Vignettes

A TV plays in a living room with little lighting, natural or otherwise. The voice of some nondescript local reporter on some nondescript local channel delivering the 10 o’clock news abreast all the other news channels in the country.

…Tomorrow, May 15, 2026, will mark the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the Shanghai Accords, which formally ended the Chugoku War between Satsuma and Japan. Earlier this week, President Joan Moniwa issued an executive order from his presidential palace in Seikyo declaring the day a public holiday. Both Satsuma and Japan have undertaken the monumental task of recovery and reconciliation in stride over the past two decades, but the aftershocks of the war can still be felt, even here in Satsuma. Our team went to Kitakyushu today, where the Japanese and American navies bombarded…

“Feh! Damn Yankees and their CIA spooks got us into that war in the first place,” comes a voice from a silhouette on the sole couch in the room, announcing another swig of Cerveza I Griega. Then the figure pauses, probably just now remembering that he is not alone.

“And demons too, y’know.”

“R-Really, Dad? That’s incredible.” The doubtful but compassionate voice of a teenage girl. The man on the couch laughs.

“What, y’don’t believe me? I tell you, back when I was in Hiroshima doin’ cleanup, some army brass told me the Japanese called up almost a hundred exorcists to the city. And not just their own hoo-doo mikos or whoever. They wanted Satsuman exorcists. Priests. The Devil was at work in that war.”

“Well, I don’t doubt that last part…Anyways, I’m going to bed. Good night.”

“Right, ‘night.”

The creaking of wooden planks as the girl goes upstairs. His attention now wholly his own, the man lets himself become transfixed on the sights and sounds the TV has to offer him. Before long they strike a certain chord in his memory.

“‘Ey! Get down here, look! They’re showin’ Hiroshima right now! You can prolly spot the exorcists in this footage!”

* * *

An all-wood room now. Wood floors. Wood beams shoring up the walls, with paper stretched betwixt them. Wood pillars. A wooden ceiling. The only light in this room comes from the candles hung from each of the pillars, but still this is scarcely enough for the throng of fifty or so men, all with thick robes, flared trousers, and neat topknots, sitting on their heels, eyes fixed on the business being conducted in the back of the room. There another man in similar attire sits, but he cross-legged on an ornate velvet cushion. An attendant of his, standing, holds out a scroll.

Two more men are present in this inner sanctum, but they are guests—not nobles, but clergy. One, dressed in a simple black robe, and with the only hair on his head being in a ring about his scalp, holds a lantern in his hand, illuminating the text on the scroll. Latin. The other, dressed in burgundy and white, with a skullcap of the same former color on his head, sits in similar manner to the throng at his back, in deference to the man on the cushion. This man, the one presiding over the room, speaks first.

“So, if I accept the, ah, terms set out in this contract, your country will recognize me as the rightful Shogun and give Satsuma military support?”

The man in black mumbles some namban-jin creole to the man in red. The man in red nods and mumbles back to him. The man in black replies.

“Your Majesty will be more than just the governor of these lands. By the power vested in His Eminence the Bishop of Funai by His Holiness the Pope, and by His Majesty the King of Portugal, you will be given the right to rule as Imperador by the will of Deus. You will be on a level equal to the Tenno, sire, if not greater than him.”

His Majesty nods and scratches his chin pensively.

“And—remind me, again—what do I have to do in exchange?”

“Your Majesty and your court will be baptized as Christians. Your Majesty will work to promote the Gospel and stamp out all forms of heathenry and heresy in your domain. Your Majesty will swear allegiance to the crowns of Portugal and Spain, open your domain to unrestricted trade with them, and honor all relations Portugal and Spain have with other kingdoms.”

His Majesty scratches his chin harder now.

“Hmmm…Well, seeing as all the bonzes and shamans in this land haven’t been much help to me so far—and seeing as your god’s got an actual army behind him…I guess it can’t hurt. I hear you have to change your name when you do that whole bachismo thing, though. You lot got any suggestions?”

