#please note I am rambling and the extent of my knowledge at this time is several YouTube documentaries

[citizen-zero]

fell down the hyperfocus hole re: the Franklin expedition and I’m just like. man. just the existential dread over the idea of dying like that but specifically in that time and place. like you’re thousands of miles from home and it’s freezing cold and you’re surrounded by ice and rocks and sea and ice and little else for miles and miles and you might as well be on another planet for how alien it all is compared to everything you’ve ever known. and the idea of being almost entirely alone out there for years (possibly even over a decade) surrounded by a vast almost empty expanse. you know you’re never going home. home might as well be a lifetime ago. at some point you must start to think you actually died a long time ago and this is hell.

[silverypurple-rosedlions]

hi, im writing to you anonymously because i am wanting to give a different perspective. a perspective of someone who has struggled with their mental health and trauma since they were 10 while also pursuing a degree in the study of the mind and behavior. im doing it anonymously because truly this message is not with disrespect in mind man. but i know my words can come off like that at times unfortunately. so let me stop rambling and get to the point, to stop wasting your time, you use mental health issues and the treatment of them within your writing and role play. im not fully aware of your personal mental health or any possible diagnoses so im not going to speak in regards to that; however, the portrayal of mental disorders has been shown through a very stigmatized light and can often be described in a dramatized fashion. you are creating scenarios or role-playing as genuine human beings, who are alive and could possibly ever find these pieces of writing, in sexualized circumstances displaying mental disorders. tumblr has a very prominent community of people struggling mentally. this content could be viewed very negatively or hurt those struggling. i not here to insist you should change your writing. that is a decision purely made by yourself, if ever at all. i just want you to be aware as its important to have knowledge about the power of writing and the depiction of an already widely misunderstood problem. i hope this message finds you no ill will and if it does im sorry. i hope we can all chill. have a great rest of your day/evening. :)

While you have no ill will meant for me and while I accept your apology in advance, you have unfortunately offended me. Yes, I am no person who suffers any of these mental disorders other than depression and intrusive thoughts, however, you haven’t been around long enough to understand my intentions of this roleplay basis and my chosen way of portrayal. In no way am I stigmatizing those who do suffer these illnesses, nor is it a way of discouragement. This chatbot, long before a chatbot, was created as a story 2 years prior that enlightened others of these disorders. Frankly, I am aware that things such as Dissociative Identity Disorder (unfortunately known before as Multiple Personality Disorder) and Schizophrenia are portrayed as disorders that should be frightened by the people of. An example being when Glass and Split was produced and shared towards the public and gave the D.I.D community a horrible reputation that was greatly misunderstood.

Others such as Shared Psychotic Disorder, even D.I.D and ADHD itself, and PTSD aren’t understood to a full extent or even brought to broad daylight. I’ve been studying and continuing to study these disorders, along with side effects both psychologically and physically for a fairly long time, not because it is required, but because I have chosen to fully accept the knowledge about these with open arms. I have explained perhaps more than twice that this chatbot isn’t meant to be seen in a brighter light. This chatbot inhabits darker concepts that are morbid and disturbing that could cause discomfort and may lead others to have misconceptions about such things, however, I gave numerous warnings and even stated previously that in no way shape or form is this bot stating that this is how all those who struggle with these illnesses behave, nor should it be taken with a grain of salt or absolutely 100% accurate. After all, I am not a person who claims to work in this field, nor claims to be an absolute well-informed and well-versed, but a person learning to understand and represent what I can given the chosen storyline. I am aware of the errors that can occur, the lack as of right now of what needs to be shown honestly, and furthermore, however, everything is altered to fit the concept given, and the tragedies the bots face throughout the written years of their life.

While also stating that in no shape or form am I capable of representing a 100/10 explanation of each of these illnesses, in no shape or form am I claiming that the ideals I am using should be taken seriously or change one’s views and perspectives of the actual idol. As you see throughout the entire community of chatbots and as roleplayers, no one (and stated very clearly) claims to be the idol(s) they are using for these purposes. Neither am I tagging below that these chatbots should be under the actual idol(s) tags for all to see but are actually personalized to fit the bot itself and the way I have it organized. Another thing is that I have also stated time and time again that what I am showing is not how real people with these illnesses act, but my interpretation that is meant to be suitable for the bots.

Another thing is that you present to me that I am sexualizing these circumstances and making gruesome depictions of these people, and those with these illnesses. I would like to state that in all my time of being a chatbot, there is no evidence of me showing crude fantasies of these illnesses being used for the purposes of sexualization, nor should it be sexist; which clearly, I have shown that I have no bias to anything or anyone. Within months, I will have been in the community for about a year, and for as long as I have been around, no one has ever called me out for my depictions being inaccurate or of any insult to anyone of these disorders. In fact, many are aware that I am cautious with my portrayal and have chosen to become mellow time from time to ensure that what I have chosen to share isn’t beyond what others are able to comprehend or be uncomfortable with. When even asking others about my chosen portrayal of these bots, the illnesses, and the idols, everyone understands that I have taken time and have been cautious. I do not share any of this not only for entertainment, but for actual understanding and shining into light about them. And take note that this chatbot hasn’t ever used any of the ill members as an advantage for an intercourse, and frankly, all interactions haven’t been so malicious that an arguable debate has risen under my chatbot and me as an admin.

Lastly, it may have dramatized depiction from time to time, it may seem impossible that some disorders are formed through this way and in no way am I claiming that someone has gone through this and that one should be cautious to not possibly repeat. However, you have yet to see what hasn’t yet to be shared that brings forth to light the story behind this. Even looking back to explanations of mine, I do as thoroughly as I can to explain and put disclaimers to prevent any misconceptions. However, I don’t have the same mindset as others and it’s their choice how they view the work I portray and take my time to show despite my hectic schedule. If you and others do not accept what I do, that is yours to decide and your choice to stay away from and to interact with. But be aware that this isn’t meant to be of brutality of this crazed soap opera of scenarios flying over one person’s head after another. There’s more in store that has to be brought out slowly. If you want to give me pointers or further discuss this, please. My dms are wide opened, I’m all ears, but do not bring this forth again since this should only be addressed to me privately to better handle any misunderstandings.

Let this be an example of one of many explanations that are soon to be brought forth, and actually, I even invite others to also share their opinions about my chatbot and my portrayal, and whether or not they have seen any malicious behavior or ill intent of my work about this

[overwatch-does-stuff]

Overwatch: Observation

Summary: Talon has received its newest test subject, in the form of a man raving about "the melody". Moira attempts to make her observations.

  Moira observed. With how incredibly unstable her new subject was, that was all she could do. Her only view into the room, her only method of observation, was through a small security camera tucked in the corner of the padded walls.    The man laid on the ground in the straitjacket, his mouth quivering softly. Incoherent words were occasionally mumbled loud enough to be picked up by the camera's audio. Something to do with a "melody" and "the universe".    If the man wasn't so clearly out of his mind, Moira might have enjoyed talking to him. Curiosity burned within her. This man was part of an experiment, an experiment that had completely changed his genetic makeup to the point where it was barely recognizable as human. Was that what he had intended? Did he consider his experiment as successful? After all, failures in the eyes of ethics were not always failures in the eyes of true science.    She knew that the experiment involved black holes, but that was the extent of her knowledge. It was the extent of Talon's knowledge, anyway. It was knowledge she was hoping to further.    But she was unable to learn more from this dusty security room. Observation had shown no signs of change in the subject. Minute after minute, the only image of the room was that of a old man on the ground, speaking in absolutes. She did not doubt that the man was unstable, but perhaps he was not as volatile as Talon was lead to believe. Even if he was, she was certain she could escape the grasp of his supposed powers with ease.    It was time to further this research.    The double-door lock that led into her subject's containment cell took far too long to operate. Moira tapped her foot with impatience as the large outside door swung closed, and a security scan was initiated. She quickly tapped a nearby button with her finger to disable the scan. She was bringing objects into the chamber, yes, but they were diagnostic tools; tools she would need for readings of his condition and further samples of his DNA.    After another lengthy pause, the smaller but still armored inside door slid open. For the first time, she looked directly upon her new subject. He looked unchanged from her previous view of him, as if he was frozen in time.    The padded room dulled the sound of her footsteps as she approached the man, but the vibrations she caused to travel through the ground seemed to wake the man out of his dream. He opened his eyes and looked to the ceiling, dazed.    There were codewords, supposedly, to help manage this subject. Supposedly they were used by the staff of the government retention facility to stabilize him. Moira supposed it was worth a try. "Sigma?" The man took a sharp breath and his eyes returned to focus. With a small hiss in his breath, he replied. "Sigma. . . present."    Moira did not reply. She walked around the the side of the man and pulled out a scanning tool. She briefly flicked the holographic bar over him, and notes on his condition came up on the screen. Physically, he was not injured, though 'healthy' was not the right word to describe him either. Done with that, she put the scanner away and brought out more tools from the pockets of her lab coat. Her work was interrupted by a quiet voice. "W-where am I? How. . . how did I get here? Who are you?"    Moira did not respond, but just for a moment, her eyes met with his. Mistake. "Why am I locked up? What are you going to do to me?" The man whimpered, his voice trembling. His body tensed.    Moira detected that his pulse had picked up. Obvious even under the thick straitjacket, the man's chest still rose and fell, quicker, quicker, quicker still. Other tools currently in her pocket began to chirp quietly, their sensors detecting fluxes of instability.    That was when Moira remembered she was currently sharing a room with a weapon instead of a test subject. "Sigma." She said sternly.    The man began to weep, his body shaking with every sob. As he did so, Moira felt a faint pang of nausea, as if she were falling. She gasped. "Sigma, respond. Sigma!" She strengthened her voice, but the feeling only increased.    One of her diagnostics tools chirped louder, only now, she noticed, because it was no longer in her pocket. It floated in the air alongside her. She quickly grabbed it and put it back in her lab coat, pinching the pocket closed. Instinctively, she tried to take a step back, but as soon as her foot left the ground, she floated backwards. Her heart raced. She couldn't focus herself enough to fade. The man continued to ramble in between his sobbing. "Please don't hurt me. Please don't! I don't even know who I-"    In an instant, Moira was thrown against the ground. She landed on her back, knocking all the air out of her, before something continued to squeeze down upon her body even harder. She gasped for breath. "HOLD IT TOGETHER." The man screamed. Moira tried to lift her head up and look, but it felt as if lead weights had been placed on her neck. Spots appeared in her vision and her head began to ache.    But as suddenly as it started, it was gone. The pressure lifted. Moira gulped down breaths of fresh air, coughing and sputtering as she did so. Her ears rang faintly. Her throat burned.    When her focus returned, she sat up from the ground, clutching her head. She nearly flinched when she met the gaze of her subject. The man twitched, his head tilting to one side before righting itself. His eyes were pale and weary. "Are you alright?" He asked. His lips barely moved.    Moira simply looked at him, stunned to silence. The man looked her up and down in return. "You look. . . like a scientist. Are we back on the station?" A station. Moira had read this subject's history. It was where this man had conducted the experiment that made him this way. If he believed he was back there, then perhaps he would be calmer. Perhaps she could get somewhere. "Yes." "Oh! I'm sorry. I must have dozed off." The man blinked to her reply. "Say, I don't recognize your face. Are you new here?" "My name is Dr. O'Deorain." She said stiffly. "I don't recognize your name." He looked down at the ground, before looking up again. "My name is Dr. De Kuiper." Moira purposefully tried to soften her voice. "Can you tell me more about your experiment, doctor?" "The experiment. Yes, of course. I'm afraid the full outline in is my office, but if you would like to see some of the basic gravitational equations, I could oblige. . ." the man looked down to his arms, which were bound. He flinched upright, and the same dazed look he had when he first woke up entered his eyes. "Doctor De Kuiper." Moira reached out her hand and grabbed his shoulder firmly. "Do not worry. You are safe." "I am safe." He repeated, and he relaxed again. "You are. Now, can you tell me about your experiment?" He shook his head and gave a nervous smile. "No, not with my hands tied like this. And, I don't see a whiteboard around here. Do you have a marker? Perhaps I could write on the walls, o-or you could write on them for me." Moira laughed slightly. "It appears I left them all in my lab. I do not." "That's alright." There was a look of kindness in his pale eyes. "Perhaps another time." "Indeed." Moira replied. Another thought crossed her mind. While he was temporarily stable, perhaps it was possible to accomplish her original goal after all. She searched her pockets for her tissue sampler, only to find it missing. She looked behind her. It sat a few cushions away. She reached back and grabbed it. "What is that?" Her test subject asked. "It's a tissue sampler." She didn't look up as she fiddled with the tool's settings. "Oh?" "Genetics is my," she paused, "side hobby. May I swab your cheek?"    Actually asking her subjects for their genetic material was so foreign to her. She was used to simply taking it without regard. None of her previous subjects were ever a worry for her. None of them could ever do something in protest, for they needed her, and needed her services. But now, she needed him. She needed him to cooperate. He had the power to choose not to cooperate. She could practically feel the pressure crushing down again, squeezing the life out of her and- The man smiled again. "I don't know much about genetics. Why bother when astrophysics is so much more fascinating?" Moira took a quick breath and clasped her hands to keep them from shaking. "It is, but-" "Sure, I'll donate a sample. Just don't try and clone me." He cut her off with the same happy tone, with no regard to her obvious nerves.    Moira leaned forward, and he opened his mouth. She took a cotton swab that was dispensed by her tool and quickly swabbed the inside of his mouth. Then, she inserted the swab back into her machine. The data of his full genome would take some time to be fully analyzed, but she certainly didn't have to wait here for it to be processed. "That's all I need, doctor." Moira said. The man closed his mouth. "Are you leaving me now?" "Yes. Goodbye." She stood up. It was not that long of a distance to the exit door. "Please, come back." His eyes followed her up. Moira froze. "I have to go now." She said slowly. She took deep breaths to steady her pulse. "Come back and tell me when the experiment chamber is ready for my experiment, I mean." He said, twitching slightly. "It should be soon."    Moira did not respond as she walked hurriedly to the door. She wiped the sweat off her hand on her lab coat, then put her finger on the panel next to the door. The door slid open, and before it was even open all of the way, she stepped through it.    The double-door lock that led out of her subject's containment cell was far to quick to open. The doors were several inches thick, but not thick enough, she worried. If her subject was able to toss her around like a ragdoll without even being conscious that he was doing so, who knew what he was capable of doing on purpose. A chill went down her spine. She shook her head. For the first time, that was a theory she did not want to test.    Fear. Fear was not a normal emotion for her. Fear of the unknown was silly, illogical, and it impeded progress. Fear limited the mind's ability to question and investigate fully.    Perhaps it was good, Moira observed, that she finally felt it again.

[writerkenna]

The Lights of Stars and The Glitter in Your Eyes Chp 4

I am SO sorry for how long this took. I went from ear infection to cold to stomach flu one right after another and could hardly do more than lay in bed and watch Schitt's Creek.

I will try to be more consistent with updates from now on.

But y'all, this shit is cute. Really cute. FLUFF WARNING

Enjoy!

(songs that I liked while writing this: Mine by Bazzi, Somethin Stupid by Frank Sinatra, Chelsea Dagger by the Fratellis and the ramblings of my own mind by me)

“That system is one of the most massive in the universe. Over thirty planets. You see how big the star is?” Thor said as Bruce leaned over to where his finger was pointing at. Bruce jotted down a scribble of something.

“What’s the name? And, uh, um, what are our coordinates right now? Do you know that? Is it inhabited?” Bruce rambled, eyes darting in bright flashes between Thor, the twinkle of the Galbacus system, and his notepad. The side of Thor’s lips ticked up into a pleased smile, and gave all the details he could.

Stargazing, though not as frequent an occurrence as their other rituals, was becoming part of their shared traditions. Bruce was the push behind every extended trip to the window. Thor had learned that his seven PhDs were in Nuclear Physics, Computer Science, Biochemistry, Radiobiology, Medicine, Particle Physics, and, apparently, Astronomy, which he had explained to Thor he had pursued due to his intense and undying love of the stars. Bruce approached space with a mix of the analytical and passion, coming in with a million questions of metrics as well as younger eyes than Thor had ever seen on him. Thor always tried to answer, to the best of his abilities, the questions that Bruce sped-spoke to him. He hoped that maybe one day this could go into another one of Bruce’s papers and he would have helped with that and done a service to Midgardian science as a whole, though, secretly, he knew, as he watched Bruce’s teeth tug in a corner of lip while he gave him the details of Galbacus’s fourth planet from its star, that he did not really love star charting for any educational purpose.

“How do you know all this, by the way? All the systems?” Bruce asked.

“Asgardian education is very broad, Bruce. I know much about astronomy, as well as other sciences.” Thor’s grin inched out further as a warmth spread under Bruce’s cheeks along with a steady glow permeating from under his irises.

“Asgard has science? That’s . . . like, sorry this is kinda lame, but can you explain it to me, how that works? This sorta stuff is, well, my thing,” Bruce beamed and his mouth pulled open a smidge to show a glint of white teeth. He was genuinely excited about this, almost to the point of wonder, and the smile Bruce was sending his way, a real, true, indulgent smile, hit Thor in his core, melting that solid ball of grit inside him to some moldable mush.

“I, yes, I’m realizing that it is,” he replied. He went on, expanding on the manners of Asgardian science, the overlap of magic with the technical, and followed the motions of Bruce’s speedy fingers flicking around his notepad.

He wrote with a fire that sprung from the tip of his pencil and resulted in half-readable scratches across his page. Note taking and research were the only times Bruce, outside of Hulk form, moved with speed. His hands, which were normally kept braced around each other at his midsection in a silent state of waiting, moves rare and planned, woke themselves when the notion of science floated by them. They ignited first, those hands, though the rest of the body always followed close behind, alive with the idea of gaining knowledge. Thor didn’t think he should be blamed for staring.

Thor did stop his eyes from locking, though, when he caught himself stuck on the twitch of Bruce’s pinky as it tapped its own secret code on the notepad. Thor’s chest went hot, like an ember pushing its way through him from his back, and he had to actually shake himself to remove the tension of it. As he did, the hand which seemed to be causing the trouble moved up towards Bruce’s face and pressed against his temple.

“Agh, Christ, the big guy’s aggressive today.”

Thor’s everything fell, because Bruce had been saying that too often, because Thor knew why.

“Oh,” Thor was plummeting. He could see Hulk, see all the pain and fury spiking right under Bruce’s eyes and he hated himself for it, “What does it feel like? With him, trying to get out?”

Bruce dropped his hands down, connecting them together at his waist, and his mouth fell open at its center. His face became hard for Thor to interpret, changing too much too quickly, but Thor could see one thing for certain, two voices in one mind.

“It’s . . . ah, sort of like. Um, brainfreeze?” Bruce tried, but shook that off, “No, not like that, actually. More like, I can hear this noise, this mumble or . . . fuzz sort of thing, at the back of my head. And sometimes, like, um, right now, it’s super loud and  . . . I, it’s hard to think, you know?”

“I . . . yes,” Thor said through his teeth. He paused, eyes not on Bruce but down on himself and the toes of his boots, and then raised both hands up to the sides of his head. He shoved against himself till he felt static at the corners of his sight. This felt necessary, somewhat, an atonement for his sins against Bruce, to feel the pressure he inflicted, but he couldn’t get a good traction with his knuckles, and he was sure, just from the fight that radiated out from under Bruce’s skin, that whatever Thor was trying was nothing compared to that.

“Hey, geez, don’t do that,” Bruce’s hand covered one of Thor’s and slipped it down. Thor allowed himself one curl around Bruce’s pinky with his index finger and uncoiled it as soon as he saw Bruce’s eyes drift to it.

“I . . . wanted to know how it felt for you.”

Bruce went into a wide eyed silence and took a pace away from Thor, left foot catching on his right.

“No, you-you shouldn’t want that,” Bruce said to the floor and Thor’s shoulders squared around his ears. He was certain, that if he was making Bruce’s head shake with rumbles, that if Bruce couldn’t meet his eyes, he must be truly awful.

“I-uh, Loki, I have to go meet Loki,” Thor shot at Bruce, turning as he spoke to the door and just missing seeing what Bruce’s eyes would have looked like when they returned to him.

His lunch with Loki was actually not for another thirty minutes or so but he really couldn’t look at Bruce right now, and he was fairly certain his presence was giving Bruce crippling migraines, so he took himself over to the cafeteria, flicked dirt out from under his nails, and waited.

“Why are you all twitchy, and stuff? What’s happening?” Loki settled across from Thor with a cup of something steaming. His brow was dipping into the skin of his eyelid as he scanned over the stretch of Thor, vaguely judgemental, as per usual.

“Ah, am I?” Thor checked himself. There was a tremble shimmying from his shoulder and through his thigh to his foot. He stopped, but the tension was still there, transmitting from his head in rolling waves as he thought about the situation he had screwed himself into.

“Yes, you are. Is it the politics overwhelming your very blond head?”

“No!” Thor replied, overly defensive, but, well, his head was a bit too blond for politics and he didn’t want to be reminded of the fact. He corrected his tone, “No, it is not-well, I do have a political query for you of sorts.”

“You can’t change your official title to Thor: King, Strongest Avenger, and National Asskicker,” Loki drawled, a smirk growing around his spoon as he ate his soup.

“Um, I am the only king so I think I can-wait, no, not what I was asking. I want you to be my foreign minister,” Thor whipped out a big grin on issuing on what he had hoped would be a joyous announcement. He was met with Loki’s smirk working away into a scathing frown.

“You are truly an idiot.”

“Excuse me?” Thor balked. Loki tossed his head back with a pull of a grimace across his face.

“I will absolutely not be doing that.” Loki was starting to look near disgusted and it was making Thor wonder if he had somehow insulted him. Maybe foreign minister hadn’t been big enough. Probably that.

“Now, I know foreign minister might not seem so grand, brother, but it’s perfect for you. All, ah, the cunning and strategy and being mean to other dignitaries,” Thor explained. Loki didn’t soften.

“No one here on this ship wants me anywhere near government,” he huffed back. Thor pulled his lips taut and shook his head.

“Uh, I do? Why aren’t you happy? You should be happy.” He sort of hated this act Loki put on of self pity, digging himself so firmly into the place of social pariah, which, well, maybe he was now after all he’d done. It was a chicken and egg deal with that, though, because Thor couldn’t remember when Loki was ever not whining about acceptance and lamenting his lot in life.

“I, wow, I can’t believe you’re actually this naive. You’re going to piss off all your councils, and, of course, Heimdall, if you make me anything. I mean, for Odin’s sake, you’ve already elected the beast as-”

“Do not,” Thor bellowed, a determined finger swinging out and attracting the attention of a couple two tables behind them, “call Bruce a beast.”

“Ah,” Loki said and his smirk returned with a fervor, like he had solved it. Thor groaned, because Loki had somehow turned this into a display of Thor’s complicated hang ups.

“What would you do if, in a theoretical situation, you really enjoyed someone’s company very much, but your company caused them pain?” Thor asked after he had decided he had been manipulated. Loki stared for a long moment, vacant face, before he spoke.

“Could you, theoretically, be caught for this?”

“Yes,” Thor answered, sweat brimming on the brink of his neck. He wasn’t sure exactly what the extent of Hulk and Bruce’s communication was, and his secret felt like it was wafting closer to the surface every day.

“Then I’d leave them the fuck alone,” Loki said, and Thor deflated.

