81. Examinations

A/N: Enjoy the chapter.

We end up only spending a few hours with Thalia's parents. They apparently start getting ready for bed at nine o'clock like the old people they are. Imagine having to sleep. Couldn't be me.

"I am very sleepy," Castalia says, letting out a large yawn as we float out of the house. "It is past my bedtime…"

I mean going to bed at nine is fine actually! Even earlier is probably better. Honestly, only really cute people sleep a bunch if you think about it.

"You are being silly inside your brain again," Castalia accuses.

"I don't have a brain anymore," I defend myself.

"You are being silly inside your central processor again," Castalia accuses more accurately.

"Maybe a little," I admit. "Is that such a crime?"

"Not at all," Castalia answers. "You are silly when you are happy. It is good."

I do not have any idea how to properly respond to that, so I opt to play a sound file of Thea saying "Buh!" Castalia's amusement is clear in her feelings—which is good, I'm still not a hundred percent sure what her opinions on Thea are—to the point that the corners of her eyes even manage to crinkle the smallest bit.

"I wish I could laugh more," she admits.

Oh. Well. Just like that, the conversation changes direction so fast it gets dizzy. I suppose a bout of melancholy is to be expected after spending an hour watching videos of your dead girlfriend.

"I suppose I've never heard you laugh, have I?" I hum. "I always just took it as part of your Castalia-ness. An attribute I'm quite fond of, believe it or not."

"If there is one thing I am good at, it is being Castalia," she agrees. "I have certainly never been any good at being anything else."

Ah. Yeah.

"Sounds like you tried, then?" I ask.

"Many times," she confirms. "But I was so bad at it no one even noticed."

Pfft!

"Apologies, but I feel somewhat of an urge to laugh at that," I admit. "I'd give you the usual spiel—you're enough as you are, you don't need to change, yadda yadda yadda—but I get the impression you know that all too well."

I mean, "I Know Who I Am" is her freaking transformation phrase, it only makes sense that she's gone through hell trying to understand herself. Transformation phrases… there's just something about them that lets me know they're always from the heart.

"I have done all within my power to accept that which I cannot change," Castalia agrees. "And I have been largely successful. But I have never stopped wishing for her laugh. I was alone for many years, and no matter how unlikely I knew it to be, I would always think to myself that I would have friends if I could only laugh."

"Are you totally unable to?" I ask. "Or does it just not happen?"

"I'm not sure," Castalia admits. "I have laughed before, but never due to amusement."

Not due to amusement? I suppose laughter can occasionally be caused by great surges of other emotions, like fear or hopelessness. Though a much more common cause of it would be…

"Are you ticklish!?" I ask, unable to keep the gleeful anticipation from my voice.

"I am sorry, Luna," Castalia says. "I know this knowledge delights you, but only my human body is ticklish, and you should not strain it in such a matter."

Oh. That's… pretty sad, actually. Castalia clearly has some kind of degenerative disease—probably in her muscles, given that I'm pretty sure the video of her falling from the sky was due to a heart attack—though I haven't asked for any specifics. Frankly, I'd be surprised if whatever she currently has is still recognizable as whatever she might have a diagnosis for, given all the magic at play. She's mentioned that she doesn't know when or if she's likely to die… because the doctors thought she was going to die years ago. It's not a comforting thought.

I don't think Castalia mentioned it because she wants to dwell on it, though, so I do my best to lighten the mood.

"It's fucked up that the truest representation of your soul doesn't have vulnerable parts of the tummy for cute girls to send you into giggle fits with," I say.

"It would not be fair," Castalia responds. "You are not ticklish either. Perhaps you should thank your fortune, given my capacity to tickle anyone I wish from across an entire room."

Oh my god she's BANTERING with me yes yes yes!

"I would endure for the sake of hearing your laugh!" I declare. "It would be so worth it!"

"Hence, why I wish to show you," Castalia says. "But alas. I have never had the ability to make facial expressions that seem natural, nor understand the expressions of others."

"Yeah. The curse of the 'tism. I understand."

"I do not like that word," Castalia admits, our flight through the sky starting to drop in altitude as we get closer to the Preserver base.

"Autism?" I ask.

