Dororo: Part Two - Chapter 24 - Part 1

Dororo: Part Two

Nakamura Masaru

Part 4: At the Border

Chapter 24 - Part 1

    It wasn’t far past dawn on a morning of early summer. Cicadas droned on as they awakened in the early morning. Yuri summoned a servant girl to her and begged her to lead her by secret ways out of the fortress. She couldn’t remain here any longer. Rai’s report made her anxious on Hyakkimaru’s behalf. Her original plan had been to send Ran or Rai to Hyakkimaru with a message, but she couldn’t find the right words. It would be better, she thought, to speak to her son in person.

    What should I say? Is there anything I could say that would satisfy him as an explanation? Will he ever forgive us? … No, I shouldn’t expect forgiveness. He might kill me or strike me down. I would deserve it, but I still must go. I must tell him what I feel and what I know. Perhaps he will trust me enough to tell me of himself.

    Yuri’s thoughts were in turmoil. She walked past the main gate that most people used to leave the fortress and noticed Tahōmaru standing there with a jealous look in his eyes.

    “Mother?” Tahōmaru asked.

    “Tahōmaru…”

    “You’re at the gate,” Tahōmaru said. “Are you planning to go somewhere? It’s dangerous outside the fortress right now, you know. There are rumors that the Kaneyama Clan rebels are making trouble just beyond Banmon.”

    Yuri took a step toward the main gate. There was no way Tahōmaru would allow to her sneak out the other way now--not when she’d put him on high alert. She’d have to try to slip past him now.

    “Mother,” Tahōmaru said, and his voice wasn’t unkind. “Return to your rooms. Please.”

    “My lord.” The servant woman guiding Yuri stepped forward. Rai emerged from the hallway behind Yuri. The servant and Rai exchanged glances, then put themselves between Yuri and Tahōmaru in protective poses.

    “My lord,” Rai said. “Your lady mother wishes to leave. Please stand aside.”

    Tahōmaru drew a dagger from a sheath at his hip and plunged the tip of his weapon into Rai’s throat. Rai fell to his knees, choking and covered in blood.

    Tahōmaru took a single step toward his mother, dagger still drawn. “Return to your rooms,” he said.

    “My lord!” A servant girl bowed before Tahōmaru, trembling. She placed herself to protect her mistress. Ran dashed out beside her. Together, they took a step forward then stood their ground between Tahōmaru and his mother.

    “What have you done?” the servant girl asked, her voice trembling.

    Other servants and retainers stopped when they saw the grisly scene. People screamed and fled.

    “Return my mother to her rooms,” Tahōmaru said. “Do not give her a horse if she asks for one. Anyone who helps her leave this fortress will get the same punishment as Rai!”

    A few moments later, a cart drawn by four horses came through the fortress’ front gate. The cart stopped in front of Tahōmaru and Yuri. The drivers appeared perplexed and drew up sharply on the reins. The cart was muslin-covered and contained a heavy load of weapons. Tahōmaru walked toward the cart and signaled for a horse.

    “Tahōmaru!” Yuri called out. “Stop!” She chased after him, but Ran and the servant girl held her back.

    “Go inside!” Tahōmaru shouted back at her. “There is danger outside the castle.” He mounted up, then rode out the front gate of the fortress.

    “Tahōmaru! No! Let me go!” Yuri struggled frantically to get free.

    “My lady, please calm yourself,” the servant girl said.

    Tahōmaru rode away from Yuri at speed, like a stone cast from a sling. He didn’t look back. Yuri stared after him with the dirt and smoke of the courtyard stinging her eyes. Then she gave Ran her orders. He ran through the servants’ gate and was lost from view.

    Yuri had ordered him to prepare a horse for her in secret. She couldn’t use the main gate to flee the fortress, but war preparations meant that the fortress’ defenses were more focused on keeping people out than on keeping them in. She still might be able to slip free if she was careful.

    When the horse was ready, Ran sent a message. Yuri went to where he and the horse were hidden. He rode out and pulled her up into the saddle. She took the reins and urged the horse into motion.

    “Go! We must stop Tahōmaru!”

    She was chasing after her both of her sons. While she was following after Tahōmaru directly, she feared what Hyakkimaru would do if she arrived too late.

