Teito Monogatari:
The Tale of the Imperial Capital
Part 2: Supernatural Babylon
Author: Hiroshi Aramata
Part 5: Destruction in the Year of the Boar
Chapter 28: Passing Through the Death Gate
On the evening of August 30 of the year of the boar, Kōda Shigeyuki sipped his coffee while watching the flow of people outside. He was at the Fūgetsudō Confectionery in Ginza, which was not a place he visited often. Irritated, he waited for Narutaki Junichi, whom he had not seen for some time.
Junichi arrived about thirty minutes later than the appointed time. He was dressed in a neat and tidy manner, which greatly surprised Shigeyuki.
“Well, Mr. Narutaki. It’s been a while. What is that you’re wearing? A costume of some sort?”
“You can’t have thought I would dress like a vagrant forever,” Junichi said good-naturedly. “I am now a physics teacher at a middle school, and they have standards. Tell me, professor, what is this business you mentioned?”
“You’re determined to waste no time, I see. Very well. We’re here to discuss the year of the boar. The year associated with the spiritual beast said to be the messenger of Hitokotonushi, the god of Katsuragi.”
Junichi sank heavily into his chair.
“I am always anxious,” Shigeyuki said. “Hirai Yasumasa identified this year in his will. I go out to the Ministry of Finance on days connected to the boar. Until today, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. But August 30 is a multiple of twelve, so it is associated with the boar twice.” I heard you were still unmarried, so I invited you out. I was hoping that you would accompany me to the burial mound of Taira no Masakado’s head. Can you do that?”
“Of course I can. I was just thinking that Katō threw all our lives into such confusion… I lost someone important to me, you may recall.”
“Let’s not talk about that, Mr. Narutaki,” Shigeyuki said, not unkindly.
“But—”
“We have important matters to discuss. I’ve made certain preparations regarding the burial mound. Can we leave now?”
“That’s fine,” Junichi said. “What preparations do you mean?
“You’ll see.” He gave Junichi a tight-lipped smile. “I asked a carpenter to set up a divine and demonic sorcery formation around the mound. It looks like garden stones, but it’s a trap like Zhuge Liang’s Diagram of the Eight Formations. It’s a trap. I’m hoping to lure Katō into it while he’s approaching the Death Gate. If he falls for it, we should be able to capture him.”
“A divine and demonic sorcery formation?” Junichi asked blankly. “I cannot see how garden stones would be of any use to us.”
“Ordinary garden stones are useless to us,” Shigeyuki confirmed. “Tonight I will place Seimei Seals on the stones set in the formation. To the enemy they should appear as a labyrinth of gigantic rocks.”
“So you’re pitting Dōman Seiman versus Seimei Seals?”
“That’s the idea.”
“I think I understand.” Junichi’s tone of voice changed when he said, “While we’re there, could we also settle the matter of what you have been keeping from me, Professor Kōda?”
Kōda kept his mouth shut.
“Professor, please. Can you tell me about Yukari’? I haven’t seen you in so long, and I haven’t gotten much chance to ask you anything.”
“You want to know the reason you can’t see her,” Shigeyuki said. “Very well. If nothing happens tonight, I will tell you everything and apologize. A great deal of time has passed since then. The reason is unlikely to cause you pain.”
“Then it’s settled. Let’s go. If we’re going to be up all night, we’ll need something in our stomachs. And a glass of beer, too.”
The two rose from their chairs and disappeared into Ginza, where darkness had fallen.
Late that night, a small boat made its way up the Nihonbashi Canal and into Tōkyō. Keeping to the middle of the river, making not the slightest sound, the boat advanced in a straight line as if it were pulled by a magnet. It was hard to make out in the dark, but it looked like it was painted red. The boatman poling over the water wore a straw hat and a black robe.
The boat moved on, passing beneath bridges as it drew near the heart of the imperial capital. Before long, an especially large stone bridge appeared.
“The New Nihonbashi bridge, huh. A symbol of the imperial capital’s reconstruction,” the boatman muttered. He removed a white handkerchief from inside his robe. In its center, a pentagram was boldly drawn in black.
