A/N: Welcome to another flashback. I just got back from a trip out of town a couple days ago, and I didn't have my computer with me, so I couldn't post on time for the anniversary of the story like I had wanted to. While I have time, I was torn between two flashbacks, so I merely decided to expand one into its own chapter for the sake of giving both the screentime they deserve before the story continues since they're both pretty important.
However, I must warn you now.
THIS FLASHBACK SPOILS A MAJORITY OF CHAOS;CHILD AND SOME OF CHAOS;HEAD. IF YOU INTEND ON READING EITHER VISUAL NOVEL OR ARE INTERESTED IN READING THESE WORKS, THEN DO NOT READ THIS CHAPTER UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE SPOILED. WHILE I WON'T SPECIFY WHAT'S A SPOILER AND WHAT'S NOT. IF YOU WANT TO BE SAFE, JUST GO AHEAD AND SKIP TO THE AUTHOR'S NOTE AT THE BOTTOM WHERE I WILL EXPLAIN WHAT'S GOING ON AND ANSWER SOME QUESTIONS I GOT IN A RECENT REVIEW.
Other than that. I hope you enjoy!
Date: January 1, 2017
Divergence: 1.048596 (Steins Gate)
Time until Overwrite: 19 years, 10 months, 13 days.
Wakui woke up with a start. When he did, he was seated on a chair with something heavy resting atop his head. He tried moving around, but he found that straps held him in place, his arms being bound behind his back and his legs being tied together. He gathered himself and found he was in a well-lit, clean room that reminded him of the basement he used in Hekiho Academy. It was bright, so much so that it hurt his eyes to open them for too long. He groaned in pain as he tried to recall just what had exactly happened that got him into such a situation.
He remembered being in Takuru Miyashiro's cell, watching him after his previous attempt to secure his spot in the New World had been foiled by that damned stubborn Mio Kunosato. He was sitting there watching him, now having nothing to do, waiting for him to display the Gigalomania that he once previously had before he gave it all up to "save" Serika Onoe. Two people in the span of six years gave up their amazing powers for selfless goals, something that he himself was unable to wrap his head around. Gigalomania was like God was gracing those individuals lucky enough with his very own powers to do with the world as they could, and Takumi Nishijou and Takuru Miyashiro both gave those powers up.
Then, a madman appeared in the cell, almost as if he had just appeared out of thin air. He recognized that man - rather, child - to be Rintaro Okabe. Wakui was his senior, and he knew exactly the kind of little shit that Okabe was capable of being. To have him appear in that cell with Miyashiro angered Wakui to no end, forcing him to reveal himself. Okabe belittled him, and dared speak to his subject of interest as if he were a totally normal kid. That damned idiot was always getting in the way, so far back as high school when he dared confess to a girl in his class, Sakura Yamamoto - the same Sakura who Wakui expressed interest in! Okabe was in the first class while Wakui was on the verge of graduating, and there he was making a mockery of him from the get-go. He went through an entire year of Okabe treating him with no respect before he was finally able to graduate and abandon Ikebukuro. He resented him, so he had to reveal himself to make him suffer.
But then everything happened so quickly afterwards. One minute he was berating Okabe and threatening him with his Di-Sword adn the next he saw a flash of pink followed by his mind seeming to collapse in on itself.
He tried his best to envision his Di-Sword so that he could break out of his binds, but no matter what he did, he always failed and his brain seemed to have wanted to melt into a puddle in his skull each time he tried. He was getting frustrated and cursed himself out loud for putting himself in such a situation. It was embarrassing and now the Committee was certainly not going to give him any mercy when it came to judgement for those who wished to be a part of the New World.
"I never thought you'd be so critical of yourself, Wakui," he heard a deep voice say from in front of him.
Wakui opened his eyes. Right before him was a man clad in a white labcoat, making him blend almost entirely in with the very pale room that he was stuck in. He couldn't believe that he didn't notice him before. The man's hair was jet-black and it was slicked back. Seeing the hair and the labcoat made Wakui instantly recognize just who was talking to him.
"Okabe-kun..."
The damned kid didn't even use honorifics. Wakui was his senpai in high school, but Okabe never even acknowledged it, not even when he had first met Wakui all those years ago. Wakui grit his teeth.
"Seems to be quite the bind you're stuck in," he chuckled. "Can't break out?"
