After The Dream—MAIN INDEX (and secret Hisao arc)

[brythain]

It is my pleasure to announce that on this anniversary of Lilly Satou's birth, my co-editors and I have managed to restore her short autobiography, 'Testament'.
It runs to approximately 25,000 words divided into seven documents, and appears to have been written within a week in July 2074.

Part 1 (1989-2007)
Part 2 (2007)
Part 3 (2009-2029)
Part 4 (2029-2030)
Part 5 (2030-2044)
Part 6 (2044-2064)
Part 7 (2064-2074)

Enjoy!

[brythain]

Code: Select all

Kenji is entering 2022.
Suzu is entering 2022.
Misaki is entering 2022.
Akiko, Emi's daughter, is at 2040.

I finish typing these notes to myself just as she walks into the room, all long legs and unearthly distraction. Her long silver ponytail glistens in the light as she coils and uncoils it with her left hand. And then I notice her unusual companion.

"Good evening, Miss Katayama. Hey, Misha!"

This Misha has just grown her short hair out to neck length. She reminds me of Saki Enomoto, but with icy pink tresses. She has a big grin, and is wearing a tight white top. And a white skirt. And white socks. And, horrors, a big white belt.

"Author-san!~"

Her taller friend bows solemnly. "Author-san, this one is at the moment Madam Katayama, as I am a widow."

Oh. They come from -that- period tonight. A soft cough informs me that Rika is ready to continue.

"The main problem is convincing people that a million billion yen will just barely start off our project."

I do a quick calculation. That's about what... eight trillion US dollars? What project is this?

"Rika~ author-san hasn't got to that part yet..." Misha admonishes. "Naughty Katayama-san!~"

"Ah, that is true, sincere apologies."

I am beginning to realise what they're talking about. I think.

"Things men were not meant to know. Also, feminists. But in this case, for posterity, a good show."

"Is that something to do with physical markets? What goods are on show? There's nothing wrong with my posterior."

I turn to look at the new arrivals. "Kenji? And Rin?"

"Captain," nods Rika.

I look at Kenji. He points his spectacles in my direction and says, "Don't look at me."

"Captain Butterfly!" says Rin, flexing an actuator in her titanium arm. "That sounds more like me."

Some day, I'll get to the bottom of this. I'm about to turn back to my work when I feel a fingertip prod me gently on the shoulder. Rika whispers, "Ah, author-san, not just yet. Might we all ask for a moment of your time? In the next room is a cake. The rest are waiting to wish you a happy anniversary."

"Yes, cake!~ You've been here a year already, author-san! Congratulations!~" She hugs me before I can do anything about it, and for a moment my arms are full of Misha.

What a year it's been!

[brythain]

It's Rin's birthday, but as usual, she's not in the mood to discuss it. Birthday celebrations are something she saves for Emi's birthday.

"After all," she says to me, "our birthday's overlap. Like Emi, when we tried running together. She overlapped me all the time."

Her almond-shaped green eyes look at me like those of a cat, but not quite.

"So what are you doing here, Rin? Not that I'm complaining, really..."

"Hmm. My head hurt a bit this morning, and then Hisao showed me this obituary about a bearded Englishman. He said he and Hanako enjoyed the man's books a lot."

"Ah. Terry Pratchett. I grew up reading those books too. I have every one of them."

"That can't be right. There are millions of them, it says."

She's amazingly literal-minded at times, so I correct myself. "I have a copy of almost every title that Pratchett-san wrote."

"That reminds me about what I'm doing here."

Her hair is like blood in the light of day, rich, dark, slightly red. Her lips are pursed now, as she makes the effort to remember. I stay silent, hoping that she will. After a while, she continues.

"I painted something. But I forgot if I did. So I'll tell you the story and you can write it down."

So I did.

[brythain]

"What's up, doc? You look fuckin' busy, I have ta say..." the deeply feminine voice drawls into my afternoon.

"Oh. Hi, Miki."

"Not pleased to see me, hmmm?" she asks, all long black hair and sultry eyes.

I widen one barely caffeine-supported eye to take a better look. That's a very nice dress, sleeveless in watered yellow silk, a faint damask of stylised cherry blossoms in the fabric. Her square-cut neckline and hemline at the calf are conservative, but the colour accentuates her tanned skin.

"You look good, Miss Miura, as always." I narrow my eyes, and before her open lips say anything, I find a question. "Is that something like the Nagasaki hillside dress?"

"Heh, quite close, author-san. No, it's the halter-top that Kenji liked so much. Damn, all those memories... did you say 'good'? Is that all I get? Shit!"

She sticks a lean hip out at me, deliberately posing in a way that shows she knows I know it's a game. When I grin, she continues, "Well... I came because you summoned me."

