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[Chidori is standing in the living area of her home, her mother and father lying dead at her feet. Shiso, Wei, and assorted Mikage goons are before her...] Chidori: "You... you must be Shiso... y-you..." Shiso: "That's none of your concern, girl. Just come with us--NOW. I've been in a very foul temper." Chidori [looking at the bodies of her grandfather and grandmother]: "Grand... pa... Grandm... wh-why..." |
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[Chidori's body erupts with Tennyo power, energy crackling around her as she screams.] Chidori: "WHY DID YOU HAVE TO KILL THEM?!" [View from outside Chidori's home--the roof explodes in several places, fire belching from the windows] |
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[Shiso, Wei, and the Mikage goons are utterly unharmed, and brusquely dust themselves off.] Wei: "I'm sorry, but that power isn't effective against us anymore, Chidori-san." [Wei shows off a bracelet he's wearing... which glows with an eerily familiar energy.] Wei: "This protective shield has been infused with the power of the Tennyo... just like you." [Mikage goons take hold of Chidori by the shoulders.] Chidori: "Wait... what are you... get your hands off me!" Shouta's voice: "Sis!" |
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Chidori: "Shouta?!" Shouta: "What... are these people?" Wei: "Just do exactly what we tell you... after all, you wouldn't want anything to happen to that child." |
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[Chidori is handcuffed and bundled up into the trunk of a limo. Shiso and Wei get into the backseat as the car pulls away.] Shiso: "Hmph... you see? Take away a Tennyo's power, and she's nothing more than an ordinary woman. This time, we'll get Ceres for certain." Shiso: "I've received word that Aya Mikage and Tooya are on Hachijoujima island. The Mikage family owns a vacation home there." Wei: "Hachijoujima...?" Shiso: "It's an island on the Pacific side... a little south of Tokyo, I think." |
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Shiso [musing to himself]: "The Pacfic... ahh, the sea." [The scene shifts to Hachijoujima island... night time...] |
| Page 378 |
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[...the Mikage vacation home.] Aya [ecstatic]: "Tooya!!" |
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Aya: "I'm so glad you're okay, Tooya! You had fallen ill on that remote island, and I had a fisherman bring you here--" Caretaker: "Well, I'm glad he's comin' roun'... I think I'll leave y'two alone now." Aya: "Thank you so much for everything, ma'am!" Caretaker: Hm, jus get y'self some rest, hear?" [The caretaker leaves the room, the door closing behind her.] Aya: "That's the caretaker of this vacation home. She was worried about you and was tending to you." [mumbling] "Sometimes I don't quite understand her dialect, though..." {The Caretaker was speaking a rather strange and obscure dialect of Japanese... since nothing she said translated very well if taken literally, I decided to give her an indeterminate accent in the translation.} |
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Tooya: "The summer home here... ah. I think I'm starting to recall what happened on that island. I'm sorry if I worried you." Aya: "Oh, don't worry about it... um... oh, hey, Tooya... I... I just remembered! Nine years ago, I met you on that deserted island... but I'd forgotten. I was only eight years old, but..." |
| Page 381 |
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Aya: "...but it was like you already looked just like you do now! Isn't that weird? But that was a long time ago, so... I get it! You must be nearly 30 years old, right? Some people just don't look their age, and if that's so, then it's not so strange." [Aya looks really flustered and begins babbling.] Aya: "Or... maybe you were the precocious sort! I had a classmate once... we were only in the 5th grade, but she was already much taller, really busty, and looked way grown up! So, like, don't cheat about your age!" If that's the case, Tooya was only 13 when he looked like this! {Aya ended her last sentence with "mitai na~~!" Mari explained that this is slang that young Japanese often end sentences with. Since one translation of "mitai" is "-like", I inserted the Americanism of "like" in Aya's sentence.} |
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Tooya: "At last... I can recall everything... and I..." Aya [looking into Tooya's eyes]: Eh?! Tooya [taking Aya's hand in his]: "...and..." |
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//doku doku// Aya: "They've returned...? The memories... of your past!!" Tooya [closing his eyes and drifting off]: "Mm-hmmn..." [Aya goes SD and shakes Tooya fiercely] Aya: "TOOYA!! It's AYA! REMEMBER?! Earth to Tooya--my name is Aya Mikage!" Tooya: "Get ahold of yourself! I still remember everything up til now just fine!" Tooya [reminiscing]: "Finally... it's all falling into place. The person I was before falling into the employ of the Mikage family... a long time ago... on a long-deserted island..." |
