Note: The final version has way more annotations than what is given here; I confined myself to technical terms and cultural tropes here.

Prologue

 

Special Region / Avion Sea / 29°N, 15°E

Rondel Standard Time 0723 hours—

 

He lowers his eyelids and concentrates every one of his five senses into hearing alone.

Within the dark, black abyss of the deep sea, what comes through the receiver are the sounds of waves, the popping of tiny bubbles, and the chirping of vividly colored fish.

His fingers move delicately over the instruments, with the care one might use when handling fragile glasswork, searching for signs hidden beyond the countless murmurs filling the sea.

“…………?”

He holds his breath, suppresses even his heartbeat, and peels away the veil of noise arriving from every direction, layer by layer. Only after repeating that painstaking process can he finally glimpse the target’s presence, however faintly. It may be akin to trying to find a single needle dropped on a beach using nothing but the sense of touch.

“…Well? It’s there, isn’t it?”

The JMSDF Oyashio-class submarine Kitashio.

In its dimly lit sonar room, Petty Officer First Class Matsubashi, concentrating on sounds so faint they barely brushed the eardrum, replied to the sonar chief’s question with a sharp, “Shh!” Then, carefully adjusting the volume controls with his fingertips, he answered in a low voice.

“You’re right, Inchō**.** “It definitely resembles the sound Nishishio brought back. But whether it’s the same thing or not… I still can’t say.”

“No, that’s enough. If you think it’s similar, that alone is sufficient.”

Chief Petty Officer Katagiri, the sonar chief, grinned at those words.

The control room — the place from which every aspect of the submarine was directed—was only slightly larger than a large bus with all its seats removed.

At its center stood a raised section called the nakanoshima. Two periscopes, like pillars of a shrine, pierced openings running from ceiling to floor and extended down to the deck below.

Along the walls to port and starboard were consoles used to control the vessel, gather information, and conduct combat operations, operated by crewmen seated with their backs facing the center.

At the recessed seat toward the front of the port side sat the helmsman facing the direction of travel. This was the submarine’s cockpit — the helm station.

Yet anyone familiar with buses or aircraft cockpits would find the sight strange. The helmsman gripped the controls while facing a wall of instruments with no windows whatsoever. In other words, he could not see ahead at all. But for a submarine, that posed no inconvenience.

Behind the operators stood one diving officer and one patrol officer’s aide for each side of the vessel, supervising the port and starboard crewmen respectively. Standing atop the nakanoshima was the patrol officer himself, overseeing the entire room.

Lieutenant Commander Komatsujima, the patrol officer, bit at his nails irritably. The voices leaking from the sonar room over the speakers had sounded unsettled for some time now.

“Conn, sonar. There is something slightly to starboard of the bow. Designating Sierra-85.”

“Can you identify Sierra-85? In the seas of this Tokuchi**, nothing would surprise me** — I want to be prepared sooner rather than later.”

““We don’t have nearly enough data to say with certainty, but Matsubashi says it closely resembles the sample sound Nishishio brought back.”

“Matsubashi says so?”

“Hai, Matsubashi ga, desu.”

Matsubashi was a kind of genius among sonar operators, possessing hearing far beyond ordinary human capability and resolution superior even to machines. He had detected Russian, Chinese, South Korean, North Korean, and even American submarines intruding into waters near Japan from astonishing distances. If that man suspected something, the claim carried more than enough weight on its own.

As if finally receiving the answer he had been waiting for, Lieutenant Commander Komatsujima spun around sharply.

“Kanchō. I recommend we go to tokubetsu muon senkō**.”**

“Umu.”

Captain Kurokawa Masaya gave a nod.

At the very rear of the control room, where one could survey both sides of the vessel, sat a folding chair with a red cover positioned before the chart table. Seated there, overseeing everything with commanding eyes, was the captain.

The captain was, so to speak, the submarine’s brain.

The submarine itself was the captain’s body, and every crew member could be likened to one of its internal organs. The body moved according to the brain’s commands. Everything was carried out under the captain’s authority and according to his judgment and discipline. Mid-level officers were akin to the spinal cord: they could issue commands concerning reflexive action, but even they remained under the brain’s control.

“Tokubetsu muon senkō hajime.”

Lieutenant Commander Komatsujima gave the order.

“All hands, this is the conn. tokubetsu muon senkō, hajime!”

The command relayed by the IC operator in charge of internal communications caused the atmosphere throughout Kitashio to freeze instantly.

***

Petty Officer First Class Tokushima, who had been peeling potatoes knife in hand in the galley, swiftly popped a piece of the potato into his mouth. One piece, then another.

“Mm, this is good. This is a potato that can become delicious.”

The moment he nodded at the freshness — a slight raw green note but a satisfying crunch — a broadcast went out to the entire ship.

“All hands, this is the conn. tokubetsu muon senkō, hajime!”

“Tokumusen?”

