Fic: Justifications

To:@1petalrose

From:@bookworm-2692

I used the following prompt: Yes hello I’m going to be very easy to please. I’m a huge sucker for morally questionable Akane. I’d love anything where she’s acting as Zero during either 999 or VLR. You can really go nuts with it. Rather than acting as Zero during the games, I focused on her moral quandary between the two games.

This fic ended up being a character study of Akane and her motivations going into VLR, and was also my way of answering the question of how Akane knew to capture those four so Sigma could do the game and thus come back and tell her about it.

Thanks so much for the prompt! It was fun really digging in to who Akane is as a character, and her experiences with the morphogenetic fields, and how that can skew her morals to be the Akane we all know and love. I hope you’re having a wonderful end-of-2021, and hopefully 2022 is kinder to us all!

AO3 Link

Summary: 

After escaping the second Nonary Game, Akane has two days to enjoy being alive, before she receives a vision from the Morphogenetic Fields urging her to make the preparations for the Nonary Game: Ambidex Edition. With extremely limited information, Akane faces the moral dilemma of creating a better timeline, or leaving people alone to live their lives.

A character study of Akane Kurashiki: November 2027 - December 2028

One night. Just a single night of peace and revelling in the joy of being alive, before she receives another years-long mission.

Akane had been weak when Aoi dragged her from the incinerator, tossed Ace in the boot of the car, and helped her into the front passenger seat of their other car. They had done all they could, and now all they could do was wait and see if Jumpy managed to connect to the fields and save her life. Aoi had just sat in the driver’s side, breathing heavily, eyes closed, hands on the steering wheel. He had placed the keys in the ignition, but not turned them yet, waiting, waiting, waiting. Eventually, after what felt like an age, Akane felt enough strength return to her limbs for her to place her hand on Aoi’s knee. He opened his eyes and glanced at her, face softening in relief at her smile, at the colour returning to her cheeks. Another deep breath, and he finally turned the keys in the ignition, released the handbrake, changed gears, and started driving off through the desert.

Over the course of the day, they drove. Akane could literally feel the moment Jumpy solved the puzzle and told her younger self. The heat from phantom flames dissipated, and she felt a cool breeze wash over her. She smiled, and took a cooling drink from a bottle of water to soothe her throat and wash away the taste of ashes.

Aoi didn’t dare stop driving. He had packed several bottles of water, as well as food in the car, so they ate and drank as he drove. Akane began talking more, her voice getting stronger, her hands becoming more animated as she spoke, as she recovered from burning to death, as her body began to realise it had never burnt at all.

It was late when Aoi finally pulled over to stop for the night, far from any and all civilisation. They leant back the seats as far as possible, and rugged up in the blankets Aoi had stowed in the car. Aoi woke up every few hours to restart the car and turn the heater on. It was a clear night, and in the desert in winter meant that it was freezing. Akane slept soundly through the night, worn out and still recovering from the game last night and early that morning.

After a quick breakfast on the morning of the third of November, their day passed in much the same way as the previous one, the two driving as far and as fast as possible. By lunch time, Akane was strong enough to take over some of the driving and let Aoi take a break.

That evening, as she is brushing her teeth in the bathroom of the small, roadside motel, after her first shower in days, Akane feels the first stirrings of the morphogenetic fields again. She pauses, curious. Her reflection in the mirror changes, grows older, and she is now staring at a version of herself that is a few years older. Then, her reflection opens her mouth and begins to speak.

“Congratulations on surviving, Kanny. Unfortunately, our task is not over. You have successfully created a timeline to save a life – now we must begin the task of creating a timeline to save many lives. There are four people you will need for this timeline – well, I am told more than four are required, but there are only four you need to worry about at this point. The rest will become clearer later.”

“What sort of timeline do I need to create?” Akane can’t help but ask.

“You don’t need to know that yet, either,” Akane’s reflection responds. “Two of the four you require will have the answers you need, and will be able to explain more once you find them. It wouldn’t make as much sense if I tried explaining now, and I need to make sure I give you the important information while the connection is open – you will learn the rest later.”

