Hell Teacher Nube 17

Is your fear something that is good, or is it less beneficial than you realize? When Makoto discovers a horrible, scary phenomenon that may be coming, he is about to learn that his fears may only be making everything worse...

#17: The Mystery of Teketeke

27.
Voice: THIS IS…A STORY THAT TRULY HAPPENED IN THE NEXT TOWN…
SFX: KAN KAN KAN KAN
Voice: A SOLE FEMALE MIDDLE-SCHOOLER DIED IN A RAILWAY CROSSING ACCIDENT. IT WAS A CRUEL MANNER OF DEATH, WITH HER BODY SPLIT IN TWO. HOWEVER SURPRISINGLY, JUST THE TOP HALF OF HER BODY WAS ALIVE FOR TEN MINUTES AFTER THE ACCIDENT!
SFX: PUAAA…
Voice: EVEN NOW, THE SPIRIT OF THIS CHILD IS SAID TO WANDER AROUND SEARCHING FOR IT’S LOST LEGS…AND…TO THE PERSON WHO HAS HEARD THIS STORY, THIS SPIRIT…

28.-29.
Voice: WILL INVARIABLY APPEAR TO WITHIN THREE DAYS…!
Caption on Second Page:
Annotation: Teketeke…a ghastly girl spirit who is only just the top half of its body. It pursues with incredible force by using its elbows. At present, it is in the midst of going south through the Japanese islands. (It is also called “Shakashaka”.)

30.
Voice: And then it is heard… “Do you have legs, do you have legs?”, it goes. If you make in a mistake in how you answer it then, it will break off and take your legs…!
“Bully”: Well? Do you want to know the correct way to answer?
(TN: This bully character appears a few times in this series, usually it’s a couple different people who look similar…he never has a name that I can remember so I’ll just be calling him “bully”)
Makoto: I…I want to know!
“Bully”: If you want me to tell you, give me 1000 yen.
Makoto: Ye…yes.
“Bully”: Hehe! I can’t think of it myself! Bye!
Makoto: EH!! What about the rest!!

31.
SFX: DORO~~N
Nube: You haven’t slept without knowing the spell to send away “Teketeke”!?
Nube, Hiroshi & Kyouko: AHAHAHAHA…
Nube: What grade are you in~~?
Nube: AHAHAHA
Ritsuko: Ah, Nueno-sensei, I bout a new coat but…is it a tad childish?
Nube: That is you, Makoto~~

32.
Nube: Really, you shouldn’t have these habits of kids--! How old are you exactly!
Nube: WHAT DID I SAY?
Kyouko: Well then—isn’t this “Teketeke” merely gossip?
Hiroshi: Seriously, you’re a coward!
Nube: This is a new type of blackmail…middle-schoolers in the next town scare people on purpose and take their money. It’s an instigation using spirits to make money.
Makoto: With what was said…there’s nothing I can do being scared about it…aah…I want to know the correct spell.
Makoto: Hey, all of you, do you know the Teketeke spell?
Kids: ? ?
Hiroshi: He’s taking it to the underclassmen.
Kyouko: What a worried kid!
Boy: She’s coming within 3 days.
Girl: No~~I’m scared~~

33.
Nube: This is bad: at this rate, the rumor will spread throughout the school.
Hiroshi: Teacher…
Speaker: This is the campus broadcast for lunch. Today is a cheerful-student’s worry discussion.
Makoto: Tell me the Teketeke spell!
SFX: PU--!
Makoto: The person who tells me will be given all of my Famicom games!
(TN: “Famicom”, for those who don’t know, is the name of the first two Nintendo video game systems, including the “Famicom”, the equivalent of the 8-bit “Nintendo Entertainment System” and “Super Famicom” the equivalent of the 16-bit “Super Nintendo” [which was out around this time considering the “Seiken Densetsu 2” reference in the last volume])
Nube: Makoto--!
Sign: TELL ME THE TEKETEKE SPELL
Shirt: I’M SCARED OF THE TEKETEKE
Nube: Look! It’s your fault that they’re talking nothing but Teketeke rumors throughout the school! The underclassmen children seem to be too terrified and are in a state of panic!
Caption: This person is the most scared.

34.
Nube: How’s this: this Teketeke is a myth: from here on, don’t think anything about Teketeke at all! Understand!!
Makoto: You’re mean…why are you so unsparing like this even though I really am scared?
SFX: GUSU…
Makoto: I hate you teacher---!
Kyouko: Hey…Nube!
Hiroshi: He’s done nothing, so this isn’t right!
Kyouko: That’s right! Because this is a spirit that doesn’t exist whatsoever…
Nube: No, you’re wrong!

