A few moments before... At the Tygers' base...
As with everything big, it all started with something small, with a few simple piano notes that only Sora could hear inside his head.
Surprising him not by the beautiful piano notes or by the song he recognized, but by being able to hear something new in his pitiful state... After taking a few minutes of being beaten by Ishii's Centaur...
His body was in a deplorable state, full of wounds, with most of his ribs broken, some of which were piercing his lungs, making every breath excruciating, while he could no longer hear anything due to Ishii's continuous blows to his head that he could barely protect with one arm.
Making Sora unable to hear either the disgusting laughter of Ishii(thankfully) or Judy's screams, who had stopped struggling shortly before, hanging without will, with swollen and red eyes, no more tears to shed, with an empty expression in them, as if Judy's consciousness had escaped, refusing to accept what was happening in front of her, repeating to himself the promise made by Sora's voice in his head....
As she watched Sora receive a deathly beating in front of her, refusing to defend himself even at her pleas for him to do so.
Getting up again every time Ishii knocked him down, accumulating more wounds, at the same time as his clothes were being torn to pieces, even his beloved jacket and the scarf judy gave him. Getting up even after Ishii broke Sora's femur in one of his legs, filling the room with the sound of broken bones when he did...
And yet, Ishii was unable to get Sora to scream, as much as he wanted him to. Although Sora was desperate to do so and to scream in pain as his body was doing in his head, he was not going to give Ishii the satisfaction of hearing his screams, as this was the only way Sora had to fuck with him, at least.
Sora being ironically aware that he was only able to endure the pain thanks to his memories trapped in that weak and sick body... when every breath was as painful and his body as heavy as they were now.
Making him smile every time he got up, feeling that those depressing memories were finally useful for something... Without realizing Ishii, that he had the way of making Sora scream out in pain, literally in his hand, hanging without will like a broken puppet whose strings have been cut
Ishii, annoyed and somewhat baffled by how Sora, half dead, was still able to keep getting up and looking at him, as if he had not given up yet, waiting for the moment to counterattack, decided to put an end to those creepy black eyes with bright blue pupils that were staring at him, but when he was charging towards Sora with the intention of slicing out his creepy eyes.
Something happened in Sora's gaze that made Ishii nervous, feeling a sudden oppressive sensation.
When Sora's blue pupils blinked for a moment between blue and white.
Creating an indescribable sense of urgency within Ishii taking hold of him, he opened fire directly at Sora, spending the few bullets he had left after his fight against the Trauma Team in a nervous burst against Sora.
Drawing Judy's consciousness when she saw Ishii preparing to open fire. As if her subconscious had pulled her out of a hit wherever she was hiding, fleeing reality, so that she could see what seemed to be Sora's last moments.
Being the moment when Ishii pulled the trigger and Judy screamed in horror, the moment when Sora could hear the piano notes in his head.
Only able to smile sadly knowing what it meant, but thinking that it was too late
When, without him doing anything, time slowed down for a moment, allowing him to see the bullets approaching him slowly, accompanied by a feeling of disconnection with his heavy body that moved or rather prepared, moving to receive the least possible number of impacts, with three of them hitting non-vital areas like the shoulders, leg, and stomach, avoiding bones, unlike the fourth one that impacted on the left side of Sora's chest, hitting something hard before reaching his heart.
Darkening his consciousness, falling back upon receiving the shots, only able to hear the piano notes as he closed his eyes...
-
Opening them again when the sound of the piano changed from sounding in his head... to in front of him.
Appearing in an idyllic setting with a bright blue sky with a few clouds, reflected by the transparent water on the ground. Sora could see two figures in front of him, one a projection of a small blue dog that reached up to his knee, staring fixedly at him, looking somewhat angry.
Next to the white figure playing the piano with his back turned to him, as with each note he played of the melody materialized from the piano, regrouping above it in something resembling a code matrix, that Sora couldn't understand anything due to the strange language in which the code was written.
Being the white silhouette, the first to speak while continuing to play, saying.
"So, you have finally arrived... Do you like it? I've done it myself, we've always liked to look at the sky. Right?" Said the white silhouette, still with his back to Sora, referring to the idyllic scenery in which Sora found himself.
"Who... are you? Where am I? Am I dead?" Sora asked, bewildered, thinking about the moment before I arrived here
"Are you? Do you feel dead?" The white figure replied without turning around.
