Original Volume V Afterword

This is the fifth volume of Yashakiden: The Demon Princess. Its completion follows upon yet another heroic struggle with Mr. T, my editor. When a series has gone on this long, we’ve learned each other’s tells and can counter each move with one of our own.

“So, it’s gonna end after X volumes then?” Mr. T says.

I strike an indecisive pose and answer, “You—you mean you want me to wrap it up right away?” And right away the question turns into a conversation—just as intended.

Originally planned for three volumes, Yashakiden will go beyond five, and is already well into volume six.

Mr. T’s counterattack continues. “Ah, no. It’s already five. The way things stand now, I can see it going six or seven.”

“Naw. Make it six. The story’s heading toward the conclusion. One more volume to wrap things up.”

“Consider the current pacing. I thought things would pick up when you bumped off Shuuran, but it turns out she’s not quite dead. And none of the major characters—”

“I’ll start killing them off after this, pronto.”

“Except that it’s pretty clear who’s gonna die and who’s not, isn’t it? Take a look at your fan letters—”

“Oh, c’mon. None of this deciding the fates of my characters based on what the readers want. That’s up to me, the writer.”

“Heh, heh, heh,” Mr. T laughs, this normally unassuming holder of a degree in political economics brimming with an unusual air of confidence.

And I know the reason. Several months before, he’d said to me with seeming reluctance, “This letter came the other day.”

He held out the envelope in front of me. The address line caught my attention: “To Mr. T, Kikuchi-sensei’s editor.” Clearly written in a woman’s hand.

“Can I see that?” I said, not a little enviously.

“Sure,” he said, with a clear sense of superiority.

I extracted the letter with nervous hands, and tasted my second shock. It was quite thick, and that wasn’t the letter alone. A handwritten booklet was enclosed, sporting an illustration of what looked very much like me draped in a black cloak, fangs bared, and menacing a rosy-cheeked Mr. T as he scrambled after the manuscript, stars twinkling in his cute round eyes.

That by itself would be tolerable, and that by itself wouldn’t have left Mr. T so pleased with himself. But cranking up the random factor one more notch, there was a veritable monograph accompanying the illustration.

The abiding passion for Mr. T recounted within it went on and on. The exact details I have expunged from my envious mind, and so I will abridge.

In short, she poured forth her sympathy—nay, love—for Mr. T, languishing as he was under the lash of a devil of a writer (me), who flaunted deadlines, pretended to be out when he was in, missed appointments, and delivered manuscripts less than half the length promised, all leaving him more dead than alive.

There’s no way he can deny it now. I saw it with my own two eyes, and pretty much as I’ve described. From “Reading Kikuchi-sensei’s novels, I have gained a whole new understanding of Mr. T’s travails” to “Hang in there. I’m pulling for you.”

Anybody who couldn’t read the love oozing out between the lines didn’t have a heart. She must see Mr. T and me at each other’s throats.

Curious to know exactly who could have written such a missive, I looked down at the signature. All it said was: “One of Mr. T’s female supporters.” No name.

Perhaps there was something on the back of the envelope, but it was blank.

When I pressed Mr. T about this, he confirmed that there was indeed another envelope with the name, address and phone number, but he’d left it at home.

I smelled a rat, and threatened to expose him in an essay I was writing for a certain magazine. Mr. T was unmoved. “I’ll bring a photograph!” he proposed, only exacerbating my incandescent sense of frustration.

In any case, Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Vol. 5 was completed with this sort of give-and-take going on. I never got around to thanking Mr. T for all his hard work on the book.

Then one day several months later, I saw for myself. Saw what? That’s a secret for now. All shall be revealed in the next installment. “Heh, heh, heh,” indeed.

Hideyuki Kikuchi (while watching Bram Stoker’s Dracula)

October 30, 1990