Chapter Text
Neiru had always been isolated from her peers, always isolated from people in general for she had no one to call family either. When Ai, Momoe, and Rika came, that changed. She felt like she was living a normal life, like a girl her age should. Yet now, she was right back to square one. Neiru was a bit hurt, she told herself, but she supposed being alone again wasn't so bad, this was the life she had for most recent parts of her life. Being together with everyone and saving girls in eggs was a fun, unique change, Neiru never imagined being able to literally delve into the psyches of anyone, let alone desisted girls, but she knew nothing is ever permanent. Neiru tried to be thankful that she ever got the opportunity in the first place considering the strange circumstances that she came to be. Even apart, she hoped Momoe and Ai were faring well, despite how the last time they were together went, she didn't hate them at all. If anything, she hated herself the most.
Neiru found it quite funny how she was most upset with herself for what happened. Selfish, unemphatic Neiru who tried to factor emotions out of every equation she solved and look at every scenario with a clear head, now held so many emotions towards herself and her actions. Even after she sided with Acca and Ura-Acca, telling Momoe it was ultimately Rika's choice and no one else's, she couldn't help but think she was somehow at fault for what occurred. The girls were outwardly emotional, that was what made their time together so fun, but maybe Neiru should have been the one to make sure everyone was in check. She was the most responsible out of all of them, that's why she tried to keep in touch with Ai and Rika's mother. As the most responsible one, it was only right for her to take on most of the burden. She truly hoped none of the other girls were blaming themselves, or perhaps she was being hypocritical. No matter how much she wished for it, she knew she couldn't control their emotions. It was easy for them to feel the guilt, then hope she wasn't feel it either. I can't control their emotions, huh? Neiru chuckled a bit to herself. That means I couldn't have controlled Rika either. I know it's not my fault, but still... I feel like it definitely is. It's not like me to be this fickle, is it?
Neiru let out a sigh. She knew that eventually one day the girls would part, though she never knew it would be like this. Even so this is the ending they faced and there was nothing she could to about it but try and move on and pick up what debris were left. Perhaps Ai, Momoe, and her would get an epilogue tomorrow at Rika's funeral, though with how she knew Momoe she doubted that it would be the happily-ever-after ending that she dreamed of.
Death is inevitable, yet this seemed to sting her much more than she ever thought it would and the fact tomorrow things would finally be set into stone seemed more surreal to her. She didn't have such strong feelings about her sister's passing, even though she knew her for much longer and even got stabbed. The time the group shared together was worth so much to Neiru. She would be willing to admit that she treasured their memories deeply, but she still didn't see any reason for her to be so irrational.
Maybe, if it was possible, Neiru could find a way to engineer a machine to go back in time. To stop Rika from doing what she did, or maybe back much farther to the point where Rika never had to undergo any trauma or stress. Even if it meant they would never meet, Neiru much rather that than the ending that she met here. Neiru certainly had the money to invest in a project like that, but she knew it would be a waste of resources and time. Time travel would always be impossible for her, time was much more abstract and it was a human made concept at that. Why we move in the consistent line forward with our actions impacting a future that hasn't come and a past that we could recall was something that was even beyond her expanse of knowledge. Though her fantastical idea did remind her of someone else who always told her and tried their outlandish concepts.
Neiru treaded towards the set of coffee brown curtains and pushed them aside, then pushed a lighter pink curtain aside as well, fully revealing Kotobuki. Neiru pulled up and chair and sat next to the machine, bending over to get closer and putting her hand on her cheeks.
"Good evening Kotobuki." Neiru greeted with a smile. She had such a loving tone in her voice. "You'll never guess what happened in the past days. I got to travel to parallel worlds in order to save my sister. I bet you would have loved that, the travel part. I wonder how you would feel now that Airu is gone. I guess you would pity me, now that I'm all lonely. But, I'm not lonely at all. I met three other girls when I travelled, and we all hung out together almost everyday. Its a bit tragic to think that they all lost someone they had to save as well, but we were brought together and I think that made it easier for all of them. I finally enjoyed myself like you always told me to." Neiru let out a sad sigh in between talking to her. "I bet you would have loved to meet, them... I hope you wake up soon. Not that you'd be able to meet them anyways, not anymore..."
