Rurouni Kenshin Manga Translations
Volume Seventeen--The One to Decide the Age
Part 148--Kyoto Epilogue 2--The End of the Ten Swords (End)
Kenshin: Dead? He . . .
Chou: Yeah. After the last battle, Anji saved his life, and they both turned themselves in. He was waiting for the trial to justify his policy of "the strong live, the weak die" and clear Lord Shishio’s name. But he didn’t get anywhere. Nothing he said was made public.
Kenshin: I see . . . whether in the Bakumatsu or the Meji era, Shishio is the dark shadow of the new age. His very existence can never be brought to light.
Chou: That’s why Houji refused the government’s offer. "Forget Shishio and work for us. We’ll gurantee your safety for life." Under the spell of Lord Shishio’s charisma, Houji brought together an army and even purchased a battleship from an underground arms merchant. The government wants skill like that bad. They offered him some pretty sweet terms. They didn't care about his arguments or principles. All they wanted was power. Houji lost all hope. They couldn’t publicly try him for high treason. A country in an age that had lost all honor, an age so weak they have to ask an enemy to work for them . . . He slit his throat with a small dagger he had hidden. He used the last of his strength to write his last words in blood and died . . .
With no regrets for this world,
I go to join Lord Shishio in hell.
(Everyone is silent. Finally--)
Yahiko: Even though we won, it’s hard to say who was right.
Chou: That’s the way of the world, kid. You’da thought at least Yumi would have come out on top.
Kaoru: You say she died with Shishio Makoto . . .
Chou: She told me about herself once when we were out drinking. She was once the best oiran in Shnyoshinara, so popular that even a high-ranking official couldn’t get near her.
oiran--the highest rank of prostitute in the entertainment district.
(flashback)
Yumi (toying with the ice in her drink): The red-light district looks glamorous, but it’s a world of suffering. I went through a lot to become the best oiran. But life is having to choose, and I made my own choices. At least an oiran had honor. Until the Mary Ruth case.
Kaoru: Mary Ruth?
Misao: What’s that?
Okina: In 1872 a Chinese coolie deserted from a Peruvian ship lying at anchor in Yokohama . . .
When it became clear that the ship, the Mary Ruth, was a slave ship and that the coolie had been cruelly treated, the Meiji government liberated him at his trial, showing the world that it was a nation that respected human rights. Peru retorted that Japan had prostitutes living as slaves in the pleasure quarters. Faced with this contradiction, the government eventually stated that if prositutes were to be human beings whose freedom had been stolen, then one might as well say it was wrong to demand payment for cattle and release them. Issuing an emancipation proclamation in this spirit, so far strayed from the rest of humanity, would be just as logical.
Yumi: You have to laugh. Slaves are human beings, but prostitutes are no better that horses or cows. We’ve fallen into this world of suffering and we’re doing our best to live our lives. But the Meiji governments says we’re not women. We’re bitches.
Misao: WHAT?!!
Yahiko: More and more . . .you can’t tell who was right.
Chou: It’s the way of the world. But she was happy that she’d met Lord Shishio. Maybe that was the only thing . . .
(He sets down his cup.)
Chou: Well, this is getting dull. Time I got going. Oh, almost forgot. There’s still two of them out there they didn’t catch. They’ll never find Soujirou the Prodigy. He's probably drinking tea on some mountaintop about now.
(out in a rustic town, Soujirou is eating dango in front of a tea shop.)
Soujirou: I ought to be on my way, grandmother. Thank you.
Tea Lady: Where are you headed?
Soujirou: Where indeed. I don’t have any particular destination. I’ve decided to wander for ten years.
Tea Lady: Ten years, now.
Soujirou: There were two men--they walked the same road, but after ten years they discovered completely opposite truths. So I think if I wander for ten years, I’ll be able to find my own truth. But let me ask you, grandmother, where does this road go?
Tea Lady: I’m not really sure, but it heads north.
Soujirou: North. It’s getting warmer. North might be good.
Chou: And Iwanbou’s so stupid he can’t do anything alone. He’s gone wild. Best to leave him alone.
(Iwanbou sits alone on a cliff, laughing a goofy laugh that gradually grows more sinister.)
(Chou is about to leave.)
Kenshin: Chou.
Chou: Hm?
Kenshin: The man who committed suicide in prison. Shishio’s loyal follower. Would you tell me his name?
Chou: It was Sadojima Houji.
Kenshin: At the funeral of Sadojima Houji the patriot, tell his spirit that Shishio Makoto, Komagata Yumi, the rest of the Ten Swords . . . they are left nothing in the history books, but I keep them in my heart.
Chou: Don’t know how happy he’ll be to hear that from his greatest enemy . . . but yeah. I’ll tell him.
(He walks off.)
Yahiko: Hey, Kenshin . . We won. Aren’t we the ones who’re right?
Kenshin: If you think might makes right, you’re the same as Shishio Makoto. Which side was right is up to future generations. What we can do is believe in what we know ourselves to be true . . .and to fight for it. An age in which the strong live and the weak die, where the flesh of the weak is the food of the strong, is wrong. Very wrong.
But contrary to Kenshin’s beliefs, many years later, the Meiji government itself implemented a policy of "rich country, strong army" and brought the nation into an era in which the strong ruled. Japan’s confusion soon turned to reckless force . . .
(Houji finds himself in a landscape of heaped bones and skulls.)
Houji (thinking): Is it a dream? A vision? A hallucination . . . (aloud) I . . I must have died. So where . . .
Shishio (standing a little ways ahead of him with Yumi): This is hell.
Houji: Lord Shishio!!
Yumi: See, I told you if we waited a little Houji would come.
Shishio: Well, don’t just stand there. Let’s get going.
Houji: Going? Going where?
Shishio: I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to overthrow the king of hell.
Yumi: Usui should be coming this way too. This time we’ll all be on the same side, won’t we?
Shishio: Hm. I’ll think about it.
(Houji is still frozen in disbelief.)
Shishio: What’s the matter, Houji. Didn’t I tell you you’d taste victory at my side?
Houji: Yes! I’ll be right there!
Shishio: In my fight with Battousai he had those who feared me to help him. Here there are only devils. It won’t happen this time.
(As Houji hurries to catch up, Shishio bursts out laughing.)
The One to Decide the Age--End
translations by maigo-chan
last updated 9 may 1999