Content Warning: Blood, action violence, mild language, mature themes

Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit fan-based work of fiction. Bokurano: Ours and Bokurano: Alternative are owned by Discotek Media, Gonzo KK, Shogakukan Inc., Renji Ohki, and Mohiro Kitoh.

FOREWORD

Vermillion

Allow me to begin by summarizing my inspiration, Mohiro Kitoh's Bokurano: Ours. Not to be confused with the My Hero Academia song, Bokurano is a manga about 15 kids who volunteer to play a game where they pilot a giant robot and fight invaders. They quickly learn that the robot, Zearth, and its enemies are in fact real. However, there's another catch; Zearth runs on life force, meaning it will kill anyone who pilots it. Worse still, losing to the invaders or refusing to pilot Zearth will lead to the universe's destruction. Left with no other choice, the kids must find the courage to sacrifice their lives for a greater good.

However, you're not here for Kitoh's story. You're here for my fanfiction, One More Time, a tale about Zearth's pilots where they all live to see the end. Ever since I finished watching the anime, I've wondered what life would've been like for these kids had they survived their ordeal, especially since said lives were far from perfect even before they found Zearth. Additionally, most Bokurano fanfiction I've come across doesn't stray far from the original story's setting, including the central theme of accepting one's own mortality, and I feel that one could do more with Kitoh's characters than retread old ground.

So how do I go about saving these kids? Magically freeing them from the game that bound their lives to Zearth would be a mockery of the mortality theme, and while I could have others die in their place, that's not the story I want to tell. My plan is to create a new universe where it's possible to survive piloting something like Zearth. Rather than facing their own imminent ends, our heroes will instead be searching for reasons to persist, even as they're worn down physically, mentally, and emotionally. In essence, One More Time will adapt Kitoh's characters, but not his setting.

While One More Time will obviously not explore mortality in the same way as Bokurano, I don't intend my work to be a rebuttal of Kitoh's. The original story contained concepts beyond the value of life, from the importance of responsibility to the conflicts between different generations, and I intend to address these ideas as well. At the same time, I also wish to explore new ideas, like the purpose of legacies or the nature of a fictional character's existence. I may be using someone else's work as a foundation, but this is still my story.

I am writing One More Time because I want to see how Bokurano's cast confronts life, seeing how the original story already showed the ways they handle death. I find these characters compelling, and it would be a shame if they never got to do anything more than perish one by one. However, giving them a chance to survive Zearth's game would require me to extensively rewrite the rules of their universe. Yet I won't completely disregard Kitoh's themes, even if my story is more Lovecraft Lite than Cosmic Horror. So, now that I've explained myself, it's time to start the show…

CHAPTER 1

You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

It was a nightmare. One she had dreamt countless times before.

She and her older brother were frantically riding a mountain bike through an urban labyrinth of glass and concrete. He was the driver, she a passenger, and on occasion she could glimpse the city beyond through an alleyway.

In the distance, black columns of smog and fire rose above the modest skyline, as if to form a prison around the city, and from time to time a narrow beam of unearthly light shot across the sky and added another bar to the jail cell. The sky above the smoke was clear, and yet a near-constant cacophony reminiscent of rolling thunder and crackling lightning echoed through the atmosphere. Even when the rumbling was quiet, the panicked cries and footsteps of fellow fleeing civilians could still be heard.

Eventually, she and her brother found themselves on a straight, two-lane street. Off in the distance, they could see that the street ended with a concrete tunnel. Her brother picked up the pace, hoping that salvation lied within that dark maw, but as they got closer to their destination, the rumbling grew louder.

They never reached the tunnel. Halfway down the road, they passed by a building that suddenly exploded in a flash of unearthly light. The shockwave, as well as the subsequent wall of swirling fire and dust, felt solid as it knocked them off their bike and sent them tumbling across the street.

She didn't try to move until she could hear something other than the ringing in her ears. Even then, rolling over and getting up on her hands and knees left her stiff and nauseous. After she forced herself to sit, she took a moment to process the throbbing pain on the left side of her forehead. It stung when she to touched it, and when she withdrew her hand, her fingertips were covered in blood. A cold chill rippled through her body, and the nausea grew more intense.

