A/N: Hello and welcome to the new 0verwritten! This chapter has some slight alterations from the preview I posted in the old 0verwritten story, but because of the level of changes from the very original chapter 1 to this one, it only made sense to remaster everything and post it as its own story.
SPOILER WARNING: If you have not read or watched both Steins;Gate and Steins;Gate 0, your enjoyment of the story will be vastly limited. This story spoils both works! Knowledge of SciADV canon is not required as 0verwritten is in its own pocket canon.
Enjoy!
Date: November 14, 2036
Divergence: 0.334581α
A ticking clock, the sobs of a woman, and the banging of a bed were the only sounds to be heard on this night.
Sitting in the dark of a plain, undecorated room, a scientist was rocking back and forth at the foot of her bed, hitting it with her back at an uncomfortable force. Though no one would have guessed based on the severity of her breakdown, she was in her mid 40s, and a highly emotional creature to boot. Despite the camera in her room, she felt sufficiently out of view of everyone else, allowing her to fully wallow in the emotions she felt and the memories she gathered.
Will I be able to see my Mama again?
Kurisu Makise gripped the sides of her head tightly, reminiscing on the last words of the little girl that she more than likely doomed only a couple hours ago. She was no older than 10, a Parisian girl who lost her family in the recent French Action of 2032. A violent uprising which was quickly and brutally suppressed, killing thousands in the process.
Lately, she'd been haunted by visions of each person that volunteered to help test out her time machine. Lured in by the promises of riches, finding lost family, or simply being a use to society, these people flocked to SERN's research centers to provide their minds and bodies for Kurisu to use. She did her absolute best to delay the development of the time machine, stretching what should have been a years-long endeavor into decades, but SERN had caught on and began flooding Kurisu with more and more test subjects that they mandated she use. The longer she delayed the time machine's creation, the more people she'd be forced to sacrifice.
She bore it all with gritted teeth, rationalizing with herself that these horrid trials that SERN were running would inevitably be undone, but as time's gone on, as her deadline was fast approaching, she felt herself running out of hope. In the past of this worldline, Itaru Hashida was able to develop a time machine that sent his daughter Suzuha Amane back in time in an effort to retrieve the IBN5100. It was a herculean effort done in upmost secrecy to the point that Suzuha didn't even know who her father was. It was the product of this herculean effort that led to the mission's downfall and to the current predicament that Kurisu found herself in. Suzuha made a pit stop to the 2010s, trying to find out who her father — who she only knew as Barrel Titor — was. Suzuha could not have predicted that a rainstorm would sweep its way through Akihabara and damage all the electronics within her time machine. She could not have predicted that her newfound father, the 18-year-old Hashida, would not have been able to find and fix all the issues within the time machine. She could not have predicted that these issues would lead to her crashing her time machine in the past and have her memories, and thus her life's purpose, robbed from her until it was far too late to recover the mission objective. She could not have predicted that the Future Gadget Lab would be raided by SERN immediately upon receiving news of her failure before Rintaro Okabe had a chance to make things right.
Kurisu was unsure what would happen this go around if things were to come to fruition. She was unsure exactly when Suzuha was sent back in time on the prior attempt — the only thing she knew for certain was that she was sent back in the year 2036. Now, less than two months away from the new year, Kurisu didn't even know if there was going to be another attempt made. Perhaps this time around, Hashida was caught and dealt with before he became a larger issue for SERN. Perhaps this time around, Suzuha wasn't even born to begin with. Worldline convergence always seemed like a fickle thing, and maybe their fates weren't tied to it the way Okabe's, Mayuri's, and Kurisu's own were.
She shuddered at the thought of Okabe. In 2025 he was killed in a directed attack to root out his resistance — the exact way that Suzuha had warned both herself and Okabe about when discussing the future of the Alpha Worldline. Her captors made sure to show her ample evidence of his demise, cementing their grip on her as she no longer had anyone to live for. She remembered the last time they saw each other when they first tried to escape SERN's clutches in 2011 after being held captive by them for a year and a half. She remembered the hope she retained when he was able to escape SERN's grasp and that maybe, one day, he would have been able to return to save her like a knight in shining armor. All those hopes were crushed when she was forced to see his mangled body plastered on all the screens at her facility: a hallmark of SERN's success and further evidence of the rigidity of worldline convergence.
