The Hurricane Princess And The Peach, Ep. 03 - Revelation (暴露) II

Foreword

Unfortunately, within 24 hours of having written his chapter, I was very saddened to learn that a similar but more deadly disaster occurred in reality, roughly 250km away from the setting of this chapter. My sympathies and best wishes go out to all those who have been affected by the 2nd January 2024 Ishikawa Earthquake.

I did ponder removing this chapter but felt that it should remain (in unedited form), as a testament and tribute to the courageous men and women that risk their lives to try and keep the casualty numbers in disaster response scenarios to a minimum.

---

The height of spring; normally you’d associate it with the beauty of the surrounding environment producing a wonderful display of renewal and regeneration, right?

For us on the south coast of the main island’s central region, aside from the slightly warmer temperatures, obviously, the season of spring for us looked like the two parks near to our camp turning decidedly less brown and bare; hints of white adorning the branches of the trees. An uptick in the amount and intensity of birdsong in the surrounding areas could be heard pretty easily as well by anybody who resided in the area. A natural time for the blooming of two lily flowers you’d think, right?

Mother nature likes to paint scenes of incredible beauty, but as we all know, there are also times where she feels chaotic and her tools of the trade work in much more haphazard and messy ways.

This particular tale comes from May 2018, little more than a week after clearing my second period of helping the maintenance team with cleaning the living quarters and sanitary facilities; a four-week stint on that occasion because someone was too much of a wet blanket to allow even slight deviations from a certain code of conduct to go unpunished.

On that particular day, I wasn’t abruptly yanked from my sleep by that somebody. Instead, an odd rumbling and oscillating sensation of the ground beneath me marked the start of my day. Despite the regular presence of heavy fighting and utility vehicles, as well as fixed-rotor aircraft, the living quarters of the 36th Infantry Regiment’s 5th Infantry Company normally remained largely undisturbed and free of vibrations, so rocking of the beds came as a surprise to pretty much all of us.

Confused and slightly startled by the sensation, I instantly sat up in my bed and looked around; the eyes of the other infantry company ladies similarly panned the room amid the near-total darkness.

The lack of a dominating alarm ringing throughout the camp suggested that we weren’t under attack but nonetheless, we all sprang from our beds. Contrary to the prior four weeks, I spared no effort to reach the ladies’ room quickly.

At least they didn’t pull me up over these, I thought as I briefly inspected my nails; peach-coloured short square acrylics that were almost certainly a week beyond the extent of their supposed lifespan. I guess being so similar to the natural nail colour and shape helped, either that or my commanding officer just didn’t really care about things like that in the same way that the 1st Division guys did. Now I’m way off topic; the only thing of real note in that brief visit was my being too lazy to tie my hair up (into a neat, minimalist bun) properly, thus meaning that I roamed the camp HQ looking a bit less formal (ponytail) than most would be accustomed to. I’m prioritising speed in order to fulfil my role more effectively. That and technically, I’m off-duty at the moment, so it’s fine right?

❀

‘We may not be actively serving at this moment in time, but we aren’t at a high school or starring in a manga, Shimisu.’ As ever, Nitō rikui Shimisu displayed her flagrant disregard for professional image and propriety. Yes, it was true; we weren’t actively serving at that instant, but her arriving in my office implied that she’d been roaming the headquarters building with her uniform shirt open, exposing her under-vest and her hair tied into a side-ponytail with a large, bright peach-coloured scrunchie, as if she were a character from a lax setup like Felicia Heideman’s unit from that 2010 anime, not that I’m not a fan of the series, of course. ‘Fix your shirt and hair before you say another word, or I’m having you pulled from field duties and training, in favour of purely admin and research activities for the next two weeks, which should give you enough time to think about the image you should be projecting while you’re here,’ I firmly added. I should have known that letting her keep the acrylic nails that she arrived with was a bad idea, even if they only have like a six-week lifespan, but alas there we were.

‘Am I right in presuming the rumbling that spread through the camp was an earthquake?’

Unsurprisingly, she started speaking while buttoning up her shirt. A low-level heat emerged within me; despite having served beneath me for six weeks, her behaviour still remained an inexcusable mess and it still thoroughly irritated me all the same, just as it did when we first met.

