Overturned Tower

She raised her head, with a paper-thin, pale and gentle smile, and looked at her husband who was more than a head taller than herself: "But I forgot... I will never wake up a person who pretends to be awake."

"...Alice."

Sheath whispered her name.He tried to reach out, trying to touch Alice.

But in front of him, Alice was like an illusory phantom.He grabbed it twice in mid-air, but it was as ethereal as smoke.

Because he didn't dare to touch Alice's body.

The feeling of raising his hand was just an impulse.He even denied the absolute rationality of mechanical life forms, and the vision in his eyes was constantly turning red and reporting errors.

"—Your mechanical body, can you still make such low-level mistakes?"

Alice taunted, and grabbed the right hand that was trying to retract the sheath with her backhand.

It was so feeble, white and tender...a girl's hand.Her strength could never match the strength of the sheath...but she directly held the hand of the sheath, preventing him from pulling back half an inch.She didn't need to exert any force at all, and the sheath couldn't escape her restraint.

She put the sheath's hand that could easily crush steel, and slowly placed it on her head.

This made delphinium flustered for a moment so much that he clenched his fists, held his breath, and almost swept the cup to the ground; Bad Day also subconsciously clenched the table knife, strangling, inferior and Kamalse looked over at the same time.

Alice's body was only in her early 20s.Even younger than Russell himself.

But Sheath's body has been completely replaced by machines and prosthetics.

The machine covered with human skin was no longer the man she knew in the past.

The sheath stopped in place, and the dim yellow indicator light like a blindfold was flickering fiercely.

The corner of his mouth twitched slightly, and the expression on his face changed drastically like a mannequin with a bug.In the end, imitating the expression on Alice when he first saw her, he showed a slightly restrained but yearning smile.

Smile after killing bad feelings.

Just like his expression when he betrayed those people in the past.

Alice and Sheath looked at each other, and a faint yellow light gradually shone in the depths of her emerald green pupils.And gradually synchronized with the flickering in the eyes of the sheath.

Sheath realized it immediately—but Alice's hand, which was lightly pressing the back of his hand, suddenly clenched tightly.

"—Don't run away."

Her words, her hand, made the sheath's movement stop again.

Alice said softly: "If you turn around and run away again... I will absolutely, absolutely never forgive you again.

"...stupid, half-assed, clown, bumbling bastard."

Hearing this sentence, the indicator light in the sheath's eyes suddenly went out—it took a long time before it suddenly turned on.

——Because those were words that even Alice herself would not remember.

She had always thought of him as a strong and great man.

It was the first time she saw Shea, when she had not formally known Shea, because she resisted the teacher that her family found for herself without authorization, she said bad things.This is also hidden deep in the heart by the sheath, which has never been shown to anyone, especially not to Alice.

why, why...

The speed of electronic brain calculation is very fast.Sheath had an answer almost immediately.

Alice...

——Or, [Russell] has already seen it.

My own memory that has been digitized and stored in the cloud——

He wants to assimilate himself.

His "son", wants to eat himself.

At that moment, the purpose of [Russell] became clear, but...

Alice's emerald green pupils were filled with emotion and tears.

Love, sadness, anger, nostalgia, peace of mind, memory, disappointment... only there is no hatred.

It was the look that Sheath couldn't move away from.He couldn't give up the same thing a second time...he couldn't even stick to the "giving up" itself.

"...Are you so sure that after swallowing me who is the same size as you, can you still maintain yourself?"

The sheath was moved.In other words, he was afraid—his mechanical heart, which should not have known what fear was, chose to retreat.

He threatened and persuaded Alice to give up this dangerous move: "It's too late to stop now...Russell, if this happens again, we might die together.

"Stop now, I won't attack you, I will leave immediately, and help you kill the monkey-faced eagle. I won't appear in front of you again, and I will never hurt you... I won't hurt your friend either. Good man... no, I can help you too. We were not enemies from the very beginning, I am... I am your father..."

Threats turned into entreaties.

Alice didn't attack or restrain him, only those fragile hands.

Obviously, he could end everything by simply turning his head away.As long as he leaves, Alice will not be able to catch him.

but……

His program alarmed frantically and kept making mistakes.The world in front of my eyes was covered by constantly flashing dangerous red, and various warning pop-up windows kept popping up and being closed.

"--I do not want."

Alice's firm voice sounded: "I'm not Russell, I'm Alice. You still don't recognize me...

"I've made up my mind. I will never... let you go.

"Because you're an idiot, you can't do anything without me!

"Since you only have one copy of data left - then it shouldn't matter where it is stored, right?

"Then why, why have you become like this, and you still don't want to go home?"

For some reason, a kind of despair and pain seized Sheath's nonexistent heart.

His feelings, personality and will should have been completely wiped out.He's a robot who doesn't know what love is.

But why...

...But my heart hurts more than when I was a human?

In the depths of Alice's emerald green pupils, a rotating mirror gradually lit up.

He couldn't look away.

He couldn't look away.

he……

——Finally, in the depths of the dark mirror, Sheath saw the forgotten self.

That cowardly, lonely, and bruised.

