#domori

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(this is part 2, read part 1 here)

The body was still strange. All gears, and wires, and things that stood at odds with her nature as a spirit. But at the same time, it was a comfort. It was a shell that held her sister for years and years now—it still held some lingering presence of her inside itself that warmed the strange core of chemicals and electricity that replaced her heart. Even if it lacked the markers of Domori (for now, Rei promised to get that Mr. Doshi to help her fix up the body to look like her in time), it already felt like something she could come to cherish. It was a mingling of their spirits, after all.

Rei had been so excited to be free—free of the Sintranet, and the glass cases. Free of her father's programming and the subroutines—Domori's body hummed with electrical excitement as she followed her all over the emptied office.

Neither of them needed to sleep, they'd had plenty—hadn't they? Domori was asleep in the crystal while her eternal companion corrupted and killed. Rei was asleep in her mechanical body—and now they were finally awake to play together across the office floors!

Rei had first gone to the pool—but it was in no shape for swimming. A drained concrete mess filled with ruptured corpses, skeletons and the torn trappings of a beach they'd never been to on the walls. Her disappointment had made Domori sad, she could feel the familiar stir of that darkness around her neck—but it was quashed so very soon by their scampering through the floors above.

Rei drank coffee that she exclaimed was 'super bitter' , and offered it to Domori—but it just made a mess that made the both of them giggle. (Rei promised to see if she could make Mr. Doshi find out how to make it so a robot could eat , too. Mr. Doshi looked halfway between excited and mortified with the promises he was making! It was funny!)

Domori and Rei rooted through Mr. Doshi's things in the security and IT floor, with Domori trying on pieces of wire and parts like they were jewelry and posing for cameras that were currently dead and inert—another thing to clean up like the canteen's whole mess.

The two of them ran through the Hive floor, playing with the obliging girls from HR who she was happy to see hadn't vanished despite the Mouth's newfound silence...it was for the best for her to stay sleeping. She tried to help, but her help made things worse—Rei didn't like her either. The serpent, the Witch as they called her, was at once a companion and a curse. And most importantly she was wrong. Rei wasn't a selfish, spoiled monster who hated her—she was her dearest sister, who would never, ever leave her.

All night long… all night long they laughed, and played, and caught up through whispered half-words and pages and pages of written words after their long separation. They even found her old ball—hiding deep within the residences that they both braved despite the sting of fear and the memories of mommy and daddy's anger and fear.

Rei was the CEO. Domori wasn't sure entirely what that meant—but she was happy that Rei seemed enthusiastic about it. She was like a true princess, ordering the janitorial staff around to clean up the office for the next day, and laughing elegantly on her chair in the highest floor as Domori hovered by her, and whispered her own thoughts for how they should run the place—the mark of the Witch hadn't vanished, but Rei and her agreed it was part of what gave Sintracorp it's charm. She was—after all—the witch, in a fashion.

She looked at Rei, her unblinking and luminous eyes staring at her as she twisted a lock of hair around her finger with a thoughtful grin plastered on her face. Domori considered asking if she wanted to play with dolls—but wasn't Sintracorp already their dollhouse? 

While she was considering that, she heard the sound of the elevator rising to their floor, and the hiss of its doors opening. Domori perked up—jolting upwards with a creak of the desk she was sitting on with a smile that didn't show as widely as she wanted on her face (the upgrades couldn't come soon enough!)

It was Brian Pasternack! The Witch Hunter that she had fuzzy and strange memories of—but also a swell of affection towards. He'd rung Rei's bells to set her free, and he'd done everything he could to avoid killing her even when her daddy was guiding his hand to slice her throat. He and the girl with bangs, Miss Kate—she'd gleaned that from the serpent's shared memories, she was taken in as a child of the witch— were walking into the office. Her phantom tail wagged, as she silently waved to the both of them.

He had that funny funny face on again, the nervous little smile and his funny wet looking eyes, and Miss Kate had a huge smile on her face as she cradled a cup of coffee in her hands. She had a lot of sympathy for her, didn't she? That was how she got so taken in by the whispers of the Witch for a time. In Domori's eyes, they were all already friends.

Miss Kate waved back to her, her coffee swishing in her mug as she nudged Brian. 

"Brian, oh my god? Brian, you didn't tell me they were so ADORABLE!" she whispered, way too loud for them not to hear.

Brian laughed that soft, nervous laugh of his, rubbing the back of his neck. "W-well, I did warn you that you'd kind of have to see them to believe them, right?" His whisper too, was too loud. But his voice picked up intentionally a moment later. "Ah! Sorry to intrude!"

