Pathway to Japanese Literature

At dawn, a summons came from the Company Commander’s Office. Before the footsteps ascended the stairs and knocked on the wire-mesh door, he had already awoken from shallow sleep—as though surfacing—at the sensation of boots treading the leaf-strewn path. It was orderly Saeki’s voice. He glimpsed a shadow shifting dimly beyond the wire door but kept his eyelids pressed shut as he answered, “I’ll go at once.” The clatter of boot studs against stairs resonated faintly through his languid joints; the footsteps appeared to retreat unchanged.

After a while he sat up on the bedstead, finished dressing with slow movements, and pulled on his boots. The crude cabin creaked with every motion—floorboards groaning when he shifted weight, walls rustling dryly whenever an arm brushed against them. Pushing open the rusted hinge of the wire-mesh door and descending the stairs, he found morning dew drenching everything. Looking up through gaps in the jungle canopy where branches interlaced overhead, he saw dawn faintly brightening the sky while one or two remaining stars grew pale. Unseen birds seemed to flit between treetops calling to each other; far off a wild rooster crowed sharp repeated cries. The air felt invigorating. Small flowers resembling mainland evening primroses crowded both sides of the path—their petals soaked his boot tips thoroughly as he walked.

The path ascended diagonally, and the trees grew even denser. That was the Company Commander’s cabin, its color like smoke-stained bamboo. It was a simple structure—wood and bamboo roughly assembled, the roof thatched with nipa palm. The floor was elevated about a person’s height to avoid moisture, but when stepped on, the stairs creaked of their own accord. Pushing open the door and stepping inside revealed a room still dark. Leaning on the bamboo desk before the window, the Company Commander remained seated in his chair, appearing not to notice his entrance. In the flickering candlelight stirred by the door’s movement, his profile appeared darker and more somber than ever. On the desk sat empty shell casings serving as a vase with two or three yellow flowers inserted. The Company Commander’s fingers absently toyed with the edges of a document bundle. He stood on the floorboards for a while, surveying the room vacantly. An insect hidden in the ceiling’s shadows suddenly let out a shrill chirp, yet the Company Commander—now propping his sword hilt upright between his knees with one palm—kept his profile turned away as he muttered in a low, parched voice.

“Lieutenant Uji?” While raising his face toward the window, he closed his eyes as if in pain and let his shoulders drop against the back of the chair. “Actually, I need you to go make contact with Lieutenant Hanada today." “You know where Hanada is—the location, right?”

Without waiting for his reply, the Company Commander creaked his chair and turned his entire body toward him. And he said intensely and rapidly. “Go and shoot him dead.” “It’s my command.” The thin morning light fell obliquely from the window onto the Company Commander’s head, but his recently whitened hair and haggard features—cast in the candle’s flickering glow—formed shadows that instead gave his expression a sinister appearance. The Company Commander’s gaze clung to him imploringly and would not let go. Something within him faltered, and he involuntarily stepped back. The gravel embedded in his boot soles scraped against the hard floorboards with an unpleasant sound. Rubbing his woolen trousers with his palm, he shifted his entire body’s weight onto the heel of one foot. The flickering firelight made his expression appear unstable, but soon a faint, ambiguous smile suddenly surfaced on his cheek and vanished. And bringing his heels together and slightly arching his chest as if to say something—before he could—the Company Commander blinked rapidly and addressed him in a grave, almost solicitous tone.

“Take a skilled marksman—one non-commissioned officer—with you.” He suddenly turned his face from the light and lowered his gaze downward. “Hanada was a master of marksmanship.” While watching the thinning crown of the Company Commander’s bowed head, he felt a sudden impulse to weep, but lifting his head as if to suppress it, he repeated each word in a steady voice. “I will meet Lieutenant Hanada and shoot him dead.” Instead of saying “Understood,” the Company Commander raised his right palm slightly in a dismissive wave without looking at him. He saluted, pushed open the door, and descended the stairs step by step. As he descended, he glanced back hesitantly, but only a flicker of firelight swayed on the room’s floor through the door’s gap—his boots, already treading the damp ground, left a creak lingering on the stairs.

On the ground, light rays that had escaped the mesh of treetops scattered down. Beyond the jungle, the sun must have already begun to rise. The trees were putting forth new buds while simultaneously scattering old leaves from their branches. In this land that knew no seasons beyond rainy and dry periods, even plant life seemed to take on an expressionless quality. The trees were mostly broad-leaved species. As he rounded each bend in the path, faint singing voices would drift up from far below the mountain at times before abruptly vanishing. While treading through thick layers of fallen leaves, he fixed his gaze gloomily and followed the path back toward his hut. The song came from women's voices. The monotonous melody laden with sorrow persistently wove between tree trunks—so clear at certain positions that he could discern individual syllables. This was one of the jungle's mysterious traits. When one voice led off-key, disorderly choruses would chase after it chaotically. These were Ilocano women's rice-pounding chants. From San Jose Basin stretching northward at this mountain's base—where soldiers had smuggled rice husks under American planes' surveillance—the morning pounding ritual must have already commenced in their mortars. Crossing his arms while walking along a path dappled with pale light patches and kicking through yellow petals, he finally noticed he'd been pressing too hard with his boot toes. Earlier when idly surveying the Company Commander's office, his attention had been caught by a bamboo medal rack on the wall beside the desk. Had that been crafted by the Commander himself or orderly Saeki? When the Commander turned bodily toward him earlier, shaking walls made medals glitter under naked flame-light.

When I looked down at the frail-looking crown of the Company Commander’s bowed head and suddenly felt tears welling up—what was that feeling I had back then?

A sudden bitter laugh rose coldly to his cheek. Nearly a month had passed since Lieutenant Hanada had left his original unit. The brigade to which Uji belonged was initially stationed in Aparri at Luzon’s northern tip. This was the inevitable landing site for U.S. forces in the Philippines Operation. Despite having constructed layered defenses and waited in readiness, no sooner had the Leyte campaign reached a lull than American troops suddenly commenced their landing at Lingayen. Japan’s defenses at Lingayen were pathetically feeble. The U.S. forces swept toward Manila with the momentum of wind scattering dead leaves. By this time, the likelihood of an Aparri landing had already begun to dwindle. Even anticipating protracted warfare, the Aparri region lacked the capacity to sustain an entire brigade. Isolation in Aparri meant starvation. In late May, the brigade finally abandoned Aparri. As they pressed southward through the Cagayan Valley in their grueling march—poised to enter the San Jose Basin from the northern entrance—a U.S. detachment that had landed at Lingayen reversed course northward through the valley with gale-force speed and rained fierce artillery fire upon the brigade’s rearguard.

The battalion to which Uji belonged had already entered the basin the previous day as the vanguard of the brigade.

When the report came that the rearmost battalion had been shelled, Uji could hardly believe it. To halt the northward-advancing U.S. forces, troops from two battalions had rushed to take up positions at Orion Pass in the upper reaches of Cagayan Valley. That they had come under U.S. artillery fire at the North Entrance could only mean those two battalions at Orion Pass had been annihilated. This was a situation even Uji and his men couldn’t have foreseen—yet for the troops in the brigade’s rearguard too, this bombardment lay entirely beyond prediction. The American artillery fire proved devastatingly precise. Hampered by intelligence failures, they couldn’t even locate the enemy’s artillery positions. Only the shells themselves exploded with lethal accuracy, cutting down personnel. The unit descended into immediate chaos. Lieutenant Hanada, the medical officer, was caught in that maelstrom.

The shrapnel from the explosion instantly killed Lieutenant Hanada’s orderly and, with its remaining force, wounded Lieutenant Hanada in the leg. Abandoning the corpses and wounded soldiers that overflowed the road, Lieutenant Hanada grabbed the local woman by the shoulder, left the battlefield eastward, traversed the jungle, and took refuge in a small village near Intal, it is said. It was much later that Uji and his men learned of this fact. Uji’s battalion crossed the basin, unpacked their gear in the jungle near the southern entrance, dispersed into makeshift huts and limestone caves, and were solely awaiting guerrilla operations against Tugegarao Airfield. Therefore, they did not know the circumstances of the rearguard that had been shelled at the North Entrance. Lieutenant Hanada was thought to have been killed in action. However, when synthesizing reports from wounded soldiers who had fled from the North Entrance and naval units stationed near Intal, Lieutenant Hanada’s actions gradually became clear.

What kind of medical officer—even if wounded in the leg—abandons the wounded and leaves the battlefield? The fact had been kept secret yet seemed to spread from mouth to mouth. Even if he had left from the North Entrance, he should have naturally joined up with the guerrilla battalion stationed near the South Entrance. However, given San Jose Basin’s complex road network and his unfamiliarity with geography, it was possible he had lost his way. Moreover, it was not impossible that his leg injury had worsened near Intal. However, what first stood out in this sequence of events was the matter of the local woman who had supported Lieutenant Hanada.

A messenger was dispatched. On the grounds that his wound had not yet healed and walking remained difficult, Lieutenant Hanada did not return. According to the messenger’s report, Lieutenant Hanada was living in one of five or six nipa hut villages clustered together in the jungle—himself, a woman, and a Domei News Agency correspondent, three people in total. In the other huts, seven or eight Army and Navy soldiers who had deserted or gone AWOL from battlefields or their units appeared to be lodging separately. After four or five days had passed, another messenger was dispatched. Even so, Lieutenant Hanada did not return.

Amidst this, the food situation gradually began to worsen. In the open areas of the basin, unthreshed rice stood piled like mountains. Philippine farmers never hulled all their rice at harvest time—they only pounded what they needed when needed—so there was no stock of white rice. For the battalion, there remained no choice but to gather this unhulled rice and process it into edible grain. But with American planes taking off from Tugegarao Airfield, daytime transport became impossible. At night they managed to drag it into the jungle, round up locals to pound it, then allocate the yield as rations. When the rearguard got ambushed at North Entrance, misfortune struck—the oxcart convoy carrying salt was wiped out entirely—so Uji and his men found themselves increasingly plagued by salt deficiency. The symptoms weren't distinct at first—just a vague fog clouding their heads, reactions to stimuli growing dull enough for each man to notice himself. While puzzling over this strangeness, their limbs would swell; rising abruptly made knees buckle. Only then did it strike them—salt deficiency. When they occasionally procured a lump of salt, they'd lick it like some precious thing. The salt tasted strangely sweet after such long deprivation. He never imagined salt could be this sweet. Sweeter than sugar. A single lick would fuel them through the next day.

Even under such adverse conditions, Uji’s battalion could not abandon their guerrilla operations against Tugegarao Airfield. Every night raiding parties formed, crossed Road No. 5, and attacked barracks and warehouses near Tugegarao Airfield. Raiding parties led by officers in large formations and assault units mainly composed of non-commissioned officers crossed the jungle in multiple groups each night. Many who went on raids never returned. The number of soldiers deserting mid-raid finally began to increase. From units numbering fewer than ten members, seven or eight would desert. Where did they think they could escape to by disappearing into the jungle? Undoubtedly fleeing carried a lower mortality rate than raiding. Even risking death to raid—how effective those raids themselves were remained questionable. A war-weary mood began manifesting clearly among all officers and soldiers. Deserters emerged not just from raiding parties but also unit headquarters. A few of Uji’s subordinates had already vanished.

