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tammaiya*I* am the proud new owner of:
In conclusion: I am so awesome. *preens* But I'll feel even MORE awesome if Japanese just hurries up and schedules its goddamn classes, and also when book 8 arrives. Other "pending" items on this list include "going to the bank to deposit money so I don't feel so shifty about using my credit card", "finishing the IP reading I'm halfway through (I was feeling a bit frightened by the prescribing of entire chapters on the reading list until I picked up the book today and realised how amazingly thin it is for a law textbook; chapter 1 is only 16 pages and I'm on page 11)", and "finishing chapter 7 of boyband!X before I go back to uni and get distracted".
One area where I am not so much with the win is the fact that I had a dietitian appointment this afternoon and have repeatedly failed to start writing down what I've been eating/blood sugar levels/insulin. I kept thinking, I should start doing that... now! but it never happened. Cough.
Speaking of Mirage of Blaze, return of the tardery! It distracts me from reading too fast.
Okay, so, having left Takaya being picked up on the streets of Tokyo by a random man in his 20s (........), we now get to see what Naoe is up to and who this woman he's gone out with is.
We open from the POV of Aseoka Maiko, coming to see "Tachibana-san" about a mysterious thing that happened to her younger brother, Shinya. She heard of him through her aunt, who had a haunting problem years ago that Naoe helped with, and has only spoken to Naoe over the phone, but when she shows up at the house to meet him as they agreed, Naoe's mother is like, :D! I always tell Yoshiaki to bring girls home so I can meet them and he never does!
Maiko is like, ahahaha, sure, because it would be kind of awkward to try and set Mrs Tachibana straight on this. Also, it seems that despite Naoe being 28 (concrete age! yay) his mother still babies him incredibly, which one assumes is a combination of him being the youngest and also, trying to kill himself when he was 7 and found out Kagetora, light of his life, was gone. (Oh, Naoe.)
Naoe comes from his prayer ceremony and is scolded by his mother for smelling of incense. He's like, that's nice mother, please leave now so we can talk, and is incredibly pained by her unwavering hope that one day he will get married! You should introduce your mother! :D :D :D
Me: ... XDDDDD seriously, Naoe's mum, DON'T GET YOUR HOPES UP.
Anyway, Maiko tells Naoe about how her brother Shinya was in a car accident on the Alphabet Hills around Nikkou, and though there was no external evidence of injury, he's in a coma on life support with no sign of waking up. The doctors don't know what's wrong, and his girlfriend, who was in the car with him, was fine. What really freaked her out was that she's started seeing Shinya in mirrors and has a recurring dream where he's turning into a tree. Naoe agrees to go to Nikkou with her the following day to investigate.
This is the day before Takaya and co go to Tokyo and Takaya tries to ring Naoe at the Tachibana household. MY SOUL DIES A LITTLE INSIDE FROM THE DRAMATIC IRONY OF BAD TIMING. *headdesk*
The next day they head off early to the hospital where Shinya's body is, on the way having a conversation about the theft of something from the Toushou Shrine 2 or 3 months ago that Maiko suspects was the holy mirror. At the hospital, Naoe can tell immediately that Shinya's body is just an empty shell and his soul has been snatched away. They thus then head over to the Alphabet Hills to check out the accident site.
On the way THERE, Naoe asks Maiko about the dream. It's in a forest with three large cedar trees, and half of Shinya's body is turning into one of those trees. In the dream, Shinya says, "I can't get away from this tree. Help me." Maiko thinks she recognises the forest but isn't certain.
At the tourist location where Maiko's family's inn is (there are two Alphabet Hill roads, both one way, one going towards and one going away so they have to drive there before they can drive back on the road where Shinya's accident was), they run into Shinya's girlfriend, Eri, who had come to see Maiko to tell her that she's started having weird dreams too. Her dreams sound the same as Maiko's dreams, but in them Shinya says, "break the mirrors" and "kill the red beast".
