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cirilla-fiona-riannon · 2 years ago

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Kicho's Main Story Chapter 6 Part 2

These translations are not intended as a replacement for the game. Please support cybird by buying their stories. JP SPOILERS under the cut. I didn't proofread this, so Expect mistakes.

TW! This chapter contains and mentions suicide.

Kicho: "I never existed originally. I was a different person."

Mai: "You never existed?"

I remembered the one thing that bothered me when Sasuke told me all this.

(If there's a historical distortion involved, the change must be happening in a way that he's not aware of.)

(But how?)

Mai: "Um, do you know Nohime? She's the daughter of Dosan Saito."

Kicho: "Of course, I know her. She's my twin sister."

Mai: "She's your sister?"

(Sasuke drew that conclusion because, in History, Nohime doesn't have a twin brother.)

(How did it get so complicated?)

Kicho: "You're probably thinking this isn't the history you know."

Mai: "Yeah. I’m not really familiar with history, so I only heard about it from a friend."

Kicho: "Then you and your friend are not wrong. It's all intentional."

Kicho: "We were born as twins, and then we were made as one."

Kicho: "As ridiculous as it sounds, twins are considered an abomination."

Kicho: "Just having more than one child at once is enough for them to be treated as monsters."

(Monsters?)

------------Flashback------------

Old woman: “It's because of them that this village got attacked. Twins bring nothing but bad luck.”

Old woman: “That’s right. It’s disgusting to see them come out of their mother’s belly all at once.”

Old woman: “How can a beast in human form be normal? I won’t be surprised if someday the village disappears because of them.”

---------Flashback Ends---------

Mai: “Come to think of it, there was someone in the village who said something like that.”

(I wonder how he felt when he heard those words.)

Kicho: “That’s right. Also, it was rare to have a male-female twin.”

Kicho: “What do you think people will do when an abhorrent entity comes out in an even more unacceptable form?”

Kicho: “The answer to that question was the one you saw in that village, too.”

Mai: “I see.”

I nodded and clutched my trembling fingertips as his calm, indifferent tone crushed my heart.

Kicho: “That’s why I lived as that woman. Kicho was also me, and Kicho was also her.”

Kicho: “I was almost killed a few times, so I hid my existence, and it eventually became the truth.”

Mai: “But that doesn’t mean you should be treated like you never existed.”

Kicho: “I don’t want to get killed over some stupid rumor, so I’m grateful my parents made that decision.”

Kicho: “Even though I lived in a small room and had almost no freedom, I didn’t want to lose my life.”

Mai: “Oh no.”

(The facts were different but similar.)

(He was there, but he couldn’t be himself. Yet despite that, he wanted to live.)

I felt like I touched the root of his obsession with life and, at the same time, felt a great deal of emotion at the absurdity surrounding him.

Mai: “That’s just awful.”

I clenched my hand so tightly it hurt.

Kicho: “Why are you so angry?”

Mai: “I’m angry because there’s nothing I can do about your past.”

(This is frustrating.)

Kicho: “No.”

Kicho: “That’s enough, Mai.”

Mai: “............”

He softened his voice for a moment and patted my hand.

Kicho: “The story is not yet over.”

Kicho: “Even though I remained hidden, I eventually had the opportunity to get out.”

Mai: “How? Did the judgmental people leave the castle?”

Kicho: “No, everything remained the same. And even if they disappear, there will always be people who hate us.”

Kicho: “The one who disappeared was my sister.”

Mai: “What?”

Kicho: “My sister went to marry a man, but he died in a battle. Eventually, she followed him and killed herself.”

(His sister took her own life.)

Mai: “Were they that close that she chose to die?”

Kicho: “They certainly had feelings for each other, but who knows?”

Kicho: “They say dead men can’t talk. We can speculate, but only they know the truth.”

Mai: “You’re right.”

Kicho: “But if her motivation was love, then she was a moron.”

He furrowed his eyebrows and smiled wryly as he said this, a hint of sadness in his voice.

Kicho: “Anyway, we lived as the same person, but of course, we couldn’t be.”

Kicho: “I wanted to live, no matter the circumstances.”

Kicho: “From the moment I was born, my life belonged to me. No one else has the right to do anything with it.”

Mai: “True. Even sadness and pain can only be felt by you.”

(You should be able to decide how you want to live and what you want to do.)

(Because at the end of the day, all the responsibility falls on you.)

Mai: “But if she’s dead, why are you still a woman in history?”

