Disclaimer: Godzilla is property of Toho Studios. I do not own Godzilla or any other aspect of the original 1954 film, nor do I profit from this fan fic.
Hisashi Miura, his sister Chiyo, Kana, and Toru are all my own original creations.
Tokyo Bay
By Kuroneko19
Part II: Oh Restless Night
The following morning, the military roped off the decimated area surrounding Tokyo Bay. Military personnel swarmed throughout the whole of Tokyo, and stories of a special Anti-Gojira Task Unit began to fly about.
Mother tried desperately to contact our father. She called several hospitals that morning, and she even called the morgue, despite her fear that she would find Father there. She met with little success no matter where she called, however, which was good in some ways, but it still made matters all the more painful. It is said that no news is good news, but in this instance, it was not. My mother's anxiety only grew with each call she made. It was as though Father had disappeared into oblivion.
It pained Chiyo and me to watch our mother struggle with her writhing emotions of guilt and despair. When Kana and her mother arrived for a visit, Chiyo and I were grateful to get out of the house, but always remained nearby. No matter how much it pained us to watch out mother suffer, we wanted to be near her, or else we would feel as though we had abandoned her.
While Kana's mother stayed inside to comfort our mother, Chiyo and I went with Kana into the backyard, where we stayed for a time in silence. Toru showed up minutes later with his mother and his Aunt Kaede. I knew mother would be in good hands – she was very close to Kana's mother, Motoko, Toru's mother, Hisako, and Toru's Aunt Kaede.
The four of us watched as several Chaffee tanks rolled along the boulevard, a majority of them towing 155mm Howitzer M1s behind them. Land Self-Defense Force soldiers marched alongside the slow-moving vehicles, their faces stern and devoid of all emotion.
The Defense Forces were mobilizing in an effort to drive Gojira away. Hundreds were being evacuated from their homes and many more left on their own accord. Soldiers were setting up small "stations" in civilian homes, restaurants, and even warehouses. If Gojira were to make landfall a second time, it would be met with a volley of firepower.
Among the various tales of proposed military tactics to be used against Gojira, we heard that the government had authorized the construction of an enormous electrical barrier, consisting of high-voltage electrical wires, towers, and transformers. The barrier was to be built around the heart of the city, where the Sōri-daijin Kantei, the Diet, Tokyo Tower, and the clock tower resided. We were all a bit skeptical about the effectiveness of the plan, but we prayed it would be enough, nevertheless.
The days dragged on, and as each day passed, our anxiety grew. Day by day, we watched as more were evacuated out of Tokyo, and as military personnel occupied the vacated homes. Mother continued her desperate search for Father, each passing day only adding to her anguish. She became so obsessed with finding Father, that I found Chiyo crying one day in fear that perhaps Mother had gone quite insane.
Those days were the longest I had ever gone through. The days edged by with promises of victory and peace returning to our beautiful Japan; the nights lingered, suspending us in the cold dread that there may not have been a tomorrow to look forward to. Our greatest fear was that Gojira would return before the electrical barrier was completed, and we would be approached with little defense against the great beast.
My uncle, Koji Hirahata, visited us during the construction of the barrier. He was a tall, thin, balding man who took his job as a reporter very seriously. He was Mother's elder brother, and he probably one of my more favorite relatives. During his visit, he gave to me a photographer's camera, and taught me a little of how to operate one of the cameras used for making films. His presence lightened the atmosphere considerably, and for the first time in nearly a week, my mother smiled.
The day the electrical barrier was announced to have been completed, the military ordered Toru's family to leave their home by the bay. While the Inoue family had suffered no damage when Gojira first made landfall, the military wanted to take no chances.
The Inoue family was very poor. After the Daigo Fukuryu Maru incident, families that solely depending on the fishing industry for their livelihood suffered greatly. Many of Toru's family members had left their home, and now lived elsewhere, though perhaps no better off than what they had left behind. Hideto-kun was unable to find his family a suitable shelter – his pay had been suspended indefinitely due to the destruction of the Nankai Steamship Company, and he was engulfed in working with Dr. Yamane. There was nowhere for Toru and his family to stay.
It was quickly decided that the Inoue family would stay with us until they were able to return home. While the older men – being Toru's father, his two older brothers, his uncle, and his cousins – were out with the military and helping to evacuate families, the others would stay at our home. Within a day, Toru, his mother, Aunt Kaede, his three younger sisters, Minato, Tomoyo, and Sanae, and his baby brother, Eiji, were moved in, as well as Kana and her mother. Kana's father was a military officer in high standing, and would need their home for military use.
