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[ Marcille...? He can hear her; he does see her. Little by little, recognition cleanses his consciousness of the dream's influence, keeping the remainder of his memories back then at bay. This impenetrable darkness is inexplicably lonely, he'd thought at the time, or it spilled out of him like everything else no longer contained. He wasn't alone in reaching that breaking point. All of his colleagues underwent a similar experience.

They were all trapped for such a long time, but this is different. Yesod lowers his hand, moves closer to the screen. ]

Marcille...

[ Repeating her name inserts it into this memory as a waymark; his awareness concentrates on it until she sharpens into focus, not part of the past at all. It's akin to waking from a nightmare, caught between it and reality, still disoriented.

After some moments, Yesod places his fingers against the screen. This isn't truly the facility, after all. The pane of glass creaks at first, and then his fingertips pass through it, protruding from it on Marcille's side. ]

[ As soon as Yesod says her name, Marcille smiles with relief, bringing her fists closer to her chest. ]

Yeah! It's me!

[ The facility still surrounds Yesod from behind, all dark steel and molten reds, less like a workplace and more like a prison. Her eyes immediately dart to his hand, and before she can think to break that barrier herself, his hand pushes through to her side.

Without another thought, she grabs it with one hand, takes his forearm with the other, and pulls as hard as she can. ]

Come on...!

[ The change in Marcille's expression is more to note, entirely different from interacting with the manager — and with Ayin long before that. Her hands seize Yesod's arm, proof that she is here. In response, his fingers grasp hers to maintain the connection as he allows her to tug him forward, into what would have been nothing but a holographic projection within the Information Department. The glass of the manager's office monitors frames him, resisting despite its cracked state, as if to keep him trapped.

Another step forward, and all of it gives way. The barrier collapses into shattered glass and bindings that slip from Yesod himself like loosened fetters, melting upon contact with the ground.

On the other side, in front of Marcille, Yesod glances her over. Remembering where they really are grows easier. ]

...Are you unharmed?

[ Marcille still leaves a lot to be desired in terms of strength and athleticism, but thanks to Yuji, she's gotten better since her arrival at the base. After the glass (harmlessly) shatters and Yesod stumbles in towards her, Marcille jerks her head away but tries to buffer him before he hits the ground.

Yesod seems to regain his footing quickly. As soon as Marcille turns her head and opens her eyes, the other world slips and melts out of view. All that's left is Yesod in his avatar and Marcille still clinging to his arm. ]

Me?!

[ She grasps both of his forearms like she's about to shake him. ]

What about you?! You were trapped in there! Saying all of these things about people and numbers and names... Y-You said you were rotting! What was going on?!

[ He attempts to avoid steadying himself by using Marcille to support his weight — he must be somewhat heavier than he looks because of his metal frame, whether or not the increase in height that his human appearance adds is also a factor. Even so, pulled free from his memories, he might have lost his balance altogether without her assistance. Her alarm gives him one more waymark to guide him out of the scene left behind.

Straightening his posture, Yesod takes in Marcille's, confirming that nothing of what took place just then resulted in any wounds, at least. She simply seems unnerved, understandably so. ]

...That was Lobotomy Corporation. A memory during my time there, to be precise.

[ Truthfully, he feels relieved that it ended before it progressed to the moments that exposed his turmoil in its entirety. What Marcille witnessed requires an explanation as it is. ]

I must thank you for intervening, though I am certain that it was disturbing. Everything that I said was directed at the company's manager... Or rather, at its founder.

The founder...

[ And Yesod had been candid and surprisingly emotional with them. Lobotomy Corporation, managers, employees... These are things Marcille is only familiar with through hearsay. Now she's seen the inside of it. If she were Yesod, she would have reacted even worse than him, surely. ]

So they really were that "architect" you were talking about. You must've been miserable there.

[ Lately, he has been preoccupied with so many pieces of the past relived or experienced through others, he thinks. Everything dredged up is slow to settle, and so are the things that he has learned.

Marcille choosing one particular aspect of this memory to comment on gives him pause. ]

All of us were. I frequently wondered why my colleagues and I were AIs capable of emotion... I saw it as a dangerous flaw.

[ And consequently, he tried to correct that perceived flaw within himself — it had already led to mistakes. It caused nothing but pain. ]

However, that memory marks a personal turning point of sorts. I began to remember my past life, and I realized that we were once humans. We were never true machines.

[ Now that Netzach knows this as well, it's less difficult to discuss it, to answer others' questions regarding their circumstances. ]

[ That admission makes her stomach drop through to her feet. She slowly lets Yesod's arms go, but she doesn't back away. This isn't the first person she's met who had their memories—their self implanted in something else, but Marcille can't imagine coming to that slow realization after agonizing like that for however long.

There's a torrent of questions in her head. It's difficult to reach her hand in and find some sort of question or idea to grasp onto, but she wrenches one free. ]

How did you find out?

[ It occurs to Yesod that Marcille hasn't recoiled from any of this, either, just as she ventured to understand the existence of beings such as him and his colleagues. Even now, that continues, no matter how alien a world their City must be to her.

He retraces the path to understanding what they were themselves. ]

...It's likely that we all experienced occasional fragments of the truth even before our memories were no longer suppressed, although they made little sense.

[ And then the fragments, connected together, gradually formed a clearer picture. Yesod thinks back to the past, a different facility, just a small laboratory in the Outskirts. ]

In my first life, I was a person named Gabriel. I met my colleagues then, while we collaborated as members of a research team. As I recalled them, I understood that these were my own memories.

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