Demon Sword Dance
Book 2 of the Dororo Novel Series
Toriumi Jinzō
Part 2 - Nihil, the Demon Sword
Chapter 5
Nuinosuke's room in the woman's estate faced the east. It was a lavishly appointed room. The entire estate was well-furnished and carefully maintained. The view from the window showed a manicured garden, and beyond it high mountain slopes with a lush pine forest rising up before Nuinosuke's eyes, as if the trees were suspended in the sky.
The woman's name was Mai. Her estate was full of maids and servants, mostly women. Nuinosuke had met several of them, though none of them had said a single word to him.
Nuinosuke drank sake in his room, whiling away the time. When he got bored, he wandered through the garden and into the pine forest on the mountain. The forest was full of shining white moth and butterfly cocoons. Nuinosuke found the sight of all the cocoons very strange at first, but as he spent more time at the estate, he became used to seeing them and barely registered their presence in the woods.
The closest village was some distance away, so Nuinosuke's presence at the estate was ignored for a while. Eventually, news spread to the village that had held the torchlight dance festival that Lady Mai had a new lodger.
Mai visited Nuinosuke's room once every three days at sunset. She ate and drank and talked with him until late in the night. She never drank to excess and always treated Nuinosuke with perfect and somewhat distant politeness. There were times when she engaged in kagura dancing;1 her graceful form flitting lightly and smoothly over the floor reminded him of a beautiful natural creature, like a bird or a butterfly. Lady Mai was also skilled at singing and poetry. She had even composed her own songs. Her writing with a brush was as graceful as her dancing. Her letters were perfect works of art.
Nuinosuke was certain that Lady Mai had a lofty origin, though she never spoke of her parents or her family.
Lady Mai spent her afternoons in dancing, prayer, meditative contemplation, or music composition. She never visited the nearby village, nor did she show any inclination to. Nuinosuke didn't know why. Maybe she didn't want to look upon the faces of the poor and the suffering, or maybe she was taking part in religious discipline that kept her apart from the outside world. Sometimes villagers would come to the estate carrying food and supplies, but aside from them, Nuinosuke saw no one else but Mai. The villagers talked about all the unrest in the province because their lord was away at war, but Nuinosuke never heard any rumors about himself or Nihil.
Nuinosuke loved Lady Mai's estate. To him, it was a safe and hidden house where he was free from all restrictions and compulsions. The long arm of the law couldn't reach him here. It was so secluded that no one ever came this way. He lived a life of quiet luxury, with boredom as his only nemesis. He discarded his old and dirty clothes and put on new ones that Lady Mai provided for him.
Neither Nuinosuke nor Mai asked too many questions concerning the past. Mai told Nuinosuke that she was a lady from Kyōto who had fled after her estate there burned. She had no surviving immediate family, so she'd come to Ezichen, where she'd discovered that the nearby village had been robbed by bandits. She’d given what she had to help the villagers rebuild their lives. In exchange, the villagers had built Lady Mai this estate and brought offerings of food to express their thanks. No bandits had attacked the village since Lady Mai had moved into her estate.
Nuinosuke had very little interest in Lady Mai's past. He accepted everything she said at face value.
"Long ago, my family were physicians for the Imperial Court," Lady Mai said. "They made medicines, of course, but also poison, which we mainly learned to make in self-defense."
Imperial Court physicians had access to all manner of herbs and medicinal ingredients. When Lady Mai had first come to the village, bandits were still prowling about. Lady Mai gathered some of her more costly belongings where they would be seen, then scattered a poisonous powder all around them. When the bandits came to steal her things, they breathed in the powder and collapsed in agony. Many bandits had rolled off the edge of the ravine into the Hino River below.
To the villagers, what Mai had done was like magic. They revered her as something divine. Nuinosuke was more practical-minded and didn't believe that what she'd done was god-like, merely clever. She was a beautiful, refined lady with a keen mind and many capabilities, but she wasn't any sort of goddess.
A large altar was set up in the estate's southward-facing room. Prayer rope surrounded a Tachibana orange tree. Offerings of fruit and nuts were piled up on the altar. The room looked like a shrine, but it wasn't lit: not by candles or by oil lamps or lanterns. The room was either lit by natural light, or it was dark.
The place of honor for the sacred object of the shrine was occupied by a shiny green chrysalis that was large enough to be a protective amulet. It was the chrysalis of a swallowtail butterfly. Mai often knelt down in reverence before this chrysalis, head bowed. Her clothes were usually embroidered or patterned with butterflies and flowers.
Seven girls served as priestesses in the temple and often prayed with Mai. They were all twelve or thirteen years of age. Their families lived in the village.
In 644, the idea took root in the eastern provinces that the people should worship insects. In the following year, 645, the Taika Reforms were established. These reforms were a set of doctrines established by Emperor Kōtoku. They were written shortly after the death of Prince Shōtoku and the defeat of the Soga Clan, which united Japan. Ōube Nō, a monk and a believer in insect worship, brought his ideas to the village at that time, along with the butterfly chrysalis that was now revered as a sacred object in Lady Mai's shrine. He said, "Insects are an everlasting god. If you worship them, you will receive wealth and longevity. "
The insect god was known as Tokoyo. He was said to hold the secrets of immortality and physical as well as spiritual wealth.
