What really matters is not what you believe
but the faith and conviction with which you believe.
- Knut Hamsun
The sky was burning. Flames dyed the choking black smoke hues of orange and red, swelling up into the night. Sakiko Mizushima watched as the fire slowly ate away at her house.
Terrified neighbours had fled, and she stood alone in the suburban street as she waited for the emergency services to arrive.
The blinding light of the fire hurt her eyes and she turned away. Pacing, clutching at her hands, her bag, she trembled and prayed her parents had got out. She prayed that they had decided, at the last minute, to eat out, visit a friend, gone to see a movie. Anything but burn to death in that hellfire.
There was a dull thud overhead and Sakiko looked up at the roof of the house opposite. Under the red, bloated sky, Sakiko saw a streak of blue – the hero Ryūjin.
His skin-tight suit was accented with two parallel streaks of silver running down his arms, and they flashed in the firelight. There was no doubt it was him. He was soaring across the rooftops on a stream of water – he must have seen the smoke from the blaze. Ryūjin had the power to produce and manipulate water at will.
Dizzy with joy, Sakiko cried out.
"Ryūjin-san! Oh thank God, Ryūjin-san!"
The hero stopped, his feet clanging on the roof tiles, and looked down at her. He looked at the fire, then back at Sakiko. His eyes were hidden by a teal mask.
"Sorry, kid," he said, "I've gotta run."
Sakiko stared dumbly, cold spreading through her body and filling her brain. No. She couldn't have heard right. He was joking. He had to be joking.
"Please," she whispered. Ryūjin began to move again, and she screamed out. "Please! My parents are still inside! Please!"
Ryūjin's toned body sagged as he sighed. He pointed.
"Look."
Sakiko looked. She could just see the top of a large office building known as the Akita Tower. Smoke billowed out of several windows and reddish smudges of flames could be seen behind them. Sirens screamed into the night, faintly, far away.
"I'm going there. Sorry about your loss, but there's no helping it."
"Please," Sakiko sobbed. She felt faint. "I'll pay you, I'll do anything!"
"Sorry, kid," said the hero, standing. "I gotta go."
Water coiled around his legs and feet and he surged onward, sailing over the rooftops towards the burning tower block.
Sakiko watched him go, breathless and cold. Quirkless, she had no power to stop him. No, she thought. Please turn around. Come back. My parents are burning. Save them. Please save them...
Tears rolled down her cheeks and mixed with sweat. Falling to her knees, she could not feel the pain from the impact, neither could she hear the shrieks of the fire engine and ambulance as they arrived. Even the concerned voices of the medics and firemen could not reach her.
It was almost too absurd to believe; her brain actively revolted against the reality of what had happened. A hero was meant to protect people, to save them, no matter what. How many times had she seen the cheerful, glowing heroics of All Might and the other 'Pro Heroes' on her TV screen and with her own eyes? How many times had she seen Ryūjin, resident of her own Sanoda ward, grinning triumphantly in the aftermath of a disaster he prevented?
Sakiko let herself be taken aside by paramedics as firemen tackled the inferno, shouting orders to one another over the roar of water from their fire hoses. The fire was too large and fearsome to risk any one of them going in, they said. The fire would have to be subdued first.
The paramedics spoke to her kindly, sat her down in the ambulance and checked for injuries.
"He left me," Sakiko whispered.
"Who did, dear?" asked the female medic.
"Ryūjin. He was here. He saw me – saw my house... but..."
"You mean he ignored the fire?"
"Yes."
The woman frowned, her large, motherly eyes full of concern.
"But dear, he's a hero. Are you sure you saw Ryūjin-san?"
"Yes!" Sakiko burst out. "He was here! I saw him!"
"Now, now, I don't mean to doubt you," the woman said soothingly, applying a plaster to her scraped knee. "Make sure you talk to the police about it. They'll help you."
Sakiko nodded, and she broke down.
