CHAPTER 1- Building of the Battlefield

"Sins do not build up the world. The fact, that the world is still standing strong, is a proof. But they indeed are, a medium, to catalyst the building of the living entity. That said, the living entity can only build up, if the sins, are forgiven, not by any one else, but the sinner themselves."

-Shiroyama Seniichi, The AoF storyteller

Part 1

[22nd of October, 1997; 14:32 hrs]

[Government Hospital at Tokyo]

"Fuck....why? Why does it have to be like this? We needed a girl child, so why the fuck?!" the person swearing in front of me is Kadenokoji Tatsuya, my husband. Though he used to be a normal person, and usually is a normal person. He is standing before me in the hospital room, where I just had my delivery completed, resulting in a boy child. His brown coat and trousers, along with the white muffler going round his neck, are a rather formal attire, which are contradicting to the language he is using right now. His hair is black, a sign of later youth, but gives off a rather contrasting feeling of old age, probably owing to our life condition, which was already bad, and is going to worsen, as of now.

"What do we do now? Tatsuya-san, just what do we do now?????" the hospital bed jolted as I snuggled Tatsuya san. Why the fuck!! Why the fuck did this child have to be a boy? God!!! Are you playing with us??? Are you shitting on our condition?? Why??

"Huuuh, calm down, Hitomi-san! You just had a delivery! You will hurt yourself! Don't move around too much! Okay, I will also calm down, so please settle down!!"

"Hah? You are suddenly taking a U-turn, Tatsuya-san! Just now you were furious –"

"Uuuuuuu-"

"SHUT THE FUCK, MONGREL!!!!!" I let out a curse as the little devil started howling. Seriously, tone the fuck down! I am not in a mood to deal with you! Why does it have to be you?

Why?! Why?! Why?! Why?! Why?! Why?! Why?! Why?! Why?! Why?! Why?! Why?!

How much more will God ruin our lives???

"UWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

"I SAID SHUT THE F-"

"HITOMI-SAN!!!!!!!!!!!" Tatsuya san grabbed my hand which dashed dangerously towards the baby.

"Dear Mam, Sir, is something wrong?"the nurse entered the room with a little push to the door. She sounded rather worried. Darn! She could not have noticed, could she? Shit! I shouted too loudly!

"No, nothing is wrong. My wife and I just had a disagreement regarding the baby's name. You see, she is pretty particular about naming her child. Since I named our first daughter, she wants to take this chance to name the "second" baby."

"Fufu ~ then it's okay. I thought something might be wrong. I will wait outside then."

"Thank you for all your hard work towards my wife."

He paid an unusual stress on the word "second baby". Was it my imagination? Even if it was, he looks rather calm in this devastating situation. Tatsuya-san, have you perhaps given up? Will you accept this outcome? If we accept it, we are doomed, you know? Me, you and Haruka........as well as this new kid.....No! No! I cannot take this anymore!! This is too much!!! There is a limit to how fucked up your life can become!! I do not want to get worse from here!! I do not want to live like animals!! I do not want to stoop to any lower than we already fucking are!!!!!!!

"Uwaaahh.......Uwaaaaah.......uuuu.....uuuuu."

And fuck him! Fucking devil! Why did you have to be born???!!! Just to pile up our misery?? Just to make us even more pathetic than we already are?? As I directed a glance at the little knife, with traditional Japanese Uroko patterns on its handle, kept at the table, struck inside an apple, I was suddenly hinted with a practical and starightforward solution.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! What if I just, what if we just pretend this never happened. Yes, all of this never happened. Me being brought to hospital, me getting a delivery, Tatsuya-san coming to see me, a boy being born, Tatsuya san cursing his luck, that devil of a kid crying, me swearing in despair, and ME GRABBING THAT KNIFE AND "ACCIDENTALLY" SLITTING THE BOY TO HEAVENS...............

Let us just pretend this all never happened...................

As I snuck out the knife from the apple with a tremendous agility, and being unable to move, crouched a bit towards the baby bed, with the personification of our potent destruction crying inside, Tatsuya –san, again, grabbed my hand.

"LET ME-"

Whap!

A hand connected to my cheeks, forcing my head to revert back in amazement and sudden impact. Tatsuya-san raised hand, on me? Me, of all people? That Tatsuya-san? The slap was a soft one, soft enough that it should not be treated as a slap at all. But the look on Tatsuya-san's face was not. The tension building up inside of him had started showing on the outside. His eyebrows were shrinked, and he seemed tense, yet calm simultaneously.

In a way, he looked even more menacing than me.

"Hitomi-san, what exactly were you planning to do? Do you even know the punishment of murdering an infant? I know you are stressed, but is your brain so much dead that it cannot tell fire apart from water??!!"

"Then what should I do? What should we do?! The premonition said that we should have two children of identical gender consecutively to avoid tragedy. After Haruka, we needed a FUCKING GIRL!!!!!! YOU HEAR ME, A FUCKING GIRL!! CAN YOU NOT SEE THAT DICK?????!!!!! WE ARE RUINED!!!!!! THE PREMONITION THAT COULD SAVE US WILL GO DOWN IN THE DRAINS!!"