While they're all contemplating the meaning of this, there is a big fuss and sirens etc over an apparent "suicide" at the nearby tourist location of the Gegon Falls. It's a common suicide location, but this is the first recorded suicide of the season. Naoe, who has been sensing something subtly wrong spiritually since they got here, decides they need to go check it out. When they get there, witnesses say it was more like the guy fell rather than jumped. Naoe goes down to the lower viewing platform to check it out closer while Maiko stays up top. The sense of wrongness he noticed before becomes clearer; this location usually has its own negative energy, multiplied by all the suicides, but for some reason that "bizzare" energy has become very muted.
While he's considering this, Kousaka, our favourite recurring nuisance, walks up behind him. Naoe is unsurprisingly not feeling the warm and friendly feelings toward him, and is like, "Not YOU again. Why do you ALWAYS have to pop up in obscure locations to bother me?" Kousaka says it must be fate to always meet in such random places. Naoe wants to know what Takeda (and thus Kousaka) is up to, and Kousaka, helpful as ever, tells him that the difference with the falls is the absense of all the lingering souls of suiciders (which are hard to purify)-- and no, that WASN'T anything to do with us, Naoe, they were eaten by the red beast.
At "red beast" Naoe's attention is caught, because that's what Shinya was talking about in Eri's dream. That, Kousaka explains, is what happened to the so-called suicider just now-- he didn't suicide, his soul was eaten and he fell off the cliff when he went into a coma. Naoe asks what the red beast is, and Kousaka tells him-- it's the spirit beast, Tsutsuga, which is shaped like an artistic portrait of a lion, appears engulfed in red flame and eats the souls of humans and big cats. (Sensei seems to have made up a kanji for it, because having looked all over I conclude it DOESN'T EXIST. Which surprises me, because most of such things in the books come from actual mythology, but no dice. -- more on this later, after more research I think it might be INCREDIBLY OBSCURE regional mythology.)
They then move onto the theft of the sacred mirror from Nikkou's Toushou Shrine, which Kousaka is surprised Naoe has heard about. Kousaka tells Naoe that the mirror is called the "Tsutsuga mirror" because it seals souls in the same way that the Tsutsuga eats them. There are two mirrors, the "male" and "female" mirrors; the "female" mirror is the only one that steals souls and it was the one at Toushou Shrine.
Since only the Tsutsuga Mirror was stolen, whoever it was had to know it was there and be able to get to the inner sanctum of the shrine. Naoe suggests the possibility of a connection to the Yami Sengoku, and Kousaka, still holding his cards close, simply says there's a high possibility.
They then head back up to the upper viewing platform where Maiko is waiting, and Kousaka is surprised that Naoe is with some random chick and NOT with Kagetora. He mocks the shit out of Naoe for his feelings for Kagetora, as per usual, with words like "unclean lust" being bandied around. Naoe gives Kousaka his "fuck off and die" emotionless iron mask of DOOM look and doesn't dignify this with a response.
Suddenly not finding this so funny, Kousaka sobers up and asks what happened because he is secretly Naoe's BFF armchair psychologist. (I am only half joking.) Naoe doesn't answer this and instead tells Maiko they're going. She asks if Kousaka is an acquaintance; Naoe answers that he's an old friend. I marvel, once more, at the incomprehensibility of the relationship between Kousaka and Naoe.
Kousaka, however, takes one look at Maiko's face and is like, okay, you guys are coming with me! and takes them both to Futarasan Shrine, which is in the middle of a forest of cedars. There are three enormous trees, one the parent tree with the other two trees to either side of it. There's a crowd gathered around the trees, and when the three of them approach, they see it's because the right-hand tree has a very realistic impression of a human face.
Except it's not just an impression, and it's not just any human: it's Shinya, and it's actually his soul combining with the tree. "I can't get away from this tree" suddenly makes a lot of sense. Maiko breaks down, and meanwhile, Naoe runs into Katakura Kojyuurou Kagetsuna. (WHY SO MANY NAMES?)
Kojyuurou is the family vassal of Date Masamune (see also: books 3 and 4) and is there on Masamune's behalf to check out what's going down with the Tsutsuga Mirror. Note that he got completely chopped from the anime, because books 3 and 4 were completely chopped too. Kousaka, Naoe and Kojyuurou collect Maiko, too numb with grief to pay much attention beyond "why do Tachibana-san's acquintances keep multiplying?", and go off to discuss the situation, so now we've got a council made up of the faithful servants of the Uesugi, the Takeda, and the Date. Hee.
