The Fall of Daigo - Part 5 - Mental Warfare - Chapter 5

The Fall of Daigo

Book 3 of the Dororo Novel Series

Toriumi Jinzō

Part 5 - Mental Warfare

Chapter 5

    The floor of the ruined Daima Fortress was covered in ash and filth. The stars were visible through the broken ceiling. Flickering fires still burned here and there, though most of them had died down.

    Hyakkimaru walked further into the fortress, feet coated in grime. The laughter of the Hall of Hell demons echoed loudly in his ears.

    "We've been waiting for you, Hyakkimaru."

    The voice came from the ground. Hyakkimaru paused in place and looked around himself. There was dim red light coming from below his feet.

    Hyakkimaru kept walking until he came to a staircase. He walked down the steps slowly, Muramasa sword clasped defensively in front of him. He'd been prepared to fight the demons alone from the first.

    The cellar of the fortress was huge and confusing in its layout. Thin light was coming from somewhere, though Hyakkimaru couldn't identify the source of it. The space felt too warm and quiet. Hyakkimaru felt like he was walking directly into a net and slowed down, watchful and wary with every step.

    Hyakkimaru wandered around in the cellar for what felt like a very long time. The dim light guiding his steps never flickered, but remained entirely steady. He turned a corner and discovered a large candle lit on the stone floor.

    He took a few more steps and discovered another candle, then another, then another: four in total, one set in each compass direction. When he looked up, he gasped.

    The Hall of Hell demons were all here, surrounding him, their eyes glowing a deep red. This was just like the Hall of Hell at the Unryū Temple Complex, before it had burned down. Hyakkimaru hadn't seen the Hall of Hell since he was a child, and then he'd only seen it in his nightmares.

    But this wasn't a dream, or a hallucination. Hyakkimaru stood in the rebuilt Hall of Hell. He understood after a moment that he was still looking at statues, similar to the ones that had been at the Hall of Hell in Fushimi. The Hall of Hell demons didn't actually need physical vessels to manifest, though.

    Hyakkimaru had killed seven Hall of Hell demons in Hino Village during his battle with the maimai moth onryō. There should be forty-one here. Hyakkimaru did a quick scan of the room and confirmed that there were, indeed, forty-one statues.

    "Show yourself, Kagemitsu," Hyakkimaru spat. His voice echoed around the room.

    A man stepped out from behind one of the statues. It was Kagemitsu, wearing the same armor and weapons as he had when he'd offered Hyakkimaru's body to the Hall of Hell demons almost twenty years before. His black lacquered pleated hat was of the same style worn by nobles of the Imperial Court. His hakama were long and there was a longsword at his hip.

    Kagemitsu chuckled.

    Hyakkimaru leveled his sword at Kagemitsu and stared. Kagemitsu's expression of vague contempt and disappointment were no different from when they'd met at Nomitadani Fortress.

    “You are a vindictive child,” Kagemitsu said. “Is this how you choose to honor your parents?”

    Kagemitsu understood that Hyakkimaru hated him. Good. That would make this easier.

    “Is it true?” Hyakkimaru asked. “Did you really sell my body to the Hall of Hell demons for the sake of your own power?”

    “I knew you were alive when you were born,” Kagemitsu said. He seemed not to hear what Hyakkimaru was saying. “You were breathing, but I put you in the river anyway. I wanted the world more than I wanted you to live. I still want it.”

    “And you’d go so far as to deceive your wife and Tahōmaru?”

    “My wife and son also desire me to have power,” he said. “The only way to survive in the world we live in is to have it. How is it wrong to sacrifice one child to save an entire family?”

    Hyakkimaru tried to remain calm. His heartbeat was loud in his ears. “So it is true,” he said. “Don’t you have any shame? Any regrets at all?”

    “Oh? You’re still angry. Have you come to kill me, then?” Kagemitsu asked. “What kind of child kills their own father? This is a bad road you’ve chosen, boy.”