"That does not mean you should just go berserk and kill the newborn!"

"Then what should I do?! The best is to finish him off and pretend it never happened!"

"You are thinking backwards. If we follow that plan of yours, there are chances that your neck will be inside the hoop, and I also, will be hanged next to you!"

"We can just make it up somehow!!!"

"Oh yes? Pray tell me then, as to how do you plan on making an excuse when the hospital authorities find the corpse of an infant inside our room? How will you convince them? Your solution is just an axe on the foot!"

"But then.....but then...." I started sobbing, joining the kid who was already crying for some goddamned reason.

"Don't cry, Hitomi-san. I also want to shoot out waterworks, cry everything out right now, except that will lead towards nothing. How about this, I have a certain way – "

The white curtains across the open window of the room fluttered naughtily, owing to the sudden breeze, a rather common occurrence at the seventh floor. Tatsuya-san had opened the window when he had come to visit before, and had told me to keep it open to fresh air. The flowers in the vase swung to and fro, resonating with the gentle breeze of primitive winter.

"We will claim ourselves to be economically weaker, which we actually are, so no lies in that claim. Though this is rather unheard in Japan, but what the basic layout of the plan is TO SEVERE OUR TIES WITH THIS KID."

"Huh? Severe ties? With an infant that came out from our bodies? At this age, when he is not even one? How will that be possible? In the first place – "

"It can happen."

"......."

My silence triggered him to continue.

"We will leave Karuizawa and move to some other place. I will spew a tale that this kid belongs to my relative who got into an accident while we were visiting them in Karuizawa. They had gone out for some business, leaving the newborn in my care, where they met with the fatal accident. A rather unfortunate turn of events. How very tragic!"

"Oh yeah? And you were accusing ME of brain damage. You will spew that kind of fairy tale to the authorities? You think they will just sit down and take that senseless shit down their throat?"

"No, I will not be telling that to any kind of legal personnel."

"Then whom – "

"Hitomi-san ~ , walls are thin, you know. Let us continue this discussion after you get discharged."

"Haah?? And what do I do with this brat until then?? Just looking at him is making me sick to the stomach, you know...."

"Bear with it."

"Wha – "

"Hitomi-san, listen to this piece of advice. Don't ever show your true intentions, don't even let your neck know, what your head has planned."

"All you need to do right now is suck it up. Act like a responsible parent, of course, I will do the same. Just remember the advice I just gave. Because it is going to help us a lot in our lives."

"Wh-What about Haruka?"

"Isn't she just three? To make her believe what we want her to believe, is it that difficult?"

That eerie smile, that indirect, yet piercing aura, ready to do irreversible damage, does it really belong to you, Tatsuya-san? Though I am not in a position to comment on him, when I myself, recognized THAT side of me, the one, which lies in the dark abyss.

As I stared at Tatsuya-san, his hair, which had almost dropped down and covered his eyes, I found, that the Tatsuya-san in front of me, as he let out that advice, left an impression.

AND THAT IMPRESSION CANNOT BE INTERPRETED AS A POSITIVE ONE.

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Chapter 1, Part 1 extra(A): Kadenokoji Haruka's monologue

[22nd of October, 1997; 13:57 hrs]

[Daycare school at Karuizawa, Nagano prefecture]

Hello, everyone! I am Kadenokoji Haruka. I am three years old. But I will be four on 14th December. Today I am writing this essay about my family. Though I was originally told by Koko-sensei to write about "My favorite food", but everyone else was writing the same, and Natsu-kun's and my favorite food are both onigiri, so that would become boring if both of us wrote about onigiri.....also, something really good has happened in my family! Guess what???? I am getting a new sister! Yaaaay!! You all know, mum's stomach became big like a mochi...pfft.....but papa says there is a baby inside of it! Mum had been taken to hospital before, and I went to visit her!! Her room is sooo big....and the wall clock has penguins on it!!! I like penguins. Today, papa was called to the hospital too........and he rushed quite fast.......he worries a lot, dosen't he? I think my sister has come. I sooo want to meet her! I wonder if she is cuter than me? I have prepared lots of toys for her at home, so she won't get bored, you know? Aren't I a good big sister?? I will give her Poko-kun too, but his beak has come off a bit.

Although I am very excited, I also want to confess something. Actually, I wanted a brother a little more than a sister. Because Momo-chan told me that her brother is suuuuper cute! She says that brothers are a bit cuter. So I was a bit leaning towards a brother. But that does not mean that I do not like a sister! I will love the baby whatever it is!

Waah, now I am excited to show this essay to sensei and everyone. Sensei praised me already that I have good grasp on spellings and grammar. I wonder how will everyone react to this surprise.

But there is still one weird thing I don't get at all. When I told papa that I want a brother first, he gave me this scary look and said, "A sister is what you will get, dear."

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