Kojyuurou tells them about the Tsutsuga and its relation to the mirrors. There were two Tsutsuga beasts, one male, one female, and by a curse they were turned into magic mirrors. However, when the mirrors are combined, they can be used to give birth to a child Tsutsuga. Originally the male Tsutsuga spat fire, and the female Tsutsuga consumed souls; the child Tsutsuga can do both, and the way it attached Shinya's soul to the tree was to spit it out in a fire ball. This child was used to attack Tokugawa Ieyasu so he had it killed and the mirrors stored safely in the shrines.
They then talk about the male mirror, necessary to release souls captured by the female mirror. The male mirror was previously at the Kunousan Toushou Shrine but was moved to another location for security, which seems to be the Hakone Shrine. (Kojyuurou knows about all this because of the position of trust Masamune held with Ieyasu.) They haven't heard anything about it being stolen, but it's safer to assume it's in the hands of the unknown thief.
On that topic, it seems likely whoever it is is an Onshou (vengeful ghost of a civil war general) who knew that Tokugawa Ieyasu's "secret treasure" was the Tsutsuga Mirror and furthermore was capable of stealing it. Kousaka suspects the Fuuma clan, who were a clan of ninjas feared even amongst ninjas.
Now, to save Shinya, they need to kill the Tsutsuga, and the only way to do that is to smash both mirrors, which means going up against the Fuuma clan. Kousaka asks Naoe if he intends to do that, and Naoe and Kojyuurou vow to find and destroy the mirrors. Kousaka remains silent. It occurs to me that he's very much the kind of person who will not let personal attachments get in the way of his duty to his lord.
After they leave the shop, Naoe and Kousaka walk a bit behind the other two. Kousaka wants to know if Naoe would seriously go up against the Fuuma just for Maiko's sake. Naoe says that this is connected to the Yami Sengoku and is affecting normal humans, so he has a responsibility to deal with it.
K: You can't win against the Fuuma. You'd waste your life by throwing it away like that?
N: What's wrong with wasting it? It's just disposable, isn't it. There's no need to value a life that can be endlessly replaced.
This: *does not sound either at all healthy or like Naoe's usual philosophy*
K: Naoe...? *BFF armchair psychologist time!*
N: If the body is broken, just replace it. We're beasts. Simple carnivorous beasts. We're worse than the Tsutsuga. Depraved beings, lower than beasts.
N: To hold onto such a thing is only foolishness to common sense and reason.
K: What happened?
K: *sharply* After that, what happened to the two of you?
N: .........
K: Are you running away from Kagetora?
N: .........
K: Do you intend to put an end to it?
N: -- That which we call humans...
N: Don't they choose death, in order to escape from suffering?
N: *despite saying totally masochistic shit, doesn't look miserable*
Me: OH MY GOD, NAOE, I KNOW I ALWAYS TELL YOU TO GET HELP, BUT THIS TIME I MEAN FOR YOUR DEPRESSION AND NOT YOUR OBSESSIVE POSSESSIVE TENDENCIES. Someone put this man on suicide watch! Kousaka!
K: *studies Naoe, but can no longer tell if his expression is genuine or a mask* So the one you've killed is you yourself...?
N: .......
K: Do you intend to turn yourself into an animal like this?
N: *changes the subject* ... What's your objective?
And thus ends BFF armchair psychology time. Kousaka is apparently feeling a lot more open now, though, and tells Naoe that he thinks the Houjyou-- who the Fuuma obey-- are involved and they're a threat to Shingen. He just wants to destroy the mirrors, which is what Naoe wants too. Naoe considers the possibility that this is a trap, and decides he doesn't care, so an UNHOLY COALITION is formed between Date, Uesugi and Takeda clans on this one.
