It's 'Goodbye' in English
"Karma-kun… We found him…" Isogai's voice was carried over the static of the transceiver, seemingly close but far away. Karma raised his eyes from his workload and opened his mouth to speak.
"Did you? Where is he now?"
From the other end, he can hear muffled sobbing, either from Isogai or Kayano whom was sent to check the current ruins left in Kunugigaoka after the recent bombing.
"You see…" Isogai continued and swallowed hard as if it's not even the right time to tell him. But no matter what his reservations were, Karma will still be the leader here, he had every single right to know about what happened to their current missing member: Nagisa Shiota. "He's not coming back anymore."
-[ - ] -
The war was supposed to be ending.
It's what the citizens heard last week before the bombs fell. The enemy troops were supposed to be falling back now however… it looks like his country had driven the weak ones deeper into the hole that they end up becoming desperate.
It is at those times that Nagisa Shiota, as a proud soldier of Battalion E, went to Kunugigaoka to lead the small troop given to him and fight the remaining enemy soldiers in the area.
No one in the battlefield expected the sudden fall of the bomb which immediately buried them on the ground leaving the others dead and some trapped in the debris with low means of sunlight and risky chances of survival. Just simply cold and damp earth which offered nothing but despair.
And thanking the earth for his survival doesn't seem plausible for Nagisa who had been awake for the duration of staying on the ground, his eyes boring holes in the broken debris. It's like getting driven far back with nothing to defeat the unseen enemy who caused this mess.
Nagisa could only breathe and hope against hopes that some of his troop's in better modes than he was since it would have made getting trapped in here bearable. After all, he is the leader here, getting his group in danger was already way past him. Having them dead is another idea altogether too.
Breathing out and in slowly, he let his eyelids droop and slowly close, the tiredness of staying awake finally catching up. When it did, he fell in the hole of dreams which get mixed in gunpowder, hand grenades and the trauma of seeing people die before him.
He hadn't wished to be drafted in the army. All he ever wanted was to live a pleasant life as a young man in his prime. All he wanted was peace.
And yet the world was thrown in a war and every male had to participate, because as their teacher said before, it's the only way. With their blood shed for this doomed country, they would be protecting people's smiles.
A sole reason as to why he's here now, fighting and struggling.
The war was supposed to end… it's supposed to be over…
But why does it keep on going on and on and on longer than anyone of them wished it to be? Why can't anyone just reach a single conclusion? Aren't any of the world leaders thinking of how many people had been dying in the battlefield?
He woke up as if in a trance, his eyes wide and alert around his small shell of containment. The way he usually woke up when he's in camp. How he can never actually sleep without having nightmares and how he always wakes up sweating and breathing hard.
He pressed a palm on half of his face and tried to regain control of his composure. He wasn't in the battlefield, he's here trapped inside a broken building without any means of getting out.
He's here waiting to die, not shedding someone else's blood in the cold and damp ground.
After repeating those thoughts like a mantra, he finally calmed down and that's when he started hearing it.
It faded in and out of attention, but he kept still and it remained. It's someone else's breathing. Another human was nearby. He's blood pumped, alert as his hand started patting his cargo pants for his gun.
If it's an enemy, he should kill it. A common rule in the battlefield. But if it's not…
He parted his lips to speak. "This is Temporary Commander Nagisa, if you are part of the troop please answer right away," he commanded in a voice that doesn't seem to be him. A voice which he used when he led his troop to Kunigugaoka without any clue for the coming of the bomb and the same voice he used to say goodbye to the people who died before him.
A voice rimmed with sharp edginess.
He heard a gun click and without guessing it might have been pointed right behind him by an unseen enemy.
"Ah… from Batallion E is it not?" a foreign voice greeted from the other side. "Well, sorry man, I'm an A Class, I can't possibly be in your troop."
His mind rang with the thoughts of an enemy, just right behind him and simply barricaded in debris just like he was. And somehow it seemed funny that without control, he ended up bursting into laughter.
"Fascinating," he exclaimed, pressing his back against the cold wall and releasing his gun. "Up until death, I still have to deal with an enemy."
The person on the other end didn't speak, only listened as Nagisa finally ended his small show of light heartedness. "How about we forget about it for a while?" he offered, glancing back at the wall imagining that the person behind him is also pressed against it.
"Depends on you," came the curt reply from the other side. "When you're trapped like this, you can only wish for your death to be faster."
Nagisa nodded in agreement but then doesn't move to retrieve his gun. "Then let's just race, see who dies faster…"
Silence.
And after a while, the person in the other side laughed making it apparent that he's talking to a woman with how soft and weak it sounded. Nagisa immediately blushed, making him lose his cool.
What is he doing? Threatening a woman so easily just like that?
"Hey, that's not a bad idea," the woman on the other side remarked. "Consider it a friendly competition."
Talking about death like it's a friendly competition made him forget his embarrassment. She's still an enemy to him apparently, and why does he feel guilty about not acting gentlemanly when he had probably shot women in the battlefield before?
"You're one weird gal, huh?" he replied, listening closely on the other side.
Silence then a disappointed sigh. "…Hah, I really did hope that you wouldn't know I'm a girl," from the small scratches on the ground, he could safely guess that she shifted to another position. "It always makes the men feel stronger, you know?"
