"No."

"Then wha-"

"Ssshh." Litouten hushshed him with a vile grin on his face, a filthy hand on his shoulder. "And watch."

Nataku did. All he saw was dead blackness and the Western Army housing complex not too far into the distance. "There's nothing there."

"Not now. Just wait. Tonight will be..." he trailed off, searching for a word glorious enough to do justice to this sensation of sweet, sadistic victory he was now tasting. "Nataku, wake up!"

The boy had fallen asleep on his feet. "I'm awake, Father. Tonight will be what? You said it'll be what?"

"Mine."

He sounded like one of those comic books the Marshal always slipped under his door whenever he knew Litouten isn't around. Nataku looked grumpily towards his father and shrunk back as the hand on his shoulder tightened into an oppressive grip. He looked to Western Army, then closed his eyes again. He didn't want to see this.

****

He had never really seen barrenness until now, the charred homes, trampled flower beds, broken fences, and severe emptiness -made more painful by the multitude of footprints in the snow indicating that there were once many more people here- it all tugged at memories that only this body knew. And what this body knew, Tenpou could only guess.

Walking the cold empty streets, that part of him numb to human suffering seemed to die with each step. Whisps of smoke from dying fires rose from various points in the village where several families had decided to stay out of love for homeland. "When it comes right down to it," a woman had told him. "Total disaster is in the eye of the beholder. Yes, we miss our lost friends...but we still have ourselves. Homes are just sticks and stones, and they can be rebuilt. Besides, the town was starting to look a bit decrepit anyway, wouldn't you think?"

If Heaven had the opportunity to experience such calamities, maybe it wouldn't be so intolerable, so untouched. Something so egotistically virgin needed a bit of...non-virgin experiences. Dirt. Snow. Wind. Rain. Fire. Fire.

It was a dim, gray sunrise, giving way to a sickly pale sun that seemed to suck the heat from earth instead of give. He caught a wide frozen splotch of red against a house, blatant and infused with the last scream of the dying, then fought the urge to gag when the scent reached his nose. Tenpou picked up his pace and headed to a wood right outside the town.