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A few weeks after she was reactivated, Labrys began cultivating a personal garden. After the destruction that she and her Shadow self had wreaked, she thought it would be fitting to try to create life rather than take it away for once. Of course, it was a bit difficult, considering late May was an awful time to begin planting, but she kept her spirits up regardless.
She had picked seeds from stores that Aigis recommended, but Labrys also had a fair amount of success in finding seeds during her downtime on Shadow Operative missions. When the job was done, it was easy to scout the perimeter of their location and spot flowers that caught her eye. She took seeds—and sometimes entire flowers, roots and all—here and there, much to the amusement of her fellow Operatives. Mitsuru’s fond look always belied her amusement, and on the missions that Akihiko joined them, he radiated pride whenever Labrys showed him her newest find.
When her friends had returned to their work, Labrys had gotten to planting. She had taken a trip to Inaba and asked Nanako for tips, knowing about the humble garden she had with Yu and her father. With a promise to visit, Labrys was back to her garden, planting her seeds with care, watering them with the meticulousness of a much more experienced gardener.
Unfortunately, the plants she had collected during her missions and replanted tended to wilt more often than flourish, but Labrys persisted; she couldn’t give up without a fight. So no matter how many plants withered, she kept at it, knowing that even one plant would be a success.
And so, when her garden began to bloom in the summer months, Labrys couldn’t contain her mirth. It was nothing too spectacular—just a few different flowers she liked the colors of and thought looked nice together—but the fact that life sprouted from the dirt was enough.
Her wish had come true.
“Sister,” Aigis began one July day, standing over Labrys as the older android tended to her plants, “when did you get a new watering can?”
Labrys glanced towards her sister, crimson eyes doelike. Aigis’ gaze was directed somewhere behind Labrys, and when Labrys followed her sister’s line of sight, she noticed a mysterious silver watering can. She… hadn’t bought a watering can; she tended to fill up plastic cups and use those, insisting to Mitsuru that Shadow Operative or Kirijo Group funds had better uses than her gardening expenditures.
She looked back towards Aigis with a tentative smile. “I dunno, but I guess I got one now?” She managed a laugh, turning back towards her flowers. A small green stem poked out from beneath her fingers, promising life. There had only been dirt in this spot the last time she had checked, so the flower must have grown over the past few days. A grin grew on her face, mirth spreading through her body like a current of electricity. “And it seems ta be workin’!”
Aigis offered a smile of her own, her sister’s happiness contagious. “Indeed.”
They fell into a bit of a comfortable silence, Aigis standing with her hands clasped in front of her while Labrys continued her gardening. Labrys slid her hands against the dirt, leveling out the piles of soil and carefully avoiding the stems that had begun to poke out. It was much easier when there had been no signs of life, as awful as it was to admit. But Labrys was no stranger to new challenges, and she was far from a quitter.
However, it had been tough. Between her solo dispatches as a Shadow Operative and her duties with Mitsuru in the headquarters, she was away from her garden more often than she would have liked. She would come back to dry soil, and when she would take a trowel to the dirt, she’d find withering, unsalvageable roots.
Labrys found a sigh escaping her lips, breaking the silence. “I like being a Shadow Operative and all, but I’m away for a long while, sometimes,” she said ruefully, running a thumb over the dirt to flatten it. “I think my plants wither so much because of it…”
Suddenly, there were another pair of hands patting down the dirt. “They always come back,” Aigis said reassuringly, her voice gentle. Each of her movements held a well-practiced precision; the dirt under her hands was flattened evenly in less than a minute.
Labrys’ eyes found her own dirt pile, frown deepening at each and every uneven bump. She patted them down with much less carefulness, smiling proudly at her handiwork. Things didn’t need to be perfect; as long as there was love put into the craft, that was all that mattered.
“Yeah,” she hummed to herself, “I think you’re right, Sis.”
A few days later, Labrys returned from a mission with a new plant in hand. It was a brilliant violet color with white edges, and Mitsuru had recognized it as a morning glory when Labrys had shown it off. Its simple but intricate pattern had caught Labrys’ eye immediately, and she found herself digging it up—roots and all—to plant in her own garden.
However, when Labrys knelt down at her small patch, she nearly dropped her plant in surprise. The soil was a dark brown color, indicating a recent watering. A few more stems poked out from the dirt, and one of the earlier bloomers now had small buds growing off it. The mysterious watering can sat innocuously to the side, scintillating in the late afternoon sun.
