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The treads of the kettenkrad pelted against the concrete relentlessly and the engine rumbled continuously, that was the only ambience the two girls could hear within the cavernous concrete complex. The air was bitterly cold once again and snow was already falling, shrouding the sky in a white mist. Chito’s fingers were beginning to feel numb as she struggled to steer down the street, blanketed in snow and rubble. Night was drawing near and it was bound to become even colder. As if in response to the shiver running down her a spine, a blanket was draped over Chito’s shoulders. She looked up to see Yuuri, smiling despite the chattering of her teeth.
“Let's find a place to rest” Yuuri said, a chilling shudder evident in her voice. Barely managing a nod in response, Chito turned back to road ahead, looking for a decent shelter to escape the cold. Up ahead she noticed a large building, it was much wider than the others and the entrance looked big enough to drive the kettenkrad through.
As they entered they saw that the building was mostly hollow at its centre, many sets of stairs bridged the chasm, connecting the levels of the tower to each other. There was a lower level to the building too, however it was buried beneath the debris of what was once part of the ceiling. Chito continued to drive along the path of patterned tile, passing many side rooms as they ventured deeper into the ruins. The rooms held nothing but shattered glass and bare shelves.
When the howling of wind grew distant, Chito decided to turn into one the rooms which still had some working lights. As soon as the grumbling engine grew silent, Yuuri hopped down from the vehicle and began to look over the metal racks lined up haphazardly. Not much was left to see except for some scraps of cloth left dangling from triangular hangers.
As Yuuri wandered the area, Chito got to work on starting a fire. She took some spare sticks from the kettenkrad and removed some of the rags from the hangers, after striking a match a small fire began to flicker to life.
“Hey, Chii, what's this stuff?”
Yuuri had returned with a handful of paper and metal circles. The paper was green and rectangular, a picture of someone was printed onto it along with some numbers.
“I think this is money, a long time ago people would use it to buy things”
“Like rations?”
“They used it to buy everything”
“I don't get it… why ‘buy’ things when we can just take it?”
“That's just how people lived back then. I guess something like money is no good to us now”
Without further questioning, Yuuri took the paper money and dropped it into the fire, but put the gold and silver pieces into her pocket. She then went out onto the platform running along the perimeter of their current floor in search of more interesting items. Chito continued gathering up the cloth scattered across the room, soon enough the fire was big enough to create warmth. She took off her gloves and sat down, the blanket placed back over her shoulders.
When Yuuri returned she was carrying a stack of colourful, glossy books. She joined Chito by the fire and began to flick through the pages, each one was plastered with pictures of people they didn't know and places they had never been. One by one the thin glossy books were thrown into the fire, until Chito felt a nudge at her side. Yuuri had found a book containing images of many different kinds of food, a grin on her face as she pointed out all the things she liked the look of, which was almost all of it. Chito moved closer and placed the blanket over both of their backs, together they looked over the images of exotic meals they could only dream of.
“I feel hungry now”
“You're always hungry, Yuu”
After they had come to the final page, Yuuri set the book to the side instead of burning it. Although Chito had wanted Yuuri to take an interest in books, she was slightly irritated that it was a picture book about food which had taken her interest.
The next book was filled with pictures of people dressed in extravagant clothing, many other people surrounded them with cameras. Chito soon became bored, instead retrieving a journal to jot down the events which had transpired that day. A steady stream of snowflakes was now pouring from the broken roof, the snowflakes glittering under the moonlight like falling stars.
Once again, the colourful book was discarded into the dimming flame. The next book was dull and crumpled, mostly an off-white colour save for the blocks of text. There were not many pictures to look at but she continued to flick through its pages anyway.
“Chii! Look at this!” suddenly Yuuri shoved the paper over to Chito, snapping her attention to the image of a bullet-shaped tower with fire spewing from its base.
“It says its a… missle”
“This is like what Ishii built, right? A machine that can fly”
“It looks like it… I've seen something like this before, a long time ago people flew all the way to the moon on one of these”
“Maybe we could go to the moon if we find one”
“I don't think we’ll find something like that just laying around…”
“I bet you could fly a missle to the moon”
“What if we end up like Ishii?”
“...”
Yuuri's expression turned sour at the idea. She then placed the book onto the separate pile with her book of food images. Eventually Yuuri had looked through all of the books she had collected, without anymore fuel for the fire, the two sat and watched as the flames shrunk. The chill of the blizzard outside was beginning to reach them. To try and maintain some heat, Yuuri wrapped her arms around Chito, who was already beginning to shiver again.
“Chii… even if we can't go to the moon, please stay with me forever”
“What are you talking about? Of course I'm going to stay with you”
“I was just thinking about how we are never going to see Ishii, Kanazawa or Nuko again. I think that's sad but… if I never saw you again I wouldn't be able to go on”
“I'm never leaving you so you don't need to be sad about it… besides, I’m sure you would be fine without me”
“No way! I would never be able to live without you, Chii!”
Yuuri held her tighter and Chito let out a sigh in response.
“...I think I understand what you mean. I was afraid I would lose you when that giant Nuko took you away, I don't know what I would do either”
Chito saw a genuine sadness in Yuuri’s eyes when she turned to look at her, she rarely wore such an expression.
“So, we’ll be together forever then?”
“Together forever, I promise”
The warmth of the fire had faded, leaving only ash and embers in its place. They decided to call it a night and climbed into the back of the kettenkrad, trying to escape the impending chill. As they huddled up together under the covers Yuuri still hugged Chito to herself. Usually she might have found this annoying, but tonight she was feeling more tolerant of Yuuri’s clinginess.
Yuuri was already fast asleep, snoring gently, as though the worries from earlier had disappeared. Chito decided not to trouble herself anymore about the future and snuggled up to Yuuri, enjoying the warmth of their embrace.