A sorrowful background track began to play.
The boy and the girl parted ways.
Okabe returned to the lab with grief written all over his face, yet his eyes still carried unwavering resolve. Even while drowning in pain, he maintained that exaggerated chūnibyō persona of his and ordered Hashida to use the IBN 5100 to infiltrate SERN's servers.
Meanwhile, Makise stood calmly at the airport platform, preparing to leave the city behind.
Then her inner monologue quietly echoed.
When you're wasting time in the lab with nothing to do… when the taste of juice touches your lips… when you're walking down the street… or even in the instant you kiss someone… it doesn't have to happen all the time. Even if it's only once out of a hundred moments, I hope you'll remember me. Because I exist within your memories. Somewhere beyond the world line with a 1% divergence.
Riku Watanabe completely broke down.
At that moment, Makise became the only heroine in his eyes.
That character had just taken the number one spot among every anime heroine he had encountered in twenty years of watching anime.
Back in the lab, Okabe, still wrapped in his ridiculous mad scientist act, directed Hashida to erase every single D-Mail.
And at the exact moment everything should have ended, Makise suddenly ran back into the lab. Smiling softly, she looked at Okabe and spoke.
"I also… for you, Okabe…"
The sentence stopped halfway.
Fragments of memories flashed endlessly through her mind.
The world line shifted.
Mayuri Shiina would no longer die.
But in exchange, the Beta world line - where Makise had already died - became reality.
"Damn it…"
Tears streamed down Riku Watanabe's face.
So this really was the direction the story was taking.
He had guessed it already. He had mentally prepared himself for the possibility. But actually witnessing it unfold still hurt far more than he expected.
"So what exactly are the last three episodes supposed to tell now?"
At that moment, his heart felt hollow.
As the ending theme played, all interest he had in the anime seemed to disappear alongside Makise. A Steins Gate without her felt like instant noodles without seasoning - technically edible, but completely devoid of any desire to continue.
"Kantoku Sora… I know the story's core theme from the very beginning was about restoring the world to its original state. I also know Makise died in episode one. But after coming this far… I still can't accept it."
Taking a deep breath, he pulled out his phone and opened the countless Steins Gate and Makise fan groups he had joined.
He couldn't point out any flaw in the writing so far. The logic was there. The setup was solid.
The problem was much simpler than that.
Without Makise, he simply couldn't keep watching.
One by one, his fingers tapped the leave group button.
After exiting every single fan group, he logged into his NatsuYume account and posted a message.
"I'm dropping it. If I ever watch Steins Gate again, I'm a dog."
At that exact moment, the ending theme finally concluded.
The screen flickered.
A phone ringtone sounded.
"Who is this?" asked the voice actor for Okabe.
"Please… come quickly to the rooftop of the Radio Kaikan building."
A familiar girl's voice came through the receiver.
Riku Watanabe froze.
But as a hardcore Steins Gate fan, it took him only a second to recognize who the voice belonged to.
Suzuha Amane.
"Huh?"
"What?"
"What the hell is happening?"
His expression became completely bewildered.
Suzuha was supposed to be Hashida's daughter. Logically, she shouldn't even be born for at least another seven years.
And in the Beta line where Makise died, there were no D-Mails. That meant SERN never tracked Makise and Okabe's movements, meaning they never gained control over time travel.
So why was Suzuha appearing in this era?
"I'm Suzuha Amane. Please believe me. To stop the world war that will happen twenty years from now, you have to come to the rooftop."
World war?
What?
Riku Watanabe felt as if ten thousand alpacas were stampeding through his mind.
So twenty years into the future of this world, it wasn't SERN ruling humanity -
It was global war?
And Suzuha had once again returned through time in order to stop it?
Then what about the time machine?
Who researched it?
Who invented it?
And for what purpose?
The answer…
A vague thought surfaced in his mind.
In this world, aside from Okabe, who else could possibly have the ability to create something like that?
If Okabe invented a time machine on the Beta world line, there could only be one reason.
Makise.
There was no way it was genuinely just to stop a world war.
With Okabe's personality, why would he care about something like that?
Damn it.
Riku Watanabe stared at the post he had just made.
"If I ever watch Steins Gate again, I'm a dog."
