Dororo: Part One - Chapter 7

Dororo: Part One

Nakamura Masaru

Part 2: Dororo

Chapter 7

    The morning was hazy with fog. Dororo awoke alone on the floor of the burned-out temple. He saw no sign of Hyakkimaru or the childrens’ collected spirits anywhere.

    Dororo’s eyes went wide. He jumped up, searching in all directions for where Hyakkimaru might have gone, but the fog was so thick he could scarcely see anything.

    Just because he couldn’t see didn’t mean he couldn’t track Hyakkimaru at all. He heard something nearby, and it was getting closer.

    Hyakkimaru?...No...

    Dororo concealed himself behind a ruined pillar jutting from the raised floor of the temple. The part of the floor that wasn’t burned was built about three feet off the ground. He gripped his Claw out in front of himself for protection, running fingers along the pattern of the wood-carved hilt and scabbard.

    Whoever was coming wasn’t approaching from the river or the trees where Hyakkimaru and Dororo had first encountered the childrens’ spirits, but the opposite direction.  Dororo wished he could see through the mist. He had a vague recollection that there was a village nearby, but that was the full extent of his knowledge.

    A figure appeared on the path outside the temple, indistinct. There was another figure behind them. Only two.

    A man, and...a woman, maybe?

    It was difficult to make out much detail, but Dororo could tell that the the man and woman were not quite old enough to be called middle-aged. That they were farmers was obvious. They walked slowly with their heads down, as if something oppressively heavy was weighing them down.

    Are they carrying something? What is it?

    Dororo’s eyes alighted on a wrapped package that the man held in both hands. His grip on Claw shifted. He was no longer thinking about defending himself from danger. These were marks, and he wasn’t above threatening the people he stole from.

    The farmers stopped just in front of the temple. The man unwrapped the package he held and placed it on the first wooden step of the burned-out temple.

    Rice cakes?

    The man and woman knelt down, put their hands together and bowed their heads in prayer. Their expressions were pinched with grief. The pinwheels spun in the wind, the sound seeming loud in the surrounding silence.

     “I see,” Hyakkimaru said. “I understand now.”

    Hyakkimaru’s sudden declaration nearly made Dororo jump out of his skin. The farmers also looked surprised.  He was standing in the road near the temple. “This was a temple for abandoned children,” Hyakkimaru said. “Wasn’t it?”

    The woman’s shoulders went rigid. “Abandoned?! No...”

    Dororo emerged from hiding behind the pillar. “And you still dare to show your faces here, after what happened? Pah. How brave.”

    The farmers shrank back from Dororo in terror. Dororo walked all the way up to the stairs leading down to the road, looking down his nose at the farmers from his high vantage point.

    Tears shone brightly in the man’s eyes. His surprise and fear transformed into anger. “Where are you from, huh? You’d never think to accuse us if you’d spend as much as a day living in our village. You know nothing. You understand nothing, you bastard!” He gritted his teeth.

    The woman choked back a sob. Her name was Oshizuka, and her husband’s name was Yohei. Yohei wrapped his arms around Oshizuka to comfort her, then spat in a tone of venom, “You know, a long time ago, when Kaneyama was in charge, this was a shitty fucking place. We thought when Muroto came in, things might get better, but all that happened was that we exchanged one kind of shit for another.”

    Yohei’s thoughts and feelings were plain. Hyakkimaru understood them very well; it was like he was seeing Yohei’s experiences through his own eyes.

    There was a battlefield, vast and bloody, with flags set on each side. Hyakkimaru recognized the designs of the Winding Snake and the Centipede from Jukai’s memories. The Muroto Clan and the Kaneyama Clan were border lords that lived between the territories belonging to the Winding Snake and the Centipede, and would regularly switch sides depending on which faction was more powerful at any given moment.

    Kaneyama was an ancient clan that specialized in smelting metals, particularly iron ore. They design on their flags was the seven stars of the Big Dipper constellation. It was widely believed that iron was a gift from the heavens that had fallen to earth from the sky.

    The spark that had instigated this war had happened in another country entirely. The Kaneyama Clan had entered the conflict because of their desire for a rich iron ore mine in Winding Snake territory.  The Centipede had promised to protect their livelihood and manufacturing monopolies, so the Kaneyama Clan had joined forces with them. The Centipede had a vested interest in keeping the Kaneyama Clan’s favored industries running smoothly, since they were essential to manufacturing weapons and ammunition. Gaining the Kaneyama Clan as an ally greatly benefited the Centipede. The Kaneyama Clan had rarely engaged in war before, but when they finally committed themselves, they were a force to be reckoned with.

