Dororo: Part One
Nakamura Masaru
Part 1: Hyakkimaru
Chapter 6
It was almost sunrise. The light along the horizon was still somewhat hazy and indistinct. Hyakkimaru stopped walking and looked over his shoulder.
He'd come a far way during the night. The dark road leading away from the town was his only company. All was still.
There was a tiny roadside shrine along the side of the road, half-covered over with withered winter grass. The shrine made the road seem even lonelier, somehow.
Hyakkimaru couldn't see with his eyes, but he sensed the presence of someone hiding behind the roadside shrine. Hyakkimaru knew they were there, but didn't goad them to come out. It was best to wait for a demon to strike on its own rather than provoking it to attack.
"Hehehehe...." Dororo parted the grass in front of the shrine with his hands and poked his face out. He'd decided to wait here, since most roads that led out of town eventually passed this shrine. There was a little drum around his neck that he struck over and over again in a steady rhythm.
"Yo!" Dororo called out, hitting the drum again. "Who are you?" He sprang up from the ground and approached Hyakkimaru.
Still beating the drum, Dororo asked in a sing-song tone, "Hey, I asked you what your name was!"
Hyakkimaru didn't so much as twitch in reaction. He was as silent as a statue. Thunder rumbled in the far distance.
"Oi! Do you not respect me or somethin'?"
"Aren't you just some kid?" Hyakkimaru asked. He remembered seeing this same person with his mind's eye at the bar while he was fighting the demon—but his mind's eye wasn't always perfect at perception. To Hyakkimaru, Dororo appeared to be a girl of about ten or eleven years old. What he was seeing was not Dororo's true age or shape, but Dororo's maturity level.
Hyakkimaru frowned a little. "Wait...I'm wrong. You're a woman." He'd witnessed part of the fight that Dororo had gotten into with another man, and he knew that other man had referred to Dororo with feminine pronouns—less than complimentary ones. He felt that referring to her as 'just some kid' wasn't too far from the truth, if he was merely describing her interior state, but he knew that his mind's eye wasn't quite perceiving her properly.
Dororo boiled over with sudden rage. "You idiot! Don't you have eyes? I'm a man! Got chest hair and everything!" Dororo pulled back the kimono he wore to prove his point. He knew that Hyakkimaru couldn't actually see and was trying to bluff. There were bandages wrapped so tightly around his chest that it was difficult to tell if there was anything underneath them or not.
Hyakkimaru fell back into his previous passivity. He turned sharply on his heel and kept walking, choosing to ignore the woman.
"Hey!"
Irritatingly, the woman kept chasing after him.
"At least tell me your name, since I asked nice! Or do you want me to name you? I'll shout the dumbest, stupidest name I can think of if you don't—"
"—Isn't it more polite to give your own name first before asking for someone else's?" Hyakkimaru asked, cutting her off.
"I'm a thief. No thief worth his salt has a name. Makes it easier to catch ya."
"Then we're the same," Hyakkimaru said.
"Huh?"
"I don't have a fixed name, either," Hyakkimaru said. "Bōzu. Segare.1 Hyakkimaru. Dororo..."
Dororo had no name of his own until today. To himself, he was a nameless wanderer and always had been. But he thought that 'Dororo' had a certain ring to it.
"'Dororo'...sounds like a good name for a thief, eh? I'll take it. That's my name now.2 I'll be Dororo, and you can be Hyakkimaru. Sound good?"
A snowflake drifted down to Dororo's nose and melted. More white snow fell around him and Hyakkimaru: it was the first snow of the year.
From that moment on, Dororo was Dororo and Hyakkimaru was Hyakkimaru. They'd gained the almost indefinable distinction of fixed names. The whole exchange seemed trivial at the time, but it would have more resonance than either of them realized.
"I heard your story from that old blind monk in town," Dororo said. "Hyakkimaru is the sword in your left arm, right?"
Hyakkimaru didn't reply.
"Dororo and Hyakkimaru...I like the sound of that. D'you mind if I call you aniki?"3
Hyakkimaru's eyebrows furrowed together. They didn't know one another nearly well enough yet for Dororo to be proposing such familiar forms of address.
Dororo slipped around Hyakkimaru and rested his hands lightly on Hyakkimaru's left arm.
