Sano projected his mind outward, searching for his foe as he inched along. He sensed empty rooms behind the partition and across the passage, felt the Ghost waiting for him not far away. If he could smell Kobori, then Kobori could smell him. His heart pounded so loudly that Kobori must hear it. And Kobori had probably memorized every part of the house so well he could navigate it in pitch-darkness. Sano’s muscles flinched in anticipation of a strike coming out of nowhere. It wasn’t too late to turn back. But valor overrode common sense. Sano kept moving.
He glanced backward at the faint, blurry shape of the doorway lit from outside. It seemed a world away even though he’d walked only thirty paces. When he slid his foot forward, the floor dropped off beneath it. He probed with his toe, which touched the riser and next step of a staircase leading to the lower level of the house. He clung to a railing as he slowly, carefully descended the stairs. At the bottom he forged ahead, down another passage. Its absolute darkness was like a living tissue that breathed mildew and dust into his lungs. He had the eerie feeling that the boundary between himself and the space around him was dissolving. He had an urge to touch his body and make sure he still existed.
“Keep going, Honorable Chamberlain,” whispered the Ghost. “You’re almost here.”
The wall under Sano’s groping hand ended: He’d reached a corner. Sano edged around it. Several paces farther, he encountered a doorway, beyond which yawned a room. The corridor led him past more rooms, around more corners. Sano pictured himself wandering through a maze while Kobori stood at the center, ready to pounce. His heightened perception verged on the supernatural. The smell of the Ghost’s spoor was so strong he could taste it. He sensed weight shifting somewhere on the floor: Kobori was on the same level of the house with him.
The floor creaked once, then twice more.
Sano hadn’t made those sounds. He stood paralyzed, listening to the Ghost’s footfalls steal up on him, trying to sense from which direction.
“Here I come,” whispered Kobori.
Sano turned toward the voice. He held his sword raised in both hands. As he waited, he felt at once invisible and exposed, terrified of the confrontation yet ravenous for it.
Footsteps approached from all directions, as if the Ghost had multiplied himself into an army. Had Kobori created this illusion, or had Sano’s own mind? Sano had never felt so alone, confused, or vulnerable. His high rank and his legions of subordinates couldn’t protect him. That he had power over virtually every citizen in Japan didn’t matter here. The Ghost had reduced him to the masterless samurai, struggling to survive by his own devices, that he’d once been. His wife, his son, and his accomplishments seemed as remote from him as if he’d dreamed them. All Sano had now, as then, were his swords.
Even though he knew that his enemy intended him to feel this way in order to break his confidence, Sano’s sense of vulnerability and isolation intensified against his will. The Ghost’s footsteps quickened and closed in on him. In blind haste Sano stumbled through a door. Abruptly the footsteps ceased. Sano felt a warm current of air behind him.
It was the Ghost’s body heat..
Panic jolted Sano. Before he could react, he felt a tap on his back, below his right shoulder. Fierce pain sped down his arm. His muscles stiffened in a spasm. His fingers let go his sword, which dropped to the floor. As he doubled over, his teeth clenched in agony, he was seized from behind. Hands groped over his body. He struck out with his uninjured left hand, but it swished through empty air. His right arm dangled useless and aching. He felt a yank at his waist, then heard rapid, retreating footfalls.
Kobori had come and gone.
Alone in the darkness, Sano fell to his knees, shaken and panting from the sudden, violent attack. The pain in his arm ebbed into heavy numbness, as if the blood circulation had been cut off. Sano moved his fingers, but he couldn’t feel them. Kobori had struck some vital point that had disabled his arm. He felt around on the floor, desperately trying to find his sword before Kobori attacked again. But his hand swept vacant floor. He felt for his short sword at his waist, but it too was gone. Kobori had taken both his weapons. He heard Kobori’s laughter, which crackled like flames.
“Let’s see how well you can fight me without your swords,” Kobori whispered.
“My father was an executioner,” Yugao said.
She eased the knife’s pressure against Reiko’s throat. Reiko cautiously let out her breath and relaxed her muscles.
“He would come home and talk about how many people he’d killed and what they’d done to get in trouble,” Yugao went on. “He told us how they acted when they were brought to the execution ground. He talked about how it felt to cut their heads off.”
Reiko focused her gaze on Yugao’s face, in the hope of keeping Yugao’s attention on hers instead of on her hands.
“After the war, there were many samurai from the Yanagisawa army who were executed. They were his comrades.” Fury on her lover’s account kindled in Yugao’s eyes. “My father killed lots of them. He bragged about it because they’d been important men and he was a hinin, but they were dead and he was alive. Every time he killed one, he cut a notch on the wall.”
Reiko remembered seeing the notches in the hovel. She inched her right hand to her side, toward the knife behind her.
“I couldn’t let him keep killing them,” Yugao said. “That night I couldn’t stand to listen to him bragging anymore. So I stabbed him. It was the most I could do for my beloved.”
Finally Reiko understood why Yugao had kept her motive secret-to avoid mentioning Kobori and exposing his crimes. But Reiko also sensed that past and present grievances had combined to push Yugao over the edge. Yugao had long been nursing a bitter hatred toward her father for violating and then rejecting her. She might have endured it forever, or stabbed him at any other time, but his offenses against Kobori’s comrades had finally tipped her unstable mind into killing her father.
“Why did you kill you mother and sister?” Reiko asked.
A contemptuous smile twisted Yugao’s lips. “While I was stabbing him, they just huddled in the corner and cried.” Her manner turned argumentative. “They could have stopped me. If they’d cared about him, they would have. The miserable cowards deserved to die.”
Perhaps Yugao had wanted them to stop her, Reiko speculated. Perhaps she’d still loved her father despite everything. If so, then she’d punished them for their failure to save him from her as well as for past injustices toward her. Now there remained only one more issue to resolve.
“Why did you confess?” Reiko asked.
“I did it for him,” Yugao said. “And I wanted him to know. I didn’t expect to ever see him again, but he would hear what I’d done. He would understand why. He would know I’d died for him and be grateful.”
The magnitude of her delusion astounded Reiko. “Then why did you run away from jail instead?” Reiko had her arm bent behind her, fingers on the hilt of the knife.
“The fire was an omen. It said I was meant to reunite with him instead of die for him.” Yugao frowned in sudden suspicion at Reiko. “What are you doing?”
“Just scratching my back,” Reiko lied.
“Put your hands where I can see them.”
As Reiko obeyed, she gave up hope of striking at Yugao before Yugao could strike her. She thought up a new tactic. “You killed for Kobori. You were ready to sacrifice your life for him. What did he ever do for you?”
Yugao looked at Reiko as if she was stupid to ask. “He loves me.”
“Did he say so?”
“He doesn’t have to. I know.”
“How do you know?”
“He makes love to me,” Yugao said.
“You mean he takes his pleasure from you,” Reiko said. “That doesn’t mean he cares anything for you except physically.”