Dororo: Part One
Nakamura Masaru
Part 1: Hyakkimaru
Chapter 3
Bōzu would be ready to leave the water in less than two months. He had fully assumed his new human shape and was indistinguishable from any other child of his same age.
The spring rainy season passed in the blink of an eye, giving way to an unusually hot summer. Biwabōshi walked through a field of reeds near the foot of a mountain and felt something strange on the wind.
“What happened here?” Biwabōshi asked quietly. “The air is disturbed...” He tried to sense more about the suspicious aura that he was feeling. There was more than one spirit, and they were up high, though not in the sky. Biwabōshi was guided to Jukai’s hut atop the mountain by the gathered presence of these spirits.
“Good evening,”Biwabōshi called out at the entrance to Jukai’s hut. When he heard no response, he took a step away from the door. He was completely blind in one eye and nearsighted in the other, but he felt with his feet that the hut was built on an incline. He took in the hut’s size and shape with his weak vision, searching for the spirits he’d felt while walking up the mountain.
The hut was small and crude, so at first glance it might be mistaken for the hut of a woodcutter or a charcoal burner, but Biwabōshi suspected that this was not the case. He couldn’t even guess what might be happening here.
This place was quiet, but not abandoned. He smelled grain and saw a simple bed on the floor through a small window, so someone must live here. But why would anyone choose to dwell among so many resentful spirits? Had the spirits been lured here, or worse, invited? Biwabōshi didn’t know, but he remained wary.
Biwabōshi braced himself for whatever he might see, then opened the door.
It was like he’d thought: a large group of evil spirits were using this place like a nest. They were gathered around a large water tank where something the size and shape of a baby was floating. The baby did not move or cry out. Biwabōshi counted dozens of ravening spirits surrounding the water tank. Most had assumed the shapes of flies, crows, and other scavengers. Some had the appearance of beasts, and a few even looked like people. The outlines of the spirits were indistinct, like heat haze or ripples.
The spirits gathered around the baby in the water and cried out, “Give.”
“Give me your body.”
“Me, too. I need a body!”
“You can do it, can’t you?”
“You can make it whatever shape you want.”
“Give.”
“Give us your body.”
The baby in the water writhed and twisted away from the spirits.
What is going on here? Biwabōshi thought. He didn’t see anyone inside the hut aside from the baby. He removed his lute from his back and cut the strings with a loud and strident noise. There was a sword concealed inside the lute handle. After the strings were cut, Biwabōshi drew the sword and pointed it at the spirits surrounding the baby.
The spirits fled immediately in all directions when they noticed the sword, shrieking in terror as they went. They passed through the walls and ceiling of the hut and disappeared.
“Who’s there?” Biwabōshi heard Jukai’s voice coming from an interior room.
Jukai came into the room where the baby and Biwabōshi were. “Who are you?” he asked.
Biwabōshi sheathed his sword inside his lute, then bowed his head. “I am a traveler who happened across your hut. Please pardon my rudeness for coming in without permission.”
***
Jukai welcomed Biwabōshi to his hut and answered many of his questions concerning the baby, including where and how he’d been found.
“He should only have to stay in the water for three more days,” Jukai said. “Evil spirits are drawn to him, and I’ve noticed more and more showing up here lately.”
At first, only one spirit had come to the hut, but more had followed after Bōzu’s surgery. The spirits seemed to sense that Bōzu was about to emerge from his long submersion and gathered en masse, demanding a body. Jukai was a shaman and knew of several ways to banish spirits, but he’d exhausted himself in the effort, and more still kept coming.
“They come and go as they please now, these spirits, and pay no attention to me,” Jukai said. “They’re obsessed with the baby and won’t leave him alone. They repeat the same things over and over.”
Give.
Give me your body.
“I think they intend to cause the baby harm, but they haven’t hurt him so far, or me. They’re annoyance, like cockroaches. It’s been close to two years, so I’ve more or less gotten used to them.”
“The baby seems to dislike them,” Biwabōshi said. He was thinking about when the baby had twisted uncomfortably away from the spirits.
“I know,” Jukai said. “But there doesn’t seem to be anything else I can do about them…” Jukai’s eyebrows furrowed. He folded his arms and said, “The thing that I really don’t understand is why they bother the child, and not me. I’m the one who made his body, after all.”
