File 6: Resort Night at the Beach of the End

1

By the time I woke up, the sun was high in the sky, and the white sunlight shining in through the gap in the curtains was blindingly bright.

I had a dull headache. My body was drenched with sweat. What time did I go to sleep yesterday?

“Ungh... Ahh.”

With zombie-like groans, I sat up in bed. Rubbing my sleep-addled eyes, I grabbed the curtains like I always did, and opened them without another thought. Suddenly, the pleasant air that had been maintained by air conditioning and a cool breeze until moments ago was blasted away by the violent summer light.

In bed next to me, Toriko screamed and buried her face in a pillow. “Why would you do thaaaat?!”

Unable to answer her muffled protest, I looked down at Toriko, dumbfounded. She was lying on her side, curled into a ball under the thin blanket and hugging the pillow tight to block out the sun, so I could only see the golden hair on the top of her head glittering in the sunlight.

...Why is Toriko sleeping next to me?

I looked down at my own body. I was wearing a T-shirt I didn’t recognize. As my mind, which had been dulled by sleep, gradually awakened, more and more questions emerged.

What is this place? It’s a stylish wooden... cottage? Bungalow? What am I doing here?

Also, why is it so bright? The sunlight’s so intense it made my vision white out. Why, it’s almost like I’m in the tropics...

...Oh.

It was gradually coming back to me.

I squinted, looking around outside the window again. The sky was high, and perfectly blue. It made a clear contrast with the bright white of the sunlight reflecting off the buildings.

That’s right. We were currently in Okinawa—in Naha. This was the pension where I had drank a whole lot of Orion Beer and just a little awamori before passing out last night.

Calling it a pension made it sound like some kind of resort, but this place was smack-dab in the middle of the city. It was a wooden penthouse on top of a three-story building, and right outside our window, across a street lined with palm trees, was a big billboard for a consumer finance company.

“What time is it?” Toriko asked, still holding the pillow. I looked at the clock on the headboard and answered.

“Just past ten.”

“Nngh... When’s checkout...?”

“I don’t know.”

I mean, I didn’t even remember checking in.

I looked down at the floor as I stretched, and the glossy flooring was littered with our discarded clothes. Had I been sleeping in a state that let me keep my human dignity because I’d retained some degree of reason, or had I simply passed out in the middle of stripping...?

I wanted water. I wanted a shower.

Getting out of bed, I felt the coldness of the floor with my bare feet as I headed towards the door. Then, I noticed a western-style toilet was installed in the room.

“Huh?” No matter how I looked at it, it was a toilet. With a washlet, too. It was only separated from the bedroom by a waist-high screen.

Could it be that this place we thought was a pension was, in fact, some sort of stylish police holding cell? In my bewilderment I opened the door, and there was a kitchen and living room. On the other side of the door to the living room, there was a sink, a shower, and another toilet separate from the one in the bedroom, so that was a relief.

When I used the toilet and then looked at myself in the mirror above the sink, a version of myself with bedhead stared back. The T-shirt had “Shimanchu,” meaning islander, written on it in thick brush strokes.

I returned to the living room in a bit of a daze, and there I spotted two vinyl bags from Donki that had been tossed on the sofa. While going over their contents, more of my memories from last night started coming back to me...

Toriko and I had headed off to save the U.S. forces stranded at Kisaragi Station, and managed to escort tens of survivors back to where they had come from—a training ground for the U.S. forces in Okinawa.

Once we had seen off the group that called themselves Palehorse Battalion, we found another gate not far away, and used it to return to the surface world. That was yesterday.

The gate we had found led to the roof of a building looking on to Kokusai-doori, or International Street, a busy street in Naha frequented by tourists.

While we were happy to have come out in a convenient location, we stowed all our equipment for the expedition, especially the guns, in our bags, and the first thing we did when we got down to ground level was have an after-party.

Between the release from intense stress, and the elation at suddenly being thrown to Okinawa, we were pretty pumped. First we went to a place with private rooms where we could get some Okinawan cuisine. Toriko over-ordered, like always, and the staff worried whether we would be able to finish it all, but we polished off the peanut tofu, Okinawan herbal tempura, sea grapes, rafute pork, butter-fried ocean sunfish, papaya chanpuru, goat sashimi, and bitter gourd fried rice as soon as they came out. We ordered several rounds of drinks, and ultimately ended up drinking for around two hours. From there we headed for the coast, and we started talking about doing a pub crawl.

I’d had a lot of firsts with Toriko, and this was my first pub crawl, too. We went into the shopping arcade from Kokusai-doori, turning several times without knowing where we were going, then found a bar on a hill road, and ordered some cocktails... right? After a few more drinks, we talked about whether it was really possible to slide a glass of whiskey down the counter and say, “This one’s on me,” and we decided we should totally try it, but I’d like to believe we never actually acted on that.

...That was a lot more than Orion Beer, and a little awamori.

Well, anyway, we left that bar, had some Okinawan soba in a nearby restaurant, and because we were having such a good time, we decided to look for a place to stay the night. We were all sweaty, so we hit up Donki for a change of clothes, did some alcohol-driven impulse buys of food and drink, caught a cab, and checked in at the inn we randomly chose and reserved online.

This was the result.

Picking up a fully melted ice pop which sloshed around inside its packaging, I let out a sigh. The other food here included some fish sausages, which I can only assume we had intended to snack on while drinking. Maybe this spam onigiri and taco sushi roll were supposed to be some carbs to finish things up. As for drinks, we had two untouched cans of beer, and two cans of chuhai marked as being exclusive to Okinawa. There was a bottle of oolong tea, too. Just how much were we planning to drink? I could understand getting instant coffee, but did we need a whole jar of the stuff while on vacation? It said there was enough for 45 cups in this thing.

The other bag was packed with new socks, underwear, and T-shirts. I’m sure we just bought whatever as a change of clothes while we were drunk, but we’d bought too much, and the bag was packed full. I’d have to go over what was in it later.

I figured, for now, I’d have a cup of coffee, so I poured water into the electric kettle, and turned it on. While I was doing that, I found my smartphone plugged into the kitchen outlet, so I retrieved it. Even in my drunken state, I hadn’t forgotten to charge it. Good job, me.

Looking through my history, there was a call with Kozakura at a little past nine o’clock the night before. I must have reported that we made it back from the other world. After that, Toriko and I had spent upwards of four hours periodically tormenting her with pictures of Okinawan cuisine and alcohol. The messages were all marked as read, and the only response was a stamp with an adorable animal with a pulsing vein in its forehead to express anger.

Alcohol is scary... While I was feeling that keenly, the water came to a boil. I found a mug in the kitchen, opened the jar of Nescafé Gold Blend, and made some coffee.

I opened the door to the bedroom, and right in front of me was the toilet behind a wooden screen. Yeah, that was really weird. Though, maybe it was that my preconceptions were wrong, and this was not in fact a bedroom with a toilet, but a toilet with a bed.

Leaving the two cups and their fragrant aroma on the side table, I gave Toriko a shake.

“Toriko, I brought coffee.”

“I want coffee...”

“Which is why I brought it.”

It was funny hearing her spout sleep-addled nonsense.

“Come on, just wake up already. It’s already half past ten.”

I put my hand on the thin blanket, then pulled it away immediately.

“Uwah?!”

I hurriedly returned it to where it had been. Toriko mumbled an objection, and pulled the blanket close to her.

Wh-Why is this woman sleeping in the nude?!

As I stumbled backwards, my foot touched some of the clothes scattered across the floor. Looking down, there were, indeed, panties mixed in with them. Whoa, hold on. Give me a second here. Did this mean I’d spent the whole night sleeping next to Toriko when she was bare naked? Whaaa....?

