Of the journey, there wasn’t much to tell. It was a few days across land and sea before they arrived in the depot of the 14th Infantry Brigade. As luck would have it, a Hokkaido-bound convoy was already scheduled to depart from Tokyo no more than a day after Sugimoto Saichi was handed a notice of divisional transfer, and so he had been bundled up and sent north alongside crates of weapons hot off the Koishikawa assembly line before the ink finished drying on the page.

He knew what he’d done to set it in motion: he could still feel his fist cracking against the bridge of his First Lieutenant’s nose. What Sugimoto couldn’t understand was why he’d been given away to the 7th Division instead of court-martialled or demoted proper. Sure, it was punishment enough to be exiled to a frozen wasteland staffed by a bunch of hardasses who thought they were the only division of the army who'd ever marched just because they'd spent the last couple years fixing bridges a stone's throw away from Russia, but it still felt like he’d gotten off cheap.

He’d been relieved of his rifle before boarding the convoy, with new gear to be supplied when they reached his new platoon, or so he was told. Probably just didn’t trust him not to go nuts and take off before his package delivery slip was signed for on the other side. He wasn’t a prisoner, in theory, but he definitely wasn’t free. That was the army for you. Considering the circumstances, it was the best he could hope for.

The guys driving the convoy had let Sugimoto hitch a ride up from Hakodate on the back of one of the supply wagons, and when he stepped down into the dusty yard at Asahikawa part of him still expected to be greeted with a tribunal. All there was in terms of a welcoming party was a supply officer overseeing the receipt of the goods, who, upon seeing him, said, “Private First Class Sugimoto?”

Sugimoto nodded.

“First Lieutenant Tsurumi is expecting you. You’re to report to the 27th immediately.” The man turned back to his invoices, and Sugimoto spent only a second longer squinting around the depot before he made his way into the complex. All the garrisons looked the same. The air was cooler against his face than he was used to, drier, too. He made his way through the storage sheds and mess halls and past the parade grounds, where a hundred-odd infantrymen were practicing bayonet thrusts under the glare of an unseasonably warm sun. It felt like a place from a dream, familiar yet strange.

It was that way all the way up to the door to the officer’s wing, which he’d never before had reason to enter. He hesitated for a moment and took a breath, but if there was any way out of the situation besides a forward march he hadn’t figured it out, and so Sugimoto made his way through the entrance and down the hall until he reached the 1LT placard on the wall. A man stood guard outside, and after collecting Sugimoto’s name and rank, he knocked on the door. He was beckoned in by a muffled voice. Sugimoto dug his nails into his palm, grit his teeth, and stepped forward to face the man who now held his leash.

First Lieutenant Tsurumi was tall, wiry, wolfish in expression and carefully groomed in appearance. Straight eyebrows overlooked dark and glittering eyes, and his moustache was what could only be described as fashionable. His uniform was exactly the same as Sugimoto's First Lieutenant back with the 1st, but the presence was something else entirely. Tsurumi glanced up from his desk and tilted his head, blinked, slowly, like he didn't have anything better to do, and said, “Private First Class Sugimoto?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sit, please. Make yourself comfortable.” He did as he was bid, and his hand went to his chest to pull his rifle off by the sling-strap before he remembered he still hadn’t been provided with a new gun. When he turned back, he saw that Tsurumi was watching him with full attention, his papers pushed aside. “This day is turning out well indeed. A shipment of new guns, and better yet, a new man to wield them. I trust your voyage was speedy. I know these things sometimes get delayed, especially as the weather starts to turn, but I'd hate to hear your travel was anything less than efficient.”

“Nothing to complain about,” Sugimoto said, shrugging one shoulder as he sat. He'd never sat opposite a superior officer one-on-one like this, and however friendly Tsurumi appeared to be, Sugimoto felt like at any moment Tsurumi was about to reveal there was a test underway that Sugimoto had already failed.

He hardly had time to nod along before Tsurumi breezed into his next sentence: “Private First Class Sugimoto, do you know why you haven't been demoted and kept around for whenever the officers of the 1st needed a fall man?”

Sugimoto’s heartbeat picked up like he was being chased, but he kept his face blank. “I was told another lieutenant had a gap in his unit that I could fill.”

“Well, that much is true. The 7th Division has always been kept overstrength.” Tsurumi clucked his tongue. “But in your case, especially, I found myself rather moved. I don’t blame you for feeling bitter about this whole business. The army has a way of casting one aside like an old sheet of paper. And, in your case, I can empathize.” Sugimoto blinked; Tsurumi smiled and went on: “Nothing sets me off like weak leadership.”

Sugimoto opened his mouth, but before he could try and come up with a response Tsurumi got up, leant out the door to murmur something to the man standing guard outside, and then turned back to Sugimoto.

