Chapter 91 - Eiji POV Black Rain (Pt.2) (1/2)
_”Not possible.”_
Eiji's mind cycled through reasons to justify what he was still processing as his truth. His memory lingered on Kei handing over yen to an impoverished young mother to give her a chance to a good life. Kei Ito was a man who respected life and fought against injustice in his own way. The unlikely good guy that others needed. It was impossible to see a world without him.
_”I'm the one the world could do without.”_
He cried, feeling his heart torn with guilt; wanting to believe Kei wasn't dead verses his deep-rooted relief of being alive. Yet what had he narrowly escaped? What had happened? No. His eyes may have processed an exaggeration of the truth.
_”Maybe he's alive! He ran off confused and injured!”_
His heart raced with a hope that was the truth. Kei was alive and had somehow fled to safety in a mad panic.
”He might be alive!” He blurted aloud and felt a mad shaking from his shoulders.
”Eiji!” Tyne called out to him from the back-seat of the car.
Eiji stirred awake from his spot in the front passenger seat. It seems he had been sleeping when the black rains were falling. Tama also stirred awake with a hearty yawn.
”Tyne. When the rain stops, we have to look for Kei.” Eiji's words were a despondent whisper.
”It's no use. Nothing else survived the blast.” Tyne soberly answered.
”Blast! That's what you're calling it!” Eiji angrily snapped back. ”A bomb levelled the ground to ash! Your country dropped a bomb on mine!”
Tyne gasped and kept his words to himself. His expression was of shock and distress.
”We don't know that.” Sean soberly attempted to add more reasoning to the conversation.
”What else is there Sean?!” Eiji persisted.
”There's no reason for them to drop a bomb on civilians!” He snapped back with his eyes pleading for Eiji to accept his reasoning.
”Then what was it?!”
”It could've come from a factory explosion.” Tyne added to the pool of logical reasons.
Eiji slowly exhaled to calm his emotions and closed his eyes to set those reasons to be a belief.
”Okay. Then let's look for Kei when the rain stops.”
He opened his eyes and saw both men nodding with understanding.
The rain eventually stopped to allow some of the natural sun to return to the sky. The men ambled out of the car and slowly returned to the scene to find Kei.
There was nothing to find amongst the tree corpses and burnt grounds, which ran on for miles.
Regardless, they kept searching and calling out Kei's name. Their hope ran wild when they heard a man groaning, within the shelter of a tree cluster at the undamaged side of the road.
He wasn't Kei, but an elderly man who had taken shelter from the black rains. Half his body was severely burnt with his clothes melted into his skin. He was struggling with delirium and fever.
Tyne's doctor instincts compelled him to do what he could to ease the man's pain. The elderly man expressed his thanks before he gently closed eyes and became permanently still.
Tears rained from Tyne's eyes as he realized this man's burns were abnormal from those he had treated during Pearl Harbor attacks and his time at Iwo Jima. Even air raids weren't capable to have a man burn and still keep burning to melt his flesh.
No civilian should die this way.