Updates ... Well, you've finally done it. You've finally caught up to me! That means the pressure's on to get the next chapter done. It also means that on occasion they may come a little longer between than just a week. Sorry 'bout that but I can't rush it. I feel it would be a disservice to both you and the Sugoroku image I've been cultivating. Just hang in there with me everyone. Don't worry though...I'll keep on going as long as the interest is there! Heck I'll keep it going even if no one else does read it. I mean, after 25 chapters it would almost be a crime for me stop, wouldn't it?

Lady Althea ... I'm glad you liked that last chapter so much. The Sugoroku/Mark interaction actually came to me pretty easily. I have a habit of letting the story write itself when I sit down to work on it. If I have to stop for longer than ten minutes, then something about it isn't right and I'll try another variation. Other than minor editing, that first part about being oneself is almost exactly how I originally wrote it. I can't wait to read your YGO:GX fic! I happily await its arrival!

Scarab Dynasty ... I'm loving the fact you're loving this! LOL. I love it too! When I wrote the goodbye scene with Mark, the card bit just sort of worked its way in there. It was only later that I realized the connection! I think it was a subconscious remembrance about how often that occurs in the YGO universe. I have a 'bit' YGO story (far from being complete) that also mentions the passing of cards and the collection that Grandpa amasses over the years. As TOM:SS progresses you should see that occurring on a regular basis, though not usually in the way you might first assume! And yes, a good cliffy is wonderful once in while!

PyroDragon2006 ... I've had a few experiences myself to help teach me those very same ideas so writing it came relatively easy. For me it was always best to believe and support myself first before I could ever find the ability to support those around me. And yes, in my book as well good friends are always worth the pain.

Ciardra ... Yeah, the title did sort of give it away. As for sailing...I wish I could actually go sometime. I went on a cruise once and I love canoeing, but that's as far as my personal experience goes. Some research regarding the Destroyers has told me that because of their shape, they are particularly difficult to handle (you'll read this in an upcoming chapter) and during WWII, duty aboard aircraft carriers was highly sought after. This because their massive size made it easy to sit a great deal more steadily on the surface of the water despite some choppy seas, and also because living on one was like living in a mini city! They had special availability to perks like ice cream and movies simply because they had the room to store the goodies and hold a decent size screen!

And as for Sugoroku already seemingly so IC and canon...all I can say, is hang on my friends. He's got a few spins left before he's tailor made for YuGiOh. He may surprise you all yet!

Enjoy: )

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 2: America

25. Tsunami Strike!…

'The Ring of Fire'.

This is the name applied to the areas that border along the Pacific tectonic plate. Along these edges there are great rifts, some above ground, most below, where the adjoining plates of the continents that lay upon the Earth touch. These great plates will shift from time to time on their fault lines, causing them to move away from each other, rub along the side of their neighbors, ride over or even under them as well.

When this occurs, new hills can be formed on land masses where the faults run above ground such as in California. Hot molten lava may be allowed to run free for a short time until the fault shifts again or the melted rock cools and hardens to cap the rupture. When the gaps are not closed off, a volcano begins to form and steadily rises, and when formed from under the water of the ocean for several years, islands begin to emerge. In the course of many millennia, that opening may shift away and in due time, a chain of islands may be formed, such as in the case of Japan. Occasionally, the shifting of the great plates will cause existing volcanoes, long quiet, to freshly spew its choking ash, burning cinders and globs of heated molten rock in to the air, sometimes for miles.

These eruptions do occasionally take locals living nearby by surprise, but for the most part, many of these happen with some predictability and even warning.

When faults shift as they do, it is always to the accompaniment of an earthquake. These quakes can be little more than a window rattling tremor, or an earth buckling wild ride. Indeed, some can be so subtle that only the most sensitive of instruments may detect them, and others so ground shattering that whole cities can be leveled in an instant and the shaking can felt by those living sometimes hundreds of miles away. These can be particularly disastrous happenings. But the earthquakes by themselves are not always the worst.

Some believe that the worst, is also the most silent.

Earthquakes where drifting plates converge and the heavier oceanic plate dips below the lighter continents, will cause the land to often times move in fits and starts, sticking for awhile, then slipping. When one plate becomes stuck against the edge of another for a long period of time, immeasurable stresses build. When a locked area such as this beneath the ocean gives way, parts of the seafloor may snap upward as the tension is released while other areas may sink downward. In the instant after the quake, the shape of the sea surface mirrors the contours of the seafloor below. But, just as quickly, gravity acts to return the sea surface to its original shape. As the rumpled sea flattens out, ripples race outward, similar to those one sees when a stone is thrown into a puddle.

