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<span class="title">the night you swallow the moon</span> <span class="author">by <a href="https://hosomeowa.itch.io/" target="_blank">hosomeowa</a></span>

<<nobr>> <li>[[credits]]</li> <</nobr>>

This story deals with medical misogyny, physical and mental illness, gender dysphoria, and racism. <span class="next"><<button "Begin" "1.1">><</button>></span>

<<set $shadow to 0>> <<cacheaudio "ost" "audio/ATMOS2-Aura-QuietLoop.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "AmbiencePlayground" "audio/AmbiencePlayground.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "CarAmbience" "audio/AmbienceCarDrivingInteriorBackSeatWindowsDown01.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "1.1" "audio/1.1.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "1.2" "audio/1.2.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "1.3" "audio/1.3.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "2.1" "audio/2.1.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "2.2" "audio/2.2.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "2.3" "audio/2.3.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "2.4" "audio/2.4.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "2.5" "audio/2.5.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "3.1" "audio/3.1.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "3.2" "audio/3.2.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "3.3" "audio/3.3.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "3.4" "audio/3.4.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "dadcar" "audio/AmbienceCarParkedInteriorNearBusyRoadWindowsCrackedOpen01.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "cafeteria" "audio/AmbienceSchoolCafeteria55474.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "4.1" "audio/4.1.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "4.2" "audio/4.2.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "4.3" "audio/4.3.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "4.4" "audio/4.4.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "4.5" "audio/4.5.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "5.1" "audio/5.1.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "5.2" "audio/5.2.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "stab" "audio/ProductionElementTitleTransitionStabDarkBell10.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "6.1" "audio/6.1.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "6.2" "audio/6.2.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "6.3" "audio/6.3.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "6.4" "audio/6.4.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "6.5" "audio/6.5.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "storm" "audio/PlacidPlace.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "rain" "audio/AmbienceCarInteriorParkedLightRainAndDistantTraffic01.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "night" "audio/AmbienceWindWithCrickets01.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "7.1" "audio/7.1.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "7.2" "audio/7.2.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "7.3" "audio/7.3.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "7.4" "audio/7.4.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "7.5" "audio/7.5.ogg">> <<cacheaudio "7.6" "audio/7.6.ogg">>

!!!Story hosomeowa !!!Audio Narration Radhika Samwald !!!Sound Design hosomeowa !!!Tools Twine 2, Sugarcube 2 Audacity <a class="link-external" href="https://captain4lk.itch.io/slk-img2pixel" target="_blank">SLK_image2pix by Lukas Holzbeierlein</a> Adobe Photoshop CS6 !!!Fonts <a class="link-external" href="https://fonts.google.com/specimen/EB+Garamond" target="_blank">EB Garamond by Georg Duffner, Octavio Pardo</a> <a class="link-external" href="https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Oswald" target="_blank">Oswald by Vernon Adams, Kalapi Gajjar, Cyreal</a> <a class="link-external" href="https://opendyslexic.org">OpenDyslexic Font by Abbie Gonzalez</a> <a class="link-external" href="https://fonts.google.com/noto/specimen/Noto+Sans+Mono" target="_blank">Noto Sans Mono commissioned by Google</a> !!!Audio Adobe Inc. FabienC@RustedMusicStudio Pixabay > PlacidPlace !!!Cover Art Unsplash > <a class="link-external" href="https://unsplash.com/@timmarshall" target="_blank">Tim Marshall</a>, <a class="link-external" href="https://unsplash.com/@rvguitard" target="_blank">Zdeněk Macháček</a>, <a class="link-external" href="https://unsplash.com/@zmachacek" target="_blank">Rock Vincent Guitard</a> !!!Original Publication <i>The Kenyon Review</i>, Vol. XLV Summer 2023 Nicole Terez Dutton, Editor Jackson Saul, Managing Editor Elizabeth Wagner, Chief Copy Editor Chandra Wohleber, Copy Editor !!!Miscellaneous <a class="link-external" href="https://twinelab.net/custom-macros-for-sugarcube-2/#/dialog-api-macro-set" target="_blank">The Dialog API Macro Set by Chapel</a> <a class="link-external" href="https://github.com/cyrusfirheir/cycy-wrote-custom-macros" target="_blank">Live Update Macro by Cycy</a> <a class="link-external" href="https://awmorgan.itch.io/twine-sugarcube-template" target="_blank">Twine/Sugarcube 2 Template by a.w.morgan</a> <<button "Back" $return>><</button>>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "1.1" stop>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "1.2" play>><</timed>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>Scouring your ribs in the shower does not return you to the body with no gaps in its scales. Your father, mourning, battles snakes in the garden, sunburning redder than his leaf piles. Only your mother celebrates. She’s boiled azuki to make the white rice blush.