Lady Mai had chosen the Tachibana orange tree as the sacred tree of her shrine because caterpillars and larval insects especially liked eating its leaves and fruit. It was sung that sacrificing to the tree would grant great rewards.
But while Mai's worship of the chrysalis and tree resembled that of other worshipers of Tokoyo and insects superficially, her method of religious practice was far different from anyone else's. She discarded practices that were tiresome to her and incorporated kagura into her worship of the god.
Seen in the splendor of her shrine on the estate, it was easy to see why the people of the village respected her so highly. She was considered both benefactress and shrine maiden. No one said a single unkind word about her. Her beauty and the grandness of the estate became points of pride for the villagers.
Nuinosuke stayed at Mai's estate for ten days. Nihil hadn't sated itself on blood in a very long time, but it also didn't compel Nuinosuke to kill. Everyone on the estate was female aside from him. Maybe Nihil preferred not to kill women? Nuinosuke didn't know, but he assumed that Nihil was indiscriminate when it came to blood: it had drunk his fiancée Sayo's easily enough.
On his tenth night at Lady Mai's estate, Nuinosuke was awakened by the sound of the wind howling. When he opened the window to look outside, there was no wind at all. He was about to dismiss the sound as an auditory hallucination when he heard a clattering coming from behind him. Nihil, which had been propped up against the wall, fell to the floor.
Nuinosuke remembered that Nihil had awakened him in this same way once before. When he recalled how that particular awakening had ended, he shuddered.
He was grateful to Lady Mai for everything she'd done for him. She had known nothing about him before deciding to put him up, rent-free, in her own estate. He had new clothes, good food, and as much as he could eat and drink—and she had asked for nothing in return. She must want something, but if she did, she'd never spoken of it.
He'd considered the idea that she might want protection against something or someone, but that seemed ridiculous in light of what she'd done to the bandits plaguing the village. Mai didn't need Nuinosuke's help to defend herself or others from threats. And she didn't desire him sexually, either. He had followed her to her estate to find peace for himself, even if only temporarily. What she wanted from him was still a mystery. She only ever visited his room at sunset, and then only for an hour or so.
She's a strange woman, but well-liked and respected. There were times when Nuinosuke respected her, too; the sword hadn't demanded her blood even once.
Perhaps that was about to change. Nuinosuke felt the overwhelming desire for blood when he gripped Nihil's hilt. He went pale and felt sick to his stomach, but there was no sense in denying the sword what it wanted. That was impossible. "It's all right," he said soothingly. "You'll soon have exactly what you want."
It was the middle of the night. Everyone in the village would be asleep. Nuinosuke sneaked into a stranger's house and discovered an elderly couple sleeping side-by-side. Nuinosuke stood above them and pierced their hearts in a single thrust, quick and clean. Both the man and the woman died without making any noise louder than a slight groan.
In the next room, there was a younger couple lying near the room's fire, completely naked. The man was so absorbed in touching the woman's breasts and thighs that he didn't even notice Nuinosuke entering. Nuinosuke cut the man's back open as he thrust into the woman, then skewered the woman through the chest. The woman cried out in agony, but her cry lasted only a few moments.
When Nuinosuke returned to Lady Mai's estate, it was nearly dawn. He pushed aside the sliding door of his room, then stopped still.
Mai was sitting there, directly in front of him. She wore nothing but an undershirt, unlined and embroidered with a flower pattern. The same alluring smell she'd given off at her first meeting with Nuinosuke radiated off of her in waves.
Mai shrugged out of her undershirt and set the garment aside, leaving her naked. Her body gleamed bright white in the half-darkness.
Nuinosuke sucked in a breath. He was entranced by her, but summoned the presence of mind to hand her his blanket to cover herself with. When she set the blanket aside, he crouched down and settled the blanket over her shoulders.
He was about to stand up when Mai wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a kiss.
Nihil was leaning against the wall. It fell to the floor when Mai kissed him, but Nuinosuke didn't notice. He felt like his blood was on fire. He pulled Mai forward, hands on her hips, feeling the urgent need to be closer to her. He gasped when her tongue darted past his lips.
Mai sighed into his mouth. When Nuinosuke let his hands wander lower, he felt her warm wetness and entered her in a frenzy of lust.
***
When Nuinosuke awoke the next morning, Mai was gone. Not even her scent remained. He smelled nothing in the room except blood.
Was that a hallucination? he thought. Or a dream?
His eyes fell on Mai's flower-patterned undershirt, which was still exactly where she'd left it.
Translator's Note
1 Kagura is a specific type of Shinto ritual ceremonial dance. The phrase is a contraction of kami no kura (seat of god), indicating the presence of god in the practice. Usually a female shaman will perform the dance and obtain an oracle from the god. The dancer herself supposedly turns into the god during the performance.↩
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