For me, who had no friends in middle or high school, and had barely even touched another person, the sudden shocking revelation I had been sharing a bed with my naked friend was too much for me.

Unable to tear my eyes away from the lump on the bed which rose and fell with each breath she took, I stood there unable to act.

What was I supposed to think about this?

No, maybe I didn’t have to worry about it. It could be that most people slept in the buff, and I just never knew. This might not be anything to fuss about. I mean, I was starting to feel like it would be rude to bring up what state another person slept in anyway. Yeah, that was it. Besides, even when we wore clothes, humans were all naked underneath them anyway...

“Achoo!”

Just as I was getting lost in my own thoughts, Toriko sneezed and started sniffling. She hugged the pillow tighter. “I’m cold.”

...Put some clothes on!

“Here, the coffee’s hot, so be careful,” I said.

“Mmm.”

“It says checkout’s at twelve.”

“Mmm.”

Toriko got dressed and sat across the living room table from me, but she was probably still out of it, because I couldn’t get a proper response to anything I said.

“Do... Do you always sleep naked?”

“Mmm. When I’m in the mood.”

What did that mean? Did she go, Today feels like a pajama day, or, I’m feeling open-minded today, or something? I couldn’t understand it at all.

“For breakfast, there’s an onigiri or a sushi roll. Which one do you want, Toriko?”

“Both.”

“Whaaa? Okay, we’re splitting both then.”

I opened the package for the spam onigiri, split it, and handed her half. Toriko took it and started munching. Her eyelids were still half-closed.

Toriko’s T-shirt was a deep blue, with a super-deformed flying fish drawn on it in white. It was just plain cute. Looking down at my islander T-shirt, I couldn’t understand it. Why did I choose something an over-excited tourist would have...?

...Though, that’s exactly what I was last night. I didn’t remember it all that well, but I wanted to pray that I didn’t get up to any shenanigans.

“Hey... Wasn’t there something strange about the room?” Oh, it seemed Toriko had begun to regain the capacity for speech.

“What do you mean, something?”

“The toilet...”

“Ohh. Apparently that’s the style in New York.”

When I pulled up this place’s website on my smartphone to verify what our checkout time was, that’s what it said there.

“The interior designer told them the current trend in New York is to combine the bedroom and bathroom, and that’s what they ended up with as a result.”

When she heard my explanation, Toriko frowned. “Someone must have been taking them for a ride, don’t you think?”

“I agree.”

“Even if we concede that’s what’s in style, the bath is nowhere to be seen. I don’t get it... Why just the toilet?”

Toriko shut her eyes tight, perhaps trying to get her still sleepy brain to boot up, and kept furrowing her brow.

“Hmm, maybe it’s so if a New York celebrity is partying, even if they get totally wasted and need to lie down, when they feel sick, the toilet’s right there to throw up in, or something...”

“Huh? You think that’s why?”

“Or when they do cocaine, if they start feeling sick, they can throw up in it...”

“Hey, Toriko, you feeling sick? Are you going to throw up?”

“I’m fine... just a bit out of it. I think a shower’ll get me thinking clearly again.”

“Okay then.” I didn’t know if this was the style in New York or not, but I wished they wouldn’t do misleading things like this. Whenever I suddenly ran into something that seemed out of place in the middle of normal life, I worried it was a warning I was entering the other world.

We polished off the onigiri and sushi roll, then sipped our coffee. I was looking at the shape of the mug distorted through Toriko’s translucent left hand.

“Toriko, if you want to take a shower, hurry up and do it. We don’t have a lot of time.”

“Right.”

“Oh, what should we do about the alcohol, or this bottle? We can’t just leave them here, huh. It feels stupid lugging all this weight to the airport, but we can’t drink it all now, so—”

“What do you mean, the airport?”

“Huh? Naha Airport.”

“Why’re we going to the airport?”

“Huh? To get home, of course. You realize it’s already Monday, right? I’ve given up on making it to my classes today, but I need to go to the university tomorrow.”

“Even though we already made the trip to Okinawa?” Toriko sounded dissatisfied, so I turned a suspicious eye on her.

“So what if we did come here?”

“Sorawo, did you forget what we promised yesterday?”

I had no clue what she was talking about. Noticing my confusion, Toriko pursed her lips. “We said we’d go to the sea, didn’t we?”

“...The sea?” I parroted back at her.

“That’s right! We got so excited about Okinawa’s beaches, we even bought swimsuits!”

I don’t know what happened to her earlier drowsiness, but Toriko’s eyes were sparkling now.

“The blue sea, the white sand! The weather’s so perfect, we absolutely must go! We’re visiting a summer resort together, Sorawo!”

I stared vacantly at Toriko, who had returned to her usual level of excitement in no time.

We bought swimsuits? Together?

Me, going to the sea. Swimsuits.

A beach... r-resort...

“Seriously...?”

2

Yes, she was serious.

The Donki bag, which I had thought only contained a change of clothes, contained a swimsuit, towel, sunscreen... basically everything needed to go have fun on the beach.

Just how bad did we want to go to the beach last night?

Once Toriko got back on her usual groove, she moved fast. She took a quick shower, came out in nothing but a T-shirt and panties, said, “Leave the packing to me,” and shoved me into the bathroom in her place.

In the shower, I tried to prepare myself emotionally. I hadn’t worn a swimsuit since the pool in primary school. What was the sea like again? I didn’t remember. I knew I’d seen photos from when Mom was still alive that suggested she had taken me to swim in the sea somewhere. But I was really little, like one or two at the time, so I hardly remembered it at all. Dad was sane back then, too, so the three of us all looked so happy in that picture. I wondered if that picture was still sitting there, in our empty family home.

A swimsuit, huh... Even the thought of it intimidated me. I still hadn’t seen exactly what kind of swimsuit I’d bought yesterday, but what was I going to do? I was guaranteed to look weird. I mean, I didn’t know anything but my school swimsuit. I couldn’t imagine I’d managed to choose anything halfway decent while drunk.

I was already hesitant enough about going somewhere as sunny as the beaches of Okinawa in summer. I didn’t hate going outdoors, but that was only if I was going somewhere with no other people. I didn’t want to go to a crowded beach...

What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? I agonized over it as the hot water lashed at me, until I heard Toriko’s voice from outside the bathroom.

“Sorawo, you okay? There’s only fifteen minutes to go!”

“Wha?! No way! I’ll be right out.”

“Okay, I’ll get your change of clothes ready.”

I hurriedly turned off the shower and rushed out. With no time to dry my hair, I just wiped it off quickly and returned to the living room.

The new T-shirt that came out of the Donki bag had a goat in a pot on it. Cute. I wore the T-shirt on top of a camisole, with my usual jeans underneath, and flower-print sandals on my feet. On my head, I wore a gray newsboy hat with the brim low over my eyes. The color contact was buried somewhere in my bags, so my blue right eye was exposed. Toriko wore a one-piece dress with long, laced, UV protection gloves, deep blue leather sandals, a wide-brimmed straw hat, and sunglasses, the perfect summer outfit.

I looked at the images of us reflected in the mirror with exasperation. “We’re totally dressed for fun!” I cried in disbelief.

“You were so into it when we talked about going to the seaside last night, Sorawo,” Toriko said with a smirk. No, no, she’s lying. I refuse to believe it.

Toriko had more or less sorted all our luggage, so we just barely managed to check out in time. Though, maybe there was no need to hurry. Once we went down to the ground floor of the building where our pension was located, we put the key in a basket left out on the front desk, and that was all we had to do to check out.

