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Aigis was a machine, yet it was strange for the robot girl to put a name to the feelings she felt growing stronger every time she reached another full moon. Her body endured the worst of a Shadow's blows to ensure she could protect her friends, as her programming intended for her to do. She desired to find a reason to live, but her resolve steadily fractured when a cruel man manipulated her friends into summoning the Fall. Her hands could harm shadows, yet she doted on dogs. Her body shielded others from attacks, but it was also held so lovingly by the ones she loved.
It never changed how she felt about people, even when she looked at the world from a new perspective. Her desire to protect others led her to approach Ryoji on that bridge. She knew he was a threat, but the others brushed her wariness off as jealousy for the transfer student taking hearts by storm. Fear chilled her heart when she thought she was dying when her blows still refused to land on the Appriser. It meant she failed to protect those she loved. The world would end, and it was all because she wasn't strong enough to carry out her duties.
She had a conversation with Makoto in December when she still required repairs. When her mind developed to a complex degree, she was left online for the Kirijo Group to study her movements and behaviors. Her heart ached for her friends when the truth hit them on a level she couldn't comprehend. No, she did learn to understand it. She had just learned to live for the first time amongst those who spent over a decade aware of their human nature. Now, they've all learned they would all die in a matter of weeks.
Empathy was cruel to someone unable to bear the weight of her failures. Her gaze fell upon the members of SEES, all coming to terms with their mortality. She wanted to hold people and tell them she was sorry, and she wanted them to be safe, but a machine cannot provide comfort in the face of tragedy. She walked side by side with Makoto silently as he mulled over his decision. She told him she would do whatever he decided, even if uneasiness washed over her.
"It's what we want, right?" Makoto didn't look at her as he prepared to meet everyone downstairs. It was almost as if he was trying to justify himself. "We can have the peace we wanted until the end of the world comes for us."
When Ryoji entered the dorm that evening, her eyes bore into the back of his head. He tried to smile innocently, but she could see how forced it was. He coaxed Makoto into the bedroom to discuss the decision. Everyone was anxiously waiting for the truth. Ryoji never returned from that room.
"No regrets," he promised when he returned from his room, but her newfound emotions let her sense his voice's uncertainty. "I killed Ryoji."
"What the hell do you mean?" Junpei shot up from his seat. He was the first of many to react to the news. "I thought we all agreed we're going to fight Nyx?"
"Junpei—" Fuuka began, but she fell silent. Her hands dropped to her lap.
The murmurs became shouting as various members clashed against his choice. Mitsuru also attempted to intervene while the others continued their fighting. Meanwhile, Aigis stood there still as a machine. She caught Makoto's gaze and could see the regret in his eyes.
It was uncanny how the fire in everyone's eyes melted away to reveal nearly indifference, then blinking as if they all woke up from a strange dream.
It was more of a nightmare.
-
In the first few days since humanity's extinction, Aigis found herself surprisingly sane. She had expected to collapse onto the ground with tears miraculously forming in the ducts of her lenses, but she carried on as if it were a new day. Perhaps she had cried her eyes out enough times when her friends regarded her as a pretty stranger with no emotional attachment. Ryoji was true to his word: humans would never remember what transpired in the Dark Hour, and their final moments would be quick. A part of her was selfishly grateful they would never have to suffer, even at the cost of losing what they'd all built, but she wondered why it hurt so much when it all happened.
The world looked the same as it always had. The trees continued to sway in the breeze, birds chirped relentlessly, and the sky remained as blue as ever. The Dark Hour still appeared as it always had, with no new developments since the change happened. The moon, though, was ever closer every night. She suspects the green hue will consume the days well enough, but she doesn't dwell much on the future. Nyx has already taken that away from her.
Now, she walked across the lonely sidewalk where her housing had remained dormant since the last of her teammates turned to goo. Her habit was pathetically hoping she'd open the door to see everyone lounging in the chairs or at the table mulling over homework or ways to infiltrate Tartarus further. She'd greet Koromaru with a smile as he told her about his day (a lot of helping people who knew him and his late owner). She would either tend to the gardens with Makoto or Junpei, and then the girls would enjoy their book club, where they discussed the week's new book.
The dust had not collected inside the dorm, but nobody greeted her at the door. She wasn't sure where Koromaru had gone, but her mind tried not to dwell on the probabilities, fearing the fauna would struggle in this new world. She likes to imagine Ken taking him on a walk to the shrine. Her body betrays her as it takes her inside the familiar structure to look at memories she developed over the years.
