Author's Note: I am again reminding y'all that I am going to Kumori Con this year. Please contact me via review or IM if you want to meet up there. I'll be continuing to continue to remind until the Con is past. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Letters to the Field

By: Bar-Ohki

Fourth Correspondence

"Not today?" Mamori asked Tetsuo as he went about his deliveries.

"Not today." Tetsuo nodded and gave her a sad smile. "I'm sure he's just busy. Sena hasn't sent anything recently either."

"Ah." Mamori nodded and understood well enough.

"Besides they usually send you a letter when someone goes missing or is killed, so take some comfort in that." Tetsuo reminded Mamori as he walked away.

"Bye!" Mamori waved and felt somewhat deflated. Hiruma's letter was late. There was always the potential he stopped writing, it made Mamori mope around anxious and depressed. The radio hadn't been much of a comfort either, she hadn't heard about Company 021 in a while. It was almost as if they had disappeared off of the face of the world.

She went back to the shop to open up and clean up just a little more. Not too long after opening a tall man in a large trench coat with pointy ears stepped into the shop. Mamori gasped slightly, Yuuya Hiruma, the town recluse, the town madman, and the father of Youichi Hiruma, stepped into her shop.

"M-mr. Hiruma!" Mamori was surprised rather than scared. "Are you sure you've come to the right place?"

"I'm sure." Mr. Hiruma assured her as he hung up his coat and hat, revealing his head of short-cropped brown hair. He turned around and faced Mamori. To her surprise, as this was her first time meeting the man, he had a round face with tiny emerald eyes. The same amazing emerald eyes Youichi had. He walked across the room and made motions to sit in Youichi's chair.

"Oh sir-!" Mamori reached out slightly, her words and actions stopping the man, "-that's a reserved seat, you can't sit there."

"Oh, okay then." Mr. Hiruma nodded and sat down on the stool beside it. He glanced around the room and his eyes feel on the broom Youichi had purchased for Mamori several years back.

"…So you're the one he bought the broom for…." Mr. Hiruma remarked, having always wandered who had been given that broom. He recalled the day Youichi had come home, 15 years old with a black eye and a broken broom, demanding to be taken to the general store to buy a broom.

Yuuya had known he had had a son. His mistress had made a point to write him and send him a photograph of the baby with undeniably pointy ears just like his father's. When she had fallen ill with consumption, she had written Yuuya saying that when she finally died, Youichi would be coming to live with him.

'Take care of our baby, please.' She had wrote.

Yuuya hadn't known what to do with his 13 year old son and his son hadn't known what to do with him. They had been strangers from the start. So all Yuuya did was provide his son a roof over his head, clothes on his back, and three meals for his belly. Youichi simply left the house during the day, going to school when it was open, and doing whatever he did when he was out and about (Yuuya hadn't heard any complaints so he didn't really care).

Occasionally, like any good young lad would, Youichi would come home sporting bruises and scraps and the like. Some where obviously from play, others were from fights, so all Yuuya did was patch up the boy in silence, because his son was just being a boy.

But to Yuuya's shock, his son came home, 15 years old, sporting a black eye, cut lip, and a broken broom. His eyes were ablaze with an emotion Yuuya couldn't quite place as it seemed somewhere between furry and regret. Youichi hung his head for a moment, took a deep breath then looked his father in the eye.

"I need to buy a broom." Youichi announced. "Now."

Not really sure what to do other than to nod, Yuuya grabbed his wallet and wandered into town, into the general store, for the first time in years. Everyone in town gave the two a wide breath, stared in shock and awe, and usually whispered amongst themselves after the father and son had passed. Once they arrived at the general store, Youichi ran over to the brooms and looked over the four kinds carefully.

Yuuya shared a confused look with the shopkeep; his son was literally fretting over which broom to buy. He would pick one up, give a sweep against the floor, mutter to himself then pick another one. Even when he ran out of brooms to try, he retried them over and over. After about an hour, he brought the broom he had chosen and went up to make his purchase.

"This was paid for in full," Youichi told the shopkeep, "if anyone questions that, set them straight." And with that he ran out of the store, the broom in his hands.

"What was that about?" The shopkeep asked Yuuya.

"Your guess is probably better than mine." Yuuya answered. He hadn't heard about, or seen for that matter, the broom again since then.

"Oh, that's because old Habashira came into the shop and picked a fight with Youichi…." Mamori muttered recalling the memory.

Youichi had come in for his usual coffee, sitting down in his usual spot. Today was one of the days in which the field work had been finished early, so it was crowded. No one saw Youichi enter or sit down and no one ever took his stool at the bar either. Mamori served up the coffee and Youichi handed her the pay wordlessly. He hadn't missed any days since he had started coming to the shop in the two years he'd been living in town. Though, he didn't ever get anything to drink if Mamori's mother was tending the shop instead of her.

Habashira, the town lawyer who no one liked, came in and grabbed Youichi's shoulder, sending the entire room into silence.

"Let's have a word, son." Habashira ordered.

"I'm having a fucking coffee, leave me be fucking chameleon." Youichi smacked the man's arm off his shoulder and took a sip of his coffee.

"No, you're not." Habashira said and grabbed Youichi's suspenders and tossed him onto the room floor. The coffee cup that had been in Youichi's hand flew out of it, smashing against the ceiling and raining coffee and white porcelain all over the floor.

