Nine to eleven

by 芥川龍之介

At that moment, the disciple's form resembled a rolling sake barrel. His limbs were grotesquely twisted, and only his neck could move. The blood throughout his body was halted in circulation by the chains, and both his face and torso were tinged with red. However, Ryo-shu paid no mind to this state, observing the disciple's sake barrel-like body from various angles and painting several similar pictures. During this time, it goes without saying how much the disciple was suffering.

If nothing had happened, this suffering would have continued even further. Whether it should be called luck or misfortune, after a while, something black and oily began to flow out from the shadow of a jar in the corner of the room, writhing thinly. At first, it was sticky and moved slowly, but gradually it began to flow smoothly, eventually reaching the tip of the disciple's nose while shining. The disciple involuntarily gasped and shouted, "A snake— a snake." In that moment, it was no wonder he felt a terror that froze the blood in his veins. The snake was precisely about to touch its cold tongue to the flesh of his neck that was caught in the chains. Even the calmest Ryo-shu must have been startled by this unexpected event. He hurriedly threw down his brush, bent down, and quickly grabbed the snake's tail, suspending it upside down. Although the snake was hanging, it raised its head and tried to coil around its own body, but it could not reach Ryo-shu's hand at all.

"Damn it, I've ruined a stroke." Ryo-shu muttered with annoyance and tossed the snake into the jar in the corner of the room. Then, he unfastened the chains that were on the disciple's body, but he did not say a single kind word. Perhaps he was more regretful about failing to paint than about the disciple being bitten by the snake. Later, I heard that this snake was something Ryo-shu had deliberately kept to capture its likeness.

After hearing this much, you might have gained a little understanding of Ryoushu's crazy and eerie obsession. However, there was one more thing; this time, a disciple who was still around thirteen or fourteen years old encountered a terrifying experience that threatened his life, also in the shadow of the hellish folding screen. This disciple was naturally pale-skinned and looked like a girl, but one night, he was casually called to his master's room. There, Ryoushu was under the light of a lantern, holding some kind of fishy meat in his palm, raising an unfamiliar bird. Its size seemed to be about that of an ordinary cat. With feathers protruding on both sides like ears and large round eyes colored like amber, it looked somewhat like a cat.

Originally, the man named Ryoushu hated having anyone meddle in what he was doing. Just like the snake from earlier, he had never informed his disciples about what was in his room. On his desk, there were skulls, silver bowls, and lacquered high dishes lined up, and depending on the painting he was working on at the time, unexpected items would sometimes appear. However, it seemed that no one knew where he usually kept such items. The rumor that Ryoushu was receiving the divine aid of the Great God of Fortune and Virtue might indeed have some truth to it.

So the disciple thought that the strange bird on the desk was also necessary for painting the hellish folding screen, and respectfully asked his master, "Is there something you need?" However, Ryoushu, as if he couldn't hear it at all, licked his red lips and said, "How about it? It seems to be quite accustomed." while nodding towards the bird.

"What is this? I have never seen anything like it before," the disciple said, staring uneasily at the bird that resembled a cat with ears. Yoshihide replied in his usual mocking tone, "What, you've never seen it? That's the problem with people raised in the city. This is a bird called an ear rabbit that a hunter from Kurama gave me a couple of days ago. It's not often you find one this tame."

As he said this, Yoshihide slowly raised his hand and gently stroked the fur on the back of the ear rabbit, which had just finished eating. At that moment, the bird suddenly let out a sharp, short cry, jumped off the desk, and lunged at the disciple's face with its claws extended. If the disciple hadn't hastily raised his sleeve to shield his face, he surely would have sustained one or two scratches. "Ah!" he shouted, waving his sleeve to try to fend it off, but the ear rabbit charged again, snapping its beak. Forgetting his master, the disciple stood to block it, then sat to escape, darting around the small room in a panic. The strange bird matched his movements, flying high and low, aiming for his eyes whenever it had the chance. Each time, the sound of its powerful wings echoed, and the scents of fallen leaves, splashing waterfall water, or something like rotten monkey wine wafted through the air, increasing the sense of unease. The disciple recounted that the dim light of the oil lamp felt like hazy moonlight, and he felt as if his master's room was a valley sealed off by the eerie energy of a distant mountain.

What the disciple feared was not only being attacked by the earwood rabbit. Rather, what was even more hair-raising was the sight of his master, Yoshihide, calmly observing the commotion while slowly unfolding a piece of paper and licking his brush. He was depicting the scene of a boy, resembling a girl, being tormented by a grotesque bird in a terrifyingly realistic manner. The moment the disciple caught sight of that scene, he was struck by an indescribable fear and couldn't help but think that he might even be killed by his master.

In fact, it cannot be said that there is no possibility of being killed by his master at all. That night, the reason his master had deliberately called him over might have been to incite the earwood rabbit and to depict the scene of the disciple running away. As soon as the disciple caught a glimpse of his master's face, he hid his head with both sleeves and let out a scream that he couldn't even understand himself, shrinking down to the hem of the door in the corner of the room. At that moment, Yoshihide also let out a voice as if startled by something and showed signs of standing up, but the sound of the earwood rabbit's wings grew increasingly intense, and the sounds of objects falling and tearing echoed painfully in his ears.

The disciple was startled twice, raised his hidden head, and looked around the room. Before he knew it, the room had darkened, and his master's voice calling the disciples echoed with irritation.

Eventually, one of the disciples answered from afar and hurried over while holding up a light. In the sooty glow, it became clear that the lantern had fallen, and both the floor and tatami were covered in oil. The ear rabbit from earlier was struggling, flapping one of its wings in distress as it rolled around. Ryo-shu sat up halfway across the desk, mumbling something with a dazed expression. — It was not surprising. A pitch-black snake was tightly coiled around the ear rabbit's body, from its neck to one wing. Perhaps, when the disciple had shrunk back, they knocked over a jar that was there, causing the snake inside to crawl out, and the ear rabbit had tried to grab it, leading to this commotion. The two disciples exchanged glances and stared blankly at this strange scene for a while, but eventually bowed silently to their master and quietly withdrew from the room. What happened to the snake and the ear rabbit afterward was unknown to anyone. —

There were several other such incidents. I previously omitted to mention that the order to paint the hellish folding screen came at the beginning of autumn. Since then, until the end of winter, Ryo-shu's disciples were constantly threatened by their master's suspicious behavior. However, by the end of that winter, it seemed Ryo-shu had not found freedom in the folding screen painting, and his demeanor became darker than before, with his words growing rougher. At the same time, the painting of the folding screen remained at about eighty percent completion, showing no signs of progress. In fact, there were times when it felt as if he might even erase parts he had already painted.

On the other hand, no one understood what was preventing the folding screen from being completed. Moreover, no one attempted to comprehend it. The disciples, having learned from the previous incident, felt as if they were in the same cage as a tiger and a wolf, and from then on, they made an effort to stay as far away from their master as possible.