Iga Provinceいが

This version follows the Taiheiki, Book 16 “Affairs of Japan’s Enemies.” The Four Oni serve under Fujiwara no Chikata with clearly divided roles, complementing each other’s arts in battle. The Gold Oni forms the vanguard with a body that repels blades and arrows, the Wind Oni scatters ranks with gales, the Water Oni summons flood and torrent across any terrain, and the Hidden Oni erases form and presence to handle scouting and ambush. Their might is framed less as stratagem than as a tendency to yield before kotodama and prayer, epitomized by their dispersal through a waka by Ki no Asao. Later legends of Sakanoue no Tamuramaro and Kumano slayings alter their order and exploits, yet the core remains: four disparate powers combine to overmatch human effort, but bow to righteous words. The notion of ninja origins is a later reading; in folklore studies this is a case of war-epic demon tales binding to local toponymic lore. Creative variants abound, but this version keeps to gunki conventions and limits places and figures to sources within the epic.