Embers of Hope END

But I didn’t have too much time as Yamori’s arrival was certain as the sound of his grunts of pain and exhaustion emerged from the door I came through. And a second later, my eyes made contact with the man himself from the embrace of the shadows.

“This feeling….. I almost forgot how it used to be. I should’ve known something was wrong when my ear healed much slower than usual that day. I was being serious before about keeping you alive” He pulled the knife out of his forearm “I won’t grant you that mercy anymore”.

He walked towards the light in the middle of the room like a moth attracted to a flame. “I know you are here, Akio….Come on out and I’ll make it quick”

I kept moving through all his sickening displays….. Half built contraptions attached to restraining chairs and a towering-coffin like structure were all there in the open and out of the light, I didn’t even want to find out what was in all the crates and shelves in this place… But stick in the shadows for too long, it won’t be long until the ghosts come for you.

By instinct I found myself walking up a patch of height in the hopes of getting my eyes on Yamori. I should’ve realized that unlike the cold stone, this height was made of wood….almost like a stage of some sorts. And through the dim light, I saw it again….. a guillotine and beside it, a meat hook display.

My nightmares leaked into reality at that moment. A flash of them restrained to that….pleading for their lives, screaming from the pain.

“No….” I muttered and stepped back, not realizing I had backed up all the way to the edge of the stage.

I slipped and fell off, but something tall and curved broke my fall. But turning my head to see what I fell on was the final nail that sent me over the edge…. The face of that brass bull crossed my vision and followed my memory of all I went through in its embrace.

I only realized I had screamed moments after I threw myself off it, which in turn had the hungry dog of a Sheriff fresh on my trail.

I suddenly heard Yamori’s quickened footsteps, and he appeared a few feet away from me. He stopped in his tracks due to the darkness and took a flashlight out of his inventory. I had to move….

I took long steps backwards, and turned around and took the first corner I saw, away from the range of his flashlight. A few moments later, he put the pieces together.

“You still hung up about that huh? In case you are wondering why I still keep this around after I saw what it did to you, I like to think of it as an evolution of the Trial of the Wolf. Once I take hold of this place, there will be many that don’t deserve a painless death. What you see here are the improvements.” After a few more loud steps, he stopped “Noticed the stage behind it? As a matter of fact, I built it specifically on your behalf….. If Tadashi Chifuyu is walking the streets of Helios with no-one intervening, it’s clear that people have forgotten the horror of Day 1 ... .Of the CGI. This was built, in the hopes of reminding them of that day”.

His footsteps continued again “What are you trying to achieve here Akio? How long are you going to keep wasting my time?”

But based on my limited knowledge of this room and the direction of the light, I was certain that I was close to the door. But I needed a guaranteed window of keeping Yamori away from me or else there is the risk of him sneaking up on me. I had a by-the-book idea, but will it actually work against someone as smart as Yamori?

I picked up a loose rock from the ground and tried to find the lunatic, who I found with minimal effort. I waited till he was facing away and threw the rock to the opposite side, in the hopes it would collide with one of the metallic death instruments, and to my limited luck, it did.

The clang it had resonated throughout the whole room

“You have to do better than that Akio,” Yamori said cautiously, pacing towards the sound. He took the bait.

I made my way around the final bit of cover and made it to the fingerprint lock. The keypad was nowhere to be seen. I hope Tsuneo-san was right about this.

I cautiously traced my finger around the mechanism and the scanner, being extra careful not to trigger the wire trap. And I finally found it. I pushed the scanner up and the keypad lied beneath it. And now it was time for the code which was…… wait…. What was the code again?

Not good, this is definitely the worst possible time to have a mental block and my impatience started to rile me up into a panic state…..Alright, stay calm. Remember the date. January…. Was it 8th 2029 or 9th 2028.

I was starting to doubt my memory, and the adrenaline and my limited time was just making it worse.

Deep breath first…. The date was lower in value than the year…. That’s how I remembered it at first. So it has to be January 8th 2029. But what was the code?

I typed in my first guess 1829, and what followed was a loud beep. The door didn’t open so it had to be invalid. But the sound also gave away my position to the stalking Yamori….. I had to move.

I found myself on the opposite side of the room now. There was less cover as while the tall shelves were stocked with chemicals and tools, there were empty shelves that allowed me to see far into the other end of the room. I couldn’t stay here for long or else I would be a sitting duck against Yamori’s flashlight and dead shot aim.