The paramedic gave her a hug.
"Oh sweetie, we'll do everything we can, I promise."
The police had arrived on the scene soon after. They assured Sakiko as best they could and listened to her recount of events. Once they were sure she was fit to do so, they drove Sakiko to her grandmother's house half an hour away.
She stared out at the streets rushing past her window in a daze. She hadn't the energy to cry or scream anymore. She felt heavy, as if her whole body wanted to just lie down and never get up. Her throat hurt, and her eyelids were puffy and red. Was this all a dream? If she went to sleep now, would she wake up in her bedroom at home?
If she slept forever, would that be so bad?
One question kept circulating, slowly, painfully, in her mind: Why did Ryūjin leave her house to burn?
Perhaps she had imagined it. Perhaps Ryūjin had never been on the rooftop in the first place, and in her panic she had lost touch with reality.
The hero's streamlined blue uniform, his pitiless masked eyes, burned into her mind's eye like the fire.
"'Sorry kid, I've gotta go.'"
Those words, so clear, so devastating... they were real. Sakiko sat bolt upright in her seat, her nails digging into the flesh of her palms. Her vision watering with tears, rage and self-hatred made her clench her hands and break the skin with her nails. She would not doubt what her eyes saw. He was there. He did leave. If she had really lost it at that moment, she would have imagined the hero saving her home, not leaving it to burn. The house and...
She began crying again.
The officer next to her in the passenger seat put a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't worry, we're nearly there. Your grandmother will be with you soon."
After a minute of waiting Sakiko's grandmother came to the door, half-asleep and blinking at the two officers and girl on her doorstep. Her grey hair was tousled from sleep, her tiny body hugged by spotted cotton pyjamas.
"Who on earth...?"
Seeing her reminded Sakiko of her grief and she flung herself into her grandmother's arms wailing.
"Sakiko!" the old woman gasped. "What happened?"
The two officers introduced themselves, produced their badges, and asked to come inside.
Sakiko's grandmother, with a growing sense of dread, led the officers and her sobbing granddaughter to the living-room.
It was there that the officers told her what had happened. They spoke well, but their voices were like knives.
Kiko Mizushima's voice trembled as she spoke.
"You mean... my daughter and son-in-law are...?"
"We are so sorry."
When her grandmother began to sob Sakiko knew that what she had so desperately tried to reject was true, and she wept along with her. They clutched each other as if the world might them apart.
The the cause of the fire was found to be an explosion caused by a gas leak from the old and faulty boiler in the Mizushima home.
The bodies of Chiyo and Daisuke Mizushima were recovered from the burnt-out remains of the building. After the funeral service, relatives and friends made their way to the crematorium. There, Sakiko watched her grandmother and aunt pick out the bones of her parents from the ashes and place them in the burial urn. She dug her nails deep into the palms of her hands and willed herself not to scream.
Returning to her grandmother's house, the urn was placed on the altar of the old wooden butsudan. The shrine had been in the family for generations, and the hinges of the doors whined as they were opened. One after the other, each family member placed offerings of flowers, candles, fruit and religious items like incense while the local priest chanted sutras. They knelt together in rows, hunched black shadows, before the urn.
Sakiko's eyes began to well up as Kazu Sakamoto placed a small cup of her father's favourite tea on one of the platforms. She had lost count of the times the two friends had shared tea together.
"Dad'll like that," she whispered to Kazu as he sat back down.
Kazu smiled through tears and nodded.
Finishing their prayers, everyone except Sakiko and her grandmother quietly stood to retire for dinner.
"Grandma," Sakiko said, "I'd like to stay here a little longer."
Her grandmother nodded.
"Aright. I'll stay with you."
Sakiko's aunt squeezed the girl's shoulder before leaving with the others.
A few moments of silence lingered. The tiny flames of the candles flickered, shining like stars in the dim, and tendrils of incense smoke drifted upward and filled the room with a faint bitter scent.
