The start of my story

Today was the young man's 18th birthday. However, even though it was his birthday, Ano got up as he did every day. He ate breakfast, showered, brushed his teeth, got dressed with his fixed BUTHO, and stopped to think before going out.

Today is my birthday. My 18th birthday at last. I've accomplished everything I've set out to do since I was 7 years old, and I have no one ahead of me. But I still have the hardest thing left to do that no one has ever achieved. But I won't do it alone, will I? Master Akira. I have found friends I can call family.

Ano came out of his room. And calmly, knowing the day that awaited him, he walked through the corridors of the large technological complex that now led to the office of his friend, Mai Asu. But he didn't care much about status; no, he was thinking about something else; he wanted to go out for a while to pay a little visit to someone.

The young man went down to the garage, climbed onto his trusty metal steed, and sped off on his way to his destination. On the way he looked at all the districts beyond the river, wondering if anything had changed after the events of the last few days.

Nothing has changed. If I want a real change, I’ll need to work hard from now on!!

Ano crossed the bridge that connected the metropolis with district C. He walked down street after street, remembering everything he had experienced as a child. He saw his master's workshop, which lay burned to the ground. They had not yet begun to clean it up, nor did it look like they would soon. After a long motorcycle ride, Ano arrived at his destination; he got off his Z-910 and grabbed something from one of its compartments.

"Hi. I know it's been a while since we last met. Don't say anything yet. Let me talk first." Ano paused slightly before continuing. "Today is my birthday, I'm turning 18." The young man smiled as he held the small box he had taken from his bike. "I brought you a present. I know it's supposed to be the other way around; I should be the one receiving the presents, but it's okay like this."

Ano opened the small box and took something out from inside as he continued his monologue without letting the other person answer.

"Two years ago, I made you a promise that I'm not going to be able to keep. So this is my way of apologizing." Ano was holding a star-shaped ring, handmade by himself in the days before the coup. "Hana, I can't marry you..." His voice began to crack. "...I'm sorry." The man began to cry disconsolately.

*PORO, PORO, PORO*

"I was wrong... I let myself be blinded by anger." Tears streamed down Ano's cheek like a waterfall after a monsoon. "I'm sorry I abandoned you. I'm sorry I made you see all the bad things I've done. I'm sorry I was sad after promising we'd both be happy forever."

After 10 minutes kneeled against the dry soil, in front of Hana’s grave, on the hill where he treasured a multitude of childhood memories, Ano put down the ring and got up. After that, he used his PDA to scan the tombstone area he improvised two years ago.

*Person's name: Hana*

*Status: Deceased*

*Approximate date of death: 2 years ago*

*Status: Decomposed*

So Dr. Tsukino was really wrong. For a moment, I came to wish that what Dr. Tsukino told me was real and that you had never left. But that's not the world we live in.

"You can answer if you want to, Hana. I have nothing more to say."

Another 10 minutes passed as Ano stood there, wordlessly, staring at the small headstone he had made for her next to the ring he had just left beside it.

"I'm sorry I couldn't protect you. I'm sorry you couldn't keep the promise I made you make about graduating from school and helping me with my inventions. Sorry for turning 18-year-old without you."

Ano turned away as tears welled up in his eyes again. As he pulled out the keys from his bike and prepared to leave, a strong breeze hit him sideways.

*SWOOOOOSHHHHH*

*It's okay. Please, be happy. Fulfill your dreams. I love you.*

Ano turned around in surprise. There was no one there. But he had definitely heard the voice of his beloved friend. A gentle breeze caressed the man's face tenderly.

“HANA??”

A faint, smiling golden figure faded in front of his eyes. The man's expression began to change. The last remnants of the purple shadow that inhabited his shoulders began to disintegrate as it took its last breath.

Hana finally saved the young boy from the monster that had been chasing him for the past two years. Her feelings of hatred, revenge, and anger were disappearing. Love, affection, compassion, gentleness... Many feelings flooded Ano and made his face turn into a warm and kind one. He was a living reflection of his master.

"Take a good look at me, Hana. I will make it!!! I won’t break a promise again!! And I will fulfill all of our dreams!!!"

*Huhu!*

****

After visiting, for the first time in 2 years, the grave of his dear friend, Ano returned to his office, ready to fulfill his dreams thanks to the new energy he had obtained that very morning.

