Hell Teacher Nube 108

Though notable for spiritual scenarios, Nube is occasionally called in to deal with problems of a more paranormal type. But is the latest case he has to deal with really something beyond even his scope of understanding...or is it...

#108: The Electrified Girl: Shiori

67.
Caption: 8/13/1993: city of Tokyo, Den-en Choufu
(TN: Den-en Choufu, which literally translates to “Garden Suburb”, is a district in Oota Ward notable as a very suburban-esque location on the Tama River, bordering between Tokyo and Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture. Due to the set-up, it is one of the most expensive areas of the city)
Old Man: Hey.
“Girl”: Ara, uncle.
SFX: Pa—
“Girl”: ?
SFX: Pari pari
Old Man: It’s been a while. Have you been well?
“Girl”: Yes.

68.
SFX: Bari bari bari
“Girl”: Kyaaaa!!

69.
Voice: Since then, the girl seems to have come to be inarticulate with the shock. It’s not impossible that this is due to making her uncle critically on the verge of death with her own “odd” power.
Nube: An electrified constitution?
(TN: “Constitution”, BTW, is “Taishitsu”, which is “Genetic Make-up”)
Principal: Yes.
Nube: According to records: in 1895, Jennie Morgan, a girl from the state of Missouri in America, had an electrified constitution to the extent of having sparks appears by just grasping a pump for drawing water. In 1899, Frank Mackinstory had difficulty even walking by his entire body being an electromagnet…
(TN: According to a bit of research, the tale of Jennie Morgan is true; having this strange shocking power at the age of 14 in 1895, she came to be avoided by friends and even her pet cat until her power faded away after puberty. The tale of Frank Mackinstory may need a bit more research though…)
Principal: And then there’s this girl…
Sign: Principal’s Office

70.
Principal: Midorikawa Shiori-kun and her mother. They heard that you resolved mysterious incidents as a spiritually powered teacher and came to this school.
Nube: A rain coat though it’s clear out…?
Nube: Hey.
SFX: Gu
SFX: Buchi | Bishi
Shiori: !!

71.
Mrs. Midorikawa: I’m sorry; my child’s body is like a magnet.
Caption: Rubber Gloves
Nube: I…I’m sorry; today has been rare and I’ve somehow had a tie pin…
Mrs. Midorikawa: Once metal clings to her body, an adult can’t pull it off or take it off with all their might. That’s why she’s always wearing a rubber raincoat.
Nube: I give up…this is the world of the X-Files…
(TN: This obviously is in reference to the 1993-2002 live action science fiction series created by Chris Carter starring David Duchoveny and Gillian Anderson. Obviously, with this chapter being released in 1995, this was during the highest period of the series’ popularity)
SFX: Wa—wa—
Nube: Principal…I’d do something if this was a thing of spirits, but this somehow is outside my specialty. I don’t feel even an influence of an evil spirit spiritually…
Principal: No, I too had thought as such, but her parent had told us by all means.
Kyouko: Ah, that kid, they have strong static electricity.
Makoto: She seems lonely alone. Let’s call out to them.

72.
Voice: Uhyohyo--! There it is, there it is, the human-electric eel!
Kaneda: Ge! She’s just like the rumors; she turns on fluorescent lamps by just getting near her.
“Henchmen”: Go—Beam Sabers!
*The powder in fluorescent lamps is toxic! Absolutely don’t break them!
Hiroshi: Stop it!
Kyouko: Doesn’t she hate that!
Hiroshi: You’re the worst guy as ever—don’t bully the weak.
Kaneda: Heh, this is a science experiment.
Kaneda: Heh, if you want one, then how about I pass electricity from your nostrils?
Hiroshi: What, you Kintama Saru!
(TN: As I mentioned prior in vol. 4, “Kintama Saru” is an infamous mispronunciation of “Kaneda Masaru”, his real name, with the Japanese name of “Testicle-Monkey”)
SFX: Oro oro

73.
Voices: You--! That guy--!!
SFX: Pari pari | Bok
SFX: Boko boko boko
SFX: Suu!
SFX: Pyuuu | Ga | Goki
Kaneda: Hi
Hiroshi: Stones!?

