By the end of this stirring proclamation, all of the men in attendance were nodding over and over, clearly overcome with emotion. Everyone except Koichi, who still carried a darker brand of resolve within his chest and quietly excused himself from the venue.
Later, as the other three members of Shinsei Maru’s crew were walking back to the station together to return to their homes, Mizushima was the first to break the silence.
“Guess tomorrow’s the big day, huh?” he exclaimed with feigned bravado. “Man, I’m practically shaking with excitement!”
It seemed he could hardly contain the strange mixture of determination and trepidation he now felt—but his eagerness wouldn’t last for long.
“Sorry, kid,” said Akitsu. “You’re not coming with us.”
“Wait, huh? What do you mean, I’m not coming?”
“I mean exactly what I said: You’re staying right here on dry land.”
“You’d just be a liability with that broken arm of yours anyhow,” Noda chimed in, sounding almost amused by the notion.
“So what?” said Mizushima. “Shikishima’s injured too, and he still gets to go! Is it because I never got the chance to go to war? You think I’m totally useless, is that it?”
“Do me a favor, kid,” said Akitsu. “Don’t ever say you ‘never got the chance’ to go to war again, all right? That’s a privilege—not a handicap.”
Mizushima couldn’t believe his ears; he stopped dead in his tracks.
“So that’s it, then?” he said. “You’re just going to leave me behind?”
He stood there, stock-still, as the other men continued down the road.
“Why won’t you let me come with you?” he cried out, clearly on the verge of tears. “We’ve always been a team until now, haven’t we? Please, I want a chance to fight for my country too! You can’t just leave me behind like this—it’s not fair! Noda-san! Captain!”
But the other men refused to hear his pleas as they coldly walked away.
Instead, Akitsu simply whispered under his breath:
“This country needs your generation, kid… Its future’s in your hands now.”
On the way home, Koichi stopped by the house next door to pick up Akiko, who was being babysat by Sumiko just about every day now.
“Thanks so much for all you’ve done,” he said, bowing his head to the older woman. “I couldn’t have made it through these past few weeks without you.”
This polite expression of gratitude, though clearly genuine, struck Sumiko as a bit needlessly over-the-top—to the point that she grew concerned. As she watched Koichi take little Akiko away, she recalled what she’d overheard about a plan to defeat Godzilla and wondered if perhaps Koichi would be taking part and had already mentally resigned himself to a grisly fate.
Once they were back in their own home, Koichi sat Akiko down on the raised wooden floor at the edge of the mudroom to wipe the bottoms of her feet.
“Did you have fun with Auntie today, Akiko?” he asked.
“Uh-huh,” said the girl. “I made a picture.”
“Hey, that’s wonderful. Glad to hear it.”
Akiko held out a folded-up sheet of paper in Koichi’s direction—the picture she had drawn.
“What’s up?” asked Koichi. “Oh, is this for me?”
He took the piece of paper and unfolded it in front of her. Inside was a picture of what looked like a family of three, drawn crudely in crayon.
“Is this supposed to be me here?” Koichi asked.
Akiko nodded with a gleeful smile.
“Very cute,” said Koichi. “And who’s this?”
“That’s me! And this one’s Mommy,” said Akiko, pointing. Then she looked up at Koichi with innocent eyes. “Um… When’s Mommy coming home, Da—”
Suddenly, Akiko clammed up—as if realizing she’d just made a slip of the tongue.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Koichi said gently. “You can call me Daddy.”
“Really?” said Akiko. “I can?”
“Of course. I mean, I’m your dad, aren’t I? What else would you call me?”
There was something in Koichi’s gentle tone—something perhaps only a child’s intuition could pick up on—that made Akiko feel very worried all of a sudden.
“Daddy…” she said. “You’re not going to go away too, are you?”
This pointed question threw Koichi for a loop.
“Of course not,” he said, flustered. “Why would you ever think that?”
“Well, be-because…” Akiko stuttered. Then as if frustrated by her inability to express where this vague apprehension was coming from, the young girl’s eyes suddenly began welling up with tears.
“There, there, kiddo. Don’t worry—Daddy’s not going anywhere.”