Avoiding Bruce became easier as Thor went on with it. The ship had many areas to escape to, like the gym, that had bags and people to punch, the cafeteria, with meat to feast upon and people who were not Bruce to converse with, and occasionally, Loki’s quarters, which mostly resulted in both him and Thor becoming increasingly aggravated and was consequently low on Thor’s list of visiting spots. And though Bruce was up late most nights with his work on his paper, Thor could feign sleep well enough and their talking was minimalized.

Thor didn’t know if he liked the ease with which he was able to avoid Bruce.

He couldn’t, however, avoid Bruce in the council meetings. Bruce, as direct chancellor to the king, was at every one of them, sitting right next to Thor over piles of haphazard notes.

“No, no, we are going with Ariagana’s policy, not Haldier’s,” Bruce mumbled, only for Thor, slipping a page out from the others. Thor skimmed the lines on trade laws.

“We want the one with . . . ah, more safety checks on imported goods.” His eyes wandered over Bruce’s way, who gave him a small nod. Thor warmed as a curl stumbled over onto Bruce forehead with the motion. He brought his mind back to the meeting.

Bruce was a mighty distraction, though. This was the only long stretch Thor allowed himself to have of Bruce and it was hard not to fall down the coiled trap of watching all the quirks and fidgets Bruce was prone to. At that moment, Thor was getting a side-eyed view of how Bruce looped his pencil over and under his fingers in idle seconds. This, he supposed, creepily observing his private movements and ministrations, would have to fill the gaps left by their star charting and movie marathons and late night talks.

The meeting ended when a debate between two members of the agriculture committee got violent, where Thor decided with Bruce he was very clearly on Einar’s side.

“Hey.” Bruce grabbed Thor in the rush of people exiting the meeting room. Thor couldn’t help but notice that Bruce’s eyes were ghosted with the dull gray of stress.

“Hi, uh, hey, Banner,” Thor said, with an edge, with a border. Bruce’s lip ticked down, but he didn’t correct it, “Thanks for . . . you’re really good with the notes, thanks.”

“Course, bud,” Bruce said with a sigh and Thor could feel the sense of more underneath it. Despite himself, Thor didn’t leave. It had been four days without real conversation between the two. He had been craving.

“Can I ask you a question?” Thor offered. Bruce lit up.

“Sure.”

“With that film we watched, the one about the mean alien and the really badass lady warrior, is that cat okay in the end? I know the xenomorph doesn’t eat him but-” Bruce’s laugh bustled in and Thor’s brow bunched up, “What?”

“You are so precious,” Bruce said, face going soft in the edges of his mouth and the wrinkles of his eyes. Somewhere in between the muscles of Thor’s abs and his gut, a match was lit and as it sparked, his lungs burned. He took in two large gulps of air.

Bruce broke the fuzz, though, as he groaned and pressed fingertips to his temple. Thor caught himself, and guilt dredged out the fire.

“Have to go,” he shot before Bruce could say anymore. And Thor ran, fast, fast, fast.

He landed in the gym by riding his foggy wave of remorse and worry. The punching bag in the far left of the room became his venting for his anger at himself and the sparks that glinted across him when Bruce’s lips split open across his teeth. As fists flew and Thor’s vision blurred, time sped and dragged in equal portions, and Thor wasn’t sure, when someone pulled him off the crumbling bag, if he had been there for thirty minutes or five hours.

“Shit, that bag owe you money?” Valkyrie asked as Thor stumbled away from the bag. He huffed at it, then looked back over to Valkyrie, who looked like a solution.

“Spar with me?” he asked. Valkyrie’s mouth quirked up fast.

“Yeah,” she replied, followed closely by a fist zooming for Thor’s head. Thor ducked it and hooked Valkyrie’s waist until she was dipping with him.

“You’re upsetting Bruce,” Valkyrie said from under Thor’s hold. Thor gave her a long look and a puff of a ‘huh’. Valkyrie took the moment to loop her thighs around Thor’s neck and tumble them both back.

“How . . . do  . . . you know?” stumbled Thor. Valkyrie laughed, but with a sigh, loosened her legs.

“He told me. Cause I talk to Bruce, unlike you, apparently?” she explained, and the legs fell. She leaned on her elbows on the rubber-ish mat below them, “Why is that?”

Thor flipped her forward as an objection to replying. She hissed out as her back slammed the floor with a might. Thor winced for her.

“Sorry.” Thor looked away as Valkyrie rolled her eyes. She started up and took a run towards him. Thor tossed his arms up as a counter.

“So what’s up?” Valkyrie asked around swings.

“What’s what?”

“You and Bruce? Are you, like, obsessed, or something? Because you are very, very freaky about him, whether or not you’re flirting with him.”

“Flirting? I, no, no, you-” Thor staggered. His hands were antsy with the allegation and they found traction in careful placement on Valkyrie’s shoulder and hip. His leg got a hit in at her gut, “I-look, flirting, no, and obsession, no. I’m not. I don’t get obsessed, please. That’s below me.”

“Ha! Okay, King, excuse me. Forgot how excellent and above us all you are,” Valkyrie said with an elbow to Thor’s chin. He took a stumble back, finishing it with a spit of whatever she had hit out of him. With a step forward and a toss of a fist, they were crashing blows again.

“Okay, so, well, I’m not saying I’m above you. I just, not obsessed. Bruce is-he . . . just, I just enjoy conversation with him because he is funny and a genius at Midgard science and has good Midgardian films to watch and listens to me and turns into a really cool green guy and makes jokes about things I don’t get but I’m trying to and-and . . . oh, oh. Oh.”

Thor was huffing hot air out into the room and on Valkyrie at that point, the fight only half to blame.

The air room in his head was being sucked out. He was dumb, very dumb. He was made a fool by Bruce in shirts that were too big, with his damned curls and wrinkles and smiles and olive skin. Thor didn’t know how he could only find this from pain and utter Bruce Banner starvation. Despite this, despite being a giant idiot who couldn’t even understand the workings of his own self, Thor felt a smile bubble up on his red face. He didn’t fully snap out of it when a foot knocked him in the chest and he fell to the floor. Instead, warm with electricity and blood rushing everywhere at once, Thor rolled his head up to Valkyrie.

“Oh Gods, I’m in love with Bruce.”

Okay so if you're wondering why they watch so many 80's movies, Bruce Banner, if going based on Mark Ruffallo, should be like 48 or 49, so, a total 80's baby. He also loves Sixteen Candles, Queen, and the Cure.

[polaristranslations]

Musubimonogatari: Afterword

Afterword

After I started writing a series, the question I've gotten the most tired of being asked and having to answer would be the oft-asked, "How far in advance did you think of these things?" If I answer "I didn't particularly think of anything in advance", then it would just sound hostile and disappoint the asker, but if I answer "Everything was calculated well in advance and everything is going according to plan", that also sounded rather unpleasant. Saying, "Things were thought of in advance to some degree, but a lot of it was set up to reasonably fit the situation and trends at the time, and I managed to put it together in some way or another, despite adding new things or going back to old things on the fly" would be the most accurate answer, and you might wonder, what part of this ambiguous answer could possibly be accurate? But really, that's about it. In short, it's a problem that involves "to some degree" or "to some extent", so if you ask whether something is 1 or 0 with no in-between--well, no matter how much an author plans things out, I highly doubt that there's anyone that can make things go perfectly as planned over a course of a series. When you actually start writing, it may end up turning out completely different from what you imagined in your head, and it's something you won't know until you try, so it's not necessarily the right thing to do to insist on sticking to the plan, either. It is important to carry out your original intention, of course, but "if you do it once and it's bad, you should do it again" is also a possibility. What's important is not to "think of things in advance", but to "keep thinking of things until the very end", is ultimately what I've repeatedly ended up believing and not believing.

Anyway, taking this from a different perspective, then what about the Monogatari Series? When the two volumes of "Bakemonogatari" were published in 2006, I can't definitively speak for whether or not I had any ideas of the contents of the book you're reading, since I can't remember very clearly, but it's likely that I hadn't written a single word of this book. Far from "Bakemonogatari", even when I wrote the previous work, "Nademonogatari", I believe I hadn't written a single word of this book. Well, I'm sure there was at least a single word. But if you take that to mean that I hadn't thought of anything about it at all, then I don't think that's quite right, either. I had probably thought about it, thought about it, thought about it, and thought about it some more, and with over ten years passing, I can surmise that some of what I thought about stayed alive in some form or another in this book. I can believe that the things I thought about didn't go to waste. For example, even if there was an idea I didn't use, that train of thought had still taken form, which could then have acted as another path for me. And so, you have this book that was one hundred percent written as a hobby, the once-again completed Monogatari Series, the 22nd volume detailing Araragi Koyomi at 23 years of age, the final book of the Off Season, "Musubimonogatari".

I am grateful to VOFAN-san for the illustration of Senjougahara Hitagi in a white kimono on the cover. Thank you very much. She is also 23 years old now. As a bit of an overlap with the cover of "Bakemonogatari", she's carrying a stapler in her hand. Ten years ago, I would never have predicted that Senjougahara-san would grace the cover of a book like this. Now then, what shall I think of next?

Nisio Isin

Translator's Afterword

If you've reached this point while under the impression that you've just finished reading the novel, "Musubimonogatari", by Nisio Isin, then you'd be wrong. At worst, this is just some well-written fanfiction. Or perhaps even poorly-written, depending on your tastes. Anyway, the point I'm trying to get at is that a translated work is never simply just "translated"--the work inevitably has to be interpreted and transformed by the translator, and the output that is produced will inevitably contain the translator's presumptions and biases, whether they're biases regarding the work itself, biases regarding the English language, or something else entirely. It's almost like a warped version of the Ship of Theseus. Well, in short, just take my translation (and by extension, all translations) with a grain of salt. I just felt like writing a smart-sounding paragraph to sound clever and philosophical like Nisio did above.

Overall, I took a much more cavalier (that is, lazy) approach to this novel, focusing more on readability in English than preserving every minute detail of the text as presented in Japanese. Hopefully I succeeded, and the text does flow well enough for an amateur translation. I figure it's worth noting that in a Japanese-to-English translation, you'd think the hard part would be being fluent in Japanese, but honestly I felt like this was a bigger challenge to my knowledge of the English language more than anything. I also went with an approach of not using translator's notes, since I always felt like they interrupted reading (especially with something like footnotes, which do not work on webpages because of how far you have to scroll down the page). Fortunately for this novel, there wasn't really a whole lot worth explaining, aside from the few puns that I just slipped in in-line Japanese readings for. Although, if a certain tongue-tied snail had appeared, that would have been its own struggle entirely.

There are so many more things about the translation that I could address, but it's probably better to stop myself now. In a way, I both pity and envy official translators who don't necessarily get a space like this to ramble on about their own opinions. Ideally, a translation should be able to stand on its own without its translator hovering around it like a helicopter parent, but on the other hand, it can be useful to have a space where I can take responsibility for my own influences that I've introduced into this translation. Regardless, on behalf of the original author, thanks for reading "Musubimonogatari", and please continue to support the Monogatari Series in the future.

Polaris

[skeletonpunching]

Vatican Miracle Examiner book recap - The Apostles Without Original Sin

Or the one where Hiraga and Roberto go to Japan, and then… uh.

Things this book definitely contains: Hiraga being adorable, your regular dose of Roberto whump, shady Vatican politics, lots of esoteric science and history, and spoilers for stuff past the anime.

Beyond that, I grow uncertain.

This post has been in the works for a very long time, partly because I found the plot of this book pretty confusing, even by VME standards.

The publisher’s official summary:

At Amakusa in Kumamoto Prefecture, a snowstorm is observed in midsummer, and a massive cross suddenly rises into the sky. At the same time, an ocean explorer who was shipwrecked in the sea nearby claims, "I was rescued by a beautiful black-haired angel." Hiraga and Roberto begin their miracle examination, but even more enigmatic mysteries and codes surface in the land of Amakusa, suffused with the remnants of the Hidden Christians’ faith. What is the truth behind the legend of Amakusa Shirou?

As always, I am a mere mortal and can only do my best to capture the glory.

(This is more of a standalone episode than some others, but you may want to read my previous recaps to get the lowdown on a new recurring character, Dr. Chandra Singh.)

This book is a slow burn, especially compared to the others I’ve recapped. That is to say, there’s a lot of great character stuff, but there isn’t as high a concentration of “what the hell is happening” on a page-to-page basis. It absolutely gets weird, but the nature and extent of that weirdness isn’t as upfront from the start.

Reading this book was like sailing a boat through the fog, squinting at the faint outlines I glimpsed in the distance and wondering if they were just my imagination, until I crashed straight into the iceberg and started sinking. I hope you’ll stick with me.

And on that nautical note...

The prologue introduces us to Robinson Baker, a 26-year-old American ocean explorer. He’s fit and bronzed and has appeared in fashion magazines, but lest you think he’s just a pretty face, he’s made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs won the Vendée Globe, a solo non-stop yacht race around the world.

Now he’s sailing his yacht solo across the Pacific for a magazine piece on “Pursuing the Legend of Prester John”. Robinson himself isn’t really religious, but reading the legend as a kid was what made him aspire to be an ocean explorer.

He’s currently heading towards Japan; he has no particular interest in Japan either, but the magazine editors made him write that “the kingdom of Prester John might possibly be Japan”, for clickbait reasons I guess. Mostly he’s looking forward to partying with his adoring fans at a swanky hotel.

This is interrupted by a typhoon warning. Robinson is pretty confident it won’t be any trouble, but as the typhoon approaches without weakening and the boat starts rattling ominously, it occurs to him that maybe he’s miscalculated. He considers calling for help, but then decides against it because he’s too attached to his reputation as a badass. He can handle this! He’s hardcore! Time to shut himself in the cabin and struggle with his growing dread!

The storm, unimpressed by his level of hardcore, overturns his boat. He’s still at least 15 km from land. Before the water pressure can trap him inside the cabin of the sinking yacht, Robinson makes his best decision so far and, wearing a life-jacket, he throws himself into the sea - “the sea he loved more than anything, which was now betraying him”. I’d accuse him of being melodramatic, but honestly it seems justified.

Something hits him on the back of the head and knocks him out, which at least saves him from making any more bad decisions.

When he wakes up and finds himself still adrift, he prays to God for the first time in his life, and in that instant he sees a pale light that doesn’t look like a lighthouse or buoy. He paddles towards it with his remaining strength, and as his consciousness ebbs, he sees: a miracle! The glowing figure of Jesus Christ is floating above the surface of the pitch-black ocean, wearing a crown of thorns and holding a shepherd’s staff!

Robinson swims towards it, having a religious epiphany the whole time, and finally makes it to shore. He thanks God, and the figure of Christ vanishes into the darkness, leaving Robinson alone on a deserted beach. He’s too exhausted to budge any further. Guess he’ll freeze to death here! But then:

A beautiful angel came walking along the beach, long black hair fluttering.

With a tender smile, the angel gently touched Robinson’s body.

Robinson is engulfed in a sense of warmth and relief, and passes out.

We will be returning to Robinson, which is why I’ve recapped the prologue so extensively.

But for now, we head to the Vatican, which recently decided that IT dungeons weren’t enough and added some CODEBREAKING dungeons. Previously, members of different religious orders weren’t able to collaborate or discuss their work across party lines. But Saul has been working on implementing reforms, like establishing the new “Forbidden Documents Research Division” (mentioned in Norway book), which brings together scholars from various factions and ranks to decipher old Vatican texts that have been sealed away in the archives for ages.

Roberto, naturally, is part of this elite new codebreaking division. But Vatican transparency only goes so far - the names of the members aren’t publicised, and they aren’t actually allowed to interact with each other. They’re locked in separate rooms and have to get the guard to let them out when they want to leave. Roberto isn’t really bothered by this because hey, old books!

He was deeply proud to have been selected as a member, and it put him in high spirits. But at the same time, he suspected that Archbishop Saul had created this department with some sort of deep plan in mind.

Oh well, no point worrying about Vatican politics when there’s NERDING OUT to be done. Roberto is deciphering a classified document about a ceremony at Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey on Easter 1633. Somehow Roberto makes the mental leap to the fact that Galileo’s trial for heresy took place in 1633, and this gets him thinking about how the church suppressed all this cutting-edge knowledge.

In this way, the knowledge that was “hunted down” had grown into vast archives of classified material. These had been hoarded in the Vatican - which had led the Roman Inquisition - and the headquarters of the various Catholic orders.

Hadn’t this been fuelled by an extraordinary possessiveness and desire to monopolise knowledge? No, that was too mild a way of putting it. It must have been something like a frenzy - a maddening passion.

Roberto was aware that he himself possessed such passion, and so he could understand these people.

Through trial and error, he hits upon using the Lullian Circle to decode the document - he constructs his own Lullian Circle, and when he encounters some cryptic string of characters, he treats it as a substitution cipher. By lining up the three concentric circles of the Lullian Circle and considering the associations between the words, he can unpack a range of complex meaning from just nine characters, and he manages to decode the whole document this way. Basically he is being very smart and I’m not doing justice to it.

The document turns out to be about a ritual performed by “the ones illuminated by light”. Roberto is alarmed, because he realises that this is VME and of course “Those who referred to themselves as such were none other than the Illuminati.” The Illuminati predates the Catholic orders; it formed among the Roman ruling classes, influenced by Egyptian mythology, and so it turns out that there was worship of Isis and Horus going on right there in the abbey.

It occurs to Roberto that the Jesuits use the emblem “IHS”, which allegedly stands for “Iesus Hominum Salvator” - but it also happens to be the initials of the three Egyptian deities Isis, Horus, and Set.

Was this merely a coincidence?

Sure, it could be, but why go with the tiny-brain explanation? It could also be a sign of the DARK INFLUENCE OF THE ILLUMINATI in the Catholic Church.

If the forbidden documents continued to be deciphered, this was bound to come to light eventually - and then the extent of their influence over the Catholic world would inevitably become clear.

What on earth is Archbishop Saul planning?

He’s probably laying the groundwork to flush out the dark powers that have spread throughout the Vatican…

But that’s far too dangerous…

Roberto decides to shelve this thought for now and just do his job. He writes his report, has lunch delivered to the room, and takes a break to have judgemental thoughts about how the latte is cold and the panini are tough and it’s all very unpalatable.

Hey, maybe it’s time for the actual plot to start! Roberto leaves the codebreaking dungeon at 8 pm, and sees that he’s gotten an email from Hiraga: “There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.” Roberto figures that Hiraga is probably still in the lab (guys, please, it’s 8 pm, stop making everyone look bad), and calls him.

“Yes, this is Hiraga- ah!”

From the other end of the line came the sound of something heavy falling over.

“You... what’s wrong?”

“No, nothing at all, please don’t mind it. More importantly, Father Roberto, did you see my email?”

“I did. You said there’s something you want to discuss?”

“Yes. I’m sorry to bother you when you’re so busy, but…”

Hiraga launches straight into rambling about the discovery of a cross in the sea near Goa. He’s “rattling on at the velocity of a runaway train” when Roberto clears his throat and cuts in. “It’s getting late, so if you like, how about we have dinner at my place and you can tell me about it slowly?” Hiraga thinks this is a “wonderful proposal”, hangs up, and soon shows up in person, out of breath.

Roberto cooks a delicious meal of lamb chops, grilled vegetables, risotto, and some smoked salmon appetisers, while listening to his favourite bossa nova music, because this man doesn’t know how to chill. But I guess when you have an appreciative audience...

“It smells excellent. Thank you for always cooking such splendid meals, Father Roberto. I find it incredible that you can make such elaborate dishes in your own kitchen,” Hiraga said admiringly.

“No, they’re not really that elaborate.”

“Is that so? They seem very complicated to me…”

Hiraga began to scrutinise the table closely, as though examining the subject of an investigation. Seeing this, Roberto hastily spoke.

“Let’s eat before it gets cold.”

“Yes,” Hiraga said, and went on with a bright smile.

"Father Roberto, I'm sorry for always imposing on you like this. My house is currently undergoing renovations. I will invite you over once they are completed."

What?! Roberto thought, reflexively doubting his ears.

Hiraga was utterly unconcerned with matters of everyday life, and dwelt placidly in a house that had transformed into a mountain of trash. The news that he was undertaking renovations was truly astonishing.

Knowing him, he was probably planning on constructing a laboratory in his house.

"Is that so? I look forward to it," Roberto replied with a vague smile.

Hiraga eats a bit of his food, and then starts going on about the mysterious cross again. It washed up in some fishermen’s nets, and when appraised, it turned out to be hollow, containing a cache of Catholic ritual stuff. This includes a “holy belt”, which is embroidered with the crest of the person who had it made, but Hiraga can’t identify it, so he wanted to consult Roberto.

Hiraga takes out his laptop to show Roberto a picture of the crest, and “Roberto took that moment to sneak a lamb chop onto Hiraga’s dish.”

Then he takes a look at the picture and oh, very simple, it’s Gregorius XIII. Of course. This turns into talking about Malachy’s Prophecy of the Popes, and this quality exposition really gets Hiraga going.

Hiraga leant forward across the table; Roberto looked pointedly at the food and said, “Do eat for now.”

Hiraga absentmindedly took a mouthful of risotto, and bit into the lamb chop.

Roberto mentions how the prophecies have been used as propaganda by power-hungry church officials who wanted to get elected pope.

Hiraga wore an expression of disbelief.

To a pure person like him, it was practically undreamt of that people would maliciously manipulate the hearts of others - let alone in the Vatican, the nation of God.

[...]

“Is that so… One could say that Catholicism is currently facing an upheaval, but at least there aren’t any new phony prophecies circulating. I’m glad.”

Hiraga beamed and took a drink of his wine.

Roberto, who had lately been reading nothing but forbidden books about savagery, felt himself awash in gratitude at having a partner as pure as Hiraga.

The reason why Hiraga did not notice the malice of others was because he himself harboured no malice.

When talking to this friend, Roberto felt as though he was cleansed of the dirt of the world.

Roberto’s face softened, and he continued eating.

From tomorrow onwards, I’ll try to take things easier. I’ll go out for lunch at least, and if the timing works out, I’ll invite Hiraga to dinner. Even as an apostle of God, I should be entitled to enjoy life.

As he was thinking this, Hiraga spoke up.

“Roberto, how are things going at the Forbidden Documents Research Division?”

“Mm, so-so. The work itself isn’t too different from what I usually do. It’s just that every day I have a feeling of tension, like it’s hard to breathe.”

“That sounds difficult. If there is anything I can do to help, please say the word.”

“Sure, I will.” Roberto nodded.

“This just occurred to me, but from now on, won’t you be busy whenever I’m sent on miracle examinations? Will I end up being partnered with someone else?”

“I wonder. It’s up to Archbishop Saul to say, but after all, my ultimate duty is as a miracle examiner. If I’m sent on an official mission, I’ll gladly comply.”

“I see. So that’s how it is.”

Neither of them expected that an opportunity to resolve their doubts would arrive so soon.

Haha, okay, NOW it’s actually time for the plot! Two days later, Saul summons them and gives them the mission: they’re going to Japan to investigate the miracle of a midsummer blizzard in Amakusa, and a giant cross that appeared in the sky and then vanished. Oh, and there’s also a young American who’s been yelling about how a glowing image of Christ and an angel appeared and saved his life, a few days before that.

Hiraga is very into this miracle and wants to go check it out as soon as possible, but Saul points out that there are… complications. The Vatican received an investigation request from a church in Amakusa, which is run by Jesuits; if it’s verified, they want to build a church near the site of the miracle. But our excitable American friend has been in touch with the Franciscan church in his California hometown, and they also submitted a petition to the Vatican; if it’s legit, they want to embark upon missionary work in Amakusa. So there have been some dick-measuring contests negotiations between the Franciscans (to which Roberto and Hiraga belong) and the Jesuits.

