Authors' Notes: I (Warp) have a Ko-Fi now at Ko-Fi /2375DDLLGBXNI ! If you like this story, would you kindly help defray the cost of the art?
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CHAPTER 28
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The rest of the trip passed without incident, despite Uileag's fears. Ayaka graciously refrained from telling him "I told you so", but she couldn't help a flash of amusement every time his grip nervously tightened whenever he saw someone approach or walk past their row of seats, even though nobody gave them a second look.
The other three reappeared as the train was approaching the major interstate transit hub that was the destination of this leg of the journey, not a hair or thread out of place. The dreamy good vibes that persisted after the initial bliss of receiving chiminage - the Ship's continued unhelpfully pointing out that she would never attain full power on just one recruitment source notwithstanding - promptly evaporated. Even in mufti, unconcealed shipgirl presence meant they were still a terribly eye-catching sight. Ayaka wondered with carefully concealed annoyance if it was some talent of Summoned ex-museum ships to always look presentable and whether it was possible to learn this power.
She wondered what it said about herself that this concern took priority for her over the question of how many single male passengers now had inexplicably pleasant but foggy memories of the past few hours.
From the station in question, they transferred to an intrastate regional HSR line, then onto local traditional rail lines, before finally reaching the one closest to where Imamura had been. There, they were met by Yoshimichi, Kagami and Ichiyo.
Of course the other three had beat them to it. Uileag remembered, and Ayaka through him, that the journey from New York those years ago ought to have been a day trip, and would have been that way if not for the disaster and how it had sidetracked Kas, Makiko and himself into spending the evening in the nearby library, thus preventing them from making it home the same day. It certainly had been that way for Ayaka's journey out to NYC to find him.
More surprising - even if foreshadowed in writing - was the small group of people following at a respectful distance who Ayaka recognised as the new apprentices to the shrine. Ayaka had a background awareness that, having taken them in, making offerings to the goshintai was one of the things Ichiyo would have to teach. It was a vital part of preparing them for their own journeys into the priesthood, wherever they did eventually end up, or if they even followed through to formal ordainment as shinshoku at all. That said, the idea of her grandmother deigning to take in apprentices not joined to the family by blood or marriage remained a bizarre one even almost half a year after its initial mooting.
The group went to their accommodation for the next few days and had an early night.
The next day, clad in hiking attire, they set off for the goshintai.
{your name. Original Soundtrack - Again to Goshintai}
Spotify track/5axz8UbmqJO9Yr0w8eMKUe?si=CXvEZW9rTVawfQNhOKQ9Xg
There was still no road all the way to the crater. The rented vehicles' drivers had to drop them off at the roadside point as near as they could get, and then they had to walk the rest of the way. Neither was there a properly paved path. This far into the countryside, the populace was so sparse that there was little impetus even at the county level to get the ball rolling. After more than 200 years of being used almost exclusively by Imamurans, mostly the Shirokaze priesthood, it was even more unlikely that the 10 years following Imamura's destruction and abandonment would have led to any new development.
Thinking about that brought Ayaka back to the recurring question of what would have happened had Fafnir indeed succeeded in killing them. Would that have meant the end of the Shirokaze lineage in the US? The likelihood seemed to approach one with every passing year that they didn't hear anything from the original lineage, even with the active attempts at reaching out now being made.
Perhaps there was something to West Virginia's words about damnatio memoriae.
Uileag had seen, and Ayaka through him, the bottles of kuchikamizake having been left untouched for 3 years. Would anything have come of that neglect? Any metaphysical consequences?
After years of seeing her grandmother relying on a cane to walk any major distance, it was still disconcerting to see the post-anagathic her so spry and moving without assistance, even after having had a month and change of on-and-off contact to get used to it.
Missouri had launched a recon plane to take a look around as soon as they had disembarked from the vehicles, airily dismissing concerns about flight restrictions. Despite the flippancy, she was genuinely fascinated by what she was seeing. Part of it stemmed from the novelty; as a Summoned, she'd never been this far inland before, not being a product of upriver shipyards like Avondale, and whatever secondhand memories of the heartlands her crew had left were fuzzy at best. This was very different from what Oahu had to offer.
It was still a splendid sight of fecund far-reaching forests, magnificently misty mountains and rushing rivers. Such a serene spectacle, as if there was no war going on with thousands already dead.
