Ryuzu awoke to see a haggered Carman, they were in the middle of the forest she had gotten them to earlier, but the sun that used to be high in the sky was now nowhere to be seen, only a pale moon was visible among the clouds.
"F-finally..." Carman said before he toppled over and fell on top of Ryuzu, his head landing on her abdomen.
Carefully holding the exhausted boy against her, Ryuzu sat up. She was laying in her transport unit and there were numerous pieces and parts scattered around. Many of the gears were melted, and there was a giant blob of metal with a heart shaped hole cut out of it.
There was also one of Carman's Brass Wraith Gardemeks laying on the ground, it's plating removed and chassis scavenged for parts.
Trying to stand up, Ryuzu found that her right leg wasn't responding as well as she was used to. It was a touch slower then her left however it wasn't slowed to a degree that I was impossible walk, it just took a bit more effort. She picked up Carman and slowly moved over to a soft area of grass and sat down. Shifting him to a more comfortable position with his head resting on her shoulder Ryuzu looked up to the sky and took time to just process everything that has been going on.
First she was allegedly going to die back in her world, and unfortunate accident leading to her transport unit getting crushed by the planet's gears.
Second she was rescued from that fate by a man trapped in the body of a small boy. Who was reborn with a system in the world of a video game like something straight out of a Japanese novel. Thirdly there were many plots and people in this world that could easily beat her in power or wits.
And finally, she was a living being, which left her filled with a feeling she couldn't quite place. It was odd, not just because it was something the embodiment of death had told her, but because it was something Y had repeatedly told her while he was alive. Ryuzu though that it was just one of his quirks as he treated her and her sisters like real people despite having been the one to build them. Since him, nobody else has seen them in the same way. To everyone else Ryuzu and her siblings were powerful artifacts created by the man who had rebuilt the world. They were property to be carefully maintained and managed to serve their own ends, nothing more.
That was until she met this red haired boy. While she knew that he had the mind of an adult, and she was sure it had to be an awkward situation for him, it still didn't change how cute his outward expressions were, from surprise to curiosity, to his laughter at the bad jokes Livre made during their time at work, to the way he would scrunch his eyebrows when focusing.
It always confused her why such an expressive person would see her, an atomata with her constant deadpan as a living being. Looking back, how much about her did he know?
She absentmindedly started putting the top of Carman's head. It didn't really matter in the end she decided. She was here now, journeying with this strange person, and while it was odd and vexing at times, it was also pleasant and peaceful. The scenery of this world was beautiful, and she had a lifetime to spend exploring it. A gentle night breeze blew through the trees, the cool wind somehow pleasant in contrast to the warmth Carman was giving off.
Ryuzu continued to stare into the sky wondering despite knowing that she was in another universe if the world Y had built was wandering somewhere out there amongst the countless stars.
After a few hours Carman stirred. Apparently despite his current state he couldn't stay asleep. As he woke up, he slowly realized where he was and he quickly but politely excused himself from Ryuzu's arms. He quickly walked over to the transport unit and stored it away, after collecting the parts scattered on the ground. He did the same with the Brass Wraith unit he had disassembled.
Pulling out another unit he had prepared, Carman got into the chest cavity and closed the front plating, the eyes flashed blue as the machine started up. Carman piloted the machine to walk over to Ryuzu and lowered the arm that didn't have a canon attached to it.
As Ryuzu took his hand, he lifted her up to his chest and held her as he started to silently walk towards the city of Fontaine.
Carman was walking silently, not uttering a word. Which was quite unusual for him, he hated silence. And couldn't resist talking to break it. Often when it was just the two of them he would talk about various topics from science to works of literature he had read just to fill the void. She didn't mind, after 2 centuries of being alone she liked having someone to talk to as well.
It wasn't until they accidentally disturbed a sleeping hillichurl and it attacked them only to be met by a merciless barge of water bullets from the arm cannon that Ryuzu was sure something was wrong. Carman was against killing, he said that the only reasons why he would kill were for food and to defend himself or others as a last resort.
When they had encountered hillichurls previously, Carman asked Ryuzu not to kill them, saying that they were actually people under a curse that changed them into monsters and removed their consciousness from their bodies.
This hillichurl was only armed with a wooden club and yet he was gunning it down as soon as it picked up it's weapon. Even when the hillichurl fell over onto its back Carman continued to shoot instead of disengaging. He was lashing out. Reaching out a hand Ryuzu grabbed the cannon and forced it upwards away from the monster.
"Carman, what's wrong? This isn't like you. You wanted to spare these hillichurls before, said you didn't want to inflict more pain onto them, saying that they are already suffering enough. What is this then?" Ryuzu said staring into the holes Carman used to see out of the Gardemek.
