Detective Yuki

1. Kimigayo

1. Kimigayo

Japan, 1925:

The land of the rising sun seems to be getting brighter with each day. It has been nearly sixty years since the shogun was overthrown, and his majesty the Emperor was reinstated. Only he and the new regime were able to end two centuries of keeping the country shut out from the rest of the world, and in the face of intimidation from nations to the west, they offered a solution.

Japan has since copied the European model of how a nation should be run, to the point where Japan herself could stand her ground on the world stage, putting the mighty dragon and bear to shame in a decade. Emperor Taisho reigns supreme from the southern pacific corals to the frigid isles north of Hokkaido, with the help of the imperial Diet, commanding an ever-growing empire in the far east of Asia. European modernity has seemingly combined with Japanese traditionalism, and the battlefields continue to crop up everywhere, as ancient forces ready themselves to strike.

The imperial capital Tokyo is an almost mystical land in the shadow of the snow-capped firehose mount Fuji. Women sport western dress or a typical kimono, magnificent red wooded temples dot the growing city with their lush verdant gardens, and nature blends with urbanity with entire neighborhoods of wooden homes set against the select high-rise of modern concrete. Average walkers commute across Ueno park or in sight of the imperial palace, laughter bellowing out of teahouses and shouts from the nearest rowdy sumo arena or dramatic Kabuki theatre means nothing to wandering Shinto priests in fine blue robes. Tokyo has rapidly healed, five years on from an earthquake that severely racked the area, but even with an air of progress, with recovery comes competition both foreign and domestic, a competition that is just about to begin.

The relative commotion of Nichigin-Dori street in busy downtown was disrupted by the screams of panicking civilians fleeing out of the double doors from the Bank of Japan. Several armored automobiles draped in white and blue paint formed a barricade around the bank, from which the civilians flooded back into the sanctuary of the street like fish to the sea. Although rare, several bouts of gunfire could be heard from afar, causing distress to the present sergeant from the Tokyo police department. While the shouting of the thieves continued inside, the short spectacled sergeant instructed his subordinates.

"What do we know right now?!!".

"we believe there are still several people inside the building, but if we charge in, they could kill everyone" a taller police officer murmured.

The sergeant looked back at the bank in despair, until suddenly, the shouts and bangs ceased with one large boom. The police officers braced for cover behind their cars in anticipation of an explosion, but all they could comprehend was the fast melody of the latest American jazz music on a gramophone inside the bank. A crowd began to gather around the police, since crime in of itself was comparatively rare in Tokyo compared to the other big cities on the mainland. As the officers slowly began to emerge, the bank doors rushed open, and with them came a low creeping fog, and the silhouette of a small woman.

"oh officers, thank goodness you have arrived" the woman addressed her audience.

"Yuki!!, what are you doing in there?, I thought you were back at headquarters" the sergeant's voice echoed across the street.

"go inside and see for yourself" Yuki supposed.

The bewildered officers then rushed around her inside to discover five men sedated and tied together in the center of the bank, only amid the bullet holes pecking the walls and millions of yen scattered across the floor like tickertape. The woman known as Yuki was attended to by the sergeant and her colleagues, all curious as to how she accomplished such a feat by herself.

She answered their bafflement.

"I was tracking them on a similar trail prior to their entrance into the bank. I spotted five men of the same appearance based on reports back at headquarters, each sporting the same chrysanthemum tattoo on the left side of their faces, who had previously stopped off at a bar to drink sake, then proceeded to the bank in an old automobile, as indicated by the worn tires leaving a distinctive track on the roads. They were wielding daggers and sidearms in their pockets for easy concealment. In my bag I had a recent invention of mine: a smoke bomb containing the vaporized form of the plant Nymphaea caerulea, commonly used as a sedative by medicine men. I tracked the robbers to the bank, then entered through the back windows, as the five men were concentrated in the frontal area of the building. From there, the game was set and so I sprung my device on the would-be thieves. The gramophone was dormant, so I decided to celebrate this small victory with some light jazz". Yuki then walked up the street to a lowly noodle parlor before returning to her wooden cottage in the Shinjuku area of the city.

Yuki Miyamoto (1895-1945) was a kind and resourceful woman, with short black hair in a ponytail, blue eyes, and wore long brown trousers, black shoes, and a large green raincoat atop a white shirt. She liked solving puzzles, drinking tea, and listening to music on the radio or gramophone. Yuki detested the futility of war, snakes and those who her doubt her abilities as a strong independent woman. After her parents were killed in a fire in their hometown of Osaka, Yuki studied in Britain, France and the United States, before she was rejected from service in the Imperial Japanese Army. She instead became a private investigator with the Tokyo police department.