Ten-no-Heika.
_
That last was a traditional phrase that, simply translated, meant "son
of heaven." For a Japanese, though, the overtones are more; they say
"the way of the emperor."
Subsequent history proved him prescient on several points--the main one
being that militarism was a disaster for Japan. Also, he had rightly
feared that the monarchy would become an empty symbol in the ruins of
Tojo's hopeless war. Although he hadn't lived to see Tojo tried and
hanged as a criminal, he had predicted the outcome of the war
unerringly--and he'd insisted that his infant daughter be evacuated to
Sasayama just before the Allies moved in for the kill. Because of his
foresight she escaped the first firebombing of Tokyo, which converted
the city into a giant death oven for eighty thousand innocent Japanese
civilians too old or young to escape. America's pragmatic "final
solution": Auschwitz with airborne incendiaries. The rest of Toshi
Noda's family was burned alive.
Afterward Matsuo Noda had complied with another of Toshi Noda's wishes
and made certain his daughter received a first-class education. Since
she had a natural instinct for economics he'd encouraged her, rightly
foreseeing it as a discipline vital to Japan in the twenty-first
century. She had excelled beyond his fondest expectations; she was in
fact brilliant. As a result he grew to dote on her, to an extent that
eventually grew almost obsessive. He'd even made her his heir, since he
had none of his own. His fortune was rumored to be in the tens of
millions.