#we may hear more of their story in this magitech world later

[og-peach]

Apparently when I’m sleep deprived I write horror stories. Please enjoy the fruits of my suffering.

It’s too damn cold. The alley is dark, filthy, freezing, and—was that a rat or a cat?! Or was it a cat-sized rat?! I shudder. Gaud, I don’t want to be here.

I freeze, feeling eyes boring at me from beyond the void, assessing me, judging me. I don’t look, barely breathe, and pray the pink eldritch creature moves on.

Seconds turn to minutes, minutes turn to hours, time flowing like molasses under Their fathomless stare.

I’m getting lightheaded, I need to breathe! Breathe damn it! Why won’t my lungs work?!

Finally, finally, Gaud looks away, and I slump against the alley wall behind me, gasping for breath. This is crazy, I should just go before I draw Their attention again! I should just—

No, no. It’ll all be worth it, soon enough. I just need to be patient.

Where the fuck is he?

I check my watch, see he’s ten minutes late. Did something happen? Was he caught? Am I next?

No, no I’d have already been taken by now if he had. Just be patient. This is worth it. Breathe.

Crunching from my left startled me, and I whip around to see my contact trudging through the dirty snow from the other end of the allyway. I can’t see his face very well, the shadows are too dark for that, but his triumph is obvious in his body language.

“You’re late.”

“Yeah yeah. You trying breaking into G—“ he cuts off, looking around nervously. I shudder at the close call. That would have been bad. We can’t afford their attention again, not now. “Th-their place and not take a damn millennia. Do you know what I had to go through?” I open my mouth to answer, but he steamrolls right over me. “Hell! That’s what I had to go through! Literal hell, and a couple of crazy ass pocket dimensions all connected to each other! And that’s just to get to the damn front door! Never again, I tell you! Never again!”

“Well did you get it?!”

“Did I—? Did you not hear what just I said?!”

“Of course I heard you, but if you got it, neither of us will have to go back.”

He huffs and grumbles, before finally nodding with a reluctant sigh. “Yeah, I got it.” He starts to reach into his backpack before pausing again. What the fuck now? “You do realize...once They’ve realized what we’ve done, that we took it, we’re both taking a one-way trip there, right? And we’re not gonna be coming back? At least, not as we are.”

“I know the risks,” I hiss. “You told me them repeatedly before we started, I don’t need you telling me again now when it’s far too late! Now give me the stupid thing already! Before we’re caught!”

He hesitates another moment, before finally pulling a package from his bag. It is deceptively small and unassuming, all brown and black patterned paper and string cord wrapped around an object the size of book. I snatch it from him, shoving it in my own bag as I turn away.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me,” he scoffs. “We’ll both be suffering by the time this is over.”

“I know. But it’s worth it.”

“Yeah...for what it’s worth? It’s been an honor to know and work with you.”

My breath hitches. “Same.”

“Go. I’ll act as a distraction.”

I shudder. That was an awful role to play, but then, so is mine. The nessesary tasks are always the cruelest. “Goodbye.”

Without another word we both take off into the snow, he to his death, me to the shadows.

I scurry between alleys and back ways, avoiding the busier streets full of watchful eyes and cultists that would soon be on the lookout for me.

I used to be one of those sheep once, just another part of the mindless flock. Then I got rescued, deprogrammed. Joined the resistance.

Never again. And soon, they’ll be free too.

I make it back to my current safe house without incident, though how safe it is at the moment is up in the air. It‘s just a shitty one-room appartment, barely more than a studio, but it works for keeping my head down.

Quickly putting the place on lockdown against human interference, I settle into the living room to prepare the magical defenses for the supernatural ones. Wards, talismans, barriers, all preprepared in advance and put up in minutes. Next come the containment magics, to keep what happens inside from being noticed from anyone outside; and to keep anything inside from escaping. Finally comes the special spells, the blackest of magic, intended only for punishing the worst of offenders.

Once done, the appartment is fully cut off from the world; it’s own sealed pocket dimension, completely untethered from the rest of reality. No way in or out. I am sealed inside, trapped forever in this shitty apartment. Assuming I survive this, I’ll still end up dying in here. Whether from running out of food or from the pipes being cut off from water, this place will be my grave.

