Chapter 7 — Uchōten Kazoku (Part 1)

While I was slumped on the floor of that fake soba restaurant, caught in a trap by Kinkaku and Ginkaku, my little brother was slumped on the floor of a warehouse.

How did he end up being locked in there?

Let us return to noon that day, back when I was still puttering around the neighborhood of Shijō Kawaramachi.

Yashirō was inside the Faux Denki Bran distillery in Shōgoin Rengezō-chō, staring out the window. Looking down through the smudged windowpane on the third floor, he could see the Ebisugawa Dam silently sparkling in the soft rays of light, as well as the offices of the Kyōto Municipal Waterworks Bureau protruding into the canal like a peninsula. On the other side of the canal, the trees lining Reisen Street had been stripped bare by winter, and looked terribly lonely.

Kinkaku and Ginkaku were lounging around on a black leather sofa, patting their bellies and smoking unpleasant-smelling cigars.

“Get the old switchboards in auxiliary warehouse #1 boxed up and squared away!” they ordered him.

In his head he thought to himself, Oh brother, here they go again.

Faux Denki Bran has undergone a number of refinements since the Taishō period, when it was first produced by employees of the Kyōto Central Telephone Bureau,. Each change in the recipe produces a plethora of now unneeded switchboards and teardrop flasks and vacuum tubes and specialized refrigeration equipment to deal with. The secret manufacturing process of Faux Denki Bran is not allowed to leave the premises, so the disposal of all this equipment would take a great deal of time and effort. Consequently, it has become somewhat of a custom to stuff every single one of these newly downsized bits and bobs into auxiliary warehouse #1. Tanuki are strikingly deficient when it comes to organizing, and it’s rumored that somewhere in the depths of auxiliary warehouse #1 is a wicker trunk stuffed with records of the trials and tribulations of an individual known as Amagi, the creator of the very first batch of Faux Denki Bran.

Inside auxiliary warehouse #1 is the very history of Faux Denki Bran, piled up high in a chaotic jumble, the sight alone of which is overwhelming. Plainly it was a task that my brother could never have hoped to tackle by himself.

“Come, come, we don’t have all day,” barked Kinkaku. “We are extremely busy. Our hands will be full all afternoon with preparations for tonight.”

“We can’t leave until we’ve seen that you’ve begun!” Ginkaku chimed in.

Yashirō decided that this must be part of his training.

That was both very admirable of him, and very foolish.

Yashirō rolled up his sleeves and headed for the warehouse. The heavy iron door was several times taller than him, and it took the grunting exertions of him and Kinkaku and Ginkaku combined to pull it open.

“These switchboards and old gizmos may be triggered by cell phone waves. We certainly wouldn’t want you to get hurt,” said Kinkaku in his most coaxing tone. “Just leave your phone there.”

Yashirō placed his cell phone at the foot of a gingko tree next to the warehouse.

Stepping into the midst of that anarchistic landscape of junk Yashirō began to despair, but there was nothing for it but to get to work. As he picked out switchboards from the nearest heap and stuffed them into a box, he noticed that the room seemed to be getting oddly dim. He turned his head only to see the great iron portal steadily closing. In a panic he rushed towards it, but not quickly enough, and with a cruel, echoing clang, he was locked inside the pitch-black warehouse. In sheer terror his tail came shooting out.

Outside the warehouse, Kinkaku and Ginkaku seemed to be beside themselves rolling on the floor in laughter.

“These Shimogamo brothers really are such fools!” hooted Kinkaku. “Failure to plan is a plan for failure, as they say!”

“Can I use the Fūjin Raijin fan, Kinkaku? Can I start flapping away?”

“Stay cool as a cucumber, Ginkaku. Wait until we’ve pinned down Yaichirō’s location. Perhaps he’s at Nanzenji? And where has Kaisei run off to? If anything goes amiss, our plan will go up in smoke.”

“After we catch Yaichirō and Auntie, it’s just Yasaburō, right? He’s going to be a pain in the butt.”

“Don’t get fainthearted now. Father is sure to catch him, and if somehow he gets away, I’ll be sure to get him.”

“You’re so clever now, Kinkaku! You’re so clever it scares me a little. By the way, what do we do with the frog in the well?”

“Him? Just leave him there. He’s completely useless.”

And Kinkaku and Ginkaku walked away.