His sweat dropped in tension at the sudden statement. "H-Hey… not really, I think it's brave enough of you to join the army even though it's not really necessary for you to be here."
Silence was his reply. A load of stretching silence until she finally got on an answer to his statement. "If you only knew how my Father practically locked me up the house when I told him that I wanted to be here."
"That's to be expected because it hurts the pride of men, you see," he replied, wondering if he'd stepped on a landmine. "It should always be up to men when it comes to things like these while the women should –"
"Be old hags and get impregnated to replace all the dead people in this doomed world?" she continued his thoughts bitterly and he let out an inaudible gasp at what she's saying.
"I didn't say that."
"Yes, you didn't, but it's implied knowledge."
He kept quiet, not knowing what to say to her because she's right. In his country, they have to leave the woman behind because it's the best they can do and as men they wouldn't want to see them getting hurt. The enemies – where she belonged – allowed women to enlist themselves in the army without any given sensible reason.
After all it wasn't sensible to hurt them.
"You've gone quiet there," her voice pulled him from his thoughts and he laughed awkwardly.
"It's just… I remembered my sister back home," he said quietly, wondering why he started babbling about his personal life.
"Why? Is your gal anything like me?"
He immediately shook his head at the retort and wanted to berate her for even trying to compare herself with his sweet sister. "That's not it, it's just… I remember how she looked when I was drafted. She didn't even cry, she only smiled… but without guessing you know how she felt deep inside."
Silence.
He looked down at his form, now that he remembered such a thing it made him sadder with the fact that he would die here. Just what face would his sister make if she saw soldiers on her door, a telegram in their hands and telling her that he died for the sake of this country?
"Nagisa…?"
"Y-Yes?"
She breathed a sigh of relief. "My mother is like that too, only my Father cried and spat at me when he finally lets me go." She paused thoughtfully. "My mother… the sweet angel that she is kept smiling as if me going to war will solve it. But I'm going to die here and the war would still go on."
"You can back out in our competition, you know?" he shifted, trying to keep himself more comfortable with his sitting position.
"Like I can," she snorted. "And you see being in an A class doesn't exactly allows me to back up in any competition."
"Sucks to be you."
"Sucks to be you too."
Silence came right after until they both laughed.
"Hey… you're not too bad, Nagisa," she said quietly after finally getting over her laughter.
"You're not too bad either…" he trailed off, not knowing her name and berating himself for not asking.
"Victrola Canon," she answered his unspoken question and Nagisa laughed awkwardly in response.
"Canon-san…" he paused. "You can speak in Japanese, huh?"
"Wow…"
"Eh?"
She's silent again for the meantime and then quietly she giggled to herself. And he found himself blushing all of a sudden, wondering if he said anything wrong. It also made him think that he didn't really know anything about anyone from his enemies.
They were just his country's enemies while he got caught up treating them as one. For her, it's probably the same.
"Ah… sorry, sorry," she calmed down, her excited breaths turned down and she cleared her throat gaining authority once again. "It's just… it kind of sounded weird when you said it."
"H-How so?"
"The girlish thing you find in novels?"
"….."
She stifled another laugh. "You see, before I ever made myself a name here in the battlefield, no one really paid any attention to me. I'm the one who always blends in the shadows. Always the one left behind," she paused thoughtfully. "All the males in my country pay attention to girls who matches their expectations or who don't say weird things in the middle of a simple conversation…"
He didn't know what she's getting at but he hang onto every word as if it's what would make him realize that he's still alive and that also made him aware that he's spending it with an enemy.
"That is why… hearing you say my name sort off made my heart skip a beat."
A sweat dropped from his temple at the sudden statement and his mouth dropped open to question her words. Sensing it, she gasped and stuttered through her next lines.
"Hey… uh," she exhaled deeply. "Sorry, I'm weirding you out, right? I told you… I say weird things in the middle… It's just… you're different. You're my enemy and yet here we are… spending our last moments together."
"…If that's the case then I'm probably weird too," he confessed. "I was the one who started this…"
"Nononono, that is fine," she remarked immediately. "Serious, besides I'm enjoying this… talking to you I mean."
"Me too," he smiled now feeling more relaxed than he was the first time they started talking.
"If you didn't sense me here, I would have gotten over all hope and simply pulled the trigger," she confessed quietly. "At least before I die someone's going to hear my thoughts for the last time and remember me."
"Are you serious? I'm going to die too, you know?"
She laughed lightly. "Heh, well, you never know. I like winning, see… besides I do look like I'd die first than you do…"
"D-Don't say that!" he burst out, not even knowing why he did. "I'd win, just you see!"
Silence.
Then shuffling in place.
"Okay, okay…" she grunted. "Ah… too much movement."
His throat ran dry. "A-Are you okay, Canon-san?"
"Y-Yeah," he detected the slightest hesitation and it sent him to action. He had too much cloth to spare if something terrible happened and so he started patting the wall, finding a safe place to shoot. He listened to the wall closely to where she could be.
"What are you getting excited for, Nagisa?" she asked from the other side, her voice slightly faint.
"You…" he swallowed hard, hoping against hopes that he's not right. "You're injured, aren't you?"