My grandmother had always complained that our house was far too large for a small, "nuclear"* family such as ours. If she had been alive during the raid, she probably would not have made such a remark – it was ideal for housing all of our families, and we all fit in very comfortably.
It was a bit awkward at first, having our families staying together, I admit, but I soon got over my initial feelings of misgiving. I actually had quite a bit of fun, to be honest. Mother was able to relax a little, and she chatted with the mothers and Aunt Kaede about such ordinary things as sewing and cooking recipes. Hisako-san, Toru's mother, even let Mother hold Eiji, who was only three months old at the time. Chiyo and Gammy played with Toru's younger sisters, and they even got Kana to join them on many occasions.
I spent most of my time with Toru, who took some time to warm up. He was upset and angry: Gojira killed Toshiro-chan, whom Toru was very fond of, and the creature had driven him from his home. He confided in me that he was angry that there was nothing he could do to help – he was only fifteen years of age, and too young to do anything to aid in the campaign against Gojira. He was almost ashamed of his age.
After a day or so, Chiyo managed to convince Toru to cheer up. She told him that she was grateful that he was too young to help the military, and not that he was older, and could be in danger of getting badly hurt or even killed. Her word's must have meant quite a lot to him, because in a few days, Toru was enjoying himself and acting as happily as he would at school.
Despite his change in attitude, however, I could tell that Toru's anger and uncertainty still boiled within him.
Just as it was that night on the hill, the happy moments in our hours of darkness could not last. As in Edgar Allan Poe's haunting tale of the Masque of the Red Death, Death made itself known that night, and the last of the revelers fell.
The evening had begun as innocently as it possibly could have. Sanae, who was the closest to Chiyo's age out of the three sisters, was laughing with my sister as Kana attempted to teach them word of English. Kana was far better at English than either Toru or I. our mothers and Toru's Aunt Kaede laughed at Eiji's antics, and chatted about dresses that they hoped would soon go on sale. Minato and Tomoyo played with their baby brother, and tried to get him to say ridiculous things such as baka, meaning "idiot", and the names of various foods. Toru and I joked about different sumo wrestlers, and discussed what films Toho Studios would soon show in the theaters. Had there not been one of the tanks sitting in the road and several Land Self-Defense Force soldiers milling about, it would have seemed like a rather ordinary night.
It had grown quite dark, and Mother announced that it was time for us to all return to the inside of the house. There was a great deal of groaning, even from the now-sleeping Eiji, but we conceded – in those days, children obeyed their parents without question – and stood up from our sitting positions in the grass. Before any of us could move, however, we heard a low growl in the distance. We all froze in our spots, including little Eiji, who had been scooped up by his mother. There was a loud splashing noise coming from the bay, and the sound of gunfire came from an alarmingly close distance. The sirens sounded off, and military personnel swarmed onto the street, many of which looking confused and even alarmed. Judging by their actions, I knew something was very wrong.
Tanks were quickly loaded with men, and they made a dash toward the hill at the end of the boulevard. The earth began to quake violently, and we watched in stunned horror as the leviathan appeared in all its hellish glory over the hill, heading in our direction.
The mass confusion and chaos ensued quickly, and soon we were engulfed in a wave of panic. Our neighborhood had not been ordered to evacuate because we were far enough away from the city that we ought to have been safe. Gojira was not meant to have come our way.
Swarms of terrified neighbors flooded past the slow-moving tank. A nearby 155mm Howitzer M1 went off, and awoke the previously sleeping Eiji. As the monster neared toward us, the cold dread I had felt only days before returned. Another shot from one of the cannons fired, and I found myself running with the others.
The confusion was so great and the terror was so overpowering. With each step the monster took, the fleeing crowd surged, pushing us farther away from one another. I heard my mother call out my name and Chiyo's name somewhere behind me. I tried to look over my shoulder to see her, but the force of the terrified crowd was too great, and I could not even manage a hand signal to indicate that I had heard her voice.
I felt a pair of hands clutch my right arm, and looked to find Kana's horrified face looking back at me. I grabbed her by the hand, and together we somehow managed to inch our way out of the crowd and stuff ourselves in a narrow alleyway. We first looked at one another, somewhat relieved that we had gotten out of the crowd, then we looked back to the river of panic-stricken civilians, and noticed that they were all trying to get within the confines of the electrical barrier.
I scanned the massive crowd, looking for any one of our group. Mother, Chiyo, Toru – anyone.
Kana and I stood with our backs pressed against the cool brick of one of the buildings, and watched as the terrified mob rushed past us, the screams and shouts drowning out the blare of the emergency siren and the wail of the sirens of emergency vehicles.
