Hideki and Ray think that they are going opposite ways, away from each other and the enemy when they are really heading straight towards each other. Hideki is running away from the fight and decides to take a path, not sure where to go, “He knew he should stop. Turn around. Find a place to hide. But he couldn’t stop himself. He was more scared than he had ever been in his entire life. He had to get as far away from the Americans as fast as he could.” Ray is also running away from the fight on a different path, not sure where to go, “He knew he should stop. Turn around. Rejoin his company. But he couldn’t stop himself. He was more scared than he had ever been in his entire life. He had to get as far away from the Japanese as fast as he could.” They are both in danger and they don’t even realize it. Whoever fires their gun first, or throws their grenade faster would kill the other one. Hideki’s grenade, even though it is ceramic and not metal, is still able to kill Ray. He kills him when Ray could have easily shot him down with one single bullet of his M-1 rifle. But, the bullet just missed him, and the force of Hideki’s grenade is too powerful for Ray to handle, killing him in an instant. This event in the book really represents fear, and how something can scare someone so much that they do something without even thinking. This is the moment when Ray’s spirit clings with Hideki forever, and changes not just himself as a person, but his identity and his “moral universe.” This represents an example of a “choiceless choice” that Hideki makes because he just kills Ray without even thinking that he is a person too just like Hideki and that it doesn’t really matter what side they’re on, or who or what they believe in. But just the idea of killing someone, taking their life in practically a second, can haunt someone for the rest of their life.