    “The terms ‘father’ and ‘son’ mean nothing between us,” Hyakkimaru said. “I’m going to kill you, for my own sake as well as my mother’s and Tahōmaru’s.” He leaped back onto a raised platform near one of the candles, then leaped at Kagemitsu, making a disemboweling cut.

    Hyakkimaru missed.

    “Huh?”

    Kagemitsu must have dodged, but how? Even if he was protected by the demons’ power, Hyakkimaru’s sword should have been able to cut through it. Was Kagemitsu a good enough warrior to dodge on his own? Had Hyakkimaru underestimated him this whole time?

    “You can’t kill me.” Daigo’s laugh was almost a giggle.

    Hyakkimaru wasn’t listening to him. He channeled as much psychokinetic energy as possible into his sword. His next attack would land: it had to.

    He was going to kill Daigo Kagemitsu.

    “Wait!” Tahōmaru jumped between Hyakkimaru and Kagemitsu. “If you kill him, I’ll have to kill you...brother.”

    “Tahōmaru...”

    Tahōmaru drew his sword.

    Hyakkimaru was now forced to make a critical choice. If he had to kill his brother to reach Kagemitsu, would he? He suddenly remembered what Asakura Mitsuhisa had said to him the last time they’d spoken: A man strikes down his enemy, and is struck down in turn by his enemy’s son. The cycle of hatred perpetuates forever unless we stop it.

    Kagemitsu’s gazed flicked between Hyakkimaru and Tahōmaru. He was still wearing his supremely self-satisfied expression.

    Hyakkimaru stood still, uncertain. He didn’t want to kill Tahōmaru if there was any other choice. He realized that Tahōmaru must have come to Daima Fortress deliberately after the battle, likely at great personal risk to himself.

    Tahōmaru knows I was sold to the demons and that Kagemitsu lied to him for his entire life, but he’s still protecting him?

    Hyakkimaru’s hatred for Kagemitsu flared up again, but he couldn’t kill his brother. Just thinking of how devastated their mother would be stayed his hand.

    From behind him, Hyakkimaru heard the soft strumming of a lute. He turned a little and saw that Hōichi and Jukai had both made it inside. Hōichi was playing his song with a tense, serious expression. The melody echoed off the room’s walls and high ceiling.

    The song seemed to restore some sense of focus to both Hyakkimaru and Tahōmaru: they realized sharply where they were and what they were about to do.

    The placid smile on Kagemitsu’s face vanished. The edges of his form wavered. Then he collapsed into so much blackened ash and drifted away.

    “Dad!” Tahōmaru ran over to Kagemitsu before he was completely gone, but there was nothing he could do to make him stay.

    Hōichi’s voice sounded louder than it was when he said, “That wasn’t your father. It was an illusion.”

    Hyakkimaru remembered thinking that Kagemitsu was dressed exactly as he’d been during his dreams of the Hall of Hell demons. That wasn’t a coincidence. Hōichi had seen through the facade and used his lute to shatter the illusion.

    A ball of shimmering blue light appeared on the room’s raised dais. Hyakkimaru and Tahōmaru stepped instinctively away from it.

    The ball started shaking as the Hall of Hell demons laughed. “Well done, Hōichi. As we expected of you. Don’t believe that we’ll allow you to leave this place alive.”

    Hōichi set down his lute and drew his sword from his cane. Jukai drew his sword as well. “You have no power over me,” Hōichi said. “You are nothing but evil spirits who should be sleeping.”

    “You demons are the enemy of humanity,” Jukai said. “We’ll oppose you for as long as we draw breath.”

    “That won’t be for very long,” the demon said. “But isn’t this convenient for us? We get to crush three users of psychokinesis in one place.”

    “Where’s the real Kagemitsu?” Hyakkimaru called out. “Bring him out here!”

    A samurai stepped out from behind the ball of blue light. It was Tarao Tenzen, Kagemitsu’s bodyguard. Hyakkimaru had fought him at Nomitadani Fortress.

    “Lord Tenzen?” Tahōmaru asked with a little frown. “Where’s my father?”

    Tarao Tenzen smiled. It was a deeply unpleasant sort of smile. “If you really want to know...” He pointed up at the ceiling. The blue light brightened considerably.

