Epilogue

Outside Portsmouth, Virginia

A new headstone stood beside the other two:

Here lies Leonard Testarossa.

He wished for a better world.

Of course, it was only a headstone. His body would have been atomized over the Pacific by the nuclear explosion on Merida Island.

He probably wouldn’t want to be next to our mother, Tessa thought, but he should be. I’d like them to try and talk things out. But putting him right next to her might still be too painful, so I placed our father in the middle. That should be acceptable.

I don’t know how many decades it will be, but I hope my own final rest is here, someday. Then the four of us can have a proper family meeting. True reconciliation may be difficult, but I want to believe in our eventual salvation.

“Do you understand?” Tessa whispered to Leonard’s grave. The stone responded with silence. All she could hear was the sound of the wind and birdsong. Then she stood up and left the graves behind.

Two men were waiting for her nearby. One was Mardukas, dressed in a gray suit. The scar across his forehead had removed some of the cold impression he used to give off and replaced it with a curiously intimidating air.

The other was Admiral Jerome Borda, the former head of Mithril’s operations division. Borda had been MIA since the attack by Amalgam had blown up their headquarters. He really had been badly injured, he said, but after over six months of treatment and recovery, he’d begun secretly making preparations to rebuild the organization.

“All finished?” Borda asked. There was a patch over his left eye, and he walked with a cane in his right hand.

“Yes, Uncle. And I’m sorry for the trouble,” said Tessa.

After the nuclear explosion on Merida Island, the plane carrying her and the others had been forced to make a water landing. They’d been picked up afterwards by the surfaced US Navy submarine, the Pasadena. Captain Sailor had been as shocked to see the erstwhile maid and ‘the Duke’ boarding his vessel as he was to see the tiger in the cargo hold, but he’d eventually given them permission to board. A zoo in Hawaii had taken the tiger in.

Sailor treated them politely enough, but after a transfer in custody to the Naval Information Department at the Hawaii submarine fleet HQ, they’d spent a week in what had more or less been house arrest. But just as the real interrogations were about to start, Admiral Borda had come to fetch them.

Tessa didn’t know how he’d done it, but she and her crew ended up being set free. She’d heard that Courtney and Sears, who had been arrested for stealing a military AS and helicopter, had also been acquitted of their crimes.

“I received a report,” said Borda. “The army has gone down to DEFCON 4. I think it’s safe to say the threat of an East—West clash is behind us.”

“I see...”

“Those three hours after the explosion over Merida were the worst,” he went on. “I mean, a ballistic missile launch? Those five minutes before we realized it was heading to an empty island in the West Pacific were like a nightmare.” The West had been seconds away from a retaliatory strike, but Hunter, Lemon, and the others had succeeded in informing all departments that Mao and her people had successfully retaken the base.

And so, World War III had been averted. The current state of global affairs was far from being peaceful, but the world was returning to baseline—back to the world they knew, in which many things could happen, both good and bad.

“It wasn’t empty,” Mardukas corrected.

Borda paused. “Ah, that’s right. I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right.”

“How is Chidori Kaname faring?”

“The hospital discharged her,” Mardukas told him. “She said she was going back to Tokyo.”

Chidori Kaname had been in a coma for over two weeks after their escape. They didn’t know exactly why; she’d seemed to be physically well after the fever receded, yet she simply wouldn’t wake up. Tessa tried calling to her with resonance once, to no avail. She thought at first that Kaname had closed herself off to it, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Tessa actually hadn’t heard the whispers since the battle at Merida Island, and the occasional feelings of déjà vu she’d felt in the past had stopped, as well.

Tessa couldn’t say for certain, and it would take a while to be sure, but she thought she might never hear the whispers again. She wasn’t sure yet if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

In the end, for whatever reason, Kaname suddenly woke up one morning. She’d been confused at first, but then had gradually seemed to take in the situation and explained that she was definitely in her right mind again. She also gave a detailed account of everything she’d seen and done while inside the TAROS. Tessa had been shocked when she’d heard it.

