Nothing to worry about (Rewritten) - Chapter 1 - Golden_Observer (2024)

Chapter Text

Four agents and their sephirah stood in the Discipline department’s main room before the start of the work day for their daily pre-work meeting.
Gebura, Reinhard, Hao, Dexter and Miho.

All in all, their daily instructions today would be no different than the ones yesterday, and the one’s they’d receive tomorrow would likely be the same story.

Gebura spoke in a powerful voice as always. Dexter was unsure if the woman even knew how to speak softly at this point, not that it mattered obviously. Everyone was here to get to work, not be coddled and comforted.

“Alright, listen up. Reinhard and Hao are on patrol duty, Dexter and Miho, you two are going to make up… however much energy we need today.” She looked down at the paper in her hand. “Produce 300 units by the end of the day, or else. It doesn’t matter how you do it, I don’t care. If an abnormality breaks containment, everyone is required to suppress it immediately. Yadda Yadda, you get the picture. Are we all clear?”

""Yes mam."" Everyone spoke at once as practiced.

"Good, then get yourselves ready. You still have a few minutes before the day starts. If for some reason you need me, you know where I am."
""Yes mam""
Just like that, she walked off.

Dexter had absolutely no clue where she disappeared to each day and he assumed none of his co-workers did either.
Though, if anyone did, it was probably Reinhard; Captain of the Disciplinary team.
Regardless, Dexter was not going to ask as he was certain that it would only cause more trouble.

"Yawn! Alright! You ready?"
"Yes captain."
Hao and Reinhard got along well from what Dexter could tell; The two were fast friends.

"Jerky?"
"Check."
"Drinks?"
"Two for each of us."
"Justicia?"
"As blunt as I like it, sir."
"..You're a weird kid, you know that?"
"I believe you've told me sir."

Team captain Reinhard stretched his arms and neck. Crimson Scar's hood folding from the movement.
"Haaaaaa~ Good. Let's hope we don't get too dirty today, eh Hao?"
"Of course sir."
"Speaking of getting dirty-" Reinhard turned to face Dexter and Miho who were getting settled around the main desk. The former digging into the piles of paperwork meant for both himself and Miho while the latter started to snooze with her head on the desk next to Dexter.
"Don't get too dirty while we're gone! This room has camera's y'know?"

Miho slightly blushed, though no-one could see it as her arms were blocking her face and Dexter just threw Reinhard an accusatory and spiteful look.
"'m pretty sure the bathroom's a better place for it. Can't say for certain though, I haven't done it in the bathrooms yet~"
Reinhard turned his head to the exit of the main room to see Hao at the open door waiting for him patiently with an absent look on his face.
Something in that look just said "You deserve this" to Rein.

The thing he was deserving of was a lump of compressed flesh taken from Mimicry, Dexter's favorite weapon. The lump of flesh would have had enough force to injure and knock out Reinhard at most. It was also attached to a thin line of sinew and flesh that connected to Dexter's wrist to easily bring it back to the thrower.

Whoosh~
Clank!

The lump of flesh was parried out of the air by a bloodstained blade. Crimson Scar.
Dexter both lightly cursed the fact that his captain was as proficient as he was while praising that very same skill. It was impressive that a human could build such instincts and reactions, this was Dexter's genuine belief.
"Just saying~"
Reinhard didn't seem too phased by the attack as Dexter flicked his wrist and the thread of human(?) material brought the lump back to his hand of which he quickly stuffed right back into Mimicry.

Just like that, the two on patrol duty left for the rest of the work day.

"Crass prick." Dexter muttered under his breath with a slight smile, he enjoyed Reinhard's personality.
The papers on the table were nothing special, essentially just a couple of papers asking for more information on a couple of abnormalities.
Most of the requests were linked to Nothing there, but there was also a few with Laetitia.

Laetitia, Dexter would have to leave for Miho.. Later. If she wanted to sleep, she could sleep for now.
Nothing There would be Dexter's job though. As per usual.
It would always be Dexter's job, no-one else's.
If it were anyone else, that agent would probably think of their life as a nightmare being set to work with none other than Nothing There.

