Hell Teacher Nube 42

An exorcism can be tough, in particular when there is something the non-departed needs to do before passing on. But Nube's desire to assist a lingering spirit may get into trouble...when Kyouko and Hiroshi get involved!

Vol. 6: The Ghost of the 4th Lane
#42: The Ghost of the 4th Lane

8.
Narrator: The 25m pool of Doumori Elementary, the 4th Lane. It’s been said that the spirit of a swimming club member has been here since long ago.
Narrator: This spirit is a spirit of a middle schooler who died in a traffic accident when Doumori Elementary once had a middle school 30 years ago. (They’re separate at present) He was a quite excellent student and left a reputation even in all-national tournaments.
Nube: Your attachment to this world is strong…you can’t rest in peace with some regret.

9.
“Ghost”: I WANT TO RACE ONCE MORE. WITH A STRONG MIDDLE SCHOOLER THAT POSSESSES THE TOURNAMENT RECORD…
Nube: That’s a difficult request. We don’t have a swim club here and now at this grade school and there isn’t a situation where I can bring it in from the middle school.
Nube: But relax: I have the best method. Wait two or three days; I’ll bring in a race opponent.
Caption: The next day

10.
Narrator: Today is the pool opening
Swimsuits:
Kyouko’s: 5-3: INABA KYOUKO
Miki’s: 5-3: HOSOKAWA MIKI

11.
Nube: Well—well, everyone stand in line, get in line!! The class is starting.
Makoto: Kyahaha…
Nube: Um—our objective this year is for everyone to come to swim 25m.
Hiroshi: Eh—someone can’t swim that?
Katsuya: Anyhow, that’s Makoto.
Makoto: You’re wrong!
Hiroshi: Did you hear? Even though we’re in 5th grade, we have our lead hammers. That’s shameful.
(TN: Hiroshi uses a term “kandzuchi” here, which specifically refers to “lead hammers”. This is in conjunction to a Japanese expression that people who can’t swim are like “lead hammers”, sort of like other countries refer to them as lead weights. Though with Hiroshi saying that around Kyouko...who now has a cutely embarrassed expression…)
Kyouko: Eh—ri…ri…right…
Nube: Al—right, when your warm-up exercises are done, go in!
Hiroshi: Alright, Kyouko, it’s the first swim; let’s ra—ce!!
SFX: DON!
Kyouko: Eh, no, I, um…
SFX: DOBO—N (SPLASH)

12.
Kyouko: GYAAAA | I’M DYING—SAVE ME~~HIIII
SFX: BASHA BASHA (SPLASH SPLASH) | GOGOGOGOGOGO
Nube: That’s my reason. Kyouko is this class’ sole big lead hammer.
Miki: That stomach is your child. Please acknowledge it~~~
Kyouko: Aaah, they saw that shameful form, I can’t live anymore! (WA~H)
Hiroshi: N…no—(to himself) It truly was shameful but
Nube: But even with just one person who can’t swim, I hate teaching that.
Miki: W—ow, surprised~~
Nube: OK, I’ve decided! Hiroshi, you’ll be giving Kyouko a private lesson in swimming as punishment for drowning her.
Hiroshi: EH~~~!?
Nube: Because you’re a 5 in swimming, its better that you don’t take this lesson.
(TN: I assume that probably has to do with some swimming grade standard…but unfortunately I couldn’t figure out what Nube meant by being a “5 in swimming”)

13.
SFX: KYA
Hiroshi: Chi; got—no choice—in this—we’ll do this until you can since you’re being taught by Hiroshi-kun.
Kyouko: Right, steadily teach me.
Hiroshi: Breaststroke.
SFX: Pyoko Pyoko
Hiroshi: She won’t complete it by kicking in the air.
Hiroshi: Dog paddle.
SFX: GEBO GEBO GEBO
Hiroshi: Her face is like some dog but—
Hiroshi: Crawl
SFX: NOTA—NOTA—
Caption: Can’t float.
Hiroshi: …………
Hiroshi: Dowahaha, you’re like a sea cucumber!!
(TN: “Sea Cucumbers, also known as “sea slugs” are chinoderms of the Holothuroidea class, notable both for their appearance through Japanese culture and as their use in food and medicine through China and other parts of Asia)
Kyouko: Don’t laugh, teach!!
Hiroshi: You airhead—swimming will be memorized by your body!! Like—this and—that, lose yourself to breathing, flutter kick, frog kick—

