Fafner in the Azure/Soukyuu no Fafner fanfic. Toomi Maya's view of life as one of the sacrificial children of Alvis, the war, and what became of them afterwards.
(Onesided Maya/Shouko, Maya/Kanon, multiple other pairings)
Read The Island of Lost Children
Disclaimer: All things Soukyuu no Fafner/Fafner in the Azure: Dead Aggressor belong to Xebec and a whole bunch of others, none of whom are me. I’m just borrowing their toys for a moment.
Warning: Spoilers for the show, although I am rearranging things as I want them for this story, some out-of-characterness and mention of m/m in passing.
The Island of Lost Children
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by Carola “Ryûchan” Eriksson
We were the lost children. The ones born for no other reason than sacrifice; from the moment of our conception it was decided by those in charge that we were to be the shields and spears of the island. We were created the blood sacrifices for a peace that was a lie, a generation of fodder for a war we knew nothing about.
That is not to say that we were unwanted, or at least not all of us. Some of us were blessed to have parents, or parent as the case might be, that loved us as best they were able. But it was understandable that the adults that knew our fate, while they fed us and clothed us as required, could not bear to form any deeper emotions for us. We were to be sacrificed after all, how much more painful would that not have been for them had they truly allowed themselves to love us?
In this I was no more or less fortunate than most of the others. In my earliest childhood years I had both a father and a mother whom acted affectionately towards me, and a loving elder sister. Although my father never showed in word or deed to me the cruel and abusive man he became to my mother and sister back then, I still felt the disturbance keenly enough to still recall the discomfort of my home while father was around. The distance between the adults and my sister’s anguish and impotent anger colour those memories in equal measure with the longing I felt for happier days that I now as an adult can barely remember.
Then one day my father was gone, had left the island for places unknown to me. Home became more peaceful, and certainly both my mother and my sister were happier this way. I missed my father and clung to the memories of him, but I knew even back then not to show it as it would only bring pain to my sweet and loving sister, and to the mother I told myself I knew loved me even if she was always too busy for me.
In essence, my mother kept her distance to me, and instead I was raised by my dear sister and the various teachers that were involved in our lives. Looking back now, armed with the knowledge my forced early adulthood brought, I know my father to have been a callous monster of a man, someone whose darkness nearly doomed us all. I also know my mother’s distance was the result of her long and desperate struggle to save us all, all of the lost children of Alvis, out of a strong love not only for me but for all the children she had created.
Yes. My mother, though not biologically, is in a way the mother of all the children of Tatsumiya island, for she is the one that has created us. I grew up knowing this of course, but what I did not know was what it meant to her; creating each new life hoping for the best yet knowing as few others could that for most of us, death was the kindest future. Knowing that the things she did to our growing bodies before our births would be our doom unless she could find a miracle.
How many lives that she created and delivered into the world were eventually returned to her as corpses? Even now I do not know, only that of my own particular group there were not many; few left corpses behind.
I wonder why it never occurred to any of us growing up that there was a very tangible gap in the world around us? Between the adults on the island and the children in school there was an emptiness that was not explained to us, there should have been young adults, older teens, at least a handful born in the intervening years, yet there were none. We watched as group after group of our immediate seniors supposedly left our shores at graduation, to make their way into the wider world the adults said, and we thought nothing of the fact that not one of them returned. Of my sister’s age-group there are a rare few that remain, and between hers and mine, none. One way or the other, all those children died in the war.
There was an event that in a strange way I believe changed everything. It happened while we were all still so small, still so innocent and ignorant of the world we lived in. Of the ones that were directly involved in what happened, only I remain now to tell about it.
It was the summer we were seven, and we ran around unsupervised in our small childish adventures. Who could have known what would happen?
It was myself, Kazuki-kun, Minashiro-kun, Kasugai-kun and... Shouko. Back then the boys were Kazu-chan, Sou-chan and Kyou-chan, regretfully the years that followed changed that closeness, and the politeness of the adult world intruded. Either way, that summer Kazuki-kun had been playing with some parts for a transceiver radio, and while he fiddled with the repairs a voice had sounded among the static.
