Kevin barely caught himself before colliding with MJ.
He made a strangled sound, half choke, half gasp, as T’mari’s hand caught the back of his tunic and steadied him.
Ahead, Matt had laid a gentle hand on MJ’s shoulder, guiding her toward the stone torii of Miwa Myojin Hiroshima Bunshi.
T’mari stopped.
“This is not a place for us,” she whispered, her voice low but certain.
Kevin frowned. “But…”
She shook her head, eyes fixed on the pair ahead.
“This is something sacred. Something for them.”
Matt and MJ passed beneath the torii together.
Matt moved slightly to one side of the approach. MJ copied him.
“Never the center,” he murmured. “That’s for the kami.”
His Japanese came easily, fluent and colloquial, shaped by years of dinners, deals, friendships, and long nights in Tokyo. Here, though, there was something quieter in it.
Reverence.
“Do you know much about your family history?” he asked.
MJ hesitated.
“Only that Grandpa came from Japan. Grandma never talks about it.”
Matt nodded slowly.
“Your grandparents moved to Missouri from Tokyo. They raised your mother to blend in, to survive. English names. English manners. They never told her all the stories.”
“She didn’t want to be different.”
“No.”
He looked toward the shrine buildings farther up the hill.
“But they still gave her the most Japanese trait of all, obedience. She adapted. She endured. And part of her still resents them for it.”
MJ looked at him.
“Is that why she didn’t come?”
Matt’s smile was small and wistful.
“I asked her more than once. She always declined. Your father wanted to come. But she couldn’t. Not yet.”
MJ turned her eyes toward the shrine.
“I’m glad she let me.”
“So am I.”
And he meant it.
A white-robed kannushi approached from near the shrine buildings.
Matt stopped and bowed deeply. MJ followed, a heartbeat behind.
「神主様、失礼いたします。お時間をいただき、ありがとうございます。」
Kannushi-sama, shitsurei itashimasu. Ojikan o itadaki, arigatō gozaimasu.
The priest returned the bow.
Matt continued in Japanese.
“I would like to tell her the story of her family. With your permission, may we sit near the Soreisha?”
The priest looked from Matt to MJ.
Then he inclined his head.
“You may.”
They followed him farther into the shrine grounds.
The Soreisha was quieter.
A place for ancestors.
For the dead who remained part of the family because someone still remembered their names.
Matt settled MJ beside him and took a small translator from his pocket. He handed her an earpiece.
She fitted it without a word.
Below the hill lay Hiroshima.
It was noon. The June sun stood high enough that the shadows beneath trees, buildings, and people had drawn close to the things that cast them.
When Matt spoke again, he did so entirely in Japanese.
“Long ago, not far from this place, there lived a man, his wife, and their four children. Three daughters and a young son.
“One Monday morning, the boy stayed home with his mother. His father had gone to work. His sisters were already walking to school.
“Then came the flash.
“When they found the boy, he was beneath his mother’s body. She had covered him with herself.
“That may be the only reason he lived.
“No one ever found his father.
“His sisters never came home.”
MJ had gone completely still.
Matt looked toward the city below them.
“The boy survived.
“He grew up.
“He married.
“He had children.
“His children had children.
“And the family kept going.”
He paused.
“That sounds simple when you say it quickly. It wasn’t.”
MJ looked at him.
“Families spread. They marry into other families. Brothers leave. Daughters move away. Names change. People remember one story and forget another.”
He folded his hands.
“By 2112, the Niikura family had already divided into the two branches that matter to you and me.”
MJ frowned.
“You and me?”
Matt nodded.
“Your Niikuras and mine split in 2112.”
She stared at him.
“That was…”
“A long damn time ago.”
That earned the smallest smile.
“More than three centuries before you were born.”
Matt looked toward the Soreisha.
“One of those branches eventually produced a woman named Tatsumi Niikura.”
He glanced at MJ.
“My great-grandmother.”
Her expression changed.
“Tatsumi married Dale Wallace Boone Marmaduke.”
“Marmaduke.”
“Yep.”
A little Missouri slipped through his Japanese.
“They had a large family. One of their sons was Prester John Boone Marmaduke. His line eventually gives us my cousin Geranto.”
“Gary?”
“Gary.”
MJ stared at him.
“You’re telling me Gary is part of this?”
“Gary is part of damn near everything.”
She snorted.
Matt smiled, then continued.
“Prester John had a brother named James. James fathered Eddie.”
Matt touched his own chest.
“Eddie fathered Annette and me.”
MJ looked down at the ground between them.
“So your family came out of the Niikuras too.”