While I was on the side where he stores his lesser tools of torture, I had to find myself a weapon. I stood no chance against him unarmed.

“Wait wait wait, all this time, you were planning to escape?” And the laughter that followed echoes through the room. “ You actually thought that you had a chance?…. You think you can beat me? In my own game?..... You think someone who played a game for a living can actually outsmart one of the University’s graduates? Someone who brought down a reign of corruption in the force down to its knees?.....”

Aaaand there is that over-inflated ego

“You sell yourself too highly, Akio….. All you are doing right now is delaying the inevitable, and making it more painful in the process” Yamori said

The flashlight beam suddenly appeared in the distance, and I had effectively driven myself into a corner. As I had to hide behind one of his tool tables, with only the cover of the shadows hiding me. If I ran backwards I would be seen by the flashlight beam and going across will put me at the well-lit center of the room, blinding me even further as my eyes were adjusted to the dark currently.

The table I was hiding behind had a flask of liquid on it. While I didn’t find a weapon, I guess this was better than nothing.

“Akiooo….come on out….. you are just making this much more harder on yourself” he taunted me

I held my ground, staying low…. I waited patiently till Yamori closed in on me. I held my breath once again as he was in my range….hiding my presence as much as I could. But before his flashlight had the chance of illuminating me, I threw the flask at him. Yamori reacted at the last moment and blocked it with his arm but those few precious seconds is what I needed to attack him for the second time.

I ran at him and tackled him into the shelf behind him, causing him to drop the knife and the flashlight. I tried to topple him but I failed to do so, Yamori elbowed me in the back causing me to drop to my knees, however when my hand dropped to the ground, I found myself back in possession of the knife.

Yamori tried to end it by pushing me back and pointing his gun at me, but I struck back by sticking the blade into his other arm this time ... .the arm he uses his gun with. Yamori screamed in pain and his grip slipped off his gun and he couldn’t get his finger on the trigger again, and this time, I was able to retrieve the blade. I pulled it out of his arm and tried to go for a killing blow, but the man held my arm up, putting me against a test of strength that I was definitely going to lose.

I had no choice but to risk a gamble. I dropped the knife from above onto my thumbless hand and I was barely able to catch it, and I redirected my attack, trying to impale him in the stomach. The gamble paid off as eventhough Yamori wasn’t anticipating it, and the blade went a quarter way into his abdomen before he could react. He was losing strength and the blade was getting pushed further in, but I wasn’t able to finish it…. The visions, the day I could’ve ended it if I was able to kill Tadashi…. about Tadano-san…. They all came back to me, stopping my hand.

Yamori regained his grip on his pistol and overpowered my other arm which I was holding him off with. Barely missing my head, the pistol fired right next to my ear, causing my hearing to be painfully disoriented.

I was forced to disengage from my unsuccessful attack attempt, but this time, I was able to hold onto my weapon. I backed off and tried to stop my ears from ringing, but I had some time to recover as Yamori was hunched over and moving away due to the pain from his wound.

I hadn’t fully recovered, but sticking to the less lit areas, I ran away barely keeping my sense of balance. Yamori might think that I might go on the offensive again, so best that make a break for the door instead. Here’s praying that he doesn’t check that area first thing when he recovers.

While I was running for it, I had no use focusing on my hearing, as the ringing wasn’t subsiding any faster if I did. At that time, I repeated the code I was going to try in my head, just to stop myself from freezing in front of the keypad.

“8129….8129…8129. Please work” I muttered to myself while I was running for it, paying no mind to how much noise my footsteps were making as I was unable to gauge it anyways.

The keypad was right in front of me and I realized I ran so fast that I wasn’t able to stop myself before crashing. However I forced myself to the side, avoiding the keypad as I remembered what happened to Tsuneo when he struck the lock.

I crashed into the wall beside it, and for my luck I had my ankles intact. However, the crash combined with the cocktail of toxin remnants and adrenaline in my system, sent me into a state of whiplash which had my vision disoriented. However, I pulled myself upto the keypad and traced my finger above the numbers as with my disoriented vision, I couldn’t trust my perception, to guide to the correct number key.

