smash_logs | Do dead robots go to cyber heaven?

Entry tags:

Do dead robots go to cyber heaven?

Who: Harpuia, Zero
What: A guardian's time to mourn
Where: The roof
When: May something
Warnings: Zero being ignorant and socially awkward?

Spend time with the guardians, Rock said. Get to know them, learn what they like to do outside of the battlefield. As easy as it might've sounded, socializing with former enemies definitely wasn't the kind of mission Zero was familiar with. He didn't have the faintest clue about how one was supposed to act or what to say, but he could cross that bridge when he came to it - mulling on what to do wasn't worth a lick if he couldn't find a guardian to extend the figurative olive branch to.

Fefnir, perhaps, wasn't the best first candidate. Whatever list of hobbies he had, it wasn't a stretch of the imagination to predict 'fighting Zero' would be at the top of it. Seeking Harpuia out seemed like a better plan - they'd already managed to spend time in each other's company without weapons being drawn, after all. Of the two, he was more reasonable... sometimes. Though he wasn't without a fixation, either.

It didn't take terribly long for Zero to find him, at least. After his room, the roof was the next most likely place to spot a flying reploid, and as predicted, there he was. Zero quietly closed the door behind him, staring in silence for a moment before slowly approaching.

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When he'd last spoken to Zero, Harpuia had bit down a prediction of the inevitable: that the things he'd lost would finally catch up with him, and he would need to have some time to grieve. He'd thought about asking Fefnir along for this, but in the end, decided against it; this was something a reploid had to cope with in their own way, and stillness and silence weren't usually something that brought Fefnir much solace. Nor, truth be told, was Harpuia hoping to have company. This was something he wanted to be alone for.

It was, admittedly, not quite what he'd have liked it to be. While he was here, he couldn't visit the places where anyone had died, nor the spots they called home. Neo Arcadia was buried now, even if he could have left this city. In the end, he'd come here: somewhere up high and peaceful, where you could watch over the school but be unseen.

If he'd heard Zero's quiet arrival, he gave no sign of it. He sat as still as ever on the edge of the roof, a few Energen crystals lying on the ledge near him.

Zero's footsteps weren't exactly light, but they came to a stop a few feet away, also at the ledge of the roof. There he stood, struggling with what to do next.

Anything he could try to say just sounded lame and false on his tongue - friendly greetings, small talk, those things were so far from his forte that it was probably laughable to watch him try. The last time they were at such close range, (speaking comparatively,) Zero found it far more comfortable to say nothing at all, and to have nothing given in response. Silence was something that you normally didn't learn much from, but at the same time, it kind of felt like there were certain things you could only learn with silence. At least, by Zero's reckoning, it wasn't wasted time.

Back when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, Harpuia had very clearly stated that he didn't care whether Zero chose to stay or go - it was all one to him. But the guardian had never given any indication if this was an invitation that had an expiry date, if it was a one time offer, or that he'd just changed his mind. Without anything else to go on, the red reploid didn't see a reason to assume that circumstances had changed.

He stared at Harpuia for a few long moments, wondering if hanging out on rooftops was just what a flying general did in his spare time, and what the E-Crystals were for, before sitting down himself. From there, he'd have to figure out his next course of action...

Harpuia's thoughts, on the other hand, had been miles away from any moment he'd spent around Zero. The peaceful silences he was dwelling on belonged to the past, and to one of the two Guardians conspicuously absent from this place. It felt too early to count Leviathan among the dead -- pragmatic though Harpuia strove to be, a heart could be a stubborn thing sometimes. But Phantom...

...He'd always been content with silence. As full of life as Leviathan and Fefnir were, they'd always been inclined to action over inaction, words over silence. He knew better than to expect to see Phantom again -- he was, in death as in life, at Master X's side, without a doubt. But even so, he could almost imagine Phantom sitting alongside him. Harpuia had learned the difference between a solitary silence and a shared one long ago, and today, more than ever, his heart ached for the latter.

But that didn't necessarily make Zero welcome here.

The sound of someone settling next to him was enough to pull Harpuia back to reality. What Zero was doing here was entirely beyond him; just because they had tolerated each others' presence during cherry blossoms didn't make him expect Zero to want to seek out his company just for the fun of it. "What do you want?" He asked, the terse edge in his voice making it clear Zero's arrival was neither understood nor especially desired.

Zero snapped to attention at the sound of Harpuia's voice - harder and colder than he'd last heard it, but not altogether unfamiliar. As an enemy, that is. Internally, Zero's heart sunk a little. This was already off to a bad start. Not that he had been expecting smooth sailing by any means, but he could already imagine the look on Rock's face if he failed: that dulling light of hope, weighed with disappointment and understanding. It wasn't something Zero relished seeing for himself.

So even if that tone instinctively put Zero on the defensive, he had to try and force himself to ease his guard. This wasn't a battlefield, and he wasn't looking for a fight. The higher his walls were, the more it'd give off the wrong impression. He had to take a deep breath, sucking in extra air as his internal fans started to run audibly hot, before he could muster the computing power to figure out what to say.

"Nothing," was what he managed. Zero's voice was low, straightforward, but awkward. There was a long pause as he looked Harpuia over, before eventually lingering on the E-Crystals that were beside him.

"...What are you doing?"