74.
Voices: Wa—kya—
Nube: What!? The stones!?
Principal: I don’t believe it; stones are in the air…
Nube: Perhaps the iron within the stones is reacting to the magnetism that is coming from Shiori’s body and are floating.
Principal: Shiori-kun! Where are you?
Nube: There! Over there, around the sandbox.
SFX: Za!
Shiori: !?
SFX: Zazazaza

75.
SFX: Geho geho
Nube: It’s iron sand. She’ll suffocate…
SFX: Dosa
Book: Extraordinary Phenomenon
Nube: How could I say it was “outside my specialty”? I will certainly save this girl! Understood: the strength of electrification is unrelated to the will of the person themselves…is it?

76.
Nube: With that, an electrified constitution isn’t from birth; it’s sudden and can be cured. In particular, it is easy to come to in a period from a child entering puberty to when they change into an adult…this is as if…
SFX: Goro goro goro…
SFX: Za—za—
SFX: Goro goro goro…
SFX: Dogagaga
Nube: It can’t; has it crashed down?
SFX: Fu
Student: No—an electric outlet!!
Voice: Kyaaaa!!

77.
Students: !!
SFX: Vu—n Vu---
Nube: Wh…what is that--!? A youkai!? A fireball!?
Ootsuki: A photosphere phenomenon…it’s plasma! It can be judged by color and has a temperature of 2,500 degrees! Why would this phenomenon be in the school…
(TN: “Photosphere” is in Japanese “koukyuu”; it is considered usually a region where externally received light originates, in reference to a ball-shaped surface perceived to emit light, usually in a period between the surface of a star to where the gas becomes opaque)
Nube: Hold on…people with an electrified constitution occasionally are said to achieve a mysterious death by fire. That generally is to burn to death at a hot temperature that can’t even be thought of…it can’t be…
Nube: !
SFX: Da
SFX: Byu!
Student: Hi!?

78.
SFX: Guoooo | Parin! Parin!
Nube: No! Shiori’s magnetism is drawing plasma towards her. This is dangerous! She’ll burn to death!
SFX: Bon! Bomu!
SFX: Shu
SFX: Boshu | Ju—

79.
SFX: Bashu

80.
Hiroshi: Nube!?
Nube: The theory of a lightning rod…electricity will run to the ground with a metal rod. This was a technique I could do due to the Oni no Te, which electricity can’t pass through…
Nube: She’s pitifully scared…
Shiori: Utsu…utsu…
Narrator: Eventually, Shiroi quit attending school and came to live her life at home as she had before…
Nube: S**t…as is, Shiori won’t be able to go outside her home during her life! Isn’t there a method that can save her…even some clue…!
Voice: Thanks, we’re being an inconvenience.

81.
Principal: No, it was inexcuseable that we didn’t have the power. It was outside the specialty of our Nueno…
Nube: In truth…I may have come to not have the power for this.
Nube: But, in the end, I have test just one thing.
SFX: Guwa
Mrs. Midorikawa: What!?

82.
Nube: It protected Shiori…it seems it was that after all!! Namu Daiji Daihi Kyuugu Kyuunan: Shiori’s Shugorei, show yourself!
Mrs. Midorikawa: Kya…

83.
Nube: As I’ve thought: amazing magnetism. There is a connection in the relation of the spiritual body and the electromagnetic power.
SFX: Pari pari pari
Nube: 1939: Soviet scientist Semyon Kirlian considered the energy of a spiritual body as an electrical thing and successfully revealed its form on photosensitive paper. It’s the famous Kirlian Photography.*
*A photograph where there is photographed an aura that appears from a living body.
(TN: More will probably be explained in the Weird File, but I’ll give you a bit of background regarding Semyon Davidovich Kirlian: born of Armenian descent in 1898, he became influenced by the works of Nikola Tesla in a period prior to the Soviet revolution of 1917 in the works of discharge photography. Though he was originally known as an electronics repairer, he discovered in a flash of light between the electrodes of a d’Arsonval electrotherapy device and the skin of a human. Taking photographs, he found a strange photograph that showed what he believed was the electrical discharge between the person and the machine. Working with his wife Valentina for the next ten years he continued to experiment believing he found what was believed as a human aura through the photographs and that he could detect the health of humans and even acupuncture points in a person through the device. The research didn’t become notable until the 1960s, where he became well known and supported by the Soviet government (who even did their own investigation in Kirlian Photographs) to his death in 1978.)
Nube: All spiritual bodies all possess a faint electromagnetic field, but, extremely rarely, there are spirits who are electrified with a strength like lightning.
Principal: B…but…who is this Shugorei?
Nube: Right: it’s Shiori’s ancestor of 7 generations ago. He’s protecting the girl…He’s merely…resultingly tormenting the girl as a spirit with a strong magnetic field like this.
Nube: I’m sorry but you’re returning to the spirit world.