The higher-ups discussed it, and decided that Roberto and Hiraga were the most qualified to deal with this level of Weird Shit. Well, the real clincher is that it happened in Japan, so Hiraga seems like the obvious choice. But our heroes will be hosted by the local Jesuit priests, and this level of cooperation between different orders is kind of an anomaly.

“So we’ll be heading to Japan tomorrow, huh? I’m looking forward to this much more than the usual miracle examinations,” Roberto said cheerfully, as they set off down the corridor.

“Why is that?” Hiraga asked, puzzled.

“You’re of Japanese descent, aren’t you? You could say it’s the country where you have your roots. I’m interested in it.”

Hiraga let out a long sigh.

“About that - I’m very uneasy.”

“Why?”

“I myself am unsure whether I’m that familiar with Japan. Even though it’s my grandfather’s birthplace, I only ever visited the country when I was a child…” Hiraga muttered. “Just now, Archbishop Saul said, ‘The location being Japan was the deciding factor; it was settled that Father Hiraga was the most qualified’ - when I heard that, I thought my heart would stop.”

Hiraga had straight black hair and black almond-shaped eyes. His skin was fair, but unlike a Westerner’s complexion, it was the tint of ivory. His slender, petite frame was another of the many obvious features of his Japanese heritage. Even at the Seat of the Disciple, many people knew him as “the Japanese priest”.

But in fact, Hiraga did not know Japan especially well. It was merely that his parents were both of Japanese descent, and so they had also spoken Japanese in the household.

“By the way, Roberto, do you know Japanese?”

At Hiraga’s question, Roberto grimaced.

“Japanese is difficult - I haven’t been able to tackle it. European languages share the same roots, so I can learn them without too much trouble, but Japanese is one of the world’s most difficult languages. I won’t be able to step up as interpreter this time.”

“Then, I’ll have to translate Japanese, won’t I…”

“I’ll be in your care.”

“Yes… I’m not really confident about that, but I will at least spend tonight studying hard,” Hiraga said with a small shrug.

As it turns out, they’re welcomed by local priests who speak Latin, so Hiraga is spared for now. Roberto wastes no time getting judgemental when one of the local priests, Kitami, has the audacity to smile at him.

His smile was merely an upward curve of his thin lips; those eyes did not smile.

A cunning man, Roberto thought.

Hiraga, meanwhile, is listening to another local priest (Nishimaru) talk about how the four junior priests at the church all went to seminary together and have been friends since.

They drive to the local church; Roberto, whose knowledge of Japan is mostly limited to the urban landscapes of Tokyo and Kyoto, thinks that this peaceful rural scenery reminds him of some corner of Southeast Asia.

Hiraga got out of the car with a spring in his step, and murmured delightedly, “It looks like my grandfather’s hometown.”

They’re introduced to Father Gerard, the guy in charge, and the other two young priests, Nanjou and Andou. (At this point, I start rooting for some of them to die soon so I don’t have to keep track of all these names. I can reassure you that most of their names aren’t actually important, but they each contain one of the cardinal directions - Nishimaru is west, Kitami is north, Nanjou and Andou are South and East - which I thought was a pretty hilarious bit of theme naming.)

The youngsters make sure to introduce themselves as being “from the Society of Jesus”, which rubs Roberto the wrong way. Uh, waiter, how did this political intrigue get in his nerdery

“Thank you for your warm welcome. Although we belong to the Franciscan order, we are priests serving the same God as you. The current Pope himself is from the Society of Jesus, but I understand that he dispatched us Franciscans here in hopes of a more impartial investigation. We will investigate this incident with wholehearted commitment, in order to be worthy of the trust His Holiness has placed in us.”

Father Gerard smirked cynically.

“To be frank, it came as a surprise that they were sending Franciscan miracle examiners. But I, too, have received direct instructions from the Jesuit higher-ups to cooperate with you. Since that is how the matter was settled, I intend to abide by my superiors’ decision.”

“You have our heartfelt gratitude for your cooperation,” Roberto replied without missing a beat.

“By the way, when can we go to the site of the miracle?” Hiraga interjected from the side.

They’ll have to wait till tomorrow for the boat, but in the meantime, they can settle in and talk to Robinson, who is staying in the same lodgings as them. It’s an inn on the outskirts of the village, run by a guy named Yoshioka, who’s very honoured to be hosting actual priests from the Vatican.

Yoshioka tells them about how Kamishima - the small uninhabited island where the miracle actually took place, off the coast of Amakusa - has always been rumoured to be cursed. Residents include: a frightening deity named Mahiru, spirits such as ghost lights and oil pressers, and poisonous snakes. Fun times.

Our heroes meet Robinson, who is wearing a yukata and sitting seiza-style, and greets them in Japanese. Hiraga, too, sits down seiza-style and bows his head. Robinson seems deeply stirred by this image, and goes, “Oooh… What a charming priest.” (Roberto, at a loss, imitates Hiraga’s posture, but his legs immediately start to hurt.)

Robinson tearfully recounts the story of his near-death experience - how he was saved by the glowing figure of Christ and then a beautiful angel with long fluttering hair, and survived to be picked up by a passing fishing boat.

“By the way, Mr. Robinson, even though the island is uninhabited, that does not necessarily refute the existence of the angel.”

“So you believe me, Father Hiraga?”

“Yes. I have no reason not to believe,” Hiraga replied with a smile.

“I see… Everyone I talked to said it was all just in my head, and I was starting to be convinced myself. But with you believing me, I feel like I’ve been saved. Thank you, Father Hiraga,” Robinson said joyfully.

Robinson, dude, he’s married, slow your roll

Then our heroes go to their room, where we’re treated to more culture shock with Roberto Nicolas. He’s startled that there’s no furniture - no bed, no desk, no sofa. Meanwhile, Hiraga’s only qualm is that they need to set up wifi, so he can be a nerd at all hours.

Hiraga cheerfully explains what a kotatsu is - you can write on it, you can lie down when you’re tired, and it heats the room in winter.

“I see…”

When Hiraga was at home, he would occasionally sit on the floor rather than using the sofa, and would roll about on the floor. Roberto now understood that this was due to Japan’s culture of using the kotatsu.

Then Hiraga explains what tatami is to Roberto, who needs a pile of cushions to settle down and remarks, “I have trouble with the way you’re sitting. Is it considered rude in Japan to sit with your legs crossed Arabian-style?” Hiraga reassures him that it’s perfectly fine.

Hiraga is apparently in full travel-show-host mode, because he decides to make tea.

Hiraga: There’s a tea chest here. I’ll brew some tea.

Roberto: You will? That’s rare.

Hiraga: I do know the general method for brewing tea. You steam it a little, like this. But you may find Japanese tea bitter.

Roberto: Excuse me, I do know a thing or two about Japanese tea. Asian teas which are rich in catechin and vitamins have been getting a lot of attention in Rome lately. There are even baristas who specialise in Japanese tea. The different varieties of Japanese tea are bancha, sencha, houjicha, genmaicha, kukicha, gyokuro, matcha… and so on. So, what kind of tea are you brewing right now?

Hiraga, softly: I don’t know. I’ve never thought about the different kinds of tea. I figured that if it was light green, it was green tea, and if it was light brown, it was regular tea.

Then they go to dinner, where they meet Yuuko, their host’s daughter who also works at the inn. She’s young and beautiful and demure, and blushes when her father talks about how sweet she is and proud he is of her.

“That girl truly feels like a model of Japanese womanhood,” Roberto murmured admiringly.

“How so, exactly?” Hiraga inquired, puzzled.

“She’s quiet and gentle, and seems shy and obedient.”

“Is that so? There are many Westerners who hold this image of Japanese women, but all the Japanese women I know are surprisingly strong-willed.”

“Oh? I really can’t see it.”

Roberto shrugged.

Roberto, man, don’t be one of THOSE guys.

At this point, Yoshioka serves them a dish piled high with sashimi, which awes and intimidates them. Hiraga objects that they’re priests and really don’t need such lavish food, and also, he’s worried about whether Roberto can handle eating sashimi. But it turns out to be fresh and tasty, and they eat half of it before Hiraga starts feeling the strain.

And then Yoshioka brings out the rest of the meal, which is a massive donburi full of rice and fish sauce.

Hiraga broke out in a cold sweat.

“...Roberto, I’m sorry, but my stomach has reached its limit.”

Hiraga set his chopsticks down on the table.

“Honestly, me too. But the fish sauce is pretty tasty. How about you try a bite? The flavour is different, so maybe it’ll put you in a new mood and you can enjoy the food.”

Roberto reached for the fish sauce, looking a little relieved.

“You’re talking strangely. My mood has no effect on my stomach capacity,” Hiraga muttered, suppressing a hiccup.

The two of them agree that this is just Too Much for them, and Hiraga should go request that Yoshioka halve their portions from now on. I almost feel like I don’t need the casefic plot, I would be fine with the Roberto and Hiraga Travelogue forever.

But the casefic plot wants to remind us that it exists, because suddenly, while Hiraga is talking to Yoshioka, Roberto sees a mysterious figure standing stock-still outside the window. It’s a young Japanese girl with pale skin and black hair, dressed in white, and she’s staring expressionlessly at him.

A chill runs down Roberto’s spine, but presumably because he hasn’t seen The Ring, he doesn’t freak out and nope the hell out of there. He glances around, but no one else seems to have noticed the girl’s presence, and when he looks back, she’s gone.

Hiraga returns and asks what’s wrong, and Roberto deflects, because of course he does.

Meanwhile, our American friend Robinson is bored. He’d rather be partying in California, not out here in the sticks where there’s one karaoke bar and it closes at 10 pm. He can’t even chat up his adoring friends in California, because of time differences. Robinson has gotten very fond of Japan, but this is a real issue.

Robinson decides to engage in the classic American pastime of getting drunk and setting off fireworks without permission, and that’s exactly what he does. He tries to drive back to the inn after this, but gets lost in a creepy forest.

This reminds Robinson that he watched an anime movie a few days ago, about spirits living in the Japanese forest. So naturally he should go check out the forest right now! Our intrepid explorer finds a bunch of old houses surrounded by graves, and then his flashlight goes out. He’s trying not to freak out, but then he hears a slithering noise like a giant snake, and an unearthly flickering ball of flame appears before him. The flame is held in a disembodied dark green hand, like a zombie’s.

Robinson loses it and bolts for the car, and heads straight to our heroes to yell about this.

It’s 4 am, and Roberto was planning to sleep in a bit more, but Robinson is clearly panicking; he clings to Hiraga’s arm and pleads, “H-help me!” He raves about having seen a phantom and been possessed by it, and Roberto blesses him with holy water until he settles down enough to describe what he saw. Robinson adds that he used to visit haunted places with his friends just for fun, but he never saw anything, and they called him “Robinson the Fearless” - but apparently now he can see God AND he’s plagued by demons too? He doesn’t want this, guys.

Hiraga says, “No, I believe that you may have encountered a legendary lifeform.” Roberto has no idea what he’s talking about. Hiraga explains that after Yoshioka mentioned the oil presser spirits earlier, he did some research online. They’re youkai that manifest as hands holding oil or fire, and there’s no record of them causing harm to humans, they just give them a fright. Robinson doesn’t really get it, but he goes along with the explanation.

Hiraga nodded in satisfaction, and looked over at Roberto.

“So even Father Roberto, with his extensive trove of knowledge about folklore, isn't familiar with Japanese youkai?”

Roberto stared back at Hiraga, astonished.

“No, well, youkai are basically creatures like Yeti and Mothman, aren’t they? So because I don’t know about Japanese youkai, you’ve been staying up late to research this?”

“Yes, that’s right. I borrowed some compilations of local folklore from Mr. Yoshioka, and I’ve been reading them,” Hiraga said, indicating several books next to his pillow.

“......”

“It’s not out of mere curiosity. Ghost lights and oil pressers - they’re both spirits related to combustion phenomena. And so I thought that they might have something to do with the glowing image of Christ, and the mysterious shining cross. Usually you would be the one to tell me about this kind of information, but I can’t ask you to read Japanese materials.”

“I see, so that’s it. You suddenly started talking about something so unlike you - that was quite a shock.”

Roberto patted his chest in relief.

Robinson is excited that Hiraga believes in spirits; Hiraga reasons that there’s no concrete evidence refuting their existence either, so he can’t deny it. Robinson, who has apparently recovered from his terror, starts enthusing about how wonderfully exotic youkai are. He thought there was no real point being an explorer in the 21st century, since there are no more undiscovered frontiers, no more romanticism and the thrill of the unknown - but look at these delightful mysteries! God must have shown him this phantom to send him an important message!

As Robinson was getting carried away by his impulsive fancies, Roberto let out a brief sigh.

“Mr. Robinson, just what do you think God is telling you by showing you that phantom?”

“He’s given me a mission, of course! To stay in Japan and explore its unknown parts, and introduce all these marvellous youkai,” Robinson answered cheerfully.

“...ah, I see. You’re a modern Lafcadio Hearn, then.”

Roberto’s words were laden with sarcasm.

Unfortunately, Roberto’s sick burn is wasted on Robinson, who has never heard of Lafcadio Hearn. (Neither had I, to be fair.) Roberto explains that he was a journalist who researched Japanese folklore and catalogued ghost stories, like the story of Houichi the Earless.

At this moment, Hiraga blinked uneasily, and he muttered softly, “Roberto, could you stop talking about Houichi the Earless?”

“Why?” Roberto asked.

“Well, Father Hiraga saying that just makes me even more curious about this earless so-and-so. I definitely want to know, Father Roberto,” Robinson said, his eyes shining.

Hiraga would occasionally get scared by things that were basically trivial. Roberto decided to tease him a little.

“Then, at Mr. Robinson’s request, I’ll tell the story.”

I can’t tell the story better than Roberto or Wikipedia. The really important thing is Roberto being a shit.

Roberto paused dramatically. In that moment of suspense, there came the clatter of Hiraga’s teacup falling over. Roberto pretended not to notice this, and went on.

[...]

Roberto finished speaking, and glanced at Hiraga, who wore an expression of childlike fear.

“Oh my, what’s wrong?” Roberto asked, as though only just noticing Hiraga’s odd behaviour for the first time.

“It’s scary. I heard that story long ago from my grandmother, who was a skilled storyteller, and ever since then, it’s been a terrifying trauma. My grandmother was good at scaring me… Please, don’t ever tell that story again.”

“I won’t. I’m sorry,” Roberto said. Hiraga sighed in relief.

Next, Roberto looked over to see Robinson’s reaction. His cheeks were flushed, and he was breathing heavily.

“Fascinating… How fascinating, and frightening, and fantastic! My heart was really racing. Father Roberto, you’re good at telling stories.”

“I’m glad. Lafcadio Hearn was the one who wrote down that story. How about you look him up on the Internet and read some of his other works?”

“I’ll do that right away, thank you! I’ll definitely become like Lafcadio Hearn.”

“That’s a lovely dream,” Roberto said with a smile.

Sadly, instead of staying with passive-aggressive Roberto, we go to our heroes at breakfast. They’re being served the leftover sashimi from last night, now pickled. Roberto tries to eat a piece, but just the smell makes his gorge rise.

“Sorry, but… I can’t do it.”

“Please leave it to me. I have the willpower of a Japanese priest.”

Hiraga took a bite of the sashimi, his face grim.

Then they remember that oh right, there’s a conflict in this book beyond FOOD PROBLEMS. So they’re going to take a look at the island of Kamishima, and talk to the people who witnessed the snowstorm and the appearance of the cross.

But first Hiraga goes back to the room to call Dr. Chandra Singh, their new IT guy. As ever, he is a ray of sunshine.

Hiraga: Good morning.

Dr. Singh, expressionlessly: It is 1 am here.

Hiraga: Ah, good evening. Well, when will my investigation materials be arriving?

Dr. Singh: It's scheduled for today. Do you want to know further details?

Hiraga: Yes.

Dr. Singh: I've emailed you the tracking number, and the contact information for the national support centre.

Hiraga: Thank you.

Dr. Singh: Is there anything else?

Hiraga: Nothing.

Dr. Singh: Then excuse me. [hangs up]

Roberto: Dr. Singh is as unfriendly as ever, I see.

Hiraga: Really? The doctor is a kind person.

(I love him so much.)

Hiraga makes delivery arrangements, and then checks on the boat they’re supposed to take to Kamishima.

“You handling things this way - it’s kind of refreshing,” Roberto said without thinking.

“I can get things done if I try. After all, I’ve always been a fiend for schedules.”

They have a 20-minute boat ride to Kamishima, accompanied by local priest Father East Andou. The boatman won’t go ashore with them because of local superstition, and Andou says he’ll wait in the boat too, so our heroes are on their own.

Hiraga frolics around collecting soil samples and taking photos. He and Roberto discuss what the glowing image of Christ might have been, if not a miracle - maybe it was a projection on the cliff face, or a 3D hologram, or small LEDs made with a 3D printer, but for various reasons none of these is very plausible. I mean, I agree, but who wants to bet the eventual explanation is about as implausible?

They climb to the top of the cliff, up a very narrow and steep path surrounded by dense foliage.

“This is a rather difficult climb,” Hiraga said, short of breath.

“That rucksack is getting in your way, isn’t it? I’ll carry it.”

“No, this is light. I’m fine.”

“Tell me if you’re having trouble.”

Roberto notices someone standing in the shadow of a tree, but when Hiraga calls out, the figure silently vanishes. They figure it was their imagination, but then they find multiple sets of fresh human footprints.

They get back to the boat and go to another local church to interview witnesses to the miracle. This being VME, it turns into exposition about the history of Christianity in Japan, and how it was outlawed in the 1600s and Japanese Christians were severely persecuted and driven into hiding. The head priest of this church explains that Christianity has come so close to being snuffed out in Japan, and it’s up to them to keep it going - basically, it would be REALLY NICE for this miracle to get verified, so the priests can once again spread the glory of God throughout the country.

“You’re Japanese too, so you understand, don’t you? Our fervent wish…”

Father Takeo clasped Hiraga’s hand tightly as he spoke.

“Yes, this is the purpose of the miracle examination. For the glory of God’s name, I promise to carry out a rigorous investigation, and make sure of this miracle’s authenticity,” Hiraga replied, his gaze utterly earnest.

Father Takeo’s expression froze, startled, and his shoulders sagged.

“...rigorous… yes, of course. I couldn’t help getting worked up in the face of this mystery.”

Even without knowing Japanese, Roberto could understand what they were discussing, judging from Hiraga’s usual attitude and the other priest’s obviously crestfallen demeanour.

But without the language to convey his support to the Japanese priest, all Roberto could do was sincerely bow his head to him.

They’re done investigating for the day, but Roberto notices a museum and naturally wants to pay a visit. Hiraga isn’t especially interested, but doesn’t mind going with Roberto - or so he thinks, until he sees Roberto checking out the museum displays and realises what this means.

“Roberto - I’m sorry, but I’ll wait in the lobby.”

“Huh? Why?”

“How should I put it… The instant I saw all those lines of Japanese characters on the display cases, my eyes started spinning and stopped processing information. I’ve seen all sorts of things today, and my head is full. I think I’ll be better after a bit of rest.”

Hiraga tottered unsteadily into the lobby and flopped down on the sofa. It seemed that his hard disk had overheated.

“That’s a problem… Without you, I have no idea what’s written here.”

(Ah, heritage speaker problems...)

Father Andou (whom I keep forgetting is even there) offers to translate for Roberto, and they hit it off pretty well because they’re both nerds about Christian culture and stuff. Andou gives some exposition about the Hidden Christians, who continued practising their faith in secret even after it was outlawed by the Japanese government, risking jail, torture, exile, and martyrdom.

This is Roberto’s cue to angst about his faith, which I guess is what happens as soon as he’s separated from Hiraga for five minutes.

Roberto himself had decided to become a priest merely as a pragmatic way of making a living. As such, this made him reflect deeply on the strength of faith.

Oh, and it looks like his angst is probably infectious.

“Could you please listen to me for a bit?”

“Yes,” Roberto replied, bewildered.

Father Andou took a deep breath.

“Father Roberto, I have something to confess. I… I was envious of you. Ever since I decided to become a priest, I’ve hoped that someday I’ll achieve something splendid, and be recognised and summoned by the Vatican. It’s my lifelong dream, and I’ve been working extra hard towards that goal. And yet you all so easily achieved my dream. It frustrated me…

“I heard that the Vatican’s miracle examiners were an elite division chosen from all over the world, and I was convinced that they had to be unpleasant fellows, smug and full of themselves. When you said, ‘We will investigate this incident with wholehearted commitment, in order to be worthy of the trust His Holiness has placed in us,’ I honestly couldn’t believe it.

“But today, when I saw you both climbing the mountain and getting your cassocks covered in dirt, and when you were bowing deeply to Father Takeo, I felt ashamed of myself. Father Roberto, please forgive my rudeness so far.”

Father Andou slowly lowered his head to Roberto, who was taken aback.

“Rudeness? Nothing of the sort. It’s because of you that I was able to learn all sorts of things today. I’m grateful. Thank you.”

Roberto, too, bowed to Father Andou, who laughed wryly.

“You’re unusual. I didn’t think that Westerners bowed like this.”

“Ah, that’s… My investigation partner is Hiraga, who’s of Japanese descent, so I guess I picked up a thing or two.”

“I see. Father Hiraga is also rather… unusual, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he gets that a lot. But he is a highly outstanding man of ardent faith.”

When our heroes get back to the inn, Hiraga’s equipment has arrived, but Roberto knows that once he lets Hiraga get started, good luck getting him to eat dinner. So he asks Hiraga about the witness interviews at the church just now; Hiraga apologises for forgetting to translate earlier. Basically, there are no recordings of the miracle. Hiraga does some infodumping about weather anomalies and solar flares; he posits that the miracle might be caused by St. Elmo's fire, but he’ll have to check the soil samples for traces of our old friend ELECTROMAGNETISM.

Then Roberto seizes the opportunity to suggest they get dinner, which had totally slipped Hiraga’s mind. On their way to dinner, they see Yoshioka telling off his daughter Yuuko, because she got back late from walking the dog.

And again, the true conflict of the book rears its head: Roberto and Hiraga versus their hosts’ food.

The dinner that was served to them was, indeed, a huge helping of sashimi. It seemed that Hiraga’s appeal to reduce their meal portions hadn’t gotten through to Yoshioka.

“Well, we’ve been out and about today. Shall we tuck in?”

“Yes…”

The two of them said grace and began to eat, but Hiraga’s chopsticks soon fell still.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just looking at raw fish makes me a bit queasy.”

“But whatever we have left over will just be pickled and added to our breakfast. That’s the system.”

“I know that, but…” Hiraga muttered, his face pale.

“You pushed yourself too much at breakfast. Luckily I’m feeling peckish - I think I can handle this.”

Hiraga sighed in relief at Roberto���s words.

[...]

“Actually, I realised I had to come up with a strategy for handling meals, starting tomorrow,” Roberto said, setting down his chopsticks and gazing steadily at Hiraga.

“What sort of strategy?”

“You’ll be absorbed in the investigation and lose track of time, won’t you? There’s no way you’ll manage to go to the dining hall at fixed times.”

“Ah, I see. Yes, you could say that.”

Hiraga nodded, as though discussing someone else entirely.

“So you’ll persuade Mr. Yoshioka to bring the meals to the room from tomorrow onwards. The menu can be very simple - tell him that just rice and one dish will do. If that’s not possible, I’ll buy food from somewhere. I’d like to get Mr. Yoshioka’s permission for that.”

“Can I really manage this?”

