birdsandblades | Cyberformed Inbox; $freebird

You were like one of Yuuta's ghosts. [He says it quietly, hushed as snow settling down around their shoulders. Or ash.] I looked at you, and- and all I could see was how I failed. We failed.

[A slight pause, then,] What is the last thing you remember. Because if Shado has been holding back telling you things you need to know...

[ Failed? The dread sinks deeper, and he shakily vents through it. ]

I'd just left the robotics convention, after striking a deal with my brother. Then there's... A blank spot. Memory corruption. And then I'm here.

You broke that deal you made with Shadowmaru... or so it seemed.

We learned later that one of our creators, Shinjo, was responsible for those actions. He attacked you, stole your Super AI core, and replaced it with a simplified one meant only for destruction. This left your body to-

You attacked us, attacked everyone within range. You would not stop or respond to anyone's words, including Shadowmaru's, only struck harder and faster. In the end, there was no choice.

[Deckerd went quiet for what probably felt like far too long]

We killed your body, Kagerou.

[ Killed. Killed his body. The scarring that so often slipped out of mind, the occasional phantom aches in his chest- Even now, he finds himself rubbing the silver markings anxiously. Like a ripped hole, patched over but never painted (patched over but there are no seams, just smooth metal).

Taken. Just like he'd always feared.

He forces his vents to be calm. ]

...And then-?

[ But he stops again. It's a guess, just a guess, he realizes; there's no memory that rises from those corrupted files, not even a ghostly shape of absence that might give him somewhere to work from. Just the thought that his chip must have been found too. A mere guess, that nothing must have gone as it should, because why would Shadowmaru- Why would his brother-

He takes a shuddery vent. He knows it's audible. ]

Your chip was inserted into an experimental submarine to make it automated. We discovered it and Shadowmaru made his way inside. When he discovered that's where you were, he-

[A click of his voxcoder]

He was angry. We all were. But he was furious. He wanted to stay with you. [Its said quietly. Gently.] He was going to go down with the submarine entirely when it began to fail because he didn't want you to be alone.

[A moment of quiet]

You talked him out of it.

[ He talked him out of it. That sounds like him. It does. He wouldn't want Shadowmaru to go down with him, not when his little brother could live, not when his little brother could keep on existing.

(He thinks of that alternate's memories, still lurking in this frame from when Brainstorm had fractured things. Yes, he would do anything and everything for his brother, no matter how long he was avoided.)

But something is wrong. Something is wrong, because if a chip went down with a submarine, how is it here too?

He is a detective too. He was coded to be a ninja and to be a police officer, even if he has rejected one of two. He's good at trying to understand.

There are both hands over his chest, now. They killed his body, and his body is scarred. Front, and back; he's seen it, in the reflections of the observatory window. Run through, as if by Shadowmaru's-

Taken.

Taken... ]

I-

[ There is such a sharp, shuddery vent that it is more than audible to Deckerd. ]

Apologies. I have to go.

[ And Kagerou hangs up, all at once. He is dead. Kagerou is dead.

Kagerou is dead and he believes it's more than Deckerd thinks. ]

Cyberformed Inbox; $freebird

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