Yashirō slammed himself against the iron door and called for help, but auxiliary warehouse #1 was just a storehouse for junk, so nobody ever came by. He knew that his family was in danger, but had no way to contact them.

Before long an earthshaking tremor rumbled through the warehouse, and the roof began to rattle like someone was throwing stones at it.

The thunderstorm had arrived.

He couldn’t stand thinking of Mother out there running helter skelter to escape Lord Raijin. The seconds ticked by. He screamed and hurled himself at the door until he was completely exhausted, and only then did he throw himself into the pile of switchboards to weep.

“Mother! Yaichirō!” he cried, as the sound of the rain falling on the roof of the warehouse drowned out his sobs.

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Utterly ignorant of what his little brother was going through at that precise moment, Yaichirō madly spurred the automaton rickshaw on through the lashing storm, heading toward the Tadasu Forest.

He had planned to head to Sensuirō in Kiyamachi after a short visit to Nanzenji. But in the midst of their meeting he abruptly cut things short and dashed pell mell through the driving rain, out of worry for Mother.

Just as he was flying down Reisen Street past the Ebisugawa power station, a young tanuki came tumbling straight into his path. Attempting to avoid a collision the rickshaw overturned violently, and Yaichirō was flung into the street in the pouring rain. He struck his knee hard on the pavement, and as he howled in pain he returned to his tanuki form and was immediately scooped up by Ebisugawa’s henchmen. The young tanuki that was the source of the commotion was merely a stuffed animal, thrown by a minion hidden in the trees along the road.

The Ebisugawa Guard Corps stuffed Yaichirō into a cage and tossed him into a car. He was taken to a building to the west of the Kamiya Bridge in Kiyamachi. The walls on the first floor were bare concrete, and indeterminately old wooden racks were filled with faded, mouldering magazines. Only an empty birdcage hanging by one of the walls provided an eerie touch of gentility. At first glance it looked simply like an old secondhand bookstore, seemingly uninterested in turning a profit and devoid of customers, but in actuality it was running a brisk trade selling Faux Denki Bran under the table.

The Ebisugawa Guard Corps carried Yaichirō’s cage into the shop and went through a door at the back of the store. The room behind the door was just as drab, lit by a single bare lightbulb dangling from the ceiling. Surrounding him were innumerable sake bottles: this was how the Faux Denki Bran manufactured at the distillery was transported to distributors throughout Kyōto, night after night.

Yaichirō’s attention fell upon another cage also holding a captive tanuki in the corner of the storeroom.

It was Mother.

Tears of frustration sprang to Yaichirō’s eyes as the Ebisugawa Guard Corps set his cage on the cold concrete floor and left the room.

Inside her cage, Mother’s eyes were shut in resignation. Yaichirō rattled his cage.

“Mother! Mother!” he shouted.

Mother’s eyes opened slightly. “So they got you too, Yaichirō.”

“Mother, I’m going to get you out of there!”

But no matter how he struggled he couldn’t break out of the cage, and he couldn’t muster the concentration to transform. “I can’t get out, dammit!”

“There isn’t anything we can do in these cages, Yaichirō,” Mother sighed. “You were trying to come to me because Raijin had arrived, weren’t you? What a terrible thing I’ve done to you. This all happened because I’m so afraid of thunder.”

“That’s not true!”

“I wonder what’s happened to Yasaburō and Yashirō. I do hope nothing terrible has befallen them.”

“It’s an Ebisugawa conspiracy!” Yaichirō howled. “He’s a fellow tanuki! How could he do this? Drop dead!”

But howl as Yaichirō might, the sturdy cage wouldn’t budge an inch. Yaichirō and Mother waited a long time in that chilly storeroom with thoughts of trepidation swirling around their heads. Mother kept sneezing.

At long last the door opened, and Ebisugawa Sōun entered the room accompanied by an old man. They both wore grand robes radiating composure. Yaichirō glared intensely at Ebisugawa, who only looked back at him indifferently.

“Here we are,” Ebisugawa announced. “How much will you be requiring?”

The old man’s face was round and benign, but the look in his eyes as he swept his gaze around the bottles was unnervingly cold, and Yaichirō regarded him with great apprehension. Stretching out his neck to peering around at the stacked bottles around him, the old man pondered, “With Benten, we will require enough for ten.”