Everywhere she looked, her surroundings were tainted in sickly sepia hues by the dusty air. Her brother was a few meters away, face down and sprawled across the pavement between bits of smoldering rubble. Beyond him were the remains of their bike, a mangled metal skeleton. All the while, the rumbling persisted as a series of slow, rhythmic booms that subtly shook the ground.

She looked up, and her heart skipped a beat the moment she saw the thing they had been fleeing from; a mountain-sized colossus that looked equal parts human and crustacean. It towered over the city on a pair of legs that almost seemed too thin to support its squat torso. An equally spindly set of arms descended from wide shoulders. Numerous pointed protrusions extended up from its collar, framing a small head embedded in the chest. The whole body was covered in shingles of iridescent armor that occasioned shifted in shape and color, as if it had come out of a glitchy video game.

The iridescent colossus continued lumbering towards her. Every few seconds, she heard and felt one of its thundering footsteps.

She wanted to run. In her mind, she was screaming at her body to run, and yet her body remained frozen with fear. Perhaps she didn't want to leave her brother, or maybe she knew there was nothing she could do to delay the inevitable.

It would all be over soon. As light rippled across the colossus's surface, she closed her eyes and hoped she could apologize to her family on the other side.

She heard a sound like lightning, and then silence, but she didn't feel anything. When she realized she was still alive, she opened her eyes. The colossus had stopped moving, a black spear-like appendage pierced through its chest. Sparks shot out of the colossus's wound and the glitching of its armor grew more frequent and intense.

Something moved into her view from behind the colossus. Another behemoth that also resembled a humanoid crab, except this one was less spiky, free of glitches, and covered in segmented black armor that resembled that of a samurai. One of its spindly arms was hanging by its side, so long that it reached past its knees. The other was currently impaled through the iridescent colossus.

The black behemoth widened its stance and threw the iridescent colossus off its feet. For ten long seconds the colossus's body sailed through the air in a slow-motion fall, its limbs limply trailing behind it like tattered sails on a capsizing ship. When it finally hit the ground, the earth quaked for split second, nearly knocking her off balance.

Eventually the echoes of the impact faded away. She watched as the behemoth pulled its arm out of the colossus, which even while lying down was still visible above the city skyline, like another, more alien metropolis. The behemoth straightened its posture, looking almost triumphant as it stood tall against the sky and above the dusty brown haze that now blanketed the city.

She was alive. Against all odds, she had survived.

Her pain was fading into something bearable. She heard something shuffle, and out of the corner of her eye she saw her brother move. In the distance, the columns of smog that once imprisoned the city were now dissipating into the rest of the haze.

But before she could decide whether to laugh or cry over her luck, something appeared between her and her brother in a flash of golden light. A man with long gray hair wearing round glasses and some kind of black overcoat. He walked up to her, leaned over, and reached out with a friendly yet empty smile.

That's when she woke up.

The year was 2033. She wasn't a ten-year-old girl fleeing through her hometown from otherworldly horrors. She was almost sixteen, on a train heading towards the Tokyo Bay Area, and had just been woken up by a ringtone.

She reached into her crimson rose-print vest and pulled out a smartphone. She turned it on and saw a notice for a missed call. She dialed the number in the message and waited for someone to answer. All the while, she observed a series of steep hills rush past her window like waves on a stormy ocean. The actual ocean was visible through the other side of the train alongside a coastal highway that ran parallel to the tracks.

"Hello?" a boy on the other side of the phone eventually replied.

"Is this Ushiro?" she questioned.

"It is. And you?"

"It's me, Yoko." She looked around her cabin and saw a bike helmet shaped like a cowboy hat on the seat next to her. "I noticed you just tried to call."

"Yes, that I did."

"Sorry, I was napping when you rang." She picked up the helmet, contemplated putting it on, but ultimately chose to set it back down.

"It's fine. No offense taken."

"Thanks." She looked down and made sure her belongings were still where she had left them; a hiking backpack underneath her seat, and a folded-up mountain bike on the rack above her. "Anyways, what did you want to say?"

"I'm probably not coming to the get-together today."

