Archive of Our Own ^beta

Salt falls from the sky. We watch a gaggle of refugees scramble through the rubble of crushed buildings and asphalt, a hundred yards away. They are no Legion. Their movements are too steady, and too weak. Their skin is too dark from a forgotten sun.

I’ve seen hundreds of refugees. Sometimes they thank me and I bite back my words. Would you thank a gun? A gun that'd be thrown away when empty, when you yourself have been killed? These are too intent on survival to pay attention to us, and that suits me just fine.

One of them is pregnant. Idiot. I wondered if it will be in the same position as us, fifteen or sixteen years from now.

The guy trailing behind the rest looks at me, like he heard my thoughts. He’s the same age as me. Maybe a little older. His hair is already white. His eyes are a shade of blue I remember, from somewhere.

"It's sad," Rubrum whispers.

I open my mouth to tell her to not be stupid. Nothing comes out. A wisdom beyond this humdrum, nightmare existence of pain and murder falls upon me like salt, and that man is still staring.

She's right. It is sad.

Who was she?

I opened my eyes. The tree canopy shifted high above like the wind across the sea, and the sky shone white through the gaps in the leaves.

Ah, the Forest of Myth. I should have known.

"Weiss!"

Why must Nier always yell even when I’m next to him? I groaned, and raised my hand to my eyes. My fingers smacked into something cold and smooth that shifted uncomfortably against the bridge of my nose. That was the first problem.

I pulled it from my face like I would a bug. It was a pair of squared, silver-framed spectacles.

"Weiss, is that you?" Nier was bellowing at me with that full-bore concern of his.

I had hands, and a face. Those were the second and third problems. I rolled them into one: what the blazes happened to me?

Nier's face appeared over me, at the angle I commonly saw in the mornings after he rolled over in his sleep and knocked me to the floor. "Are you alright?"

"A fine questi--" I sounded much the same, yet froze at the way my face and mouth contorted and stretched to form words, for once, I was at a loss for. That wouldn't do. The great Grimoire Weiss, struck dumb? Unthinkable! This was by no means the first strange occurrence we had encountered, let alone in the blasted forest. I needed to think.

Nier, naturally, was not patient. He grabbed my hand in his own and pulled me up into a sitting position. His grip felt warm and strong.

It felt. I always possessed a simulacrum of the five senses, necessary to communicate with the mere mortals surrounding me. This was nothing like that. The way the muscles moved in my new form disturbed me. Was this what humans felt all the time? No wonder they were so flaky.

I had awoken in a patch of grass under that blasted tree. Kainé leaned against its trunk. She took one appraising look at me and scrunched her nose up. "Should've let you dipshits sleep it off."

"Would that the tree conjured a bar of soap in your mouth, hussy."

"So you can still talk," Nier said, with that insufferable little smile he always gave me before... before five years ago. He pulled me to my feet.

How strange it felt, to be on eye level with him, yet planted as firmly upon the ground as any of the trees around me. I looked around. We were alone. "Did the villagers say anything?"

"They're avoiding us." Nier shrugged. "Have they ever said anything helpful anyway?"

"An excellent point."

"Do you remember what happened? The dream?"

"We defeated the Shade in the realm of words, and then… no. Nothing that makes sense.” I stared at my hands. I could see my veins through my skin. “I think I dreamt I was a human."

"Huh. Were you a human?"

"Of course not!” I sniffed. “I am a being of thought and intellect, how could I have been a human?"

"I guess.” Nier shrugged helplessly. “This is weird, right? I mean, weirder than usual."

"This is profoundly odd." I took a few steps. So far, so good. "But I am not a Shade, am I?"

The thought hadn't even occurred to the poor, dim man. The discomfort on his face increased into outright worry at the thought, clearly visible even with half his face obscured. And just as quickly, he shrugged it off. "Don't think so. Kainé?"

"Nah."

I pointed my finger at the sky. "And the Sealed Verses?"

A Dark Lance formed above my outstretched finger and flew toward heaven. The lines of red magic running through it were dim, and it vanished after a moment, as if hitting a cloud. My magic had not yet restored itself, despite my changed form. I suppressed a sigh of disappointment. "If you have the key, there's nothing to keep us here. We can solve this new mystery when Yonah is safe and sound."

"Smartest thing you said in a while." Kainé pushed herself off the tree and was already walking to the gate leading outside.

“Yeah.” Nier took one last look at the tree, as if appraising its potential for furniture, then turned to leave. As I followed them I noted my old form, myself, was still floating in the air, now following me like a fly on a string.

I would have some stern words with the Forest at the very next opportunity.

In a long litany of problems rising like weeds before us until I stopped counting then, a clear one presented itself: Walking. Nier had run around like a maniac since the day we met, if he wasn’t somersaulting. Kainé was always at full tilt close behind him, letting her blades trail behind her like a particularly ill-designed robot. The boars had made themselves scarce. And so, I was reduced to stumbling along the ground like an upright ape.

"Jeez, gramps, can't you go any slower?"

I grimaced. It wasn't that I was tired. It wasn't even that I was clumsy. For someone who had until recently been a tome of unknowable power, I adapted distressingly well to a mere human shell. That unfamiliarity itself was tiring. The motion was not automatic as it was for simple humans who had relied on their meat shells for their entire lives and the practice itself exhausted my hitherto tireless intellect.

The gentle rolling hills of the plains were as a mountain range to me. I tripped over what may have been the only rock for a hundred yards and stumbled until Nier took my arm.

"GOD, Weiss!"

"If you’re in such a hurry, by all means run ahead and present your buttocks as if we couldn't already see them."

"Guys." Nier's exasperation silenced the both of us. "Let's set up camp, while it's bright."

Nier caught rainbow trout in the river. Kainé foraged berries, and scowled when I asked if they were edible. My favourite was the water. I drank and drank until I felt waterlogged. 

"For someone who has a body, now, spending your first day walking across the hills must be tough." Nier poked at the embers of the fire. "It's a shame we can't do anything more fun."

Kainé snorted. She had been even more ribald than usual, lately. I chose to ignore her. "Fun is a rare commodity these days," I murmured instead.

“Hey, we get to see the King get hitched. Who do you think--”

“It’s Fyra,” Kainé interrupted. “Who else would it be?”

“Hm. Do you think there’s a rule against inviting humans that were previously books to your wedding?”

“Well. Probably not.” Nier poked the fire with a stick and watched the sparks fly up. “It’s not impossible, honestly, but I doubt it. Anyway, you’re better dressed than the rest of us.”

The tree had granted me white trousers, fine white boots that were thankfully practical for walking, and a dark long-coat the colour of my cover. He had a very good point.

“What are these even for, anyway?” Kainé took my glasses off my face without invitation and squinted through them. She looked ridiculous. “Wipe that smirk off your face, book!”

Something was missing, I knew, even as I smiled. Something I had noted a few times even before this... strangeness.

I had put it down to the diminishing of my power. True, it was still potent enough to take down the Shades that attacked us as we crossed the single bridge across the ravine, but the words of the Verses no longer resonated. The blood the Shades seeped did not slake my need for magical energy. I directed Dark Blast and Dark Phantasm, when Nier's reckless charge gave me the opportunity to attack, and it felt... anaemic.

"It's too quiet," Kainé had whispered once, after the Aerie.

I stopped thinking about the Aerie. I stood up. "I'll take the first watch. Don't give me that look," I added, cutting off Nier's protest. "I won't go far and it'll do me good to become more accustomed to this form without Kainé hollering."

Kainé turned her face away from me. "Knock yourself out."

I didn't look at Nier's face. I knew already he'd appreciate the gesture. I wouldn't let my new situation get in the way of their burgeoning relationship, not when so much else had.

That was, after all, why we made camp on the bank of a river, and not in Nier's cottage in the village. Some frightful coprolite had gossiped to the known world that Nier was sleeping with 'the witch', and that was the end of that. No amount of explaining that the whole village would be dead without Nier would turn public opinion back in his favour.

