by Unknown
[000]
GAROUDEN: THE LEGEND OF THE HUNGRY WOLF
-Translations by Hamish & Nao Takahashi
- Production, Edition and design by Ichido Reichan
- Quality control and corrections by Tetris Battle
- Project financed by the members of The Wild Fang Project.
- Originally written by Yumemakura Baku and published by Futabasha publishing Japan. Cover and illustrations by Itagaki Keisuke All rights reserved to the original owners. This is a fan translation project to merely promote and comment about the works of Yumemakura Baku to English speakers and fans of the series. If you kindly want this project to succeed , contact [email protected] for suggestions or commentary.
[001]
INDEX OF VOLUME I:
-PROLOGUE
- PART I: THE DUEL
- PART II: THE GRUDGE
- PART III: THE PAST
- PART IV: INTRUSION
- PART V: EVIL BEAST
- EPILOGUE.
- AFTERWORD.
- EPILOGUE.
[007]
Prologue
Even in a crowd he somehow stood out. It wasn't the way he was dressed, nor were his looks anything more than average. In fact it was more the opposite. His nose was flat and his lips were thick. His shoulders, eyes and frame were also over-sized. Although you wouldn't go so far as to call him ugly. He certainly wasn't charming, but his features were well balanced, in their own way. At a glance, he seemed like the kind of guy you could see anywhere. If there was a group of people coming towards you, your line of sight would stop when it hit him, just for a moment, before he walked straight past you. That was the kind of way he stood out.
He was big. Quite tall. About half a head taller than the rest of the crowd. He looked to be around six foot, but just because someone is six feet tall doesn't mean that they catch people's eyes the way he did. It wasn't his height or his frame that caught the attention of so many other people. No, it was because he had an air of mystery about him. It was that mysteriousness that made people notice him.
He was wearing a cotton shirt over a pair of comfy cotton slacks. His shirt was off-white and over washed to the point of fading. An open leather jacket hung from his shoulders over his shirt. His clothes were a little too big. It looked as though he chose the kind of clothing that wouldn't constrict his body.
[008]
Everything he was wearing was a little dirty. It's not that the clothes he wore were dirty in places, but more they had been stained with the filth of his lifestyle.
He looked beat up and worn out, but strangely it suited him. It was probably because of the way he held himself. The feeling he gave off didn't come from his clothing, but rather from inside. The warmth of his body, his smell … the tell-tale signs of a human pushed through his clothing and hung in the air.
He looked as though he was taking a casual stroll, but he hadn't let his guard down. He looked older than 30, but just how much older was difficult to tell. He would have been around 35 or 36, but he moved his body like someone in their 20's.
The month of March. The place; the Kasuga Grand Shrine in Nara, halfway down the path towards the shrine archway. That pathways inside Nara Park were overflowing. There were a lot of young people there as high schools and universities were out for summer. Groups of senior citizens, probably from a tour bus, were wandering towards him. There were even foreigners with cameras hanging from their necks. There were a lot of young people wearing jeans. Unlike in the wintertime, everyone was dressed in bright, colorful clothing.
Peppermint green, yellow, orange, blue, pink … all kinds of colors walking about. The afternoon sun poured over the land and fingers of light poked through the tree tops. Just before the entrance of the archway, there was a single storied structure made from raw wood with a gabled roof made from cypress bark, a stable, on the right hand side. The shadows that fell on the wood from the treetops above rippled with the breeze. The wind was refreshing, not piercingly cold.
[009]
All the smells that had hung in the air since he arrived started to melt into the wind. The smell of deer and exhaust gas had followed him all day, but now there was also the subtle smell of grass that the wind had carried in from Mt. Wakakusa. He passed through the archway, which was lined with various stone lanterns on either side. Most of them were for people to pay their respects, and it was said there are around 1760 of them.
He could make out muffled voices in the distance. The voices were getting closer. It seemed as if someone was being chased.
“Get back here!”
“You little shit!”
The voices got louder. The crowd in front of him split open. From there a young man wearing jeans came running towards him. The young man was pushing people out his was with his hands and elbows as he turned and looked behind him. It seems that he was trying to get a look at the people chasing him. The young man was still fairly young and didn't slow down, not even when he turned to look behind him. The young man ran straight into him, as he had stopped walking, and fell back wards.
“Ah!”