Dōman Seiman.
He removed his hat and put the handkerchief over his head. He formed ritual signs with his fingers and chanted a spell.
The boat passed beneath the great stone arch of the New Nihonbashi Bridge. On the underside of the arch was splendidly luxurious marble. It was a magnificent bridge. Four divine qilin beasts, stationed to guard the imperial capital, turned their stern eyes on the vermilion-painted boat passing beneath them, then followed it with their gaze. Their bronze fangs gleamed blue-black.
The boatman wore a handkerchief dyed with the Dōman Seiman symbol on his head. He closed his eyes as he propelled the boat onward, receiving the mysterious weight of the arch upon his shoulders. With his mind’s eye, he sensed the qilins’ eyes burning like fire, as though demonic souls had been breathed into them.
The qilins were alive. They were watching the boatman with great interest.
Before long, the boat passed beneath the arch and emerged beneath the night sky. The darkness around him had not changed, yet the darkness carried no weight. The boatman drew in a deep breath and pulled down the Dōman Seiman handkerchief covering his head. His closed eyes opened, steely and gray.
It was Katō Yasunori.
Katō hid his face beneath his hat and thrust his pole into the water. Raising his head, he saw a bright red star shining beyond the river. It was the Planet of Ominous Fire. Modern astronomy called this star Mars, but Katō found that name wildly insufficient. The Planet of Ominous Fire descended to earth, becoming the deadly deity Saisetsu, who governed murderous intent and destroyed all things.
“The Death Gate has opened.”
Katō Yasunori gazed at the Planet of Ominous Fire, confirmed the nightscape was dyed red as blood, and then looked back at the New Nihonbashi Bridge. The enormous arch had utterly changed. It stood in darkness. Only the eyes of the qilins shone with unnatural pale blue light as they watched Katō.
The guardian beasts were strangely calm. The qilins didn’t move. They had allowed an intruder to enter, but showed no signs of agitation or distress.
Katō suddenly remembered Tsumaki Yorinaka, who had designed the bridge. This architect was a man who felt boundless affection for the former capital, Edo, which had been trampled underfoot by Saigō Takamori’s forces. Had Tsumaki built these beasts to welcome the people who came to destroy the new capital, Tōkyō? Were he and Yorinaka on the same side? Katō was seized by a fervent excitement.
Having broken through the Death Gate of the Nihonbashi Canal—the only weak point of imperial Tōkyō—he headed for the Ministry of Finance in Ōtemachi. A red star burned above him, staining the world red. He needed to reach Taira no Masakado’s burial mound to recite the final invocation necessary for the destruction of Tōkyō.
Everything was red. The red light of Mars overlapped with the vermilion-lacquered boat, and for an instant the small boat seemed to vanish from sight. Katō, clad in black, stood out vividly despite the darkness of the night.
Passing beyond Gofukubashi, the boat made a wide detour to the right. The Imperial Palace was visible in the distance. Katō rose to his feet on the boat and, still gripping the pole in one hand, stripped off his black garment. Katō vanished into the vermilion light, invisible to all eyes. Only the black hat floated beside the pole. He wore a garment dyed the same color as the boat.
Fifteen hundred years earlier, during Empress Jingū’s campaign against Silla, the warriors of Katsuragi had worn this battle attire, which was blessed with spiritual power. Following the demonic tradition handed down from his ancestors, Katō had donned vermilion gear to perform his great task.
Bathed in the murky light emitted by Mars, Katō’s body melted into pure red. The invisible boat carried an invisible boatman steadily onward toward Ōtemachi.
***
Katō disembarked from the boat before the Ministry of Finance in Ōtemachi and went ashore. Red light in the sky illuminated the road running in front of the Ministry of Finance. Everything else was dark.
Katō forced open the side gate beside the main entrance and slipped inside. The surroundings felt strangely suffocating. No; they felt oppressive. The dark courtyard was dominated by the intimidating sensation of having wandered into a prison with moving walls.
