It was a joyous yet melancholy moment for Juro Kurabe and Megumi Yakushiji as they walked away from their pods and into the world. The real world. It may not have been the same Earth that they had spent the last sixteen years living virtually in, lacking in all the luxuries of their different ages, but it was free. Free from the loops, the Deimos, and any external forces forcing them to fight and die. Here they could finally, truly live.

As they walked down the halls of the dark structure, they found two neatly folded sets of clothes placed on a nearby table. Their own names were displayed holographically in front of each set, clearly made as part of the awakening process. They both grabbed a set and awkwardly changed together, trying not to think about how the other looked currently. When they finished changing, the two started walking again toward the light. As they approached the light, Juro turned to look at Megumi.

"Are you ready to see the new world?"

"I think I can do anything, if you're with me."

The two clasped hands and finally exited the structure and into the sunlight. They shielded their eyes from the sudden brightness, and as they adjusted, voices could be heard approaching them.

"It's about time you woke up man. I thought we were going to have to send a search party after you." A voice called out in a joking manner.

"Shu…" Juro said excited, eyes adjusting finally and spying his best friend, Shu Amiguchi. "So, everyone really is here."

"Yep. Can't get rid of me that easily." He joked. "We found a building down the path here. We think it's supposed to be the living quarters, not that they apparently bothered to label anything here in the future. Come one, I'll show you there."

"Wait! Shouldn't you be more careful?" Juro asked worriedly as his friend started walking away at a brisk pace.

"Huh, what are you talking about? Please don't tell me you hit your head getting out of the pod." Shu said, looking over at Megumi as if to check with her.

"I'm perfectly fine! I'm talking about your eyes. Don't you need contacts or glasses? I doubt those came with the clothes." Juro explained.

"Oh right. Don't need them." Shu said dismissively.

"H-How-?"

"Juro, we're humans living on a planet thousands of light-years from earth and were grown in tubes. It'd be a bit worrying if they couldn't fix a bit of nearsightedness." He reminded his friend. "Also, you just realized that? Did you really miss the fact your girlfriend was missing her glasses while you two were making out in there?"

"T-That wasn't what-"

"We weren't doing-"

"Oh, calm down you two, I'm just teasing. In all seriousness, the sun looks like it's going to set soon, so let's go." Shu said, walking off towards a building in the distance.

Upon entering the futuristic yet overgrown building, twelve sets of eyes turned to look at them. The other pilots were all sitting on bunkbeds built into the walls of the building, each talking in different groups. Upon entering though, everyone stopped talking and just stared at them.

"Look who finally decided to wake up. And people said I had a sleeping problem." Giggled Iori Fuyusaka.

"Oh please, we both know that wasn't what kept them, if you know what I mean." Said Tomi Kisaragi, winking at Juro.

"Really Tomi, you two?" Megumi sighed as Juro began sputtering again.

"Sorry girl, we couldn't think of anything else to talk about." She answered.

There was a cough that was clearly meant to be attention grabbing. Looking towards the source revealed Renya Gouto, sitting on a bunk with one leg crossed over the other. Even without his glasses and buttoned-up school uniform, he still pulled the serious class president look off, giving him an air of authority that somehow didn't seem out of place.

"While I'm sure we all have much to talk about, I believe we should save everything but the most critical of topics for tomorrow. We've all had a long day, and I'm sure the mental fatigue of our fights will start to catch up with us soon." He reminded everyone. "Does anyone have an important question before we get some sleep?"

No one said anything immediately, instead looking between each other, to see who would speak first. Finally, a feminine voice spoke up.

"Um, I have one, if you don't mind…"

Juro turned towards the voice and found… a woman he had never seen before? That was strange. There was something strangely familiar about her, but he knew that he had no actual memories of her. She wasn't one of the Pilots for the Sentinels, but she couldn't be in the real world if she wasn't. Then again, Okino wasn't at the battle but he was here too, sitting right next to the girl.

"I was just wondering if you could explain what is going on?"

Juro swore he saw Gouto's face twitched. "… I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific, Tamao."

"Wait, Tamao? As in Tamao Kurabe, Juro's Grandma?" Natsuno Minami shouted out in surprise. "I didn't know granny was a Pilot…"

"She wasn't. The Tamao of Sector 4 was a memory created by Universal Control to try and fix certain inconsistencies." Okino explained to her. "Do you actually remember meeting this 'Granny Tamao'?"

Juro wanted to immediately refute the pretty boy's claim as ridiculous, but thought back to the events of the past few weeks and realized that it might not be so far-fetched. He could see Natsuno thinking as well and coming to the same conclusion.

"But that's still the name of my grandmother. Are we related or something?" Juro asked.

"Umm…" Tamao looked back at him, still confused.