Ayaka had never previously thought too much of the path to the goshintai, having long become familiar with and perhaps a bit contemptuous of it over the many journeys made since young. Now, though, her new circumstances had brought on a change in perspective. A subvocalised norito, a gentle brush of a hand to push Power into the old trees circled with shimenawa, and the various kamisama of the forest responded, filling her vision with temporal shades. Shirokaze of centuries past walked the forests that seemed to have changed little between those old days, when she had first become old enough to follow her parents to the goshintai, and now.
The abyssals hadn't gotten this far inland yet. Once, Ayaka might have thought there was nothing worth destroying out here. Now, though, with all the burnt, shredded Filipino forests and other natural features she had seen the abyssals put to the torch to deny their use to humanity, she was under no illusions whatsoever of the creatures staying their hands. That said, the only reason why they would have attacked here was if the Eastern Seaboard had already fallen, with the corresponding tens of millions dead that would entail, and she hoped it wouldn't come to that.
Her thoughts shifting from country to coast reminded her that she'd had friends in university who had also been country born and bred. Some had been all too happy to be finally out of their hometowns and looking forward to leaving it all behind in favour of a new life away.
It was funny, thinking that she had once been like that.
Others, who had been born to or grown up around victims of the Rust Belt shutdowns, lamented what it had cost their communities and cursed the empty promises of politicians and coastal corporate elites.
That, she wasn't so in touch with. While Morikawa Construction had not been the only constructor in the vicinity, Imamura had never had the majority of its population employed by heavy industry, and thus hadn't personally experienced such pain directly. How hopeless her future prospects had seemed back then, though, that she knew a lot about.
The thought of rural flight made her wonder guiltily if there was even an original Shirokaze bloodline back in Japan anymore, or if the radio silence on its end was because it had succumbed to the dispersal of its members and ceased to exist as a coherent entity the way her own nearly had.
With the US in transition to war economy and the threat to near-coastal industry posed by the abyssals, production had begun shifting back inland. A number of upriver shipyards and their supporting industrial facilities had already been built, converted or reactivated, either to directly build new materiel or to supply parts that would be passed on to coastal construction. How far this would go and whether it would actually make a difference to the rural depths in the long run or just peter out after the war was over, no one knew yet.
Was it premature to talk about the end of the war? Ayaka frowned at the thought. She'd deliberately resisted the urge to divine that far ahead. As for the Ship, it might not be capable of long time horizon planning and higher-order executive functioning, but it knew what getting decommissioned meant and was in no hurry to go there.
How did decommissioning even work for shipgirls, beyond the legal discharge from service, if at all? Their riggings were as much a part of themselves as any other part of the body for a human, and while they could be temporarily loaned out, recalling them was no Heraclean labour.
So many questions, so few answers.
As they stepped over some strangely familiar large roots, Ayaka stopped in her tracks. "Hey, Uiui, you don't think…?"
"After all these years? I doubt it." That said, he didn't stop himself from walking over to the edge and peering out nevertheless.
"What is supposed to be down there?" Jersey asked as the others came to a halt too.
Ayaka joined him. "My friend's bicycle. Its wreck, at any rate." She blinked. "No, wait."
"There's really one down there," Missouri said, squatting to look.
"Was that the one you borrowed from Morrie so long ago?" Kagami asked, incredulous, from where she was up ahead with Ichiyo and Yoshimichi. So prompted, the memory of her sister's not-so-madness from back then flashed through her mind.
"Un. Somehow never thought to look before this year, though."
Wisconsin stared at it for a bit, then held a hand out to Missouri, who pulled out a trash bag. Stepping down together, she picked up the mangled frame with one hand while Missouri unceremoniously shoveled the scattered parts into the bag.
"You didn't need to!" Ayaka exclaimed when they got back up.
"It's okay," Wisconsin simply said.
"Are we really going to return that?" Uileag asked dubiously, looking over the mangled mess that his carelessness had turned the bicycle into even before it had been left out in the open, forgotten, for 10 years.
Ayaka folded her arms and frowned at Missouri, whose expression had taken on a particularly puppylike quality. "I guess," she said while throwing her hands up helplessly.
"Don't worry, IoIo! We've got two more days, don't we?" Missouri was unperturbed even as Wisconsin put the frame in the bag too. "We'll fix it up as good as new!"
Ayaka continued staring at her dubiously.
After some more walking, the party finally reached the crater and crested its rim to be greeted by the greenery within. At the centre of it all was the ancient tree that had grown around the meteorite that was the kamisama's sacred body, the reason they were even here at all.
Before they could descend into it, though, Ayaka and Uileag stopped and turned around.
