Chapter Text
The seraph robot walked toward the capsule; the most important part was yet to come.
Professor Aoki tucked the small tube into a pocket of her lab coat.
The boy with glasses kept staring at his other self as the Executioner carefully opened the capsule's glass.
Aiko knelt down upon seeing the sleeping child.
"And how are you going to cure him?" Shizuka asked curiously.
"Concentration. Little Dove granted me the ability to use time-manipulating devices to eliminate illnesses, sending temporal waves from my hands in the process."
"Not all illnesses. Only illnesses, effects, and injuries inflicted by robots on other robots, humans, and the environment. That's why I might be able to eliminate crystallization, by reversing the process instead of accelerating it."
"Sounds like a time-manipulation device for very specific but more powerful situations." Doraemon raised both eyebrows in astonishment.
"In that case, I'd call it Brilliant Wave." Everyone looked at Nobita, who scratched the back of his neck, laughing sheepishly.
"What? The name just popped into my head, and I thought it would sound good."
"Typical of you, Nobita." Gian shrugged, shaking his head.
"Even in moments like this, you say silly things." Suneo laughed mockingly.
"But I like it." Aiko smiled. "Okay, let's call it Brilliant Wave, like the counterpart to the Attack of the End."
Seraphu, in his prison, felt his head tremble slightly in a belated gesture of frustration, for in that body he had no face.
The silence of expectation filled the place where time slept, like the young man in the capsule.
Aiko relaxed; it was the first time she was going to do this, concentrating on dissolving the crystal in the boy's heart.
That's why she placed her hands on his chest, closing her eyes.
The tension was so palpable a knife could easily cut through it.
Until, everyone saw something emanating from Aiko's palms.
Golden waves, weak at first, but growing stronger as the robot girl surrendered to her ability.
The Executioner's single eye widened in a mixture of surprise, hope, and disbelief.
He watched as the crystal that had emerged from his child's chest began to melt from the effect of the wave.
The humans and the robot cat began to grin from ear to ear as they watched what was happening.
Finally, after a few minutes, the crystal was gone. Aiko was tired, though; she still wasn't used to her own power returning, and it was the first time she'd used it like that.
"The crystal's gone!" Nobita exclaimed excitedly, though he was then confused.
"But my other self won't wake up."
"He's still under the capsule's influence. To wake him up, I have to disconnect him."
The Executioner sighed. "But I'm not sure. What if it's already too late?"
"What if his heart is beyond saving?"
"There's only one way to find out" Doraemon said, nodding confidently.
The Executioner stared at the capsule, hesitating.
He feared that, even though the crystallization had worn off, the damage to his child's heart from being crystallized had been detrimental, and that he would die as soon as the machine stopped working.
But he looked into the eyes of his other self and his child, and hope shone in both their gazes.
He trusted his child and he trusted himself.
So, with a sigh and a nervous tremor, he began to shut down the machine.
The sound of the shutdown and the cables being disconnected from the device filled the stage.
The other Nobita's body lost the bluish hue of the temporary coma.
And the boy's color began to return as his body temperature started to rise again, causing the Executioner's eye to begin to glaze over.
His breathing, which had been heavy, was regaining its strength; no cold breath escaped his mouth.
This made the guys emotional, especially as the sleeping boy slowly began to awaken.
"I-it can't be..." the Executioner said, moving closer to his friend.
The guys knew this was a personal moment for both of them, so they stepped back a little.
The other Nobita's eyes looked lost as he began to wake up.
The blurry vision of his dazed state gradually became clear, as he fell into an induced coma with his glasses on.
When he saw the Executioner, he didn't see a giant robot that had to be a monster because of a poorly told story.
He saw his best friend, the same chubby, earless blue cat he always saw first thing every morning when he woke up.
"...Doraemon?"
His kid's voice brought tears to the Executioner's single eye, tears beginning to flow uncontrollably, like a faucet whose tap has broken from being turned too far.
"N-Nobita... Are you okay... Are you really okay?"
The boy, who had slept for a long time, sat up slowly. His body was feeling the effects of the year-long coma, which, though it hadn't passed in a time-out, had certainly passed for everyone else.
He was weak from the numbness, but he was okay.
He checked himself over, his chest. He felt that life wasn't leaving him; he no longer felt cold, no longer felt the pain in his chest.
But that didn't stop him from crying loudly and rushing towards his best friend.