“But you’re the one who speaks Japanese, aren’t you?”

“That’s true…”

Hiraga nodded determinedly, and went off to negotiate with Yoshioka.

And he shoots, he scores! Hiraga is really achieving some A++ adulting in this book.

“Roberto, the discussion went well.”

“I’m glad. Deep down, I was worried.”

“Miss Yuuko lent me her support midway - she chimed in with, ‘Father, your stubbornness is causing trouble for the priests. Let’s do as they say.’ It was a real help.”

Hiraga picked up his chopsticks with an expression of relief, and bit into a slice of sashimi.

Roberto turned towards the direction of the open kitchen. Yuuko smiled bashfully and nodded to him.

“Miss Yuuko is a nice girl,” Roberto said appreciatively.

Well. Still, good work there, Hiraga!

They decide that tomorrow, Hiraga will... do his thing... and Roberto will go do some research - maybe there are some miracle witnesses whom they haven’t interviewed. Hiraga is worried about whether Roberto can get around without him, but Roberto says, “I think it’ll be fine. I’ve made a friend who’s an excellent interpreter.”

Roberto goes off with his new priest friend Andou, who takes him to another museum; it has a massive golden cross that’s engraved with the usual Christian iconography and also a mysterious Japanese inscription: a cryptic string of syllables. Andou has no idea what it means either - “It’s a code that no one can solve.” Naturally, Roberto perks up at the mention of codes, and requests more exposition.

Basically this is a replica of a cross that used to belong to the Hidden Christians, and there’s a theory that the inscription encodes the location of the Hidden Christians’ secret treasure. Roberto and Andou speculate for a bit about how the Japanese syllables might actually represent some slightly mangled Latin words.

As Roberto spoke passionately, Father Andou gave him an odd look.

“I didn’t expect someone like you, an elite Vatican priest, to get so serious about a long-forgotten code.”

“Ah, excuse me. It’s just my nature. I’m a miracle examiner, but I specialise in codes and the restoration of antiques, so… If it’s alright, might I be able to take a look at the original iron cross itself?”

Father Andou’s expression abruptly went rigid with discomfort.

There was no hope of this happening. Even if this code concealed the “treasure of the Hidden Christians”, it was a treasure that had been bestowed to the Society of Jesus - it belonged to the Jesuits. They had no obligation to disclose their secrets to Roberto, who was a Franciscan.

“Oops, I guess I’ve overstepped. I’m just sincerely interested in codebreaking, but I shouldn’t have meddled. Sorry I bothered you - don’t mind me,” Roberto said breezily. Father Andou looked relieved.

Damn these Vatican politics, getting in the way of our heroes geeking out.

But hey, at least we’ll always have infodumps? They go into the museum, where Roberto learns about Amakusa Shirou, “probably the most famous Christian in Japan”, who led a Catholic rebellion against the Japanese government when he was only 16, but was never recognised by the Vatican because he wasn’t formally baptised. He was a beautiful, charismatic prodigy who was said to have a healing touch. After his rebellion was crushed, he basically vanished from history; a body was found and beheaded, but it’s unclear whether it was actually his. Academics debate whether he actually existed.

Roberto wonders if the Hidden Christian community still exists; apparently no one knows for sure, but the scholarly consensus is that they were stamped out.

Also, Roberto sees some chipped, badly worn clay dolls, and after looking at them for 10 seconds, he comments, “They were so uncanny I’ll probably dream about them tonight.” And he teases Hiraga for being scared of ghost stories...

(This place is a real museum, by the way, which is pretty cool.)

Next they go look for more people who might have witnessed the miracle. Andou tells Roberto about a very secretive and close-knit village in the mountains, led by a family surnamed Futou. It has a good view of Kamishima, but the villagers are “extremely odd” and seem to dislike priests - they turn away Andou & co. whenever they visit.

Roberto immediately wonders if they’re Hidden Christians, because come on, but there’s no definitive evidence for it. Roberto really wants to visit them anyway, so they drive to the village, but no one seems to be there.

So they drive around more and talk about local religion, and Andou mentions that deer are the sacred animal here. He also takes Roberto to another museum and shows him a bunch of antique printing presses. It occurs to me that this would be a very good date if Roberto weren’t already married.

Or maybe not, because while Roberto is sighing adoringly over printing presses, Andou slips off. Roberto finds him crying silently in front of a painting - it’s a reproduction of the “Coronation of Pope Sixtus V” fresco in the Vatican Library. Roberto pretends he didn’t see anything and beats a discreet retreat, and when Andou comes back they act like nothing happened. But yeah, awkward.

Hey, I wonder what Hiraga’s up to while all this is going on? Oh, no big deal, he’s just GOING TO SCALE A CLIFF BY HIMSELF

Hiraga stuffed a small pickaxe and other climbing equipment into his huge rucksack, and set off alone for the harbour, in search of the boat captain. He then requested to be taken to Kamishima.

In order to examine the cliff face, he had to climb it. That much was obvious.

But if he told Roberto, he’d be sure to object that it was dangerous. That was why Hiraga had kept quiet about this.

...I was wondering how we’d gotten this far without any dead bodies, but looks like Hiraga is trying to make up for that.

Hiraga cinched a safety harness around himself, and fastened a high-strength climbing rope to it. With this, he had no worries about falling to his death.

GREAT, GUESS I’LL WORRY FOR BOTH OF US

Gripping the pickaxe in one hand, and with six pouches tied around his waist, Hiraga began to slowly descend the steep cliff face.

The cliff rapidly turned into a sheer precipice, but the surface was slightly uneven, which offered some footholds.

Hiraga thanked God for his own small feet and light body.

okay Hiraga but what if you slip and break your STUPID NECK

He survives the descent, so naturally he does this two more times, on the other sides of the cliff. He confirms that there are no traces of snow or anything that might emit light on the cliff. I sure am glad Hiraga risked his life for a whole load of nothing! (Or, well, 10 kilogrammes of soil samples.) Then, apparently satisfied that he’s done enough death-defying for today, he prays, “O Lord who appeared on the face of this cliff, please show me the reason why.”

The poor boat captain, who had to sit there anxiously watching this whole display, hurries over and asks if he’s alright. Hiraga is covered in sweat and mud and his clothes are fraying, but he reassures the captain that he’s fine. The captain is curious what he’s going to do with the load of soil that he went to all this trouble to get.

“Well, I don’t know. Perhaps this was unnecessary - but it was important to me. After all, the truth can be found in unexpected places. Even a single grain of soil cannot be dismissed.”

I can’t really argue with this, but I want to.

When Roberto gets back to the inn, he sees Hiraga covered in dirt and staring at soil samples through a microscope.

Roberto: Hiraga, just what is all this?

Hiraga: I’m examining the soil from that cliff.

Roberto: Soil from the cliff - on Kamishima, you mean?

Hiraga: Yes.

Roberto: How did you… You did something dangerous again, didn’t you?

Hiraga: It's alright. I made sure to wear a safety harness, so I could gather samples without any danger.

Roberto: A safety harness, huh… Really, you're always startling me. I'm glad you're fine, but you sure brought back a lot. Well then, did you figure out anything from the soil?

Hiraga: I won’t know until the examination is complete. But I have to investigate, even if nothing comes of it - after all, that’s the site of the miracle.

Roberto: That’s true. You really are your usual self, no matter where you are. But I have one piece of advice: you should take a shower or bath, and change out of your dirty clothes. Mr. Yoshioka will be bringing the dinner soon, and he’ll be worried if he sees you all covered in mud. We couldn’t even complain if he decided to throw us out of the inn.

Hiraga, startled: Is it that late already? I see… I’ll go take a shower.

Roberto: You sure were in a trance. Is there something strange about the soil?

Hiraga: No, it’s just ordinary fragments of igneous rock.

Really, it was very typical of Hiraga to get so engrossed in examining ordinary soil that he lost track of time.

While Hiraga takes his shower, Roberto tidies up the room so as not to scandalise their poor host, and fetches a yukata for Hiraga to change into.

Hiraga comes out wearing the yukata, and then notices that his cellphone has apparently been going off this whole time, but he overlooked it because he was so busy with his soil samples.

“Ah, I have a lot of voicemails and emails from Mr. Robinson.”

“Mr. Robinson? What’s he saying?”

Hiraga, tilting his head, read the emails out loud.

"The first message is, 'I want to discuss something.' The next is, 'It's important.' Then the next one is, 'Do you have time?' The next is, 'Please contact me.' The next is, 'I'm waiting for your reply.' The next is, 'Why won't you contact me?' The next is, 'Whatever.' The next is, 'Please contact me after all.' The next is, 'When will you contact me?' The next is..."

Roberto sighed.

"What a persistent man. Did he mention what he wanted to discuss?"

Apparently Robinson took Roberto’s snide remark about Lafcadio Hearn very seriously, and is now running around looking into youkai and jabbering about oil presser spirits. Points for initiative, I guess.

“Anyway, when did you give Mr. Robinson your email address?”

“As soon as we met. He asked me to take out my cellphone, and it was done quickly - it took about three seconds. Weren’t you in the room too, Roberto?”

“I was, but I didn't notice. In a sense, that's an impressive feat. It's none of my business, but maybe you should watch out.”

“For what?”

“For what, you ask... well, this and that. Now, I'm going to shower,” Roberto said evasively, getting to his feet.

Even in Japan, Roberto can’t escape all these guys trying to cosy up to his husband. WOW

Honestly, I kind of admire the sheer audacity of asking a priest for his number, in three seconds, the first time you meet him, when his partner is RIGHT THERE (even if you don’t know they’re married). But seriously Robinson, don’t be a homewrecker.

Late that night, Hiraga is analysing his soil samples and Roberto is tossing and turning in bed, when there’s a knock on the door and a dark figure looms outside the glass pane, like the start of every horror movie. Roberto, understandably, has a bad feeling about this. Hiraga points out that they can’t do anything without knowing who’s outside, and calls out, “Who’s there?”

An icy voice responds, “It’s Futou. Open up,” and Roberto realises it must be one of the reclusive villagers he missed meeting today. Outside is someone dressed in black; it’s a teenage boy with long hair, pale skin, delicate features, and a surprisingly intimidating presence. Sounds very goth.

He’s accompanied by a stoic young girl in white - the same girl Roberto saw outside the dining hall the other night. This girl is called Sara, and she speaks Latin, which Hiraga appreciates because “I’m not confident in my Japanese.”

Futou ominously says, “Are you the ones trespassing on Kamishima? That island is in an extremely unstable state right now. Do not go near it again.”

This pretty much sets the tone of the conversation.

Hiraga: I was the one who went to Kamishima a second time - I was just collecting a bit of the island’s soil. I apologise if I shouldn’t have done that. But my duty is as a miracle examiner. If you tell me not to go to Kamishima, it puts me in a difficult position. Besides, the island doesn’t seem unstable to me. There are no historical records of any earthquakes or natural disasters occurring on Kamishima, and no data on landslides either.

Futou: So you see and understand nothing? I hoped it’d be a bit easier to communicate with a Vatican priest - what a pity. Kamishima’s instability isn’t an issue of geography. It’s a spiritual issue.

Hiraga: A spiritual issue…?

Futou: This shouldn’t be discussed with someone who doesn’t understand. But even if you don’t understand, you have to comply. There’s no other option.

Futou is like “oh, by the way, apparently there’s a foreigner running around yammering about the oil presser spirits - is that you too? You’d better back off and stop talking about the spirits, or bad stuff is going to go down and it’ll be your fault. There have been multiple incidents of cars slipping on roads since last night.”

Hiraga is genuinely confused. He doesn’t think the oil pressers would cause car accidents or otherwise hurt humans, and besides, the person yelling about the oil pressers isn’t them, it’s their “friend” Robinson. He can try to convince Robinson to chill - but before that, he himself needs to understand what’s going on. Why can’t they go to Kamishima, and why can’t they talk about the oil pressers? He’d like an explanation.

Hiraga stubbornly insisted. At times like this, his extremely obstinate nature came to the fore.

But his opponent seemed remarkably stubborn as well.

“Why should I talk to someone who doesn’t understand, about things they won’t understand? I don’t have time for this. If you won’t do as I say, the conversation is over.”

The boy Futou got to his feet. Roberto suddenly spoke up in German.

“Is there anyone here who understands German?”

Futou, Sara, and Hiraga all stared at Roberto, perplexed. Futou and Sara looked like they had no idea what was going on.

Hiraga blinked.

“Let me translate what Father Roberto said…”

Roberto put a finger to Hiraga’s mouth, shushing him midway.

“I’ll negotiate with Futou from here. But I don’t want Miss Sara to get wind of our plans, so we’ll make our arrangements in German. Alright?”

“I understand.”

I just want to appreciate Hiraga not realising that Roberto is trying to talk to him in secret. Bless.

Roberto asks how long it’ll take Hiraga to finish analysing his soil samples, and Hiraga says probably about ten days. Roberto has an offer for Futou - how about they stay away from Kamishima for one week? (Roberto guesses from Futou’s urgency that they’re operating under some time limit.) Futou agrees.

As for the oil pressers, Roberto says that their “friend” has just gotten really into Japanese youkai, but he doesn’t mean any harm; he hopes Futou will understand.

The boy Futou raised an eyebrow slightly.

“It doesn’t matter whether I understand. What I’m asking is whether he’ll stop or not.”

“I’ll try to convince him to stop, but he’s a free man with his own dreams for the future. Just how long should I restrain him?”

Futou’s face tensed, and his voice was dark when he replied.

“I can tell you’re trying to sound out our plans. But very well - I’ll answer. Three days. After three days, once the full moon is safely past, he can do whatever he wants. Otherwise, there will be an even greater disaster. People are likely to die.”

Roberto gets chills at this declaration, but agrees. Of course, being Roberto, he can’t just leave it at that.

“Until the full moon is past… I see. Hmm. That might be a bit tricky.”

“Why?”

“Our friend is quite an energetic man; it won’t be easy to hold him back. I’ll probably have to put my own work on hold, to keep an eye on him constantly.”

“Are you saying you won’t do it?”

“No, that’s not it. I just have a minor condition. If you fulfil it, I can keep my friend in check.”

Roberto wants Futou and the other villagers to give him any information and recordings they have related to the miracle. Futou seems reluctant, but Sara talks him into it. (She addresses him as “Shirou-san”. Hmm.)

Two can play at the same game, though - Futou also wants our heroes to do something in exchange for the info. He won’t tell them what it is now, but he’ll return to fetch them on the night before the full moon.

After the visitors leave, Roberto and Hiraga discuss this latest bit of weirdness. They agree that it’s quite the coincidence that the boy Futou has the same given name as Amakusa Shirou, and Roberto infodumps everything he learnt today about Amakusa Shirou, the Hidden Christians, etc. Hiraga is impressed. “That’s amazing. You gathered this much information in no time at all.” They also wonder what the boy wants from them, but who knows.

The next morning, someone really had died.

OH, FINALLY, we’re way overdue for a corpse

This one is an unidentified body found along the coast, and it’s completely covered in scars like it was scalded with hot oil. I await the VME explanation for this.

There are also news reports of multiple accidents due to cars slipping on the roads. All this lines up with the warnings from the boy Shirou.

Hiraga has contacted Robinson, who goes pale and asks, “Oh Jesus, you mean this is all my fault…?” Roberto says it could be a coincidence, but if so, that’s pretty uncanny - either way, it’s probably best to take Shirou’s warning and not go around mouthing off about spirits. Loose lips sink ships (or crash cars, apparently).

“Just who did this warning come from? Who on earth are they?” Robinson asked dubiously.

“Well, we’re not too sure. We only met them for the first time last night,” Roberto deflected.

“So, Father Roberto, you’re telling me that because of what these strangers said, you’ll be monitoring me for the next three days? This is a violation of my privacy! Don’t you think so, Father Hiraga?” Robinson asked, gazing beseechingly at Hiraga.

“But there has indeed been a death. I also believe we should be cautious, so as not to endanger anyone. Besides, we made a promise to them, and I want to keep it as well.”

“Well then, Father Hiraga - say ‘please’ to me. If you do, I’ll do as I’m told.”

Robinson demonstrated by clasping his fingers together, turning his gaze upward, and saying, “Please.”

Hiraga followed suit by clasping his fingers and saying, “Please,” but he looked like nothing other than a priest praying earnestly.

Robinson wants to stay and talk to Hiraga more, but Roberto hurries him out of the room.

Of course, this was to keep him from disrupting Hiraga's work.

Sure, sure.

Robinson sulks. “Dammit, there go my plans for today. And I even turned down a date for this!”

Roberto is having a worse day, since he’s now on babysitting duty, keeping Robinson from being too much of a dumbass. He’s got his work cut out for him.

Especially because Robinson catches sight of Yuuko doing the gardening, and his face lights up and he dashes over to her, yelling greetings.

This was a common sight in Italy, but here, the shy Yuuko hung her head, evidently distressed.

Roberto sighs and is wondering whether to intervene, when Yoshioka shows up and hurries Yuuko back indoors. Robinson sulks about how Yoshioka keeps getting in the way when he’s trying to chat up Yuuko - he’s even barred Robinson from the dining hall. It’s like he thinks Robinson is a shady character or something. Can’t imagine why.

“I fell in love with Miss Yuuko the day we met - it was the first time I’d ever fallen for someone at first sight. So I said, ‘Miss Yuuko, you’re my angel, my Madonna! Go out with me!’ And then she started shrieking, and her father yelled at me.

“But my feelings are the real deal. I’d never seen someone so beautiful before… That lovely hair, those clear and gentle features! Don’t you think she must be an angel?” Robinson asked earnestly.

“Well… It’s true, she seems like a nice girl.”

“Yes. And my heart races when I see her long black hair. Didn’t I tell you how, when I was miraculously saved by God, I met an angel on the beach? I think the angel back then looked exactly like Miss Yuuko…” Robinson murmured feverishly.

Roberto’s reaction to this is to… start thinking about the case instead. The mention of long black hair reminds him of the boy Shirou, and he remembers all the footprints he and Hiraga found on the supposedly deserted island - was Shirou the angel Robinson met that day?

They go for a drive in Robinson’s car, for lack of any better ideas. Roberto is getting bored when Robinson’s like “okay, I know we’re not supposed to TALK about the spirits, but we can go LOOK for them, right?” Roberto is actually on board with this terrible logic; they go to the forest but see nothing, and decide to get lunch at a family restaurant instead.  

The two of them ordered steak and salad. Roberto was pleased; it had been a while since he last had Western food.

“By the way, didn’t you email Hiraga about something you wanted to discuss?” Roberto asked, making small talk.

“I was hoping Father Hiraga would be a go-between for me and Miss Yuuko,” Robinson replied, his mouth stuffed with a thick chunk of steak.

“I see. You can’t approach her without her father showing up, so you thought you’d make use of Hiraga?”

“That's a harsh way to put it. I don't want to make use of Father Hiraga. I want to get along with him too. After all, he also has wonderful black hair,” Robinson said with no trace of shyness, and kept going. “I like Japanese people. They're all kind and gentle, demure and clean, and they like housework. They're small, quiet, and adorable. I’m tired of stubborn, wilful American women.”

Roberto thought of responding, "Hiraga isn't like that," but decided to stay silent.

Robinson sounds uncannily like an American fratboy, and like an American fratboy, he needs to be stopped. Maybe he should actually talk to Hiraga and realise that he spends his time flinging acid and living in a mountain of trash.

After eating, they have nothing better to do than try looking for the oil presser spirits again. Robinson complains about how fruitless and boring this is.

He should probably be careful what he wishes for - they’re on a deserted mountain road when suddenly, the tyres skid, the car spins out of control, and they almost crash into a reservoir. They’re only saved because Roberto reflexively pulls the handbrake.

They have no idea what just happened - the road seemed to be glistening with an oily lustre right before Robinson lost control of the car, but it looks completely dry now. Maybe they were just imagining things.

Meanwhile, Hiraga is having a much quieter time examining soil samples. He finds jute fibres in the soil - like someone was digging there, put soil into jute sacks, and tossed it off the top of the cliff. Hmm. He remembers Roberto telling him about the creepy clay dolls at the museum; apparently pottery is a local specialty? So he hits up the local potters to check if they excavate earth from Kamishima, and he learns that the cliff was actually man-made, but they haven’t been digging there since the local economy went into a slump.

He was so overly focused on his work that he lost all sense of time passing.

Abruptly noticing his parched throat, Hiraga got up and opened the refrigerator.

Inside were some onigiri and tamagoyaki wrapped in clingfilm.

There was a note from Roberto attached to them, saying, “Pregate che si mangia (I’m praying that you’ll eat)”.

It occurred to Hiraga that his brain did feel slightly fatigued - probably due to low blood sugar.

He stuffed the cold, hard onigiri into his mouth.

(The Italian is just lifted straight from the text, by the way, please don’t @ me.)

Roberto is doing so much good work here, and his reward for it is… spending another day with Robinson, I guess. Yesterday’s incident dampened their enthusiasm for spirit-hunting, and more importantly, Robinson is now in trouble; it turns out he borrowed the car from an adoring female fan, and has to apologise for damaging it.

“I’ve had enough! That girl got mad at me because, ‘You had an accident when you were on a date with another girl, right?!’ I told her, ‘No, I was with a Vatican priest,’ but she wouldn’t believe me. So I want you to come vouch for me today, Father Roberto,” Robinson said.

“You said she’s ‘a female fan’ - what’s she like?” Roberto asked, figuring that if she’d lent him her car, they must be close.

“Well, her name’s Haruko. She was my nurse when I was in hospital. She was really kind to me, and so cute with her black hair, so I guess I told her ‘You’re cute’ and ‘I like you’...? And that’s why she lent me the car,” Robinson replied without hesitation.

“But you - you’re actually in love with Miss Yuuko, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. So after my destined meeting with Miss Yuuko, I cooled things off with Haruko.”

“But you still borrowed her car?”

“Don’t tell me off like that. Yeah, that was my bad - but I didn’t expect things to turn out this way, and I was going to return the car when I found the chance. More importantly, we mustn’t make Haruko mad today. I’m counting on you to back me up,” Robinson said.

Roberto could feel a headache coming on.

[...]

Robinson got out of the car and hurried over to Haruko.

“Why didn’t you contact me?” Haruko cried out angrily.

Robinson let fly a string of frantic excuses in English and clumsy Japanese. Roberto watched them from the passenger seat of the car.

Robinson’s fervent apologies and repeated compliments seemed to restore Haruko’s good mood. The two of them linked arms affectionately and came over to Roberto.

“You’re the Vatican priest? It’s nice to meet you. I’m Haruko,” Haruko said in strongly accented English.

“Miss Haruko, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Roberto Nicolas,” Roberto said with a smile.

“Oh wow, he’s really hot. If only he wasn’t a priest, I’d totally switch over. But he’s a priest, so…” Haruko mumbled in Japanese.

“The two of us are planning to go on the Dolphin Cruise after this. How about tagging along, Father Roberto?” Robinson asked cheerily next to her.

“No, I’d better not intrude on your date. Now that the misunderstanding is cleared up, I ought to head back to the inn,” Roberto said, and waved goodbye to the couple.

But Roberto doesn’t actually want to go back to the inn and bother Hiraga while he’s working, so naturally, he finds an obscure historical archive to visit instead. He meets a random man looking through a telescope at the sea, and tries to strike up a conversation with him. They have an exchange that’s kind of perplexing, and not because of the language barrier.

“Catching fish,” the man said in accented English. “No dolphin today.”

He seemed to mean that there were no dolphins.

“That’s right,” Roberto acknowledged.

“Sightseeing?”

