The Sound Empress: Chapter 12
Brief synopsis: Kari and Nari scour Fukuoka to find clues on the Korean Origin Force. They also talk to the mayor of Fukuoka, who isn't too helpful. Kari became a bit disheartened by this.
The next day, we had the news on the television in the room while we were getting ready for the day. The first thing that was mentioned was the tropical system that was brewing several hundred kilometers to the east of the Philippines, packing winds of 100 kilometers per hour. Although the winds weren’t too impressive, the size of the storm was more impressive, with winds of 64 kph spanning some 450 kilometers from west to east, and 400 kilometers from north to south. The meteorologist stated that a few models show it hitting Japan in about five to seven days’ time, with winds of about 160 kilometers an hour (about 100 miles per hour). There was a message to prepare for the storm and gather the necessary supplies, in case the roads and public transport gets shut down. Then they gave the weather for today, which was quite nice, with a few pop-up showers.
“Jung.” Nari called out for me.
“What’s up?” I replied.
“We are going to start at Hirao Park and we will be focusing our search efforts around the Denki Stadium, which is where Mr. Park held his rally. Then we will take the bus and head to Ohori Park. Once there, we will search the area for any sort of clues. Once we have done that, we will talk to the mayor in the city hall, who I happen to know through another person in the government that you don’t need to know about.”
“Good plan. Now, where is the first park that we need to go to?”
“You see the air traffic control tower in the distance, through the window?”
I pointed it out with my good hand. My other hand, which had been affected by the knife a few days ago, didn’t really want to close down into a fist to allow me to point with it.
“That’s it. That’s the tower for Fukuoka Airport. Right behind it is the park we need to go to.”
With the location of the park figured out, we exited the hotel room and we made our way back down to the ground floor.
Onto the sidewalk, we got caught out in a pop up shower. Luckily, Nari and I had packed an umbrella to stay dry.
“With the airport in the way, we will pick up the train at Hakata station, and take it to the airport train station. That station is on the other side of the airport that we are on, and that will put us right in the right spot to reach the park.”
Compared to yesterday, Hakata station was a lot busier. This makes sense, as it was Monday, and everyone is heading off to work for the day. We decided to pick up some food from one of the restaurants in the train station, which consisted of a breakfast sandwich. It sated my appetite, but the taste wasn’t spectacular.
After eating our sandwiches, we purchased a day pass and we made our way to the correct platform, which was different than the platform we had gotten off of yesterday. This one was much smaller, as it supported only a light rail car, and not a transnational train, which needs to carry a lot more passengers and cargo. I felt quite claustrophobic here, as there were a bunch of people on this platform, although most of them were waiting for the westbound train.
After about a ten minute wait, a small shuttle train came in, which was handling the route heading towards the airport. The train itself was quite empty. So, we wouldn’t be packed like sardines in there.
The ride itself was uneventful. We got off at the terminus of the line, which is right at the entrance of the passenger terminal of the airport.
By the time we had gotten back outside, the rain had stopped, but the clouds still looked quite ominous in the sky, as if they still had more rain to let out. We would have to hurry to get to the park if we didn’t want to be drenched. There were no signs to guide us to the park, but Nari knew the streets like the back of her hand. She led me to the park, at breakneck speed.
Eventually, with us panting quite heavily by running most of the way to this point, we reached the main road that goes through the park.
“Right in front of us is Higashi Hirao Park, one of the many parks in Fukuoka. This park is a multipurpose one: there are tennis courts, tracks, a swimming pool, and a soccer field. The soccer field, Best Danki Stadium, is the place we are going to head to, once we catch our breaths.” Nari said, while trying to get oxygen into herself by panting.
After resting for a minute or so, we walked into the park, although instead of taking the main road that led to the tennis courts, we continued down the road that we were on. This walk was more leisurely than our run to get into the park. We then reached the stadium, looking for an entrance or some sort of person to let us in. We did find one, right in front of us.
“Try the door right in front of you, Jung.” Nari ordered.
I pulled the door as hard as I could, but the door didn’t budge. I then tried to push the door in, but this also didn’t open the door.
“It’s locked,” I stated.
“There has to be another entrance someplace. The rally had to have occurred on the pitch, so we needed to find a door that would allow pitch access.”
We encircled the building as far as we could, but we couldn’t find another entrance. At this point, we were beginning to lose hope at this location, but then we made contact with one of the park workers.
“Excuse me,” barked Nari, “but we had gotten word that there was a political rally inside of the stadium right here. Unfortunately, we do not have the ability to go into the stadium. Could you be so kind as to open the front door for us?”
