The year was 1941.
The city had fallen days ago.
Hiroshi Takamori no longer recognized the meaning of victory.
The streets were filled with smoke and shattered masonry. Storefronts stood broken open like wounds. Doors hung from splintered hinges. Somewhere in the distance, a wom.an screamed. Somewhere else, me.n laughed. Those sounds were becoming inseparable.
A group of soldiers passed him carrying stolen goods under their arms. Another dragged furniture from a home whose owners would never return to claim it. The officers looked away. Most of the me.n looked away.
Hiroshi wished he could.
His stomach churned. The sight of frightened civilians huddled in alleys, the whispered stories spreading through the occupied districts, the things he had witnessed with his own eyes and wished he had not—each weighed upon him until he could scarcely breathe.
He stumbled into a narrow lane between two ruined buildings and bent forward.
The contents of his stomach struck the dirt.
For several moments he remained there, gripping his knees.
No glorious speech from a politician had prepared him for this. No training manual had mentioned this. No patriotic poster had shown this face of war.
"God forgive us," he whispered in English, the foreign words feeling safer somehow than his own language.
When he finally straightened, he noticed movement inside a small house at the end of the lane.
The building appeared untouched.
That alone made it suspicious.
Slowly, cautiously, he approached.
The door stood slightly ajar.
Inside, shadows shifted.
Then he saw her.
A young wom.an.
Hidden behind a stack of old crates, staring at him as though death itself had stepped through the doorway.
Hiroshi froze.
The terror in her eyes struck him harder than any bullet could have.
Of course she was afraid.
Every wom.an in the city had reason to be.
For a long moment neither moved.
Then Hiroshi lowered his rifle.
Very deliberately.
Very slowly.
He backed away.
"I am leaving," he said quietly.
The words meant nothing to her.
Still, he hoped his actions might.
Outside, he glanced up and down the deserted street before spotting an abandoned wooden cart. It took considerable effort to move. The wheels protested loudly across the stone road.
Once positioned against the entrance, it disguised the door and created one more obstacle between the house and wandering soldiers.
It was not much.
But it was something.
Then he walked away.
Yet over the following days, he found himself unable to forget her.
While others drank, gambled, and boasted, Hiroshi remembered frightened eyes peering through darkness.
Did she have food?
Water?
Had anyone discovered her?
The questions followed him everywhere.
On the fourth night he finally surrendered to them.
The city slept uneasily beneath a moon veiled by smoke.
Hiroshi carried a small sack beneath his coat. A portion of his own rations. Rice. Dried fish. A little preserved vegetable. One canteen of water.
Nothing that would attract attention.
Nothing that would be missed.
When he reached the house, relief washed over him.
The cart remained exactly where he had left it.
No signs of disturbance.
No broken windows.
No footprints he did not recognize.
He exhaled.
For the first time in days.
Carefully he shifted the cart aside and slipped through the doorway.
The interior was dark.
He set the sack and canteen upon the floor before taking several steps back.
"I brought food," he said softly, knowing she could not understand.
His voice sounded strange in the quiet room.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then he noticed movement among the shadows.
She was still there.
Still alive.
The realization eased something painful inside his chest.
Hiroshi kept his hands visible.
"I am not staying."
A pause.
"You should keep hiding."
His gaze drifted briefly toward the shuttered window beyond which occupied streets waited like a nightmare.
Then he looked back toward the darkness concealing her.
"I do not know if that will save you."
His voice dropped lower.
"But I hope it does."