Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Fuck the Anthropic Principle,” Junpei spat. His stinging cheek gave extra weight to his anger. The ring that lay like lead against his fingers made that pain even sharper. The sight of Akane walking away sealed the grievance inside Junpei’s heart.

“Junpei…?” Carlos started to say. He hesitantly placed his hand on Junpei’s shoulder.

Junpei shrugged Carlos off. “I’m fine,” he lied. He walked back over to the table at the centre of the lounge where he had left his bottle of beer. “I just want to have a little bit more of my drink. That’s all.”

Carlos frowned. “I thought you didn’t feel like drinking anymore. Isn’t that what you said earlier?”

“Hmph.” Junpei shook his head. “I guess things change quickly. Isn’t that right, Carlos?”

“Whatever you say, Junpei. I’m not up for an argument right now.” Carlos turned to walk away.

“Thanks, Carlos,” Junpei said bitterly. He picked the bottle up from the table and swirled it around gently, listening to the satisfying gurgle of the liquid that remained at the bottom. Then he lifted the bottle up, the pleasurable coolness of the glass tingling his lips. “Seriously, fuck the Anthropic Principle.” With that epithet, Junpei drank deeply from the bottle.

As he swallowed the alcohol, his vision went black.

Junpei’s mind swirled, just as his beer had. For a moment he found himself kneeling in a fireplace, screaming as hot flying bullets tore his spine apart. Before the pain caused him to pass out entirely, Junpei’s mind was ripped away again. He tumbled through the Morphogenetic field for what seemed like hours until he finally came to rest.

Junpei stirred to find himself sprawled on the hard metal floor of the power room. A thin layer of water shimmered on the metal and soaked into Junpei’s shirt. Despite having trickled from the slab of ice that blocked the channel running through the centre of the room, the water was in no way cold. The sheer sweltering heat in the room that had warmed up the water quickly roused Junpei into full wakefulness.

The screeching alarm and the unnaturally bright light shooting through the blast window may have had something to do with that as well.

As Junpei clambered to his feet he saw Akane and Carlos on either side of him; once they had stood up as well he yelled at them, raising his voice above the noise. “Where the hell are we?!”

Carlos looked around. “It looks like the power room. We must have been knocked out by our bracelets again, then brought here.”

“That can’t be right,” Junpei snapped, “We had at least forty minutes to go!”

“More importantly,” Akane said, “we remember that. We can’t have been knocked out, or we would have lost our memories as well.” Akane just stood there for a moment, thinking. “I believe we may have shifted.”

“‘Shifted’?” Carlos asked.

“We’ve had our consciousnesses thrown into another time – maybe even another timeline – and occupied our bodies here. It’s hardly unprecedented. Right Junpei?”

“I should have known all this esper bullshit was going to show up again.” As Junpei scowled, something struck him. “Wasn’t it supposed to be the case that esper abilities only activated when someone was in great danger? Whatever you say about it, we’d just won the fucking lottery. Why would we jump out of that?”

Akane raised her hand to her chin nervously. “I think… I think it might have been the other way round. We weren’t the ones who chose to shift. The versions of us here were. They jumped to our timeline and we… we were forced back.”

“I’m not entirely sure what you are talking about, Akane,” Carlos stated, “but if you’re saying we’re now in danger, I don’t suppose it could be because of that?” Carlos pointed at the blast window. Inside, the glowing orb began to spin faster, sparks of energy leaping off it and crashing against the walls of the reactor.

If that wasn’t enough, an announcement soon conclusively answered Carlos’ question. “Countdown over. Detonation is now unstoppable. Please evacuate.”

“‘Evacuate’?!” Junpei gasped, “We can’t, Goddamnit! The door’s still locked!” His chest constricted his breath; panic took him. “Hey, Anthropic Principle? What I said earlier… I was just kidding okay? No need to do this to us, so we can go back, right? Let us back! Let us back, damnit!”

Akane reached out towards Junpei. She patted his shoulder and caressed it gently, until Junpei’s shivering died down.

“Akane…” Junpei whispered. The rest of the strength of his voice wouldn’t come. “We can get back, right? We’re the ones in danger now. That means we can shift back to the timeline we were in, and force those bastards to deal with the shit they left for us.”