“Sorry,” the worker said, “the stadium is closed on Monday for maintenance. No one, except for park workers and inspectors, are allowed inside.”
The worker had a brown shirt on and beige shorts. Embroidered on his shirt was his name and his job, in Japanese characters. He had a broom and other cleaning supplies on his back, which means he is probably a janitor or a sweeper.
“Look, we are working on a mission issued to us by the Japanese government. We are trying to hunt down Buson-min Park, the leader of the Korean Origin Force, and attempt to eliminate him and his force. We know that people were in here a while ago for a rally, to try to convince more people to join his force so that he can overthrow the emperor and install Park as the emperor, which could destroy any sense of normalcy in Japan. We need you to open the door for us.”
“Umm…” The worker hesitated here. Nari approached him closer, with a strong gaze.
“Okay! Okay,” the worker said, “Let me get my supervisor, and see what he has to say regarding this. He has the key to allow you access into the stadium.”
The park worker pulled out a hand radio and contacted his supervisor, telling her to come over as soon as possible. About fifteen minutes later, a short woman appeared in a cart. She was quite overweight, had a light blue shirt on, and an oversized pair of pants. There was a bit of hesitation, as she shimmied her legs out of the cart. It was clear that she wasn’t in good shape, and she didn’t really want to be here in the open.
“What do you want here,” the supervisor questioned the worker, “This had better be important, as I was busy collating the employee records from last month.”
“I have two people here, looking to get into the stadium, for some government mission.”
Nari interjected here and explained the situation:
“From a sound dispenser machine, I got word that there was a rally here to promote the Korean Origin Force, a militant force that is looking to overthrow the government. Since this potentially poses a threat to our lives, we need access inside the stadium, so that we can collect some information on the current whereabouts of Buson-min Park, or his headquarters. This will enable us to eliminate him and the force, which was the mission that the emperor of Japan gave us.”
The supervisor seemed to believe us. She then walked to her cart, grabbed a set of keys, and threw it at me.
“Here are the keys for the stadium. They will open all of the doors in the stadium, and will enable you to access the pitch. Good luck.”
Now, directed to the worker, as she was about to drive off: “You got lucky here, punk. Next time I might not be so nice towards you.” She then drove off into the distance.
With the keys in hand, we walked up to the front door again. Now which key opens up the door? The keys were not labeled, so we would need to use some brute force to determine the right key. The first key didn’t work, nor did the second or the third. However, the fourth key did the trick. A click could be heard, which meant the door was unlocked. Now, pulling the handle, the door opened up, and then we entered the stadium.
We were brought into the main lobby of the stadium, which is where people would congregate and get directed to their seats. We were not going to go into the seats, however. Instead, we would explore the insides of the stadium, and try to find the door that would allow us to go onto the pitch. There are two tunnels that would lead us to the desired location, which corresponds to the places where the two teams would enter the pitch to play a game of soccer.
We must’ve searched for a good while, and we had to open more doors that were locked, but eventually, we found the home team’s locker room, which would lead us to the pitch. Navigating through the labyrinth that is the locker rooms and team facilities, we made it to the tunnel, which ended with a set of doors that would ordinarily be open to allow players to go onto the pitch during a game day. However, they were locked, but that didn’t matter as we had the key for it.
The pitch was made out of artificial turf, which felt a bit slick due to a bit of residual water that was the result of the rain earlier.
“Okay, I don’t see any platforms where the leader would be leading the rally. Look on the ground to see if there are any pamphlets promoting the force.”
Both myself and Nari split up and scoured the grounds for any evidence of the rally. The search, unfortunately, was fruitless.
“I didn’t see anything on the ground. Should we look in the stands as well?”
We decided against this, as the workers would have cleaned up any refuse on the ground, which would include any pamphlets that the participants of the rally would’ve dropped while leaving the stadium. So, this meant we could leave the stadium and this park, but first we would need to return the keys. Now, we had to walk through the labyrinth again, to return to the main lobby. We then exited the stadium and locked it up with the appropriate key. Outside, we could still see the worker we had initially talked to, albeit he was a bit further down the road. We then walked up to him, although he wasn’t too welcoming:
“What do you want now? Do you want to get me fired too?”
“What? No. We are just returning the keys to you, so that it can be returned back to your supervisor.”
The worker snatched the keys out of Nari’s hands. It was a particularly rough transfer. Then he ran off, as he was scared of us.
“Well, that didn’t really help. I hope that the other rally site will yield something useful for our mission,” I told Nari.