Not that I ever doubted her, but I guess that story she told about the mid-operation earthquake was the real deal; Shimisu’s sharp instincts and intuition helped dowse the flames of irritation within me. ‘That’s correct Lieutenant. I’m still gathering information on the tremor myself, so please remain on standby for the time being and let the other officers know.’

‘Should we get geared up? At least at a basic level?’ she asked. From a careless, improper mess, to eager and proactive GSDF officer in an instant; her change in temperament could very easily dizzy anyone who studied her for any considerable length of time.

‘Yes, Nitō rikui; it wouldn’t hurt to have you ready to roll out if we’re requested to aid in any SAR or clean-up operations.’ Through the small gap at the open door’s edge, I’d noticed that other officers from her quarters had gathered at the entrance to the office I’d stationed in. ‘Please let your fellow officers know their current orders, though I would like you to rest up as well, if possible.’

‘Understood, Ittō rikui,’ she replied, with a surprisingly level and sensible tone.

Unsurprisingly, however, I did glimpse a sneaky smile on her face as she had almost completely turned away from me, her ponytail falling away from its previous resting place on her shoulder and mockingly swaying as she departed the office.

❀

I didn’t have to sit around or get much time to cram in more rest; at around 03:30, roughly half of my company (quickly noticing that six rows of ten seats had been lined out when I entered) were called into an assembly hall. At the front of the room? You guessed correctly; Ittō rikui Takeyari, true to form, controlling the room with her icy watch and similarly stoic presence, created by her tall stature, impeccably straight posture and folded arms, which unquestionably reminded everybody who was in charge.

Wasting little time, as soon as the last officers had taken their seats, she relaxed slightly. ‘As most, if not all of you here suspected, shortly before 03:00 this morning, an earthquake with seismic moment magnitude of 6.5, and an epicentre just under twenty-four kilometres south, south west of here occurred.

‘As you can imagine, with an epicentre so close to bridges, the shore and a major city, all of the relevant emergency services have been deployed to key infrastructure points and throughout the main city. While damage to buildings and infrastructure in the city isn’t expected to be significant, there is the prediction that inner–city regions and suburbs located near the earthquake’s epicentre are likely to not have fared so well.

‘As such, the SDF will be deploying in the area, to handle SAR operations. You’ll be heading out in teams of five.’ As her sentence completed, one of the ever-fun interactive maps appeared, projected onto the wall behind her. On this occasion the map had been zoomed into our SDF camp and a circle covered the surrounding area, with kanji representing different flowers floating in different areas of the circle. ‘We’ll be covering a three click radius area to begin with. Twelve teams of five, each including an RTO and CLS. You’re free to assemble your squads as you see fit other than that, understood?’

After the perfectly synchronous reply from all of the other officers in the room, we were released, to quickly form up our squads. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised, but I had no choice in which team I ended up on (not that I complained then or would complain now either). ‘Shimisu; yourself, Mura and Miyatake are with me again.’ I’m guessing a gleeful grin or similarly cheerful expression appeared on my face because the captain quickly added, ‘Don’t get too excited; I only want you on my team so that I can keep an eye on you and ensure that you’re not causing trouble for anybody else in the company,’ in her characteristically clinical and cold manner. Sure; whatever you say, Captain.

In addition to the four-woman team that we had for our last reconnaissance deployment, another officer walked with us toward our transport. I’d not really seen much of her since my joining the 3rd Division, but her reputation preceded her.

Santō rikui Satake (佐武); almost certainly somebody who’d probably get picked on in a school environment, but the same definitely couldn’t be said about her in our SDF camp. She stood fairly tall, at around 175cm, well-built but not totally ripped like some of the infantrywomen. There had been rumours drifting around that she was special and one glance at her gave me a pretty good idea why; a fairly soft face which was very easy on the eyes, a messy pixie haircut with a fairly neat fringe and large, round plastic-framed glasses made her unquestionably our greatest champion of the “cute nerd” aesthetic. Add in the fact that she was a trained combat medic and it’s no surprise that she was a popular choice among the officers of the 5th Infantry Company as an “exercise partner”. I remember thinking at the time of first getting a good look at her that morning, if I wasn’t already a lesbian, I’d almost certainly have been pondering playing for the other side after looking at her for only a few seconds.

Before we get thoroughly side-tracked by our lovely medic, we’ll fast-forward to what we found while roaming and surveying the south-western region of our operating area.

