Chapter 16: Bloodline Revealed

Ren's office occupies a corner of Floor 34 in the Crescent Moon Entertainment building. The space is modest by executive standards—maybe forty square meters, with a view of Roppongi's arterial roads rather than the skyline. The furniture is functional rather than impressive: a desk that shows wear at the edges, chairs that have hosted hundreds of difficult conversations, filing cabinets that predate digital storage.

The walls tell a different story. Framed photographs document twenty years of entertainment industry survival—album covers, press releases, award ceremonies. Most feature groups Hana doesn't recognize. A few include a younger Ren, her face less lined, her posture less burdened.

It's 7:43 AM. Hana has been sitting in the chair across from Ren's desk for eleven minutes. Neither of them has spoken since Ren poured two cups of green tea and set them on coasters that advertise a record label that went bankrupt in 2019.

"You found the ship manifest," Ren says finally. Her voice is flat. Tired. "The genealogy records."

"Yes."

"How much do you know?"

"Enough to have questions." Hana wraps her hands around the tea cup, more for the warmth than the beverage. "Hayashi Kenji. Shrine priest. Left Japan in 1946. Never came back."

Ren nods slowly. "My great-grandfather. Your great-grandfather." A pause. "We're cousins, Hana. Distant, but connected."

The words land with less impact than they should. Hana has been processing this information since last night, turning it over in her mind like a puzzle piece that refuses to fit. Family. The woman who trapped her in this body is family.

Does that make it better or worse?

Neither. It makes it complicated.

"Tell me about the shrine," Hana says.

Ren takes a long breath. Her hands move to the tea cup, then away, then back—nervous gestures that don't match her usual controlled demeanor.

"The Hayashi family shrine was small. Maybe a hundred years old when the war came. Nothing special—just a local shrine serving a few blocks of Ginza. The kind of place where people prayed for business success, safe travel, healthy children."

She pauses.

"Then the bombs fell."

The story comes out in fragments.

March 10, 1945. The firebombing of Tokyo. Three hundred B-29 bombers dropping incendiary clusters across the Shitamachi district. Temperatures exceeding a thousand degrees. Wind speeds that created fire tornadoes. Eighty thousand people dead in a single night.

"Everything burned," Ren says. "Entire neighborhoods. The Sumida River boiled with people trying to escape. Bodies piled so high that survivors had to climb over them to reach safety."

But the shrine didn't burn.

"I've seen the photographs. Everything around it—ash. Rubble. Melted metal. But the shrine stood untouched. Not even smoke damage on the wood."

"How?"

"Protection." Ren's voice drops. "Kae's protection. She was bound to the shrine then, fully manifest. Her power preserved it while everything else died."

The miracle shrine. Hana remembers the term from her research. A structure that shouldn't have survived, becoming famous for its impossible persistence.

"After the war, people came from all over Japan. The shrine that survived the firebombing. The place where miracles happened." Ren's mouth twists. "My great-grandfather—your great-grandfather—became a celebrity. The priest of the miracle shrine."

"And then he left."

"He was captured first. American forces, early 1946. They were rounding up suspected nationalists, collaborators, anyone who might resist the occupation. Kenji wasn't either of those things, but someone accused him. He was sent to a detention camp in California."

The ship manifest. Yokohama to San Francisco. Priest (former).

"Kae waited," Ren continues. "For years. She kept the shrine maintained, kept the rituals active, kept believing he would return. But he didn't. He married an American woman. Had children. Built a new life."

My grandfather, Hana thinks. Isamu. The name on documents I barely remember.

"She burned the shrine."

"Not immediately. That came later." Ren's hands are shaking now. She notices, grips the tea cup harder. "First, she withdrew. The shrine's power faded. People stopped coming. By the 1970s, it was just another old building in a district being redeveloped."

"And your grandfather?"

"My grandfather." Ren laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Hayashi Takeshi. Kenji's son who stayed in Japan. The one who inherited nothing—no knowledge, no power, just the name and the building."

She stands, moves to the window, puts her back to Hana.

"He turned the shrine into a business. Not worship—money. The economic bubble was inflating. Real estate in Ginza was worth more than gold. Takeshi sold blessings to corporations, charged for ceremonies he didn't know how to perform properly, promised miracles he couldn't deliver."

"Scams."

"Elaborate ones. He had the credibility of the miracle shrine, the story of survival. Companies paid millions for exclusive blessings. Investors bought 'sacred bonds' that were worthless paper." Ren's voice hardens. "He made a fortune while Kae watched the thing she'd protected for centuries become a con operation."

"And she left."

"1990. The bubble burst. Takeshi's scams collapsed. He died owing more than he'd ever stolen—heart attack, stress, karma, whatever you want to call it." Ren turns back to face Hana. "My father inherited the debt. I inherited it from him. That's why this company exists. That's why I do what I do. Generations of failure, and I'm still trying to dig out."

The pieces connect. The desperate finances. The experimental transformations. The willingness to trap people in contracts they can't escape.

She's not evil, something in Hana thinks. She's drowning.

That doesn't make what she did acceptable.

No. But it makes it understandable.

"What about the shrine building itself?"

"Kae burned it. Shortly after she left." Ren's voice is quiet. "The police called it arson. No suspects. No motive anyone could explain. Just a historic building turned to ash on a winter night."

"And now it's a McDonald's."

"The Ginza Nichome location. Yes." Ren almost smiles. "International burger franchise built on the ashes of sacred ground. I think she finds it funny, in a bitter way."

"She's still there."