Rei leaned forward in her chair, hopping up to lean against the desk to the jingling of the bells in her hair—Domori's favorite sound in the world—and smiled from ear to ear. Domori got the feeling that Sintra, the android, had been hard for her. She was always so good at expressing her emotions! 

"If it isn't my favorite employee! What brings ya to my office, Mr. Pasternack?" She put her hands on her hips, bouncing on her heels as her eyes flicked to Kate "and Miss…uhm…"

Domori leaned over, and gently placed her hand on her sister's shoulder to whisper softly in her ear. Her voice was special—it was always hard to project it, leaving her nearly mute—but she could whisper to her sister easily.

"Miss Kate Hicks."

Rei spoke up with a sticking out of her tongue and a laugh "of course, Miss Hicks!"

"That's me, Ma'am!" Miss Hicks eagerly replied. 

Brian twiddled his thumbs with his hands clasped in front of himself as he came to stand in front of the desk. "Well, um, first of all I wanted to, see if you were settling in alright? Sorry if that was presumptuous, but, well, yesterday was a rough day for everyone, you two included…"

Kate laughed quietly. "It was absolutely the craziest day I've ever had! One hell of a first day for all of us. If—if that's okay for me to say, ma'am!"

Rei pursed her lips—Domori could tell she was about to tease them. She was a trickster at heart, always fond of her silly jokes and teasing jabs. She tilted her head at Brian with a subtle smile to show support.

One eye blinked out to simulate a wink she hoped he caught.

"I dunno. I mean—I AM the CEO now. Domori, do you think I should let my employees be this casual with me?" Rei's young voice took on the Sintra family's trademark imperious command as she brushed a lock of her hair over her ear.

Domori just nodded eagerly. Absolutely. Because they're friends.

"Well—if my sister, the witch, thinks so then I suppose it's just fine!" She dropped down in her chair with a bright smile. "It was a pretty rough day, huh Brian…Kate?" 

"It sure was," Brian nodded. The 'joke' had certainly landed because he was even more flushed and off balance than before. "Ah, but like I said I h-hope you two are alright. It seems like you are? Maybe? Um, I also had a work relevant question, if you'd rather… discuss… work."

"Ugh, work! And here I was hoping to start the day with some coffee and chatter!" Rei snickered.

Domori fidgetted quietly , before she grabbed a piece of paper marked with the serpent's insignia and wrote a little on it with one of the pens. Her handwriting was shaky—her phrasing simple—but it conveyed what she wanted.

'Up all night, but not sleepy. Doing well' and punctuated with a small ':)'

That seemed to charm Miss Kate, who nearly spilled her coffee as she clasped her hands together with a squeal of 'adorable' again. 

"You guys were up all night? Wow! Did you spend the whole night here? The office canteen looks great, you must have had someone clean it up!"

"Domori licked all the blood up," Rei joked, to Domori's little pout. 

Brian looked like he was going to choke, sputtering on his own tongue for a moment.

Domori sighed softly—a little simulated electronic sound—before she picked up the paper again and wrote 'it was really yummy :d' and 'especially yours, right Miss Kate?'

Kate turned a vivid red—maybe invoking her special role during the party was a mistake from the wide-eyed and dazed look in her eyes for a moment—but it didn't seem to become an issue because she broke down sputtering anyway.

Rei leaned forward, reading the paper and breaking into a fit of giggles herself. 

Brian finally seemed to catch onto the joke, laughing nervously and pushing back his tousled hair. "G-good one, ladies! Yeah! I can see you're… settling in even better than I hoped!"

"Being alive again is invigorating. Even if it was a hard day, I think it beats being my father's discarded puppet any day." Rei said, her voice falling serious for only a moment "the moment I got to save my sister from that horrible trinket, it became the best day of my life."

Domori warmed again, her body fidgeting with soft clicks and dings of metal on metal as the joy washed over her. The best day of her life. More so than the beach trip when she was a baby. More so than swimming with her friends. The best day of her life was the one where they became sisters once more…

Kate chewed her lip "...trinket, Brian?" but she seemed to notice Domori touch the serpent charm around her neck and it dawned on her. "Oh…oh"

Brian's smile wrinkled in what seemed be a flustered combination of embarrassment and worry. "Y-yeah it was a complicated situation, but it's all sorted out now! Which is more than I can say for my job, right?"

Rei leaned forward on the desk again with a grin. "Don't wanna be a witch hunter anymore, Mr. Pasternack?"

Domori had to admit that maybe being a witch hunter was a terrible career choice when the co-CEO of the company was a witch. 