Uji was the weapons officer. Together with subordinates, he had no peaceful days manufacturing armor-piercing explosives and other devices for raids. The manufacturing facility was inside a limestone cave. In the stalactite-draped cave, they spent days immersed in gunpowder's smell. Occasionally, old subordinates of colleagues came to bid farewell before departing for raids. Even at such times, they laughed. Laughing and waving, they left the cave. Uji saw them off to the cave's exit while thinking this was humanity's final vanity, yet still could not suppress welling tears. And half who had gone out did not return. Exhausted when lying on the cot in the night hut, Uji would count unreturned colleagues and subordinates one by one in mind. And I am still alive, he thought. This struck him not as sentiment but visceral certainty. In such moments Uji invariably found himself vaguely thinking of Lieutenant Hanada. Not clear thought—rather gazing at Hanada's indistinct image lingering at consciousness' threshold. Hanada had been one of his few comrades since this brigade formed in Kurume.

――

The troops at the South Entrance were still faring relatively well. The situation at the North Entrance was even worse. Securing this basin, known as the breadbasket of Northern Luzon, was absolutely necessary to continue a protracted war. If this position were lost, everyone would be driven into the mountains with no choice but to starve to death. The combat situation at the South Entrance was not particularly active, but the U.S. forces continued their steady encroachment from the North Entrance. The officers and soldiers of the battalion holding the North Entrance would hide in individual foxholes during the day, bending their bodies to pound rice to fill their own mouths, and only emerge above ground to fight when night fell. However, willpower alone could not hold out against the U.S. military. Overwhelming the U.S. forces was nothing but a dream now. There was nothing else to do but maintain a defensive posture and wait for the homeland’s military forces to build up strength. The soldiers half-believed and half-doubted the rumor that over two thousand aircraft had already been assembled in the Tohoku region of the homeland to allocate to the Philippines theater of war. Why weren’t Japan’s aircraft flying even in this state? Since the Lingayen landing, only American planes had been flying through the skies. The enemy was waiting to "enter deep into our territory," at which point Japan’s air forces would surely begin full-scale operations. While waiting in vain for that day, casualties mounted day after day at San Jose North Entrance. Messengers from the North Entrance came to Uji’s unit time and again, demanding they send a medic. Even the messenger soldiers’ complexions had turned a murky bluish-black, their eyes bloodshot with what seemed like rage. This was the face of the battlefield. This was the battlefield’s expression brought forth unaltered.

Even this unit holding the South Entrance had nothing more than a single trainee doctor and a handful of medics. Due to food shortages, endemic diseases, and injuries sustained during raids, they could hardly keep up with just that. Moreover, if the U.S. forces intended to invade from the South Entrance, it was as plain as day that even more casualties would occur. Although the raiding parties were barely managing to block signs of invasion, it was unclear how much longer this could last. However, the situation at the North Entrance was reaching a critical point without even waiting for the messenger’s report. No matter the circumstances, there was no choice but to recall Lieutenant Hanada and deploy him to the North Entrance. The final messenger was chosen. Sergeant Takagi received the Company Commander’s order and hurried to Lieutenant Hanada’s location. And late last night, Sergeant Takagi returned empty-handed.

I am a senior medical officer. What was the meaning of trying to send me—a senior medical officer—to the most perilous North Entrance sector? Shouldn’t they send the trainee doctor or medics stationed at the South Entrance? I will not comply with such unlawful orders.

Sergeant Takagi reported Lieutenant Hanada’s response in an uninflected tone. He was a young non-commissioned officer who retained somewhere in his body the naivety of a boy. At that moment, Uji happened to be in the Company Commander’s office and heard the report alongside him. The raw materials for armor-piercing explosives and dynamite used in raids were growing scarce, and Uji had been deep in discussion at the Company Commander’s office about countermeasures. He found himself suddenly captivated by Sergeant Takagi’s expression—youthful yet unnervingly cold, clearly suppressing any emotion. The Company Commander asked in a low voice.

“What was Lieutenant Hanada doing when you went there?” “He was sitting in the corner of the hut, eating bayabas fruit.” Bayabas refers to a yellow edible fruit. In a small hut within the dark jungle, the figure of Lieutenant Hanada leaning against a pillar and eating bayabas suddenly rose vividly in Uji’s imagination. Lieutenant Hanada’s figure was wearing a clean shirt, his face seeming to glow with something like happiness.

(That was Lieutenant Hanada’s face when I had peered through that window.) Uji shuddered for no particular reason and forcibly severed that train of thought. After a while, the Company Commander asked in a groan-like voice that seemed pained.

“...What about the woman?” “The woman was with him.” The naked flame of the candle swayed, casting large wavering shadows on the wall. And then there was a brief silence. A night wind seemed to pass over the jungle; the rustling of leaves swelled and then faded away. A certain thought that had long lingered vaguely in the depths of Uji’s heart now began to take definite shape for the first time. He stiffened his cheeks slightly and, while feigning nonchalance, shifted his vacant gaze back and forth between the Company Commander and Sergeant Takagi.

With two or three yellow petals clinging to the tips of his damp boots, Uji climbed the stairs to his makeshift hut. Here, due to the forest’s composition, the songs of rice-pounding were nearly inaudible. Upon entering the room and creaking the floorboards, he took down the pistol hanging on the wall—a black Browning that sat heavy in his grip. Sitting on the edge of his cot, he hunched forward and began meticulously inspecting it. When finished, he loaded each bullet with deliberate care one by one. He pulled out a scrap of cloth and wiped repeatedly from barrel to grip. Head still bowed as he repeated these motions, he began to laugh—a low, strangled sound that seemed wrenched from his throat. It was laughter steeped in agony. Raising the pistol abruptly silenced him; he straightened his back and extended his right arm to take aim. Through his eyes—along the line connecting rear sight to front sight—stretched the jungle’s darkness beyond the window: thick trunks and spindly branches tangled with vines bearing clusters of pale red fruit. Lowering the pistol and clicking on the safety, he released another short bark of parched laughter. Then he spat phlegm onto the floorboards. He was remembering how he had felt last night when Takagi delivered Hanada’s response.

Lieutenant Hanada’s argument had been delivered as if staking his very life. Even if he were a senior medical officer himself, even if the orders were unjust—there was no way Hanada could be unaware of what consequences refusing a superior’s command would bring. The exact manner in which it had been delivered couldn’t be discerned from Sergeant Takagi’s account the previous night, but when he heard it, a cold shudder had raced sharply down Uji’s spine. A sensation of his mouth drying out—an unpleasant feeling—had been mixed with that. Uji instinctively fixed his gaze on the Company Commander’s face, but illuminated from behind by firelight, the commander’s features remained only dark and clouded. Yet Uji clearly saw the Company Commander’s hand gripping the sword’s pommel quivering minutely. Though he kept it from showing on his face, that anger—indescribably intense—shook Uji’s chest. "What good does getting so angry do?" Uji thought reflexively, but before pity for this emaciated veteran officer could arise within him, he felt Lieutenant Hanada’s doings—which seemed utterly disconnected from such hostile circumstances—suddenly scraping roughly against his heart like a fresh allure. ——

He rose from the bed, fastened his abbreviated sword belt, and slung the pistol at his right hip. He stood in the center of the room and spent some time surveying it. The walls were made of nipa leaves but had aged and splintered. A crude bamboo bed. A grimy gray blanket. He had already lived in this hut for a whole month. The phlegm he had spat earlier clung to the floor like a rotten oyster. He stared fixedly at that phlegm. A sudden sense of desolation stirred Uji’s disgust, but he jerked his back upright and bodily shoved through the door, then charged down the stairs in one breath.

Uji entered a long narrow building that seemed to crouch against the mountainside. This was his unit’s medical office. Inside, two or three medics were mixing quinine powder or some other white substance at a central table; one glanced up at him suspiciously before resuming work. The room stayed relatively bright through its wide windows, though bamboo screens partitioned off a dim rear section with rows of beds where sick and wounded soldiers likely lay. The sharp sting of disinfectant blended with a faintly lingering odor of sickness. Through the window came rice-pounding songs rising and falling in pitch.

Outside the small side entrance on the right, suddenly— “Got lost, did you?” “Stop lying.” “You meant to desert.”

The sound of something hard striking flesh repeatedly rang out. “No, Sergeant.” “I truly did get lost.” Then his voice dropped to a mumble as he said something at length, but when his words trailed off came again that sudden sense of blows being struck.

“Listen here—” “You know the rules.” “In the current situation, leaving your post even temporarily will be considered desertion. Understood?” “If you understand, get out.” A stifled sob followed. The medics kept working silently, showing no emotion. He planted his sword on the floor, closed his eyes, and listened intently. After a moment, Sergeant Takagi pushed through the side entrance on the right and lumbered into the room—his face slightly flushed. He stopped upon seeing Uji, then spoke in a youthful voice—

“The Apprentice Medical Officer is not present.”

Uji gestured for him to follow, then stepped outside in silence, still carrying his sword.

Within the jungle lay a naturally compacted path; descending it diagonally, the ground gradually grew damp. On the midslope, several massive rocks had taken root, the path perilously winding between them, and from around there the jungle thinned slightly. The San Jose Basin spread northward from where this mountain ended, but through breaks in the treetops—beyond wetlands flickering in and out of view—three or four men could be seen moving leisurely on a banca pulled by water buffaloes. The distance made it impossible to tell whether they were soldiers or Filipino farmers. The water of the canal cutting through the basin's center shone dully in a single distant line. He stopped walking and turned around with his back against a rock. Lowering his gaze to Takagi’s face, he spoke.

“I’m going to Lieutenant Hanada’s place right now.” “You’re coming too.” After a pause, he added: “By the Company Commander’s order, Hanada is to be executed by firing squad.” “But don’t breathe a word of this to anyone.” A flicker of tension passed across Takagi’s face before his expression reverted to normal. He appeared to laugh, baring white teeth.

“Yes, sir. I won’t tell anyone.” “Get ready immediately and come to my hut.”

As Takagi saluted and began to leave, Uji called out after his retreating figure.

“—Bring the pistol. “And take your important personal belongings too.”

Takagi’s suspicious gaze returned to his face. Uji averted his eyes and waved his hand. Then, dragging his feet, he began walking in the direction opposite Takagi. A faint rustling suddenly passed overhead. When Uji looked up at the sky, countless hundreds of migratory birds were crossing through a gap in the treetops. One flock passed, then another followed. Chirping sounds reached his ears. They seemed to be traversing the basin one after another. That direction was Intaru. Crossing the basin directly would be quicker, but since it was dangerous, there was no choice but to detour through the jungle path. He shook his head with a grimace and spat out phlegm. It formed a pale red speck that fell away down the cliff. The color of the phlegm he had seen earlier on the temporary hut’s floor suddenly resurfaced vividly in Uji’s mind.

There was clearly red blood mixed in it. Even back in Aparri, he would grow terribly fatigued and his shoulders would stiffen come evening, but it was during that grueling march up the Cagayan Valley that he had unexpectedly coughed up blood. Of course, given the circumstances, rest was out of the question—he had pressed on into San Jose—but after a month of jungle life cut off from sunlight, he became acutely aware of his body being eaten away moment by moment. He had known the infirmary lacked proper medicine, and it was clear that undergoing an examination would be pointless, so Uji had kept it to himself until now. He was thirty-three years old this year. He knew that once past thirty, the progression of the illness would slow—but that was only under the conditions of a peaceful civilian life. Though he could expect to die soon by artillery shell or bayonet, and though at times a cold laugh would well up within him—what point was there in worrying about his condition?—strangely enough, whenever he saw the color of blood in his phlegm, a fierce desire to live would always surge violently in his chest.