But it is necessary. I can’t do my task if I can still be found, after all. And the one I am running from is too powerful to take any chances.

Finally, with all my preparations complete, I take the package out of my backpack again. It feels too heavy in my hand for such a small thing, and I am quick to place it on the table.

A closer look reveals that the black and brown pattern on the paper is actually a mess of notice-me-not seals and anti-scrying spells, and the string it’s tied together with is covered with similar lines. I carefully unwrap it, needing to know exactly what it is I’m working with here. Inside the package is a silk bag, the fabric woven with containment charms and spells. I pull open it’s drawstring to find another magicked silk bag and an iron box, similar containment magics hammered and shaped right into the metal. It’s sealed with a thick iron padlock, the key to which is in the other silk bag. I quickly unlock the iron box to find a small wooden box inside.

“It’s like a damn matryoshka doll.” I mutter, only to freeze when I actually look at the tiny wooden box. The wood is warped, the grain twisted to form nonsense phrases in an unnatural pink tint. Holding my hand over it, the box feels burning hot, like the wood should have caught fire long ago.

Swallowing thickly, I brace myself before flipping open it’s simple latch. The box springs open on its own, revealing my hard-won prize. The thing I and others would be dying for.

The laugh that bursts out of me is half shock, half disbelief. Inside, looking innocuous and inconspicuous, is a simple pink stick drive. The prior heat is long gone, like opening the box released it, leaving its contents seeming perfectly normal. Like it isn’t something worth dying over.

“So this contains the source of G—Their— power, huh? Can’t believe he was able to fit the thing in a usb drive. Can’t believe it held.” I take the stick drive out and move the containers to the floor so I can have some space on the table in front of me. Something like this..hmm. “How to destroy you? I can’t just leave you here with me, even if this place is cut off from reality, and thus from Them, there’s no reason I should take any chances...” I study the stick drive, weighing it in my palm as I consider my options. “An enchanted hammer would work best for smashing, but that might set the power free...An atomizing spell would do the same...”

I absently reach over and grab a peach from my fruit bowl, munching on it as I think over my problem. My fingers rub the drive absently as I think, and I don’t notice when the tiny piece of tech starts pulsing with power. It isn’t until I’ve thrown the pit away and closed my eyes in concentration that I register the power coursing through me. I shiver at the feel of it, luxuriating in how strong it is. Yes, this would certainly be enough to destroy the drive and it’s prisoner. But what—?

A jolt of panic runs through me at the realization that I don’t recognize this power, and my eyes snap open. It takes me a minute to focus, suddenly feeling disoriented, but I pale when I do. My laptop is set up on the table in front of me—when did I even get it out? It had been turned off and lying on the couch—and my hand is millimeters away from inserting the stick drive.

I jerk it back with a gasp, nearly flinging the usb across the room in my panic. “No no no no no! What was I—?!” I quickly drop the usb on the table, staring at it in horror. “I need to destroy that! Now!”

I go to grab my bag, still not sure what tool I’ll be using but needing to do something, when my hand is stopped cold by a sudden grip on my wrist.

“You know, I very much believe in being kind and patient with people until they cross you one too many times, and then letting neither mercy nor pity taint your vindictive wrath.”

My blood runs cold and I choke. “G-gaud.” My eyes are stuck on the pink digits holding my hand in a bruising grip, and I’m too stunned to fight as my hand is forced to the arm of my chair, my other wrist and shoulders pinned to the chair by similarly pink hands.

“You—but—this place is—“ This isn’t possible, this can’t be possible!

“Cut off from the rest of reality? I know. Welcome to the land of dead gods and forgotten nightmares.” I’m too much of a coward to look over my shoulder, to look Them in the eye, but I start to struggle to get away. Where I’d go in this one-room world I don’t know, but I have to at least try. “Now then, the die has been cast, and the consequences are yours to reap. You should have taken care, mortal.” A fifth pink hand slides past and grabs the stick drive from the table.

No. No!

I struggle even harder, but it’s no use. Their hands are like steel bands, holding me in place effortlessly as They plug in the drive. Immediately, a music player I know I don’t have pops up, a black play button on a sickly pink background that takes up up the rest of the screen. The hand that inserted the stick drive clicks play, and a horrible sound comes out.