 

***

 

    A retainer rushed up to Kagemitsu in a panic. “My lord! Lord Tahōmaru and Lady Yuri have left the fortress!”

    “What? Why? Where are they?” Kagemitsu scowled. He wished for the power that the demons had promised him to manifest. He took up his bow, which was emblazoned with golden scrollwork in the design of a centipede.

    “Do not allow my wife or son to come to harm! Spread out and search. A reward for anyone who finds them!”

    Kagemitsu mounted up on his black horse and spurred his mount toward the fortress.

    “My lord! You must not leave now! Who will command the attack?” one of the soldiers called out behind him.

    When Kagemitsu didn’t turn, another solder yelled, “Follow him! Protect our lord!”

    Kagemitsu remembered the words of the demon speaking through the dead mouse the previous evening. Was his test coming? Had Tahōmaru and Yuri left the safety and protection of home because of Hyakkimaru?

    As he raced through the fortress town on his overlathered horse, his worries gave him a sudden flash of inspiration.

    Banmon.

    That was where they were going. Hyakkimaru had crossed the border there, and that was where Kagemitsu would find him. That was where Kagemitsu would find them all: his whole family.

    People in the fortress town hurried out of the way. Kagemitsu, Yuri, and Tahōmaru made their way to the nation’s border in a frenzy. It was anyone’s guess who would get there first.

 

***

 

    The heat and clarity of the sunlight was like the morning that Hyakkimaru had been born after the eclipse had passed. The world all around was quiet and still.

    Dororo glared at the sunny sky. It’s a dark day. The stupid weather should cooperate. He scuffed his shoe against a rock and gazed out at the battlefield near Banmon. There were figures on horseback converging on the hill in the middle distance.

    I guess it’s good that it’s so bright out. We’re able to see all of ‘em coming. Dororo sighed. Here and there around Banmon, patches of tall grass fluttered in the morning breeze. It was amazing that anything could grow at all on the blood-soaked ground. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. If Dororo didn’t already know what had happened here, he would never guess that it was the site of such a terrible battle.

    Hyakkimaru was still getting used to seeing the world through his ordinary eyes. He was used to perceiving everything in a more impressionistic way. In some respects, his new eyes were a downgrade; before, he’d been able to see into people’s minds and hearts. Now he was stuck seeing like normal people, and his perceptions were limited entirely to the surface.

    The only real advantage Hyakkimaru derived from his new vision was its range. He could see the world all the way to the horizon line, along with all everything that moved on it, and much that stood still. His previous impressions of things like trees and grasses, and even people, were so much different from what they actually looked like. Their varied shapes and colors were confusing to Hyakkimaru, who was used to living in a dark world.

    Fine, close details were the most fascinating to him. As the wind whistled through the barren waste, fluttering clumps of dying wheat, he stared at the grooves in his fingertips. When he looked up again, he was astonished at the distance between him and the sun in the far distance.

    Can I even walk that far? Has anyone ever tried?

    He’d like to talk to the wind, if he could. The wind was the only thing fast enough and pervasive enough to touch absolutely everything. The world was a vast and enchanting place. He wanted to see more of it. The problems he was facing fell away from him, at least for the moment, as he considered his own littleness in this expanse of space.

    “I never knew the world was so big,” Hyakkimaru muttered.

    “The ocean’s even bigger, I hear,” Dororo said. “Not that I know. I’ve never seen it.”

    “The ocean?”

    Dororo and Hyakkimaru sat down with a shattered piece of Banmon at their backs. “I’ve never felt so small and insignificant in my entire life,” Hyakkimaru said. Being accepted among humans for the first time had made him feel similarly. There was this sense that humans all had a shared goal that everyone knew, but no one talked about.

    Hyakkimaru no longer felt locked out of the secrets of humanity or the universe, but it seemed to him that there was so much in the world—too much. If he didn’t choose a direction and a goal, he could wander around it forever and never find out anything about it, or himself.

    There was a lot to discover about the world in this place. The remnants of the fence at their backs and the ruined fortress in the distance, and the blood-soaked ground—to say nothing of the Daigo Clan’s fortress far behind them—evoked the world at war. The Muroto Clan and the Kaneyama Clan had fought here, and only one had prevailed.

    Hyakkimaru stared into the distance.

    I don’t want to die here. There’s so much I still don’t know or understand.

