Gamble Fish 53

Chapter 53

01

Title: Fight 53 The Twin Herons

02

Gokijima: Brr!! I-it's cold.
Gokijima: It feels like I'm frozen to my very core here.

Gokijima: Hey!! Mushroom head!!
Gokijima: Do you have some booze instead of this coffee here!? C'mon, I need booze!!
Mizuhara: Are you kidding!? There's no way we have that here in a middle school dorm!
SFX: Rrrrr
SFX: Shiver shiver shiver
Tomu: Heh heh. Just bear with it.
Tomu: Technically, we're breaking the rules even having you here.

03

Gokijima: That damn bald guy...Abidani did you call him!?
Gokijima: How can he string someone up out in the cold for over an hour?
SFX: Shiver shiver
Gokijima: Next time I meet him, I'm gonna jam my arm down his throat and rip off his balls!!

SFX: Knock knock
SFX: Shock!!
Gokijima: Ee!!!

Natsumi: Having a good night, everyone?
Yuka: We have soup and sandwiches.

04

Gokijima: O-oh, it's you, girly!? You scared me!!
Natsumi: Don't call me that.
Natsumi: And after I made you some food so late at night.
Tomu: That smells good. Can I have some?
Yuka: O-of course!! I'm actually quite good at cooking!!

Yuka: But...it's too bad you couldn't save your father...
Yuka: after you finally managed to meet him.

Tomu: No...I'm glad it ended this way.
Tomu: I can't bet someone's life on a gamble for any reason.

Tomu: But for an instant...I took a step towards the dark place Abidani was leading me to.

05

Tomu: That was his true aim.
Tomu: Even if I had saved my father, it would have left an ugly scar on my heart and I would never have been able to escape his curse.

Tomu: Gokijima mentioning his grandkid brought me back to my senses.
Tomu: I have to thank you for that.
Natsumi: Ehhh!? Goki-chan, you have a grandkid!?
Gokijima: Yeah, wanna see his picture?

06

Gokijima: He's my snapping turtle, Magotarou!! He's really good at crawlin' around!
SFX: Eheh eheh
[TN: The "Mago" in "Magotarou" means "grandchild".]

Gokijima: Anyway, shouldn't you call the cops about your father?
Gokijima: That's clearly a case of abduction and imprisonment.

Tomu: I can't.
Tomu: My father is a wanted man on false charges of fraud.

Tomu: Not to mention that the whole fraud incident may have been a trap to capture him.
Tomu: I may not be able to trust the police.

07

Yuka: But...why does your father have to be imprisoned like that?
Yuka: It seems a bit much for having lost a gamble.

Gokijima: Heh. I'd like to hear about that too.
Gokijima: It sounds like there's a nice story behind that one!!
SFX: Light...

Tomu: Well...

Mizuhara: Tell us, Tomu!!
Mizuhara: We're friends, right!?
Natsumi: Yeah!! We want to help you, Tomu-senpai!!!

Tomu: You're right. I've been keeping quiet about it in order to not get you involved...
Tomu: but now that you've helped me out, I can't just not tell you the truth of the matter.

08

Tomu: I was raised on the coast of a small island.
Tomu: The earliest I can remember, I was living alone with my mother. I was told that my father had died in an accident.

Tomu: My mother taught me how to play all sorts of games when I was young.
Tomu: Chess, Go, shogi, card games, dice games...
Tomu: I had the rules of and ways to win at games from all over the world drilled into me.

09

Tomu: And when I was ten...
Tomu: my supposedly dead father showed up.

Tomu: That's when my parents finally told me...
Tomu: that I was the final member of the Shirasagi clan.
Tomu: And about the history of the fight that have long been a part of the clan.

10

Natsumi: The Shirasagi clan?
Natsumi: Is there something special about your lineage?
Yuka: The history of a fight!?

Tomu: Look at this old photo.
SFX: Pull out

11

Mizuhara: What is that?
Gokijima: That looks old. Is it something valuable?
Yuka: What kind of decoration is that?
Natsumi: Is some old kind of money?

Tomu: It's a guard.
Tomu: The kind put on Japanese swords between the grip and the blade.

Tomu: I've never seen the real one, but it's a treasure passed down by the Shirasagi family.
Tomu: You can see the relief of two birds, right?
Tomu: It's called the "Twin Herons".
[TN: Shirasagi literally means "White Heron" by the way.]
Tomu: The legend goes that we were given it by Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Mizuhara: H-Hideyoshi!?
Gokijima: The regent who built Osaka Castle!?

