Novel Vol 8 Epilogue (Ōgondōji and Ōdanna)

The majestic Ōdanna-sama, whom I'm sure many of us miss... (art by Laruha)

In Vol 7 Ch 2, we have learned about what happened to Ōdanna from Ritsuko-san. There are 8 more chapters in Vol 7 and 12 chapters in Vol 8 before we can learn about Ōdanna’s situation from his perspective. Thus, as per my recent post, I have jump-translated Volume 8 Epilogue which depicts a conversation between Ōgondōji and Ōdanna, narrated by Ōdanna-sama. However, particularly for those who prefer not to jump-read, I have summarised Vol 7 Ch 3 here. I will return to translate Vol 7 Ch 4 in early-mid April June (2021, that is). To see Volume 8 chapter list, click here. To read my translation in other languages, check this tips.

To give a bit of context, I have included the excerpt of the last bit of Vol 8 Ch 7 where Ōgondōji picked up Aoi to meet Ōdanna. MAJOR SPOILERS of course, due to the jumping, so, once again, feel free to skip this chapter and the subsequent chapters. I’ll see you again in mid-April for Vol 7 Ch 4. 

Please refrain from posting my translations elsewhere. If you need to quote it, please acknowledge my site for the quote, because translating from Japanese hardcopy texts to English is a really hard work...

I will delete this translation when there is an indication that the novel will be translated into English and I will replace it with the summary of the chapter.  Meanwhile, thank you for reading! 

-xxx-

Vol 8: I Will Revitalise Another Inn for the Spirits

Excerpt from the end of Vol 8 Chapter 7 (“Towards the Next Stage”):

P265

And then, I walk on the golden path, towards Ōgondōji-sama, who looks much younger than me but rather too magnificent even for Tenjin-ya. 

“Tell me about Ōdanna-sama. Please.”

“…Okay.  I’ve been wondering if you can accept the truth^ about him, Aoi.”

P266

Together with Ōgondōji, I boarded an airship with a tanuki family crest.

I want to know the truth about Ōdanna-sama. I want to meet Ōdanna-sama. I miss Ōdanna-sama^. By knowing this truth, I also want to find a resolution to my ever-trembling heart.

-xxx-

Vol 8 Epilogue: Ōgondōji and Ōdanna

P267

In the stagnant darkness, my consciousness awakens. 

I am…

I am… Who am I?

“It seems you’ve woken up, Setsu.”

“…Ōgondōji-sama.”

Setsu.

It feels like a long time since someone called me by that name. Ever since, my real name has always been “Ōdanna of Tenjin-ya”.

The only one who knows my real name is this blonde golden-eyed zashiki-warashi who awakened me from the deep underground…

The only one who knows my name is Ōgondōji-sama...

“When I heard that you had been taken prisoner by the King, I wondered what kind of tomfoolery that you were thinking… Just what the heck were you thinking, Setsu? Why, you would have easily escaped, wouldn’t you?” 

Although Ōgondōji-sama was expressionless as she said those words, she is actually worried. 

P268

During my tenure as the Master of Tenjin-ya, she had also been pretending to be unkind^.

I chuckle. “You’re thinking too highly of me, Ōgondōji-sama. Yet, I do think that it’s better for Tenjin-ya if I disappear for good in this crisis.”

“You, what is your expectation from the people of Tenjin-ya?”

“Expectation? No, I’m being truthful here. My disappearance will actually protect them and Tenjin-ya.”

“… I can’t believe that it is what you’re thinking. Are you thinking of stepping down from being ‘the Master’?”

I didn’t respond to Ōgondōji-sama’s words. Instead, I rose from the bed and checked out my own form. Beforehand, my true form was exposed. Yet, now I look like my usual self. My heart palpitation is…normal.

“Ōgondōji-sama, what did you do to my true form?”

“Oh yeah. Your human form^^ was forcibly stripped off and your inserted “core” cracked*. I’ve repaired them.  Having said that, they’re still unstable. Just a bit of trigger will break them once more. Keep that in mind.”

“Got it.”

I then survey the room.

P269

The room is a small tatami-room surrounded by white fusuma sliding doors. The place is…

“Is this the north-west … The Cultural Gate, the Bunmon of North-western Land?”

“Yeah. You are hidden here thanks to the formidable protection of the strong-willed Bunmon tanuki. Now I’ll fetch your bride.”

