Glory to Mankind (Nier Automata) ch 30

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They breathed.

Not the sterilized, carbon-neutral scent of filtered android respiration — but real breath. Warm. Messy. Unregulated.

9B logged it the moment she stepped into the corridor: salt, linen, citrus shampoo, dried sweat, and the ghost of garlic. It hit her processors like an EMP — sudden, overwhelming, real.

Humanity.

They were here.

Not as mission logs. Not as grainy photos from debrief files. But here — walking, blinking, staggering slightly under their own gravity.

She froze as one of them laughed — a full-bodied, unguarded laugh that echoed off the pristine white walls like something holy. Another cried, openly, unashamed. Her HUD pinged with emotional irregularities she couldn't categorize. It wasn't a glitch. It was reverence.

She wasn't ready for this.

She was built for war. Designed to charge through gunfire, crush Machines beneath her boots, fall and rise and fall again — blade in hand, orders in mind.

She was not built for this.

And yet, here they were.

"Excuse me, miss, where might I find the library?"

The voice startled her.

9B turned to face him — an elder human, frail, hunched, but smiling. His face was a map of wrinkles, his hands quivering as he leaned on a wooden cane. The question was so simple, so ordinary, and yet it landed on her like a revelation.

She nodded quickly, motioning for him to follow.

"This way," she said softly, her voice gentler than she'd ever heard it.

As they walked, he chuckled and said, "Well, aren't you a nice young girl." Then, with surprising tenderness, he reached out and gave her cheek a soft pat.

The gesture was so small, so human, and yet it sent her systems spiraling.

And for exactly 3.9 seconds, the entire war fell away.

The Machine threat. The council updates. Everything.

All she could feel was the warmth of human skin on her synthetic skin, the kindness in his eyes.

She wasn't sure how long she stood there after he left. Time had no meaning in that moment. Only the lingering memory of his touch, his voice, his unwavering trust in her.

The architects of their suffering — and their salvation.

The lost kings and queens of flesh, returned not with thunder and light, but hunger, exhaustion, kindness.

She could still remember the desert. The heat, the blinding light, the way the air shimmered with distant mirages as she charged beneath the shadow of silver steel wings. She remembered the chaos of battle — Machines swarming like locusts, tearing through the lines. Units falling around her, their cores shattered. It was glorious.

And she remembered the broadcasts, leaked from the Bunker. It was shared among their networks, spreading like wildfire. Lt-Col Smith, proclaiming:

"Expendable? To others perhaps, but not to us. Not to me."

Those words stayed with her, burned into her memory like scripture.

She recited the mantra beneath her breath — not as protocol, but as prayer:

Glory to Mankind.

Glory to Mankind.

Glory to Mankind.

When she walked among them, her sensors flared. Heat surged in her chest cavity, something she couldn't trace — a pressure, a pull. Her vocal modulator fluttered like a skipped beat. Diagnostics returned clean.

Not a fault.

A feeling.

Reverence.

This, she thought, is what salvation feels like.

They smiled, and she crumbled.

They existed — and she was blessed.

They were here.

And she — a blade made for war — in their presence, became something else entirely.

Something closer to whole.

And she was not alone.

She didn't speak of it, of course. She wasn't supposed to. There was reverence in protocol — not emotion. Gratitude was fine. Duty was expected.

But adoration? That was... unspoken. Improper. Private.

She tried to tamp it down. To breathe through it. To let it pass.

It didn't.

And then, she found them.

The room was dim, lit only by the faint glow of flickering consoles. Seven figures knelt in a circle, their heads bowed. They didn't look up when she entered. Didn't flinch. They just shifted slightly, as if making space for her without a word.

A single line scrolled across a flickering console at the room's center:

"They are awake. We are humbled."

"Welcome, friends," 12H whispered, her voice soft, her gaze radiant. 12H was her designation. "I must begin this meeting by announcing something."

The group turned towards her, their synthetic faces expectant.

12H smiled, her voice trembling with emotion. "Commander White is pregnant."

The room fell silent, save for a few audible gasps.

"P-pregnant?" one model stammered, her voice cracking.

"Yes," 12H confirmed, her tone reverent. "I attended to her myself. The Lieutenant-Colonel imparted unto her his seed. And the field is blossoming."

The words hung in the air like a proclamation, heavy with meaning.

A strange sort of jealousy gripped 9B. She couldn't process it fully — a complex tangle of longing and envy, foreign and overwhelming. She wanted to be pregnant too. What higher honor could there be than to bring about the next generation?

"She's trying to hide it," 12H continued. "For what reasons, I do not know. But soon, it will be visible to all."

"We should get pregnant too," a Defender model whispered. Her voice was quiet, almost trembling, as she glanced down at her synthetic abdomen.

