Shiki Novel Translations 3.7.6

[sinnesspiel]

6

"How'd it go with Tokujirou?" Seishin was asked as Toshio entered his bedroom, to which he shook his head.

"He seems against being hospitalized. Indeed he was talking as if reciting lines according to instructions." 

And so, he was asked, to which he explained that while he didn't know if it would have an effect or not they'd moved his body into the altar room, spread incense and placed juzu beads on him, with sacred scriptures put at the porch entryway. 

"You think that'll be able to repel them?"

"I don't know. ...The house is already open to the Shiki. The only room blocked off by scriptures is the drawing room, so we might not be able to depend on their effectiveness very much." 


If they were going that far, transcribing sutras or mandala or the like on the sliding screens might have been effective but it wasn't as if they could try it. ---As he said that, Toshio gave a wry smile. 

"You said it. It's not like we can act too crazy here. Even without all that they're already having a hard enough time trusting me in this situation, if I start doing anything eccentric on top of this, people who would've come won't anymore."

Seishin nodded.

"Other than having him say that he doesn't want to be hospitalized, it doesn't seem they've had Tokujirou-san do anything else then? It's tough, making him refuse hospitalization. With everyone who lived in the same house with Tokujirou-san dying off like that, even though they've gone that far, if there were family there, they couldn't do anything to help."

"Aa......"

"By the way, you heard the talk about the Kirishiki family's Ebuchi-san opening up a clinic?"

No, Seishin said, eyes opening. "---They really are?"

"There was the convenience store in Shimo-Sotoba right? Seems they remodeled that into a clinic. But the question is for what?"

"You don't think it's as a base to spread the infection do you?"

Who knows, Toshio murmured. "In the first place--To start with, what made the bunch of them decide to move here to this village? Strangely enough I haven't even tried thinking about that until today. I was just thinking of it as they're here so they're here, but."

"Wasn't it you who said this place is prime for multiplying the Shiki's numbers?"

"Yeah. ...That's definitely right. Here even now we still bury the dead. Cremation'd be inconvenient for the Shiki. But how did the bunch of them know that the village still buries, I wonder, huh?"

Indeed, Seishin started to say back when he remembered that he himself had written something himself for publication. Indeed, it was in the spring of last year. Hadn't Sunako said that she had read that essay?

"......It can't be."

"Hm?" 

Could it be that that was to blame for all of this? Cremation was inconvenient for the Shiki. Cremation was sure to be a major obstacle in increasing their numbers. Toshio may have been correct when he'd guessed that if Shiki existed, the reason they weren't known to this day might have been entirely due to cremation. 

--But if there was a place that buried, that would be where Shiki could multiply. Seishin's essay caught their attention. Seishin had memories of writing that the village even now did burials, that the graveyards were in the mountains. 

"What's wrong?"

"It might be because of what I wrote."

Toshio gave a suspicious expression. "The village is surrounded by death, ---That one?"

Seishin nodded. 

"But the village's name's not written anywhere in it, right?"

"If you read it, you'd know it's the village where the author lives. If you reference the author's CV, you'll basically know where it is, then if you take into account the geographic conditions and search a map, it'd be possibly to find it," Seishin lowered his eyes in shame.  "......She said that. The Kirishiki's daughter herself."

"......Oi."

"I think that's indeed what happened. She read the essay. She looked for where it is. Then---"

"Consulted someone related, or otherwise confirmed the real state of things. Before there was that talk about some kind of strange resort wasn't there? A surveyor came out, stayed at the Tokuda house for a while while snooping around here and there."

Indeed, Seishin murmured. Toshio seemed to be further searching his memory.

"The results of investigating the real spot also showed it to be a favorable location. They made a plan to infiltrate the village. They got ahold of the Kanemasa house---" Toshio started to say, then spitting out a sigh. "The predecessor of Kanemasa died suddenly. Without a word to anyone, he arbitrarily handed over the lot to Kirishiki-shi."

And that's where it all started, Seishin thought somberly. Perhaps taking on that same mood, Toshio's expression became all the more distressed. 

