The cockpit of the Zero smells of incense and cold tobacco. Kyoshu fingers the little wooden crucifix attached to the rosary, he has wrapped around the stick. A gesture made in a reflex that appears to him as bizarre immediately. He's going to meet his god wherever he may be in the immensities of heaven.
Off Okinawa, from the ocean surface, thick columns of smoke whirl to the clouds. Some american warships are in flames. Others that are not ablaze yet suffer under the clapping impacts of the Zero precipitating themselves on the ships' deck. Though dead, Kyoshu can see it all.
Kyoshu died somewhere down there? Straight ahead he had seen the man pointing a revolver. The man had no chance to deviate the plane from its course, but he pulled the trigger anyway. Kyoshu is dead before touching

the deck of the carrier. And now he has retaken the controls of the Zero. He comes to his senses, is aware of his death and doesn't regret a bit. He has retaken the controls, but they don't run anymore, and he supposes that such is the intention of the Creator. The instruments are like frozen, the fuel gauge is at zero and one pilot is on. The ocean streches below, the coast becomes invisible rapidly as are the smoke columns.
The rain streams over the cockpit and grey curtains are breaking up the horizon. With his eyes he searches the planes of his flight, convinced that they'll all be there next to him, just as they were before his death. But he spots two planes only, and he feels a deep sorrow. Follows another feeling, new and unknown to him and comforting-something similar to happiness, but much stronger. He understands that nothing is more important than his destiny. He's asking himself a thousand questions whithout formulating clearly any of them. Rely on his God, his mercy whithout limits ? At this thought, Kyoshu cannot hide a certain fear. Faith didn't slip away, that's not the problem. But his faith is based on unfulfilled promises. Man-made promises. Aren't we allowed to doubt men's words, whatever their intentions ? And then, immmediately afterwards, he imagines his God well above human lies, he imagines that men's

promises his God will surpass. That's faith, isn't it ? His head is aching. His plane has reached impossible altitudes, but he continues his giddy ascent and Kyoshu realises that nobody ever told him about the path that leads his God. Below and everywhere else is the immensity of heaven. he has no idea about the speed of his plane but he knows it's far highger than the old engine of the Mitsubishi permits.

It doesn't make him wonder and attributes this miracle to the power of his God. kyoshu has no notion of the lapsing time. Where he is moving there is day nor night. The sun looks very close but does not feel any warmer. Suddenly, there is a violent, muffled bang. And Kyoshu fears a mechanical break down. He turns to the control and immediately recalls that they don't run. The engine revs but there is no indication of damage. Kyoshu listens sharply to all the sounds, tries to analyse

them and to guess the origin of the dull thud. With no plausible explanation, Kyoshu decides to stop thinking about it. Such is the Universe, that it has no visible limits. And kyoshu fears the waiting, though knowing that every minute past brings him closer to his goal. God's creations are measured against eternity and Kyoshu blames his own impatience. Afterdeath, shouldn't he be free from human bigotry ? His watch hands are like frozen to the face.
A mass of dark clouds seems to build-up far away. Apparently fast moving, certainly pushed by the wind, and continuously changing shape. Firstly Kyoshu thinks it's one of those magnetic storms his flight instructor told him about. But with shortening distance between him and whatsit, he had to admit the evidence : a flight : at first glance, he estimates the number of machines at about 300. They're moving in close order straight toward him. Then Kyoshu notes some anomalies in this flight. The bodies of these aircraft should reflect the sunrays, but they don't do so. There also is an anormalous movement at the emplacement of the wings. Finally, the profile of these aircraft is completely unfamiliar to him. His training was definitely restricted to the very minimum, but he thought himself perfectly capable to identify at first glance most allied and enemy aircraft. When Kyoshu realized finally that these were no aircraft but creatures of flesh and blood, he felt relieved. The fowl looked like storks, but of a particular physionomy, that left no doubt about their true nature : angels ! They are angels, Kyoshu yells in his radio transmitter, forgetting it's broken.
They fly in close order, like a swarm of bees, or like flocks of starling that get hold of the Okinawa sky each winter. This sudden and unexpected vista enjoys him greatly. Now, he doesn't doubt he's reaching his goal : the creator's den. There are several hundreds of angels, in three different groups. They fly towards the pilots with a rapid wing beat.

