Uchouten Kazoku Chapter 1

In the Masugata Court Apartments, to the north of the Demachi shopping arcade, there lived a retired tengu.

He rarely left his apartment. The sole sustenance by which he maintained his ancient existence was a ghastly gruel boiled with whatever happened to be available at the shopping district. He was frightfully old, and his abhorrence of baths was such that the texture of his skin was not so different from that of dried squid, yet were one to rub that desiccated flesh, one would be astonished at the remarkable absence of dirt and detritus. His ego soared high into the autumn sky, but for all his boastfulness there was not a single thing he was capable of accomplishing on his own. Once upon a time, he had possessed powerful magicks and toyed with the fate of the country, but those days were far behind him, his powers long since vanished. His libido was still going strong, but in that capacity, too, his prowess had dried up long ago. Now he sat, scowling and drinking port wine, and as he drank, he would talk about the chaotic, long-ago wars of the foolish humans. Droning on about the Bakumatsu, he would veer off into the Ōnin War, and as he started talking about the Ōnin War, he would drift into the fall of the Heike, and as he began to explain the fall of the Heike you would find yourself right back in the Bakumatsu: in short, there was no rhyme or reason to his tales. He resembled a fossil more than a living, breathing organism. In fact many people fervently hoped that he really would turn into a rock, and that sooner rather than later.

Everyone called him Master Akadama, but I also called him my mentor.

Tanuki in Kyōto learn many things: their three R's; the skills of transformation; the craft of arguing; the proper way to sweet-talk a young tanuki maiden. They learn these things from the tengu. As there are many tengu in Kyōto, so too are there many schools of thought. The most prestigious of these groups is the Kurama Group up on Mount Kurama, known far and wide as a gathering for the elite. Master Akadama of Nyoigatake used to be just as acclaimed, and in fact he was once known rather ostentatiously as "Yakushibō of Nyoigatake".

Long ago, Master Akadama would gather tanuki and give lectures in a borrowed college classroom in the corner of a building. He would stand at the front of the room under the dingy lights facing the students who crowded the tiered seats, pontificating to his heart's content, his haughty bearing wholly befitting of a tengu. The students dared not protest, for in those days the Master still possessed true majesty. Was he majestic because he put on airs, or did he put on airs because he was majestic? Only one who could quash such a pointless quibbles without any discussion at all could be considered truly majestic.

The Master always wore an immaculately pressed suit, and as he spoke he would glare out the windows with great intensity, as if he were trying to bore holes in the trees outside with his gaze. The sight left quite an impression on me. I despise you all, he said, on many occasions. But not just you. I despise all who are not me.

The Master soared through the sky, stirred up whirlwinds when the mood took him, carried away any girl who took his fancy, and rained contempt over the world at large. Heady days for him, they were. Who could ever have imagined that such a tengu would fall so low as to be reduced to living in a cramped apartment in the rear of the shopping district?

For generations, every tanuki born into our clan has gone on to receive instruction from Master Akadama, and I, being no exception, dutifully entered his school when the time came. Thinking back, Master Akadama was constantly scolding me. Why? Well, if I had to say, I suppose it was because I never bent my talents for the good of my clan. I was willful, always aiming to walk my own path, be my own tanuki.

Master Akadama was a solitary being, but he hated it when others sought to strike out on their own. But back then, I was determined to be like him.

Of course, that was a long time ago.

That day, on my way to visit Master Akadama's apartment, I stopped at the Demachi shopping arcade. The street was packed with shoppers, and along with them came the stench of humans. I purchased Akadama port wine, toilet paper, Q-tips, and a bento box, among other sundries, then headed north up a little alley. It was late in the afternoon on this fine summer day; the Gion Festival had already come and gone, and July was nearing its end.

I had taken the form of a bubbly high school girl. Transformation was the one thing I had always been good at, and people were always taking me to task for constantly changing my shape. These days, tanuki aren't as adept at transforming as we once were, and changing shape whenever you please is for some odd reason frowned upon. Utter tosh, I say. We tanuki are the sole beings with the ability to transform; why shouldn't we be free to enjoy using our powers wherever and whenever we please?