"Indeed. It comes from the greek autos, meaning 'self,' and '-ismos,' a suffix denoting a state of being. The word was intended to evoke pathological selfishness, or a complete lack of focus on others. An inability to care enough about people to understand them. It is only very recently that the word has been able to be used as anything other than an insult, for by all accounts the person who coined it did not intend it as anything else."

"You're preaching to the choir on that one, Cas," I answer, letting the familiar teleportation spell pass over me as we end up in the sterile white base of the Preservers. "I'm familiar with the history. But words are more than their etymology."

"It is just a misconception I find particularly upsetting," Castalia says. "I care. I care very much."

"I know you do, Castalia," I say. "And anyone worth spending time on will be able to see that, too."

"I've met many people who do not see that," Castalia says. "But I haven't met a single person not worth spending time on."

I just pull her over and give her a hug as my response to that. She's too good for this world. I suppose that's why she's suffered the most saving it.

"…Thank you, Luna. It is sleep time, though," Castalia says.

"Right," I agree, pulling out of the hug. "I should go check on Thea, too."

Castalia hesitates.

"Luna," she says.

"Yeah?" I ask.

"You believe she is a good person, don't you?" she asks hesitantly.

"Of course I do," I answer. And with my plates open for my skinsuit, she should be able to feel that.

"Then please remember: if she hurts you, she will want to know."

I… I know that, but…

"Luna," Castalia repeats firmly. "She will not be happy about knowing. But she will still want to know. There are more important things in the world than happiness."

"Are there?" I ask.

She feels surprised, and then concerned.

"Thea would consider her own happiness less important than ensuring she does not harm you," Castalia says.

"Because knowing she harmed me would make her unhappy," I argue. "She's a good person because she can't be happy if she knows she's hurting others. But it still comes down to happiness, in the end."

I don't know why I'm arguing about this. I suppose I'd rather prefer to be wrong. But Castalia's eyelids are drooping, and it's clear she's not going to have much more to say.

"You are wiser than that," is all she manages. "Let yourself be."

I… I'm not sure it's that simple.

"Do you need help going to bed?" I ask.

She hesitates.

"…Yes," she concludes, so I walk her to her room.

It's the first time I've gotten a good look at her room in the Preserver base, and predictably it's a sterile white. It's more literally sterile than the rest of the base, my chemical sniffers detecting a fair bit of disinfectant lingering in the air. It's also… not really a person's room at all. 

There's nothing in here other than her bed and medical equipment, and it's more medical equipment than I remember. On top of the machine that helps her breathe, there's a full heart monitor setup, hooked up to an automated system that probably rings out an alarm or alerts the Preservers if she starts to… y'know. 

Die.

Castalia floats into her bed and immediately collapses, her incarnate form vanishing to reveal a shriveled body visibly closer to the grave than the last time I saw it. It shocks me, almost enough to prevent me from walking over to help at all. I… didn't expect this. I just assumed she was powerful enough now that she could win against anything. Even herself.

I quickly help hook her up to her breathing assistance the way I remember, and her heart monitor is easy to figure out with her exhaustedly muttered assistance. I kept her out too late, didn't I? I stressed her out too much. Oh, gosh.

Is… is she going to die?

Not like, tonight, but… soon. Soon by the standards of a girl as young as her, anyway. Am I going to start dating her just for her to end up dead in a few years? It's a harrowing thought. Above all, it's not fair. She survived all those monsters, all those battles, all those civilization-ending threats, just to die to something like this? It's terrifyingly, agonizingly wrong.

Knowing Castalia, she's feeling all my terror and wanting nothing more than to reassure me, but she's so exhausted she falls asleep the instant we've confirmed she's hooked up for the night. It was nothing but willpower keeping her going. It was probably always nothing but willpower keeping her going. And now I know for sure that pushing Castalia out of the way of a kaiju attack wasn't the only way Thalia saved her life. The girl's healing magic also did something that modern medicine cannot. And the only person with true healing magic now is… Nanaya.

Why Nanaya? Seriously, why Nanaya!? Why is the woman so obsessed with revenge that she'd turn a blind eye to my slavery the only one with the power to save people from death? That's absurd. I've seen Nanaya heal before. It was 'pure' magic or whatever, not a spell, so I can't just copy it, but… surely I can figure it out, right? I'm a supercomputer. If I want to figure out how true healing magic works, I'll just do that. Right? Right. Of course.