    Tahōmaru screamed.

    Hyakkimaru, Jukai and Hōichi were dumbstruck. Kagemitsu hung from the ceiling of the room with his hands tied behind his back. His hair was in disarray and his kimono was torn. His pale face was drawn with pain. His head hung limp. He didn’t speak or look at anyone.

    “Dad!” Tahōmaru called up to him. “Who did this you? How do we get you down?” His gaze shifted to Tarao Tenzen. “Did you do this?”

    “You shouldn’t complain, Tahōmaru,” Tarao Tenzen said sternly. “This is your father’s punishment for defying the Hall of Hell demons.”

    “What?”

    Kagemitsu groaned painfully. “They were going to kill you and your mother, Tahōmaru.” He gasped. “I have no choice.”

    Tahōmaru said nothing in reply. He’d known that his father had dealings with the Hall of Hell demons for a while, but he didn’t know any of the details.

    “Kagemitsu wanted to borrow our power to take the world into his hands,” the Hall of Hell demon said. “He promised us the life of his child in exchange. But he failed to kill Hyakkimaru, and Hyakkimaru grew up to oppose us with psychokinesis. We decided to take the lives of Tahōmaru and Nui no Kata in exchange for him not fulfilling his side of the bargain. He refused this arrangement, so now, he is as you see him.” The demon chuckled nastily.

    “But why?” Tahōmaru asked. “Why do you want to kill us? Do you hate us?”

    “We do,” the demon said. “We do not know whether Nui no Kata or Kagemitsu bears the cursed taint of psychokinesis in their blood, but we must eradicate it from the earth. If we do not, our very existence is in jeopardy.”

    Tahōmaru blinked in confusion. Kagemitsu had two older brothers and a sister, but all of his siblings had died before they could have children. He didn’t know the entire history of their clan’s lineage, but he knew it dated back for quite a while and that there were several branch families of the clan. He didn’t know what psychokinesis was, beyond the fact that it was what helped Hyakkimaru move. There was no way to tell if there were any other people with psychokinesis in the family—though there must be, if psychokinesis was an inherited trait.

    “Tahōmaru,” Kagemitsu cried out from the ceiling, “forgive me.  I was tricked. They wanted to kill you all along, and I just didn’t realize it. You know I would never do anything to harm you or your mother.”

    The demon’s cavernous laughter echoed in the hall. “That’s quite an argument, considering what you did to Hyakkimaru. You have lured three users of psychokinesis here, so your usefulness is at an end. Fall into hell, as you deserve.”

    A beam of blue light shot toward Kagemitsu’s ropes and cut through them, making Kagemitsu fall from a great height.

    “Dad!”

    Kagemitsu slammed into the floor with a sickening splat.

    “We never finished our fight at the fortress,” Tarao Tenzen said to Hyakkimaru. “Come.”

    Hyakkimaru met Tarao Tenzen head-on with his Muramasa sword. Jukai, standing near him with his own sword, prepared to use Hamara Genyōhiken: monster and spirit exorcism.

    “No,” Hyakkimaru said. “I don’t use psychokinesis on humans.”

    Tarao Tenzen slashed down. Hyakkimaru caught the blade of his sword on his own before he could be cut, but the effort of stopping the blow staggered him. He had to fight one-handed; he’d lost his left arm in the fight against Jiraiya.

    Without missing a beat, Tarao Tenzen aimed a cut at Hyakkimaru’s left side. Hyakkimaru rolled to avoid it and sprang up quickly. He was drenched in cold sweat and some of his injuries from Nomitadani Fortress still stung. Tarao Tenzen was exactly as Hyakkimaru remembered him: a master of the Nen-ryū sword style who moved as smoothly and swiftly as a hawk on the wind. Hyakkimaru was fast, but he wasn’t able to avoid every strike.

    Tarao Tenzen was a better swordsman than him. He knew that. He reinforced his sword with psychokinetic energy and used more to protect himself. He had no choice if he wanted to live. Hyakkimaru was betting everything on his Muramasa sword.