The young man let out a cry and turned his attention to the one had run into. The young man's fine features looked shocked as he looked up towards the man's jack-knife smile. The young man looked about 17 years old. He had shoulder length hair and was wearing what looked like a jacket. Their met eyes for only a second. The young man got straight back up and again started to run. There were three men chasing him.
[010]
“He's a pick-pocket!” one of them yelled out. The young man was at a disadvantage. The crowd he was trying to push through was his main obstacle. The men chasing him ran though the path he had carved in the crowd. After about 10 meters or so, they finally caught the young man. People in the crowd slowed him down once the men chasing him called out that he was a pickpocket. Out of nowhere the young man gets a smack. One of the men whipped off his jacket as the young man fell to the ground.
“What the hell are you doing?” the young man said.
“You're going to give that money back!”
“What money?”
“Don't play dumb with me, I'm talking about the money you took back there,” the man said, hitting the young man again. The man's face was turning red. He was certainly angry, but that probably wasn't the only reason his face was turning red. He had been drinking as well. The three men didn't look all that respectable themselves. The man who hit the young man was wearing sunglasses. They seemed like the kind of thugs you would find roaming the streets at night.
“I don't know anything about your money,” the young man said, propping himself up off the ground with his right hand. The young man then glared up at the three men, a line of blood forming downwards from the corner of his mouth. He clenched his left hand into a fist and wiped the blood from his face. He looked down at the blood on his fist and then turned his glare back to the three men. He pulled in his sneaker clad feet and propped himself up.
“You son of a bitch!” the man with sunglasses yelled as he moved forward to kick the young man with the tip of his foot. The young man jerked his body backwards to try and dodge the blow, and the man's foot sailed narrowly past his chin.
[011]
“Ah!” the man in sunglasses yelped, his kick to thin air causing him to stumble forwards. The young man used his knees to push himself up into a standing position and spat crimson to the ground.
“That was close,” the young man said, a knife-like smile forming on his lips. It was a wry grin of defiance. A number of the pedestrians has stopped walking and had been watching from a distance, w
aiting to see how the situation would play out.
“Hand over the money, kid,” said the tallest of the three men as he stepped in front of the young man. He had a deep and calm voice.
“I said I don't know what you're talking about,” said the young man as he took a slight step backwards.
“Look kid, I saw you take that money and run.”
“Superb eyesight you've got there.”
“You're not funny, kid,” the tall man muttered. His eyes were narrow and his tone was eerily calm. His movements flowed like water as he shuffled his body forward. The young man turned to flee but the tall man was too fast. It was the kind of speed that could only be achieved through training. The tall man threw his left fist at the young man's nose. The young man pulled his head back and dodged the attack, readying himself with boxing stance. He bent his arms at his elbows and brought them up to either side of his face to protect his head. The tall man, as if reading his movements, let his right fist fly towards the young man.
[012]
The tall man's fist came up from below to form an uppercut. The young man, his arms still on either side of his face, flung his head backwards to dodge the blow. His shoulders, arms and back followed suit and the young man fell backwards. The tall man came in from the side with a kick towards the young man's head. The young man didn't try to dodge; he did the opposite and lunged towards the tall man's leg. The two of them were soon in full contact, the young man using both of his arms to latch on to the tall man's right leg. Because he had been weighed down, the force of his attack was cut by half. The tall man's punches were polished, but his kicks were rusty.
The young man stood up, still holding on to the the tall man's leg. The tall man threw another punch at the young man as he became unbalanced. It hit him on the nose, but because he had lost his balance, it didn't do much damage. The young man then curled his right leg around the tall man's right leg and jerked it upwards, causing him to fall tot he ground. It was just then that the two remaining men came at the young man with an attack.
The young man clung to the side of one of the men. The man with sunglasses sunk his knee into the young man's stomach. The young man groaned as he doubled over. That was when two police officers came running over. It wasn't clear whether someone had reported a disturbance of if they had spotted the fight while on patrol.
“That's enough!”
“What's going on here?,” the police officers shouted as the ran over to stop the violence.
“Fighting are we?” one of the officers said, turning their attention to the young man and the three men who had finally been split up.
[013]
“No! This kid stole some money from us,” the man wearing sunglasses said.
“Money?” the guard asked.
“Yeah, money. The kid's a pick-pocket”
“Is that true?” the officer asked, turning to face the young man. The young man shook his head.
“I don't know what they're talking about, I haven't stolen any money” said the young man. The sudden change in his demeanor was amazing. His defiant expression as gone, replaced with a look of fear in his eyes.