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "1.3">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<timed 4s>><<audio "1.1" play>><</timed>><<fadein 4s 1s>>!ONE<</fadein>> <<fadein 2s 4s>>In your dreams, you are a creature from one of your mother’s stories, not your father’s, and having no fire to breathe or wings to beat, you twine freely across the night sky by capturing the wind like spider silk. You have been told for ten waking years you are a girl, but here, you forget. Here, you have whiskers but scales too, up and down the long sweep of your body, across parts resisting proclamation. You <i>are</i>. You are flying through midnight clouds going silver by the gleam of an orb you hold against your underbelly.<</fadein>> <<fadein 2s 4s>>This is where your soft hands are braced when you first wake to bloodied sheets.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<timed 4s t8n>><<button "Next" "1.2">><</button>><</timed>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "1.3" stop>><<timed 4s>><<audio "2.1" play>><</timed>><<audio "AmbiencePlayground" loop play>><<audio ":paused" play>><<fadein 4s 1s>>!TWO<</fadein>> <<fadein 2s 4s>>You are ten, awake, and fidgeting in underthings soaked in blood. The teacher won’t let you go to the toilet because today’s chapter is important. “Especially for you three.” She points at you and those among your friends with Japanese mothers. But your father has taught you about the war already. The [[headquarters building|hq]] where he works used to be Japanese. You sometimes wonder if it smelled as fusty to Admiral Yamamoto as it does to you, and if maybe he planned Pearl Harbor on the balcony instead.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 4s>><<button "Next" "2.2">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "1.2" stop>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "1.3" play>><</timed>><<audio ":paused" play>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>The azuki protects you from cancer. She always talks about cancer, the thing that took your ji-chan when you were six and your ba-chan when you were eight. [[One thousand paper cranes|sadako]] could not save them, and she doesn’t answer when you ask if azuki might have. She glances out the window and says, although your father’s skin is paler than her ocher and your honey, he doesn’t have to worry.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "2.1">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "2.1" stop>><<audio "AmbiencePlayground" fadeout>><<audio ":paused" play>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "2.2" play>><</timed>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>Twenty miles from this base is your two-story home, which is also twenty miles from the [[museum|mus]] you try not to dream about. [[Wax figures|wax]] midstagger, shattered glass like fangs in flesh hanging off arms outstretched because the eyes have melted under red lights pretending to be fire: you know these things slip into dreams more easily than numbers. You’d rather know numbers: three-quarters of 140,000 is 105,000 civilians; one-seventh of 140,000 is [[20,000 Koreans|SK]]; 140,000 is— One hundred and forty thousand is for the greater good.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "2.3">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "2.2" stop>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "2.3" play>><<audio ":paused" play>><</timed>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>Your teacher looks away when she says <i>greater good</i>. Your father never looks away. Maybe this is why he drives you and the dog to [[Gokurakuji-yama|goku]] on weekends, so you can see the moon rise over the military base that used to be Japanese and over the city that used to be on fire. Your father never looks away, and your mother eats azuki.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "2.4">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "2.3" stop>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "2.4" play>><</timed>><<audio "AmbiencePlayground" fadein>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>You are ten and in too much pain to listen anymore. Your jeans are soaked now too, because you kept hoping it would pass you by. At lunch, the nurse isn’t happy to see you again but lets you lie down until your mother arrives. The nurse isn’t happy to see her, either, and turns each word into a sack and your mother a mule. <i>She. Is. Girl. You. Mother. Prepare. Her.</i><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "2.5">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "2.4" stop>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "2.5" play>><</timed>><<audio "AmbiencePlayground" fadeout>><<audio "CarAmbience" loop play>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>Your mother’s voice is small for twenty miles. “It’s not my fault. The doctors said it’s not my fault. Your ba-chan said it hurt each month even before the war. Each month, like childbirth.” You already know about the war. You don’t want to give birth. And, “I don’t want to get cancer,” you say for the first time. “It’s not cancer,” she says, “but— ” and doesn’t finish.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "3.1">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "2.5" stop>><<audio "CarAmbience" stop>><<timed 4s>><<audio "3.1" play>><</timed>><<fadein 4s 1s>>!THREE<</fadein>> <<fadein 2s 4s>>You are eleven, awake, and allowed to skip cram school because you’re bleeding again. You hope your mother will let you skip the worksheets too when she admits that yes, this much blood is rare. Then she adds, “But not in this family.”<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 4s>><<button "Next" "3.2">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "7.6" stop>><<fadein 4s 1s>>!!!THANK YOU FOR PLAYING<</fadein>> <<fadein 2s 4s>>First published in the <a href="https://kenyonreview.org/piece/the-night-you-swallow-the-moon/" target="_blank">Kenyon Review</a>, "The Night You Swallow the Moon" was initially imagined by the author as an interactive story. The version you're playing contains contextual images and audio not available to <i>Kenyon Review</i> readers or <a href="https://soundcloud.com/the-kenyon-review/the-night-you-swallow-the-moon" target="_blank">Soundcloud</a> listeners. We hope you enjoyed it.