Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Sakaguchi Ango

Kido Rokudan stepped away from the game at 3:11 PM.
Since it was an official match, the record keeper noted the time.
After Tsugumo Hachidan made his move, the moment it became his turn, Kido silently stood up and left the room.

The psychology of shogi players seems surprisingly uniform—it’s common to see someone snap down their piece with a polite “Excuse me” before heading to the restroom. But a player rising wordlessly and striding out the instant their opponent places a piece? That’s rare.
The opponent who placed the piece couldn’t help feeling somewhat belittled.
In truth, Tsugumo became upset.
Yet Kido remained standing and did not return even after an hour passed.
He wasn’t coming back.
After finishing his business in the restroom, Kido suddenly slipped into garden clogs and left the inn.
None of the newspaper staff or spectators noticed.
Before long, a minor commotion arose at the inn, but Kido hadn’t devised any scheme—he’d simply taken a sudden notion to walk.

It was the second day of the match, just reaching the endgame where the fierce battle's lid had been lifted.
The situation remained impossible to judge as favoring either side, but precisely because it had arrived at that breath-halting moment, Kido felt driven to snatch a breath of respite.
He had wanted to walk just a little, but upon leaving the inn and descending the slope, there appeared a quiet path stitching through the mountain's shadow.
As he walked along it, he came out at a mountain stream's bank.
There below the path on a rock, he spotted Nomura fishing.
Nomura was a literary man serving as this match's observer-journalist.
With the match being ignored, there naturally existed no observer-journalist for mere fishing—

“Oh! It’s Mr. Nomura.”
“Quite the carefree one, aren’t you?”

When Kido called down from the path and began descending toward him, Nomura responded with a wry smile,

“Damn it! Is the match over?”

“No.”
“Then what’s this about?”
“Just taking a breather.”

Nomura stared at Kido in disbelief.
Kido was a young man of barely twenty.
A C-class 6-dan.
Though a genius of a young man, having competed in official matches for less than three years made him still a novice.
Through the newspaper's knockout matches he had mowed down strong opponents to face Tsugumo—that formidable player touted as a Meijin contender.
When speaking of geniuses, both were prodigies—but against a titan of another class like Tsugumo, this young Kido could hardly be expected to prevail. Yet the newspaper resolved that should Tsugumo struggle, they would feature this particular game as consolation, ready to craft an article if it developed into an exemplary match.

For Kido in indigo-dyed kasuri, even being invited to a hot spring inn for an official match was his first experience.
Even disregarding that circumstance, leaving for a mid-game absence to take a walk was itself nearly unprecedented.
Moreover, in this deeply feudalistic society, there ran a strong undercurrent of thought that making one's senior wait while strolling constituted nothing short of extreme discourtesy.
Furthermore, during matches one's nerves become so abnormally heightened that it's generally impossible to feel relaxed enough to take a leisurely breath-catching stroll.
That was why Nomura had been left dumbfounded.

“Are you seriously still in the middle of the match?”

“Yes. It looks like it will take until near midnight.”

“I thought as much. Since referee Ogawa Hachidan told me as much, I came fishing with peace of mind—but man, you’ve got some nerve. Though having the match observer stroll over while I’m fishing couldn’t be better for me.”

“Oh. You haven’t caught a single one yet?”

“I only just cast my line.”

“Ha ha.”
“That’s because of your skills.”

Kido burst into unrestrained laughter.
Unlike polite social banter, it carried an air of utter disregard for restraint.
Having just been astonished by this audacity, and then being told "Must be your skills" by a gambler who lived entirely by his own prowess—which indeed seemed undeniably true in a pitiful way—Nomura became somewhat irritated.
However, Kido seemed not to notice any of this. “The mountain beyond the bridge looks like it has a good view,” he said. “I’ll go take a look.”

With this muttered remark, he crossed the bridge and vanished from sight.
The mountain opposite was about 150 meters high, but the path normally took around twenty minutes to traverse on foot.
Kido climbed to its summit.
The view was truly magnificent.
When he turned around, the sea came into view, and before him stretched an expansive plain.
There stood a single teahouse.
It was merely an earthen-floored space converted into a teahouse as a side business to farming, its shelves holding almost no goods save for two or three soda bottles mixed among empty ones.
Kido drank a bottle of it. Only after finishing it did he realize he had no money.

