In all of Kuromorimine, there were probably not too many people who got up at five-thirty on Sunday out of their own free will, with joy and gratitude for another day, no matter how hard they tried to worship the idea of hard work, sacrifice and diligence. There may have been a few crazy proponents of the theory that getting up early was a recipe for success in life, but most defended their sacred right to rest as best they could and tried to prolong their sleep as long as possible. The vice captain of the Kuromorimine High School's Sensha-dō Division, Ōhira Hotaru, was certainly one of the most eager to celebrate her day off with the sweet moment of laziness she could so rarely afford, but something made her roll out of bed early in the morning, trying to avoid waking her roommate at all costs. She quickly put on the dress she had prepared yesterday and styled her hair, freeing it from the curlers she put on every night and fixing it with a ton of hairspray. The vice-captain of the Kuromorimine Sensha-dō team has to look her best, even, or especially, on her day off.
As she left the quiet dormitory, she noticed that the morning was pleasantly warm, as if it weren't September, because the sunshine still had something of the summer days in it. She felt slightly sleepy, but the smell of the cool breeze made it impossible not to smile softly. No matter what was going on in her life, she always tried to find at least a moment of respite in the fleeting beauty, the little shards of which she happened to find. When she was a child growing up on the islands of Amakusa, she had no one to turn to when she was hurt and lonely, only the breathtaking and mysterious beaches, the sea and the blue sky as old as the gods. The beauty of nature, which somehow manages to survive in this sometimes despicable world, was always there for her. And only once did it fail to comfort her - when she had to stop herself from screaming with rage and grief as early summer blossoming with all its power. The summer in which her dear friend had died, making the humid June nights a source of dread for the rest of her life.
Lately, she really had to work hard to see anything worth appreciating at all. First, at the end of June, they lost the semi-finals of the National Sensha-dō Championships to Pravda High School, leading the following issue of Gekkan Sensha-dō to devote as much attention to their defeat as it did to Saint Gloriana Academy's victory in the Championships and the tragic death of the Vice President of the Japan Sensha-dō Federation in the biggest plane crash in Japanese aviation history. She was genuinely astonished that someone on the editorial board was so determined to slander her and Captain Aizawa, who may not have been blameless in their defeat, but didn't deserve to be so harshly criticized either, if one could call these pathetic ramblings written by a bunch of frustrates as critique. Besides, were they really so stupid as to make enemies not only of Kuromorimine but of the entire faction associated with Nishizumi-ryū?
Then she spent the entire summer break trying to get the team back on track after such a humiliating defeat, on top of praying to the Scholarship Committee for mercy so that she would not starve for the entire next term. Not to mention the horrendous amount of homework, the sheer amount of which was downright absurd. As if that weren't enough, after all that had happened to her during what she herself called some of the worst moments of her life, Junko stood on the precipice of a mental crisis, helplessly waiting for someone or something to just gently push her into its embrace. Or had it already happened and Hotaru was just fooling herself into thinking that she could help her in any way?
So when she was asked to come to the phone last night and was told Junko Aizawa wanted something from her and something was obviously wrong, her heart almost stopped in her chest. They agreed that she would come tomorrow, first thing in the morning, as she was not allowed to leave the dormitory at that time, and getting in trouble with the Public Morals Committee was the last thing she wanted right now. Also, it was better to not feed the gossip, which was sure to flourish after such a wonderful nourishment.
To make sure that no one had seen her as she entered the stairwell of the building where Junko lived, she discreetly looked back. She had been to her apartment at least a hundred times, but every time she visited, this staircase took her breath away. She knew nothing about architecture, so she had to take Aizawa's word for it that the intricate stucco work in the shape of climbing plants, the stained glass and paintings depicting nymphs among flowering meadows, and the metal handrails with their flowing, organic lines were all examples of Art Nouveau architecture. Whenever she came here, she felt as if she had entered the boarding school world of the little princess Sarah Crewe, whose story had fascinated her so much as a child.
When Kuromorimine was built at the beginning of the 20th century to symbolize cooperation between the two empires, Japan and Germany, an ideal model city was created on board the then state-of-the-art aircraft carrier, with an array of architectural masterpieces. The main school building, the parks and squares, the rows of beautiful townhouses dripping with decorative detail, were designed to show the power of the German Empire's ideas and art, and the joy with which Japan absorbed and transformed them for its own purposes. Here there was no need to fear the earthquakes that were so deadly to Western-style architecture on the mainland, so the architects' imaginations were far less restricted. However, not everyone could live in such a place - the number of dormitories in the area was limited and their prices were, to put it mildly, beyond her budget. She had no choice but to live in a somewhat shabby place, one of the many buildings hastily constructed after the war to accommodate the rapidly increasing number of students caused by the post-war demographic explosion. The rooms may have been cramped, squeezing her and her roommate into a microscopic space, and the building's state of maintenance left much to be desired, but at least she had access to daylight, unlike the Naval Department Students who lived below deck. She had to look for the bright side.
Once again, the aesthetic experience made her almost forget how afraid she had been of what she was going to find behind the door on which she had just rung the bell. Or was it a deliberate act of her subconscious, however absurd it might sound? Whenever she found herself standing in front of these doors in a situation like this, she was afraid that today would be the day that THIS one of her fears would come true. She noticed that her knees were shaking and the feeling of fear that she had been trying to tame was beginning to take over. What if she had misjudged the seriousness of the situation, what if she should have dropped everything yesterday and got here as soon as possible? What if it was too late, whatever that meant?
She only calmed down when she heard the click of a lock and after a moment she saw Junko standing in the doorway. At first glance, there was nothing alarming about her appearance. She looked like the average person waking up at seven in the morning, who may have managed to get out of bed, but whose blurred vision indicated that they weren't fully awake yet. Aizawa had put on her favorite navy velvet dressing gown over periwinkle blue satin nightgown, and her black hair was a bit electrified, indicating that she had only just combed it in a hurry. Here she was, at her fingertips, and most of all, alive.