    While the Kaneyama Clan had rarely engaged in warfare before this conflict, their economy had always benefited from war. It was impossible for them to make money without more ore. The Kaneyama Clan instigated, stoked, and encouraged wars by underhanded means in every territory that bordered theirs to keep demand high, but up until this point, they hadn’t gone to war themselves. The rumor was that a princely sum had changed hands to convince them to get their hands dirty.

    The reasoning for the Kaneyama Clan keeping itself far removed from open warfare was simple: army generals made easy targets. The Kaneyama Clan didn’t want to become target practice for their enemies, so their arrival in the battlefield coincided with a number of deaths among their rivals.

    It could be said without prejudice that the Kaneyama Clan were prudent cowards. They thought through and tested their murderous plans as much as they could before carrying them out, but they were also operating in territory that they were unfamiliar with. The Kaneyama Clan was playing with fire, and it was only a matter of time before they got burned.

    This first conflict of the Kaneyama Clan took place in the west of the country against the Muroto Clan, who were rival border lords. The people who suffered most were not the border lords, but the soldiers, farmers and miners who suffered under their rule. Men who had been farmers and miners in times of peace didn’t know how to fight and were summarily slaughtered, leaving behind widows and orphans. Women who lived and worked in towns and villages saw their lives go up in smoke in the fires of war.

    Raising children was always hard in this country, but during the Kaneyama-Muroto war, it became impossible.

    “Kaneyama’s a demon,” Yohei said. “Him, and the whole lot of ‘em. Everyone’s praying for Muroto to win, because whatever they’ve got planned for us, it has to be better than this.”

    “It’ll never happen,” Oshizuka said. “They can’t win.”

    In the first battle that pitted the Kaneyama Clan and the Muroto Clan against one another, the Muroto Clan suffered a staggering defeat. It seemed that it was all over for the Muroto Clan...but then, another army entered the war, attacking the Kaneyama Clan with extraordinary ferocity.

    This army appeared seemingly out of nowhere. After the Kaneyama Clan was beaten back from the border, the army’s general attacked the Muroto Clan, too, and took control of the entire western border. The general of this army belonged to the Daigo Clan.

    “We hoped to have peace, and Daigo snatched it away from us,” Yohei said. “We called Kaneyama a demon and cursed him, but the next demon was even worse.” 

    After taking control of the western border, the Daigo Clan’s army had gradually started conquering territories. Small ones first, then larger ones, radiating outward to the east and west. The Daigo Clan governed their territory from their capital at Isobe, which was not far from the ocean. They had recently subjugated a neighboring nation that had once been ruled by the Kabai Clan. Though there was tacit peace between the two nations, they’d never gotten along. Tensions still flared even now, when both nations were governed by the same clan lord.

    “Every year gets harder and harder,” Yohei said. “We’ve had war, drought, famine, locusts...who can feed a child? We can barely feed ourselves!”

    Dororo coughed violently, like he was choking. “What do you mean, ‘who can feed a child?’ Of course you feed your child! You feed them before you feed yourselves, and you starve instead of them! Isn’t that your responsibility, huh?! To keep your damn kid alive?!”

    Yohei and Oshizuka had the decency to flinch. They looked like they wanted Dororo to understand.

    “Don’t give me any more of your fucking excuses, I swear to god... I was born on a battlefield! My entire village was burned to the ground, and my mom and dad still fought back! And they never gave me up to make it easier on themselves. They left the village, became bandits and fought to survive! Fought until the very end...”

    Tears leaked from the corners of Dororo’s eyes.  Dororo wiped them away. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter. “Putting your own lives ahead of your kid’s...how can you two even call yourselves parents? You have a village--my parents lost everything! You’re trash fire human beings, you...”

    Yohei and Oshizuka cowered while listening to Dororo’s tirade. Yohei recovered first, standing up straighter. “Your parents were bandits? And you’re...proud of that?”

    “And why not?” Dororo shot back.

    “Our village is attacked by bandits, sometimes,” Oshizuka said. “They steal our rice, and they even kidnap women who are about to be married and take them for themselves.” She shuddered. “Bandits! Don’t tell me you’re in league with those monsters!”

    “My parents weren’t like that,” Dororo said. “They never attacked any villages! We were scavengers, picking up what we could from battlefields and abandoned villages. My father taught me that it was wrong to prey on the weak and vulnerable.”

    “Maybe he did,” Yohei said, “but parents often put on their best faces for your children. You can’t prove that your parents weren’t terrible criminals--if only when you weren’t looking.”

    “What the fuck is worse,” Dororo snarled. “Leaving your child to die, or being a bandit?” He was about to draw Claw and attack Yohei when Hyakkimaru grabbed his arm.