    Shifting to look behind him, Hyakkimaru saw a few wilted red flowers poking up from the inhospitable soil. “What kind of flower is that?”

    “I have no idea,” Dororo said. “Don’t eat them.”

    Hyakkimaru got up and walked toward the flowers.

    “What are you, a girl?” Dororo laughed, then followed Hyakkimaru.

    Hyakkimaru crouched down in front of the flowers and reached for them. He’d never seen such red flowers before. Red like blood.

    “I never knew the world was beautiful,” Hyakkimaru said. “I’ve never... the way I used to see was different.” He smiled, but it looked painful, like his lips were splitting his cheeks. He remembered his previous sensations of blood, back when he was blind. Until recently, he’d believed that blood was black.

    “Those flowers give me the creeps,” Dororo said with a sneer. “They probably soaked up the blood from the ground. That’s why they look like that. They ain’t pretty; they’re morbid.”

    Hyakkimaru tilted his head. “I don’t understand.”

    “What?”

    “Even if a flower sucked up blood from the ground to turn that color, that doesn’t make it less beautiful, does it?”

    Dororo’s expression froze for a moment. Then he laughed. “That’s why I asked if you were a girl. Look at you, going on about pretty flowers and shit.”

    Hyakkimaru examined Dororo closely, like he was searching for greater meaning behind Dororo’s laugh. “It’s just how they look to me,” he said. “Beautiful. Don’t they look that way to you?”

    “Nope.” Dororo narrowed his eyes. “I hate flowers.”

    Hyakkimaru shrugged. “Then they’re wasted on you.”

    Dororo raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me? What d’you mean, ‘wasted?’”

    “I never saw anything so lovely in my entire life,” Hyakkimaru said. “For you not to appreciate them... I don’t know. It’s a shame. And yeah, I think it’s a waste.”

    Hyakkimaru reached out to touch the soft red petals of the flower, handling them carefully as if he feared breaking them. When he let go, the wind picked up, blowing through the flowers and sending a few petals scattering into the air.

    “Maybe I’ll ask Biwabōshi to teach me the lute,” Hyakkimaru said. “This place needs... something. Music.”

    Turning back to Banmon, Hyakkimaru surveyed the landscape once more, then took a seat with his back resting against the fractured fence.

    “Why not just have him play? You actually wanna learn?” Dororo asked.

    “I don’t know,” Hyakkimaru said. “I think I’d like to.”

    The wind whistled past them for a few moments, then quieted. Dororo and Hyakkimaru sat in silence, thinking about tragedies in the distant past and the uncertainty of the future.

    Hyakkimaru pointed to the grass near the red flowers. “What is that grass? I haven’t seen it in the forest.”

    “Why do you think I know?” Dororo asked, sounding angry. “The flower is the damn flower, the grass is fucking grass, and dirt is dirt no matter where the hell you go. Stop asking stupid questions.” He yanked up a clod of earth and tossed it away from him. “And no one owns the earth. Some people think they do, but they’re morons.”

    “Yeah,” Hyakkimaru said.

    “Glad we agree that far,” Dororo muttered darkly. He looked up at the sun far overhead, then wiped his forehead. “Shit. Looks like we’re in for another hot day.”

    Biwabōshi approached them from the direction of the fortress town with his lute strapped to his back. Dororo waved to him and called out, “Perfect timing, you old geezer. Hyakkimaru was just asking to learn the lute from ya.” He patted out a beat on the little hand-drum that hung around his neck.

    “Really?” Biwabōshi blinked in surprise. “But surely that’s impossible now.”

    “Why?”

    Biwabōshi  didn’t say another word as riders on black horses surrounded the hill where he, Dororo and Hyakkimaru were.

    There was still time to flee. Bringing such a cavalry force together was a noisy and complicated logistical mess. But before Dororo, Hyakkimaru or Biwabōshi could suggest retreating, a projectile of metal and fire burst forth from one of the cavalry wagons--directly at Hyakkimaru.

    The remnants of Banmon offered little protection. Dororo, Hyakkimaru and Biwabōshi scattered away from the projectile as it landed and were hit by the blow-back of the blast. Hyakkimaru noticed that Dororo was still too close to the projectile and leaped at him, pulling him down and shielding him with his body.

