Hitomi no Catoblepas 2

This translation is reserved for the use of Phase 3 Manga

-1-
Miiko: (The huge temple next to my house... // Genbu Temple.)
[translator note: Genbu is the Black Tortoise, a god said to rule over the northern heavens. One of the four Shijin, the others being Seiryuu (Azure Dragon, East), Suzaku (Vermilion Bird, South), and Byakko (White Tiger, South). Just in case anybody cares.]
Miiko: (Mysteriously, nobody has ever seen anybody entering or leaving the temple. // It's said to be uninhabited. // Nobody even knows whether it's actually used as a temple.) // This is... where you live...?
[side text: The secret of the intriguing temple is...?!]
[bottom text: The second part of the new series, "Hitomi no Catoblepas"!!]

-2-
Hitomi no Catoblepas
#2 Visitor

[Top text: The second part of the new series! A huge 27 pages!!]
Miiko: (The local people call this temple "Cast-off Temple")
[TN: "Nukegaradera" - "dera" meaning "temple", and "nukegara" literally means "cast-off skin". Couldn't think of a better way to put it that didn't sound plain stupid.]
Miiko: (They don't go near it.) // You've gotta be kidding?
[bottom-right text: Defeating Yoma with that mysterious eye! Shimura Tokio... what exactly is he?!]
[bottom-right author's name: Tanaka Yasuki]

-3-
Tokio: Hm? Why?
Miiko: 'Cause this is the famous "Cast-off Temple"! // There's nobody living here... the gate's always locked... / I've never seen so much as a cat in here! // Nobody even visits this huge run-down temple...
Tokio: Oh, please just come on in.
Miiko: W- wait up!
Tokio: Kai
[TN: The "kai" kanji he uses to unlock the door means both "unseal" and "open". Works either way.]
Miiko: ! // No way?! // It opened.....

-4-
Servants: Welcome home,
Miiko: Wh- // WHAT THE HELL?! [TN: So, so tempted to translate this "NANI KORE" as just a giant "WTF". With a note to the scanlators to make the page an animated GIF purely for the purpose of making the "WTF" flash with neon lights. But I'm not going to do that.]
Tokio: I'm sorry, it must be a little surprising. / They always do this, even though I tell them not to...
Miiko: You're kidding! Who are all these people?! This huge crowd... // There's never been the slightest hint of...!!

-5-
Servants: [continued from page 4...] Master.
Tokio: There is a barrier around the temple. / It's concealed from the outside world. // Without my invitation, // there's no way to get in without forcibly breaking the barrier.
Miiko: Wow... It's beautiful on the inside. / By the way... did they call you "master"?
Hakutaku: Tokio-sama. / I was deeply worried by your late return.

-6-
Hakutaku: Ah... you have brought a companion! / My, my... // I bid you welcome to the "House of Shimura"!
[TN: The first two kanji on Hakutaku's, er, clothing, read "Hakutaku". The third is an obsolete kanji meaning "drawing" or "plan", and I don't know how it's supposed to be read or what it's supposed to mean this context. Could be a name, I suppose, or some kind of incredibly obscure title... or something completely different.]
Miiko: Ah- thank you very much...?! // (What an odd person...)
Tokio: I have returned, Hakutaku. [TN: Or you could just leave it as "Tadaima". English translations of that are always a little forced, but I think it's better to translate on this occasion, else the entire line would just be Japanese and the name would lose its emphasis, I feel. ~_~]
Hakutaku: And the vile Kuchinashi?
Tokio: I have finally dispatched him. [TN: No real way to represent it properly in translation, but he uses an unusual term for "to kill" - it's "shitomeru", appropriately enough, since he defeated the Yoma with the Shitomeru Me]
Hakutaku: He has been dealt with, hm? He had made victims of far too many of our K City residents.
Ayame: Everyone! // The Master has defeated the Yoma and returned safely!!

-7-
Tokuda: Ah! / That's our Tokio-sama!
Ayame: But it seems that he has brought home a female companion!
Tokuda: Female?! Is that true, Ayame?!
Ayame: Do you think I would speak false, Tokuda?! / We must prepare proper service for the guest!
Peoples: Please use this cushion. / Let me take your baggage. // Allow me to rub your shoulders. // My, what a lovely lady!
Tokuda: Please, have a cup of tea.
Tokio: Just a minute...
Servants: Please, have this. / Here is your food. / Will manju be fine?
Miiko: Thank you / Thank you
Ayame: This is a pumpkin pastry I made myself! / I am very proud of it!
[TN: Loving the way the little imp thing speaks in old-man speech.]
Miiko: Eh?! // (I- it's floating?!)