His NatsuYume account had a massive following. In less than a minute, dozens of people had already liked the post.
Mocking replies quickly started pouring in.
Without changing his expression, he immediately deleted the post.
But when he looked at the dozens of fan groups he had just left moments earlier, he felt even more devastated than before.
You old bastard, Sora…
If you had a plot twist like this ready, why put it after the ending theme?
Do you seriously enjoy messing with people that much?
Ahhh…
Once I finish Steins Gate in three weeks, I'm immediately turning from fan to anti.
Across the internet, countless anime viewers who had been ready to drop the series experienced emotional whiplash during those two short minutes after the ED.
The biggest winners of the episode were the Mayuri Shiina fans, who were overjoyed to see their favorite character finally escape the cruel fate of dying to convergence.
Meanwhile, Makise fans felt the dead hearts inside them start beating again because of the post-credits scene.
As long as Sora hadn't given up on Makise, they were still friends.
"Absolute genius. Kantoku Sora is a freaking genius!"
"Don't jump to conclusions yet. Don't let that old devil fool you. Just because Suzuha returned in a time machine again doesn't mean there's a way for Makise to survive on this world line. Don't forget - if world line convergence could really be broken that easily, why would the protagonist even need to move from Alpha to Beta in the first place?"
"Now comes the true battle of intelligence. Let's see if we, as fans, can figure out a method to defeat convergence."
"I'm telling you right now - there is no solution. This is basically a weaponized law of causality. How is an ordinary human supposed to overcome that?"
"The real issue isn't whether Makise can survive in the Beta line. It's whether the story can solve it in a believable way. Remember, in the Alpha world line, the protagonist went through countless loops and nearly lost his sanity trying to save Mayuri Shiina, yet still failed. If he suddenly finds an easy answer in Beta, then the entire structure of the anime collapses. If the writer starts breaking the rules of the world he himself established, Steins Gate will fall into the realm of third-rate storytelling."
"I trust Kantoku Sora. I believe he's that once-in-a-generation genius capable of finding a solution."
"Exactly. This is his world. His causality system. There's no way he created all of this without preparing a way to break it."
"It's just like the Sanctuary Arc in Re:Zero. None of us knew how the deadlock could be solved, but Kantoku Sora still found a way to shock every fan."
"Wasn't Re:Zero basically solved because Subaru Natsuki spammed god-tier romance skills and emotionally moved Beatrice?"
"It was way more than that. Subaru emotionally helped Emilia overcome the fear inside her. He helped Garfiel untangle the knot in his heart. He helped Ram decide to stand against Roswaal. He helped Beatrice break the absurd promise she clung to for four hundred years. And on top of all that, he had Otto supporting him. If even one of those pieces had failed, Subaru would've died in the Sanctuary Arc. But for Steins Gate's Okabe… I honestly can't imagine what kind of help he could still receive."
"Now is the time to believe. The story has reached this point already. Whether Steins Gate becomes a masterpiece or completely crashes depends entirely on Kantoku Sora's final arrangement."
"That's right. If Steins Gate maintains this level of quality - or even manages to end with a conclusion that surpasses expectations - I'll call it the greatest Japanese anime of the last decade."
"Greatest of the last decade? That phrase sounds familiar. Two years ago, fans said the same thing during the peak of Natsume Yuujinchou. Last year, they said it again during Re:Zero's broadcast. So is Sora seriously surpassing himself every single year?"
"Isn't that obvious?"
"Then what about his next work? Can he still surpass Steins Gate?"
"That's something we can discuss when the next anime airs. Right now, I only care about one thing - can Makise come back to life or not? In Okabe's current world line, she's already dead."
By early June, the entire spring anime season had descended into chaos.
Steins Gate episode 22 achieved a 5.81% rating. Even after fully committing to the Beta world line, its viewership continued to climb higher and higher.
At this point, nobody in the Japanese anime industry was paying attention to any other series airing that season anymore.
The media. Anime fans. Industry insiders.
Everyone's eyes were locked onto Steins Gate.
Could this series surpass the achievements Re:Zero created the previous year?
And more importantly -
Could Sora deliver a finale that all anime fans would truly accept?
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