ERSTER AKT
"What are they now, tomorrow's thunderbolts?
Only a spark"
"I wonder, if the winds of change will carry the Nishizumi-ryū in a new direction? Perhaps those bound by the old ways are destined to fall… If that's the case, can we still protect our tradition?"
September 1985, Kuromorimine Girls' School
Anyone who had anything to do with Kuromorimine at that time knew well enough that they were witnessing a great breakthrough, strange, often inexplicable events that were beyond understanding from the perspective of the moment. Events that, like molten iron, would only solidy and take on a more sensible form in the future, finally becoming part of the past.
It was also known that this transformation was bound to have a connection to Sensha-dō, the old art of The Way of the Tank, which for many generations had raised girls in the spirit of the pursuit of excellence and virtue, only to now become, was a pathetic, mangled shadow of that idea. It lingered in a state between life and death - withered, stiffened by the languor of the previous generation holding power over it; on the other hand, too many, especially the young women still believed in it. Sensha-dō, needed to be reborn before it was too late and it would end up like a rotten tree - toppled by the winds of history, forgotten and of no use to anyone, neither as fuel with which to light the fire of a new idea, or as a woof for a coffin to bury the remains of old dellusions in.
Behind the scenes, these young women, full of faith in the righteousness of their cause, held various discussions, military, strategic and even philosophical in nature, which, although aimed at a common goal, instead of bringing them closer together, created new divisions and sowed the seeds of future conflicts, often tragic in their consequences. Nor did they realise that, if they managed to survive these turmoils of history, they would one day foregone their ideals and turn in the previously despised direction of profit, career and prestige, becomeing everything they had sworn to fight against in their youth.
At that time, no one would have thought of it, especially not in Kuromorimine, which seemed to be an iron fortress of the old order, having as its weapon the Sensha-dō of the eternal Nishizumi-ryū. Perhaps this is why it came to inspire the most radical thinking of the time. After all, no one would have dared to think that it was there, in this fortress of conservatism, that first a vision, then a desire, and finally a plan would be born to unleash a storm that would reduce the old order to rubble, and then, through ideological purism and the renunciation of self-interest and even humanity in the name of a higher idea, to build, under the pressure of an iron will, a new Sensha-dō with the ideals of Nishizumi-ryū as its foundation.
Of course, not everyone played a part in these great events, remaining completely on the margins, as if they lived in a completely different world, uninitiated into the whole spectacle. It won't be them, who got shine in the sky of history, and then, to carry their glory with a loud thunder through the next generations, like a lightnings, emissaries of the storm. Some will fade away like a spark carried by the wind. They will shine with a faint light and then fade and disappear, as if they had never existed, and no memory of them will remain. And does something that exists for a moment, that leaves no trace, that is almost the definition of lightness, have any value? Has it actually existed?
For a spark, such lofty matters were of no revelence. Their life is so short, there isn't even time for them to consider such things, being busy by simply existing. Besides, destiny likes to bring suffering to lightnings and sparks alike, only difference is that the suffering of the latter often goes unnoticed as a consequence of the actions of the former. It is a quiet crackling, almos unheared, but an essential part of how they exist.
It was a cloudy, but windless September morning in Kuromorimine. For most of the girls, it was nothing out of the ordinary. But for two of them, Misaki Yaguchi and Kikuyo Idegami from class 2-8 of Kuromorimine Girls' Middle School, it was probably one of the worst days of their lives so far, and little did they know that it was only going to get worse. It was meant to be for sparks, unnoticed by anyone.
"Can they still be saved?" Kikuyo asked, as she watched Misaki fish a maths textbook and one of her notebooks out of the pond. When they were thrown out of the window, some of them fell straight into the trees and bushes that grew right next to the wall of the school building, and a few were unlucky enough to fly much further away, towards the shallow pond that the Gardening Club looked after. She had tried to deal with the former - picked up some that were on the ground or low in the bushes, and piled them on the pavement. Now she was trying to shake one of the books of the branch of a tree with a stick. She hoped that Misaki and her books would not attract the attention of the koi carp swimming in the pond. They were really lovely creatures, gentle and kind to humans, but sometimes a little too curious, so they could unintentionally distress the other girl.
