A/N: For the record, the Japanese did not bring freedom and honour to East Asia in World War II. Tarawa and Iwo Jima could conceivably be called heroic last stands, but the battle of Manilla was a pointless massacre. In the world of Shadowrun, however, the historical revisionists have won. Nothing that follows is intended as a pejorative general description of real-world Japanese people, Americans, orks, trolls, elves or dwarves.
The people are the castle, the people are the stones, the people are the moat! Love for your comrades, hatred for your enemies! Lay down your corpses to be your walls, lay down your corpses to bridge the moat. Attack your enemy on the corpses of your comrades, and victory will be yours!
–Itto Ogami, Lone Wolf and Cub
(A/N:One of the most senseless things ever said by the greatest samurai who will ever live)
Voire Berg wouldn't have been described as a fanatical and murderous militant by his friends–though the news reports after the fact did, with a forged Net history to prove it. His many friends would have said he was a typically charismatic and adjusted, somewhat mercurial, elf. Close friends, or particularly insightful ones like Hailey, would have added that he did indeed take things to heart.
Voire and his chummers were all SINless metas who'd never lived anywhere but the Mission District. Coming home, with an SMG under his jacket, Voire walked past the towering street mural he'd led his friends to make in their teens. The park with the high steps for skateboarding, where he'd broken his arm. The basement where he'd cooked crack with the Publeo shaman who'd taught him street magic. The alley where he'd lost his cherry, with that cute Guatemalan busboy he'd met in…yeah, that Aztlan café, corner of Delfina street.
"Our streets. Our homes. Our castle."
At his side, Tarne smiled like a cat. Behind him, Hector and Nick, with the other orks and dwarves, muttered agreement. They were moving in the sprawling, blocky shadow of the San Francisco Armoury, a hundred-year old fortress. The spires of the newer basilica, beside the old mission, were visible through the houses painted with street art and decked with Spanish balconies.
In the glare of the sunset–a dip in the ground kept San Francisco's famous mist out of the Mission–Voire's eyes settled on a fresh graffitied wall–KILL THE METAS. He'd grown up breaking bread and sharing burritos with the humans in the Mission. Now they blamed him for the armed Japanese on American streets and wanted to kill him. If any human had been on the street so close to curfew, he might have unloaded on them in that moment and not felt unjustified.
Their best answer to the ambitions of a superpower backed by Megacorps to throw them out their homes into a slum, and to do with them whatever the frag they wanted after that, had not been easily found (There had to be an answer, if they weren't the bummers and brutes the Japs claimed). Arm themselves and dig in? The Megacorp-owned TriD stations would call them street gangs.
Voire had spent a week in Colma, with Tarne. The dark, quiet elf had claimed–Voire had believed–that Norton might rally an army to sweep the Japanese into the sea. If something could change his fairyland pacifism into a will for power and conquest. Tarne had stayed to work with the many in Norton's Army who felt the same way, while Voire had returned to rally the metas in the city. He'd hoped the Mission District march would be the tip of the wave. That day had convicted him again that humans and words would never protect his people from murderous hate.
Then Tarne had returned, with the weapons they held now and a plan. He'd always come up with the plan, while Voire had rallied the gang to it, since they'd been kids. The blonde elf barely felt the sorrow of Tarne's straightness next to the wide and burning cause that they shared. They were the ones who did something, when the fascists came for their neighbours; they were the vanguard of revolt. In the heart of San Francisco, where the Japs believed they were unassailable.
"I'll set up there." Tarne indicated the wrapped hunting rifle on his back, and a high balcony shrouded by washing, "Five minutes to curfew. Occupy the marines that come with some drek. When I fire, mow them down, then run. No martyrs today, hombres. Stay alive to kill another squad next week."
"If we cut the fraggers enough, will they not fragging bleed to death?" Nick had always thought of himself as a literary dwarf. Hector, an Aztlaner ork, looked more wary but as eager as Voire did. The others–three orks, one troll–hugged their weapons and stifled fear.
"You watch yourself, chummer." Voire grinned at Tarne and embraced him–not for the last time, he swore, "If we were too good-looking to die, then elves would live forever."
Tarne grinned back–actually pecked him on the cheek–and then hurried to his position. Five minute later, Voire and his chummers stepped out from the shadow of the Armoury. In five more minutes, after the 1900 curfew had silenced every bar and alley in the Mission, a section of black armoured marines had appeared. H&K assault rifles held ready.