I had specifically taken on this form in order to please the Master, sure that the sight of a pretty young damsel delivering his groceries would put him in a good mood. But when I entered his apartment, I received a rather hotter reception than I had wagered on.

"You blithering idiot, stop that tomfoolery at once!"

The Master sat in his futon in the middle of the 4½-tatami room, and hurled whatever happened to be within reach at me: hanging scrolls, lucky cats, tea utensils, vases, and even Shigaraki-ware tanuki statues, all of which were covered in a fine layer of dust.

I returned fire from the kitchen with rolls of toilet paper. "What do you mean blithering, you smelly old coot? You spend every day just sitting in this room withering away, and here I was, trying to be a breath of fresh air in the dull grey life of my poor old Master!"

The Master spat on the tatami mat. "I'll thank you to remove your 'refreshing' furry hindquarters from my sight!"

"Don't you appreciate the artistic perfection of my transformation? Attend, if you will, to the impeccable curve of the bosom, the narrowness of the waist, to say nothing of the many other fine details of this vivacious young…"

"Enough, enough! I'm about to be sick."

"Scold me all you want, but no amount of misplaced anger can deny the inner stirrings of your heart…"

"You think that a transformation of your mediocre talent could ever hope to fluster me? Pah, don't give yourself airs!"

Here the Master fell silent, gingerly rubbing his lower back.

The rays of the setting sun penetrated into the narrow room through the window, illuminating vast fields of dust dancing in the sunlight. Surrounded by piles of rubbish on all four sides, the age-worn Master sat cross-legged on his futon, looking for all the world like a king who has lost his kingdom.

I had been bringing groceries to the Master for over six months now, unable to look on as he slurped up that nauseating gruel, which was hardly fit to feed a stray dog. But the selfishness of the Master knew no bounds, only increasing the hardships of my noble endeavor. The Master would not touch any food that he did not like, so he picked out only the parts he liked out of the bento box, leaving the rest behind. He loved mandarin oranges, but only if I peeled them for him, and if I did not he would throw a tantrum. He would only deign to drink coffee that was ground from Blue Mountain beans and brewed in front of him, grumbling that anything else was "not coffee", and if he didn't have any coffee for more than three days he would throw a tantrum. Whenever he was in the midst of one of his incessant tantrums, the only thing he would allow to pass his lips was Akadama port wine. Truly, an enfant terrible in the flesh.

"Have you seen Benten of late?" he asked gruffly.

"No, I haven't seen her in some time."

"It's been a long time, since she was last here. Neither hide nor feather I've heard of her, for…"

As impotent as the Master was, he cared much for the wellbeing of Benten. She was all he would talk about each time I saw him.

"I doubt she would want to return to a place like this," I remarked.

The Master's only reply was a tremendous fart, and even he looked surprised at the sound.

Benten is neither tengu nor tanuki, but only a human. In spite of that, her beauty is incomparable, beyond words, and so I cannot describe it here.

In her younger days, Benten's human name was Suzuki Satomi, and though she showed tengu-esque flashes of arrogance and ill-humor, she had been just another beautiful human girl living in the countryside.

It was Master Akadama who, still in his glory days, had been flying over Lake Biwa on his way to Chikubushima to pass on New Year's greetings when he spotted Benten trudging aimlessly on the shore, snatched her up, and whisked her back to Kyōto. In a word, kidnapping. Master Akadama spared no effort in teaching the girl the ways of the tengu, and for her part Benten took in his lessons voraciously, progressing in leaps and bounds on her way toward becoming a tengu. She progressed so swiftly, in fact, that in the end she used Master Akadama as a springboard on her way up, one sharp kick with her elegant legs sending him hurtling groundwards.

Today, nothing remains of the Benten of old. Though still human, she is more tengu-like than tengu themselves. Leaving Master Akadama to shrivel into a shadow of his former self, she lives a profligate existence, splitting her time between Kyōto, Ōsaka, and Kōbe as she pleases. Her youthful, pouting, cotton candy features have melted into a cold, beautiful countenance. The girl who walked aimlessly on the lakeshore is no more—in her place is a woman grown, and merciless. Most fearsome of all is her unpredictability: find yourself unfortunate enough to be in her way, and she will crush you.