“Oh no.”
“I’ll bring it tomorrow, so please lend it to me now.”

When he made this request, the severity of the girl's demeanor at that moment caused his eyes to widen in surprise. That severity appeared different in nature from the harshness of a debt collector. In shogi, the expression "severe" is frequently used. This is how the expression "severe" is applied - to describe such a move. It resembled that severity. Mijin, too, possessed a flawless severity. It was akin to the severity of a swordsman in a life-or-death duel, but to Kido, the girl’s demeanor appeared like a shogi piece. It occurred to him that she resembled a knight.

At that moment, what he was contemplating for his next move were the gold, knight, and pawn. Pulling back the gold to fortify defenses or advancing the pawn to observe developments would maintain calmness; but jumping out the knight would transform everything into chaotic warfare. That knight jump had been his initial instinct—something he had anticipated—but the moment his opponent made that move, No, this is dangerous struck him, and he abruptly stood up. He had intended it as a severe knight strike that would kill in one blow, but there was also the concern that it might conversely become the very thing that took his own life. Even as he walked the path of no-mind during his brief respite, that knight strike remained tangled in the depths of his thoughts. Perhaps because of that, the girl’s face appeared as a knight.

She was a girl about the same age as him. A sun-darkened country girl reeking of fieldwork—nothing in her appearance suggested any particular severity one might expect—yet in that instant, he felt the knight's sharp severity from the board surface, his eyes widening in astonishment. But this lasted only a moment. Because he had widened his eyes, the girl widened hers even more than he had,

"No,"

she shouted loudly, though it contained nothing beyond ordinary anger—if anything, this rather put him at ease. The girl stared intently at his hakama-clad figure,

“You look strange.”

When she said this, he too burst into loud laughter, but in that momentum he noticed a good idea.

"That's it. Since someone I know is fishing down at the valley stream, come with me to the bridge. I'll borrow it from that person and pay you back."

It was just twenty yen.
As the girl had followed him, the two descended to where Nomura was fishing,

“Please lend me twenty yen. The truth is, I drank a soda without having any money.”

“Is that so? An escort over soda? That’s unusual.”

Nomura stood up and was searching through his trouser pockets, but

“Darn it.”
“I don’t have any money either.”
“I left my jacket back at the inn.”

It was the beginning of October.
Nomura, who was prone to catching colds during seasonal changes, prepared a sweater and changed into it when going fishing.
It was a gloomy, overcast day—not cold enough to warrant it, yet wearing a sweater felt oppressively warm—

“I’ll leave this sweater as collateral until I deliver the twenty yen tomorrow.”
“It’s a rather worn-out sweater hand-knitted by my wife, but twenty yen should be cheap enough for it.”

Miko agreed, wound Nomura’s removed sweater around one arm, and went back.

“What a stingy escort.”
“She really took the sweater away.”
“Soda doesn’t have the same human kindness as liquor, it seems.”

“That’s exactly how it is.”
“There’s something a bit mysterious about that girl.”

“Is that so? Isn’t that just what ignorant country girls are like?”

“Her current demeanor may be like that, but… For an instant, I saw a hallucination. I saw the knight. No, it wasn’t my imagination. I saw it clearly. It was the four-five knight.”

Nomura had no way to respond.
Assuming his opponent must be agitated from the ongoing match, he deliberately refrained from speaking and walked back to the inn side by side with him in silence.
It was five o'clock.
It had been one hour and fifty minutes since Kido had left his seat.

Kido sat down and immediately jumped the four-five knight.
However, this was a bad move.
There had been a brilliant move he overlooked.
Because Tsugumo had been infuriated by the junior’s absence from his seat for one hour and fifty minutes, he carefully deliberated and devised a brilliant move that completely reversed the situation to his advantage—but this very success caused him to let his guard down as though he had already defeated his young opponent.
After dinner, he made a series of blunders and brought about his own ruin, thereby allowing the junior to make his name.