"Really?" She got up and did a quick stretch while keeping a hold on her phone. "Like, total no-show, not even through Zoom?"

"Let's just say I've been busy."

She walked out of her cabin and headed towards the bathroom. "Do I even want to know what you're up to?"

Ushiro hesitated for so long that Yoko started to wonder if he had hung up.

Then he finally answered, "It involves your brother's game."

Yoko stopped dead in her tracks as a chill crept up her spine. Now it was her turn to hesitate before coming up with a response. "So, I don't want to know."

"You don't want to, but you'll need to."

"I see." The chill mellowed into something bearable. "I guess I should let you go then." Yoko resumed her trek to the bathroom at a cautious pace. "Stay safe."

"You, too. Give my sister my regards."

Yoko hung up and put her phone back in her vest. She did what she could to clean up in the bathroom, and afterwards she took a moment to admire her freckled face in the mirror. She made sure her black chin-length bob was straight and tidy, her bangs covering the V-shaped scar on the left side of her forehead. Then she wondered why she even bothered with that, seeing how there was another scar visible across her left cheek.

While Yoko made her way back to her cabin, she contemplated the conversation she just had. She knew exactly what Ushiro meant when he mentioned her brother's game, and she feared it also meant her nightmares were about to become a reality. As she settled back into her seat, she wondered if he ever had dreams like hers.

Yoko set her helmet on her lap and took another look out her window. The train tracks had veered away from the coast, and the waves of green hills had partially given way to a coastal city. Something about the urban expanse reminded her of a rocky beach, not unlike the one she had been on three years prior when she first met Ushiro and the rest of her friends. Perhaps reminiscing about that fateful day, about them, would help keep her brooding fears at bay.

"My story?

"No, it's more than just my story. It's a tale about the friends I made in ways both strange and familiar. It's about the world we knew, the people we loved, and long, terrible war we fought to defend it all."

The year was 2030.

Yoko was on the eastern coast of a large island, standing atop a flight of concrete stairs built into a small promontory of black volcanic rock. Behind her was a road that led into a forest, and before her the stairs led down to a rocky beach.

The beach felt like its own little world, isolated both from the rest of the island and civilization itself. Over a hundred meters north, the beach ended in another promontory. To the east was nothing but blue sky and bluer waters. To the west was a stone masonry wall that separated the beach from the steep forested mountainside above.

Yet Yoko wasn't alone. Scattered across the beach were over a dozen kids, most of them around her age. Some were sitting around the campfire not far from the stairs, while others were exploring the shoreline further north. She was observing them all through a black mask she was holding in front of her face.

"It can't be," she muttered her herself. "Are they really all compatible?"

Eventually the youngest and smallest kid on the beach, a girl in a teal polka-dot dress with dark hair tied down in pigtails, got up from the campfire and approached Yoko with a puzzled look on her face.

Yoko scrambled to hide the mask behind her back, nearly dropping it in the process, before greeting the little girl with a coy, "H-hi there."

The little girl stopped a few steps down from Yoko's location. "Um, hello," she uttered in an unsteady voice. "You look lost."

"Me?" Yoko forced out a chuckle. "Oh, no. I'm, uh, I'm just surprised to see so many people at my favorite fishing spot. You see, I'm a local."

"Oh. So, we're in your way?" The little girl turned around and started walking back down. "Sorry about that."

"Don't worry about it. What are you guys up to, anyhow?"

The little girl stopped at the base of the stairs and looked back at Yoko. "Summer camp, I think. Some kind of nature school."

"You guys are going to school out here?"

"Most of us. I'm not, but my brother is."

Yoko let out another, more genuine chuckle as she descended the stairs. "Ah, that means you're a freeloader, tagging along for the ride."

The little girl blushed and looked away. "I'm not like that."

"I'm not judging you." Yoko walked up the little girl's side while keeping her mask and hands hidden. "In fact, I was thinking of doing some freeloading myself."

The little girl quizzically tilted her head. "But why?"

"You look like an interesting bunch."

"Really? Thanks, I think." The little girl turned to face Yoko. "My name's Kana."

"Yoko Machi." She offered Kana a hand. "Pleased to meet you."