Then came the painful part. As Kaname clenched her hands into fists and listened calmly, Tessa explained what had happened, just giving her the facts: that a nuclear MIRV warhead fired from Afghanistan had hit Merida Island. That they’d barely had time to escape. That Sousuke had been left behind.

Kaname listened silently up to the end, then simply told Tessa, “I’m sorry.” They didn’t say much else to each other after that, but Tessa had promised to visit her again once things were settled. Then she’d taken care of a few remaining points of business before flying here to Virginia.

“It must have been hard on you,” observed Borda.

“It was,” Tessa admitted. If she was being honest, it still didn’t feel real. She hadn’t cried once. Most likely, in a week or two, some little thing would hit her in a way that would spark a deep, all-consuming sadness. She’d been through this before, after all. Many times.

The three of them walked down the forest road on the way back to their car. It was still cool out, but spring was right around the corner.

“What happens next for you two?” Borda wanted to know.

“I’m going to return to England,” Mardukas answered. “I have some money saved up, so I can lose myself in military history or chess for a while.”

“That makes sense... There’s no submarine left for you to serve on. Will you see your wife?”

“My former wife,” Mardukas corrected. “I wouldn’t count on a proper reunion, but we’ll share a meal, at least. I don’t know how it will turn out, myself,” he admitted with a shrug.

“What about you, Teletha?”

“Well...” Tessa smiled weakly. She was thinking of traveling to see the families of the deceased members of her crew. She wondered if Nora, who had started a relationship with Sachs just before he passed, might resent her. She didn’t know if the other woman would agree to meet with her or not, but she should at least try.

It will be a hard journey to make, she thought. Maybe I’ll ask Melissa to join me. Ah... but she has Weber-san now. Maybe I shouldn’t get in their way.

The news that Kurz, whom they’d all presumed dead, had popped back up during the operation in Afghanistan had given Tessa an extremely awkward feeling. He’d been one reason for her despondence just before the operation had started, after all.

Her anger about the revelation more or less outweighed her joy. She wasn’t about to say “read the room, idiot,” to him personally, but she’d heard their other comrades had given him a merciless hazing to that effect. Kurz had been extremely disappointed by his lack of a hero’s welcome.

“What about you, Uncle?” Tessa asked. “Are you going to rebuild Mithril?”

“I don’t know. Amalgam has been hobbled, but they’re not gone. I received word that Amit may have joined them, as well. I don’t know whether to fight them or try to coexist,” Borda admitted. “I’m completely at a loss.”

“I see...”

“There’s no money, either. Things can’t be like they were now that the Mallorys are gone. But if I do find a funding source...” Borda glanced sidelong at Tessa. “How would you feel about a TDD-2?”

“I have no interest in it whatsoever,” she told him flatly.

“I’m glad to hear that.” Of course, he’d likely meant it as a joke, but Borda smiled in seeming relief that Tessa had lost all interest in weapons.

They came out of the forest next to a red Cherokee parked on the roadside, where Michel Lemon got out from the driver’s seat upon noticing their return. He’d been officially fired from French Intelligence, and was now working for Borda.

“Sorry for the wait, Lemon-san,” said Tessa.

“Not at all! I’d accompany you anywhere, Testarossa-san. You can call me for tea, for lunch, for dinner... Ah, ahem.” Lemon cleared his throat as he noticed the death glares being fired at him by both Mardukas and Borda. “A-Anyway! I just received some information from Wraith: watch this, you’ll be stunned.”

Breathlessly, he held out his tablet, which displayed several top secret US Navy files that Wraith had sent them. Borda himself had strong connections in the Navy, but this was extremely recent knowledge that outstripped what even he could access.

“Where did she get this?” he asked skeptically.

“The GRU, apparently.”

“What? Grr...” Borda clutched his head in frustration.

