Unit #042

*notices* 

foolofzero‌:

Some part of him breaks. 

He isn’t sure what, but something felt broken. He is trying to keep moving. Trying to keep himself just… moving. If he stops he’ll fall. Something needs to change. 

Breathing hurts. Each movement crushes him. His body isn’t supposed to function without the Sleeper. It’s not supposed to exist without it. He was made for this… he is a hollow construct. 

Bone finally jabs through skin and he stares at it. Red. His blood is red. It’s always been black. Always been starlight. 

He takes a ragged breath, trying to push himself forwards. They have to be close… he needs them to be…

There’s no fight when Yosuke scoops him up, he just… dangles. Still coughing up more and more, more and more stars flowing out of him. It didn’t fit, he wasn’t made for it to fit. 

And all he knew, all he could really remember, was that he needed to find Souji, because whatever the voice in his head was, it fit Souji. It was supposed to be with Souji, not him.

And the only idea he had of Souji, besides the pain of when thinking of it, was that he looked like him.

“H-Hurry…” He gurgled out, his throat was burning now, well, everything was burning. 

The moment, the very second they got close enough to Souji, Yu was rolling out of Yosuke’s hold, slamming to the floor with a thud and a horrible crunch. Something might have broken. But that didn’t stop him, he crawled, he pulled himself closer. 

“Ssooujii…”

“I’m going as fast a I can…”

Halfway to the house and no Souji.  As disconcerting as this is, the wellbeing of the black-blooded being in his arms depends on him not stopping.  Yosuke’s mind races as fast as he does toward home.  Maybe he’s just that much faster.  Or maybe they’ve been followed here somehow.  Or worse.  

[Message → Souji: Heading to the house.  Are you ok?]

He can’t afford to wait for any type of response though.  Home is in sight, and he repositions the weak human in his arms so that he can open the door.  As it swings inward, Souji is barely standing, falling apart as a bone rips through his flesh.  

“Souji!  I-  Just sit down, ok?  I… I’ll...”  

The duplicate keeps walking forwards, though calling it walking would be a stretch. It’s more like a shuffle, feet tripping over themselves, or nothing at all, barely lifting a few inches from the ground. He nearly falls when he’s pulled in, barely keeping balance. 

Now that he’s close, those eyes aren’t so ‘normal’ after all. They’re struggling to focus, shaking, dilating and relaxing at rapid rates… and something, inky and black is starting to drip, leak, from them. The doppelganger opens his mouth, as if trying to talk, but all that comes up is more of the black goop, speckled with stars, coughing and choking as more comes up with violent full body shakes.

“S– Sou– Souji…” The name barely comes out…

[Alert: Anomaly detected.]

He didn’t pull not-Souji that hard, but the grey-haired male nearly collapses on top of him, just barely keeping balanced.  As the night sky seems to drip from his eyes and fall out of his mouth, Yosuke lets go of him.  It’s as if the infinite cosmos are fighting to get out of the confines of a human body, forcing its way free with complete disregard to its current host.  And all Yosuke is capable of doing is staring terrified before the other manages to choke out Souji’s name.

Souji.  He should call Souji.

“Ok.  Ok, I’ll get him.  Just… just sit down right now.”

He understands vaguely how to call for help.  He’s sent message out unintentionally, so he should be able to manage to send one out purposefully.  

[Message Souji: I found someone that looks like you, but there’s black stuff coming out of his face and he said your name.]

Familiar scenery, and quiet. 

It had been so long since he had been in this place, somewhere soft, somewhere quiet that he could really feel the earth move beneath his feet, where he could feel time passing without feeling it being rushed. And Yu took a deep, slow breath as the tear closed behind them. They were safe. 

“We are in Inaba. It’s a small town, where I first met you.” 

He seemed to relax a little. Or to feel a little more alive, a little more coherent. 

He walks, in no particular hurry now. He would know if they were coming now. And he speaks freely as they go, telling Yosuke everything. Who he is. What he is. What sort of terrible beast they both are. He speaks casually about it now, not afraid of the black in his eyes, of the terrible thing he had become. 

He had nothing to hide anymore. Nothing at all. 