"DORAEMOOOOOON!" he shouted with joy through his tears. "I MISSED YOU SO MUUUUUUCH! I-I-I-IT WAS DARK, I COULDN'T MOVE ANYTHING, I FELT LIKE I WAS FLOATING IN THE DARKNESS! I WAS SCREAMING AND SCREAMING AND SCREAMING IN MY MIND, BUT THERE WAS NO ONE THERE!"
The Executioner, hearing his child cry, embraced him with his pincers, careful not to break his ribs, as his strength was immense in that form.
"Y-Y-Y-YOU DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THAT ANYMORE, YOU'RE CURED!"
The large robot closed his eye, letting more tears flow even through his closed eyelid, while he continued speaking in a broken voice.
"YOU'RE OKAY NOW, YOU'RE OKAY NOW, I MISSED YOU SO MUCH, BUT NOW EVERYTHING WILL BE ALRIGHT, BECAUSE YOUR HEART IS OKAY NOW!"
"AND MINE IS BETTER TOO, HEARING YOU CRY AGAIN."
Everyone teared up silently but smiled at the sight of the reunion between someone who had been forced to do the worst and someone who ended up in a perpetual sleep.
"Interesting." Professor Aoki put her hand to her chin as she heard them both crying at the reunion.
"For the patient, time shouldn't have passed like in a normal coma, even though he didn't hear anything. It must have felt like just a moment, since time was paused."
"But in this case, the boy was in a semi-conscious state where he didn't hear anything, but he saw himself in the darkness in his mind."
"And for a year, even though time stopped there, in his consciousness he continued to exist, just like the Executioner and Seraphu. He may not have felt hunger or sleep because only his mind was active, not his body, but that must be a lot for a child to process."
"In the capsule coma, you don't dream; you're just paused. Seraphu must have stolen an earlier version of the Preservation Capsule, because in the new one, you don't go through that. In the latest version, it's literally as if only a few seconds of your life pass in the capsule."
"So his mind was trapped in darkness... FOR A YEAR?!" Doraemon asked, agitated.
"Technically" Aiko sighed wearily.
"It wouldn't surprise me at this point if Seraphu deliberately acquired the previous model knowing that detail. Remember, he was jealous of Doraemon and Nobi's friendship" Dekisugi said, crossing his arms and frowning.
"He not only wanted to get rid of the other Nobi to continue controlling Doraemon, but he also wanted him to suffer while in the induced coma."
"This is going to traumatize him so much that he'll definitely be avoiding naps" Doraemon huffed.
"That's cruel!" Shizuka raised her voice in annoyance.
"But it wouldn't be anything new for someone with an inflated ego" Suneo shrugged.
"Look who's talking about egos" Gian said, glancing up at his ear.
"H-HEY!" Suneo exclaimed nervously.
When the other Nobita heard the guys' laughter, he jumped at the sight. "Huh?! Is that us and our friends?! And who are they?!"
The boy pointed at Aiko and Professor Aoki. He began to react, looking around in all directions.
"W-WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR NEIGHBORHOOD?!" the other Nobita shouted, now horrified at the sight of the frozen landscape.
Doraemon approached Nobita. "Hi, I know you must have some questions, too many, I'd say."
"But since the story is VERY long, I'll summarize it for you: My other self put you in that capsule because of the crystallization in your chest, putting you into an induced coma until he could cure you. He spent a year listening to Seraphu, a corrupted robot who stole the body of a kind seraph named Aiko."
"Not only did he make my other self crystallize this world in a delusion of being a savior, but 48 others as well, for a year, mainly because Seraphu made him believe that this would cure you. They tried to do the same to our world, or rather, our Alternate Universe."
"But we were not only able to outsmart that, but we came here to help you and capture the seraph robot who was the real culprit behind the crystallization in your chest, as well as cure you."
"This... This is so confus-. A year?! I was trapped in darkness for a year?! Th-this-!"
The other Nobita looked at Seraphu with a hint of sadness. "Did you really do this to try to cure me?"
"H-hey!" The clumsy boy shook his head at his other self. "D-don't think he did it on his own, he was tricked with a fake cure!" He broke out in a cold sweat. "Which was, well... Something you shouldn't know-"
"Stop right there." The Executioner raised the claw decisively. "Your other self needs to know. I'm not going to hide what happened to me from him; that causes problems, even if it's hard for him to accept later."
Doraemon nodded heavily. "I understand that. I know what you mean. It happened to me when I hid my headaches, and it scared everyone when they got worse, especially Nobita. It's right that you tell him."
