Hyakkimaru's Birth
Book 1 of the Dororo Novel Series
Toriumi Jinzō
Part 4 - Return to the Hall of Hell
Chapter 3
The Buddhist monks at Kurama Temple led various lives. Some were militant monks, but many served the Buddha in meditation and prayer. Jukai sent a petition to one of the more pious monks at the Fumyō Shrine near the temple, asking for permission to pray there.
Permission was granted. The monk encouraged Oniwakamaru's visits, and Oniwakamaru showed himself to be much more devout towards the gods than he ever had previously. He meditated in front of a statue of Tamon-ten and prayed, considering his own place in the world under the light of the sun that filtered in through the temple's windows.
Sakuzō joined Jukai and Oniwakamaru at the temple after about a month. He didn't pray, but he brought Oniwakamaru in front of the Tamon-ten, then waited in the hall until he was ready to go home. Oniwakamaru got used to skidding along the floor, using his hands to support his entire body.
When Oniwakamaru returned to the mountain estate from the temple, he practiced standing. There was a large cedar support column in his bedroom that he leaned against so that he wouldn't fall. He seized the support with his hands, then lowered himself to the floor and stood up, over and over again. This had the effect of enhancing his control over his arms as well. There was a danger of him falling and hurting himself, so Sakuzō usually stayed nearby to watch over him. Oniwakamaru insisted that he could practice by himself. Sakuzō was concerned about him falling and hitting his head.
This practice was tough on Oniwakamaru's arms. The leather protecting them came loose and one of the elbow joints got stuck in place at an odd angle. His arms didn't hurt, but having them not function was irritating for Oniwakamaru. Jukai made the necessary repairs and kept encouraging Oniwakamaru to move more.
Gaining functional hands had drastically improved Oniwakamaru's quality of life. It had also reduced his need for Sakuzō to take care of him. Jukai started teaching Oniwakamaru penmanship as his control over his hands improved. He was clumsy at writing at first and often dropped his brush and smeared the paper, but he was determined and continued to work until he could write his letters without making a mess. He also learned how to eat with chopsticks. He didn't rely on Sakuzō to get to the pit toilets anymore. Oniwakamaru truly was becoming independent.
With independence and maturity came changes in personality. Oniwakamaru talked little and spent many days alone with his thoughts. He remembered what Jukai had told him about Kazunen and the Hall of Hell. His stares were sometimes chilling and even a little frightening. He stopped praying at Fumyō Shrine and sat quietly in his room.
One day, Sakuzō visited Oniwakamaru and said, "If you don't do anything to keep them away, the monsters will come back."
Oniwakamaru laughed self-deprecatingly. "Aren't I a monster, too? I won't be surprised if they do show themselves again."
"What did you say?" Sakuzō asked.
"Sometimes I wish I'd died in that basin before I was found."
"Don't say that," Sakuzō said. "Please don't say that..."
Oniwakamaru slunk down in a corner of his room and didn't move. He was crying. Jukai reprimanded Oniwakamaru and had him apologize to Sakuzō, but that didn't really clear the air.
Tensions between Oniwakamaru and his guardians were at a breaking point. The night that Oniwakamaru had first demonstrated his potential for psychokinesis was the night he'd been threatened by the Hall of Hell demons. That couldn't be a coincidence.
One hot and muggy night, Oniwakamaru couldn't sleep. He liked to spend summer nights on the hill behind the house, looking up at the moon. He climbed into his cart, wishing he could walk, then looked out the window before heading outside.
He froze. The moon shone blood red at the horizon line; moonrise was happening on the mountain, so the moon seemed to get bigger and redder as he stared at it.
"Uh...is that a bad sign?" Oniwakamaru muttered.
He did think that the moon seemed odd, but he didn't think that he was in any danger while he stayed on the estate. He guided the cart up on a slanted rock and reclined slightly, looking up at the stars. The garden and the yard were surrounded by trees, but his view of the sky was unobstructed.
Oniwakamaru heard a whistle from somewhere in the trees. It sounded a little like a white's thrush. The bird's call was a haunting sound that was said to bring bad luck.