14.
Kyouko: Demon!! Devil!! Idiot!
Hiroshi: Shut up; I’m teaching you, don’t speak with your jumbled complaints!!
Hiroshi: I really want to swim together with everyone! Though I am teaching you with no choice since I was told to by teacher.
Kyouko: That’s enough, STUPID!!
Hiroshi: He…hey, Kyouko, let’s practice this—I’ll get the anger of teacher—but~~
Kyouko: I don’t know you anymore!!
Narrator: That night…
Kyouko: That stupid Hiroshi. He isn’t good even if this is nothing about that way of speaking!!

15.
Kyouko: If it’s come to this then I’ll practice alone and triumph over this…
SFX: ZABU—BASHA BAN
Kyouko: Eh…swimming in the middle of the night…huh!!
Kyouko: Who is that!?
SFX: OOOOOOOO

16.
SFX: GOGOGOGOGO
Kyouko: POSSIBLY…THAT’S THE SPIRIT THAT APPEARS IN THE 4TH LANE IN THOSE RUMORS…
Kyouko: Kya—it’s appeared—save me—Nube!!
“Spirit” Hold on!
“Spirit”: Don’t be scared of this. Why have you come to swim in the middle of the night?
Kyouko: What…this spirit doesn’t make me shiver like always. It’s like something is alive; even his conscious is clear…
“Spirit”: Heh—you’ve been ridiculed by that Hiroshi-kun…
Kyouko: That’s right.

17.
“Spirit”: Hiroshi-kun was told to by the teacher, and yet it’s a bother to him…nothing you can do about it—I’m certain your teacher thought he would be at ease if he left it to Hiroshi-kun with his explosive reflexes…
Kyouko: That’s right and yet that Hiroshi
SFX: GUSU
Kyouko: Hey, you, you’re in the swim club. Teach me to swim!!
“Spirit”: Eh? Bu…but
Kyouko: I want to triumph over Hiroshi. For that, I can’t stupidly let this go!
“Spirit” Understood. I’ll teach you in floating somehow. Well, draw out the power of your shoulders and hold on to me.
SFX: BASHA BASHA BASHA (SPLASH SPLASH SPLASH)
Kyouko: How kind…
SFX: PO--…

18.
Narrator: Several days later
Miki: Hey hey, Hiroshi~~a moment, it’s terrible.
Hiroshi: N?
Miki: It’s Kyouko: lately she seems to be having a rendezvous with a mysterious handsome youth at the pool after school. N—I haven’t had a reason to see this but—it seems amazing already that they’re doing this and that at the pool~~~
SFX: PERA PERA PERA PERA PERA PERA
Miki: A person’s first love is a thing that ends in memories. You have beautiful memories of that A-cup Kyouko and now you may be better to go out with a person like me with huge boobs.
Hiroshi: ………
Hiroshi: Today she brought a swimsuit, even though it’s a day we don’t swim…

19.
(And…here’s where Kyouko’s in trouble…outside the potential of Hiroshi being embarrassed in seeing naked Kyouko)

20.
“Spirit”: Alright, shall we challenge the backstroke today?
Kyouko: Eh, I’m suddenly scared.
“Spirit”: It will be fine: draw out your power and trust your body to me…
Hiroshi: That guy~~what are you doing to Kyouko—
“Spirit”: Eh? What, we were swimming…
Kyouko: Eh!? No way: Hiroshi, why are you here…
Hiroshi: Kyouko, get away from him. He’s a ghost. You’ll be possessed.
Kyouko: Bu…but…

21.
Hiroshi: I’ve heard the rumors of you…you want to face a strong person once more and can’t rest in peace until then. If that’s how it is, then you’re facing me. So you’ll go away!
“Spirit”: Understood: a race where we bet on Kyouko-chan…so then, Kyouko-chan is important.
“Spirit”: If she is then how could you forsake Kyouko-chan, who was seriously troubled in not being able to swim!! Are you capable of worrying about Kyouko-chan!?
Hiroshi: Shut it—don’t speak with your complaints--!!
“Spirit”: Fufufu….fine then, I will test to see how much you feel of Kyouko-chan. Let’s race. However…if you lose, then you’re coming with me.
SFX: ZA—
Hiroshi: Oh—excellent, let’s do this!!
Kyouko: Hiroshi!!