"Nothing," for the record, may have been an honest answer, but it wasn't a very satisfying one. The idea that Zero would go to the trouble of locating Harpuia all the way up here for no reason in particular was suspicious at best. Zero would have to be either desperate or maybe slightly suicidal to pick a Guardian as someone to hang out with just for the sake of it. No, he had ulterior motives of some sort.

...Did that question have something to do with them, then? Harpuia knew the grim realities of being a soldier: you cut down lives, and you didn't linger on the individuals. He certainly hadn't known the name of every Resistance soldier he'd killed. No reason to expect different from Zero. As irrational as it was, though... coming from Zero, the question still stung nonetheless.

Harpuia followed Zero's gaze to the crystals he'd left out, then looked away. He didn't even want to respond, but maybe giving Zero what he wanted would encourage him to go away. "Those ones are for Phantom," he answered, voice quiet but as taut as a steel wire. "I haven't found a good place to leave some for Master X just yet."

Slightly suicidal fit Zero pretty well, actually.

Harpuia's answer seemed to have the exact opposite effect, however. Zero furrowed his brows in confusion, obviously not understanding the meaning behind the act and looking to the guardian for clarification. He wasn't about to point out the obvious of Phantom being, well, dead and distinctly unable to pick up these E-Crystals later. Zero may have been socially awkward, but he wasn't that stupid. And Harpuia was an exposed, raw nerve right now - too dangerous to be handled carelessly.

Maybe it was sometimes easy to forget that this 'legendary reploid' had only woken up in 23XX a few years ago, completely uninitiated to the customs and culture of the future. Living on the lam tended to offer few luxuries when it came to learning about things most Neo Arcadians took for granted, and Zero never afforded himself the time to seek it out.

But he was here to find out more about Harpuia. It was a risk he had to take. Tilting his head a little, the reploid cautiously ventured, "I don't... understand."

Explaining was something Harpuia was used to doing -- a side effect of being both in charge and the smartest person in the room more often than not. On this particular occasion, though, being asked felt more frustrating than anything. Zero, after all, had played a role in Phantom's absence; to spend the time he'd set aside for Phantom on Zero instead didn't exactly feel ideal.

And yet, here Zero was, tilting his head and pushing the subject like some sort of puppy. Did he really not get what Harpuia was doing? Or rather... why did Zero care in the first place? Harpuia had precious few reasons to want to sit down to a friendly chat with Zero. The fact that he was still trying to talk about this at all felt conspicuously grating.

"Do you need to?" Harpuia snapped. "I doubt you're here to mourn him! You know what E-Crystals are used for. Figure it out yourself." Plenty of things, without a doubt, relied on Energen, but there were two uses that Harpuia was willing to bet came up most often in Zero's life: reploid power sources and Cyber-Elf sustenance. That should have been more than enough to wager a guess.

To mourn him... It took a second longer for the words to coalesce into actual understanding, but when it did, Zero finally looked away. In hindsight, it should've been obvious, especially with how much Harpuia was bristling at his presence. It was strange to see him so... well, for lack of a better word, so human, as opposed to the rigid soldier Zero was familiar with.

But it was clear that his company was not wanted here. Even if Zero didn't happen to be the person who struck down Harpuia's loved ones, what this represented was a private affair. He'd made a mistake coming here, one that could only be solved by removing himself.

As Zero began to stand, however, he suddenly remembered: "Master X... if you mean that copy, I don't think you need to leave a crystal out for him. He's alive somewhere. He was at this school."

Harpuia immediately opened his mouth to chastise Zero for referring to the X he'd served as "that copy," but the words died on his lips in the wake of the rest of Zero's words. "He's... alive?" Harpuia echoed in disbelief.

It wasn't as though it was unheard of for dead reploids to somehow come here, considering everyone currently present was technically dead already. But Harpuia had already been living more than a year of his life without a leader. The Copy X he'd once known had since been replaced by the modified version Weil had under his thumb and destroyed yet again -- was that the X Zero had met here? Or the one that was still himself?

Despite himself, Harpuia's eye was drawn once again to the crystals that he'd left for Phantom. Realist that he was, Harpuia wasn't given to baseless hope, especially not when he had long since accepted the bitter reality that their fellow Guardian was gone. But if Zero was telling the truth, and it wasn't just remote wild possibility but an actual established fact that reploids from his past could still live... Well, no. Hope like that would only be cruel.

Zero stood up to his full, if unimpressive height and stepped off the ledge of the roof. He had no warm feelings towards Copy X - at best, his opinion of the clone was conflicted and confused. But it did bother him that the once-dictator disappeared before Zero could come to understand why he did what he did - it tugged at him like a stray barb. What possible reason did a Neo Arcadian have to save their greatest enemy when they were helpless before him?

Yet if there was an answer to that question, it most certainly wouldn't be found here anymore.

"Weil's influence was gone," he told Harpuia. With a sigh, Zero turned away, too filled with distaste to want to meet anyone's eyes as he recounted the memory. "And... he saved me when I was reprogrammed."

There was a pause as Zero clenched his teeth in disgust. Perhaps it hadn't always been this way - not during his first year of reactivation, for sure - but he couldn't just think of his enemies as faceless obstacles anymore. Fighting Neo Arcadia without thinking had caused enough problems. And with so many of them here, he couldn't let himself make those mistakes again.

"I suppose... I'm thankful to him," Zero muttered. A sentiment he'd never expressed to Copy X himself. He'd probably never get the chance. But someone got to hear it, at least.