The sky above his head, which had been clear when he'd first come outside, went hazy with mist and fog, as if he were viewing it through a silk screen. Wild monkeys screeched somewhere nearby. Oniwakamaru didn't understand what was happening; most of the time, the wild monkeys weren't active at night.
"Excuse me," someone said from behind him.
Oniwakamaru used his arms to shift himself in the cart and saw a woman standing behind him. She appeared to be about thirty years old, though it was hard to tell. Her face was covered by a partial veil. Her kimono was richly patterned with red and yellow flowers. She was probably a member of the Imperial Court, by her dress, or perhaps a member of a samurai family. She appeared unearthly in the dim red light of the moon.
Jukai's patients never came to the estate, but sometimes women came to deliver herbs and supplies from Ōhara and Shizuhara. All of those women were older than this woman was.
"Hello," Oniwakamaru said politely. "Are you looking to buy medicinal herbs? My father would give you some, if you ask." He didn't want to be rude to anyone seeking help from his father.
The woman didn't seem to hear him. "Are you Oniwakamaru?" she asked.
"Huh?" Oniwakamaru tilted his head. He was certain that he'd never met her before...how did she know his name?
"Um, excuse me," Oniwakamaru said, "but who are you?"
The woman lifted her veil, revealing her face. She was ethereally beautiful, but her unreal quality unsettled him. There was something frightening about her beauty, but he couldn't quite figure out why.
"Do you recognize this?" she asked, holding out a small kimono in both hands. It was patterned like her own, with red and yellow flowers.
Oniwakamaru did recognize it. Jukai had shown it to him when telling him that his birth parents had abandoned him. Someone had wrapped him in it when he was a baby.
"Why are you here?" Oniwakamaru asked. "What do you want?"
"Want?" The woman's forehead creased. "If you are Oniwakamaru...then I'm your mother."
"What?"
The woman wept into her sleeve. Oniwakamaru held himself rigidly still. His mother had come to find him. The idea excited him so much that he briefly forgot himself and asked, "If you're my mother, then who is my father?"
"A samurai lord and a great general," she said.
Oniwakamaru blinked. He couldn't tell if she was lying, but Jukai had told him that his father was probably a samurai. "A samurai general...what is his name?"
"You will learn that when you come to meet him," the woman said. "He is a very powerful warrior and is frequently away at war, but he's finally returned home. I've come here to bring you to him. Come." She extended her hand.
Oniwakamaru laughed at her.
The woman looked confused. "Why are you laughing?"
Oniwakamaru drew the short sword at his hip and swiped at her. She cried out and took a huge step back.
"What are you doing?" she shrieked.
"You're a demon," Oniwakamaru said. "The first one I've seen in its true shape."
The woman composed herself, then smiled. Her lips split at the edges and widened, revealing an enormous mouth full of teeth. Her high-pitched laugh was almost a giggle.
Oniwakamaru glared at her. "Did the Hall of Hell demons send you?" he asked. "Are you their messenger?"
The woman's beautiful exterior melted away as she leaped at him. Oniwakamaru used his hands to vault out of the cart as she attacked it, landing and then catching his sword in midair. The cart toppled over and went tumbling down the garden path.
The woman's head transformed into a monkey's. Her body became thick and furry like a huge raccoon's, only larger and with reddish fur. Her legs were powerful and striped like a tiger's. A snake grew where a tail should have been, gnashing its fangs. Silver wings as sharp as blades sprouted from her back. This was a Nue,1 which Oniwakamaru had never seen before except in pictures. He hadn't even believed that they were real.
Sakuzō had once told Oniwakamaru that Yoshitsune had defeated a Nue by shooting it down and sticking it full of arrows, but Oniwakamaru had no bow or quiver. He was infuriated that the Nue had tried to trick him by pretending to be his mother. He focused all of his psychokinetic energy into his sword arm; he didn't intend to let any demon or monster harm his prosthetic limbs again.
The Nue took flight, flapping its powerful wings. Oniwakamaru leaped to his feet and dodged when it dived at him, then brought the blade of his sword down on the Nue's skull.
The sword made a strange sound as it connected with the Nue. A moment later, the Nue's body went indistinct around the edges, as if it were covered by fog.
Sakuzō called out, "Oniwakamaru!" as the Nue vanished behind a thick haze. The moon overhead was silver again and no longer shone red.
