inspirethefire | VOICE MAIL

[Looking down to the metal tubing of fingers entwined over his chest, Hajime wondered if it really could be called fine.

He doesn't know a whole lot about Zero, but what he does know is... tragic, at best. There's been a lot of putting the needs of others first, a lot of accepting terrible things on his own for the sake of a bigger picture.]

Well... I know how much you prefer to work alone. And I don't want to get in your way anymore.

Th-though... if I can ever do anything to make it up to you... all of it, I mean, that I... w-well, just... don't hesitate to ask.

[He can't much imagine anything Zero could need his help with, but he needs to put it out there. Just in case.]

[Zero was quiet for a moment as he absorbed Hajime's words. It's true, in a practical sense there was little Hajime could do that Zero couldn't simply do by himself. But Zero also knew that being truly alone, having no one there to support you or to remind you what you were fighting for... it was harsh, and bitter, an unending desert.

But Hajime, being how he was, wasn't likely to accept that simply being around Zero was enough. Absently, the reploid reached for the tool kit, and sorted through what he'd need to help tune up the other robot's knees.]

...Two hundred years ago, Rock dreamed of humans and robots living together in peace. His... 'younger' brother, X, dreamed the same thing a hundred years later.

They're both gone, by my time. It's... [Unfair? Ironic? Fate playing some cruel game? Zero frowned.]

As much as I miss him... he left me a dream to see through.

[Zero raised his gaze back up, meeting Hajime's emotieyes.]

It's enough that you'd offer, but... you never had to do anything for me. Knowing you see differently... gives me hope that two hundred years' of fighting won't be in vain.

[Rock... friendly, earnest, dedicated Rock, that same one...? With enough time in the academy, Hajime had gotten a little more used to the idea of crisscrossing timelines between people. However, the idea of someone being here that should be gone still disturbed him, even after Kiyotaka--likely, even moreso.

Zero had lived a very long time, and lost a lot more, and seemed to be living with a lot more reminders.]

It took an awful lot, for me to finally see things a little better.

[Up until the very last moment, he'd been so very sure of what he knew. His emotiface flickered a wry parenthesis of a smile.]

Roboticizing dissenters into seeing the error of their ways seems like the wrong way to go at it.

[Zero raised a brow. Well, Hajime must've been feeling at least a little better if he managed to actually get a wry remark out.

There wasn't even a hint of a grin on Zero's face, but that probably made it all the more jarring when he deadpanned, stone-faced and dry:]

Desperate times.

[Before Hajime could probably process that Zero was capable of anything resembling sass, the reploid gestured at his leg.]

Lift your knee up.

[The response, delivered so flatly, startled Hajime for a moment. If he didn't catch that little glimmer in Zero's soul, he may not have properly put it together for what it was.

He lifted his knee compliantly, watching Zero.]

You tell jokes.

[That might be stretching it.]

[Stretching it, yes. But maybe someday his memories of being a cocky, snarky wiseass will come back.

Zero, face ever unchanging, simply focused on the task of detaching Hajime's knee plate.]

I wouldn't go that far.

It's the first time I've seen any humor out of you, though.

[He leaned back into the charging bed, plates shifting into a furrowed brow.]

Well. The first time I noticed it. [He wasn't exactly paying attention before.]

[Zero shrugged, already plenty familiar with how skewed perceptions could be when others looked at him.]

People see what they want to see.

[That wasn't meant to be a jab at Hajime, though - it was an occurrence long before the student ever entered the picture, an inevitability. The reploid gave a quick glance up at him, before returning back to work, adding:]

Even before I knew who I was, people had formed opinions about what I was supposed to be. What I'm capable of.

It's no different for most robots.

[It wasn't meant to be, though Hajime couldn't help but take it as such. For someone so keen on peoples' inner lives, he did a lot of looking at things on the surface.

Zero's words, though... it wasn't a problem limited to robots. Likely a little worse for them, though.]

I... think I can relate, a little bit. Not on the same level, probably, but...

Well. It's nice, to be surprised, anyway.

[It was a difficult feat to really claim to know the entirety of someone, and all that lay beneath the surface. Indeed, despite his assessment of the student, Zero had no knowledge of what Hajime had gone through prior to this school, and how it affected him.

After a thoughtful pause, he asked:]

Tell me.

About yourself.

[He was perfectly good at listening, if nothing else.]

Ah, about...?

[Well, it was a way to fill the time and distract himself from someone operating on his knee. Still, he had to take a moment to think of anything that could possibly sound interesting to a robot who had lived for hundreds of years.]

I, um... well, I... my parents made a name for themselves, in business. Everyone back home calls them geniuses, starting off on their own and succeeding so quickly, and... well, I'm the oldest, so. Everyone seems to know who I am and where I'm going to end up.

It, it's not as bad as all that, with you... I mean, sort of similar, not the, the same sort of, you know.

[Born to live up to another's legacy, nonetheless. With the hopes of their family's business riding on him, Hajime still chose another path.]

Your parents... were they good people?

[It was a genuine inquiry, more than just filling the air with small talk. What it was like to have parents at all was an alien concept to Zero. But he could easily imagine someone who went against how they were raised if the people who created them were evil in purpose - that probably wasn't the case with Hajime, though.]

I... guess so. Y-yeah, they are. They're just... distant. They didn't like me joining the squad, but they didn't stop me, either.

[Sometimes he's thought it would be easier if they did outright reject him, so he could claim them to be terrible people and reject their concerns outright.]

I've been here a while, so... they're putting more pressure on my brothers to take over, just in case.

Brothers...

