Gabriel jumped in to the spa next to Amanoyama and Nijitora. Gabriel had asked the staff that they be left undisturbed for an hour. He did not want prim English guests freaking out over tattooed Japanese men in their spa with a Spaniard wearing a massive 16th century Conquistador crucifix. Thanks to films like ‘Black Rain’ and ‘The Yakuza’ as well as a plethora of books, it was no longer any kind of a secret what elaborate tattoos meant on Oriental men’s backs. Now that so many young people were brandishing Celtic knots on their legs and arms and Maori designs on the necks the tattoo had come into its own. For the yakuza it meant something else.
Gabriel had arranged for this meeting to get some issues straightened out with his ‘guests’ and figured that a ‘naked’ approach would work. They did however wear swim trunks-this was not an onsen and all hell would break loose if they were stark naked. Gays were not tolerated well by the stiff upper lip. The spa would be good for jet lag and ease Nijitora’s permanent hangover perhaps.
“Where does the word Yakuza come from as far as you are concerned?” said Gabriel looking at both of them. He knew of course but wanted to get the ball rolling. Nijitora took the lead, quite unexpectedly.
“The first version is this: They used to call us kabuki mono-the crazy bastards. We had weird clothes and hairstyles, kind of like punk rockers today. We had long swords and used to scare the shit out of people.”
“Judging by the pub experience that has not changed much Nijitora san.”
Gabriel was still recovering from what he had seen at the pub. The image of people throwing up from sheer fear and shock was still firmly implanted in his mind.
“Those idiots required straightening out. They will definitely think twice about taking the piss out of any strangers for the rest of their lives. If you let stuff like that go by then evil is just perpetuated. They survived. What have they got to complain about?”
Gabriel explained that a broken jaw, multiple teeth implants, possible loss of testicular function, and a high chance of permanent vocal cord damage might be a valid cause for complaint.
“I was straightening out their minds, or more specifically their moral fibre. You had Robin Hood here didn’t you? He was a great popular hero right? Tell me then, did he go around petitioning the greedy bastards who terrorised the poor villagers with taxation and conscription? Did he sit down at table with them and plead justice?”
Gabriel nodded his head. He had a point and he knew it. Nijitora was positively gleeful as he carried on,
“Did he have peace accords with them? Did he kindly explain that their behaviour was inconsistent with democracy and freedom? Or did he not maim the bastards, shoot as many as possible using arrow guerrilla tactics, did he not use all manner of subversion and group loyalty and spies and hidden weapons to outwit them? And did not the majority of English country people love him for it?”
Gabriel knew where he was going with the ‘end justifies the means’ rap. Amanoyama was grinning too, as he turned to point his dragon eye at Gabriel. Now it was his turn,
“Gaburieru san we all want peace. I myself am working for world peace as I travel all over gathering spiritual and economic allies. Japan is built on the idea of harmony as you know, WA. But to keep it, it is of the utmost importance that we root out the animals without heart, stamp out the amoral trash like we met yesterday-creatures whose lives are meaningless binges of endless indulgences, and to make sure that we have a society of decent human beings.”
So Amanoyama really was dealing with various foreign governments as he had suspected. Gabriel was glad he has suggested this spa. Japanese can only talk about certain delicate matters in specific, delicately arranged places.
“A few broken bones along the way can do a lot to maintain that. Look at your Western power block, the USK. They preach Biblical peace before deciding who to bomb the hell out of. They call the enemy terrorists and they do exactly the same. All in the name of peace.”
President Bash came immediately to mind. Gabriel had predicted as soon as he was elected that, like his fractally historical predecessor Adolfo Hatler he would find a minority like the Jews had been for the Hun, create an excuse through an event, then wage war. He had predicted it and within a month of election the world got it.
“Our group, call us yakuza if you like, call us kabuki mono either, we maintain a certain kind of law and order with very little collateral damage. It is rare for us to actually express violence. We keep agreements. We look out for each other and the common man.”
Gabriel could not believe this parochial horseshit he was hearing. It was so naive to divide society into the good and the bad. Yes, the story went that the crazy bastards were unemployed samurai who had incredible loyalty to each other. Peace came to Japan after an extended period of civil war and so these ronin had no choice but to start wandering the country looking for employment. The word yakuza was based on three numbers. Ya means eight, ku means nine and za refers to three.
