"The Sentinel"
11 March, 2024
07:30 PM
Ōta International Airport, Shinkyo
It wasn't so much that Captain Fujio Uragami always hated flying—it was just another mode of transport—but rather, he hated what it meant on days like these. For most, it had been a day like any other, the start of the week. The sun had been out, the birds sang, and people more or less went about their normal business. Simply put, it was an ordinary day. But for the thirty-two year old Army captain, a day like this was anything but ordinary. When he first arrived at Kasen Air Force Base late last week, it had been for a task none enjoyed, but which was necessary and indeed honorable like few others. It wasn't the first time he'd been in this position—though he certainly hoped it would be the last—but what struck him the most was, from the moment when he first departed from the airport in Taikyū to his arrival here in the capital, everyone seemed to know what was going on, what he was there to do, and in a way, it managed to make this time seem different than before. After all, before last year, the Empire had known peace for the better part of a decade, and it had been exceedingly rare for one of their boys to come home only in body.
Private First Class Yukio Aizawa, age nineteen. He thought to himself as the rain pelted down around him on the tarmac, his normally khaki-colored uniform turned dark as it became drenched. It was uncomfortable, but he could sacrifice his own comfort to ensure that his charge arrived home safe and sound. For that was the job he was performing, an escort for a fallen brother, killed in Kalasin, on this, his final journey. He knew not who he was in life, what his face was, nor who his family was, save perhaps for the briefing he had been given a few days prior, but as had been the case far too many times before, he felt a connection to his ward, even if they had never met when he yet drew breath. Just a child, a boy with the rest of his life ahead of him, but now, he would see nothing. He was gone, taken far before his time, and in his wake, a family was left destroyed. It was the same every time, but Fujio thought, as he stood silently as a sentinel over his charge, that it was a mercy that few knew the costs of the war like he did.
Eventually though, the time would come to board the plane, Aizawa first, then him. He had checked the box which carried his fallen brother's coffin twice over, ensuring everything was in order, that no harm had been done to it—to him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a crowd of people gathered up in the terminal, all unmoving as the final preparations were to be made. It was people like them that PFC Aizawa had died to defend, the same that he had joined to serve. They knew, just like everyone else, what he was there for. And while it was not for him, it would no doubt be comforting for the family to know that the nation mourned with them. With a salute, silent as it was, the body was loaded aboard the aircraft, and soon enough, Fujio would join him on this, his final flight. He wondered, privately, as the aircraft took off about how he would handle meeting the family. What they were like, how they would see him, how they were holding up. Poorly, he figured, but that was far too broad of an assumption. All he knew for certain was that he would bring him home, and that was what mattered.
And of course, he knew this wasn't the last time he would see this.
