A Note From The Author:
Well. I feel like I should take a break more often. Really got the creative juices flowing. Though I still haven't tied it all together, I feel like I actually have most of the ending written down.
Of course, realized a few things really didn't work... Pity, because I liked the idea. Oh well. C'est la vie. Anyway, here's more story!
-0-0-0-0-0-0-
When Okazaki had been Past, it had taken him a few moments to realize he was even under attack, Okazaki reflected. To say that he had been in complete disarray after the nuclear assault would be no exaggeration. He had not been in any shape to resist an assault; much less one that had taken advantage of his weaknesses so fully.
This wasn't to say that he had been completely surprised by his attack. Almost immediately after he had regained some measure of his faculties, he had realized that an attack was almost inevitable. Of course, he hadn't expected it to occur seconds after he'd found himself again.
Okazaki watched as the first hypervelocity rounds fired from specially designed submersibles shattered many of Past's surviving infantry fragments. His tanks, mostly made of armor due to not having crew compartments, would have survived the attack, albeit with damage. His infantry might have been able to jump out of direct line of fire if he'd noticed sooner. By the time Past had realized the rounds were inbound, it was far too late for him to avoid them.
Ammo ran out quickly, but not before every single infantry fragment was destroyed. Okazaki's infantry, the Terminator lookalikes, advanced quickly, and poured out a dense countermeasure smoke in front of them. Past's tanks fired blindly into the oncoming smoke cloud, but completely missed; Okazaki knew where the laser beams and mortar rounds would hit.
He took a measure of solace in that the chaos butterfly hadn't had any effect, in spite of the fact that Fujibayashi and Tamafuki had died. It meant that their deaths had happened before; it hadn't been for nothing, at least.
Okazaki's forces dispersed into the middle of Past's tanks, and began to jump. Sonic cannons from Past's tanks fired upon them, to little effect; human soldiers would have been pulped, missiles would have detonated, but the heavy cyborgs were unfazed. The cyborgs placed their payloads precisely. As the cyborgs jumped away, explosions destroyed laser cannons and treads, effectively disabling the tanks.
Past tried to bring Okazaki's cyborgs into the firing lines of his laser cannons. But Okazaki's cyborgs were fast; faster than the laser turrets could traverse at those short ranges. More tanks fell quickly. Okazaki took a moment to set thermite charges on disabled tanks, directly above controlling brains and fusion reactors; all of the important portions that would make salvaging the units easy.
Okazaki remembered that this was the point at which he had known the battle was lost, and had started to pull back. He had, of course, been surprised and frustrated when the cyborgs had kept up with his units.
Okazaki found the situation almost amusing as he disabled a few more of Past's tanks. It was schadenfreude again, mixed with hatred for what he had done. He deserved so much more than he would be giving his past self, but he wasn't going to cause a paradox just to torture himself. There would be time enough to do that after Past was defeated.
As expected, Past opened fire with his own artillery, trying to at least claim a pyrrhic victory from the attack. Okazaki disabled the last few tanks and let his cyborgs flee the situation, as Past's own artillery rounds smashed his own tanks around. The second wave would finish off the now badly damaged vehicles.
Okazaki wanted to laugh. It was almost too easy. He knew what would happen, what his past self's weaknesses were, and he had forces specially designed just to destroy his past self's units. The phrase 'like shooting fish in a barrel' came to mind. He had always wondered what had been on the mind of his opponent when he had been on the other side of this fight, and now he knew for sure.
In spite of himself, he felt at home for the first time in a while. Cordite. Ozone. The coppery smell of freshly spilt blood, the acrid smell of burning plastics, the metallic tang of vaporized steel. All smells he was intimately familiar with, and reminded him of simpler times.
He hated them dearly. His urge to fight, his blood lust, they had resulted in the deaths billions already, and had taken the lives or minds of all of his friends. And even that wasn't enough to keep him from enjoying the fighting. He wondered if he ever would lose those urges. As he thought about it, he realized that after all that had happened, he still enjoyed it and wanted more. That would always be a part of him.
'Is this all I am, in the end?' he wondered idly. 'Someone who can only fight and kill? Someone who will always end up hurting and killing my friends? Is this all I am now?'
He shrugged the feelings off and worked on pushing Past inland. Though he hated the fact, having bloodlust such as his made the tasks ahead of him all the easier.
-0-
Kotomi stopped asking Okazaki questions altogether a few days after his past self's mass nuking. As far as he could tell, it was coincidental timing. She no longer watched the news or asked him what was happening; all she did anymore was work on some sort of project.
He wasn't sure what it was, but he was fairly sure it involved his mind-to-machine interface. He had divulged nearly everything he could about it to her, and had said as much shortly before she stopped asking questions. In his mind, there were a few things that whatever she was working on could do; something to perhaps render his mind-to-machine interface impotent, or perhaps something that merely prevented his fragments from speaking to one another.
