Fallem Brides: Koyoi — Foreshadowing And Payoff On the Same Page

Pastebin

As promised, I'm back with another weekly update. Koyoi's story won the vote almost 4 to 1, so that's the one I'll be translating for now. If you wanted the World Guide 2 story, don't worry, there will be another vote once this story is finished, and it will be on the poll.

I should note that Koyoi speaks with an accent. I would normally try to represent this in the text, but a real-world accent would be out of place in the setting, and my attempts at inventing something looked abysmal, so I ended up not. (I can at least rest easy that I am in good company, as I've seen a number of well-received literary translations take this route.) So, just keep that in mind as you read while I think on what to do about it.

As always, any comments or corrections are welcome. See you again next Wednesday.
(Text after the cut.)

Amanomiya Tōtetsu passed away when Koyoi was eighteen.

It was a peaceful death — he had been more than one hundred years old, and had raised the three sisters who were to succeed him to almost full maturity — so his funeral was practically a party. Tōtetsu's body reposed on the altar, while, in a large room separated from it by sliding screens, his relatives feasted.

Zipangu's funerary customs had existed since ancient times. The deceased was placed in a room separated by screens or doors, and their relatives kept watch through the night in an adjacent chamber. It was said that if this was not done, evil spirits would carry off the body. Among the common people the old customs were gradually becoming mere formalities, but the Amanomiya clan, who made their livelihood exorcising monsters, still obstinately observed the tradition.

Koyoi had undergone her coming of age ceremony three years previously, but she still could not understand the appeal of alcohol. She gingerly sipped the clear rice wine that had been poured into her cup with a sour expression. In contrast, Shinonome, sitting next to her, had just drained her fifth cup.

"I suppose Lady Shinonome will be the next head, then...?"

"No, as far as I can see from their training, Lady Koyoi has greater potential..."

And grandfather's not even in his grave.

The sour look on her face was not only due to the wine. Arguments about who should be the successor, and who was on whose side, were unfolding, mingled with the cheerful noises of the banquet. They were exchanged in whispers, but she was nearly sober, and could not help overhearing them. She felt an urge to cover her ears, but a candidate for the next head of the clan could not engage in such undignified behavior.

I'm jealous of Shinonome. She quaffed her wine so quickly that I doubt she's picking up these conversations, Koyoi thought, and turned to look at her elder sister.

She had never seen that look on her sister's face before, and she never saw it there again. Shinonome was scowling, and her brow was wrinkled. Her eyes seemed to be blazing with the light of the candle flames. Her bared teeth were making a grinding sound. Koyoi's usually stoic sister wore a look of rage. And her gaze was fixed on the relatives squabbling over the succession.

◊ ♦ ◊ ♦ ◊

Koyoi and Doon had gotten clear of the slums.

On their way, the pair had discovered a small church. Doon had shot Koyoi a look, signaling her to wait. As they had worked together many times before, he had no difficulty making his meaning understood.

The front door stood slightly ajar. The light that seeped through the crack cast a long, thin beam on the church's wooden floor. Doon craned his neck to peer inside, and gasped. Then he quickly clapped a hand over his nose and mouth.

The first thing he had sensed had been the odor of dense mana. An odor so thick and strong that that wafting from the castle could not compare. Mana that was clearly emanating from within the church itself.

His ears picked up faint sounds. He concentrated on his sense of hearing.

"Aahn, ah, aaah.

"Father, please, inside; in my womb.

"Ngh. I love you, I love you, I love you!"

A woman's voice. And, in the gaps between her cries, the sound of creaking wood, and a man's low moans.

Doon withdrew his head so as not to make a sound, then turned to look at Koyoi, who questioned him worriedly. He shook his head without a word. She sighed. He had already started walking again, and she hurried to catch up to him.

The bumps in the paving stones had grown fewer, and the clacking of the geta lighter. The houses had also gotten gradually newer and more beautiful, and eye-catching hues more plentiful. In the midst of them, Doon, running a few steps ahead of Koyoi, came to a sudden halt at a corner.

"Everything's changed, but this place looks the same as ever," she heard him mutter.

"What do you..." She started to ask, but then she followed his gaze and held her tongue. There hung a dingy signboard which read: "Doon & Finé, Armorers."