Kana took a step back and bowed, much to Yoko's surprise. "Same to you, Yoko."

"What's going on over there?" someone in the campfire group yelled. It was a boy wearing glasses and an all-black getup.

"Brother!" Kana gasped. "I was, um, I was just—"

"Talking to a complete stranger?" The boy in black left the group around the campfire and stormed towards the two girls. "Reckless, even for you."

"Brother, please," Kana protested, "She just wants to be our friend."

"She's not our friend; she's been stalking us!" The boy in black grabbed Kana's arm and dragged her away. "Besides, this camp has enough idiots as is."

"I've only been watching you guys for half an hour," Yoko half-heartedly argued.

Kana's brother stopped and glanced over his shoulder. His glasses and greasy black bangs did little to hide the angry glare directed at Yoko. "I don't care how long you've been here, or why. But you're not part of this camp, so get lost."

Yoko silently watched as the two siblings returned to the campfire. They settled down on a boulder not far from the flames, next to another pair of girls sitting on a log. The shorter girl had a tomboyish pixie cut and wore a sea-green camo-print t-shirt, while the taller one had long jet-black hair and wore a navy-blue dress.

"You just can't help yourself, can you, Ushiro?" the shorter, tomboyish girl remarked.

"I didn't ask for your opinion, Maki," scoffed the boy in black.

Maki chuckled through gritted teeth. "Seriously, is it that hard to be nice to people? Or do you just want the whole world to hate you?"

"What, you think that weirdo over there wants to be our friend?"

"She seems nice enough. A little odd, but who isn't?"

Ushiro rolled his eyes. "I swear you're even dumber than my worthless sister."

Kana quietly shuddered over Ushiro's remark.

Maki tensed up, ready to jump to her feet. "I'll show you worthless, you little—"

"Maki, please," the tall girl said as she grabbed the tomboy's shoulder.

Maki looked at the tall girl's hand and seethed, "Let go, Komo."

"No." Komo's grip remained firm. "Arguing with Ushiro won't solve anything."

"You can't be serious."

"Every time you two fight, all it does is make Kana upset. If you keep doing that, you'll be no better than him." Komo gestured with her head at Yoko, who was sitting on the stairs with her mask in her lap. "Be better than Ushiro."

Maki to a moment to contemplate Komo's words, and then gently removed the tall girl's hand from her shoulder. "Right." She got up, walked past Ushiro without so much as looking at him, and headed towards the stairs.

"So, Yoko, right?" Maki called out.

Yoko looked up and meekly replied, "Yeah."

"Sorry about Ushiro. It's not your fault. He just hates everyone."

"I noticed."

Maki took a seat next to Yoko. "For what it's worth, I get the feeling you'd be a great addition to our group."

Yoko perked up over Maki's remark. "You think so?"

"Of course. We could use an outsider's point of view."

Yoko was visibly puzzled by the tomboy's statement. "Outsider?"

"You're a local, and we're from Mainland Japan."

"Right." Yoko's lips crept into a smile. "Yeah, I guess I am an outsider."

Maki took a closer look at Yoko's mask. It had small horns on either side of the broad forehead and a chin that tapered down to a long narrow point. In lieu of a face, it was perforated with over a dozen eyeholes arranged in a radial pattern. Maki almost thought it looked like tribal art, but concluded it was too weird to even be that.

"What is this thing?" Maki wondered, "It looks pretty neat."

"Oh, this?" Yoko picked up to mask to give the tomboy a better look. "It's, um, something my brother made for a game."

"Game? What kind of game?"

"Video game. VR, to be exact."

"No way!" Maki's eyes twinkled with excitement. "What's it about?"

Yoko nervously looked away. "Not sure, to be honest. He's kind of tight-lipped about these kinds of things. Though he did mention something about giant robots."

"What?! I love giant robots!" Maki inched closer, looking like she was about ready to pounce. "What kind of robots are we talking about? Gundam? Evangelion?"

Yoko scooted back, clearly startled by Maki's enthusiasm. "I told you I don't know the details, though if I had to guess I'd say they're like Evas!"