I recall how excited we were, and how proud Kazuki-kun was of his repairs... Sakura was going to come with us as we were going to try to send a message to the voice together, but she was called away at last moment. The rest of us were there, on that remote hill, when Kazuki-kun turned the radio on, and among the static a female-sounding voice clearly called out to us.
“Are you there?”
As agreed upon we were all going to call out the answer when Minashiro-kun pressed the button, however he was too fast for the rest of us and his voice alone rang clear into the radio. What followed was a nightmare for our innocent selves. The radio crackled and Minashiro-kun started screaming, horrible, terrible screams while he convulsed, his back arching and his eyes wide open and staring at the sky. For months afterwards I would hear those screams in my haunted dreams, and yet that was not the last of it.
Kazuki-kun, probably thinking Minashiro-kun was being electrocuted, yanked his friend away and gave the machine an impressive kick of his tiny foot, smashing the receiver. Minashiro-kun slumped over but did not stop screaming for a while, I think both I and Shouko reached out to him but he pushed us away. The sounds he made when he stopped screaming were somehow even worse, and when he straightened up Minashiro-kun...
He looked so frightening, with that mad expression and a wild look in his eyes that had changed colour, one of them becoming a horribly inhuman gold. Shouko crawled over to me and clung to me, but Minashiro-kun saw neither of us. Instead he stared at Kazuki-kun, and in a frightening voice he kept asking that question, the same one the voice on the radio had. “Are you there?”
He reached towards Kazuki-kun with something long and green-glowing growing out of his hand. I don’t know which one of us screamed, if it was Shouko or I, but he turned towards us with that thing, aiming it at Shouko. Kasugai-kun grabbed him, yelling that he was scaring Shouko, but Minashiro-kun shoved him away so hard that Kasugai-kun went flying. Kazuki-kun tried to stop him then, and there was a scuffle between the boys. I was honestly never quite sure what happened as I couldn’t see past Shouko’s head, I just know Minashiro-kun tried to kill Kazuki-kun while saying those words over and over. Then suddenly as Kazuki-kun was down, trapped against the base of the big tree with Minashiro-kun standing over him, something happened and Minashiro-kun rammed that green-glowing thing right into his own eye.
There was so much blood and screaming, and Minashiro-kun was on the ground clutching his eye as the blood poured out, wailing in pain and sobbing that he was sorry. Kazuki-kun was in shock and wouldn’t move, so I vaguely remember yelling at Kasugai-kun to run and get help from the adults before I took off my thin summer jacket, balled it up and pressed it to Minashiro-kun’s head. He sort of crawled into my lap as I did, and I sat there for what felt like forever, cradling Minashiro-kun while trying to stop the bleeding and talking to him to keep him calm as we waited for mother to arrive.
Looking back I wonder, why did we never question what happened? I cannot recall ever getting a single explanation for the green crystal-like things growing out of Minashiro-kun’s hand, or why he went crazy and tried to kill Kazuki-kun. We were told not to talk about what had happened, and we did not. Kazuki-kun and Minashiro-kun were no longer best friends, and Minashiro-kun lost the use of his eye, but other than that it was as if that event never took place.
From speaking with my mother I now know that from that exposure to the Festum contaminant we, all of us save Minashiro-kun whose fate was more complicated, were slotted for piloting the Fafners for certain. Our genetic specifications were the base used for the work on the interface system for the Nothung-series Fafners, even though they were a long time from becoming workable at that point. Also the attacks on the island changed that day, up until that point Festum encounters were random, by chance... after what happened the Festum were aware that we were out there, and actively came searching for us. Does that make it our fault, the five children on that hill? All those deaths that would follow... then again, we paid for it, didn’t we? And ultimately it was this group of children and their friends that bought the state of peace that humanity now enjoys.
The price was high though. They are all gone now, Minashiro-kun, Kasugai-kun, Kazuki-kun and Shouko, only I remain.
