Chapter 3: I will become the Emperor?

After the initial confusion and panic, I finally accept the fact that I am the last surviving heir of the emperor. Despite my denial from my heart due to the history I learned, it seems that the butterfly effect already starts to fuck me first before I start to fuck around with the history.

I also finally learned the cause of death of my other siblings and the reason I became the last surviving prince.

The first accident is because of the Great Kanto earthquake that struck the Kantō Plain on the main Japanese island of Honshū at 11:58 JST on Saturday, September 1, 1923. The Earthquake is said to last between 4 and 11 minutes as extensive firestorms and even a fire tornado added to the death toll.

The earthquake had a magnitude of 7.9 on the moment magnitude scale (Mw ), with its focus deep beneath Izu Ōshima Island in Sagami Bay. The cause was a rupture of part of the convergent boundary where the Philippine Sea Plate is subducting beneath the Okhotsk Plate along the line of the Sagami Trough.

This earthquake devastated Tokyo, the port city of Yokohama, and the surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka, and caused widespread damage throughout the Kantō region. The earthquake's force was so great that in Kamakura, over 60 km from the epicenter, it moved the Great Buddha statue, which weighs about 121 tonnes, almost 60 centimeters!

Estimated casualties totaled about 142,800 deaths, including about 40,000 who went missing and were presumed dead. This included the Second prince Chichibu(Yasuhito) and Third prince Takamatsu(Nobuhito) who were having lunch with me at that time. While I(Takahito) fell into a coma after that disaster.

Because the earthquake struck at lunchtime when people were cooking meals, many deaths occurred as a result of large fires that broke out. Fires started immediately after the earthquake. Some fires developed into firestorms that swept across cities. Many people died when their feet became stuck on melting tarmac.

The single greatest loss of life was caused by a fire tornado that engulfed the Rikugun Honjo Hifukusho or formerly the Army Clothing Depot in downtown Tokyo, where about 38,000 people were incinerated after taking shelter there after the earthquake.

Anyway, this disaster causes a lot of losses to the Japanese with the death of many people along with 2 of the four princes while one prince (me) has an unknown condition due to being in a coma.

This makes the first prince who is the only one with the normal condition to be further protected, alas fates also play their way.

After the earthquake, Ethnic Koreans were massacred. The Home Ministry declared martial law and ordered all sectional police chiefs to make maintenance of order and security a top priority. However, a false rumor was spread that Koreans were taking advantage of the disaster, committing arson and robbery, and were in possession of bombs.

The anti-Korean sentiment was heightened by fear of the Korean independence movement. This is further provoked by another false rumor indicating that the second, third and fourth prince was assassinated by the Koreans.

In the end, in the confusion after the quake, mass murder of Koreans by mobs occurred in urban Tokyo and Yokohama which was fueled by rumors of rebellion and sabotage. This was what caused the second big change.

On 27 December 1923, The Toranomon incident happened.

What was formerly only an assassination attempt on the Prince Regent Hirohito (first prince) of Japan by communist agitator Daisuke Nanba.

The incident took place at the Toranomon intersection between the Akasaka Palace and the Diet of Japan in downtown Tokyo, Japan. Crown Prince Showa or Regent Hirohito was on his way to the opening of the 48th Session of the Imperial Diet when the young son of a member of the Diet, Daisuke Nanba, fired a small pistol at his carriage.

The bullet shattered a window on the carriage, injuring a chamberlain, but Hirohito was unharmed. Nanba's attempt was motivated partly by his leftist ideology, and also by a strong desire to avenge the death of Shūsui Kōtoku, who had been executed for his alleged role in the High Treason Incident of 1910.

However, it was not long before another gunshot from a different direction could be heard which pierced the head of Prince Hirohito, proclaiming his life from the bullet in his head. This time is actually someone with a Korean ethnicity named Pak Yeol.

Pak was someone who formed his own anarchist group Futeisha "The Outlaws". Its name satirized the way Koreans were referred to by the authorities as troublemakers "Futei senjin" or the "unruly Korean." One notable member of the group was Fumiko Kaneko as the two subsequently became lovers.

However, Pak was arrested without charge on September 2, 1923, the day after the Great Kantō earthquake. Two days later Kaneko was also detained by police. Based on thin evidence they were eventually charged with high treason for plotting a bomb attack upon the wedding of Crown Prince Hirohito.

Both were convicted and sentenced to death. But Kaneko died in prison on October 23, 1922, reportedly by suicide after being raped by the prison guard.

Pak, who knew the news unexpectedly, was able to escape from the prison and keep on hiding for three months before finally assassinating the first prince.

He interpreted the disaster of the Great Kanto Earthquake as an act of divine punishment to admonish the Japanese people for their self-centered, immoral, and extravagant lifestyles.

Finally, he thinks that the imperial Japanese family should all die.

As the last prince with a normal condition, the regent prince became the best target for his revenge for his lover that died in prison. After all, the fourth prince still has no news of being recovered from his coma.

After the successful assassination, both Daisuke Namba and Pak Yeol were captured and executed in public but it still doesn't do anything to the fact the last surviving member of the Imperial Japanese family is the fourth prince who is still in a coma.

Prime Minister Yamamoto Gonnohyōe took responsibility for the lapse in security and resigned along with his cabinet and a number of other high officials. He was replaced by the even more conservative Kiyoura Keigo and a cabinet made up entirely of members of the House of Peers not associated with any political party.

Finally, on the eve of 7 January 1924, I'm finally awake…

After 4 months of being in a coma, my body can be said to be weak due to these four-month of inactivity.

This great news is finally delivered to my father, Emperor Taishou (Yoshihito). However, both of us are unable to meet each other since my father, the emperor, has already been sick since 2 years ago (1921) and already on the brink of death.

In my case, it seems after my little act of going to the mirror, my body lost all its strength as I then fell on the floor and was then moved back by others to the bed. The maid and the right-hand mand

After 1919, my father already undertook no official duties, and Crown Prince Hirohito, my first brother, was named prince regent (sesshō) on 25 November 1921 after the day he fell sick.

His reclusive life made him unaffected by the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923. Fortuitously, he had moved by imperial train to Tamozawa Imperial Villa at Nikko the week before the disaster.

Carrier pigeons kept my father informed as information about the extent of the devastation and the death of two of his sons became known.

He moved back to the imperial palace before the death of his first cause a great shock to him and further worsened his illness. I also heard his illness is because of pneumonia, a sickness that is still not yet cured in this era when penicillin has not been invented (it was invented in 1928).

Knowing my awakening, he just sent a word that from now on, I will be the prince regent and crown prince as I need to study the know-how before becoming the emperor in the future.