2025-06-25: Posthumous Release
- Log: 2025-06-25: Posthumous Release
- Cast: Akane Shinjo
- Where: Bay Tower, 3G Section - Akane Shinjo's Office (Recorded)
- Date: U.C. 00100 06 25
- Summary: This video arrives from a 3G Intelligence junior operator's desk, just under two weeks after Akane's final report-in and subsequent apparent death.
It's Akane! She's sitting in her office.
"If you're watching this, um, I died between the day after Christmas 0099 and the day after Christmas 0100. This is the... second, one of these I've made? I'm probably going to be versioning this once a year minimum."
She reaches over and adjusts the camera position very slightly.
"Uh, wow. It sucks that you're watching this. I hope I died doing something worthwhile and didn't just choke on something, or get hit by a car, or whatever. I can't really know! That's the weird part about these, you know? Maybe no one ever sees this. Maybe it goes out tomorrow!"
She closes her eyes for a few moments, tilting her head up. She has to get her thoughts in order -- a process that takes a little while.
"I think about this a lot less than I used to. You know... dying. I guess you think about it a lot when you're unhappy, because, like, wow. This is it, huh. You do this and then you just die? That's super unfair. Some of it is probably coping or whatever, but I think some of it is..."
A content little sigh.
"I got to be happy. A lot of you fought really hard to give me that. Apparently I only got like, three years of it, but... it's really good, you know? I got to do so many things I thought I'd just, die before doing. I got to go to university. I got surgery. I got my first art commission for more than six digits, technically. I got to propose to a girl I liked, if you're watching this after January."
She's tearing up a little at this point.
"I guess some part of me is afraid of what the last thing people will remember is. Like maybe the last conversation we had was a fight over something stupid like the current season of Tarabaman, or I had to bring you bad news from my desk and then I walked out and immediately some BioNet guy shot me in the head. You never know, right?"
"So I guess this is insurance. I don't have, like, secret intel, probably. I'd version this thing up if I did? This is just... You guys believed in me once, and... well, if something stupid happens I don't want that to be the note we leave off on. 3G -- and your friends, like the people you worked with in the former AEUG and Karaba, and the Gridman Alliance, and stuff... You guys were like family. Depending on when this goes out maybe one of you is family now! That's a fun thought."
... Yeah, now she's tearing up a lot.
"I don't have the guts to get through this whole thing -- sorry -- I wanted more time so bad... I just... I love you guys..." She lets out a strangled little noise and forces out, "Sorry, Rikka..."
Her hand slips across her desk, and a moment later, the video cuts.