A Pile of Empty Brass | Sora no shinchū no yama

空の真鍮の山

Chapter 0

"Prologue"

"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." – Albert Einstein.

Imagine being a young adult, barely out of your teens.

Maybe even idealistic if a bit naïve.

Imagine believing that after high school, everything you had planned in life will play out seamlessly like an Ishiro Hondo masterpiece.

Your morals, principles, beliefs, and everything that you were taught and raised with are instilled upon you, majorly contributing to the person you are today.

Then have most of that tossed away in one simple deployment that tested everything you believed in.

That's the feeling a lot of us "Gate" veterans carry upon embarking on the expedition to the other side. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I like to think I was an average person. Not too popular, a decent amount of friends, raised by a loving parent or parents, maybe slightly nerdy. I ended up joining the military to seek adventure and fulfillment I would not have found anywhere else. I felt as if I could do more in my life than just waste away working at a thankless white collared job inside a small cubical from nine to five.

After joining the military, life wasn't that bad for me despite what you might have heard. Indeed, I was rewarded with opportunities to travel in places I would not have done so otherwise. Many unique and eccentric characters I've met are some of the most influential figures I would not have known had I decided to embark on another career path. Honestly, time in the military was fucking cake so long as you did what was required of you.

Don't get me wrong, I've had to deal with absurd levels of bullshit that I had to bite my tongue on more than several occasions, but it was something that I could put up with. The pros outweigh the cons, but I'm not a recruiter here to sell you the military lifestyle.

Eventually, I ended up like a majority of people who serve in the military. Burnt out.

The excitement I once held in my job was replaced with boredom and eye roll. Sure, I get brief flashes of motivation now and then, but those were becoming fewer and far between. It's kind of amusing watching the new guys check into the unit, sparks of motivation glistening in their eyes, speaking as if they were still in boot camp. Often have us older servicemen taken bets on how long it took for that spark of motivation to go away and become disgruntled.

They say that once you've lost your passion in something you once held dear, it's time to move on to other things. I figured that I would just do my time, make lasting friends, get some connections to a well-paying civilian job, and be on my merry way.

Then 8/7 happened, or more commonly called, "The Ginza Incident."

You know the whole saying, "Truth is stranger than fiction"? Yeah. I can't think of a more accurate analogy for what occurred on the seventh of that August afternoon. I just knew from the bottom of my heart that nothing will ever be the same again after that.

They came through a Gateway that materialized out of fucking nowhere in the middle of Tokyo. Some Roman Legion who wanted to impose their rule upon us. Sadera, they called themselves.

Does that sound unbelievable to you? Laughable even? Yeah, me too. And I was fucking there.

They went on a rampage, kidnapping, killing, and raping anyone who was unfortunate enough to be caught in their path. When our main military elements arrived, they were kicked back by modern weaponary they didn't even have a concept of. But that wasn't what really caught our attention.

Besides the Gate, which in itself questions our understanding of reality, these Saderans brought with them something none of us thought possible. Dragons, fairies, mages, goblins, all the shit you would find In an fantasy book or RPG game. Needless to say, we were all shocked, a few of us even in denial, then it turned into fear, then excitement.

When Ginza was finally secured and we found out the death toll, that excitement soon turned to anger.

Just like with America when the 9/11 attacks happened, Japan was rallied together in the aftermath of 8/7. It also helped with the knowledge that the Sederans abducted countless civilians, bringing them through the Gate and holding them hostage in gruesome conditions in which I won't state here. Not yet, at least.

But it made it that much easier to send a military response.

Rescue? Retaliation? Justice? Conquests? I honestly couldn't tell you what our overall end goal was.

However, I would be a liar if I told you that I wasn't ecstatic about it.

A whole new world to explore? Actual magic and not some professional illusion? Meeting and interacting with humanoids that were once thought to be nothing more than folklore? There wasn't a soldier or contractor around the world who would've given their left nut to partake in what was the largest ambition known to man.

A whole new fucking world!

We went through, and we did what was asked of us. People wanted to call it retribution. Others wanted to call it an eradication. I call it what it simply was; War.

People often think war is black and white. Good versus evil. Heroes and villains. Yeah sure, there's always plenty of those. Yet, after spending my time over on the other side, I found myself realizing there are more shades of gray than I'm comfortable to admit. Be as it may, it won't stop me from protecting my brothers and sisters in arms.

And as I currently write this, I often reflect on how much I've changed since I've been here in this so called "Special Region". How young and idealistic I was not even a year ago overshadowed by the jaded and slightly cynical person I am today. But after seeing what I've seen the past few months, how could anyone still be the same?

I carried out the orders that were given to me to the best of my abilities. I look after the troops that were placed under my care. As previously stated, we did what was asked of us and then some, often leading me to reflect on how we did things. I often find myself turning at night, replaying missions over and over again in my mind, take by take, wondering if I did everything I could at that moment, wondering if there was anything that I could have done to make things different. Who knows? Maybe if I had done this mission differently, things would have played out better or worse.

Regardless of how things could've played out, nothing can change the past. Even in this world of fantasy and make-believe. The best I can do is tell the stories of the brave men and women who partook in this uncertain period in mankind. Stories of the innocent victims who were caught in the middle. Stories of our enemies from who we've interrogated or I've come to learn after our campaign was practically finished.

And I don't mean the stuff CNN, BBC, Nippon Television, and the other news network regurgitated in order to paint a mild picture of what's been going on.

I'm going to tell you exactly how it went down. To the rawest details. Even the parts that I honestly wish to forget. So if you're hoping for an optimistic one-sided curb stump where we didn't take any casualties, the locals loved us, and that we did everything right, there are plenty others like that. This isn't one.

But this is one where things weren't perfect. They weren't black and white, and they weren't pretty. If you think you're ready for it, then soldier on. I just hope you know what you're getting yourself into.

A/N:

Hey guys. If you're a first time reader, welcome to one of my first fanfics. Well, one that I'm seriously putting time, hours, and research into. For people who've already invested in the story, you'll notice that the prologue is vastly different from what I initially had when I first began.

The original prologue detailed the aftermath of the Battle of Italica, having Itami and an O.C. dealing with the effects of PTSD and the feeling of uncertainty. However, I realize by writing a prologue like that, I would have spoiled you, the reader, of what was to come and how the battle played out.

Also, it severely limited me from writing the battle by already stating what happened. The ol' "writing yourself into a corner". Any chance of me wanting to deviate from canon wouldn't be possible had I kept the original prologue.

It also helped that I was told that it was a huge monster-dump of unneeded exposition. Thus, I decided it was better to completely revamp it. I feel as if it's better this way since it leaves an open mind for the things to come, and it won't restrict me on what I want to write later on.

I've been wanting to write a GATE fanfic for quite a while ever since I was stationed in Japan in 2017. It helped that a lot of Marine weebs over there were familiar with the series, allowing us to have drunken discussions about it in the smoke pit.

After putting it off for three years, I've finally decided to commit. Now it's just the issue if I can pull it off or not.

Reviews are helpful, so please feel free to leave one.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you'll enjoy the fanfic. Isaac Out.

Editor's Note: Now to completely derail that goodbye, here's this story's editor and one of the guys who he bounces ideas off of, TopHatGuy.

My experience? Well, this is where I shill my own story. Captain Arc read it if you want to get a read on the quality of this story. Basically take the quality of that and you're guaranteed at least 75% of it.

discord gg/CQHxQ5N (Remove the space and you're good, or maybe… Issac will leave it in his profile)

Anyways, I merely exist so this man over here can get mega fucking clout on the GATE fandom.

Go stab orphans for clout.

TopHat out.