Taking a couple moments more than I would’ve liked, I entered the code in, and the beep was different this time…. A part of me felt a shock as I thought I might’ve got it wrong and sprung the wire trap, but the lock on the door disengaged instead.

I dragged myself to the door and put all my weight on it to pull it open…just in the nick of time as well. Yamori appeared from around the corner and started firing at me, but I was already behind the door and his bullets didn’t penetrate the door. I closed the door behind me and the lock re-engaged. And I was left with the final remaining hurdle to freedom.

The cell room was the same as ever, but as it was the most linear of them all with the least amount of cover, I was at a severe disadvantage. There were only 2 ways I could hide from Yamori’s line of sight in here….The first being on any other of the 2 lanes of cells other that the one Yamori is searching at a given time, the second was to hide in one of the cells until he passes by and sneak out… but if he locks the cell door by chance while I’m in it, I’d be as good as dead. The lighting in here was adequate enough to have me squinting, and not only will it be much harder to sneak up on him, he will instantly hear me trying to unlock the heavy metal door, nevermind trying to open it.

This place was heavily skewed in the stalker’s favor. All my hiding spots came with big risks… I could get spotted across the room and I would be defenseless against his gun if he does see me. I tried not to think about it, but to help with that, I happened to hear a familiar voice in the cell close to me

“Akio?…. Akio is that you?!” I suddenly heard Jayden

The otherside of the fingerprint locked door was unnervingly silent and I didn’t know why. And I was too winded to think about it. I left the door and made my way towards his voice. And there he was, the only ensuring sight for this whole escape attempt.

Jayden was strapped up to one of Yamori’s vertically hung metal tables, but his cell door was wide open. And my instincts took over as I reflexively tried to free him

“You idiot, what are you doing?” Jayden asked

“He’s not coming in as of yet. We got some time” I replied

“No…. you got some time. Don’t let it go to waste… You are this close and if you get caught or get killed, all of this was for nothing…. The outside needs to know, and you are the only one who can make that happen”

And I suddenly snapped out of it when he reminded me of that. Maybe if I kill Yamori here….. But am I really capable of taking a life…..even after all that he had done.

Idiot…. You are getting tilted right now…. Focus. There is no way I can overpower him, even without shielding, he still has his weapons and he is a skilled fighter. The only hope I have is to get my weapons back or get to Jun. I’m sure that my current predicament would have him see through his blind trust of the guy.

“Remember your promise….and I’ll remember mine. Just go….get out of here” Jayden said as I stepped back

But as I was stepping back, I managed to clip the end of one of Yamori’s tool tables, and my eye instantly caught onto it. A blue vial.

I inspected the table for a moment, and easily found an auto injector. This is what I needed to tip the balance in my favor. As I didn’t have access to my inventory, I had to stow it in my gauntlet as I didn’t want Yamori catching onto my attack plan.

And regretfully, I had to leave Jayden behind.

As I exited the cell, the door lock started to whirr, signaling that it was unlocking and that I was about to be greeted by our ungracious host. But as if the scales weren’t against me enough already, there was much more I had to worry about

Yamori appeared from the door, and I realized why he took much longer than expected to appear. He was much more geared up this time. Donning a blade-proof vest, a machete in one hand and his pistol on the other, he had taken the time to attach an underbarrel laser, a compensator and a dot sight to his pistol. He was pulling out on all the stops.

He had no idea where I was for the time being, but this just made my gameplan completely unviable. I had to think of something.

“That is….fucking…..it, Nakamura. You think you can bring down everything I have built?!...YOU?..... MANY IN THE PAST HAS TRIED AND PAID FOR IT WITH THEIR LIVES! YOU THINK SOMEONE WHO HAS NEVER KNOWN SUFFERING IN LIFE, AND HAS ONLY FOUGHT BATTLES BEHIND A SCREEN CAN TAKE ME DOWN?!”

Oh he was mad….

“I have blackmailed, threatened, kidnapped, and tortured, and everyone submits. You have been the biggest thorn in my life so far…… No longer” he said, walking forward through the main corridor.

Each of the three lanes had partitions in the middle that allowed me some maneuverability, but the only reliable cover I have are the walls at those separations. But I have to avoid being seen or I wouldn’t have any reliable way to break his line of sight.

