"He killed six of the palace guards on the way in and threw my friend Minamoto no Hiromasa over the stables, breaking his arm," Seimei says. "Everyone else, fortunately, had the good sense to get out of this way. Except me, of course, but who else could have stopped him?"

Really, Seimei should have stopped him sooner.

"I wish I came through it looking at pristine as I did in this picture. But actually, he threw me through a couple of walls and burned off half my hair." Seimei shakes his head. "I put up a good fight, using every trick at my disposal, but by the end he had the best of me. The only reason I survived is that he wanted the pleasure of throttling me to death. And I was able to grab a roof tile and hit him with it."

Seimei smacks the side of his head with the heel of his hand for emphasis.

"He was stunned, and I was able to put a binding spell on him. I promptly fainted away. While I was, ahem, preoccupied, the Emperor had him dragged off the Palace grounds and put to death."

Not so neat as it is in all the stories.