Result (Conti.)

"I lose, huh…?" Penny sighed, resting on the ground amidst her pieces. I patted her head reassuringly as it rested on my knee, idly brushing away the chips of concrete that had tangled in her hair over the course of the fight. As if in response to her admission, screens began to appear around me. I made mental notes of most of them and then ignored their presence, though several cause my attention briefly.

Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one!

"You fought well," I said after a moment, tail curling around my waist for want of anything better to do. "You went above and beyond what anyone could have expected or demanded. Do not be ashamed of being defeated, but consider it an experience to learn from. So long as you are alive, people can struggle on and improve themselves, going further and further despite the odds. So…don't throw your life away because you are too afraid to admit defeat. Your life is too important for that."

Penny was silent and still, though the latter probably had more to do with the general state of her body than anything else. I'd ripped off her other arm and leg shortly after the fight began and cast them aside. She'd tried to compensate with her blades and strings, suspending herself in the air, but though it had allowed her to keep fighting—after a fashion—it had also seriously limited her mobility and preoccupied a fair number of her weapons at any given time. With a serious limit on her ability to fight at both close and long range and a serious drop in her defensive capabilities due to her loss of limbs…this battle had been over before it had even started.

I'd known that. I was pretty sure she had, too, even before I'd pried open the mechanism on her back and tore her strings out.

That didn't make admitting it any easier to admit, much less accept. No, more than anything, I guess I knew—when you are weak, when you're not good enough, and when nothing you do is enough to change that…that's when its hardest to accept the truth. If anything, Penny was taking this far, far better than I had when I'd finally been forced to confront the fact that I was weak. She went silent and sad.

I'd cried.

It wasn't quite the same, of course; she was, after all, still an amazing person and a wonder of engineering, with tremendous skill in probably countless fields, whereas I'd been a failure at everything I'd truly wanted for such a long time. But whether you've lived a life of power or weakness, I suppose defeat was a bitter pill to swallow; perhaps even more so, for the knowledge that you still weren't up to the task.

"You'll get stronger," I continued. "You learnt a great deal in this fight and you'll learn more as you keep on living. That's what being alive is all about, Penny, and you still have a lifetime to grow and learn and improve. No, even more than that, you are unique, Penny; you're different from everyone else and that's not a bad thing. If there are things you want to protect, then repair your body, improve it, and grow stronger and stronger as a person until you can."

Her eyes fluttered closed and she nodded slightly, not looking assured, per se, but at least listening, taking things in.

"I'm surprised you're telling me this," She said when at last she spoke. "I'm surprised you're still here."

I taped an armored nail chidingly against her forehead but allowed the change in subject.

"Things that are important should be handled with care," I replied.

"I thought you were in a hurry?"

"My flight is in the last stages of its boarding," I answered. "But though important, that's not what I was referring to. Lives…children…It's worth it for you to learn these lessons now rather than destroy yourself pointlessly in the future."

I looked down at her for a moment, thoughtful and just a tad worried.

"Penny…does your father love you?" I asked.

She looked up at my, surprise in her eyes. Even so, she answered without hesitation.

"Yes," She said. "Very much."

"I see," I nodded slightly, deciding to trust her and shelves my concerns, hard as that was. I didn't see any signs of dishonesty or worry with Observe, so… "I guess he'll probably be terrified when he sees what happened to you."

"Yes," She said, eyes suddenly downcast. "He worries a lot, even though he knows I'm strong. When he found out I was being sent on this mission, he was so scared, and I…"

Had probably told him it would be fine. That she'd stay safe and be smart and that nothing would happen. Like I'd told my father.

I guess that made us both liars.

"I'm sorry," I apologized, closing my eyes. "I guess I'm causing you both a lot of trouble. But…that's why you need to understand, Penny. You can imagine it, right? How scared your father must be and how he'll feel when he finds out what happened? And if you died…"

She looked, if anything, even more miserable, but nodded again.

"Yes," She said simply, but one word was enough for this. I could hear it in her voice and see it with Observe—the sadness she felt, the honest sorrow at the pain she was causing someone she cared about.

I patted her head again, understanding completely.

"It's fine as long as you understand," I said. "But…since you got hurt because of me…"

I sighed slightly, musing as I palmed a blue Dust crystal. I…might have been able to heal her, though I wasn't certain of how Soulforge Restoration would interact with such extreme wounds, much less a robotic body. In fact…

"I suppose your Aura doesn't heal you normally, does it Penny?" I asked, look over her status screen. She had a fair number of status effects I'd never seen before, like 'Ex Machina,' which I assumed had some effect of preventing natural healing. Though she still had some Aura left, even her smaller wounds, like her torn skin, had yet to close. I suppose that shouldn't have been surprising given it was artificial skin—no, more than that, dismemberment wasn't something many people could recover from regardless of their Aura. The fact that Penny could get new arms was itself amazing and I knew she wasn't in pain. I could just leave her here and she'd most likely be fine.