"Well I mean I'm pretty sure the company doesn't really need a witch hunter any more, right? I mean, Phooph! There's the witch right there! Found her! Ha! Easy job, coming in every day and pointing! So uh…" he tugged at his collar. "I was wondering if maybe I could have… another job? or uh, something?"

Domori waved to him, as if to drive the point home. He found her!

Kate rubbed her neck with a smile. "And I was maybe wondering about my job too? I mean—I was hired to work in the Hive but I'm pretty sure my whole job was uh…compiling sacrifice papers for the evil printer that Brian killed. So I'm kind of at a loss too, ma'ams."

Rei put her fingers to her chin. "Gosh, that's true, huh? You're both kind of out of luck with that—and I wouldn't wanna lose a couple of dedicated workers like you. Not when Domori likes you so much."

With a mechanical smile, Domori held up another big smiling face on the paper, before she quietly wrote 'mine' and circled it several times. 

The embarrassed flush came back to Brian's face. "Oh that's, gosh, well, thanks? I'm really glad that you uh, don't… want to lose us!"

He glanced at the paper again, and his smile hitched, widening as he rubbed the back of his neck. What a funny man.

Miss Kate was staring at it as well with her big brown eyes, and the way her shoulders arched slightly and she took a deep sip of her coffee was just as funny. They were pretty funny together. Domori giggled softly into her hand as she nodded.

It was true though. Kate's connection to the witch through falling under her influence—and the memories of Brian, hazy and filtered through a crystal prison, led to Domori feeling very possessive of them. She didn't want to lose them now—she would beg her sister if she had to.

But from the look on Rei's face, she wouldn't have to beg. "We don't~ So you two had better buckle up for a looong career with Sintracorp. Though I don't know if you guys are suited to the Hive or the general offices…" 

"Well, I mean I guess you two already know I'll pretty much do anything you need done!" he laughed, but it was a halfhearted thing. He wasn't really joking at all.

He really wanted to stay, huh? After all the terror—he wanted to stay with them. Domori smiled , letting her feet sway happily back and forth.

It didn't feel like the cold kindness her daddy gave her. It didn't feel like the empty presents to keep her smiling—it felt like someone genuinely wanting to stay with her. With them. With her and Rei and—from the way Miss Kate was flushed and glancing at him, Miss Kate as well.

Happy. That was the way it made her feel.

She glanced at Rei, and pointed up with a tilt of her head. Her sister understood her perfectly as she smiled and nodded to the jingling of bells.

"How'd you like a promotion? Both of you." 

Brian's eyes widened, his brain clearly stopping over the very word 'promotion'. "O-oh!" He glanced over at Kate.

Kate looked like her brain had stopped over it as well, her mouth falling open as she sputtered quietly and glanced sidelong to Brian. "Oh…oh…on our…second day? Geeze!"

Domori placed her hand to her lips with the soft clink of metal, her unblinking eyes staring them down. In a way, they had each proven themselves. Brian, as a hunter who held the secret to really defeating the witch—sympathy and warmth. Kate, with her background and hard working attitude—and the way she synchronized with her other half so neatly.

Rei huffed through her nose. "Yes, on your second day. You've got good credentials, Miss Kate. And as the former steward of Sintranet, I saw how hard you were working! And Brian—" she grinned widely his way, almost too widely. "I think we both know why I'm eager to get you out of your former job—and how hard YOU were working, Mr. Hero." 

Brian rubbed the back of his neck again, an obvious nervous tick, but he smiled, bravely. "Well, I mean, I decided to stick around so I'm certainly got going to say 'no' if you want to have me a promotion, haha… and I wouldn't want to get in the way of Kate getting one for sure!"

"Oh thank you, Brian!" Kate gently nudged his side with a grin "but I wouldn't wanna get in the way of yours either."

Rei nodded and tented her fingers—Domori knew she was practicing it. Something about a 'CEO's posture' to really sell the weight of things. Domori didn't quite get it, but she mirrored her sister anyway.

"Good. Because while my sister and I are more than qualified to run this company—I'm afraid there's not much in the way of upper management that I can trust. The most senior staff member was terminated yesterday, after all."

Fatally. They had to call the police to clean him off the front steps after he flung himself from the roof. Domori's anger burned internally at the memory of Hugo, the man who kept using her—feeding the witch sacrifices from the company, holding her at knife's point with the eternal threat of killing her once she was no longer useful.

He got what he deserved. Her fingers clenched hard together as she nodded once. 

She watched as Brian paled, his eyes momentarily invisible behind the shine of his glasses and he nodded. "Y-yeah. Not a lot of upper management at all, it's true. One of the first things I heard when I came in yesterday was that uh, nobody was in charge, basically."