The intersecting twin lakes were clearly visible from here. There was no doubt about that whatsoever, no spectral image of a still-extant Shirokaze Shrine with the town around it like there had been that twilight nearly 10 years ago.
No, there was, between blinks, elusive like a particularly persistent phantom, something there-
"-neechan! Yoohoo!" Kagami shouted.
Ayaka shook herself strongly.
"Oi, don't zone out now!"
"Kagami," Yoshimichi said warningly.
Ayaka didn't miss the little twinge in her sister's face that betrayed a desire to loudly denounce foolishness.
Consciously forcing herself to turn away from the illusory image of intact Imamura, Ayaka continued descending into the crater.
{You see your former home from here too?} Uileag asked, leaning in close and whispering in Irish.
{Yes, I-wait, too?}
{Good, I thought I was seeing things.} The relief drained quickly from his voice. {It's not even the right time yet… is it?}
{No, it definitely isn't,} Ayaka said worriedly.
The memories of a bygone age made it clear just how badly overgrown the crater's flora had become after years without more than annual visitation. The antislip, dirt-repellent coatings on Ichiyo's footwear meant she wasn't having any problems, but that didn't stop her from regarding the greenery underfoot contemplatively. Eventually, she turned to the apprentices. "Tina."
"Yes, Mdm Shirokaze?" The young woman in question jumped, surprised by the sudden address.
"You majored in zoology, I remember?"
"Yes, Ma'am." It was clear from her face that she didn't know where this was going.
"Good." She pointed to the rest of them. "I want you to lead the others in giving me a preliminary proposal for diverting more of the local wildlife here to control the overgrowth. Have Gail contact the National Park Service and get whatever other help you all need. I would like it by the end of the month."
"Yes, Ma'am."
With that said, Ichiyo continued her advance. Soon, she was raising a leg to put a foot on the rock naturally parting the moat-like circular body of water that surrounded the centre of the crater and was held to demarcate the boundary between the mortal realm and the underworld.
{Children Who Chase Lost Voices Original Soundtrack - Ketsuarutoru no Souguu}
YouTube watch?v=tWwBj3d24-E
Ayaka's passive Prime and Spirit senses suddenly screamed at her, more loudly and urgently than she had ever experienced before, and her hung acceleration automatically kicked in at the detection of a possible threat. Out here, far from known friendly locations, the full defensive reaction activated too, and even as she ran for her grandmother at speeds mere men could not hope to match, the air around cracking in protest, her rigging was unfolding.
She grabbed Ichiyo before the latter's foot could land on the rock and immediately Stepped backwards away from the moat.
It was only after all this was done that enough time passed for every remaining normal present to realise something had happened, and then to stare in naked surprise at the highest concentration of firepower in at least a hundred miles that had automatically gone to combat separation the moment general quarters had sounded.
The trained, blooded warfighters of NAVSTA Everett had failed to put up any significant resistance to Missouri's majesty. The overwhelming splendour that, angelic in the Old Testament sense, reflexively inspired fear, reverence and submission was even more crushing on civilian baselines. Perhaps the four arms of an Iowa-class rigging did not much resemble wings, but then the stereotypical depiction of angels had fallen far from Ezekiel's tree.
Uileag, who had been joined to Ayaka body and soul, literally plumbed her depths, didn't react any further. Yoshimichi, who had been in Ayaka's presence just the day immediately after her Reawakening, traces of newfound Power still clinging to her, and seen her with rigging active at her (re?)commissioning ceremony, was not much shaken either. The same could not be for Kagami, whose absence during the manifestations of her sister's power - secondhand knowledge thereof notwithstanding - left her gaping openly, earlier griping pushed clean out of mind. As for the apprentices, none had pissed themselves or fainted, fortunately, but one of them, who had become smitten with Jersey the moment he had laid eyes on her, was unabashedly genuflecting and swearing fealty to La Padrina like his grandfather might have. The others were not so extreme in their reaction, but all were filled with fear and trembling, and some like Tina had begun intoning norito of veneration.
While they were doing this, Ayaka was taking in what was before her, beholding what had set off her alarms.
With purely conventional optics, all that could be seen on the other side of the moat, apart from greenery, was a meteorite so big, even after its impact with Earth had created the crater they were standing in, that the opening one could enter to reach the shrine within was not even half its height. A massive, almost 2,500-year old tree had grown around and over it.