No matter how busy he was, he almost never failed to hear an order. Perhaps it was because his given name was Hajime (“beginning”): instead of passing through the ears to be processed by the brain, spoken commands seemed to strike directly through his skin and into his soul. Thanks to that, his reflexive, unhesitating obedience to orders that could fall at any hour without warning had come sooner than any of his classmates.

When people first entered the Self-Defense Forces, most struggled to understand and accept what “orders” truly meant. Tokushima interpreted it this way: an order is something issued regardless of your personal circumstances. Whether you are right in the middle of taking a dump in the toilet or showering, the instant the order is given, you stop everything and proceed to your assigned duty. That was the responsibility imposed upon crewmen, and the least compensation they could offer society in exchange for receiving salaries despite producing or selling nothing tangible.

Even so, the timing of this tokubetsu muon senkō was the worst possible for Tokushima. Right now, Kitashio had seventy-four personnel aboard, himself and other supernumeraries included. The galley was in the middle of preparing meals to fill all those men’s stomachs.

“Damn — and my potatoes were just getting somewhere…”

Tokushima sealed the peeled potatoes inside zippered plastic bags and hurried them into the refrigerator, hoping to delay discoloration of their white flesh even a little longer.

The unpeeled potatoes were still safe, so he returned them to the storage box beneath the enlisted mess hall chairs. Then, together with the other cooks and members of the 4th Squad, he went around shutting down every piece of kitchen equipment.

“Tokushima, this box over here. Hurry!”

“Ryōkai!”

Then he and the chief cook hauled boxes of preserved food out from storage.

Tokubetsu muon senkō meant shutting down every machine possible except the propulsion system — refrigerators, air conditioners, everything — in order to eliminate noise. Off-duty crewmen not at battle stations were required to lie in their bunks and remain still to reduce oxygen consumption. In practice, this meant that even going to the toilet became nearly impossible, since opening doors or flushing water might produce noise. The highest possible level of silence was demanded.

Naturally, the galley ceased functioning as well, so substitute meals became necessary. Until the silent-running condition was lifted, the seventy-four crewmen would have to endure bland canned food.

“Uh… Matsubashi-ni-sō’s bunk was… here!”

Tokushima climbed into the top bunk of a triple-tier bed in the berthing compartment beneath the torpedo room and flopped down onto it. Since he was not an official member of Kitashio’s crew — merely a guest, effectively — his usual sleeping space was beside the torpedoes lined up in the torpedo room itself. But during situations serious enough to warrant silent running, the torpedo room could become extremely busy, so in such cases he borrowed an unused bunk.

“How long is this tokumusen going to last?”

Submarine bunks were so cramped that even turning over was difficult. Yet Matsubashi’s bunk alone had slightly more space up toward the ceiling, making it feel less oppressive.

Of course, there was a reason that extra space existed on the top tier. Thick pipes crossed overhead, and ventilation ducts opened nearby, making it hardly more comfortable than the others.

“Who knows? In these seas of the Tokuchi, even for someone like me who’s spent years aboard submarines, everything’s new. The only thing I can confidently say I know is this Kitashio. I can’t predict anything.”

Chief cook Natsuzawa, lying in the neighboring bunk, answered with a muffled, dissatisfied voice.

Then Takada, a Petty Officer Second Class in the bunk below, spoke up as well.

“Don’t worry, Tokushima-san. We’ll make sure to get you safely to the destination. Even in an isekai sea, Kitashio is the strongest.”

“Iya, that’s not what I’m worried about. I’m worried about the potatoes.”

“You mean that’s what you’re worried about?”

Kōda, in the bottom bunk, laughed.

“You really are a ryōri otaku**, Tokushima-**san… but honestly, we feel the same way. Even now, the vegetables are slowly wilting. We worked so hard to preserve their freshness.”

To protect the easily spoiled fresh produce, Natsuzawa, Takada, Kōda, and the other cooks had managed the vegetables with painstaking care: trimming damaged sections, turning them regularly like patients to prevent bedsores, and stuffing cotton into hollow spots. And now, just when it mattered most, the cooking had been interrupted. If this continued much longer, all their effort would go to waste.

Still, a submarine was not a passenger ship. It was a vessel built for war. Which priority came first was self-evident. Having to swallow bitterness at times like this was also part of what they were paid for.

“They were really high-quality potatoes…”

Tokushima sighed while staring up at the ceiling close enough to touch with a raised hand. He mentally replayed the crisp taste of those potatoes whose flavor was steadily fading with time. He could not help imagining all the dishes they might have become: croquettes, potato gratin, hashed potatoes… It saddened him that the possibility of elevating them into such meals was slipping away moment by moment.

In the air that seemed frozen solid, the second hand of the clock completed one silent revolution after another.

