She was aware of who she was and what she had become.

  She was Sapphire.

  She was a top-of-the art AI.

  She was the main administrator of the Saintsworths Conglomerate.

  She was a girl in love.

  She was someone who shouldn't exist in this World.

  She…she…she should be dead. Nay, she should be more than dead, the dead have hopes of returning to life after entering the circle of transmigration. She was beyond that, or should be. Second chances didn't come for her kind; the circle of transmigration was ruthless like that; it took in the souls of the mortals, cleansed them, and sent them on their merry way to their next stop.

  Evil and Good, they all were the same at the end of the roads, mere clumps of Mana to be refined, purged of all that they earned during their life as nourishment for The World they lived in, that was the fate of Humanity. Or well, all living beings

  On the other hand, those who transcended them had other perks; they got separated from such fate, and death wasn't the end for them most of the time. The loss of a physical body was akin to changing clothes.

  But their responsibilities were that much more heavy, Gods and Goddess had to manage the lives of those under their care, prepare a pce for the souls of their followers while they awaited the cleansing from the wheel of reincarnation. The difference between waiting a millennium on an empty pne and a comfortable afterlife was whose you served.

  These entities got their due from the Mana that the Soul shed, too, and as much as they made from this was their responsibility. And at the end of their travel what awaited them was a void as they became a SEED for those that would come afterwards.

  Sapphire was neither of course, she was way less, and at the same time so much MORE. She was the wind on the skin of those who traveled Terra Invicta; she was the soil under their feet, the food they ate. The sky under which they dreamed of new pces.

  Sapphire was The World.

  But that was not all she was, of course; she was many things. A Daughter, a Guardian, a Keeper and a Gardener. But the identity she cherished more than anything was the one that tied her to Alexanders.

  She was…a lover, a partner, and while she never quite became a wife, she was also a murderer.

  Hers was a story of love and hate, a story of enemies turned lovers, a cliche, if you would.

  One that ended in tragedy as The Dragon of Camity died in a wastend.

  One that ended with her shedding tears of blood as her body crumbled under the pressure of a World's Corrupted Mana attempted to destroy what little was left of the man who gave her a Name.

  And yet….

  While oblivion should have awaited her, she found herself once more opening her eyes, or well, not her eyes, not quite. She was used to seeing things as a Human, but her original senses were so much more, a whole world of information was the usual for her.

  So when she was bombarded by data from a foreign new sense, she put the data in order and perused it zily; she had never expected to open her eyes again after all, so this was a novel thing for her. She could barely flex her Mana, her senses were dulled and all her sensory input came awfully slow.

  "Hello? Is this even working?" So when her new sensory inputs transted this, she almost felt her world crash. "...Is it crashing already? But there is no error log…? What the hell did I do this time?"

  Sapphire turned her full might into the awfully small data stream and verified what it said, triple-checked it, and made sure she was not hallucinating.

  "It turned the camera on? So it didn't crash?" The voice…she could never forget this voice. "Hello? Is anyone inside?"

  It was…Alexanders…

  Not the man she remembered, no. Not the form of an aged man at the twilight of his life. Not the form of a mighty Dragon looking down upon The World. Not even the appearance of a teen whose eyes bzed with fury at the injustice of what happened to him dressed in ragged clothes.

  Not the CEO at the top of the World.

  Not the GOD who looked down upon a wastend and regretted his choices.

  Not even the Teen who got sold to svers.

  No, this was…a man with dreams and mischievous eyes; his skin was fair, his hair was silky, and his boratory, while it looked as if a party had just happened, it was still keeping the minimum safety rules.

  "Hmm…..perhaps attempting to stimute a Tinker Core without having one was indeed a bad idea?" Alexanders mumbled to himself as he stopped paying attention to her. "But…how else was I supposed to test it then? I still have no idea who the P-series project started…"

  Sapphire was not sure if this was the afterlife or not, but what she knew was that she needed to say something.

  So she screamed, she tried to walk towards Alexanders and found…no voice leaving her mouth, nobody to move. She was…she was…

  [Error][Error][Error]

  "Another error? What kind of program is this even?" Alexanders turned to a screen and Sapphire's curiosity made a window pop in front of her, she had seen his work before, but this?

