When White accepted the post of commander of the YoRHa forces, she had already prepared herself.
She would be like the other members of the high command, and would not spare YoRHa any pity or sympathy.
Because YoRHa was different from the rest of them. The core of a YoRHa unit's program was a Black Box, recreated from the core of a machine lifeform.
YoRHa were not her comrades.
So, sending YoRHa to carry out harsher, more heavily tasked missions in order to collect data would not stir her emotions in the slightest. To White, YoRHa were tools. Why should one have feelings for tools?
But the truth was, she was wrong. She never imagined she could be shaken.
More than once, she wondered if something had gone wrong with her programming, or if she had been infected by some kind of virus. Yet every diagnostic came back clean.
Even though she should not have regarded YoRHa members as comrades, little by little, she wavered.
Watching those uninformed, deceived YoRHa soldiers, each of them clinging to what they believed was a glorious mission as they went out to execute orders, how could they know that certain parts of those missions were malicious, deliberately arranged?
Those "operations" were nothing more than sending them to their deaths.
And most of those missions had been personally assigned by White herself, purely for the sake of gathering data. In that sense, she was like a devil, delivering one after another into hell.
After the emergence of the individual known as 2B, White had also assigned her secret missions filled with malice. That only made the fluctuations in White's emotional system even worse.
But she could not show it.
She had to maintain coldness. She had to be ruthless and carry out the plan without hesitation.
Because only by seeing the plan through could the androids avoid a future of collapse, a future of annihilation.
Only then could they continue to believe their faith still existed, and maintain the motivation to keep fighting the machine lifeforms.
Otherwise, once their faith was lost—once "humanity has truly perished" became undeniable—then the vast majority of androids who relied on that faith as their reason to live would break. They would collapse. They would march toward extinction.
If humans did not exist anymore, then androids had no reason to exist either.
So even if she sympathized with YoRHa, for the sake of the greater whole, she could only become an android steeped in sin.
And among them, the one that made her feel the deepest guilt was 2B.
In truth, 2B was not a general-purpose combat android, YoRHa No. 2 Type B.
She was YoRHa No. 2 Type E—an Executioner model.
The purpose behind the birth of that kind of android was not to wage punitive campaigns against machine lifeforms, but primarily to act inwardly, against their own kind.
They would often disguise themselves as various other friendly models, secretly executing androids who were passive in combat, and executing androids whose words or behavior might undermine morale.
And within YoRHa itself, they would purge any YoRHa units who might discover YoRHa's secrets—especially Type S units.
Type S units were extremely advanced Scanner models, and they were highly likely to uncover the secrets of the Bunker, to uncover Project YoRHa buried within the Bunker's deep servers.
That was why 2B accompanied 9S on missions: the moment 9S showed signs of abnormal behavior, she would execute him.
That was why, to White, 2B was the one she could least forgive herself for.
And now that the truth had been spoken aloud, the blow dealt to 2B was unprecedented.
So White did not dare turn around to look at 2B.
She knew exactly what kind of reaction 2B's emotions would be having right now.
2B always appeared almost emotionless—calm, steady, cold.
But White, who knew 2B so well, understood the real person beneath that cold exterior.
In reality, 2B was a gentle, delicate child, and deeply shy at heart.
A 2B with that kind of personality would suffer a far greater impact than anyone else.
Perhaps she really would break.
And if 2B were to strike her right now, White thought she might actually feel relieved.
But now, there appeared someone to whom YoRHa could be entrusted—someone who could carry them into a past that still held possibility.
That was why White had openly revealed the truth of YoRHa's plan.
She wanted YoRHa to have thoughts of their own, to no longer be nothing but disposable tools that could be abandoned at any time.
As for the fact that the Bunker—including YoRHa, and even White herself—would be destroyed, White truly did not know.
When she handed the Bunker's key to Operator 6O, it was not an act of rage born from learning she, too, was a sacrifice.
It was a decision she had already made before she descended to Earth.
And the fact that she herself would be erased did not make White angry in the slightest. For the plan to be realized, she was willing to sacrifice herself.
But that YoRHa would also be completely destroyed—that was beyond her expectations, and impossible for her to accept.
So now, she could only place her hopes in the person before her.
If he stood on YoRHa's side, if he acknowledged YoRHa's existence, then the high command would be struck across the face, and would have no right to keep pointing fingers at YoRHa.
So, when the words granting White permission to embrace him fell, White opened her arms—her heart a storm of excitement and unease.
She stepped forward, and gently wrapped her arms around his body.
She pressed closer, increasing the contact between them, squeezing tight.
And then she felt it—natural warmth that only a human would have, the flow of blood, the unmistakable beat of a real heart.
Every sensation, every piece of feedback, told White the same thing.
The one she was embracing was, without any doubt, humanity—humanity that was supposed to have already perished.
In that instant, she could not help but hug him tighter still, as if trying to merge her body into his.
Like a child who had been lost for far too long, who had finally found the parents who created her after countless harsh years, she threw herself—overwhelmed—into that harboring embrace that could give her a sense of safety.
A place where she could lay down the burden of responsibility, and sleep in his arms.
But White knew she could not do that.
She had no right to indulge in such happiness.
She had to find a path forward for her comrades still fighting in space and on Earth—so that they could regain their faith, and continue living.
She also had to free 2B and the rest of YoRHa from Project YoRHa—so they could have brand-new lives as androids.
And the key to all of it—every last piece of it—was this human being.
It did not matter where he came from, whether it was another universe or something else entirely.
What mattered was that he was human.
He was her hope.
(End of Chapter)
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