"I had to." I tell Emi softly, as gently as I can manage. "There was no need for you to make the same sacrifice I did. And this way..." This way you get back the years that were taken from you, is what I want to say. But I know it's not that simple. Not that black and white. Yeah, he gets those years back, but his mind is already far ahead of his body now.
And Hiromu is older now too, I can see it around his eyes, in his posture and the way he carries himself, a sureness that wasn't there before. It's not like he could stop aging at will, wait for Emeric to catch up with him.
It can't be easy, probably won't ever be easy. But at least this way they have each other. Hiromu didn't have to mourn Emeric, and Emeric didn't have to say goodbye.
My thoughts drift briefly to Kuroki, and I shake them off quickly. No sense dwelling on that in this moment.
I pull back a bit from the hug, but just far enough so that I can address Hiromu and his question without my words being muffled by Emeric's hair or cheek or shoulder.
"A fragment of my data was left over in EMC's backup files. Deeply encrypted and buried after Enter was finally shut down. Professor Ryouma," I gesture at the man sitting quietly with his sundry monitors and tools, wondering what he might be thinking about all this, to say nothing of what's going through Kazuraba's mind. "Found me there, managed to communicate with me, and rebuilt the Avatar Program and Marker System from the information I provided him with while I was still just data in a machine.
"So I..." I falter a bit, because I don't know exactly how to explain, or how to convey how I feel about the whole thing. I'm still trying to sort it out for myself as it is. "I'm Jin, or a part of Jin, but I'm not Jin."
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And Hiromu is older now too, I can see it around his eyes, in his posture and the way he carries himself, a sureness that wasn't there before. It's not like he could stop aging at will, wait for Emeric to catch up with him.
It can't be easy, probably won't ever be easy. But at least this way they have each other. Hiromu didn't have to mourn Emeric, and Emeric didn't have to say goodbye.
My thoughts drift briefly to Kuroki, and I shake them off quickly. No sense dwelling on that in this moment.
I pull back a bit from the hug, but just far enough so that I can address Hiromu and his question without my words being muffled by Emeric's hair or cheek or shoulder.
"A fragment of my data was left over in EMC's backup files. Deeply encrypted and buried after Enter was finally shut down. Professor Ryouma," I gesture at the man sitting quietly with his sundry monitors and tools, wondering what he might be thinking about all this, to say nothing of what's going through Kazuraba's mind. "Found me there, managed to communicate with me, and rebuilt the Avatar Program and Marker System from the information I provided him with while I was still just data in a machine.
"So I..." I falter a bit, because I don't know exactly how to explain, or how to convey how I feel about the whole thing. I'm still trying to sort it out for myself as it is. "I'm Jin, or a part of Jin, but I'm not Jin."