Sobs continued to escape Kurisu's lips. What more was there to do? Perhaps now was the time to give in and give SERN what they wanted. She could no longer bear sacrificing lives for a future that wasn't guaranteed. She remembered the hope in the little girl's eyes when she blatantly lied to her, telling her that all was going to be okay. She remembered how much she had to force herself to stop shaking as she prepped the final calculations of the prototype time machine. She remembered the tears she suppressed as the little girl disappeared into space-time, never to be seen again. Tears that were now freely flowing.
A loud buzzing sound quickly interrupted her thoughts. It was the sound of the intercom in her room becoming active with a voice on the other end. Usually, that voice belonged to Hiiragi Akiko, the same woman who thwarted her escape in 2011, now her round-the-clock handler. Akiko made it a point to relish in Kurisu's suffering. It was her idea to bring in the child for testing, a step in the deep end even for a dystopian overlord like SERN.
"Some congratulations are in order, Makise Kurisu," it was Akiko speaking in Japanese to Kurisu. "My actions were meant to inspire you, yes, but to think it would do this much was unfathomable even to me. You truly are a genius."
It was that same mocking tone that Kurisu always hated. Words dripping with such sarcasm that only served to stab Kurisu's heart.
"What do you want, Akiko?" Kurisu was formal with Akiko in public, always referring to her as Akiko-san or Ms. Akiko, but from the comfort of her room, she dropped all pretenses of respect.
"Very snappy for a woman who has quite literally shaped history."
Kurisu's eyes widened and her head snapped in the direction of the camera. "What do you mean?"
"Thanks to your efforts we've succeeded," Akiko sounded giddier than usual. "Who could have known your bleeding heart was this powerful?"
Kurisu's tablet flashed on her desk, notifying her of a new message in her inbox. Knowing that Akiko and the message were more than likely connected, she hesitantly got up from her spot at the foot of her bed and grabbed her tablet at the desk. The preview of the message was the title of a report that was generated only a few minutes prior. The title was enough to nearly make her drop her tablet: Report 27 - Successful Preservation of Human Subject When Transported Through Time. The first report that wasn't a Jellyman Report.
She opened the report, her eyes flitting across the English words that comprised it. "Subject deceased," "no jellylike substance reported," "subject manifested in intended time," were the words that jumped out at her. To end the report, like all other Jellyman Reports, there was a newspaper clipping from the past. On that newspaper clipping was the picture of the same little girl Kurisu had sent back in time earlier in the evening, her eyes closed, her body covered in burns from the fires that raged around Paris during that time, but just as the report said, not made out of jelly.
Kurisu's legs lost their strength and she suddenly found herself collapsed on the floor. Not only did she sacrifice the life of a little girl who radiated the hope she once had, she also unwittingly advanced SERN's cause to the final step. She must have unconsciously tweaked the settings of the time machine in hopes of easing the little girl's pain. In doing so, she just made matters worse for everyone. She knew that no one was going to survive the trip in SERN's prototype one-way time machine. The human body was not meant to withstand the rapid compression and decompression by the Kerr black holes generated to send someone back in space-time. But SERN also knew that. All they needed was someone to not turn into jelly for them to continue to phase 2 and develop the actual time machine with the structural integrity to withstand the power of the Kerr black holes. She just handed SERN the keys to controlling time.
"I didn't think the excitement would be enough for you to lose your legs from under you," Akiko laughed. "You are the Mother of the Time Machine, as convergence foretold."
Convergence. It was always convergence. No matter what, Kurisu was always going to be a slave to time. No matter what, this was always going to be how things ended. She was always going to bear the shame of being the one to cement SERN's control on the world. She was always going to be the Mother of the Time Machine.
"You are without a doubt the most successful scientist in human history," Akiko continued. "It's too bad you were such an abject failure for your friends."
Kurisu drew in a sharp breath. Akiko always remarked Kurisu with a veiled disgust. It was a given, the woman was the former lead of the time travel project before Kurisu was forced to get involved. Once her genius became apparent to SERN, Akiko became nothing more than a facilitator for Kurisu to lead the project. Her insults were always creative and beat around the bush, usually taunting Kurisu's intelligence due to the amount of times a Jellyman Report was generated during her tenure as project lead. However, there was no filter with what was just said. Never before this had Akiko pushed Kurisu's buttons by using her friends. This was Akiko in her rawest, most disgustingly cruel form. Her true nature.
"Okabe Rintaro, Hashida Itaru, Shiina Mayuri. To think that those three even trusted you with their futures. An experiment-loving girl like yourself just couldn't help herself in the face of a potentially monumental discovery, even if it meant sacrificing her friends. Do you understand me, Makise? It was your greed that got them killed. It was your hunger for discovery that allowed this all to happen. It was your development of the initial time-leap machine that started us down this path."
