19 august 1945; near mukden; light rain; the summer wind is blowing south-southeast, a measly four knots. It brings with it the putrid fumes of artillery fire, diesel exhaust, the stench of death forewarning the immanent Russian mechanized advance.

Ichirō had often read columns in newspapers detailing the heroic deaths of the Special Attack Unit, perishing along with tens of their enemies in bright balls of fire. Often, the papers would refer to them as kamikaze - divine wind, like the typhoons that had defended Japan in days long gone.

Now the Russians advanced quicker than even this wind, he thought, putting down his fountain pen. He looked at his adjutant, Kōsuke, who was kneeling on a dusty mat and sharpening his sword.

“What are you doing, Kōsuke?”

“I’m out of cigarettes. Passing time.”

“Here, take one of mine. You don’t think this sword will do anything to a tank, do you?”

Kōsuke accepted the offer and lit the cigarette, taking a long drag. “It isn’t for them.”

A profound silence filled the room. Once, this office had been spotlessly clean - that was the sort of operation Ichirō had run. He would scrape the tops of tables and cabinets with his gloved little finger, searching for any motes of dust left behind by the unfortunate man who had been on cleaning duty for the day. If any were found, Ichirō would berate the poor sod, who would then be made to run laps around the Old City in full gear.

If one were to try running around like that today, the Russians would probably blow him up with an artillery shell.

Four days ago, according to a telephone call from the Kwantung Army’s headquarters, the Shōwa Emperor had gone on the radio and announced that Japan would ‘accept the provisions of the joint declaration of the powers.’ The man on the phone had said this, then confided in Ichirō that he thought this was a ploy by the Allies to get them to stop fighting. And what a flimsy ploy at that - the Japanese voice on the radio had been constantly interrupted by static to the point of being almost unintelligible, and said in a manner in which people had not spoken for decades.

The man advised Ichirō and his staff to remain vigilant. Two hours later, the phone lines were cut by heavy fire that shook the whole building.

Ichirō did not believe that the Emperor would ever surrender to the Allies. Kōsuke, even more so. And so Ichirō had gathered the few men he had with him, along with their meager supply of rifles and ammunition, and swore to defend their isolated little position until the last breath.

Around thirty hours ago, Ichirō had realized that their position was dangerously low on food, and sent everyone but himself and Kōsuke off to get some. Before they had gone, he had wished them the best of luck and advised them to fight fearlessly, should they encounter the enemy.

Now, taking slow sips of the singular bottle of sake that remained, Ichirō began to have his doubts. What had become of his men, scrounging for scraps like rats amidst a tide of Russians? Having had his hope slowly sapped away for the past four days, he now began to wonder - had the Emperor truly surrendered?

Putting down the bottle, Ichirō breathed slowly and quietly. Behind him, the slow sharpening of the sword continued, rhythmically rasping like the weak breaths of a man dying of thirst.

Or like a beating heart.

The rasping stopped. Ichirō looked up, locking eyes with Kōsuke. Both of them knew exactly what was to come, with the two in such an isolated position and the enemy so close. For a while, neither man spoke. Dust floated around the room as the pitter-patter of the rain, so quiet as to be almost imperceptible, bounced off the roof awnings.

“If you’d like, commander, you can go first and I will cut off your head.”

“And what will become of you?”

Kōsuke waved his hand offhandedly. “I kept one bullet, when we gave the rest to Michi and the others. I’ll just shoot myself-” he pressed the cold steel of his pistol against his temple “-something like this.”

“Don’t play with your gun like that, Kōsuke.”

“And what of it? Is it death you fear?” A pause. “My death?”

The commander closed his eyes, trying to call to mind a moment in the distant past. He remembered the first day he had met Kōsuke in Mukden, some years ago when the war had been further away. The man (a boy, really) had just come in from Japan - Yokohama, to be exact - and upon seeing Ichirō, he had bowed deeply, fresh-faced and smiling. “They say I am to be your aide.”

Was this really the same boy standing in front of him now? His face was covered in dust, as was his faded and tattered uniform. His cheeks were slightly sunken in, and he had begun to grow a thin mustache.

Ichirō shook his head. “I won’t have it. Someone as young as yourself must surely die a more honorable death than an old man such as I. If you would like to commit hara-kiri, I will spare you the pain.”

“Don’t trust my aim, commander?”

Ichirō was silent.

“Listen,” began Kōsuke, “I’ve seen your hands as of late. They shake far too much for any semblance of a clean death. Let me do it.”

Ichirō took another swig of sake. He shook the bottle. It was completely empty. “Actually,” he began, “who the hell will care?”

“I mean,” he said, looking Kōsuke in the eye, “it’s only the Russians who are going to find us. What, do you think they will return our bodies to our families, greet them with consoling words, telling them that we died honorably?”

The adjutant held his gaze with deep brown eyes. His stare was cold as ice.

Ichirō belched. “It doesn’t matter anymore, boy. They’ll throw us all in a pit and be done with it.”

