| Vol. 31 Summary …Everything happened in 4 minutes and 27 seconds…. The rage of Ushio has reached its highest point and then after 4 minutes and 27 seconds he suddenly disappeared. Sumako thinks, it’s all her fault. She has broken the ecological balance, which maintains his heart… Hakumen no Mono teases Sumako, saying how sad everything would be: Her husband had disappeared for ever, together with the island and her son isn’t able to help her anymore. He knows, of all people she has to bow now, just like her barrier… Just when he wants to destroy Sumako, Mayuko, Jiemei and then Tora as well appear to help her. Jiemei thanks Suamko, tells her, it had been very brave of her to stand firm such a long time. Meanwhile Ushio still hangs on the rock, on which his mother and the other are. He is still enraged. To make matters worse, Giryô, who is enraged as well, intensifies Ushio’s rage even more. His mother and his father had been murdered by Hakumen. His sister, Jiemei, died because of the Spear. And Ushio is supposes to be just like him. His mother, his father, his friends had been snatched away from him by Hakumen now he hates Hakumen. It’s all Hakumen’s fault…! Ushio gets on his feet again and rushes up to Hakumen. Sumako and Mayuko try to stop him. They say, Hakumen no Mono existences only out of hatred and he never should try to defeat hatred with hatred! But nothing can stop Ushio anymore now. His rage is unbridled, just like he is. With all his hatred he bores the Spear of the Beasts in Hakumen’s head and the incomprehensible happens: The Spear of the Beasts shatters into thousand pieces! All this happened only within 4 minutes and 27 seconds. The tragedy is completed after 4 minutes and 47 seconds… Hakumen is full of malicious joy, saying he never thought, the Spear of the Beast would be so fragile and it’s is victory now. Now he wants to destroy this land. The giant monster, which exists out of a connection between the monsters of the West and the monsters of the East, tries to stop Hakumen, but there is no sense in that. Tora is the only one left, who is able to follow Hakumen. Sumako and Mayuko are in despair. In this moment Kirio arrives, along with Tokisaka. Tokisaka has taken Kirio along to the past. This way Kirio could find out the story of Hakumen no Mono. He could see the birth of Hakumen. He says, there is a complicated connection between Tora and Hakumen no Mono 3000 years ago. Meanwhile Ushio felt into the sea and sinks deeper and deeper in it. He doesn’t know where he is, all he remembers is, he had been beaten by Hakumen and the Spear of the Beasts doesn’t exist anymore and he felt into the sea. Suddenly he seems to have a dream. He sees something; a city… a burning city. In front of this city there is Tora standing, holding something in his arms… a little boy…! Suddenly everything is dark. Then Ushio sees a sky by night, which is full of stars. One of the stars falls from the sky, but it has a violet colour. It goes to the East, it falls down there, where Ushio is. Suddenly there is a loud crack. Ushio feels the wind blowing and there is a smell of something burned. He sees many corpses, from near and far… Meanwhile Kirio tells Mayuko, Sumako and Jiemei, he discovered there is some kind of relation between Tora and Hakumen no Mono. Mayuko wants to know, what kind of relation and Kirio tells her, when she got kidnapped, he wanted to follow her right away, by Ushio told him he mustn’t act. That’s why Kirio decided to do some inquiries of Hakumen no Mono. It’s enough to get to know his weak point, only this way they succeed in defeating Hakumen. So Kirio decided to go to someone, who can give him advise; Saya Takamori… So Saya’s Tokisaka took Kirio and Kuin back to the past, to a secluded place, where the Spear of the Beasts still hangs between two huge montains…! … Back to Ushio: Meanwhile Ushio noticed, he is in the body of a man, who is called Shagakusha. He is at a place, he doesn’t know. It’s not a Japanese city, but foreign (the reader can see, it’s India). Ushio doesn’t know the people. On the contrary, he sees them for the first time. Ushio doesn’t know the heart of this man, but he feels something intuitively, this Shagakusha. He has lived in loneliness. He always had been a cursed child. He always had been alone… “Die all of you… die!” is what he always thinks. It’s strange. Every time, when he feels hatred for someone, his right shoulder hurts very much. And to his amusement he hates everybody from the bottom of his heart… … Shagakusha’s arm became very muscular. A lot of time has passed. Ushio hears screams of war; the soldiers around him are fighting. They’re enemies. Ushio knows Shagakusha hates them all – as well enemies as comrades; he only feels pure hatred for them! He became stronger and stronger! And if he hates someone, he feels a pleasant pain in the shoulder… The people celebrate this man Shagakusha; the brave warrior; the hero; the one who saved this land many times. Ushio sees someone smiling at him; a little boy… But even if they celebrate him, he doesn’t stop hating them… “Ignoramuses, once you had called me the cursed boy and now you see the hero in me. I can’t trust anybody. All people fill me with revulsion!”