35.
Nube: This is dangerous because it’s a spirit that exists!
Kyouko: Eh!?
Nube: The girl who became the model for the “Teketeke” story is K.R. (alias), whose body was cut in two parts and died in a railroad accident in the winter of Hokkaido 20-something years ago.
Nube: However, due to it being too cold, and due to her blood vessels constricting which stopped bleeding, just the top half of her body agonized in pain over several minutes without coming to an instant death.
Hiroshi: If that’s the case, how could it become a myth…
Nube: Because of the safety in the way it seemed to be thought …

36.
Nube: By matching a wavelength in thinking of it just as a spirit to be scared of and it will contrarily summon the spirit. The way Makoto is scared isn’t usual…it will end up being called.
Kyouko: Will…it come.
Nube: Perhaps…
Sign: KURITA
Makoto: What will I do if Teketeke comes?
SFX: JO---…
Makoto: It’s no good: even if I play my Famicom or do my homework; whatever I do, I end up thinking about Teketeke.
Hiroshi: Uh~~it’s cold—let’s go home—we should go home if we want to go home. Our sweet-loving teacher is in a good mood for just having his oshiruko.
(TN: “Oshiruko” or just “shiruko” is an azuki been soup with mochi, which could be served either cold or hot.)
Kyouko: I’m getting heartburn.
Can: OSHIRU(KO)

37.
SFX: KAN KAN KAN KAN
SFX: KAN KAN KAN KAN
Makoto: The sound of…a rail crossing…?
(TN: Note Piccolo on his wall: considering “Dragon Ball” (and the anime “Dragon Ball Z”) was still going strong with it’s run from 1984 to 1995, there’s no surprise that Makoto would have a poster of him with it still running and massively popular circa publication in 1993)
Nube: ……It’s come…
Kyouko: Eh?
SFX: SUTSU
Nube: There it is.
SFX: KAN KAN
Makoto: Hi
SFX: KAN KAN KAN
Makoto: Wh…where? Where am I hearing this from?
SFX: KAN KAN KAN KAN

38.-39.
Teketeke: Do you…have legs…
SFX: NITA~~~~~…
Makoto: UWAAAA

40.
Nube: MAKOTO!
Makoto: TEACHER—
Makoto: Sa…save me, it’s going to take my legs. Tell me the correct spell—
Nube: If you want to know a spell for this.
SFX: GRAB
Makoto: Eh?
Nube: LEARN IT FROM SHE HERSELF
SFX: ZUFU
Makoto: HIEE!?

41.
SFX: ZUSU
Hiroshi: Hi
SFX: POU
Nube: Now, Makoto, ask her. Why she can’t rest in peace; why this is done to the original person who hears her tale?
Kyouko: That’s…the communication method to spirits he used with Hanako-san…
Makoto: Ah…ah. So….so that’s it.
Kyouko: Do you know something?
Makoto: It’s the fault of children like me that this person can’t rest in peace.

42.
Makoto: This girl…even if the people in her family have held several memorial services and she should be resting in peace, she is bound by felings and can’t go to that world due to the thoughts and fears about her by hundreds of people, including children like me…
Nube: Nenbakurei: as long as there are any people who think about this girl, she can never rest in peace.
(TN: “Nenbakurei” = “Feeling-Bound Spirit”)
Makoto: I’ll do anything to make it better. My scared self ends up thinking of her no matter what I do.
Nube: It’s simple: whenever you think of her, wish for her to quickly rest in peace without being scared. Feelings as such have the power to make spirits rest in peace.
Makoto: Te…Teketeke-san, I don’t want to be scared. Please rest in peace quickly.

43.
Nube: You will certainly rest in peace when the rumors are completely forgotten. Therefore, return now.
Makoto: Ah…she disappeared…
Nube: People who die in tragic accidents generally are easy in becoming the materials of ghost stories. But we can’t have the dead treated as monsters with a half-interest in them: that is an act that desecrates the spirit.
Makoto: So, having it take my legs for not chanting the correct spell…
Nube: That was a myth made up by someone arbitrarily.
SFX: Hii Fuu Mii.
“Bully”: Hehehe! Grade-schoolers are simple! Catching them in that nice ghost-story…

44.
SFX: KAN KAN KAN
Teketeke: DO YOU…HAVE LEGS…
“Bully”: UWA!
“Bully”: Te…Teketeke!? This can’t be, it actually appeared…but it’s fine, I know the correct spell…
“Bully”: “XXXXXXXXXXXX!” How’s that; you’ve quickly lost, monster!

