Hell Teacher Nube 81

For someone who has been around as long as she has, the mermaid Hayame is bound to have caused a lot of problems in her lifetime. (then again she's one herself) But her greatest trouble may have come from one of her old friends...

#81: New Theory: The Tale of Priestess Happyaku

67.
“Reporter”: Hello! This morning we’ve come to the riverside fish market at Doumori Harb—or. It’s filled with various fish!
“Reporter”: What fish is this called?
Worker: It’s tuna. Look and you’ll know.
“Reporter”: So then, this fish is?
Worker: That’s…
Workers: Uh!! Waaa! What is that!?
SFX: Bikun! Bikun!

68.
Hayame: Eh?

69.
Hayame: Fua~~~a, I slept well. It’s morning already?
Hayame: Everyo—ne, it’s morning—wake up—
Fish: I’m dead, idiot!!
Voices: A mermaid—kyaa, what shall we do with it!? It will sell high!! Capture it---!
SFX: Wa—wa—dota dota dota
Newscaster: Here’s the news! This morning, a mermaid was captured at Doumori Harbor! It was discovered sleeping together with the tuna at the riverside fish market!
Nube: Th…that mermaid…isn’t that Hayame! Why is she at some fish market…!?
(TN: Because she wasn’t naked at the Statue of Liberty)

70.
Nube: Hayame…that slightly stupid, blundering mermaid who was dried up and became a mummy before and was brought back to life with my spiritual power. In gratitude for saving her, I, who had been wounded, was healed with the blood of the eternally young and immortal mermaid, but…
Nube: In truth, there’s an unthinkable side-effect in the mermaid’s blood! Your head becomes incredibly dumb!
Nube: Due to her, I came to not even say my multiplication tables for a week afterwards…I was super scared that my life as a teacher was already over! Seriously!
SFX: Zo~~~
Broadcaster: The Doumori Fishing Cooperative have stated “since it’s a rare creature, we want to investigate her knowingly by dissecting it”…
TV: Mermaid Discovered
Kyouko: Nube
Nube: Right.
Nube: Hayame, who is a youkai, is a benefactor of my life. I don’t have reason to abandon her.
Kyouko: Eh? So then…
Nube: I’m going to save Hayame!!
Kyouko: Right, shouldn’t we come with!!
Nube: All of you will stay here and do self-study!
Kyouko: Eh~~!?

71.
Narrator: At that moment…in a room in a certain mansion
“Nun”: Hohoho…
“Nun”: I’m certain, that’s the mermaid Hayame…of course, they’ve found her…Ho~~~ho ho ho…
Caption: --Doumori Harbor Warehouse—

72.
SFX: Kon kon
Hayame: Ah!
Hayame: Ha…have you come to save me!?
Nube: Yes: I saw you on the news on TV. Aren’t you bad: recklessly showing yourself in front of people.
Hayame: Th…thank you very much. In expression of gratitude, I offer you my flesh to eat and give you eternal youth and immortality.
Nube: Si…since it’s fine, quickly change into a human.
SFX: Shuuu
Hayame: Ri—ght, I have legs--! (It was ra—pid [heart])
Nube: I can’t see them separate, so since you’re fine, well, get dressed!

73.
Nube: Alright, no one is here. Now we’re going to run.
Hayame: Right!
Nube: Really….why were you going up to land again!?
Hayame: Right: actually, I was thinking of buying a CD player in Akihabara…
(TN: Akihabara is a notable district of Tokyo that is part of Chiyoda ward, best known for its electronic good at this period in the 1990s. More recently, it is more known for the anime and otaku who hang out there)
Nube: Y…you idiot, that was your reason…
Nube: It isn’t overdoing it because you’re not known by humans outside me but…humans aren’t to just be friends with youkai! Don’t be negligent!
Hayame: Ara, there is a human who knows of me outside teacher—
Hayame: This human—she became my friend 800 years ago already.
Nube: What…!?
Hayame: That human’s name is—

