File 8: Little Bird in a Box

1

“Karateka’s been insufferable since then,” I grumbled between sips of red wine, causing Toriko, who was on the other side of the table from me, to raise an eyebrow.

“Karateka?”

“That girl, the one who said she does karate...”

We were at a wine bar near the Junkudo in Ikebukuro. It was the middle of the week, but the dimly lit establishment was filled with customers. In one corner of a place where there were young couples having a lively time, we were having a quiet after-party of our own.

“Err, her name was Akari Seto, right?”

“Wow. You’ve got a good memory, huh. I’d already forgotten.”

“That’s pretty awful of you.”

“Whatever, she’s Karateka to me.”

Our last expedition to the other world... or rather, that interstitial space between the surface world and the other world, was with my kouhai at university, Akari. Akari Seto, who did karate. I received a request from her, and after that we wandered into a town of cats where we ended up on the run from ninja cats. Meeeeowch.

“I mean, she was asking me stuff like, ‘Senpai, do you have spirit sense?!’ from the very beginning, so I kind of had a hunch, but it seems she was interested in this kind of stuff all along. Ever since then, she calls me all the time, and shows up whenever I go to the cafeteria. I’m sick of having her bug me all the time.”

“Sounds like she’s taken a liking to you. Why not remember her name, at least?”

“I wouldn’t mind a dog or cat following me around, but when it’s a person, it’s just a hassle to deal with.”

“Hmm. Do you remember my name?”

“Of course I do.”

“Try and say it?”

“...Nishina-san.”

“Oh, my. It feels a little fresh to hear it like that, Kamikoshi-san.”

There was a wooden plate covered with raw ham in front of us, and Toriko picked up a slice with her translucent fingers. She would wear gloves, even while eating, in places where people might see her, but when we had a seat in the back like this, or a private room, she often took them off.

I called them translucent, but they weren’t completely invisible. The way they shone in the surrounding light made it apparent there were fingers there. Though, if you stared at them hard enough, the outline became vague, and it felt like they had dissolved into the air.

As I watched her mystical left hand taking a piece of ham and carrying it to her mouth, it made me worry my own feet might vanish like that.

“...How about using a fork?”

“Is this bad manners?”

Toriko turned her chin upwards, swallowing the meat, then licking her fingers.

“You’re like an animal.”

“Am I, meow?”

“You like punctuating your sentences with a meow?”

“I like the funny face you make when I do it.”

“You’re a nasty one, Nishina-san.”

We both tilted our glasses back. This bubbly red wine, which we had been told went well with raw ham and salami, was fruity, and didn’t have a high alcohol content, so it went down easy. It almost wasn’t strong enough.

“You could’ve brought Karateka-chan along today.”

“Are you serious?”

“The more the merrier, you know?”

“No way... I could never relax with her around.” I scowled, and Toriko guffawed.

“Is she following you around that doggedly?”

“It turns out Karateka lives pretty close to my place. I mean, if you think about it, we’re going to the same university, so that’s not that strange, though. She’ll come up to me, going ‘Senpai, Senpai,’ being all friendly, and since she knows I’ve got a gun, I can’t be too rude to her.”

“Heehee.”

Here I was, telling her my problems seriously, and Toriko went and chuckled.

“Is something funny?”

“I was just thinking how you’ve changed. You’ve got a friend other than me now!”

“She... She’s not my friend, okay?! Who’d be friends with that!”

Toriko’s eyes narrowed as I protested. Like she was watching me warmly...

Huh? What is this? I’m being misunderstood here, aren’t I?

Feeling a pressure I didn’t quite understand, I rejected what Toriko was saying. “Listen, this isn’t me being a tsundere, or anything like that. I’m saying it because I’m genuinely irritated.”

“Where’s the harm? You don’t have to be so cold. It’s good to have someone who adores you.”

“Whoa, let me stop you right there. That’s what people say to stalking victims when they just don’t get it.”

“Really? Because this is the first I’ve heard you gripe about another person, or give them a nickname.”

“Sure, maybe that’s true, but let me gripe, at least!”

“Listening to people complain isn’t something I’m all that good at, you know?” Toriko said with a smug look on her face, and I glared at her.

Toriko pretended not to notice the look I gave her, snatching up another slice of salami with her fingers.

What was it? Something felt different from usual.

Oh, yeah! Normally, she ordered more than we could eat at the very beginning, but this time she was being uncharacteristically restrained. She hadn’t ordered more than the initial wine and the ham and salami plate.

“Want to order more?” I asked.

“Mmm. I’ll leave it up to you.”

...Yeah, something was weird.

I could imagine the reason: Toriko had Satsuki-san on her mind.

I hadn’t heard the name Satsuki Uruma from Toriko in a while. I thought she might have gotten over her, but that wasn’t it. Unexpectedly hearing Satsuki’s name come out of Akari’s mouth must have bothered her. I mean, she didn’t leave her house at all for a while after our last expedition. Toriko’s heart was held captive by her still missing “friend.”

Suddenly concerned, I asked, “Hey, Toriko... You aren’t going to go off on your own again, like before, right?”

Toriko looked up at me in surprise. “Whaaaat? Where’s this coming from, out of nowhere?”

When I stared back at her, Toriko put on an insincere smile, then shook her head.

“It’s okay, I get it. I won’t do that ever again. It’s fine.”

Her tone was less than reassuring.

I was reminded of about a month ago, after we escaped from the beach in the other world, and we came out on Ishigaki Island. That time, I spotted a figure that looked like Satsuki-san on the other side of the gate. Even though Toriko, who would want to know that more than anyone, was right beside me at the time, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. Ever since, I had been dragging things out, unable to say it, up until now.

Should I tell her? Is the fact that I saw her precious friend, the one she adores so much she would risk her own life for her without question, something I ought to tell her?

I thought about it as I watched Toriko empty her glass, a look on her face like she had left half her heart someplace else.

...Screw that. No way am I telling her.

For one thing, she was on that monster-infested beach, so that thing had to be some monster from the other side that just looked like Satsuki-san. That’s how it was with the windmill woman. Even if she looked human in my right eye, I couldn’t let my guard down. I had already seen proof that some of these guys didn’t change between my left and right vision.

Yeah, I’m better off not saying anything. I need Toriko to forget all about Satsuki-san.

Damn Akari Seto... she just had to open her big mouth.

Karateka is good enough for her after all.

2

The next day, we were in Kozakura’s yard, preparing for an expedition. It was the first trial run for the agricultural machine I had bought while drunk out of my mind on Ishigaki Island, Tobacco Control Work Vehicle AP-1.

“I put in the gasoline, Sorawo.” Toriko put a cap on the fuel tank and looked up.

“Okay. I’ll give it a go.”

Following the manual, I started the engine. This was my first time, so I didn’t know what I was doing. I don’t know how many minutes I struggled with it for, but eventually there was a good vroom from the engine, and it started up.

“I did it!”

“Congrats!”

As we celebrated, Kozakura was watching us from the doorway, an unamused look on her face.

Having learned that there was a gate on her front doorstep, of all places, Kozakura was pretty disappointed, as you might expect. I thought she would flip out more, but it seems shock won out over anger. When I was hesitantly making my report to her, she was like a machine stuck on repeat, just saying, “Are you serious?” “Why is this happening?” and “It’s just not fair,” over and over. Then, after chasing me out of her house, she didn’t answer her phone for days.

When I sat in the seat on the right, Toriko put her butt down in the seat on the left without another word. The body of the vehicle was shaped like a square arch, and behind it were two seats, with me on the right, and Toriko on the left. Normally, the ridge of a tobacco field was supposed to go under that arch as we drove, so there was a gap of just under a meter between us.

“Try making it go, Sorawo.”

“Hold on a sec... Is this it?”

When I moved both the left and right treads with levers at the same time, the AP-1 began slowly moving forward. I pulled the levers back, and it reversed. If I moved just one, it turned. Simple. The speed was relaxed, too, so even I could drive it.

“This is top speed? Talk about leisurely.”

“Well, yeah, I mean, it was originally a work vehicle used in the fields.”

In fact, the catalog specs gave it a top speed of just 3 kilometers per hour. It was faster to walk. The benefit to this was we didn’t have to.

“Isn’t this space in the center kind of a waste?” Toriko said dubiously after leaning in and looking at the gap in the middle of the vehicle’s body.

“Yeah. How about we buy hooks or something, and hang our luggage there?”

There was a shelf we could place things on up top, and the tops of the left and right treads were empty, too. Where would be the most convenient spot for a rifle? Starting to get excited, I looked all over the vehicle.