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 4s>><<button "More" "Recs">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "3.1" stop>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "3.2" play>><</timed>><<audio ":paused" play>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>So you ache in scarlet and hang graphite between numbered points, practicing kanji in the perfect stroke order. You pause before <i>kotowari</i>. <i>[[Kotowari|kotowari]]</i> is a kanji with a <i>king</i> on the left and a <i>village</i> to his right. Your mother has taught you already: it makes the <i>ri</i> sound in Arisa, spelled Alyssa, the name that lets you pass through the base gates that used to be Japanese. The worksheet lists words, not names, that use <i>kotowari</i>: <i>Ri</i>sou, ideal. Kan<i>ri</i>, control. Sei<i>ri</i>, menstruation, is not here.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "3.3">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "3.2" stop>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "3.3" play>><</timed>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>You shift unhappily in your chair and find a smear on the vinyl. Downstairs, you beg your mother for relief. She gives you your first painkiller and a box of cotton shaped like rifle rounds. You try and fail, wasting several rounds, until you’re in too much pain to try anymore. Maybe you fail because you’re not actually a girl. Maybe if you keep failing, your head and your heart won’t have been wrong all this time.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "3.4">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "3.3" stop>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "3.4" play>><</timed>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>"Don’t be disgusting,” your mother says. She tells you what she’s going to do. You understand from a ron<i>ri</i>teki perspective, a logical one. But the butsu<i>ri</i>teki, physical reality is like finding a fish bone in your throat. You look away and try to disappear as she pushes aside your knocking knees and snaps that you agreed to this and she doesn’t deserve for you to cry. As your mother scrubs her fingernails, you crawl back upstairs. You remember that you’ve not eaten lunch. You lean against the windowsill and wonder how many meals you need to skip to be light enough to fly. You wonder, if you tried and failed just once, if you’d make a smear on the asphalt from two stories up.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "4.1">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "3.4" stop>><<fadein 4s 1s>>!FOUR<</fadein>><<timed 4s>><<audio "4.1" play>><</timed>> <<fadein 2s 4s>>Once wispy and silver, the clouds in your dreams begin to gray. They are heavy not with rain but with something else, full of potential. Your long, wingless body shifts, and sometimes, just before you wake, you’re standing on two legs on Gokurakuji-yama, watching the clouds draw near.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 4s>><<button "Next" "4.2">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "4.2" stop>><<audio "dadcar" fadeout>><<audio "cafeteria" loop play>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "4.3" play>><</timed>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>He drops you off, and you fix your mascara before class. At lunch, you give the usual lie that you’re not hungry and push your plate of fries across the table to your friend, the lanky one whose father leaves bruises on the outside. He’s arguing with someone down the bench, someone who doesn’t want a pussy like him dating the new girl from Jacksonville. He calls your friend a Jap, and you never learn if he meant it in jest, because you’ve grabbed the back of his head and smashed his teeth into the table. You’re sent to the principal’s office, and the victim—the <i>victim</i>—leaves shoe prints in blood outside the nurse’s office.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "4.4">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "4.3" stop>><<audio "cafeteria" fadeout>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "4.4" play>><</timed>><<audio ":paused" play>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>Your father slams the door to his study, and your mother pushes a bowl of okayu across the table as if you’ve come home with a stomachache. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a girl. You can’t do things like that,” she says. “They’ll turn you into a [[shadow|shadoww]].” Then she tells you, over the ringing in your ears, how she was still drinking your ba-chan’s milk when she survived the [[atomic bomb|shadow]]. Afterward, you throw up the soup. You don’t even have to force it.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "4.5">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "4.4" stop>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "4.5" play>><</timed>><<audio ":paused" play>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>Universities you were courting give you a chance to express grief for your actions. In an essay, you compare the gibes about your mother’s accent, the stinking fish lunches, and the horny schoolgirl you must be not to drums but to droplets of [[defoliant]], and you wonder at the pointlessness of proposing a nonviolent solution to a racist kid with a brother in [[Fallujah]] and a scythe for a mouth. You attend community college in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Why North Carolina? everyone asks. Because there are military jobs in North Carolina for your father, and your mother says its winters are mild enough for her condition.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "5.1">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "4.5" stop>><<audio "ost" loop play>><<timed 4s>><<audio "5.1" play>><</timed>><<fadein 4s 1s>>!FIVE<</fadein>> <<fadein 2s 4s>>You are nineteen but weigh as much as you did at eleven when you tell a boy at college that your ba-chan ate carrots soaked in black rain and poisoned her own milk. That’s why your infant mother’s hair fell out into your ba-chan’s palm lines, and why you don’t deserve to eat, because you left your mother back in Japan for an education in America.