Honoka spun the globe again, her other hand anxiously twirling the black marker in turn.

"It's just noise now, what's going on?"

On the table behind her, Umi fiddled with the radio, eyes downcast, saying "the signal just got knocked out for a minute, I think. Give it time."

Honoka looked around, attempting to contain herself, but there was precious little in the cabin. It was sparely furnished, even more sparsely decorated, and the lone window beside her desk presented only endless trees spanning the horizon. She traced stars in thick dust and counted the seconds.

Signal noise.

Thumbing through the atlas at her side, she wondered if she'd discover somewhere new.

"Ah," Umi noted dully, "it's starting to come back."

And sure enough, snippets of voice began to filter through the static.

She swallowed hard and stood, saying, "Listen, Honoka. I d-don't think I can listen to anymore of this. I understand that doing this is important to you, but please, only call me if it stops working again and you can't find the signal."

And with that, she left the room, closing the door behind her.

Honoka waited anxiously as the voice came through with increasing clarity, until the newscaster was finally intelligible.

"God help us, the bombardment has reached New York City...it's gone."

"New York City..." she muttered to herself.

She flipped back through the atlas.

"...The southernmost part of New York State, located at 40.712° N, 74.005° W..."

Then she blotted out that entry and spun the globe, tarnishing the corresponding spot on its surface.

Then Honoka closed her eyes for a second, saying, "Good night, New York."

Hong Kong was next to go in a cleansing flash.

"Good night, Hong Kong."

Rivulets of black slowly dyed the globe.

The Kremlin was reduced to ash, and an image of Eli fitted across Honoka's mind; where was she now? Was she even-

She'd rather not think about that.

Venice, annihilated.

"Good night, Venice."

Toronto, the former home of over two million, was scoured from the Earth in mere seconds as she listened.

"Good night, Toronto."

Her hand was trembling badly as vast swathes of the globe were excised.

Then came a pause in the feed, she called, and Umi reentered with boxes upon boxes of equipment, mostly pre-assembled. She placed the microphone on the desk, saying, "I don't believe we'll go too far, but it should all be working."

Honoka nodded, spinning a dial on one of the machines and replying, "I think I'll steal 810 kHz; it's not like AFN Tokyo is still using it."

The navy haired girl left as quickly as she had arrived.

With one tap, Honoka's trembling voice was carried upon the open air, "H-hello. For those of you out there, I'm not gonna bother listing what's gone when it's easier at this point to list what isn't. I don't want to believe this either." She gulped. "Hopefully though, once I'm done, I'll be able to make you smile in spite of all this, even if it's only a little."

The voice on the radio behind her was growing a little clearer

"And to whoever needs it, I wish you a fond goodbye, for whatever it's worth."

As the radio began to edge onto clarity, she stood with the microphone, blood pounding in her ears.

And she began to sing.

"The stars above explode, an eternal ballet from the black! Maybe it's only fitting that we dance with light right back..."

Behind her, she could hear a voice announcing the destruction of Akihabara and the surrounding cities.

But she didn't stop, even as the tears streamed down her face.

A/N: Here's a quick story that struck me while I was working on the Umi and Kotori one I've been talking about for ages now. That's still chugging along, don't worry.

On the side I might expand this out into a mini apocalypse series. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it.