Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Nanashi
A/N: This story was conceived after looking at the plot elements of Higurashi and how they can be applied to the real-world context, namely the Eighties and the Cold War. It's surprising that no one has caught the idea in the FFN. It was mainly inspired of playing Call of Duty: Black Ops, having watched Vietnam War flicks, and reading the Robert Ludlum novel The Parsifal Mosaic. These elements seriously mix well with Higurashi and I hope to encourage others to consider using the Cold War as a plot element in any future Higurashi fanfics.
Disclaimer: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni is property of 07th Expansion. No copyright infringement intended. Furthermore, this is a work of fiction and use of real-world events, personalities and locations is taken with artistic license.
Prologue: Nanashi
Gifu City, Japan
2420 Local Time
An apartment bloc
The room was screamed cheap chic, typical of the inner city apartments that offer residence to those who live by modest means as long as what amounted to a pittance was paid regularly. The building was once new, built during the postwar economic boom in the 50's but had gone to seed in the intervening time. It had become dirty and stuffy. Its value as property had declined over time and had become a home of the struggling and derelicts, people who could not find anything better to stay, or found a place to hide themselves from the world. These people rubbed shoulders together and inquire little about each other's business. It was not a surprise that a new tenant had rented a room in in the thirteenth floor, just another anonymous being finding shelter in the callous ocean of modern urban living.
It had become turned into an unlikely battlefield. The rooms had holes great and small. The room and the rest of the floor was littered with wrecked furniture and corpses of the combatants, men dressed in cheap street clothes, tactical gear and totting firearms, lying in pools of their own blood. Within the room itself one of the warriors of this conflict sat up with his back against the wall. He was bleeding from the leg and from the torso, his Kevlar vest did not stop the .357 slug from penetrating into his body. He coughed loudly, blinking his eyes. He remained in the land of the living. He stared at the window, he can hear police sirens from below but could not see the flashing lights. The end has come.
His mind had been focused on why he he was here, why he was he was dying. Just one good deed, that was all he asked - and answers.
The answers he asked for, to fill the void that was himself. He was the giant question mark that drove his quest and he had eventually answered himself.
Now he had his prize: impending death and failure.
Inside the closet, a little girl cried. The girl he took under his wing, that poor little thing who he endeared during his stay, the time when he was recovering his memories. He failed her, he had failed her friends and even now, he was about to fail himself, faltering in the quest he set out and the reaper was coming to claim him.
"This is the police! We've got you surrounded! Put your hands up!" thundered an authoritative voice, enhanced by a megaphone. It was the clarion call ordering the Gifu City's Special Armed Police to assault the apartment. He wondered what he'll do now since the inevitable had come. He could hear the little girl's sobs. He wondered what he can do for her. She was his last chance to make things right.
He coughed loudly, blood and spittle coming forth. His strength was slowly leaking out of him and he wondered if he can even make it at all.
Then he heard automatic fire from downstairs. Fuck, there's still a few assholes left from the previous scrap. This was gonna take no longer than he thought.
Before the fall...
It was black. Pitch black, yet he can hear everything loud and clear. In the darkness a brief flash of an image, tantalizingly brief.
"MORTAR!"
"Everyone on the deck!"
"Medic! Janowski's down!"
"Slopes in the wire! We got slopes in the wire!"
"ILLUMINATION!"
"We need air support! Call in the fast-movers, Ned!"
"Trung si, call American eer-craft now!"
"Red Hawk, Red Hawk, this is Fire Base Rita! We are about to be overrun! Request air support! Victor Charlie backed up by Nathaniel Victor Romeo coming out of the treeline!"
"Pop smoke!"
He woke up! He sucked air like a fish flopping on a deck. His heart was angrily pounding against his ribcage. He was bathed in cold sweat as anxious eyes darted around everything in his strange new surroundings. He was in a bedroom, the whole place seemed to have been cleaned and tidied up little over an hour ago. The clock ticked by his side in a night stand. It wasn't even six o-clock yet and the sun was beginning to break, hints of its orange light filtered through the window.