My reaction upon hearing those words is as plain as day for all to see. My gaze, previously surveying the surroundings at will, now returns to Ōgondōji-sama.

“You will summon Aoi?”

“Yeah. That girl, to bring you home, she sneaked into the Imperial Palace of Yōto and encountered disasters in the snowy mountain of the North.” Ōgondōji-sama chuckles before resuming, “I lost count how many times she almost died. Setsu, you shaved off your life to lift off the girl’s curse. Even I can’t save you.”

“………”

I close my eyes once and recall Aoi’s shape and countenance.

Aoi. Because of Shirō’s debts, I kidnapped and brought her to Tenjin-ya. My bride.

Although as a human she is weak and fragile, she is dazzling and sparkling.

I have a feeling that I’ve met her only once in Yōto. Although I have little remaining consciousness about myself during that time period, I can’t remember that meeting properly.^

P270

What did Aoi say to me at that time, again?

“Do you want to meet that girl, Setsu?”

Upon hearing Ōgondōji-sama’s question, I slowly opened my eyes and glared to find her.

“No need to glare like that.  I’m not kidding. However, apparently, we finally have a girl who makes your face look like that, eh?”

“It’s not that I’m happy about it, Ōgondōji-sama. In your view, does Aoi exhibit concerns of a wife^?”

She chuckles. “It seems so… Well, I think we need to make sure of it just a bit more. Having said that, that girl is very much like Shirō. Her course of events is different, but she walks her way through this Kakuriyo and trifles with the ayakashi. She’s similar to Shirō in her unreasonable ways."

“…Shirō, eh?”

Tsubaki Shirō.

From the moment I met that guy in Kakuriyo until his death, we were always in conflict with each other, but only to the extent of having a sense of conflicts with a member of your family.  That guy only ever had one request for me. 

And that request is…

“The time to fulfil your promise to Shiro is imminent,” Ogondoji-sama whispered while looking at nothing in particular.

P271

And then, while sitting on a golden embroidered zabuton, she lifted a temari ball which was laying next to her. 

“You've slept for so long, you must be hungry, right? Eat this.”

Ōgondōji-sama cracked open the temari ball in two and took out a dorayaki from within. It was a dorayaki, one of her favourite food, made by the Daiko Kushi Seika, the Great Lake Skewer Confectionery^. She placed the dorayaki in front of me.

“Sorry I don’t have your.  Favourite. Food.”

“No, it's not that I dislike dorayaki; I often received dorayaki from you since my infancy^^. However, the Great Lake stuff* is unexpected.”

“I can’t help it. This one is my favourite food.”

Well, I’m certainly hungry. Being hungry depletes my psychic power and that’s the death knell for ayakashi. Thus, I’m not holding back. Well, at times like this, if I’m eating Aoi’s home-made food… that might be more than enough to satisfy my body and soul.

“That’s good, that’s good…”

Ōgondōji-sama threw a newspaper towards me who was stuffing myself with the dorayaki. The newspaper is the Yōto Daily.

“Anyway, wait here while you read this.”

She opened the fusuma, stepped into a garden of blooming golden flowers, and disappeared amidst the swaying flowers. 

P272

As per usual, she prefers to use mysterious means.

As for me, while gulping down the dorayaki, my eyes are scanning the newspaper. 

The Master of Tenjin-ya is an abominable jyaki!

The so-called jyaki is a pack of lies, the aim is the King's throne!

Doubts voiced against the Hachiyō system

And there they are, the irresponsible remarks and situations of Kakuriyo, severely written, aimed at me, the detestable jyaki.

Aah… of course I understand that things would be like this. However, none of these words reverberate in my heart. When the Kakuriyo folks sealed me, I realised the depth of their hatred towards me being a jyaki^.

However, what does Aoi think of me now? I heard she's done unreasonable things in order to bring me home.

“………”

I summon oni-fire on my palm, burning the newspaper completely.

P273

And then, with my hand that still has traces of the heat, I suppress my “heart”, the heart^ that is protected by lies. 

Well… I need to make my move soon.

“I will meet Aoi soon.”

My promise to Shirō. And then, my promise to Aoi during her childhood.

Whatever happens to me in the future, I will definitely strife to keep those promises. 

(TBC in Vol 9 Prologue)

-xxx

Translation notes:

Following Kakuriyo Translation & Fan Translator By Choice, I put the page numbers of the original novel volumes (the Japanese version) in the translation to enable any readers who can read Japanese and have the books to examine the related pages. If the last sentence of a page goes over the next page, I will put a combined page number as an indication. 

I use mainly Jisho.org for Kanji searching, though at times Romajidesu.com and Nihongo-pro.com are used as well. I use Google Translator to have a rough guess of the meaning of phrases, but then I consult my trusted Japanese grammar book for the closer approximations of the meanings (the “Japanese the Manga Way” by Wayne P. Lammers – I would have otherwise tripped on nuances such as “kita”, “iku” and “okimasu”). I use The Jaded Network for SFX effect translations.

Specific translation notes

P265: ^ The Japanese phrase is「それを受け入れられるかどうか」 and I interpret それを or “that thing” as “the truth about [Ōdanna]”.

P266: Aoi actually said 「大旦那様に、会いたい」, which literally means "I want to see/meet Ōdanna-sama". However, 'aitai' also implies missing, as in "I miss you", hence I've added "I miss Ōdanna-sama" in this sentence.

P268: ^ The Japanese phrase is「試すような意地悪ばかりしているのに」, but I think it should be interpreted that Ōgondōji was just pretending to be mean with her monotone and expressionless attitude.

^^ The Japanese words are 「化けの皮」 obake no kawa or “the skin of disguise”, but I translate it as “human form”

* The Japanese sentence is「ヒビの入った　“核” は、修繕しておいた」. The word 入った ‘haitta’ belongs to 核, which is the ‘core’, while ヒビ is ‘crack’ or ‘fissure’. I’m interested in the phrase 入った核  ('the inserted core'), because it implies that Ōdanna-sama’s 'core' was once inserted into his body. Which means, that 'core' was not the “original” core. I think I know what it is, actually, and Vol 9 Prologue might explain it…

P269: ^ Ōdanna’s sentences were「妖都で一度だけ彼女と会った気がする。あの時はもう、僕としての意識もあまり残っておらず、しっかり覚えがあるわけではないが。」– “Yōto de ichido dake kanojo to atta ki ga aru. Ano toki wa mou, boku to shite no ishiki mo amari nokotte orazu, shikari oboe ga aru wake dewa nai ga.”

-- There are two things here. First, Aoi apparently met Ōdanna in Yōto when she was a child (and it will be revealed in Vol 9 Prologue). What I don’t understand is why Ōdanna used the word “I feel” or 気がする. Perhaps because he was just woken up by Ōgondōji after being sealed, hence haven't got all his memories back?

Then the second sentence: I interpret it as “at that time, she didn’t have much awareness about me, but that wasn’t the reason that she didn’t remember me” because of the が ‘ga’ particle at the end, which implies “but” or a negation. The “wake dewa nai” can be seen as “it doesn’t mean that…”, or “that’s not the reason for…” (see JLPT Sensei and Maggie Sensei posts for ‘wake dewa nai’). Hence, yes, Aoi was still a kid when she first met Ōdanna in Yōto, but that wasn’t a reason for her forgetting that meeting.

The answer (of why Aoi didn’t remember meeting Ōdanna in Yōto) might be in Chapter 9 Prologue.

Update 20 Feb 2020: After reading and translating Vol 9 Prologue, there is no indication of Aoi forgetting Ōdanna that she had met Ōdanna in Yōto when she was little. In fact, Ōdanna didn’t mention that he had ever met the little Aoi in Yōto at all. Thus, I looked at the sentence again and realised that that I may have mis-translated that sentence. One of the traps that I fell into was 会ったor ‘met’, thus I didn’t think of the first time Ōdanna took Aoi to Yōto after she took care of Matsuba-sama. Apologies, still N4 here trying to understand an N3 grammar…

Thus, I scratched all those explanations above, but I keep them so that: 1) people learn from my mistake; and 2) people who have read that passage and re-read it again would realise that I have changed it. 

Anyway, upon reading what ‘to shite’ means (click here) and ‘wake dewa nai’ (here and here), this is my new interpretation:

So, Ōdanna’s sentences were「妖都で一度だけ彼女と会った気がする。あの時はもう、僕としての意識もあまり残っておらず、しっかり覚えがあるわけではないが。」-- “Yōto de ichido dake kanojo to atta ki ga aru. Ano toki wa mou, boku to shite no ishiki mo amari nokotte orazu, shikari oboe ga aru wake dewa nai ga.”

