Authors Note: Yo! So, first Akira story, woo!

Anyway, copyright stuff, some of these quotes belong to Katsuhiro Otomo, you'll recognize them and all the characters belong to him too, except for Hachiro. He's mine.

This is kind of for all of you who wanted that ending where Yamagata didn't die. So, here it is. I hope you enjoy it! And Reviews are always welcome!

8:03 AM

"Kai was right, you did this didn't you, Tetsuo."

"All you're good for now, is telling me where Kaneda's bike is…"

"Tetsuo!" Yamagata could feel the blood pulsing through him. His hands clenched into fists as anger surged from his belly.

Tetsuo let the encapsulated drugs fall from the palm of his hands, and onto the floor. "It's a piece of shit anyway."

Yamagata had, had enough and surged forward, climbing up the piled tables and chairs that Tetsuo sat on. Tetsuo grinned…and then…

Kai watched, he couldn't move, or do anything. All he could do was watch, and stare as the horror before him unfolded. It was as though time had slowed down, and everything was in slow motion. Yamagata suddenly fell back as though a bullet had hit him, and then, it was like blood had exploded from the back of Yamagata's head. Kai had just barely caught the corpse and from the pile of rubble he heard an eery laugh. Kai didn't dare move, he dared not provoke Tetsuo himself, not unless…not unless he wanted to explore the same fate as the bartender and Yamagata. Slowly he watched the pale figure in the darkness get up and stride out of the bar, paying little to no mind to Kai himself. Kai only watched, wide eyed and heart ready to beat out of his chest, waiting, for Tetsuo to leave. Once there were no more footsteps to be heard, he let out a breath and then turned his attention back to the corpse in his arms.

"Y-Yama?" it was hard to talk. The shock of all that had gone down in the past five minutes was just settling in.

There was no answer from the bloody corpse. Kai stared, from one end of the bar where the bartender lay, to Yamagata's body.

"No…Yamagata! You can't be dead."

But the body lay limp in his arms. Blood dripped from the back of his head and onto the floor and Kaisuke's hands. Slowly he lowered the body to the ground.

"Yamagata?" He could feel his body shaking and a sudden realization of what had just happened...Tetsuo had killed Yamagata. He tried to swallow back the tears that were coming forth. It was a struggle.

Fear was enveloping him, fear, shock, everything. He had to find Kaneda, if…if Kaneda was alive, that was. And then he ran out of the broken down bar and onto his bike…then he looked over at Yamagata's blue bike…not everything was setting in yet. But he went over to it and sat on it instead, he could get his later, Kaneda would know what to do with Yamagata's bike.

10:21 A.M.

Hachiro leaned over the bartender's body. It was obvious he was dead, he ran his hand over the man's eyes to close them, and then turned to the body in the middle of the room, a teen's body, no older than seventeen it seemed. His eyes were closed and blood had stopped running out of his head. The man narrowed his eyes and leaned down putting his forefinger and middle finger over the boy's neck to feel a pulse. He could barely make it out…but it was there.

"Amazing…" he whispered to himself. Outside some of the others yelled, "Well, Hachiro? We don't got all day, there are casualties all over town! Come on!"

He sighed and made his decision, "Yeah, I'll need a stretcher on the double!"

Quickly the others from the emergency vehicle made their way down into the bar. He helped gently pick the boy's body up and put it in the stretcher. They'd suffered a 90% death rate throughout the whole of the day so far. Hachiro was all for finding someone who might, might still have the chance to be saved.

He got into the truck and started it up again, driving straight towards the nearest hospital, so the boy could be taken care of. One alive out of twenty in the past hour was a good thing. There had been so many casualties, and many of them looked alike, all pointed to this 'Akira' kid who was roaming the streets. Other casualties were due to a massive mob of people from the Akira cult following the boy around as though he were a god. As he drove he sighed, if this continued, pretty soon the city would be in haywire and it'd be near impossible to do his job, besides the fact that he'd heard the army had overthrown the local government in a coup d'etat. He shook his head as he drove, it seemed like the world was about to come to an end, and that meant more deaths and more wounded.

He drove faster trying to get through the massive morning traffic through the streets was one of the biggest pain in the asses he could have faced.

As they got to the nearest hospital he had them get the boy off the truck and inside, before making yet another trip. In the emergency room where they set the boy, doctors and surgeons got to work. Hachiro wondered if they boy would make it, or if it was too late. He sighed deeply, what a tragedy it would be if in all the day this was the only one alive that he'd picked up out of so many dead that he encountered and he just ended up dying in the end anyway. He grit his teeth together and left, he almost didn't want to know if the kid died or not, just to be happy with himself for maybe, maybe saving one life today.

5:18 P.M.

Hachiro felt tired, it had been a long day. And he wasn't finished bringing people in yet. The world had become chaotic. The cult group that had been following the boy they called Lord Akira around had been killed on the bridge when the boy destroyed it while trying to destroy the tanks that were attacking him. The mob cult had also been getting into fights earlier on that day. The military had released tanks onto the streets, making it hard to do anything. Too many people had been caught in the crossfire. Only a few people had been escaping the madness, and those who did stayed in their homes.