"Grandma."
The anger that had been simmering within Sakiko could no longer be contained. Her parents' bones rested in peace, but their souls, their lives, had been forsaken by a hero, the very individual whose duty it was to save them.
"Grandma." Gripping the fabric of her skirt, she spoke in a voice sharpened by fury. "Ryūjin left them to die. I can't forgive him."
Her grandmother nodded.
"I understand. Have you told the police?"
"Yes. They want me to contact them as soon as possible."
The old woman's face glimmered in the candlelight as she smiled.
"Good."
They held hands and gazed at the photographs of the ones they had lost for a little longer before joining the rest of the family. Though this part of the occasion was more light-hearted, stories and jokes bringing laughter with tears, Sakiko felt as if part of herself was separated from the table, existing in a dark place where the fire that took away her loved ones still raged, the false hero Ryūjin looking coldly, silently on.
The next day Sakiko called the police. Removed from the horror of that evening, Sakiko was able to give a full account of everything that occurred, including her confrontation with Ryūjin.
After giving her statement, she was told that she would be contacted again during the investigation with progress updates. Detectives Manabu Abe and Yushin Hideki were to be put on the case.
Sakiko thanked them and put down the phone.
Sighing softly, she closed her eyes and prayed it would not be too long before justice was done.
The days following ran into each other and merged like drops of water on window panes, and while Sakiko continued to attend school and go about her daily business, every second between phone calls from the police felt like waiting.
The first update made Sakiko's heart hammer: no forensic evidence had been found at the scene to show the hero had been there. The next step was to seize and examine the CCTV footage from the immediate area to see if any images of Ryūjin at the scene could be found.
Life became nothing but home, school, and home again, hopeful eyes glancing at the telephone in the hall.
To make matters worse, after checking the local papers she noticed that not a whisper of the incident had made news – the media was still gushing over Ryūjin's heroic rescue of the residents in the burning Akita Tower. Sakiko tore at the paper, shredding it with her fingers. Did the hero have journalists as friends, or was this...?
"That bastard!"
"Sakiko," her grandmother said. "We must be patient."
Sakiko had no choice but to be patient, though not a night went by that she did not lie awake, paralysed with fear. If Ryūjin was found innocent, what would she do? What could she do? The thought of continuing on with a smile while a lying, murdering hero walked the streets terrified her. A lifetime of pretending she had never seen the hero that day, that he had never seen her burning house and turned his back…
Sakiko and her grandmother were having dinner one drizzly afternoon when the phone rang. Rushing into the hall, she hesitated, breathless, trembling, before picking up. Somehow she knew that this would be the final call.
"M-Mizushima residence."
"Good afternoon," said a man's voice, "this is Yushin Hideki from the Sanoda police department. I am calling to inform you that, regrettably, we will be discontinuing the investigation."
Sakiko stared into the empty space and felt her body begin to shake. She opened her mouth but could not speak. She could barely feel the touch of her grandmother's hand on her arm.
"We examined the CCTV footage provided to us thoroughly," Hideki went on, "and while we could clearly see you, Mizushima-san, no camera was able to capture Ryūjin-san. They were not aimed in the position to see the roof from which he spoke to you. I am sorry."
"He was there!" Sakiko screamed. "He left my parents to die! He was there!"
"Sakiko!" her grandmother cried.
"We are truly sorry, Mizushima-san," Hideki said, "but we cannot charge Ryūjin-san without sufficient evidence."
Sakiko collapsed to her knees and wept. All those grey days of waiting had come to nothing. The lives of her mother and father had been snuffed out and the world would never know. The hero Ryūjin would continue his work, worshipped and glorified. Others like her parents would die. Hideki's muffled apologies could not reach her.
Her grandmother put the phone back on the receiver before dropping to her knees and holding Sakiko as she wailed on her hands and knees, unable to stand up.
The grey days, merging like drops of water, would continue.