★

“The moment I saw the four-five knight in that girl’s face, I became absolutely certain,”
“I was under the illusion that I’d read through everything,”
“Only after making the move did I realize I’d done it without any thought at all,”
“It’s not that Mr. Tsugumo’s countermove was brilliant,”
“I think it was an obvious move anyone would notice upon analysis—such a careless oversight that Mr. Tsugumo ended up underestimating me,”
“And well, thanks to that, I suppose I ended up happy,”
“Played a damn foolish game of shogi.”

Later, Kido told Nomura with a bitter smile.
However, at that time, Nomura still did not understand the meaning of Kido’s words about seeing the four-five knight in the girl’s face.

Tsugumo left the inn early the next morning, and only Nomura and Kido remained until late. The two of them went out for a walk together. It was to pay off that debt and retrieve the sweater.

However, when they climbed up to the mountain, the teahouse was closed. They went around to the back, but here too the door was securely shut, and even when they knocked loudly, there was no answer. Since there was no one in the back field either, they descended the mountain and tried asking the villagers, but

“Is that so.”
“Is it all shut up?”
“In that case, they must’ve gone out.”

That was their unhurried reply.

“You don’t know where they went?”

“Dunno.”

No one they asked knew.

“Let’s give up on the sweater and head back.”

Nomura urged Kido to leave, but he remained deep in thought and didn’t respond.
Eventually, his footsteps halted.

“What’s wrong?”
“You’re not still reading the continuation of the four-five knight in the girl’s face, are you?”

When he teased him about this, unexpectedly, Kido answered with complete seriousness,

“Yes.
“That’s it.
“I’m reading that four-five knight, you know.
“The fact that I instantly read it as the four-five knight was not my imagination.
“For an instant—but in that instant—I had completely read that face.
“It’s absolute.
“That feeling of having completely read the board—that’s it.
“The four-five knight on my board was an illusion, but the four-five knight I completely read in the girl’s face is not an illusion.”

“So, is the girl a shogi goddess?”

“That’s not what I mean.”
“It has nothing to do with shogi.”
“That’s why I’m trying to figure out what that four-five knight means beyond shogi.”

“You mean figuring out what part of the girl matches your four-five knight?”

“That’s right.”
“My four-five knight was an illusion, but in the case of the four-five knight that isn’t an illusion...”
“And that’s related to the girl.”
“It’s just a feeling, but there’s definitely something there. You know?”
“Let’s go back and see.”
“You might sense something there.”

“It’s just your abnormal mental state during the match.”

“No, it’s unrelated to that.”
“If that were the case, there would have to have been similar occurrences before now.”
“At that moment I had completely put the match out of my mind.”
“It wasn’t that the girl’s face reminded me of the match—rather, I think being in the midst of a game allowed me to completely read a certain instantaneous quality about her.”
“It is certain that it was no illusion.”

He was utterly convinced.
Even when reflecting on the girl’s demeanor, Nomura could not perceive anything resembling what Kido described, leaving him with a strong sense of absurdity—yet he found some interest in attempting to uncover the true nature of what Kido had perceived as abnormal psychology during the match.
Even if it ended up being nothing more than withered pampas grass, simply tracing that path would be an interesting diversion.
Certainly, if there had been something—no matter how small that something might have been—wouldn’t that have made it all the more intriguing?
The nerves honed during a match might have been able to perceive the mystical.

When they returned to the mountaintop, as usual there were no human figures in the fields, and the house door remained closed as before; yet the absence of figures in the fields and the farmhouse door staying shut were not particularly peculiar circumstances.
It was merely that mountain farmers might sometimes lock up and go out.
"I really want to go inside."

Kido let out a murmur as if at his wit’s end.

“Did you see something strange?”

“No.”
“There’s nothing particularly unusual.”
“However, the interior of this house is—so to speak—akin to a shogi board.”
“I still need to confront the board itself.”
“We may carry boards in our minds, but a true match can’t be played without facing the physical board.”
“Now that you mention it—when I entered the dirt-floored area, there was a shelf in the lower right corner mostly bare, save for soda bottles clustered in one spot with two or three still containing liquid among them.”
“Those details left an oddly vivid impression, so I think if I stare fixedly at the board—that is, at the house’s interior—some connection might reveal itself.”
“There must be a correlation somewhere.”

