'Snake' had a lot to consider on his return to Mother Base.

Ever since his awakening as a Seeker he had been starting to recall a second set of memories, where he wasn't 'Naked Snake', but instead…

The name wouldn't come. All he knew about his previous life was his role, a combat medic.

And this recontextualised so much.

He had been unable to kill, finding an argument about how putting down the Skulls wasn't killing, and justified it by his encounter with the Sorrow.

But… Snake, the really Snake, had killed after the encounter.

It was just him trying to reconcile the different sides to who he was, the claim that his 'no killing rule' was from the souls the Sorrow had called upon.

And Paz…

The guilt hallucinations he'd seen of her, they hadn't made sense if he was Snake.

Snake had done everything he could to save her. He'd broken into the XOF base, extracted her to the helicopter, and then…

And then he had failed to extract the bombs.

He had missed one.

And so… Paz died, and he was left in a coma for nine years, waking up believing he was someone else.

Who exactly had he been, before the coma? Why was he chosen? Who knew he wasn't the real Snake?

Did… did Snake have anything to do with him being made into his double?

His instincts, every part of him that was still 'Snake', said no, that Snake wouldn't sacrifice another man to be a decoy for himself.

But… doubt remained.

If Snake knew about him, what did he think about his double?

Did he even think about him?

'Snake' hadn't been able to reach any conclusions by the time he returned to Mother Base, coming face to face with Ocelot, the man who set him on the path of recruiting the Diamond Dogs onto the new Mother Base.

And one of the few who personally knew Snake before the hospital in Cyprus.

"Was the mission a success," Ocelot began by asking, watching the suits being unloaded as prisoners.

"Mostly. I need to talk to you in private."

Ocelot led the way towards a quiet corner of Mother Base. "Why only mostly?"

"The Professor got away. He had… it was supposed to be one of the legendary Titans."

"Not someone you want to fight unprepared," Ocelot acknowledged. "I take it you'll want to secure stronger Titans before tracking him down again."

"He used a Titan that breaks control over powerful Titans. We'd need something to take the 'Archwarder' out before we could use them."

Snake paused, checking they wouldn't be overheard.

"I realised something important on the mission though. And I need to know if you knew already?"

Ocelot went stiff.

"Knew what?"

"I'm not Snake, am I?"

Ocelot deliberated for a moment before answering.

"You… are not Naked Snake. We chose to give you the codename 'Venom Snake' instead. We weren't expecting you to recall your past so soon, but then we couldn't have expected any of this 'Seeker' business. Nor were we expecting your previous life to have so much of an influence on you."

"Did Snake, the real Snake, was he involved?"

"It wasn't his idea, but he agreed to the necessity. What do you remember about the Patriots?"

Snake frowned. "I think… successors to the Philosophers? Trying to do what they were founded to?"

"You weren't supposed to remember any of the details. The Patriots were meant to make the dreams of the Boss into reality, to stand together to make a better world. There were… disagreements about how to do it. The original Snake founded the MSF, Zero founded Cipher. He tried getting the first Snake back, to work together, but he refused. And then the XOF unit went rogue from Cipher, under the command of Skullface, twisting the ideals behind the Patriots even further."

"I remember. He was the one who placed the explosives in Paz, the reason I was in a coma."

"And while you and Snake were in Cyprus recovering, he made his move against Zero, attempting to take over Cipher. After Zero visited the two of you in the hospital, he disappeared."

"The two of us… you mean Ishmael? The one who saved me from that first assassin?"

"The very same. Putting you both in the same room let us focus our security. Not that it helped when Skullface threw everyone he had against the hospital."

"He's a madman with no respect for any basic human decency. Why was he even recruited to Cipher, let alone given command over the XOF?"

"Only Zero could know that for sure."

Snake hesitated a moment.

"Why am I here? Why was I made into a replacement for Snake? What is doing?"

"You are here to further the legend of Big Boss."

Snake flinched at the name, the reminder of what the original Snake had been made to do to his mentor.

"You are also here as a distraction for the XOF," Ocelot continued, "keeping Skullfaces attention on you so Naked Snake could build his connections. Between the two of you, you were supposed to build a replacement for the MSF and remove Skullface before he could start another world war or whatever insanity he's planning."

