Part 5: Looking Back

-TWO DAYS LATER-

-SUICIDE FOREST, MOUNT FUJI-

Phantom Task was still grieving over their recent loss. The fact that Squall was quite literally the only thing holding them together was still sending shockwave after shockwave of harsh reality throughout the group. They didn't know what to do. They just continued to live in the forest, making everything they needed without saying one lick.

Which, even for past standards, was off. At least back then, they talked about battle tactics and whose hair to pull out. Here, nothing. No one knew what to say, not even Sokoto, and he's the wisest crack of all the wisecracks! He just sat under the only standing tree, arms hugging his knees, staring at the ground. He did nothing for two days, moving only to eat or bathroom. Autumn and Madoka only gave him passing glances. For the most part, they let him be, choosing to keep their sorrow at bay by focusing on their survival. Silver usually stayed hidden in the outskirts until it could hear the campfire roaring. It still held onto the locket Squall gave it, not even bothering to open it.

But this night was it. The campfire roared. Silver sat across from the trio. Autumn somehow made grasssnakeleafroadkill kebabs taste extra good. Knowing the renegade's patterns with food, that meant they cannot stay here any longer.

And Madoka couldn't take the silence anymore. "Ok, I'll bite," she said, starting Autumn.

"You never start talking unless it's to slice your face off!" Autumn yelped, "And how come you didn't beeline towards pony boy?!"

"I don't know..." Madoka sighed, "I guess it's because Sokoto wore me out to exhaustion. It was easier to let go than to hold on."

"And you never said his name before," Autumn griped, "What the hell has he done to us?..."

Silver pointed to Sokoto. Then, she pointed to where the heart would be if she were a human. Then, she spread her arms.

"Ugh, I was afraid that would happen..." Autumn groaned, "Ever since we found this guy, he's been nothing but a pain..."

"Yeah..." Madoka smiled (GOD HELP US ALL!), "I still remember when he couldn't tell the difference between breasts and a train wreck..."

"He still can't..." Autumn commented, "like when he freaked out when I caressed him, and suddenly three months later he can't tell a curling iron from a feather..."

Silver retreated into its standby mode, desperate to delete what it just heard.

"That...why would you..." Madoka blanked out.

"Heheheh," Autumn grinned, "I have my obsessions."

"Any of them involve extreme BDSM?"

"Do you even know what that is?"

"I hear you doing something to Squall every night back in Shibuya..."

"Eugh...I thought we soundproofed the walls..."

"Lady-everyone could hear you and her going at it! I swear I could even hear you like five prefectures away or something!"

"Speaking of... the renegade called us a lot during that time."

"He what?!"

"He called about when we're gonna strike at the compound, and when he asked why we sounded so out of breath, I told him we were running."

"Oh, he ran alright...but he got a phone?! No wonder there were more patrol geeks there suddenly!"

"What'd he do?"

"He made a makeshift mask and started the legend of the penis man..."

"Ohhhh, so that's what he did at the compound."

"If he carried that mask into Gunma..."

"They were only in there for a few days..."

"A few days, my ass. I don't know what he did, but done it big."

"Oh, yeah. He even got that drill-brained blonde bimbo in on the fun!"

"I don't wanna know..."

"Y'know...he wouldn't stop calling us even while we were in prison... he said that Squall planned to make it up to us when this whole "Silvia" fiasco was all said and done..."

"Really?...Squall...said that?..."

"And he got some help from a blue-haired, droopy eyed hairpin girl-"

"KANZASHI?!"

"...yyeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhhh?...What is with you, seriously?..."

"God... and through all that...when they split..."

"They still kept contact somehow. I know it..."

"Did he tell you how?..."

"Nope. He just showed me. Well, I tried to show him up by torturing-"

"WILL YOU SHUT UP ABOUT THE MAN SLAVE THING?!"

"But I got caught up in the passion. Every time."

"...Oh. Well..."

"And then he had this thing where we would sing our hearts out...let out all of our frustrations by screaming into the mic, telling the world how we felt."

"...how did you feel?..."

"...great, actually. I can't explain it, but...suddenly I didn't wanna murder so much anymore..."

"Same with me. Back in DisneySea, I sat there watch the fireworks. Squall wasn't on her usual gruntled self. She f*ing asked me what my favorite ride was..."