Domori grabbed her pad and scribbled on it for a moment.. "Last CEO…forest…cheese goblin."

"....The…The Forest Goblin that my coworkers kept talking about??" Kate's voice hit a sharp squeak as she blinked.

"Yes, he went insane after seeing the big fat snake's big fat face too many times" Rei stuck out her tongue. "Poooooor guy."

Domori poked the necklace around her neck gently. He'd gone insane—he saw the face of the 'witch' too many times. The extension of her, the looming spectral faces and the whispers in his ear. Domori didn't like to think of what the serpent had gotten up to while she was frozen in crystal—all the things she did in her name.

She nodded again as Rei continued.

"So we can't ask him for help. But like, the thing is— this company hasn't even been producing anything for years now. It's just been—circling its own data in a weird holding pattern."

Domori wrote with as sad an expression as her mechanical face could muster. "produced sacrifices." 

Brian grimaced and gave a little nod. "That's kind of the impression that I got yesterday… but um, it sounds like you're thinking of changing that?"

"Of course we are, even if we're gonna be successful no matter what we do, we might as well do something besides play around, right Domori?"

Domori caught her sister's bright green eyes, and nodded with a smile. She scribbled on the paper again. "But I do want to play'

"Well obviously, and we're gonna play a lot" Rei waved her hand. "but we're also going back to what made this company big! Technology! Robots! Even boring old printers and stuff!"

Kate gasped. "oh!! I bet Mr. Doshi'll be over the moon about that!"

"He got all in a tizzy yesterday when I mentioned it," Rei snickered. "so yeah. But the thing is I could use people directly under us. I've been absorbing data for 20 years now, and my sister's like, ancient old —it's not like we're stupid and don't know what we're doing."

"Of course not!" Kate started to interject before Rei continued.

"But we could use someone right under us who's got a ton of business degrees , and someone who's proven himself intensely reliable…and sympathetic." 

Brian smiled embarrassedly. Domori could tell what he was thinking. Unlike Kate he didn't have any kind of formal qualification for…. anything.

But she was right when she said he was reliable.

"R-right," he murmured embarrassedly. 'I don't know exactly what I can do but I'll do anything you ask."

Domori placed her hand on her chest. She hoped he understood what it meant. She wanted to keep him—and Miss Kate— close to her. She didn't want to feel abandoned again. She knew Rei understood that all too well too.

"Good boy," Rei flashed her bright smile with the jingling of bells as she clapped. "the two of you are formally offered a position on the 9th floor—as upper management. Assistants to the CEO and her sister themselves."

"I think I'm gonna faint, Brian," She heard Kate whisper with a shaky smile..

Brian put his hand on her back– to steady both of them– as he whispered. "Me too."

If they fainted—Domori would simply have to pick them back up. She was a little confused why good news like that would make you faint. Was it a human thing? Rei, her wonderful sister, seemed to understand a little better. Enough that she was relentlessly amused.

After a laugh at their dazed shock—Rei reaffirmed the offer. She brought up clauses and contracts from her time in the system and placed them on the table. While Kate and Brian seemed rattled—Domori could feel the excitement stirring inside them.

This was an opportunity after all. A great opportunity to be a part of the Sintracorp family—her family—on a level most couldn't dream of. They stood reflected in her strange mechanical eyes as she and her sister convinced them and the former Witch Hunter and the Child of the Witch signed their names on the dotted line.

As the ink dried on the page, Domori allowed herself the flickering hum of hope in her core that this would be a better Sintracorp. A Sintracorp without Mr. Devil, or her mother's disdain—something not quite a family, but kinder than any family she'd felt in her long long life save for her sister.

She caught Rei's eyes, and she could see again that they were in sync. 

-

Brian leaned over the rail on the roof, taking a long, deep lungful of air. Fresh air. That was what he had stammered that he needed after Rei had walked him and Kate through their new promotion.

And so here he was again, with her, the same place they'd been last night. His head was spinning, just like it had been then.

Kate was leaning on the rail with him, looking out at the way the bright orange of the sun mingled with the blue of the sky in the reflections of the countless windows of the Capital. A grand and sparkling panorama of the city's beauty, currently devoid of the neon that illuminated it at night.

Her coffee had been refreshed from the CEO's personal machine despite her protests, and she still had the mug cradled in her hands as she let out a quiet chuckle. "Wow. That's not exactly what I expected when I said every day was gonna get better, huh?" 

He chuckled softly, clutching his own warm cup of coffee between his hands. "Me neither. Admittedly, I don't know what I expected."

