Synopsis: The truth behind the Toudaiji is revealed.

Ousawa, Muromachi and Nakarai explain the Toudaiji to the Medicine Seller. Ousawa says that the Medicine Seller might find it strange that they spend so much effort on incense almost to the point of obsession. He says that smells are extremely potent things and when hearing things, one often finds that long-forgotten vistas, beams of light, or even poems come to mind. The Medicine Seller tells him he thinks he understand it.

Nakarai then says that Toudaiji is merely a nickname. Its real name is Rannatai (欄奈待). The radicals which compose the characters of the word can be read as Toudaiji (東大寺). Muromachi explains that Ranratai is no ordinary wood. It is said that its owner will become a great conqueror. Muromachi says that Ashikaga Yoshimasa and Oda Nobunaga have partaken of the Rannatai in the Toudaiji Temple’s Great Treasure Room. (So the Medicine Seller asking about the Toudaiji being the temple makes sense after all.)

The Medicine Seller asks that if the Rannatai is stored in the Great Treasure Room, why would it be in their place. Ousawa answers that there are actually two Rannatai. He says they heard that Lady Ruri had the second. Nakarai says it should be obvious why they seek the Toudaiji. Muromachi then says that they have to begin the Kumikou before dawn breaks.

The Medicine Seller rummages through his wares and prepares the scents for the Kumikou. Ousawa says that they will play the Taketori-no-Kou. Muromachi asks how it is played. Ousawa explains that first two reference scents are heard. One is the Princess Kaguya and the other is the Old Woodcutter. After that, five scents, including the Princess and the Woodcutter, are heard. Each player must determine whether the scent is the Princess, the Woodcutter, or something else. A player with a correct answer proceeds to the next round and the one with an incorrect answer loses.

A sharp cry is then heard startling the three. Muromachi asks Nakarai about the Nue he mentioned earlier. He asks if he meant the mythical creature with a monkey’s head, tiger’s limbs and snake as a tail. Nakarai replies that that’s what he meant. Ousawa laughs and says it’s merely a picture assembled from stories. Those who see the monkey part say they saw a monkey and those who see the tiger part saw a tiger. The story never explicitly describes the creature but implies that its form differs depending on what is seen. Muromachi asks the Medicine seller of the Nue is the Mononoke he is looking for. The Medicine Seller says he has not discerned its Form yet. He says he wonders when it will appear. Ousawa jokes that perhaps it already has. The others didn’t find his joke funny. Ousawa apologizes.

The Medicine Seller announces that the reference scent, Princess Kaguya, is ready. Ousawa smells it first but could not identify it. He thinks it’s some sort of agar but its depth is unfathomable. Nakarai upon smelling it, thinks the Medicine Seller isn’t an ordinary one while Muromachi feels as his scalp is shuddering.

The Medicine Seller then announces that the Old Wodcutter scent is ready. Ousawa wonders if it is the same as the previous one. He thinks the Medicine Seller is more formidable than he appears.

The first scent is ready. Ousawa is about to smell it when he says that he made a mistake. The Medicine Seller explains that he has some oleander which he avoided using but it seems that it got mixed with the scents. Muramochi asks why can’t oleander be used. The Medicine Seller replies that though its leaves are medicinal, a single breath of the vapor from the branches could kill. He says he forgot which of the five scents contain the oleander. “Silly me,” the Medicine Seller says.

Muromachi says they must begin again. Nakarai agrees. Ousawa, however, says he will continue. Hesitantly, Ousawa sniffs the scent. Muromachi thinks that if it is poison, Ousawa will be the first to smell it. Ousawa says that the scent is neither the Princess nor the Woodcutter.

Nakarai takes his turn. He says it isn’t either.

Muromachi smells the scent and the Medicine Seller asks him if it does not smell at all. He says it’s part of a screen, fragments of a blood-soaked sliding door. The Medicine Seller says he prepared it just for him, the one who killed Jissonji.

Muromachi then remembers how he met Jissonji. He found him sitting in a room. He told him that he intended to tour the house before night fell but Jissonji beat him to it. Jissonji didn’t say anything. Muromachi, trying to break the ice, said that the night is awfully cold. Jissonji told him that he should throw himself into the snow if he wished to feel warmer. Jissonji then asked him if he is Muromachi. He told him that he heard his prospects for promotion at the palace are dwindling. He asked if Muromachi is foolish enough to try and gain the power through the Toudaiji. Jissonji insulted Muromachi and said that it is a desperate move from a drowning rat. He said the Toudaiji is as good as his since nobody has ever beaten him in Kumikou. He then told Muromachi that he is a fool for trying.

Jissonji said that since the room smelled of dust, he will wait in the next room. He said that a smelly samurai like Muromachi could never know anything of incense. Angered, Muromachi followed Jissonji and slashed him with his sword.