Notes:

“You’re right, Inchō**.”** - The term Inchō (員長) is a colloquial contraction of Suisokuinchō (水測員長), the technical title for the Chief Sonar Technician or Sonar Section Chief aboard a vessel. Within the tight-knit and fast-paced environment of a submarine or warship, crewmates frequently drop the formal departmental prefix (suisoku-, “sonar”) during active operations to save time. This shorthand maintains proper military respect by preserving the chō (Chief) suffix while reflecting the natural camaraderie and need for rapid, clipped communication among the sailors working the acoustic watch.

The control room – The Japanese term is hatsureijo (発令所), the submarine's control room / conn — the nerve center from which all orders are issued and all systems are managed. Also used as the standard intercom address for the control room, as in 『発令所、ソーナー。』 (“Hatsureijo, sonā”) — rendered in translation as “Conn, sonar.'”

nakanoshima (中之島(なかのしま)) - The raised central platform in the hatsureijo, around which the periscopes are mounted. The patrol commander (哨戒長, Shōkaichō) commands from here. Literally “central island,” it also happens to be the name of a famous island district in Osaka, which creates a gentle irony: a mundane geographic name domesticating the exotic, high-stakes environment.

“In the seas of this Tokuchi, nothing would surprise me” - Tokuchi (特地) is the nformal abbreviation of 特別地域 (Tokubetsu Chīki, “Special Region”). This is the core isekai (異世界, "different world") setting marker from the GATE franchise. The “Special Region” is a parallel fantasy world accessible through a gate that opens in modern Japan. The novel takes the unusual step of applying rigorous JMSDF procedural realism — correct ranks, terminology, and tactics — to a fantasy world, a signature feature of the series.

“Kanchō. I recommend we go to tokubetsu muon senkō**.”**- A kanchō (艦長) is the Japanese term of the commanding officer of a vessel. Used both as a title and as a direct form of address. It carries strong connotations of absolute command authority.

Tokubetsu muon senkō (特別無音潜航, literally “special silent running”) represents the most stringent level of acoustic discipline aboard a JMSDF submarine. At this level, all non-essential activity ceases entirely—including cooking, unnecessary movement, and auxiliary operations—leaving only critical systems functioning.

By contrast, muon senkō (無音潜航, “silent running”) refers to the standard practice of minimizing detectable noise signatures by reducing mechanical output and crew activity. The addition of the prefix tokubetsu (特別, “special” or “extra”) elevates this to an extreme condition: not merely quiet operation, but near-total operational stillness, imposed under heightened threat conditions.

The abbreviated form tokumusen (特無潜) is a natural example of military jargon compression (ryakugo, 略語), condensing the full phrase into a rapid, easily transmitted command term. Its usage reflects the clipped, efficiency-driven language typical of naval communications.

This nuance is captured effectively in the line: 『全艦、発令所。特別無音潜航、はじめ！』 (“Zenkan, hatsureijo. Tokubetsu muon senkō, hajime!” — “All hands, this is the conn — commence special silent running!”).

Tokushima’s instinctive reaction — “Tokumusen!?” — upon hearing the order underscores its severity. His response conveys immediate awareness of the operational disruption, particularly for the galley, where even routine tasks must halt abruptly.

More broadly, the term evokes the logic of Cold War submarine doctrine, in which acoustic invisibility equated to survival. Under tokubetsu muon senkō, the submarine is no longer simply operating quietly—it is attempting to disappear entirely within the ocean’s ambient noise.

“You really are a ryōri otaku**, Tokushima**-san” -  Ryōri otaku (料理オタク) can be translated as “cooking obsessive” or “cooking fanatic.” Otaku in contemporary Japanese usage has shifted from its pejorative origins (social outcast, obsessive) toward a more neutral or even affectionate descriptor for someone with deep, specialist enthusiasm for a particular field. Ryōri otaku (cooking obsessive) used by Kōda to describe Tokushima is affectionate rather than dismissive — the crew recognize and value his expertise while gently teasing him for his priorities. It also functions as a genre marker: the specialist-with-unusual-obsession is a stock character in ensemble military fiction, providing warmth and comic relief within the otherwise tense tactical setting.

Prologue

 

Special Region / Avion Sea / 29°N, 15°E

Rondel Standard Time 0723 hours

 

Lower the eyelids, concentrate every nerve of all five senses into hearing alone.

In the dark, the dark deep-sea blackness, what comes through the receiver is the sound of waves, the tiny pop of bubbles bursting, the chatter of vividly colored fish.

To search for a presence beyond the veil of the sea’s many murmurs, the fingers working the instruments move softly, quietly — with the care of someone handling fragile glasswork that might shatter at a touch.

“……………?”

Suppressing even his interfering breath, holding down even his own heartbeat, he peels away the curtain of noise reaching him from all directions — one layer, then another. At the end of that repeated effort, he can at last make out, however faintly, the shape of his target. It might be like trying to find a single needle dropped on a beach using only the touch of his hands.

“…They’re there, aren’t they?”

