Work Text:
The ground shook violently, the distinct whistling of bombs whittling through the air could be heard above the ground.
The constant shuddering of the ground did not deter Nashatra. She kept her stride steady, with the Sword of Bunker Hill at her side. She gripped the hilt of her trusty companion hard, knuckles turning bone white. The deafening sound of explosions continued outside the 12th Mansion; the Fissure Corps really wanted her dead, huh?
As Nashatra adjusted the sash of her dress blues for the final time, she steadied her breathing and began walking down the spiral staircase. The stairs went on and on, until she reached a pitch black room. Feeling around, she managed to hit a switch, instantly stunning herself by accident as the lights in the underground lab flickered to life.
Just then, the sound of a bomb going off near the 12th house shook her out of her stupor. She fought to keep herself balanced as the ground shook violently. Alas, she lost her balance and fell face first onto the floor, accidentally dropping a small remote in the process.
“Oww… that hurt, the Fissure really are jackasses. Couldn't they have thrown that bomb further away? It's not nice to ruin a lady's makeup after all…”
Chuckling at her own horrible joke, she felt around her chest pocket, realising that the remote that was supposed to be in there had fallen out. Alarmed by this, she began frantically searching for it, head swerving in multiple directions until her eyes landed on a small, rectangular object near a flowerpot.
She reached for it she ignored how her hands shook as she made contact with it, knowing what her fate would be after her final mission from the Rose Seekers. and picked it up, placing it back into her chest pocket.
She walked towards the main pond room of the hidden laboratory, and sucked in a deep breath.
Nashatra walked up to each of the three ponds, ensuring that each of them had an explosive lodged at their base. She held her right hand to the left side of her chest, and uttered her final words.
“It is with great honour that I perform my final duty of protecting the Rose Seekers’ legacy. This is goodbye. Memento mori.”
As Nashatra pressed down on the button of the small remote, she activated the fountains one final time; to send herself through one last journey in the Dreamsphere.
As the explosion tore her body apart piece by piece, Nashatra’s consciousness faded along with the searing pain and stench of burning flesh.
—
Time passed, and Nashatra awoke, buried within the rubble of the now destroyed 12th house. The cold, glass floor of the Ten Mou walkways snapped her to attention.
As she bolted upright, a searing pain pierced the entire right side of her body. She gasped and collapsed back onto the floor, curling in on herself, gritting her teeth so that she wouldn't cry.
“Fucking hell– goddamn it no one told me injuries would get carried into the Dreamsphere. Fuuuuuck…”
She laid there for a while, allowing the frosty glass of the Ten Mou walkways soothe the scalding pain on her right side. As she did, Nashatra took a look around the place again, realising that the teleporter to Upper Ten Mou had already been activated before she arrived.
She slowly sat up, avoiding putting pressure on her right arm, and took in the view of Lower Ten Mou.
The red lights of the teleporter set off alarm bells in Nashatra's head. She could not rid herself of the feeling that something wrong, something irreversible had happened.
She limped towards the building made up of transparent blue bars and jumped onto one of the red lights, before leaping onto the roof of the building and tossing herself into the beam of light. She felt the tug of PSY power pulling her towards Upper Ten Mou, allowing herself to be dragged there.
—
As she stood up and walked into Eunoia’s kitchen, the foreboding feeling that was bugging her came back at full force. She couldn't tell if it was because she was actively dying or if something had happened to one of her allies, but a nigging feeling at the back of her mind told her it was the latter.
She clambered out of Eunoia's kitchen, pushing tables and chairs out of the way, uncaring of the mess she made.
As she burst through the door, she came eye to eye to Eunoia herself.
However, something felt…off about her. Her eyes held a glint of recognition, but not quite like the way Eunoia would look at her. She looked at Nashatra the same way she did when they had first met; the same way she looked at other sleepwalkers the first time they had stumbled across her shops. A warm, inviting smile creeped onto her face. It was soft, it made her look docile, but the warning glint in her eyes told a different story.
