Life ----- Akiko Inoue was barely twenty-one when she died. It was a time of upheaval in Japan, a time of struggle between Mitsunari and Ieyasu Tokugawa. Married to one of Mitsunari's strongest allies, she was at home in Izumo with her husband's two young sons when she learned that Osaka had fallen, and her husband had committed seppuku. Sending the servants out of the house, she suffocated the two young boys before performing jigai on herself, slitting her throat. When the family retainers returned from the wild goose chase on which she had sent them, they found the two boys dead in their beds, and Akiko lying cold and pale in a pool of her own blood. Setting the house on fire, they consigned the dead to their ancestors. Akiko was born Samurai, first daughter and second child to the daimyo of Tottori, Lord Fudo. Her mother died ten years later, having giving birth to three more sons. Brought up the only girl in the house, the chores of administering the household fell to her and she learned her lessons quickly and well. Fudo never failed to make a good impression for hospitality on any who called, yet with her care and manipulation of the purse strings and frugal spending when her father was away, she was able to ensure that her brothers were equiped with the best armour and weapons, and keep an additional two samurai for her father's retinue (for a relatively poor family, having sixteen fully armed warriors was quite a burden). From her mother she had learned the skills of a lady: the cha-no-yu, writing and making haiku, and dance. Had the elder woman not died, she would probably have become quite adept at the arts; but with her mother's untimely death she was unable to continue her studies so while deft and graceful she never learned the subtleties that would make her any more than proficient. Now she was forced by circumstance to learn administration, cooking and the other chores of managing a household. With the people of the town she had an easy manner that won compliance with her wishes rather than bullying it out of them: had the family kept many servants, she might not have needed to do so, but Fudo was a small clan, and keeping up appearances required all the retainers they had. She did her own shopping, and was as ready to make payment with other then money such as settling a dispute or writing letters as with money. The task of training the three younger sons also fell to her, and nor did she fail at this duty. Being brought up in a family of men and a daughter of samurai she learned to fight, and such talent was needed as the brothers grew up. With her father and elder brother frequently away she taught the boys the basics of the warrior way herself to save money and only hired tutors when they outstripped her abilities. The three boys were constantly quarreling and fighting amongst themselves, and sometimes she needed to resort to physical aggression herself when her calls to break up a fight weren't heard. She could ride a blow that accidentally struck her, and became adept at pulling brawling boys apart. Thus she had some skills at the martial arts with or without a weapon. Instilling discipline in the boys was necessary and even though she was only a girl not much older than themselves she earned their grudging respect and obedience. Always she tried to be strict but fair. It was perhaps her father's greatest mistake to remarry. When she was seventeen her father brought back a new bride from Osaka. Now Akiko had to give over running the household to Yumiko. In turn, lord Fudo arranged for her own marriage to the only son of the Inoue clan, a small family just down the coast at Izumo. His father was succumbing slowly to an old battle wound, and while Tanaka Inoue already had two sons, Kunio and Buko, from a first marriage, his first wife had died falling from a horse just a year before. The marriage cemented ties between the two adjacent regions, so Akiko dutifully acquiesced to her father's wishes and left Tottori for Izumo. Tanaka Inoue was a warlike man with little time for the social niceties and while he had some appreciation for the way Akiko revitalised his household he was more often than not at Osaka with Mitsunari and the young Kwampaku. His main concern on those rare visits back to his village was that Akiko bear him a son and her failure to even conceive occasionally led him to violence. Towards the end of their four years as the dark clouds of war loomed over Japan his visits became fewer and fewer and more prone to bouts of anger. Inoue only had two servants who soon learned to disappear from view at a glance from their mistress as their master's temper began to rise. Kunio was five, Buko three when Akiko moved into the household. She doted on the two boys, missing her own younger brothers and wishing she could satisfy her lord and give him a son of their own, even a daughter would have satisfied him for a time. All her life it seemed she had been a mother to others' children: it was her great shame that she could not bear a child of her own. Then came the seige of Osaka and the fall of the castle, and a messenger to tell her how her husband had committed seppuku. Death ------ Tsurugi tachi Mi ni tori sou to Ime ni mitsu Nani no satoshi zomo Kimi ni awamu tame I dreamed