Warning: first half of this chapter will be quite heavy...

Beyond the Iron Curtains. Beyond agony, torture, forced laboring, famine, inhumanity. Even if it takes a thousand lightyears to get there and a thousand needles puncturing his feet, he will risk it, as promised to the young girl.

"Will we be there by tomorrow, grandpa?"

"We will, by tomorrow."

Grandpa Tsu piggybacked the child with the food and warm clothes he stole from the cottage and navigated through the harsh winter. Flakes blinded his vision. The old man's body system can no longer bear the cold wind gushing through every bone of his.

"Are you cold, Arina-child?"

"I'm very strong! I don't feel a thing!" the child bragged, grinning broadly as she quickly sniffed her snot in.

Whenever they were cold, they would try to build shelters and fire. "That's right, Arina, you put one over here and one here," grandpa taught her survival skills every day. This child didn't quite enjoy it that much, however. For her, imagining the process of building stuff was the best part, not the action itself.

The victual lasted for three months. With no map and compass, the old man didn't know how far they had come. The girl was four years old by now -- one if counted by birthday, and they had simply let her very first birthday sweep by like the wind.

'Continue with the journey, come on, come on, until you can get this child safely beyond the wall,' the old man coughed each day, each hour, each minute. The child didn't understand why he coughed blood, but it looked alarming to her. Grandpa Tsu clearly didn't look well.

"Grandpa, grandpa," quivered the young girl each time he did. She used her clothes to wipe the old man's mouth every time.

"Grandpa, get well okay?"

"I will -- I will, child."

Arina was a well-behaved little girl. Best of all she had an immense love for everyone and everything in existence. A polar opposite to her father. She was the type to use all of her pocket money and buy a pack of instant noodles and wait for you to come home even if it was past midnight and surprise you with the bowl of noodles that by the time had turned mushy.

At last the labyrinth of winter forest dropped behind to welcome human settlement -- something the old man wasn't hoping for much. He wrapped himself in a cloak and hid Arina behind as though a backpack and made his way through the stream of passengers going in and out of a nearby train station.

The bloody war with Suoma was ongoing. Soldiers from infantry battalions lay along almost all platforms of the station. A train emerged from the gloom, moving fast. First came a locomotive, and behind it rumbled a few closed cars and then a machine gun in a blister, two gunners crouching beside it.

All of the cars following the gunners' car were flatcars loaded with people. Some stood; more kneeled. Two cars passed, three, four. The curiosity sparked within the child as she unveiled herself a bit to watch the cars through the station. Each car appeared to have a wall of sacks along the front to serve as windbreak, as she questioned by whispering and grandpa replied to her in the same tone.

"They are just regular travelers, Arina-child."

"Who?"

"On the cars."

Arina squinted her eyes and tried to pick out individuals as the cars blurred past. 'Are they wearing uniforms?', 'They have sunken cheeks and glittering eyes, grandpa!'

Many sat with their backs against the sacks at the front of the car -- they kind of resembled scarecrows in the child's opinion. Some of the travelers, she saw, were sleeping.

A face flashed past, pale and waxy, one ear pressed to the floor of the car.

"Child, close your eyes."

Suddenly the old man pulled the cloak down again, and Arina was unable to see a thing.

"Grandpa," she sulked.

He marched out of that place as quickly as he could. Those were not sacks. That was not sleep. Each car had a wall of corpses stacked in the front. A river of humans would be poured out each night.

It was an impossible task to keep a child's innocence behind the curtains, which fueled the old man's motive to get this child out of this place as soon as possible.

He kept the child hidden inside the cloak from that point. She can't see things with her vision, though she can still hear things and use it to stir her imagination to its fullest -- aggressive footsteps, probably boots. Some words she had never heard of.

She tugged grandpa to a stop.

"It's the bad guys."

"It's the travelers, Arina. I promise."

"From where?"

"From the jungle."

"The jungle? Oh," the child gasped in curiosity. "Can we go chat with them then, grandpa? Will they allow us to try their cuisine? Do they befriend tigers?"

"We can't. These travelers from the jungle eat people like us."

"Eat? They can?"

The old man took a step backward and swiveled around and ran back, carrying the child on his shoulder. Now their tiger friends barked like dogs. The jungle people bellowed in the same language she spoke. The trees and bushes they carried with rustled, 'bang, bang!'