Minashiro-kun was assimilated by an enemy Festum until not even ashes remained of him, though until his last day Kazuki-kun swore they would meet again. Kasugai-kun was a victim of Festum assimilation from his work as a pilot, and despite efforts to stop it he became a MIR, although a thinking, feeling MIR that was our ally. He is still out there somewhere, I know, but he has left his humanity behind. Kazuki-kun was also taken over by the heavy toll the fighting had claimed, from the Assimilation Disease that takes our bodies from exposure to the Fafners we pilot. By then my mother had developed the cure as per Makabe Akane’s instructions, but Kazuki-kun... to be honest I think Kazuki-kun lacked the will to live any longer. He told me that he was going to be with Minashiro-kun again, and that same day he boarded his Fafner never to return.
Then there was Shouko. My brave, gentle, precious Shouko.
Objectively speaking, despite my love for my mother and sister, I would say that Shouko had the good fortune to receive the best parent of all of us. Hazama Youko was always, in her position of teacher besides being Shouko’s mother, a solid presence in all our lives growing up, and there was not a single one among us that did not adore the woman. I who had even more contact with aunt Youko, being both Shouko’s best friend and the daughter and sister of the island’s doctor and nurse, have always felt particularly grateful that it was she who was given Shouko to raise. Shouko was always so frail, so fragile, and while her heart was ever strong and loving her body just could not hold up. Aunt Youko loved and supported Shouko every step of the way... she was never just raising a future pilot, aunt Youko was raising her precious only child.
Why did we bond so tightly, Shouko and I? I’ll never really know, only that the closeness that we shared went beyond that of best friends, although I cannot really put it into words I would say that she was the most important part of me. I loved her dearly and sincerely, and for those last handful months before the end it happened that I also fell in love with her.
Shouko never needed to be told of my emotions to know them, just as I never needed to be told that she in turn had fallen for Kazuki-kun, we both just knew and accepted things as they were. She never blamed me nor treated me differently for the feelings I held, and I would always have been the person rooting for her happiness, no matter whom she found it with.
When she gave her life to protect us all, I couldn’t bear it. I thought I couldn’t live without her, and the pain was so beyond anything I could begin to describe... but I realised also that I could not let her down, that I had to be as strong as I could be, do what I could do, in her memory. So I tried to keep our little group together, to watch over the boys that she had loved and that had loved her, in her place.
Yes, so very much of all I did since her death was because of Shouko. I would have fought to the very last breath for any one of them even without having lost her first, but now I felt the need, the obligation, to do it for both of us. And whether ultimately I succeeded or failed, I tried.
How it burned me when I was told that I was too defective to become a pilot, when I had to helplessly sit by the sidelines unable to help as people I cared about where out there, fighting for far more than their lives against such horror. The others wanted away from the horror and the battlefield, it seemed I alone desperately wished to be allowed in. To make matters even worse, it was while rescuing myself and my senpai, Mizoguchi-kun, that Kasugai-kun was... lost. Sakura’s brave effort saved him from complete assimilation into the Festum he had fought, but what we managed to bring back to Alvis was no longer human. We agreed all though not with words, that this was a fate much worse than death as we watched what remained of him locked away in stasis for my mother to examine.
Should I have been bitter, later when it became apparent to us that although no longer human, Kasugai-kun was still alive, still enough himself to love and grieve and protect? Should I have regretted that out of those of us faced with assimilation or death, Shouko alone had the courage to self-destruct, yet of those that had faced that choice Shouko alone could not ever return? Perhaps aunt Youko wrestled with those thoughts as well, although I would not bring up such a painful subject. If nothing else I like to think that in the end it all proved just what true strength and courage Shouko had, even if she is missed.
There were others lost forever as well, of course, like Kodate-kun that also lost his life in combat, and oh so many others before and since. I imagine Shouko is anything but lonely, over there on the other side, perhaps sparing a moment to watch over us from time to time. Perhaps, if she does, she will be pleased to see that the island still stands and hers and all the others’ sacrifices were not for nothing.
Perhaps one day she will even forgive me.
After Kasugai-kun was placed in stasis, my sister’s misguided attempt at saving my life by changing my Fafner compatibility test results were revealed with my father’s return to the island. It became such a big, and for me emotional, mess, the who, when and why of it all. Although I might have wished that I could have held onto my few happy memories of my father, rather than so thoroughly get exposed to the true heartless creature that he was, I am still rather grateful that during all of this I was given the chance to see my father one last time before he died. It only shames me so painfully much that it was through him that the Festum learned hate, and thus became so much more determined to see to the destruction of everything in existence.
