By: Daiyu Tang
There is something that sits rather differently, perhaps almost unnervingly wholesome about Caisen Mizuki’s latest invitation to all of you Hathian citizens. For those of you who know Caisen as an ‘informed-Hathian-citizen’ rather than as his friend (or enemy) you’ll be aware of some of the things he has said, done or apparently done over the years. You’ll therefore be probably interested in what he now has to say, but you’ll want to know more. Good. That’s what I’m here for and luckily, that’s what Caisen was here for when he sat down in my office to talk about his event and his group.
Beach Hibachi
Firstly, the event. It’s surprisingly wholesome… For twenty dollars, you can turn up at the floating pier on Batterie Beach on Friday, September 11th, eat a full hibachi dinner, listen to music beside a bonfire and, once darkness settles in, gather around for ghost stories. That’s pretty cool right? I mean, there’s a slight little wrinkle when you’re advised to ‘bring something you’re ready to let go of’ with the idea to burn it in the fire. If this was a Haven event, it might involve a person being burned alive, but I’m going to trust Caisen here (a little) that we’re more spiritual than spit-roasting people on the beach..
Good food. Good fire. Good company.
Lovely but… in the interet of balance, I have covered Caisen before.
Readers with sufficiently long memories may recall Chaos in Hathian: The Unfolding Mystery of Caisen’s Ten No Kage, in which I found myself examining a rather less relaxing expression of Caisen’s philosophy after sedation, abductions, explosives and talk of sacrifice became tangled together with a belief in chaos as something almost cleansing. Others may remember his name appearing elsewhere in our pages, including the decidedly less peaceful events surrounding an HPD patrol and car-jacking.
So when a man with that history sends the Observer a beautifully designed poster asking Hathian to come to the beach and bring something to burn, I feel professionally entitled to ask one or two follow-up questions.
To his credit and the delight of my camera Caisen came prepared to answer them although, as my lead image perhaps shows it did not help my concentration that he had apparently decided to arrive looking like somebody’s very expensive bad decision. Eep/Yum/Uh-Oh etc.
Kinship, Not Conformity
We met at the Performing Arts Centre, partly because I’d already spent far too many hours in the Observer office and partly because Caisen hadn’t previously visited the galleries. Before we eventually sat down to discuss Ten No Kage, he wandered around the unfinished underground exhibition with what seemed like genuine interest, eventually offering one comment I rather liked: “Art is for the beholder, not just the artist.”
That turned out to be quite an appropriate thought for the interview which followed, because Caisen has spent a fair amount of time watching other people interpret what he has built. Some interpretations annoy him more than others. I would like to say that I had no part in them and I have totally told my wife to avoid anything controversial…
We briefly dealt with the persistent description of his circle as some variety of sex cult, helped along over time by the rather visible fact that Caisen has had several relationships which do not conform neatly to Hathian’s surprisingly very traditional public standards. Don’t you dear reader find it quite funny that we see all the shit we see around town and all the liaisons, hitchings, shotgun marriages and literally sometimes gangbangs at tentacle themed clubs, then get all… uppity or sanctimonious that Caisen is surrounded by pretty women? If I might be at liberty to guess a few of your thoughts dear reader, I might say there is a pang of jealously from the men and perhaps mild disappointment from the women that they are not in that blue-eyed oribt? Mmmh? Close to the mark for some of you? Anyway…
“If only people knew how differently I’d do things if it was a sex cult,” he said. “Orgy weekends, oral training Mondays, boob job Wednesdays. I don’t think I’d get anything done.”
Having now preserved that sentence permanently in the archives of a newspaper, I moved us toward what he actually wanted to discuss.
“I wanted to talk about what Ten No Kage really is and about events we have planned for what we call Kinship month.”
September, according to Caisen, is intended to be both recruitment and community outreach. Ten No Kage wants to find more people it considers ‘kin’, while also spending time with Hathian residents who may have no intention of joining anything at all. The beach hibachi is part of that. So is a second event planned for September 25th at the Underworld VIP lounge, which Caisen described with a small grin as being aimed at ‘the more hedonistic type of people‘. There are also plans to allow a more select group to observe how Ten No Kage practises its religion.
I asked whether the people he hoped to attract should properly be called acolytes, converts or something else entirely.
“Initiates, I suppose,” was his answer and importantly, Caisen said practising or even believing in the group’s religion is not a requirement for becoming part of the kinship. Shared values, shared goals and a willingness to protect one another are.
Which inevitably left one rather important question.
What values?
Values: Chaos… With Footnotes
Caisen thought about that one before answering.
“Kin over conformity. Our kinship is family chosen and proven. Sacrifice. Nothing meaningful can be attained without giving something meaningful in return. Personal discipline… we should be making actions rather than reactions to events. Transformation through adversity. These are our values.”
There is quite a lot in there that, divorced from Caisen’s history, would fit happily onto the wall of an expensive wellness retreat. Chosen family. Discipline. Becoming stronger through adversity. Giving something of yourself for something meaningful.