Castalia won't die to this. I'll save her. It's the least of what I owe her anyway.

I've downloaded a substantial percentage of Wikipedia at this point, so I set the back of my mind to trawl through the medical sections for starting ideas while I leave Castalia to sleep, heading toward Thea's room. Compared to my fears about Castalia, returning to my master is downright relaxing by comparison. She's had a project to work on all day, so she probably hasn't even noticed time passing. I'll probably just have to drag her out of her room so she eats and uses the bathroom and all that. I knock on the door.

"Come in," Thea calls out absentmindedly. 

That's already a good sign, honestly, and when I step inside I have my positive expectations confirmed for once. She's hunched over her laptop, tapping at the keyboard lightning-quick and not even bothering to look up at me as I walk inside.

"Hey, Thea," I say. "I'm back. How goes progress?"

"Hard to say at this stage," she answers flatly. "I'm still interpreting the data. Even a second of active data stream from your mind is an absurdly large file. I can't imagine how enormous your memory capacity must be. Like, standard metric prefixes might not even go that high."

"They might add more soon, but right now I think it goes up to 'yotta,'" I answer. "Which is one septillion bytes. Ten to the twenty-fourth. And that's more than all human computing memory ever? Does that… sound right?"

"I don't know," Thea says. "I genuinely don't know. I mean, don't tell anyone obviously, but my laptop isn't running on human tech. It wouldn't be able to handle this at all if it was."

"I suspected as much," I admit. "I'm restricted from accessing most information about how my own mind works, but I'm pretty good at math, and if my body is emulating the eighty-six billion neurons necessary to simulate my brain… yeah, I imagine that's pretty crazy."

"Does it not creep you out at all?" Thea asks.

"Does what not creep me out at all?"

"Knowing you're a simulation of yourself," she clarifies.

"Well… I'm a simulation of myself that has my actual real original soul," I counter. "I figure that probably counts for a lot."

"It's unclear," Thea says. "We truly have no idea what extent the soul has on human cognition. For all we know, it's an unlinked symbiote, totally unrelated to our thoughts."

"Well that's definitely not true," I say. "If it were, my body would still be acting like me. But it's not."

"Oh yeah…" Thea says, looking up from her laptop at me for the first time. "You never said much about how that went. Was your body okay?"

"Not really?" I shrug, trying to play off how immediately uncomfortable the question made me feel. "Apparently, you can't feel emotions without a soul, so my body has more or less just been a vegetable in the shape of a really ugly person. It's not me in any real sense of the word."

"But… she has your brain, right? She has your memories?" Thea asks. "I assume memories are stored in the brain, anyway. The science behind that seems sound."

"Yeah, it has my memories," I huff. "But it's not me, it's just some miserable shitsack now. It's not even a person. Can we stop talking about this?"

"…I guess that does sound pretty disturbing," Thea admits. "Uma'tama sounded really worried, too. It feels like there should be something we can do to help her."

"I don't even want you to look at that thing," I say. "Let someone else help her."

Thea gives me a bit of an odd look, but she slowly nods.

"Okay," she allows. "I… should probably eat something."

"Yeah," I agree. "I'll make you something in the kitchen. Come on."

Heh. I was kind of expecting to have to drag her away. Progress, I guess? Then again, she's acting a bit weird. I suppose I'd also be acting weird if I had spent all day trawling through the raw code of someone else's brain, though.

"You're not going to be able to decode all my most embarrassing memories, are you?" I ask.

"No," Thea says. "Not unless you sent me an embarrassing memory, and even then it's not like I could just convert it into a video file."

"Why not?" I ask. "I can convert my memories into video files."

"You are hardware explicitly designed to run the insane, indecipherable filetypes you're apparently programmed on," Thea grumbles. "Even my illegal alien laptop can't emulate the twelve different physical systems your code is constantly trying to talk to."

"I guess that makes sense," I admit.

The two of us wander toward the kitchen, where we can feel Amaterasu sitting around alone again. She seems to sit around in the kitchen a lot. I wonder if that's a recent development because she's hoping I'll drop by and make her food, or if she just… doesn't have anywhere else to go. She mentioned once that she used to play games at a PC Cafe that let her play for free, which implies she doesn't really own any games herself. I'm rich, though. I should buy her a Switch or something.

