Blackbird (Translation)
I worked in the translation of the story for the past week and I have been unable to shut up about until now. This translation work was done in collaboration of @spectralpooch who worked as English proofreader and provided a lot of insight of the english grammar and composition. I was also helped by Yuko and Asher who helped with wording.
I hope you get to enjoy, even if just a little, the love we all put in this story that we have been waiting seven years for.
Blackbird
The fantasy is burning.
—At the end of the day, love always prevails.
—Hard work and good intentions are always rewarded.
—As long as you wish for it with all your might, your dreams will always come true.
Such are the nonsensical, gibberish words that everyone recognizes as downright lies once they reach adulthood. And burning within a bonfire is the pile of papers—the representation of the very innocence of a young boy who earnestly believed in those lies.
The embers of dreams and hopes are stirred by the updraft caused by the hot air.
Ashes and soot soar up, miserably staining the clear skies.
“Aah, what a terrible shame.”
Hibiki Wataru looked up at the sky and, in sharp contrast to his words, trembled with pleasure.
He is a beautiful man.
Long, silver-white hair that resembles moonlight incarnate. A physique blessed with a perfect golden ratio.
He is wearing his elegantly designed uniform in quite an incomprehensible way.
His facial expressions and gestures are refined and effusively charming, and it feels as though wing scales and fluorescent lights should flutter around him with every step he takes.
But it is precisely because he is too beautiful that he can stand out in any town.
Every person who passes by throws him a strange look and either turns away or flees the scene as if having just encountered a monster. It is the most appropriate reaction when confronted with a monstrosity, but—
He wants them to at least scream.
To curse, spit, and throw stones at him.
It hurts the most to be ignored.
As if to convey this point, Wataru gestures towards them in invitation to do so—but the only one willing to approach him is a slightly dirtied pigeon.
"Aah, Gil! Poor you, Gilles de Rais¹! Your feathers are completely sullied!"
Wataru laments while rubbing his cheek against the pigeon perched on his shoulder.
"When you are covered in soot like this, you look more like a crow than a pigeon! Crows are really smart, and they can become great ‘entertainers’ when trained, but people often hate them for no reason—it's troublesome, isn't it?"
At the sight of Wataru having a conversation with a pigeon as though it were completely normal, the people around him begin to back further away.
"... But right now, I have the feeling that such an individual would be the most suitable companion for me."
As Wataru mutters sadly to himself, the soot-covered pigeon pulls his hair with its beak.
“That hurts?! It was just a joke, Gil! Are you jealous? I've raised and looked after you since you were an egg, so there's no way I could ever discard you and look for another partner! Please cheer up—oya?”
As the pigeon goes all out on him, something falls down from the crevice of its beak.
Cinders.
The wreckage of a dream that had been carried by the wind from afar.
“That's splendid! This will solve the problem of my ink running out!”
Wataru exclaims with pleasure and mashes the cinders with his fingertips.
Then, with fingers stained in black, he writes his name in the bundle of documents that he had been holding.
“—With this, it’s finished.”
Embracing the bundle of documents as though it were his most prized possession, Wataru trembles again.
“I wonder if he will be happy with this.”
***
There was a war.
A tragic conflict in which boys hurt and killed each other for the sake of their own dreams and ideals—for the sake of love.
Of course, although it has now become a gloomy and sorrowful memory, it was not actually a battle where people fought with guns and blades and bathed in each other's blood.
All of them were idols.
Standing on the stage, singing and dancing, their top priority was to bring people happiness.
However, at that time, their place of residence, Yumenosaki Private Academy, was not an environment in which idols could properly live as idols. Everything was decayed, stagnant and rotten.
There were those who stood up in order to change the situation at hand.
There were also those who tried to fight back in anger and sorrow after everything they held dear had been mangled in the name of the "revolution" the others had raised.
They turned the things that were supposed to make people happy into weapons, abused them, and imposed their own resentment and misery onto others.
As a result, this vast and boundless world was changed only slightly.
But the price that had been paid was extremely high.
—Yumenosaki 's era of conflict.
—The first revolution.
—The beginning of the end.
Regret consumes everyone whenever they remember the tragedy of that time.
***
A hospital room.
The brand new hospital in the vicinity of Yumenosaki Academy had been built with a sole purpose: to provide an immediate response on the occasion that a single person's physical condition changed for the worse.
Leading-edge medical equipment and top-notch doctors had been assembled in order to forcibly prolong his existence—sometimes even diverting attention from other, more urgent patients.
He is one of the world's most distinguished billionaires, the scion of the Tenshouin conglomerate, Tenshouin Eichi.
He is the leading actor in the conflict that unfolded in Yumenosaki.