"For notebooks, I don't think so, besides, it wouldn't make sense anyway. The textbook should still be usable," she replied in a trembling voice, trying to hold back her tears, but it was clear that she couldn't take much more. And Kikuyo wasn't surprised at all.
The reason for Misaki's suffering, and that of countless schoolgirls around the world, can be callously reduced to two words - peer aggression; or in one word - bullying. Officially, there was no place for it in a school as respectable and disciplined as school as Kuromorimine, and in practice, that particular mindset were the catalyst for bullying to take on sometimes elaborate forms, as the work of a true mastership of sadism.
"Why are you helping me? You're going to get in trouble yourself. And we're not even friends. " asked Misaki.
"I don't know. I just want to help you, and friendship, or rather the lack of it, has nothing to do with it."
She saw her classmates forcing Misaki to drink murky water squeezed from the sponge used to clean the blackboards, or splashing her with the water left over from mopping the floors, stuffing rubbish from the bin into her desk, and calling her names with a cruelty she had never seen before. But she did nothing, sitting still in her seat, haunted by memories of how she had been treated like this in elementary school, and praying to whatever gods were merciful enough to listen to her that she would avoid such a fate. So why, today, when all of Misaki's belongings were being tossed out of the second-story window of her classroom, did she decide to run to help her? She had a hypothesis that would explain her sudden, reckless display of empathy - she just wanted to feel better about herself. The theory was quite plausible, but she still wanted to believe that she was driven by something deeper.
"I don't believe you anyway."
"Then let's assume that it's because you also read Hana to Yume. "
"That's a more plausible reason. Besides, they don't have the nerve to do anything to you. You're on the Sensha-dō team, right?"
She wanted to snort with laughter. The Kuromorimine social hierarchy was set up in such a way that any tank girl, even if she belonged to the worst crew of the worst platoon, could still count on the respect of other students, as if the mere fact of possessing the minimal skill of operating a tank made you someone better. She did not understand why it was like this, and was even convinced that she did not deserve such a priviledge. She was an example of such a lousy, unremarkable member of Sensha-dō team, and yet she noticed that she was treated differently from the rest. Teachers were a bit nicer to her, she was sometimes excused from classroom cleaning for the sake of training and, most importantly for her, no one had been willing to pick on her yet. It was nice change after having gone through hell of her primary school.
But nothing comes for free. The Sensha-dō Team's unwritten rules of conduct stated, that they should only form relationship in their own small, elite company. They expected no outsiders to disturb their peace, and in return they would not interfere in the affairs of the whole school. That was why her interference in class affairs was so shocking. But she knew, that they will do everything in their power, to make regret it.
A somewhat disquieting, half-abandoned attic is an obligatory feature of any respectable old building. Kuromorimine had one, as it would be hard to imagine a building built at the beginning of the century, clearly inspired by Prussian architecture, without one. However, no one bothered to look for it, contenting themselves with various rumours about it. One of them was that it was a secret meeting place known only to a privileged few, the most important students of the school. It was said that they met there in secret, like the hooded courts of the Teutonic Order centuries ago, to decide the fate of Kuromorimine, which at that moment was surprisingly close to the truth. These documents were the basis of a long-prepared operation which, like a few sparks hidden among the rubbish in a forgotten attic, was smouldering and soon to turn into a fire capable of consuming the entire structure of the present order.
There was little soft light from the cloudy day coming through the small windows at ground level. So a makeshift lighting system was switched on, consisting of an elaborate system of office lamps, a worn-out spotlight and yellow Christmas tree lights. On the improvised table, which consisted of a few black satin-covered cardboard boxes stacked side by side, lay a multitude of documents, technical sketches and maps with fictitious divisions drawn on them. To a mere mortal who had nothing to do with the art of Sensha-dō, it made no sense whatsoever.
In this almost theatrical setting, the two girls sat in absolute silence, quietly sipping their coffee, completely detached from the reality they had left downstairs, outside this secret meeting place. One of them, Nanami Shimakawa, sat in a bizarre but comfortable position on a plastic school chair, with her chin resting on one hand, and dark green cup in the other. Her large tortoise-shell spectacles were slightly down on her nose, but this was not the focus of her attention at all. If someone from the Morality Committee had suddenly burst in here and seen the top button of her uniform shirt undone and her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, they would have dropped dead in shock, that such a widely respected figure in Kuromorimine would allow herself such a blatant lack of class and respect for the school's dress code. Only her light brown hair looked proper - the loose plait she had braided in the morning still looked perfect.
