Disclaimer: I am sure that Rick Riordan, if pressed, would admit that he is not me.
Prime Minister Tōjō Hideki rose from his desk and bowed deeply as German Ambassador Eugen Ott was escorted into the room. "Ah, welcome, honorable Ambassador!" he said. "I trust the ride to my humble office was sufficiently commodious for an individual of your exalted stature?"
"Exceptionally so, most honorable Prime Minister," Ott responded, with an even deeper bow of his own. "Your solicitude for my insignificant person passes the bounds of understanding." (As the phrases of ritual courtesy dropped off his lips, it occurred to him that his cousins back in Berlin and Rome – all those blunt-spoken children of Hades and Athena and Aphrodite – would have probably gone insane if they had had to spend a week talking the way he had been talking effortlessly for nearly four years. Being the child of a Grace, he thought with satisfaction, did have its advantages after all.)
"Please, be seated," said Tōjō, gesturing to the elaborately carved chair in front of his desk. Ott did so, and for some minutes the two of them exchanged pleasantries about the weather, the health of the Führer and the Mikado, and whether Ott had been in contact recently with his gracious mother, or any of his other most illustrious relatives. (Indeed, the theme of Ott's extended family was very marked in the Prime Minister's preliminary courtesies, a fact that roused the Ambassador's suspicions. He knew, of course, that Tōjō was aware – as were Emperor Hirohito and a number of other prominent figures in the Japanese government – that the Great War raging on the other side of Eurasia was merely the terrestrial manifestation of a larger, intra-Olympian conflict, but never before had the Prime Minister seemed so eager to impress the fact upon his mind. What significance this could have, he could not say, but he felt sure that it had to have some.)
"Now, to get to the matter at hand," said Tōjō, rousing Ott from his meditations. "You understand, honorable Ambassador, that what we say here must remain completely confidential. It is for your Führer to know, so that he may plan accordingly, but should anyone else come to hear it before the appropriate time, the consequences would likely be disastrous."
"I understand, sir," said Ott, though in reality he understood nothing.
Tōjō nodded. "I will speak plainly, then," he said. "On the morning of this day, the first day of the twelfth month in the sixteenth year of the reign of the Mikado Hirohito (here he inclined his upper body a small, elegant bow), the Imperial Government of Japan resolved to declare a state of war against the United States of America."
Ott's eyes widened, and speech failed him. He had heard rumors, of course, that Japan might soon be getting into the war, but he had considered the idea nonsensical; indeed, he was still inclined to think it so now. Japan involved in the Olympio-Tartarean War? The most proudly Eastern of nations, sending thousands of her young men to die for Western Civilization? There was no logic to it – and Hirohito, he knew, was an eminently logical man.
"There will be no need for you to inform your Führer of the fact," said Tōjō. "We have already instructed our ambassador in Berlin to apprise that eminent person of the likelihood of such a development. It is desirable, however, that you should convey to him the Mikado's (he bowed again) reasons for so deciding."
"Yes, of course," Ott murmured dazedly. "The reasons."
Tōjō nodded. "I trust, honorable Ambassador," he said, "that you know how the Mikado (bow) came to be what he is?"
Ott hesitated. "I know that he was born the grandson of the most illustrious Emperor Meiji in the forty-fourth year of that noble ruler's reign," he said. "And I know that, upon the regrettable death of his father, the Emperor Taishō, he succeeded to his ancestral throne…"
He broke off. Tōjō was not actually shaking his head – no well-bred Japanese would make such an overt gesture of contradiction if he could avoid it – but there was something about his expression and posture that suggested that he wished to. "Forgive me, honorable Ambassador," he said, "but I fear that I have failed to make myself sufficiently clear. I had no wish to question your knowledge of the current Mikado's (bow) personal history, about which I have no doubt that you are most fully informed. I seek merely to determine the extent of your knowledge concerning a quite different matter – a matter that has, admittedly, little relevance to the duties of the ordinary diplomat, and therefore, I venture to say, one that even so estimable a personage as yourself may well have neglected in your admirable haste to master the essentials of your mission."
Ott frowned. With a buildup like that, Tōjō was sure to be aiming at something familiar to every Japanese schoolchild, ignorance of which would mark him an uncultured Western barbarian as surely as Zeus sat on Olympus. "And that matter would be…?" he inquired.
"The divine pedigree," said Tōjō, "of the most sublime Imperial Family."
Ott nearly laughed with relief. "Ah, to be sure," he said. "Forgive me, honorable Prime Minister, for my dullness. The matter of which you speak is, of course, common knowledge even in my humble country. We are well aware that the Mikado (here he bowed himself, although not quite as gracefully as Tōjō had) derives his authority to rule the peoples of Japan by virtue of being descended in a direct male line from the great sun-goddess, Amaterasu Ōmikami."