The only thing we had loaded on it this time was a blue sheet, which we could use to cover it when we were on the other side, but the AP-1 was originally intended to carry things like tobacco seedlings, tanks of agricultural chemicals, and harvested tobacco. Despite its appearance, it was tougher than you might think. That AP in its name, which stood for All Purpose, was there for a reason, and it looked like we were going to be able to put it to a variety of uses. Though, I’m sure the people who designed it never imagined it would be used for expeditions into an unfamiliar world like this.

We took it for a spin around the yard which was overgrown with weeds, then brought it back to the front door. Was this enough of a test drive? I stopped the AP-1 for a moment, and looked down at Kozakura’s sour face from on top of the vehicle.

“Okay, we’re heading out now.”

“I’m amazed you two can go there so lightheartedly...” Kozakura said in exasperation.

“We’re just going to leave this over there this time. We’ll be right back.”

“That line’s a death flag if I ever heard one.”

“What, so you don’t mind me leaving this here forever?”

“Of course I mind.”

“I don’t think there’s any reason you should be complaining then, is there?”

“Kozakura’s concerned for us, Sorawo,” Toriko said. Kozakura’s face got even more sour.

“Oh, I’m concerned... Yeah, there really is something wrong with the two of you. How can you go into that scary place so willingly?”

When Toriko and I looked at one another, Kozakura let out a deep sigh.

“Oh, never mind. It’s too late for this. Don’t go bringing anything weird back with you. This is my house, after all...”

I couldn’t blame Kozakura for being unenthusiastic. She was now able to go out her front door and, with a zero-minute walk, encounter the risk of being dragged into the other world.

From what I was able to figure out investigating it with Toriko, the gate here was usually closed, and we couldn’t just go through it as is.

Basically, as long as Toriko didn’t force it open with her left hand, it ought to be safe, but... the first time this gate opened was when the three women appeared. There was no telling when that might happen again, and monsters from the other world would ring Kozakura’s doorbell.

In fact, the results of our investigation had done little to reassure Kozakura. Well, I just hoped that Ponpoko (her ceramic raccoon) could help distract her from her fears, and keep her spirits up. I mean, having a stable gate right here like this was super convenient for me and Toriko...

For now, the location of the gate was marked with some gardening poles. The green-colored poles were thrust into the ground three meters apart. I thought it might be nice if we planted some morning glories while we were at it, but it wasn’t in my interest to risk getting Kozakura angry by saying something I didn’t have to, so I kept quiet.

“Sorawo, are we good to go?”

“Should be. Could you get the gate?”

“Okay.”

Toriko got down from her seat, standing in front of the two poles. While she was doing that, I adjusted the direction of the AP-1, making it face the front of the gate. On the other side of the poles, Kozakura sullenly watched over us.

“All right... Here I go.” Toriko took off her left glove, slowly bringing the tips of her fingers towards the area between the two poles.

In my right eye, it looked like the space warped as Toriko touched it. Her clear fingers stroked a surface that looked both like a silky fabric and smooth skin.

Her fingers hesitated, pulled away for a moment, then approached again, slightly bolder in their probing than before. Her hand stopped, and the five fingers grasped the membrane that separated the two worlds. Her arm swung quickly, like she was pulling back a curtain, and then, the moment after, a gate opened right there.

Three meters wide, three meters high. There, between the poles, almost a perfect square had been cut out of space. On the other side of the open gate was a windswept green meadow.

“H-Hey... Are you all right?”

I heard Kozakura’s surprised voice, so I leaned over to look at her past the pole, and her eyes bugged out in surprise.

“Eww, gross!”

“What did you say? How rude.”

“No... I had lost sight of you two from here. Now all I can see is your disembodied head sticking out past the pole.”

Oh, that made sense. Kozakura couldn’t see the gate from her side, so did that mean she couldn’t see what was on the other side of the gate, too?

“Hey, is this good?” Toriko turned back and asked me. I nodded.

“Okay. I’m going to drive forward, so be careful.”

I stuck my head out around the edge of the pole one more time and waved. Kozakura made a disgusted face as she saw us off.

Driving the AP-1 forward, the lukewarm wind of the other world’s plains brushed my cheeks. The wind grew stronger as the small treads rolled forward, crushing the weeds and pebbles beneath them. The moment we passed through the gate, my field of vision opened up, and a grassy plain spread out around me. Continuing forward, both seats passed the poles, and the vehicle fully entered the other world.

Toriko called out from behind me.

“Sorawo! Can I close this?”

“Ah! Hold on, wait!”

I hurriedly stopped the AP-1 and got down from the vehicle. I wanted something marking the location of the gate not just on the surface side, but on the other side, too. I fetched a gardening pole from the roof rack, looked to the side of the gate—and was gobsmacked. In the middle of the plains, there were already two poles standing there.

...Two aged totem poles.

Not proper ones, like Native Americans might have built. There was no style to the vertical column of faces; they were like the crude drawings of a child. The surface of the wood was falling apart, as if it had been exposed to wind and rain, and what paint remained on it was faded.

“Why...?”

These things weren’t here the last time I came to this place. While I was blinking, Toriko came through the gate, still holding onto the space, and said, “Do you think when we planted the poles on the surface, these things grew up on this side? With the other gates, there’s always been something or other standing on this side, hasn’t there?”

True... It was hard to imagine someone on this side “constructed” the skeletal building on the other side of Jinbouchou’s elevator. Maybe, when the surface and the other side were connected, some geographical feature that looked right for a gate would be automatically generated in the other world.

“Hey, we’re good now, right? Is it okay if I close it?”

“Oh, sorry. Go ahead.”

Toriko, who had been holding the gate open until now, opened her left hand. The pleat in space rippled back into place, and the gate was closed. Kozakura’s yard, which we had been able to see through the window in space, vanished.

The two of us stood side-by-side, looking out over the silent plains. It was a fine day in the other world. Bathed in the heavy sunshine, the green of the grass looked pale. There was a small hill to the east of the gate. When Kozakura and I spontaneously entered the other world, we had climbed it to get the lay of the land.

Toriko drew her Makarov and shifted the slide, checking her bullets before returning it. We had both come lightly equipped, without our assault rifles. Like I had told Kozakura, our goal for today was simply to transport the AP-1.

“It doesn’t look like there’s anything around, so where do we park it?” Toriko asked.

“I guess just wherever for now, and we’ll put the sheet over it. I wish we had a garage, though...”

“Want to build a shed?”

“You think we could manage with just the two of us?”

“I dunno. Should we get Karateka-chan to help?”

I got back in my seat without answering that one. I started the engine back up, and began driving the AP-1 towards the hill.

“Huh? Hold on, wait up!” Toriko cried, hopping aboard the AP-1 which had started to move.

“...That’s dangerous.”

“Well, I thought you were gonna leave me behind.”

Toriko peered at my face from the side, but I didn’t look her in the eye.

The conversation died and stayed that way as the AP-1 slowly crawled up the hill. We reached the summit, and the marshland that was on the other side of the hill came into view.

I stopped the AP-1, and Toriko got off. Shading her eyes with her hands, she looked around the area.

“Oh! That’s the skeletal building that comes from Jinbouchou? Hmm, so that’s how it’s connected.”

“You shouldn’t look for too long. There’s Kunekunes in that waterlogged patch of grass down there.”

“Then, the place I first met you is... Over there, maybe?”

Those words caught my attention, and I looked up despite myself.

Toriko turned around, as if she’d known I would, and our eyes met. Come over here, she beckoned me. I got down from my seat, feeling somewhat less than amused, and trod over the grass to where Toriko was.

“Look. It’s around there, where the water stops, right?”

“I couldn’t say. It’s not like there were any landmarks.”

“There’s a place where the grass breaks, isn’t there? I think that’s the footpath where the corpse was. It must’ve been near there.”

“Hmm...?”

I squinted, still not convinced. “Remind me, how long has it been since the two of us first met again?” Toriko asked.

“It was in May, so... It hasn’t even been three months.”

I surprised myself, saying that. Three months? That couldn’t be right, could it?

“Just three months, huh...” Toriko’s whisper sounded bewildered, too. “Somehow, it feels like I’ve been with you way longer, Sorawo. It’s weird.”

“Y-Yeah.”

Starting to feel a little uneasy, I looked at Toriko. Her downcast eyes made her look unusually sorrowful.

“...Sorawo, why is it you come along with me anyway?”

“Huh?”

“You’re not even remotely interested in Satsuki, right? Yet you’re willing to come to this dangerous place with me, a person you didn’t meet all that long ago. Why is that?”

You gonna ask me that now, after all the close brushes with death we’ve been through together?

“...Well, I want to explore, too. I was drawn to the other world even before I met you, after all,” I said, and then, mumbling, added: “Besides, you know, we’re f... friends, and all.”

“Thanks. But...”

