Dororo - Part Two - Chapter 20

Dororo: Part Two

Nakamura Masaru

Part 3: Kagemitsu

Chapter 20

    Night fell, plunging the world into purple shadows. Crickets chirped and cicadas sang, but compared to the cacophony of the city during the day, it was quiet.

    Dororo, Hyakkimaru and Biwabōshi squatted beneath a stone bridge. The water of the nearby river was as still as the shadows of the stones, enveloped by the night’s darkness. Hyakkimaru revealed what had happened to him during the past day, and Biwabōshi told him and Dororo what Jukai had said about the demons and Hyakkimaru’s birth family. After that, no one felt much like talking.

    Hyakkimaru was curious about Dororo’s reaction and was a bit disappointed when Dororo remained silent, as if he was in shock.

    “I observe from your employment opportunity that war will soon be upon us again,” Biwabōshi said to Hyakkimaru. “The heads in the city square should have tipped me off.”

    Hyakkimaru remembered that Biwabōshi might not know about Dororo’s parents. He told Biwabōshi why Daigo Kagemitsu was Dororo’s enemy, which made Dororo sullen.

    “Don’t talk about that,” Dororo muttered. “There ain’t no point.” He smiled, but there was something wrong with it. Hyakkimaru had seen a hundred of Dororo’s smiles, but this one was tinged with old rage and a fresh surge of roiling hatred. Hyakkimaru couldn’t stand to see it and looked away.

    “I didn’t lie,” Hyakkimaru said.

    “That doesn’t mean you should talk about things like that, idiot.” Then, Dororo laughed.

    Hyakkimaru was used to Dororo laughing at him. Dororo had done it often enough on their travels, but this was the first time Hyakkimaru couldn’t identify the reason. Hyakkimaru had his ears back, which was wonderful in some ways but maddening in others; he could no longer tell if people were lying or telling the truth because he was forced to hear with his human pieces.

    Dororo went over to the riverbank and sat down, drowsing in his exhaustion. “I could go for some food.” Dororo shivered a little from the cool breeze blowing off the water. “Or some sake. I’m starving. You got any of that skewer left, old man? I know it’s just sparrow meat but it’s better than nothing.”

    Biwabōshi passed Dororo a full skewer. Dororo held out the skewer to Hyakkimaru, but he didn’t take it.

    “Eat,” Dororo said. “You can’t just wander around not eating, y’know.”

    When Hyakkimaru still made no move to take the skewer, Dororo poked the palm of his false hand with the sharpened edge of it. Hyakkimaru didn’t react, not even when Dororo drew Claw from his wooden scabbard.

    “Eat,” Dororo said in a low voice. “I won’t ask again.”

    “What’s going on?” Biwabōshi asked.

    “He knows,” Dororo said.

    Hyakkimaru finally accepted the skewer and took a single disinterested bite.

    “How is it?” Dororo asked. “Is it good? It came from your dad’s city.”

    “It’s fine.”

    “Not what I asked,” Dororo said, and his voice was almost hysterical. “I asked you if it was good!”

    Hyakkimaru shook his head sadly. “No.”

    Dororo stared at Hyakkimaru with his knife in his hand and shook. He had to talk to Hyakkimaru about his father, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know if Hyakkimaru was his enemy now, or if he was still aniki, the older brother Dororo had adopted.

    Is he Hyakkimaru? Or is he Tahōmaru now? Is his father that occultist doctor or the man that murdered my father?

    Biwabōshi sounded a sad note on his lute. “The one you hate is Daigo Kagemitsu, child,” he said admonishingly to Dororo. “It doesn’t do to spread hatred around.”

    Dororo wanted to break something. He wanted to snap at the stupid old man who thought he knew a whole fuckton of things that he knew absolutely nothing about, but he bit his tongue and snapped the metal skewer in half instead.

    “I’m glad my birth parents got rid of me, in a way,” Hyakkimaru said. “If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met my father, and he wouldn’t have given me the limbs and appendages that I use now. But it’s also my birth parents’ fault that I’m missing so many pieces in the first place. I think... they tried to kill me.”

    Hyakkimaru drew the sword at his side and stabbed himself in the left arm. The dull clang of metal contacting metal echoed in the surrounding stillness. Hyakkimaru removed the ordinary blade from the extraordinary arm and watched white bubbles heal the wound.

    “I’d like to cut off my father’s limbs,” Hyakkimaru said coldly. “See how he likes it.”

    Hyakkimaru was trembling finely. He made no attempt to control his roiling emotions. The hatred Dororo had felt before burned itself to ashes as he looked at Hyakkimaru. Hyakkimaru had no desire to be a part of his birth family. He was still Dororo’s aniki and the son of the doctor who’d raised him.

    But...

    It didn’t change anything. Hyakkimaru was the person he was born as, still, even if he chose to reject his heritage. He was Daigo Kagemitsu’s son: he shared that evil man’s flesh and blood and always would. His name at birth was Tahōmaru, and there was no erasing that now.

    Dororo’s hand clenched around Claw’s hilt. “This is as far as we go.” His voice shook, just like the rest of him. “You can’t change what you are any more’n I can. And you can’t kill your own father. That’s why I can’t stay.” Dororo turned on his heel and fled, following the river toward the Daigo Clan’s prosperous city.