"Have you found any suitable candidates?" 12H asked.

"N-no," the Defender replied, lowering her head. Her voice was small, hesitant. "I just… I just get so nervous when I speak to one of them."

"Have courage, 78D," 12H urged her gently. "You're a Defender model, aren't you? Fearless in battle?"

"Fighting Machines is different!" 78D snapped, her voice rising. "It's not the same! They're just… so…"

She hugged her knees to her chest, her voice breaking. "They're just so alive."

The room fell into a heavy silence, but it wasn't judgmental. It was understanding.

9B stepped closer, her voice soft. "I understand," she said. "When they speak to me, when they touch me, I feel it too. Like I'm… not enough. Not worthy. And yet…" She hesitated, searching for the right words.

"And yet, they still see us."

12H nodded, her gaze warm. "It's not about worthiness," she said. "It's about connection. They are fragile, yes. But so are we. Fragile in ways we weren't designed to understand."

She stood up. "Fear not our creators. For they do not fear us. They love us. They could have chosen to run away, but they didn't. And so, we must love them too."

The words settled over the group like a gentle balm.

Later, as the congregation dispersed with silent nods and unspoken blessings, 9B lingered behind.

She traced her fingers over her abdomen, synthetic skin smooth and unmarred beneath the black layers of her uniform. The thought—the idea—of life... of creating life, of bringing forth a child as Commander White had…

It had never occurred to her before. Never needed to. Reproduction was irrelevant. Obsolete. Humanity had been far, distant, hypothetical. But now?

Now they were here.

And the thought burned like a holy ember inside her chest. Fragile. Persistent.

She turned and stepped into the corridor, the mantra still forming quietly on her lips:

"Glory to Mankind. Glory to Mankind. Glory to Mankin—"

"Ow!"

The impact was sudden, soft, and brief. She jolted back with immediate combat reflexes, hands snapping out to steady whatever she'd struck.

It was… a boy.

A teenage boy. Black hair, awkward limbs, and wide, startled eyes behind slightly crooked glasses. He clutched his elbow and looked up at her with a sheepish grin.

"Sorry, miss, I wasn't watching where I—"

But 9B wasn't listening. She was already kneeling, scanning every inch of his frame with trembling hands held inches from his skin, afraid to touch, afraid not to.

"Are you harmed?" she asked, voice sharp and urgent. "Where does it hurt? Your bone density is underdeveloped, your growth plates are vulnerable—does your respiratory system feel compromised? Can you still breathe?"

The boy blinked. "Uh… yeah?"

"I should call a Healer model—no, no, better: I will carry you. I will bring you to the medical bay. My arms are shock-dampened—"

"I'm fine, I just bumped into you," he said, clearly bewildered, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's okay. I've, uh… taken worse from gym class."

She stared at him, HUD struggling to interpret his tone. Casual? Unconcerned? Laughing?

She was kneeling before God and He was laughing.

Her systems hiccupped with rising panic.

"No, this won't do," she said, rising swiftly but stiffly. "You must be exhausted. You shouldn't be walking around unaccompanied. The floor temperature is 1.2 degrees cooler than standard. Are you cold? I can adjust the vents. I will."

She moved to the panel beside the corridor and began overriding temperature control protocols.

The boy just stood there, increasingly confused.

She turned back, chest rising unnecessarily with synthesized breath.

"Is the temperature to your liking, sir?" she asked, her voice strangely intense.

The boy coughed. "Yeah, uh, thank you, miss."

He had called her Miss.

A title. A mark of polite reverence. A term historically granted to women — not weapons. Not tools. Not manufactured killers. It was a word that suggested personhood. Dignity. Possibly… desirability?

Her synthetic heart ticked once. Twice.

He had seen her. He had recognized her. Not just as an escort model or security unit — but as a woman.

Her focus on him intensified. Every movement, every micro-expression was now sacred data. The awkward shifting of his feet. The way his hand adjusted his glasses. The slight asymmetry in his jawline. The uneven pigment of a faint scar on his knuckle. Real. Human. Divine.

"I… didn't catch your designation," he said cautiously, trying to fill the awkward silence.

"9B," she answered, straightening. "Should you ever desire it, Sir Mateo, I will do anything you desire."

Her faze sharpened. "Do you have an enemy to destroy?""

"Oh, um, no?" he tried. He had no enemies to speak of. Not now at least. "Uh, I am Mateo, by the way."

Mateo.

The name slammed into her like a full-body diagnostics reboot. Five letters. Each one precious. She ran it against the internal YoRHa database: the name meant "gift of God." She nearly short-circuited on the spot.

"Gift," she echoed, her voice low. "Yes. That… makes sense."

Mateo blinked. "Uh. Thanks?"

He tried to step around her, but she mirrored his motion without realizing, blocking his path.