But? But what?

“I wonder if it’s okay for me to monopolize your attention like this.”

“...What do you mean?”

“I’ve been thinking about it ever since last time, with the cats. You seem to get along with Kozakura, and Akari, too. You worked hard to rescue the U.S. forces, and you were super high-strung when we were drinking in Naha. Normally, you’d interact with all sorts of other people, and it would expand your world, but if you’re with me, I worry I’d be stealing that potential from you.”

“No, that’s not true... I’m shy, so, if I’m being honest, I don’t want my world expanded too much.”

“Hmm, that’s definitely a real waste,” Toriko said, cutting me off. “I was that way a long time ago. For all this time, since I first met Satsuki, she was all that was important to me, you see. I had no interest in anyone else.”

“Hmm. Well, well.”

I gave a lazy response, but then it occurred to me.

“What about Kozakura-san? When did you get to know her?”

“After Satsuki disappeared. You know how Kozakura always is, right? She’s easy to get along with without having to keep up pretenses, so we became friends as we kept in contact. I had met her before then, too, but neither of us was interested in the other.”

As I listened, I gradually started to feel lonely. If I had met Toriko back then, it’s questionable whether she would have even noticed me.

“When Satsuki vanished, honestly, I had no idea what to do anymore. I was suddenly all alone—it was terrifying. It still is. Even though you and Kozakura are there for me. I’ve been frightened all this time, continually searching for Satsuki.”

Toriko hesitated for a bit before she continued. “Hey, Sorawo. Listen, if I were to vanish—”

“Stop it. We had a promise.”

“I won’t up and disappear on my own. But wandering around in this dangerous place, we never know what might happen.”

You’re not being fair, I thought. She was bringing up something we both knew, something we had an unspoken understanding about.

The wind formed ripples on the water in the marsh below. Even I couldn’t tell if there were glitches beneath the water from here.

As I was unable to speak, Toriko continued. “If I were to disappear, Sorawo, I worry you might end up like me. I’m the one who dragged you into searching for Satsuki, and I do sort of feel responsible for it. Sure, you may be shy, but I’ve seen you can talk to people... I think it would be good if you made other friends, too, you know?”

“I don’t need them.”

“The way things are going, I’m going to ruin your life, then leave it that way. I don’t want that.”

No. Toriko, you’re wrong.

I wanted to argue back, but my unreliable head was spinning uselessly, and not one clever retort came to me.

Toriko suddenly smiled, then turned around and started walking.

“Shall we? We’re leaving the car and heading back, right? I’m sure Kozakura’s worried.”

“Oh... Yeah.”

As Toriko walked back towards the AP-1, all I could do was follow her with my eyes, still unable to think of anything.

3

We passed between the totem poles and returned to the surface world. Compared to the somewhat blurry sunlight of the other world, the sunlight in the surface world was unrelenting, and it cast thick shadows on the ground. My shadow was chasing after Toriko’s shadow, which was in front of me; the fact that we weren’t side-by-side made me feel lonely.

When I looked up, there was a black car stopped in the yard. It was clearly a luxury car, and the body was polished to the point where you could probably see your face reflected in it.

I panicked, thinking that someone might have seen us come out of the gate, but when we approached it became apparent there was no one inside the vehicle.

“She’s got a guest,” Toriko murmured.

“The car looks expensive. Think they’re with the yakuza?” I said without any real thought.

“I think it’s pretty childish that you immediately associated an expensive car with the yakuza,” Toriko said plainly.

I had no retort.

“F-Fine, I’m sure I’m just a child.”

“That response is childish, too.”

“Urgh...”

Toriko’s sure in a bullying mood today...

While I was thinking about it, Toriko pulled out her smartphone, and started dialing.

“Oh, hey? We’re back, but I see you’ve got a visitor. Should we stay out of the house? ...Oh, sure. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah, I know. Later.” Toriko hung up, then turned to me. “She says we can come in. Just make sure we put our guns away.”

“Oh... I see.”

I took off the holster with the Makarov still in it, and stuffed it in my bag before we headed towards the house.

When we opened the door, a large pair of black shoes had been left at the entrance. Men’s shoes. Toriko and I looked at each other before taking off our own shoes and going inside. We could hear Kozakura’s voice from the doorway on the left side of the hall.

“We’re over here. Come on in.”

The door was always closed, so I hadn’t seen the inside of this particular room before. I peered in through the open door, seeing that it was a reception room with a carpet. Kozakura and an unfamiliar man were sitting across from one another at a set of sofas with a table in the middle.

The man turned towards us, stood, and bowed.

“I apologize for the intrusion.”

He was a tall man with long arms and legs. He had a thin face with sunken cheeks, and his long, curly hair was neatly set in place. His tailored three-piece suit looked expensive. He looked like he might be in his thirties, but the mature way in which he carried himself made it hard to be sure of his age.

“Oh, uh, hey...”

“Hello.”

I gave a bewildered nod of my head, while Toriko’s greeting was more neutral.

“Kozakura, who is this...?” I asked.

“I told you before, didn’t I? There’s a civilian organization that researches the other world. He’s from there.”

Following Kozakura’s introduction, the man produced a business card.

“It is a pleasure to meet you. You are Kamikoshi-sama and Nishina-sama, I believe? I have heard of you. I am Migiwa of the DS Lab.”

The card I was handed read: General Incorporated Foundation — DS Research Encouragement Association — Director — Ichirou Migiwa.

“Ohh, then the person who’s been buying the foreign objects we bring back from the other world is...”

“Yes, that is correct. I have come here today to pick up another,” Migiwa said, indicating the briefcase on the table.

“It’s the infinite seashell you brought in earlier, Sorawo-chan. Aren’t you glad? You can eat well now,” Kozakura said teasingly. There was a large paper bag at her feet. It didn’t look like a bunch of sweets she was going to give us to take back home... Maybe it was a bundle of bills? Kozakura always paid me in cash, after all.

“I am told that you two have traveled to the UBL and returned alive several times now. It is an honor to meet you.”

“Uh, thanks.” I gave a vague response, not sure what that was an abbreviation for.

“What’s UBL mean?” Toriko asked.

“Ultrablue Landscape—I believe you two call it the other world.”

A chill ran down my spine. Ultrablue. There was no way he wasn’t referring to that blue light.

“Okay, what’s DS short for?”

It took Migiwa a moment before he answered Toriko’s question this time.

“...Dark Science.”

“Dark Science?!” I couldn’t help but loudly parrot back. The Dark Science Research Encouragement Association? What was that supposed to be?

Toriko and I looked at one another. I was relieved to find she was just as confused as I was. If I was asked whether it sounded cool or not, I’m not sure what I would have answered.

Migiwa smiled wryly as he continued. “I know it has a slightly sinister ring to it. That was simply the naming sense of the times when it was founded, you see... It seems ‘dark science’ was meant to refer to the unknown areas of science.”

“When was it founded?”

“In the early nineties. Nowadays you might call it marginal science, trans-science, or non-traditional science.”

Honestly, none of those sounded all that different to me.

I grew wary. This guy wasn’t with a cult, was he? The moment someone started talking about “unknown fields of science,” you could more or less guarantee it was pseudoscience, and the large amounts of cash changing hands supported the idea there was something shady going on.

“Does Satsuki belong to the association, too?” Toriko asked in a low voice.

Migiwa nodded. “Yes. Satsuki Uruma-san is a guest researcher at the DS Lab. She headed into the other world, and brought back more objects than anyone had before. It is disappointing that she has vanished, and I am worried about her, too.” he said quietly. Toriko leaned in.

“I have a request. Could you take me to your lab? I want to find a hint about where Satsuki went.”

Seriously...?

Seeing the way that Toriko looked at Migiwa, as if clinging to him in desperation... I felt bitter.

Get it together, Toriko. What if this guy’s a cultist? Don’t you have any sense of danger? You’ll do anything to search for Satsuki-san?

“Well...”

Migiwa was hesitant, but Toriko kept pushing. “I didn’t find out Satsuki was working at a lab until just recently. Is there anything you can tell me, no matter how small?”

In a moment of realization, I raised my hand. The way things were going, Toriko was going to go there alone if she had to. “M-Me, too! I’ll go to the lab, too!” I cried out, my voice going shrill, and Toriko turned to look at me.

“You sure?”

“You bet I am.”

That I was thinking, Don’t ask me that, was apparent from my tone.

“Why are you mad?”

“I’m not mad.”

“...I guess I have no choice. I’ll go, too.”

It was my turn to be surprised upon hearing that. Toriko looked shocked, too.

Even though she’d volunteered on her own, Kozakura let out a weary sigh. “I can’t just hand over two idiots and pretend that whatever happens isn’t my problem. I’ll be coming along as a chaperone. All right?”

