#like armageddon outa here and the something something seven

[vikkerli]

I am currently screaming, crying, throwing up (negative)

I’m very tired

Art is cool as fuck tho

[sparklyjojos]

Let’s Read & Suffer: Tsukumojuku by Maijō Ōtarō [part 17]

Today`s recap: In which the Fifth Story ends, we finally learn what “Seiryoin Ryusui” means, Tsukumojuku attempts to escape the actual Apocalypse using nothing but intense kanji wordplays, and for once in this recap there is Surprisingly Little Suffering.

STORY 5 PART 7

Tsukumojuku was surprised about his conversation with Tsutomu. He had never given him the name Seiryoin Ryusui.

What’s more, the letters attached to the arrows separately accused Seiryoin and Tsutomu of being the Castle case culprit, so they couldn’t be the same person. ...Or maybe, aside from Tsutomu who was a “Seiryoin”, there had to be another “Seiryoin”, the one who had written the Stories.

Long time ago, when Tsukumojuku had received the First Story, he called Kodansha and was told that Seiryoin was way too busy with his projects to write and send the Stories as some stupid prank. In that case, there could be *three* people who were a “Seiryoin Ryusui”: 1) the JDC series writer, 2) Tsutomu, and 3) that other accused person in the Castle.

Now that he thought about it, there also had to be three “Tsutomus”: his younger brother investigating the Nishi Akatsuki fire, one of the accused people in the Castle, as well as Tsukumojuku himself using the name Tsutomu as an alias.

The triplets’ names have already been given once before too, he thought. And Serika would maybe call her children like that one day. Was there some complicated name overlap repetition thing going on?

Tsukumojuku didn't know many names. God would probably know all of them. Why were all these names repeating? He had no clue.

Tsukumojuku went to sleep, and when he woke up, the world was ending. Only then did he understood the meaning of the Stories.

They had been sent to warn him about the Fifth Trumpet.

--

In the Bible, the sound of the Fifth Trumpet would make a Star fall from the sky and open the Abyss. Locusts would come out of the Abyss and for five months torture people who didn't have the seal of God on their foreheads. The locusts would look like war horses with human faces, and their master was Abaddon in Hebrew, or Appolyon in Greek.

It was clear now that the Four Stories existed to let Tsukumojuku know that the Star was coming – that the world was ending -- and to let him make the right decision when it fell.

When a meteor suddenly approaching Earth was discovered, and its speed and size calculated, it turned out that humanity had only six and a half hours left before it hit and killed everyone.

The six-hours-left mark was declared while Tsukumojuku, Rie and the kids were eating breakfast and happened to turn the TV on. The meteor was seven times the size of the Moon and would hit at 100000 km/s, one third the speed of light. It'd smash Earth into pieces.

That Seiryoin guy had had a great telescope or something, if he could see the Star even three years prior. Or maybe he just had a premonition. He then passed the information to Tsukumojuku and Seshiru in writing, as this was the only medium he could convey a certain thing with.

See, Seiryoin Ryusui’s name was usually written as 清涼院流水, but with some pronounciation stretching, you could also write it as 推量 イン 流星 (suiryou-in-ryuusei).

The middle part, “in”, could be the short version of English “-ing” verb ending.

推量 (suiryo) meant “to guess” or “to infer”.

流星 (ryuusei) meant “a falling star”.

“Inferr-” ”-ing” “a falling star”.

The name was written on the title page of every Story, right in front of Tsukumojuku’s eyes the entire time, and was surely supposed to make him think about the idea. The Second Story even mentioned a meteorite! All of this must have been foreshadowing! The meteorite from the Second Story was mitate for sure.

...but Biblical mitate of all the Trumpets wouldn't suddenly be broken halfway through. He was sure of that. And that meant... they would survive.

In the Third Story, there was this thing where the word “owari” (end) was pronounced the same as the Owari era, and that was linked to Nagoya, and that came from “nagoyaka” (peace). Implication being... the world would be peaceful before/after the end?

What else... there was the element of switching the dead and the living, as in, the dead in one story would be living in another, and the living would be dead in the next. Dead are not always dead, the living are not always living. Reversal of death and life if the world changes?

...Tsukumojuku understood everything about things that “happened”, “didn't happen”, and “could have happened”. Aside from things that “happened”, nothing else took place – the things that “could have happened” turned into things that “didn't happen”.

Except there was a way for things to “happen” by “not happening”, like the event when the books were not in Serika’s stomach, those Kodansha Noberusu (novels) which--

Noberusu? Wait. That sounded like one of the many book titles name-dropped in the Second Story. [Note: these were so brief I had figured they wouldn’t be relevant later so I didn't include the titles in the recap, oops, gotta go back and change that eventually, sorry.] The titles were:

述べる主 [“Noberusu” – read like “novels”, but the kanji mean something like “The Lord who states/expresses”]

述べ足り内／述べ切れ内 [“Nobetarinai / Nobegirenai”, lit. something like “stated within”, “within a piece” – but if you read the last kanji “nai” as the negative verb ending “nai”, these can be read as “is not enough” / “can not describe”]

ＮＯＶＥＬＬＡ例無い

脳辺那井

もうお前とは喋ってやんねー世 [lit. “I don't speak to you anymore ~ world”, but the “world” kanji can be read as “yo”, a sentence ending marker]

成長している [lit. “growing” / “growing up”]

So. Seiryoin Ryusui is obviously “The Lord who states” = God. This God “is not enough”, “cannot describe” something. And is “not talking to you anymore”. The meaning of it was that even the omniscient God doesn't know everything.