"They're scrupulous. More than we'd been thinking. On our end we've only just now recognized that they exist, I mean we've confirmed that Nao-san and Shuuji-san aren't in their graves but we haven't found any way to repel them or to dam up the situation. While we're completely in a fog about all this, they've had everything accounted for and planned out for over a year beforehand now. ---But the thing is, why?"

"Why?"

"They calculated nifilstrating the village. But what's that for? The preparations took more than a year, It's not something they just thought up. There's got to be a goal to it, something to make a plan over, to put steadily into place. But what is that goal?"

"Like we'd said, isn't that to increase---"

"What'll they get propagating the species? Cremation's certainly staved off the Shiki from growing in number until now. So in a way, Sotoba might be a beneficial place for the Shiki as a species. But what would the Shiki themselves want to increase their numbers for? For humans, wanting to spread their influence is like second nature but to pointlessly increase their numbers just increases the number of carnivores and that's it. The bunch of them are eating up all the people in the village.

Indeed, Seishin murmured.

"And on top of that there's the Ebuchi clinic. That contamination point---if it's a point to increase their numbers, then they really might just be able to grow even faster than they are now. But even now they're overdoing it. If people are dying off any more than they are now, somebody is definitely going to notice!"

"An undertaker......"

"Eh?"

"It seems we have an undertaker now. They were able to bring one in. The carpentry shop in Kami-Sotoba's been remodeled into a funeral home."

"Contracting burials?"

"Most likely."

Toshio groaned. 

The Ebuchi Clinic, the Sotoba Funeral Home, both painted a similar picture. He couldn't think they were unrelated. If the Kirishiki family had a hand in the Sotoba Funeral Home, what was the goal? They would be the ones doing the funeral, doing the burials. One thing that could definitely be said to come from that would be lessening the work it'd take to dig out their rising allies. The pain of secretly digging up a grace was one that permeated deeply into Seishin's own body. They must have been continuing to do that. Somehow or another they were confirming whether or not the dead body beneath the tombstones would rise or not, then if they rose they were digging them out, then burying the grave back. If they could be the agents carrying out the burials, they would be able to take measures to lessen that hardship. It's also quickly decrease the odds of their current activities being found out. They would multiply faster. ---But it was just as Toshio said. What were they trying to do, increasing their numbers like this?

"They've got some kind of goal." Toshio's eyes were sharply concentrated. "They had a goal, that's why they scrupulously made a plan, one they're acting out. In the mean time, we can't even find out their plan."

Toshio remained silent after that. Seishin's back was tense in anticipation of Toshio saying "That's why we need to hunt the Shiki," but fortunately he didn't say a thing. 

In fact, Toshio himself wanted to say it but he knew his childhood friend's temperament, so he didn't dare say it. That wasn't all, saying they didn't know what the Shiki were thinking, to hunt them, was easy enough in word, but they still had to think of how to actually go about hunting them. They were exceedingly scrupulous planners. As if they were something that Toshio and Seishin could stop by haphazardly working together. 

Seen off by Seishin who looked to him guiltily,Toshio spent time thinking in his own room. Toshio stood up. A shelt, a desk, he heard the sound of something like that falling. He left his own room towards the living room at the same time his mother was coming out in her night clothes down the hallway looking consterned. 

"What was that noise? It sounds like something fell?"

"No clue," Toshio answered, peering into the nearby room. Not seeing anything out of the ordinary he went up to the second floor. The room closest to the stairway--formerly Toshio's own room---currently a room with a bed in it, for the married couple in pretext. When he opened the door, with a very strong whiff of cosmetics, he saw Kyouko's form fallen prostrate over the dresser.

"--Oi!" Toshio hurried in. Kyouko had fallen forward onto the dresser, gripping at the front chest portion of her night clothes. They must have been scattered out when she fell, the cosmetics bottles spilled onto the floor, several with the lids off spilling a stain onto the carpet.

"Toshio, what on earth?"