With supernal senses unveiling what was hidden to mortal eyes, something that had not been available to the unawakened her last year, it was a vastly different matter. Where a few moments ago there had been just the slightest distortion to what the purely optical view had shown, now there was over the goshintai a stupendous structure that somehow combined a tree, a space elevator and supernal thread formed weblike into the most complicated piece of weaving she'd ever seen. The biomechanical monolith was almost maddeningly Atlas-like in how it stretched to the sky beyond the limits of even her enhanced eyesight.
"That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die."
The saying of Lovecraft's surfaced in Ayaka's mind, and despite the stories she knew like the back of her hand about Shitori no Kami Takehazuchi no Mikoto's defeat of Ame no Kagaseo, seeing the most impressive instance of Infrastructure she'd ever seen anywhere before her, extending from what was supposed to be a two millennia-old remnant of the stellar serpent's defiance in defeat, was making her a bit nervous.
Why, though? She and Uileag knew all too well from bitter experience the price of failing to properly honour the kamisama, no matter the extenuating circumstances. Even his chosen were not above it. Why was it so surprising, then, for her to see actual proof of that power over this domain?
Why, too, did it remind her of the plans she'd seen once for HIT-JEXRA Ōminato's Silver Ladder?
That said, after a minute of bated breath without any change, the likelihood that it was really some Ragnarok-proof trap for an intruding supernal entity sharply decreased, and that pressure eased off. A divinatory check for good measure came back green too.
"Stand down, you three!" She shouted as she deactivated her rigging, making the appropriate hand signal as she did so.
"Newsflash, IoIo? Giant. Fucking. Tower of Babel?!" Missouri shouted back while gesticulating.
"I said stand down!"
"I was unaware you possessed such sophistication, sister of mine," Jersey said, genuinely quizzical, while deactivating her rigging.
"Hey, I'm not that dumb!" Missouri shouted, pouting.
{That has never happened before,} Ichiyo said, having reflexively switched back to Japanese in her surprise. It was disconcerting for Ayaka to hear her startled by something after nearly three decades of seeming to have all the answers. Then again, it should have been unsurprising that there was awe and trepidation in finally seeing for oneself that reverence for a place of power was not misplaced. {Is it reacting to the supernal energies?}
{It could be.} Ayaka ran her divinations again, frowning at how they showed her she had nothing to worry about. {May I try something?}
After she got assent, Ayaka approached the moat once more. Careful not to touch the water or even extend any part of herself over it, she focused a trickle of Or Energy in a hand, then flicked a finger against the other hand in the direction of the goshintai like she was striking a match. The tiny bit of Power that flew out was, if converted to heat, capable of little more than lighting a candle. A work of prestidigitation that Stingray had imparted so long ago, minor focus-agnostic tricks meant as control-building exercises rather than any serious combat use.
Nothing happened.
Ayaka repeated it twice without getting a response.
Wondering if the Or Energy needed to be tied to a physical object to get a reaction - something she doubted because it had been the mere act of her grandmother crossing the boundary that had set this off, someone far weaker supernally than even the least capable shipgirls Ayaka had ever encountered - she pulled out a P-charged shell and tossed it over the moat. It was a good thing shipgirl perception and tracking was much better than baselines'; she wouldn't have to worry about collecting it afterwards.
Still no reaction.
She turned back to her grandmother, shaking her head.
"We proceed as planned," Ichiyo said, undaunted, turning to the apprentices. "Make sure the offerings are ready."
"You can't be serious!" Missouri shouted.
"Dangerous," Wisconsin said.
"This won't be a problem," Ayaka said. "I have been presenting myself before Shitori no Kami's sacred body for 20 years."
"Ever gotten this kind of reaction, though?" Missouri asked with sardonic doubt.
"This supernally-reactive phenomenon already hid itself from Primal sensing until it was sprung. What if it has entropic/temporal spoofing hiding a trap too?" Jersey asked.
"I said, this won't be a problem!" Ayaka's expression and tone brooked no further argument. "If you're really worried, you can call it in if you don't hear anything from us after an hour, but we won't be taking that long. Obaachan, let's go."
Missouri silently gesticulated, frustrated by her older sister's obstinacy, behind the backs of the advancing party, then reactivated her rigging.
Jersey and Wisconsin exchanged sidelong looks, then reactivated theirs too.
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October 4
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It was getting harder and harder each year to recognise that people had once lived here, Ayaka thought.
10 years.
10 years since Fafnir's fragment had fallen from the heavens and returned so much of Imamura to the dust from which it had come.
In the years since the Cometfall, the former residents had pooled their resources and set up the Imamura Foundation to buy back the old high school from the public caretakers and refurbish it as a museum to what had been lost. The Imamura Memorial Museum, as it was now known, had had the exterior and floor plan conserved, even if its former classrooms would never play host to formal education again.
