potentially getting sick or poisoned from either thing, or other things too, anymore either, she had oil for blood now, and metal for organs.
She could say it was an improvement, overall.
"And here we are made with the concept of humans being superior beings to us androids, and you're telling me it is all but true." A2 frowned.
"Humans have a really big ego, they believe to be superior to anything, so it didn't surprise me when I was told your species is supposed to worship mine. I knew it'd be something humans would do." she then sighed. "I didn't expect for this lie to carry through millennia though."
But if humans could delete the history of a whole 100 years…
She truly shouldn't be so surprised, though the news was still pretty fresh in her mind.
Made her wonder just what happened to these humans to just disappear from Earth, and if it'd be possible to find out the truth, and who decided to carry on with these false hopes that dragged on tho these days.
Perhaps one day… or perhaps never…
Who knew what the future would bring to them?
Maybe not the far future, but in the near future, there was a purple Pod followed by two red haired twins. Devola and Popola finally arrived at the park after A2 called them.
Guess it was time to stop talking about human stuff for now.
She'll make everyone aware of the truth, the whole truth, when the time was right. They deserved to know just how much they had been lied at, all of them. But for that to happen, she needed the support of the people closest to her to back her up, with the knowledge they had acquired too.
That included the truth about this planet's humanity, along with hers, and the true purpose of Project YoRHa and its cruelties towards its own creations.
If the Resistance would accept all of this, it would be up to them, every single person could react differently, and there was no way to predict a result, negative or positive.
"Why did you call us here?" Devola's voice distracted her from her thoughts, always straight to the point wasn't she?
"A2 believes there's someone that could be saved buried here." she simply states, not wanting to mention it was her Operator yet.
"I wanted you two here to check if the extent of the damage could be repairable, but we haven't managed to find her yet."
However… as soon as A2 spoke said words…
The terrain she was currently kneeling on, attempting to move more pieces of metal and stone, gave away a little under her, and by moving away a piece she could just see a bit of black and blonde peeking out from it.
And Robin noticed it too.
"21O." the name of the woman left her lips before she could stop herself.
Hastily she joined A2, in grabbing whatever thing she could get her hands on and off the body of the woman that had been her guide… her friend… her first ally in this madness…
The first person that had managed to make cracks in her heart with her help, and with her way of worrying about her. Followed from her student, until A2 came along and entirely destroyed all the walls she built in twenty years with the bare strength of her raw feelings.
And conquered her with the simplicity of being herself.
She didn't seem to want to stop carving her way into her heart, even if she already had the best place in it, through this act of love, just because she knew that 21O had been an important person in her life.
Despite the fact that she too had lost a lot and most likely would want the people she loved back at her side too, here she was, for her, not judging, not pointing fingers at her for having that possibility while she couldn't.
That was why she was so much superior than any human she met. With a couple of exceptions of course, but they too were long gone by now.
Not wanting to be outdone, when they realized they'd found the blonde Operator, the twin joined them in removing the rubble that was trapping her body where she was.
With the combined effort of the four of them plus Robin's Pod, they got rid of the pile quickly, as Robin moved to take 21O's body, holding it in her arms, and carrying it away from where it was to a place where they all could have better footing.
Under Popola's instructions, she crouched down, still holding the dead woman, as both twins summoned screens of light before them, beginning to examine the damage.
As far as it could be seen, the most was in the chest area, where A2 probably had stabbed her to end her life before she could end 9S'.
What was she saying? 21O had been infected and corrupted entirely, her life had been long gone before A2 had been forced to put her body to rest once and for all. If she didn't, who knew how much longer she would have suffered from the virus?
Still, seeing her like this hurt… as she unconsciously held her tighter to her chest.
Closing her eyes she placed her forehead against the blonde woman's one. Her chest hurt, her eyes stung, and yet again, no tears came out, not even for 21O…
How hard her heart still had to be? How much of a monster she still was?
Could she even learn to express emotions properly again?
"I'm sorry…" A2's voice reached her ears, barely a whisper, but Robin shook her head, her black hair tickling 21O's face.
"You did what you could, she was too far gone already." if nothing, she was thankful she brought her here, and had been so thoughtful to remember her fallen Operator, and even think of attempting a repair with the help of the twins.
That still had to give some answers if she could be fixed or not.
The answer didn't come late.
"Well… the stab wound looks like nothing we can't fix, we did fix yours after all." Devola told them. Right, she had stabbed herself with her own sword to avoid being fully corrupted, and she assumed that the hole she'd made had to be bigger too.
Scarlet Despair had a larger blade than either Virtuous Contract and the Type 40 Sword A2 had with her, whichever she'd used in this case wasn't important.
"If 9S would be willing to make another Black Box, the rest looks within our range of ability." Popola nodded.
"9S won't hesitate in making one." Robin was sure, despite the fact the whole involvement of machine cores, but still, he cared for 21O as much as she did.
"She was our Operator, mine and his both." she admitted, not sure why she wanted to keep it secret in the first place. Probably just to protect her.
"Well then, let us take her back to camp." Devola shrugged, getting up from her crouch. "Hoping Anemone won't mind."
"She won't." A2 replied. "She'd do anything to save lives, rather than the opposite."
She knew well, and also the twins themselves were proof of it, as they were able to stay at Anemone's camp for the longest time out of any other.
The more she thought about it, the more A2 was convinced that Anemone took well the role of Leader of the Resistance after Rose, she was just as kind, and similar in the way of thinking.
She'd changed from back then. A lot.
Just recalling how when they met she'd been the first in pointing her knife at Number 21, wanting to kill her and them all, without even hearing them out.
How ironic that the person she almost killed on sight had become so important to her later on?
And now that she thought about it, this Operator woman was also one with the number 21 personality in her. A2 had been thinking about wanting to bring her back for Robin that she hadn't thought of the possibility of seeing her old friend in her…
She had no idea how to react to that, and even less how Anemone could. She just hoped not to hurt her with the gesture.
That would be awful.
Yet… somehow she didn't feel that she had made a mistake.