"Why are you admitting this so easily?"

It was one thing to learn the answer to his questions, it was another for a conspirator to tell him everything just from being asked.

"Because my hypnosis isn't working on you."

"What?"

Ocelot sighed.

"I am a skilled hypnotist, if I do say so myself. I was involved in making you believe you truly were Naked Snake, and even made myself believe you were the original, that he wasn't out there, after you got clear of the hospital. I even hypnotised myself to believe I couldn't hypnotise myself, so that I wouldn't interfere with my own programming. I think I messed up somewhere, and that's why I've been acting so strange."

"You've been acting normal…"

Implanted memories of how Ocelot behaved in Russian came to Snake.

"I think I get what you mean…"

"The problem is," Ocelot continued, as though he hadn't heard Snake, "that for some reason, it's no longer working on you."

"You've been trying to hypnotise me?"

"After Naked Snake contacted me, breaking my programming, I tried putting you back on task as his phantom, but it didn't work. But we, the world, the Patriots, whichever, needs Big Boss. It needs you to fulfill your role. And if the only way to convince you is to yell you why we did this, did everything, then so be it."

"Snake wouldn't have agreed to this."

"Snake did agree to this!"

Snake stared at Ocelot.

"What happened to him, that I don't remember? The Snake I was, who you turned me into, would never agree to using one of his men as a decoy, just out of convenience. He would have found another way. Maybe sent you to recruit help while he was here, tracking down Skullface!"

"The only memories you weren't supposed to receive were about the Patriots and the Philosophers. You weren't supposed to need to know about them, what Skullface did with Paz and the first Mother Base was enough to set you against him, even without the attack on the hospital."

"How did the Patriots turn him into someone so different, someone who'd set aside their former moral code?"

"He was betrayed. Or so he felt," Ocelot allowed. "I couldn't say for sure, but we founded the Patriots together to bring peace to the world, and then Zero turned against their ideals, then Skullface went further. Paz was revealed as one of Skullfaces agents. And Emmerich let the attack happen. Maybe not deliberately, but on top of everything else?"

Snake tried to imagine what experiencing that would be like, but drew a blank.

With his own memories starting to resurface, his former personality re-establishing itself, it was becoming more of a struggle to think like Naked Snake.

"Who else knows," he finally asked. "I know you wouldn't have told my recruits, but what about Pequod or Miller?"

"Pequod wasn't told you were anyone other than Naked Snake, and by the time I encountered everyone else I had made myself forget. It is only me, you and the other Snake."

It was something of a relief to know that nobody else had known something about him that he didn't, but at the same time knowing they were victims of the same deception made him feel uneasy.

"We should tell Miller," he decided. "He knew the real Snake, he should know I'm not him."

"I'm not sure that-"

"He's going to feel betrayed, no matter what, when he finds out. If we tell him now, as soon as we knew, it should minimise his feelings of betrayal. If we don't tell him, he'll still find out sooner or later and will almost certainly leave. If we take the initiative, we may be able to forestall him, convince him to stay."

"You are willing to continue as Snake?"

"Skullface needs to be stopped. And after that… the world the Boss dreamed of… that is something to work towards. And as a simple man, it is something I could never achieve. But as a legend, using the name of Big Boss? It might just be possible."

"You will work with him?"

Snake laughed, hollowly.

"Something tells me he has a different idea, now, of what world he wants to make from me. The Patriots were founded on the same ideal, but have any two kept it the same as each other?"

There was a brief silence between them.

"Do you know who I was," Snake finally asked.

"Before becoming Snake?"

"Yes. I was the medic with Snake on that fateful mission, but who was I as a person? My name? My family? Who was I?"

"I… I don't know," Ocelot admitted. "When you were chosen, you were still in a coma, unresponsive. Your files were lost in the destruction of Mother Base."

"I see. So I have no identity left but Snake."

When he thought he was the original, it wasn't a thought that had concerned him.

But now, knowing that he'd lost one life already, it felt like a life sentence, placed upon him for the crimes of another.

"After I've stopped Skullface, we'll need to talk. Two Snakes, face to face."