[Zero echoed the word like it was foreign to him. Rock had been the only robot he'd ever known that used the term to address other machines made by the same creator. Most mass produced reploids felt no real sense of family towards others of the same make or origin - they only had the jobs they were built for. The closest thing he could really relate to was seeing the maternal presence of Dr. Ciel towards the reploids of the Resistance group that found him - but even then, Zero wouldn't exactly call her family.]

So... he was the one I saw in your memory.

Mm. That was Taizo. He's the youngest, and Genji's between us. We've never been close, really, since I was always studying, and ever since I joined the ouendan, they've been cross that I can do things they can't.

I suppose they'll think all this is pretty neat, whenever they find out. "Why don't WE get to be robots?"

[Though he'd perked up a little speaking of them, it slipped away again as he kept going.] ...Ah. Though, they're in middle school now... they've probably matured a bit since last time we spoke.

[Ah, kids. Despite the bumps in what seemed to be a complex, though not unusual relationship between an eldest son and his family, seeing the way Hajime looked when he spoke of the was a little enviable. That there were people who'd been with you your whole life, being tied to them...

Zero paused his work for a moment.]

Having a family seems... interesting. Most reploids don't use the term.

Rock's the only robot I know that does. He takes great pride in his father. Talks about them all a lot.

I suppose... he knows my 'family' better than I do... [Extreeeeme quotation marks over Zero's 'family'.]

Edited (forgot a bracket and also a letter A+ phone tagging) 2015-04-15 20:42 (UTC)

[The technicalities of robot "family" seem complicated at best, and that's without knowing anything about Zero's background.]

It... only seems natural, though. You wouldn't be close, if you weren't raised together.

Ah... though... I guess you weren't really, er, raised at all, were you...

[HE WASN'T, RIGHT? That's not just robot bias talking? HE DOESN'T KNOW HOW THIS WORKS.]

[Yeah don't worry, this time you weren't being a horrible robot racist. Zero gave the barest nod and continued his work.]

I don't think so. Prior to December, any memories I had before I was sealed away were gone.

I woke up surrounded by hostiles, already part of a war I didn't understand. I was shooting a gun before I knew my own name.

[That's rough, buddy.

Hajime has to absorb the enormity of that for a minute. Sure, he's figured Zero had some type of background as a soldier droid or something like that, but framing it as a war before anything else in life... it's a big thing to try and comprehend.]

S-so... even if you did know them, it's been forgotten.

[Zero gave a low hum of affirmation and a shrug without looking up. But don't worry, Hajime. Not knowing his family wasn't really something to feel bad about on his behalf.]

That's not a huge loss.

I've been trying to escape my creator's curse all my life. He built me to destroy the world... If I'd known him, perhaps I really would've been the 'god of destruction' I was designed to be.

[Those had been Dr. Weil's words, but after facing Omega - Zero's true body - it was easy to see just how terrifying he could've been.]

[To be made, for such a purpose like that, it was... for one thing a lot more intense than a family business. A fate like that is a frightening proposition, and having seen Zero in action he doesn't relish the thought of what could have been.

Never would he have considered the debate of nature and nurture in regards to robots before.]

Still, though, if your first memories are of war, and you still avoided an end like that... your will really is powerful.

I wouldn't say I avoided it. Billions of people are still dead because of me.

[The reploid's expression had not changed, but there was a tired air of acceptance to the fact. It was a guilt so old, it had stained him to the core.

Hajime saw the memory just as clearly as Zero did. Simply by existing, the technology in his body was at the center of an unending cycle of bloodshed. For all his skill and accomplishments, he really didn't think much of himself. Pretty hard to have pride in yourself when death was basically your legacy.

His will... Zero shook his head. There was nothing that special about it.]

With the right means, any reploid can be completely overtaken, against our will. It can make us even more vulnerable than humans, despite our bodies.

[Billions. That's an exaggeration. That has to be. Sure, Zero's never been much for hyperbole, and Hajime had seen the memory of his condemnation, but surely it couldn't be quite that bad...

Looking at the guilt that buzzed through Zero's heart, a dread soaked into Hajime's own.

For a couple of minutes, Hajime fell silent while Zero worked. If this was true, he ought not to have been too surprised. He'd seen how dangerous Zero could be well before his recent respect. So, why didn't it feel quite right?

Billions of lives is just too much for him to process, in the end. What he knows is what he's seen.]

Eggman overtook you. But you still came back to yourself, in time. For all the blood in your past... you're protecting us, now.

[Zero made another noncommittal shrug. What Hajime said was true, he couldn't deny the obvious facts - but that didn't mean it could undo history. The matter of whether it all evened out in the end, however, was entirely subjective. He couldn't expect Hajime to completely understand, even with his body like this.

Why Zero even bothered mentioning it at all was a bit of a surprise to himself, too. But he recognized the spark of mistrust in Kiyotaka's eyes when his student realized his dark origins. Maybe a part of him was morbidly curious what Hajime would think of him now.

Well. There was nothing to be done about it, regardless. Zero sealed the knee plates back up as he dryly remarked:]

And I still have a knack for picking up stray pacifists, it seems.

[In the previous weeks, all Hajime learned assured him how little he knew. He couldn't claim to know anything about anything these days. All he had to go on was what he'd seen... but he couldn't deny the reality of what he hadn't.

Zero scared him, in a lot of ways. Probably not as many as he should. Still, all he'd seen of the reploid, directly before him and amongst the people he cared about, had been in defending what was right.

Hajime twisted his leg slightly, testing the knee. It was a nigh imperceptible shift, at this stage, but it was better.]

You need some balancing out, after all.

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