Yôko Naitô credited as playing...
Omatsu
- Ryunosuke Tsukue: What is it?
- Omatsu: Behind you.
- Ryunosuke Tsukue: Behind me?
- Omatsu: The figure of a woman.
- Ryunosuke Tsukue: A woman? I felt something too and looked back, but I saw nothing.
- Omatsu: But I'm sure I saw her. It's a ghost!
- Ryunosuke Tsukue: A ghost?
- Omatsu: Long ago, a courtesan named Kokonoe... I don't know the reason... She put on her makeup and dressed in her best and then stabbed herself here with a dagger. This room hasn't been used since.
- Ryunosuke Tsukue: A likely enough story, but there are no ghosts. I'm more afraid of the living than the dead.
- Shuzen Kamio: I won't kill you, Omatsu. It's a game... the bamboo game.
- Omatsu: Bamboo?
- Shuzen Kamio: We'll pretend you're the bamboo. Understand? Of course you don't. Naturally you wouldn't understand. Bamboo, with so many layers of covering, can't see... like the masses. Loyalists, shogunate supporters... each time they flash their steel, a layer comes off. It's a nuisance. But Omatsu... the more stupid the game, the more fun it becomes. Here I come, bamboo! Omatsu. I won't be able to play these games much longer. The samurai class, like a heavy log, will soon sink from its own weight. The bamboo will grow and become strong. Now's the time. First my sword will cut your sash. And now your band! It's a difficult thing to cut. Here I go!
- Ryunosuke Tsukue: I didn't see anything... but I distinctly heard sounds.
- Omatsu: Sounds?
- Ryunosuke Tsukue: Mountain winds. They rise up from deep in the valleys... blowing up the young green leaves. Beyond, all you see are endless mountain ranges... that fade far away into the clouds.
- Omatsu: I saw such a scene once somewhere. At Daibosatsu Pass, I think.
- Ryunosuke Tsukue: Daibosatsu Pass?
- Omatsu: Do you know that pass, samurai?
- Ryunosuke Tsukue: Very well. But how do you know it?
- Omatsu: I passed there once. A difficult climb, 15 miles up and down.
- Ryunosuke Tsukue: Very strange. Why would a Kyoto girl climb a mountain pass?
- Omatsu: It was as a pilgrim two years ago in May, with my grandfather.