… His head is full of hatred… “I hate you…” “Die…” “Don’t fool me…” “Don’t underestimate me…” “I will take revenge…” These thoughts are the source of his force… Because he enjoys hating the others … … Back to Kirio: Kirio sits on a rock, waiting for the one to come. Suddenly he sees a man coming towards him. He looks ragged and exhausted, murmurs to himself: “I’ve finally found it… It’s the Spear of the Beasts. I already have spent 800 years… with this… I can beat…” Then he sees Kirio and speaks out his name in astonishment and Kirio is more than amazed, the man knows his name! Kirio asks him, how he could know his name and the man replies, he doesn’t know, the name just was in his mind, when he saw him. The man wonders, what’s a boy doing all alone in the middle of giant and uninhabited mountains and he wants to know from Kirio, if he would be a ghost and Kirio replies no he is a human. For the man it doesn’t make any difference, if Kirio is a ghost or a human, because there is no way, he could keep him off from taking… “The Spear of the Beasts”… Kirio completes the sentence and the man asks him surprised if Kirio would know the Spear. Kirio says, he came to find the person, who had carried the Spear of the Beasts away from here. The man asks him, for what reason and Kirio replies, he wants to know how to defeat the giant monster with 9 tails… … Back to Ushio: He is still in this dream and doesn’t know where he is. All he knows is, he is in the heart of somebody, on a place, he never went to before and he has never seen before; in the heart of somebody… He is still in the body of this Shagakusha… Now he sees three men talking to him; the shoulder of the man hurts even more… Ushio sees a little boy standing in front of him, who’s called obviously Rama. Rama asks Shagakusha indignantly, if the noblemen have maltreated him. Shagaksha replies, that’s not new, because he isn’t very popular with them and asks Rama, what he thinks of him. The people call him hero, but they consider him as cursed child and they are scared of him. He wants to know, if it it’s bothering Rama to serve him… Rama looks astonished and asks him, if he is talking about the stars, which fell down on the day of his birth and laughs while asking who on earth could have thought up something like that. He says to Shagakusha, that he is strong and kind and wants to become just like him… …Back to Kirio: The man tells Kirio his story: 400 years agao the story of the region of Tenjiku begins, which is pretty much in the West of this land… („In India 2500 years ago…“ Kirio thinks to himself). In this land there was a hero. This man was very strong. He was brave and cruel and he saved innumerable times his land. His presence was enough to make the enemy flee. This man hated everybody. That’s why he was so strong. But then there came a moment of piece for him as well… …We see noble men, who took away for fun a small bundle from a young women. She tries to get it back, but in vain. At this moment man enters the room (you can see it’s Shagakusha!) and helps the young woman to get back her property by beating up the men. The woman is very grateful, but the man replies to her, he just had found am excuse for beating… And yet she smiles… …Back to Ushio: He’s still dreaming. Now he sees something different… The young woman planting some seeds in the soil and she says to Shagakusha, there is a big difference between working with the sword and hoeing the earth. Both strain, but in the end the seeds produce the fruits. Shagakusha asks her angry, if she wants to give him a sermon; a man, who commands thousands of soldiers. She says of course not, but when he beat up he noblemen, it had been like if he hoes the earth with a sword. He asks her, if she wants to say, it’s better to sow and what exactly sowing is. The young woman can’t tell, but there is one thing she knows: Hatred doesn’t let grow anything…! Suddenly Ranma joins them and Shagakusha finds out, the young woman is Rama’s sister… … Back to Kirio: The man is still in the middle of his story… He tells Kirio, this man never had perceived the kindness of humans. To him the other people were only persons, he scared or enemies to hate. But the boy and his sister were different… …Now we jump to a scene, where Shagakusha, Rama and his sister are standing in the middle of a field and talking: Rama says to his sister, Shagakusha is very strong and even if he has many enemies, there are still enough people, who are close by him, to get rid of the problem. His sister answers laughing, if there will be a war here, they can hide in the mouth of Shagakusha. Rama laughs and says, this would be a good idea, because the mouth of Shagakusha would be a surely a save place… …Now we jump back to Kirio again: The man says, for him it was a feeling, he never felt before. He felt helpful. Now he had to protect the boy and her sister, who weren’t sacred of him… Soon after the crack a new war came. The enemy had been much stronger and the possibility of a war had been improbable. So Shagakusha fled to the mountains… …Now we jump into a short scene, where Shagakusha is having a meal with Rama and his sister. He seems to like the soup, because he had already eaten lots of it. The ragged man tells Kirio, it only lasted one moment, a split second, but for