FullMetal*Panic!

* * *

Kaname stood in class, absolutely furious and tapping her toes impatiently. That JERK!! Of ALL people, he keeps me waiting? When I find him...

"Hey, Kyouko, have you seen Sousuke lately? He's already late!"

"No I haven't, Kana-chan." The pigtailed girl slip up to her friend and conspiratorily started whispering in her ear. "I thought you didn't care what he did though, girlfriend..."

"YOU SHUT UP!!"

Kyouko giggled as she watched her best friend's face break out into another spontaneous case of hyperhydrosis. She skipped away, tunelessly humming the old nursery rhyme heard around children's playgrounds whenever someone was discovered to have an inadvertent attraction to a member of the oppposite sex.

"Oh, I think he mention something to me."

"What's that?!"

"Err... well... do you really want to know?"

"Not particularly, but since..."

"It involves something to do with his military tendencies... and Tessa."

Kaname froze. The two things she could not stand about Sousuke, in no particular order. Swallowing her pride, "Tell me..."

"You sure... you won't like what..."

"TELL ME!"

"Well, girlfriend." She inched up closer and lowered her voice to a whisper. "Rumor has it he helped Tessa pick out a dress..."

"A... A... A DRESS?!"

"Mm-hm. And then they went to the flower shop afterwards..."

"F-F-F-FLOWERS!??!"

"But it doesn't stop there. Right after, they went to the church. You know, the one down..." Kyouko didn't have time to complete the sentence. Kaname was already breaking innumerable laws of physics as she rushed out the door incoherently cursing and swearing at a certain Sergeant in particular.

Gotcha, girlfriend!

* * *

No way! NO FRIGGIN' WAY!! TESSA and SOUSUKE are getting MARRIED! Kaname exclaimed to herself. But what else involved a dress, flowers and a church?

There! There it is! Just like Kyouko said!

She ran up the steps of the church, flung open the doors and screamed in her loudest voice, "I DEMAND THIS TRAVASTY STOP!!" The response of silence was deafening. What... what... where...

"Ahem, Miss. Are you here for this gathering?"

"I'M HERE TO PUT AN END TO THIS GATHERING!!"

"That would be rather rude, especially to those in attentdance..."

"I DON'T CARE! I WANT IT STOPPED RIGHT NOW!"

"Chidori..."

"SOUSUKE! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"

The Mithril Sergeant towards her, trying to get her to calm down, but Kaname was in no mood to be calmed. "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?! WHY DIDN'T YOU EVEN TELL ME YOU WERE GOING TO DO THIS?! HUH?!"

"Chidori... you said before you have absolutely no interest in such things..."

"IF IT DAMN WELL CONCERNS YOU, I DAMN WELL AM INTERESTED!"

"Chidori... you'd better sit down... you are causing a scene..."

"LOOK WHO'S TALKING! YOU ARE GETTING MARRIED TO..."

The look of confusion on his face stopped her train of thought like a wall of bricks. "Married?"

"Aren't you... and Tessa...?"

"Are we not...?"

"...getting married?" She forced out. Suckered! Taken in! Publicly humiliated!

I'm never going to hear the end of this one she bitterly thought.

"Kaname-san..."

Geh! She knew whose voice that was. "Tessa-san..." she grimaced. "Didn't you and Sousuke go to pick out a dress?"

"Yes! He was most helpful in that regard." She beamed at her subordinate, who wisely said nothing.

"And then to the flower shop for flowers?"

"He mentioned he knew a shop close by that was having a deal on roses."

"And then this church..."

"Kaname-san, I do not know what you thought Sou... Sergeant Sagara and I were doing, but I assure you that it wasn't that."

"But..."

"Shh... it's about to start."

"What..." She scrambled to her feet. Tessa and Sousuke kindly made room for her so she could get a view.

"PRE-SENT! ARMS!" a voice bellowed. A clatter of rifles followed.

Totally confused, Kaname looked up at Sousuke and Tessa, both at attention and saluting.

"HONORS... HUP!" A bugle sounded, playing a melody she didn't recognize. Rather... sad, and... respectful? she wondered. The rifles fired. Kaname expected Sousuke to draw his gun and rush the group at the expectation of terrorists, but the Sergeant remained at attention. If only I could get him to keep that calm at school...

The first tune ended, and she heard a set of bagpipes start up on another. This one she did recognize, but...

"Hey, Sousuke..."

"Yes, Chidori."

"What is going on?"

"Do you not know what today is, Kaname-san?"

"June the 6th..."

"D-Day." Sousuke stated in a flat tone.

"Huh?"

"One of the bloodiest days in the Second World War..."

"Sousuke, I DIDN'T come here for a history lesson...!" she angrily exclaimed.

"Kaname-san, what happened on that day is important. We're here to remember those who fell during wartime on both sides. They died so that we who followed may live in peace."

"But... but..." It finally clicked. Dress... Flowers... a church... and I got totally taken in!

The second tune ended, and the voice bellowed one last time. "RETURN! HUT!"

"Kaname-san, since you're here..." She caught the look in the eye of her rival, but there was no sense of rivarly, cattiness, or ill intent within. Merely... respectfully requesting.

"...would you do us the honor and lay the wreath on the memorial?"

"I..."

Sousuke handed her a beautifully constructed wreath, with the phrase 'So We May Never Forget' written in gold lettering. "I will join you."

"Sousuke..."

