Demon Sword Dance
Book 2 of the Dororo Novel Series
Toriumi Jinzō
Part 1 - The Ruined Temple
Chapter 4
Hyakkimaru and Dororo raced down the mountain in the light of the westering sun, galloping on fast horses.
"Aniki, we should head down to the forest where they can't see us," Dororo said.
"Let's go."
It was only natural that Dororo would agree to guide him to the bandit fortress. It felt like they hadn't done anything this risky together for a very long time. They'd fought off their fair share of bandits and murderers in the capital. They were both motivated to act against these evil men who preyed on innocent women and children in the countryside.
Hyakkimaru had tried not to show it in front of Mio, but internally, he was seething with rage. He felt sympathy for Mio and the children and an overpowering desire to rip their oppressors limb from limb.
Dororo and Hyakkimaru sent their horses away when they reached the rocky area near the fortress. The fortress itself was in an uproar. Bandits held pine torches aloft and prepared their horses for departure. They were waiting for their leader, Korikuma.
Hyakkimaru and Dororo hid behind a fence and took in the situation.
"Are they going to attack the temple?" Dororo whispered. "At night?"
"I'm glad we got here before they left," Hyakkimaru muttered.
Hyakkimaru had been seen by two of Korikuma's men. One of them had gotten away. He must have reported that the fight had broken out over Mio.
"He'll come out there, in the direction of that hut," Dororo said. "If you hide there, you should be able to take him down."
Hyakkimaru readied a small bomb. "This will be the signal to run," he said, handing the bomb to Dororo. "Stay out of sight."
Dororo chuckled. "Oh, we're gonna use one of those? Awesome. I've always wanted to try this."
"Hurry," Hyakkimaru said.
Dororo jumped over the fence and sprinted toward the cover of a bamboo thicket. Hyakkimaru also left the fence line and concealed himself behind a large tree. It was growing dark, but the light of the bandits' torches allowed Hyakkimaru to see everything that he needed to.
Korikuma finally emerged from his own hut, accompanied by three retainers. He was a thickset man and very tall, almost seven feet by Hyakkimaru's estimation. His jowls were unshaven and his hair was a mess, but his armor was scrupulously polished and shined. A huge broadsword hung from a leather scabbard at his hip. He carried an iron-ribbed fan with its top edge sharpened to points in one hand. He cut an odd figure, though Hyakkimaru doubted that anyone had told him so.
Hyakkimaru looked at Korikuma with eyes full of anger. This evil giant of a man had treated Mio and the children like playthings—like a cat toying with its food before killing it. The idea that he'd taken Mio by force made him sick to his soul.
Deep within him, Hyakkimaru felt the stirrings of a strange sense of jealousy. He loved Mio. He would kill the savage brutes who'd harmed her.
When Korikuma was about to mount his own horse, there was a sound like thunder coming from the hut directly behind him. The entire hut went up in flames in seconds as the explosion rocked the ground.
This was Dororo's doing. Explosives of the type Hyakkimaru had passed him originated in China's Jin Dynasty (1115-1234). They crossed over into Japan during the Northern Song Dynasty (1127-1279). At the start of the Ōnin War, their manufacture had increased. They were easy to obtain in the capital. They'd been used extensively as weapons by the Kamakura shogunate during the attempted Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281.
The design of these explosives was fairly simple: an accelerant was stored inside an iron ball that could be activated by lighting a wick. Jukai had taught Dororo how to make simple ones during the months he'd spent at the estate on Mount Kurama. The fire caused damage and the noise was more than loud enough to stun enemies for several seconds.
The riders who were close enough to the explosion to feel the impact fell off their horses and rolled onto the ground. They were stunned out of their wits. The horses ran around in confusion, neighing and refusing to be calmed. Korikuma set aside all thoughts of mounting up and attempted to get his frantic men under control.
"Calm yourselves!" Korikuma called out. "There must be intruders in the fortress. Find them!"
The men didn't listen. They had their hands full with their own problems.
