Two shores compete across the water. The Kanmon Strait is the narrow channel dividing Honshu from Kyushu—the seam where Japan's main island nearly touches its southern one—and on a summer night, both banks light up at once: Shimonoseki on the Honshu side, Kitakyushu on the Kyushu side, firing across the strait at each other. Fifteen thousand shells rise from the two shores, the light reflecting in a busy channel where ships still thread through one of the most heavily traveled straits in the world. The retro streets of Mojiko port glow on the Kyushu side, and across the dark water, impossibly close, the other prefecture's fireworks answer. There is a geography lesson written in fire here. Two islands, two regions, two prefectures with their own histories and accents and pride, brought together for one night by the narrow water between them. The strait that divides them becomes, under the fireworks, the thing that joins them—a single bright channel where Honshu and Kyushu, for a few hours, share the same blazing sky.