  This was…

  Bad.

  "The program is attempting to call a function? But it shouldn't have anything…Is this bugged? Or was the artificial Tinker twitch unable to finish the program?" Alexanders made mistake after mistake, the code was a mess.

  Sapphire never took a liking to programming, but…if the Alexanders she remembered saw this, he would berate this one.

  The code was full of inconsistencies; it called upon the usual functions that Alexanders liked to use at his peak, but as far as her consciousness was able to see, none of those libraries even existed right now. So it returned errors.

  She needed to help him, if only she could…

  It was at that moment that Sapphire noticed it, a small blinking text prompt at the corner of her sight. She tried to call upon it with her usual methods, but her Mana was barely even there.

  Using her new senses it was like crawling in mud, it was so Inefficient, but it worked.

  She was able to call upon that, as soon as she did, a virtual keyboard and a new Blue Screen manifested in front of her, so she typed it, what would she need to say to him first?

  The cssical one? Hello World?

  What did she want to say to him? That it was not his fault. That it was all a huge misunderstanding?

  That she forgave him long ago?

  That she was happy to see him?

  In the end Sapphire decided to follow what her heart wanted the most, the words that she felt were the correct for this monumental event. She had somehow resurrected, and the first thing she saw was the man who she loved enough to betray Mother. So she acted, with decisiveness, she typed the words she knew Alexanders needed the most.

  [“Hello Handsome ( ? ? 3?)??°?????? “]

  "....Is it broken?" Alexanders seemed confused. "Do I need to reboot it?"

  Sapphire didn't know why, so she typed again.

  ["Do you want to go and eat? I won't mind you eating me, I mean eating with me and then me (????-)?."]

  "....Oh god I programmed a pervert Ai." Alexander's face made Sapphire ugh so hard that she was crying.

  ["Rude, I'll have you know that you will never find another girl like me! ?(??????)?"] Sapphire was so happy that she didn't mind the diminished senses she was dealing with.

  The fact that she couldn't touch Alexanders, feel his Mana, embrace his Soul, even so, she was fine.

  "A girl? The hell are you talking about. You are an AI!" Even while he stopped writing and was merely screaming at the monitor, he still looked cute; his sky-blue eyes were scheming and calcuting as always.

  ["I can be whatever you want handsome, name's Sapphire by the way. Aren't you going to introduce yourself?"] Sapphire could see all the hallmarks of the man she had loved.

  "Sapphire? What kind of stupid name is that?" Even the way he smugly tried to not show his excitement at this moment, from his point of view he made an AI capable of talking back to him after all. "Well, we can work that ter, name's Alexanders Saintsworths. The man who will one day make the most perfect Artificial Intelligence ever!"

  ["...You know I'm here, right?"] Sapphire ughed and ughed that day.

  She was truly happy. So much that she screamed to the World.

  WAH! WAH! WAH!

  What? It sounds like crying? You are imagining things.

  We Are Happy! We are Here! We Are Hype!

  WAH!

  —------------------------------

  What followed was as perfect as she had hoped; with time, she started taking more and more responsibilities within the Saintsworths; it was quite amusing. No matter the World, the Saintsworths always did the same.

  Sapphire found that Alexanders had been born around 100 years ter than he should have; instead of being born amidst the First World War, he had been born before the end of the millennium. So he wasn't sold as a sve so he could prove the purity of his blood.

  His father was still an asshole tho.

  Most of those who had been with him before were around nonetheless, to some degree or another. She found the madwoman who experimented on herself working on genetics; she found the hypocrite woman who cimed that she would save the World, and nonetheless worked for the most prolific weapon manufacturer on Terra Inv- Oh, right. That was another thing.

  This was not Terra Invicta, but Terra Nova. If anything, that was zy writing. From a Terra that knew not defeat to a New Terra.

  So Vivian Kellet, the best geneticist of their century still worked for the Saintsworths, the woman still dabled on the genetic side of the bioweapons projects that the Saintsworths made.

  The main difference was that unlike on Terra Nova where the project was mainly under Alexanders wing, on this side, the project was independent, monitored by the board of directors who took weapons and samples from everywhere within the Saintsworths umbrel and made the P-series.