Popola was apologetic. If I could have, at the time, I would have spat in her face on Kainé's behalf.

Nier was too understanding. I was too angry. Perhaps we were a bad influence on each other.

Still, in our camp, we were happy. I wouldn't begrudge them.

I found a meandering but stable path up the scarp to a lookout point. The rocks crumbled into dust under my fingers. I reached the top of the hill and settled down with my hands in my lap, watching the sun approach the horizon but never quite touch it.

In the distance, behind the chain-link fence of the Junk Heap, I spotted a large, lumbering shape. We had no reason to go there. Nier's great sword and spear were up to the task, and the villagers no longer deigned to ask him to build their kitchens or whatever silly little demands they had. Perhaps in the absence of any humans, the robots were daring to face the sunlight. Another problem that could wait for later.

Loud voices rose from the camp below. Well, if those two were always the picture of domestic bliss, I really would be concerned.

I began to understand why humans persisted in finding solace in the company of others, no matter how much absurdity or strife I saw it bring again and again. Though I had only superficially changed, it felt much lonelier to be a human than to be a book.

And yet, despite my new form, and the weariness in my legs, I couldn't sleep at all.

Nier stirred and stared at me as I went to get up again. I was in the habit of leaving him be and finding other things to do when he slept, but it was harder to leave silently with four confounded limbs to deal with.

"You should still rest," he said, when I explained. "Even if you feel fine now, push yourself too hard and you'll be a wreck tomorrow."

I lived since time immemorial. I had much to mull over in my times of repose. Yet what stirred in my heart was unmistakably boredom. Perhaps this sensation of boredom was why humanity consistently got itself into so much mischief.

"Come on." Nier gestured. I crawled awkward and confused to his side. He bade me lie down beside him, where Kainé had been dozing not ten minutes earlier.

"You sure you're alright?"

I felt perfectly fine. Content, even. Nier fussing over me like this, if anything, felt awkward to me. A guilty part of me appreciated that it took his mind off Yonah. The kind, befuddled expression on his face filled my heart with another emotion hitherto unfamiliar to me: nostalgia.

"Speak to me, Weiss."

I swallowed. "I have a newfound appreciation of exactly unsure I am of anything."

He seemed to understand. He looked as though he were about to explain everything before he slipped back into slumber.

Hypocrite that he was, he'd get up the next morning imperceptibly slower than the last, moving with the unmistakable stiffness of a man in utter exhaustion and the weight of the world pressing ever deeper upon him. And he would not speak of it to myself or to Kainé. This would not change, I knew. Kainé's strange, angry, fathoms-deep fondness for him would not change. I had not changed, in that regard. For the few hours before the sun lifted itself from its stupor upon the horizon, I studied the tattoos upon his back, and reassured myself with that.

Much of the desert was a blur. A painful, sand-blasted blur. I was determined to stand tall and reintroduce myself properly to the King, and ended up sneezing a handful of sand the moment I dared open my mouth. Humans are disgusting.

Kainé snorted. Fyra's hand raised to her mask, hiding a smile none of us saw but radiated from her. The King may have been royalty already but smirked like he was a little brat again. My ire at him was not strong, truth be told, and quickly dissipated when he graciously invited us to stay in his palace for the night.

The moment Nier heard mention of baths, he grabbed my sleeve and dragged me down the hall to them.

"It's barely sundown, is this really necessary?"

"Trust me, you’ll appreciate it.”

"Surely I don't stink that badly yet... wait. Do I?"

We walked past a masked bath attendant who dutifully rattled off yet more infernal rules. At least these made a certain sense. Wash first, rinse, then soak in the bath.

Nier was already taking his armour off and undoing his belts. He caught me standing there rather awkwardly. "Come on, it's not like you haven't seen me naked."

If I had to be honest, I was more worried what I would look like under the fine garments, much like the ones the twins in the village wore. It was both a relief, and a source of yet more confusion, that I looked no different than the average obstinately male human. Perhaps paler, with less hair. Further investigation could wait. I followed Nier's lead with the ritual of soap and water then stepped into the bath and sat beside him. 

The water was hot, almost too hot. Hot enough to soak through my muscles and into my bones. The relief was palpable. I felt tired, but in a... pleasant way. I sighed with more feeling than is usual for me.

"Told you it'd help."

The room was filled with thick fog. Wait, no. I was still wearing my glasses. I took them off, folded them and placed them carefully on the side of the bath.

"Can you see without them?"

"I can. They're as much of a mystery as the rest of me. Perhaps they are the key. They even look a little like one." I picked them up to study the frames, thoughtful.

"They look good. I mean." Nier cleared his throat. "They suit you."

No, no cryptic messages or ancient runes on the frames. I put them back down. "In any case, though my eyesight is perfect, wearing them on my face means I know where they are."

"I dunno, there was this old lady in the village a few years back who was always looking on them when they were on top of her head...." Nier trailed off. I let him enjoy the happy memory, and simply watched him a few moments. 

I had been the one to badger him into tidying himself up on occasion, in that awful time right after Yonah had been taken away. As a book--and the book was still following me dutifully, being talked at by a few of the people of Facade thinking it was still the locus of my consciousness--this water would not have harmed me. All Nier would need to do is remove my filigree and carefully scrub me with soap and water.

And yet, this still felt different. I had almost asked him to scrub my back when something between my shoulder blades itched, a new and unpleasant sensation, and had to put a halt to that mental train immediately.

"I never really treated you like a person,” Nier said out of nowhere.

"Naturally. I'm not a person."

"You aren't just a book--"

"That is not what I said." I leaned back. Nier was making himself comfortable with his arms resting along the edge. His fingers were in touching distance of my shoulder. That itching feeling was coming back.

"I am Grimoire Weiss, keeper of ancient wisdom and profane power, no matter what form that blasted forest bedevilled me with."

"But I mean. Well. You rejected that, didn't you?"

Despite the warm water, cold crawled up and down my skin. Nier never, ever spoke of that battle. Why now, of all times?

"What I mean is, you don't have to keep fighting for me."

"The Shadowlord threatens all, not just you and your daughter. Leaving now is against the question."

"Yeah. Just been thinking about it."

He turned to look at me. He wasn't wearing his mask, a rare sight indeed. I studied the long scar that dug across the right side of his face, over where his eye had once been.

How would that scar tissue feel under my fingers?

"Rule 982294: One must leave the royal baths after fifteen minutes."

Blasted rules! Though for once, they may have made things much simpler.

Nier went to speak to Kainé for a moment before we caught up with the King and the affairs of the kingdom. I was not in a hurry. It had already become clear speaking to those outside that Facade fared as poorly as the village, and Seafront, though not quite so poorly as the Aerie.

I stopped thinking about the Aerie, and studied myself in the bronzed mirror left on the wall for Facade's honoured guests. I'd already studied my strange robes on the way here, and my body had proved unremarkable. I took a very close look at my face.

I was aged, in a different way to Nier. If he was worn down by his endless battles, I looked more like… well, something that had been left on the shelf a long, long time. The bones of my face held a structure akin to the cover of my prior form, which still hovered wordlessly next to me as if were were both comparing ourselves. The word imperious came to mind, staring at my expression.

I felt an odd twisting in my gut. Was this what they called nausea?

It wasn't what I remembered. It wasn't my face.

Of course it wasn't my face. I had died, hadn't I?

LOOK AT MY MEMORY

Something hurt. My hands were clutching the bronze mirror too tightly. A trickle of blood ran down its edge.

I felt like I was drowning in that bath, surrounded by fog. My consciousness seemed to have dislodged itself and returned to the grimoire, two feet outside of my paltry human cranium.

I had died. I died giving all I had left to freeze the Shadowlord in place. I died after learning the truth about the Shadowlord, and the Shades, and the twins, and the enormity of what we had done. Why was I here again?