The boy with glasses looked at his best friend and smiled understandingly. "You're right, it's better that my other self knows."
The Executioner looked at his child, who was looking at him with confusion and nervousness as he held him in his claws.
"I'm not going to lie to you, I did it precisely for that reason."
"And I also did something to 38 humans who didn't deserve it, for a cure that was just an illusion. I ended their lives, people whose lives can never be recovered, not even if Aiko heals the worlds I crystallized."
"And that's why, when this is over, I'll turn myself in to the Time Patrol."
The other Nobita was startled with sadness.
"I know you won't want me to do that, or maybe you don't want to see me now that you know what I've done."
"But I have to pay for what happened. Like I told someone once, sometimes what's right isn't always pleasant to do. I want to do it."
"But at least I can pay for my mistakes, happy to see you move on with yourself. I know you'll see me as a monster now because of what I did and-"
"NO, DORAEMON, DON'T GO!" The other Nobita hugged the Executioner, pressing his body against his because of the size difference. He was tearing up. "YOU'RE NOT A MONSTER! You were tricked, and it was my fault!"
"I thought I could stop him from hurting you and turning you into this if I protected you, but I only made things worse by not thinking things through!"
"You didn't do these things because you wanted to, he used you, I don't hate you for that!"
The boy who had once been in a coma looked at his friend with tears in his eyes. "I don't want you to go to prison for this. This isn't your fault. You never meant to do this! Please don't! I don't want you locked up!"
Sadness gripped the hearts of the guys from the other world; Shizuka wiped her tears with a handkerchief.
But they knew it was something the other Doraemon wanted to do.
The large robot, moved, used a pair of tongs to wipe away one of the other Nobita's tears.
"Thank you for not hating me, but you know I have to do this, and we have the time machine, or we will when this is over."
"We'll be able to see each other, even if it's through glass. It's not fair because neither of us asked for this, but it's the right thing to do, and the right thing isn't always easy."
"I just want you to promise me the same thing you promised me when you found out about that."
"Did you promise each other something?"
"The day I learned that Doraemon would have to return to the future, there was a promise."
Doraemon and Nobita looked at each other, unable to resist holding hands.
They knew that promise as well as they did.
"When the time comes to say goodbye..." Doraemon said.
"We must treasure the good times as a precious gift and a source of motivation..." Nobita added.
"And move forward in life, remembering each other's smiles."
When they both said that at the same time, a spark of affection filled the crystal island, one that everyone felt.
And it reminded those who were from that world that this promise motivated them to keep smiling, even as the clock of their true farewell continued ticking.
The boy who had emerged from his coma wiped away his tears with a sad laugh. "Even in other worlds, we have the same promise, huh?"
The Executioner nodded. "That's right."
The boy leaned back against the large robot's armor. "And I'm going to keep that promise, even if we have to say goodbye first. I love you, buddy."
"I know you will, I love you too."
The two remained in a simulated embrace, due to their lack of size, until the robot remembered something else.
"That's right, before you fix this world. Aiko, first, I thank you for healing Nobita, I owe you that, you're a very sweet robot girl, I'm sure that's how the human Aiko was before she died, pleasant and kind."
"And second, I want to settle a score with a certain egocentric liar."
The Executioner left the other Nobita leaning against the glass tree since he was still numb and it would take him a while to walk and stand properly again, due to his year-long coma.
And so, he flew to Seraphu. Doraemon did the same; he too wanted justice, and followed him in the takecopter.
"Very well, Seraphu, it's time you settled your accounts with society."
But Seraphu just kept his head bowed, staring at the Executioner, his two wings already spread.
"What? You're not going to say anything? Ha, it seems your ego has fried your circuits!" Doraemon smiled mockingly.
The giant robot transformed the claw into a needle.
"Are you really going to do it? Are you going to end your life as a partner?" Seraphu asked curiously.
"Just as you lied to me to crystallize and pierce others, the same will happen to you, in reverse. You are the true danger, not only to this Reality and that of my counterpart, but to all of them."
"Goodbye."
Seraphu chuckled softly.
"If that's what you want, fine."
Neither of them could see it.
No one could see it.
Seraphu used his wings as if they were weapons.
The decorative feathers flew off, leaving the metal base like distorted needles piercing the metal beneath the Executioner's large eye.
"DORAEMON!" both bespectacled boys shouted simultaneously.
"Your life as my partner has come to an end. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself."