Updates... ...peeks head in... Hello? Anybody in here? Well, here I am again. Your friendly neighborhood authoress. I almost didn't bother making an appearance this time around. I'm so ashamed. Why you ask? Because this week's offering is, in my opinion anyway, a little less than stellar. Its terribly short, and flat out blah, but I was having a hard time when I wrote this section. Don't worry though...I know the next chapter will make up for it. At least, I think the next chapter will make up for it. That is, I hope the next chapter will make up for it... Oh gosh! I'm so pathetic sometimes! At least the site is letting me make changes to my profile again. Whoo Hoo!

Snow Weaver ... I hate to tell you, but yes. You guessed it right. There will be a little more sadness in Sugoroku's life before it gets better. Fortunately, you have but a mere two or three chapters to wait before it starts taking that swing upward to more happier moments. As a personal note, I keep a box of tissues by my computer at all times. Just in case.

Tamara Raymond ... I feel like I'm in honors English again! WOW! That is not an entirely bad thing though. I loved honors English LOL! Thank you again for the comma help and keep it coming. I've copied the suggested changes and will be going back in the near future to reanalyze the sentence structure with your suggestions. As for the reveiw itself...It amazes me how you can write a review that sounds better than the story itself! Somehow you've even managed to put into very clear words exactly what I was going for. Sugoroku is most definately NOT like everyone else and thank heavens he isn't. If he was, where would dear adorable little Yugi and all his incredible adventures be? LOL. Sugoroku has a lot more growth and learning to go through though and is still very far from being a complete person. After all, we are not the sum of one happening in our life...we are the sum of all the happenings in our life. Hmmm. Sounds like a line I'll have to remember to add a little later. Anyway, if you like, you can send suggested corrections directly to my e-mail.

BabyGatomon ... This is so cool. The Sugoroku following grows larger and larger! Welcome aboard BabyGatomon and thanks for the review. Have no fears...there is much more to come!

Well, I hope you stick around long enough to read this horribly short thing I've created. Reviews always loved, though in this chapter's case I could make an exception...

Lol.

Trixie21

Okay, you all know the drill. I have to take up valuable space and time to say that I do not own any part that is the coolness of the Yu-Gi-Oh universe. That honor goes completely to Kazuki Takahashi. Authoress as she bows subserviently before her shrine of great creators... "We're not worthy! We're not worthy! We're not worthy!"

This Old Man: Sugoroku's Story

Part 1: Japan

7. The Things That Could Not Be Done…

Sugoroku continued his schooling despite the guilt that wracked him daily. He continued going despite that fact the American forces were regularly bombing other areas of the country. He even went despite the fact that he no longer cared to battle his classmates.

He had no choice.

They gave him none.

The jeep appeared everyday outside his front door and everyday he climbed in. Everyday he listened with dull ears to the talk of the students around him as they devised their own strategies to deal with the 'invading Americans'. Everyday he was forced to set his pieces up and send them to die whether win or lose. And everyday he hated it more and more. The only upside was that after the first attack on Tokyo there had been no more for a while. But Sugoroku saw why.

They had stopped because they were slowing making their way to the outer islands. It was a feint move in two fold. They no longer came after Tokyo, one; because it was a great distance from where the carriers and nearest land masses sat, which made constant attacks by air difficult to arrange and execute without losing too many valuable men and aircraft. And two; because of the initial attacks, the Japanese navy had been drawn back closer to their main city to defend it from further attacks. But that was what the Americans wanted. They wanted their army to draw back, leaving the outer islands a great deal less defended. This done, the Americans would take those islands and set up land-based operations, making it wholly possible for the attacks on the heart of the country much easier.

He wondered if anyone saw it as clearly as he did. Possibly not. No one else had as yet stopped treating their battles as games. He had. After several weeks he finally had the chance to present his thought before the class in battle but he found himself laughed at.

"How could the enemy take those islands? They are ours. We have too many soldiers guarding them. They could never do anything meaningful from there. What a foolish idea."

Sugoroku tried arguing with them. He even tried showing them on the battle boards by decisively beating the other students as he played the American's forces and they their own country. But it was to no avail. They had labeled it a foolish thing and stubbornly refused to see otherwise.

By late 1943, however, it was no longer a foolish idea.

In a surge forward of compete skill and tenaciousness, the advancing American Armies and Marines proved that though they had not the great and almost inexhaustible numbers the Japanese had, they had abilities that went far beyond simple 'shot and die' tactics. Not only had the Americans managed to kill the great Admiral Yamamoto flying near Bougainvillea in the Solomon Islands, but they had also taken Saipan, and in a matter of months had a huge airfield build. That's when things really began.