Hachiro wished he'd stayed at home as well that day. He was tired of seeing so much blood in one single day. Even when the terrorist bombings were happening before this Akira kid had risen up there hadn't been this much death. Now he was roaming the hospital instead, with a cup of fresh coffee. He was going to need that coffee for the next few hours.

He paced the room...and then he remembered, that boy, the boy, he'd saved earlier...or hopefully. He knew he didn't want to know, but curiosity was getting the best of him. So, he went to the receptionist, "Who was that boy I got in hear earlier today, about seventeen, with a massive head injury that looked like it was caused by Akira. I found him in a bar."

She sighed, "What time did you bring him in, Hachiro?"

"Hmm...About 10:30 I think."

She nodded and after a few minutes of searching a few logs in the computer she nodded, "Yamagata Toshiro."

"Is he still alive..." he really was afraid he wasn't going to regret asking her.

"Hmm...yes it seems so. Though, he's been in a deep coma and it's doubtful he'll ever wake up. His entire left hemisphere of his brain was...well blood. So even if he does wake up he'll never be able to function properly again."

He frowned, "So, he'll just be a vegetable?"

She nodded, a look of sympathy on her face, she knew how hard he'd been working and how few people he'd managed to rescue in the day so far.

"You did your best," she said softly.

"I wanted to do more. Being a vegetable is hardly what you'd call living," he turned away from her, stomping off back to his truck. Quietly his mind told him that he knew he'd regret asking. He looked outside, dusk was descending upon the city of Neo-Tokyo. The battle between Akira and the military was finally at an end. Hachiro got up and walked to his emergency vehicle again, more calls would be coming soon and he had to be ready.

Kai felt damn tired by the time he got back to the old Harukiya. His bike was still there, completely untouched, well…that was a relief. He'd been running all the way from the gutters outside the military strong hold back to the Harukiya. It was perhaps a three hour walk but he'd had to hurry. He'd heard that something was going on at the highway bridge near the Olympic Stadium. That was probably where Kaneda had gone after getting his own bike. All the public news channels were telling them that that was where all the action was. Or at least that's what Kai had come across.

He sat down slowly on his bike and took a deep breath. Then he chanced a look at the old bar. From the outside it looked fine, the same old ugly streets and flickering sign. The graffitied walls, everything. But he dared not go inside, lest he'd find Yamagata's body again. He swallowed back the tears and emotion that threatened to come forth again. No…Yamagata was gone. Tetsuo had killed him. He'd seen it, and he didn't want to go inside and look at that body again. He turned on the bike and quickly rode away. He had to go help Kaneda fight against Tetsuo…or whatever monster Tetsuo had become.

6:57 A.M.

In the hospital, there was an odd trembling, almost like an earthquake had occurred. Of course to the residents in the hospital it was hardly anything to worry about, perhaps a 3.0 on the Richter scale, but nothing much else to worry about. As soon as it seemed to pass, they continued on in their conversations and other duties. It was Japan after all, it wasn't like earthquakes were a novel thing unlike the novelty of Lord Akira rising up again.

It wasn't until a moment later when someone was looking outside through the windows sipping at their third cup of coffee that morning. Something odd came up out of the horizon, like a black abyssal sphere, swallowing everything in its path. It was coming upon them fast. Getting larger and traveling miles in a matter of seconds.

The man pulled a nurse over to see it, "What is that?"

She blinked, "I-I don't know."

The man had an innate feeling the explosion he was seeing was not a good one, that it was a destructive force coming upon them far too rapidly for his liking. Quickly he put down the cup of coffee and began yelling, "Everyone! Get all wounded and injured who can run out of here! Leave everyone else! come on move!" everyone on that floor who'd heard was rapidly running, moving, patients who could be released were released. The ones, such as Yamagata were left behind as chaos ensued in the hospital. The hallways filled up with people trying to get out of the building. In a sick ballet several people jumped off, others waited to be consumed into the heart and soul of Lord Akira. Still others, more sensible, feared for their lives and a mob pushed it's way through doors, trampling those too weak and small. The world was coming to an end a second time around. And not everyone made it. The explosion surged forth and most who were trapped inside were consumed and died along with all the buildings and other things caught up in it.

But the explosion was not a regular explosion, it was also the explosion of a mind, and not a single mind. Inside, was a being...that called itself, Tetsuo. Out of all the people it had consumed in it's explosive manner it came across one person in the hospital, one person it was surprised to come across. It recognized the damage it had caused, And it recognized what patterns it could use to fix the damage it had caused so rashly. Quickly it mended the damage, and slowly the brain began to see again, to understand again and then Yamagata came into consciousness.

He lay in the abyss...it was white all around him. Inside, what was left of the buildings floated past him. And then, then he was outside of it again, on rubble, and he watched as the explosion began to retract, it grew smaller and farther away and then he saw nothing of it anymore. Then, morning light poked through the clouds above. And Yamagata surveyed his surroundings. A majority of Neo-Tokyo had been destroyed. Destroyed by something neither he nor many others understood. But on the far side of the city, a few skyscrapers still stood and part of Neo-Tokyo it seemed had survived unlike the old city.

It was 7:09 in the morning, and Yamagata had evaded death again.