Muromachi becomes frightened upon remembering it. The door to where he killed Jissonji opens and out from the ground, muck oozes out. It takes the form of Jissonji and slowly approaches the samurai. He waves his sword frantically, Nakarai and Ousawa are puzzled, however, because they don’t see anything weird and besides the door to the next room is closed. The phantom grabs Muromachi’s legs. Muramachi disappears. Nakarai and Ousawa are surprised.

The Medicine Seller announces that the second scent is ready. Ousawa sniffs it first. Nakarai smells if after. He says it smells like burning hair. The Medicine Seller tells him he knew he would be able to tell. He asks whose hair is it. Nakarai realizes it is Lady Ruri’s.

Nakarai remembers the time when the Lady Ruri’s servant told him there is a lavatory at the end of the hall. Nakarai actually went outside Lady Ruri’s room. He requested her to announce that the answer to the Genjikou is Endless Summer. He said that he is the only one who truly desired her hand and that the others only want the Toudaiji. He also said that he would sell his store and all his worldly possessions for her. He would be penniless but he would not regret it.

Lady Ruri didn’t respond so he opened the door to take a look. He saw Lady Ruri stimulating herself over a painting of a man. Frogs mating are shown to depict her act. Nakarai is enraged. He went inside and stabbed Lady Ruri in the neck, telling her to marry him.

In the present, Nakarai finds his hands bleeding. Blood spurts from the back of his head and he falls, dead.

The Medicine Seller announces that the third scent is ready. A scared Ousawa says the Kumikou is too much for him. The Medicine Seller asks him if he does not desire the Toudaiji. He says it was Ousawa who suggested that Kumikou. Toudaiji thinks that if the scent is the right one, the Toudaiji will be his. He sniffs the scent and the Medicine Seller interrupts him. He apologizes and says that the current scent seems to be the one with oleander. Ousawa could not believe. The Medicine Seller apologizes again. In panic, Ousawa asks for an antidote. The Medicine Seller says that a lot of water might help. Ousawa rushes off to the pond outside but he stumbles and falls, htiing his head on the ground. Ousawa is also dead.

The Medicine Seller says that an ordinary medicine seller like him could not afford such a rare medicine as oleander. He then says that whether it was real or not, as long as the three mean realized their lives were over, it fulfilled the purpose. He says that at first he only intended to draw the Mononoke out and leave it to its own devices but leaving things as it is would be dull, so he meddled a bit.

The Medicine Seller says there never was anyone else in the mansion, other than the Mononoke and the sad souls who were unaware of their own deaths, the men the Mononoke once possessed and killed. He tells the Mononoke that it watched him as he prepared his incense in an empty room and laughed at him from there.

The Nue appears in the form of a woman with a grotesque head. The Medicine Seller says that the Nue is a Mononoke whose form changes depending on where it is seen. The little girl seem by Muromachi, Lady Ruri and the servant where all forms the Nue assumed. He then says that the Nue is the Toudaiji. That is the Mononoke’s Form. The three men have told him of its Truth and Regret. The Truth is that the Mononoke killed those who came in pursuit of the Toudaiji and had them repeat an endless series of Kumikou night after night. The Medicine Seller tells that to an ordinary person’s eye, it is just a piece of wood but in order to remain it needed someone to say that it is special. That is the Mononoke’s Regret.

The Medicine Seller then asks if what the Mononoke did was going a bit too far. The house is the grave of all those the Mononoke killed, not just Jissonji, Muromachi, Nakarai and Ousawa. The Nue asks the Medicine seller what he will do and tells him that he will become like them. The ghosts of those it killed appeared around the Medicine Seller but he gives it no attention. The Nue laughs. The Medicine seller releases his sword. The Nue attacks but the Medicine seller strikes. The two fight. The Medicine Seller says that without a flame to burn it, the wood will never release its ture scent. He strikes the wood. It is cut in half and releases its scent. For a moment, the room became alive and so did those who were killed by the Mononoke but as the scent dies down, they disappear and the house is left in its original dilapidated state.

I was rendered speechless after watching this episode. The revelation in the end was just amazing. It somehow reminds me the films The Others and A Tale of Two Sisters where characters are revealed to be already dead. Muromachi, Nakarai and Ousawa didn’t realize that until they played the Taketori-no-Kou with the Medicine Seller. At first, I was thinking the Medicine Seller was acting weird when he informed the three men about the oleander as if it were nothing serious. It turns out he was making the three men realize that they are already dead. As the Medicine Seller said, if he left the Mononoke to its own devices, things would be dull so he had to meddle a bit.

The Nue in this arc is not depicted as a creature having a monkey’s head, a tanuki’s body, a tiger’s legs and a snake of a tail. As Ousawa and the Medicine Seller said, the Nue’s form changes depending on where it is seen. Lady Ruri, her servant, and the girl Muromachi saw, were the Nue’s various forms.

It is interesting how the radicals of the characters that compose the word Rannatai (欄奈待) can be read as Toudaiji (東大寺). The Rannatai is said to be kept at the Toudaiji Temple’s Great Treasure Room. I wonder whether it is a mere coincidence.

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