—When he descended the naturally compacted stone steps, there was the cave entrance. A dry wind blew ceaselessly from the depths of the cave, and he entered, narrowing his eyes. The area near the entrance formed a natural hall, and his men had already begun their work. When they saw him, they all stood up and raised their hands in salute. Sergeant Matsuo, who had been working to fill containers with black powder, said with a grin that showed his teeth.

“Lieutenant. You don’t look well today.” While returning the soldiers’ greetings, he was suddenly overwhelmed by intense shame that flooded his chest. It was impossible to suppress. Despite having mentally prepared himself upon entering, the moment he faced the familiar faces of his subordinate soldiers before him, blood rushed unbidden to his cheeks. Turning his face away into the darkness, he spoke in a displeased voice.

“I’m going on a mission today under orders. “Sergeant Matsuo will handle the rest,” he added in a low voice. “As for my return—I can’t say when that will be.” The end of his sentence quivered slightly. Everyone fell silent. The silence struck Uji as somehow unnatural. Moving his body incrementally, he surveyed the cave interior. Amid pale-glowing stalactites, tools stood arrayed in rows as the soldiers’ pallid gazes seemed to pierce him simultaneously. He faltered and made to turn back. Sergeant Matsuo’s voice came from behind. Though indistinct, he kept walking toward the exit without looking back. Outside flooded morning light. As he ascended the stone steps, cold sweat traced Uji’s spine for the first time.

At 0830, Sergeant Takagi came to his temporary hut. A short while before that, Saeki, the orderly to the Company Commander, had come to deliver the commander’s message—“Do your best”—along with a gift of a canteen. When he opened the canteen, the smell of whiskey wafted out. Then Saeki grinned slyly, took two chicken eggs from his pouch, and said, “I present these to you, Lieutenant.” “Is this also from the Company Commander?” “No, these are from me.”

Just as Saeki was heading back, Takagi arrived. He was lightly equipped, carrying only a single pistol. While gazing at Takagi’s pistol with a look as if observing something strange, he attached his saber to his simplified sword belt, hung his own pistol, and then slung the canteen over it. And he changed from long boots into military boots. When he pushed open the wire door, he turned back once more to look intently at the room, as if etching its appearance into his memory. The discarded long boots—one stood upright, the other had fallen on the floor. Blinking his eyes, he descended the creaking stairs. "Let’s move out," he said in a low voice, and started walking. Takagi’s footsteps followed close behind.

Since the Japanese Army had entered various parts of the jungle, rough paths had formed out of necessity for communication, though none remained reliable. The rampant growth of vegetation quickly obscured any trace of passage. Though clustered treetops blocked direct sunlight, sweltering heat radiating from the undergrowth still caused sweat to seep down their backs after only brief walking. The path trended northeastward. As they advanced, humidity thickened until gnat-like insects swarmed everywhere along the route, their bodies thudding against faces until the irritation grew unbearable. While walking, he inquired about Lieutenant Hanada’s circumstances.

When Lieutenant Hanada fled to Intal, he had apparently taken a large quantity of medicine—maybe loaded onto a water buffalo—and was now trading it with the indigenous people for food to sustain himself. Until now, Uji had imagined him escaping the battlefield through sheer physical means, but without such resourcefulness, surviving independently in the jungle for even a month would have been impossible. The place where Takagi met Hanada yesterday was a small village in a ravine flanked by steep grassy slopes—the hut no longer housed the war correspondent. He had reportedly departed for the East Coast area in search of food and salt. The East Coast was a single road from Intal. That region had not yet been touched by the war's devastation.

“Because he was leaning against a pillar with a blanket over his legs, I couldn’t determine the extent of his injury.” “So he refused to comply with the recall order.” “What tone did he use?” “His usual tone.” “Was he alone in the room?” Takagi walked silently for a while before suddenly speaking up as if jolted from a trance. “There was a mistress too.”

Uji made a displeased face at those words and shrugged his shoulders. Until now, Hanada's woman had never surfaced in his mind framed as a "mistress". Yet given how things stood, such a vulgar label might have been the most fitting after all. A bitter feeling rose to his throat, but he suppressed it and asked Takagi again.

“What kind of woman is she?”

Takagi glanced up at his face and immediately started to answer but then smiled shyly, revealing his white teeth. Uji thought that he seemed to have taken the question as arising from his curiosity. Keeping his stern expression unbroken, Uji spoke overbearingly. “Wouldn’t she be this kind of woman? She has large eyes, thin eyebrows—” “That’s right. There’s a large mole under her right eye.” With a gnawing feeling, Uji was recalling—it was that woman after all.

It was back when he was still in Aparri. At that time, Aparri's defenses had been provisionally completed with a three-tiered system—main positions, forward positions, and coastal positions—but reports from Leyte Island made it clear that another fundamental reconstruction would be necessary to withstand American offensive capabilities. Uji was stationed in a village near the forward position. As a reservist officer called up from civilian life, he possessed only basic knowledge of strategy and fortification, but even so, he couldn't imagine these positions holding against naval bombardment or air attacks. The reinforcement order came down, and soldiers worked day and night. One day during this period—a rare success—Japanese anti-aircraft guns shot down an incoming American plane, its pilot descending through twilight skies like a white blossom unfurling his parachute. This occurred in mountains near the forward position. From that moment, the pilot disappeared completely. Though they combed every inch to capture him for interrogation, no trace could be found. Some Filipino must have hidden him away. As Leyte's defeat grew more certain, Filipino hearts seemed to gradually turn from Japanese forces. The American pilot search mission fell to Uji.

One night, Uji slipped into a village near the mountain where the pilot had descended. Past midnight, a waning crescent moon hung in the sky, but across the dim landscape, only the path cutting through the dark wetland stood out starkly white. The village consisted of seventy to eighty houses. Only one house within it blazed with light, while the remaining houses lay dark and asleep. Keeping a light on at such an hour was certainly suspicious by the standards of the local farmers’ habits. Uji gripped his pistol and, muffling his footsteps, approached the house. From the bungalow-style window, he quietly peered inside. Of course, he hadn’t thought the American pilot would be inside. Rather, it had been a fleeting curiosity that had driven him to take such action. Through a gap in the window covering, he surveyed the interior of the house.

Lieutenant Hanada was there. In that room spread with a blue carpet, a table had been placed, and seated deeply in a chair, Lieutenant Hanada was drinking sake. Across the table sat the woman. She seemed to have just lifted the sake bottle with her left hand. Dressed in simple garments similar to those commonly worn by the locals and facing Hanada, she—perhaps sensing Uji’s presence outside the window—suddenly turned a sharp gaze in this direction and stood up. She had a large-eyed face with a prominent mole on her cheek. "She resembles someone," he thought in that instant, but keeping his footsteps silent, he quickly moved away from beneath the window. He felt he had witnessed something he shouldn’t have seen. He squatted in the shadows, waiting to see if someone might appear at the window, but there was no sign of that happening. The clammy night wind blew against his skin. The color of the clean-looking white undershirt Hanada had been wearing remained etched in his eyes. Everything felt strange.

He remained crouched still, becoming aware of a complex emotion welling up—something he couldn’t unravel. By that time, military discipline had already begun to collapse. Among the officers, there were those who did not sleep in their assigned quarters but kept mistresses they frequented. Uji knew several such officers. An incident had also occurred where a major who had served as brigade adjutant was reprimanded by soldiers after being found dead drunk and dancing with a woman in a private home. Each time Uji witnessed or heard of such incidents, he would dismissively think what relation his colleagues’ disgrace had to me—yet some sediment he couldn’t completely brush away remained in his heart. Keeping mistresses was an open secret. Uji was not without his preferences when it came to women, nor was he particularly moral, yet he could not bring himself to keep a mistress. It might have been due to his age. But at that time, what he feared most was the decay of his own heart.

Whether that house had been Hanada’s quarters was something Uji ultimately never learned. He told no one and asked no one. Yet that momentary scene he glimpsed through the curtain remained seared into his mind with abnormal clarity. When he heard that Hanada had deserted from the southern front battlefield, he immediately recalled that large-eyed woman. If it were that woman—how had she managed to follow the unit up the Cagayan Valley? That march had been an ordeal beyond description. Due to exhaustion, soldiers collapsed; horses slipped and fell. The soldiers who collapsed either committed suicide or were shot. Uji walked while vomiting blood, leaning on a cane. Even after entering San Jose, how long could they maintain their existence as a military force? They were already a mere rabble. What barely kept them all from scattering, Uji thought, was their shared awareness of being exposed to the same danger and the same fate. I will live for myself. Gasping as he pressed onward, it was then that Uji first thought this way. How had she managed to keep up during that arduous march with her own two feet? And how had the woman managed to support Hanada at the site of the southern entrance’s artillery fire? He did not understand any of it. He did not understand, yet it pressed down upon Uji’s thoughts with a strange sense of reality.

As they walked, the path gradually began growing damp. After their conversation lapsed, they walked in sullen silence for about two hours. The faint trace of a path forked into two branches. Since Takagi said there wasn't much difference between either route, he thought awhile before choosing the mountain path. As they progressed, the jungle grew denser with enormous trees. Parasitic plants with bluish-black leaves covered the trunks while vines smothered the treetops. Ferns carpeted the ground where firefly-like luminous bodies darted through dim recesses between trunks. The path turned somewhat dry though occasional mountain stream sounds echoed nearby. Its width measured roughly four to five shaku. Uji took point with Takagi following behind.

“The path isn’t wrong, is it?”

“It’s fine. In another two or three hours, we’ll reach brigade headquarters.” The brigade headquarters was located at the center of the planned rear position. Lieutenant Hanada’s whereabouts were at a point three kilometers north of that location. They should be able to arrive before nightfall. He occasionally glanced back at Takagi behind him for no particular reason. Fatigue had already begun weighing heavily on Uji’s shoulders, but Takagi, being young, still showed no signs of weariness. Each time he looked back, Takagi smiled at him with his eyes.

“You were in the medical corps, weren’t you? Lieutenant Hanada’s direct subordinate.” “That’s correct.” “When we were on Paraui Island, wasn’t it you who served as Hanada’s orderly?” “That’s correct.” “If that’s the case—” Uji broke off. “You’ll end up killing your own superior officer.” Takagi’s breathing behind him seemed to grow slightly more ragged. After a moment, in a gasping tone: “Because it’s an order—” Then he said the rest rapidly: “But it’s not my fault.”

“No one’s saying you’re at fault.”

Uji said this while a cold smile drifted faintly across his cheek. “That doesn’t matter at all.” After a moment, he added under his breath: Even if they’re not killed, everyone dies anyway. He kept muttering these words like an incantation to himself.

The path narrowed, and the jungle suddenly ended. It was a cliff. The black rock face stood vertically for about ten meters, the path precariously stitching along the cliff's upper edge. They began walking along the cliff's edge. A basin stretched below them, so bright its reflection seemed to dye their eyes. The jungle resumed below the cliff, thinning down the slope until fields spread where it ended. Mounds of unhulled rice dotted the distant view like scattered toys. Clutching roots and branches to steady himself as he trudged forward, Uji felt the meaning of his earlier muttered words cling stubbornly to his chest. Most of his comrades from Apari were already dead. Two battalions had been chosen to intercept U.S. forces at Orion Pass south of Tsugegarao. But it was too late. Orion Pass had already fallen to the Americans. The battalions were annihilated under fierce assault—only twenty-some soldiers returned to San Jose. He couldn't deny feeling secretly blessed for having escaped selection at Orion Pass. That entering San Jose a day earlier spared him devastating artillery fire; that staff officer status kept him from joining Raiding Parties—beneath his pity for dead comrades lurked an icy satisfaction. Whether men lived or died hinged on trivialities. This war's truism became unbearable when faced directly. Was rejoicing in survival pure or corrupt? He couldn't tell. Even such pondering felt futile. The northern troops' annihilation was now inevitable. The southern battalion's fate hung like a candle in the wind.