It's only after we enter the kitchen and actually see Amaterasu that I notice something different this time. She's curled up on a chair, her knees tight against her chest with her chin resting on them. She's staring intently at her own feet, a complicated expression on her face… because she's in incarnate form, and that means she has fuzzy wolf legs instead of normal human ones. They seem to me like they'd be hard to walk on with only two of them, but I guess incarnate forms mostly don't care about that kind of thing.

I… have a suspicion of what's going on with her. I think she does too, but she just doesn't want to admit it.

"Hey, Amaterasu," I greet her. "Have you had dinner?"

"No," she answers.

"Well, I'm about to make some if you want any. Should be ready in half an hour or so."

"Thank you," she says flatly.

Hmm. I'll keep an eye on her. I'm not really sure if it's my place to pry… then again, she's the stubborn type. She probably needs someone to pry, or else she'll stay on the same path forever. We're finally reaching a bit of an understanding, though, and I don't want to ruin that while it's still fragile… maybe if I'm careful I can—

"Just say what you wish to say, Luna-san," Amaterasu growls. Like, actually growls, there's a little bit of it in the back of her throat, behind her words.

Ugh. Empaths. But hey, I guess if she's gonna demand it…

"…Why are you in your incarnate form?" I ask, opting to start us off slow.

"Castalia remains in her incarnate form all day," Amaterasu answers. "She is strong. I wish to be strong. I am attempting the same."

She glowers harder down at her own paws.

"You don't seem to be enjoying it," I comment, gathering ingredients quietly as I keep most of my attention on the conversation.

"What does that matter? I'm not a yellow mage," she snaps at me.

Very healthy response. Entirely expected, too.

"Well… you're adjacent, so it probably does matter a little," I say. "Yellow magic can be used in an orange crystal decently well, and every bit helps. But I'm also commenting because it's odd."

"What is odd?" Amaterasu asks, though based on the grinding of her teeth and the way her cute little wolf ears sit flat against the back of her head I think she knows exactly what's odd about it and is already bracing herself for the question.

"Most people like their incarnate forms," I say. "It's odd when someone doesn't."

"You don't like your incarnate form!" Amaterasu snaps, craning her head around to glare at me.

"Correct," I agree. "And that is because my soul is shackled to a torture device. Hopefully, we can all agree that's somewhat odd. What's your situation, then?"

She returns her glower to her own legs.

"Is it not obvious?" she asks. "I am corrupted. I am marked with deformities that make me more like the enemy than my own comrades."

I hum, holding back an irrational desire to yell at her for saying something like that. Thea wouldn't approve.

"…A little rude to say in present company, don't you think?" I say, going for a slightly more diplomatic approach.

"It is not," Amaterasu says. "Thea-san understands exactly what I mean. She is ashamed in precisely the same way I am."

"Well she shouldn't be," I insist. "And neither should you. Especially since you aren't corrupted by the Dark World in the first place."

She raises her head to glare at me again.

"Have you not looked at me?" she accuses.

"Amaterasu, how long have you actually spent in the Dark World?" I ask. "When's the last time you were even in there at all? I think it's safe to assume that after I chopped your legs off, you didn't walk into a portal until after they already regrew fuzzy."

"I have not entered a Dark World portal for years!" Amaterasu snaps back. "Certainly not since arriving here. But perhaps Melpomene's Catharsis summoned—"

"It didn't," I cut her off. "That thing barely even worked. Look, we're all friends here. Or at the very least, we're all willing to fight to the death alongside each other. It's okay. Nobody's gonna judge you."

"There's nothing to judge!" Amaterasu snaps.

"I agree, but somehow you're still judging an impressive amount of nothing about yourself," I quip. "Look, I'll say it straight, Su-san. And I never do anything straight, so you'd better take this seriously."

"You're not even taking this—!"

"You are not corrupted by the Dark World," I say, cutting her off. "Like, at all. You haven't spent enough time in there, you don't have crystals growing out of your skin, and above all it's only your incarnate form that has wolf parts. Your human body is normal, and you can clearly see from Thea that Dark World corruption would do the opposite!"

