Memory of Dolls

 is a NieR:Automata collaboration event in SINoALICE.

Parrah:

Hrm?

Noya:

Looks like someone else is here.

Parrah:

Looks like another one has arrived.

Noya:

This is the Library, hell’s paradise.

Parrah:

A place where all are accepted.

Noya:

If you suffered in a past life…

Parrah:

You’ll get to suffer even more here!

Noya:

Kee-hee-hee!

Parrah:

Kee-hee-hee!

Verse 1
Static……………...Booting.

Auditory sensor normal. Detecting echo. Unit identified.

“I...I am 2B.

A YoRHa No.2 Type B, to be precise.”

I’m an android soldier created to battle the invading lifeforms.

I am fully functional,

yet my memory fails me.

My current location is unknown.

My surroundings look familiar,

but something feels...wrong.

2B:

What is this thing?

I was fighting a machine lifeform and then…

Is my memory playing tricks on me?

I need to find a way out of this place.

And I need to destroy...the enemy.

This rusted building is known as the abandoned factory.

However, the enemy here is like nothing I have ever seen before.

I am not even certain if I can call that thing an enemy.

My memory regions are filled with static again, urging me forward.

I feel something stir deep inside me…

An almost nostalgic pain…

Verse 1 Alternate
There is a fine line that rests

between fighting to protect

and killing out of love...

Wouldn't you agree?

Here exists...someone's memory.

But how? None can say what happened here.

Verse 2
Fighting is my reason for being…

or so I tell myself

with every life I take.

Verse 3
The enemy promises everything…

but it guarantees nothing.

Nothing will change.

Verse 4
I fight because I have

somewhere to return to.

I fight because I have no choice.

Verse 5
I press on, and soon hear an eerie melody sung from far away.

The tenuous voice steadily transforms into the whirring screech of a machine.

I know this voice.

It belongs to a machine.

The enemy. My enemy.

But this reinforced machine is a fusion of countless other units.

The noise turns into a scream,

and the bizarre mass surges toward me.

Simone:

I… I…

I MUST BE BEAUTIFUL!

2B:

That machine lifeform…

...is the enemy.

The mechanical diva unleashed a piercing cry as she vanished into a dark vortex.

“I could have sworn I already destroyed her…”

Something feels off. Is this a dream…?

My limbs pulse with the ache of battle.

Pungent oil spatters the ground in violent arcs.

I swing the refuse from my blade. If I’m dreaming,

then I’ve no choice to fight until I wake.

For I am a YoRHa unit, created for one purpose--

to kill.

Anything else I might tell myself is meaningless.

Verse 5 Alternate
The song echoes as a testament to love.

This beauty... The meaning of life.

We just want to live our lives, and yet you mock us?

As long as I had his heart,

I wanted for nothing.

Or...that is what I'd believed.

Verse 6
How ironic that we sleep to escape the lies

that plague the waking world, only to realize that

our dreams, too, are dripping with deceit.

Verse 7
I took solace in destroying my enemies,

and refuge in destroying myself.

I would have done anything to look away

from the blinding truth...How could I face it?

Verse 8
I loved him.

I adored him.

I dressed up for him.

I killed and remodeled my own body to become more beautiful.

I killed countless enemies.

I killed my own kind.

I ate them all so their metal and oil would coat me in a varnish of grandeur.

I tarnished my thoughts for you. I endured all this for you. Did you even notice?

Did you?

Simone:

I don’t care what anyone thinks!

I loved him!

He was my everything.

He was my world.

I will become beautiful…

AND I WILL BE LOVED!

I scream out.

No matter how painful,

no matter how miserable it makes me,

I must become beautiful.

I cannot give up on my desire.

If given another chance, the result would be the same. Because in this world, if you desire something with your heart and soul,

it will become yours. That is why I continue to feed.

And gradually, I would forget the reason why I sought to embody such beauty...

Verse 8 Alternate
I realized two things as I continued to fight.

The first was that this world is comprised of our basest desires.

In turn, I realized that those desires transformed into unspeakable lust.

What, then...do I lust for?

The machines sing and dance in seeming praise of the organic life forms.

It's as if they try to satirize us androids,

so tangled by the past and its pageantry.

Verse 9
I bite my lip in an attempt to calm myself,

but the pain doesn’t help.

It’s as if dependence

connects the machine and I...

Verse 10
Again, I hear that

accursed, sorrowful singing,

so haunting that I cannot help but

yearn for its destruction.

Verse 11
Who is more beautiful than me?

Who is more loved than me?

Who...am I?

