No one paid much attention to the three children joining the Great Love Society.
Everyone was busy with their own work.
Only one person cared: Yunai, the middle-aged red-haired woman from before.
She had heard that a red-haired child had fled here.
As soon as she finished her work, she went looking for him.
When Yunai found Nagato, he was bent over, lifting a stone embedded in the mud. The rain had swept his bangs aside, exposing his rippled eyes.
The bundle in the red-haired woman's hands fell to the ground with a thud.
She all but ran across the field ridge, splashing mud all over her legs without slowing down.
Rushing up to Nagato, she gripped his thin shoulders with both hands and stared at his face for a long time.
Though Nagato was still very young, she could see traces of her older sister in his features.
Startled, Nagato dropped the stone into the muddy water, splattering her with mud.
"What's your name?" the woman asked, her voice trembling uncontrollably.
"...Nagato."
"My sister's... No, I mean, where's your mother?"
"She died." Nagato said it calmly, as though describing someone else's misfortune.
The woman's hands slowly slipped from his shoulders. Then she pulled him into her arms.
Nagato's body instantly stiffened. His arms hung straight at his sides, and he had no idea where to put them.
The woman held him tightly. With him in her arms, Yunai realized just how frail her sister's child was.
"My child, you must have suffered so terribly."
Nagato did not answer.
His face was buried against her shoulder. He could smell the damp rain in her hair, mingled with smoke from a cooking hearth.
That scent reminded him of someone.
His mother had smelled just like this when she cooked by the