With the sound comes a further warping of reality, the walls bleeding pink ooze that quickly spreads and flows until it’s dripping from the ceiling and furniture too, dyeing everything inside that same sickly pink. Even the fruit bowl and it’s contents are dyed an awful pink, peaches turned an unnatural shade.

I try to keep fighting, but the awful audio just plays on loop again and again, draining my strength with every note. Soon I’m slumped in my chair, Gaud’s hands the only thing keeping me from sliding off and to the floor. My chin lolls against my chest, and I can do nothing but shudder and whine pitifully when I feel a hand running soothingly through my hair. “Shh. You’re doing well.”

“Please,” I whimper, and can’t even fight it when the pink ooze starts crawling up my skin. “Please.”

But Gaud just leans in to my ear and starts singing along with their source of power.

Never gonna give you up

Never gonna let you down

Never gonna run around and desert you

@biggest-gaudiest-patronuses

Thank you @biggest-gaudiest-fish for beta-reading this for me.

#gaudy fanfiction #gaudy fanfic #i did a thing #this was not at all what i set out to write #id meant to write a thing looking like a cliche drug deal like ‘psst ya got the goods’ and then itd turn out i bought be a rickroll #but it turned into a horror story #my muse hijacked my train of though; jumped the tracks; and turned it into a gauddamn rollercoaster #gaud why #what even is this modern magitech world i made? #why is there snow? i dunno i just wanted dramatic sounds so i went ‘snow’ #there are three gaud quotes hidden in here. shoutout if you can spot them all #cw: gaud #cw: angry gaud #i couldnt sleep last night so i wrote this #gaud im tired #sleeeeeeeeeep #i want to sleeeeeeeeeeeep #who are our mysterious fallen heroes? #one is based on a certain shitpost blog #we may hear more of their story in this magitech world later #the other could be anyone. it could be YOU! #you are more than welcome to declare the other one as you if you want #i dunno why you would. im just putting that out there

[kronecker-delta]

Various Scenes from Nier: Automata/Persona (and Nier too) crossover idea.

This isn’t an entirely cohesive story sadly, more a series of scenes I came up with a couple months ago. Read below for fanfic intermixed with general story ideas. This set is mostly dealing with Mitsuru Kirijo (with some Aigis too)

Being a Nier crossover there’s some death and people doing bad things for what they think are good reasons. So basically little bits of drama and not scattered fluff below.

1. Rough Imprinting Scene

Note: This is the earliest (within the chronology of the plot anyway) scene so I put it first. For a couple reasons I thought it would be interesting to write about Mitsuru, even far into the future of the Nier timeline. There were a couple ways to do that, but I went with one that would allow for certain interesting character interactions/revelations far later. Namely that Mitsuru used the native magitech of her own company to get around the WCS by imprinting her consciousness/soul into an android body.

--->

The moment she felt the draw upon her soul every instinct cried out for her to call Artemisia back. Even as she now was, older, flesh tainted by that abomination's filth, she knew the touch of true death like a lover's caress. Her evoker may as well have been a real firearm for what she was doing. And she knew it. The fear became nearly paralyzing.

But she held on, holding her focus on the glowing, brilliantly incandescent crystalline structure before her. Till a spike of pain shot through her nerves and her vision swam with spots of red and black. She fell forward.

And plunged into that light.

It burned away sight.

It burned away touch.

It burned away mass and motion and everything.

She was thoughts captured in blue amber, the concept of herself in a dimming cage of which she could not conceive of an exit. Her memories, her mind, her soul... all of it was there. But there was nothing within her new home.

She relearned fear first. Trapped in the abyss. And with that came the first response. A Papillon Heart was after all transcendental computation system. To be within it she would become it. Her memories carved lines and new structures, painting recollected sensations. But still there was no outside sensation. Only a numbing limbo.

They had feared this possibility. That she would not, could not adapt to it. That Aigis would one day have to simply destroy her self-made prison to set her soul free.

The thought that she would be forced to do that brought her focus away from the tracing of her mind into the circuits. She had to find away out. She had to reach out and feel the wires that had replaced nerves, the cables that wound around metal bones, the more mundane computer systems that would let her see and hear. She threw herself into the change. Feeling the connections that led out eventually and following them.

Into alien systems. Things her human mind could only have understood from the outside.

