"You have betrayed me, Ayako!" the little samurai shouted. "I know that you have been with my friend, Nijo! I will make you both pay with your lives!"
"No, Yataro!" said the woman, Ayako. "Nijo-san and I have never been together!"
"Shut up! Do you take me for a fool? Now, die!"
The little samurai's blade stabbed into Ayako. Immediately, a red stain began to spread on the front of her kimono. She said, "N-No, Yataro... I love you..."
Yataro jerked the sword free, and a spurt of redness followed it.
Gein smiled down at the puppets. It had not been a real performance, of course; his skills did not lie in that direction. The movements of the puppets were clumsy, since he was operating them by himself, and he was not skilled in voices or acting. His genius was that of design, and these puppets were the best he had yet made. The dozens of tiny leather tubes that ran through them held water, dyed red to mimic blood. The little sword, sharp like a real one, cut through the tubes so the water ran out. It was beautiful, but he dreamed of the day that he could use real blood. Then they would be perfect.
He was a small man, with small, squinty eyes and a thin-lipped mouth. His nose was like a hook and his chin jutted forward. His face was gaunt, and pale from indoor work. Next to his black clothing his skin seemed even lighter. He was in a one-room cabin, deep in the mountains. The nearest town was three miles away. He liked this place, not for the natural beauty that surrounded him but for its solitude. Lately he had begun to shun contact with others. Years ago it had seemed terribly important to achieve the recognition he deserved for his brilliance. But he was starting to think that his designs were too good for regular puppet shows. How could an average citizen, or even an educated noble, appreciate the grisly beauty of his bleeding puppets? Perhaps it was better that he simply continue to perfect his craft, and forget about achieving any fame for it.
Pleased with the functionality of the puppets, he set them aside and went to a large box in the corner. Opening it, he looked down into a mass of wires, gears, and other mechanical parts that no average person could even identify, let alone explain. He was about to reach in and take some of it out to continue working on it, but a voice from outside shouted, "Gein! Come out here now!"
The voice was not immediately familiar to him, and he could not imagine anyone in this area knowing his name. He went to the door and slid it open.
Night had fallen outside and he had not noticed. In this solitude, the passing of days meant less to him. He could not see, so he went back and got the candle that he had been burning inside. Now he could see the figure that stood about ten feet from the door.
It was a young man, perhaps twenty or so. He was of average size, with a handsome face. His hair was unshaved and drawn back in a short chasen-gami topknot. He wore a kamishimo, the combination of hakama pants and the long, stiffened, sleeveless kitaginu jacket. The kamishino was a deep red; the kimono underneath, seen at the sleeves and glimpsed at the neck, was white. Gein noticed there was no clan insignia on the man's clothing. Not a real samurai, then. But there was an unsheathed katana in his right hand. Gein studied the man's face and realized he knew him.
"Ebisawa Minoru," he said, genuinely surprised. Minoru had been the son of another banraku puppet master he had known, Ebisawa Sharaku, in Edo five years ago. The boy had been sixteen then, Gein thought. He had not seen him since that time. "What are you doing here?"
"You know what I am doing here," said Minoru coldly. "I am here to revenge myself on you for my father's murder."
"Really?" said Gein. "One moment, please."
He went back inside for a moment. When he came back out, he saw Minoru's brow furrow in concentration as the boy looked at Gein's genius. If Minoru was afraid, though, he hid it well. "An interesting design, Gein," said the boy.
In simplest terms, Gein was wearing gloves. These were no ordinary gloves, though. They were huge metal hands and forearms. They covered Gein's arms below his elbows. His own hands were inside the wrists of the things. A system of wires that he had worked on for months linked his fingers to the fingers of the gloves, which were about ten inches long. The metal fingers moved in perfect unison with his own. The metal hands extended about two feet beyond his own when the fingers were flat. The devices gave him a simian look that might have been comical to some. To others, though, the power of both the devices and the man were easily apparent. Gein perceived that Minoru was in the latter category. "They are better than your earlier weapons."