He loved idols more than anyone else.
However, as a result of the kingcraft instilled in him from an early age by his private corporate tutor, the clear mind he has naturally possessed since birth, and his cold heart, he came to massacre the very thing he loved with his own hands.
The many sins he committed in this ironic twist of fate tormented him and made him sick.
“...”
Tenshouin Eichi is lying down on the floor of a very spacious hospital room.
He is also a beautiful man, but there is a crack distorting his beauty.
Seemingly because he hasn’t been eating, he has become emaciated, and his blond hair, which resembles sunlight incarnate², is disheveled and dull. His hospital clothes, composed of high-quality material, are completely wrinkled and dirtied.
Like a baby bird that fell from its nest.
He had ripped off the intravenous drips and other pieces of medical equipment designed to keep him alive and smashed them to pieces.
There were doctors who genuinely cared for Eichi's well-being and those whose interest in treating him stemmed only from professional duty—Eichi shunned them all equally with curses and threats.
—I don’t want to live anymore.
—So, please, don’t treat me.
—Someone like me doesn’t deserve to live.
“No.”
Eichi, withering and on the verge of death, hears a voice reply to the soliloquy he hadn't expected anyone to hear.
There is only a single small window in the room. No matter how hard one might try to contort their body, it would be impossible to enter through—regardless, it was from that very window that Hibiki Wataru's towering silhouette soundlessly entered.
It is like a dream.
As if it were a magic trick, he suddenly materializes.
“—It's you. Hibiki Wataru of The Five Eccentrics.”
"That story has already concluded, so will you please stop referring to me that way?"
As he casually replies to Eichi, who had spoken as though in a trance, Wataru strides across the hospital room.
He steps over the countless broken pieces of wreckage scattered across the floor, but never breaks anything.
“Let's readjust our mindset! Now, while we still have the chance to bask in the success of our stage performances, let's sit back and recharge our batteries! That is our duty, Tenshouin Eichi-kun!"
“Just what the hell are you doing here?”
Eichi mutters reproachfully, glaring up at Wataru with cruel eyes.
“Did you come to mock me because I thought I was victorious but wound up losing everything?”
Presumably too prideful to continue behaving in an undignified manner, Eichi staggers to his feet and then takes a seat on the mattress.
Having refused even the cleaning staff, this dirty hospital bed is now his only throne.
“Or do you intend to seek vengeance on behalf of your fellow Five Eccentrics?”
“No, not at all? Although there were some underwhelming parts, you still persevered and accomplished great things atop the stage! You have my praises. I have no reason to make fun of you!”
Wataru continues, his tone cheerful. Scattered, multicolored petals surround a broken flower vase—he gathers them up, grasps them in one hand, and opens his palm to reveal a single perfect flower.
"Besides, my beloved friends, The Five Eccentrics, were not actually killed. They're not that fragile, so I ask that you do not disparage them."
Though his eyes flash with hostility for a single instant, Wataru hides it with the ease of putting on a mask.
“Shu is slowly recovering his strength in the comfort of his dolls and the mutual love they share. Kanata, too, is embarking on a new life together with the inexperienced hero who saved his heart. And, of course, Our Majesty, the Demon King, Rei, too—indeed, someone like him will never die, even if he's killed.”
As he mentions each of the remarkable members of The Five Eccentrics, Wataru smiles.
“And the youngest sibling whom we risked our lives to protect, Natsume-kun, doesn't have a single scar. He quickly found the bluebird you set free, and is venturing forth into his life—not as a member of The Five Eccentrics, but as a human and idol.”
"...They're so strong. Everyone, all of them, are strong and splendid human beings worthy of respect—unlike me. Hiyori-kun and Nagisa-kun, too. It appears that they’ve already begun to move on to their next stage."
Looking somewhat astonished, Eichi hangs his head like a confused lost child.
“Am I really the only one who can’t move? At the end of Yumenosaki's conflict, or the saga chronicling the subjugation of The Five Eccentrics, am I truly the only loser?”
“No, no. I feel the same way. It's embarrassing to admit, but—I don't know what I should do next.”
With a dumbfounded expression that mirrors Eichi's, Wataru fidgets with the flower with his black-stained fingers.
“I'm quite satisfied with how things concluded on that most wonderful stage, even though we had to settle for the second-best result—but I'm at a bit of a loss, as I have no further plans for the future.”
"I see. Would you like me to apologize? By casting you in the role of the villain, a symbol deserving of ridicule and disdain, I turned you into the target of everyone's malice."
“Yes. Thanks to you, no one trusts me enough to work with me, so all of my future plans are now uncertain. I suppose I could arrange a stage and enact a story of my own choosing, but… A one-man show would be a little lonely, wouldn't it?”