“Well it's not all bad news, for you. I've just heard from the Tokyo garrison that the 1st is going to receive deployment orders by next week. The 7th exists to defend the home islands, of course, so we'll remain here unless things get very dire. If we're lucky, we'll make it through the war without ever seeing the front at all. There's less glory in it, of course, but I've never been very fond of sea travel.” Sugimoto waited a few seconds before letting out a rough version of the laugh he was pretty sure he was supposed to be giving in response to what was probably a joke. Tsurumi continued to fix him with his benevolent, unblinking stare, like the world’s softest pin about to enter the abdomen of a butterfly.

“I won't bore you with my conversation much longer. I'm sure you'll figure everything out quickly enough, but things work a little differently up here. Hokkaido operates by its own rules, in certain respects. But I won't keep you from settling in any further. It's been a long journey, and I'm sure you're exhausted.” Just as he said it, the door opened and a man came through, different from the one who'd been waiting outside when Sugimoto had come in. Sugimoto wondered how much of their conversation had been audible from outside—with his luck, probably everything.

The new arrival was about half-a-hand shorter and a bit slighter than Sugimoto himself, a couple years older, with three bands on the wrist and a flat sort of coldness around the eyes. The guy nodded at Tsurumi, and then stood at attention with a bored look on his face, not looking at Sugimoto at all, and that, more than anything, set the gnawing irritation that had been stewing inside his gut all day into a blaze of anger. It felt good to have a target, at least. This guy was only one rank above him, anyway. Just a foot soldier like the rest of them.

Tsurumi moved back to his desk and said, “Superior Private Ogata, here, will show you around the garrison. It will mostly be familiar to you, I'm sure, but perhaps he can begin to introduce you to your new comrades?”

Ogata glanced over at Sugimoto for the first time. Sugimoto clenched his jaw involuntarily and held his gaze. “Yes, sir,” he affirmed, with the bare minimum of courtesy.

“Dismissed, both of you.” Ogata nodded and walked out towards the door, leaving Sugimoto to follow in his wake out into the hallway. Ogata had a face Sugimoto instinctively didn’t like, not that he had to see much of it; Ogata didn't spare him so much as a look the whole way out of the officers' wing. He had a good walk, though, Sugimoto would give him that. He had to widen his stride just to keep up.

About a minute went by where Ogata said nothing, until Sugimoto, getting tired of the silence, asked, “Is he always like that?”

Ogata glanced at him before turning his gaze back to the way ahead. “Like what.” His voice was low for such a small man.

“I don't know. Animated. My old lieutenant couldn't do anything without looking like he’d rather be at dinner.”

“That’s interesting. I would’ve expected more from the 1st Division.”

Oh, so it was going to be like that. Sugimoto rolled his eyes, but before he could say anything more they exited the building and came out into the courtyard. It was laid out exactly the same as the one he'd come from, like a country home, with the cherry tree in the yard and the buildings all fanning around it. What gave it away were the residual patches of dirty snow built up around the edges, all ground up with gravel and bearing the rough texture of having been melted down during the day and re-frozen at night for weeks. The buildings couldn’t have been more than five years standing, but the place didn't look like it had ever been nice. Built to last against rough weather, more like.

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t see any gear on you, so unless you plan on using judo on the Russians you should get outfitted.”

Sugimoto felt his blood rising again, and he bit back an explanation of how he’d had to hand over his supplies on the other side before he remembered he didn’t owe this guy shit. He was barely a superior.

Ogata apparently assumed that Sugimoto could figure out which buildings were which, because he didn’t play tour guide with much enthusiasm. That was fine by Sugimoto. If he’d had to listen to this guy talk to him like some recruit he probably would have lost it again and really been sent packing this time. As they passed the parade ground, however, Ogata cleared his throat. “The sergeant over there by the range is Tsukishima. He and Lieutenant Tsurumi have been in the same squad since the war with China. The corporal on his left is Tamai.”

“What’s he like?”

“He’s fine. Big on dress code, so make sure you cut your nails.”

Sugimoto muttered, “Who doesn’t cut their nails?”

Ogata shrugged. “I don’t know how they do things in the 1st.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

They were about to scale the armoury steps when Sugimoto spotted a figure in an officer’s summer whites coming out of one of the buildings in the distance. “Who’s that?”

Ogata glanced in the direction in which Sugimoto pointed, and an odd look crossed his face, like a cloud passing over the sun. “The Second Lieutenant. Hanazawa.”

“He looks young.”

“He is,” Ogata answered, and then pushed through the doors. Sugimoto glanced back at Hanazawa and then followed Ogata inside.

Ogata was running a hand over the one of the rifles on the racks. “These must be the new shipment that you came up with. I hope they’ve fixed the bolt problems, but I doubt it.”

“What bolt problems?”