I held A sword against my flesh. What does it mean? It means I shall see you soon. -Lady Kasa Ime no ai wa Kurushikarikeri Odorokite Kaki saguredomo Te ni mo fureneba Now to meet only in dreams Bitterly seeking, Starting from sleep, Groping in the dark. With hands that touch nothing. -Yakamochi Fragile life, like bubbles on the water: I live with the prayer that even it may be as long as mulberry rope A thousand armfuls' long -Yamanoue Okura (from the Man'Yoshu; "Ten Thousand Leaves") What do I need with silver, with gold and gems? Could the most precious jewel be equal to my child? -Lord Otomo Tabito (from the Man'Yoshu) ............................................................................... Winter, 1615 A.D. Izumo, Japan Tokugawa Ieyasu is now the undisputed master of Japan. Your father predicted this, fifteen years ago, when he returned from the great battle of Sekigahara, bearing the wound that plagued him for the rest of his life and eventually ended it. "We have lost," he said in a voice devoid of hope. "Tokugawa will be Shogun." And indeed he was made Shogun three years later. But resistance to his rule did not end. Your father, one of the surviving generals of the side that lost at Sekigahara, continued to support the few recalcitrant Daimyos who opposed the Tokugawa Shogunate. Mitsunari died soon after Sekigahara, but a few lesser warlords- including your husband- banded together to continue opposing Ieyasu's reign. Your husband, Inoue Tanaka, has followed his one-time master Mitsunari into the void. He committed seppuku as Tokugawa Ieyasu's forces stormed Osaka castle, where he and the last of his allies were walled in and making their last stand. The news reached you as quickly as a messenger could bring it, and there was only one possible response, for you are now the family of a defeated traitor. Your life *might* be spared, as you are only a woman; it's possible that Tokugawa's deputies would allow you to retire to a convent rather than execute you. But the life of an exiled Buddhist nun, condemned to spend the rest of your days in a single, windowless cell, possibly blinded for good measure, is a life not worth living. And it's equally possible that Tokugawa's men will show you no such mercy. They might simply rape the pretty young wife of their slain enemy, before decapitating her and bringing her head back to Tokugawa Ieyasu. And about the fate of Tanaka Inoue's sons, there can be no doubt. Kunio and Buku, young as they are, will never be permitted to live. And if they must die, the children you have loved as your own, there is no reason for you to continue living. Better they should die at your hands than those of the victories Samurai who are even now doubtless bearing down on Izumo. Buku died without a sound as you pressed the pillow over his head. Kunio, slightly older, woke and look at you silently, then simply asked "It's Father, isn't it?" You nodded, too choked with emotion to say a word, and he did not struggle or cry out as you ended his life also. He died like a true Samurai. Finally there was the sharp pain of a dagger piercing your neck, as you knelt in a formal white kimono before the household shrine, and thrust the knife into your throat. You managed to do it without any shaking in your hands, but you couldn't maintain your stoic silence as the blade sliced through your jugular and the point penetrated your windpipe. You cried out, once, choking on blood, as pain followed in the wake of the cold steel. It was mercifully brief, and you sagged forward, blood gushing out to soak into your white kimono and stain the mat on the floor. You seem to remember flames roaring around you, and burning pain consumed you, and you couldn't imagine why.... have you been consigned to some flaming hell, to suffer for your failure to protect your children? But what else could you have done? Did you not fulfill your responsibilities, as wife and mother.... you did everything that giri demanded of you.... your fate was never in your own hands.... it seems unfair, yet perhaps no more than you deserve, for you are still a mother who suffocated her own children, and all the giri in the world somehow does not seem to absolve you of that most horrible crime. It's night now, and the crickets are chirping. Frogs croak in the distance. You smell smoke all around you. Stirring, you feel blackened wood against your skin, crackling and disintegrating as it crumbles to ash when you roll and put pressure on it. Ashes cover you completely, and charred wood and paper surround you. The knife you used to commit jigai is still clutched in your hand. The moon shines down on the ruins of your home, and your naked body. <><><><><> Pain. A choking cry bubbled from her throat as the knife bit deep. The walls of the shrine spun about till she lay face down on the floor feeling only the wetness of her own blood pooling about her. The darkness welled up obscuring her vision, and the welcoming oblivion of the void. There were muttered voices: the spirits of her ancestors passing judgement on her; and the flickering red and yellow of flame erupted about her. She screamed, but the sound was lost in the crackle and hiss of fire burning all about her. Condemned to Niraya, damned to the afterlife of suffering