-8-
Miiko: (What is with this temple?! // Though... this is tasty...!)
Tokio: Oi. Ayame. Could you try thinking a little? // With that many people crowding around her, how's the guest supposed to relax? // You too, Tokuda! Is it really that amazing for me to bring a girl home?
Miiko: Could this guy really be an important person? [TN: the term used is "erai hito", which can mean simply "a great person" or "a celebrity", or anything along those lines.]
Hakutaku: I apologise for my rudeness up until now. // You encountered a very dangerous eye today, did you not, Kishida-dono. // I am called Hakutaku. / I am a servant of the House of Shimura.
Miiko: Ah- Pleased to make your acquaintance... // E- er, how do you know my name...?

-9-
Tokio: Hakutaku knows everything. // He has served in this house longer than any other here has. / He's like a walking encyclopaedia.
Hakutaku: Hoho... To say "everything" is a little much. // Also, Tokio-sama, / surely one should presume I would at least know the face of our next-door neighbour.
Tokio: Eh... // NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR?!
Miiko: He really wasn't listening...
Mother: Thank you very much~! // By the way, dear... / Isn't Miiko a little late today? Where could she be?
Father: Haha... She'll just be off somewhere eating summat again, don't ya think?

-10-
Miiko: Woooooow! What a beautiful garden! Such a huge pond! / You live in a place like this?! // It's amazing! // Amazing! So amazing!
Tokio: The person I happened to save by coincidence turned out to be the girl from the fruit shop next door... K City really is a small place... / Is this some kind of fate too...?
Hakutaku: Hoho.
Miiko: Hey, hey! Hurry up and tell me exactly what you are.
Tokio: Eh... Right now? It'll take a while. / After all, you do live next door... can't you go home for today? We can do it tomorrow.
Miiko: Huh! What's with that?! / Ya tricked me, huh?! // I came home with you 'cause you said you'd tell me!
Tokio: Ah... no... that's... sorry...

-11-
Tokio: I, ah, want to eat the ramen I bought and watch anime right now...
Miiko: Are you screwing with me?! You weren't carrying any ramen or anything!
Tokio: I was, actually. It's in my bag. Would you like some too?
Miiko: Eh?
Tokio: I do have two, after all. // This shop makes good ramen, you know.

-12-
Miiko: Oh, come on... I'm really gonna get mad! // This is fake! It's plastic! // Uwa- // Ah... / smells good... // No way!!
Tokio: I was stopping the time of the ramen. / It's easier to carry around that way. // It stays as fresh as if it was just made...
Miiko: That's right! That, that weird magic red eye of yours! That Catoblepas Art thing!! // That's what I want to know about! // Hey... Come on! Could you just- WHY ARE YOU TURNING ON THE TV?! // You're keeping a Catob... a monster thing, inside one of your eyes... / And you can use its power, so that anything you see with that eye, you can stop the time of that thing... // I get that much, but...

-13-
Tokio: We, the House of Shimura, are known as the Guardian House of K City... / For more than a thousand years, we have borne the absolute mission of defeating the Yoma that appear in the living world. // The power of other Yoma is necessary in order to fight the Yoma. // For generations, we of the Guardian House have had the necessary genetic predisposition - / The capacity to house a Yoma within our own bodies and gain inhuman powers. // To use the "Youkai Art". // I inherited this Yoma, Catoblepas, // From the previous generation - from my father.

-14-
Miiko: The Guardian House of K City, battling with Yoma... Pretty incredible story... // But, for monsters like that to really exist... / I mean, I was going crazy just about being touched by one of those mummies...
Hakutaku: You were very lucky, Miiko-dono. / To happen to be on the same train as the Head of the Guardian House, that is.
Miiko: The head?
Hakutaku: Ah... Has he still not mentioned that. // If I may be frank... this very Shimura Tokio-sama you see here / is the 21st Head of the Guardian House of K City, the "House of Shimura"! // Any Yoma unlucky enough to come up against Tokio-sama will be exterminated on the spot!

-15-
Miiko: ......!!
Hakutaku: Tokio-sama's great power that can end a Yoma's existence in an instant // You must have witnessed it yourself, Miiko-dono. // It is not only time that can be stopped by Catoblepas' eye. It can cause life itself to cease. // Master of both "time" and "life", he rules over the very underworld. // That great Yoma praised as the strongest of all, "Catoblepas". // Our family Head, with that Catoblepas as his servant, the most powerful being in K City... // Before the eye of Shimura Tokio // There are // no enemies.

