#20

Canton Province, China

March 1943

It took him a week to decide, finally, to be driven into action rather than madness.

He waited until evening was falling, and the setting sun had painted the sky a furious orange. It was easy to gain access to the university. The guards stepped aside with a salute at his greeting and the sight of his uniform. He walked into the building as if he knew what he was doing. He didn't.

He would save one girl out of hundreds. Why only her? He walked past dozens of the condemned, all just as innocent, but he sought only her with a sort of feverish madness.

Those eyes.

She was in none of the wards on the first floor, communal bed chambers where the patients were lashed into immobility with leather straps. He worried a little then, becoming more frantic – what if he was too late already? It had been a week. A week. Had that been too long?

He passed doors in the corridors, peering quickly through each one – realised numbly that the place was even bigger than he'd thought. A huge, writhing organism of carefully inflicted suffering. Lost, desperate moans haunted the spaces filled with sickened air. Occasional screams, like flickering forks of lightning flashed into being only to fade into half-imagined echoes and ringing ears.

He found her on the second floor. She was sleeping, her hair plastered to the sweat on her face, feverish and sucking on the air like a suffocating fish. Sendoh first tugged at the leathery tongs that kept her there, and then drew the ceremonial sword he carried to cut through them. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a use for the thing.

When the passing doctors quickly came forward to question him, he snapped at them in his most authoritative manner, telling them he was under orders from the Major General. They appeared too nervous to ask more questions.

Then he slid his hands under her thin, shivering body and lifted her from the drenched sheets.

His breath rattled in his ears. Hers was too soft to hear.

She awoke, disturbed, and looked at him fearfully. Did she recognise him? She did not know what was going on. She tried to speak, but her Chinese words meant nothing to him. She seemed frightened. No doubt she thought he was trying to hurt her.

She seemed to weigh nothing as he carried her from the room like a groom with his bride. He had some wild idea that he could just pass her over to one of the vagabond Chinese who haunted the city streets, and somehow they would see her home.

After that, he didn't know. Whatever consequences waited for him, he didn't dare to think about it.

He made his way back through the hospital, slowed only slightly in his care not to jostle her too greatly, his grip on the girl firm and steady, though his heart was hammering against his ribs. He tried to speak soothingly, but wasn't sure whether or not any words came out.

It was too late to hesitate now. Doing this... just this... saving this one girl, would keep the ghosts away. Perhaps he would be able to claw his way back into competence, a more peaceful state of mind, the calmness he had lost. Yes, everything would be all right, after this.

He went rapidly through the front entrance, ignoring the nearby gaping doctor, and saw a familiar car parked in front of the university. The Major General already had one foot out the car door when their eyes met. Sendoh froze. The girl shifted with a soft moan in his arms.

Sato stared at him in confusion for a second, as if unable to understand what he was looking at. His stare roamed first over Sendoh's dismayed expression, and then moved to the limp girl in his arms. Then his eyes narrowed.

Sendoh looked quickly around, but there was no where to go.

The Major General snapped orders, and Sendoh didn't have time to put the girl down much less draw a weapon before the guards had grabbed hold of him. The girl was dragged out of his arms. The hot air was suddenly stifling. The evening shadows crept like vines across the tarmac.

The Major approached, but didn't bother to ask any questions. It seemed he knew what had happened. Maybe it had happened before. There was a look of intense disappointment on his face. Sendoh noticed it, and realised he hated this man. Hated him.

The soldiers forced the girl to her knees. Her face was sick and pale and full of desperate tears. She reached out with shaking hands to implore mercy, unknown words bubbling from her cracked, dry lips.

The Major considered her for a moment, before turning to Sendoh and reaching out. Sendoh instinctively tried to move away, but the privates who held his arms did not let him shift. Sato's eyes remained locked with his as he dragged Sendoh's sword from the scabbard at his waist. A cold, metallic hiss as the blade met the air.

Executed by my own sword, Sendoh thought vaguely, taking a bracing breath.

He didn't mind quite as much as he had expected he would. Death awaited everyone, he reasoned. Compared to many, in recent months, a death like this was too easy. He'd take it willingly.

The Major readied the sword, testing it, feeling the weight with casual confidence. But his eyes were not on Sendoh. He moved with a swift and sudden thrust.

The noise of steel and bone.

The girl's blue eyes looked tearfully down at the sword through her gut. Her expression turned to confused amazement. She gave a half-hicupping sob. Then the Major pulled back and the sword came free, releasing a tumble of blood and guts into her lap. She looked up and opened her mouth as if to cry out, but with a final swing the Major decapitated her at the neck in one stroke, and all her words vanished.

Her wide blue eyes flashed skyward with each miserable roll of her head across the bloody ground.

Sendoh struggled to keep his feet under him as the Major turned to face him.

All at once he was blinded with an ugly fury. His tongue was babbling sounds, incoherent rage, though he didn't know what he was saying.

But the voice in his mind was clear. Kill me, it screamed. Kill me, you evil bastard.

Major Sato considered.

"The Captain is delirious," he told the guards sternly, ignoring Sendoh's senseless and desperate screams. "Put him in a confinement cell. I'll deal with this in the morning."

They dragged him away.

~tbc

ANs: Well! It's been a week! You didn't ask, but I'll tell you anyway. I found out that I'm pregnant! Mwahahahaha. Expect updates to be more erratic starting from now and probably for the rest of my life (omg). Spent the week divided between going to see doctors and hospitals, going to work (yeah, still gotta do that, seems so mundane and menial now), and worrying about how on earth I can possibly hide my massive doujinshi collection from a child. Shit just got real. Yikes. I'll still write for nano but I have serious doubts about how much progress will actually get done haha x Starry