"We will now observe the laying of the wreath, to be followed by 1 full minute of silence."

"Kaname-san..."

"Chidori..."

So We May Never Forget she thought. She didn't understand Sousuke all that well, but she had seen that side of him, the one willing to lay down his life so that she could live on. So We May Never Forget... Sousuke, I won't forget... ever again!

And she took her first tentative steps towards the memorial.












END

* * *

Written in Memorandum of those souls who fell in wars both past and present.
May we never forget their sacrifice
-HELLFIRE











Regards

Av salutes too.

@HF

Wow. THanks for saying what ought to be said, when some of us completely forgot what day it was (only concentrating on having to go to the Ren Fest here for demoing and checking out a bowyer's shop. I self serving I was... )

I like the twist too.

@HF

Good one!!!

Nice to see D-Day memorialized in words, too.

Thanks all... kinda got alittle sentimental after posting that reminder
about June the 6th in OT... and I haven't done any ficwriting lately, so...

Almost ended up getting tied up in the details of the fic, when it's all
about the importance of today, and remembering those who died for peace.
And I rather liked writing Kaname remembering that as much as Sousuke
pisses her off to no end, it's his willingness to die to protect her
that she can be pissed off at him... and whoever else crosses her path

Kinda wished I had a chance to put in the rest of the FMP! crew but...

In Memorandum










Regards

I like your fic, it's very cute, but I have a question on the point of view. Would or do Japanese feel that "those who fell on both sides died so that they may live in peace?" I'm not a history buff by any means, but that sentiment seems like a.... disconnect.... to me. In my reading the overarching sentiments are more like this - Americans feel that those who died in WWII did so "so that we may live in peace," and that Japanese feel that it was a war of arrogance by their rulers, which led to their demise - that their soldiers did not die for peace, but died because their rulers had used them in a task they should never had attempted. (Now, disclaimer, of course every individual will have a different opinion, this is just my attempt to summarize the overall feeling I remember from my history reading.)

I guess the quote "We're here to remember those who fell during wartime on both sides. They died so that we who followed may live in peace." just seems too... too much like the winning side of the war, but Japan wasn't the winning side. Since any given society usually won't accept that what their country did was wrong, they usually either distance themselves from it by denouncing it ("That's what they did, but we're different now.") or ignore it ("What Japanese internment camps?" etc) It seems like the Japanese attitude toward their defeat in WWII might be more like denounce the war and its leaders, but honor the soldiers who died for they were just following orders.

This is just what's off the top of my head so take it as you will. I must say though that I seriously enjoy your ongoing fic series (the ones on your personal website) and I hope you upload the next couple of installments soon You're a very good writer.

@woman
Whew... I think you kinda caught me with my pants down asking whether
I've considered what kind of language would be employed in a Japanese
war memorial service.

To answer, I wrote this with no intent on political correctness et al.
It was written as a VERY short story to make ppl realize that alot of the
things and freedoms we take for granted were bought by the lives of
ppl on BOTH sides of the conflict... and when you think about it, keeps
going on today in many parts of the world. It's just my way of giving
them that voice they lack to say 'hey, we deserve recognition too,
regardless of which side of the political-historic line we were on.'

I noted before during editing I found myself wanting to add more and more
details, but i sat back and thought, 'I want it to be about the MEMORIAL
and NOT the details.'

woman22980 wrote:I must say though that I seriously enjoy your ongoing fic series (the ones on your personal website) and I hope you upload the next couple of installments soon You're a very good writer.

Glad that particular one is still read to this day Work still progresses
on this fic, tho not as fast as I'd like. Chp 18 is in various states of
being written. I can't say whether or not it will ever be finished. I do
HOPE that I don't ever drop it from my 'to do' list, as I've been tempted
many times before.









Regards

HELLFIRE wrote:Glad that particular one is still read to this day Work still progresses on this fic, tho not as fast as I'd like. Chp 18 is in various states of being written. I can't say whether or not it will ever be finished. I do HOPE that I don't ever drop it from my 'to do' list, as I've been tempted many times before.

ACK!!! Oh please, PLEASE don't say that!!! I really don't ever get into fanfic, and it's usually because either the characters act so out of character I can't stand it, or the fic writer never finishes. Your stories are so entertaining and so GOOD, I was seriously tempted to start sketching out the scenes you depicted in your writing. (from an artist's perspective that requires the writer be both very engrossing and very talented in description, so that it's easy to get lost imagining the scene.) The only thing that kept me from doing it is that I had to read more!

Please don't stop?!? It's a horrible place to leave off a fiction series, with Sousuke leaving!

woman22980 wrote:I was seriously tempted to start sketching out the scenes you depicted in your writing. (from an artist's perspective that requires the writer be both very engrossing and very talented in description, so that it's easy to get lost imagining the scene.) The only thing that kept me from doing it is that I had to read more!

If you want to draw up some illustrations for my fic, by all means!
I'd LOVE to see what other ppl visualize from my random scribblings.
I mean i know what I see, but to see what others see...

No promises whether I'll continue. If I do drop it, I will be sure to let ppl know







Regards

::facepalm:: Well, that's one of those moments of shame where you wish the earth would swallow you up. Poor Kaname. Kyoko is such a trouble maker. :p

I like this one. Kinda gave me chills at the end. And it was pretty funny too. It just seemed odd to read Kyoko calling Kaname "girlfriend". Otherwise, I thought it was great.