sinnesspiel | Shiki Novel Translations 3.15.1

It was nine o'clock on the night of the twenty third when the temple office phone rang. Seishin casually picked up the receiver. From the other end came a woman's voice, sounding dismayed.

"Hello, this is the Tsurumis?"

Ah, Seishin's voice came. Yesterday, Tsurumi had taken the day off, unable to come in.

"You must be his wife? How is Tsurumi-san's condition?"

"He has died. And so, I thought it would be best to tell you..."

"My," he began to say, but the word 'condolences' would not work its way from his throat. As for why, it was because Seishin knew that it would come to this. Kyouko died. And likely the hospital's Shimoyama and Towada, and likely the elderly woman who had been working part time was the same. Sumi had followed a similar pattern, and if so, he had thought that Tsurumi might as well.

Perhaps misunderstanding Seishin's silence, Tsurumi's wife continued.

"Yesterday, he was acting just too strange, so I brought him to the clinic. When I did, they said that it was his liver. My husband, he did love his sake. He had been warned about what his blood test had said, but I couldn't stop him from having a drink with his dinner."

Is that so, Seishin murmured, at last saying his condolences.

"And then, before he took his last breath, he had said his wishes," Tsurumi's wife
spoke hesitantly. "Uhm, I truly hope that you don't take these words the wrong way, in a bad way, but my husband, that is, he... The temple is so busy now, he said that we must not trouble you any further. He said once he died, to please have him taken to the undertaker. ---And so, I just don't know what to..."

This might have been Tsurumi's way of being considerate. Or it might have been... the doubt was heavy in his heart. If it was consideration, it was all the more heavy on the heart. Having realized what the Shiki were and yet showing such consideration. That such a person had died bore such a complicated feeling that the words would not come.

"I wonder what this could all mean."

"...... Thank you very much. I do not take any offense or odd meaning at his wishes, so please, as his wife, proceed as you see fit."

"Is that right? No, then, as they were his last words, then."

"I understand. Of course, I would still ask the details of when his funeral will be."

Yes, Tsurumi's wife agreed with a sigh of relief. With that, at last the tears came through in her voice. You had looked after him for so long, she said. And he us, Seishin returned.

Hanging up the phone, he turned towards the inside of the office. In the tea room, Miwako was alone, knitting.

"Mother, it seems Tsurumi-san has died."

My, Miwako said, stiffening. "That's... but how?"

"It seems his liver had gone bad. Could you inform Ikebe-kun? I will report this to Father."

Yes, Miwako said standing. Seishin turned to leave. He called out from outside of the door but there was no answer. Thinking he might be asleep, he opened the door. Inside, the light was off. Stepping inside and turning on the light, Seishin then stood petrified.

Shinmei was not there. His bed unmade, an empty husk, Shinmei was nowhere to be found. Seishin could feel himself growing pale. Hurrying to the main room, Miwako was just returning towards the tea room from informing Ikebe.

"Mother-Father isn't there."

"My!" Miwako cried out in dismay. Ikebe too was stiff as a pole where he stood. "But that shouldn't... Your father cannot, not on his own...."

Seishin nodded. When he realized he could not see Shinmei anywhere, what quickly rose from the back of his mind as that he may have been taken somewhere. Meishin had once pushed himself too far in attempting rehabilitation and had broken a bone.

They remembered that time. Shinmei was found groaning in pain in a place he shouldn't have been. Seishin had secretly found his walking training to be futile, and yet he had undertaken it to cross a small distance, and collapsed there. He couldn't say for certain that wasn't what had happened here again.

Miwako may have thought as much, for she began hurriedly searching around. Ikebe called for Mitso, Mitsuo and Katsue came running. All of them searched about within the temple, but Shinmei was not to be found.

"What... do we do?" Mitsuo asked, to which Seishin looked down.

"At any rate, we should contact the police."

He couldn't think that Shinmei had left the temple under his own capacity. Someone had taken Shinmei out. It was possible he was kidnapped.

Mitsuo dialed countless times, although with no answer, he slammed it down.

"I have heard that the new stationed officer is only ever seen at night."

At the lingering Katsue's words, Seishin knit his brows. Come to think of it, Seishin had never met the stationed officer. He had never come around to give a proper introduction, and until today Seishin had been too busy to go to see him while hurrying about dealing with the epidemic and the Shiki.

"Tonight's the one time he's gone to bed early, then? Then I'm going to go batter him awake," Mitsuo said bracing himself to leave the office. Miwako turned her worried expression on Seishin. Without either saying what it was in regards to, he gave Miwako a nod while thinking privately that Mitsuo would in fact be unable to meet the residential officer. He would come back saying he wasn't there, he wouldn't come out. He had no basis for this, but he still had such a feeling.

Seishin put his hand on the phone and for a moment thought to call Toshio. Is Shinmei there, he thought he might ask. And yet, his hand lowered, having only considered it. What good would saying anything to Toshio do. Toshio was a doctor. Sure, he could treat the sick, but he wasn't anything special at anything else. He wouldn't be able to track down Shinmei. He would just get mad and be absolutely no help at all.

