Deceit

1981

The war had ended, the fighting had stopped and peace was upon us once more.

A year later…

Fuji woke up. He had been in a coma for six months. It was a miracle. God had finally answered his silent prayers. Next to him sat Oishi an old friend from the battlefields.

"Fuji! You're awake." Not quite believing what he was seeing in front of his own eyes. Fuji was not supposed to ever wake up again.

"I want some water." He hoarsely replied.

"Sure, just let me tell the doctor." Oishi left the room.

Where am I? Fuji thought. Why am I here? His mind was pounding from all the thoughts penetrating through his brain.

Shortly Oishi appeared with a doctor in tow.

"In all my years, I have never seen a patient wake up from (insert deadly disease) this quickly before."

"He was always the fastest in war."

Fuji started shaking violently and screamed out in distress.

"Calm down, Calm down." Oishi pleaded.

The nurse runs in while Oishi and the doctor restrain him.

Oishi had a worried look on his pained face. "Why is he acting like that?"

Dr M. Hopis replied back "I think his brain has been damaged severely and is telling his body to act in a strange way. Maybe a memory in the past has stunned his brain. Any traumatizing incidents you can remember?"

"I'm not sure…" Oishi sighed.

1979, two years ago

Like a raging thunderstorm the bombs never ended. Fuji was partially deaf and his ears could take no more. Eiji, his brother, was shielding him from the sounds and was shouting commands.

"Eiji, do you think we will get through this." Fuji panicked.

"Of course we will. I promise. You know I never break my promises." Eiji assured him.

"I believe you brother."

"Good, now go and get Major Sanada." Eiji exclaimed.

"I'm not leaving you!" Fuji protested.

"I'm not telling you to. Trust me." Eiji looked straight into his brother's eyes with determination. Uncertainly Fuji began to walk away. In his heart he knew it wasn't right and his gut feeling told him that something terrible was going to happen.

Running into the tent, he pushed his comrades aside as he desperately searched for the man his beloved brother wanted.

"Calm down Fuji, what do you want?" One of the men asked.

"I want Major Sanada, where is he?" He seethed, in no mood to be polite.

"On the front lines, he said there was no way that a couple of pansies were going to foil his carefully executed plans." Another person recited.

"That stupid idiot, they are going to kill him! My brother is out there fighting for us! He is one of the most skilled fighters we have and he is struggling." Too far into his anger, Fuji shouted. "Why didn't you stop him?" He continued.

Suddenly General Kirihara spoke up from the dark side of the tent. "There is no use on trying to stop Sanada, he is a formidable opponent, someone you can't even attempt to argue with."

Fuji glared at him for a while before rushing out to aid Eiji. He had made a promise to stand by him no matter what. Fuji was a man of is word, there were no way he's going to break it.

Taking a quick breath from all the running, he stopped and stared. The enemy was taking Eiji away.

Unbelieving it he shouted at the top of his voice "Eiji! HELP! SOMEONE STOP THEM!"

A few men restrained him as he tried to protect his brother.

"Leave it. You can't help him now." Major Sanada closed his eyes.

"HOW ON EARTH DO YOU EXPECT ME TO LEAVE IT, THE BASTARDS ARE TAKING HIM AWAY!" By now Fuji was past the stage of anger.

"I said leave it!" The major commanded.

At the sound of this Fuji stopped struggling and fell to his knees. He could not bear seeing Eiji getting forcefully dragged away. Instead he let out a blood curling scream. Silently he wept inside he would never show tears to anyone apart from his brother.

His brother…

The one person who cared for him deeply on the war grounds, the one person who taught some sense into him. Surprisingly Fuji was a loose cannon back home. Always getting involved with the police for criminal offences, he listened to nobody. Nobody apart from his much respected brother of course, as soon as his brother heard the news he came flying back from the army and knocked some sense into him. Getting into fights was one of Fuji's daily things, but he was no match for Eiji. The latter was superior at hand-to-hand combat and won easily. Convincing Fuji to join the army, they took off to a real battle. Eiji was high ranked and arranged for Fuji to be beside him in any war.

Snapping back in reality Fuji realized there was no chance in hell that he was going to desert his most trusted person. Shoving the men who restrained him down, he ran towards the enemy's truck which was driving away from Fuji. Following the truck silently occasionally hiding behind buildings to keep him out of sight, he followed the dastardly truck to an empty warehouse. Pausing to stop at a nearby house, he decided that he would wait to see what they would do, the warehouse was heavily guarded and waltzing in the warehouse would be a suicide mission, even Fuji wasn't that stupid. Impatiently he waited crouching in the darkness, occasionally peeping to see if it was safe to go yet. For a few hours, he sat there agonizingly, waiting for any sight of his brother, his throat raspy from the heavy breathing he was forced to make.

