text: Uemura had seen Haruko hurtle out of the shoji and knew that pursuit was not far behind. A glow of romantic chivalry suffused his breast. He grinned self-deprecatingly in the dark. She was the perfect mistress, something the gallant was always ready to lay down his life for. Reality emulated art, and here was the final art, the final reality of death. His petty robberies, his poesy, his languid ways were no longer of any account. Here, tonight, he would write the final poem. He moved to interpose himself before the moving white figure that loomed out of the dark. It slipped aside, and just as he was about to follow he noted a more immediate threat facing him. The giant samurai dressed in plain grey clothes looked back impassively. Uemura grinned. He knew himself to be a master swordsman. That was the reason Ito and Haruko had both found him fascinating in the first place. The big samurai, bulky as he may be, did not seem to move with any of the proper gestures of a true fencer.
  
  Uemura bowed properly. "Uemura Sonzaemon, at your service."
  
  The big samurai grunted. "Miura Jiro."
  
  "Never heard of you," Uemura yawned.
  
  "Good," the giant said firmly, Then he added in a language Uemura did not know, "Time to go puppy."
  
  Uemura drew his sword properly, holding it in the formal chudan kamae posture, sword hilt at waist level, blade up at an angle. Miura drew his own, holding the blade loosely before him with one hand.
  
  Uemura smiled to himself, then shifted his feet minutely, toes pointing inwards for what was called the "crow step" maneuver. The big samurai did not respond properly, and Uemura's smile broadened. His blade flicked up and to his right in a gambit that should have brought the giant's sword up to meet his own blade. His remis, bind, and morote-uchi two-handed thrust were all ready in his mind. Instead he found the giant's chest pressed close to his and an excruciating pain in his bowels. He confusedly looked down at the shiny mess of entrails that was pouring down to the ground, wondering vaguely if they were his own. His body gave up the struggle and fell. The giant stepped to Uemura's left, his katana held at waist level, back of the blade supported by his left palm.
  
  Jiro stepped over the still-twitching body and wiped his blade. He looked at the darkened mansion and scratched his chin thoughtfully. Now where had Goemon gone to? And where was Okiku whose message had brought him here?