"What are you saying?" she growls dangerously.

"I'm saying your incarnate form has adorable wolf ears because some part of you secretly likes having adorable wolf ears, and that's not a crime, it's like, basically normal. Hell, I would probably enjoy having adorable wolf ears. So just relax about it, okay?"

"You haven't had to live with it!" Amaterasu snaps at me. "The Preserver overseeing us back home, they didn't trust me at all because of it! My whole team was suspicious of me, like I would… like I would bite their throats out at any moment! Like I was turning into one of them. And I didn't even know why it was happening! I didn't choose this, I'm just… like this."

Ah. Well, amen, sister.

"Well, that's exactly why everyone needs to get over themselves and consider it okay," I say. "You're not gonna bite anyone's throat out, and we all know that. You just look different. There's literally nothing wrong with that. I dunno how many fucking times humans are gonna have to learn that lesson, but for some stupid-ass reason they still are. I'm not gonna make that mistake, and more importantly you shouldn't either. They're the ones in the wrong, Su-san."

Amaterasu doesn't say anything, just reaching down and grabbing her paws in her hands, wrapping her fingers around them and squeezing. Her intense stare doesn't waver for several minutes, so I just busy myself getting the food ready.

"…This feels like some sort of Dark Rebellion plot," Amaterasu grumbles eventually.

"Well that should be all the evidence you need that you're being irrational," I say.

"You let Fulgora return to them," Amaterasu notes.

"We already talked about that," I fire back.

"Yes," she concedes. "We did."

Again, we pass into silence. Amaterasu spirals in the meantime, her thoughts clearly just spinning around and around in circles. After a few more minutes of that, I decide I should probably distract her again.

"So like… have you played Okami?" I ask.

It feels like a pretty reasonable question. I mean, it's a video game where you play as a wolf who happens to be the sun goddess Amaterasu. It's a hard connection not to make. But when I say those words, Amaterasu's reaction is far more exciting than I had dared to hope. I mean, if she had been drinking something, she would have spat it out. The expression on her face is nothing short of panic.

"Wh-wh… what!? Why are you asking me that?" she sputters. 

Oh, this will be delightful.

"I just, y'know. You're named Amaterasu. You're a wolf. Amaterasu isn't ever a wolf in the actual shinto myths or whatever, right? That's specifically an Okami thing."

"I-it's a pun!" Amaterasu snaps. "Her full title is Amaterasu Ōmikami, and 'Ōmikami' is very similar to 'Okami,' which means 'wolf.' Th-that's the relation. That's all!"

"Okay but you're a gamer, and—"

"I am not a 'gamer!'"

"—and you're also like, nineteen or something, so if you had a Wii as a kid, that game would have come out on it when you were around seven or eight, so it just seems likely that—"

"SHUT UP!" Amaterasu snaps, jumping to her feet. Or her paws, I suppose. "Shut up! Silence! Silence! Silence!"

I shut up and be silent. Her face is beet red, her tail is stuck straight out behind her body, all bristled and poofed up, and her ears are so flat against her head you could use her to straighten a painting. She just… stares at me, panting in some kind of wild, embarrassed terror. I stare back. I'd say it's one of the cutest things I've ever seen, but I just spent all evening watching videos of Castalia.

Our face-off lasts a decent while as I wait for her to calm down. Once I see her start to relax, I go in for the killing blow.

"That game rocked," I say. "Everybody compared it to Zelda, and I guess that's fair, but it's genuinely even better than most Zelda games."

Again, silence. But I know. The trap I've laid is inescapable.

"…It is," Amaterasu agrees quietly. "It's very good."

El. Em. Ay. Oh. Checkmate, you literal bitch. We're gonna be such good friends from now on.

"Having their game come out so close to Twilight Princess must have been painful for the devs," I comment.