After that, we get some very special Naoe crazy time which reinforces everything I just thought about how much he needs to see someone about his serious depression and self-loathing issues. His TOTALLY HEALTHY SOLUTION to this whole situation is to cut himself off from feeling; it's less painful to never gain something than to lose it, and life is all about losing things-- gaining something is just the first step to losing it, so why bother in the first place. He's sick of endless living, and as long as the Yami Sengoku goes on so does he, so his bright idea is that he is going to mindlessly throw himself at his duty and single-handedly bring the war to an end like some kind of drone so he can just go and die in peace.
OH, NAOE. You and Takaya need so much therapy that it's not funny.
So anyway, he gets in his car with Maiko and Kojyuurou and they go back over the Alphabet Hills. Maiko wants to help, even though Kojyuurou tells her it's too dangerous, and then Naoe-- who usually fakes being such a nice person-- gives her the totally cold smackdown and tells her she'd just be in the way. Way to be nice to the girl who's worried about her brother, Naoe! She bursts into tears because she's got a crush on his fake nice persona and also, her brother is dying and she can't do anything about it, and then they get attacked by the Tsutsuga.
Naoe jumps out of the car to lead it away and has to fight it without looking into its eyes. (Think basilisk.) He gets badly injury but manages to scare it off for the time being. Naoe and Kojyuurou conclude that it's definitely being controlled by someone and that someone is onto them. Maiko is crying again because she's freaked out over what happened and worried about Naoe. Naoe goes back to being his fake!charming self and tells her not to cry because it's a sin to make someone like her cry and he'll be in trouble. I don't know which I find worse, the total meanness of what he said before or the complete fakeness when he's being nice. It's kind of disturbing to think how calculated it is.
Whichever way, Naoe gets taken to hospital and that is that for his POV for now. More on Takaya and his woobie angst later!
ETA: I almost forgot about the Tsutsuga lore. It seems to be terribly obscure; the correct kanji, the one used in the book, is so rare it can't even be typed. Most sites just substituted the tsutsuga kanji which makes up the right side of the kanji and by itself is a kind of illness-- one site just used hiragana and says they can't use the kanji. I found stuff on it eventually by doing a very specific search on the region involved on Japanese google, but even so, all I got was that there's a statue of the Tsutsuga on the roof of the Toushou shrine in Nikkou and that it's some kind of nighttime protection god. Nothing about the correct kanji or any detail about the lore, so I have no idea how Kuwabara-sensei knows this stuff but I'm pretty sure now it's an actual myth. Just a REALLY OBSCURE one.
Here's a not terribly clear photo of the Tsutsuga statue, for interest's sake: http://www002.upp.so-net.ne.jp/me2/mirage/photo/touu1.jpg
- One (1) day off this semester, possibly two, probably Friday.
- Nine (9) more volumes of Mirage of Blaze* (10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20)
- One (1) Kingdom Hearts II Ultimania which I fully intend to burn sacrifices in worship of (okay, not really, but the sentiment is there)
- One (1) Okami Guidebook, which is pretty and also? tells me how to get the GODDAMN STRAY BEADS.
- Two (2) Intellectual Property Law textbooks which are inexplicably both pink. Okay, one is actually a collection of IP legislation, but still. They're both pink. Why?
- A TICK ON REVIEW 1 OF MY DRIVING LOG BOOK. MWAHAHA. *is one step closer to VICTORY! and a license.*
* This is ironic because I don't have book 8. It (along with 14 and 19) is out of print, so I had to order it second hand over Amazon, which is not express. So I ordered it a week ago but I don't know when it will get here. HOPEFULLY BEFORE I FINISH BOOK 7, although that is looking increasingly unlikely. <<
In conclusion: I am so awesome. *preens* But I'll feel even MORE awesome if Japanese just hurries up and schedules its goddamn classes, and also when book 8 arrives. Other "pending" items on this list include "going to the bank to deposit money so I don't feel so shifty about using my credit card", "finishing the IP reading I'm halfway through (I was feeling a bit frightened by the prescribing of entire chapters on the reading list until I picked up the book today and realised how amazingly thin it is for a law textbook; chapter 1 is only 16 pages and I'm on page 11)", and "finishing chapter 7 of boyband!X before I go back to uni and get distracted".