She thought she was sane enough as she tried to imagine the bustling room. It's not like anyone can see her breaking down in the middle of the doorway to tell her otherwise.
-
Makoto had always left their supplies in some pocket dimension; she sighed as she explored various buildings, hoping to collect anything to assist her plan. The logical part of her mind knew this plan would not work, and it would result in her dying for a cause when she promised herself she'd continue to live for everyone's sake. She had been waiting patiently for months now for the pain to subside, but her human emotions refused to let her be. She silently wished she could be a machine again so her system didn't feel like it would implode from her fears and loneliness.
She remembered how everyone else had grieved over events since her reactivation. Ken had found his resolve, while Akihiko found new reasons to keep fighting when the first casualty was with Shinjiro. Mitsuru locked herself away for a time when her father was killed (the memory still triggering guilt for something she had no control over), and the way Junpei couldn't even leave his bed when Chidori gave her life for him until he learned to use his new life to fight for their future.
As she entered Tartarus, she wondered what her answer would be at the end of this. The teleporters still worked, much to her belief, as she traversed Tartarus's final floors in hopes of finding Her waiting at the top of the dreaded tower.
Instead of finding Nyx, she could see the outline of a familiar human being. A trickle of hope soared within her as she approached, only for dread to shake her core when she recognized him.
Ryoji Mochizuki.
He seemed to have noticed her, too. A look of surprise caught on his face as he turned around with a friendly hand waving her way. He seemed unfazed by how she radiated hostility from her mechanical frame, as if he knew nothing would come of it.
"Why are you here?" she demanded angrily. She lifted her hands in preparation to shoot at her long-lived enemy returning from whatever grave he crawled out of. She doesn't hesitate to shoot at him.
"I'm pretty sure we went over this, Aigis," Ryoji said. He pinches the bridge of his nose to stifle his sigh. The bullets meant to graze him fell haplessly against the ground in front of him. "I cannot be harmed by anyone other than Makoto."
"I…" Aigis sharply inhaled. Aigis was quiet momentarily, and her stomach—though she had no stomach as she wasn't genuinely human—churned nauseatingly at his words. She failed to bring him down again, but his words struck a chord within her.
He knew she knew what had happened that night during New Year's Eve: the evoker carrying the executioner, a smile, a hope that Makoto and his friends would be at peace. Her body shakes, but she doesn't know whether fear or anger plagues her. She wouldn't grant him a reply when her bullets couldn't graze him, nor would words pierce his shield. She wanted to hurt him, to show him how much pain he caused everyone, caused him.
Why was he here, of all people?
Ryoji noted her silence and the conflicted gaze cast his way. "I'm not here to hurt you," he murmured, urging as much sincerity in his words for her sensors to pick up. He didn't approach her, but she still stood defensively.
"Why are you here?" she repeated the question with vigor.
"I don't know," he answered quietly. He shuffled nervously as his confidence faltered, and he picked up one of the bullets rolling around near his feet. He wordlessly inspects it before glancing back up. "I'm not surprised you keep yourself armed. I have no control over the Shadows around here, but I'm relieved that none of them have harmed you."
"Your words will not hurt me."
His words rang true; some of the Shadows were once her friends. She had watched them blissfully live out their lives without ever remembering the truth. They wander when the Dark Hour arrives to give them free roam over their new land. A land devoid of humans. They never outright attack her, and she's unsure if it's from the consistent training from climbing Tartarus or the Shadows suspected she's something special to them.
Ryoji studied her. "You're going to fight Nyx."
It wasn't a question. It was a statement. The boy before her saw right through her, but no malice laced his words. He sounded disappointed, as if he suspected she would do so, but he knew she couldn't even leave a dent on him.
A lot of her words wished to be spoken out loud about how dangerous he was, how her friends were dead because of Nyx, and how she wasn't sure what she could do when she couldn't even perform her duty as a weapon—no heroic dialogue formed on her lips.
"I need to fulfill my duty."
"I think you should go home, Aigis," Ryoji said seriously. "Nyx is impossible to defeat, and you're only going to die for a hopeless cause. Your friends wouldn't want you to go like that."
Her fists shook at her side. She couldn't leave it like this. Even if it cost her her life, she must stop Nyx. With Athena in the back of her mind, Aigis took a step forward, feeling her Persona ready at a moment's notice.
"What am I supposed to do then?!" Her words rang into the endless night upon the tower.