"Clear the streets, you vermin!" Barked the sergeant in the lead.
"Where are we supposed to go?" Voire shouted back, "We live here!"
Hector and Nick half-raised their hands; near to the guns in their jackets. Voire spread his arms. He had a spell ready.
"Go back to your ratholes. Or take your schemes and your drugs out of 'Frisco!"
"NOBODY CALLS THIS CITY 'FRISCO! OUR CITY! NOT YOURS! We grew up on these streets, we scored our first rocks here, got laid here! This is our home, we're not rats for you to drive out! You marines are the fragging terrorists–but we're not afraid!"
A second squad of marines was heading toward them, down the cross-street. Twelve enemies. Voire gritted his teeth, let his anger drown his fear, and shouted again; they were not afraid.
-0-
"They are brave amateurs." Orion hissed to Harry and Ilsa, as they watched the scene from an alley, "No reconnaissance, virtually all in the open, inviting attack from two sides by making their stand on a junction! A proper ambush could have defeated a platoon."
"Teenage gangers couldn't hide a real ambush," Ilsa hissed back, "They would run now, except that their chummers would see it. A senseless waste."
"Maybe not." Harry had his hand on his sword, "We're their ambush, aren't we?"
The blonde elf and the marine sergeant were still screaming at each other. Half of the marines had their guns levelled, the rest were professionally scanning their surroundings. Hailey couldn't understand why Tarne hadn't fired yet. She absolutely could not understand why Voire–a friend who had carried her home from parties and pretended to laugh at her beloved funny cat trideos–was committing suicide before her eyes.
"Couldn't I, like, try and talk him down? He's my friend." She was white-faced, but her voice was steady, "I've got to try…"
"No. And if we kill marines, we will be unable to remain in this city–"
"Ding! A dozen freshly hacked bodycams." Anya chirped smugly, "Just get them all, if you've got to fight, and don't get killed–"
Ilsa was already flicking a Haste spell over Harry, and a Flamestrike through an alert soldier's chest. By reflex, Voire flung his manaball into the second squad and his chummers let rip. From long training, the marines opened fire without a second for shock.
"AKU SOKU ZAN!"
The sergeant went down riddled with lead, still screaming. The troll was shredded by bullets, and an ork; then Hotspur cut two armoured bodies with one slash. Orion, just ahead, finished one of them with a punch. He side-kicked another marine to the street. A black coal-scuttle helmet spun away.
The second squad–unbroken by the manaball or anything else–were dropping to the ground, into the cover of benches and hydrants, all of them firing. Orion dived behind a parked ricksaw as bullets cut him; even Adepts couldn't dodge every shot at this range. Another ork went down and Nick fell, gutshot and howling.
Voire ducked behind the bench as a marine with a spitting rifle hunched at its opposite end. Choking on bullets and his chummer's blood, Voire steeled his fingers and threw out a Flamestrike, screaming for vengeance. He only wished he'd learnt to Heal as well as kill.
The marines' magical specialist, better prepared, swept the burns from Voire's target with a gesture. Screaming, For Saito-San! she cast her own Flamestrike at Ilsa–whose counterspell fizzled.
Magic was a dubious but necessary tool to the marines, not a universe of wonder. Their specialists learnt two spells only–and mastered those two until their fingers bled. Ilsa would have been burnt down without even knowing this, if Hotspur hadn't leapt before the blast, quick as wind. He was scorched, a bullet hit him as he stood, but his shield of Ki turned back the flames.
Hailey's drone shot the marine Mage in the shoulder. Ilsa threw a Heal spell after Hotspur as he charged again, then more flames. Hector actually clipped Orion with a pellet from his sawed-off, but the Runners and the militants fell on the remaining marines like a landslide. They died where they stood.
"Drekheads…" Voire spat. Now his hands were shaking unstoppably–but a grin was locked on his lips, as he stared at the Runners. The redhaired Mage was casting Heal on Nick. He was alive. They were alive, and–Hailey was marching out of an alley, through the bodies. The girl he'd told to become a kiddie's TriD show host or a cryptologist, just not a shadowrunner, because he and Tarne did not want her to die–and where was Tarne–?
"Voire, what are you doing? Why? This is nothing but killing people! Killing yourselves!"
"Giving our lives for freedom!" It was harder to say with blood underfoot, but that only hardened Voire's snarl, "The fragging Japs are going to exterminate us one day, unless we show them we're not animals!"
