Darkened Chambers of the Nagoya Castle

The night was wholly chaotic. No street was safe from the gazes of the Samurai. Taking down of all the roads, inspecting the baggage of every merchant for any unsuspecting things. Interrogating people who hid themselves from the public. There were so many checkpoints that almost the whole of the Tokaido highway was blockaded.

Meanwhile, Minamoto was busy asking Samurai who were said to be (by other fellow Samurai) the ones whom'st were guarding the front gate.

Minamoto said; "Good evening," while simultaneously bowing low. "I am sorry for taking up your time, however, you are said to be the one of the ones who guard the gate by night."

The Samurai bowed in conjunction of Minamoto's. "The name's Nakamura, and yes... I do guard the gate by night, what is it?" He asked with a pained look in his face.

"Judge Tamotsu wants to ask whether you had saw anyone, Samurai, servants; who were carrying ladders towards the castle."

Nakamura sighed with relief it wasn't something else. "Ladders are not used, and do not need to be used inside of the castle. I would know if anyone would." Before Minamoto could say his bye, he added: "However, the ones who guard the castle by day and by morning might have something more useful than what I could bring."

" I see, thank you." He bowed once more and left for the castle.

"Not one said anything about a ladder! I've checked and asked everyone! Yet still there seems to be no-one!" Frustration built-up inside the pained Minamoto who spent so much time looking for the said Samurais that the moon was a march away from meeting the crux of it's journey.

He then walked a few dozen steps all the way towards the room of the lord, however, suspiciously: the Samurai guarding the room seemed to have lessened.

He went and asked one of them; he bowed before saying, "Where are the rest of the Samurai stationed here?"

The Samurai bowed, "They are inside the Lord's room attending to Judge Tamotsu's needs."

"I see, thank you." Minamoto had once again bowed to show his welcome.

He opened the fosuma and when he did, his eyes were greeted with a party of five Samurai huddled together. He bowed very low before entering. Judge Tamotsu was nowhere to be seen inside the room nor beyond the shoji.

As the odor of the deceased lord had fortunately died down, the men did not wear the same herb-infused masks as did they before. "Where is judge Tamotsu?

"Below the castle, the chambers, he so calls it." Answered one of the samurai.

"Below the castle!?"

He swiftly opened the shoji, only to find that the tatami mat that was very much so implanted onto the wooden planked floor, was ripped open by what seemed to be the might of the five samurai from next section over.

The ripped floor revealed a cavernous hole deep within. Where even Minamoto couldn't see the floor of the room below. He wondered to himself; "Judge Minamoto is there!?"

He took a step back and walked into the first section of the room. He walked, now noticing that the samurai were resting and were all exhausted. He questioned; "How did Judge Tamotsu get down there?"

For a moment, silence. But then it turned into laughter. "Judge Tamotsu jumped into the hole! He's safe, as duly said by him!" The laughter ended remembering the grave situation they were 'duly' in.

Hearing this, Minamoto walked in, grabbed a candle. And with all his wit and sheer confidence as the samurai of the deceased daimyo Naritakana. A breath then a fall.

A hard thump, it was a wooden floor!

"Gah!" His bottom felt most of the impact, yet his spine felt like it went up his body and dislocated! "That was stupid of me." He muttered in his breath.

He rested on the cold-wooden floor. However his quick rest was interrupted when he noticed just how bad the air was, dust, particles flew everywhere and landed on his nose, sneezing. He gathered his already diminished self and stood up, his back still hurting. The room was dark, and his candle was as useful as is a lantern in the middle of a dark night's fog.

He fumbled around and found himself in the middle of a fosuma's already opened doorway. He understood that this might well be a hallway. "Judge Tamotsu!" He called out. Yet no response came back.

"Judge Tamotsu! I am Minamoto, where are you!" Yet again, no response. "I have found nothing about the ladders!" He added, hoping it would conclude in a curious Judge hurrying his way.

"Nothing seems to reach Judge Tamotsu, where is he even! This place is underneath the Castle? Yet I have heard no record of this!"

He used his candle to light up the few inches of path before him, using his hand to feel if he had touched a wall or not to avoid the candle's dropping onto wooden ground. He observed his surroundings, supposedly he was trying to act like a judge, nigh, Judge Tamotsu! Yet his observing was as simple as would a farmer would deduct. That the floor creaked when he stepped on them. That the place was cold in spite of the year's climate. And that he was alone and (though being cowardly enough to admit it) was scared to the point that he wished to go back to the room directly above comrades, Samurai.

Yet, he had traversed the darkness too far to come back now. During his 'neglected' observation. He failed to notice just how intricate his paths took. From where he would take random turns, left from right, right from left. And that whenever he encountered rooms, ignore them and continue straight on the hallway.