Thinking that far, Seishin realized how awfully stubborn he was being. He didn't know why. But clearly, he was committing himself stubbornly in opposition to Toshio.

Why was he so against Toshio? Toshio could be rash in his actions, but even so he had no doubt that Toshio was exhausting himself for the sake of the villagers. You could even say he was barbaric in his desperation to help. Whether one thought this was a calamity brought on by Shiki, or whether one thought of this as a spreading disease, it didn't change that the village was in peril. It needed to be saved. If nobody took action, this village will be annihilated. And there was no longer much time left.

Even understanding that, he could not summon the panic he'd felt when he had once believed "it's an epidemic."

(At this rate, the village is...)

The image of the desolate ruins came to mind. Thinking of that, he could remember his sense of danger, and yet when he thought of the Shiki loitering about there, he came to think there was simply no avoiding it.

Shinmei isn't here, he tried to remind himself. Was he kidnaped, or something else. Either way, he would likely be unable to see him alive again. Seishin did love and respect Shinmei. He was his father and his master. To lose him was to miss him. To accept that they would never meet again was painful, and yet Seishin could not rouse any outrage for the Shiki who may have abducted him. Rather than any anger towards Shiki who had abducted Shinmei--who had very likely killed him---he was still furious with Toshio, who killed Shiki.

(I am...)

There was a darkness within himself. It approved of the Shiki's actions. Just as he once thought his own death a good thing, he now thought the death of the village good.

---Thus art thou cursed, driven from this land, become forever a wandering drifter.

He had always felt this single strain of discord between himself and the world. In slaughtering his brother, he had bared that severance and succeeded in establishing it before them. As he thought back on it now, it may be the only thing he had ever succeeded at in his entire time on the hill.

Starting with his neighbors, not a single one of them had realized the sin he had committed. Nor the Sage; he too did not realize his sin. He held his brother's remains wrapped in cloth and cried his voice hoarse. His lament was genuine. He had forfeit his little brother and his world. He could not but wish from the bottom of his heart for his brother's revival. For that part of him, his neighbors felt pity, for his sake they had shed tears.

But his sin became clear.

From the thicket to the town, he took his brother to the temple where he was taken to a room deep within and beyond his reach for the sacrament, bathed in expensive oils and dressed in a new burial garb before being returned out. Before the funeral, he and his brother would climb the tower with the sage. They were to report this death to God.

At the top floor of the narrow tower were even higher steeples. At that summit which no man could climb was a pure point of light. At the foot of that altar, the sage offered the little brother's husk, he bowed his head and reported that the child of God would return under His protection.

A voice rained down from the summit of the steeple above the Sage, the oracle. The Wise Man looked up at the light, and then turned towards him, his countenance going pale. The pity and compassion that had colored his features until then were no longer there.

--What sin hast thou committed?

He only stared at the Sage's face in shock. The Sage looked even more bewildered than himself.

Oddly, until that time, he had not imagined his sin would be exposed. Not in the sense that he had been so sure he would succeed in hiding it. It was that he had never imagined it for having lost himself in the grief of losing his brother, his point of contact with the world, and for the grief of no longer being able to touch the world again.

His lamentations were sincere, there was no artifice in his tears. On the contrary, it was with hopes that God might bring a miracle to call back his little brother which he climbed the tower.

But the radiance did not overlook his sin. That was clear and unabashed. It was he and no other who had slaughtered his flesh and blood, and it was now known that he was the culprit who had robbed himself of his brother and the world.

Thus was his sin and his loss confirmed.

The people who had until now pitied him, shed tears for him, offered their comfort, suddenly gathered stones, hurling them as they sobbed. No longer were their tears for him.

Their rage was shouted at him. Censure, debasement, resentment and curses, all of it was shrouded over him, and within that he could not but stand in earnest bewilderment.

He was knocked down from there, the mark of his sin drove into him. When asked the reason for the violence, there where he had sought comfort and warmth, he had not a single word, not a thing that he could say or put forth in order to save himself.

When asked why, he could not answered with anything but silence. When asked if he hated his brother so, he could not answer in the negative.

The Sage, colored with his sorrow, passed down judgement upon him.

---Thus art thou cursed, driven from this land, become forever a wandering drifter.

He obediently accepted it. Drug from the temple, sand was cast after him to purify the sin of his passing presence. He was now so thusly cursed. Thusly was he followed to the wall, and driven by stones thrown by his former neighbors, he reached the gate to the eat. It was the first he had seen this gate, and the first he had seen it open. Beyond the castle walls was spread out a purely melancholic and frozen wasteland.

Look upon this darkness.

Compared to the splendor of the hill, what think thee of this darkness. From within the gate, the Sage pointed to the wasteland.

This is the darkness of Avidya, of ignorance, and filthy with this darkness, thou art cursed.

Saying such as he gestured, the Sage pushed him from behind. Stumbling forward several steps he staggered into the wasteland, as the golden gate behind him closed.

Shiki Novel Translations 3.15.1

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