Welcome to my world of dreams and fantasies. Slayers fanfiction, Lina/Gourry shipper, lover of Star Wars and Star Trek, strong female characters and men who love them, The Witcher, Stranger Things, musicals, and whatever else catches my interest.
Back in 2020, Kadokawa published a volume titled Sakura collaboration, which included a number of short stories (more like drabbles, really) related to several light novel series, including The Slayers. "Cherry blossoms" (sakura) was the common theme.
I recently got my hands on one copy of the volume, and the story Hajime Kanzaka wrote for The Slayers (set sometime after novel 17 and paired with a lovely illustration by Araizumi of Lina and Gourry under a cherry tree, which has been circulating on its own for a while) is so cute and quietly poetic that I thought it was a shame not to share it with everyone. So under the cut you can find my tentative translation.
It looked like falling snow.
It filled up the sky, filled up our field of vision – swaying, drifting white, white, white.
Except, it wasn’t cold. If anything, it reminded of warmth, perhaps simply because it was warm, or perhaps because there was also some red among all the dancing, falling white.
The open blossoms fell among the lined trees, splendid, and ephemeral at the same time.
“Wow,” I couldn’t help but say in admiration, unconsciously stopping as soon as I fixed my eyes on that spectacle.
“Amazing,” commented Gourry, my travel companion. He stopped too, enthralled by the dancing blossoms. “Say, Lina, what kind of flowers are those?”
“Dunno. I’ve never seen them back where we come from,” I replied.
A little while before, for a number of reasons, Gourry and I had been sent away to an unknown, faraway land. We’d found ourselves under this sky as we were trying and get back where we came from, on a clueless and unsuccessful journey.
I’d travelled here and there in the land I used to live in before, but I’d never seen those flowers. Meaning they probably only blossomed here.
“Cherry blossoms!” The girl called Ran, who’d become our travel companion ever since we got here, suddenly blurted out, in a strange voice.
She often used weird expressions, which, according to her, were in her hometown’s dialect.
“Huh? What, now?”
“The name of the flowers – cherry blossoms.”
“Ah. They are called ‘cherry blossoms’.” I looked at them again.
The mountains stretching out in front of us were green. However, at their foot, the colors of what appeared to be ‘cherry blossoms’ trees lining along the highway formed a long streak of white, continuing as far as we could see.
The fact that they were only along the highway and not on the mountains made me think that they hadn’t grown naturally, and had been planted. But why on earth were hundreds – heck, thousands of trees planted like that?
“To have grown so many trees… must have been some sophisticated and eccentric king or lord!”
“Wrong!”
“What’s wrong?”
“It wasn’t a king who grew them, just one common person.”
“Huh?!” As the meaning of her words struck me, I couldn’t help but raise my voice. “Wait, wait, wait! A single person, growing these many trees on their own? That shouldn’t be possible!”
“They were not on their own.”
“Didn’t you just say it was just one person?”
“After they’d started working hard to grow them, the people around here came to help too.”
“… Right.” Her way of expressing things was always a bit confusing.
“Still, why did those people feel the need to grow that many trees? Are their fruits edible, by any chance?”
It wasn’t elegant of Gourry to ask, but truth is, it did happen sometimes that trees that bore edible fruits were planted along highways, in order to lower the chance of travelers collapsing from hunger or thirst.
When asked that, Ran furrowed her brow. “Mmm… they do bear fruits and those fruits are edible, but… they are not that good?”
Judging by her words, she had tried them before. Perhaps, they were extremely bitter or sour.
Gourry, probably anticipating that he, too, wouldn’t enjoy the taste, wore a dejected expression. “Not good? Why, getting plenty of delicious fruit like that would have been perfect…”
“What are you talking about?” I said, still enthralled by the white. “This scene itself is perfect, isn’t it?” A particularly strong gust of wind made the petals dance.
“Perhaps, the person who started to plant the trees did it because he wanted to see something like this, too.”
That one scope. Perhaps, he’d kept on with that one scope in mind. Perhaps, that person had seen something like this in his past, and burned with desire for seeing it again.
Perhaps, the people around that person had been moved by that love and enthusiasm, and decided to lend a hand.
The earth-moving passion and effort of one person, stirring up other people… that wasn’t common, but it did happen, sometimes. And as a result…
… as a result, now, we were in that place, surrounded by blooming white.
Perhaps, one day, Gourry and I would be back where we came from, far away from there. And still, we wouldn’t forget the scene we’d seen that day.
The three of us stopped there for a while yet, surrounded by dancing flowers.
Fun news everyone! Hajime Kanzaka's new Slayers short stories will be in the October 20th 35th Anniversary Fantasia Bunko issue. And it looks like Lina is embracing her heroine persona for Halloween!
Mega Brand Q&A with Hajime Kanzaka August 2023, translated
No updates on novel 18 or info on when the special will be released.
Q: In the Slayers anthology book, Hellmaster's magic is different from other confidants, not Hellmaster or Fibrizo or something. It’s Ragna Something, and there was a story that Fibrizo wanted to give his magic a cool name, so he created it himself and spread it himself.
As a matter of fact, is there a reason why the naming convention is different only for Fibrizo's magic?
KANZAKA: "I don't know which one is the anthology book, but "Ragna" is often used in spells that borrow the power of the Hellmaster. In the old days, the person who first developed the magic related to Hellmaster used that phrase, and it became a custom. It is possible that the developer originally used Fibrizo, but changed it because it was difficult to say. "
Q: I have heard that female mages go through a period of magical power loss every month. Is there any way to avoid this without using a Philosopher's Stone or other magical power amplification? Also, is it impossible to avoid it she is pregnant?
KANZAKA: "Not necessarily if you are a woman, but it depends on the individual's physical condition and mentality. If drugs can be developed to deal with these factors, it will probably alleviate the problem to some extent, although it depends on the individual."
Q: In the Mega Brand of July 2023, the answer to the question Why do demons make contracts with humans? If the "investment" is not a good one (e.g., the ability of the contract is too low, the contract's contents or the personality of the contract owner is not usable for the purpose of generating negative emotions, etc.), is there still a risk of the contract applicant being killed by the demon tribe he or she has called?
By the way, Halciform had contracted with two demons (Seigram & Gio-Gaia), but was this a "winning" case in terms of the demons' assessment?
KANZAKA: "If the contracted person did not contribute much to the generation of negative emotions, the Demon Tribe would certainly want to terminate the contract. However, if they did so by means such as killing, there would be no one left who would want to contract with the Demon Tribe as a result. Therefore, in that case, they will reluctantly comply. In the case of Halciform, it should be profitable enough per Tarim.
(Though the end of Gio-Gaia and Seigram, oh well. ......)"
Sometimes Lina and Gourry get to stay in a nice, luxurious palace during their travels. Other times they have to stay in a place that's not fit for human habitation. This is a story of the latter.
When Lina returns to Zephyr City she has to confront how she became the person that she is.
AO3
"Lina looked at her in betrayal. By now she knew to expect it but it still stung every time. Why did others not see how wrong this was? Why did others stand by Luna even when she was acting so horribly? Lina didn’t get any of that support even when she did the right thing, forget about when she did the wrong thing. Why were the rules for Luna different?"
