一番章 - 死で始める

I look down to the mercurial waters of the seemingly endless sea, watching the reflection of the clouds as we soar under them. It is strange, I muse, that such beautiful waters contain only death. Maybe it is because we are not meant to get too close to that beauty, in case we destroy it. My thoughts are interrupted by the call of my older sister, who is sitting in front of me. I check the fuel levels as she asked, and confirm that the Ageru Engine still has a few hours worth of cruise-speed flying left still. I catch something out of the corner of my eye, something in the reflection of the water, some strange distortion.

I focus on it and panic fills me, the slight yet massive distortion is undoubtedly the product of a potent Ageru Engine working above us, pushing a gigantic ship high into the air… while breaking anything under it into pieces. I call out, trying to warn my sister, the pilot, of the danger. She reacts half a second too late; the field is moving too fast, although we are not fully caught by the destructive energies, our ship is flung wildly upwards, into the air, past the clouds. I manage to read the word “Washi”, Eagle, printed on the side of a gargantuan vessel before passing it in a chaotic, uncontrollable, voyage towards the sun. However, we soon lose speed as our own weight catches up with us. I try to make us fly again, but the engine is out of control and won’t respond.

We fall, fast, too fast, the rise and subsequent fall has strained our small ship too much. It starts breaking apart, pieces flying up dangerously near to me. Finally, the inevitable happens, and a fragment of metal slices into my shoulder, filling it with nearly unbearable pain, I seem to hear the screams of another mingled with mine, and blood not my own splatters onto my suit right before my belt gives way and I get buffeted away from the ship and the seat. I hit some sort of hard floor, which I realize must be the larger ship’s deck, and see with blurred vision my own ship crashing into it before I lose consciousness.

I wake up in a room I had never seen before. Walls of metal, roof and floor are planks of wood. No decoration, no windows, the only furniture is the bed I’m lying on, not that there is space for anything else. The bed is far for comfortable, but I am used to sleeping in much worse conditions. I try to get up and pain shoots through my body, my right arm doesn’t even move, and when I look to it I see bandages that I can only suppose were once white, because now they’re completely red with my own blood. The crimson substance has even seeped through to the bed sheets, dying them and making them nauseatingly sticky. I feel sick, and for a moment I wonder if it is the excessive pain or the sight before my eyes that is causing it, before deciding it is probably a combination of the two.

The door to the room opens with a screech that I find much too loud. The only thing comparable to the pain in my shoulder is the pain in my head. I turn my head around, an action which primarily accomplishes to stoke the fire in my shoulder and make my vision swim. Fighting against another wave of nausea I attempt to focus on the person coming in. The most I can tell is that he is wearing a black and gold uniform and has black hair cut practically short, trying to focus on his face is useless; my eyes simply don’t seem to like to function properly. He kneels beside the bed and looks at me in the eyes. I can only guess he’s smiling, it’s simply too much effort to maintain focus, so I decide to just close my eyes. The headache seems to lighten up slightly, which simply means my attention is drawn towards my bloodied limb.

“You’re finally awake. How are you feeling?” the man asks me. He has the sufficient presence of mind to speak in a gentle whisper, and I’m silently grateful.

“Like hell,” I croak out a truthful answer. I want to ask him what happened, who is he, where am I, and other equally important questions, but right now it seems like too much effort.

“I am Lieutenant Eizo Yoakumo of the Battleship Washi, inside which we are now. Your boat crashed on deck, it was lucky you survived,” he says, answering my unasked questions. However, something is stirring in the back of my mind, and I simply must ask.

“And… my sister… the… pilot?” pronouncing the words requires an inconceivable effort of will, and conjures a proportional amount of agony. However, that is dwarfed by pain of another sort when he shakes his head and says some words I don’t even hear.

As if they were lying in wait to ambush me at this precise moment, images come to me in violent flashes. A section of hull ripping off and hitting Ryoko, dear sister Ryoko, not innocently in the shoulder like I was hit, but directly in the chest. Some of the blood even hits me. As I slam painfully onto the deck, our small ship crashes upside down into it. Ryoko is trapped in the ship, unable to move as splinters and blood fly everywhere. Ryoko, my dear sister Ryoko.

As the man leaves the room silently, I feel the acrid taste of bile be condimented by the saltiness of tears in my mouth.

“Ryoko…”