At the decisive moment when Steins;Gate reached its twenty-first episode, the newest volume of the anime's BD was officially released as well.
The original work of Steins;Gate, in Sora's previous life, had come from a Japanese visual novel, the kind of text adventure that depended less on direct action and more on choices, branching routes, and the slow accumulation of consequences. In the game, the story did not follow a single fixed path. Besides the Alpha, Beta, and Steins Gate world lines mentioned in the anime, there were other possibilities as well: the Omega world line, the Epsilon world line, the Gamma world line, and many more variations beyond them.
All of those routes began from the same cruel premise: the protagonist could not find a perfect solution. Unable to save everything at once, he was forced to accept fate's mockery, sacrificing either Makise or Shiina, and each choice led him toward a different life.
There was, for instance, a route where he married and had children with the young man who, in a certain world line, lived as a woman. Another route had him become lovers with Faris. There was also the story where he boarded the time machine with Suzuha and returned to the past, only for everything to end without ever reaching a true resolution.
Within those alternative world lines, much more detailed information appeared about the characters featured in the anime. One example was the reason Makise would eventually join SERN in the future of the Alpha world line. The anime never explained it, but the game did. Because the protagonist could not accept sacrificing Makise in order to save Shiina, he gave up on reaching the Beta world line. As a result, Makise joined SERN for one purpose alone: to build a time machine and change Shiina's fate.
Sora also compiled some of that information into short bonus booklets, distributed together with the BDs, much like he had done with the "if" routes of Re:Zero. His goal was to help Japanese anime fans better understand the layers behind the characters and the vastness of that world.
And those additions made countless fans of Steins;Gate realize, all at once, just how enormous the universe behind the story truly was.
"So that means there's also a route where Faris never sends the message and becomes the true heroine?"
"What about Ruka? Does Okabe get some insane emotional development with Ruka?"
"Ruka is a guy, bro."
"But in one of the later world lines, she's a girl."
"You have very particular tastes."
"No. Your thinking is just too shallow."
"I didn't expect to find out from the setting booklet that the Makise of the Alpha line joins SERN in the future to develop a time machine and save Shiina. I knew it. My Makise would never go against Okabe for no reason."
"It's such a shame Kantoku Sora only included some setting booklets with the BDs. Unlike Re:Zero, he didn't make any proper spin-off if routes…"
"What are you dreaming about? If they actually developed all those hypothetical world line stories from Steins;Gate properly, each one would be almost as long as the main anime. How could they possibly do that? At most, they'd turn it into a second season, maybe even a third."
"A second season… a third season…"
"Ah…"
"Why are you all sighing?"
"Because I'm starting to think that old scoundrel Sora is the biggest pit-digger in the Japanese anime industry. Natsume Yuujinchou also left a bunch of mysteries unresolved. To this day, I still don't know how many pages are in the Book of Friends. Re:Zero is the same. It's been a year and there's still no news about season three. Now Steins;Gate clearly has a ton of material that could be explored in depth, but that old scoundrel will probably abandon the Alpha world line and move straight into the Beta line."
"Get used to it. Heh."
"It makes me mad, but there's nothing we can do. Every new pit he opens is just as good as the old ones. Even if he never fills them in, I end up accepting it anyway."
"I hope Kantoku Sora spends the next two years only filling old pits and doesn't start anything new."
"Right now, I just hope Kantoku Sora can tell the full story of Steins;Gate within this season. Please, no second season. Following this anime is already painful enough. I don't even want to think about anything else."
"Don't look too far ahead. The most important thing now is whether the last four episodes of Steins;Gate can hold the story up. Please, just don't let it fall apart at the end."
"There's no way it'll fall apart. This anime started with low popularity. It only exploded halfway through."
By Friday, discussion around the plot of Steins;Gate on the Japanese internet had already surpassed every other anime of the season.
Every production airing that cour on the four major television networks, including the first season of AD, was having its space in public discussion squeezed by Steins;Gate. The massive audience in Japan that had formed after the success of Re:Zero, fans who loved time-loop narratives, found common ground with viewers drawn to cerebral, high-IQ mind-game works like Liar Game. The attention gathered by Steins;Gate exceeded everyone's expectations.
After a full week of fermentation, many people inside the Japanese television industry began to feel the same atmosphere as the previous year, when the second season of Re:Zero had dominated public conversation.
By evening, anime fans from every corner had begun speculating about where the story would go next. Most importantly, the two camps that had existed since the premiere - the Shiina faction and the Makise faction - had finally entered open war, just like the Rem and Emilia factions during the late stages of Re:Zero's second season.
As broadcast time drew near, Kensuke set down his phone in irritation.
Arguing with those Shiina supporters had given him a headache.
Shiina dying like that was, without a doubt, pitiful. She was innocent, gentle, far too warm a presence for such a brutal fate.
But Makise was the best-written female character in the entire anime. The most vivid. The most complex. The most human.
What was all this nonsense about Makise having been meant to die from the start if that first time message had never existed? What did they mean, returning to the Beta world line was merely setting the world back on its proper course?
Did the world truly have something called a "proper course"?
Was a world where Shiina lived and Makise died really the natural outcome?
Who had decided that?
Kensuke took a deep breath and turned his gaze back to the television.
At that moment, the station was already airing the promotional video for the second cour of AD, scheduled for the next season.
"This anime is getting a second season?"
A trace of disappointment passed through Kensuke's eyes.
If he had a choice, he would rather Kantoku Sora adapt every possible branching development of the different Steins;Gate world lines into anime.
At exactly eight o'clock, the episode began.