souls. That which was her body in this afterlife writhed and twisted in the agony of what the Cristians would call hell. The heat seared her newlife flesh and she felt the kimono dissolving from her body as the flame engulfed her. What more could she have done? She had served her father dutifully running his household as best she could after her mother's death. She had been mother to her brothers, teaching them the way of bushido, the mores and strictures of samurai life. She had been unable to give her husband a son, even a daughter, yet she had treated his children from his former marriage as her own, loving them and caring for them. She had done all that giri required of her. Was it her inability to bear a child that had brought this punishment down on her? Or was it the deaths she had inflicted on the two young boys? She knew it had been the right course of action, there had been no alternatives. Did the spirits punish her for that? She railed against her torment, the body that she possessed here twisting amidst the searing flame. From somewhere she heard the wrenching sounds of wood succumbing to the fire, and the world crashed about her bringing her to oblivion once more. She awakened with the acrid smell of burning in her nostrils and the bitter taste of ashes in her mouth. Her eyes blinked open to the darkness that surrounded her although here and there she could make out patches of hot red where the fires still smouldered. Gone was the burning heat that had driven acceptance of her fate from her, replaced now by the coolness of the breeze wafting in from the sea. Sounds came to her ears, the sounds of night. Had the ancestors heard her pleas and released her from her hell? She was lying on her side, knees curled up close to her body, arms wrapped about them in a foetal position. She reached out with one hand, and felt it move across the ground, hearing the crackle of the ash beneath her touch. Something was clenched tightly in her other hand. With an effort, she relaxed and drew it close to her face. There within her grasp was the knife, its blade dark with clotted blood..... her own blood. With growing fear she wiped the blade, feeling the trickle of blood across her fingers as she cut herself, then stared at her reflection in the steel. It barely looked like her own face, smeared with caked blood and black charred ashes. Her hair had fallen loose... she barely wondered that it wasn't burned from her in the flames of hell... and hung in disarray about her head, coated in the same mix of dried blood and ash that adorned her otherwise naked body. She knew where she was. She lay in the charred shell of the shrine room in Izumo. The servants must have returned after her death and burned the house rather than see it turned over to Tokugawa's men when they arrived... and perhaps to hide her shame for her. Now she had been reborn there on the site where she had committed her crime. Even the void would not accept her; she was a failure, doomed to wander the earth for all eternity like a distraut kami. She knew of such restless souls, ones whose crimes had been so great that they paid for their sins even after death in being returned to the world of forms once more to live forever with their shame. That too was now her fate and she cried out in horror.... a long wail scream of pain and fear that echoed eerily about the ruins. Pulling herself to her feet with jerky, half-unconscious movements, she stumbled about the burnt wreckage of the house. Here had been her bedroom where her husband had come to her on his rare visits back from Osaka; here the kitchens where the clay of the ovens still stood blackened and cracked by the heat; the room where the boys had slept. She could see their charred bones amidst the debris and tears welled up in her eyes. 'Kunio, Buko. The spirits grant you the release and peace that they have forsaken me.' Her vision blurred, and she wiped her the back of her hand across her cheeks smearing them but beyond caring. Tokugawa's men must never know that she had not been granted the release of a peaceful death. They must never know of her shame, for it would reflect on the name of Inoue throughout history. Stories told that a kami such as she now was could not leave the site of their crime, but she had to for the sake of her husband and her sons. If the spirits of their ancestors could be swayed from this halflife that they had inflicted on her, then they must let her leave. She prayed. She prostrated herseelf on the ground before the spirits as she heard the clamour of their voices all around her. With a last wailing cry she ran; ran from the house and into the darkness of the night. There was no conscious thought behind her direction: just the sight of lights on the sea where the fishermen risked the night drove her in the opposite direction, across the ricefields and toward the darkness of the mountains. <><><><><> No one impedes your flight from the charred remains of your home. Naked, you flee over the rice fields, and see a procession of mounted samurai, galloping over the road leading from Osaka, towards your doomed lord's capital, unaware that you have already insured they will return to Tokugawa empty-handed. The spirits mutter and wail, and you think you hear Kunio