As most of us had anticipated unfortunately; the scenes of destruction spread almost as far as the eye could see. Mercifully, most buildings remained standing and without much damage, but among them stood some structures which had evidently failed completely; disfigured, visibly in the process of sinking/ faltering or simply almost completely collapsed and converted to piles of rubble. Similarly, an impressive amount of trees, lamp posts and road signs had been uprooted/ felled, which meant that we could rely on Yuki to carry us about for so long before resorting to surveying the area on foot.

‘Sidearms only, ladies. We aren’t expecting any hostile engagement and definitely don’t need to trigger any fear or panic for the locals if it can be helped. Miyatake will be on aerial reconnaissance duty, Satake will naturally be entrusted with first aid and medical provisions, Mura will be in charge of radio and telephone operation, including coordinating with the other SAR teams and bases as we move. Shimisu and I will be on ground scout duty. Are we all clear?’

Amid the eerie scene created by the lack of regular birdsong, commuter vehicles and train soundtracks that would normally accompany the various stages of daybreak, fully clad in our patrol uniforms and then each carrying packs loaded with our role-specific equipment, we, the four other officers in Team Jasmine (identified as 莉 on our interactive maps) replied firmly, ready to help our local community in responding to mother nature’s moment of anger.

Contrasting with how we normally view these areas, refuse had been strewn across roads and walkways, along with pretty much any light objects that weren’t tethered to the floor. Despite the darkness, local townspeople could be found out and about, getting involved with cleaning up and seemingly searching severely affected buildings for any potentially unaccounted-for people.

The first half hour of our search passed by fairly uneventfully; nothing much doing besides clearing path and roadway blockages where possible and checking each damaged building for signs of life.

I say the first half hour was uneventful because before too long we did indeed find ourselves faced with our first predicament of the day, marked by a small sound coming rom above.

‘Um, Captain, are we not going to rescue it?’

‘Don’t be silly, Lieutenant. Cats have nine lives and are quite nimble/ agile regardless; even if were to fall down that precarious pile of rubble, it’d probably be fine. You, on the other hand only have one life,’ Takeyari coldly advised.

Not that I wasn’t listening to her, but the meowing sounded too distressed to be ignored, that and under my helmet’s mounted torchlight as I studied the messy pile of rubble, a flash of inspiration occurred as I spied a route up to the stricken feline. I kinda saw the destroyed building as a climbing wall or mountain rock face in that instant and the optimum contact points stood out to me quite clearly, so without hesitation, I cast off my backpack and set to it.

‘Nitō rikui Shimisu.’ Takeyari wasn’t really one for shouting, but raising her voice alone would be enough to send shivers down the spine as I’d learned in that fleeting moment where I set off toward the base of the giant Jenga tower that was once a presumed office block. Despite the scornful and warning utterance from behind me, I ascended the destroyed tower.

As you’d probably expect from a woman fully clothed in military uniform wearing heavy boots, I had nothing like the grace or agility of the cat which sat stuck at the top of the mountain of debris. Still, with care taken to ensure that my footing remained steady with each leap, slide or small hop from awkward ledge to small perch or dubious platform, I pressed on and reached the summit within what I was sure was five minutes.

I joke not when I say that climbing the destroyed building was the easiest part of the process; despite having arrived at the top of the precarious pile to rescue the cute little black-haired kitten, it clearly wasn’t in the mood to move from where it stood.

I’d never been particularly bad at befriending cats, but this one was clearly too young and scared to think about things as trivial as entrusting a pesky suddenly-appearing human with helping it get down to safety.

While military officers are trained quite frequently in negotiating with others in order to reach peaceful solutions where possible, none of us really had been taught anything on negotiating with domesticated animals that clearly aren’t in the mood.

Well, I guess this is my ticket to being stuck on desk duty for a month. I’ve been stuck for almost the length of time it took me to get up here now. Despite her being maybe ten or fifteen metres below, the slightly paralysing mass of Takeyari’s disapproval is still able to bear down on me while at this impasse up here.

Mercifully, after what seemed like an agonising eternity, my new feline friend hopped its way across the haphazardly jutting pieces of concrete and onto one of my arms as I remained crouched less than a metre away from the edge where my descent would commence from.

Naturally, I had to guide it to another part of my body because I kinda needed full use of my arms if I wanted to get back to the ground in one piece. Yes, we could have (and probably should have) used rappelling equipment or even called in air support, but alas I paid the price for trying to be a hero; neither of those options would ever be extended to me for such a trivial endeavour.