the first time in his life Shagakusha smiled!... Kirio interrupts the man, saying this man also had other feelings than hatred and this guy would a little bit like him… And then something happened… Scene change again: We see Shagakusha running away with Rama’s sister. She doesn’t know, what’s going on, asks him, where he is taking her to and where Rama is. Shagakusha says, he wants to hide her at a safe place at first and then come back to search for Rama. His heart pounds, it screams “I have to save her brother”… Kirio asks the man, what happened and he replies, the war happened. It came in the afternoon of the same day. The enemies, which invaded Shagakusha’s country, had been very strong. A country with a numerous army and if in this night the enemy army wants to burn his country, they would be defeated for sure and then destroyed. Shagakusha knew it, that’s why he ran away… The scene, in which Shagakusha is running away with the young woman, continues…. “I don’t want them to get killed, at least not them” Shagakusha says to himself. The young woman tells him, they can’t run away, because everyone believes, that he would protect the people, but Shagakusha replies, nobody would believe in him, but he knows what they think: Shagakusha is possessed by the devil, that’s why he is so strong. He says, they think: “As long as he is so strong, we join him! We join an idiot, because he fights for us!” But what they really think is: “We don’t want to be protected by a cursed child!” The young woman tries to make clear, nobody thinks that, but Shagakusha won’t listen. He says, when he was little, they expelled him, but then he became a hero, everybody flatters. He is different from them. He doesn’t want to save the other people, he only wants to save Rama and his sister; he wants them to stay alive. He tells her not to worry. He is a hero, he is Shagakusha. As long as they stay close by him, he will protect them. When they crossed the mountains, they will be safe. Then he’ll go right away to get Rama. This way they remain three… But it’s too late already. Unfortunately they just bump into the heavy armed enemy! The enemies didn’t want to let them get away, so they fired on them with arrows. It looked like the arrows fell even slower than usually. As well as Rama’s sister as Shagakusha got hit by them and they hit the young woman deadly. Shagakusha holds her in his arms, begs her not to die, he would cure her injuries. But the young woman is already dying. She thanks Shagakusha and says, it was the first time, someone told her lovable words. If she would have known before, she would have been born in the mouth of Shagakusha… and she dies! Shagakusha full of rage and hatred for the men, which had taken his love away from him and he kills them all! Suddenly his shoulder starts to hurt awfully and he sees something breaking out of his shoulder! He hears a laughing voice, saying “Thank you Shagakusha! I’ve grown enough, now I can finally come out! I’ve lived on your hatred, your anger and your envy. I’ve grown in your body; in your soul!“ Out of the body of the totally confused Shagakusha breaks out a big, snow white monster with 9 tails! The man wants to know, what kind of devil it is and the monster replies, it’s the light of darkness, which hasn’t got a shadow and it thanks Shagakusha for getting its own body because of him. When it arrived in this world, it only had been darkness without a body. It destroyed right away the land “In” and “Shû”, a bit western from this one. He longed for a body of his own, but to get one, he had to enter the one of a human. But the monster was bored and it wanted to taste the blood of humans and live on their fear. So the monster left the land “Shû” and before it looked for new victims, it decided to have a body all for itself. Till this moment it sensed the crying of a newborn baby. The monster chose the baby Shagakusha by chance. It entered in the baby’s body (when the monster did, it killed his parents and all other people around him) and there the body of the monster slowly formed and he was very comfortable. The mistrust of the people made him hate them and the monster lived on the hatred and the anger. The hatred fed the blood and the flesh of the monster. So Shagakusha is the one, who created the monster. Ushio, who is still in the heart of Shagakusha, understands now, this man is the one, who had borne Hakumen no Mono and that Ushio is also involved in it… the big monster, which wants to inaugurate his new body with blood and Abikyôkan (a very cruel situation, which brings suffering and sorrow along) quiet near from here as long as it wants to and flies away. Shagakusha sees the monster heading for the city, so he goes there as well, to find Rama before it’s too late. When Shagakusha arrives there, the city is already completely burning. In a corner he sees Rama lying and takes the heavy wounded boy into his arms. Rama opens his eyes, saying he didn’t even hear the voices of the enemies. He was sure, Shagakusha would come… He says, the enemies had been very strong. They all have fought, but it had been too many. The enemies started a fire, which burned the boy. But Shagakusha knows, it had been Hakuen, wo burned everything… Rama tries to smile and says, he