She wanted to shout into the void where Ryoji and his matriarch lingered. She needed a purpose again, but he wasn't giving her a chance to try to fight the galactic being. A part of her perhaps wished it would help her shut down the part of her heart racing with her breaths and aching from being so human.
"I wish we had met in better circumstances. It is what it is, though. I know they wanted to fight, but this was the peace they all deserved. Let's leave it at that. Go home, Aigis. I'm sure there's something out there to keep you going." He noticed how the android stubbornly stood her ground. "Very well, allow me to help you."
She found herself in the beginning of Tartarus with no way to ascend this time.
-
A year after humanity's extinction, Aigis busied herself with her usual routine in the dorm. She did her best to keep it as tidy of shape as possible. She knew Yukari was particular about how the place looked and often complained when Junpei tried to bring some of his poor organization habits downstairs.
She heard footsteps approaching and scowled, knowing full well who was trying to interact with her for the umpteenth time in the past year. Ever since he kicked her out of Tartarus' higher floors, she had settled for living in the dorm again, where the memories thrived. She did not know why he decided to interact with her as if he wasn't at fault for everything, but she had long accepted that outright trying to shoot at him wouldn't make him go away. At some point, she let them try to make friends without letting it go far enough that she'd care for him.
"I find it amusing that you're still trying to maintain a routine. I suppose this is how humans try to keep themselves occupied," Ryoji remarked as he glanced at the lounge.
"I don't remember inviting you here," Aigis narrowed her eyes as she held up the dustpan in her hands at him like an intimidating weapon.
"Is this how you treat guests?" He faked pouted before making his way in anyway. "Mitsuru-san was so nice letting me visit if I only entered Junpei's room. She thought I wanted in a girl's room instead, like Yukari-chan's. Not me!"
If Yukari were here, she would protest against Ryoji's flirtatious nature and how he'd always seemed interested in Yukari or Fuuka. Aigis had to let Ryoji continue to hang around Makoto to ease up on his apathetic nature. Still, she always knew that how he looked at Makoto was sincere and only made her more concerned for his safety. Instead, she was the dorm owner and had no intentions of letting him in.
He smiled at her but genuinely pouted when she refused to budge.
"No, I'm not letting you in," she declared. "I need to preserve this place, and you would ruin what I'm trying to keep safe here."
"Sometimes I wonder how much of your robotic nature is still kicking in if you protect this place a year later."
Aigis glared, but there was no coldness behind it. "I need to preserve their memory. I promised them that. It's been so long since everyone died, and I feel responsible for it."
"You're not responsible for a decision out of your control—"
"No," she abruptly cut him off. It was a mercy he let her continue. "I told Makoto-san to choose the path we're on now. He regretted it. I regret it now that he's gone, and I'm alone."
Ryoji went quiet for a moment. She was grateful he was not the pitying type. A thought briefly crossed her mind, wondering if he ever mourned people, too, but she refused to give Ryoji a human essence in her mind.
"Would you like to go on a trip?" he suddenly asked. He adjusted his scarf, looking anxious, as if he knew Aigis could decline his offer and kick him out of her life again.
"Absolutely not. I'm not going anywhere with my enemy," Aigis said. "I'm going to spend the rest of my time here in Iwatodai."
Ryoji placed a hand on his chest with a dramatic expression. "I guess….I must go alone on this fine trip with my little friend."
Before Aigis could comprehend his words, a pale Shiba Inu appeared from behind Ryoji, tongue lolled, as he approached Aigis with a dog's adoration in his eyes. Koromaru was okay. Grey flecks reflected itself in the darker tones of his coat, but he seemed as sprightly and intelligent as ever.
"You planned this from the start," Aigis said accusingly, but the fire died when she knelt to pet her canine companion, whose behavior reflected his apology for his disappearance. He had something important to do after everyone passed. Her voice was soft as she rubbed behind his ears. "Thank you for coming back, Koro-san."
"Am I going to get a thanks for convincing him to return?" Ryoji asked before trailing off. He held his hands up in mock surrender. "Kidding."
Koromaru summarized everything for her, from visiting his friends to see if the Dark Hour got to them. His confirmation regarding animals made her realize that only humans were affected by Nyx's arrival. Though humans were long gone, the animals would continue to thrive on this Earth. He met up with Ryoji on a whim when he sought to return to her side as a reminder of their strange family.