There was nothing in this pleasant place coming to harm him. Nothing in the slowly receding shadows ominously watching him. He threw over the blanket that covered him and got up. He dressed in a clean pajama. This was something, he thought. He turned to a mirror and looked at his reflection, a weathered face with its rugged features, the square jaw and salt-and-pepper hair. He touched his face, it see if he was still dreaming. He felt the stubble on his face. Fresh growth, it seemed, judging by rustling of his stubble. And the eyes. Yes, the eyes were still the same. Dark shiny coals staring back at him.
He settled down and listen. The clock ticking sedately.
Radio static. Tracers. The staccato of gunfire renting the air. Explosions. The high-pitched screams of mortar shells and the whine of one-oh-five and one-five-five artie rounds. The thump of the grenade launcher. Smells of cordite, of rotting jungle, and the gasoline scent of napalm. The humid heat of the jungle. The bluster of the monsoons. He looked at his hands, they were worn and callused. He could feel the sensation of pulling the trigger and disassembling his rifle; the dank, grimy slime of mangrove mud; and holding his stainless steel cup of coffee - and a knife piercing his hand, blooding dribbling down. His senses remember them all.
Yet he couldn't make sense of any of them. What were all these things about? What were the voices in his dream all about? As a matter of fact, what he could remember of his dream was mostly a cacophony of voices in the darkness, interspersed with an image here and there flashing so briefly he did not have time to see them. He was tired, he was weary, his body ache and his mind was slowly being aware something wasn't right.
Shaking his head, he got up and opened the door. He tensed up as he emerged from the room. He found himself upstairs and he can hear some sounds below. Better check it out, he thought. He approached the stairs, his posture casual but inside he was tense, not knowing what to expect. The closer he got down, he can hear a kitchen in activity and he can hear smell of food cooking.
"Ah, ohayōgozaimasu," a voice pleasantly called.
He spun around instantly to face the man behind him, a wild look on his face. The equally startled man raised his hands as if to stop him from pouncing. "Easy, easy, sir!" he placated. "We found you!"
"Where?" he demanded, his voice an angry growl.
"We found you in the river! We found you in the river!" he pleaded, his eyes wide with fear.
Looking into those eyes, he stood down and let go. He talk a deep breath and made for the nearest chair to sit on. He put his hands on his face. "I'm sorry..."
The man who talked to him regained his composure. "It's alright," he said sympathetically, accepting his apology.
He took another breathed. "Where am I?"
"You're in in my house, in Gifu Prefecture," he answered.
"Gifu?" he repeated. Then his stomach grumbled.
A woman rushed from the kitchen. "Is anything alright?"
"Yes," the man replied, "he's just confused."
"No," the stranger said. "Well sorta yes and no."
"You startled me," the woman said.
"I apologize, ma'am," he said sincerely. "It's just weird for me. Waking up in somebody else's house."
"Well, I think it's a good time to talk over breakfast."
The man nodded in agreement. "Well... I couldn't think on an empty stomach and I'm a guest in your house," he turned to the owner, "so I might as well get some chow."
"Sugoi," chimed the man. "My wife makes the best tamagoyaki you'll ever have."
The thought of hot food had delighted him but before the stranger can even get up, a voice recited a phrase.
"Parsifal is gone."
A/N: The Cold War theme merely serves as the backdrop of of my Call of Duty/Higurashi crossover, Dear You, Dedushka. Here, the Cold War is one of the central themes of the story. One of my fic's main inspirations is The Minister of Silly Walks 's Redemption 買戻し, which makes the Cold War part of the plot. You see, the Cold War, with its political overtures, covert operations, moral and legal ambiguity, provides a rich context for some of Higurashi's subplots in the real world. Also, I toyed with the idea of featuring a Vietnam War veteran as main protagonist, beginning with the scrapped idea of an Apocalypse Now/Higurashi crossover. Yes, Apocalypse Now, the adaptation of Conrad's Heart of Darkness into the disaster and tragedy that is the Vietnam War, was why I included the 'Nam in my story as I realized how the psychological elements of the movie, coupled with a veteran's post-traumatic stress disorder interact with Higurashi's psychological horror.
Nanashi is the Japanese word for stranger. It's also the country's legal equivalent to the term John Doe.
By the way, tell me which blockbuster espionage thriller inspired my chapter, especially my hero?