Episode 1

The lights over the stage slowly brighten, though they leave most of the stage dim and vague. Two gentle spotlights focus on the plush armchair in the center of the stage, in which The Host is currently sitting. The Host sits up and smiles at the audience.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the first broadcast of…” The Host stops to look down at the notes they’re holding. They frown and start flipping through the pages. After a few seconds of frantic searching, they stop, sigh, and look back up, “Well, I have no idea what this show is called, but it is the first episode. With me tonight are three cast members of The Golden Path.”

The spotlights turn off, while the other lights brighten further to illuminate the remainder of the stage. Now visible are two couches, one on each side of The Host.

“Now, let’s give our guests a warm welcome!”

The Host claps a few times, but gives up when there is no response from the nearly-empty audience, apart from the chirping of crickets.

“On my far left, we have the eternally youthful Scotsman, Liam Stonebridge. How are you tonight, Liam?”

“Um…I’m fine, thank you,” comes the cautions reply.

“Great! Next we have the popular, Gothic dhampir, Kuroichi! I hope you already ate, Kuro! It’s alright if I call you Kuro, right?”

“Ha ha, yes I did,” comes Kuroichi’s slightly sullen response, “And no, you can’t call me that!”

“Well, too bad! Ladies and gentlemen, our third guest tonight is quite an honor for us. Seated to my right is the immortal and incredibly wealthy, Kashoku Ka…wait, who the heck are you?”

The Host’s angry question is directed at the nearer of the two men sitting on the couch to his right. The mystery man is dressed in a black suit and tie, with pale blond – nearly platinum blond – hair, silvery eyes, and lightly tanned skin.

“My name is Paul,” answers the man, speaking in a mild and slow voice, “I serve Kaneda-shachou as a personal aide and spokesman. Any questions you have for him should be directed at me first. Kaneda-sama may answer any question I deem appropriate. Thank you.”

Just as Paul finishes speaking, small glowing words begin to scroll through the air just under the feet of the people on stage. They read “-shachou – a Japanese honorific meaning ‘company president’” and “-sama – a Japanese honorific, roughly equivalent to the Western titles of Lord or Sir”. Everyone on the stage – except for The Host and Paul – glances down at the floating, insubstantial-looking words. Kuroichi and Liam both do a double take. Following this, Kuroichi yanks his feet up onto the couch.

“What the *bleep* is that?!” shouts Kuroichi, pointing down at the scrolling words.

“Hm?” replies The Host, seeming to just now notice the strange occurrence, “Oh, that? It’s just the translation for the audience. Try to ignore it.”

“Oh…okay,” says Kuroichi uncertainly, slowly lowering his feet to the floor.

“Now, as I was saying,” says The Host, trying to get the show back on track, “tonight’s final guest is Kashoku Kaneda.”

A single voice cheers from the seats, followed by mad clapping. Sitting several rows back from the stage is one of the two members of the audience and Kashoku’s only fangirl, Shinka Yamazaki.

“Our first topic of discussion tonight is quite an interesting one,” continues The Host, “It was sent in by an anonymous person. The question reads, ‘How do each of you feel about the rewrites going on concerning both the story and yourselves?’ So that’s a two-part question for you.”

“Huh?!” shouts Kuroichi, “Rewrites? What the heck are you talking about?! Why haven’t I heard about this?”

“We’ll come back to answer your question, and that of our mysterious questioner, after a word from our sponsors,” says The Host calmly.

The camera begins to pull back from the stage. As it passes over the heads of the two audience members, signs flashing the word “Applause” can be seen. However, nothing is heard from the audience except for the chirping of crickets. Slowly everything fades to black.

“Tonight’s show is brought to you by,” begins a mysterious, disembodied voice, “Um…well, we don’t seem to have a sponsor tonight…what? Oh, right! Tonight’s show is brought to you by the esteemed author of The Golden Path, Kumori Ukiyo! If you wish to become a sponsor, simply leave a comment or review, along with at least one question/topic to be discussed in the next episode. You will also receive a free ticket for a seat as a member of the audience!”

The stage becomes visible again, where everyone is sitting patiently. Well, everyone except Kuroichi, who looks quite impatient and seems to be tapping his foot. This time, there is a smattering of applause to be heard from the audience.

“Welcome back to the show. As you remember, just before the break we received an interesting question for tonight’s guest. It was sent in by an unknown person who wishes to know how our guests feel about the rewriting currently being performed by The Author,” says The Host, resuming the show with a brief recap, “Let’s start with you, Liam. What is your response?”

The youngest-looking person on the stage looks up suddenly. He had been fiddling with something he held in his hands – something that he had quickly and unobtrusively slipped in to the pocket of his pants. He quickly focuses on The Host, obviously processing the question and formulating a response as fast as he can. He leans forward slightly and begins to speak.

“Oh, well, I’m not too worried about the changes. I mean, sure, Kumori’s been messing with my past, but he’s just making sure that I stay in canon with the changes he’s making to the rest of his story. And those changes? I’m really liking them! I think the story flows much better now. And there’s so much detail! I can’t wait for him to finish fixing things. I think things are going to be much more enjoyable now.”