Verse 12
I chase the machine deep into the abandoned factory.

Though badly damaged,

the enemy still sings,

its song a prayer.

It is a prisoner to a delusion,

as if its howled desires could ever come true.

...But is it really simply delusion?

My enemy sings that the laws of this world will turn desire into reality.

If that were true,

then I…I…

Simone:

Because I tried so hard…

Because I loved so hard…

LOVE MEEEEEEE!

2B:

I feel like we’ve met before…

Her selfish ideals must be dealt with.

This ends now.

I will be beautiful, I will!

I will be beautiful, I will!

I will be beautiful, I will, I will!

The machine’s faltering voice rings out in the factory,

and, as if rising in applause to the music,

the world begins to crumble.

Her dying screams echo with a clear vibrato,

like a song. It made me wonder…

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Static……….Booting.

Auditory sensor normal. Detecting echo.

Unit identified.

There I see 9S, a YoRHa No. 9 Type S android.

He’s diligently working at his floating monitor, finishing up my memory analysis.

He didn’t find any bugs, he says.

His words renew my awareness of my existence.

Something feels slightly off with my data analysis sequence.

Something disconcerting, ever since my battle with her,

the machine lifeform,

36 hours ago.

That’s why I requested 9S, a scanner model, re-check the entirety of my memory regions.

The machine lifeform I battled with,

that singing machine...

Apparently it was just a dream-like simulation, brought on by some process performed during the data check.

I clutch my head in unsteady hands as I try to rise.

Using motor functions too soon after a data check can cause dizziness due to system malfunctions, 9S warns.

True as that may be, he worries far too much. But that anxious nature of his is the very thing that saved my life all those times. Every time we work together,

he has saved my life.

I avert my eyes from Nines’ face.

I don’t have the right to be indebted to him. 9S, unaware of my distorted emotions,

asks curiously about the content of my dream.

Evidently during the check,

my circuits displayed behavior as if they were functioning.

My “dream”?

...So it truly was a dream.

A fiction-filled surreal world

consisting of screaming and pain.

I could sense the machine lifeform’s unmistakable resolve as it sang maniacally, an uncompromising dirge to beauty.

The machine’s obsession was so great, it would stop at nothing to obtain its desires.

But...that couldn’t have been a dream.

It was all too real.

The mechanical singer’s grudge was like a curse, leaving a mark on my memory regions,

transforming them into a convolution of data.

Like a fresh wound, the data disseminates through my neural circuitry with every beat of my heart.

I now know that within that dreaming world, desires possess power beyond the physical.

Do I possess a desire strong enough to leave my mark on someone else’s dream?

I realize 9S is staring at me, confusion painting his earnest face.

I attempt a smile to set his mind at ease.

It’s a bit stiff, but effective nonetheless.

“Explaining a meaningless dream would be…, well, meaningless,” I say. 9S can’t keep the disappointment from his face, but it is better than the alternative. There are other pressing matters, such as destroying the machine lifeforms, collecting data,

and so on.

First, I must take the fuel filter I received from the machines to the resistance camp.

The wind caresses my cheek.

Thinking I hear the machine’s voice once again, I turn, but all that lies behind me is the city in ruins. I know it well.

Yet, something

seems slightly

off kilter.

Like something is peering out from the darkness within my heart...or someone.

Maybe this world and I…

…&*5xf paXXXXXX...

Verse 12 Alternate
Love me. LOVE me. Love ME.

LOvE mE LoVe Me love me.

Love me love me love me KILL ME.

Why was I brought into this world?

What was the right thing to do?

Tell me... Tell me, please...

Epilogue
Parrah:

Ah...Out of time.

Noya:

Time's up!

Parrah:

Too soon... Too soon!

For her, anyways.

Noya:

It just wasn't her time to join the Library.

Parrah:

But it iiis funny!

Noya:

So humorous!

Parrah:

Everything will be connected, eventually.

Noya:

Sucked in by the tendrils of desire.

Parrah:

Let's meet again next time...

Noya:

Yes, next time, let's meet again...

Epilogue Hard
Parrah:

What a fight! You sure showed them!

Noya:

What a display! What a show!

Parrah:

We have some new friends in the Library.

Noya:

Weren't the machines' screams sublime?

Parrah:

Come with us and your wish will be granted

Noya:

But if you're weak, you'll have to dream a little longer!

Parrah:

Only the strong may have their dreams fulfilled!

Noya:

Whose side are you on, hm? The killers?

Parrah:

Or the killed?

Noya:

Yes...Which indeed?

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