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Sunset's Isekai

by Wanderer D

Chapter 39: unending sun[S]et (NieR: Automata — Endings A & B)

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Sunset's Isekai
unending sun[ S ]et (NieR: Automata — Endings A & B)
By Wanderer D

"Go rest for now, 2B. You will join the drop teams in the upcoming battle."

"Yes, ma'am."

2B sighed as she walked. "I said that, but…" She shook her head, the memories of the last battle against Eve still fresh in her mind. The pain. The fear. The anguish. 9S' throat in her hands. Again.

"Please 2B…"

Again.

Squeezing.

Again.

Again.

Again. Every time.

She gasped and stopped, resting her hand against the letter and number next to her room's door. Her hand curled up into a fist of impotent rage as her mind kept reminding her he was fine. He was okay. He had a new body. His memory had been kept alive by—by chance, just mere hapstenance.

But she had killed him as he asked. Again.

This time he had gotten his memories back. But… what about next time? There was always a next time. And there was always a reset. And always—

She shook her head. "No. No next time. Not again. Not ever," she muttered under her breath. She glanced around warily, making sure her sudden loss of composure hadn't been noticed, but it seemed all androids were currently occupied, and she silently thanked her luck for that respite.

The battle had been stressful enough—beyond the physical damage, the mental and spiritual exhaustion she felt were beyond anything she ever thought she would ever experience.

There were too many questions pettering at her soul like an avalanche of doubt, ready to bury her and suffocate her and crush her until there was no will to live left… and even if there was for her, what about 9S?

There was a… change about him. Something worse than before… he was always willing—almost eager—to sacrifice himself. At first when they had blown up their black boxes she had thought it was the sacrifice of a soldier, but now… she wondered.

She glanced out of the window on the hallway, down at Earth, floating there like a beacon of life and hope, yet lost to soulless machines that—but were they soulless? Were Adam and Eve truly just emulating feelings? Wasn't Eve's pain real? Wasn't Adam's despair true? What about Pascal and his village?

Even though there was no window behind her, she could somehow feel the presence of the moon like a shroud enveloping the whole station. They were the last bastion of defense between Humanity—or what was left of it—and the machines.

It wasn't even the aliens they were fighting anymore; just remnants of their technology that had outlived the invaders and now just… imitated life for some unknown reason. Many of them had no purpose, or objective. They simply existed in an eternal war with humanity and the androids. Hadn't she witnessed many of them reach the point of self-delusion where their only recourse was to achieve 'godhood' by destroying themselves?

"Are we so different after all?"

The thought shook 2B back into reality. No. They were not the same. Robots had no emotions. No feelings, or soul. They were not Androids. They were not humans. They weren't even aliens. No memories, just emulation.

This was not the time for self-doubt, however. Soon things would start again. The commander was right: they couldn't let this chance go and lose the opportunity to take down the machine forces now that they were in disarray over the network damage caused by the destruction of Eve.

She needed to rest. 9S would depend on her when she was back on Earth, after all. And this time… this time things might change. She suppressed a sigh and opened her door the whishing sound of the servos providing a comforting reminder of normality, and an invitation to lay down and recuperate.

She stood there for a moment, looking quietly inside, then closed it gently. She stood doubtfully outside her room, running a quick system check to see if there had been any changes in her system. There were none.

Then she opened the door again, and the bar was still there.

Sunset found herself blinking at the woman that walked into her bar. She was dressed in a goth dress, her short white hair bobbing around her delicate, elfin face, held slightly back by a black hair band. Her eyes were obscured by some sort of cloth-like visor, dark enough to almost work like a sleeping mask.

She walked cautiously, as if not believing what she was seeing, which was entirely understandable, given the tendency of her bar to open up in random locations at inopportune moments that somehow ended up being exactly the moment her customers needed her the most.

"Welcome to 'Sunset's Isekai', I'm Sunset Shimmer, and this is my little interdimensional bar," she said, smiling reassuringly at the young woman. "Please, take a seat!" She motioned to the bar while she produced a small menu.

"2B." The woman hesitated. "Where am I? Is this some sort of hacking attempt?"

Sunset frowned. "Um, no. Why would anyone try to hack your brain?'

"Brain?" the woman asked, sounding amused.

Sunset shrugged, then studied her guest as she made her way to sit down at the bar. There was still a sense of wariness, but also an underlying feeling of relief. She watched as her guest started walking around, looking at the pictures and posters and guitars and decorations with something akin to wonder. "So what brings you to the Isekai?" she asked 2B.

The woman turned her face to her, then shook her head slightly. "I didn't seek out your bar. It appeared in my room."

"Yeah, it does that…" Sunset said, sighing. "Sorry about that. However I try to reach those that need to talk… and it seems you do."

2B stopped her pacing to consider her. "Are you an alien? An Android? What are you?"

