Dororo: Part One
Nakamura Masaru
Part 2: Dororo
Chapter 11
Happy times don't last forever, and before long, a storm cloud covered Hyakkimaru and Dororo's sunny sky.
The rainy season was over. They'd spent winter and most of spring moving through Kaneyama territory along a line of low hills. Hyakkimaru and Dororo descended into a ravine near an iron mine to fight a jet-black demon that the locals called a Shuragarasu, a god of war in the shape of a monstrous crow. Most demons had passive magic to help defend themselves, but Shuragarasu was the first demon Hyakkimaru had met that could use magic as a combat art, for attack as well as defense.
Shuragurasu could fly as swiftly and nimbly as a bird of ordinary size. The kind of magic it possessed meant that it could make as many as two dozen copies of itself, though the copies were nothing but illusions. The illusions surrounded Hyakkimaru. He slashed out at them, trying to cut a way to the true demon, but it was difficult enough to defend himself; pressing the attack was beyond his capabilities. Hyakkimaru and Shugarasu were evenly matched, and who the victor would be was far from certain.
“You…are you that bastard’s son?” Shugurasu hissed.
Hyakkimaru tensed, then focused on the battle again.
“It’s not us you should hate,” Shugurasu said. “Your father did this to you.”
Hyakkimaru saw his opening and took it, stabbing Shugurasu through with his demon-killing sword. Shugurasu and his doubles vanished all at once, dissolving into so much ash and mist.
Hate..my father? Hyakkimaru thought. There was blood on the stones around him--his own, and that of the demon. He knew that he had to focus on this fight, but the demon’s words had stirred something deep within him--something capable of shaking his control over himself.
What was that? Was the demon lying?
There was a sudden, piercing pain in Hyakkimaru’s right arm. He watched it grow back in an oddly impersonal way, like it was happening to someone else. The scorching pain in his newly regrown arm scarcely registered. His thoughts were preoccupied with what the demon had said; there was no room in his mind for anything else.
Do the demons…know my father? My real one?
Dororo rushed to him, though it was difficult to reach him because of the rocky terrain. Dororo’s eyes dropped to his right arm. He shouted, “Hey! Why isn’t it ever your left arm, huh? I can’t have that sword ‘til your left comes back… Guess I’ve gotta stick with ya a little longer.”
Dororo laughed. He expected Hyakkimaru to give him one of his usual exasperated replies, but Hyakkimaru said nothing. His face was very pale, and Dororo hadn’t seen him looking so serious in a very long time.
“What’s wrong?” Dororo asked. “I was joking; you know that…”
Hyakkimaru didn’t seem to hear Dororo.
My father…
Hyakkimaru’s mind went in circles like vultures over a corpse. Nothing Dororo said could reach him.
Who is my father?!
It was just past sunrise, but Hyakkimaru didn’t notice. His questions gripped him and didn’t let go.
Deep within a mountain cave, a large cocoon burst open. A woman’s arm emerged from within it, sticky and wet. The rest of the woman followed. She crawled over the ground like a creeping insect. This woman didn’t look like Jishōni, which was simply a shape she’d assumed previously. She was Maimai Onba, and this was her true shape--huge and hideous and clearly inhuman.
There was a large lump on Maimai Onba’s back. “Mommy!” A plaintive voice came out of the lump. This lump was a half-demon and half-human girl. Hyakkimaru, Dororo and Sabame didn’t know that one of Maimai Onba's half-human daughters had survived. The girl had been gravely injured on the night of the attack. She'd hidden in the tunnels beneath Lord Sabame’s estate until was quiet, then sought out her mother. She knew that Dororo, Hyakkimaru and Sabame were gone from the estate; she’d seen them leaving while searching for Maimai Onba.
The wounded girl had crept through the estate, witnessing the fires underground and the eggs that the villagers had smashed. She saw the corpses of her siblings strewn around the village and wept at how cruel and merciless people could be.
My sisters are dead, mommy. Daddy betrayed us all. We have to avenge them!
The half-human girl vacillated between terror and rage. She understood that she had only survived because of luck. She shook all over as she crept through Sabame’s estate. She wasn’t thinking about the villagers, whom she and her parents had lived among for her entire life--no. She wanted revenge on the two travelers who had come here. If only they hadn’t come, her family would still be alive.
She couldn’t get her revenge as she was. She was too young and too weak, and the mountain was so cold. She used her last strength to find a cave and build her cocoon. When she emerged, she would seek out her enemies and destroy them.
Why did they hate my mother so much? Why are they so evil? The half-human girl focused on her own hatred as she spun her cocoon. Her human half was consumed in the darkness of her own rage and desire. She thought about how much she would laugh when Hyakkimaru and Dororo were finally dead.
Sealed in her cocoon, the body of the half-human girl began to change. Aside from the lump on her back--the lump that preserved something of her own childish consciousness--her entire body resembled her mother’s in every detail. The lump was inherited from her father--she remembered that he’d had one, too. When both her body and her hatred were mature, she took her first steps out of the cocoon.
“Mommy!”
The new Maimai Onba assumed a human shape, to make it easier for her to travel in the human world. Her enemies were human; she would need to seek them among humans. The shape she assumed was Jishōni’s, with a single difference: the lump she’d inherited from her father remained, whether she was in her true shape or a human disguise.
First things first: she needed clothes. She came out of the cave and walked to the village. I can get clothes from any woman I pass. I’ll just kill them and take them.
She stopped and frowned. Killing someone might make their clothes dirty. She didn’t want to go around in bloodstained clothing. I should see if mom has any friends around...
Her mother’s rage and grief over her sisters welled up inside her uncontrolled. She lurched into motion again. The world of humans and the world of demons had existed for ages as separate spheres, with the occasional human falling into a demon’s trap--or an occasional demon taking an interest in human affairs.
The separation between those two worlds was gone now. Maimai Onba’s half-human daughter assumed her role in the world of demons while walking undetected among humans.
The sun rose over the horizon: a chilling, terrifying dawn.
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