text: By midday, Satsuki's fortitude and good humor had become ragged at the edges. They walked at first up a relatively easy slope through an open wood of pine, pawlonia, and other trees Satsuki could not identify. Gradually the path became more difficult and the forest closed in. The mountain trail wound before and behind them, fleecy white clouds rose above, and in between marched the yamabushi, chanting their liturgy.
  
  They paused at midday for some rest, food, and the inevitable ritual. Towards later afternoon they paused beside a mountain hut in a large clearing. Midori sat beside a mass of wild rhododendrons in full bloom, idly plaiting a wreath while the yamabushi went through the by-now-familiar motions of clearing and marking a sacred site for a ritual. Prayers were said, a fire was lit, swords and axes cut into the air while sacred formulas were recited. The purity and power of those assembled grew with each moment. Satsuki was not called upon to participate in the ritual, nor was she approached throughout the night. They set off the following dawn.
  
  They passed the statue of the Fudo of Greeting and rested for a while. The path climbed, following a tortuous ridge. Rituals and observances were kept. They climbed certain rocks that lay off their path, avoided certain others while reciting appropriate verses. Then they started climbing in earnest. Satsuki trudged on, concerned about her bedraggled appearance. Suddenly the column broke into sunlight.
  
  They were standing in a clearing on the lip of a cliff. Behind them the forest spread away on three sides. Before them was nothing but the empty sky. She crept closer to the ledge. Below her the ground fell away for hundreds of feet to a carpet of green moss. Suddenly the picture came into focus. The "moss" was the tops of trees that lay below. Bare rocks, some white, some black, crowded the base of the cliff like hungry fangs. Inwardly shaken though outwardly composed, Satsuki crawled back to her place in line. Daisangyoja stood facing them, waiting for the last of the yamabushi to reach the clearing.
  
  "We are now on Cliff of Judgement. It is here that the real purification will take place. Are you all of pure mind?" He asked forcefully.
  
  "Yes!" responded the yamabushi with a shout.
  
  "Are you pure of body?"
  
  "Yes!" they responded as before.
  
  "Let all those who are not depart this place!"
  
  None of the yamabushi moved.
  
  Two of the senior ascetics approached the cliff and knelt facing one another. The first of the men in line, one who had been on the pilgrimage before, lay down on his belly before them, then crawled over the cliff's edge. The two held on to his ankles, lowering him until only his hips and legs were visible.
  
  Daisangyoja stood between the man's legs and commanded, "Confess!"
  
  "I will confess," responded the ascetic. "I have been uncaring of my parents, abandoning them in their old age for a life of banditry, before I began following the way. I did not respect the buddhas or the shrines..." His litany was a long one. At long last the yamabushi leader stood aside.
  
  "Let him be tested!" Daisangyoja called out in a terrible voice. The men holding the penitent's ankles released their grip.
  
  As the yamabushi slid helplessly into the void, the two assistants renewed their hold on his ankles. An almost silent sigh came from the congregation. The two assistants hauled the man up, and he was replaced by another. Satsuki shivered inwardly, trying not to think of the result of a slip by the assistants. Daisangyoja positioned himself between the man's legs again, and the ritual was repeated.
  
  Sunk in her own thoughts, admiring the scenery, Satsuki did not follow the ritual closely. The man suspended over the cliff, the fifth or sixth in line—Satsuki could not tell—had just finished his confession.
  
  "Let him be tested!" said Daisangyoja. The assistants released their hold, and the man started sliding down. They snatched at his heels, but his slide continued. There was one sharp cry, and then silence. The two assistants looked at one another in impassive silence. Groans came from the assembly. Daisangyoja faced them "A man is not always fully penitent. The Judgement Cliff can always tell. He will be reborn again, to start on the Way once more."
  
  The ritual resumed. The only sign of the missing man was the trembling of the novices as they approached the cliff.
  
  Finally it was Satsuki's turn. Her mind had been revolving around the question of how to maintain decorum while suspended head down over a cliff. She knelt elegantly at the cliff's edge between the two assistants, bowed at Daisangyoja, bowed to the assistants, then slipped forward over the cliff. Strong hands gripped her ankles and spread her against the cliff. Daisangyoja stood between her legs and demanded her repentance. She recited her sins: she had not been able to present herself properly for the use of the yamabushi band because of lack of proper materials; she had not been able to restore customers to proper sartorial condition before they left her; she had rejected and not dealt properly with the poor man who had so enjoyed inflicting violence with his lovemaking...
  
  The litany was not long, and at last it ended. She waited calmly for the final act. There was a change in the order of things, however. Daisangyoja stood between her legs without moving. "The In and the On must be purified together," he said, referring to the universal male and female principles. He knelt between her legs, and she felt him raise the hem of her robe. His chest slithered over her taut buttocks, and then the tip of his prick probed at the crack of her ass. His palms were on either side of her body, and he dug about for a while until he found the proper entrance. Charmed by the sentiment, she waited patiently for what was to come. The wide head of his member found her soft lips, and his pole lodged itself in the hungry mouth. His weight pushed him down slowly but inevitably until he was sunk fully in the depths of her cunt. He let his weight down onto her back, and then she saw him raise his hands and clasp them before him, over her head.
  
  "Now!" she heard him say softly, and the assistants let go of her ankles. For one moment she was free. All earthly cares fell away from her as their twined bodies, his supported only by the cock lodged in her belly, slid towards the sky before them. Illusion fell away, and she was borne, exhilarated, through layers of her illusion to the final reality. Her senses disappeared, and she was conscious only of the now, and of the point of joining of herself and the other.
  
  The cruel grip on her ankles brought her back to mundane reality. For one moment that seemed like eternity she was ready to fight to be free again, and then the illusion of good manners and breeding took over again, and once again she was Osatsuki, a lady of Miyako. The sudden thrust of Daisangyoja's body into her precipitated an orgasm that shook her body into shards of feeling. As she was pulled back, she lay passively allowing the waves of pleasure to finally subside. Daisangyoja rose from between her thighs and the assistants returned her to her place.
  
  The ritual continued. The yamabushi prayed on the cliff. The novices confessed fearfully over the drop, their fears making them truthful.
  
  Daisangyoja had been peering down the cliff, a puzzled look on his face. As the yamabushi file left the Cliff of Judgement, he called two of the senior men to him for a whispered consultation. They bowed and hurried back down the trail while the rest of the group proceeded on their way.