Chapter 1 Part2 (1/2)

This part has more info on the Nidaime than the anime mentioned (which is basically my reason for taking up this novel lol)

The Eccentric Family: The Nidaime’s Homecoming (Uchouten Kazoku: Nidaime no Kichou) by Morimi Tomihiko

Chapter 1 (part 2/3)

〇

“Oh? It’s rare to see an elephant in Nyoigadake.”

The English gentleman descended to stand on the slope of Daimonji, putting a hand to his silk hat as he looked up at me.

When I shortened my body, returning to the form of a worthless college student, “As I thought, it was a tanuki’s shapes.h.i.+fting, huh. Quite splendid,” he murmured and clapped soundlessly in a pretentious manner.

This Western-styled tengu was a chalk-white handsome man with an air of a foreigner, an old-fas.h.i.+oned returnee just back to j.a.pan, conspicuous in the most extravagant way possible. A glossy silk hat, a black three-piece suit fitting his body to a nicety, a dress s.h.i.+rt so white it looked like plaster, a black bow tie and a cane held in slender leather-gloved hands were all parts of that. Tengu were creatures whose age was unidentifiable to begin with, but in human years he looked to be around his late thirties. One tremendously good-looking tengu, in short.

Picking up the travel suitcase, he then called out to the Kurama tengu, who until then were only grunting inarticulately.

“h.e.l.lo, my good sirs. What might you be playing at in these parts?”

The Kurama tengu got up and were now staring at the gentleman with dumb expressions.

Suddenly, Reizanbou tore off his sungla.s.ses and exclaimed in astonishment, “If it isn’t Yakus.h.i.+bou the Nidaime [*1]! Why have you come back now?”

“Because I’ve seen everything that I needed to see. Is chief Kurama doing well? Once I’ve settled in, I plan to go greet him. By the way…” the Nidaime said smoothly, looking around in puzzlement, “I’m sure I had sent my other luggage here, as well, but…”

“Aah, that,” Reizanbou spoke up coldly. “They were in the way, so we tossed them out.”

“…And why would you do such a thing? It’s not like this mountain belongs to you gentlemen.”

Reizanbou winked to his companions, and the Kurama tengu spread out, encircling the Nidaime. The air of arrogance filled the s.p.a.ce.

“You fell behind the times, Nidaime. We’ve taken over Nyoigadake.”

The situation seemed like it finally came down to a tengu fight, and I felt positively thrilled, my hair vibrating. For you see, these days tengu fights happened exceedingly rarely, and clashes like the battle between Akadamsensei and the Kurama tengu in Mt.Atagoyama, the great tug of war between the tengu of s.h.i.+ga and the tengu of Kyoto at the island of Chikubus.h.i.+ma and the Ibukiyama Flyer Shootdown operation were stuff of legends anymore you only heard about in anecdotes. For tanuki, if you were lucky enough to witness a historic tengu battle, you would have enough material to brag about at drinking parties for the rest of your life.

The Nidaime, however, remained utterly indifferent, as if the Kurama tengu’s provocation fell on completely deaf ears.

“Oh, that’s what’s happened. Duly noted.”

“Don’t you have anything else to say?” Reizanbou asked in a tone of a complete let-down. “What a disgustingly heartless fellow. We kicked your father off this mountain, you know.”

“If that’s the case, Nyoigadake rightfully belongs to you good sirs,” the Nidaime said, making a disinterested face. “Or what, are you ashamed of your actions?”

“Why would we be ashamed?!”

“Then show more pride. After all, you gentlemen are almighty tengu, and if you get too caught up in the heat of a turf war, no one can complain… Speaking of which, where is my father?”

“Behind the Demachi shopping arcade. Dependent on tanuki in a crummy little apartment.”

“Then I’ll finish him myself. Now, gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me.”

The Nidaime gave a slight polite bow to the Kurama tengu and smoothly took off into the sky with grace and elegance as if riding an invisible elevator.

The Kurama, dumbstruck, watched him depart.

