Four Doctors: Chapter 7

Takeshi Watanabe stood quietly at the TARDIS door, looking out at the blasted wasteland that just moments ago had been his hometown of Hiroshima, Japan. Rose stood by, wanting to say something but no words seemed appropriate to the moment. The Doctor glowered over the console, poking at buttons and frowning at readings. Finally he straightened up and strode briskly toward the door.

“Right. Let’s go,” he said to Rose.

“Where?”
 
“I’ve got a lock on the time-corridor. We’re going to check it out.”

“Doctor…” Rose gestured at Mr. Watanabe and at the scene beyond. “Shouldn’t we just leave well enough alone?”

“Someone who doesn’t belong here is already involving themselves in this. I’ve seen it happen countless times before, and it never ends well. Not unless I make it end well.”

He walked to the door, pausing at Takeshi’s shoulder. The two men stood a moment in silence, looking at the devastation. The Doctor put a hand gently on Takeshi’s arm. “Too much war,” he said. Takeshi nodded and followed numbly behind Rose and the Doctor.

They passed in silence through the crumbled burning ruins. Here and there a survivor would emerge to stagger away, or to wail pitifully over loved ones buried in the rubble -- or perhaps reduced to ashes in the street and a shadow burned into the wall. Many had been scarred, burned, some were barely recognizably human any more. If indeed there were such a thing as Hell, Rose thought, it couldn’t be worse than this.

She found that she had to keep reminding herself of the reality of the scene around her. This wasn’t a quick jaunt thousands of years to a distant future. It was only moments ago, in real-time, that this desolation had been a vibrant and active city. Too much time-travel, she supposed, could have a kind of numbing effect. She only had to look to Takeshi, to his reaction to the ruins that had been his home, to feel again the reality of it all.

And, just perhaps, to understand a little better why the Doctor wanted her tagging along on his travels.
The steady stream of survivors grew as they moved away from ground zero.

“Where are we going?” Rose asked.

The Doctor pointed several blocks up, at a stand of bamboo and trees that seemed to have been mostly spared.

“Asano Park,” Takeshi muttered to himself.

Rose looked around at the growing crowd around them. Many were already approaching the park, taking shelter within the greenery. “They’re all going there,” she observed.

The Doctor nodded. “Most of the survivors of the Hiroshima bombing end up there.”

“Right where someone put this time-corridor thing,” Rose completed his thought. He nodded grimly.

“There’s something very not right going on here,” he said.

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