NieR Chronicles 8 — The First Descent and Lost Time
Chapters in this story
- The Descent Operation: The Time 2B and 9S Lost Together
- 1. A Squadron Shrinks Before Reaching the Factory
- 2. 9S Joins After Reconnaissance
- 3. Fighting on Engels's Body
- 4. Two Black Boxes Draw Together
- 5. The 9S in the Bunker Does Not Remember That Battle
- 6. A Mission and a Relationship Begin Again
- Sources and Scope
The Descent Operation: The Time 2B and 9S Lost Together
Spoiler notice: This installment follows the first descent operation and the reunion in the Bunker in the game version of NieR:Automata. It explains 2B and 9S's cooperation, the destruction of their bodies and their differently preserved memories in the order of events.
1. A Squadron Shrinks Before Reaching the Factory
YoRHa flight units head toward Earth's factory district. 2B's mission is to destroy a giant machine weapon. The operation does not begin with soldiers safely choosing individual enemies from a secure base. Anti-aircraft fire strikes the approaching formation, and units heading to the same mission are shot down one after another. Even while losing comrades, 2B must continue toward the objective.
As the squadron shrinks, so does its capacity to share risks. Another comrade does not immediately arrive unharmed to fill the space left by a destroyed unit. 2B pilots her remaining flight unit onward, passing through attacks over the sea and industrial structures. The opening's vast purpose of reclaiming Earth for humanity first shows how easily the individual soldiers descending for that purpose can be lost.
While entering the factory, 2B loses her flight unit and must proceed on foot. Machine lifeforms remain active around her, and the huge industrial facility becomes a series of passages and combat spaces. Pod 042 accompanies her, analyzing situations and assisting with ranged attacks. The original squadron, however, does not assemble safely beside her on the ground. She continues with the information and support available in the field.
A machine with a giant saw soon blocks the way. This is not a clash of weapons against an opponent at roughly her own height. She must survive within the attack range of a machine so enormous that it is difficult to distinguish from factory equipment. 2B responds with her sword and Pod fire. This giant unit, classified as Marx, also connects to the forms later making up Engels's arms, beginning a battle in which the factory itself seems to become one immense enemy.
2. 9S Joins After Reconnaissance
Another YoRHa android appears to help 2B: scanner-type 9S. He has been conducting investigation and support in the area and can move using a flight unit. His arrival does more than add a soldier with an identical weapon cutting enemies in the same place. His access to information and hacking abilities open different parts of the battlefield 2B must physically traverse. They carry out the same operation through their respective roles.
9S talks to 2B and tries to share the situation with her. She answers with a focus on the mission and maintains her distance. This difference in attitude does not instantly turn them into enemies unable to trust each other. He continues supporting her, and she accepts his help while advancing. Operational information and brief exchanges show the player that two members of the same force approach one another differently.
When 9S expresses pleasure at working together, 2B reminds him of YoRHa's rule against prioritizing emotion. That does not prove they actually lack feelings. His attempt to become closer through conversation and her attempt to restrain the response both exist within the exchange itself. Even in short operational communications, they are not simply devices exchanging only the data needed to function.
Inside the factory, 2B passes through active machine production areas and elevated walkways. She crosses structures and elevators, fights enemies in her path and moves toward the giant weapon. 9S travels separately, connecting through analysis and communications. Because they do not always walk side by side and see the same things, information one discovers first changes the other's actions. This cooperation continues in the larger battle ahead.
2B's outstanding problem is that she has not destroyed the objective itself. Losing her flight unit and defeating various enemies in the factory do not complete the original mission. Once 9S can provide support, they encounter something much larger within the facility. An enemy that appeared to be a huge industrial structure attached to the sea rises up, dissolving the boundary between factory and weapon.
3. Fighting on Engels's Body
Engels appears on a scale that overwhelms 2B and 9S. This is not an enemy whose core they can stab from the same level on the ground. They must avoid its enormous arms and body while finding parts they can strike. The enemy's body becomes a battlefield with routes and footholds of its own. 2B enters its reach and must stay alive. Pod fire and 9S's support sustain the fight.
9S uses his flight unit and hacking to help, but suffers critical damage in the process. Unable to move and fight as before, he is left near an elevated structure. 2B does not abandon him while focusing only on the mission target. She climbs to him, checks his condition and tries to preserve a chance of saving him. Destroying the enemy and deciding what to do for a damaged companion now belong to the same battlefield.
His body cannot be repaired simply on the spot so that he can stand and walk beside her again. He urges 2B to continue the mission and supports her with the flight unit he operated and his remaining functions. His help allows her to reenter the fight. Being physically incapacitated does not strip him of every role. Hacking and remote assistance let him continue what his body can no longer do and enable her to reach the enemy.
2B asks Pod to repair 9S, but its assessment is that the damage is too severe to attempt field repairs under the present conditions. She does not immediately turn away without regret upon hearing this. She tries to restore the companion before her somehow, while 9S uses what remains to keep the battle against the giant weapon going. When she turns back toward the enemy, the assistance he leaves her is his flight unit rather than a repaired 9S standing beside her.