“Now that you mention it, I met Lady Benten earlier. And I must say, it was quite…unpleasant.”

“Was it, now?”

“Lady Benten does get carried away with her jests from time to time. It can be perturbing.”

“Well, that cannot be helped. That is what makes her so endearing.”

At this point in the conversation the old man’s eyes fell upon the pair of cages sitting in the corner of the gloomy warehouse. “Well well well, what might be these tanuki doing here?”

Sōun rattled Yaichirō’s cage. “This one I’ve promised to Professor Yodogawa.”

“Indeed? I suspected that Hotei would require assistance. Shameful, really. Of late Hotei seems to have lost his nerve when it comes to tanuki. It simply will not do.”

“That is where I offered to lend a hand.”

The old man’s eyes narrowed into serpentine slits, and he stared through Sōun. “I was not aware that you engaged yourself in such a trade, Ebisugawa. You are a true blackguard.“

“You flatter me.”

“Two tanuki, then, for tonight. A luxury, indeed.”

Upon hearing these words Ebisugawa’s face clouded, and he moved to put himself between Mother’s cage and the old man. “That won’t do. It won’t do at all.”

“You will only part with one?”

“I’m not at liberty to give this one away, even to the great Jurōjin.”

“You have a soft spot for this one, eh?”

“…That is correct.”

The old man’s mouth twisted up into a smile. “Very well,” he said. After making his selection of Faux Denki Bran, he told Ebisugawa, “Have these delivered to Chitoseya.” The two left the room, with Ebisugawa showing the mysterious old man out.

“Have you got any ideas, Mother?” asked Yaichirō. “I seem to have found my way onto tonight’s menu.”

“I won’t stand for that, I won’t! But right now I just don’t see what we can do.”

“The only one who could help us would have been Yasaburō, but I suspect he’s been captured as well. Sōun wouldn’t have been so composed otherwise.”

“You mustn’t give up!” Mother said forcefully. “We can’t say that he’s been captured for sure yet. Yasaburō’s quick on his feet and fearless, so I still have faith that he’s all right!”

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Contrary to Mother’s expectations, I was currently stuffed inside a cage.

Spiking what should have been a delicious tamago-don: a truly disgraceful act for a tanuki. Benten, a tamago-don aficionado, would surely have brought down the flaming hammer of justice upon their heads.

I wanted to transform into a dragon and give Kinkaku a good bite on the ass, but penned in on all four sides like a furry block of tofu, I couldn’t summon the strength. A cool head is paramount whenever tanuki transform, but how was I supposed to keep a cool head in a situation like this? It was all I could do to stir faintly and glare.

“Oi, Kinkaku,” I said. “Let me out!”

The fake Professor Yodogawa sat atop my cage, then swooped down with his lucky cat’s face down to stare at me. His nostrils flared triumphantly. “What are you, a fool?” he sneered.

I was so infuriated I couldn’t speak.

“A fool like you must not understand what’s happened. Allow me to explain. It was plain as day to me that you would tail Professor Yodogawa and attempt to help Yaichirō.”

“Plain as day!” squeaked a voice from the ceiling of the restaurant, or rather Ginkaku disguised as the restaurant.

“I wasn’t expecting you to fall for it so easily. Pathetic, really. This is why the Shimogamos are so useless. Didn’t you think that it was a little too convenient. Are you a fool? Yes, you are. It was too convenient for Professor Yodogawa to just come strolling over the Kamo Bridge. Sheer opportunism. You told yourself, ‘This must be my lucky day!’, didn’t you?”

“Plain as day!”

Kinkaku had hit the mark, if only by dumb luck, and I could say nothing back.

“Father failed, because of Benten’s interference, but he had nothing to worry about with worthy scions like ourselves. I’m sure he’ll be quite pleased with us. I must say, though, my shapeshifting is superior, but I’m surprised you failed to see through the fake professor. There must be something wrong with your eyes. Aren’t you supposed to be friends with him?”

“Kinkaku…Ginkaku…when I get out of here, I’m going to split your asses in eight. That’s sixteen asscheeks between the two of you, if you’re keeping count!” I glowered at the fake professor’s butt, then turned my eyes to the rest of the shop, searching for the second butt.