"Human," Sunset said, looking down at herself to make sure she hadn't spontaneously changed species. It happened occasionally.

2B has stopped completely. Unnaturally so. It was then that Sunset realized that her guest was very similar to a human, but not one herself. All living beings moved a little, even when staying still, there was a sense of it. Almost like the bodies were just about to do so… but 2B had stood so still she could have been a mannequin.

"But that can't be." 2B walked towards the bar, stopping right across from Sunset and raising her hand towards her.

Sunset allowed her to touch her face.

"It's… not synthetic. Am I in the moon?"

Sunset frowned. "Um, no. As I said, this place is its own dimension."

"But you're human." 2B chuckled, leaning back. "I can't believe it."

"Not many humans where you're from?" Sunset asked.

2B shook her head, slowly sitting on one of the stools, stretching out her hand to take a menu from Sunset. She studied it in silence before something caught her eye. "Can I have a rose wine?"

"Of course."

As she worked, Sunset could feel 2B's eyes on her back.

"I wondered often," her guest spoke up as she uncorked the bottle of wine, "what it would be like to meet a human for the first time."

Sunset nodded, indicating that she was listening as she placed a delicate crystal glass in front of 2B, and poured the vintage into it.

"I wondered if I would be thanked for everything I have had to endure," 2B said. "I wondered… if I would understand why I had to endure all I have." She slid her hand forward, holding the base of the glass and sliding it back to herself gently. "I wondered, and I wondered about so many secrets, so many questions, so many hopes. And I knew I would never find out." She looked down at the glass. "I expected a demand for a report, or an order of some sort. I did not expect to be served a drink."

Sunset nodded. She could have quipped something, but 2B was clearly going somewhere and it felt wrong to interrupt her with some levity at that moment. There was pain in those words. And something else.

"I've asked myself if I would ever get a chance to kill God," 2B whispered. "And here you are, giving me a glass of wine. Because I asked." She didn't smash anything, or stand up violently. Simply glanced around the bar. "And I have to ask, because I don't know if my processors are infected or I have finally lost grasp of reality… and if I have—I will never be closer to the truth than right now… why?

"Why, if you were here all along, were we created? Why are we hiding behind lies? Why must I kill and kill? Why must it be me who—" She stopped, her fragile-looking hands scrunching into fists. "Why is it me who always takes his life?"

Sunset sighed, struggling to figure out what to say. 'What can I even say? I don't know who she's even talking about.' "I don't know why you were created, 2B," she said eventually. "I am not one of the humans that did so."

"But you are here!" 2B insisted, and Sunset could tell that it was taking her a monumental effort to not start shouting. Instead 2B forced her shoulders to relax and took a sip of the wine, contemplating it silently. "There are no humans left," she said aloud, and seemed to brace herself for something to happen. When it didn't, she slumped down a little. "No humans at least in my world.

"The world is a lie," she continued, a tone of bitterness creeping into her voice. "We are sent to fight and fight, to keep fighting the machines that were created to conquer a doomed world. The machines that never end. And even the machine's creators are gone. All that remains are the creations, aimless and purposeless save for our own will searching for a reason to exist."

"So you have been existing without a purpose?" Sunset asked, frowning. "How long—"

"Thousands of years," 2B said, her voice soft. "Since the war with the aliens, our only purpose has been to fight. YoHRa's purpose is to eradicate the machine life forms living on Earth. They are our enemies, who only exist to destroy. Our purpose is to stop them."

"You sound less than convinced," Sunset pointed out.

2B swayed her head up, glancing at her from behind her visor. "Lately the machines… changed. They imitate human culture as best as they can from what little they can put together of how human society worked. But they fail, and they are unable to change—until now.

"Until now, they repeated the failed governments they emulated. Monarchies, Democracies. Tribal living... ultimately failing, then doing so again when things would flow exactly the same way because they do not change.

"They speak of things they cannot possibly understand. Love. Attachment. Fear. They emulate what that feels like, without understanding." She bit her lip. "Most of them at least."

"Do they have no hope?" Sunset asked. "Don't you?"

2B chuckled. "Where do you go if there is nothing to guide you? How do you build moral standards? How do you build a government when there's no plan? What matters and what doesn't?" She glanced at her hands. "Hope. Down there, there is a village of robots who emulate families. They play together, and act scared if they get lost. Act worried if their 'child' runs away. But robots don't feel… so if they don't feel, what is it that they are experiencing? If there is no understanding, then why is Pascal able to empathize with me? With us?

"There is a resistance, still believing that humans live on the moon, waiting to return. There are members of YoHRa who are lied to in order to protect that secret. Killed by those they trust every time they find too much." The android looked almost as fragile as the glass she was holding. "There's 9S,who deserves happiness more than anyone I know."

She drank a bit more of her wine. "Where do you—even if you're not a human from our world… how did humans build something to hope for?"