That last question was directed at Migiwa. “You are sure about this?”

Migiwa still seemed undecided, but Kozakura nodded. “Yeah. Let them see... where encounters of the fourth kind lead.”

There was a determination in Kozakura’s voice. Migiwa finally nodded, then turned back to Toriko and me. “Very well. I should have been the one to extend the invitation. Pardon my lack of consideration.”

“So, it’s okay?” Toriko asked.

“Yes. I would ask you all to accompany me.” Migiwa gave us a polite bow. Stealing a sidelong glance at Toriko as she nodded, her lips drawn taut, I couldn’t suppress a feeling of unease.

4

“Huh, is that a new car?” Kozakura said the moment we were outside.

“It is. A Mercedes AMG.”

“The S-class, right? You’re making bank.”

“It’s a company car.”

“It’s to your taste, though. You came here without a driver, too.”

That exchange between Kozakura and Migiwa was very frank. I could tell they had known each other for a while. Suddenly, a doubt arose in my mind. If the DS Lab was a cult, might Kozakura, who was close to Migiwa, be a follower...?

No, no. I shook my head, trying to dispel the irrational fear. It had been less than three months since I had first met Kozakura, but I had never detected that unique air of giddy restlessness that cultists had from this perpetual sourpuss.

When I realized I wanted to believe in Kozakura, I was perplexed. In my high school years, just the possibility of it would have been enough for me to distance myself.

Migiwa looked down at Kozakura with a smile. “I doubt the opportunity arises often, so would you like to try driving it?”

“You sure?”

“This is your driving we are talking about. I trust you.”

Migiwa pointed the smart key at the car to unlock it, then passed the key to Kozakura. She walked around to the driver’s seat, then cheerfully got in.

“Please, you two get in as well,” Migiwa urged us, and we got into the back seat. The seats were a whitish color, and felt so expensive as to be intimidating. Even the drink holder between the left and right seat seemed to sparkle with opulence.

“Wow, this sure is something, huh. Hey, Kozkaura, how much do you figure this car cost?” Toriko asked as she touched it all over.

“Hmm, twenty million yen?”

“T-Twenty...” As I gulped despite myself, Toriko started laughing.

“If we bring back, like, twenty foreign objects from the other world, we could buy one!”

“...You sure are optimistic, huh, Toriko.”

Migiwa got into the passenger seat and closed the door. When he turned back and looked at us over the seat, he spotted the large backpacks we were carrying.

“Would you like to put your luggage in the trunk?”

“We’re fine like this,” I said. Toriko nodded in agreement. The backpacks contained all the equipment we didn’t leave with the AP-1 earlier, as well as a change of clothes. It was a full set of equipment for exploring—which included a Makarov, and a disassembled assault rifle.

“You buckled up? We’re going,” said Kozakura, her seat leaned super far forward. It must have been hard for her to drive with her short stature, but unlike usual, she looked like she was having fun.

When the engine started, I felt an impressive vibration through my butt.

“Mmph,” Kozakura let out a weird noise as she stepped on the accelerator. The car rolled across the gravel, out of the yard, and onto the road, then began driving smoothly.

“How are you liking it?”

“It’s not bad.”

What was I to make of this relationship? It didn’t seem likely that they had been romantically involved in the past, or anything like that. This felt more like the bond between a parent and child, or a brother and sister.

Though, looking at it the opposite way, it was possible that her constant grumpiness was because the two of us didn’t get along, and this level of friendliness was normal for her...

As should have been apparent when she was allowed to take the wheel of a twenty-million-yen luxury sedan, Kozakura was a good driver. The engine sang as she effortlessly navigated Tokyo’s busy streets. I was surprised how fast she accelerated when the road was open in front of her and there was the opportunity to speed up. She was all hyped up, rather than being her usual lethargic self, so that worried me in other ways.

“I never knew you loved cars this much.” It seemed Toriko hadn’t known this side of her either.

“I haven’t ridden in one for a while,” Kozakura responded. “I had to let go of the one I had, too.”

“Why’s that?”

“Hmm? Driving on my own is boring.”

“Were you going for drives with someone else before?”

Just as Toriko asked that, the light turned green. When Kozakura stepped down on the accelerator without answering, Toriko and I were pressed back against our seats, letting out little screams.

After driving for forty minutes, we arrived at a glass-sided building in the business district near Tameike-sannou Station. This place was utterly foreign to me. My only impression of it was that the name Sannou, which meant “mountain king,” sounded strong. Also, since the name had Tameike in it, there was presumably a pond somewhere.

Across the road from the building, there was a massive stone torii gate and a wide set of stone stairs. It was apparently a large shrine, and I could see there was a copse of trees at the top of the stone stairs.

The car went into the building’s underground parking lot. Kozakura brought it to a stop in a corner where there was a row of luxury cars.

Once we all got out, Kozakura locked the vehicle and returned the key to Migiwa. “Yeah, it’s a good car. Thanks.”

“If you work with us here, you are welcome to drive it as much as you like.”

“It’s kind of you to offer, but I prefer to leave my house as little as possible.”

With Migiwa leading the way, we got aboard an elevator. Looking at the panel on the wall, every floor in this building was taken up by some institution called the “Kantou Next IT Worker’s Accident Insurance Association Physical Examination Center.”

Migiwa produced a key on a chain from his pocket, put it into a hole in the control board for the elevator, and turned it. A metal plate on the bottom of the panel slid open, revealing a small number pad which was separate from the normal buttons. Migiwa’s fingers raced across it with familiarity, and the elevator began to rise. The liquid crystal display that would usually show the floor number had vanished. When the elevator stopped and the door opened, I still had no idea how far we had gone up.

When we disembarked into the elevator hall, there was a red carpet laid out at our feet. The sides of the corridor were made of polished wood, and the antique-style lighting cast a soft light on the hall. The interior here made me think less of a research institute, and more of a luxury hotel with a long history.

We walked down the carpet, and on the other side of a pair of glass double doors there was an unmanned reception desk. There was no one in the reception room past there, either. The heavy wooden tables, the leather couches, and even the metal ashtrays—every piece of furniture felt high-class.

Following behind Migiwa, we continued further in past the reception room. I couldn’t sense anyone. Even though everything looked well maintained, I started to feel like I was in a ruin.

“It’s awfully quiet. Is this summer vacation, or something?” I asked.

“We do not really have a summer vacation,” Migiwa answered. “We try not to have too many people around, you see. Had I known you would all be coming, I would have arranged to have someone at the reception, and other staff on hand. I must apologize for my ineptitude.”

“N-No...”

It throws me off balance when he speaks so politely. It’s like this is work. These sorts of upper-class people really do exist, huh.

“I should note, this floor is almost entirely meeting rooms, offices, and other rooms where practical business is done. There is a small number of researchers and medical staff on the other floors.”

“You say you try not to keep too many people around, but why?” Toriko asked.

“There are cases where items from the other world exert negative effects on the human body and mind... I cannot imagine you were unaware of this, were you?”

Toriko and I looked at Kozakura.

“What’s that look for? As the person holding onto the objects, I’m in the same boat as you are.”

“You could have said something, couldn’t you?”

“Now, listen. Before you start worrying about whether the gifts you’ve been bringing back are dangerous, maybe put some thought into what it is you’re doing in the first place. Going to the other world is clearly going to have a far worse effect on your body and mind.”

“W-Well, yes, but... you’re the one who said you’d buy them from us!”

“Because I thought it was dangerous for you to have them! Here I am, acting out of concern for you, and you go and get carried away! I’m not a pawn shop or an antiques dealer, okay?!”

When Kozakura and I started arguing, Migiwa interjected. “Now, now... It is a fact that we want to collect UBL artifacts—foreign objects from the other world. Ever since I first heard about your discoveries, I had asked to be contacted if you found anything else.”

“What do you want to do with these artifacts? Do you think they’ll give you some lead in your study of the other world?” I asked. Migiwa got a troubled look on his face.

“It is true that we thought that at first. As an idea, that remains unchanged. However, the fact of the matter is...”

Halfway through speaking, Migiwa seemed to reconsider and trailed off. Kozakura got angry.

“That’s why we came, to show them the facts.”

“You are absolutely certain this is all right?” Migiwa checked, and Kozakura nodded.

For a moment, they looked at each other in silence. Eventually, Migiwa lowered his eyes and spoke.

“I understand. Kamikoshi-sama, Nishina-sama—I will show you the lower floors,” he said, turning his back towards us. When we looked at Kozakura, she thrust with her chin, as if to say, Get going already. Where did her good mood from before go?

