Hanayo crossed off the thirty-first on her calendar, looking back to Maki and Rin before declaring, "It's been four months."

Four months since the tremors stopped, and even longer since they had been outside. It had also been two months since their hardened communication line to the other bunkers had broken down.

Even Maki, who was usually the one to simply point out that they had provisions enough for a year, looked at her with a strung-out hunger.

"I believe I speak for all of us when I say I'm going to lose my mind if I don't breath some non-recycled air in the near-future," she said.

Hanayo nodded, and Rin exploded, "Let's go! Let's go outside!"

They crossed from the bedroom, through the octagonal junction at the bunker's center, and into the supply room on the opposite side. The mousy girl's hands were trembling slightly in nervous excitement. It felt like so long since she had been in open space, since she had a ceiling more than scarcely a foot above her head, or eaten something with flavour.

Maki handed out hardtack and they scarfed it down as she unloaded three radiation suits.

The survival manual placed in every bunker was still cracked open on the tiny dinner table.

"It says that Akihabara should be habitable right now if the bomb was 'clean' and exploded up in the atmophere," she sighed, "unfortunately, we have no goddamn idea, so don't get your hopes up for feeling the wind on your face."

Rin couldn't keep still, not that that was anything unusual for her, but if she looked closely, Hanayo could also see Maki shaking slightly. Her eyes were darkly underscored, and she was pallid under the LEDs, but she was cracking one of her rare smiles all the same.

For a moment at least.

"Rin! Have you been screwing around with the Geiger Counter again? Where is it?"

The girl in question went to rummage around deeper in the gear closet as Hanayo began suiting up. The inside was slightly cool to the touch and the sight of the attached breathing apparatus and gas mask brought back uncomfortable memories of the evacuation, but those were nothing that couldn't be quashed by the hope of seeing the sun.

After a few minutes, they were prepared.

Maki led the out, through the narrow corridors, until they were standing at the bottom of the stairway out. Their echoing footsteps on the concrete were muted in Hanayo's mask, while her breathing roared in her ears.

Rin dashed ahead of them and was already straining the valve-lock open by the time the other two reached the top. As their exit was painstakingly pried open, they suddenly found themselves awash in cool air, and the stained-glass rays of the sunset.

Hanayo walked slowly, almost dazed, up the steep concrete slope of the overpressure channel to the surface, excited and terrified for what she might see. The three reached the top in synch, squinting, willing their eyes to adjust more quickly to the light, that they might take in a view that had once encompassed the city.

And when it no longer did, none of them knew what to say.

It wasn't a blackened crater, but the overpressure had flattened most of the buildings, and left the once it hadn't in shambles.

Mute, they walked until they were at the outskirts. The sounds of the wind and broken stone under their feet seemed as though they were coming from far away through Hanayo's mask.

Just inside the limits came some of the sharper reminders of what used to be there: bits of plastic, and shards of glass, gleams in a gray landscape. If one searched carefully in the rubble and dust they could spot fragments of the kanji which used to proudly decorate the skyline.

"UTX used to be somewhere near here..." she thought.

Built, only to be wiped away.

Her feet were carrying her off into the waste.

She couldn't see any evidence that other people had been through. Suddenly, she was gripped by panic; what if they were the last ones left? Was this all that humanity amounted to?

But then she saw another spec of colour peeking from the gray. Crawling up the concrete and old synthetics, she reached the top of the rubble and found it.

There was a single pale flower growing out from the cracks.

Distantly, she heard footsteps and a voice behind her.

"Hanayo. Hanayo!"

And then Maki was standing beside her.

"It's safe," she said, removing her mask, "let's go visit other bunkers."

Hanayo mirrored the action, and suddenly, a new dimension of texture and colour had sprung into the world. The flower under her was of vivid, contrasting red and green.

"Wiped away to be rebuilt..."

A/N: I'm amazed I managed to write most of this during exams, but here we are. Now, god willing, I'll be able to finish that Umi story before too long.