    Smoke spread out from the red-hot, flaming projectile. It broke in pieces with a terrible hissing sound as Dororo, Hyakkimaru and Biwabōshi moved steadily away from it and out of danger. There was a flaming hole in Banmon; a view of the land formerly claimed by the Kaneyama Clan shimmered through the hole like a mirage. The wind blew strongly from the Kaneyama Clan’s side of the ancient border over to the Muroto Clan’s side.

    A cloud of dust obscured the riders and their carts as they drew near. Hyakkimaru nodded to himself, then turned to Biwabōshi. “Take care of Dororo,” he said.

    Biwabōshi nodded solemnly.

    Dororo protested, but Biwabōshi held him back as Hyakkimaru sprinted into the dust cloud. Dororo’s cries echoed behind Hyakkimaru as he ran, making him wince, but he didn’t stop. Through the smoke and dust, it was hard to see anything at all, but Dororo sounded very much like a woman when he screamed.

    Biwabōshi probably wouldn’t be able to hold Dororo back for long. Hyakkimaru had to work fast. His new eyes didn’t help him sense his attackers very well in this environment, but he’d spent years honing his battle instincts with Jukai. When a cart rattled over the uneven ground nearby, Hyakkimaru felt its movement in his feet and pivoted on both feet.

    How many are there in a cart? Two? More?

    Four shadows circled Hyakkimaru. Hyakkimaru ran away from them, wishing fervently that some part of his second sight would return so that he would be able to tell where they were for certain. When he focused, he got a few sense impressions from his attackers, but it was difficult to interpret those impressions.

    Come on, eyes, Hyakkimaru encouraged himself. I need to see the old way. The new way’s not working...

 

***

 

    Dororo tried to follow Hyakkimaru into the dust cloud, but Biwabōshi had him by the collar and if he struggled any more, he’d choke.

    “Follow me,” Biwabōshi rasped, coughing on smoke. “You can’t help him right now. Neither can I; we’d just be in the way. Come on!”

    Biwabōshi gripped Dororo’s sleeve and led him behind an intact section of Banmon.

    Dororo didn’t accompany Biwabōshi without a fight.

    “Let me go, old man! Hey!”

    Biwabōshi dragged Dororo down just as another projectile flew overhead. “We can watch from here,” he said. He pulled his biwa into his lap, clutching it protectively to his chest. “Look.”

    The wind blew dust and smoke up and away into swirling clouds, partially revealing Hyakkimaru on the hill behind them.  Tahōmaru faced off squarely against him. Another three men boxed Hyakkimaru in, preventing him from running.

    “I should never have invited you to my family’s fortress,” Tahōmaru gritted out.  He struck out wildly with his blade. Hyakkimaru blocked the strike, staring incredulously.

    “You’re attacking me? Why?” Wasn’t Tahōmaru his younger brother? They had no reason to fight.

    “There can only be one Tahōmaru!”

    “Don’t be stupid; that’s not my name.” 

    “It’s what you would have been called, if you weren’t a monster.”

    Hyakkimaru jumped back and unsheathed the sword in his left arm. He moved to block Tahōmaru’s next strike, then ducked away. Tahōmaru was briefly distracted by Hyakkimaru’s arm, which lay twitching on the ground.

    “Like I said. Monster.” Tahōmaru sneered.

    Hyakkimaru heard Tahōmaru’s judgment of him, but it didn’t bother him. Dororo was still screaming. He couldn’t block out the sound.

    “Kill him,” Tahōmaru commanded, stepping back to allow Hyakkimaru’s other three attackers to advance.

    Hyakkimaru moved away from Tahōmaru and the other three men, eyes darting back and forth. “I don’t want to kill anyone!”

    Tahōmaru and the others kept moving in on him.

    Finally, Hyakkimaru’s second sight came into focus. He felt the motives of his attackers and was stunned when he felt no hatred or rage toward him. The three men were attacking him only because Tahōmaru had commanded it; they were innocent bystanders ordered into danger. Even Tahōmaru seemed less wrathful and more bitter and jaded--like Hyakkimaru had something he wanted, but even Tahōmaru didn’t even know what that ‘something’ was.

    As Hyakkimaru’s second sense sharpened, he wondered if the other three attackers were human at all. There was something off about them. They appeared human to his eyes, but they seemed devoid of will; they obeyed without question and without any qualms that Hyakkimaru could sense. They were more like tools in human shapes than actual people.