But she was within the Papillon Heart now, and the plasticity of it let her change and move parts about. Shift and redraw the connections. Till she understood what it was like to be what she had become. To feel the sensitive wires that led from her memory circuits into the core of her being, that would let new experiences, and new sights become part of her.

Her sense of time was still gone. But eventually she located the internal chronometer.

2032, August 24.

It had been three months. It had felt like mere minutes. How long had it taken for her to move even to this first step outside of the core? How long had Aigis been standing vigil over her silent body. By now the salt that had been her original flesh would long have been taken away for storage and eventually disposal. Hopefully after the contaminants had been removed for later expulsion from their world.

The nature of how she would move escaped her, something that had been so simple as a child seemed to have been forgotten in her change. So instead she didn't bother for the moment. Simply focusing all her intent on finding the path that would let her open her eyes.

Two days later she managed that much. She found the world looked so different. The colors slightly off, the details sharper. Of course it was far too bright at first. It took her an hour before she realized that she should adjust the parameters of her vision to her liking.

And even though she didn't show it on her face she felt radiant when she saw Aigis smiling down at her.

--->

Post Note: In truth I now feel the time taken for Mitsuru to re-awake should be on the order of centuries to better fit with the story. Later snippets go in that direction.

Part of this is to work with the change in Aigis own character over those intervening years in solitude.

2. Visiting the Replicant Village

Note: This continues from (the updated ideas) of the previous snippet. Along with Aigis own hypothetical character arc. Namely that she would be the Devil arcana of the social links and her regret and eventual redemption would be of major importance moving forward.

(The long years of solitude with her friends either dead or hibernating as the world ended didn’t treat her well.)