    Hyakkimaru watched Dororo go. He wanted to say something--anything--but he didn’t know what to say or do. He wanted Dororo to stay, but that wasn’t his decision to make.

    After a while, Hyakkimaru turned to Biwabōshi. “You told me a long time ago that I couldn’t restore my body to normal unless I killed all the Hall of Hell demons,” he said quietly. “Did you know who my father was? Did you know what he’d done?”

    “Even if I had known, I would not have told you,” Biwabōshi said. “There are some things too painful to be put into words.

    Hyakkimaru exposed the demon-killing sword in his left arm. White bubbles formed around the separated pieces of his arm, preventing him from bleeding. “It’s so pointless,” Hyakkimaru said. “I feel like I’ve thrown away so many pieces of the body my father made for me. It was a better body. I should have kept it as it was. I should never have gone chasing after demons.”

    “Your quest is not pointless,” Biwabōshi said. “Your father wanted you to be safe and whole. He made you safe, as much as he could, until he could do no more for you. He would want you to be wholly human and happy, if you can manage it.”

    “Happy?” Hyakkimaru asked tonelessly. “What does that even mean?”

    “It’s hard to say,” Biwabōshi said. “Happiness is different for everyone. There’s no definition to pin down--trying to define it is like trying to define the air or a reason for living. But happiness is what everyone wants, and it can only be achieved through change. You are unhappy now, Hyakkimaru. People do not like to change; it is uncomfortable--but unless you complete your quest, you will never be whole, and I don’t think you will ever be happy.”

    “Why don’t people like to change?” Hyakkimaru asked. “Life has always seemed pretty uncomfortable to me.”

    Biwabōshi shrugged. “Perhaps you’ll find out as you become more human.”

    The dark sky turned a dusky blue as the sun began to rise. The voices of cicadas and crickets went quiet. Hyakkimaru leaned forward, supporting himself on his arms as nausea and headache overcame him. After a while, the pain receded, and Hyakkimaru got up. He decided to walk along the line of the river for a while.

    The air was too still. Hyakkimaru stopped walking, listening. A metallic clang sounded from the stones in the riverbed. It was the sound of Dororo drawing his knife.

    Hyakkimaru pretended not to have noticed and kept walking.

    Biwabōshi played his lute, then spread his hand over the strings to quiet them. A sparrow landed in a tree and looked down at him, curious. Biwabōshi couldn’t see it, but he heard it. “So you escaped the hunters, little bird?” he asked.

    A fish jumped in the river nearby.

    “You won’t escape them long. You’re too small, and not strong enough.” Biwabōshi sighed. There was no moon that night. The world was as blind as Biwabōshi’s eyes.

    Biwabōshi started playing his lute again in a dark world.

***

    Dororo walked along the side of the river until he was exhausted. He collapsed on a smooth stone, rubbing his tired feet. He drew Claw from the wooden scabbard and stared at it. “Mom,” he said softly, “what should I do?”

    Ojiya and Hibukuro, Dororo’s parents, had both died unjustly because of the Daigo clan, but Dororo’s clearest memories were of his mother. He’d traveled with her for years--a long, lonely journey that seemed to have no end. Whenever he got lonely during the journey, Dororo would call out to his mother. Even after her death, Dororo never entirely lost the habit.

    “I should kill him,” Dororo said. Hyakkimaru was Daigo Kagemitsu’s son. The entire Daigo clan had to die for her parents to have peace in the afterlife. “I have to, right? If I don’t… would you ever forgive me?”

    Hatred for Daigo Kagemitsu welled up inside him. He was a child again, cold and hungry with his mother’s too-thin arms wrapped tightly around him, skin stung red from the winter wind. When she died, Ojiya was buried by snow; Dororo hadn’t been strong enough to dig her a grave.

    But Dororo had tried. He’d cleared the snow from around his mother’s body and dug his fingers like claws into the ground, but it was frozen solid: he could make no headway against it.

    Fresh snowfall always brought Dororo back to that moment. He hated it. The sight of it made him sick.

    The younger Dororo dug until his hands went numb and he wasn’t able to move them any longer. While digging, he remembered another fall night, not too long ago, when he and his mother had taken shelter at a temple.

    The temple served rice gruel at dinner, but they had no bowls, cups or plates left to distribute the gruel. Ojiya asked for a portion anyway, carrying the scalding gruel cupped between her palms.

    Steam rose from Ojiya’s hands as she walked over to Dororo carrying the precious food. It was hot enough to scald Dororo’s lips, so he couldn’t even imagine how hot it felt on his mother’s hands.

    “Eat it all,” Ojiya said quietly. She didn’t spill a single drop of the gruel as Dororo ate.

    Ojiya’s hands were terribly burned after that and took weeks to heal. Every time Dororo saw those shiny red hands, he felt as guilty as if he’d burned his mother himself.

    If Dororo’s hands were as hot as his mother’s had been on the day that she died, he might have been able to dig her a grave. The heat from his burned hands might have loosened the permafrost enough for him to dig a hole large enough for him and his mother.

    But they weren’t. Those hands were small and frozen and covered over with dirt and cuts. In the end, he pulled his mother’s body into the shallow hole he’d made--not even high enough to hide her arms and legs from view--and watched the fast-falling snow bury her.