“She says it’s their way of thanking us for Afghanistan,” Lemon clarified. “And a bit of an ‘in-your-face’ as well, I’m sure.”

With a sidelong glance at Borda, Tessa took the tablet from Lemon and checked the files it contained.

The first file was a series of optical and infrared satellite images; there were thirty images of Merida Island after the nuclear attack, each taken ninety minutes apart. It was painful to see the landscape burning and pulverized from the shockwave, but eventually the heat receded, the smoke gradually dispersed, and a rocky, barren landscape full of craters came into view. The coastline was all straight lines now, likely as a vestige of the underground structures revealing themselves.

The second file was a series of radioactivity readings. It seemed the MIRV’s warhead was configured to minimize radiation relative to the scale of the explosion. The radiation had greatly declined in the first hour after impact, and after fifteen hours, it had fallen to less than one part per hundred.

The third file was a video of a Navy helicopter heading for (the rocky remains of) Merida Island, twenty-four hours after the blast. The footage seemed to have been taken with a camcorder, and featured the occasional glimpse of the helicopter crew in radiation suits. The Geiger counter captured by the camera suggested readings within acceptable levels, allowing for a safe landing and investigation.

Upon reaching Merida Island, the helicopter began recording from above the epicenter crater. A significant pile of rubble lay a little ways off, half-soaked with seawater and lapped at by the waves: this was the remains of the underground base. Judging by their current location, it was somewhere near to where Corridor No. 0 met the underground dock.

The next thing she saw caused a whisper to emanate from Tessa’s throat. “What in the world...”

There was a white and red machine, humanoid, lying at the water’s edge. It was an AS: the Laevatein. Despite all the damage it had taken, she recognized it. On the screen, the investigators that had found the white AS had a tense conversation: This is an AS? Ridiculous. It can’t be. There must be some mistake!

The helicopter approached and zoomed in on the Laevatein. For some reason, the camera was having trouble focusing. The air around the machine was warped. Ah, no... The warping suddenly stopped, and the camera zoomed in on the crushed machine’s chest. The feed was so grainy it was hard to make out any details, but what she could tell was that someone wearing a black operator’s uniform had crawled out of the machine to look up weakly at the investigators’ helicopter.

The video ended and the screen went black.

Tessa didn’t know what could have happened. She had seen how the Laevatein’s cockpit was pulverized, so there should have been no way to amplify the operator’s influence waves and activate the lambda driver.

But... what if the core unit had remained undamaged, and Al had activated a force field himself? What if he’d protected Sousuke and the machine from the initial nuclear blast, then kept the lambda driver running for hours afterward, in order to minimize their radiation exposure?

“It seems the machine and operator were recovered and moved to the base in Okinawa,” said Lemon.

He survived? The sudden reality of it all caused Tessa to nearly drop the 650-dollar tablet, and Lemon scrambled to snatch it away from her before she could. He went on to say, “From there, jurisdiction was transferred from Navy Intelligence to the CIA. Apparently there was quite a power struggle, but Senator Spear of the Senate Intelligence Committee took the reins and—”

Borda clicked his tongue. “That’ll be Amit, I’ll bet. He’s got loads of blackmail material on Spear.”

“He’s in custody, then?” It took all of Tessa’s strength to ask. She had thought she wouldn’t cry this week, but she was wrong. Life was a series of unexpected blows.

“It appears that way. They expect to take him from Kadena Air Base to California eventually. I’m not sure if he’s in speaking condition yet, but I would imagine the plan is to wait until he recovers to move and question him.”

“But we need to save him...” Tessa protested.

“Mao and the others are already on-site.”

Chatan, Nakagami District, Okinawa

“Sheesh, I thought I was through with violence for a while... But it is what it is. I’m partly to blame for this, anyway,” Mao grumbled from the passenger seat. She slid a clip into her submachine gun, pulled the bolt, and checked the scope.

“This wouldn’t have happened if you’d made it to the launch room one second earlier. But you had to have your touching reunion with a certain idiot,” Wraith whispered back from the driver’s seat.

