REIWA JIGOKUHEN - Chaotic Disturbance of Reiwa Era

Chapter 8 - Situational Awareness

Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo: Prime Minister's Office

"Are you saying that we have returned to the time period in the middle of the war?"

Drinking his first cup of coffee and picking at a bowl of chocolates, Prime Minister Kato's frown deepened. Since they were informed of the emergency, the reality of the situation has been far beyond anything they could have imagined. The number of deaths was predicted to be no less than 10.000, and guidelines for immediate victim support were drawn up. Immediately after that, another strange report came pouring in like an angry storm.

"How could such nonsense be possible?"

"But, Prime Minister, these are all confirmed information," Defense Minister Kusaka, on behalf of the Ministry of Defense and the SDF, declared.

"Right, Mitsuya-kun?"

"There's no doubt about it."

"...Alright, begin your explanation."

"Let me begin. First of all, as you can see from figures 4, 5, and 6 on page 11 of the document, a large number of B-29s and other aircraft were observed on the islands of Tinian and Saipan, where the unidentified planes landed. Figures 7 and 8 are aerial photographs of Tinian taken by the United States military in April 1945 and Saipan taken in March of the same year, respectively."

"Indeed, they look very similar..."

Chief Cabinet Secretary Takano looked at the images mentioned by Mitsuya and compared them with his own eyes, and groaned in defeat. A group of strangely unrealistic airfields occupies one corner of the island. Hundreds of B-29s lined up in rows, some in full color, some in black and white, but they looked more like each other than similar.

"Also on the island, a number of very old radio stations were observed in operation."

"Oh my, it even includes LORAN?"

Tsuyama, the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, looked both surprised and nostalgic. LORAN was a pre-GPS radio navigation system, and as a former bureaucrat in the Internal Ministry, she had been involved in its decommissioning for a short time when she first joined the ministry.

"That was originally started by the US military, wasn't it?"

"That's right. According to the intercepted communications between the B-29 and the radio station, there were frequent communications with an awareness of the Tokyo Air Raid. A portion of the intercepted communications is shown on page 14."

"I believe there was an Andersen Base and an international airport in Guam, what about there?"

"All of these conditions are similar to those on Tinian and Saipan. Please refer to figures 3, 4, and 5 on page 16. A C-2EB conducting a recon flight over the island also made contact with an unknown aircraft, which was different from the B-29. Figure 6 shows a photo of this aircraft."

"Wait a minute, is that alright?" Kato asked, eyeing the image of the twin-fuselage fighter.

"It maintained a minimum distance of 10 kilometers. The unknown aircraft didn't seem to notice the C-2EB."

"I hope so..."

"We will continue with the unidentified ship that appeared off the coast of Iwo Jima..."

In front of the bewildered ministers, Mitsuya, his face sullen, continued his explanation.

In addition to the B-29s that attacked Tokyo, their source, and the unidentified ship, there were many other things that could only be thought to have suddenly appeared in this world. Suddenly, suspicious radio waves began to be transmitted from many places around the world. Patrol planes captured one after another a group of submarines that were also too old. Surprisingly, a real Zero fighter was even seen in the sky, about to enter Japan, and they had just landed it at the Tsuiki Air Base.