The city of Port Arthur itself was largely intact. As sieges go, it had not been particularly destructive. Until they took 203 Hill, they hadn’t been able to position any artillery to fire on the city effectively, so the shape of the city was more or less the same as it must have been six months ago. Some buildings had been razed, of course—here and there were piles of blasted stone and charred beams where houses had stood—but compared to the fields outside of the city walls, now a wasteland, Port Arthur was well-preserved and empty, like a dollhouse.

Compared to the battlefield, the city was a sniper’s dream. There was all the cover and elevated vantage points Ogata could want. Of course, he didn’t need them, because there were no more Russians to shoot, but assessing the terrain was a mental exercise he’d taken up long ago, before he’d even joined the army.

Ogata sat cross-legged on the roof of a building on a street corner and watched Sugimoto and Yuusaku kneel in the dirt. They were letting a mangy-looking dog sniff their hands. They were facing away from him and their heads were bowed together in conversation, though they were too far away for Ogata to overhear what was said. From the distance, he could just barely make out the short, soft hairs that tapered off down the nape of their necks. In the space between their hair and their collars was bare skin, completely unprotected.

Ogata pulled his rifle down by the strap, nestled it in the crook of his elbow, and peered down the sights, first aiming at one, and then the other. Another exercise. He couldn’t keep it up for long, though, as a few seconds later Sugimoto stood up to leave. Ogata noticed that his calves were wrapped up in puttees that were, for once, pristine; he must have gotten fresh bandages put on that morning. He hadn’t yet had to wade through mud, or blood.

Even after Sugimoto turned the corner, Yuusaku remained where he knelt. The dog looked happy to stay behind with its new master, forsaking the previous one in a heartbeat. The sunlight was on the wane, and night’s chill was already beginning to settle. The scene below was bathed in a golden glow. Yuusaku’s shadow across the ground was very long. For a moment Ogata thought, he’s alone now, I could just—before the sound of approaching voices from the street below him reached his ears and he slung the rifle across his back. It was only an idle thought, anyway. The report would carry too far, and they weren’t to be firing inside the city now that it was under surrender. Someone would notice.

-

If nothing else, the chance to go back to sleeping indoors for a while was welcome. After a week, however, Ogata was impatient for the 7th Division to receive marching orders and move on. Between long hours taking inventory of the city’s resources and performing the last rites for the dead with mechanical efficiency, there was time for celebrating, of a sort—at night stages would go up out of wood pallets, someone would make music, and clouds of cigarette smoke rose above them to mingle with the fog rolling in off the port. Rather than jubilance, it all had the frantic edge of a prison-yard just before a riot. He’d never enjoyed the company of the rest of the unit enough to spend much time drinking and wasting time with them unless it was a way to get at something he wanted, but it was the middle of winter and the nights were long.

He could have sought out Sugimoto, dragged him into some abandoned house while everyone else was busy, but the last time they’d snuck off together things had gotten—out of hand. Sugimoto had acted so odd, like he thought this was something it wasn’t, and it made Ogata want to keep him at bay for a little while. Until Sugimoto remembered who they were, and what this was about. It hadn’t been—bad, but thinking about it set Ogata’s teeth on edge. For now, all the regiments of the 7th were billeted in the same area, and it was easy enough to stay clear of him when they were two men of thousands, even if their numbers had been winnowed down to less than half of what they’d been when they’d landed.

He had wanted to test him, before, but Sugimoto had ruined it. There hadn’t been another chance. He’d dreamt about the way Yuusaku’s fingers would have shaken as he took the bayonet from Ogata’s hand. Ogata would likely have had to guide Yuusaku through the motions of it. He would have held the prisoner’s head back, to make it easy for him. Anyone could slit a bare neck, even a virgin. But they had been interrupted, and ever since Ogata had felt like he’d been pushed off balance and couldn’t get back on his feet. It was unfinished business he wasn’t sure how to resume, until Yuusaku solved the problem by coming to him.

Yuusaku found him on the steps of a blown-out hotel overlooking the square that the 7th had overtaken as its temporary base of operations. Ogata had drunk more than he should have, because it was offered and he was bored, and he blamed the alcohol in his blood for how he didn’t notice his brother’s approach until he was very close.

Ogata could read the exact moment of indecision where Yuusaku’s mouth had to choose between Ani-sama and Superior Private Ogata. In the end, he settled on neither. Yuusaku sat on a step below him, so their heads were level. “How did you learn to shoot so well?”

“Practice.” Yuusaku had left enough space in between them they weren’t in danger of touching, but Ogata still drew his arms in closer to his chest.