“What, this is my fault now? You’re blaming this on me? You know how hard I fought to get out of the hospital and save you guys? Come on!” Kurz argued from the back seat. They were crammed into a small vehicle, so the muzzle of his rifle banged annoyingly against the ceiling and the windows.

“Get out of the hospital, huh? Think about how I feel, then. My ribs, my spleen... they’re still shredded. My hearing’s still on the fritz too. So don’t shout; it causes ringing.” The bandage-wrapped Clouseau groaned, sitting next to Kurz with his carbine at hand.

Mao, Wraith, Kurz, and Clouseau were Team Alpha. Their Humvee was parked on the shoulder of Route 50, heading to the nearby US Air Force Base while they waited for Team Bravo to get in position.

Clouseau continued grumbling. “Raiding a US base... it’s madness. We’re like terrorists. We might really die this time. I should’ve stayed in bed next to Wu.”

“Don’t worry,” Mao told him reassuringly. “I’ve been to this base a bunch of times. I know the lay of the land.”

“You think that’s the problem?” Clouseau asked incredulously.

“Ah, if only we had an AS...” Mao sighed.

“Don’t say that,” Clouseau muttered. “I’ll start crying.”

Just then, they got a call from Yang on Team Bravo. “Bravo Leader here. We’re all in place. We’ll start making trouble at the appointed time, so you take the rest.”

“Alpha Leader, roger,” Mao responded before shutting off her radio. The raid would start in five minutes.

A long silence followed until Kurz, who was bored, spoke up abruptly. “But what if it turns out he’s a vegetable? Or he’s dead from radiation poisoning?”

“Don’t talk like that,” said Mao.

“I just think we should be mentally prepared,” he insisted. “I mean, it was a nuclear blast.”

“You saw the numbers in the report. There’s reason to be hopeful,” Wraith said. “Besides, you weren’t exactly in the best shape when they pulled you out of Yamsk-11 either, Weber.”

“Yeah, I really thought I was dead meat...”

“Seriously, what a waste,” Mao grumbled. “There’s being gutsy and there’s just being stubborn. God, I thought I was rid of you at last. And then—”

“Come on, Big Sis,” Kurz said teasingly. “You can admit it.”

“Admit what?”

“On the plane ride back from Afghanistan, after everyone went to bed, you snuggled up to me and sniffled and said in that really cute—hrrgh!”

“Die! Seriously, die!” Mao shrieked. “You’re such a creep! Who tells people that stuff? Seriously!”

“C’mon, is it such a big deal?”

“Of course it is! And you... Ah, we’re done. I’m fed up. Once we’re done here—” Mao was interrupted by a sudden explosion from the base beyond the fence, and she looked over in shock.

The sound had come from far away, the base’s northwest side. It was followed by another explosion, which was in turn followed by sirens and alarms. Team Bravo’s diversion wasn’t supposed to start for another five minutes, and the explosions weren’t coming from the area where they were stationed. Something’s happening at the base, she realized. Who in the world could be behind it?

“What do we do?” Wraith asked.

“Let’s wait for now. I don’t hear any gunshots, so it might be something small.”

“And Team Bravo?”

“Standing by until they get other orders.”

As Team Alpha discussed their next course of action, they could see a truck speeding down the base’s runway, heading east, away from the earlier explosions. The truck kept going over the runway’s east side until it burst through the fence and flew out onto the road where Mao and the others were waiting.

“Hey, now...” Mao protested.

The truck drove straight for their vehicle. As it passed them by, the light from the streetlamps gave them a momentary glimpse of Sagara Sousuke in the driver’s seat.

“Sousuke?!” Mao yelled.

The truck kept on going for fifty more meters before it squealed to a stop. A metallic clunk suggested that there had been a gear change, and it then backed up at full speed to stop right dead beside them.

