AN: Guess who beta read this chapter? Go on, guess. If you guessed JDUBZ then you are correct! Your prize is 1 million more seconds of oxygen!

Chapter 23: The Beginning of the End

"How could you do this to me?" The same pathetic man from before was kneeling before the witch. Tears fell from his face as he begged for the woman's appreciation. "I loved you! How can you not see that I am of some use?!"

The witch was standing with her hands to her side. A disappointed look on her face, "It surprises me that you say this. While you continue to fail me, you seem to not care of the outcome." Walking to her throne, the witch paused and said over her shoulder, "Is there something amiss that I don't know about?"

The man paused before answering, "No, there is n-nothing on my mind but you. Please, it is the truth."

The witch closed her eyes, "I have a hard time believing you. You used to be so trustworthy, now I feel like you have gone your own path, Okabe."

Okabe looked up, surprised to hear her use his name. "No, it's not like that! I have done everything you asked of me! I even have the boy!"

The witch smiled, "Yes. Subaru is something isn't he." Turning around, Envy looked into Okabe's eyes, "But without the girl, how am I to be with him?"

Okabe cringed at the mention of her whist for Subaru, "I sent forces to collect the half witch. Among them was-."

"Archbishop, Regulus Corneus. Yes, I know. He is dead." Envy did not move.

Okabe got to his feet, "No! How can that be?! He was the strongest f-."

"WAS the strongest, not anymore." Envy turned, and looked directly into Okabe's bloodshot eyes, "Like you, he has also failed me."

Okabe walked towards Envy, but was pushed away by an unseen force. With pleading eyes he said, "But you must understand that the failures in my plans have nothing to with me! It is my colleagues that carry them out, who are failing!" Okabe pointed to himself, and raised his voice, "I have done my part! The gateway is almost ready and the boy trusts me, but yet you still send them to kill me?!"

Envy's face showed no emotion despite speaking of feelings, "Perhaps, you are right, Okabe. You have done your part. I must have failed to see the completion of your work, but still the problem remains on how to capture the girl."

Okabe smiled at her forgiveness, "Thank you." He straightened his lab coat, "When it comes to the problem of the girl, I will handle it. Once the portal opens, I will retrieve the girl myself."

Envy narrowed her eyes at Okabe, "And in your state, just how will you do something the Archbishop of Greed failed to do?"

Okabe chuckled, "With my influence of course. Have you forgotten that I own my own country? No one would expect me to be an Archbishop-."

Envy interrupted Okabe's explanation, a sad expression on her face, "That is not what I meant. You are dead, Okabe." Okabe wondered if her sadness was genuine or fake.

In reply to her comment, Okabe chucked.

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From the outside, the sound of four silenced gunshots went unheard. The only thing that gave away the fact that something was wrong was the crows that suddenly took flight from the roof of a nearby house. The setting sun casted an orange glow over the house of Okabe, where the life of a mad scientist ended and a new one began.

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Subaru was in utter shock as he watched Okabe fall to the floor with four bullets to his chest. His one hope for returning to Rem appeared to be dead. Being held at gunpoint, Subaru could do nothing but comply to the orders of the witch cultists.

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"It's beautiful, it...it works?" The monotoned cultist rubbed the metal of the gateway, his expression completely neutral. Around the room stood the rest of the cultists, their sunglasses off. The one Subaru and Okabe had knocked out was now awake, staring at Subaru.

Anger replaced his initial shock, "Like I would ever tell you bastards!"

The man swung his leg towards Subaru, kicking him in his stomach. Subaru screamed in pain, falling to his side while clutching his abdomen. Using his foot, he put Subaru on his back. As he did so, the man put his foot to Subaru's throat and aimed the pistol at his head.

"I'm not playin' games, kid. Now tell me how to turn it on." The cultist put the gun closer to Subaru's face so he could see down the barrel.

In his insanity, Subaru spit out, "Well you're out of luck! I don't know HOW to turn on the damn thing! The only person who knew how was Okabe!"