One area where I am not so much with the win is the fact that I had a dietitian appointment this afternoon and have repeatedly failed to start writing down what I've been eating/blood sugar levels/insulin. I kept thinking, I should start doing that... now! but it never happened. Cough.
Speaking of Mirage of Blaze, return of the tardery! It distracts me from reading too fast.
Okay, so, having left Takaya being picked up on the streets of Tokyo by a random man in his 20s (........), we now get to see what Naoe is up to and who this woman he's gone out with is.
We open from the POV of Aseoka Maiko, coming to see "Tachibana-san" about a mysterious thing that happened to her younger brother, Shinya. She heard of him through her aunt, who had a haunting problem years ago that Naoe helped with, and has only spoken to Naoe over the phone, but when she shows up at the house to meet him as they agreed, Naoe's mother is like, :D! I always tell Yoshiaki to bring girls home so I can meet them and he never does!
Maiko is like, ahahaha, sure, because it would be kind of awkward to try and set Mrs Tachibana straight on this. Also, it seems that despite Naoe being 28 (concrete age! yay) his mother still babies him incredibly, which one assumes is a combination of him being the youngest and also, trying to kill himself when he was 7 and found out Kagetora, light of his life, was gone. (Oh, Naoe.)
Naoe comes from his prayer ceremony and is scolded by his mother for smelling of incense. He's like, that's nice mother, please leave now so we can talk, and is incredibly pained by her unwavering hope that one day he will get married! You should introduce your mother! :D :D :D
Me: ... XDDDDD seriously, Naoe's mum, DON'T GET YOUR HOPES UP.
Anyway, Maiko tells Naoe about how her brother Shinya was in a car accident on the Alphabet Hills around Nikkou, and though there was no external evidence of injury, he's in a coma on life support with no sign of waking up. The doctors don't know what's wrong, and his girlfriend, who was in the car with him, was fine. What really freaked her out was that she's started seeing Shinya in mirrors and has a recurring dream where he's turning into a tree. Naoe agrees to go to Nikkou with her the following day to investigate.
This is the day before Takaya and co go to Tokyo and Takaya tries to ring Naoe at the Tachibana household. MY SOUL DIES A LITTLE INSIDE FROM THE DRAMATIC IRONY OF BAD TIMING. *headdesk*
The next day they head off early to the hospital where Shinya's body is, on the way having a conversation about the theft of something from the Toushou Shrine 2 or 3 months ago that Maiko suspects was the holy mirror. At the hospital, Naoe can tell immediately that Shinya's body is just an empty shell and his soul has been snatched away. They thus then head over to the Alphabet Hills to check out the accident site.
On the way THERE, Naoe asks Maiko about the dream. It's in a forest with three large cedar trees, and half of Shinya's body is turning into one of those trees. In the dream, Shinya says, "I can't get away from this tree. Help me." Maiko thinks she recognises the forest but isn't certain.
At the tourist location where Maiko's family's inn is (there are two Alphabet Hill roads, both one way, one going towards and one going away so they have to drive there before they can drive back on the road where Shinya's accident was), they run into Shinya's girlfriend, Eri, who had come to see Maiko to tell her that she's started having weird dreams too. Her dreams sound the same as Maiko's dreams, but in them Shinya says, "break the mirrors" and "kill the red beast".
While they're all contemplating the meaning of this, there is a big fuss and sirens etc over an apparent "suicide" at the nearby tourist location of the Gegon Falls. It's a common suicide location, but this is the first recorded suicide of the season. Naoe, who has been sensing something subtly wrong spiritually since they got here, decides they need to go check it out. When they get there, witnesses say it was more like the guy fell rather than jumped. Naoe goes down to the lower viewing platform to check it out closer while Maiko stays up top. The sense of wrongness he noticed before becomes clearer; this location usually has its own negative energy, multiplied by all the suicides, but for some reason that "bizzare" energy has become very muted.