I remember a time when my mother brought me shopping with her at one of the malls in Tokyo. I was a very small child at the time, you see, and I cannot I was the most intelligent of young children. I was somehow separated from my mother, and I found myself standing alone in the midst of women's dresses. I knew I was lost, and I became very frightened as a result. I must have sent a better part of an hour looking for my mother, being careful never to leave the store. It was not until a kind security guard found me and helped me search that I found my mother, who had grabbed a security guard and had been searching for me all over the mall.
Mother never told Father about that little incident. I suppose she felt that I had been frightened enough. After that day, I never strayed away from my mother again.
I never forgot that feeling of being lost. It haunted me for the longest time afterward. I just never though I would experience that feeling ever again…
Kana and I stood there for the longest time, even after the crowds had subsided. We listened as the military unleashed its fury on the beast, to no avail. After a time, we saw it approach the barrier. We held our breath, and watched in cold dread:
30,000 Volts of electricity were said to have coursed through the wires of the barrier – enough to kill anything that touched it. Gojira ought to have been disintegrated – instead, it knocked a portion of the barrier over, sparks flying everywhere, igniting several fires around it.
Kana screamed, and I hung my head in shame – there was nothing anyone could do now, but watch as the behemoth terror waded through the buildings. I looked down at my uncle's camera, which I had slung over my neck earlier to show Toru. A sudden though occurred to me: I could take pictures of Gojira, and maybe it would be enough to show the world what had happened. It was a foolish though, perhaps, but I stuck to it. I took a hold of Kana's hand, and told her that we would follow the beast. She called me insane, but she did not attempt to break away from me. Instead, she followed me, and together we ran down the now empty street.
We watched as the monster destroyed the Diet building and clock tower, each time approaching the structure out of some bizarre interest. I cringed as I watched the Sōri-daijin Kantei crumble, but I took the picture, preserving the image on a roll of film.
At some point, Kana tripped over a fallen object in the road. Debris littered the streets, and we had had to avoid downed electrical wires. We looked at the large object lying in the road, and discovered that it was a motion-picture camera, such as the one Uncle Koji taught me to use. After a quick inspection, we discovered it worked, and that it had batteries inside it. I handed my camera to Kana, and I took up the heavy object, hoping that it would come to good use.
By the time we had reached one of the municipal parks, Kana and I found ourselves far ahead of the great beast, and stopped to rest. Our fear was slowly turning into a sort of curiosity, and we now only wanted to get our pictures, and then hide. We sat down on one of the park benches, and watched as the nuclear leviathan looked down upon the firing military squads beneath it. I could make out the silhouettes of panicking families trying to escape their apartments as the monster neared.
My fear was renewed as I watched as a light danced about the creature's spinal plates. It opened its great maw, and showered what I can only describe as bright blue radioactive fire on all those below.
Gojira looked around, and, satisfied, made its way toward the park where Kana and I sat.
I looked wildly around for a place to hide. Behind us was an old, abandoned building. I ordered Kana to hide in there, and ran to a nearby tree. The camera came with a strap, which I used to hold the object on my back as I climbed. I situated myself on one of the larger branches, and set the camera up as quickly as I could. In only a moment, the quaking earth grew, and soon I was face-to-face with the horrible Gojira.
I will not say that I was not frightened – actually, I was quite terrified. Nevertheless, I stayed in my place, and held the camera up, catching the chilling image of Gojira peering through the bars of a giant cage, where terrified birds fluttered about insanely.
The image has been recognized worldwide as perhaps the greatest picture of Gojira. Perhaps you have seen it. I captured that image.
Gojira turned in the direction of Tokyo Tower, where bright flashes of light twinkled in the distance. As it headed in that direction, I clambered down from my spot on the tree, and ran to find Kana, who had been snapping pictures from the old building. I heard a radio broadcast coming from one of the apartments nearby, and I strained to listen. I recognized the voice of my Uncle Koji, and I felt my body go numb at the horrible realization that he was at the tower.
The radio broadcast soon turned into static, and I looked out to see Gojira bending and breaking the Tower, sending the reporters and journalists plummeting to the ground.
Fires lashed out all over Tokyo. What little bravery we had left had expired with destruction of the tower, and Kana and I fled the building just before the fires reached it. I remember passing a woman and her two daughters, trapped in a fiery alleyway. I tried to call out to them, but a burning beam fell, and the three perished in smoke and flame.
