Short Stories from the Fire Hunter Universe
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I read all four volumes of the main series with bated breath: Fire in Spring, Shadow of Flame, Fangs of Fire, and Starfire. Every character carries their own pain, but they keep moving forward for what they believe in: a better future. There is no magical solution, no easy superpower to turn the tables, no help descending from above. There is no all-controlling evil mastermind or a clever solution to drastically improve the world. This world has no saviors, no heroes, no geniuses. The characters are all ordinary people who struggle sincerely with their circumstances. There are no narrative lies or twists.
Surely the author, Hinata Rieko, must have felt all of her characters’ suffering keenly. It might have been even harder for her to progress than it was for her characters. The characters can believe in a hopeful future, but the author knows there is nothing for them ahead. The writer carries the story to the end; the characters are along for the ride.
The story advances relentlessly, swallowing everyone up like a great wave. Just as a wave has no end, the story has no end either. We were only capturing and observing a single moment of the ever-moving wave. An enormous, awe-inspiring, beautiful wave. The swells and aftereffects it left behind, the things it deposited, the shape of the beach that changed because of it. That was the story’s ending.
This short story collection depicts the aftermath of that wave. Each has something to say about the main story of the Fire Hunter series.
The first short story, “Glowing Insects,” concerns the orphaned boy Nanashu. He loses his only remaining relative, his grandfather, and is shunned by the rest of his village. The only one who cares for Nanashu, who is considered cursed and unlucky, is Hotaru, another outsider.
Hotaru was a character in Fire in Spring. She rode on the black cart with Touko after leaving her village to become a bride in a different village. Like Nanashu, she is considered unlucky; her village sent her away after their soil went bad one year. She got off the black cart before it was attacked by a crazed Guardian God, so she lives but does not know what happened to Touko, Kaho or Benio. She has no idea that Touko will play such an important part in the transformation of the world.
Compassion is Hotaru’s strong suit. She is the social glue that holds Touko and the brides together in Fire in Spring and she serves a similar narrative purpose for Nanashu. It is important to note that even though the world is different in “Glowing Bugs” than it was in the past, things are not necessarily getting better. This is described in more detail later in Story 6, “The Whirlpool Festival.” The troubles experienced by ordinary villagers in the series’ aftermath is what makes up the majority of “Glowing Bugs.” Like Hotaru, the villagers don’t know what happened in the capital or why everything is changing now.
The setting of Story 2, “The Garden Without a Gate,” flashes back to before the start of the series to show Yuoshichi’s youth. Wealthy young students Kumiko, Youku, Karin and Nio are bored in their Academy classes. Their futures seem murky and boring. Kumiko and the others test the boundaries of their generally permissive parents by playing pranks and stealing things. One day, Kumiko obtains a dangerous object that originates from the quarantine zone. Nio and Kumiko infiltrate the quarantine zone, and their boring lives change completely.
The end of this story is shocking. It is not clear that Nio is Yuoshichi until the very end. If Yuoshichi had made different choices, he might have been able to save his friend Kumiko. He also might have been captured with her. Yuoshichi is an enigmatic character in the main series; so much of his inner motivation is unknown. This story doesn’t answer every question about Yuoshichi, but it does prompt questions about how things might have turned out for him if he’d made even one choice that was different. His friends Yoko and Karin escape Kumiko’s sad fate, but their futures are unknown.
Story 3, “The Flower Hunter,” concerns the Millennium Comet’s creation. Princess Tayura and Princess Tokohana stand at the pinnacle of the Guardian Gods’ power structure. The world is on the brink of total destruction. No one is able to do anything to halt the terrible war engulfing the planet. Conflict, betrayal, deception, resignation, hope… in these circumstances, the Guardian Gods are no different from humans.
Story 4, “Waning Crescent,” shows Akira just after she’s fled the capital after the death of her brother. She meets a Tree Person, Elm, and they go on a short journey together that ends in tragedy. The story is mostly told from Elm’s perspective. She is a unique Tree Person who loves the sight of the moon. Tree People weren’t given much time or space to express their perspective in the main series, so Elm’s observations are poignant. Tree People are not quite human, but they’re more similar to humans than anything else. The relationships between humans and Tree People are depicted positively and then negatively. Tree People help humans, but humans sometimes deliberately harm and use Tree People. Is understanding, empathizing, helping, and doing your best for someone only possible for someone of the same species? That might be true for Keigo, but it isn’t for Akira. Keigo’s devoted dog, Todoro, also proves that empathy cuts across species lines.
Story 5, “Flames,” shows what life in the capital is like for Kaho and Koushi, who are trying to get back on their feet after the city was attacked. Personally, I enjoyed reading about the cat the most. I’m a dog person, so I was happy to see dogs in the main story. I missed cats, though. I was curious about what cats were doing in this world, or if they even still existed. As you’d expect, cats are still cats, living free and independent. Kaho is somewhat catlike, living as she does in her own way and bucking what Shouzou or Koushi expects of her.
Out of the six longer stories in this collection, “The Whirlpool Festival,” Story 6, is set the farthest in the future. It concerns Akira, the wandering Fire Hunter who protected Touko and the others until the end of the main story. The Millennium Comet chose Touko to be the King of the Fire Hunters, but Touko refused the role and gave it to Akira instead. Akira eventually returns to her old way of life and has a fortuitous encounter with Touko’s daughter.
Touko and Akira have lived half a lifetime apart at the time when this story is set. What will they talk about? Will they remember the people they’ve lost and can no longer meet? I was hoping to see Temari snuggled up in Akira’s lap.
What connects all the stories is the greatest mystery of this series: the phenomenon of human spontaneous combustion. How did the world fall apart? Is the world the characters live in now stable, or is it too heading toward irreversible ruin? It is not only fire that burns people. Hatred, prejudice, jealousy, selfishness, and sometimes even an overly strong sense of justice are destructive. I thought about the flames of destruction that each of us carries within ourselves.
In an essay about the Fire Hunter series, author Hinata Rieko writes, “I wanted to depict a world without absolute evil, but I also didn’t want to have any characters who are only good. Even the main characters each have unconscious feelings of discrimination and many faults. But the characters still have people who are important to them and things they value in this messy, chaotic world. I wrote the Fire Hunter series to depict such a world.”
Just like Touko and the other characters, we live in a world where there is neither absolute evil nor absolute good. Everyone lives messily while valuing the people who are closest to them.
May tomorrow in this world not be shut away in darkness. May more light shine in Touko and Koushi’s world from now on. May the King of the Fire Hunters be born in every person’s heart.
I close this book and this commentary with those thoughts in mind.
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