Hyakkimaru pulled away. "Don't touch me."
Hyakkimaru couldn't see it, but Dororo looked disappointed.
Hyakkimaru kept walking, putting some distance between himself and Dororo. Dororo pouted. "It's not nice to leave your friends behind, aniki! Besides, I've got a question—does that sword in your arm kill people as well as it kills demons?" His smile was vicious, almost bloodthirsty.
Hyakkimaru pulled on his left arm a little, partially revealing the sword. He brought the blade to Dororo's throat, but stopped short of actually making a cut. "Do you really want to find out?"
Dororo was stunned speechless. He'd seen Hyakkimaru fight with the swords in his arms before, but he'd never seen either of the sword arms up close and personal before.
"Don't follow me," Hyakkimaru commanded. He put the blade away.
Dororo swallowed heavily, but he quickly regained his composure. "Even if I said I wouldn't, why would you believe me? I want that sword. I won't leave you alone until I have it." He wouldn't admit it—not even to himself—but he was scared. When Hyakkimaru had pulled the blade on him, he'd felt Hyakkimaru's murderous intent.
But Hyakkimaru hadn't killed him. He was walking away. Dororo didn't sense any ill will toward himself, specifically.
"You're not making this easy," Dororo muttered. He dashed after Hyakkimaru.
"Where are you headed in such a hurry, anyway? You got someplace you need to be?"
Hyakkimaru didn't acknowledge Dororo's presence at all. He kept walking briskly as the snow fell around them. The snow was falling faster and thicker now than it had been a few minutes before.
"So, what do you think it takes to be powerful?" Dororo asked. "I mean, money, obviously, but also being strong in a fight and having a good weapon, yeah?"
Dororo followed Hyakkimaru down the street of an unfamiliar town, beating a steady rhythm on his drum. "If that sword's good enough to kill anything—humans and demons both—you could conquer the world with it. I ain't interested in that kinda power, though. A guy like that would be great to steal from...a perfect target for a professional like me."
Hyakkimaru said nothing.
"Yo, aniki. Why don't you kill another demon already? Maybe your arm will grow back in and the blade will fall off. Then I'll be there, striking fast and silent like a bird of prey. The entire world will know my name!"
Hyakkimaru and Dororo kept walking as the shadows lengthened across the road. He couldn't tell what time it was, but he was starting to get tired enough for a rest. He went off the beaten path a little ways and found a tree that wasn't too far from a shallow river. He lay down under the tree and tried to sleep.
Dororo had other ideas. "Hey! The sun's not even down yet! Why are we stopping?"
Hyakkimaru ignored Dororo.
"Dammit," Dororo muttered. "Why do you always look so pissed off? It's depressing. And disturbing."
Hyakkimaru sat up suddenly, pulling off his left arm to reveal the blade.
Dororo flinched and put more space between them. "What the hell are you doing?!"
Dororo seemed to think that Hyakkimaru wanted to attack him, but Hyakkimaru remained as consistent as he had all day and continued to ignore Dororo.
Hyakkimaru walked a little way into the trees near the riverbank. He didn't seem angry or tense, though his expression was grim and serious.
Ring-ring.
The chime of a bell echoed in the trees. It was an unusual sound, higher-pitched than most bells Dororo had heard before.
"What...is that?" Dororo followed behind Hyakkimaru cautiously, staying behind him. If there was another demon ahead, he planned to use Hyakkimaru as a shield.
Ring-ring.
An enormous...baby? child?...emerged from the undergrowth. It was easily twice as tall as Dororo, and more than twice as wide.
Dororo sucked in a breath. "Wh-wha-what? Uh..."
The huge child reacted to Dororo's voice. Its eyes widened in alarm at the sight of Hyakkimaru's sword. The child started crying and turned away.
Dororo took in the sight of this gigantic creature. He'd never seen anything like it. Its eyes were as big around as cicada shells, as vast in scale as the rest of its body, but it didn't really appear to be threatening. Dororo reacted to the child's sudden appearance and hugeness of shape the same way he would an oversized insect.
"What are you waiting for? Kill it!" Dororo yelled.
Hyakkimaru frowned. Something softened in his expression as he placed his left arm back over the sword.
