by Project Itoh
“At last,” he said, “I understand the meaning behind what you did. At last, I understand the truth behind your courage.”
Using the last of his strength, Big Boss rose to his feet, still in salute—his proof to her that he understood. She had been a true patriot. She loved her country, but was never driven by present national interests. She had been intent on protecting her own identity, such as it was, and never looked down upon other countries or their peoples.
She loved not only the country of her birth, but the world as a whole.
That was something that Zero—and the Patriots—had never been able to accomplish. They were unable to believe in the wills of others, or themselves, and their fear manifested in the memes that expanded relentlessly, and in the narrative that used, exploited, and controlled.
But that had all ended. The country she wanted, the world she envisioned, could now be built by the next generation, and the last one wouldn’t be around to see it. The past might yet repeat itself. Chains might again be discovered to deny love and forgiveness.
But hope always remained. Sometimes where you least expected it.
“It’s almost time for me to go,” he said.
Big Boss lowered his salute and faced the warrior and last remaining Snake. For Big Boss, Snake had been that hope. Many times he had confronted Snake as an adversary, thinking him an agent of the Patriots. But in the end, Snake had freed the world from Zero’s curse. And not just Snake, but Liquid and Solidus; hadn’t each fought the Patriots in their quests for their own freedom?
Their wills had not perished. Their stories had not disappeared. Hadn’t the seeds of father and brothers taken root in Solid Snake? Hadn’t they ultimately achieved the freedom they staked their lives to grasp?
The only task that remained was for Big Boss to fade away.
A task only he could do.
“With me, the last ember of this fruitless war dies out. And at last those old evils will be gone. Once the source of evil returns to zero, a new one—a new future—will be born.”
Big Boss held out his hand, the gesture a farewell, an expression of gratitude, a declaration of peace to end a prolonged battle, and an order from a commanding officer.
“That new world is yours to live in. Not as a snake, but as a man.”
Snake recalled the day he first met this man. It was the initiation ceremony to FOXHOUND. As the unit’s commander, Big Boss walked down the line of new recruits and shook each soldier’s hand. The battle you face, he had said, is a war unlike any before. None will tell of your successes, or failures, or even deaths.
But know this. Whatever your battles, whether ordered by me or by country, each of you have been chosen. You who stand here today know no life but combat. In a way, you should be pitied. But these battles are not to be given to just anyone. You are not tools of the government or anyone. You fight for yourselves and to protect the things you hold dear.
Always fight by your own will.
Protect what you can’t bear to lose.
No one else can fight that battle for you.
Frank’s last message to Snake, pinned beneath REX’s foot, had been Big Boss’s words at the start of it all. Snake smiled scornfully at himself for not having made the connection sooner.
Snake hadn’t shaken Big Boss’s hand since that ceremony, and as he did so now, he felt a sense of completion. In the future, an unknown world awaited.
Suddenly, Big Boss collapsed. Snake, responding quickly, caught him mid-fall. For a brief moment, their faces brushed against one another. Big Boss’s cheek was terribly cold, and Snake reflexively recoiled. He had felt the life draining from Big Boss’s body.
The pain seemed to worsen with each new breath.
But he still had more to say. From the pit of his stomach, Big Boss struggled to squeeze out his voice. He couldn’t allow himself to die without saying it.
“Know this … Zero and I, Liquid and Solidus, we all fought a long, bloody war to be free. We fought to free ourselves from the limitations of nations, systems, norms, and ages. But no matter how hard we tried, the only liberty we found was on the inside … trapped within those limits. The Boss and I may have chosen different paths, but in the end, we were both trapped inside the same cage. But you … you have been given freedom. Freedom to be outside.”
Big Boss gasped painfully for air. Snake gently lowered him to the ground. Snake gently put his hand on Big Boss’s side and guided the dying man’s back to lean against The Boss’s gravestone.
“You are nobody’s tool now,” Big Boss said. “No one’s toy. You are no longer a prisoner of fate. You are no longer a seed of war.”
Big Boss fondly recalled the anger he’d felt, rising up from the pit of his stomach, when he learned that the Snakes had been born. He had reviled his children. He hated the clones born in defiance of his will and without his permission. That they were raised and used as agents of the Patriots to defile The Boss’s will made the hate only stronger.
But how about it? In the end, wasn’t it those clones who lifted the curse Big Boss placed upon himself? He owed this man much. If his death would repay any of those debts, then he would gladly go.
“It’s time for you to see the outside world with your own eyes. Your body … your soul … are your own. Forget about us. Live … for yourself. You need not be bound to me any longer, David.”
Big Boss’s words seemed an apology. I’m sorry it took me so long. I’m sorry I shackled you so long. Yet few are able to live their own lives. Especially as the Patriots had people of the whole world within their grasp. Your future—that’s your real life. Though it may be short, you get to live, and I envy you.
“And find a new lease on life.”
Big Boss pulled a cigar from his pocket. His trembling hand delivered the tobacco to his lips, then found his lighter, only to fall slack on the way back up. He was slipping into unconsciousness. His deep, ragged breaths from when he leaned on Snake’s shoulder had become faint, and the slight rising and falling of chest and stomach could only be seen if searched for.