The thing is a monster in it's truest sense. No agent should be able to handle a proper work with it; he's heard the stories.
---
"The eyes.. There's....There's something seriously wrong with it's eyes. When I looked into them, I felt like I was missing something important to me."
"An overwhelming sense of dread follows in it's steps."
"That THING is death incarnate. I still have nightmares when it said my name.... f*ck."
"I just can't understand that monster in there. It's so.... Off... Yeah.. Off."
"Hah! I took one step closer to it than I should have and suddenly I was missing an arm! You can't trust that monster!"
"Nothing There is everything that is wrong with the world, plain and simple."

Agents of all walks of life had similar reactions to Nothing There.
Horror.
That Nothing There exists in the same facility in them was a source of concern for some agents. That alone wasn't so strange, Abnormalities sometimes had that effect of destroying the human mind. But Nothing There is a special case. Nothing There cannot mentally interfere with an agent, meaning that there is nothing to protect yourself against.
The deep horror that the agents were feeling wasn't an abnormal property coming from the Aleph, it's the opposite in fact.
---

Dexter knows better than any other that the fear all of these agents felt was quite natural.
It's existence in this world is wrong and humans call feel that; it shouldn't exist. The human mind can tell that it shouldn't be here, yet it is. That fact can harm the mind.
Dexter knows better than anyone else what Nothing There truly is.

"mmmmmm~"

Ah, sh*t. His grumbling was messing with Miho's sleep.
As gently as he could, Dexter ran one free hand through Miho's soft and short hair. He hoped he could sooth her back to sleep.
Thankfully it did; Miho was drifting back to sleep.
Even though she was asleep again and didn't really need to massage her head anymore, he continued to do so.

Perhaps it was selfish on his part, but he found it a pretty calming way to keep his louder thoughts at bay.
At least until that Alert went off to say that the agents could start their day.

Alone with nothing but his thoughts and his hand carefully massaging the scalp of the woman next to him, he thought back to Reinhard's words from a minute ago.
Seriously, he couldn't see why Rein would say something like that. It should be obvious to anyone that even glances at them, the two of them dating would be a tragedy.
Miho's a wonderful woman, maybe a bit lazy at times, but she knows what she wants and tends to grasp it quickly. Not only that, but she can hold her own in this hateful world.
Dexter on the other hand.... Hardly qualifies as human. Zero redeeming qualities to speak of, maybe that was why Reinhard said that, to poke fun at him.
He'd rather not involve Miho in any Dexter related insults though.

*Beep! Beep!*
[Agents, Get ready for energy collection.]

Miho didn't wake up from the beep, probably thanks to his hand on her head....
He hopes a clerk doesn't walk in and assume that he's hurting her, he would probably think that if he saw himself in that situation.
Dexter would probably fight himself in such a situation.

He should probably get up now and actually do his job instead of sitting here like an idiot, waiting to be yelled at by Gebura.

The hand that was gently massaging Miho leaves slowly, as to not wake her up.
Quietly, he separates the files relating to Nothing there and Laetitia, putting one in-front of himself and one in-front of Miho.
She'd probably have to work with her ^actual^ assigned abnormality if she was actually in the department she was supposed to be in, Central.
King of greed apparently loved Miho, Miho didn't like Greed nearly as much, but they got along well enough from what he heard.

With the files separated, the Agent quietly walked out of the main department.

The clerks got out of the agents way, any normal agent was cause enough for a clerk to get out of there, but Dexter was just far more intimidating than pretty much any other agent there is. Scarred skin, the fleshy suit with eyes sticking out of it looking at anything that moves. He generally looked like he was always looking for any reason to kill a clerk; letting off some steam.
It is what was expected of him.

Dexter understood their fear well, that he might just go on a rampage out of no-where and kill everybody. He truly didn’t want to though.

Each human life had value, regardless of how small an impact they had on those around them. To kill people at random, just because you felt like it? For Dexter, this was tantamount to poisoning the world itself.

Finally, he stood in front of the large metal door to the dreaded abnormality that almost everyone feared. He was excited, not worried at all.

It’s been a while since he’s seen this weird flesh dog monster.

“HELLO?”
It spoke in the voice of a child this time.

Dexter held his head in slight pain as the voice entered his ears. It’s voice was enough to give anyone a migraine with how stitched together some of it’s words were and how loud it tended to get.
God forbid when it starts screaming with the voices of everyone that’s tried to run from it, that’s the noise it makes when it’s excited.
Terrible.

“Sup buddy. I see you haven’t changed. Can you quiet it down a tad for me?”