"Ok. I'm calling it. The renegade swallowed a core."

"That's impossible. He wouldn't have lived through it."

"Ok, but he had to have been influenced by something radioactive. If it ain't a melting core, then what?"

"Not a what," Sokoto interrupted their lively conversation, "a who."

Silver reassumed her android form and knelt down beside the fire.

"Dude!" Autumn jumped, "Since when were you listening?!"

"Since you two yapped for five minutes," he answered and stood up staring at the full moon.

Autumn and Madoka looked at each other funny. Like they can't believe that they were even acquaintances. They never talk friendly. Ever. There's no denying it now, as if they ever mustered any effort to deny it in the first place.

"When I was little," Sokoto said, "I was hiding away behind a dumpster, cuddles in warm clothes. And through that tiniest of peepholes, I saw it."

"What'd you see?" Madoka asked.

"A woman," he answered, "cuddling her son. Giving him her own warmth." He turned to them, "That's the image that burnt into my brain. That's what I wanted to protect." He walked back to the fire and sat ccas, "But it looks like I failed before I even began."

Madoka and Silver looked at each other.

"Ahem...just throwing this out there, but..." Autumn blushed, "Don't you have us?..."

Madoka face palmed. She hoped she wouldn't have to hear that. Sokoto looked at Autumn.

"I mean..." Autumn jittered, "Well...we're here...and we can...well..." She wagged her head and changed to the one question that's been eating her mind, "What was Squall to you, really?"

He thought about it for a minute. Then he gave his answer, "She's like a mother...the mother I wish I could have, but can't..."

"Haha..." Autumn weld up her tears, "So that's how it is..." She had their relationship completely wrong.

And he sensed it, "Not what you were expecting?"

"No..." Autumn buried her face, "I thought you were trying to steal her away from me...that's why I felt so uneasy about you... I thought she was fibbing, but then you did a big number on her..."

"Guess I should've clarified, huh?" He solemnly responded.

"That, and he's like twenty years younger than Squall," Madoka butt in, "So it's impossible for them to-"

Autumn went animalistic and mushed Madoka's hair in an effort to shut her up.

"What's your deal with Squall anyway?" Sokoto seemed to lighten up a bit, "I know you have beef with her, but where did it all come from?"

Autumn jolted. She turned back to him goofy-like, "You'll understand once you fall in love with someone..."

"The hell kind of answer is that?!" Madoka snapped, then realized that Sokoto didn't respond at all, "What? No wisecracks today?"

"Nah," he scratched his head, "I figured we needed a break..."

"Oh..." Madoka and Autumn were taken aback by Sokoto's split-second maturity.

"And while we're on the subject," Sokoto went on, "You called that guy "brother"."

"Ggg-" Madoka winced, "What waxed up your ears? I never said anything like that."

At which point Silver projected portraits of Ichika and Madoka, plus any personal information about them. Including the same birthdate/birthplace/birth time/surname.

"Well, ain't that just the biggest kick in the nuts," Autumn noogie'd Madoka, "Looks like even you can be flustered too!"

"SHAAAAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYA!" Madoka chased Autumn with her lances, "SHAAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYA!"

"Why is nipple?..." Sokoto muttered.

Silver saw them rounding the tree and let them slam into her wings. When she withdrew them, it was a surreal AM freak-out freeze frame comical collapse moment.

"So, you're a fan of slapstick, eh Silver?" Sokoto asked. Silver nodded.

"Ugh..." Madoka recovered, "That's some severe mood whiplash..."

"Well," Sokoto commented, "I'd say that all our lives were whipped the instant we ran into each other."

"I'll say..." Autumn sat next to Silver, "I would still be torturing Squall by now...probably never escape my sorrow if it weren't for him..."

"Same here," Madoka stretched by the fire, "I would've gone off the deep end and actually cut my face off...but then, what would I be?...My parents shunned me for not being Chifuyu or Ichika, just because I look like them...but now that they're gone, I am finally free..."

"Lemme guess," Autumn said, while holding a fishing tumbleweed bait, "You killed your parents, didn't you? NYAAdoka?"

"Yes, and go f*** yourself," Madoka swatted the ball away, before realizing what she just said, "Since when did you start joking around?!"