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[The scene fades to a moonlit island. An old man is scrambling around on the rocky shores with a flashlight, following faint sounds...] Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "It was a night of a full moon... " [...the faint sounds of a baby crying in the night... sounds which grow louder as he nears the shore.] |
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Old Man: "A baby...?! Why... who... What'n tarnation's goin on here?" Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "By pure chance, an old man living in reclusion on that island discovered a child... its entire body was glowing faintly, and although it was a human child, it was cocooned in some sort of mucous membrane..." Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "But what surprised the old man the most was what he saw the next day..." |
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[The child, lying on a blanket, appears to have grown overnight... it now appears to be around two or three years old.] Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "And the next day..." [...the child now bears the appearance of a six-year-old...] Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "...and the next day..." [...the child appears older still...] Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "The old man could only watch in stunned amazement every day..." |
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Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "...as the child continued to grow inside the mucous membrane..." Aya: "So--" Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "...until one evening ten days later, he awoke..." Aya: "Are you saying that was YOU, Tooya?!" |
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Aya: "What absolute NONSENSE!! A human being just CAN'T grow to adulthood that quickly!" (This guy must be a movie and manga fiend...) Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "It's definitely like something out of a fairy tale... but I was the main character, whether or not it was a fabrication..." Old Man [cutting Tooya's hair in the memory]: "Ten nights, eh? Well, then I reckon we'll call you 'Tooya'! Gotta wonder who abandoned you... but heck, there's so many mysterious things in this world... ahh. Being a hermit's taught me it takes all kinds, y'know?" {This old man, although he doesn't talk with any particular dialect, does *really* talk like an old man. So I made him sound like a real old-timer as best as I could.} Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "I found out that the old hermit had a house on Hachijoujima... sometimes, he'd disappear for a while... and when he came back, he'd being things back with him to educate me. Language... knowledge..." |
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Tooya: "But I, myself, was forbidden to leave the island. 'It's fer yer own good,' he said. And he was right... until that day." [Tooya is sitting on a grassy ledge, watching the sea. A young girl of about eight years approaches, smiling.] Young Girl: "Mister! What're you doin?" {The girl calls Tooya 'oniichan', which usually means 'big brother'... but in many cases, as in this one, it's just a polite/cute form of address from a young girl to an older male.} Tooya: Who...? Young Girl: "Can't talk, huh? Well, I got somethin for ya!" |
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[The girl gives Tooya a small seashell she found.] Young Girl [beaming happily]: "Take it... it's yours!" Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "It was the first time I'd ever seen or touched a member of the opposite sex..." Old Man: "Tooya?! Ahh! Ya must be th'girl! Yer daddy's gone red'n the face lookin for ya, young lady!" Young Girl: "Aww, I'm busted! Well, byebye 'Tooya'... seeya later!" |
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Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "From that point on, I stared at that seashell every day..." Old Man: "You want to see that girl, don't you?" Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "...I waited in that same spot, at that same time, every day for seven years... hoping to see that smile again." Old Man: "For goodness sake, jus give it up now! Seem I recall her father referred to himself as 'Mikage'... must be tourists from Tokyo. Reckon ya don't got a snowball's chance in hell of ever seein her again." Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "It didn't occur to me to ever leave the island... the imperative to remain was instilled too strongly." Aya [on the verge of crying]: Tooya... Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "But... about two years ago..." |