Edited 2015-05-14 04:49 (UTC)

That was... surprising to Harpuia, to say the least, but at the same time, not impossible to understand. Harpuia himself was just as guilty of striving to save a person who he looked upon as an enemy, after all. So was Zero, he supposed, or Harpuia never would have lived long enough to die by Fefnir and Leviathan's side.

"I doubt he did it for the sake of your thankfulness," was all Harpuia had to say on the matter. He couldn't say he knew exactly what motives had inspired his former master, but Harpuia had witnessed firsthand what reprogramming had done not only to Copy X, but to the Eight Gentle Judges. If there was one thing that Harpuia felt, it was that you didn't necessarily have to like a person to know when they deserved better.

"It may surprise you to consider it, but we... were all just people, too," Harpuia murmured, eyes still lingering on Phantom's offering. "You may not have agreed with it, but we all tried our best to do what we thought was right."

With more certainty, Zero firmly replied: "I know."

It hadn't been until after the guardians' deaths that Zero came to understand the full story of how they protected the humans of Neo Arcadia, the other side of the coin. In a way, it only came down to chance that they were enemies at all. As reploids, and as warriors, all of them strove to follow their ideals and uphold what they held dearest. In the end, he couldn't begrudge them for that - and neither of them would've taken back the deaths that were at their hands because of it.

But necessary though it was, that didn't mean Zero enjoyed it at all. Glancing back at Harpuia, he quietly offered, "I don't expect you to forgive me. But... I am sorry for your loss."

It was as much of an olive branch as he could manage right now. By no means did Zero regret his part in Phantom's destruction, but he could sympathize with a man in pain over the death of someone close to them. Whether it would console or enrage the guardian, he had no way of guessing. For all his mistakes, he still had to try to do better.

It was more, to tell the truth, than he had expected from Zero. Whether things had changed after his death or whether he only saw a narrow facet of Zero on the battlefield, he had taken him to be the kind of soldier that Phantom had been: uninterested in questioning his cause or what motivated the enemy faction, only in carrying out the objectives of the one he fought for.

Condolences were even less expected. Loss was inevitable for even the most skilled general; they both understood what fighting entailed, and they likewise understood that it was unrealistic to expect this death in particular to weigh any harder than any of the other deaths that the conflict between the Resistance and Neo Arcadia had caused. What was he to make of Zero trying to offer comfort, of all things...?

For a long time, he was silent, looking up at Zero like he was trying to gauge exactly what Zero's motivation even was. It brought him no closer to an answer, though, so he simply didn't answer at all. "We didn't have much time to dwell on it, back then," he said instead. "But we were born together, the four of us. Reassigning Phantom's units, taking over Master X's duties... the empty space it left was bigger than all of that."

A space that felt even emptier now that four had dwindled down to two. As heavy as the burdens Harpuia had taken up back then had been, they at least kept him focused, eyes locked on what needed to happen in the near future rather than the ache that lingered in the present and past. Without them... he no longer knew how to face his grief in a controlled and composed manner. How did one articulate a feeling like this?

"Rock calls us family. Is that... did we lose a brother?"

It wasn't surprising to know that Rock would call them family - nor that such reploids of war could begin to adapt to the perspective. His warm-heartedness was infectious, that way. What Zero didn't expect, however, was to have a question of such weight to be directed towards him.

Harpuia couldn't have been asking because he longed for Zero's opinion specifically. This was just a matter of circumstance, that he was the one who happened upon the guardian in such a vulnerable state. What he felt was an emptiness that longed to be filled, and reached out for anything that could impart the closure denied to it.

And yet, Zero felt unfit to answer. To say yes would be to acknowledge that emptiness as a wound, one far larger than they were prepared to feel, as reploids, and likely unable to ever fully heal. To say no would be to dismiss the bond of those who were built together, lived and served together for years before Zero's reckoning. But he couldn't leave without giving Harpuia a response, either.

"I don't know anything of brothers," Zero said carefully, unsure. "What Phantom was... I think only you can decide that."

He turned away, but the feeling of dissatisfaction still lingered in his mouth. Somehow, it still didn't feel right. Perhaps he was only damning himself by continuing to speak, but he was still compelled.

"But, by Rock's definition... yes."

Harpuia knew better than to expect fairness out of the world, but... it wasn't fair, was it? The experiences of his past were all still there, certainly. Attaching an arbitrary word to them didn't alter the irreplaceable calm of his moments with Phantom, the infuriating charm in Leviathan's smile when she called him a show-off, the vehement belief that he put into the dreams X had laid down.

The sight of shattered bodies still hurt the same no matter how you described the reploids they used to be. The helpless anguish he'd felt when Fefnir and Leviathan hovered between life and death on the repair tables and Weil's orders had left no room for fixing them wouldn't be diminished or doubled if he gained a new term for them now. Failing a father could not have been more heart-rending than it had been to fail his sworn master, could it?

Harpuia turned away from Zero, arms wrapped around himself as if physically trying to keep the messy, unrestrained emotion within him contained. This was not the face he should have been presenting, and he knew it. A soldier was accepting and unaffected in the face of death -- of death he'd had plenty of time to swallow! This sloppy kind of weakness was something he wouldn't want Phantom to witness, if his Cyber-Elf were even capable of reaching all the way here. For Zero to witness it was especially humiliating, but all the same, it still bubbled up in him: the distressed whirring of his fans, the burning in his eyes, the tremble in his voice.

