Hyakkimaru's Birth
Book 1 of the Dororo Novel Series
Toriumi Jinzō
Part 4 - Return to the Hall of Hell
Chapter 4
The narrow path outside the temple wound through the low foothills at the base of the mountain. The roots of cedar trees jutted up from the earth, making it easy to trip and fall on the path. Jukai and Oniwakamaru progressed slowly on horseback. Oniwakamaru was as good at riding as he was at walking now.
The path climbed steeply, then leveled off onto a clear, flat area. The valley plunged down to one side of it. Thick trees covered the slope on the opposite side of the path. It was a quiet, solemn kind of place.
Oniwakamaru dismounted and tethered his horse to a tree. He looked up at the sky and felt like he was viewing the vastness of the universe. Yoshitsune had encountered tengu here and learned the sword. Oniwakamaru hoped to do the same.
Yoshitsune's role model, the Buddhist monk Saichō,1 had supposedly prayed three times after every battle he fought with his sword. Jukai and Oniwakamaru bowed their heads in front of a statue of Acala, a Buddha of wrath who could shoot flames from his body. The statue carried a flaming sword in his right hand and a small-scale model of Kannon, goddess of mercy, in his left hand.
Jukai taught Hyakkimaru the basics of Hamara Genyōhiken, monster and spirit exorcism. Oniwakamaru struggled with many of the movements he had to master. His limbs weren't dead weight unless he consciously chose to move them, so sensing the energies that he needed to manipulate didn't come naturally to him. He imitated Jukai's movements, but he didn't achieve the same results.
"Don't just copy me," Jukai said. "Rely on your own psychokinesis as you move. That's your foundation."
Oniwakamaru took a deep breath, then tried again.
Jukai was surprised at the extent of his improvement from just those instructions alone. Oniwakamaru's previous awkward clumsiness vanished; by degrees, his movements became swift and precise. They weren't perfect—Oniwakamaru wasn't used to holding a sword properly yet—but Jukai noticed a marked improvement.
Oniwakamaru's sense of balance had been honed while he'd taught himself to walk. That practice stood him in good stead for sword training. He could kick as well and as high as anyone with his same height. When he leaped into the air, he could keep his feet off the ground for almost five seconds.
Jukai gave Oniwakamaru a wooden sword to practice with. Oniwakamaru had solid control over his hands and mastered grip and the basic sword strikes without too much effort. His extrasensory perception made him alert to attacks from behind.
As part of sword training, Jukai hung short wooden logs from tall trees to form obstacles for Oniwakamaru to cut down. Hyakkimaru slashed at them whenever Jukai pushed one at him, from the front or from behind. When Oniwakamaru's first wooden practice sword broke, Jukai taught him how to make a new one.
Oniwakamaru started to pester Sakuzō to take him to Kaede to see his family. Sakuzō never refused him outright, but he made no plans to return to his home village, either.
"I think I'll take up the sword again, too," Sakuzō said. "We know there are yōkai in these parts, so it doesn't hurt to be cautious."
It was 1465. The esteemed monk Rennyo2 had just been driven out of the Hongan Temple by his detractors. There was great uproar in Kyōto over the attack. Jukai's parental instincts made him fearful of allowing Oniwakamaru to leave Mount Kurama when the outside world was so unsafe, but he couldn't keep Oniwakamaru at home forever. If Oniwakamaru became a doctor, he would have to leave the mountain to see patients. And Oniwakamaru didn't want to remain stuck on the mountain estate forever, anyway.
Jukai kept remembering Unga, the Buddhist image maker who had sealed the demons inside the forty-eight statues inside the Hall of Hell. He considered the idea that the demons had been unleashed when the statures had been destroyed in the temple fire. Demons or evil spirits had attacked Oniwakamaru three times. He had to become strong enough to protect himself from them.
In the autumn of the year that Oniwakamaru turned seventeen, Namitarō visited the mountain estate for the first time in almost six years. He was sixty-eight years old, but he was perpetually young at heart. When he saw Oniwakamaru's new limbs, his eyes bugged out of his head.
