Original subtitles

"Mushi-shi"

So that's the village...

When I covered my ears with my hands,

four horns sprouted from my forehead.

On a snowy night, if all sound disappears,

you must either talk with someone, or cover your ears...

Otherwise, your ears will be eaten.

"The Tender Horns"

Thank you for coming.

You are the mushi-shi, Ginko-san, you said?

Yes.

I am Shirasawa, the village head.

I asked you to come on behalf of the village.

As you can see, our village lies deep in the mountains.

It's a quiet village where even the wind doesn't pass through.

Especially on snowy nights like tonight, sometimes there is not a single sound,

and even chattering voices are said to disappear.

And on those nights, some villagers contract an ear illness.

Are both ears affected?

Almost all the cases involve only one ear.

The disease has left doctors in the town at the base of the mountains

scratching their heads.

So I thought it might be an out-of-the-ordinary influence.

Indeed... This mucus...

The cause is... mushi.

I see...

It's called "Un."

The Un is eating the sound.

Normally, the Un inhabit the forest,

but snow absorbs sound.

That's why I think they've come down to the village in search of sound.

Oh... here they are.

Quite a large colony has made a nest here.

It's no wonder they are devouring all the sound.

They then leave the colony and become a parasite in a living host.

At a glance, it looks like a snail.

They disappeared!

They just moved.

Do you know there is an organ in the ear which looks just like a snail?

The hungry Un abandons its shell, settles in there as a parasite,

then eats all the incoming sound.

However, that doesn't mean that the organ is damaged.

Excuse me...

- Here's the hot water you asked for. Is this enough? - Thank you.

If I pour this into the ear...

See? It's gone now.

Salty! What the heck is this!?

Salt.

Salt?

Hey! I can hear!

Now if you just spray that salt water around under the roof,

that should solve your problem.

I'm surprised. It was the first time I've seen a mushi-shi at work.

There is still one other who has caught illness in both ears.

It's my grandson.

His symptoms are markedly different from the others.

I ask that you not let the others in the village know about his condition.

It's too loud!

Be quiet!

This is Maho. He's been like this since last winter.

When those horns suddenly appeared,

he stopped hearing the sounds he could hear before

and began hearing sounds that he'd never heard before.

Even on nights like this where not a single sound can be heard,

he can hear sounds inside and outside the house.

Whispering sounds, roaring sounds...

They don't go away no matter if he covers his ears, or drowns out everything.

He says the noises still enter through his horns.

This could be a case of "Ah".

What?

They are mushi which co-exist with Un, and eat the silence which the Un generate.

If one is infected with Ah, one loses the ability to recognize noises close to them

because the Ah take in sounds from all over indiscriminately.

But compared to Un, they are very few in number.

There is only one other recorded case of a patient being treated for Ah.

According to that document,

even though the same salt-water treatment for Un was used,

the Ah could not be extracted from the ear.

Furthermore, various herbal medicines were tried,

but they were unable to find any that had an effect.

At the end of the winter after the onset of the patient's illness,

due to the noises that came to her day in and day out like a flood,

her spirit became exhausted and eventually she became so weak that she died.

At the end of... the following winter?

Anyway, first we should get to know our enemy.

Can you hear my voice?

Yeah... the noises that surround me... have quieted down a little.

Since you came, the noises got louder and louder.

I thought my head would split open.

Well, sorry about that.

I have a tendency to call out mushi.

Mushi are noisy creatures, aren't they?

I used this smoke to keep them away.

Mushi?

Is that what I'm hearing?

That's where most of your noise is probably coming from.

Humans have particularly bad hearing.

The majority of animals hear many more noises than we do.

But they say that there's still a spectrum of loud noises

that even animals can't hear.

That's the spectrum of the voices of mushi.

Do mushi speak this loud?

No. Each mushi's murmur is probably very minute.

But there are countless numbers of mushi.

What would happen if so many of them murmur a word?

They say that, like a loud echo, those murmurs act in concert,

and that sound is reverberating throughout the world.

The mushi called Ah, which is existing deep in your ears, eats your silence.

Then, your horns sprouted and noises from a wide variety of spectrums

started flowing in through them.

I think that's what happened

because I didn't see anything wrong with your ears.

Can you tell me how those horns appeared?

I was covering my ears with my hands.

Last winter,

my mom died...

She often covered her ears,

so I remembered that and tried to do the same thing.

Then, horns sprouted from my forehead.

Your mom was... covering her ears?

Why would she do that?

I don't know. I can't remember...