“You know, after I’m done with you and take over this place, everyone you know and are close to will be my next test subjects. I’ll frame them for crimes they didn’t commit, I will make sure they all die in the most painful way possible….. Sakuragi-san regrettably might’ve taken the easy way out…. But Junichi, his sisters, Hayato Ishikawa, Yukari Kubo, Tadashi Chifuyu…. All of the former Zero will suffer because of your actions, and then….. I’ll proceed to do the same for everyone who has known you in passing. I will make anyone who even remembers your name loathe you”

It's only at the brink of defeat that people show who they really are. And Yamori Nishigaki, you just showed who you were under that thick veil of deception.

Yamori was on the same lane I was in as I saw the beam of his high power laser whizzing past me towards the end of the hallway. And I had to find a way to get a drop on him but I was drawing blanks. The hallways are too long for me to circle around in time without making any noise….Unless.

There was one plan that came to mind, but it was extremely risky. But it was better than nothing…..

I circled around to the entrance, checking every corner and the sound I made with every step, and a few moments later, I faced the massive vault door that is holding me captive and grabbed onto the lever lock. I used all of my body weight to push it and the clang of the mechanism engaging was so loud that it resonated within the room. The moment that dinner bell was rung, I retreated into the closest cell, hugged the wall and kept my ears open.

Yamori moved ever closer to the source of the disturbance, his laser giving away his position before the man himself showed up ... .However he didn’t immediately check the source of the disturbance. Instead, he was as on guard as I was. I pushed my back against the wall of the open cell so hard that I was afraid that I might bring the whole wall down, as Yamori’s laser was scouring the ground right outside my cell.

I could only hope that he wouldn’t close the door, and a moment later, the laser went further away and the man himself appeared. He only had to do one thing to foil my entire escape attempt….. and that was to turn his head left. A normal person would’ve seen me by now, but Yamori’s biggest blind spot lay on his left due to his punctured eye. I held my mouth and nose shut, trying to muffle even the slightest of sounds I involuntarily made, to conceal my position as effectively as I could.

And to my luck, I stepped backwards and out of sight. For the next few moments, I heard Yamori’s footsteps behind my wall and on the opposite side. He was being very cautious, not allowing me to get the drop on him. And suddenly, his footsteps stopped. I tried to use the knife as a reflector again to get a glimpse of what was going on, but this time, I couldn’t make heads or tails of what I was seeing, which gave me no choice but to peek my head out.

Fortunately, I didn’t happen to lose it, but what I saw was Yamori pacing his steps very slowly towards the door and placing his hand on the lever. This was what I was waiting for…..

I slowly snuck up to him, leaning towards his left into his blind spot and had him right in front of me. I reverse gripped the knife with my weakened right hand and plunged it at his right knee….However, I got played

“Got you, you little shit” Yamori said, side-stepping my attack and backhanding me hard with his machete.

He struck me with the flat side, not granting me a swift death…. And it ended with me knocked down and on the ground. I scurried backwards to gain some distance and got onto one knee… and eventhough my vision was impaired from that strike, I had gotten used to recovering like this after being in so many fights.

But now, I had nowhere to hide…..Yamori’s one functioning eye was locked onto mine, like a predator stalking its prey.

“What are you going to do now, legend? You have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. No more tricks up your sleeve” Yamori taunted me

I took a breath and assessed my options, while keeping my gaze locked at my opponent. I was severely outmatched if we were to fight face to face.

“You…could’ve been my ally, we could’ve brought order to this lawless place…. We could’ve been heroes” Yamori said, with his tone lacking the aggressiveness it had all this time.

“That’s another thing you got wrong about me Yamori-san…. I’m no hero, and I never will be one” I got back up to my feet “I’m just a guy who is trying to survive… No different from everyone else you’ve murdered” I said

Yamori closed the distance fast and swung his machete at me. All I could do was go on the defensive. I observed his movements carefully, and swerved away from the reach of his weapon. But he caught me off guard with a feint, leaving me unable to evade a vertical slash….. I gripped my knife on each side with both hands and attempted to block it, however the knife reached its limit. The blade slipped out of my weak grip and shattered as it hit the floor.

I instinctively backed away and tried to put some distance between us as I had no choice but to try and lose him and catch him off-guard. But Yamori wasn’t about to let that happen. I felt a sharp sting on my left arm all of a sudden as I saw my blood splash onto my side and onto the wall next to me. Yamori’s shot connected and punched a hole clean through my forearm…..