“Who do I need then?” Akane asks. “Which two or four people?”

“The two with the information on the timeline are named Sigma Klim and Phi Hasse, the youngest one. You cannot seek them out too early – they do not have knowledge of the timelines yet. You will need to use Sorporil-β, and after they awaken they will be able to answer your questions. Fetch them on Christmas Day next year.

“The other two you will need to fetch three days earlier. They are Alice Khaled and Clover Field—”

“Clover?” Akane interrupts her reflection, shocked.

Her reflection gentles her expression, and smiles at her. “Yes. She is the Clover you know.”

“What about Light? Do I need him as well?” Again, Akane thinks, but doesn’t say.

Akane’s reflection shakes her head. “No, he isn’t needed this time. Only Clover and the other three. You will also need to acquire Treatment Pods capable of cryogenic freezing to store Clover and Alice Khaled once you use the Soporil-β.”

“How… how long will they need to be stored?”

“That is information Sigma Klim and the youngest Phi Hasse can explain to you. It is not important yet.”

Three days minimum, then. Light would be beside himself if his sister was kidnapped for three days again. Akane closes her eyes and tries to shove that thought out of her brain. She looks back at her reflection. “What else do I need to know?”

Nine years ago, after they and the other children had been rescued from the lifeboat, after they had been questioned by authorities, after Aoi and Akane were finally alone, Akane told her brother everything. Not all at once, but slowly, and hesitantly. She told him about feeling herself burning to death, about hearing Jumpy’s voice telling her the answers and saving her life. Cautiously, hesitantly, she wondered aloud if the morphogenetic fields Hongou had mentioned could traverse through time. How she knew it was Jumpy, but it wasn’t her Jumpy, that he sounded different, older, but she knew it was him. How she had also seen Light again, but older as well. How she had seen his eighteen-year-old sister, but still had no idea what nine-year-old Clover looked like. Hongou. The detective. A woman who looked similar to Nona. Hongou’s three partners who had helped him torture them. Her brother. Herself. Nine years older, doing the Nonary Game again. Somehow, somehow. Somehow ensuring that Jumpy saved her life, the reason she is even here now to tell Aoi everything.

Nine years ago, Aoi held Akane as she first mentioned the heat of the flames, the smell of burning flesh, and then the pain, pain, pain that drowned out every other sense in her too-small, too-young body. He gripped her tighter as she continued her tale of horror, and by the end he had a hard glint in his eyes. Yes, they would do this. Of course he would follow any action to save the life of his sister, to ensure the world where she became nothing but ashes in a room, ashes staining his hands, ashes under his fingernails, never becomes reality, never becomes this world.

Nine years ago, Akane felt the love for her brother blossom as he declared revenge against Hongou, and vowed to do anything to ensure the running of the second Nonary Game in nine years’ time, all to ensure Akane’s heart continues to beat, that she continues to exist.

Now, Akane hesitates again.

Aoi was so happy yesterday that she was alive. He had declared relief that those nine years were over, that they could finally just. Live. Breathe. Go to a local café and order hot drinks, and exist, not worrying about the future. She doesn’t want to ruin this for him. Doesn’t want to mention the new timeline she needs to create, now that they’ve finally created this one. They succeeded, they have their timeline, they are safe.

Nine years ago, Akane had witnessed first hand the entire timeline she needed to create. She knew the stakes. She knew what she was to gain or lose if the timeline succeeded or failed. She had experienced both timelines first hand, and if she closes her eyes she can still smell her own flesh burning.

Akane gets up from where she is sitting, walks to the bathroom, turns on the tap, and lets cool water flow over her hands. She cups them together, and splashes water on her face. The cool water grounds her, reminds her that she is in the timeline where she can touch water, where her skin isn’t burning and where a splash of water is never far away. Slowly, slowly, the smell of cooked flesh dies in her nostrils, replaced by the soothing sound of running water, and the comfortable cold. She is alive. She is alive. She is alive.