wishes, Shagakusha would have arrived earlier. All people have believed in Shagakusha. They said, when Shagakusha arrives, there would be no hope for their enemies. Even if they imagined a long time ago, he would be a cursed child; when Shagakusha grew up, he didn’t showed hatred. On the contrary, he kept on protecting them. The adults of the city wanted to apologize to Shagakusha. They children as well, but they’re dead now… Rama starts to cry, because he couldn’t protect them. He wanted to be just like Shagakusha; so strong and so brave… But Shagakusha thinks he is not like this. He never intended to save the other people. He hated them! He thought, the people hated him and he hated them all. And then he had born this demon… Rama says, he really didn’t want to die like this, he wanted to become very strong and protect all the others, his sister as well… to do it just like Shagakusha. Then the boy dies in his arms… Shagakusha is full of pain and deep sadness, he weeps and cries “I’m not like you think”… … Now we’re back to Kirio again: Kirio asks the ragged man, who he is and how he could know Shagakusha that well. Kirio looks at the man and discovers, his right shoulder is completely destroyed. Suddenly he begins to understand, saying to the man, so he is the one, who had born Hakumen no Mono… but he said, it happened 400 years ago. The ragged man says, the monster told him, in thanks for letting it grow in his body, it will entrust him with something… that he never can die! Since it has entered his body, his blood and flesh aren’t of a human anymore, his body is going to be like its. As long as the monster exists, there will always be someone, who hates it. The hatred is the monster’s food. That means, it never can be extinguished. They will meet again in future soon, was the last thing the monster said, before it disappeared… And then the man, which body the monster entered, started to travel. Hardly he arrived at Madaka, a country destroyed like his own by Hakumen no Mono, he fought against the serving monsters. But they didn’t try to kill him. He travelled a lot, followed the tracks of Hakumen. He went to where ever and travelled for a long time. He never tried to forgive Hakumen no Mono. They had been two really kind people; the brother and his sister… In his dark life they had been his sun. He never could forgive again. Shagakusha arrived in China, another country destroyed by Hakumen no Mono. But here, in this city he saw the Spear of the Beasts… He heard of the existence of the Spear of the Beasts. The people talked about the spear, the weapon which kills monsters. Shagakusah looked for the Spear in all lands and an old man told him, the Spear got arrested with a fabric created out of monsters in the end and captured between two mountains of the blue sky. So Shagakusha went on search and found the valley, where the Spear of the Beasts had been… and there he met Kirio (because Ushio is still in the heart of Shagakusha, he recognizes Kirio of course and Shagakusha as well, but he doesn’t know why)… The ragged man, who is Shagakusha, gets up to do what he came for. He says to Kirio, the Spear radiates his smell. After he freed the Spear, it will search Hakumen, try to find him, kill this monster and then kill him for his stupidity… Then he climbs the mountains and takes the Spear and Ushio watches Shagakusha turning with the Spear in his hands into… Tora! Then Ushio wakes up out of his dream. He sees the fragments of the Spear of the Beasts circle around him. He had been defeated by Hakumen no Mono and he felt to the bottom of the sea, but he doesn’t know, who did let him dreaming. He is driving to the surface again and now he understands: The battle isn’t over yet…! Meanwhile Kirio had come to the end of his story, he told Sumako, Mayuko and Jiemei: So this man took the Spear of the Beasts and disappeared. The one, who had born Hakumen, became the first one, who used the Spear. It’s a very rare event. Then the Spear tears the soul apart, he turns into a beast at first and in the end a monster… Kirio had met many people during his journey, who used the Spear of the Beasts and fought against the monsters. Then, when the Spear of the Beasts had sucked up the soul, the persons transformed into monsters, the Azafuse. All who had have the Spear, transformed into Azafuse. The Spear changed many hands, to stay under the earth for many years, but even if the times changed, someone always had to fight against monster. There was always someone who felt need for the Spear of the Beasts. For example a farmer who used it to protect his family; a girl who used it to take revenge for his fiancée; a man used it to achieve glory and money… All were fighting for a different reason. So their souls had been sucked out by the Spear of the Beasts. They became Azafuse. They hated Hakumen no Mono from the bottom of their heart. Kirio says, Tokisaka had taken him to the ship, which brought Hakumen to Japan. Suddenly he sees Shagakusha standing by him. His body almost turned completely into a beast. He is still full of hatred and mediates revenge, but he isn’t able anymore to kill Hakumen. So he sends the Spear on the ship, so someone will find it and use it against Hakumen… Meanwhile Ushio is up to his feet again… Next |