It was something everyone had already foreseen. What compels one to remain with the original unit despite this? Is it human dignity? Here, there can no longer be such things as pride or self-discipline. There exists only the cold fact of living or being killed. There is no good or evil. There is only one truth. That is the voice from within. It is the yearning to live. To live for oneself is the only truth. Those actions are nothing but sentimentality.

He leaned against a rock edge, his face bathed in direct sunlight, and stood motionless for a while, listening to the clanging of Sergeant Takagi’s approaching boots—heel plates striking rock behind him. The footsteps gradually drew nearer. He turned around. Takagi’s complexion was startlingly pale. “Are you fatigued, Lieutenant, sir.”

He continued thinking about this morning while staring fixedly at Takagi. When he had stood looking down at the Company Commander’s half-white head, a sudden feeling of sorrow had momentarily filled his chest. What had that feeling been? It was not that he had felt pity for the Company Commander. He spoke to Takagi in a slow tone.

“This morning, the Company Commander ordered me to kill Hanada.” “Because he said to bring a non-commissioned officer along, I brought you.”

This morning, while he was waiting in the infirmary, Takagi had been beating a soldier outside the room. Last night, his report had been strangely cold and distant—what had he been thinking in his heart? If that were due to a childish sense of justice—but he surveyed Takagi’s youthful cheeks and the healthy complexion of his wrists. Takagi’s clear eyes were fixedly waiting for his words. He felt a fierce pleasure akin to ripping off a scab in one go and said each word with deliberate force.

“I don’t intend to return to the original unit after this—whether I meet Hanada or not, I don’t know. I’m going to the east coast.”

“Lieutenant!” Takagi shouted as if to cut him off. The face rapidly turned red. “Lieutenant! You mustn’t do that!”

Uji coldly ignored the shout as he pressed his body more firmly against the rock edge.

“If you want to flee, come with me.” “If you don’t want to flee, go back.” The color drained abruptly from Takagi’s face. Scraping his boots against the rock edge as he stepped back, he glared at Uji with eyes burning blue. Uji did not move a muscle in his expression and stared fixedly at that movement. A silence lingered for some time. The sunlight was hot on his back. Suddenly, Takagi let out a gasping cry. “I will return.” “Fine. Go back.”

Uji shouted as if slamming down words. Takagi brought his heels together and rendered a hand salute to Uji. The raised hand trembled violently. Uji kept his gaze fixed and slightly raised one palm in return. Takagi turned away and began walking along the cliffside path. The laughter froze solid on Uji's cheek. His right hand moved to his waist and slowly drew out the pistol. The cliff offered only a single path. Takagi never looked back, shoulders quivering in minute tremors as he retreated. The figure swayed like heat haze rising from scorched earth. Uji bent his body against the rock edge and rested the gun barrel there. He closed one eye, pressed his cheek against stone, and set his finger on the hammer. Beyond the front sight's notch, Takagi's dwindling form wavered. Thirty more seconds would see him round the bend. Squeeze now and the bullet would strike true. His marksmanship held no doubt. I'll shoot, he thought. But the rictus grin melted from his face as he lifted his head with an expression of bearing unbearable weight. He let the pistol drop limply. At that moment Takagi turned the corner and abruptly disappeared from view.

As he turned the corner, he seemed to glance briefly this way. But that too remained unclear. Uji stood there motionless, a strange expression on his face.

Some time passed.

He shook his head vigorously and began walking slowly. Though his complexion remained haggard, the way he pressed his lips tightly together and sharpened his gaze contrarily gave him an air of vitality. By not keeping his intention to desert solely to himself—even if he had blurted it out to Takagi—his mood seemed rather lightened. When the Company Commander said that morning to bring a skilled marksman among the NCOs, Uji had immediately thought of Takagi. He did not know whether Takagi was actually skilled at shooting. Yet why had Takagi come to mind so quickly? At that moment, Uji had firmly solidified his resolve to desert. Therefore, he should have chosen the non-commissioned officer most likely to assist in desertion. Despite this, he had ended up choosing Takagi. The expression on Takagi’s face when making his report last night had stubbornly lingered in his mind. It had been a coldly emotionless face. Uji knew. Takagi hated Hanada—his superior officer. He felt a truly commonplace anger toward Hanada, who had fled with the woman and never returned. And by choosing Takagi, Uji had wanted to confront what might be called the commonplace criticism against his own desertion.

Uji walked aimlessly and recklessly, his head hung low in gloom. The path entered the jungle again. If he revealed his intent to desert, the paths available to Takagi were limited to three: escape with Uji, betray Uji and return, or shoot Uji dead. Uji was considering this final scenario. (At that moment, would I shoot Takagi or silently be shot?) When he considered this, he felt a throbbing pleasure mingled with pain for some reason. But in reality, Takagi had betrayed him and turned back along the path. In three hours or so, he would reach his original unit. And he would report to the Company Commander. If that happened, that good-natured Company Commander would fly into a rage and send pursuers after him. That immediately came to mind. That’s why I had intended to shoot Takagi dead. However, in the end, he didn’t fire. Why hadn’t he fired? It wasn’t that Takagi’s unsuspecting heart—never once looking back—had moved Uji. It was that Uji had wanted to make a gamble. More pursuers would come. The more external pressure there was against his desertion, the more Uji would push back and be able to confirm the righteousness of his actions. That was what he had wanted to confirm. He didn’t want to flee like a rat escaping the ship’s hold upon sensing an impending wreck—stealthily and unknown to all. Whether they were good or bad, he wanted to push aside whatever obstructed him and flee.

He wanted to confirm his own actions by sensing resistance. As if probing a wound’s depth by spreading it open with fingers. —

For about thirty minutes, Uji walked in silence, his mind wrestling with conflicting thoughts. Before long, what appeared to be a small settlement came into view along the path. Nipa roofs flickered among the trees when, rounding a bend in the path, his gaze caught on four or five grimy huts clustered haphazardly. Their dilapidated state made immediately clear the place had long stood abandoned. Shoulders slumped, Uji wandered inside almost absently. Only two or three rice-pounding pestles lay scattered across floors where pillars already showed signs of rot. A vinegar-like odor permeated the air. Stepping across damp earth to circle around back, he found a hut listing precariously among overgrown ferns. Through gaps in split nipa leaves sagging from the roof, something dark and formless seemed sprawled on the hut's floor. Instinctively gripping his pistol, Uji narrowed his eyes and advanced. The shape resolved into what might have been a Japanese soldier.

He wore a tattered undershirt, his legs stretched out long as he lay on his back. Perhaps sensing Uji’s approach, he listlessly moved his neck, but his face showed no trace of surprise or joy. He was a dark-skinned soldier with high cheekbones. When noticed, the hands clasped on his chest had lost nearly all their flesh, leaving only tendons protruding like wire. By the pillow lay a dried-up canteen and a half-eaten, withered bayabas. He was watching Uji’s figure with a clouded gaze. His gaze was vacant, but even those eyes were shadowed by dark rings. With one foot propped on the floor, Uji gazed coldly at the man for some time. He shifted his weight onto one leg and stepped up onto the floor. The pillar and floor groaned with an unpleasant sound.

“What are you?”

The man’s vacant expression did not change. Uji raised his voice louder and repeated the same question again. A low, hollow voice seeped from the man’s mouth in a languid drawl.

“I am ill.”

Uji asked again which unit he belonged to. The man seemed about to answer something but closed his eyes wearily without making it clear. While shutting his eyes and slightly moving hands clasped on his chest, he said this in a relatively clear voice.

"There's another one," "In...the back..." When Uji shifted his gaze accordingly beyond the nipa half-wall partition, there appeared to be another room further inside—its space stained a stagnant bluish-black color from what might have been low-hanging tree branches dipping through gaps in thatchwork roofing material overhead; On that floor too lay some dark object stretched out horizontally; Uji moved toward it; Drawing nearer revealed this too was indeed another soldier—Uji froze mid-step; Thick swarms of flies blanketed every inch from face up through scalp on this man;

(Was he dead?) As he stood staring, the hand dangling over the floor moved with excruciating slowness, drew near the face, and made a faint gesture of shooing flies. The flies burst upward in a buzzing cloud, swirling about before settling on pillars again. He wasn't dead yet. The face bore cheekbones sharp as chisel marks, its hue nearly that of earth. The gaiters around his outstretched legs hung loose, sagging with ugly indentations here and there. Do flies swarm over men even before they die? Uji averted his eyes, bitter saliva pooling in his mouth. The flies seemed already to be reclaiming their perch on the man's face. Soldiers separated from their units—especially those gone missing—apparently wandered this jungle until starvation felled them here and there. Discipline held only near headquarters; step beyond that, and in this endless jungle, anchorless soldiers wandered pallid as wrathful spirits. Uji had heard such reports from his men, but witnessing it firsthand now pressed upon him with unbearable weight, heavy with foreboding. Returning to the first room, Uji leaned against a pillar and exhaled deeply. That was when he noticed it—a stench akin to rotting flesh had begun seeping from the back room. Fatigue weighed on his shoulders like stones. Pain throbbed at the core of his spine. Though every joint felt numb, his insides burned with unnatural heat. Leaning against the pillar, Uji quietly closed his eyes.

He felt the fresh intent to desert from this morning's departure gradually transform into something oppressive and unpleasant. That morning had still carried a heartrending joy like stomping through ice with desperate force—a sensation of long-pent-up pressures finally finding release and gushing out. For the month since entering San Jose, he'd believed this morning marked his first clear grasp of the desertion opportunity he'd constantly sought, yet now wondered if that had been mere delusion. When hearing Takagi's report last night, Hanada's current circumstances had suddenly materialized vividly behind his eyes. He'd felt a heavy, quiet excitement rising within him then. When exactly had that excitement become entwined with the word "desertion" deep in his heart? He'd spent last night pondering countless matters, lying awake for hours. That morning when orderly Saeki came to summon him, he'd immediately intuited it must be the order to eliminate Hanada.

The tension that had gripped the heart since Takagi’s departure was only now beginning to crumble.

First, he did not know the way. He had no idea whether following this path would truly lead to Intal. Without knowing even that much, he had pressed recklessly onward along the fading trail until reaching this point. And now he was in this hut. If he continued wandering lost like this, he might end up sharing the same fate as the soldiers here. He had only one day’s worth of provisions. As he walked, his stomach would grow empty, and if he found no means to seek food, he would inevitably exhaust his strength, collapse by the roadside, and have no choice but to wait for death. However, if this path was indeed the way to Intal—then the pursuers would soon catch up to Uji.

(I should have shot Takagi back then. What was I hesitating for?) Uji clicked his tongue sharply and opened his eyes. The anxiety that pursuers would come now began taking distinct shape and spreading through his chest. But there was no use agonizing over that now. He had to leave the hut and start walking immediately. Danger was imminent. While part of him felt hounded, something audacious maintained an unrelenting grip on his core.

"Whether for good or ill," he thought vaguely while standing. Like a top, he had to spin desperately until collapsing from exhaustion!

Suddenly, footsteps sounded. Startled, Uji braced himself. Threading between the huts out front, the footsteps seemed to circle around to the wet ground on the side. Uji listened intently while gripping the pistol’s grip in his right hand and disengaging the safety catch.