“But you saw the four-five knight in the girl’s face when you finished drinking the soda, realized you had no money, and asked to borrow some, didn’t you? Your first instinct should’ve struck when you initially saw her, I’d think.”

“That may be so, but consider how in shogi there are situations during the opening phase where first instincts find no room to operate. It’s only upon reaching the critical point that one’s first instinct truly awakens, wouldn’t you agree?”

Kido left Nomura behind and walked around the house but appeared to have found nothing.
Disappointment showed on his face.
He gave up and began descending the mountain, but upon seeing a farmer working along the path, he seemed unable to restrain himself,

“There’s a girl around twenty at that teahouse, right?”

“That washout?”
“She’s probably twenty-four or twenty-five by now.”

“A dark-skinned girl who reeks of the fields.”

“Ah, her complexion’s awfully dark.
“Field smell, you say?”
“Nonsense!”
“The dark complexion’s just natural skin tone.”
“That washout’s never set foot in the fields.”
“She ran away from her marital home ’cause she hated fieldwork.”

“Can they make a living just from the teahouse?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Are they wealthy?”

“With that tiny patch of a field, they’re barely scraping by.”
“Though, the washout’s Miko.”

“What’s Miko?”

“She’s the woman who dances at the shrine. Does fortune-telling too. My old lady who died three years back did proper readings, but that washout’s just putting on airs.”

“Do they not have any family?”

“The father lives with just the two of them.
“There was a brother too, but that tiny scrap of a field ain’t worth shit, so he went off to town to do somethin’.”
“Since they’re up there isolated on the mountain, folks in the village don’t know much about that household, but word is the father’s been bedridden for four or five days now.”

“Is it a serious illness?”

“Dunno.”

Kido started walking again, lost in thought.
When he reached the bridge, he stopped,

“I’ve come to want to go back and check again, haven’t I?”

“Is this about that sick person?”

“That’s exactly it. If there’s a living patient inside, they should at least respond if you keep knocking on the door.”

“You knocked plenty already, didn’t you?”

“That’s precisely why. Even if it’s a gravely ill person—does there actually exist a living human being inside that locked house?”

“Are you saying he’s dead?”

“Well… perhaps.
“Rather than being dead, hasn’t he been killed?
“The four-five knight—isn’t that it? It just occurred to me now, you see.”

“You planning to break in?
“You’re a complete stranger from another land.”

“Would it be strange if I broke in to repay a twenty-yen debt?
“Prying open the door and breaking in to retrieve a sweater is indeed a disgrace.
“Heh heh heh.”

Apparently, Kido's thoughts had returned to conventional levels, and he solemnly crossed the bridge back to his lodgings. Then the two returned to Tokyo and parted ways.

Nomura, too, had once entertained the thought that such a thing might actually be possible.
If Kido’s hunch was right, it would make for an ideal news story, so he considered visiting the newspaper office to inform the shogi reporter. However, if it turned out to be completely off the mark, it might lead to unfavorable consequences for the prodigy’s future.
With that thought, Nomura decided to put this out of his mind.

★

Nomura, who had gone to deliver his match report, learned that Kido had left the newspaper company after receiving payment and that his whereabouts had remained unknown ever since. His next match was scheduled to take place two weeks later, and while he was aware of this, as the match drew near, the newspaper company appeared somewhat concerned. Nomura nearly voiced his suspicion about that destination—perhaps—but "Wait, wait," he restrained his words.

The secret destinations of young people were numerous in this world. If he were to carelessly blurt out a foolish assumption and expose both his shame and my own, it would be disastrous.

Fortunately, he appeared at the next match.
Given that very boldness which had allowed him to disappear for nearly two hours during a match against a top-ranked player, Nomura thought it no mystery if he were to vanish for ten days or so under ordinary circumstances—indeed, worrying in advance had been foolish.

Nomura had no involvement with this match and thus did not attend, but Kido was said to have been brimming with confidence.
Of course, this opponent was also an A-class powerhouse.