"From now on, I will not let anything stop me. No evil thoughts will ever again take hold of my heart. I will develop my suit with all my might and unify both factions to regain the land and all that was lost years ago in the war. I will end all of the problems of this world at once!!"

As the man watched the metropolis of Neo Shibuya from the large glass window of his office, someone knocked on his door.

*Knock, knock*

"Come in." Ano said.

"Excuse me, Mr. Ano, a letter has arrived for you."

"A letter? How strange. Nowadays, practically no one uses paper to write messages. Who is it from?"

“I don't know, we have orders to deliver it directly to you, Mr. Ano. If you'll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to.” The mailman leaves the letter on the table and leaves with a firm step. The door closes slowly.

The young man decided to move away from the window and went to pick up the envelope; it wasn’t heavy, and to his surprise, he recognized the sender's handwriting. It was his master's handwriting.

A letter from master Akira?

The man ran desperately to the door and opened it. “Wait a minute!! Who are you?? I don't know your... face…”

The mysterious man who left the envelope disappeared without leaving a trace. Ano immediately called Yuki.

“Yuki! I need you to block all the entries and to save a copy of every security camera we’ve got!! Someone suspicious is in the building.”

“Ano-san, I wanted to call you. We suffered an attack that disabled all our security systems. We are currently working to fix them.”

That Asu’s security systems had been hacked?? The best security in the world breached just to hand me a letter?? From Akira?? “Tell every security guard to change their goggles into different tracings!! The trespasser may be using some kind of cloak technology!!”

“As you say, Ano-san. Also, we couldn’t find any traces of blood nor any evidence of your friend’s body at the site of the explosion.”

“I see… Keep searching for the moment.”

“As you command.”

Shit!! I can’t deal with that man now. I’ll let Yuki take care of it all. She’s one you can count on with.

After having entrusted his assistant with the emergency measures, the young man decided to open the envelope, which indeed contained a letter from his teacher.

*Dear Ano,

You’ll receive this letter on the day of your 18th birthday, only if I have disappeared. You know I don't like to beat around the bush, so I'll get right to the point. I am a spy of the Stay faction. I have been living and modifying my body over the years so that I can steal and transfer vital data to my homeland.*

He what?? But… he was killed in the fire!!

“...Unfortunately, we found his body charred and unrecognizable. But his Net Share was in perfect condition. It belonged to one person called Akira Kawaki…”

Don’t tell me that the reason why the firefighters get there so quickly was because…

The man was perplexed; he couldn't believe those words came from the man who was his mentor over the years. The same person who loved cybernetic technology so much was part of the anti-cybernetic human faction. He continued reading.

*Don't be fooled, they haven't killed me. Surely that is the explanation that someone has given to you. After all, I faked my own death. I paid some firefighters to cover my fake death. Also, I made sure that one of your friends was present to tell you that it was Asu who did it. I knew you would take matters into your own hands, so while you carried out your revenge, I took the opportunity to continue gathering the information I needed from their home base.

I have escaped. I have stolen a lot of useful information that will help us, Stay, put the world on the right track again. Your suit, everything you've done, is thanks to me. You never wondered how it was possible for you to hack into a technology company as big as Asu? It was because I was doing it from the shadows, using your PDA device. In fact, everything around you was controlled by me. Your devices, and even your friend Hana, everything was planned by me.*

"Hana-chan was a very smart girl. I'm sure she made the right decision. Even if I can't understand now the reason why she did it. Everything she did was for the sake of her friends."

Hana?? Ano turned white. What does he mean?? He planned what happened to Hana???!!!

*Ever since you were little, I've been watching you. One day you came with that idea of the B.U.T.H.O. When I saw it, I decided that I had to control you so that you could build it. So we built that M.O.M that would be spying on you for years. However, one day you changed something in its subroutines and I could no longer get data from it. I had to get you to work on Asu so I could build the suit or you would never make it. At that time, I had your PDA under control, but it exploded and I could no longer control you. Hana was in the way, and at that point, I took advantage of you by forcing you to connect your PDA to one of the public cameras. That gave me the ability to download my software into it so I could spy on you for the next 2 years.