Mao recognized that sullen expression and tight frown. “What are you doing here?” Sousuke asked as he disembarked, leaving his engine still running. For some reason, he was wearing the uniform of an Air Force second lieutenant. Mao couldn’t even begin to speculate what he’d been through to come this far, but it had clearly been quite an ordeal.

The four of them piled out of their own car to meet him. “Well... we came to save you...” said Mao, trailing off awkwardly.

“I see. Hmm...” Sousuke furrowed his brow when he looked over at Kurz, who was getting out of the back seat. “Oh, you’re alive?”

“Is that all you have to say?!” Kurz demanded.

“Seems like a waste,” said Sousuke.

“That’s so mean...”

Meanwhile, explosions continued to cause chaos in the nearby base. The soldiers hadn’t noticed Mao’s party yet, but it was only a matter of time.

“I don’t have time to waste,” Sousuke declared. “I have business to attend to, so I need to use your vehicle.” Then he strode towards the driver’s seat of the Humvee.

“Wh-What?” asked Mao, sounding taken aback.

《Hello. Please let the sergeant go,》 said a synthetic voice from the bed of the truck.

“Al?” Mao peered into the truck bed and saw the AI’s core unit and power source, as well as several external mechanisms carelessly strewn about.

“It would have been much easier to escape on my own,” Sousuke grumbled. “I put in the extra effort to get him out.”

《It’s much appreciated.》

“Glad to see you’re doing so well... Though this is a little anticlimactic,” Mao observed.

“They ran a number of tests on me, and I’m sorry to say I’m the picture of health,” Sousuke told her.

His endurance was almost disgusting, and Mao felt like a fool for having spent weeks worrying about his chances of survival.

“Where is Kaname?” Sousuke asked next.

“In Tokyo,” Mao told him. “She said she didn’t have any immediate plans, but she really wanted to go back there first.”

“I see.”

“She also refused any offers of protection. She said she doesn’t hear the whispers anymore,” Wraith said grimly.

“Aha. Please take care of Al,” Sousuke told them. Then he got right into the driver’s seat of the Humvee and revved up the engine. He was apparently going to force them to escape in his confiscated truck, a vehicle which hadn’t exactly been designed for a fast getaway.

“Sousuke,” Mao said urgently.

“Yes?”

“You remember what I said, right? What will you do now?”

Sousuke turned his eyes down and thought silently for a while. The sirens of cars from the base grew closer. They must have finally realized that the explosions were a diversion. “I’d really like to throw away my weapons, but as you can see, it will be difficult,” he said with a shrug, indicating the approaching sirens with a tilt of his head.

“Yeah, fair enough.”

“Anyway, graduation first,” he decided. “Goodbye.” The Humvee squealed as it accelerated, peeling up dust from the roadside as Sousuke left them behind.

“And there he goes,” sighed Mao. “Sheesh...”

“I should have stayed in the hospital,” Clouseau grumbled.

“But... what graduation?” Kurz wanted to know.

The group just watched him drive off for a while, slack-jawed, until Mao suddenly clapped her hands together. “Look alive, people! We gotta make a getaway, too!”

The security cars approached as the four of them piled into the truck and then began tearing off in the opposite direction at the nearby T-intersection.

Mao and Wraith climbed into the truck bed, and Al asked them, 《By the way, do I have a new body waiting for me?》

“Of course not!” Mao told him. “We’re all out of money, and the organization’s been dismantled!”

《Then after we’ve reached safety, please install me in a car. I would prefer a Trans Am.》

Chofu, Tokyo

Kaname closed the door behind her, and the taxi drove off.

There were sparrows singing in the morning sun. Housewives were putting out their garbage. Office drones were commuting to work. Old men were walking their dogs.

Her apartment was in front of her. The building and the city around it had barely changed in her year away.

I’m finally home, Kaname thought. She’d thought a sense of awe might have overtaken her, but she didn’t feel much of anything. She wished she could be happy, or crying, or feeling some sense of nostalgia...

