The Orochi's Child

She gazed from her window, out over the moonlit lake. Sounds drifted up to her: the angry shouts of her father and his advisors. Her father wanted to arm the soldiers with teppou, the long metal sticks that fired lead balls to kill enemies a long way away. The clan’s elders thought teppou were un-Japanese, that the swords of their samurai would be enough.

Neither will protect you from the Oni, she thought. The Oni had teppou of his own, as well as samurai – more than her clan had. But the Oni had something worse, foul magic, the aid of demons. Spiders in the forest, kappa in the rivers, all sorts of bakemono did his bidding.

She was only a woman, and war was men’s business. Not even the legends remembered a time when the Orochi’s priestess had truly ruled. Their lives had always been like hers, shut away from the world, performing the ritual dances that kept the Orochi placated and sleeping beneath the lake, where its power could bless the fields without threatening their peaceful lives.

Right now she couldn’t even perform the dances. She had to remain secluded in her rooms, behind closed blinds, not allowing the light of sun or moon to touch her, until the time of her impurity was past. Custom barred her from even bathing, combing her hair, or eating cooked food. Tradition said that if she danced in this state, the scent of her woman’s blood would draw the Orochi from the lake and it would devour her before turning on the castle and surrounding fields in its fury, submerging the entire valley beneath the dark, still waters.

Would that be such a bad thing? Wouldn’t it be better to die than to live under the Oni’s yoke? And if by some miracle the Oni himself perished… well, that would mean the kami themselves fought against his unholy ambition, wouldn’t it? It couldn’t be right, these warriors taking power for themselves, as though the land’s true power came from swords and teppou and not from the spirits. It couldn’t be right.

She slipped from her room, avoiding the main corridor to take a smaller one used primarily by servants, and made her way out of the castle. She bypassed the shrine, and the stage where she danced on festival days, and went straight to the shore. A dead tree extended out over the lake. She walked out onto a smooth, bark-stripped branch and lay down on it, opening her robe and caressing her bleeding flesh. The blood of her untouched womanhood ran down her leg and dripped into the water, sending circular ripples across the mist-shrouded surface.

She felt it first, a vibration like a current of energy, passing from the lake into the tree, and from the tree into her quivering body. Then something reared over her, taller than the trees, raining water onto her. The ancient chronicles said the Orochi extended over eight hills and eight valleys. This serpent was nowhere near so vast, but he was huge enough. The central head dipped toward her bosom. Drawn by the summons of her maiden’s blood, he bent his head to her bosom and extended his forked tongue to curl sensuously around her fingers.

The creature reached its tongue toward her mouth. The forked projections curled around her tongue and held it, and drew her toward its mouth. They kissed, woman and serpent, with eyes closed in ecstasy. The other seven heads joined in, tongues finding every hidden recess of her body, bringing her to undreamed heights of pleasure. When the dragon presented its scaled member to her lips she caressed it eagerly before yielding her virgin body to its penetration. Its eyes burned down upon her and she lost herself in their golden fire, drowned in the flood of ecstasy from the serpent’s scaly body on her, around her, in her, filling her with glory.

The first scouts arrived in the hour of the Hare. By the time the hour of the Dragon ended, all of Oda Nobunaga’s troops were in position and the attack began. By the hour of the Sheep it was all over, and the Oni’s troops were in possession of the area – though not of the castle. Its own defenders had set it afire when they realized their cause was lost.

The troops ransacked the shrine, but found it empty. Some of them walked out onto the kagura stage, profaning the holy ground with their shod feet. The lake shimmered around them, still as a mirror… no! It seethed as if it were boiling. The water turned red-gold as if it reflected the setting sun, even though it was early afternoon. “What the…”

Eight enormous serpent heads reared above the soldiers, green with moss and water-plants, eyes the flaming red-orange of hozuki fruit. Eight sets of jaws opened, dripping water, and their roar echoed louder than the sound of gunfire. Clouds blotted out the sun… or was it a mist exhaled by the orochi? Battle-hardened veteran and new recruit alike, all threw down their weapons and ran for their lives. The lake waters rose in a vast wave, and the great heads bent down…

The orochi dove beneath the surface of the water. The lake calmed to mirror smoothness. There was no sign of Nobunaga’s army. There was no sign there had ever been a castle in the valley. There was only the glassy water, dark and still.

