Dororo: A Novel - Part 3 - The Tale of Bandai - Chapter 1

Dororo: A Novel

Tsuji Masaki

 

Part Three 

The Tale of Bandai

 

Chapter 1

    Hyakkimaru and Dororo’s journey to search out demons had begun. Calling it a “search” would be a bit generous, though. Neither Dororo nor Hyakkimaru knew where the remaining thirty and some-odd demons were. They were stumbling around in the dark, waiting to be caught in some demon’s net that they would have to fight their way out of. That was the nature of their journey.

    For days and days and nights and nights, the two of them saw nothing but houses and villages and rice fields laid out in neat lines.

    There were fields, but no harvest. The sun shone low in the western sky, hidden by the shadow of a mountain. As the sun set, the world plunged into hopeless gloom. There was a strange sound in the distance, faint at first, but growing louder.

    By good luck, Dororo and Hyakkimaru had chosen to make camp in a grassy area on the edge of a marsh. The wind carried sounds a far distance across the plain. Hyakkimaru heard the sound with plenty of advance warning to prepare for it.

    Hyakkimaru stood up, then turned to Dororo. “Are you sleeping?” he asked.

    It was autumn, but the weather was still warm. Neither Dororo nor Hyakkimaru minded sleeping out in the open.

    Dororo snored. He slept flat on his back with his face turned upwards and didn’t even twitch when Hyakkimaru called out to him.

    Every once in a while, Dororo’s snoring changed cadence. His breathing wasn’t even. He was probably pretending to be asleep.

    Dororo turned over, then grabbed onto Hyakkimaru’s right arm. His eyes were closed. He muttered wordlessly and pulled.

    Hyakkimaru yanked his arm away.

    Dororo’s eyes snapped open. Two huge eyeballs gazed down at him the darkness. He froze for a moment in fear.  He’d tried to lure Hyakkimaru in by snoring loudly and feigning sleep, but he knew when he was caught.

    Dororo went limp and let his eyes slip closed again. He snored like he had before, but he was very obviously awake.

    Hyakkimaru smiled. “Nice try, Dororo. You know that my eyes are only decoration, right? They’re glass. I can’t actually see, but I’m aware of everything around me, even when I’m asleep.”

    Dororo groaned in frustration. “That’s not fair! It means you never let down your guard at all! How am I supposed to steal your sword arms if...” he trailed off.

    Hyakkimaru shook his head. “Don’t be stupid. It seems like you never let your guard down, either. Doesn’t that make us evenly matched?”

    “Not even close,” Dororo muttered darkly.

    Suddenly, Hyakkimaru tensed. The wry smile playing around the corners of his mouth flashed off. “Something’s coming,” he said.

    Before he finished speaking, the clear tinkling of a bell rang out, very nearby.

    Ring-ring.

    The sound of the bell echoed across the marsh.

    Ring-ring.

    A hulking figure standing between the grassy plain and the marsh came into view, illuminated by moonlight. The figure moved closer, slowly but steadily.

    Ring-ring.

    “Hide,” Hyakkimaru whispered. He pushed Dororo’s head down, so that it was hidden in tall grass along with the rest of him.

    “Is it a demon?” Dororo whispered back.

    “No,” Hyakkimaru said. “But it’s not human, either.”

    “Huh? Then what is it?”

    “Sh.”

    Ring-ring.

    The sound of the bell drew nearer, accompanied by the squelching sound of muddy feet walking through the marsh. The enormous figure climbed up a steep hill to Dororo and Hyakkimaru’s camp.

    “Gah!” Dororo cried out.

    Hyakkimaru put his hand over Dororo’s mouth to muffle his cry.

    The figure before them stood in a puddle. The moon illuminated it fully, along with the sparkling water of the marshland.

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    The figure definitely wasn’t human. All its limbs were puffed up and swollen--especially its head. The figure’s face was twice the size of the rest of it. Calling it a face at all seemed wrong. The face was made up of countless little folds and creases from which the eyes, nose and mouth peeped out as slits. Since none of the figure’s features stood out from the thick skin of its face, the face itself looked flat as a brick. The skin of the figure was a sickly pale yellow that shone in the light of the moon. There wasn’t a single hair on the figure anywhere.

    And it was coming closer. It was unclear if it was a child or an adult, and it seemed entirely unaware of its surroundings. The figure came nearer and nearer to Hyakkimaru and Dororo, ringing the bell in its right hand with every new step forward. While the figure was frightening, its manner and the sound of the bell were not.

    Dororo stood stock-still, staring, and thought, I feel like Ive seen that face before... but where would I have seen it?

    Dororo shook his head. We need to run. He’d been granted more than his fair share of guts and boldness at birth, but he knew when he was facing down someone--or something--he couldn’t fight.

    But then, the figure climbed out of the water and sat down, nestled inside a bamboo grove. It rung its bell again.

    Ring-ring.

    The bell kept ringing at regular intervals, but the sound also seemed to grow fainter over time, as if the bell that made it was fading away.  The figure itself shrank, becoming small. Eventually, the figure--which had started off larger than Hyakkimaru--wound up being smaller than Dororo, and then even smaller than a little kitten.

    The figure spun in a circle, rang the bell one more time, and vanished.

    “It’s gone!” Dororo said.

    The figure was nowhere to be seen. It was as if it had been swallowed up by the earth, so complete and total was its disappearance. No trace of the figure’s passage was left behind.

    For a few moments, it seemed like the bell kept ringing--faint and getting fainter--before that sound, too, ceased completely.

    Dororo stood standing with his mouth open. He sucked in a giant breath and cried out, “What the hell was that thing?!”

    Instead of answering, Hyakkimaru pointed at the ground where the strange figure had vanished. “Dororo. We have to dig here. Help me.”

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