While he's considering this, Kousaka, our favourite recurring nuisance, walks up behind him. Naoe is unsurprisingly not feeling the warm and friendly feelings toward him, and is like, "Not YOU again. Why do you ALWAYS have to pop up in obscure locations to bother me?" Kousaka says it must be fate to always meet in such random places. Naoe wants to know what Takeda (and thus Kousaka) is up to, and Kousaka, helpful as ever, tells him that the difference with the falls is the absense of all the lingering souls of suiciders (which are hard to purify)-- and no, that WASN'T anything to do with us, Naoe, they were eaten by the red beast.
At "red beast" Naoe's attention is caught, because that's what Shinya was talking about in Eri's dream. That, Kousaka explains, is what happened to the so-called suicider just now-- he didn't suicide, his soul was eaten and he fell off the cliff when he went into a coma. Naoe asks what the red beast is, and Kousaka tells him-- it's the spirit beast, Tsutsuga, which is shaped like an artistic portrait of a lion, appears engulfed in red flame and eats the souls of humans and big cats. (Sensei seems to have made up a kanji for it, because having looked all over I conclude it DOESN'T EXIST. Which surprises me, because most of such things in the books come from actual mythology, but no dice. -- more on this later, after more research I think it might be INCREDIBLY OBSCURE regional mythology.)
They then move onto the theft of the sacred mirror from Nikkou's Toushou Shrine, which Kousaka is surprised Naoe has heard about. Kousaka tells Naoe that the mirror is called the "Tsutsuga mirror" because it seals souls in the same way that the Tsutsuga eats them. There are two mirrors, the "male" and "female" mirrors; the "female" mirror is the only one that steals souls and it was the one at Toushou Shrine.
Since only the Tsutsuga Mirror was stolen, whoever it was had to know it was there and be able to get to the inner sanctum of the shrine. Naoe suggests the possibility of a connection to the Yami Sengoku, and Kousaka, still holding his cards close, simply says there's a high possibility.
They then head back up to the upper viewing platform where Maiko is waiting, and Kousaka is surprised that Naoe is with some random chick and NOT with Kagetora. He mocks the shit out of Naoe for his feelings for Kagetora, as per usual, with words like "unclean lust" being bandied around. Naoe gives Kousaka his "fuck off and die" emotionless iron mask of DOOM look and doesn't dignify this with a response.
Suddenly not finding this so funny, Kousaka sobers up and asks what happened because he is secretly Naoe's BFF armchair psychologist. (I am only half joking.) Naoe doesn't answer this and instead tells Maiko they're going. She asks if Kousaka is an acquaintance; Naoe answers that he's an old friend. I marvel, once more, at the incomprehensibility of the relationship between Kousaka and Naoe.
Kousaka, however, takes one look at Maiko's face and is like, okay, you guys are coming with me! and takes them both to Futarasan Shrine, which is in the middle of a forest of cedars. There are three enormous trees, one the parent tree with the other two trees to either side of it. There's a crowd gathered around the trees, and when the three of them approach, they see it's because the right-hand tree has a very realistic impression of a human face.
Except it's not just an impression, and it's not just any human: it's Shinya, and it's actually his soul combining with the tree. "I can't get away from this tree" suddenly makes a lot of sense. Maiko breaks down, and meanwhile, Naoe runs into Katakura Kojyuurou Kagetsuna. (WHY SO MANY NAMES?)
Kojyuurou is the family vassal of Date Masamune (see also: books 3 and 4) and is there on Masamune's behalf to check out what's going down with the Tsutsuga Mirror. Note that he got completely chopped from the anime, because books 3 and 4 were completely chopped too. Kousaka, Naoe and Kojyuurou collect Maiko, too numb with grief to pay much attention beyond "why do Tachibana-san's acquintances keep multiplying?", and go off to discuss the situation, so now we've got a council made up of the faithful servants of the Uesugi, the Takeda, and the Date. Hee.
Kojyuurou tells them about the Tsutsuga and its relation to the mirrors. There were two Tsutsuga beasts, one male, one female, and by a curse they were turned into magic mirrors. However, when the mirrors are combined, they can be used to give birth to a child Tsutsuga. Originally the male Tsutsuga spat fire, and the female Tsutsuga consumed souls; the child Tsutsuga can do both, and the way it attached Shinya's soul to the tree was to spit it out in a fire ball. This child was used to attack Tokugawa Ieyasu so he had it killed and the mirrors stored safely in the shrines.