74.
“Nun”: It’s been a while, Hayame…I’ve been searching for you for an extremely long time…
Nube & Hayame: Priestess Happyaku!!
(TN: As I mentioned back in the “mermaid” Encyclopedia entry, “Priestess Happyaku” or “Happyaku Bikuni”, literally translates to “Priestess 800” or “The Eight-Hundred Year Priestess” or “the 800-year female Buddhist disciple”. I chose to translate her name as “Priestess Happyaku” due to the “Bikuni” being a title, not a name)

75.
Nube: Priestess Happyaku!? This…is ridiculous!?
Hayame: You know of her?
Nube: A girl from a certain fishing village ate the flesh of a mermaid she saved on a beach and became eternally young and immortal. However, her blood relatives, friends and even lover left her behind and died. Unable to stand a lonely life, she became a nun, but even afterwards she never could die and was said to live over 800 years…
Nube: Th…the mermaid of that tale was you, Hayame!?
Hayame: Yes, I am quite famous…
Happyaku: Yes…long ago, I merely ate the flesh that was given in gratitude by that mermaid…I came to have a body that couldn’t ever die…
SFX: Ko…ko…
Happyaku: Eight-hundred years…I’ve been searching for you all that time. For you, that made me eternally young and immortal…
SFX: Ko…ko…ko…
Happyaku: For my revenge!!
SFX: Pita…
Happyaku: Meeting you here in my 800th year…!!
SFX: Su

76.
Happyaku: Ondorya~~~I’m resolved to put a chill up your spine and torment you ~~~!!
SFX: Ba!
Nube: What is that~~
Happyaku: Ho~~~hohohoho
SFX: Dogagagaga…

77.
Nube: Watch out!!
SFX: Gacha~~! Bari—
Happyaku: Surprised!! So I could take you down—I took up special firing training with the French Foreign Legion!
SFX: Gagagagaga
Happyaku: Haven’t I lived long for this! (Ho~~hohoho) Ara?
SFX: Boro
SFX: Doka—n doka Dokan Chuto Bari—n
Happyaku: Gyaaaaa!!
SFX: Gogogo
Nube: Wh…what, she destroyed herself…(to himself) Perhaps…from eating Hayame’s flesh…she became stupid in the head!?
Nube: She’s torn up. Like that, she can’t be rescued…
Hayame: No…
Hayame: She’s eternally young and immortal. She’ll regenerate immediately.
SFX: Zozozo
Nube: Gee

78.
SFX: Oooooh Oooh
Happyaku: Hunnu---
SFX: Shuuuuu
Nube: Th…that’s Priestess Happyaku…that form…that regenerative power…she’s not a human anymore…she’s a youkai!
Happyaku: Ho~~hohohoho!!
Nube: Run, Hayame!!
Hayame: Priestess-san…

79.
Kyouko: Nube is late. Did he rescue Hayame-san safely…
Board: Self-Study
Voice: Hold on~~
Happyaku: Will you run from me—I’ve been waiting 800 years for this chance!! (Ho—hohoho)
Kyouko: Wh…what is that weird woman!!
Happyaku: So I could take you down—in the Sengoku Era! I undertook special training in ninjutsu at Iga Village. (Hohohoho)
(TN: While I’ve probably mentioned before about the Sengoku era (the warring states period where Japan’s lords fought one another before finally finding order under the Tokugawa), the village of Iga, located in Mie Prefecture is notable as the birthplace of “Iga-ryuu”, a notable school of ninjutsu connected to famed ninja Hattori Hanzo)
Happyaku: Take this: my special caltrops---
SFX: Bara bara bara
Happyaku: Ow---
Nube: You placed the caltrops in front of yourself…super-idiot…

80.
Nube: Oh brother.
Hiroshi: Nube!
Kyouko: What exactly is going on!?
Nube: Actually it’s been brightly this and that…
Hiroshi: Eh, Priestess Happyaku!?
Hayame: Priestess-san…
Happyaku: I~~~so I could~~bring you down~~~undertook special cowboy training in the Pioneer age of the American West----!! (Ho—hohoho)
SFX: Hyun hyun hyun
Happyaku: Haa
Happyaku: Got you!
SFX: Gui
SFX: Gura
SFX: Guja
Happyaku: Ugyaaaa!!