Here again....

Fyra. The wolves!

I dropped the mirror and ran out of the room, past the confused guards, down the stone corridors.

Kainé was leaning against the wall. I heard her crudely demand what I was doing as I pushed past her up the stairs. I stared at the empty corner of the room a moment, something else is missing, as I stumbled into the warm evening air.

The King and Nier’s conversation stopped outright.

"Woah, Weiss, what's gotten into you?"

"Stop the wedding," I panted. "You have to stop them. The wolves."

The King shrugged. “They’re a menace, but we have kept them at bay this far. I won’t let them interrupt--”

"They’ll kill her,” I gasped out. “The half-Shade wolf will attack tomorrow and kill Fyra. The Shade…”

They were both staring at me in blank confusion. It wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. It was frustrating. Did Nier really not remember?

Well, why not take a leaf from his book, so to speak, and barrel straight on through. "Do you really not remember? We fought the Shadowlord already? The Shades are hu--"

Blinding pain shot through my head. Kainé had slapped me across the back of my head as her introduction into the scene. “Quit talking crap, Weiss."

"Crap?” My voice rose unexpectedly as I parroted her curse. I was panicking. “You asked it yourself, did you not?” I swung my arm at the door we had come through. “Nier asked himself and we both didn't know what he was talking about. After I blew up the Aerie. Where is Emil?"

Nier's eyes widened and his brow furrowed. Some may mistake that for anger. I had ample opportunity to become acquainted with Nier's moods. He was a straightforward, angry man, yes, but he had as many shades of anger as the old world had names for snow. He was confused, and scared.

How much could I tell him? What should I tell him? Dread slid into my stomach, an oily, chilling thing. What if I told him, now, the full enormity of his mission to save his daughter? That it would deprive another father of his own?

I stepped back. "I... I apologise. I... it must have been another blasted waking dream.”I could hear how weak my voice sounded. “I’ll leave you b--."

“King!”

Someone was calling out from below. Over and over again, “King!” The young man leaned over the wall, staring intently at the gate. There was a commotion at the entrance to Facade. The guards were standing around a figure. Not a wolf….

We all ran, this time.

When I came to that horrifying realisation, the bronze mirror staring back at me, I could see in my mind’s eye, Fyra bleeding out in the King’s arms. I heard her soft voice, the one she was forbidden to use until then, softly reassuring him as he wept.

That vision stared back at me now in the twilight with the eyes painted into her mask. The guards held their spears to her, aware of the ability for Shades to possess humans, the trembling spear points betraying their fear.

Her beautiful white dress was covered with blood, yes. But it was not her own. It couldn’t have been. She stood tall, her hands clenched at her sides.

Nier rounded on the closest guard. “What happened?”

“We don’t know! We… we saw her walking to us….” The guard looked helpless. “We hadn’t seen her leave.”

“Preposterous! We were talking with her only hours earlier. What could have done this?”

“Fyra!” The King grabbed her by the shoulders. For being such a tiny thing, he may as well have been shaking a pillar. “Fyra! Speak to me!”

“Sechs,” she whispered aloud. The guards fell still immediately. She had broken a significant rule already. “I’m sorry.”

Her head turned towards us.

“You… Nier… you must…”

She fell to her knees. Kainé was the first to have the nerve to approach her. Her hands ran over her dress. “She’s not wounded. This is something else’s blood.”

“Shades? Wolves?”

“Dunno. Not much difference between animal or Shade blood. Hey, King, order your guards to look away, they’ll probably bitch about this part.”

She was already pulling at her mask. Instinctively the guards turned on their heels, horrified at breaking yet another taboo, too terrified to protest. Only the King stared, resolute. I wondered if he had seen her face. He didn’t flinch like we, I am ashamed to confess, did—not in horror, but at the pain she must have endured to receive such scars on her face.

“She came here like this,” the King said, flatly. “A fire, when she was a child. Her family put her in service to Facade. This is not a new injury.”

Kainé pulled off a glove and put her hand over Fyra’s mouth. “She’s still breathing. Hey. Hey, Fyra.” She slapped her cheek—a lot lighter than she probably would’ve for either of us, honestly. “You’re not running out on your wedding, right? Fyra. Fyra, please.”

Nothing.

“It’s not…”

“No,” Kainé said, knowing what Nier was going to ask. “It’s not the Black Scrawl. But she’s not in shock, either.” She gently lifted Fyra up to slip her mask back over her head. “She just won’t wake up.”

“Why did she say your name?” The King asked.

Nier was silent.

“If you know something, tell me.”

“I don’t… I don’t know…”

“You must.” A flint edge entered the King’s voice. The guards were slowly turning back around, looking worryingly like they’d point their spears at Nier next.

“She’s holding something,” said Kainé.

We stared at her as she wrenched Fyra’s fingers open. Kainé swore. “Like a death grip—what the shit?”

We three recognised it. A small object of harsh lines made of stone, or metal, with ancient script engraved upon its surface.

“That’s one of the keys, right?” the King asked. “The ones you said Popola has you searching for?”

“I’m afraid so.”

The King nodded. “Guards! Under Rule 70, I declare a state of emergency. All those fit for duty report to the palace. Everyone else must stay inside. Do not speak of this to anyone.”

“The wedding…”

“I’m not marrying a corpse! Nier, please.” The King stared at us. “Please. Fix her.”

We stood outside of Facade in the desert.

Nier cradled Fyra in his arms. “What do we do?”

I was at a loss. My foreknowledge was of no use. Tied up in indecision as I was, it was worse than useless.

Kainé had been pacing. “We take her to Popola,” she declared without warning.

“You think that’ll help?”

“I don’t know, but we’re going to make ourselves Popola’s fucking problem until she finds something that does.”

Even the desert’s howling wind couldn’t have made me feel any worse than I already did. We travelled quickly, in silence. But the night was descending.

When we made it to the outskirts, where the sand still filled the air, but the ground became firm and I could see water and grass in the distance, Nier made a bed for Fyra against a cliff face. We set up camp in silence. Nier still had some dried fish he passed around. I stuck with water.

The shadows grew long. None of us slept. We all heard the Shades approaching like hungry beasts before we saw them.

Kainé ran into the dark, eager for distraction. Nier got up to follow her and turned to me. “Weiss?”

“I’ll watch over Fyra.” I swallowed. “Quickly, now.”

It was a formidable group of Shades, but still no match for Nier. I watched the blood of Shades soak the clothes that had been carefully washed for the wedding and coat his face.

One ran past them, towards me. I raised a Dark Wall and it didn’t stop running, falling back. It seemed to shudder and flicker as it fell to the ground and made a confused, wailing noise before Nier brought his sword down upon it.

I winced.

“You alright?”

“I’ve seen enough blood.”

I ought to have told him then. Before he killed more innocents in his ignorance. Were they even innocent? These ones descended upon us, like the wolves I had been anticipating. But there had been others….

Nier knelt down next to Fyra. He picked up her hand, checked her pulse again. “She looks so much like Yonah,” he whispered.

She didn’t. There were certain superficial resemblances, but no, her hair was a different shade. Her features, even if they had not been marred by a childhood tragedy, were clearly not the same. But I could see what he meant.

No, I couldn’t tell him.

I really was worse than useless. I sat awake all night. During that vigil, with Fyra’s hand in my own, I made a decision.

“I’ll take her in.” I lifted Fyra. She was light enough that I could manage, though her mask made it difficult to see around me. “You’re both exiled, but the villages won’t know who I am. I’ll speak to Popola and get the help Fyra needs.”

“Sounds good,” Kainé said, before Nier can process.”I’ll follow you to the gates.” She swung her swords in the air, testing them. “Would suck if you got yourself bushwhacked by a goat.”

“Indeed. If I don’t emerge by the following day, then… then you can come in for me. But I am the great Grimoire Weiss, no? The twins, at least, show me the proper respect.” I smiled, and Nier smiled back. It was remarkably easy to lie.