Therefore, he is afraid of all the teenagers in the world.

The next moment, when the mirror surface shone beyond the limit, Alice's shell suddenly twisted and shattered.

As if an illusory string was broken, the sheath and Russell's consciousness were engulfed by endless darkness at the same time——

Chapter 1 Don't Go

The endless darkness was like an abyss, and Sheath felt as if she had fallen into the vortex at the center of the ocean current.

Countless fragments of the past rushed into his mind, and every word he could not forget or had been forgotten hit his heart irresistibly.

"Be careful, be careful...you carry our lives on your back."

"Remember, never, never stand up!"

"……do not go."

"—Wendy the informer! He is the informer of Neverland!"

[I can give you a possibility of the future, to pursue the ideal possibility]

"...stupid, half-assed, clown, bumbling bastard."

"Therefore, you never had anything to atone for."

"Beware of arrogance and impetuosity, child. If you don't know what to do, keep silent. Because justice does not need to assert itself, truth and justice speak for themselves... You don't need people to trust you, because you are not a leader, and you don't plan to be Leader. You are only responsible to yourself—for the decisions you make, the sacrifices you make, the consequences you bear.”

"I can save ten people, a hundred people, a thousand people...but how can I save this world?"

[Do you think you are a qualified father? 】

"Teacher... What about little Russell like you? What about sister Alice?"

"If it's a once-in-a-lifetime stage, let's let go and have fun."

"Sheath, you retreat when things happen, and you get nothing. I don't want to forgive you, but I have to. Because God is unfair—because even if you are as mean as you, even if you give up so many times, there is still a chance to come. Realize their own value... while more people are embarrassed by the predicament of insufficient ability, and they can't break free from despair even though they try their best."

"……I miss you so much."

Those rustling words were like moth wings flapping in his head, he either heard everything or nothing.

In the end, there was only the last whisper full of despair and sadness, trembling slightly, echoing clearly in his mind.

——The next moment, Wendy woke up suddenly, panting heavily.

The extremely cold winter wind followed his breath, poured into his mouth and nose, and drowned in his alveoli.The cold wind he inhaled suddenly made him cough uncontrollably.

It's like waking up from a dream... Those memories from the "future" are like quicksand between fingers, disappearing in the blink of an eye, completely forgotten.Only a vague illusion remained, making Wendy feel as if she had seen what she saw and heard before.

Wendy felt that she was being supported and her wrists were being squeezed tightly.At this moment, he is so weak and powerless, unable to break free from the shackles of others.

The children around gathered together, but either lowered their heads, or their faces were full of horror and fear.

And at the end of their line of sight, two figures that should have been extremely familiar to Wendy, but now felt strange for no reason, appeared in his eyes.

One was brunette and thin, with rodent ears and sharp teeth; the other was blond and muscular, taller than his peers.

That's "Michael" and "John."

Their hands were tied together with thin but strong ropes, their backs were facing each other, and their bodies were covered with cuts and bruises.Their four hands were tied together and hung in the void.

In the void, what hangs the two of them is a cartoon "meniscus".Around the crescent moon, as if soaked in ink, a small patch of sky became a crayon-like abstraction of late night.

And the two of them were hung in the night sky like this, the painting style was completely different from the surrounding environment.

A short-haired child with unusually slender limbs and a layer of flying membranes growing between the elbow and the ribs was flying around the two of them freely in the night sky over there.His painting style is very suitable for the surrounding environment, and it is like animation, like a fairy tale that children like.In his hand he holds a rather exaggerated, huge spiked mace.

"Bad thing, betrayed the Legion!"

Peter Pan's sharp and dissatisfied voice sounded: "Informers! Bad things! Traitors! Your brains are stuffed with shit, and you dare to betray Peter Pan and Never Island! I like you so much, but you also turned bad !"

"You killed Sandy first—"

Michael's voice was full of fear and anger: "I saw you killed her!"

"That's because she has become a dirty adult too!"

Peter Pan looked even angrier than he: "She's in love with a grown-up, and Peter Pan must kill her before she becomes a grown-up! A clean death is better than a dirty life!"

"You threw us from high places, never caring whether we wanted to!"

"Peter Pan will always catch you!" Peter Pan argued.

"You didn't! You killed Joey!"

"And Sanchez, he was also killed by you!" John followed up.

"No matter how good a magician is, there will always be times when they miss," said Peter Pan Yang. "When they fly down from a high place, they are all screaming with joy!"

"They were afraid—"

"you're lying!"

Before Michael could reply, Peter Pan hit him with a hammer.

It was a giant hammer that could easily blow a person's head, but Michael's face just became bloody.He and John were blown away exaggeratedly, hanging on the moon like a swing and swinging around in a circle.

Seeing this, Peter Pan laughed loudly, and then threw John into the air with a backhand hammer.This time around three times in a row, it finally fell down.

"Speak quickly, Peter Pan told you to speak. Why go to the adults to complain?"

"Because we wanted to leave—"

"—So what? Are the adults here?"

Peter Pan exulted: "They didn't come, and they lied to you!

"A grown-up is not trustworthy, and a grown-up is the dirtiest thing!"