Act 1 “The teachings of a military man”
Fuji is heard playing his role fighting his brother. When it ends, he calls out to her from behind and she gives him a bouquet from someone in the audience. However, he intends to throw it away once he reaches his room. On the way, she is surprised he can hold a normal conversation so he says that he only cut his arm to fulfil his ‘command’, which was to be a Teikoku Star. He says he has a ‘mission’ to fulfil and is about to leave when something drops. “This bottle? Barbital.. It’s a sleeping drug. No, it is not for my personal use, but to kidnap a girl. Yes, I will use it on her and bring her somewhere. …? I did not meant it as a joke though…. I am in a hurry so I must leave now.” She stops him and tries to get the reason why he is doing such a thing, so he ties her to a chair and gags her.
When he returns, he simply unties her and comments on how her wrists are red from all the rubbing against the ropes. “Are you living? Ah, your eyes were closed so I thought, maybe…. Fuji has just returned.” “Ah, does it hurt? But if I do not touch your wrists I cannot untie you, so please bear with it.” He tells her he failed his ‘mission’ and that the girl was a lady from a noble family who insulted his father, so ‘that person’ wanted him to kidnap her. “Is it that strange that I follow my mother’s orders? Since my father and brother died, my mother is the one in command now. Since she is my commanding officer, is it natural that I follow her orders. If I do not, only punishment awaits. In other words, being whipped until the skin rips, locked in a dark cellar for days on end, being tied up and having someone verbally abusing me for long periods of time, being pushed into the water for suffocation…. Ah, you need no further explanation? Understood. If there is an order, I follow it, I am such an existence. I must be going. Ah, it is better that you do not speak to anyone about this. I would be troubled if an order comes to ‘take care’of you.”