"So the Twilight of the Gods will be here soon... " As Nanami spoke these words, her voice trembled slightly, as if the weight of it was too much even for a soul with a fondness for pathos.
"Have you given it a name?" The other girl, Shiho Nishizumi, had never understood either the desire for the sublime or the need to give poetic names to absolutely everything that her friend so often displayed.
"Every operation has to have a code name. And since we are planning to kill the old gods and create new ones, I think this name is quite appropriate.
"We're not planning anything like that."
"Really? Because that's exactly how I feel. Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a revolutionary, and now I have the chance." Nanami smiled. What else could you expect from a child who was taught to play the music of the Romantic era from such an early age, and who knew the origins of the Revolutionary Etude even before she could read, but to throw herself into every revolt within her reach?
"This is not a revolution. "
"Actually, it's just a violent change overthrowing the old order, accompanied by open rebellion and a struggle against authority. It has absolutely nothing to do with revolution, not at all."
"I am doing what I have to do as a the heiress of the Nishizumi-ryū. Our ancestral principles have been betrayed, so it is my duty to restore order. "
Against her will, the very thought of this betrayal filled her with anger. Do not those who shame the Sensha-dō with their misdeeds realise that they will not live forever, and that if they do not pass on the legacy of values that are generations older than themselves, they are forfeiting the ideals that the world so desperately needs today? That they are spitting in the face of those who fought for them? That they are committing the unpardonable sin of insulting their ancestors? Of course not - their decadence has gone so far that all that remains is for them to rot and die, to make way for those like them, those who will restore the forgotten, lost order.
"Anyone who uses the name of the Nishizumi family for their own gain is a traitor. What we are doing is not a revolution, it is its opposite."
Nanami, loved it when Shiho talked about the nature of Nishizumi-ryū... All those who ever doubted that she possessed any human feelings, claiming that she was a mere puppet without a soul or desires, should see her at such a moment. In every move she made, every look she gave, she was conscious of her destiny and almost divine power. She wanted to believe that this was what she looked like when she was completly focused on playing the piano. In this image, as beautiful as it was, something made her uneasy. It was all beautiful, even too beautiful.
"Aren't we asking too much of this world? Is what we dream of even possible?" she asked herself. Romanticism, apart from the desire for revolution, had taught her one other thing — that people like her seldom got a happy ending
"For now, it's irrelevant."
"So you are relying on history here... Only it has the right to be our judge, doesn't it?"
Nishizimi's impatient look and her silence were signs that she had overdone it once again, and strayed too far away on the wings of thought from the main topic of conversation.
"I'm sorry, I have to be like that, I'm an artist after all, even though I've been forced to abandon my beloved Goethe and Schiller in favour of Sun-Tzu, Machiavelli, Napoleon and Guderian for the past year. Because of you, of course."
There was no trace of resentment in Nanami's tone. After all, she had nothing to be remorseful about. Many things had changed in her life, and the books she read were just one of them, since she found Shiho on her doorstep in mid-August last year, excited about something for the first time in her life.
"Would you like some more coffee?" Nanami asked as she sipped the rest from her mug, swallowing some of the horrible tasting coffe grounds. She had long since noticed Miss Nishizumi's plain black mug on the coffee table. The speed and quantity with which she was drinking her coffee horrified many.
"It'll be lunch soon. We won't make it on time."
"If we don't want to be late, we should let it go. They always met with the rest of the crew at lunchtime, no matter what the circumstances. And it is one thing to go to the attic. It is quite another to leave it unnoticed. It would be a pity to expose such an ideal hiding place through carelessness.
With not much time left before the break, she had to pull herself together to tell Shiho something important. She had to be the first to know, although if Nanami had any choice, she would probably never tell her out of her won will. She had a strange hope that if no one found out, then by some miracle it would turn out not to be true. It was her secret, which might have been trivial, and there was no point in keeping it that way, but for some unknown reason she felt ashamed of it, as if it were in some way her fault.