At the end of the day though, as the dust settled from our sadly human enemies’ departure, I was not only a Fafner pilot but the sniper ace as well. By now it doesn’t matter what kind of projectile weapon is placed in my hands, or whether I am inside my Fafner or not; I cannot miss my target. For all this strength and skill however, I failed Shouko.
I could not prevent Kodate-kun’s death even though I was there. I could do nothing for Sakura when the Assimilation Disease claimed her as well. Although I tried so hard and fought so much, I could not prevent so many lives that were lost on the island... and most of all, I could not stop the Festum from taking Minashiro-kun. We all fought so insanely hard to take him back, but although we might have won the day and saved humanity – at least for now – we could not save him. That failure meant that I could also not save the boy Shouko had loved, when Kazuki-kun finally gave in to the Assimilation Disease in his yearning to be with the one he loved again.
I understood and could not blame him, but that does not change the fact that I failed.
In the wake of the mess with my father’s brief return to the island and the Neo UN attacking us, we were given unexpected additions to our island in the abandoned enemy soldiers that chose to join us, and Fafner pilots Kanon and Michio. Michio was something so extremely rare as one of the sacrificial children that had survived long enough to return home, now a young adult bordering on being too old to pilot a Fafner any longer. As things turned out he was also my sister’s long-lost love, his return allowing them to pick back up what had been forcibly abandoned years ago. They were determined to have a future, to beat the odds and start a family once his fighting days were over.
Although it saddens me to know that they never had that chance, that even that one returning sacrificial child lost his life protecting this island, it also fills me and so many others with hope as Michio and my sister did what had been impossible for descendants of Japan for decades and created a child together. This child, this beautiful little niece of mine, will never be a sacrificial lamb for whatever cause. The people of Alvis have agreed on this, but even if they had not, I would do whatever was necessary to make sure of it. This child will never be lost.
I doubt I need to worry much about my tiny niece’s safety though. As unexpected as it was, one of the most powerful creatures to currently inhabit this island is well on her way of becoming little Michiru’s other parent. Any creature that would lay hand on this little girl would surely have to answer to Sakura.
When my mother finally managed to inject Sakura with a strong enough dose of the cure for the Assimilation Disease that it showed results, Sakura was taken out of the stasis chamber she had been kept in and woken up. With the exception of her eyes, once so dark and now the red that marks Fafner use or the Assimilation Disease, she looked the same as ever. She knew the people around her and responded emotionally to her mother and her would-be boyfriend although she seemed understandably subdued, and best of all although the island sensors declared her readings those of a MIR rather than a human, she was not labelled a threat. It became apparent rather quickly though that Sakura was not quite the same person as before, she was far more restrained and serious in ways my rambunctious tomboy of a friend had just never been before.
It was also apparent that she was not like Kasugai-kun whom had lost his humanity, no matter how her personality seemed changed, and we were all advised to give her time and opportunity to re-evaluate herself and her relationships. From a personal point of view, she was still Sakura, just noticeably calmer and quieter than before, and I had no problem reconnecting to her as she now was. Neither had my family, our friends or Sakura’s mother, whom I suspect was far too grateful that not only had her daughter been returned but also returned a lot less reckless than before to be bothered by a pair of red eyes. Not so for Kondou-kun.
For the boy and fellow pilot that had tentatively begun the process of getting romantically involved with Sakura before the Assimilation Disease struck, the situation became too awkward. He could not make peace with the changes in her, and she could not seem to muster much interest for him, leading to a cooling of their friendship until they were as mere casual acquaintances despite the fact that Sakura’s mother had taken Kondou-kun into her home.
Uncomfortable around this friend turned stranger and foster brother, Sakura spent more and more time with my sister whom welcomed the company. The two of them had been surprisingly good friends before, but gradually this bond grew stronger, until they were all but inseparable. Sakura doted on my sister, and once she was born, even more so with my niece. Whether the two of them noticed it initially or not, it was clear to us all that Sakura was head over heels for both mother and daughter, and she and my sister had taken to a kind of semi-flirty semi-couple-y behaviour that was only too cute to behold.