Only when his form was no longer visible did they open their mouths to start a heated discussion and exchange commentary. Stamping their feet noisily on the scattered hanafuda cards of steel, they were saying one after another, “He’s just as smarta.s.s as ever.” “Who would’ve thought he’d come back now?” “Should we let the head family know?” “Does Atagoyama know?” They no longer spared any thought to the impertinent little tanuki who called them small timers, it seemed.

Taking advantage of the fact, I changed back into my tanuki form and broke into a run, heading toward the foot of the mountain.

As I dashed through the forest, my little brother who’d been hiding, jumped out of some bush at me. “Nii-chan, you’re alive!” delighted he. After a while spent on rejoicing over the fact that we both were unharmed, I shapes.h.i.+fted into my worthless college student form, while my brother into a little boy, and the two of us went down the slop in front of the gate to Ginkakuji temple that was crowded with tourists, then proceeded farther, running along a drainage ca.n.a.l under sakura trees that were already bloomless.

There was no time to worry about tsuchinoko or the tengu stone anymore. What had to take precedence was Akadamsensei’s safety.

I heard loud and clear with my own ears that the Nidaime said he would finish sensei himself, and when you take into consideration that this tengu strife between the father and the son survived even after more than a hundred years, it was quite probable that he would visit sensei’s place to settle the score in a violent and gory way. Still, Akadamsensei was our honored mentor who provided guidance to us for generations, us four brothers, our father, his father and countless other furb.a.l.l.s had studied under him. Even if as a tengu, sensei was no different from not being one at all anymore, I couldn’t simply sit and watch as someone put an end to his tengu life without mounting some resistance.

As we were running along Imadegawdoori street, I ordered my little brother to go back to the Tadasu forest.

“Go tell our big brother that the Nidaime’s returned. We also have to let Yasaksan know.”

“What are you going to do, nii-chan?”

“I’m going to Demachiyanagi. The Nidaime resents sensei, so he’s sure to come there to take revenge. Before he does, I’ll get sensei to escape somewhere.”

And so, my little brother sped toward the Tadasu forest with an urgent message, while my destination was the apartment building Masugata just behind the Demachi shopping district.

〇

A certain retired tengu by the name Iwayasan Kinkoubou-san ran a used camera store by the Nihonbas.h.i.+ bridge, and I’d been to the place frequently. Kinkoubou was one of Akadamsensei’s few friends, and it was he who told me some details regarding the Nidaime.

The Nidaime’s birthplace was the city of Kiyou, that is, presently the city of Nagasaki.

When the Nidaime set foot on the Kyoto soil after being kidnapped from Nagasaki by Akadamsensei, the time was the Meiji era, more precisely the period of it where the multiple riots a.s.sociated with the Meiji Restoration had already turned into a thing of the past.

“My son,” was how Akadamsensei introduced the Nidaime to Kinkoubou.

Kinkoubou remembered very vividly what the Nidaime looked like when he first stepped in Kyoto. Although a beautiful boy with plump cheeks showing leftover childishness, he had a razor-sharp gaze and it was transparent to see that he was hiding some seriously hot temper. From just one look, it was apparently clear that Akadamsensei’s blood flowed in his veins.

The boomingly developing j.a.pan of the Meiji era had seemingly nothing to do with the boy receiving tengu education from Akadamsensei. During j.a.pan’s westernization when the Biwako canel was finished, the munic.i.p.al tram system developed and new buildings constructed, the boy spent all his time in the recesses of Nyoigadake undergoing tough training. But by no means did it mean the young Nidaime was satisfied with his circ.u.mstances. Evidently, the reason why he’d accepted his situation and worked hard at his tengu training was because in his heart he had decided to distinguish himself as quickly as possible and overthrow his detested father.

Time flowed by, marking the coming of a new century and a new Taishou era.

