He could hear the quiet sound of waves.
Shikishima was unable to understand what had happened to him for a while, but the smell of smoke wafting from a distance reminded him of everything and he hurriedly got up.
Right in front of him was the red-hot wreckage of a Zero fighter, still slightly smoking. There was a man muttering something in the back, using a hammock left over from the fire to carry something.
It was Tachibana.
"Why are they like this?"
When the sun rose a little and began to illuminate the ground, he could see a large number of bodies lined up there. Someone who was so badly crushed that he couldn't tell what was going on. One with no lower body, one with eyes wide open and a pained expression on his face. Armless. Headless. Various bodies were carefully arranged. Shikishima couldn't help but sit down, depressed by the aftermath of the tragedy that had occurred last night.
Tachibana looked at him, stood there like an idiot, and said,
"I can't find the lower half of this guy's body. Hey, haven't you seen it?"
Shikishima's breathing became heavier.
"Hey, you･･････Why? Why that time..."
In front of Tachibana, who couldn't continue crying and couldn't continue, Shikishima couldn't find the words to excuse himself.
He felt like he made eye contact with one of the corpses.
He looked at him as if asking, "Why?"
Just a few days later, Japan surrendered unconditionally. For the next six months, Shikishima spent as much time as possible out of Tachibana's sight.
Just as he was starting to worry, wondering if he was going to weaken and die while camping in the field, or whether this island had been abandoned, a demobilization ship arrived at Odo Island.
The demobilization ship was carrying far more soldiers than its capacity, so Shikishima and his friends who were brought on board later were not given a comfortable cabin, but only a small space on the windswept deck. Still, Shikishima's heart leapt when he thought that the ship would arrive at a port on the Japanese mainland in a few days.
At that moment, a man stood in front of Shikishima and shattered his happy feelings into pieces. Tachibana found Shikishima. Shikishima was prepared to be verbally abused, but Tachibana simply handed him a few photos wrapped in oiled paper.
And then, just as he had come, he left without a word.
Shikishima hurriedly opened the paper. When Shikishima saw what was inside, he lost his voice. Then he wrapped his photos again in oiled paper and put it in the back of his pocket. After a long boat trip and a trip on a streetcar that seems to have just been revived, Shikishima finally returns home.
However, there was nothing left of the scenery that he had been accustomed to seeing since he was a child. It was true that the name of the station where they got off was the name of the town where Shikishima once lived, but the place was just a charred field, like a joke.
Shikishima walked along the difficult, charcoal-filled path, checking his surroundings, but fear gradually took over his heart, and he finally started running.
The place they arrived at was supposed to be Shikishima's birthplace. The iron door attached to the gatepost, warped as if it had been burned in high heat, told him that it was indeed that beautiful house.
However, inside the fenced-in area, only a pile of rubble, mostly turned into charcoal, was left unattended. The faint outline of the foundation told him that there was once a large mansion there.
"..."
As Shikishima stood there dumbfounded, he suddenly heard a voice from behind him.
"Koichi-san...?"
A woman with disheveled hair came out of the barracks next door and stared at Shikishima as if she were a ghost. For a moment, Shikishima had no idea who the woman was, but after a while he realized that it was Sumiko Ota, his neighbor.
"Ota's sister!"
"You went on a special attack..."
It seemed to be well known that Shikishima had been selected for the special attack team.
"..."
"Is it wrong?"
The look on Shikishima's face in response made it seem like Sumiko understood what had happened in an instant.
"Did you come back pretending like you were okay? You shameless person."
"..."
Apparently, Sumiko had evaded the special attack in a cowardly way... and that seemed to have ignited the dark emotions that Sumiko had, and had no way of taking them anywhere. Like a curse, Sumiko spat out words... one after another, the most painful words to the soldiers who had returned from a defeated battle.
"You soldiers are stupid like this. If only you had been strong enough, my children would have survived."
The air raid that seemed to have hit our children around here took away every single one of Sumiko's mischievous children. Sumiko was glaring at Shikishima with frightening eyes, and Shikishima asked the question she didn't want to hear in a trembling voice.
"Do you know what happened to my parents?"
A cruel smile appeared in Sumiko's eyes.
"Everyone died. This area was surrounded by fire. Your family will have the same fate as my children."
Shikishima sat down with his back against the gatepost, completely overwhelmed by the expected answer. In the hustle and bustle of evening, when he had regained some semblance of a human life, Shikishima pulled out a letter from his mother.
"Please be sure to come back alive."
He has justified his cowardly behavior by adhering to the sentence written there. But now, Shikishima grumbled in frustration as he felt like the fundamentals had collapsed.
"I told you to come back alive."
Of course, no one will respond to that.
As the world slowly turned gray, Shikishima was unable to stand up.
Shikishima's current residence was built in the corner of the grounds where his birthplace had been. It was made from scrap materials he had managed to find, and was so crude that it could hardly be called a shack.
As Shikishima lay there, he realized that he was starving.
Before he knew it, he hadn't eaten anything for about three days. He thought it might be a good idea to rot away in here, but hunger forced Shikishima to live.
"Do you want to live? I..."
About a kilometer walk away, there was a black market with just about everything.
Despite its appearance, it was delicious enough to sink in. How much the body craved food... Shikishima looked at his body, which tried to live independently of one's will, objectively, as if looking at something mysterious. At that moment, a voice in the distant crowd said, "This is mud!" It's a common rant that goes up many times a day on the black market.
However, the roar gradually pushed towards the corner of the black market where Shikishima was. A young woman carrying a large load is being chased by several strong men as she pushes her way through the crowd.
Shikishima reflexively tried to pass in front of the woman. It wasn't like he had anything in particular in mind. He may have had an instinctive desire to help others. The woman looked at Shikishima with wide eyes and, as expected, said that she was going to shove her baggage onto Shikishima.
"Please!"
The woman then slipped through Shikishima's hands and ran away. Once the pursuers chased after it, the black market resumed its hustle and bustle as if nothing had happened. The woman's luggage remained in Shikishima's hands. When he opened it, which looked like a mass of rags, there was a baby sitting inside it with a dazed look on its face.
"eh?"
Shikishima was confused, and her pursuers returned with regretful faces and no results.
"She's a very quick-witted woman."
"This is the second time this month that I've been hit by that gal."
Shikishima tries to give the baby that the woman had given him to a man who seems to be the leader of the pursuers.
"This"
"What is it"
"No, that's why even if something like this is forced on me.
"Who knows!"
While telling them to get out, the pursuers headed back the way they had come. The sun was beginning to set. As the light turned golden, Shikishima held the baby in his hands, feeling lost. Shikishima has no reason to protect the baby.
With that said to himself, Shikishima placed the baby in the wooden box he was sitting in and started walking towards his barracks. Just as he was about to leave, Shikishima suddenly looked back. A baby is innocently flapping its hands towards me.
"Forgive me"
Unable to just leave, Shikishima reluctantly returned, picked up the baby, and started walking down the road to the barracks.
"What should we do with this?"
After passing through the black market and entering a side street, I was suddenly called out to.
"Brother"
It was the woman who had thrust the baby into him.
"Are you finally back?"
"It's your brother's fault. There's no way he'll be able to pick you up if he stays in a place like that."