AKIRA Volume 6, p.178-434 Original story & art Copyright (C) 1993 Otomo Katsuhiro/Kodansha Synopsis and Translation by Iain Sinclair (axolotl@socs.uts.edu.au) Copyright (C) 1993 Goddess Studio This synopsis picks up after the end of Epic Akira #33 (after Floyd crashes onto the carrier). (Usual heavy disclaimers on translation - this comes to you via the principles of "Something is Better Than Nothing" and "You Get What You Pay For". As usual, any corrections/additions welcome.) Spoilers: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The carrier lists, splits into two pieces, and begins to sink. Jorris, Hock and Karma Tangi drown, but Mike, Dubrowsky and Bernardi are rescued, and brought to safety on another warship. The Colonel sees Kei lying on the ground of the Olympic stadium. He says that he lost his last chance to take out Tetsuo. Kei suddenly wonders what happened to Kaneda. He is in a back street with Joker, arguing about whether Kei is alive. He turns to Akira and says, "look at what you did to the sun!" Joker (who was absorbed in repairs) says "yeah, right, it's all because of me!" Tetsuo attempts to revive Kaori, but her spirit has already dispersed. It's getting dark, and Kaneda tells joker that Tetsuo no longer has any control over his power. Kaneda goes to confront Tetsuo on his own, but Joker won't let him; Joker salvages the gun from the flying platform. Tetsuo, who is visibly upset, carries Kaori's body to the entrance of the secret bunker. Ryu watches him go in. Miyako gives a handful of capsules to Kiyoko and Masaru, saying that they should be used as a last resort. (?) Miyako tells Kiyoko and Masaru to act as a shield in the worst-case scenario. (?) Kaneda, Joker, and Akira accidentally meet Chiyoko, and they follow Akira to the bunker, who is wandering there on his own. Kaneda-tachi meet Ryu on the lift down to the bottom floor of the bunker. Kei talks to Tetsuo, who was sitting on Akira's spherical vault, absorbed in his own thoughts. (p.222) T: You... T: what happened to.. Kaneda..? Kei: What do you hope to achieve down here... with Akira? T: Oogh.. Kei: It's starting, isn't it... T: fu... ku,ku,ku,ku.... T: You know what's happening, don't you.. T: inside my body... (p.226) T: ha ha ha Ha Ha HA HA HA HA HA ha ha .... T: what a laugh! T: It's Akira's mission to come closer to me... and then... T: That sly little fatso... ["Tanuki me" - must be talking about Miyako.] You set me up... Kei: You reap what you sow. T: Miyako, you b..bitch... T: Uuurghh.. Uaargh! (Tetsuo's right arm mutates again) T: Kaneda.. T: UwaaAA! T: He.. help.. me... (He regresses to primal form) A faint smile appears on Akira's face. Miyako says something about Tetsuo's personality still not being completely destroyed, and Kei should try to bring out Tetsuo's deepest power (??). As Tetsuo lumbers in the direction of Miyako's temple, Kei attacks him with large pipes from the ceiling. Tetsuo's monstrous body counterattacks, but suddenly he halts.. "Kane..da.. heeLLp .." The giant lift is almost at the vault. Ryu remembers back to when he fled from the secret bunker. Tetsuo encloses Kei in a dark globe of energy. Miyako urges Kiyoko+Masaru to concentrate their power at one point. The sphere ruptures, and Kei is sent flying. She retreats into some service tunnel, and bumps into Kaori's body. Tetsuo oozes after her. Then Joker arrives and fills his body full of lead. Tetsuo's screams are coming out of Akira's mouth. Chiyoko tells Ryuu to take Akira away from Tetsuo. She throws him a gun, and Ryuu leaves. Then Tetsuo mutates back into his normal form, to the horror of everyone watching. Kaneda stands dumbfounded at Tetsuo's twisted form, tears streaming out of his eyes, begging Kaneda to help him. Kaneda asks, "i.. is it you?!" Joker yells to Kaneda, "get out of the way! I'll finish him now!" But Kaneda stands still, transfixed. Miyako: It's coming! The great power aftershock .. is coming! (p.255) Kei! Where are you!? Get Akira further away! Tetsuo turns into the primal monster again, engulfing Kaneda completely. Akira is still echoing Tetsuo's voice. Ryu gets the lift moving, but it's moving slower than Tetsuo is growing... Tetsuo, in a huge foetal-like form, wrenches the entire vault out of the ground. Ryu watches aghast as Akira, who has fallen under Tetsuo's influence, starts gathering light in his hands. Above ground, Tetsuo-monster is also gathering light... Miyako realises that this is the beginning of the end, and that their combined power will destroy the world. As the light accumulates