Jukai and Sakuzō had heard the screeching of the wild monkeys and came running. Oniwakamaru should have called for them as soon as he'd seen the woman. Very few people climbed the mountain at night, and no woman would be brave or foolish enough to do that alone. Oniwakamaru had remained calm, but the monkeys had been aware of the danger and sought to warn him, Jukai and Sakuzō.
"Um...Oniwakamaru, you're standing!" Sakuzō said.
"That's right," Jukai said. "You're standing up."
Until they said it, Oniwakamaru hadn't been aware that he was standing at all. He looked down at his legs and gasped.
Without danger and adrenaline to sustain his enhanced psychokinesis, the strength went out of his legs. He fell.
Sakuzō caught him before he could hurt himself. Jukai noticed that one of Oniwakamaru's knee joints was smoldering and quickly removed it, dropping it to the ground before it could burn him.
"What caused that?" Sakuzō asked. "Can demons use fire?"
"This wasn't caused by the demon," Jukai said.
"Huh? Then how did it happen?" Sakuzō asked.
"Oniwakamaru did it."
Oniwakamaru looked confused as well. "How did I...do this?"
"You were enraged and lost control of your psychokinesis," Jukai said.
Sakuzō nodded, but he still looked confused. Oniwakamaru had damaged his leg in the fight against the demon, but that was also the first time he'd ever stood on his own two feet before.
Sakuzō helped carry Oniwakamaru back to the estate.
"I thought that all the demon statues burned," Sakuzō said. "Do you think one really came here, taifu?"
"The only thing that burned were vessels containing their spirits," Jukai said. "They're loose in the world now."
"That's...terrifying." Sakuzō's neck dropped.
"I don't care if the demon statues have turned into monsters," Oniwakamaru said. "I have to fight them."
"That wasn't a Hall of Hell demon," Jukai said. "It was a yōkai—a spectral monster that usually has a cursed spirit."
Sakuzō nodded. "Taifu is probably right. I've heard of people who have seen yōkai in Kaede."
"The Hall of Hell demons have no bodies," Jukai said. "You'll see them as spirits. They can change their shape, much as yōkai can. The demons are made of cursed spiritual energy, so that's how they manifest."
"The demons invited me to the Hall of Hell in my dream," Oniwakamaru said. He still wasn't convinced that the demons hadn't found him here.
"Don't worry," Jukai said. "This area is protected by the sacred mountain of Hyōtankuzure and the god of Iwakura Shrine. The mountain is scattered with temples to many powerful gods. It would be difficult for the demons to reach you here."
The spirit of the sun defended the mountain of Konpira and the god of Iwakura Shrine defended Hyōtankuzure. Mount Kurama's largest temple was defended by the Buddhist Deva Kings. There was a legend circulated by the people who lived on the mountain that the Deva Kings had been protecting the mountains since the beginning of the world.
"The Buddhist protector gods derive their power from the heavens," Jukai said. "It's possible that the demons get their power from there, too, but they've always been lesser beings."
Oniwakamaru set his shoulders. "Dad…are you sure that was a yōkai? It said my father was a samurai."
How would a yōkai know that? Oniwakamaru couldn't prove a connection between the Hall of Hell demons and his birth parents, but a connection did seem likely. The Hall of Hell had burned down on the night a samurai had visited it.
The yōkai could have been lying, or simply guessing. Even if the yōkai had told the truth, knowing that Oniwakamaru's father was a samurai didn't help much. There were over seven thousand samurai estates in the capital alone. If he confined his search to only high-ranked officials or military commanders, there would still be dozens of potential matches for the yōkai's general description of his father.
Oniwakamaru didn't believe that the yōkai had told the truth. It had tried to lure him in by baiting him with something he wanted to know. He was sure that the yōkai would not have revealed anything about his birth family even if he'd followed it down the mountain.
"Don't be frightened of the demons, Oniwakamaru," Jukai said. "Focus on developing your psychokinesis."
"Yes, father." Oniwakamaru had been born with the potential for psychokinesis. He was cultivating that potential, but there seemed to be another power at work within him as well. Why had he stood up without realizing it? Why had his knee joint burned?