If I return to the Beta world line… if I erase that message… you will die.
Okabe's inner monologue echoed.
Before him, Makise lay on the rooftop.
Both Makise and Okabe knew, at that moment, the cruel fate waiting for them.
If Okabe used the IBN 5100 to hack into SERN's system in that world line and delete all the time messages he had sent so far, the world would leave the Alpha line - where Shiina would die in the future ruled by SERN - and shift into the Beta line, where Makise was the one destined to die.
And yet Makise, knowing all of this, showed neither panic nor unease.
She merely looked up at the sky in silence.
In the dim stairwell below the rooftop, Makise and Okabe were alone together. The mad scientist and his genius assistant remained the same as ever. Bickering. Trading barbs. Keeping up that noisy rhythm that, in earlier episodes, might have even seemed comedic.
But in Kensuke's eyes, every one of those scenes now carried a faint sadness, as if the farewell had already begun before either of them dared to say it.
"This is where I was attacked, isn't it?"
"How do you know that?"
"Because the pain and despair I felt in that dream were far too real."
Makise spoke in an almost cruelly light tone.
"And it wasn't only that. Inside my head, there are memories like phantoms. Not just the memory of being attacked. I also remember, vaguely, how desperately you fought to save Shiina. Even when your hand was injured, you kept moving forward. Even though you couldn't return to the original world, you still struggled with everything you had. Crying, suffering, yet still trying to save her without ever looking back. Whenever I remember those things, I can feel just how irreplaceable she is to you."
"No…" Kensuke clenched his fists.
Makise, don't say it like that.
With that tone, with those faint memories of everything that happened between you and Okabe over so many loops…
Isn't this exactly the setup for Okabe to sacrifice you and save Shiina?
Kensuke's chest felt heavy.
Although he rejected with all his strength the argument made by Shiina's fans - that in the original world, Makise was supposed to be dead, that she only survived because the world line changed, and that Shiina was merely the price paid for Makise's continued existence - he knew the story was probably moving in that direction.
Sacrificing Makise so Shiina could live seemed to be the only way out.
Because under that choice, the protagonist would not be burdened by direct moral condemnation. He would simply be allowing someone who had died at the very beginning to return to the fate of death.
And yet…
"That's why I want to help you. I want to be your strength. Hey, Okabe… save Shiina. Go save her."
The assistant said it with her back turned to him, in a calm voice that hurt to hear.
Even if that choice meant her own death in that other world line, she showed no fear.
Because Makise was that kind of woman. Proud, stubborn, incapable of speaking honestly about her own feelings, yet always thinking of others before herself. A genius scientist who hid her heart behind a sharp tongue.
"And what about you? What happens to you? Are you telling me to give up on you?"
Okabe's voice trembled.
"I can't do that. And I never will."
After saying that, Okabe ran away.
The sight of him refusing to accept that fate was beautiful, almost heroic, but Kensuke still let out a sigh.
The idea that effort would always be rewarded, that as long as one refused to give up there would always be hope, was often nothing more than empty comfort.
In most situations, people were not choosing between a bad option and a good one. They were simply choosing between something terrible and something even worse. There was no ordinary alternative, much less a beautiful one.
Okabe returned to the laboratory and put on his headphones, determined to leap back in time once again.
As long as he did not make a choice, he could continue living through those same few days using the improvised time-leap machine for consciousness.
Again and again.
Forever.
As long as he did not choose, Makise and Shiina could coexist within those endlessly repeated days.
But that was…
"Don't run away, Okabe. Running away will only increase your pain."
At the crucial moment, Makise grabbed Okabe's finger before he could press the confirmation button for another leap.
"No matter how many times you leap, you won't be able to cross the one percent barrier. You'll only keep watching Shiina die countless times, until you break."
Makise's voice was already trembling with tears.
Kensuke drew in a deep breath, his nose stinging.
This story was becoming almost too painful to endure.
Compared to the direct confrontations against SERN in previous loops, this kind of suffering was much crueler. It was like a slow blade, cutting little by little into the emotional flesh of the two most important characters in the work, exposing their wounds before the audience without haste and without mercy.
"How many times do you think I've seen Shiina die by now?"
Okabe looked at Makise with hollow eyes.
"I've seen it countless times. I won't break. I would never break over something so small."
A sharp slap rang out.
Makise struck Okabe across the face.
"What are you saying? Shiina dies in agony! How can that be something small? If something like that no longer shakes you, then the truth is, you've already broken!"
The conversation between the boy and the girl continued inside the laboratory.
Pain was written clearly across both their faces. Even so, in the end, it was Makise who spoke again.
"Save Shiina. If you don't, you'll collapse. You're only going back. Going back to the world from the beginning."
The girl embraced the boy.
The room fell into silence.
"I'm sorry… I can't save you."
Okabe made his choice.
Kensuke felt his heart tremble.
He was on Makise's side. He wanted Okabe to choose Makise. He wanted him to remain in that world line.
But if this was Makise's choice…
"I will never forget you. Never. You are more important to me than anyone else. I… I love you."
The instant he made his decision, Okabe finally gave words to the feelings that had grown inside him for Makise through countless cycles between world lines.
And in that exact moment, Makise embraced him too.
Then she kissed him.
For the first time, Kensuke watched a love confession scene and felt no happiness at all.
Only sorrow.
"Okabe… can't you think about it a little more? Isn't there really some way to save Makise?"
"Old scoundrel Sora… what about you? Makise is a female character you created. Are you really going to remove her from the story in episode twenty-two? Is that truly what you want this work to say?"
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