Arknights X Fallout New Vegas: A Man Chooses, a slave obeys

The Second Coming

Croissant seems to tolerate his sarcasm more than the others and even continues their gag. "Eh, just 'forget' about it," she snorts.

"Oh don't worry, I already did." Nathan grins widely and laughs along with her. 

~~~

The group burst into laughter at their quips about his incident, and Nathan couldn't help but join in. He was relieved to see that his friends were taking it all in stride and were willing to make light of his amnesia. 

The introductions continued, and Nathan struggled to remember names and faces, but his friends were patient and understanding. They shared stories of their past adventures and inside jokes, trying to jog his memory or make him feel better and less like an outcast.

Of course, when he started to make jokes about his amnesia, repetitively saying he forgot in response to their stories, two people have opposite reactions to his sense of humor. The idol with golden hair tied into pigtails whose name is Sora grew tired of his jokes quickly. "First, we had to deal with your blind jokes, now we have to deal with your amnesia jokes? Sign up for stand-up comedy if you're going to continue being like this. Gosh." She buries her head in her palm, disappointed. "Of all the things you forgot, it should've been your crappy sense of humor."

But the reserved Lupo woman whose name is Texas, while she barely contributed to the conversation, was chuckling every time Nathan makes a bad joke related to memory problems. Croissant mentions that Texas laughs at every dad joke quality of jokes, and she doesn't know why, but it's one of the rare times they get to see her smile.

~~~

And finally, there's their fellow Sankta. Mostima decided to give them some privacy to reconnect and escorted the rest out so they could have time for themselves. She reintroduced herself as Lemuel, though she goes by Exusiai—she mentioned that the two of them used to be extremely close to the point of romance, where they have pet names for each other, with Lemuel calling Nathan 'Lenny', and the other calling her 'Lemmy' as a way to get back at her.

She keeps getting choked up; stuttering to complete a sentence as she is getting overwhelmed by her emotions Nathan uncomfortably feels as well. She couldn't truly let go of what happened to him and struggled to accept that the memories they have made when they were children had faded away. Nathan does his level best to console her; he listened intently, trying to absorb every word as she talked about their past adventures, their jokes, the pranks they pulled, she even desperately pointed to pictures that showcase only him and Lemuel, ignoring the rest of the scrapbook's pictures and mementos, in favor of convincing him that they were in love, which started from when they were young.

The pictures remain elusive, and distant memories refused to come back despite it all. When Exusiai sighs hopelessly and holds herself back from crying, Nathan tries to distract her by asking, "How close were we?"

An idea pops up in her mind; her halo immediately went bright like a lightbulb that went 'ding'. Her expression changes from dour to mischief as she grows a naughty smile. She bursts into loud laughter, surprising Nathan. He looks puzzled, unsure of how to react.