Somehow, we managed to find a shelter, and we stayed there throughout the night, listening as the monster rampaged. I cannot tell you how terrified I was then, trapped in a dark basement somewhere in Tokyo, the screams of perishing people piercing my ears.
The morning brought to us no hope. What the dark of the night concealed, the bright rays of the sun revealed to us, in all its misery.
Kana and I walked out into the ashes, and could only stare in mute shock. Gone were the familiar buildings of old; gone were all the people we once knew. The Gods of Death had sent their hellish messenger to obliterate our great city, and it was now nothing more than charred memories.
An ambulance later picked us up, transporting several scared and injured people to an auxiliary unit outside of Tokyo. There, we found Kana's mother, covered in strange burns. She had been subject to large amounts of radioactivity, we soon found out, but she was alive. We embraced one another and fell to the ground in tears.
For all we knew, we were all that was left.
The government later released a televised national prayer, sung by several students that had survived the onslaught. Kana had been asked to appear with the others. I stayed behind with her mother, and watched as the cameras showed each one of them, praying for peace. Kana's face was somewhere in the back. She had obtained several cuts and lacerations from the previous night, and could not cover them. It would have shocked audiences all over if the could have seen her pretty face marred by such ugly marks.
The prayer touched the hearts of many, including that of Emiko-san's intended husband, Daisuke Serizawa. It was that prayer that gave us what would be forever remembered as Serizawa's Sacrifice.
The next day, the Oxygen Destroyer was unleashed, and we watched as the monster perished in the bubbling sea. I could not help but feel that perhaps we were too late. We were too late to stop further pain, too late to stop lives from being ruined.
After life slowly slipped back into a state of normalcy, I went to live with Kana and her mother. I attended school, and received high marks. It was a sort of melancholy period in our lives, I suppose. Kana's mother suffered from acute radiation syndrome, and had periodic bouts of severe illness.
After Kana turned eighteen, we married. That was one of the few happy times in our lives at that point. I applied to several job positions following my college graduation three years later. It was soon after that Kana's mother passed away, the radiation finally consuming her in her sleep.
Sometime after Kana's mother died, I received an appointment to be interview at one of the companies I had applied to. A man named Toru Inoue signed the invitation. I felt my heart leap, but I did not think too much of it. Inoue was a rather common surname, just as it is today. I had no idea just how many men named Toru Inoue resided in Tokyo. The Toru Inoue I knew as a boy was dead, as were my mother and sister.
I arrived at the address given to me the next morning, and I felt a familiar chill creep up my spine. The address was the same as the Nankai Steamship Company's – this company, called Inoue Pacific, had built its office on the site where my father's company once stood. I stood there for a while, taking in the scene before me: I had a feeling of déjà vu as I watched the boats pulling out of the harbor, and sailing out into the bay. Horns sounded out, signaling the return of boats from fishing. It was almost as if I were looking at Father's company all over again…
The scenery was no different on the inside. The resemblance to the Nankai Steamship Company was so uncanny, I felt as though I was walking in a daydream. With every step I took, it felt like I was taking a trip into the past. The familiar scents, sights – it was overwhelming.
I felt a tap on my shoulder, and turned to find a young man bowing to me, and asking if I was Hisashi Miura. I told him that I was, and showed him my invitation. He guided me past the rows of frozen and gutted fish, and up a flight of stairs, which led to the manager's office. The Kanji on the door read "Toru Inoue, Owner and Manager". After a swift knock at the door, the young man opened the door to the manager's office, and showed me in. He shut the door behind me after bidding me good day, and I found myself staring at a ghost:
Over the years, he had matured. Gone were his tall, lanky features, and tussled hair. Gone was the look of youthful restless in his eyes. The man before me was tall and muscular, his hair slicked back and parted on one side, a thick mustache waxed above his upper lip. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and dark brown slacks. The sun had tanned him even more deeply than it had when we were children.
After a moment of staring at one another, Toru and I embraced one another, neither of us with dry eyes.
When I went home that afternoon, I told Kana what had happened. Her face lit up with such happiness that I had not seen since before that fateful night in 1954. I had the job – Toru had not even interviewed me. Instead, we laughed and cried out of joy for being reunited so many years later. Toru would not tell me his story, however, and he refused to hear mine. When I told him that Kana and I were married, his face lighted up with such brilliance, I felt it could have rivaled that of the sun. He asked me to join him at his home for dinner that night, and gave me the address. Kana was overjoyed at the invitation, and we spent the rest of the day preparing, dressing our best, and alternating moments of laughing and crying.