--->

3325, January 11 It took a day to reach the city. Not that she could tell without checking her internal clock. The sun never set and night never came. The strange unreality of this future felt stranger and more unfamiliar to her than anything else that had happened. Even her own new body, a mere simulacrum of the flesh of her birth, was not as strange as the world around her. She had escaped the fate of the human race by escaping humanity itself. Yet despite that Mitsuru felt like she'd changed less than anything else. Or anyone else. "We're arriving soon. Don't mention anything about Project Gestalt or our own nature to the Replicants. They're already getting hard to control effectively." Aigis's words were an understatement. The town before them had armed guards patrolling the entrance, simple swords and spears, but more than enough to cause problems. They'd already heard reports of Gestalts that had headed directly to their Replicant doubles, attempted re-unification, and been cut down by the panicked clones when it failed. Now guards were standing watch to prevent the invasion of more 'shades.' And the problems were getting worse. There were millions of Gestalts awakening, more and more everyday. The emotional distress of their persistent separation from their own flesh was reacting with the maso in their bodies. Gestalts had started to become... unstable. They needed to move forward more quickly. Locate the first grimoires and make sure they had a supply of maso from the Original. Before they ran out of time. Or the Replicants made their job even harder. There's not enough of us to enforce order. Not enough androids. Mitsuru wondered if not recoiling from that thought meant her soul imprinting project had been even more flawed than originally anticipated. A millennia of torpor was quite the oversight after all. But unlike the Gestalts there was nothing temporary about her new body. She felt no dysphoric reaction, no sense of wrongness. She didn't wake in a cold sweat, or what should have been cold sweat, terrified of her own body. There were no persistent phantom limb sensations, or sensory errors. Despite the fact that she would likely exist as she now was till time or tragedy ended her, she had not a sign of the struggles that plagued her fellow humans. I wonder if they'll still consider me one when they're back in their bodies again. Her transformation had been one way, and there would be no pretending to be human like Aigis had so long ago. All the awakening Gestalts that had the good fortune to find the androids first knew who and what they were. Even after they world was made whole, her life would be very different. "Hey Miss! Are you related to Devola and Popola? Like a cousin or something? Cause you both got really pretty hair." A young boy had ran up and asked Mitsuru, egged on by a group of children behind him. She froze. Shocked by how human the supposedly soulless vessels seemed in that moment. Her stuttered response coming after a long, awkward pause. "N-no. I mean sort of. You could say we're related in some sense... technically." All androids bare some relation to the Kirijo Groups original work. And I did both hand over that data to the Hamelin Organization and spearhead further developments as part of the imprinting experiment. Even back then she'd realized that her new body would have to be closer to human than what Aigis had had if she wanted to adapt to it. Perhaps if she'd had the various minor and major improvements that now existed back then it wouldn't have taken so long. That Aigis had shared a bottle of wine with her when she'd come out of her intensive inspection and long overdue maintenance had been shocking enough. Getting drunk off it and spending the evening reminiscing about the good old days, back when all her friends had been alive, exuberant after stopping Nyx. Before they'd remembered what the price had been for that victory. "Come on now," Aigis said, grabbing hold of Mitsuru and dragging her a way from the child. "We can't waste time talking to them." Mitsuru noticed the tone Aigis used to refer to the now conscious Replicants, and leaned in closer to harshly whisper, "He's only a child Aigis." "No, he's just a body waiting for that child. The Replicants are produced as clones of who will inhabit them. Right down to their ages." She gestured to the other young among the crowd. "Children held out against the disease quite well after all. There are a lot of them waiting out there. Desperate and longing to live again. We can't allow them to die like that." She didn't argue the point. But looking back, seeing the group resuming some newly invented game she dreaded the conflict before her. There were Gestalts that needed those bodies. And all around her were Replicants that would likely stand before them to their dying breaths. The difficulties in forcing unification even in laboratory conditions now that the Replicants had consciousnesses proved that they were going to have to move forward to a more severe solution. "Director, I wasn't expecting you," Devola said. Picking up her lute she stood quickly and bowed as they approached. Though her eyes flicked back and forth between Aigis and Mitsuru. An unspoken question hanging in the air. "This is Mitsuru Kirijo. She's working with us." Aigis didn't ask for Devola to follow them, she simply started walking towards another building in the village. Where the other twin would be present. Mitsuru stepped back and opened her mouth. Closing it again as she realized she didn't know what to say. She'd barely spoken to anyone other than the Gestalts or Aigis herself. This android... she'd been activated after Mitsuru's long slumber had begun. Devola took the initiative instead. "It's a pleasure to meet you Mitsuru. Though I'm surprised by your name. I wouldn't have thought... well no matter." Popola rose to greet them as well. Hurrying forward to close the door and lock it after they entered the library. Motioning to a pair of chairs as she seated herself and her sister came to stand behind her. "So, what can we do for you Director Aigis?" "I want to know what you're doing to counteract the Replicant problem. I saw armed guards when we entered. That should not be happening." "You can't very well expect them not to defend themselves," Devola said. Immediately wilting under the glare she received. "I-I mean it's just human nature after all! They're scared of the 'shades' as they call them coming to take their bodies." "I don't care if they're scared. Those aren't their bodies in the first place." "Their fear... their emotional distress," said Popola, holding her sister's hand to calm her, "it makes attempted re-unification even harder. More likely for... problems to develop." "What about the alternative then? Have you or the Original located the first Grimoire Noire yet?" "No. The number of copies makes it difficult. But the Original has some connection from the pact he created. They will be brought together when the time is right." Aigis shot up, her hands slamming down on the desk, the wood cracking under the pressure. Her voice low despite the outburst. "When the time is right? When precisely do you expect that to be? When all the humans have been driven mad? When they're all dead? Waiting till the last minute should not be considered an acceptable solution to this problem." "I'm sure they're doing the best they can Aigis," Mitsuru said. Hesitating for a moment before turning to Devola and Popola. "What if we tried to manage their fear? Explain to them what's going on? Maybe we... could achieve some sort of synthesis?" They never got the chance to respond. Aigis turned to look at Mitsuru, the twins relaxing now that her fury was focused elsewhere. "Synthesis? Do you have any idea what you're proposing Mitsuru? What you're asking them to do? Do you know what the Replicant of Yukari was last time? A mild serving girl that spent all her time letting people push her around. The time before that she cut her hair and spent all her time butchering fish. And before that she almost got ran out of town for sleeping around! These... deviant consciousnesses are highly divergent from those of the original human's in many cases. I cannot and will not ask them to compromise their identities and sense of self just because we weren't able to foresee this possibility." "But what if-" "What if it was you? What if you hadn't become an android?" Aigis said, not noticing in her anger how Devola and Popola reacted. "What if it was you waiting for your body to be returned to you? What if the impostor wearing your flesh was as simple as her hating the taste of your favorite food or as awful as her being a vile woman that spread hateful rumors about her neighbors? What if she lacked your will, your drive, and you became less of who you are now? Would you dilute your own soul with... this corruption?!" Neither of them spoke again. Aigis realizing how she had erupted but not willing to apologize, not over this. And Mitsuru struck by how little she knew the woman that Aigis had become after all these years. "It might not work anyway," Devola said at last. "Synthesis is only a theoretical possibility. The soul in question would have to be amazingly empathetic to their Replicant consciousness and we would then have to use them as a template for such a process, and even than with the time table given we would have to acquire both Grimoires and modify them for the new result." "That and the Original would never agree. And... forcing the issue with him might not be an option," Popola finished for her twin. "Such an alteration of the Project Gestalt plan is beyond our authorized authority." Aigis let out a bitter laugh. "Even after all these years you two still haven't developed proper egos yet? Or do you simply refuse to acknowledge them? Regardless, we aren't changing the plan to follow a fool's hope this late. We can't afford such a risk." What are we risking by not doing it Aigis, Mitsuru thought. Thinking about those children in the street. And the children that were also waiting for those bodies too. Did one of them have to die for the other? But can I really ask them... ask Yukari and the others to settle for that? Sharing their bodies, sharing their very souls? She hadn't had to. She'd simply been reborn into a body electric, a form only superficially human. And while she was different now she remained herself. And it had been a risk she had knowingly taken. The millions of Gestalts had not done so. They expected to return to their own bodies and theirs alone. Many of them wouldn't settle for less either. 