"I have a gift for you, Oniwakamaru," Namitarō said after recovering from his shock. "It's a sword made right here in Japan by the famous swordsmith Muramasa."3
Hyakkimaru had only ever trained with short swords, so receiving a full-length katana made Oniwakamaru feel very proud and grown-up. Jukai wouldn't have let him accept if he thought that he wasn't ready for it.
"Wow! It looks so sharp..."
"It was used by the Chinese Emperor Zhu Qizhen himself. They say that it's claimed the lives of a thousand men. While fighting with it, the Emperor saw a vision of his honored ancestor, the Empress Wu Zetian, who warned him about an attack on his palace. Rumors say that he used the sword to destroy demons."
All of this was old news in China, but Jukai had never heard these rumors before. Emperor Zhu Qizhen had financed many of Zheng He's expeditions, but Jukai knew little about him aside from that. He was astounded at both the gift and the story. He hoped that the sword proved worthy of its reputation.
Namitarō told Jukai how the sword came to be in his possession. In 1449, the Chinese Emperor Zhu Qizhen was captured by the Oirat, the westernmost group of Mongols whose ancestral home was in Siberia. Their commander, Esen Taishi, let him go after a year, but one of the Emperor's generals, In Senju, attempted to escape before the term of imprisonment was up. His wife and six-year-old daughter were killed.
After In Senju and the Emperor were released, the Emperor gifted the Muramasa sword to In Senju, respecting his desire for revenge against the people who had killed his family. In Senju did avenge himself, when Esen Taishi was betrayed by his fellow Oirat.
The sword changed hands and found its way back to Muramasa in Japan, who sold it to Namitarō. Japanese swords were popular in China because of their ability to hold an edge over time. Jukai understood a pirate's need for a good sword, and Namitarō's especially: Namitarō still carried his father's old grudge against the shogunate.
The Muramasa sword suited Oniwakamaru quite well. In addition to the sword, Namitarō brought new fabric for clothes, dishes, and a type of firearm called a hand cannon. It required manual ignition through a touch hole and was extremely dangerous. Hand cannons had recently become popular as weapons in China.
That night, Jukai prepared a feast for Namitarō. Oniwakamaru listened eagerly to Namitarō's stories and asked how the hand cannon worked. Namitarō was keenly interested in what Oniwakamaru was learning in his sword training.
"I want to go to China on your ship, like my dad," Oniwakamaru said.
"Really?" Jukai asked him, expression dubious.
Oniwakamaru nodded.
Jukai thought for a moment. He'd traveled all around the world as a young man to learn more about medicine. Travel was mind-broadening; it might be good for Oniwakamaru to get out of Japan and out of reach of the demons.
"Let's go to Karatsu together!" Oniwakamaru said to Namitarō.
"Hm," Jukai said. "We'll see."
"Maybe you should think about it for a little longer," Namitarō said.
Oniwakamaru looked at him, confused. Namitarō laughed hugely. "You've never been away from Jukai and Sakuzō. You might not realize it now, but it's lonely aboard ship. Think about it for a while, and if you decide that you really want to go, I'll take you."
Namitarō still thought of Oniwakamaru as a child, at least in some ways. He beckoned Jukai over and whispered, "I've been looking into matters in the capital via an acquaintance, Mutō Yasuchika. But he's in the service of the shōgun's magistrate, so he can only help us in certain ways...."
The shōgun's magistrate was Iio Koretane, and his loyalty to shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimasa was inflexible. Since the strange years of the Kakitsu Era (1441-44), the shōgun's power and rights had gradually been eroding. Iio Koretane's loyalty wasn't worth as much as it used to be.
Namitarō had been plotting and planning behind the scenes for many years to take advantage of the shōgun's vulnerability. To that end, he'd recruited men and installed them and several small armies on estates surrounding Kyōto. His goal was to gain a foothold in the capital itself.
Jukai's main concern was that Chin Uiro's family be kept from violence and conflict, since they still lived in the city. Namitarō took Jukai's concerns into consideration, but he still prepared for a full-scale attack. Ōuchi Yoshihiro's death hadn't been avenged by Nadaemon. Namitarō considered it his filial duty to take revenge against the shogunate in his father's place.
Namitarō stayed at the estate for two days, then returned to his ship via the Arachi Mountain Pass. A few days later, Oniwakamaru came to Jukai with his hands folded and his face cast down.
"Please forgive me, father," Oniwakamaru said.