Ryoji wanted to explore the planet even under morbid circumstances. He didn't want Aigis to waste away, so Koromaru's gentle persuasion allowed her to look forlornly upon the dorm as she followed the two boys outside to see new sights outside of Tatsumi Port Island. While the other two were self-sufficient, they'd find dog food and supplies so that Koromaru would be in good hands.
It would be the last time she would ever see the dorm like this, and her internal camera showed where everything good once happened.
-
A decade had passed since her departure when Aigis gazed at the ocean before her. She didn't know where she was this time, as her data only covered two significant locations in her life. The tide licked her legs, but she had no intention of letting it hover higher than her ankles. Without humanity to fit in with, she did not need disguises to play a genuine human. Ryoji convinced her to keep one of her dresses on, and she was curious if the teenage mind considered her usual chassis too nude for anyone's taste. She forgoes the need for human-shaped shoes, though.
Ryoji appeared again after leaving her alone for a couple of years after a particularly rough spat between them regarding something she couldn't remember. She'd like to imagine Yukari shaking her head about a "lover's quarrel" while Junpei contributed nothing when his relationship with Chidori was unique enough. As much as she kept as many clips in her mind, it was almost as if everything was steadily fading from her mind, and it frightened her.
Sometimes, she coyly asked Ryoji for the rehashes of his memories from their school days when life was simpler, and he often exaggerated said stories. Though initially peeved hearing about Ms. Toriumi's 5000-page essay they had to do (they did not, obviously), she enjoyed his tales. It was strange having these little moments where they weren't seeing enemies out of each other.
After some time, when she wished to be left alone with her thoughts, she felt ready to see him again without the disdain for robbing them of Makoto.
She awkwardly stood against the ocean breeze, barely meeting his eyes. "Did you see anything good?"
"Yeah," Ryoji murmured as he toed out of his shoes to meet her in the sea. "I got to see a desert where they have these prickly green things."
The conversation about deserts and cacti (as humans referred to them) lasted for hours, and they enjoyed this moment together.
Aigis realized the simplicity of this moment and how warm it felt. It reminded her of her time in Yakushima when she engaged in numerous activities with her friends and the joy she felt when Makoto came into her life.
Her mind tried to conjure an image of the blue-haired boy, but panic momentarily seized her as she realized she could barely remember what he looked like. She couldn't feel the hands steadying her as she swayed in the ocean; she tried to recall what her most precious person looked like.
"Aigis? Aigis!"
The fear and lack of honorifics snapped her out of her moment as she noticed the fear in those teal eyes. She never realized how little Ryoji's expression showed on his face, and Fuuka once admitted she was surprised at how she expressed herself more and more as she became more human. Ryoji's only teacher was the boy he had been inside for years, but now he only had a machine to learn from.
"Are you okay?" Ryoji uttered as he glanced around at Aigis. He realized his hands were on her, and he immediately pulled them away as if he had touched lava.
"I'm… I'm malfunctioning," she meekly said as she ran a diagnostics check on herself and found nothing wrong. "I can't remember how he looked. I can't remember how anyone looked."
"Do you have any photos?" he asked her as he reached for his phone on instinct even years later.
Their phones had stopped working forever ago, but she stiffly reached for her dead phone only to remember the selfies she took with everyone were gone by the offline look of the less complex machinery in her hand. It did not help the Dark Hour lasted more frequently and would've shut down more technological advances regardless.
"Damn. Okay, so I guess let's see if we can picture something together." Ryoji knitted his brows together as he tried to devise something to ease the robot girl's mind. "He had blue hair. His eyes were grey. He was tall, but not as tall as me."
She nodded. "Makoto had an eye covered with his longer hair."
"Yeah, yeah," Ryoji nodded.
It was silent momentarily as they stared at the water again.
"I loved him," Aigis said.
Ryoji nodded at her with an understanding only they could understand when destiny intertwined them for years. "Me too."
-
Aigis was surrounded by a colony of feral cats chatting with her and listening to their meows. Despite humanity's lack of intervention, cats have continued to thrive. Like the dogs out in the wild, she sometimes wondered how Koromaru's descendants were doing. They had nothing exciting to contribute to her later conversation with Ryoji, who only laughed about her listening to cats.
"I think it's perfectly normal to talk to cats," she nodded. "Purr-fectly even."
"...Was that a pun?"
A hint of a smile formed on Aigis' face. "Purr-haps."
"Ugh."