They then talk about the male mirror, necessary to release souls captured by the female mirror. The male mirror was previously at the Kunousan Toushou Shrine but was moved to another location for security, which seems to be the Hakone Shrine. (Kojyuurou knows about all this because of the position of trust Masamune held with Ieyasu.) They haven't heard anything about it being stolen, but it's safer to assume it's in the hands of the unknown thief.
On that topic, it seems likely whoever it is is an Onshou (vengeful ghost of a civil war general) who knew that Tokugawa Ieyasu's "secret treasure" was the Tsutsuga Mirror and furthermore was capable of stealing it. Kousaka suspects the Fuuma clan, who were a clan of ninjas feared even amongst ninjas.
Now, to save Shinya, they need to kill the Tsutsuga, and the only way to do that is to smash both mirrors, which means going up against the Fuuma clan. Kousaka asks Naoe if he intends to do that, and Naoe and Kojyuurou vow to find and destroy the mirrors. Kousaka remains silent. It occurs to me that he's very much the kind of person who will not let personal attachments get in the way of his duty to his lord.
After they leave the shop, Naoe and Kousaka walk a bit behind the other two. Kousaka wants to know if Naoe would seriously go up against the Fuuma just for Maiko's sake. Naoe says that this is connected to the Yami Sengoku and is affecting normal humans, so he has a responsibility to deal with it.
K: You can't win against the Fuuma. You'd waste your life by throwing it away like that?
N: What's wrong with wasting it? It's just disposable, isn't it. There's no need to value a life that can be endlessly replaced.
This: *does not sound either at all healthy or like Naoe's usual philosophy*
K: Naoe...? *BFF armchair psychologist time!*
N: If the body is broken, just replace it. We're beasts. Simple carnivorous beasts. We're worse than the Tsutsuga. Depraved beings, lower than beasts.
N: To hold onto such a thing is only foolishness to common sense and reason.
K: What happened?
K: *sharply* After that, what happened to the two of you?
N: .........
K: Are you running away from Kagetora?
N: .........
K: Do you intend to put an end to it?
N: -- That which we call humans...
N: Don't they choose death, in order to escape from suffering?
N: *despite saying totally masochistic shit, doesn't look miserable*
Me: OH MY GOD, NAOE, I KNOW I ALWAYS TELL YOU TO GET HELP, BUT THIS TIME I MEAN FOR YOUR DEPRESSION AND NOT YOUR OBSESSIVE POSSESSIVE TENDENCIES. Someone put this man on suicide watch! Kousaka!
K: *studies Naoe, but can no longer tell if his expression is genuine or a mask* So the one you've killed is you yourself...?
N: .......
K: Do you intend to turn yourself into an animal like this?
N: *changes the subject* ... What's your objective?
And thus ends BFF armchair psychology time. Kousaka is apparently feeling a lot more open now, though, and tells Naoe that he thinks the Houjyou-- who the Fuuma obey-- are involved and they're a threat to Shingen. He just wants to destroy the mirrors, which is what Naoe wants too. Naoe considers the possibility that this is a trap, and decides he doesn't care, so an UNHOLY COALITION is formed between Date, Uesugi and Takeda clans on this one.
After that, we get some very special Naoe crazy time which reinforces everything I just thought about how much he needs to see someone about his serious depression and self-loathing issues. His TOTALLY HEALTHY SOLUTION to this whole situation is to cut himself off from feeling; it's less painful to never gain something than to lose it, and life is all about losing things-- gaining something is just the first step to losing it, so why bother in the first place. He's sick of endless living, and as long as the Yami Sengoku goes on so does he, so his bright idea is that he is going to mindlessly throw himself at his duty and single-handedly bring the war to an end like some kind of drone so he can just go and die in peace.
OH, NAOE. You and Takaya need so much therapy that it's not funny.