Then he reached the goal: “Our goal is bring society back to its natural state. Chaos.” There it was. Oh yes.
I challenged him on it as there are groups in Hathian which use ‘chaos’ as little more than permission for strength to become authority; where breakdown means the person with the weapon gets to decide what the rules are until someone arrives with a larger weapon and when Tori and her ilk create a system that only favours those who take, take, take. If that was what Caisen meant, then there seemed very little daylight between his philosophy and several others this city has already suffered.
He stopped me.
“You misunderstand, Mrs. Sanko.”
He told me that order itself is wrong and nor, interestingly, does he believe law or government is inherently unnatural. His objection is to systems which cease adapting to the people they supposedly govern and instead become machines designed primarily to preserve themselves and the interests of those already holding power.
“A system should be able to evolve and adapt according to the needs of those who want governance,” he said. “When it stops and only seeks to protect the interest of the powerful, then it becomes unnatural and should be destroyed, remade again in the way it was supposed to be.”
And there, dear reader, Caisen and I arrived at the awkward part where I found myself agreeing with rather more of his argument than I expected… Government should exist for the governed. Institutions which cease serving people and instead exist merely to preserve their own authority deserve challenge, reform and, when reform proves impossible, replacement. Hathian provides rather more examples of institutional rot than I could conveniently fit into this article, but you know most of it already. If not, read our archives.
There was however, one word. One issue… The disagreement was hiding inside that particular word that he chose.
Destroyed.
My preferred tools for fixing broken government generally involve elections, journalism, public scrutiny and irritating powerful people until either they improve or everyone else realises quite how awful they are. Caisen’s historic toolbox has occasionally contained rather more explosive alternatives.
When I previously wrote about the violence associated with Ten No Kage, the problem was never that Caisen could identify corruption or institutional failure. You don’t need a manifesto to notice those in Hathian; you merely need functioning eyes. The problem was whether inflicting terror upon people becomes reform simply because the person doing it believes the existing system deserves to fall. Caisen’s explanation this time was more nuanced than the slogan. Chaos, in his version, isn’t supposed to be permanent anarchy. It is disruption from which something more responsive can emerge.
Whether the people caught inside that disruption would appreciate the theoretical distinction is another matter entirely.
Bring What You’re Ready to Let Go
For now, Kinship Month begins with an invitation rather than a threat.
The Beach Hibachi Cookout takes place on Friday, September 11th from 3PM SLT at the floating pier on Batterie Beach. Dinner costs $20 per person and includes the full hibachi spread advertised on the poster, before the evening moves toward the bonfire, music and stories after dark. Caisen asks those attending the fire to bring an object they are willing to burn for closure or a new beginning.
I did clarify the general principle. This time, dear reader, he means an object.
Those seeking something less reflective can wait until September 25th, when Caisen intends to host the second Kinship Month gathering at Underworld’s VIP lounge. Given his description of that audience as ‘the more hedonistic type’, I suspect closure and spiritual renewal may occupy slightly less of the evening.
What happens beyond these events is harder to say. Caisen appears serious about presenting Ten No Kage as something broader than a gang, cult or collection of people gathered around one charismatic man. He describes a kinship based upon chosen family, discipline, sacrifice, shared protection and a political philosophy which argues that institutions should serve people rather than themselves. Some of that is easier to admire than the methods his name has previously been associated with.
Perhaps that is precisely why this interview mattered.
It would be convenient to dismiss Caisen as simply another Hathian madman talking about chaos. Convenient things are often intellectually lazy. His ideas are more coherent than that, his criticism of power isn’t entirely wrong, and the community he describes clearly means something to the people within it.
So go eat the hibachi. Sit beside the fire. Listen to some music. Tell a ghost story and burn something you’ve been carrying longer than you should. Maybe Caisen really is offering Hathian an evening in which people can let something go.
Just remember that somewhere behind the dinner, the fire and the chosen family, Caisen Mizuki is still working toward something.
And apparently he isn’t ready to tell us what it is yet. I do love a mystery!
Before the Fire: Following Caisen
New to the name? The Observer has met Caisen in rather different circumstances before. Scroll through the archive and the progression from showman, to family ritual, to police attention and finally organised chaos becomes rather easier to see.
Petty and Perfectly Black Hearted
Caisen behind the microphone at Chartbusters: costumes, bidding, crowds and an event where the most dangerous thing your editor appeared likely to suffer was winning.
Mizuki Family Marking
Blood, vows, scars and chosen family in Rougarou. The Observer’s first deeper look at the ritual, loyalty and symbolism sitting underneath Caisen’s more public face.
Officer’s Courage Alleged To Avert Crisis During Patrol
Caisen and his circle appeared in a rather less ceremonial encounter with HPD, as the boundary between eccentric local personalities and Hathian’s criminal factions became harder to ignore.
A Love Letter From Ten No Tage
The article where the Observer stopped treating the theatre as merely theatre: coordinated abductions, explosives, sacrifice rhetoric and Caisen’s argument that chaos could break a corrupt system.
