Disclaimer: I do not own anything. I was going to put chapter eight in here but I thought it might be too long. Chapter eight might be a little short though.
Who knows. I haven't written it yet.
Anyway, we're back to present time. The flashbacks have ended...For now.
PRESENT DAY
Natsumi took a deep breath as she walked into the main room to meet with Fuyuki, Koyuki, and Saburo and discuss what to do about the oncoming food shortage.
Dororo's garden had long since withered away, so it was no option for getting food. Natsumi drew in a sharp breath, trying not to think about the Keronians.
They were gone. There was nothing to change that. There was nothing that would bring Giroro back to her.
She couldn't focus on the past and her lost friends. She had to focus on the future and how to get her little group of friends to survive, unless they chose not to.
Natsumi sat down in a chair that was sort of at the head of the room. She usually lead the discussion as the leader of their group, so attention was usually directed at her.
"What are we going to do?" Saburo asked quietly, sitting down by Koyuki and Fuyuki's side. They all knew the situation they were facing.
Their food was running out. The base could no longer support four people.
"The choice is simple," Natsumi responded. "All of us die from lack of food or one of us goes... outside and looks for more food."
"But Natsumi," Koyuki spoke up, "sending someone outside is sending someone to their death."
They all remembered what had happened to the Keronians. They had gone outside... and they had never returned. They had died out there and it seemed one of them might share the same fate.
Natsumi bit her lip and began to chew on it, nervously. She knew that. She knew she was asking her friends to choose between dying or sentencing someone to death for another month of life. She knew Giroro had died out there.
Giroro... She missed him. She clenched her fist. She should have stopped him from going. Prevented him from going out on a hopeless mission. She shouldn't have believed a word of crap that Kululu had said that he would survive.
He was dead, and there was nothing that would change that. She knew that. And her promise to Giroro kept her lingering on his death, never actively moving on.
I should have stopped you. We could have been happy. You could have helped me with this decision, Natsumi thought.
But there was no Giroro. There was just her. And she knew she was a warrior, like he had told her. She had to be strong.
"I know." She answered Koyuki firmly. "I know it would be like a death sentence. But it's one of us or all of us. And with luck, maybe the atmosphere has cleared up and the person sent out there can find some food. Or it'll buy time to figure out Kululu's replenishing system," Natsumi pointed out.
The computer system was too advanced for all of them, but she knew Kululu would have had a way to restock supplies artificially. Saburo hadn't had the motivation to work on it and the rest of them were way too dim-witted, but she hoped sending one of them out would be a wake up call.
"So... you're leaning towards the send-one-of-us-out choice, huh?" Saburo realized.
"We can't give up. Not after all that's happened. We represent humanity. We may be the last humans. We need humanity to thrive. And that means not dying," Natsumi told them. "We need time, and although that means doing something horrible, we have to take the chance. It doesn't mean one of us dying, it means three of us possibly living," she spoke firmly. She knew everybody was leaning toward dying. Their motivation had waned for life. But she had to spark in them.
Fuyuki's eyes glistened for a moment as he listened. Out of everyone he was the most hopeless, depressed. He was like a walking sack of potatoes, a broken doll.
"It's all pointless, Natsumi. We should just give up," Fuyuki told her. His words were hopeless as always, but Natsumi knew her words had struck a chord. His hands were shaking.
Although Fuyuki didn't have motivation, he was still scared. He was no longer curious about the unknown. The occult no longer fueled his mind, he was terrified of things he didn't know. And death was one of those things. He desperately didn't want to end up like Keroro.
Natsumi smiled very softly at Fuyuki. She'd do anything to protect her brother. She was glad he was scared, because that would mean it was likely he'd go for her choice.
"I... I don't like this. I don't want to go outside," Koyuki murmured. The girl's eyes no longer sparkled with freedom. The outdoors that she once loved so much and thirsted for so much that Dororo had to prevent her from leaving no longer roamed her mind. Her ninja skills had grown much worse due to lack of practice. And this scared Koyuki much more than death ever could. She was no longer her, and she knew she would not be able to survive.
"I'm not asking you to go outside. We'll decide the person to leave by voting. Majority wins," Natsumi told them.
They all were silent for a moment as they thought long and hard about this.
"Please... for humanity. Let's live. We still have some fight left in us. After all, we defended Pekopon for so long against aliens. Let's defend our lives now." Natsumi smiled softly, reminding them of better times.
Finally, Saburo nodded. "I didn't want to die, anyway," he agreed.
"I... I don't really want to starve either," Koyuki admitted. Fuyuki's legs and hands were shaking. He just gave a timid nod.
Natsumi smiled. She handed out small pieces of paper and pencils. She set out a hat.
"Write down the name of who you think should go, then. We'll do it anonymously," she told them. "Don't... Don't feel guilty. Like we're sending someone out. Remember, we'll always be friends."
"Should we take a vow that we'll accept the decision of whoever gets the most votes?" Saburo asked, nervously licking his lips. He looked suspiciously at all of them. "I mean... I don't want it to get all Lord-of-the-Flies in here. I want to survive, not start a fight."
"Let's take a vow, then," Koyuki agreed. "If I'm voted, I'll leave for my death with grace." She turned to Natsumi, waiting for her to agree with the vow.
