From Dusk to Dawn in Miyaki

From Dusk to Dawn in Miyaki
Meta Information
Author	Peter
Genre	Science fiction Dystopian fiction
Characters
Protagonist(s)	The cameraman Haru Sakura
Antagonist(s)	Wisteria
Setting
Timespan	320 CE
Locations	Izumo
Relevant organisations	SDS Foundation
Other related pages	Izumo

"From Dusk to Dawn in Miyaki" is the fifth book of the Ascendancy Saga. It occurs following the Carbonado and Wisteria interlude, and follows an unnamed cameraman and a boy named Haru as they journey through the country Izumo, which has been sealed off from the outside world as part of the Miyaki Project.

Synopsis

An unnamed cameraman from the Tritonian Confederacy has been tasked as a military journalist as a joint taskforce prepares to land on the shores of Izumo pending a military intervention. As he arrives on shore, he turns around to find all of the soldiers have disappeared. As he journeys towards a village, he notices a strange anomaly where the sky would turn black momentarily, and the land around him would erupt with gunfire.

He meets a boy named Haru, the sole survivor of a purge in his home village. The cameraman takes photos of the village while Haru infers that mysterious people stripped the citizens of the right to use "kana", the Japanese script, all but erasing the people's identity and history. Noticing a strange dark nebula in the sky, and learning that Izumo is contained within a gargantuan dome, he becomes determined to find the truth behind Izumo and document the evidence. He encounters Sakura, who is working as an undercover operative in Izumo, having been led there by her search for Wisteria, her older sister.

The two ally, and agree to confront the truth head on. They encounter the soldiers and find that they do not attack them, which the cameraman believes is because the mastermind of the project is aware of his presence. As they board a shuttle that will take them to the main command centre of the dome, Sakura realises that the soldiers are in fact brainwashed Iujado, immediately alerting to the cameraman that Sakura knows significantly more than she lets on. As the ship travels, Sakura is possessed by some unknown force, and the two engage in a brawl. The cameraman notices a biochip implanted in her skull, which he promptly destroys, freeing her from some kind of mind control.

Sakura reveals herself to be Tenno, an ex-goddess who fell from power, and joined the SDS in the hope of searching for Wisteria. She explains that the chip inhibited what power she had left, and that it was a condition of her becoming an operative. Furthermore, her prolonged spying of Wisteria's actions led her to realise that Wisteria and the SDS are willing to kill her to safeguard the outcome of the Miyaki Project. They reconcile, and team up once again to storm the control centre and stop Wisteria.

They arrive to confront Wisteria, who explains that the Miyaki Project's ultimate goal is to create another universe, which the cameraman caught a glimpse of through the dark nebula in the sky - in reality, a portal. Wisteria claims that this will be done in order to purge anomalies like Sakura from the universe, on SDS orders. The two battle, and Sakura defeats Wisteria, who is apparently killed when she falls off the tower housing the control centre. Following Wisteria's defeat, the cameraman and Sakura prepare to leave, but not before they are stopped by two agents acting as SDS operatives, known as "Aldren" and "Alana", who have assumed the personas of the eponymous Tritonian monarchs. Together, they trap Sakura in the nascent universe, and kill the cameraman. Haru's fate is unknown.

Although the cameraman is killed, the Miyaki Project collapses without Wisteria's presence, and his camera's SD card provides irrefutable evidence that the SDS sanctioned the Miyaki Project - which enslaved a population for mass testing, and for the construction prototype nascent universe, leaving the foundation to fall into severe disrepute.

Retroactive continuity

It is revealed in "The Flavros Project" that, in reality, Wisteria feigned her own death. The "Aldren" and "Alana" that appeared to Sakura and imprisoned her was actually Wisteria herself using two personas, and her imprisonment of Sakura was her last act of collaboration with the SDS (and by extension Carbonado and Isla, who inherited the "nascent universe" and developed it into the Digiverse Project.) Almost immediately, Wisteria would salvage what she had of her work on the nascent universe, and escaped to the Empyrium, where she would develop her prototype into a separate functioning model akin to the Digiverse.