Kyoshu moves nervously in his cocpit and tries to control his impatience. While enthusiasm is stronger than any other feeling, a terrible fear starts taking hold of him. Confronted with the emissaries sent by his God, the promised eternity inspires a certain fright. He forces himself to think about the numerous blessings his god will dispense among his elected and that thought brings some peace to his mind. Chasing the doubts that were starting to invade him. The angels are very close now, and their asexual nudity shine weakly in the sun. Kyoshu cannot distinguish their faces yet, but his heart tells them having a broad smile. The pilot's heartbeat accelarates. Finally his eager glance fixes a face. One lost in the multitude of angels. But what he believes reading in there frightens him, and he prefers ignoring his eyes rather than his convictions. Short enough, for the confusion to dissipate, while a cloud hinders his view. Without visibility, Kyoshu decides to wait. It sems to him that his spirit starts disintegrating in the clouds around the cockpit. His thoughts are going nuts and he has great difficulties to control them. The radio emits a long fizzle and he

searches a frequency to make contact with his fllght, but nobody answers so he shuts it. Suddenly the horizon cleans and the sky is empty. Of the angels, there is a faint memory that seems to be turned in a dream, and he's no longer convinced about what he saw. but he continues looking for them anyway. At his right, he observes again the two zeks rescued from his flight. The cockpit of Myuki is entirely ripped open and Kyoshu realises that his body his headless. The other Zero is also heavely dameged, but Kyoshu cannot

distinguish the corp of Akira. Just a faint impression of some dark thing slightly leaning on the stick. The angels are not at this side, and as far away as he can twist his neck, there is no one in sight. Suddenly thought shut, the radio fizzles again followed by a voice so weak that Kyoshu percieves a fragment only. A fragment sufficiently clear, however to alarm him :" ... Nine o'clock..."
Anxiously, he turns his eyes leftwards and he realises what's rushing to him, his face grimaces from horror and his cheek muscles rip under his skin. The first two enemy formations pass over his machine whithout nuisance. But the third one doesn't do anything to avoid the contact. About ten angels violently hit the body at larboard. Another traverses at full speed the whole cokcpit in a cloud of feathers. The zero suffers heavely damage during this first attack. It rapidly looses altitude and the rudder is severely twisted. Kyoshu tries to intervene on the controls but they still don't work. The machine changes course dangerously and Kyoshu is unable to restore its trim.
An intense cold has invaded the cockpit. A thick crust of ice covers the flight controls and the frost stiffens the pilot's body. However it doesn't cause Kyoshu any pain. The first wave gone, the angels have regrouped immediately in battle array. But this time they ready themselves for a frontal attack. A zeek traverses his visual range but too fast for identification. A trail of black smoke splits the sky and the machine crosses a layer of clouds. Kyoshu has lost visual contact with the other Zero. Then another smoke column, hardly perceptible from afar, tells him that he's also ablaze. Determined not to be routed from his destination without opposing a heroic defense, Kyoshu cramps over the fire controls, cocks the frontal machine guns and start pulling the trigger. A chaotic line of dots goes the distance between him and the angels. The group falls rapidly apart, but three bodies

drop dead on their way to the end of the Universe. Cheered up by this unlikely success, however modest, Kyoshu continues firing. Victory seems beyong reach, the more so because his plane may soon disintegrate, but he believes in the salvation of his soul as he throws his last hope in the battle. Some feathered cadavers with broken wings spiral down in the abyss of heaven. Despite considerable losses, the angles do not modify their strategy. Their advantage is in their number and they literally launch themselves on the Zero.
Shortly before the impact Kyoshu distinguishes again one of those

faces through the indistinct circle of the propeller. One of those faces he once admired in the books of father Matsuko, but mercyless, loveless and whithout all those sensibilities they are credited with by the clerics. The angel that his eyes fixed didn't seem to fear death. Just like him, he accepts to die for the sake of justice.

And although he doesn't understand the sense of that cause, Kyoshu can only respect it and dress his firm determination.The first angels of the formation are cut to pieces, and then the propeller breaks suddenly. The body deforms through the repeated impacts, and the cokpit disintegrates entirely. When his machine starts its mortal spiral, Kyoshu has a last thought for his parents.
Far above his fall, a new swarm has regrouped...

***

A lot of stories are told about our monks. Whether one loves or hates them, stories abound all the same. They had a temple miraculously suspended from a bulging mountain. Today the temple doesn't exist anymore ; it has not resisted the earthquake that wrecked our region at the end of the seventies. You went to the temple along a winding path flanked by steep precipices, and nobody saw any use in going there, except for the monks themselves when they were admitted in the orders. The story goes, however, that a man made this journey in the middle of the sixties. He might have been twenty years old and he was known by the colour of his skin ; the Black.

The Black was born in the spring of 1945 in Nagasaki. His primal scream got lost in the tremendous explosion of the atomic bomb and his skin was ripped in sreds from his flesh. It is told that he got mad instantanelously. Nobody knows anything about his past and those who pretend kwowing don' say much. He was admitted in the temple and never left. It was also told that he died during the earthquake but the rubble never surrendered his body.

***

I've lost any form of sensation. My limds are numb, paralyzed. And I've a sense of floating at unexpected altitudes without my physical me. I'm moving in a space without dimensions and I notice my body without awareness of its distance to me. Suddenly, the darkness is complete and I continue floating. The notion of time is unknown to me.
Hence, I wouldn't be able to specify the lenght of my blindness. Nevertheless, I end up seeing a faint light, straight ahead. An irresistible force lead me to this place : an increasingly brighter light. I went ahead in this tube without true fear and I started seeing signals that incited me to maintain my course.
And at the end of the tunnel : the thighs of my mother.