Nine years ago, it was all so easy. She knew her path, knew the end goal, knew what must be done to save her own life. The journey to save her own life was made all the more sweeter knowing she would also get revenge on the four who had caused her harm, who threw a child into an incinerator with no remorse. When Akane had first witnessed Kubota, Nijisaki, and Musashidou’s corpses through Jumpy’s eyes, she had been frightened. Horrified. These were dead bodies, dead people, people she had seen alive earlier in Jumpy’s vision, and also in her own time. They were the first dead human bodies she had seen. The rabbits from five months prior were her first dead bodies ever, and their internal organs spilling out looked remarkably similar to Kubota and Nijisaki in the future. After the conclusion of the game, having experienced death herself at their hands, and such a painful death at that, Akane had looked forward to causing their deaths, taking her revenge on the four of them. They deserved to suffer for what they had done to her.

Akane hadn’t known what Hongou’s fate would be, hadn’t seen it through Jumpy’s eyes. Part of her, now, was disappointed that he would not die like the others, but she would have to be satisfied with a lifetime in jail, with his crimes known and justice served. She still wishes she could have strangled his neck, but for now she would leave it be. She could always kill him later in his cell if she so chose.

Nine years ago, it had been so easy to follow her morphic vision in order to create the better timeline. Now though? Now it is far less clear cut. The vision through the fields of her older self was far less detailed. She does not know what timeline she is supposed to create. She does not know what will be gained from creating the timeline, and what will be lost from failing to create it. She knows almost nothing of what will be involved in creating it.

She knows that this Sigma Klim and Phi Hasse will have more information on the timeline. She so wants to find them, to ask what they know, to find out if it will be worth capturing Clover again and breaking Light’s heart to create the new timeline. But her older self had explicitly said that she should not, could not, would not, find them, and get her answers before a specific date. Her older self had also explicitly said that she had to capture Clover, and this Alice Khaled, three days prior.

Akane will not receive the answers she so desired, the information she wants in order to make an informed decision, until after she commits to the path.

Akane will have to take a leap of faith to trust her older self and the morphogenetic field, to trust that the new timeline will be worth it, will be worth capturing Clover and three strangers, before finding out anything about the new timeline.

Akane sinks to her knees, her head in her hands.

She doesn’t know what to do.

Akane wanders around, lost in her conundrum. To trust in the morphogenetic fields again, when it was only due to trusting them so completely nine years ago that she is alive today. Or to ignore it, and not capture Clover (and the three strangers), not tear Light’s heart out and stomp all over it. Akane doesn’t even know if she should tell Aoi this time. She knows he went along with it last time to save her life, but that he hated it. He hated following a plan from a higher power, hated feeling like he didn’t get a choice, hated that he had to play a role, do what Akane had seen, or else lose his sister forever.

But he had done it. He had done it, because he loved Akane. Because Akane’s life was worth killing three monsters, jailing the fourth, and traumatising five innocent people. Akane wasn’t sure if he’d think it worth it this time. Capturing four people, without knowing why, without knowing what future they were ensuring, wouldn’t sit right with Aoi. She knows he would ask why she had to do this, they just got through nine years, why was she beginning another task that would take at least a year, without knowing the benefit?

So when Aoi notices Akane’s quiet pondering, and asks what is wrong, she places a smile on her face, laughs, and lies through her teeth. She tells him nothing is wrong, and that it feels so good to be alive, and that she has never felt more at peace.

Akane begins researching the four names the morphogenetic fields gave her. This doesn’t mean she will definitely go through with this – it’s just good to be prepared. Just in case. Maybe seeing them will give her guidance on whether to go through with this or not. Or so she tells herself.

She looks for Clover Field first, and goes to the house she kidnapped Clover and her brother from less than two short months ago. She spies on the house, but only sees their mother. Akane returns several times over the course of a week, to see what changes. She cannot stake out the house like she wishes to, as Aoi cannot know what she is doing. She gets less and less sleep over the course of the week, living a double life between normal Akane for Aoi, and the spy looking for Clover.