 

JMSDF submarine Kitashio**,** Oyashio**-class.**

In the dim sonar room of that vessel, Petty Officer First Class Matsubashi — who had been concentrating on a sensation barely reaching his eardrum, a sound on the threshold of sound coming through the receiver — replied to the sonar chief’s question with a sharp “Shh!” Then, carefully coaxing the volume dial on the console with his fingertips, he answered in a low murmur:

“You’re right, Inchō. There does seem to be a resemblance to the acoustic sample Nishishio brought back. But whether they’re the same — I still can’t say for certain…”

“No, that’s fine. The fact that you think it resembles something is enough.”

Sonar Chief Katagiri, Chief Petty Officer, heard this and smiled a slow, satisfied smile.

The hatsurei-jo — the place that governs every last thing on a submarine — is a space only marginally larger than a full-sized bus with every seat stripped out.

At the center is a raised section called the nakanoshima, and two periscopes stand there like pillars of a temple — one fore, one aft — piercing through holes bored from ceiling to floor and extending to the deck below.

Along the left and right bulkheads, consoles for controlling the ship and gathering information and conducting combat are arrayed in rows, and the crew operate them with their backs to the center.

To add one detail: in a recessed seat at the port fore end, the helmsman sits facing the direction of travel. This is the submarine’s cockpit — the helm station.

Yet the sight of the person seated there would strike anyone familiar with a bus or aircraft cockpit as strange. For he grips the helm while facing nothing but a wall of instruments with no window at all. In other words, he cannot see ahead at all. But that causes no inconvenience — such is the submarine.

Behind them, one officer on each side managing and supervising the port and starboard crews respectively — the diving officer and the watch officer’s aide — and on the nakanoshima itself stood the officer of the watch, overseeing everything.

The Officer of the Watch, Lieutenant Commander Komatsujima, was gnawing his nails with a faint air of irritation. The voice leaking from the speaker connecting to the sonar room had been restless for some time.

“Conn, sonar. There is something slightly to starboard of the bow. Designating Sierra 85.”

“Can you identify Sierra 85? In the seas of this Tokuchi, nothing would surprise me — I want to be prepared sooner rather than later.”

“We don’t have nearly enough data to say with confidence, but Matsubashi says it closely resembles the acoustic sample Nishishio brought back.”

“Matsubashi, you said?”

“Hai, Matsubashi ga, desu.”

Matsubashi was a kind of genius — possessed of a superhuman sense of hearing and a power of resolution superior to any machine. He had detected the submarines of Russia, China, South Korea, North Korea, and even the United States infiltrating Japanese coastal waters from astonishing distances. If that man found something suspicious, it carried all the persuasion needed.

Lieutenant Commander Komatsujima wheeled around with the energy of a man who had finally received the answer he had been waiting for.

“Kanchō. I recommend we go to tokumusen.”

“Umu.”

Captain Kurokawa Masaya gave a nod.

At the very aft end of the hatsurei-jo — where both port and starboard could be surveyed at a glance — a folding chair with a red cover stood with its back to the chart table, and it was there, surveying all from that position, that the captain sat.

The captain is, so to speak, the brain of the submarine.

The submarine is the captain’s body; every single member of the crew can be likened to an organ or viscera within it. The body moves as the brain commands. Everything proceeds under the captain’s sanction and conforms to his judgement and will. The mid-ranking officers are, so to speak, the spinal cord — they may issue orders in the domain of reflex actions, but even then they remain under the brain’s control.

“Tokumusen hajime.”

Lieutenant Commander Komatsujima gave the order.

“All hands, this is the conn. Tokumusen, hajime!”

With the command relayed by the IC operator handling internal communications, the air flowing through the interior of Kitashio came — at once — to a dead stop.

Glossary

Hatsurei-jo (発令所) - The submarine's control room / conn — the nerve center from which all orders are issued and all systems are managed. Also used as the standard intercom address for the control room, as in 『発令所、ソーナー。』 (“Hatsurei-jo, sonā”) — rendered in translation as “Conn, sonar.'”

Nakanoshima (中之島) - The raised central platform in the Hatsurei-jo, around which the periscopes are mounted. The officer of the watch (Shōkaichō) commands from here. Literally “central island,” it also happens to be the name of a famous island district in Osaka, which creates a gentle irony: a mundane geographic name domesticating the exotic, high-stakes environment.

Tokuchi (特地) – Informal abbreviation of 特別地域 (Tokubetsu chiiki, "Special Region") — the parallel fantasy world accessible through the Gate. The designation is a Japanese bureaucratic coinage; the inhabitants of the region do not use this term.

Inchō (員長) - This is a contraction of 水測員長 (suisoku inchō, “sonar section chief”). It's the informal address form used between crewmates rather than the full title.

Kanchō (艦長) - Commanding officer of a vessel. Used both as a title and as a direct form of address. Carries strong connotations of absolute command authority.