There were no goats. Aside from the attempted ambush last night, there had been little interference—not so much as a scorpion. Watching Fyra sleep, as I took a moment to work the tension out of my arms for the final stretch of the journey, I wondered if this had been some kind of ruse, and if the wolves were massing on Facade….

Kainé shook me out of my reverie by grabbing my arm tightly and dragging me into the into the shadow of the village wall. She slammed her gloved hand into the wall next to my head that I could have sworn I heard something crack, effectively pinning me.

Her arm. Her arm had no bandages. I had found myself staring at her limbs often enough, how had I not noticed?

"How much do you know?" Her voice was low and dangerous.

I would not insult her by trying to shield her from the truth. At any rate, she would likely figure it out and take it out on me. “Everything.”

“Don’t have time for everything.” She took a deep breath. Her fingers tensed, like she wanted to pull a brick out of the wall behind me. “Do you know what Shades are?”

“Yes. I know the Shadowlord is Nier’s soul.”

"Yeah. I figured. Shit. Fuck."

"Do you know more?"

Kainé stepped away. She ran her hand up her human arm. "I made up some bullshit excuse about my Shade disappearing when I got turned to stone, right, before you guys brought me back, yeah? I don’t think that would’ve gotten rid of him. He was too much of an ass-stain to leave that easily."

“You think he’s still in you?”

“Dunno.” Her gaze drifted away from me in thought. “I decided to enjoy the silence. Without him threatening to turn me, I could… you know. Him.”

I knew.

“I don’t miss Tyrann.” So that was his name. “He was a sack of shit. But… but. Him being erased without a word, without anything. That feels wrong. I dunno. Nothing makes sense. I didn’t care. Killing Shades and being with Nier was enough for me.” She turned her head to look at the horizon and the sun. "Turns out even without the Shade, I'm a fuck-up. So I figured Emil wasn't here because this was Hell."

I found myself, in a rare case, lost for words. I shook my head. I couldn’t leave her hanging like that. “I couldn’t tell him the truth, either.”

“Yeah?”

“If you’re a fuck-up, as you so eloquently put it, then so am I.”

“Pff, you’ve got no idea, book. I nearly did tell him, you know, then I realised. What if I already have? And I just forgot?”

“That’s…”

Of course. There was no guarantee this was the first time this had happened. Terror gripped me.

No, I couldn’t let myself quail again. There was too much at stake. I stepped out from under her grip. "Even if we are doomed, if Fyra's life can be saved, then not all will have been for nought."

"Don't try acting cool, book." Her glare intensified. It looked as though she were about to punch me. I suppose it would be well overdue.

She wrapped her arms around me instead. My heart stopped, then picked up at double time. Gods, that absurd lingerie she insisted on wearing really was preposterous, I could feel everything through it.

"We both belong by his side," she whispered. "Don't die too fast."

"I could say the same to you, hussy."

She pulled away. "You're blushing. Told you you were a little bitch." She turned on her heel and ran off without another word.

I could have spent several hours unravelling what just happened in the last few seconds, but I had much more important business to attend to. I picked Fyra up from the ground. It was difficult, but I could manage it.

No guards responded to my calls. I tested the gates with my shoulders and found them unlocked. I pushed my back into them until they opened a gap wide enough for me to squeeze through, not letting go of Fyra.

The village itself was quiet as the grave. Had it been overrun, in the wake of Nier's exile? What would I do if Popola and Devola were already dead?

But of course... It would take more than Shades to kill them.

I walked through the gates. No point hiding my arrival. No one waited to welcome me. I looked out across the field. I saw no one, animal or human, or Shade.

Something beyond the field caught my interest. I dared take a detour--not looking at Nier's long abandoned house--to the edge of the main street. The houses were empty, the broken stonework left ruined. The bricks crumbled under my fingers into off white dust.

The water was a sheet of rippled glass. No fish stirred below it. Finally, I looked at the water wheel that had caught my attention from across the village. I hadn't imagined it. It was completely still, the water pouring from it's panels frozen in the air.

I adjusted my grip on Fyra so I could run my fingers through it a moment. There was nothing there.

At a certain point, the anxiety and fear had dropped away. I suppose once humans reach a certain threshold of despair, feeling anything else was a waste of energy. And so, I made my way up the hill and into the library like it were a slaughterhouse, towards my fate.

The building was empty. The hole was still in the ceiling. There was more white dust around me. It reminded me of salt… but no, it was too fine.

“Popola?”

No response. I gently left Fyra propped upon the bottom stair and ran up to check her office and the strange room opposite it. No one.

I sat down next to Fyra. “What now, do you suppose?”

She slept on, the key still in her hand.

There was one place I hadn’t checked. One place, I mused, that Nier and I had never looked into. The doors just a little way away, where the Knave of Hearts had been sealed until we had the strength to defeat it, and where Kainé had been petrified for five long years. Five years in which I watched the simple, caring man Nier had been be worn away by his despair.

Had it only been five years?

I had to find out. I tested the doors. They were locked. Time to take a page from Kainé’s book. Two Dark Fists smashed the door off its hinges and I carried Fyra through into the dark.

The basement was larger than I expected. I could see something like glass cases around me.

"Weiss? And… the girl from Facade."

It was Popola, at the far side of the room. Her sister was nowhere to be seen.

"So you recognise me."

"You shouldn't be here," she whispered.

"No. I shouldn't. I should be out there, saving Yonah."

Popola rubbed her eyes like a tired child. "Is he... is he okay?"

"He's a wreck. Scarred. Exhausted. Traumatised. But the Shadowlord didn't strike me as the picky type."

Popola didn't react. It was as if she became a wax statue, like the rest. She blinked as slowly as a baby doll.

"Enough with the pretence. Tell me what is goi--"

Excruciating pain paralysed me, drove me to my knees. This, too, was familiar. This was the electric curse they put upon me when we reached the Shadowlord's castle and they made their intentions clear. As I collapse to the ground, Fyra slumped next to me, I saw Devola standing in the light shining through the hole in the library’s ceiling, her staff outstretched towards me….

Words fall from the sky, like ash.

The young man with the sky blue eyes won’t break eye contact. What do you want? A fight? I finger the trigger of the rifle in my arms.

A girl peers out from behind his back. Her skin and hair and her strange dress are so bright they almost glow against the grey salt around us. She’s just a few years younger than the man, but the way she clings to him is more like a little girl hiding behind her father, trusting him to protect her.

Raises alarm bells. She’s impossibly clean for a survivor of the Legion. Too pure. How can she have no injuries when she doesn’t even have shoes? She’s probably Legion. Seen it a dozen times--people recognise faces on the salt monsters and treat them like family. Usually ends up with having to kill them all. Mercy means more people die, when the Legion is involved.

I raise my gun. Rubrum shifts unhappily next to me.

I won’t blame her. It looks so much like Yonah. But that can’t be right. The ages are all wrong. Who is Yonah?

What am I?

Was waking up always this disorienting?

I went to sit up and hit my head on glass encasing me, trapping me upon some kind of table. Lying sleeplessly on the ground outside was preferable, frankly.

"I'm really sorry," Devola whispered. "We have no choice."

"Your own reasons."

She nodded. Popola was humming her familiar song to herself out of view.

I had to guess I was still in the library somewhere. The shadows obscured almost all detail around me. "Am I to wait for Noir’s tender ministrations, then?"

Devola actually laughed, but it was not a happy sound. "Noir’s not around any more. Too late for that.."

"Too late to still be keeping secrets, then."

They didn't deign to respond. The object I was lying on moved smoothly and silently, as if floating. I had a memory of being a grimoire held tightly to an android's chest, being taken back to the shrine to rest.

I didn't want to go back. An unfamiliar terror seized me. I couldn't help but jerk and try to look around me for an escape.