"I thought that you would always be happy to stand onstage no matter what—even alone."
“Regrettably, I'm an entertainer whose only purpose is to make others happy. If I were to stand onstage all by myself, I would lose all motivation.”
With a shrug of his shoulders, Wataru quietly offers Eichi the flower.
”And so, I thought I would ask you, the organizer of the most satisfying stage I have ever stood upon, for another commission. That's the reason I came today. Of course, I am also here to visit the sick."
“Was that sarcasm? I humiliated and denigrated you and your beloved friends. I trampled on and killed all of you for the sake of my own dream.”
“No one is dead, Eichi-kun. Everything that took place is just a story.”
”Are you really going to behave like a sore loser and pretend like you all weren't actually hurt?”
"No. If I were to hold a grudge and get angry at you, it would be an insult to my friends' extraordinary performance in their roles as villains. That's why I won't give you the pleasure of my vengeance.”
“I don’t understand your reasoning.”
“It’s a mystery to me too. This is the first time in my life that I have ever felt this alive. It's as though something I cannot quite comprehend is stirring inside me.”
Wataru speaks with an innocent, puzzled expression on his face, as though he were a child who had just tripped for the very first time in his life.
***
“Oops. I went off on a tangent just now, but I meant to give you this gift earlier.”
Suddenly coming to his senses, Wataru quietly hands Eichi the flower in his hand.
The instant that the flower touches Eichi's fingertips, it transforms into a bundle of documents.
It’s just like magic.
“... Oh, my goodness. As always, your magic tricks are beyond comparison, Hibiki-kun.”
“You and I are not particularly close, so don't blurt out things like that as if you know me.”
“I’ve always been watching you.”
Eichi speaks honestly, seemingly too tired to maintain a strong front. He proceeds to look over the bundle of papers.
His expression dawns with astonishment.
“This is—”
“Fufufu. This is the pipe dream³ written by our beloved younger brother and only son, Natsume-kun. He poured all of his heart and soul into it.”
Wataru explains, satisfied with the surprised expression on Eichi's face.
“This is a scenario envisioning a way in which we, The Five Eccentrics, could have achieved victory over you in our final battle the other day.”
“Oh, that's right, just before the decisive battle, you and the other Five Eccentrics had some kind of exchange. I was preoccupied with other matters at the time, so I didn't pay much attention to what all of you were up to.”
Deeply immersed in reading, Eichi flips through the stack of documents carefully. A grin slowly begins to form on his lips.
“Fufu. So cute; it’s really like a fantasy story. ‘I don't want my beloved Five Eccentrics to lose. I want us to have a happy ending where no one has to be sacrificed—’”
"Indeed. He filled the pages with such impossible fantasies and impractical delusions."
“... It was only by defeating you on that stage that we somehow managed to settle things in a conclusive way. If the five of you had won that day, we would still be enmeshed in the middle of an unending conflict.”
"Exactly. I anticipated as much, which is why I was unable to accept this. This present, packed with that child's—with Natsume-kun's—dreams, expectations, and love.”
“And, because we followed the premeditated arrangement, everything went smoothly.”
“That's true. But, just as one would expect from a story desperately written by our beloved child... It's very compelling, isn't it? It'd be heartless to ignore it altogether and just throw it away.”
Wataru gently caresses the pile of documents as if consoling a little baby.
“And that's why I quickly examined the contents, committed them to memory, and secretly copied them. Only moments ago, Natsume-kun burned the original copy himself, so—that child's fantasy should, by all accounts, have been completely erased from this earth.”
Wataru laughs like a naughty child who just successfully carried out a prank.
“Everyone will assume so. And even though this is an imitation, the contents are extremely close to the real thing. No, rather, the contents are only the things that I chose to resurrect in accordance with my own preferences.”
“Hmph. But there's no way you can actually use this, right? It's just a bunch of delusions with no grounding in reality. In other words: worthless garbage. It's nothing more than a work of fiction that fabricates convenient plots for foolish readers who yearn to avert their eyes from this harsh reality.”
Eichi drops the pile of documents onto the dirty bed and sneers at it.
“It has no bearing on the real world. Those kinds of stories only exist in the minds of idealistic writers. It's not the real thing. It's not reality.”
“Right. And so, I'd like to ask you, with your firm grasp on reality, to please rework it.”
“...?”
“You're hospitalized, so you have a lot of free time, correct?”
Wataru smiles, carefully gathering up the documents Eichi dropped one by one.
“Please use that spare time to improve upon this document. And adapt it into a new story in which The Five Eccentrics, your opponents, achieve victory.”