Kinkaku smirked at me. “It’s no use. We’re wearing the iron underpants we forced out of that master blacksmith in Nagahama,” he boasted. “And we even put in hand warmers to keep our butts nice and toasty. Behold, this flawless plan! This staggering genius! Slow and steady wins the race!”

“It was all Kinkaku’s idea. We dotted our i’s and crossed our t’s!”

“Ready to throw in the towel, Yasaburō?”

“Hah, not by a long shot. I’m just getting started.”

“Stubborn fool. I’ve been carefully devising this plan since last year, using my superior intellect. Father is going to deliver poor little Yaichirō right into Professor Yodogawa’s hands. Your brother, Lil’ Bushytail, is trapped in the warehouse at the Faux Denki Bran distillery, and with that big round padlock there’s no way he’s getting out. We’re holding your mother as well, and now you’re locked in a cage inside Ginkaku’s belly. Come, surely you’ve got to admit defeat. Who could possibly save you now?”

“There’s still Yajirō.”

“You idiot. What can a frog sitting at the bottom of the well hope to accomplish? The Shimogamo family is scattered to the four winds. All that’s left is to wait until nightfall.” Kinkaku pressed his hands together in prayer. “Namu Amida Butsu. May Yaichirō find his way from the stewpot into nirvana. Namu Amida Butsu.”

“You’re a scumbag. Even the most foolish tanuki knows that there are things you can and can’t do!”

“I’m not interested in lectures from a fool like yourself. Yaichirō will become a stew, and Father will become the Trick Magister. And someday, I will carry the torch as the next Trick Magister. I am the future: the strong, wise, shining hope of all tanukidom! Indubitably!”

“Indubitably!” rumbled the fake restaurant.

Kinkaku sat on a chair and took a leisurely sip of tea. “Now, to use up the rest of this phone’s battery,” he declared, taking out Yashirō’s phone. He placed a call to Kaisei, who after being caught in the Tadasu Forest had been taken back to the distillery and restrained inside.

“Please, just wait until tonight. No, not right now. I’m taking Yasaburō to task at Chikurintei. Oh, oh, please, don’t say such things to your big brother. He’s very hurt, see?”

Kaisei was raging so loudly I could hear it from the speaker. “Good! I hope you drop dead!”

“I’m begging you, don’t say that…you’re still unmarried, all right? You need to be more careful about how you…”

Unable to withstand the torrent of abuse, Kinkaku ended the call. For a moment he was dumbstruck. He opened up the Fūjin Raijin fan and stared at the painted visage of Fūjin. “I’m only doing this for her sake,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, I can really tell that she respects you a lot.”

“Oh, be quiet.”

Slowly but surely, time trickled by like the dissolving of a cough drop. I gingerly turned my head to look at the clock on the wall. Every moment that ticked by was another moment closer to Yaichirō going into the pot. Even I had to admit to myself—maybe this really was Yaichirō’s last day on earth. As my mind was filled with thoughts of chagrin and regret, the hands on the clock moved steadily forward.

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At that same moment, Yaichirō was also glaring at a clock in the corner of the warehouse. Surrounded by bottles of Faux Denki Bran in that still storeroom, the only movement around the two caged tanuki were the hands of that clock. Mother’s face was pressed up against the bars, and her eyes were closed.

Suddenly seized by anxiety Yaichirō called out to her. “Mother, are you all right? Have you taken a chill?”

“I’m all right. I’m not cold.”

“You were so still I got concerned!”

“I’m just saving my strength. I wouldn’t get anything done by thrashing around now, except hurt my fanny.”

At that moment Sōun returned to the storeroom. The bare lightbulb swung to and fro, illuminating his dispassionate expression. Yaichirō stared up at him from his cage. Sōun was holding a folded wrapping cloth.

“Professor Yodogawa has arrived. After handing you off, I shall proceed directly to Sensuirō. Rest assured that the future of the tanuki world is in good hands,” he said. “Farewell, Yaichirō. Be a good little stew now.”

“Drop dead!” Yaichirō writhed. “You think it’s all going to go your way? I’ll not be cooked up so easily!”

“Don’t forget, your mother is in my power. What do you think would happen if you were to run off?”

“How much lower can you sink, you coward!?”

“Say what you will, it matters not.”