“Haven’t you ever cleaned one of these properly?” The expression of low-level condescension that Sugimoto assumed was Ogata’s resting state transformed then into open contempt. “No, of course you haven’t.” Ogata decided him worthy to touch them, at least, because he picked the rifle up off the rack and handed it to Sugimoto stock-first. A quick glance-over confirmed it was one of the fresh manufactures, just out of the crates that had come up with him. There was no separation in the stockwood yet, nor notches in the steel. The thing was elegant, smooth, and deadly, and when he slung it over his chest, the familiar weight against his back was the closest thing he’d come all day to a comfort.

-

Summer slid into being with brush fires and heat waves sending mirages across the parade grounds at mid-day. Hokkaido was drier than Tokyo, and Sugimoto’s cuticles started to crack and peel. Most of his days were taken up by the same army routines as always: drills, inspections, and work-projects, which ranged from helping farmers fix their fences to loading up shipping containers of arms to be sent to the front. All that had been a lot more tolerable when Toraji was there by his side to crack dumb jokes.

The 7th was a real surly bunch, between the creepy twins with the same ugly nose, the huge guy with the Akita accent who looked at Sugimoto like he was dirt on his shoe, and Superior Private Ogata and his weird, dead eyes. They came from all over. There weren’t enough guys from Hokkaido to fill the Hokkaido division, so they pulled the dregs from around the country.

Rifle drilling was, as always, both boring and difficult. That particular morning there was still enough of a chill in the air to make Sugimoto’s fingers clumsy, not that he’d ever been much of a shot. He pushed through his turn at the range by imagining the targets were painted with the faces of the Nikaidous, though he still only hit them where he was supposed to about half of the time.

As he headed back to the group, he saw everyone standing by looking over to the other side of the range. Someone on his left muttered, “Oh, here we go,” with a sour expression, and Sugimoto turned to see Ogata step up to the mark.

He had to have bribed his recruiting officer, because Sugimoto would’ve put money down that Ogata was barely clearing the height requirement of the army physical. The Type 30 made him look even smaller when he was standing still, but the way he moved with it was the kind of confidence that couldn't be faked. No flashy trick reloads or anything like that, just a fluidity in the way he got into position. Ogata did a weird thing with his arm where he braced the gun on the crook of his elbow at an angle that looked uncomfortable to hold, but he held the barrel perfectly steady.

He hit each of the target dummies dead centre in the chest; by the time he'd moved down the line to the 300-meter mark he was being a show-off about it, switching between the chests and heads. Sugimoto’s drill sergeant in Tokyo, the one who'd shown him how to hold a rifle for the first time, couldn't have won a bet against Ogata if he'd trained for ten years just for the contest. It was infuriating. You could see the smugness on his face, even mostly blocked off as it was by the buttstock. When he finished his turn at the mark, no one was talking, but no one was smiling, either.

Ogata shouldered his gun and returned to the drill-line to no fanfare, and eventually the muttered conversation resumed among those waiting to take their next rounds.

Sugimoto remembered one of the few chummy conversations he’d had around the barracks since he’d got here: Ogata had been stalking imperiously around the room, and Mishima had leaned over, murmured to him, a twinkle in his eye, “Oh, the yamaneko’s on the prowl today.”

“What?”

“Haven’t you heard? The child of a wildcat is a wildcat, too.”

Maybe that was why, when Sugimoto’s name was called up for the next round of drills and the guy behind him had to shove him forward with a hand between the shoulderblades, he caught himself staring at Ogata sidelong and had to blink himself back to alertness.

-

Out back behind the barracks kitchen was the best spot to get away from everyone who wanted to talk or engage in all those army pissing contests that are only fun when you're in your first 6-months of enlistment and the whole thing still seems like a really long day at school that hasn't ended yet. He could sit on the step out at the rear, and as long as he didn't beg the cooks for anything they didn't mind him sitting there. The smells were nice, familiar, even if the food was just standard-issue mess dinner. Fresh rice smelled the same everywhere. It didn't matter if you were in cold, shitty Hokkaido with a bunch of guys who were further up their lieutenant’s ass than he’d thought physically possible. As if that would really help any of them when the time came for some men to do the dying and for others to stay behind the lines.

After a while, when it became clear this was going to be his usual spot, one of the cooks started giving Sugimoto onigiri now and then, out of leftovers, mostly, with a severe expression that told him better than words ever could both never to tell anyone about this and not to get too used to the cushy treatment, which could be retracted at any time. So that wasn't so bad. He never managed to get that far with the cooks at the 1st. The rest of these guys must be even worse than they seemed if Sugimoto was coming across as friendly.

Umeko had always made good onigiri, ever since they were kids. He and Toraji used to fight over it, like they did everything. This stuff was fine, good, even, but it wasn’t the same.