On the other hand, it just felt wrong to tear off a girl's arms and legs and abandon her in the middle of nowhere with no way of doing anything until someone came to get her.

Gee, I wonder why.

"No," Penny replied. "Because I'm a machine."

I sighed slightly, feeling bad but still thinking.

"Something like that…" I mused.

I might have been able to heal her with Crocea Mors, though I wasn't completely confident in my Craft ability or knowledge of how she worked. I'd only caught glimpses after all, her Aura fighting my control and blurring my vision each time—but it was possible. Of course, then her limbs would be functional again, which was itself a potential problem—I didn't want to leave her wounded but if I healed her…she probably wouldn't continue the fight now, but even so…

However, that made me wonder. Even if it made sense for her to be unable to heal normally…no, rather, because of my power, even something like this…?

Yeah, after all, how many robotic teammates have I had in games? And healing spells always worked on them despite that, too. For me, whose powers worked off abstract things like HP rather than physical damage and biology, what did it matter if she was a robot? She had an HP bar, after all, and my skill didn't say it couldn't be used on robots. The issue of her getting up remained, but if it was me…

I looked at my Dust crystal. I'd devoured dozens of the crystals while fighting Penny, drawing life and power from them to sustain myself. I'd felt the power within, used it to fuel my Aura and color it to change myself, again and again and again. Because I'd experienced it so many times, perhaps it was possible? Certainly, I'd done far stranger things—and I'd considered the idea, as the fight wore on.

I closed my eyes for a moment, falling into a trance in a moment, my senses focused on myself, the patterns of light that shot through my Aura, and the crystal that blazed like fire in the palm of my hand. I knew how the process worked, had experienced it so many times during the fight, and I knew how it felt. When I used a Dust Crystal as part of Soulforge Restoration, I drew the energy out of it to replenish my Aura and colored myself with its light in the process. The buff I received was a side-effect, really, if a very useful and powerful one.

But did it have to be that way?

I focused and felt my Aura change and it felt almost familiar—both because of how I'd felt something similar recently and because of Xihai. I guided my Aura along its course and watched as it came together, an imitation of what I'd seen and felt.

A skill has been created through a special action! Through the manipulation of Aura's form and nature, you have created the skill 'Regeneration'!

Regeneration (Active) LV1 EXP: 0.00% MP: 100

A skill to manipulate the body through the alteration of Aura. By imposing the element of Water, swift healing can be granted.

+50 HP per minute.

+50 SP per minute.

Duration: 30 minutes.

I drew in a deep breath, smugly self-satisfied. As expected of my bullshit power—the effect wasn't as quick as the status Soulforge granted which restore ten HP per second for twenty seconds, but as an effect with a much longer duration?

"Something like that," I said more confidently. "Means nothing to me."

I touched Penny's forehead and felt my power flow over her. Her eyes widened slightly at whatever she felt and my tail uncoiled from its place at my waist, wrapping around the arm I'd placed beside her body and bringing it closer to her stump—and smiled slightly when I same her HP go up a point after a second, metal edges twitching unnaturally. I did the same with her other limbs, reaching over her body to bring her legs closer, and then stood.

"I have a few things to take care of first, but it's about time I take my leave. It might take some time to heal, but you should be mostly healed in about half an hour," I said, brushing dust off my pants. "Until then, try not to do anything to aggravate your injuries—and remembered what you learned today, Penny."

"But…" Penny asked, looking honestly surprised for the first time. "How…?"

"It's the nature of the soul to try and return an altered body to normal," I said. "As the nature of your body kept your Aura from doing so, I gave it a little help."

"That's…impossible…" She said, lifting her head to look down at her still separated limbs with wide eyes.

"Impossible?" I asked. "Why would it be impossible for a real girl? Difficult, perhaps, but you have a soul like any other, Penny. Rather than something as small as this, remember that."

I smiled at her and turned to walk away.

"You never told me your name," She stopped me before I could go. "I…you already know it, but my name is Penny Polendina. What's yours?"

I paused in my stride for a moment, glancing over my shoulder contemplatively. I considered leaving her in silence, the mystery man who appeared and then vanished without a trace, or giving her a meaningless lie. I certainly wasn't going to tell her my real name, but…

The vague concern I'd felt niggled at me, a quiet, hopefully baseless thing.

She'd seen the fake tattoo on my back, I reasoned. Maybe. I had no idea what she could truly see through Lenore's effect, or if it work on her, or what it's limits where. She'd probably seen my tail, at least, and she retained details about the fight. And, given the situation, would it do anything but strength the mask? Given I actually was a Faunus like this, the odds of people making the connection were…

I closed my eyes for a moment and chuckled slightly. No, more than any of that…

"Jian Bing," I said. "Should something ever happen, should they forget that you are a person rather than a weapon, search for that name. Goodbye, Penny, and fair thee well."

XxXXxX