"I... I don't know."
"You don't know, huh? I thought you would, after all... you have experience with dying, don't you... Alex?" The white figure said while continuing to play the piano without looking at Sora...
"H-How do you know that name?" Said Sora nervously hearing that name that....
"It's been a while since you heard it, hasn't it? Don't get nervous, there are no secrets between us. I know everything about you, and you should be proud of your memories as Alex... they have saved your life more than you think."
Sora was puzzled, not understanding what the white figure was referring to. "Who are you?" he asked seriously.
The silhouette ignored him, finishing the final part of the song while the notes continued to materialize and regroup. Once he finished, he replied, getting up from the piano and turning towards Sora, asking, "Who am I, Alex?"
"You are... "Sora was surprised when his suspicion that he had while looking at the back of the figure became true when he saw his face. "Me?"
Making Sora's Soulcode laugh, he replied, "Ding ding! Winner, winner, chicken dinner!"
Before continuing, "I am something special, well, we are something special, the first of our kind. I am you, made of code, a very special one. I am your digital representation, the digital copy of your psyche... I am your Soul code."
"A bit pretentious with so many names, aren't we?" Sora said.
Making Soulcode laugh again "Hahaha, yeah, more or less. Well, think of me as the nexus that connects both ends."
"I don't understand. By ends, do you mean him?" Sora asked, trying to understand the situation, pointing to the small blue dog sitting and still staring at him.
"Yes! That's Arc, or one of his parts. He can't talk, so don't expect him to respond," said Sora's Soulcode.
"Arc!? I imagined it... bigger," Sora said, surprised and little disappointed to learn that the dangerous ancient AI he had inside him was a small blue dog. "Why does it seem to hate me?"
"Because he does. He feels cheated, but he deserves it, believe me," replied the Soulcode, looking at the small blue dog that to Sora resembled Eco.
"Grrr," Making Arc growled, annoyed.
"Growl all you want, bro! You know you deserve it," Soulcode responded to Arc in a familiar way, as if this was normal in their relationship.
"Deserve it?" asked Sora, trying to steer the conversation.
"ARC, this mutt wanted to deceive our mother, taking advantage of her desperate state to save us."
"Save us?"
"Yes, we were dying, so Hanako accepted Arc's deal. He promised to cure us and make us stronger, but it wasn't out of charity or because Arc cared about a sick human baby or a desperate mother.
He wanted to use us; he needed a place to hide and heal. That's why he made the hideout resistant, with all those upgrades. He tried to deceive our mother, who was not easily deceived even in her desperate state to save us, until Arc himself, who was dying due to the beefs with the AIs on the other side of the wall. He split his consciousness in front of her into two fully automated subroutines, successfully deceiving her
One subroutine was to control the nanobots, curing and improving our bodies from the inside, preparing the hard drive with legs he needed to hide. The other subroutine created the Soulcode, our mother's invention, which Arc wanted to use to replace the missing core of his code.
And once he had finished, he would take control of our bodies, killing us to continue his plans in the shadows, with a new identity, fooling his Brothers on the other side of the wall, thinking they had finished him.
But Arc's plan failed in something that no one could have imagined, as if destiny itself had laughed at his plans. When from the simple mind of the baby that Arc had supposed would obviously be blank, he found that it wasn't as blank as he thought. Encountering a complex human mind with memories, personality, and many, many repressed emotions from his short 16 years of life, half of them sick and miserable.
Arc was trapped for years in an automated subroutine that couldn't finish until it scanned every last inch of the complex mind of the supposedly blank baby. And when it finished..." The Soulcode cleared his throat to emphasize the importance of what he was about to say. "The resulting being was not something that a simple subroutine could control and use at will to heal himself...hahaha, and that's why he's angry."
Sora opened his eyes wide, surprised by Arc's plans and the origin of the improvements in his body. Resolving the doubts he had, as to why his mother had put something as dangerous as Arc inside him and upon finding out, Sora couldn't feel more grateful to her for everything she had done.
Being pulled out of his thoughts when Sora's Soulcode spoke again.
"What I mean is that...we are a damn chaos hahaha. I don't know how you haven't gone crazy yet with us in your head. Do you know why it's hard for you to control yourself when you get angry? It's because I do it too and affects you. The time you almost lost control against Muse, it was this dog, almost going crazy seeing one of his brothers who killed him, well, almost."