Imamura. The kanji literally translated meant the village of now. Now it was a village that had been, that no longer was and that would no longer be.
After the group had gotten back from the goshintai, there had been two more days to laze about before the memorial dinner proper.
No, "laze about" was being uncharitable. As the last mayor, Yoshimichi had ended up chairing the memorial organising committee most years, and this one had been no exception. It was a process that started well ahead of time, but there were still final arrangements and checks for him to make.
As for Ayaka, she had her own duties to attend to. The town's autumn festival had died with it, and traditionally there was no Shinto ceremony observed at this time of the year, but if there was anything worth observing, the destruction by ambiguously natural orbital strike of the old shrine was definitely a special occasion to be honoured as an ennichi. This had taken up much of her time; while her grandmother hadn't exactly been idle, part of being an ordained priestess was knowing how to organise and conduct these ceremonies on her own.
While Uileag had stuck by her side, the others had gone gallivanting around. The area's isolation meant the nearby hub city didn't get much in the way of tourist footfall, but the place, parts of which looked like they had never entered the 20th century, had local traditional distilleries and candlemakers and a historical heritage and folklore museum. There was also a nearby particle physics laboratory with an attendant data processing centre that had taken a look at the one BERND and three NAVENSCIWARCOM passes in the visitors' possession and decided this wasn't a day to be glued to the instruments. The combined charm offensive of three Summoned shipgirls didn't hurt.
There was also, of course, the library Uileag, Miki and Kas had gone to look up the Cometfall in 7 years ago. There was no more big black book of the dead any longer, something that had given Uileag a headache when Ayaka had freed up some time to visit with him, but it was still one of the best repositories of information about the disaster.
It really drove the point home just how little the greater world had bothered about the Cometfall that a settlement that could only charitably be called a city, never having crested the 50,000 mark, was better-equipped than most libraries outside of astronomy-focused universities to tell this tale. Proximity to the site only explained so much.
All too soon, the time of the event approached, and people began trickling in. All were sombrely dressed in monochromes or discreet dark shades, though none went so far as to specially hide louder hair colours.
Imamura had had 1,500 inhabitants in its last year of existence, and they had scattered following the Fafnir fragment's fall. Not all had moved all the way to NYC the way the Shirokazes had, or to nearby like the old ramen shop owner. There were a decent number of major cities with at least 100,000 inhabitants on the way east, as there were going west, though none of the former Imamurans had gone as far as Oregon or Washington State. Any event that wasn't mandated by law inevitably didn't have 100% attendance, and this was no exception. On the other hand, the 10th anniversary memorial was a big enough milestone that many who had given previous occasions a miss had deigned to turn up. 10 years also had been enough time for some ex-Imamurans to get married and have kids. If the greater world in general hadn't bothered, there were still newfound friends who'd been interested enough to accept invitations. What all this boiled down to was that there were more in attendance on this day than there had been inhabitants of Imamura 10 years ago.
Morrie had once fantasised about blowing Imamura up, because that had been the only way he had seen himself getting out from under his father's thumb, unlike Ayaka and Hitomi with their dreams of the Big Apple. Fafnir actually granting his wish had been something he'd been unprepared for, and a melancholy beyond that of most Imamurans had been his companion for long afterward. Even so, getting his old bicycle back after so many years, never mind repaired to like brand new, came as a shock. He'd forgotten about it in the chaos of the days immediately following the disaster. "I don't know what to do with this since I already have a replacement," he said to Wisconsin, who had handed it over, "but thanks."
Imgur /a/NfXVB2I
DeviantArt be-ta/art/KnNI-Bicycle-838525525
Miki, Kas and Shin had turned up too. How much of that was wanting to better know their best friend's wife's background and how much was the first two taking advantage of the convenient excuse to pursue the truth of their strangely foggy memories about coming all the way out here 7 years ago, Ayaka didn't know and didn't want to pry.
More surprising was Gonzalez bothering to accept the invitation. Though the heavy cruiser's filter remained stubbornly unfixed, Ayaka was surprised to see her fellow Natural Born, normally so carefree, in a rare contemplative manner, or Albacore for that matter. Then again, the submarine knew a thing or two about sudden disappearance. Washington maintained a steadfastly stoic neutrality the whole time she was around, but that was to be expected. That O'Bannon had deigned to attend was the real shocker, given her usual antipathy, but Ayaka knew why she had bothered.
Mina.
