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Regretfully as X cries out in remorse across the sheets of his bed with the saber shaft of his lost comrade, his mind vividly manifests itself with the visions of a lost piece left behind through the shortcomings of a war that he doesn’t believe he’s won.
There’s nothing left of him but this splinter that he holds in his hands, a piece of him that he can only regretfully relish as he hesitantly moves forward into his venture. Under his buster the fifth war has come to a righteous end and a new chapter of peace flourishes amongst his units. The specifications of the Eurasia cleanup processes have long since been approved under the commander’s approval in hopes of the Earth’s apt restoration, and the base has been focused more so on paperwork than defending itself from Maverick attacks.
X is pleased that these new strides have taken flight. With each passing day he references the accomplishments of the new world unfolding by the grace of a certain sacrifice, his eyes watchful of the progress towards earth’s rightful restoration. For now, his efforts seem to have restored some sort of misplaced justice amongst his world, which allows the blue bomber to quietly slip into his own listless period of peace.
But even despite his own efforts, the savior glazes over his pupils with his eyes lost in the pages of a death, one that he refuses to look on with the eyes of a hero. Zero may have been no prophet himself, but the promise of a death alone, without a semblance of a worthy life to have beheld staining his final memories is alone enough to have pierced his soul.
In retrospect of his past, if victory is something akin to all the accumulated anguish of a shattered journey that X has traversed through the endeavor of this previous battle, of all the battles he’s fought, then he’d assume the enemy’s won. The vital part of himself has been torn from the flesh. No periods cross his mind of a time where things could alter enough to where parting words leave Zero’s mouth and X knows he’ll be okay without his artificial heart blemishing from the stain of his absence.
X can’t focus on the new upbringings without remorse. Can’t bring himself to concentrate on the things that lie beyond his room without the call of the saber burrowing itself into his mind. Time is passing by the day, the minutes disintegrating at the rate of only seconds and the days by the rate of hours.
Whilst the commander catches on to his sentiments by lightening his load in duties, X isn’t sure he’ll be able to keep on his act in front of his unit or friends for forever. He’s afraid of what lies beyond the gaze of their eyes were he to reveal the true toll that the loss has taken himself, but he suspects that some of them know that within his own the glint has long since faded.
“Finish what you must of your paperwork. Train your unit. Spend time away from your duties. You’re the best we’ve got X--and we can’t afford to lose you too.”
Signas has most likely already delt with enough, so X follows those commands wistfully. Doesn’t question the authority that governs him--for it is all he has as his last guiding compass.
…..
Still he’s been plagued with exhaustion from trying to maintain it all in. Unsensible dreams and wicked visions tear away at his consciousness in chunks, leaving his sleep pattern disturbed. No sense come of his dreams--nightmares, moreso with the flurry of horrid visions of enemies that haunt his very existence no matter the time of day he encounters them. But his eyes are weary nevertheless, and so he sends in another report to Signas that he’s requested before the blue robot falls victim to sleep, the saber safely tucked in the corner of his windowsill.
--
The tangible pieces of rubble and mountains of rough metal under his feet reappear with the whine of a final buster shot. Muddles of reploid parts and machinery ripped to morbid threads in a war torn battlefield shielded in sheets of smoke. His soul along with his body is in fractures, submerged somewhere at the edge of the realm where Zero is not.
Out of the corners of the rubble an angelic hologram kneels at his wait with this last piece of him, the sky melting into what’s left of the colony. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t try to think. Words that X can’t hear chime through his ears as the soft voice of the man, his creator, mournfully watches over the pieces of his son that he has with tenderness.
“Hold on, X. Just for a few moments…….”
His conscious shifts to black as his father works, with the only pieces of his memory that painfully replay Zero’s final parting words--the very ones that he wishes were never spilt from the edge of his lips.
“Live for me. ”
And in the first moments back there is a shattering gift that stirs his memories with guilt--the presence of a familiar saber hilt once used by the fierce red warrior in battle himself.
He wishes he could say that his cries were only just a part of those dreams, that his death is a part of a tale he can hinder--that he can still prevent--but as the sky’s hues shift and his father fades X knows that this sacrifice is one of weight to the earth. One of worth to him.
The hilt fits almost perfectly into his hands.
The dream he experiences is closer to the memory he recalls of the event, although still akin to the emotions of a nightmare. Words fail to aid the blue robots’s lips in any sort of response to the familiarity of the frightening moments, although through his lips escape a sound akin to a wounded animal’s whimper.
For each piece of the dream he tears into another pang of guilt wavers his soul, an etched reminder of a piece used as part of a perpetrated game Sigma had forced him to play.
The memories do not stop in their wake for X as might as well have opened a house with one of many doors--each one leading to a room intertwining itself with a peculiar red figure that he can no longer grasp. Would it be wrong to say that his yearning for him is selfish with what Zero has done? Each scenario is only adding more and more weight to the loneliness pressing through his soul. He does not stop to fight against it, instead letting it sink him into the waters the color of the languid blue eyes he longs to gaze into with the prayer that this guilt will not drown him any more than he already is.
He steadily forces himself up from the mattress. The saber hilt is still perched atop the windowsill where he has left it be. He reaches for it out of an instinctive need, letting it roll through his fingers like they’re akin to Zero’s own in his hands. The grip still fits comfortably into the curve of his palm. He gives the end a click and winces as the saber flashes to life, the green light forming into a sharp curve.
Though X is not worthy of the saber’s inheritance, there’s something convincing about it’s presence that feels like a bestowment of honor to withhold, a warrior’s name to carry the legacy of. Once more X thinks back to the first painful sacrifice he had offered (one that still haunts him in it’s bequest) and the weapon placed into his careful watch--the very weapon that brought about another righteous end.
The shards piece themselves together. He wants to let go of the hilt, set it down and fall to sleep again. But still X neglects to throw it away, instead only further clutching it to his chest for such a gift holds the history of a warrior very dear to him.
He can’t help but think that those final words were the whispers of a new legacy. They just came out all too fast to be preserved.
X doesn’t know how long he’ll be able to wait. Doesn’t know what catalyzed this wave of emotions he feels nor how long he’s descended into the waters of grief like a single glinting stone in a coursing envelope of water.
But looking down at the saber, he realizes he has another part of him to inherit. If his sacrifice has meant something for the earth and X has fulfilled his purpose, then he has at least the peace of mind knowing that somewhere in between the pages of what he knows is death distancing them, Zero is resting in solace.