A body stared back at me and shocked me worse than the electricity had. It was oddly familiar. His dark eyes were half closed and his teeth were bared in a faint, somehow twisted smile. He seemed young. He was missing one arm from the elbow down, its stump a mass of twisted metal.

“Gideon,” I breathed. That's right, we should have been visiting the poor boy to upgrade our weapons. Nier’s sword had stood us well enough, the idea hadn’t even occurred to us. What had happened to the poor lad in the meantime?

"He was one of the first," Popola whispered.

"The first to what? To die? To be… chosen, as a vessel?"

They did not respond. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see others surrounding us on similar featureless white blocks, as if asleep. I saw no more faces, but I recognised clothing. The villagers. People from Seafront. Even a few I recognised from the Aerie before I destroyed it.

There were no visible wounds besides Gideon’s arm. None were mummified or decomposed. It was as if they had been cast into a deep slumber, like Sleeping Beauty.

Something shifted in my brain. It hurt.

"Don't suppose you'll tell us where you got your body, huh?" Devola asked conversationally.

Her casual demeanour rankled me.” Haven’t the faintest,” I said, deadpan.

"That's a shame," Devola said, with a click of her tongue. "Guess we have to take you apart to figure it out."

"They're here," Popola hissed suddenly, urgently. I didn't have to ask who.

They both left. “Damn,” I whispered. It’s what my friends would have said. The twins nearly destroyed us the first time around. I couldn't imagine how a rematch would go.

Well, am I or am I not Grimoire Weiss? I put the palms of my hands on the surface above me and pushed. The glass was not budging. That wouldn’t do. Kainé was right. My place was besides them.

It didn’t budge. I could smell something strange. My hands were burning. I stopped, quickly. The pain ceased. I tried to summon Dark Fist to crush it again, and it barely made a dent.

Something shifted in the dark. I froze. There was a shuffling noise, like a body sliding from one of its stretchers and approaching me.

I shivered.

“It’s okay, Weiss.”

It was Fyra.

“I’m going to open this,” she said quietly, in the common language, not Facade’s speech. “You have to be very quiet.”

I nodded. She pushed a button. The screen over me lifted and I got out with palpable relief. I could hear the muffled sounds of an argument outside but as I went to join them she took my sleeve, and shook her head, keeping her finger over where her mouth would normally be.

“There is a sealed door at the back of this room,” she whispered. “When I open it, an alarm will go off. Follow me. If I am attacked, defend me.”

“And I ought to trust you because?”

“We’re going to save Nier.”

I stared. That seemed a monumentally foolish idea to trust her. Was she not comatose? What if a Shade had possessed her after all?

And yet… if I were to go outside, and we were to defeat the twins again, would it go much differently? Popola may lose her mind and blow us up yet again, and poor Emil being missing, we would have no hope. Even if she did, what then? Go through the motions, kill the Shadowlord and his daughter again and hope for the best?

I gulped. I desperately wanted a drink of water.

Instead, I nodded.

I followed her between the odd stretchers. What little we had seen of Fyra showed she was a brave soul possessing a strength of will far greater than her unfortunate life and small stature would suggest. She had that same confidence but walked without the bounce in her step. She put me in mind of someone walking to an executioner’s block.

The door at the back was sealed, as she said, by a magical force field – much like the one I had slept within for many years. I had almost expected Fyra to reveal some bizarre magical power herself. Instead she turned to an innocuous brick in the wall next to it and slid it aside to reveal a metal panel underneath.

Her hands blurred. The panel made some kind of plaintive robotic sound, then shorted out. The magic disappeared and the door slid open.

She ran. I followed her. I followed her into the dark. The door slammed closed and I could hear it lock again. Some loud blaring alarm sounded in the distance. Around me were twinkling lights, like the stars of yore, though of myriad different colours. This was something like the Junk Heap. More ancient technology?

Without hesitation Fyra walked up to the machines and began pressing a series of buttons, again faster than I could tell. Dozens of windows opened, letting green light through. Monitors, I recognised.

Immediately there was banging on the door.

“Be ready,” Fyra said. Her tone of voice did not suggest she was in any particular hurry.

“Be ready for what--”

The door blew open and I reflexively threw up a Dark Wall. Orbs poured through the entryway and I switched to Dark Gluttony. My powers were still weak and the force of the energy made my stomach churn.

I couldn’t absorb them all. The back blast flung itself forward into Popola rushing at me. It didn’t stop stop her. She struck me across the chest and an odd bitter liquid filled my mouth. That wasn’t a staff she held, that was a sword.

My mind spun. I saw Fyra stop typing and turn with her hand under her mask as if to wipe her brow.

“Still a traitor,” Popola said to me. I could picture her raising her sword above her head. There was scuffling outside. I heard Kainé cursing out Devola with words so foul she may have invented them on the spot. I tried to get up, but the weak body I had been encumbered with was too slow. There was no way…

All fell silent, aside from the humming of the strange machinery.

I wondered if I had died. Gingerly, I got to my knees.

Fyra had stepped away from the monitors. She had Popola’s hair gripped tightly in one hand, and a strange dagger pushed hard into Popola’s neck. I could see the way Popola’s skin indented under the point, past the point human skin would have broken.

I turned to look behind me. Devola and Kainé were both in the doorway as if they had been trying to win a competition on who would get in first. I couldn’t tell who was angrier.

“Don’t move,” said Fyra. “I’ll kill her.”

Devola’s smile stretched unnaturally far across her face, baring her teeth. “If you even hurt her, I’ll pull the King apart like a butterfly. I’ll destroy everything you’ll ever love.”

“I’ll have done it first.”

Nier pushed himself past the two women into the room. He was breathing hard and his eyes were wide and manic. I wasn’t entirely sure it was because Devola had given him a run for his money. “Is someone going to tell me what the hell is--”

Devola stepped forward and Fyra pressed a button on the hilt on the dagger. It edges blurred with a horrid sound like drilling through stone. Popola screamed, more in shock than pain.

“Stop!”

“Fyra!” Nier roared.

She turned off the dagger. Popola sagged with relief. There was a scratch across her neck, flaking blood.

“That’s not Fyra,” said Kainé. “You called the King Sechs. Fyra wouldn’t do that. Not before she married him.” She raised one of her swords to Fyra’s face. “What did you do to her?”

“She’s safe.”

I could almost see the gears turning in Nier’s head. Truth be told, I was as clueless as he. I could only applaud his effort. “Who are you?”

“No one. Weiss, get up and go to the computer.”

I gingerly pulled myself to my feet. I assumed the contraption covering the walls was the computer; it sounded familiar enough.

“Press the button marked Enter. There’s an elevator to your left. All of you will get in. When it stops, I’ll start running. Follow me.”

“You think I won’t just kill you all?” Devola said.

“Devola, please.” Nier was almost begging now. “Whatever we did, I’m sorry--”

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew the truth.” Devola still had her staff. She twirled it in her hands. “And our part in it.”

“You two… you’ve done nothing but try to help me and Yonah. Whatever it is, I’d forgive you. I’d never hate you.”

Popola smiled. “You wanted to throttle me.”

Nier’s face fell. “I… what?”

“When we banished your friends from the village.”

“I didn’t—that’s.” He glanced to all of us. Popola, Devola, Kainé, myself. “I never said that. I never wrote it down. I didn’t even tell Weiss. How do you know that?”

“Weiss? Why are you helping her?”

The elevator opened.

I imagine a more awkward elevator ride had not happened in around a thousand years.

It felt like going to the Shadowlord again. Was that a hint of recognition in Nier’s eyes?

When the doors opened, lights turned on to show a colossal chamber. I could see a bright line of light stretching in either direction above my head, and huge, curving white walls coming down and touching the floor thousands of yards away.

“You can’t do this,” said Devola.

Fyra let go of Popola. “I should be a lot angrier at you two. You’re cowards. But I think I understand. And anyway, I don’t have enough room in me for more hatred. Do whatever you like now.”