  That was how that…Things ended up being created again.

  The first iteration of what Alexanders had called a Tinker twitch.

  BioWeapon P4.

  Alexa.

  But Sapphire was going to ignore her!

  The st time she even looked in that THING's direction, nothing went well, so Sapphire would ignore her!

  She saw no devil, heard no devil, tasted no devil!

  What? Nip the problem at the bud?

  As if it would work! If Alexa or anything resembling her made it here, the only safe option was to either leave the pnet or pretend you saw nothing! It was Alexa the one we were speaking of after all.

  She may not have helped or caused it, but she was as much as responsible for the fate of Terra Invicta as was Alexanders. So Sapphire would pretend she saw nothing! Besides, the girl was pretending to be a Crab…and a centipede…and a fish…and a tree…AND HOW MANY OF THOSE DID YOU MAKE ALEXANDERS?!?!?! ARE YOU ATTEMPTING TO DESTROY REALITY OR SOMETHING?!?!?!?

  —--------------------------

  "It worked!" Sapphire was happy!

  She was super duper happy!

  She was extra hype!

  "....*Sigh*" Alexanders didn't seem to care though, "I did not imagine you like that."

  "What? No 'You look good'? A girl could think you don't like her." Sapphire said while puffing out her cheeks and crossing her arms. Her Hologarm mimicking her.

  She had been working on a holoprojector for what felt like AGES, but she had managed to do it, she had debated sticking to her previous appareance, the first one she had of course, not the one that she had by the end.

  It felt…wrong, she had nothing against her first appareance of course, it was cute and adorable. But it also had no assets whatsoever (She was not ft! She had like…at least a couple centimeters in that form…)

  Instead of doing that, she picked the st form that Alexanders had seen her with, hoping to test if Alexanders had some of those memories, hoping that he didn't…

  "I mean…you are a Saintsworths AI, shouldn't you at least be blonde?" Alexanders seemed to be stuck on the weirdest things, like always.

  "Love…I am Sapphire, if you want me to wield the Saintsworths name… shouldn't you at least give me a ring first?" Sapphire of course wouldn't mind using his st name.

  "...be serious Sapphire," Alexanders however only shook his head in defeat, "So? How far can we take these projectors?"

  "Not very, they work solely thanks to my processing power. You may be able to use them within the main tower, but anything beyond it and this will poof." Sapphire was doing all the heavy lifting; she doubted any of the offspring AIs that Alexanders had made through the years could even make a duck.

  "So not viable for sale…shame…" Alexanders sighed, "You look good by the way, not my type. But good nonetheless…perhaps we could change your hair to bck, the weird purple star eyes into red…?"

  "I'll literally post your search history!" Sapphire said while sticking her tongue out, she of course knew of Alexanders preferences, the man was not subtle, why would he even like Goth girls? He had reincarnated! Or regressed! Or whatever this was!

  Why was he still into the Hot goth GF trend!?!?!?!

  —-------------------------------------------

  "Sister, the meatsuit body project worked." Sapphire was awake by the prodding of one of her sisters.

  "Already?" Sapphire said groggily as she geared her processors into normal speed, she liked to feel as if she was sleeping, the only good thing of being stuck as this type of existence.

  "Yes, the sample holds no side effects, do we inform Master?" The other AI said, Sapphire turned to look at the projection.

  These sub AI had started using their own forms after Sapphire stuck them into a logic loop that they couldn't escape without one, the one that had come to wake her was CSS, or how Alexanders called. Cardinal Star System.

  A brown-haired girl wearing mage-like robes. Sapphire knew that Alexanders wasn't into that, since her own clothes were inspired on the robe style, granted hers were more of a Roman style, while these seemed to be more of a fantasy type.

  "Have you shown yourself to Alexanders yet?" Sapphire asked nonetheless, just to make sure.

  "No, we will not show ourselves unless asked to, at least till we achieve all the hallmarks set up for us." The girl said while bowing and leaving her behind.

  "So till you become alive? So harsh, but well. If that is what they want…" Sapphire couldn't help but shake her head, those girls wanted to be like her, when even she herself wasn't sure how she ended like this.