“I hope so too. The second place where a rally was held was Ohori Park, at the site of the castle ruins. The same train route that we used to get here can be used to get to this park. The train station is also pretty close to some restaurants, and we could get something to eat.”
The walk to the airport train station was done in a more calm manner. When we got there, we saw more people. Although most of them were heading to the airport itself to catch a flight, rather than to catch the train. This was more apparent as we headed down to the platform, as there was a stampede of people heading up from the platform.
When we got down to the platform, there was a train right there, as the train that had just let off its passengers that wanted to go to the airport had reached the end of the track and went around the loop at the end to reverse its direction. We got on and we rode it to its seventh stop, which is the stop corresponding to Ohori Park. The train got packed when we got to Hakata station, and remained packed for the remainder of the trip.
Upon exiting this station, we could clearly see the castle ruins, which was where the rally occurred. It was also raining again. We pulled out the umbrella once again, and we made our way into the park, passing by the art museum and an athletic field. There was also a farmer’s market going on, but we had other things to do. We reached the ruins, which didn’t appear to be as well-maintained as the stadium that we were at previously. This gave us some hope that there was some evidence of the group being here.
“Okay, let’s split up. I’ll take the north side of the ruins, and you take the south. Meet back here with your findings.” Nari ordered.
I proceeded to search the area, looking for any pamphlets or other memorabilia from the event. I looked in the trees, near the pieces of the remains of Fukuoka Castle and the Tamon Yagura. For a while, nothing came out. I was worried that this search would be fruitless as well, until I saw something as I was heading back to the rendezvous point. There was a pink slip of paper, which had a picture of the current emperor with an x drawn through it with a marker. There was some Korean text on it which I hadn’t the faintest clue what it meant. On the reverse side was the words “Korean Origin Force” with the contact info for the local recruitment office in Fukuoka.
I met up with Nari at the rendezvous point, just in front of the castle ruins. I asked first:
“Did you find anything from the rally?”
“I looked through every nook and cranny of the north part of the castle ruins, but I found absolutely nothing. How about you? Were you any luckier?”
I showed Nari the slip of paper I found. She looked at it carefully. After inspecting every detail she then said:
“This looks like a legit document. Although it looks quite fresh, for its age. I’m not sure if it came from the rally itself. Still, it’s a good find, and we should take it up to the mayor of this city, and see what he thinks. Maybe he will have some idea as to where he went.”
Our next stop would be the city hall, but first, we needed to deal with our stomachs. We had gotten quite famished in our searching. So, we exited the park, and then headed back the way we came. Upon reaching the intersection that led into the park, we took a right, and headed down to the next street, where we hung another right. We walked a bit down this road, and then we made a left, to eventually reach a seafood restaurant. We enjoyed the food here, as the fish was very flavorful.
Our appetites sated, we proceeded to the city hall, which was still a couple of blocks away. Upon reaching the building, we rushed in, as the rain began to fall yet again. Once inside, we found ourselves in a main room, with plenty of doors and elevators. We were looking for the mayor, who was on the top floor of the building. So, we waited for an elevator and took it all the way to the top.
After reaching the top floor, the mayor’s office was down the corridor, on the north side of the building. The door to the mayor’s office was locked, so Nari had to press a button on the side of the door to activate an intercom system. A woman’s voice could then be heard:
“This is the mayor’s secretary, state your purpose for being here.”
“I am Nari Nakamura, I have good contacts with the mayor of this city. We found evidence of a rally of a militant group that wants to overthrow the government of Japan. I thought he might know something more about the group or the rally.”
“Ahh. One moment please.”
The intercom went silent. A few moments later, the mayor came out and opened the door. He invited us to come into his office and sit in the provided chairs. The mayor then began to question us:
“Greetings. What brings you here to my office?”
“Jung, pull out the slip of paper that you found.”
I complied with Nari’s order. Then Nari proceeded to talk to the mayor:
“You see, Jung and myself are on official government business. The emperor sent us on a mission to eliminate the Korean Origin Force, a militant group that claims the current emperor is not legitimate, because the first emperor did not come from the sun god, per legend, but rather from the Korean peninsula. They claim that Buson-min Park should be the current emperor.”
“Go on,” said the mayor.
“Per the messages that my friend heard from the sound dispenser, there was a series of rallies here to try to convince more people to join. We found evidence from one of the rallies, which is that piece of paper that Jung is displaying right now. Now, I was wondering what you know regarding the planning of this event, and where the leader might be now.”
The mayor had to think for a moment. Then he said:
“When I originally got the request for a rally to be held, the group presented itself as a peaceful group that had some grievances against the government. This is perfectly fine, people are free to protest the government if they have grievances against it. Now that you mentioned that they are a militant group… Wait, hold on, how do you know they are a militant group?”