So anyway, he gets in his car with Maiko and Kojyuurou and they go back over the Alphabet Hills. Maiko wants to help, even though Kojyuurou tells her it's too dangerous, and then Naoe-- who usually fakes being such a nice person-- gives her the totally cold smackdown and tells her she'd just be in the way. Way to be nice to the girl who's worried about her brother, Naoe! She bursts into tears because she's got a crush on his fake nice persona and also, her brother is dying and she can't do anything about it, and then they get attacked by the Tsutsuga.
Naoe jumps out of the car to lead it away and has to fight it without looking into its eyes. (Think basilisk.) He gets badly injury but manages to scare it off for the time being. Naoe and Kojyuurou conclude that it's definitely being controlled by someone and that someone is onto them. Maiko is crying again because she's freaked out over what happened and worried about Naoe. Naoe goes back to being his fake!charming self and tells her not to cry because it's a sin to make someone like her cry and he'll be in trouble. I don't know which I find worse, the total meanness of what he said before or the complete fakeness when he's being nice. It's kind of disturbing to think how calculated it is.
Whichever way, Naoe gets taken to hospital and that is that for his POV for now. More on Takaya and his woobie angst later!
ETA: I almost forgot about the Tsutsuga lore. It seems to be terribly obscure; the correct kanji, the one used in the book, is so rare it can't even be typed. Most sites just substituted the tsutsuga kanji which makes up the right side of the kanji and by itself is a kind of illness-- one site just used hiragana and says they can't use the kanji. I found stuff on it eventually by doing a very specific search on the region involved on Japanese google, but even so, all I got was that there's a statue of the Tsutsuga on the roof of the Toushou shrine in Nikkou and that it's some kind of nighttime protection god. Nothing about the correct kanji or any detail about the lore, so I have no idea how Kuwabara-sensei knows this stuff but I'm pretty sure now it's an actual myth. Just a REALLY OBSCURE one.
Here's a not terribly clear photo of the Tsutsuga statue, for interest's sake: http://www002.upp.so-net.ne.jp/me2/mirage/photo/touu1.jpg
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Date: 2007-07-11 02:21 pm (UTC)A sensible young lad, is Takaya. Snicker snicker.
Naoe's mum is now officially my favourite character in the series. ♥
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Date: 2007-07-11 03:44 pm (UTC)Naoe's mum is AWESOME. In a delusionally optimistic kind of way. She refered to him once as "konoko" which is how you'd refer to like, a FIVE YEAR OLD. (okay, up to a little older than that, and with girls it's often used into their teens, but still. XD)
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Date: 2007-07-12 01:26 am (UTC)heroicobsessivetimely rescue.XD It could be said that she's just recognising his level of emotional and mental stability. If so, she's being rather kind.
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Date: 2007-07-12 05:08 am (UTC)Naoe is... very Speshul, yes. XDDD
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Date: 2007-07-11 02:39 pm (UTC)As usual, I'm not even sure what to make of Mirage of Blaze. It's like watching a fireworks show with a trick finale.
Okami~ ♥ Those stray beads make my OCD flare up something fierce. I intend to get all of them on the second play-through (which is ridiculously easy given that they let you keep all your weapons and the like). D:
My insurance law book is highlighter yellow, but I'd be much more concerned if it were pink.
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Date: 2007-07-11 03:48 pm (UTC)Okami is HELL on the OCD. I've gotten over 2/3 of the stray beads without a walkthrough, but there are certain places which I loathe with my soul, and also the devil gates hurt me deep inside.
The thing about it is, I have one textbook from Thompson's lawbooks, and a compilation of relevant legislation from Butterworths, and they're BOTH PINK. They're not at all connected. Where is the logic? But at least it makes my textbook look very friendly. That, plus the fact it's surprisingly thin (only, say, two inches thick) and has nice big print.
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Date: 2007-07-11 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-11 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-11 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-11 03:58 pm (UTC)Surely, however, this myth must come from somewhere! And what I want to know is, HOW DOES SENSEI KNOW THIS STUFF?
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Date: 2007-07-11 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-11 05:26 pm (UTC)That's okay, I had to post-it note book 5 because I kept going, "Wait, was Mitsuhide the one who stabbed Hisahide in the back during the civil war? And what did Jyunkei do, again? AND WHY DOES EVERYONE HAVE HIDE IN THEIR NAME?" XD