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 4s>><<button "Next" "5.2">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "5.1" stop>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "5.2" play>><</timed>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>He is not the first boy you tell. But he is the first to drive out to his White family’s beach house and load up his truck with imported pottery and heirloom furniture from the garage. He gives you the money for therapy. His parents never notice anything missing. You still think you deserve to waste away, but you stop chewing supplements like they’re food. You start bleeding again. You tell the boy this doesn’t make you a woman, and he keeps overwatering the money tree and the rice cooker in your one-bedroom apartment. Bless his heart, he tries to learn Japanese.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "6.1">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "5.2" stop>><<fadein 4s 1s>>!SIX<</fadein>><<timed 4s>><<audio "6.1" play>><</timed>><<audio ":paused" play>> <<fadein 2s 4s>>It’s [[March 11, 2011|tohoku]]. One of your Skype calls finally gets through, and your parents reassure you there was hardly a tremor or a change in sea level so far south. But as you’re falling through the news, you find a picture of someone you think you know. It isn’t the face you remember; it’s the sob. It’s how small they look without their rain boots on. It’s the [[sitting alone|girl]] on an empty road with a nightmare labyrinth rising on all sides, with crumpled metal siding and concrete utility poles snapped like graveyard incense sticks, that reminds you of a city you never saw burning.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 4s>><<button "Next" "6.2">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "6.1" stop>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "6.2" play>><</timed>><<timed 21.5s>><<audio "stab" play>><</timed>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>You do, tonight. Tonight, you do not dream of flying. You are standing on Gokurakuji-yama. Your dog and your father are not here, but the barefoot stranger is. Together, you watch the heavy clouds approach until they obscure the sun, and by then it’s too late. You turn to each other in realization that they aren’t clouds at all but a fleet of American bombers.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "6.3">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "6.2" stop>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "6.3" play>><</timed>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>When you wake, the bedroom is spinning, the floor is buckling, but there’s no earthquake or bomb blast, nothing but the ringing in your ears and the boy crying out as you swim through black-and-red vision to the toilet to retch. There is something wringing your insides, and you are its skin, coiling and curling into the bloody tiles. You’re screaming. The doctor down the road tells the boy in an accent as strong as your mother’s to drive you to the emergency room because it might be an ectopic pregnancy; you might die.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "6.4">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "6.3" stop>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "6.4" play>><</timed>><<audio ":paused" play>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>You might have taken your chances with her rather than the two strangers in crisp white coats locking your feet into stirrups and staring between your legs, at the space you try not to think about even when you’re bleeding. They’re inspecting it, prodding it, exploring it; the one twisting the speculum doesn’t notice your tears. “Just a little longer, ma’am,” lies the one holding back your knee with a clipboard, on which they’ve checked the wrong boxes. They draw the lamp closer. Under their scrutiny, you shake. They notice, but they don’t know what you see, the black-and-white photos of [[kimono patterns|kimono]], flesh melting off bones like wax, white-hot lamplight on radiation burns as your ba-chan grits her teeth and begs the [[American scientists|abcc]] masquerading as doctors to make it stop.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "6.5">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "6.4" stop>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "6.5" play>><</timed>><<audio ":paused" play>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>Blood follows the speculum out. It’s not an ectopic pregnancy, the doctor says. No, no, it’s not cancer. Frankly, they don’t know why you’re here. They leave two little squares of cleaning wipes in their wake. It isn’t even enough to soak up the blood on the floor. The boy can’t touch you at night without you trembling from [[memories that aren’t yours|rape]]. But you don’t cry or tremble—you only freeze—when strangers corner you in bars and [[reach between your legs|comfortStation]]. The boy says he understands: you must become a shadow, or they will burn you into one. Bless his heart, he tries to understand. He doesn’t know how to help when you stop going outside.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "7.1">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "6.5" stop>><<fadein 4s 1s>>!SEVEN<</fadein>><<timed 4s>><<audio "7.1" play>><</timed>> <<fadein 2s 4s>>You dream, but you don’t fly anymore. You don’t even run from the clouds. There’s no building or shadow that’ll save you.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 4s>><<button "Next" "7.2">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "7.1" stop>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "7.2" play>><</timed>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>You wake again to spinning, the waves of screaming, and afterward you spray down the bathroom tiles. You stroke the level edges, trace the unfashionable wheat pattern. You throw the box of tampons pretending to be tissues against the wall. You shave your head so they’ll stop looking at you like a geisha and you can stop pretending to be a girl, but you still can’t stop crying like one. Kotowari—the sense of being ordered, kempt, kept, the way a king controls his feudal village. “Mama,” you cry into the phone, “why would you name me after that?”