"My earlier weapons?" Gein said.
"The lobster claws you had in Edo."
Again Gein was genuinely surprised. "'Lobster claws?'" he repeated. "I suppose they did look like that. When did you see those?"
"I saw you fight a man there, five years ago, about a month before you disappeared."
Gein thought back. "I don't recall."
Minoru scowled at him. "You killed a man and you don't remember?"
Gein shrugged.
Minoru said, "I was coming home late from Ikuyo's house. I saw you outside the theater. You were just standing there, taking in the night air perhaps. There was no one else around except for this man. He was old, over fifty, tall but stooped. He walked over to you and said, 'Gein.' You turned to him and he drew a sword. He said, 'It's me, Deguchi. You will regret what you did to me now, monster!'
"He rushed at you with the sword. You stepped out of the way so smoothly I wasn’t even sure what had happened at first. He went past you and came around again. Then he started slashing. You evaded each strike. After three you reached behind your back and took out your weapons. I did not even realize that was what they were at first. They looked, as I said, like metal lobster claws with straight blades on the inner edges. Your hands were inside them, controlling them it seemed. The claws opened and you held them in a defensive way.
"Of course I had never seen anything like them, and it seemed that this 'Deguchi' had not either. He backed away and you went after him. He slashed at you again and you blocked with one claw. At the same time you snapped the other claw closed right in his face. He had to jerk back to avoid it. He slashed rather wildly to hold you off. You caught the blade of his sword in your left claw. You ripped the sword away, and your right claw chopped into his stomach.
"Blood went everywhere. I had never seen so much blood. It didn't seem to bother you, though," Minoru said with contempt. "You almost bathed in his blood and now you don't even remember him."
"Actually, now that you mention it I do remember," Gein said nonchalantly. "He was a fool, so I put it out of my mind."
"Why was he trying to kill you?"
"He had been employed as a man-at-arms by a daimyo. I happened to meet this daimyo, and designed for him a new type of crossbow. Remarkable, if I may say so. It would draw its own string back as soon as it was fired, so the user only had to lay down another bolt. Anyway, the daimyo was so impressed he hired me and fired Deguchi. He wanted to kill me from some notion of revenge, just as you do."
Minoru's face twisted. "You compare what you did to him to...? But I will succeed where he failed." He raised his sword and held it before him.
Gein was amused. "You fancy yourself a warrior now? It takes more than a sword to make a samurai, boy. I was killing men better than Deguchi before you were born. You think you can beat me?"
"I am smarter than Deguchi." With that, Minoru came forward.
He slashed from Gein's left side. Gein blocked with the palm of his left glove and punched forward with the right. Minoru ducked under the punch. His right foot came up and slammed into Gein's stomach, sending him stumbling back.
Perhaps I underestimated him, Gein thought. He's strong. Any fool could swing a sword around, but kicking one's opponent even as one dodged was difficult. Minoru came forward again, stabbing at Gein's chest. Gein slapped the sword to the side and punched back with his right glove. Faster than he would have imagined, Minoru pulled the sword back and blocked the punch. Gein was shocked; the weight of the glove should have been enough to punch through any block. But the sword the boy used hardly moved when the glove slammed into it.
Minoru slashed at Gein several times, who pulled back and evaded rather than block. "Smarter than Deguchi?" he said. "It would not seem so!" Minoru did another slash, and this time Gein caught the blade in his right "palm." He closed the glove around the sword with a steel grip. He pulled with all his considerable strength and ripped the sword from Minoru's hand. He tossed it behind him and punched at Minoru. Minoru jumped back and Gein came after him, punching again and again. Minoru dodged each punch fluidly.