"The family name of Kurabe was added to yours after the loss of your memories. You were Juro Izumi before that, remember?" Gouto said.

"I don't, actually. That's kinda the point of memory loss." Juro responded sarcastically.

"Even if you were, you wouldn't be the only ones here with shared DNA." Gouto revealed.

"…"

There was a rather pregnant pause after Gouto's latest statement, as everyone processed what he had just said. Then everyone's eyes seemingly widened at once.

"Wait, the fuck does that mean?" Yuki Takamiya spat out, as the pilots all looked between each other in surprise.

"He's saying that some of us are related." Shu said. "I'm not sure how he knows that, but I'm not surprised he does either."

"So someone here might be related to me?" Yuki said in disbelief, before wrapping around Natsuno Minami, who was sitting on the bunk beside her. "I mean we've always been like sisters to each other, but maybe we really were related. Right, Nat-chan?"

"Huh?! Oh yeah, totally! Heh heh…" Natsuno laughed nervously as she and Keitaro Miura shared a look. Both thought back to the video BJ had from 2188, about the two of them in a relationship, talking to her mom…

'She can never know.' They both agreed, understanding flashing between each others' eyes.

"I suppose there's no reason to keep it secret, now that the cat's out of the bag." Gouto said, looking embarrassed at the slip up.

Everyone looked back at Gouto in anticipation, except for Natsuno and Miura, who did so in fear.

"Fuyusaka, your 2188 self was the mother of that times' Okino."

Everybody else spoke at once as the other two sighed in relief.

"I'm Okino's MOM?!" Iori shouted in disbelief.

"…" Okino on the other hand, just sat there wide-eyed.

"And how exactly do you know this?" Ei Sekigahara asked suspiciously.

"It was found in one of the files, locked behind Fuyusaka's biometrics." Gouto said, unconsciously attempting to push up a set of glasses that weren't there anymore. "I wasn't planning on revealing it, but well..."

"Well what about the rest of us? Any other family secrets that you know about?" Nenji Ogata accused.

"No one else that I know of…" Gouto revealed. "What were we talking about again?"

"Umm, I asked what was going on." Tamao said. "I don't think anyone actually answered my question."

"Don't you already know what's going on? You seemed to know a lot more back when we hung out. And wasn't your name Erika Aiba?" Yuki accused.

"What? I'm sorry, who are you again?" Tamao apologized.

"Actually, that was the Tamao from the previous loop. She was in an android body identical to her original one." Gouto began expositioning again.

"Like how BJ was another me?" Miura asked.

"Precisely."

"Oh yeah, I met her. She's the one who gave me permission to live with Juro." Megumi recalled, remembering their meeting on the school's roof.

"By the time Yuki had met her she had already switched bodies with 426, so she never technically met her at all." Gouto points out.

"That was the me from a previous loop, right?" Juro asked, before shooting up. "That's right, I ran into her once. That's when Shiba jumped into my head!"

"Excuse me!" Everyone turned back to look at Tamao, who seemed to be getting annoyed with the constant distractions. "Can someone please answer my question?!"

"Well it's a bit of a complicated answer." Nenji said back. "Look, how about this. Tell us who you are, what 'year' you're from, and what you remember. We'll fill in the blanks."

Tamao looked confused by the statement, but eventually began talking about herself. "Well, as you all seem to know by now, my name is Tamao Kurabe and I'm a student at Sakura High School. For your second question, the last I remember it was the 19th year of the Showa Era."

"That's 1944, just to remind everyone." Okino reminded everyone.

"I remember… The raid sirens, and a bunch of machines showing up. I've never seen anything like them before. They started destroying everything, and for some reason everybody suddenly vanished." Tamao said, recollecting her memories. "It took everything I had to keep Chihiro safe, but after those things left, I couldn't even move. And then you kidnapped her and left me there!" She said, pointing at Gouto.

"What?!" Miura yelled in surprise.

"I had to retrieve Chihiro to give her back her memories. Can we please stay focused?" Gouto pleaded, desperate not to have the group start on another tangent.

Tamao looked displeased but continued anyway. "After that, Miura found me and I… died?"

Tomi gave her a look. "What, you're not sure? You seem mine to me."

"I mean I felt like I couldn't go on any longer and… don't remember anything after that." Tamao tried to explain.

"I remember that. You just disappeared right in my arms." Miura said.

"That was likely due to Universal Control control's meddling. The same thing happened to me." Okino explained from beside her. "She 'died', but since she was a pilot, Universal Control instead left her in an unconscious state until the project either moved on to the next phase or restarted."

"I don't know anything about that, but the next thing I know I woke up naked in some futuristic looking pod with a bunch of people I've never seen before."

