“I didn’t think they let anybody quit.” Maybe there was a chance for Hirata to get out alive, too. “How did you?”
“I walked away,” Fuwa said. “They weren’t in a position to stop me.”
“Why not?” Hirata couldn’t imagine Tahara, Kitano, and Deguchi being that powerless.
Fuwa halted and faced him. “Why don’t you ask them?”
“Because I don’t trust them to tell me the truth.”
“You don’t trust them, but you joined their society anyway?” Fuwa laughed good-naturedly. “Well, I guess we are comrades. We both made the same mistake.”
Hirata laughed, too, in relief. “How did you meet them?”
“Why do you want to know?” Fuwa asked, still not ready to share his secrets.
“Because I’m in trouble.” Hirata poured out the whole story of his dealings with the men. He described the ritual, showed Fuwa the ghost’s orders branded on his arm, and said that Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano had threatened to kill his master unless he obeyed the ghost.
“Why do you think that anything I say could help?”
“I don’t know,” Hirata admitted. “I’m just desperate.”
Fuwa gave him a long, thoughtful look. “They’ve left me alone all these years. I doubt if they’ll bother me even if I do tell tales on them. They’d probably rather never see me again. But they won’t like your knowing things they’ve hidden from you. It’s you they’ll punish.”
“I’ll take that chance,” Hirata said, even though the thought of their wrath made the wind off the bay feel colder.
“It’s your funeral.”
They strolled along the beach together, avoiding wreckage from the drowned village. Fuwa spoke over the slapping of the waves and the cries of the gulls. “I met Tahara, Kitano, and Deguchi ten years ago. I was living in Kamakura.” That city was located southwest of Edo. “I’d recently finished my martial arts training, and I was working as a bodyguard for a merchant. I was bored with my job. I had dreams of adventure. One night I was sitting in a teahouse, when Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano came in. We got to talking. I was impressed to learn that they were disciples of the great Ozuno. My teacher is respected but not as famous. We told stories about our training. They seemed impressed with me. I was flattered. They said they were hunting for a great treasure, and they’d learned it was in Kamakura.”
Hirata felt a stir of uneasy premonition. “What was this treasure?”
“An ancient book. More than a thousand years old. From China. They said it contained magic spells for communicating with the spirit world. Whoever did the spells would learn incredible secrets and gain superhuman powers. They said the book belonged to a scholar who’d bought it from a Chinese sorcerer. They were planning to steal it. They asked me to help.”
Here was a different version of the story they’d told Hirata. “And you went along?”
“Yes. It sounded like what I’d been waiting for. They said it would be dangerous, we would have to fight for the book. Then we formed a secret society. We swore that we would be loyal to one another and never tell anyone outside about our business. We would share the book and work the magic spells together, and we would become the greatest fighters in the world.” Fuwa contemplated the clouds thinning over the sea. “If only I’d known.”
Here was the disgraceful origin of the secret society. “What happened?” Dread almost quenched Hirata’s desire for the truth.
“That night, we went to the scholar’s house, a shack on the edge of town. We sneaked in and found an old man lying asleep in the room, and a knapsack on the floor beside him. Kitano crouched down to open the knapsack, when the old man suddenly sat up. He wasn’t some scholar. He was Ozuno. I’d seen him before, and I recognized him. Tahara and Deguchi drew their swords. I drew mine. Ozuno said, ‘What are you doing here?’ Then he saw Kitano with his hand in the knapsack and he said, “‘Oh, it’s the spell book you want. Didn’t I forbid you to read it? Didn’t I tell you it was too dangerous?’
“Tahara said, ‘Yes, that’s why we’re stealing it.’ He raised his sword and started toward Ozuno. Ozuno leaped out of the bed. He had a sword in his hand. Tahara, Kitano, and Deguchi lunged at him. After that, it was all flying blades and shouting and bodies flying, I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t join the fight, I couldn’t even see who was where. All I could do was lie flat with my arms over my head and pray I didn’t get killed.
“It was over in an instant. When I looked up, Tahara and Kitano and Deguchi were lying on the floor. Tahara was unconscious, and blood was pouring out of cuts on his chest and stomach. Deguchi’s neck was twisted, and he was clutching his throat and wheezing. Kitano’s face was covered with blood, cut up like raw meat.”
Hirata was horrified to learn about the men’s other lies. “Kitano told me that his face had been injured in a drunken brawl. Tahara said that when Deguchi was a child, working as a prostitute, a customer strangled him and damaged his throat, and that’s why he’s mute.”
Fuwa smiled pityingly. “Whatever else they told you, it’s probably not true, either.”
“What happened to Ozuno?”
“He had wounds, too, but they were minor. He was still on his feet.”
“What did he do to you?” Hirata asked, amazed Fuwa had survived.
“Nothing. He said, ‘Whoever you are, get out of here. Don’t tell anyone what happened tonight, and don’t come near me again, or this is what will happen to you.’ He pointed his bloody sword at Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano. I got up and ran away as fast as I could.”
“What happened to them?” Hirata couldn’t believe Ozuno had let them live after they’d betrayed him.
“At the time, I figured Ozuno had left them to die. But a few years later, I heard they’d been sighted.” Fuwa explained, “I had given up my dreams of adventure. That night was enough adventure for me. I joined a monastery and took my vows. Then I went wandering. I occasionally met other martial artists on the road. One of them told me he’d seen Tahara, Kitano, and Deguchi. I don’t know why, but Ozuno had let them go.”
Maybe he’d had a soft spot in his heart for the men he’d trained and couldn’t bear to kill them, Hirata speculated; or he’d thought they’d learned their lesson.
“One day I ran into them on the street in Miyako. Kitano’s face was all scarred, and Deguchi gestured with his hands instead of speaking, but Tahara looked completely normal, and they all seemed as fit as ever.” Fuwa sounded perplexed. “I don’t know how they did it.”
Hirata did. They’d used the same medicines and mystical healing rituals that had helped him regain his health after his injury. Perhaps Ozuno had even doctored the men.
“When they saw me,” Fuwa said, “they acted as if they didn’t recognize me. I figured they didn’t like being reminded of that night.”
Puzzlement beset Hirata as he thought of their powers, the rituals. “They managed to get hold of the book. I know they did, I’ve seen proof. But how?”
Fuwa looked satisfied, as if a matter he’d been wondering about had been resolved. “I had my suspicions, after what happened next. And after what you just said, I figured it out.”
“What happened next?” Hirata asked anxiously.
“I was curious about what they were up to. So I secretly followed them. All the way to Nara.” That was a city south of Miyako, a sacred center of Buddhism. “I spied on them from outside the inn where they stayed. The next night they rode to a temple. I followed them and waited until they came out, only a few moments. They walked right up to me where I was hiding behind a bush. They’d known all along that I was watching them. Tahara said, ‘Forget you saw us. Leave us alone from now on, or you’ll be sorry.’ Then they rode off. I wanted to know what they’d done, so I stayed put. At dawn I heard a commotion. I went inside the temple and met a servant. I asked what had happened. He said that an old man who’d been staying in the guest cottage had died in the night. I had a bad feeling.”
So did Hirata, who remembered that Ozuno had died at a temple in Nara.