    Hyakkimaru avoided a slice that would have cut open his skull, then jumped up. As Tarao Tenzen shifted his footing, Hyakkimaru hurled the Muramasa sword at him from above. The point pierced Tarao Tenzen’s throat.

    “Uh!” Tarao Tenzen collapsed to the ground with blood gushing from his neck. He didn’t get up.

    Then all of the the statues of the Hall of Hell demons standing on the room’s raised dais started moving. They looked similar to the ones Hyakkimaru had fought in the marsh outside of Hino Village, and were armed variously with spears, naginata, iron bo staffs, broadaxes, bamboo rakes, scythes, and a sickles with chains. They were the same size and shape as Deva Kings and stood nearly twice as tall as Hyakkimaru.  

    Now was the time for Hyakkimaru, Jukai and Hōichi to use psychokinesis. Hyakkimaru’s closest opponent carried a naginata and was preparing to thrust it through him. Hyakkimaru jumped over the blade, but lost his footing when he landed and rolled.

    Hyakkimaru felt clumsy and slow. He should have been able to avoid that thrust easily. Was something else interfering with his psychokinesis?

    Jukai jumped in front of Hyakkimaru and ran the demon through with his sword, but the demon kept coming. When Jukai blocked the naginata with his own blade, the force of the block sent his sword skittering from his hand.

    The demons started laughing.

    “Hyakkimaru,” Jukai said. “Psychokinesis won’t work here.”

    “What? Why?”

    “I don’t know. We need fire. And gunpowder.”

    Hyakkimaru held his sword in his mouth and rummaged through his pack, pulling out materials to reload his hand cannon. He shot the closest demon when he was ready.

    The demon lit on fire, then turned to ashes with surprising speed. The other demons stepped back from Hyakkimaru. They seemed to fear him more than they feared the fire.

    The remaining demons all attacked Hyakkimaru at once. Jukai pulled out one of his handheld bombs, but the demons were clustered so closely around Hyakkimaru that he couldn’t risk throwing it.

    One of the demons faced away from the others to focus on Jukai. Jukai had to step all the way back to avoid being stabbed. He fell, losing the two bombs he’d prepared as they rolled away from him on the floor.

    Jukai managed to catch and throw one bomb before it rolled out of range. Hōichi picked up the other and threw it, too. The two bombs destroyed a demon’s legs, but didn’t kill it.

    Hyakkimaru, Jukai and Hōichi fought for dear life, dodging the demons’ weapons while preparing more firepower. Hōichi’s lute was destroyed in the fighting, though he kept blocking the demons’ strikes with his sword.

    Then Hyakkimaru was out of gunpowder. There was more stored in his leg, but then he’d have to take his leg off, and if he did that, this fight would be over. Besides, it was impossible to wipe out several demons at once, even with his hand cannon.

    Ten demons remained that could still fight. The others had turned to ashes or were lying on the floor gravely wounded.

    “Hyakkimaru!” Hōichi shouted. “Jiraiya’s core wasn’t pierced! Part of his power is still here! You must destroy it!”

    Jukai and Hyakkimaru fanned out, beginning a search of the room. This place was like the Hall of Hell they’d seen in their dreams—exactly like it. But if something of Jiraiya’s power was left here, there should be something in the room that was unfamiliar. Something different.

    Jukai and Hyakkimaru searched the room from top to bottom, but didn’t find anything out of place.

    “There’s no difference,” Jukai shouted.

    “I don’t see any, either,” Hyakkimaru called back.

    The Hall of Hell demons advanced on them, boxing them all in easily now that they were standing in separate places. Hyakkimaru jumped over a naginata and ran toward the lower portion of the room when he saw it.

    There. One statue in the center of the dais looked different from the ones in his dream. A forty-ninth statue had appeared there sometime during the battle. “I see it!” He pointed.

    Jukai squinted, then nodded. The statue had the face of an ape and the body of a lion. Green light shone from its eyes. Hyakkimaru remembered seeing those eyes after Jiraiya’s body had turned to ashes. The eyes must have been transferred to this demon.