The Nidaime turned into a bright-eyed young man, and there was no keeping him holed up in Nyoigadake anymore. Together with the chief of Kurama, Kuramayama Soujoubou, with whom the Nidaime had become friends, he would sneak into high schools, pose as a student and go to party in the night town, taking tanuki along. Akadamsensei frowned at the Nidaime’s conduct, the Nidaime, for his part, kept steadily gaining strength as a tengu, competing with Akadamsensei head-on. It was a precarious situation where both, the father and the son alike, eagerly searched for a chance to let loose and allow their hot tempers explode.

And that was where a certain woman came into play.

A western-style hotel with a clock tower appeared at Karasumdoori street rather suddenly. And she was a sheltered daughter of the owner of that ‘20th century hotel’, a nouveau riche who built his fortune on war.

The Nidaime fell in ardent love at first sight, but Akadamsensei meddled, saying that he needed to punish his negligent pupil who had lost his way. At the time, Akadamsensei was still overflowing with vitality as a tengu, and the wicked deed of making pa.s.ses at his son’s first love was no big deal for him, it seemed.

That struggle over love, unfolding on the stage that was the brilliantly s.h.i.+ning hotel got more and more complicated until the Nidaime’s patience that was being stretched thin ever since his being a young boy was finally overtaxed, his temper exploding in flames.

The father and the son clashed in what was a huge fight shaking all the 36 peaks of Higas.h.i.+yama and lasting 3 days and 3 nights.

As the two battled without sleep or rest, riddled with wounds and reduced to savages, they ended up crawling up the main roof of the Minamiza theater [*2] that was still under reconstruction at the time. As bluish-white lightning tore through the dark skies and a downpour shrouded the city, they mustered the last of their strength and clashed. Seeing them stick their fingers in the opponent’s nostrils, pull each other’s hair and unintelligibly grunt was like watching a children’s squabble instead of tengu’s death struggle. Still, as per the saying, experience proved the best teacher in the end, and Akadamsensei, going wild like a lion, kicked the Nidaime down from Minamiza’s roof and into s.h.i.+jou-doori street below, letting loose a triumphant roar. Under the beating rain, the defeated Nidaime escaped through the dark city and disappeared.

Since then, a hundred years had pa.s.sed.

Nyoigadake Yakus.h.i.+bou the Nidaime, having set foot on his native land after returning from the British Empire, entered a luxury lodging, Kyoto Hotel Okura in Kawaramachi-oike, with appropriate grandeur and dignity.

While the Nidaime, having deposited his luggage in a comfortable guest room of the hotel, was carefully dressing, intending to visit his father and settle the score, Akadamsensei, holed up in his cheap apartment behind the Demachi shopping arcade, hugged a daruma doll with one eye filled in [*3] close and prayed for Benten’s return to j.a.pan, chanting “BentenBentenBenten” all the while.

Why were these father and son as different as night and day?

It was a cruel story, just the tengu way.

〇

Luckily, when I burst into Akadamsensei’s apartment, the Nidaime wasn’t there yet.

Through the openings in the curtain that more resembled an old rag, the spring sun streamed, illuminating the four and a half tatami mat room buried in junk. Akadamsensei in yellowish underwear snored loudly on his permanently laid-out futon; in contrast to the overall pitiful sight that he presented, sensei’s sleeping face was the height of happiness. He was probably dreaming of Benten’s bottom.

“Please wake up!”

Even when I shook him, sensei just turned over, greedily clinging to his backside dream and even looking like he was diving ever deeper into its sweetness.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake. He just won’t wake up.”

Around the futon, all kinds of personal belongings were scattered such as tengu tobacco, the FuujinRaijin folding fan, a concise picture postcard from Benten and sensei’s favorite towel, among others. I gathered them, wrapped them in a cloth, lifted sensei’s body and deposited it on my own back. He probably wouldn’t be happy to have been carried to the tanuki forest while asleep, but I had no time to wait for him to wake up comfortably on his own.

When I opened the door to the apartment and was about to leave, I saw the silhouette of an English gentleman behind the fence surrounding the building who was clearly out of place in the Demachiyanagi neighborhood.