The moment we left the air-conditioned building, the air was hot and humid, and the southern sun beat down on us relentlessly. If we basked in it too long, we would no doubt crumble to ash. For someone like me who was born in Akita, where we didn’t get much sunlight, the July sun in Okinawa was a dangerous weapon.

“Wow, this is really something, huh. You’ll burn in no time.” Toriko narrowed her eyes beneath the brim of her hat. We were some distance from the center of Naha, so no matter where we planned to go, we were going to need a car.

Along the straight road, there were buildings here and there which had their outer walls damaged by exposure to the sea breeze. The sun shining from straight above made it seem as though the town had lost all its shadows. Looking both ways down the street, I didn’t see many people. When I thought about it, not many people would actively choose to walk around during the hottest time of day.

“Let’s flag down a cab. If we keep walking like this, we’re going to dry up,” I said.

As we watched darkly-tanned men on bicycles, scooters, and cars with Okinawan plates pass us by, we were acutely aware that we were losing our hydration. Fortunately for us, a taxi stopped before we turned into two overenthusiastic tourists, dried up and stuck to the pavement.

I don’t think the large, plain backpack that contained all our equipment really went with our current attire, but the middle-aged driver didn’t give it any special attention.

“We wanted to go to the beach. Any place you’d suggest?” Toriko asked without hesitation. She said she was shy, but when I saw her in situations like this, she sure didn’t seem it. I wonder if the reason she was so curt with Palehorse Battalion was because she’d been tense at the time.

“Oh, sure. Would you like a place that’s popular?”

“Ah! I’d prefer somewhere without people,” I interjected despite myself. “No one around, quiet, but still a good spot...”

“In that case, I’ll take you to Nezokobama in Nadabaru. There’s no one there.”

“Sure, let’s go with that.” I didn’t know either of those proper nouns, but I nodded anyway.

“Yeah, I like quiet places, too.” I had expected her to object, but it seemed Toriko agreed with me.

“Oh, but it’d be inconvenient if there were no stores there. Maybe we ought to buy something on the way?”

“You said it. Excuse me, do you think we could swing by a convenience store, if there is one?”

The taxi started to move, and we were finally able to relax in our seats. We left the road lined with used car lots and family restaurants, and got onto a major road with more traffic. A fence belonging to the American military base continued along the side of the road.

I wonder what happened to the guys from Palehorse Battalion. I pray they never wander into the other world again... And that, no matter what, we never run into them in the surface world...

While I was thinking that, the fence ended, and the sea came into view.

“Wow!” Toriko exclaimed. I couldn’t help but lean in, too.

The emerald green sea, which seemed to deepen further from shore, was so beautiful it even entranced me, who was less than enthusiastic about all this beach and resort stuff.

“This’ll be fun. I haven’t been to the sea at all since coming back to Japan,” Toriko said gleefully.

“Did you go often when you were overseas?”

“My parents would take me in the summer. Back when we lived in Vancouver, we did stuff like participate in the parade at Sunset Beach. It was fun.”

It was like she lived in a whole other world from me.

“Oh, yeah. I only know the Sea of Japan.”

“Does the Sea of Japan not have anywhere to swim?”

“It does, but...”

“Let’s go there next, then. Would you show me around?”

“I... wouldn’t mind.” I found myself at a loss for words. There were the bad memories involving my family, but compared to the Okinawan sea before our eyes right now, I also couldn’t deny the Sea of Japan lacked color.

“...Oh, right. Don’t forget your sunscreen. Toriko, you’ve got fairer skin than me, so if you let your guard down, you’re in for a rough time.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s right! I turn all red.”

I put on sunscreen myself when Toriko was done, then had the taxi stop at a nearby convenience store. We bought a collapsible cooler, water, drinks, and food, then had the taxi take off again.

Inside the air-conditioned vehicle, my mind started getting hazy. The driver was quiet, and the radio kept playing some sort of traditional folk song, or children’s song, or something.

Oh, the blue moonlit seashore

Nachutui who searches for Aya

Is born from the land of waves

With wet wings of silver

Oh, the sadness of Nachutui

Crossing the sea in search of Aya

Vanishing into the land of moonlight

One thousand shorebirds with silver wings...

Toriko was leaning her head against the window, her eyes closed. Was she asleep, maybe? Her light, pink lips, as young and fresh as a small child’s, were slightly parted. As I looked at her defenseless face in profile, I noticed at some point the car had entered a residential district. From the crimson roofs and the cobblestones, stone shisas watched us with wide eyes.

Suddenly, I noticed a shuffling sound from the navigator’s seat. I took a peek, and there was a small spiral shell there.

On closer inspection, there were legs and pincers sticking out... It was a hermit crab.

There was sand piled around the hermit crab, like a little garden built on top of the seat. The strong sunlight shining through the front windshield made the white sand shine like silver.

As I watched it flash and shimmer, my mind grew hazier and hazier.

I sank into the seat, my consciousness fading away...

3

“Hey, Sorawo, wake up.”

I woke to my shoulder being shaken.

“S-Sorry, I was out cold.” Flustered, I sat up, rubbing my eyes, and asked Toriko, “Are we there? How much is the fare?”

“I dunno... I mean, the driver’s gone.”

“Whuh?”

Looking around, I finally realized how abnormal our situation was.

“The heck is this?!”

I had been dozing off in a wreck. The seat under me was falling apart, the four doors were all missing, and there was no trace of any of the glass. The driver’s seat was occupied by a tree which had grown through the floor, and had spread its leaves. The navigator’s seat had a pile of sand on it that looked like it had burst out of the dashboard. There were traces of some small living creature having crawled across it. Was that the hermit crab I had seen before drifting off?

“It was like this when I woke up. I have no idea what’s going on...” Toriko said in bewilderment.

Hesitantly, I looked outside. The body of the car, with its paint stripped back and showing rust underneath, was wrapped in vines from plants growing out of the ground. Under the flat tires was a cluster of bindweed. It formed a carpet of green that covered the entire area, with pink flowers blooming on top of it.

The gentle slope covered in bindweed had white sand at the bottom of it, and beyond it was a sea that shone like turquoise. The sky stretched high above the horizon, and clouds reflected the color of the sea. Far off the coast, there was a massive rock lying on its side that was so big it might have been mistaken for a wall.

In the middle of an incredible silence, all we could hear was the sound of the waves and the wind. Breaking the tranquility, Toriko asked, “Is this the other world?”

“Probably...”

“See anything that looks dangerous?”

I looked around with my right eye. Nothing shone silver. “Looks like we’re safe for the moment, at least.”

“Okay, in that case...” Toriko walked forward resolutely.

“Whoa, whoa, what are you gonna do?”

“Let’s go check it out. Whether this is the surface or the other side, we’ve made it to the beach.”

“Isn’t that being overly optimistic...?”

“Well, hey, it’s the sea!” Toriko said, pouting. “We came to play around together. I’m not going to let it be ruined like this... It’s safe, right? Let’s go. We’ve got guns if we need them.”

“B-But...”

When I acted hesitant, Toriko spoke up impatiently. “Hey, we came all the way to the sea, right? We can’t let ourselves get spooked so easily.”

“S-Sure.”

No, are you serious? I get that you really want to play around, but here? Ignoring my hesitance, Toriko started walking on her own.

I guess that didn’t leave me with much choice. I reshouldered my bags and chased after Toriko.

When we got down to the beach, I could feel the hot sand touching my feet through the sides of my sandals. I didn’t see any glitches or monsters. For now, it looked like any ordinary beach. However, as far as I could see, there wasn’t a soul around.