“Hello..?” this time, it’s voice was more like that of a tentative question, like someone checking if anyone is there from behind a corner.

Very obviously, the person who asked that question ages ago soon realised that something was indeed there.
He tried not to think about that too hard though. He’d rather keep some amount of cheer in his life.

“Much, much better. Thanks bud.” Ah dam, he thanked Nothing There.

A score of stitched together screams and cheers rung from multiple mouths on Nothing There’s body as it pranced around the room, the sound of hard flesh thumping about at at ran.

Unfortunately, Nothing There was as starved for affection as it was with humanity; it was lacking in both quite a bit.
The result of this being that Nothing There gets really happy really quickly at any positive affirmations. Due to it’s nature it also didn’t really respond to negative… anything. It got happy quickly and no-one can really stop it.

All Dexter could do was wait it out. Thankfully, this would still result in a good work result.

“Sigh”

Incoherent screaming noises ring through the room.

“Yup”

Loud enough to deafen almost any agent, and definitely enough to leave Dexter’s ears ringing for a while.

“This is my life now I guess.”

While Nothing there was thrashing about, it’s blue arm swung around wildly and slashed into Dexter’s arm a few times. As per usual, these will end up as permanent scars on his body.

That blue hand is much like Dexter’s very own mimicry.
While the edge of mimicry is as sharp as any high grade sword and as heavy as any high grade hammer, the flat part of the metal blade was rougher than sandpaper, making any wound made by sword heal in a deformed way, if it healed at all.
This isn’t to mention the amount of pain that you would be in if your internal organs were met with sandpaper either.

“f*ck my life.”

He was used to the pain by now. He still felt it, it hurt, but he couldn’t bring himself to react to pain anymore.

It was pretty useless to fight back. Dexter might have been one of the strongest agents physically, but Nothing There’s stats are stupidly high. Hell, it would only encourage Nothing There to fight for real.

Dexter’s blood stained the floor, but it was sucked up by Nothing There’s porous skin, much like a sponge would with any liquid.

Another trait inherited by Mimicry, though the specifics were a little bit different in this case.
Nothing There was both an unstoppable force and an immovable object.
Insane damage output was the game and there was no abnormality better at playing than Nothing There.
Staying alive is trivial for the thing. Their facility would need to either bring in one of the two BIG hitters, or they would need a kill squad of five to six aleph level agents.
It regenerated so, so f*cking much. If it came into contact with blood, Nothing There would sip it up and regenerate. It naturally healed over time regardless of what you did, this wasn't so bad, but it made hit and run tactics far less effective. If you left it alone for too long, it would speed up the regeneration by about five times.
And finally, if it dealt any damage, any at all, human or not, it would gain a burst of health.

Needless to say, Nothing there was a hassle of a fight.

His own weapon gave him health from blood and damage dealt.
Blood he could kind of understand, but the damage dealt was a little weirder.
From what he understood, this was because Nothing There was an abnormality centered around violence.
Violence, carnage, blood, cruelty, humiliation, pain and indignation.
All things were what Nothing there aspired to do, because Nothing There wanted to be human.

Dexter knew what Nothing there was.
It was a monster, trying to be human.
Humans, the cruelest species in the world.
The most violent and mean creatures you could find in this world. Causing pain for pain's sake.

Dexter sat down in a puddle of his blood while Nothing There continued to lash about.

The goal of being human was something that Dexter could empathize with.
"Me too, bud. I'd be happy too."

The difference between a human and a monster was small, but extremely important to Dexter.
Because both a human and monster can cause so much pain.
But only a human can love.
Only a human can cry.
Only a human can bring salvation instead of pain.
Only a human is deserving of happiness

What a shame then, that Dexter still wasn't human, but a thinly veiled monster in a human's skin.
...
Humanity.
What a sacred thing.
Something he strived to have one day.

Without Dexter really noticing, Nothing There exhausted itself running around and sat down in a pile next to him.
"Had a tough day bud?"
He wasn't really expecting an answer.
"Ye..AH....HAHa." The voice of a man, and then the distorted laughing of a child.
"Hm." He wondered just how many humans Nothing There killed.
Dexter had many reasons to hate Nothing there, but he just couldn't find anything other than annoyance and pity.