Before the child knew it, the jungle people had hunted and eaten grandpa Tsu. They spared her life because she was a pretty girl.

On the next morning early March, the new cadets in training for the Winter War were roused from their beds at two a.m. and driven out into the barrack. What fun thing did they want them to do this time?

One senior emerged from the shadows, dragging a tattered and skeletal old man in mismatched shoes. He set him down beside the commandant, where a stake had been driven into the snow, and tied the old man's torso to the stake.

A vault of stars hung overhead, as the old man breathed slowly, eyeing up there.

The senior retreated, and the commandant paced.

"You all would not believe what a creature this is. What a foul beast, a sinner to our Motherland, a log for experimenting."

Everyone craned to see. The prisoner's ankles were cuffed and his arms bound from wrists to forearms. His three fingers were missing on one hand. His thin shirt had split at the seams. He was probably Japanese, or Korean, who knew? Despite his fetters, he managed to sway back and forth.

The commandant said, "This old man escaped from the experiment campus. Brought with him a little girl. Tried to run away twice but was stopped before he could do something more nefarious." He gestured vaguely beyond the walls. "This creature would tear out your throats in a second if we let him."

The cold was invasive, mindless. The cadets tried not to shiver. The prisoner blinked down at the scene. The senior returned carrying clattering buckets and two other uncoiled a water hose across the courtyard.

The commandant explained what they had to do. First the instructors, then the seniors. Everyone will take turns soaking the prisoner with a bucket of water. Every man in this barrack.

They started. One by one, each instructor took a full bucket from that senior and flung its content at the prisoner a few feet away.

At the first two or three dousings, the old man came awake, rocking back on his heels. But he coughed, coughed, and coughed. Blood dissolved into the snow. Creases appeared between his eyes -- he looked like someone trying to remember something vital.

'What was her last word again?'

The water kept coming. Grandpa Tsu's face emptied. He slumped over the rope propping him up, and his torso slid down the stake, and every now and then the commandant came out of the shadows, and the old man straightened again.

All the seniors vanished inside the building. The buckets made a frozen clanking as they were refilled. It was the cadets' turn. One finished to another. The cheers broke loose from them.

Grandpa was going to die like this. This was the way to die. 'But...I still haven't gotten the child beyond the Iron Curtains...'

The cheers rose again when the splash hit him in the chest. Wet boots, wet cuffs; his hands had become so numb, they didn't seem his own.

'I still haven't gotten her to safety...'

Five more young men and it would be over. The old man tried to float images in front of his eyes -- a figure of a dark brunette woman, she said:

"Tsutomu, he's in love with me; he adores me. I'm on the edge of becoming the true Spasitel of the new world."

"Tsutomu, I have no shame in dying in honor."

"Tsutomu, keep her safe for me. She might as well become the worthy Spasitel in the future."

Spasitel (Savior)...a way Alexei Avenir addressed himself and how the propaganda within his nation recognized him. 'That's right, that was her last word,' grandpa Tsu's vision slowly faded away. His breath shortened. He no longer swayed.

'Arina Avenira, daughter of Aleksandra Aristova,...I'm sorry...'

One week passed, the dead old man remained strapped to the stake in the courtyard, his flesh frozen gray. The young men stopped and asked the corpse directions; someone dressed him in a cartridge belt and helmet. After several days, a pair of crows took to standing on his shoulders, chiseling away with their beaks, and eventually the custodian came out with two soldiers and they hacked the corpse's feet out of the ice with a maul and threw him into a cart and rolled him away.

One month, two, three passed and the little girl escaped with the old man was not seen anywhere in the barrack.

At the battlefront, a rumor broke out among the soldiers at the camp. The greasy shine under the sun's rays, the earth is the background of this restless, gloomy world of automatons and corpses, a soldier strode out of the medical tent and sat by the foldable chair, he took one cigarette out and was interrupted by a sound.

"Tuuuut, tut"

A fluctuating sound. Broken. Shortness of breath. He lighted the cigarette.

"Tut, tuut...tut"

The breath fell apart. The crows swirled with the rhythm and sang along to it. The soldier thought, 'Isn't it Mikhail's pan flute?' he exhaled the smoke and cast his eyes behind.

The pebbles on the soil crunched, creaked when stepped on, the child stumbled a little, a pause before another wan, 'Tut...' She can't walk with her legs narrowing. Pain time-traveled her back to toddler's training. Blood trailing down her thigh and to the bottom of her feet. Some drops dripped, dripped, dripped, marking the road she had walked past.

