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Entry number: 1
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04.01.825 A.S.
Dear Heiji,
sometimes I whish I could be with you. It would make things so much easier.
It is all over now. I cannot believe I would ever be able to say this, but the civil war recently came to an end. Not with fanfares of victory or the lament of defeat, but quietly, almost silently. A gentle transition from simply not going into battle with each other to a few bold men and women seeking rapprochement between brothers and sisters who have been apart for far too long now. The guns of Imperials and Republicans aiming at each other fell silent for good and we, who beared the burden of being strangers to our own home, are able to return now. Not in shackles or as ursurpers but as equals, our heads held high. Following betrayal after betrayal and years of hardships, this is all we could have dreamed of. I should be happy.
And yet, I am not.
How can I be? It was the greatest of all betrayals that was caused by the people towards whom the Emperor held an olive branch. The men and women who left us to die out in the cold – you, me, all of us – and who, as they saw that we would not just perish in face of what situation they put us in, proceeded to actually fight us and be our opponents for years to come. These people now are the ones we are supposed to forgive and coexist with as if nothing happened. I cannot see how anyone who fought at our side and went through what we did would be able to do that.
Do not get me wrong: I am tired of fighting. I am tired of being an outcast of my own house . And I am certainly tired of killing my own kin. But there is a part of me that just cannot forget nor forgive.
So when there were officials from both sides proposing to go into talks about a common future I surely was not among them. Hell, I tried to put my foot down as hard as I could to prevent this, with arguments ranging from 'This is surely nothing but a trap' to 'Trying to meet somewhere inbetween will not achieve anything for anyone'. I know, who am I to try and deny you the chance to ever return to your family again? Please, excuse my stubbornness, but I am sure you would understand.
Not that it mattered anyway. People who were more willing to forgive or just more pragmatical took matters into their hands, and now here we are. All looking to live together again, be reunited and strong. However this turns out though and whatever the future may hold for this new Kusari, I do not think I can be a part of it for now.
While we were out there, flying under the banner of an exiled emperor there was this weird force that kept me going. Something that drove me to push on and do things I doubt I could have mustered the strength for under other circumstances. Something that, in the face of having not a thing to lose and a distant goal to achieve fueled my will to fight against my own kind, in the vague hope of one day being able live as a Kusarian again.
Heiji, I believe this weird force was nothing but hatred. A hatred and bitterness that slowly consumed me from the inside, tearing me apart little by little each day. And now that it is over, what is there for it to consume anymore? We won and gained nothing at the same time – all we did was for naught – so there is nothing I can hate anymore, but also nothing else to fill this void in my soul. So now I just feel empty. I do not know what to do or where to go. All I know is that now we got everything and at the same time nothing that we wanted I cannot be a part of this anymore.
So I just left.
Yes, I left. Soon after talks between our officials and those of the Republic began, I put off my uniform for the last time. I resigned from my fancy, but in all honesty rather useless post as Rear Admiral and just left it all behind. I am sure they will get rid off all the high ranking Imperial officers anyway as soon as they begin restructuring the naval forces, so I doubt anyone decried my disappearance – not that I was a great choice for this task anyway. I do not have a lot of money for a new beginning, but with what little in funds I could muster I got myself and old freighter that has been rotting on Kyushu for at least a few years now. It is not really a beauty and i need to be careful that the reactor isolation does not completely rust away while I am not looking. But until I can find it in myself to accept what becomes of my home, this will just be my little piece of Kusari.
I have not decided on a name yet to register it with, but what would you say about Soyokaze? Gentle breeze, has a nice ring to it, don't you think? If you cannot come up with anything better I might just go with it.
In any case, I just need to get this thing flight worthy, then I am out of here. Even though it is what I always dreamt of being able to return to I need some distance from Kusari. Leave it all behind for a while and, who knows, maybe I can come to terms with myself out there, and find something new that drives me. Something less destructive.
My dearest Heiji,
sometimes I wish I would have died at your side, in the ice fields of Tau-31. Then I would have left this world in anger, but with the fulfillment of having fought for what I believed in until my last dying breath. Now, I do not think there is anything I believe in anymore and if I want fulfillment I have to find it out there in the void. But I will try to. Either way, you will always be in my thoughts.
Until next time
Sincerely
Kaori
Squished bigly ~Champ- Thanks, you're a champ. "What's the word for when it feels inside your heart that everything in the world is all right?"
it's me again, I know. Sorry to bother you so much all of a sudden but, well, I guess I have a lot of free time on my hands now. I hope you have been well nonetheless. I sure have.
The last days have been almost unnaturally quiet. I wake up to the first beams of morning light, and nothing awaits me but myself. No tightly packed schedule in rythm with a ship that never sleeps, no constant noise, no imminent sense of threat and danger. No war.
In a way this is a highly unnerving feeling. All that I wrote you about about the lack of aim and purpose? This is exactly it, and it amplifies my unrest. There is nothing I have to do anymore, no need to shift my attention away from myself onto greater matters all the time. Even when I was imprisoned and by myself it was not quite like this. There I at least had to stay focused, had to remember what I was and how I could possibly escape one day to keep finding. Now on the other hand: what would there even be to escape from?
