Part 217: NGAE: ~/cyan/betray/red/ally/ally sigma\$ phi.exe

This face...

Listen in: [English/Japanese]


It's your face, Doctor Sigma Klim.
Although to the you that's behind it now, it's your face forty-five years from now.

VLR OST: [Demise]










That's bullshit!


No. It's the truth.
Fighting it isn't going to do you any good. Please, Doctor...


I'm not a doctor!


You will be.
A pioneer in the field of genetic engineering...


You're lying!


No, I'm not.




Well, I suppose I should say you are going to create him.


Create...?


His name is Kyle Klim.
Your clone.
That is why he looks just like a younger version of yourself.
Twenty-three years ago, in the biolab here in Rhizome 9, you created Kyle.
Well, I suppose for you, that's still in the future.




The gravity here is only one sixth of Earth's.
If nothing was done, the reduced gravity would cause his bones to be weaker than normal human ones.
But you prepared for that...




You gave him that armor.
Ever since he was born he's lived inside of it.
It kept his muscles and bones strong.
He wasn't forced into it for the Nonary Game...
He's been wearing it every day, all his life.




Why would I—why would...future me...create a clone?


He was to be your...spare.
If something happened to you before the project began, he would take your place.

[Music fades out]


...
...






That isn't all they mean, though.
The A also means "Anima," and the B means "Body."
"Anima" is another word for the soul, or the consciousness. "Body" is, well, exactly what it says on the tin.
The past consciousness will go into the future body, and the future consciousness will go into the past body. They...switch.
That was the chief goal of the project.


Wait, so the...future person goes into the...past person...?


Sigma, do you remember the note you found in the garden?


You mean...this, right?




Yes.
Ah, of course, it was you who investigated the garden in this timeline.


Yeah.


Sigma, take a good look at this.
It's an illustration of the time jumps your consciousness is making.


...
...

VLR OST: [Clarification]


"A" is where everything began.




December 25th, 2028.




From there, you jumped to "B."




January 25th, 2074.




You are in your own body, but it is sixty-seven years old.
Your consciousness has jumped forty-five years into the future.
I believe that may explain why you didn't notice the reduced lunar gravity.
The body you woke up in was much older... Normally you would have noticed that your muscles were much weaker.
In this case, however, the lower gravity balanced that out.


...
...




If you continue along this line, what happens next?




You reach "C," which is January 27th, 2074.
That is today.




Are you saying it's been two days since we woke up?




Have you already forgotten? You were all infected with Radical-6.
The virus slowed your brain down.
So yes, thirty-six hours of "real" time have passed...
But to you, it only seemed like 14 hours and 40 minutes.


...
...




After this, your consciousness will return to the past.
It will re-emerge at point "D."




April 13th, 2029.
You will return to your younger body.


But that's the same day as the reactor explosions!


Yes.




You will return to the past, but the events you would want to prevent will have already happened.


...
...


The story does not end there, however.
The line continues.




But this time you won't be jumping through time, or at least not at a rate faster than normal.




Until you reach point "B"...


...
...




January 25th, 2074.
According to what you just told us, it's 36 hours ago.


Correct.
That was when the consciousness of the twenty-two year old Sigma jumped into the body of sixty-seven year old Sigma.
So where did the older version of you go when you took his body?




Point "A"...
December 25, 2028. The day all of this started...


Yes.
His consciousness will go back in time forty-five years.
For a period of time, he will inhabit your younger body. While your younger consciousness is elsewhere, he will be you in the past.


But once that body reaches point "D," my twenty-two year old consciousness will come back from point "C"...


That's correct.
When that happens, the older version of you will be ejected from your younger body and return to your body at "C."


So it's...rotating?




I suppose you could put it that way.
But look at this illustration closely.




You get one single line.
It may look complicated, but in truth it's a single, straight path.
With one exception...




Exactly.




Point "E" is December 31st, 2028—the day of the total eclipse.


The day Radical-6 got out of the test facility...


Yes.
By now you've likely figured it out on your own.




If we can do that, we can change what happened forty-five years ago.


So the old version of me will keep Radical-6 from getting out...
...By jumping into my twenty-two year old body on New Year's Eve 2028?


Yes.
That is why this line could not be interrupted.




In order to get to point "D," we must jump from point "C"...
And for point "C" to happen, we had to recreate everything that happened in this facility.
That is why we have faithfully retraced history up to this point.
So that we might save humankind from destruction...
And undo the horrors of the last forty-five years...

[Music fades out]


...
...



999 OST: [Trepidation]




What is that?




There's going to be a jump, and I'll jump to April 13th, 2029.


Yes, that's right.




When is this jump supposed to happen?


Very soon.


Soon?


Yes.


And what's going to trigger it?


We need potential energy stored to send your consciousness into the fourth dimension.
Fortunately, we now have plenty of that. Thanks, ironically, to Radical-6.
All that remains is to launch your consciousness... Like a bullet from a slingshot...


And how do you propose to do that?


Didn't I tell you?




A moment balanced between life and death.
That can jump-start your brain.


Uh...what do you mean?


You haven't figured it out...?


...?


I mean this.

[Music cuts out]




Dio's knife...?



No sooner were the words out of my mouth—







I screamed and leapt toward them.
Akane was already in motion, the knife diving toward Phi's chest.

I was almost there—!





When I regained consciousness, I was on the floor.
There was a dull pain in my chest.
I felt for a cut, but something was in the way.
It took me a moment to realize that it was Akane's body, lying on top of me.
I twisted my neck to look around.



VLR OST: [Virtue's Last Reward (Orchestra)]

Nearby was an old tombstone.
On it was written a few words in Latin...





Credits! Special credits! We're treated to a slideshow of CG scenes and a new, orchestral arrangement of the game's main theme!

You may not believe it to be possible, but they somehow managed to cram a spoiler into these credits!

This is kind of inevitable because, even though we're not done with the story yet, these are the final credits of the game, in case the music and the CGs didn't give that away.



And I think we all know where this is going.



This is the only trophy that doesn't pop up on the ending card. Your guess is as good as mine with regards to why this is.





And there they all are. Fun fact: The endings are represented on the save screen in the left-to-right order they appear in on the flowchart. That's cool.