"Good morning!" Hotaru greeted first, smiling with relief, that her dark scenarios had not come true today.
"Hello. Come in, please," she replied, avoiding looking at her, and letting the fear begin to creep back in. Still, she managed to notice the tiny red dots under her eyes, which not only showed that she had been crying, most likely intensely and for a long time.
"We're going to make breakfast," Junko announced and disappeared into the kitchen, as Hotaru took off her shoes.
This only reinforced her belief that something was really wrong here. This was exactly how Junko acted when she wanted to hide something. However, she decided not to press the issue, but to watch her for a while as she prepared breakfast, hoping that she would be able to understand what was really going on.
When she first met Junko, she knew no more about her than any other Kuromorimine student could observe. Hotaru looked at her from a distance, from her designated place in the Kuromorime's hierarchy, from which only a carefully constructed and positioned image of her could be observed. An image from which only a few obvious facts could be deduced: Junko Aizawa is a talented Sensha-dō practitioner. A member of the famous Nishizumi family, Junko Aizawa has been trained since childhood by Great Mistress Nishizumi to become the perfect embodiment of Nishizumi-ryu, to gain her omnipotence over the Sensha-dō world. Junko Aizawa can single-handedly destroy an entire platoon of an enemy division. In battle, Junko Aizawa shows no mercy. Junko Aizawa looks as if she is alternately annoyed and bored by something. Junko Aizawa thinks she is better than everyone else.
But Hotaru was probably the only one who noticed something else, despite this perfect facade, orchestrated to fool the viewer of the exhibit that was Junko, namely that; Junko Aizawa is lonely.
As she approached the kitchenette, she glanced around the rest of the apartment, hoping that what she found there would tell her something that would help her figure out what had happened. Well, this time it was of no use to her, for it was in exactly the same disarray as always. A blanket, pillows and some clothes lay sloppily on the white, worn-out couch, candy wrappers and soda bottles littered the floor around it; she spotted a few cans of chūhai cocktails, but not in quantities that should concern her.
The coffee table between the couch and the TV was covered in a thick layer of dust, and its color was something of a mystery to her - it was never clean enough to see what color it really was. From what she could see underneath the makeup products, more candy wrappers, magazines and correspondence, and other things she couldn't name, it seemed to be a shade of cool brown. Or was it the dust?
The table where they usually ate looked a little better, but there were still a few plates and teacups on it, and the picture was completed by crumbs lying on the floor, barely visible from under the scattered clothes, trampled eye shadow and a tuft of hair that Junko had probably plucked out of her brush and forgotten to pick up and throw away.
The apartment, as it was, was filled with a chaotic cacophony of unpleasant visual stimuli. It seemed to Hotaru that this was the beginning of madness. But she didn't judge - she grew up in similar conditions. Her overworked mother, between her morning shift at a fish processing plant and her evening casual work at an izakaya, had no time to give her even half an hour's attention, let alone keep the house clean, which was piled high with rupees and discarded mementos from her various temporary fathers. So she didn't mind being in a place like that too much, and understood why someone would allow their home to be in such a state. From what Junko told her, she had stopped cleaning when she broke her collarbone last year, so it was understandable that cleaning was the last thing she had the energy for, especially after what had happened to Naoko Hayashi, and then making it a habit again proved harder than she thought and ended in a miserable failure.
Getting everything cleaned up before Junko has to move out next March, when she graduates from Kuromorimine, will be quite a challenge. Especially since they will probably have to do it with just the two of them, due to the need for discretion. It was just another secret that only she had access to, another part of the world that might or might not be beautiful, but belonged to them alone.
Only the kitchen was surprisingly clean, for one simple reason - nothing disgusted Junko more than leftover, rotting food. It was, with its grotesque contrast, a perfect representation of the two versions of Captain Aizawa - the one ridiculously, sterilely clean for Kuromorimine, and the one chaotically scattered, just for Hotaru.
Before she entered the kitchen, however, she noticed a torn piece of paper lying under the table, but she didn't have time to take a closer look because she felt Junko's gaze on her.
"Make the rice. I'll heat up the miso soup," she said, as if giving an order to her crew.
Faced with this tone, there was nothing Hotaru could do but pour the rice into the bowl and rinse it under cold water. Before she was able to achieve that desired crystal-clear water, the polish on one of her fingernails had chipped off. And she had just painted it last night.
"Nishizumi wants to introduce a reform of the doctrine. She showed me the blueprints last night," Junko said suddenly, avoiding her gaze and concentrating on stirring the miso soup to make sure it didn't boil.
"I know. She asked me about it and I even promised to help her if you agreed."
"Why didn't you tell me? " There was disapproval in Junko's voice, as if she had done something behind her back that might have caused her trouble.
"She asked me to be discreet. If I want to keep my position as vice-captain next year, I have to at least remain neutral, or even better, be sympathetic to her. In any case, I am curious to see what Captain Nishizumi will come up with."
"I just hope that she doesn't bring some kind of disaster upon the Division with her experiments."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Nothing."
Immediately after Junko said these words, Hotaru noticed that the water was already reasonably clean and set the rice cooker on. She had always been fascinated by this appliance, which she believed should have become the fourth sacred treasure of post-war Japan, along with the refrigerator, television and washing machine that had transformed the daily lives of Japanese people. Of these, however, it was her favorite - the intricate tangle of wires, resistors, heating elements and magnets that caused complex physical reactions, all to cook something as trivial as rice, had always fascinated her scientific mind. Once she tried to explain to Junko exactly how it all worked, but Junko, instead of concentrating to understand exactly what she had to tell her, preferred to look at her with a blissful, somewhat lenient smile. Hotaru was happy when she could explain something to someone, and Junko could only be happy when Hotaru was happy. This reaction was much less complicated.