Rebuffing the Master's demands for Akadama port wine, I forced him to finish his bento.

"Today is Friday," he said, making a face as he chewed. "Benten is with the Friday Fellows, of that I am certain."

The mere mention of the Friday Fellows made my hair stand on end. Feeling my whole body quivering, I set myself to work tidying the loose odds and ends strewn around the Master's room.

"I'm sure she's enjoying herself."

"What in blazes could possibly be enjoyable about fooling around with a bunch of humans?"

"Benten is human too. Don't tell me you've forgotten?"

"Just think of her, frittering her nights away. If I took my eyes off her for a moment, she'd abandon the path of wickedness altogether, I know it. Impossible woman!"

"Shouldn't abandoning the path of wickedness be a good thing?"

"Silence!" the Master screeched, rice grains spraying across the room. He tossed aside the remains of the bento. "Disgusting stuff, how can anyone stomach this slop!"

He had finished about half the box, which I took to mean that it had been moderately pleasing to his palate. I handed him the bottle of port, which he sipped at his leisure.

Lowering myself down to the floor in front of him, I took a deep breath. Outside the window, the light was fading. I had taken the liberty of clearing a path to the window and throwing it open, letting a gentle evening breeze flow in.

"The breeze isn't so bad in here," I commented.

The lights on the ceiling flickered for a moment. A single moth lit on the edge of the teacup the Master was drinking his wine from, basking in the electric light and sluggishly moving its wings.

"How wretched it is, that my only visitors are insects and you!"

"A word of thanks would be most welcome."

"And who requested your presence, pray tell?" The Master reclined on the floor. "You were always a nuisance of a student. What would possess you to believe that I would be pleased to see you, after finally having rid myself of your mewling mug? Mercy, I've not the patience to scold you any further."

"Well, everyone knows teachers love a rebel."

"I've never heard such nonsense, you reprobate!"

I lit up a smoke, while the Master rummaged through a black lacquered cabinet and produced a hookah. We puffed away in silence, save for the soft burbling sound of the Master's pipe.

"If you have so much time on your hands you might as well make yourself useful," the Master said, quite unreasonably. "Find Benten and bring her here."

"No, thank you. She's not liable to come no matter what I say to her."

"Imagine her, making a hussy of herself with the Friday Fellows. I must give her a lecture."

"I'm not going. I hate them both, Lady Benten and the Friday Fellows!"

"While you're out, buy some Q-tips. Itchy ears put me in a foul mood, and being in a foul mood makes me blow up whirlwinds."

"I've put new Q-tips by the sink. How many times do I have to tell you I'm not going, you senile coot? Clean your ears like a good boy, and go to sleep!"

"Hold a moment. I shall write a letter."

We seemed to be having two completely separate conversations.The Master sat at a low writing desk buried in the rubbish and meticulously smoothed out a wrinkled piece of paper, then painstakingly began to write.

"Benten, Benten," he muttered, as if he was counting beans. I let out a conspicuous sigh.

Master Akadama was waiting for Benten's return, because he was madly in love with her.

Sadly, no matter how you looked at it, this old-timer's love was doomed to fail. There had been a time, once, where he had cut a shining figure and achieved glory on the battlefield of love, but those days were no more than a distant memory, and each passing day it looked more and more likely that he would have to lay down his arms for good. The fact that he was still fighting was in itself near miraculous.

The Master finished writing the letter and thrust it at me.

"This letter must be delivered to her tonight. Swear you will fulfill this duty, on your sacred honor."

I was tempted to beg off on my honor, scurry back to the Tadasu Forest, and crawl back into my soft bed, but I felt a great sense of obligation to the tengu arrogantly lounging on the floor in front of me, and overcome by the weight of that obligation I prostrated myself on the tatami.

"I, Shimogamo Yasaburō, swear on my honor."