It… hadn’t rained, had it? Labrys glanced around, but her surroundings looked as dry as a July day could be in Tatsumi Port. It was obvious that the rain hadn’t watered her plants.
She shook her head, even if the strange feeling hadn’t loosened its grip on her. Wordlessly, she retrieved her trowel and got to digging a new spot to plant her morning glory. Once it was sufficiently buried, she gave the dirt two final pats, forcing a small smile to offset her wariness.
Maybe Aigis had stopped by and gave her plants a quick watering, knowing she was on a mission. How nice of her!
But when Labrys caught Aigis the next day between missions, Aigis seemed surprised at the notion.
“Sorry, Sister, but I did not water your plants.” Aigis raised an eyebrow. “Did you check the forecast?”
No rain.
Other strange occurrences began happening in Labrys’ garden.
New flowers sprouting from the dirt. A bag of fertilizer appearing as mysteriously as the silver watering can. Even a new trowel had been left stuck in the soil.
It was impossible to deny now. Someone was showing up when Labrys was gone… and tending to her garden, for some strange reason. She began to create a mental list of personality traits, or at least characteristics she could pinpoint of her gardening accomplice.
1) They knew when she would be gone, as their appearances never overlapped with hers.
2) They were either an incredible escape artist, or were really talented at hiding at the scene of the crime.
3) They were very precise with their work, and they had quite the green thumb on top of it.
4) They wanted her garden to flourish as much as she did.
It was as interesting as it was confusing. Why would someone show up when she was gone to keep her garden alive? Couldn’t they start their own garden instead of salvaging hers?
Maybe they couldn’t afford to start a garden of their own. Maybe they saw her pitiful attempt and decided to fix it up, knowing this would be the closest thing. As strange as it was, it at least made some sense.
But when Labrys arrived at her garden to a new flower with a note tied around the stem that read, Iris—don’t make it die-ris! she found herself rooted in place, just like her beloved plants.
The next weekend, Labrys returned to her garden. For a reason unbeknownst to her, she was unsurprised to see the figure leaned against the brick wall. He was just as tall as she remembered him, his expression flipping from bored to interested as soon as he noticed her. However, the interest was gone a split second later, replaced with a careful apathy.
“Oh shoot,” he deadpanned, rolling his eyes, “you caught me.”
Labrys should have been afraid. She should have been angry. Here was the most wanted man of the Shadow Operatives, standing right next to her garden. This close to the Shadow Operatives’ headquarters, he was practically turning himself in. Maybe he was tired of running. Maybe she should call Mitsuru or Aigis.
Instead, Labrys took a seat by the soil, pulling a leg to her chest. She had no plans to go anywhere.
“Why?” she asked eventually. “Did ya really find me so incapable?”
Sho shrugged from his place against the wall, looking uncomfortable with the situation. “Do you know how freaking irritating it is to see you kill plants and grow weeds for months?” he countered back. He didn’t wait for her to answer, huffing a laugh. “Like, really freaking irritating.”
He sounded… calmer, maybe. Just like he had after she had defeated Hi-no-Kagutsuchi. When they had been at the exit of the TV World—when it had been just the two of them at the end of it all.
“You didn’t hafta do this,” Labrys said. “I would have gotten it eventually.”
“What, next year?” Sho said, even if it lacked his usual edge. He shut his eyes with a sigh. “You can only watch someone fail so many times until you feel obligated to fix it, Scrap.”
Labrys leaned forward, pressing her cheek to her knee. Her eyes examined her garden, and it was obvious that Sho had already taken care of her duties for today. “When did ya take up gardening?” she asked instead.
She couldn’t see Sho from the angle she had turned her head to, but she could hear his uncertainty all the same. “Heard it through the grapevine—get it?—that a certain toaster was killing everything she touched.” He paused, perhaps waiting for her to laugh. When she remained silent, he continued, “So I did some research on gardening.”
This entire time, the Shadow Operatives had assumed Sho was on the run. He had left the TV World, abandoned Tokyo, and started a new life somewhere far away.
But for some reason, Sho had stayed in Tokyo. He had stayed around Tatsumi Port Island, and he had been keeping tabs on her. He had known about her new hobby—and he had known how awful she was at it. Somehow, her inadequacy had somehow spurred him into gardening.