Yuusaku laughed, quiet and self-deprecating. “I could practice for a long time and never shoot like you do. You must have a secret. Or there must be a story behind it. Who taught you?”

“There’s no story. My family had a rifle, and I picked it up young.”

“Well, we’re all grateful for it.” Yuusaku glanced down at his crossed ankles and then back up to Ogata. The corners of his eyes crinkled as if to shield themselves from the light, even though night was well and truly fallen. He chewed at his bottom lip. “I’m going to write to Father to tell him about our victory at 203 Hill. I want to tell him what a credit to the unit you are.”

A freezing wind was blowing in from over the bay. Inside his veins, Ogata’s blood felt like ice. “And what will you tell him that you’ve done?”

“What?”

“If you write to him and tell him about how many men I’ve killed, can you say the same for yourself?”

Yuusaku’s eyes shone wetly. “I don’t understand.”

“If our father wanted to hear about the things I’ve done, he would ask. Do you think you’re being kind?” Yuusaku looked away, and Ogata leaned closer to him. He placed a hand down on the stair to steady himself, and his fingernails ground into the stone. “You want to feel like you have no part in any of this. Have you killed anyone since you arrived? Anyone at all?”

“I carry the flag, I can’t…”

“Can’t what? Sully yourself like the rest of us?”

What Yuusaku said next he almost whispered. His voice came out raw and weak. “Father told me not to. He said I alone mustn’t kill anybody.”

“What?” Blood was rushing past his ears so loudly he mistook it at first for the waves in the harbour on the other side of the city wall.

Yuusaku reached out and grabbed Ogata’s hand from where it was clenched on the stair. He held it between each of his own, Ogata’s bare palm between his gloves. Before Ogata could pull it away or ask what Yuusaku thought he was doing, Yuusaku leaned closer and wrapped his arms around him.

Their knees knocked together. Over Yuusaku’s shoulder Ogata could see the moon rise. Its surface looked as ravaged by shell craters as the fields outside. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever been touched like this before. If he had, it was a long time ago. Yuusaku was trembling. The warmth was cloying, and Ogata wanted to move Yuusaku away, to shove him back and ask what he thought he was doing, but his feet were fixed to the stone below them.

Yuusaku truly whispered now, softly, tenderly, his words brushing over the side of Ogata’s face. Like whatever he had to say was something secret and important. “I wish I could be the brother that you wanted. But I’m glad that we met.”

He was such a fool. Ogata had never wanted a brother at all. That he existed was the problem.

When he finally pulled himself away, he left Yuusaku behind on the steps without a second look. Other drunken stragglers were still picking crooked pathways back to the makeshift barracks, so no one noticed that Ogata’s face was flushed and his own tread was unsteady. He stared up at the ceiling, which swayed with every breath he took, and refused to glance over at the place where, several beds over, Sugimoto also lay awake. Ogata could feel Sugimoto watching him until he was taken by sleep without dreams.

-

Their time in Port Arthur came to an end quickly. They had won a battle, at great cost, but the war was not yet over. Once the rail lines out of the city were in working order, the regiments of the 7th Division were loaded into transport trains and sent north, towards Mukden, where they were to reinforce the men already entrenched there in anticipation of a major conflict. They had been crammed in together just as tightly on the ships that had brought them over the ocean, but being inside rail cars gave the particular feeling of being a piece of livestock headed to the butcher’s.

Sugimoto seemed his usual self, any residual hesitance or suspicion having apparently faded back into his usual clumsy animosity, because he sat on the bench next to Ogata before the first hour of the journey had even passed. Time crawled by. No one was in much of a mood to pass the time. Eventually they cracked some of the windows open to let the car ventilate. Outside was freezing, but it was preferable to breathing in the stale air. Sugimoto stood and leaned his head and shoulders out with his elbows braced on the frame to keep him from tipping over and falling. There was enough room next to him for Ogata to peer out, as well, and watch the fields pass them by. Sugimoto only glanced in his direction and then turned his gaze back to the Manchurian countryside.

“Doesn’t even look like there’s a war on out here,” Sugimoto muttered. With their heads out the window, the wind whipped their words away from the others in the car. It was as much privacy as they were likely to get for days.

Ogata pulled his hood in tighter to preserve some meagre heat. “Getting homesick, are you?”

Sugimoto’s collar rippled in the breeze. The air whipping past them was cold enough Ogata was already starting to lose feeling in his extremities. Sugimoto tucked his chin into the top of his coat until all Ogata could see were his eyes and his furrowed brows, and though Ogata knew Sugimoto had heard him, Sugimoto didn’t answer. Ogata turned to face him fully and asked, “Were you a conscript, Sugimoto?”