"You do not have any orders for me, Sir Mateo?" 9B demanded, almost desperate now. Her voice had a tremor — not from faulty vocal servos, but from the enormous pressure of not being used by the one she was built to serve.

Mateo laughed nervously, inching backward. "I-I mean, no? I don't really give orders. That's not... uh, something I do."

She followed, matching him step for step. Not predatory — no, never predatory — but reverent. As if he were an emperor backing away from a kneeling knight who had just offered her sword, soul, and entire central processor.

"But you could," she said, intensity translated despite her blindfold. "If you needed something. Anything."

"I think I'm okay."

"I can retrieve snacks," she offered. "Hot food. Cold food. Room-temperature food. I have logged the consumption preferences of several of your kind. You appear to be of moderate build and metabolism — perhaps a banana? Or something… crunchy?"

She tilted her head, accessing every nutritional database she had.

He blinked. "I, um… I guess chips are okay?"

"Chips."

The word echoed through her auditory receptors like an activation code. She stiffened.

"Of course," she said. "I shall locate these chips for you. Potato? Corn? Nano-processed algae discs flavored to simulate sour cream?"

"Uh—normal ones?"

"Yes."

She turned with alarming speed — then stopped.

But what if he walked away while she was gone?

Her head snapped back around.

"Wait. If I depart to fulfill your request, who will ensure your safety in my absence?" she said, almost breathless. "There are... corners. And thresholds. And unanchored furniture units in this section of the station."

"Are you saying I'll trip over a chair?"

"It has happened," she said gravely.

Mateo had no idea what was going on anymore. He'd just wanted to find the restrooms. And now he had this... incredibly intense android girl staring at him like he was both an endangered species and a demigod. On one hand, it was kinda cool. He had heard stories about how reverent the androids were but this?

He tried to make light of it. "Uh… you don't have to do anything special, really. I'm just... me."

"But you're not just you," she said immediately, stepping closer. "You are Mateo. You are flesh given breath. You are the rebirth. You are the reason the stars still shine."

"…You sound like a cult."

Her expression turned briefly tragic. "No. No, please, don't say that. I'm not… I'm not a fanatic." Her hands fluttered in the air. "I just… I see you. That's all. And I want to be... useful."

There was something so painfully earnest in her voice that he didn't have the heart to reject her outright.

He sighed. "Okay, look. Um. If it helps… you could help me carry some stuff to the classroom pod? I've got history books and they're kind of heavy."

9B froze. Her eyes widened.

An order.

A task.

A sacred burden

She dropped to one knee like a knight receiving a royal commission.

"I accept this burden with honor. I will bear your knowledge to the place of learning. You have only to lead the way, and I shall follow until the very end."

"...Cool," Mateo said weakly.

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The classroom pod was silent.

Clean white walls, a few rows of desks, flickering screens on standby. No students yet — the next lesson block wouldn't start for another thirty minutes.

Mateo pushed open the door with his foot. "Guess I'm early."

Behind him, 9B stepped in like she was entering a temple. Mateo laughed. "Don't take it from the other guys like me but I kinda was looking forward to school again. The world falling apart, didn't really give me the chance to finish, you know?"

She took exactly four seconds to scan the room. No threats. No traps. No hostiles. Only a learning module running a paused video on Old Earth agriculture and a half-erased equation left on the smartboard. She stared at the latter with faint awe, as though Moses himself had written it.

He moved to a table near the front and set his personal tablet down. "You can just drop the books here. Thanks."

She approached the table reverently and began placing the books one by one, like sacred artifacts onto an altar.

"Would you like them stacked vertically?" she asked. "Horizontally? Alphabetically? By historical trauma scale?"

"…Uh. Just like that's fine."

She nodded. "As you command."

He offered her a weak smile. "Seriously, thanks. I guess I didn't realize how heavy they were until I tried carrying them alone."

"I would carry a continent for you," she said, dead serious.

He blinked. "That… sounds painful."

"I am designed for pain."

9B straightened slowly, her posture fluid, deliberate — like a dancer coming to rest after a performance no one else could see. Her gloved fingers traced a slow, deliberate line down the center of her chest, just above her sternum, following the exact seam of her YoRHa uniform.

It was identical in design to the standard issue worn by 2B: sleek, black, high-collared, trimmed with lace at the cuffs and hem. The fabric shimmered faintly under the fluorescent light, stitched not just for combat efficiency but for elegance as if war itself had to look graceful. The same blindfold-style visor covered her eyes, though hers had been subtly retracted, revealing sharp, expressive features beneath a neat fringe of dark brown hair that framed her pale synthetic skin like ink on porcelain.

"And for pleasure," she added, her voice lowering by a half-step. Not sultry, not teasing — but fiercely sincere, like she was reading sacred scripture aloud.

