Hyakkimaru's Birth
Book 1 of the Dororo Novel Series
Toriumi Jinzō
Prologue - Iwakura Shrine
Clouds blotted out the sun shining through the branches of the cedar trees on the northern part of the mountain. The mournful voices of the cicadas went completely silent. A cold wind cut through Jukai all the way to his bones.
"This is bad." Jukai left the orchids he'd dug up where they were, set aside his hatchet and dashed out of the forest grove. His black-lacquered hat threatened to fly off as he ran, so he brought his hand up over it to keep it in place. He felt the aura of something very evil and powerful nearby and was shaken to his soul.
Lighting flashed behind him, striking a cedar tree in the grove where he'd just been. The entire grove went up in flames in seconds. If he'd hesitated for even a moment before running, he would never have been able to escape the grove.
A chill went up Jukai's spine. The strangest thing about the lightning was that there was no thunder afterwards.
"That's weird," he muttered. The sky was gray and leaden with storm clouds. He stood still on a riverbank to catch his breath and felt the cold air blowing down from the summit of the mountain overhead.
"Ah!" Jukai saw something at the foot of the mountain. This mountain was shaped a bit unusually, with steep sides and a rounded and slightly tapered top like a gourd. The foot of the mountain was littered with huge stones that shone even in the low light. Jukai had stepped onto temple grounds without realizing it.
The area between Kurama and Ōhara was full of rare herbs and plants that could be used for medicine. He must have gotten so absorbed in his gathering that he'd forgotten all about the temple that was near this place.
When Jukai was a child, he'd taken the road from Wakasa Province over the Takano River into Yase with his father. He could still remember his father explaining the temples in this area to him then: "During the Heian Period, Emperor Kanmu1 established five temples on mountaintops near the capital under the supervision of the imperial family. Taoist priests imbued those mountains with significance even before that time. In the way of yin and yang that Taoists call onmyōdō, the northern mountain, Konpira, represents the darkness of yin, while the southern mountain, Hyōtankuzure, represents the light of yang.
"Less than ten ri2 separate those mountains from each other, but they're complete opposites. Konpira has a large shrine that you must climb to, but Hyōtankuzure's temple lands are marked by large stones at the bottom of the mountain. The five temples the Emperor built create a perimeter to help protect the capital from attack."
The stones at the foot of Mount Hyōtankuzure were called Iwakura Shrine by the locals. The mountain itself was sometimes called Mount Hyōtan. It was strange, but all the storm clouds that Jukai could see were gathered along the narrow strip of sky between Konpira and Hyōtankuzure along the line of the Takano River. The rest of the sky was clear and cloudless. The clouds just above his head whirled and twisted around in a cyclone shape. He was certain that there would be more lightning soon.
Jukai thought that maybe he'd angered the god of Iwakura Shrine by entering its sacred lands without permission, but the evil aura he felt didn't come from the large stones at the foot of the mountain. It came from the clouds.
As he ran toward the large stones, the Takano River came into view. The river was swollen with runoff from the long rainy season. It flowed from the north to the south and received tributaries from all the northern mountains, so it was quite wide and deep. There was something small and black floating in the very center of the river, pushed gently downstream by the weak current.
The capital was a place of great scenic beauty surrounded by mountains, so many members of the imperial family and their samurai retainers built second homes to retreat to just outside the city. It was possible that the thing floating in the river was something they'd discarded.
Jukai felt the aura of the same evil spirit as before. "This spirit is dangerous." Jukai quickly crossed his arms and balled his hands into fists. He raised his crossed arms above his head. This was a gesture he had learned from his old teacher; it was used to exorcise spirits and demons.
"I think it's trying to challenge me."
Lightning flashed again. The huge stone directly behind Jukai splintered and sparked as it collapsed into pieces. He was so stunned that he fell, losing the protection of his exorcism pose as he rolled toward the riverbank.
Again, he didn't hear any thunder.
Jukai wasn't sure he would be able to protect himself from the spirit's next attack. He sat cross-legged on the riverbank and prayed. "Great Buddha, worker of miracles..."
He saw the black thing floating in the river from upstream approaching. At this distance, he could tell that the thing was floating inside an ordinary basin about two shaku and five sun3 wide. While there was nothing unusual about the basin itself, it was no longer moving downstream, but upstream against the current. The basin moved directly toward Jukai, got caught in the reeds just in front of him and stopped moving.
Jukai peeked over the reeds and took a look inside the basin.
The stones marking Iwakura Shrine flashed brightly. A shaft of light reflected off the stones to the peak of Hyōtankuzure, then shot forth like an arrow towards the summit of Konpira. The light connected the two mountain peaks like a long line of white thread.
At the same time, the light from Konpira reflected off the metal of the basin, bathing both the basin and its contents in rainbow-colored illumination.
Lightning struck the basin, but the rainbow-colored light surrounding it bounced the lightning aside harmlessly with a profusion of sparks. Once again, there was no thunder.
As the illumination from Konpira's summit faded, the light shining on the rocks of Iwakura Shrine pierced through the gray clouds overhead. Was this a sign of some god seeking revenge against the evil spirit?