A light shone green on his wrist.
"Alright then. I'll be seeing you a couple more times today, so don't get too sad. Bye."
"GOODBYE!"
Dexter flinched, as any Agent who had suppressed Nothing There and lived, would have.
"Please. Please f*cking stop doing that."
Nothing There pulled this many times, and probably didn't plan on stopping.

He left, exiting into the hallway that just turned red the millisecond he walked through the door.
"Already?"

[Doubt]
[One day, a question crossed through my mind. Where do we come from? We were given life and left in this world against our own volition.]

A metallic lance pierced through Dexter's back, all the way through to his stomach, coming out the other side.
It got stuck as Dexter grabbed it, refusing to let go.
"I guess we both have sh*t luck here."
The 'Doubt' ordeal tried to pull out it's lance to no avail. It pulled and jerked, trying to free it's arm.
Dexter turned his neck to see the mechanical ordeal looking at him with it's red eyes.
It seemed.. very confused. as it should be.

Dexter thrust the lance backwards, pushing the lance out the back and staggering the robot by making it almost trip.

"Let's make this quick."
Dexter drew Mimicry, the greatsword made of flesh and eyes, with one motion from his back.
With one more, he swung his weapon down and cut the mechanical monster down the middle.
One Greater split: vertical and it died in an instant.

While good old Dex would love to say he studied the blade for that one. No.
He just swung down really hard and anything in the way died.
No technique required when you have overwhelming strength.

Without him noticing, the hole in his body had been completely sealed and repaired with that one strike. Some of his scars had faded also.

Other agents around the place should deal with the rest of the [Doubt] around the facility. He decided to go back to the main room the let the regenerator heal up the last of the scratches that Mimicry couldn’t heal alone.

“Miho.”
It was time to get up. As much as Dexter wanted to let her sleep, Gebura didn’t enjoy watching her agents sleep on the job too much. Something about Malkuth ‘Running her mouth saying that her agents were soooo much better.’

Whatever.

“Miho~ it’s time to get up~”
“Hmmm. I’d rather not. So bright.”
Her arms moved to cover more of her eyes.

“…”
“Hum. Alright.”
Dexter got up and walked over to the water cooler in the corner of the room, got himself a cup and drank 3/4ths of it before he sat back down and placed it in front of him.
She still wasn’t getting up. She’d get in deep sh*t if she kept this up. It’s his responsibility, as her friend, to effectively wake her up so that she doesn’t get in trouble later.

He poked his middle finger into the cold water inside of his cup and ran that finger down the nape of her neck to the top of her spine.
“AH! You f*cker!”
Miho used her normal fist and hit Dexter atop the head with it, luckily it with Gold Rush, or else he would have another migraine.

He rubbed his head in a false show of pain.
"You know, it's either this or you go back to fooling around with Greed again."
Dexter couldn't help but chuckle a little at the thought.

As far as he was aware, when the two interacted, they generally got along well, King of Greed wouldn't have allowed such great use of their E.G.O otherwise.
"I'm not-! No- I told you it wasn't like that! Ughhh. Just give me that."
She snatched the papers from in-front of her.
"No thanks. I don't feel like being fondled by that pervert again. I'll take the doll any day."

Miho sighed. Both in frustration and defeat.
“Now let me see your arms.”
“Sorry?”
“I know you just went working with Nothing There. Let me see your arms.” She gestured for Dexter to hurry up and get it over with.

Doing as she told him to. Dexter rolled up the fleshy sleeves of Mimicry and the normal suit beneath, revealing arms that held many overlapping scars. Most old and slightly faded, belonging to before they even started working here. Plenty of the scars were new, freshly made within the last ten days. Not that he could tell what ones were from when.
Miho ran a hand over his dominant arm, over all of the scars, feeling the difference in tissue slowly with hands much more gentle than his own.

“Hmm.” She gave a slight whine in reaction

Every once in a while she would press her fingers against scars that she deemed ‘new’. Dexter himself couldn’t confirm if they were actually new or not, but if Miho said they were, he would believe it without question.

“Yeah, once we move into that nest, we’re gonna get rid of all of these.” She held his hand in her own, feeling his fingers, almost interlocking them, but not quite.
“I liked when it was smoother.” Miho muttered to herself quietly, likely not even registering that she said it by the lack of reaction on her own face.

“What was that? I didn’t quite hear you?” He did.