"Like this? Voire, remember the mural we did, humans, elves and orks together! Or the Clarion street block party, or that all-night rave at the Elbo Room! Our city used to be about music, dreams and fun, now the streets are full of people who want to shoot each other!"
Harry moved to hold Hailey back. While the surviving metas, high on victory, moved to stamp on the dead soldiers' faces and fire into their bodies.
Then one wounded body rolled over. The marine had a grenade in one hand, and a pin.
"Nihon banzai…"
Ilsa dropped so hard her glasses cracked. Harry shoved Hailey down beneath him. Orion rose and moved, faster than Harry had ever seen, and kicked. The bomb flew up and away from the marine's shattered hands, before it blew.
Voire slumped in the street, stunned and uncomprehending. Hailey could not let go of Harry's chest or stop crying. Orion and the other metas had been knocked flat by the blast. One of them didn't get up–but Orion did. Swaying like a bell, but still moving, he gazed down at the sobbing marine.
"Such reckless hatred. Yet you will never defeat the ork with old lies, or mindless faith."
"You want to die?" Hector snarled at the broken man. He aimed his shotgun–then a bullet punched through his skull. A third squad had rushed onto the street, further down; the squad marksman instantly dropping on one knee to fire.
Another bullet hit Harry's shoulder, before he shoved Hailey off him, grabbed her hand and ran, kicking Voire into flight as he went. Orion and Ilsa gave covering fire. Nick, the wounded dwarf, was all that was left of Voire's ambush party. He and Hailey both shouted that they couldn't leave Tarne, whatever had happened to him, but Harry shouted back at them both to run.
"Dad," Anya's voice crackled with feeling, "Never, never, NEVER–!"
"I'm sorry, princess. Never again, unless it is needed."
"Stupid…" Anya was silent in cyberspace for some time.
"Please, Voire, don't do this again," Hailey got out, "You're my friend, you're smarter than this stupid, stupid…"
"You're a human, Hailey." She flinched from the word, "Only humans can talk about fault on both sides, or the cycle of violence, when you don't know what it's like to live under a cloud of death!"
"You're right–but I know what it's like to live. And I absolutely want you keep living, Voire. You and Tarne."
The elf looked away, shaking. Ilsa and Orion watched Hailey fall into an agony of worry over her dark and quiet beloved–and exchanged foreboding looks.
-0-
Lieutenant Kanji Arai IJM stared at the bodies of twelve Japanese marines, a block away. His lips were taunt as wire, watching the white boy in a red headband–the ronin from Club Eclipse–running for an alley.
"Shadowscum. Aku soku zan!"
The marines dealt swift death to evil; swiftly as his Nissan rifle's smartlink fed trajectory and windspeed back to his cybereyes, he fired. His first shot caught the ronin's shoulder. The second flashed past as he ran. The smartlink placed the third in the red headband's path–then a half-brick flung from the shadows hit his shoulder, and the Runners were gone.
Stones and bricks bounced off the marine squad's armour. Arai caught a human face at a window. His years of deployment had taught him that the distinction between a foreign invading army, and their failing state's last hope for order and dignity, did not come easy to the lower-class American mind. And with marines laid out dead, the invaders no longer seemed invincible.
A hidden San Franciscan was screaming; Humanis fraggers! The dead marines on the street had scorned the safe comfort of Renraku office jobs, to protect that ingrate from metahuman thugs. For this, the Imperial Marines were called a racist hate-gang! Rage almost consumed Arai's judgement–almost.
"Fire into the air!" He yelled at his men, "Warning shots only!"
Takahashi was at his side with a Healing spell. Arai quickly pushed his fresh-faced young specialist into cover. Two other green recruits were staring and shaking, fearing another ambush. Arai yelled at them as he stitched a line of bullets above an open window.
"Do you want to see our comrades' bodies stripped and dragged through the streets, on the Net? Move forward!"
"I see one man's aura, sir." Takahashi peered into the Astral, "He has survived…"
"Poor devil. Treat him."
Rifles up, the marines moved down the sunlit, bloody street, to hold it until reinforced. The squad Matrix specialist swiftly uploaded images through her datajack. The bodies of the insurgents, for identification and arrest of any known families–the tip of a wave of interments that would be sweeping the Mission District within hours. Also, their high-end SMGs and handguns.