Natsumi smiled at Koyuki. "I'll do as you all command if I'm voted," she promised. She was confident she wouldn't be the one voted, though. They needed her, and she was by far the most popular there. She needed to stay and be the leader and protect her friends.
"I'll go... if I'm voted," Saburo said.
"Yes." Fuyuki just nodded.
They all hurriedly wrote down the name they chose.
Natsumi looked down at her paper. It was a hard decision and it filled her with guilt to write it down, but she did so anyway.
Saburo, she wrote. She didn't want Saburo to die, but she knew he was the friend she was least connected to and that she needed to stay there.
She also knew that he tempted her to break her vow, her promise to Giroro. Although it was a selfish reason, she needed any reason she could grasp to send someone away.
Everybody else tossed their papers into the hat. Natsumi mixed them up and read them aloud.
"Saburo." She read hers. Saburo nodded. He could take that one of his friends voted him. After all, he had voted one of them.
"Natsumi," she read. Her brow furrowed, worried. Why had someone written her name? She glanced over at the three of her friends. She suspected Saburo the most. Which was pretty fair, since she had written his name. She smiled and read the next one.
"Natsumi?" she read aloud. It was a second for her. Didn't her friends need and love her? And if her name was in twice, that meant that either Koyuki or Fuyuki had voted for her. And they were very close to her.
She read the last one, which would either decide if it would be a tie or if Natsumi would win. "N-Natsumi..." she whispered. She looked at her friends, confused.
"We all voted for Natsumi, didn't we?" Saburo asked carefully.
"I didn't do it because I hate you, Sis." Fuyuki was the one to speak up. To look directly into her eyes. "It's not even because I want you to be the one dead out of us the most. Actually, it's the opposite. If there's only one of us I could choose to live, it would be you."
Natsumi was confused. "Then why?" she asked.
"You're the strongest," he said simply. "You... You might survive out there. I... I know it's wrong to hope again that the atmosphere has gotten better, especially with what happened last time someone went out, but... I love you and I believe in you. You're strong and smart and you might survive. And you were never meant to live underground in safety, mothering the rest of us," he explained. "I... I believed for a long time that we should all just die. To kill ourselves. But you were the one who always inspired hope in me. You need to see what's out there. You're our hope. And that's why I chose you."
Natsumi no longer felt hurt. Instead, she felt confident and happy as the expectations of her friends were put on her.
"You're the only one strong enough to do it. I'm confident you can survive, or at least your spirit can, if it's really that bad out there," Koyuki told her. "I have confidence in you. You can survive." Koyuki had been thinking a similar way as Fuyuki.
Saburo shrugged. He honestly hadn't been thinking on their wave-length. He had just voted someone.
Natsumi smiled, a tear sliding down her cheek. She felt confident, even against a force of nature. She felt like she had to help her friends, prove them right.
She hugged Koyuki and Fuyuki. "I'll make you proud," she promised. It was the first time she had honest hope, not a more fake kindness for her friends. They had given her the confidence to face whatever was out there head on.
And if she died, at least she would know what Giroro had experienced.
They all didn't tell her to stay safe. They knew there was an underlying worry that she would die. But they wanted to hope for the best.
"I'll bring back food, I promise," Natsumi told them. They nodded.
"Stay safe," Natsumi told all of them, kissing Fuyuki and Koyuki on the cheeks. Koyuki smiled at the soft feeling. A while ago she would have been overjoyed, but she had long accepted that hers and Natsumi's relationship was that of only friendship. It wasn't bad to her; she loved Natsumi as a friend, and that was a prize all its own.
Miss Furbottom, Giroro's cat, rubbed herself against Natsumi's leg as a good-bye. Luckily, cat food was still plentiful, so she would most likely survive. Natsumi smiled. The cat didn't like her very much, but those small moments mattered to her.
"Take care of Fuyuki and Koyuki," she ordered Saburo. She knew Saburo would be the strongest mentally when she left. Saburo nodded.
"I'll try to look at Kululu's system. Don't worry, the time you bought us won't be in vain." Saburo didn't believe she'd survive. He knew it would be the last time he saw her, and that it was a noble sacrifice.
Natsumi nodded. "G-good... Good-bye." She said her farewells before stepping through the refrigerator.
She was out of the base and in Keroro's room. At that point, the air was still okay, easily breathable. Natsumi smiled and stomped on the ground to tell them it was okay.
The room was damaged - scratches were everywhere, furniture was broken, and it looked old - but it was survivable.
Natsumi climbed up the ladder out of the room and into her old house. The ladder was rusted, but at least it was still there.
There was a lot of wreckage and rubble of her old house that she had to move around, but eventually, she got out the exit.
As she stepped out to the outside, she covered her eyes. For the first time in a year she saw sun. The sunlight shined on her body and Natsumi drew her breath.
She could breath. She was free!
Looking at her skin, though, she still didn't know the long term effects. She could still be radiated over a period of time, presumably. It wasn't a good idea to get the others just because she hadn't combusted immediately.
She smiled despite herself. I'm outside. The sunlight made her grin. Even if she died right then and there, at least she'd die free and happy.
The breeze felt so good against her skin.
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