Akane sighed sympathetically. “‘Those bastards’ are just us, Junpei. No more, no less.”

“Well, if one of them’s me, then he’s definitely a bastard.” Junpei turned squared on to Akane and clenched both her shoulders desperately. “Can we go back?”

Akane bowed her head. “I’m sorry, Junpei. I think there was… somewhere in between, when we shifted here. I might be able to make it back but” – the agony of a million bullets piercing his back flashed through Junpei’s mind again – “You and Carlos wouldn’t.”

Carlos started a methodical pace around the room. “There’s got to be a more mundane way out of here, guys! If we look for it, we’ll find it.” Carlos’ search took him to the other door out of the power room – this one had been opened – and into the small room inside. “Huh? Junpei! Akane! Have a look at this!”

Junpei and Akane joined Carlos to see him standing at one end of a pair of linked consoles. Junpei made his way over to the other; as he looked at the screen Akane peered over his shoulder. The words on the screen read, ‘Rules of the AB Game.’

“‘AB Game’?” Akane murmured, “I’ve heard of that.”

Suddenly she reached past Junpei, tapping the screen multiple times in rapid succession with her index finger. Several screen’s worth of text blinked past without stopping. Junpei squinted, trying to read what he could, but it was hopeless. From Carlos’ frustrated expression, it was clear that the instructions had flown by too quickly on his screen as well.

“Junpei, Carlos,” Akane said, her voice full of authority, “All you have to do is press ‘Ally’. Try to do it at the same time: I’ll give you a countdown. Are you ready?”

Junpei and Carlos both nodded.

“Okay. Three… Two… One.”

Chapter Text

Two rounds of the Ambidex Game later and the door out of the power room had opened. “Let’s go!” Carlos shouted as he led the way down the short corridor beyond. The floor and walls trembled around them as they ran but the three of them still made it, bursting into the lounge and gathering in front of the X-door.

“Well? Can we get out or not?” Junpei asked, his question yelled fruitlessly at the X-door itself.

Somehow, the question was answered. “Now announcing the current casualties. Q-team: Q, Mira, Eric. These three are now deceased.” Three unusable X-passes were then released.

“Goddamnit!” Junpei roared, “What was the point of that? We’re still gonna die from that reactor, only now we’re doing it a few metres further away. Great job!” Junpei curled his hand into a tight fist and hammered it against the X-door.

The door shuddered slightly. So did the entire room.

As the tremors from whatever was happening in the power room reverberated throughout the facility, the walls of the lounge shifted; a wave of change rippled outwards from the X-door's frame. Where it passed, the mottled brown of the walls and every feature on them vanished entirely, to be replaced only by a uniform whiteness. Where the ripple hit the floor it spread into that as well, removing all texture and colour from the carpet.

When the lounge had finally settled, Carlos gazed disbelievingly around. “The walls were just… holograms?”

“It seems so,” Akane replied, “I don’t know why Zero would go to this much trouble, but he must have had some reason behind it.”

As Junpei looked around as well, he noticed that something had been added when every other detail had been removed. He had noticed the doors. The two doors that had led into the rest of ward C were still there, but two other doors had appeared alongside: one exactly in the centre of the wall opposite the X-door and one tucked in the far right corner.

Junpei pointed them out to Akane and Carlos. “We should check them out,” he said, “There’s got to be something here that’ll help us, and since it wasn’t in the parts of ward C that we already explored it’d damn well better be in these new parts. I’m not gonna just lay down and die.”

“That’s the spirit, Junpei.” Carlos put on a grin that was only somewhat forced. “I’ll take that middle door. You two take the other one, and we’ll meet back here when we’re done. We can do this! We have to.”

Once Carlos had left, Junpei and Akane headed through their door. Beyond was a long corridor – one which looked much like the ones they had previously been through in C-ward – with a sharp bend to the left at the end. Junpei had only taken a few steps along when Akane stopped him, placing a hand nervously on his shoulder.

“Junpei…” Akane only got that name out before falling silent.

Junpei turned around. “Yeah, Akane?”

Though her voice remained quiet, Akane managed to say what she wanted to say. “Junpei… I’m sorry about what I said earlier. You know… back in the timeline we came from. I wish I had been able to celebrate with you, back when we had the chance. It’s… That’s just not how I am, anymore.”