    I’m sorry, mom. It’s so cold. I don’t want you to be cold…

    Dororo was even more devastated in spring when he failed to find Ojiya’s body after months of searching. The woods were full of corpses, but he never found hers.  Dororo and Ojiya had buried her father in the mountains, so he had returned to the earth. The spirit of Dororo’s mother wandered bodiless, forever lost.

    All Dororo could think about was his mother’s body being pecked at by crows and devoured by wild beasts. It was wrong. It was evil! But he could do nothing to stop it. Even if he had been able to find his mother’s body, it would have been nothing but bleached white bones.

    That didn’t matter. Dororo would find her bones if bones were all that was left. He wanted to bury his mother’s remains next to his father, but it was impossible. Ojiya’s body was nowhere to be found.

    Dororo had to blame someone for the loss, so he blamed Daigo Kagemitsu. That was easy: the man had killed her father and sent Dororo and his mother into a life of nomadic poverty. It was Daigo Kagemitsu’s fault that Ojiya had starved and frozen to death.

    Starving and cold himself, Dororo refused to cry. No matter how hungry or lonely or numb he felt, he refused to give in to tears.

    I’m a man. Men don’t cry.

    In his inmost thoughts, Dororo swore to his mother’s spirit that he would avenge her.

    Dororo learned to steal food so he wouldn’t starve. If it was too cold somewhere, he went south where it was warmer. And when loneliness threatened to overwhelm him, he laughed and pretended that being alone was his natural state. He had to survive no matter what. If he didn’t destroy his parents’ enemy, he would fail in the purpose of his entire life.

    “I swore to kill Daigo Kagemitsu and his entire family. All of them. I promised.” Dororo’s grip tightened on Claw’s hilt as he remembered his mother’s pale face, gone almost translucent in death.

    But earlier that year, in summer, Hyakkimaru had smiled at Dororo. Smiled, maybe for the first time ever. Hyakkimaru had laughed so hard after getting his gallbladder back that Dororo thought he’d bust his gut wide open.

    "Did you just spit up a baby or somethin'?"

    They had laughed together, then. And that wasn’t the only time. Once, during a demon attack, Hyakkimaru had gotten a face full of purple gunk that had gotten stuck in the holes of his artificial nose. It had looked ridiculous, all the more so because Hyakkimaru had barely seemed to notice. When Dororo had pointed it out, he’d laughed, too.

    Well, so what if Hyakkimaru had smiled? So what if they’d spent a bunch of inconsequential time together, not doing anything important? That didn’t really matter, did it? Not compared to the deaths of Dororo’s parents.

    I shouldn’t have called him aniki. He was never that.

    Heart torn, thoughts in a roil, Dororo appealed to the memory of his lost mother for help. “Mom… do I have to… kill him, too?”

    Ojiya didn’t answer.

 

***

 

    Hyakkimaru kept walking alongside the river until he reached a grassy marsh. The ground of the marsh sloped upward, becoming steep hills, and Hyakkimaru stopped to rest again. He was too exhausted to go much further today.

    It was the middle of the night and completely dark--not that it mattered much in Hyakkimaru’s perpetually dark world. He felt a presence coming up from the marsh behind him and turned around.

    More demons?

    He was in no shape for a battle. His legs wanted to go out from under him already. He wasn’t sure if he should prepare for his death or for the bright pain of regaining a body part, but both events were equally distasteful to him. All he wanted was to lie down and sleep.

    I have to get my body back.

    Hyakkimaru’s hatred of the demons and his resolve was as strong as ever, but the weakness of his body was going to be a problem.

    The presence he felt came closer, then split in two. There were two demons rustling through the tall grasses of the marsh, though neither one moved to attack. They circled, observing Hyakkimaru.

    “Boy,” a guttural voice said out of the black night.

    “Just a poor boy,” another voice said, more softly than the first.

    The demons had the shape of wolves, with eyes that flashed electric blue and cherry red. To Hyakkimaru’s strange, eyeless sight, they appeared to be dog-shaped shadows as red as blood.

    The two wolves shared a chuckle, then bounded closer to Hyakkimaru. They still didn’t attack. Their hides were rotting and almost hairless; they were covered in suppurating wounds that showed no signs of healing. They were demons of rot and plague; injury and disease suited them.

    Hyakkimaru slashed out with his demon-killing sword, but then he hesitated. Killing these demons would give him back a body part--perhaps two. The more pieces he regained, the more he became like his birth father, and the less he retained of the precious body that his father had made for him.

    The demons cackled again, their laughter high and sharp-edged like a hyena’s. “I never heard you were a coward, boy. Don’t you want what was stolen from you? Or will you be a good little boy and lay down quietly?”

    “I’ll kill you,” Hyakkimaru said. “You, and Daigo Kagemitsu, too. You’re the same.”

    “You can try,” the other demon said. “We want to kill you; you want to kill us. Simple enough. You’ve killed many of my brothers, sisters, and friends. But one man cannot hope to stand against forty-eight demons. I’ll slash your stomach open with my claws--one deep cut for every one of us that you’ve killed.”