The sandy beach continued to the left and right. On the far right there was a breakwater, tetrapods, and a little lighthouse. On the left side, the sand ended where it hit another breakwater. There were a number of buildings up the slope. Was that wooden two-story building a beach house or something?

“Think there’s somewhere to change?” Toriko asked, looking around the area.

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why? We’re going to put on swimsuits, right? I’m not big on the idea of changing here, where there’s absolutely nothing.”

“Y-Yeah.”

It seemed Toriko had her mind made up.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s take a look at that building. There might be a changing room.” I pointed to the top of the slope, and Toriko nodded.

We climbed the slope, leaving tracks in the sandy beach as we went. Climbing a half-buried set of stone stairs, we came out onto a paved road. Here and there, there were the remains of abandoned cars and stalls. The building we had our eye on was a beach house, like I had suspected. On the other side of the front room, which had a dirt floor and was open to the street, there were a number of tatami rooms with low tables. The sign on top of the roof was discolored, and I couldn’t make out what it said.

We walked under the eaves, and took a peek inside. It was a total ruin. The menu on the wall was in that strange script peculiar to the other world, and that made me kind of sad. There should have been lots of fun words like “yakisoba” and “snow cones” written there, but I couldn’t read any of it. There was no one around, staff or otherwise, and the iron grill they would have made yakisoba on was covered in sand that had blown in, while the crushed ice machine was lying on the floor in pieces.

Toriko searched through our bags and retrieved the flashlight and her Makarov. She inserted a magazine, pulled the slide, and checked that the bullet had been chambered.

“What are you gonna do?”

“I’ll go clear the place,” Toriko said.

“W-Wait. I’ll go with you.” I dug my own Makarov out of the backpack and skipped out on using the holster. Wiping my sweaty palms on my jeans, I held on to the grip.

“Sorry for the hold up. I’m good to go.”

Toriko nodded.

“I’ll look ahead, so you watch our backs, Sorawo.”

“Okay.”

Leaving our bags out under the eaves, we passed through the main room of the beach house. It got darker as we went in deeper, so Toriko flicked on the flashlight.

Holding the flashlight backhanded, next to her face, it cast a cone of light which illuminated a case of beer lying on its side and a stack of chairs in the darkness. The windows lining the hall were all papered over from the inside with yellowed newspaper. It was, of course, all illegible.

Toriko lowered her voice. “Let’s open all the windows. I’ll keep watch, so could you do it?”

“Gotcha. Be careful of the floor, okay? We’re in sandals, so we’d better be sure not to step on any nails or glass.”

“Okay.”

I tore down the deteriorating newspapers. Once the glass windows were opened and the shutters to the outside were too, light and wind blew away the stagnant air in the building. There was a kitchen, toilet, and a break room for employees. Having finished checking the front rooms, we went down the short hall that led to a series of large tatami rooms. This section was built like a boarding house, with large baths and sinks, and the cupboards in the kitchen that all held a large number of the same kind of plate. In the laundry room, where many washers and dryers were lined up, there was a dusty pile of linens.

By the time we reached the back door, opening every window as we went, the first floor was so bright it was unrecognizable. The torn newsprint on the floor made rustling sounds as it was blown around by the wind.

Toriko breathed a sigh of relief, then lowered the flashlight. “That’s the first floor clear. I’d like to look at the second floor, too, but...”

We both looked up to the ceiling.

“There’s no sound, yeah,” I said.

“The place is a ruin...”

We had found a staircase leading to the second floor on the way through, but there were dining trays laid on each step, and it wouldn’t be easy to go past them. Taking a quick peek, the trays carried used plates and bowls, and there was dried rice stuck to them.

“Well... I guess it’s fine. This place seems safe. Let’s go play.”

“Okaaaay...?”

Toriko, who seemed to have gotten tired of this, went right out the back door. I followed. The back of the building was a gloomy forest, and it seemed unwise to set foot inside it now. We circled around the outside of the building back to the front. There, I found shower stalls with curtains, and I came to a stop.

“Hey, couldn’t we have gotten changed here?”

“Oh, nice idea.” Toriko said that so easily, I felt deflated.

“All that time we spent clearing the building was wasted!”

“Better safe than sorry. It wasn’t a waste.”

This, after she blew off checking the second floor...

Toriko pulled another paper bag out of the Donki bag, tossing it over to me. “Here’s yours, Sorawo.”

“Oh! Okay...”

“What’s wrong? You look uneasy.”

“Uhh, yeah... I haven’t worn a swimsuit in front of anyone since I was in primary school. It’s embarrassing, to be honest. I’m worried I’ll look weird,” I confessed. Toriko smiled.

“You’ll be fine. I mean, I’ll be wearing one, too.”

“You’re fine because you have a great figure.” The moment I said that, I had a flashback to the glimpse I had gotten of Toriko as she was sleeping this morning, and I got flustered.

While I was scratching my cheek and trying to regain my senses, Toriko looked at me with worry. “Um, do you have big scars, or tattoos, or something you’d rather not let me see? If so, I’m sorry for not being more considerate...”

“Huh? Oh, no, no, it’s nothing like that.”

“Well, okay then. But even if it was, I wouldn’t let it bother me, whatever your skin looks like, Sorawo.”

“...Sure.”

How could this girl say a thing like that so easily?

“Okay? So let’s get changed, and go.”

At Toriko’s urging, I nodded my head.

4

Hmm. Oh, I see.

Looking at my swimsuit, it made an odd amount of sense to me.

Why was that...? It was a parka. I was wearing a striped bikini top and shorts, with a rash guard parka over top. If I closed up the front of it, I didn’t look all that different from usual. It was just that trading the jeans for shorts meant you could see my bare legs.

It’s very me, I thought. I hated myself a little for the fact that, even when thoroughly sloshed, I still couldn’t be very bold.

I checked myself in the mirror of the shower stall. After considering it for a while, I decided to leave the parka open.

When I left the stall, Toriko was just coming out of the one next to me.

She wore a black bikini, and a flower-pattern cardigan. Her mature and elegant sexiness was softened by the cute feeling of her sunglasses and straw hat. Her basic appearance was solid, too, so she looked crazy good. I was just thin and muscular, but with Toriko’s tight muscles she still maintained a soft roundness, too. She could easily have made it as a fashion model.

While I was staring at her, Toriko looked at me and smiled. “Looking good, Sorawo. That’s cute.”

“Huh? Uh, you think so?”

I had been disappointed with myself until just moments ago, but the moment Toriko paid me a compliment, I got all giddy. I cleared my throat to hide the way my voice had gotten shrill with excitement. “Y-You look good, too... You’re pretty...”

I thought I’d go for a simple compliment, but I trailed off, and my voice turned into a whisper. Toriko smiled and was about to say something, but she suddenly covered her mouth with the back of her hand and looked away. Looking at her face in profile, she’d turned red.

“Thanks...”

Was she feeling shy? Toriko avoided making eye contact with me, even through her sunglasses.

“Th-The beach house! Yeah, can we go back to the beach house one more time? There’s some things I want to bring along.”

The way that Toriko got all flustered over my compliments, even when she had to be well aware that she was pretty and that her outfit looked good on her, was a little funny.

It turned out what Toriko wanted to bring along was a beach parasol that had been abandoned in a corner of the beach house, as well as some white, plastic deck chairs.

“I found these while we were clearing the building. Nice, huh?” Toriko had gotten back into her usual groove, and she sounded proud of herself when she said that. On closer inspection, despite some sand and dust, they still looked usable.