After guiding (or coaxing, rather) the kitten around to my shoulder and upper back region, I tentatively backtracked, out to the top edge of the mighty rubble mound. I quickly glanced below, to find Mura and Satake glancing up at me, both briefly flashing a smile my way as our eyes met. Miyatake’s attention remained fixed to her transceiver unit; no doubt busy carrying out her formally assigned task of surveying the area from skies. Thankfully, she didn’t waste any time or effort by send the UAV up to follow me.

Takeyari however frowned at the very small instant where we established eye contact; condemnation so severe that I hurriedly returned my eyes to the terrain in front and beneath me, which had to be carefully negotiated if I wanted to get grilled by her while still being in one piece.

Though internal steelwork had become exposed, some of the concrete blocks had become soft and crumbly and the risk of the kitten turning hostile remained, following another while of cautious and calculated movement, I managed to return to the ground without so much as even a muscle strain or twisted ankle.

While Mura and Satake were supportive while I was at the top of the collapsed building, clearly the presence of the Captain dominated the air between our squad. She fixed me with a harsh glare but said nothing, which on its own drove fear and trepidation into all of us. Not one of us dared make a comment either way, wary that Takeyari was probably ready to hand out punishments there and then to anybody that showed signs of supporting me.

While the awkward silent tension lingered thick and heavy between the group, a much-needed appearance helped cool things down a bit for me at least.

Another meowing, which when I looked down, turned out to be an adult cat; black and white. In tow; three more black kittens, which prompted the little furry friend clinging to my upper back to hop down to the ground.

‘Well discuss this later, Shimisu. Don’t even think about petting the cats you two,’ she coldly instructed, eyeing both Mura and Satake, who had been spectating the newly-reunited family until that point. Naturally, such an advisement came as a disappointment to all (except Miyatake, who remained focused on her surveying; I’m guess she’s a dog-loving weirdo or something) but a little bit of relief came from the fact that the captain’s tone had warmed ever so slightly.

❀

Direct sunlight still remained roughly a bit more than an hour away but at least hints of brightness appeared on the distance on the fairly, but not completely cloudy skyline.

Following the kitten rescue, our surveying of the local area proceeded for another half hour without much going on besides assisting the locals in clearing access routes and cleaning up clutter which had been thrown about by the earthquake.

However, once we ventured out into a quieter region, with almost no townsfolk wandering the streets, relative quiet surrounded us once more, which made it considerably easier to hear a faint voice calling out in the distance.

The one thing which none of wanted to hear but most definitely needed to; citizens who had been trapped or placed in danger following the earthquake. As I turned to focus on the source of the sound, my heart sank for an instant and then raced, along with my thoughts. It’s around 05;00 now, so they’ve potentially been stuck in that mostly-collapsed building for two hours with potentially serious but not immediately fatal injuries.

‘I know what you’re thinking Lieutenant and it’s not a wise idea. We can’t properly asses the structural integrity of that heap, we don’t know if there are ruptured gas pipes or severed electrics and we don’t have the appropriate equipment for rescuing deeply buried civilians.’

‘I don’t hear you ordering me to stay put.’

‘Would you even listen to me if I did?’

‘Grill me about it later, I’m willing to accept the risk to save a life,’ I murmured, as I retrieved the shovel from my backpack’s toolset. ‘Be prepared to request a medical evacuation Mura.’ Without waiting for Takeyari’s condemnation, I got my respirator in hand, flicked the switch for my helmet-mounted torch and dashed toward what little remained of the house’s front entrance, spurred on massively by the irregular crying of the little girl that resided in the severely dishevelled structure that held the form of a home only a few hours prior. Immediately, one of Takeyari’s suspicions were realised; the smell of methane permeated the dusty, convoluted labyrinth of steel, wood and concrete. I slipped my respirator mask on instantly and retrieved a spare from my backpack before setting about forging a path through the desperately unfortunate mess.

Fortunately, only wood and roofing panels laid between myself and the little girl who continued to cry on the other side of it all.

After heaving and hauling away all of the fallen building materials, I’d successfully breached the kitchen area void space and instantly had to fight back a strong burning sensation which formed at the corners of my eyes; the little girl that had been calling us laid on the floor almost half-covered by a massive piece of concrete walling.