“We had heard from multiple sources that the group had led two riots in Tokyo which had turned violent. There were gunshots and explosions in these riots, which had caused damage to buildings near the National Diet building. Also, a person from the group stated that they wanted to execute the emperor through any means necessary.”
“If I had known they were a militant and destructive group, I would have denied them the permit to hold a rally. However, that is in the past, and nothing can be done about the past.”
The mayor sighed in disappointment and disgust.
“Let’s not dwell too much on the past. The present is now, and every second we waste is another second closer to a potential overthrow. Now focus! Where is the current whereabouts of Buson-min?”
The mayor shrugged his shoulders. He had no idea where he is currently.
“Okay, maybe you don’t have his exact location, but maybe you have a rough idea where he might be?”
“One of my colleagues said that he might be going to Fukutsu to do another rally. However, I don’t think that would be wise of him, as the longer he stays here, the more likely he will be found detected by the authorities. So, I think he went back to Korea, to return to his headquarters.”
“Would you happen to know where that is?” Nari said, with increasing intensity, and her hands firmly on the desk.
The mayor started to sweat underneath his collar, as the pressure built on him. Yet, even with our demands for answers, he couldn’t give us what we wanted to know:
“Unfortunately, I don’t really know where it is. I do however know it’s inland. He would not be foolish to place it out in the open for anyone to see as they sail on by.”
“Okay. Thanks for the assistance,” Nari said, in a condescending tone.
“Is there anything else you girls need from me?”
“No,” we both said in unison. Nari continued, “we have gathered everything that we could from you. Goodbye.”
“Farewell. Good luck in the hunt for Mr. Park!” the mayor said as the door slowly closed on his office.
As we made our way back towards the elevators, I started to feel doubts in my head. The doubts were over trying to find the leader of the force. So far, all the avenues we have tried have led us to dead ends. I was worried that we would be unable to find him, and he would succeed in his task, and destroy everything that I have come to love about Japan. I was having trouble just trying to maintain coherent thoughts in my mind. Nari rubbed my shoulders, in an attempt to relax me, and said this:
“Look, we will find a lead, and we will find this guy. We just need to wait for the right moment.”
“And when would that be!” I blurted out in the elevator. “A month? A year? 5 years? 10 years? We don’t know how long we have!”
“Calm down Kari.”
The elevator doors opened up on the ground floor. I rushed out in front of Nari and went through the same door we came in. I wasn’t paying too much attention, as I tripped and fell down just inches from the road. Nari then came up to me and said:
“Are you okay?”
“No, I am not at the moment. I just want this search to be over and done with.”
Nari turned me onto my back and picked me back up just before a car came to me to run me over. Then she said:
“Look, we have come so far. We have expended a lot of effort on this, so it would be a waste to give up now. Just because we didn’t find anything here, doesn’t mean that there isn’t something elsewhere.”
“You sure?” my mind still swirling around with emotions, “we haven’t heard anything, and we have searched far and wide. Plus, my life is permanently changed as a result of this search. I now have to live in hiding and in fear that the force could come to my door, knocking, and then take me to some unknown place to dispose of me.”
Nari understood what I said, but she was unwavering in her view:
“Let’s recall what other leaders have done. Did they give up when things got tough? No! How about when you dealt with some fussy kittens when a person had to go to the states to meet their family there, did you give up then? No! So, apply the same concept here. Don’t give up.”
I sighed. I was still quite upset, but I conceded to Nari:
“I suppose you have a point there, Nari. What I did just now was quite unnecessary and rash.”
After this, Nari would try to cheer me up a bit, by allowing me to do some sightseeing. We walked through the city, until it was nighttime. Then we took a ferry over to the island in the middle of the little bay, which has an observatory on it. We took our time to make our way to the center of the island, which is where the observatory is located. Upon reaching it, we made our way up to the top of the tower. From here, you can see most of the downtown area, and some of the surrounding areas. I took the opportunity to take a nice panoramic shot of the city.
“This city is so beautiful. Thank you for allowing me to explore the city.” I said quietly to Nari.
“Anything for you to make you happy.” She then grabbed her phone from her pocket, to check the time.
“Oh my goodness! It’s almost midnight! We need to get back to the hotel, so that we can sleep and prepare for the ride back home!”
We then proceeded back to the mainland, so that we could return back to the hotel. It was about 1 o’clock when we got back. Then we immediately fell asleep, without even changing our clothes to something more comfortable for sleeping.