Using the key she’d gotten from Wraith before her discharge, Kaname went inside. It took her a minute to even remember her apartment number, but she eventually took the elevator to the fourth floor. She didn’t run into anyone on the way and found that the nameplate still read “Chidori” when she arrived. She unlocked the door and went inside.

The entryway and hall were pitch black. She pressed the switch on the wall, but the lights remained off. Right, the breaker... Kaname got on her tiptoes to open the panel over the shoe cupboard, then raised the lever for the breaker in the back. The doorbell let out an experimental ring, and the ventilation fans and refrigerator hummed to life. Lights went on in the rooms around her.

“I’m back,” she decided to say, even though nobody was there to answer. Her father and sister would still be in New York, but maybe they’d sent a relative to come by and clean the place up every now and then.

Kaname took off her shoes and headed for the living room, where she found that the interior hadn’t changed much during her year away, either. The only difference was in how utterly clean it was, with no signs of life at all: no mail scattered about, no laundry tossed on the floor, no notebooks and textbooks carelessly strewn across the table. Maybe the police had been by to investigate, or her family had cleaned it up.

The fridge in the kitchen was, unsurprisingly, empty. Her bedroom was just as she’d left it, aside from having been tidied up. Even her James Brown poster was right where she’d left it.

Kaname came back to the living room and tried the phone. Surprisingly, the line was still working. She tried calling her house in New York and got the answering machine. It was 7 p.m. over there, so maybe they weren’t home yet.

“Hello,” she said. “Um...it’s Kaname. I’m home in Tokyo, and I’m basically okay. I’ll call back later.”

She thought back to that daydream from the TARTAROS of that leisurely morning. Her mother was gone; that was the reality she’d chosen. And yet Kaname felt like she could still make something similar happen. She could drop her resentment of her father, her jealousy of her little sister, and really engage with them. She wouldn’t be perfect, but she could try a little harder.

“I’m sorry if I worried you. And I... I don’t resent you anymore, Dad.” She set the phone down. Feeling utterly exhausted for some reason, she collapsed onto the sofa. What do I do now? she wondered. Sousuke is gone...

That’s what Tessa had told her. Kaname had been prepared for that possibility, of course, and had listened calmly to her friend’s explanation. The news had opened a small hole in her heart, and yet it still didn’t feel real. The idea that he’d made it through the battle with Leonard, only to still end up dead, just didn’t add up.

She’d had a similar feeling after her mother had died, but this wasn’t quite the same. There was just... this vague feeling of “Yeah, I don’t think so.” You could call it a simple refusal to face reality, but the feeling was a very level-headed and quiet one. It felt to Kaname like a voice of reason.

She thought back on Leonard, too.

That poor man. I couldn’t return his feelings, but at least he was trying to deal with me in good faith. But by the time I realized that, it was too late to mend our relationship. Fowler and Sabina, too... and Kalinin. They all had such hopes, such expectations, and I rejected them all. I think it’s going to be hard, she reflected, living on with that on my conscience.

And then there’s Sofia... Tessa told me she was gone, but she’s not, Kaname admitted to herself. Sofia still exists. She’s tucked away in a corner of my mind and makes herself known from time to time, watching me. But I don’t sense any jealousy or resentment or lasting anger from her.

When she thought of Sofia, the primary feeling Kaname sensed from her was amusement. She seemed to be thinking, Oh, you think you can do this? Prove it. How far can you make it in this world that you’ve chosen? See if you can make me really accept it, start to finish. And if you’re going to fall in love, share it with me. I want to feel it, too. I have a right to that, don’t I? You can’t tell me I’m wrong. That was what Sofia wanted, and there was no hostility or coldness there.

Well, I won’t deny her that, Kaname decided. And I do think I owe her that much. I’ll just have to share my life with her.

Thoughts swirled around in her mind, one after another.