“What would be the point of doing such a thing?”
“You must be prepared for anything the future decides to throw your way, no matter how incredibly low the chances of it actually occurring may be. You know this better than anyone, but you were born with a fragile constitution, so—you could die at any time.”
“...You're right. And now that I've lost my will to live, I'm even refusing treatment.”
“And if you, the main character of this story, were to die and abruptly, nonsensically disappear from the narrative, the entire plot would collapse.”
“.....”
"Do you understand what I mean, Eichi-kun?"
“I understand, Hibiki-kun.”
Eichi's eyes, as cloudy as a corpse's, begin to sparkle.
“I have a responsibility. A responsibility as a protagonist—as an author. I have to be prepared for when my character dies and vanishes from this world—from the story.”
"Yes. However, you don't strike me as an expert storyteller, so I thought it'd be convenient to use something as a basis—for the story. This pipe dream written by Natsume-kun is quite suitable in terms of both content and quality, right?”
“That's right. It's the story that the child prodigy, the youngest member of The Five Eccentrics, wove out of his own life force.”
This time, Eichi doesn’t sneer sarcastically. As he praises his enemy, an honest smile appears on his face.
“Thank you, Hibiki-kun. Since this is a story founded on the premise of my imminent death, I can't let Keito, who hates the thought of me dying more than anyone else, write it.”
Eichi's eyes widen, surprised at the deep affection with which he spoke these words.
He'd assumed he'd lost everything. And yet—is he only now remembering that there are still things worth loving?
“I'll write it. To ensure the story will continue after I'm gone.”
Growing more and more energetic, Eichi stains his fingers with the filth splattered across his bed and begins to scrawl on the back of the stack of documents. His handwriting is so sluggish and messy that no one besides him could possibly read it.
“First of all, let's ensure that I get defeated while I'm still alive. After bringing down The Five Eccentrics and seizing control of everything, I become a power-crazed tyrant. And so, a new generation of heroes stands up to defeat me. It could be Natsume-kun, the surviving member of The Five Eccentrics, or someone else.”
“Yes ♪ And then? What will happen next in this story?”
“It's not enough to merely change the person in power. The masses themselves should mobilize and take action into their own hands to improve the world. Yes, the next step is the people's revolution. That's why... errr... aaahh—”
Eichi is so absorbed in the moment that he scatters the documents. He clutches his head with both hands.
“I can’t work through my thoughts! I'm not a genius, so this is really hard for me! Aah, this is pathetic, and I have no right to ask this of you, but—Can you help me come up with more ideas, Hibiki-kun?”
“Yes, with pleasure ♪ I also have some time to spare, after all!”
Wataru sits on the bed and happily gazes at Eichi, who has become entirely absorbed in the act of weaving⁴ the beginnings of a new story.
“I look forward to seeing what sort of stage I'll stand on next. Aah, in both my past and present, this has always been my only source of happiness.”
“I'm out of paper! I also want something to write with! Hibiki-kun, isn't there somewhere nearby where you could buy some?”
“Yes, yes. Aren't you supposed to be my fan? Are you sure you should be bossing me around like this?”
With a smile that seems to say, Well, it doesn't really matter, Wataru shifts like a bird about to take flight.
“Come on, let's celebrate, let's weave, let's create—a story! In this second iteration, the tragedy will become a comedy! Yes, I'm certain that this next work will be a very enjoyable story!”
“Enough, enough! Stop saying unnecessary things and just hurry up! Before life leaves my body!”
“Yes, yes. You really know how to put people to work, Mr. Author... ♪”
………
And so, Hibiki Wataru chose to assist Tenshouin Eichi in the creation of his story.
Together, they supported one another, engaged in heated debates, and envisioned the future.
It was at the end of that gloomy winter when the two of them, now fine, the rulers of Yumenosaki Academy, were defeated by the revolutionaries of Trickstar.
It was a season when the seeds carried by dirty, exhausted birds finally bloomed into flowers.
1. Gilles de Rais was a leader of the French army and participated in the Hundred Years’ War alongside Jeanne d’Arc as a companion of arms. Later in his life he went on to become a serial killer of children and was condemned to death and hanged.
In the story “Cinderella on the Stake's Stage,” it’s revealed that Wataru also has a pigeon called “Jeanne d’Arc.”
2. Akira describes Eichi’s hair as “陽光を固めたような” = “As if sunlight has taken physical shape”. Likewise this is also the way he describes Wataru’s hair “月光を固めたような” = “As if moonlight has taken physical shape”.
3. We chose to interchange the words pipe dream and fantasy through the story but they often refer to the same script Natsume wrote.
4. Weaving reads as “Tsumugi” here.