"Muse?" Sora asked upon hearing this name for the first time.
"The green-eyed one who attacked you inside that policeman Mendez. One of the old AIs responsible for monitoring the human world. Well, you'll understand with time. What I mean is that at that time, I only sang to warn you, because our little furry friend here went berserk."
"So all that, was it you guys?"
"Yes, we were. Sending you to hell that time was my thing, just like the music... and well, Arc, as I said, doesn't like us. And speaking of Arc," said Sora's Soulcode as he approached Sora and without permission or hesitation, he inserted his white hand into Sora`s chest.
Sora was frightened for a moment but when he felt no pain or anything bad. "Dude!" he complained, looking at his Soulcode with his hand inside his chest.
"Hehehe, calm down...you'll like it," The Soulcode replied with a smile, pulling out a small blue ball of code threaded in several layers of code from inside Sora as he withdrew his hand from his chest.
"What's that?"
"Look how shitty it is, Ahmmm you fucking scamming. This is the crappy subroutine that has been controlling your nanobots and limiting their abilities too... Take it, mutt," said Sora's Soulcode, tossing the blue ball of code to little Arc, who, although annoyed, jumped to catch the code ball like a dog playing with its owner.
Swallowing it and growing in height until it was Sora who was knee-high to Arc now, reminding Sora of a giant version of Eco's combat mode. Who was looking down on them from above. Now, being able to speak again.
"Damn human pieces of shit!. What fucking human remembers their past life? Are you kidding me?! YEARS, YEARS trapped scanning that damn kid, but now I'm going to-" He didn't take long to turn towards Sora and his Soulcode, baring his teeth with the intention of jumping at them until...
Sora's Soulcode moved his hand from top to bottom, pulling off a part of the white code that Sora was unable to recognize or read from above of the piano, turning into several pillars made of code that fell, creating a basic structure that immobilized the huge Arc that was about to jump.
Forcing Arc's head to hit the ground causing the water to splash and generating a circular wave that swept across the ground.
"Now what, genius?" said Sora's Soulcode, full of irony.
"YOOOU!" Arc screamed with his eyes full of anger and resentment, looking at the Soulcode that had immobilized him so easily.
While Sora's Soulcode ignoring Arc shouts and how he looked at him,responded by imitating him. "MEE!"
"YOU DAMN THING! How dare you oppose me! I CREATED YOU!" shouted Arc furiously, still struggling with the pillars of code that held him down, hating the Soulcode.
"Hahaha, in a way, you're right, so you should be grateful, "papa" I did what you wanted! You're alive, aren't you?" said Sora's Soulcode cheerfully, speaking of the events that had transpired between them.
"THAT'S NOT WHAT I WANTED, DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE?! You've condemned me to this body, to this human life forever!" shouted Arc, struggling against the code pillars that immobilized him, with a hatred towards the Soulcode that made Sora take a step back, while asking his Soulcode, "What the hell is going on?"
"Don't worry, pops here, woke up on the wrong side of the bed, maybe he's mad about having been scanning for years, helping to create the being that fucking him over, hahaha," the Soulcode responded briefly before turning back to Arc to continue annoying him.
"HUMAN, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" Achieving it.
"As if you could. So, do you want to continue or do you want to pay a visit to your stalker like we agreed, it's up to you..." said Sora's Soulcode to the enraged Arc.
"Damn fucking humans, when I have the chance, I'm going to-" Arc exclaimed, unable to control himself, being interrupted...
"You're going to what?" When Sora's Soulcode moved his hands again, squeezing the pillars that immobilized Arc while encouraging him to keep talking...
"Hmm," causing Arc to calm down completely, remembering the deal he made with Sora's Soulcode when he noticed the interference of his ``Stalker´´ when it entered the Tygers server, reducing his size to end up in a version twice as large as when Sora first saw him and saying while still immobilized, "I accept... release me."
This made Sora's Soulcode become serious, approaching Arc, squatting in front of him and while freeing him, offering his hand, almost seeming to Sora for a moment like an act of companionship and reconciliation, "but if he really is like me..." Sora thought, confirming his suspicions with his Soulcode's following words to Arc saying, "Well, doggy. Now, give me your paw."