The building had almost certainly once been a shop, but it was now deserted, and as rundown as its sign. Rot had made holes in the door, exposure to wind and rain had caused mold to grow on the window frames, and the walls were smeared with dust and mud.

"The 'Doon' on the signboard would not happen to be..."

"It is. I lived here, a long time ago. With my wife."

So saying, her drew a small paper from his pocket. It was folded in two, and, when opened, was about the size of his palm.

"She is a beautiful woman."

It was a portrait of a woman probably in her early twenties, with traces of girlhood still visible in her face, drawn from the shoulders up. Her long, black hair was gathered above the nape of her neck. Her eyes were equally dark, with perfect double lids. Her bangs hung straight over her forehead. She was smiling faintly, but her features also betrayed a touch of nervousness at being in front of the artist. The portrait was so realistic that she seemed about to break free of the paper at any moment.

"Yeah. She was the prettiest woman in the world."

Doon's eyes were staring at something far away.

"Was?" A woman's voice came from behind the pair.

They turned around with identical speed, Doon readying his sword, and Koyoi her talismans. The only ones capable of retaining their reason in this place now were the Order's soldiers, mercenaries like themselves, and monsters. Their gazes fixed on a cemetery cloaked in an especially thick purple haze.

Damn.

It had slipped Koyoi's mind. She had overlooked that fact that monsters did not only attack from outside; they could also arise from within.

Of course! The dead can rise, and become...!

"Finé."

Doon lowered his sword, and took a step forward. His gaze was fixed on a woman sitting atop a cross-shaped gravestone. Her long hair was gathered above the nape of her neck, her eyes had perfect double lids, and there was a smile on her face.

"It's been a long time, Doon," the woman on the gravestone giggled. She brought a hand up under her chin, and crossed her legs. Her limbs were coated in a red film below the elbows and knees.

What is this monster...? I've never seen her species in Zipangu...

As legends of the dead returning were well known in Zipangu, funeral rites were prescribed to the smallest detail so as to prevent their revival. Even casual customs that the common people observed only because "it had always been done that way" were ancestral wisdom devised to send the dead definitively into the afterlife. As a result, Zipangu was poor in knowledge concerning undead varieties of monster girls.

If Koyoi could learn the monster's species, she could devise some way of dealing with her. By the same token, however, she could not do anything unless she learned it. While Koyoi was considering how to act, something appeared between her and the monster to block her view.

"Finé..."

It was Doon. He advanced toward the monster with faltering steps, muttering her name over and over again.

"No! Stop, Mr. Doon!"

Koyoi tried to bring him to his senses, but something hard blocked her way.

"I would thank you to mind your own business."

There was obvious anger in the monster's voice. She thrust out a hand toward Koyoi. A glowing, violet magic circle stood out on her bright red palm.

This spell!

Koyoi ran her eyes over her surroundings. As she anticipated, dense mana was being expelled from the monster's palm to form a wall. The pale purple currents of mana extended from the monster's hand to the wall in front of Koyoi, and thence spread to the entire cemetery.

How does she have such a vast quantity of mana...?

Although her studies had concentrated on other fields, Koyoi had received a general knowledge of magic. In consequence, she was able to quickly notice that there was something off about the magic the monster in front of her was using. It was, in a word, too large-scale. Koyoi was able to estimate how much mana someone possessed just by looking at them. The monster of unknown species she now faced was using magic too strong for hers. Under normal circumstances, projecting a wall large enough to cover her own body a few centimeters from her outflung hand ought to be the most she was capable of.

No sooner had Koyoi reached that conclusion, however, than she saw that the dense mana hovering over the cemetery was flowing into the monster's body.

Of course! How foolish of me. It's different here!

Mana that was of a high quality and purity, in addition to being exceptionally dense, was hanging over not only this cemetery, but over all of Lescatié. Thanks to that, as far as monsters — whose ability to absorb mana far exceeded humans' — were concerned, the whole area inside the ramparts was effectively a mana storage tank.

"You can't do it, Koyoi."

There was a sound of feet on soil. Doon had staggered from the paving stones into the cemetery grounds. His voice was calm.

"I know now. Me, you, the Order forces; none of us can win against Finé, or any of the monsters in this country."