Now the only sounds in the kitchen were the faint hum of the gas, the clatter of chopsticks stirring the soup, and the somewhat loud rumble of the rice cooker. Someone might say that these are perfect background noises for a conversation, that they must be drowned out by the sounds of human speech at all costs. Well, this was not the case. Hotaru usually loved this relaxed silence, so different from the hustle and bustle of the dorms. It made her feel intimate, like she was not just a small part of the sea of noise that made up the world outside, but her own person, entitled to silence. But today she found that silence to be threatening, laughing at her naive belief in its goodness.
She was relieved when an electric melody announced that the rice was ready. She added the yukari seasoning to it, then sliced the slightly wilted spring onions to add to the soup. After the breakfast was poured into bowls, they sat facing each other at the table.
"'Thanks for the food,'" they said together, putting their hands together to thank each other and the gods for the meal.
Hotaru really had to stop herself from rushing to eat the soup as quickly as possible, as it was one of her favorite things in the world. As far as Junko's cooking was concerned, the rest of her dishes were simply tasty, but it was the miso soup, despite all its everyday mundanity, that always delighted her. She had no idea how she made it or what secret ingredient she added to it, because otherwise Hotaru couldn't explain why she was so addicted to it. She had come to know many of Junko's secrets, but the one about how she made the best miso soup in the world was the one she liked best.
Then, suddenly, a single, disturbing thought shattered her relative peace. That if one day one of them were to die prematurely, their daily lives, their quiet mornings and their miso soup would be lost forever. With this realization, she almost choked on a piece of tofu. If she didn't do something now, these indecently idyllic mornings might disappear. That's why she had to tear apart this delusion away before someone else did it for her, permanently. Someone like Death itself, for example.
"Jun, why did I have to come? Something must have happened."
"Nothing important," Junko still tried to remain indifferent, but a grimace of annoyance flashed across her face, "You came for breakfast. Can't I just have breakfast with you?"
"You can." Hotaru felt that she couldn't pretend to be calm any longer, but she still fought to make her voice sound firm but not angry, "But you can't expect me to get over the fact that you call me at night, and beg me to come, as if something bad had happened, and then pretend that everything is fine and I'm unnecessarily losing my mind in fear of what might happen. So I ask again, what happened? "
"And why the hell do you care?!" she yelled, getting up from the table violently and banging her fist on the table.
All the dishes jumped, and as they fell back into place, Junko heard a cacophony of clattering reminiscent of eerie, ritualistic bells. It should have ended long ago, but individual sounds still echoed in her mind, intertwining until something else emerged - one of those memories returned. She could still hear the sound of plates being thrown, cutlery falling to the floor with a clatter, and angry screams of too familiar voices, echoing in her mind. The sound echoed turned into an all-encompassing, monstrously loud coupling that had the power to tear her apart.
The dining room of her house, the piercing stench of a burnt pot. The angry screams of her mother, the pleading sobs of her father. Glass shattering against the floor. In an instant, she was transported back to the dining room of her childhood home, beyond the bounds of time and reality.
She couldn't move, couldn't take a breath, not even blink. She must not move. If she doesn't move, they'll forget she's there. If she doesn't move, she won't make the situation worse. If she doesn't move, maybe they'll stop eventually. She felt like she was suffocating, but she couldn't take a breath, not even blink. She must not move. If she doesn't move, they'll forget she's there. If she doesn't move…
"Jun? What's happening?"
Some voice reached her from somewhere outside, but she didn't know whose voice it was, what they were doing here, they must be quiet, nobody can notice she's here, so why... She couldn't hold her breath any longer, she had to breathe, but then she couldn't stop, she breathed quickly and too loudly, but she must not make any sound, she didn't want to be there…
"Junko, please take a deep breath, alright, can you hear me?"
It was like two scenes playing out simultaneously, like two film reels overlapping, creating a conflicting, mixed-up image that she no longer understood... No, it was as if one of them was disrupting reality, like a program disrupting a wave on the same frequency. She wanted to get rid of it, she tried to focus on what was truly here. She wanted to feel that she was here, truly, physically. Here, in her kitchen, with her Hotaru, not there, in that kitchen, with them. She tried to focus on the trash on the floor, the smell of breakfast, deep breathing, and Hotaru's voice, whom she soon embraced in desperation, because everything depended on it. She wanted to feel her touch, her warmth and scent, to stay with her, truly, in reality.
When it was all over, she lay on the couch with her head in Hotaru's lap, tears dripping down her cheeks and barely remembering what had really happened, but Junko knew enough to say that the last two days had been a hell for her. She felt disgusted with herself for what had been happening to her in the last few days. For making a fool of herself again in front of Nishizumi and for how easily she had given in to the false feeling that things were getting better. By the fact that one letter had made her cry hysterically for half the night, and then her efforts to maintain some sense of dignity had not only gone nowhere, but had ended in disaster. She didn't want to dwell on it, she didn't have the strength for it now.
Instead, she preferred to close her eyes and concentrate on Hotaru stroking her hair gently. It gave her the illusion of safety. She was well aware that she was completely vulnerable now, of her own free will. It was completely different from the situations in which she had lost control over herself, l and had allowed herself to be too much, to be weak in a dangerous situation where another, possibly hostile person was involved. But with Hotaru, she felt she could afford to do that.
She knew what the risk was - it was as if she had handed Hotaru a dagger, ashamed, but without any resistance, declaring beforehand that she could stab her with it if she wanted to. In fact, she was aware that even the position she was in right now was giving Hotaru the perfect opportunity to slit her throat if she wanted to.
She had been raised, although in the case of her, Shiho Nishizumi and the Hayashi sisters, it would be more accurate to say that she had been trained to believe that such weakness was one of the worst things she could afford, and her life of torment was meant to hammer that into her consciousness with the pain it inflicted. Nevertheless, she gave the dagger to Hotaru. Truly, she had managed to win at least a little.