He didn't dare assume it would be something beneficial to him. He suspected she hated him to some degree now, and if so, he certainly could not blame her in the least. He wondered if it could match the hatred he had for himself and his actions. He doubted it sincerely, but there was no way to know for sure.
The worst part of it was that he knew that it didn't really matter. Not now. What had been done was done, and there was no turning back. All he could hope for was that she waited to wreak her vengeance until after he had finished eradicating Past and had ensured humanity's survival on a post-apocalyptic planet.
Beyond that, whatever she did to him, he welcomed it. Perhaps she would find a way to kill him, as Ushio had promised. He welcomed that too, in spite of knowing he might end up back in Ushio's world. In a way, he sort of hoped it would be her to do it. Maybe she could find solace in his death and move on, if she were the one. At this stage, it was all he could hope for.
As he thought about it, he realized all he feared of death was that he would continue to exist onward past that point. Simple cessation of existence would be a relief for him at this point. But perhaps to continue on, remembering what he had done and regretting every bloody inch of his past, perhaps that would be sufficient penitence for his sins.
-0-
Okazaki pushed Past inland. The few tactical victories that his past self won were strategic losses, and in dark parody of the world's armies, Past's forces began to break just two months into Okazaki's assault.
He remembered what it had been like. Retaliatory attacks had turned into bloody ambushes that invariably destroyed all his attacking units. Then each time, a counterattack had destroyed the base he had attacked from, while its defenses were weakened from the lack of the assault units. The pattern had repeated itself until he stopped sending out retaliatory units.
It had only gotten worse, then, as artillery had started pounding on his bases. It had been like the first engagement all over again each time, leaving very little left to attack with. His final action, to scuttle the attacked base with an internal warhead, had only occasionally been successful.
It had been like his assailant knew exactly how he thought and planned accordingly, a fact that Okazaki found funny in hindsight.
He had thought that one last assault might be enough to turn the tables, and perhaps save himself from being utterly destroyed. He scraped together what few units he had left that he could spare, and sent them toward the locations he knew the enemy had been attacking from.
It had taken them nearly a month to cross the ocean, facing harassment both from remnants of the world's navies as well as attacks from what he hadn't known at the time to be his future self. Even as more bases had crumbled behind him, and in spite of those attacks, he still had been able to make it within striking distance of the enemy bases.
Okazaki remembered how hopeless it had seemed to him at the time. He had known he would probably still lose. But he had also known the mysterious enemy had never really been on the defensive, either. It had been a desperate, mad last hope; a gamble on relative inexperience, one he hadn't known had been rigged from the start.
As such, he had opted to do anything, just for the chance of victory. This had included launching what few nukes he had produced since his retaliation at the mysterious enemy's fortifications. It hadn't been as if a few more would cause much more damage to the biosphere at that point, he had rationalized.
-0-
While Past sailed toward the city, Okazaki himself prepared. Specifically, there was a still unsettled matter he needed to deal with, and that was the path to the school.
He had started building the monumental construct as soon as he had fully established his base. Exceedingly careful use of nanites - with electromagnetic pulse generators on hand to deal with potential 'gray goo' incidents - allowed him to build a carbon nanotube shell under the entire path, using carbon in the dirt for materials. A small, easily collapsed tunnel brought motors and fuel to the construct.
He started building it only because his memories told him the path shouldn't be there. Tomoyo's love of the path, and the memory of her death, told him what to do with it. The approach of his past self told him when he needed to set his plan into motion.
-0-
Okazaki looked over at Kotomi with a frown as she typed at her laptop. In the months since the mass nuking, she had not spoken a word to him. He hadn't attempted to get her to speak to him, either. Each day he thought about saying something, but always stopped himself, realizing there was nothing left to say that wasn't a hollow assurance or empty apology.
It was just as well in a way, he felt. Each time he locked eyes with her, he died just a little more. One way or another, Ushio was right. Kotomi was suffering the worst. Sunohara had the comfort of distance from him. Kyou had retreated into the comfort of madness. Fujibayashi, Ryou, and Tomoyo were dead. Kotomi had none of those comforts.
As he thought about it, he realized that the only one not really suffering whose life he had touched was Fuko; at least as far as he knew. That was only because she hadn't been around long enough, he knew. If he hadn't healed her, if she had stayed in town afterward, he was sure she would be suffering, too.
He turned his thoughts to the girl at the laptop that had once been Kotomi. She was broken. That much was plain to see. But not to the point of insanity. And she still stayed at his side, even if he was sure that was to give her the chance to use whatever weapon she was making.
He found himself frequently wishing that she'd just use it already, and put him out of his misery, damn the paradox. Then he'd scream at himself, furious at his desire for a respite, furious that he would think of letting a potentially universe-ending paradox occur. Inevitably, he would also remember that he'd probably just end up back at Ushio's, anyway.