Finally a couple of men walked out from the warehouse, Eiji no where to be seen, the guards came with the men and they drove away. Fuji heart dropped as he saw this, there was only one reason why the men took the guards with them. There was no need to protect the place anymore, unless… No. Fuji refused to think about it as he pounded into the deserted warehouse, checking behind him to see if anyone had followed him and searching carefully for his brother.

He walked up the deserted stairs and searched around kicking down doors for extra security.

Finally he found him, his much respected brother.

Fuji's eyes widened there was no way. No fucking way.

There had to be another explanation for this mess. The stench filed the air with unpleasant foul smells that Fuji very much wanted to get rid of. Why? Why was his brother on the floor. His hand twisted in a way that would have been excruciatingly painful. Some bone could be seen where it should have been covered. His hair matted and a pool of dark red blood around him.

But the worst of all? Eiji's eyes were still open. Fuji wanted to faint, he wanted to scream, he wanted to shout and scream and slap his brother awake, because there was no way that thing on the floor be his brother, who always seemed to have a bright cheerful smile on his goofy face. Who had a bad corny jokes up his sleeves. Who teased Fuji till everybody knew about the time Fuji had fallen face first into some cow dung.

Fuji refused to acknowledge it, that his brother was actually...

Startled, Fuji backed away. A man in a full army kit had just walked in. He had a gun slouched over his shoulder and a holster round his waist.

"Hey, Fuji how are you feeling?"

"What do you want? Who are you?" Fuji remarked, unsure of the new person.

"Well, you're well enough to make jokes I see." Oishi teased.

"Jokes? I don't know who you are and I think you better leave." Fuji voice had a firm tone to it.

Oishi left the room and rushed to find the doctor, his face full of concern for his friend.

"What's wrong with Fuji? He can't remember who I am." Oishi asked, frightened for Fuji.

"Well we believe that Fuji is suffering from amnesia." The doctor replied calmly.

"What, how did that happen?"

"It seems that the increase of stress Fuji has had to cope with has made him unconsciously forget everything about the war which he does not want to remember."

"Will he ever get his memory back?" Oishi asked shocked from the disturbing news.

"There's no way of knowing for sure but it's very likely he will with the support of his family and friends."

As Fuji walked outside he suddenly remembered who the man from the army was. He was a friend Fuji had met at a party a few years back. He had gotten so drunk that he had to be dragged out of the room and driven home by Fuji. Fuji smiled at the distant memory. It had been a while since he'd smiled at anything.

Meanwhile as Fuji was taking a stroll through the hospitals gardens Oishi was pacing up and down outside Fuji's room thinking of a way to make Fuji remember him. He had been posted in Africa and was leaving in two days time but he didn't want to leave Fuji in the state he was in. He was just about to call the major and say that a family problem had come up and that he wouldn't be able to make it to Africa on time, a ridiculous excuse, the army wouldn't really care about the welfare of their soldiers' family, they would be more concerned about how it would affect the solider, but it was the best that he could think of.

"Oishi!" Said person turned at the sound of his name, he was immediately embraced by an unknown man, just when he was about to push him away, the man spoke.

"It's me, Fuji, I remembered!" Fuji pulled away from the hug and smiled.

"Everything?" Oishi hoped that his friend had recovered his memory.

"Afraid not, I only seem to recall who you are." Fuji responded slightly down heartened.

"I was hoping you wouldn't say that, but still, it's great that you have remembered me first, although I suppose I am hard to forget." Oishi teased.

"Come in, but your big head may not fit through the door." Fuji walked into his room smirking.

After four cups of tea and a great deal of cakes Oishi approached the subject of him leaving for war in a few days time.

"Fuji… I'm not sure how to tell you this but I'm leaving to fight in a war in a few days." Oishi announced unsure how Fuji would take it.

"For how long?" The memory impaired man picked up his cup taking a small sip.

"I'm not sure, depends if our excuse of an army is good enough to beat the jerks, but you know how wars are. It will be for a couple of months at least." Oishi said eagerly waiting for a reply.

"I can't do anything about it; those power seeking idiots want more land, therefore they need to fight to get it. Why can't everyone just live with what they've got." Frustrated Fuji seethed.

"Because the world was not created to be fair, remember the story of Pandora's box?" The other man reminisced.

"What about Pandora and her poxy box?" Fuji raised an eyebrow.

"How she opened it and all of the bad stuff came flying out, but there was one thing left."

"Hope."They both said together in unison.

"Well, you better hope that God favors you enough that you won't be killed on the battlefield." Fuji deadpanned.

Oishi snorted. "Thanks man. I really needed that(!)"

"Any time." His face turned serious. "Stay alive Oishi, so I can kick your ass when you come back."