I had no illusions that my intervention would somehow turn the tide in this already losing battle, but nevertheless I steeled myself to play the role of Cupid, a transformation in which I felt out of my depth. Still, an idea had formed in my mind, and on my way out I swiped a bow and arrow from the mountains of garbage cluttering the room. Might as well have the tools of the trade, I thought to myself, inwardly smiling.

In Higashiyama Marutchō, in the neighborhood to the west of the Kumano Shrine, there is a fenced-off, ancient cedar tree called the Demon's Perch. Since ages past, tengu have used its branches as a convenient place to rest, hence its moniker. Though rooftops have since supplanted trees in terms of popularity, for many tengu in Kyōto the Demon's Perch remains a trendy spot to rest, have coffee breaks, and even exchange sweet nothings with their lady companions. Master Akadama was no exception, and could often be seen resting his talons there. Prior to his banishment to Demachiyanagi, he had maintained his domain in Nyoigatake, and each time he made the journey into town, he would stop periodically to rest, flying from Mount Yoshida to the Kyōto University clock tower to the Demon's Perch.

Once, there was a great earthquake to the west.

As an adherent of the path of wickedness, Master Akadama considered it his duty to attend to the site of the disaster, though he had not caused it, and cackle at the misfortune of the humans there. The lecture that day was cancelled in order for him to make the journey.

When I heard about the Master's trip, I was enraged.

I was fully aware of how little regard tengu had for humans; after all, tanuki fared just as ill in their dealings with tengu. But riding on the heels of a disaster that had just occurred and mocking the humans' misfortune seemed to me vulgar and unseemly. In my youthful eyes, carrying out such sanctimonious cruelty in the name of preserving some sort of tengu reputation was, on the contrary, a stain on the honor of both tengu and the Master himself.

Enter Benten.

At the time, she was steadily gathering the power of the tengu, seeking to shed her human trappings and transfigure herself into a tengu. I am not ashamed to admit that I had fallen head over heels for her. When I shared my indignance at Master Akadama with her, she quickly agreed and whispered in my ear that we should teach him a lesson, together. I was inspired. The word together particularly took my fancy.

It was Benten's idea for me to transform into a copy of the Devil's Perch, and the ruse came off flawlessly. The Master was exhausted after his long journey, and he circled the skies over Kyōto, confounded as to which Demon's Perch was the real one. Unable to make up his mind, Yakushibō of Nyoigatake crashed to earth at last, tearing a great hole in the roof of a house exactly midway between the two trees.

After that, the Master's downfall was swift, like the fall of a cherry blossom.

Having injured his back in the crash landing, the Master became almost entirely unable to fly and spent most of his time sleeping. His already waning magick disappeared entirely. Suffering a crushing defeat in that year's tengu capture-the-flag tournament, his turf on Nyoigatake was seized by the Kurama tengu, and he stepped down from his tanuki lectures, eventually holing up in Demachiyanagi.

While the Master was undergoing this extraordinary collapse, his plunge in fortunes seemed to have tipped the scale in Benten's favor, and her power grew. She was in unusually high spirits, almost as if she had been freed from the shackles of the Master, and instead of staying at his side, she roamed the skies as she pleased. It was plain to see that I had been used, but with respect to that I have nothing more to say.

I made one last clumsy plea to her: "What's wrong with me being a tanuki?"

She simply replied, "Well, I am a human."

And so ended my first love.

Tanuki and tengu, both humiliated by a human. Overcome by shame and embarrassment, I dared not show my face in front of the Master, and effectively expelled myself from his tutelage.

It was several years before things cooled down and I was able to visit the Master once more. And that is the sordid history of how I came to devote myself to the lord of this grubby apartment.

I boarded a bus at the Kawaramachi Imadegawa intersection. It had been a long time since I rode a bus, but it was wonderful watching the town fly by in the night. As the bus continued south past Oike Street, blazing lights streamed by giddily on both sides.