Aoi notices her getting more and more tired. Of course he does. He’s been looking after her health and safety for most of their lives now. That doesn’t stop just because she is almost twenty-two, and didn’t get incinerated. Aoi drags her to a café he found, orders a hot chocolate for her, and a long black for himself, and tries to help her relax.

Soft music is playing around the corner, out of sight. Akane is tired, so tired. She doesn’t realise she’s drifting off, lulled by the gentle plucks of the strings, until she feels Aoi place his jacket over her shoulders. Bleary eyed, she looks at him questioningly.

“It’s relaxing, isn’t it?”

Akane blinks once.

“The music,” Aoi explains. “I never realised he played, but it’s soothing. I like to come here and just listen. I know he can’t see, but I’m afraid he’ll know I’m here anyway, so I always sit at this table so the counter is between us, so he uhh extra can’t see us?” Aoi laughs awkwardly at that, and continues on when Akane still doesn’t speak. “Anyway, it relaxes me. You seemed so tired, I thought the music would help.”

“Who’s playing?”

Aoi’s soft smile falls, becoming sad and wistful. “Light. Light Field.”

“Light’s here?” Akane is suddenly alert. Maybe, she can follow Light home, and find some clues regarding Clover that way.

Aoi mistakes the expression on her face, and begins consoling her. “Don’t worry, Akane. He can’t see us. He doesn’t know we’re here. We’re safe. It’s okay.”

Akane doesn’t respond, and slowly, quietly, she gets out of her seat and starts walking towards the music. She ignores Aoi’s hissed “Akane, wait!” and walks around the counter. She feels like her heart is in her throat as she sees the harpist playing. He’s sitting down, harp in front of him, nimble fingers deftly, expertly, plucking at the strings. She looks at his face, his closed eyes, his ash blond hair, and his smile lighting up his face in genuine happiness.

It’s him. It’s actually him. It’s Light.

She found him.

After half a minute of staring at Light, watching the music he created with his hands, Akane is startled by some movement in the corner. Pink hair. Clover Field. Her mark.

Akane turns around to look at Aoi, and sees him frantically gesturing at her to back away, presumably before the sighted Field sibling sees them. She turns back for a final glance at Clover, and then backs away and joins Aoi at their table again.

After having found Clover, Akane begins looking into the three strangers. Alice Khaled. Sigma Klim. Phi Hasse, but specifically the youngest one. She still does not know if she will go through with what her older morphic self told her to do, but it’s good to keep her options open. Just in case.

She first finds Sigma Klim. He’s twenty-one years old, attending college in California, and has an extensive social media presence. He has a girlfriend, but no family nearby. It seems he moved interstate for college, so that… would make it easier. It would definitely be easier to capture him with no nearby family connections, and only a girlfriend. Not that she was planning on capturing him of course. She was just… noticing facts.

Akane continues watching Klim, confused. He just… seems like a regular college boy. Partying, reaching deadlines by the skin of his teeth, forgetting his supplies when attending class. How can he be the one to provide her with information about the timeline she needs to create? He, frankly, seems like an idiot. What did that say about her older self, that she trusts this… this guy? Does she become an idiot herself in the future, that she trusts the entire timeline with this – oh god is he doing a keg stand? Akane places her head in her hands and lets out a frustrated yell.

Maybe Phi Hasse will be the brains of the duo, and be able to explain everything to her. She does not want to rely on Klim.

The worst part about the instructions to find the “youngest” Phi Hasse is the implicit need to find multiple individuals with the same name. She hopes the youngest isn’t an infant or a child – she really does not want to have to rely on Klim.

Oh god. What if Hasse is just as much of an idiot as Klim?

If they are, Akane will write off her older self as crazy, and not go through with this timeline nonsense. She’s sorry, but she cannot create a timeline and save… whatever it is, if she only has two idiots by her side.

