It was a year earlier. Susumu had told him. He had seen the city, razed for miles, horrible heap of debris and ashes; he had struggled to understand that he would never see his parents, uncle and aunt, some of his friends again. Above all, he would never forget that he almost lost his brother too, that day.

Mamoru did not want to say it was a birthday - the word was much too happy - but that was the word. Time had passed. They were far from the only ones to have lost loved ones. They had finally settled in the underground cities while the world above their heads continued to be devastated. Susumu had continued to grow.

He was his only source of motivation. Mamoru sometimes saw despair in people's understood. He, too, sometimes felt himself crushed by the weight of the situation, thinking of the alien ships that had appeared, the bombs that were still falling regularly, the civilization that was obviously superior to them. He could fail, too, but he refused to pass on his doubts to his younger brother, who was all he had left. He had no doubt, he was not crying, never in front of his brother, because it was necessary that he believed in it and that he remained strong. For Susumu, he could believe that this war would end and that they would be the victors. For Susumu, he wanted to believe that one day they would see their planet as beautiful as it once was.

In one way or another, the fight of the Earth would not prove futile.

After all, what was left of them other than hope?