Three hours later.
The video hit the global trending charts.
Its title was four words-"Divine Punishment Descends."
It had been filmed on a phone, and the footage shook badly, but the scorched crater was perfectly clear.
The vitrified walls gleamed in the sunlight.
White smoke still rose from the bottom.
The camera tilted upward, capturing the pristine blue sky.
No mushroom cloud, no missile trails, no trace of any man-made weapon.
Just-boom, gone.
The comments exploded.
English, Japanese, French, and Arabic all mingled together, running the translation software hot.
A pinned comment came from a Tokyo local's account. It contained only one sentence-
"That place enshrines Class A war criminals from World War II. This is the second time."
Below that comment, tens of thousands of questions stretched across more than a dozen screens.
Once foreign netizens who knew nothing about it finally learned exactly what sort of things were enshrined in Yasukuni Shrine.
Public opinion did an about-face.
"So you rebuilt it after it got blown up once? Have you ever considered that maybe the universe is trying to tell you something?"
"Let them keep building. Let's see how many times it takes."
"As an American whose grandfather died in the Bataan Death March, all I want to say is-old testament got nothing on this."
"I don't believe in gods. But if something really is watching from up there, I think it finally worked overtime today."
"@Prime Minister's Office, we recommend consulting the weather service before starting construction a third time. Oh, wait, weather can't explain this."
Meanwhile, across the ocean.
On Huaxia's Internet.
The moment the satellite image of the scorched crater reached the country.
Weibo's servers briefly went down for forty seconds.
"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!!! Again???"
"Last time it was Tomahawks, and this time