We were led down two flights of stairs. After we passed through two doors, which were layered like an airlock, the smell of disinfectant assailed my nostrils. Unlike the floor above, here, bright fluorescent lights illuminated an inorganic corridor. As I was remembering, Come to think of it, there was something about a physical examination center written in the elevator... A man who was walking towards us from the opposite end of the corridor looked up from his tablet to see us. He had a shaved head and wore glasses and a white coat. “Migiwa. Did something happen?”

“I am showing some visitors around. Is everyone unchanged?”

The man in the white coat raised an eyebrow in surprise. “They’ve settled down. Don’t agitate them. Erm, visitors, please, don’t stare at their faces too much. Avoid talking loudly about their symptoms, too. Even if they don’t seem to be conscious, they may still be able to see and hear you, after all.”

Having said that, the man in the white coat walked away down the corridor.

“Is that all right?” Migiwa asked. I don’t know that I understood the situation, but I could at least tell that there were patients here with serious symptoms.

The corridor was lined with wide sliding doors at intervals. Each sliding door had a window facing into the corridor beside it, which allowed us to see inside the rooms. This felt less like a hospital, and more like a zoo or prison.

I peered through the first window. There was a simple room inside which only had a bed, desk, and chair. I couldn’t see anyone. For some reason, there was a mountain of waste paper, like someone had been using a shredder, piled in the corner.

“There’s no one in there, huh?” Toriko said in a low voice, but Migiwa shook his head.

“You will find them over there.” Migiwa was pointing to the mountain of shredded paper.

What is he saying? I thought suspiciously as I squinted. No, all I see is a pile of trash—

The very next moment, I jumped back away from the glass in surprise.

That wasn’t scrap paper. It was a huddled human being.

They had largely maintained human form, but the surface of their body—their skin, hair, face, and fingers—had turned into fine, dangling strips, and those strips were swaying gently. They looked like a human being that had been put through a shredder, but lacked the colors of flesh and blood.

“...What is that?” Toriko asked, then, noticing, in a tense whisper she asked, “Are they alive?”

“They are indeed alive, though I pity them for it. Their body has become exceptionally light, so the air conditioner always blows them into that corner of the room. I do not know whether they are conscious, but I pray not.”

His polite but disinterested explanation gave me the chills. Though he said they were alive, Migiwa spoke of this person almost as if they were already dead.

“How did they end up like that...?” I asked, unable to look away.

“It seems that they came into contact with some sort of anomaly in the UBL. There was nothing out of the ordinary when they first returned, but some days later, these symptoms suddenly developed...”

He used different terminology, but was Migiwa saying this person had stepped into a glitch in the other world?

“Is that enough? Let us move on to the next one.”

Remembering we had been told not to stare too much, I tore my eyes away from the person.

The next window was dark, illuminated with ultraviolet light. In the middle of a room with no furniture, there was a human figure standing straight. Their unmoving feet were buried up to their ankles in the bare dirt. From what I could see in the meager visible light, from the shoulders up, this person looked like a great sunflower. Their dish-like head, rimmed by wilted petals, or perhaps clumps of hair, was completely covered in mysterious bumps.

The next window was bright again, and the patient lay in their bed. There was a bookshelf up against the wall, and the top of the desk was kept orderly. The patient who was laying there was covered in translucent growths that sprouted from their entire body. They grew in no uniform shape, twisting upwards, then radiating outwards across the surface of the ceiling. I had a feeling they slightly resembled the horn-like things that grew out of me that time I almost got taken out by the Kunekune.

The next room was covered ceiling to floor in symbols and drawings that had been scrawled by hand. There was an emaciated man writing something in a frenzy. I was relieved to have finally found a patient we might be able to understand. I’d seen this kind of thing in movies before...

But that relief was blown away when I looked at the man’s hands. Thin, white, bug-like things crawled out from between his nails, writhing around on the ground before becoming written characters on their own.

“The DS Lab was originally founded to explore the unknown world named UBL. However, not long after we began our research, there was one victim after another. Organized expeditions were more or less ended, and our main objective shifted to protecting the victims and seeking ways to treat them,” Migiwa’s detached voice came down from above me.

“Then these people were originally...”

“Yes. These are people who entered the other world, and had something happen to them when they came into contact with an item that originated there. They include VIPs from companies involved in the founding of the DS Lab, as well as people connected to members of the Diet, their families, and even the members themselves. The reason the DS Lab continues to exist, even after losing its original purpose, is because of continued financial support from those sorts of people.”

That was a bit too much information... Though, I guess that worker’s accident insurance stuff was just a cover story so they could buy a medical facility, huh.

I turned to Kozakura, wanting to get her opinion. I had a feeling she’d been awfully quiet for a while now, and it turned out Kozakura was at the rear of the group, looking away from the windows. “Is this what you wanted to show us, Kozakura-san?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Kozakura said, scowling as she glared at a featureless wall. “Do you have some idea as to why I said I don’t want to go to the other world now?”

“Yeah... But you didn’t stop us from going, did you?” I said, and Kozakura’s eyes grew harsh.

“I’ve stopped expecting I can stop you. No matter how much I tell you not to, if you’re gonna go, you’re gonna go. It’s stupid. You’re idiots, both of you.” Kozakura’s voice was harsh. “This is enough. If you don’t feel a sense of danger after seeing all this, then it’s out of my hands,” she spat, then turned around.

“Have you two seen enough?” Migiwa asked, and there were no objections. Toriko and I nodded, then followed Kozakura, who had her shoulders raised in anger, back the way we came.

When I turned back one last time, perhaps because of the nearly blinding lights, the white hall of sick rooms seemed to extend farther than the eye could see, as if it went on forever.

5

Leaving the hospital floor, we took the elevator down this time. Unlike the pretty one that we took on the way up, this was more of a work elevator.

After descending a number of floors, we came to a floor displayed as “lab.” Once we had walked a short way down a corridor where the lights were kept as low as possible, Migiwa, who was leading the way, came to a stop.

“This was Uruma-san’s lab,” he said before opening the door. He flipped a switch on the wall, and the fluorescent lights flashed on, illuminating the room.

The ceiling was high, and there wasn’t a single window. The large desk was surrounded by steel shelves which were packed full of books. There was everything from maps and newspaper cutouts to fliers from real estate companies and concerts pinned to the wall, and there was a mess of sticky notes and strings tying the pins together.

Without a word, Toriko walked into the room on shaky legs. I followed behind her. Kozakura stood beside me, looking up at the bookshelves in silence.

“Will you be okay, Kozakura-san?” I asked her.

“How so?”

“It’s Satsuki-san’s room, right? Um...”

“Oh, I’ve been here a number of times already.”

“Oh... I see.”

“Both when Satsuki was still here, and after she vanished. I understand how Toriko feels, but rummaging through this room now isn’t going to uncover any new leads,” Kozakura said with a resigned smile on her face.

When Toriko reached the desk, she began pulling drawers open, flipping through the science magazines that had been left out on it, and moving around restlessly. If we left her to it, she was likely to turn this place upside down like it was a police raid.

Suddenly, she stopped. When Toriko turned back to look at us, she had a thick notebook of B5 size paper with a black leather cover. “What is this?”

“That would be Uruma-san’s research notes.”

As soon as she heard Migiwa’s answer, Toriko undid the clasp and opened the book.

She froze up.

“Huh...?”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I can’t read them...”

I took a peek and was surprised. It was true—they were completely unreadable. The neatly handwritten text was in a series of characters I was seeing now for the first time.

“Uruma-san encoded all her research notes using a script that she developed herself,” Migiwa explained.

“Why?” Toriko asked.

“It could be that she was wary of others stealing the fruits of her research. After she vanished, we attempted to decipher them, but found no success.”

“Kozakura! You can’t read these?” Toriko turned and asked. Kozakura shrugged her shoulders.

“If I could, I already would have. Just how many times do you think I’ve looked through those notes since Satsuki vanished?” Kozakura said. She lowered her eyes as if thinking about it pained her. “I even fantasized about her having left clues only I would understand. But it was all wasted effort. I’m sorry, but I don’t know a thing.”

“...I see.” Deflated, Toriko sat down in the desk chair. “Where could you have gone, Satsuki?” Toriko mumbled to herself, lovingly stroking the arm rests. I felt like I was watching something I shouldn’t, and looked away despite myself.

Toriko’s current mental state, and the sad husks of people who had experienced encounters of the fourth kind which I had just seen... Having been assaulted by these two worrying things at the same time, I was close to my limit.

“Are you quite all right? Pardon my saying this, but the color of your face looks...” Migiwa said, peering dubiously at my face.

“It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

Wiping the sweat from my brow, I looked up at Migiwa. After what he’d shown me on the floor above, who was he to ask if I was all right?