The idea of your battlesuit was just what Stay needed to take over the world. There was one problem. Being poor, you could never develop it. So I had to get you inside Asu Industries. I took your notes and sketches and did my best to put into words everything you told me. After that, I anonymously sent the data to Asu. Two years later, with the news from Asu about your suit, you got angry, and I managed to convince you to work for them. Although that didn't quite go as I planned, I owe it to my luck. Finally, it remained for you to focus on developing the suit so I could steal it and bring it to our side of the wall. However, Hana got in the middle of it all. You started playing the hero and began to lose sight of your own dream, so I had no choice but to get her out of the way. Thanks to that, you were working tirelessly on the suit, with no distractions.

All of this would lead you to seek revenge on Asu. I was the one who leaked the data about your suit to the Asu company. I'm the one who used your gadgets and your presence in the Asu labs to get information.*

The young man could not continue reading. He got up, and while he walked around the room, he murmured.

That I have been used? To save humanity? No. I stopped Yu's plans to wipe out the humans of Stay, but I haven't saved humanity, I've only prevented its destruction. It means then, that Akira was waiting years for this moment to get an advantage in the war. They are planning to destroy everything!! Just as Yu showed me!!

The young man continued reading.

*Two years later, you still hadn't completed the suit, and you were still obsessed with finding out who killed Hana. I had no choice but to find someone to scapegoat you so you could focus on designing the suit. I took you to that place in the Cyber Deep and made those fools give you the information I faked myself. Riffraff like that would be incapable of hacking into something as big as Asu. It was all a hoax. If you could go back in time, you would clearly see that I have been manipulating and controlling you at my whim since you were a little boy. You went wherever I told you to go, lived in that little room I got you, and did whatever I told you to do without putting up much resistance. You believed everything your beloved master told you. You even killed that traitor, Tsukino. He stole the Frey substance from us and took it to Asu Industries.

It was me who gave the drug to Hana-chan. I'm sure you don't understand, so I'll explain it easily. The man you killed was a decoy. Didn't you notice that he had a virtual memory modification in his head? I inserted false memories into his brain that he would tell you about. But that's not the only thing, I knew you would look at the security cameras, so I also modified them so you would see that man and follow him. The only mistake I almost made were Shin and Bo, who came by chance, so I had to make up the thing about her marrying the guy she loved. Fortunately, those 2 kids didn't recognize me and I was able to leave before they did. For Hana?? Well she obviously knew who I was, but as soon as I told her that she could see the future, she didn’t even flinch.

The only thing left for me to do was to steal the suit development data from Asu Industries. To do this, I had to fake my death. Thanks to this, you became obsessed with finishing the last details of the suit and left the company to seek help from a gang of thugs.

Ano-kun, your suit will help our nation finish off the Neo Humans once and for all. Your suit, along with an army of mechas, will destroy all the Neo-Humans and we will reclaim what is ours. I did not lie to you when I said that you had an incredible dream. We share the same dream, that of living all in peace; except that, with modified humans, there will never be peace. There are many things I have yet to tell you, and I'm sure you have many more questions, but I'm running out of space to write. I have something that will blow your mind for years to come. Come find me if you want me to tell you more.

I lied to you when I told you that you would surpass me. The master cannot be surpassed by his pupil. I also told you one last lie. I never wanted to adopt you. Because you were already my son. I'm sure we'll see each other soon.

Your father: Akira Kawano*

My… father…

“Yeah yeah, but I am not your father. Remember, you can only call me that when we are alone. We are not blood relatives and I never adopted you.”

So I killed Dr. Tsukino and that guy at the bar without having done anything???

*PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII*

Inside the young man's ears, a high-pitched beep started to sound, turning every other sound inaudible.

“...Feelings of rage, anger, pain, sadness, and revenge tormented me every night. Once I carried out my revenge, everything stayed the same. I didn't feel better, I couldn't get back what I lost, and more importantly, I was still empty inside.”

After a few seconds, the high-pitched beep faded away, as the young man remembered his master’s words.

“…restart your life and fill that emptiness in your heart again."

I see… Master Akira wouldn’t just make all this up. He must be hiding something. And before taking actions against him, I need to know what his motivations really are. I won’t let anger control me ever again.

Ano; Mi; Kawano; Star Ghost; Wolf… The many-named man raised his head, took a deep breath, and smirked.

“Let’s do it one last time!!”

-The End...-

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Somewhere, in a hidden location inside the Stay faction, a girl’s body floated inside a tank filled with a yellow liquid.

*Glub*

-...for the moment-