The remaining day and a half of suspension passed quickly. Okazaki continued to teach Kotomi about the mind-to-machine interface, while at his house he watched Babylon 5. Soon it would be an end of such peaceful days, he knew. The phrase "the calm before the storm" sprung to mind. When he came back the day after detention, the feeling only grew.
Sunohara's seat was empty. While that was a normal event, the fact that his friend wouldn't be returning to it ever again brought a frown to his face. It was a bridge burned, no matter how much water he could pour on it.
Fujibayashi, a few seats in front of him, sat with unnatural stillness, and was quick to leave when the day ended. He wondered briefly if she went to the theater clubroom, and then thought idly about dropping by the room to see if anyone had bothered meeting.
He decided not to. Even if they decided to meet, he knew going there would only cause them to leave early. Better to let them have their fun. They would do well without him.
He learned later from Kotomi that the club hadn't met. She had gone, only to find the three new girls and no one else. He wondered how long it would take them to catch on that he wasn't going to go back to the club.
The day passed with tense silence to the next.
-0-
"Today," Okazaki said out loud as he looked out his bedroom window at the city he had come to love. "The day that everything began to change." He sighed deeply. It was not the city's day to die, but the actions he would take that day would make its destruction inevitable.
It was time. In a short few hours, he would have to start fighting his own past. The calm would soon give way to the storm.
At once, he felt both tired to the soul and excited. Tired, because he knew he couldn't afford to make a mistake, and because it would be an end to being able to participate in the normal student life. Excited, because it would be the first challenging fight he'd have since he'd augmented himself again.
It was largely a symbolic fight. A few drones more or less for either himself or his past self would be meaningless to both of them. But it was still the fight that heralded the beginning of the end.
"Things went to hell after that point... Couldn't fight relatively cleanly knowing what was on the other side of the ocean." He tapped his foot in agitation. It felt like he was missing something important. He wished he knew what. Every unit was in place. He could see the planes his past self was taking on radar. Had seen his past self get on the jets.
There wasn't anything he was missing, even after he checked the fiftieth time. He shrugged it off and attributed it to a simple case of nerves. After all, it wasn't every day one started a war with their past self that would result in the deaths of billions. 'Only on Tuesdays. Good day for starting a war.'
He snorted at the thought. "Never did get over my tendency toward dark humour, either." He turned away from the window and got dressed.
'Last time to wear this uniform, too. Last time to go to school like a normal kid. Last time to...' He shook his head. "So much for good times," he said with a sigh. "It was fun, wasn't it? Living like a normal person, for a time?" He looked down at his hands.
'And this, too, shall pass,' he reflected. 'Everything must come to an end sometime.' He looked forward again with a determined set to his eyes. 'No turning back now. Time to do what must be done.'
-0-
Okazaki walked to school with a determined stride, and arrived without incident. He tracked his past self as he left planes at various airports. He sat down in his seat as one of his past self's drones rented a car. He watched in his mind's eye as his past self's rental car neared Hikarizaka. He pretended to sleep as his past self parked the rental car near the sakura lined path to the high school.
He idly decided to just call his past self 'Past'. It seemed appropriate.
He raised his head to look out the window. In the same place where he had intercepted Yonai, just a few weeks before, came Past.
Past strode onto the school grounds with a stiff yet confident swagger. Alert, greenish blue eyes that seemed stuck in a perpetual glare scanned this way and that warily, an odd complement to the derisive sneer on his face. A hand reached up to stroke his bushy brown beard contemplatively, before reaching down to adjust the clothing on his plus sized torso.
Okazaki remembered the reason for every detail. The stiffness was because of all the crystalline armour that lay just below the skin of the drone. The oversized gut held within a fusion micro-reactor, which shown brilliantly on his thermal vision, even through obscuring armour and heat shielding. The alertness was because he knew he was in enemy territory.
The derisive sneer and swagger, of course, were because he had always been a cocky bastard, confident he could take whatever his foes could dish out, and not expecting too much different here.
Okazaki had to admit that, if nothing else, he was going to enjoy proving him wrong about that. Past was now in his territory. He would protect it, memories told him that much. He would also protect the people living in it. That was just determination on his part, but he aimed to see it become truth. He wouldn't see his friends die, not again.