81.
Hiroshi: Uwa, this is bad~~her brains are coming out!
Nube: Pathetic…she probably has done other various special trainings…but because she’s stupid, she hasn’t mastered even one of them…
Happyaku: If you know, then you know!! I’m no good at all of them!!
SFX: Kii~~ | Shu—shu— | Bashi bashi bashi
Nube: Thous you really are an idiot…
Happyaku: Eight-hundred years…it’s come to this all—along…My intimate friends have all died ahead of me and…no matter what I do, I do it stupidly with just blunders…even if I commit suicide, I’ll come back to life immediately…
Happyaku: I already hate this eternal youth and immortality!! Usually I should have gotten married, had children, grown old and died…I want to return to being an ordinary girl!!
Nube: He…hey, Hayame, what are you doing!?
SFX: Su

82.
Hayame: Priestess-san…
Happyaku: Leave me alone!! It’s fine already!! I can’t return to being human by killing you.
Hayame: No…there is just one way to return to being an ordinary human.
Hayame: My living liver…please eat my heart. When you eat the living liver of a mermaid, the effect of eternal youth and immortality comes to not be effective.
(TN: Yeah, Hayame does actually ask her to eat her “liver”…but at one point mentions it as “her heart”…this will be explained in the Encyclopedia because it’s confusing)
Nube: What are you saying, Hayame!!
Kyouko: Are you mistaken!?
Happyaku: Y…you’re a quite immortal mermaid. So then, if I take your heart…
Hayame: That’s right, I may die…but…

83.
Hayame: My reason is I don’t want to see Priestess-san in pain any further.
Happyaku: Hayame…
SFX: Zuba
Hayame: Sea, source of great life, make tranquil the soul of Priestess Happyaku, my friend and I will not part with light of life again, even if I take my heart organ…

84.
Hayame: This is a mermaid’s living liver…it’s like a jewel more than being called an organ.
SFX: Tokun…tokun…
Happyaku: Pretty…it’s like a pearl…
Happyaku: Hayame! Will you live, Hayame!
Hayame: I seem fine…
Hayame: With this…you will return to your former close friends again. Like when you met them for the first time 800 years ago.
Happyaku: Hayam…a girl like you would.
Happyaku: Thank you…thank you…
Hayame: By the way, Priestess-san.

85.
Hayame: Are you fine with the taste of soy sauce? Or a sauce?
SFX: Ju—ju—
Caption: Liver
Nube: Ah~~!!
Nube: You…dummy! It isn’t a “living liver” if you cook it—huh!! (It’s no good if she doesn’t eat it raw!)
Hayame: I shouldn’t have done that!? I thought it would be tough to eat raw…
Hayame: What do we do—for my liver to regenerate, it will take around three-hundred years—
Happyaku: 300 Years…
Nube: That woman will come to be trouble when she wakes up…hurry and go back to the sea—huh
Hayame: Eh~~but~~
Nube: It will be fine! Please go back quickly!!
Kyouko: That woman is pitiful…

86.
RETURN OF THE GREAT YOUKAI ENCYCLOPEDIA

#16: Priestess Happyaku

The legend of Priestess Happyaku, which was distributed to every part of Japan with its center in Obama of Fukui Prefecture, has its contents vary by area. However, the general commonness is that a young girl ate the flesh of a mermaid, became eternally young and immortal, and then came to have a plight of living an unlucky life due to this. Eternal youth and immortality was yearned for by the ancients and there are tales left behind of how Emperor Shikou of China’s Qin recklessly drank a suspicious drug because he wanted to become eternally young and immortal and died due to the medicine, but these desires of wanting to live a long life came to give a strong feeling of wanting to die quickly at ease for the common people coming to poverty and wars due to just those powerful people. The tale of Priestess Happyaku seemed to place cynicism into the desire of eternal youth and immortality.

By the way: since we had pointed out “The liver is the liver, weren’t you mistaken calling it “a heart”” from several readers about the “liver” of a mermaid introduced in this tale, we shall explain that. In the Edo period, people didn’t know what was inside a person’s body until the publishing of Sugita Genpaku’s “Tafel Anatomie” (Kaitai Shinsou). That was because autopsies were prohibited by the teachings of Buddhism. There arose a misunderstanding that confused the heart and the liver through this and, when pointing to the heart, it came to be called “the liver”. What do we do about “sit on the liver” for people who have the courage to grow hair in their hearts and about “calming the liver” when surprise and causing palpitations of the heart? Therefore, in the situations where it is called “liver” or “living liver” in folklore and legends, it is correct to think about it as the heart. Understand?

