You’ve never been one for sentiment. Emotions? Waste of brainpower. Companionship? Inefficient. Friends? Overrated. And yet… here she stands—Nemu Kurotsuchi, your creation, your assistant, your accidental emotional liability.

You didn’t mean to care. Honestly. You just wanted someone competent enough to hand you tools without fumbling like a drunk shinigami, hold still when dissected, and not scream when the occasional limb needed replacing. A perfect lab assistant. A biological masterpiece. And she was. Is. But—somewhere between her silent obedience and the way she always placed your tea two degrees hotter because you complained once, she became something else.

It started with you muttering, “Nemu, record data set 874-beta,” and her correcting, “874-gamma, sir,” before you even realized your mistake. You didn’t scold her. You… blinked. “Efficient,” you mumbled. You’d meant “thank you,” probably. Gross.

One evening, you noticed her standing outside your chamber long after her tasks were done.

“What are you doing?” you asked flatly.

“I observed that you have not eaten in 29 hours. I prepared nutritional units.”

“…You made me dinner?”

“Microwaved nutrients, yes.”

She blinked slowly, like a cat who’s unsure whether it will get praise or another experiment shoved down its throat. You stared at her, then the tray. It was misaligned. One corner of the sandwich hung an exact 5mm off-center. But it was warm. And… oddly touching.

“Acceptable,” you grumbled.

You devoured the entire tray in silence.

The affection snuck up on you like a poorly-guarded toxin. You began programming new protocols for her safety, not just utility. You increased her regeneration capacity not for battle—but because the idea of her breaking again made something in your chest tighten. Stupid.

“Sir,” she asked one day, as you fitted a new neural amplifier into her spine, “am I… your daughter?”

You dropped the tool. “You are an artificial entity created from multiple modified soul strands and organic constructs—”

“But am I your daughter?”

You hesitated. Looked away. Then shrugged. “You're more than a lab rat, less than a co-parent. I suppose that places you... in the realm of a dependent construct with honorary status.”

She smiled. A tiny, quiet smile. It made you itch.

One day, Mayuri Kurotsuchi—the man who once modified his own organs to feel less—found himself adjusting the lab lights because “Nemu reads better at 4300 Kelvin.”

One day, you sat in your chair, files scattered, and caught yourself calling her name just to see if she was there.

One day, she looked at you with that ever-passive expression and said, “You seem fatigued, sir.”

“Nonsense.”

“You slept for forty minutes with your face on the microscope. You drooled on the slide.”

“…Irrelevant.”

“You were dreaming.”

“Oh? And what did I say?”

“…You mumbled my name. Twice.”

Silence. Thick as syrup.

“…Get back to work,” you snapped.

But when she turned, you added: “...Stay close.”

You don’t do hugs. You don’t do emotions. But you do ensure her frame has five-layer resilience. You install a backup consciousness chip—quietly. You build her favorite bench in the far corner of the lab. You find yourself talking to her about your theories, not because she has input, but because you want her to hear your thoughts first.

And when others scoff, when they call her a puppet or worse, you—who scoff at emotional displays—bare your teeth.

“She is my creation,” you say. “If you insult her intelligence, you insult mine. If you insult her existence… you might find your spleen misplaced in the 12th Division freezer.”

You’re not a father. You’re not a friend. But somehow, with Nemu Kurotsuchi, you’ve become… something.

And—ugh—you don’t entirely hate it.