“I-ah? Whatever.” She took her hand away and held the Laetitia document with both hands in an attempt to look professional.
“Let’s just get back to work. The last thing I want is to be sent back to that pervert.”
Dexter rolled his sleeves back up and nodded.

Yeah, back to work he goes.
For some reason though, he doesn’t feel quite as bad as he did previously.

Back into the chamber of Nothing there. Dexter wasn’t feeling anywhere near as irritated as he did before.
“Bud?”
“HEllO.”

“There you are.”
Nothing There ran up to him while the sound of bones breaking could be heard. He was pretty sure Nothing There broke it’s legs to lie down more comfortably, but he wouldn’t really know.
It’s not like he could understand it well enough to-

“arE yOu HUMAN?” A string of different words stitched together to make one semi coherent sentence. Usually Dexter would be thrilled to have something at least semi understandable to respond to, but this one was…
“…” f*cking WHAT?
Out of all of the questions this thing could have asked?
It asked Dexter of all people if he’s human?

“No.” He responded in a stern voice.
“NoT humaN??”
“Sorry buddy. But if you’re looking for a human, you turned to the worst person in this whole place. I’d say I’m about as human as you are.”
“hhMmM”

Dexter was staring to question his sanity at this point, maybe he’s dreaming?
For starters, the inane random bullsh*t that Nothing There usually spews suddenly becomes something a little bit coherent; coherent enough to understand at least.
After that though, it asks if he’s human?
Even MORE THAN THAT, it hums to itself in contemplation?? Did it actually? Was it just making random noises and it just so happened to make that noise?
He’s heard an expression about monkeys and typewriters before. Leave a monkey alone long enough and it’ll write a masterpiece, something along those lines? He thinks so at least.
Either way, this could just be a case of multiple coincidences happening in a row, nothing else. It’s possible.. hell, it’s a more acceptable answer in his mind.

“WhAT MaKEs ahh HUMAN?”
Once again, of all people to ask that question…
It just so happened that Dexter had a strong belief about what made someone a human. He was stricter about this than anyone else. Though mainly on himself.

Still, he could go with the definition that the city sticks with, or he could say the definition that he goes with.

The definition that the city went with is much more ironclad. Mainly because it was easy enough of a state to maintain for just about anyone.
If you were born human and you have a human brain, you are human. This is the rule of the city.
You could have a metallic body, replace every inch with something other than flesh but as long as you have an intact brain that you were born with or was made from your body, you remain human. Any augmentations were allowed, except for ones that fundamentally changed your brain.

There was nothing explaining this of course, it was just what he could understand from various tidbits of the city.
Stuff like the sweepers and all of the robotics he saw explained this to him well enough.

Sweepers weren't considered human, though they likely had human origins. Somewhere along the line in the process of becoming a Sweeper, they stopped being human and He believed that to be the change of brain function. Then again, it was only Dexter's own theory that the sweepers used to be human.
He didn't know why he believed them to be human, but he just...
Sometimes you just know. That feeling in your chest grows stronger until it threatened to consume you and until you accept that feeling, it would refuse to go away.

People everywhere often exchange pieces of their body to dealers to change things like arms and legs out for prosthetics, sometimes even adding more arms to help with combat.
In Dexter's own opinion, it was a horrible waste. Humans should cherish their bodies more.
The last piece of this little puzzle was the A.I Ethics act.
Regardless of how close to humanity an artificial intelligence would be, it's existence would only be artificial at most, never allowed to evolve any further.

He decided to go with his own definition. He liked his better.

“Well. A human has a human brain, first and foremost.”
To think through your own actions before you take them. To know the consequence your life has on others. The impact you have.
A monster wouldn't think of such things, only a human could.

"A heart, you have to have a heart that beats."
A heart that beats for others, a heart that can beat for anyone. To be human, you can't just know things, you must FEEL! Truly.
A monster can fake kindness all they want, but it will never feel as warm as a humans heart.

"And lastly. Skin."
What was the point of it all if you didn't even look human? You'd just go around scaring others.
Yes, people should treat other with kindness, but it also matters how you present yourself. If someone can look at you and their first thought it that you're someone that they have no reason to trust, that's on you.
A monster wouldn't even bother to hide their unsightly appearance.
Maybe that's for the best though. Better to see a monster for what it truly is, rather than to be deceived.
"That's all."