Unfortunately the sight of this, pushed me into the space of another bad memory. About that day…. Where Tadashi stabbed me in the same place and how that pain caused me to lose my grip on the rope.

But the moment I was zapped out of reality was the opportunity that Yamori needed, as he whacked me with his gun down to my knee and he grabbed and threw me against a wall where I heard Jayden’s voice from beside me.

I had no way to fight back and he grabbed me one more time and this time, threw me into my cell.

“You know what…. I don’t…. have the time for this.” Yamori said while panting, clearly at the brink of exhaustion after carrying out all the protective gear and swinging that machete.

He paused for a second to catch his breath “Cutting you up is a mercy that you don’t deserve, Nakamura…. I guess… this is as good as any I had planned”

“AKIO!…AKIO! WHAT’S GOING ON IN THERE?” screamed Jayden from the opposite cell.

Yamori approached me and grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to the corner of the cell, and he tried to push my head into the burning brazier.

However, I put up resistance, as I had my hands wedged against each corner. My punctured forearm was excruciatingly painful, but it was nothing compared to what Yamori had put me through these past few weeks. But this was the worst that could’ve happened to me right now. As I started having flashbacks once again… this time, to when I was almost roasted to death. All the ugly sensations flooded back into my mind but through all that, also flashed the visions I had about that settlement in chaos.

The trauma held me down, but this time, I fought back. I was not about to let Yamori scare me, and to uphold that notion, I had to face my demons and break out of this predicament.

After a moment of assessment, I came up with an idea…but judging by the fact that it was inspired by one of the Kanie Beatdowns was a give away that this was a bad idea, but it was one that might give me an upper hand.

After staring into what looked like a miniature model of hell, I freed my left hand off the wall, which dropped my face even further… a couple more inches and my grown beard might’ve brushed the flames. But I put my gauntlet into the fire and grabbed one of the scalding hot pieces of wood, swung my arm backwards and pressed it against Yamori’s bloody lab coat which was exposed under his armor.

However, quite suddenly, his coat burst into flames…. If I had to guess on the spot, it might’ve been whatever was in the flask I struck him with earlier.

Yamori rapidly disengaged and I was able to recover and relax ... .He tried to douse the flames but failing that, he hastily tried to get his protective vest off to get the coat off him. I regained my footing and faced the panicking Yamori. However, during that time, my gauntlet crumbled due to the damage from the heat, exposing my arm underneath and dropping the auto-injector I had stowed in it onto the ground.

My eyes darted between the injector that fell onto the stone floor and the struggling Yamori…. This was it.

I grabbed the injector from the ground while I was rushing towards Yamori. He did get his burning coat off but he was too late to react to my attack, as I punched him to disorient him and stabbed the injector into his shoulder, giving him a taste of his own medicine.

What I wasn’t expecting was for the same effect that my ability has, to happen once again. From the injection point, his veins started to highlight and spread to the entirety of his body, but this time, it was glowing blue instead of red and Yamori fell to his knees, screaming at the top of his lungs as if it caused him unimaginable pain.

He was weak and vulnerable, and I could finally go for the kill. But then I saw it again…. My blade in front of Tadashi’s throat.

I hesitated once again, Yamori was still writhing from the pain and crawling on the ground….What was I waiting for? I could just end this now….. But can I?

A flood of doubt washed over me again, and I decided to do the one thing I told myself I would never do…. I ran away.

I momentarily peeked towards Jayden, only to see his relieved face when he saw me up on my feet. But no words were exchanged, instead. I left him, and ran towards the door and started to pull on it with all my remaining strength.

“No…No…..NOOOOOOO!” Yamori’s voice of disbelief and rage echoed through the entire room as I was pulling open the door, one inch at a time.

And after all these weeks of torture, freedom was just an arm’s reach away.

I slipped through the door and the home stretch was right in front of me. I just had to climb these stairs. My desperation kicked in as I ran up the stairs as fast as I could. And that is when I heard an all too familiar beep….. The same one I heard when Tsuneo tried to escape weeks ago.

I didn’t have time to think so by instinct, I mustered all the strength I had in my legs and jumped from the stairs, skipping as many steps as possible. I had triggered a wire trap, and it narrowly avoided slicing my feet off. I just wish I had avoided it completely.