"For what?" Jukai asked. "Wanting to leave Kurama?"
"For not wanting to be a doctor anymore."
"I see," Jukai said. "That must mean that there's something else you want to do."
Oniwakamaru nodded. "I've tried and tried to just push it aside, but I can't. Not anymore."
"What is it that you want to do?" Jukai asked.
"I want to search for my birth family." Oniwakamaru's eyes were bright with tears. "I hate them. I can't forgive them."
Oniwakamaru knew almost everything about Jukai's past. He understood how much Jukai hated and resented samurai and the shōgun. Like Jukai, he'd been raised by a doctor and knew much about medicine, but he was tempted by the mystery and danger of the outside world.
"What would you do if you found them?" Jukai asked quietly.
"I decided to embrace my samurai heritage during meditation," Oniwakamaru said. "Honest samurai live for honor and stand up for what's right. My birth father calls himself a samurai, but he's a monster in human skin, no less evil than the demons in my nightmares. If he's still out there, I have to stop him from harming others. I wouldn't even be alive without you and Sakuzō taking pity on me, father."
Sakuzō was sitting in the next room, listening to the conversation. He curled up in a corner of the room and wept.
"I have a selfish request," Oniwakamaru said. "Take me to the capital. I'll never ask you for anything else; I swear."
Oniwakamaru was prepared to risk himself against all dangers. Nothing Jukai or Sakuzō said would stop him.
But Jukai hesitated. He had always believed that Oniwakamaru had been placed in his path for a reason. No one else knew Yōda's techniques; no one else could have brought out his psychokinetic potential.
All of that was true, but what Jukai felt in this moment wasn't the pride and relief of raising an independent-minded son to adulthood. It was grief and the fear of loss. Oniwakamaru was his child: precious and irreplaceable.
Oniwakamaru had begged for forgiveness for choosing this path. Maybe he thought that Jukai would be angry with him for becoming a samurai because of Jukai's long and bitter history with them, but Jukai was not the sort of man to hold grudges of that kind. If Oniwakamaru was resolved, Jukai wouldn't try to hold him back.
"You didn't receive a new name at your adulthood ceremony,"4 Jukai said softly. Jukai hadn't been given a new name in early adulthood, either; when Yōda had given him his new name, he'd been middle-aged. "I"ll give you one now."
"Huh? Why?"
"Sakuzō and I named you Oniwakamaru in the hope that you would be able to fight demons someday," Jukai said. "You'll need strength, now more than ever. I name you Hyakkimaru." The name was comprised of the kanji meaning "hundred" and the kanji meaning "demon." "May you possess the power to defy a hundred demons."5
"Thank you, father." Hyakkimaru swallowed a lump in his throat. "Thank you." Tears streamed down his cheeks as he bowed his head.
2 Rennyo (1415-1499 ) was the eighth head priest of the Hongan Temple of the True Pure Land Sect of Buddhism, and descendant of the founder Shinran. During the conflict of the Ōnin War and the subsequent warfare that spread throughout Japan, Rennyo was able to unite most of the disparate factions of Buddhism under the Hongan Temple, reform existing liturgy and practices, and broaden support among different classes of society. The monks of a rival faction noticed Rennyo's successes in the provinces around Kyōto. In 1465, Mt. Hiei sent a band of warrior monks to Hongan Temple and destroyed most of the temple complex. The temple was almost entirely destroyed before armed men from the Takada congregation were able to chase away the attackers. According to one account, Rennyo was able to fleet at the last minute due to timely assistance from a cooper who saw the attackers coming, and led Rennyo out through the back.↩
3 Muramasa (born before 1501), commonly known as Sengo Muramasa, was a famous swordsmith who founded the Muramasa sword school and lived during the Muromachi Period. In spite of their original reputation as fine blades favored by the shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu and his vassals, the katana swords made by Muramasa gradually became a symbol of the anti-Tokugawa movement. In lore and popular culture from the 1700s and later, the swords have been regarded as yōtō (妖刀, "wicked katana").↩
4 Samurai were often considered adults at fourteen or fifteen, when they would cut their hair and take a new name distinct from the one they had in childhood.↩
5 Hyakkimaru's name kanji are 百鬼丸.↩
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