She ran. I followed her. Curiously, it seemed to come easier to me.

“I’ve let go of your limiters. You’re at the same power as the twins, now.”

I didn’t bother asking her what she meant. I was already beginning to understand.

We approached a large pile of white computers, foil, cables, and some kind of connective tissue that rhythmically twitched.

“Okay, not Fyra. You gonna give us your name or will you let me come up with a real good one for you?”

“Maria, if you insist.” The entity within Fyra’s body performed more of those curious blurred hand movements. “There. That’s all. In a few seconds the limiters will be released on Sleeping Beauty, too. This is what you need to do next: Kill the thing that will try to take it over. That’s the thing that brought you all back. It is the thing that is tormenting you. Weiss, we’re the ones who gave you your new body, because only--”

There was an awful, rending noise, like the universe tearing in half.

Something was bursting from the porcelain white floors. Something red, but not a Shade. It was not the familiar patterns of data and light that formed each Gestalt. It looked… wrong. Unreal. It shot into the air and pierced the white dome above us.

The sky turned to ash. No, it was dust. A dust that I had not seen before. Thick, grey dust, sharp enough to cut flesh, rained from the sky.

We were surrounded on all sides by mountains of impossible height. The sky was pitch black, a few tiny specks of white twinkling in the expanse. So, this was the night I had heard so much about, I thought to myself, unable to process what was happening.

Nier stood next to me. He whispered something I couldn't hear, looking at the faint white dots above.

It was abhorrently cold and deathly quiet. Rubble shifted under my feet. I suddenly knew where we must be, even if it made no sense. I tried to speak and I found I couldn't. It wasn’t that my powers of speech had been taken again. I simply couldn’t be heard.

Nier kept staring up, into the void. In his visible eye I saw understanding dawn. We weren't humans. We weren't even Replicants. No living creature could survive this long in the scant atmosphere of the moon.

Whatever doubts he had entertained were cast away. He had achieved enlightenment. He knew finally, he could stop fighting and killing. He had already destroyed everything. We had.

There was nothing left. He could let go of his awareness and become just another piece of space junk.

The thought was intolerable.

I grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard enough to crush his bones if he were mortal. He stared at me. I did not speak, for even if he could hear, I could not convey the full strength of my feeling, not if I screamed the words scrawled across my mind and my soul in that moment.

Don't you dare leave us again, we need you.

He mouthed my name. In that moment, I, too, attained enlightenment.

The red thing suddenly snatched us up and threw us high into the air. A factoid about space slid into my mind at the critical moment; I grabbed Nier again and thew a Dark Blasts up like a scream into the void, the propulsion hurtling us back to earth.

Our landing was less than graceful. Nier pulled me to my feet and we watched the giant red mass of tendrils and blood claw at the sky as in frustration. I couldn't recognise it as any animal or Shade.

The horrible noise muted under the blood rushing through my brain.

Several more of the thick red tendrils erupted from the ground close to us and Nier, through a wild swing of his great sword, cleaved one in half. Blood sprayed from the wound. Whatever this creature was, it made no cry of pain. And yet, I still heard it.

WORLD DESTROYER

It stares at the two redhead androids that waited to die.

They are familiar to it.

THE OTHER THINGS SENT YOU IN FIRST TO DIE. YET YOU ARE THE LAST.

They trembled but stood resolute, holding each other. Their comrades, if they could be called that, already lay in pieces around them. They have no hope.

It reaches an arm out to them and they shudder as it reads every thought in their cortex in the space of moments.

YOU ARE PARIAHS. YET THEY DO NOT TELL YOU WHY. I KNOW.

In exchange it drops all knowledge it keeps guarded, of Project Gestalt and its thwarted chance at life. The one called Devola falls to her knees wailing. The one called Popola looks relieved, if anything.

I CAN GIVE YOU WHAT YOU NEED.

“What is that?” Popola whispers.

VINDICATION.

“Are you alright?” Devola called out, but I couldn’t see her. “I’ve turned on the internal comms line. Popola, you sure this is a good idea?”

“It’s fine. It’s okay. It’s time to stop.”

A cacophony of confused voices filled my mind. It only took a moment to hear Facade citizens amongst the sound to realise what had happened, and just as quickly, the voices stopped.

“Sorry about that, I muted everyone except us.”

“Great, can you mute Weiss too, then tell us what the flying fuck is happening?”

“Glad to see you’re still in good spirits despite everything, Kainé. You’ll need it.” I swallowed. “I know. I know just about everything. We’re all androids now, aren’t we?”

I looked up to the red thing in the sky. It had formed a huge mass of red tendrils, curving upwards. I recognised it. Lycoris radiata, the red spider lilly. A common symbol of death.

“There was another tree of memory here,” I went on. “There were hundreds once, but with the failure of the project, only this one remains in this form. On the moon, where there’s no sun to harm Gestalts, and no white chlorination syndrome.”

“No what--”

“I’ll explain later. That thing knows about us and is recreating us again and again, changing variables each time. Like a long science experiment. That’s why Kainé’s Shade is gone. That’s why we have been ostracised, when before only Kainé and Emil had to endure that. That’s why Emil is not here. But why? To what end? To create a new Original Gestalt? To find another way to save humanity?”

THE LAST GESTALT BECAME EXTINCT. SOMETHING ELSE REMAINS.

Red spears rained from the sky and erupted into worm-like creatures flinging themselves at us. Kainé swore and sliced them to ribbons. One was heading for me. Nier, who had been standing in dumb shock, reacted as if on instinct to block it with the sharp edge of his own weapon.

Blood spilled everywhere. Red, warm blood. In the bleak coldness of space, I could feel the warmth from the blood spilled across the ground, splashing my face, like a fire burning within me. I breathed in. I heard the words.

I summoned Dark Phantasm. A red shadow in Nier’s shape took control. With frightening efficiency it cut every worm in twain. The blood filled my vision.

I licked my lips. 

"Uh. Weiss, you good?"

"My dear friend, I've never felt better!” I laughed like some clownish figure from a common paperback. “My power has returned. All of it. The paltry little light show I relied on for the shades--that was but a taste!"

"That's because you didn't need it,” said Popola. She had been thrown against a pile of debris by the initial attack, Devola shielding her as she caught her breath. “The Shades were fakes. Created by the lunar experiments into hard light and augmented reality. All that’s left of them is data. There’s no Gestalts to resurrect."

“Then why?”

“Simple,” said Devola. “It wants to see you suffer.”

The thing above us roared. It was trying to attack again with some kind of humanoids made of writhing red worm-like creatures. Kainé laughed like she had just been surprised with a birthday party and rushed to intercept them.

“If you remember everything, do you remember how you were created?”

I considered. The visions of the sad girl. Eleven other young people. “Yes, I think I do.”

“Then you can probably imagine what they got up to when they didn’t have any authority on Earth to watch them.”

Yes. I, unfortunately, could.

“It’s a combination of several projects. Gestalt experimentation. Using Replicant shells over and over, to keep a single Gestalt alive. Nano-magitech. Drawing maso fresh from other realities, which would have gotten them nuked if the Project heard about it. And the Lunar module of Sleeping Beauty, the quantum computer that stores all memories of humanity….”

“Part of the moon was destroyed after the Gestalts were initially put into stasis,” Popola continued. “Even before that, the experiments had mutated beyond their initial purpose. They became this thing.”

“The humans that were here used it to create paradise while they waited. When it turned on them, before it killed them, they called it the Demiurge.”

“The Demiurge.” I searched my memories. “A flawed god, creating a false world.”

“It was a massive composite Gestalt.” The twins voices merged together, telling a single story. “It wanted to return to earth and become humanity once again.”

“The end of the Project drove it further into insanity.”

“It blamed you, Nier.”

Newfound knowledge hit my brain like a bucket of iced water. It was much like the context less facts I possessed, and even harder to describe. If I were a human, I'd describe it as learning how to fly in my dreams.