Still, I hadn’t the luxury of getting disheartened or being able to hesitate. I slid a mask onto the little girl with as little delay as possible. At least there isn’t any visible bleeding, though she does have a hefty amount of bumps and bruises. ‘How badly are you hurt?’

The little girl’s expression strained. ‘My legs hurt and my feet really hurt,’ she slowly forced. At least her lower nervous system is still functioning; small mercies.

'Is anything cutting you right now?'

She shook her head, with quick and small movements. 'No.'

Just as I thought I’d found a small parcel of positivity in the scenario that I could take a quantum of comfort from, before I could ask any questions, she added, ‘My sister; can you please find her? I haven’t heard her since the house fell.’ Again; that burning sensation came forth as despair threatened to creep in.

Immediately, I pulled my radio closer to the filters and breathing ports of my respirator mask. ‘Captain, could you please provide me some assistance and have Mura request emergency medical evacuation? I have one girl here who’s trapped in a survivable void space and she says that her sister is also trapped in this mess and at the very least is in an unconscious state. It’s quite precarious in here and you will need your respirator but there’s at least a clear path from the entrance to the kitchen. I’d rather not leave our conscious victim if it can be helped.’

‘Understood,’ she curtly replied, as I clasped the little girl’s hand between my own.

‘Stay strong for both your sister and myself, okay?’

The little girl meekly nodded and whimpered in response. Despite the numerous warnings that the captain issued me with earlier, in under a minute, I heard the clatter and clunking of building materials growing ever louder as somebody made their approach.

‘What condition is she in?’

‘Injured, but her nervous system is at least mostly intact, for better or for worse.’

‘You’re both girls?’

To say that I was shocked by such a query would be a huge understatement. Despite her lower half being pinned in place and the pain that she must have been in, the little girl still managed to ask us the question; one which I admittedly was so bewildered by that I couldn’t think of an answer in time.

‘We are indeed and much like you, I too have a dear sister. Given that the upper floor of the building has fallen through, there isn’t all that much area that needs to be searched. I’ll hopefully have located her soon. You’ve done well to alert us to the situation here. Do you think you could stay strong for us just a little bit longer?’ the captain asked.

The little girl mumbled and nodded, which prompted Takeyari to set off and commence careful excavation. ‘Mura; be prepared to assist us, should this large piece of concrete be too much for Shimisu and I,’ she advised.

After what I think was maybe ten or fifteen minutes of undisturbed clattering, clunking, cracking and flinging of debris, the dusty mess fell silent.

I eventually heard footsteps and debris being shuffled across the floor.

When I looked up, I found a totally dust-covered captain; the green flecktarn pattern giving way to pretty solid layer of dull grey. ‘She has a weak pulse, but she’s at least alive. I suspect she may have a head injury along with methane poisoning, so I’ve crafted and secured her to a makeshift stretcher. I know you want to stay, but I’ll need your help to safely get her out to Satake, Nitō rikui.’

‘We need to take care of your sister quickly and then hopefully we can get you out from here. I’ll be back in a moment, okay?’ I asked the little girl, slightly tightening my grip on her hand, hoping to indicate that I would be leaving her with a heavy heart.

‘Ambulance ETA is roughly ten minutes, captain,’ Mura advised, while slipping on her respirator mask as myself and Takeyari emerged from the mostly-collapsed building, hauling a girl middle school or junior-high-aged girl aboard our temporary stretcher.

‘Good; that should give us enough time to move that wall and extract her sister then,’ the captain calmly replied.

Unwilling to take any risks by cutting the large section of concrete, the three of us were forced to test the strength of our legs and arms by collectively lifting the large stone slab in such a way that it wouldn’t further crush any part of the little girl or run the risk of falling back on her.

Mercifully, we had just about enough room to get sufficient leverage and prise the terribly unwieldy mass from the floor sideways relative to her height and lift it, so that it would immediately release her lower limbs.

While she could still move her legs, the angles of her ankles were mildly unsettling to behold, even for a military officer. Hopefully, it’s just a dislocation or at worst a recoverable break, not that either possibilities are particular great, I pondered. ‘I guess we’re building another stretcher?’ I asked.

‘Correct. Thank you for your assistance Mura. Please make the EMS aware that we need two stretchers.’

‘I already did; picking up on your radio chatter while you were in here earlier, captain.’

‘Thank you. If you could please ensure our exit path is clear on your way to reunite with the others, that’d be much appreciated.’