The princess turned and gazed at the rising column of smoke. So. It’s over. Her family, her god, her life, all were gone now. Not me. I have to live. I have to bring him into the world. Him. The Orochi’s last gift to her, his own offspring. He will be a great warrior, Master of the Eight Treasures, so strong no one can stand against him.

The Orochi’s last priestess turned her back on the ruins of her former life, carrying the son of her god into an unknown world.

The world proved a harsher place than she could have thought. Nobunaga held the country in an iron grip, and she was forced to keep off the main roads and out of large towns. Piece by piece she sold her fine garments for money to live on, for as long as they lasted. The coarse hemp she now wore chafed at her skin. From time to time she found work as a servant in some inn, but the owners always threw her out once they learned of her pregnancy. She grew thin and ill, and no one wanted to take in a woman who might die and leave an orphan child to be raised.

Eventually she forsook villages altogether and took to the countryside, begging from isolated farmhouses or scavenging from fields abandoned to the ravages of war and weather, wandering aimlessly.

She wouldn’t have noticed the gate in the bush-clover hedge if she hadn’t fallen.

Young stalks of wild parsley tangled around her ankles and brought her sprawling on the overgrown path. She managed to twist to one side so she fell on her hip, not on the swollen mound of her belly. Still, it took her a long moment to get her breath, and even longer to collect her wits enough to sit up and free her feet from the green snare.

I need to find some shelter, she told herself. It’s getting time for him to be born. Everything will be all right once he’s born, but I need to find a place.

Then she noticed the straggling clumps of bush-clover, their withered autumn foliage still clinging to the stems. A gate of woven bamboo-grass, leaning crazily on one hinge, closed off the one gap in the rustic fence. She peered through its lattice; she could see what looked like a natural cave, with ferns and ivy growing in the crevices of the rock around it.

It doesn’t look like anyone lives here. Maybe I can just get some water… She could hear a faint splashing sound; water flowed from a bamboo pipe into a stone basin near the cave entrance, and the overflow trickled away down the slope. Carefully she pushed the gate aside.

The water was delicious, cold and pure. She scooped it up in her hands and drank deeply even though the cold made her eyes ache.

“Oh my, what’s this, a visitor?”

She turned. Apparently someone did live in the cave – and what a someone!

She would have expected a rustic retreat such as this to be occupied by a pious recluse, some man who had given up the world to spend his days in meditation or in chanting sutras. Instead, out bustled a tiny old woman as worldly-looking as could be imagined. Her body was bent with age and her eyes as dim as a setting moon, but her snowy hair was elaborately arranged in a style that had been fashionable half a century ago, and her old-fashioned kimono was of sky-blue wadded silk patterned with white double chrysanthemums. And no one but a courtesan would wear her obi tied in the front…

“I’m sorry,” the girl murmured. “I didn’t know anyone lived here.”

“That’s all right,” the old woman replied. “The world forgot about me long ago. It’s hard to believe I was the toast of the capital once. Young men used to come to hear me talk about love, but no one sees me now, no one but girls like you, and the boy who brings my provisions. In a spot of trouble, are you, dearie? I could have helped you if you’d come to me sooner, but as far along as you are, there’s nothing you can do but have it and then give it back to the kami.”

“No!” the girl gasped. “Please. He has to live. No matter what happens to me, he must… Master of the Eight Treasures…” She stopped. Enormous pressure squeezed her body, as though the Orochi held her tight in its coils. She couldn’t breathe.

Faintly she felt the old woman’s arm around her waist. “I guess you didn’t find me any too soon,” the crone chattered. “Well, I’ve done a bit of midwifing in my day too, you’ll not do better for yourself.” The girl leaned on the frail old body and allowed herself to be led into the cave.

The old woman frowned. Over the course of a lifetime in the Floating World, the old courtesan had seen many births – and many deaths. Her young guest was too thin, and more. It looked as though the hardships she had undergone, and the demands of the child within her, had taken most of her life already. There was barely enough left of her to push her child into the world.

“Promise me,” the girl begged. “Take care of him. He must live!”

“Aa, I’ll see to the mite,” the old lady reassured. “You save your strength for pushing now. Soon you’ll be caring for him yourself.” Caring for him in the next world, she thought. It would be best if the mite follows his mother. What would I do with a baby?

The young mother’s plea ended in a cry. A wet, red mass slithered from her body. The child was born!

“That’s that, then.” The crone glanced at the young mother. Her eyes were open and she was smiling, but she no longer breathed. “Looks like your mama didn’t make it.” The baby wasn’t moving either. It was a wizened, undersized little thing anyway. She left it where it was. Before long the boy who ran her errands would come by; she would send him for the headman to report the deaths, and for the eta to take away the bodies.