Tokubetsu muon senkō (特別無音潜航) – “Ultra-silent running” — the most stringent level of acoustic noise reduction, requiring cessation of all non-essential activity including cooking. Abbreviated in speech to tokumusen (特無潜). The original text actually has Tokubetsu muon senkō as in 『全艦、発令所。特別無音潜航、はじめ！』 (“Zenkan, hatsurēi-jo. tokubetsu muon senkō, hajime!” “All hands, this is the conn, commence ultra-silent running!”), but I used the abbreviated form instead as per advice.

Petty Officer First Class – U.S. Navy equivalent to the JMSDF rank二等海曹 (Nitō Kaisō).

Chief Petty Officer – U.S. Navy equivalent to the JMSDF rank 一等海曹 (Ittō Kaisō).

Lieutenant Commander – U.S. Navy equivalent to the JMSDF rank 三等海佐 (Santō Kaisa).

Captain – U.S. Navy equivalent to the JMSDF rank 一等海佐 (Ittō Kaisa).

Galery swung her sword with gleeful ferocity.

This was the moment she had endured for, waited for. She could finally beat this insufferable woman to death.

Galery gripped her sword, raised it high, and brought it down with all her strength.

Blade met blade, and chips of steel flew off in sparks.

Galery’s brute-force barrage of blows was being deflected and blocked by Satoko’s skilled swordsmanship.

The impudent woman actually appeared to have mastered the blade.

But Galery herself was a battle-hardened veteran. She felt not the slightest concern about losing to someone who relied on mere technique. She would simply overpower her with raw force.

:Be afraid! Cower!:

Against a technician, the approach was to drive them into a state of mind where technique became impossible. Fight wildly, break her spirit, and her skill would be useless.

But it was not working.

The blows Galery drove in with full force were parried with ease, deflected, or turned aside.

:Hmm?:

The sword was beginning to feel heavier.

She had the sensation of something slug-like and viscous ensnaring her sword, her arm, her whole body.

Growing impatient, Galery decided to reset — to put a small distance between them, recover her breathing, and then return to the offensive.

She stepped back half a pace.

In that instant, Satoko pressed in, as though exploiting exactly that moment.

:Damn—:

Galery wrenched herself back to dodge the falcata’s point driving in at full speed. She ground her teeth, braced her legs with every ounce of strength, steadied her body — and swung.

It was a blow that could have cut through a thick steel plate.

But even that, Satoko angled her blade and let it slide off the flat.

Taking a full-force strike that was neither blocked nor absorbed but simply redirected, Galery lost her balance entirely. Her upper body pitched forward and her whole body lurched.

:Oh no—:

As though she had been waiting for exactly that moment, Satoko flicked her wrist and raised the sword point. As they passed, Satoko’s eyes were cold. Simply cold — regarding Galery the way one regards an object fixed in place.

An instant later, the falcata swung down toward the back of Galery’s neck.

It was over in a moment.

With a sound of air, flesh, and bone being severed, a sensation like being plunged into ice water spread through everything below her neck. A kind of phantom pain — the last signal of severed nerves.

:Ah—:

The world rolled and spun.

In that moment, without anyone having to tell her, Galery understood: her head had been cut off.

D + 5 — Day 6 of the Ginza Incident. 1807 hours (6:07 p.m.)

 

An iron wire hanging in an elevator shaft.

Its lower end was connected to the elevator car that rode up and down within the shaft.

But Itami deliberately avoided the car itself. Instead he had slipped into the shaft, attached a hand ascender to the wire, and was hauling himself upward by brute force, inch by slow inch.

“♪ Chan-chan-chi, cha-cha! Chan-chan-chi, cha-cha! Chan-chan-chi, cha-cha! Chan-chan-chi, cha-cha! Te-re-rē, te-re-rē, te-re-rē, te-re! ♪”

A hand ascender is a device used for rope climbing. When weight is applied it bites into the rope and holds firm; when lifted lightly it slides smoothly — a convenient piece of kit.

Ordinarily, rope ascent is performed using a hand ascender and chest ascender in combination. But given that the object in question was an elevator wire, Itami was using two hand ascenders, one in each hand.

“♪ Te-re-rē, te-re-rē, te-re-rē, te-re! ♪”

“Would you stop that!”

The humming coming through the radio made Itami say it before he could think.

“Good morning, Hermes-kun. Today’s mission for you is—”

His handler, however, was completely unfazed.

“I’m not Hermes-kun. And you’re just loud!”

“What are you talking about? Doesn’t hearing this theme song get your spirits up? Adrenaline just comes flooding out, gives you energy, doesn’t it? Really feels like a secret infiltration mission, doesn’t it!?”

“Look, if you want music, go find something decent off the internet and stream it. Something that sounds like anime or game music. Like a drama about robots that kill each other for no reason. Something with a metallic, gritty, solid sound.”

“That’d be a chosak-ken violation, wouldn’t it. Getting clearance to use music is actually a bigger deal than you’d think, you know.”

“Even so — the Mission Very Important theme...”