Kicho: “Because my father covered up that fact. Even after her death, I was still that woman.”

Kicho: “They pretended that my existence, the time I spent as a substitute, and the death of Nohime had never happened.”

Kicho: “I think it was at that time that the marriage proposal of Nohime was brought up for the sake of peace.”

Mai: “Marriage!?”

Kicho: “Yeah, you know Nobunaga Oda?”

Kicho: “No matter how little you know about history, you probably heard that man’s name at least once.”

Mai: “Yes. Of course, I know him.”

(I can’t say I’ve met him, though.)

Kicho: “The marriage was with Nobunaga, even though Nohime was already gone.”

Kicho: "My father told him what happened, so he took me as a hostage at Azuchi Castle instead."

Kicho: "That man allowed me to act as his vassal and called me Kicho."

(Nobunaga did?)

(Yeah, that's very like him.)

Kicho: "In a Japan that is bound by old values and in constant strife, that man had a whole new way of thinking."

Mai: "Unification, right?"

Kicho: "Yeah, the first day we met face to face, we talked."

Kicho: "He said that his goal is not to dominate Japan but to make Japan a country that can compete with foreign countries."

His eyes shifted from me and turned toward the window, the color of the sunset reflecting in his eyes.

Kicho: "I agreed with his vision, even though we had different goals in mind."

Kicho: "If we can accomplish this, there will come a time when lives won't be so easily thrown away or taken."

Mai: "Kicho."

Kicho: "............"

Kicho: "I wanted to end the turbulent world when I saw the future of Japan."

He paused, and a moment of silence fell between us.

(When I first told him I came from the future, he said that Japan was a hellish world and that continuing the turbulent world was the only way to save everyone.)

He used to want to end the war for the sake of life.

Now he wished for the continuation of the war for the sake of life.

Not only by betraying Lord Nobunaga and the Oda army, but even by his own beliefs in the past.

(Why did he become like this?)

The haze in my heart became words of its own and slipped out of my lips.

Mai: “I want to know more about you.”

Kicho: “Me?”

Mai: “I want to know what you saw and felt because I realized I don’t know anything about you.”

Kicho: “You’re right.”

Kicho: “Besides, it was me who started talking about all this.”

He pulled a small notebook out of his pocket and handed it to me.

Mai: “This is...”

Kicho: “My diary. I wrote down what I saw and heard when I stayed in the future.”

Mai: “Okay. Then, I’ll borrow it.”

(So he’s gonna leave it up to me to decide what to do with it.)

With my fingertips trembling faintly, I opened the page to see an entry in flowing handwriting.

【After the brief, violent thunderstorm passed, I found myself in a strange place.】

Kicho: “Where am I?”

Kicho: “That storm earlier was weird. I thought I was on my way to Honnoji.”

Kicho: “What’s this stone monument?”

Kicho: “Honnoji ruins? Does that mean the temple is gone?”

【I was still in Japan. However, for unknown reasons, the scenery was completely different.】

【A strangely dressed passerby told me that Honnoji was still around, so I decided to head there.】

【On my way there, I felt out of place as I noticed that everyone was dressed strangely.】

【Eventually, I met someone unfamiliar who claimed to be the priest of Honnoji.】

Kicho: “You’re the priest of this temple, right?”

Priest: “Yes. So, what can I do for you?”

Kicho: “I’m here to visit the resident priest. Do you know the man mentioned in this letter?”

Priest: “This man? Are you joking right now?”

Priest: “I know this person for sure, but it has been hundreds of years since he was alive.”

Priest: “Your clothes, and this letter一are you filming a period drama or something?”

Kicho: “.............”

【I find it hard to believe, but apparently, I ended up at a different time.】

【I pretended to have lost my memory and asked him to allow me to stay at the temple as a monk in training.】

【As I spent my days searching for a way to return home, I began to understand this era.】

Girl: “I really want that for my birthday! All the kids in my class have it!”

Father: “Yeah, I know. Then let’s all go shopping together next holiday.”

Girl: “Okay. That’s a promise!”

Kicho: “.............”

【A world without war is truly a peaceful one.】

【Despite the many sacrifices, those peaceful days were certainly meaningful.】

【The countless lives that were lost in the fires of war will surely be rewarded.】

(Kicho...)

As I followed the words, my heart was filled with emotions.

(I'm sure these words are exactly as they were then.)

(What he's looking at is the peaceful country I also know.)

Feeling somewhat nostalgic, I turned the pages again.

