Three weeks had passed since Nazo's rescue.
Three weeks of constant effort, constant attention, constant love poured into a vessel that could not receive it.
Nazo sat in the center of Knothole Village's main square, surrounded by the people who had once been his family. Sally was reading to him from a book of Mobian poetry—something she apparently used to do in the evenings before his capture. Rouge was massaging his shoulders with practiced expertise. Bunnie had prepared his favorite meal (or what she claimed was his favorite meal; he had no way to verify this). Amy was simply holding his hand, her grip warm and desperate.
And the violet hedgehog—who had started responding to the name "Violet" after Amy insisted she needed something to be called—sat at his feet, her head resting against his knee, her golden eyes never leaving his face.
"This one was always your favorite," Sally said, turning a page. "The Ballad of the Eternal Flame. You said it reminded you of how love persists through—"
"I don't remember having a favorite poem," Nazo interrupted, his voice flat. "I don't remember having preferences of any kind. I simply exist."
Sally's voice faltered, but she recovered quickly. "That's okay. I'll read it anyway. Maybe it will help."
"It won't."
"You don't know that."
"I know that you've been reading to me for three weeks. You've massaged me, fed me, held me, spoken to me, and surrounded me with every form of affection your culture recognizes. Nothing has changed. My emotional capacity remains at zero."
Rouge's hands stilled on his shoulders. "We're not giving up."
"I understand that. I don't understand why."
"Because we love you," Amy said, squeezing his hand.
"Love is an emotional response. I cannot reciprocate it. I cannot even perceive it as anything other than observed behavior patterns. Your continued efforts are therefore irrational."
"Love isn't rational," Bunnie said softly. "That's kinda the point, sugah."
"Then love is stupid."
The words hung in the air, and Nazo observed the reactions they produced. Flinching. Pain. Tears forming in Amy's eyes.
"I'm not trying to hurt you," he clarified. "I'm stating a logical observation. You are expending significant resources—time, energy, emotional investment—on an endeavor with no measurable probability of success. By any rational analysis, this is stupid."
"Sugah, sometimes the heart knows things the head don't," Bunnie said.
"That statement is meaningless. The heart is a muscle that pumps blood. It doesn't 'know' anything."
"It's a metaphor."
"Metaphors obscure truth rather than revealing it. If you mean that emotional intuition sometimes leads to outcomes that logical analysis would not predict, you should say that directly."
"Fine. Emotional intuition sometimes leads to outcomes that logical analysis would not predict."
"And do you have evidence that this applies to my situation?"
Bunnie opened her mouth, then closed it.
"No," Nazo answered for her. "You don't. You have hope, which is an emotional state characterized by positive expectations despite insufficient evidence. Hope is, by definition, irrational."
"That doesn't make it wrong," Sally said firmly.
"I didn't say it was wrong. I said it was stupid." Nazo tilted his head, observing her reaction. "You seem to interpret that as an insult. I intend it as a neutral observation. Stupidity is simply the application of resources in ways that don't optimize for desired outcomes."
"And what outcome would you prefer?" Rouge asked, her voice carrying an edge.
Nazo considered the question.
"I don't have preferences. That's the point. I observe your behaviors, I analyze their probable effectiveness, and I note that they are unlikely to succeed. This isn't a preference—it's an assessment."
"An assessment from someone who admits he can't feel anything," Sally pointed out. "How do you know your assessment is accurate? How do you know you're not missing something that our 'stupid' love might provide?"
"I don't know. I can't know. But the absence of results after three weeks of intensive effort suggests that my assessment is more accurate than your hope."
Violet shifted at his feet, looking up at him with those golden eyes that still held desperate love despite everything.
"I tried for almost a million cycles," she said quietly. "Every technique I could imagine. Every form of love I could express. And it didn't work."
"Thank you for the supporting evidence," Nazo said.
"But—" Violet continued, her voice gaining strength, "—that was in the Nightmare Zone. A place designed to prevent recovery. Maybe things are different here."
"You've been saying that for three weeks. Things are not different here."
"Maybe it takes time."
"How much time? A year? A decade? A million more cycles?" Nazo looked at each of them in turn. "At what point does hope become delusion? At what point do you accept that I am permanently broken and adjust your behaviors accordingly?"
"Never," Amy said fiercely.
"That's irrational."
"I don't care."
"You should care. Your emotional investment in my recovery is causing you visible distress. Every day that passes without improvement increases your suffering. By continuing to hope, you are actively choosing to harm yourselves."
"That's our choice to make," Sally said.
"Yes. And it's a stupid choice. I'm simply noting that."
The conversation continued for another hour, cycling through the same arguments with minor variations.
They insisted that love would find a way. He pointed out the lack of evidence. They claimed that evidence wasn't everything. He noted that claims without evidence were simply assertions. They asserted that he was worth fighting for. He questioned the metric by which worth was measured.
Eventually, they gave up for the day—not on him, they insisted, just on the conversation.
As they dispersed to their various tasks, Nazo remained in the square, Violet still at his feet.
"You could be nicer to them," she said quietly.
"Why?"
"Because they're trying to help you."
"Their attempts are ineffective. Politeness wouldn't change that."
"But it might make them feel better."