    Tahōmaru entered the battle again, hacking furiously and shouting, “Kill the monster!”

    As he fought, Hyakkimaru remembered what the wolf demons had said to him the previous night.

    "Poor boy. Sold by his father, despised by the world." 

    "He has no home to return to." 

    "His parents kept his younger brother and loved him, didn't they?"

    "They did. But their first boy, they left alone, abandoned… I guess there was something wrong with him from the start."

    “Shut up,” Hyakkimaru said. He was hard-pressed to dodge four blades at once. The voices of the wolf-demons irritated him, but they also inspired strength in him. This battle wasn’t the same as his battle against the demons. The only enemy he had to face here was Tahōmaru.

    The battle raged on. Hyakkimaru focused on incapacitating instead of killing his foes. The three men commanded into battle became more hesitant to engage him after they were wounded, but they did not retreat. Tahōmaru hung back, waiting for openings.

    Hyakkimaru entertained the idea of letting these men have him. That was another way to end this battle, and it would be a permanent ending for him. The idea had some appeal--but Dororo didn’t want him to die yet. He didn’t really want to die yet, either.

    Scanning his attackers, Hyakkimaru moved to block another strike, then cut one man down in a spray of blood.

    The same color as those flowers...

    Tahōmaru moved up in the place of the fallen man--

    --and fell back, gasping, when he felt Hyakkimaru’s sword arm pierce his thigh.

    There was blood everywhere. Hyakkimaru looked at it and hated himself for causing it. He hated these men for pushing him to this extreme. “Stop this madness!” he cried out. “What’s the point of more killing?”

    “Monster, monster, monster!” Tahōmaru yelled, hacking and slashing but only hitting air.

    “I’m not a monster!”

    “Your body is in forty-eight pieces!”

    “My father made me a new one!”

    “Your father?” Tahōmaru faltered. He hadn’t expected Hyakkimaru to claim anyone other than Daigo Kagemitsu as a father. But then a thought struck him, and he laughed. “I see… your father! Was he a monster, too?”

    Tahōmaru and the other two men sprang at Hyakkimaru at the same time. Hyakkimaru ducked, causing the two men to run one another through with their naginatas.

    Hyakkimaru and Tahōmaru were now alone on the hill; the other attackers were dead or incapacitated. Hyakkimaru swerved and ducked, then caught Tahōmaru’s blade on his demon-killing sword. A piece of the sword broke off and ricocheted away, directly into Tahōmaru’s right eye.

    Tahōmaru dropped like a stone.

    No… I didn’t mean to hit him. I didn’t…

    Hyakkimaru moved to take the shattered piece of sword out of Tahōmaru's eye, but froze when he heard hoofbeats. Someone else was coming up the hill. He looked up and saw Yuri riding toward him at frantic speed.

    “Tahōmaru!” Yuri cried, throwing herself from her horse and rushing toward her sons.

    “My lady!” a man dismounted and ran after her, but she paid him no heed. She noticed that Tahōmaru wasn’t moving and that Hyakkimaru was hurt; nothing else distracted her attention. She went to Tahōmaru first, holding him up in her arms.

    “Tahōmaru! Tahōmaru!”

    Tahōmaru’s eyelid fluttered. “Mother… who do you mean? Me? Or…”

    “You, Tahōmaru,” Yuri said, gasping.

    Tahōmaru looked from her to Hyakkimaru. His face twisted with jealousy and hatred. Yuri was looking at Hyakkimaru, too, and there were tears in her eyes.

    “Please,” Yuri said, “please don’t fight. Don’t kill each other. If you want to kill someone, start with me.” She looked straight at Hyakkimaru and said, “I have no right to make you think of me as your mother. Think of me how you want. But don’t punish Tahōmaru because of my crimes.”

    Hyakkimaru remembered her, though he didn’t want to. The day of his abandonment was fresh in her mind; he experienced that memory through her as it if was his own. The image of Jukai’s face swam up from the darkness of his mind as if to steady him.

    “I never believed you would come home,” Yuri said. “If I had only known you were alive, things would be so different...”