Inside the bus, I sat illicitly reading Master Akadama's letter. There was something irreproachable about someone who had the courage to pour his heart out onto paper and ink. But as my eyes scanned the page, I soon realized that this was more akin to a missive written by a lovelorn high schooler, dripping with syrupy platitudes and bereft of restraint, and the embarrassment I felt almost kept me from reading it to the end.

I was indignant.

What had happened to the Master Akadama we had all so admired? Had the sweetness of this overripe infatuation addled him so, he had thrown everything including his tengu pride down the drain? In the letter he had specified the Minami-za as the location for his rendezvous with Benten, but how exactly did he plan to extricate himself from that musty futon and make it all the way to the theater?

I got off the bus at Shijō Kawaramachi, still in a huff, and walked through the crowded avenue toward the Kamo River. For some reason, many strange men were calling out to me, which I thought was odd until I remembered I was in the form of a high school girl.

I had heard that the Friday Fellows, a group whose very name is loathsome to speak, was holding court on one of the many terraces that overlook the Kamo River during the summertime. I crossed the Great Kamo Bridge and looked up at the glittering Minami-za theater rising high into the night sky, thankful for the sporadic relief of the night breeze in the sticky summer heat. The lanterns decorating the beer garden on the roof of the building glowed merrily, like ripe red fruits waiting to be plucked.

For a moment I pondered how best to proceed, but since I had already obtained the bow, I decided that I might as well catch a glimpse of Benten's face if only from afar.

From the bridge I descended to the bank of the river and walked north. On the other side I could see many terraces, all dotted with the orange pinprick glow of lanterns. The farther I walked from the bridge, the more distant the noise of the crowds became, leaving only the lights over the murky water. Banquet upon banquet was taking place all along the opposite side of the river; it looked like a scene from a dream, and all the orange-lit revelers with cups in hand merely players.

Only on a single terrace was the atmosphere subdued and quiet. There the scene resembled a depiction of the Seven Gods of Fortune: six men guffawing heartily, and among them a single woman, her face cold as ice—Benten.

These were the Friday Fellows, and tonight they were in high spirits: a genial introduction to a group of such ill repute.

The secret society known as the Friday Fellows was established in the Taishō period. They would meet once each month at various establishments around Gion and Pontochō to eat, drink, and be merry, and always on a Friday, a practice from which their name originated. The membership consisted of college professors, authors, men of middling wealth, and others of the ilk, and though the individual members might change, their number was always seven.

Each member of the club was named after one of the Seven Gods of Fortune. Benten, as the only woman in the group, seemed to bask in her role. Everyone, myself and the Master included, called her Benten, but in fact that name had been given to her on her accession to the Friday Fellows. The previous Benten had been a burly, bearded man, so in that sense the current Benten was probably more suited for the role.

For all their secrecy, there was no indication that the Friday Fellows were scheming to bring about strife and upheaval, and by all appearances they seemed to be an altogether peaceful confederation of like-minded acquaintances. That was all well and good, but there was one problem.

At the end of each year, the Friday Fellows host a party, and at this party they perform an act so foul, so abominable as to incur the everlasting hatred of all tanuki-kind.

Each year, the Friday Fellows partake in tanuki stew.

The thought of it makes me want to scream.

It is practically unfathomable. In this civilized day and age, how could anyone still excuse the eating of a tanuki? Utterly barbaric. If you are so desperate to proclaim your individuality to all the world, there are many other fantastic creatures to choose from: a toad, for instance, or a black-crowned night heron, or one of the monkeys prancing around Yase, or even a kamenoko scrubbing brush. I would be quite interested in hearing why they chose to eat tanuki.

The Kamo River rushed by before me, lights sparkling and bouncing off its surface.

I tied the Master's letter to an arrow and took aim at the Friday Fellows. Finding my sprightly bosom a hindrance, I shrank it in short order. Though I wore neither helmet nor armor, in my mind's eye I imagined myself as a modern-day Nasu no Yoichi. People walked along the opposite bank beneath the raised platforms, laughing and chattering, but I was supremely confident that my arrow would find its intended mark.