-
The android collapsed as her legs gave out from under her. The lack of an engineer has been increasingly consequential on her body, even if her energy levels have been infinite. Her mind would remain bright, but her parts are unique to her as an Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon. Replacing parts would be challenging. Their travel across the land had only hastened the corrosion process, but she couldn't blame her companion for moving from place to place to see the world for himself. It's only a shame he cannot repair her mechanical parts when he's only known for bringing death, but she's still alive by unknown means when she's with him. It had been decades since the fall of humanity; she lost track of time at this point.
Her heart thumped anxiously against her plating as she wondered what it meant now that she couldn't move. Would Ryoji leave her, too, now that she meant nothing? The steam extruding from her legs increased as she fretted over her fate. She didn't know when she passed out when alarms covered her screen.
Her body suddenly felt light as she blearily realized she was in Ryoji's arms. She doesn't recall when it happened, but the boy quietly examined her circuitry without clearly knowing what he was doing. She knew most of his behavior had been a mimicry of the blue-haired boy whose memory kept weaving in and out of her database, but some facts were hard to avoid when Ryoji was living proof of some of Makoto's quirks.
The furrowed brow and pouting bottom lip were reminiscent of the beloved boy who focused intently on a task. Makoto was like that when he concentrated, like during a test or a Tartarus run. He noticed she was awake because Ryoji's look softened.
He smiled at her. "Good morning, my dear."
Aigis huffed at him as she shoved his face away from her body. "I don't recall permitting you to carry me. I'm not one of your so-called princesses from school."
"Hey now, I only called one a princess, but we all know how that went down. Besides," Ryoji set the mechanical girl down on a bed in the nearby house he found. He eyes the sparks spewing from her thigh. "You're not exactly in a position to argue about it."
She didn't respond, and they left the conversation at that. Instead, the robot focused on how her limbs creaked when she tried to move them, and Ryoji once attempted to find something during their looting (he preferred to call it "their shopping date" to escape how weird it felt to take things) to ease up on the stiff sections of her body.
Robots could last long; she had lasted decades since that fateful day. Maintenance was once frightening when Ikutsuki robbed her of her autonomy in the guise of maintenance. She could perform self-diagnostics on herself when needed. Engineers built her metallic body to last long, even after numerous fights. She imagined she wouldn't look pleasant if Shadows dislodged anything to reveal tendrils of wires.
Meanwhile, Ryoji looked the same as ever, with no flaws to mar his appearance. Unlike her, he was an inhuman being who could take a human form. She knew he was as gloomy as she was beneath the handsome exterior. He often discussed the topic of death and the philosophies of life with others when the opportunity arose. Still, he never realized how awkward of a conversation starter it would be when discussing execution sites. The two of them found themselves discussing the topics of life and death and how they both found reasons to live and accept that their time would eventually end.
He hated it when she discussed her existence and would subsequently give up without humans to tend to her body. She almost disliked how fond he grew of her companionship and how it was mutual. When they actually could hold a conversation without his amnesia and her initial hostility toward him, she learned he wasn't that bad of a person. Like her, they cared deeply for humanity and the boy with whom they shared the same past.
Aigis tapped at her chassis, where the silver tint was already eroding. "There's nobody who can fix me. I'm bound to break down one day. Why not now when my legs can barely move?"
"I believe," Ryoji said, his serious expression replacing his usually pleasant smile. You're not going to perish today. "This is coming from Death himself."
A roll of her eyes made him chuckle as she lightly smacked at his shoulder. She had picked up this behavior from Yukari. Naturally, he felt none of the pain, but he understood the gesture well enough.
Aigis let out a shaky breath as she continued to examine her beaten-down body. "Makoto-san is going to think I look no better than the toaster my friends were crossed with when it broke down."
"You must've been a pretty toaster then if he was fond of you." He laughed again as she glared at him. "Oh, the nostalgia… You gave me a million dirty looks when we first met."
The irony hadn't escaped either of them. They were sworn enemies destined to fight until someone faltered. She sealed him away inside Makoto when he was still a boy, and then he returned. He always returned to haunt her as he did, taking the form of Ryoji Mochizuki and then returning after humanity had perished. Now, they were sitting side by side as he tended to her failing circuitry, and they did not have their important person as a buffer. She knew he was a threat, but it was difficult to perceive him as anything when her heart and programming clashed. She didn't know what to think of him now.
"Hmm, it's not like I've sensed you were an enemy of mine from years ago."
She knew Ryoji was trying to ease up on the topic as he glanced around their current residence. He seemed to have found his distraction as he took to the piano in the room nearby. He was relieved to see not everything disintegrated over time.
