Medieval Japan, in a mountainous region. A fat ambitious Abbot struggles to keep his monastery solvent. A fearsome Demon has been discovered haunting the nearby mountain pass, and the lucrative flow of pilgrimshas run to a trickle. Even deliveries of the Abbot's favourite delicacies became scarce (you know it’s serious when food delivery workers begin to consider OH&S).

Next thing, the flow of the Emperor's patrimony also began to dry up, since the Monastery now served so very few of his subjects. At this new career low, the Abbot, his dreams for lasting prestige abandoned, considered shutting up shop and retiring into rural obscurity.

Meanwhile, high on some chill windswept plateau, the mountain Demon began to have his own doubts. With so few travellers daring to travel now, he had few opportunities to be really MEAN anymore: Hardly a pilgrim left to push over a precipice nowadays, and nor even the scrawniest farm child to snack upon. And that evil laugh he's obliged to make never seems to ring quite true anymore. And let's face it - he felt profoundly LONELY. Maybe he just wasn't cut out to be Evil? He reflected upon all this during his long loping descent though snowdrifts, drawn somehow towards the Monastery.

At the Monastery gate the Demon’s arrival was welcomed with some alarm - all the hitherto Zen-calm monks now screaming, shouting and swarming like ants to barricade the gateway. The abbot bravely rescued the ritual silver, and rushed to the back gate (just to check to see it was properly secure).

Meanwhile out front, after carefully smashing through the front gate (without crushing any monks he didn’t absolutely have to) the Demon then fell to his knees and begged forgiveness just for merely existing: “Me now penitent. Evil too hard. Want to learn Good!”

The struggling Abbot was brought before the prostrate Demon. “No no, you certainly can’t stay! Not with those razored claws, jagged horns and scything teeth!"

“Me want to learn be GOOD!” the Demon boomed, shaking the walls while chunks of plaster rained down. “Very well then. But down to the cellar with you!” commanded the Abbot in an odd shrill voice. "- but claws, horns and scything teeth have all got to go!"

For the remainder of the Winter, in the cold darkness of a cellar, the Demon meditated upon his past misdeeds. His monk's cell looked suspiciuosly like a bear cage, and he was in an appalling state really – poorly manicured, two great bloody sockets in his head. But he grinned earnestly through broken teeth at his great fortune now to be on the path towards The Good Life!

Just a few floors above, the Abbot was also in great spirits. He was a real celebrity now. Word had got around how he'd he subdued a fearful Demon – surely a man of great piety! Cashed-up pilgrims flocked to the Monastery, and the Emperor sent a substantial reward.

Some weeks passed. Down in the dark and loveless cellar, the Demon’s health had begun to nosedive since converting to a vegan diet.

One monk with the courage to check up on him reported back to the Abbot: The once terrible Demon was now little more than a shambling pile of rags. “Excellent!” clapped the Abbot “My piety will even be more famous now, as the Slayer of Demons.” He looked forward to a bright and profitable Spring.

Spring returned, and warmed the frozen earth of the basement a little. The shambles on the cell floor shuddered and stirred, then shook off its icy crust, yawned and stretched. The Demon’s fever had broken, so he returned with diligence to his prescribed 16 hours of daily meditation.

But by now his horns had regrown, and occasionally he could not but help himself from playfully gouging at his cell's tatami mat. And with his newly hooked claws he raked the plaster walls, and with his scything teeth he gnawed at the cell bars - all the time bellowing with great joy. A frowning monk descended to check on the commotion disturbing the monastic calm above. The Demon paused at the sight of him, and felt a flash of resentment (who knows why).

Of course a pious demon must struggle to resist such a tempting snack, But then there was an unfortunate incident. After that, the rest of the monks, pilgrims and one portly Abbot were quickly dispensed with.

Downcast, the bloodied Demon returned to the wild; most certainly burdened with guilt. But nonetheless with a certain spring iin his lope on the climb to his old haunt - and felt very well fed indeed. Behind him, smoking ruins dusted the evening sky.

But this tale has a truly happy ending: The ambitious Abbot, although dismembered, had now reached the height of his fame, and is remembered throughout Japan to this day. Honto (本当)