“Uhyaa! It’s the Nidaime! He sure wastes no time.”

With no other choice, I went back into the room.

The image of Akadamsensei the Nidaime had in his head was that from a century ago, and there was no way he could’ve accurately predicted what sensei looked like in the present after his downfall. In which case, if I shapes.h.i.+fted into sensei, I just might be able to deceive the Nidaime’s eyes somehow. You never knew if maybe greeting the Nidaime warmly and giving him a hug as the fake Akadamsensei would actually be enough to start thawing the frost of his hundred year long grudge. Oh, right, almost forgot.

I threw the junk out of the closet and shoved Akadamsensei who was still hugging the daruma doll into it together with his futon. Just as I shut the sliding screen closed, the Nidaime knocked on the door.

“Is Nyoigadake Yakus.h.i.+bou in?”

I shapes.h.i.+fted into Akadamsensei and sat down in the center of the small room cross-legged.

“Come in,” I said loudly.

After a few moments, the Nidaime opened the door and stepped inside, peering into the four and a half tatami mat room from where the small kitchen was. He was pressing a snow white handkerchief over his nose and mouth. It was no wonder: smoke from the tengu tobacco, the stench of Akadama port wine left on the bottom of several bottles and food in bentou boxes that had gone bad, yellow-smeared cotton swabs thrown carelessly after their duty of cleaning ears had been done, underwear stripped and left to lie around, Akadamsensei’s own old man body odor and the leftover smell and hair from the tanuki who visited quite often… This room that was the height of disorder, along with its stink, apparently completely overwhelmed the Nidaime as he stood at the threshold in mute amazement.

Using my best shapes.h.i.+fting techniques, I managed to recreate the dignity so characteristic of tengu.

“So good of you to come back, son! What happened in the past was all my fault. Will you forgive me?”

From the mouth of Nyoigadake Yakus.h.i.+bou, a tengu who carried his wicked ways to the extremes and spat on all creation, one after another fell accommodationist lines, and it was so blatantly contrived that I felt ashamed for myself.

When I opened my arms wide, the Nidaime approached cautiously, got down to one knee after carefully wiping the filth from the spot on the tatami where his knee would go and gingerly returned the embrace while paying scrupulous attention as not to get his jacket dirty in the process. With this, the books on the strife of a hundred years between the father and the son could be closed, it seemed.

Except, all of a sudden, the Nidaime whispered into my ear, “I see you’ve acquired quite the tanuki reek to you, father.”

“That’d be because the tanuki come here all the time. I’m rather sick of them myself.”

“You say that, but it is rather apparent that you’re quite fond of tanuki.”

“Fool! What are you talking about?”

“Why else would you grow a tail like a tanuki?”

The Nidaime then slapped my lower back and seized the tail that popped out from that impact in a tight grip.

In the blink of an eye my transformation was unraveled, and when I found myself hanging upside down, I bitterly regretted my shallow and ill-conceived idea to fool a tengu by shapes.h.i.+fting into a tengu. What could be a more humiliating and painful experience? Tanuki don’t do upside down. And now, dangling precariously in the air with up and down switched, I mumbled barely coherently, begging the Nidaime for forgiveness, “Please forgive me! Please forgive me!”

“Could it be that you’re the tanuki who was in Nyoigadake earlier?” The Nidaime brought the bridge of his flawless nose closer to me, still holding me upside down. “If that’s the case, then you must have inferred the circ.u.mstances and beat me to the punch, huh.”

Subduing his anger, the Nidaime put me back down on the tatami flooring.

Rubbing my aching b.u.t.t, I looked up at him.

“Please forgive my foolish prank. I am the third son of s.h.i.+mogamo Souichirou, Yasaburou. I would like to congratulate you on your safe return from abroad from the bottom of my heart, sir.”

“No need for such ceremonious greetings. Incidentally, where is my real father?”

“Well, sir, that I know not myself. I wonder where could he possibly have gone?”