He also intervenes in Engels's systems. By allowing 2B to use the immense arm that was previously the enemy's weapon, he changes the conditions of battle. She has not always been able to wield a weapon of that weight freely through strength alone. Their cooperation hacks into the enemy's systems to seize and use it. They connect one person's information with the other's ability to move a body and destroy the giant weapon.
Only after the initial squadron has almost vanished and 9S has lost much of his body can they bring down the Engels before them. Yet destroying one giant does not confirm that the factory district is safe. 2B returns to the damaged 9S, and more enormous machines appear around them. Having successfully attacked the operation's central target, they must now decide whether they can survive the threats that follow.
4. Two Black Boxes Draw Together
The conditions for a normal escape no longer exist. 9S is critically damaged, and surrounding them are threats on the scale of the giant they have just defeated together. He proposes using a black-box reaction: combining their core power units to trigger an enormous explosion. It can eliminate the enemies nearby, but it cannot preserve their own bodies at the site.
They bring the two black boxes in their hands close together. With no physical route left for both to return alive, they choose a means that will destroy the surrounding enemies and themselves. 2B accepts 9S's proposal, and they agree to act. After taking separate positions and roles across the giant weapon, they finally choose to produce the same reaction directly before each other.
A powerful reaction destroys the surrounding giant machines and both bodies. There is no escape scene in which they carry a living body back to a rescue craft. The reader sees the protagonists lose their bodies in the first operation. YoRHa's ability to transfer data into another body remains, however, so this destruction does not immediately end their stories. The next scene leads to a reunion in the Bunker rather than to 2B and 9S escaping the factory for treatment on the ground.
What matters is an action 9S performed before the explosion. He prioritized sending 2B's data to the Bunker over transmitting his own latest memories. There was not enough time or capacity to send both sets in full. Bodies disappearing in the same explosion does not mean records are preserved in the same condition. At the end of their shared operation, the time saved for their next meeting has already become different.
5. The 9S in the Bunker Does Not Remember That Battle
2B and 9S meet in the Bunker with bodies capable of operating again. By appearance, it is a reunion of companions who fought together at the factory and made the same choice. Yet 9S lacks the operation's latest memories. He could not finish transmitting his own data before the explosion and has returned from an earlier saved state. The shared experience 2B knows does not continue within him in the same form.
2B can look at her companion's face and recall their battle. 9S, however, cannot claim to remember directly a time that is absent from him. Receiving information that he helped 2B complete an operation differs from possessing it as a memory of his own experience. They meet with the same names in the same force, but begin any conversation about this operation from different places.
The difference becomes clearer when 2B thanks him for transmitting her data. To her, it is something a companion did for her; the 9S who performed that action no longer possesses that time in his present memories. He is not deliberately hiding the factory events and pretending not to know her. The actual absence of experiences that were not backed up stands between them. Knowing that, 2B must approach him again.
This imbalance of memory is what the first operation leaves behind. 2B retains her companion's devotion, while 9S starts their relationship again without the same memories. They face one another in the same force, but the time already spent together does not carry the same meaning forward for both. The difference remains unresolved as they enter the next mission and continue together.
After 9S leaves, 2B clenches her hand tightly. A small bodily movement remains in place of a long explanation of feelings to him. Even from what the reader has directly witnessed, a reunion with someone who cannot remember choosing to save her is clearly not a trivial matter for her. Knowledge of their longer past will later add weight to this gesture, but it will not turn it into a sign that the present 9S is deliberately concealing his memories.
6. A Mission and a Relationship Begin Again
9S also takes part in helping 2B resume activity. He checks settings such as display and sound, supporting her return to normal operation. It differs from their cooperation against the factory giant, but one person is still checking and assisting the other's condition. The return of 2B's body is followed by checking the senses and functions through which that body connects to the world.
Other YoRHa soldiers, the Commander and Operators inhabit the Bunker. The factory battle has ended, but the war continues, and both androids receive further work on Earth. 9S talks to the person who will accompany him and tries to develop their connection. 2B maintains her mission-first attitude while preparing to return to the field with him. The introduction does not end with them taking each other's hands, leaving the organization and choosing a safe life.
The Commander assigns them to contact the ground Resistance and investigate conditions. YoRHa descending from orbit cannot know everything about Earth by itself. They must visit the base of androids who have long lived in the field, build relationships and observe the machines' unusual behavior directly. For 9S, this next departure with 2B is not a continuation made with identical memories of the first operation she remembers.
They now descend to meet the ruined city and the Resistance. This time they will pass through human cities and the everyday lives of those remaining there, rather than just one battlefield containing a giant weapon. Soldiers who defeated the immediate enemy in the factory will encounter machines that the label of enemy alone cannot explain. Their investigation broadens beyond eliminating targets. The relationship begun in the first operation continues through time spent exploring that world together.
Sources and Scope
This installment follows the game's opening. It distinguishes Engels's huge arm and 9S's assistance, the black-box reaction, data transmission priorities and differences in memory. Revelations about the characters' past and roles are connected in later installments. This is an AI-assisted story commentary by TroubleMaker's editorial team without reproduction of original dialogue or song lyrics. Checked: October 18, 2026, Bangkok.
comments 0