Interview with Sakigake Mukō

Metaphysical / Paranormal event

明方 新聞

Akegata Shinbun

Interview with Sakigake Mukō

Shigeaki Tōno: So you were here when the Daimyō's group returned from uh...[checking notes]...Andahad?   Sakigake Mukō: That's right. It was a few hours after that chunk of weird city had showed up—   ST: "Weird city"?   SM: Oh right, y'all wouldn't have seen it. It was like somebody's cut a filet of city out of somewhere else and shut it down right here. I didn't catch you name, by the way...?   ST: Tell me more about this city.   SM: Well...[shrugs a bit of cloth off his shoulder to show more of his chest]...It was yellow, wasn't it? Tall, pointy buildings built from dusty yellow brick, is how I'd describe it. A big road running through the center, and that pretty girl in red, Carmilla, walking down it.   ST: Are you certain you weren't hallucinating?   SM: Me? No, I was taking a bath through most of this whole "plague" thing. Never seemed to catch it myself.   ST: Amazing. And what happened with the city?   SM: Not much. We all got a bit spooked and moved the sick away from the place on Ashiya-sama's orders. Then we waited and, sure enough, the Lady of Names arrived a few hours later.   ST: The "Lady of Names"?   SM: Just a bit of a pet name for Hashinara Yoshiyuki-sama. You know, the Daimyō? She gave us our names, and a new purpose. It's been the Three Named Men's greatest honor to serve her ever since.   ST: You keep shifting your shoulder, are you hurt?   SM: What? This? No. Well, not recently. Don't worry about it. Anyway, when the Daimyō came back, she was flying around the side of the mountain. That's not too crazy; I mean, we all know that the Daimyō's some kind of grand magician or something. But what surprised us is that she had more companions with her than she brought on the journey.   ST: Go on.   SM: Well there was that guy I've heard about, the Silver General, but he looked a bit like he'd been through the wringer. Then I think I saw the Black Blade, but he's supposed to be dead, isn't he? There were a few others I didn't recognize too. Two kinda hopping vampires like in the stories, and a blue bunny sort of girl with an orb flying around her. Then a uh...like an octopus, but if it was a person. Actually, there were two of them, too. And they had this big cloth-covered thing with them, but nobody seemed to want to get real close to it.   ST: You don't do much writing, do you?   SM: No, should I?   ST: Don't worry about it, tell me what happened after they flew in.   SM: When she saw the city, the Lady of Names peeled off and swung down there. The Silver General went with her. The rest of them, well, they came to where the sick were. The Black Blade, or the guy what looks like him, was whipping up some kind of pale sludge in a cup and feeding it to the sick. Perked them right up, it did. I didn't feel bad at all, but he and the black-and-white thing insisted I drink some anyway. Tasted like nothing at all.   Meanwhile, the Daimyō is chatting with Carmilla over there in the city. It's a bit fuzzy in my memory for some reason, but I feel like I remember a lot more than three people there. Couldn't have been, though. Everyone was over here, either sick or takin' care of them. Seemed like the Lady of Names was getting a bit frazzled, but then again, who can tell with that mask on?   Speakin' of masks, the Black Blade finishes what he was doing over here and goes over to the city. He hands the Carmilla girl a cup of the sludge and she toasts, then drinks it all down. Then, just like that, the city vanishes. So do all the other people. Who...weren't there? [rubs his eyes with his hands]   ST: Amazing, and do you know anything about this city?   SM: Not a thing, but it seemed like it had something to do with the lass. Elsewise why would drinking the sludge have fixed everything?   ST: Yes...fascinating. What happened then?   SM: Well the Daimyō addresses us and says that the plague is cured. Everyone survived! Well, most everyone. Ganzo Sada was still a statue for a while, until the Lady of Names went and cured that too. Then she opened up the portal and everything was, more or less, back to normal.   ST: Just like that?   SM: Just like that.   ST: Well there you have it, readers! The grand and powerful Daimyō of the Hashinara Clan solves yet another magical mystery!   SM: Uh, who are you talking to?   ST: Shut it, we're done here.   SM: Wait, I didn't even get your na—   ST: Look forward to even more in the next issue!