"You really think so? Because episode twenty-four isn't the last time you see each other, but I guess it depends on how exactly you want to interpr— Er. Never mind." Otacon looked off in embarrassment. Once an otaku, always an otaku, he supposed, then found his thoughts turn inevitably to Snake. That was the choice he'd made too, wasn't it? His death, for the survival of the people he loved. Otacon had resolved to not cheapen his sacrifice by dwelling on it and all the things they'd lost — what, after all, did Snake have to regret now? He'd been cloned decades before the birth of Dolly the Sheep, and had lived longer than anyone expected. He'd fought his battles and ended the war, and passed on everything there was left for him to pass on.

And Otacon would survive, as he always did, and Sunny would grow tall and strong in the outside world, and carry the memory of Snake with her as well. That was how it should have been, anyway.

Otacon sighed. Maybe it was pointless to try to control whether or not he dwelled on it. "Free choice," he murmured. Otacon met Kaworu's eyes again. "It mattered, if that's what you're worried about. Shinji survives, and later learns that a world where you can be hurt by others is still a better one than a world without individuality and free will." A slight smile touched his lips. "That's something which took me way after the age of fifteen to learn, so you have to give him credit there."