    “You’ll need to make a lot of cuts.” Hyakkimaru shifted his footing on the marshy ground, faced the nearest demon, and sprang at it with his sword extended to strike.

    The wolf demon pivoted and leaped away on its back legs, narrowly avoiding being stabbed through the throat. While Hyakkimaru chased the first demon wolf, the second lunged at him; the demon’s claws slashed through the flesh of Hyakkimaru’s right side.

    Blood sprayed from the wounds. The shock of pain made Hyakkimaru stagger back a step.

    The eyes of the demon wolf that had injured him glowed an eerie red. “Foolish boy,” one said. “You cannot defeat us.”

    Pain from Hyakkimaru’s  side lanced downward to his leg. Pivoting to avoid more attacks, Hyakkimaru felt himself moving slower than normal.

    The red-eyed wolf and blue-eyed wolf continued to circle Hyakkimaru, wearing him down, waiting for him to fall so that they could rip him to shreds.

    From farther upstream, Biwabōshi felt the demons’ presence and set his lute aside. Two of them, to the south. What are they after?

    Biwabōshi drew his thin sword from the inside of his lute and ran in the direction of the demons. Hyakkimaru came into view in the distance. A strange blue light enveloped him, spreading outward like a dome with the ragged edges of a bright, out-of-control fire. As Biwabōshi came within range of Hyakkimaru’s voice, the blue light sprang to Biwabōshi, too, surrounding him and pressing in toward him.

    The blue flames and sparks didn’t burn. They cut. Small wounds opened all over Biwabōshi’s body where his clothing didn’t cover his skin: his face, his arms, his eyes.

    Biwabōshi couldn’t avoid the flames--not easily--and suffered cut after cut until he found the way to fight them. His sword affected the mysterious fire, slicing through it and making it dissipate. Step by slow step, Biwabōshi made his way to Hyakkimaru.

 

***

 

    Hyakkimaru sensed Biwabōshi’s approach, but he didn’t waste any energy on calling for help. The blue-eyed and red-eyed wolves attacked relentlessly; blood dripped from a dozen wounds onto the wet ground. These wolf demons had once guarded the entrance to the Hall of Hell.

    Injured, weak and off-balance, Hyakkimaru collapsed to one knee.

    “Poor boy. Sold by his father, despised by the world,” the red-eyed wolf said, licking its chops.

    “He has no home to return to,” the blue-eyed wolf said.

    “His parents kept his younger brother and loved him, didn’t they?”

    “They did. But their first boy, they left alone, abandoned… I guess there was something wrong with him from the start.”

    “Shut up,” Hyakkimaru gritted out.

    “You don’t accept our pity for you?” The red-eyed wolf demon twitched an ear.

    “How rude,” the blue-eyed wolf demon said.

    “Perhaps he thinks his parents are good and loving because they care for their human son,” the red-eyed wolf said.

    “That’s true. It’s harder to love a demon’s spawn, isn’t it? I suppose that’s our fault. Or maybe his father’s?”

    “If he regained his body, he’d be the oldest son. The heir. They might welcome him back.”

    “What?” Hyakkimaru asked.

    “Even if they don’t, he could take the castle. He’s still the clan’s heir. The people would follow him,” the blue-eyed wolf said. “They’d say he deposed an evil ruler.”

    “You want me to take the castle?” Hyakkimaru asked. “You want me to kill my father? Why? What could you possibly gain?

    “We want nothing,” the red-eyed wolf demon said. “Your choices are your own.”

    “We’re just talking,” the blue-eyed wolf demon put in.

    “You’re trying to influence me--manipulate what I do. Fate is governed by the gods, not by demons!”

    “Fate, pah. Who said anything about that?” the red-eyed wolf demon said.

    “Would it truly be so terrible to save all the suffering people of this land?” the blue-eyed wolf demon asked.

    “There are many young, innocent women like that one who failed to save, boy. What was her name--”

    “Shut up!” Hyakkimaru yelled, though the effort cost him. On both knees in the mud, Hyakkimaru caught himself on his hands and pushed himself up.

    The battle continued. Whenever Hyakkimaru attacked one demon, the other would leap at him from behind. Despite the severity of his physical wounds, the demons had harmed him more with words than with their claws and teeth.

 

***

 

    Biwabōshi wasn’t close enough to hear what Hyakkimaru and the wolf demons said to one another, but he could tell that they were still fighting. He also sensed the insidious effects of the demons’ words.

    “You must not listen!” Biwabōshi called out. “Cover your ears!”

    The blue fire flared up, preventing Biwabōshi from reaching Hyakkimaru. He understood why Hyakkimaru was reluctant to give up more pieces of the body that Jukai made for him, but if he didn’t kill the two demons now, he would die himself.

    Keeping the fire from cutting him to shreds kept Biwabōshi busy. The fire wasn’t hot, but piercingly cold. The fire was an extension of the demons’ wolf bodies. Unlike humans, demons could still operate in the world without a physical body, but physical forms made demons much more powerful.

    Biwabōshi dodged through flames, keeping his movements slight to conserve his energy, and was caught by a tendril of blue flame that knocked him backward hard enough to rattle his bones. He landed on his back and sprang up before the overwhelming aura of cold around him made it difficult to move.