In the old days they had a game like blackjack called oicho kabu, a card game where the objective was to get a spread of 19. Eight plus nine plus three adds up to 20 so it is a losing, or useless hand. Since these men had lost their masters, samurai leaders, they were of no use to anybody any more. Like displaced orphans, they had no choice but to do whatever it took to survive. That included all forms of economic coercion and the direct plundering of village resources. Essentially they were robbers with a severely twisted attitude. They deserved better. It was not their fault. They knew nothing else but serving with their swords and their balls. What to do?
Nijitora turned around to lay his arms on the side of the spa deck and stretched out his body. The full length Japanese jaguar glinted in the sunlight coming through the glass ceiling. Now it was his turn to add to the lore.
“I came out of those homes with nothing but hate for the double standards of the Christians. They preached Jesus but they practiced hell. I saw right through their superficial morality every time my foster parents failed to forgive, gave into sin or brazenly tried to fondle my balls. They were untrustworthy, two faced hypocrites 99% of the time. I met only one Jesuit who walked his talk.”
“Who was that Nijitora san?”
“You of course Gaburieru san-and it is only because you came to Japan that you became who you are. I should say ex-Jesuit but you do not still wear that cross for nothing even though you quit the church. Our culture gave you what the Jesuits never could-a real sense of practical spirituality if you like. Not a moral religion at all-a kindred spirit based on people and relationships and community.”
“How did you find that community Nijitora san?”
“I do not exactly agree with Amanoyama about the history of the yakuza. I myself was a chinpira from the age of fifteen. My tough fighting skills got me noticed and I joined a gang. I was respected. I got work. They looked after me well. But I was also highly self educated from doing so much time and so I discovered another meaning for yakuza.”
“I guess you are going to tell me about machi-yakko Nijitora san.”
Gabriel was of course familiar with other interpretation of yakuza lore. He listened carefully as Nijitora retold the tale. It was all so predictable, so Japanese.
Yakuza themselves, like Nijitora did not wish to see kabuki-mono as their ‘ancestors’ at all. They preferred the term machi-yakko meaning ‘town servant’ as their origin. These men had defended the villages and the cities against the raging kabuki-mono. They had professions like storekeepers, tavern owners, homeless warriors and also ronin. They were praised as skilful gamblers so soon became the people's heroes, praised by the citizens for their help against kabuki-mono.
Machi-yakko were often weaker and worse trained and equipped than kabuki-mono and therefore compared with England's Robin Hood that fought against Prince John and his underling that despicable sheriff of Nothingham. A whole host of fairy-tales and plays about machi-yakko developed out of this lore.
The current yakuza came around the middle of the 17th century. Its members were composed of bakuto , the itinerant gamblers and tekiya street vendors. Almost all yakuza members have the same type of background. It is like Nijitora’s, that of poor families, criminals and misfits. Yakuza groups becomes a surrogate family for these unfortunates of society. They get help with problems, get attention and can feel a certain safety. The point is of course, safety in numbers. They are all identifiable by a clear common symbol. The irezumi-the quintessential mark of membership-the tattoo.
“We’ll tell you about the irezumi later Gabriel. For now all you need to know is that I am the only one with a Japanese style jaguar on my back. Amanoyama here has hundreds of dragon tattoo brothers but I have none. Or maybe I do..maybe I will.”
As Nijitora got out of the water he gave Gabriel a look that was truly inscrutable. What did he know?
Mary Justice
Mary Justice woke up to the sound of English birds. There was nothing like them in Japan, Gabriel had told her the night before. The volume and the energy of their dawn performances he had said should never be taken for granted. As she listened to the blackbird an impeccable idea formed.
She knew these men were special. She had that sense gleaned from half a century of psychic experience. Unknown to them the British Pyschic Association was funded by the intelligence community and the best qualified receivers as they were called, naturally found themselves selected for certain missions. Mary was by now a top agent. She spoke perfect Japanese having been specifically trained to infiltrate the yakuza network. She had been ordered to find out exactly what they were up to in Takayama.
British remote viewers had already picked up on the FT base but could not understand what the plan was. She had been directed to be ‘discovered’ by Amanoyama’s group, through Nakaima’s lead. Nakaima himself was working with USK agents as part of his job protecting Japan from North Korean agents. Nakaima had no idea that she was a USK agent. He simply needed her information. Thus the trip that had been set up was in fact a set up. The Brits were no fools.