"I messed up. Well, I guess it wasn't my fault, but there was definitely something I could have done to change the outcome. What would you tell me if you could talk? Would it be to move on and pick up what's left with a smile on my face? Well, I'm trying to do that, minus the smile. It's really hard, but you're supporting me, right? When you wake up, you can berate me all you want on what I'm doing wrong. You can say 'No, Neiru I wouldn't have said that! I would have said this, and I would have told you to do this!'" Neiru chuckled, though she still felt a bit lonely. "Oh, I guess I shouldn't leave you clueless about what happened. Well, this will be tough to say. I cared about those girls a lot, as much as I care about you, so to speak of bad things happening to them..."
"A few days ago, all of us went to different parallel worlds. We weren't together for this one. Oh, the parallel worlds were actually the minds of girls who had died. You really would have loved that. Exploring people's minds, plus you always were enamored by death, that's how you got yourself stuck in this situation in the first place. We were supposed to go into their minds, and kill a personification of their trauma and someone who traumatized them. We had little pets that grew to be huge, and there were small evils too. No matter how much we got hurt, we wouldn't die, well not in that world anyways. All the damage we sustained would apply to our bodies here, I got into real trouble with that the first day I met Ai - she's one of the girls I made friends with." Neiru reminisced joyfully on the first day she met Ai. It wasn't the best day she had ever had, but she knew what would follow, she looked upon that moment fondly. "Oh, I still haven't told you what went wrong have I? Sorry, sorry I'll tell you." Neiru tried to laugh a bit, but thinking of what happened made her solemn again.
"Like I said, we all went to different parallel worlds, but we could all communicate with each other. Well, one of the girls I was friends with was fighting. Not just the things inside the world, but she was fighting with herself as well. Fighting with her thoughts, her trauma, her feelings. She was fighting, and then she decided to stop fighting..." Neiru looked back on the moment. She was the quickest to accept Rika's death. She felt almost as she knew the moment that Rika died, the moment there was nothing more she could do, yet she kept calling out, hoping that she was wrong, hoping that something could change. "In her last moments. We were all calling out to her, telling her not to do it, but we couldn't do a thing. After that, we regrouped where we always did and she didn't show. At that point, all of us realized she was dead. One of us accused the... should I call them curators? One of us accused the curators, saying they killed her for not stepping in and helping, but we all said that it was ultimately the dead girls choice to take her own life. She was best friends with the dead girl, so she got really upset with us. Ai was really upset with that, she hasn't messaged me ever since then. She cared about all of us a lot, so I can tell why she's hurt. I cared about all of us too..."
"I'm going to sound a bit silly here, but I think it wasn't my fault, but I still think I messed up. I messed up because well... I feel like I was too harsh with her while she was alive. She always seemed so carefree and not serious. Oh, I forgot to mention she used to be a semi-popular idol as well. Her death made the news. The person she was trying to save, it was a fan of hers. She insulted her, she should have known she was in a position to influence her greatly, and then her fan died because of that. I had fun with her, but I think we butt heads the most. I always saw her as reckless, and I think she saw me as way to uptight. I always critiqued her about this and that." Neiru had a bitter look on her face as she recounted the way she treated Rika, the way she treated the group in general. Besides with Ai, she felt different. Ai got along with everyone, but Neiru was always running her mouth on what was right to do in the scenario even when they were opposed to it. Still nothing seemed to go wrong with them, the group seemed completely normal, but Neiru supposed Rika couldn't put up that façade anymore. "She would always bounce back, so I thought it was fine, but maybe if I was a bit nicer to her this wouldn't have happened."