    Biwabōshi tried to cut through the fire. It vanished, then popped right back into existence, exactly where it had been before. Biwabōshi tried again, attacking the fire with fierce abandon. He rolled away from the river and tried to find a way around the fire, but it followed him no matter where he went.

    The blue fire couldn’t be destroyed or extinguished. It couldn’t even be cut. Hyakkimaru had to kill the demons first. Biwabōshi was a skilled swordsman, especially for his age, but the demons’ bodies were comparatively new and young--just like Hyakkimaru himself. The demons’ defenses gradually wore Biwabōshi down.

    He was close to Hyakkimaru now--so close--and he hoped that his efforts with the fire would help Hyakkimaru destroy the demons. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Hyakkimaru to kill them. He understood at least a little of Hyakkimaru’s internal struggle about his body.

 

***

 

    Dororo had no idea that Hyakkimaru was in the middle of a demon battle. He was sitting down near the river with his head in his knees, refusing to cry by sheer force of will. His breaths came in shallow gasps. He grasped Claw tightly in one hand.

    “What do I do... shit... this is all Daigo Kagemitsu’s fucking fault...”

    Dororo sheathed Claw, then let himself fall onto his back with a groan. He closed his eyes.

    In moments, a young woman came at Dororo brandishing a naginata.

    Only quick reflexes saved Dororo from being slashed by the naginata. Dororo rolled, then jumped to his feet, taking in his attacker. It looked like the nun in Lord Sabame’s village.

    “Aren’t you Jishōni?” Dororo blinked. “You’re supposed to be dead!”

    Hate flashed in the woman’s eyes. Her teeth elongated into tusks and her head swelled, becoming larger.

    “Ah! Monster! Demon!”

    There was a misshapen lump on the demon woman’s back that shook as she moved. It was the half-human, half-demon child that had survived the massacre of her siblings in Lord Sabame’s village.

    “You killed my mother,” the demon woman said. “You murdered my sisters. I will have your head!” She lunged at Dororo with the naginata’s point aiming for Dororo’s neck.

    Dororo dodged and reached for Claw, but it wasn’t there. It must have fallen out of the sheath when Dororo was on the ground, rolling to avoid the naginata the first time.

    Shit, Dororo thought, looking around desperately for his weapon. When he didn’t discover it immediately, he ran along the line of the river, trying to put distance between himself and his attacker.

    The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on Dororo. He had killed this demon’s mother and father, after all, and all her siblings, with Hyakkimaru. She was this woman’s Daigo Kagemitsu--an ultimate enemy out for revenge for the murder of her family.

    Dororo could relate, he really could… but he wasn’t a demon, like this woman was. He’d never hurt anyone at all before his parents died. He didn’t think this demon woman was quite so innocent.

    Weaving up and down the river, dodging his pursuer, Dororo searched everywhere for Claw, but couldn’t find it anywhere. He reached a bridge and slowed down to look more carefully. The demon woman took that pause as an opportunity to attack from behind. Dororo rolled, then broke into a run.

    I don’t want to die; I don’t want to die…

    Out of breath and shaking, Dororo kept running, unwilling to look his own death in the face.

    Mom… Dad… I’m sorry…

 

***

 

    “This land is in turmoil, boy. The people cry out for a hero,” the red-eyed wolf demon said as it paced around Hyakkimaru.

    “Why do you care?” Hyakkimaru asked. “Demons hate people.”

    “You wound us,” the blue-eyed wolf demon said. “We never said we hated people, did we?”

    “Just because we don’t understand pitiful human feelings doesn’t mean we don’t care,” the red-eyed wolf demon said.

    “Demons are better than humans. That gives us a responsibility to help them, don’t you think?”

    “Their suffering is terrible. I’ve often felt it would be merciful to kill them all and end their troubles.”

    “And then you’d be alone forever, boy!” the blue-eyed wolf demon said brightly. “No more people, and only demons left. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

    “Shut up.” Hyakkimaru gritted out.

    “Oh? Would you rather see your father grind the people of this land into dust under his boots? It’s already happening. If you don’t save them, that is the future. Unless we decide to give everyone a quick, merciful death.”

    “Or--here’s a thought--maybe the boy could help his father conquer the world?” the red-eyed wolf demon said.

    “That’s what Tahōmaru does.”

    “Isn’t your name Tahōmaru, boy?”

    “No!” Hyakkimaru cried out. “That’s not my name! It was never my name!” He attacked the red-eyed wolf demon.

    The blue-eyed wolf demon took advantage of Hyakkimaru’s distraction by mauling him in the leg with a slash of claws. It was his artificial leg, so white bubbles foamed over the wound and closed it.

    “Which is your real father, then, boy?” the blue-eyed wolf demon asked. “The doctor, or the warlord?”

    The red-eyed wolf demon ripped open a gash on Hyakkimaru’s right arm, which he’d recovered. Red blood splattered onto the ground. The injury didn’t heal immediately like the other had.

    “The doctor,” Hyakkimaru said bitterly. “He raised me. He’s the only father I have!”

    The wolf demons cackled. “Well then,” the blue-eyed wolf demon said, “who’s your mother?”

    Hyakkimaru’s grip tightened on his sword. “Now you’re just making fun of me.”

    “You are always assuming the worst of us,” the red-eyed wolf demon said sadly.

