A man walked through the park — slowly. His worn coat flapped in the cold winter wind until he sat down on a nearby park bench. He leaned back and took a half-used pack of cigarettes out of his coats pocket. He gave the pack a gentle nudge, and a single cigarette popped out. He pulled the cigarette out the pack with his mouth while preparing a box of matches with his other hand.
He lit a match, but the flame went out, so he flicked it aside. He struck a second match across the boxes surface, its brief flame turning his pale, ash-blond hair orange before being extinguished by the cold wind — the lid cigarette he held between his lips.
Yellow eyes, tired and fixed. The smoke rose and dissipated. He leaned back, exhaled slowly, and watched as the sky was covered by the smoke. The cigarette burned in his mouth as he gazed up at the blue sky. He looked up and wondered if the sky above this once familiar land was the same one he had once seen.
A lot of years prior, that year, the snow fell early in a town in Tohoku, Japan. It fell thickly and silently, covering the roofs and fields in white, concealing the aftermath of the previous war. After that war, there was places all over the world that are suffering financial problems. Every morning, a boy awoke to the same sight: a village swallowed by winter, the smell of smoke barley in the air.
His hair was ash-blond, but instead of yellow eyes, they were purple back then. His mother, Yoshino, was already gone before the sun rose. The small, patched futon mattress beside him still retained the faint warmth of her body, but she was long gone, her footsteps muffled by the snow, as she made her way to the villages inn.
Everyone in the village knew what Yoshino was doing there, what she had to do to get enough money. No one said it out loud, but her son sensed it in the looks she received in the marketplace. And although she smiled whenever she could, her eyes were always red when she came home in the evening, yet he never asked why. One evening at the end of January, she returned with a half-empty bowl of soup. Her clothes were thin and patched in countless places. The boy heard the wind rustling through the cracks in the door as she sat down beside the dim lantern. "Eat first," she said, her voice gentle.
"I've already eaten," Yoshino's son lied and stared into the weak fire.
His stomach, however, rumbled softly. Yoshino smiled slightly and handed him the bowl.
"Half is enough for me."
He wanted to argue back, but her look discouraged him. So he ate in silence while she stroked his hair with trembling fingers and murmured, "Your father would be proud to see how much you've grown up, if he was still here."
The boy had no memory of his father except the smell of alcohol. They said he had gone to Tokyo a few years ago, after the war, 'to find work', but he never returned.
When spring arrived, the melting snow brought mud. The villagers whispered about debts, falling income and rising rents. The old drank more sake, and the young moved to the cities in search of work, probably not the first to do so.
One day, a stranger came to the village. He was of average height, wore a uniform and spoke Japanese with a foreign accent. Yoshino's son never learned his name. He was a merchant passing through from China. The villagers looked at him suspiciously, but the shopkeepers welcomed him because of the coins he spent. He carried money the likes of which no one had seen in years.
Yoshino returned late again that evening. Her eyes were swollen, as if she had been crying for hours. She asked her son to sit next to her.
"Hey…" she began. "Do you remember when you said you wanted to see the ocean one day?"
He nodded. "You said we'd go in the summer."
She smiled weakly. "Yes, but — that probably won't be possible."
He just looked confused.
"What do you mean?"
She didn't answer immediately. A long silence fell between them both. Finally, she said, "The Chinese man—he has a shop in China; He said he would take you with him, feed you—give you a job—maybe he would even let you go to school and view the ocean."
Yoshino's son did not understand the words at first.
'Leaving? To China? Without her?'
"No, I wont go anywhere."
Yoshino's lips trembled. "Please—there's nothing here—not enough rice, not enough work—if you stay, you'll—" She broke off. "—You have no future here."
"I don't care!" he shouted. Tears burned in his eyes. "I'd rather die here with you than go with some stranger!"
Yoshino covered her mouth and suppressed her sobs.
"Don't say that," she whispered. "Don't make it even harder for me."
One night a storm arose. Snowflakes fell thickly as far as the eye could see. Yoshino sat quietly by the fireplace, her face glowing orange from the fire, while her son sat by the window watching the trees bending in the snow.
When she thought he was asleep, Yoshino grabbed a small wooden box. Inside, she placed a worn coat with a sigil on it—presumably the one that belonged to her husband — and all her money savings. It was barely worth mentioning, but enough for her son to possibly attempt a new beginning.
She folded her hands together and began to cry silently. "Forgive me," she whispered again and again.
But her son wasn't asleep. He listened silently, his heart pounding. He wanted to speak, he wanted to comfort her, but he was afraid her world would shatter. Yoshino finally decided and carried him outside to the Chinese man. Although he was awake, he simply allowed it, letting his mother believe he was asleep.
Yoshino bowed to him, her shoulders trembling. "Please—take good care of my son."
The man nodded gravely. "He will have food and work; You can rely on it."
Yoshino's son thought quietly to himself, 'I will earn a lot of money and help her out of this misery.'
She forced a smile, which only made her tears flow faster.
"You are strong — you will become a strong person." She kissed him firmly on the forehead one last time.
"Wherever you go, remember – your mother loves you."
The cars wheels settled creaking. The son whirled around and watched her as she grew smaller and smaller in the snowy distance.
She stood barefoot on the street, clutching her sleeves.
As the car drove around the edge she had disappeared.
That night, Yoshino sat alone in her house. The silence weighed heavily on her.
She didn't move for a long time. Then, with trembling hands, she looked up at the window.
"Take care—" she whispered into the room: "Shinji."
…
"Shinji—Shinji!"
Kamina suddenly stood next to Shinji, who was still sitting on the bench with his head held high. His cigarette was just one puff away from being finished.
"Shall we begin?" said Kamina.
Shinji took the last drag, threw the cigarette to the side, then slapped his hands on his lap and stood up—
"Sora, Kyouma, and Tohru are the ones I want to take on this mission," Kagami said to Ryo, who was sitting in his office chair with his legs raised on the table. It was the conversation she had with him before she and the others left, meeting Idoku later on.
"Understood-"
"But Kagami — always remember, you may encounter strong opponents on this mission; We still don't know what Shinji is planning; I feel like after Akechi and I lost to him, he probably won't go back to the Abyss Gate for a while, but we don't know for sure."
She answered with confidence: "I know, Ryo… Leave it to me."
"Kouji told me, before he left, that the two of them had met a very strong opponent," he added: "While you are over there, I will organize a funeral for Ketsu, Yuusuke and the other deceased."
"Can you manage it? - You wanted to enter this tournament?"
"We will hold the ceremony only when you return; until then, I will go to this tournament."
"Are you sure you want to participate in this tournament? You got your new arm today?"
"I received a tip that could point to Shinji, I have to do it…"
Kagami left the room and the next morning went to the Netherlands with her team, where they encountered Idoku.
But while they fought there, Ryo didn't just sit still in his chair...