“Okay, fair enough, I’m sure we’ll want these sorts of things out on the beach.”

“I know, right?”

“But how do you plan to bring them?”

“Work hard at it together?”

We were both hauling heavy bags of our own, along with a cooler, and the Donki bag with our change of clothes in it. Yet still, we ended up dragging a parasol and two deck chairs behind us down the beach, too.

“Hahh, hahh... Do you think here is good?”

Toriko came to a stop about ten meters from the water’s edge.

“It’s good enough. Geez.”

“Okay. Let’s set up the parasol, then.”

We put down our heavy luggage there and began setting up camp. Thrusting the parasol as firmly into the sand as we could, we then placed our backpacks at the base of it for support. Unfolding the two deck chairs and laying them out beneath the parasol, we then put a sheet and the cooler down between them. The Makarovs went on top of the sheet, too.

We opened up a package of wet wipes we had gotten at the convenience store and wiped the dust off the deck chairs.

“Okay. That about does it, I guess.”

“It’s perfect!” Toriko declared, laying down on one of the deck chairs. “You, too, Sorawo. Hurry, hurry.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

I stretched on the chair next to her, and I felt the tension draining away.

In my field of vision I could see my and Toriko’s legs, and beyond them the southern seas spread out. That bluish green color was indescribably beautiful.

The waves which came in, and went back out. The scent of the sea breeze. This really was the perfect summer resort.

...If you ignored the perfectly bizarre environment we were in, that is.

“What do you figure that is?” Toriko asked listlessly.

“Who knows...? Alcatraz Penitentiary, maybe?”

“That’s an awfully big penitentiary, huh.”

We were looking at a great gray structure floating off in the distance. It had to be hundreds of meters across. It was simple, like a shopping mall made all of concrete, and consisted of several floors. I could see several long ramps and what looked like spiral staircases, but couldn’t see anyone traversing them. The reason I had been able to be instantly certain we’d entered the other world was because as soon as we exited the ruined car, we had spotted this bizarre construction.

“Hey, Toriko, think we should get out the rifles?”

“Hmm... Yeah. Just to be safe.”

“Yeah, safe.”

I got up, then pulled the bundle containing my disassembled assault rifle out of my backpack. I sat down on my deck chair and watched Toriko as she quickly assembled it.

“Sorry to make you do this all the time.”

“You should learn, too, Sorawo. I’ll get you able to disassemble and clean it in the dark.”

“I don’t need to be able to do that much.”

She put a magazine of 5.56 rounds in place, then pushed in the bolt release lever. I’d learned that much, so I could do it myself, too. Now that the M4 CQBR was ready to shoot at any time, she engaged the safety, and stood it up next to the parasol. Toriko then prepared her own AK-101, before returning to lie down on her deck chair again.

“Okay, and we’re good.”

“Want something to drink?”

“Oh, yeah! Let’s have a toast.”

I opened the cooler and extracted two cans of Orion Beer. They fizzed as we opened them with the pull tap, then we knocked our cans together.

“Yay!”

“Cheers!”

To what?

Well, not like it matters, I guess.

If I just ignored that this was the other world, the beer tasted good, the sea breeze felt refreshing, and Toriko and I had this pretty beach to ourselves. Was this not perfection?

“Ahh, the beer you drink while skipping class at a beach in Okinawa tastes super great. I may be done for.”

“You may well be.”

“I was planning to just take a plane back, like normal, but now that I think about it, what was I planning to do with the guns?” I asked.

“When we were drinking last night, we talked about taking them apart, and sending them home by mail or courier.”

“Whah? That’d never work. They have to take a plane from Okinawa, I’m sure they’d get X-rayed. Even if we were splitting up the parts, we’d have to do it really well. I mean, one look at the shape of the bullets would be a dead giveaway...”

Even as I said this, I was surprised how antisocial this conversation we were having was.

“Ahaha, you figure? Talking things over when we’re both drunk didn’t help much, huh.”

“I’m just glad we didn’t act on it... It’s a bit of a shame, but I guess we’ll have to ditch them.”

“That, or we go back through the other world.”

“Whaa... From here?”

I twisted my head around to look behind me. I didn’t think I wanted to set foot in the gloomy woods behind the beach house, and who knew where the path along the seaside went.

“I don’t think that’s happening... It’d be good if this was connected to the terrain of the other world that we know, though.”

“We’d want to get a look from up high, yeah.”

“Hmm, that lighthouse is about our only option for that, right? But it doesn’t look all that tall...”

Having slowly sipped at her first can of Orion Beer until it was empty, Toriko sat up in her deck chair. “Want to go check out the shore?”

“Sure.”

We left the shadow of the parasol, and approached the sea, bringing the Makarovs with us—just in case.

The water was clear, and we could see the sands of a wide shallow beach. We found shells lying on the sandy beach and tried throwing them into the sea. There was no hissing and smoke, so I carefully tried dipping the bottom of my sandal into the water.

“Seems fine.”

“Score.”

Toriko took her sandals off, and stepped barefoot into the water.

I had been focusing my consciousness into my right eye, in preparation for if something attacked us, but I didn’t spot any especially suspicious movement. I followed Toriko into the sea. The waves washed against my ankles. The cold water felt good.

I walked over to Toriko, who was in up to her thighs. Toriko had her eyes fixed in the direction the waves were coming from, towards the horizon. “How far do you think this sea goes?”

“All the way to Niraikanai, maybe?”

“What’s that?”

“The Okinawan afterworld, sort of.”

I’d just given the sort of half-assed answer that would have gotten my anthropology teacher mad at me, but Toriko nodded as if it made sense to her.

“It’s like the end of this world, after all.”

Those words struck a chord in my heart.

I was alone with Toriko, on a beach at the end of the world.

If it’s this quiet, and we’re together, I wouldn’t mind staying forever...

That thought suddenly crossed my mind.

“I never thought I’d enjoy the sea so much.”

Toriko looked at me in surprise. “Why?”

“It’s just... I felt like the sea wasn’t the place for me. It was a scary place, full of party animals.”

“It’s not all that scary.”

“Not for you, I’m sure.”

I was scared. To the point where I had agonized that much over putting on a simple swimsuit.

“There’s this song, Angura People Summer Holiday. The lyrics are about otaku, hikikomori, and other social outcasts coming out to play on the beach in the middle of summer. I liked that song, you know?”

“Anglerpeople? Do they come up out of the sea?”

“Huh? No, I don’t think they came from the sea... just land, like normal.”

“Oh, so they have lungs to breathe.”

“Yeah, they can, even if they are underground people... Well, anyway, thanks for bringing me out here.”

I felt like she was misunderstanding something, but whatever.

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself. I’m always making you go along with my selfishness, so I was worried you might not like it,” Toriko said happily. “I’m so glad we could come together. I went to the beach with my parents a lot, but this is my first time coming with a friend.”

“It is?”

You didn’t come with Satsuki-san? I was about to ask, then didn’t.

“That’s why I wanted to come so badly. I made a friend, so I was thinking I wanted to do all the things friends do. Though, I think I might’ve been being a bit pushy.”

“Oh, you were aware of that?”

“So, I was being pushy...”

The way she obsessed about having after-parties might have been an effect of Toriko’s image of “friendship,” too. I felt like it was maybe a bit warped, but who was I to talk? I didn’t know what the right things to do with a “friend” were either.

“...Well, we’re here already, so let’s do all the beach stuff we can.”

“Yeah!”

Toriko’s voice rose excitedly as she responded to me.