I found that he had learned many things and gotten used to living in that world, but一

(Huh?)

(What the? I think the texts on this page are a little shaky.)

【It was the end of summer according to the calendar, but on that hot day, the priest suddenly asked me to visit a house.】

Kicho: "No one's home. I know it's urgent, but I guess I should've made an appointment."

Kicho: "I have no choice but to go back. Hm?"

【As I took a step, I heard something creaking.】

【For some strange reason, I got curious and went straight through the gate.】

Kicho: "Is it coming from here?"

【The sound was coming from inside a shed behind the house. And as I reached out and opened the door一】

Mai: "-----!"

With a rustling sound, I dropped the notebook.

Kicho: "Mai."

Mai: "S-Sorry. But, um..."

Unable to move, Kicho picked up the notebook for me.

He then looked down at the open page and slowly looked at me.

Kicho: "This part, huh?"

Mai: "Is it true what it says there?"

Kicho: "Of course. I only wrote what I saw."

Mai: "I see."

The rest of the text just said there was a boy, but even without the details, I knew what state he was in.

Mai: “Did he take his own life?”

Kicho: “Yes. I was the first one to find him and heard a lot of stories.”

Kicho: “Apparently, the boy stayed home because he was struggling to make some friends at his school.”

Kicho: “They told me that taking one’s life and disregarding the value of their life is common in that world.”

Mai: “Kicho...”

Kicho: “Back here, everyone wants to live, but some starve, and some die in war.”

Kicho: “However, in that world, even the children easily gave up their lives.”

Mai: "............."

Kicho: "I get that every person has their own emotional pains, and those are things we cannot escape, no matter how hard we try."

Kicho: “Still, there shouldn’t be a world in which people take life as an escape from death.”

His voice painfully trembled, as if he was being strangled by the intense resentment and deep sadness in his voice.

Kicho: “My goal of a peaceful world was wrong.”

Kicho: “If people are not tormented by war, they will forget the value of life.”

Kicho: “It’s only in this turbulent world that we can properly fulfill the meaning of life.”

Mai: “That’s not...”

I was about to say something, but I shut my mouth.

(No. It's no use.)

For me, I thought it was this turbulent world that had made life seem insignificant.

However, I can no longer say that for sure.

I found myself struggling and searching for the value of my existence because I took life for granted.

We’ve lived in different worlds with different values.

(I can’t just deny what he felt firsthand.)

He was denied of his existence and scorned by those around him from the time he was born.

Nevertheless, he lived to face his suffering and even tried to protect his life long into the future.

(But in his eyes, future Japan was a world where life was disregarded.)

Mai: “Oh...”

All the mismatched images got connected, and the blurry picture disappeared as I finally realized what the last piece of the puzzle was.

(He’s not talking about values or anything like that.)

(This guy had no other choice.)

After being hurt in the past and the future, there was only one option left.

(To continue the turbulent world.)

He may be wise enough to realize that he's taking a precious life to protect the value of life, but he can no longer escape the contradiction.

No one can stop him anymore.

(I'm sure...)

Mai: "It must be very painful."

Kicho: "Mai."

He glanced up at me as he said this.

His expression looked like a Noh mask, but looking at him more closely, it was different.

His eyes were dark and shadowy, like those of a noble beast, deeply wounded in the heart.

(I want to tell him something, but I feel like anything I say will be wrong.)

(I'm being very speculative right now.)

My lips open, close, and open again.

Then, I finally broke the silence.

Mai: "Please don't decide for everyone to live like that."

Mai: "Including you."

Kicho: ".............."

Kicho: "Myself?"

(I hope my words reached this guy who valued life more than anything else but had to choose to take it away.)

I felt like crying as I sincerely wish him peace, not as a spy, not as a maid, but as me.

(I didn't realize it myself at all.)

(When did my feelings grow this much?)

As I gulped down the feelings that should never be put into words, I felt a burning heat in my throat and chest.

Letter

(Continued from Kicho's journal)

The sound was coming from inside a shed behind the house. As I reached out and opened the door, I found a young boy.

x month x day.

One week has passed since the incident with the boy.

Yesterday, I was asked in detail about the circumstances of what I had witnessed, and on my way home, I heard a startling revelation.

I won't write it down here. Whatever happens, I will never forget it.

I guess I was summoned to this period to correct my own path, full of mistakes.

Those who have been given life should live, no matter what. They should wish to live, and they should struggle.

I need to return to Japan, where the fires of war are still burning.

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