Sōun picked up Yaichirō’s cage. Yaichirō pressed his face against the bars, looking at Mother, who looked back at him from the concrete floor. Tears were brimming at her eyes, but she didn’t seem to have lost hope yet, and she kept nodding as if to encourage him. Clinging to hope, even in such dire straits, was truly the spirit of a mother.

Mother called out as Sōun turned to leave with Yaichirō. “Ebisugawa! Have you really changed so much? I think it’s a terrible shame, I do, and I know that Sō would feel the same. He would grieve to know that his own younger brother had turned into a tanuki who would do such a terrible thing!”

“Sō?” Sōun turned to face Mother. “My brother and I had a mutual understanding of one another.”

“No tanuki would ever do such a terrible thing. Only a tengu, a human would do something like this! Ebisugawa, Ebisugawa, I beg you, please, stop tormenting my children!”

“You call me Ebisugawa.”

“But you are an Ebisugawa!”

Sōun turned away. “Then what concern is it of mine what happens to the brood of you and my brother?”

Sōun strode out of the storeroom. Just before the door shut, Yaichirō heard Mother cry out from within the storeroom, “If you get a chance to run, just run and don’t think twice!”

Professor Yodogawa was standing In front of that bleak, barren store, holding an open umbrella.

“Hello there!” he greeted Sōun. “That’s him?”

“One tanuki, as promised,” Sōun said, handing Yaichirō’s cage over to the professor. The professor’s eyes misted over as he peered down at Yaichirō. Yaichirō stared back at the professor.

“A very fine creature,” the professor sighed. “But I’m afraid that tonight, we’re going to eat you.”

Yaichirō was horrified. As the professor carried him along, he thought of Mother and his little brothers, and felt a sadness he had never felt before in his life. It was an unfathomable sadness, like a bottomless pit that threatened to swallow him whole. Father must have felt this sadness too, he thought to himself, trying to muster up the kind of dignity that would befit a great tanuki, but unable to hold it in he pressed his face into the bars and quietly cried.

The cloth around the cage came undone, and raindrops fell wetting Yaichirō’s face.

Noticing the cloth, the professor squatted down by the trees along the Takase River. Every time the thunder rumbled he gave a little squeal of fright. In the midst of rearranging the cloth his hands stopped, and his gentle eyes held Yaichirō in their gaze.

“I’m sorry, I’ve let you get all wet.” And taking the cloth he wiped Yaichirō’s face dry.

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Yashirō’s face was stained with tears too, inside that dim warehouse.

Creeping around in the chilly darkness, he rummaged through the mountains of trash, his lip quivering, until his hands fell on something familiar. It was an old emergency strobe, for warning when something had gone wrong in the manufacturing process. With a jolt from his special knack for generating electricity, it flickered on and gave off a yellow light. Taking heart from the light, Yashirō kept digging through the trash and found a clinking box full of small bottles of Faux Denki Bran. He had never tasted it before in his life, and on his first sip a warmth spread through his belly, emboldening him even further.

But no matter how energized he was, alone Yashirō was no match for that iron door. Time after time he hurled himself against it to no avail, and he had turned away from it with head held low when, in the midst of the pouring rain and crashing thunder, he heard a small voice calling, “Yashirō, Yashirō!” There was a scratching sound, like someone was clawing at the door. In the slight opening between the door and the wall came the probing beam of a flashlight, shining on Yashirō’s startled face.

“Kaisei!” Yashirō thrust his face at the crack. “Get me outta here!”

“I can’t, it’s locked and it’s too heavy!”

“But I have to go, right now!”

“I know, relax. There’s a secret door in the corner, go find it! Once you lift the bar you’ll be able to get out,” she instructed him, before vanishing from the other side of the door.

Using the light of the strobe to guide him, Yashirō searched along the warehouse wall. Just past the second hand-less dial of a great clock which had probably once kept the time in the distillery, he came across a rusty door, just big enough to admit the passage of a tanuki cub. Throwing it open with all his might, he was splashed on the nose by a rude spray of rain. It was not yet sundown, yet the sky was dark as if evening had already fallen, and lightning crackled violently overhead. Turning into his tanuki form he picked up a small bottle of Faux Denki Bran in his mouth and squeezed through the door.

Seeing Kaisei standing in the rain holding a flashlight, Yashirō ran up and hugged her.

“Where are my brothers?”

“Yaichirō’s been caught by the Friday Fellows. Kinkaku and Ginkaku called earlier and told me that they were sticking it to Yasaburō.”