    Hyakkimaru looked into his mother’s eyes and felt the incredible strength of her sincere love--for him, and for Tahōmaru. The idea that Tahōmaru had been loved like this for his entire life stirred Hyakkimaru to jealousy, but he tamped it down.

    “Was it very terrible?” Yuri asked softly. “I know you must have suffered... so much. Can you ever forgive me?” She stretched out her arms to him with tears streaming down her face.

    Hyakkimaru had never seen his mother with his eyes before. Tahōmaru’s blood glistened on her outstretched hands. Those hands had placed him inside a basin when he was a newborn; she’d floated him down the river. He didn’t know if he should try to touch her or if he should avoid her at all costs. He felt like if he did touch her, something within himself would be fundamentally altered, to the point where he would no longer be himself. He shook all over as if he was feverish.

    “What do you want with me?” Hyakkimaru asked.

    Yuri stood and approached. She was trembling slightly.

    Mom...

    What would it have been like to have a mother?

    Yuri didn’t notice, but Hyakkimaru saw seven people creeping stealthily away from Banmon, coming from the Kaneyama Clan’s side. Dororo saw them, too, and recognized one of them as the half-demon, half-human girl. The people were variously armed with swords, spears and bows.

    The only reason the seven people didn’t attack immediately was shock. “What? Is that Daigo Kagemitsu’s wife?!” Kaneyama Takeshige asked.

    “And his son?”

    “Both of his sons!”

    Hyakkimaru flinched.

    “I think you’re right,” Takeshige said. “Does anyone know of another man who carries a sword inside his own arm?”

    Hyakkimaru was also stunned. Now that he could see with his normal eyes and the eyes of his mind, he had no trouble recognizing the seven figures climbing up the hill. He’d never forgotten the horror of Mio’s murder or the innocent children that Kaneyama Takeshige had ordered killed.

    This was his first time seeing Mio’s murderers with his eyes. It was a day of firsts, most of them terrible. It was surprising to him that Takeshige and the others appeared so wasted and pathetic to him. With the eyes of his mind, all seven of them appeared to be monsters. Why were they here? Were they truly here at all, or was this all some terrible nightmare?

    But no: the Kaneyama Clan rebels were here; he knew that, no matter how much he didn’t want it to be true. And he knew that he hated them. He had a visceral reaction to their presence here. Tears sprung from rage coursed down his cheeks.

    Kaneyama Sae stepped up next to her brother and took in the remarkable scene. Last night, Akane had ranted and raved about Daigo Kagemitsu’s other son, but Sae had assumed that her grandmother was suffering from delusions or nightmares. Seeing Hyakkimaru here didn’t make her automatically believe in her grandmother’s strange ideas, but a sudden thrill went through her entire body.

    Yesterday, it had seemed impossible that Daigo Kagemitsu’s sons would be anywhere near Banmon, but now, they were both here. Perhaps that was a sign that their plans would work. Maybe the Kaneyama Clan finally had luck back on their side.

    Hyakkimaru--Daigo Kagemitsu’s oldest son--did not appear to be a monster to Sae. She saw the sword embedded in his arm and remembered their last encounter dimly and with pity. Then as now, Hyakkimaru seemed very human to her: more human than his father, certainly, and possibly even more human than the people on her own side. He’d fought to defend women and children. There was something touching and noble about that. It was out of place with what Sae had been expecting.

    Sae didn’t want to believe that she and her brother had to kill Hyakkimaru to seize back their family’s power. If what Akane had told her was true, Hyakkimaru was a walking miracle. Daigo Kagemitsu had sold off most of his body parts to demons, and yet here he was--walking, talking, fighting, and very much alive.

    A warrior near Sae sucked in a breath. “There, my lady. Do you see it? There is our nation. Let’s take it back.”

    The other warriors cheered and kept moving up the hill.

    “Wait,” Sae said. But she made no sound--or if she did, no one heard her. She doubted that she’d be able to persuade Takeshige and the others to hold off, even if they had heard her. She followed after her brother and the warriors, step by step.

    “Ran,” Tahōmaru said, gasping in pain. “Protect... my mother.” He threw his sword away from him at one of the fallen men.

    Ran rose to his feet slowly and gripped the sword his lord had thrown to him. He stood up straighter, as if to challenge the Kaneyama Clan invaders all on his own. “Get Lord Tahōmaru on a horse, my lady,” he said. “You must flee this place.”