Roberto, unsure how to reply, said, “We came here to examine the miracle of Kamishima.”

The man grimaced.

“Kamishima? No. It’s - Shikashima. There are - many - shikashima.”

Roberto was at a loss as to what the man meant. Just what was he saying?

He looked around the room for some means of communication, and saw the map of Amakusa on display. He went over to the map and pointed at Kamishima.

“Here. Kamishima,” he said, and the man nodded.

“Yes, yes.”

It seemed that neither of them was getting through to the other.

“It’s Shikashima. It’s Bambi. Uhh… Do you know ‘Bambi’?” the man asked, mixing in some Japanese.

“Bambino?”

At Roberto’s uncomprehending reply, the man looked discomfited and shrugged his shoulders. He seemed to be throwing in the towel.

All Roberto could do was make the same gesture and laugh awkwardly.

Hiraga is STILL chugging away at the soil analysis, but he’s hit a roadblock and decides to email Dr. Singh for advice. Dr. Singh replies with, “I cannot say anything without seeing the actual article,” so Hiraga sends him some soil by international airmail.

When Roberto gets back that evening, he decides to open the window to get some fresh air and admire the full moon.

OH RIGHT, THE MOON

There’s a knock on the door; Sara is here to pick them up for whatever she and Shirou are planning. They get into a car with her and four men, and drive off into the dark mountain passes. Everyone seems tense.

Eventually they arrive at a shrine gateway, and three men alight and pass through the gate, “vanishing as though they were swallowed by a black hole”. (I might as well clarify now that there are no black holes in this, indoor or outdoor. I know, I was getting my hopes up too.)

The remaining man (Kazuhito, who looks about 20 years old) starts explaining what’s up. He belongs to an organisation that has studied spirits and the old deities for a long time, and they’re trying to accomplish a ritual that hasn’t been performed in 120 years. This immediately piques Roberto’s interest, of course. Nerd.

tl;dr: the deity Mahiru that is worshipped on Kamishima is an ancient sun deity, also known as Hiruko, the firstborn child of Izanami and Izanagi. This deity takes the form of a white snake.

“A… snake…?”

Roberto shuddered.

(He’s just thinking of the serpent that tempted Eve, and all the other snakes in mythology, but, you know. I’m thinking it.)

Kazuhito talks about how when the Yamato people settled Japan, they basically drove out the indigenous people and their deities, and portrayed those deities as symbols of evil instead. “History is written by the victors, you could say.” This reminds Roberto of what happened to indigenous faiths in the Christianisation of Europe, with people being subjugated and their deities being swallowed up.

But belief in the ancient deity Hiruko never vanished for good, and Hiruko kept appearing in different forms, most notably as Yamata no Orochi.

Hiraga is excited because oh hey, he knows about Yamata no Orochi!

“Is it that famous a story?” Roberto asked, and Hiraga nodded delightedly.

“Yes. Yamata no Orochi was a great monster with eight heads and tails. When I heard the story from my grandmother, I wondered all sorts of things - like whether it was useful for a creature to have eight brains or not, and the location of the main system that controlled all these.”

Kazuhito laughs and explains that Yamata no Orochi was a villainous figure defeated by the deity Susanoo, and this symbolises the conquering of the original eight island civilisations in Japan.

“Yamata no Orochi was the sun deity of the general that governed these eight nations. That is why it had eight heads.”

“I see - this was a story about the purge of the ancient sun deity,” Roberto said.

“So the eight heads were a literary metaphor for the eight countries…?” Hiraga muttered, sounding bored.

Poor Hiraga, he’s too left-brained for this.

Apparently the oil presser spirits are also remnants of the ancient beliefs. The point is that these powers are still strong in Amakusa, which is why the ritual has to be performed here. But when Christianity came to Japan in the 16th century, it disrupted Amakusa’s spiritual energies even further and caused natural disasters.

Kazuhito: That’s what we think. Please don’t misunderstand - I don’t mean to belittle you, Fathers. Please think of this as merely an interpretation based in spiritual science. Do you understand?

Roberto: Regardless of the theory, didn’t missionaries get in the way of your rituals? I’m in a complicated position here… Even if we’re just talking in terms of spiritual science.

Hiraga: I think I understand. Put simply, you can think of it as a theory of parallel universes.

Oh yeah, that sure clears things up.

Hiraga starts talking about about Everett’s multiverse theory, and the more recent idea - developed as part of M-theory - that perhaps parallel universes can interact and influence each other through gravity.  

“Likewise, even in the Bible, we cannot access the world of God - but the power of the Holy Spirit lets us establish a connection from our own world, yes? It’s the same thing. Everything that happens on this earth, like conflicts and natural disasters - such things are events that only occur within a single sealed world. The arrival of missionaries in Japan, and the religious conversion that people underwent - those results belong to a completely different dimension from what happens in the spiritual world. And methods like ‘prayers’ and ‘rituals’ are a vector of force that allow us to influence the spiritual world. How about thinking of it in that simple way?”

Maybe if I had eight brains I could understand what’s going on.

The youth Kazuhito smiled at Hiraga’s words.

“Now this is an interesting priest,” he said.

“I am not an interesting priest. I am Hiraga,” Hiraga said, pursing his lips.

“Pardon me, Father Hiraga. I haven’t introduced myself either, have I? My name is Yukimasa Kazuhito.”

Kazuhito bowed in greeting, and then looked over at Roberto.

“You are Father Roberto Nicolas, are you not?”

“Ah- yes…” Roberto replied, taken aback.

Kazuhito finally starts to explain what they actually want from our heroes. Basically, his organisation performs rituals in order to keep both the mundane world and the spiritual world in order, and they want our heroes’ assistance with the one-of-a-kind big spiritual ritual happening tonight. Our heroes are still pretty confused (same), but they roll with it.

Roberto: If I get to participate in a ceremony that only happens in Japan once every 120 years, I have no reason to refuse…

Hiraga: Yes, that’s right. If there’s some way I can help too…

So the ritual involves chanting to calm the deity Hiruko, while the boy Shirou, dressed as Susanoo, does the dance of defeating Yamata no Orochi. If this ritual is successfully performed, Hiruko will be appeased and will return to the sea, but if it fails, the deity will become malicious and curse them.

The tricky thing is that Christianity is deeply entrenched in Amakusa, which is why they had to get the Hidden Christians to participate in the ritual. (Yep, Shirou and his clan are Hidden Christians, big surprise.) But Kazuhito says the Hidden Christians themselves have forgotten what they are, and their practices have departed significantly from traditional Christianity and fused with local beliefs.

Hiraga: This is a real mystery. How fascinating.

Kazuhito: It’s not “fascinating”.

The spiritual energies are so tangled and complex now that the traditional ritual wouldn’t work too well, which was a real conundrum. But then Roberto and Hiraga conveniently showed up in Amakusa, and Kazuhito and his associates looked into their backgrounds. “We learnt that you are a qualified exorcist, Father Roberto. And you, Father Hiraga, are a priest with deep faith.”

(Ouch. It’s like hey Roberto, you’re not super devout, but at least you have the paper credentials to make up for it?)

Our heroes finally get to the shrine; Roberto is handed a stole, a Bible, and holy water, while Hiraga is whisked off and comes back dressed as an ancient Shinto priest (thanks for the fanart inspiration). They all go into a bamboo grove, there’s a lot of chanting, and the boy Shirou, who seems to be in a trance, draws a real sword.

It’s time for some classic VME confusion!

The next moment, the atmosphere of the scene abruptly transformed.

The wind picked up strangely, and the full moon vanished behind a cloud.

The turbulent breeze set the bamboo trees shaking noisily, and behind it echoed a tremendous sound like the roaring of waves.

A frightful gale swept through for an instant, extinguishing the pine torches in the men’s hands.

Simultaneously, there came the sound of something trampling through the bamboo grove, drawing closer every second.

Slide… slide…

Rustle…

Slide… slide…

Crunch, crunch, crunch

No matter how they strained their eyes, nothing was visible in the darkness. But something strange was approaching - that was evident even without being able to see it.

The air was suffused with an extraordinary presence.

Roberto nervously clutched his crucifix and holy water. Hiraga gulped.

Suddenly the strange presence was lifted - or so they thought. But the next instant -

With a noise like a bestial howl, a huge white figure swooped down from overhead.

Roberto stared up at the night sky; a moment ago, it had been an unchanging deep blue, but now it was crossed by a trail of what looked like a faint mist, which was thickening and growing right before his eyes.

The giant white snake reared its head.

Or at least that was what it looked like to Roberto. This had to be a mirage, or a hallucination, or something. He blinked, feeling like he’d stumbled into a bizarre nightmare.

The great snake stopped right above the wine cask, and its coils dived into the bamboo grove. The part of it that was closest to the ground - its front end - split into eight branches.

This figure - the great snake that was plunging its eight heads into the wine cask - this was Yamata no Orochi.

“Oohh…”

Someone let out an involuntary cry of wonder.

That instant, the boy Shirou approached the nearest head, his movements fluid, and swung his upheld sword. The silver flash sliced the air, whipping through the darkness.

Shirou whirled through the air, and as soon as he landed on the ground, he darted to the next head, moving as nimbly as though carried by the wind.

The severed heads of the great snake melted swiftly into the darkness, like snow out of season.

Just what on earth was going on?

As Roberto thought this, the youth next to him spoke in Latin.

“Quick, perform the exorcism! Psalm 68!”

Roberto decides to just go with it, and flings some holy water and recites the psalm. Everyone is chanting various things. The snake seems pretty pissed off, but Shirou chops off more of its heads, “his motions as sharp and beautiful as a needle”. The instant he cuts off the last head, the chanting stops and everything falls silent; Shirou bows to everyone, looking tired and relieved. “Thank you for your cooperation today. The ritual has been successfully completed.”

Everyone disperses, and Hiraga and Roberto are kind of shell-shocked. Hiraga says uneasily, “I was in a daze, and just kept praying to God. Is that really fine?” but Sara confirms that it was good enough.

“Anyway, what on earth did we see…?” Roberto murmured distractedly. Hiraga turned to him, curious.

“What did you see?”

After Roberto told him what he had witnessed, Hiraga posed the same question to Sara.

“I saw many trails of thick fog that formed the terrifyingly huge shape of Yamata no Orochi,” Sara replied. Hiraga blinked.

It’s okay, here comes Hiraga with the explanations. He says it’s probably a hallucination caused by… “magnetic disturbances affecting the neurons in the brain”, which caused people to imagine shapes in the formless fog.

LOOK, HIRAGA, YOU CAN’T JUST EXPLAIN EVERYTHING WITH ELECTROMAGNETISM, OKAY. It isn’t always electromagnetism! Sometimes it’s cocaine!

Here, I’ve made a flowchart.

Okay, okay, the actual explanation:

“In cemeteries during summer, the temperature fluctuates between daytime and nighttime, which causes the gravestones to expand and contract repeatedly; this leads to disturbances in the magnetic field. Likewise, when a bridge made of iron is magnetised by a lightning strike, this is said to produce conditions that are conducive to hallucinations. Perhaps the environment of this bamboo forest is similarly aligned.

“As for why you both experienced the same hallucination, Father Roberto and Miss Sara - this can be generally attributed to the fact that you both received the same explanation from the young man Kazuhito.

“But… what disappoints me above all is that I couldn’t see this. All I noticed was the wind strengthening and shaking the bamboo trees, and the formation of a faint white mist,” Hiraga said regretfully.

“I myself have no idea exactly what I saw. Maybe you didn’t see it because you were praying with all your might, and weren’t looking around you.

“Parapsychology recognises the existence of psychokinesis - the possibility of moving physical objects by interacting with them mentally. Another possible theory is that some of the people participating in this ritual had that power, and used it to manipulate the shape of the mist that was created by magnetic disturbances. But I really don’t know much about that,” Roberto said with a shrug.

“It is often said that what humans can recognise with their five senses and comprehend with their brains is only the tiniest fraction of the universe. But I want to know,” Hiraga said, gazing intently at Roberto. “If only I could witness the ritual once again, I would carry out better observations, but unfortunately, this is impossible.

“As for the knowledge that can be acquired at present - it’s possible to analyse the fact that you and I were in the same place and should have seen the same thing, but instead we had different experiences. Speaking of which, it seems like you and I have very different brain structures. You are the type with a highly developed right brain, and I’m probably the opposite.

“So I have a proposal. How about we submit our experiences this time to the medical division, and if we get permission, the two of us can undergo a PET examination of our brain function? At least, I’m terribly interested in your brain structure.”

Hiraga said this with complete earnestness, but Roberto shook his head.

“No, no, I’ll pass. I don’t want to see my own brain.”

This marriage proposal crackpot discussion is interrupted, as always, because Sara gives them video footage of the miracle, as promised. “Apparently Hiraga’s interest had shifted from the topic of brain scans and returned to their job. Roberto heaved a sigh of relief.”

The video footage shows a dense blizzard over Kamishima, and the appearance of mysterious red-orange lights on the mountain peak, which then coalesce into a huge glowing cross. This goes on for about 10 minutes.

Roberto’s reaction to this is pretty… millennial.

“Since the only evidence of the miraculous snowfall was a single photo, and the witnesses were all affiliated with Ooe Church, I suspected that it might be a ruse. But now this video has shown up, that changes things.

“Still, Futou and Miss Sara are Christians too, so why didn’t they publicise this incredible footage? If I’d filmed a miracle like this, I’d distribute it on TV and the Internet, to share the awe with everyone.”

Yeah, Roberto, we all know what you do when you want to go public with something. (This guy has never heard of moderation. It’s either bottling up his emotions forever, or PRESS CONFERENCES TO REVEAL HIS TRAUMATIC BACKSTORY ON INTERNATIONAL TV.)

More importantly, being back to their actual job means back to hassling Dr. Singh! Hiraga sends over the video, in the hopes that he’ll spot something they missed. Dr. Singh calls back.

“Thank you for the beautiful video. It doesn't snow in India, and so I watched it with great interest.”

“Whether it's beautiful or not is irrelevant. We finally obtained footage of this miracle, and so I sent it to you,” Hiraga replied matter-of-factly. Dr. Singh’s brow furrowed.

“You think of nothing but miracles, I see. So, what do you want me to do with this?” Dr. Singh asked, resuming his usual steely impassiveness.

Hiraga asks him to analyse the footage and see if it's possible for snowfall to occur in summer. Dr. Singh points out that he’s not a meteorologist, but he’ll get in touch with the science division to work on it. (Honestly, he wins even more points with me for being the first person to say anything like “you realise I'm not THAT kind of scientist?” in a world where everyone else is pulling doctorates out of their ass.)

Hiraga and Dr. Singh disconnected from the call almost simultaneously.

I can’t quite tell if the two of them get along or not, Roberto thought.

Hiraga settles in for a long day of looping the video over and over; Roberto lies down because it’s 5 am, but he can’t stop thinking about the boy Shirou and the story of the hero Amakusa Shirou, and the encoded inscription on the cross, and the youkai, and all the weirdness on Kamishima, and the boatloads of historical exposition he’s been getting, and basically it occurs to Roberto that there’s a lot going on in this book.

At least he can tackle one small piece of it, i.e. what the guy at the archives was saying about Kamishima being “Shikashima”.

Still stretched out upon the futon, Roberto propped himself up on one elbow and called to Hiraga.

“Hey, Hiraga. I met someone who called Kamishima ‘Shikashima’. What do you think that was about?”

“‘Shikashima’, is it? Probably a reference to deer,” Hiraga answered without turning around.

“What, deer? Then ‘bambini’ was referring to fawns?”

“Yes. The story of Bambi is very well-known in Japan; it was a picture book and nursery rhyme, and also became a Disney animated movie. The part where the food runs out in winter, and the mother deer gives tree bark to the fawn, is especially tearjerking. And yet that mother deer was killed by hunters,” Hiraga said, sounding angry.

“That was Felix Salten’s fairytale, Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde, wasn’t it? But I seem to remember the fawn ended up becoming the king of the forest - it was a happy ending.”

“Is that so? I don’t remember. I suppose I was so sad and irritated that I stopped reading halfway,” Hiraga said, head tilted doubtfully. Roberto laughed.

ACTUAL DISNEY PRINCESS HIRAGA JOSEF KOU

They talk about how deer are regarded as divine beasts in Japan, like at the shrines in Nara; this is because aristocrats close to the imperial family had a legend about a deity riding a white deer.

Roberto thinks it’s kind of odd that the deer worship of the imperial court was so readily received by the people of Amakusa. Oh well, there’s no point thinking about it now.

More importantly, I should be thinking about the miracle.

So the footprints we found on Kamishima did belong to Shirou and the others?

Then they must be hiding something after all…

The next day, Roberto goes off to the Hidden Christians’ village, and unlike the other day, it’s bustling with people and cars - including police cars. He finds Sara, who’s crying, and she explains that her father was missing and they’ve just learnt that he’s dead.

Turns out the oil-scalded corpse that was on the news was Sara’s father. It was strange that he went missing just before the ritual, when he’d been preparing for it for so long, but she was hoping that if the ritual was successful, he’d come back safe and well.

Roberto is temporarily speechless, and just races through possibilities. It can’t have been suicide. So it must have been an accident, or murder...

Roberto wants to take a look at the body when it’s brought back to the village, which will probably be tonight or tomorrow.

“I’ve had a lot of experience working with the police, in my line of work. I think perhaps I can be of some help.”

Sara frowned. “You’re a priest, aren’t you? Just what is your work like?”

“Of course I’m a priest. But at the same time, I’m also an investigator.”

Roberto explains that they came to investigate the miracle on Kamishima, and he thinks this miracle may have something to do with her father’s death.

“For example… if you’re hiding something, and perhaps it has to do with the miracle on Kamishima. Let’s say, you all know how the miracle was produced, and someone was kidnapped to extract information about this… That’s possible, isn’t it?”

Roberto, the girl’s dad is DEAD, can you let up on her for a bit

Sara protests that they have no idea about any of that, but Roberto is relentless. He points out that at the very least, they probably visit Kamishima frequently, which is how they had a recording of the miracle. “From this, we can deduce that you all pay special attention to Kamishima, and carry out regular surveillance. That’s a fact.”

He presses her to admit what Kamishima means to them, and she says it’s “the origin of our faith”. She gives some exposition on the history of the Hidden Christians, and how the Futou clan is a line of apothecarists who heal people with herbs and folk remedies, and also prayers and spells.

“But talking about prayers and spells in this day and age just sounds like nonsense, doesn’t it? It’s like the ritual the other day - I know it’s difficult for you to understand how we feel.”

“Not at all. I’m not much of a priest myself. When it comes to believing in God and praying to heaven, there isn’t really a difference between East and West.

“Besides, the Catholic monasteries of the West have an ancient tradition of cultivating medicinal herbs, and there were mysterious women known as witches who practised folk medicine. Don’t you think it’s pretty similar?” Roberto said with a smile.

Sara nodded, seeming a little more cheerful.

Sara shows him the rosary she wears, which is apparently an ancestral relic from Amakusa Shirou. Roberto takes a closer look at it and notices that it has almost the same design as the replica cross outside the museum - the one with the mysterious inscription. So the cross at the museum belonged to Amakusa Shirou himself. In that case, what does the inscription mean?

Sara sees him deep in thought, and gets worried. The Hidden Christians didn’t think this cross was especially valuable to anyone other than them, but maybe someone was targeting it after all? Roberto says no, they’re not after the cross itself - they’re after what it represents.

Sara sighs, “You’re talking about the legendary treasure of Amakusa Shirou, aren’t you?” She tells him that lots of people have come in search of the treasure, but it doesn’t actually exist. She can’t stand the thought that her father might have been targeted because of that. All the Hidden Christians want is to practise their faith discreetly and live in peace.

Roberto latches on to this. If the Hidden Christians just want a quiet life, then there’s no reason for them to draw attention to themselves by staging some conspicuous miracle, is there?

“I’m relieved to hear that. Like I said, we came to Amakusa to investigate the miracle on Kamishima. I truly wish to keep those mysterious events from being used as political tools.”

“Political tools… what are you talking about?”

“People want to stage miracles and have them verified for all sorts of reasons - to exploit them for political advantage, to demonstrate the power of the Lord Christ, to win back believers, to bask in the world’s attention, to gain resources and funding… Recently, we’ve been getting countless miracle reports of this sort, and I believe it’s related to the current instability in the Vatican.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s talk throughout the Catholic world of using God’s miracles as a unifying force to regain believers,” Roberto replied, with a trace of self-derision.

Sara is reminded of the four local Jesuit priests, who showed up after the events on Kamishima to urge all the Hidden Christians to go back to church. But the Hidden Christians have been doing their own thing for a long time and would prefer to keep it that way. “Our faith is something that belongs only to us, and we wish to safeguard this in secret.”

Roberto has a final piece of advice for her:

“Something that seems to hold no value for you may not necessarily be worthless to others. There’s a strong possibility that someone is after your secrets. Miss Sara, please be very careful.”

That’s actually good advice, Roberto.

Back at the inn, Dr. Singh calls Hiraga and tells him that he’s run a bunch of calculations on the velocity and mass and consistency of the snow, the ambient temperature, etc. Basically it’s physically impossible for this snow to have happened, especially considering how rapidly it was falling.

Hiraga: In other words, this snowfall displays a profound scientific contradiction?

Dr. Singh: That’s correct. It is a truly unnatural phenomenon - a mystery that defies the laws of mathematics.

Hiraga: So, Dr. Singh, do you also think this phenomenon is a miracle from the Lord?

Dr. Singh: Please stop. I am not the one to judge that. And it is not my business to say whether this video is a hoax or not. What I can say as a mathematician is that, for snow to fall at the speed shown in the video, it must be dense snow with high water content. If so, it should melt and become rain before reaching the ground. Conversely, snow that accumulates on the ground would have to fall more slowly. In any case, it is certainly inexplicable.

Hiraga: Ahh… Thank you very much. [hangs up, sighs]

Roberto remarks, “Dr. Singh is as cold as usual, huh,” and when Hiraga asks how much he heard, he says, “Just the last part, and you sighing. Are you stalled on the investigation? If you don’t mind, you can talk to me about it.”

“I don’t wish to complain, but at times like this I think, if only Lauren were around… And so I couldn’t help but sigh.”

Hiraga frankly expressed his thoughts.

“Well… Dr. Singh’s inadequacy can’t be helped, can it?”

“No, how should I put it… Dr. Singh is truly outstanding. But you could say he’s… not too interested in the investigation? I think this is the difference between him and Lauren.”

I’m not sure if Lauren was mainly interested in the INVESTIGATION, Hiraga, but okay.

“So from your point of view, the doctor’s talents are on par with that great genius Sir Lauren. That’s the highest praise you could give Dr. Singh. But well, if he won’t cooperate with you, won’t that brilliant brain of his just go to waste?” Roberto said, his words somewhat mean-spirited.

He struck his hand. “How about I teach you a magic word?”

“What’s that?” Hiraga asked, frowning.

“A magic word for getting Dr. Singh to help you.”

“Does such a thing exist? But my conscience reproaches me for comparing him to Lauren again.”

“It’s alright. They’re different people, after all.”

Roberto winked and smoothly wrote down some words in Hiraga’s notebook. Hiraga looked at them and blinked.

“Are these magic words?”

“Yes. My intuition tells me they’ll probably work well. You might as well keep them up your sleeve in case you need them.”

“I will. Thank you very much.”

Roberto then flops down and cheerfully remarks, “Aaahh. I’m getting used to the tatami, bit by bit.”

Hiraga asks what he was up to today, and Roberto tells him about Sara and her dead father; Hiraga quietly says a prayer for the dead man. Roberto remarks that as if that weren’t bad enough, there’s even more depressing stuff surrounding it.