Kana listened while Maki continued to press Yoko for answers. Ushiro, on the other hand, remained focused on the fire.

"Looks like we've got a new campmate," someone chuckled. It was a tall boy in a green, pinstriped tank top who had just returned from a walk.

"I certainly hope not," Ushiro scoffed.

"Come on, lighten up for once." The tall boy settled down on a rock behind Ushiro and Kana. "She seems nice enough, plus she's pretty cute to boot."

"You too, Kanji? What happened to being wary of strangers?"

The tall boy sighed. "You don't need to treat everything with suspicion, and to be honest, I agree with Maki about you making friends other than me and Kana."

"You really don't see anything off about that girl?"

"Well, apparently her brother makes video games, so she can't be all bad."

"Ugh, and here I thought you were one of the smart ones."

Kanji shook his head. "Sometimes, I wonder how I've been able to put up with you for so long."

Kana reminisced about the first time she met Yoko while she and Kanji waited for their freckled friend at an urban café. They sitting were at an outdoor table, and between their drinks and pastries was a laptop connected to a Zoom meeting.

"So," Kana asked the half-dozen teenagers she could see through the computer, "How's everyone's first year of high school going so far?"

"Komo and I are doing great," Maki answered through one of the on-screen windows.

Komo was in another window, nodding in agreement.

Maki continued, "And what about your first year of middle school, Kana?"

"I suppose I'm doing fine, though I kind of miss living with my brother."

"Meh, I'm okay with only seeing him one hour a week. No offense."

"Harsh," Kanji smirked. "And here I thought you two were finally getting along." He took a moment to reach under his dark green tank top and massage the burn scars that covered his left shoulder.

Maki sighed, "Fine, I'll admit he's better than he used to be."

"That I can agree with. Military school has been good for him."

Kana and Kanji heard a bell chime, drawing their attention away from the meeting.

"Is something wrong?" Maki wondered.

"Nothing's wrong," Kanji answered while he watched a crimson cowgirl pull up to their location on a mountain bike. "Far from it, in fact."

"Yoko!" Kana called out as she got up from her seat. "Over here!"

"Kana!" Yoko yelled back. She jumped off her bike, so excited to see her friends that she almost tripped over her own feet, much to their exasperation. She haphazardly propped her ride against the low fence that separated the café's outdoor tables from the rest of the street, then hopped over said fence. She darted around a bewildered waitress and ran straight towards Kanji and Kana's location.

Kana took a few steps away from the table. She smiled nervously, wondering if she should be happy about Yoko's arrival or worried about her freckled friend's enthusiasm. Before she could decide, Yoko ran up and lifted her off her feet with a passionate hug. Kanji watched the spectacle unfold with a bemused smirk.

"Kana!" Yoko squealed as she slowly spun her pigtailed friend around, "It's so good to see you again!"

"But I was at the last meeting," Kana gasped from between Yoko's arms.

"That's not the same as seeing you in person!"

"Fine, I'll give you that. Also, your helmet's digging into my forehead!"

"Oh, shoot! Sorry." Yoko set Kana down, let go, and took a step back. "Better?"

Kana nodded before adjusting her teal skirt and the glove on her right hand.

Yoko took a closer look at Kana and commented, "My, my, you've gotten big."

Kana looked away sheepishly. "My doctor says I'm of average height for my age."

"You're almost as tall as me and you're like, what, twelve?"

"Thirteen."

"That still means you're going to be taller than me someday!" Yoko chuckled. "Truth be told, I'm kind of jealous."

Kana blushed slightly.

"I see Yoko's finally arrived," Komo remarked. "Well, I hear her at least."

"Good to see you, too, Komo," Yoko replied. She watched Kana return to Kanji's table and take a seat, then pulled a chair up behind them and sat down herself.

"So, what did I miss?" Yoko continued.

At first, Yoko listened while her friends briefly recounted what they had discussed before her arrival. Afterwards they shifted the subject to their families, with Maki hogging the spotlight with tales about her brother. Yoko didn't complain; as far as she cared, any stories her friends told were worth listening to.

"How old is your brother again?" Kana eventually questioned.

"He'll be turning three in a couple months," Maki answered.