I did not know what else to expect that night. When I knocked at Toru's apartment door, I felt a flood of emotions overtake me. In all the years that Kana and I searched, we never found him, and now here we were, at his apartment door.
The door opened slowly, and a small young woman in a pale pink kimono embroidered with white and pink sakura blossoms greeted us. I felt my heart stop and I took a step back. Kana gasped when she realized who she was looking at.
Chiyo's eyes clouded over with happy tears, and I suddenly found myself being tightly embraced by my younger sister. I looked over her head, and I saw a young man sitting at the table in the living room, going over papers with a boy of perhaps four, who clutched a small stuffed turtle in his arms. Toru appeared just behind Chiyo, and could only smile, his eyes misting over.
That night, after the dinner plates had been cleared and Chiyo and Toru's son, Minoru, had been put to sleep, we sat in the living room, and relived that night together:
After Kana and I had lost the others in the crowd, Toru somehow managed to find Chiyo and Sanae, who were being pushed and shoved, and very near the point of being trampled. Sanae had gotten a hold of baby Eiji, after her mother shoved him at her in a panic. The four of them pushed along with the crowd, until they got to a point where the pain was too great. They found an opened building on the side, and ducked into it, away from the mob. They stayed in the building for quite some time, looking at the door and windows for any sign of the others. They gave up all hope of finding anyone in such a mess, that they followed the alleyway to the next street over, which was not nearly so swarmed with terrified people attempting to flee.
Chiyo told us that the fires that started shortly after Gojira demolished the electrical barricade had nearly consumed them. They would all have perished, had it not been for an older teenage girl who called herself Riho. Riho was one of the lower-class individuals who had been in trouble with the law one more than one occasion, as it turned out, but she knew the streets well, and guided them and several others into a small bomb shelter that had been constructed during World War I. There they remained, until several military officers found them the next morning.
As it turned out, they were very fortunate to have made through the night: the entire district had been reduced to rubble, including the building above them. They were told they were the only survivors in that area.
What had happened to Riho, they did not know. Chiyo and Toru prayed for her every night before they went to bed. Eiji, the young man who sat with us in the living room, remembered none of the incident, but he knew that he had been affected as well. He showed us a long scar on his back, where he had been scraped when going through the narrow passageway of the shelter.
As it turned out, Toru, Chiyo, Eiji, and Sanae had been reunited with Aunt Kaede, who died three years afterward. Sanae died fifteen years prior to our being reunited – like Kana's mother, she died of radiation poisoning.
Toru and Chiyo married shortly afterward, and Toru worked hard to get raise enough money to resurrect my father's company. He and Eiji, who was now finishing high school, had been running the company for some time now, and were proud of their achievements.
I felt so proud in that moment. I was reunited with those I thought I had lost so long ago, and, for the first time in years, I finally found peace.
After I had begun work, Kana and I moved into the apartment near the Nakameguro River, where I continue to reside. During the unpacking, Kana found the photos we had developed back in 1955, a year after the raid. She found the film as well, and we showed it all to Chiyo and Toru, who both recoiled at the sight of the beast. Eiji, who was working to become a photojournalist, suggested turning it into the news agency he worked for. I took his suggestion, but I did so anonymously, and to this day, no one knows the identity of the person who took those photos or filmed that horrifying scene.
Kana died three years ago of ovarian cancer. I live here alone now, with only my thoughts for constant companionship.
My granddaughter visited me just the other day. The snow has just begun to fall, and the days have grown longer. She brought with her the beautifully preserved petals of the sakura blossoms that we caught back in the spring. The wind blew gently outside, and together we stood on the balcony overlooking the river, letting the breezes pick the petals from our hands, and blow them gently into the river in a cascade of white and pink.
My granddaughter, Kameko, reminds me so much of my beloved Kana. I called her Hitomi, because her eyes are that same strange gray color that Kana had. She is just as perceptive as Chiyo, and every bit as patient as my mother was. She is this wonderful blend of the most beautiful women in my life, and as I watch her grow, I can see each one of them inside of her.
As the seasons pass by, I know that there will be a season where my granddaughter will have to carry on without me. I know that one day I will be too frail to join her in hunting the falling sakura petals in the spring, and too weak to release them in the winter.
With each passing season, I think back to those nights back in 1954, and I see each face as clearly as when I look in the mirror. I know that soon I will join them, and together we will pick up the pieces of our lives where they left off, where we can all live on in piece.
*Nuclear– in this instance, it means a family consisting of the parent and children, and not extended family. Toru's family is considered "traditional", as the household consists of not only immediate family, but also cousins, uncles, aunts, and grandparents, et cetera.
