Night 64: West Wing, South Hall 1-A

[dualistic]

[From here.]

Still no one. Harvey imagined that before long these areas were going to be flooded with sick people who were going to follow that clue, so he was glad that he'd beaten them to the punch. It wasn't that he thought it was contagious anymore -- by this point, they would have known -- but he didn't need to be surrounded by a bunch of miserable, sniffling people, either.

Relieved that he'd dodged that bullet, at least so far, Harvey reached the end of the hall and took a right toward their regular meeting spot.

[To here.]

Comments

[lovesthepain]

It was the response he'd expected to hear, more or less. Infinitely hopeful, above all else, almost blindly believing that he would somehow be able to avoid the countless conflicts and crises studding the next few centuries without his well-intentioned endeavours harming anyone unnecessarily. It was a nice thought. One Harpuia almost wished he could believe in.

He considered debating further. If the Eurasia Incident had been halted, that would save lives, but it would also mean there was no need for reploids to clean the earth up, and no need for Neo Arcadia to act as an actually inhabitable home for mankind. If X had never used his body to seal the Dark Elf away, then his DNA would never have been used to clone the Four Guardians. Those three things, Harpuia felt, were the influences that shaped him most in his youngest years. The time he'd spent as a creator, not a destroyer, had nurtured his protectiveness toward the humans he served, taught him that life was a valuable and fragile thing. Neo Arcadia itself had been the pillar that held Harpuia up, the locus of all his beliefs. The DNA that was used in his creation, most importantly, gave him a legacy to aspire to. He'd inherited something precious, and had laboured for most of his life under the desire to be worthy of what he'd inherited.

If those were taken out of the equation... would he really still be Harpuia anymore? It was a question he wanted to ask, but... again, that sense of bitterness crept into his thoughts. What was a reploid's identity but one more of those fragile illusions? Zero had lost everything he'd once been when he'd awakened, but that didn't stop the Resistance from sending him out onto the battlefield. Not one of Neo Arcadia's citizens had noticed when the first X had been replaced by a different X entirely -- nor did any of them say a word when that same copy suddenly changed into a hollow, stuttering parody of himself. Not just Master X, either -- he'd seen firsthand just how much the Eight Gentle Judges had changed under the influence of Weil's "upgrades." They were nothing like the fair and gentle pacifists he'd once known. No trace of Inarabitta or Foxtar or any of the others remained in those heartless, cackling shells.

In the grand scheme of human society, who Harpuia was just happened to be an incidental side-effect of his duty. Not something worth arguing about, especially if the topic was the greater good. With no further points to press, then, he simply filed that answer away. It was one worth holding onto -- it shed an awful lot of light onto the nature of X's character. Save the cheerleader AND save the world, huh...? Making everyone happy, even if he had to sacrifice himself... and only himself? It seemed unrealistically out of touch with reality to him, but it struck him as interesting nonetheless.

"How greedy... But can you really do that by yourself?"

His gaze remained fixed ahead of them. Had it been anyone but Harpuia, they probably would have smiled; he couldn't help but feel a faint twinge of amusement that he was asking Master X the exact same question he'd once asked a very different reploid. This really was a strange set of circumstances he'd found himself in.

[maverickhunterx]

Could he...? It was a good question; holding onto the burdens of the world on his shoulders, keeping pain and suffering as far away from those he loved as possible while working towards a better, more beautiful future for everyone? If he had to sacrifice himself, could he do it? Would he be able to give away his fragile, flawed, and mistake-ridden life in exchange for the lives of all others...?

All signs, of course, pointed to "Yes."

Even the simple thought of it forced a heavy weight onto his...his heart. Yes, that was the proper word; that thing he had always been told that he had as a Reploid, but which he truly in the most accurate sense of the word had as a human. It was a hard, clenching thing; but not altogether uncomfortable somehow.

X wasn't sure why that was.

"It's not a matter of 'can' I." X murmured. "But a matter of 'will' I. Of course, there are those who are willing to help me, and I will always be grateful to them."

Zero. Dr. Cain.

"...But I'd rather bring the burden entirely onto myself than to let them deal with it. Even if it seems impossible, I'll take on the task, even if that means doing it alone. If it ends up bringing peace in the long run...I don't mind becoming Atlas."

And under the pressure, X knew that he wouldn't shrug.

[lovesthepain]

You could argue that Harpuia wasn't one to question the mentality of trying to run everything yourself. He certainly didn't see any reason to shoot that ideal of X's down; perhaps the sacrifice that he would inevitably make in the future wouldn't prevent the energy crisis, Elpizo's hubris, or the return of Weil, but it had been for the sake of the world.

He mulled this answer over in silence for a moment, expression giving away nothing. Truth be told... he wasn't even able to claim with any certainty that X would even have the chance to change Harpuia's past. The discrepancy in their memories may have suggested time travel, but Harpuia was reluctant to accept anything so utterly irrational.

"You're just as I imagined you'd be," he told X, and simply left it at that, lapsing again into silence as he focused on continuing their search.

[To here!]