    The eyes seemed to be the secret to Jiraiya’s long sleep in the burial mounds. They contained Jiraiya’s core. Hōichi had implied as much before. The fact that they were here meant that Jiraiya was still awake, unsealed.

    Suddenly, an explosion rocked the hall from above, turning the floor into a sheet of fire. Jiraiya’s green eyes popped out of the statue, flew into the air and disappeared.

    “Ah!” Hyakkimaru, Hōichi and Jukai scrambled away from the fire. So did the other demons. When the fire on the floor finally flashed out a few seconds later, all sign of the forty-ninth demon had vanished without a trace.

    Most of the remaining demons were still on fire. So was one of the walls. Flames licked upward toward the ceiling.

    A child’s high-pitched laugh echoed from the hallway outside the room. “Hahahaha....”

    Dororo ran into the room, still laughing.

    “Dororo?” Hyakkimaru stared at Dororo with an expression of awe.

    Hōichi and Jukai were similarly impressed—and completely stunned.

    Dororo had sneaked up on the battle, gotten the lay of the land, and placed himself where he could be most useful. Then he’d waited for the opportune moment to throw a bomb into the mix to take out some demons.

    Tentatively, Hyakkimaru reached out with his psychokinesis to where his sword had fallen on the floor. It responded to his will, cutting through demons with ease. His psychokinesis was working again.

    Jukai used Hamara Genyōhiken on his sword. It shot lightning at the nearest Hall of Hell demon, turning it instantly to cinders.

    Hōichi sliced a Hall of Hell demon in half from head to toe. It, too, collapsed into so much ash.

    When all the demons were defeated, the ashes of the statues lit up brightly in the darkness, then faded out of existence.

 

***

 

    Tahōmaru crouched down protectively over his father in a corner of the hall. He had pulled him away from the fighting so that he wouldn’t be injured further.  Kagemitsu’s head was supported on his knees.

    Hyakkimaru approached them. Tahōmaru eyed him warily, but when he noticed that Hyakkimaru’s sword was sheathed, he gave him a cautious nod.

    Hyakkimaru knelt down at Kagemitsu’s side.

    Tears streaked down Tahōmaru’s cheeks. He wrapped his arms around his father’s shoulders and cried in complete silence. He knew that his father would die. Nothing could be done for him now.

    “Hyakkimaru,” Kagemitsu choked out. “I didn’t...know. About your body. About our family. Forgive me. I swore...I would kill you...after you were born. I thought you weren’t breathing. I really did think...you were dead. I didn’t...want your mother to see you like that. I’m sorry.”

    Kagemitsu was also crying. His tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes and fell to the floor. “I understand now...that even if I...got what I wanted. Even if I ruled the world...I would be leaning on the demons’ power. Entirely dependent on them. That’s not...what I wanted. You should know that, before I....I die....”

    The backs of Hyakkimaru’s eyes felt hot. “Father.” It was the first time Hyakkimaru had ever called Kagemitsu that.

    Kagemitsu’s eyes softened. He had never looked on Hyakkimaru with kindness before.

    “Hyakkimaru.” Kagemitsu took a deep, shuddering breath. “I have no right, but...take care of your mother and brother.”

    Hyakkimaru nodded. He took Kagemitsu’s hands in his and squeezed.

    Kagemitsu smiled. Then he collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. His head hung loosely in Tahōmaru’s lap.

    “Dad,” Tahōmaru said quietly. He looked up at Hyakkimaru. If he hated or resented Hyakkimaru, he showed no sign of it. There was nothing in his eyes but deep grief.

    Tahōmaru and Hyakkimaru looked at one another for a long moment, both crying.

    “Damn demons,” Dororo said, stomping the floor with his foot.

    Another demon statue materialized on the raised dais in the center of a fire. Unlike the other Hall of Hell statues, it didn’t burn. Hyakkimaru got up and drew his sword.

    The Hall of Hell statues had all been destroyed. Whatever this thing was, it wasn’t a normal Hall of Hell statue. This might be the true form of the demonic energy expressed by the demons.