However, in this match, Kido had no advantageous positions whatsoever. By the mid-game, his defeat was already evident; relentlessly pushed back, he was decisively overpowered. After gasping through a desperate struggle against overwhelming odds—drenched in greasy sweat and looking utterly desolate around the same time he had gone for a walk during the previous match—Kido reportedly retreated to a separate room and slept for about an hour. To be fair, even the mere act of pulling a futon over one’s head to feign sleep in such a critical moment might be called abnormal nerves, but on this particular occasion, not a trace of his usual bold composure remained visible. He had ended up utterly exhausted, they said. Shortly after dinner, driven back without gaining any favorable position and having forgone post-game analysis, he rose from his seat. He reportedly threw down his piece, stood up swiftly in silence, and never reappeared—an act perceived as both inexcusably rude and merciless. In any case, the impression of the young man’s immaturity was said to have permeated every aspect deeply.

However, by the next morning, he had returned to his usual self,

“It was an extremely valuable lesson.”
“I’ll reform myself and start anew.”

It is said he solemnly told this to the reporter, and with those words, he disappeared once again.
He vanished from society entirely.

Nomura was told about that about a month later.
It was about three months after that.
As signs of spring began coloring the season, he stayed at the aforementioned hot spring due to work obligations.

He recalled Kido’s disappearance and did not think it had any connection to this hot spring, but he considered that at least on one day during the initial period of vanishing, Kido must have come here once. It was to solve the mystery of the four-five knight he had seen in the teahouse girl’s face. Among gamblers, he was particularly tenacious, and it was thought that his obsession with that mystery was sufficient to bring him back to this place at least once.

Nomura crossed the aforementioned bridge during one of his walks and climbed up to the mountain summit. He then rested at the teahouse. The teahouse appeared as though nothing had happened. The shelf in the teahouse's earthen-floored area—positioned at what was said to be the lower-right corner of a shogi board—stood nearly identical to Kido's description, though now holding about ten new soda bottles instead of empty ones. When someone appeared, it was that same girl. She showed no sign of recognizing him. After finishing his soda just as Kido had done before, Nomura spoke.

“Don’t you remember that fisherman from around early October last year who knitted a sweater as collateral for twenty yen?”

In that very moment, Nomura saw it too. He thought he had seen the same four-five knight that Kido had described. Of course, that was not a four-five knight to Nomura. It also differed somewhat from what Kido might have called "the flawless severity of a swordsman in a life-or-death duel," and it was unlike anything belonging to ordinary people. There was no astonishment. And there was no fear. What overflowed there was anger and an indomitable fighting spirit. In other words, everything was solely a single-minded, intensely focused spirit of severity, lacking the astonishment and fear that ought to have lain beneath. In other words, it could perhaps be called a symbol of unwisdom. Ignorance that knows only the enemy. Ignorance that knows only how to fight. Nomura thought that the reason Kido had seen the four-five knight in that face and become convinced it was a fully read four-five knight was perhaps because he had been defeated by an extremely ignorant fighting spirit. It would be rather impossible to discern the vital four-five knight from this face, but Nomura thought that perhaps one could acknowledge having sensed murderous intent.

“It’s not like I came to get that sweater back.”

Nomura said with a laugh.

“Actually, there’s something I’d like to ask—has that young master in the kimono and hakama come here since then?”

“That guy hasn’t come.”

The girl answered bluntly.

“I think he came…”

“I said he hasn’t come.”
“You got some objection?”
“No way he’d come for that sweater now.”
“Quit it and go home.”
“Go home already.”

“My mistake.”
“How much?”

“Thirty yen with tea charge.”

“A ten-yen price hike, huh.”

“Don’t ever come back.”

It was as if he had been driven out with words as blunt as logs. Though it was said Miko engaged in dignified client-facing trades like fortune-telling, Nomura found himself oddly intrigued by what manner of speech she employed during those occasions.

Nomura was troubled by the gloomy murderous intent overflowing from the girl. If Kido were to visit again and clarify the suspicion that had gripped his first impression—and if that suspicion proved accurate—he wondered what would become of Kido’s fate.