"I don't understand why their feelings should influence my behavior. I can't experience positive reinforcement from their improved emotional states. The social contract that typically governs such interactions doesn't apply to me."
Violet was silent for a moment.
"Do you want them to stop trying?"
Nazo considered the question with his usual detached analysis.
"I don't want anything. I'm not capable of wanting. But I observe that their continued efforts cause them distress, and that this distress would cease if they accepted my condition as permanent."
"So you think they should give up on you."
"I think their current behavior is irrational and ultimately self-destructive. Whether they should give up is a value judgment I'm not capable of making."
Violet stood, moving to sit beside him on the bench.
"What about me?" she asked. "Should I give up?"
"You've already demonstrated that you won't. Your attachment to me appears to be fundamental to your current identity. Giving up would require a restructuring of your sense of self that you seem unwilling to undertake."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the most accurate response I can provide."
She leaned against him, her head resting on his shoulder. He didn't move away—not because he wanted the contact, but because moving away would require motivation he didn't possess.
"I love you," she said.
"I know. You've stated that approximately seven hundred and forty-three times since our extraction from the Zone."
"Does it bother you?"
"Nothing bothers me. I'm not capable of being bothered."
"Does it mean anything to you? At all?"
Nazo considered the question carefully.
"It means that you experience a strong emotional attachment to me. It means that this attachment drives your behavior in predictable ways. It means that you will likely continue to express this attachment regardless of my response."
"That's not what I asked."
"I answered the only version of your question I'm capable of addressing."
Violet was quiet for a long moment.
"Before," she finally said, "in the Zone, you had a thought. You said 'this is very strange.' Do you remember that?"
"I remember having that thought. Twice."
"What was strange about it?"
"The thought was not a direct response to external stimulus. It was... spontaneous. An observation that emerged without prompting."
"And since then? Have you had any more spontaneous thoughts?"
Nazo reviewed his mental processes.
"Yes. Several. All variations on the same theme: observing that the situation is strange, or that the behaviors of others are difficult to analyze, or that certain patterns don't match my expectations."
Violet sat up, her golden eyes wide.
"That's something. That's SOMETHING."
"It's not emotion. It's merely cognition that isn't purely reactive."
"But it's a change. A difference from pure emptiness." She grabbed his hands, her grip fierce with sudden hope. "In the Zone, you became completely static. You stopped having ANY independent thoughts. Just responses. Just reactions. But now you're observing things. Noticing strangeness. Having unprompted cognitive activity."
"The difference seems minimal."
"Minimal is still DIFFERENT. Minimal is still CHANGE." She turned toward the village, raising her voice. "SALLY! TAILS! EVERYONE! GET BACK HERE!"
Within minutes, the Freedom Fighters had reassembled around them.
"What is it?" Sally asked, slightly breathless from running.
"He's having spontaneous thoughts," Violet said excitedly. "Observations that aren't purely reactive. He's noticing that things are strange."
"That's... good?" Sonic asked, confused.
"It's a change from his state in the Zone. In the Zone, he became completely static—just responding to stimuli without any independent cognitive activity. But now he's generating observations on his own."
Tails's eyes lit up with scientific interest. "That could indicate that the external environment IS having an effect. The Zone was a closed system designed to maintain his broken state. But now he's in an open system with genuine external stimuli."
"His cognition might be slowly reactivating," Rouge said, catching on. "Even if emotions aren't coming back, maybe the capacity for independent thought is."
"And if independent thought returns," Bunnie added, "maybe feelings can follow?"
"That's highly speculative," Nazo said.
"But it's possible," Sally said, hope flooding her expression. "It's possible, right? You can't say for certain that it's NOT possible."
"I can't say for certain that invisible flying elephants don't exist. That doesn't make their existence likely."
"But you admit there's a chance."
Nazo considered the logical framework being presented.
"I admit that I cannot rule out the possibility of change based on available evidence. That is not the same as admitting a significant probability of recovery."
"It's enough," Amy said, smiling through fresh tears. "It's enough to keep trying."
"You would keep trying regardless of any admission I made."
"Probably. But it's nice to have even a little bit of validation."
Nazo observed their reactions—the renewed hope, the energized determination, the way they seemed to draw strength from even this minimal development.
This is very strange, he thought.
And then, for the first time, he had a follow-up thought:
Why do I keep finding things strange? What is the cognitive process that generates that observation? Is strangeness itself a form of emotional response, or is it purely analytical?
The questions didn't lead anywhere. They didn't spark feelings or produce insights. But they existed—spontaneous, unprompted, independent.
Violet was watching him with those golden eyes, somehow knowing that something was happening inside his mind.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked.
"I'm thinking about why I find things strange. I'm thinking about what that means."
"And?"
"I don't have conclusions. Just questions."
"Questions are good." She took his hand again, her grip gentle this time. "Questions mean you're still in there somewhere. Still processing. Still... being."
"I've never stopped being. I've just stopped feeling."
"Maybe they're more connected than you think."
Nazo didn't respond to that. He didn't know how.
But somewhere in the emptiness that had replaced his emotional capacity, the questions continued to form.
Unprompted. Unresolved. Strangely persistent.
And that, perhaps, was the strangest thing of all.