Novel Translation Excerpt #1
Wait wait wait WAIT WAIT CHOTTO MATTE GEASS.
So! Nanaly. Kid!Nanaly seems to have this...thing. Where she loses her self and destroys stuff REALLY RANDOMLY if Lelouch is not around. And does not remember a thing about it afterwards.
.............................you know. I think nobody in this family is sane, after all.
2010 - 5 - 14
Nunnally had came down with a fever.
It was two days after their outing at the sandy beach. While Suzaku was mortified that he perhaps had pushed her too hard, Lelouch smiled brilliantly.
"It's natural to get tired out after moving around a lot. That's a good thing."
"Good thing, what?"
"Nunnally has never done anything like that until just a while ago."
Having lived on a wheelchair for some time, Nunnally was of course not physically fit. That was why she would have a fever after doing things she was not already used to. But, Lelouch thought, he would rather have it that way. By far.
What Lelouch truly worried about was not his sister's physical health, but instead that of her heart. Nunnally had never been an active girl, and after their mother's death, she only shut herself in more and more. One might say it was from losing her ability to walk by herself, but the doctors had told him that her mental shock was far, far worse than her even those eyes and legs in the first place. What mattered most was the sickness of the heart than the sickness of the body, and they were different things. But even if they live normally, if the heart grows darker the body cannot help but be affected.
He'd figured that to go play outside, to play too much and to fall sick were, instead, good things for Nunnally. That way she couldn't stay in the darkness. She would be moving forward. She might even grow more cheerful than before, if her body ever heals.
Lelouch had hoped so, and at the same time (though he would never, ever let it slip) he truly thanked Suzaku for it. To him, Nunnally was like this in large part due to Suzaku's existence.
When they first left their homeland of Britannia, driven away by their father, Lelouch had thought he would protect Nunnally by himself. There were too many people with goodwill for them in Britannia, and the Japanese likewise had not much goodwill for Britannians. How could there have been anyone else who would protect his sister?
But during their stay at the Kururugi residence, as a child, Lelouch had realized something important.
---To protect is to nurture.
Of course, he, too, was upset when their mother died. He grieved and cried for her. But as soon as he thought of Nunnally, he could get up and stand on his feet again. No, perhaps he had not quite essentially recovered but simply convinced of it. He was the older one. He was her older brother. So other than Mother, there was no one else to protect Nunnally but him.
But no sooner than he roused himself, Lelouch ran into a wall. No matter what he wanted, he was still a child. He was just approaching ten years in age, there were so many more things he could not do than otherwise.
He learned how to make do with daily life. Although he had lost the protection called 'mother' and sent away to a foreign country, Lelouch was still an Imperial Prince of Britannia, the world's major power. He did not lose his name, or his status. Japan's reception may be indifferent, but it was neither cruel nor oppressive. They were given everything they needed to continue living on.
In turn, Lelouch had been distancing Nunnally from everyone else. He knew that she had wanted it that way, and more importantly, he could not trust anyone around him. But in doing so he had realized one important thing. No, better to say that he had been made to realize it.
---If this goes on, Nunnally would only get weaker and weaker.
Not her body, but her heart.
Back in Britannia and when they first came to Japan, Nunnally had relied on Lelouch alone. She loved no one but Lelouch, missed no one but Lelouch, and looked at no one but Lelouch. He thought it could not be helped. She was, after all, a girl who saw her mother killed in front of her eyes. There was no one she could cling onto but her brother.
But, in turn, it meant her world had closed in on itself.
Humans cannot grow up in a closed world. They cannot live there.
To grow from child to adult is, in the end, the same as having that child's world growing wider. The wide world was a fearsome thing. So many uncertainties, so many insecurities. But if they could not take wing and fly in that world, they would not become adults and only decay. Yes, in essence.
Lelouch learned this on his ninth night in Japan. It was one of those times when he had business in the city, and when he came back and saw Nunnally's room he was at a loss for words.
It was a complete wreck.
Teacups, glasses, vases, broken pieces of everything else.
Nothing in the room was out of order when he went outside, and they had just cleaned the floor together a while ago---
For a moment, he had thought someone was harassing them, the work of a Japanese who hated how members of the Britannian imperial family were staying there.
But that was wrong.
The room's door and windows were completely locked, and what's worse was Nunnally herself, sitting in the middle of all this destruction like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Nunnally did this.
She destroyed everything. Broken it all. By herself.
Of course, that was also the one time Lelouch threw his usual gentleness to the winds---no, better to say that he had entirely forgotten himself---and scolded Nunnally as harshly as he ever did. But to Lelouch's utter astonishment, she had no memory of what she had done, even looked puzzled at his admonitions. It was not an act. She simply honestly did not understand why he was so angry. A face that said she could not remember what she did.