“Are you a researcher here, too, Migiwa-san? I dunno, it feels like there’s hardly any staff, so it’s hard to see this lab as being functional.”

Migiwa easily nodded. “It is as you say. I am merely what you might call the manager of this building. The worker’s accident insurance business we operate to camouflage this facility and procure funding is operating smoothly, and you will find many workers if you descend to those floors. However, as you have seen, the air on the lab floors is disturbed only by the air conditioning that we keep running to no real end.”

“It was the nineties when this place was established, right? How were things back then?”

“The DS Lab originated as a study group inside a certain large electronics manufacturer. That group, which started out with the goal of studying life sciences for the new era, discussed new age topics including qigong and free energy, and the practicality of them.”

The occult-tinged vocabulary that came up made me cringe. If I hadn’t just seen the victims of the other world upstairs, I’d have written these guys off as a cult then and there.

“This may sound surprising to you now, but at the time, there were a number of similar movements. Some were even led by the government. Not long after, there was a cult group that carried out a major terrorist attack. That created a sense of taboo around the occult, meaning these movements could no longer be public, but they survived in the inner circles of companies and political organizations. The DS Lab itself survived by embracing Diet members and other members of the government. Then, at some point...”

Migiwa looked around, as if thinking, and then continued.

“Are you familiar with the word tankou? These are the lights you see when you close your eyes. It is a word that originates in Sendou, a branch of internal alchemy. Through repeated practice of the microcosmic orbit, light appears behind the forehead, and focusing it allows you to open the third eye, they say.”

I’d never heard of it.

“It seems the same thing is discussed in yoga. As you meditate, you gradually begin to see the light, and depending on what chakras you have opened, the color of the light will differ.”

“Huh. Well, that sounds like a load of bollocks.” I frowned, but Kozakura shook her head.

“You really can see them. If you leave a human in the darkness, the brain will start fabricating lights that don’t exist. If you try to look at the back of your eyelids in a dark place, you’ll soon realize it’s not completely dark.”

“Ohh, is that right? Maybe I’ll try it.” Toriko sounded impressed. Kozakura scoffed.

“Don’t. Attempting the occult on your own is a shortcut to messing up your autonomic nerves. That goes especially for people like you two, whose sense of spiritual balance is already gone. You’ll break down in no time.”

I blinked and looked down at Kozakura. “Is that a fact?”

“When a human sees something, it is the output of information taken in by the sensory organs having been fed through the brain’s visual processing. If you interfere with that process along the way, it’s even possible to intentionally see illusions. When it comes to this tankou stuff, it’s not even a concrete image—it’s just light. But this isn’t a kind of processing we usually do consciously, so when you try to do it, it can go awry.”

“Is that like how when you consciously try to breathe, it’s actually harder?”

“Or how when you’re thinking about whether to keep the blankets over your chin, or under it, you can’t get to sleep?”

Kozakura gave a general nod to my and Toriko’s analogies before continuing.

“So, it’s simple to see tankou. It’s an experience anyone can have, so pop occult uses it as a sort of gateway drug, mixing internal alchemy and yoga as they make a business of it. Normally, it’s the seminar model, where you show people a slightly mysterious experience, then milk them for money, but there are also cases where it leads to induction into a destructive cult...”

Kozakura seemed to remember something as she looked at me, then at Toriko.

“You might not fall for it, Sorawo-chan, but, Toriko, you shouldn’t touch that stuff. With your weak will, one mystical experience and you might be taken in by a cult.”

“Whaa, isn’t that a little harsh? Am I that weak-willed?” Toriko said, sounding offended.

“You’re super easily hurt, and you’ll wag your tail and follow anyone you take a liking to. Not everyone in this world is as benevolent as I am.”

That harsh assessment made Toriko purse her lips. “I don’t follow people that easily. I choose people carefully.”

“I’m not so sure about that. Right, Sorawo-chan?”

“S-Sure...”

I could only give a half-hearted response, because I was distracted by the image of Toriko wagging her tail back and forth like a dog.

While I was trying to calm myself, Migiwa spoke up again. “I would not recommend it, either. There are those upstairs whose symptoms were brought on by doing that. In fact, it was tankou that led the DS Lab to discover the other world in the first place.”

According to Migiwa, this is how it happened: At the DS Lab, through the use of yoga and Sendou practices and meditation, they hoped to “expand the spirit.” I don’t know what that means, but... they started with mysticism and began going down the road to becoming a cult. However, along the way, something strange happened. The members who were meditating began to see strange scenes in their tankou.

A field of dried grass. Ruined buildings with unfathomable designs. Deep, dark woods. Beaches with white sand.

In these seemingly post-apocalyptic scenes, there were no people.

The number of people who had similar experiences gradually increased, and eventually there were those who entered the light.

The tankou they saw on those occasions was an exceptionally deep color of blue, so this world came to be called the Ultrablue Landscape—UBL.

“...So that’s what Satsuki was talking about. The blue light’s dangerous,” Toriko mumbled to herself. “But why blue? You said the light you see is silver, right, Sorawo?”

I nodded silently. If I thought back to the situations a blue light had approached us, it was all pretty dangerous. Like the time the windmill woman had lured us inside the room modeled on Toriko’s apartment, and on the beach just recently. It seemed certain that the blue light represented the “deep” regions of the other world. If that was the case, if they passed through this blue tankou, did that mean they made direct contact with that place...?

“I said that in yoga, the color of light changes depending on the chakras you’ve opened. In that system, the fifth chakra, in the throat, is blue, and the sixth chakra, in the forehead, is indigo. It may be that these traditional methods of mysticism include ways of contacting the other world—is what some in the DS Lab began to propose. No matter what literature we read, there was nothing similar to that bizarre field of grass, but no one paid any mind to that. Everyone was obsessed with this unknown world we had discovered.”

An ominous tone crept into Migiwa’s voice.

“The expeditions to the other world began, and it even became possible to bring back items from the other side. The researchers believed they had succeeded in materializing the spirit, and were ecstatic to discover these items behaved in ways inexplicable to established science. However...”

Their joy was short lived. Those who had made contact with the UBL developed psychological disorders. There were continued outbreaks of insanity and disappearances, and on top of that, individuals who experienced violent physical transformations appeared.

“Many of them died, and most of those who survived were in no state to ever live in society again. I believe you saw that earlier. Ever since, the DS Lab has made care of the victims of the other world our primary activity, and we continue to barely exist with the goal of finding some clue on how to treat them.”

“Treat them? You think you can cure anyone of that...?”

I spoke without thinking, and may have been insensitive. I closed my mouth when I realized that, but Migiwa replied without batting an eyelash.

“To tell you the truth, we still have no idea where to even begin treating them. That is why, in practical terms, the best we can do is something close to pain management... No, there are many cases where even that is not possible. That is because there are more than a few patients who are in a state where we cannot tell whether or not they are suffering. However, despite that, in the belief that researching the other world and items from there may, in the future, be of some use, the DS Lab continues its activities.”

My earlier wariness had faded, and at some point I found myself drawn into his story. If what Migiwa was telling us was true, they had entered the other world from a different route than we had. Though it seemed the outcome was terrifying.

“What was Satsuki doing?” Toriko asked.

“Uruma-san made contact with the DS Lab some years ago. She claimed to have a safer way of going to and from the other world, and did, in fact, bring UBL artifacts with her, so we prepared her a desk here as a researcher. However, we have made no headway on researching the many artifacts she brought to our warehouse.”

“I wonder where she found out about the other world. Do you know, Kozakura?”

“I don’t. When she roped me into this, Satsuki was already working with the DS Lab, but she took the more mundane approach of finding entrances to the other world in a variety of places. None of this mysticism stuff.”

“Yes, that is true. Her approach was completely different from ours. It seems she used places where bizarre phenomena occurred, or buildings that were prone to accidents as a means to enter the other world. She said it was common for creatures from the other world or artifacts to have leaked onto this side in such places.”

It was slightly different from my own style, where I found the door to the Otherside while exploring ruins, too. There might have been even more entrances to the other world than I thought.

“I might add, she was also recruiting promising individuals to expand her investigation of the other world. Were you one of them, Nishina-sama?”

When Migiwa said that, Toriko suddenly looked up.

“One of them?”

“Yes. I recall her telling me there were a number of young people she had her eye on.”

“...” Toriko was silent.

There were others? Satsuki had more pawns than just Toriko and Karateka?

I had decided to ignore everything involving Satsuki-san, but when I saw Toriko so dejected, it made my resolve waver a little.

Don’t make that face, Toriko.

Just forget that woman.

Unable to watch any longer, I was about to say something to her when Toriko looked at me as if an idea had just occurred to her.

“...That’s right. Sorawo, could you try reading these notes for me?”

“Huh?”

