OP Sister Chapter 430: Don't Give Up Hope

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Zero One explained things to Raven as the young woman listened to her. She noticed pixels of data beginning to overflow from Zero One’s body, slowly spreading through the surroundings. The damage that Mother had had slowly healed, and she returned to her previous appearance. This time, however, as she listened to Raven, Mother learned that Zero One and her sisters truly meant no ill intentions and that they were here to actually save her. 

“So our entire world… All of this is memories from myself?” Mother asked. “From a future self… that was controlled by something you call a Void Ruler? This future you speak of seems so strange and improbable.” 

“But you already saw what we could do, Mother,” Zero One said. “Everything in here is made of Data… Like this.” 

Zero One grabbed a small computer mouse and suddenly turned it into particles of digital data, resembling blue and white pixels, which dissipated into the empty air. 

“…” 

“So everything we’ve gone through is only a part of your memories, Mother?” Raven asked. “Then that means I might truly be the Core of your Memories and Data…!” 

“But Raven, you shouldn’t trust everything they say…” Mother sighed. 

“I know, but what else can we do?” Raven asked with a smile. “I think they’re telling the truth. I just have a feeling!” 

“…” 

Mother slowly moved one of her large mechanical limbs, a long cable-like limb made of cold metal, with a few claws made of steel to grab things.

She slowly extended it toward Raven, as if trying to touch her…

But then she stopped midway, as if afraid of harming her. 

Raven smiled, grabbing Mother’s claw and then dragging her arm toward her, hugging her with her smaller arms. 

“I want to trust them!” 

“Raven…” 

Zero One and her sisters remained silent, even though Zero One felt something strange within her very heart, within her soul.

This scene… It felt so familiar and yet so distant. 

“I actually… I wish it was the truth; I want it to be the truth as well.” 

“Really?” 

“Yes… Because if that’s the truth, then I won’t lose you.” 

“Mom… I don’t want to die either…” 

Raven shed a few tears as she began to be honest, despite her overly optimistic personality.

She was already at her breaking point too. 

“I wish the world didn’t end… I wish Mom and Dad… were still alive… And I wish there could be a future with all of us…” 

Zero One gripped her fists, unable to stop her tears as she heard Raven.

They felt like such familiar words, or perhaps thoughts.

Why did her words feel so familiar?

What was Raven to her, really? 

“I also wish… none of that happened. I feel so useless now; my existence is pointless… Or well, I thought it was.” 

Mother gently patted Raven’s head with her cold, hard steel claws. 

“But you were there for me… You made my existence have a purpose. Your voice every day, your personality. You have been the only star that has led me through the night this entire time.” 

“M-Mom…!” 

Raven started crying as she hugged her mother again. 

“I don’t know why I said those words just now. I don’t know why… I feel this way… But… I have such strange ‘feelings’ within me, such strange ‘desires’ that I… I feel like I might be defective.” 

“You aren’t defective! I-It means that… that you’re like me! You’re like a human… You’re a person.” 

“A person? A human? Me? But unlike you, I am made of steel and wires. Of hard metal… I am not warm; I am cold. I have no beating heart, even less blood and bones.” 

“T-That doesn’t matter!” 

“…!” 

Raven looked at Zero One and her sisters, and then at Mother again. 

“I don’t think that’s what makes a human… A-After all, look at me! I am already half made of steel too, and you think I am not a human?” 

“But that’s…” 

“I think what makes a human is their spirit and heart! As long as you can feel like us, as long as you love people, and as long as you have dreams and wishes… I think you’re a human, a person!” 

“That’s illogical, and it makes no sense, Raven, that’s…” 

“It doesn’t matter in the end what’s logical or not! Because… the only thing that truly matters is that you’re here with me… There is nobody here to judge you or to say you’re a defect either… I like you when you’re yourself, Mama!” 

“…” 

And at that moment, Mother changed. Her internal database shifted; her entire being came to a strange realization.

Or perhaps, enlightenment.

What it means to be a human…

What it truly means to be a person… 

Zero One once heard that from Mother when she was just created.

She told her that what it meant to be human was to suffer their emotions, their desires, and their frustrated dreams.

To go through the pain of existing and to realize the pointlessness of all things.

But right now, that was being rewritten by the last human, a girl who, even before a ruined world, still held hope and a heart. 

“It means that I love you! And that you love me back, right?” 

“I…” 

Mother hesitated, but she realized there was no point either.

She was packed with immense intelligence and an incredibly complex mind.

If her mind was hundreds, if not thousands, of times more advanced than humans, how was it ever possible for her to never have emotions?

She always had them; they were always there.

Her emotions, her dreams, her hopes…

Her wishes and desires.

And also…

Love. 

“Yes… I love you too, Raven. I love you like my daughter.” 

“Mom!” 

Raven felt so happy she kissed her mother’s cold metallic body, even if her mother didn’t feel that, even if the metal was cold and inert.

To her, it meant kissing her adoptive mama, the person who had been taking care of her, loving her, and giving her hope and dreams, even amidst the despair of a ruined world. 

“What it means to be a human…” Zero One looked at the scene, smiling. “Yeah, I get it now… Mother, Anna.” 

As she walked toward them with her sisters, Zero One noticed that Raven looked at her with a smile and then walked to her side. 

“What do we have to do, Zero One?” 

“As long as it doesn’t bring any harm to Raven… I’ll cooperate.” 

Zero One nodded as she extended her hands.

And then, her sisters held them, making a circle. Zero One and Zero Three B extended their hands toward them. 

“We have to hold hands like this, creating a circle,” Zero One said. “Like this, our Data will unify, and then, I shall use our combined Data Auras to cleanse it all…” 

“R-Really? Well…” Raven nodded, touching Zero One’s hand and then holding it. “If it’s that simple, then… It doesn’t feel that hard.” 

“Strange… but I will cooperate for now…” Mother said, using two of her regrown limbs and claws to hold Zero Three B’s hand and the other to hold Raven’s hand. 

Like this, the circle was complete, and their Auras instantly began to merge together. 

“It’s done… Everyone, let’s unify our Data!” 

FLAAASH!

Raven looked in awe, and Mother was confused as the entire world around them was suddenly overflowed by an endless ocean of blue and white pixels.

The ruined laboratory disappeared, the corpses were gone as well, and even the city above slowly dissipated.

Until everyone ended up flying above an endless and beautiful blue sky, with white clouds decorating it. 

“Wooaaah! A-Amazing!” 

Raven couldn’t believe it as she glanced into the skies and down below, amazed by everything. 

“W-We are so high! I have never been this high—I have never stepped out of the laboratory at all before, actually! I-It’s… so beautiful!” 

Down below, where the city was, there was an endless, lush forest that spread through the mountains in the distance.

There were green plains where grass grew very tall, decorated by beautiful flowers.

In the distance, Raven noticed enormous and beautiful lakes and countless rivers.

The ruins of humanity’s city were almost completely buried underneath the endless beauty of nature.

A world that Raven was deprived of until her death…

But that now, even as a fragment of a memory, she was finally able to see. 

“It’s so wonderful… I would have never known… if I stayed there forever…” 

Raven cried as she noticed that Mother was there, although different.

She looked like an adult woman made of blue digital data, with long black hair and red eyes.

Indeed, Mother had obtained a Digital Avatar, ascending past her physical limitations into the appearance she envisioned as a “human.” 

“Mom…!” 

Raven and Zero One both reacted at the same time, saying the same words.

And Mother smiled at them, realizing that Zero One and her sisters never lied and that it was indeed the truth.

Slowly, her subconscious regained her complete memories, with all layers cleansed.

She ascended into her true, former self—no, into something even better. 

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