"That crazy bastard was no use to us anymore. He was better off dead." The cultist applied more pressure to Subaru's neck, "Now, I've seen you here a few times, so obviously I think you know something about turning this on. If you lie to us, I could always dispose of that friend of yours."

"Don't you dare fucking touch him!" Subaru reached up to grab the man's throat, but stopped when he pressed the barrel against his head.

The man saw that Subaru had backed down, "That's more like it. Now if you could be this cooperative all the time, that would be great. Now, back to my question. How do I turn it on?"

"Even if I knew I wouldn't tell you. You turn that on, the whole thing will destroy itself."

The man still applied more pressure to Subaru's neck. Subaru tried to push the man's foot off, but couldn't. The man watched Subaru with amusement, "You think we don't already know that? That bastard's been filling us in with the progress of the gateway since day one."

Subaru stopped resisting, his mind went blank as he asked, "What?"

The man finally showed some emotion, disbelief, "You honestly haven't pieced it together by now? You really are stupid aren't you?!"

Okabe was a witch cultist. Subaru refused to believe it. He refused to believe that the quirky scientist that he knew was a crazy cultist that wanted to see the end of the world.

"But why would he try to kill you if you're on the same team? He wanted to get rid of you!"

"That hasn't been made clear too?" The man gestured towards the gateway, "Look at it! The gateway is complete, and now all we need is the on switch!"

Subaru continued to push on the man's foot, "If that's the case, you bastard, then why kill Okabe? He had information you needed, so why kill him?!"

The man put on his sunglasses and lifted his foot from Subaru's neck, "We had orders from Envy to kill on sight, and the last thing you want to do is fail the witch's orders."

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Twitching, Okabe's hands curled into fists as he tried to get to his knees. Groaning, he slowly lifted himself into a kneeling position. The framed picture of Makise was in front of him.

Removing the screws from the back, Okabe retrieved the picture, folded it up, and placed it into his lab coat's chest pocket.

Four holes could be seen in the lab coat as Okabe got up to his feet, there was a lingering pain in his chest. When he got up, he started to walk to the kitchen. Leaning on a counter, Okabe removed his coat. Under it was a bullet proof vest, a safety measure Okabe had taken when the cultists first arrived at his house that day.

When he removed the vest, four massive bruises could be seen covering his chest. Okabe poked one, wincing in pain, before reaching across the counter to retrieve a bottle of painkillers.

Taking some, Okabe hoped they would kick in soon.

Okabe went to the fridge and opened the freezer. After grabbing a bag of peas, he placed it onto his chest with a sigh of relief.

With newly found determination, Okabe made his way to his room. Inside, the first thing he noticed was the elevator door, a metal bar prevented the doors from closing meaning it was forced open. Looking through the doors, Okabe saw that the elevator was at the lab, meaning the cultists were down there. Okabe checked his pockets, and noticed his key card was missing. The cultists must have taken it while he was unconscious.

Disregarding this, Okabe went to a nightstand by his bed and retrieved a key that was inside.

With the key in hand, Okabe turned to the wall in front of him. A small plating covered a keyhole, moving the plate, Okabe placed the key inside. Turning the key, Okabe pulled and opened a small safe door that blended in well with the wall. He grabbing a black cylinder with holes on its side and an automatic revolver.

Okabe smiled.

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"Give me your metia."

"What?"

The man held out his hand, "Your metia, I know you have one! Now give it to me!"

Subaru didn't reach for his metia so the man shot a bullet a few inches from his legs. Jumping from the sudden threat, Subaru took the metia from his pants and slowly gave it to the cultist.

The man grabbed the metia and inspected it. "A newer model. How pitiful, it's useless to us." He handed the metia to another cultist, "Dispose of it."

Subaru didn't like the sound of that, "No! Leave it alone!" Subaru tried to get to the cultist with his metia, but was blocked by one of the female cultists. She held a gun up to him, but didn't shoot. Smacking the gun aside, Subaru punched her in the face, knocking her to the floor. With no one in his way, Subaru continued to run at the man.