Past walked past the club building, looking, Okazaki knew, for the heat of an active reactor, and not finding one. Okazaki had no reactor; just the high capacity batteries. Although Past had similar batteries, he had fewer, and for him they were backup power. His design methodology at the time had been to field units that didn't require an extensive logistics train that could be cut.
Combined with even his infantry units being tough enough to only be reliably taken out with anti-tank weaponry, not needing logistical support had allowed his units to run roughshod over traditional armies as he cut their supply lines to ribbons. The reactor was also a weakness though. Heat seeking missiles were drawn to them, which was an effective, if pricy way to take out his infantry.
And hitting the reactor chamber hard enough would crack it, letting air in. Safety was the price for portable fusion. The reaction required a localized point where temperature reached well into the millions of degrees. When air hit that, in such a small unit, the results were... explosive. No more than a standard stick of dynamite, but when it happened inside a human-sized body, the results weren't pretty.
Okazaki intended to do more than just crack that reactor. He stood up, ignoring the protest from the teacher. It was now or never.
"...E-Everyone, get away from the windows!" exclaimed Fujibayashi.
Time slowed down as he artificially boosted his reaction times and turned toward the window. A short hop sent him crashing through it. Shards of glass bit into his skin. A puff of compressed air sent him down at the proper angle. He could hear the sound of shattering glass behind him.
Past looked up at the sound of breaking glass in surprise. Too late, Past's main weapon popped out from his back. The laser cannon was designed to burn through the top armour of a main battle tank, and less reliably, through the rear armour.
Okazaki's hand landed on the barrel of the weapon as it fired. Though his ring finger was reinforced, it still didn't come anywhere close to tank armour. The laser burned through almost instantly. It also boiled a swath of flesh off Okazaki's face. The beam continued on from there.
The laser cannon was not meant to stand up to 320 kilograms of cyborg landing on its barrel. It was ripped free of its mounting, and tossed to the side. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see it begin to burn, a thermite self-destruct charge having gone off within.
The rest of Okazaki's body contacted Past's shortly afterward. The impact of the collision was like having a light car dropped on him from a third of the height. Concrete cracked under his heels, and he was forced into a crouch.
Okazaki's feet finally touched ground. He mirrored Past's crouched stance.
In eerie synchronization, they leapt. Okazaki forward, Past backward.
Past's left shoulder exploded upward with a pneumatic hiss. A special hooked machete held within his shoulder ripped through his clothes. He reached for it with his right hand.
Okazaki made the quickest of jabs to the handle of the machete. It flipped just out of Past's reach.
Past used the hand he had been reaching to it with to send a backhanded blow toward Okazaki.
Okazaki tilted his head back to avoid the hit. It still clipped him in the chin with enough force to give his jaw an unnatural bend to the left. His cheeks exploded as small bullets were fired from hidden barrels inside his head.
The bullets stitched an angry red line across Past's eyes, digging gouges into the plexiglas corneas and obscuring his vision.
Click-click-click.
The small ammunition supply ran dry to Okazaki's cheek mounted guns.
The machete bounced off of Past's shoulder. The tip of it nicked his skin as it bounced.
Past reared his left fist back for a punch, doing his best to judge Okazaki's position without being able to see more than a blurred outline.
Okazaki jabbed again. This time not with the intent of knocking away the machete. The handle hit Okazaki's right palm.
Past's left hand darted out with a straight punch.
Okazaki let the momentum of the punch tilt his right side backward.
They finally reunited fully with the ground near the gate of the school. They leapt again.
Past tried to get distance from Okazaki.
Okazaki scythed down with Past's blade while bringing his leg up for a kick. The triangular wedge on the tip of the machete came down on Past where the neck and collarbone of an ordinary human would meet.
Past punched at the side of the machete while Okazaki kicked past self in the chest. Both hits landed at almost the same time.
But Past's drone was somewhat slower and less agile than Okazaki's more refined model. The kick ripped the machete backward, the tip catching slightly on frontal armour plate. The plate cracked where Okazaki kicked.
The machete itself was made of the same X-ray transparent crystal as his armour. It shattered under Past's blow. But it had served Okazaki's purpose. He tossed the handle to the side.
Past flew through the concrete wall beside the school gate. He skidded for a moment before turning the momentum into a roll.
Okazaki fell forward into a bracing position.
