Day 58: Lunch

[full_score]

Although it had been good to see his mom again, Claude entered the cafeteria with a dark expression on his face. He was glad she felt comfortable enough with him to share her experiences from last night, but that didn't make him any less angry at the military for using her to do their dirty work. Why couldn't those bastards clean up their own

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[no_dont_go]

After a round of distressing bulletin notices, Aigis was just about ready to drop. The pain of losing so many friends so quickly was ripping her up slowly from the inside out. Minato, and now Yukari. Aigis was now the only one from her team left in Landel's institute. The only Persona user left. Was it because she was an android, a construction that was not and would never be human, that allowed her to keep her wits? In her opinion, it should have been the opposite. She could be programmed. She could be controlled. Yet they had still fallen before her.

And now, now she was alone. Standing in the cafeteria with a bowl of pink goo in her hands. There was still many patients milling about the room, and yet she felt so utterly alone. Rei was gone. Castiel had turned his back on them. Perhaps the one who had mocked her over the bulletin had been right. Perhaps she was a lost cause in her own right, content to eek out an existence blaming her robotic nature and reminding others continuously of it for her own justification. But if that were true, then why did she feel so... so... Why did she even have to feel at all?

Aigis was moving, walking on wooden legs that placed her at an empty table in a corner of the room. She set her tray down, then sat in a chair herself, placing her face in her hands. The tears she wanted to shed were near the breaking point, prepared to come rushing out if she dropped her defenses. But no, she couldn't let it happen. She couldn't let the institute get the best of her. That would be admiting defeat. That would be losing. She would not lose. She would not lose. She would not. Could not. Losing was not an option. Not when she was the last one here from home.

It was so much easier just to sit there and focus on her breathing. The strange sensation of taking in air that came naturally to this body. This model. She counted them. One... Two... Three... Four... With each breath she killed her emotions, shoving them down deep, deep, deep inside. She had to focus now. She didn't want to break down again. Not like last time.

She didn't have Minato's shoulder to cry on anymore. And with that thought, her concentration broke and she had to start again.

[Big bro Sechs!]

[sixth_attack]

"...Huh? What am I doing back in bed...?" thought Sechs as his eyes fluttered open to see the plain ceiling above him for the second time that day. Once his brain was able to reboot itself properly, Sechs found himself feeling all the more confused! Wasn't he just in that office with General Berg a second ago? Sechs didn't recall getting sedated or anything. How did he end up back in his room?

Yet once again Sechs was visited by a pair of soldiers who promptly led him outside. This time Sechs didn't have the same gut-twisting sickness he experienced that morning, so he was strong and coherent enough to demand a visit to the Sun Room's bulletin board first before lunch. The soldiers allowed him a quick visit, which became just fine for Sechs as he found a disturbing reply from Aigis...

Rushing to get his tray of inedible food, Sechs momentarily forgot about his unnerving visit with Berg as his mind was focused on finding Aigis. If she had been taken in for experiments or got poisoned by those drugs in the infirmary...

It didn't take long for Sechs to find the fellow droid. Only her distinct blonde hair was recognizable past the hands which covered her face. Crap! Something was up alright...

"Aigis!" Sechs exclaimed as he took a seat beside his distressed ally. Her troubling words on the bulletin board were clearly reflected in her downtrodden posture. Sechs could only feel concern and apprehension, unsure of what to expect but bad news. "What's going on? Did something happen to ya last night...?" he asked.

[no_dont_go]

Aigis looked up at the call of her name. Sechs had arrived, just as he said he would. She felt such relief at seeing him. Although she had seen his writing, it was almost too easy to give into despair and believe it was a trick of the institute. But no, they had allowed him to stay. He was strong enough to keep on here, even despite the horrors of this place.

She continued to hold back tears, all the more determined to hold them in now that her friend was here. She managed a thin smile but her voice was a bit broken as she spoke. "I am fine. However... several of my friends seem to be fallen to the institute's lies. All very... recently."

It was perhaps weak of her to feel this way but... it couldn't be helped. She was weak. In this form, she had no strength of will as he had before coming here. It was Landel's fault. Again.

She looked down at her gruel. Her voice was even softer as she spoke her next words. "I am now the only one left from my home."

[sixth_attack]

Ignoring his gruel, Sechs returned Aigis' strained smile with an awkward lopsided one of his own. He was glad that Aigis was unharmed. Yet Sechs' relief to hear that the fellow droid had not fallen under the mercy of the institute's cruel traps was short lived. To Sechs' increasing apprehension, he was met with deep despair upon Aigis' face, flooding out whatever light and hope was left in her once bright blue eyes. As he listened to her pained words, Sechs' brain struggled over what to do, and most importantly, what to say.

"Your friends..." he murmured, recounting the emotions he felt when he learned of Forte's disappearance. Sechs cringed, his struggling smile listlessly fell back into a somber grimace. "Only one left...?"

Sechs found himself at a total loss for words. Damnit, he wasn't very good with situations like this! He badly wished to help his friend feel better, but the only way he knew how was through fighting, like attacking Aigis' tormentors and bringing back her friends... Yet things couldn't be solved with just his fists anymore. Sechs raked his brain for an alternative, trying to remember examples from others who dealt with conundrums like this, and his friend Kibitoshin immediately came to mind.

With a nervous gulp, Sechs slowly moved his chair closer to Aigis. Then with uncertainty in his face, he carefully raised his hand and gently rested it on the top of Aigis' chair behind her back. He wasn't sure if he was doing this right, but he wanted to somehow show Aigis that she wasn't alone...

"Hey, listen..." he said, his voice a soft rumble near Aigis' ear, "I'm here for ya..."

Scrambling to think of something to instill hope back into those deeply sad eyes, Sechs thought of his own theories of what occurred to Forte. "Maybe... maybe they found a way out and just haven't been able to get you back home with them yet...?" Sechs hesitantly suggested with the most reassuring smile he could muster on his grim face. That was the only reassuring thought Sechs had over Forte... If only he had something tangible to prove such an uplifting fate for those who had disappeared...

Sorry this took so long, I am failsauce ;;

[no_dont_go]

Aigis nodded at Sechs' half-muttered utterances. Yes, she was the only one left, that was certain. No more Minato, or Yukari, and certainly Junpei was gone too. So it was true, she was alone. So alone. The tearing of her emotions left her feeling raw around her heart. Heavy and burning inside, while cold on the outside. Knowing true emotion was hell. How could she ever have wanted this before now, she didn't even know.

There was a movement nearby. Aigis kept her eyes on her gruel, but she knew Sechs had moved closer. And his voice, it was clear in her ears as he spoke a soft reassurance to her. Here, for her.

The thought they maybe, maybe his words were true, that made her hopeful. But hope was dangerous. It made her feel safe when there was very little safety at all, if any. And it made her vulnerable. Maybe Sechs was here now, but would he be here tomorrow? And the day after? But even so, could she afford to completely give up on hope too? That was not an option.

Aigis looked up, her blue eyes wavering. "I... I am afraid." Her voice was soft, unsteady, but clear. "I do not want to lose to false hope but... but if I give up, then I will lose regardless."

His arm was around her. She hadn't realized that he had moved quite so close, but this was nice. Nicer than she would have thought before, to have another person so close after feeling so ripped apart. It was welcoming, maybe more-so than if today had been a 'better' day. Aigis tried to mimic his smile, and it probably came across just as strained as his own. But it was a smile, and she had managed it nonetheless. "Thank you, Sechs-san. I will... remember. To believe they are home. Because that is the best alternative." She swallowed a lump in her throat. "I cannot give up, for their sake. Right?"