Hearing Akane’s voice like that, Junpei’s hand dived instinctively into his pocket. To his relief, the ring was still there, even in this new unfamiliar timeline. Still, even as he fondled the ring, Junpei knew that it wasn’t the right time. He forlornly withdrew his hand. “It’s okay, Akane,” he said, wincing inside at how bland his words were. “There’ll always be time later. We can celebrate once we’re out of here.”

Junpei’s thoughts were interrupted by a faint groan that came from the far end of the corridor. By the way Akane’s eyes darted up, she had heard it as well. Without needing to say anything, both Akane and Junpei started sprinting towards the source of the sound.

As they reached the end of the corridor they found the room that the groans originated from. The label on its door read ‘Pod Room’. They burst in. The first thing Junpei noticed about the pod room were the thick green lines that ran in parallel along the floor, belonging far more to a sports pitch than to an underground bunker. The second thing Junpei noticed was the extensive bloodstain that covered one of the walls, marring a faded and battered portrait of a family that had been mounted there. The third thing that Junpei noticed…

“If this is the pod room… where the hell are the pods?!”

When Junpei looked over, Akane had gone unusually still. Even so, Junpei could see her perfectly focused will: the slightest tension in her poised body revealed her intentions. “Shush, Junpei.” That was all Akane said.

 Junpei did as she asked. When he did so, he heard the groan again, though it was much fainter than he expected given that he was sure it was in the same room as the source of it. He glanced at Akane again, making sure that she saw his quizzical expression.

Akane pursed her lips. “I think it’s coming from below us.”

With that explanation Junpei started examining the pod room again; this time he had a specific goal in mind. After first noticing what looked like retractable panels in the floor on each side of the room, he found what he was looking for when he looked back towards the door they had entered by:  a button whose label read ‘Pod’. Junpei reached out to press it, but a glass panel barred his way.

Junpei knew that he couldn’t break the glass with his bare hands. He’d need something to help get through: something hard, something that would fit stably and ergonomically in his hand. The item came to mind immediately, but this time that instinctive thought brought with it a dreadful guilt. Even so, Junpei had no other options.

He placed the ring on his hand – the right hand, since the thought of that ring on a left hand was too poignant – and threw his fist towards the glass. It shattered. The jewel pierced the glass as it struck, and Junpei’s hand continued through to push down the button.

When Junpei turned back around, he saw the pods rising from beneath the floor panels he had noticed before. He was grateful for that, because while Akane was distracted by them he was able to slip the ring off his finger. Before he placed it back in his pocket, Junpei inspected the ring.

His heart fell. The top facet of the ring had chipped: only slightly, but enough to ruin it. Junpei hid it as quickly as possible. He couldn’t let Akane see it.

Once the ring was safely back in his pocket and the pods had finished their circuit around the arc of the room, Junpei rejoined Akane. She had been standing closest to the pods on the left hand wall, so they naturally turned their attention to those first. One of the pods was just slightly higher than Akane could comfortably see inside, so Junpei rose on his tiptoes and wrest open the pod’s lid.

Sigma was inside.

The slight flutters of his eyeballs beneath their lids were the sole sign of any level of consciousness from Sigma. Still, it was clear that the groans that had drawn Akane and Junpei to the pod room had come from Sigma: those rough vocalisations were much more audible once the pod had been open. Junpei looked down at Sigma – still clearly on the far side of consciousness despite those fits and starts – and an idea formed in Junpei’s mind. Without any conscious direction, Junpei’s hand reached out towards Sigma’s neck. If he just… they could escape.

Junpei’s cheek stung. There was no reason for it, save that thought and memories of all-too-similar thoughts. Junpei’s arms fell back to his side.

Within a few seconds of Junpei’s decision, Sigma recovered. He opened his eyes. “Akane? Junpei?  How did you get here? Argh: my ears are still ringing. Why are they ringing? Wait… This isn’t D-ward.”

Akane pulled Sigma’s pod down – all the other pods rotated with it – until it was low enough for her to help Sigma out of it. “When you put it like that, Sigma,” she said as he let go of her offered hand, “I’m beginning to wonder if the wards have any meaning at all. After all, this isn’t C-ward, either.”