Kurisu began to shake, no longer able to keep it together. She was at fault. She wasn't careful with her research. She should have listened to her dad. She shouldn't have become a scientist. She was a mistake. A mistake who allowed the current world's ruling structure to happen. If she didn't let her curiosity get the best of her when she met Rintaro Okabe all that time ago, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe convergence would have failed. Or was it convergence that made her like this? Yes, it was convergence's fault that she was so curious about the world's workings to begin with. She was a slave to time, that was all.
"You've played a very critical role in SERN's development of the time machine and we can't thank you enough. However, your role is no longer necessary. We will proceed as planned without you."
The slot to her door opened up very briefly for an object to be dropped through. Kurisu could also hear the door lock, a feature she didn't know it had. She bolted up from her spot and tried throwing the door open, but try as she might, it was magnetically stuck in place. She looked down at the object that was dropped through the slot, a loaded pistol.
"If convergence permits, do us the favor and kill yourself," Akiko spoke with pure venom. "May your friends cast you out of Heaven when you meet them in the afterlife."
And with that, the subtle buzzing of the intercom stopped. The only sound now was the ticking of the clock and Kurisu's ragged breathing. Would her friends forgive her? Would she allow them to forgive her? Yes, convergence may have dictated her every move, but what if there was truth to Akiko's words? What if her own curiosity is what led to these events being set in stone to begin with? She was the reason why things initially turned out this way. Now time is just iterating on itself, remembering and enforcing the very same events that set everything in motion. She was a slave to time, but time was a slave to her unbound scientific mind. A vicious cycle that she just wanted to be free from.
She eyed the pistol and bent down to pick it up, examining it closely. The pistol was a tool to break her free from her chains. Using that tool, she would no longer be forced to live a life she didn't want to. It didn't matter anymore if there was an afterlife. It didn't matter if her friends would be there to forgive her if there was an afterlife. She just wanted to be free.
Kurisu placed the barrel of the gun below her chin and pointed it up, tears streaming down her face as she did so. The last thing on her mind was the summer of 2010 in Akihabara. The last innocent summer she would ever have in her life. She quietly hoped that one day, perhaps in another worldline she could return to that time. She quietly hoped that the afterlife was not so cruel to her. She hoped that, with the pull of the trigger, she'd be set free.
She squeezed her finger, her breathing hitched, a flash of light followed by a loud bang, then darkness... freedom.
Date: November 14, 2036 1:42:21AM PST
Divergence: 1.048596 (Steins Gate)
Kurisu Okabe awoke with a start, sweat dripping down her face and covering her back. Her breathing was ragged and shallow and it felt like she was suffocating in her own room. Tears were freely falling from her face as the worst aspects of the nightmare continued replaying in her mind. It wasn't until she looked over that the feeling of tranquility slowly but surely replaced all the fear in her body. Unbothered by the sudden movement next to him, Rintaro Okabe slept soundly, his breathing subtly moving the sheets he was beneath up and down. Much to Kurisu's delight, her husband was a quiet sleeper, so she spent this time silently observing him and taking in his features, trying her best to distract her mind.
Over the past couple years, Okabe seemed to have developed a nostalgia for how he looked in his teens, returning to a medium-length hair that he could slick back rather than the long, scruffy hair he sported in his 20s and 30s. If she were honest with herself, Kurisu found Okabe a thousand times more handsome with the haircut he currently sported than the ridiculous hair he was trying to grow out. After all, it reminded her of the time they first met properly after he rescued her at Radio Kaikan, the version of himself that she couldn't help falling in love with. He also recently shaved, but stubble was slowly starting to set in again. There was a mental itch that his stubble scratched for her as, often, she would find herself rubbing her cheeks up against his and allowing the hair to prickle her gently. Okabe always called her "an odd woman" whenever she did it, but he had no right to speak given who he was.
After admiring his features for long enough, Kurisu realized she still needed some fresh air. Even though she was calmer, there was a stifling feeling to the room that only outside air would be able to resolve. She quietly shifted out of the covers as to not wake the sleeping Okabe and shuffled her way to the roof of their apartment complex.
The Los Angeles sky was clear tonight, finally enjoying a reprieve from the rainstorms that rolled through in the previous days. She leaned on the railing overlooking the city and took a deep breath still trying to procecss her vivid nightmare. The roof reminded her a little bit of the top of the Future Gadget Lab back in Akihabara, maybe that was also the reason why Okabe would come up here each time he needed to calm down or each time he was up here just for the sake of being up here. Never really finding much use for it, it was only now that she could truly enjoy the feelings of nostalgia and general warmness of being on the roof.