"Why only give me that word when it's too late to use it?"

Zero had been prepared to leave, but as he heard the cracks in Harpuia's voice, he whipped around again to find himself completely frozen in place. He so frequently did not know what to do in this new world filled with foreign, emotional territory, but now it was especially true.

I don't know. All the I don't knows echoed through every part of him. By all respects, he empathized. Zero lost a friend and partner, the most important person in his life, before he even knew how to remember him. Even now that he did, though they were fleeting, scattered specks and shadows, he still kept his emotions at bay - knowing those memories were a precipice that he might never come back from if he fell. But he wasn't capable of crying. He'd never properly mourned either - he never learned how, or thought to do so.

It was times like these that Zero truly felt incomplete. Incompetent. Would someone who was more than a weapon know how to respond? Could a tool of war actually console anybody? His arms hung lamely at his sides, incapable of finding even the simplest of gestures to offer.

Silence filled the air between the two reploids. None of their lives had been fair, and yet here they were, struggling to make due with the broken pieces that were left behind.

"...He would still be your brother," Zero said eventually, his voice low. "Death doesn't take away what he is to you." It was the same for him and X. In this world or the next, they were still partners. Nothing would change the bond they built to stand against fate.

Harpuia said nothing in response; he didn't trust his voice just yet. If he'd been meant as a combat model right from the start, surely Neo Arcadia would never have bothered with anything as pointless as tears. It was something he ought to have been above, no matter how he felt about the way things had turned out.

But all the same, the regret still lanced right through his core. The short time he'd had... it'd been nothing but ill-used. What Zero said had a ring of truth to it, but where was the meaning in calling Phantom a brother when he'd never have the chance to hear it? He only had his own imagination to try and take stabs at what Phantom would even have thought of the suggestion. What good was it to try and understand what a sister was if Leviathan wasn't around to decide if the title suited her or not?

This whole time, they had been Guardians first and foremost. No titles beyond the ones Neo Arcadia gave them had factored into Harpuia's identity. It was one thing to be told that now his task was to get used to life outside a battlefield, but to suggest the concept that he'd had a family all along when it had already been splintered into fragments...

"It takes away any chance of making up for what I failed to do. I wasted the time that was given to me," he finally spat in bitter frustration. This proved to be just one more thing he had allowed to slip between his fingers. He had not protected X. He had let Neo Arcadia fall. For all his belief in clarity and knowledge, he had fed humanity's complacent ignorance, and had been utterly blind himself to what had been around him right from the beginning.

He drew his knees up to his chest, trying to hide the shameful and altogether unnecessary wetness sliding down his cheeks. "I know better than to think anything I do here will reach anyone I've lost. Leaving crystals out at all is an empty gesture. You must think wasting E-Crystals on sentiment like this is ridiculous."

Zero stood there uncomfortably, wishing he could just leave. Yet his feet remained fixed in place. They knew each other as warriors first and foremost, so this was beyond anything Zero had expected from the proud general of Neo Arcadia's skies. Watching all this was almost like seeing a car crash - terrible, a sight that scarred itself to your mind, but impossible to look away. Even when Harpuia had been possessed by the Baby Elves, he had never seemed so fragile. It felt like if Zero made a single wrong move, if he so much as made a breeze, then the guardian would shatter to pieces.

If only Rock were here instead of him. He'd know what to say, surely. He'd know how to reach out and comfort someone in need.

"I... never learned how to mourn." Necessity meant the Resistance rarely ever had the crystals to spare. Technically it was a bit of a waste. But sacrifice for the sake of a loved one, that much rang true to him. Even if it was small, the gesture was what mattered - one last thing you could try and do for a person who was beyond the realm of any help.

"But I think it was... something you had to do," he said slowly. "For yourself."

Something he needed for himself, huh? Harpuia hated that, to tell the truth. Nothing felt as pathetic as the show he was putting on now. If it was only to soothe his out-of-control tempestuous emotions, then it well and truly was a waste of precious Energen. Was this truly how low Sage Harpuia had sunk, then? Irrational, childish tears in front of someone he had only barely stopped calling an enemy?

"Don't tell Fefnir or Rock of this," he demanded, scrubbing the back of his hand over his eyes like the cold metal could scrape the shame away. He'd never intended to have an audience for this -- thank you, Zero, for tracking him down for the ever-important business of "nothing" -- and the thought of this display reaching anyone else's ears was not a pleasant one.

Not just for the sake of his pride, either, as obstinate as it could be. Harpuia may not have officially been a leader anymore, but the bossiness Leviathan had always teased him about was still there: he felt it his duty to set an example. They all felt the uncertainty of adjusting to their circumstances keenly, and he knew full well the hopes and affection that Rock had already invested into all of them. Even Zero himself had already turned to Harpuia asking where they went from here, back during their tentatively-shared moment under the cherry blossoms.

"...I don't want them to think this is hard for me." Every last one of them was holding out on the hope that a reploid could do well here, after all. This was no time to be diverted by a weakness of character.