There was something that God didn't know – something that didn't happen, happened...

The world was not ending. After the “end of the world”, there would be peace.

Through being given Seiryoin's novels – the world of “God” – Tsukumojuku had been meant to arrive at this conclusion.

---

By the side of “God”, there was always the editor, Outa Katsushi. The one in charge of God, who edited his words. His name came up in the First Story, on the Voice of Heaven boards: “Goodbye, Mr Outa Katsushi”, which sounded like he had died. In the Second Story, he really did die, as a victim of the “Armageddon”. In the Third, he was alive and locked in the Castle, and so in the Fourth, where he talked about editing The Simons' Case which by the time of the Fourth Story was apparently not yet in print.

But that made no sense –  in the Third Story, The Simons' Case was one of the released JDC books that “Emiko” had. Almost as if---

As if the time was reversing. For Outa Katsushi at least, time was flowing in reverse, going 4th → 3rd → 2nd → 1st Story. Time reversed at the end of the world. That's why the mitate for Genesis went from its start, and the one for Apocalypse from its end.

So time wasn't flowing straight, it was twisted and folded back on itself. Maybe there existed a tunnel between those ‘layers’, a wormhole that you could jump through and slip in time. And what giant tunnel they knew of? The bottomless Abyss that the falling Star would open. A wormhole.

A Star moving at the speed of 1/3 the speed of light and as massive as seven Moons would probably curve space-time by sheer law of physics. There surely was a break in space-time somewhere. Therefore... somewhere to run from the Apocalypse.

–

Tsukumojuku explained what he figured out about the Star to Rie and her mother, and they were immediately on board with the idea of finding the wormhole.

(But what would they find in that another world? Maybe the past? Who knew.)

[As they still have a few hours left, they are taking their time. It’s almost strange how calm and sure of this plan everyone is, as if they knew it’d work out.]

Rie kept playing with the kids for some time, while Tsukumojuku helped the mother-in-law hang the laundry out to dry. From the veranda, the entire Chofu was spreading before them. In places they could see smoke, and hear sirens: people were still making and putting out fires in the last hours of the world. There were also people hanging laundry. People playing with children. People worrying about Kodansha books. As if nothing was wrong.

The world was not ending. There was still mitate to fullfill. And God didn't know everything that would happen.

Before leaving the house, Tsukumojuku, Rie, the mother-in-law, and the children all put on fresh clothing (服, “fuku”), and Tsukumojuku thought that it would surely bring them good fortune (福, “fuku”).

–

The first one to discover the Star had been someone called Yashiro Yumi (矢城有海) [Note: the first two kanji here are “arrow” and “castle”], who apparently named the Star “Moppy” after their beloved cairn terrier.

As dusk enveloped Chofu, “Moppy” approached fast.

Five minutes before it hit, the entire sky went white, and in that white sky there was a hole, with beautiful blue sky visible on the other side.

Tsukumojuku, Rie, the mother-in-law and the children all entered the wormhole. They didn't know where they were going – to the past, to heaven?

The mother-in-law was anxious, repeating stuff like “Ah, woe, woe! The angel's trumpet will bring us misfortune!”

Tsukumojuku realized that these were words from the Bible, spoken by the eagle after the Fourth Trumpet was blown. [Note: remember that mitate for Revelations was going backwards, so the eagle thing is happening after the Fifth Trumpet = the Star falling]. The eagle also said, “Woe to the inhabitants of earth because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels”.

...But those three disasters (Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Trumpet) had already happened in the old world they left behind. And things that “did happen” in that world, “didn’t happen” in another, just like the dead would be living and vice versa. Then the world they were heading to was probably safe.

The time had turned, but the world continued.

What would happen now?

Tsukumojuku, Rie, the mother-in-law, and the kids all embraced.

His family was here. All he wanted was here. Whatever disasters would or wouldn't come, he would protect his family – end of the world or not.

END OF STORY 5

---

IMPRESSIONS

That was a really good chapter. Holy fuck. I love the kanji wordplays.

Incidentally, the kanji 福 (”fuku”) that means “luck, fortune” is the same “fuku” as in Fukui prefecture.

I’ve never though I’d say it about this book, but the quiet sorta melancholic parts before they left the house reminded me a lot about Comet in Moominland. Go figure.

FINALLY... MY BOY IS SOMEWHAT HAPPY... I mean sure everyone else in the entire world is very dead and he has to live with that as well as with having killed Seshiru, and Rie is still Rie but STILL. Pity we still have three stories to get through and probaby ruin it huh

>>>>NEXT PART>>>>