"Since I stopped wanting to sulk," Autumn answered, "Joking around is the number one distraction from the conversation, isn't it Sokoto?"

"Actually, I killed my parents too," Sokoto dropped an unnecessary bomb.

"WHAT WAS THAT YOU SAID ABOUT A MOTHER AND HER SON?!" Madoka and Autumn simultaneously shouted.

"It happened before that," Sokoto reminisced, "I can't remember what led up to that, but my mom burned the house down to prevent my escape when I was three. She held me by the neck and got ready to stab me. I shoved it in her arm... and since then, I did everything I could to make sure I never did anything like that again."

"Boy...that's rough..." Autumn said.

"But, it looks like I'll have to do it again," Sokoto declared.

"What do you mean?" Autumn asked.

"You had your way with Squall every day," he explained, "but don't you still feel like you have to give back tenfold?"

Autumn thought for a moment. "Yeah..." she responded, "I definitely feel like getting even after they killed her..."

"And you, Madoka," he said, "Do you still want to slash your face? Or is there someone else you want to slash?"

"No need to ask," Madoka said, "I'll always have a grudge regardless. But now I want to slice up Ichika's face. It's not his real one, after all..."

"I...see..." Sokoto saw the black tentacle aura around her, then turned to the Gospel, "What about you? Do you have anything you need to settle?"

Silver nodded, then pulled up an article it saved about the White Knight Missile Crisis.

"Hey, I know that story," Madoka said, "Supposedly, someone singlehandedly hacked into every missile system in the world and fired off all the missiles at Tokyo. It was an IS unit, the White Knight, that stopped every single missile in just five minutes. But no one knows how they were fired in the first place."

Silver then projected a bunch of images from her helmet, ranging from different nuclear silos to random ground wires. It then rearranged them in a pattern that mapped the flow of the weapons and wires, to a central collage. A mountain blanketed with villas and trees, on an island. Within a villa was an extremely convoluted process to access a hidden lab. On a desk were papers of codes for every missile currently in existence.

And in another image was a silhouette of a female with rabbit ears, grabbing those codes and inputting them into the computer.

"Rabbit Girl?!" Sokoto was utterly shocked, "It was Rabbit Girl the whole f*ing time?!"

Silver nodded. Then, she showed an image of a red alert, followed by another of a dogfight between it and IS Representative Contenders, many of whom they've all seen before.

"You had severely classified information!" Autumn said, "That's why the world was freaking out when you suddenly moved without a pilot!"

"No, that's just a cover up," Sokoto gritted, "What I wanna know is, why would she do this?!"

"To show off her classy toys," Madoka hissed, "When she introduced the IS, no one took her seriously. So, she worked her hacking magic and put on a little show for the whole world to see."

"And your previous pilot found out," Sokoto finished solving the equation, "So, they killed her. This rattled you into being because you and her shared an intense bond. And so, you fought to finish the mission, bringing you here."

Silver nodded. She crossed her stomach, showing everyone where she was struck down. Then, she drew a heart shape over her left bosom, marking the location of the core. Whoever finished her off missed by a long shot. Once her barrier was depleted and her body was penetrated, she activated her Safe Mode. This kept her core intact, but rendered her inactive until someone came to reactivate her.

Silver cleared its screens. She sat ccas and stared very intently at the fire, and dunked some more wood and a tiny laser, bringing it to a blaze.

"I'm with the Gospel," Madoka growled, "They have to pay."

"No argument here," Autumn agreed, "but I don't think our pitchforks will reach Tabane...or any other pilot."

"Not alone," Sokoto suddenly remembered something and started running, "Everyone follow me!"

Without a clue where to, the trio darted after the renegade, who was following a series of negative auras he first sensed when Autumn dragged him into the forest. They trudged through the trees and thick grass that weren't caught in the rampage until he found it. The source of all his major headaches.

"There," he pointed to a compound tussled within the greenery, "by that impression."

Madoka, Autumn, and Silver came to and peered over the bushes. And they all regretted it.

It was a male prison camp. Very well hidden within the confines of the trees and mountains, made completely undetectable by anything technology. Here, men and boys were made to provide lumber for the region, using only saws, axes, red and black checkered tops, and blue jeans. Their only role here was to fulfill the ultimate woman fantasies, by becoming an object of desire. Whoever falls behind is subject to extreme humiliation. Whoever meets quotas has their life force drained, until they are too weak to even walk. But no matter what happened, they were all made to feel worthless. And this was their home for the rest of their lives. Such was the way of the underbelly of society.