"Forgive me, Hotaru. I didn't mean to yell at you like that." She knew that Hotaru hated being yelled at, which was why she was so sorry for what she had done.
"Apology accepted. Now are you going to tell me what happened? "The way she whispered those words to her with such gentleness made Junko's heart ache.
There was no escaping it now, she had to confess a secret for which, if she revealed it, several people would want her dead. But she had to, she couldn't bear it any longer. At least someone had to know, someone had to understand why Junko had become what she had. Maybe it was because she told herself that if someone knew the truth, they would at least show her some mercy and be able to forgive her sins, or at least have pity on her?
"I got a letter from my father. He wrote that he couldn't take it any more and that he was going to file for divorce. I do not know when it'll end, but it is happening. My parents are getting divorced."
"Isn't that what you always wanted? "
"No... He wrote that he was giving up custody over me. Because it would be too much trouble, you know? My father is leaving me because I'm a problem for him!" She was barely able to say the words, the pain they caused gripping her throat and making her say them in a squeaky tone that was completely unlike her.
"Can't this man take responsibility for anything once in his life?"
In Hotaru's seemingly calm voice, she heard a hint of well-hidden anger, proving that pure, cool rage probably ran through her veins. After all, she had told her many times about what was happening at home, but also about how her father had promised that when she had finished school, she would live with him, away from her mother and Sensha-dō, just as she had always dreamed. And now it has turned out to be nothing but an illusion.
"What if it's because he thinks I'm the same as my mother and he wants to get away from me too?"
"That would mean he's a complete idiot and doesn't know you at all. But I know you, Jun. And you're nothing like your mother."
"I don't know if you're right or not. I'm afraid of myself, Hotaru. I'm rotting on the inside, trying to escape it, but I know that one day it will finally consume me and that will be the end of me. I..."
"Please don't say such things..."
"I am afraid that it will make you hate me as well and that you will leave me."
That was her greatest fear, that she would turn out just like her mother, to be a mentally unstable sadist, obsessed with control, torn by waves of hatred and obsessive jealousy of everyone. That she, too, would end up as a seemingly high-functioning alcoholic, deserving of nothing but contempt and regarded by everyone as a monster.
The last thing she wanted for Hotaru was for her to live the same nightmare as she did. That's why she tried to hide the fact that she was suffering in order to maintain some semblance of normalcy, because she knew that even if she didn't become a monster, constantly worrying about her and keeping an eye on her would also make her waste Hotaru's life, for which Hotaru would hate her, and all in all it would come out the same. Maybe this meant that her fate was already sealed and she could no longer escape it? Was there still a salvation for her?
"I don't know what you would have to do to make me hate you. You are the only one I have, Junko, the only one who cares about me. That's why I'll never leave you. We will always be together."
"Don't promise me things that don't depend on you. You are doing Sensha-dō, Hotaru. You can die at any time."
Many things could have made this promise impossible to keep, but this one possibility was the most terrifying to her. Because in the fight against fate, they still had a chance. With death, unfortunately, not at all.
"I know that. But don't worry, I'll do everything I can to make sure we live happily ever after, because I don't plan on dying anytime soon."
And so Hotaru tried to fulfill the role that her own name predicted for her, trying to shine her little light in the midst of the all-encompassing darkness of the night, like a firefly to which Junko was drawn like a moth, as if that faint glow would bring her salvation. The two of them had to fight if they wanted to survive. They believed that the dawn must be waiting for them somewhere, but they did not know yet where or when, it would embrace them in a brightness that would end all nightmares once and for all. For now, they had to fight the darkness for the faint, flickering glimmer of hope.
If someone had asked Nanami to describe a mad artist's house, she certainly wouldn't have described the one she had come to live in. The city villa, converted into rooms for rent by students of the Kuromorimine Music Department, was nothing like the cottage hidden in the deep mountain forest, where a bohème could endlessly party without any moral inhibitions, or a lonely, misunderstood genius could drown in the depths of drug-induced madness. Here, the walls weren't embellished by the fragments of poetry or ragged symphonies written on them - they were tarnished by the tawdry kitsch of Biedermeier landscapes with a deer. If any art could be made here, it would be a miracle.
And it was the summoning of this miracle that she wanted to indulge in today. Before she could begin to prepare in serious fashion for her performance at the School Cultural Festival, she needed to get into the shape that would allow her to do so. Not that she hadn't practiced all through middle school, but it wasn't the amount of practice that would allow her to play at the level that was expected of her from the get-go. So she tried to spend the whole day filling the walls of a building that was deserted due to a beautiful day that had driven its other inhabitants out for a walk, with sound, hoping that its beauty would dispel, if only for a moment, this petty bourgeois kitsch. Until the phone rang.
She regretted picking it up. But if she hadn't, would it have made any difference? This was exactly the same as her previous life, the one she had wanted to slaughter and bury forever back then, in Vienna. It was a predetermined, pure illusion of choice, where a living piano playing device named Nanami Shimakawa was supposed to always play perfectly as planned for her, in the illusion that it was a manifestation of her own art and free will. But she failed, she was not able to be perfect. So she killed that old self, to start again and not look back. But someone had the desire, like Victor Frankenstein, to toy with creating new life from rotting corpses. And that someone was her Viennese playing teacher, who had returned to her homeland after years of wandering on tour for several years, and demanded the return of her pupil exactly tomorrow, at four in the afternoon. Exactly when Division training begins.
She sat on the floor, against the wall where the phone hung, curled into a defensive ball. She shuddered as the memories of that time flooded back, like a tsunami, overturning the walls she had built in her own psyche, for them to never come back. She had enough hubris in her to naively believe that those she had feared so much as a child would no longer instill such powerful fear in her. She thought they wouldn't come back for her, that they had found some other genius little girl to use, to shatter and leave behind when they no longer needed her, stripped of her dreams and empty inside. And yet they came back, like vultures. Do they still want more?