Ayaka hadn't thought the destroyer would be interested, especially with the great distance as a discouragement, and yet she had actually come all the way by herself from Everett where the rest of the amalgam hadn't bothered. What had it been like to take that long, lonely journey with no one to have her back? It was news of her intended attendance that had changed O'Bannon's mind. As a Natural Born, she didn't leak eyecatching presence like her Summoned/Manifested peers and her nervous waddling onto the museum grounds had gone mostly unnoticed, but O'Bannon had, and unabashedly crushed her in a sisterly hug.
The crowd was seated by the time the MC presented himself at the sort-of stage with a podium set up where the school's outdoor court had once stood. To his back were the twin lakes, a glass barrier having replaced the earlier metal barricades to allow for unfettered viewing of the sights. He started the evening off by inviting the Shirokaze Shrine to perform their rituals.
If Ayaka had found the sight of the new apprentices surprising despite the forewarning, it was all the more disconcerting to the older ex-Imamurans. It was one thing to know that Shinto did not limit who could practise it to those of Japanese blood, but what happened at Tsubaki could have been dismissed as the way a different shrine did things. To see Ichiyo, historically so uptight about keeping the shrine in the town and family, opening the door to outsiders, a few of whom were obviously non-Japanese to boot, was startling at best.
After Ayaka had returned from Kokugakuin with her ordainment, Ichiyo had sat down with her and Yoshimichi - he had been trained in the ways as a condition for marrying into the family, after all - and pondered some additions to the original kagura. They had ultimately not been used because of the added manpower requirements, not until now.
Where the kagura had originally ended, now two of the apprentices moved to the back of the stage while the others moved to the middle on the audience's left. The two at the back advanced together at first, but then split off, ōnusa raised high and trailing behind them. One went to the empty right, while the other headed left and merged with the larger group, the members of which moved off in different directions, spiralling till they came to a final, coordinated halt.
This was met with muted applause, but considering what it represented, that was expected.
With the apprentices having played their part, it was now Ayaka's turn. Clad in saifuku, all-white ritual vestments that included a belted hō robe as overgarment and hakama, with a black kanmuri headdress, she advanced to the stage.
She could remember with almost painful clarity how she had once been embarrassed to conduct ceremonies before an audience. That had changed. Even after her memories of the swaps had been taken away, what had stuck with her in the aftermath of the Cometfall, apart from the sense of loss, was a strong, if hard to articulate, sense of the hand of the divine on her. "Immanuel", she vaguely remembered the Hebrew term was? It had washed away her prior doubt like sand on a beach, and there had henceforth been no fear of man tainting her service to the kamisama, long before she had come to grasp her true nature.
If there was one downside to finding herself using the cant, implements and movements of Shinto as her instruments, it was that almost everything she did came with a nudge to push Or Energy into it and let the magic out.
After she finished the petitions to Shitori no Kami and the other kamisama on behalf of the audience and made her conclusory bows, the serving of the food began. Once the first course was out, Yoshimichi was invited to the podium to speak.
"Ex-Imamurans, guests, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for availing yourself on this 10th anniversary of the Cometfall.
"10 years ago, when the stellar serpent's spawn fell and changed all our lives forever, few of us suspected something was amiss. Few of us realised how everything we had known would be taken from us shortly, that a few hundred years of history would be gone in a blip. Plans ruined, hopes dashed, dreams broken in an instant. Our way of life, gone. I will not say something foolish like how it might be better to be ended cleanly than to bleed out slowly like so many of our peers; such words offer no comfort.
"Now so much is different. 10 years may be short to the greater world, but it is so long to us who have had to live it. Some of us have completed schooling, entered the workforce, gotten married and had children. Some who were with us then have departed evermore."
The older ex-Imamurans murmured in agreement among themselves. A few bowed their heads or raised drinks to friends and loved ones who had lost the race against death.
"Now, as we mark this 10th year since we were scattered, it is not just us but the whole world that is under threat, not coming from the stars, but from deep beneath the oceans. We are fortunate that none of us have been killed by the invaders, but we must not forget that others have already paid that price and continue to put themselves in danger to protect us." Heads turned towards the shipgirls in attendance at this, but not only to them; there were Imamuran families with a legacy of service dating back to or even predating the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, and many of those were like Ayaka in taking advantage of the leadup to Columbus Day to avail themselves this night. "I am given to understand no one knows how and when this war will end. I cannot say anything but that for the rest of us, all we can do is go along with a world that has not stopped moving and will not.