Past rotated onto his feet and snarled at Okazaki.
Okazaki's lower torso exploded outward. Five barrels, each holding a .50 BMG round, oriented themselves toward Past. Almost as one, all five rounds fired. The recoil from the heavy rounds made his front leg lift off the ground slightly, in spite of his 320 KG bulk.
The first round hit the crack in the armour, widening the gap but not quite able to penetrate the plate when hitting away from the fracture plane.
The second round widened the gap further, shearing off the jacket of the bullet. The bullet core slammed against the reactor housing with reduced energy. This put a series of cracks in the housing.
The third round sailed through unimpeded until it met the reactor housing. It smashed through, narrowly missed the center of the reaction, and impacted the opposite side of the reactor from the inside.
The fourth round penetrated all the way through. It left a gaping hole in Past's back as the crystalline armour shattered, not designed to take force from the inside.
The fifth round sailed through Past to parts unknown.
Past exploded. His legs and lower torso immediately began to burn as thermite charges ignited. The rest of him tumbled through the air and landed a couple meters behind the burning remains of his lower body. He shook his head, momentarily stunned by the damage to his person.
A moment was all Okazaki needed. He turned so that his shoulder pointed toward Past's mangled form. He raised his arm straight out, pointed toward the drone's head. There was a click, as mechanisms locked in place at the elbow and shoulder.
Past snarled as he regained his bearings. Even being rendered to just a torso and arms didn't put him out of the fight. He pushed himself up to stand on his hands.
Okazaki's hand flipped downward, revealing the end of a laser cannon.
One searing moment, and Past's drone began to burn, thermite charges detonating at the loss of a signal from his brain. It was a measure to keep his technology from being reverse engineered; thermite rendered his remains into pools of molten metal, crystal, and carbon ash.
Okazaki smirked as his hand returned to its normal position. He felt exhilarated for the first time in years, finally able to fight without limiting himself. Fighting without pulling punches, each blow meant to kill, if possible. It was like meeting an old friend, like a warm meal after ages of starvation, like returning home after being away for years. Even if it hadn't lasted long, he still felt contentment at finally being able to let loose after so long.
He loved it.
He hated it.
Why did it have to be that he only felt this way, like he was complete, when he was fighting to the death like this? It wasn't fair.
He sighed after a few moments, and surveyed the damage. A big gaping hole in concrete wall near the school gate led to a long line of torn ground where Past had skidded. At the end of the line was a small crater, the edges of which burned from the thermite still alight, a funeral pyre for Past's drone. Three floors under the broken classroom window was another burning pile of thermite; all that remained of Past's laser cannon.
Just over eight seconds from start to finish. Eight seconds to start a war that would kill billions.
Similar results trickled in from the other places where Past had arrived. The same scene, played out in radically different ways. This was the only urban location he had visited. Everywhere else had been out of the way, in the middle of nowhere. He used heavier weapons in those other locations, in accordance with his memory.
He looked around. There was something missing. He blinked as he came to a realization. 'Where is everyone?' He looked at the nearest building, and turned on heat vision. He could see people huddling under the window line, apparently at the direction of the teacher. 'Ah. Duh. School shooting security.' He shook his head at his own stupidity and alliteration before turning to the building he had leapt from.
With a shrug, he activated optical camouflage and walked toward the building and started to clamber up the side. It no longer hid him perfectly; the damage he had taken destroyed the organic light emitting diodes that made up his stealth system where he'd been hit.
He flipped himself expertly into the room, to find it mostly empty. The only other person in the room was-
He stared, transfixed by the figure.
It was Fujibayashi. And she was dead.
-0-
End Act Two
-0-0-0-0-0-0-
A Note From The Author:
So... that happened. I have to say, it's been interesting holding onto this little twist for so long. I've actually foreshadowed it a bit... Well, specifically her, I should say. I mean, I've been pretty heavy with the foreshadowing that something was going to happen, but not specifically what. For that, I laid some rather subtle foreshadowing. Points to anyone whom finds it. :P
But do me a favour, and PM your guesses? In fact, if you could do me a big favour and not review spoil that, I would be most appreciative. ;)
Anyway, I would like to thank Palaven Blues for her work beta'ing this whole thing, she's helped quite a bit with everything. If you're into Mass Effect, I totally recommend reading her stories. She's good.