<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "7.3">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "7.2" stop>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "7.3" play>><</timed>><<audio ":paused" play>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>“That’s not the kanji for <i>king</i>,” she says. “It used to have a stroke, but it was lost.” The lost stroke made the <i>king</i> an <i>[[orb|tama]]</i> more precious than any crown jewel. You remember, like the ones carried by dragons in tales your mother told on stormy nights. Scaled, wingless dragons carried orbs along the paths of Buddhism, paths turned into gashes, from balconies like your father’s and Yamamoto’s, all the way to the Seto Inland Sea and your home in Hiroshima, where long before the war, the orbs helped dragons [[bring rain|ryujin]].<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "7.4">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "7.3" stop>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "7.4" play>><</timed>><<audio ":paused" play>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<audio "storm" loop play>>You remember. You remember your ba-chan’s wrinkles deepening, eyes hardening, as she clapped her hands like thunder to show you: a dragon would split the earth beneath your feet, call up the sea faster than you could cut your heels on oyster shells in flight, if you abandoned so much as a candy wrapper in the tide. Don’t you remember the lord who ignored the [[village elder’s warnings|elder]] and cast his empty casks of rice wine into the river? How the dragon flooded the village but granted the elder Nirvana with an orb so polished, the veinlike fractures caught the light of [[lanterns]] and the moon?<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "7.5">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "7.5" stop>><<audio "rain" fadeout>><<audio "night" loop play>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "7.6" play>><</timed>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>Tonight, with your mother’s voice still in your ear, you creep from your one-bedroom apartment to the parking lot. The sky is narrow between mountains in Hiroshima, but in the Piedmont, there is a vast stretch for all the stars of the Milky Way. You try to remember what it’s like to fly, to curl your claws around the orb you carried in your dreams, the orb like a reflection of the moon, the moon that dragons devour to bring rain, and that’s why even you bleed on the darkest nights. Because dragons, like water, fill many shapes. Tonight, you dream of swallowing the moon.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "End" "Epilogue">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "2.1" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!Bldg 360<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>>The rumor is actually that he signed the order on the third floor, the Crow's Nest, where Dad lets you watch movies after school until it's time to go home.<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqHQ.png]]</center><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "2.1">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "2.2" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!peace memorial<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqMus.png]]</center><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "2.2">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "2.2" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!mannequins<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqWax.png]]</center><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><h4>"Hiroshima Museum's Famed A-bomb Victim Mannequins to be Retired April 26." <i>Mainichi Shimbun</i>, April 22, 2017.</h4><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "2.2">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "2.3" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!Your favorite place<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqGoku.png]]</center><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "2.3">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "4.5" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!Agent Orange on Okinawa<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>>Veterans Affairs continues to claim "tactical herbicides" were never tested, used, or stored on Okinawa. As usual, the Japanese government's official stance is not to panic.<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqAgentOrange2.png]]</center><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><h4>Sumida, Chiyomi, and Travis Tritten. "Unearthed Drums Show Higher Dioxin Levels Than Previously Reported, Okinawa Tests Show." <i>Stars and Stripes</i>, August 1, 2013.</h4><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqAgentOrange3.png]]</center><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><h4>Sumida, Chiyomi, and Matthew M. Burke. "2 Vets Win Agent Orange Exposure Cases from Okinawa." <i>Stars and Stripes</i>, March 5, 2017.</h4><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqAgentOrange.png]]</center><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><h4>Sumida, Chiyomi, and Travis Tritten. "Buried Drums Near Kadena Schools Spark Pollution Fears." <i>Stars and Stripes</i>, January 23, 2014.</h4><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>>"Despite ruling in the veteran’s favor, [Veterans Law Judge Michelle Kane] said the determination was in no way a comment 'as to whether Agent Orange was ever actually stored, used, tested, and/or transported in Okinawa, Japan.'”