So Nomura immediately visited the branch office of the newspaper that had organized Kido’s match and inquired whether there had been any notable incidents during that period which might explain the circumstances.

“When was that match?”

“The 6th and 7th of October last year.”

“I’ll investigate promptly and respond.”

The next day, a response arrived by telephone.

“The teahouse’s old man passed away from illness the day after the match.”

“Wasn’t it a homicide?”

“No, it was clearly a natural death.”
“There’s a doctor’s certificate.”
“That doctor also serves as a police physician, so there’s no mistake.”
“The daughter reportedly loaded her sick father onto a large handcart and took him to the doctor before dawn.”
“He was still breathing then, but died within five or ten minutes after being carried into the hospital.”
“In other words, the locked house you saw was during their absence.”
“This happened on October 8th.”
“Regarding Kido Rokudan’s case, the teahouse girl is reportedly cohabiting with a young man.”
“We couldn’t determine his full name through any inquiries, but he’s definitely not from this area.”
“We don’t know if he’s connected to Kido Rokudan, but their cohabitation began after the old man’s death—they say he’s a somewhat intellectual-looking city youth of twenty-one or twenty-two.”
“However, nobody knows whether this man played shogi. At any rate, regarding the relationship between the teahouse girl and the young man, this is all I’ve managed to ascertain.”

The mystery of the four-five knight that Kido had read in the girl's face had been wrong. However, at least the fact that someone had died that day had been accurate. Nomura sensed something faintly mystical and found himself wanting to bless Kido.

"The young man cohabiting with the girl might be Kido."

Nomura thought so.
When Kido revisited the teahouse and discovered that while his targeted mystery had missed its mark—only predicting someone's death had proven accurate—to assume he'd take up cohabitation seemed somewhat far-fetched; but life brimmed with surprises.
At any rate,Nomura couldn't settle his mind until he'd laid eyes on that man.
Though unsettled by Miko's brusqueness,Nomura steeled himself—if she hadn't killed her father,I/my life should remain intact—and departed.

When he reached the mountaintop, he conveniently spotted a man working in the field behind.
The man was wearing his sweater and tilling the soil.
Avoiding the front of the teahouse and circling around to the field, when he stood before the man—wasn’t this indeed Kido?
When Kido noticed him, he calmly composed himself and laughed.
It was the thick-skinned resilience befitting a professional gambler.

“I had heard the rumor of your visit yesterday.”
“You’ve figured it out well, haven’t you?”

“In your wife’s case, I also spotted the four-five knight, you know.”
"A sinking feeling that maybe—that’s what I had."
“It’s truly best that you’re in good health.”

“I’ve already renounced worldly life,” he said. “Even were we to meet again, I’d have nothing left to tell you.”

“Though I’d considered a trajectory from four-five knight to cohabitation theoretically possible,” Nomura countered, “I must confess this outcome surprises even me. Somewhat unexpected for a man of letters too, wouldn’t you say?”

“Is that so? It’s not such a grand matter for me. I hallucinated the four-five knight on the board and was crushed in my next match, but there was no illusion in the four-five knight here. Isn’t it only natural that I gave up on the board? It’s only natural to find one’s hometown here. Rather, it’s fated. It’s an entirely natural path.”

“But wasn’t the old man’s death supposed to be from illness?”

“Of course, it was a death from illness. However, transporting a patient down this mountain on a large handcart required binding him tightly to the vehicle. They must have jolted him down roughly with all that clattering. Well, it depends on how much mercy you show. It was dark at night, after all. An absolute death from illness, I assure you.”

“I see. And you’re not afraid?”

“Afraid of what? Life is nothing but terrors. What could possibly frighten me here of all places? Only children return home obediently. All he sees now is a mother’s tenderness. I’m living in my homeland, you understand. Look—Mother has arrived. She worries about her child. Feels compelled to scold him, you see. So I’ll stay silent to avoid her reprimands.”

The pitch-black mother approached to within about six feet of the two and stopped. She simply stared fixedly at Nomura, showing no sign today of launching into her usual blunt verbal bludgeoning. He could perceive the female fortune-teller’s silent authority. Though villagers spoke of her as a mid-twenties divorcee who’d returned home, to the eye she seemed a country girl barely twenty, her youthful innocence lingering over a body of such sturdy build it might have been hewn from timber. Admittedly, her facial features were merely robust; while the swell of breasts at her chest served only to mark her as female, there was something reminiscent of a cement statue.