"My parents are not going to be appeased any longer. I'm going back to concerts soon."
Shiho sighed softly. She had a feeling that this would be the case soon. As far as her gunner's career was concerned, she thought it would be best for everyone if she quit playing the piano in favour of Sensha-dō. But she knew that was impossible.
"That's why I need a replacement," Nanami added after a moment, her eyes fixed on the ground, "someone good enough to take my place when I can't make it through the rehearsals. It won't be too often, of course. But it could happen."
"Is it someone in particular? "
"I don't know yet, although a few people come to mind."
She regretted bringing it up now, spoiling such an atmosphere, but the fact that Nishizumi didn't react to it in any particular way reassured her a little. They were complete opposites to each other; Nanami was like lava, on the outside she tried to remain calm and serious, but in her soul, there was some kind of inner fire burning, the source of her creative energy and at the same time of her untold torment. Shiho was like an icy abyss - piercingly cold, cruel, and empty at first glance, and yet emanating with some kind of mysterious, eternal power.
For some reason, not only did this coldness not bother her, but for some reason, she craved it in her life, and sometimes it seemed to be the only thing that could bring her solace — that's why she wanted moments like this to last forever. Moments, when she could feel that something new was coming, and the specter of revolution was slowly emerging from the darkness, to make everything but life and death irrelevant. But also the moments when all that was left behind when they could just drink a cup of coffee together.
Kikuyo realized they were trapped. By their small, pathetic and meaningless act of rebellion, which would bring nothing new but would certainly make the old problems worse, the door to the past had been slammed shut. On the other hand, the door to the future, or any way out, had still not opened, and they were trapped in the narrow corridor between the past and the present. There was no escape - all they could do was hide, and that's what they decided to do. Hanging around outside the school building during class was dangerous, because someone might notice them, and then the present worries would become small in comparison. What's more, they couldn't go back to their clas,s because they knew that their bullies would want to finish what they had started.
That's why they had to hide, but they had no idea where exactly. However, anyone who could think, knew that in a building as huge and old as Kuromorimine, there had to be the perfect hiding spot. It could be an abandoned classroom, a broom closet, or something fancy like a hidden passageway or some other secret room. Now it had to be found. And Kikuyo just happened to know where.
Pulling Misaki behind her, she walked quickly towards the side stairs at the far end of the east wing of the school building. No one used them, as there were only storage rooms for old equipment and teaching aids, and a document archive on the top two floors. She decided that the stairs leading up to the top floor would be ideal. Once there, they sat on it, breaking one of the school's many unwritten rules, which stated that it was categorically forbidden to obstruct the flow of traffic by taking up space in the hallways. They were truant and hiding in the school, risking serious consequences, so it would have been strange if they had been worried about sitting on those unfortunate stairs.
She glanced at Misaki, who had already cried all of her tears out, and then at the tips of her shoes, then at the plain, unadorned railings, and finally at the linoleum-covered stairs. They had not spoken to each other since they had gathered the remains of Misaki's notebooks. She tried to suppress the feeling, but somewhere deep inside she regretted helping her. She didn't think she'd done anything wrong, but she knew it would have been better for her if she hadn't done anything at the time. The class would not have let Kikuyo live her life in peace after that, and Misaki would have had to live with the knowledge that she had dragged someone who wanted to help her down against her will. What a despicable world, where good is a mere mere error in strategy, the result of a bad calculation of gains and losses.
That is why she never made her own decisions - they always turned out to be wrong, whether she made them on the spur of the moment or after long-term analysis, things always went wrong. Just like today. That's why shifting responsibility to others was so convenient. She could avoid endlessly blaming herself and instead recognise that this was the way it had to be. She put up with what seemed unbearable, nodding when she wanted to say no, holding back and keeping quiet. The price she paid for this was to live her life as if she wasn't in charge of it, but as if she sat in the back seat and watched the rapidly changing reality through the glass.
She heard footsteps behind her, much too late to do anything. She just turned around, and then time stopped for a moment, or so it seemed. She froze, not so much in fear as in surprise. She had to try hard not to burst out laughing, amused at the irony of the situation. Such unfortunate coincidences only occur in tragedies and happen to the protagonist, blinded by their pride and self-confidence. Just when they think they had escaped their fate, a god from the machine arrives to show them how wrong they are.