If one ignores the more inhuman attributes to his appearance, Narukami has a calming presence.  Or perhaps that the quiet countryside that they currently find themselves in.  A place that he’s apparently been before.  However, Yosuke would probably struggle pointing to the town on a map right now.  As long as they’re far away from their previous location, they should be safe.  

“Sorry, but I don’t…I can’t remember.”

Narukami seems to speak of this place fondly though, so there must be some good memories of these place buried somewhere.  If only he could just push past the mental roadblock.  All he can do is focus on is their immediate situation now.  

He looks like Souji but the eyes are wrong.  Yosuke’s gotten oddly used to double-pupiled eyes to the point that this doppelganger seems like the more suspicious of the two.  Maybe this was one of the people that were hunting them.  How had they managed to track them to this remote town though?  He’s fairly sure he stopped sending distress signals at this point.  He roughly grabs the imposter’s arm and pulls him closer.

That causes him to stop. 

They knew. They were coming. If the two of them were found, they would need to run. Away from the life they had built in silence and quiet, the safety and peace they had grown, that which they had kept safe. They were going to be destroyed. And they were going to…

“We need to go now then.” 

He holds out one hand, and behind him the world seems to rip and tear, opening to some other place. Inaba is safe. Inaba is safe right this second. They can go back there. They can be safe, and they could be safe. Even if it was for a little while. And maybe the others were there still. Maybe someone would remember. 

“Take my hand.”

They’re in agreement, but Yosuke isn’t entirely sure where they could run to.  He can recall basic geographical information, but that doesn’t erase the mystery of what lies beyond these four walls.  For the moment, he’s going to have to trust Narukami.  The world folds in on itself, creating a portal to the unknown.  Hesitantly, he takes the other’s hand.

“Ok, let’s go.”

They step through into drastically different scenery.  His grip on Narukami’s hand tightens.  There isn’t anyone trying to contact him anymore, but he isn’t sure if the sudden radio silence is a good sign or not.  Hopefully, they simply got the message that he wasn’t interested in being found right now.

[Maintenance and containment team has been dispatched] 

All blocked off… that sounded strange. 

Yu took another sip of what was once warm coffee, shuddering now that it had become cold and somewhat gross. He dumped it down the sink, trying to gather his thoughts as well. Everything needed to be explained carefully. 

“No, I didn’t make you. You found me first, to monitor me and keep everything contained. Then… we kind of ran away a few years ago.” He was not super great at this. 

But he was trying. He had ideas, and he didn’t really know how to explain he was secretly some elder horror. His eyes remained black, they remained wrong. There was nothing he could do anymore to fix it. The power was his own, and the power was borrowed at the same time. But this wasn’t about him, this was about Yosuke. 

“It’s… a very long story.”

As Narukami walks into the kitchen, Yosuke cautiously leaves his hiding place, watching the other dump out his coffee.  Whatever Narukami was, he didn’t seem interested in harming him.  More notifications keep coming in though.  Someone was coming.    

“We ran away?  There are people after us?”

It’s unlikely that whoever was on the receiving end of his transmissions was friendly then.  He struggles to regain control over the black box built into him.  It’s not quite simple as an on/off switch though, especially something buried that deep.  Yet, he thinks he can at least halt sending out his coordinates every few minutes.       

This was not good. 

The Sleeper did many things, but this was not one of them. This was some twisted thing, some terrible response, and this machine… were the others alerted? Was something being sent out to the people who had been hunting him?

[Alert, memory compromised. Location confirmed. Sleeper Active]

Yu decided it was a good idea to step back and keep a healthy distance between them. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking, he wasn’t sure what had really happened but no one just… forgot. He had felt the wave of some other meddling power hit him, but it had done nothing. Had it done the same and erased Yosuke’s memory? 

He glanced at his phone, looking at the IT group chat. 

[text] Is everyone okay?

He put his phone back in his pocket. 

“Yosuke, it’s going to be okay. Something happened to your memory, but I promise, I didn’t do it. My name is Yu Narukami. You are Yosuke Hanamura, formerly ‘Unit 042′. What do you remember?” He was not good at this, trying to suppress the Sleeper squirming inside him.

The background processes and the fail-safes built into his programming seem like nonsensical gibberish.  A distress signal goes out, and he isn’t sure what it does or where it is going.  However, it’s answered somewhere quickly.  A confirmation gets sent back to him.  Location confirmed.  Sleeper active.    

