xxxHOLiC Rou 210 translation

[starlady]

With apologies for the delays to all concerned, and thanks to Fail Manga for the raws. DTB 27, the Gate 7 one-shot, and hopefully HOLiC 211 should be done sometime next week. ETA 3/24/11: Added the last two pages that were inserted at the end of this chapter in volume 19.

!!! page 01
Watanuki: …May I ask a question?

Spirit: Are you saying you can't tell from my eyes?

Watanuki: I'm sorry that I'm inexperienced.

Spirit: Then,
Out of consideration for your pseudonym, I'll allow four.
-------------
!!! page 02
Watanuki: Are you something used regularly?

Spirit: No.

If I am emplaced once, I need not be handled.

Watanuki: Are you a technical implement?

Spirit: Yes.

But I am not a spell implement.
I am used for prayer.

Watanuki: What are the prayers?

Spirit: A talisman for family peace.
-------------
!!! page 03
Watanuki: What color are the flags you fly?

Spirit: Blue,
Red,
Yellow,
White,
Black.

Watanuki: Is there a relation between the five colors?

Spirit: Yes.

In my proper shape I am together with them.

Watanuki: ……

Spirit: Answer.
-------------
!!! page 04
Watanuki: Lastly,

One more.

Spirit: Didn't I say four?

Watanuki: If it's out of consideration for my name, it should be four and one more.

Because I'm 4/1.

Spirit: One more and that's it.

FX: Miffed

Watanuki: Thank you very much.
-------------
!!! page 05
Watanuki: The place you must be put--

Can light not reach it?

Spirit: Yes.

I must be in a place where light doesn't reach.

Now, your answer, Alias Watanuki.
-------------
!!! page 06
Watanuki: You're

A heigushi. [See TN]
-------------
!!! page 07
Doumeki: Watanuki?
-------------
!!! page 08
Watanuki: …WIth…the correct answer…

Doumeki: It was a heigushi?

Watanuki: It had been disassembled.
It stands to reason that your professor couldn't get it.
-------------
!!! page 09
Watanuki: By rights,

FX: Slowly…

Watanuki: Like this,
At the center, just like the name, the stave should have accompanied it.

Heigushi are decorations affixed to a building's ridge beam in a ceremony on the day of the framework's completion.

In order to pray for good fortune and ward off bad luck for the house's family.

There are various shapes and names for them--'heigushi' and 'heigoshi'--but all of them have strips of five-colored paper attached.
Since they're from five elements theory. [See TN]
-------------
!!! page 10
Doumeki: Blue is wood, red is fire,
Yellow is earth, white is metal,
And black is water, right? [See TN]

Watanuki: Yeah.

I was saved because this was there.

FX: Slowly

Watanuki: After that,
Since it said it was put in a place light didn't reach, I knew it was that.

Doumeki: What would have happened if you hadn't guessed it?

Watanuki: It looks like it's a heigushi from an incredibly old building.

Besides that, it seems it was fairly important to the people in that building.

If it hadn't been, it couldn't have spoken
And taken a human shape.
-------------
!!! page 11
Watanuki: Well,
It's doubtful that I'd be sitting here right now.

Doumeki: Didn't we negotiate earlier?
What would you have done when you couldn't guess?

Watanuki: I wouldn't have been able to twist things and couldn't have answered the question.

Of course I couldn't get it without any hints.

FX: Grin

Watanuki: Well, this is another type of game too.

So,
I understand what this is,

But as I just said, this heigushi isn't something you can treat as a thing.
-------------
!!! page 12
Doumeki: Is it a tsukumogami? [See TN]

Watanuki: Even if you call it that it doesn't matter.

It seems

The heigushi "wants to be in the place it should be."

Doumeki: In other words,

It wants to exist as a heigushi.

Watanuki: So it seems.
-------------
!!! page 13
Doumeki: What kind of building's ridge beam should it be put on?

Watanuki: Well, if it's not put in a suitable building, that certainly won't be satisfying.

Doumeki: …

…What about a temple?

Watanuki: Huh?

Doumeki: An acquaintance of mine is having his temple's main hall rebuilt.

What about that ridge beam?

Watanuki: Is it a good temple?

Doumeki: Yeah.
It has history, and the chief priest is a good person.
-------------
!!! page 14
FX: Poof

D&W: !
-------------
!!! page 15
Watanuki: …"Yes,"
Huh?

But, will your professor be all right with it?

Doumeki: I'll explain it to him.
He should understand.

What would be good for the price?

Watanuki: Hmm…
-------------
!!! page 16
Watanuki: Take sake to that temple's roof beam ceremony,
As an offering.

And the same sake to the shop too.

Doumeki: Got it.

FX: Pouring liquid

Watanuki: Can we say that the request has been fulfilled?

Doumeki: Yeah.

Watanuki: So shall we drink again?

Huh?
-------------
!!! page 17
FX: Slowly……

FX: Clattering

Watanuki: Even if it's not a roof beam ceremony, it wants to drink.

Doumeki: Sheesh, it's acting like quite a drinker.

Watanuki: Doumeki,
You'd seriously better use good sake…
-------------
!!! page 18
Watanuki: I'll bring another sake cup, and more sake.
This isn't enough for three to drink.

Doumeki: There's the sake I brought today.

Watanuki: I hope Mokona didn't open it.

……

Doumeki: What?

Watanuki: …Are there reconstruction plans for your temple, too?
-------------
!!! page 19
Doumeki: No,
There aren't.

Watanuki: The temple,
The place where you live…

Doumeki: There are no plans.

Watanuki: …Oh.

Never mind.

It's not immediate…

That's a conversation for a little further ahead.
-------------
!!! page 20
Watanuki: You've seen a venerable heigushi.
When the time comes I'll make one.