"What in the..." Autumn was appalled, "The old Phantom Task never said anything about this..."

"I could get down with the lumberjack getup," Madoka said, "but this is..."

"...overkill," Sokoto muttered, "Look over th-"

A van drove up to the gates. A woman stepped out and yanked the door open. Someone in the car kicked a boy off and into the fist of the woman.

"That's the boy I was talking about, the one from my image!" Sokoto hissed, "But where's his mom?!"

"If he's here alone, then..." Madoka said as they all saw the boy suffocate into unconsciousness. Then, they dragged him in to do Who-Knows-What.

"Between psychotic behavior and murderous tendencies," Autumn whispered as she witnessed a man being converted into a toilet, "this would be more than enough to make me rethink everything I've ever done..."

"How come I'm only finding out about this now?" Madoka said as she saw a teenage boy get sex'd to death.

"Thy hands be stained with the blood of thine own kin," Sokoto threw away his sanity, "And now, thou shalt know the wrath of the human life."

"We're going to attack that camp?" Madoka threw hers away too.

"Not just the camp," so did Autumn, "Look who's guarding it," she pointed to Mt. Fuji.

Silver changed her sky blue color scheme to crimson red. She then displayed a study of Mt. Fuji, an active volcano, and a news article, containing a statement from Tabane Shinonono herself, stating that she will personally deal with the renegade.

"As if we needed any more reason to let ourselves go of our inhibitions," Madoka growled, then turned to Sokoto, "so what's the plan?" And everyone turned to him.

"Silver and I will deal with Rabbit Girl," Sokoto commanded, "You two jump into the camp and live stream everything to the world."

"What about Fuji-San?" Autumn hissed.

"Leave that to me," Sokoto said, "And whatever you do, stay in the camp until I say you can come back."

"Understood," Madoka and Autumn said.

"How's everyone's energy?" Sokoto asked.

The Black Knight, Shinomure, and Silverio Gospel all showed full energy reserves and shield strength.

"Go now," Sokoto said, "If you get caught, f*** everything and wing it."

Madoka and Autumn left and snuck their way towards the camp. Silver stood up and looked at Sokoto, giving off an unsure aura.

"I'm fine," Sokoto walked back to the tree, "I just needed a way to let loose for a while."

Silver reverted to her default blue scheme.

"Well, how else am I gonna get my point across?" Sokoto said, "If I learned anything, it's that people don't learn easy. They've become immune to all that peace on earth crap. They're like selective sponges."

Silver cocked her head sideways.

"It'll take forever to explain properly," Sokoto said, "Right now, we have to prepare for Rabbit Girl's inevitable rampage."

Silver displayed images of Crescendo, Schwarzer Regen, and Silvia, all taken by local satellites.

"Dunno if we can get her back," Sokoto responded, "But we're going to try."

Silver nodded, then opened her radar. This time, there were twenty one red dots, coming from the south end. She grasped his hand and wore the locket. He stared up at the midnight sky, preparing his heart for the fight that must happen in order to put everything to rest once and for all. He tightened his grip on Silver and fill the gaps between their fingers. They stared at the starry canvas, taking note of the few stars that seemed to grow. It's them. The ones that will represent the will of Japan in this one fight alone.

Sokoto and Silver stood their ground, waiting for their first strike. "Well, Japan," they hummed, "the price to banish us has tripled."

At last, the deciding fight is about to get underway. Tabane Shinonono, the creator of the Infinite Stratos, has decided to take matters into her own hands to settle the score once and for all.

Laura Bodewig, the woman who has tailed the renegade for the entire rampage, and Chelsea Blackett, who seeks to finish what her former friend could not, join the fight, along with every able-bodied Academy staff member and soldier of the German Elite unit.

Madoka and Anna dig deep into the sudden man-thrall conspiracy to find answers, but they have no idea what secrets await them.

Sokoto and the Gospel, hands intertwined, now face the prospect of their final fight together. Can they hope to emerge victorious, or is this the one fight from which there is no escape for either side?

The fate of the Chūbu region...on the season finale of Infinite Stratos...Virus.