    “But even if the doctor was your father, like you say, you’ll still be killing your own blood. Does your mother really deserve that?”

    Hyakkimaru wanted to say something in reply to that, but he didn’t know what. They were so wrong about him and his life--his parents--that correcting them would take forever.

    “You’re in the way,” the red-eyed wolf demon said. “You won’t usurp your father, and you won’t support him. You defy and reject your family and you defame us unjustly. It’s such a shame. Hopefully your brother will be more cooperative.”

    “He’ll rule this nation instead of you, even though that should be your place,” the blue-eyed wolf demon said.

    “What will you do then, boy? Despised by your family, the people, and the Kaneyama Clan--where will you go? Who will help you?”

    “No one will.” The blue-eyed wolf demon sniffed dismissively. “Will you destroy everything, boy?”

    “If that’s what you want, you’ll need power.”

    “We can give you power.”

    “You think I’m stupid enough to make a deal with you?” Hyakkimaru asked, incredulous. Only hatred and the bright sting of pain from his wounded arm kept him on his feet. He was out of breath and close to collapse. He had to finish this fight now.

 

***

 

    As Dororo ran, he saw strange blue fire licking at the trees near the river shore. Biwabōshi was there with his sword out, slashing the flames, but they swiftly flared up again.

    But Dororo didn’t have time to solve the old man’s problems; his hands were full with his own attacker.

    “I need a weapon!” Dororo shouted. “She’s trying to kill me!”

    Biwabōshi tossed Dororo his sword, which he caught.

    “Don’t cut the fire; you can’t dispel it!” Biwabōshi called out.

    Dororo was barely listening. He brought the blade of the sword up to block the naginata from running him straight through.

 

***

 

    Expending so much of their power on keeping Biwabōshi and Dororo at bay made the brightly colored eyes of the wolf demons flicker and fade.

    “Our deal is generous,” the red-eyed wolf demon said. “If you don’t accept it, we can kill you now and forget about you, boy.”

    “Accept our help, and you will survive. You will have the power to conquer the world,” the blue-eyed wolf demon said.

    “So, what will you do? Will you live?’

    “Or will you die?”

    The wolves had previous spoken with distinct voices, but now, they sounded exactly the same to Hyakkimaru. He was dizzy from fatigue and blood loss, but it seemed to him like the demons might finally be weakening, just like he was. The outcome of the battle was still uncertain, but it was, at least, almost the end.

    “If you live, you will only suffer more in a cycle of hatred and violence,” the red-eyed wolf demon said. “Why not have it end?”

    “You deserve to rest,” the blue-eyed wolf demon said. “The world will go on without you.”

    “No one will mourn your passing. The world will be better off with you gone.”

    “Do you really think that a monster like you will ever be happy?”

    “There’s no way that will happen.”

    “Your path through life is shrouded in darkness.”

    No! No! Hyakkimaru thought over and over, but he didn’t waste any of his precious, dwindling energy on speech. He remembered that he’d been happy before. He didn’t think of happiness as a permanent state, but it was something he’d achieved, and he could have it again.

    As Hyakkimaru denied the demons’ words in his mind, he remembered warm spring days with Dororo singing songs and calling him a moron, eating his fill of melon with Dororo--and earlier, Jukai--and the long summer he’d spent reclaiming his body and making his first friend.

    His only friend.

    But Dororo was his enemy now. His birth father had killed Dororo’s parents. Dororo had run off and left him...

    ...so then why was Dororo so close by now? If Hyakkimaru concentrated, he could sense Dororo moving--fighting?--and he was very close. All Hyakkimaru had to do was sprint through the clearing and he’d find him. But Dororo couldn’t see him--of that, Hyakkimaru was certain. Ordinary human senses had limitations that the senses enhanced by Jukai didn’t have. There were a lot of trees and tall grass blocking Dororo’s view of him and the demons.

    “Stop it!” Dororo shouted. “You guys tried to eat us first! It was self-defense!”

    Hyakkimaru listened closely, trying to figure out who Dororo’s opponent was, and was stunned when he sensed the presence of another demon. Half-demon? A child? The spirit didn’t seem mature to him. He inferred that one of the demonic larvae from Lord Sabame’s village had survived.

    Dororo’s perceptions of his attacker matched Hyakkimaru’s guess. He could feel Dororo’s remorse over killing the demon girl’s mother and his desperation to save himself from another terrifying monster.

    The demon girl and Dororo crashed through a stand of tall grass. Hyakkimaru was probably visible to Dororo now. With the demon this close, he sensed that she didn’t hold one of his missing pieces. She was here for her own reasons--for revenge.

    Hyakkimaru and Dororo had brought this attack upon themselves. No, that was wrong; this was Hyakkimaru’s fault. All of it--everything--was his fault. His birth father had killed Dororo’s parents. His body parts allowed the demons to walk free in the world and torment others. The warped world that allowed demons to cross-breed with humans had resulted in another pitiable monster like him. He was at the center of this; he had to do something to fix it.

    Jukai is dead because of me, Hyakkimaru thought. He gave me everything he had to save me, and now I’ve gone and ruined it all.

    “Think of human lives as strands on a rope,” the red-eyed wolf demon said.