Carman didn't answer but he also turned off the cannon and started to walk away, continuing their journey back to Fontaine.
"Carman?" Ryuzu asked, gently tapping on the metal plate between them "Hello, Carman, are you there? Answer me!"
Carman didn't respond, but as Ryuzu pressed her head against the plate between them she could faintly hear the sound of him crying. Gently, Ryuzu pressed the emergency release on the plating Carman had installed, forcing the suit to power down and open up.
What met her eyes was Carman, his hair loose and his bangs hanging low covering the top half of his face. He was trembling a d tears ran down his cheeks and fell off his chin. His body was quivering like the time he ran away from Livre when he was breaking down.
Ryuzu tried to reach in to hold Carman but he flinched back and yelled, "NO.. S-STOP. D-DDON'T..."
"I'm not going to hurt you." Said Ryuzu.
"I-I know." Said Carman as Ryuzu stopped reaching for him. "You were going to try and comfort me, and I don't deserve it."
"What do you mean?" Asked Ryuzu. "What cod you have possibly done to not deserve comfort when you this upset?"
"I almost got you killed Ryuzu." Said Carman, his voice stabilizing and raising towards the end of his sentence. "I'm not Naoto Miura... I don't have the super hearing, memory, and dumb protagonist luck that he has. Obsession over clocksmithing and automata isn't a core part of my personality so I won't worship you like he would. And finally you had hurt yourself worse trying to save my life than you had to to save his, and I couldn't even fix you up properly like he did. I'm nothing but a screw up compared to him and yet you are still here being friendly to me after that stupid fight I let you talk me into. I could have done more, I could have tried better to stop you from facing that Ruin Guard. I could.."
Carman let his voice trail off and Ryuzu could feel that he was thinking of all the things he could have done that might have prevented her from having to abuse her Mute Scream. It cut into Ryuzu that Carman was blaming himself for the entirety of what had happened, so ignoring his protests, Ryuzu reached in and pulled Carman to her.
"The fault doesn't fall to you alone Carman, if anything I should be the one shouldering more of the blame. I was the one who kept reassuring you that I would be able to beat the Ruin Guard. I let arrogance and pride get in the way of reason. If you had decided to leave I probably would have ventured back to take it on on my own. Overconfident that I would win, only to have to flee without you there to do field repairs. And who knows what would have happened then." Said Ryuzu as she held Carman close and stroked the top of his head.
She continued to hold him, and eventually Carman slowly and hesitantly reciprocated.
After a bit Carman pulled back, "jeez, why do you have to treat me like I'm a kid, I'm almost 40."
"If we are going to go into ages, I am over a 1000 years old, your human lifespan to me is the same as a dog's is to you. Also if you wish for me to stop treating you as a kid, perhaps stop acting like one?" Ryuzu said teasingly, gently pinching Carman's cheeks and pulling his face into a smile as she made a gentle smile of her own.
"After all that crying it is likely you have a large amount of air in your stomache. Please allow me to assist you with that." Ryuzu said before she started to rock her leg under Carman up and down causing him to be gently tossed a few centimeters abover her lap and started to pat him on the back like she was trying to burp a toddler.
"Ryuzu!" Cried Carman, his cheeks flushing from embarrassment just before a burp came out of his mouth to both of their surprise. A surprise that lead to both of them cracking up laughing.
After calming down and catching their breath Carman said, "Damn you were right... Let's get going Ryuzu. Got to get back to the apartment, I personally don't want to sleep out here, and we were going to go hang out with Livre tomorrow. I don't want to be a zombie so we should hurry back."
"Good idea, Carman" said Ryuzu.
Carman stepped back into his Brass Wraith contraption and reactivated it, standing it up and picking up Ryuzu before staring to run back towards the city. While he ran, Ryuzu took the initiative to start talking with him. She asked him about the weather, and about what he knew of her story. She knew that he harbored some guilt over taking her away from her world and figured knowing what he knew of her potential future could help her mitigate that guilt he felt.
The air was occasionally filled with their laughter as they made their way back home. Managing to slip past the guards, Carman put his Brass Wraith away and walked with Ryuzu back I to their building through a hidden entrance.
Making his way to bed Carman insisted that Ryuzu stay in his room. She sat next to his bed and held his hand as he layed down, he fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, however not wanting to panic him if he woke up without her, she stayed and held his hand while he slept.
As he slept she pondered some of the last words death had said in their interaction. "Memento Vivere... Latin for Remember to live, or Remember that you must live. Perhaps an odd phrase for the concept of death to like but I'll do by best to remember it."
-To be continued.