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Prior to Tenkuu’s birth, the most famous fortune teller in all of Kanagawa prefecture told Tenkuu’s mother that Tenkuu would die an early death. Shiho, unconvinced, sought a second opinion, then a third, a fourth, and a fifth. It was unanimous, however, for all five men had bet against her unborn child. None gave an exact date or age, but all came to the same conclusion independently.
After the fifth fortune teller predicted the child would die prematurely, Shiho returned home, went to her bedroom, turned off the …

Two hundred million years ago, tectonic conflict forced portions of the Pacific sea floor crust to the surface. Tacked on to present-day Utah and Arizona like a geological afterthought, California has never quite fit in. While states to the East were embroiled in wars of independence and slavery, California was oblivious, independent—free.
It is no accident that the event that populated California (and led to its inclusion as the 31st state) was delivered of an ancient, geological ordination. Millions of years ago, the confluence of water and molten magmas in the …

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