His arms raised limply. He held them out to the monster who had been his wife.

"Run, Koyoi. Run..."

His voice was growing steadily softer and weaker.

"Run. Run..."

Those words could be called Doon's final display of paternal affection.

Hurry and go, Koyoi! I'm already done for! You, at least, have to get away!

His wife had returned from the dead. She was beckoning him with a face, voice, gestures that were just as they had been before. He had already succumbed to the seductive mana that accompanied them. But what little reason remained to him found its voice.

His arms wrapped around the monster's back. Burying his face in her cleavage, he let out a deep sigh. It sounded full of relief, as if he had spit out all the unpleasantness that had accumulated inside him.

"Hee hee hee."

The monster smiled happily, and gently stroked his head with the hand that she was not pointing at Koyoi. The next instant, however, she looked straight ahead, and her face returned to its previous grim expression.

"I do wish you would hurry up and leave. I can't hug him with one arm."

A short while passed in silence. The women glared at each other.

Koyoi was the first to move. She blinked hard once or twice. The tears that had collected in her lower eyelids formed drops, and rolled down her cheeks. Then she shut her eyes, and place a tightly-clenched fist on either side of her hips.

"I appreciate all you've done for me, Mr. Doon!"

She bent her spine in a deep bow to her mentor, who was facing away from her in the arms of the monster. Immediately afterward, she ran off across the paving stones, without a backwards glance at the cemetery. The road radiated from the center of the city. It was still a long way to the castle.

Doon heard the clack of her geta behind him. He did not look back either. He had succumbed to the monster's temptation, and been corrupted. As Koyoi's senior in their profession, he could not bring himself to face her.

"This is for the best."

Finé, who had lifted the wall of mana, hugged her husband's body tight with both arms.

"That girl will soon realize how wonderful it is to surrender yourself to the mana," she said, and placed her lips over Doon's.

◊ ♦ ◊ ♦ ◊

"Lady Tasogare is missing!"

An attendant one of the branch houses had dispatched to wait on Tasogare shouted. It was three days after Tōtetsu's funeral.

"Hey, Bunkichi's gone too," someone from the main house exclaimed during the search for Tasogare.

It was true. The boy Bunkichi, Tasogare's closest attendant, had vanished along with her.

"He can't have made off with Lady Tasogare, can he?"

Bunkichi's family had the lowest status of all the branch houses. Even before Tōtetsu's passing, the people of the main house and the more prestigious branch houses had attached themselves to Shinonome or Koyoi. With, needless to say, the ulterior motive of getting in with the contenders for the next head of the clan. Shinonome, Koyoi, and Tasogare were all candidates, but everyone around them assumed that the position would go to one of the two older sisters. Consequently, the job of seeing to Tasogare's needs had been foisted on Bunkichi's low-ranking family.

Naturally, the bulk of criticism was aimed at Bunkichi's family. His parents and siblings, who remained, were showered in verbal abuse by members of the other households.

They're blaming everything on Bunkichi.

Koyoi watched her own attendants mericlessly rebuking them with anger in her eyes. But she could not intervene. Three days ago, she had gone from being "Tōtetsu's granddaughter" to "potential head of the clan." Every move she made, every word she spoke, had come to represent the entire Amanomiya clan. She could not afford to base any action on superficial feelings.

Little by little, her feelings of anger turned on herself, for watching without being able to act. She pursed her lips, and mentally apologized to Bunkichi's family.

If I become head, I won't allow this sort of thing. I won't let this be the kind of family where anyone has to be sad.

A short time later, a note in Tasogare's handwriting was found. A note scribbled on a spare practice talisman.

"Everyone in the Asanomiya clan, and elder sisters: Please forgive an action that will dishonor the family name. I have acted solely on my own judgment; Bunkichi bears no responsibility. Please do not condemn him."

When Koyoi read this letter, her mind turned to how Tasogare had looked on the day of the funeral. Her younger sister had been standing on the veranda and facing the garden, but her eyes had not been watching the pines planted there, or the carefully arranged white sand, or the carp swimming in the pond. She had seemed to Koyoi to be looking at somewhere else, somewhere far away.

◊ ♦ ◊ ♦ ◊