“Yes.”
“And Mom’s family…”
“Comes from the other branch. The one that split from mine in 2112.”
She looked back toward Hiroshima.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then MJ said, “So we really are cousins.”
“At that distance, half of human civilization is probably cousins.”
Matt shrugged.
“But yes. We are.”
He let that settle before continuing.
“Your branch kept going on its own for more than three centuries. People were born. People died. Some stayed around Hiroshima. Some moved elsewhere. Eventually part of that family reached Tokyo.”
He looked at her.
“Eventually your grandparents moved to Missouri.”
MJ frowned.
“Mom really didn’t know all this?”
“She knew pieces.”
Matt considered his words.
“Your grandparents knew more than they told her. They thought leaving some things behind would make her life easier.”
“Did it?”
“For a while.”
He looked back toward the city.
“People do that. They decide their children don’t need the weight they carried.”
His mouth tightened slightly.
“Sometimes they’re right.”
MJ was quiet.
Matt let her have the silence.
Then he said, “There’s another part.”
She looked at him.
“Paul Tibbets.”
Recognition came immediately.
MJ’s eyes narrowed.
“The pilot?”
“The commander of the aircraft that dropped the bomb here.”
Her face changed.
Matt nodded.
“You descend from him through your father.”
MJ stared at him.
Then she looked toward Hiroshima again.
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.”
She sat with that for several seconds before looking back at him.
“So Mom’s family…”
“Descends from people who survived Hiroshima.”
“And Dad’s family…”
“Descends from Tibbets.”
MJ shook her head slowly.
“That is seriously fucked up.”
“Yes.”
Matt gave her no argument.
Then he added quietly, “And it gets stranger.”
She looked at him.
“I descend from Tibbets too.”
MJ blinked.
“What?”
“My Tibbets connection entered the family back in the twenty-one hundreds.”
She stared.
“You’re both?”
“So are you.”
Matt gestured between them.
“Both of us descend from the Niikura family.”
Then toward Hiroshima.
“And both of us descend from Paul Tibbets.”
MJ looked genuinely lost for a moment.
“But not through the same people.”
“No.”
Matt shook his head.
“That’s the important part.”
He leaned forward slightly.
“Our Niikura connection separated in 2112. Your Tibbets descent comes through your father. Mine entered my family more than two centuries before I was born.”
He looked down toward the city.
“Nobody arranged this.
“Nobody designed some beautiful reconciliation between the people who survived and the man who flew the bomber.
“Families just kept moving.”
His voice softened.
“People survived.
“They had children.
“Those children had children.
“They fell in love with people whose grandparents they had never heard of.
“They moved across countries and oceans.
“Three hundred years passed.”
He looked at MJ.
“And eventually you happened.”
MJ swallowed.
Matt smiled faintly.
“And eventually I happened too.”
They sat together in the quiet.
“There are Niikuras still here,” he said.
MJ turned toward him.
“Your family didn’t end when your grandparents left Japan. There are cousins here. Branches of the family that kept going while yours went to Tokyo and then Missouri.”
“How close?”
Matt gave her a look.
“Close enough to call them cousins. Far enough that I brought paperwork.”
That finally got a laugh.
Matt reached into his bag and removed a bound journal.
He placed it carefully in her hands.
“All the names and dates we have are in there.
“The family before the split.
“The branch that became yours.
“The branch that produced Tatsumi.
“Dale.
“Prester John.
“James.
“Eddie.
“Annette and me.
“The Tibbets lines.
“The families still here.”
MJ ran her fingers over the cover.
Matt watched her for a moment.
“My goddaughter,” he said quietly.
“My child by choice.”
His eyes shifted toward the priest.
“By the custom of my home, she is a daughter of my house.
“By the rites of the V’ren, of whom I am now High Lord, she is a named member of House Marmaduke and elder sister to my future children.”
Then he looked directly at MJ.
“But none of that is why I brought you here.”
He gestured toward Hiroshima.
“This belonged to you before I ever gave you anything.”
Matt rose.
He took the small translator and approached the kannushi, presenting it with both hands.
“This is for you.
“So that no matter who comes here, no matter their language, they can hear the stories you choose to preserve.”
Then he offered the bound record he had prepared for the shrine.
“The names and dates are here as well.”
The priest received them with both hands.
Matt bowed deeply.
When he returned, MJ was still holding her journal.
Below them, Hiroshima stretched beneath the noon sun.
Matt looked toward the path beyond the Soreisha.
Then back at MJ.
“Now,” he said.
His smile returned.
“Go learn your cousins.”