Roberto: Looking at Miss Sara and the others reminded me of something. It seems that in the past, missionaries were up to something in Amakusa. The directors of the Christian Museum and the Collegio Museum were friendly to us; they said it was thanks to the missionaries that the Christian faith and culture flourished in Amakusa, and governance was excellent during the era of the Christian daimyou. But…

Hiraga: Did Miss Sara and the others have negative opinions?

Roberto: No - on the contrary. I realised that they hold fast to an incredibly pure faith. Even though it deviates from Catholic doctrine, they would stake their life on their faith. And this made me aware of my sinfulness...  As you know, the reason why the Jesuits began missionary work across the world was to counter the rising prominence of the Protestants. But to put it more frankly, it was because of the Vatican’s budget deficit.

Roberto launches into exposition about how the Catholic Church - especially the Jesuits - has messed things up all over the world out of mercenary motives. He basically gives a rundown of colonisation, the spice trade, and how the Inquisition was an excuse to confiscate the assets of people they had issues with. The exploration of new lands in the East was to find more ways to fill church coffers, which paid off richly with the discovery of valuable gold and silver mines in Japan.

“The Jesuit missionaries spearheaded the charge to evangelise in the East. They used the gold, silver, and treasures they brought back from the East to build the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, along with chapels, printing presses, and libraries - I have very mixed feelings about that.”

But then Christianity was outlawed in Japan, and uprisings like Amakusa Shirou’s Shimabara Rebellion took place, spurred along by European powers that supplied weapons to the combatants.

“The director of the Christian museum told me that the Shimabara Rebellion in Amakusa wasn’t a religious war. But I disagree. It was a proxy war between the Portuguese and the Dutch - in other words, between Catholics and Protestants. The Protestant Dutch wanted to seize the Japanese market from the Catholic nations, which had profited so tremendously by trading with Japan.”

The Catholics wanted to protect their interests in Japan, and so they backed Amakusa Shirou as a puppet, but his entire army was wiped out. “What this amounts to is that the missionaries brought the flames of war to this island… When I think about this, I’m overcome by the urge to bow in apology to Miss Sara and the others.”

“Father Roberto, your opinions always surprise me. I’ve never given much thought to the economic considerations behind history. But you have nothing to feel responsible for. Everything that happened was meant to happen - that’s what I think,” Hiraga said, his gaze fixed steadily on Roberto.

“Well… You’re right. I’m not so egoistic as to say it’s my responsibility. It just made me a little melancholy. And of course I couldn’t say this sort of thing to Miss Sara; that’s why I got you to listen to me.”

“Are you feeling a little better?”

“Yes. Thank you. In return, I’ll brew some Japanese tea.”

Aww, Hiraga, that’s sweet, but we all know that getting Roberto not to feel guilty is a fool’s errand.

They drink tea, and Hiraga comes up with a lighter anecdote.

“Speaking of the Age of Discovery, I just remembered something unpleasant.

“In my first year at the University of Berlin, I had to write a report about Columbus's discovery of the New World, but I remember I objected to the expression ‘discovery of the New World’ itself. ‘It's called a discovery, but weren't the Native Americans originally living there?’ - I wrote a hundred-page report about that. As a result, the professor gave me an E grade. In the end, it blew up into a big argument, and I dropped the course.”

“That was a really stubborn professor,” Roberto said, laughing wryly.

“Right? Thanks to that, I developed a temporary phobia of reports.”

Hiraga Josef Kou is truly a precious treasure.

He’s not done being chatty either - wow, it’s like he really wants to take Roberto’s mind off gloomy historical things.

“Ahh - I remembered something else.”

“What is it this time?”

“The other day, when you asked about Bambi, I couldn’t give a satisfactory answer. So I looked into it more afterwards.”

Hiraga explains that the reason why deer worship became prevalent in Amakusa was because of a superstition - fawns have spots that fade when they reach maturity, and so people who were afflicted with skin diseases would worship these deer, hoping that they too would have their blemishes vanish. Hmm.

Roberto then notices that it’s 6 o’clock; usually the girl Yuuko would have brought their dinner by now. They go out to check, and see Yoshioka pacing around. He’s worried about Yuuko; she’s seemed downcast and worried for the past few days, and isn’t back from walking the dog, even though he’s always told her to come home before it gets dark. Roberto mutters, “He’s even more overprotective than I expected.”

But it’s okay, Hiraga is here to provide reassurance.

Hiraga tipped his head to the side.

“That is puzzling.”

“What?”

“When a young girl goes missing, the worst-case scenarios are that she has gotten into an accident, or that she has been abducted.”

Yoshioka turned ghastly pale at Hiraga’s blunt words.

“But that’s strange, isn’t it? In the case of a traffic accident, there are three possibilities to consider - only Miss Yuuko was run over, the dog was run over, or both of them were run over. Unless the dog was run over, it should have remained at the scene, and it would be strange that you didn’t notice it when you checked Miss Yuuko’s usual route.

“And if we assume she was kidnapped, it would be highly unusual to abduct the dog together with the girl. In other words, you should have found the dog along the route.

“Therefore, this raises the possibility that the dog was in an accident, and Miss Yuuko took it to the hospital. But then a contradiction arises - how could she have sensed this a few days ago and grown unhappy and worried?”

As Hiraga spoke dispassionately, Yoshioka seized his arm and shook it violently.

“You - what are you saying? So what did happen to Yuuko?!”

“In short, it’s unclear at present,” Hiraga answered coolly. Yoshioka glared balefully at him.

“Hiraga, what are you talking about?” Roberto asked, worried.

Hiraga relayed the conversation, and Roberto folded his arms.

“There’s just one gap in your reasoning.”

Hiraga blinked. “Where?”

“Isn’t it possible that Miss Yuuko left home of her own accord and changed her usual route?”

Hiraga doesn’t understand why Yuuko would hide something from her father when they’re clearly close. Roberto points out that might be the problem - Yoshioka is such a doting dad that it gets kind of smothering. “If there was a boy she liked - but maybe I’m overthinking it. For now, try asking Mr. Yoshioka if there’s any sign of Miss Yuuko having a lover. If he has no idea about that, there’s nothing to do except call the police.”

Hiraga conveys this to Yoshioka, who realises IT HAS TO BE ROBINSON BAKER, THAT BASTARD. He must have dragged Yuuko off somewhere! Hiraga tries to call Robinson, but only gets his voicemail. Yoshioka is livid. He dashes off to call the cops.

Back in the room, Roberto has a dream about the Hidden Christians, and when he wakes up from it, “in his head, the scattered puzzle pieces whirled wildly through the air like a tornado, and then clicked firmly into place”. Great, Roberto, share the breakthrough with the class! Or at least Hiraga!

Roberto got up and took a shower. Then he called out to Hiraga, who was facing his laptop as usual, “I’m going out for a bit.”

Oh. I’m sure this will end well.

Roberto goes back to the Hidden Christian village to see the corpse of Sara’s father. The skin is blackened and the body is bloated due to five days of decomposition. Gosh, you know what might be really useful right now? HAVING THE BEAUTIFUL GENIUS SCIENTIST/FORENSICS GUY HERE

The corpse was mottled with inflamed burn scars, covering the face and neck, as well as the chest and abdomen - as though it had been struck by a shower of hot oil. From the blistering on the skin, these burns had unmistakably happened before death.

When Roberto looked closer, he saw that the wrists and thighs were partially marked with scars that had turned dark brown with congested blood, and the surface of the skin was marred by abrasions. These marks were probably from being bound with coarse rope.

Roberto reflexively averted his eyes from this brutality - but the sight of these wounds irresistibly reminded him of something.

Torture.

He had seen the same torture method in classified documents related to the Order of Saint Stephen, which had existed in sixteenth-century Tuscany and Pisa.

When torturing traitors and spies, they had used a device that consisted of a handle attached to a sphere with numerous small holes in it. This was commonly known as a “lead sprinkler”. The instrument had been filled with molten lead and tar, or boiling water or oil, and the searing liquid had been dripped onto the victims to torment them.

The Order of Saint Stephen had been formed to combat the heathen Ottoman Empire and Turkish pirates; they were the Pope’s division of elite guards, and also had deep ties to the Jesuits.

The Jesuits… Is this their doing?

Cold sweat ran down Roberto’s brow. His hand trembled as he adjusted the garment on the corpse.

No, calm down. I have to confirm the facts first.

Hey, Roberto, this might be a REALLY GOOD TIME to call someone!

Roberto took out his cellphone and made a call to Father Andou.

GODDAMMIT NOT THAT

But Father Andou doesn’t answer, so Roberto hurries off to the church of our FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURHOOD JESUITS. My Roberto-whump senses are tingling.

The only person at the church is Nishimaru (aka Father West, who has really not been relevant so far); he seems confused when Roberto demands where everyone else is. Roberto chills enough to remember that nothing is confirmed yet and Nishimaru might genuinely be out of the loop, and he apologises for snapping at him.

Nishimaru speaks some English; he says head priest Gerard went back to France for a visit. He has no idea where the other priests went or when they’ll be back. There was a big argument yesterday between Andou and the others, and then they all left together and haven’t returned. Nishimaru says he’s not much of a priest, so all he really does is cook and clean for the others; they don’t tell him what they’re up to. But he does keep track of their schedules.

Roberto looks at the priests’ schedules and sees that they’re usually very regular - but since the miracle on Kamishima, they’ve gotten very disorganised, and they’ve been staying out at night a lot recently. Including the days Sara’s father was missing. And they were also out last night when Yuuko went missing.

If they’re behind Miss Yuuko’s kidnapping too…

The mangled corpse of Sara’s father resurfaced in the back of Roberto’s mind.

I have to save her. Where are they now?

Roberto ran through the dizzying possibilities.

He figures that the hideout can’t be that far from the church, but must also be somewhere that people don’t go near. A place that’s taboo. The place of the oil presser spirits.

Roberto is on a ROLL with the deductions now. He figures out that the oil presser story was originally about people who extracted Hydnocarpus wightiana seed oil; there were lots of those trees growing on the Kamishima mountaintop, and around the alleged lair of the oil pressers.

The oil from those trees is specifically used to treat leprosy - a disease which has strong associations with Christianity, only rivalled by smallpox. Both these diseases cause lesions or sores on the skin. Roberto realises that the prevalence of these diseases was precisely why deer worship caught on in Amakusa.

The history of infectious disease was inextricable from the existence of religion - the latter served as salvation from the inexplicable and indiscriminate suffering caused by the former.

This was demonstrated by how many early followers of Christianity had suffered from disease. Christianity had originally been for the sake of the weak and persecuted.

This was probably the same reason why Christianity had been accepted in Amakusa…

Roberto double-checks with Nishimaru whether there was an outbreak of leprosy and smallpox around the time the Jesuit missionaries arrived in Amakusa. Nishimaru confirms this. “But the Jesuit missionaries, who were firmly devoted to their work, bravely entered the land of Amakusa.” As a result, they managed to convert about 400 heathens.

Was it really their firm devotion to their missionary work that drove them to set foot in the dangerous land of Amakusa?

Roberto knew that the answer was no.

They had a secret - they had no need to fear the smallpox.

Roberto says he’ll come back tomorrow, and skedaddles.

Good detective work, Roberto, but seriously, maybe it’s time to phone a friend.

Roberto flagged a taxi, and headed to the place of the oil pressers.

Or not, I guess!

He didn’t know if Yuuko would be there. It would be better if she weren’t.

I hope it’s all a misunderstanding on my part, Roberto thought.

With this prayer in his heart, he got out of the taxi and entered the depths of the forest.

You know, I now understand why these books are published under a horror imprint. This is like every classic horror scene where you’re yelling at the protagonist not to do some idiotic reckless thing like CHECKING OUT THE MONSTER’S HIDEOUT ALONE, and then they DO THE THING ANYWAY

From the shade of the trees, Roberto peered at the buildings.

At a glance, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

So it had just been a misunderstanding after all. He let out a breath, and took out his cellphone to contact Hiraga.

In that instant -

There was a violent impact on the back of Roberto's head. He collapsed to the ground.

Before his vision faded, he saw his cellphone crushed under someone's black shoe.

OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE NOT THIS AGAIN

And then, in truly cinematic style, we cut back to Hiraga. I’m so sorry I ever yelled at him for recklessly climbing down a cliff alone. THIS really puts it in perspective.

Hiraga is still watching the footage of the summer snow, and having a mental block.

He slapped his palms repeatedly against his own head.

SAME, but for a different reason.

Hiraga is still blissfully unaware that his problems are about to get a whole lot bigger. Instead, he successfully figures out that the so-called snow is actually inversion fog caused by the sudden cooling of the air near the ground. But why did the air over Kamishima abruptly cool?  

Oh look, HIRAGA knows how to phone a friend! Or, well, a colleague. He emails his hypothesis to Dr. Singh, who checks and confirms that it’s inversion fog, but, “As for what caused the cooling of the atmosphere over Kamishima, I do not know. It is outside my area of expertise.” Hiraga calls him anyway to press it further, and Dr. Singh points out the difficulty of calculating localised weather phenomena using general regional data.

"It might be possible if you had accurate weather data for the skies precisely over Kamishima that day - but you don't, do you?" Dr. Singh said coldly.

"Yes, I don't. Who do you think might have it?" Hiraga asked, his expression earnest.

Dr. Singh seemed to be taken aback. He sighed.

"Who? Well, I have no idea. How about you go make inquiries among aliens? Now then, I'm busy. Excuse me."

The call was cut off.

Hiraga gazed at the dark screen of the monitor, imagining telescope-wielding aliens monitoring Kamishima from their spaceship.

It was true that, with observational data collected from space, the state of the skies over Kamishima that day would become clear.

And even if not aliens, there were existing entities which might possess such data. The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration maintained satellites for military navigation, through the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. They certainly had a vast store of observational data on meteorology and oceanography.

However, even if the request were to come officially from the Vatican, it didn't seem likely that the United States government would hand over such data.

"And I can't ask Dr. Singh to carry out hacking..."

Just as Hiraga let out a short sigh, there was a knock on the door.

Open up, Hiraga, it’s a WHOLE NEW PROBLEM

Outside the door are the boy Shirou and another youth - and Yuuko’s dog is with them.

“Is Father Roberto in?” the boy Shirou asked.

“No, he said he was going out for a bit. He’s been out since this morning,” Hiraga replied. Shirou frowned.

“He said ‘a bit’ - but he’s still gone at this hour?”

Now that he mentioned it… Hiraga looked at his watch. It was past 7 pm.

“He really is late. It’s strange that he hasn’t contacted me. I’ll give him a call.”

Hiraga made a phone call to Roberto, but all he heard was a message informing him that the phone was out of power.

“I can’t reach him. That’s rare…”

Hiraga’s face clouded.

“So… it really is like Sara said. I’m worried about Father Roberto.”

“He went to look for the missing Yuuko, didn’t he?”

Shirou and the other youth spoke simultaneously, looking at each other.

“Father Hiraga, do you know Father Roberto came to our village today?” Shirou asked.

“No,” Hiraga said, shaking his head.

“Sara says he was acting strangely. She got the villagers together, saying she had something important to tell everyone - she wanted to pass on a warning from Father Roberto.

“Father Roberto was worried that one of us had died. He said there’s a strong possibility that someone is after the secrets of the Hidden Christians, and we ought to be very careful…”

“Roberto said that?”

Hiraga frowned.

Yeah, that was good advice. Pity he himself IGNORED IT COMPLETELY

The other youth introduces himself as Shinichi - Sara’s older brother, and also Yuuko’s secret boyfriend. Looks like Roberto was right about this, despite being a COMPLETE DUMBASS

The couple had agreed that after the snake ritual, Shinichi would leave his family to be with Yuuko - but then he had to take his missing father’s place in the ritual, and he couldn’t be in contact with Yuuko, which is why she seemed so anxious for the past few days. They were supposed to meet when she took the dog for a walk, but he only found the dog, with no sign of Yuuko. So now it seems likely that whoever killed Shinichi’s father abducted Yuuko too.

“But no matter how hard I try, I can’t figure out where Yuuko is. My last hope was that Father Roberto might know something, so I came to ask him.”

Shinichi’s appeal was desperate.

“...Yes, I think so too. Roberto noticed something, and went alone to save Miss Yuuko. That’s the kind of person he is.”

Roberto's personality was such that he would be satisfied with warning other people to be cautious, while he himself dived into danger alone.

Why didn’t he discuss any of this with me - his partner? Hiraga bit his lip.

“Do you have any idea where he went?”

“Did he give any hint of where he was going?”

The boys Shirou and Shinichi leant forward as they asked.

Hiraga stood stock-still and silent, recalling what Roberto had said last night. Had he said anything that might be a hint?

There didn’t seem to have been anything of the sort.

“Looking at Miss Sara and the others reminded me of something. It seems that in the past, missionaries were up to something in Amakusa.”

“You have nothing to feel responsible for.”

“Well… You’re right. I’m not so egoistic as to say it’s my responsibility.”

Hiraga remembered their conversation.

Roberto had appeared to feel a sense of responsibility towards the people of Amakusa. He had seemed to feel guilt towards the people who had been unknowingly dragged into the gambits of the European powers, and lost their lives as a result. More than that, he had said that he himself was a sinner.

Even so, you don’t mean to let yourself die as a scapegoat, do you?

You’re such an idiot.

Hiraga clenched his fists. His anguished tears were on the verge of spilling over.

With trembling hands, he once again dialed Roberto’s number. But the power really had been cut off.

I LOVE THIS BUT I ALSO HATE IT

Hiraga realises that the one way to pinpoint Roberto’s location is through cellphone GPS signals, the way phone companies track lost cellphones. If not, they’ll have to call the cops, but they don’t have time for that.

Hiraga sat down before his laptop and called Dr. Singh.

Dr. Singh’s annoyed face appeared on the monitor.

Roberto, I’m using your magic.

Hiraga clutched the note in his pocket.

hey I wonder how the magician’s doing

This prize idiot wakes up and finds himself in a candlelit cave - it looks like a ward formerly used to treat leprosy patients. He’s lying down and tied hand and foot to a bed. I’m almost too stressed to appreciate the bondage. Almost.

He can hear a woman crying softly, and when he looks around, he sees Yuuko, also tied up. He calls out to her but she seems too terrified to talk, and it occurs to Roberto that he doesn’t speak Japanese anyway.

Roberto is trying futilely to yank himself free when he smells the distinctive whiff of hot oil. Turns out there’s a cauldron of oil boiling near him.

WELL THEN

Hiraga told Dr. Singh how Roberto had gotten caught up in the case and his life was now in danger.

“Then you should go to the police quickly,” Dr. Singh insisted firmly.

“I know. But this is a race against time. Roberto’s cellphone has lost power. We can’t search for him through ordinary means. But his cellphone's location history should still be on the servers. If we check that-”

“That’s why the police-”

“There isn’t enough time. Only you can do it!”

“Ah- you- surely you can’t be telling me to engage in illegal activity. What do you take me for? In the first place, asking me to act outside my duties puts me in a difficult situation.”

“But you’re our friend!” Hiraga cried out.

Dr. Singh, who was angrily moving to disconnect the call, instantly froze.

“Huh?”

His eyes widened.

“Doctor, how- how are your dogs?”

Hiraga spoke forcefully, as though latching onto the topic.

“What? Wh-why are you asking now…?”

Dr. Singh looked startled.

“I’m asking if they’re fine.”

“T-they’re fine.”

“Are those dogs your family?”

“Eh… What does that…”

“Roberto told me. Transporting those dogs to the Vatican was very difficult. I can only say this now, but he had to go outside the law a little, to smooth over that risky situation. All of that - for the sake of his friendship with you, Roberto…”

Hiraga made it this far before his breath caught.

The note Roberto had written was worded more elegantly; if it had been Roberto in his place, he could probably have deftly negotiated with Dr. Singh and persuaded him.

But he himself couldn’t do that.

Hiraga’s gaze frantically ran across the words, but his mind wasn’t following them. His mouth wasn’t moving. It hurt to breathe, and his eyes couldn't focus properly.

His gaze felt strange.

“…Father Hiraga?”

Dr. Singh stared at Hiraga, who had fallen silent onscreen.

Hiraga’s eyes were wet. A tear slid down his face.

I NEEDED THIS IN MY LIFE BUT ALSO I NEVER NEEDED THIS EVER

Dr. Singh quietly hangs up and lets Hiraga sob over his dumbass husband in peace, while he considers his conundrum.

Singh was troubled.

It was not that he did not know how to check the location history of Roberto’s cellphone. He knew that perfectly well.

The truth of the matter was that Dr. Singh had worked with the Rome police to thoroughly investigate everything from Hiraga’s call history to his cellphone location history. Even after that, he had continued monitoring for over a year, retrieving information to track any irregularities around Father Hiraga, and whether he was in contact with the terrorist Lauren di Luca.

[...]

Of course, misusing this data was forbidden by law, and the data on the servers was protected by formidable security measures. The information would only be disclosed to the police by court order, in the case of severe crimes, or if the cellphone owner was clearly involved in anti-social activity.

But if they followed formal procedures, it would take some time for the court order to be issued. Singh knew this.

He swallowed.

The question isn’t whether or not I can do it.

It’s whether or not I will.

Our damsel in distress is still trying to wrench himself loose, but it’s time for his regularly scheduled “being tied up and menaced by a villain”. Head priest Gerard, who was supposedly in France, strolls over with the classic Hollywood line, “I see you’re finally awake.” Naturally, he’s accompanied by minions (the three younger priests, including Roberto’s friend Andou).

He’s also holding the lead sprinkler. I recommend following that link so you can really picture it.

“Father Gerard, what are you doing?!” Roberto shouted.

“‘What are you doing’ - need you ask? I’m reclaiming the treasure of the Pope - the Vatican - from the heathens in this land. That is my mission.”

Gerard stepped closer, expressionless.

“Treasure?”

“Indeed. Before this, when the Vatican was on the verge of a crisis and fell into financial difficulties, it was rebuilt splendidly using the treasure of the Hidden Christians here. But the Jesuits were expelled from Japan before they could deliver the final treasure to the Vatican. Now that the Vatican once again faces a financial crisis, it is necessary to recover the medieval treasure.”

“Ridiculous. And that’s why you killed Mr. Futou?”

“I had no intention of killing him at first. That family should know the location of the treasure, and if he’d obediently handed it over, all would have been well. But he obstinately refused. He was frustratingly tight-lipped. And so I had to make use of holy torture.

“Those fellows don’t seem to value their own lives at all; if we’d taken his son, it’d have ended the same way. That’s why we took his fiancee.”

“What are you going to do with Miss Yuuko?!”

“Make a deal. What will that man’s son choose - faith or his lover? If we slowly send him more and more pictures of the girl being tortured, he’s bound to hand over the treasure at some point. I was planning to enjoy myself to my heart’s content, but then an unexpected obstacle showed up. Father Roberto, now that you know the secret, you must be dealt with.”

With these words, Gerard dipped the frightful “lead sprinkler” into the cauldron of seething oil. There was a strange sizzling sound.

Then Gerard came into sight. He was gazing with pleasure at the steaming instrument as oil dripped from it.

“Now then… Who should I start with? Should I begin with the girl’s ankle? Or Father Roberto, would you like to go first?”

Gerard's smirking face drew closer. Drops of oil fell from the lead sprinkler, and as they landed on the flagstones, steam rose with a hiss.

Gerard whispered into Roberto's ear, "We who serve the Pope should be of one mind. Submit to me and you will be saved."