The man in black emphatically clears his throat, and mumbles to the man in red again, the bishop. They share a nervous but optimistic glance, almost even a smile. Most likely they need to see whether the other had expected them to get this far or not. Then the bishop replies to the man in black, who turns around and begins to pass on his message.

“Rest assured, sire. We most certainly do not need to worry about that right this—”

All ears in the room suddenly prick up to an unnatural rustling. One man in the throng reaches into his robes and produces four slips of paper, some black inky scrawl written all over them, which he holds between his fingers. While still in his hand, the man two spots to his right witnesses these innocuous slips shift and morph into the shapes of arrows—then, in an instant, they are gone.

“MY LORD! GET DOWN!”

His Majesty’s attendant cries out, lets the scroll hit the floor with a flutter, and tackles the nobler one before any harm can reach him. Paper, thin rods bearing little paper fletches, strike the attendant’s side in a barrage. His blood spills out on his lord’s garb. The man in black, the friar, jumps in shock, and nearly drops his lantern in a similar fashion to the scroll. The bishop turns around to see the scene behind him; the would-be assassin is up on his feet now.

“DIE, SHIMAZU!” he bellows. “LONG LIVE THE KAMPAKU, AND—HRRK!”

Run through with a sword. All hell breaks loose in Shimazu’s chambers. Samurai rise up, draw their sabers, rush outside to uncover any more killers lying in wait. The assassin, still with his wits about him, bloodshot eyes and blood running from his mouth, makes one final push.

The paper arrows begin to shift once again, pulling themselves out from the attendant and twining themselves together. One forms a head, one forms arms, one forms a trunk, and one forms legs. Now acting as one body, this humanoid shikigami continues after Shimazu, who scurries back against one of the pillars with a bump. The friar decides this would be a good time to drop the lantern—or rather, to hurl it, letting hot wax hit the living doll and burn it to a crisp. Before the flames can spread any further and take out the floor, another samurai rushes up and throws his own coat over.

Amidst all this confusion and chaos, Shimazu cradles the back of his head with his hand, having hit it twice in all this magic-laden scuffle.

“Cripes,” he says to himself, “where the hell were these people when I needed them?”

* * *

Fluorescent lighting of the most lifeless kind. Sickly-green medical walls. One would think the Pale Rider had painted this room after his steed’s own color. The lights are strongest over the stainless-steel operating table in the center of the room, where the remains of a man, somewhere in his forties, lay. Two people, a boy and a girl who could not be older than eighteen, are also in the room, unsupervised, observing his half-exposed body from the foot of the table.

“Ee-right…” says the boy. “And what’d the examiner say the cause of death was?”

“Workplace accident,” replies the girl bluntly, staring at her well-trimmed fingernails.

“Right…” The boy looks up and down the burn marks and boiled flesh running up and down the man’s chest. “‘Workplace accident’. Wasn’t this guy a journalist?”

The girl finally breaks contact with her nails and looks over at the boy, indignantly.

“Yes, he was! He was the one who was supposed to interview us after our concert! I swear, it’s like you forget we’re supposed to keep tabs on each other sometimes.”

“Well, ‘scuuuuse me, I didn’t wanna stick my nose where it didn’t belong an’ get told off by Little Miss Pop Princess. …Anyways, I—Never mind. Let's just do this already."

The boy moves to the corpse's side. He extends a hand out over the torso, where the burn injuries are. A faint column of light connects the two.

"Traces of elements here consistent with black powder. One of the first things we learn to make. But the amount it'd take to do this, and the scene it'd create... I'm just sayin', it might be more believable that he fell into the pyrotechnics or something."

The girl gives the boy a hard, stern slap on his arm.

“Can you stop cracking jokes for once in your freaking life?! This man was found dead behind our stage, with these injuries. I know it’s not absolute proof, but…”

The wheels finally turn in the boy’s head. He scratches his stubbled chin.

“Something forbidden’s at play here,” he muses. “And it could be coming for us.”