Author's note: I do not own Gate or Now and Then, Here and There. Gate is owned by Takumi Yanai and A1 Pictures. Now and Then, Here and There is owned by AIC. This is a fan-made work which I am making no profit from.
Chapter 1: It Followed Me Home...
Shuzo Mazutani
Civilian
Ginza, Tokyo, Japan
July 18, 2019
Grew up in a suburb of Tokyo as the son of a middle class family, studies kendo since childhood, went to university earned a degree in computer science, and is now working IT at a corporation in Tokyo. By accounts, Shuzo Mazutani seemed like an average Japanese man.
But had a secret he had never told anyone, for who would believe him: parallel universe are real, and he had been to one as a child...
It all happened in the year 2000, when Shu was twelve years old. He had climbed on an abandoned factory, where he met that mysterious girl with that weird name: "Lala Ru". Now, this is starting to sound like the set up to one of those anime that have been popular of late- stories about some kid finding a portal to a world exactly like a fantasy RPG, gaining some sort of overpowered ability, saving the world, and having several girls fighting over his affections.
But the world Shu ended up in was not a shining fantasy paradise of elves and dragons. Instead, it was a post-apocalyptic hellhole where water and food were scarce, and the few remaining resources are controlled by warlords leading militias, armed with improvised firearms and vehicles which I could only assume were relics of a fallen civilization. Murder, rape, torture, death, destruction, and the use of child soldiers were facts of every day life there.
As a child, Shu was unshakably optimistic, even in that bleak world. Looking bac, however, he realized how lucky a 12-year old with no survival or combat training, armed only with a 2x4, was to survive that world of horrors and make it back home alive.
When he got home from the ordeal, Shu thought he had left that world behind, even that the other world would be a better place with the new source of water courtesy of that weird magic water amulet thing that Lala-Ru had, and the fall of the tyrant Hamdo.
Sixteen years later, he would realize how horribly wrong he was...
Shu was walking out of the Ginza subway station, on the way to meet a few of his friends at a restaurant in the popular shopping district for lunch, when the usual sounds of cars and pedestrians were drowned out by an altogether more menacing sound. From behind him, heard a series of deafening, and horribly familiar cracking sounds: gunfire.
Shu looked behind him and saw a great glowing orb of light appear, and out of it, marched hundreds of men in dirty tan-colored uniforms, all of them armed with rifles that looked held together, in some case literally, with duct tape.
People screamed and fled the area as the soldiers opened fire, cutting down bystanders left and right. From behind the soldiers, armed exoskeletons opened up with their weapons. Looming over the entire army were massive tanks the size of two buses parked side-by-side
A police officer raised his sidearm and fired at the invading army, taking down one of the soldiers, only to be struck by a dozen different bullets and fall face down on the ground, blood flowing out of his numerous wounds onto the ground.
In furious retaliation, the exoskeletons and tanks added their firepower to the massacre. Left and right, bystanders were torn to shreds by exploding cannon shells or engulfed by flamethrower blasts.
In that moment, Shu was the only man who knew what this meant... his dark past had returned with a vengeance...
Shu sprinted into a side alley, away from the carnage of the attack. As he ran, he heard a female voice, of what he assumed was the commander of the invading army, speaking in the alien language he had not heard in 15 years.
"This land has been placed under the rule of the Tabul Empire, surrender now or be annihilated!"
From behind him, Shu heard footsteps close behind entering the alleyway. Immediately, he dove behind a dumpster.
A male voice spoke out the same alien language as before, yelling, "Get in there and flush out any survivors!"
As the soldiers slowly advanced down the alleyway, Shu clung to the wall of the dumpster, hoping they would not see him. Unfortunately, his luck did not hold. Instead, an enemy soldier's head behind the dumpster.
In a rush of adrenaline, Shu eized the barrel of the soldier's gun, a crude submachine gun that seemed to have been made from plumbing parts, the barrel held on with bundles of wire. As pushing the barrel of the gun up, away from his face with both hands, Shu kneed his attacker in the groin as hard as he could.