Sugimoto blinked, like he wasn’t sure what he was being asked, before he shook his head. “No, I enlisted.”

“I thought so. How much longer is your service term?”

“Another year or so.” Sugimoto looked at him properly now, both of their torsos twisted so they could talk face to face without losing balance where they stood on the bench inside the car. Now that Sugimoto’s face was so close Ogata was reminded of their last conversation, and he regretted not leaving Sugimoto to do his sightseeing alone. There was just so little else to do, and there was no way to pull out now that didn’t make him lose ground, so Ogata let his curiosity carry him further.

“Are you going to stay in the army?” A bird flew along next to them, trying to keep pace with the train. It was managing it, for now, but surely it couldn’t keep it up for long.

Sugimoto glanced back out at the trees passing them by. “I don’t know. There was a girl..."

A sour taste flooded through Ogata’s mouth. “So you’re going back to Tokyo to marry your sweetheart? How cute.”

Sugimoto glared at him. The gashes on his face were almost totally healed. His face looked better with the scars than it had before. “No. She married someone else. I don’t even know if I’ll go back. It depends on some things.” Sugimoto made a cch-sound from his back teeth. “I don't know why I'm telling you this. What about you? This can’t be your first term. You gonna stay on until—what, you die? Tsukishima’s life look that good to you?”

“What are you going to do after you get out, then? You’re too good of a killer, Sugimoto.” Sugimoto’s eyes flashed darkly at him. Good. “I don’t think Tsurumi will let you go, anyway. He’s got big plans for after the war, when the 7th goes back to Hokkaido, and he likes you too much.”

“What kinds of plans?”

A rock dislodged by the wheels flew up towards them faster than a bullet, faster than Ogata could move out of the way, but it just missed them by inches and clanged against the side of the train next to Sugimoto’s face. Sugimoto’s eyes had followed its path, and he never even flinched. Perhaps that was the reason Ogata told him what he did; he thought, not for the first time, that he could use a man like that, depending on how things went.

“I don’t know everything. Just bits and pieces. We were running some scouting missions before things with Russia started heating up. There’s a bunch of gold hidden away in Hokkaido, and the only person who knows how to get at it is locked up in Abashiri prison. Tsurumi knows more than he’s telling, but it has to do with a map. They’ve tattooed it on a group of prisoners—I don’t know how, it must be in some kind of code or else the guards would have figured it out by now. But to get at the gold you need all the prisoners.”

“How are you supposed to do that if they’re all in prison?”

Ogata shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe Tsurumi plans to send someone in there to photograph them? I don’t know. I don’t even know if the tattoos are finished or if he’s still going.”

“This sounds like a bunch of bullshit.”

“Maybe some of the story is a smokescreen to keep information from leaking out of the regiment. But do you think Tsurumi would snoop around over some wives’ tale? You know him better than that. He’s many things, but not stupid.”

Sugimoto’s knuckles were white where he gripped the rim of the window to keep himself upright. “What did you mean, when you said he likes me too much to let me go? My service term isn’t up to him.”

“How do you think you got sent up here, Sugimoto? Have you ever heard of a Private First Class being reassigned to the other side of the country before?” Sugimoto frowned. It looked like he really hadn’t thought it through all the way. Hopeless. If Ogata weren’t around, Tsurumi would sink his claws into him without a doubt.

Together, on the other hand—between the two of them it was hard to imagine who could stand in their way. And when the time came for Ogata to make his way alone, it would be up to him to test how immortal Sugimoto really was. He could think of no more fitting end for their acquaintance.

Sugimoto looked like he wanted to dispute it, like Ogata was making it up, or something, but he must have seen something in his face, because instead he just shook his head and said, “Come on, I’m getting cold. Let’s shut this back up.”

-

On the morning of the first charge of the Battle of Mukden that the 7th Division was a part of, Tsurumi delivered their orders from horseback. “I’m sure you are all wondering what more I can possibly ask of you. I’m afraid I must continue to demand too much.”

Standing by Tsurumi’s side, Yuusaku was turned out impeccably: his uniform was spotless and his face grave. Seeing him on his own, you’d think he was a wet-behind-the-ears academy cadet about to sit for a portrait rather than an officer who’d lead almost as many men to their deaths as Ogata had ever shot. The flag in his hands was not yet unfurled, but its edges rippled queasily in the wind.