Hyakkimaru emerged from behind the large tree and walked directly toward Korikuma. He's the only one I have to kill. With him dead, the rest will either scatter or fight one another for dominance.
That was what Hyakkimaru believed. Hyakkimaru's shape took on definition as he stepped into the torchlight.
"Huh?" Korikuma glared suspiciously at Hyakkimaru.
Hyakkimaru kept walking until he was right in front of Korikuma. Korikuma looked back at him with fire dancing in his eyes. He gave Hyakkimaru an unsettling smile. "I see. So you're Mio's lover, huh?" He had a deep voice and an uncultured accent.
"I've come for your head," Hyakkimaru said coldly.
Korikuma's retainers were still busy chasing down their mounts, but they paused in place and drew their swords when they noticed that their leader was being threatened.
"Stay back," Korikuma shouted to his men. "I'll handle this one." With surprising speed, he unfurled his iron fan and hurled it at Hyakkimaru. "Die!"
Hyakkimaru deflected the fan with his arm. The fan's sharp, protruding points thunked into the prosthetic and stayed there.
"What?" Korikuma appeared genuinely surprised. The fan had never failed him as a weapon before. He'd successfully killed over a hundred people with it.
"I'll return this," Hyakkimaru said. He removed the fan from his arm, then threw it lightly through the air. It chopped through the skull of one of Korikuma's nearest men—the lanky samurai who had fled from the ruined temple. The fan wouldn't usually have such force from a simple throw. Hyakkimaru had enhanced its cutting force with psychokinesis.
Korikuma took a step back from him in shock, then drew his longsword. "Don't ignore me, you bastard."
Hyakkimaru drew his Muramasa sword.
Korikuma swiped at Hyakkimaru's head with a heavy strike. Hyakkimaru ducked to avoid the strike, then watched as Korikuma's sword flew from his hand. It fell to the ground and rolled away from him. Hyakkimaru took advantage of his unarmed state and kicked Korikuma strongly in the chest with all the force of his psychokinesis behind it. Korikuma went down flat on his back, shaking the ground a little with the impact.
Hyakkimaru straddled Korikuma to hold him down. He brought the point of his Muramasa sword to Korikuma's neck. Korikuma went limp and didn't struggle. He wanted to move, but some strange force pinned him down.
Korikuma's men took in the spectacle with dumbstruck expressions. They understood that it was useless to join the fight. Hyakkimaru could kill Korikuma at any moment.
"I win," Hyakkimaru said in a voice like ice.
"Wait," Korikuma stuttered out. "Wait! Spare my life, please!"
Hyakkimaru gazed down at Korikuma with an expression of contempt.
"I've done wrong. I know it. I'll leave this place and never return if you spare my life." He was weeping openly now. His face in defeat was hideous. He was poised on the line between life and death, and he would do anything to live.
Hyakkimaru climbed off of Korikuma and sheathed his sword. It took a few moments for Korikuma to realize that he'd been spared, but when he did, he stood up. Hyakkimaru turned a little away from him and called out, "Dororo!"
In Hyakkimaru's brief moment of distraction, Korikuma retrieved his longsword and stabbed Hyakkimaru in the back.
"Die!" Korikuma screamed.
Hyakkimaru's legs reacted before the rest of him did. He turned around faster than the speed of his thoughts and narrowly avoided being stabbed. In the same movement, he separated Korikuma's head from his shoulders. The head rolled away from his body, which collapsed heavily to the ground.
Hyakkimaru wasn't the sort of person who killed people who'd surrendered, but for the duplicitous Korikuma, he made an exception.
Korikuma's terrified men scattered like startled butterflies in all directions. Their loyalty to Korikuma was based on personal gain. They would get nothing for troubling to avenge him. Men on horses outstripped men on foot, who called out to their mounted comrades while cursing. The area around the fortress descended into chaos.
Several young women who'd been captured and kept on as servants and camp followers seized their chance to flee as well.
Dororo and Hyakkimaru returned to the ruined temple on borrowed mounts. "We should be able to sleep easier now. Food shouldn't be a problem for a while, either," Dororo said.
