This is a story about when he was six years old.
“How about just this child!”
His mother’s voice, deafening, echoed through the mansion.
“Give it up! It’s all up to you!”
The officials suddenly arrived at the house, grabbed the father and mother one by one, and took them to the magistrate’s office.
They were thrown into a cell without knowing what was going on.
I wondered how long it had been.
“I wonder how she’s doing…”
Suddenly, I remembered the day I was captured.
The girl I promised to see tomorrow.
I wondered how many days had passed since then.
I wondered if she was still waiting for me…
I heard a voice calling me, as if to bring back my consciousness that was fading from hunger and fatigue.
“Hachi, coming with me.”
A man, dressed rather flamboyantly for a monk, called out from outside the prison.
I was taken to the man’s temple, where I learned that my father had been executed on suspicion of treason.
I also learned that my mother had protected me in exchange for her life.
His family, a prominent samurai family, was destroyed and he was sent to a temple.
Life at the temple was unimaginably bad.
Greedy priests, people who call me the son of a traitor… it was full of malice and hostility towards him.
Then he overheard a samurai coming and going from the temple and learned that his father had been framed for a trick.
He learned that the head of a certain samurai family had conspired to eliminate his father, who was in the way of his career.
–I will not allow it.
I will not forgive those who sent your father and mother to their deaths, nor those who undermine them, nor anyone else.
A flame of hatred burned in Hachi’s heart.
これは、彼が6歳の時の物語。
「この子だけはどうか！」
耳をつんざくような母親の声が屋敷に響いた。
「観念せい！全てはお上が決めること！」
屋敷に突然押し寄せた役人は、父や母を次々と捉え、奉行所へと連行した。
状況がわからぬまま牢屋に押し込められ、どのくらい経っただろうか。
「あの子、どうしているかな…」
ふと、捉えられた日のことを思い出した。
また明日、と約束した子。
あれから何日経っているのだろうか。
あの子はまだ待ってくれているのだろうか…
空腹と疲労で薄れかけた意識を呼び戻すかのうように、自分を呼ぶ声がした。
「ハチ、私と一緒に来るのです」
僧の割には身なりの派手な男が、牢屋の外から声を掛けた。
男の寺へと連れられて、父上が謀反の疑いにより処刑されたことを知った。
母上が命と引き換えに、自分の命を守ってくれたことも。
名のある武家だった家は取り潰しとなり、自分の身柄は寺へと預けられたのだ。
寺での生活は、想像を絶するひどいものだった。
欲に濡れた坊主、謀反の息子と罵る人々…悪意や敵意に満ちていた。
そして、寺へ出入りする侍の話を立ち聞きし、父が策に嵌められたことを知った。
ある武士の当主が、出世に邪魔な父上を消すために謀ったのだと。
――許さない。
父上や母上を死に追いやった者も、それを貶める者も全て、全ての人間を許さない。
ハチの心には憎しみの炎が燃え上がった。