It wasn’t until the true reason behind why Sakura no longer seemed able to synchronise into the piloting system of the Fafners was revealed that things came to a conclusion with her and my sister, as if Sakura had known about the hidden change in her and been afraid of Yumiko’s reaction. Although I was present for what happened I was inside my Fafner, located on a far away hilltop with a rifle aimed at my childhood friend for the duration of it, and as such I never found out what was actually said. I watched as my mother and sister spoke to Sakura at length, until finally Sakura walked some distance away from the two of them and... changed. I did not get to see Kasugai-kun’s MIR form, but I was told he was enormous and glowing blue. Sakura’s new shape was likewise enormous but glowing a pale purple, and as startlingly beautiful as the Festum appears at first glance.
When Sakura changed back to her human shape, she was crying and hugging herself. It didn’t take Yumiko long to run over to Sakura and grab onto her, wiping at her face as they appeared to be speaking. I rather think my sister was as surprised as mother and I when in the midst of this comforting she simply leaned in and gave Sakura a long, intense kiss. Both women looked terribly embarrassed afterwards, not to mention that my mother’s teasing probably did not make things easier on them, but at least they still walked hand in hand back to the lab. Days of testing followed, but in time Sakura was declared stable enough, safe enough, to join us Fafner pilots for combat training in her new form. My future sister-in-law is powerful indeed, yet I think we are probably all rather glad that she prefers not to use this shape when she can avoid it.
So. All around me people began to work for the future, to have hopes and dreams for tomorrow after such a long time of merely trying to live out the day. Whether or not the Festum truly are gone for good we cannot know, but careful optimism began colouring life on this island from a certain point on.
At times I think that I alone am looking to the past. Then again, I was not supposed to survive this long.
My quirky friend and senpai Mizoguchi claims that I am carrying the ghosts of comrades lost, and the weight of battles fought. He told me this is the surviving soldier’s lot, that the trick was to find something in the now worth living for, something more than the fighting. He considers me as seasoned a war veteran as himself now, who would have thought that? I could see the truth in what he told me, but there was something else as well that troubled me and that was something I couldn’t really talk to him about.
It was the other way in which I believed failed Shouko.
Shouko was my everything. I loved her long before I ever fell in love with her, and she was a part of me. Although I am my own woman now, a change forced upon me by necessity, there is a part of me where she will always be, and no-one could ever take her place. Or so I thought.
There is a person whose arrival at the island I paid not nearly enough attention to at first, although by the time I found out where and with whom she had been assigned, I set out to correct that mistake.
Kanon Memphis. Dublin-born former Fafner-pilot for the enemy, lost her family, her friends and her country all to the Festum before Michio saved her. The perfect soldier really, skilled at what she does and blindly obedient, or at least she was until events stranded her here on this island. Gaining her own will and finding the strength to make her own decisions have been a slow but successful process with her, although it is hard work to get her to step outside her soldier persona.
Beautiful Kanon of blood-red hair, serious blue eyes, and possibly the cutest lost-puppy look known to mankind.
I am ashamed to say that my initial reaction to hearing where and with whom Kanon had been placed was to question, quietly agonized, if aunt Youko had given her Shouko’s room to stay in. I should have known better, after all I loved the woman all the more for her adamant refusal to accept any new sacrificial child to raise, for how she had told my mother and the others that there would never be any replacement for her one and only beloved daughter, for her Shouko. Few if any of the other parents would have been that determined or devoted.
Kanon was not Shouko’s replacement, but the decision to house the girl with Youko had been taken by our superiors without input from Youko herself. I know though that once aunt Youko heard the heartbreaking story of this orphan child, she could not help but to open both her home and her heart to Kanon. It was something they had in common, Shouko and her mother, that caring kindness.
I felt guilty for my assumption when Kanon hastened to assure me that she had not been given Shouko’s room, and I promised myself to do better towards her from then on. My next meeting with Kanon further broke my heart though, as I caught a glimpse of her in the background and mistook her for Shouko herself.