Dororo was in a good mood. He couldn't wait to tell the children about their heroic exploits. He tried to get Hyakkimaru to talk, but he remained silent for most of the way back to the temple.
Food would probably be a problem before too long, since the explosion had caused a fire that spread to several of the outbuildings. Many of the bandits had fled on horseback with food and supplies from the fortress.
Dororo chattered next to Hyakkimaru about what he wanted to tell the children. It took him a while to realize that Hyakkimaru had been completely silent since they'd finished the fight with Korikuma.
"What's wrong, aniki?" Dororo asked. "Why aren't you talking?"
"You talk so much that you never gave me an opening," Hyakkimaru said.
"Oh." Dororo laughed hugely.
Hyakkimaru's expression didn't shift. "You know we're leaving tomorrow, right? Early."
"Everyone will be so lonely without us..." Dororo looked at Hyakkimaru, watchful for some sign that he wanted to stay, but Hyakkimaru just continued riding in silence.
Hyakkimaru had pushed himself to his physical and mental limits. Restraining Korikuma with that much psychokinetic energy had completely wiped him out.
When Dororo and Hyakkimaru returned to the ruined temple, the sky was dark with sudden storm clouds. They covered the moon and blocked out all light from above.
Hyakkimaru sensed the presence of a malevolent spirit and glared at the sky. "Dororo," he said evenly. "Protect the children."
"Aniki?" Dororo leaped off his horse, then looked up at Hyakkimaru with a worried frown.
"Now," Hyakkimaru insisted.
Dororo grabbed the reins of his horse and sprinted toward the temple.
Lightning flashed in the sky, followed by the sound of familiar laughter. It was a Hall of Hell demon, lying in wait for him to return. The laugh was a greeting to Hyakkimaru—and a declaration of hostilities.
Hyakkimaru hadn't seen any sign of the Hall of Hell demons since he'd first set foot on the Hokuriku Road. He was so consumed by his quest to find Daigo Kagemitsu that he sometimes forgot the danger he was in. But the demons hadn't forgotten—this one had waited for a moment when he would be weak and vulnerable to attack.
Lightning flashed again. When it faded, a samurai's face appeared in the sky. It was hard to make out many details, but Hyakkimaru looked at the samurai and could not be mistaken.
My eyes aren't deceiving me. Daigo Kagemitsu is here.
"You think you can win," the demon said, "but we'll crush you before your power matures. You are disturbing the natural order of things. That cannot be forgiven."
"So you want to kill me? I won't die until I drag Daigo Kagemitsu into the pit of hell."
The demon laughed mockingly. "Is that so? Bravely said. Even if I can't kill you now, I can give you a taste of what the pit of hell is really like."
"What?"
"You'll see. First, I think I'll take the thing you care about most in this world."
The demon laughed again, with thunder echoing under his voice. His face re-formed into that of a rabid bear's. His body became visible. He was covered in black fur from head to toe.
Hyakkimaru drew his Muramasa sword and prepared to fight.
The demon's face shifted again, becoming Korikuma's.
Was this demon possessing Korikuma? Hyakkimaru had only just beheaded him.
"We demons derive our power over lightning from divine blessings," the demon said. "It should be more than powerful enough to utterly destroy your psychokinesis."
The black clouds in the sky swirled in a spiral shape. When they cleared, the demon appeared in the form of a giant iron-ribbed fan. The fan flew directly at Hyakkimaru.
Hyakkimaru gathered all of his remaining concentration and focused it into the Muramasa sword.
The sword refused to obey him and fell from his hands. This wasn't the first time the sword had disobeyed Hyakkimaru's will, but it was by far the most inconvenient.
The demon chuckled mockingly. The sound of more thunder echoed in the air. Hyakkimaru stood still, unarmed, listening to the demon's laughter overflow from the clouds overhead.
"Your hatred of us is plain. Look, Hyakkimaru. I'm certain you'll see it clearly."
