Chapter 544: Long Live the Emperor
Tokyo, Japan — Autumn, 1930
The war in Korea had not gone in Japan's favor.
The Russians had mobilized 100,000 men at the onset of their invasion. Meanwhile, Japan had only 30,000 soldiers defending the region when war was declared.
Those defenders were long dead; replaced piecemeal by reinforcements drawn from the home islands and other colonies, desperately flung into the meat grinder to hold back the advancing Russian steel tide.
Worse still, Japan's attempt to strike into the Bismarck Sea had ended in utter catastrophe. "Disaster" was the understatement of a century.
The Germans, despite inferior numbers, had not only held their position; they had annihilated the Japanese fleet, and every marine deployed alongside it.
The Emperor, already kept alive past his natural lifespan by foreign medicines, had grown increasingly frail.
He had never wanted war with Germany. Yes, he had felt insulted when Bruno refused to kneel before him during a diplomatic visit years ago.
But he had known better than to challenge a sleeping giant.
Now bedridden, Emperor Taisho summoned a distant member of the Imperial Family; a woman in her mid-to-late thirties.
She entered the chamber in full ceremonial form, bowing deeply, her forehead pressed to the tatami mat.
"You summoned me, Your Highness?"
The Emperor coughed, his weak heart struggling to supply his words with breath. In Bruno's past life, Taisho had died at 47.
This time, only foreign medicine, mostly German, obtained through third parties, had kept him alive this long.
But now, death was at the threshold. He beckoned her closer.
The woman approached the bedside. He whispered something in her ear.
She gasped. "Your Highness! You misunderstand… he never cared for me that way. It was unrequited. He wouldn't do such a thing for me."
But the Emperor's grip tightened weakly around her wrist, his voice a death-rattle of conviction.
"You… are our only hope now… If my generals continue this madness… all that we've built will be lost. He will not stop… not until he believes we are no longer a threat. Even if you doubt it will work... you must try…"
His breath hitched.
And then stopped.
The woman stared in disbelief.
"Your Highness? Please… wake up. Somebody help! The Emperor — he's not breathing!"
---
Elsewhere in the Command Center…
The generals and admirals of the Japanese Empire looked as though they had aged ten years in a matter of months.
News had arrived: the Germans were launching full-scale amphibious and airborne operations across the South Pacific.
The Japanese had focused everything on the Korean front after their initial failures to seize their strategic objectives, and in doing so, left their southern flank exposed.
One island had fallen. Then another. Then a third.
The Germans were building a bridge; an island chain of supply lines and forward operating bases that pointed like a blade at the Japanese mainland.
Soon, German bombers would have striking distance.
Tensions flared.
"We need to divert the Second and Third Fleets immediately to the South Pacific! If not, we'll be facing an invasion from Chosen and Okinawa at the same time!"
A counter-argument snapped back just as fast.
"We can't! Those fleets are the only thing holding the Russian line together! Pull them out, and we lose Korea by winter!"
Insults followed. Slurs. Raised voices. The brass was seconds away from a full-on breakdown—until a voice cut through the room like the thunder of a dragon.
"Enough!"
Silence.
"I just received word from the palace… His Majesty, the Emperor, is dead."
The room froze.
Every man bowed his head. Grief, shock, regret.
He had died in the middle of a war none of them were authorized to start.
A war they were now losing.
But with his death… came obligation. Now, they had no choice but to win.
Because to lose… would be to dishonor the Emperor's memory. And in the Empire of Japan; there was no greater sin.
---
A thick mist clung to the waterfront like a veil of secrecy. The moon was low, pale and distant, its reflection shimmering in the black water like silver spilled across oil.
The docks, usually alive with the shriek of gulls and the shouts of stevedores, were nearly silent now, save for the groan of rope against wood and the lapping of waves against hulls.
A lone figure stood at the edge of the pier, cloaked in a dark traveling coat, a wide hood drawn low over her face.
Silk gloves concealed her hands. A scarf masked the lower half of her face. Her posture was upright, but the weight of unseen burdens hung from her shoulders.
In her gloved hand, she held a silver stopwatch, old, worn smooth by time. She opened it with a soft click, its polished lid revealing not a timepiece, but a locket.
On the left side, a faded photograph of a man in uniform; her husband. On the right, two small children, beaming with innocence. Her thumb brushed the faces, trembling slightly.
"I'm sorry…" she whispered, breath forming mist in the cold air. "Forgive me for leaving this way."
She closed her eyes. The ocean wind tugged at her cloak, as if trying to pull her back to shore, to the life she was abandoning.
"You'll wake in the morning and wonder where I've gone. You'll think I've been taken, or worse. But I couldn't stay. Not with what I've been asked to do."
She paused, then glanced back over her shoulder at the idling black motorcar behind her. Inside it sat a man in an old servant's coat, white-haired and hunched, watching quietly from the window.
Sakura sighed and looked back at the sea.
"The Emperor entrusted me with his final hope. Not the army. Not the ministers. Me. And I don't even know if the man I'm going to see… still remembers me at all."
Her fingers hesitated before snapping the stopwatch shut with finality. The sound rang louder than she expected in the quiet night.
She slid it into the inner pocket of her satchel and drew the cloak tighter around her. She walked back toward the car.
The driver, an aging man named Ishida, stepped out and opened the door.
"Your Highness… are you certain?" he asked in a low voice.
"Ishida-san," she said softly, "you were with me when I was a girl. When my father passed. When I was married. When I gave birth to my first child."
He nodded wordlessly, his eyes wet behind thin spectacles.
"Then please… be with me now. Just a little longer. Help me carry out His Majesty's will."
Ishida swallowed hard, then offered a stiff, formal bow. "Of course, Princess."
She stepped past him and up the gangway; the boards creaking under her feet. A small freighter under a Swiss flag waited quietly in the harbor, its crew paid handsomely to ask no questions.
Once aboard, she paused at the top of the gangplank and turned her eyes back toward the shore; toward the land she was about to leave behind. Toward her family.
"This isn't treason," she whispered. "It's duty. The Emperor knew that peace could never come through war."
A bell rang. Lines were loosed. The ship groaned and shifted, pulling away from the dock like a ghost ship vanishing into fog.
Sakura did not look back again.