[The End of Osamu Ashikaga]: The Two Devils

Osamu and Taeko found themselves in a hospital room, warm sunlight splashing in through the bedside window and reflecting off of the white walls and pristine, tiled floors. The blonde man lied in his hospital bed, his eyes peeling open. His hair had been cut shorter than it was at Kengir, only reaching down to his jawline.

He rubbed his fingers against his aching head, feeling a line of scar tissue running down the side of his head. The line was veiled beneath his hair, but still noticeable upon close inspection. The nurse cleaning the countertop across from the bed noticed the blonde man’s grunts and saw him open his eyes. She gasped and ran out of the room, shouting down the hall to alert the doctors.

In the next memory, the blonde man had recovered well enough to sit up and speak. He was visited by a tall, deep-voiced man in a cream overcoat and black gloves. His black hair was combed back neatly and a five-o-clock shadow shaded the bottom half of his shaven face. He pulled up a chair next to the blonde man’s bed, leaning back into his seat.

“Good morning. My name is Konstantin. I was an associate of your father. Can you tell me your name?”

“I don’t have one.”

Konstantin chuckled softly as he crossed his legs. “It was a trick question. You suffered a gunshot wound to the head in Kengir. After your father shot you, he turned the gun on himself. He died instantly, yet you survived. You were lucky. One of the surviving prisoners at Kengir was a very skilled neurosurgeon. He helped the military paramedics to save your life. We airlifted you out of Kazakhstan and brought you here to Prague.”

“Czechoslovakia?”

“It’s a good sign you remember the capital of Czechoslovakia.”

“How long have I been out?”

“It’s been three months since you were shot. I’d say that your healing abilities were quite remarkable, but I suppose this is par for the course for a vampire. We have allies in Czech State Security that helped us get you here and keep you hidden, but very soon, we’ll need to move you to Budapest.”

“Johan told me you people planned to move me to Hungary, but I don’t understand what you want me to do there exactly.”

“Well…we did have a plan put in place before the Kengir Uprising, but after seeing what happened, we threw out our blueprints. Instead, we want you to do to Hungary what you did in Kengir. Our plan will take many years to complete, but each step we take will be monumental in undoing the legacies of men like Lenin and Stalin.

“Central and Eastern Europe are the best regions to start. The people want their sovereignty back. They want Russia to answer for the rape and pillage of their lands during the Second World War. There’s enough anti-communist momentum to spark similar uprisings and revolutions. We can take this system apart, country by country, and spread instability throughout the Soviet Union.

“This plan requires a capable leader able to infiltrate the social circles of the most influential people in European politics. But before any of that can start, we need to set up a new identity for you. No, I suppose it wouldn’t be new if you never had one in the first place.”

The blonde man turned his head and looked out the window, the rising un blinding him with its golden glory. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and saw a man who had just died and been reborn of his own accord. As such, he deserved a name.

“Johan Sommers. That will be my name moving forward.”

“Your father’s name? He tried to kill you and you’re taking his name?”

“It’s not to honor him. It’s my revenge. I will erase my father from this world and take his place. His story, his legacy…it will all be mine. With it, I’ll do what he failed to do. Konstantin, was it? It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Johan stuck out his opened hand and smiled, the sun beaming behind him like a golden gloriole. “Please…call me Johan.”

From that day forth, the nameless prisoner, the product of Project Nirvana’s eugenics program, became the second Johan Sommers. He erased his father and his failures from the annals of vampiric history and turned the very name into a symbol of respect.

Osamu and Taeko witnessed his entire career unfold in awe. The network of traitors working from within the Soviet Union’s government, military, and secret police organizations collaborated to aid the new Johan in his journey to dismantle the federation. He was given every false document and bit of money needed to make his new life look as legitimate as possible.

He stoked the anti-communist sentiments of university students in Budapest, who then went on to speak out about their discontent under Soviet occupation. The brewing storm of anti-communism spilled over into Poland, initiating the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the Poznań Protests in Poland that same year. When the nationalist movements of Hungary got wrapped up in violence, Johan offered every bit of information he had on them to Soviet authorities.

Tens of thousands of Hungarians were arrested and thrown and jail, while over two-hundred were executed. More than two-hundred thousand Hungarians fled the country as refugees as a result. The protests in Poland led to the arrests of over two-hundred people, but their struggle led the way towards the Polish October and the beginning of the country’s de-Stalinization.

He would return to Czechoslovakia again in 1962, where befriended the country’s most prominent writers and artists. Osamu and Taeko watched Johan attend parties, debates, and conferences, where he utilized his conversational skills to fuel feelings of discontent towards Soviet censorship and artistic crackdowns.