<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "4.5">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "4.5" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!Fallujah<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>>Your softball coach was sent here too. You hope he's okay. You hope everyone's okay. For all the good it does.<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqToxic.png]]</center><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><h4>Cockburn, Patrick. "Toxic Legacy of US Assault on Fallujah 'Worse Than Hiroshima.'" <i>The Independent</i>, July 24, 2010.</h4><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "4.5">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "6.1" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!2011 Tōhoku quake and tsunami<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center><center>[img[images/sqTohoku.png]]</center></center><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><h4>"Nuclear Fears Emerge After Quake, Tsunami In Japan." NPR, March 11, 2011.</h4><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "6.1">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "6.1" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!Akane Ito<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqTheGirl.png]]</center><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "6.1">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "6.4" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!abcc<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>>The Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) was founded in 1947, after Defense Secretary James Forrestal wrote the president on November 18, 1946: “Unique opportunity for examining the medical and biological effects of radiation.... The highest significance for the United States.” The ABCC clinic was run by Americans and almost entirely financed by the US Atomic Energy Commission, an agency primarily concerned with perfecting nuclear weapons. <</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqABCC.png]]</center> <</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>>The ABCC even convinced Hiroshima's mayor that American specialists would care for sickened civilians. What they did was study them. Scientists were expressly forbidden from fraternizing with locals. They trawled through obituaries to track down bereaved families and ask them for their dead.<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><h4>Jungk, Robert. <i>Children of the Ashes.</i></a> New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961.</h4><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "6.4">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "6.4" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!burns<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqKimono.png]]</center><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "6.4">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<set $shadow to $shadow + 1>><<audio "4.4" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>><<if $shadow < 2>>!!!You do not understand yet<</if>><<if $shadow > 1>>!!!The clarity is numbing<</if>><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<if $shadow > 1>>A shadow of a person seated on the steps outside a bank, waiting for it to open, before being hit by the blast at 0815 on August 6, 1945. The person's identity is contested but has in the past been suggested to be one Mitsuno Ochi (越智ミツノ).<</if>><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center><<if $shadow < 2>><div class="blurred">[img[images/shadow.png]]</div><</if>><<if $shadow > 1>>[img[images/shadow.png]]<</if>></center><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "4.4">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "3.2" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!Kotowari<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqKoto.png]]</center><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "3.2">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "4.1" stop>><<audio "dadcar" loop play>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "4.2" play>><</timed>><<audio ":paused" play>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>>You are seventeen and awake, and your father is driving you to school. The pad you’re wearing is dry, but pregnancy tests keep coming back negative, even though boys your age and Marines not much older are saying, <i>Come on, I know all you Japanese girls are freaks</i>. But you dislike what’s between your legs enough that you keep them shut. You ought to do the same with your mouth, but the radio is a parrot squawking off-key sympathies for forty dead civilians, most of them women and children, all for the greater good in Kandahar. “Daddy,” you say. You ought to shut your mouth. But you ask what you already know. “Would you have [[dropped the bomb|drop]]?”<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "4.3">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<set $shadow to $shadow + 1>> <center> <<if $shadow < 2>><div class="blurred">[img[images/shadow.png]]</div><</if>> <<if $shadow > 1>>[img[images/shadow.png]]<</if>> </center> <<if settings.notifications>><<notify 100s>>A shadow of a person seated on the steps outside a bank, waiting for it to open, before being hit by the blast at 0815 on August 6, 1945. The person's identity is contested but has in the past been suggested to be one Mitsuno Ochi (越智ミツノ).<</notify>><</if>> <span class="next"><<button "return" "4.4">><</button>></span>