-16-
Tokio: Give it a rest, Hakutaku! You're bragging too much.
Hakutaku: I myself have witnessed Tokio-sama's greatness with these very eyes! [TN: What eyes?! I almost feel like he's about to crack a "SKULL JOKE!" ... Maybe I read too much One Piece.]
Miiko: (Just as I thought... // He's an incredible guy!!)
Tokio: Well, ah... yeah, something like that, that's about right. Could you leave it now, Hakutaku?
Miiko: (He really doesn't seem all that incredible most of the time, though... // This totally laid-back only-child type guy...)
Hakutaku: Hoho... Miiko-dono, as Tokio-sama is being like this, / if you would like, I could show you around the temple.
Miiko: Eh, really?!
Hakutaku: If it is all right with you, Miiko-dono, we could also have supper together afterwards. / Hm, Tokio-sama?
Miiko: Ya~y!
Tokio: You going crazy, Hakutaku?!

-17-
Tokio: You just eat at a guy's house and then wander off, is that it, Miiko-san...?
Miiko: Sounds right! Enjoy your anime~!
Tokio: ...Thanks...
Miiko: ! // Ehh... // Hey, hey, Hakutaku-san... what are these?
Hakutaku: A- Ah... Those are the portraits of the all the previous Heads of the House of Shimura...
Miiko: Wooooow!! Such amazing history... // (Uhhh... since Shimura's the 21st... // Ah! This one, the 20th, must be Shimura's father... / He looks so kind... // And this one next to it is Shimura! (Though they're all "Shimura"))

-18-
Miiko: (Eh? But... this photo... a child? // It looks quite like him, but... it feels kind of different... // ...Who is it?)

-19-
Inaba: Excuse me. / Excuse me.
Ayame: Hm! // Who're you?! Suspicious guy! // Where the heck did you come from?!
Inaba: "Where", you say... Why, through the entrance, of course.
Ayame: What? // Then, you're a guest of Tokio-sama's?!
Servant: My, we have a lot of guests today!
Inaba: I became indebted to Tokio-sama the other day. My name is Inaba. / I was supposed to meet with him today.

-20-
Ayame: Apologies for the rudeness, Inaba-dono! / Is this a gift? A seasonal selection of fruit from Kishida Fruits! Tokio-sama will certainly be pleased! // It's true that only those he has invited can enter here, after all.
Inaba: Haha... that it is. // There's no other way to get in... // but to remove the temple's surrounding barrier by force...
Ayame: !? // Why do you...?!

-21-
Tokio: Hakutaku!
Hakutaku: What is the matter, Tokio-sama?
Tokio: Something bad has entered the temple premises... I feel its presence.
Miiko: ?
Hakutaku: What...
Tokio: The barrier has been breached.
Servants: Noooooooooo!! // Master!!!!
Hakutaku: To break into Genbu Temple itself... this Yoma... / It must either be very sure of its own power, or else very stupid.
Tokio: By the way...

-22-
Tokio: Miiko-san! Whilst the enemy's form is still unknown, the safest place for you to be is with me. / Please don't go off on your own.
Miiko: Y- yes! // Ah-!
Servant: Ah... Master... / Please be careful... // He uses... / ...poison...
Tokio: ...!!

-23-
Tokio: Kurumi // Saohime...
Arachne: Kuku... // The women are mere constructs, eh...?

-24-
Arachne: A strip of paper like that... / won't be able to nourish me, now, will it... // I suppose... // It'll have to be a living human after all...
Tokio: Ugh-
Miiko: Wh- wh- wh- what is it this time?!
Hakutaku: This is unfortunate...
Arachne: Kukukukuku... // It's useless. / There is no escape from my sticky threads...!!
Hakutaku: Appearance like a spider... the characteristic eight legs and striped pattern... / This is unmistakably the Yoma "Arachne"!
[TN: The kanji for "Arachne" read something like "nine years of devastation". Though the furigana are katakana, they're a natural, not an imposed reading, though, so the kanji are probably chosen more for sound than meaning.]
Hakutaku: The threads he spins are powerful! If you get caught up in them, he will consume you while you are unable to move!
Miiko: No way! // Then, Shimura will-?!

-25-
Arachne: Gufufufufufu... // Head of the House of Shimura or no... / What need have I to fear him?!

-26-
Arachne: You are trapped, Shimura Tokio!! / Unable to move so much as a millimetre from that spot...
Tokio: Ugh... you have such bad timing.
Arachne: Hm?
Tokio: It's almost six... the show will start without me. Will you be taking the blame if I miss it? I look forward to it every week, you know... (It'll start in five minutes...)
Miiko: What are you talking about at a time like this...?!
Arachne: ............... // Are you underestimating me, you runt?

-27-
Arachne: Your movement is completely sealed. // I'm going to kill you slowly and carefully... I'll make a game of it!!
Tokio: I'm serious. // I'll end this in two minutes. / If the two of you could stand back, please.
[bottom text: There is no fear in those eyes!!]

This translation is reserved for the use of Phase 3 Manga