When Gein was close enough he braced his feet for the blow that would end it. But suddenly the sword was back in Minoru's right hand. Gein had pressed too hard and was too close now. He hurled himself away as fast as he could, but not fast enough. The sword slashed at him, and he felt it cut his hip and scrape against the bone.
He jumped back and flipped in the air, landing about ten feet from Minoru. "What's going on here?!" he snarled. "I took that sword away from you!"
"I told you I was smarter than Deguchi," Minoru said, but there was no true pride and certainly no arrogance in his voice. There was only cold determination. "I saw that fight, the first battle to the death I had ever seen, and I learned much from it. I did not know how much until later. I had seen your strength. I knew that I would have to be strong, too."
Gein said, "But that still doesn't explain how you got your sword back!"
Minoru slowly raised his right arm and the sword it held. With his left hand, he reached over and pulled the sleeve of his kimono back.
There was a device of some sort beneath it. Wrapped around his forearm was a leather sheath. There was a strange metal wheel or pulley attached to the inner side of the sheath. A thin wire ran from the pulley to the sword, and was attached to a little metal ring on the pommel. "You will not find it so easy to kill me, Gein," said Minoru.
Gein understood. The wire was attached to a spring so the sword would come back to his grip no matter what. Gein's eyes narrowed. The boy had strength and intelligence. This would not be an easy victory. But why was he really fighting? The answer to that might give Gein the edge.
"Why should I wish to kill you?" said Gein. "I do not even understand why you are attacking me."
"Don't play the fool when you are anything but," said Minoru angrily.
"You said I killed your father. I did no such thing. Why would I? He and I were friends."
"Friends?!" barked Minoru. "You never saw him as anything but a rival! You were jealous of his superior ability!"
"Superior?" Gein was getting angry. He had to keep it under control. If anyone was going to slip up because of rage, it would be Minoru. "What did he ever do that was superior?"
"He created the tight-weave silk, of course," said Minoru. When Gein did not respond, he continued. "You remember that without me having to tell you, right? He showed it to you that night, the night of the Doll's Festival. We had all been busy that day, so we gathered at my father's house, at his request, late that night. I had seen the silk before, but he showed it to you, Terakado, Ikuyo, and Utamara for the first time.”
Gein did indeed remember. Ebisawa Sharaku and Gein had both been puppet masters in Edo. Igarashi Ikuyo was Minoru's fiancee. She had been a lovely girl of sixteen. She was nobility, and known as a respected critic of the puppet shows. Her endorsement, or lack of it, could be the difference between success and failure for a show. Kono Utamara Gein had not known well. He was a puppeteer in the Sharaku group. Terakado Fujio was the key figure that night, though. He was a voice master for the puppeteers, the best in Edo. Competition for his talents was fierce.
The tight-weave silk was a remarkable achievement, to be sure. Sharaku had constructed a small metal loom that created silk that was twice as heavy but half as thin as normal silk cloth. The applications for the puppets were obvious. The thinness made the cloth perfect for the half-sized puppets. But the cloth was heavy, so it imitated the movement of full-sized clothing.
"I recall," said Gein. "Sharaku claimed to gather us all together to see the silk, but I knew what he really wanted. He wanted Terakado to see it, so that he could secure Terakado's services with your group. Of course, Ikuyo’s favor would have been nice, too, but I suppose you were counting on that anyway."
"My father did not 'claim' anything," said Minoru. "He showed everyone the silk because they were his friends. He could not have realized your deceitfulness. As soon as you saw the silk you began plotting to steal it."
"Steal it?!" Gein shouted. "I would never steal an invention! I would never have to! I came up with my own invention for more realistic cloth!" He forced himself again to calm down. "I engineered a way to weave tiny metal rods into cotton cloth. This weight gave the cloth the same realistic movement as your precious tight-weave silk."
Minoru's eyes narrowed and he was silent for a moment. Then he said, "But you didn't think of that until after my father showed you the silk, did you?"
