Yurei

First Published: March 1990 by Fantagraphics Books

• Miyamoto Usagi
• Akane

The story starts with Usagi meditating under a tree. His meditations is interrupted when he hears someone nearby sob.

Opening his eyes, he sees a yurei of Akane. She tells Usagi that she is the daugther of the keeper of the Red Moon Inn. Against the objections of her father, she married a hired hand not knowing that he only wanted her for the inheritance.

After the marriage, he wasted their fortune on extravagancies and women. When she objected, he killed her and threw the body into the nearby river telling the authorities that she had run off with another man. With that, her ghost vanishes.

Usagi wakes up the next morning with an aching back and wondering what strange dreams he had. Preparing to continue on his journey, he notices a hair pin which lies in the grass close to the place where he had slept.

After a closer examination, he finds that the hair pin is probably valuable and wonders if he might be able to trade it into a meal at the next inn.

Arriving at the next inn, he puts his idea into reality and really, the reluctant innkeeper becomes all to hospitable when his gaze falls unto the pin. Usagi wonders if he could have got more for the pin than just one meal while the innkeeper, who had recognized the hair pin as the one from his wife, believes that Usagi has found her body and is now blackmailing him.

Pretty satisfied by the deal, Usagi leaves the inn not knowing that the innkeeper has already hired thugs to deal with him. Unfortunately, Usagi being the superior swordsman, quickly sends the bandits fleeing.

After that, the innkeeper, who had been watching with horror, tries to run away to avoid the samurais revenge. He runs as fast as he can back to the inn to get some money and be gone when sudden mist make him loose his way. Out of breath, he has to stop under a tree, trying to remember where he is, now, when a quiet sobbing makes him flinch.

Usagi, still unaware of these events, suddenly hears a yell and something dropping into water. He runs to the source of the sound but the motionless body of the innkeeper floating in the river tells him that he is too late.

Pitying the poor guy, he looks around and to his astonishment, he finds the hair pin, lying in the grass, again.

Last change: 19. May 2003

Back to UY Dojo Home Page

Because of getting swamped by spam eMail, we don't publish an eMail adress here but you can always reach us via the DojoBoard.

Usagi Yojimbo, including all prominent characters featured in the stories and the distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of Stan Sakai and Usagi Studios. Usagi Yojimbo is a registered trademark of Stan Sakai. Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric content, is coincidental.