abandonware | i n [B] o x . // acata.

[ Be a good person. She wanted him to live on, too, like that was supposed to be possible after losing everything the first time around. The second time, 9S just feels numb; he's known for a long time now she was willing to die so he no longer would be burdened with her presence, and only continued to feel unworthy even after their miraculous reunion.

She'd promised to stay with him this time, but is this an outcome she would have wanted again?

9S turns away, back toward A2, letting out little more than a slow, wavering exhale. ]

There's no point if she's gone.

[What is she supposed to say to that? It had been her existence for so long, what she sees mirrored in him now. The desire to destroy yourself, to leave nothing because you meant nothing. To know you were expendable, that your efforts were in vain. What was the point? She's never been able to figure it out. Living on, when everything else around you was dead.

What was the point of it? A2 thinks of the children in Akvos swallowed up in blackness, and being unable to help them. Thinks of the androids wracked with the virus, and being unable to help them either. So many dying. So many dead. She could not put a number to it. But she thinks of 2B too, imparting her will and desire for 9S to live when she could not. Knowing the pointlessness of this too, and yet...

Wanting to hope that it would somehow turn out better.]

You have to.

[Is what she says, finally. She straightens up, infuses her voice with purpose. So often she is defeated in speaking to him, knowing the end result before the conversation has even run its aborted course. But this is the first time she cannot see the end of it, and it's this that makes her keep talking.] I know it feels pointless, but you deserve —

[You deserve to live like a person, that man had told her. She didn't think it for herself...she was a ghost now, nothing that should have existed for this long. 9S was different.] You deserve to have a chance. You have a chance. 2B thought so.

...I do too.

[ 9S freezes, every little movement of his coming to a startled halt.

Then, like a belated response, he whips back around, teeth grit and moments away from biting back—you don't know what the hell you're talking about, he wants to say, but ultimately doesn't. That'd be wrong; she... does. After all, he's standing before an android that should have died alongside the rest of her comrades, who lost it all, who killed others if it meant her continued existence.

Maybe that just makes her stronger than him.

Whatever the reason, 9S' tenseness falls as quickly as it came, gaze falling back downward, replaced with a tiredness in his demeanor and hollowness in his voice: ]

I wouldn't have thought you as someone who took oaths this much to heart.

[She waits for his outburst, expecting it, bracing for it like a physical blow, but...it doesn't. He concedes, though it brings her little pleasure to see, only a muted sort of surprise.

He's lost so much, she thinks. How difficult it was to stand when you had nothing left to hate. She's known this for a long time.

She keeps her gaze on him. The implied question is not lost on her, though she isn't sure how to answer it.]

...I'm not anything without an oath.

[Is what she says, finally.]

You should head back.

[ He neither looks up nor nods when 9S gives his simple, empty response. ]

Yeah.

[ They're finished here. And, frankly, he would rather be alone than listen to A2 further explain why he should bother keeping his chin up. 9S waits for no response from her; silently, he turns again, and heads back off. ]

i n [B] o x . // acata.

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