Back on solid ground, Sigma used the space to stretch his limbs. “Phi and Diana are around here as well, right?”

“We’ll just have to look in the other pods,” Akane replied.

They did so. Rotating the pods around their rail first brought Phi’s pod into reachable range. Phi climbed out quite eagerly, once she was awake, and hurriedly dusted herself off. “I’m okay, I’m okay!” she snapped. Once she had recovered enough to observe the other players around her, Phi asked, “What about Diana?”

“I guess that she’s in the very next pod,” Sigma said, “It would make sense.” He strode forward and guided the pods onwards with a strong but smooth movement. When the pod he was looking for was level with his chest he pried open the lid. Diana was inside.

Diana was only halfway out of her pod when the distant power room boomed once again.

The next few seconds passed with lightning speed, almost too quickly for Junpei to follow. In the first second, the shockwave rushed through the ground, horizontal cracks appearing at regular intervals as the floor rose and fell on either side. As the next second passed, Sigma threw Diana towards the door with a desperate swing of his arm. Then the third second struck.

An entire segment of the room began to revolve. Sigma’s right foot gave way as the floor moved beneath it; what had been the wall slammed into Sigma as he fell and catapulted him backwards. Junpei – not just Junpei, but everyone else – could only watch as Sigma was tossed brutally about by the rampaging segments of the pod room.

For a moment, a different terror entered Junpei’s heart. He became certain – a certainty he hadn’t felt since the Sudoku that had saved Akane’s life – that Carlos had been caught by the power room’s emanation.

But then the terror that was right in front of Junpei’s eyes took precedence, and the vision faded to the back of Junpei’s mind. When the segments of the pod room finally slowed to a halt, Sigma’s bruised body fell limply into the corner that had become the bottom of the room. Diana took a fearful step forward.

Phi reached out towards her. “Diana! Don’t go! It’s not safe!”

“I have to!” Diana cried back as she broke free of Phi’s grasp, “I can’t watch if Sigma is this close to death again.” Then, Diana paused in mid-stride. “Again?” she muttered, her trembling voice recalling a half-gone memory. Even so, it was only a brief pause before Diana rushed to Sigma’s side.

When Diana helped Sigma up Junpei finally got a look at what had happened to him. Blood was streaming down the right side of his face from where his head had been battered. His right arm dangled limply at his side. Junpei realised that it had been the sickening crunch – which he had heard for a millisecond of that devastating whirl – that had mangled Sigma’s arm. Junpei was surprised that Sigma could stand at all, even with Diana’s help; he was even more surprised that Sigma could climb back up to the only fixed platform of the pod room.

Sigma put on a brave face: the half of his face that could be seen past the blood.. “Hmm… I guess I’m still one arm up over last time.” He waved his left hand freely to demonstrate.

Sigma’s gesture was punctuated by the sound of another explosion. Junpei braced himself for another disaster, but he soon realised that this explosion was of another nature entirely. For one thing, it sounded completely different: a brief - almost purposeful - bang rather than the crackling and drawn-out roars that emanated from the power room’s core. For another, it came only from the direction of the lounge.

That realisation came with another. With exactly the same amount of certainty that Carlos had been imperilled by the previous eruption, Junpei was now sure that Carlos was alright. He couldn’t explain. He just knew that when they returned to the lounge, they’d find Carlos safe and sound.

Following that intuition, Junpei announced, “Let’s go! We need to get out of here before it starts spinning again. Diana: patch Sigma up as we go, but move!”

Chapter Text

Junpei led the others back down the corridor and into the lounge. When they entered, a storm dust was swirling in the air; it obscured Junpei’s vision and choked his breath. Waving his hands before his eyes to clear them, Junpei staggered towards the one detail he could perceive.

It was Carlos’ face. Carlos was safe, just as Junpei had predicted.

Carlos noticed Junpei only moments after Junpei noticed him. “Sorry about the wait. I promised, didn’t I? That I’d come back for you.”

Junpei shrugged. “Well, we did agree to meet back here.”

Carlos beamed. “Yeah. I guess we did. And it worked out okay, too.” He peered over Junpei’s shoulder; his eyes widened as he saw Phi and Diana helping Sigma along. “Sigma! Diana! Phi! You’re here too?”