"Judge Tamotsu! Where are you, judge Tamotsu!" Yet again, no response lit up in the dark veil of the hallways. Not even the light of the very judge's candle. His patience grew thin in 'light' of his current situation.

"I am lost…"

The air was so bad that his breath was hazed and he sneezed so frequently it irritated him so.

A thud. Minamoto's heart dropped. It came from behind him, his hand already on his katana. Whatever that thud was, it was walking towards him. He saw no light that would illuminate from a candle, though he didn't really turn around and look at the 'thing' walking at him.

The walking thing stopped, Minamoto's breathing was all ragged. A murmur, he thought. Whatever thing was behind him, it was murmuring something. He couldn't hear anything else, just a silent incoherent mumur.

"A Jikininki!" He thought. There was no better time than now to expose the blade of his sword.

"What are you doing!" It indeed was Judge Tamotsu. "You dare try to unleash your blade towards your own comrade!?" He scolded Minamoto, of which showed the bottom most of his blade from his scabbard. "If weren't I more friendly, you'd be committing seppuku!"

Minamoto retracted his sword, pushed himself back and looked at the mask-covered Judge Tamotsu. "I am sorry, Judge Tamotsu!" His head took a dive all the way to the bottom of the dusty floor. Almost in fetal position. 

"Get up, Minamoto, you can't breathe in a place like this. How come that you did not bring a mask, in this environment?" Judge Tamotsu asked. "I haven't any spare, unless we are to get up, of which we haven't the time to. I need your assistance, for I have found something quite peculiar."

Minamoto's mind peaked in curiosity. "The judge has found something he refers… 'Peculiar.' Might it be?"

"May I ask? What is this object of peculiarity?"

"Another hole, however, it leads directly towards the canal."

( * )

Minamoto followed Judge Tamotsu. The both of them stumbling through the darkness with the faint illuminance of their candles. Unlike Minamoto, Tamotsu had figured out the path he had once tread with great detail. Avoiding the many obstacles in the way, the same obstacles that Minamoto had tripped and at times even fell! He swore he heard Judge Tamotsu chuckle, yet he said; "Why would I need to laugh at someone who has tripped, fallen? Much too if that person… Is a samurai."

But after the many trips and falls, Judge Tamotsu opened the veil of a shoji. Revealing a room that was not alike the rest. It was covered in stoned brick--floor, ceiling, and wall. It was as if it were a European cellar (something they do not know). "What is this place?" Commented Minamoto, who diddling with his hands the cold stone walls.

"I do not know it's purpose but it may be so that this was an escape route for the daimyo. If ever were this fortress be destroyed." Answered Judge Tamotsu.

"That may make sense." He said, placing down his candle after finding a flat surface to place it on (a wooden table). "But I find it hard for this to be considered an escape route."

The room itself was less dusty than the whole chamber of wood and darkness that laid the outside of the shoji. And because it seemed that the hole was close to the surface, they thought it shallow and the light that came from within was more than enough for them to see with the two candles they had. "It's shallow, and is not easy to see from the outside, I suppose. Such a route is plausible." Judge Tamotsu replied, getting closer to the hole. "And might I add, this place is not as lonely as one might think it would be. Come, Minamoto." He gestured to him to come.

"Do you see?" He pointed out to the moss that seemed to have grown from the water. 

Minamoto, with his less than average observation skills came to a humble conclusion after a rough minute of looking at the moss that seemed to not be any different from the surrounding moss. "I do! The moss had been scraped off!"

"Yes. It scrapes from the direction of the hole, meaning someone entered from the hole towards here." Judge Tamotsu went up and backed off, observing the surroundings of the hole. "Its not noticeable however…" He had kneeled down onto the ground and with his finger slid it onto the rough stone-brick ground. "It's wet, meaning that yes. Someone has been here. And that yes, the perpetrator came from here and had probably excited here as well."

Minamoto bore a confused face. "But, Judge Tamotsu. The lord's room had not but one disturbance! The Tatami mat was not at all damaged! Unless there were people set to refurbish the room at the same day the lord had died!"

Judge Tamotsu stood still in silence, rubbing his chin. And in his deary standing silence thought that the;"Onna-bugeisha, Masako. The mystery of the Tatami mat. The dark chambers below the castle. The death of the lord. I should be right in assuming that Masako is involved, three days of the lord's absence without one batting an eye of the lord's whereabouts? Stupendous. Yet elaborate for what purpose? Naritakana's death is peculiar, yet I can't quite place my hand on it. But I know that whatever it is, is part of a much. Much more bigger problem."