    Hyakkimaru shook his head.

    Yohei’s eyes fixed on Dororo’s knife, which was still sheathed. “Murderers! Spare us!”

    “Shut up! You two don’t even know the meaning of the word suffering! How many destroyed villages have you seen with your own eyes? You don’t even know for sure how your kid died, do you? That’s what you get for throwing them away like they were trash!”

    “We didn’t!” Oshizuka yelled. “I swear! We didn’t throw our son away--no one in the village did. This temple was run by Jishōni, a compassionate nun.”

    “Jishōni?” Dororo asked.

    Oshizuka nodded. “It’s true that we don’t know much about the villages around us, and that our own village has never been destroyed. But we gave our son into Jishōni’s care; we never abandoned him!”

    “Who is this Jishōni, anyway?” Dororo asked.

    “She was a nun who served at this temple,” Oshizuka said. “She was so compassionate, like the Buddha come to life.”

    “Really?” Dororo looked skeptical. “So where is Jishōni now, then? Don’t tell me she burned up with the kids. Seems she wasn’t a living god after all, huh?” Dororo’s tone was mocking and had a certain edge to it, but Oshizuka and Yohei didn’t react to her goading this time.

    Oshizuka answered Dororo with a grave expression. “She did burn, along with all the children…but the strangest thing is, there were no bones left behind after the fire. We searched for days, but discovered no corpses and no bones at all—not Jishōni’s, or our Tatsuzō’s, or…or anyone’s.”

    “What?” Dororo asked.”

    “They must be alive,” Oshizuka said. “Jishōni…maybe she took them to paradise.”

    “Idiot,” Dororo muttered. “Who’s naïve enough to believe something like that?”

    Hyakkimaru pursed his lips. “Hm…how did this temple burn down, anyway?” he asked.

    “We don’t know,” Yohei said.

    “But didn’t you or someone from the village try to save the kids from the fire?” Dororo asked.

    "We would have tried if we’d noticed in time!” Yohei shouted. “By the time we saw the smoke in the village, it was too late for us to do anything!”

    In the stillness that followed Yohei’s shout, Dororo heard the faint sound of drumbeats coming from further up the road. Yohei heard it, too. His eyes went wide.

    “We have to leave,” Yohei said. He took hold of Oshizuka’s arm and led her back toward the village.

    “Oi!” Dororo called after them. “Hey, you! Wait!”

    Yohei and Oshizuka didn’t look back. They walked swiftly back toward their village. The edges of their figures were blurry and indistinct because of the fog.

    Dororo folded his arms. “They must’ve been lying. No way this place burned down with all the people inside it and no bones left behind.”

    “I’m not so sure,” Hyakkimaru said. “They seemed…disturbed. And confused.”

    “Maybe…” Dororo glanced toward the inside of the blackened ruin of the temple, where the giant baby sat placidly. The rice cakes that Yohei and Oshizuka had left for their son sat on the bottom step of the temple.

    Dororo crouched over the rice cakes. “Not like dead kids can eat stuff, anyway.” He was about to pick up a rice cake, but shame or some other impulse made him withdraw his hand. He thought about all the children who’d been abandoned here by their parents. Yohei and Oshizuka could protest all they wanted, but abandonment was abandonment: plain and simple.

    Dororo remembered that Hyakkimaru had been abandoned, too, and floated down a river. He stared after Yohei and Oshizuka until they were no longer visible.

    “Say…” Dororo said, turning to face Hyakkimaru.

    The sound of the drums was getting louder. Hyakkimaru turned smartly on his heel and wandered into the fog.

    “Hey!” Dororo called after him. “Didn’t you hear me?” He rushed after Hyakkimaru. He didn’t think the drums he was hearing were setting a pace for soldiers. They sounded more like the drum he carried. If he had to guess, he would say that the people coming up the road were monks or travelers chanting prayers for good fortune.

    Hyakkimaru and Dororo wandered through the forest, off the road, and encountered a large group of people carrying torches. Hyakkimaru sensed them and Dororo saw them before he and Hyakkimaru could be seen.

    “What…what’s going on down there?” Dororo whispered.

    The people passed by, leaving nothing behind but their footprints. Dororo could hear drums again.

    Torches, footprints, drums…and people gathering in a place that wasn’t in a village, or on the road. What was happening here? Was there some kind of festival going on?

    Dororo watched the people leave the forest clearing. His eyebrows drew together in confusion. He could see more people standing in a ring around the clearing, though it was difficult to tell how many there were because of the mist.

    In the very center of the ring, there was a cluster of human-sized dolls staked to the ground, run through with sharp skewers.