She recalled the intense parts of her dream once more. Specifically the helpless sorrow that seemed to be impossible to shake. Okabe explained to her what her dreams meant, that they were her memories from other worldlines, but as of recently, these dreams mostly just involved her dying some way or another after completing the time machine - a seemingly inescapable fate. He had told her about the convergence points in that worldline, that Mayuri dies in August of 2010, he forms the Resistance, and SERN controls the world, but she never believed him until she started having those dreams.
The 44-year-old let out a shaky sigh, evidence of the fact that the fear and anguish she felt in her nightmare were still present. It also didn't help that the wind began to pick up a little bit. In due time, she was bound to forget the contents of her dream just like the previous ones. Shortly afterwards, she'd forget the feelings she was currently experiencing. It was a reality she was perfectly fine with accepting. However, based on what she gathered of Okabe's words, he lived through that kind of thing. He personally experienced the death of Mayuri ad infinitum, yet still had the mental resolve to be the childlike, albeit still charismatic, arrogant person that he was in the current day and age. She truly couldn't fathom the sheer amount of mental fortitude required to be able to come away with those memories without showing it. She was horribly shaken up by a dream she now only remembered half the contents of! Being in Okabe's shoes was something that she very easily wanted no part of, but she was glad she could lighten the load for him when it seemed like he was about ready to slip. While he wasn't one to show this trauma regularly, there were moments where she caught him spiraling and it was up to her to save him before he lost himself to his memories. He was in a much better mental state now, but she couldn't help thinking back to the summer of 2011 when she visited Japan for the first time since her attempted murder. The agony that would appear on his face from out of nowhere was saddening. The terror that emanated from him each time he slipped into his memories was palpable. There was even a point where he suddenly pulled a knife on the old building manager, screaming at Kurisu to prepare the time-leap machine as quickly as possible. All for him to realize that such a thing didn't exist and that he had threatened the life of an innocent man.
The summer of 2011 was a tough time for both of them to reckon with. Kurisu always had a horrible sense of déjà vu whenever she was around him, like everything she was doing with him for the very first time was already done. Logically speaking, it shouldn't have made sense, since that summer was the first time they ever spent an extended amount of time together. It tore her emotions asunder as she began to question what was real and what was merely a dream. But Okabe was quick to the rescue as he explained that the déjà vu she was feeling was actually her own memories of other worldlines blending into her memories of the Steins Gate Worldline. She was assaulted by dreams and faint memories of these other worlds while Okabe was assaulted by the memories of his past on those worlds. She was able to find comfort in his familiarity and the explanations he had given. He was able to find comfort in her. While Kurisu may have had the inklings of falling for Okabe when she found him the month after he rescued her at Radio Kaikan, it wasn't until the summer of 2011 that she realized she truly loved the man, mad scientist persona and all. Deep beneath the obnoxious attitude of Hououin Kyouma was a man who was willing to do anything for his friends. The way he was patient with her and comforted her through her mixed feelings and confused memories in spite of his own suffering was proof enough of the kind of man that he was.
It was enough for her to shirk her usual thick-headed stubbornness and make the first move for them to officially become boyfriend and girlfriend. Yes, he had charmed his way into kissing her on a couple separate occasions, but for some reason he would never try to push the envelope with her and clarify where exactly they stood. Once she was able to successfully get over struggles with her bitter sense of déjà vu, she finally asked him to define the relationship. She smiled inwardly, recalling how flustered both of them were as they reckoned with their emotions. It was as he was walking her back to her hotel that everything just happened. She forgot what exactly he said, but it was enough to properly piss her off. She threatened to leave him, to run away and never come back — and she meant it too. Having gotten the answers she was so desperately looking for, she was willing to sacrifice a budding relationship with the manchild due to his abrasive personality. But just as he usually did, he pulled her back in with his charisma, his earnestness, and his tender touch. He stole another kiss from her that night, the last one that she'd allow to be stolen without consequence. When they got to the hotel, she invited him in and...
The cool November breeze interrupted her train of thought and she shivered a bit. She cursed herself for not bringing a blanket or anything warm out with her, but she still chose to have her arms resting on the railing and continue taking in the city. Sure, she was risking a cold, but this feeling was a very serviceable distraction from the slowly fading memories of that other worldline. She closed her eyes and hunched her shoulders, allowing the cold rush through her body and send a chill down her spine. The sweat she accumulated during the nightmare served as an extra boost to the coolness that invaded her. She shivered, but she still found a weird delight in it. She felt alive, very much unlike how she felt in her dream. She felt free. She basked in this feeling for only a couple of moments until she felt fabric being draped over her. A thick blanket that replaced the coolness with a comfortable weight. To top it off, she was enveloped in a hug from behind, feeling a chin being rested on her head. She nestled herself into the person behind her, making herself smaller.