"I know some resent that Imamura has been reduced to a footnote of history, not honoured even on this major milestone of our loss in the big cities. To that, I ask why we need to be feted by others. Should we think others owe us anything, even remembrance? We prided ourselves once on our distinctiveness from the greater nation, and we should not rely on others to care. Though it was love for Nijimi that made me come back initially, it was love for our town that made me stay after her passing when the temptation to walk away from the pain it caused was so strong."
If Yoshimichi's voice sounded slightly uneven at this and he briefly averted his eyes, or if he wasn't exactly telling the whole story, no one pressed him on it. This wasn't the right occasion for diving into that particular messy, sensitive issue; those to whom it mattered most had already thrashed it out with him, at any rate.
"No. It is up to us to keep Imamura alive in our heads and hearts, to not let it be forgotten the way other gosei and beyond throw away their heritage. Ideas may be bulletproof, but without people propagating them, they die all the same. Though its buildings may not stand physically any longer, Imamura will not die in truth until it disappears from the minds of our children and grandchildren. Teach the next generation, and keep our legacy alive.
"I thank you once more for your attendance today, and hope to see you again this time next year."
The food continued coming during this and after its completion, course after course, and a few minutes before 2042 hours, all the guests were invited to rise.
One of the few advantages of being so far away from civilisation was that there was no one around for dozens of miles to make noise complaints when, as previously arranged and cleared, Wisconsin positioned herself a safe distance away and put a star shell into the air. It was timed to hit the newer lake down to the minute the fragment originally had.
All present watched the ball of fire fall into the water and observed a minute of silence for what was lost.
The final course was served afterwards, and then the crowds began to disperse. Those who rushed could squeak onto the local trains in time for a series of connections that ended in the last World Dreamer to reach NYC this night, but the timing would be tight and left little room for error.
The Shirokaze weren't among those hurrying to leave, not least because they had debriefings and other post-event activities to attend. Granted, the lion's share of the cleanup would be done by contractors supervised by the museum staff in the coming days. Ayaka said goodbye to her east-dwelling friends, promising to have a proper meetup when she went over to NYC after this for the remaining days of the shore leave.
{your name. Original Soundtrack - Library}
Spotify track/23mLwgHatcxmvxQqRYcjHo?si=bulqaOVyTTeFLEFqVyKAhw
After-action review done and otsukaresamas said, the organising committee started to head back to their accommodations. Before Ayaka left, she first returned from within the warm, well-lit buildings to the outdoor court with its view of the twin lakes. At this time of the year, autumn chill was a constant companion of the nights.
Earlier, when it had still been light out, it had been possible with shipgirl vision to clearly see from the school-turned-museum grounds to the other side of the impact crater the Fafnir fragment had left. The terrain was too rugged for the majority of construction equipment, which meant that most of the debris that had been far enough from the epicentre to survive being thrown around by the shockwaves still remained uncleared. They had rotted or rusted in place, and though the damage that had been done to the topsoil left it unsuited for most plantlife, a few hardy weeds had sprung up. Nevertheless, there they remained all these years, like a twisted gravemarker or improperly-buried corpse.
It was so dark now, with no more lakeside houses to light up the night. The county still maintained a few streetlights for the occasional persons who had some reason to pass through the area, but they were sparse even compared to the old town's illumination, and that had been little enough that you didn't have to go far from a house to see the stars.
{Ayaka, aren't you cold?} Ichiyo's voice came from behind her, though the approach hadn't been missed. {I see the climate control spell you normally have active doesn't seem to be working right.}
{I'm fine, Obaachan. I just turned it down so I could appreciate the wind out here.} As if on cue, a stiff breeze set Ayaka's long hair aflutter as it whistled about them. The barrier blocked anything from the lakes, but didn't stop anything moving sideways or from behind.
{I should not have been surprised that most of the kanmusu weren't especially interested in the ceremonies.}
{We're-they're maritime entities, all built in coastal states. They might not get sick too far from the sea,} Ayaka winced at the horrid thought of being crippled so, {but any memories from individual sailors born inland would have been only a small part of the noetic patchwork. There'd be little emotional connection to out here.}
{Except for those two Natural Borns, you told me?} Ichiyo looked curious. {Alice-chan and Mina-chan, the one with omamori from Mizuryu?}
{Yes, that's them, but Alice-san said she first knew of it through anime.}
{That is not in of itself a problem. It is good to raise awareness via the media the young use. I have reservations about some of the depictions, though.} Ichiyo's face twitched. {You have tried to conduct harae on the poor child, yes?}
{I tried,} Ayaka said, making a face. {The benefit didn't last.}
{It is still good to cleanse her regularly. I'll give her some of our omamori before she leaves tomorrow. I mean no offence to Oowatatsumi no Kami and Nakahara-sensei, but since you're both in the same unit, you should be more proactive in helping her. I'll put some of our budget into helping you with the material costs.}
{Thanks, Obaachan. Though… is it strange that I still miss Imamura after so long?}
Ayaka almost said "home".