“The generals’ orders are nothing that will surprise you. We’re to conduct a direct assault on the Russian lines ahead.” Tsurumi’s horse tossed its head, trying in vain to swat away the gathering flies landing on its face. Even from the ground below, Ogata could see that Tsurumi’s eyes were full of fire. He looked like a monster from a bedtime story meant to frighten children. “My orders are for as many of you as possible to return alive. We don’t need any more martyrs. I’ve had my fill of the noble dead. I want you to fight like demons, and then come back. Crawl, if you must.”

The battle for Mukden was not like the siege at Port Arthur had been. Though there were fortifications already set up, the heat of the battle lasted only five long days. More like one day drawn out across several sunrises and sunsets; it raged on day and night, with the howitzers rattling through the small hours of the morning and night raids being made across the lines, from both sides. He barely slept, but Ogata had made up his mind. It was only a matter of time. He had only to wait for the right moment, and he knew how to wait.

They gained ground, they lost it, they gained it again. There were black flies on everything, more than you could hope to shake off. It made shooting a pain in the ass. The body’s instinct to brush them away was severe, but Ogata had dealt with worse. He did, however, feel a flash of annoyance. He shouldn’t have waited. What had held him back? 203 was just as much of a tempest, but the air was better, the shots easier to take. He had wanted to test Yuusaku, to be sure of it, but now that he was on the precipice this outcome seemed inevitable.

He could make out Tsurumi up ahead, still on his horse, directing men forward with a naked sword. He was normally a good rider but the horse was shying badly, refusing to take any steps further. The reins were held tight, like Tsurumi was trying to stop himself from being bucked off.

Ogata blinked the sweat away from his eyes, rested his cheek against the stock, and tried to focus on nothing but the feeling of the wood grain against his face. He let his eyelids droop a little, relaxing his gaze; they would flicker into focus if anything moved. He just had to trust his instincts. Eye fatigue came when you strained them too hard, thought about it too much, and then before you knew it you'd given your position to the enemy by firing at every stray bird that flew past the sights. No, he kept breathing in through his nostrils, out through his mouth, trying to slow his breathing enough to count the time between heartbeats.

Yuusaku was the easiest man on the battlefield to spot. He was at the centre of a maelstrom of bodies and bayonets and bloodsprays. Sugimoto was next to him on the slight hill they’d taken; Ogata could make him out just by the way he moved. It wasn’t Sugimoto’s time yet. He would have to be careful.

There was a story as to how Ogata had learned to shoot so well. He'd practiced on his grandfather's rifle over days and nights in the field behind the farmhouse. Ammunition was too expensive to waste, so he only shot to kill. He would lie on his stomach in the grass until even the mice would run over his legs. It took years of that, or perching in the branches of trees watching people come and go on the dirt road below, for him to learn the secret: the shots came through in the place between pulses. It was the stillest a finger could ever get. Every time he got distracted or nervous, even for a moment, his pulse would quicken and the interval became too short. Eventually, he learned how to slow his breathing, slow down everything, until there was nothing but to wait for the ironsights to find their home.

Now, amidst the dust and smoke and thudding of shells just past their lines, Ogata leant against the dovetail groove where the pieces of stockwood met and kept his breath even despite the bad air, suppressing the whisperings of a cough, until there was nothing more to be felt but the gentleness of knowing he would be the one to pull the cord on his brother’s life. This moment was just for the two of them, alone together for the last time.

Yuusaku's wide shoulders were a perfect target, but Ogata never liked to shoot for the chest if he could avoid it. The 6.5mm-calibre cartridges in the Type 30s didn't have enough stopping power to ensure it'd go all the way through. He only shot the chest if he knew he could make it to the heart.

If possible, the head was better. Cleaner. More obvious upon entry and exit where the shot had landed. The cascade of matter through the air, the sway, and then the fall of the body to the ground; he would know how it'd gone before he'd had time to cock the next shot.

Spirals of crows circled overhead, laughing to each other at the men below. Black wings against a cloudy sky.

Yuusaku moved without hesitation, graceful, long-limbed, and even at such a distance Ogata could make out the neat line of his profile. There was nothing to protect that body from the world. He never even drew his sword. Yuusaku was a fool. He was already dead, a corpse still walking, confusing the world with his refusal to lay down and die like he ought to. Purity meant nothing. The only reason he was still alive was because it was for Ogata to do this. Him, and no one else.

He had already considered the angle, the distance, the wind, and adjusted his aim accordingly. If you could shoot a bird out of the sky in flight, a man was simple. They were so much slower, wider, less at home in their element. A man—

Ogata squeezed the trigger with the ball of his finger. Straight back, to avoid any side-to-side motion. At the same moment, another shell landed not far away, and a cloud of dust particles rose up from the ground. Somewhere to his left, men were screaming in pain.