Although he took care to keep Nunnally away from any sharp or breakable objects afterwards, it solved nothing. She would not do such things with Lelouch by her side, of course, but the problem was when he was not. It seemed that without the brother she relied on, Nunnally would lose herself.
Sometimes he would come back to find clothes supposedly kept in the dresser all strewn about on the floor.
Sometimes her tiny hands would be blackened with bruises, as if she had been slamming them into the wall over and over.
Sometimes her bedsheets would be shredded, leaving finger-shaped tears behind.
And sometimes, beside a fallen wheelchair, Nunnally herself would sit with blood flowing from her forehead.
He was at a loss.
He did not understand how this could happen…no, he understood it now, if only vaguely. It was Nunnally's message. I don't want you to go anywhere, it said. I don't want you to go anywhere. I only want you to stay with me, just me---
But Lelouch knew he could not stay by her side forever. Worse, that would only end badly. If he stayed with her, Nunnally would not break things around her. But if he did, Nunnally's heart would slowly slip away from everyone but Lelouch alone.
Soon, Lelouch would be left unable to do anything himself. A vicious cycle. The more he protects her, the more her dependence on him grows. If he leaves her, she would be unable to bear her anxiety. To treasure her, to think he treasures her, was only adding to the illness in her heart.
Yes.
That was when the boy named Kururugi Suzaku stepped into their lives.
To be completely honest, Lelouch hated this boy's guts at first. Though he was known to be a live wire, he kept acting like a hoodlum, was completely unrefined, so much that Lelouch found it impossible to think of him the son of another country's prime minister. So far that he thought all Japanese children were the most horrible ever raised. Sure, Suzaku helped him a few times. But to really, sincerely thank him? Fat chance, he thought.
However, there's always a but.
After Suzaku started coming to the room they stayed in until a month ago, Nunnally's destructive behaviour was all but gone.
It could be that Nunnally was only afraid of being seen by other people. It could be that the other Nunnally deep inside her had only put a brake on herself, because only Lelouch was allowed to see that side of her.
But whatever it was, she stopped. Suzaku, with that personality of his, rudely, unabashedly made his way up without caring a whit about their status or standings. And the weight on Nunnally's temperament disappeared. To be honest, Lelouch was amazed and at the same time chagrinned. Why could this boy do something he himself could not? But it was also the first time Lelouch ever looked at Suzaku. Not through the lens colored 'barbaric Japanese children,' but the ordinary boy named Kururugi Suzaku himself.
Perhaps Suzaku had thought Nunnally opened up to him because Lelouch did so first, that the little sister would do because her brother did.
The truth, however, was just the opposite. Lelouch had simply thought that it was bad to be hated by the son of the family he was entrusted with, and acted accordingly. He only came to believe in Suzaku because Nunnally accepted him. Because he was the one who opened up Nunnally's closed world.
And that had not changed.
That had not changed, he thought.
---
Poor Lulu. If the boy has one more angst topic, I swear he'll turn into a CLAMP character.
Further points of interest in the novel, as far as I've skimmed around, included :
- Lelouch and Nunnally were formally there as 'exchange students'.
- Nunnally is better at kendama and fishing than Lulu. LOL.
- Japan joined with the EEU and the Chinese Federation in boycotting Britannia, and racial hatred was growing.
- Genbu made a deal to kill Nunnally and Lelouch for Family Feuding Problems, but the contractor was not the Emperor. According to Genbu, the Emperor was not 'so cold-hearted after all'.
- Also, I originally accused Sunrise of inconsistency, but nevermind. Genbu did plan to 'sell' Japan, after all! Wicked, wicked man, he is. I want a Kururugi Genbu vs. Louis la Britannia Battle Royale. Of course, another page says the Emperor's name is Charles Zi Britannia, so I have to be reading one of these wrong. Did not remember the file number to check back, though.
- Suzaku's relationship with Genbu is made of fail. Which surprised me, since the Drama CD implies he's quite proud. (Maybe it was Prime Minister pride and not Father pride?)
- Suzaku warmed up to Lelouch after seeing his smile. That's such a gay plot device, Sunrise.
- The Ashfords took Nunnally and Lelouch in because, in their agent's words, "To find profit out of profitless elements is our specialty". Also, Lelouch's conversation with that agent? Badass.
- Ashford Academy apparently used to have a LANDMINE's lover club.
- Suzaku killed Genbu to save Nunnally and Lelouch, which he overheard. Afterwards, he vowed not to use power for his own desires again.