"The original release came out before Twilight Princess, but by the time it hit Nintendo consoles… yes, the comparison was somewhat regrettably inescapable," Amaterasu concedes. "But the core mechanics are vibrantly different. I mean, even something as simple as the traversal…"

And so she goes. I mostly just listen, chiming in here and there to keep her talking as I cook. Little does she know this was a secret Dark Rebellion plot after all! My evil plan was to cheer her up, and it's working! Hehe. So villainous. Amaterasu is pretty clearly undersocialized, even by Earth Guardian standards. I mean, the rest of her team was awful enough to her to give her a complex about it. I doubt she had many friends. But honestly? That's a somewhat easier trauma to solve than the kind plaguing most of these horror-inducing child soldiers. And I intend to help them all, so I guess I may as well start with her.

…Ugh. I actually do intend to help them all, don't I? Even her. I never should have made that promise to Castalia, but… she was going to do it even if I didn't help. There's no way I could let her go after that monster alone.

God, I hate Melpomene. She's just so goddamn evil and crazy. The fact that she might actually be right about some of the Preserver stuff only makes things more frustrating.

"Hello, everyone!" Uma'tama says, suddenly popping into existence between all of us in a burst of vibrant joy. "Okay! We finally have time to talk now! Apologies for all the delays, we've been… very busy lately. Now, I believe Castalia said there was something you wanted to tell me, Luna?"

Uh. Uh. I… I mean that was the plan, but I was expecting to have Castalia for this in case things went wrong! What the hell, cat!? Quit appearing out of nowhere! We need to be ready for this! I have no idea how this thing is going to react! What should I tell them…? I can come up with a good lie pretty fast…

I start to do just that, but Thea stands up and puts a hand on my arm. She's been pretty quiet as I've been cooking and winning over Amaterasu, but she looks pretty serious now.

"It's okay, Luna," she insists. "It'll be fine."

Hnngh. Okay.

"…If you're sure, Thea," I allow.

She nods and then turns to Uma'tama.

"I have… a confession to make," Thea says.

"A confession…? It is our understanding that this would be wildly inappropriate in a workplace environment," Uma'tama says.

"N-not that kind of confession!!!" Thea sputters, her tail swishing dangerously behind her.

"Oh," Uma'tama says. "You… believe you need to admit to some wrongdoing."

"Yes," Thea says, relaxing a little. "Yes, I do."

"Very well. Would you like to do this privately?" Uma'tama asks.

"No, it's fine," Thea says. "It's about Luna. When I repaired her, I… well, it's true that I managed to free her from being ordered to kill us all, but I… didn't do it in as optimal a way as I let on."

Thea pauses a bit here, but Uma'tama says nothing, just staring at her patiently. It is, unfortunately, impossible to read the expression of a cat-like energy construct that probably isn't anything like the real species piloting it in the first place.

"I didn't figure out how to free Luna," Thea says. "I only figured out how to change who her master is. So… that's currently me."

"Which is a vast improvement," I feel the need to chime in. "And Thea is working on getting the rest of the way there. We just need more time."

"Oh," Uma'tama says.

And… that's it. They stare at us for a while, expression still unreadable. It's even difficult to read their emotions; the aura of joy normally surrounding them has gone flat, static, and seemingly… artificial. Somehow, I doubt Uma'tama is actually happy about this information at all.

"…Relatedly, the technological expert we commissioned to examine you will be arriving later tonight," Uma'tama says. "Please be ready for them, Luna."

"That's it?" I press, my body ready for violence. "Is that really all you have to say?"

I need to know how they're responding to this. I'm basically at full charge; I doubt anyone here that's actually awake could stop me from grabbing Thea and escaping if need be.

"We are not sure what else to say," Uma'tama admits. "This is saddening news."

"Yeah, it's not great," I agree. "But are you going to need to revoke our Earth Guardian status over it? Do you need to act on this information? Am I going to be kidnapped or disassembled or… anything of that sort?"

Again, Uma'tama is quiet. Hesitant. It's not a response that inspires confidence.

"Amaterasu," Uma'tama says, addressing the wolf girl out of nowhere. "What do you think?"

What…? Why are they asking Amaterasu, of all people? Why does Amaterasu suddenly get a say in Preserver policy? I glance over at her, and she looks just as surprised as I feel, if not moreso. The same questions must be running through her mind. But Amaterasu, ever serious, scrunches her eyebrows together and considers the question carefully.

"…I have felt their remorse and witnessed their battles," she says. "I do not detect further falsehood. And I certainly do not think Luna-san should be… disassembled."