"It would do us no good if my Assistant were to catch a cold now would it?"
That smugness in that tone, with that underlying sense of caring. The only person that it could ever belong to was none other than her husband, Rintaro Okabe.
"I was aware of the potential consequences and ascertained that the risk was well worth this reward" she responded, her eyes closed as she remained in Okabe's embrace. "Besides, I know we're old, but it seems like I'll need to jam an electrode into your hippocampus to remind you that I'm not your Assistant."
This man, even though he was 44-years-old going on 45, was still such a child. He let out a chuckle as he let go of Kurisu and leaned on the railing beside her wrapped in a blanket of his own. He had aged wonderfully, a couple gray hairs were present here and there, but his face didn't show too many signs of him being as old as he was. She looked at him and took in his features. This man was her husband, of all the fish in the sea that she possibly could have gone with, it just had to be this insufferable manchild who saved her life at Radio Kaikan. This man was the father of her twin children, Reina and Haruki Okabe. Two young prodigies who matched the intelligence of their mother with the vivaciousness of their father. Both in their last year of high school (granted, having skipped a few grades), they were already planning on enrolling at Viktor Chondria University to continue their education.
It was this man who followed her to Viktor Chondria University in 2014 when he graduated from Tokyo Denki University, having changed his major to Computational Neuroscience and becoming a part of the Viktor Chondria Neuroscience Institute. It was this man who vigorously defended his PhD thesis against her regarding the Quantum Theory of Cognition and its application to the prototype Amadeus system at the time. She still didn't know why she was on that panel for Okabe's dissertation, as everyone in the room should have known the potential conflict of interest, but it seemed like mischievous Professor Alexis Leskinen knew better than most that the person who would push Okabe to the limit in defending his thesis would be none other than his partner.
And what a brilliant scientist he had become. While Kurisu and Maho were able to recover most of the ground that they lost when Amadeus — their A.I. that was meant to house the memories of a subject and emulate them — was mysteriously deleted in 2010, Okabe was the one that got them across the finish line once he officially became a researcher at the Neuroscience Institute. The experiences he gathered talking about time travel and actually experiencing time travel with the Alpha version of Kurisu gave him a perspective that neither woman could have ever thought of having when trying to develop and optimize Amadeus' memory storage function that made the A.I. more closely replicate a human being. As such, it was only fair that when the time came to present Amadeus to the rest of the scientific community, Professor Leskinen immediately handed Okabe the responsibility of doing so. Okabe, humble through the facade of arrogance that he portrayed, would only accept on the condition that Kurisu and Maho were there to present it with him as it was the collective effort that brought the system to its presentable state to begin with. It was this group effort that netted all three of them the Nobel Prize in Medicine due to Amadeus' memory storage function that essentially eliminated Alzheimer's and other degenerative brain diseases.
Kurisu continued eyeing Okabe as he also began to admire the cityscape before them. "I felt you when you got out of bed, but I figured I'd give you a little bit of time to process things by yourself."
"Ah," Kurisu felt guilty and turned her view away from Okabe and towards the cityscape. "I'm sorry I woke you. It was just a really intense nightmare that I needed to shake off."
"Another dream from the Alpha worldline?" Okabe turned to face her in response to her turning away.
Kurisu nodded. Flashes of the dream returned to her, hitting her with another wave of deep sadness. It was enough to move her to tears once more.
"Everyone was dead," she explained. "My killing of a little girl led to the final steps of the time machine being built. Once SERN got everything they wanted out of me, they just gave me a gun. It was as if they knew just how much I wanted the suffering to end."
"Seems like a very heavy dream indeed," Okabe was soft with his words as he approached to comfort Kurisu. "I'm sorry you have to go through them, my love."
He wrapped her in another hug, this time from the side. She could feel the warmth he exuded as he draped his blanket over her. This was an unusually pleasant side of Okabe that Kurisu had only seen in the most serious of times. When he got like this, it only meant that he was shouldering an intense burden of his own and didn't want anyone else to suffer the way he was. Still, she relished in the closeness and allowed herself to be enveloped by him. It was always so soothing to be the object of Okabe's affection. Though just as quickly as she recognized the feeling of Okabe's deep despair, she acted on it.
