KATANAGATARI 2
“I knew it. The Harlequin Butterfly─it’s all about the footwork. It seems obvious now, but your weight doesn’t actually disappear…”
Time to clear something up.
Twenty years prior─Mutsue Yasuri, Hero of the Rebellion, had named25 Shichika, not Nanami, the next Master of the Kyotoryu. Then, for nineteen years, Mutsue had conveyed the teachings of the Kyotoryu to Shichika alone─in other words, Mutsue taught Nanami nothing.
Not because of her sickly constitution.
And surely not because she was a woman.
She was simply too strong to learn anything from anyone─
Not only did Mutsue refuse to teach Nanami, he barred her from all manner of exertion. She was not allowed to train in any way.
Her strength broke the mold.
Her strength broke the rules.26
Not only as her father, but as a swordsman, Mutsue saw it as his duty to contain her.
But then─
What of the Ominaeshi she had used on Kamakiri.
And the Hinageshi she used just now.
She was a proven master─but how? If she had never been educated in the Kyotoryu, how could Nanami attain such mastery? But the solution to this paradox was all too simple.
She had been watching─all this time.
She had been watching─all the way.
As her little brother practiced. As her little brother trained.
While Shichika Yasuri─exerted himself.
She had watched the matches between father and son, at times unsubtly,27 and at times from the shade of a tree─never missing a moment, as if stricken with envy.
For nineteen years, Shichika had trained without rest, through rain and wind and snow─and for nineteen years, through rain and wind and snow, Nanami, at rest, had been watching.
Watching.
And learning.28
Studying someone else while they were training, you could learn whatever they were learning, only better─but Nanami had gained the ability to watch and learn with unreasonable precision and facility.29
Considering how she had been forced not to exert herself, her ability was inexplicable─an expression of her genius.
To coin a phrase, distance makes the eye grow sharper.
If she saw something once, she remembered every detail.
But if she saw it twice, it was hers.
And the proud and ostentatious Chocho Maniwa had twice already wowed Nanami with his Harlequin Butterfly!
“What, n-no way…”
“Really, I’m jealous, even envious─that you guys can get so serious practicing at no more than this.”
Midair, Nanami reached out her hand.
So sluggishly her movements made no draft─and grabbed the collar of Chocho’s ninja outfit.
Gripped it, and hard.
“Ah!”
“If I’m grabbing you like this, so you can’t get away─no draft can deflect my attack.”
They say first-rate martial artists have a firm grasp of the shortcomings of their techniques. And the weak point of the Harlequin Butterfly was not lost on Nanami, who now embodied it firsthand─
“You’ve made it clear that you won’t talk─and I’ve seen all I need to see. I’ll finish you off soon enough. Don’t worry, I’ll bury you all in the same place.”
Chocho opened his mouth─about to speak.
Perhaps to beg for his life.
Or maybe only to scream.
“Kyotoryu─Tampopo.”30
Before any sound could leave his lips, Nanami’s spear hand pierced his beating heart.31 In a single instantaneous motion, coming without warning─she’d drawn in the hand gripping his ninja garb to facilitate her spear hand’s rending encounter with the left side of his chest.
She could do without a wind-up or any other prefatory movements.
She was freestyle, this was Form Zero─the Ichijiku.
The two of them fell together to the ground.
Harlequin Butterfly thusly interrupted, they made a violent landing. The impact made Nanami wince─
“N-No way…”
Hacking up phlegmatic blood, Chocho regarded Nanami with utter disbelief.
Shocked at her ability to emulate his Harlequin Butterfly? Not so.
No, quite simply─her spear hand stunned him cold.
“No way a hand─can pierce through someone’s heart… Bullshit, unbelievable. Not only that, my chains…”
Nanami had speared through the chains wrapped around his body as protection─especially for his heart. Even the shard of the Blood Crystal, a remnant of his late friend Kamakiri, which Chocho had slipped into his costume as a last line of defense─was shattered.
Swordless kenpo.
A spear hand driven like a true katana, only more menacing and destructive.
This was the Kyotoryu!
As if reading what was on his mind from his face, Nanami withdrew her spear hand from his ribcage─and let him see her gory fingers.