What is she saying? She must know I can’t read them.

I was confused, but Toriko leaned in closer to me.

“Have you forgotten your own right eye?”

“...”

“The writing from this side gets messed up when we go to the other world, right? But there is text we can read over there, too, isn’t there? What do you think would happen if we brought it back here?”

“No... Hold on a moment. You’re saying that’s what this is?”

I looked down at the black leather cover of the notebook Toriko was holding.

“I dunno, but it seems like something we could try, right? What if this script wasn’t created by Satsuki, and it came from the other world instead?”

The next thing I knew, it wasn’t just Toriko: Kozakura and Migiwa were staring at me, too.

“You’re saying that, with Sorawo-chan’s eye, we might be able to read it?”

“It’s just an idea I had.”

“That is an exceptionally fascinating idea, but it would mean Uruma-san was versed in the language of the other world, would it not?”

I backed away slowly as Kozakura and Migiwa stared at me. Toriko stood up, walking over to my side.

“Sorawo. Please.”

Unable to resist her desperately pleading eyes, I looked away.

“...Okay. Got it.” I took the notebook like she had asked. The black leather cover clung to my fingers.

If this didn’t work out, it wasn’t my fault. Not even Toriko would blame me. Despite that, I was afraid I was going to disappoint Toriko, and it depressed me.

“I’ll try, at least...” I said, then undid the clasp on the notebook. I opened it to the page where the bookmark string had been left. Taking a deep breath, I focused my right eye on the sequence of characters I couldn’t understand.

“...Oh.”

The text—it was changing.

The characters blurred in my vision, becoming like stains scattered across the paper, then reformed into different shapes.

“Well, Sorawo?” Toriko asked.

“...It’s getting to the point where I can read it.”

“Seriously?” Kozakura groaned. Migiwa leaned in, too.

As the shapes of the characters changed, a hidden meaning emerged.

“What? What does it say? Tell us.” Toriko’s eager voice disrupted my concentration. Even as I wished she would shut up, I tried reading out the text exactly as it was written.

When I looked up from the notebook, the three of them were staring at me with expressions of shock.

I covered my mouth. “What did I just say?” I asked slowly.

Suddenly, there was a bright burst of light in the room.

That intense light, like lightning without thunder, was blue. I closed my eyes reflexively, and a yellow afterimage remained burned into the back of my eyelids.

When I hesitantly opened my eyes once more, I felt every hair on my body raise.

There was another human figure in the room. A tall woman with black hair and black clothes.

The one who had been watching from beyond the gate as we escaped from the beach in the other world.

Satsuki Uruma.

The woman who everyone but me had been searching for was floating in the air, behind Toriko.

6

“Wahhh?!” I let out an incredible cry of surprise and backed up against the bookshelves. Pointing behind Toriko, my voice quivered as I yelled. “Behind! Behind you!”

Toriko whipped around. Kozakura clutched her head and cowered there.

“Huh...? There’s nothing there, though...?” Toriko said, sounding dubious. Timidly looking behind her, Kozakura lowered her arms in relief.

“What was that for...? Don’t scare us like that!” she shouted, rising indignantly.

“Kamikoshi-sama... Is something the matter?” Migiwa asked, sounding concerned.

I looked at the three of them in disbelief. Couldn’t they see? I could see her so clearly.

I looked up again, and Satsuki Uruma was there.

Her eyes fixed on Toriko, unblinking. She was frozen in place, like a still image projected in the air; her lowered head and her slumped limbs felt awfully ominous. She was holding something in her right hand. What was that rectangular thing?

“Sorawo, are you okay?”

“Huh? Uh... Yeah.”

Somehow, I managed to look back to Toriko. She had stood up from her chair and was peering at my face.

“Can you see something with your right eye?” she asked me in a serious tone, and I didn’t know what to say.

I reacted despite myself. But even if she did know I could see something, I could still play dumb and hide that it was Satsuki Uruma. What now? How was I going to play this off?

Was it time to give up and tell her? That Satsuki-san had appeared in this room, and was, at this very moment, staring down at Toriko...

Caught in an intense clash between the voice in my heart, which told me I should obviously relay this vital information, and my feelings, which absolutely did not want to do that, I froze up.

Unable to utter a word, I slowly shook my head.

“Sorawo, tell me. What do you see there?”

“No... Nothing! There’s nothing!”

When I shouted that desperate lie, I saw something square fall in the corner of my vision, and it hit the floor with a thud.

It was a square, woodwork cube, about twenty centimeters to a side. It was assembled from small parts, like a wooden mosaic, and complex seams crawled across the surface of it. There was no lid to speak of—this was the thing Satsuki Uruma had just been holding.

When I looked up, the woman who had been floating in midair vanished in an instant.

“What is this...?” Migiwa whispered suspiciously. The other three all had their eyes fixed on the box that had suddenly appeared. I instinctively switched to my right field of vision, and the box was wrapped in a powerful silver halo.

There was something trying to emerge out of the surface of this box. It was a chubby bird with a short beak that resembled a shrike; it was a translucent red, with wings that were maybe as long as a finger.

Kozakura, who was nearest to the box, only looked down at it as if unnerved, but showed no reaction to the red bird.

The bird spread its wings and rose into the air. When I realized its beak was pointed towards Kozakura, I got a very bad feeling.

“Kozakura-san, listen—”

I tried to warn her, but the bird flapped its wings, and charged straight at Kozakura.

Instinctively, I pushed Kozakura out of the way.

“Wha...?!”

Kozakura was light. I might not have rated my strength very highly, but maybe the urgency of the situation unlocked some dumb brute strength in me, because she flew further than I’d anticipated. Kozakura struck the bookcase shoulder-first and wailed.

“Ow! What the hell was that for?!”

“S-Sorry. Just now, the bird...”

I made a nonsensical excuse, as I looked around to see where the red bird had gone.

I don’t see it... Where did it go?

The next thing I knew, Toriko was looking at me with a harsh expression on her face.

“Wh-What is it?”

“Sorawo—” Toriko reached out towards me. For a moment, I thought she was going to slap me, and I ducked my head.

Her hand clapped down on my shoulders. Then Toriko’s head fell against my chest.

“Huh?”

Before I could recover from my confusion, Toriko fell to her knees. I rushed to support her as her body began slumping to the ground.

“To-Toriko?”

“Urgh...” Her strained features looked horribly pale.

“Hey, what happened?!” Kozakura, having realized something was wrong, supported Toriko with me.

“My stomach... hurts...” Toriko said through gritted teeth.

Once I worked with Kozakura to sit her down in a chair, Toriko doubled over. The red bird lifted off from her back. I watched helplessly as it traced a ring above us, then returned to the box.

Damn it! What was I doing? That red bird was harmful, just like I’d originally sensed. While I was protecting Kozakura, it got Toriko!

“This cube... It can’t be.” Migiwa was scrutinizing the box. His pallor had changed.

“Do you know what it is?!” I pressed him.

“This is one of the UBL artifacts that Uruma-san collected. It should be firmly under lock and key in the warehouse, so what is it doing here?”

What was it doing here? She herself—or at least something that had taken her form—had just left it here.

“She said she collected it in the secluded mountains. It was apparently a cursed item. I have heard it selectively causes injury to the internal organs of nearby women and children,” Migiwa explained, looking down at the box. “If I recall, it was called a Kotoribako.”

I stared at the wooden box in shock.

Of all things... it had to be this nasty piece of work! Kotoribako was a true horror story from Shimane.

One day, a friend who visits the narrator’s house brings an old wooden box she says she found in a shed. When another friend who has a strong sense for the supernatural sees it, he goes pale, and calls his father, who is a Shinto priest. The friend, who says he is the only one there who can deal with it, performs an incredible exorcism while crying and coughing.

Exhausted after the ritual, the friend says it will be fine now. The narrator asks what he means, and the friend explains that the box is a Kotoribako, created to exterminate the bloodline of its target.

This famous bit of net lore, a thing which was dangerous to even approach, was now in front of me.

Why did you bring this thing here, Satsuki Uruma?!

It was fair to say she was clearly trying to hurt us with this, yeah? What would she want to harm Toriko’s belly for? Weren’t they friends?!

Seeing Toriko injured, I was even more on edge than usual, and I glared at the Kotoribako through my right eye. Without looking away from it, I asked, “Migiwa-san, do you have a hard rod? One that can bust this box.”

“I do.”

When Migiwa swung his right arm, there was a metallic rattle. Migiwa’s extended hand held a collapsible police baton. Does he always carry this? What a dangerous guy, I thought, but I still spoke up. “Please, break that thing. Right away.”

“Is it all right to destroy it?”

“If we leave it be, it’s going to kill Toriko. You might be fine, though, Migiwa-san.”