Looking up at him, she made her concern known. "What's the matter, Okarin?"
The words smoothly flowed out of her mouth. Once used to mock Okabe, "Okarin" became a regular term of endearment for Kurisu, taking a page out of Mayuri and Daru's book.
Okabe remained in place, holding on to Kurisu, his breathing at a snail's pace. Finally he gave her one big squeeze before letting go once more. He cast his view towards the cityscape once more, seemingly unable to look at Kurisu while he opened up about what bothered him.
"Reading Steiner allows me to retain my memoery across worldlines," he started. "But on the downside, any memories my alternate self had on the lead-up to my jump into a worldline would immediately be lost. Things that would be considered normal for the worldline, like for example a moe-less Akiba, would be considered absolutely abnormal to me, the version of myself who explicitly recalled there being moe culture within the city."
She eyed him intently as he spoke. "I've never had a dream born out of memories from any of the worldlines I traveled through. I've tried to find ways to explain it, even using Amadeus as a means to derive just why my Reading Steiner acts the way it does. The explanation continues to elude me, and I'm afraid I just might be out of time."
Kurisu's eyes widened. "What do you mean you're 'out of time'? What time limit are you operating against?"
"I never told you this, but in my first attempt to save you, I killed you by accident," Okabe began another roundabout answer. He never liked talking much about the summer of 2010 and barely went into the details of how he knew to rescue her. "It was this first attempt that was necessary for me to get the guidance I needed to succeed when I tried again."
Kurisu listened, not allowing any word get by her. Okabe killed her the first time? He traveled through time twice to save her? From the way he spoke, it sounded like he ran into issues with one of those convergence points he talked about. Was her death one of those? How did he succeed? All she remembered from that time was that he got stabbed, she was trying to call emergency services, and in a snap-second she woke up in a puddle of blood with her savior having disappeared into thin air.
"That guidance came from a future me," Okabe continued. "He sent the video from 2025, the year that I was fated to die on the Alpha and Beta worldlines. He gave me the solution in the simplest terms: 'deceive yourself, deceive the world'. And so, when the time came to try again, I did just as he said. I tricked my past self into believing you died by having you lay unconscious in a pool of blood. It was the exact same thing that I saw when I first found you. The convergence point was not that you died, but that I found you and thought you were dead."
Okabe took in a sharp breath. Kurisu knew that he was being assaulted by the unpleasant memories of the summer of 2010. In response, she huddled up closer to him and rested herself on his arm. "Take your time. I'm here Okarin."
She watched Okabe. His eyes were closed as he was trying to get his breathing under control. Even now, two decades removed from the ordeal, he still suffered greatly from the experience. Memories that only he had. Horrible experiences that he kept to himself. She couldn't begin to imagine just how much he altered his brain chemistry from the repeated trauma he suffered from that summer. He rested his head on hers. Additionally, he took her hand and held on to it, giving it some light squeezes. It was the way he would express his thanks whenever she comforted him.
"The thing that always bothered me," he finally started again, taking his head off of Kurisu's. "Was just not knowing how he knew that 'tricking' convergence was the way to go about things. What did he do to come to that conclusion?"
Kurisu could sense that he was getting to the point and beat him to it. "Do you think he got the idea from faking his own death?"
Okabe nodded. "You're quick on the uptake, assistant. I just wish you weren't so quick because it's gotten in the way of my very elaborate monologue."
Kurisu exaggeratedly sighed with a smile planted on her face. "Yeah, yeah, go ahead and sue me."
Okabe let out a wry chuckle. "But anways, yes, you're correct in assuming what I've assumed. The only reason why I'm so confident of that now is because, for the first time ever, I had a dream of another worldline."
Kurisu's eyes widened in shock. "This worldline was hell. Soldiers were converging on our facility, and the version of me in the dream was prepping Suzuha to get into the time machine. Everyone in the Future Gadget Lab, including Maho was present. Everyone except you. I can only assume that this was a dream of the Beta worldline, the worldline where you were dead. The worldline from where I sent the video."
At this point, Kurisu had fully turned to Okabe who, for the first time in the night, completely hid his face from her. Okabe told her in excruciating detail just how Reading Steiner worked, how it served as a total overwrite of the worldline's Okabe that he would jump into when altering the divergence. She was again made painfully aware tonight just how unforgivingly complete Reading Steiner was in its capabilities. She didn't think she had any reason to worry since Okabe made it perfectly clear that time travel had no place in a worldline like Steins Gate. All the memories they shared were supposed to remain there. Now, a dream that may or may not have been real is alluding to the possibility of having all of that torn away from her. Their children would have their father torn away from them.