The clouds in the sky swirled again. The demon retained his iron fan shape, but this time, he launched iron projectiles from the sharp ends—directly at the roof of the ruined temple.
At the same time, lightning struck the temple. Hyakkimaru heard the crackling of a fire.
The roof of the temple went up in flames. Mio, Dororo and the children were still inside. The main support beams around the temple doors were smoldering. They didn't even have time to get out—
"You," Hyakkimaru spat, but he had no time to fight the demon now. As he rushed uphill to the temple, the demon released another volley of iron projectiles.
Hyakkimaru removed the lower part of his right arm prosthetic and prepared to fire his hand cannon. At the same time, the demon focused its attack on his left arm. Hyakkimaru's left arm blew off.
Hyakkimaru collapsed from shock. He stumbled into a crouch and tried to focus. It was his own fault that he'd lost his arm. Jukai had told him that his limbs would be most vulnerable when he was distracted.
Using his sword as a crutch, Hyakkimaru got to his feet again. He pushed his protesting body forward until he lost his footing and rolled into the yard in front of the temple.
Mio clung to a support beam in a corner that hadn't burned yet. The children and Dororo were nowhere to be seen. Hyakkimaru hoped that Dororo had gotten the children out.
"Hyakkimaru!" Mio yelled.
Hyakkimaru couldn't stand. He crawled closer to the temple and gasped out, "Mio." There was no way to reach her through the fire.
"Do you feel sorry for her? For all the poor unfortunate people in the world? Oh, how sweet. Let's make you suffer some more..."
Hyakkimaru knew that voice. It belonged to a yōkai that had taken the shape of a demon woman at the Hall of Hell.
"Yōkai," Hyakkimaru gritted out. He tried, again, to stand, but his efforts were useless. He was completely exhausted.
"Suffer," the demon woman said with an expression of relish. "Mio's life is ours."
Hyakkimaru shook all over. He tried directing his energy into the Muramasa sword, but once again, the sword refused to obey him. The demon woman blew fire from her mouth, enveloping the beam that Mio was crouched behind.
Mio's screams were brief. The fire burned until the wind blew it out sometime in the night. Both the demon woman and the Hall of Hell demon vanished without a trace.
***
The next morning, less than half of the ruined temple remained standing. Dororo helped Hyakkimaru carry Mio's body to the Flower Hill. They chose a place to bury her in the middle of the blooming wildflowers. It was Mio's favorite spot.
Mount Fuji of Ezichen looked as dull and gray as ash in the early morning light, as if it, too, was grieving.
The children shook with fear all night and cried at the loss of Mio, who had been a mother to them. Dororo wept with his arms around them, trying to provide comfort, but he was too sad to speak.
Hyakkimaru didn't cry.
The demons had taken Mio's life because Hyakkimaru had cared for her. The loss of her felt worse than the loss of any one of his limbs, or all of them.
That night, Hyakkimaru visited Mio's grave alone. He knelt down in front of it. His legs creaked when he bent them.
Alone on the hill, Hyakkimaru cried for Mio for the first time. The sound of his wracking sobs echoed in the stillness and carried all the way down to the river valley. He hadn't been able to save her. She had believed in Manjushri, a merciful god of wisdom and compassion, but her god hadn't saved her, either. She was a casualty of Hyakkimaru's long struggle against the Hall of Hell demons.
As Hyakkimaru wept on the hill, it started to rain. Hyakkimaru refused to move from his spot in front of Mio's grave. He was lost. He had no idea where to go or what to do.
Why didn't the Muramasa sword obey me? Why did I drop it?
Hyakkimaru had run into that strange samurai on the Hokuriku Road. When they'd crossed swords, his own sword had absorbed something from the other that made it disobey him, for whatever reason. The blind monk had done something using his lute sword when he'd met him, too—something else that affected his weapon.
The demons had set out to take away his psychokinesis. They had failed, but not completely. He would rather be dead than continue to suffer like this.
Hyakkimaru feared to the depths of his soul that he might not be strong enough for what came next.
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