‘Understood,’ Mura calmly responded, before setting off and making like a bulldozer, to ensure that myself and Takeyari could smoothly haul our brave junior out from her harrowing ordeal.

Once we arrived back outside, Satake had mostly treated the cuts that ran along the limbs of the older sister, who still remained unmoving atop the improvised stretcher that the captain had built.

‘How is she?’

‘It’s next to impossible to tell if she has internal bleeding in her head, but her pulse has remained stable; weak, but stable, which is a bit encouraging at least. The broken leg should be able to heal naturally.’

‘What’s the ETA on that ambulance?’

‘Four minutes.’

‘Good. Please hand me a bottle of your antiseptic, some cotton pads, clean gloves and some plaster please, Satake. I’ll deal with our brave little sister here while you finish up over there.’

‘Understood, captain.’

Takeyari’s voice softened as she crouched down with the mini first aid setup that she received from Satake. ‘This might sting a little bit, okay? You’ve done really well so far, so I just need to keep it up for a bit longer. If you don’t mind my asking, how old are you?’

‘I’m five,’ the little girl quietly replied.

‘No wonder you remind me of one brave girl from a story that I’m particularly fond of,’ the captain remarked with, I kid you not; a soft smile.

❀

So, the year is 1997, I’m five years old and returning to my homeland from a visit to Hawaii. Standard passenger airliner, flying high in the sky with a seemingly trouble-free journey ahead of us.

As the plane began its descent through the clouds, everybody could feel every slight bump and jostle from the clouds, icicles and other environmental elements which affected the jet as it returned to the land below.

What nobody expected was all of the lights to briefly cut out, the emergency lighting to activate, the nose to the plane to fall sharply and for the loudspeaker to hurriedly and loudly ask everybody to adopt a brace position.

Being only five, I didn’t have all that much of a clue what was going on, but the terrified shouts, crying and screams that erupted throughout the cabin from those around us filled me with confusion and paralysing terror.

Despite the mass panic rapidly unfolding around me, I felt a warm sensation as another palm clasped the palm of my right hand.

My twin sister, Mihaya (美 – beautiful, 颯 – swift wind) sat in her seat, awfully calmly. Although I verged on crying because of the immense fear that had washed over me, in that particular moment, it was as if something special had been sparked in her and the firm comforting grip of her hand communicated that extraordinary sensation through to me. As she became one with the winds outside the plummeting plane, she poured all of her strength and energy into creating an incredibly strong upward wind.

The plane noticeably decelerated and within a few seconds even the nose pulled up, despite the lack of light throughout the cabin.

The panicked shouting, cries and screaming quietened. I couldn’t tell what mood ran through the cabin of that plane as silence filled the space, but I gripped my sister’s hand as tightly as I could and kept my eyes shut while the plane slowly levelled itself out.

The next thing that I remember is that when we did eventually get off the plane, we had to do so by putting on inflatable life jackets and exiting using the plane’s inflatable door slides before being ferried to shore in small rescue boats by the coast guards.

When we did eventually make our way back to land, the first thing that I did when the life jackets had been removed was give Mihaya an almost unbearably tight hug. ‘Thank you for saving us,’ I exclaimed, with teary eyes.

‘It wasn’t just me, you know.’

‘Huh?’ Having retreated from the hug, I fired a puzzled look her way.

‘You might not have noticed it, but you were as much a part of it as me.’

‘Even if I was, it was only because you were so brave and cool to begin with, Sis,’ I remarked, before issuing her another snug embrace.

❀

Takeyari paused for a while, which I presumed marked the end of her little story. I could see the little girl had a twinkle in her eye as the captain offered her a warm smile.

The girl opened her mouth; I could tell exactly what question she was going to ask. I sense the captain did too because she interjected, ‘The doctors are here to take you to a proper hospital now. You did really well here today, um, I never asked what your name was?’

‘Mahiro; it means pure jasmine,’ she emphatically replied.

‘Did you hear that ladies? We have ourselves another jasmine here.’ Softening her voice, she returned her gaze to Mahiro, ‘We are Team Jasmine, so we’re glad that we got to meet another brave and strong young lady today.’

Contrary to how we normally see the captain behave, she waved and offered a friendly smile as medics hauled the little girl’s stretcher aboard the ambulance.