<<audio "6.5" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!Shimabukuro Rina<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqRapeOnOkinawa.png]]</center><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><h4>Takazato, Suzuyo. "Okinawan Women Demand U.S. Forces Out After Another Rape and Murder: Suspect an ex-Marine and U.S. Military Employee." Translated by Emma Dalton. <i>Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus</i>, August 6, 2023.</h4><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "6.5">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "6.5" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!"R&R: Rape & Restitution"<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqComfortStations.png]]</center><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><h4>"U.S. Troops Used Japanese Brothels After WWII." NBC News, April 28. 2007.</h4><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "6.5">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "2.2" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!Korean hibakusha<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqKoreanHibakusha.png]]</center><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><h4>Choe, Sang-Hun. "Korean Survivors of Atomic Bombs Renew Fight for Recognition, and Apology." <i>New York Times</i>, May 26, 2016.</h4><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "2.2">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "7.4" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!Elders volunteer<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>>On the radio, young American scholars insist that, despite the irrational fear of people like you, nuclear power is clean and safe. Years later, after Fukushima's waste water has been treated, young American scholars will fret about what toxins will spread from Fukushima to California. Your elders feared what you fear. But in 2011 they paid the price, while you cowered in America. You wonder if Ba-chan would understand.<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqFukushimaVolunteers.png]]</center><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><h4>Buerk, Roland. "Japan Pensioners Volunteer to Tackle Nuclear Crisis." BBC, May 31, 2011.</h4><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "7.4">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "7.4" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!Toro Nagashi<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>>Crafted with handwritten prayers for peace, glowing paper lanterns float down Motoyasu-gawa on August 6.<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqNHK2.png]]</center><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><h4>"4-nenburi reinendôri tôrô nagashi" [After Four Years, a Return to the Lantern Festival Tradition]. NHK [Japan Broadcasting Corporation], August 6, 2023.</h4><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "7.4">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "7.3" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!Kotowari<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqKoto2.png]]</center><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "7.3">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "7.3" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!Ryujin<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqRain.png]]</center><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><h4>Cartwright, Mark. "Ryujin." World History Encyclopedia, June 28, 2017.</h4><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "7.3">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<audio "7.4" stop>><<audio "storm" fadeout>><<timed 0.5s>><<audio "7.5" play>><</timed>><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<audio "storm" loop play>>“Like this one?” You pointed to the jade sphere hanging from a chain around your ba-chan’s neck. That was the last time you saw it there, green glinting silver against golden wrinkles. <<timed 17s>><<audio "rain" loop play>><</timed>> Months later, you would waste your mother’s money to use only green, gold, and silver sheets from packs of origami. You would muddy the rest of the rainbow not in the tide but on the floor of your father’s car after the rainy drive home from the crematorium, your father’s shoulder absorbing your tears, you folding the last of a thousand cranes too late.<</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 2s 0.5s>><<button "Next" "7.6">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<audio "1.3" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!Sadako<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqSadako.png]]</center><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><h4>Beser, Ari. "How Paper Cranes Became a Symbol of Healing in Japan." Blog post, <i>National Geographic</i>, August 28, 2018.</h4><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "1.3">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<center>For the best experience, please play on desktop with headphones.</center> <span class="next"><<button "OK" "1">><</button>></span> <<audio "ost" loop play>>

<<audio "ost" loop play>><<fadein 2s 1s>>!!!Recommended Reading<</fadein>> <<fadein 2s 1.5s>>Yoneyama, Lisa. <a class="link-external" href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/hiroshima-traces-time-space-and-the-dialectics-of-memoryvolume-10-lisa-yoneyama/6558119?ean=9780520085879" target="_blank"><i>Hiroshima Traces: Time, Space, and the Dialectics of Memory.</i></a> Oakland: University of California Press, 1999. Johnson, Akemi. <a class="link-external" href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/night-in-the-american-village-women-in-the-shadow-of-the-u-s-military-bases-in-okinawa-akemi-johnson/12897566?ean=9781620973318" target="_blank"><i>Night in the American Village.</i></a> New York: New Press, 2019. Yamamoto, Traise. <a class="link-external" href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/masking-selves-making-subjects-japanese-american-women-identity-and-the-body-traise-yamamoto/6558614?ean=9780520210349" target="_blank"><i>Masking Selves, Making Subjects: Japanese American Women, Identity, and the Body.</i></a> Oakland: University of California Press, 1999. Jungk, Robert. <a class="link-external" href="https://www.thriftbooks.com/browse/?b.search=Children%20of%20the%20Ashes%20Robert%20Jungk#b.s=mostPopular-desc&b.p=1&b.pp=30&b.oos&b.tile" target="_blank"><i>Children of the Ashes.</i></a> New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961. Beser, Ari. <a class="link-external" href="https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2015/08/28/how-paper-cranes-became-a-symbol-of-healing-in-japan/" target="_blank">"How Paper Cranes Became a Symbol of Healing in Japan."