This is how a tsunami is born.

It is not affected or generated by the gravitational pull of the moon or sun as in the case of a true tidal wave. As stated above, it is impulsively created through the incredible forces of nature.

On the open sea, tsunami waves can reach speeds approaching 500-700 miles per hour, keeping pace easily with a Boeing 747. Their length can extend to more than 750 kilometers and when there are more than one, there can be hundreds of miles between the individual crests.

Because the momentum of these waves is so great, a tsunami can travel great distances with amazingly little loss of energy. As an example… In 1960, an earthquake off the coast of Chile, generated a tsunami with enough force to kill 150 people in Japan, after a journey of 22 hours and 10,000 miles.

The waves from such a trans-Pacific tsunami can even reverberate back and forth across the ocean for days.

Surprisingly, despite its high speed, a tsunami is not dangerous in deep water. In open water, a single wave is less than a few meters high. Because of its great length, a sea-surface slope is created that is so gentle it usually passes by unnoticed. Gazing out the window of a plane, you wouldn't even be able to pick it out from the regular wind-driven swells. But in fact, the tsunami crest is only the very tip of a vast mass of water in motion, and while wind-driven waves and swells are confined to a shallow layer near the ocean surface, a tsunami extends thousands of feet deep into the ocean.

Why then, if a tsunami wave is so unnoticeable in the middle of the ocean, does it present such a devastating force of destruction when it makes land fall?

There are several reasons.

First; the deeper the ocean is and the longer the running of the waves before it hits land, the more its speed increases.

Second; the wavelength decreases as it moves close to land, causing again, a build up of power behind the existing wave.

Third; as the waves in the tsunami reach shore, they slow down due to the shallowing sea floor, and the loss in speed is often accompanied by a dramatic increase in wave height. The waves scrunch together like the ribs of an accordion and heave upward. The Japanese word "tsu-nami" translates literally as "harbor wave." It is felt by some to have originated simply because a tsunami can speed in silently and undetected across the ocean, then unexpectedly arise as destructively high waves in shallow coastal waters or 'harbors'.

Depending on the geometry of the seafloor warping that first generated the waves and the floor bed passed on the journey, tsunami attacks can take different forms. In some cases, the sea will draw water back and empty harbors, leaving fish flopping on the mud. This is, inevitably, followed by the arrival of the crest of a tsunami wave. Tsunamis can also flood in suddenly without warning. They do not usually curve over and break, like surfing waves. These massive waves are most commonly described as dark "walls" of water. Impelled by the mass of water behind them, they bulldoze onto the shore and inundate the coast, snapping trees like twigs, toppling stone walls and lighthouses, and smashing houses and buildings into kindling.

This 'runup' can also be vastly affected by the contours of the seafloor and coastline have a profound influence on the height of the waves, sometimes with surprising and dangerous results.

In one recorded incident in Japan, the wave runup on the coast averaged about 50 - 65 feet. But in one particular spot, the waves pushed into a V-shaped valley open to the sea, concentrating the water in a tighter and tighter space. In the end, the water ran up to 90 feet above sea level, about the height of an 8-story office building.

These are the statistics and general mechanics of the Tsunami wave. It can be a frightening enough event to witness. Terrifying to live through.

On April.1,1946, an estimated 7.8 magnitude earthquake shook the sea floor along Alaska's Aleutian Islands at 12:30am GMT. The resulting tsunami waves wiped out the Scotch Cap Lighthouse in Alaska, killing five Coast Guard employees. In less than five minutes, the building was completely ripped from its foundation and gone. The waves that spread out across the Pacific caused little more than especially high running tides along the west coast of the United States and nothing worthy of notice along the east coast of the European Continent. When it hit the Hawaiian islands however, there was destruction, chaos and death.

It had only been a few short hours after the Pemberton had departed from Pearl Harbor, and having made its way back to the Northern side of the Hawaiian islands, the Destroyer was making good headway on its route back to the United States. The skies were clear and a light spring wind blew refreshingly across the ship.

Sugoroku had been on the forward deck that early morning working with Leo and several other men on his self defense. It was at about 7:49 am when, after he missed blocking a hit that sent him back several feet, he found himself suddenly tossed back and into the side of a forward gunners turret with a hard smack.

Sugoroku sat on the deck and rubbed the back of his head. He had never felt anything quite like that before. It was as if the entire ship had suddenly lurched down causing him to lose his footing. One moment the deck was solidly beneath his feet, the next it was gone. He looked at the men with him and in surprise, saw them with their hands on what was close to them as well. They seemed just as confused as he at the strange movement of the sea.