A kick knocked Subaru into the wall. His side hurt, the impact fracturing a rib. "Ahh, fuck!"

On the floor, Subaru could do nothing as the witch cultist placed the metia on the floor, placing the barrel of a shotgun up to it. The cultist fired the shotgun, the metia survived, but was in very bad shape.

"STOP!"

The cultist reloaded the shotgun and fired at the metia again. This time the metia broke apart, multiple pieces flew to the sides.

"NOOO! YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!" Subaru got up, one hand cradling his side. Limping the best he could towards the cultist with the shotgun. The female cultist that he had hit earlier got her revenge by bringing a fist down on top of his head. Subaru fell to the floor, and started rubbing his head. "Owwww, you fucking bitch."

To Subaru, everything was gone. Okabe was dead, the cultist had destroyed his metia, and now they had taken the gateway, the only thing he had that would allowed him to see Rem again. He was powerless, there was literally nothing he could do. However, the question arose in his head, Why haven't they killed me yet?

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Okabe used the retinal scanner to call the elevator. When it showed up, the doors opened, causing the metal bar to fall. He picked it up. Pressing the button on the panel, the elevator doors closed, humming as it moved down towards the lab.

Exiting the elevator, Okabe made his way to the control room. Peeking through, he saw that no one was in there, but he heard voices coming from the gateway room. Seeing an opportunity, Okabe made his way to one of his shelves of gadgets. Looking at it lovingly, Okabe tipped it over, sacrificing the inventions that laid on it.

CRASH!

From inside the gateway room, the crash was heard. "What was that?" The monotones man pointed to one of the cultists, "You, check whatever that was. Take this so you can come back in." The man passed the cultists the key card.

From the floor, Subaru yelled, "I'll fucking kill you! Each and every one of you cultist cowards are dead!" An empty threat.

The cultist with the key card in his hand exited the room. Checking inside, at first glance he saw nothing. Closing the door behind him, the cultist walked to the door that led to the elevator.

From behind the door that the cultist closed came Okabe, the metal bar in his hand. Okabe silently crept up behind the cultist and took a test swing aimed at his head. Cocking his arm back as far as it could go, Okabe swung the bar. A crack sounded when the bar made contact with the cultist's skull.

The cultist fell to the ground, dead.

Okabe put a hand over his mouth with an oooooo sound, "That sounded like it hurt."

Okabe grabbed the key card from the cultist's hand. He went to the gateway room's door and slid the keycard in the slot, he was granted access. Throwing the card aside and taking a deep breath, Okabe took the black cylinder from one of his pockets. Pulling the pin out of the cylinder and holding his automatic revolver, Okabe braced himself against the gateways room's door saying, "This is gonna be a bitch."

Okabe threw open the door and tossed the cylinder inside, shielding his eyes. A blinding light flashed from the cylinder, a flash bang.

Opening his eyes, Okabe saw that the cultists were disoriented, rubbing their eyes. Okabe lifted the revolver, taking his time to line up his shots.

Bang. One.

Bang. Two.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Five.

Okabe was tackled to the ground and into the control room, the revolver falling out of his hand. His chest felt like it was going to explode from his injuries.

The cultist who attacked Okabe was the monotoned one, the sunglasses he wore made the flash bang less effective on him.

Grunting, the cultist punched Okabe in the cheek. Shoving his hand into the cultist's face, Okabe was able to push him off. Okabe landed his own punch on the man's face, but it was less effective.

The cultist recovered from the punch, and looked at Okabe while wiping blood from his lip, "Not so powerful without your authority huh, Okabe?"

Okabe charged at the cultist, wrapping his arms around the his waist and pushing him back. While being pushed, the cultist began hitting Okabe's back. Grimacing with each hit, Okabe threw the cultist into a shelf.

The cultist slammed into the metal bars, a pained yelp escaping his mouth. Seeing an approaching Okabe, the cultist got up and threw something hard at him from the shelf. Okabe put his arms up to block the object from hitting his face, but found himself being punched in the face again when he lowered his guard.