</a> Blog post, <i>National Geographic</i>, August 28, 2018. <a class="link-external" href="https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170422/p2a/00m/0na/010000c/" target="_blank">"Hiroshima Museum's Famed A-bomb Victim Mannequins to be Retired April 26."</a> <i>Mainichi Shimbun</i>, April 22, 2017. Choe, Sang-Hun. <a class="link-external" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/world/asia/korea-hiroshima-nagasaki-survivors.html" target="_blank">"Korean Survivors of Atomic Bombs Renew Fight for Recognition, and Apology."</a> <i>New York Times</i>, May 26, 2016. Wilson, Ward. <a class="link-external" href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/ " target="_blank">"The Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan. Stalin Did."</a> <i>Foreign Policy</i>, May 30, 2013. Alperovitz, Gar. <a class="link-external" href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/why-the-us-really-bombed-hiroshima/" target="_blank">"The War Was Won Before Hiroshima—And the Generals Who Dropped the Bomb Knew It."</a> <i>The Nation</i>, August 6, 2015. Sumida, Chiyomi, and Travis Tritten. <a class="link-external" href="https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/unearthed-drums-show-higher-dioxin-levels-than-previously-reported-okinawa-tests-show-1.233247" target="_blank">"Unearthed Drums Show Higher Dioxin Levels Than Previously Reported, Okinawa Tests Show."</a> <i>Stars and Stripes</i>, August 1, 2013. Sumida, Chiyomi, and Matthew M. Burke. <a class="link-external" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240311105038/https://www.stripes.com/migration/2-vets-win-agent-orange-exposure-cases-from-okinawa-1.457227" target="_blank">"2 Vets Win Agent Orange Exposure Cases from Okinawa."</a> <i>Stars and Stripes</i>, March 5, 2017. Sumida, Chiyomi, and Travis Tritten. <a class="link-external" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240311105355/https://www.stripes.com/migration/buried-drums-near-kadena-schools-spark-pollution-fears-1.263491" target="_blank">"Buried Drums Near Kadena Schools Spark Pollution Fears."</a> <i>Stars and Stripes</i>, January 23, 2014. U.S. Department of Defense. Veterans Affairs, Public Health. <a class="link-external" href="https://www.publichealth.va.gov/docs/agentorange/dod_herbicides_outside_vietnam.pdf" target="_blank">"2019 DoD List of Locations Where Tactical Herbicides and Their Chemical Components Were Tested, Used or Stored Outside of Vietnam."</a> Cockburn, Patrick. <a class="link-external" href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html" target="_blank">"Toxic Legacy of US Assault on Fallujah 'Worse Than Hiroshima.'"</a> <i>The Independent</i>, July 24, 2010. <a class="link-external" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110312165442/https://www.npr.org/2011/03/11/134444531/major-tsunami-damage-in-northern-japan" target="_blank">"Nuclear Fears Emerge After Quake, Tsunami In Japan."</a> NPR, March 11, 2011. Dickson, Harvey. <a class="link-external" href="https://archive.nytimes.com/6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/a-face-from-japans-earthquake/" target="_blank">"A Face From Japan’s Earthquake."</a> Blog, <i>New York Times</i>, August 15, 2011. Caplan, Arthur. <a class="link-external" href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hiroshimas-anniversary-marks-an-injustice-done-to-blast-survivors/" target="_blank">"Hiroshima’s Anniversary Marks an Injustice Done to Blast Survivors."</a> <i>Scientific American</i>, August 6, 2023. Takazato, Suzuyo. <a class="link-external" href="https://apjjf.org/2016/11/Takazato" target="_blank">"Okinawan Women Demand U.S. Forces Out After Another Rape and Murder: Suspect an ex-Marine and U.S. Military Employee."</a> Translated by Emma Dalton. <i>Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus</i>, August 6, 2023. <a class="link-external" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna18355292" target="_blank">"U.S. Troops Used Japanese Brothels After WWII."</a> NBC News, April 28. 2007. Buerk, Roland. <a class="link-external" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-13598607" target="_blank">"Japan Pensioners Volunteer to Tackle Nuclear Crisis."</a> BBC, May 31, 2011. <a class="link-external" href="https://www3.nhk.or.jp/hiroshima-news/20230806/4000023250.html" target="_blank">"4-nenburi reinendôri tôrô nagashi" [After Four Years, a Return to the Lantern Festival Tradition].</a> NHK [Japan Broadcasting Corporation], August 6, 2023.<</fadein>>

<<audio "4.2" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>>!!!they lied to you<</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqBombStalin.png]]</center><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><h4>Wilson, Ward. "The Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan. Stalin Did."<i>Foreign Policy</i>, May 30, 2013.</h4><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center>[img[images/sqGenerals.png]]</center><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><h4>Alperovitz, Gar. "The War Was Won Before Hiroshima—And the Generals Who Dropped the Bomb Knew It." <i>The Nation</i>, August 6, 2015.</h4><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "4.2">><</button>><</fadein>></span>

<<set $shadow to $shadow + 1>><<audio "4.4" pause>><<fadein 1s 0s>><<if $shadow < 2>>!!!You do not understand yet<</if>><<if $shadow > 1>>!!!The clarity is numbing<</if>><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><center><<if $shadow < 2>><div class="blurred">[img[images/shadow.png]]</div><</if>><<if $shadow > 1>>[img[images/shadow.png]]<</if>></center><</fadein>> <<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<if $shadow > 1>>A shadow of a person seated on the steps outside a bank, waiting for it to open, before being hit by the blast at 0815 on August 6, 1945. The person's identity is contested but has in the past been suggested to be one Mitsuno Ochi (越智ミツノ).<</if>><</fadein>> <span class="next"><<fadein 1.5s 0s>><<button "back" "4.4">><</button>><</fadein>></span>