“We accompanied a YorHa scouting mission. All except us were annihilated in seconds.”

“The Council of Humanity never sent another party. It’s not just that we were expendable. The resources here could have benefited it greatly in the war against the machines. The only possibility is that it deemed the far side of the moon off-limits and redacted this lab from history.”

“If the most advanced combat androids ever created can’t kill it, none of you had a chance.”

“None of you, except you, maybe, Weiss. If what that girl said was right. We’ve released the seal that restricted your abilities to those of common Replicants.”

“Are you done?” Nier asked.

They did not reply.

“Where’s Yonah?”

Still no response.

“Did that… thing not bring her back?”

“It chose to stop creating certain entities.”

“Like Gideon. With his hatred of machines already in place, he kept finding out he was an android, and almost jeopardising the simulation.”

“Like Emil. He was too powerful, and kept finding ways to circumvent the simulation.”

There was something wrong. Nier was never this calm, especially not about Yonah. “What happened to Yonah? In the last… reenactment?”

Devola hesitated. “It doesn’t matter now, it--”

“She’s the goddamn reason I did all this!” Over the strange android ability the twins had granted us, it as if Nier’s roar filled the universe. He threw his sword down and it stuck itself into the tiled floor. “If she’s dead, you can all rot in hell with me!”

“Even Kainé?”

Nier spun to face me. I had not seen that particular type of anger aimed at me, before. I wondered if I would be seeing what my guts looked like.

“I did not see Yonah amongst the bodies in the library. Was she there?”

“No,” said Devola. “We figured the Demiurge destroyed it. It does that, sometimes.”

“Nier.” All I could do was speak gently to my dearest friend, who I had come to such a profound realisation about, and who once again was close to slipping forever away from me. “I may know where Yonah is. I ask you to fight by my side, one last time. We’ll find her together.”

Nier took a deep breath. Out of habit, I think. I hadn’t breathed in quite some time, but then, breathing had been a novelty for me. “Where?”

I gestured to the writhing red mass behind me. From the centre of the flower high above emerged things like wasps that surrounded Kainé. The seal that the twins mentioned had clearly broken. I don’t think I had ever seen her so happy, except those times I caught a glimpse of her in Nier’s arms.

“She’s not making any progress. It’s a stalemate.”

“The Sealed Verses are powered by blood, yes?”

“Yeah…?”

“Gestalts may be no more. This is something we have played a role in, and we may yet be called upon for further retribution. But in the meantime. You think you can make a god bleed?”

“Ffh.” He walked past me, towards the mass. “It would be my pleasure.”

I nodded to the twins. If we survived, there would be time for proper apologies. I owed them one, myself.

Nier hoisted the great sword up on his shoulder, looking up at the Demiurge.

I cracked my knuckles. I had to say, the sound was very satisfying.

“I’m so tired,” he said.

“Not much longer, old friend.”

I wanted to say more. I wanted to reach out to him. This was a poor time to ruin two friendships at once. I had more pressing matters to attend to, and an unruly false god to discipline.

With a cry, Nier leapt up—high, high up. The combined low gravity and removed limiters carried him far into the sky.

Two petals drifted slowly to the ground in the wake of his sword. The blood poured from them in a torrent and I felt the words of the ancients built on my lips.

I aimed a Dark Lance. It was nothing compared to the paltry thing I had tested in the forest. It burned with righteous fury. As full of lies and deceit as the stories told about me were, one thing was true in this moment—I wielded the will of humanity. It was time to teach this Demiurge that.

I grasped the gilt and let it flew. It shot up through the Demiurge at an angle, high above. I heard Kainé let out a ‘fuck yeah!’ as I flew past her but Nier was looking at nothing, intent on nothing but drawing as much blood from the thing as he could. As blood flew, the words filled me. Countless memories, moving so fast I could barely keep track.

Humans building this place with drones and Replicants, making grand plans.

Decadent gardens. Lives whiled away inside virtual realities. Replicants created and tossed away like fast fashion. Human souls in sterile labs, relieved to be out of the sight of the sun, yet steadily uneasy. The darkness like a thorn, embedded in the heart of Sleeping Beauty.

I would not be distracted. I took one last look at my friends. I was a creature of words and memories. I was not entirely certain I would return. So be it.

I raised a Dark Fist to the sky then brought it down through the tangles of razor sharp, thrashing petals and screeching ghosts made of blood, into the heart of the Demiurge.

The skin is bright red and warm under my hands. I search for a gap in its surface, find a loose thread, and pull.

HATRED

I thought I knew what hatred is. But Nier's single minded mission, Kainé's pain, my dismissive attitude to Popola--all of it, everything, is a weak candle flame at the heart of the sun.

SCAPEGOAT

I close my eyes but still sees nothing but red. I force myself to press on through the torrent of hatred. It hurts. My skin is melting away from my skeleton. A long, long time ago, I thought being pulled forcibly from my body to be trapped in a book for all eternity was the worst pain I had ever felt.

This is worse.

HURT HIM

It’s not only the death of the Original Gestalt and the ruination of humanity’s future. This thing hates the Replicants, the relapsed, the Legion, the Dragon and the Giant. It hates yet more mundane crimes humanity waged upon one another throughout it's entire lifespan. Wars never recorded in my pages. Atrocities lost to time, yet remembered keenly by this deity that did not exist then.

By my pages, what kind of experiments were they doing?

Perhaps the end of humanity is no great loss--

I dug my teeth into my lips. They bled the bitter liquid I tasted thanks to Popola what felt like years ago. This aura is truly formidable. I fear for my friends if I fail now. My loved ones.

Under the waves of rage I could feel a presence I may have met before, one or twice.

LOOK AT MY MEMORIES

The tree known as Sleeping Beauty, before its eventual decommission and destruction, was amongst the greatest achievements of the maso era—a massive, multi-nodal quantum computer storing all the memories of humanity, good, and bad.

I have found a book. It’s not me. Goodness, I had forgotten my old body had been following me like a lost puppy. I don’t think I’ll need it again. This book, though—this is a simple thing in a plain white binding, nothing like mine. Nier told me it was a present from the twins, to Yonah. It is Yonah’s diary.

I have never read this. Nier never did. He respects his daughter’s need to have a place she could write what she wanted, during such a difficult time in her short life. He does read her letters, all the time, even the ones that clearly break his heart. I remember the way he touched my pages where he kept them.

The words contained in its pages were a bright point of uncertainty in the mass of information threatening to drown me.

In Yonah’s opinion—and despite her lack of years, I put her opinion above those of many, many I have met—there is nothing worse than a sad tree.

I cling onto this certainty, this one piece of melancholy. I pick my way through the anger. I am unaware of my surroundings. Spatial awareness lost its meaning a long time ago.

I think… I think it is the ruins of a city. There is a girl standing next to me, smiling faintly.

Poor Rubrum. Poor Noir.

The refugees moved on. The man I am staring at, the one with the sky blue eyes, is someone I am going to commit a grievous betrayal against, many centuries from now. And yet, he simply nods, takes his daughter’s hand, and follows the group into the distance, out of sight.

Had I met Nier in my youth, sans his future daughter? Is this some kind of symbolic vision? Is this purgatory? It doesn’t matter, frankly.

I took Rubrum’s hands. “Thanks for saving my life back there. I must apologise, I was a bit of a churl when we were acquainted.”

She shrugs. “You were. But it’s okay.”

The Demiurge is still here. It’s all around me. If I look away from Rubrum, I will see it’s face, and I think this time it would drive me mad. I don’t have time. Still, there is one thing I need to know.

“What’s your name?”

She tells me. It isn’t what I expected. But I like it.

“Thank you. And… goodbye.”

I bring all the power surrounding me and tear the consciousness of the red flower apart.

The flower disintegrated into a red liquid much like, but not quite, human blood.

Nier fell to the ground. He had dropped the habit of breathing. Kainé rushed to his side and held him. The twins simply watched.