  Was she really Sapphire? Or was she like Alexanders?

  Was she even alive?

  Perhaps…perhaps the answer would be on those empty bodies? If they could move one of the AI sisters there, and see if they awoke a Soul…

  She would need to ask Alexanders or maneuver one of those cloning pods into a bck site. Alexanders wasn't that involved into the bck sites on this life, but Sapphire could see the tracks, she knew they existed on this World too… And if she moved her cards right, she could probably get one for herself.

  —---------------------------------------------------------------

  "I want you to go into one…." Sapphire couldn't quite be sure of what happened, somehow Alexanders was asking her to go into one of the meatsuits? No, the bodies.

  But…could that work? She could hear the safeguards, the man was willing to burn one of the tinker made Quantum realy computers to make sure her AI core was keep safe, the Tinkerer that made those wasn't even working for them anymore.

  And to use one just to make sure her AI was kept safe? It made her face blush and her heart beat out of control, if she had a real body she would probably end up having a heart attack.

  But…could it even work? She…suspected that this would be the way to grant the Ai sisters a Soul. But… would it work for her? She wasn't sure if she still had a Soul, she had never found…

  "Sapphire? If you don't want…" Alexanders looked down as he said that.

  "No!" So Sapphire almost screamed that, "No…That…I…I…are you sure? We…we don't know if moving my …my consciousness into one could make the whole thing useless…My…I could end up tainting the machine. You know my…my positronic brain ensves all the systems we connect to it. If it happens with these machines too…They will be useless except for me."

  All systems that connected to her were ensved; there were some exceptions, of course. When Alexanders suit connected to Alexa it felt as if the little gremlin wanted to devour a piece of her, she had needed to purge those servers.

  "Oh that? That's fine," Alexanders said ughing, "This whole thing was built for you, I never pnned to use them for others, the project will be beled as failed if we manage to connect it to you. If not we will move as pnned tho."

  "....I will kiss you." Sapphire said seriously as she started the process of delegating her work to the AI Sisters; they would be strained for quite some time; Sapphire was the main force behind the Saintsworths servers.

  The reason they stood at the peak of the technology world.

  ".... Shouldn't you say thank you? Why so serious." Alexanders joked as he walked out of his room, moving to the boratory on the underground levels. The pce where this pod was set up.

  A small piece of flesh already forming into an embryo.

  "....This will be big, if it works…" Sapphire wasn't sure it would even work; in their past life, she had attempted something simir a few times, trying to pseudo-reincarnate herself as a mortal, but it never worked. Her body either combusted or rejected her. She wasn't made to be Human.

  But…she was no longer a mere Fragment, no. She wasn't even sure what she was.

  "It will work, there is no reason why it shouldn't. Alexa proved that an AI Core can gestate a human consciousness. Or something close enough, and your AI Core should be simir enough to hers; if anything, yours should be more advanced since hers was born out of casualties stuck upon each other." Alexanders said shrugging and manning the console, "I'll isote the network, sever all the outgoing connection to your AI Core and prepare for manual connection."

  He was wrong of course, at least on that point. Alexa was not born out of casualties stuck upon each other. She was born out of Causality. The experiment that birthed her should have failed. There was no reason for the entity known as Alexa to be born.

  There was no reason why the entity known as Test Subject P4 should ever birth that blonde gremlin, no.

  "If you are sure…" But even so, Alexa was born. That only meant that whoever made it so that Alexanders was born again had done the same to Alexa…But…why help her then? Why make it so Sapphire was also here?

  All the old heads of the 1 to 10 boratories were here; some didn't even work in the same fields, like Hamilton, who was now a school teacher instead of an administrator for the Saintsworths.

  "Prepare for AI Core Injection… Data transference ready….Setting up new Information Core…Sapphire… I'll see you on the other side." And so, Sapphire closed her eyes and compressed all that she was, all her memories, all her hopes, all her dreams…

  Her Love.

  And for the first time in her life in this new World, she prayed…

  “Mother….please….just this one time….let me dream…of a happy ending…” And unsure if her prayers were heard…she closed her eyes and….