“Doesn’t it make you forget how tired you are? Hey, while you’ve been going on about this, you’re already at the ninth floor.”

“What, really?”

Itami looked down as though only now noticing.

The view down the elevator shaft dissolved into darkness like the bottom of a pit.

“Pretty impressive, right? It’s a little bit of psychological tactics. Like a carrot dangled in front of a horse.”

“You could stand to be a little less blunt about it. Try wrapping it in a bit more tact.”

“What does it matter, it’s the truth. Only two more floors to go until the eleventh floor where Satoko-chan is!”

Note:

“Even so — the Mission Very Important theme...” – “Mission Very Important” is rendered in katakana (「ミッション・ベリーインポータント」 “Misshon Berī Inpōtanto”) and forms part of a sustained parody of the Mission: Impossible aesthetic, with Magus driving the joke. Her humming — 「チャンチャンチ、チャッチャッ！…テレレー、テレレー…」 — is a phonetic reconstruction of the franchise’s iconic theme by Lalo Schifrin, rendered in mimetic syllables rather than quoted directly. In Japanese prose, this kind of sound-symbolic imitation evokes a familiar tune while sidestepping literal citation.

Itami’s complaint — 「だからって、ミッション・ベリーインポータントのテーマはなあ」 (Dakara tte, Misshon Berī Inpōtanto no tēma wa nā) — sharpens the gag. The phrase deliberately distorts Mission: Impossible into clunky, over-literal katakana English.  The humor lies in its near-miss quality: Impossible (インポシブル, inposhiburu) is replaced with the far more mundane Very Important, preserving the cadence and recognizability of the original while draining it of its dramatic edge. Phonetically, the parody pivots on the shared inpo- (インポ) onset between inposhiburu and inpōtanto, allowing the substitution to sound momentarily “correct” before diverging.

What makes the sequence land is that Magus treats this as if it genuinely were the proper theme of a covert operation. She insists it heightens adrenaline, frames the situation as a “secret infiltration mission” (『秘密の潜入任務』, “himitsu no sennyuu ninmu”) and doubles down even as Itami pushes back. That insistence creates a tonal dissonance: the scene structurally mirrors something associated with Ethan Hunt — vertical infiltration, comms chatter, a steady approach to the target floor — while the mood is undercut by her playful, slightly flippant delivery.

In other words, the reference is not merely decorative. By explicitly naming and endorsing the misquoted “Mission Very Important” theme, the text turns the homage into self-aware parody: it signals the genre while simultaneously puncturing its seriousness.

BTW, this is how Magus hummed the theme in the original text, with Hepburn romanization. Think of Lalo Schifrin's iconic theme with its distinctive 5/4 time signature and that immediately recognizable te-re-rē brass motif.

『チャンチャンチ、チャッチャッ！　チャンチャンチ、チャッチャッ！　チャンチャンチ、チャッチャッ！　チャンチャンチ、チャッチャッ！　テレレー、テレレー、テレレー、テレッ！』

“♪ Chan-chan-chi, cha-cha! Chan-chan-chi, cha-cha! Chan-chan-chi, cha-cha! Chan-chan-chi, cha-cha! Te-re-rē, te-re-rē, te-re-rē, te-re! ♪”

Chapter 14 – Infiltration Operation

 

The battle was over.

No — in truth, it was not yet over. The real battle was still to come.

But for those who had believed they were safer inside the Imperial Palace, their battle came to an end today.

The enemy had been defeated, destroyed, beaten into utter ruin. The sight was gruesome and cruel — yet it also brought relief. The fallen enemy could never again harm them or their families.

And so the evacuees accepted their transfer to Shinjuku Gyoen.

They boarded riot police security vehicles and JSDF trucks and filed out through the Hanzōmon one after another. Most of them would continue on from there to their own homes.

“Itami — take care!”

“Bai bāi!”

Itami and Saeki stood side by side and watched the children who had been separated from their parents leave.

“Kokorone-chan’s gone, then.”

“She got through to her grandmother, so she’s better off there. The longer a young child stays somewhere like this, the more damage it does — you can’t know how deep it goes.”

“I heard the rumors. You actually clocked Kindō-san?”

“Yeah, I had some thoughts about that. Ended up doing it before I knew it.”

Even as he said it, Saeki’s expression was clear and bright, as if a weight had been lifted.

“Now I’ve got a dressing-down to look forward to. I have to go and face the music.”

As he said it, Saeki extended his hand to Itami.

“Well then — see you.”

Itami gripped it firmly.

Saeki turned and headed toward the Metropolitan Police Department building.

Those who depart. Those who watch them go. In the midst of that varied, bustling scene, someone called out to Itami.

“Itami-San’i desu ka?”

**“**Sō da kedo?”

“I’ve come from Ichigaya. Keimutai no Hanmura desu. This is a direct-delivery registered teisōbin.”

“A teisōbin? Direct-delivery register?”

