There was a beak overhead, and soon I had the idea to sit up. All around me were these birds that didn't seem very familiar… not that I was familiar to them, I doubt, huh?

I felt some pain, too… though I recognized it as soreness, rather than some wound. One of those birds trotted near my arm. I remember it being white. Or at least… more like the color of the sand underneath me. Now it was clear I had a tan. How long have I been here? I wondered just about instantly.

There was this weight on my back. Just as always it was my quiver, so I imagined that my bow should be around here somewhere… I still had my regular clothes on, even my headband, so that was good news. I managed to get past the soreness in… wow, just about every joint of mine! and begin to look around. There must have been hundreds of identical white-and-grey birds on the beach! So cute! I wonder if they're nice, though… where's my bow, where's my bow, I pondered. Sure enough I managed to find it, and it was my favorite one!

The one I took… to Midway…

I looked around. To the east was a large number of trees… but there seemed to be an empty space behind them. Where am I? was the main question on my mind. I looked back at my bow, knelt down, and picked it up. It felt the same as I'd remembered.

I wonder if…

I quickly pulled an arrow out of my quiver — the tail was green, so it would be a Reisen fighter — and as I pulled the string back, I made sure that I was aiming up in the air, and not at the birds, who were all on the sand. So through the air the arrow went… and then all the birds flew up and began to peck at me. "Hey! Stop! I'm not trying to hurt you!" And these beaks were pretty sharp, and as you can imagine, really annoying… so I decided to run for the trees, trying but failing at not kicking or stepping onto the birds who were in my way. Still and still they pecked at me, and my heart pounded. Once I made it to the trees, though, they stopped pursuing me, and I found that they hadn't really hurt me that badly. "Why do you have to be so mean?" I wondered aloud.

When I turned back into the mess of trees before me I saw something gray behind the last line of them. I made my way through and soon realized that it was a runway. Those yellow chevrons… this was the landing spot! I looked overhead and behind me, half expecting to see a Wildcat or B-17 or P-38 nosing downwards, ready to land, but nope, it was more of those birds! And where better to run than down the runway, while they chased me! Soon the flock had me surrounded, though, and signaled that they weren't done with me, since they kept on pecking me.

"Maybe I should try taking you down with my arrows!" I replied. I realized that I probably hadn't paid much attention to the first one I let fly, to see if it turned into a plane and then… just went off over the sea, for some reason. That can't be right. I pulled out an arrow with a white fletching — a bomber against birds, wow — and loosed it. It narrowly whizzed by one of them, and then just hit the pavement. Where are my planes? I wondered.

Wait. That's right…

I sank, didn't I?

… Tamon-maru…

What year is it?

Why am I alive?

I must have washed up…

Is the war over yet? (And of course I doubted that we'd lost.)

Still, I didn't think I would last swimming into the ocean in the state I found myself in. It was right now that I realized that I didn't seem to have a hull underneath my sandals. Not that a hull would protect me from all these birds! They just wouldn't give up! I figured that it was because I'm Japanese and they're American… even if this part of America is thousands of miles away from San Francisco.

Right, I'm Japanese, so surrender wasn't on my mind. Neither was dying, though. They were birds, they couldn't kill me.

…

"Stop it!" Now the buildings ahead of me seemed a bit newer, or at least, better kept. All the flapping of wings against me and the beaks poking at me, it slowed me down. "Why don't you give up already?" Out of instinct I dropped to my knees and covered my head, not that this stopped the birds. "I'm sorry for seeing if my arrows still turned into planes! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Please stop it!" Now their pecks were really beginning to hurt.

"I surrender! I surrender!" I threw my hands in the air for good measure.

Now they stopped pecking me! How kind. But, they'd captured me, and now I was their prisoner… Tokugawa probably would have laughed. I didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't the whole lot of them grabbing my clothes by their beaks and winging to the sky, taking me up with them. The force could have very well lifted my heart out of my mouth. "Wah! Waaaahh!" I remember myself crying. I had to position my head and arms so that I didn't easily slip out of my kimono. The sun and wind were at my back, and so I figured that it was early… and that they were going to take me back to Japan! "W-where are you taking me?" I asked them, but in vain. Even if they could answer their beaks were busy, though there were some who seemed simply to be… escorting…

them.