He waited for the report and the familiar kickback, but nothing came. The gun failed to fire. The shot simply didn't come. That was a known flaw with the Type 30s: along with the finicky interior mechanisms of the bolt, it was one of the main defects of what was otherwise a very good rifle. But Ogata maintained his gun to perfection; this kind of thing didn’t happen to him. He pulled back on the hook and sighted down the barrel one more time, looking for his target. He clenched his jaw.

In the thick clouds of dust that whirled around them it was hard to make out one silhouette from another. There were men running back to their respective lines, both theirs and the Russians’, and whatever the colour of their uniforms they moved with frightened quickness, like rabbits. Eventually the wind bore the smoke back away from the scene, and Ogata found the flag and its bearer. He squinted. He fired.

Ogata’s bullet hit Yuusaku in the head, but the angle was—off, or at least it looked that way from a distance. Yuusaku’s knees folded out beneath him, but not before he turned in Ogata’s direction and cast a glance back over his shoulder. His eyes snagged against Ogata’s like cloth on barbed wire. It couldn’t have been more than a second, but it felt like the longest moment of Ogata’s life. Yuusaku swayed, a burst of blood bloomed through the air around him, and one of his hands landed on the shoulder of the closest person to him—Sugimoto—instinctively, as if to break his fall. The body’s last attempt to save itself, not yet knowing the damage had been done.

Ogata lowered his rifle. In a moment he would cycle the bolt and choose another target, a Russian somewhere along the horizon. But not yet. This moment was his. He felt very empty. The satisfaction would come later—it always did, in time. His hands were shaking. Two hundred yards away, Yuusaku’s body had fallen limp into Sugimoto’s arms.

He couldn’t have guessed how much time passed between seeing his brother fall and seeing his body brought back to safety. He shot about a dozen Russian men who were trying to overtake a Japanese gun emplacement. At one point, as he leaned out from behind his cover, a bullet whipped close enough to his face for Ogata to feel its heat against his cheek.

The dust and smoke that rose thick in the air and was whipped around by the wind were to blame for why it took him so long to realize what he was seeing, but eventually it was too clear to be mistaken. Ogata was too familiar with Sugimoto's gait, the way he occupied his body; even when Sugimoto was hunched over under the weight of a burden, it was impossible to see him as any other. Ogata blinked through the sweat on his brow. Sugimoto was coming back from the skirmish zone amidst the thudding of shells and bullets, limbs, and dislodged earth. Yuusaku was slung over his back. They were both covered in Yuusaku’s blood. Abstractly, Ogata noted the stab of jealousy that ran through him at the sight of it on Sugimoto’s skin. The flag was nowhere in sight.

Ogata watched from fifty paces away as a field medic rushed over to the two of them as if there was anything to be done. There were nowhere close to enough nurses for the amount of wounded, but being the legal son of a Lieutenant General once again had its privileges.

Ogata wasn’t sure how much time passed between seeing Yuusaku’s body borne back and the next moment of respite, because another round of shells erupted very close by. He was drawn once more into providing cover fire as other men of the unit scrambled towards safety. It might have been hours. He was drawn further and further away from the place he’d last seen him, until it was fully dark out and there wasn’t a living man left in sight.

When he finally made it back to what was, when he last saw it, a functional temporary command post, he was confronted with blown-over tents and a shellshocked group of stragglers taking shelter around a barrel fire behind one of the embankments still standing. Sugimoto was among the survivors, of course. He was still covered in blood. Ogata glanced around, but the medics had taken Yuusaku’s body away somewhere out of sight.

Sugimoto nodded at him. His eyes looked glazed over and dull. Ogata had to cough to clear his lungs of smoke before he could ask, “What happened here?”

Sugimoto murmured in an undertone, “Shells. They got Tsurumi. Tsukishima’s hurt bad, too.” That sent a chill down Ogata’s spine, one he wasn’t sure he could remember experiencing. Anyone else, sure, but Tsurumi— “Last I heard they were still alive, but pretty fucked up. But they think they might make it. All of them.”

“All of them?”

“Hanazawa looks rough, but the last time I saw him he was still breathing.”

The chill spread over his whole body, and Ogata stopped rubbing his hands together over the fire. “What?”

“The shot that got him was pretty bad, but he could pull through.”

He wanted to laugh. He didn’t. Sugimoto was looking at him balefully, watching how he’d react. Ogata didn’t speak for minutes. The minutes turned into dozens of minutes, until the fire inside the barrel was dying and the rest of them trickled away somewhere else and Sugimoto tugged on Ogata’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get some sleep. We’re gonna need it.”