A teisōbin is the sort of thing you get in bureaucratic offices — someone heading to another department gets asked, “while you’re at it, take this along,” and ends up carrying documents or items over. The name varies depending on the department, which can be confusing, but the idea is always the same. What was handed to Itami this time were two plastic containers.

“What’s this?”

“I’ve been asked to pass on a message: once you open them, switch on the radio inside. Oh — before that, could I get your signature for receipt?”

“Ā.”

Itami signed the paper presented to him.

The man who had introduced himself as Hanmura of the Keimutai departed as soon as that was done, his mission complete. He had prisoner transfers to handle and looked busy enough.

“What’s inside?”

He opened them. A radio.

Itami fitted the bone conduction earpiece and throat microphone, then switched the radio on.

“This is Magus. Looks like the gifts made it there okay. Good, good.”

“I’m not exactly thrilled about it.”

Looking down from the middle layer to the bottom of the container, he found combat fatigues, rifles, a handgun, and ammunition packed in tight.

“Did it ever cross anyone’s mind what would have happened if these had ended up somewhere else on the way?”

“You think we’d let guns and ammo move without eyes on ‘em? If they went somewhere they weren’t supposed to, the C4 inside would’ve gone ‘boom.’ No problem at all.”

“Th-that’s... one hell of a way to handle a ‘problem.’”

“Alright. Time for the mission.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding — there’s more? I’ve been on duty nonstop since this whole thing started. I’m completely wiped. I just want to go home, crawl under the futon, and rot!”

“The mission is to rescue Okita Satoko-chan.”

“Wasn’t the keisatsu supposed to handle that?”

“Because they found out where Sasakura-sōri is hiding, all the personnel that had been assembled for Satoko-chan’s rescue got pulled over to that. Don’t you feel sorry for Satoko-chan and Saori-san, left behind in the middle of enemy territory?”

“So what’s the plan?”

“Well, you see—”

Magus looked thoroughly pleased with herself, like a magician about to attempt a grand illusion.

 

***

 

A flashlight beam cut through a pitch-black underground tunnel.

Perhaps because rainwater from above was seeping in, the echoing footsteps of combat boots were accompanied by the sound of water being kicked up with each stride.

Reaching a fork in the tunnel, Itami pressed his throat microphone and whispered.

"Magus. This is Avenger, okure."

"................"

"Magus, do you read? Okure."

"................"

No response.

This far underground, radio signals simply could not reach. GPS was out of the question. Even a compass was useless. Itami had nothing but his own senses to determine direction.

"I've covered about three hundred and fifty meters from the start, so..."

He had been counting his steps as he ran — enough to give him a rough sense of distance traveled.

Itami shone a blacklight on his map. Under it, lines printed in fluorescent paint rose up white against the surface. That was his route.

"This way..."

Once he had fixed the path in his mind, he started running again.

This tunnel was part of the vast labyrinth spreading beneath Tokyo, Yūrakuchō, and Ginza.

It appears on no ordinary map, and in some circles its very existence is treated as urban legend. And yet it is equally true that tunnels excavated to route communication cables between office buildings, maintenance shafts for the Metropolitan Expressway, and the traces of the Kyōbashi River — a former waterway long repurposed as a drainage channel — spread in a dense network beneath Ginza, running in every direction.

These passages had grown interconnected in complex ways with no single authority overseeing them, and records had been scattered and lost over the years. As a result, no one person holds a complete picture of the whole — and so, over time, it became the great underground labyrinth it is today.

Through that underground, Itami ran.

The tunnel descended, then climbed, then descended again, over and over.

At times he had to crawl through narrow ventilation passages barely wide enough to squeeze through.

He climbed down maintenance ladders for the underground expressway, and at one point waded through a drainage channel that came up to his waist.

But by making use of these hidden passages, Itami was able to reach his destination without being spotted by anyone.

He kicked open a ventilation grill, forced his way through, and dropped down — to find himself looking at the underground car park on the fourth basement level of Etsuhisa Department Store.

Notes:

beaten into utter ruin – This is expressed as 完膚なきまでに (kanpu naki made ni, “utterly; without leaving a single patch of unbroken skin”) in the original text. It is a vivid idiom for total, overwhelming defeat. Kanpu (完膚) refers to undamaged skin; the phrase evokes a body so thoroughly beaten that no intact surface remains. Used here of the enemy's destruction, it is unflinching in its physical directness — appropriate for a passage that refuses to aestheticize the battlefield.

 

Hanzōmon (半蔵門) - One of the gates of the Imperial Palace, named after the legendary ninja Hattori Hanzō, who is said to have guarded it. Its use as the departure point for the evacuees is geographically accurate — it is the western gate, facing toward Shinjuku — and carries a faint historical resonance appropriate to a scene of people leaving a place of refuge after a battle.