Moving before the shrill voiced Takae did, he turned her towards the light and peered at Kyouko's face. He could tell at a glance cyanosis was occurring. Her breathing was labored. Ensuring her airway was open, he observed her breathing. Her breaths were spontaneous. They were shallow, mixed with wheezing noises. ---She's fine, he breathed out faintly. It wasn't to the point where her condition was a race against time. It was within bounds where Toshio could treat her himself. 

"Mom, take her legs. We'll take her to the treatment room."

"I will do no such thing!"

Toshio shouted as his openly repugnant mother. "Carry her! You want her to die?!" 

Takae's eyes widened with fright as she took Kyouko's legs with a resentful look. Sufferingly working her down the steps, once taken to the hospital portion of the building she was put onto a stretcher.

"Toshio... How is Kyouko-san?"

"I don't think it's serious but I can't say for sure. I'll treat her, so call Yasuyo-san for me. Tell her the situation and that I need her help ASAP."

Takae nodded, flustered. "Hashiguchi-san, yes?" 

Watching Takae head to the main wing as if she were fleeing, Toshio looked down at his own wife. He'd noticed it when making sure her airway was open. There were two bite marks on the vein on her neck.

Why didn't he notice? Come to think of it, lately Kyouko had been strangely moderate. Whenever she came back her fights with Takae would be unending, but not this time. Almost as if she weren't here, confined to her room, Toshio himself lost sight of the fact that she was. 

It was that. --And it was entering the later stages. 

Why, he thought, wanting to blame himself. Why did he think that they would keep this up while avoiding them? However it was that they chose their victims, even just as a matter of probability, there was no way they should have gotten by safely. It wasn't strange at all that the harm would come to one of their own. No, it was in fact lucky that they'd gotten by safely this long.

But thinking that, Toshio glared into space. ---Was it really true that they'd gotten by safely to this point?

"There's Tohru-kun......"

Yes, Mutou's son had of course been a victim of theirs. And then?

"......They got us."

Sudden resignations. 

Shimoyama the X-Ray technician, and also Towada. What would you call them if not victims and losses?

Comments

Re: 8D

[airlynx]

I haven't heard that we have anything like clerkship here, but it sounds like some sort of training, so that's good! There's all kinds of training we have to do to become doctors...but I'm thinking that's good, since even though I would like to be able to become a doctor in just 4 years or so, I wouldn't like to be treated by someone who has only been training for 4 years. Good luck on that scholarly paper! Is that like a thesis?

I think the content of the system is still important to Seishin, because it really holds him back the most out of anything I can think of right now. For instance, his faith, the temple, is a big part of Sotoba, Seishin's life, and the system. I'd argue that it's his position as the Junior Monk that keeps him stuck in Sotoba most of all. We can't even say that he's only there for the sake of being in the system, because that would be illogical for any person. What I mean is that his religion has played a big role in his life, and it's hard not to have that leave an imprint on you. Even if someone with a religious background grows up an atheist, religion is still going to shape you at the very least because you have memories of religion shaping your life. Especially in a town like Sotoba which encourages religion, it would be hard to go against it--not that Seishin does. I also find it interesting that Seishin, while rebelling against his faith, isn't rebelling by rejecting it altogether, but subscribing himself to a different faith.

Even Ozaki, who isn't very pious or devout, still has his Buddhist altar and probably also has Buddhist traditions that play a part of his life even if they're not explicitly mentioned in the text. Perhaps it's easier to see the extent of religion's influence on the village by looking at citizens who are not as affiliated with the temple. The actual clergymen will mostly always be religious, no surprise there, but it makes a big difference if the clergymen have a lot of power, through faith, in the surrounding community or not.

