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“Name?”
“Yamano Jun.” Bright eyes peaked over a too-high, olive drab table where a solemn-faced soldier flipped through a phonebook sized binder. The boy noted with dismay that it didn't look any thinner since the last week he’d been there.
“Birth date?”
“June 30th, 1979.”
Pages flipped; a dark head behind the table shook, “I’m sorry, there’s no record here have you tried--”
“Yeah, I have, thanks anyway.” the boy bowed slightly and excused himself from the line he’d been waiting through most of the morning. On his way out a sympathetic aid worker placed a hand on his shoulder and he allowed himself to pause only a moment. After so long of the city being completely deserted, large crowds bothered him. He found himself perpetually wary of any metallic glint out of the corner of his eye; any flash of red light. His body tensed instinctually, ready to fight out of the crowd the same way he did that first day the Empire invaded.
Free of the crowd at last, Jun darted into the arms of a pretty auburn haired girl waiting on the other size of a crosswalk spiderwebbed with cracks and crags-- evidence of the war that had been fought there.
“Any luck?” she asked, running a delicate hand over his head.
“Nuh-uh.” the reply was muffled by folds of soft cotton that were slowly becoming wet with tears.
The girl let out a deep breath. “Do you want to stop by the house on the way back?”
“I already called earlier. If they were there they’d answer. Let’s just go home.” Jun raised his head, small hand curling into one of hers, trembling slightly. That it had only been two weeks and he already distinguished between house and home clearly worried the girl, though like him she did her best to hide it.
“There’s still one more center to check, don’t give up yet.” She lead him to a cherry red jeep, yanking the door open with a now-familiar frustration. It had been so important back then, seeing the boy safely reunited with his parents. The comparative smallness of the task had kept them all from panicking at the immensity of the larger battle. The boy wasn’t the only one who’s hopes rode on finding his parents alive and well. She knew it was unfair to place such a burden on him, but they had known each other too well to conceal it.
“It’s alright, nee-san, you can say it,” he announced, the words punctuated by the click of a seatbelt. “They’re not coming back, you and Ryo were right.” Two tiny hands fisted on bare thighs. “Just please don’t think it was your fault, it’s bad enough seeing Shuu so upset everytime we come back--”
“They’re out there, Jun, you have to believe that. It’s not just the army looking here-- Kayura and the Mashou are keeping an eye out in the Youjakai too. Have faith.” She flashed him a more bitter than sweet smile in the rearview mirror.
“What use is faith when there's nothing to hope for? If they didn’t come back the first time what makes you think they will now?”
Nasutei paused a moment. She wanted to say: things are different now; Arago is really gone, anyone who couldn't escape last time must have been able to now--but she remembered that horrific pagoda, stretching towards the sky with a thousand distorted faces trying to press their way out of the plaster, fighting the magic that held them. The sound they made haunted her dreams; came to her on a sharp wind and she knew Jun heard them too. Surely no one could survive that?
“You owe it to your parents to keep looking. Would they give up on finding you?”
“No.” Jun answered, summoning as much of his resolve as was left.
“That’s right, how about I go in with you this time?” She pulled as close to the old baseball stadium as possible, leaving only a two block walk among a sea of the same dazed, numb, fearfully hopeful faces they’d just left behind. It was like this every time a new aid center opened-- those who hadn’t found their missing loved ones yet wandered in like ghosts. A few news crews lingered at the entrance, interviewing people as they filtered in. Nasutei deftly guided her charge away from the cameraman’s hawkish gaze; looking for anyone that would prove a real rating-grabber. Kids were always good copy.
“Hold on tight.” The words were automatic as the crowd bottlenecked and she could feel Jun shiver nervously against her. It was cruel, after everything they’d gone through-- the isolation and the terrible silence of the ruined city-- that Jun would develop agoraphobia. They shuffled and pushed against the crowd, eventually making their way to a series of check-in lines where they were asked the same questions as before. She jumped in to answer before Jun could, saving the hopelessness that edged more and more into his voice.
“Our records aren’t complete but you’re welcome to come in and look,” the soldier admitted, looking about as exhausted and strung out as the people around them felt. Over the weeks she’d seen facades fall away as the sheer scale of the task ahead of them revealed itself through the rubble. The city wreaked of death and decomposition-- it amazed her she hadn't smelled it before.
“Oh god…” Not matter how many times she saw it, the scene never failed to stop her in her tracks. Multi-colored tents blanketed the field: dugouts converted to ration stations on one side and medical bays on the other. Men and women sporting UN armbands snaked between the tens with clipboards, jotting down names; checking them against lists of the missing. Children wailed. People hid in tents sobbing. The boy at her side squeezed her hand and strode confidently through the maze, guided by some sixth sense she still didn't understand.
Every once and a while, a distraught parent would recognize him; cling at small ankles before holding his face painfully tight. Habit moved her to intervene, but a sympathy bordering saintly overtook Jun as he quietly explained he wasn't who they were looking for. Where he’d learned that was still a mystery. Shin maybe? Perhaps Shuu? The boy certainly didn't lack role models.
The further they wove their way to the back of the diamond shoulders slumped and a small head dropped. Whatever confidence he’d summoned on the drive over fluttered away on a still-fetid breeze.
“There’s so many. How can there still be so many?”
“It’s a big city, Jun.”
“They’re not here,” He released her hand. “I can feel it.”
She pressed the boys head into her side, hand carding through a mop of dark brown hair. He was giving up-- little by little the raw determination forged in a warzone chipped away, worn down by the soul-crushing hugeness of the task of picking up the pieces.
“If you're sure--”
“Let’s go home.” He repeated, a hand snaking around one of her legs.
“Okay.” They would deal with the implications another day or never, whichever came first. She couldn't bring herself to put a timeline on the same grief that churned every morning in her stomach--the grief they swallowed in the dim, early hours of dawn, before the shelters and the crowds and each pitying shake of a head etched one more crack in their own facades.