5

Here was my list of things to do on the beach with a friend:

Drink booze → Already done

Have a barbeque → No equipment

Play beach volleyball → No ball

Play in the sand → I’d want a shovel

Play beach flags → Too tiring

Hit on people → ...?

Huh? There was surprisingly a lot less to do than I’d thought.

That being the case, we drank, and took shots out into the ocean, our targets being the driftwood floating between the waves. The sound of 5.56 ammo being fired echoed across the white sands. I used the M4 CQBR that I had borrowed—no, I guess I was only supposed to be borrowing it until we escaped from Kisaragi Station, so technically I had nicked it—from Palehorse Battalion for the first time.

The driftwood rose and fell on the other end of the scope. The gun would kick back each time I pulled the trigger, and I just couldn’t seem to hit it.

“Don’t try to stabilize it with just your arms. Place the stock tight against your chest. If you do that, you can absorb the recoil with your whole body. Don’t be afraid. Relax, and hold the gun like you’re hugging it.”

I fired single shots as Toriko explained it to me, her third can of chuhai in hand.

I raised several pillars of water in the vicinity of the target before, finally, blasting the surface off the driftwood.

“I hit it!”

“Good!”

Toriko gave me a high five. Was this really okay...? Well, Toriko seemed to be enjoying herself, so it was probably fine.

“Okay, I’ll go next.” Toriko set down her chuhai, readied herself with the AK, then started firing away.

I sipped at an iced coffee with awamori as I watched the thick piece of driftwood disintegrate before my eyes. Her gun had no scope, unlike mine, and yet she didn’t miss a single shot.

When Toriko finished shooting, I clapped. “Wow, that was awesome!”

“Heheh. I’m good now, but I couldn’t hit a thing at first, you know. Mama was teaching me, but I think it must have been hard for her.”

“Your mom must’ve been a good teacher, huh?”

“Nah, not really. If anything, Mom was awkward.”

“Really? Well, I’m going to try shooting some more.” Handing the container of alcohol off to Toriko, I readied the M4, and looked through the scope. I took aim at something in my field of view, which had been magnified 4X...

“Hm? What’s that...? Is there something floating on the other side of the target?”

There was something big floating beyond the driftwood. The waves washed over a roundish white mass. It looked like it might be hairy, so I thought it could be an animal, but it was just floating there with no sign of movement.

“You’re right, there’s something there. Try shooting it?”

“Hmm?”

While we were fretting over what to do, voices came to us on the wind. The frivolous-sounding laughter of multiple men.

We looked at one another.

Someone’s here? Other than the two of us...?

The moment I had that thought, I was hit with a violent and unpleasant sensation.

Following the laughter, there was the dull sound of something soft being struck, and a muffled cry.

Toriko turned to face the pier stretching away from the beach house. “That way.” Toriko snatched the Makarov from the deck chair, and walked off without hesitating. I hurried to follow her.

“What’re you gonna do?”

“I dunno, but this smells like trouble. You might not want to watch, Sorawo.”

“I may not seem like it, but I think I’ve seen a whole lot more scary stuff than you have, Toriko.”

Toriko turned back to glance at me, a look of surprise on her face.

I was thinking, How do you like that? when Toriko asked, “Sorawo, could you shoot a person?”

“Huh?”

“A person.”

...I wonder.

I couldn’t answer immediately. I agonized over it as we returned to the sandy beach, climbed the stone steps, and got out on top of the pier. Immediately, human figures came into view. Lots of them.

Four were standing, while another three cowered.

All of them were men.

The four included a man in a jersey, a man in a tank top who had a tan, a man with a colored Mohawk, and a skinhead. The three on the ground were smaller... Maybe middle-school age? Two of them had fallen in unnatural positions, and they weren’t moving. The other was curled into a ball, quivering. Mohawk man kicked the kid’s head like it was a soccer ball.

The kid’s head bounced off the concrete with a loud echo.

“Stop!” Toriko boomed from in front of me, holding the Makarov in both hands.

The four turned. When their gazes fell upon us, my body instinctively tensed.

These guys were bad news. They were what I might have called thugs. There was a violence in their eyes that was a step up from mere delinquents.

“If you don’t back away from those kids, I’ll shoot.” Toriko’s voice was incredibly cold; there was an intensity in it even greater than the time we met Abarato. This was the first time I was seeing Toriko serious. It sent chills down my spine.

The man with the Mohawk let out a shrill laugh. “Good evening, Toriko Nishina-san!”

The fact that Toriko’s name had just come out of the mouth of a thug we didn’t recognize made both of us stop in surprise.

The other men spoke in turn.

“Hey, hey, someone’s getting ahead of herself!”

“What’s wrong? Do you want us to kill them?”

“Well, she’s got guts! I bet she’s not even afraid of us!”

The man in the tank top looked at the fallen, unmoving boy’s face and shouted.

“Whoa! He’s dead!”

“Aw, geez. Now we’ve got a murder on our hands.”

“What a weakling.”

“Let’s do her next.”

The thugs approached, smirking. They seemed unfazed by the gun pointed at them. Did they think it was fake? Or assume she couldn’t shoot? Even if they did, it was odd not one of them mentioned the gun. No, but more than that, why did they know Toriko’s name...?

In our moment of confusion, the men got right up close to us. Because they had stopped us, Toriko’s response was delayed.

When I saw the depraved look on the face of the man reaching for Toriko, my head cooled rapidly. I raised my gun, took aim, and pulled the trigger.

The bullet expelled from the M4 hit the man in front of the group, the one with the Mohawk, and appeared to be sucked in to his throat. The muzzle raised from the recoil causing the second shot to miss.

Ignoring Mohawk as he slumped to the ground, I aimed my gun at the next one. Lowering the muzzle, I aimed for the abdomen. It was a large target. Still, of the three shots I fired, only one landed. Hitting him in the crotch, he went down like the legs had been swept out from under him.

Toriko fired, too. Two shots from the Makarov struck Tank Top right in the center of his chest. She backed up to stand beside me and fired twice more. The fourth man’s head shot back, and he fell backwards to the pavement.

The echoes of the gunshots faded. The four who had fallen did not move. When I took a deep breath, the gun smoke tickled my nose.

“...I was able to shoot,” I mumbled, lowering the M4.

“Y-You okay, Sorawo?” Toriko put a concerned hand on my arm.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Really...?”

My response may have been too easygoing, because the look of concern on Toriko’s face got even worse.

“Listen. I don’t know what to tell you, but when someone is trying to destroy me, it seems I can shoot just fine.”

“Destroy you...?”

“I don’t mean just physically, but emotionally, too.” When I tried to explain, it came out strangely stilted. Toriko raised her eyebrows.

“Sorry. I should have been the one to shoot. I’m sorry,” she said.

Don’t look so worried, Toriko.

I put my own hand on top of one that Toriko had put on my arm.

“I’m sure you planned to shoot, too. I could see you were in serious mode. That’s why I was able to shoot. I was able to support you when your reaction was slow, so it all worked out in the end.”

“But...”

When Toriko continued to protest, I raised a hand to silence her. “Besides, these guys aren’t human.”

“Huh...?”

I looked at the men, focusing my mind on my right eye. There was a scrap of fish net, dried-up seaweed, a bottle of detergent, a faded fishing bob and hook—basically, it was a pile of all the stuff you might find left on the beach, and it was in a shape that looked like a person.

These guys must have been a “phenomenon” from the other world, just like the Time-space Man, that appeared in human form.

“I had a flash of insight just before I shot. There was something that felt off about this from the beginning, right? We’ve been shooting for a while now, but they showed no signs of noticing, and though the things they said sort of matched the situation, they were kind of off, too.”