"You did say you wanted to go talk to them about your job," Kate teased with a half smile "I mean—you had enough of a connection with them that you thought that'd work out. So you had to have some idea!"

She pursed her lips. "though It feels like there was some familiarity with me too…" 

"Y-yeah, there did feel like there was." Brian didn't know how much to say about that. What might, in it's way, spoil the moment. Instead, he asked. "Are you happy? About getting promoted?"

There was the sudden weight of her shoulder leaning against his, and he could see her smile out of the corner of his eye—warm, kind, the same smile she wore when he'd come back for her after the Dot Matrix incident, or when they had that brief moment in the canteen before the party.

The same smile she wore last night in the neon glow of the city. She nodded. "Yeah. I am. I'm a little surprised, maybe a little nervous about feeling qualified enough—but it's nice to know my job's not exactly in jeopardy anymore. Plus—it means I'll get to work on the same floor as you. That's nice, right?" 

He hesitated at the contact. He knew what he wanted it to mean, but he didn't want to jump to any conclusions.

"It… it is nice," he said, nodding hurriedly. "Seems like we're going to be working pretty closely with one another…"

Kate brought the mug to her lips, taking a long sip. Even without wanting to jump to conclusions, she didn't make any move to step away from him. Instead, the weight against his arm only became more noticeable when she turned slightly towards him with a nod.

"We sure are! I mean, it seems like we're kinda gonna be partners, huh? I know I was calling you partner all day yesterday and everything but you were still kinda higher than me and I didn't exactly do all that much, but—" she rambled, her face tinting a little pink before she hid it with another sip of coffee.

"W-well, um, I'm happy to be partners," he said, still hesitating. He knew what he wanted to say, but… should he try his luck?

Admittedly, he'd been trying his luck again and again for the last 24 hours, and every roll seemed to come up in his favor.

After all, he was still standing, right?

Kate lowered the mug and he was aware of her eyes, dark and warm like the coffee they shared—falling on him as she tilted her head to the side. Could she tell there was more to that? Did she notice how much there was on his mind?

The next thing out of her mouth all but confirmed it. "me too, Brian—but it looks like you've got something on your mind. Credit for your thoughts?" 

Why not?

Why not try? Kate was obviously a nice person. It wasn't like she'd laugh in his face, or… or report him to HR. The worst she'd do was say no.

He took a deep breath and gave her a shaky smile.

"I was wondering. Well… I mean, this isn't a very work appropriate question, and.. and it's completely okay if you say no! But… but I was wondering of you might want to go out some time?... A-as a date?"

Kate's eyes widened, and her prominent freckles were swallowed for a moment by the sharp flush that crossed her face. Her smile didn't vanish—it only got a little wider as she stammered a reply. "You wanna take me out on a date??" 

"O-only if you want!" he squeaked, his brain filling with anxiety despite the smile.

Kate tucked her hair over her ear before she started to giggle. 

"Geeze. oh, I'm so flustered. Geeze, come on Kate. Get it together!" She lowered her coffee to meet his eyes with a nod of her head "I'd love to, Brian! I…I know we just met and all, but I…I dunno. I really like you, Brian. You know Ms. Malone already started teasing me about it??" 

His cheeks flushed. He'd accidentally overheard just such a thing, but he hadn't wanted to jump to conclusions. And eavesdropping wasn't very polite.

"Well… she can tease us both then, I guess. Because… I really like you, too, Kate."

Kate's hand suddenly rested against his, warm from the mug of coffee she'd been holding. She smiled, her hair fluttering in her face as she curled her fingers around his. 

"You know,I kinda started to notice that by the second time you saved my life." She giggled again, flushing deeper. "So there was a reason why I couldn't help but kiss you at that party—why I went to the roof last night hoping you'd stay and miss that train…" 

"Well, I mean that's not the only reason that I save people's lives, but…" Brian flushed but shook off the embarrassment, and plunged forward. The kiss… some might have called it 'the kiss of the witch', but it was nice to know that it was something that Kate had just… wanted to do.

He swallowed, and set his coffee down on the rail, putting his hand on top of Kate's in return. "Do you want to maybe try that kiss again?"

She set her coffee aside too, turning to face him as her fingers parted to squeeze against his. She looked flustered—the flush making her freckles stand out over her charming smile. 

"I think we've earned a do-over, Brian—I'd love to."

She leaned in closer—it was as clear a signal as could be. 

Kate had been right this whole time. It was worth sticking it out, and things just kept getting better and better.

Despite his shaking hands, Brian leaned in close, and as the city loomed shimmering around them, as they both stood together on top of the Sintracorp building, he kissed her.