As the "other-worlder" lost his grip on the gun, Shu thrust the weapon backwards, the crude, unfinished wood stock making contact with his eye and illiciting a second shout of pain. Without even thinking about what he was doing, Shu turned the weapon around on the stunned soldier and placed the barrel against his face and firing a burst of three rounds.
The back of the soldier's head exploded in a spray of blood, as Shu sidestepped out from behind the dumpster and caught sight of the second surprised soldier. Shu held down the trigger and fired an inexpertly aimed burst, the recoil threw bullets all over the place, but at the range of less than two meters, it was impossible to miss. Three or four bullets still struck the man in the chest. The soldier dropped his rifle and coughed up blood as he breathed his last.
When Shu first visited the other world, he had refused to carry a rifle or kill anyone, refusing to drop to the level of the inhabitants of this world. Now, however, the sheer determination to survive had thrown all that out the window.
Without thought or contemplation, Shu had shot those "other-worlder" soldiers, who could not have been older than 18, and with equal cold mechanical efficiency, he seized what I hoped were a pair of spare magazines for the weapon, and fled as fast as he could.
About 100 meters ahead, the alley exited back onto the main road. At that moment, Shu heard a loud whining noise, the sound of one of bizarre hovercraft motorcycles that the other-worlders used.
Turning on the spot, Shu saw the hover-bike charge towards him, hovering about a meter off the ground. He took aim, or at least tried to, with the crude sight on the gun and held down the trigger. The gun recoiled up as it fired a burst of about five rounds all of them going over the head of the hover-bike driver. Then, the click of the empty chamber
"I should have expected this", Shu thought, "before today, I had never used a gun in my life." In a desperate bid to get out of the line of fire of the hover bike's mounted machine guns, Shu dove the ground landing face down on the concrete as bullets flew centimeters over his head.
The hover bike lowered its machine guns to their lowest possible elevation. In a fraction of a second, Shu's whole life seemed to flash before his eyes.
"After all that, was this it?", Shu asked himself, "Had I escaped that insane world, only to die by the hands of its inhabitants years later?"
Shu's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a gunshot. Looking up, Shu saw the driver of the "hover-bike" slumped over and fell of the vehicle. The hover-bike kept going and crashed into a parked car, destroying both vehicles.
"Are you all right? Can you get to us?!", a voice called from about 25 meters away from Shu. Turning to the source of the voice, he saw a man wearing an orange T-shirt carrying a Howa Type 64 battle rifle. Standing next to him was a police officer armed with an MP5 submachine gun.
"I'm fine", Shu said, as he got up and walked over to them.
The man in the orange shirt spoke first, "2nd Lieutenant Youji Itami, off-duty JSDF", the man said, "Come with us, I have coordinated with the cops and we are now holding up with Imperial Palace. The place is a fortress".
Itami and police officer led a herd of a few dozen civilians, including Shu, for several blocks to the east, past the Peninsula Hotel and Hibiya Station, and then across the Meganebashi bridge, the crowd moving ahead as fast as they could, trying to stay ahead of the invading forces.
After about fifteen minutes seemed much longer, they made across the outer palace gardens and into it to the Nijubashi bridge into the inner courtyards into of the Imperial Palace.
Itami reached the gates first, and spoke to a Special Assault Team officer- the equivalent of the SWAT teams of American police.
"This is the last group of civilians", Itami said, "The enemy should be here in about 10 minutes. Any word from the JSDF?"
"Air forces and helicopters have been scrambled for Yokota and Kisarazu, ETA 30 minutes. They also have land forces and an Asagiri-class destroyer inbound".
"I think we should be able to hold out until then.", Itami said, the uncertainty of the sentence was not reassuring.
Shu's overhearing of the conversation was interrupted by a police officer standing just inside the castle gate, with about a dozen "other-worlder" weapons at his feet.
"Any civilians who have scavenged weapons from the invaders are required to turn them in to a police officer", the officer said with a bullhorn, "Any persons with police or military experience willing to volunteer in the defense are to report the nearest officer."