“Really...? They didn’t look anything other than human to me, you know?”

As Toriko spoke, two of the masses which still had heads raised them slowly, and shouted as if they were going to attack.

“Hey, hurry it up!”

“The king of the coast is coming!”

I had been letting my guard down, so I jumped. With the Makarov in one hand, Toriko quickly took aim and shot. Crack, crack, two shots rang out in quick succession, and two heads burst.

“Hahh, geez!”

Being caught by surprise must have frustrated her, because Toriko raised her voice in anger. My pulse was still racing.

“That... surprised me.”

“Surprised me, too. It’s fine—just take a deep breath.”

Toriko rubbed my back through the rash guard I was wearing with her left hand. Her hand was trembling a bit, too.

“Thanks to that, I was able to accept they weren’t human, but... Huh? Then that means...?”

Toriko’s eyes went from the thugs to the three boys who were collapsed nearby.

I nodded. “They’re not, either.”

“Seriously? I was this close to going and checking if they were breathing... Hold on, that’s something I should’ve done way sooner. What am I doing?”

Telling herself she needed to get it together, Toriko slapped her own cheeks. It was true that Toriko would probably have confirmed the enemy was defeated, and then immediately checked on the condition of the wounded.

Suddenly, there was a clunking sound from the beach. Looking in that direction, there was something lying on the shore where there had been nothing before.

It was the size of a dump truck, roundish and white, and looked like it had to be a big hunk of meat. A rotten smell came drifting on the sea breeze and caught in my nose.

The blue sea, the white sand, and the massive hunk of unidentified meat. I went into a bit of a daze, unable to process how out of place it was, and I started to feel like the blue of the sky was gradually getting deeper.

It wasn’t my imagination—it really was getting deeper. The blueness of the blue was too strong, to the point it was nearly black.

Finally, I realized it. That sky was never the real sky. Like with the windmill woman, from the time we first got here, what was above us was that blue light that lay beyond the other world. Had we been taking a leisurely vacation under it?

The dark blue covered the heavens, and the beach sank into night.

“What will you do? I wonder what you should do.”

Turning towards the groaning voice, one of the three fallen boys had stood up at some point. With the dark sea at his back, he looked like no more than a dark silhouette. That was the same even looking with my right eye. In the center of his face, just his teeth were shining.

“Didja know? The midnight sea off the coast glows brightly,” the shadow said calmly. The distinctive way he spoke jogged my memory. Of all the net lore stories that were set by the seaside, it was the one that creeped me out the worst—At Suma Coast. That was right. That one was set in Kobe, not Okinawa, and it was about three middle-schoolers attacked by a group of bikers. That line was spoken by the one that survived.

“Do ya think they’ll take note of that? I know this sounds a bit nasty, but...” Speaking nonsense, the shadow began to wave his arms around.

“So-Sorawo, what is this?”

Toriko’s voice was frightened, and I was no different. I desperately tried to remember what happened next in that story...

“You wouldn’t know what I’m talking about, but when night comes, Satsuki Uruma suyus to the shore, too, and what will you do with Sorawo Kamikoshi?”

“...Satsuki?” Toriko mumbled to herself.

The shadow had spoken our names. When I realized what that meant, I shuddered.

“To-Toriko. Do you remember? When you were being taken in by the windmill woman, you said something.”

“Huh?”

“There’s something beyond the blue light that is trying to contact us by causing fear in humans, and driving them mad. You said that, Toriko. Do you remember?”

Toriko looked back at me without a word, completely expressionless.

Seconds later, beneath the palm of my hand, I felt the goosebumps rise on Toriko’s skin.

“Gah...” Toriko gasped. Her wide eyes told me she remembered the things she had blurted out.

“Y-Yeah.”

“Keep your wits about you. Th-This is bad news. It’s them, trying to drive us nuts. Their sights are clearly set on us. They recognize us individually!”

“I... I already feel like I’m going crazy just from remembering it, okay?!”

“S-Sorry! I’m not confident I can handle this alone.”

“It’s fine, though! Sheesh!”

The motions of the shadow on the pier grew more and more violent. Shaking his head around like his neck was broken, the shadow screamed.

“With the phosphorescent stones, and squid, and flying fish, the midnight sea really shines! It’s amazing—it’s like the starry sky! Do you understand?!”

We were so afraid, we had started clinging to one another at some point. Out of nowhere, there was a voice that sounded like it was reading sutras.

“Annnnn, myooooo, jiiii.”

There was a loud clattering and ringing from the direction of the beach house.

“The stairs!”

The moment Toriko said that, I realized the same thing.

Those stairs, where the used dining trays were piled, and the used bowls were scattered around—there was something coming down them.

Just when I thought the sound of things breaking had stopped, a small humanoid form emerged from the beach house.

“Jooooooo, miiiiii, shinnnnnnn.”

The thing shouting with that ridiculously loud voice was a naked child. Even in the pitch darkness, I could tell it was naked for some reason. He was running towards us with incredible vigor, both arms and both legs swinging. Toriko and I both let out a scream, unable to restrain ourselves any longer.

It was scary, unbelievably scary. I felt like I was going crazy. It may be the only reason I maintained a tenuous grasp on my sanity was because what was happening in front of my eyes followed the depiction of events in a piece of net lore I had read before.

Desperately suppressing the urge to close my eyes and cower where I was, I looked at the child whose body was all green using my right eye. There was what looked like dried-up black cord, wrapped in cotton, and floating in the air. When I shot it with the M4, the white cotton went flying in the darkness. Toriko screamed and pulled the trigger on the Makarov. The black mass, which looked like a dried-up cloud ear fungus, was blown away by the bullet. At the same time, in my left field of vision, I saw the green child thin out, flatten, and vanish.

The slide on the Makarov in Toriko’s hands slid back, all of its bullets spent. I hadn’t been keeping count, but my M4 had to be running low on ammo, too.

“Toriko! Let’s run away!”

“Where?!”

I desperately squinted out over the edge of the pier. I was looking for that silver shine. I didn’t care where it led now, if I could just find a gate to the surface world...

My eyes stopped on an unexpected place. In the middle of the beach, beneath the beach parasol we had just been lounging around under, I could see just the slightest silver radiance.

Why there? It’s too convenient. Is this a trap?

No, it’s not, that’s—the hat! Hasshaku-sama’s hat! In our luggage!

“Run to the parasol!”

When I spoke, Toriko gave me a big nod.

The two of us held hands and took off running. I didn’t want to get any closer to the beach house, but we ran back along the pier, and descended the stairs to the beach. I turned back to take a glance, and regretted it just as much as you might expect. There were a whole lot of little green children looking our way out of a small gap in the beach house.

The walls of the building were packed with black string wrapped in cotton, and when I looked at them with my left eye—the one with normal vision—it looked like there were green-bodied children watching us from places where no person should have been able to stand. This was nothing any sane person should be looking at.

“Don’t look at the beach house. No matter what.”

“I already saw!” Toriko shouted, her face twitching.

As we ran towards the beach parasol, our feet getting stuck in the sand, a shadow standing up on the pier looked down on us. Had the fallen ones risen up again? Their number had returned to seven.

“Aaaa! Aaaaa! Aaaa!” The shadows cried out. Like babies. Like crows.

On the other side of the beach, past the other pier, the lighthouse was shining. The slowly revolving cone of light from the tower shone across the beach, licking at the dense forest behind the beach house.

Finally, we reached the parasol. Toriko snatched up the AK she had left on the deck chair, and removed the magazine before irritatedly shouting, “Aw, geez! I screwed up...!”

