Dororo: A Novel
Tsuji Masaki
Part Six
The Tale of Banmon and the Demon Fox
Chapter 1
Hyakkimaru and Dororo took in the strange sight before them in bewilderment. They stood high on a hill above a desolate landscape. The view was dominated by a long wall that towered over the plains. There was no sign of people anywhere, or any houses. It wasn’t clear why there needed to be a wall here. Its existence made no sense at all. It seemed to have been made by a race of giants who’d plopped it down here for their own reasons before vanishing without a trace.
“You think it’s cursed or something?” Dororo asked. He sounded disinterested, but that was probably an act. He ran down the hill toward the wall and noticed when he was near that it was pocked with holes from arrows. Some of the holes might have been caused by fire.
“This looks like a ruin from an old war.”
“Yeah.”
Dororo stared at the wall in the lingering darkness. It was an autumn evening, and nights were long at this time of year. Dawn was still some ways off.
“Hey, there’s something black stuck to it,” Dororo said with a frown. “Gah! Is this blood?!”
“Blood might be the only thing keeping this old wall together,” Hyakkimaru said. “Not all the blood is old. Some is recent.”
“Gross.”
The wall was foreboding, but it was strong enough to block the night wind. Dororo and Hyakkimaru decided to sit and wait near the wall until sunrise.
Time passed--how much was difficult to determine. Dororo’s eyelids drooped. Blinking made spots of light appear at the corners of his vision. Dororo opened his eyes wide and noticed that Hyakkimaru was blinking rapidly, as if he was also suffering from the strange vision changes.
Dororo and Hyakkimaru stood up at the same time, gasping from surprise. The area around them lit up with blue fire, painfully bright in contrast to the darkness of the night.
Then as now, Kyūshū’s Omura Bay experiences a strange phenomenon that the locals term shiranui,1 or sea-fire. Every year in the last part of August, a line of light forms on the horizon. It’s surprising to see; Dororo and Hyakkimaru were certainly surprised to see the sudden light.
Unlike sea-fire, the light that Dororo and Hyakkimaru saw seemed to move on its own. The light scattered around them, up toward the night sky, then started moving toward them.
“It’s a demon!” Dororo cried out.
“Seems like it,” Hyakkimaru said. He removed the prosthetic from his right arm, revealing one sword.
Like a blind but relentless army, the motes of light in the sky moved closer and closer to Dororo and Hyakkimaru. Dawn was coming; pale light appeared on the horizon.
“It looks like fire, only it’s alive,” Dororo whispered.
Hyakkimaru didn’t say anything. He relaxed his shoulders, then removed the prosthetic on his left arm.
The fire must have a way to sense their presence--it was coming even closer, surrounding Dororo and Hyakkimaru. The fire burned intensely for a few moments, then belched out a shadow that was as dark as the fire was bright. The shadow screamed and jumped out at Hyakkimaru.
“What the hell?!” Dororo stepped away from the shadow. He rubbed his eyes. The fire made it difficult to see, it was so bright, but blinking cleared his vision enough that he caught a glimpse of the shadow creature. The creature had split in pieces; there were at least ten ghostly shadows of beasts all around them.
Were those... “Foxes!” Hyakkimaru called out as he hacked through two shadowy foxes in a single strike. He flung the bodies away. “They gather on battlefields to feast on the dead.”
Now the source of the strange firelight was clear. The foxes consumed the spirits of the dead from the inside, then burst forth from their mouths, trailing light.
Hyakkimaru brandished his swords, slaughtering more foxes. They were starved for blood, baring their fangs and crowding around him. As foxes fell dead, there was a great and terrible cry from out of the darkness. Hyakkimaru looked toward the sound.
“Are these foxes a new kind of demon?” Hyakkimaru asked.
Dororo, startled, stumbled back a step. A moment later, all of the foxes surrounding him and Hyakkimaru vanished into thin air. The foxes that Hyakkimaru had cut down also disappeared, leaving no sign that they had ever been there.
“Was that a demon trick?” Dororo asked. “Figures.”
Hyakkimaru looked around, frustrated. The loud cry he’d heard before sounded again, sounding like many human voices screaming and combined into one. The cry grew louder, and the emotion expressed by it was closer to anger, not pain.
“I don’t think it’s the demon that’s screaming,” Hyakkimaru said. “We have to hide.” He ran behind the wall, trailed by Dororo, who crouched down.
Finally, the screaming voices manifested in reality.
What is that? Dororo thought. It was unlike anything he’d ever heard.
A group of farmers emerged out of the darkness. They were led by a young man who carried himself proudly, as if he were a great general. The faces of the farmers were obscured by gloom, but there were old men, woman, and some children mixed in with the crowd. The farmers weren’t soldiers; they walked wearily and without military discipline.
The samurai general had the farmers stand in front of the blood-stained wall.
“You have come from a neighboring country, crossing this wall. Or you have tried to run away from the wall, deserting your home nation! The law demands that you all be sentenced to death.''
Perhaps the peasants had given up, or perhaps their tears had dried up, but none of them cried out again. A baby in a young woman's arms let out a shrill wail.
The people were standing on the opposite side of Dororo's hiding place. He could hear the woman whispering to her baby, “Just a little bit longer... I'm going to see my dead father again, my little one.”
While the baby's cries continued, there was a loud bang, and something thudded against the wall. More thuds followed, accompanied by grunts and gasps of pain.
They’re being killed! Dororo thought.
The death penalty order was being carried out. Soldiers in groups of three or four concentrated their arrows on the wall’s sacrificial victims. An old man was shot in the throat, chest, and stomach all at once. Maybe he was happy to die instantly, so that he didn’t have time to suffer.
Arrows fell thickly at the bottom of the wall in order to target the young children effectively. Some of the weaker-willed adults gave up even before the arrows hit them and collapsed, but the children were braver. They glared at the lawless soldiers in front of them and waited for the end.
"Don't shy away from your responsibility! You're the ones who have broken the rules,” the general said. “We can’t go easy on the children." He sounded quite nervous, as if he were unsure of himself.
These men are so cruel, Dororo thought. I don't know what the rules are, but it should be against the law to kill and harass so many poor women, old people, and children!
Another thud against the wall.
The baby stopped crying.
“Oh, wait... no...” Dororo said softly. They’d even killed a baby--what kind of people would dare to kill a baby?! Outraged, Dororo emerged from his hiding spot on the other side of the wall.
Hyakkimaru panicked and tried to stop Dororo, but he was too late to prevent him from being discovered.
1 不知火, shiranui: The literal meaning is “unknown fire” or “mysterious fire.”↩
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