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The typhoon roared against the dormitory’s windows. Aigis still had not adjusted to it— try as she may, she was having trouble adjusting her auditory processors properly, with how suddenly the thunder would clap.
The machine stepped carefully through the hallway, as not to wake the others more than anything. With her eyes, the dark didn’t affect her the same way it did her human companions, nor did she need the same amount of rest.
The storm had been going strong since yesterday in the afternoon, trapping the entirety of S.E.E.S. Inside for the time being— even Aigis would have trouble in this weather, and besides, her most important mission lied indoors.
everyone had been busy worrying over Kotone, who’d fallen ill after getting caught in the rain yesterday. She couldn’t help but resent this— had she been allowed to accompany the girl outside of the dorm, this surely never would have happened.
But nevermind that now. The machine halted before the last door on the right, her eyes dilating in the darkness. She could make up for all of it and more.
The door opened with a click. Aigis had been in and out all day, occasionally joined by one or two of the others, so it had been left unlocked. This was good— she didn’t want to accidentally rouse her. Though as she stepped into the room, she realized such a worry was unnecessary. Kotone was wide awake.
The machine froze in the doorway, evaluating. Kotone sat up in her bed, the blankets bunched around her waist. Her auburn hair was down about her shoulders, unkempt in a way that was unusual for her. her breath rasped, and her temperature was still elevated, sitting at a worrying 39°C. She was awake, though, which was a good sign. Perhaps sleeping for most of the day had recovered some energy?
“Did you need something?” The girl asked, her voice hoarse.
Aigis would have retorted, if not for Kotone’s bemused smile. A joke, then?
“You are in no shape to assist with anything,” Aigis replied, her tone lacking the bite of a genuine scolding. “Rather, I simply wished to know if you needed anything.”
Kotone thought for a second, her scarlet eyes flicking from Aigis’s face down to the comforter, debating.
“…Could you give me a hand with something, actually?” She finally asks, voice cracking. Aigis nods. “Anything. I want to be of service to you.”
Kotone giggled, which dissolved into a coughing fit. “Eugh… sorry.” With a shake of her head, the girl continued. “It’s… sort of an odd request. Would you come over here?”
Aigis approached, sitting on the bed by Kotone’s legs. “Is… that all?” She asked, head tilting to the side. Kotone gave a wheezy little laugh in response.
“No, uh. I just…” she huffed. “‘M not good at this…”
“I do not care if the request is odd, for the record,” Aigis stated. Kotone nodded.
“…right. I dunno if you noticed at Yakushima, but I’ve got some, uh. Burn scars,” she murmured. “They get all dry ‘n itchy, and, umm.” She paused again. Aigis stared expectantly. “…could you help me put lotion on them? I think it’d be nice with your cold hands.”
It took Aigis a second to process— Kotone voiced the last bit all at once, it seemed— but she nodded dutifully all the same. “Of course,” she murmured, smiling.
…
Kotone had forgotten her tube of lotion in the communal bathroom, so Aigis naturally ventured to find it.
The hall was still draped in shadow. Being well past dark hour, it would be strange if it wasn’t, but she took note of it anyways. The driving rain against the windows made it harder to parse whether or not the other residents of the third floor were awake. Out of curiosity, she paused at Fuuka’s door, turning her hearing up a few notches.
As expected, the navigator could be heard audibly typing from within. Was everybody restless tonight? she wondered, before turning to slink down the hall.
Of course, having forgotten to adjust her hearing back, the next roar of thunder hit her hard enough to throw her off-balance for a moment. She truly hated storms.
…
Kotone gave her a wide-eyed look upon return.
“You okay? I thought I heard—“
“I am fine,” Aigis interrupted. “And I have located the lotion.”
“…Well, as long as you’re alright,” Kotone smiled. “…Thanks.”
The two situated themselves on Kotone’s bed, the blankets pulled back to sit crumpled up by the wall. Kotone sat with her legs crossed, with Aigis directly behind. For some reason Kotone hesitated.