He encouraged the artists and writers of the country to dissent and act on their feelings, just as he had done years ago with his friend, Marko. His encouragement led to the Liblice Conference of 1963, which paved the way towards the republishing of Franz Kofka’s literature throughout Soviet-occupied Europe, as well as the cultural revolution of Czechoslovakia. Johan continued to live in Czechoslovakia until the Prague Spring of 1968, vanishing from the country before the Soviet invasion squashed the country’s reformist movement.

Everywhere Johan went, he sparked a movement or an uprising, and just as he did in Kengir, he sold that movement out to Soviet authorities and secret police organizations. He gained their trust and got close to Soviet officials both public and secret. In the end, those officials would end up blackmailed, assassinated, and leveraged into giving up their positions so people with more moderate politics could take their place.

Johan saw the fruits of his labors in 1988, as the fed-up nations of East Germany took massive steps to democratize and free themselves of communism. 1989 saw the Velvet Revolution take place in Czechoslovakia, marking the peaceful end of communism in the country.

Hungary and Austria dismantled the border gates acting as the iron curtain between their countries, initiating a chain reaction that led to the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc. And of course, East and West Germans tore down the Berlin Wall in that same year.

This severe chain reaction continued into 1990. Elections in Armenia, Georgia, and the Baltic States saw massive victories for ethnic nationalist parties, breaking Moscow’s control over their nations. Six republics had effectively seceded from the Soviet Union, ignoring all of their federal laws and asserting their own sovereignty.

In 1991, rocked by the burgeoning crisis tearing the union apart, it became clear to Moscow that the Soviet Union and its global, communist project was an abject failure. Mikhail Gorbachev formally resigned on Christmas evening and what remained of the Soviet Parliament voted to disband. The Soviet Union had dissolved, and as a result, the once occupied countries were under its control regained independence.

Konstantin would pass away of natural causes in 1994. He had lived to see his decades of work pay off, to see the world saved from suffering any more communist disasters. Johan attended his small, private funeral in Kiev, where his family and collaborators hailed him as a hero of democracy and nationalism. Johan remembered well what his father had told him in Kengir, all those years ago.

Although Project Nirvana was meant to create a perfect, Sommerist leader that could apply his philosophy to different ethnic groups around the world, that leader could also prop up anti-democratic movements in order to create an even greater, nationalist reaction. The effect could either be intended or terribly miscalculated.

After Johan bade farewell to his handler and mentor, he set his sights on Yakutsk. The FSB didn’t simply discover the vampires living there. It was Johan who reported the situation to them. Following his advice, the FSB offered Carmilla a way to avoid total annihilation by mobilizing her men to aid Russia in the Second Chechen War, the same war that would lead to the birth of his left-wing political group, the Isolationist Party. That party would go on to prop up Sorin, a fake Johan, as its leader.

The truth exposed, Osamu and Taeko were ejected from Johan’s memories, snapping back to the current moment as they sat in the hotel, facing the very man who had destroyed the Steplag and altered the course of global history. Though it felt like a lifetime journeying through his memories, it had only been a few minutes in the present.

“Holy shit…” Taeko said, catching her breath. “You manipulated the people of the Steplag into killing each other. You drove your father to suicide and took his identity. Then you replicated what you did in Kengir all across Eastern Europe.”

Beads of sweat rolling down his forehead, Johan gathered his breath and replied. “The only way forward unto Eden, is to destroy existence itself. Humans, vampires, gods…let it all burn away. We vampires have very few choices left to us now. We could let humanity wipe us out, let the Sommerists carry out a slow euthanasia plan, or as Osamu desires, destroy the world and rule over what remains at the cost of our philosophical freedom. No matter which we choose, we’re all slaves. The size of our prison would get larger, but we would all be slaves bound to Osamu’s will nonetheless. The only true freedom in this world is death.”

Osamu’s eyes widened with rage as he balled his hands into fists, his teeth grinding together. “Sommerism is an affront to the very soul.” Osamu said. “We were already born into this world. We’re already alive! If this world doesn’t want me to exist, it’ll have to kill me with its own hands. I refuse to fade away! You should’ve fought back and created the freedom you sought.”

“I never imagined I’d face an opponent as formidable as you, Osamu.” Johan said, struggling to regain his breath.

“Your father said that Project Nirvana could swing a nation’s politics in either direction. I’ll have you tell the people of Minavere who you really are. You’ll face execution alongside Yana and Balakin as enemies of the nation. The charade is over, Johan. Cuff him.”

Taeko pulled Johan off the sofa and pushed him face-down on the carpet, cuffing his hands behind his back.

“There’s still one big problem, though.” Osamu said. “Johan said earlier that Russia knows we’re here. By we, I mean we specifically.”

Taeko knelt down and tightened the cuffs around Johan’s wrists. “Then it’s safe to say they intend on steamrolling this place.”