Anger seized Gein. He forced it down again. Do not lose control, he thought. Make him lose it. "Your father was a fool. All of them were fools. Utamara was a greedy back-stabber. Terakado was a gluttonous womanizer. He probably slept with Ikuyo, now that I think on it." He saw anger flash on the boy's features for an instant and grinned cruelly. "When she gave her glowing reviews of his performances, I wonder what kind of performances she really -"
Minoru exploded forward with a speed Gein had never before witnessed, his face a mask of pure hate. He chopped downward with his sword. Gein hopped back out of range. The instant he landed he hurled himself back forward. His right glove punched at Minoru's head. Minoru had swung down too hard and could not get his sword back up to block.
Perfect, thought Gein. His glove slammed into Minoru's face and sent him flying backward into a tree. The tree was huge but the impact was enough that the leaves on top could be heard rustling. Minoru's eyes were squeezed shut against the pain, and Gein came after him. Just before he got to him, Minoru's eyes opened. Gein punched again. Minoru ducked and the tree shook again as Gein's glove crashed into it. Minoru thrust straight up with the pommel of his sword, which smashed into Gein's cheekbone.
Gein was rocked back and Minoru came after him. Gein's vision was foggy from the blow, and he knew he had to regroup. He turned and ran.
"Come back, coward!" screamed Minoru. Gein could hear footfalls behind him as Minoru gave chase. Gein saw a branch ahead, about fifteen feet off the ground. He ran for it and jumped. He had practiced some aerial combat out here in the wilderness. It turned out that the gloves he built were uniquely suited to acrobatics among the tree branches. He thought this might provide him with an edge.
As he soared toward the branch he heard a whistling by his right ear. He saw Minoru's sword sail past him, and the glint of the wire attached to it. The sword stuck fast in a branch well past the one he was going for.
Suddenly fearful, he twisted in midair. He saw Minoru coming right behind him, his right arm outstretched as the wire pulled him along. Minoru's feet led the way, and Gein knew there was no avoiding what would happen.
Minoru's feet slammed into Gein's side. He felt ribs break. The world tumbled and he knew he wasn't going to reach the branch. He fell to the ground in an artless heap, crashing into a large boulder. Agony shot through him as his broken ribs dug into his flesh.
With extreme difficulty he forced the pain from his mind and struggled to his hands and knees on the boulder. In a flash he realized he did not know where Minoru was. He looked up wildly and saw the man above him. Minoru had reached his sword and was holding it. He was braced against the underside of the branch the sword was stuck in, crouching upside-down. He yanked the sword free and pushed off the branch, straight down at Gein. Gein hurled himself to the side. Minoru's sword came before him and, with a great cracking noise, split the boulder where Gein had been in half.
Gein got to his feet as Minoru stood up straight. The men faced each other. Minoru said, "The springs in the armband are not strong enough to lift me by themselves, but if I help them out a little by jumping I can clear a good distance. And obviously, I am not limited to attacking with the sword."
The more Gein saw of Minoru, the more uneasy he became. To split a rock that size with a sword was no small task. And it was obvious the boy's skills were well developed. Gein said, "You were not bragging when you said you were strong, my boy. I am impressed. But this still makes no sense. I did not kill your father."
"Yes you did! Perhaps it wasn't for the tight-weave silk, but you can't honestly think I will believe you are innocent! You fled Edo the very night my father was murdered!"
"Sharaku died that night?"
"Don't pretend to be surprised! It was the first night we used the tight-weave silk. It was one of the greatest performances we had ever had. Ikuyo promised she would give her full support to us. Terakado came to us afterward and said he would be our voice master. We had never known such triumph. And it was a poison to you. Like the poison you killed my father with!"
"Poison? You think I poisoned him?"
"I know you did! He went back to our house after the performance. Utamara had left too. I was still at the theater, with Ikuyo and Terakado. You came to me and asked me to get you some medicine. You said to take it to my father’s house, where you were going. I of course did so, not knowing what you plotted. After that you went to my father and poisoned his wine! You sent me there knowing what I would find!"