Here, where the forest grew particularly dense, even the light filtering through the treetops was blue like the seafloor. A shadowy figure emerged as if parting the very air. Uji let out a sound of surprise.

“Takagi, isn’t it?”

Uji maintained his guarded stance without moving, pistol still gripped. The figure gradually approached. It was Sergeant Takagi. He came right up to the edge of the floor where Uji stood and halted. Then looked up at Uji. Uji silently gazed down at Takagi. Takagi's naturally pale face appeared eerily translucent and blue under the peculiar light. In those narrow eyes that had looked up at him, Uji clearly saw tears pooling to overflowing. Now that he considered it, Takagi's approach had carried an almost staggering gait. An exhaustion bordering on collapse saturated Takagi's expression. He tried to speak but found no words. A cheek twitched spasmodically; a tear broke from its lid and traced a solitary path down his face. Uji gradually relaxed his defensive posture as a sudden sting shot through his nasal bridge. But this lasted mere moments - he adopted an oddly displeased expression and turned back toward the man on the floor. The man had spoken.

The man turned his face toward them and fixed them with a hollow gaze. His lips moved slightly as if trying to speak in a parched voice. It was impossible to tell what he was saying. It sounded less like a voice than wind whistling through a throat. “Go find out what he’s saying.”

Uji faced Takagi, brusquely uttered those words, then jumped down from the floor to the ground. The words flowed smoothly from his mouth, almost without thought. Takagi hesitated for a moment but immediately climbed onto the floorboards, crouched by the man’s pillow, bent his neck, and brought his ear close to the man’s face. Uji walked briskly out toward the path just like that. He sat down on a fallen log at the edge of the path, supported his upper body with his sword, and closed his eyes. And he considered the intent behind Takagi starting to turn back only to come chasing after him again. When he clearly saw tears pooling in Takagi’s eyes, the first thing that rose in his chest was a kind of unbearable feeling. (This man will likely be a burden to me for some time to come.) The realization that no pursuers were coming from their original unit felt less like relief and more like an anticlimax. In truth, moments earlier, he had been envisioning the faces of his comrades one by one as the pursuers who would come after him. The premonition that he himself would be standing in a dire situation—all of that had vanished because of it. He opened his eyes wide and, with an impassive expression, looked around intently. The path, barely showing its traces, vanished into the depths of the jungle.

Takagi emerged from behind the hut. Uji also stood up listlessly. He asked as he stood up.

“What had that soldier been saying?” Takagi approached, but sensing something unnaturally rigid in his gait and movements, Uji subtly braced himself. Takagi’s voice held a dark, suppressed tone. “If you’re going to the East Coast, please take me with you,” he said. Like pilgrims yearning for a holy land, everyone strangely wanted to reach the East Coast. If you went to the East Coast, there was plenty of rice, salt, and fish. This belief had been held among the soldiers of their original unit like a legend, and while somewhat exaggerated, it ought to have been based in fact. Civilians not affiliated with the military had already formed their own groups and were heading toward the East Coast. Now, hearing those words, Uji too vaguely realized that he himself was being drawn there.

“If you won’t take me with you...” Takagi caught his breath for a moment. “Then shoot me dead with that pistol,” he said. Uji silently met Takagi’s gaze. Without replying, he began walking. Then muttered under his breath like a soliloquy: “This path should work.” Takagi half-ran to keep up with Uji’s retreating back.

“Shall I go kill him?” “Lieutenant Uji, sir.” It was a voice choked with desperation. Sensing something murderous, Uji turned around. Takagi’s eyes caught Uji’s gaze and glinted sharply. “Why are you killing him?”

“He’s saying ‘Kill me.’” A strangely stubborn craving seemed to have seized him now. His facial muscles had stiffened. Uji felt an indefinable pressure inexorably emanating from the color of Takagi’s pupils. Enduring this, Uji stared back into those eyes. Resentment toward Uji’s actions, his own weakness in still trying to obey Uji despite that resentment, and a desperate rebellion against both—all these burned in his eyes. Uji silently turned his back and started walking down the path again.

Suddenly, a laugh-like sound erupted from behind. Uji shuddered and halted abruptly. It wasn't laughter at all. It was a stifled sob. Growing increasingly chaotic, it transformed into full-blown wailing. As if pursued, Uji quickened his pace.

The time was well past noon. The jungle stretched endlessly on and on. Perhaps it was fatigue that made it seem so. He had no appetite whatsoever. He simply walked on in silence. Takagi too followed along in silence, his swollen eyelids lowered. The fact that he had somehow compromised and ended up bringing Takagi along again—this seemed to be gradually becoming an unpleasant weight pressing against Uji’s chest. Why hadn’t he scolded him then and sent him back? As he registered the heavy footsteps of Takagi following behind him in the same rhythm, Uji felt his heart grow heavier still.

(Why do I end up feeling this dark mood, like a prisoner?)

Whether desertion was good or bad—that had already been weighed in his heart since this morning. There was no need to blame himself for that. It was precisely because he believed survival was right that he had resolutely carried out this desertion. Yet why was something trying to block his path to the East Coast?

Suddenly, an image he had been desperately trying to keep buried in the recesses of his consciousness rose vividly to the surface. It was those piercing gazes of the subordinate soldiers he had seen inside the limestone cave that morning. Those soldiers had been his subordinates since Aparri. Having abandoned even them, Uji had come this far. Of course, they could not have discerned Uji’s inner thoughts that morning. They had simply been paying attention as they always did when listening to their superior’s words. If he believed his own actions were justified, why had he faltered like that back then? The numerous pale gazes shot toward him from between the glowing white limestone formations continued to torment him unbearably.

“――Well then.”

Muttering meaningless words incessantly, Uji tried to expel that thought from his heart. The more he tried to expel it, the more tenaciously it clung to his heart. Why did they aim unerringly at the narrowest chink in what should have been an impenetrably armored heart? Why did they come thrusting their sharp blades?

The canteen slung over his shoulder gradually became a burden. With each step, he could feel the dense liquid inside sloshing about. Uji kept his neck rigidly straight, fixed his gaze sharply ahead, and dragged his feet as he walked. Beads of sweat from his forehead trickled down no matter how many times he wiped them.

For three years since his conscription, he had moved from battle to battle. What he had witnessed at battlefield positions was the raw form of what it means to be human. Leaning on his cane as he advanced along the path toward the San Jose Basin while agonizing, Uji had resolved wholeheartedly to live only for himself—precisely because the reality he had witnessed and heard had made that lesson abundantly clear. Humans serve nothing but their own interests and pleasures; sacrifice and devotion can only take root when there exists a self-satisfaction so profound it more than compensates for the suffering involved. He had engraved all these things deep into his heart over these three years. Among his comrades-in-arms—both those still living and those now dead—there had existed truly diverse types of men. There had been adjutants who lost themselves in dance and drink at Aparri, and there had been those like Hanada who deserted with women. On the flip side, there had been a young lieutenant who had willingly volunteered for the Raiding Party never to return, and there had been an elderly captain who had sacrificed himself to save his subordinates. However, he found himself somehow unable to accept such battlefield tales of heroism with pure sincerity. Something nagged at him. If he could not sincerely accept such human beauty, then he should have been unable to hate the ethical violations on the battlefield. In reality, both seemed to him like futile endeavors under such dire circumstances. He had lost all sense of perspective when gazing upon humans. To him, humans who had lost their pillar were nothing but specters stripped of their shadows. Hadn't they all lost their pillars? There could be no beauty or ugliness in the actions of specters.

When they finally entered San Jose after that grueling march, the area around the southern entrance was garrisoned by a naval unit that had fled from Manila. Due to high fever, Uji slept in a civilian house arranged by an orderly. That area too was occupied by the Navy, and in that house lived a man who appeared to be a naval civilian employee wearing a jumper, together with a local woman. When they learned of Uji’s illness and took pity on him, they fetched coconuts and mangoes from somewhere for him. When he thought him to be a civilian employee, he said he was a war correspondent. He was a well-built man with eyes like a bear cub. He now seemed to be working as a provisions officer for the Navy. Uji remembered the man’s name. It was quite some time ago, but he was a man who had received a literary award. Uji had a memory of reading that novel when he was in the countryside. It was a novel about someone traversing icebergs and shooting down a bear. The next morning when bidding farewell, the man suddenly grew solemn-faced and said earnestly—almost whispering into Uji’s ear—that whether this war was won or lost, he intended to remain here, living out his days in this land with this woman. At that moment, Uji was so astonished his eyes widened. He thought what a carefree thing to be contemplating.

After that, an incident occurred where four or five soldiers from Uji’s unit were ambushed by guerrillas and slaughtered when they went to the basin to procure provisions. Later, he heard a rumor that it was that war correspondent who had guided the guerrillas. He didn’t know what happened after that. As nothing was more uncertain than battlefield rumors, Uji had not inquired deeply into the matter; but if such a rumor had spread, perhaps he had been killed afterward. On the battlefield, individual lives were of no concern. A mere whim could snatch away human lives. Why would a man who aspired to write novels do something that endangered himself? But there was nothing strange about that. Everyone without exception had lost their pillar of judgment. There was nothing but sensations responding to phenomena, and everyone convinced themselves those sensations were their own rationality.

(Perhaps I too, having fled out of a desire to live, am one of their kind.)

I couldn't bring myself to mock that novelist. He was gradually losing grasp of what he himself was thinking. He had believed he was making decisive judgments and acting based on his own will, but even that now seemed uncertain. The only thing I knew for certain was that I had now deserted my unit. But even that hadn't been fully accomplished. If I resolved now to shoot Hanada dead and returned to my unit pretending nothing had happened, no one would ever know. Even if Takagi knew, since he'd pursued me this far, we'd be equally guilty of intending to desert. There was no need to fear anyone exposing it. But had Takagi truly followed me here intending to flee together? Why had his eyes brimmed with tears back then? Why had he wanted to kill that ailing soldier? It seemed like I understood everything, yet when I thought about it, I realized I understood nothing at all.

(What in the world am I trudging through this jungle for?)

Desolate doubts welled up in his chest without any logical connection… “I can hear singing.”

Takagi called out to Uji from behind. Uji stopped and listened intently. Though faint, the sound reached even Uji’s ears. Turning his head and looking toward Takagi, he said as if to himself.

“I can hear it.” “That’s an Ilocano song.”

“That’s Brigade Headquarters.” Takagi said this in a calm, low voice. With his lips tightly pressed together, his face bore a resolute expression. A suspicion suddenly flickered through Uji’s mind like a shadow. Uji stared fixedly at Takagi through bloodshot, clouded eyes. Without altering his expression, Takagi calmly met Uji’s gaze. “Alright.” Though the words never left his lips, Uji squared his shoulders with that resolve and began walking. After about two minutes, the path abruptly ended. Unbelievably bright sunlight poured down from the sky. The jungle had opened up there as if uprooted.

Uji had once seen Yabakei. It was a formation of rocks resembling those that compose Yabakei. From where Uji stood, the view resembled an amphitheater, with slopes cutting inward from all directions like the sides of a grinding bowl. The cliff was terraced, with nipa huts scattered midway up its face, clinging precariously. At the base, numerous women clad in plain garments bustled about. The singing arose from there. He could also see soldiers climbing up, clinging precariously to the cliff.

“That is the headquarters.” Takagi pointed at the hut midway up the cliff, slightly larger than the others. A pole jutted into midair, and white undershirts were hung out to dry. The disorienting effect of the slope made it difficult to gauge distances, yet they were close enough that a shout would carry. The path ran along the upper rim of the grinding bowl-shaped depression. In an angry tone, Uji asked.

