“Master Yamamoto. I did not expect to be speaking with you again.”
It had taken four days to get the Lived-Line locks I needed, then another day to make it to the North Polar Pyramid, traverse the Long Stairs that stretched impossibly along the great tunnel linking the inner and outer worlds, and exit in that domed sanctuary underneath the North Pole.
Making a Great Seal there for a Teleport Lock would make it a minor matter to ‘port down there from the surface above, and as yet the Illuminati did not seem to have made a move to reclaim the place.
Given I didn’t want a Shroudzone to pop up here, and it was perilously close to doing so, I blatantly wiped the entire guardian force of Brine Zombies standing guard in a burning holocaust of vivus and Shards, including the undead sharks, whales, orcas, and giant squids bound on patrol hereabouts.
The small companies of Brines that encircled this area at range I left where they were, as they were dissuading aquatics from investigating this place for now. However, I had all their locations clearly marked for eradication in the future.
Returning to Darwin was not difficult, as I had the Lived-Line there. But I seriously did not expect to have much interaction with the Japanese there, although naturally I had people monitoring the situation.
Australia was well on its way to having enough Nines and Tens to take care of its Shroud situation, but was running out of Shroudzones to address to Level people up... and nobody wanted to be left behind in that race. Naturally they had expressed urgent interest in being brought to where more such things were located, and the two best areas were China... and Japan.
Unfortunately, Japan had a mighty image problem relating back to its conduct before World War II. Its treatment of all of its neighbors had been absolutely worthy of being called an Evil Empire, and those countries had neither forgotten nor forgiven their conduct. The fact that Japan had literally been annihilated by their own undead rising against them was basically seen as divine punishment for their conduct, especially since the areas they’d conquered and slaughtered the natives of basically all turned into Shroudzones as well!
Compounding this was the fact that they’d chosen to gloss over and ignore this part of their own history, painting it away as if it didn’t happen, especially given the fact they’d had to flee their homeland.
The fact they continued to act like asshats to the native islanders, and basically only treated the Europeans with some respect, didn’t help my view of them... or anyone else’s, as a matter of fact.
That said, the news that they were now native Australians, born of her soil, not expatriate children of Nippon, had shaken them to the bone. So had The Human Tongue replacing their own carefully preserved language so thoroughly... and the way they’d had to slaughter their own would-be murderers, grown from the flesh and bone of their slain children, had finally started cracking their rigorous adherence to their old ways and means of thought.
Going home, the land of Nippon would not recognize them as Her own, for they were born of another’s soil. That didn’t mean they couldn’t go... but they were not, at the heart, Nipponese anymore.
Some of the younger Powered had eschewed the path of the Dragon Warrior/samurai, and gone off to Sydney to grow their Faith against the undead, and help save their new homeland... in many cases with aborigines determined to do the same. As Leveling the spellcasters was paramount, that left the martial fighters with much less to do.
They’d heard about how other countries were getting stronger, and they definitely wanted part of that. As long as there was not a mad attack from the sea, shouldn’t they be able to join in on the fun?
The hair of the samurai lord of Darwin had gone almost completely grey in less than six months. His vitality was not gone, but he looked older, wiser, and no longer the heroically defiant, unbending champion of his people’s martial spirit that he was before.
In the local culture, he might well have been looking at retiring, but there was no one to relieve him of the job, and he had just too much stuff to make up for. It had been pointed out to him repeatedly that unless he did something to make up for his sins, his neighbors would simply shift any direct blame from him to ALL the people of Darwin, and his people would acquire a reputation for genetic Evil that would haunt them for literally centuries.
Face what they and their ancestors had done, take responsibility, and do better. Ignoring it led only in one direction.
These things would take time, measured in years, and sincerity, and they would not be easy.
Lord Yamamoto bowed to me slowly. “For all our faults, Lady Traveler, we are a warrior people, and we do not wish to stand aside and let others fight for us or defend us. Please, allow us to join the efforts against the undead, as you have allowed so many other countries and nations to do.”
It was a simple request, and not hard to grant on the face of it.
Of course, I had been expecting it for some time.
They could not ALLOW other countries they had so mistreated to raise their Level without trying to do the same, or it was entirely likely they would be targeted for revenge...
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“That can be done. How are you for supplies?” I asked calmly, and he almost slumped in relief. If I said no, what could they do? Reaching China safely was going to be difficult enough, let alone setting up to prosecute a fight.
“Food and water should not be much of an issue. We were also hoping you could help us with resupply.”
They naturally didn’t have anyone high enough Level to Teleport there, using any of the various means, let alone with a Lived-Line to the right location.
“Very well. You will be dropped outside the Nanjing Shroudzone. Your task is to clear the entire thing.”
His eyes widened in shock and alarm. “This...”
“The majority of the undead that rose in this area came from the Chinese that the Japanese slaughtered there. That means that every single living person the undead killed there died because of your people.
“I do not think I have to tell you of exactly how many more millions of undead the Japanese are responsible for in China, but they are neither weak undead nor the recently Animated. You are going to need all the help from your people you can get, and you will need to apply all your strength and cunning to kill the Congregants and incorporeals residing there.