Luckily, Akane soon finds several scientific articles authored by a “Hasse, P.” over the course of half a century from the 1940s to the 1990s. Out of curiosity, Akane reads a few. Each one she reads is written intelligently, and of fascinating concepts, and even mentions various timelines. Akane breathes a huge sigh of relief. At least Hasse is intelligent, and not an idiot.

If this is the correct Hasse. The articles from the 1940s were written eighty years ago, so it is likely that that one is dead by now. The last articles were written thirty years ago, presumably by a younger Phi Hasse. These articles still tell the tale of an intelligent Hasse, so Akane hopes this is the Hasse in question.

She eventually tracks Hasse down to a house in California. She sees an old woman who looks to be about seventy years old, who could easily be the Hasse who wrote the later intelligent-sounding articles. She worries though, about someone this old being key to saving a timeline.

Looking around, Akane sees many photos on the wall of a child, and later a young woman, both with and without Hasse. Akane gets a feeling, almost a morphic nudge, that the young ginger woman is also named Phi, and indeed the person she is looking for.

Akane spends a week watching the elder Hasse at home, trying to work out how to find the younger Hasse, when the problem is solved for her. A car drives up to the house and a young woman exits. Akane’s breath catches when she spots the short, white hair. Aoi. She still has not told him of her morphic vision, and she doesn’t think she can. He would not approve but… but Akane thinks she will have to go through with it. She trusts the morphogenetic fields, trusts her older self. It’s what saved her life six months ago, nine years ago.

She can’t think of her brother now, has to focus on the woman in front of her. Her hair is not the ginger from the photographs inside, but the face is the same. She opens the boot of her car and pulls out several pieces of luggage – oh. It’s May. The woman is returning home from college for the summer break. The door opens, and the elder Hasse steps out to help her… daughter? granddaughter? with her luggage. Akane hears her whisper “Phi”, before wrapping her in a hug.

Akane nods at the confirmation that this is the Phi Hasse she’s looking for. She’s nineteen, young, but Akane doesn’t think about that. She looks at Hasse and thinks three down, one to go. She doesn’t think about how the elder Hasse will feel after the younger is captured. She doesn’t think about how happy Light looked playing his harp for Clover. She doesn’t think about how carefree and happy Klim was. Akane looks at Hasse, and instead starts to consider how she will acquire three Treatment Pods capable of cryogenic freezing. She closes off the part of herself that understands how important family is, the part of herself that misses being able to tell Aoi anything, and continues planning for December.

Akane has procured the three Treatment Pods, but has still not managed to find a sign of Alice Khaled at all. She curses her future self for not being more specific, as she continues tailing the other three. She found the apartment that Klim stayed in over summer break – turns out he didn’t bother going back her his parents like Hasse did – and managed to follow Hasse back to her college. She sees them living full lives, learns the names of their friends and professors. She learns that they are both studying science – Klim is majoring in engineering, whereas Hasse buries herself in physics courses.

Coincidentally, both Klim and Hasse are attending the same college, but Akane doesn’t think they’ve ever met. Of course, there are tens of thousands of students, and Hasse is a sophomore to Klim’s senior, but it does make it easier for Akane to watch both of them.

Right now, Akane is tailing Clover. She has gained a job since Akane first discovered Light playing the harp at the café, but she hasn’t been able to find much information about it. Aoi still regularly visits the café just to be near to Light, even if he will never reveal himself to him. Akane occasionally joins him, but less and less as time has gone on with no sign of Khaled. She doesn’t want to sit around when she could be searching for her final missing piece. She doesn’t want to watch the love in her brother’s eyes as they listen to the music. She doesn’t want to imagine Light’s grief when she steals Clover. She doesn’t want to imagine how Aoi’s heart will break in the face of Light’s grief.

No. It is better to stay focused on her mission.