“The body you have is not one that can be given,” Biwabōshi said. Something bright flashed in his blind eyes. “Neither can mine. The fact that you had to create a body for this baby says to me that it was stolen.”
“Stolen?” Jukai asked.
“Yes, stolen. Likely by spirits similar to the ones you’ve seen.” Biwabōshi unsheathed the sword hidden in his lute again.
“What is that?” Jukai asked.
“A sword that was forged in a small village long ago,” Biwabōshi said. “It was forged to kill demons and evil spirits.”
“A village? What village?”
“The swordsmith’s wife and children were murdered by demons,” Biwabōshi said. “Desperate to avenge their deaths, the swordsmith poured his vengeance into every blow as he forged this blade.”
Biwabōshi passed the blade to Jukai. Jukai noticed a name inscribed on the blade near the hilt: Hyakkimaru.
“It’s quite effective,” Biwabōshi said. “It’s said that even the swordsmith was surprised by its power. The spirits surrounding the boy scattered the instant they saw it.”
“How did you come to acquire this sword?” Jukai asked.
“I found it in an abandoned storage building long ago,” Biwabōshi said. “I went searching for it after I encountered forty-eight demons in the Hall of Hell.”
“Hall of Hell?” Jukai asked.
“That was the name of the temple,” Biwabōshi said. “The Hall of Hell.”
***
Biwabōshi had first gone to the mountain temple known as the Hall of Hell seven years before. He was on his way back to his home temple when he heard rumors of the place in the villages he passed through. Biwabōshi was always eager for a good story, so he decided that if his journey took him close to the Hall of Hell, he would visit it.
The Hall of Hell was built high in the mountains, very far from people. Biwabōshi was greeted by the head priest of the temple itself and treated to a fine meal. It was obvious that the head priest had not welcomed any guests for quite some time.
“What is the Hall of Hell, exactly?” Biwabōshi asked the head priest. “I’ve heard so many rumors.”
“It lies at the heart of this temple,” the head priest said. “What kind of rumors have you heard?”
“Well...I heard that one of the monks who served here carved forty-eight statues that he used to seal away demons. When the work was completed, he went mad. Is any of that true?”
“I cannot say for certain,” the head priest said. “I can tell you that the statues exist, but they were carved more than four hundred years ago. Would you like to see them?”
“May I?” Biwabōshi asked.
“By all means,” the head priest said. “Please finish your meal, and I’ll guide you to the Hall of Hell.”
The head priest led Biwabōshi to a courtyard garden that was only about seven hundred feet square. A small temple was built in the center of it. The temple’s base was narrow, but it was tall. The sloped and curving roof had eight distinct points that looked like they were piercing the sky.
Biwabōshi was briefly overwhelmed by the place’s aura. He felt like he was climbing a steep incline with every step he took. The temple’s entrance was barred with iron, which the head priest removed before pushing open the double doors leading inside.
The doors creaked open, revealing the interior of the temple. A square of sunlight illuminated the floor, but the rest of the temple was cast in darkness. Biwabōshi stepped inside and looked around. He couldn’t see terribly well, but he grasped immediately that he was surrounded by demons on all sides. Their aura was murderous and threatening.
They are demons, without a doubt.
The statues were arranged on two levels stacked three deep, with more lining a raised platform close to the ceiling. Biwabōshi counted forty-eight statues in total. Most of them were six feet tall or more. The statues on the second level were closer to twenty-five feet tall; their faces were obscured by the room’s relative darkness. This place did, indeed, feel like hell to Biwabōshi. The light streaming in through the half-open door behind him should have reached the ceiling, but it didn’t. Something in the room consumed the light.
This is a dangerous place.
The demons were sealed inside the statues. Biwabōshi felt them threatening him, but they were currently harmless. They could seethe, but they could not act.
Even so, this place was still dangerous.
“Do you guide people here frequently?” Biwabōshi asked the head priest.
“I do not,” he said, “but many people have set foot here. I am only a priest, and it is not my role to prevent people who desire it from seeing the Buddha or these demons if seeing them is what they truly wish.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Biwabōshi said. “But...” He couldn’t shake the terrible feeling he got from this place. He suddenly remembered the story of a sword he’d heard about in his travels. The sword was supposed to be able to kill demons, and was called Hyakkimaru. The head priest hadn’t heard of it. Biwabōshi spent a night and a morning in the main temple, then started to search for the sword in earnest.