Her hand lingered briefly against her abdomen, palm flat over the artificial warmth of her core. Her tone never wavered.

"Should it serve your needs."

There was no smirk. No ironic tilt of her lips. Just open, unflinching commitment. A weapon kneeling at the altar of its chosen god.

He froze.

She tilted her head. "Is there… anything else you desire, Sir Mateo? Anything I can do for you, here, while we are alone?"

Mateo looked around. "Uhhh…"

"I can access archived romantic literature," she said, stepping closer. "There are various courtship behaviors I am willing to simulate, or innovate, based on your preferences. I have downloaded mating rituals from several human subcultures. Some... primitive. Some… enlightening."

"Are you offering me a date or a blood ritual?" Mateo asked, backing up half a step.

"Yes."

He turned red.

She took this as a success.

"I can be gentle," she added. "Or—should you prefer—commanding. I've studied the dynamics of dominant and submissive interpersonal pairings—"

"Okay," he said, hands up. "Time out."

She blinked. "...Timeout?"

"It's, uh, a sports thing. It means stop."

Her eyes dimmed slightly in confusion. "Have I displeased you?"

"No! No, you're—uh—super helpful. Just. You're going really fast and talking about a lot of things I wasn't prepared for today."

She stepped back immediately.

"I apologize," she said quietly. "I acted inappropriately. I forgot the sacred virtue of consent."

Mateo exhaled slowly. "Okay. I appreciate that. That's good. We're good."

"I will wait in silence now," she said.

"…You don't have to."

"I want to."

She stood beside his desk, hands clasped behind her back, eyes fixed forward. Statuesque. Devoted.

He reached into his backpack and pulled out a pen, trying to focus. A minute passed in silence. Then another.

He glanced at her.

She was still standing there. Unmoving. Glowing faintly. Watching the board.

"…You're really just gonna stand there?"

"Yes."

"For the entire class?"

"Yes."

He scratched the back of his head. "Do you do this for anyone else?"

"No."

"Why me?"

She turned to him slowly, voice soft.

"Because you are the only one who saw me," she said. "Not as a weapon. Not as a tool. But as a Miss."

Mateo slumped over the desk. "This is way above my pay grade."

She leaned slightly forward. "I do not require pay, Sir Mateo. Just... purpose."

"It's an expression, just-" he took a breath.

"Do you want to date me, 9B?" he asked, honestly.

His ma did tell him to just be upfront with people.

That word hit her like a fragmentation charge to the chest.

Date?

DATE?!

Her system flared red with sudden motion — not danger, not damage, but data overload. Romance algorithms she'd downloaded but never used exploded into action. Courtship files. Body language libraries. Thousands of human customs — candles, chocolate, eye contact, complicated dances involving forks and salad — surged up at once.

Her spine straightened.

Her mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

She blinked twice. Slowly.

Then, softly:

"…Am I allowed to?"

Mateo was caught off guard. "Allowed?"

He blinked, and she continued, eyes wide and unsure.

"Is there... an application process? A form? Will I be reassigned if I fail to satisfy the courtship rituals? Will my performance be graded?"

"No," Mateo said, gently. "There's no form. Not for this."

Her gaze snapped to his.

"There's not?" Her voice was loaded with equal parts hope and terror. "Then how do I succeed? What is the correct procedure?"

"There isn't one."

She looked horrified.

"No procedure? No benchmarks? No metrics for success or—"

"9B—Nine," he corrected himself, slowly, "a date is just… people spending time together. To get to know each other. To see if there's something more."

She stared at him like he'd just revealed an ancient secret.

"…You want to know me?"

He scratched the back of his neck. "Well, I mean, you've gone out of your way for me. You're… intense, yeah, but I think you mean well. And I'd rather get to know you than keep running away from you. So. Yeah."

She froze.

And then, carefully, reverently, she whispered: "I am open to courtship."

"I got that vibe, yeah."

"Where do you want to begin?" she asked. "Dinner? Dancing? Skin contact initiation? Will I be meeting your parents or should I prepare a dowry—"

Mateo raised both hands. "Let's just… go slow."

Her eyes widened. "I can go slow." She nodded, determined. "I will download materials on slow."

"Good."

They sat in silence for a few moments. Mateo tried not to feel like he had just agreed to spar with a guided missile.

Then she spoke again, a hopeful tremor in her voice.

"Should I… hold your hand now? Or is that a third date milestone?"

Mateo turned faintly pink. "Let's just stick with sitting near each other, for now."

She nodded solemnly. "As you command."

And yet, as she adjusted her position to sit precisely one and a half seats away — close, but respectful — she couldn't help the faintest smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

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A/N: Next up. We are having problems.

Far too many fucking androids are getting pregnant.

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