Chapter Text
The elevator climbs higher and higher, past level ninety and to level ninety-five, the highest floor that Nona’s key would allow her to go. Given to her specifically because that old geezer wouldn’t stop bugging her to play billiards with him. Nona pockets the key to the higher levels and starts walking, knowing Oculus was definitely not favorable over the stunt she managed with Decim. She personally didn’t think she didn’t do anything wrong, just proved one of the Rules of the Arbiter’s wrong. That arbiter’s are allowed to have emotion’s, and the fact Decim’s were only getting more embedded in him with every erasure. To Nona, that was just the next step for the arbiters, the closest thing to a human that they could make would cast judgements on humans. They would learn the complexities of humans, turn it into the right judgements.
Oculus laughs upon seeing Nona’s slightly tense face, “Nona! Finally, you’re joining me for another game! Is this because you can’t hide behind your new arbiter experiment?” He states as he sets up Comic Billiards.
“Decim isn’t an experiment, he’s an arbiter like the rest of us.” Nona grips her pole tight.
“Is he now? Last I checked, arbiters aren’t supposed to cry.”
“I told you, even after you yourself tried to erase his memories, the emotions came back within a few days. You can’t deny that those are a part of him now.” Nona strikes the opening shot, dispersing the balls across the table.
“Unfortantly, that’s correct. But my question is how was that even possible?” He smirks.
“The hell you smirking for, Oculus?”
“Can’t a man have some fun with his favorite arbiter?” Oculus lines up his shot.
“You don’t smirk, not without knowing something. Or admitting defeat. Are you acknowledging that I’m right?”
“Sure, I can acknowledge you somehow managed to make a human-like arbiter.” Oculus strikes his Jupiter into his goal.
Nona took pride in Oculus’s surrender, scoring her Satrun into her goal.
“Don’t take me easily just because I proved one of your rules wrong!” Nona teases, but Oculus’s smirk bursts into a laugh. Nona raises an eyebrow quizzically but Oculus shrugs it off.
“You wouldn’t remember why it's funny, and it's a hassle trying to explain it.”
“Okay then.”
Oculus continued to laugh to himself, even if it twisted Nona’s face more and more into disarray. She was confused why her remark was bringing him such enjoyment, but she’s been suspecting he’s been off the mental rocker for the past millennia. Who wouldn’t be, millennia’s worth of memories, without a way to archive them. The dummies with human souls can barely handle having their own memories sent to them, or the memories of another, an arbiter's body would crumble just as fast upon receiving a portion of his.
“Seriously, me being right shouldn’t be this funny,” Nona states, which further propels Oculus into laughter. “Have you finally lost it? It took someone breaking one of your stupid rules to break you?”
“It’s funny when I’m wrong after a few millennia,” Oculus’s laughter dies a little, “let me have this, Nona.”
She raised her eyebrow, but ultimately, what could she do? She could only speculate why Oculus went further off the rocker when he was wrong. Why was she questioning this? What benefit would Oculus have to lying to her, unless-
Oculus caught her glance, Nona was figuring it out. Oculus puts his cue stick down.
“Maybe this time,” He looks towards Nona unblinkingly, “I won’t have to wipe your memories afterwards.”
“What do you mean you won’t have to wipe my memories afterwards?” Nona’s voice is shaking, erasing her memories? She’s never had her memories erased, only when her system was overloaded, even then, she wrote down important things in her journal.
“You genuinely believe that in my three millennia of existence, you think Decim was the first ever arbiter with human emotions?”
“You didn’t take kindly to him, so kinda.” She stabilized her voice again.
Oculus bursts out in laughter, “Oh my! That’s-” he heels over in laughter. When he stopped, he started again. “Nona! Oh my sweet and precious, Nona!”
“What? And don’t call me precious while you're losing your mind.”
“I lost my mind a while ago.” Oculus’s gaze breaks towards Nona’s, the heel of laughter suddenly stopping as he continued, “That’s what happens when God dies and you're forced to replace it.”
“Alright, enough of whatever you’re on about. What are you talking about, bringing up Decim?”
“You’re half right, at least I should give you credit there. Decim is the first arbiter to have human emotions.” Oculus smiles a little as he turns to her, “Nona, how well do you think creatures that don’t understand humans can pass judgment?”
“We understand humans, though.”
“Do you? Can I put a human in front of you and you tell me what’s rational and irrational while they believe their lives are on the line? Can you tell sorrow from anger? Apathy from pride? Desire from a plan?”
“Those aren’t even remotely connected! I mean, come on, apathy and pride are two entirely separate things! Apathy is a lack of emotions, is it not? How can you even confuse the two?”
“Apathy, yes it’s opposite is passion, but when you look at someone, how can you determine that their indifference came from once caring too much?”
“So, you’re trying to connect your faulty comparison of apathy by saying they could have once been prideful and they finally got taken down a peg?”
“If that’s how you’ll interpret it.”
“And sorrow from anger, I don't even know how you connected those two together!”
“Is it that hard to believe that sorrow and anger are woven in the same cloth more times than not? Have you never seen someone grieve so deeply that they’re mixed together into a single emotion?”
“Anger is anger, it's someone throwing things around and yelling. Sorrow is sorrow, it's crying until your eyes go red and you're blind from the tears. I wasn’t always the ruler of this tower, I know the basics of human emotions. Who do you think taught Decim?”
Oculus only smiles as he says again, “If that’s how you’ll interpret it.”
“We’re getting distracted-”
“Are we? Or can you not handle the fact that you were technically wrong? That you didn’t make the first arbiter with human emotions?”
“I’m not wrong, and I could take the fact I was wrong if I was!”
Oculus only smiled before continuing, “Of course, my apologies.”
He knew Nona front and back, afterall, he designed her. After it became too overwhelming for him to take care and judge all the human souls, he came up with an idea. Out of this idea, Nona was formed.
“Nona, would you mind getting something for me down in the office area? You’ll need my key to access it.”
Nona nods and he hands her the key to the locked section of the memories system.
“Whatcha need?” Nona asks, looking at the key in all its intricacies.
“It’ll be in the way back, you’ll know when you see it.”
“Okay?”
Nona wondered why Oculus didn’t say something specific, like the memories of Chiyuki. But she wasn’t going to complain, she got to go in the forbidden section of the archives. She’s always wanted to see what was there, now she was getting permission from Oculus himself.
“Alright, I’ll be back. Don’t get bored without me.”
Oculus resets the billiards board, “I’ll be here waiting.”
Oculus starts the game by himself as Nona enters the elevator.
“Information floor, Clavis.”
“Alright.”
Oculus watches the number go down, chuckling to himself.
“Don’t lose yourself down there, I’d hate to reset you again,” he mutters to himself as he finally turns away from the elevator.