She had fully discharged the AK during target practice. We had more bullets, but no spare magazines. It didn’t look like there was time to be putting bullets into one, either. I handed her my own M4.

“Use it! I shouldn’t have fired all my shots yet.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll get the hat out of our luggage, so you keep watch while I do it!”

“...Okay. Listen, look towards the sea first.”

I turned back, and I realized hunks of meat were washing up from out in the open sea, one after another. There were already some that had been beached here and there, and they were peeling under their own weight. They were all covered in some sort of long hair, and there were exposed bones sticking out of the torn meat.

Globsters... That’s what unidentified chunks of meat that washed up on the shore were called. They could also be called whale blubber or the remains of unknown creatures, and several real instances of them had been documented, so this was not really a ghost story, it was more in the realm of marine biology or cryptozoology.

When the light from the lighthouse slid along the beach, the globsters illuminated by it began to bubble and writhe. What had looked to be no more than hunks of dead flesh trembled, then they sprouted eyestalks like those of a crab, legs like those of a caterpillar, and a variety of other unidentifiable organs.

“Isn’t that just too gross...?”

They seemed to take exception to my vague mumbling, and the many eyes that had issued forth from the surface of the meat turned towards me. I shuddered and looked away.

There was no place on this beach that was safe now. I dug my hand into our bags and fished around, grabbing the Ziploc bag that the hat was in and pulling it out.

I opened the bag, extracted the hat, and unfolded it. The silver halo around this foreign object Hasshaku-sama left us was the only tool available to us now.

“What do we do? Put it on and run?”

I shook my head in response to Toriko’s question. “I dunno if we can use it to escape into the surface world or not. Besides, that’d take too long!”

“Then...”

My mind raced. I had hypothesized this silver light that I saw on objects from the other world and glitches represented a point where the two worlds touched. The first time we had visited Kisaragi Station, we had caught this light to return to the surface world.

Then, could this hat be the same?

I turned the hat inside out and laid it on the floor.

“If we use it right, I think we can make this hat into a gate. Try grabbing just the outer edge of the brim.

“Like this...?” Toriko grabbed the halo with clumsy fingers. I placed my own hand atop her quivering left hand.

“Move your hand like I do,” I said, then carefully guided Toriko’s fingers. Counter-clockwise, like a vortex.

“This is it? It’s okay?”

“It’s fine. Focus on your fingers. Don’t move your hand away from mine.”

With my eye, I could see her translucent fingers unraveling the light. Along with that light, the structure of the hat itself came apart in a spiral shape. It was like peeling an apple.

Nearby, the globsters were growing legs and staggering to their feet. Up above our heads, creatures with voices like a crow’s formed a flock, and they screamed as they circled overhead. The light from the lighthouse was closing in over the sand. If that light ever shone on us, I couldn’t help but imagine terrible things would happen to us.

“So-Sorawo. The hat—”

It seemed even with Toriko’s eyes, she could see the hat was coming apart into a bizarre shape. The finished vortex had no bottom. Looking into it, my eyes were sucked towards the center. The space around it was all drawn in.

I felt my body tilting, and then the two of us fell.

There was a sudden impact against my back, making me groan.

I hurriedly got up, and my eyes darted around. It was the beach—but not the same one as before. The sky was the reddish purple of just after the sun set. The chirping of insects flooded my ears all at once. This was the surface!

Next to me, blinking as she lay on top of the sand, was Toriko. Then things started falling around us with a thud. The parasol and deck chairs, the cooler box, and our luggage and guns.

Snapping to my senses, I searched for Hasshaku-sama’s hat. Where—where is it?! I turned around in a frenzy, and was shocked. There was a big spiral-shaped hole in midair, and I could see the beach in the other world through it. The shore was illuminated by the sinister light of the lighthouse, and black shadows stood amidst ominous hunks of meat.

As I stood there frozen, the gate in midair gradually shrank, and then vanished without a trace.

“W-We’re saved...?” said Toriko, who was lying on her side, out of breath. It seemed she hadn’t seen what was on the other side of the gate.

“...It looks like we made it out. Somehow,” I responded.

Toriko covered her face with her hands, and let out a long sigh.

“Wheeew, I thought we were totally screwed this time.” Toriko groaned in mental and physical exhaustion. “Where is this...?”

“Dunno... Somewhere in Okinawa, I guess,” I answered offhandedly.

It was entirely possible it wasn’t, though. I had the faint sense it was quieter than Okinawa here, and the air was clearer, too. It might not be one of the main islands, but a remote one. If I took my smartphone out of our luggage and checked a map app, I could find out in no time, but I didn’t feel like it.

The moon was in the sky. In the distance, I could hear the cheering of people watching fireworks, and music playing from a loudspeaker. Far from the shore, fireworks of all colors flickered in the sky. It was the first time I’d ever been so happy to see strangers out, enjoying themselves on a summer night.

Looking down at a dazed Toriko, my eyes moved to the cooler lying beside her.

“Hey... You wanna drink what’s left of the booze?”

“Uh, sure. I’m in. I don’t think I can do anything but drink in this mood.”

I was pretty sure we had already drunk a lot, but I was feeling totally sober.

Opening the cooler, I pulled out the last can of Orion Beer. I pulled the tab to open it, and reflexively drank the fizz that came out. I followed up by knocking it back for a sip, then passing it to Toriko. Toriko sat up, tilted the can, and drank it with a satisfied groan. One sip, then two sips, then three.

“Whew... Beer tastes good when you’re alive to drink it.”

“You said it.”

We sat on the sand, sharing a single can of beer, and looking up to the moon of the southern lands.

“Hasshaku-sama’s hat is gone. I was gonna make Kozakura buy it off me, too.”

“Ohh. That’s too bad, huh? But it did get us back here.”

“Well, sure. But what do I do now? I’m out of money. I splurged and bought a swimsuit, and there’s the cost of a hotel, and the flight back...”

As I clutched my head, Toriko comfortingly clapped me on the shoulder.

“I’m telling you, you’ll be fine. It’s all going to work out somehow.”

“You say somehow, but how exactly?”

“You can head back to the other world, and pick up something again, can’t you?”

“After what we just went through, how can you still say that?!” I said, giving voice to my exasperation, despite not meaning to.

But, well... I guess Toriko will be going, huh?

And, no matter what kind of frightening situation I go through, I probably will, too.

I listened to the gentle waves wash up against the sandy beach. When I handed Toriko the now much lighter can, a small silver glimmer caught my eye. Turning around, there was something under the tilted umbrella.

I picked it up, and it turned out to be a little spiral shell, maybe five centimeters long, and transparent like glass. I peered through it, and I could see a long, long spiral that it felt like you could fall down forever. It was dizzying, and I hurriedly averted my eyes.

“Whoa, pretty.” Toriko looked at my hands.

“Be careful, okay? This looks like an object from the other world.”

“Really? Well, let’s get Kozakura to buy it, then.”

“Huh? Uh, sure.”

“See, it worked out somehow.”

I gave Toriko the side-eye as she emptied the can with a self-satisfied look on her face.

She’s just saying whatever... I thought, but I was struggling with the question of whether or not to tell Toriko what I had just seen through the gate.

Just before the hole that connected this side and the other side closed, on the beach in the other world—in the sea where that massive stone fortress loomed, darker than the dark sky behind it, green lights began to appear. The lights grew explosively in number, and it was soon as bright as the starry sky.

That sky of green stars outlined the figure of someone on the beach. It was a tall, long-haired silhouette I recognized.

Satsuki Uruma.

Standing alone on that beach was the woman who had vanished into the other world. The one Toriko was seeking.