"Just like Chizu's niece," Komo added.

"Chizu," Yoko mused. "It's a shame she hardly ever attends these meetings."

"I know, right?" Maki added, "I'd love to learn what she went through raising a toddler, see if it's any different from my own experiences."

Komo interjected, "Speaking of absent friends, does anyone know about Ushiro?"

None of Yoko's friends answered Komo's question. They just started at each other in awkward silence. It almost made her physically uncomfortable.

"He didn't tell anyone what he was up to?" Kanji pondered.

Yoko silently contemplated whether she should mention their phone call.

"Fine, I'll spill the beans," Kanji sighed. "Ushiro's working on a game. The game."

"The game?" Maki shuddered. "As in… Yoko's brother?"

Kanji affirmed Maki's suspicions with a grim nod. The playful twinkle in his eyes was gone, as was his usual cocky smirk.

A chill crept through Yoko, not unlike the one she had in the train. She was worried about her friends discussing her brother's game in a public space and prayed they would choose their words carefully. At the same time, she was relieved she wasn't only one who knew the reasons behind Ushiro's absence.

Kanji took a deep breath before he answered, "Ushiro and I have been running some tests for the past few days, and if we're interpreting things correctly, the game's going to start again before the end of the week."

Maki curled up and trembled. "So, it's going to be like it was three years ago?"

"If anything, it'll be worse. We won't be going into the R- I mean, their realm. They'll be coming to our world. Which means this entire region's about to become a battlefield."

"I see." Maki forced out a sad laugh. "So much for summer vacation."

Yoko's chill grew worse. She knew exactly what Kanji was talking about, and judging by the looks on her friends' rapidly paling faces, so did they.

Kana looked like she was about to say something, but right when she opened her mouth, an unearthly cacophony, like a mix of pealing thunder and shattering glass, ripped through the air. Kanji, Kana, and Yoko looked up to see something equally unsettling; glowing cracks spreading across the sky as if it were a solid ceiling, creating a vast spiderweb that shimmered in iridescent colors as far as the eye could see.

"What the hell is that?" a horrified Kanji muttered.

"It's about to begin," Yoko whispered in an artificially calm tone.

"You're joking!"

Before Yoko could respond, she and her friends heard something crash. They got up and saw that a car had embedded itself into a storefront on the other side of the road. The young woman driving the car stumbled out to inspect the damage, then looked up when she heard something crumble. She barely had time to scream and raise her arms to protect herself when she saw the store's neon sign fall on top of her.

Yet the woman wasn't crushed by the glass and metal slab. When she realized she was still alive, she once again looked up. There was a ring of crimson light nearly two meters in diameter floating above her head. An identical ring was nearby, floating over the street. Beneath this second ring was the sign, smashed against the asphalt. Somehow, the sign had fallen into the first ring and out the second, sparing the woman's life.

Kana and Kanji were clearly surprised by the sudden turn of fortune, but not as much as the crowd gathering around the woman. The two looked back at Yoko, who had returned to her seat. They heard a humming noise and watched out of the corners of their eyes as the crimson circles shrunk and vanished.

"Is anyone looking at us?" Yoko asked in a hushed tone. She was trying to look calm and composed, but she was visibly tense and tired.

Kanji surveyed their surroundings around before sitting down and answering Yoko's question. "I don't think so. Our secret's probably safe."

Kana settled down in her seat. "What's going on?"

"That's what I want to know," Maki added. "I can't be only one who just saw the sky break up like glass!"

One way or another, the rest of Yoko's friends confirmed that the broken sky above the café was also visible over their locations.

Komo commented, "Come to think of it, I remember something similar happening during the Ascensions' Fall two years ago."

Maki gritted her teeth. "This has something to do with… the game, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Yoko replied while keeping her eyes on Kanji's computer. "Let's just say the game's going to be starting even sooner than Kanji predicted."

"How soon?" Kanji demanded.

"Real soon. At best, we have three days."

"I see," Kana shivered.

Yoko's nightmares were indeed about to become a reality. She could already imagine an iridescent colossus rampaging through the city. However, she also found solace in the thought that when that day did arrive, she would neither be alone nor helpless.