So as much as Seishin is an independent thinker and wants to believe in his own kind of God, the religion he grows up with is obviously going to be a big influence, and to be religious requires a strong faith and personal devotion--and I think that that kind of connection is more lasting and harder to break away from than just duty. If Seishin was only stuck to his temple life because of his duties there, it would be easier for him to break away and get a job somewhere else. But he's also tied to his religion--perhaps he feels that by leaving, he'll lose a grasp on the religion he grew up with, even if deep down he has a different faith (I could probably be more specific with this if I was more familiar with Buddhism). So perhaps that's why when he becomes a vampire, Seishin finds it easier to break away, because now he doesn't believe that his faith applies to him. This also makes him a foil to Sunako because Sunako absolutely still considers herself part of God's world, still in position to be judged by Him. This, the idea that faith doesn't apply to Seishin or Sunako, is exactly the point that he makes to her in the end.

The second content that I can think of that binds Seishin to Sotoba is Ozaki. Friends root you to places very well--just looking at Natsuno, the main reason he was able to connect with the village at all was because of Tohru, and then later Akira and Kaori. And they were kids that he knew for only a year or so--whereas Seishin has been hanging around Ozaki for years. Even if Seishin doesn't care about Ozaki that much, Ozaki remains a symbol to Seishin of his past, and also is a very active figure in his life that keeps Seishin in the 'real world', as it were. While Seishin would have perhaps been more passive about the shiki situation, Ozaki goes out and forces him to stalk vampires with him at night, and proposes the idea of fighting them. He introduces urgency to Seishin's life that perhaps makes him uncomfortable.

And that all ties in with Seishin not being included in the system if you think of him as not being a content inside of the system as well. I imagine it as the system being a net, with each component of it being a knot. The knots are all part of the system, working together, fixed inside it, and Seishin is a ball that's rolling around in the net, close to the parts of the system but not a part of it himself even though he's so close. And the fact that he, as a ball, is the only mobile part of the system, shows how much the system changes him and how much he responds to it or even contemplates it. The other 'knots' are just THERE. They don't get manipulated so much by the system so much as just help it work the way it always has. And of course Seishin wants to get out, deep down, if he' does see the system as a net he must escape.

I usually watch series for the characters--I liked all parts of Free! except for the actual sports parts, lol. I'm just not into watching sports...like a lot of places have everyone hyped up for soccer or the World Cup or something like that, but I just don't like watching something I can't be a part of, I suppose. I love tennis, but I don't watch matches on TV.

I think the best way, maybe the only way, you can tell if you're compatible with a person is by having a serious discussion with them rather than superficial. Something that really matters, with immediate importance and real consequence, like the epidemic going around. It's putting both Seishin and Ozaki on edge because it's so urgent, and it's unlike anything they've seen before so tensions run high. It's easy to bond over superficial stuff, but there's really no way to be superficial when faced with an event like this one, is there? You can't put up polite pretenses or putting your 'best face forward' like we talked about earlier because what's actually going on is more important than seeming agreeable. Seishin thinks that Ozaki is being immoral, and Ozaki thinks that Seishin isn't being proactive enough. It's interesting to think about, how even someone you've gotten along with well for years can actually be an incompatible person to you and that can be revealed through going through a tough, serious situation.

Re: 8D

[(Anonymous)]

8D -- hmm I guess so. So you call it thesis there? Since here in my country the term 'thesis' is only used for masters' program -- that is, the paper masters students have to complete in order to graduate. For doctoral program, it's dissertation. These differences are pretty interesting.

Yes, I agree that religion is important to Seishin. Very important, in fact, that he's unable to see things beyond it. I think to him system is basically how the world -- the whole universe, I'd say -- works, and since he's been exposed to an organized religion his whole life, this religion becomes the system to him. It has God as the highest authority, the one who governs; the followers as the citizens; the area God governs (Sotoba); and the laws. What Seishin wants is to be a part of all these. Unfortunately, he's essentially different in that he's not to be acknowledged in order to be accepted or denied, according to him. I figure it's because he, as his genuine self, isn't an existence to be included within its laws so much to be recognized -- like perhaps say, a Holy Book. If something isn't included in it, it will not have any rules constricting it. That way, you'll not be able to judge it in order to accept it or give it punishment. Seishin sees this as being isolated -- because no one will ever acknowledge his genuine self. He can only be a part of the system when he plays as 'little brother' or his monk persona, but it's eating at him because that's not his genuine self.