Right in front of her, at the top of the stairs, stood Captain Shiho Nishizumi herself, with Nanami Shimakawa, her gunner, standing slightly behind her, like a shadow of the former. It seemed that all this time, instead of fleeing from danger in search of a place to hide, they had found their own doom. How many unfortunate coincidences must have happened at once to make this possible!
Then what? They won't be expelled, their offences were far too trivial for that. But there will be consequences. Kikuyo was a bit more worried about how Captain Nishizumi would punish her, because she certainly would. She had such a low position in the Division that she could not be demoted. She might have to do punitive cleaning duty, or she might be banned from the competition, which was almost the worst disgrace she could face.
Still, it was all the same to her now what would happen to her next. She had dreamed for so long of finding the courage to look Captain Nishizumi straight in the eye, and now it had come so easily. She thought she had actually lost the rest of her objections, or she was completely crazy. What did she expect to see? She thought she would find anger or even disgust, but all she found in those dark, almost black eyes was cool indifference.
"Didn't they teach you not to sit on the stairs?"
Although the intonation of the sentence suggested a question, it was difficult to determine whether Captain Nishizumi's words were a question or a statement of fact. Something that would frighten most people, the complete lack of emotion in her voice reassured her. All of the Sensha-dō team members were used to it, and it meant that nothing had really happened at all.
After a long analysis, she realised that they might be in the same situation. Why did Captain Nishizumi and Miss Shimakawa have a meeting in the middle of a class in a forgotten part of the school? Of course, it could have been an important matter concerning the functioning of the Division, but she didn't really want to believe that it was so important that they had to leave class for it. Could they have been skipping school too? A bold thought, but a plausible one.
"Unfortunately, they didn't. Instead, they showed us how to fish the books that they had thrown out of the window from the pond".
She couldn't believe she'd just said that. It was supposed to be a darkly humorous joke, that just slipped off, but it could just as easily have been seen as an attempt to tease or, God forbid, offend anyone. She hoped, however, that her lifelong, patiently constructed image of a good girl would ensure that the thought would not cross Captain Nishizumi's mind that she would want to insult her.
Miss Nishizumi did not react, but continued to stare at her with an icy gaze. Her lack of reaction was the best possible response. Ms. Shimakawa, on the other hand, who had been smiling a bit up to that point, clenched her hands into fists.
"It was your classmates who did this, right?"
Misaki, who had not participated in the conversation up to that point, just staring silently into space, nodded slightly. Miss Shimakawa did her best to hide it, but it was clear that she was seething with anger. She was known throughout the team for her almost obsessive sense of justice and her hatred of all bullies. She spent a great deal of time and energy trying to eradicate this plague from the Division, with some success. No wonder the tolerance of it in the General Department filled her with such rage.
"You should have introduced yourself. Name, family name, class," Captain Nishizumi demanded, and Nanami rolled her eyes and sighed, slightly embarrassed by this blatant example of legalism.
"Kikuyo Idegami, Class 2-8."
"We know you. I didn't expect you to be the type to skip classes from time to time."
Surprisingly, there was no trace of malice or reprimand in Nanami's voice. After all, she wasn't a hypocrite, as Kikuyo could have said the same thing about her older classmates.
"Misaki Yaguchi, from the same class."
"Ran Yaguchi's sister?" asked Nishizumi.
"Yes. I beg you not to tell her!"
Misaki's older sister was commander of one of the high school division's tanks. That was all Kikuyo heard about her, and judging by the looks their senpai exchanged, they weren't going to listen to Misaki's pleas.
Just then, the bell rang. It seemed that Kikuyo had completely lost track of time. Was it going to be lunch break now? That meant that, by some miracle, they would be able to sneak back to their room when the rest of the class was in the cafeteria to collect the rest of their belongings and then either try to talk to the nurse to arrange a fake pass from the classese, or continue to hide on the school grounds until the end of class. The latter option was much more tempting.
"Do you want to go back to class? "Miss Shimakawa asked as if she could read her thoughts.
She exchanged glances with Misaki, although the answer to this question was quite obvious.