Youko had given Kanon Shouko’s clothes, only the many unused ones that Shouko had not gotten the chance to wear herself, but still, the cut of the dresses and the choice of summer hats... they were so Shouko to me it drove a knife into my heart.
I tried my best not to let it show, and with Sakura’s help I got Kanon to join us, not only that day but for many other small get-togethers that we arranged in between battles and training as well. Most of us took a liking to Kanon as soon as we started to get to know her. She is quite the contradiction, on one side so tomboyish as to put the boys to shame, blunt to the point of rude without meaning to, and terribly capable, still the other side of her is quite feminine, fragile, shy and unsure, desperately wanting friends and a mother’s affection. She was not a replacement for Shouko, and Youko might have declared that Shouko was her only daughter at one time, but it could not be helped. The childless mother with boundless love to give bonded with the orphaned child that desperately needed someone to love her, and before Youko knew it, she had a shy but devoted second daughter. She could not help but to love this child as well.
It frightened me to find that I also did.
It crept up on me unnoticed in all that was going on, how I enjoyed her company and given half a chance, and no other duties to perform, I would seek her out. I thought I came by the house simply to help Kanon settle in on the island, because it was the right thing to do, but although that might have been true to begin with it wasn’t the reason later on. I just liked her.
The awareness hit me suddenly one morning that should have been quite mundane: I had come to pick Kanon up to walk to school with her, and I moved through the house with my usual familiarity having practically grown up there myself. Youko peeked out from the kitchen to smile at me in greeting, making a funny but very familiar little gesture to show me where Kanon was as she chatted away about school.
The familiarity of that scene hit me so hard my legs buckled. How many mornings had been exactly the same, only it had not been Kanon I was there to pick up, but Shouko?
It was not just the surroundings, the scene that was the same I realized, that kernel of happy and contented warmth in me was the same as well. Kanon came in and my heart jumped in response... and I, who have seen so much battle, bloodshed and death while keeping my composure, I burst into tears.
Aunt Youko sent the worried Kanon out to tend the dog while she sat down and held me until the tears had passed. She was so understanding, aunt Youko, and talked to me for a long time about how caring for Kanon did not mean that we loved Shouko any less, and how she was sure that Shouko would have loved her little sister as well. It did not solve what was brewing in me, but that talk calmed me enough to get my composure back around Kanon. And I know she was right, Shouko would surely have adored Kanon.
As we made our way down the hill, late but still determined to get to school, Kanon was quite pensive. For her being rather subdued was and is not particularly out of the ordinary, but when alone with me she tends to be quite a bit more talkative, and the glances she sent my way during our walk spoke volumes all by themselves. I could not in good conscience pretend I did not notice, so I stopped and intended to explain myself.
Kanon not only beat me to it, but she had quite an outpouring as well. She looked so sad when she told me how she knew she wasn’t Shouko, that she couldn’t replace her and how she knew I wished Shouko was here instead. With shiny, averted eyes and a slightly trembling pout she told me that if I wanted her to, if it was easier for me that way, she would go away.
I am only a mortal woman after all, so I could not help but to pounce on her. I hugged her as hard as I dared while my mouth was running free without any input of my brain as I tried to find the words to reassure her. I wanted her to know beyond any doubt that although I missed Shouko and would still need to cry over her on rare occasion, Kanon herself was also dear and irreplaceable to me. Even as I spoke I realized just how true that was, and hugged her tighter – I could not bear the thought of losing Kanon now.
She hugged me back, and the hug was like her: strong, compact, warm... and so very comfortable. Something in me wistfully thought of Shouko, the friendly hugs we’d share, and how small and fragile she had been to hold. It had been like holding a baby bird, always checking oneself so that nothing got broken. Hugging Kanon was nothing like that, she was still feminine and soft, true, but she was also solid rippling muscle, she would not break no matter how much I clung to her; she only hugged back stronger still.
It was a good metaphor for these two, I realized then, on the outside Shouko was weak and fragile, yet inside she was fearless, the strongest one of all of us, while in Kanon’s case it was the reverse. On the outside Kanon was strong and solid, but inside was a fragile, confused and hurting girl that could easily be wounded by careless words.