“We are,” Phi replied, “Akane and Junpei found us in these pods. We must have been placed there after our bracelets last knocked us out. By Zero, I guess.”

“I’m glad the three of you are okay,” Carlos said, nodding. He swept his gaze around the dusty crumbling lounge. “What happened here?”

The room fell into silence, save for the creaking of the walls, the tremors of the floor, and the omnipresent thundering from the power room. His heart sinking, Junpei realised that Akane had fallen most silent of all; she had failed to explain to Carlos everything she knew that he didn’t, in an opportunity Junpei knew she shouldn’t have been able to resist. Junpei turned to look at Akane and see what was wrong.

Akane’s face had gone pale, completely white. “I…” she muttered under her breath. As sweat glistened on her forehead, Akane forced her voice louder. “I think I remember what I – what the other me – did, back in the power room. That machine there: it’s the reactor that powers the entire bunker. I think I blocked the control mechanism and forced it to overload. Because of me… this entire bunker, and all of us with it, will be obliterated.”

“But we can get out, right?” Diana asked. She pointed, vaguely towards the X-door. Junpei’s eyes followed the direction of Diana’s finger and noted that, despite the mounds of rubble that would hinder progress in that direction, the X-door itself had vanished, leaving a gaping hole out of the bunker.

Akane just shook her head mournfully. “We could, but it won’t be enough. If that reactor is as powerful as I think it is then the explosion won’t be limited to the bunker. There’s no way we could get far enough to survive.”

“That’s not true,” Sigma stated, firmly despite his pain, “I’ve lived for forty-five years with something much more dangerous than that reactor never more than a hundred metres from me. There are always ways to contain the damage. By this point, it’s too late to stop the meltdown from happening, but I think I know how we can vent enough of the energy, shrinking the explosion’s radius enough to allow us to escape.” Sigma paused, frowning. “The problem is that someone will have to stay behind and operate the controls to let the others escape. I’d do it myself, but with my arm like this…” Sigma shifted his right shoulder slightly, grimacing.

“I’ll do it.” Carlos had gone just as pale as Akane, but his tone brooked no argument. He reached into his pocket and drew out a set of keys; after a quick look round, he decided to pass them to Phi. “There’s a fire-truck at the surface. You’ll be able to escape in it.” With that said, Carlos turned to Sigma and nodded. “Sigma. Tell me what I have to do.”

Solemnly, Sigma did so.

With forced, purposeful strides, Carlos made his way to the door that led back to the power room. But before he went through he turned around, looking Junpei and Akane squarely in the eyes in turn. “Junpei… Akane…  It’s my fault that you were dragged here from that safe timeline.”

Junpei didn’t understand what Carlos was saying. As he tried to parse Carlos’ words, he noticed that the dust had settled enough that he was able, for the first time since they had reunited in the lounge, to see Carlos’ clothes. They seemed to radiate a celestial golden aura; strange, since Carlos had only worn a muted pink earlier. Taken together, Carlos’ bearing and announcement were something Junpei could not ignore.

“To think all that would happen and then I’d end up right back here,” Carlos continued, “I guess the universe wants me to remedy my sins. Well, I guess that’s what I’m going to do. Goodbye Junpei, Akane. I’m glad I got the chance to know you.”

Before Junpei could respond, Carlos backed out of the lounge and disappeared.

“Come on! Let’s go!” Phi commanded.

She led the way, helping Diana manoeuvre Sigma over the debris that obstructed the way out. Akane followed, still slowed by the memory and understanding of what her other self had done. Finally, Junpei joined them, clambering up the fallen rubble and stepping through the hole where the X-door had been breached.

The moment he crossed the threshold the knowledge that Carlos was in danger returned as a crashing wave. More details filled in that intuition: Junpei knew that the danger Carlos faced was not that of the sacrifice he had freely chosen. It had been sudden, meaningless and violent. Something was horribly wrong.

Without even thinking about it, Junpei swivelled around and dived back into the bunker. He ignored Akane’s calls after him, instead leaping off the rubble to land in the centre of the lounge. Coughing through the ever-rising levels of dust, Junpei scanned the room for any sign of Carlos. Junpei found him quickly but not where he expected. Carlos wasn’t close to the door towards the power room; instead he had fallen by the middle door which had been revealed along with the one leading to the pod room.