The other not-human takes a step back and takes a moment to look at his phone.  Yosuke tries to peer over onto the screen to see if that’s where his message went.  However, that wouldn’t explain the quick response as he watches Narukami type out a couple of words before hitting send.  The other’s gaze returns to him, gentle and concerned like his voice.

The name Unit 042 explains some things.  He’s always been like this, but now he goes by something different.  At least, one of them understands what he is.  He shakes his head.

He felt it. 

No, they both did. 

Yu had grown powerful. He and the Sleeper may as well have been one entity now, the great thing sleeping inside him only sometimes opening its eyes. And now was one of those times. He had felt something like a wave that hit him, something blowing through the building, and he expected windows to shatter. 

But he was fine. 

He looked up from the cup in his hands, eyes scanning the room for the attack. There was no intruder. There was no one attacking them. 

But something did happen. Something is out there. It isn’t one of those things. He told himself, or maybe the Sleeper was listening. It felt wrong. It felt strange. It felt… something was meddling, and something was trying to keep him from interfering with what was going on. Something was moving just under the surface. 

His head snapped in Yosuke’s direction. 

“Yosuke? What is it?” 

The person in front of him isn’t human.  Black sclera encircle double-pupiled yellow eyes.  Something deep inside of him vibrates as something akin to an alarm rings inside of his mind.  The creature in front of him is dangerous, and he knows that on almost an instinctual level.  He jerks backward sharply and ends up toppling out of his seat and onto the floor below.  

The only thing stopping him from hopping out of the nearest window and fleeing is the fact that this person knows his name (or what he assumes must be his name).  Yosuke keeps the chair between him and the stranger as he gets up slowly.  As if that’ll protect him.  Still, it’s the closest to any form of security that he can find.  

[Error: Severe data corruption detected.]

It’s a voice… is it his own?  It seems so distant and separate.  However, it echoes around in his mind, so it must be apart of him.  Yet, he isn’t sure what it means.  

[Scanning all files… Major data loss in memory banks.  Vital programs still intact.  No virus detected.]

It feels like his mind is racing for a few moments, but it keeps stopping short of an actual thought.  Instead, it hits a wall and redirects, only to be met with a similar mental barrier.  Perhaps, the darkness that surrounds him is an extension of himself since he appears to be the personification of emptiness.

[Rebooting…]

Somehow, things go blanker for a second.  It’s all background processes before the more complex aspects of his consciousness come back into existence.  He’s not sure what to think, but the isolation and darkness is terrifying.

[Resuming audio and visual input.]    

And like that, there’s light.  And he’s in a chair, staring up at the lightbulb in the ceiling.  The sudden change of scenery is disorienting, and that sense of terror only grows as he looks around the unfamiliar room.  There’s a table, a TV, some chairs, and him.  And he’s…

[Data corrupted.]

No, that’s not right.  He’s somebody.  He exists, so therefore he must be someone.  Yet, if he looks down at himself, there’s fabric, metal, synthetic polymers.  That definitely doesn’t seem right.  

He can actually relate to that sentiment somewhat, albeit in a different way. Constanr deception requires him to always be vigilant, and that vigilance has almost paradoxically morphed into an increasing apathy towards his own existence. For a moment, his facade drops, and he looks at the other boy exhausted. He opens his mouth and closes it again. Whatever he wants to say doesn’t matter. His expression turns more contemplative as he thinks about what the appropriate reaction should be.

“I think anyone dealing with the kinds of burdens you are would feel the same way. You’re juggling a lot of obligations all at once. No one can do that much and be ok.”

He can at least help the other somewhat though. One of them should be content at least.

Yosuke: We are but pawns in a cosmic chess match, in which the players are cold and indifferent. You have no control over anything that happens, so don’t worry about it.

What if?  Somehow, it’s an even harder question to grapple with when one can see the various possibilities in the multiverse.  What if everyone was more normal?  He need only jump to another world to view that timeline.  It’s a useless mental exercise though.  If his world has granted him one thing, it’s the knowledge of how much is outside his control.  How insignificant he is.  It’s as terrifying a revelation as it is freeing.