Gein laughed. "That is the whole of your evidence?"
"That is enough! You never came to get your medicine, because you had already fled!"
Gein shook his head. "Listen to me, boy. You called me a coward before, but I am no coward. I have always sought to improve my own skills, and the technology of battle. Poison is no skill, nor technology. It is a true coward's weapon, and I have never used it."
Minoru fell silent. He seemed to think about it. Then he shook his head angrily. "But it had to be you! If not you..."
"You fool," Gein said, with some satisfaction. "Who else had left the theater before you?"
Minoru looked pale. "Utamara?"
"Of course. I told you he was a greedy back-stabber. I knew when I first met him he was not one to trust. You were blind not to see it."
"B-But Utamara was our friend! My father had always shown him kindness. And he did not flee Edo that night!"
"Why should he have, when you were convinced I had killed your father?" Minoru looked sick. He looked like a man whose entire reason for existence had just vanished. "So you see now that it was not me, I trust?"
Minoru was silent for a long time, staring at the ground. Then he looked up at Gein, and his eyes still burned with hate. "I suppose I was wrong. You did not kill my father. It must indeed have been Utamara." He was quiet for another moment. "But you did kill Ikuyo."
Gein simply stared at the boy. But after a time, he could no longer keep a grin from spreading slowly across his features. "What makes you say that?"
Minoru said, "After I discovered my father's body, I went to get the constable. He came. I was there at home for several hours, answering questions. After a while I realized Ikuyo had not come as she had said she would. I got the constable's permission to look for her. I went back to the theater and found her there, dead. Her throat had been cut."
Gein was still smiling. "How do you know Utamara didn't go back and kill her? She had as low an opinion of him as I did, I can assure you. If you hadn't been so blind with love for her you would have noticed. Or maybe it was Terakado? If they were indeed lovers..."
"Enough!" Minoru roared. "She and Terakado were not lovers, and her killer was you! It wasn't until I saw her that I began to believe you had killed my father!" He calmed himself with visible effort, but the hate remained in his voice. "I saw the wound in her neck. I looked very closely at it. It was not a single slash. It was two separate cuts, slightly misaligned, that met in the center. The wound was made by one of your lobster claw weapons."
Gein smiled even more broadly. He could remember that one so clearly. "She had been even haughtier than usual that night. After you left and Terakado went to his home, I spoke to her for a moment. She looked on me with such disdain, such superiority! And when I took out my weapon, she did not even know what it was at first. But she understood very quickly. The arrogant bitch wasn't so superior on the floor, with her blood pouring out of her neck like a tipped-over jar of sake."
Minoru was shaking with rage and grief. Gein supposed he should attack, while the little bastard was distracted, but he was enjoying this too much.
Then, after a time, Minoru became still again. He stood for a moment longer before a smile crept across his features. Has he gone mad? Gein thought.
Minoru looked up at him then, and there was no insanity in his features. For the first time that night he actually seemed to be at peace.
"You called me a fool," the boy said. "But you are so much more foolish. You thought she was arrogant, superior. You thought Terakado was her lover, and my father only wanted to brag when he showed everyone the silk he had made. You saw so much cruelty in the world, because that is all there is within you. You can't see anything else."
Gein began to hate the satisfaction in the boy's voice. "You can’t tell me that slut didn't hate me! She looked down on me, thought I was just a puppeteer!"
Minoru's smile disappeared, but his voice was unchanged. "Idiot. I was only a puppeteer, but she and I were to be married. If she did hate you, it must have been because she saw what was within you. She was a theater critic because she saw things in performances that others missed. It was the same with people. Perhaps I was blinded by my love for her, because I did not see her mistrust of you."
Gein flexed his fingers, making sure his gloves had not been damaged in the fight. "Let's end it," he said.