around Akira, Ryu desperately tries to stop him, and manages to fire one shot. It hits Akira in the shoulder, and he falls down. In the ensuing chaos, Ryu is crushed to death by a falling ventilation duct. Akira has stopped gathering light, and Tetsuo has, too. Tetsuo is confused. His eyes turn towards Miyako's temple... Miyako says that the resonance between Akira and Tetsuo has ceased, and that THEY are the next most powerful source of power.. Tetsuo will go to them "like a moth in the darkness goes to a light". And he does; Tetsuo, and the entire vault, come smashing through the roof of Miyako's temple. As Miyako prepares to do battle, she tells Kiyoko and Masaru to go and be with Akira... so they can free his power. Miyako and four monks attack Tetsuo's bloated, monstrous form. Kei appears and begs them to stop, since Kaneda is inside Tetsuo, but the battle continues unabated. Kiyoko and Masaru are with Akira. Akira is conscious, and he recognises them. Then, Takashi and the other number children come drifting down the lift shaft. "We're together again"... Masaru and Kiyoko now look like the children they used to be, before they were experimented on. Masaru: We have to use the power... Kiyoko: Akira-kun... Akira: Un.. (yes) At the temple, there is only one monk left standing, and Miyako is badly injured. She says to Kei, "you know what you have to do... Go!" Then Tetsuo blasts Miyako and the monk into the ruins of the temple. Kei hovers above the earth... in front of SOL. Tetsuo lurches towards Miyako (whose eyes are now fully open). Miyako blasts off a piece of Tetsuo single-handedly. She laughs triumphantly, but suddenly coughs a huge amount of blood, and collapses. "Sakaki..." At that instant, SOL fires. The beam from SOL narrowly misses Tetsuo. Kei falls away from SOL. But Miyako isn't ready to die yet. Kei manages to fire SOL one last time. Tetsuo's flesh forms arms, reaching for the light from the sky. The beam from SOL actually curves, straight into Tetsuo's flesh, seemingly blowing it apart. But Tetsuo's flesh merges with the light itself. Tetsuo is now a hungry, brain-like ball of plasma, consuming light and growing fast. Kei (high above Neo-Tokyo): He's.. awakened!? The massive orb of plasma steadily consumes Neo-Tokyo. At the Olympic stadium, the Colonel watches, powerless and speechless. Kai, Chiyoko and Joker also witness the destruction. In the sky above the disaster, Kei sees Masaru, Kiyoko and Akira start gathering light. This new orb of light, situated just above the plasma, expands rapidly and fuses with the plasma. Now, the orb of light centered on Akira is as big as the orb centered on Tetsuo. Tetsuo's plasma reverts to flesh as it is sucked into Akira's orb of light. Kaneda, who is still alive, is sucked into the light as Tetsuo's flesh disintegrates. Then Kaneda is engulfed by the fragmented flesh of Tetsuo's huge, tortured head. Kaneda sees fragments from Tetsuo's life, in reverse. His attempt to resurrect Kaori, his encounters with the Colonel and Yamada, his destruction of the moon, his observation of Akira, his arm being torn off by SOL, meeting with the Juvenile A scientists, the legions of Dai-Tokyo Teikoku, Yamagata's death, popping pills, confronting Kaneda, in the Akira project lab, riding on his motorbike, meeting Kaneda's highschool friends, the principal's address at highschool assembly, being dragged away to the orphanage, standing alone in the middle of a street and crying... (p.348) Kaneda stands in that street. "Tetsuo... is this.. your dream!?" Suddenly, he hears Miyako's voice. "Until now, Tetsuo has repressed his feelings and his memories... they have been liberated all at once. Now, you are within him." K: THIS is what happens just before humans die!? M: He has thrown off the shackles of his flesh. I speak of the world of his heart... The vision dissipates, and Kaneda finds himself dwarfed by an umbilical cord, and a foetus. M: And further still... the memory of life itself... Kaneda is surrounded by human tissue, the DNA double helix, single cells. (p.352) M: Through many stages of evolution, life was created... But do you think that "adapting to the environment" evolution is the full explanation for such sophisticated life? K: What's this got to do with me?! M: Take a single cell... their nucleus is composed from the memory of the molecules. And therefore... the memory of the universe. M: A great force was released... That was the ultimate conclusion of the universe's great flow. The power was dispersed. But our deepest memories