Enough. Let’s watch some TV, wait for a reply on the phone, then laze around a little and buy some ingredients for dinner at the supermarket. It was a sensible plan, but it didn’t feel right. That’s right... Kaname reconsidered as she got up from the sofa. Today’s Friday. A weekday. It’s 9:14...

“The school...” she said out loud. Of course, she’d probably been expelled. Maybe she’d just poke her head in and give everyone an update and an apology.

I still have my uniform, right? Kaname wondered, rummaging around in her closet. Her Jindai High School uniform was there, wrapped neatly in plastic from a cleaning company.

“I don’t know about this...” Kaname groaned, standing in her white and blue uniform before the wide-open school gate. A big sign hung from it, reading: 1999 Tokyo Municipal Jindai High School Graduation

She knew it was the time of year for the event in question, but she couldn’t believe it was today, of all days. Should she feel glad that she’d made it in time?

What to do? she asked herself. She could even hear the strains of Aogeba Totoshi playing from the gym. Was that the theme for the graduating students leaving the venue? It struck a solemn sense of goodbye, like turning a new page on the time of one’s youth.

I’ve been attacked by terrorists, survived a robot deathmatch, escaped the threat of global thermonuclear war, and stopped the alteration of reality itself. After miraculously coming back from all of those massive-scale events... is there any chance I can still fit in here?

“Urgh...” While she continued to waffle over her next course of action, the graduating students came streaming down the school breezeway from the gym. There were girls crying with their arms around each other’s shoulders, and boys releasing some pent-up energy after the long, boring ceremony. Kaname caught glimpses of a few faces she recognized.

“Hey... Chidori-san?!” someone shouted.

Ah, she realized. I’ve been spotted...

“It’s Chidori-san! Look, over there!”

“No way!”

“Chidori? Are you kidding me?!”

“What? Who are we talking about?”

“Chidori-san! Over there!”

“Hey, hey, hey!”

The commotion was growing. Kaname didn’t know what to do, so she just stood where she was. She’d been prepared for a firing squad, but this reaction was the opposite.

“It’s Kana-chan!”

The breezeway was starting to become very chaotic, but Tokiwa Kyoko fought her way desperately through the crowd and came into view.

“Kyoko...?” Kaname asked cautiously.

“Kana-chan!” Her friend ran up to her, smiling, without the slightest hesitation.

I don’t understand, thought Kaname. It’s been a whole year. After all I put her through, how can she be running up to me, crying her eyes out? Stop it, Kyoko. I don’t know what to do with this... She didn’t know what else to say. All the feelings of uncertainty that she’d been burying deep down inside came flooding out now.

As Kyoko flung herself into Kaname’s arms, Kaname began to sob. She hadn’t meant to; she just couldn’t help herself. She squatted down in place and kept on crying even as the rest of class 3-4 came running up to her a moment later.

The teachers came running too, and while quite shocked and dismayed themselves, they eventually led the students to the nearby courtyard to try and stem the chaos. Of course, that didn’t do anything to quell their excitement.

Her homeroom teacher, Kagurazaka Eri, her female friends like Shiori-chan, her male friends like Kazama Shinji and Onodera Kotaro, her student council comrades and people from all the other classes surrounded her, smiling and crying. She’d been away so long, yet they were all just the same.

I’m glad I kept going, Kaname told herself. This was the right decision. Wasn’t it, Sofia?

She couldn’t remember exactly what they talked about. She wasn’t sure how long they spent like that. But at last, someone said, “Where’s Sagara-kun?” and everyone went quiet.

“Sousuke’s....” She wasn’t sure how to explain.

To bring me back, he...

On a distant island, he...

After a year of fighting, he...

All alone...

For my sake...

“Huh? Isn’t that Sagara there?” someone asked, and one by one, the students all turned to face the gate.

A Super Cub motorcycle lay on its side nearby. A man had thrown it aside and was running, breathlessly, towards the courtyard where they sat.

It was Sousuke.