    “Fool,” the demon statue spoke, springing into movement. “You cannot harm me.”

    Hyakkimaru’s eyes flicked toward Jukai. He decided to use Seven Stars Demonic Exorcism to eliminate this last demon.

    The demon chuckled. “I am an immortal being. Your puny power is no match for me.” Lightning shot from the demon’s eyes. Hyakkimaru used the Muramasa sword to deflect it, causing blue-white sparks to fly everywhere.

    The demon targeted Hyakkimaru with lightning again, but Hyakkimaru leaped over it. The demon’s eyes flashed with rage. This time, the demon aimed for Hyakkimaru’s right leg.

    Hyakkimaru wasn’t able to jump out of the way in time. His leg fell off, leaving him standing on only his left leg. Hyakkimaru crouched down and rolled, making himself a smaller target.

    “Aniki!” Dororo cried out.

    Lightning danced in the demon’s eyes as it aimed at Hyakkimaru’s left leg. Hyakkimaru removed it himself, revealing his cache of gunpowder.  Then he gripped his Muramasa sword and propped himself up without legs.

    The demon laughed gleefully as it aimed for Hyakkimaru’s last remaining limb: his right arm. Hyakkimaru gasped and rolled again, limbless for the first time in years. The Muramasa sword was six feet away from him, still held in his hand.

    Hyakkimaru could do nothing but roll now.

    “Aniki...” Dororo didn’t realize it, but he was crying. Hyakkimaru had lost all his limbs again. He was just like he’d been when he was born.

    Hōichi and Jukai didn’t know how to help Hyakkimaru. Jukai wanted to encourage him, at least, but try as he might, no sound came from his mouth.

    The demon chuckled in amusement. “How appropriate. You’ll die the same way you were born. It’s the circle of life.”

    Hyakkimaru rolled across the floor with astonishing speed and took the Muramasa sword’s hilt in his mouth. He had learned how to roll like this before he had limbs. He’d avoided being run through with a monk’s naginata by using his weight to shift his head.

    The demon shot more lightning at Hyakkimaru with its eyes, but Hyakkimaru shifted the sword with his mouth, causing the lightning to bounce off the blade, right back at the demon.

    The demon’s face was struck by its own lightning. It grunted in pain.

    While the demon was still distracted, Hyakkimaru set his sword down on the floor, then used psychokinesis to launch it at the demon. “Go!”

    As the sword flew, it transformed briefly into Takumaru. It changed back into a sword again just in time to pierce the demon through the skull.

    “Gah!” The demon’s face was more than half-gone. The lightning left its eyes and diffused around it in a corona of blue light. The ground shook, jolting a piece of the ceiling loose. The ceiling fell squarely on the demon.

    Hyakkimaru looked at the demon, waiting for another attack.

    Smoke like a dark cloud spread out from under the fallen ceiling, rose up through the hole in the roof and disappeared.

    No one said anything for a long while. They looked up at the starlit sky and breathed. The dark smoke rose up out of the fortress, then scattered into pieces, leaving behind blue sparks like the residue of a firework.

    The Hall of Hell demons were defeated.

 

＊＊＊

 

    The Muramasa sword wobbled in the air, then clattered to the floor.

    “Aniki!”

    “Hyakkimaru!”

    Dororo and Jukai ran toward Hyakkimaru and caught him just before he collapsed.

    Hyakkimaru smiled. It had been an exhausting day, physically and emotionally, but he still had the strength left to enjoy his victory. “It’s been a long time since you had to hold me up, dad,” he said.

    Jukai hugged him close, remembering the day that he’d found Hyakkimaru in the river. That day seemed so long ago now.

    Hōichi cleared out his ears and titled his head, listening. The earth rumbled.

    “We have to get out of here,” Hōichi said. “With the onryō and the demons dead, nothing’s left to keep this place in existence.”

    Dororo and Jukai supported Hyakkimaru as they all raced out of the fortress. No sooner had they stepped foot outside when the crumbling fortress walls rippled, fell in on themselves, turned to ash and blew away.