--->

Post Note: The other major point is that the conflict between Aigis and Mitsuru over how to deal with the Replicants would be the seed that lead to a breakdown in their relationship and millennia without speaking.

One idea suggested was that Yukari survived as a Gestalt and played peacemaker between them. Up till she relapsed and ended up being killed before she could go on a rampage. With Aigis and Mitsuru blaming themselves for her death.

3. Unexpected Reunion (Nier: Automata timespan)

Note: And this is set during Nier: Automata finally, but within the context that android persona users have started to appear. Probably midway through whatever plot might be?

--->

Her troops lined up along the hanger. A ostentatious presentation perhaps, but one that she took some measure of pride in. Though they did not know that these 'inspectors' were the so-called Council of Humanity it still served to show professionalism if one appeared in person. It wasn't everyone of course, even with the downturn in deployments that recent events had triggered the command center itself still needed to be staffed. But nearly three dozen YoRHa troops stood along the sides as the shuttle pulled in. Landing in the spot prepared for it now that all the HO-229 flight units had been moved out of the way.

She stood before the opening door. Ready to greet the inspector when the disembarked, her mind going over what particulars she could emphasize to show their progress and efficiency.

And all of that falling away when she saw who stepped down.

***

White had put this off as long as possible. She'd tried to remain in the presence of the YoRHa staff, letting the Operators talk at great and unnecessary length about previous deployments, and had changed her request to have the most easily excitable Scanner unit explain new modifications they had begun to implement. All of it had failed in the end, and she had been asked to meet privately.

Repeatedly.

Eventually she had relented. Stepping into her private quarters, actually taking some pride in the mess. It was so unlike her inspector's tendencies that she was certain they found it irritating. She kicked a spare boot to the side and turned to face them. "So Kirijo, what is it you wanted to speak about?"

She frowned, looking closely at White and probably seeing her as she had been. How they had been before she'd learned the truth. Back when White had allowed herself to unknowingly be the recipient of their misplaced maternal instincts.

"White I..." she started to say. Noticing how White stiffened at the name she continued, more formally. Speaking now with the distance that stood between them. "Commander, there has been some changes with the Council recently. Nanjo is dead."

"I see then," White spoke slowly. The death of a councilor was no small matter after all. "We are prepared to take the aggressors down if necessary. Machine or android rebels."

She shook her head, her long red hair partially covering her left eye before she brushed it back. "That won't be necessary. It wasn't machine lifeforms or rebels. Nanjo had been experimenting with the reappearing shadows, attempting to merge them with androids. His... work got away from him and he was killed during an investigation by the android persona users."

2B and 9S? But...