Finally, Jukai heard thunder around him three times, very close by, but he saw no lightning. Silence fell as the thunder passed. The swirling storm clouds overhead and the rainbow-colored light surrounding the basin completely disappeared.
The gray sky turned bright in an instant, as if someone had banished the shadow of yin with the light of yang. The fog on Mount Hyōtankuzure dissipated. It seemed that the evil spirit had been defeated.
The basin stuck in the reeds rocked back and forth. When Jukai looked into the basin, he saw something wrapped in a tiny flower-patterned kimono.
Whatever it was wasn't moving. It made no sound. Jukai entered the river to get closer. He wasn't frightened. Someone had gone to the trouble to wrap this thing in a kimono. That act of basic kindness worked against the idea that the thing in the basin might be harmful.
Slowly and carefully, Jukai lifted the wrapped object from the basin. He felt something fleshy and soft in his hands. "Did someone throw away their dead dog or cat?" he muttered. He unwrapped the kimono partway and took a look inside.
Jukai gasped and almost dropped the baby in his arms, but narrowly managed to hold on. Judging by its size, the baby had just been born. Jukai had studied medicine for more than thirty years and treated more people and maladies than he could count. He hadn’t thought that any sort of wound or illness could surprise him anymore, but this infant was shocking.
The baby had no arms or legs, but Jukai saw no signs of amputation. There wasn't a single drop of blood anywhere. It looked like the baby's limbs had just fallen off of their own accord, or perhaps they'd never formed in the womb. The skin covering the shoulder and hip joints was completely smooth.
The head looked normal at first glance, but when Jukai looked a little closer, he noticed that the baby had no nose and no eyes. There were only empty holes where those appendages should be. The baby's umbilical cord had not been cut. It extended from the bellybutton down past the edges of the kimono. Jukai also noticed thankfully ordinary sex organs that revealed that the baby was male.
Jukai slowly brought the baby in closer. He could just barely feel a very faint heartbeat.
"He's alive." Jukai shuddered. The baby was so monstrous that he could scarcely be called human, but he was alive. He'd heard about limbless stillborn infants from physicians he'd studied with in India, but every stillborn he'd ever seen or heard of at least had signs of developing bone and muscle tissue. He had seen a limbless stillborn with his own eyes only once. That infant had been born while its joints were still developing, so its arms and legs had been nubs of bone and its ribs had formed an imperfect fan shape because they'd never managed extend all the way across the torso.
This infant's ribs seemed fully developed, but his limbs were gone, and he was somehow still alive. The problem seemed related to his ability to grow new bone and muscle tissue, but Jukai wouldn't be able to diagnose him properly without a full examination.
This boy's mother must have been appalled when he was born. She might have been traumatized enough to throw his body away before checking if he was even alive. The baby couldn't even move his limbs, so it was almost impossible to tell if he was breathing just by looking. And his mother probably would have buried him properly if he'd been a normal stillborn. She probably thought he'd been possessed by a monster or a spirit and cast him into the river as quickly as possible.
Jukai knew that such an explanation was likely, but he wasn't so sure. Why had the mother wrapped the baby in a kimono before throwing him away?
"I'm sure that when this baby was born, he wasn't able to cry out," Jukai said. "His mouth is normal. There's an indentation where the nose should be. He can breathe, even if he can't cry. If his mother had heard him cry, she probably would have checked to see if he were alive. And if he was born as an ordinary baby and then cursed, she would have found some way to bless or purify him and cut the umbilical cord. But she didn't do any of those things."
Some people believed that the Takano River was sacred. It was possible that his mother had floated him down the river for that reason. The kimono that the baby was wrapped in was decorated and clearly expensive. It was hard to believe that the baby's mother was a commoner. She might be a member of the Imperial Court, or maybe a samurai's wife.
The hollows around the baby's eyes twitched and spasmed suddenly. Jukai got the sense that the baby was begging for something.
"It's inhuman." He wasn't talking about the baby.
The thin clouds overhead gave way to bright sunshine that shone down upon the stones of Iwakura Shrine. Jukai heard the voice of his old teacher, Yōda, speaking to him clearly.
"Look, Jukai. This child was protected by the cosmic forces of light and darkness that dwell in these mountains. He's been cursed by something altogether evil. He may have some kind of power capable of tipping the balance between light and darkness. He is also a patient that will require all of your medical knowledge and skill if he is to survive."
"But, master, I..."
The sun passed behind the clouds. Jukai didn't hear Yōda's voice again. This was the first time he'd heard his master's voice since he'd passed away many years ago.
Did I just hallucinate that? I 'd know that voice anywhere.
As the sun began to set over the mountains, the cicadas resumed their mournful cries.
Translator's Notes:
1 Emperor Kanmu was the fiftieth emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Kanmu reigned from 781 to 806, and it was during his reign that Japanese imperial power reached its peak. This description is not strictly accurate; this temple complex began construction before the Heian Period began. Refer to the Timeline for more details.↩
2 A ri is an old Japanese unit of measurement equal to approximately 3.927 kilometers or 2.44 miles.↩
3 Two shaku and five sun: again, these are ancient Japanese measurements. This corresponds to about two and a half feet wide, or 75 centimeters wide.↩
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