are pregnant with the seeds of the power. K: You say that's the power of Tetsuo and Akira... Why is that power so destructive! M: Maybe Akira thought to insert a complication in mankind's evolution. K: What for? Isn't the course of evolution a "programmed" flow, too? M: Don't you think that there is a flow that our willpower can choose? K: Are you saying mankind wanted a different course of evolution!? M: The answer to that question.... Your children will see, I'm sure. K: Bullshit! You mean Tetsuo and those little pale kids?! Are you telling me THAT is mankind's choice!! Kaneda is standing in a long corridor in a large, hi-tech building. Miyako tells him that this is where the first signs of that "choice" appeared. Kaneda walks into a room where the children from the experiment are playing with each other, under the watchful eye of the scientists. Then Miyako shows Kaneda a dead child hooked up to a enormous mess of cables and computers. Kiyoko, Masaru, Takashi and Akira tell Kaneda that that sacrifice, along with Miyako, Kei, Chiyoko and Tetsuo, enabled their kind to reach fruition... Then they vanish into the vortex. Kaneda finds himself standing in a familiar-looking playground. Tetsuo is washing his battered face. The young Kaneda says to Tetsuo, "New guys always get beaten up...", but Tetsuo runs off. K: "Chi..chigau yo, Boku ha.. tada.." ("N.. no, I'm your...") K: "Chigaunda Tetsuo, Ore ha tada..." ("No, Tetsuo, I'm your...") Kaneda finds himself slipping in time, being his current self and his childhood self at once. K: But back then... I wanted to be friends with you... Tetsuo turns around. T: Friends? T: I'm.. Tetsuo.. Tetsuo Shima... Kaneda gasps. Tetsuo and the vision of the playground are swept into the vortex. T: Your new... fr..ie.. K: WAIT! T: ...n..d.. K(in tears): My friend... K: TETSUOO! Kaneda's body is disintegrating into the vortex. But suddenly, Kei appears. In the chaos below, Akira's orb of light has almost completely engulfed Tetsuo's plasma, resulting in whirlwinds of pure energy, and vast destruction. Kaneda's body is in an advanced state of disintegration. Kei reaches for him, telling him that Akira has absorbed Tetsuo, and to take hold of her before Akira closes up completely. However, Kaneda's body passes straight through her. Time and space is fractured; we flashback to when the spirit-body of Kei's through Kaneda's body, to when Kaneda's spirit-body passes through Kei's, and the destruction of Neo-Tokyo. Kei: "Get up, Kaneda! You musn't open your heart to him!" Kei: "Concentrate on your consciousness, or you'll be absorbed into Akira forever!" Kaneda is again standing the playground, somewhere between his current and his childhood selves, calling Tetsuo. "Tetsuo isn't here anymore! You must escape now!" Kei finally manages to grasp Kaneda's hand. Outside, Akira's enormous orb of energy dissipates, leaving dust, wind and storms to blast the remnants of the city. Despite the devastation, there are survivors. Chiyoko and Joker, the Colonel, Stanley Simmons, Kai, Miyako's last monk, some of the Akira Assassination Corps... and, in the epicentre of the blast, Kei and Kaneda. Kaneda: Everyone's gone.. Kei: Look.. On the horizon, the sun rises. Waves crash against buildings, crabs scamper over the ruins. [Note: the original ending probably finished at that point.] US amphibious forces land on what remains of Neo-Tokyo. The scientists from Juvenile A recognise Simmons in the crowd of refugees. Suddenly, some US troops are attacked by bazookas and machine-gun fire. It's Chiyoko, Joker and Kaneda! Kaneda speaks to the leader of the troops. "You're invading OUR COUNTRY! show 'em, guys!" Kaneda's motley forces unfurl a banner which says, "Dai-Tokyo Teikoku, AKIRA!" Dada! The US troops are nonplussed... "Enjoying our fun little welcoming party?" Kai sprays a big "A" on an APC. Then Kei turns up... riding Kaneda's bike. Kaneda announces, "Our life still revolves around Akira!" Kaneda's gang assembles, and rides away. Kei and Kaneda see the Colonel hobbling along a deserted street. The Colonel wearily smiles; they managed to survive, against all the odds. Kei thanks the Colonel for everything. The Juvenile A scientists wonder to themselves. "Akira is still alive..?" Kaneda rides down the deserted, ruined streets. Yamagata and Tetsuo, both on their bikes, momentarily appear beside Kaneda, and then race ahead. As Kaneda's gang rides off into the distance, the buildings of Neo-Tokyo are reconstructed around them. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- END