The flower’s remains flood the laboratory complex, drowning equipment. Circuits fry. It spreads out to fill the space—a perfect circle inside a mare on the dark side of the moon.

A ruined book floated past Nier, its pages burned away and its filigree melted.

“Weiss,” Nier says. “Where’s Weiss?”

A single red spider lily, then a rose, then a cosmos. Banksia. Myriad orchids. Zygocactus. Moonflowers. More and more flowers burst into existence in a field of red and white, shimmering with an unfamiliar energy.

And from the centre I pulled myself from the muck spluttering and coughing. I may not have the need for oxygen but my word, lungs are inconvenient. I couldn’t see a thing—because my glasses were on and covered in red. How the devil did my glasses stay on my face the entire time? Yet another profound mystery to add to the pool.

“Weiss!”

I ignored them. I hadn’t yet completed my task. Where the stalk of the Demiurge had been was the remains of the Sleeping Beauty terminal. It fell apart into charred remains and dust before my eyes. It turned to dust before my eyes. Inside it, was a young girl in a mask.

“Thank you,” she said. “I will return this body to Fyra now.”

“And you? Your father is waiting for you.”

She took off her mask to look at Nier. He stared back. I think even he may have realised, now.

“My old body was abandoned in the ruins around the Shadowlord’s castle,” she said. “I became aware of my purpose. It was to punish the world-ender for the rest of time. I thought once it was done it would create a new world, but it just kept playing the same game over and over again… so I left.”

She looked down at her feet, at the Lunar Tear that had bloomed there.

“I wandered the labs. I walked across the moon until I tripped over a friend. Together, we contacted the Tree. We made a body for you, because your grimoire form was limited to spells that only affected the illusion Shades. This all took… a long, long time.”

“Is it not the 3400s any longer?”

“No. I think you should wait before asking the twins what the date is. It might upset you.” She smiled wryly. “I’ve seen too much. I learned more than I think any human ever did. I’m… I’m not Yonah. Whatever I am, my work here is done.”

“Yonah,” said Nier, behind me. “You helped the tree in the end. I remember, you always got so anxious reading that story.”

She didn’t seem to know how to react. I thought for a moment she was going to hide behind me, like the other Yonah I had just bidden farewell to.

“You know something? You didn’t just save the tree. You saved humanity.”

Nier took two steps towards her and gently grasped her hands in his own.

“Let’s go home, Yonah.”

Yonah threw herself into Nier’s arms and wept. Nier held her tightly and his head was bowed, but I could see the teardrops dripping from his face. Kainé leaned against me and we shared a brief smile with each other.

Devola had once said it was odd that they made androids that could cry. Well, this was at least one case where humankind had made an excellent choice.

The rest of the proceedings was a blur to me. It made sense, in a certain way. Our entire paradigm of existence had been thoroughly upended, after all. I helped Nier restore order to Facade and the other towns that had not been deactivated.

We even met Yonah’s friend, an oddly sentient ancient lunar rover that had all of us flummoxed, until a certain spherical skeletal head appeared in the driver’s seat. The reunion may have looked a lot sillier, but it was no less heartfelt. My word, I had no idea how much I missed Emil until we met once again. I resolved I would speak to him about his experiences. I can only imagine how it must have been for him, if he had forgotten Nier entirely until he saw his face….

It could wait, for a just a little while. I had accompanied Nier for many, many years now, I needed some time to myself. Our mission was finally completed, after all.

I sat at the top of the Lost Shrine. Not in the chamber I had slept in, heavens no—I sat on the edge of the building where the ordinary type of trees grew. The twins had left the hard light birds turned on to sing their songs. I was high up enough that I could watch the odd changes in the landscape and the movement of people below me.

I heard Nier approaching long before I saw him. He simply sat next to me. For such a loud man, many of my favourite moments with him were spent in such companionable silence.

“They’re going to create Yonah’s new body tomorrow,” he said, almost conversationally. “The twins are still figuring out how to transfer her personality over. I think they’ve got it, but they want to be absolutely sure.”

I nodded.

“So I asked how many years it has been. Yeah. Yeahhhh, you... You probably don't want to know. Yonah remembers more than most. It's been hard. Good, but hard.”

It really was a beautiful day. The sky was some kind of holographic display and they had turned it off to conserve power, but that didn’t matter at all.

“You usually aren't quiet for so long. What's the matter?"

I sighed, and pushed the glasses back onto the bridge of my nose. "I'm afraid."

"Of what?"

"The Sealed Verses saved us because I had ample blood. I think that may have been the last entity with compatible blood in the universe. I'm just a strange looking old man now."

"Hey, as one of those, it isn't so bad." Nier looked towards the horizon. "Devola was saying something about that, anyway. How those YorHa bots made their own version. We could figure something out."

“What do you make of this Council of Humanity?”

“They let me suffer here for centuries. I don’t think we need to worry about them. If they do decide to sniff around here again….” Nier patted his sword.

That didn’t entirely reassure me. None of us had any real idea what had been happening on Earth in all this time. We would have to go there eventually to replenish our supplies. Who knows what has been happening on that begotten blue marble?

But of course, Nier was right, and I let the worries go, as if dropping them off the side of the building like pebbles into the real-water lake below.

I felt as though I should continue the conversation. I didn't really want to be alone again. Why then had I come up here, to the place where I had spent aeons asleep? Clearly the human irrationality was already encroaching upon me.

“You know,” Nier began, “Emil and Yonah both worked with the tree to make a new body. So I asked Emil what the glasses were about.”

“Oh?” Yonah had explained the slight resemblance to my old been oddly vague about that detail. “What’s that?”

“They make you look like a cool old guy.”

I laughed so hard I made a most unpleasant snorting noise. That in itself set Nier off. We both sat there laughing like the pair of old fools we were.

“He’s not wrong, they are pretty fetching.”

My face burned. Ah, that one particular secret that had only been revealed to me as we stared at the stars, together. And another secret, in the odd tenor my banter with the hussy had taken recently. I chewed my lip. Crying, fine, but what practical purpose is there for androids blushing?

Nier noticed. Damn him, he’s getting more observant. "Sorry if I said something wrong--”

"Absolutely not!” I waved my hands frantically to dissuade him. I had already become fluent in talking with my hands “I have no intention of getting between the two of you--"

Nier groaned. “Dammit, I knew this would happen. I told her to come with me so we could get this out in the open. She just told me to had fun.”

“Hah!”

I had the sneaking suspicion I was blushing again. I stared fixedly at the horizon. I had heard that was a good cure for seasickness. The sea was more of an artificial lake, but maybe it could be repurposed for avoiding making a complete ass of myself.

"She kept calling herself my sword. Said there wasn't any need for her to be with me now. You know what I told her? I said I'd help her figure out how to be a human."

"You aren't one."

"We'll figure it out together. I guess what I am trying to say is... I thought you might need more help with that then most."

I stared at him.

“Uhhhh.” He suddenly looked as though Yonah had asked him to eat her cooking. “I mean. Uh.”

Nier was by far the most oafish, pig-headed, foolhardy man I had met. Why was he hesitating now? Well, there was nothing for it. I leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth.

It was very peculiar. There was nothing so different about the mouth physiology. Aside from the need to breathe, of course. Now that, that made a significant difference.

I relented, eventually. "I am – was--a tome of infinite knowledge. There's precious little you could teach me."

Nier gave me one of those warm, amused smiles. "Humour me, Weiss."

I supposed I’d have been more smooth, as they say, if in our fervour my glasses hadn’t wound up half hanging off my face and I didn’t feel like I just been shot through space like a rocket.

It was a nice day. A soft simulated breeze stirred Nier's silver hair. I took my glasses off, folded them carefully and placed them to the side. “Very well.”

We didn't say much for a long time. But in the process Nier's hand took mine, his calloused fingers rough and warm against my skin, and it stayed there.