12

Tomu: The history of the Shirasagi family goes back 450 years.
Tomu: It was in the Warring States period where various feudal lords were continually having battles between hegemonies.
Tomu: The Shirasagi clan was really only a group of specialists who acted as intermediary and negotiators.

Tomu: They stayed neutral from any feudal lord and would gather information on enemy and ally alike in order to determine their advantages and disadvantages.
Tomu: They even occasionally used their ingenuity and negotiating skills to influence the fate of those with major political power.

13

Tomu: But as the wars ended and the world headed for peace, the Shirasagi clan's influence gradually weakened.
Tomu: At the same time, greatly wealthy merchants began appearing and they began to gain political power and join together. Great friction grew between these merchants and the Shirasagi clan.

Tomu: In the end, the influence of those opposed to the them tricked people into thinking the they were planning to rebel and they lost their standing.
Tomu: All of the main members of the Shirasagi clan committed seppuku.
Tomu: The few who survived, hid themselves from pursuers and scattered out across the country taking the family treasure, the Twin Herons, with them.

14

Tomu: Surprisingly, even after some time had passed and the country was headed towards the Meiji Restoration, the "Shirasagi Hunt" hadn't ended.
Tomu: It became clear that the true aim of the ones opposed to the Shirasagi clan was the Twin Herons.

Tomu: It was in the Taisho period that my great-grandfather was captured...
Tomu: The details are unknown, but it's said that a gamble of unprecedented scope was held over the whereabouts of the Twin Herons.

Tomu: The bet was 2 million yen!!
Tomu: His opponent's name was Shishidou Juukichi!!

Natsumi: Sh-Shihidou Juukichi...
Yuka: The founder of Shishidou Academy!!?

15

Tomu: Shishidou won the match.
Tomu: He took the Twin Herons and the Shishidou family grew even further. That was the foundation that they built on to become the biggest zaibatsu today.
Tomu: And at the same time the Shirasagi family completely disappeared from history.

Gokijima: W-wait a sec. How much is 2 million Taishou period yen in today's yen!?

Tomu: At the current value, it would be about 5 thousand times more.

Mizuhara: Eh? 2 million times 5000 is...um...

Mizuhara: Te-
On Mizuhara's glasses: Ten billion
Mizuhara: Ten billion yeeeeeen!!!!?

16

Mizuhara: Y-you're kidding, right? Not even Hideyoshi's guard could be worth ten billion yen.
Gokijima: No, wait!! What if it was a map to a hidden treasure of the Toyotomi family!?

Tomu: That isn't know.
Tomu: But what we do know is that Shishidou Juukichi saw it as being worth that much!!

Yuka: I see!! So your father was captured trying to get it back!
Natsumi: Well it is a treasure worth ten billion.
SFX: Hoehh...

Tomu: No...my father didn't just want to get the Twin Herons back.
Tomu: The Shirasagi clan survived by using their ingenuity as a weapon.
Tomu: So in losing that gamble not only did we lose our treasure, but we also lost our "pride"!!

17

Tomu: My father challenged the Shishidou group alone in order to rid us of that disgrace.
Tomu: But he must have run out of strength and ended up being imprisoned here.

Tomu: When my father revealed all of this to me, he ordered me to make a choice.
SFX: Creak...
Tomu: I could either throw myself into the fight to recover the Twin Herons that the Shirasagi family had bet their honor on...
Tomu: or I could sever all my ties to the past and live a normal life.

Tomu: It was a hard decision for someone as young as I was.
Tomu: I made up my mind when my father disappeared again.

18

Tomu: I would reclaim the Twin Herons and my father, Yumeichirou!!!
Tomu: That's why I came here!!!

Yuka: I-I see!! That's why you announced on your first day here that you would accumulate ten billion yen.
Yuka: That was a proclamation of war stating that you would reclaim the Twin Herons!!
Natsumi: You can do it, senpai!! And I'll help you!!
Gokijima: Wait, wait!!
Gokijima: If we're talkin' about loads of cash here, count me in!!

Mizuhara: You really are amazing, Tomu.
Mizuhara: I would be too scared to even think of fighting.
Tomu: Even I'm scared, Mizuhara...

19

Tomu: But the ecstasy of the gamble that awaits beyond that fear...
Tomu: makes the gambler's blood of the Shirasagi clan that runs through my veins boil in excitement!!

20

Announcer: The rumored super celeb has just landed here in Narita having come in her private jet from America!!
Announcer: She's the daughter of the Dawn Company, the world's biggest munitions company!!
Announcer: With both wealth and beauty, she's incredibly famous all across America!!

Announcer: There she is!! It's Emily Dawn!!!
SFX: Dramatic appearance