Fanfic / What Leads You Here

Warning: All spoilers for 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim will be left unmarked.

They made it. The final battle against the Deimos is over. However, throughout their efforts to rebuild, Keitaro struggles to acclimate. So does Natsuno. And he worries—as always—that this may not be a fight he can win for her, especially when he must confront his own battles.

What Leads You Here is a fanfic by "runicmagitek" based on 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. The plot follows Keitaro Miura, soldier boy from 1940s Japan adjusting to his new life as one of the last 15 humans alive on a strange new planet that they must build a new life for humanity on. Keitaro struggles to adapt to his new circumstances, alongside the horrors he experienced both in the Pacific War and the apocalyptic battle against the Deimos. On top of that, he's not sure how to help his fellow compatible, Natsuno Minami - for whom the events that lead everyone here have hit especially hard.

Tropes

• Act of True Love: In Chapter 12: even after Natsuno, in her grief, tries to drive Keitaro away and ignores his pleas to get away from the torrential rainstorm hitting the valley, he risks his life rescuing her from the bottom of a flooding ravine, all while his head is bleeding and concussed.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: The story covers the events that take place between the final battle of the game and the epilogue, the latter having been framed as a happy ending originally. This story shows however that the journey it took to get to that point was difficult on account of the massive, existential implications of the game's ending, including the prior-extinction of humanity and the reveal that the protagonists' entire lives were a simulation.
• Arc Words: "I don’t want to be the reason why you die. I want to be the reason why you live."
• Adaptational Jerkass: The Keitaro of 2188 is expanded in a way that makes him much more flawed than before: he became fixated on developing and placing himself in Sector 5, ruining his relationship with Natsuno in the process and dooming all future Keitaros to have to live through the horrors of the Pacific War
• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: Played With depending on how canon-compliant the fic is meant to be;
  • Juro and Shu are revealed in Chapter 4 to be spending nights together and eventually come out to the group as a couple. Megumi walks away from the group when this is blurted out, leaving Juro chasing after her to explain himself offscreen. He explains to Keitaro later on that he feels like Megumi is still pining for Juro Izumi and not him, which means he doesn't feel comfortable pursuing anything with in this fic.
  • Yuki and Tamao start a relationship with each other, despite Yuki getting together with Shu in the game and Tamao not having a love interest originally.
• Adaptational Sexuality:
  • Juro and Shu are both bi/pansexual in this fic.
  • Tamao and Yuki become an item in this fic, despite the game not indicating if either of them liked girls.
  • Both Keitaro and Natsuno are indicated to be bi. Natsuno admits to have developed a very brief crush on Iori when they were younger after her First Kiss with Iori. And Keitaro's flustered reaction to Natsuno teasing him about kissing Takatoshi implies that he secretly enjoyed doing so.
• Ascended Extra: Tamao Kurabe, who was a side character in the game, features much more prominently here as a main character, fleshing out her personality and her relationships with the other compatibles.
• Auto-Kitchen: The kitchen on the group's base is equipped with replicators that can mimic the taste and textures of different foods, letting whoever cooks customize different proxies of real foods. The compatibles go from eating disgusting protein goo to something that's not quite like the real deal of their favorite foods, but good enough to tide them over.
• Beta Couple: Every couple outside Keitaro and Natsuno plays foil to their relationship in different ways.
  • Takatoshi and Tsukasa, for all of their flustering-teasing dynamics, prove to be very close, and Tsukasa has no issue making the first move with Takatoshi, unlike how long it takes Keitaro and Natsuno to finally take things further with their relationship.
  • Nenji and Tomi are the couple that's already made the most progression in their relationship by the start of the story, with no one really questioning the legitimacy of their love. And the two each offer idle support to the main couple at various points. And by the third part of the story, the two are expecting a baby.
  • Tamao gets together with Yuki early on in the story while Keitaro and Natsuno are at one of their lowest points together. Most of the former's development happens to the side, but it's clear they make a lot of progress together, including sleeping in each other's rooms early on and even referring to each other by pet names.
