"Mushi-shi"
I thought I heard a sorrowful call... like none I'd ever heard... in the icy air.
Was it my imagination?
No, there it is again... Over that way.
A human voice?
Rust... What the heck is going on?
It stopped...
"The Sound of Rust"
So, when did this sickness start affecting this town?
It's already been fourteen years...
Everyone looks the same,
but their skin becomes frighteningly hard in places
and they become unable to move their limbs.
By far the worst case is an old friend of mine...
He can't even get up anymore...
Where is this person?
He and his wife live on the western outskirts of town.
All the townspeople say that their daughter is the cause of the illness.
Ever since that girl- Shige's her name- was born...
the people around her came down with the sickness one after another...
That is a fact, but...
We've done everything we could over the past fourteen years,
but we haven't been able to find the cause.
The girl hasn't spoken a word, and that has just made people more suspicious.
Here. This is for this month.
Really, what is the Master thinking...
If he's going to show pity on this child just because he's friends with her parents,
I wish he'd give us a raise instead.
My, that's a huge hole, isn't it?
Sorry, but I don't have a replacement.
Shige!
Use this.
Those townspeople never get tired of it, do they?
You should give them a piece of your mind sometimes.
Those are only rumours, right?
Even if they were true,
it wasn't your intention to make your family and friends sick, right?
Back home at my village,
I lost half my family and friends in a storm two years ago.
That's why I decided to stay here to earn money in place of my dad.
Like me, you decided this was the only way to survive, right?
I give you credit...
- Hey. - Huh?
I'd like to ask you about that girl.
Are you another one of those doctors summoned by the Master?
I don't know a thing. She won't say a word to me.
Tetsu! What's keeping you?
Okay! Be right there!
I see...
Welcome home...
Thanks for doing that...
Shige... right?
You can see this rust, can't you?
My name's Ginko. I was only asked here to help cure the sickness.
I'm not going to condemn you.
This sickness is curable. Won't you tell me about it?
That should be enough...
It's okay for you to speak in here. I don't want to rust either, you know.
You see? Nothing happens.
You... can see the rust, too?
Yes.
It was...
My voice does frightening things... That's why I tried to stifle it...
...a deep, hoarse voice that did not match her tiny body...
by yelling in that cave until my voice turned like this.
...yet it reverberated with sweet, sober overtones...
But no matter how much my voice changes,
my voice still causes rust to appear.
It was a voice with a mysterious sound...
Shige!
Daddy! Welcome home!
Hi... What's that doll?
It's my little sister.
Oh, so that's who it is...
Whenever I used my voice, rust formed on the people and things around me...
To me, it was perfectly normal.
Say Shige, why don't you sing me a song?
I didn't think it was strange, and so I sang songs that I liked to everyone.
But they could not see it...
I realized it wasn't a good thing...
around when I turned four and everyone was becoming crippled.
I told my father and mother about it.
Shige, you must never tell anyone about this.
If you do, we won't be able to live here anymore.
Both of us are already unable to work.
We're only able to survive thanks to the kindness of the Master of the big house.
Let's live here... deceiving everyone and casting ourselves on the Master's mercy.
The day will come when we can repay his kindness...
Until then, you mustn't use your voice... Shige.
Since then, I've spoken to no one.
It's been ten years since I've spoken to anyone.
I deserve to be despised by everyone...
because I chose to go on living with just the three of us.
I see... The more I hear your voice, the more unusual it sounds...
I wonder how you're able to speak in such a voice...
There are levels to your voice that most people cannot even produce.
It may sound a bit different to you,
but there is a sound close by that sounds utterly similar to your voice.
This isn't rust.
It's a mushi known as Yasabi, and it's alive.
Mushi?
Some can see them, others cannot. They exist differently from other life.
Yasabi are normally harmless mushi that attach themselves to
dead bodies and decompose them.
They make a sound in the process.
Your voice is that sound amplified several hundredfold.
So, thinking there was food, the Yasabi in the mountains gathered here.
But there was no food, so they attached themselves onto even living things.
The answer, then, is to scatter them.
Is that possible?
And what's more... There should be a way to return your voice to normal.
They're on everything... Don't they have any preferences?
The entire town is evenly rust-coloured...
Hey.
What're you doing out here in the cold?
Oh, nothing...
Say, aren't you afraid of Shige?
It's been only two years since I came to this town,
so I just still can't believe that Shige is the cause of the sickness.
Well then...
Yeah.
Maybe that's why there's not a single Yasabi on him.
Oh, you can see the ocean from here...