"Of course," Uma'tama says. "Certainly not. Thea… are you capable of changing Luna's master to be anyone?" 

"I… hypothetically, yes," Thea admits.

"I would be required to try to prevent that," I chime in immediately. "By force, if necessary."

"We understand," Uma'tama says. "Thea… are you alright?"

"No," Thea answers.

"Good," Uma'tama says. "That's… that's good. This is not an alright situation."

"We know," Thea says. "I'll fix her as soon as I can. I promise I will. Actually, can I… can I be there when the consultant looks at Luna? I can help."

Again, Uma'tama is quiet for a few stressful moments.

"You will not be allowed to attend under any circumstances," Uma'tama says. "Unfortunately, we will be very busy for the duration of the examination, as will Uma'gabo. We will be unable to enforce any such restrictions. We are trusting you on the honor system, Thea."

Thea nods slowly.

"I understand," she says.

"Good," Uma'tama says. "They will be here shortly. We… I'm sorry, both of you. I will find a way to fix this."

And with that, they vanish. I… I guess I'm staying, for now? I glance at Thea, and she gives me a slow nod.

"Well! That was ominous," I manage. "Food's ready, though. You organics must be hungry!"

"I hope the two of you do not make me regret this," Amaterasu sighs.

"What, you think I'm poisoning you or something?" I joke.

"…We hope we don't regret it too, Su-san," Thea says. "I'm trying. I promise I'm trying. I'm just scared that I won't succeed."

Amaterasu nods.

"I suppose that is fair," she concedes.

Most of the meal goes by in silence. When it's over, Thea and I retreat to her room. I realize, suddenly, that I don't have my own room. I've just been using my master's. I suppose I'd be doing that even if I did have my own room; it's just easier to ensure she's okay and attend to her needs while I'm nearby. Plus, I can make sure she's safe while she sleeps.

…Hah. Yeah, okay, I can see it now. I'm really fucked up in the head over all this. Damn it. Why can't this be easier? We both like each other. We both want to help each other. We both want what's best for each other. Why can't that just be enough by itself? Why am I still hurting her just by existing? Why is she still hurting me?

Thea goes back to typing away at her computer. Lacking anything else to do, I start cleaning her room as best I can without disturbing her blanket nest or tools. I have a nearly full charge, so I can waste a little on magic here and there to make the place look spotless. As it turns out, I'm glad I did, because apparently we're hosting a guest.

A Preserver appears out of nowhere in the middle of the room, the familiar burst of joy at their arrival making the otherwise-silent entry obvious. They float there motionlessly for a moment, then slowly, carefully crane their neck downward to regard themselves. Almost robotically, they bring their forepaws up, flexing them as if testing them for the first time.

"…Hello?" Thea prompts quietly.

The Preserver's head doesn't seem to move so much as teleport to a new orientation, staring directly at Thea.

"Hello," they answer, the voice toneless but perfectly enunciated. 

Creepy. This one's voice is deeper than Uma'tama's, and the fur pattern is different, but otherwise they look pretty much exactly the same… or they would, if not for how stiff and, ironically, robotic everything they're doing is. Their head snaps into a few more directions, vision settling on me for a moment.

"There. Are. Two. Of. You," the Preserver says slowly. "Are. You. Both. Artifacts?"

"No," I answer. "Just me. Thea is my mechanic."

There's a pause. The Preserver doesn't move.

"Comprehended," they suddenly blurt. "Our. Name. Is. Laku'noto. You. Understand. Us?"

"Perfectly," I answer. "Your voice is a little stilted, but very clear."

"Comprehended. We will speed up the rate of transmission," Laku'noto says. "Sufficient?"

"That's much better," I answer. "You're here to try and figure out how I work, right?"

"I am here to help a soul suffering from a grave mistake," Laku'noto answers. "We will see how much comprehension of your artifact's function this ultimately requires. Present us your workings."

"…Feel free to look, but if you want to do anything, I'll need you to explain it to Thea and get her permission first," I say.

"Tentatively acceptable," the Preserver agrees. "Present us your workings."

I nod, approach, and lie down on the table in the middle of the room, popping off my plating. Laku'noto hovers over me, eyes flicking across my body.