I think this is why he looks 'uncertain' to some degree? Like, he's neither fully here nor there in terms of belief. I think as his genuine self he doesn't share the faith Sotoba has, that he has his own ideas about how God is supposed to be like, but you're right in that his being exposed to Buddhism all his life will shape that. All the more because he's honestly trying to actually be a real believer -- or, he probably 'plays' a believer so that he can still be within the order. I view the word 'order' the recent chapters use as 'system' in general; faith, God, world, universe, so on. Other readers perhaps see it differently.

So yeah, I think it takes him being turned into a Jinrou -- being a being that's not human being -- to truly realize that since he's not a human anymore, he's no longer a part of the human system. As a person with lifelong religious influences, I think he'll see it as being excluded from God's system/jurisdiction. God's followers are human beings, forming a human system ruled by God's laws. So what happens when you're not a human anymore? The thing is, from the start Seishin already feels not a 'human being', in my opinion. At least, not one who acts or thinks like other human beings do.

I'm also like that actually lol (watching sports anime for the characters' sake only) but baseball quite intrigues me that perhaps when I got to rereading Diamond no Ace I'd take the trouble to learn about its games.

I guess what I like from them is, even if they aren't exactly compatible they do actually try to make things work together all these years (Seishin does it by adapting to Toshio except when he does things Seishin just has to confront him about and by trying to sympathize with where he comes from, Toshio by accepting Seishin as he is, leaving him to his own devices except when he has to confront him about his certain skewed ideas, and by hiding certain things from him, lol sure). There's a limit to this though, sure. What I like from them also is, that their incompatibility doesn't make them dislike one another. They don't think they can work from technical angle, but their feelings are definitely still with the other. I think this is a great deal.

Re: 8D

[airlynx]

I've heard thesis used for undergraduates, graduates, and doctoral candidates. For undergraduates, we call it an 'undergraduate thesis', for graduates it's just a thesis, and for doctoral candidates you can say either thesis or dissertation, with 'thesis' being more informal.

I agree with your analysis about Seishin's religion. I think it's interesting, and says a lot about Seishin in general also, how he doesn't really force himself to break the system like he always wanted. Seishin always needs a slight push to get things done, and in this case the push is him becoming a jinrou. Once he's a jinrou, he knows he really has no choice but to get out of the system, so he stops considering himself a part of it. This is what he's wanted all along so that's a bonus, but the fact is that Seishin tends to be shaped by what happens to him rather than making things happen. He lets the Sotoba system control him and force him into trying to meld himself into the system, and then later he lets his new identity as a jinrou provide a convenient excuse for him to leave the system. It's not a bad thing necessarily, but it shows him as a much different person than he would be if he had quit the system on his own prior to becoming a jinrou.

I wonder how much his influences with Buddhism led him to take the actions he did throughout the novel--just straight Buddhism, without interacting with the system. Again, I could be more thorough if I knew more about that faith, but I do know that Buddhism preaches peace (most religions do). And Seishin, being used to valuing life so much (even more so perhaps after performing the funeral ceremonies), finds that he can't fight the Shiki because it goes against everything he has been taught; it just goes against the moral code that his religion has ingrained in him. I think Buddhism influences that more than Seishin's own inner religion because he never really mentions, in his essays or monologues, that his God values life (not to say that his God doesn't value life, Seishin just doesn't MENTION it, so it stands out less). Ozaki's not as influenced, so that (along with just being that kind of person) lets him fight the Shiki without such qualms.

Do you get any opportunities to play baseball where you're from? You should try it out if you do! If you like watching it, chances are you'll love being a part of it even better. Do you follow live-action baseball too now because of your experience with Diamond no Ace?

It takes a very mature person to be able to accept someone's opinions if those opinions are the polar opposite of your own. And doing so is also a sign that you care about that person a lot....hey, isn't that proof that Seishin cares about Toshio/ isn't indifferent toward him like we discussed earlier?