Red Data Girl - Series 1 & 2

The First Makeup - 11

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Red Data Girl: The First Makeup
By Noriko Ogiwara
A Translation

Notes on this week’s piece:

In this piece, Takayanagi is called a medium. The actual Japanese word  used for what Takayanagi is, is “onmyouji”. When you look the word up in a dictionary, there are a number of definitions listed including diviner, sorcerer, exorcist, and medium.
Truthfully, I had a hard time deciding what word to use. The official anime subtitles actually chose to leave “onmyouji” untranslated. They then used the word medium for Izumiko (I’m using the word vessel). In the end, I decided on diviner for Takayanagi. Sorcerer didn’t sound right, but diviner, exorcist, and medium had their merits. Exorcist felt more like a word that could describe Miyuki as an ascetic monk so I decided against that one. For a while I actually used medium in earlier drafts of this translation. But in the end I went with diviner because it sounds sort of highbrow like Takayanagi’s personality.

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Both Izumiko and Miyuki were shocked to see Mayura standing there. She brushed her shoulder length hair back, smoothed her skirt, and calmly came closer. Once she was close enough to see, she glanced at the amulet written in red.

“It’s fine. This amulet can’t hurt a human like Izumiko. He made a mistake.”

“How long have you been there?” Miyuki asked, still frowning. “Why did you know we were in the AV room? Did you hear from Takayanagi?”

He was suspicious, but it wasn’t an unreasonable response. All the same, Izumiko found it strange that he was being so outwardly cautious. He seemed completely calm but chances were he wasn’t feeling that way inside.

Mayura was not offended at all by Miyuki’s question. In fact, her answer was cheerful.

“Did he say something like that? That guy hates me.”

There appeared to be a lot more going on beyond Takayanagi and the seemingly dangerous situation they had just found themselves in. Izumiko made the effort to speak up.

“I didn’t know that. Were you here from the start? Before I came?”

Mayura nodded and smiled at Izumiko.

“I’m sorry I didn’t help you out. I would have stopped him if he did anything really questionable. But I want Takayanagi to notice me as little as possible. It’s better for me if he doesn’t know I knew about this yet.”

She seemed pleased to be able to say so.

“I’ve been wanting to see Takanayagi’s other side for a while now. But he was really cautious in the middle school and there was no way I could figure out the things he was hiding on my own. When we got to high school though, I got the feeling that he had started something big. And that’s as far as I’ve gotten…”

Izumiko stared at Mayura in confusion.

“So then you’ve known from the start about the students in Class C?”

“Not at all. I had no clue.”

Mayura put her hand on Izumiko’s arm and said reassuringly, “You’re really something, Izumiko. You’re definitely the first person to see through Takayanagi’s shikigami. He’s a creepy guy.”

Miyuki cleared his throat.

“Either way, you heard what we were talking about though.”

“I heard what you said when Izumiko ran into Class A, all flustered. I guessed something was going on.”