"This is undoubtedly Ahgrentaf work, but it is much more advanced than expected," Laku'noto comments. "Whoever designed this must have captured and reverse-engineered many things they should not have during the war."

One word in all of that catches on my memory like nails torn up halfway down a chalkboard. Ahgrentaf. It sounds like a word in the Antipathy language, but I don't recognize it at all. It's not in my dictionary. Based on the conjugation, it's probably a noun…

"What does Ahgrentaf mean?" I ask.

"A sad question," Laku'noto notes. "Especially from one such as you. It is the original name of what you know as the Antipathy. They had it erased from their world but could not erase it from our memory. Requesting permission to make contact in order to move parts for observational purposes only."

"Granted," Thea says.

"Gratitude. No, correction: thank you," Laku'noto says, floating down and poking at me with their paws.

"Are you large, or are we small?" Laku’noto asks. Which… huh?

"Isn't it relative?" I ask. "I think you're small, I suppose."

"Indeed. This is inefficient. One moment, we are correcting."

They float away from me again, hovering above me motionlessly. And they just… stay there, like a badly-edited CG image interposed onto reality.

"I'm really tempted to pet them," I admit.

"…Me too," Thea squeaks quietly. "Uma'tama was always really soft."

"On three?" I suggest.

"What!? Luna!"

"Come on, it'll be cute!" I insist. "One, two… three!"

I reach out to claim my fluffy due, and suddenly there's a horrible, cacophonous tearing sound, like a tent being ripped apart in a storm. A half-dozen pale white tendrils of flesh pour out of the world surrounding Laku'noto's feline form, one wrapping around my outstretched arm and slamming it back into the table as three more wrap around my other limbs, restraining me at my wrists and ankles. Only then do the final two make their way toward my chest. The closer I watch them, the less real they seem, naught but hallucinations imprinted on the world as they stutter, blur, and flicker at random intervals. But their grip is nonetheless ironclad.

But I, thankfully, am stronger than steel. Their sudden appearance certainly scared the hell out of me, but a more careful analysis doesn't show them being too forceful. And, well… Laku'noto has permission.

"Much better," the cat-body intones, somehow moving and emoting even less now that the tendrils have formed. "Now then. We have been informed that the original vessel for this soul is still extant and even somehow alive, but it cannot be considered a valid vessel anymore due to the formation of a secondary soul. This renders the most obvious solution to your predicament null."

They reach inside me, grabbing parts of my frame, brushing aside my cables, and rotating me this way and that to get a better look.

"I wouldn't want to return to my old body anyway," I respond. I'm starting to get pretty tired of explaining that to people!

"An entirely reasonable conclusion, given what we are seeing of the mental and physical capacity now available to you," Laku'noto says. "Technology has long since surpassed biology. While it is understandable that the creation of bodies like yours is forbidden, it is quite regrettable. This is the work of a true genius. If, unfortunately, a clearly mad one." 

"Only insane people create soul-torture chambers. Who knew?" I say sarcastically.

"Apologies. Definitional conflict. We do not mean 'mad' as in 'insane.' We mean 'mad' as in 'angry.' Your body is an act of spite."

Oh.

"…Yeah, that checks out," I agree. "Slavery as comprehensive as what I've been stuck with seems a little specific to be much else. It's certainly not a practical choice."

"Correct," Laku'noto says, putting a tendril on my soul-stone. "And yet… so many of the design decisions here do not match with that apparent purpose. Permission to emit a magical pulse for the purposes of information acquisition."

"Granted," Thea says.

"This may be uncomfortable," Laku'noto warns.

I almost respond, but I don't have time before something forces its way inside me and fills my soul like ice-cold resin, filling in every gap and exploring every contour before hardening in place. I feel terrified, because the slightest metaphysical twitch could rip me apart. I feel violated, though compared to the violation of my soul I live with daily, it doesn't rank as all that noteworthy. And then, without warning, I don't feel it any more at all, as all of it phases out of sync with my soul and ceases to interact with it at all.

Laku'noto is silent for a good while again, and this time I don't have any funny jokes to try and pass the time with. When they speak again, it's neither the words I was expecting nor the words I was hoping for. Instead, it's something I'd never even thought to imagine.

"Perhaps the Ahgrentaf have not destroyed themselves as comprehensively as we believed."