"I was awfully cold to her best friend as well that day. As if I hadn't learned my lesson enough. Even then, when I knew she was in pain, I tried to shoot her down with logic. I haven't spoken to her since that day. I can't keep deflecting people with logic. People aren't always logical, they're emotional sometimes that's part of being human. It's inevitable, having emotions is, and I think... that's alright." Neiru paused for a bit. Even though she was different from others, she was still a person. The labs denied her of the life she could have lived and she played her role as they instructed her, but perhaps it wasn't too bad to show emotion? Neiru still wasn't sure if she would be able to do that. Almost instinctively, she recoiled back. She had been spilling her guts out to Kotobuki, and all at once she began to act cold again. She sat back up straight in her chair and put her usual face on. "I'm acting foolish aren't I? I say it was Rika's choice to kill herself, then I blame myself. Then I say emotions are alright, but look at how they've torn our group apart. Ah, you might get mad at me for that one, but it's true isn't it? If we were always logical, then imagine all the problems we could avoid. It's not inevitable, I don't think, not if you put your mind to it, I just need to stop being as fickle as I have been lately. Though I suppose I'll still have to adjust my line of thinking in order to factor in other's emotions from now on since they can't think like me. I'll try and change so nothing like that happens again." Neiru looked off and put her fingers on her chin.
"Ah, I blamed myself for her actions again. I've been acting really strange lately. I even made a mistake on one of the documents I was working on recently. That's so unlike me, isn't it? I guess my mind was thinking of something else. That's so unlike me isn't it? Miss Tanabe lectured me a lot for that, she noticed that wasn't like me either." Neiru tried to make the mood lighthearted again, but she kept thinking about Rika. "I really cared a lot about Rika. In her last moments... when we were calling out to her, nothing I said could reach her. Nothing I said could sway her to even reconsider her decision. She was so set in stone about what she was about to do." Neiru leaned over disappointedly and put her hand on her cheek. She let out a frustrated sigh. "Maybe it was because she wasn't the logical type so she didn't understand anything I said. Maybe it was because she didn't want to listen to a person who had treated her so horribly. I promise you, I'll learn from that. I'll consider people's feelings next time I do anything. Of course, that won't change my final plan, but I'll try and consider their priorities in order to be more persuasive. Oh, I keep blaming myself, sorry. You're probably tired of me making tons of loops back to this topic, huh?"
A strand of hair dropped onto Neiru's face. She blew it back up with her mouth. She seemed bored as she fidgeted with her tongue inside her mouth, repeatedly poking her cheek and running it over her teeth. Her eyes looked elsewhere as she was pensive in thought. It seemed not to be her formulating a thought, but rather she was thinking about whether or not it was a good idea to share it. Her face flinched for a second, almost as if something had given her heart a light poke. Finally, she decided to say what was on her mind.
"Maybe. It's not that she's emotional or I was too blunt... maybe it was that my voice didn't matter at all." Neiru felt horrible inside, but she still kept her composure. "Maybe regardless of how I treated her it wouldn't have mattered. I kept calling out to her, even when I knew she was dead. I kept yelling thinking my voice could change something, that an angel would strum on my vocal cords and magically resurrect her. I knew it wasn't going to happen, yet I kept yelling to her. Even if I wasn't there, the result wouldn't have changed. I don't think the world would be much different if I didn't exist. There are too many people for someone like me to make an impact. They could create any smart child, maybe they could have made an embryo that would grow to be more intelligent that me. I don't think it specifically matters that I'm alive, that can't change anything can it?" The words that came out of Neiru's mouth were horrible, but once she spoke one word the rest followed out like a river. The worst part was that Neiru believed it all to be true. She couldn't make any rebuttal to it. Neiru had no reason to erase herself, nor did she had plans to, but she could help, but think 'even if there was no me, Neiru, would things be all that different?'