"What the heck was that?" asked one of the men nearest Leo.

Leo shook his head, "I don't know."

A moment later, there was heard a low rumbling, like that of a low-flying jet plane. It was an unusual sound that even Sugoroku knew without question, had nothing to do with any operation on board the Pemberton.

The men turned and looked out to sea almost in unison and Sugoroku followed their gaze. In the distance just below the horizon, there was an unusual long spray of water before it went down as the ominous rumbling grew louder.

Then he noticed something odd. The water seemed to be rising. At a most alarming rate of speed, the ocean drew up from its surface and began to form a wave like nothing Sugoroku had ever seen. He watched in fascination at the spectacle for a long moment before he realized that the wave was growing higher with each passing second, and for each foot it grew, it was closing in quickly, bearing down on the Pemberton and the last island of the Hawaiian chain.

His wide eyes grew even wider as the wave became a hill, and the hill, a wall...a solid, dark wall of water racing at them. The massive wave spread nearly as far as he could see in either direction, and he instantly understood that there would be no running from it. It was coming… Coming for them.

Above them, a warning claxon suddenly sounded, but before they could do little more than steer the ship slightly to the left, the wave was on top of them, taking the ship almost broadside, its forward edge sweeping the Pemberton up it's side. Sugoroku felt himself once more slammed against the gunners turret as the ship leaned on her right side, hard. Further and further she was angled until the ship abruptly broke through the top of the wall, and then down she started along the backside of the wave with a wild rush.

When the ship hit the bottom of the wave, there was a bone jarring shift as it hit the difference between the flat surface of the ocean and angled side, and a hard cool spray of sea water flew up to soak Sugoroku and the men who had clung on for dear life to whatever was closest to them.

His heart racing, his mind half numb at the experience, Sugoroku slowly sat up straight as he stared in mute shock at the wet deck around him.

"A tsunami!"

Sugoroku instantly looked at Leo at the Japanese word that had issued from the man's lips.

"Harbor wave," he translated in awe. He had heard of them, but he had never before been witness to one. Living on one of the furthest ports of the bay beside his home city, Sugoroku had been spared any first hand knowledge of such an event.

"That was only a small one," said another man, "Maybe twenty feet at the most."

"Think they'll be any more?" asked Leo as he stood up on the still rocking deck.

"Don't know. We should head down though before we find out the hard way."

Leo turned and saw Sugoroku still sitting on the deck in shock. He walked over quickly and kneeled next to him.

"You okay, pal?" he asked.

Sugoroku didn't answer immediately. He simply shook his head for a moment as he tried to clear the panic that filled him for that brief, but outrageous ride.

"Come on pal. Give me something here. Answer me."

"I'm…I'm alright. Just…just…"

Leo nodded.

"Me too Sugoroku," the man agreed as he helped Sugoroku stand.

"Come on. Lets get below before we get hit again."

Sugoroku suddenly swallowed thickly as he looked past Leo. His jaw fell open and taking in the younger man's expression, Leo turned and peered out.

"Aw shoot," he started, "Too late."

He was in fact correct. What Sugoroku had been staring at was the rising waters of another huge wave as it rose up to toss them.

Frozen where he stood, Sugoroku could not move and it took Leo literally shoving and pushing Sugoroku towards the nearby hatchway to get him to even begin to head towards what semblance of safety they had.

"Go Sugoroku!" shouted Leo as the second wave flew towards them.

Having finally regained control over his legs, Sugoroku slipped and slid his way through the door, Leo so close behind he could almost feel the man's breath.

Just a little way in the first corridor, Leo called out above the still clanging warning, "Go down below Sugoroku. Head to the bunks."

Sugoroku nodded and went on, quickly and repeatedly deferring to the running navy men when they came upon him, by stopping only long enough to press himself to the wall to allow them easy passage. There was no way he was going to impede the progress of men who had the ability to keep the ship, and himself, alive and afloat.

Sugoroku was on the ladder to the lower deck on which the aft sleeping quarters were situated, when the second wave hit. Again, the ship was lifted off the flat surface of the ocean and as it did with the first, the Pemberton rode up the side of this second even larger wave, though this time, the ship had been turned enough to catch the lifting force of the wave just off from full to the front of the bow.

As Sugoroku gripped the ladder rung with both arms and held tightly, he intoned to himself that any moment now, the ship would reach the top of the wave and start down the other side to the safety of the level sea surface below.