They were wrong, though, in their belief that they would get her back. First of all, that Nanami no longer existed, and the current Nanami, through everything she's been through since joining the Sensha-dō team, may not have become much stronger, but at least, she learned to stand up for what she believed in. And you take no prisoners in a war for what you are. Yes, she will come back to her, but that is where her obedience ends. This is about art. It was the only truth for her, and she could rebel in its defense to the end. She will not be taken alive.
She immediately remembered about her other duty, Sensha-dō, and how the thing that happened today complicates everything from now. So this time it was up to her to make the call. They could use this symbol of modernity, the telephone, to shatter her sense of security without any warning, without even having to resort to violence, just by entering her space uninvited, like some kind of an evil spirit. On the other hand, she was able to send her words, her electric soul, directly to another person, if only they were also in Kuromorimine, just as she was. Just another Faustian pact humanity had made with modernity.
She grabbed the phone that was dangling next to her, lifted herself up with a great effort, and dialed the number, only to slide back to the floor, powerless, a moment later. The reason she knew the number so well was that she was always the one who called first. Well, if it was Shiho Nishizumi who called her, it would mean that the end of the world had begun. She imagined her getting up from the table in the living room where she always worked and picking up the phone on the other side of the room. She knew exactly how long it would take her to get there, she counted the seconds in her head... it helped her calm down... or gave her the illusion of being in control.
"Hello? Who is this?" Nishizumi answered exactly when she expected it, like an automaton.
"Hello, it's me, Nanami. I'm sorry it's so sudden, but I have to tell you something," Shei tried to remain calm, or at least to sound composed, but her whole body was shaking and her heart was pounding
"What is it? "
"Well... the point is that my piano teacher from Vienna has returned to Japan, and unfortunately she has decided not only to teach here in Kuromorimine, of all the schools there are in this cursed country, but also to force me to study with her again. I'm supposed to start tomorrow afternoon, at the same time as our training, because she's decided to torment me from tomorrow. I don't know what it will be like after that, but I'll have to miss training. I'm sorry, it wasn't supposed to be like this... " The words came out faster than they should have, she was breathing faster than she should have. This wasn't a good sign.
"You said you would only be gone for two weeks before the Cultural Festival," Shiho said after a moment of silence, in the harsh tone she used to reprimand those who let her down.
This caused Nanami's seemingly unjustified anger. After all, she knew better than anyone else that she deserved to be reprimanded. After all, it was her fault that the crew's functioning would be turned upside down, even though she had assured Captain Nishizumi the day before that this would not be the case. Captain Nishizumi had every right to be displeased with her attitude, to say the least. Nanami had caused a serious problem and she was not stupid enough not to feel at least a little guilty and not want to suffer the consequences of it.
On the other hand, she couldn't find the specific moment where she was clearly to blame. Everything happened against her will, all the decisions were taken without her participation, and she could not even foresee such a turn of events, she could only passively submit to the verdict of fate. This paradox, the conflict between her sense of responsibility and duty and her sense of injustice and utter powerlessness, finally caused her to snap.
"Because that's what I thought!" she shouted these words into the phone, "I don't want to do it either, but I have absolutely nothing to say in that matter. Everyone always does what they want with me and I can do absolutely nothing about it. It's like I'm some sort of puppet! And I'm not a puppet, I'm a human being, why doesn't anybody want to understand that!"
She thought that when they had finished their tirade, when she had thrown herself away, she would finally be able to regain control of the emotions that had been raging inside her like a storm. She may have gotten rid of her anger, but what remained was the worst of all of it - the anxiety. At first she had thought that its more physical symptoms - the increasing, piercing pain in her stomach, shortness of breath and the dizziness - were simply a nuisance that she could ignore.
But she couldn't ignore the fact that she felt cornered on all sides, like an animal in a cage, or worse, a cage on display, where she knew she was all alone, but where she could feel herself being scorched by an evil gaze. And she was afraid of it, so damned afraid. Every time this happened to her, she was again a frightened child on the Viennese stage, where there was no escape neither from her fear, nor from the thousands of hateful glances.
She could only hope that Shiho had no idea of the state she was in now, for she would not bear the shame of such humiliation. Nanami was also a Sensha-dō girl, she had to be calm and composed at all times, or at least give the impression of being so, and she couldn't even do that. The painful realization made the anguish even more intense.
"I'm sorry... I don't know what's happening to me, I didn't mean to... "
It occurred to her that she heard a sigh on the other side, although it might have been just some sort of distortion. She felt even more terrified. What if Shiho has had enough of her? What if she gets rid of her from the crew, or even from the whole Division? What if she hates her for all of that? If so, Nanami couldn't take it, she'd rather die.
"What are you going to do now?" asked Nishizumi after a moment of silence.
"I wanted to find someone to replace her, but I didn't have time to ask her to agree or to prepare the documents... "She did something wrong again, she didn't notice something again, why can't she do anything right…
"Who do you mean specifically?"
"Idegami Kikuyo, from Shinobu Honami's crew. It seems to me that she won't mind and will be able to handle it."
"That will do. I'll see what I can do."
Kikuyo Idegami was always somewhere in the back of her mind, practically from the day she showed up for her first training session and sat behind a tank sight for the first time. Even then, when she, Shiho and Captain Hayashi observed the new recruits, they looked carefully for those who had a natural talent for Sensha-dō. This first impression was crucial; it was the day that would determine new recruit's place in the Division. No doubt there were girls who were late bloomers, but there was no time for them in Kuromorimine; no one here had any mercy for anyone, let alone patience.
So ever since Naoko-senpai, who was her greatest authority on the art of tank gunnery, had pointed out the tank in which Kikuyo was doing surprisingly well on the shooting range and said, "This one's pretty good, isn't she?", Nanami's thoughts sometimes came back to Kikuyo. She was sorry to see her potential being wasted by Honami, who had not lived up to expectations to say the least, but for some reason Nanam decided not to intervene in that case.