She didn’t notice the crying at first. It sounded like a bird or an insect: her hearing wasn’t what it was, and the bushes around her cave were full of small creatures making noise. But the sound persisted and got louder, so she finally had to take note of it. It was the baby, still lying in its birth fluids – not dead as she had thought, but alive and squalling.

“Well well,” she said to it. “So you want to live, do you?”

The child waved its tiny arms and turned as if it could hear her.

She put a kettle on her small fire, and warmed the knife she used to cut up her vegetables. Deftly she sliced the umbilical cord and ignited a small cone of moxa on the stump. The infant shrieked in pain.

She wrapped the baby up in an old garment given her by one of her long-ago lovers – she had a chest full of such keepsakes – and looked around for something to feed it. Fortunately she had a supply of midzu-ame on hand, being fond of the sweet herself. The baby, its stomach full, went happily to sleep.

“I suppose you’d best register the brat as mine,” she said to the priest. “Buddha alone knows who his mother was or where she came from. Soft little thing she was, probably thrown out of some great house.”

“There’s a lot of that, with all the great lords warring against each other,” the priest agreed. “What are you going to call him? Mametarou?”

“Not that,” the old courtesan replied. “His mother said something about Eight Treasures. Her mind may have been going… but maybe the boy has a heritage somewhere. His mother called him Happousai, so that’s what he’ll be.”

“Hap… pou… sai,” the priest repeated, writing the characters carefully. “Eight Treasures Together – a virtuous name for a virtuous man.”

The infant waved his tiny fists and fussed, as though rejecting the very idea of virtue.

NOTES, EXPLANATIONS ETC.

Happousai is an orochi. His name containing the number eight, his insatiable appetite for sake and maidens, his multi-headed ki-dragon, and above all the way Soun and Genma imprisoned him in the cave, all are references to the orochi legend. And Ranma is absolutely perfect as a Susa-no-o figure!

The dragon scene is pretty much lifted from a hentai manga called Count Down: Sex Bombs by Hiroyuki Utatane. It’s beautifully drawn in a sumi-e style, very unusual for hentai. If you’re old enough for H, check it out – Utatane is good! Shinto does have a taboo against crossing water while menstruating, though the idea that allowing menstrual blood to fall into the water will invoke a dragon is something that I sort of made up and sort of stole from Utatane. Still, there had to have been something behind the taboo, once upon a time… the rest comes from a combination of The Golden Bough and The Gods Come Dancing.

Oda Nobunaga usually shows up in anime as a demonic figure: see Ninja Scroll and Flame of Recca (where I got his nickname of Oni). He burned some monasteries whose monks took a too-active role in opposing him, thereby earning an evil reputation worsened by his friendship with the Christian Europeans who began to visit Japan at that time – never mind that his enthusiasm was less for their ideas than their weapons, and I think he was the first to arm his soldiers with teppou. Elsewhere, it was felt that guns were beneath the dignity of a samurai – partly due to the rather inelegant firing posture those old weapons required.

I’ve deliberately used the ancient way of reckoning time. The Hare runs about 5:00-7:00 a.m. (though as in medieval Europe, length of hours varies depending on length of the day). The next hour is Dragon, and so though Snake, Horse, Sheep and Monkey.

I guess I got the kagura stage out of Gasaraki. It’s supposed to project out into the lake.

The old lady and her rustic hermitage come from Saikaku Ihara’s “The Woman Who Spent Her Life In Love.” I have taken some liberties in the matter of her obi; at some periods married women wore it tied in front, and at others the front tie was restricted to courtesans. Happi’s name is canonically written as Eight Treasures Together, but the kanji for sai-meaning-master and sai-meaning-together are rather similar and somebody could have made a mistake somewhere. There are different Buddhist and Taoist versions of the Eight Treasures, but I haven’t been able to find out yet just why they are treasures, or why Happi is named for them. Mametarou (bean-boy) is a little figure you see in some erotic woodblock prints, peeping at the amorous couple.

Midzu-ame is a sweet bean-and-gluten paste sometimes used to feed babies when mothers’ milk could not be had. There is a famous ghost story of a woman who was accidentally entombed alive and managed to give birth before she died; her ghost went out and bought midzu-ame to feed her baby until a curious sweets-merchant followed her and discovered the child.