Oniwakamaru didn't think that he had manipulated his limbs with psychokinesis during his fight with the Nue. Something else was going on that he didn't understand.
***
The next morning, Oniwakamaru returned to Fumyō Shrine to pray for the first time in a long while. After meditating for a few hours, he went out to the forest surrounding the shrine in his self-moving cart. Usually, when he was stuck in his training or in the development of his capabilities, the animals of the mountain helped him, but no animals appeared.
My arms work, but my legs don't. Am I stuck like this?
He was crying. He waited for some kind of change until nightfall, then returned home. Jukai was there to greet him.
Oniwakamaru looked up at the North Star.
"You're impatient," Jukai said. "Even Sakuzō needed more than six months of recovery time to walk freely on his prosthetic leg. Do you think you're the only one in the world who's lost their legs and longs to walk? There are countless people who have lost legs and will never walk again, but they still go on living."
Jukai meant for his words to be encouraging, but Oniwakamaru's eyes were bright with tears. He went to Fumyō Shrine every day to meditate and pray, then visited the forest in his cart. Large groups of wild monkeys gathered around him in the forest, chattering and climbing up and down in the trees. Oniwakamaru was jealous of them; they could all walk on on their legs.
Monkeys can stand on two legs. I stood on my legs when I fought the yōkai pretending to be my mother. How did I do that? Did my body recognize an enemy and just…react?
He paused, lost in thought.
My legs definitely moved. That means they can move.
For the briefest of moments, Oniwakamaru smiled. "Monkeys have four limbs, just like people. Their young crawl before they learn to walk. There's no reason why I can't do what monkeys can."
Oniwakamaru clung to the side of his cart and supported himself on his arms. He faced the forest and whistled. A familiar stag came running up to him.
"Shinosuke," Oniwakamaru said fondly, rubbing the stag's soft nose. Shinosuke had lived near the mountain estate for years. Oniwakamaru had named him when he was still a young child, well before Shinosuke's antlers sprouted. "I need your help."
Oniwakamaru climbed out of his cart, then supported himself on Shinosuke's back. "Shinosuke, walk. Slowly, so that I can keep up."
Shinosuke walked very slowly into the forest. Oniwakamaru felt a strong sense of disconnection between his upper and lower body at first and had to stop frequently. He concentrated all of his thoughts and energy into moving his legs.
Every day after that, Oniwakamaru leaned on Shinosuke after his shrine visits. It took the entire autumn and part of winter, but Oniwakamaru's control over his legs gradually increased until he could walk unaided. He kept walking outside with Shinosuke even when snow fell thickly on the ground.
***
It was spring again; the air was redolent with the smell of fresh green leaves. The yellow roses were in flower in the slopes of Mount Kurama. The voices of blue-and-white flycatchers echoed in the mountain valleys.
Oniwakamaru approached Jukai in his study while he was reading a book that described the properties of healing herbs. Oniwakamaru sat seiza in front of him, looking perfectly natural and comfortable.
Oniwakamaru brought his palms together. "Father, I have a request," he said.
"What is it?" Jukai asked.
"I want to learn how to fight," Oniwakamaru said.
"How to fight? Why?"
"So that I can protect myself."
Unlike Jukai, Oniwakamaru actually wanted to be a doctor. The danger of yōkai and demons was the stimulus that caused him to want to learn self-defense. Jukai's dream in childhood was to be a pirate or a warrior; he'd rejected any thoughts of a medical education until his father's death. Jukai and Oniwakamaru were very much the same, and yet so different.
"All right," Jukai said. "I'll be the tengu to your Yoshitsune."
"Thank you. I'd also like to learn meditation and self-discipline." In some tales of his life, Yoshitsune had trained his mind as well as his body with the monks of Kurama Temple.
Jukai didn't realize it at the time, but by making this request, Oniwakamaru had set himself on his life's path.
Translator's Note:
1 The Nue (鵺, 鵼, 恠鳥, or 奴延鳥) is a legendary yōkai or demon. Due to its appearance, it is sometimes referred to as a Japanese chimera It is said to make terribly eerie bird cry "hyoo hyoo" noises that resemble that of the scaly thrush. The Nue is also said to have the ability of shape-shifting, often into the form of a black cloud that can fly.↩
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