“Is something wrong?” Aigis asked.
“Ah…” Kotone looked back at her for a second. “…Nothing. Sorry.”
The girl pulled off the striped tank top she’d been wearing, revealing patches of raised, reddened flesh swirling across her right shoulder blade and stretched along her back. Ah. It was odd she hadn’t noticed.
Then again, Aigis didn’t notice things then. Not the same way she could now. For instance, Kotone. How her hair, out of its usual ponytail and hairpins, laid against her bare skin. How she looked in the dim lighting, her eyes gleaming red in the darkness. How her whole body shook when she coughed, as fragile as any human, despite her typical attitude towards danger.
Aigis felt greedy. No. Proud? It was hard to identify. She was glad to be the one to see it.
Gently as she could, Aigis began massaging the lotion into the scarred skin. She seemed to be doing it well, based on the reaction— Kotone sighed, melting into the touch a little— though she was still worried about accidentally causing an injury.
Greater than her worry was a sense of curiosity, however.
“Kotone-san. How did you get these?” She asked. With the magic of dia spells, injuries such as these healed rapidly, leaving behind marks which were far less… obvious. There was no world in which Yukari would simply overlook something so severe.
…Kotone was oddly quiet. Perhaps she did not hear Aigis’s question? The robot scooted a bit closer, angling to get a better look at her leader’s face.
“Kotone-san?”
“…Sorry.” The girl murmured. “Just an accident a long time ago. Don’t worry about it.”
Aigis froze. Perhaps she had overstepped? “Ah… I comprehend. My apologies, I did not mean to pry.”
“I mean—“ Kotone glanced back at her for a second, before dropping her gaze to the bedding. “it’s okay, I just- I don’t usually talk about it. People don’t usually see these…”
“I see…” Aigis hummed. “Why is that?”
Kotone chuckled, shaking her head. “Well, nobody can see my back on an average day, y’know. That’d be all kinds of breaking school uniform!”
“Right… of course.” Aigis nodded.
“…heh. I was kind of nervous about Yakushima ‘cause of it, to be honest.”
“Because you don’t talk about them?”
Kotone paused, before nodding.
“…Yeah, I didn’t wanna worry anyone.” She managed a weary sort of smile. “I mean, I guess we all have some weird scars now, but dia makes ‘em heal a lot nicer. Mine aren’t nearly as pretty.”
“I think they are,” Aigis replied, fast enough to surprise herself.
Kotone paused. did her temperature rise a notch?
“Heehee… you’re so weird, Aigis.”
To call somebody ‘weird’ was an insult, Aigis recalled, or at least she thought so from the way Yukari and Junpei used it. Though Kotone’s tone was laced with… affection. This contradiction was confusing, though with it being from Kotone, she found herself satisfied.
“I was built to make split-second decisions in the heat of battle. My judgement is typically accurate.”
“I’ll just have to trust you, then.”
The conversation lulled, sinking into a peaceful silence. Aigis had finished with the lotion at some point, though she was reluctant to leave. Absentmindedly, she found herself running a hand through Kotone’s hair. The sound of torrential rain on the window— despite being rudely interrupted by thunder every now and then— combined with the sound of her wheezing breaths created a comfortable atmosphere in the darkness of the bedroom. Kotone had leaned back, her body pressed against Aigis’s chassis. With her heightened body temperature, Aigis thought, this metallic body must be providing some relief. She relished that fact.
Somewhere along the way, Aigis’s hand strayed, coming to rest on another scar— sprawling, branching lines which zigzagged up her side.
“Was I present for this one?” She asked, and Kotone shook her head.
“This was from one of those tougher shadows in Tartarus, a month or so before you joined,” she explained. “Yukari-chan has some like this too, on her arms. It’s super cool looking.”
Aigis nodded. Right— like herself, Yukari’s persona had a weakness to zio attacks. “It intrigues me that they resemble lightning bolts.”
“Right?” Kotone smiled. “Mitsuru-senpai said they’re called Lichtenberg figures. I think Junpei’s jealous.”