His eyes grew accustomed to the dark. Katō opened his blood-red eyes wide and peered into the depths of the courtyard. Mitarashi Pond was nowhere to be seen. Dozens of enormous rocks stood lined up in the courtyard. The boulders were placed to block his path. He felt murderous intent emanating from them. This was… unprecedented. Almost unbelievable. Why were these boulders here, in the Ministry of Finance? The arrangement was ominous—and dangerous. Surely a place that was full of civilians every day couldn’t risk maintaining such a structure in its rear courtyard.
He had wandered into a maze.
“I see,” Katō said. “They have made a formation using divine and demonic sorcery. The Diagram of the Eight Formations, or something like it.” He bent his knees and lowered himself to the ground. Was this the Tsuchimikado family’s doing? Who else could accomplish such a thing?
He cast a sharp gaze upward to the massive rock formations. He could not even see the top of them. Near the top, though, he noticed markings. Talismanic markings…
A pentagram.
“The Seimei Seal,” Katō whispered. So the Tsuchimikado family was behind this. Of course.” He thrust his hand into his breast pocket and removed the Dōman Seiman, which was dyed onto his white handkerchief.
He swiftly threw the folded handkerchief onto the ground and formed the Nine Hand Seals. At once, part of the ground swelled up with a rumbling motion. Small supernatural creatures appeared. They were black and shapeless, but they gave off the dull, slimy glow of mucus. They breathed heavily like fetuses struggling within an amniotic sac.
“Shikigami.”
Katō pointed toward a gap between the boulders. A murderous aura struck Katō like a gust of wind. One small, black, slimy demon sprang up from the ground, then staggered toward him. The black demon’s form deepened, making it blend in with the darkness around it.
A shriek of terror echoed from beyond the rocks.
“The Fear Gate. If one wanders into that gate, one will go mad and die,” Katō muttered under his breath. He pointed to another gap between the rocks. The black demon there slunk into the darkness. A spray of blood marked the stone it stood beside. An eerie whooshing sound reached Katō’s ears as the ground was stained with blood beneath his feet.
That was the Death Gate.
The third demon stepped into yet another gap. Katō listened to their footsteps until he was sure the gate was safe.
“Open Gate,” he said, and followed after the demon.
As he rounded the corner of the huge boulder, his surroundings changed. He stood in a rough-hewn stone cave. In the distance, pale-blue will-o’-the-wisps burned. His shikigami was using that light to signal that it was ahead of him.
“The Delusion Gate?” Katō asked. He clicked his tongue in irritation. He had mistaken the Delusion Gate for the Open Gate. He had to get out of here quickly. He was losing patience for this maze. The Delusion Gate wouldn’t kill him—not directly—but he might be trapped in it for a very long time. Months. Years.
And then his plans would be ruined.
Katō abandoned his shikigami; he had no more use for it. He searched everywhere for an exit to the cave. Where were the Seimei Seals? Those were the source of the maze’s magic. If he destroyed those, he could escape.
For minutes that felt like hours, Katō scoured the ceiling of the cave with his piercing gaze until he discovered what he was looking for: a Seimei Seal, etched in white upon the stone. It was concealed well, but not perfectly. Katō drew out his handkerchief and folded it in two. He sharpened the crease with a press of his fingers and then hurled the handkerchief at the Seimei Seal.
The handkerchief struck the white seal. Yellow flames burst forth, engulfing the Seimei Seal. A crack ran through the great boulder.
The stones are collapsing. Katō smile was as cold as a corpse’s. Billowing clouds of dust formed around him as rock fell from above. The night sky appeared above him again. He had broken the Delusion Gate.
Katō laughed, and it was horrifying. The sound was not quite human.
Kōda Shigeyuki drew aside the heavy curtain of darkness that had gathered over the Ministry of Finance’s grounds. He was hiding in the trees along the south side of the courtyard. He quietly struck a match and peered at the face of his pocket watch.
“One o’clock,” he whispered.
Narutaki Junichi held his breath and remained silent.
After several more minutes passed, Junichi heard faint footsteps coming from the direction of the burial mound.