“The path to Interaru—do we take this route?”

“Yes.” “That large tree.” “At that tree, you turn right,” he said while moving his index finger. “Is there no path that cuts through the jungle without walking along this cliff edge?” “There isn’t.” “I don’t know.” Uji slightly hardened his expression and stared at Takagi. And he said in a low voice. “You go first.” Takagi stiffened his body with a startled air. That sign was clear even to Uji. The two men stared at each other for a time like two beasts that had encountered each other in the jungle. Takagi suddenly looked on the verge of tears and said in a shrill voice, making an exaggerated gesture.

“I will follow later.”

Silence fell again.

Uji suddenly averted his gaze and looked at the large tree ahead. A look of bewilderment spread across Uji’s face. He gazed absently at the sunlit crown of a large tree. A giant tree with peeling bark and only a few leaves clinging to its upper branches appeared before him in a form that seemed to hold some significance. (That tree will soon collapse naturally. But if we turn beneath that tree, we'll be safe.)

However, Uji did not start walking and instead turned toward Takagi again to speak. His tone was somber.

“I—I don’t trust you. You might rush off to headquarters—there’s no guarantee you won’t talk about me.” Takagi’s cheeks flushed crimson, but sorrow immediately flooded his eyes. He twisted his body as if desperately refuting, “That’s not true, Lieutenant. Lieutenant, sir.” The words came out like a stifled moan. “I will follow later.” Uji silently drew the pistol from his waistband. He released the safety catch and gripped the heavy Browning, its weight solid in his palm.

“Alright.” He started walking ahead as he said, “I’ll go first. Follow me.” Uji trod the black rocky path while listening to Takagi’s heavy breathing behind him. From far below, singing swelled like waves as countless small figures moved in unison with their rhythm. The squirming crowd below appeared almost cheerful. Each step carved into his flesh. He walked with every nerve attuned to his back. Uji couldn’t read Takagi’s expression. If he made noise or slid down the cliffside—shoot him immediately. If I kill him—manage excuses later. Catching each footfall behind him through sweat-slick ears—the palm gripping Uji’s pistol grew damp with cold sweat.

They had reached the giant tree they had been heading toward. Nothing had happened. The road forked there; one branch followed the cliff toward headquarters, while turning right would plunge them back into the dark jungle. The bark was red and peeling. The tree appeared seventy or eighty meters tall, but its branches were torn off as if hacked away, and the few remaining leaves near its crown had faded to a sickly white. Uji let out a sigh of relief, dropped his shoulders, and turned around. Fatigue suddenly piled onto his back.

“Is this the path?”

While holstering the pistol at his waist, Uji asked in a low voice. Takagi had a pale face but nodded silently. "What's with that strange face you're making?" Uji tried to laugh, but it did not become a laugh. His expression merely twisted slightly. Takagi also averted his oddly stiffened face from Uji. The two then began walking again as they were.

The village where Hanada was said to be was about three kilometers from here. The path sloped gently downward, and somewhere the sound of flowing mountain water could be heard. Step by step, they drew closer to Lieutenant Hanada's location. Even as he thought this, it felt unreal. The feeling that gripped Uji was something different. While probing that feeling in his chest, he placed the tips of his boots into the grass step by step. Vines entangled around their legs, making it difficult to walk. That Takagi's feelings had hardened due to the earlier incident was evident from his angry expression, but his rough footsteps also made it apparent. It wasn't that Uji didn't trust him. However, there was also the possibility of contingencies. The reason he had said such things to Takagi seemed driven less by genuine intent than by a perverse desire to flaunt his own depravity. To Uji, Takagi's attempt to draw closer through their shared guilt felt only as oppressive as chains. (Taking every bit of this farce seriously.) While stealing glances at Takagi's face walking beside him, Uji felt a moment of sharp hatred surge toward him. However, like spitting at heaven, it returned to his heart with an unpleasant feeling...

After that， he felt as though they had walked for an exceedingly long time. The sunlight filtering through the treetops faded slightly， and cries of insects resembling cicadas flowed from the depths of the forest. He was vaguely thinking about Hanada. If he met Hanada， what would Hanada think? He could imagine Hanada’s surprised face， but what lay beyond that failed to surface in his mind. His remaining with the woman and refusing to return to the unit couldn’t be dismissed as mere base passion. If it had been mere base passion， he wouldn’t have fallen into such circumstances—at least， a man of his caliber should have been able to handle himself more shrewdly. He must have staked himself at a deeper level. But the specifics remained unclear. He became involved with a woman and deserted his unit. The incident itself was astonishingly simple， yet around it trailed darkly various shadows—what Hanada had thought， what he had believed—none of it could be grasped. All Uji understood was that momentary scene he had glimpsed through the window in Aparri.

What do I think of Hanada?

At that moment when he had crouched in the shadows holding his breath, what Uji felt was truly complex. While walking alone along a dark path searching for a U.S. military pilot, he had seen that sight. It wasn't the simple shock of witnessing something bizarre. It was something deeper—a quiet anger of sorts. Perhaps he'd felt resentment because Hanada's face had looked far too content in that moment. Yet even Uji himself couldn't fully grasp what he'd felt then. Every night since Hanada went to Intal, Uji had vaguely pondered Hanada's situation. This contemplation assailed his heart with extraordinary urgency.

Am I hating Hanada? I can't definitively say. As he continued thinking something felt like a thin membrane distorting his judgment. Before long I too might end up deserting like Hanada. Wasn't it this premonition that had kept me from hating Hanada's licentious behavior until now?

The forest gradually thinned, and a grassy hill came into view. Uji walked without conviction.

“It’s just ahead.” Suddenly Takagi said firmly. Uji stopped and raised his bowed head. There was a gently sloping hill covered in shrubs and grass, and the path seemed to curve along it. “The village lies just beyond that bend.” “Lieutenant Hanada was there yesterday.” His mouth felt strangely dry yet kept producing unpleasant raw saliva. He thought there was no need to tense up, yet his body betrayed him. The reality of meeting Hanada remained unclear, as if it were an event from a dream. Even so, his chest thudded as his heartbeat quickened.

Have we really come three kilometers from headquarters?

It felt both interminably long and abruptly short. Though the downhill slope was somewhat easier, Uji had to walk with his thin shoulders hunched forward. Just like during the march up Cagayan Valley, exhaustion beyond physical limits pressed dully against his spine, and cold sweat oozed continuously from his forehead. What was he walking for? Uji bit his lip as he walked, listening to the sound of Takagi’s boots tearing through the vines. A throbbing pain pulsed between his ribs.

When they rounded the base of the grassy hill, four or five shabby nipa-thatched houses came into Uji's view. He thought Hanada was in that one house. While hitching up his sword belt, he said to Takagi: "You just follow me." He saw Takagi pressing his right hand against the pistol at his waist. Takagi did not look his way, staring intently at the village. His face was as white as a Noh mask, an eerie luster shimmering over the oily fat that had seeped out. "It's the house at the very back."

Lieutenant Uji raised his hand to stop Sergeant Takagi but, as if reconsidering, took a deep breath and then took the lead in walking toward the village. His boots clacked. The entrance to the first hut stood wide open, and from within came a low voice. Uji stopped and peered in through the entrance.

“Is Lieutenant Hanada here?” Sunlight filtering through pruned branches cast a red hue across the earthen floor, where a woman sat alone. She had spread a mat-like object across the floor and kept muttering in a low voice. Though dressed in simple Western-style clothing, her hairstyle and facial features unmistakably identified her as Japanese. Her disheveled hair hung down her cheeks as fingers compulsively tore at the mat’s edge, seemingly oblivious to Uji’s voice—eyes wide open while her murmuring continued unabated. Then when she abruptly lifted her face toward the light, its youthful contours revealed a beauty so startling it caught the breath.

“Is there no one outside?”

Compelled by a kind of fearful compulsion, Uji slid his back along the entrance pillar and stepped into the earthen-floored interior. A man’s hoarse voice came from the dimly lit depths,

“Who are you? This one’s gone mad.” When he saw him scrambling out, he did not appear to be a military man. He was a man around forty with a sharp jawline and piercing eyes. Perhaps because the light was dazzling, he shielded his forehead with one hand and looked at Uji.

Uji assumed a guarded stance while keeping his eyes fixed unwaveringly on the man. “Where is Lieutenant Hanada’s hut?”

The man seemed to acknowledge that he was an officer yet made no particular effort to adjust his demeanor. He said in a slow voice. “Lieutenant Hanada? The Lieutenant isn’t here.” “The Lieutenant isn’t present.” “He’s gone.”

“Yes, he’s gone.”

The man had thick, well-fleshed shoulders, his upper body bare. He languidly lowered his legs, clad in mouse-gray Western-style trousers, onto the earthen floor. Uji turned around. Takagi had only his face peering in from the entrance. “Go to Lieutenant Hanada’s hut. If he’s there, tell him Lieutenant Uji has come to make contact and return.” And he turned back to face the man again. The man watched Takagi leave with an impassive expression. “He should be in this village.” “He has already departed.”

“He left?”

He felt his heart give way with relief and took two or three steps into the earthen-floored area. The deranged woman looked up at Uji with a vacant expression, then abruptly lay down and raised her legs. The pale flesh of her thighs visible beneath the hem burned against his vision. As he instinctively tried to look away, the woman—still sprawled on her back—arched her throat and began singing in a piercing voice. Though her enunciation slurred, it was a voice of such visceral rawness it could jolt the senses awake.

Behold, the cross-emblazoned banner raised high Lord Jesus goes before. Thinking it might be a hymn, Uji widened his bloodshot eyes in surprise and stared at the woman. Each time she swayed her toes to keep time, dust would rise from the edge of the mat and drift swaying through the red light beams. The woman suddenly stopped singing and burst into loud laughter. "If she kept making such a loud noise, wouldn't they be discovered?" Uji found himself thinking in sudden confusion even as he shifted his anxious gaze back to the man.

“Then has Hanada returned to his unit?”

Then what became of the woman who'd been with him? Why hadn't they crossed paths with Uji's group along the way? Uji lifted his cap and pressed a palm to his forehead. The woman ceased laughing.

“Not to the unit.” "What?" Uji involuntarily raised his head. The man let his legs dangle onto the earthen floor, supported his upper body with one hand, and stared sharply at Uji. When their eyes met, the man suddenly bared white teeth in what seemed like a laugh. A surge of anger rose up and pierced Uji’s chest. Pressing further, Uji asked. “Where did he go?” The man maintained a vulgar smile at the corners of his lips, yet seemed to hesitate briefly over whether to answer. He quickly assumed a crafty expression of feigned ignorance,

“Lieutenant Hanada was indeed an excellent military doctor.” Uji, growing impatient, tapped the earthen floor with the tip of his sword. “I didn’t ask about that!” At that moment, the words of the sick soldier from earlier came rushing back. The man avoided Uji’s gaze and seemed to be gazing vacantly at the figure of the woman lying sprawled out. It was clearly a feigned attitude. The woman was muttering something incomprehensible to herself. Uji brought his face closer to the man’s, his eyes hardening with intensity as he spoke each word with deliberate force.

“Lieutenant Hanada must have taken the woman and gone to the east coast. I didn’t come here to capture him. I have something to discuss. What did they say to silence you?” Upon hearing those words, the man suddenly let out a low, guttural laugh. While languidly shifting his gaze back to Uji, “He left around noon.”