Akane follows Clover to her job. She has odd, inconsistent hours, and Akane has not been able to work out where she is employed or what she does. She seems to have a lot of free time on her hands as well, socialising with all sorts of friends in all sorts of locations. Akane cannot work out when Clover has time to do her job, but she is certainly being paid well enough to not be doing… something. Akane is frustrated by how little she’s managed to find on Clover and her new employment.

It seems she is in luck today. She follows Clover into a side entrance of an important government building, on a day Clover is wearing slacks and a suit jacket, with her pink hair tied into a ponytail – completely unlike many of the provocative outfits Akane has seen Clover wear when socialising and getting drunk with friends and decidedly not working. She follows Clover down a couple hallways and into a meeting room. Akane almost stops short in the doorway, in the open, when she sees who else is in the room.

She manages to duck behind some furniture before she is caught, and has to hold her hands against her mouth to stop any shocked sounds emerging, but she cannot believe it. Clover is not the only person she recognises – she can also see Light. And Nona. And Ren and Yuuki. And Nobu and Hideyoshi and Claire – and all of their siblings, too. All of the children kidnapped for the first Nonary Game almost ten years ago, all except Akane and her brother.

Akane feels a pang at that realisation. She had bonded with those children – at least, the half that were on the Gigantic with her. After they had been rescued, they had been separated, and she hadn’t seen any of them since. At least, not until she and Aoi had kidnapped Clover and Light last year. And now, here they were. All sixteen other children – no, not children. Adults. Claire was the youngest, at eighteen, but even she was an adult now. They all – they all had grown up. Akane feels her eyes prickle. She… she wasn’t asked to join them. She brings her hands up to her eyes, wipes away tears that she does not want to shed. She refuses to cry.

She sobs anyway.

Is this what she’s sacrificing? A chance at reuniting with the only people who would have a chance at understanding what she went through, how her life changed. She stands hidden in the corner, watching them laugh and talk and hug and simply… casually touch one another. It would be so easy to step out, to say hello.

But no. She cannot. She needs to focus on her task, on creating this unknown timeline. She knows where Clover, Klim, and Hasse are. She has obtained the treatment pods. The end of the year is just a few short months away. All she needs now is –

“Alice!”

“Clover. You’re late,” a woman admonishes. Akane looks around, and realises this is the only person in the room who she doesn’t know. Akane hadn’t noticed her, distracted as she was by her surprise at seeing the other participants of the first Nonary Game.

“Sorry, Alice,” Clover says, but doesn’t provide an excuse for her apparent tardiness. The woman sighs, as though she didn’t expect anything else.

Akane takes a closer look at this Alice woman. She remembers the final name she’s looking for – Alice Khaled – and wonders if it’s just a coincidence that they share a name, or… if this is who she is looking for. She’s Egyptian, like the surname Khaled, and wearing a smart suit like the espers in the room. Akane takes a sharp intake of breath – she knows for certain that sixteen of the seventeen other people in the room have connections to the morphogenetic fields, so does that mean Alice also has a connection?

Akane closes her eyes, and reaches out with her mind and connects to the field again. She sees minds of varying strengths – wow, Claire and her sister are shining so bright, definitely the strongest connections in the room. Above Alice, she sees no specific connection to the field, other than the one all human beings share. Disappointing. Looking at Alice, though, and the knowledge crystallises in her mind, clear as day. This is Khaled. This is who she needs to find, the fourth and final piece of the puzzle.

Fuck.

Akane hides herself away in her bedroom, and locks the door so Aoi will not interrupt her. She needs space, she needs time to think. It is now November. It has been a year since Junpei had harnessed the power of the morphogenetic fields, and sent her twelve year old self a detailed vision of the future, saving her life. Saving her from a painful death. Saving her from the incinerator.

This reality, this timeline had only come about because she followed the implicit instructions in that vision perfectly. She saw a potential future, and spent nine years working towards it to ensure it became a certainty.