    “A hundred lives is a hundred strands,” the blue-eyed wolf demon said.

    “A thousand strands is a thousand lives.”

    “The rope of the world is many millions of strands thick.”

    “All you have done in your life is cut the lives of others short,” the red-eyed wolf demon said.

    The blue-eyed wolf demon sneered. “No one is immortal, boy, and some day, your life will be cut away, too.”

    “And your little friend, too. She will die.” It took Hyakkimaru a moment to realize that the red-eyed wolf demon was talking about Dororo.

    “So do you choose to die today?”

    “Or will you live?”

    Hyakkimaru hesitated. Dororo whirled to face him and cried out, “What the fuck are you standing around for?! Kill them!”

    Dororo didn’t call him aniki. He didn’t acknowledge Hyakkimaru as a friend. But they’d fought many demons together in the past, and this was an old routine.

    “I don’t need your power,” Hyakkimaru said to the demons. “Take it and shove it up your asses.”

    “And if we use our powers to kill your companion?” the two wolf demons asked in unison.

    “Give it a try; see how it goes.”

    The wolf demons chuckled again. “Perhaps we should offer her the power to kill you.”

    “Dororo doesn’t need it,” Hyakkimaru said evenly.

    “Oh? And what about a castle? And this country? Surely your friend could find some use for all that.”

    “No I couldn’t, and don’t bother me with such useless bullshit,” Dororo cut in.

    “You will not cooperate with us, and you will not kill each other,” the wolf demons said together. “How disappointing. I suppose we must kill you both after all.”

    The blue-eyed wolf demon sprang at him. Hyakkimaru ducked under the demon and stabbed it through the side with his demon-killing sword.

    The red-eyed wolf demon was on the move, and Hyakkimaru struggled to get into position to attack it. He wasn’t lucky enough to evade another strike, and fresh blood streamed from his injured arm.

    Swinging wildly with his sword and kicking to get himself some breathing room, he saw the red-eyed wolf demon jump back so that it landed with its hind paws in the river. The demon yowled, the moved in on him again with hackles raised, its scant fur and rotted flesh the picture of corruption.

    The next time the wolf demon sprang, Hyakkimaru was sure that he was done for...

    But then the wolf demon yowled and rolled to the side. Surprised, Hyakkimaru blinked; he moved up as quickly as he could and rammed the wolf demon through the throat with the demon-killing sword embedded in his left arm.

    The wolf demon writhed and struggled and went still. The blue-eyed wolf demon hadn’t moved. Hyakkimaru pulled his bloody sword from the demon’s throat, then noticed a fresh wound to the creature’s side.

    A familiar knife with a wooden handle stuck out of the wolf’s side. It was Claw, Dororo’s dagger.

    Dororo gasped in pain behind him and jumped backwards. He’d put down Biwabōshi’s sword and thrown his dagger, which he’d finally found,  in order to give Hyakkimaru an opening to defeat the wolf demon. For the moment, he was weaponless again.

    Before Dororo could backtrack to retrieve Biwabōshi’s sword, the demon girl’s naginata pierced the flesh of Dororo’s arm and cut right through to bone. The demon girl wasn’t strong enough to cut the limb off, though she tried. The blue fire that had been protecting and supporting her and the wolf demons disappeared when the wolf demons died, and she felt her own power weakening. She was now outnumbered.

    Then Biwabōshi rushed forward, sword in hand, putting himself between the demon girl and Dororo.

    The demon girl retreated a step, looking at her enemies with hatred burning in her eyes. “I hate you! I’ll never forgive you!” Then she dashed into the trees and was swiftly gone.

    Biwabōshi wasted no time examining Dororo’s injury. He removed a length of cord tied on his sword hilt and wound it around Dororo’s arm, muttering to himself. “We have to stop the bleeding. This will hurt, so just grin and bear it.”

    “You got it, you old geezer,” Dororo said, doing his best to hold his cut-open arm still while Biwabōshi worked. The pain of cleaning and binding the gash made Dororo grunt, then scream.

    “Dororo?” Hyakkimaru moved, coming closer but maintaining a little distance. “Are you all right?”

    He had never heard Dororo scream like that--high-pitched and agonized, in a voice that sounded so different from his usual one. And he’d heard Dororo scream before while they’d fought demons. This wasn’t the first time Hyakkimaru had seen and heard Dororo hurt, but it was the first time that Dororo had been hurt so badly.

    Hyakkimaru kept coming closer, feeling the smooth stones lining the river under his feet. “Dororo? Dororo!”

    Dororo didn’t answer. He was conscious and in a lot of pain. Biwabōshi finished tending his wound and didn’t try to stop him when he started crawling toward the river. Dororo listened to Hyakkimaru calling for him with tears streaming down his own face and said nothing.

    I can’t kill him. I could never kill him. If I tried, I’d be killing a piece of myself. Dororo thought all of that, but he couldn’t put it into words.

    Suddenly, the two false eyeballs popped out of Hyakkimaru’s face. He fell to his knees, biting back his own cries of pain as his real eyes grew back. If Dororo wanted to kill him, now would be the perfect time, when he was distracted and vulnerable.

    But Dororo didn’t have it in him. He struggled to his feet and approached Hyakkimaru slowly. Mom, I’m sorry. I wanted to kill him, I swear, but I just can’t. He took tottering steps forward, feeling lost even though he knew precisely where he was.