He'd while away the time between dinner and lights-out by sitting on the back step there, reading magazines if he’d managed to trade for them, looking at the stars otherwise. It was a lot brighter, out here; he could admit that much. The Tokyo lights could drown out most everything, but Asahikawa was still such an up-and-coming town, and the barracks were far enough outside the main city that you could see even the smaller of the stars, not just the big ones. As the summer slid into fall, meteor showers rained down through the sky. It was more shooting stars than he'd ever known existed.

A comet's tail is what he was looking at, with a few stray grains of rice stuck to his back teeth, when he sensed the approach of someone who walked without a cook's bustle. It was a purposeful but quiet tread. Nothing you ever wanted to coming up from behind you. Sugimoto didn't turn around. He wanted to make the other guy tip his hand first.

He had to wait a couple minutes, but eventually the visitor broke the silence. “So is this where you go to jerk off?” It was Ogata, of course; he could have guessed as much. Always lurking around the corner.

“Not yet, but thanks for the idea.” Sugimoto fished the last bits of rice out from his molars with his little finger. “Did you get sent to come get me, or are you just hard up for conversation?”

Ogata ignored the question and leant against the wall with his arms folded across his chest. “So what did you do?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your transfer. You must’ve done something to get sent out here.” The guy's eyes were too damn weird. Sugimoto wasn't sure whether it was that he didn't blink enough, or if it was the way they were always a little bit lidded, like he was bored or half-asleep, or just how dark they were, like you couldn't make out the pupil from the retina even in the light of midday. Whatever it was, he didn’t like it.

“What, you want me to believe you haven’t heard? I know word gets around about this kind of shit.”

“Maybe I’m just curious what didn’t make it onto the record.”

“So you can run back and tell Tsurumi? No thanks.”

“Whatever you say, Private First Class Sugimoto.” Ogata studied something on the ground, seemingly indifferent. “Was it over a girl?”

“No. Well—no. Not exactly.”

“So it was about a girl.”

Sugimoto let his head tilt back against the wall behind him and rolled the words around in his mouth a little before he spoke. “Look. My old First Lieutenant had a thing for this delivery girl who’d come by the barracks sometimes to drop things off. She was young, and you could tell she didn’t like it, but what’s she gonna do? And he wouldn’t leave her alone. It pissed me off, so I told him to quit it and got put on latrines, and after a couple rounds of that I got tired of it and hit him hard enough he wouldn’t be thinking about anything else for a little while.”

Ogata slid down the side of the building to squat on the ground just out of Sugimoto’s reach. “That was stupid of you.”

“Never said it wasn’t.” Sugimoto turned and looked Ogata in the eye. “I’d do it again, though.”

He wasn’t sure what kind of a reaction he expected, but Ogata just inclined his head to the side a little and said, “I believe it. What would it take, this time?”

“I don’t know. What does First Lieutenant Tsurumi get up to behind closed doors? He can’t really think the dear-leader act is convincing. Officers are all the same when it gets down to it.”

“And what is that?”

“They like to be in charge of people who can’t tell them ‘no’.” Maybe it was the topic of conversation, or the darkness around them, which made it easier to speak even of the difficult things, but Sugimoto found himself asking before he could stop himself, “So what's the deal with you and the Second Lieutenant?”

“If you're asking, then you think you know, don't you?”

“I guess so. I'd rather hear it from you, though.”

“Why does it matter?”

“I don't know; it’s weird that they'd put you in the same unit. Seems like a chain of command problem waiting to happen.”

“Clearly either no one noticed or no one cared.”

“Did you know each other? Before?”

“I never met him before he got his commission.”

“But you knew about him.”

“I knew he existed. I joined the army when he was still at the Academy.”

“Do you think he's a good commander?”

“He hasn't had to do much in the way of commanding.” Sugimoto found himself chuckling lowly at that before he realized he was doing it. He was annoyed at himself for giving Ogata that much, even, but no way to take it back now, and anyway Ogata was going on; unusually talkative, now, for once. “But he’s the perfect flagbearer in every way.”

Sugimoto squinted through the dusk, then, at the way Ogata’s voice sounded—dark and sour, like vinegar. He couldn’t make anything out from his face. He opened his mouth to ask something along the lines of the fuck does that mean, when you say it like that, but the last sound of the night rung out in the distance—lights-out, all men to the dormitories—and Ogata was back on his feet before Sugimoto got the chance.

“You’d better hurry, Private First Class Sugimoto. I’d hate for us to miss an inspection on your behalf.”

“I would’ve already been back, if you hadn’t kept me here,” he muttered, but Ogata had turned his back on him, and there was nothing to do except try and fast-walk past him to the barracks and hope they wouldn’t be seen coming back from a dark corner together. God knows that wasn’t a rumour he needed to get started, on top of everything else.