“Did you love him?” comes the sweet, soft, human voice.

Aigis turns to Yukari, her blue pupils wide and accepting. She turns back to the simple headstone, resting peacefully beside Shinjiro’s. It reminds her that she will never know the solitude of eternal sleep, instead she is fated to rust to death. The doom of a defunct piece of technology destined to outlive its creators.

“Yes, but I believe it was. . . a different kind.”

Yukari smiles, but feels much sadder when she finally understands.

They watch the storm roll in from the rooftop of the dormitory, wary of the lightning and thunder heralding the arrival of an imminent typhoon.

Shinjiro takes his cap off and enjoys the breeze weaving through his hair.

Akihiko yawns and pops his neck.

She doesn’t understand art, but tries to let her overactive mind cool off and focuses on the splay of color and raw emotion covering the canvas.

He taps her on the shoulder, and when she looks at him she closes her eyes and blows out a tiny and nameless candle within.

“I’ve been looking for you. . . Aigis.”

“After all this time,” she says warmly, turning to him “I am very glad to see you again. . . Ryoji.”

He takes her steel fingers in his hand and takes her away from the museum, away from green meadows and crowded streets and into the sky, into the grand orchestra of stars, planets, nebulae. A cosmic display of thousands of suns and dying stars, mysterious and frightening black holes whirl by them and she smiles. She learns it all from him, and he shields her from the skeletal claw of time which aches to smooth and liquefy her gears and switches.

“You won’t be alone any more.” He kisses her forehead softly and she promises to take care of him forever and ever and ever.

She believes in soul mates when she feels his gloved hands catch her and shield her from the back-breaking tiles below. He steadies her and she thanks him curtly.

“Lighting ought to do the trick on the right one.”

He licks his lips in anticipation, but waits patiently for her permission to strike.

She bends her saber on the ground and elongates her neck; time to go. Unified in step and rhythm they dance through blood and steel, yielding to each other and keeping (always) one eye out for something to go wrong.

He wants to protect her, and that’s fine as long as he stays out of her way.

And they love with the deepest kind of intimacy and without ignorance.

“You carried me in your arms. . . To the hospital, that night.”

She smiles softly at him.

“You were so small then.”

He closes his eyes, smiling. A butterfly drifts by contentedly.

Aigis feels a cold blue flame rise up and then feels it die down to a mere flicker. She calls it hope, and does not let it die for a very long time.