• Birds of a Feather: What ultimately draws Keitaro and Natsuno together: both are two deeply-hurt, good-hearted people who feel aimless in the new and existentially-turbulent reality they find themselves in. And through the story, they both struggle with deeply-rooted self-hatred. When both are at their lowest points, it's the other who's able to reach out and give them the hope and drive to keep living... Also they're both huge nerds.
• Call-Back: In Chapter 3, Yuki reflexively calls Tamao "Aiba", referencing the robot Tamao possessed by 426 who was stalking Yuki through her route.
• Cannot Spit It Out: The main couple just can't be honest and admit they love each other for a huge chunk of the fic - Keitaro out of his own self-loathing and insecurity about "deserving" Natsuno, and Natsuno out of fear that any relationship the two might have is pre-ordained by their past selves, and therefore not truly their choice.
• Cosmic Plaything: Natsuno's biggest insecurity throughout the story; being the clone of a human who pre-ordained how her life was set up - then being thrust out of a virtual world into a new uninhabited planet - has eaten away at her in a way that she can't hide or cope with. And it results in her feeling like she has no more control over her life, an anxiety that gets triggered over topics like how the fifteen are gonna repopulate humanity or whether she and Keitaro should actually get together like their 2188 predecessors did.
• Deconstruction Fic: The implications of 13 Sentinels' ending are explored and dissected for all kinds of drama; namely the fact that the main characters are the only humans left on a planet lightyears away from Earth, the mission they're tasked with to restore and nourish the human race, the fact that their entire lives before this were the product of a simulation, and what the shock of fighting the Deimos has done to their mental state. Just to list a few.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Keitaro and Takatoshi are both taken aback when Tomi proposes throwing a dance party for the colony, due to both men growing up in a time when such get-togethers were illegal.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: A recurring theme; all of the characters experience some degreee of existential angst towards their new reality, not fully sure how to make the best of their new situation or what aspirations they have now. Keitaro has it especially bad; he was never sure if he'd survive the war, hence he never planned for what he'd do in life as an adult. The story follows him as he's constantly searching for reasons to keep living, one of those being Natsuno and wanting to see her be happy again.
• Dramatic Irony: In chapter 25, Iori compliments Miura saying that he has "big brother vibes" and how she always wanted a big brother growing up. At this point, neither knew that Iori was born from the same genetic template as Miura's sister, Chihiro.
• Everyone Can See It: It's no secret to the others that Keitaro and Natsuno are in love with each other; Takatoshi and Nenji actively root for Keitaro at different points, Yuki goes from hating the idea of them together to actively pushing for it, after Keitaro saves Natsuno's life; and Tomi teases the two non-stop.
• Fan Sequel: The story takes place between the end of the Final Battle and the epilogue, showing the characters amidst their new home on RS13-Alpha.
• Fangirl: Natsuno ends up falling in love with Mass Effect. After all, she can romance aliens in it.
• First Kiss: Keitaro and Natsuno both share the very embarrassing circumstances of their first kiss with each other: Keitaro kissed Takatoshi due to some messing around from Tamao. Natsuno kissed Iori via a game of Spin the Bottle.
• Foregone Conclusion: Taking place between when the protagonists wake up from the simulation and the epilogue of the game, things are set to work out in the end, even if the way there is painful.
• Heal the Cutie: Over the course of the story, Natsuno goes from a deep Heroic BSoD at the beginning to slowly but surely regaining her high-spirits from before by the end.
• Heroic BSoD: By the beginning of the story, Natsuno is deep in depression based on everything that went down during and after the final battle, having been ripped from the reality that she and everyone lived their whole lives and being faced the gargantuan task of reviving humanity. Things get worse through the first third to the point where she drives even Keitaro away and can't give a response to Yuki.
• Hidden Depths: Ryoko turns out to great at Super Smash Bros., and has the highest match win rate out of all the compatibles, much to Shu's chagrin.
• Internal Reveal: Yuki reveals to Keitaro that she, on her own time, discovered the logs the latter found in the game which revealed that the Yuki from 2188 was Natsuno's mother. She finds herself torn about this revelation and how it's affecting the dynamic with the current Natsuno, not wanting to feel like an overbearing mother instead of Natsuno's Best Friend.
• Interrupted Intimacy: Keitaro and Natsuno have just had their Big Damn Kiss and are about to get frisky late at night in the facility cafeteria... and then the others girls come shouting down the hall to take a snack break after a movie, and the two quickly cover themselves back up before anyone notices.