- Toudou approved of the patricide. Actually, Toudou was Kirihara's agent.
So! Nanaly. Kid!Nanaly seems to have this...thing. Where she loses her self and destroys stuff REALLY RANDOMLY if Lelouch is not around. And does not remember a thing about it afterwards.
.............................you know. I think nobody in this family is sane, after all.
2010 - 5 - 14
Nunnally had came down with a fever.
It was two days after their outing at the sandy beach. While Suzaku was mortified that he perhaps had pushed her too hard, Lelouch smiled brilliantly.
"It's natural to get tired out after moving around a lot. That's a good thing."
"Good thing, what?"
"Nunnally has never done anything like that until just a while ago."
Having lived on a wheelchair for some time, Nunnally was of course not physically fit. That was why she would have a fever after doing things she was not already used to. But, Lelouch thought, he would rather have it that way. By far.
What Lelouch truly worried about was not his sister's physical health, but instead that of her heart. Nunnally had never been an active girl, and after their mother's death, she only shut herself in more and more. One might say it was from losing her ability to walk by herself, but the doctors had told him that her mental shock was far, far worse than her even those eyes and legs in the first place. What mattered most was the sickness of the heart than the sickness of the body, and they were different things. But even if they live normally, if the heart grows darker the body cannot help but be affected.
He'd figured that to go play outside, to play too much and to fall sick were, instead, good things for Nunnally. That way she couldn't stay in the darkness. She would be moving forward. She might even grow more cheerful than before, if her body ever heals.
Lelouch had hoped so, and at the same time (though he would never, ever let it slip) he truly thanked Suzaku for it. To him, Nunnally was like this in large part due to Suzaku's existence.
When they first left their homeland of Britannia, driven away by their father, Lelouch had thought he would protect Nunnally by himself. There were too many people with goodwill for them in Britannia, and the Japanese likewise had not much goodwill for Britannians. How could there have been anyone else who would protect his sister?
But during their stay at the Kururugi residence, as a child, Lelouch had realized something important.
---To protect is to nurture.
Of course, he, too, was upset when their mother died. He grieved and cried for her. But as soon as he thought of Nunnally, he could get up and stand on his feet again. No, perhaps he had not quite essentially recovered but simply convinced of it. He was the older one. He was her older brother. So other than Mother, there was no one else to protect Nunnally but him.
But no sooner than he roused himself, Lelouch ran into a wall. No matter what he wanted, he was still a child. He was just approaching ten years in age, there were so many more things he could not do than otherwise.
He learned how to make do with daily life. Although he had lost the protection called 'mother' and sent away to a foreign country, Lelouch was still an Imperial Prince of Britannia, the world's major power. He did not lose his name, or his status. Japan's reception may be indifferent, but it was neither cruel nor oppressive. They were given everything they needed to continue living on.
In turn, Lelouch had been distancing Nunnally from everyone else. He knew that she had wanted it that way, and more importantly, he could not trust anyone around him. But in doing so he had realized one important thing. No, better to say that he had been made to realize it.
---If this goes on, Nunnally would only get weaker and weaker.
Not her body, but her heart.
Back in Britannia and when they first came to Japan, Nunnally had relied on Lelouch alone. She loved no one but Lelouch, missed no one but Lelouch, and looked at no one but Lelouch. He thought it could not be helped. She was, after all, a girl who saw her mother killed in front of her eyes. There was no one she could cling onto but her brother.
But, in turn, it meant her world had closed in on itself.
Humans cannot grow up in a closed world. They cannot live there.
To grow from child to adult is, in the end, the same as having that child's world growing wider. The wide world was a fearsome thing. So many uncertainties, so many insecurities. But if they could not take wing and fly in that world, they would not become adults and only decay. Yes, in essence.
Lelouch learned this on his ninth night in Japan. It was one of those times when he had business in the city, and when he came back and saw Nunnally's room he was at a loss for words.
It was a complete wreck.
Teacups, glasses, vases, broken pieces of everything else.
Nothing in the room was out of order when he went outside, and they had just cleaned the floor together a while ago---
For a moment, he had thought someone was harassing them, the work of a Japanese who hated how members of the Britannian imperial family were staying there.
But that was wrong.
The room's door and windows were completely locked, and what's worse was Nunnally herself, sitting in the middle of all this destruction like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Nunnally did this.
She destroyed everything. Broken it all. By herself.
Of course, that was also the one time Lelouch threw his usual gentleness to the winds---no, better to say that he had entirely forgotten himself---and scolded Nunnally as harshly as he ever did. But to Lelouch's utter astonishment, she had no memory of what she had done, even looked puzzled at his admonitions. It was not an act. She simply honestly did not understand why he was so angry. A face that said she could not remember what she did.