Yet, these words did not reassure Akiko. If anything, she seemed to interpret some hidden meaning within them and burst out bawling. Unable to bear the sight of her crying, Koichi scooped her up and held her in his arms, patting her back all the while. It was a good thing Akiko couldn’t see his face as he was doing this, though, because his expression was grim—as if some new resolve had just hardened within his breast yet again.
Koichi didn’t sleep much that night. He lay by Akiko’s side as she cried herself to sleep, and when the morning light poured in over her tear-stained cheeks, he reached over and readjusted her futon for her. As he looked over at her, sleeping softly and soundly, he found it very difficult to want to get out of bed.
But he knew it was time to leave.
Moving carefully and quietly so as not to wake her up, Koichi dressed himself and grabbed the bundle of photos wrapped in oilpaper along with the portrait of Noriko on her memorial shrine, before taking one last look back at Akiko.
Hers was the peace he knew he needed to protect.
Noda had called this a fight for the future they all deserved.
He couldn’t be more right, Koichi thought.
Just before he left, Koichi laid a thick envelope addressed to Sumiko by Akiko’s bedside, then said one last goodbye to the house and all the memories within its walls.
After parking his motorbike outside the hangar, Koichi walked in to discover that Tachibana and his crew were already waiting for him on standby, having stayed up the whole night to put the finishing touches on his plane.
“Is it all ready to go, then?” asked Koichi.
“Just about. I can wheel it out for you in no time,” said Tachibana
Koichi looked up at Shinden—now fully restored to its former glory.
“I knew you were the right man for the job,” he said.
He climbed up into the cockpit, and Tachibana flipped open the metal door on the nose of the plane. Inside the compartment were two large missiles, both with their stabilizing ailerons torn off.
“Here’s that firepower you ordered,” said Tachibana. “Saved around 140 kilos by removing two of your machine guns, plus 120 rounds for another 80 kilos, as well as your primary fuel tank for a whopping 400 kilos. And in their place, we’ve got you loaded up with two No. 25 bombs in the nose, and one No. 50 inside the fuselage.”
“Thank you, Tachibana-san,” said Koichi. “Now I can finally give that monster the payback it deserves.”
As Koichi ran his hand along the inner wall of the cockpit, all of a sudden, he felt the metal gently begin to quake beneath his fingers. Wondering what might be the cause, he looked down—only to see that it was his hand, not the cockpit, that was shaking.
“Well, isn’t that pathetic,” he said, chuckling derisively under his breath. “Looks like some part of me still wants to live after all… Ha ha…”
“Yeah, and so did all the men who died on the island that day,” said Tachibana. “They all had families and loved ones they couldn’t wait to see again. But they never got the chance because they got crushed like insects. And that’s on you.”
“I know.”
Koichi stiffened his expression and pulled out the oilpaper bundle—which now contained not only the photos from the men on the island but the portrait of Noriko and Akiko’s drawing as well.
“You see this? It was drawn by a little girl named Akiko. I want to protect her future. And so I will stop Godzilla…even if it costs me my life.”
Only after saying this did Koichi realize his hand was no longer trembling.
“Looks like you’ve finally found your resolve,” said Tachibana. “Now let me tell you something very important. You see this handle? It’s the safety release for your explosive payload. Be sure to pull it right before you fly in for the kill. And this guy right here…”
Tachibana proceeded to explain what the lever beside his seat was meant to do. But upon hearing its function, Koichi could only look up at the other man’s face in confusion. He couldn’t believe the words coming out of Tachibana’s mouth.
The time for takeoff drew ever closer.
Back in Koichi’s neighborhood, Sumiko stepped outside to find Akiko standing all alone in front of her home, holding something in her hands.
“What’s the matter, Aki-chan?” asked Sumiko. “You all by yourself?”
“Auntie,” said Akiko. “I think this is for you…”
Akiko held out a thick envelope, which Sumiko cautiously accepted. Inside was a stack of bills, a bankbook, and a letter from Koichi asking her to please look after Akiko and use the money enclosed to support her. She could use the bankbook to withdraw more funds as necessary from the account, which according to the ledger contained quite the hefty sum. It was all of the money he’d saved up from his minesweeping work.