11. Chapter 11(3)

He knew he'd killed many, especially in those early battles where thousands were massacred mercilessly, the bloody images seared into his mind. He stood there for a moment, watching the scene in the distance and playing the images, the blood, gunpowder, and the screams of that day again and again in his mind.

Then he pushed the thoughts aside and walked on.

A/N: … welp! Really hope THAT scene doesn't get me in trouble...

Look, I just wanted to avoid a situation where the narrator just says "and then they made love", while also avoiding the Harry Turtledove trope of practically writing smut... but yeah, I have never written anything like this, which is weird this makes me more nervous about publishing cause this fic includes many horrors of war. Anyway, not sure how much in terms of "amateur hour" THAT scene was, but I was basically taking a page out of the Jack Reacher school of writing... scenes. I know some fics can get away with leaving this as a T, and the whole point was to focus on the emotional side of things, but... well, you guys let me know, though at this point I'm not sure changing it to an M will mean much since it's practically over.

The US has a stronghold on the "Special Region", I know the threat of the "gods" could crop up, but there's not much they could do, and I had it so that they would keep put and not threaten a situation that could result in their "petting zoo" being destroyed. Unlike canon Japan, odds are the US can allow allied nations access and actually help develop the region faster. I don't think there will be a lot of modernization even a year later, but certainly more than what we saw in canon where Japan was content with not developing the area for the most part. Vietnam is... sort of unified, but the Cold War rages on, and how these alterations may impact this timeline is certainly up for debate, but most of the main story threats have been beaten, and our two leads are building a new life together, both trying to heal after everything.

I plan to make a final chapter with a time skip to give some more details on this, but yeah, I think you can pretty much end the fic here... but I'm not gonna end it yet!

I'm planning on the next Author's Notes to include an entire section speculating how this timeline might develop, Alternate History Hub style!

That said, thanks so much for reading and following this fic thus far! I wasn't entirely sure how far I would take this fic when I first started writing it, but I am glad it turned out the way it did.

Thank you so much for the TV Tropes page, seriously, you guys are awesome! Thanks for the reviews and suggestions, special thanks to TopHatGuy for the assistance in more accurately portraying this fic and to AirsoftAl for the video reviews he's made.

Thanks for following this fic thus far! Hope to see you soon!