Harpuia may have thought his emotions right now to be a weakness, but in truth, Zero almost envied it. Being able to feel so deeply, even if the agony was like nothing else in this world, was like proof of humanity. Accepting that pain was the key to overcoming the past and changing. Zero knew he'd felt such grief before - the likes of which it felt like his whole world was coming undone. But it seemed so far away, buried in a memory he could barely understand, that it might as well have been a different life.

All he had now was a dull and constant ache. An incompleteness that he'd grown used to living with. Zero could only imagine his soul to be a stagnant one, too stiff to be molded into anything other than the soldier he was. If being so emotionally stunted like him was any kind of ideal, then he didn't see the virtue in it.

But that detached stoicism was what he fell back on as he gave Harpuia a stern nod and told him, "I'll do as you ask."

Standing a little straighter, he added, "I won't interrupt you again, if that's what you want." That open invitation couldn't have been valid forever. Should Harpuia wish to be left alone from now on, Zero would respect that wish. Sorry, Rock.

It wasn't too hard to guess where Harpuia sat, as far as that offer went. If he had been sickened at the weakness that came from the Resistance taking pity on him and fixing him up, then the weakness that came from Zero witnessing his composure cracking like this was mortifying. Being alone with his grief would have been infinitely preferable to this. If he wanted comfort, then it was clearly neither something Zero knew how to give nor something Harpuia was anywhere near prepared to accept from him.

He wouldn't necessarily give an answer, however, until he was satisfied. He wasn't any closer to figuring out Zero's ulterior motives, and even in the midst of his messy emotions, Harpuia's mind hadn't ceased working. Blinking away the water blurring his lenses, Harpuia finally lifted his head enough to glance back at Zero.

"Why did you interrupt me in the first place?" Quote-unquote nothing may have been what Zero claimed to have in mind, but Harpuia still wasn't content with that in the least. Rooftops weren't places you just happened to visit on your way somewhere else -- this had been a clear and deliberate choice, not meaningless whim. "I have a right to know what you want with me, Zero."

...All things considered, his reasons felt pretty stupid right now. But Harpuia was a persistent one - he wasn't likely to let it go until he felt satisfied with the answers. Defensively, Zero put his hands on his hips and looked away, grimacing a little at the thought of this mission truly and completely falling to pieces.

"Rock wanted us to..." Be friends? Ugh, the word sounded so banal and frivolous right now. Instead, Zero muttered flatly, "to get along. He suggested I try to spend time with you..."

What a fat lot of good that did. To be honest, Zero had no idea what his efforts would actually accomplish, going in - only that he was obligated to at least try. Nothing had been more or less what he was ready to expect. What he got, however, was something more than nothing but considerably less than any kind of friendship Rock had in mind. The only thing he could claim to his credit was that they hadn't drawn blades and fought yet.

If nothing meant not fighting, then yes; that was all Zero wanted.

It was probably fortunate that the only thing within throwing distance was Phantom's offering, or Harpuia's emotions might get the better of him once again. This was Zero's concept of spending time with him? The embarrassment of being found in such a pitiable state, the blatant intrusion of Zero stepping in on the mourning rites of someone who'd died facing him... they were all some kind of attempt at getting along? It was so far off the mark that Harpuia had to question if maybe Zero was actually spitting in the face of Rock's suggestion on purpose.

"If this is your idea of getting along, I'd prefer that we stay enemies."

Zero, at least, would get the not-fighting he hoped for; there wasn't much chance of Harpuia having his heart in it when he felt this small, and he knew better than to draw a blade on Zero with anything but absolute focus. Besides, if he did so, then he would be the one disappointing Rock -- a fact Zero must have known, if he'd stuck around this whole time. The frustrated tears were welling up anew just thinking about it, which just fed his frustration more -- if nothing else, Harpuia was remarkably good at working himself up.

"If you're looking to impress Rock, find another way to do it. I'm not interested!"

"It wasn't for Rock," Zero stated bluntly, his voice low. There didn't seem to be a point to saying anything else in his own defense. Even if Harpuia was speaking in a fit of passion, it still proved one point: Zero could try to be different, but he would fail. No matter how much their circumstances had changed, there was no overlooking the past after all. He really wasn't fit to adapt to peace.

It was a shame; they all had a second chance at life, but they were bound to the same roles once again. In a way, it almost made things easier. The ever-present ache was still there, but it meant he no longer had to constantly wonder how to temper it. Zero could just focus on doing his job, and nothing else, until the day he could properly die. There was familiarity in that routine. Even if he tried to be more, in the end, the reploid didn't have enough faith in himself to carry it through on his own power alone.

Rock's belief in him would just have to be disappointed. It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Zero turned away and headed for the door. His tone wasn't even particularly angry or regretful, just flat. Devoid of feeling, he deadpanned, "If you prefer things stay as they were, I can comply."

Harpuia pressed the heels of his hands against his stinging eyes, fans whirring as his processors struggled with this. This was not the time. This was really not the time. His reasons for caring whether Zero got along with them were fantastically few in number; frankly, it was Zero's responsibility to teach himself how to belong, not Harpuia's, so what did he care?

"...Wait."

Even if he made the effort, the word was reluctant. What he wanted right now was to just leave it at "great good see you never." Well, no. On Rock's behalf, what he wanted was to settle for "can this maybe wait a little?" But Harpuia had learned well from his time serving humanity. Wallowing in his own suffering was an indulgence. Not part of what a leader should strive to be. Death had not changed the weight of the DNA he sought to live up to, and it hadn't diminished his capability of staving personal desires off when there was a responsibility to fill. It had waited well over a year, and it could wait a little while longer.