The cigar dropped from his mouth. His eyelids dropped, and he prepared himself to accept that which would soon come.
“Boss,” he said, “you only need one snake. No … you don’t need any snakes.”
A transparent tear formed at the corner of one closed eyelid, followed his cheek down, and fell to the white stars-of-Bethlehem. Snake retrieved the cigar, returned it to Big Boss’s lips, and lit it with the lighter. He caught a bit of the trailing smoke and coughed. Big Boss lifted his eyelids a tiny fraction and watched Snake softly cough.
Snake was his son, his brother, a soldier under his command, and an enemy.
To him, Snake’s presence was complex and multifaceted. But now the many sides of Snake converged into one. Whatever anyone thought, wasn’t that enough? Whether to dream of having a child. Whether to have another in the world who could take over his will. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, someone once said.
This dream, this hope, did not belong to the Patriots, and it did not belong to The Boss. This was his own. As was the coming death.
“This is good,” he said. “Isn’t it?”
The cigar fell.
As Big Boss’s last breaths faded, Snake remained at his side.
Snake watched the white petals dance through the air. They’re like stars, he thought. The Boss had been to space. How much like this view was what she saw beyond the earth?
When Sunny asked me to write you my story—to write about the feelings that came to me then, the despair I felt, and the hope—I hesitated a little.
I remembered everything, but I feared I couldn’t do a good job telling such a sweeping tale woven by so many people. I never was much at talking. Even when Sunny introduced me to you, I was at a loss.
But, Uncle Hal, Sunny kept after me. Tell Snake’s story. Tell your story. I want the person I chose to spend my life with to know everything about me. I want him to know how amazing we
re the people who raised me.
You’re my hero, Uncle Hal, she said. She pushed me. I remembered how Snake’s face got when someone called him the legendary hero. Of course, I wasn’t a hero either—just a man who happened to be at that place at that time.
Snake always joked, You’re white collar, I’m blue collar. As if spilling from a world put together so that everything was fate, a series of tiny coincidences brought me to Snake, and I followed him in his battles.
From here on you’ll be sharing your life with Sunny. As you depart on your new adventure, I offer you not words of congratulations, but only this book. I can’t be at your wedding, but if Sunny delivers this book into your hands, I think that will be enough for me. I’ve stuffed my thoughts into the lines within. I may have put in too much; if it’s a little overwhelming, I hope you’ll endure it.
Snake is gone now. Meryl and Johnny are off somewhere, fighting some fight just as The Boss had done—to protect what needs protecting. You know that war hasn’t shown any signs of disappearing from the earth, but even now, I still do what little I can to limit it. While you’re getting married, I’ll likely be trying to put out the embers of some conflict.
I have new friends and plenty of little Metal Gears to be my assistants. But Snake isn’t with me. The legendary warrior, the man who made the impossible possible, Solid Snake, is no longer part of this world. I won’t tell you in this book how long he lived after Big Boss set off on his voyage from that cemetery, or what kind of life he had. All I’ll say is that his last days were peaceful. He passed gently, simply falling asleep with a smile on his face. When I thought back to the days and nights he’d spent in constant battle, I found great solace in this.
Snake affected the lives of many. Some, like Jack, misunderstood and strayed from their paths, but in the end, Jack too settled into where he belonged. Any who witnessed the way Snake lived his life could awaken their inner strengths. He had that effect on Meryl, and even Colonel Campbell.
And ultimately even his father, Big Boss, was touched by Snake and found the forgiveness and peace he had for so long sought.
I already told you that you have a power, antithetical to that of the Patriots, to draw out the courage and the kindness within others. Perhaps what the Patriots did was more simply exercising control. But I bet you never even knew of their existence. The Patriots were incredibly careful never to let the people they controlled realize under whose thumb they lived. Like how a busy restaurant can provide chopsticks that are subtly more rigid, making the customers imperceptibly more uncomfortable and reducing the number of people who linger over their meals and thereby increase turnover. What the Patriots did was only an extension of such contrivances. You could say they performed maintenance on our environment.
The SOP was part of that. Militaries and PMCs actively sought out the SOP because the System was useful. Though PMCs under governmental contract were obligated to join the SOP, independent PMCs were not pushed into the System, but rather embraced it to improve their war performance and protect their corporate reputations. Once the SOP had become universal, those who sensed something off about the System and refused to take part in it would have no place to go—just as Johnny hadn’t been able to admit he wasn’t in the SOP.
The Patriots used this to repress the populace; to control the wild pack of animals from being let loose, to be able to act as they pleased. Such was the System built from a fierce distrust of the fellow man. The System wasn’t a discrete existence to be found in any set of locations—the System hid in the relationships and connections between people. That’s how that even after the death of Zero the System lingered, still able to keep the world under its control.
But Snake was different. He was not a system but one man, and by setting an example he changed many people. Including myself. I tried to express that through this book. Just live. Live with sincerity, respect toward others, and belief in yourself.
Actions speak. That was precisely the kind of man Snake was. He stoically fulfilled his duty and brought change to the world.