"When had my voice ever made a change? Not in the company, they could care less about what I say. Whether I go out or stay in it's all the same to them. My voice couldn't stop you either." Neiru's voice became unstable and her throat began to sting slightly. "When I told you it was a bad idea, or that it was dangerous, you didn't listen to me. Now you're just stuck in a machine and I'm waiting for you to wake up! Please... it's not your fault, I'm sorry for making it sound that way. Please don't pity me. You're not even listening are you?" A single tear fell from Neiru's eye.
"You're dead, aren't you Kotobuki?" Neiru stood up, suddenly erect. She had stood up quickly enough that there enough force that her chair slid back a bit. She didn't understand why she said that. It's not like Kotobuki would give a reply. The silence was so, so bitter for Neiru to listen to. She wiped her tear and turned away. "I'm going to take a shower. I couldn't save Rika. I couldn't save you. I'm just an empty voice talking to an empty body." Neiru spoke as if she was directing it towards Kotobuki, yet it sounded more like she was berating herself.
"I can't save anyone, I was reckless the first day I opened that egg. I almost died, I wonder if a day will come where I can't save myself either." Neiru muttered. She closed both sets of curtains as she stood alone in the center of her room. She looked at her ceiling, as if there was someone up there who could hear her plea, who could fix everything and make her alright again. Yet, no angel to save Rika, and no one would save her. Neiru took deep breaths to regain her composure. She was now back to being her stiff regular self. No angel was coming down to kiss her on the cheek and solve her problems, but still Neiru looked up to the ceiling as she made her final declaration. "Is there even a point in saving myself?"
As Neiru stood in her bathroom, she looked at herself in the mirror. She didn't know how to describe the feelings she felt from confronting her own emotions. She mostly felt neutral to her own appearance, but at the same time there was a deep weight sitting in the pit of her stomach. She stepped away from her mirror and headed into the actual shower.
She turned the faucet, allowing the water to first run all over her body. The little droplets trace over every curve and cranny of her body. As they ran over her back, Neiru couldn't help but flinch over how much it stung. She hadn't opened any eggs since the day Rika died, so her scar had been aching ever since. She had lived with the slight pain in her back, going about her day pretending it wasn't there, but showering always reminded her. Every droplet that traced over that area was another needle being inserted. Usually, Neiru had made her showers quicker because of that, but today she lingered in the pain. No matter how much she kept flinching and jumping, she continued to linger in it for much longer than she normally did.
Neiru still did have to clean herself though. That may have been the main driving factor as to why she stopped standing in pain. She quickly scrubbed herself down, feeling iffy when she had to clean the scar, then dried herself. Neiru wrapped a towel around her torso and her hair, leaving her face slightly wet. She had earlier left her phone by her sink and as she flicked her head towel off, further wetting her face, she heard it go off. She was quite surprised, her phone hadn't gone off like that in a while. She was receiving a lot of notifications. She set her head towel aside, and walked over to see if it was something urgent.
Neiru felt waves of joy splashing against her as she saw the culprit behind her phone repeatedly going off. Ai had finally replied to her messages. They were mostly sort generic replies, but Neiru was relieved her friend was at least starting to recover.
It was a happy moment, it should have been, but for some reason Neiru felt like she didn't deserve Ai. She had been so cold towards all the girls and though Ai didn't seem to mind, yet Neiru still felt a sense of guilt. The good feeling was killed just like that. At least Neiru wasn't completely done, she had just returned to a neutral unfeeling state. "Good to see you're doing well again :)." Neiru had never used an emoticon before, but she wanted to seem more compassionate and feeling, though she was quite the opposite. Though her emoticon smiled, Neiru was numb, somehow she seemed even number than how she usually acted.
Neiru felt like she lost a part of her humanity that day. A part of herself. All her emotions exploded for the past 3 days, just for them to implode back into nothing. The emptiness of the universe before the universe even was.