"I did?" If I knew how I'd done that, I could bottle it and sell it to the many fans of Miss Miki Miura around here, I'm sure.

"Yeah. 2044, remember?"

"Oh."

"Yeah... but anyway, Rin told me to tell you that she likes Akiko's story anyway, as long as you make sure to tell all of it. Then she squeezed her mouth into her shoulder and mumbled something like 'oh no, bad luck, work in progress'."

"Yes, I think I know why. But it's nice to have you..."

"Of course!"

"... I didn't mean it THAT way!"

The dark eyes flash and she actually bats her eyelashes at me before offering me a titanium fist-bump. Then she's gone, leaving the knowledge of how Kenji might have felt on a hillside in Nagasaki.

[brythain]

This used to hold the piece named Moment of Transition.

It was, for me at least, a moment of regret...

[Serviam]

Molly running Mutou down, making Rika a widow. Just like the Spanish Inquisition, unexpected.

[brythain]

Molly running Mutou down, making Rika a widow. Just like the Spanish Inquisition, unexpected.

Well, it was a nice little 1st April one-shot. Nah, not in the AtD continuity. Just dug it out of my slush pile and decided to try it out.

In a while I'll move it to Alt Dreams...

[brythain]

"Okay, here's the deal," says the nasal voice from behind me.

I turn, irritated. My train of thought has been broken just as I was about to proceed on a journey.

The man in the sober suit and garish scarf is leaning nonchalantly against my doorjamb. His glasses wink at me in the stale morning light.

"Good day, Kenji. What can I do for you?"

"Ha, author-san. Just to tell you, your serialisation..."

"Yes? From your own redacted records and files?"

"Yes. But after Part 4, the redaction becomes more serious, you know?"

"I know."

"Well, then, no problem after all!"

"But why did you cut so much out?! Inquiring readers want to know everything!"

It's only after this small outburst that I realise what the answer will be. His glinting glasses seem to say that he knows that I know. But he says it anyway.

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you. But don't worry, so far, so good. Ha!"

With that, he vanishes, leaving nothing but a sense of warmth and a faint aftershock of wasabi eel pizza.

[brythain]

I can feel her eyes drilling into the back of my neck. So I turn round to look at her, slim, intense, thirty-somethingish.

[That was sad] she signs, her fingers playing their intricate game.

[Happy birthday, Shizune!] I sign back.

[Doesn't it seem hypocritical to wish me that and then revisit the worst day of my life?]

[It's also one of the days you value most.]

[That's true. Well, happy birthday to me, then.]

And then she's gone... no, she's not.

[They're right about you. You need to change. Write more happy stuff. Madam Dictator commands it.]

The ghost of her smile remains long after she has indeed vanished.

[brythain]

It's with great pleasure that I present to you Akiko's Story, assembled by Natsume Ooe and Hanako Ikezawa.

Akiko is Hisao and Emi's daughter, the 'child of autumn' who, as she matures, is also seen as 'summer's lady'.
This arc traces her life roughly within the period 2030-2045. Links below.

Akiko 0 — Remembrance
Akiko 1a — A Letter to Mother (31 Jul 2036)
Akiko 1b — A Letter to Mother (07 Jan 2039)
Akiko 1c — A Letter to Mother (06 May 2040)
Akiko 2 — Mothers and Daughters (Winter 2040-41)
Akiko 3a — A Change of Heart (10-11 Mar 2044)
Akiko 3b — Breaking News (12-25 Mar 2044)
Akiko 3c — Time, Space and Destiny (05 Aug 2044 onwards)

[brythain]

Over the last few months, I've heard and read people in various conversations wondering about what Yamaku was like before Hisao arrived. Clearly, our initial viewpoint is biased because it's Hisao-centric. There are a number of fanfics that address this, but there is still a lot of space to be filled if that's your inclination or intent. Not everyone likes their ideas of Yamaku tampered with, and not everyone sees a point to filling in the blanks. But I'm a space-filler, a maker of things by inclination.

So it was with some apprehension but with also a load of determination that I collared my editors and began asking questions about 3-4 and the apocryphal 3-5. What I heard was extremely illuminating. 3-4 is of course Emi and Rin's class, the one next to Hisao's. Yet we don't know much about it. In the AtD-verse, 3-5 is the extra class containing students with medically-moderated schedules and other such problems, and that's not canonical.

Then one of my AtD-verse acquaintances grinned and said, "Hey, author-san... we actually had a transfer student in April the year Hisao came, but he left after just two months..."

That piqued my interest. So I asked for more details, at which point a sort of fracas developed and one of these acquaintances refused to speak with me for weeks. Eventually, I made contact in a very indirect way with the hero of a very short saga. He immediately replied quite loudly, "Mistaking identify!" and broke out into raucous laughter.