No matter how much she turned her thoughts over in her head, Labrys couldn’t find an answer. And so, she repeated her earlier question: “Why?”
Sho scoffed. “You asked that already,” he said, as if it weren’t obvious. “Isn’t your programming supposed to be, like, state of the art?”
“Why did you stay?” she asked in clarification. She failed to meet his gaze, her eyes stuck on the flowers tentatively reaching out from the earth. Her morning glory had remained as elegant as it had when she found it, and the iris from Sho looked just the same. The other flowers had slowly growing leaves, small buds promising petals of other colors.
Distantly, Labrys realized it hadn’t been her garden for months. She and Sho had cultivated it together, even if she hadn’t known for the longest while.
There was the sound of shuffling, followed by a small thud. Out of the corner of her eye, Labrys could see that Sho had sat down and mirrored her posture, a leg pulled to his chest to match. “Why do you think?” he answered with another question. He liked to do that, it seemed. “Where the hell else do you think I can go?”
Labrys found a small smile growing on her face. “You’re wanted by the Shadow Operatives,” she said, as if he didn’t know. “And yet…”
You keep coming back. You keep sneaking here to keep our garden alive.
You trust me enough to not tell them.
“Here I am,” Sho said proudly, even if the bravado was anything but authentic. “Keeping your shitty garden alive is my new day job. Ran out of dads to please.”
“You know,” Labrys began, nipping his train of thought in the bud, “I think a hobby is just what you need.”
Sho huffed a laugh, throwing his head back to look at the sky. His expression was hidden from Labrys, but she had a feeling he was contemplating her proposal. He stared upwards for a few interminable moments, perhaps searching for his answer in the clouds. Maybe, Labrys realized distantly, he was waiting for another voice to chime in.
Eventually, he rolled his head forward, narrowing his eyes at the array of flowers. “Never saw myself as a gardener.”
“Me neither,” Labrys commented, because it was the easiest way to say we were both created to be weapons. She offered a shrug. “But it’s fun to create life rather than take it, y’know?”
Sho leveled her with what must have been a glare, but his eyes were much too soft to contain any scorn. “You’re weird,” was all he said before looking back to the garden.
For a while, they sat there in a comfortable silence. Sho’s gaze remained on the garden he had helped cultivate, blue-gray eyes lingering on the iris he had planted.
Labrys debated on staying silent; she was afraid the moment would shatter and Sho would leave, never to be seen again. But Sho had stayed to talk to her, and he hadn’t run away just yet. For better or for worse, he had re-entered her life, and it had been under the guise as her gardening partner.
“You know,” she began tentatively, “I wanted to follow you, back then.”
Sho remained still, as if moving a single muscle would kill him. “I’m a criminal,” he said carefully. “Of course you would.”
“The Shadow Operatives wanted to follow you because you are a criminal,” she corrected him. “I wanted to follow you because I knew we were the same.”
“And become gardening buddies?” he asked rhetorically, even if his joke lacked its usual enthusiasm.
“I wanted you to know you weren’t alone, Sho-kun,” she said firmly, the use of his name shocking Sho out of his paralysis. “That was my real wish.”
Sho stayed quiet, words leaving him for the first time in their conversation. He fidgeted awkwardly, his fingers tightening and untightening around his knee. Eventually, he said, “I was always alone. A stupid toaster isn’t going to change that.”
Labrys shook her head. It was like they were back on the top of that hellish tower. She could still see Sho, shaking with full body tremors and ready to burst at the seams. His eyes were glassy, self-restraint the only thing preventing a complete breakdown. He had lost everything important to him at that point—so what was left to lose?
“You were never alone,” she interrupted, “and you don’t hafta be now.”
Sho glanced back to the garden, his eyes hidden behind his overgrown bangs. He took in a shaky breath, his shoulders trembling, and exhaled it a long moment later. He brought his hands to his head, gripping hard enough to hurt. “Shut up. Just—shut up.”
Without preamble, he got to his feet and ran into the forest. Before long, his silhouette vanished into the foliage, as if he had never been there at all.
Once the whirlwind of commotion had died down and Sho’s presence had become a memory, Labrys breathed a fond sigh. Despite the situation, she found a small swell of pride in her circuitry. She had gotten through to Sho, and even if he needed to sort through his own feelings, he knew one thing: he was never alone.
And to Labrys, that really was a dream come true.