"In a pocket dimension she maintains at the site. Watching. Waiting. Testing." Ren meets Hana's eyes. "Testing us. Both of us."

The office feels smaller suddenly. The walls pressing in, the air thicker. Hana sets down her tea cup and stands, needing to move, needing to process.

"The transformations," she says. "The magic you use. Where did it come from?"

"Fragments. Pieces of knowledge passed down through the family despite everything. My father knew some. I know less. Enough to perform certain rituals, to tap into certain powers, but not enough to understand them properly."

"Not enough to reverse them."

"No." Ren's voice cracks slightly.

"Kae has been watching you specifically," Ren continues. "Since you arrived. She detected your bloodline immediately—recognized you as Kenji's descendant. That's why she appeared after your first performance. That's why she's been watching your interactions with Artemis."

"Artemis works for Kae?"

"No. Apparently she doesn’t trust her something about her being the outsider with too much power and too little restraint.”

"Why?"

"Curiosity."

The temperature in the room drops.

Not dramatically—not like a refrigerator opening or a window breaking. Just a subtle shift, a few degrees cooler, the kind of change that prickles the skin and raises hair on forearms.

Hana turns.

Kae stands by the door.

She appears in her human form today—a girl who looks perhaps twelve, with long black hair and dark eyes that hold centuries of memory. Her clothing is modern but incongruous: jean shorts, a fitted t-shirt, the outfit of a teenager rather than an ancient being.

"You've learned the truth," Kae says. Her voice is light, almost casual, but something ancient moves beneath the surface.

Ren goes pale. "Kae-sama—"

"No titles." Kae moves into the room, each step precise, measured. "We're beyond formality now."

She stops between them, her gaze moving from Ren to Hana and back. Those dark eyes miss nothing. Weigh everything.

"Your great-grandfather promised to return," Kae says to Hana. "He swore it on the shrine's sacred fire. On his family's honor. On everything he claimed to hold dear."

The room is very quiet.

"He never did. He built a new life across an ocean and forgot the promise he made. Forgot me." A pause.

Her attention shifts to Ren.

"Your grandfather destroyed what I built. Turned sacred ground into a marketplace. Sold blessings like merchandise. I watched it happen. I could have stopped it—could have struck him down, cursed his lineage, ended the corruption before it spread."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because I wanted to see if anyone would stop him. If the bloodline carried any honor worth preserving." Kae's expression doesn't change. "No one did. So I let him destroy himself. Let the consequences of his greed consume everything he'd built."

She looks at both of them now. Two descendants. Two branches of a broken family tree.

"Now you will decide. Both of you." Her small hand gestures, and the air shimmers—a doorway forming where none should exist, leading to somewhere that isn't this office. "Restore what was lost, or let it die completely."

Hana's throat is dry. "What does restoration mean?"

"Learning. Training. Committing to the shrine's purpose rather than exploiting its power." Kae's eyes fix on her. "You have the bloodline. You have resistance that even Kenji lacked. But bloodline means nothing without intention."

"And if we refuse?"

"Then you continue as you are. Ren struggles with debt and fragmented magic until both destroy her. You remain trapped in a body you didn't choose, with answers you'll never find." The kami's voice is matter-of-fact. "I'm not threatening. I'm describing consequences."

Ren steps forward. "Kae-sama—Kae. I've been trying. For years. The transformations, the company, all of it—I've been trying to build something that honors the family legacy."

"By trapping people in bodies they didn't choose? By building debt structures designed to enslave?" Kae's voice sharpens. "That's not honor. That's your grandfather with better marketing."

Ren flinches like she's been struck.

"But it could be different." Kae's tone softens slightly. "If you're willing to learn. If you're willing to face what you've done and do better."

"I am."

"We'll see." Kae turns back to Hana. "And you?"

Run, something whispers. This isn't your fight. This isn't your family—not the family you chose, not the family you remember.

But it is your bloodline, another voice counters. And it's the only path to answers.

Do you want answers badly enough to trust an ancient being who burned her own shrine out of rage?

Hana doesn't know. She's not sure she'll ever know.

"I'm not committing to anything," she says finally. "Not until I understand what I'm committing to."

Kae nods slowly. "Fair. Cautious. Reasonable." A pause. "Your great-grandfather was impulsive. Made promises without understanding their weight. You're different."

"Is that good or bad?"

"We'll see."

The shimmering doorway fades. Kae remains.

"The goddess will test you again soon. She's curious about you—more curious than she's been about a mortal in centuries. Her interest is a double-edged sword."

"I've noticed."

"Handle her carefully. She's not malicious, but she's not human. Her understanding of mortal concerns is... limited." Kae moves toward the door, then pauses. "And Hana?"

"Yes?"

"The anger you're carrying. The bitterness. I understand it. I carried the same weight for decades." Those ancient eyes meet hers. "It doesn't get lighter unless you set it down."

Then she's gone.

No doorway. No shimmer. Just gone, as if she'd never been there at all.

Ren sinks into her chair. Her hands are shaking badly now. "I didn't know she'd come. I didn't—"

"I know."

They sit in silence as the morning light strengthens outside the window. The sounds of Roppongi filter up—traffic, construction, the distant rumble of the metro. Normal sounds. Human sounds.

Nothing about this situation is normal or human.

"What do we do now?" Ren asks.

Hana looks at her cousin. Her captor. Her family.

"We have practice in two hours. We show up. We work. We pretend everything is normal." She stands, moves toward the door. "And we wait for whatever comes next."

It's not a plan. It's barely a response.

But it's all she has.