The entire bath time for the boys had been videotaped via her staff’s bug on the ceiling. She had been glad to see that the ‘boys’ were getting cosy. She needed them to be a cohesive unit. She had also checked up on Mayumi personally in the aromatherapy studio and talked to her as they both received their treatments. Mayumi’s English had been perfectly good enough for Mary to find out that she was quite deeply in love with Nijitora.
“He is really different from all other yakuza I meet. He thinks for himself and he does not belong to any, what you say, bunch. He likes Nakaima and Amanoyama because they think big, like him. But he walk alone. With me he really quite sweet, until memories come back.”
“What memories Mayumi?” Mary had a sense of what she was going to say.
“He talks about flashes of another place, another time. It start when he escape from homes. He suffer terribly in the woods. He get visions of powerful man who able to pull his deepest feelings. The man play all his fearful memories like a, what is called, harpsichord. It cause him real bad pain. He is like devil with certificate in what you call, psycho babble shit?”
Mary had answered with a smile,
“I know what you mean dear. Psychoanalysis. I am sure he calls it that for a good reason. I know he is damaged from his past. I know he is independent. I am not psychic for nothing. I also know he will get the truth quite soon about that man. Let’s go and have lunch with the boys shall we?”
The lunch menu was every bit as sumptuous as the dinner had been but now there was no excruciating piano. After they had finished Mary suggested a walk down through the exquisite gardens to the river. Nijitora was quiet as they walked. Amanoyama looked around appreciatively at the huge variety of flowers, shrubs and trees they passed on the way. It was like the fairy gardens he had seen in old English children’s books at his charity event in Tokyo with the foreign community. The quietness was what they all felt most keenly. Gabriel sat next to Mary and translated what she wanted to tell them all. This was the reason she had asked them to come on this walk.
“As I explained last night the Russian scientists held captive in a salt mine were given the severest of punishments. They were expected to die from lack of light as much as from lack of food. They were elite scientists who had been working on experiments with light. They had discovered that light is not a thing. They had discovered that light is an actual intelligence. In other words they were suggesting that light is alive. For that, they were condemned as dangerous threats to state security who would inevitably corrupt the new socialist regime. The government needed materialism to continue as the main dogma. Living light was far too much like religion.”
Gabriel took a break. Mary noted with satisfaction that they had all got the main point but still felt they needed further explanation about what had happened next. Since she was picking up on the comments by all three Japanese as Gabriel interpreted she was confident that her plan would work. She had trained long and hard to be able not to react to a language she was not supposed to understand. She had heard Amanoyama say to Nijitora that Nakaima had sent them to England to get brain washed by New Age theories.
“The USK block realized a long time ago that a spiritual revolution was happening around the world. As part of their ongoing effort to continually profit from even the antithesis of everything they believe in, they used the oldest strategy known.”
“And what is that?” interjected Nijitora with a cheeky look on his youthful face.
“When you cannot defeat an idea whose time has come you simply buy its main protagonists.”
Gabriel had to think for a moment about protagonists and decided on shuyaku.
“You mean you make sure they are successful but you are in control of their success because you hold the influence and the money?”
Now it was Amanoyama’s turn to join in.
“The new age was born out of the sixties generation who showed they had flower power. It was enough power to get the US out of Vietnam. The USK military industrial politic realized they had badly underestimated the opposition and set up think tanks to deal with the ‘New Age’ movement.”
“In our country now the new age is really beginning to take off Mary san. We have out of work channelers from America being venerated here, mediums, yogis, shamans and all manner of ufo experts selling books like crazy. Gabriel here has been warning us for years that it is business but he himself might be one of them!”
Gabriel had to laugh at this inside joke he himself was translating. He had seen such an influx of new age gurus to Japan making so much money over the past decade that his own lectures had been severely impacted. Part of his own rap was that Japan had her own spiritual tradition and had no need of American teachers. Why would you need a woman to tell you about chakras when Oriental medicine had discovered meridian channels thousands of years before? What was the point in listening to Caucasians talking about shamanism when your own culture had Shinto priests who still regularly communicated with mountains and trees?
Like the hamburger now munched all over a country where local cuisine was infinitely superior the Japanese were being sold a menu of sheer drivel when they could walk into any temple or shrine and learn more in a day than a translated sensei from Florida could teach in an entire week. The usurpation of Japanese culture by USK interests had been going on for decades and now it was the very soul of Japan that was at stake. The most common word in the New Age was energy. Enaajii as they pronounced it in Tokyo.