22.
“Spirit”: Hiroshi, it’s impossible. Your opponent took 5th in the all-nation tournament!!
Kyouko: Shut up--!! Can you now end that until it’s over!
“Spirit”: Let’s go, Hiroshi-kun.
Hiroshi: Right.
SFX: ZAZAZAZAZA
Hiroshi: HE’S…FAST

23.
Hiroshi: IT’S AS EXPECTED OF 5TH IN THE ALL-NATION TOURNAMENT…I CAN’T COMPETE WITH HIM AT ALL!
Hiroshi: No! I’ll lose!
“Spirit”: Ha ha ha, I’ve got this Hiroshi-kun!!
“Spirit”: !!

24.
Kyouko: YOU CAN’T!!
SFX: BATSU
“Spirit”: Kyouko-chan!!
Hiroshi: Kyouko!!
Kyouko: You can’t, you can’t can’t, you can’t win!!
“Spirit”: Ca…can’t you stop, Kyouko-chan!!
Kyouko: I won’t let you take Hiroshi!! If you understand that!
“Spirit”: I give, I give; my long-awaited match is spoiled. It seems Kyouko-chan is deep with Hiroshi-kun after all.
SFX: SHURURU…
“Spirit”: But that was fun. I became heated after a long time; with that, I can rest in peace.
“Spirit”: Well, at most I made friends. Teach her exactly the way to swim.
SFX: SUU—
Hiroshi: Wh…what is he…
Kyouko: Strange…he can rest in peace with that incomplete match?

25.
Kyouko: It’s better that I’m taught swimming by Hiroshi after all. Teach me a bit more seriously from here.
Hiroshi: N? Oh…yeah.
“Voice”: Oh brother, it has settled with the former pod? With that, Hiroshi will come to teach swimming to Kyouko in earnest.
“Spirit”: But those two couldn’t have thought in their dreams
Nube: That the ghost was a body that was done by my erethral-body separation.

26.
Nube: When I did an erethral-body separation, I saved a portion of my erethral body and separated into the form of a middle schooler.
Nube: It was so I could face you on equal conditions, but I came to be made to be put into that play due to accidentally being seen by Kyouko. I’ve kept you waiting.
Nube: Well, shall we do it? My merit is that I took 5th in the all-nation tournament when I was in middle school. You will rest in peace.
Hiroshi: Hey hey~~! Don’t be idle--!! Next will be the flutter kick; 20,000 times!!
Kyouko: It would have been better if I hadn’t said to teach me seriously…

TN: Alright, honest question: who here without spoiling the ending...knew that the "spirit" Kyouko met was Nube? I mean it did look like him so it would obviously throw off those who thought it was the ghost...but at the same time the usage of the erethral body was a genius move to protect the idea that what Kyouko and Hiroshi encountered wasn't the actual ghost. This chapter also further shows the development of those two and their relationship...though at the same time shows how tenuous and difficult it can be. Hiroshi did try his best before to teach Kyouko to swim, but unfortunately what works with him isn't the same as what works with...well, a lead hammer like Kyouko. Of course, Kyouko's intervention in the swim race did show that as much as she hated how he tried to "teach her", it wasn't enough to distract any feelings. (then again there is Miki...but we all know she's nuts) One thing I really liked about this chapter is how many crazy but cute facial expressions there were with the characters...for some reasons that always seems to be a strong point in the expressiveness of the characters in this series. Kyouko in particular had the great faces...but even look at Miki during her "gossip trouble-making" bit, going from serious to airheaded to completely out of it in her own fantasy...then again we know how the females get in this series so it's no surprise.