84.
Nube: Shugorei Shift!
SFX: Bashu!
SFX: Suu…
Nube: Don’t worry. Shugorei shift several times in a lifetime. You’re not electrified anymore…you’re an ordinary girl.
Mrs. Midorikawa: I don’t believe this. Has she really been cured?

85.
SFX: Sasa
SFX: Poto
Shiori: Th…thank you, teacher.

86.
NUBE’S WEIRD FILES

#3: Kirlian Photography

Prepare a leaf. And then when you photograph with a special method where you tear it in half and use a high frequency, the form of the leaf that should be torn appears vaguely. (The Phantom Leaf Phenomenon) This mysterious photograph is Kirlian Photography, which is said to take the energy “aura” released of life.

Developed by Semyon Davidovich Kirlian and his wife, this peculiar photography method that has even been patented doesn’t utilize a camera at all. What is used is a high-frequency internal generator that emits an electrical oscillation from 20,000 to 75,000 rotations every second, an electrode plate for use in photographic exposure and film. By just placing the film on top of the electrode plate in a dark room, putting on it the photographic subject and with an occurrence of high-frequency, a mysterious luminescence phenomenon will be recorded on the film.

This mysterious light that differs from simple physical luminescence phenomenon is in a situation where it is particularly photographing a life form; it’s at a point where its degree of luminescence has remarkably transformed by condition of health and condition of mind. Similarly even in humans, it has a thing where it denotes a reassuring luminescence at times of health, but denotes only a dimmed light at moments of sickness. Harry Oldfield, an English clinician who had been made attention to this point, used Kirlian Photography to detect the early stages of cancer and has gained high valuation for identifying the existence of the initial stages of cancer that couldn’t be detected even by medical specialists.

Already in the field of biology, they have detected the emitting of a faint light in cellular organisms, but there are many voices who view questions on it being the same as an aura. Future research has to be done.

(TN: A couple things:
1. The “Phantom Leaf Phenomenon”, which is usually connected to the Kirlian Photography, was originally “discovered” in 1966, though it wasn’t reported to the West until the 70s. The experiment involves the “aura” of a leaf remaining behind even after the leaf gets cut up and away from the source of the photograph.
2. Harry Oldfield is a scientist and inventor who worked and developed photo-imaging systems that supposedly reveal the aura (human energy fields) that surround people in a phenomenon known as “Polycontrast Interference Photography” (PIP). Strangely enough, the experiments that lead to the revelations here were done around the time of the publishing of this chapter, as recently as 1995. [even if it was 1996 when this was released in volume form. He is also notable for research into crystals)

TN: I guess this chapter felt a lot like a "business as usual" one, with Nube dealing with something that feels like it isn't a youkai scenario...but is. It's really hard for me to say too much about it but I do have a couple thoughts in mind with the chapter. First: I actually like that the Principal got really involved with the Shiori case in this particular situation. Somehow he is the man who hired Nube in the first place and seems to have quite a bit of trust that the weird stuff that goes on in the school can be figured out somehow or another with the assistance of this teacher. The other thing: while I like that we do get a slight cameo by Ootsuki-sensei...why in the world wasn't he used a bit more in a situation where we actually have a strange situation more up his ally? I mean, sure it may have just been the ball of light that was plasma, but isn't Ootsuki-sensei supposed to be an expert on spiritual dealings too? Heck, why doesn't the Principal use Ootsuki sometimes when it gets more to the scientific spirituality as opposed to always using Nube!? Yeah...maybe it has more to do with Nube being trustworthy and not with a one-track mind, but somehow it would have been interesting if Nube actually got a bit of help and assistance in doing this instead of being forced into a last-ditch attempt that turned out to save Shiori. Sure the Japanese may probably not like Ootsuki-sensei, but he's there regardless so why not use him more?