Mary continued, seeing that a rapport was beginning with the two men. Mayumi was working on her nails by the side of the river. She was like a lost soul who had been magically lifted into a fairy world by two dark princes. Mary felt for her deeply. The kind of love she imagined she was involved in was nothing of the sort. From long experience Mary could plainly see that she was a victim of abuse from an early age and so pathetically craved the exact wrong type of man.
“New age leaders were skilfully recruited by the USK and were soon quite famous. Naturally the ones recruited had no idea they were being used. The oldest technique in the world for getting your ‘enemy’ to work for you is to tell them it is for the ‘common good’ because we will all soon face a ‘common threat’. The entire fiasco around global heating was one such example. The plethora of scientists who opposed this idea were simply not published, not funded, and in fact were lambasted by a press bought and paid for by the USK.”
Nijitora was getting interested.
“So how are you supposed to know who the real guys are in this shit infested minefield called the New Age Mary san.”
She almost laughed at his saying shit infested and Gabriel translating it as complex.
But she had been very well trained over the last fifty years. Her reply stunned them all.
“Only an individual can tell anything Nijitora san. There is no formula. Discretion and discrimination are personal affairs. But I can share with you one very simple method I use as my so called bullshit filter.”
“I like that term booorushitto Mary san.” interjected Nijitora. She had no idea that he spoke almost perfect English either..and thus did not require Gabriel at all. Part of his job was to keep an eye on Gabriel to see if he was worthy of the work at FT base. Nijitora was playing a part every bit as much as Amanoyama. Together with Nakaima they were the three highest ranking agents in the entire Yatagarasu team. Amanoyama though really was incapable of speaking English. He always said it felt like shit on his silken tongue.
Mary continued,
“A person talking about any subject that he or she is truly interested in will almost never speak with confidence. There will always be a guarded attitude, a continual awareness that they could be wrong, a kind of humility. All the best scientist have it. Albert Einstein was a superb example. And actually he was wrong about light!”
Amanoyama suddenly interjected,
“That is actually very Japanese Mary san. We instinctively do not trust people who blow their own horn. Well, that is the case with my generation and before. But the new agers actually seem to love the biggest egos. For young people in Japan brought up on Western consumerism, the attraction of a big ego cannot be underestimated. We must never forget that the current school system drives their own egos into hiding.”
Mary listened carefully to Gabriel’s explanation as if she had not already understood the content. She was very impressed by Gabriel’s ability to interpret, specifically attuned to the needs of the listener, in this case, her.
“That brings us back to the Russians. Their story is really all about attunement so if I may I will give you the full details of what the communicated to me fifty years ago.”
“That is why we are here Mary san. Yoroshiku!”
There had been five scientists in all. They were specialists in mineralogy who had traveled all over the world in search of high conductivity minerals. The Russian government was badly in need of new energy to support the ponderous infrastructure of post revolution times. Electricity was limited. Coal was too expensive to mine by then. Around that time their research gathered a focus on the idea that the Earth itself would be able to produce energy since it obviously had a lot of it.
What we now know as geothermal energy is just the tip of the iceberg she had carefully explained. The Earth is producing far more energy than the sun gives it. Yet even today we cannot find the output that their equations were suggesting. Like a perpetual motion device the Earth should be capable of supplying all our energy needs directly. It was thus imperative for Boris Ouspenski and his team back in 1950 to discover how the Earth managed to hide its energy secrets so well. If they could unlock Gaian energy so to speak, then they would instantly be in a position to control the world. All the money needed for energy could be diverted to military and economic programs and give Russia an unstoppable lead. The problem had been Europe.
When they got leads that a group in Italy was working with telluric energy Boris and his team quickly went to investigate. What they found out was to become the very reason for their incarceration.
“Shall we continue the discussion at my cottage gentlemen and ladies! I have maps there too that we will need to look at to give you a full picture. Besides, Mayumi san is looking bored and my end of the village has gift shops I am sure she would enjoy as we go over the business at hand. How about it?”
Nijitora looked sheepish for a moment as he asked Mary,
“Is it a no smoking cottage Mary san?”
She paused for a moment before crooking her arm with his and leading him up the path.
“For you it is a smoking cottage Nijitora san. You will only visit once. I am psychic, remember?”
Laughing, the four walked up past the carp pond and headed to the reception to order a minibus taxi. Within half an hour they were on the road to Mawnan Smith village.