I now interpret “boku to shite no ishiki” as Ōdanna’s own consciousness or awareness, 

amari nokotte orazu = not much left, not much remaining (the -zu form means ‘without doing’) 

shikari oboe ga aru = properly remembering

shikari oboe ga aru wake dewa nai ga = it doesn’t mean that I properly remember it.

“I feel that I have encountered her in Yōto once. Although I have little remaining consciousness about myself during that time period, it doesn’t mean that I remember that meeting properly.”

Or, to make it more fluent:

“I have a feeling that I’ve met her only once in Yōto. Although I have little remaining consciousness about myself during that time period, I can’t remember that meeting properly."

Now I interpret that – after him being sealed – Ōdanna needed more time to retrieve his memories. Hence, he hasn’t properly remembered the details about the time he took Aoi to Yōto. And again, sorry for my mis-translation…

End of update 20 Feb 2020

Update 10 October 2022:

I have finally translated Vol 7 Ch 4, and there I learned more things to understand the sentences in p 269 here in Vol 8 Epilogue. I used to interpret it as Ōdanna-sama taking Aoi to Yōto back in Vol 1, but at that time, they talked about many mundane things. After translating Vol 7 Ch 4, I think Ōdanna-sama meant that, once he was freed from jail by Ōgondōji-sama, he met Aoi once outside the capital CBD. There, Ōdanna-sama was too weak to assume a human form, hence he just showed himself as a shadowy figure. He called Aoi and then apologised for not being able to return to her, not when he was "like this" (i.e. looking like a jyaki, his true for). Aoi replied, saying that she didn't care how he looked, she just wanted to see him. However, at the moment he could not remember what she said to him (which is a pity, because in Vol 7 Ch 4, Aoi clearly said that she just wanted to see him, no matter how he looked). 

End of update 10 October 2022

P270: ^ Ōdanna’s question was「葵はあなたの眼鏡にかないそうですか？」. I interpret 'kanai' as 'my wife', though it was written in hiragana かない instead of the kanji 家内. Thus, the verbatim translation is along the line of “In your view, does Aoi look wife-y?”, which I interpret as whether Aoi exhibits concerns of a wife. Another way of interpreting ‘kanai’ かない is 叶い, which means “(a wish) to come true”. Jisho.org has the example of 「あなたの望みがみんな叶いますように」or “May all your wishes come true”, but it seems it doesn’t really fit the sentence. It’s hard without the Kanji to know what it means. But when I entered かない with hiragana in Jisho, what came out is “(my) wife” and it only applies to かない. My Seigo Nakao JP-Eng-JP dictionary also has a single entry of ‘kanai’ 家内, and it means ‘one’s wife’ in the humble form. Thus, I think the translation of ‘kanai’ as ‘(my) wife’ is suitable, particularly concerning how Aoi always rejected the idea of marrying Ōdanna during the first few volumes of the novel, and because Ōdanna was asking this question to Ōgondōji-sama (hence him using the humble form).

P271: ^ Daiko Kushi Seika (The Great Lake Skewer Confectionery) is a confectionery by the Great Lake (of the Northern Land, IINM) whose owner dislikes Aoi's cooking in Vol 7. I jump-translated, so we didn’t get to read that part. However, I will return to translate that part… oh, perhaps by the end of 2021… because the owner is a Hachiyō and she is instrumental in voting in Ōdanna’s favour (Volume 10).

^^ “Since my infancy” is from 幼き頃 – and I take it Ōdanna meant since Ōgondōji awakened him for the first time, hundreds of years ago.

*Possibly, it was unexpected because of the Great Lake Hachiyō’s stance over Ōdanna’s case up to this point? That Ōgondōji and this Hachiyō are at loggerheads, but the former still bought a dorayaki from the latter’s company?

P272: ^ Is this why Ōdanna-sama didn’t even try to escape? That perhaps he was stunned by the hatred he felt in that Imperial hall where he was unmasked, that he just saw no point of running?... This is… really, really sad… TBH, I actually thought that Ōdanna would try to escape, and he had been on the run since Vol 7 Ch 10. But apparently, he had been jailed since then...

And I HATE Raijū even more now!!!

Also, when Ōdanna-sama referred to his time of being sealed, he was referring to the first time he was sealed centuries ago. He was not referring to the recent event of him being jailed, because this time he was not yet re-sealed. He was "just" being jailed... merely for being a jyaki...

P273: ^ This might be the 'core' that Ōgondōji was talking about. This is heart-wrenching, no pun intended...