“Exactly. So let’s die now and, as you say, be done with it.”

Ichirō twiddled his pen. Then, suddenly, he threw his bottle across the room. It crashed into the wall, shattering and sending glass shards through paper screens.

“Kōsuke, do you really think a painless death is what befits us?”

The adjutant was thrown off by this question. “What do you mean, sir?”

Ichirō thought of what he had done in Mukden up until then. How many executions had he ordered? How much rice, liquor, tobacco, had he requisitioned from destitute locals? How many had suffered on his whims? How many helpless civilians, how many grandmothers or old men had had their lifeless bodies pushed into the Hun River, their dark red blood pooling on the surface as they disappeared from view? When had Kōsuke’s guilty hands, following his orders to kill, stopped shaking as they pulled the trigger? When had his own hands started to?

“It’s so selfish.”

He looked at the place where the glass bottle had impacted the wall. “Kōsuke, how we have tormented the people of this land. I feel as though we cannot simply exit the world, without having atoned for anything we’ve done.”

“Oh.” The adjutant laughed. “If that’s all you’re worried about, don’t fret. We’ll meet again in hell.”

“And have you ever been to hell?” asked Ichirō, raising his voice. “How about the hell we’ve created, here in Mukden? The suffering we have caused is real.”

“Hey, I know what you’re doing,” shouted Kōsuke, now matching his commander’s tone. There was a merciless look to his facial features. “You’re every bit as selfish as you accuse me of being. At least I have the decency to offer you an honorable suicide. Do you think, that after such a long life of killing, lying, and stealing, that you can feel remorse at the end of it? Do you think that everything will be all right now that you’ve done so?”

“How dare y-”

“Do you feel better about yourself!”

“How dare you speak to your superior officer in this way, Kōsuke! I thought you better than this - I should have you shot.”

“So be it, commander, just tell me when to shoot!” The adjutant once again raised the gun to his head. His eyes were filled with contempt. “Just like the old days.”

Ichirō could not help but notice how much his own hands were shaking, and how Kōsuke, in contrast, was still as a statue.

Kōsuke spoke first, his voice now slightly softer than before. “What exactly do you want to do? You speak of the ‘real’ rather than the imaginary hell. Do you want to also do something real? Prostrate yourself like a dog before those you’ve harmed?”

The commander furrowed his brow, highlighting the wrinkles on his aged face. “Perhaps I do.” He took the officer’s cap on his desk, dusting it off and putting it atop his head. “Perhaps I shall walk outside in this, surrender to the Russians, and let the people do to me what they wish.”

Kōsuke shook his head disapprovingly. “Surrender? The Emperor won’t stand for that.

Ichirō held his tongue. He hadn’t told anyone about the phone call.

“They will string you up like Mussolini.”

“Perhaps. Maybe you could walk out beside me, and play the part of his woman.”

A tiny crack of a smile. From a childhood that might as well be another world. “Hilarious as always, grandpa.”

A deafening silence. The rain had stopped.

“I mean - commander.”

“Commander is exactly right, thank you,” said Ichirō slowly and deliberately. “And as your commanding officer, I forbid us from any type of suicide. The most honorable thing to do now is meet our fate like men.”

The adjutant gritted his teeth. “How truly selfish. You still speak of honor. Do you think our deaths will fix everything? Do you think, perhaps, that every bullet they put in us will atone for one that we put in them?”

“How many thousands of rounds, commander? We’d be statues of iron. Please.”

“No suicide. That is an order.” Ichirō sighed. “Though, if you want to so badly, I suppose I can’t stop you, can I? You hold the gun.”

“Like I said, I think you should go first.”

“Have you even considered what I’ve been saying to you all this time, Kōsuke? What I think about all of this? We keep speaking of selfishness, yes? I suppose you’re just another example of it.”

At this, Kōsuke exploded like an overloaded boiler. “Selfish! How dare you call me selfish. All I want is for your own death to be quick and painless.” Tears ran from his bloodshot eyes. “We’ve killed so much. What’s left is for us to vanish.”

“Is that it, then? How considerate of you.” Ichirō paused. “Still… I forbid it. You really haven’t been listening, have you?”

He began to dust off his uniform. “Hand me that white cloth you were polishing your sword with.”

“You’re surrendering.”

“Yes. And there is to be no suicide.”

The rain had started yet again. This time, it was louder, filling in the silence of the room like smoke from a house fire. Actually, commanding officers were supposed to burn papers, thought Ichirō. But should he? It was quite a hassle, and-

Before he could finish the thought, the commander heard the click of a pistol. Looking up, he saw the glint of gun steel melting into the inky darkness of the barrel. Behind it, Kōsuke’s gaze matched his, unmoving and unresponsive.

“I can’t let you do that, commander.”

The men, standing stock still, faced one another.

“You’ve never disobeyed an order.”

“Everything I did, commander, I did for you. This is no different.”

Ichirō felt himself trying to cry, but no tears came. Kōsuke continued to stare unflinchingly, his finger firmly on the trigger.