My mom had the same illness as me... she had horns, too...

So she shouldn't have been able to stop the noises

even when she covered her ears.

My mom said something to me then,

and with her weakened hands,

she covered my ears firmly.

I ought to remember what she told me then...

and I always try to recall what she said,

but the sounds keep rushing into my head and I can't hear her.

I see.

Although I feel bad for him, it's fortunate...

that there was a previous case in the exact same environment.

The key to treatment must lie somewhere!

The last days of my daughter?

She was to be pitied.

She could not sleep because of the noises.

She never mentioned this in front of Maho...

...but she would constantly say...

I want to get a good sleep in a place where no noise will reach.

And, just like the case you mentioned earlier,

at the end of the following winter after her symptoms first occurred,

she finally went to that place where she longed to go.

So she suffered until the end?

Yes.

No... no, she didn't.

One day my daughter suddenly said...

Mom... the sounds went away.

Now I hear nothing.

I'm scared!

I miss the noises that I so feared.

And then, soon after, as if fading away, she died.

So you're saying she couldn't hear anything right before she died?

Yes.

Anything else you recall?

No. But, I'm afraid the story Maho told you earlier occurred around that time.

At that time, I did think it was strange.

I wondered for what reason my daughter did that?

The silence that she experienced right before death...

Did the Ah leave her body, realizing that its host was about to die?

No... if it did, then her hearing would've gone back to normal.

Why wasn't she able to hear anything?

And what was she trying so hard to stop from hearing?

Where do you think you're going?

Then again, he probably can't hear me.

D...

Don't worry. I'm just... going out for a walk.

Don't tell Grandma.

If I just stay inside the house, I'll go even crazier.

I... I keep thinking... of when mom died, so...

I guess it can't be helped.

After all, he watched his mother die of the same illness he has.

It's starting to snow. Maybe I shouldn't have let him go.

Maho...

Maho?

Oh, Ginko-san, I can't find Maho.

Don't worry. I saw which direction he went.

What!? Why didn't you stop him?

I'll go find him.

It's quiet.

But that doesn't mean sound is absent.

If you listen carefully, even snow falling can make a sound.

If sound is absent around you,

then you can hear the beating of your heart.

But if you pick up various sounds,

I guess you're then unable to hear individual sounds...

If that became extreme, then perhaps...

Perhaps that's what she meant when she said that all the sounds went away?

I get it now.

I'm sorry. I really was planning to go home right away.

But it started to snow hard

so... I decided to wait here until it stopped.

But instead, it started to snow harder and...

Huh? What happened to his voice?

Hey!

Stop fighting over me.

Which one of you is the Ah?

Un is coiled clockwise. Ah is coiled counterclockwise.

You must be Ah.

Maho, give me your hands.

Place them on my ears like your mom did.

Like this?

It dissolved!

Even if you cover your ears with both hands, all is still not silent.

Your daughter was not trying to keep noises out right before she died,

but rather, I think she was trying to listen to the sounds she could hear at the time.

Can you hear it?

I hear a little noise like the rumbling of the earth...

They say that is the sound made by the movement of your arm muscle.

In other words, I think the Ah's weakness

is the noise that other creatures make as they live.

However, if the Ah were to live as a parasite in a living creature's body,

that sound would always be echoing within the host's body.

Living inside a host could not be a comfortable place for Ah.

That's why it tries to erase the body's sound.

Either the Ah dissolves, or the host gets weakened and dies.

That one year is probably the time required for the answer to that.

I think your daughter realized that.

But, by that time, she was too weak, and it was too late.

Maho...

...can you hear it?

This is my sound.

Long ago, I saw it... with your father...

...a mountain that spewed fire.

This sound is exactly like the sound of lava.

That's why, when I feel uneasy to the point of wanting to disappear,

I listen to that sound...

A sound like lava, which can make anything melt...

I feel like it can melt everything... all the uneasiness and hardship.

Come now, you try it.

You have lava flowing within you, too.

The lava...

Maho...

The red hot lava... is flowing.

I'll take these as my fee then.

Yes, but are you sure it's enough?

It is.

Are you okay with that, Maho?

Yeah.

Huh?

Isn't the world quiet, Maho?

It might be unsettling until you get used to it again,

and sometimes you might even miss your old world.

But when it becomes spring and the world becomes bustling again, you'll forget.

I won't... forget.

I was listening to it this whole time...

the same sound Mom was listening to.

It's a pretty sound... enough to give you the chills.

"The Tender Horns"

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