"I swear I'm going to enjoy your screams once I get out of this embarassing position," Wakui snapped. "I will pull you apart limb-by-limb, cell-by-cell. By the time I'm done with you, you will be begging to die, you hear me?"
"I'd like to see you try," Okabe practically goaded him into the act.
Wakui tried envisioning his Di-Sword once more. He wanted to see the wickedly beautiful weapon flash behind Okabe, envelop him in between both its blades, and cut him in half like scissors, but no matter how hard he tried deluding the Di-Sword, his head was wracked with unimaginable pain. He screamed in desperate anger as he continously tried, but to no avail.
"W-what the hell did you do to me?!" Wakui yelled at Okabe.
He was always a disheveled man, and playfully so, but he was having no fun or entertainment being Okabe's little torture pet. One look at Wakui and it's obvious that something snapped in him. His eyes, once so full of joy, were now intently focused on Okabe, as if they belonged to a ravenous beast. His teeth were clenched angrily at the man who only managed to laugh at Wakui's question. His unkempt hairstyle was nowhere to be seen, as it was all kept underneath something that was stuck on his head.
"What the hell is this thing?!"
He looked at his head before pointing his eyes at the idiotic child who was still laughing as if Wakui had told some sort of joke.
"Who would have known it could work so well!?" Okabe threw his head back in laughter.
Wakui was confused enough to knock him out of his rage-filled stupor. He sat back into his chair, feeling the restraints loosen their grip on his arms and legs. All the struggling he did restricted many blood pathways and he could feel all of his extremities numb from the lack of bloodflow.
"That thing on your head is the product of many nights of studying by a girl genius," Okabe pointed at Wakui's head. "And here we are testing it out for the first time!"
Okabe threw his head back in laughter. "This is truly what mad science is supposed to be, don't you think!? Here I am, risking my life, verifying that an invention created by my very own assistant works as intended!"
He's insane, Wakui thought to himself.
He was about to speak before another voice emerged from the void of white. It was a female voice, higher pitched, almost like that girl, Serika Onoe, when she used her fake, fun-loving voice around her clubmates at Hekiho. He didn't recognize it at all, nor did he see where the figure that it belonged to was.
"You give yourself too much credit, Okarin-san," she said. "It doesn't hurt to be honest, you know?"
A girl walked toward Okabe from behind Wakui. She didn't wear a labcoat, instead wearing simple streetwear: a grey sweatshirt and a blue miniskirt with black stockings. She skipped over toward Okabe and turned around. Such a motion caused her pink, vibrant hair, to whip up before settling itself on her shoulders.
"S-Sakura," Okabe tried recovering from a seeming blow to his manhood. "It's not Okarin. It's Hououin Kyouma!"
Hearing the name Sakura made Wakui grit his teeth. He was also very confused. If that person was indeed Sakura Yamamoto, then her hair should be short and black, not long and pink. Her body was also smaller compared to the girl he used to have a crush on.
He's messing with me. He knows why I began hating him in the first place. I can only really conclude that this girl isn't Saku- wait what the hell am I doing thinking these kinds of things? I should be killing him, Wakui thought.
"You tell me to refer to you by some fake name while you can't even say my name properly," she sighed. "Taku told me you were a handful to deal with, but you're really hurting my feelings right now, Okarin-san."
While both of them were arguing about the most childish things, Wakui imagined the girl picking up her hands and snapping her own, slim, tender neck. Once he got the image in his head, he began trying to look for his Di-Sword so that he could force that delusion into her head as well as Okabe's head. He wouldn't allow himself to be distracted by the pain and worked through it, confirming his will to make the man who put him into such a position suffer. However, the pain quickly became too much to bear as his skull felt like it would split in half if he tried continuing, forcing him to collapse once more in his chair.
The pair's bickering halted as they watched Wakui breathe heavily from the toll his efforts racked on his brain.
"Wakui-san," the girl whose name wasn't Sakura said. "You're not actually this dense, are you?"
Wakui looked up at her.
"That thing on your head doesn't let you make use of your Gigalomania in the slightest. It's working far better than I expected, too."
"What?"
"Tell me, you didn't see my Di-Sword across your throat when you first woke up, did you?"
Wakui's eyes widened before he began frantically looking around for a sign of that girl's Di-Sword. That's what she meant by Okabe giving himself too much credit. Had their experiment gone wrong, she'd have seen his Di-Sword before he could realboot it and killed him.