As I stood beside her, I quietly jested, ‘Look at you, captain; if getting a promotion doesn’t work out, I think you’d definitely do a splendid job of SDF recruitment.’

‘Please, Nitō rikui.’

‘Sooo, am I right in guessing that you have a twin sister named Mihaya?’

‘Alright, ladies; we still have a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get back to it,’ she firmly instructed, as she strapped her helmet back on and set off toward the other three officers.

❀

As ever, Lieutenant Shimisu’s propensity to use unconventional methods for completing tasks and her seemingly unending disregard for the fact that she’s supposed to listen to her commanding officer bordered on driving me crazy for the entirety of that search and rescue operation.

Writing up the post-operation report was a nightmare thanks to her numerous reckless antics. They often say “Never be in a hurry to die” in law enforcement and military circles. If Shimisu has heard that phrase, it evidently went in one and straight out the other, either that or it’s fallen from her memory.

Given how things had been going, at that point, I should definitely have pulled her from the field for at least a month or so; while her conduct did lead to lives saved without much cost on the day, I was absolutely certain that luck played an immeasurable role in that favourable outcome. With that fact in mind, allowing her conduct and approach to go unchecked would likely result in her or somebody on her team getting putting in danger thanks to her erratic decision-making. In the worst case, I could have ended up witnessing a disaster with a result more woeful than the tale she told me about her faceoff with the team of former SAS officers.

While pondering a suitable punishment, she paid my office a visit a day later however, with a document.

‘What’s this? You’re resigning, Lieutenant?’ Admittedly, for an instant, my chest tightened and my breath sharpened, as she handed me the envelope.

‘Pfft, no,’ she smirked. ‘Just signalling my intention to attend the famous Ranger Course located at the base of the mountain in the south east.’

‘You really do have a death wish, don’t you? You know only 3% of entrants actually succeed on those courses, and those entrants are almost, if not exclusively men.’

‘Well, since I've joined the 5th, it’s been clear that you won’t take me seriously, so I figured I’d give you something to notice at least. When I come back with the prestigious badge, I’ll be sure to stick my tongue out at you as thanks for all of your encouragement and support,’ she huffed.

Seeing her display a bit of irritation struck me as a complete surprise, not that I let any indication of it show, of course. I couldn’t find a sensible response with the immediacy that I normally would, my thoughts so destabilised by the curve ball that she’d thrown me. ‘Well, then; I’ll be joining you, to make sure you don’t push yourself beyond your limit.’

‘Aww, are you that concerned about me outshining you?’ As I should probably have expected, her tone devolved to a fitting, silly and mocking tone, ‘I thought only 3% of entrants–’

‘Yes, yes. Who knows; maybe our cooperation could be the key to at least one of being a part of that highly-respected three percent,’ I calmly remarked.

Looking back, I’m certain that I chose my response perfectly because the smug smile on Shimisu’s face vanished pretty quickly, along with all of the gusto that she flew into my office with. Maybe my eyes were deceiving me, but I’m almost certain her cheeks started to redden. ‘Understood,’ she meekly replied, while hastily turning away and retreating from my desk and office.

---

The SAR operation that we carried out in response to that earthquake was my first time leading a humanitarian effort. Thanks to the dedication of countless emergency services staff and military officers, the casualty count was limited to three.

While of course we ideally want to see no casualties, mother nature has other plans unfortunately.

What punishment did I end up giving Shimisu? Well, while I had been fully intent on pulling her from field operations and training. The senior SDF staff concluded that the handling of a humanitarian operation displayed an impressive ability to manage non-hostile operations as well as regular research, development, combat and intelligence-gathering activities. Having somebody who presented the military in such a bright light to the civilian population while also excelling in their more conventional duties was a big credit to the SDF and on that basis, I had been scheduled to receive a promotion from Ittō rikui rank, up to Santō rikusa, along with a commendation award.

Perhaps against my better judgment, partly for helping me ascend a rank and partly because it would look bad to hand her a punishment while or straight after she ascended to Ittō rikui rank and received the same commendation award, Shimisu managed to avoid spending a stint stuck with menial desk work or assisting the maintenance team.

If she thought that I wasn’t taking notice of her beforehand, then surely the absence of a punishment would give her a clear enough signal I figured, for better or for worse. Though between you and I, as I sat at my desk reflecting on it all and assessing the situation, I’d become quite excited to see where the path alongside her would lead.