"You've never had an alternate memory-related dream before," Kurisu began to use her logic to try and quell her anxiety. "How can you tell that this was one of those?"
"Just a feeling," Okabe shrugged his shoulders then slouched back on the rail. "There was this horrible, pervasively foreboding feeling that I had throughout the dream."
It was that same feeling that Kurisu felt whenever she had her nightmares. She began to list off more unique feelings and distinct physical sensations that could only be felt in the worldline memory-induced dreams and each one was confirmed to have been felt by Okabe. With each affirmative answer, Kurisu could feel her heart sinking deeper and deeper. There were only two things left that Kurisu could place all of her faith in: that the worldline he dreamed of did not lead to Steins Gate which would negate any and all risk of another version replacing him, and if it was, that the version of himself that he dreamed of died before the shift happened.
"...What..." Kurisu's shoulders slumped and she had to look away from Okabe lest she cry from seeing him. "...What are we supposed to do...?"
Okabe sat looking out towards the cityscape. His lips were drawn tight, but everything else was so relaxed. A reluctant sense of acceptance seemed to have washed over him as not even his wife could try to save him with her logic. Kurisu continued wracking her brain, her eyes flitting back and forth as she tried her best to visualize multiple solutions at once. She was trying to find something - ANYTHING - that would lessen the potential chances of a Reading Steiner event.
From next to her, she heard heavy breathing, which turned into chuckling, which turned into a hysteric laugh - a laugh that was still only a few levels below his overexaggerated cackle as Hououin Kyouma.
"What's..." Kurisu's incredulity turned to anger. "What's so funny?!"
Okabe's laugh began to die down in response to Kurisu's outburst, but a smile still remained on his lips.
"How could you be laughing about this?! You run the risk of being taken away from this world and you're laughing about it?! What about Reina?! What about Haruki?! You're laughing when they might lose a father?!... When I might lose a husband?"
Kurisu began to lose her words once she listed herself as a possible victim. The tears that had been building overflowed as she spoke. No longer able to form a cohesive argument, Kurisu completely broke down. Yet despite this, Okabe still had that damned smile planted on his face.
How can he be okay with the what's basically the equivalent of dying? Kurisu wondered to herself.
Okabe looked at Kurisu, sighing slowly, and patted her head. "It seems like there's a potential for mad science to be conducted my dear Assistant. Any insane mad scientist would cackle in delight at the potentiality."
The words that usually came out as smug, were instead said as if Okabe was comforting a child. Such careful reassurance that even made Kurisu feel reassured even though she didn't know what he had planned.
After a little bit more of sniffling and trying to regain her composure, Kurisu was able to speak. "...What do you plan to do?"
"Oh, I plan to do nothing," Okabe quickly retorted. "This will be up to you and our children to figure out."
Kurisu let out a deep breath before smacking Okabe's arm. "Be serious, Okarin. What are we supposed to do?"
Okabe stood unperturbed by Kurisu's smack. His smile turned into a quick grin before returning to the serious side that he showcased when he emerged from the apartment.
"It pertains to the theory I defended against you all those years ago," Okabe referred to his dissertation on the Quantum Theory of Cognition. "Now we get to put it through a practical defense rather than one mostly based on theory."
Kurisu remained silent while Okabe began to pace and explain his thinking.
"We modeled the Amadeus A.I. to closely replicate a human brain, but the one thing we haven't been able to figure out is how to replicate the act of losing memories. I mean, we have the entire human persona stored in a server that Amadeus pulls from, so it's been a rather difficult task to get it to forget the mundane things that we forget about. Reading Steiner is the act of 'forgetting' - in a sense. We haven't been able to establish if Reading Steiner will overwrite the brain data that I stored on our servers. So this operation is two-fold, Assistant of mine."
Okabe began to play the fearless leader he always played. Acting as if he was ready to jump into the fray despite the task seeming mundane. At this point, Kurisu was entranced, hopelessly awaiting Okabe's solution.
"One," Okabe put his fingers up to signal the step they were one. "You establish whether or not Amadeus will 'forget' just like I will, or if it will retain the memories I formed throughout the course of my life since 2010. Two, you, my potential other self, and the children will use the knowledge gained from this endeavor and develop the means to merge or reveal hidden memories in myself. This will be the true defense of my theory. Can we use mathematics and science to accurately form the basis of information retrieval in the brain, can we apply that to Amadeus, and lastly, can we apply it wholesale to a human being?"