"Don't bother looking around. It's in my hands right now."
Wakui's head snapped in the direction of the girl who had her hands clasped in front of her, but there was nothing in between them. She was smiling at him, but it wasn't a wicked smile, it was just like the smile of a girl who was naturally a caring and kind person. Wakui grew to resent her more and more for every second she looked at him with those innocent, almost tender eyes. He wanted to kill her just as bad as he wanted to kill Okabe.
"You must be a fool if you can't see the sword," Okabe piped up. "Such an elegant, long blade. Expected from such a mythical sword such as Gram. Of course, only those worthy of seeing it can do so, and I imagine that you aren't worthy of seeing such a beautiful weapon."
Wakui didn't take Okabe seriously and it was obvious that the girl didn't either.
"You're so off the mark, it's embarrassing, Okarin-san," she said. "No one is intimidated by Mr. Maddo Scientisto, and it's even worse when you try to pretend to have Gigalomania in front of actual Gigalomaniacs."
"Huh?!" it seemed Okabe was legitimately offended. "I'll have you know that I impose enough authority to make that girl, Kunosato Mio, quiver in that stupid second-rate labcoat of hers!"
Mio Kunosato. Hearing that name made Wakui's blood boil worse than it did whenever he had to endure Okabe's attacks. That damned girl had the audacity to ruin his plans on pleasing the Committee so that he could secure his spot in the New World. He let her off with a warning when she tried going behind his back to use his machinery beneath Hekiho Academy without asking, and mocked her at the same time because she was playing right into the Committee's plans, but then she interfered with his delusion that would have transformed Shibuya. If it weren't for her, he'd have risen past just a simple agent for the Committee and into something more that fit the kind of determined man that he was.
"Kunosato-kun put you up to this, didn't she?" Wakui questioned. "That brat doesn't know when to quit."
"I'm not inclined to answer to a test subject," Okabe retorted. "You've lost your chance to get answers when you sided with the Committee, Wakui. However, your job from here on out is easy. All you have to do is take this pill."
Okabe produced a cylindrical capsule out of seeming thin air. A simple sleight of hand trick that anyone could have done with that lab coat of his. The capsule was a vibrant blue, and Okabe ensured to show it off in all of its "glory" to Wakui.
"Now, open your mouth," Okabe ordered as he approached Wakui.
Wakui clamped his mouth shut. He wasn't going to allow himself to be experimented on, especially when it came to things that are supposed to be ingested. He didn't know what side-effects that pill was supposed to have and he wasn't going to give Okabe the pleasure of finding out.
"Wakui-san," the girl behind Okabe called out. "You're making this harder than it has to be."
When she finished her statement, Wakui could feel his mouth go through the motion of opening. He could feel as if some invisible force was prying his mouth open and taking his tongue out. It was here that he understood that the girl was using her delusionary powers to force him to take these actions. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't keep his mouth shut. He screamed in terror, something that he never thought he'd be put in the position to do. He wanted to live. He wasn't going to be taken down by a couple of idiots trying to mess with something that they cannot comprehend.
Okabe chortled in response to Wakui's screams before he devolved into full-blown maniacal laughter. There's no way he was capable of doing this. This was cruel beyond compare. This broke several laws. He could be imprisoned for life if it got out - if it got out. His eyes stared at the madman's sneering face.
"Look at what you've done, Rimi! He's crying!" Okabe continued laughing.
Wakui could feel tears wet his cheeks as they flowed out of his eyes. His mouth was still wide open in wait for the pill. Okabe leaned down next to Wakui's ear and spoke in a low voice for only them two to hear.
"I could practically hear you begging for mercy, Wakui," it was a low, threatening tone. "You're in no place to be able to receive it."
Wakui eyed him, terrified.
"Testing on children, allowing The Return of the New Generation Madness to run its course, thus allowing the murder of kids. You're a despicable human being. What I'm about to do to you is nothing compared to what has happened under your supervision. Consider that as your mercy."
Okabe produced a tape recorder from his pocket and began speaking into it.
"This is Hououin Kyouma speaking. I will be administering the first test of the Memory Pill developed by my assistant, Christina, on our first test subject that isn't me, Shuichi Wakui. Today is January 1st, 2017. The dosage will be a 750 milligram capsule. Once administered, observations will be made monthly in order to observe how long the effects of the pill last. Administering test now. El Psy Kongroo."