The teachers were becoming more on edge as each day passed. While the observers watched tensely, the teachers yelled at and berated the boys for their 'poor attempts' and, on more than one occasion, a battle was stopped when a teacher lost his temper and scattered the pieces of the armies in anger. Nothing seemed to hold back the Americans. No matter what the frustrated boys tried nothing repelled them. Even worse was that as it became more and more Sugoroku who played the American part, the teachers began to direct more and more of their anger at him directly.

By 1944, the Americans were placed, firmly entrenched in Japan, and ready to begin the worst of their attacks. And begin them they did. Early that year, the bombers began their regular nighttime attacks, often coming in droves. There did appear to be a method to their attacks as they seemed to be targeting the manufacturing sections. But many of these places were indistinguishable from housing areas and it was not uncommon for homes to be destroyed as well.

While in school, Sugoroku shivered whenever a siren sounded either in earnest truth or false alarm. The other students jumped when one sounded and everywhere people hid in holes under their homes at the least little suggestion of a plane or something unusual.

As the attacks grew more frequent, the regular higher schools closed and all the boys and many girls were sent to the manufacturing companies, joining the adults to build airplane parts. But all too soon there came a terrible switch, and the older boys were sent to the front lines while more and more women filled their manufacturing positions. The younger children, after being ripped from the arms of the parents still capable of working in the factories, were evacuated from the city all together by the truck load. Their screaming and crying could be heard in all directions for many blocks.

From that point, the attacks began to occur very nearly every night. Sugoroku was often wakened by the sound of the sirens and the booms and when he chanced a look outside he usually found the night skies over the center of the city ablaze as if lighted by some huge display of fireworks.

With the threat of death now so obvious, he and his parents sat every morning in dread of the jeep that would come for him. As long as his school stood, he had to go. His mother had on one morning asked Osamu why they did not run with Sugoroku and leave the city.

"Because," had been his answer, "they would come, find him missing and search for him. We would all be labeled traitorous and perhaps even shot for it. It would be better to die from battle than a bullet from our own nation."

That was the end of it. The suggestion was never voiced again. A husband's word was law.

Even if they had tried to make him run, Sugoroku would have refused. He would not have allowed his parents to put themselves in danger from anyone, let alone their own countrymen. He might have considered leaving by himself, but there was no way to be sure his parents would not be held responsible. The headmaster, he was sure, would be very happy to report his absence and would more than likely attend any punishment of his parents by being in the front row.

What better way, and how easily done, to finally and truly demoralize the boy than having his parents punished in his place?

Indeed Headmaster Mouishi had, in Sugoroku's years in the school, given the boy every reason to believe that the man would be the one to suggest any such punishment. The headmaster had done nearly everything in his power to torture Sugoroku in every way but physically, and if he had been able to swing that as well he would have. Sugoroku had been denied privileges given the other boys, such as free days, special treats, and trips to the nearby base outside the city limits, and it seemed to Sugoroku, that even outside the school, the headmaster's reach was quite far. On the few festival days still held in the city Sugoroku always found himself on the edge of the festivities. A large group of boys, who seemed always at Headmaster Mouishi's side, would not allow Sugoroku's participation in any games and the few girls who did seem to give him a second look were usually very quickly whisked away before he could move a step towards them.

Beyond those times, the headmaster had quite left the boy with time for little more than school, eating and sleeping, and so Sugoroku languished miserably that year.

Every day was one full of hidden worry. Every second, every minute, every hour of every day, his nerves were taught as drum heads. He could no longer pretend innocence and though he tried to pay some attention to his other studies, his thoughts of guilt continued to pepper his moods and outlook. They racked through him continuously, pulling in every direction all at once. And there was nothing he could do about it.

These were his days through the year of 1944.

But, if the days had been bad, the nights had been even worse.

Every night, he lay for hours, too scared to fall asleep...

Left to think unwaveringly about his guilt, fear, anger and helplessness; he on many mornings rose from his bed, eyes ringed with a redness that comes only from sleepless nights and a head fogged from a lack of true rest.

In the rare chance he did find sleep, nightmares plagued him repeatedly, driving him up and out and back into consciousness or sometimes only into a semi state of it wherein his thoughts betrayed him into believing some of the things he had dreamed had actually come to pass.

When he did finally wake from the nightmares or the half-asleep horrors, he was often too nervous to open his eyes for fear that half his world, if not all of it, would be gone and he alone would remain, left to wander the empty streets; the demons of the dead forever haunting within him.

He could convince no one of the inevitable.

He could not protect his parents when it came.

He could not for a moment grab a bit of peace from anywhere around himself.

This was his life. And fully admitting his weakness, he knew without a doubt, that there was nothing he could do about it.

Next Chapter: The Rain of Fire…

R and R's gratefully appreciated: )