Chapter 2
Tsubasa sat at the dinner table with his parents. They were having salmon for dinner, heavily seasoned with various herbs and spices.
"... So, dad, who was those people who came today?" Tsubasa asked, trying to sound as innocent as possible. Nevermind that he had already asked that question today, he wasn't satisfied with the answer.
"Oh, just some people from Seref, wanting to cut some more deals with me about the Elements we mine up around here in Apacer." His father answered the question without looking up. Tsubasa pressed harder.
"So... that person wouldn't happen to be Seth Arkh, would it?" His father coughed, and looked up at Tsubasa.
"Ha, you have a good brain for these things. Yes, that was Seth Arkh. Not quite as you expected, was he?"
Tsubasa looked down at his plate of food again, "Well, I guess not. Doesn't seem like a weapon dealer. Doesn't look quite that... ruthless." His father laughed again.
Tsubasa's mother spoke up, "Well, don't underestimate him. He may act look a good person, but I doubt he's really like that in private. You can't be that way and be CEO of your own corporate city."
Tsubasa muttered a small 'I guess...' and went back to his food. He was hungry today.
~~~
Tsubasa layed in bed, looking up at the ceiling. There was going to be another school day tomorrow. More of getting ignored and outcast by everyone. More icy looks from Rena. Tsubasa sighed, and rolled over. He didn't feel like going to sleep yet. It was 11:30, but he didn't feel very tired.
There was a book setting by his bed. Lazily, Tsubasa rolled over and picked it up. It was a throw-away novel, one that he had already read a while ago. He knew what was going to happen in the book, but thought he'd get sleepy if he read some. He flipped the book open to page one, and started reading.
~~~
In a dark room, Seth Arkh sat at a large supercomputer in Seref City. It was his computer. It was the computer that controlled every aspect of Seref, from production, to... other features. Alexander stood at his side, watching the monitor. Seth swiveled in his chair to look directly at Alexander.
"Alex, what do you think? It is quite a predicament, isn't it?"
Alexander looked at Seth, his cool eyes giving nothing away. "Sir, if you wish, the operation is ready to start." Alexander turned back to the monitor, and started watching the live camera feed of one of the factories making mechanical soldiers.
Seth swiveled back to the computer, and its keyboard. He looked briefly at the keys, before smiling. He started typing.
~~~
It was midnight now. Tsubasa was still awake, still reading. He still didn't feel tired at all. He was wondering if he should go and take some medicine to fall asleep. It was getting rather late, and it was always a pain to try and fall asleep when you just can't.
"Sigh... well, lets get up and go find some medi-"
Suddenly, everything around Tsubasa flashed white. He yelled out, blinded by the extreme light, and fell to his knees. There was an extreme roaring of sound and noise, and he thought he heard a rumbling. The roof, the ground, the walls, it was all crumbling, falling, disintegrating around him.
For the rest of the people in the city, they hadn't even felt it. Most of them had been asleep when the nuclear bomb had hit. For them, it had been a painless, quick death. Nothing of them was left. For the unlucky people who had been partying and laughing on the sidewalk, they only saw a quick flash before everything was over. Their shadow was branded onto the sidewalk, the only trace of them left. The winds picked up, pushing over walls, picking up debris, flinging it into buildings. The extreme heat caused fires, burning water and anything else that could possibly have been alive.
The mushroom cloud rose up, higher and higher in the night sky. There would be people in nearby cities who saw it, and would immidiately be shocked and terrified. The whole world would change, as the fallout was swept up by the winds, and spread around the countryside.
Apacer was devastated. Nothing would live there for many years.
Yet, Tsubasa was alive. His pajamas were gone, but he was alive. As his eyesight and hearing slowly came back, he looked up. He was terribly confused, and had no real idea of what had happened. He looked up, and could see the night sky, with the remnants of the mushroom cloud still lingering in the sky.
He heard nothing. That nothing was a terrible nothing, the worst sound Tsubasa had ever heard in his life. He tried to get to his feet, but couldn't. He was trembling all over. He struggled to open his mouth, and finding that he couldn't get any words out, chose to think instead.
"Okay, okay... this is all a dream. A dream. I'm in a dream. There was a nuclear bomb, it exploded, and I survived. It's just a dream. I'll really wake up, it'll be 4 AM, and I'll go back to sleep," Tsubasa thought to himself. He did not wake up. He wasn't sure what part had shocked him more, the fact that a nuclear weapon had hit, or the fact that through all it... he had just felt warm. All that destructive force, and he just felt a little warm. Oh, he had felt the winds, and he had heard the sounds and temporarily lost his vision, but... he was alive. No real protection, but he was okay.
There was a sound, finally. Tsubasa looked up, and a small piece of the rubble moved. There was a small capsule, which Tsubasa had never noticed before. It looked like a small blue sphere. It would have been in his room... no, Tsubasa said, it would have been in the floor. Tsubasa looked at it, before it split apart, and one part slid off. A small hologram was projected into the air, only about a foot wide and a foot tall. As Tsubasa watched, the images of his mother and father appeared on the screen.
"Hello, Tsubasa. If you are hearing this, it means that we are dead, and you are alive," said the image of his father.