“This is your penance. I suggest you be very ready. The dead are not going to forgive you, so the only thing you can do for them is put them to rest.”
He sighed deeply, but he did not turn away. “We will not be rash, but we will make amends for the actions of our people, Lady Traveler, and emerge stronger from this for it.”
It was indeed going to be very dangerous for them, without Death Wards and the like to support them, and very few Vivic Weapons among them.
Still, they preferred the path of the Dragon Warrior, and had their own ways of enduring what was going to be coming.
Penance was not supposed to be easy. Reave in blood, pay in blood.
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For eight whole hours, I actually got to do pretty much a lot of nothing, and just stand there Infusing. There was always stuff to Infuse, after all.
I’d brought the Darwin natives over, grim and ready to start fixing a problem they had started. They’d been surprised to find a hundred Japanese-Americans with Autobows there waiting for them, also ready to fix the problems made by the people of Japan. They would provide fire support, as the Dragon Warriors of Darwin were largely melee-based, and especially with gunpowder going away, were moving away from guns and back to traditional archery.
Wasn’t nothing traditional about autobows, however, and they were definitely the hot new thing as far as ranged combat was going to go.
One round of Buffs for them, and then I was off to do other things. In this case, it was to pop over to where Sama had ‘ported over using Tremble’s brand-new Teleporting ability to hook up with Briggs, and they were doing their Incarnation Dives after hitting Eight.
Buying their Stats was still expensive, but much faster than before, and they still had plenty of Karma to make it all happen with the Warlording and Allegiance Karma coming in to support.
Charisma Scores of 30+, hitting Eight... they both wanted to do those Incarnation Dives and see who they’d been and where they’d come from. It wouldn’t affect who they were now... but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t learn some things from long ago that might need to be put right.
So, I stood watch over them during the day as they did that... the day, because at nights they were busy hitting things violently. Shvaughn and The Mick were plenty able to keep people in line, get folks healed up, forces moved into position, and ready for the next evening, allocating the noobs with the experienced people who would make sure they got their Karma and survived the first nights, beginning the long climb to power.
Here and there, Forsaken who made Nine were being invited off for a special mission by the Void Brothers. Tibet wasn’t going to clean itself off, and it was a high-stress, high-Karma environment that Powered simply couldn’t endure.
The Powered could deal with the Cultivators, slowly but surely, but the thrust recently had been containment, not striking at them, as more and more Juniors broke the Ceiling into Seven, and joined the line in stopping assaults and raids by the Cultivators, who didn’t really seem to understand how everyone was growing so fast.
Part of that was because a lot of the newcomers who hit Seven were decamping into Korea.
Korea didn’t have the history with America that it had on Terra-Luna, but what it did have was some very astute Priests and Wu Jen who had discovered the alien nature of Qi. They had deduced what was happening, and violently roused the whole country to butcher the Cultivators who’d come there with their offers of aid, driving them out of the country with a rousing nationalistic frenzy even as the main branches of the Sects were preoccupied with the fighting in China.
A lot of Chinese martial artists and other Powered had fled to Korea if they couldn’t make it to Taiwan, buttressing their forces, and Korea had been playing cat-and-mouse games with hunting Cultivators eager to kill Powered for literally decades, killing them right back as they used their own three Shroudzones for experiential training for their fighters to ready them for the conflict.
Fighting spirit and greater healing and recovery ability had kept them in the fight all this time. The recent addition of vivus and learning of the Forsaken and the Human Race had also resulted in an explosive increase in the number of fighting-ready people able and willing to take on Daoists in a fight. The pressure the Daoists had been placing on them from the north had been fought back and back, a slow and rising grind of momentum that was doing nothing but raising morale among the Koreans.
They might be losing guns, but they were gaining people who could fight. It was a decent enough trade, and they were taking up autobows with a love for the new and bloody dangerous things that only those being assaulted for years could have.
They wouldn’t have the video game masters, but they had some of the best damn arbalesters in the world right now.
Me, I calmly waited for the two Hagsbloods. I didn’t know how dramatic things would be when they woke up, but I was certain they’d need to be about doing something...
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Author’s Note: I’m not underselling Japan’s refusal to live up to what it has done. I recently saw a documentary on how various nations address sordid parts of their past. Germany’s treatment of the Nazis is an integral part of their education system... they OWN their mistakes.
Japan, in contrasts, ‘loses’ the entire 1930-1945 period almost entirely, writing it out of existence. If the Japanese want to learn about the atrocities their forebears committed, they have to find out from the internet in other countries, as it’s not taught in their schools.
Or, as one British reviewer puts it, “They were taught they were minding their own business, and America came out of nowhere and dropped two atomic bombs on them.”
Most Japanese won’t hear of Unit 731 from their own countrymen, or what they did in Nanking, and definitely not in their textbooks. The official approach is just to deny it all until everyone responsible or harmed is dead, and there’s no one to blame or compensate.