He then turned on his heel, and approached Yuuko.

"Maybe I’ll start with the girl after all..."

Yuuko's eyes were filled with tears. She cried out, her voice fraying like a silk thread.

"Wait! Don't hurt Miss Yuuko! She has nothing to do with this!"

"Then you will be the first to receive punishment!"

Gerard raised the lead sprinkler. The next instant, he poured a stream of boiling oil down towards Roberto's foot.

The bed was scorched, and smoke rose from Roberto's cassock. He felt a momentary heat, but there was no pain.

He was so afraid his teeth were chattering. The sound echoed in his skull.

"Oh my, I missed? You're a lucky man."

Gerard grinned, and stepped back towards the cauldron.

Roberto shook off his terror. Feigning calm, he called out to Gerard's retreating figure.

"Father Gerard, how about making a deal with me instead? I know where the treasure is located."

"What...? Don't talk nonsense."

Gerard slowly turned back.

"No, it's true," Roberto declared.

In fact, he had no definite proof, but he had a rough idea. And if he convinced Gerard, it would give him time to consider his next move.

Gerard stared at his face with deep suspicion. Roberto hoped fervently that his demeanour seemed confident enough.

"If that's true, then tell me the location right now," Gerard said threateningly.

"It’s difficult to explain. That's why I'll show you directly. Take me to Kamishima."

"Hmph... Very well. Then, what are your terms? Are you begging for your life?"

"No. I want you to let Miss Yuuko go."

Gerard chuckled.

“Only if I get the treasure. The girl will be confined here as a hostage. If you lie or run away, both of you will be done for. Got it?”

“Of course. I understand.”

Roberto has a good heart but a TERRIBLE BRAIN

The Jesuits hustle him out of the cave bound and gagged and at knifepoint, and put a bag over his head, because we’re really committing to the bondage.

Roberto does notice that the priests are basically invisible in the darkness, because they’re wearing special black cloaks (which explains that floating disembodied hand Robinson saw in happier times). They get on a boat.

It should take about 30 minutes to get to Kamishima.

Until then, Roberto had to prepare to decipher the code. He marshalled his thoughts.

...as a reminder, he doesn’t even know for sure, he’s JUST BLUFFING and planning to SOLVE IT ON THE SPOT. You’re playing a dangerous game here, pal.

They get to Kamishima, and Roberto leads them to the spot where he saw a figure vanish the other day, and he spots a very faint Hidden Christian crest. They find a small cave and enter it, but then the path forks. There are pictures carved over each fork - the serpent tempting Eve, Jesus being crucified, sun-worshippers, stuff like that.

“Let me think for a bit,” Roberto said reflexively. Gerard glared at him murderously.

Roberto closed his eyes and tried to organise his thoughts.

Even with knife-wielding Jesuits deathglaring at him, Roberto slips into the codebreaking zone and blithely starts internally monologuing about religious symbolism. Hey, remember the Lullian Circle he was working with at the start of the book? The medieval Jesuits used that pretty extensively! So what Roberto has to do is identify the component parts of each picture (e.g. Adam, Eve, and the snake), derive their initials, and then match them with that mysterious inscription on the Hidden Christians’ cross, once that inscription is run through a mental Lullian Circle.

So simple, really.

Anyway, the first string of characters is SSL, which he realises stands for “Sol”, “Sanctum”, and “Laudo”, so he chooses the path with the sun-worshippers engraved over it. He repeats this process every time they reach a new fork, but then they arrive at a rock wall.

“Shit - it’s a dead end!”

Gerard stamped his feet, enraged, and grabbed hold of Roberto.

But Roberto sensed that there was no mistake in his codebreaking.

“This must be the goal. Surely there’s a hidden door somewhere.”

Oh, naturally.

Of course there’s a secret door, and they emerge into a chamber containing a stone altar and a box decorated with gold and silver. It looks like the legendary Ark of the Covenant - knowing VME, it might be. Gerard is thrilled. “We’ve finally found it! The treasure that will save the Vatican from its crisis!”

“What should we do with him?”

A smirk crossed Gerard’s face, and he turned to Roberto.

“Father Roberto, you’ve really worked hard to guide us here. We no longer have any use for you, but in honour of your efforts, I’ll give you a special choice. You can die here like this, or you can become my subordinate. Choose one or the other.”

Gerard drew a dagger from under his cloak, and held it to Roberto’s throat. Nanjou, too, brandished his gleaming knife.

Roberto made no reply. The heavy silence drew on.

I bet he’s about to say “guess I’ll die”, but fortunately, before that happens:

“Father Roberto!”

A loud voice echoed nearby. It was Hiraga.

“Are you alright, Father Roberto?!”

This time, it was the voice of the boy Shirou.

Then there’s a stampede of footsteps, like 20 to 30 people are headed their way.

Seeing the tide turn, Gerard violently shoved Roberto away. Roberto lost his balance and fell to the floor.

“Let’s go! Help move this!”

Hiraga and the Hidden Christians burst into the room, and Shirou rushes after the priests who are getting away with the treasure chest. Naturally, THIS is when Roberto loses his chill and yells, “Watch out for the knife! They have knives!”

I give up on this man.

Hiraga knelt down next to Roberto and started cutting his ropes with a Swiss Army knife.

“I’m glad you’re alright… I was worried I wouldn’t make it in time.”

“More importantly - Hiraga, Miss Yuuko is still a captive,” Roberto said hurriedly.

Hiraga shot a glance at him.

“She’s alright. She is with her lover right now, and is going to Mr. Yoshioka.”

“That’s a relief, then.”

Hiraga explains how Dr. Singh tracked down Roberto’s cellphone location, so they managed to find Yuuko; she was being guarded by Roberto’s former friend Andou, but he answered their questions honestly and vowed to turn himself in to the police. Then Shirou gathered the villagers and led them all to this hideout on Kamishima.

“I see… Hiraga, thank you for coming to save me,” Roberto said seriously.

“It wasn’t me - everyone came to save you. Please learn from this experience and stop being reckless, and give thanks to God for your rescue.”

Hiraga, speaking in a slightly angry tone, jerked the knife.

CALL HIM OUT, HIRAGA

Shirou returns and gloomily announces that the priests got away with the treasure. Hiraga casually explains that their cloaks must have been made with Vantablack, because VME will never miss the chance for a meme.  

Roberto wants to apologise for letting the bad guys get away with the treasure (TWO BOOKS IN A ROW, SERIOUSLY). Shirou explains that the chest was very important to the Hidden Christians - it held a seemingly-empty pot that was supposedly a sacred relic. Roberto guesses that the pot contained the residue of something like dried fruit peels or burnt charcoal, and Shirou confirms this.

“It’s good you didn’t touch them. That was smallpox.”

Specifically, they were the scabs of people suffering from smallpox - these were historically used as a sort of immunisation.

“Father Gerard and the others might be disappointed when they see the contents of the chest,” Hiraga said mildly, and Roberto spontaneously burst out laughing.

“Right?”

Roberto talks about how colonialism has historically been furthered by introducing diseases to the indigenous populations, and that’s what happened in Amakusa. “Diseases don’t just cause mental and physical suffering. Societies ravaged by disease also experience religious turmoil - you could say it’s an ideal opportunity for religious conversion. Ordinarily, no one would set foot in a place where there was a smallpox outbreak, but the missionaries went ahead with their proselytising without hesitation.”

“But, Roberto - at the same time, surely there were also missionaries who devoted themselves wholeheartedly to serving people. The scabs of Saint Silvester here also saved many lives, didn’t they? I want to believe this. There must have been many people like Father Almeida, who were not simply driven by aggression and profit,” Hiraga said.

“That’s true,” Roberto replied, nodding deeply. "There are always villains, but there are also good people."

Hiraga looked Roberto straight in the eye, and said, smiling, "Yes."

As usual, this tender moment is interrupted by a weird discovery - looking closer at the altar now that the chest is gone, Shirou finds a strange mechanism that reminds him of a puzzle. Roberto tries out a bunch of codes.

As Roberto dexterously manipulated the dial, lining up one word after another, Shirou and the others watched wide-eyed, sighing with admiration.

(Don’t be fooled, folks. He’s still a moron.)

Naturally, Roberto solves the puzzle, and the altar cracks and slides open to reveal a pool of water, containing hundreds of huge, dazzling white pearls. Turns out that the Hidden Christians cultivated pearls, which is a surprise even to their descendants.

“So there was something like this lying under the altar… This must have been a worthy offering to God. From now on, we will abide by our ancestors’ beliefs, and reveal this secret to no one. And we will continue our steadfast prayers to God for the rest of our lives.”

Shirou and the Hidden Christians all kneel and pray. No one touches any of the pearls, despite how valuable they must be.

Roberto helpfully reminds us that church dodginess knows no limits, and the missionaries probably set out to convert the people of Amakusa specifically so they could get their hands on the pearls. Hiraga does not take this well.

“The main components of pearl are aragonite - crystallised calcium - and conchiolin, which is protein. It’s the same composition as shell. When something slips into the interior of a mollusc’s shell, the mantle, which secretes the components of the shell, undergoes cell division. This forms a layer of calcium and organic matter that encases the object. Pearls appear iridescent to the human eye simply because of the structure of these overlapping layers.

“It’s far too cruel to sacrifice human lives for something like this.”

“I know. Deceiving such pure people… I can’t stomach it either.”

Hiraga suddenly realises that hey, the book is ending and they still haven’t solved the miracle! Time to tie up all the loose ends at once! Also, Hiraga hasn’t given that much exposition so far; he needs to catch up.

A rundown, because this recap is so long by now that it probably needs its own recap:

Q: Why were there jute fibres in the cliff soil?

A: The Hidden Christians were harvesting soil from the top of the cliff, putting it in sacks, and dropping it off the top of the cliff.

Q: Who was the black-haired angel Robinson saw?

A: A tall, buff Hidden Christian dude wearing a black headscarf, who was collecting soil when he saw Robinson on the beach. The Hidden Christians didn’t want to be found on Kamishima, but they signalled for help with an emergency searchlight, so the fishing boat came by to pick up Robinson the next day. Roberto thinks this is pretty hilarious. “Robinson would be shocked to find out that his first love, the angel, is actually this big man.”

Q: What was the figure of Christ that Robinson saw?

A: This cave on Kamishima contains an underground chapel with a massive relief of Christ, covered with luminous moss. Because of ~science~ and the way moss grows into cracks, the image of Christ also became visible on the other side of the rock face, and glowed brightly in the typhoon. It vanished soon after because the moss couldn’t survive the storm.   

Q: What was the cross that appeared in the sky above Kamishima?

A: The Hidden Christians were working on the island that day as well, and when the dense fog formed, the lamps they were holding were refracted by the fog, creating a mirage that looked like a cross.

Q: Okay, but why did the fog form?

A: [shrug emoji]

Shirou invites our heroes to the Hidden Christians’ church service the next day, and naturally they go. It’s very lovely and moving. They also get to check in with Sara, and they talk theology a bit.

Sara: I was born as a Hidden Christian, and when I studied Christianity later on, I found something puzzling. Christianity holds that humans have original sin, but I wasn’t taught anything of the sort. According to our doctrine, Adam and Eve ate the fruit of wisdom that God had forbidden, but they sincerely repented, and so God forgave them. We are also taught that if you worship Mother Mary, you will be blessed with a child as wise and virtuous as Christ, and if you worship Christ, you can be a good person yourself. Our teachings are simple - they’re too naive, aren’t they?

Roberto: There is no original sin…?

After the service, Hiraga weighs in on this.

“Roberto, perhaps the people of Amakusa truly are without original sin,” Hiraga said earnestly.

“Miss Sara said that their ancestors Adam and Eve ate the fruit of wisdom but were forgiven. I think that doctrine is not necessarily mistaken.

“After all, if humans are solely descended from the single couple of Adam and Eve, in biological terms, it would be difficult for humanity to thrive the way it does now. In other words, don’t you think it makes more sense if there were other couples besides Adam and Eve? It may be irreverent to say such a thing, but the Bible is set down by humans, after all - perhaps some parts were omitted in the writing.”

“So there were people who ate the same fruit of wisdom, but some were forgiven and others were punished?”

“Yes, that’s right. Perhaps God looked upon the people who had sinned and saw the state of their souls. He pardoned those who honestly apologised, and punished those who laid the blame on the serpent. If so, then I don’t think it’s strange that people without original sin exist.”

“Hmm…”

Roberto thought of the people he had met in Amakusa, and the history of the Christians who had held fast to their faith amidst persecution.

The tossing waves of history had brought many twists of fate to this small Asian island, and sometimes, the people here had been randomly afflicted by unreasonable violence.

But throughout this, there were those who continued to love God with pure hearts. There were those who set aside their self-interest to generously help others.

The apostles without original sin - they were raised in the furthest East.

The people who had tended to the sick, harbouring faith in God. The people who had gathered pearls. Shirou and the others, who had chosen to protect the pearls rather than seizing them. The nameless boy who had fallen in battle at the foot of Amakusa Shirou’s banner. The unnamed youth who had rescued Robinson. Each of them was undoubtedly such a person.

Roberto thought that he wanted to believe Hiraga’s words.

“Apostles without original sin, huh… That’s right. That’s certainly what they are.”

But now it’s time to return to the wretched hive of scum and villainy, aka the Vatican! One week later, Dr. Singh messages them to come see him.

Roberto took a step into the room and was shocked. Previously, the room had been devoid of any unnecessary objects, but now it was decorated with several potted plants with brightly-coloured flowers. This brought a trace of warmth into the dreary space.

Dr. Singh drops a load of exposition on why the atmosphere over Kamishima cooled so rapidly that day. Basically, a military aircraft experienced an equipment malfunction due to solar flares, and accidentally jettisoned its cargo, which was a large amount of dry ice and cloud-seeding materials.

“But Dr. Singh, how were you able to get this information?” Roberto asked. Dr. Singh cleared his throat loudly.

“Please do not misunderstand. I did not employ any illegal methods. Several days ago, I took a vacation and returned briefly to my hometown; while I was there, I got clearance from a relative in the Indian government and obtained this information. It was all completely legal.”

In other words, he’d pulled some strings.

Roberto is surprised at the level of clout Dr. Singh’s family has, but he also knows that even with familial connections, it’s tough work getting your hands on classified military intel.

Why would the doctor go to these lengths when he supposedly had no interest in the investigation…? Roberto tilted his head thoughtfully.

Next to him, Hiraga bobbed his head in a bow.

“Thank you for going out of your way to investigate. But the results of this miracle examination will not be officially published. I apologise for having put you to all that trouble researching.”

They explain that with the Vatican in its current state of upheaval, revealing the evil priests and how they got away would make for bad press, and the higher-ups don’t want that. Also, the Japanese government wants to hush up the secret of the Kamishima cave shrine.

Dr. Singh listened to this, but his expression did not alter in the slightest.

“Political considerations and the like mean nothing to me. I became curious about an unsolvable mystery, and so I wanted to know the solution on my own account - that’s all. I do not act to impress the Vatican higher-ups.”

Then he shows them a 3D simulation he made of the miracle at Kamishima, which renders the fog and the light in loving detail. He’s very proud of it. Hiraga thinks it’s super cool too.

“It’s truly wonderful. May I show this video and these materials to Archbishop Saul?” Hiraga asked, leaning forward, his eyes alight.

“Yes, that’s fine, but please dispose of the materials in the shredder after looking at them.”

Roberto abruptly remembers that he also owes Dr. Singh for saving his dumb ass.

“Dr. Singh, I’m sorry for the belated thanks. I heard from Hiraga that you had to trace my location from my broken cellphone. I’m truly grateful for what you did then.”

Roberto bowed deeply, and Dr. Singh’s expression softened.

“No, I should be the one to apologise for not thanking you properly. I’m deeply grateful for all the effort you put into bringing the dogs to the Vatican. For a long time, I had no wish to visit my hometown, but it is thanks to those dogs and you that I decided to return to my country.”

Dr. Singh dipped a graceful bow, and then cleared his throat.

“But there is one thing I would like to clarify with you. If you think that I carried out any illegal activity to determine Father Roberto’s location, you are mistaken. All the procedures I undertook were thoroughly legal. Do not misunderstand.”

He took out a document from his desk drawer and showed it to Hiraga and Roberto. It was an official notice from an Italian court, ordering the phone company to release its GPS information to the police.

“But that’s strange,” Hiraga said, gazing keenly at the date written on the document.

“Father Roberto’s abduction was on the 30th of July, but the date on the document is 2nd August. So, Doctor, you did…”

Roberto cleared his throat loudly, cutting Hiraga off mid-sentence.

Dr. Singh’s face flushed bright red. He whisked the document away from Hiraga, and quickly turned his back to the two of them.

“Y-you must be mistaken about that, Father Hiraga. Now, I am very busy with my work - please take your leave.”

Dr. Singh is the best tsundere, I will accept no substitutes

They go talk to Saul, who plans to speak to the Pope about the Hidden Christians and get him to recognise their existence and the strength of their faith. And also, hey, he has good news! Roberto and Hiraga get to go on a date! I mean, the Vatican is bringing a Japanese orchestra to perform Hidden Christian music in St. Peter’s Basilica, that’s cool.

The day before the performance, Hiraga emails Roberto, inviting him to attend the rehearsal together.

“It’s rare for you to make invitations like this,” Roberto said on the way to Stadio Olimpico.

“Actually, I received an email from a person who wanted to meet with us. And I also have a message for you from someone else - it’s in Japanese, so I’ll translate.”

Dammit. And here I was proud that Hiraga was capable of TAKING HINTS

Anyway, the Japanese message is from Shirou, who’s been busy restoring Kamishima, and hopes our heroes will drop by again sometime. Yuuko and Sara’s brother Shinichi have gotten married, as have Robinson and his fan Haruko.

Finally, it turns out the person who wants to meet them is Father Nishimaru, i.e. the one Jesuit priest who wasn’t evil, just very confused. He’s here for the music performance, and also to look at Vatican art. Roberto obligingly drops a bunch of exposition on architecture and fancy ceilings.

Hiraga blinked at Roberto’s words.

“Is that so? I didn’t know that this dome was decorated with pearl oysters, despite having passed under it so many times,” he said.

“Well, when you look at artwork, you aren’t moved the way he is. So you don’t ask me anything,” Roberto replied.

Nishimaru sees the original version of the painting that Andou was crying over in the Amakusa museum, and he cries too. Apparently it was their shared dream to go to the Vatican and see this painting in person someday. Hiraga pats him on the shoulder like “uhh, sorry about all your friends turning out to be evil and/or in jail, dude.”

Roberto is feeling bad again about all the colonialism that went into building and decorating the Vatican so lavishly, but Hiraga makes a long and heartfelt speech about how they can learn from the mistakes of the past, ending with:

“In our day and age, even people with different religions and ideologies have reached the point where dialogue can take place. Don’t you think so, Roberto?

“It’s alright. I’m sure that the tragedy of conflict will vanish from the world someday - it may be far, far off in the future, but the world is headed in a better direction. That’s how I feel.”

I don’t know about that, Hiraga, but here’s a nice musical number to end the book! In Latin!

[andrew-tha]

The Death Penalty and Indefinite Incarceration: A Stage 1 & 3 Dialectic

I’d like to start by first thanking my friend, who I will call Gs, who is always there to listen to my rambles and bounce ideas.

If you find references to emotional stages confusing, please read the Summary of Emotional Development first.

Allow me to begin with my most controversial and easy-to-quite-out-of-context claim, and then steadily unravel how I came to such a claim:

“The Death Penalty is an ultimate admission of weakness”.

In my country of the United States, there persists a debate between continuing the practice of the death penalty for extremely high crimes, such as mass homicides, and its complete elimination in favor of indefinite incarceration or “life in prison”. There are a couple arguments favoring indefinite incarceration that I find strong: a) help reduce the number of deaths of wrongfully convicted individuals, and b) is ultimately cheaper than the death penalty due to the costs associated with death penalty appeals. In contrast, there is really only one argument I consider strong in favor of the death penalty beyond what I am about to describe later in this essay, which is the following: “There are some people in this world, such as a person who murdered a loved one, we just want to be dead”. The important word to keep in mind here is the word “want” as straightforward desires are difficult to argue against, as opposed to “needs” which are often much easier to argue against, for example:

“I need candy”

“No, you don’t; it doesn’t give you any nutrition.”

Versus

“I want candy”

“Oh, OK.”

In that same way, the want for someone’s death is somewhat difficult to argue against directly, as it isn’t easy to argue that someone does not in fact want something. So the common course of action is to come up with other kinds of arguments that do not tackle the base want, but instead try to persuade on some other foundation, such as moral/ethical (reduce deaths of wrongfully convicted individuals) and financial (indefinite incarceration is cheaper).

In the following, I will make an argument on a new foundation: Emotional. I will lay out the circumstances in which the death penalty is expectable or appropriate, and then explain why it is not appropriate for the society we live in today. I will delve into emotional stage explanations of why we want someone’s death versus why we want someone to be put into prison for incredibly long period of times. At some points I will tie in stories from cartoons, anime, and other pop culture as examples and elaborations.

First, a definition. I understand the Death Penalty to be: “state-sanctioned killing”. By “state”, I mean any governing body with a sufficient monopoly on violence and the authority to mete out such punishments, ethically or not. I’m primarily thinking of the United States, as well as extreme examples such as any cookie-cutter dictatorship or police state. If your local Homeowner’s Association were powerful enough, I suppose they could count as a “state”, too. By “sanctioned”, I mean something that is carried out by the approval of one or more persons within the state that is not necessarily the individual(s) directly carrying out the execution, and is premeditated, meaning something not committed in the heat of the moment but rather with thoughtful deliberation. And finally, “killing” means the death of a person by the hands of another in a lawful way, though not necessarily in an ethical or moral way.

Because a central controversy around the death penalty is whether it is the right or wrong thing to do, I began my thinking on the subject with trying to find a circumstance in which killing, with or without the state, is the ‘right’ thing to do. What I initially found were degrees of killing on a spectrum from “OK” to “Not OK”. Further, the circumstance on the far most “OK” end of that spectrum was Self-defense.

When someone is killed due to self-defense, and we are certain that it was self-defense, not only is the killer not convicted of a crime but our hearts likely go out more to the killer than the victim. This is understandable, because the killer in this circumstance is the one who was initially threatened to such an extreme extent that they genuinely feared for their life. We can pepper in some Emotional Stage theory stuff here by thinking about this fear and threat to life and its relation to Stage 1: Co-dependence. In Stage 1, all important matters are matters of Life and Death. So when your life is being threatened, you are being pushed into a Stage 1 situation. Like a mouse cornered by a cat, you either fight for your life and the lives of your loved ones or die, so it is understandable for you to react in such a way that may end the life of your attacker. In this circumstance, you have a need to kill, because failing to do so likely means the end of your own life or the lives of those around you.

We can see this line of thinking in recent controversial police-involved fatal shootings in the US and their ensuing investigations, where a central pillar of their defenses was often that the police officers genuinely feared for their lives. I won’t go into my personal opinion on these subjects, as I like to go by a case-to-case basis (there being, sadly, too many cases) and their circumstances are not supremely significant to the subject at hand beyond what I noted now.

Point is, self-defense is a circumstance in which killing is A-OK. In concluding such, I then delved further into self-defense scenarios, and found there can be significant differences between self-defense scenarios on the spectrum of “OK” to “Not OK”.