“What about Mother? Is she here?”

“They caught Auntie too, but I don’t know where she is.” Kaisei’s fingers dug into Yashirō’s back as her words came out breathlessly. “She’s not at the distillery. Dad must have locked her up somewhere else. I bet it’s at the Faux Denki Bran sales office.”

“They’re terrible!”

“If we can get Yasaburō out, I think it’ll work out.”

“Please, my lady!” A shrill voice rang out, and in no time the two were surrounded by a ring of lanterns marked “EBISUGAWA”. “You must return to your room, I implore you. Master Sōun will be very displeased with us!”

The lanterns slowly closed in on them. Kaisei picked up the wet lump that was Yashirō and whispered in his ear, “You gotta get to Chikurintei!”

“But Kinkaku and Ginkaku will just kick my butt if I go alone! Come with me and let ‘em have it!”

Kaisei scowled at the approaching lanterns. “I can’t leave the distillery. You have to go alone!”

Just as the Ebisugawa stooges fell upon her, Kaisei wound her arm up and hurled my furball of a brother into the air. Thunder rumbled as Yashirō went sailing through the air and splashed down to earth by a large gingko tree in a puddle of mud. He hastily transformed into little boy, but a thunderclap almost sent his tail shooting out.

As he turned to look back at her, Kaisei yelled, “Keep your tail in! Run, run!”

Clutching his little bottle of Faux Denki Bran, Yashirō fled into the storm.

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Emerging onto Kawabata Street, Yashirō was greeted with the sight of gathered storm clouds looming grey over the city. His spirits sank at the sight. He was alone, and Yaichirō had been delivered to the Friday Fellows, and he had no idea where Mother was, and Yasaburō had fallen into Kinkaku and Ginkaku’s trap. Seeing no chance of success, bitter tears came to his eyes, intermingling with cold drops of rain as they ran down his cheeks.

Yashirō was bringing up the bottle of Faux Denki Bran for a shot of liquid courage when his hand stopped dead. Lightning flashed again and again, each bolt momentarily illuminating the twilit riverbank. He recalled what Kinkaku had said on the other side of the iron door: “Him? Just leave him there. He’s completely useless.”

Was Yajirō really useless after all?

Was he really alone after all?

Were things really so hopeless after all?

Grasping the bottle tightly he turned and ran off directly towards Chinnōji.

Why would Yashirō think, at that moment, to do what no one else would ever have thought to do and seek the aid of a frog at the bottom of a well? This, what seemed to be a desperate measure taken in desperate straits, turned out to be a brilliant, divinely inspired, once-in-a-lifetime idea. If he had not turned aside in the midst of that storm, it is very likely that the Shimogamo clan would have met its end.

On and on he galloped, puffing and panting, all the way until he reached the well on the grounds of Chinnōji. “Yajirō!” he shouted into the dark depths, but that was all he could manage, on account of his sobbing and gasping for air.

“Hey now, Yashirō. What are you doing here?” Yajirō burbled. “Raijin’s going wild. Why aren’t you with Mother?”

Yashirō managed to wheeze, “Yajirō…Ebisugawa’s got ‘em all!”

“You can’t be serious! I should have known!”

“You’re the only one I can depend on now!”

“But I’m a frog sitting in a well. What could I possibly do?”

“I’ve got an idea. Look up here and open your mouth!”

“Come on, I really don’t think now is the time to be catching raindrops on my tongue.”

“Just do it!”

Taking a deep breath, Yashirō uncapped the bottle, then leaned over the rim of the well and looked inside. Another flash of lightning illuminated the bottom, revealing a frog with its mouth open wide, peering up at him.

“Don’t miss a drop!” said Yashirō, before tipping the bottle on its side. A light orange, sweet-smelling stream of liquid poured out from the mouth of the bottle like a beautiful transparent thread, falling straight into Yajirō’s wide open gullet.

In pouring that entire bottle of Faux Denki Bran into Yajirō’s mouth, he gave Yajirō a taste of something he had not tasted ever since he had given up on the tanuki world, something that he had used to love.

Yashirō held his breath and waited.

From the depths of the well Yajirō’s voice came booming out, sounding more jubilant and energized than it had ever been since Father’s death.

“I’m back in the game!!!”