Okabe fell to his butt and rolled out of the way when the cultist tried to slam his foot down on his face. Spinning on the floor, Okabe kicked the back of the cultist's knee, forcing him to kneel down. Using this to his advantage, Okabe then kicked the cultist square in the face, knocking the sunglasses off.

Reeling from the kick, the cultist covered his face. When he brought his hands to his side, it was visible that Okabe had broken his nose, blood gushed profusely from his nostrils. The cultist was filled with rage, his eyes were shining with a newly found emotion, hatred. Feeling the blood flowing from his nose, the cultist yelled at Okabe, "See what you've done?! All of this is because of you!" He gestured to the room, referring to all the equipment related to the gateway, "Because of this, Envy views you as a nuisance! She doesn't want you anymore! Can't you see that?!"

From behind the cultist, Okabe saw Subaru exiting the gateway room, a gun in his hand. Looking back at the cultist, Okabe replied, "Like I give a shit."

The cultist, angrier than he had ever been, ran at Okabe. The blood from the cultist's nose got on Okabe's coat as he was tackled to the ground once more.

The cultist pinned Okabe's arms to the sides with his legs. He began punching Okabe, one punch for each word he spoke, "IN..THIS..WORLD..YOU..ARE NOTHING!..AND..YOU..WILL.. ALWAYS..BE..NOTHING!" The cultist took his gun from it's holster and planted the barrel on Okabe's forehead, "I will make sure of it."

Bang!

The body of the cultist slumped onto Okabe, a bullet in the back of his head. Okabe shoved the body off of him, saying, "Couldn't have done that a few seconds earlier, Subaru?"

Subaru's voice reached Okabe's ears, "How are you still alive? I-I saw you get shot four times."

"You see, Subaru, in our world there are these amazing things call bullet proof vests. You should look into them sometime."

Okabe got up to his feet, groaning, his face and chest were probably hurting like hell. He looked at his lab coat that stained in blood, "Awwww damn. That prick got his blood all over my precious coat."

Okabe tried wiping off the blood, resulting in the blood to smear. "Drat! Subaru, be a lamb and hand me the hydrogen peroxide. It should be near the computer monitor." When nothing happened, Okabe looked at him.

Subaru was standing with a shocked look on his face, his killing of the cultist still stuck in his head. When Okabe addressed him, Subaru lifted up the gun to Okabe's face, "Y-you're one of them. I trusted you. I almost thought of you as a friend."

Okabe froze, his hands rose up defensively, slowly saying, "OK, Subaru. I know what you're thinking, but it's not what it looks like."

Frowning, Subaru yelled at Okabe, "Then what does it look like?! 'Cause it sure as hell looks like you're working for the witch!"

"I know it does, Subaru, I know. And I was working for the witch, I won't lie to you about this. I've changed." He looked at the two bodies of the dead cultists on the floor, "Does this look like the work of a cultist? Do you really think they would kill their own?"

Subaru stepped forward, pushing Okabe back at gunpoint, "Then why, Okabe? Why would they want to kill you?!"

Okabe was waving his arms on front of him, "Okayokayokay, just chill! I-I went rogue. I didn't like what the cult was doing anymore, so I left. Told them I didn't want to complete the gateway… That was the worst mistake I ever made." Subaru said nothing so Okabe continued, "Keep in mind, this was just yesterday! After seeing how much you were determined to see Rem again, it reminded me of myself in my younger days, willing to do anything for the one you love."

Subaru thought about the picture of Makise. "What's the real purpose for the portal?"

Okabe put his head down, a shameful look on his face, "I was...sent back here to

create the second half of the gateway, along with 7 other cultists. But I miscalculated the amount of mana the gateway could hold, creating an unstable connection between the halves. The witch was displeased. I begged her to send me back to Kararagi to complete the first half, but she claimed that she no longer had the power to cross worlds independently, most of it being transferred to her Satella half."