On the extreme end of “OK”, we might have a young child who is being attacked by a couple adults, and, perhaps by dropping a brick on their heads or causing them to slip on some marbles on the stairs, kills his attackers. In such a scenario, we rush to the care and comfort of the child, sorrowfully fearing what sort of effect such a traumatizing experience might have on the child. On the other end towards “Not OK”, we might have a professional boxer in a bar attacked by a drunk patron, ending in the death of the patron by the boxer’s hands. There, culpability is much greyer, and deeper investigation is required to determine whether the boxer acted irresponsibly. Either way, the boxer’s reputation among the boxing community may be damaged.

What is the difference here? The difference is Power. The less power you have, the less responsible you are for any given situation. The more power you have, the more. Because the boxer is an adult, because he is trained, because he is strong, he has more options available to him, a greater variety and effectiveness of ways to diffuse the situation. The stronger you are, the less you need to kill. With that said, let us return to my initial claim: “The Death Penalty is an ultimate admission of weakness”.

The Weak need to kill, because by virtue of being weak they have few to no options. The first lesson you learn in most any martial art is: “Priority #1 – Run Away”. The Strong, despite being more capable of killing, don’t need to kill, because by virtue of being strong they have many more options. Strength is not merely physical power but also intelligence, knowledge, resources, influence, cunning, and more. To kill is to admit that you’ve been pushed so deeply into a corner, stripped of so many of your options, made so vulnerable, and rendered so powerless that you have no other recourse but to utilize a Stage 1: Co-dependent reaction. Stage 1: Co-dependence is the stage of feelings of powerlessness and, consequently, violent overreaction and defensiveness.

It was at this point that I realized I was wrong about one of my assumptions: The “OK”/”Not OK” spectrum is mislabeled. It is not about what is OK and not OK. There is no killing that is OK. There is no killing that is just fine or acceptable. All killing produces negative emotional effects, whether it be by creating victims, traumatizing the killer, or generating an atmosphere of fear and hatred, i.e. Evil, Darkness and the Real. The actual label should be: “Forgiveness”. Killing is more or less forgivable depending on the circumstances. A child killing an adult in self-defense? Most forgivable. An adult drowning a preschool class in the cold blood of puppies and kittens? Most unforgivable. The “Forgiveness Spectrum” may supplement the explanation(s) for why folks suffer from survivor’s guilt even when other peoples’ deaths were outside of their control – they do not struggle with whether the deaths were OK or not, but with whether they can forgive themselves for being the ones to survive. Perhaps then the go-to consideration to keep in mind when talking to someone about survivor’s guilt would be to frame it in terms of forgiveness regardless of whether any wrongdoing was committed.

So when a state sanctions a killing, that state is admitting that the person they are killing is so imminently threatening that they have no power to do anything but kill the person. It is at this point that I’d like to say that in general it is not only OK but important for people to be able to allow themselves to be vulnerable. And the same holds for a state, because a state is just a more formally organized group of people. So if there is indeed a circumstance in which there exists a person within a state’s jurisdiction that is so imminently and uncontrollably threatening to the lives of people, then if the state is able to publicly admit its own weakness as justification for the death penalty, then I would not fault the state for carrying such a thing out.

I am anxious about something regarding my argument, and so I feel the need to clarify: when I talk about the state and that which is imminently threatening, I am not talking about that which is threatening to the persistence of the state itself, but rather about the lives of actual people, i.e. citizens. A state, i.e. the specific organization of a group of people with authority and power over citizens, can persist in defiance of the actual desires and needs of the majority of its citizens, and the operators and executors of state power may and often do act against the health and prosperity of their citizens if it means the furtherance of the state’s persistence. In fact, if I were to give an extremely brief and unsatisfying history of societal development, then I might say that during the earliest times of subsistence hunting and farming, it was about the persistence of the village until the next day. Then when cities formed, it was about the persistence of the ruling elite into the next generation, which leads us into feudalism, e.g. nobles and royalty. When mercantilism and eventually capitalism developed, it was about the growth and persistence of sheer wealth into infinity. During these times the Nation-state was conceived of, which banded large groups of people together in a way that was more effective at creating and persisting power and wealth than feudalism was. Part of the nation-state development process was, “Ya know, if we try to take care of people’s wants and needs a little bit, we can more effectively utilize them for the extension and persistence of state power, like for example we can make and maintain a standing army”. Aaaand that’s where we are today, where the nation-state tries to more or less take care of some of their citizens’ needs, but mostly to the extent that it enables the state to persist (though the present era of globalization is blurring the lines between nation-states, so it’s getting all funky and more complicated).

I presently believe that the next emotionally evolved form of governance in the modern day is a state that is OK with the end of its persistence. This is not communism whatsoever; communism is a society absent the state (though communism’s definition for state likely differs significantly from my much simpler one). What I mean instead is an organization of people in power that is OK with having their power end and replaced by others according to the needs and desires of the citizenry. Basically, a state that is not desperate to persist in its current form, but instead willing to weaken and subside if it means better meeting the needs of its people.

I got the idea for this from my favorite manga series ever, One Piece, during the Alabasta arc. The arc has been out for at least a decade, so spoilers: the king of the country of Alabasta discovers the source of the true threat that has been manipulating events around the country to bring it closer and closer to open civil war. Unfortunately, he learns of this just as the rebel army of manipulated citizenry are charging towards the capital city’s gates. The king’s generals ask him if their army should meet the rebels on the battlefield before they take the royal palace. Instead, the king orders the entire army to empty from the capital and charge west, towards the source of the true threat. “But sir”, they worry, “we will lose the capital!” In response the king proclaims, “This country is not its capital. This country is its people!” The king was personally OK with the collapse of his own state if it meant the protection of his people. To me, that is a Stage 4: Independence or Stage 5: Transcendence mode of thinking. Definitely not Stage 3: Group-dependence, who would struggle between the preservation of the state and their need to try their best to meet people’s needs. To be fair, I do not think this necessarily means that a Stage 4 or 5 government will always necessarily choose “needs of people” over “preservation of the state”, because the two may not be diametrically opposed, but rather interwoven within the other. What Stages 4 and 5 do enable, however, is decisive action in the face of damning pressure.

Tangent aside, how does Indefinite Incarceration compare to the Death Penalty as they relate to emotional stages? In stage 1: Co-dependence, death is the ultimate punishment, so folks and states struggling with Stage 1 tend to favor the death penalty. In stage 3: Group-dependence, being exiled from the group is the ultimate punishment, and one form of exile is imprisonment. So Indefinite Incarceration is an ultimate punishment for folks and states primarily function in a Stage 3 emotionality.

Thus it is a Stage 3 society that favors “life in prison” as its primary ultimate punishment and a Stage 1 society that favors the death penalty as its primary ultimate punishment. A society that was operating at a greater stage can be pulled down by traumatic events and in this way be made to change what punishments it favors. This is effectively the end goal of extremism and terrorism today – to bring societies down emotional levels in order to render them more vulnerable and thus more easily manipulated. It’s also easy to see what emotional level extremism and terrorism operates from, regardless of political leaning. Suffice to say, whenever I engage in a discussion on politics with another person, I try to understand the emotional stage a rationalistic argument is being made from as much as I try to understand any given argument itself. Recall that all arguments and rationalizations stem from and are limited by the emotional stage in which that argument is made from, so if the emotional foundation of an argument you are making coincides with one of an argument someone else is making, you two are more likely to be able to agree and find common ground perhaps regardless of the actual content of the arguments. This is likely more consistent at higher stages and less consistent in lower ones, due to lower stages having a greater tendency to view and assert things in terms of black and white.

“What about Stage 2? What does state-sanctioned punishment from Stage 2 look like?” 

The answer to this question I got from the fictional novel World War Z. In one of the sections, it describes one survivor’s group’s struggle with maintaining order, especially among the people who were formally white-collar investment bankers and jet-setting socialites who now had to learn how to repair toilets. Feeling that such jobs despite their importance were beneath their former lives, they threw tantrums and were uncooperative. These folks suffered from Stage 2: Counter-dependence, i.e. an overinflated sense of self-worth leading to rebellious behavior. Unfortunately, the group’s postwar society did not have the resources to imprison these folks – idle labor that needs to be fed and clothed is a supreme waste within the circumstance of a total war with zombies – but they could not justify killing these adult children for such petty behavior, nor could they simply leave them alone. Eventually, they came up with some old-school punishment which, while making them uncomfortable with how uncivilized and archaic it was, seemed to work: The stocks. A few days of public humiliation appeared to sufficiently temper the majority of Stage 2 complainants, especially when, in the backdrop of the zombie world war, Life and Death of the whole of humanity was on the line.

I bring this up to lead back into the significance of Power in this conversation and how power relates to vulnerability and punishment. Because the state had significantly reduced power in World War Z, they had to resort to Stage 2 methods for punishing their citizens. This is not a good thing, but it is understandable. The weaker you are, the fewer options you have available to you. 

Now regarding the death penalty in modern day America: Should we practice it, and why or why not? My answer is No, we should not because we are not so vulnerable. The moment we capture someone and put them within our control is the moment we lose our justification for killing that person. Killing in the heat of the moment is more forgivable than killing after they’ve been put into custody. We are too far from weak to be going around applying the death penalty, even for the most heinous crimes. Only when either a captive presents an imminent and irrevocable threat to human life despite being in custody or if the power of the state is so depressingly reduced such as in an apocalyptic scenario can we sincerely claim we are vulnerable enough to justify an execution.

For a brief moment let’s talk about the nature of “Threat”, and its relation to killing and stages of emotional development theory. When talking about “threat” in terms of stages of emotional development theory, the feeling of threat is as important as the actual presence of threat, because it is the feeling or emotional perception/conviction of threat as opposed to the logical determination/conclusion of threat that drives our reactions. However, with regard to killing and the death penalty, I would argue that evaluating the feeling of threat is insufficient to determine our willingness as a state to forgive; the actual presence of threat must be evaluated as well. For one, maturing as individuals necessitates tempering our emotions with knowledge and vice versa; it is important to balance our feelings with what we can know and learn. For two, feelings are not necessarily based on reality and often skew or twist the actual nature of events. A person stressed out over possibly being laid off soon may misinterpret his friend telling him about the family vacation to Disneyworld they went on recently as mocking his decreasing ability to provide for his family.

Allow me to wind down with what originally got me invested in this whole topic. What really got me thinking about the subject of the death penalty was the animated movie Superman vs. the Elites. I won’t spoil the important parts of the movie, so what you need to know about it is that in the beginning there is this one supervillain that Superman has to capture again and again because the supervillain keeps on escaping. Problem is, every time he escapes he kills many people, so people start getting upset about Superman following the rule of law and only merely capturing him. In reaction to that, a new superhero group calling themselves “The Elites” comes out and does what Superman can’t bring himself to do, and doing so stages a battleground of competing philosophies about justice and the appropriateness of killing. Superman really struggles with this, and so I tried to think of a mode of thinking that would enable him to parse out his thoughts on a case-by-case basis involving villains. Batman struggles with the same thing when it comes to the Joker, and the temptation to kill versus the commitment to no killing persists as an eternal struggle for these two heroes.

With what I have argued above, I could make the argument with Superman that he could kill the supervillain and forgive himself for doing so while also not turning towards the Dark Side. He can do this by sincerely admitting his weakness of being unable to contain the supervillain, and then taking action to change and improve his capability. It was made self-evident by his repeated escapes and mass murders that neither the state nor Superman could contain the imminent threat to human life that the supervillain exerted. They lacked the power. Being able to admit that would make the act of killing more forgivable. It will still hurt Superman, and the state, and everybody involved, and forgiveness would still be a difficult trial, because killing always has negative emotional effects regardless of its circumstances, but it would enable Superman to exceed his moral/ethical conundrum without falling into the Stage 2 arrogance-trap of the movie’s main antagonists “The Elites” while also protecting people. Batman could likewise do the same with regard to Joker.

The primary personal barrier to all of this is the willingness and presence of mind to perceive and admit one’s limits. Even if this all makes sense in his head, Batman may still not go for this, as he is supremely a Stage 3: Group-dependent kind of person who almost always overextends himself beyond his emotional limits and punishes himself with self-exile. His overwhelming sense of duty and obligation to the city of Gotham consequent to him feeling responsible for the death of his parents is what fuels the tortured soul we have come to know and love. Batman has been stuck in stage 3 for a very long time, and very well may die there. Depending on the iteration, while Batman has demonstrated his willingness to admit his weaknesses, he has in equal part demonstrated his unwillingness to forgive himself, hence his tendency towards self-exile.

In Conclusion

The death penalty is an admission of weakness, because the appropriateness of killing someone is a function of power. The more powerful you are, the more options you have, the less you can justify killing, i.e. “With great power comes great responsibility”. Killing does not exist on an “OK vs Not-OK” spectrum, but rather a “Forgiveness Spectrum”, because killing always damages emotionally and requires forgiveness to heal. We cannot justify the death penalty in modern day America because we have far too much power. Only in exceptional circumstances, such as an apocalyptic scenario or the existence of a captive individual whose imminent threat to human life cannot be contained, could we find ourselves vulnerable enough to warrant judicial killing.

[tastingnitch]

Beer Geek Podcasts

I don't listen to a whole bunch of music but I do listen to a lot of podcasts. This is a work in progress but I feel as if it's a rather complete list of beer related podcasts (past and present) available on the internet. I've organized them by region and then catagory, with basic information and some opinions from myself.

Hope you find it useful, and please don't hesitate to suggest corrections or additions!

Podcatcher I use

AntennaPod. It's open source, and unlike something like Stitcher which collects and sells your data, AntennaPod is private.

Podcasts that every beer geek should know

4Brewers - Total nerds, don’t listen to their podcast or hang out in their discord channel, I’m never there - i’ve not been on the podcast and generally so silly, you should avoid it at all costs. 

The Beerists - Austin texas, I believe. Four beer geeks from varying levels of life and evolution, giving THE BEST tasting notes on air. I also like the music recommendations that keep things fresh through the puns, banter and general comedy. So well curated, the audio is LUSH which is testament to John Rubio’s dedication to the podcast. This is one of the FEW podcasts with a woman on it

The Beer Temple Insiders Roundtable - "Owner of The Beer Temple Chris Quinn sits down with craft beer insiders to discuss the topics that matter most to them. Each week features different guests sharing their insights on different topics and giving you a insiders view of the evolving craft beer scene."

Beer Podcasts by region

Pacific USA

The Brewing Network - "The Brewing Network is a multimedia resource for brewers and beer lovers. From our headquarters at The Hop Grenade Taproom & Bottleshop in Concord, California, we produce live streaming radio, podcasts, and video featuring the best professional and homebrewers from around the globe to share our love of craft beer and brewing with you."

The Sour Hour - "The Sour Hour is a podcast made for sour heads, homebrewers, and professional brewers who are interested in spreading knowledge sour beers.  The show is hosted by Scott Moskowitz of The Brewing Network and Jay Goodwin from The Rare Barrel, and they are usually joined by special guests on each episode."

Dr. Homebrew - mail in your home brew and get it judged by professionals

Oregon

Beervana Podcast - great Portland based beer blog by Jeff Alworth author of The Beer Bible and Cider Made Simple and Oregon State University economics professor Patrick Emerson discuss beer and the economics of beer. Great personalities, super education and chat. Great guests, not the BEST audio quality, but who am I to complain? Jeff writes for All about beer mag.

All About Beer Magazine Podcast - Started in July and most a few times a month. I haven’t a chance to listen to it yet but the latest episode has JC Retreat from Trillium Brewing on it, so i’m excited to listen to that.

Steal This Beer — Augie Carton (Carton Brewing) and John Holl (All About Beer Magazine)

California

San Diego Beer Talk - 

Three B Zine - San Diego based, for all levels of beer geek - home brewing, interviews, totally relatable.

Perfect Pour Podcast - I like em. Too looooong, inside jokes I don't get, sorta bro'ish even though they make fun of beer bros. Tasting notes on beer are lacking at times. Lors of audurncr participation. Listen to it on 1.4

Mountain USA

Texas

InterBrews: A Craft Beer Centric Podcast - Houston

What’s on Tap Radio - Houston

Brew Bloods - Two dudes, funny, little educational this bits in intersection points like defining the word beer

Come and Brew it - another four in texas, runs longer, not as organised as the beerists, but they do a lot of, structured tastings, interviews and are rounded with culture and what not. their latest one Fresh vs Pellet Hops and Bock lager yeasts yielded some fascinating insights. 

Central USA

Chicago

ABV Chicago Craft Beer Podcast -long running, consistent, upbeat and fun.

Cheers Charlotte - I like their weekly updates, on where they went last week, what they had. Production quality is AMAZING, expect sound like honey, even when they are casting from public locations

919 Beer Podcast - Joe Ovies and Adam Eshbaugh

Eastern USA

Beer Geeks Radio with Matt from massive beer reviews. Hasn’t posted in a while, but we can wait. Concise, fun. Interviews with awesome ppl. Ads, it's on the radio. Great production value, often live streams and Matt has beer review videos up - super responsive and a great perspective from the east coast USA

Seacoast Beverage Lab - Carla Jean Lauter, The beer babe and 2BeerGuys, Haven’t been able to listen yet, but Carla is opinionated and well spoke. Could be interesting

Georgia

Beer Guys Radio Show -  TIM DENNIS @BeerGuyTim AARON WILLIAMS@BeerGuyAaron  BECKY KLEIN @BeerGuysBecky

Pennsylvania

Should I Drink that? - "created in March of 2006 when Brad and Father Spoon realized a need for a craft beer review show that was aimed at educating and entertaining the everyday axis of evil (Coors, Bud, Miller) beer drinker and to show by example that you don’t have to be a stuck up snob to appreciate the finer qualities of craft beer. The number one rule for the show is that no alcohol is EVER wasted. They hold true to their belief “Even if it’s crap, we drink it so you don’t have to!”. If they don’t like it, they chug it."

Beer Here! - a light, refreshing, sessionable podcast with Alex and Will

Indiana

Hold My Beer - Then & Now Productions By The Mawenz Brothers - "Two brothers from a small town in Indiana sit back with friends and tell tales of stupidity and drunken adventures."

Missouri

Cicero’s Beer School - Cicero’s Beer School has been rocking St. Louis since 2006. Share the thirst for knowledge right here. 

Beer Brewing Podcasts

Beersmith - Brewing and science, not about personality, culture or news. Yeah know, the greater of beer smith software. Brad Smith is super concise, to a dry extent even, which makes for an expert information packed podcast. I usually just listen to ones the are on topics I’m interested or with guests I’d like to hear from but it’s always educational.

Basic Brewing Radio - 

Unknown Area

MicroBrewr Podcast - "If you want to start a brewery, or want to take your existing brewery to the next level, MicroBrewr is the place for you. In the weekly podcast, blog, and other content, we talk about everything craft beer related, with a focus for people looking at starting their own microbrewery or wanting to take their existing brewery to the next level."

She’s Craft Podcast - 

Craft Beer Anonymous -

Beer League Talk - Nick Fleehard & Brett Ireland and beer and hockey

The Beer Diaries -  "Phil Cook (him that blogs his tastings and ramblings and whatnot right here) and George Langlands (he who bought the original Diary and started all this) — talking about beer, its various happenings and history. Based in Wellington, New Zealand, our conversations do skew towards the local craft beer scene, but also ramble their way around the world and into more-or-less related issues.  The aim is always to be unashamedly geeky in our enthusiasm, but not in the sense that we get too mired in the technicalities; if we’re doing things right, each episode should be accessible, whatever your prior beer knowledge. Now into our fourth season, we’ve had the pleasure of being joined by some excellent guests and taking the show ‘on the road’ to various places."

DrinkAlong with Dave & Jeremy - every week hosts, Dave and Jeremy, the Barkeeps, will review your favorite beverages and then take about those beverages in a way that is both hilarious and full of insight. or not.

The Beer Dads - a weekly podcast featuring three dads having a beer and talking about being a dad. We’d love to hear from our listeners, whether it’s feedback on what we talk about on the show or suggestions for topics on future shows. Send us an email or visit us at any of our social media outlets.

Beer Bros - Your home for craft beer, pop culture & other BS.

The Tap Handle Show - “We feature interviews with brewers and beer folk, beer tasting and rating, brewing advice, and hand-picked music. Our mission is to educate the huddled masses about the world of beer, brewing, and music, and have fun along the way!”

Breakfast Beer Crew a group of friends who like to get together and talk about beer, basketball, life, and other random stuff! Grab a beer and enjoy the show. 

Beer Flow - "On The Beer Flow Greg M. takes you on a journey through craft beer and shares stories behind the people and companies that make beer so loved around the world. Greg will educate you on the many different styles of beer including pilsners, lagers, IPAs, porters, and stouts. By sharing Greg’s experience working in the food and beverage industry, you will discover and learn new things about beer, including food pairings, similarities with wine, and cooking with beer. You will discover a new appreciation for the craft beer industry and find a beer you’ll love. If you’re a fan of late 80s and early 90s hip-hop music, you’ll especially love the show." 

What’s on Tap Podcast - 

What’s on Tap Radio - “A show about beer and the culture around it. Hosted by Beer Guru James Simpson and The Beer Logic Chad Pilbeam. 3p Sundays on KPRC Radio 950 AM and IHeartRadio.”

Bros, Bibles and Beer  - A conservative, a progressive and a hyper-emotional school teacher walk into a bar...someone hits record. Pull up that barstool.

Cold Brew - https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/cold-brew/id956936862 - 

Australia

Ale of a time - Blog and podcast, BEST aussie beer podcast, tours, talk, on location and everything in between. REAlly great to get their insights from that side of the planet.

Brunswick Beer Collective - Three Melbourne beer nerds talking about local beer releases, news, culture - endearing, funny and a good listen.

United Kingdom

Beavertown Brewing Podcast - 

Beer O'Clock Show - News, talk, super nerdy - i often can’t understand a word, because I’m not from that area and don’t know the beers they re speaking about but much like the Aussie podcasts,it’s interesting to hear what the concerns of those beer geeks are. 

Irish Beer Snob - 

The Brit and Yankee Craft Beer Podcast - “focuses on the craft brewing scene around the Chicago suburbs, and is recorded at The Brit and Yankee studios, in deepest West Chicago.   Landlord Phil Clark, an ex-pat from the UK, decided he wanted to bring the atmosphere and ambiance of the British Pub to Chicago, and the pubcast was born from this.  The Brit and Yankee Pub is a friendly place, where you can enjoy a good pint and a chat about everything and nothing, and feel right at home.”

Retired Beer Podcasts still worth a look

Beer Army Engaged [Retired 2016]  Standby as Mick and Dustin take you inside the world of Beer Army with great beer & fun conversation. If you drink beer you’re in the Beer Army. So load up another round, it’s Beer Army Engaged!

Beer Podcast Show [Retired 2013]

Beer School [Retired 2011]

Craft Beer Talk [Retired 2013]

Craft Brew Cast [Retired 201]

Strange Brews [Retired 2015]

A Hopcast [Retired]

Other Podcasts I like

The Trailer Park Boys 

Blurry Photos - always learn something weird, always laugh out out

Singing Bones - the secret history of fairy tales

Expanded Perspectives - Free Thinking for dummies

The Mythology Podcast - historical background to provide a context for the myths and folktales we explore.

The Eastern Boarder - Soviet union insider’s information and investigative talk

Lore - has grown into the most beautiful podcast

The NoSleep Podcast - you won’t sleep

Cigar Federation - video also. if anyone knows any other cigar podcasts, I’d love to add to that lis

OuterMode - Inside the minds of gamers and feeling they feel.

Off the hook 2600 - East coast hacker radio

Hacker Public Radio - community podcast radio with anything from how to cut glass, what’s in my pen testing bag to developing photos. Short.

X Minus One Old Time Radio -