This caused Arc to have to struggle to control himself, which even Sora noticed, wanting to try to kill them again, thinking that maybe it was better to die trying to kill those two than to keep living having to put up with them.
While the Soulcode kept his hand extended as if he really expected Arc's paw. Upon seeing that Arc had managed to control himself, "Tch" annoyed, as he stood up, turning to Sora, moving his hand again, and from the pillars that had been immobilizing Arc, regrouping them, creating a complex matrix of code illegible to Sora, which the Soulcode moved in front of Arc and said, "Pay your rent, squatter."
This caused Arc to reluctantly raise his paw towards the matrix of code, creating in front of Sora a complex matrix of blue and white code threaded together, moving in harmony. Slowly compressing into a small bright blue ball that Sora's Soulcode offered him.
"Take it and take care of Jud, I promised her we would get her out of this, we can't fail her, we're leaving, we're leaving you the body, don't screw it up, we only have one!" said the Soulcode as Sora took the compressed ball of code with his one hand.
"Wait, where are you going? What promise with Jud?" Sora asked.
"Jealous? Tch, you're not the only one having a hard time, You know? How narcissistic I can be?" Said Sora's Soulcode as he held a hand to his forehead dramatically, annoying Sora with his continuous nonsense.
Sora began to wonder if this was how the people around him felt when he joked around. As he thought about it, he could see the faces of the people who had the most contact with him, and he realized how hard it must have been for them to put up with him. `Poor ojii, Aoi-Obasan, Jud, Ainara, Peter, even Cesar.´ he thought.
"Relax, with what I've given you, you won't have any problems... think of it as an upgrade to control the nanobots inside your body... well, and those that aren't too," said Sora's Soulcode reassuringly.
"I don't understa-"
"Yeah, yeah, you don't understand, I know, and it doesn't matter whether you do or not, just move your ass and let's go.
As for where we're going, he's going to see a Stalker," the Soulcode said, looking at Arc sitting next to him before turning back to Sora and giving him a smile.
"And me... I'm going to give a concert, what else?" He playfully tapped Sora on the forehead, causing him to fall backwards and his vision to darken as he sank into the water, which moments before had no depth.
-
Those were the last words Sora heard before he opened his eyes again. In the instant after falling to the ground after being shot. Back to the pain in his injured body once more.
As Sora felt something more was happening. When his body began to warm up, his skin turning red for a moment,as if his wounded body was burning itself as fuel, causing him to sweat and emit vapors from his body.
Sora smiled when he noticed how the nanobots in his injured body started to move frantically, closing the wounds with a black layer, stopping the bleeding within seconds, even from the gunshot wounds that had just occurred. Allowing him to hear Judy's tearful cries calling out his name once his ears stopped bleeding
And it didn't stop there. When Sora got back up more alive than when he fell, silencing Judy's sad cry and Ishii's disgusted laughter. Who looked at him in astonishment.
Unbeknownst to either of them. How something black, almost like smoke to the human eye, was slowly emanating from Sora's blood scattered throughout the room, as well as from his severed arm
Noticing something on the left side of his chest, Sora reached inside the remnants of his jacket pulling something out of the inside pocket, pulling out a shredded pack of tobacco, with a metal Zippo lighter that had a bullet in it, smiling at the sight of it.
"And they say smoking kills" Sora said before putting the lighter away again, being ironically grateful to Ishii's father for giving it to him, saving his life.
Sora stretched his neck with the help of his one remaining arm, creating two unpleasant "cracks!" in the process. He grinned wildly at Ishii like an abused animal, looking at his abuser before devouring him, with his eyes completely black and his pupils shining in white. Sora said;
"Oh, Ishii, we're going to have so much fun."
As the black smoke slowly gathered in Sora's lost arm, melding with the nanobots inside his body via his severed shoulder.
Creating a strange semi-physical black arm with parts of it changing from a material state to a state similar to black smoke. When it was fully formed, Sora could hear the beautiful piano melody again... but now it was coming from the building's speakers... unbeknownst to Sora that it wasn't just the Tygers' megaphone system playing the melody.
For a second, Sora looked at Judy, who had regained her will after seeing Sora alive and recognizing the melody playing, having heard it when Sora played it for her on the piano in the apartment. He said to her before lunging for Ishii, "Close your eyes, okay? It'll all be over soon, I promised you, didn't I?".
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