Is it possible?
Just as I thought...
If everyone's sickness is cured and I can speak again, I can thank Tetsu-san.
I can tell him in my own voice.
What?
That's right. We'll use your voice to chase the mushi away.
But, for everyone to be safe after that, you'll have to leave this town.
I understand. So the sickness will be cured, right?
I'll do anything.
But...
Yes?
There's one favour I want to ask of you...
I want you to teach me how to write.
Hi there.
Oh, my towel...
Thank you... Oh...
Hey...
What?! You found the cause?
Was it Shige?
Ah, that was nothing but a rumour.
No, it might be this way...
Here... Let me read it for you.
G-give that back!
"If I speak, you will become sick, as well..."?!
"Forgive me... And thank you..."
Tetsu! Who wrote this?!
Was it Shige?!
No! Give it back!
Oh no, it looked like you were sympathetic to her.
This had to be her. I'll show this to the Master.
Don't do that!
What're you doing, Tetsu?!
Thank you for everything.
Hey, Tetsu!
No need to go after him. Clean out the furnace right now!
Okay.
Damn that Shige... She won't be able to play dumb anymore!
Shige!
Run away somewhere, Shige...
They'll all be coming soon... No telling what they'll do to you...
I can't. Ginko-san hasn't shown me how to chase away the mushi.
Shige. Leave here for now.
Wait for me up there at the ridge.
I'll show you how to chase away the mushi after I've convinced everyone.
I'll go with you. I can't stay in this town anymore...
That ridge is in the direction of my home village.
Also it's dangerous to go alo...
I'm counting on you.
You can do it, can't you, Shige?
Ginko-san, why are you protecting Shige?
Bring Shige out here!
Make her apologize.
Banishing Shige won't cure the sickness. Besides, it's not Shige's fault.
All Shige did was talk, laugh and sing like any other child.
Her voice had an element in it that attracted the cause of the sickness... that's all.
We don't give a damn about that!
What we want to know is how she plans to apologize to those she made sick.
If it's an apology you want, Shige's been doing that for ten years.
If she had broken her vow and given an excuse or two,
she could've managed to stop fanning your suspicions.
She bore her sin the entire time.
That doesn't mean we can forgive her!
My child is her age, but she can't even walk!
My child, too!
She will, of course, make amends.
If it was Shige's voice that brought the sickness here,
it is her voice that can make it go away.
Couldn't you call it even then?
Everyone who had something to do with this sickness suffered the same way.
Shige, about that letter... It sounded as though you were going to leave town...
Are you going to do that after the sickness is cured?
Do you have somewhere to go?
Then, would you come to my village as well?
It's a fishing village that had most of the homes and boats washed away...
Everyone's working together to rebuild it little by little.
Things will somehow work out. Why don't you do that?
Shige!
They're not here... Did something happen?
I have to call for help...
My voice...
If I call at this distance...
This sickness is curable.
Shige!
Tetsu!
- That unmistakable voice was echoing through the mountains. - Help!!
Hm? My legs feel lighter...
Hm? So do mine...
Shige! Are you okay? How about Tetsu?
I'm sorry... I'm so sorry...
I made you get the sickness, too, Tetsu-san...
He's just unconscious. Relax. He won't get the sickness.
Shige! You're all right! Look... my legs are...
As it turned out, you did something very close to what I had in mind.
My plan was to have your voice echo through the mountains
that surround this town,
to disperse the Yasabi gathered in the town into the mountains.
But the location had to be that ridge with the ocean behind it.
That's because Yasabi dislike sea breezes.
The rust at the edge of town where sea breezes blow in was ordinary rust.
Tetsu never got the sickness because he was raised in a fishing village
and often stood out in the sea breeze even after coming to this town.
If you live near the sea, you can live a normal life, as well.
But you've scattered only a small fraction of the mushi.
You'll have to repeat what you did for years or
you'll never get rid of them all.
Your voice might be first to give out.
I don't mind at all.
It's just a vague memory,
but I remember how the town was before there was much rust.
Back then, I really loved this town.
I want to do anything I can to bring it back to the way it was...
Later, after the girl left the town, they say the sickness gradually went away.
Shige! Headed to the ridge?
Yes.
I'll go with you.
The townspeople say they still sometimes hear,
though just faintly, a very hoarse,
but strangely lovely and familiar singing voice
echoing through the mountains.
"The Sound Of Rust"
The Journey To The Field Of Fire
"The Journey To The Field Of Fire" The Journey To The Field Of Fire
"The Journey To The Field Of Fire"