"None of them linked to terrorist groups, Lieutenant, sir." She soon reported, "Street scum, armed by a hostile power. Their weapons are the models used by the Aztlan military."
"So, we can at least be sure," Takahashi noted, as he Healed the sorry survivor, "That it was not the Aztlan savages that armed them." He and Arai shared a quick smile.
The marines' bodies were lined up, for collection, cremation and repatriation. Their comrades would toast their honoured memories, but occupation casualties were not publicised in the home islands. Their families would mourn in quiet dignity, as was their duty, and continue to humbly work ten-hour days for Renraku, Mitsuhama and Shiawase. Duty, conformity and discipline had made modern Japan the greatest nation on Earth. Arai and Takahashi were proud to offer their lives for her honour.
The first Komatsu APC was barrelling towards them, twin-linked Shiawase Nemesis LMGs gleaming from its turret. A second before it happened, Arai felt it–but he could do nothing to hold it back.
The blast threw all of them down, as it cracked through the street. Arai looked up at the APC on its side, broken like a toy. Marines were stumbling from the doors–he screamed at his men to cover them–even the wounded would have medkits and cyberlimbs. But a downed APC in the heart of 'Frisco was a message. An attack.
"Zettai ni yurusenai!" He hissed. Unforgivable–for the enemy and himself. If the first attackers had been pro terrorists his comrades would have been careful. But they had been street thugs armed with Aztlan guns, by the unseen foe with mil-spec anti-tank mines. The enemy that had read their moves and struck Ippon, one point.
Arai had dropped his rifle, but his hand went to the hilt of his dikoted katana. His other hand found Takahashi's, clasped him–his love saw no surrender in his eyes, and kissed his fingers quickly. It was against fraternisation rules, it was insane–but they might die on this street, and their squad likewise had more to worry about.
The marines guarded the street full of corpses, firing into every threatening windowless house on the block, in the unyielding shadow of the armoury. For as long as it took, until there was order and sanity.
-0-
"These eighteen warriors, eighteen shattered jewels–these Imperial Japanese Marines!–have honoured us with their magnificent end. Death held no fear to their noble minds. Duty and honour were their higher path. To blast the scum of the Earth to pieces, to rip up the enemy's guts with bullets, to kill with fists and teeth to the last–they chose death, and lived undefeated, with not a single regret! A single marine is worth ten thousand lesser men! Proudly, with honour, I mean to take sake with these men and women on the lotus throne of paradise.
"Such men as these held back the barbarian hordes on Tsushima, until the divine wind blew their foes to oblivion. Such men as these bled, worked and died to bring freedom and honour to East Asia, in this century and the last! And when rapacious invaders had swept to the very threshold of our homeland–when soldiers starved in body but mighty in spirit made their stand on Iwo Jima–it was men such as these who sought death in their final charge! That the sun might rise once more untarnished, over the land of the gods!"
Every barracks across the Baysprawl rang with the cheers. Colonel Keiji Saito's shaved head and warlord's moustache glared from every screen. From the shameful opening to the West, through the indelible nightmare of World War II, to the economic collapse of the 90s, Japan had been lain low time and again–yet always risen to bestride the world, as it now did unassailably. The devoted labourers of her Megacorps and military, dizzied by success, could hardly disbelieve that their nation was indeed ordained by heaven to rule over all.
"Marines, be proud of your work!" Saito's voice rolled on, "Be happy in your work! Ours is the just cause of a great nation, to teach discipline to squabbling children! I order you to value your lives, as you serve with honour–do not seek death until you have each killed a hundred enemies! Officers; take care of your men. Men; protect your officers! Remember your lives are worth ten thousand thousand of the treacherous metahuman vermin in their slums. Happily and unstintingly, use grenades and firebombs in your work, and our most subhuman foes will learn to fear us! In life, in death–AKU SOKU ZAN!"
"AKU SOKU ZAN!"
"Nihon banzai!"
"Saito-Taisa, banzai!"
They finished by singing the IJM hymn, proud to share the title with their fallen brothers of Tarawa, Manilla and San Francisco. Then the Marines dried their tears, tightened their helmets, and rolled out in their APCs to avenge them all.