There was shock, and joy, and chaos. But somewhere in her heart, Kaname felt a feeling of... “Yes, I knew it.” Stubbornness is the main thing that man of mine has going for him, after all.

“Well, you see? I brought her back, just like I promised, see?!” he was shouting. He must have come here in a hurry, because he was covered in sweat... Yet he was still in his Jindai High uniform. Had he really had time to spend changing his outfit? Maybe he wanted, in his own way, to do this ‘right.’

“Sagara?!”

“Sagara-kun?!”

“Hey, hey! Did someone say Sagara?!”

Sousuke entered the courtyard amidst the chatter. “I’m sorry,” he told them. “Until today, I was being held in a base in Okinawa.”

“No one asked,” Kotaro pointed out.

“But I checked to make sure that today was graduation,” said Sousuke, ignoring him.

“Really, no one asked,” Shinji chimed in.

Among similar exchanges with their other classmates, he pushed through the crowd and finally made it to Kaname. “I thought I’d find you here, Chidori,” he said.

“Sousuke...” she trailed off. He was brimming with confidence, as if this was all just as he’d planned it. She knew he’d almost died time and again, that he’d faced so many hardships just to make it here. After all that, how could he smile at her like this, like the king of the world?

“It’s been an eventful time,” he said quickly. “There’s so much I want to tell you... but never mind that. Wraith told me. You said you don’t need protection?”

“Well...” I’m not hearing the whispers anymore, she thought, but didn’t say. I don’t know what the organizations of the world might be thinking, but I can’t possibly be of any more use to them.

“That’s foolish,” he said flatly. “You do need protection.”

Kaname said nothing, but Sousuke held out his right hand. Kaname took it timidly and took a step forward as he guided her.

“I will protect you,” he promised. “Forever.”

“Wait... ah... ah...” Kaname’s face turned crimson, and her heart began to race. I’m flustered enough as it is right now. Exactly what kind of answer is he expecting?

“Do you remember our promise back in Mexico?” Sousuke asked abruptly.

“Huh?” Then she remembered the promise they’d made over the radio. We’d better kiss the next time we see each other. Long and hard, no matter where we are. Kaname had said those words herself.

“We’ve seen each other again,” he pointed out.

“Huh?! But... but...”

“You don’t want to?”

“Of course I want to!” she protested. “But, um... look around!”

There were people all around them, in all 360 degrees. They were currently standing in the courtyard, and when Kaname looked up, she could see the non-graduating students crowding into the north and south buildings to look down at them from the windows. So many eyes. So many people. People, people, people, all around her...

“Well... I know I said that, and I wouldn’t really mind,” she told him. “But... maybe not here? I mean... look! Everyone’s watching! So we can’t... We can’t really...”

But Sousuke’s next words sealed the deal. “Not an issue,” he told her, and then he took Kaname gently in his arms and confidently put his lips to hers.

It was pointless to resist. “Mm! Mm...” Suddenly, she didn’t know up from down, left from right. With hundreds of people watching, Kaname felt herself drown in the sweet sensation of that kiss, abandoning the last remnants of her reason to her desire to remain like this forever. She closed her eyes and surrendered to his embrace.

She’d never felt so excited. Her love for him grew and grew. Oh, whatever... she decided, and before the stunned gazes of her friends and classmates, Kaname wrapped her arms around his neck, accepting his lips and seeking them out with inexperienced kisses of her own.

Cheers and whistles broke out from the onlookers, the sound engulfing them.

I’m embarrassed. So embarrassed. My cheeks are on fire... But who cares? Let them watch, she decided. I’ve wanted to do this for so long. He’s wanted it, too. That’s all that matters.

And if anyone’s got a problem with that, screw ’em!

Their lips parted, and they pressed their foreheads together. “Never let me go, okay?” she whispered.

“I won’t,” he whispered back.

“Stay... Stay with me forever.”

“I will.” With his usual sullen expression, Sousuke gave her a confident nod. “As long as I have you, I don’t need weapons.”

[The End]