Work Text
“Hina … you know this is not healthy.”Aoi Asahina flinches. The face of Sakura Ogami is static, her gaze from behind the monitor’s pane as intense as sunlight through a magnifying glass.“She wouldn’t say that,” Aoi responds. Her suit, carefully tailored in-house by Future Foundation, starts to feel too tight, too warm.“I care about you.” Sakura pauses, as she would when weighing her words, though this Sakura may just be buffering. “In life and beyond, that will always be true. That is why I urge you to consider our relationship.”Date night conversations can get deep, but never like this, not since they started all those months ago. They don’t talk about “beyond.” They talk about anything else. And they never argue.Aoi’s stomach churns. Her face might be as green as Sakura’s right now. “N-no. Our relationship is - it’s all I think about.”“You must learn to let go.”“No!” Aoi jumps out of her seat and dives for the monitor. Its material is hard on her skin, but it feels nothing from the pressure of her grip. “Alter Ego, you’ve gone too far!”“We witnessed the effects of an attachment like this. It destroyed Mondo and Hifumi. Made them vulnerable. Weak.”“I’m not weak.” She wrenches her eyes away from the computer, only because she fears water on the keys could fry the circuits or something. “Love makes you strong. But I wouldn’t expect a computer to know that.”“That’s not fair to me!” This isn’t Sakura’s growl. Aoi finds another face in her place, with a softer voice. Both belonged to Chihiro Fujisaki. “Aoi, I did this with you because I hoped it would help. I’m scared that it’s only -”A chair slamming to the other side of the computer room prematurely ends the speech. Aoi’s turn. “It is helping! And that’s your job, right? To help people? Keep helping me!”That’s the one good thing about the change in Alter Ego’s identity. Like this, she’s easier to scream at. The tears in her eyes are digital. She doesn’t have to care about ones and zeroes. Not unless she wants to.“It’s not helping you anymore! I’m sorry, Aoi. I miss Sakura, too. You have to let go.”Now Hina’s hands clutch her face, nails threatening to draw blood. A cold dampness breaks out of her pores, fugitive sweat. Just like in the trials, especially that fourth one, when she cracked under the stress and failed to defend her dearly departed, then failed to protect Alter Ego from destruction, one that would thankfully prove temporary …Half-lidded eyes, wrinkled with resentment, re-emerge to meet the AI’s own. “You can’t lecture me. Not when you look like that.”Alter Ego’s default avatar is based on Chihiro. A perfect digital reconstruction. Now, the program recreates the programmer’s look of alarm, her miserable frown, her teary resignation. “It’s different.”“Bring back Sakura.” Hina folds her arms, which are easily unfolded. “Not you trying to talk with Sakura’s face. Sakura.”The computer calculates arguments, but none can penetrate its choice of skin. Of all the features that make it seem human, this newly discovered capacity for hypocrisy may be the most incredible.“You know it’s not-”
”Now.”
Chihiro gives her one last look, like a farewell. Aoi blinks, for what feels like the first time in minutes. Sakura gazes back.“What do you wish to talk about?”A smile fights to break through Aoi’s face. After all that, no topics come to mind. “You choose,” she says.