Shu walked over to the cop, holding the SMG he had so recently acquired by the barrel, muzzle facing upward. "Here", he said, handing the officer the gun, and then the two spare magazines, "No doubt you're a better shot than I am".
Part of Shu was happy to be rid of the reminder of his dark past. On the other hand, part of him wanted felt at least slightly safer with the weapon.
Regardless, a recently disarmed Shu filed into the Chowaden Reception Hall, the place where the Emperor made public appearances. Normally, the public were not allowed in here- it was directly attached to the Emperor's residence. But this was no ordinary situation.
The police officers led the crowd past the bulletproof glass window which the Imperial family stood during public appearances, down a hallway and into a door leading to a basement. Out the window, he could see other people being led to the Imperial Household Agency building.
Quite apart from the beautifully apportioned palace, the basement had bare concrete walls. It presently used as a store items area used by the employees of the Imperial Household Agency in the maintenance of the palace, but the structure looked like a World War II-era bunker, which Shu realized it could well be.
As the door closed, the basement was densely packed with civilians. Shu could only hope the police could halt the invaders until the JSDF arrived.
JSDF Intel Database: XV-1 Fast Attack Hovercraft
Vehicle Type: Ultra Light Hovercraft
Armament: variable, 2x 13mm or 8mm machine guns typical, side-mounted XRPG-1 rockets (some models)
Height: 1.2 meters
Width: 1.4 meters
Length: 2.7 meters
Weight: 0.5 tons
Crew: 1
Armor: none
Top Speed: 200+ kilometers per hour
Description: The XV-1 (Extraterrestrial Vehicle, First Type Encountered) is a small high-speed hovercraft with an engine in the front of the vehicle, with a pilot seated in the middle of the craft in an open seat, similar to a motorcycle. A thruster for forward momentum is located to the rear. The vehicle is capable of levitating about one meter off the ground by a small turbojet engine, similar to the failed US-Canadian Avrocar VTOL aircraft of the 1960s and 1960s. JSDF tests of captured vehicles have clocked the vehicle at speeds over 200 kilometers per hour. XV-1s are primarily used by Special Region faction for reconnaissance and fast hit and run attacks, as well as a messengers, as radios are rare in the war-ravaged Special Region. The vehicle is armed with a pair of machine guns, and sometimes with racks of two-six infantry-held rocket launchers for anti-tank attacks. The XV-1 has proven to be one of the most successful Special Region vehicles in an anti-tank role when mounted with rockets, which could not penetrate heavy composite armor, but could disable the tracks and sensor system of JSDF main battle tanks, and then flee as quickly as they arrived. The XV-1, also, however, is vulnerable even small arms fire because of their lack of armor and open cockpit.
JSDF Intel Database: XSMG-1 Submachine Gun
Weapon Type: Submachine Gun
Effective Range: 20-40 meters
Caliber: 9mm (typically)
Rate of Fire: Variable, 600-1000 RPM
Description: The XSMG-1 is a blanket term for a variety of similar submachine guns manufactured in the Special Region from improvised parts. The weapon is also commonly known as "Sten", after the British World War II-era submachine gun of similar appearance, as well as the "pipe gun" for the fact that many of the parts appear to be fashioned from plumbing components and other improvised materials. The design elements vary between individual weapons, and as they are not mass produced, parts are not interchangeable between weapons. Weapons are typically chambered for a 9mm round with a slightly longer casing than the 9mm Parabellum, fed through typically 20 or 30 round magazines inserted from the side or bottom of the weapon. Elements such as stocks, pistol grips, and sights vary greatly in design and may be absent entirely some examples. The internal mechanisms of most examples operate on the simple blowback principle, and can achieve rates of fire of anywhere from 600-1000 rounds per minute. The weapon has a very short effective range due to severe recoil and poor quality ammunition, and improvised design means there are often ample openings for sand to enter the weapon, leading to frequent jams.