But the seconds seemed to drag and for one, briefly insane moment, Sugoroku wondered if they would ever reach the top of the wall of water, or if they would continue up into the heavens.

After what seemed like an eternity, the ship finally crested over the top and descended to the other side. This shifted the angle in which Sugoroku had been caught on the ladder causing his feet to come off the lower rung. Fearing he would not be able to hold on securely any longer, Sugoroku tightened every muscle in his arms, chest and even his neck, refusing to let himself slip off. For almost 10 full seconds, he hung this way, his eyes closed tightly, willing away the fright that had enveloped him, hoping it would end…believing it would…

'Stop! Please... Stop!' was all his mind could manage to think.

It did finally end, but it was with a crash that shook the entire ship, rattling every beam and stressing every rivet that held the ship together to their utmost. This severe landing jerked Sugoroku down and his jaw, already so tightly held to the ladder rung, was shoved hard into the bar and pain streaked across it. Taken aback by the sharpness of this newest pain, his arms relaxed ever so slightly and unable to keep from losing his grip, he fell down the remaining 5 feet of the ladder way.

Sugoroku hit the floor in a crumpled heap where he lay for a moment in a dazed stupor, the irony taste of blood the only thing he could recognize at that moment.

"Hey! Sugoroku! Sugoroku! You okay?" asked a seaman who moved quickly next to him.

Sugoroku opened his eyes and looked at the man as he swallowed the blood that lay in his mouth from his bitten tongue. He shook his head slowly as he sat up, but only with the man's help.

"Come on. Lets get you someplace safe."

Putting his arms around him, the man lifted Sugoroku up to stand and then steadied him as he helped him through the last corridors to the aft bunks.

"Grab a bunk Sugoroku…and hang on tight! Okay?"

Sugoroku nodded dully as he moved away from the entryway to his own bunk where he tried to crawl up, but still too shaken to stand even straight on his own, he found he could not climb and consigned himself to laying on the bunk below his. Though he had no way of knowing if there would even be another wave, Sugoroku settled immediately for threading his arms and feet through the rope lines that held the bunk material to their frames and he lay there in a dazed, half terrified state.

Barely able to think, Sugoroku shook and shivered not so much from the soaking he had received from the first wave, but from the dread of the total helplessness that more than occupied his mind.

There was no where to run.

No where to hide.

This bunk that he lay upon afforded nothing to him but a place to lay in motionless terror. It was nothing more than a vain attempt to stay in one spot and avoid being further thrown about and injured.

This was not like when terror and flames had swept through Tokyo during the bombings. At least there he had been able to run. Even if it had done nothing for his terror then, it had at least given him the sense that he was doing something to ensure his safety. He was fleeing death and that was all that had mattered just then.

But here… Here he could do nothing.

He was in a ship, on the ocean, almost a mile away from the last island in the Hawaiian chain and more than 3,800 miles from the home he had left. If the ship went down here, even despite the best efforts of the crew, he knew that he would go down with it. While he could swim reasonably enough, he held no illusions about actually making it a full mile to land. His only hope would be to catch an armful of some floating object, and hope he had either strength enough to kick his way to land, or that the current would take him that way. Of course, that was even IF he was able to get out of the ship in the first place.

As the desperateness of the moment continued to frighten the 16 year old, he felt the tell tale sign of the ship lifting up as another wave swept upon the Pemberton, taking her on yet another wild and unwanted ride.

Gripping with everything he had, praying for it to end, silently begging for it all to be a dream, Sugoroku rode this third wave out with his face pressed down onto a pillow as the personal objects, clothes and loose bags of the sailor's' flew past him along the floor and even through the air.

This is how he stayed for almost a half hour.

There were a total of seven tsunami waves that hit the Pemberton and the Hawaiian islands that April morning and during it all, crashes and bangs sounded as loose items sallied back and forth like juggernauts about the open rooms and corridors. Groans and whines of protest from the ship echoed through its hull for each new wave that raised her high before sending her plummeting down to crash furiously on the unyielding waters below. But the Pemberton was a mighty ship, made of the finest steel and cemented with the greatest of human ingenuity available, and she refused to yield up her cargo of life to the screaming seas.

She was guided through the raging maelstrom of water with some of the very best men the Navy could boast for the time at her helm and true to her moniker, she and her 'Braves' battled through Mother Nature's worst unrelentingly.

When the last of the waves passed and their wild ride was at last ended, the alarms were stilled, and there settled an almost unnatural silence about the world.