Even so, Harpuia's stubborn convictions were still there. It was flatly obvious that he was upset; making a point of trying to be sweet and friendly now would be both patently untrue to himself and unconvincing to Zero. He straightened up, forced himself to his feet, made himself look at Zero. The effect, he was sure, had to be diminished by his wet eyes and humming fans giving away that this was not such an effortless or offhand thing, but Harpuia was nothing if not dedicated to trying to uphold his dignity.

"I'll say it again. What you do is not my problem. But..." He paused, processors straining to work through an answer. "...Since I haven't decided where to leave an offering for Master X, I wonder if you might choose a place for it."

Not for the copy Harpuia had followed, if he was fortunate enough to still live. For the X that Zero may well have wanted to mourn too. It wasn't necessarily a direct acceptance or rejection, as Harpuia didn't have it in him to offer what Zero wanted to hear, but if the political part of his leadership responsibilities had taught him anything, it was that diverting the topic to something he could agree on might serve them both better.

For someone who kept repeating how much he didn't care what Zero did, Harpuia questioned him about his actions an awful lot. His facade of indifference was betrayed by his suspicion of the red reploid. But if he was trying to hide the fact that he might've cared, just a tiny bit, he was still succeeding.

Zero was already at the door by the time Harpuia spoke. The handle stopped mid-turn as he considered the question - but it didn't take long. For him, this answer was an obvious one.

"Just put them together," he said, still deadpan. "Given the choice, isn't that where you'd be in death?"

Together. At their Master's side. Wherever Phantom's soul was, he couldn't be far behind X.

Harpuia's fans quieted down. He had his answer, such as it was.

Whether the answer had been intended to be dismissive and distancing or not, Zero wasn't wrong. He couldn't say for certain if that was what Master X would have hoped for, but without a doubt, if any of them had a choice in the matter, they'd have wanted to follow X.

"...Very well. If you decide to leave an offering too, you'll know where to find it." Harpuia turned away with a dismissive air of finality, ready to be alone once again. "Now scram. I have nothing more to say."

As if he needed Harpuia to tell him that. The door pulled open, and then swung shut behind him, all without a single glance back.

Likewise, Zero just wanted to be alone for a while. He'd certainly made no friends today, and the effort of even trying to reach outside his social comfort zone had him, a habitual loner, feeling drained. Even trying to think about his missteps felt exhausting.

So instead, he devoted the evening to maintenance: cleaning his weapons, oiling his joints, recalibrating his system, all mindless tasks. They emptied out his thoughts in a meditative way. Perhaps it was the act of taking himself apart and putting it back together that made him feel more focused, at ease. Both literally and figuratively, he had to remove anything that kept him from peak efficiency so that next time, he would run smoother. Next time, he would be better.

And even if Zero never managed to be anything more than a weapon, he might as well be a good one. Maybe it wasn't everything that Rock hoped for him, but it was enough to keep him going. All other opinions about him were pushed outside his walls, left to crash like waves against the cliffs - enemy, ally, legend or outdated scrap, monster or hero, it was all the same. Just so much noise.

He'd stay Zero regardless of it all. The curse that hung over his existence, the ever-present sense of emptiness, the sword that fought for others - that was who he was.

It was the dead of night by the time he finished up and let himself recharge. As he fed Croire a few pieces of energen, his mind began to wander back to the offering Harpuia had placed on the roof. They were probably still there, specks of blue in the darkness.

Was it hard for an elf to navigate deep cyberspace? If Zero stayed dead like he should've, how long would it be until he found X again? He could only imagine a soul like X's to shine like polished jewel among stones. Or maybe he was still watching over Zero, ready to greet him when he finally died for good. A bit of an uncharacteristically romantic notion for him to consider. Not to mention Phantom was likely less than endeared to that plan.

Maybe Zero would've felt sadder if he had more memories of X to call on. It was a little strange to consider that the most important person in Zero's life was someone he only had vague recollections of, nothing more than fleeting feelings and ghosts. All he knew was that it felt like a piece of his own soul was missing, without X there. Would... making an offering actually help? It seemed unlikely. Still, what did he have to lose? Other than some crystals, of course.

Zero glanced over at the energen canisters he had left. One of those would be enough, right? Or was it too much? In this case, maybe it was better to overdo it, just in case. Leaving it out somewhere seemed like the only real step, but somehow it felt incomplete. Maybe because it was too... easy. There was no real sense of cost without an energy crisis breathing down his neck. But what else could he offer?

He sat there, staring at the energen in his hands - and after long, long contemplation, the reploid isolated a strand of hair and wound it around his finger. With a hard yank, it came out, and he proceeded to coil the bright filament around the canister. Zero's hair was long enough that by the time it was completely wrapped, it almost looked like a spool of thread - the glow from within made its golden shine dance as though it were alive. Looking at his handiwork, he almost felt a small sense of satisfaction. X... would like it, probably.

It was hard to say if Zero felt particularly healed himself. He couldn't sense much of a difference - or if it was there, it was either too faint to be observed, or feigned. Perhaps pretending was enough, though.

Come dawn, he placed his golden spool on the roof, a few feet away from Harpuia's offerings and under the vast blue sky. Zero didn't linger. Whatever words he could've had for X, he had a feeling that his partner would know them already.