Since prolonging his stay seemed unnecessary, Nomura finally asked this:
“Among shogi fans, there are not a few who want to know your whereabouts. I imagine they do—but do you have any intention of returning to the shogi world someday?”

“Rather than answer that, my sole wish is for you to forget that I’m lingering on here.”

“I mean to respect that wish of yours, but human hearts are fickle things—best adapt meekly when they shift.”
“One needn’t cling to a single hometown, I say.”

Nomura declared this abruptly and bid farewell.
The fortune-teller girl remained silent to the end.

★

The next day, Nomura received a visit from the fortune-teller girl. When he invited her into the room, it became clear that besides her log-like blunt statements and utterances, she also possessed a somewhat moderate command of language. She even knew how to perform the three-fingered greeting bow.

“You have quite the knowledge of etiquette.
“Do you normally use it?”

Even when teased in this way, she showed no sign of perturbation and nodded calmly,

“Because it’s a family trade passed down through generations, I was trained from a young age.”
“From age three, they drilled both the Miko dances and shrine etiquette into me.”
“Fortune-telling demands dignity, and the Niwasa techniques come down through generations.”
“I’m no common thing, you know.”

“What are these Niwasa techniques?”

“Modern city folks probably wouldn’t believe it even if I told them.”
“The countryside still holds some of what’s right.”
“Modern city folks aren’t even as good as bugs.”

She expounded doctrines similar to those of the dancing deity.
When told to look again，he noticed a resemblance in both physiognomy and build.
Perhaps the most significant point of divergence was that the fortune-teller girl utterly detested farm work.
That day，she came wearing a long-sleeved kimono over her sturdy frame.
She had also gotten a perm.

“Today I’ll be direct—I want you to come to my place.”
“Since that guy of mine and you share no shallow connection through me, I decided to show you how things stand at my place.”
“Observe properly and you won’t go spouting foolishness later.”
“Mountain living means poor hospitality—but mere feeding isn’t hospitality anyway. Since this’ll do you good too—now get ready.”

It possessed what might be called the dignity of mountains, rivers, plants, and trees—or rather, an imposing grandeur.
There was no refusing her.
Nomura promptly made preparations and accompanied her.

One might have wanted to acclaim her as a splendid cult leader, but she held no popularity among the villagers.
The village children threw stones at her.

“Hey.
“Beppin—don’t go steppin’ in cow shit now, ’kay?”

There were also field elders who jeered at her.
The shrine maiden cult leader sneered,

“You insects!”

“There sure are a lot of bugs even in the countryside, aren’t there?”

“The whole of Japan’s crawling with bugs, I tell you.”

She remained utterly unperturbed.

When they came to the mountain teahouse, the front teahouse was shuttered and appeared closed as scheduled for receiving guests. When they entered through the back entrance, there was only a single room with tatami mats—no, straw mats laid out. Kido was tightly bound with coarse rope to the pillar in the room.

“I’m back.”

The shrine maiden cult leader slapped Kido on the forehead as a homecoming greeting,

“Now, you come over here.”
“I won’t say I’ll boil and eat you.”
“Nothin’.”
“This is normal, you know.”
“Not every day, but often enough.”
“Yesterday was rough.”
“After you left.”
“Whacked him good with firewood.”
“Don’t mark up his face though.”
“Cause he blabbed nonsense to you.”
“I see through everything.”
“All comes through these ears.”
“It’s written plain on your faces—you lot just can’t read it.”
“You sit there and watch.”

After seating Nomura in his designated spot, the shrine maiden cult leader stood before Kido.

“There. There. There.
“There!”

She placed her hand on Kido’s neck and violently banged his head against the pillar like a doll’s.

“There!”
“There. There.”

Next came open-handed strikes to both cheeks from left and right.
Kido kept his eyes closed, clenched his teeth, and only occasionally let out a moan.

