In everything, there was motion: shards of the landscape spinning like pieces of a broken mirror. Some tore through her. Other caught, like barbs, in her skin, and raked her apart. When she fell, there was nothing of her left. Only pain. And awareness.

Awareness of falling, and of the world falling with her. Then she was lying face down, half-buried in the mud under the damp heat of her own blood.

The baby was crying.

She knew that was impossible. She sat up and tugged the sling from her back, then pulled the warm, screaming bundle to her chest. It squirmed and kicked. It balled up its tiny pink fists and pounded at her hands, but its every movement was like a salve to her. She sat there a long time, in the mud and the smoke, just rocking the baby. Nothing she could do would make it quiet, but, for now, she didn't mind.

The smoke around her paled, a grey dusk seeping into the landscape. It was late and her parents would worry.

She got to her feet and began to walk through the ruined fields. She had lost her sandals and was barefoot now. Far away, she could still hear the bombs striking the city.

Once she reached a path she knew, she broke into a trot. She had been lucky: the injuries she'd sustained were just superficial, it seemed, and, by the way the baby she carried was bawling, she guessed that it too had escaped relatively unscathed. She felt a surge of delight and relief. They were alive, and it had never felt better.

The landscape around her looked bleached, the colours altered from the ripe hues of the morning. Perhaps it was the smoke playing tricks on her eyes. Her head was still ringing and she wanted to be home, to be curled up in her own bed, to have returned the screaming child to its mother's arms, to be told that they were pleased she was safe and alive and well.

Ahead of her, on the path, a man was standing.

Waiting.

She hesitated. There was something wrong: the washed out landscape; the faded grey sky. Only the figure on the path seemed real to her and yet he was the strangest thing of all, dressed in a black kimono and hakama, with a white cloak across his back; he looked four hundred years out of place: a samurai from a storybook.

He was leaning back, watching the plumes of smoke on the horizon, and the trails the planes had left in their wake. As Hisana approached though, he turned towards her and smiled:

"There you are. I didn't expect you to leave so soon."

"Who are you?"

"My name's Shunsui. What's yours?"

"Hisana," she said with a scowl, and took a step backwards, holding the baby tight against her chest.

"Don't be scared," he said.

"Are you a ghost?"

"Something like that."

She took another step back:

"Don't come near me!"

"Where are you going, Hisana?"

"Home! I'm going home!" But, as she spoke, his features grew sad. He shook his head:

"You can't go home. Look down." She did. She saw the baby, still crying in her arms: "No. Not the child. Look at yourself. At the point above your heart." She lifted the baby and looked. There, stretching from the very centre of her chest, was a chain. It was black with dirt and blood and only hung down as far as her waist; from that point on, the links were broken.

"What is that?"

"While you lived, it connected your soul to your body."

"I don't understand."

"It's broken, Hisana."

"But I'm not dead!"

"How do you know that?"

"Because I'm here! I'm right here!"

"But your body was blown to pieces in the rice field just a minute's walk from here," he said matter-of-factly, pointing back the way she'd come. And, when she didn't answer, he approached, took her shoulder and gently turned her around. A wall of smoke was blackening the horizon: "I don't know why they did it, but they killed perhaps twenty people back there."

"But I'm breathing. Now," she murmured.

"Yes." His fingers tightened on her shoulder: "And you feel my touch, don't you? It's because your spiritual body is really no different from your human one, except that you are breathing reishi now. Spirit. Not air. And, from this moment on, you will feel neither hunger nor thirst." She couldn't answer him. The truth was in her heart, and he was more real to her than the sky, the grass, and the smoke trails overhead. "How old are you, Hisana?" he asked.

"I'll be thirteen next month."

"Why did they do this? Do you know?"

She looked up at him. He seemed sad. A little coldly, she said:

"Do you just wait here for people to die then? And then you tell them this?"

"Huh? No!" His expression of surprise was replaced by a grin as he looked down at her: "You think I should have something better to do with my afterlife?"

"I don't know! I don't know who you are!"

"Shunsui Kyoraku. I'm a soul-reaper." She stiffened and his grip on her tightened. She realised he had no intention of letting her go. "That doesn't mean I take lives," he explained: "My work is in guiding spirits to the next world."

"Then why are you wearing a sword."

"I'll show you." Slowly, and so as not to alarm her, he unsheathed the blade and turned it about so that the hilt faced her. With his left hand, he pulled back the blankets that swaddled the child in Hisana's arms: "This is your little sister? She's a very pretty child." For the first time since the bombs had started falling, the little girl was silent. Her round blue eyes stared up at the soul-reaper. Very gently, Kyoraku touched the hilt of his sword to the baby's forehead. A mark appeared there. 'Death, life,' it read, like a tattoo on the child's brow, and it glowed with pale blue light. Hisana felt the weight in her arms dissolving. On some instinctive level, she understood, but, as the baby's form dispersed, turning into light itself, she cried out:

"What did you do to her?"

"You know, don't you?" Shunsui knelt down so that his face was level with hers. It was a kind face. Too kind. She wanted to scream and claw at him, tell him that this was unfair. Completely absurd! She started to tremble. There were tears on her cheeks. "Do you want to go after her?" he asked.

"My parents will be angry."

"Well, that's just how parents are." As he spoke, he touched the hilt of his sword to her forehead. A jagged sensation ran through her. Lights bursting inside her body. Blue-white lights that surrounded her and separated her. "Don't be afraid," she heard Shunsui say: "You're one of the lucky ones. People rarely die together, in the same instant, but you two, because you did, will be allowed to stay together in the next life. You and her; you won't ever have to be alone."