"Tut...tu-tut"

The cigarette burned. The curtain was miles down south, not here. Drip, drip, drip. Three months and a tiny spark of child's curiosity was still there when she picked the pan flute up and blew it, imitating the adult.

"Tut...tu..."

The rats joined the song as well, 'Squeak, squeak'. On the second release of smoke, the soldier leaned back in his chair and watched -- the child's breath was unstable, yet she pushed her almost non-existent strength to its limit and blew more, 'Tut' to complete the song of comfort it brought her.

"T-TUT.....tu-tu..."

"Arina-child, use your imagination."

The little girl finally stopped. Her thin, little body trembling from head to foot. Blood still dripping. She hung on the pan flute for a few seconds before her torn lips no longer had the strength and dropped it to the ground -- it fell and sank among the corpses. White tears mingled with a tear of red spewed from the child's mouth.

Drip...drip...

***

Arina wandered her gaze through the sill and down the street, to the people within her neighborhood and outsiders, carried on with their lives. She didn't have enough strength to set foot outside anymore, to live like they do.

In the depth of despair, she latched on her imagination for escapism. Her reflection on the glass cabinet became her new bosom friend — forever faithful. Her name was Disha. Arina smiled. Oh, what a lovely friendship. She didn't even go online now, even under a fake identity. Luckily you can say, that Arina can be an introvert as well. She loved lapsing into her dreamy bubble and it was one of the requirements to become an introvert.

"What do you want to eat, Disha? Oh, not rainbows. I can't go out to catch it now, the sun would burn me to ashes. Don't you see? I've been bitten and turned into a vampire — a pretty one of course. Would you like something simpler? Why, Disha, simplicity can be as romantical as ever. Don't underestimate it."

As she walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge, poor Disha, now there wasn't even simplicity. Every food had run out. Arina closed the fridge and sighed.

"Maybe we can live off of air, Disha. Fried air, roasted air, everything is possible."

The following day Asano Gakushuu visited her in the evening. Worried since Arina refused to leave the house and didn't even stay in touch with him, he passed by a supermarket and bought a few necessities and dropped them at her home.

"Arina. Arina?" he looked through the ground floor first before going upstairs.

How he loved her, through thick and thin without judgment, was ideal. He was an ideal guy. How he let her fly on her wings of imagination yet kept her grounded.

🎶Two rabbits are selling lipstick🎶

🎶No, don't steal my pretty face away🎶

🎶The blonde hairs are running away🎶

"Arina," said Asano from behind. Arina didn't hear him. She refused to return to reality. Wrapping herself in the quilt and lightly dancing around on the bed.

'Oh no,' shuddered Asano, 'She had lost her mind.'

It was quite true, Arina had partially went insane. He got on the bed and forced her down.

He lowered his chin. "When will you return to school?"

No answer. She stared at his feet.

"When will you return to school, Arina?" he repeated, underlying a demanding tone.

"I can't..." muttered Arina dolefully, blinking in succession at his feet.

"Where's the strong girl I know, hm?" said Asano. He didn't know how to properly comfort her. Sure, he can sympathize, but empathizing just wasn't in his dictionary.

He didn't know her full history — neither did Arina herself. Everything he knew of her was that she was a dictator's daughter, graduated from sniper school at a young age, and most recently the fact she shot down three hundred lives in less than a hundred days. People found it offensive, but he found it impressive. It was still a prowess, wasn't it?

Nevertheless, he understood how severe it would be to have society turn against you. Therefore he pitied her. But you had no choice, was it? You either choose to lurk from your fear forever or to face and overcome it.

"I just imagined myself to be princess Adeliya who's full of wisdom that I can just touch a book to know its content, Asano-kun."

Asano sighed and paced forward.

"Be strong, Arina," he tucked her hair behind her ear. "Be strong."

"No, I can't!" Arina snapped out of her dreamland at last, jerking him off. "I CAN'T! Don't you see, Asano-kun? I am the criminal in everyone's eyes now! No one ever did want me here. I don't deserve to be loved!"

Her voice quivered and broke. Tears welled up in her red eyes. She sniffled and sniffled, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. Asano let his temper lose and shouted without thinking:

"Take that back!! I want you here; I love you!!"