It was only the day before yesterday, when they met on the stairs, that she considered her as a possible stand-in. She hadn't suspected that she was capable of risking everything, putting her reputation on the line and possibly putting herself in danger to help someone who was being harmed every day by the armed arm of the oppressive system that was Kuromorimine, which was peer violence. She wasn't delusional enough to believe that there were many girls who could stand up to this injustice. Therefore, Nanami knew that only Kikuyo could take her place. And the fact that Shiho didn't object at least gave her a little encouragement.
"By the way, has Aizawa agreed to accept our proposal?"
"Yes, provided that we win an exhibition match against the high school division at the school festival."
"It's not impossible." Nanami smiled bitterly as she realized that she was going to miss a really interesting match: "I expected more difficulties from her.
Nanami could not quite comprehend why Shiho still had any respect for Junko Aizawa. She supposedly understood the importance Miss Nishizumi placed on hierarchy and command structure, and that she and Aizawa had been training Sensha-dō together for a long time, but she still couldn't fathom how Shiho, even after questioning the entire current Sensha-dō system, still didn't dare to criticize her direct superior, who embodied that system in Kuromorimine. There had to be some missing piece of the puzzle that even she, who was probably the closest person to Captain Nishizumi at the moment, had no right to know.
In her opinion, though, Aizawa was a mediocre captain at best, cowardly and hysterical most of the time. Her desperate attempts to keep up the facade of a responsible Kuromorimine's captain and to maintain order in the division were sometimes even more laughable than pathetic to Nanami. She would have been able to get over all this, but not one thing - how much Aizawa only cared about her own interests, which would have made Nanami ready to accuse her of treason at the first opportunity.
"Yes, we can do it, but your absence will make it much more difficult."
"Well, you'll have to manage somehow. There are no irreplaceable people, are there? "
She felt her voice crack as she said these words. She didn't question that the change in crew was disrupting their normal functioning, but which aspect of the situation was more important to Nishizumi? The simple fact that there would be a stranger in her tank, or the loss of Nanami as a specific person whose own unique skills were fundamental to the proper functioning of the crew? The truth probably lay somewhere in the middle, but Nanami was under no illusion that Shiho had anything other than the first of these options in mind, despite Nanami's egocentric desire for the latter to be the one closest to the truth. The fact that it could have been any other way made her feel pain in the depths of her heart.
"Thank you and again, I'm sorry and beg your forgiveness... " Had they spoken face to face, Nanami would have bowed as deeply as possible. She was really sick of the guilt, the pressure, the fear... She wanted to get away from it all, to disappear, to be alone with herself, to seek dubious comfort in music, even though it had been one of the main causes of her problems lately. "I'm going to hang up now, I have to practice... "
"Nanami? "
"Yes?" She was so close to putting down the phone that the fact that Shiho still wanted something from her made her resist groaning angrily.
"I will have to make you face the consequences of this. But for now, just do your best," she said in a tone even colder than her usual one, and hung up without a word of goodbye. And Nanami really didn't know what she meant by that anymore.
It seemed to her that she had been doing very well at understanding what Miss Nishizumi really meant. Usually, Nanami assumed that her simple, laconic words meant exactly what was said. Everything else Nanami could deduce from the nuanced context, after all it was often what Shiho expected when it came to the technical details of Sensha-dō, for their subordinates to find out for themselves what needed to be corrected. Socrates made his students think by asking questions, Captain Nishizumi by being silent.
Sometimes, though, Nishizumi didn't realize that what she said could mean absolutely anything if she was being listened to by someone who, like Nanami, was desperately searching for meaning in the void, because her survival depended on her finding it. And especially today, when her mind was on high alert against absolutely everything, that vagueness was driving her insane.
All her life she had to read her mother's and her teachers' little gestures, their winks and sighs, to see what mood they were in and how she should behave towards them to avoid incurring their wrath. It was like walking on thin ice, one small wrong move on her part could have disastrous consequences. Nanami tried to tell herself that she would be able to handle it somehow, having learned to pay exaggerated attention to even the smallest details, but still, every time she heard the ice crack, she felt the fear that she was about to die, thrown into the icy depths. A fear that, ironically, had enough power of its own to be the cause of her demise.
That was how Nanami lived her life, taking off her Division uniform as she walked off the stage of the theater that was their team, in which she had come to play charismatic gray eminence: when the spotlight had gone, when she stood alone in front of herself, she became a pitiful fourteen-year-old girl, obsessively searching reality for imperfections, her mistakes and the small signals from people who would be willing to hurt her for her inability to conform perfectly to their sick standards, paralyzed by the fear of death.
What frightened her most, however, was that someone was trying to take away what had given her the power over herself, even if for a brief moment, and above all, the power over a powerful weapon - a tank gun. Nanami only felt safe behind the thick armor plate, surrounded by a noise that had no melody, no tempo and no intonation that she had to master to the perfection. She would land in another world, a world of struggle for survival that she saw through the tiny circle of the sight, not necessarily a better one, but at least a world to which she had condemned herself, of her own free will. A world where only she had the only people close to her who really cared about her, or at least she wanted to believe they did. If she was going to lose that and be left alone on the ice for all eternity, then she would rather just stop breathing.
Kumamoto City
Japan, the land of the rising sun. The Grandmother of Emperors, Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess. The red, bloody spot of the sun, once dripping with rays resembling bloody streams in which Yamato people bathed the whole Asia, now looking out from the white cloth of the flag with a single red eye. How did the descendants of the Sun Goddess forsake her, turning instead to worship a new deity? A deity known as Neon?
Neon, insidious and beguiling, had usurped the dominion of Amaterasu, thus fulfilling the ancient prophecy of an invader from overseas, destined to overthrow the established order of the descendants of Sun Goddess. This happened when Yamato people, blinded by the inferno of wartime bombing, finally atoned for their sins through poverty, destitution and darkness, and were finally blessed with the economic miracle.