"What the fuck!?" Youichi demanded only to have Habashira attack him again. The fighting quickly escalated into a brawl as the two threw each other and punched one another. Mamori, wanting the violence to stop, had grabbed her broom and yelled at the two. It was enough to make Habashira stop and hesitate, though Youichi did not. Youichi reached out, snatched the broom from Mamori and smacked it over Habashira's head, knocking him out and breaking the broom.

With a mortified gasp, Youichi fled the shop with the broken broom.

Everyone finished their drinks while Mamori started to mop up the coffee cup mess. Everyone paid and left, someone taking Habashira with them (to take him home). About an hour and a half later, when Mamori wanted to use a broom to clean up the last of the mug she stood up to go get a broom, only to almost run into a nervous Youichi. He had a new broom and was offering it silently to her, his gaze on the floor.

Mamori took it, thanked him, and continued cleaning. Youichi flashed her a smile that she didn't see and left.

"Well anyways, it was awfully nice of him to replace it for me." Mamori chuckled at the memory. "What brings you here, Mr. Hiruma?"

"I'd like a cup of coffee, the kind my son likes, please." Mr. Hiruma told her with a smile. Mamori nodded and prepared a cup for him.

"I hear he's been writing you." Yuuya commented as Mamori handed him the steaming cup.

"He has." Mamori answered, picking up a mug to dust.

"And swears like a sinner in the letters." Yuuya sighed; his son had always had a habit of swearing.

"That's just how he is." Mamori said simply.

"…Do you know how he's been?" Yuuya asked her. He'd been worried about Youichi for some time and the only person who'd really know was Mamori….

"I-!" Mamori stopped when Tetsuo came rushing into the shop, waving an abused envelope in his hands.

"I'm sorry-!" Tetsuo panted, "-it got stuck in the bottom of the bag!"

"Oh, thank you!" Mamori smiled and took the letter from Tetsuo.

"H-have a good day." Tetsuo tipped his hat and walked out of the shop, trying to recatch his breath. Mamori looked at the envelope, smiled because it was from Youichi, and opened it up.

"That's-?" Yuuya stopped when Mamori nodded.

"I'll read it to you." Mamori assured the man and started to read her letter.

Fucking Woman-

There is not one fucking person back in that fucking town that actually gives a shit whether I live or die. Not even that mother fucking bastard that sired me. Quit trying to feed me sympathetic shit. It. Pisses. Me. Off.

I don't have time for your fucking womanly nonsense anyways, I have three new recruits to break in because my fucking superior's too drunk to do it him-fucking-self.

Fucking war. Fucking, fucking war.

-Sgt. Y. Hiruma

"…I see." Yuuya said after she was done. He paid her and got up to leave.

"M-mr. Hiruma-!" Mamori wasn't really too sure what to say, Youichi had been rather mean in his letter.

"Tell him that I do care about him," Yuuya told her, "even if I am a horrible person at showing it…."

Mamori sighed and re-read the letter. Youichi was stressed and upset about something he wasn't telling her. She shook her head and decided to write a reply. She got the first few lines done when the normal crowd came in for their coffee. She put both letters away and started to take orders.

Half way through the rush the room fell into silence as four strangers walked in. They were clad in military uniforms and all of them were haunted. One of the stranger's was on his friend's back because he simply didn't have legs to walk with. All four men were covered with scars, both physical and mental.

"Would you like some coffee?" Mamori offered.

"Yeah." The one carrying the other man admitted. The farmers rearranged themselves quickly so that the soldiers had a table, with chairs, to themselves. Mamori fixed them all coffee to their liking and refused to take their money.

"You've already given more than enough to our country," Mamori told them, "I don't need to be taking what you have left from you."

They decided not to argue with her.

Mamori retreated behind the counter and finished writing her letter, now more worried and anxious than she had been before she had started.

Youichi-

If you didn't always seek out the worst in people you would realize how many people in this town do care about you. Because I care about you and I'm worrying about you and your welfare.

A few soldiers came through town today, they were heading home. And they were a mess! One man had to be carried because he didn't have legs anymore! I keep on getting nightmares about you and Sena coming home like that…. It's horrible.

Please, please tell me how you are doing physically! And be honest, it's not much of me to ask.

And your superior is drinking!? Why didn't you tell me that when you were home!?

Lots of love,

Mamori A.

"Have you heard any news about Company 021?" Suzuna asked them. "Three of the lads from our town are in it and-"

The legless solider raised his hand to silence Suzuna.

"I don't know if they are alive," he began, "I heard they were sent out on a Death Trap."

"W-what's that?" Suzuna asked worriedly.

"It's what happens when two officers have a disagreement and settle it by seeing which Company survives attacking another Company." One of the other soldiers remarked. "Usually brakes the surviving Company's spirits."

A mug shattered against the floor. Mamori's hands were numb and limp and tears were flowing down her face.

Silence filled the room.

Mr. Gaou walked in, saw the soldiers and nodded to them. He crossed the room, a concerned expression directed Mamori's way. He glanced down at her finished letter and picked it up.

"I'll mail this for you." Mr. Gaou told her and tucked it into his coat pocket. He paid money for a coffee he didn't order then said.

"Company 021 is full of strong-spirited lads, they won't let something like a Death Trap destroy them." Mr. Gaou remarked to everyone in the room. And with that he left.

_=_=_=_=_

Wow, I'm getting a lot of millage out of Ishimaru and Gaou…. Tell me what you think!