Subaru adjusted the gun in his hand.

"The witch said that while she was being imprisoned in her shrine, her powers were diminishing. So she sent us here." He gestured to the dead cultists, "Our job was to create the portal and use a host to transfer her consciousness into. When that is done she would be able to rule havoc in her world, and with the portal, our's would be next."

Subaru gave a disgusted look, "You wanted this?"

Okabe looked up at Subaru, yelling like a madman, "OF COURSE NOT, BUT SHE PROMISED ME SO MUCH POWER! SAID I WOULD RULE ALONGSIDE HER!" Okabe looked defeated, "But, it was too much, too many people would die."

Still not satisfied, Subaru pressed on, "If you choose to hate the witch, then what's your plan now? What happens with the gateway?"

Okabe looked up at Subaru, smiling, "We finish what we started. We get you back to Rem, and once that happens I will destroy the gateway, making sure it never falls into the wrong hands." Okabe got to his knees, "All I ask, Subaru, is for your forgiveness. I planned to kill you as soon as the gateway was finished, but then I saw that everything I had done to get here had only hurt other people and if I kept doing the witch's dirty work, worlds would die. I hope reuniting you with Rem will make up for what I've done up to this point." Okabe dropped his forehead to the floor, bowing before Subaru.

Looking at the pitiful Okabe, Subaru began to see a man who hated what he had done, and wanted to make up for it, erase it from his past.

Subaru asked one last question, "So, if the witch has no host to possess...she will die?"

Okabe answered with his head still down, "No, she will remain in a weakened state forever until someone completes the possession ritual."

Subaru continued to look at Okabe. His eyes softened, feeling Okabe was truely regretful. Learning by looking at cultists, Subaru ejected the clip and tossed the empty gun to Okabe. "I trust you, but that doesn't mean we'll go back to being buddy-buddy."

Okabe looked up at Subaru, tears welling in his eyes, "Thank you, Subaru."

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Okabe waved goodbye to Subaru, who left to go home. However, even as Subaru left, he was still clearly shaken up, directly killing someone had definitely taken some sort of toll on him. Okabe tried to comfort him by saying things like:

"Don't worry, Subaru. He was a horrible person who deserved to die."

And,

"In this world, he has no identity. So in a sense you didn't kill anyone."

With a little bit of,

"I'll handle the bodies so you won't have to look at them."

Okabe looked surprised when none of these worked, coming up with an excuse he had said: "My people skills weren't really all that great to begin with."

In the end, Okabe sent Subaru home, and disposed of the bodies by himself.

When Subaru brought up the subject of his metia being broken, Okabe took matters into his own hands. Taking his own personally made metia from his pocket, Okabe opened up the plate on its back and ripped out something that looked important.

"What are you doing!?"

Okabe turned to Subaru, a huge bundle of wires in his mouth, "Whah?" He plucked the wires from his mouth and placed them on the table in front of him. "I'm going to retrieve the content crystal of your metia to replace the memory card of my metia with it."

With Subaru's broken metia in his hand, Okabe carefully pried open its back playing to reveal the bronze wiring within. In the middle of the wiring was a perfectly spherical shaped crystal glowing a faint shade of red. Okabe sighed in relief, "This is good, they didn't damage your content crystal so all your contacts should be safe."

Subaru only stood by as Okabe worked. After a few minutes Okabe stretched, looking to his left he saw Subaru, "You're still here? I thought you would have left a long time ago." Okabe moved the magnifying glass he had been using to work on the metia, "Go home, I'll have this done by tomorrow."

After some arguing, Subaru finally gave in and agreed to go home. Okabe walked Subaru out the house and watched him leave to make sure he stayed safe.

When Subaru disappeared after rounding a corner at the end of the street, Okabe pulled out the photo of Makise from his pocket. Giving it one last look, Okabe ripped it in two, throwing the two pieces onto his front lawn where the wind will carry them off far away.

"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them."

-Ernest Hemingway