After he finishes the teenager leans back into his half of the couch. With a furtive glance around the room, he swiftly pulls the unknown object out of his pocket and resumes playing with it. The Host seems to think about Liam’s response before turning to look at the two men seated on the other couch.

“Well now, let’s hear what you have to say, Mr. Kaneda. Or is he not allowed to speak?” the second question was directed at Paul, propelled by a burning glare. The Host was obviously still angry at having lost even a small bit of control over the show.

Paul gives no response to The Host. Instead he turns to his employer and begins speaking to him very quietly. On the face of The Host lies a façade of patience, doing a fairly good job of masking the still-smoldering annoyance undoubtedly lurking beneath. Off to the side it can be seen that Kuroichi has noticed Liam’s twiddling, and has begun making side-long glances in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the object in the boy’s hands. As his “sneaky” attempts continue to be unsuccessful, he gives up and begins blatantly staring at Liam’s hands. However, Liam is so engrossed by whatever he’s doing that he fails to notice Kuroichi’s looks. Suddenly the façade slips, the face twitches, and The Host’s annoyance with the stalling of the show breaks loose.

“Mr. Kaneda!” The Host snaps, displaying an amount of annoyance that would get anyone else burned to a crisp on the spot.*

With the sound produced by The Host sounding not unlike the sharp retort of an un-silenced sniper rifle, Kuroichi and Liam are snapped out of their respective investigation and contemplation to stare at the other people on the stage. Once again, Liam’s hand disappears into his pocket, empty when it is pulled out.

“Either share your thoughts with us now, or I will move on to hear those of your nephew. And quite honestly I’m afraid he doesn’t have many of them to spare!”

Upon hearing this remark, Kuroichi glares balefully at The Host. Liam, on the other hand, can barely hide his snickering, despite his hand flashing up to cover his mouth. This results in him too receiving a portion of the glare, which is quite unsuccessful at silencing him, and merely results in renewed laughs. Meanwhile, Kashoku has glanced at The Host, and then nodded at Paul, who stops talking, folds his hands in his lap, and resumes his statuesque position. Kashoku then leans forward and begins to speak.

“My apologies, Host-san,” are the first words spoken by the owner and president of Kaneda Global Enterprises.**

At Kashoku’s use of another Japanese suffix, the glowing words begin to scroll through the air again. This time they read, “-san ‒ a Japanese suffix roughly equivalent to ‘Mr.’ or ‘Ms.’” Kuroichi, still angry at being insulted, now directs his glare at the translation, but he fails to menace it into moving away faster.

“I am afraid I must preface my response by saying that, since there are still portions of my profile that are not yet open to the public, I cannot speak of any changes that may or may not be being made to it. I can, however, say that I have received assurances from Kumori-kun that my position as the ‘rich, powerful, and slightly mysterious’ character in the story will not be changing.”

This time, the floating translation receives no response, “-kun ‒ a Japanese suffix used in connection to males of a lesser status that the person speaking.”

Following his statement, more cheers are heard from that crazy fangirl in the audience. Kashoku glances up at her briefly, smiles gently, then returns to the topic at hand. This bare acknowledgement sends the girl into a swoon, followed by unconsciousness. She then rolls out of her seat, onto the floor, and under one of the rows.

“As for my opinion on the changes being made to the story,” says Kashoku, “I too am quite pleased to see them occurring. The previous version was quite bare-bone and lacked the vitality and smooth flow that the rewrite possesses. Essentially, Kumori-kun is transforming it from an outline into a true story.”

Now finished speaking, Kashoku leans back into the plush couch and steeples his fingers in front of himself. The Host looks quite pleased at this long and thought-out response, and even smiles gratefully at Paul and Kashoku. The Host then turns to face the audience (the one still-aware member, anyway) and begins to speak.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen. There you have it. The response to the changes seems to be positive overall. I hope that you are glad to have your question answered, question-sending person.”

A small chiming sound is heard. The Host briefly looks up at something, and then returns to speaking.

“That’s all the time we have tonight, folks. I hope you enjoyed this first installment in the series. Hopefully we’ll have a name by the next episode. Don’t forget to leave a comment or response (which will get you a seat in the audience) or even a question or discussion topic of your own. Doing so will result in you becoming one of the show’s lucky sponsors! Goodni…”

“Wait just a bloody moment!” shouts Kuroichi, once again interrupting The Host, “What about me? You didn’t ask me!”

“Fine!” says The Host, glaring at the impetuous dhampir, “How do you feel about the changes?”

“Ummm…” comes Kuroichi’s suddenly uncertain reply, “Well…I didn’t even know it was happening. Yeah…that makes me annoyed! I mean, come on, I’m important to! Why did they hear about it, but I wasn’t told? How was I supposed to find out?”

“There you go, folks,” The Host says sarcastically, “An incredibly deep and moving response. As I was saying, goodnight and I hope to see you next time!”

Suddenly everything goes blank and silent.

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*Don’t understand this reference? See Kashoku’s profile for further information.

**For more information, read the file on major companies in the world of The Golden Path.