On the terrace Benten suddenly stood up. She was wearing what appeared to be a white business suit, though it was hard for me to tell precisely. She walked around the terrace with a gaudy tasseled folding fan, the jet black frame gleaming as she waved it around and around through the air. It looked as though she was performing some sort of dance step. This fan, painted with depictions of Fūjin and Raijin, the gods of wind and thunder; it had been given to her by Master Akadama as a "sign of his love", and she often boasted to me of it. The fact that the Master had given such a prized possession to Benten only diminished my opinion of him.

Fixing my gaze on Benten, a tantalizing thought occurred to me: I could replicate Nasu no Yoichi's famed feat in The Tale of the Heike, and hit the fan with my arrow. It was because of things like this that my eldest brother was always scolding me and Master Akadama was always furious at me, but once an idea had seized my imagination there was no stopping it.

Before I could get cold feet, I stepped up and loosed my shot.

The shaft traced a gentle arc through the air and pierced the fan in Benten's hand, just as I had planned. The men on the terrace shouted and rose to their feet. From my vantage on the other side of the river, I could hardly believe what I had just done, and it felt more like I was watching a play. As I stood there dazedly appreciating the pandemonium I had unleashed, Benten stepped to the edge of the terrace and put her hand on the guardrail, looking squarely at me. A sweet smile was playing on her lips. I felt a chill in the pit of my stomach.

The other members of the Friday Fellows ran up beside Benten, their eyes scanning for the culprit. I scampered along the riverbank and made my escape, forgetting, in my haste, to re-inflate my bosom.

Though I was the cause of all this trouble, my conscience felt oddly clean, and a sense of elation welled up inside me as I trotted down Shijō Avenue.

I decided to lay low at the Scarlet Pane, until my emotions had settled down. The Scarlet Pane is a favorite haunt of my fellow tanuki located underground near Sanjō Teramachi. During the day it is a café, and at night it operates as a bar.

Most of the shops on Teramachi Street were already shuttered, and only a smattering of people wandered up and down the deserted path. Occasionally the silence was shattered by the needlessly loud exclamation of a drunkard.

The entrance to the Scarlet Pane was through a narrow staircase whose walls were papered and repapered with a thick layer of flyers. As I descended, strange music seemed to reverberate up through the bowels of the earth, like I was descending into the depths of hell. That wasn't just a figment of my imagination; the Scarlet Pane was endlessly wide and vast, and no one was quite sure what lay at its innermost reaches. It had played host to many a large gathering, but supposedly no matter how many guests poured into its interior, there were always more seats waiting to be filled. The further you delved into its recesses the closer the walls became, until at last it was no more than a dim, narrow corridor filled with red velvet chairs and wooden tables, and every so often a wood-burning stove. Here it was always winter, and the corridor lead directly to the underworld—at least, that's how the story went.

At this hour, the Scarlet Pane had switched over from its respectable daytime guise into an after-hours speakeasy. As I approached the counter, the bartender shot an apprehensive gaze at me.

"Don't worry, it's me," I said, twitching my nose.

"That you, Yasaburō?" the bartender scowled. "Would you cut it out with that form already?"

"What's wrong with taking whatever form I like?"

"Transformation ain't a thing you should treat so lightly," the bartender said, looking at me sternly and twirling his loach-like whiskers. "At the very least you should take on a more appropriate form for a bar. Keep me from getting all confused."

Letting his lecture wash over me, I ordered a Faux Denki Bran. Nursing my drink, I listened to the music and wondered, chin on palm, whether Benten had read the Master's letter. It was impossible to imagine Benten running off to a rendezvous, heart aflutter, just because some doddering old tengu had taken the time to write a heartfelt letter. If anything, the letter had been so sickening it was more likely to repel her from coming anywhere near the proposed meeting place. With so many checkered eons of experience under his belt, surely the Master should have realized this obvious fact, yet here we were. It truly was a sorry, shameful state of affairs.

As I sat there lost in thought, I heard someone say, "I'll have an akawari." At the same time, an ice-cold hand gripped the back of my neck. I immediately recoiled and turned to look.

Benten was sitting beside me.

Chapter end