• Jerkass Realization: The original Keitaro has his moment of reflection offscreen, sometime after he and Natsuno broke off their engagement. By the time the two of them are the only survivors left of the colony, he gets to apologize to her for real.
• Like an Old Married Couple: Tomi and Nenji are as belligerent with each other as ever, often bickering and flinging verbal jabs at each other. Though it's usually made clear that nothing serious is meant by it, and the two spend just as much time showcasing that they deeply love each other. It's quite significant that they're the first couple among the group to be on their way to having kids.
• Like Brother and Sister: Given that all three grew up together, Tamao acts as a sister surrogate to both Keitaro and Takatoshi, and is constantly looking out for their well-beings.
• "Not So Different" Remark: In Chapter 6, Natsuno notes Keitaro's comments about now knowing what he wants out of life to be similar to how she feels.
• Plucky Girl: In spite of growing up during a (simulated) World War and finding herself on a new planet in the company of strangers, Tamao remains strongly optimistic towards making the best of what's before her.
  Tamao: "I happened to wake up when it was all over. But I shouldn’t worry about the past and what was out of my control. I can shape my own future and create new memories. My only fear now is if I’ll have enough time in this life to experience everything I dream of."
• The Reveal: It turns out things never worked out for the Keitaro and Natsuno of 2188; Keitaro's fixation on experiencing an era before the war overrode his consideration for Natsuno's feelings, and she left him without ever talking through their issues, setting up their future incarnations to be alone from each other in different sectors for countless loops. The Keitaro from the loop before the protagonist - a.k.a. BJ - discovered the logs from 2188 and records his own, expressing his regret that he never got a chance to be there for the Natsuno of his loop.
• Right Through the Wall: In chapter 31, It turns out Nenji and Tomi could hear the sounds of Keitaro and Natsuno's love-making from their room. And the next afternoon, the whole group has a field day teasing the two about it.
• Sexy Shirt Switch: Keitaro meets up with Tamao one morning and notices her wearing a shirt that isn't hers. Then realizes she had just come out of Yuki's room.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Chapter 26 has Natsuno strip down in front of Keitaro to go swimming in a pool they find, even teasing him for getting flustered after everyone has already seen each other naked when they awoke from their pods.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Keitaro's experiences from the Pacific War still haunt him in the form of nightmares and flashbacks, as do the events from the battle against the kaiju. It's also the source of his instinctive need to take accountability for everything, hence why he Apologizes a Lot like in canon.
• Stepford Smiler: Many instances occur throughout the story; understandable given the massive, existential burden the characters are all confronted with as the last humans alive.
  • Natsuno, who throughout the game was usually the Genki Girl of the cast, is gradually revealed to have been shouldering loads of hidden pain for years. And the reveal that all of it was part of a simulated world leaves her feeling empty and invalidated upon entering the real world.
  • Keitaro notices that Iori, who's often smiles and good vibes, has a lost and sad look in her eye despite her words. This is affirmed when he finds her crying alone one night, and sits down with her to chat about what's weighing on her.
  • Tamao has a couple of moments where her plucky demeanor begins to crack under high moments of stress, showing that she's just as lost and in grief as the others. Specifically when Keitaro wakes up after almost dying saving Natsuno, and Tamao breaks into tears as she scolds his recklessness; and the flashback to when everyone was beginning to wake from their pods, and Tamao is extremely confused and terrified given that she was absent through all of the final battle and the big reveals about Project Ark.
• Their First Time: Chapter 29 has Natsuno inviting Keitaro to her room after not being able to sleep, one thing leads to another, and the two have what's described as a very long and heavy amount of sex (And Nenji and Tomi have to bear through the sounds peeking into their room).
• Together in Death: In their final moments, the original Keitaro and Natsuno spend the little time they have apologizing to each other for how awful things turned out for their relationship and musing on whether the future versions of themselves will be able to make things work and live happily. They spend the last few minutes they have prepared to make love before the warnings blare to signal that life support systems are about to give out.