Kurisu found herself nodding along before another, more efficient thought popped into her head. "If we establish that your memories are safe within Amadeus, can't we just re-overwrite you?"
Okabe stared at Kurisu. She could feel his eyes pierce her very being as he eyed her. She backed away a little further down the railing, slightly intimidated by the look on Okabe's face.
"It is absolutely imperative that this does not happen, Kurisu," Kurisu felt cold with the way that Okabe referred to her. "I simply cannot overstate just how vital my other self was in saving you. Without him, we would not be standing here. He deserves a chance to see the worldline we fought for."
With that said, Kurisu began to notice the tremble in Okabe's hands. She looked up at his face and could see the coldness begin to waver as his eyes began to water.
"I'm not going to lie to you," he said. "I am incredibly scared of what's to come."
Okabe grabbed onto the railing as if he was losing balance in his legs. He brought his blanket up to his face to pat away the tears that were forming in his eyes. He did his best to calm his breathing and tackle his anxiety the way he usually did when his trauma overloaded him. His eyes closed and he looked down as he continued to bring his breathing back to a more calm level.
"The prospect of not remembering any of this terrifies me," he said. "I don't want to forget. I don't want to forget the memories I made with everyone. I don't want to forget the moments you and I shared. I don't want to forget the little miracles that we brought into the world. And yet I have to rely on chance and mad science for things to go right."
Kurisu tenderly approached Okabe from the railing and wrapped her own arms around his now hunched frame. She rubbed his arm and rested her head on him. He looked up at her from his position, a shine in his eyes. He adjusted himself to put his forehead up against hers. Then, a kiss. It was tender, done with so much care that was capable of lifting of her feet. It was soft, almost like any sense of force would mean certain death. They stayed with their lips locked, their eyes closed. Okabe wrapped his arms around Kurisu's waist while she wrapped hers around his neck.
Then, Okabe broke the kiss and enveloped her in a full hug, his chin now resting on her shoulder. "I can only find comfort in the certainty that my other self will love you just as much as I do. My love for you will never change no matter what memories I may have."
Had Kurisu not been hugging Okabe, she would have swooned.
"I love you, Okabe Rintaro," Kurisu responded. "I'm sure if I had Reading Steiner like you, these feelings would be the same no matter what worldline."
They continued holding onto each other, never daring to break the hug, lest they lost each other. It remained tight, but comfortable. They stood there for what seemed like an eternity. The wind blew gently, but it wasn't enough to cool down the warmth that Kurisu felt in her heart. She swore she could hold this position with him for eternity.
"Besides," she said after a while. "Maybe the switch won't happen. And we'll have worried about all of this for nothing."
She felt Okabe tighten his arms around her very briefly until he took a deep breath and softened his hold, like a non-verbal acknowledgement of what she just said. She smiled towards herself as she kept her head to Okabe's shoulders. Then Okabe quickly broke the hug with an even sharper inhale. He held her at arms length and stared at her, his eyes losing their shine and the look on his face now being one of fear.
"Kurisu?"
His usually calm breathing was much quicker. All Kurisu could do was look back at him, tears forming once more. She refused to believe that anything happened. She could feel her lips trembling as she listened to the person before her speak his next words.
"What...?" Okabe looked at her incredulously, then quickly began snapping his head in different directions as if trying to get a feel for his surroundings. "What happened...? Why are you crying?"
At first it was her lips that trembled, but now she felt her whole body shake as she began to lose her composure. Before she could let herself do that, she had to speak.
"Okarin..." she said. "Please tell me you're kidding... please."
She watched him through her blurry vision as his face contorted into all sorts of worried expressions. It was the next words that he spoke that made her wish that she was still dreaming.
"Oka...rin?"
The Rintaro Okabe of Steins Gate - her Okarin - had been overwritten by another.
A/N: I know, it's just a slightly edited version of the preview I posted a while back, but the appearance of this new story is the proof that I am ready to upload the rest of what I've done. There will be no spoilers as to how long this story is going to be, but I promise it'll be a worthwhile read. I am very happy with how it's turning out and am rounding the corner with finishing it. New chapters will be posted every week on Saturday while I work on finishing the story as a whole as well as editing the older chapters in between. I started the previous 0verwritten 7 years and 16 days ago, and while it was a shame that I couldn't finish it, it couldn't have served as a better stepping stone for this final version. Thank you all in advance for the new and continued support. I hope I don't disappoint!
See you next week,
~Quil