This essay intertwines personal memory, spiritual encounter, and historical reflection. After recounting a visit from a Kyoto University graduate friend and revisiting the story behind his book’s publication—and the reverse-SEO attacks that buried it—the author shifts to a deeply emotional narrative dated March 17, 2011. In Kyoto’s Nijō Castle garden, a lone duck appears in a moment filled with symbolism. The voices of Ieyasu, Hideyoshi, Nobunaga, and even Kūkai speak in a poetic, spiritual revelation, telling the author that he has found the place he belongs. Through a message from a departed mother, the essay becomes a meditation on life, destiny, artistic calling, and the duty to keep writing without fear. Blending history, grief, affection, and the supernatural, it stands as a powerful testament to memory, identity, and the intimate bond between the living and the dead.

To Nijō Castle, Kyoto — March 17, 2011

Yesterday, for the first time in a long while, a friend who graduated from Kyoto University came to visit my home.
It was truly a grateful visit, like a Christmas Eve present.
As we talked about all things in the universe, the conversation turned to the story of how I came to publish my book.
By chance, one copy of my book was on the shelf.
I had decided on the cover design while hospitalized at Kitano Hospital.
Kitano Hospital is a large hospital equivalent to the attached hospital of Kyoto University’s Faculty of Medicine.
Like in “The White Tower,” the department head and five or six young doctors made their rounds to each room.
When several design proposals for the cover arrived from the publisher, the second round of doctors came.
When I said I was debating which to choose, one of the young doctors said,
“Kisara-san, may I choose for you? I’m good at this kind of thing.”
I entrusted it to him immediately.
I told this to the visiting friend at the beginning.

This morning, grateful for yesterday’s visit, I opened my book for the first time in a long time.
Until now I had always felt shy toward my own book.
So I hadn’t reread it often.
I realized again how great a loss that had been.
My book had been displayed for about a year on the social-economics shelves of Kinokuniya Umeda Main Store, alongside books by renowned commentators like the late Sakaiya Taichi and Takahashi Yoichi.
The staff member at Kinokuniya had placed it there believing that, though it would not be a bestseller, it would steadily sell a certain number of copies.
One day it disappeared from the shelf, so I asked why.
“I was convinced it would steadily sell a certain number, but the sales were unexpectedly poor…”
As readers know, that was only natural.
Because I am completely unknown in the world of public commentary.
And for reasons known to close friends and readers, I had no choice but to publish under the pen name Akutagawa Kenji, which made it even harder.
Had I published under my real name, many acquaintances and friends from business would surely have purchased it.
On June 1, 2011, I announced here that the book would be published on December 1 and asked readers to purchase it.
At that time, searching “the turntable of civilization” yielded over twenty million hits, and pages 1 through 70 were filled with this column’s multilingual chapters.
Then a certain criminal created over one hundred blogs—“chauffeur service,” “secretary service,” and so on—across blog-hosting platforms, launching a reverse-SEO attack against this column.
Each blog contained a nonsensical introduction followed only by unauthorized reposts of chapters from this column.
These filled the first ten pages of search results.
Instantly, search hits fell to one-hundredth.
Furthermore, this criminal started malicious acts on Twitter, calling me “the swindler author Akutagawa Kenji, also known as Kisara,” or “the fraudulent real-estate agent Akutagawa Kenji.”
It is like a small, unknown but genuine Japanese confectionery shop in a shopping street suddenly smeared by a criminal saying, “their ingredients come from such-and-such.”
In the age of the smartphone, that shop would go bankrupt at once.
Upon rereading my book, I felt deeply.
This book is indeed a masterpiece, just as the Kinokuniya staff member discerned.
That this masterpiece was buried by a criminal is an unforgivable crime against the world and humanity of the twenty-first century.

To Nijō Castle, Kyoto — March 17, 2011

Just now, looking out the window, I saw something rare for Osaka—snow was falling.
On March 13th, in the garden of Nijō Castle created by Kobori Enshū, a duck crouched alone in the shadow of a rock in a way I had never seen in any garden.
It must have been the mother.
Yes.
Ieyasu-san said she would reveal herself at the moment you pressed the shutter.
And Kūkai-san said he shared shōbōgenzō with you at Daigo-ji.

Hideyoshi-san also said this.
“You shook the forest, encountered us, and stood there crying for so long.”
At that moment you found the place you would return to.
Though I gave birth to you, you realized that the place you came from was also there.

Ieyasu-san came to fetch me, saying, “He will surely come to Nijō Castle on the 13th, so be there.”
“Hide your face so no one sees you until he arrives.”
So I hid my face in that way, waiting in the shadow of the rock for you to come.
Ieyasu-dono said you would surely notice and press the shutter.
“You and all the birds and carp of Kyoto are his closest friends. He will surely notice and press the shutter. Reveal yourself at that moment.”

Now, it seems Ieyasu-san, Hideyoshi-san, and Nobunaga-san are watching over you like guardian spirits.
But we too—the sea of Yuriage, the mountains of my hometown in Gunma—are protecting you.
Write everything.
Keep writing.
You need not hold back from anything.

You have done things for this country and for my children that no one else could do.
So do not hesitate before anyone.
If you must be angry, be angry.
If you must cry, cry.
If you wish to sing, sing.

Speaking of singing, at your middle-school graduation ceremony, when you sang as the representative of the graduating class—“Hamachidori,” “Jogashima no Ame,” and “Miagete Goran Yoru no Hoshi o”—
I felt a little embarrassed hearing your voice for the first time.
Your childhood friend ○○-san’s mother and everyone said, “We never knew Mikio-san could sing that well.”
If I had been able to play the piano, you might have become a singer.
I’m sorry.
I couldn’t do anything for you.
Carrying that heavy wicker basket to feed you—all eight in the family—was all I could manage.

It’s all right, Mother.
I will see you again in Kyoto on the 21st.
I am going to Kyoto to see you.