"I can't promise you that Fuji you know that, but I sure as hell will try." Oishi knew that his friend took promises to heart; he didn't want to lie to him.

Fuji smiled. "Good."

Knowing that this was the end Oishi left leaving Fuji alone. Not the best decision he had made but it had to be done.

After Oishi had left Fuji realized what he had agreed to: He'd given away the only person who would come and see him whilst he was at this place and the only link to the outside world which might just keep have just kept him sane. Not that he technically was.

Oishi had come to see Fuji every day before he left for Africa. Fuji kept himself to himself not letting Oishi know his real feelings about him leaving. Their meetings had become much shorter and they were almost uncomfortable. Oishi knew that it wasn't helping Fuji's situation, but there wasn't much he could do about it. He had sworn that he would serve for the army until the day he dies. He wasn't about to go back on it.

Finally the dreaded day came.

"I have to go now but I will come and see you the very minute I come back." Oishi stated hating himself for not being able to be by his friend's side.

"Yeah, sure, get out of here, fight for your country. All that kind of shit." Fuji put a forced smile on his face determined that he wasn't going to let his partner in crime fail because of him. Oishi saw through the fake smile and sighed. He wasn't to lose either. Putting on his best poker face he bid farewell to his ally and walked away. Both men hated that their last visit for a long time had turned into a fake farewell. Both had poker faces on and both loathed themselves for letting it happen. However there was no turning back and they didn't believe in second chances both being men of war. Just like a battle, if you were dead. You're dead. Nothing in the world could change that. No such thing as the word 'redemption'.

Fuji spent the next week strolling about outside and trying to find someone to talk to but no one would listen to him and either chased him out of their room or called the doctor who sedated him and brought him back to his own room. Although Fuji did want to make friends he stopped trying to talk to the other patients incase he got into trouble and was never allowed to leave. Because of this Fuji shut himself in his room and hardly ever came out. He had no connection to the outside world and had no idea where Oishi was or when he was coming back this just made him more disconsolate.

Late in the summer of 1983 Fuji received a letter from Oishi. Well, that was what he thought. It was actually from the army Oishi was part of. It explained that they had been fighting a war against Africa and one the final day of battle just before the Africans surrendered Oishi had been shot dead. It also said that because Oishi had no living family members they knew of that, Fuji was to be in charge of organizing Oishi's funeral, if he was up to it of course. Fuji paled. The worse had happened. He cursed in frustration. Shutting his mind down from reality he blamed himself for Oishi's death. No matter how much his 'supposed family' (He still hadn't remembered anything except Oishi) consoled him, he refused to face anyone that knew Oishi.

The next few weeks of Fuji's life were miserable. He spent the days doing nothing. He didn't even notice as the time went past how the seasons changed.

A year after Oishi had died; sick of all the whiteness that was his hell he asked if he was to be discharged. She replied with a calm façade that if he wanted to go out he would have to have had at least 3 years of rehabilitation. He had to get out, he thought, he was suffocated by the stress and the though of not being free enough to move without telling someone where he was going. Slowly but surely these little things picked at him and drove him further into the corners of insanity. Fuji decided he needed to escape.

He'd planned his escape for a month. He'd thought precisely about every part of the operation and now he was ready. He asked for his dinner later than usual so it could be dark when he sneaked out. When his food finally came he didn't eat a bite, he pocketed the knife and crept out.

The escape was easier than he predicted. The guards that were on duty were the lower ranked class and being a man of military Fuji departed with ease, nobody realized he had gone till he'd gotten at least a few miles into the park. By then of course, it was all too late.

He was walking through what looked like a nature reservation when he finally stopped running and ha d a look around. He hadn't thought that he would be able to run so far at the speed he did. He noticed a bench not far off so he wandered over to it and sat down for a while. He would sit here till the morning and then complete the final part of his plan.

When he finally opened his eyes after a restless sleep he noticed just how amazing his surroundings were. He was sat on the outside of beautiful grassland with the sun shinning overhead. The grass seemed to stretch for miles in all directions. He wandered how he had come into the field in the pitch black last night. The very sight of it made him smile, sure the mental institute had nice gardens, but it was nothing compared to this! It was the very opposite of the battle field Fuji had once stood proudly upon. His eyes clouded over at the thought of battling. He owed his mate and he wasn't about to live on. Before he could regret it Fuji pulled out the knife and just as he was about to plunge the offending item into the depth of his heart, he had a fit. Fuji descended the knife to impale his chest and plunged it into his soul, piercing his heart and making crimson velvet spurt out everywhere. His scream echoed in the wide space, an overwhelming sound that shattered your ears, as his entire life flashed before his eyes. At last he could remember everything; he laughed at the irony of the price of his memories and took his last breath before plummeting into blackness. The very last words that had penetrated his mind were

'Forgive me brother, I couldn't keep my promise.'