The night, conversely, had been a long and empty one for Harpuia. He had lingered up on the roof until twilight; Phantom had always been at home in the darkness, so it had only seemed right to be there and thinking of him when the light faded.

Dwindling power had eventually forced him back to his quarters to recharge; something he was starting to dread. As a Neo Arcadian, the pressures of handling both his own duties and Master X's had always kept him busy; he'd given up sleep mode entirely in favour of simply plugging in while he handled the stationary tasks. Without anything to occupy his hands or mind, however, the charger cord now felt more like a short leash, and nights that used to run by so quickly now seemed to stretch on endlessly.

His thoughts, predictably, lingered on the crystals he had left out. Second-guessing whether he should leave some for Leviathan or not -- maybe she'd like it better somewhere near water instead of a dusty rooftop, but then again, he could only imagine that their Cyber-Elves would stay together just like they all had in life. Worrying that someone might not realize their purpose and take them -- even Zero hadn't known what they were for, and he was actually a reploid from their era. Wondering if he'd done enough. It wasn't uncommon to leave behind sentimental trinkets: a child reploid's beloved stuffed toy, a favourite weapon, a bit of jewelry. Barring those, letters and data disks were often left, too... Harpuia had nothing to leave out, but he could always write.

...Couldn't he? He'd tried to use up some of those endless night hours putting his feelings to paper, but the task proved difficult. In Phantom's case, silence had felt like the right thing to share, but Master X...? He... hadn't been given orders by Master X's Cyber-Elf the way the other Guardians had. He didn't know what sorts of things X had thought of them as they'd fought their way to their deaths. What, then, should he say to X? Could apologies possibly have any meaning if he'd offered them here, when he was already convinced he was beyond reaching? Did he have the right to leave anything at all?

In the end, he was empty-handed, but his restlessness got the better of him. The moment he was done charging, he left. It was still early, but a bit of flight ought to clear his head. Fefnir would want to know about these, too, in case if he wanted to leave something as well. But first... a visit to the roof.

It shouldn't have been surprising that Harpuia didn't limit himself to notions like taking the stairs. That vast blue sky was interrupted by a bit of green -- one that was surprised to see Zero had beat him to the roof. Harpuia hovered a fair distance away, not wanting to interrupt while Zero laid down his gift, but once it was clear that he didn't intend to stay, Harpuia landed, letting the less-than-subtle sound of metal thumping down announce his presence clearly.

"Am I interrupting?"

Zero paused midstep, his entire body instinctively tensed for battle. That voice had returned to its characteristic haughtiness. Self-assured, distinctively feminine in a way that was both soft and steely at the same time - unmistakably Harpuia.

Now the question was, if he had been watching from the sky this whole time, why land now? He certainly didn't want anything more to do with the other reploid yesterday, and Zero couldn't imagine that attitude changing between then and the next morning. But clearly there was something the guardian needed, if he went out of his way to catch him so quickly.

As for Zero himself, he wasn't fond of the idea of repeating yesterday's scenario so soon. If he learned nothing else, he knew that sooner he could remove himself, the better.

Not bothering to turn around, the blond simply stated, "I was just leaving."

"Get on with it, then," Harpuia answered, turning his back on Zero to instead focus on the crystals. The ones he left were still unmoved and undamaged, he was relieved to see, but the one Zero had left a short distance away caught his eye.

Given Zero's apparent ignorance about the mourning process, Harpuia hadn't expected him to take to it so soon. Nor had he figured the offering would look like this. It was a little hard to tell, enveloped as it was, but it looked like a standard Energen canister... but wrapped in some kind of wire? ...Thread?

Harpuia stepped a little closer, feeling like he ought to maintain a respectful distance toward something meant to mourn but curious about the sight. For someone who claimed not to know anything about this, Zero had apparently already grasped the altogether sentimental idea of personalizing what he gave, but...

"...What is that?"

Zero gave a grunt of frustration as he began to leave, only to be addressed again. Seriously? He turned to look at what Harpuia could've possibly been confused about, and his frown only deepened. Was he going to find out that he did this offering thing wrong, too?

Tch. It was just an experiment, anyway. The gesture only meant as much as Zero would let it, and that held true for his failures, too.

Bristling, the blond's fingers stiffened and he grumbled back, "Aren't you supposed to be the observant one?" Gosh, what kind of golden strands could Zero possibly possess an abundance of?

Ah, his turn to be defensive and avoid the question. Wasn't fun to have to explain it to a third party, Zero, was it?

All things considered, no, there weren't a lot of things it could have been that bound his offering, aside from the obvious candidate. It was just a surprising gesture -- not only that Zero would have picked something so deeply personal, but that his hair could even be pulled out (or cut?) that easily at all. Reploid hair didn't grow back, after all, and in all the battles they'd had, Harpuia had certainly never wound up severing it or dragging a few handfuls out -- a bit of an accomplishment, considering how much of his arsenal revolved around cutting or grabbing.

...Still, a very poetic gesture, leaving a part of himself tied to his offering to X. Not the sort of idea Harpuia'd expected from an apparent weapon who believed he had never learned how to mourn, that was for sure. "You're more sentimental than you let on, aren't you?"

