To the Other Side of Paradise

Using a satellite, the Tachikoma detect an American Empire ballistic-missile submarine loitering off Okinawa. The find alarms them: they cannot hack the vessel to read its orders, and its missiles are built to climb into the stratosphere before falling, meaning a launch from that spot could strike Dejima with no way to trace it back. Such a blow would erase the island's refugees along with the Self Defense soldiers in Nagasaki and the cruisers ringing the coast, and it would leave the American Empire blameless for the attack.

Meanwhile Batou and the rest of Section 9 run hard from Section 4, sent by the military to seize the plutonium the refugees supposedly hold. Boxed into an open plaza, Batou steps into view and argues that a third party has set them all up. Because his eyes match the type the Section 4 rangers carry, their leader hears him out as he explains the submarine's nuclear threat, and the unit realizes that unless the plutonium turns up soon a full invasion of the island will follow. Both teams then race the material toward the bridge, where the Self Defense Army has rebuilt the span it destroyed earlier and, unaware of the submarine, prepares to pacify Dejima before UN inspectors arrive.

Elsewhere Kusanagi at last reaches Kuze, only for a naval air raid to bury them both under rubble in a warehouse. As missiles and gunfire hammer the position, Kuze describes his revolution as a mass migration and evolution into the net, and explains that this vision clashed so sharply with the Individual Eleven virus that he was able to shake its grip. While they talk, Batou drives toward her position to pull her out before the nuclear strike can land.

The Tachikoma identify an American submarine capable of an untraceable nuclear strike on Dejima. Batou convinces the pursuing Section 4 they have been set up by a third party. Both units rush the plutonium to the rebuilt bridge as the Self Defense Army readies an invasion. Kusanagi finds Kuze, and the two are trapped by an air raid. Kuze reveals his goal of migrating into the net and how it freed him from the virus, while Batou races to rescue the Major.

Carrying the production subtitle This Side of Justice, this late second-season chapter converges the refugee crisis, the plutonium chase, and the American nuclear plot into a single threat. Kuze's account of evolution into the net crystallizes his ideology and sets up the direct confrontation with Kusanagi.