Okabe stuffed the tape recorder back into his pocket and faced Wakui once more, pill in hand. All Wakui could do was fearfully watch as he placed the pill on his tongue, and felt his tongue roll back into his mouth. This control of delusionary power was unnatural. This girl was something else. But all Wakui could think about was what Okabe had said.
Memory Pill? Is he going to erase my memories?!
He felt his throat muscles contract as it worked the pill into his esophagus. He finally felt himself regain control of his mouth, but the pill had already passed the point of no return. Wakui tried inducing vomiting through sheer willpower, but he was unable to.
"What did you do?!" he screamed. "What did you do?!"
He was panicking now, but he couldn't panic for long.
Almost instantly, he felt an incredibly sharp pain, that only got sharper in his head. It was worse than the pain he felt when he couldn't delude his own Di-Sword, forcing him to shut his eyes in response. He wasn't going to allow this to happen. He'd rather die than experience this.
Wakui opened his mouth and stuck his tongue out. He then slammed it shut, in attempt to bite his tongue off, and he was successful. He felt the iron taste of blood fill his mouth, blocking his ability to breathe properly.
"You idiot!" Okabe screamed at him. "The fate in store for you is better than death, damn it!"
Wakui smiled meakly at Okabe as his mouth continued filling with blood. He finally got Okabe to crack. At the very least, he'd greet death with a smile on his face, knowing that he was at least able to get what he want. He closed his eyes as he felt his body getting weaker.
"You really enjoy making this hard, don't you?" Rimi said. "While I admire your will, I'm afraid I can't let you go that easy, Wakui-san."
From one second to the next, what was once blood became apple juice, and Wakui couldn't feel his tongue be cut anymore. The damned girl repaired his body on the spot using her delusionary powers.
"You're a monster!" Wakui screamed, spitting out the apple juice in the process. "Argh! No - no one should be able to use their Gigalomania so accurately!"
Wakui screamed as the pain in his head got sharper.
"I had help from Nishijou Takumi before he passed on," Rimi's voice was almost somber. "This is my way of repaying Taku for helping me move on from the boy that created him and find myself in my new life. I won't fail, no matter how hard you try to make me."
Wakui felt himself reaching his limit. Any second now, he'd pass out. He grit his teeth with tears in his eyes. Now, there was no way he'd be useful to the Committee. They'd disown him, but he probably wouldn't know about it if his prediction about what the pill was, was correct.
Before his eyes shut one last time, he could hear the footsteps against the solid floor going away from him. He got one final word of goodbye.
"Happy New Year, Wakui-san," Rimi said. "I hope you sleep well."
Then, nothingness.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed that little segment. While it may not feel important now, it's necessary information to be able to understand the next chapter when I pull the story back to 2036.
IF YOU SKIPPED TO HERE, all that's really happened is that Okabe tested his Reading Steiner pill on his first test subject, trying to observe some results. Needless to say, this isn't morally wrong because his test subject objectively deserved it, unlike Leskinen in the last chapter. This took me a while to write only because of how long I was out of town. I totally planned this to be released on the anniversary of the story, but real life got in the way suddenly, and I couldn't avoid it.
I got a question in a review (Nidone) in regards to a retroactive change I made in chapter 1. If you've begun reading this from when I first published the story, and you reread it now, you'll notice a couple changes I made in a couple chapters in order to keep it all consistent. When I first began writing Overwritten, I was nowhere near as knowledgeable in regards to SciADV content as I am now, so I'm just fixing a couple of contradictions I've made from observed canon. The notable change that was mentioned was Okabe's motivation to fight on Valkyrie. After getting as much info as I could on (the cancelled) Committee of Antimatter, I found no mention of Okabe ever participating in fighting the Committee like Daru, only opting for the small-scale stuff. Using that knowledge, I wrote the flashback for chapter 12 and made a couple changes to chapter 1 to fit that.
Just two more arcs and we're finished ladies and gentlemen. This year-long journey is gonna come to a close at the end of the year or at the beginning of 2019. Just wanted to get that out there, as I know it can feel like I can work on this project forever with all the content I can work with, but I have my eyes on other premises within Steins;Gate that I want to try my hand at. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to read my work, as always, it means so much to me that people are entertained by this stuff.
Chapter 13 is in the works! Thank you for sticking around this long, and I hope you stick around until the end! I know I will!
-Quil~