A year ago, Akane had received another vision of the future through the morphogenetic fields. But this one was far less detailed – in fact, she had received no information about what the timeline involves, and how it differs from what will happen if she does nothing. Ten years ago it had been clear. Ten years ago, she knew she had to create the second Nonary Game and become Zero, or else burn to death in the incinerator. Now, all she knows is that she has to capture Clover and Khaled using Soporil-β on the twenty-second of December, and put them to sleep in the Treatment Pods, and that she has to gas Klim and Hasse with Soporil-β three days later, and only then will they be able to tell her the information she needs.

Akane dislikes not knowing. She doesn’t like that she does not know the stakes of the timelines. She has to make the decision to follow through or not based on extremely limited information, and faith. She has found all four people she was tasked to find, and has obtained the Treatment Pods. There is no further delaying the decision.

She knows that kidnapping Clover will tear Light apart. She had been kidnapped twice before, and Akane remembers the timeline where Light discovered that Hongou had killed Clover. She was afraid of how he would react this time, especially since it would be minimum three days before she would be released. She tries not to think about how using cryogenic freezing makes it likely that Clover would be in her custody for far longer than a mere three days.

She has seen Hasse and her… mother? grandmother? guardian? The elder Hasse, anyway. She can see how they absolutely love each other, and was sure that the elder Hasse will not be pleased when the younger Hasse is swept up in Akane’s mission to save the timeline. She had not been instructed to cryogenically freeze Hasse, so she can fool herself into imagining that the elder Hasse will not learn anything about this.

As long as Akane is fooling herself, she will go and tell Aoi everything and assume he will unquestionably help her.

Klim lives interstate from his family while he attended college. That distance will help – if she’s lucky, the family will never find out anything happened to him. He does have that girlfriend who might raise a fuss but… Akane can probably take care of that.

After all, what does a destroyed social life matter in the face of what she did last year during the Nonary Game?

Especially to someone as annoying as Klim.

Khaled… Akane still doesn’t know much about her. She knows that she works with Clover, and the other espers that Cradle Pharmaceuticals kidnapped ten years ago, but she still hasn’t worked out what that job is. Something government-y. And why would the government need to employ sixteen espers? There is no way that it is a coincidence all sixteen of them are working for the government together. Khaled is a private enough individual that Akane has not managed to follow her home, discover where she lives, or anything about her family.

That distance should make the decision easier to make, since she doesn’t know who she will be upsetting by capturing Khaled for several days but… the not knowing rankles her. She knows so little about this timeline, that one more unknown is almost the final straw.

Akane knows what decision Aoi would make. He wouldn’t go through with it. He would look at the four people, at their full lives, and think it is best to leave them alone. He would think about how much he’d hate Akane to disappear from him, and wouldn’t wish that on anyone else. Aoi would point out that she doesn’t know the point of the timeline – that he had agreed last time to save her life, but that without a clear incentive this time, that there was no reason to.

But.

Aoi hadn’t burned in the incinerator. He had never felt the flames lick up his skin, turn his clothes to dust, boil the fluid in her body until he could feel no more. He didn’t know how frightening that felt to experience. And the morphogenetic fields had shown Akane a way out of that agony, a cool blissful escape. She had trusted in the fields then, ten years ago, and survived. She felt as though she had to trust in the fields again, that she can’t betray her gift of life by ignoring her future self.

Her future self had a reason to warn her. Her future self knew what the timeline involved, what is so dangerous that she needs to knock these people out and build a better timeline. Her future self knew what would happen if she didn’t do this, and had judged that it was safer to do this. She shouldn’t doubt her future self, or the morphogentic fields.

Trusting the fields to ensure the best timeline is what led Akane here today, breathing.

Akane knows, deep inside herself, that she will always trust the fields. She owes her life to the fields, so the least she can do is to help them create the timeline they feel is best.

It doesn’t matter that these four people have full lives that Akane will rip them from. Ten years ago, Akane was ripped from her life. She needs to ensure that it was worth it, that all that pain and suffering was worth it.

Akane closes her eyes. Breathes in deeply, breathes out slowly. She will do it. She will create the better timeline to ensure a better world. She will kidnap Clover and Khaled.

No turning back now.