“Why didn’t you go to the east coast as well?” The man twisted his lips in a vulgar manner and let out a short laugh. “Because of this woman here.” “Where did you come from? Judging by your appearance, you don’t seem to be a soldier—” Being addressed as “you” seemed to irritate the man. While sliding away from Uji across the floor, he suddenly adopted a rude tone. “From Manila, you know. I fled for my life along with some navy men.”

“You’ve been here a long time, haven’t you?” “I’ve been here forty or fifty days already.” “What about food?” “We exchanged the medicines Lieutenant Hanada brought for rice in the lower village.” “You still have some left, then.” “Like hell we’ve got any.” The man’s eyes suddenly began to glare, and even as he looked at Uji, he repeated once. “There’s no way we’ve got any rice left!” Uji silently studied the man’s thick shoulders. Then he pointed at the woman. “Does this person have any family?” “Yeah.” His tone was evasive. “She doesn’t really have what you’d call family.”

“An acquaintance?” “Yeah, something like that.” “Why didn’t you go to the east coast together?” Uji repeated the same question with mounting impatience. A wind seemed to rise from the jungle, the rustling of leaves swelling outside the hut. Patches of light flickered red across the earthen floor. He listened in silence as the wind subsided. The man leaned against the wall and spoke in a low voice. “The east coast—it’s all the same wherever you flee.” “I’m done running.” “You die when it’s your time to die.” “I’ll live out my days here with this woman.”

“What will you do about food?” “Food doesn’t matter anymore.” “It’s no different than running like Lieutenant Hanada.” “If you want to fool around with a woman, you can do it right here.” A shudder of disgust crawled up Uji’s spine like swarming lice. He endured it while retreating to the hut’s entrance. The man drew up his legs from the earthen floor and pinned Uji with glittering eyes. The hard line of his jaw thrust forward with callous menace.

“I don’t know why you’ve got business with Lieutenant Hanada either, but you should stop chasing him.” “You could just let him go.” “—I have business with him.” Uji answered curtly. “I’m sure you do.” He thrust his chin out defiantly. “The Japanese forces in San Jose will soon be driven out and end up fleeing to the east coast.” “Aren’t deserters crawling out everywhere?” “It makes no difference whether you desert now or later.” “You know the command’s already on the verge of collapse, don’t you?”

Uji turned pale and remained silent. He couldn't quite grasp why the man's tone had suddenly turned desperate. He wondered if they were underestimating him. The man burst into laughter with a thick, guttural voice. "Aren't you one who's fled here too?" The man's face wore a smile, but his eyes weren't laughing. His cheeks burned hot, and just as he instinctively moved to step forward again, a shadow fell across the doorway as Takagi returned. A pistol was clutched in Takagi's palm.

“Lieutenant Hanada is not here.” “There’s no one in that hut.” “There’s no luggage or anything else.” The pistol caught the light and glinted. The madwoman, who had been lying down until now, sat up abruptly as if responding to the voice. She frowned and began hurling obscenities. “Lecher. Bastard.” “I’ll kill you.” “I’ll kill you—just wait!”

However, those eyes were not looking at Uji and the others. The hollow gaze seemed to be trying to fix on something even farther away.

Suddenly wrenching down the seething turmoil in his chest, Uji abruptly turned his back and strode out of the hut. Takagi swept a sharp gaze across the hut's interior before silently following Uji.

They returned to the path. The brief rest instead left them utterly exhausted. Each time they dragged their feet, their bones creaked and groaned. The wind swept through the woods. They grew sick of walking; they wanted to lie down anywhere.

“Intal is in this direction.” Once they reached Intal, there would be a single path all the way to the east coast. Despite there being no need to hurry, Uji pressed forward as if pursued. The main unit naturally had no way of knowing yet that Uji was deserting. And yet Uji’s back began to prickle as he acutely sensed pursuers closing in. If he returned and reported to the Company Commander that Hanada had already fled from there, Uji could likely reintegrate with the main unit without raising suspicion. Then his mission would be lifted, and the matter would pass into the hands of the military police. Even if transferred, their activities would be practically nonexistent amid this chaos. The fighting was bound to end in some form within it. And Lieutenant Hanada might still preserve his life.

(What will become of me then?)

The image of the obstinate Company Commander who hung medals in his room, the smell of gunpowder from the limestone cave, and the taste of local liquor like soapy water suddenly flooded vividly into his mind. He shook his head violently to cast off the memory. To imagine returning there meant confronting far too much blood-soaked resistance.

(That man said I was one who had fled here, but was that just spiteful talk, or had he sniffed something out from my attitude?)

Uji staggered and supported his body against a tree trunk. And then, as if collapsing, he squatted down right there. “Sergeant Takagi.” He called out in a pained voice. “Let’s rest here a while before moving on.”

He removed the canteen slung from his shoulder and took off the cap. A pungent whiskey aroma spread. He put it to his mouth and tilted the canteen. The tongue-searing liquid drained down his throat. After a while, his stomach grew hot—that heat soon vanished—then a faint warmth began spreading from deep within his body out to his skin. For a considerable time he kept his eyes closed and his back against the trunk; after a while he opened his eyes dimly, wiped around his mouth with his arm, and passed the canteen to Takagi.

“You drink too.” The scenery suddenly came alive. He could see the wind sweeping through the treetops of the tall trees. The path wound its way and disappeared into the depths of the woods. From here, the clusters of trees grew sparse, and the long shadows fell upon the ground. He could clearly feel his fatigue transforming into pleasant languor. (What kind of man was he?) Given that he claimed to have fled Manila, he might be one of their expatriates. Judging by his demeanor, it was hard to imagine him ever living honestly. The man seemed resourceful enough—why wouldn't he try reaching the east coast? He must still have hidden food supplies. That denial had been suspicious. What pleasure could he find staying there with a woman who wasn't even a wife?

The madwoman’s pale form suddenly surged violently through Uji’s mind. At the same time, the memory of the man’s base canine teeth overlapped with it. What did that impression mean—what did it have to do with me now? Uji restrained himself in that manner, yet steadily became aware of a muddled excitement spreading through his chest beyond that restraint. He could perceive his own face, still flushed with intoxication, gradually twisting. “Takagi”

Takagi’s cheeks were also flushed red. Uji fluttered his palms, pointed back along their path, and spat out the words: “Go back and shoot him dead.” He couldn’t forgive it—that man choosing to remain in this deserted village rather than flee eastward to indulge in the madwoman’s flesh. But did I truly loathe that ugliness from my core? Could I honestly claim such certainty? Struggling against his turmoil, Uji fixed his gaze on Takagi’s face. Bewilderment flickered across Takagi’s features before he returned the canteen and rose languidly. He stood looking down at Uji with hesitant eyes.

“Go and do it!” Uji reinforced his command. As if resolved, Takagi turned his back and set off walking. Uji remained motionless in his crouch until Takagi vanished among the tree shadows. Then he clasped his knees and bowed his head. The man would be dead within minutes. That man had claimed dying anywhere would amount to the same fate—if so, then Uji had become his fate. When he imagined extinguishing a life through sheer caprice, a tremor of pleasure rose through his chest. This too was clearly buoyed by transient intoxication. Uji knew this with perfect clarity.

(I might regret this later.)

"If I'm going to be ruined, better to be ruined quickly." Feeling his mind hurtling toward decay, Uji ground his face hard against his knees. His vision swirled in dark chaos.

Some time passed.

From the depths of the forest, a dull gunshot rang out once. Feeling the reverberations spreading through the forest with his entire body while pressing his face into his knees, he desperately endured—in that moment—a dull sensation welling up within him.—

Then about an hour passed. The two of them walked in silence through the jungle，their faces sullen. The intoxication still lingered in every joint of the body，but consciousness was coldly awakening.

The path was again a slight descent. His body was exhausted yet somehow taut, making each step a laborious effort, yet he felt as though moving his legs alternately wasn’t by his own power. The hues of dusk had already begun seeping into the bark of the trees. Even though he thought they could camp here now, they still walked. It was unclear how far Hanada had gone. He might appear from the shadows of those trees at any moment. He loathed this feeling. His eyes sharpened.

In the distance beyond the basin, the large sun now seemed to be setting, and the light between the treetops appeared to fade into a pale gloom. The path had layers of fallen leaves, and due to the wind, leaves kept scattering down from the treetops one after another.

From behind Uji, who was walking hunched over, Takagi called out. “Will we catch up to Lieutenant Hanada by today?” “That I don’t know.” “If we can catch up, we will.” After some time had passed, there was a voice from Takagi that sounded desperate. “Lieutenant Uji.”

Uji turned around. Takagi, who had been five or six steps behind, quickened his pace to catch up.

“If you meet Lieutenant Hanada—” He looked on the verge of tears. “Could you carry out the Company Commander’s order?” “Are you going to kill him?” “Yes.” “Why are you killing him?” Takagi bit his lip. “If we do that, we can return to our original unit.” There was a single simple, childlike expression there. Suddenly moved, Uji felt tears threatening to flow. Uji turned his face away from the light and started walking in silence.

Though the urgency of desertion threatened Uji’s back with sharp intensity, in terms of physical sensation it amounted to nothing more than advancing through an endless jungle without clear purpose. Yet in his mind, he believed he understood that this alone would save him. Therefore, he had walked for himself. Now he could no longer bend this resolve for other forces or momentary sentiment. As he moved forward step by step, he told himself once more.

(Even if I feel tears threatening to flow at the thought of Takagi now, if that were enough to make me reconsider, then with the emotions I felt this morning looking down at the Company Commander’s thinning crown, I should have already abandoned my desertion.)

He had watched many times on the battlefield people throwing away their lives for momentary fervor. He was afraid of falling into that himself. Yet perhaps even this desertion had sprung from his own transient sentiment. That sense of having contemplated escape every night during his month in San Jose might have been mere misapprehension of those oppressive days' weight—hadn't he actually conceived this desertion in a sudden flash last night? He shook his head, trying to dislodge those thoughts.

The path gradually emerged from the woods. An embankment seemed to lie ahead. As Uji walked toward the embankment, a sudden apprehension gripped him. (When I encounter Hanada, Takagi might shoot him.)

He suddenly turned with a harsh expression to look at Takagi’s face. Takagi returned the look with an angry expression. If I told him not to shoot, he might become even more determined to do it. Takagi might think that killing Hanada would resolve everything. Uji thought this in an instant, softened his expression, and tried to ask about something else. “Earlier—did you kill her with one shot?” “I killed her with one shot.” “Did she say anything?” “She didn’t say anything.” His tone was stubborn. It felt slightly unwieldy to handle, but driven by an irrepressible urge, Uji obstinately pressed his questioning further.

“Where did you shoot her?” “I shot the woman in the head.”

“Woman?” Uji stood frozen in shock, staggering two or three steps toward the slope. The path had reached the top of the embankment. A pale white light began to spread dimly across his retina.

It was a river. It appeared to be a tributary connected to the Cagayan Gorge; white water foamed as it flowed through the gravel beds, eventually vanishing into the evening mist. The entire field of vision was steeped in dusk's hues. From the embankment to the gravel beds, those yellow flowers that had also bloomed among the San Jose troops were scattered in profusion. Several bancas lay moored along the shore, a water buffalo stood half-submerged in a gravel-bed puddle, and the smell of bluish stagnant water suddenly pierced his nostrils as the wind roared its way through the river rapids. Uji stood at the embankment's edge surveying this landscape when he became aware of a gnawing impatience—the kind that makes one grind their teeth—spreading through his chest.