“Open your eyes and look at me.”
“Look at my eyes.”
“Your soul is rotten.”
“Your soul still hasn’t escaped from the shogi player’s quagmire.”
“Humans are children of nature.”
“You’re no different from pumpkins or daikon radishes.”
“There’s nothing noble about you at all.”
“Still don’t get it?”
“You brat!”

She pressed his chin lightly and made his head thud against the pillar.
Indeed, perhaps it was my imagination, but it didn’t feel particularly rough.
However, she was undeniably superhumanly strong.
Even a light push that made the back of his head thud against something looked painful enough, yet it had undeniably begun to take on an affectionate quality—a strange phenomenon.
Nomura marveled whether this was motherly affection—there was certainly an undeniably nostalgic air about it.
The shrine maiden cult leader untied Kido’s restraints and,

“You’re old comrades.”
“Take your time and talk it over.”
“Don’t hold back on my account.”
“Lying’s even worse.”
“Speaking your minds freely’s what matters most.”
“In the meantime, I’ll boil some potatoes for you.”

She descended to the dirt-floored area and began clattering about.

It felt utterly natural, carrying an air of someone who’d reached life’s profound depths.

“You’ve done well.”
“I must say, I underestimated you.”
“I’m starting to feel like I’m meeting my ancestor Granny too.”

Nomura felt like taking his hat off.

“Absolutely.”
“Contrary to first impressions and her imposing appearance, she actually possesses neither intimidation nor supernatural qualities.”
“Even her binding her sick father to a large handcart with coarse rope and roughly dragging him clattering and bumping down the slope—showing rough mercy in her brutality—it all amounts to mere exercise.”
“For example, the activity of ants carrying objects.”
“And the notion that it’s better for there to be no sick person—this too is merely a mental exercise, akin to a queen bee killing male bees.”
“There is no sin there, but there is a shadow.”
“If humans were to observe the queen bee’s murderous activity, they would perceive shadows there as well.”
“I saw that shadow.”
“That was the 4-5 Knight.”
“That I didn’t mistake this for the 4-5 Knight is at least my point of pride.”
“I trust you can perceive that I find more truth in this life than in life at the board.”
“Of course, from her perspective, the truth I’ve found still amounts to nothing—this too is only natural, I suppose.”

“You keep saying ‘her’ this and ‘her’ that—is that really how you should be talking?”

“That’s perfectly acceptable.”
“The phrasing means nothing.”
“It’s only natural I can only use expressions befitting myself.”

“So in essence, she’s your wife then?”

“The physical dimension means little.”
“While she’s physically my wife, to me she’s more a mother—a grandmother.”
“A mother, a wife, and still a virgin.”

“But physically speaking, you’re clearly the husband.”
“I know I’m being repetitive, but spell it out plainly.”
“I’m just a city bug—if you don’t make things crystal clear, I’ll lose my way.”

“On that point—yes, I am unequivocally the husband.”
“However, physical relationships have no connection to spiritual ones.”

“Is that how it is?”

“That’s how it is.”

“When it comes to her alone, you see.
“I’ve started feeling that way too, you see.”
“I’ve really started feeling like I’m meeting my ancestor Granny, you see.”
“But really, there are some strange worlds out there.”
“Even that long-sleeved kimono has started looking like ancestor Granny’s ceremonial robes—isn’t that strange?”

“You truly do have excellent understanding.”

At that moment, the old Granny in the long-sleeved kimono brought over steamed potatoes.
She was already quick to understand.
Today was a day for entertaining guests.
She intended to show kindness even to city vermin as the husband’s former comrades.

“Please have plenty.”

“Mmm, this is delicious!”

Nomura felt as though a weight had lifted from his chest.
He felt liberated, as though he had forgotten what restraint even was.
The potatoes were slightly spoiled, yet his appetite had strangely not diminished in the least.

However, this was no place to return to again.

He thought this while eating the potatoes.
The life of vermin held no particular charm, but neither did cohabiting with ancestor Granny seem like any better existence.

“You seem to have found your place, but I won’t be visiting you again, I tell you.”

With that, Nomura emphatically bid his farewell.
It was because he had been overcome by a strange anxiety that compelled him to emphasize his farewell.