    A few feet away from Hyakkimaru, Dororo stopped. His wooden scabbard lay between them, empty. Dororo stared at it, thinking, Is that your answer mom? I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do. He couldn’t kill Hyakkimaru, but that didn’t mean he had to help him.

    Claw itself was embedded inside one of the wolf demons. Dororo retrieved it and noticed a crack all the way down the blade. It was useless now. He tossed the knife away from him. If it really was a sign from his mother, then her opinion on this couldn’t be more clear.

    Dororo still wanted to hear it from her. He wanted to hear her voice, telling him in plain terms not to kill Hyakkimaru--not to kill anyone, if he could help it. But he heard nothing and no one--not his mother’s voice, or Hyakkimaru’s, or even birds in the trees. Whatever answer he was seeking, he would have to provide it for himself.

    When Hyakkimaru looked over at Dororo, he seemed stunned. He tried to stand but failed; he fell backwards into the river. He surfaced, paddling the water weakly with his exhausted limbs, and looked around with his new eyes.

    “Who are you?” he asked Dororo with a touch of hostility in his voice. His new vision was overwhelming and unhelpful. His artificial eyes weren’t affected by light and environmental conditions. By good luck, his real eyes weren’t too bad at seeing in the dark, but he couldn’t make out as much detail as he was used to.

    He didn’t recognize Dororo, of course. He wouldn’t have recognized anyone he’d met before by relying only on his eyes. He knew people by the impressions that their spirits and minds gave him. With his artificial eyes gone, those impressions were lost to him. He thought that he could still try to communicate with others mind to mind if he put some effort in, but he was too tired and stunned with cold to try at the moment.

    The washed-out darkness of the world at night was a surprise to Hyakkimaru. He understood why few people traveled at night now. He felt a desire to revisit familiar places so that he would know what they looked like to others. He especially wanted to return to the Hall of Hell, now that he could see with his own eyes what had truly happened there. He burned with desire to see the place where his body and life had been sold.

    Hyakkimaru half-expected to see demons leering at him from out of the dark, but he saw none. There was the river, the trees, the glint of metal off a broken knife along the shore… and a young woman bent double on her knees, staring at him and crying without making a sound.

    “Are you… Dororo?”

    Dororo wasn’t what he expected. His mental sight was far different than physical sight. When they’d first met, he had thought that Dororo was a girl of about ten or eleven years old. Dororo’s insistence that he was a man had made Hyakkimaru accept that, and it hadn’t occurred to him to wonder about how other people saw Dororo during their travels.

    What surprised him most was that Dororo’s female characteristics were so obvious. He had little enough experience distinguishing men from women with his mental sight. With his physical sight, he had no experience at all. Perhaps Dororo looked so feminine to him because Dororo was the first biologically female person he’d seen, or perhaps his attachment to Dororo as a friend softened and smoothed out features, making Dororo more attractive to him.

    That can’t be Dororo, can it? Dororo always says he’s a man, constantly, and people go along with it…

    “Dororo,” Hyakkimaru said, louder than before.

    Dororo glared. “What?”

    Biwabōshi pulled Dororo aside. Hyakkimaru’s mental image of the monk was close to the one he saw with his new eyes, and he didn’t sense anyone else nearby.

     “The arm needs a bandage,” Biwabōshi said.

    Dororo grumbled and sat still while Biwabōshi cleaned his bleeding arm and tied a length of clean cloth around it.

    “Sorry I couldn’t help more,” Dororo said to Hyakkimaru. “That bitch kept me busy. She wants revenge.” He glanced sidelong at Hyakkimaru. “What will you do if she comes back?” 

    Hyakkimaru didn’t say anything.

    Biwabōshi considered the situation that Dororo and Hyakkimaru found themselves in. They were unlikely friends from the start, and their circumstances made friendship even more unlikely: Hyakkimaru’s birth father had murdered Dororo’s parents. But Biwabōshi didn’t believe in coincidences, only in fate. His first meeting with Hyakkimaru and Jukai was fated. He had to believe that Dororo and Hyakkimaru were also meant to meet, even if he didn’t understand the reason.

    He suspected, however, that their meeting was related to the existence of the strange half-human woman he’d seen. Never in his life had Biwabōshi seen a half-demon, half-human before. Demons and humans didn’t procreate. If a demon wanted a human shape, the demon simply overwhelmed the human’s consciousness and stole their body. Or, in Hyakkimaru’s case, they used his body to manifest in the world physically in a way that they couldn’t previously.

    The demons were changing now. Why? Biwabōshi  could only think that it was because of Hyakkimaru. Maybe the demons hadn’t thought he would survive, or maybe Dororo and Hyakkimaru’s massacre of a demon’s nest had kicked up something particularly powerful.

    Biwabōshi backtracked to the bridge where he’d been eating his skewer before the battle. The empty skewer lay in the middle of the bridge, and now that it was empty, it was obvious that the skewer was made of bleached and sharpened bone.

    Biwabōshi gazed out at the river, scanning the forest for more abominations and frightened for the state of the world. If demons were capable of reproducing like humans did... well, it didn’t bear  thinking about.

 

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