"No, I don't want you to! You can't if everyone will hate you for it!" she sniffled between her words.

Asano became dizzy upon the emotional pressure and found his way to flop on the bed. "I don't know how to deal with you, Arina..." he massaged his forehead in frustration.

The only thing he could do was place the items he bought in organized sections and food in the fridge for her and go home to mind his busy work schedule.

A week passed and the meeting between Japan and the US had ended in disaster. They exterminated the Security treaty because Japan had rebuilt its military in secret and admitted its betrayal by sending the rearranged code to the US instead of the original testament of the first successful experiment, resulting in an outbreak virus from the lab. One small crack could lead to a war one day.

Asano would text Arina constantly to check on her well-being, and she would never reply. However one night he was roused by a phone call from her. What was she thinking? It was already past midnight.

["Asano-kun..."] breathed the other line lifelessly. ["I want to eat baked sweet potato..."]

"At this time? The vendors are all closed by now."

["Pretty please?"]

"Okay. Wait for me."

He quickly changed his clothes and immediately fled into the street in the middle of the night. Outside, beside the light streets, no other light was to be seen. Wandering in search for a while, every bit of his hope was shattered because no one would be crazy enough to sell baked sweet potatoes at this time. Out of a sudden, his memory reminded him that Koyama had just won two boxes of sweet potatoes from the earlier music show they participated in. He instantly rushed to his underling's house and rang the doorbell.

"Who are— oh, nishishishi, it's you, Asano-kun. You almost woke my parents up," said Koyama upon coming out of the door, rubbing his eyes wearily.

"I'm sorry for bothering you, Koyama, but could you lend me some sweet potatoes? I will explain it to you later," said Asano hurriedly.

Koyama let him in without further questioning because he was too tired for it. Asano muttered an apology for disturbing him and his parents' sleep as he tiptoed into the house and bumped straight into the stacked sweet potato boxes. He thanked Koyama and left the guy baffled over his leader's strange action.

Because the train station was closed, to make it on time before Arina starved, Asano extracted the maximum vigor of his and marathoned to her house in a matter of twenty minutes. Propping his hands on his knees for support, he panted heavily. He was drenched in sweat regardless of the chilly weather. Entering the password of the entrance door he rapidly entered her house and turned on the stove and roasted the sweet potatoes and brought them upstairs to Arina in her room.

'It was so worth it,' Asano thought, smiling in sub-consciousness. He rubbed her back as she cried into the warm sweet potato and sunk her teeth in, sniffling non-stop.

When she finished and he was ready to leave, a melancholic look billowed in her eyes. Arina desperately tugged on his trousers as he stood up.

"Asano-kun," she faltered, in hope Asano would stay with her longer. "I-I want to eat Takoyaki."

"Alright, go to sleep now and I will be back soon."

Arina widened her eyes in surprise. Noticing her reaction, he patted her head and said:

"They might still sell it somewhere in Tokyo at this time. I will find a way to get there soon."

But why did she burst out crying louder? Asano had no idea. When Arina had eventually calmed down, she reached out for the tissue and blew her nose into it.

"Oooh, I'm too sensitive for this world, Asano-kun," wept Arina with no sign of tiresome, confiding him. "I cried every day knowing I would definitely not have my sixteen— I mean, four-year-old birthday party anymore, it's meant to be my first ever birthday party, but, but YOU! Oh, mister, you made me fill out a whole river!"

Asano went perplexed. Arina further said without thinking beforehand:

"When are you planning to get married in the future, Asano-kun?"

"So far it isn't my top priority," he answered certainly. Somehow, he wanted to know why she'd ask that, but as time-efficient as he was, he checked his watch and realized he hadn't much time to rest before a new day would start so he excused her and proceeded to go buy her Takoyaki.

On his way, out of a sudden, Asano jolted when the moonshine blinked and a bright, flashy, swift light cast over the entire street, no, city, no, how to estimate the range?

Following his instinct, he lifted his chin to meet his eyes at the blown-up moon.

Nearly 70% of the surface...was gone.

An hour later, while sitting at home waiting for Asano to come back, Arina proceeded with the habit of daydreaming about marrying him when her phone rang.

Excited that it must be him, she picked it up only to find out it was her Father.

["There will be a new mission for you, Arisha."]

Never had she dreamed of this — never in her wildest dream, but Arina Avenira, the future Spasitel's life would be saved by a biological antimatter weapon once and for all.