Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [0]
All rights reserved. Originally published in Japan by KADOKAWA SHOTEN
PUBLISHING CO., LTD., Tokyo. English translation rights arranged with
OSAWA OFFICE, Japan, through THE SAKAI AGENCY.
English translation © VIZ Media, LLC
Jacket painting and map illustration © 2007 Dan May
Designed by Courtney Utt
No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means without written permission from the copyright holders.
Published by
VIZ Media, LLC
295 Bay Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
www.viz.com
ISBN: 978-1-4215-4057-3
Haikasoru eBook edition, December 2010
Contents
Part 1
Chapter 1 The Haunted Building
Chapter 2 The Silent Princess
Chapter 3 The Transfer Student
Chapter 4 The Invisible Girl
Chapter 5 The Incident
Chapter 6 The Door
Chapter 7 Beyond the Door
Chapter 8 The Realities of Life
Chapter 9 Enter the Tank
Chapter 10 Falling
Chapter 11 The Secret
Chapter 12 The Witch
Chapter 13 To Vision
Part 2
Chapter 1 The Village of the Watchers
Chapter 2 The Cave of Trials
Chapter 3 The Novice Brave
Chapter 4 The Endless Field
Chapter 5 Gasara, Merchant Town
Chapter 6 The Highlanders
Chapter 7 The Abandoned Chapel
Chapter 8 The Dead
Chapter 9 The Escape
Chapter 10 The First Gemstone
Chapter 11 The Real World
Chapter 12 Meena
Chapter 13 In Maquiba
Chapter 14 The Spectacle Machine
Chapter 15 The Camp
Chapter 16 Lyris
Chapter 17 The Town and the Cathedral
Chapter 18 Mitsuru’s Whereabouts
Chapter 19 The Magic Hospital
Chapter 20 Mitsuru
Chapter 21 The Swamp of Grief
Chapter 22 Tearsheaven
Chapter 23 Dark Water
Chapter 24 A Vision of Death
Chapter 25 The Blood Star
Chapter 26 To Sakawa
Chapter 27 The Reunion
Chapter 28 The Elder of Sakawa
Chapter 29 The National Observatory of Lourdes
Chapter 30 The Lecture
Chapter 31 The Second Gemstone
Chapter 32 Wataru
Chapter 33 The Fugitive
Chapter 34 S.O.S.
Chapter 35 The Tragedy of Lyris
Chapter 36 The Cathedral Cages
Chapter 37 Jozo’s Wings
Chapter 38 The Icy Capital
Chapter 39 The Precept-King
Chapter 40 Parting
Chapter 41 Night in Gasara
Chapter 42 A Conversation at Night
Chapter 43 The Plan
Chapter 44 Escape from Gasara
Chapter 45 The Imperial Capital of Solebria
Chapter 46 The Mirror of Eternal Shadow
Chapter 47 The Isle of Dragon
Chapter 48 The Broken Capital
Chapter 49 The Mirror Hall
Chapter 50 The Parting
Chapter 51 The Traveler’s Path
Chapter 52 Wataru Alone
Chapter 53 Freedom
Chapter 54 The Last Fight
Chapter 55 The Tower of Destiny
Chapter 56 Wataru’s Wish
Epilogue
You have been chosen. Walk the true path.
Chapter 1
The Haunted Building
No one believed it at first. Not even a little.
It began right after the beginning of the new school year, and no one knew who started it. Rumors are like that.
Everyone knew the story, down to the last detail. They could even tell you whom they had heard it from, and when. Still, even if you traced the chain of he-said, she-said a hundred people back, you wouldn’t find the original source.
“Hey, you know that big building next to the Mihashi Shrine, over in Kobune? They say it’s haunted!”
That’s how Wataru Mitani heard it, from Katchan, the son of the bartenders over at Bar Komura. Katchan’s real name was Katsumi, a girl’s nickname. The story went that his parents—expecting a girl—had decided upon the name way ahead of time. The obstetrician told his mother that the ultrasound showed it was “definitely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a girl.” But on that ninth of April, eleven years ago, a healthy baby boy arrived one week ahead of schedule, his wailing cry so distinctive that soon everyone, even the people in the nursing ward across the hall, came to recognize it instantly. It was a funny cry. He sounded hoarse and gravelly.
“My old man says I must’ve been smoking inside my mom’s tummy.”
Wataru didn’t find it hard to imagine at all. He remembered, with a laugh, the year they entered Joto No. 1 Elementary School together. They walked to class one December