Although he took care to keep Nunnally away from any sharp or breakable objects afterwards, it solved nothing. She would not do such things with Lelouch by her side, of course, but the problem was when he was not. It seemed that without the brother she relied on, Nunnally would lose herself.
Sometimes he would come back to find clothes supposedly kept in the dresser all strewn about on the floor.
Sometimes her tiny hands would be blackened with bruises, as if she had been slamming them into the wall over and over.
Sometimes her bedsheets would be shredded, leaving finger-shaped tears behind.
And sometimes, beside a fallen wheelchair, Nunnally herself would sit with blood flowing from her forehead.
He was at a loss.
He did not understand how this could happen…no, he understood it now, if only vaguely. It was Nunnally's message. I don't want you to go anywhere, it said. I don't want you to go anywhere. I only want you to stay with me, just me---
But Lelouch knew he could not stay by her side forever. Worse, that would only end badly. If he stayed with her, Nunnally would not break things around her. But if he did, Nunnally's heart would slowly slip away from everyone but Lelouch alone.
Soon, Lelouch would be left unable to do anything himself. A vicious cycle. The more he protects her, the more her dependence on him grows. If he leaves her, she would be unable to bear her anxiety. To treasure her, to think he treasures her, was only adding to the illness in her heart.
Yes.
That was when the boy named Kururugi Suzaku stepped into their lives.
To be completely honest, Lelouch hated this boy's guts at first. Though he was known to be a live wire, he kept acting like a hoodlum, was completely unrefined, so much that Lelouch found it impossible to think of him the son of another country's prime minister. So far that he thought all Japanese children were the most horrible ever raised. Sure, Suzaku helped him a few times. But to really, sincerely thank him? Fat chance, he thought.
However, there's always a but.
After Suzaku started coming to the room they stayed in until a month ago, Nunnally's destructive behaviour was all but gone.
It could be that Nunnally was only afraid of being seen by other people. It could be that the other Nunnally deep inside her had only put a brake on herself, because only Lelouch was allowed to see that side of her.
But whatever it was, she stopped. Suzaku, with that personality of his, rudely, unabashedly made his way up without caring a whit about their status or standings. And the weight on Nunnally's temperament disappeared. To be honest, Lelouch was amazed and at the same time chagrinned. Why could this boy do something he himself could not? But it was also the first time Lelouch ever looked at Suzaku. Not through the lens colored 'barbaric Japanese children,' but the ordinary boy named Kururugi Suzaku himself.
Perhaps Suzaku had thought Nunnally opened up to him because Lelouch did so first, that the little sister would do because her brother did.
The truth, however, was just the opposite. Lelouch had simply thought that it was bad to be hated by the son of the family he was entrusted with, and acted accordingly. He only came to believe in Suzaku because Nunnally accepted him. Because he was the one who opened up Nunnally's closed world.
And that had not changed.
That had not changed, he thought.
---
Poor Lulu. If the boy has one more angst topic, I swear he'll turn into a CLAMP character.
Further points of interest in the novel, as far as I've skimmed around, included :
- Lelouch and Nunnally were formally there as 'exchange students'.
- Nunnally is better at kendama and fishing than Lulu. LOL.
- Japan joined with the EEU and the Chinese Federation in boycotting Britannia, and racial hatred was growing.
- Genbu made a deal to kill Nunnally and Lelouch for Family Feuding Problems, but the contractor was not the Emperor. According to Genbu, the Emperor was not 'so cold-hearted after all'.
- Also, I originally accused Sunrise of inconsistency, but nevermind. Genbu did plan to 'sell' Japan, after all! Wicked, wicked man, he is. I want a Kururugi Genbu vs. Louis la Britannia Battle Royale. Of course, another page says the Emperor's name is Charles Zi Britannia, so I have to be reading one of these wrong. Did not remember the file number to check back, though.
- Suzaku's relationship with Genbu is made of fail. Which surprised me, since the Drama CD implies he's quite proud. (Maybe it was Prime Minister pride and not Father pride?)
- Suzaku warmed up to Lelouch after seeing his smile. That's such a gay plot device, Sunrise.
- The Ashfords took Nunnally and Lelouch in because, in their agent's words, "To find profit out of profitless elements is our specialty". Also, Lelouch's conversation with that agent? Badass.
- Ashford Academy apparently used to have a LANDMINE's lover club.
- Suzaku killed Genbu to save Nunnally and Lelouch, which he overheard. Afterwards, he vowed not to use power for his own desires again.
- Toudou approved of the patricide. Actually, Toudou was Kirihara's agent.