“Here!”
The quiet cry echoed painfully in Shigeyuki’s ears. The moon had been hidden by clouds all evening, so he couldn’t perceive the intruder clearly. But who would be visiting the burial mound at this time of night? It could only be Katō standing there.
More clouds darkened the sky, signaling the arrival of a storm.
“Damn. He broke through the Diagram of the Eight Formations. He knows we were trying to lure him through the Death Gate,” Shigeyuki said.
“Professor, can’t we use some other sorcery against that man?” Junichi asked.
“No. He is a master of Qimen Dunjia. He is worthy of being called a reincarnation of Zhuge Liang, who created the Diagram of the Eight Formations.”
“We were right, though, Professor,” Junichi said. “He came on the day of the boar in the year of the boar.”
“Yes, our long wait has not been in vain.”
“So, what shall we do? Shall we watch for a while?”
“No. We must go at once.” He pulled out a short sword he’d concealed in his clothes and crept toward the burial mound slowly with his weapon raised. Junichi followed him.
Katō came closer to them, but he showed no sign that he’d noticed they were there. He took a few steps and cast off his dark cloak.
Shigeyuki leaped out of the cover of the trees and threw himself at Katō. He screamed.
Katō was dressed in a red uniform. His eyes widened as Shigeyuki confronted him, his eyes flashing sharply.
“Mr. Kōda. I should have expected to see you here. You set up quite an interesting formation. You intended to lure me into the Death Gate, but you failed. You are a hateful wretch who cut off my arm.” He drew a dagger from a sheath at his waist.
Shigeyuki readied his short sword.
“I’ll send you to hell.” Katō’s voice trembled with anger. Was it because an unexpected obstacle had appeared, or because he was shaking with excitement at encountering Kōda Shigeyuki, his nemesis, at such a critical moment?
“I won’t let you escape this time. Harming people directly is not in my nature, but for you, I will make an exception.”
Shigeyuki lunged forward with a shout. The former soldier dodged and swept his blade sideways.
Junichi came running over. He carried no weapon. He spread both arms before the soldier and blocked his way. His prodigious bulk and height made this possible.
Katō grinned and plunged his dagger into Junichi’s chest.
“Watch out!” Shigeyuki yelled—too late.
Junichi groaned and fell down slowly.
Kōda’s cry came too late. The tip of the thrusting blade gouged Narutaki’s chest, drawing a vivid scarlet line. A strange groan escaped Narutaki’s mouth. His huge body slowly collapsed.
“Junichi, hang on!” Shigeyuki shouted as he rushed over to lift Junichi’s unmoving body. Hot blood gushed from his chest in a torrent.
Then rain fell from the dark clouds overhead. One drop, two drops, three—
The rain commingled with Junichi’s blood on the forest floor as the gentle drops became a raging storm in mere moments. The rain roared like demonic cries as Shigeyuki and Katō faced one another again.
“Damn it. I’ll never forgive you, Katō,” Shigeyuki shouted over the sound of the rain. He had Junichi’s blood on one hand.
“Those who interfere with my great work shall be sent to hell without mercy,” Katō shouted back.
Shigeyuki set his shoulders and gripped his sword with both hands. He hurled himself bodily at Katō, attempting to overwhelm him with force.
Katō twisted, rotating his upper body and moving behind Shigeyuki as he charged at him.
On impulse, Shigeyuki let his momentum carry him and threw himself onto the ground. The impact drove the sword into the earth. Caught in the recoil, the writer bounced off the ground. His wrists had been violently twisted in the fall. Searing pain shot through the tendons of both arms.
Shigeyuki crouched down, clutching one injured wrist.
Katō stabbed Shigeyuki’s left shoulder with his dagger and drew it out.
This was not going well. Shigeyuki had resolved to let Katō stab a non-vital area so that he would be close enough to stab him in the throat.
Before Shigeyuki could attempt this, a fissure appeared in the sky. Enveloped in a peach-colored glow, the fissure struck the summit of Taira no Masakado’s burial mound with a sharp cracking sound. The earth shook violently. Soil and sand scattered like fireworks. There was a rumbling beneath Shigeyuki’s feet that heralded the coming of a terrible earthquake.