He shook the thoughts from his mind and sighed. There wasn't much time.
"Kotomi chan," he ventured quietly.
She made no response, save to turn her head in his direction.
"I... We need to go to the bunker. I... My past self is..." He looked down and to the side.
Kotomi regarded him blankly for a moment, before turning to her laptop and closing out of the program she had been using.
Okazaki sighed with relief. He didn't want to have to bring her by force. But if she stayed, she would die, and he wanted that even less.
She silently shut her laptop down, stood, picked it up, and walked past him toward the elevator closet.
He shook his head and followed.
-0-
Okazaki had been able to use the investigators he'd taken over to keep him within Hikarizaka, rather than being sent to a prison elsewhere. The investigators probably wouldn't have been enough if it hadn't been for the fact that there was a war waging across the ocean. Ironically, Tomoyo's words helped him in that regard. He stated, through the investigators, that though there was no evidence at his home, there was reason to believe he was somehow involved, thanks to her raving about his crimes.
Even so, the police had already done everything legal to him that they could to try to make him talk, and even a few things that could be considered outside of the law. At worst, the attempts were annoying. Either way, they didn't prompt him to speak. Not that they didn't try, more and more desperately as the war took turns for the worse, and most of the less legal attempts occurred after the great atomic cleansing had occurred.
The better part of a year, playing mute in a jail. He almost had to smile, thinking of what the expression would be on his guard's face.
"The time for waiting is over," Okazaki said. "It's time for talking."
The guard didn't disappoint him.
-0-
"Now, Mr. Okazaki, could you repeat that again?" Komatsu Gorou asked a few minutes later. The balding chief of police raised a bushy gray eyebrow and leaned forward to rest his hands on the desk. He stared at Okazaki expectantly.
An officer stood guard behind Okazaki, rubbing his fingertips on the pistol in his holster.
"I need you to evacuate the city," Okazaki replied.
"That's an interesting request. And why should I grant it?"
"I assume you have read the case reports about me, and about Sakagami Tomoyo?"
"I have. That's why I'm speaking to you at all. That doesn't mean I believe any of it."
"I suspect that, whatever she said, it's true."
A commotion from the hall made Komatsu turn his head for a second before he frowned at Okazaki. "Apologies if I find that hard to buy, considering how little proof-"
A knocking at the door interrupted him.
"Proof, Komatsu san?" Okazaki smiled wryly. "If you'll open your door, I believe you'll find sufficient proof."
Komatsu frowned and nodded to the guarding officer, whom reached over to open the door. He then yelped and snapped his pistol from the holster, training it on the figure in the door.
It stood slightly over two meters high. Though it was vaguely humanoid, there was no mistaking it for a person. Light gleamed off the vaguely skeletal figure, as it bowed down slightly to enter the room. Behind it, a number of officers wielding pistols and wooden tonfa formed a nervous semicircle.
"Proof," said the figure, with Okazaki's voice. "Or shall I have to produce more units before you believe me?"
"...I-I believe you," Komatsu said, as he grasped the edge of his desk hard enough to whiten his knuckles. "Then you are what destroyed the rest of the world?"
Okazaki frowned. "I see the story you have received is incomplete. No, I am fighting against him. The problem is, he is underway. And he will destroy this city, make no mistake. However, I have a bunker underneath the city. It will be easy enough to evacuate to there. Your officers, however, would make the process considerably more painless than if I had to perform this task myself."
"Why did you kill that girl? And that boy?"
Okazaki grit his teeth. "That was... an accident. A tragic, heart wrenching accident... She was my friend. I never..." He sighed and shook his head. "Look, that's not important right now. We need to evacuate the city, and we need to do so immediately."
"Why should I believe that? Why should I do anything you say?"
"Simply, because if you don't, I will have to force the issue. I would rather not do this, it'll just get people hurt. But if I have to, I will."
"...I suppose you're implying we do not have a choice in the matter?"
"You are correct."
Komatsu leaned back and breathed a sigh.
"Think of it this way," Okazaki said. "Your duty is to protect the people, is it not? Aiding me, one way or another, will be in line with your duties."
"I don't like it." Komatsu admitted, rubbing his face. "But I do not see an alternative. Very well, where do you need us?"
The figure slowly pulled out a map from within its torso, and handed it to Komatsu, whom took it with a nervous glance at the war machine. "The locations on the map are where you need to send people. I will be able to handle things from that point on."
Komatsu studied the map for a few seconds before nodding. "Very well."
"Thank you," Okazaki said, and bowed.
-0-
Outside the door, an investigator listened in on the conversation. He had been one of the officers that had looked into Okazaki's house. He looked at the other officers with a frown and turned away, going to the break room to make a phone call.
His former identity would have made the call anyway, Okazaki knew. But under Okazaki's direction, he could make sure the right information got through. It was time for what remained of the Japanese Self-Defense Force to make its stand.