“Bring the Shoku Twins and the other lords here. I want to draw up plans for Minavere’s defense before Russia gets here.” Osamu said. “We’ll deploy the national guard before we warn the people about the threat.”

“I don’t think you’re considering the fact that there’s another big problem here.” Taeko interrupted. “You can make Johan say whatever you want, but there’s no proof of anything he’s done. It’s a well-known fact to us that the Akiyama have the ability to extract information from people in all kinds of ways, but that might be hard for the people of Minavere to believe.”

“That’s why capturing audio of Yana and Balakin alerting the FSB of our presence here is vital.” Osamu replied. “If we can prove his connection with the FSB and his manipulation of the Second Chechen War, it lends credibility to everything else he’s done. Anyone who’s still a skeptic at that point will be more than willing to believe it once they see Russian war machines knocking on our door.”

Osamu stood up and walked away from the hotel room as the SSK entered after him and led Johan away in handcuffs. Taeko followed Osamu as he marched through the spacious halls of the hotel, his black, fur coat trailing behind him like a cape. Osamu noticed Taeko had stopped walking with him as her footsteps suddenly went quiet, her gaze glued to the wall-mounted television in the lobby.

“What’s wrong?” Osamu asked.

“Look.” Taeko said, pointing at the screen with a dark frown on her face.

Osamu turned his attention to the television expecting to see news about Russia’s advance towards Yakutsk. Instead, he was treated to the best news he could’ve possibly gotten. News cameras broadcasted footage of Osamu’s apocalyptic horde of demons stomping and torching Korean and Chinese soil. The same terror he inflicted upon his own people was now being shared across the world. The South Korean cities of Busan, Gwangju, and Daejeon were set ablaze like candlewicks in the night, the veiled skeletons trampling on skyscrapers, homes, and the endless lines of cars stuck in gridlock.

Millions of people fled from their homes with nothing but their children and the clothes on their backs. Just as it was for the people of Japan, it was all in vain. The night sky burned with the light of speeding rockets soaring through the darkness and falling upon the horde of colossal skeletons, but the Korean military only managed to take down two out of multiple thousand skeletons.

Osamu watched as more colossal, human-like demons marched upon Busan. These demons had no skin, only flesh and vascular systems coursing around their bodies. Their bellies were fat and engorged with highly acidic gas. They stood so tall that the clouds were like skirts around their waists. Instead of stomping upon the city, they opened their arms wide and fell upon it face-first. Their bellies exploded upon impact and covered the area in a massive cloud of green gas.

Everyone caught in the gas died gruesome, painful deaths. News crews caught footage of thousands upon thousands of people trampling over each other in the streets and highways as the gas rushed towards them. Their eyes and skin liquified the moment they made contact with the gas. Their screams only lasted a short while before the gas got into their mouths and eye sockets, melting their internal organs from the inside.

The paint on their cars peeled off, the tires popped, and the windows exploded. The Korean people died in bone-crushing piles much like the Japanese did, the gas breaking their bodies down into a soup of melted flesh, skin, and organs. Sticky, red sludge flooded through the streets like the raging waters of a typhoon.

It was nothing short of nightmarish, but Osamu stood with his eyes wide eyes glued to the screen as he watched the eradication of the Korean and Chinese people on live television.

“They’ve done it.” Osamu said. “The demons landed in South Korea and Eastern China. Looks like more are on their way to Taiwan and the Philippines.”

“Looks like the world couldn’t prepare their nuclear arsenal in time.” Taeko said, tears gathering in her eyes as her stomach twisted into knots.

Taeko gazed upon Osamu’s awestruck expression, the very same one he wore when he first unleashed the demons of the Underworld on Japan. He had always been the kind of man to see the beauty hiding beneath the ugliness, but Taeko couldn’t quite tell what he saw beyond the brutal genocide of mankind. She couldn’t tell if the sparkle in his widened eyes was joy or fear. Was it elation or anguish?

“They can’t save Korea or Southeast China, but they’ll try to save the rest of the world.” Osamu said. “This isn’t over yet. We still have to keep fighting, If anything, this just means Russia will be forced to move as swiftly as possible.”

“Do you think the rest of Minavere will be happy to see this?” Taeko questioned. “Will they share your elation as they watch mothers and their children all across the world get stomped on, burnt alive, and melted down?”

Osamu put on a half-smile. “The vampires have been waiting for this day. As Sorin said before, a political battle is a battle of optics. Which image do you think will shock the people of Minavere into action, Taeko? Their age-old oppressors being wiped out, or those same people coming here to gun after their families? I’m willing to bet that self-preservation will win out against altruism.”

With Johan in custody and Russia closing in on a divided Minavere, Osamu and the others knew this would be their make-or-break moment. Would the truth about Johan sway Minavere’s populace? Would Russia succeed in squashing the nation? It all remained to be seen.