Kevin barely caught himself before colliding into MJ. He let out a strangled sound—half choke, half gasp—as T’mari’s hand seized the back of his tunic, steadying him.
Ahead, Matt had laid a gentle hand on MJ’s shoulder, guiding her forward through the vermilion gates of Mitaki-dera. Sunlight spilled through the cedar canopy, warm and soundless. The air itself seemed to hush for them.
T’mari didn’t move.
“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.”
Inside the temple grounds, Matt led MJ along the worn stone path, careful to keep to the side. “Never the center,” he murmured. “That’s for the kami.”
He spoke softly, the words coming easily in a voice shaped by years of practice, of dinners and deals and late-night laughter in Tokyo. The cadence was fluent—colloquial—but touched with 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 the stories.”
“She didn’t want to be different,” MJ said.
“No,” he agreed. “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’s gaze lingered on the temple roofs rising through the trees. “Is that why she didn’t come?”
Matt’s smile was small, wistful. “I asked her more than once. She always declined. Your father wanted to come. But she couldn’t. Not yet.”
She turned toward him, eyes bright. “I’m glad she let me.”
“So am I,” he said. And meant it.
A white-robed kannushi emerged from a shaded side path, serene and weathered as the cedar posts around him. Matt bowed low, a motion as natural as breathing. MJ followed, a heartbeat behind.
「神主様、お邪魔いたします。お時間をいただき、ありがとうございます。」
Kannushi-sama, ojama itashimasu. Ojikan o itadaki, arigatō gozaimasu.
(Honored priest, I humbly intrude. Thank you for your time.)
The priest nodded, eyes searching the foreigner who bowed like a native.
“I would share a story,” Matt said in gentle Japanese. “With your permission… may we sit in the garden?”
The priest inclined his head. “You may.”
The courtyard was a green hush of moss and water. Carp glided beneath a half-moon bridge. Matt settled MJ on a wooden bench, placed a small translator on the table, and gave her an earpiece. She fit it in without a word.
When he spoke again, his voice belonged entirely to the language of his great-grandmother, Tatsumi Niikura—the tongue he’d once been too ashamed to use on this hill.
“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. The father had gone to work. His sisters were already walking to school.
“Then came the flash. A silence so loud it stopped the world.
“When they found the boy, he was beneath his mother’s body. She had shielded him. That may be the only reason he lived.
“No one ever found his father. The school—where his sisters were—had shadows burned into its walls. The silhouettes of children, frozen where they stood.”
Matt paused, eyes on the pond. The breeze carried the faintest scent of pine and incense.
“He grew up. He had children. He named them for the parents he lost.
“Generations passed. That story was told to sons, though some daughters forgot. One great-great-grandson married a great-granddaughter of that same boy—neither knowing the truth.
“When they learned, they moved to Tokyo. They had a son. He never told the story. Nor did his son. But his daughter—she wrote it down. And when she moved to America, she gave it to her own daughter.
“That daughter was your mother.”
MJ’s lips parted, soundless. The weight of it filled the air between them.
“She married a man who didn’t know his past either,” Matt continued quietly. “His grandfather was Tibbets—the man who flew the plane that Monday morning.
“Two broken lineages, neither knowing the other’s truth, found love. And they had you.
“One of their cousins—still here in Japan—married into another branch of the same bloodline. Their child became my best friend.
“That friend gave birth to you. My goddaughter. My child by choice, if not by blood.”
He looked toward the kannushi, eyes steady but soft.
“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.
“By love, by story, by truth… she is heir to both sorrow and hope.”
Matt rose and offered the kannushi the small translator, both hands extended. “This is for you. So that no matter who walks these paths—no matter their language—they may hear your stories. This story. Any story you choose to keep.”
Beside it, he set a bound journal. “All the names and dates are in here. Yours. Mine. Hers.”
Then he turned to MJ, his expression gentle, proud.
“Now,” he said, “go. Learn your cousins.”
Notes on Setting and Symbolism
It is noon, June 18th, 2440, in Hiroshima.
The light is high, erasing all shadows—the very opposite of that August morning four centuries before.
A man once too ashamed to cross the gate stands now as bridge and heir, his words closing a wound that spanned generations.
