Epilogue: I am Miyazaki Hiro

I can't remember anything… I can't understand what is happening here.

"Iwasawa--- I mean, Miyazaki-san. Here is your meal."

"T-Thank you. But please don't cook for me anymore. I can-"

"I have my orders. I'm sorry, Miyazaki-san."

I was made to stay in this room in the castle with regular meals even though I insisted that I can cook for myself. I have tried to escape once and I thought they would force me back to the room but instead, they arranged for a car to tour me around the city although they insisted that I can't get out.

"Just… what is happening here?"

I confused about where I am and why I am being treated so specially in this place that resembled a certain historical period that I know and yet is distinctly advanced in some kind of way.

The architecture in the city and clothes worn by the people belong to the feudal era of Japan, and yet the city streets are wide enough to accommodate the cars that dart around to and fro and there are some who wear clothes that do not belong to the Japanese aesthetic such as business suits and blouses.

There is also the fact that there is electricity in the city that is produced by a nearby hydroelectric dam and a certain powerplant that I heard about that had to be built away from any city. With that alone, I knew that it must be a nuclear powerplant because of the wariness that was put for it.

It was all surreal to me. I can't make sense of how this place became like this.

But most of all, I became worried about the fact that for so long, no one has answered my one greatest question of all.

"When can I come back to Old Tokyo? My family must be worried about me."

To be exact, I have received an answer from someone, but I can't accept that as a fact… or more importantly, I don't want to accept it as a fact.

"Whatever she said can't be true. How could've the world end and I have reincarnated into another world? Hahaha! Heh…"

While I was halfway on finishing my meal, my mind began to race and think of something wrong that I have kept down in my mind all this time.

"That can't be real, right? That… isn't true, is it?"

I looked outside the window of the room and for sure, I cannot remember ever seeing it in my memories… but… what is this feeling…

"Why does it feel like I have seen this before? No… I have been there before."

As my gaze went to the harbor area, I heard a voice inside my head… a shout that felt so real as if I have been there myself.

["Boats in the water! Boats in the water!"]

["They're going land, Kou-sama!"]

"Kh!"

My head began to sting as I remembered the smell of gunpowder, the seemingly unending sound of explosions and gunfire going off around me and a faintly familiar voice that called me "lord".

But most of all, I was most shocked when I heard my own voice shout out:

["Rain lead on them! FIRE!!!"]

As I held my head in pain, my gaze fell on a bottle of Sake that came with my dinner. With that, I remembered a gruesome scene in front of me.

["They're drunk, my liege."]

["They've either lost consciousness or can't stand up."]

In front of me and surrounded by armed men are a group of dirty men drenched in Sake and obviously drunk to their souls. This is when I heard my voice once again speak.

["Burn them. See to it that they receive an appropriate introduction to the suffering they will have in the afterlife."]

The scene quickly turned into a horrifying one as the men drenched in alcohol were burned and was continuously thrown more alcohol. Some of them who stood up to either roll around or run away was shot immediately.

I held my mouth as the nauseating odor of burning human flesh surfaced from these unfamiliar memories of mine. However, my eyes were led to a paper talisman that was on the floor and a memory played in my mind.

["We have to defend the town!"]

["Support the front with gunfire! Engage in your discretion!"]

I was standing on the palisade of a wall and was leading a number of people against misshapen monsters that emerged from a growing crack in the ground.

["Don't let up! We either win or we will lose everything!"]

These memories inundated my mind and with it came an excruciatingly pain in my head that I groaned and writhed on the floor for what I can only describe as almost an eternity.

"No… it can't be---!"

Finally, the last of these fragmented memories played and it was a horror beyond anything I have seen before.

["The test is a success! We've initiated a nuclear chain detonation!"]

["""Wahooo-!!!"""]

And just like before, I heard my voice again.

["Prepare for serial production. I want to have that in the battlefield as soon as possible."]

It was me… I did it. I gave the order that could doom the entire world.

But more than that, I am sure of it now…

"No… No, no, no! This can't be real! This has to be a lie!!!"

Dad, mom, Koshiro-aniki, Mio, Yukari… All of them… they're gone.

"Who am I…? No, what… am I?"

I am Miyazaki Hiro. That is what I know and what I remember.

But if all of those memories that I keep on seeing is mine as well whilst I can't remember if I am really the one doing it, then… just who am I really then?

"It seems like you've come to the right answer by yourself, Iwasawa… No, Hiro-san."

"Y-you…"

"I apologize, my lord. Please understand that I am doing this not only for your own good but also for all of us living beneath your wise leadership."

This is when I realized what the servant from before meant when she said that "I have my orders".

"The food… what did you just-"

"I must do all that I can do for the sake of the greater good, my lord… even if it means hurting you very, very much."

At that moment, the pain in my head became more than what I can bear and I lost consciousness on the spot. Before I lost my senses, I heard the gentle footstep followed by a sweet and familiar voice of a woman.

"Please forgive me too, Hiro."