“Alright then. Shoot.”

“What?”

“Shoot me.”

Around them, the rain fell like a deluge. But the room remained dry. The yellow desk lamp highlighted the contours of the men’s faces. Through its beam, a few motes of dust floated aimlessly before coming to rest.

“I said shoot me.”

Ichirō’s hands were shaking violently as he buttoned up his uniform.

“Shoot me!”

Kōsuke began to sob. Sinking to his knees, he lowered the gun.

“You’ve killed so many innocent men, women, and children. And now I stand before you, guilty as sin, and you don’t even want to. This is the first time someone you’ve killed has truly wanted it.” In disgust, Ichirō spat on the floor.

“When did you become such a monster? When did you become less than human?”

On the dusty tatami mat, Kōsuke retched, but he was unable to vomit.

“Coward.”

Kōsuke sank back, leaning his head against the wall. To him, it seemed so heavy, so hard for his neck to lift. Looking at the yellow lamp and listening to the rain, he felt like he could not go on for another minute. Staggering to his feet, he glanced back at Ichirō, who had not moved a muscle.

“You’re the coward.”

Ichirō did not respond.

“I said you’re the coward.”

A snappy reply. “Shut up.”

“Say you committed hara-kiri, and I cut off your head to spare the pain. What difference would it make?”

What difference indeed, to the pile of corpses in the Hun River?

Kōsuke spoke again. “Say you went out and surrendered to the Russians, and they turned you over to the local people, who tore you to shreds like a pack of wolves. Say, instead, they sent you somewhere in Siberia, where you lived for five years in total squalor before freezing to death and being buried in a snow pile.”

He brought his gaze to meet Ichirō’s. “What difference would it make?”

The eyes of both men were empty. Once, the shifting sands of youth could be found there, dancing like phantom spirits, crazed and wild. Now, time had turned them into glass. Stares that only reflected, for there was nothing underneath them to reveal any depth. To gaze into them was to gaze into the gaping void.

What difference indeed, for the millions of victims of Japan’s aggression? For the mounds of skulls removed from their owners, the disemboweled bellies now being picked at by crows, the rivers of blood now snaking across the once-pristine landscape?

“No matter what you do,” continued Kōsuke with a learned ruthlessness, “you make a choice. To die now, filthy as you are, or die later like a sick dog. And all the same, these choices mean nothing. Nothing at all.”

The wind had picked up as well. The windows, with their blinds drawn tightly shut, now rattled amidst the torrential downpour outside.

“And yet there is a choice you can make, where - in the end - the choice is not yours.”

Unsteadily, he made his way over to the immobile Ichirō. The two men locked eyes, centimeters apart. The commander’s breath smelled of bad sake and cigarette smoke. Kōsuke pressed his pistol against Ichirō’s wrinkled forehead.

“Whether I shoot you or not - that choice is mine.”

“And my verdict,” shouted Kōsuke, showering Ichirō’s face with spittle, “is that you are the lowest a human can go. You kept digging down to hide the bodies, digging deeper and deeper within yourself to hide your shame. And now you’ve hollowed yourself out. You are not a man. You are nothing.”

“And-” Ichirō said, in a barely perceivable whisper - “the same to you.”

Now Kōsuke, too, lowered his voice, drawing closer and closer. “In days now gone, you made the choices for thousands, if not tens of thousands. The choice of whether to live or die.” He turned away for a moment to draw breath.

“And now,” he continued, “in a moment of guilt, you want to delegate the choice to me. You realize that whatever you do, you will die a guilty man - a guilty dog - and so you want me to absolve you of the responsibility.”

Ichirō mumbled something.

“Ichirō, we’ve been speaking of ‘selfishness’ all this time, haven’t we? You, with all this power - over all of those people - now want, at the very moment when your power will soon run out, to pretend that you were powerless all along.”

“Shut up!” Ichirō shouted, his face red - “you’re no better than I!”

Kōsuke stood up. He had grown. At his full height, he was a good head taller than Ichirō, whom time had seemingly shrunk. He looked terribly shriveled. His face was filled with rage, but, as Kōsuke realized gazing at him, his commander’s eyes only reflected his own.

“What are you going to say to the Russians when they catch you, then?” bellowed Ichirō. “That you were simply following orders? Are you going to show them my corpse and say, look, I always objected, I always hated the man, in fact, I always hated the Japanese empire and-”

The pistol clattered to the floor as Kōsuke fell onto Ichirō’s shoulder, crying.

“-and the Emperor,” rasped Ichirō, “and, please, could you spare my life?”

The commander hugged his adjutant close to him.

“Grandpa, I…”

“Don’t say that. You’ve grown old too.”

19 August 1945; near Mukden; torrential downpour; the summer wind blows with force, as if seeking to cleanse the landscape into barren steppe - it howls like the cries of ten thousand hungry ghosts. The killers embrace and cry whilst the dead are silent. All is as it should be, and yet nothing is.