and Baku crying, then as the hoofbeats fade, so do the voices of your ancestors and those of the innocent, doomed children. You are alone with the crickets, and a single mournful bird. It sings from far off on the other side of the river that nurtures these fields, the source of your husband's income, as rice is the source of every samurai's income. Here in the fields the peasants labor, from before dawn until after dusk, as they have since time immemorial. It occurs to you that the events so cataclysmic to you, the ocean of blood that has been spilled across Japan, makes little difference to them. Does it matter to them that now Tokugawa Ieyasu is master of Japan? Their lives would be same no matter who is Shogun, or Emperor. With the silence, you feel that you have been granted permission, or at least, not been forbidden, to flee the scene of your crime. The mountains loom before you. Immortality ------------ Tokyo Gazette (English version) 25th June 1994 Stocks in the Inoue Kieretsu remained stable as it was announced yesterday that Akiko Inoue had been appointed as CEO of the corporation. A formal press release announced the change, while reporting that the company policies of aggressive marketing in the United States and Europe, and investment in research and development would remain unchanged. In keeping with the company's traditions, the newest chairman is from the reclusive Inoue family and of unknown calibre, but the company spokeperson iterated that she had been trained in the same manner as the outgoing chairman, and expressed that she had the full support of the board and of the company bankers. The press report barely warranted a few lines, the Tokyo market was used to the secrecy that surrounded such changeovers at Inoue; but the share prices spoke for themselves. This was one of the strongest kieretsu in Japan, and one of the most unusual. In a country where women were still treated as second class citizens, it was run almost entirely by women. Founded during the early years of the war as a farming co-operative, the government had been glad of the production increases that its establish- ment had overseen, and openly supported their efforts; the fledgling corporation had been too strong for MITI to destroy in the aftermath of peace. While those with money abhorred trusting their wealth in the hands of women, few turned down the opportunity for profit that investment in Inoue practically guaranteed. Perhaps the fact that women still controlled the purse strings in most households helped; maybe it was the fact that a whole generation of dead in the battlefields of the pacific left a hole in many companies that led to instability, and Inoue did not suffer from the same handicap; perhaps it was their insistence on quality, and their ability to produce whatever goods were needed in the right quantities and timescales; perhaps it was just extrememly good management. Whatever the reasons, Inoue throve in the aftermath of the war, branching into the fields of electronics, iron and steel, consumer goods and cosmetics as well as their original markets of clothing and food produce. Every six years, the chairman retired and a new member of the Inoue clan took over the reigns. Always named Akiko, and of unknown origin and not formally trained by any of the large universities of Japan (at least not that anyone could ascertain), yet the company flourished still. In a country steeped in tradition, it soon became accepted. And yet the woman in each generation was always reclusive, never appearing in public and living alone in the company's Tokyo offices. One of the best known names in Japan, and in many of the countries where Inoue goods were sold, and yet no pictures of the chairman ever appeared. The American Time magazine even had her on the front page, a female face with a question mark covering the features. Of course, while the Western press might clamour for pictures and background stories, the Japanese had more respect for her privacy (at least after the first few attempts at tracing her history led nowhere). And few doubted her existence: all of the board knew her, as did many of the heads of government and industry in Japan, but they were all sworn to secrecy, and none would dare break an oath taken on the name of the emperor himself. Akiko Inoue was barely twenty-one when she discovered that she was immortal. It was a time of upheaval in Japan, a time of struggle between Mitsunari and Ieyasu Tokugawa. Married to one of Mitsunari's strongest allies, she was at home in Izumo with their two young sons when she learned that Osaka had fallen, and her husband had committed seppuku. Sending the servants out of the house, she suffocated the two young boys before performing jigai on herself, slitting her throat. When the family retainers returned from the wild goose chase on which she had sent them, they found the two boys dead in their beds, and Akiko lying cold and pale in a pool of her own blood. Setting the house on fire, they consigned the dead to their ancestors. But Akiko was not dead, and the fire did not kill her either. Waking covered in blood, and with her clothes burned from about her, she nearly lost her mind in grief. Even the void would not accept her; she was a failure, doomed to wander