"To Save Us...?" A 9 fanfic

To protect us... to inspire us... to define us... to teach us... guide us... lead us... defend... guard... save...
life must go on...

9 repeated these words as he leaned on his new light-staff outside the library. It was the last mantra, the final words of the scientist. Their purpose... his purpose. To save them.

"Or to save us?"

He had saved them. He had killed them to let life go on...

Life must go on...

Death of the physical body, for life of the soul. He wondered if they were still there.
Watching him. Perhaps hating him. He knew 1 would. He had sacrificed himself for 9, but he never liked the younger doll.

2 and 5 would be proud at the work he'd done, and 5 would always be his most trusted friend.
But 2 would be angry for sure. He'd given 9 a voice, allowed himself to be carried off by the beast, and killed right after he'd finally been rescued.
9 flinched in guilt as he thought of this. He'd rather have been dumb than kill the first person he met. 6 would... well, he was a good guide to the source, but 9 felt he was mad as a hatter. He didn't even remember what he looked like. Striped, perhaps, with a necklace of some sort.
And he'd killed him. He could have at least tried to save 6 from the machine, yet he gave him up for lost.

To... us...

Save us? 9 now doubted that was what the scientist had actually said. He killed the machine. He released the other's souls. They made the life giving rain - wait.
They glowed green. The tiny things in the rain glowed green.

It is the colour of the soul...

It can't be... 9 fell to his knees. They had been sacrificed for life... yet only half of them did. After he rusted away, how much life would there be?

Would there be men? 9's head whirled with words.

Man and machine attacked each other with fire and metal...

"You are all the pieces of my soul."

9 jumped. It was almost if the scientist himself had spoken.

"Remember the sequence."

It was the scientist.

"9. Five have been released. If this world will live, you must kill them. Kill yourself. The world will rest..."

9 slowly turned and walked off to his friend's graves.
To the talisman.
To the source.

To destroy us... but life must go on...{i/}