man of many failures

“I said I would if it had meat! And since it doesn’t, I won’t!” Probably. Shaking hands took hold of the bowl and positioned it unsteadily on his lap. If the soup was poisoned as he suspected, he’d much prefer to poison himself than have Sync do it for him. So he reluctantly brought spoonful after spoonful up to his lips, ignoring his body’s increasing insistence for sleep. Letting his guard down more than he already had would be far too humiliating! Ivar found himself dozing off every now and then, only to jerk back awake as he recalled the kind of situation he was in.

Just as he opened his lips to say more, there was a spoon forced into his mouth, and his words exited as nothing more than a muffled grumble. He forced himself to swallow the broth (though his stomach disagreed with the prospect) in order to pull his face away and speak again. “I can feed myself just fine! This better be vegetarian, or I’m going to throw up!” Combined with his already debilitating stomachache, the idea of eating meat made him feel incredibly nauseous.

With most of his strength already gone, his lips parted without much resistance. His eyes widened as the medicine-- no, poison, it had to be poison!-- reached his tongue. Ew... it tasted like a miserable imitation of cherries. The barely-veiled bitterness of the liquid caused him to gag, but he had no choice but to swallow it down. When he was finally able to speak again, he choked out, “Maybe you aren’t trying to kill me... but I’m sure you’re planning something equally awful!” Sync would never willingly help him, right?

“You’re right about one thing: I don’t want to die. That’s why I’m going to become better! I’m going to become someone who’s worth staying alive!” It seemed all he needed was some insulting from Sync for his self-doubt to flip to optimism. “And I was talking out loud to myself because I thought I was alone! You really think I would’ve said that if I’d known you were there?”

“Kept alive? You can fight. What’s stopping you from staying alive whether some higher up wants you to or not?” Ivar finally rose to his feet, now beginning to walk away from Sync. “You know what? I’m not going to. Just because you told me to.”

“Original? Replica? None of that even matters! None of those things determine whether someone deserves to live or not!” His eyes finally focus on something besides his shoes, darting up to look at Sync. “If I had a replica that was better than me, then he would deserve to exist more than I would. And if we were both useful, then we should both live! It’s that simple, really!”