Sunset leaned on the counter, pondering the question. "Through the multiverse, there are an uncountable number of races and creatures besides humans who have also created their own governments, systems of faith, paths to the truth… some believe in gods, others simply in power. Others believe that our purpose in life is what we make of it, however terrifying the prospect of not having a higher force watching over us."

She shook her head slightly. "There is no real, absolute answer. It is true that ultimately a system of belief will end up in conflict of some sort. There are worlds where belief in god has justified massacres across the globe, in the name of truth and faith. There are times where political beliefs have overridden the ability to empathize with others and conflict occurs. Yet there are times where these same forces that caused so much grief and pain act in the complete opposite way… like you… and maybe this Pascal of yours, humans are a complicated species.

"When you have both the power to love, and the power to hate within you; when you are taught or expected to act in a certain way; when choices are limited… each person's will is the ultimate factor that decides whether to act with good wishes towards others, or with ill intent."

"Then you don't have an answer."

"I don't," Sunset said, "not the type of answer you want, at least. But maybe the type of answer you need."

2B looked up, head tilted with confusion.

"Look around you," Sunset said. "This place exists. It's real."

The android said nothing, her attention solely on Sunset.

"Maybe all of the humans in your world are gone. Maybe there are no gods left, but when there are no gods, there is still freedom of choice. It's never easy to make a true choice at the cost of your preconceptions or expectations, but it is there." She raised one hand. "A person in an abusive relationship can believe that there is no way out because she feels she needs her abuser in some way. But she's also denying her ability to move on and grow and be happy by choosing to not give herself a chance. It might be painful and hard… but until she chooses to do something, nothing will change."

She raised her other hand. "A robot sees where all others have failed and chooses to build his own pacifist town. The choice to not fight was not easy, I guarantee you that. And it might be something that will fail… but until he chooses to do something about it, it will never happen."

2B sighed. "So what you're saying is that—"

"That you can choose your future?" Sunset asked. "Yes. I'm saying that you are not without options or the ability to think and feel and give yourself and others a chance and no god or creator can take this away from you now unless you let them." She softened her smile. "I don't know what you have gone through… I'm sorry. Humans have never been anything but a dichotomy of emotion and logic… and that goes for most other non-stagnant sentient species as well. But they all have something in common with you too… the search for purpose. And because you're searching for purpose, you have the chance to grasp it. What holds meaning to you is purpose."

"But without orders, without a system… how am I supposed to know whether things are good or bad?"

Sunset grimaced. "In the end, you will have to rely on your understanding of what is good and isn't. You mentioned a friend of yours… 9S."

2B sat straighter, but nodded.

"You said he deserved better. What does that entail?"

2B inclined her head. "It means… a chance to live and discover. A chance to keep his memories and find happiness."

"And what needs to change for that to happen?"

For a long moment, her guest remained silent and immobile. "I do."

"Then change." Sunset reached over and gave 2B's hand a squeeze. "If you need a sign that there's always something else, something new and different remember this place, where you met a human."

With a snort, 2B finished her glass of wine. "The one that had no answers."

"But damn good booze."

2B shook her head and stood up. She produced a small pile of coins that digitized into her hand and placed them on the counter. "Thank you for this."

Sunset nodded. "You're welcome, it was my pleasure." She hesitated. "So, what will you do?"

2B looked up and around before looking back at Sunset. "I believe I will tell 9S the truth. I'll tell him about this place, and that there are many things outside of what we understand… and that I will help him discover them."

Sunset grinned. "Before you go, do you mind if we take a picture?"

The door opened and she stepped into her room. Behind her, the bar's door closed and she was left alone, a silvery card in her hand the only proof that she had not imagined the whole thing.

The promise of the card carried a lot of weight with it, and as she held it, her heart felt heavy. The decisions she would have to make were not easy, and obtaining her ideal resolution seemed like and invitation to disaster and possibly a lifetime of persecution if they were not careful.

But however she needed to start the change, she would start now, by making herself a promise: As soon as she was able to have a moment of peace with 9S, she would tell him what she wished for him, and what she would do to help.

She could only hope he would understand, and that he would forgive her.

An email reached her at that moment. A reminder from the commander to rest and be ready. Apparently no time had passed between the moment she had gone to Sunset's Isekai and returned here.

She nodded and pulled out her heavy combat suit. She'd be ready for this fight.

Hopefully it would be the last.

End Chapter

Author's Notes:

NieR: Automata is a masterpiece of storytelling and video-gaming. It's one of those games that I took a long time to finally play, and did so mostly because Zef recommended it to me back when we were in Japan. I regret I didn't play earlier, but I'm glad I finally did.
If you are unfamiliar with the game, just know that it has multiple endings that build up on what happened in the previous ones, and further the overall story into an amazing narrative with a fantastic soundtrack.

I highly recommend it.

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