"Just so," said Tōjō. "And – forgive me for mentioning a thing so evident – you are doubtless also aware that his earliest ancestor was the eldest of the three infant divinities created by Amaterasu-kami when her brother Susanoö, the god of the sea and of storms, challenged her to a contest of divine power. When Susanoö prevailed, creating five infant divinities to Amaterasu's three, he was admitted into paradise, and there proceeded to demonstrate his contempt for the heavenly dignity through a series of outrageous acts that it is better not to describe. In her disgrace, Amaterasu-kami retreated into a cave, causing darkness and chaos to fall over all the earth until she was enticed into re-emerging by the riotous feasting of the eight hundred gods of heaven. At length, Susanoö was expelled again from heaven, and the eight infant divinities were taken under Amaterasu-kami's care – and, at length, the eldest of them, Oshihomimi, would become the illustrious forefather of the most noble Mikado." His bow this time was the most elegant yet.
Ott nodded judiciously. Considering how some members of his own extended family had come into being, this was fairly tame and straightforward.
"Your account is most clear and edifying, honorable Prime Minister," he said. "I fear, however, that my poor understanding is insufficient for me to grasp its connection with your eminent Government's declaration of war against the United States."
Tōjō's face twitched subtly, as though he were disappointed with Ott's slowness on the uptake. His words, however, were as bombastically humble as ever. "Doubtless the fault is mine, honorable Ambassador," he said. "Had I possessed more perspicacity, I should not have omitted to mention (what is not so widely known to foreign scholars) that, while Amaterasu-kami never sought vengeance against Susanoö, her descendants have not forgotten the indignity that their glorious ancestor suffered at his hands – and they have long sought an opportunity to repay themselves upon the god of the sea and of storms."
He paused significantly, and Ott blinked. Surely, he couldn't mean… but yes, it made sense. It was the only reason Hirohito had to go to war with Churchill and Roosevelt – and, although the Western deities didn't identify themselves with their Oriental counterparts, the matter might well look different from an Eastern perspective…
Tōjō smiled at the dawning comprehension on the German's face. "I see you understand me, honorable Ambassador," he said.
"I… believe I do, honorable Prime Minister," Ott managed.
"I am gratified," said Tōjō. "Then you will convey to your Führer the Mikado's (bow) request?"
Ott hesitated. "Forgive me, honorable Prime Minister," he said, "but it is not clear to me what the request is."
Without a word, Tōjō rose from his seat, removed two lacquered bamboo spears from his office wall (Ott had noticed them when he came in, but had assumed that they were merely a new decoration), and presented them to the Ambassador with the solemnity of a priest slaughtering a bull. "It is the pleasure of the Mikado," he said, bowing more deeply as he said the word now that he was standing, "that, when the Führer of Germany has succeeded in conquering his enemies (with the humble aid of the Japanese people), he will seek an audience with him, and present him with these two spears – on one of which will be impaled the head of the British Prime Minister, whose father is the god of the sea, and on the other the head of the American President, whose father is the god of storms."
Ott swallowed deeply. "I will most certainly convey to the Führer the Mikado's wishes," he said, bowing most perfunctorily, "and I have no doubt that it will greatly delight him to accede to the request of so illustrious a potentate."
Tōjō bowed, and placed the spears in Ott's reluctantly outstretched hands. "You are most gracious, honorable Ambassador," he said, "and I deeply regret that I have taken up so much of your incomparably valuable time. Please, feel free to take your leave, as I have no more trivial matters with which to trouble you."
Ott nodded vaguely, rose from his chair, and with one final bow, made his way out of the room.
Once he was safely out of the Prime Minister's sight, he transferred the spears to the elbow of his left arm, took out a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket, and mopped his feverish brow. As he did so, he noticed that a swarthy, curly-haired figure was gazing at him with visible amusement; on closer inspection, he discovered this to be Italian Ambassador Mario Indelli, the Axis's other major representative in Tokyo.
"Spears, Eugen?" said Indelli with a grin. "Is this the Third Reich's idea of arms progression? From the V-1 missile to bamboo spears?"
Ott gave his half-brother an odd look. "May I assume, Mario," he said, "that the Prime Minister has summoned you to his office for a private conference?"
Indelli frowned. "Yes, he has," he said. "Why?"
"Because, in that case," said Ott, "you should perhaps wait to make light of the matter until you have heard what he has to say." He sighed. "I am afraid that, in declaring war against his brothers, Great-Uncle Hades may inadvertently have awakened a sleeping giant and set it loose upon the world."