“Well, then why were you running?”
“Because these guys were yelling and started chasing me. Anyone would run, these guys look like gang members.”
“You little shit!”
“Watch it!” the police officer snapped.
The young man moved away as if trying to hide in the policeman's shadow. Blood started to trickle down from his nose.
“I saw the boy take the money with my own eyes,” the tall man said, stepping in front of the guards, “go ahead and take a look in his jacket pocket.”
“And what if we don't find anything?”
“Just take a look.”
When the tall man said that, the young man took of his jacket and threw it to the ground.
“Here, search it yourself.”
The man wearing sunglasses picked up the jacket and scrunched it up in hands. Without putting his hands inside the pockets he groped at the jacket, grabbing fistfuls of fabric at a time, but was unable to find anything.
“Shit!” he said, flinging the jack to the ground.
[014]
“Hey, that's my jacket!” the young man said before picking it back up.
“What was stolen?” the officer asked.
“I haven't taken anything,” the young man piped up.
“My wallet,” the man wearing sunglasses said.
“I haven't got your wallet,” the young man said as he put his hands in his pocket and pulled them inside out. He went to far as to pull his shirt up a little over his belt.
It was then that the man, who had been watching the events unfold from within the crowd turned his six foot tall body and walked away with the same rhythm that he had come with. The young man chased him with his eyes as his back disappeared into the crowd.
“You threw it somewhere, didn't you?!” the man wearing sunglasses said.
“I didn't throw it anywhere because I didn't steal it. If I had thrown it somewhere, it would be lying on the ground around here, wouldn't it?”
“You must have given it to someone!”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Fuck you, kid!”
“Why don't we take this conversation down to the police station?” Said the officer, attempting to calm the situation.
“Police station?” said the man wearing sunglasses.
“There the two of you will be able to give your own sides of the story.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Someone's just picked my pocket, I don't have time shoot the breeze in a police station.”
[015]
“Be that as it may, I can't just let the two of you...” the officer started.
“Did anyone here see what happened?” the other officer called out to the crowd, cutting off the first officer. He got no answer.
“Let's go,” said the tallest man, placing his hand on the shoulder of the man wearing sunglasses.
“Go?”
“Yeah. Come on...”
“But Shimamura!”
“Let's go!” said the tallest man of the three, Shimamura, as he pushed his open palm into his friends back.
“And the wallet?” asked one of the officers.
“I guess he dropped it after all. We're going to go take a look for it.” Shimamura said, staring intensely at the young man.
“Leave no stone unturned!” said the young man. Shimamura gave no response. He just glared at the young man for a moment before turning his back on him and walking away.
[016]
Part One : The Duel
Chapter I
Bunshichi Tanba was walking down a tree-lined pathway. It was a trail that broke off from a slightly elevated spot on the Old Willow Path inside Nara Park. It was narrow. Not the kind of path a lot of people came down. Long, dry grass was creeping in from either side of the walkway, limp and withered. That's where Bunshichi Tanba walked, his thick legs taking out dry blades of grass as he walked.
There was a lot of green grass mixed in with the dried grass. There was no mistaking that the changing seasons had spread that pale green around and would continue to do so until it covered everything. The green of speed wheel flowers and the yellow of sunflowers could be seen in spots that had gotten a lot of sunlight. The leaves no longer shed shadows from the treetops above. All you could see now were the red, pointed sprouts of new life. Compared to the lower end of Nara park, here it felt almost as if spring was running a little behind schedule. Sunlight fell straight through treetops as the leaves had yet to properly sprout.
The trail was a little steep. The sound of dried leaves crackling underfoot echoed through the air with each step Bunshichi Tanba took. He had broad shoulders, and the stray branches leaning in from either side jerked back as they hit his body. A soft breeze was rustling through the trees. It carried the soft smell of dried bark.
; [017]
Before long the path stopped abruptly in a strange clearing in the forest. Long withered grass was creeping in from all sides as if this spot had been completely forgotten about. The clearing wasn't all that big; it would have been about the same size as a tennis court it if were the same shape. There was a large cherry blossom tree at the other end of the clearing, which seemed out of place. There stood a small, five leveled stone pagoda to the right of the tree. It was a little taller than Bunshichi. There were three more, slightly smaller objects lined up next to the pagoda. Bunshichi stopped in his tracks and scanned his surroundings. His right hand was waiting. He scratched behind his ear with his fat, hook-like index finger.