"W-What?!" I stammered, a little unnerved.

"You'll know what I mean. Let me tell you a story..."

And so began 'Mistaking Identify—Kenichi's Story'.

[brythain]

It has occurred to me just this month, for very obvious reasons, that...

My thoughts trail away as my mouth opens slightly with a silent exhalation of breath. Why is -he- here?

"Hello, author-san! Don't you think one whole month of me is a bit much?"

"Hello, Nakai-san. Sometimes I think a whole year wouldn't be enough. We don't know you very well."

He grins, something far removed from the melancholy of the days by which many people know him. He has sharp features and unruly hair.

"Well, those people at 4LS had to conceal my identity, and also make me more playable, I suppose. I'm a blank slate, supposedly."

"Oh, that. I've learnt that isn't true," I say cautiously.

"Sneaky, sneaky, author-san. You've been writing an arc about me even while telling everyone it isn't possible."

"Now, that's not true!" I exclaim.

"Even sneakier. It's not true that you've been saying it's not possible. But look at your notes. By last count, you're at Part Five of my tragically brief story."

"Um. Really?"

"Ha! You're not going to get much more out of me by being sneaky. I'm on to you, author-san! You'll have to ask Misha for... oops!"

His comical look of dismay triggers a laughing/coughing fit from me. After a while, he chuckles a bit as well.

"Yes, I did," I confess. "Misha told me about the 2022 diaries."

"She did? Over macarons and blue ice-cream? Author-san, you're even more a MoR than I am!"

With such heartening praise, he smiles broadly and fades away. I'm left wondering: today, who played who?

[brythain]

"Ha, author-san, are you finally satisfied?"

Only one person can inspire such irritation in me, and not flinch at my divine wrath. Even Misha, to my dismay, has been known to flinch when I laugh.

But here he is, in a Homburg ludicrously mismatched with a Tom Baker scarf.

"Hello, Kenji," I say, attempting to communicate disgruntlement at being so rudely disturbed. Then again, without people like him, I'd have nothing to write about.

"Four books of my life already. Thirty-six years at least, minus my baby ones. And all my problems and stupidities."

He wrinkles a blind-looking frown at me--what he does is hard to describe, but I'm doing my best. There are so many things about Kenji Setou that are hard to reconcile.

"I'm sorry if I have not done enough editing, Colonel-san."

"Ha. Well, Natsume did editing before you did, and everyone wanted to cut this and that, which is why it is not the Winston Churchill kind of book."

"Are there more?"

"Author-san, I am resigned to passing Book Five to you. However, I fear what you will do with Books Six and Seven."

"Hey, someone has already said I'm a bit like George R R Martin."

"Really? That's sad. You look nothing like him. Okay! I have work to do."

And as rudely as he came, he has gone. Book Five? Sigh. Kenji, you're unique.

[brythain]

It is with pleasure and thanks to many people, Natsume Ooe and Rika Katayama above all, that I present the edited Book 4 of Sakura—The Kenji Saga.
Oh yes, thanks to Kenji Setou too, who kindly consented to any form of publication at all.

Kenji Book 4: The World Turned Upside-Down (2020-2025)

2020.03-2020.09 — Year 1 (1) — Kenji considers action and inaction. And rooftops.
2020.10-2021.06 — Year 1 (2) — Kenji goes overseas and feels old when he gets back.
2021.07-2021.12 — Year 2 (1) — Kenji makes promises and does a soy sauce investigation.
2022.01-2022.05 — Year 2 (2) — Kenji meets life, death, and a new brother.
2022.05-2022.08 — Year 3 (1) — Kenji deals with... matters of the heart.
2022.09-2022.12 — Year 3 (2) — Kenji's friendships are strained to the breaking point.
2023.01-2023.04 — Year 3 (3) — Kenji thinks about resource scarcity.
2023.05-2023.08 — Year 4 (1) — Kenji revisits some of the past.
2023.09-2024.03 — Year 4 (2) — Kenji thinks about legacies.
2024.04-2024.08 — Year 5 (1) — Kenji says a final goodbye to an old friend.
2024.09-2025.03 — Year 5 (2) — Kenji thinks about knowledge, and leaves the future to itself.

[brythain]

"So you've actually translated Misha's diary, author-san."

"Oh, hello, Mr Nakai."

The tousle-haired fellow is relaxing in my favourite recliner, sipping tea.

"Part of it is Hana's, and a lot of it is nonsense from a madman's ravings."

"Yes, so they told me. Was brain reconfiguration that bad?"

He takes a deep breath and releases a weary sigh. "Yes, it was. You'll see."

And then he reconfigures himself out of my world.