Zero furrowed his brows, confused whether to take that as a compliment or an insult. Sentiment seemed to be the entire point of this exercise, but on the other hand, as a soldier the word carried the implication of softness, weakness. There was no room for sentimentalism during war - a man who had such distractions on the battlefield was as good as dead. Plus, it meant having a soft heart...

Was Harpuia trying to get at something, calling him this? From Zero's perspective, it was a word he'd never had cause to describe himself with. There was nothing in his barren room, on his person, or his purely practical day to day life that might've been defined as sentimental. Maybe he'd just never given much thought to the idea at all.

Even if this was an outsider's observation, Zero simply didn't see it in himself. Though it wouldn't be the first, or the last time he was unable to see himself as others did.

"X was the sentimental one," he said, brushing off the idea. "I just thought he'd like it."

Easy enough to deflect anything that didn't fit with his identity as an instrument of war, wasn't it? Not that it particularly mattered to Harpuia how Zero saw it, either way, but it was funny the way Zero perceived himself seemed to be at odds with his actions.

"Maybe he will, maybe he won't," Harpuia answered dismissively, still inclined to be stand-offish. "There's no right or wrong way to do it, really..." Not like reploidkind had the centuries of tradition that humans did for dealing with their dead. Reploid reality was much more pragmatic -- scrapyards, parts ripped away to be repurposed or resold, broken bits melted down to manufacture weapons or road signs or any number of grimly unromantic things.

"I just find it interesting, that you found something so valuable to give." Not quite as haughty as his previous remark, but for all his frustrating traits, dishonesty was not one of them. "Attribute it to Master X if you like, but you've expressed yourself very well for someone who says he never learned."

Edited 2015-05-16 20:40 (UTC)

"I never had trouble expressing myself to X," Zero told him quietly. His eyes grew distant as he looked away, reflecting on their brief interactions. Maybe it was the fact that X was an elf, a pure soul, that Zero felt like he could understand everything going through his mind. Not quite like what he'd sensed from the Mother Elf, a being a soul that was born of his. It was different, more like... completeness. And he had a feeling - and it was just that, an inexplicable feeling - that the strength of bond wasn't all that different in life, either.

But not having concrete memories to back up these feelings was beginning to make Zero feel lost, now that his cause for fighting had been diminished. It was the rest of the world that confused and alienated him. And it seemed to have just as much trouble understanding Zero as he did assimilating to it.

The few memories he managed to glean back didn't bring him an ounce of joy, but he still longed for more. Thinking out loud, he added, "At least, it feels that way... I still don't remember."

This was more of the subject matter that was far out of Harpuia's sphere -- what could he possibly claim to understand about a centuries-long bond with a master he certainly hadn't had much time at all with? Harpuia, built as he was to be sharp-minded and keen, couldn't say he knew at all what it felt like to miss something that was mostly forgotten.

Whether remembered or not, absence didn't diminish what they had been to each other. A connection like that was not so easily severed -- nor, Harpuia believed, could a heart incapable of anything but war have made such an unbreakable bond. But it was just that: a belief, an assumption about things he most certainly had no part in.

Yet another situation where he wasn't sure he could be what Zero needed, and yet another situation where he was forced to question why being what Zero needed was a thing he was considering at all. None of his business. Not his problem.

Lacking the words, then, he chose silence: he returned to the edge of the roof, to the view that he'd chosen for his... family? For their sake. Endless sky, verdant forest, people peacefully going about their lives.

"I'd like to remain here a little longer," he decided, falling back on echoing his sentiments under the cherry blossoms. Grief of this nature was too personal for Harpuia to want to butt into it any more than he'd appreciated Zero asking about his -- being alone still felt far preferable. But all the same... Master X, perhaps, would like it if Zero lingered with him a while. "Whether you stay or go makes no difference to me."

Another open invitation - but this time, Zero had already closed himself off to the idea that there was anything either of them wanted to share with each other in this kind of situation. He was sure that Harpuia didn't long for him to stay any more than he did yesterday - and certainly not for the sake of having his company, either. Why the prospect of Zero staying had become a thing of indifference rather than offense, however, he didn't understand. It's not like Harpuia got anything from him being there, and the guardian had already stated there was nothing he wanted, either. So as it was, the blond had no real wish to keep testing that boundary right now.

He already did his part, tried it out, and was ready to be done with it. Whatever good this endeavour was supposed to do for him, Zero could hardly tell what effect it had. Like throwing a pebble into the sea to try and build an island. He hadn't planned to stay and dwell on the past anyway - he barely remembered enough to fill the time.

Without much hesitation, Zero turned away and continued his walk towards the door. "Then I won't disturb you."

The answer was a relief, truth be told. Whether this tentative reaching out was on behalf of Rock's apparent wishes they spend time together or something else he hadn't cared to examine too hard, it was welcome to not have to deal with it. If Zero had no urge to put in more than a single halfhearted try at it, then Harpuia didn't see much reason to take whatever goal Zero'd been hoping to accomplish onto his own shoulders -- he certainly didn't owe Zero too many tries of his own, nor had he been the one Rock had made any requests of.

He didn't bother with a goodbye; haughty as he was, the moment Zero decided to go, his presence was altogether dismissed from Harpuia's mind. He fully intended to make the most of the peace and quiet solitude would afford him; the chance to be mercifully alone let him focus his thoughts, for once, on uncomplicated things, without the intrusions of having to be what anyone else was hoping him to be.

So long, Zero, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

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