the earth for all eternity like a distraut kami. In the darkness of the night, she fled the scene of her shame to hide herself in the hills of the Chugoku-Sanchi. It was there that Blaze found her, dirty, naked and unkempt, living in a damp cave off the offerings that the local people gave her. They were no more than superstitious peasants and thought her an insane spirit. The gifts of food they brought were to stay her wrath from destroying their crops and their children, with curses. She had tried twice more to kill herself, leaping from the cliffs praying to the gods for an end to her existence, but each time they had forsaken her. She should have died of cold and hunger during the Winter, but still she lived. It was only later that she learned how Blaze had found her, though she often wondered how a gaijin could have travelled across Japan without attracting attention to himself. Only after he had restored her sanity, and explained what she was, an immortal, did she accept her lot in life. A patient teacher, and an honourable man for a foreigner, he was one of the Portuguese seamen who were permitted limited access to Japan trading Chinese silk. He had sensed her death and birth, and slipped out from Yokohama and sought her out. When he first appeared at the mouth of her cave, she had tried to kill him, had tried to rend his throat and claw out his eyes because she had no other weapons but her teeth and fingernails, but he had been too strong for her. Tenderly he had bathed her and dressed her in his own spare clothes. In this too, he was unlike other gaijin who were for the most part unconcerned with personal hygene; but Blaze was fastidious in his cleanliness, always clean and shaved, always dressed in his best. Perhaps he had too high an opinion of himself, but he restored the girl's self respect. He cleaned her and clothed her, and turned the wild beast that haunted the hills into a beautiful, young woman once more. Over the next few years he taught her of her heritage and of the quickening. He told her of the prize, and that there were those who would kill anyone who stood in their path to gain it. Akiko was no stranger to wielding a sword, even samurai women learned the rudiments of combat, but Blaze taught her more saying that she needed to be able to defend herself against those who would take her head. He was certainly skilled, having been alive for centuries learning the way of the blade, but it was within Akiko's blood and she soon surpassed his skills. Together they roamed the mountainsides, and in time became lovers. The peasants living in the hills were pleased, for although the kami had taken a demon to mate (the foreigner certainly seemed like that to them) they did not raze the crops or eat the children of the villages. Akiko too was happy; for although it went against her bushi heritage to bed a barbarian, Blaze was a good man, and a tender and passionate lover. It was with mixed feelings that she learned that she could not bear his children. Sato Inoue had been the last of his line, and now only Akiko lived to carry on the family name (shamed as she was), and yet any children that she bore by Blaze would be bastard half breeds; but still she would have carried his seed within her for she had come to care for him. He left as suddenly as he had arrived; but Akiko was not angry or sorry at his departure, she understood why he had to go. Somewhere, another immortal had been born and needed to be schooled in his heritage. She had learned all the Portuguese sailor had to teach, and now he went to teach another. He had come to a naked, frightened, alone woman and left her with her self respect restored, a new confidence in herself and her pride once more. She learned much later that he had died in combat with another immortal, one not so benevolent as he that he had sought out to teach; yet he lived on in her memory and that was his true immortality. She never learned his real name. Rather than stay alone in the Chugoku-Sanchi, she travelled down to the lowlands once more, much to the sorrow and relief of the local peasantry (it was a source of much prestige in the community to have a resident kami living in their hills, and they could no longer boast about her to the neighbouring villages), though they still left offerings of rice, fish and flowers outside her cave. For two long centuries, Japan's isolationist policy helped keep her safe from the predations of others. A country barely known even in legend, and out of sight from other lands; few other immortals were drawn to the islands. In that time, Akiko came down from her hills and sought out the armour and swords of those who died at the many battlefields that were scattered across the realm. Tokugawa's policies had sent many impoverished samurai onto the roads as ronin, and that is what Akiko became, a samurai for hire. Few would take on a woman, but there were always some lords who needed every blade they could command heedless of who wielded it, and it was here that she honed her skills. She began to seek out tutors, masters of kenjutsu; and though most turned her away, again a few accepted her as a pupil. None questioned her background, for to do so would be to reveal the shame of a ronin; and when she gave her name as