I reached the top and was in the main precinct now. However, I was hugging the wooden floor as the wire trap grazed my right ankle and severed almost half my foot from my ankle. It proved even more excruciating than my forearm, which left me wailing on the floor of the precinct.

“No ... .So close” I muttered, reaching out to the window where the blue light from outside was radiating into this house of horrors.

But not all hope was lost as a prompt appeared in front of me saying that my inventory was no longer restricted. I quickly brought up the menu and took out the last remaining HP vial I had and poured it down the crevasse in my forearm. But I had run out of time, indicated by the sudden shock I felt on my ribs as Yamori kicked me with all his strength.

“Are you happy now?” Yamori asked with a calm but furious tone “You ruined EVERYTHING!” He stepped on my hand and crouched down. “This was supposed to be my story” he smashed my finger with butt of his machete which made me groan in pain “I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE IT’S HERO!” and he smashed another “IT’S PROTAGONIST!” and another “AND YOU…TOOK IT FROM ME!”

He got back up and threw away his machete, but it slid under his main desk, a few inches in front of me. Yamori was no longer on me and he was unaware, but I had my eyes locked on the weapon and started to crawl towards it.

“I can’t protect anyone anymore. I can’t use my gear without it disintegrating. I won’t even be alive to see the end. To bring everyone to safety…. To be humanity’s savior” his voice sounded hopeless all of a sudden

His delusions and anger had him blinded…. I had to hurry before he caught on…. I pulled my heavy, shattered and torn body across the floor… The machete getting ever closer

“For all I endured, all I sacrificed…. This is what lied in wait for me?” He said

Almost…there

“You asked me if I was Judge, Jury, and Executioner when we first met….. and now, I think I am ready to hand out your sentence……Akio Nakamura, I sentence you….. to immediate execution.”

But as the machete was almost in my reach, Yamori kicked me in the stomach once again, and turned me over.

He got on top of me and put both his hands on my neck.

“A fucking nobody got the best of me… I will show you, who is the better man…who is the better survivor!”

He started to strangle me with all his remaining strength, and I tried to claw his face with my left hand but to no avail with my broken fingers. I wasn’t even able to get a gasp of air, and I was starting to black out.

I reached out with my other arm, flailing it around the machete’s general area in the hopes of pulling the machete closer to my hand.

And for my luck, it moved closer and even without my thumb, I managed to grip it with my remaining strength. For a moment, I saw that vision again, the hesitation still lingered but this time, I fought against my weakness.

I swung the machete at Yamori with all I had.

I felt a sudden resistance causing the blade to stop, and this time, I saw it clearly. The long blade dug itself into Yamori’s neck, causing him to regurgitate blood. I pulled the blade out of his neck and Yamori fell onto me, with blood pooling down his neck like an opened faucet

I was frozen stiff at that moment as I still hadn’t come to terms on what I had done…. I could hear my heart beating faster than ever, and the sound of my every breath….. I had taken my first life by my own will.

Deep down, I knew Yamori deserved to die….he deserved it just for what he did to us alone….. But it still didn’t feel right.

But I made a mistake dropping my guard, as I suddenly felt a sharp stab on my shoulder. Yamori was up for a second wind and he injected me with the toxin he made in the lab when he was trying to kill me.

“If I am going down…. I’ll drag you to hell with me ", those served to be Yamori’s last words. And shockingly, might be the last I hear.

Yamori fell off me lifelessly and was lying on his side in a pool of his own blood. But my whole body started to go into overdrive. My vision felt like it was glitching out and like I was put through a meat grinder. The agony was indescribable.

HP…vial. I need…one….. But as I opened my inventory, there were none… I needed help. I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. But as I fought my excruciating and rising pain, and scrolled through my inventory, I found an item I had long forgotten.

.

.

“It’s tuned to our clan frequency, if you need anything, advice, help… You let us know” I remembered his words

I took the earpiece out of the inventory and pressed the button on it. I had weakened to the point that I dropped it on the floor and right next to my face. But even before a moment passed, there was an answer

“Took your long enough-”

“Jun…..help….me” I managed to squeeze out those last few words before my consciousness started fading….

My vision started to fade and all I was left was with my hearing

“Akio?...What’s going on? Where are you? Akio, ANSWER ME!.....AKIO? AKIO!”