Junpei rushed over. As he got closer, he saw that the top of that door’s frame had collapsed; by the way Carlos was partially concealed beneath, it had fallen right onto his head. Junpei didn’t have time to wonder how it had happened. He shook Carlos awake.

“Huh? Junpei?” Carlos slurred, his eyes rolling lazily in their sockets.

“What are you doing here?” Junpei asked, his tone laden with frustration, “You were supposed to be…” Before he could finish that sentence, Junpei cut himself off. Even he wasn’t rude enough to complain like that.

Carlos slowly tilted his head to look at Junpei. “There wasn’t anything useful,” he mumbled, “There was this manufacturing bay, but none of the tools there would be strong enough to cut through the door. I made my way back, there was this quake, and…”

There was nothing for it: Carlos was too confused to offer a coherent answer – perhaps even more confused than his injuries accounted for. The only thing Junpei could do was help Carlos out of the bunker along with the others. Part of Carlos’ pink shirt had been pinned to the ground by some of the fallen debris so Junpei ripped it off, leaving only Carlos' vest. With Carlos able to stand, Junpei led him across the lounge and towards the way out.

Glass rained down around them as the fake skylight warped and ruptured. The entire structure of the bunker creaked and groaned behind them as the reactor at its core began to force the walls outwards. And the ceaselessly vibrating floor made Carlos’ already-unsteady steps even harder to manage. Eventually though, they made it out, finding the others, along with Gab, gathered on an elevator platform in the space beyond.

Their reaction to Junpei’s return was momentary relief, followed by despair. Diana was the first to voice that despair. “Carlos? That would mean…”

“Yes. The meltdown will not be stopped,” Akane stated. Her lip trembled. “My actions have doomed us all.” Junpei had only heard Akane’s voice become that monotone once before: back in D-Com, when he had pressed her to talk about their previous Nonary Game.

Sigma stumbled forward. “There’s still a chance,” he gasped, “I can still…”

“It’s too late,” Phi interrupted, “You’ll never make it in your condition, old man. I’m not going to let you throw your life away for nothing.” Before Sigma could take another step Phi slammed her palm onto a button on the elevator’s control panel.

The elevator began to rise, carrying the six surviving players towards an uncertain freedom.

Chapter Text

The fire-engine was parked in the desert outside, just as Carlos had promised. As Phi ran for the driver’s compartment, bearing the keys like a dagger, Junpei, Akane and Diana helped Sigma, Carlos and Gab into the back. Once Diana had joined them – it had to be her; she was the only one who could tend to them – there was no room for Akane and Junpei, so they stood on the platform on the right-hand side, clinging to the railing.

“Listen up, everyone!” Phi announced, her voice projected from the fire-truck’s speaker system, “We’re going to have to outrun this thing. Hold on tight, because here we go!”

Before the sound of Phi’s voice had faded away, the vehicle lurched forwards with sirens blaring. They rapidly picked up speed and for a few brief moments, Junpei’s hope bloomed. He almost convinced himself that they would escape the blast unscathed.

They were five hundred metres away when the first beam of light lanced out of the bunker and straight into the sky.

That tower of unleashed energy was quickly joined by three or four others, then by so many that it was impossible to count. The fire-truck began to swerve as the sand shifted beneath it; even from his limited vantage point Junpei could feel Phi fighting to keep the vehicle under control. And then an ominous boom sounded deep beneath the ground, the sound carried to Junpei’s ears by a suddenly-rushing wind.

“Junpei…” Akane whispered beside him. Her voice was weak and hesitant.

Junpei frantically pre-empted what she was going to say. “It’s not your fault!” he yelled, “You didn’t do this. Even if you had, I’d forgive you.”

“Of course you would. You’ve already forgiven much worse things I’ve done.” For a moment, Junpei thought he saw a faint smile on Akane’s face. But then it faded. “I’m not sure I can forgive myself any longer. The detonation of a reactor of that size won’t just kill us. It will destroy everything for miles around. This is a universe that God abandoned, a universe of the sort I thought I’d dedicated my life to preventing, and the other me created it just to give herself the slightest advantage. ‘Those bastards are just us, Junpei. No more, no less.’ I have to accept that this is what I’m capable of. And if so… I’m not sure I… deserve…”

Akane turned her face away. Her right hand shifted along the hand rail as though reaching out to Junpei. But then her grip loosened and her hand began to fall.