Sugoroku, still strung to the bunk he had managed to reach, lay for long seconds, his nerves stretched and raw both from the experience so far and the dread of another wave he felt sure was just on the horizon. His mind clearly saw the phantom wave sitting in demonical glee, waiting for him to loosen his grip. It was just waiting for them to feel that they were finally at ease and safe before pouncing like a jungle cat on the prowl. It was waiting to strike at them when they weren't looking…weren't prepared…weak…helpless…

But that imaginary wave did not come and after a bit, he peeked out from the pillow and flicked his eyes about warily. The room around him was a complete mess. Pillows, sheets, clothes, hats, plus a thousand other myriad objects, both personal and not, littered the room. It would take hours for everyone to sort out whose things were whose. But at least there was only minimal water.

Sugoroku slowly, hesitantly, almost as if afraid to tempt fate, unwound his hands and feet from the roping and slowly sat up, not noticing the purple lines indented into his flesh from the pressure he had exerted on to the ties. He listened carefully, dreading that droning rumbling roar that proceeded the massive waves, but heard only the sounds of normalcy. The steady thrum of the engines, the rhythmic slap of the waves on the hull, the voices of the crew men in other areas of the level…there was nothing but what was typical for the vessel.

'Perhaps...', he thought. '...it is over.'

Perhaps he could risk getting to his feet and maybe even walking out of the sleeping quarters. Maybe it was all right to see what was going on in the rest of the ship…to see what had happened else where…how everyone else was doing…

By slow degrees, his terror, his panic, slipped away as the most defining characteristic of his existence, curiosity, filtered past his thoughts of mortality. His normal need to know found his hard wired streak of inquisitiveness and with only the slightest of limps, Sugoroku picked his way through the littered sleeping quarters and out into the corridors of the Pemberton.

At that moment, only another wave would have stopped his progress. There were few things that could impede the young man from his interests when curiosity or competition was at play.

Though the terrifying events had managed to hold his body captive with its paralyzing panic, even that was only a temporary distraction. There was too much to check out and see after it was all done, and while the bruises and aches would linger for the next week, his total submersion into dread had not lasted but minutes after the entire ordeal was over.

It had happened and he had lived and he was ready to move past it to see what was next.

That was what he did.

That was who he was.

That was Sugoroku Mutou.

Not even a tsunami had force enough to hold that back forever.

A/N...The 10 page outline for TOM:SS was actually complete by October of 2004. I had begun work on it shortly afterward and was steaming along rather nicely with my history and research. When I began my research for Hawaii during the March/April of 1946 era, it was less than two days after the horrific Indonesian/Sumatran tsunami that struck the coastline. You can imagine my unutterable surprise to find that on the exact date that I had slated in my outline for the Pemberton to leave Hawaii, I found the historical mentionings of a tsunami that had hit Hawaii. After taking almost a full minute to get myself composed once more, I shut my computer off and would not turn it on for a whole week.

I was just too freaked by the timing.

I considered it over and over again. Why now? How had I chosen THAT date and how was it that I had chosen just THEN to work on it and discover THAT incident? Was it sheer coincidence? The luck of the draw? Nothing more than timing? Sometimes I'm not so sure.

Curiously enough, I found myself unable to keep away from TOM:SS and the idea of the tsunami bearing down on Sugoroku soon had me transfixed. What would he have done? What could anyone have done? So I continued my research, delved into the workings of the tsunami, and found my chapter written before some of the chapters previous to this one were even started.

It was less than a week later that I found myself explaining to a group of children I work with on a weekly basis exactly what a tsunami was and how it worked, of course tailored down for children to understand. Surprisingly, by the time I was done, I had collected another 35 kids from neighboring classrooms (to add to my own 15) and about 27 adults (many parents picking up kids) sitting in and listening as well. I had more than one come back later and express a thank you for not only finding the time and ability to explain such a terrifying event to some of the more nervous children, but unsure parents as well.

The unknown can be scary simply for the fact that it is unknown. But when knowledge and understanding of the event is gained, we may still fear it, but with respect rather than blind terror. Those kids and parents now knew what exactly had happened, and though they could not return the lives taken and some still continued to be saddened by the disaster, most found that they could live with it without mortal terror that it would strike them down where they stood at the first possible chance. One child even stopped having nightmares after my little explanation. Once he understood what it was and how it had happened, he was no longer afraid of it happening just because. It now had rhyme and reason and he was happy just knowing that.

So after all the research for one chapter in a story, I helped a couple kids feel much better and have less fear of the bumps in the night or the waves at the beach.

Even if for no other reason, I think I can be happy with that.

Next Chapter: Courses of Change…

R and R's gratefully appreciated: )