"Why wasn't I informed of this? If YoRHa androids got involved with the council they-"

"Might encounter classified information? They did," Mitsuru said, her expression grim. "More than was expected even. The Nanjo networks contained info on the shadow experiments that they had been performing... and other, older data files. Material that had been classified above general council access even. I wasn't even aware of it."

"But you're-" White started, cutting herself off. The old argument threatened to break out again. The furious disagreement of five hundred years ago that had seen her leave the Kirijo Group to strike out on her own. Rising by her own merits to the post she now held. Instead she swallowed her anger, and asked, "What could be classified above even the council?"

"This... the secret behind YoRHa. Something far too sensitive to be transmitted through any communications channel." She handed over a secured data pad. Saying at last, "I... I'm sorry I didn't find out earlier."

White scanned it... stopping when she realized just what she was reading. She looked up again at Mitsuru, and quickly tore her gaze away. She couldn't stand to see what was there.

Pity.

Instead she read the report. Once and then again. Her hand trembling at the third time as the enormity of it all began to truly sink in. That her- their sacrifices, that all the terrible decisions she had made would never and could never have created the future she desired. A world free from the machines. What form that world might have taken White had studiously avoided thinking about. Whether it be quiet mourning and remembrance for humanity lost... or the civilization rebuilt from the rubble. Cities instead of disparate settlements, a society beyond the scattered war industries that maintained their armies. Honoring their creators by recreating what had been as best they could.

What Mitsuru had claimed should be their goal. What she had said humans would have wanted. What she would have wanted even if she had still been human.

But none of that mattered. None of that had ever mattered. Her war, her battles, all of it.

Meaningless.

She dropped the data pad. Collapsing onto her bed, staring down. Looking at her hands. Thinking of how dark they should be for all the useless blood she had spilled to fight a war she couldn't even win.

When Mitsuru sat beside her and pulled her into an embrace she didn't have the pride left to fight off. If indulging in whatever leftover instincts had transferred into Mitsuru's body when she abandoned her humanity would sooth the pain she felt now, White would do so gladly.

"This happened to me once."

White looked up, eyes wet from silent sobs. Mitsuru took note of her attention and continued speaking.

"A long time ago. Back when I was human. My friends and I... we, all of us, we fought to stop the end of the world. Or so we thought. I'd known that my family had had a part in bringing it about, but I'd had no idea that the man that was advising us had been quietly plotting our deaths the entire time." Mitsuru was looking through the window now. Down to the world of her... 'births.' The first of blood and flesh like all her race. And the second a painful, if necessary, repudiation of the first. "In the end my father died to save us, to save me."

"That must have hurt," White said, quietly. "To be left all alone like that."

"No," she shook her head, saying, "I wasn't alone. It was painful. More... more than I can describe. But I had my friends. I knew then that the world was counting on me. White... you're not alone, you don't have to suffer this burden in silence."

--->

Post Note:

So... I kept getting hit by how I saw some similarities between White and Mitsuru when I was thinking over Persona/Nier crossover material. Now there are multiple ways to pull off some sort of meeting/conversation. Time travel/dimension travel/artificial life or conjured memory. I decided to play with the idea of a method turning a persona using human into an android that I brought up in a previous snippet as the means to set this scenario up.

Within the context of this crossover White was being groomed to take a leadership role in various parts of android society that the Kirijo group managed. Mostly android manufacture, repair, and such. But because her personality lead to her being mentored more closely by Mitsuru she eventually became privy to the once-human's personal beliefs and goals. And even the revelation of her origin. Which White took to be great insult as Mitsuru truly doesn't think of herself as 'human' or having anything special that would make her better than other androids by this point.

Which is long explanation for why I wanted to write Mitsuru as the mentor/effective parental figure to White.

Final Note: (I’m probably never going to expand on this into a full story sadly. It feels to complicated and demanding, especially balancing Persona’s own magic/mythology with Nier/Drakengard’s. Still I enjoyed writing these brief explorations of the concept. The only scene I still wish I’d wrote with this was the eventual reconciliation of Aigis and Mitsuru as the rekindle their friendship after thousands of years of letting their guilt about not being able to stop the apocalypse get between them.)

#nier automata #crossover #fanfic #persona #mitsuru kirijo #aigis #yorha commander