“No!” Junpei lashed out, snatching Akane’s right hand with his left and forcing it against the rail. He squeezed without restraint, just to make sure he could hold on. “I’m not letting you go! Goddamnit, I’m not letting you go!”

At that moment the sound intensified. A shockwave raced over the fire-truck: a terrible wall of wind carrying a storm of sand that cut through every piece of exposed skin. Junpei closed his eyes, sure that everything was over.

And it was.

Only a second after the shockwave had hit, the winds died and the cloud of sand dispersed. Looking back along the route they had come, Junpei saw the beams of light which had broken out of the bunker fade harmlessly back into the natural night sky. Once everything had calmed, Phi gradually slowed the fire-engine to a halt.

Only then did Junpei release Akane’s hand.

She looked at her hand, turning it over and over as if she wasn’t sure it was real. “You were right, Junpei,” she murmured, “You were right.” Her strength failed her and she fell off the fire-truck’s platform, cushioned safely by the dune. “This really is the universe that God has blessed.”

It took all the survivors several minutes to recover – Sigma was so brutally injured that even after being patched up by Diana he could hardly be said to have ‘recovered’ – but they eventually steadied themselves to the point where they could talk about what had happened. Carlos had healed particularly well, showing no sign that he had been completely delirious only a while back.

“What was that stuff you were talking about back there, Carlos?” Junpei asked.

“What stuff?”

Junpei sighed. “You know. ‘To think all that would happen and then I’d end up right back here,’ and stuff like that.”

Carlos laughed awkwardly. “Did I really say that? I must’ve been right out of it, because I don’t remember that at all.”

Junpei’s questioning was interrupted when Diana spoke up. “So… Is this really the end?”

“I believe it is,” Akane replied. She gazed pensively across the horizon back towards the bunker, her eyes betraying fear that the explosion would restart at any moment, but eventually satisfied herself. “The reactor’s meltdown has stopped, at least. But… that shouldn’t be possible. There’s no way it could have…”

“There’s always a way,” Sigma stated, “Just because we don’t know what it was doesn’t mean it wasn’t possible.”

Diana tilted her head to one side. “Um… That’s kind of why I asked it was really the end. It doesn’t feel like a proper ending. There’s still so much stuff we don’t know.”

“We can make educated guesses about a lot of what we don’t know,” Phi said, “Like, for example, Radical-6. Akane?”

“Definitely eradicated,” Akane answered, “If Free the Soul had any stocks of it elsewhere, this entire mission would have been pointless. Of course, there’s no way the Radical-6 stored in the bunker survived that.”

“Zero?” Phi asked.

“To call yourself ‘Zero’ is to put your own life on the line,” Akane explained.

Phi glanced at Sigma, who nodded.

“Whoever he was, this Zero understood that. He didn’t escape with us, so…” Akane finished by merely nodding.

“And Q-team didn’t survive,” Junpei said, “We know that.” He grunted bitterly, before glancing at Diana. “I see what you mean, Diana, about this not being a proper ending. I thought everybody was supposed to get out at the end of these things. ‘Happily ever after.’”

“It’s not perfect,” Akane admitted, “But it’s still good.” A playful grin spread across Akane’s lips, which Junpei hadn’t seen for a decade. “Just like that ring you’ve got.”

Junpei gasped. “You saw?” He clumsily fished it out of his pocket. “But it’s chipped. Right there.”

Akane’s grin just broadened. “I saw how it got that chip, too. Only three people were ever supposed to leave the Decision Game alive. That was Zero’s plan. Thanks in part to that ring and what you did with it, we got six. Six! That ring’s not ‘perfect’, not any more. But it’s still good.”

“I-Is that… a ‘Yes’?” Junpei stammered. He stood there for a few seconds before remembering to drop to one knee.

“Yes. Yes. Of course, yes.”

By Christmas day of 2029, the former site of the Decision Game bunker was declared safe for entry. Junpei and Akane returned, hoping to find any clues to the miracle that had stopped the reactor’s explosion. Only one awaited them, hidden among the ash. It was the visor of a fireman’s helmet: scorched and cracked, warped and melted, and stalwart to the end.