“Is that so?” Aigis tilted her head a little. “Isn’t avoiding such an injury preferable?”
“Mmmh. He wants to look all cool, like a manga villain,” Kotone mumbled. “…scratch that. He wants to look like a character from one of his war movies.”
Aigis could certainly understand this. It was fascinating, how the human body could be etched with the experiences of the one wearing it. From Kotone’s countless injuries— battle scars, those burns, the countless marks on her wrists— to the little cuts and burns decorating Fuuka and Shinjiro’s hands, or Ken’s knees, constantly scraped due to his incessant refusal to wear long pants.
They were all so… wonderful. They were all covered in stories. Aigis was different, of course. When her body was damaged, parts were replaced. She had to look just as she had before leaving the lab to begin with.
But then, if Junpei wanted to have scars, and Aigis disliked not having them, then…
“What about you?”
“…huh?”
“Well, before…” Aigis glanced at Kotone’s back again. “You don’t want people to see them. Do these not make you ‘cool’?”
Kotone shrugged, chuckling. “Maybe, maybe not… there’s more where that came from, though.”
Aigis was about to ask for clarification, when Kotone’s fingers closed around her hand, guiding it to what used to be three long, deep gashes across her leg, a little above her knee.
“Oh…! What was this from?”
“Guess,” Kotone smiled, amused. Aigis ran through the various shadows S.E.E.S. Had fought so far— something with claws, something low to the ground, so…
“One of those beasts. The lion-looking ones with the chains. Is that correct?” Aigis asked eagerly. Kotone nodded with a grin. “You were there, if you’ll remember. It was one of the first times I brought you along to Tartarus.”
“Was it?” Aigis thought for a second, her fans audibly spinning a little faster as she strained to recall it. Despite being a very complex computer, her memory bank had limited storage, so it was only natural the countless visits to Tartarus would blend together…
Kotone hummed. “It’s okay if you don’t. I just thought it was awfully heroic how you blew it up in one hit after it got me.”
Ah. Kotone thought she was heroic.
“…It is my duty to protect you.”
“Is that supposed to convince me otherwise…?” Kotone giggled. “You sound just like a knight.”
Her leader was looking at her with a gentle sort of expression Aigis didn’t often see. She felt… guilty. Among other things.
“You should not… praise me.” Aigis replied. “I could not prevent you from getting hurt. In that instance, or in many others.”
Kotone paused, before leaning her head back to rest against Aigis’s shoulder. She gazed into the machine’s cyan eyes with an unreadable expression.
“How many times have you saved us from dying in that tower, Aigis?”
“…What?”
“It’s been more than a handful, you know.” She murmured. “You’re not failing at anything… sometimes we get hurt in battle, that’s the risk we’re all running out here. What’s really important is that everybody makes it home alive… and for the record, that includes you. I’m your leader, so it’s my job to take a blow for somebody else now and then.” She closed her eyes. “Besides, you take care of me all the time. You’re, like, way exceeding your weird mission.”
“…I… I suppose so.” not knowing what to say, Aigis left it at that, allowing the girl to nestle into her, as if she were something soft instead of a piece of machinery.
Thunder clapped, the typhoon showing no signs of stopping. Aigis listened carefully as Kotone’s breathing slowed, carefully reaching an arm out to grab the blankets. She could provide no warmth, after all, and even with a fever, Kotone catching a chill would certainly worsen the situation more than anything.
Kotone had drifted off completely by the time Aigis had sufficiently covered her. By this point, it would be thoroughly impossible to detangle herself from the girl without waking her, yet Aigis found it incredibly easy to resign herself to staying. All the better to monitor her condition, after all. She caught herself smiling— the others may scold her come the morning. But Kotone wanted her to stay.
She wondered if, next time, Kotone would invite her in to start with. It wasn’t something she should hope for, yet her feelings were unchanged. The more time she spent with Kotone, the more Aigis wanted to stay by her side.