| [Nov. 2nd, 2013|03:40 am] |
Nakamura beckoned the nurse to the door, discussing something with her that Genma couldn’t quite catch. He left, and she came back over, smiling now that her victory was assured. “An orderly’s on the way to escort you to the ward,” she told him. “Do you need anything? Are you cold? You look cold.”
“Maybe a lit—” Genma started. She was already draping a blanket over his legs before he could finish.
“Do you have anyone worrying about you?” she asked.
Genma blinked, surprised he hadn’t thought of it himself. “They usually notify my dad if I end up in hospital.” He brightened. “Maybe he’ll bring me custard buns.”
She smiled at him and tucked the blanket up to his chest. “That’s good. I’ll keep a look out for him.” She reached down with a careful hand and brushed Genma’s hair back from his forehead. “Get some rest, shinobi. You’ve earned it.”
Had he? Of the thirty-three missing villagers, they’d rescued two, found the corpses of twenty-three, and euthanized eight. Three of the mercy kills had been by Genma’s own hand. He’d tried not to think about the tears in the eyes of the first woman he’d found, with her belly full to bursting of demon spawn and her hope entirely vanished. She’d been one of the twelve missing from Hayama village—one of the lucky ones they had a name for—Nanba Umeko.
He took three deep breaths, closed his eyes, and tried to picture her now. May Amida Buddha rename you in the Pure Land, Nanba Umeko-san.
For each of the thirty-one dead—those whose names they’d been able to match to the bodies they’d found, and those whose remains had been unidentifiable—he repeated his prayer, counting out their names on invisible prayer beads.
He made it almost twice around a sixteen-bead strand praying for the dead. For the last bead he counted, and the first of a new cycle, he prayed for the two who’d survived. |
|