Akiko Inoue they just smiled, for no bushi of the Inoue family had survived the fall of Osaka, everyone knew that Sato Inoue had committed seppuku, and that his young wife had spared their two sons his shame and then killed herself. If the young woman warrior chose to hide behind a name from legend, then that was her business. Her skills improved, and her reputation grew, but always she moved on once she had learned all that the masters had to teach. A reputation was something she could not afford, for it might reveal secrets she would rather keep private. The lack of communications between the provinces helped, for she could always move on to where none but a few had ever heard of the woman warrior. From Benkei she learned the skill of drawing a weapon in a single fluid movement leading straight to the first blow. And from kensei himself Miyamoto Mushashi after a duel which ended when she bested the master swordsman, she learned to fight with a sword in each hand. Still others showed her how to use her body as a weapon, her fists and her feet, and always she combined her skills till her blades and kicks combined in a harmonious whole. The years were not all warfare and fighting, for the Tokugawa shogunate also promoted learning of culture and the arts in an attempt to keep the peace between warriors. Akiko too learned the subtleties of haiku and the patience to spend hours inscribing a single character on a scroll till it was perfect; the beautiful harmony of the cha-no-yu tea ceremony, and to develop her singing voice. More actively, she practised gymnastics and dance, keeping her body well honed. Several times she took lovers, but the duty of marriage was no longer open to her; allowing someone to take her to wife would mean revealing her background to him, and what true bushi could marry one shamed as she, and forsaken by the gods. In 1853, four American warships under Admiral Perry sailed into the harbour at Uraga, and two-hundred and fifty years of Japanese isolationism came to an end. With Perry's fleet came John Smith, another immortal who told her of the death of Blaze at the hands of one of his fledgelings. At Smith's suggestion Akiko travelled with him the America and then on to Europe to see the world. She met other immortals on her travels, and several times had to kill those who sought her own head. It gave her little satisfaction to take the life of the German who had killed Blaze - she no longer had any desire for vengeance, he had sought to kill her - only a sadness for the loss of her mentor at the hands of one he had sought to enlighten. The young bravo was a Prussian aristocrat, skilled in dueling with the sabre, but he was no match for Akiko with her twin katana. There were those who said that the Murumasa blades that she carried were cursed by the swordsmith, that they thirsted for blood and would drive the owner crazy if they were not regularly sated. She knew that this was not so. Rather they were crafted by a highly skilled artisan, balanced perfectly for her light weight when wielded together. Valuable beyond the power of money to buy nowadays, they epitomised the skill of the Japanese weaponsmith. Now Akiko found it harder to maintain her anonymity, and the years of living the simple lifestyle of the ronin were gone forever. It was a sad time for Japan. While her life of travelling anonymously from province to province was gone, still there was a whole world to explore where she could conveniently vanish whenever the need arose. Akiko had always been frugal with the money she earned, and over the two-hundred and fifty years of her life she was now moderately wealthy; she could afford to travel, and though a woman travelling alone was not generally condoned, she could buy acceptability. First in America and then Europe, she learned what the invasion of its quiet society meant for Japan. She learned the language of the barbarians, for it was obvious that they did not all speak Portuguese like Blaze; she watched the growth of the Women's Emancipation movement and the moves towards equality between white and coloured; she learned of technology, of iron and steel working and the use of machinery for transportation and communication; she learned how they carried out business in the West. She invested carefully wherever she stayed, watching her money grow, learning the skills of business and of economics. Like all true Japanese, she applauded the Satsuma rebellion in 1877 when a few bushi armed only with swords went up against the might of the conscripted army with their modern weapons. Most of those about her considered them fools, but Akiko recognised the glorious, heroic folly of their action and knew that the true spirit of Japan still lived on. It was in the late 1890s when Akiko returned to Japan, embarrassed by the casual disregard for honour and values of the era. She advised the emperor himself about what she had learned of the world beyond the ocean, receiving the honour of hatamoto for those services to her country. A few years later, John Smith returned to Japan and sought out Akiko, bringing with him the fledgeling immortal Eleanor Yee, a young Chinese woman from America who had been beaten to death by her husband. At his request Akiko agreed to mentor the girl, teaching