(TN: A few things:
1. The version of the tale of Priestess Happyaku depends on the version of who is telling it. Notably, there are other versions where the girl who eats the mermaid flesh did so because someone caught the mermaid and decided to serve it as dinner with everyone but her knowing. Some versions, she was related to the party and ate it while in attendance; while others she was a girl who was related to one of the guests, who knew of the mermaid flesh but didn’t tell her daughter and gave it to her as a present from his travels. However, this version seems to be a bit more humane version with Hayame and Happyaku’s connection…
2. Obama is a coastal city in Fukui Prefecture, notable for it’s castles and as a key point during a period for the Chinese to stop in who arrive in Japan on their way to Kyoto.
3. Shikoutei or “Emperor Shikou”, is the Japanese name for Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, who ruled between 259 and 210 BCE and stated by many as “Japan’s first emperor”. He was notable for his obsession in immortality, and while he didn’t die of an “immortality elixir” trick, he did go to great lengths to obtain one, including possibly sending a coalition to a land some suspect was Japan! Strangely, the closest he got to a sense of immortality was the construction of a massive tomb that includes the famous Terracotta Army protecting it.
4. Sugita Genpaku wasn’t a doctor but a scholar: living between 1733 and 1817, he ended up translating the Dutch version of the Anatomische Tabellen by Kulmus, known in Dutch as “Tafel Anatomie” (which is a name for the book in Japanese; which is also known as the Kaitai Shinsou or the “New Book of Anatomy”). The publishing of this book ended up advancing Japanese knowledge of anatomy and physiology by leaps and bounds over their previous knowledge they accumulated on their own and from China.
5. Now for probably the most confusing part which has to be illuminated a bit more due to my own translation: the “kimo” factor. “Kimo” in Japanese is “liver” and the word as spoken by Hayame and the priestess both referred to Hayame’s heart as a “liver”. But, as explained here, the “liver” is in actuality Hayame’s “heart”, both due to the usage of “Shinzou” (The actual Japanese word for “heart”) and the concept in Japanese that the “heart” is the “liver”. (which in Japanese is “Kanzou” and was referred to as such in the explanation) While I really could have changed all the “liver” comments to “heart”, remember that Hayame and Priestess Happyaku are both refugees from a past time. To them, the heart is the liver and, even if they know it is a “heart” from being in the modern age, they will refer to it as the “liver”. Thus the key behind Hayame stating “my liver…please eat my heart”: she is pointing out there that the “liver” is her “heart”…of course it’s probably completely lost to us so just work with what we’ve got.)

TN: First of all, a slight apology: a while back I thought I said that the last "consecutive" chapter I did was back with the Yukime/Zashiki Warashi chapter. Well...looking through my notes...this and the previous chapters were done too. But from here on, outside a couple notables, it's all going to be new to me! (well scriptwise)

As for the chapter...I really, really, really hope I got that "heart/liver" thing sorted out. Honestly, I had no idea myself that Japanese culture literally fused both together for so long and that essentially when Hayame said "liver", she means her heart. If it were up to me, I'd probably go on and say she should have just aimed for the "spongy thing" as The Tick would have called it...but of course it's no good considering that cooked mermaid heart/liver is not as healthy as it raw. (well at least it isn't to Happyaku) As for Happyaku...well, she was insane. Sure 800+ years alive does that to a person but somehow her longevity (combined with gaining Hayame's daffy nature) would do that to someone making every thought hard enough. It is weird she would be able to travel to so many places to attempt to find means to kill Hayame when she met her again...but considering she was too stupid to remember any of them long enough to make it effective, she's for the most part harmless. And...yeah, Hayame does it again. (honestly, the mermaid has this weird obsession with showing between her legs...then again when you're Hayame, there's nothing wrong with that) It probably is enough to win her friends in the right circles...as long as it isn't Nube putting up with her all the time...or another deranged long-living priestess.