Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga, Lupa/Gale, paint, tracing the mark of the Wolves
Roland finds the AI tucked up in command room, curled by the wall with a pilfered can of the paint they kept for marking targets. His shirt and the corsety-body armor thing he wears are on the floor next to him, and he’s mostly seems to be making a mess of black paint low over his abs. Roland absently wishes really hard for a stiff of vodka, asks what the AI thinks it’s doing.
Those crazy-colored eyes are bloodshot and watery when it looks up at him, though as perfectly calm-looking as always. “I can’t see what I’m doing without tensing my stomach muscles to sit up, but when I do it ruins the image,” it explains. How the AI makes such a simple thing sound like something so painful, helpless, even through the monotone…
“What,” he coughs badly, catches his breath. “What image did you want?” ‘And why does it matter,’ he wants to ask and doesn’t. The AI’s face…crumples, just breaks down in a way too familiar way.
“Lupa—“ and just that is enough that Roland doesn’t want to hear anymore, once he makes that connection. “He had his demon mark here. A spiked wheel with three points. I. He’s gone now, you know.” The AI, Gale wasn’t it? Takes a breath and wipes away the excess ink, and just like that he’s Mr. Cool and Collected again. “I killed him, and ate him. But somehow, now he seems very far away. It hurts.”
And this is crazy, a voice that sounds a lot like Adil says in the back of his head. A statement like that should have him backing out the door and reaching for his key, not going to his knees next to Gale and reaching for the brush. “I.” He starts, not sure how to put it. “I could help. I mean. Just tell me how it’s supposed to look, ok?”