I thought what I would be seeing would be shadows or ghosts of my friends, out on the water, firing their guns and sending out their planes… but no, I saw real ships. Erm, their... ghosts? Is that the best word? Either way... Ships. That's what was real, and that's what I remembered. How did I remember arrows becoming planes? That's what I had to wonder. Clear as day, those were Reisen fighters and Suisei bombers… from… I looked at the plate of armor around my chest, and then the plate on my side. My flight deck, "ヒ" and all… that was Hiryū! Me! While those planes were in the air, so too were Wildcats and Dauntless bombers. The birds flew me right past, and I had to turn back, but I bet they wouldn't have wanted me to. One bomb smashed through the flight deck. All I saw once they carried me farther out was a massive fire engulfing the carrier.

"Let's drink to the moon…" I voiced. How cruel time was. When Tamon-maru Captain Kaku and I finally went down with the ship the sun had already risen. That probably meant something. "Why couldn't you be alive?" I asked in a mutter. It already felt like an hour I'd been out here…

It hit me. Akagi, Kaga, Soryū… where were they?

Well, I had an idea. At the bottom of the ocean. But, if I was alive… couldn't they be, too?

Why was this part of the ocean so quiet? The peacefulness of the waves unsettled me. Laugh at me for saying that. I was so used to moving in circles to dodge enemy aircraft and their bullets and bombs and torpedoes… Here all was consistent. Birds in front, birds behind, birds carrying me. I wasn't dreaming. I'd pinched myself a few times. I was alive, and in the middle of the Pacific, being carried by birds. This must have happened before… maybe to Akagi and Kaga and Soryū! (I hadn't known then that Mikuma had sunk the last day of the battle.) Since I was the last to go… maybe these albatrosses—

Albatrosses.

Not hanging around my neck, mind you, but… well, they could be good luck too, right? Occasionally, yeah? Right?

Right?

Now how they could not be exhausted, I don't know. But I was still so terrified of the prospect of the birds just dropping me into the ocean and leaving me to die… it exhausted me. My eyelids drooped, as if on cue.

And when I awoke the sun was ahead of me, ready to set… for us, but for the West, to bring light. How lucky. Isn't that… Mikasa? My heart jumped. Tōgō's flagship! People always say that, as long as Yamato was afloat, Japan could never lose. Now I know Yamato did sink… I hope I get to see her again some time. … But as long as Mikasa was afloat, I think… Japan would be Japan. "Navy Federal Credit Union", a golden M on a red background, and the United States flag over this decently-sized building stood out to me in the space surrounding the port where the ship was docked. I had a feeling about who must have won the war. I don't remember Yokosuka being this bright at night. So many names for places were lit up... there were colorful lights on the streets... the advertisements on the sidewalks were very unfamiliar but certainly just as colorful. I also expected the albatrosses to gently set me down in the park…

… but they dropped me in the water!

"Thank you!" I yelled, waving to them after I resurfaced. They sure didn't take long to turn around and head straight back home… that's for sure.

I swam my way to the shore… which was more of a metal installation, like most of Yokosuka was. Ahead of me was new grass. New grass… well, relatively new. Maybe this park was around when I was built, maybe not, I don't really remember… and I heard the most beautiful song. It wasn't "Gunkan March"… or "Kimigayō". Those have their own special places in my heart, obviously. But this one… well, it was playing from a box sat on a bench next to a man in blue camouflage, pants and shirt and cap and all, sitting there, arms crossed, eyes closed. It sounded as close as possible... to an actual band playing it, instead of listening to a recording on a phonograph, which would never really replicate the quality of hearing music for one's self. I stopped thinking too far into it once I made out drums in the background from the song, a mellow guitar behind, and a man's voice. It was in English, so I didn't understand. I made out two lines, though, words that seemed familiar to me when I tried reading stuff in English for the first time. Eighty years ago!

"They'll come

They come"

… one albatross stayed behind and alighted on my head.

How kind…

That is all I have planned for this story. If people want to see me continue it… I might. I'm not sure how I would, though.

"New Grass" by Talk Talk. Listen to it