 

“Ended up doing it before I knew it.” – What Saeki says in the original text is 「ついやっちまった」 (“Tsui yatchimatta”). The tsui (つい) signals an action that escaped deliberate control, and yatchimatta is the colloquial contracted form of yatte shimatta (やって しまった) — doing something one perhaps shouldn't have, with a slight rueful acknowledgment. Saeki's self-description is not quite an apology and not quite a boast.

 

“Itami — take care!” / “Bai bāi!” – The first line is written as 「イタミー、元気でねー」 (Itamī, genki de nē). The use of the long vowel mark ー (chōonpu) in both 「イタミー」 and 「ねー」 gives the line a drawn-out, sing-song quality. It reflects a childlike calling cadence — stretching the final syllable in a way typical of affectionate, slightly reluctant goodbyes. This is a prosodic effect that plain kanji or standard hiragana would not convey as vividly.

More importantly, the use of katakana for 「イタミー」 signals how the children relate to him. Rather than 伊丹三尉 (Itami-San’i, “Second Lieutenant Itami”) or any formal designation, he is simply Itamī to them — a name as heard and remembered. Katakana here strips away kanji associations and presents the name as pure sound, detached from rank or institutional identity. It marks a shift in relationship: the same person, but not the same social role.

“Bai bāi!” (「バイバーイ」) uses the same chōonpu elongation, reinforcing that same childlike farewell rhythm.

 

**“**Sō da kedo?” – “Sō da” (「そうだ」) is a plain affirmation (“that’s so / that’s right”). The addition of kedo (けど), literally “but,” softens what would otherwise be a flat confirmation and leaves the response slightly open-ended. Rather than forming a true question, it carries an implied “...so what is this about?” or “...what do you want?”  It signals that Itami is not sure what he is being approached for.

A direct translation like “That’s me” captures the core meaning but loses this trailing, anticipatory nuance. Something like “Yeah, that’s me — what is it?” better reflects the register, though it makes the implication explicit.

 

“A teisōbin? Direct-delivery register?” – 逓送便 (teisōbin) is an internal institutional courier system, the organizational equivalent of asking a colleague to drop something off on their way past. The narrator pauses to explain it, signaling that this is genuinely obscure bureaucratic vocabulary rather than a term the reader is expected to know. Its use here — to deliver weapons, a radio, and C4 explosive — is characteristic of GATE’s deadpan humor: the most mundane administrative mechanism deployed for the most operationally consequential purpose.

Itami’s echo of the unfamiliar term followed by an attempt at a gloss is exactly right and mirrors the original 「逓送便？直渡し書留指定？」 (“Teisōbin? Jikawatashi kakitome shitei?”) — he repeats the word back because he does not recognize it, then reaches for a paraphrase.

 

“If they went somewhere they weren't supposed to, the C4 inside would've gone ‘boom.’” -  Ｃ４ (pronounced as Shī Fō) — short for Composition-4 plastic explosive ­ — is included as a self-destruct mechanism in the weapons cache. Magus's breezy explanation — if the container ends up somewhere unintended, the C4 takes care of it — is delivered in the same colloquial Kansai register she uses for everything else, which is precisely where the humor lies: operational demolition discussed with the same detachment as a logistics problem.

 

“I’m completely wiped.” – Here, Itami uses the mimetic くったくた (kuttakuta), which conveys total physical exhaustion—the sense of being limp, drained, and spent. In 「もうクッタクタなんですけど。」 (“mō kuttakuta nan desu kedo”), the adverb もう (“already”) reinforces that he has reached that state, while んですけど softens the statement and leaves it trailing, implying a complaint or appeal (“…so I’m in no shape for this”).

A straightforward rendering like “I’m completely wiped” captures the core meaning, though it smooths over the mimetic texture and the slightly plaintive, trailing tone of the original.

Itami’s use of kuttakuta here is consistent with his established voice 9— casual, unguarded, and quick to foreground his own fatigue when pushed further.

 

This tunnel was part of the vast labyrinth spreading beneath Tokyo, Yūrakuchō, and Ginza. – In the original GATE series (Volume 10, Chapter 7), Itami proposes using these passages as an alternative to parachuting into Ginza — 「噂に名高い東京の隠し地下通路」 (“Uwasa ni nadakai Tōkyō no kakushi chikatōro,” “those famous secret underground passages Tokyo is rumored to have”) — only for Kanō to immediately deflate the idea: the tunnels people talk about are under the Imperial Palace and Nagatachō, not Ginza. The suggestion is dismissed as urban legend with no operational basis.

GATE:ZERO then delivers the ironic twist. Set earlier in the timeline, it depicts Itami navigating precisely such an undocumented tunnel network beneath Ginza — crawling through ventilation shafts, wading through drainage channels, counting his steps in the dark — to infiltrate Etsuhisa Department Store undetected. The passages Kanō dismisses as non-existent are, in the prequel, simply the route Itami takes. GATE:ZERO accounts for the apparent contradiction by establishing that these tunnels are so poorly documented and so lacking in any single responsible authority that no complete picture of them exists — which is exactly why nobody knows about them, including Kanō.