45.
Teketeke: ARE YOU THE ONE WHO SPREAD THE RUMOR? HOW DARE YOU.
Teketeke: HOW DARE YOU
SFX: GOGOGOGO
“Bully”: Th…that’s…the…the story is wrong…
Teketeke: DO YOU HAVE LEGS!!
SFX: BUCHI BUCHI BUNA
“Bully”: GYAAAAA…
Narrator: TEKETEKE IS DUE TO THE FEELINGS OF PEOPLE SCARED OF THIS GIRL WHO CAN’T REST IN PEACE TYING HER TO THE EARTH.
SFX: ZURU ZURU ZURU
Narrator: IT’S BEST FOR EVEN YOU, WHO HAVE READ THIS STORY, TO QUICKLY FORGET IT, OR ELSE BY THIS BASIS, TONIGHT YOU…

46
NUBE-SENSEI’S GREAT YOUKAI ENCYCLOPEDIA

14. Teketeke

It was an event which occurred in the Hokkaido winter twenty-something years ago.

In the dead of night, a two-car diesel train was running through the wilderness where snow was fully falling. The riders were just the mate and the conductor. There were no passengers. The inside had a sole heater: a daruma stove which was burning brightly.

Suddenly on top of the tracks, a sole female stood in the way. The mate wasn’t in time in putting on the emergency brake. The train pulled down the female and ran several tens of meters to a stop.

She had jumped to suicide.

They must have contacted the closest station immediately and call the police. However, this was an era where wireless contact like today hadn’t been developed. Eventually, one of them between the mate and conductor would be left behind and the other would come to walk to the nearby station to contact them. By result of lottery, the conductor came to be left behind.

After the master went away, the conductor sat in the car alone and stared at the fire in the stove. Before long, when he began to take a nap, it came from the window outside:

ZUBU…ZUZUZU…

He had heard a sound like something was being dragged. The conductor became pale. What exactly was there in the wilderness where the snow was falling? Itself should have only been a corpse and yet.

ZUBU…ZUZUZU…ZUBU…ZUZUZU…

The sound that was like dragging was rapidly getting closer. And then it climbed to the nearby car from a door that was left open by the mate earlier. There was something in the next car that was isolated by a sole door. Before long the door opened without a sound.

………………

An hour later, when the mate returned bringing a policeman, the body of the conductor was nowhere to be found. On the side of the train was only just the lower half of the woman who was cut in two under the wheels. They searched about for thirty minutes. Suddenly the mate, who looked upwards, surprisingly gulped his breath. On top of the telephone pole on the side of the track, the conductor had climbed up and froze to death. On his back was clinging the corpse of the woman with just the top-half of her body.

(TN: A Daruma Stove is a pot-bellied stove usually used by trains in the northern country of Japan such as Hokkaido)

TN: With all that has been going on the last volume with most of the characters not really getting too much development aside their introduction, it is nice that we finally get a character development chapter that allows someone outside Hiroshi and Kyouko to develop a bit. (nothing against them...even though Kyouko probably would have not gotten heartburn from shiruko if she didn't show up) It is weird Makoto would be the first character to get this...but considering he still is one of the "main named five" at the moment, he does have his excuses (besides, with how Miki and Akira have been as of late, maybe it's for the better to focus on Makoto and figure them out...then again...) This chapter in particular begins to further show that the little guy isn't merely just short...but seems more child-like and prone to falling for things that little kids would have compared to your typical 5th grader. Somehow Makoto's youthfulness is sort of a recurring theme here and having it (and unexpected consecuences...like with Ritsuko-sensei smashing Nube again) gives him something more and continues his development into a fully-realized character. The tale regarding the Teketeke itself was also very melancholic in nature: a normal human trapped into being a fear instead of the tragedy she deserves to be because of misinterpretation. Of course, it is a tale like this which shows the prejudice in people's minds regarding things you don't understand: when you see a girl who is half a body with her intestines dripping out, you're taught to fear her...but in truth, she may actually be someone suffering pain because of this fear. Of course...the jerk who threw Makoto under the bus got what he deserved...but as I said before, more like him will be showing up so think of him as a local bully who always gets tossed around for plot convenience. (well him and people like him)