Yet, it does not seem entirely unbearable. If anything, it gives me a lot of time to think, for better or for worse. And when I cannot stand my own thoughts anymore there is at least one other thing I can spend my time on.
Work on Soyokaze has not been overwhelmingly succesful, but I am getting there, slowly. All crucial internal systems look like they will work well enough, even though I might want to stay a little farther away from the reactor as long as the shielding looks like it does. But a lot of the plating especially around the underbelly has eroded, making the hull definetely not sealed - I guess I should expect nothing less from something that was parked a rice paddy for five years.
That means there's a lot of welding to be done, some simple, quick fix will not do, and I doubt I can pull that off on my own. The problem there would not be time, I would say I have enough of that, but especially the tools. And if it comes so far that I might have to exchange whole sections on the lower hull I am screwed anyway.
I am afraid that is a bridge I will find out how to cross when I get there, though. Until then there is still some internal rewiring to be taken care off. Looking for a solution to this also gives me something else to worry about.
Gen has also been on my mind lately. Do you remember him? I do not think you two ever had the chance to meet each other, but I am sure I showed you a picture or two when we were talking about our families that one evening in the bar. He is still alive, luckily. We met again shortly after the fleet arrived in Kyushu; he is a pilot now, just like you and me. His skillset reminds me alot of yours, although I am pretty sure he would claim to outshine you by a country mile.
But I have not seen him in at the very least a few weeks. Before, you know, our schedules meant we both were busy most of the time and basically living past each other. And now I don't know. I want to meet with him, but something just keeps me from it. I think I just need some more time for myself. Gen will be doing fine without me for a little longer. He is a grown man now, and still at handling whatever life throws at him.
He is better than me.
Anyway, enough of my contemplations. If there is really as much to do on Soyokaze as I whine about I should probably get back to it. I will make sure to report to you on my progress soon, though. Until then, you will be in my thoughts.
Sincerely
Kaori
Squished bigly ~Champ- Thanks, you're a champ. "What's the word for when it feels inside your heart that everything in the world is all right?"
remember when I wrote you that it was all over? That I left it all behind?
I am sorry I lied to you like this. But I do not think it will ever be over. And I will never be able to escape this path.
Today they came, two men in uniform. I do not think I have ever seen them before, but I did not focus on their faces anyway. All that drew my attention were the insignia on their jackets. The fleet, the military, I was done with all that! And yet there they were, looking for me.
I could only stand there, like in shock, as they were handing me some documents and trying to explain something to me. I do not think I got the half of it, but of what importance might it have been anyway? I already had had a guess what this was about, and the things they gave to me made everything painfully clear.
The first thing was my letter of resignation along with my request to be discharged immediately. The way it looked I doubt anyone has read through it. The attached note stating that, sadly, wishes could not be considered at the moment was really the only thing implying that anyone had even seen it. Due to the unprecedented overall situation and the already thinly spread corps of senior officers loyal to the cause it is at the time impossible to do without your services, it said. What a joke. What services even? Since my appointment we have not achieved anything. I have not achieved anything.
I did not receive the post because I deserved it, or because my capabilities were so important to further strength of the imperial fleet. I got it because there was barely anyone left to fill up the ranks. And probably in part just for Minako to make a point. A symbolic move to further this woman's weird, progressive agenda, nothing more. I never thought I deserved this in the first place, so why do I deserve to be stuck in this forever?
The other thing they gave me were standing orders. Going by these I am to report back to fleet command aboard Nagasaki and be part of the liaison group which is supposed to help keep coordinate between the imperial and republican forces and keep things together while the diplomats to their diplomacy. It does not say anything about the future here, but I can only imagine that if they can actually seal a lasting reunification they will also want to get as many of our officers into the upper echelons of the naval forces to represent conservative and imperial interests. Which just makes it ever so clear how I am trapped in this.
Heiji, I do not know what to do anymore. It says that I have four days to make my arrangements and report back to the fleet. Otherwise, I suppose, they will come back again – and not just talk anymore. With this end to the war that is a victory to noone it already all fell apart for me. Everything I had left to aim for in my life is gone, but at least I thought I would be free. Free to cease being a warrior and perhaps become a human again. But it just does not let me go. Instead, they want me to stand for something I simply cannot. How am I supposed to find my peace, to perhaps one day forgive, when I have to stand by the people I have fought years upon years? When I am reminded of the gravest of betrayals? The betrayal that exiled us all, that killed and harmed so many. The betrayal that took you from me.
Four days is what I have left to sort this out, but I do not think I can. I hoped this could at least be over now. Yet it has become apparant that as long as I live it never will be.
Thinking about how to be with you again
Kaori
Squished bigly ~Champ- Thanks, you're a champ. "What's the word for when it feels inside your heart that everything in the world is all right?"