Nashatra knew that look all too well.
No… she couldn't believe it. How did they even find out- how COULD THEY? What had Cielcay done to her sweet, sweet करगोश?
They ripped her apart and looked through her code and memory card. Eunoia could still feel phantom hands tugging on her wires, taking out “unnecessary memories” of the time they had spent together. She could feel how they forced new code to be implanted into her. She could feel the agonising way they forced her to forget, how they had systematically broken her down, but was powerless to fight back. She was… afraid? What was she again? Oh, right! She was Eunoia, a hyper-intelligent android created by Cielcay to collect data on Sleepwalkers! Well she better get to work, the better a job she does the more upgrades she'll be given after all!
A small part of her screamed in the back of her mind that this didn't feel right, that she shouldn't hurt the new human that had stepped into her store. However, no amount of pleading or begging could stop the automated message that came out of her voice box.
“Welcome to the Ten Mou Cloud Coffee Stall! What can I get you, dear traveler?”
The smooth, velvety voice entered Nashatra's ears, but it no longer held the warmth that Eunoia usually spoke to her with.
She couldn't help but let out a soft, hysterical laugh.
She could play it off as a trick of the mind from all the blood loss she was suffering from, but deep down, she could not deny it. The Eunoia that was bubbly, sweet and slightly rebellious; her dear partner had been wiped away by Cielcay.
Her vision started to swim and her legs grew weak. She slumped against the stall, blood pooling under the spot she had stood on. As she turned her head, she spotted the trail of blood she had left behind.
Looking at it now, she should have realised something was off when she first spoke to Eunoia. She had made no comment of her life-threatening injuries which would be extremely unlike her.
As the blood continued pooling at her feet, a multitude of thoughts raced through her mind.
As she felt her end coming closer, she gestured towards Eunoia, asking her to lean down.
Eunoia complied. She knelt down in front of Nashatra's battered body, her eyes that were devoid or thought bore into hers.
“If only I could look deeper into them,” Nashatra thought, “maybe, just maybe, I can find a piece of your humanity, a piece that Cielcay hasn't taken from you, from us.”
With the last bits of her remaining strength, Nashatra lifted her hands to cup Eunoia’s face, leaving red stains on her cheeks. She used her thumb and mindlessly drew circles on her cheeks, as if soothing her.
As her world started to spin, she started to speak , “Eunoia, my dear करगोश…, I hope —wheeze— that a part of you is still in there… a part of you that Cielcay hasn't taken away yet. Please, if you can hear me, give me a sign. Anything. Please.“
After a moment of silence with no response from Eunoia, Nashatra let out a dry chuckle, devoid of any true joy.
With her dying breath, she choked out her final words, “Eunoia, I love you, and… I'm sorry, I'm —cough— sorry for loving you too… I- if I had known that the price of l- loving you would've been this, i- it'd be better if we —hic— hadn't met at all.”
Nashatra's expression contorted into one of defeat, as warm tears started to streak down her face.
Just as abruptly as they had arrived, the tears stopped. Her eyes rolled back into her head and the pain dulled. Finally, her hands slipped from Eunoia’s bloodstained face, dropping to her sides as she closed her eyes.
The one that the Rose Seekers hailed as a martyr did not die with glory nor with grace. Instead, she died abandoned, forgotten by the person she held dearest to herself.
—
As Eunoia looked down at Nashatra's the stranger's corpse, she felt a strange pang of sorrow. It felt… foreign to her. She felt like she should recognise her. She could feel a vague sense of recognition stirring somewhere deep inside her.
As Eunoia blinked, a single drop of oil spilled from the crevice in her eye.
Just as soon as the memories had started to resurface, they stopped. This is classified information! If I get caught looking through it I'll be decommissioned.
She brought a hand up to her eye and wiped it. On her finger was a small, black stain
.
“Oh, I better report this oil leak to Cielcay! They'll repair me and I'll be as good as new!”