-0-
Colonel Keiji Saito's private office was unsettlingly bare. There was a bleeding-edge Mitsuhama holodesk, the terminals and screens by which he managed every aspect of his command, and three pictures which he bowed to every morning. The Emperor. Hijikata Toshizo of the Shinsengumi, the last samurai. And Akechi Mitsuhide, the honourable traitor, from whose former lord the Saito family claimed a very slight descent. Saito's grandfather had sought to bolster this distinction by filling their home in rural Gifu with tea sets and antique swords, while the rest of Japan worked on computer science degrees. Keiji Saito had sworn to play a higher and active role in making his nation great again. His sword was mono-edged, and never left his side.
There were no books in the office, or on the computers; no drinks cabinet, no family photos (He had not spoken to his father for years, and a man of destiny had no time for marriage). Nothing that could not be inferred from the Colonel's public persona, as if the man and the role were one.
Yet how ridiculous–Saito mused, in a unique moment of introspection–if the office of Colonel Saito had boasted an American minibar, or posters for metahuman jungle music! Integrity was duty–the spiritual essence of bushido. Thought it was necessary that he feign to admire his commanding general's collection of sportscars and antique shotguns–bought with kickbacks from the Megacorps for strangling local companies with the curfew order and forced land sales. He must endure games of golf or interminable drinks parties with the General, and the CEOs of Renraku and Fuichi, while monsters plotted their downfall on every side! One of the other two colonels in 'Frisco even had an elf as a mistress. Saito's reaction at the private party which had been defiled with that succubus's presence had put paid to his promotion hopes for the foreseeable.
Yet when he had personally punched down and kicked a supposed marine who had wished he was back home in Osaka, rather than arresting the spawn of terrorists–his men had met his enforced public apology with frenzied cheers of support. They shared his hatred for shirkers, traitors and monsters; he loved his men and they loved him. The name of Colonel Saito was synonymous with the occupation, because he got work done.
What more could he do? The thought filled his nights and days. Chinatown stood unrazed, a false monument to Japanese tolerance, where the Triad criminals still crowded out the loyal and honourable Yakuza (Machine-gunning the San Francisco Mafia into the bay, from an extraterritorial pier, had been one of Saito's proudest moments. Aku soku zan). Terrorist monsters plotted in the dark slums of Oakland, nursing their evil rage–but the shadow in the North loomed above all. Tir Taingire, with its cowardly magic and false fairness, had no purpose but to charm the world into slavery and shame. The golden web of their plots reached everywhere.
The best of American humans might learn the Japanese way, in time–but inhuman, honourless monsters never would. War to the death was the only course, and the survivor would possess the world. For divine Japan, Colonel Saito had sworn to be the hero who brought that victory.
Without their terrorist pawns in Oakland and the Mission District, the powers that sent them weapons would be rendered impotent. Mushashi had noted the efficiency of terror in swordsmanship. If the monsters were too cowed by the threat of swift death to strike at his men, there might be peace. If their mindless hate trumped their cowardice, as it surely would, there was only extermination. If some metahumans were not treacherous, human-hating monsters…that was hardly relevant.
Certainly not compared to posting his commendations to Lieutenant Arai and his men, still in the field, on the official IJM Newsfeed. Also to Private Niwa praising his honourable, albeit foiled, sacrifice. The men would appreciate his personal concern for them; all his men who saw the public posting. Niwa had regrettably been too unhinged by his ordeal, despite the finest medical care, to identify his attackers. The bodycams of Arai's men had shown some metahuman scum, and human shadowrunners, whose images had been circulated to all checkpoints.
What more could he do? After a minute's thought, Saito videocalled a Captain Mori of the Marines Special Forces.
"Recent intelligence reports indicate a movement of weapons and suspected terrorists–" Metahumans, "–to the town of Colma. Aerial drone reconnaissance confirms a concentration of vermin. Your men are standing by, are they not, while every other marine in our division is at work on the streets?"
The Special Forces were holding to respond to any terrorists the sweeping marines did flush out, rather than frightened families. Nonetheless, Mori stood ready to follow orders without question.
"Drive them out of their ratholes, into the wilderness." Saito commanded him, "Our Humanis allies throughout the Central Valley will deal with them."
"Yes, sir. Aku soku zan!"
As Saito studied the recording of his own speech, like a baseball pro after a game, his men marched through Oakland shooting at any meta they saw on the streets. As Arai and Takahashi finally threw off their armour and held each other, the marines started to breach the squats of suspects and families, searching for weapons or any other threat they could kill for. And as the shadowrunners' stolen car rolled up to Woodlawn cemetery, history was moving. As if down a mag-lev rail line, to the camps that would be built, one day, in the Mojave.