{I was always wishing when I was younger, in the time after Okaasan's death, that I could leave Imamura to go to university elsewhere, and then to NYC. Now that it's gone, though, I find myself wishing it was still here to come back to.}
{No, it is not,} Ichiyo said with a slight sadness, hands clasping in front of her. {I miss Imamura too, Ayaka. It was my home for over 80 years. Even with hypermedicine restoring my vitality, I will not see a day I have lived longer outside it than I have inside.} She spoke this with a matter-of-fact certainty. {You, on the other hand, will pass that milestone in a few more years.}
Ayaka was mortified. {Obaachan, don't say that!}
{I will not pretend otherwise,} Ichiyo said unapologetically. {My great-grandmother confessed in her last days that, as a young girl bearing witness to the Great Fire of Mayugoro with all its destruction and death, she'd thought that would have been our end. Even as she hit her century and the decades after that, with daughter and granddaughter and then me, the feeling had never left her. Alas, by then her memory had degraded enough that she could not tell me anything in detail of the past, including the first frontiersmen or westbound settlers from the Thirteen Colonies to discover us.}
{Anything she might have left in writing was also lost to Fafnir?} Ayaka asked resignedly.
{That is correct. Still, she was not wrong to say we were on borrowed may be more than a thousand years of greater Shirokaze history, and our own predates the Revolution, but with the detachment of time, I can admit now that we were always an implausibility, so far from the West Coast. We accepted the de jure authority of the county and state, and our remote location protected us from being subsumed or ejected like the natives suffered, but our pride in our culture was no match for the lure of the outside world. The ancestral homeland could not avoid rural flight, and neither could our peers either within or without the state; we should not have expected better. All things eventually end, no matter how much you do to keep the kegare away.}
Ayaka coloured slightly; she knew her grandmother wasn't blaming her, and she would have not been the first Imamuran or even Shirokaze to run away and never say goodbye had she succeeded, but she couldn't stop a tinge of guilt nevertheless. {I should have saved all Imamura, not just the people.}
Guided by the thought, her left hand rose half-consciously, palm facing forward. Acceleration was but one of the third-level spells she could now use on others because of her now-increased enlightenment about how musubi wove reality together and could reshape it. The temporal reversal of the shifting sands was no exception.
{How?} Ichiyo asked, tone a bit harder than usual. {It is not thinking of Imamura in and of itself that is the problem. Machines, carefully designed and programmed, still have bugs. Should humans, so capricious and haphazard, be held to a higher standard? There is an important corollary to what your father said just now, as strange as the idea of him being right about anything would have sounded to the me of 10 years ago.} She was too old and controlled to openly snort, but there was a slight derisiveness to the way she said the previous sentence. {If it is us that will keep Imamura alive past its destruction, then Imamura without its people is nothing but a collection of buildings and roads, without the meaning that being occupied and lived in provides. It is no different from shipgirls, whatever Chaldea Belarus and Cyprus, the RRC and the SPNIF are trying to do about paper ships.}
The RRC - Rusalka Response Command - was the extradimensional entity research and combat arm of what was known in English as the Military Maritime Fleet of the Russian Federation, more informally the Russian Navy. The collaboration was an odd one, but this world was getting crazier by the day anyway.
{Just because I wanted to turn my back on Imamura doesn't mean I had the right to take everyone else with me whether they wanted to or not,} Ayaka replied harshly without turning to face her grandmother.
{Even if you could defy the handiwork of Ame-no-Kagaseo and bring Imamura back, would anyone still return after 10 years of putting down roots elsewhere in the greener grass?} There was something like chiding in Ichiyo's tone now, though it was tinged with sadness. {Ayaka, just because you have power doesn't mean you should use it. Responsibility is not just about taking on duties and burdens, but also knowing when not to.}
Ayaka's arm hung there for a few more moments more before dropping back to her side. Looking at the way, though, that she continued to stare, stock-still, out into the night at the crater where their home had once stood, Ichiyo wasn't sure she had understood.
===[===]===
Authors' Notes: Yes, the RRC is a nod to Pacific's canonical ARC.