Minoru raised his sword. They came together. Gein punched at him. Minoru jumped into the air and sailed over his head. Gein spun as quickly as he could, but it was not fast enough. Minoru hit the side of a tree with his feet and ricocheted off, coming back at Gein with his sword leading the way. It stabbed into Gein's shoulder, in the muscle above his right collarbone. Gein could not stop a small scream of pain from escaping, but he could not pause. He slammed his right glove fist up into Minoru's stomach.
Minoru flipped backwards in the air, his sword still stuck in Gein's shoulder and the wire trailing after him. Gein went after him. The instant Minoru landed Gein was upon him, throwing punch after punch. The pain in his shoulder was horrendous, but he could not afford to rest. He hammered Minoru with steel. The boy's nose broke, and his wind was knocked out.
Then, as Gein punched at his face, Minoru caught the wrist of his glove with both hands. With astonishing strength he pulled Gein off his feet and swung him around bodily. He slammed Gein's back into a tree, then threw him a good ten feet. As Gein tumbled through the air Minoru yanked on his sword-wire. The sword pulled free, causing an even greater blaze of pain.
Through the agony Gein forced himself to roll when he hit the ground. He came to his feet facing Minoru. The boy was not holding his sword. He was holding the wire and swinging the sword around him in a large arc.
Gein crouched, ready to move. In a flash of moonlight the sword came at him. He could barely react in time when he realized it was coming at his legs. He hopped up just enough to let the sword pass under him. As soon as he touched down again the sword came at him once more. This time he did not dodge. He put out both hands and caught the sword.
Minoru tried to pull it away but Gein held it fast. He was near the boulder he had landed on before, so he swung with all his strength. The sword snapped just up from the crosspiece.
Gein tossed the ruined sword away and came at Minoru. The boy foolishly came forward too. Minoru threw a punch at Gein. Gein caught the blow in his glove and squeezed. The tiny pulleys in the glove amplified his strength and he felt the bones in Minoru's hand breaking. Minoru gasped in pain. His foot whipped up and smacked into Gein's face. Gein's head was rocked back, but he grabbed Minoru's outstretched ankle with his free glove. He swung the boy as he had been swung, smashing him into a tree that cracked from the force.
Gein released Minoru and the boy tumbled to the ground. Gein grabbed him by the neck and lifted him into the air. Gein's grip tightened. Minoru struggled, clawing at the great metal hands, but he could not budge them. Gein said, "Give up, boy! You have wasted your life, chasing a man for the wrong reason and being unable to revenge yourself upon him for the right one!"
Minoru's head was pushed back by the gloves around his neck, but he twisted around enough to stare into Gein's eyes. The power of his hate would have forced a lesser man to his knees. But Gein just stared back, and squeezed.
Minoru raised his right hand, still gripping the wire. He swung his arm back and then forward. The wire, still connected to the hilt of the sword, whipped around Gein's neck twice. Minoru grabbed the hilt with his left hand and pulled. Gein felt the wire dig into his neck, cutting off his breath. He tried to squeeze harder on Minoru's throat, and the wire seemed to only get tighter.
The air itself seemed to recede from the force of their strength. Both men were frozen and unbreathing. There was almost total silence in the night, broken only by occasional grunts as the two men choked.
At last the strength of one man failed. Minoru, his red kamishimo dusty and torn and his remarkable wire-sword broken, tumbled dead to the ground as Gein released him. Gein almost slumped down too, but he forced himself to stay standing. He was losing a great deal of blood from his hip and shoulder, and he felt as if every bone in his body was broken. If he sat down here he might never get back up again.
He limped back to his cabin and weakly pulled his gloves off. He rooted around for some bandages in a drawer and set to binding his wounds. As he did so, his eyes fell on his Ayako puppet, the stain of colored water dark on her summer kimono. He thought of the body out in the woods, and a smile came to his face again. It appeared he would be able to use real blood in his puppets after all.