Shuten-dōji

Name	Shuten-dōji
Race	Demon
Type	Oni
Faction	Shutenian Demons
Premiere	Cereborg: Inception
Relative(s)	N/A

Shuten-dōji

"Ku, ku, ku- you are no Shinto priest, girl!"

Biography

Shuten-dōji is the strongest oni to ever exist. For over a thousand years stories have been told of the demon king of Mt. Ōe. In truth, Shuten-dōji and his army had existed even further back, first coming to existence in the Outer Darkness in the lands of drunken debauchery. Eventually, in the Hira Mountains, a portal was opened by evil shamans. The oni poured out causing calamity and destruction in the area until Enryaku-ji temple was built. The temple brought strong magics of the Inner Light and goodness to the land; the oni feared and hated it. However, during the reign of Emperor Ichijō (986–1011 AD) in Kyoto, Japan, Shuten-dōji found a paradise. There were many beautiful young women, and he and his villainous army constantly stole them away, fornicating with them and turning them into female oni. Abe no Seimei, the famous onmyōdō diviner of the imperial court, managed to uncover the oni and his demons, but could do nothing to stop them. Eventually, the Emperor could no longer contain the grief and misery the demons caused, yet he knew that any mortal army sent to fight the creatures would be destroyed.

Though he feared he was sending his troops to certain death, he commanded Minamoto no Raikō (Minamoto no Yorimitsu) and Fujiwara no Hōshō (Fujiwara no Yasumasa (ja)) to exterminate this demon. The men and their troops would have been annihilated if they had not stumbled upon divine help. They managed to fight the demons and win. Once defeated, they sealed the oni into bottles and chests and hid them in temples across the land. They managed to even seal away Shuten-dōji, himself, though he warned them that he would eventually be freed, and he would reap vengeance on the people of Kyoto and of all Japan. The group traveled to Kyoto with the demon lord sealed into a great vessel shaped like an oni’s head, which was laid to rest in the Uji no hōzō at Byōdō-in temple. There, the head stayed hidden for almost a thousand years until, during World War 2, American bombs landed in the general area, and deep underground, within the treasure vault of the temple, the vessel toppled over and broke open- and Shuten-dōji found freedom.

The oni immediately set to work trying to disrupt Japan, but it took the demon hunter, Gichii Naru, little time to hone in and assault the demon. Shuten-dōji had already built a small enslaved of corrupted and perverted people, and the demon hunter slew them all before facing the newly awoken demon. Shuten-dōji did not have the power yet to face the hunter, and the two played a game of cat and mouse across Japan, until Shuten-dōji stumbled upon some upset soldiers and learned of civil unrest. In what would become historically known as the Kyūjō incident, the oni used his influence and corruption to cause Japanese soldiers to rise up against Emperor Hirohito. However, Gichii managed to track the demon, and in a dark alleyway the two powers collided. The oni hunter almost lost, but used a dark magical technique to draw the demon into the ancestral katana of the Naru family, Onikoroshi-no-Tsurugi. Without the oni to generate further corruption, the assault on Emperor Hirohito failed, and War World 2 ended.

For a lifetime, Shuten-dōji remained trapped in the sword, which was granted to Chieko Naru upon her grandfather’s death. Her family held the secret of the sword close, and she kept it deep underground inside her room at CereTech Laboratories. Chieko could never have guessed the sapient artificial intelligence she created, named Cerebrum would follow a twisted logic to turn all organic matter into synthetic matter. And more so, Chieko never thought she would actually hold the sword in her hand, as she had promised Gichii that she would never do so unless absolutely needed. The moment she did, Shuten-dōji’s influence crept into her mind. She fought hard, utilizing her powerful will, and the sword turned out to be invaluable for reaching Cerebrum. While using her focus and resolve to ignore the oni, she wielded the magic Onikoroshi-no-Tsurugi and sliced through cereborgs with ease. Onikoroshi-no-Tsurugi was discarded after the fight against Cerebrum itself. Cheiko drove the blade into its central processor, and the entire A.I. shut down.

Now, even as Chieko and the CereSurvivors move across the apoalyptic landscape after the infectulons invaded Earth, she still wields Onikoroshi-no-Tsurugi, now slicing through droves of invaders. However, every moment that she holds the blade, Shuten-dōji's voice whispers to her in an effort to lower her focus so that he can claim the descendant of Gichii and be released from the blade.