Shiro & Nathan, Thursday evening

[x-sanfuaiyaa.livejournal.com]

Inspired by Cain, Shiro actually goes out of his way to find and talk to Nathan about what can be done for the victims of Unit 731.


That Shiro was walking, under his own free will, to the boathouse that housed Elpis because he wanted to speak with Nathan could easily have been taken as a sign of the upcoming apocalypse. He even felt dirty as he left the mansion proper, bookbag full and straining to rip under the weight of all the book and papers he'd packed. He realized as stopped at the door to the boathouse that he'd never actually been there before, and was not sure whether to knock or just walk right in. And propriety was too important for this particular outing for him to not care. So he swore and knocked loudly, prepared to look like an idiot for the sake of his plan.

"Come in," Nathan called from where he was working in the kitchen, getting dinner ready for himself and Rachel. She was playing quietly in a corner of the living room, her toys levitating around her in slow, lazy spirals. Quite content, thankfully. "Left-side door," he added, reasoning that anyone who was knocking might need the direction.

The telekinetic toddler was only a bit shocking, as Shiro only rarely saw her but lived with enough weird things for it to only barely register. He figured that his appearance would be more shocking, and was half-ready to dodge in case Nathan accidentally hurled a cleaver at him. "Konban wa. Do you have some time? I have . . . anou something I need to ask you."

Nathan shrugged. "If you don't mind me cooking while we talk, sure." It was unusual, seeing Shiro down here. He thought they'd developed a fairly reasonable working relationship in the last year or so, but they hardly socialized. "Her Highness gets cranky and starts flinging toys and small animals at random if she doesn't get her dinner."

"Uh huh." Shiro looked at her warily, much like he'd look at a ticking bomb, and nodded. "You have read over Juggernaut's report about our mission at Krakoa, yes?"

Nathan stilled in his vegetable-chopping, his eyes unfocusing. "Um... yes, briefly skimmed it," he said, having to make a concerted effort to bring the details of the report back to mind. He was tired. The dark circles under his eyes and the slight slump to his shoulders were only outwards signs. The mental fuzziness that seemed to grow worse as the days wore on lately was the worst of it. "I gather that's not a government who's going to be knocking on our door again anytime soon." Before Shiro could respond, he shook his head irritably. "No, don't take that as a criticism. I would have been angry, too."

"We would do better without them," Shiro growled in agreement. Attacking and interrogating General Nakamura had done a lot to give him some relief, but it wasn't until he returned to the mansion and ran his favorite scenario in the Danger Room (it involved lots and lots of flammable objects) that he'd felt any semblance of calm. And just thinking about it was getting him worked up again. "The island, though empty, had housed a concentration camp in the 1930s and '40s."

"I read about that in the file, yeah." Nathan emerged from the kitchen, bringing a plate of vegetables and a tiny dish of dip over to the coffee table and setting it down on Rachel's placemat. She immediately let her toys sink back to the ground and hauled herself to her feet, trotted over and sitting down in front of the plate, grabbing a carrot piece in each hand. Nathan ruffled her hair briefly and straightened. "Clearly you're not here to just review the contents of the file with me," he said to Shiro, heading back into the kitchen. "What's going on?"

Shiro withdrew the folder of old documents that Zu Zhou had given him and gently placed his bookbag on the ground before following Nathan. "Countless people tortured, maimed, humiliated, and killed. Human experiments, so that twisted, pathetic excuses for humans could see how they work and where their limits lie. And Japan will not even admit the entirety of what occurred." His voice grew tighter as he spoke.

"The injustice that the victims have been served is unbelievable, and against everything that bushido and the ideals of Japan are supposed to represent. I want to make up for it. There are movements in this country by some people descended from slaves to get the U.S. to offer reparations. That is what I want to do, but I do not know how."

Nathan wiped his hands on the dishtowel and took the folder from Shiro, leafing through the old documents gently. He was silent for a long few minutes - and then abruptly departed the kitchen, laying the folder down on the table. "First of all," he said, "we scan these to produce copies, and lock them in one of the safes on the premises. This is your hard evidence, and you can't afford to lose it."

Shiro eagerly followed. "I have more. My cousin was an historian and I contacted some of her colleagues." A better legacy than the money she had left for him. "I brought some with me, but most are in my room."

"All of them, copied and somewhere safe." Nathan straightened, rubbing at his jaw as he considered the documents in front of him. "Then, I think, you need to talk to the ICJ - the International Commission of Jurists, not the World Court. Amnesty International..." His eyes closed, he rattled off a list of acronyms. "Copies and cover letters to all of them. You can do that yourself, although let me vet it if you do - my specialty at law school was international law. Might be better to let Elpis serve as the intermediary. It's not precisely within our purview, but we can officially have a legitimate interest given the events of your mission." He shook his head slightly, eyes opening again. "These are war crimes, and if there's more to substantiate the use of non-Japanese civilians and combatants, there's a chance this could go all the way to the World Court in the end."

"The World Court?" Shiro's voice cracked. He knew it could go far, but that Nathan could suggest that it would go that far was an overwhelming prospect. No less than what Japan deserves, he reminded himself. "That would take years, and by then there will not be anyone left. But I have money that my father left me. A lot. Is there a way that I could set up a foundation of my own and use my money?"

Nathan raised an eyebrow. "Any reason why you can't do both? Try and address the immediate needs of any survivors, pursue their cause with the help of organizations that are used to doing just this sort of thing..."

"I suppose. I just do not want anyone to be forgotten." Like Zu Zhou. "So what do I do for that?"

"You talk to my wife, when she's back on the weekend," Nathan said easily. "Moira's set up a foundation of her own, remember. She can steer you to the proper type of advisors needed and so forth - I can't really help you there, an NGO structure is different and I had trouble enough grasping it when we were setting Elpis up."

"Oh. I will do that, then." And that made Shiro smile for the first time in days. The weight on his shoulders wasn't lifted, but it was more comfortable now. "What else needs to be done so that Japan will pay?"