"I said, kill it!" Dororo said, grabbing Hyakkimaru's collar and pulling him in at the neck. "You can't just—"
"Mama?" The gigantic child asked.
Dororo was surprised enough to stop speaking and take another look at the child. "Did you just say... 'mama?'"
The child didn't answer.
"Oi!"
The child extended their stubby arms to Hyakkimaru and Dororo and said, "Mama...piggyback ride?"
Dororo gaped at the child in shock and was briefly speechless.
Hyakkimaru walked calmly over to the child and put his back to them, then leaned forward slightly with his hands behind him, encouraging the child to grab onto his shoulders.
The child squealed happily and got onto Hyakkimaru's back. Hyakkimaru didn't have any trouble lifting them, despite their size. This child was a spirit—or a collection of them—and was as light as air.
"Wait...what's going on?" Dororo asked, regaining the power of speech.
Hyakkimaru turned away from Dororo and started walking away, into the trees.
"Hey! Wait! Where are you going!" Dororo called after him. He didn't know if it would be best to chase after him or wait here, but after a few moments, his curiosity got the better of him.
This man is an idiot.
Dororo sprinted after Hyakkimaru and the strange child.
There was a village at the edge of the small patch of woods that Hyakkimaru and the child had walked through. On the edge of the village was the burned-out husk of a large building that might have been a temple.
A temple—a burned one—and Hyakkimaru. Was this the Hall of Hell?
But of course, it wasn't. The Hall of Hell was high on a mountaintop, and it had burned down many years previously. This temple was on a flat patch of land, and the burning had happened relatively recently, judging by the smell. There was nothing evil in the air: no signs of ill intent, demons, or curses. The blackened ruin was sadly, quietly beautiful, like a cleansing pyre for the dead.
Dororo could tell all of this at a glance, but he was still reminded of Biwabōshi's story of the Hall of Hell.
There was a full moon tonight.4 Clear moonlight limned the ruined temple with a pale blue aura. A cold wind blew in from the river, rustling grass and disturbing small bits of wreckage.
Hyakkimaru and the enormous child sat on the uneven floor of the burned-out temple, passing a ball that jingled with prayer bells back and forth. There was a long line of spinning, brightly colored pinwheels right in front of the temple. The pinwheels stopped spinning when the wind died down, then picked up speed again when the wind strengthened, as if they were sleeping and waking in fits and starts.
Hyakkimaru threw the ball to the child. The child kicked it back to him across the floor, giggling. The expression on the child's face was as sweet and innocent as a newborn baby's.
Dororo took in this very odd sight, placing his hands on his hips. "Is that think really a kid?" he asked.
Hyakkimaru's sightless eyes scanned the blackened ruin. "Children burned to death here...ten or twenty of them, I guess. This is a collection of all their spirits," he said quietly.
"Is that why it's so freakishly ginormous?" The child still looked very weird to him, but it no longer appeared terrifying. He walked up to the child, beat his drum a few times and said, "Hi there! I'm Dororo. Say it with me: 'do-ro-ro.'"
Hyakkimaru snorted, smiling a little.
"Huh? You're laughing?" Dororo asked. "Why?"
"Do you know what 'dororo' means?" he asked.
Dororo shook his head.
"It means 'little monster.'"
"What?"
Hyakkimaru was still smiling, but not at the child. He was smiling to himself. "In the south, 'dororo' is a name they give to strange creatures that look human."
Translator's Notes
1 倅, segare, means "son" in Japanese, but it can also mean "bastard" or "brat," depending on the context.↩
2 どろろ, dororo, is a colloquial (somewhat childish) term for "thief," popularized by the Dororo manga in the 1960s. As a child, Tezuka Osamu had difficulty saying the normal Japanese word for thief, dorobō, and said dororo instead.↩
3 兄貴、aniki: This is Dororo's usual way of addressing Hyakkimaru in most versions of canon. The term means "older brother." Dororo does not use oniisan, the more usual Japanese term for "older brother" that is typically used to politely address any young man, related or not. The tone of aniki is stronger than that of oniisan and implies a stronger relationship.↩
4 The literal translation here would be "thirteenth lunar day" or "thirteenth day of the moon." Historically, the Japanese calendar was arranged so that the full moon fell on the thirteenth day of the lunar cycle.↩
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