Doumeki: …Yeah.

Watanuki: Something

To protect the family that lives there.
-------------
!!! page 21
Doumeki: …

Watanuki: Now then,
First, while we have the chance, is the sake offered to the heigushi in the house.

Maru, Moro!
Bring another sake cup.

No, boxes.
Bring out the boxes! [TN: Small wooden crates for drinking sake.]

M&M: Riight!
---------------
!!! page 22
Watanuki: And after that, make sure that Mokona hasn't opened the sake--

M&M: Riight! ♥

FX: Slowly

Doumeki: …Is this something to protect

Him…

---

TN pg. 06 - A heigushi can also be a staff held by a Shinto priest during a ceremony, as well as the smaller decoration seen here.

TN pg. 09 - Five elements (wu xing) theory comes from China and has been syncretized into Japanese practices for over a millennium.

TN pg. 10 - The word for 'blue' used here (ao) is also used to describe traffic signals meaning 'go' (i.e. green), as well as the sky and fresh leaves. This usage for the color of the 'wood' of wu xing theory may be idiosyncratic to CLAMP.

TN pg. 12 - A tsukomogami or artifact spirit is the spirit of an object that has existed for more than 100 years and thus gained self-awareness.

Comments

[bluwim.livejournal.com]

Thanks a lot, as always!!! I love your translations ^^

[morgrix.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for translating and sharing!!

[ariadnechan.livejournal.com]

this is awesome i really like the conversation with the object as a person...
i love this little things about holic we learn a lot of japanese culture and mithology (and i love that too)

I'm happy to know Holic isn't ending, because clamp is sucking at endings, i hope they enter in some arc soon!

and Watanuki being all witty and so confident now is lovely, poor Doumeki will be forever worry about him, and he doesn't want Watanuki plan a life for him, because for Doumeki his life is being at Kimihiro side!

i hope Watanuki understand how much Doumeki loves him. It is probabbly that Doumeki ask a wish like stay with Kimihiro forever...

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought there was a disjuncture there at the end between what Watanuki was saying and Doumeki's expectations for his life.

[hexkitten.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the translation!

I'm wondering, judging by his last remarks to Doumeki about protecting the family that lives there... Could Kohane be pregnant?

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

D:

I never even thought of that. My impression was that it was just Watanuki idealizing his friends' lives according to some imaginary template.

So, okay--do we actually think that Doumeki and Kohane are dating? I'm on the fence about the whole idea.

[hexkitten.livejournal.com]

I am so late (getting back to) the party.

I think they're dating. It makes sense to me because they can understand each other about the whole supernatural thing, and they both care a lot about Watanuki. I also got the feeling from Kohane's earliest appearance that she brought out a more obviously protective side of Doumeki. I can see her growing up (as she has) and eventually a relationship commencing.

[cutesherry.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the translation, I've been waiting for it this whole time ^^

I was a bit surprised at the last lines, about protecting a family inside Doumeki's temple, and also Watanuki talking about the temple being reconstructed as a sure future. I confess not thinking as far as hexkitten though, the idea of Kohane being eventually pregnant or DoumekixKohane seems off to me somehow? I thought that maybe someone else other than Doumeki would live there.

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

I thought the end was surprising too--is Watanuki actually seeing the future, or is it just his expectations? I'm not clear on that, and I really can't think of with whom Doumeki would be living at the temple, he's clearly not the marrying type, at least for now. I also think that Doumeki/Kohane seems off; I really do think that's just a departmental rumor.

But I don't know who else would be living at the temple besides Doumeki, either; they tend to run in the family.

[cutesherry.livejournal.com]

Somehow, it's weird seeing him acting 'all knowing' like Yuuko or Clow ^^; I'm really not quite sure about him being able to see the future...But I guess that's Clamp showing us his growth as the new owner, it's been 10 years after all...and time is flowing very fast, seasons and months pass in each chapter, and Kohane went from showing off her high school uniform to being a college student in a flash. And everyone keep aging except Watanuki...if clamp wants to really bully us, that might just keep going like that until Watanuki is the only one left alive, but thankfully it's very unlikely to happen ^_^

About the whole 'family' thing, we'll see how that turns out I guess.

[hexkitten.livejournal.com]

that might just keep going like that until Watanuki is the only one left alive,

And this would make me horribly sad because I remember Doumeki telling Kohane in the anime (or was it one of the OAVs?) that he befriended Watanuki after seeing him standing by a river, holding a dead cat and crying, "Just like me. Someday, I'm going to die alone just like this."

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

That was in the manga too, right…? Or did Watanuki not say that exact line in the manga?

It would be sad, though. :/

[hexkitten.livejournal.com]

I don't remember if it was in the manga. It might have been, since the anime seemed to stick very close to it.

I am way too infested in these fictional characters' lives since I really do feel sad imagining Watanuki all alone.

[hexkitten.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if she's pregnant now. I remember the way he looked at her when she was trying on one of Yuuko's kimonos and it was like he was noticing something about her. At first I thought that it was that she was all grown up now, but now I'm wondering if he sensed she was pregnant.

And then we can tie in that poor little soul that he helped to cross that bridge.

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

You know, that would totally make a (somewhat horrible) sort of sense.

[marie1971.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the translation I am not on a fence about the idea of Doumeki and Kohane as it just seems wrong to me unless Clamp makes it that way then i will except the idea.

[white-manjuu.livejournal.com]

I had the same thought too, that Watanuki can see in the future, BUT even if he can see future, there is never ONLY ONE future, the feelings of the people (here Doumeki) can change the future. Maybe he saw Domeki with (Kohane)Family in HIS future, but who knows what is the point that the future will change.

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

That's another good point!