her for two years before the Chinese girl returned to America. Seeking anonymity once more, Akiko bought a small farm in the Kanto, and it was there that the Inoue corporation had its roots. As the menfolk of the area were drafted for the war against China leaving their women to tend the land, Akiko banded them together in a loose knit co-operative for mutual aid. Her charismatic personality helped gain the trust of the woman, and with her managerial skills learned in the West she soon had them exceeding production quotas when they worked together. Before long, she had also taken control of the processing facilities and the Inoue corporation was founded. With the bombing of Pearl Harbour, Japan once again went to war, this time against the greatest empires of the world, and subsequently faced the humiliation of defeat. The Inoue Corporation was still primarily concerned with the production of foodstuffs and fabrics, which was probably just as well. With the end of the war, many of those responsible for the manufacture of military goods were prosecuted for war crimes, but Akiko's hands were clean of this stain. In the post-war vacuum the corporation expanded, buying up many of the old industrial facilities left empty after hostilities had ceased, and turned them over to producing those goods needed to rebuild a destroyed economy. Always she appointed the most able to positions of authority, and many of these were women. It pained the men to work under a female, but she rewarded well when strict targets and deadlines were met, and such bigotry was soon forgotten by those who worked for her in the light of such recognition. Her biggest struggle in those years was with MITI when the older traditionalists there sought to destroy a company run primarily by women. Like all the big Japanese corporations, Inoue was tied to a bank; but this bank was owned by Akiko and refused to accede to MITI's demands and stop the corporate's line of credit. They then tried to boycott Inoue's sources of raw materials and market: but an aggressive series of takeovers brought many of the suppliers into the kieretsu and she opened up new marketplaces around the pacific rim. Rather than bringing about the collapse of the company, MITI's boycott forced it to restructure and grow. Since then, Inoue has branched out into electronics and computer systems, cars and cosmetics, consumer goods and chemicals, as well as iron and steel, though the base food and clothing concerns still remain. It ranks a close third to Sony and Hitachi in terms of market dominance, but as a smaller company its profits are higher; so there are few people in the world who have not heard of Akiko Inoue, but her veil of secrecy still keeps her private and only a very few people would recognise her if they saw her. About forty percent of the Inoue Corporation's net profit is fed back into R&D, ensuring that it will continue to grow in the years ahead, and management of the company can be left in the capable hands of the senior management, but Akiko still prefers to keep a close eye on what is occuring at all levels. She's even been known to take a job (incognito) on the shop floor to keep her familiarity with the grass roots level. Those few who do know the secret of her identity are sworn to keep it, and all who rise to senior positions in the kieretsu are vetted carefully beforehand so that she can be assured of their loyalty and silence. Her dealings with those outside of the company are largely handled by senior staff, except in very rare cases; and the secrecy that is associated with her infrequent excursions is akin to that of leaders of state. Private jets can ferry her anywhere in the world, Inoue security vets every building that she visits in advance of her arrival, and to the customs agents of most countries, such a young woman with a passport in the name of Akiko Inoue would not be associated with the reclusive head of a foreign corporation. When visiting the great corporates of Europe or America, her youth and attractiveness has raised some eyebrows in the boardrooms, but few companies can afford to risk losing such highly lucrative business deals as Inoue offers by revealing her to the public. When it comes to a change of chairman at Inoue, few would dare question her judgement in retiring in favour of a distant cousin. And if that relative should be similar in appearance, that is after all just a family trait, and it is amazing what difference a change of hairstyle or dress can make. And the new chairman invariably brings the same incisive turn of mind to the boardroom, so few question the judgement in this arrangement. Within the Tokyo penthouse, she still practises dance and gymnastics to keep her body at its fittest, and many of the finest martial artists of Japan have sparred with her there. She still performs the cha-no-yu, and writes poetry in the finest handwriting, and sings to herself. And in the darkness of the night when she cannot sleep, she still bemoans her failure and the shame she would bring to the name Inoue if people knew her secret; and other nights she will cry into the small hours because she cannot bear children. And the inhabitants of the Chugoku-Sanchi still leave offerings of rice, fish and flowers outside her cave.