I kissed her then, right there on the road down the hill, I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers without any conscious thought. It lasted only for the briefest of moments as voices were calling for us, and the shock when I realised what I had done nearly sent me careening over the handrail. Fortunately for me we were whisked away to the command centre before either of us had the chance to react, and were pushed through the swiftest and shortest of briefings before rushed to our Fafners and put on combat standby.
To my relief it was not a Festum attack that had things in an uproar, although the sudden arrival of Neo UN’s battleships on a fast approach to our island was not much better. What followed was a tense week of constant and vigilant duty as our former enemies of the human kind were present at the island to draw up a peace treaty. At the end of the week these visitors returned from where they had come, the relations between the Neo UN and our island no less strained than before and certainly no friendlier, but at least the treaties had been agreed upon and signed.
For weeks after this I avoided being alone with Kanon, giving us no chance to talk about what I had done, before I finally caved in. I had to face up to the fact that for me history had repeated itself, I had made a best friend and then fallen utterly in love with her. Unlike the case with Shouko, I was not completely certain that my chances were absolute nil, although every time my thoughts strayed that far the guilt would overwhelm me and keep me from speculating further.
Guilt was my biggest problem. I felt that I was betraying Shouko with these feelings I had for Kanon, and the guilt of that was eating away at me. I could not say how obvious what was going on with me truly was to my surroundings at the time, just that eventually aunt Youko asked me to take a walk with her.
It was a long walk in more senses than one, and we both said a lot of things we can’t really say to anyone else, about love and loss and... Shouko. She knew what was troubling me, perhaps even better than I did, and was so very supportive and understanding. It hit me again, that old gratitude that someone this good, this caring, was the parent of the one so dear to me. Only this time my thoughts were of Kanon.
Aunt Youko talked sense into me. She made me see that my guilt was misplaced, that the Shouko we had both loved so would never hold our feelings for Kanon against us. If anything Shouko would have been happy for me if I could find someone that made me happy.
Our walk ended by her grave which we tended to together, sharing a few memories of Shouko as a little girl. I felt better than I had in a long time. It was there I made the conscious decision to let Shouko go, whether Kanon really felt anything for me or not. I sent my thoughts like a prayer to her, asking her to please forgive me and be happy for me, then I hugged aunt Youko, thanking her for everything. Aunt Youko smiled and told me to go ahead, she would stay a while longer before heading back.
I turned around and I ran as if my life depended on it, stopping only briefly to buy a flower before setting off running again. I ran all the way up the hill to the Hazama family home and, before I had taken the time to catch my breath much less thought about what to say or do, knocked on the door.
She was there, standing just inside the door wearing those cute blue overalls and looking confused at first, then adorably shy as she accepted the flower I offered along with a rambling and slightly panting apology. The slow smile she gave me in return reached in and claimed me whole right there. I hoped that Shouko would indeed give me her blessing from wherever she was, because when Kanon reached out to take my hand and lead me inside while smiling like that, I knew that I was going to love Kanon with everything I had.
Despite what one might have thought, ours was a slow romance. We took the time to do things right, partly because despite my determination it took time to lay my guilt-demons to rest, but mostly because she deserved to take her time. I never regretted a single moment spent in her company and I never will, come what may.
I still do not look to the future, although surprisingly sometimes she does. She wonders if the two of us could get qualified for children one day, after we have married and live together. She blushes prettily as she says these things while we are wrapped in each other’s arms, her skin so warm and perfect against mine. I am not the only one who has found life and meaning outside of the fighting in what we have, and with this she has discovered that she wants us to have our own family someday.
It is a pleasant thought, and perhaps it will be so one day. I leave the plans to her, simply happy to be in the now, anchored here by her. In this future she and others now envision, the future that is slowly being built, maybe there will be no sacrificial children. No children born simply to endure such horror and pain in their short lives, and then die. Maybe my generation can truly be the last of this island’s lost children.
I hope so. And as for me? I breathe her in, run my fingers through her hair and marvel at the emotions that fill me.
I am here. I am alive. And I am no longer lost.