“The Tampopo is a grappling move,32 a normal spear hand unleashed while you are pulling in the opponent. And when I say normal, I mean normal. It might be able to break flesh, but common sense dictates that it could never go all the way through─unless maybe you’re as strong as Shichika. What you just witnessed, I learned from your friend Kamakiri.”
If you looked closely.
Nanami’s fingertips─were sharp and pointy.
Nay, not her fingers, but her fingernails.
They had grown into talons.
“Wh-Whuh, whuh─”
“He only showed me this move once, and only for an instant, which is why I only got two inches out of them. Maybe if I try again, they’ll grow a little longer.”
No ninja yields to torture.
Nanami had known this from the start─in which case, why had she bothered chaining Kamakiri to a tree?
And declined to tie his arms behind his back?
And finally come so near as to provoke him to attack!
“Ah, ahhhh…”
Chocho─lamented as he writhed.
Writhing in horror─or in rage.
Or perhaps, these were the spasms of a body on the verge of death.
“F-Fending off our Maniwa Ninpo that easily… After all our training, which you can’t begin to imagine─impossible, impossible, impossible, impossible!”
“I know─that’s why I’m jealous. You guys get to try your very best at such trivial pursuits. I bet you’ve never pondered the sorrows of people who can do anything, but are unable to give it their all.”
Exhausting what little strength he had, Chocho Maniwa made as though to cling on33 to Nanami, but she dodged him, deft and swift─noticing the blood sprayed34 on her kimono as she walked away.
Then─she eyed the body of Chocho, whose life was going up in smoke, without the aid of nicotine.35 All too disinterested, Nanami let out one of her deep sighs.
“Well now…this fight was being watched─but from where? Someplace with a clear view of here…”
1 頑なに KATAKUNA NI rigidly
2 泥沼さ DORONUMA SA swampiness; a quagmire
3 がくがく GAKU GAKU onomatopoeia for jerking back and forth
4 泣きどころ NAKIDOKORO “source of tears”
5 拍車をかけ[る] HAKUSHA WO KAKE[RU] spur on ironic, considering her pace
6 絶食 ZESSHOKU fast
7 至極 SHIGOKU “ultimate extreme of”
8 口説き文句 KUDOKI MONKU a pick-up line
9 過去形 KAKOKEI “the bygone form” (of a verb)
10 串刺し KUSHIZASHI “kebabbed” 串 KUSHI skewer (n.) 刺す SASU stab, pierce
11 遠慮会釈なく ENRYO ESHAKU NAKU “without reserve or nods”
12 次善の策 JIZEN NO SAKU “next-best” plan
13 暗殺術 ANSATSU JUTSU assassination technique
14 指南 SHINAN “finger south” from ancient compasses that did so
15 徒手空拳 TOSHU KŪKEN “bare hands, empty fists”
16 無構 MUKŌ no stance
17 無花果 ICHIJIKU “The Common Fig” or, based on the characters, “flowerless fruit” 無 MU no (zero)
18 雛罌粟 HINAGESHI “The Common Poppy”
19 足軽 ASHIGARU foot solider 足 ASHI leg 軽い KARUI light
20 無効化 MUKŌKA render ineffective
21 飄々 HYŌ HYŌ aloof contains 風 KAZE wind, and underscores Chocho’s uncanny lightness
22 申し入れ MŌSHI IRE offer, request
23 改造 KAIZŌ “make anew” tune up
24 正面 SHŌMEN “proper face/side”
25 指名 SHIMEI “finger name” appoint
26 反則 HANSOKU foul play
27 監視役 KANSHIYAKU as monitor 監視 KANSHI surveillance
28 見稽古 MIGEIKO practicing by observing (a traditional concept and not the author’s neologism)
29 精度と練度 SEIDO TO RENDO degree of accuracy and level of proficiency
30 蒲公英 TANPOPO “The Dandelion”
31 心の臓 SHIN NO ZŌ 心臓 SHINZŌ “core organ” heart; archaic with の NO of
32 組技 KUMI WAZA “wrestling technique” broadly speaking; can involve strikes, as in jujutsu
33 すがりついてくる SUGARI TSUITE KURU grab at, but also, hug on to
34 血化粧 CHIGESHŌ “blood makeup”
35 末期の一服 MATSUGO NO IPPUKU a cigarette before an execution or for a dying man, usu. in fiction (the expression plays on 末期の水 MATSUGO NO MIZU, a funeral rite involving mouthfuls of water)