(There was a miscalculation somewhere.)

It wasn’t clear where it had gone wrong. Something had become tangled somewhere, but he couldn’t find the knot. He hadn't said to shoot the woman earlier either. Hadn’t something been fundamentally wrong with this desertion from the very start? Nothing had proceeded as he had intended. While exposing his face to the river wind, he gradually began growing confused. He felt on the verge of understanding, yet couldn’t quite grasp it in one breath. Only a sinister premonition continued threatening him relentlessly.

(There's something unknowable somewhere!)

The premonition that had gripped his heart unrelentingly since leaving the unit that morning—he now grasped this with sharp awareness for the first time.

“Did an Army officer pass through here today?!” he shouted.

With his hand to his mouth, Takagi was shouting from the embankment toward the river. By the flowing water of the gravel bed, two men who appeared to be soldiers were doing laundry. Judging from their uniforms, they were naval soldiers. This area was a naval-occupied zone. Takagi’s voice seemed indistinct, carried away by the wind. They seemed to stand up and respond, but even that couldn’t be heard. There was an air of them laughing together. Once naval soldiers began to break down, they took on a more rogue-like quality than army soldiers. One of them raised an arm and seemed to point toward the embankment downstream.

Along the embankment, nipa huts could be seen dotted here and there. "They might be telling us to go over there and ask." Urged by Takagi, Uji stepped forward in a daze. On top of the embankment, a single road stretched through the white twilight, and the embankment curved in a wide arc. The river curved along with it, and a crude temporary bridge spanned across. Takagi took the lead. Chills ceaselessly ran down his back, and with eyes wide but powerless, Uji walked as if being dragged. In the distance, several naval soldiers transporting stones across the gravel beds—for what purpose?—grazed the edge of his vision.

After walking for a while, there was a figure at the entrance of a nipa hut beneath the embankment. Without much thought, Uji glanced and tried to pass by. It was a local woman. At that moment, sensing an ominous presence, Takagi turned around. "That woman." It was a voice choked by tension. Startled, Uji strained his eyes. The dusk had thickened so profoundly that the woman's expression remained indistinct, but that momentary impression was unmistakably her. A sensation surged through his entire body for no discernible reason; unconsciously gripping his sword hilt, Uji slid down the embankment slope while scrambling. Takagi followed immediately.

The woman had been leaning vacantly against a post gazing at the river’s surface, but startled by the presence of someone scrambling down the embankment, she turned sharply. By that time, Uji had already closed to within about six feet of her. The woman shifted her gaze from Uji to Takagi behind him. She let out an “Ah!” and leaned one hand against the entrance post. Her large eyes opened wider still, the mole on her cheek striking Uji’s eyes with raw vividness. Uji demanded fiercely: “Where’s Lieutenant Hanada?”

The woman kept her eyes wide open and gasped. Her voice wouldn’t come out. Compared to the fleeting glimpse of her face he’d caught through the window that night, Uji now clearly saw how she’d grown somewhat thinner and more haggard. Her lusterless hair was tousled by the wind. Staggering, the woman took a step outside from the entrance. “Where’s Lieutenant Hanada?”

Uji repeated his question in a voice that had regained some composure. The woman's hand clutching the post trembled violently. Her eyes looked past Uji's shoulder and remained fixed wide open on the river. Where was Lieutenant Hanada? Her entire body seemed to scream this truth. Sensing this, Uji jerked around. From the dim gravel bank came a man walking toward them while drying himself with a hand towel, evidently fresh from bathing. Though bare-chested, his lower half wore officer's trousers - the leg dragging conspicuously enough to be visible even in shadows. Still unaware of their presence, he climbed the gravel slope with the towel wrapped around a finger as he cleaned his ears. Suddenly behind Uji rose a woman's scream sharp enough to cleave the air. Its meaning remained unintelligible. The words were Ilocano. At the sound, the man lifted his head. With overgrown hair and sunken cheeks that momentarily disguised him, Uji instinctively closed five or six paces. There stood Lieutenant Hanada beyond doubt.

Hanada jerked back from his posture of having stepped one foot onto the embankment. The distance between Uji and him was twenty-four or thirty feet. Whether from his hair standing up after bathing or the lingering light casting shadows behind him, Hanada’s expression appeared somehow menacing—but as the surprise faded from his cheeks, a strangely enigmatic smile suddenly drifted vaguely into view. It was the white of his teeth. When Uji saw that, an unexpected sense of shame began searing through his chest. Noticing Takagi shifting his feet to flank Hanada while unable to conceal the heat in his own ears and cheeks, Uji realized he had not accounted for this emotion when imagining their encounter.

“Lieutenant Uji, is it? Have you come to report?” Hanada said in a hoarse voice. As if ashamed of his thinned shoulders and chest, he moved his arms unnaturally. “—The wound. How’s your leg wound? Can you walk?” Just as Uji, also in a hoarse voice, took three more steps forward while saying this, Hanada—for some reason—jerked back as if startled. Hanada’s right hand slid along his body as it extended toward his Western-style trousers. There was something unnatural about the motion. What was in the pocket of his Western-style trousers? Hanada suddenly erased the smile from his cheeks and abruptly raised his right palm to his chest. What lay in Hanada’s palm was a small pistol gleaming dully. A sensation as if all the blood in his body had frozen over came over him, and Uji’s face paled as he braced himself. Uji’s right hand had also unconsciously gripped the pistol in his sword belt. Hanada’s face as he stared at Uji was deathly pale, his eyes burning with fierce intensity.

“Wait!” Before Uji could finish shouting with his entire body, Hanada’s finger pulled the pistol’s hammer. A shocking shudder raced through Uji’s body in an instant. A cold, metallic click rang out.

A misfire! Feeling the sweat gushing from his entire body rapidly cooling while becoming aware of the ferocious exhilaration rising within him, Uji swiftly leveled his own pistol at his chest. Hanada half-opened his deathly pale lips, bent the arm gripping the pistol diagonally to cover his chest, and tried to lower his body as if in supplication. Uji saw despair overflowing in Hanada’s eyes. At that moment, a thought accompanied by intense pain pierced through the fevered edges of Uji’s mind.

(I was jealous of Hanada, I see.) (And from way back!) Closing his eyes for an instant, Uji wrenched back the hammer with all his strength. A searing flash that dyed his eyelids and a deafening roar erupted as one, the recoil slamming into his right arm. Hanada jolted upright—arms clutching his chest, neck twisted inward—stood frozen for a heartbeat, then pitched forward onto the gravel like a felled log. The dull thud of his forehead striking earth reverberated. His body collapsed facedown first, then rolled slightly from the slope’s kickback. Gunpowder’s acrid stench finally clawed up Uji’s nostrils. Hanada’s face lay half-crushed against the ground—lips parted, eyelids smeared with dirt—but as Uji watched, those lips twitched faintly before crimson blood seeped from his mouth and dripped thickly onto yellow petals blooming beneath his cheek. The flower bent under the weight, shed half its bloody burden down the stem, then swayed upright once more. Uji’s eardrums throbbed as nausea surged from chest to throat. He let the aimed pistol droop downward, unable to quell the sickening tremors coursing through him.

(I’ve finally killed him!) Events since that morning flashed through his mind without connection. No matter how hard he struggled, something like fate seemed to clutch him in its powerful palm. Uji was frantically trying to holster his pistol at his waist. Because his hands were trembling violently, the pistol wouldn’t fit properly into the holster. Touching the metal fittings of the sword belt, the pistol clattered with a cold metallic sound. Even so, he somehow managed to push it in and fasten the clasp. Takagi approached without taking his eyes off Hanada’s corpse and asked in a low, steady voice.

“Shall I finish him off?” Uji did not answer. He crossed his arms as if suppressing a shudder and turned his face away from Takagi. His legs felt leaden enough to collapse. Even so, as he tried climbing two or three steps up the embankment, the woman standing at the hut’s entrance crossed his line of sight. She must have just come running out from inside. She was the same woman as before. Clad in white and barefoot. When she looked down at Uji, she screamed something in a shrill voice. A scream saturated with hatred. Then she staggered away from the hut and moved toward Uji.

The woman was not crying. She had opened her dry green eyes wide and was fixing an unwavering, intense gaze on Uji. The distance between them was now barely six feet. While keeping her eyes fixed on Uji’s face, the woman seemed to be slowly trying to bring her left hand forward from behind her back. The moment his body stiffened with a start, something dull and metallic glinted in the woman’s palm. It was a pistol. The black muzzle was aimed straight at Uji’s chest. While feeling the muscle in that area tighten with a physiological premonition, he stood frozen in place.

(So this was it.) Uji kept his arms crossed, wearing an expression that resembled both crying and smiling. He remained completely still, not moving a muscle. The woman’s left hand firmly gripped the pistol grip, her index finger jerking back the hammer. The dark green eyes emitted a dry light and shot straight into Uji’s eyes. Before the unflinching black muzzle, he let that expression resembling both crying and smiling flash across his cheeks once more. A numb stability was now barely supporting Uji’s body. He quietly perceived that the strength to resist the reality arising one after another was finally beginning to wane.

(So after suffering all day long, this was where it led.) From how she handled it, this likely wasn't her first time firing a pistol either.) "...This woman must be left-handed," he absently thought while sensing her left palm gripping the pistol grip through his crossed arms. That night when he'd peered through the window, this woman had indeed been cradling the liquor bottle with her left hand, he recalled in some recess of his mind. Hanada's figure—deeply settled in his chair back then, looking youthful and content—now lay cold and lifeless behind Uji's back. In that moment, Uji felt Hanada's corpse sprawled on the embankment slope more vividly through his spine than with his own eyes. Takagi, standing some distance away, seemed to notice this and began scrambling diagonally up the levee. Even that movement felt agonizingly sluggish to him. Like some high-speed photograph developed wrong, the woman and Takagi and the very landscape all seemed to drift in viscous motion. Maintaining that eerie half-smile, Uji kept his arms tightly crossed, gaze fixed dully on the black muzzle before him. Takagi's silhouette—having reached the levee's crest—drifted like shadow theater at the edge of Uji's blurred vision, pistol aimed at the woman as he closed in rapidly. The woman's entire body tensed rigidly within Uji's sightline.—

From the muzzle burst a fierce flash of light, and in that instant Uji felt a searing hot impact in his left chest. He pressed both arms against the spot as if shielding it and fell straight down, then tumbled roughly beneath the embankment while parting the grasses on the slope. With his head lowered, he endured the pain and opened his eyelids slightly. He gazed at the gravel bank, at the faint white river light flowing beyond it, with lifeless eyes. His chest felt terribly tight. He couldn't even tell what position he was in. The canteen seemed to have shifted and pressed against his abdomen. In the end he'd left more than half of this whiskey undrunk. The sound of wind reached him; yellow flower petals swayed before his eyes, doubling and tripling into overlapping layers. Suddenly something foul-smelling spread from his throat to fill his entire mouth.

“Lieutenant Uji! Lieutenant Uji!” Right by his ear, Takagi shouted in a loud voice. The voice suddenly weakened as if growing distant, and abruptly, the surroundings fell silent. Like peeling away layers of mica, the distant parts of the scenery tore off one after another and vanished.…

All around, mist had already risen. Only the river surface retained the lingering dusk as wind howled over stones of the gravel bank. About twelve feet from Hanada’s corpse—the chest of his uniform stained red with blood, head tilted downward on the embankment slope—Uji gradually lost consciousness while feeling sensation peel away from his limbs one after another.

Dusk fell there as well.