"I don't think so."
"'But you should" Captain Nishizumi remarked.
I think it's quite logical in this kind of situation," Nanami argued. "We won't tell anyone about your absence, but we'll make a little deal. We'll pretend that we never met here, and on top of that, Miss Idegami will come to training as if nothing had happened, and she'll give her best."
"That's it?" asked Misaki, surprised that her senpai who had frightened her so much, could forgive them for their wrongdoings just like that.
"Exactly. I know how fun it is to gossip, after all, the best conversations start with "I shouldn't tell you this, but...". The only thing that matters to me is that no one really finds out about the fact that we had ever met here. Deal?"
Nanami gave them a smile that was both a sign of kindness and a subtle threat at the same time.
"Yes, it is. Thank you, Shimakawa-senpai."
Kikuyo bowed politely, but realized that she had probably overdone the courtesies. As always.
"And besides, maybe I can do something about it. See you later!"
Nanami ran down the stairs with a light, springy step, Captain Nishizumi following her, before they had the chance to react. Unexpectedly, Nishizumi stopped halfway down the stairs and gave her a brief look, as if she wanted to say something, but immediately forgot what it was. Or was it just an illusion?
Kikuyo stared at the place where she had last seen her for a while. Her mind and body were overwhelmed by a feeling, neither pleasant nor painful, combining the two opposites, which she could neither name nor describe. Or was she simply afraid of the truth about it? How was it possible that someone, with her mere presence, with a single glance, could upset Kikuyo's entire inner balance so much?
As the afternoon went on, the sky finally filled with pale grey clouds, taming the harsh, scorching light of the sun that had been so annoying for the past few weeks. In return, the world took on pale, dull colours, and the lack of wind made all of nature seem still, as if holding its breath for a moment, waiting for something to happen.
It was under such conditions that the training of the Sensha-dō team slowly came to an end. This was probably the only bit of luck Kikuyo had had today - she had managed to get the best weather for training on the range. The harsh sunlight shining directly into her eyes always made the job of a gunner more difficult, so if nature itself wanted to make it easier for her to fulfil her promise to Miss Shimakawa, it would be even more proof of her failure if she failed to do so.
Whenever she was engaged in the one thing for which she was even minimally suited, she would spontaneously find herself in a different state of consciousness. Everything disappeared, no unnecessary thoughts disturbed her. She had already learned that when she looked through the sights to perform her task, the whole world, apart from what she could see through them and the orders of the commander, ceased to exist. When she hit the target, which happened surprisingly often these days, or when she missed, there was no emotional reaction. That came when it was all over. She simply went on with her task. This state of blissful emptiness was the complete opposite of what she felt most of the time. That was probably why she loved it so much.
She was the only one of her crew to treat the tank as a temple of unthought. The rest, led by Commander Honami Shinobu, preferred to turn it into a giant cauldron in which they could simmer their negative feelings and prejudices and season them with the extreme emotional situations that were an indispensable part of their Sensha-dō. In short, there were two types of Sensha-dō practitioners in Kuromorimine - those who fought for their ideas and those who sought only elitism and prestige. Honami definitely fell into the latter category.
She knew very little about her, only that she was the daughter of an influential prosecutor in Kumamoto, who had some connections with the Japanese Sensha-dō Federation, so it was inappropriate not to give his daughter some kind of command position. However, nepotism was not omnipotent - Shinobu's skills were far inferior to those of Sachi Fujihara, the other candidate for vice-captain. The situation was further complicated by the fact that Fujihara also came from a family of lawyers, who were renowned defense lawyers. So Honami had to accept that she would not get her dream position, and had to be content with commanding one of the platoons.
To say that Kikuyo didn't get along with her was to say nothing at all. Surprisingly, it had been a long time since they had argued. In the beginning, when they had been brought together by fate in the form of crew assignments by th higher command, every little thing had been a reason for a fight. Every failure, every malfunction, every miraculous immobilization of a tank was either their fault, or possibly the driver's, but never the great tanker that Honami must have been. However, as the training sessions became more grueling and their fights began to get on the nerves of everyone around them, with vice-captain Fujihara being the most vocal, the arguments more often devolved into Honami hurling malicious, often cruel, remarks and other behavior that fell under the umbrella of passive aggression.