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Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "...the old man died of some fatal disease. He smiled, and said to me..." Old Man: "I don't got much time left, Tooya. This is where I'll end my days... these here islands used to be a place of exile for criminals and undesirables... reckon it suits me well." Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "I don't know who the old man was..." Old Man: "Say, Tooya... you need t'make a decision bouts whether or not you're goin to live in the human world. Be real easy for you to just stay here all by yourself... so you goin to see that girl?" Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "So I left the island and journeyed to Tokyo... joining the human world with only the name 'Mikage' as a clue, what money the old man gave me in his last moments..." |
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Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "...and that precious seashell." [The Tooya in the story drops said seashell, and looks up just in time to stare into the headlights of an oncoming car...] Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "Before I knew it, I felt a terrible impact on my head. I don't know what happened after that, but it must have been a hit and run accident. I was dumped off in some bushes in a nearby park. I wasn't dead, but my life was never the same after that." Tooya [holding his head in the story and trying to remember]: Who am I? * Mikage * Tooya * for what purpose * I don't understand! Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "I was afraid... I was angry... and I felt like the whole world was my enemy. But Kagami, who I met for the first time in front of the Mikage building, took me in." Tooya [narrating to Aya]: "He was like a second father to me. He taught me many things... how to use guns... how to fight... and how to kill people. 'Don't trust anyone,' he told me. 'After all, humans were meant to be alone.' Once I began to believe that, I started feeling nothing. I even managed to kill off my own heart. I don't know why... but I still just wanted to see that girl..." |
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Tooya [turns and looks at Aya]: "...to see you." Aya: ...for me... Tooya: "I wonder how differently things might've been for you and I... if I hadn't lost my memory. Perhaps we didn't have to become enemies... perhaps without causing each other such suffering--and much sooner--" Aya: "No! You couldn't help it!" |
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Aya: "It's my fault as well... if I'd remembered you, you might've remembered your own past sooner. It must've been awful for you! But from now on... from now on..." Tooya: "Aya... even though I've remembered my past, I still don't know what I am... and I still don't have the whole story. I'm NOT normal. Even so, you were--" Aya: "What are you talking about?! If that's so, then I'm not normal either! I'm the descendant of a frigging Tennyo, for crying out loud! You tell me what IS normal! Who decides? I'm not ashamed of being different from other people! What's important is that we live our lives to the fullest--" |
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Aya: "--and that we're together forever!" Tooya: "Aya...!" [Tooya embraces Aya fiercely] Tooya: "For the first time... I feel my destiny pulling me towards you... and only you." Tooya: That we could be together... no matter how many times we forget, we become attracted once more. No matter how many times we're separated, we still meet again. It's like we're being drawn to each other. |
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Tooya: I feel as if I've been looking for something for ages... and finally... I found you. Ever since before that summer... we've been filled with an overwhelming need for each other... a yearning since the day we were born. |
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Tooya: My heart and body have been consecrated to you... "Aya... perhaps I washed up, adrift from the sea." Aya: "Hmm?" Tooya: "I remember now... in some other countries, in their legends of the Hagoromo... the Tennyo came not from the sky, but from the sea. She removed her Hagoromo and became a normal human woman." Ceres [in Aya's mind]: ** seven more months ** |
| Page 400 |
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Ceres [in Aya's mind]: Now, all has become clear... Aya [holding her head in pain]: "Unh... wha... Ceres?!" Tooya: "Aya..." [a lock of dark black hair drifts in Tooya's face, where once before there was only Aya's blonde tresses. Ceres emerges... and opens her eyes.] Tooya: "...Ceres!" Ceres: "...now we know... it was Aya who knew you before, Tooya, and not I. I've been watching you silently in the hopes that if you knew me before, you might know where my Hagoromo is..." |
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Tooya: "Me... the Hagoromo...?" Ceres: "I'm sorely disappointed. Aya, are you listening in on this also? If you cannot find the Hagoromo in seven more month---little more than half a year--then the pact between us is void... and I will destroy every last living Mikage. That obviously includes Shiso--your brother, Aki. Do you understand? I will obliterate him." Aya [trapped in her own mind]: "A half year...?!" |
| Continued next issue... |