Chapter 10
Moonlit Solitude and Final Liberation

As Mayoko continues to tell her story, she rises slowly, moving with silent grace towards the second room.

Alone now, my spirit seemed held captive beneath the moonlight, she says, the tone of her voice evoking a sense of prolonged solitude. The courtyard was silent, abandoned by the onlookers and the gokenin. A quiet calm had enveloped the place, a calm that seemed almost palpable.

There is a pause, as if Mayoko were losing herself for a moment in her thoughts. But I could not bring myself to leave, not without finishing what had been begun. Her gaze becomes more intense, more focused. Driven by an indescribable inner force, I made my way to the place where the gokenin lay resting. He had to come back to finish our game of ōgi, so that everything could at last be resolved.

Mayoko, her voice now ethereal and bearing the marks of a profound truth, continues her story from the other room.

The gokenin quickly lost the game and, vanquished, fell asleep on the board, never to wake again.

Having reached the half-darkness of the third room, Mayoko stands before the mirror. With slow, measured movements, she gently removes the pins from her hair, which spills in a cascade over her shoulders, revealing a beauty and a quiet strength.

She then turns slowly and begins to make her way towards the room where the participants are gathered. Her step is calm and assured. In a murmur that carries more weight than its softness suggests, she adds: I was free. The vengeance of the enchantress of ōgi pieces was accomplished.

At that precise instant, as the 84th andon goes out, a wave of uncontrollable panic spreads through the guests, who suddenly realise that they are in the presence of a supernatural creature.

Seized by an irrepressible terror, the participants are plunged into total chaos in the first room, each gripped by a frantic haste to flee. Some try desperately to escape through the doors, jostling and shoving one another in indescribable disorder. Others, giving way to blind panic, rush towards the windows, desperately seeking a way out.

Cries of fear can be heard, mingled with the sounds of struggle and collision. Bodies crash into one another, people stumble and fall, panic making every movement erratic and unpredictable. The darkness does not help, adding to the confusion and the fear.

While the place is now engulfed in darkness and disorder, the mirror, silent witness to the session of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, captures one last reflection. It is that of Komayō, motionless at the heart of the turmoil.