"…"

"…"

"Wait, that's it?! That all you know?!" Nenji exclaimed in disbelief. "Even I know more crap than that!"

"Is it really that weird? It's kinda unreasonable to expect us to know everything." Tomi shot back.

Gouto tried to calm the bickering couple. "It isn't that hard to understand. The fifteen of us have all had very different experiences getting to this point. Kisaragi is right, I doubt anyone here knows everything."

"Forget everything, try anything! She doesn't even know about time travel." Natsuno said.

"I don't think she's ever seen a Sentinel, much less piloted one." Miura added.

"She never had to deal with 426, or the pain of Innerlocitors and your memories being tampered with." Ei muttered.

Nenji shook his head. "Man, I would pay good money to forget some of this bullshit."

Tamao suddenly spoke up. "Now that you mention it, I remember having these weird dreams about the future. Or was it the past? I can't keep up with all of this."

"That was us." Gouto said without a shred of shame. "We were adding the memories of piloting the sentinels into your mind, for when you had to fight the Deimos. There was also discussion about letting the Tamao from the loop before take over your body, but we eventually decided against it."

"You mean like Ms. Morimura tried to do with me and Juro Izumi?" Juro realized.

"Precisely." Gouto admitted.

"So, can someone tell me what's going on, and who all you are?" Tamao pleaded.

"Do you want the short version or the long version?" Okino asked hesitantly.

"The long version, I guess?"

Sigh's and groans echoed across the room as everyone realized that they weren't going to be going to sleep any time soon.

"I suppose I shall start," Gouto suggested. "It all started millions of years ago, in the far-off year of 2188…"

"And that's how I punched myself in the face and saved the world!" Shu declared heroically.

Yuki snorted "If by 'save the world', you mean you got your ass stuck in the future and had to be saved by Nat-chan."

"Oh come on, you have to admit it was pretty badass. Anyway, Natsuno showed up a few hours later and got me back to 1984. Then the Deimos showed up, and that about raps up what happened to me." Shu said, ending with a yawn.

Thirteen others copied the gesture unconsciously, for the hundredth time that night. What had started as a simple history lesson had evolved into a convoluted sharing circle, where each person explained their past and actions leading to the final battle with the Deimos. They were almost done though. After hours of literal bedtime stories, there was only one person left to share their story.

"Alright, your turn Shinonome." Shu said tiredly.

"…"

"Shinonome-senpai?" Shu glanced about, not seeing the short silver-haired girl on any of the nearby bunks.

"Now that you mention it, I don't think she's said a thing since we got here." Yuki pointed out.

"Zzz…"

In the silence, a small snoring could now be heard. Everyone investigated the corner of the room it originated from, where a large mound under a blanket appeared to be slowly rising and falling. Ei walked up and raised the blanket, revealing Ryoko Shinonome curled up on the bunk like a cat. The sun's rays shining through the window hit her face, stirring her from her slumber.

"Mmm, is it morning already?" she moaned, sitting up and stretching in her bunk. "Looks like I'm the last one to wake up."

"Actually, we were-" Ei began, before stopping himself and looking out the window emitting the morning rays. "… How long have we been talking?!"

"All night apparently." Gouto said, sighing deeply. "So much for my suggestion…"

Shinonome looked around at the group, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "Sorry, I fell asleep the moment my head hit the bed. What were you all talking about for so long?"

"We were telling Tamao about… everything, I suppose. She was removed from the simulation by Universal Control before she could learn anything of note." Gouto explained.

"That sounds interesting. Could you maybe explain it all to me as well?" Shinonome asked innocently.

Ei suddenly froze. "Oh no…"

Gouto brought a hand to his forehead, massaging his temples. "I can't believe we forgot about that."

"Wait, what's wrong? Why does she need anything explained to her? Didn't she work with you two?" Yuki asked confused, the rest of the group sharing her confusion.

"Ryoko was infected with DD-426, like me." Ei explained. "Okino was able to save most of my memories in my nanomachines, but Ryoko was too far gone to be able to do the same to her."

"The only memories she managed to hold on to were the ones we implanted into her for piloting the sentinels, like Tamao." Gouto finished.

Shinonome looked down embarrassed. "I'm sorry for being such a burden. You guys can explain it all to me too though, right?"

"…" Gouto stared at his friend in contemplation. After a long moment, he tuned around and walked back to the bunk he had been sitting on…

And faceplanted into it.

Megumi walked cautiously over to the man, poking him in the side. "He's out cold."

Everyone simply stood around after that, trying to figure out what to do next. The silence was eventually broken by an obnoxious sigh from Nenji. "We really need to write this shit down somewhere."

"Y'know Captain Pompadour," Kisaragi said. "I think that's the smartest idea you've ever had."