At the helm of this miraculous transformation stood Neon, bestowing his blessings upon the land, showering it with the greatest of boons: technological advancement. Yet, as the 1980s dawned and Japan basked in the zenith of its power, it remained heedless to the perilous path it tread. Like Neo-Icarus soaring toward an artificial sun of neon brilliance, the nation teetered on the precipice of its own downfall, unaware of its impending demise.
Nishizumi Karuho knew this song by heart, which also mentioned something about America, renunciation of war, modernity and capitalism, and sang it to herself before she went to sleep, praying that her dream of power would continue in all its glory. For it was indeed the coming of Neon that saved the Nishizumi clan from utter decay, when the flames of war devastation finally ceased their relentless burn across the land.
Dogfights had become relics of a bygone era – now it was pretty girls, freshly bloomed flowers, who had to learn to be tough, brutal and ruthless to have any chance of survival in this new world. In the realm of Neon, vulnerability was loathed, innocence scorned, yet paradoxically, they were also an object of obsession. And so Neon's populace developed a fondness for these young, naïve girls, elevating them to pedestals so they could indulge in mass hysteria of lust.
Few still cherished the art of Sensha-dō; the public was more attracted by the fact that each of these speeding killing machines, transformed into sporting machines not unlike an épée or a bobsleigh, was a promise of what was hidden inside. Amidst the brutality of battlefields, the innocence of the Tank Maidens radiated like fragrant flowers, drawing others into their orbit with irresistible allure. Yet, it was the violation of this innocence that brought the greatest pleasure to her.
The new Sensha-dō raised the Nishizumi family above being samurai dogs, slaves to rotten traditions and servants of the aristocracy, the empire or whatever. They were now at the forefront of Neon's most loyal priests, repainting the stinking, rusting tanks in the colors of the new consumerist era. And in Karuho's opinion, it was all thanks to her.
As befitted a high priestess of a new cult, she liked to make appearances at its temple, the entertainment district, which, while not dazzling in size and debauchery like the metropolis of Tokyo, was sufficient for her daily needs. She was not a Catholic, so she had no problem understanding that proper participation in religious rites did not require religious sites dripping with unnecessary splendor. So she worshiped the idols of Mammon, Debauchery and Pride that she had erected in the premium version of an ordinary izakaya. When her cousin Setsuko forced her to agree to talk to her about something, she chose this place, even though the privacy of her Residence would have been far more convenient. At least the pub atmosphere and a taste of overpriced alcohol would sweeten this unpleasant duty a little bit.
She glanced out of the corner of her eye across the room, where behind a partition, some business meeting was taking place. They seemed to be trying to maintain a sense of business decorum on one hand, yet on the other, they were looking forward to finally indulging in debauchery. As far as she could see, this meeting had already passed critical mass, turning what had started out as a relatively sophisticated business meeting into a besieged orgy of degeneracy.
She imagined what might be hiding behind that partition. Arrogant managers, undone by their own pride, narcissistic buffoons spinning drunken tales of nonsense that nobody cared about, tipsy old perverts harassing waitresses under the delusion that they were still somehow attractive, rather than just eliciting disgust from women. To all these businessmen, it seemed, in accordance with the hierarchical worldview that had governed Japan since the dawn of the Yamato era, that they were the masters of this new reality. In reality, however, when they succumbed to their animal instincts, they were no different not only from the poor, but also even from animals.
The only time in Japanese capitalism when one man was equal to another, when all divisions disappeared, was when a participant in a libation ended up unconscious in a metro station, face down in a puddle of his own vomit. That's when the system of hierarchy collapsed - the homeless man and the rich businessman lay on the same concrete as equals. In Kumamoto's case, however, the fraternization took place at a tram stop.
She remembered, although it was becoming increasingly difficult to think under the influence of alcohol, that she would have to arrange such a 'banquet' herself for the Japanese Sensha-dō Federation officials who were seeking her patronage. However, it would be better to hold such an event on the grounds of the Nishizumi residence. It would be better for the esteemed gentlemen officials to trash themselves somewhere where no one would see them, even at the cost of damaging the historic building, than to allow them to make fools of themselves in a public place. The winter season was approaching, and with it the Winter Continuous Track Cup and the Commemorative Cup, and she had to make sure that this time everything would go her way. Even a perfect plan would go to hell if it was entrusted to someone as incompetent as Junko Aizawa, who was at least a little bit more useful than her mother. Karuho couldn't help but wonder how Junko could be relatively normal with a mother like that. She saw a lot of her own merit in that.
Such was the paradox of the Japanese Sensha-dō Federation getting rid of her, on the basis of fabricated, at least according to Karuho herself, allegations of abuse against the girls she had trained, only to now have to discreetly seek her favor. Now they had to travel to Kumamoto all the time to ask her for all sorts of patronage, lobbying, support and other such nonsense. It reminded her of the Edō era, when the emperor, anointed as the descendant of the gods to be the ruler of Japan, had to humbly bow to the authority of the shogunate and submit to it completely. If she was honest, she found this situation, in which she enjoyed her power from a hidden position, like a puppeteer pulling the strings, incredibly amusing. At least for now, the time will come when she will get her whole power back.
For now, she and her cousin Setsuko were performing a theatre of family drama. A drunken, hysterical Setsuko would alternately cry into her shirt or break out in fits of aggression while she tried to comfort her. At least that's what it looked like from the outside. In reality, Setsuko wanted something from her and wanted to break her patience with her scenes, and Karuho let her believe that she succeeded.
She managed to get her to sign the divorce papers, ending this tragicomedy of a marriage, which they will submit to the town hall tomorrow. It was Karuho who matchmaked them, and she was also the one who concluded that it was high time for them to finally divorce. She came to the realization that the current state of affairs was doing her more harm than good, and besides, Setsuko's now ex-husband was able to pay her a high price for his freedom - with his own daughter, among other things - which only reinforced her belief that men are really nothing but shit and worthless scum.