Biwabōshi had assumed that such a powerful, valuable sword would be in a temple somewhere, but when he’d finally found it several years later, it had been in an abandoned storeroom of a blacksmith’s home. Biwabōshi assumed that the smith was the same one who had forged it long ago. The blade’s reputation was very old; Biwabōshi guessed that the sword dated back as far as five centuries, possibly more. He also guessed that the smith had wanted it to stay close to home, in case demons ever appeared to threaten his descendants.
But in that, Biwabōshi was mistaken. He learned later that the sword had changed hands many times over the centuries, being taken from its rightful place when there were demons to fight and restored once the threat had passed. He traveled around, telling the story of the sword and learning more about its history. He’d always intended to return to the Hall of Hell with the sword some day, but his journeying did not take him back to that mountain temple for many years.
“I was just going back to the Hall of Hell with this sword when I discovered that it had burned down,” Biwabōshi said. “Along with the head priest of the temple. It was a terrible tragedy.”
“Did anyone escape?” Jukai asked.
Biwabōshi shook his head. “The head priest’s skull was never recovered. I buried his bones without it.”
***
Biwabōshi was climbing the mountain toward the temple that contained the Hall of Hell when he smelled smoke. Smoke...burning? There were no accompanying cooking smells.
The head priest...
Biwabōshi quickened his pace. The entire temple complex was thick with smoke. “Head priest!” Biwabōshi called out. “Head priest! Where are you?”
The main hall of the temple was still standing, though it was damaged. The direction of the wind had changed the previous evening, bringing with it a sudden downpour, which was fortunate. Most of the fire that had broken out in the Hall of Hell was confined to the Hall itself, and it hadn’t spread far thanks to the rain. Biwabōshi leaned on a pillar in the main hall and felt warmth under his hands. Ash crumbled off the pillar when he pushed away from it.
Biwabōshi coughed, inhaling smoke. Did the wind spread the fire, or stop it? He couldn’t tell. He knelt down and sought for clues about what had happened here. That was when he’d found the head priest’s charred, headless corpse inside the shell of the Hall of Hell.
Someone must have been in here with him, Biwabōshi thought. They beheaded him. Maybe they started the fire?
***
“That’s what I think happened,” Biwabōshi said.
Jukai was uneasy. Why was Biwabōshi telling him about all this? What did the Hall of Hell, forty-eight demons, a headless head priest and a demon-killing sword have to do with him?
Jukai feared that he was connected to all these terrifying events in some way--or that Bōzu was. He was missing so many pieces, and demons and spirits were lured to him. Jukai wished that he’d never heard of the Hall of Hell, because now that he had, there was a way for him to explain and contextualize all these demon sightings.
“Are the demons still sealed away in the Hall of Hell?” Jukai asked. “What happened to them?”
“The statues remained, blackened and burned,” Biwabōshi said, “but the seals didn’t hold. The fire destroyed them. The demons were released into the world.”
Biwabōshi offered the blade known as Hyakkimaru to Jukai again. "I have been looking for a home for this sword,” he said. “The blade has changed hands many times, whenever there is a demon threat. I believe that it belongs here.”
“So you believe that I will need this sword someday?” Jukai asked.
Biwabōshi nodded slowly. There was a mysterious glint in his eye, like he was seeing something far off in the future.
Jukai accepted the sword and set it near the fire, where he wouldn’t have to look at it while facing his guest.
“Would you like to hear a different tale?” Biwabōshi asked.
“Please,” Jukai said. He listened to Biwabōshi’s stories, but he was not so distracted that he forgot his essential dread. He would have to take Bōzu out of the water soon. Part of him wished that he could let his son sleep peacefully forever. He didn’t want to force him to take his first steps in such a terrifying, violent world. Doing such a thing would make Jukai feel like a demon himself.
Must I hurt my son to protect him?
Bōzu was already being targeted by demons and spirits. Jukai couldn’t protect him forever, and Bōzu couldn’t defend himself if he remained helpless.
“I will accept the sword,” Jukai said at long length. “Not for myself, but for my son.”
Biwabōshi nodded gravely in understanding, then excused himself and traveled back down the mountain.
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