"Long time no see, A."
Staring at the man in front of me, I could scarcely believe I was free. I still remembered him—he was the main reason I'd ended up in prison, yet I bore him no grudge. He'd given me a faith, a driving force for revenge.
"Long time no see, comrade," I replied.
"A, it's a pity... we failed."
"At least we tried... didn't we?"
"We did..."
He led me to the bar I'd frequented back then. This was where it all began, and my thoughts were yanked back twenty-four years...
That year, my sister died. She'd been the only family I had left in the world. She was bludgeoned to death for crossing some local thugs. Before that, my parents had been thrown into the sea for opposing the Hanezakura family. My sister and I were forced to move to Sakurafuchi-jima, scraping by just to survive—until she was killed, and I lost the last thread of connection to this world.
I sank into a long stretch of nihilism. Back then, every time I walked along the shore, I felt the urge to jump in and end it all. It was in that deepest despair that I met this comrade. We'd connected online, and quickly become friends. Then one day, he spoke of an ideology I'd never heard of—one that called for abolishing all state power and letting a spontaneous market order sustain society.
I was utterly captivated. This was the perfect ideology I'd always longed for. My heart raced, and a plan finally took shape in my mind: I would become the one who made the rules.
The next day, I messaged him: "Shall we... pull off something big?"
"What?"
"Overthrow everything."
He was silent for a long time. Eventually, a line popped up on the screen: "Progress demands unscrupulous violence."
I bought a plane ticket to mainland Japan at once. When I landed in Tokyo, I met him for the first time in person. A white-haired young man, he looked barely twenty-something. "Finally seeing your true face, A."
We rented a tiny room in Tokyo and set our plan in motion. We met a group of like-minded comrades online, all using aliases to avoid surveillance by the Keishichō. Our first step was to make both the people and the Japanese government aware of our existence.
Our very first target was this bar. Unfortunately, I was the only one in our team with any public speaking experience. I stepped onto the bar's stage and said, "Anyone who doesn't want to be part of this can leave now."
No one moved. Not because they all wanted to hear me speak, but because none of them believed a nobody could stir up any real trouble.
"Does anyone here know which term Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is serving now?"
The words hung in the air, and the bar's lively chatter vanished in an instant, replaced by murmurs and quiet panic.
"I think you all know full well how many lives were lost in the Japan-China war. Chances are, some of you lost family on the battlefield. But there was nothing we could do—because the war let Sanae Takaichi become wartime prime minister, by right. And so, the New Japanese Empire of the 21st century was born."
"What has militarism ever brought Japan? A so-called great empire? Pride in being Yamato? Bullshit! Our Okinawan and Ainu brothers and sisters are being slaughtered by the Yamato government you're so proud of! It's time for change, comrades! A new world is calling us! We will all be the gods of the new world!"
The crowd erupted. The speech was posted online, and the comment section exploded. Japan's far-right factions lashed out at us with every insult they could muster, but far more anarchists stepped forward to stand with us. They argued, they doxxed each other in the comments—and that was exactly what we wanted: to spark a total media firestorm.
Now, it was time to add more fuel to the flame. I would make us a political party recognized by the Japanese government. I would build an organization—one that would change Japan forever.
This is a war, after all. Because "Progress demands unscrupulous violence."