"Did you know I can play the piano?"
She tilted her head. That was news to her. "No, I've never heard that you play."
"Oh, good! I can make this moment memorable for you." Ryoji said. "I hope you're ready."
He cracked his knuckles before settling on the seat. His fingers danced across the keys as he embraced what he considered a heartfelt scene. It was a simple tune, but the composition wasn't anything Aigis could recognize in her databanks. A combat robot did not need music after all, but a part of her wished she tried to bond with others more over the thought of music.
Aigis looked startled when Ryoji looked like he was expecting something from her through the open doorframe. Flustered, she reached into her memories to remember what to do in light of a performance—right, clapping. She needed to clap. Her attempts were awkward on top of the already awkward moment, but the pianist did not seem to mind.
"Were you expecting something more fanciful?" Ryoji chuckled as his fingers lightly grazed the top of the keys as if he were trying to think of another tune. "I'm not amazing, as you can probably tell by how little Makoto played the piano. I've tried to figure him out more to be like him."
"No, not at all." Aigis shook her head.
He blinked at her words.
"I think it's nice to see you doing something like yourself and not as a reflection of Makoto-san," she elaborates with a curt nod. "It's nice getting to know you as Ryoji-san."
"Ah, I see…"
Ryoji seemed taken aback by her declaration, but it was a welcomed sight. A wall and scarf hid his red face. "I will continue to impress you with my Ryoji-like behaviors."
He returned to her side to look at her failing limbs before she nudged his chin up to look up at her.
Aigis hummed as she pulled blankets over herself to keep his eyes away from the inevitable a little longer. "Don't worry about that. I'd rather think about something happier. Could you…play more music sometime?"
He hummed the song he had just played for her on the piano. It was simple and sweet, like him.
-
"Do you think Nyx will call you back home?" Aigis asked one day.
They were in Iwatodai again but had not approached the dorm since long ago. She still believed in preserving what remained of the area, but she would sometimes walk by it to see how it looked since she last saw it. Sometimes, she approached the school with the help of Ryoji's shoulder when her machinery malfunctioned, but the Dark Hour was nearly infinite now, with Tartarus often taking its place. The Shadows lingered around its nest but never interacted with the duo.
"I'm not sure," Ryoji confessed. "I've been enjoying my time here and'd hate to get pulled away."
"You said Nyx is undefeatable, but is there truly no chance to save the world from extinction?"
"It's too late for that now," he frowned. He scratched his head in thought. Makoto would've been able to save the world, but it wouldn't have been pretty in your friends' eyes.
Aigis twisted her side to look at him. "Would Makoto-san have to sacrifice himself?"
"I think so. Makoto would've had to let me live, but I would've returned to Nyx. It would be up to you and your friends to resolve it and see if you could save the world. That's just a theory, though."
"Hmm."
"Enough of that, though." Ryoji leaned in with a grin, but it was still far from genuine. I want to see you smile. We keep talking about sad conversations, but it's been a while since you had a pretty smile."
"Good luck with that," Aigis responded. "You're going to have to try harder to make me smile."
-
Aigis couldn't believe how much this little room resembled a library, with books about robotics littered throughout. Some were texts she recognized of Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon designs like her own, and others she didn't recognize. Perhaps her sisters. Ryoji had been endlessly scouring through the books in hopes of keeping her aging body functioning, and they had all the time in the world to do so. The world was already wholly enveloped in the Dark Hour as the greenish hue covered their landscape. It did not change how enraptured she was by the way Ryoji's eyes were bright blue against the darkness, and it was a sight she was willing to keep in her memory until her life was extinguished.
"I think I figured out how your mechanisms work now." Ryoji smiled gently at her. It's been only them for the longest time, but she could almost see a genuine look of glee for the first time in decades. "I think it goes like….this?"
He pointed at the diagram before playfully poking at the same section of her body he was pointing out where he intended to install new fans to keep things from overheating.
"You know…I never thought I'd see the day where we're still in the same room together without a third Moonlight Bridge incident," Aigis said as she grabbed one of the blueprints to skim over and better understand herself.
"I think the first two were more than enough," Ryoji nodded as he motioned to take the blueprint from her hands to study it closely. "I admittedly still don't know what I'm doing."
"So we're still gonna give it a go, huh?"
Ryoji nodded excitedly. "We survived nearly a century. I think we can figure it out a little longer."
The android shook her head as a smile graced her lips. She would welcome the new day with open arms if it meant enjoying the little moments like these a little longer.