I’m not going to tell you to live like Snake. That would be the Patriots’ way. Like how Jack had once been snared. But what I did tell you, through this book, was how Snake lived, how that affected others, and how the world turned out as a result. More than anything else, I tried to describe what his actions showed Sunny. I did what I could to express Snake’s thoughts and the feelings of the people around him.
I want you to know why, even today, so many people are fighting for the world you live in.
At the end, Snake thanked me, but I was the thankful one. I know my decision to follow Solid Snake was the right one. If I had never met Snake, I might still be merrily developing weapons, my eyes and ears closed from the rest of the world.
True, I suffered great loss after I met Snake—Wolf, Emma, Naomi. With their deaths I became trapped in despair so deep I thought I couldn’t go on living. As I wrote this book, nothing was harder than returning to those memories.
Still, I’m glad I met Snake. Through the days of our fight together, he taught me what it meant to be alive. And I learned that as you live, you etch your life inside other people.
People live to be remembered by others, no matter in what form. People die. But death is not defeat. For Snake and me, this is only the beginning. Even should our names become lost, the significance of our deeds will live on, passed like echoes from one person to the next.
That’s why I don’t want to forget a thing; not the happy recollections and not the painful memories.
Sometimes I think about how I wish I’d introduced you to Snake. You’re a lot like him. Through your strength, your strictness, and your kindness, you have the talent to be a positive influence on others.
Perhaps Snake was a blue flower, a man-made beast.
And even though he couldn’t leave a child, the testament to his life remains within many people. Jack, Meryl, Johnny, Mei Ling, and Sunny. Even this book I give to you is a testament to the man called Solid Snake.
After Big Boss died, Sunny and I went with Snake on his trip around the world—a world now free of the Patriots. To tell future generations of what Snake saw, we were witnesses attending to his last days. We followed him everywhere, no matter how exasperated his expression became.
Snake told me then, “I’m gonna be dead soon. You don’t have to come.”
But I insisted, saying, “You wouldn’t let me suffer Sunny’s eggs alone, would you?”
I wonder if Sunny’s eggs have gotten any better since she met you. The last time I had them, they were … okay. In them I could taste part of Naomi’s story, passed on to Sunny.
I wonder if you have to eat those eggs every day.
If they taste good now, not like the ones when she was eight, it’s because Naomi helped her. Naomi was only with us on Nomad for a fleeting moment, but a glimpse of her skill was passed on to Sunny.
Even atop the dining table, someone’s story lives on.
This world is an aggregate of such modest stories.
AFTERWORD
A NOVELIZATION. A book taking a story written as a movie, anime, or other media and changing it to prose.
“Will you do the novelization for Metal Gear Solid 4?”
To be entrusted with the novelization of such a monumental work was too great an honor for a novice with only one novel to his name. A newcomer might quietly undertake the job, receive the script, and dispassionately adapt it into a novel. A basic, sincere approach within the novice’s abilities.
But I had reasons that made such an approach out of the question.
I had been a fan of the Metal Gear series’ creator, Hideo Kojima, for twenty years.
Because I was a fan, I didn’t want to treat this like a typical novelization. I didn’t want to present a fleeting memory to be read and then discarded; I wanted to offer something that would remain forever on the bookshelves of whoever picked it up. I wanted a novel worthy of being read more than once. As Hideo Kojim
a’s stories held a special place for me in my youth, I hope that this ending to the Metal Gear series will be special for you. That’s what made this novelization what it is.
Perhaps I should have written shorter sentences. Perhaps I should have cut everything but the dialogue as much as I could. Perhaps I should have shortened the paragraphs and made it easier to read. As a reader, I’ve been under the care of novelizations like that. A rumination of the experience of the “real thing.” Since this book tells the story of the game as it was, perhaps I didn’t need to produce detailed descriptions.
But as long as the name Metal Gear was attached, I decided I wouldn’t let this be something merely peripheral.
Yet I didn’t at all want to make the novel special to myself by using the worldview and characters to assert myself through the narrative. How furious would I have been as a fan if some inexperienced nobody came in and asserted himself through the narrative and presented an original story with the same world and the same characters? Were it a famous, accomplished author, I might forgive, but someone new to the field like me couldn’t do that, nor did I want to or feel the need to. It’s easy to assert your ego through an “original” story. But I knew that the possibility of the novel lay in a place outside the story.
It was the choice to make Otacon the narrator.
How would the story be told? I know that a novel’s essence resides in that how. Moses parted the Red Sea, and Jesus turned water into wine. The soldier put his life on the line for the princess, and the little boy left on a journey. Once upon a time … In the past, stories didn’t belong to novelists, but to someone, somewhere. The passing down of another person’s deeds. From the likes of minstrels, tellers of lore, and the faithful apostles came many styles of storytelling to pass on the tales to the future world.
The method of the telling has as much meaning and importance as the story itself. Though The Lord of the Rings films are loyal to Tolkien’s creation, Peter Jackson’s presentations of the stories make the films distinctly his own. One might say that Peter Jackson told his own story through the way he told The Lord of the Rings.