Just a warning, this chapter is a bit longer than my regular ones, if this were a TV show it would be like the mid season finale.

Makoto Yuki's POV

I'm able to dodge just in time to avoid Aigis's fist.

But she's not done; she's just wailing at me aimlessly. Why is she so angry?

Right hook. Left body blow. High kick. She just won't stop, and I can't keep this up forever.

"Aigis! Stop!"

"I will NOT BE DECIEVED!"

Right uppercut. That one lands, sending me into the air, I feel the cold, hard, unforgiving floor under my back.

She starts beating on me while I'm on the floor. I block most of the punches, but my arms are starting to ache and I feel like my bones are cracking. I can't take much more of this! She's not going to stop.

"ORPHEUS!"

"I am thou, thou art I."

"Agi!"

I don't wanna fight her, but she's not giving me a choice.

Aigis gets blasted back by Orpheus's attack, but she's barely damaged.

I don't want to hurt her.

"Aigis, it's me!"

"No, you aren't. You're a shadow who just looks like him. The real Makoto died 6 years ago."

What is she talking about? A shadow? What has she seen all this time?

"Aigis, what happened?"

"You think this is the first time I've had to fight his shadow? You're going to have to try harder than that."

She's fought my shadow before? What? Actually... I remember that. Kinda, all I remember is seeing S.E.E.S. again for a second after I was... a door.

"It's me, Aigis! Don't you remember Mitsuru's graduation day? You said you knew what you had been searching for!"

"No... don't use that against me! ATHENA! GOD'S HAND!"

I felt the ground shake as the giant fist landed right next to me. That was close.

"I always struggled with it too, Aigis. I never understood what it meant to live either."

"Shut up. MASAKADO! TEMPEST SLASH!"

That one got me; I can feel the cuts everywhere. But I can't stop now.

"Until I met you! You and S.E.E.S. You helped me realise what living really means."

Aigis doesn't move. I keep talking.

"Before I met you, I wasn't living. I was surviving. I didn't understand the point of anything. Death didn't scare me, because when I lost my parents, I had nothing to live for."

"It was my fault you did."

"No that's not true."

"It is Makoto, and I placed a heavy burden on you. It wasn't fair to you to have to hold death within you for so long."

"It's no one's fault, Aigis. You did what you had to. If you hadn't sealed death within me, we would've all been doomed... Aigis, I honestly thank you for doing that. I never would've gotten to know the real you if you hadn't."

She looks like she's fighting tears. I step closer.

"I found it... I FOUND MY REASON TO LIVE! It was you, Makoto!" She says as she begins to bawl.

"And you were mine."

She continues to cry.

"It's not fair! Why is it that when I finally find my reason to live, it's taken away from me?"

Fair? No. Nothing has been fair for us.

She runs at me again, but this time she cries into my chest as I embrace her.

"I'm here now, Aigis."

"This can't be true," Her voice is barely a whisper.

I'm praying as much as she is for this reality to not be fictional. I gently place my hand on her soft skin, turning her face towards mine.

"This must be a dream," her breath halts as my eyes lay upon hers.

My vision turns to a haze as I'm enchanted by her blue eyes. They're just as I remembered them.

"But if it is, please let me dream a little longer."

Please... please... Just let this last a second longer. Please let me hold her in my arms and never let go.

"Makoto," she yearned for my name. Her voice was soft and sweet, the type of sweetness that melts my heart.

Heat flushes my face, and a feeling I can't quite describe tackles my chest. A sense of urgency to keep her tightly close to me arises. Her skin glows with an essence of innocence but hunger.

What's happening to me? I feel like I'm losing control of every muscle in my body, and yet we're in sync. I need her. I want to be closer to her. I never want to leave her side.

I scanned her face more intensely. Her eyebrows, her eyes, her nose and then her lips. No thoughts could enter my mind except one, the thought we share.

"Aigi-"

I began to speak but was cut off by her lips intertwining with mine. Her hands map out my body, seeking the nostalgia. My other hand latches onto her face and I pull her in closer, needing every bit of attention from her. Our lips roughly collide, more deeply, greedily taking each other in as if we've been starved to death. I don't want this to end.

Love.

That is the word that describes the feeling that is gripping my chest.

"I love you, Aigis."

"I love you too, Makoto."

We're still on our knees, embracing while Aigis cries her eyes out. And I can't help but shed a tear.

After Aigis calms down a little, she asks me-

"Why did you avoid me?"

"What do you mean?"

"As Nyx's arrival approached, I tried inviting you back up to the roof again, but you kept avoiding me. Why?"

When I first came to the dorm, I heard a voice in my head tell me, "You have one year." At first, I thought it was nothing. But when Ryoji warned us about Nyx and said she couldn't be defeated, a thought came to my mind about what had to happen. I was right. And I had been through this with other girls, but I had to turn them down. You were different. Because I love you, but I had accepted my fate. So I stayed away because if I didn't, the pain of being away from you would've overwhelmed me, and I wouldn't have been able to burn my dread.

"You knew? All this time?"

"I had no way to know for sure, but I thought it'd be better to be safe than sorry."

"Makoto, I want you to touch my heart."

"Huh?"

"It's my most important component, the artificial psyche that makes me who I am, my emotional engine... the 'Papillon Heart'.

"I see."

"It's extremely delicate, and I'm not allowed to expose it outside of the laboratory's clean room... But... I want you to touch it."

"Why?"

"If you make direct contact with it, your genetic information will most likely be burnt into it. If you are really Makoto, I will recognise your genetic information, and it will leave irrefutable proof on my body of our connection."

"Aigis..."

"But if you're a shadow, it will automatically explode, killing us both. A failsafe... honestly, as much as I want to believe you really are my Makoto, I need you to prove it."

"But Aigis, if you're wrong, you'll die."

"I want to dream. I want to believe that miracles can happen... Please, Makoto, let me believe this is real."

I gently hold her hand.

"I'm so happy... well then, umm... will you... untie my ribbon?"

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Side note, essentially in game terms, Makoto reached rank 8 of Aigis' social link but chose not to do rank 9. And I liked the idea of what happens in rank 10 of the romance option, so I decided to use it as Aigis's last resort to find out if Makoto is really alive.

And whether touching her heart is the same as them... you know... I'll just leave that to your imagination.