Katō turned around. Heedless of the torrential rain striking his face, he looked up at the burial mound. Ominous black smoke was rising from it.
“The dragon has awakened. Hahaha—the dragon vein is moving! I have won!” He laughed and pointed at the burial mound.
Shigeyuki stared at the mound as well. Smoke was still rising from it, and it was shaking. The entire world was shaking.
“Tōkyō’s Death Gate no longer defends it,” Katō crowed. “The city can no longer contain the dragon. It is moving its head toward the Pacific Ocean. There will be earthquakes and landslides as the dragon travels. All of Tōkyō will be destroyed. Hahahahaha!”
Katō laughed convulsively, his lips twisting to form a sneer. He raised his dagger.
“Die, you dog,” Katō spat.
“Have you gone mad, Katō?!”
A murderous red gleam flashed in Katō’s eyes. The blade traced an arc, flashing as it slashed out.
Kōda shut his eyes on reflex, thinking, I’m going to die.
Lightning struck Katō then. White sparks enveloped his entire body. The dagger dropped from his hand before he could stab Shigeyuki again.
Shigeyuki had the presence of mind to observe that the lightning had struck the dagger first. The staggering amount of electrical energy moved from the dagger up Katō’s arm and through the rest of his body. There was no thunder, only the lightning that had saved Shigeyuki’s life.
“A blessing from heaven,” Shigeyuki said, gasping.
Katō was on the ground convulsing. He was still alive. Shigeyuki searched for his short sword, which he’d lost during the fight. He recovered his weapon and then backtracked to Junichi, who was still breathing.
“Junichi.” Forgetting the disabled Katō for the moment, Shigeyuki bent and lifted Junichi up.
Junichi opened his eyes. “Pro…fessor?”
“Don’t talk. I’ll carry you to a doctor right away. Hold on.”
Shigeyuki took one of his arms and hoisted it over his shoulder.
“Professor. You… promised. Please. Tell me. Why I could no longer see Yukari.” His breathing was labored, but steady.
Shigeyuki looked at him and thought that he might die. He might die and never know.
“All right, Junichi. I’ll tell you. When Yukari was abducted by Katō ten years ago, she was made pregnant with his child. Both I and Dr. Morita did everything in our power for her. We even had her take a kind of cinnabar called Ise face powder in an attempt to save her. But our abortifacient measures failed, and Yukari ended up giving birth to a girl.”
The physics teacher, grievously wounded, opened both eyes wide and fixed Shigeyuki with his bloodshot eyes.
“Im-impossible. Yukari became pregnant with Katō’s child. Is that what you’re saying?”
The writer did not answer. Instead, he lowered his eyes and lifted Junichi onto his back.
“Let’s go. Stay strong, Junichi.”
The two walked through the pouring rain together. As they passed beside the burial mound, they tried to find Katō, who had collapsed there, but he was already gone.
“Damn it. Is he immortal?” Shigeyuki asked as he carried Junichi. They hurried toward the Ministry of Finance. Junichi was tall and heavy—too heavy. Weren’t corpses heavier than living bodies?
Shigeyuki clenched his teeth and kept moving, trying not to fear the worst.
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Translator's Notes
Shigeyuki makes the same observation as Katō in Chapter 26, but it is not the same day. Katō was likely speaking on July 1, 60 days before August 30.
The Nine Hand Seals, like much of Katō’s magic, originates from China. In Chinese, they are called “Rin, Pyo, To, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen,” meaning, “May all those who preside over warriors be my vanguard.” While popularized as “ninja magic” or esoteric hand seals in Japan, they originated as Chinese Taoist ritual formulas for protection, focus, and spiritual strength. Shintoism and Buddhism don’t make use of the Nine Hand Seals—historically the tradition of using them started with Taoism, not Shintoism or Buddhism—but practitioners of shugendō, Japan’s Buddhist-tinged ascetic mountain tradition, make use of them.
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