That's why she was surprised when she didn't hear a single vicious remark from her during the whole training session. They were lucky, nothing broke in the tank today, so she could go straight home after changing out of her uniform. There was nobody to say farewell to, nobody to walk home together with. Did loneliness bothered her? Being in a crowd made her manage to delude herself that this was not the case, but as she walked along the nearly deserted streets of Kuromorimine in the evening, the illusion disappeared, like an over-inflated soap bubble. In the blink of an eye, as quietly as if it had never been there in the first place.
There is perhaps nothing that is more disheartening to the soul of a human being than weariness. It crushes you painfully to the ground with its weight, making it impossible to move an inch, pressing your face into the damp earth of the same dirty, mundane daily existence, mocking every action, decomposing every little activity into the factors of nonsense.
To let weariness win is like being buried alive. The whole world is one big cemetery where various losers are buried. Losers in the race for a better tomorrow, losers in love, losers despite the struggle, losers by their own choice. But everyone has their own individual tomb to which they return every day, having done their job for the day of keeping order in this great necropolis of crushed dreams and miserable efforts - their own home.
And perhaps nothing makes you realise this burden more than the moment you return from a place you resent, to a place you resent even more, where the walls and your own smell mock you, as it they were trying to tell you: welcome home. You didn't have a fun, did you?
As soon as she crossed the threshold of her room, Kikuyo threw herself onto the bed and hid her face in the pillow. She didn't even take off her shoes, leaving her bag somewhere in the hallway. She was terribly tired, she didn't know whether more physically or mentally, and the realisation that she didn't even have time to rest properly only added to the feeling of heaviness that buried her in the sheets. Soon she would have to get up, change into something other than her uniform and start studying. The autumn term had not yet begun in earnest, and yet the sight of the textbooks caused her such resentment that she would like to throw them overboard from the school carrier, just in case she changed her mind and wanted to get them back. If she had to pick up the scattered textbooks one more time, she'd probably go mad.
She rolled over on her back, and her eyes began to wander across the ceiling. Maybe a short nap would be a good idea after all, as long as she could forget about everything that had happened today for just a moment. She rolled over on her side against the wall, closed her eyelids tightly and tried to think of nothing at all so that she could finally fall asleep and slip into a light world of dreams. In vain - she might have been tired, but her mind was too awake, so she was stuck in a strange state in which her mind gave her various more or less dark thoughts.
If someone asked her to describe what kind of person she was, she would just list the faults. She is neither smart nor pretty. She cares too much about what others think of her, has no opinions of her own and is always running away from responsibility. She may be able to sympathize with others, but she can't help them. She felt that her existence had no meaning, that nothing interesting would happen in her life. All that awaited her was the emptiness of a mechanical life from dawn to dusk in the perfect mechanism of society. She should be happy about that, like everyone else, but something inside her made such a vision of the future fill her with paralyzing terror.
She had joined the Division to change herself. To get rid of her worst faults and finally do something interesting with herself. Nothing of the sort happened, she was still the same girl with weak willpower, who can only watch how much better people than her, like Miss Nishizumi and Miss Shimakawa, sacrifice everything for something they believe in. And they are so beautiful doing it!
Captain Nishizumi... She thought about her more often than she should have. It is one thing to have respect for one's captain and quietly be a fan of her, and another to analyze her every word, to persistently seek her gaze, and to so desperately want to get closer to her. She tried to follow her like a sunflower follows the sunshine - so far away from her, but completely dependent on her light She wanted to know if her idea of her was at least a little bit like the truth. That's probably why today's situation has hurt her so much, because she had promised herself never to talk about it again. She would do anything to be able to overcome her intimidation and talk to her about today's events. Find out what she was doing there with Miss Shimakawa, tell her what happened to her. And then, who knows, maybe the conversation would flow by itself?
But it required her to do what she feared most - to take responsibility for her own life, to take an action that could bring her closer to her, perhaps illusory, dream. So far, however, the World had done its best to tell her that dreaming was not for her. And it had succeeded - she considered herself painfully mundane, which meant that nothing could happen in her life that didn't fall into the category of banality. That's how she was - the main role in her life was playing an average human, caught between probability and reality.