Well, Setsuko herself wasn't much better - after all, she was the perpetrator here, not the victim. If Karuho had to once again either convince the police that they'd better not initiate criminal proceedings because of the domestic violence Setsuko was repeatedly committing, or pick up all three members of Aizawa family from the hospital because a family quarrel had turned into a brawl, again having to explain herself to the police, she'd probably end her cousin's miserable life herself. She didn't know what she was going to do with this mess, for right now it was just giving her a moment's peace. The important thing was that she was still in complete control of the situation. That was also how her Sensha-dō was - the only thing that mattered was strategic initiative.
If she could, she would have grabbed the chopsticks lying on the table and stabbed Setsuko in the eye socket, solving the problem of her hysteria once and for all with a miraculous procedure called lobotomy. What she couldn't stand about her was her ability to be tough, cruel and calculating, turning her home into a living hell under her absolute control; on the other hand, she often fell into hysterical states in which she was truly weak and pathetic, and as much a danger to herself as she was to others. Karuho sometimes regretted not letting her kill herself every time that woman threatened to end her life when things didn't go her way. That had happened too often lately, so often that she began to wonder if Setsuko had simply outlived her usefulness to her.
"Karuho-chan, get rid of it. I beg you. "
Setsuko sounded like a girl complaining to her older sister about something meaningless, not like the forty-year-old woman she was supposed to be. Disgusting. Karuho guessed it was the essence of her questionable charm that she succumbed to too often - in her expensive, elegant clothes, her pretty face and a voice that was surprisingly high and soft when she wasn't screaming as if Satan himself had possessed her, she seemed surprisingly innocent, contrary to what she really was.
"Of what?" Since she was pretending to be an idiot, she could afford to pretend to be one too. She knew exactly who she was talking about, she even knew her name and address. Was Setsuko begging her because she knew, that she knew? Or was she so far out of touch with reality that she asked for the impossible?
"You know exactly who! That's all I ask of you. I can't stand the fact that this thing exists, the thing he made with that whore! It disgusts me. Get rid of it, I beg you," she cried, bursting into a scream so pitiful and piercing that a waitress passing by with a tray of drinks looked in their direction.
It was, of course, the fruit of the infidelity of an already ex-husband who was unaware of its existence until some slut that he fucked with long time ago, realised that to send her bastard child to a high school, money had to be paid, and that the best way to get it is to beg a father of her child for it. He traded his own daughter, Junko, for the chance to start a family with that bitch, in which he would, as he put it, wield the patriarchal power he supposedly deserved, instead of being a punching bag for his wife. He really was a pathetic bastard.
What amused Karuho most about the situation was that Setsuko was a textbook example of Othello Syndrome, but her alcoholic delusions about her husband's infidelity, obsessive jealousy and paranoia turned out to be not as unfounded as they might have seemed. But that didn't mean that they made any sense at all.
"Why? It's not her fault that her mother is a whore and her father a treacherous piece of shit. Besides, I need her." Karuho realized too late that she had said too much with those words.
"So you know who it is? You knew and didn't tell me?"
"I had my reasons. I told you I need her."
"You betrayed me too!" she shouted, swinging her fist at her face, but Karuho was quicker than her and grabbed her by the wrist, though she would have gladly punched her herself now. How dare she raise her hand at her?
"Calm the fuck down!" To her surprise, Setsuko actually did, "I didn't say no. Convince me."
Violence is really childish, at least the physical kind. Whenever an adult indulged in a show of extreme brutality, when guts and blood were dripping, to Karuho it was no different from a fight between kindergarten children in the sandbox, only with much more serious consequences. To her, all these mass murderers, or perverts trying to satisfy their primitive desires, or fucked-up cult members, or genocidal maniacs in on service of some ridiculous totalitarianism, were like little brats just playing a sick game. To be able to take someone's life for sheer pleasure, one has to turn off the higher cognition and human instincts that tell us to protect the life of other homo sapiens in order to ensure the survival of the human race, such as the compassion she hated so much. It was to bring ourselves back down to the level of the animal, to undo an evolution that should be going forward, towards the Übermensch, not backwards.
Karuho remembered her youth, when she herself had been such a bloodthirsty, savage brat. But she had grown up, or rather she had grown bored of it, which was apparently not the case for Setsuko. Instead, she found a new passion, hiding in the shadows and making others inflict pain on each other. Taking part in a bloody spectacle? Pathetic and primitive. Watching it from a distance? After all, the emperors of the great Rome watched the bloody Games themselves, which in no way brought them shame. Her hypocrisy was that she saw nothing wrong in the blood dripping in streams, if it wasn't her personally who made the wound from which it gushed. This is perhaps why she went from being a Tank Maiden, who are just supposed to be childish and brutal at the same time, to being their mentor and Mistress.
It took a long time for her to realize that she could not afford to shed blood just like that, unless there was some greater need for it. She often came to regret missed opportunities and hasty decisions. The dead would not return, and with them what she could have used them for. So she was glad that, in spite of all, she still had someone at her side on whom she could take out her rage; if she was careful, she would never suffer any consequences at all.
But Setsuko, with her stupid demand, had made the long suppressed hunger inside her grow stronger. It had been too peaceful in Kuromorimine lately, and she had not yet had the chance to remind the Division of what was in store for them if they did not fulfill their only duty, their main purpose of existence, namely to win these pathetic Championships and not to bring shame upon her. Truly, she treats them too well, for they seem to have forgotten that if they value their pathetic lives, they should come back either with a shield or on a shield. Someone has to show them their place, so she might as well give them whatever Setsuko comes up with - and she knew her well enough to know that she could be truly spectacular in her actions.
Deep inside, she felt one of the few feelings she was still capable of - the ecstasy of a hunter who has set his hounds on the prowl, running wild after their prey, drowning in the glorious sound of a howl that carries through the forest. May the gods, if anyone still believes in such things, have mercy on them, for she certainly will not.