Migiwa nodded. “Very well.”

Migiwa swung back his arm, then slammed the police baton down on the Kotoribako.

The box did not break. It just let out a dull thud, like he had struck a wall.

As if in retribution for the attack, one bird came out of the box after another.

“S... Stop! Stop!”

I hurriedly stopped Migiwa as he was about to strike a second blow.

Migiwa stopped his attack, and lowered the baton. The curse birds he couldn’t see split into two groups, going around him to either side.

They slowly flew towards Toriko, who was groaning in the chair where she sat. I instinctively reached out to try and get in their way, but it was no good. The flock of red birds passed through the palm of my hand without me feeling a thing.

“Urrgh...” Toriko exhaled in pain. Each time a red bird passed through her body, she groaned as though she had been stabbed.

The red birds which passed through her and then returned to the box each carried something red in their beaks. It was like they were feasting on her innards.

Maybe the red birds sensed my attempt to interfere, because they came for me next.

Before I could get out of the way, a red bird dove into me close to my belly button. In an instant, I felt a dull sense of wrongness in my abdomen, and a thrusting pain.

“Ow...” I stifled a cry of pain. I didn’t feel the bird coming out the other side, but I was in enough pain I wanted to sit down.

Like missiles focused on their target, the red birds came at me following different courses. It was like watching an explosion in slow motion. A directional explosion, where all the fragments were homing in on its victim to pump her full of holes. From the looks of it, even if I tried to move out of the birds’ way, it wasn’t going to do me any good. I could see, but not avoid them. I could only watch the shrapnel slowly close in, and tear me apart—it was just too horrible. It was certainly effective as a cursed item.

“Hey, Sorawo-chan. What’s going on?” Kozakura asked as she rubbed Toriko’s back.

“To... Toriko’s been hit by the Kotoribako’s curse. We tried to break it, but that just stirred up the bees’ nest.” I explained, grimacing through the pain and chills. “You’re at risk right now, too. Please, get out of the room right now.”

“What about you, Sorawo-chan?”

“I’ll do... something.”

“Do what?”

“Still thinking about that part.”

I revved my brain into high gear. If bullets worked, I would shoot that thing to splinters right now, but the thing was apparently indestructible. How was I, who wasn’t an exorcist, supposed to take this box down?

If it followed the original story, there was something inside the Kotoribako. If I recall, it was several people’s severed fingers, and umbilical cords, but... the core of the curse was being protected by the box’s outer shell. If I couldn’t strike the inside directly, I couldn’t cut the curse off at the root, so I needed to find some way to open up the box.

In order to do that, I was going to need more than my right eye—I needed Toriko’s left hand, too.

Clutching my stomach, I brought my face close to Toriko’s, and slapped her cheeks. “Toriko. I want your help.”

“Urgh...”

“It hurts, I know. I’m sorry. But we have to do this.”

Toriko raised her blood-drained face.

“What do I need to touch this time...?”

I couldn’t look away from her pain-warped expression. Her knitted brow. Her hair, slicked to forehead with sweat. Her cheeks which twitched at the intermittent pain. I never knew she could make a face like this...

“Sorawo?”

“Ye... Yeah. Um, you see the box lying there? That’s what’s making your stomach hurt,” I collected myself and explained. Toriko turned to look at the box.

“Okay... And?”

“You know how you took apart Hasshaku-sama’s hat when we escaped from the beach? Do that again.”

“Open a gate, you mean?”

“No. How should I explain this? There’s something in that box causing the curse. If we can just open it up, I think we can destroy it directly.”

“...You really are something, Sorawo,” Toriko said, her pale face smiling.

I turned back to Migiwa. “We’re opening the box. I don’t know what will come out, so please stay outside the room, just to be safe. Take care of Kozakura-san for us.”

“I cannot—” Migiwa tried to object, but I quickly spoke over him.

“I don’t know about you Migiwa-san, but it’s dangerous for Kozakura-san to be near the Kotoribako. We can defend ourselves, so, please, protect her if anything goes that way.”

I really didn’t know what Migiwa could do, but the guy was carrying a police baton, so he probably knew how to use it.

Migiwa still looked hesitant, but he ultimately nodded.

“...Very well.”

“Wait, Sorawo-chan, I—”

“Sorry. I don’t really have time to look after you.”

When she saw the look on my face, Kozakura bit her lip. “I get you... Take care.”

Kozakura looked back several times as she left the room. Migiwa bowed politely and then closed the door.

The moment we were alone, I squatted down, unable to bear the pain any longer.

“You okay, Sorawo?”

“Urrgh, ow, ow, ow, ow... owwww.”

I could do little more than groan as the red birds pecked at my guts. I wanted to make yakitori out of the lot of them.

Toriko crawled out of her chair. We supported one another through the pain. Unfortunately, that support couldn’t make the pain go away, though.

“Augh, damn this hurts... I’m getting mad.”

“This is internal pain, huh?”

“We’ll be in trouble if we let this drag on. Let’s get this over with.”

With labored breaths, we crawled towards the box.

“This box just fell out of thin air, didn’t it? Right after you read from the notebook...”

“Sorry. I think this is probably my fault,” I said, the regret eating at me. I had been careless. In the other world, a single mistake could be fatal—I knew that, and yet I still incautiously read out the text Satsuki Uruma left behind. Even if Toriko did ask me to do it, that had been reckless of me.

“No, I was the one who had you read it... But why did you look so surprised?”

“Huh?”

“Just before the box appeared.”

“That’s because... I could see it before it appeared.”

Before she could ask me any more, I put both my hands on the Kotoribako. It felt slightly warm in the palms of my hands, as if there were a source of heat inside it.

“Is it okay touching that thing?”

“Dunno. It’s already messed us up, though...”

Cautiously lifting the box, I carefully scrutinized the surface of it. The silver lines that ran over the wooden mosaic were our only clue to opening this box. The boundary between the surface world and the other world were complexly folded together into the form of a box. The birds appeared as if leaking out through that gap.

What I was trying to do here was like disarming a bomb. Dismantling a bomb that had long since gone off, and was in the process of tearing us to shreds.

“I’ll hold it, so can you touch it with your left hand as I direct?”

“Okay.”

Toriko removed her glove, and I turned one of the box’s sides toward her.

“Try pressing the center, and turning it.”

“Which way?”

“I dunno. Whichever way it turns.”

When Toriko touched it, the silver light shone brighter. Her finger sank in, turning in a counter-clockwise direction, and the parts on the surface spread out to the outside, like flower petals.

“It moved!”

“Okay... Now try shifting this part down.”

When Toriko’s fingers moved the light, the parts moved with it. The true form of the box was the light that poured out from within it. It was a puzzle that could only be solved with my eye and Toriko’s hand.

Shifting, turning, pushing, opening, folding, hooking... The initially simple movements of the parts gradually grew more complex. Suddenly, Toriko seemed worried.

“You’re not going to ask me to return this thing to how it was, right?”

“The thought hadn’t occurred to me.”

“Well, I can’t do it. No way.”

Each time the parts moved and took on a new form, the number of red birds gradually increased. At the same time, the pain slowly grew. Was it safe to assume we were getting closer to the center of the box? When I cautiously observed the light, I could tell there was a flow outward, through the gaps between the parts. We were following that flow upstream, towards the center.

“I feel like we’ve done something like this together before. When we went Kunekune hunting. We suffered then, too.”

“Hey, you’re right. That was pretty crazy, huh.”

“This doesn’t feel as gross as that, but... Damn, it hurts.”

We kept shooting the breeze to distract ourselves from the pain.

“How much longer do you think this is going to take?” Toriko asked.

“I dunno... Until it stops hurting?”

“Urgh. I’d almost have preferred a bomb. This thing’s a real Hurt Locker.”

“What was that again?”

“It’s a movie about defusing bombs. Ever seen it...?” Toriko said as she rolled onto her side. “Sorry. Mind if I lie down a bit?”

“M-Me, too.”

We both collapsed on the spot. We couldn’t have gotten back up anymore. Moving our hands from where we lay on the floor, we kept trying to defuse this cursed bomb.

“You know... It’s like we’re lying side-by-side, playing a board game or something,” I remarked.

“I don’t wanna play a board game like this... This is hell...”

The Kotoribako had long since lost its cube shape, and had turned into a bizarre shape, like a miniature 3D maze. There were more parts than I could imagine fit inside a twenty centimeter cube. They spilled out of our hands, and spread around us.

“Sorawo, earlier, when you told Kozakura to get out of the room, you were hiding the fact you were in pain, right?”

“Was I?”

She sure was looking closely for someone in so much pain, I thought as I gave a non-answer.

“Why didn’t you say anything? So she wouldn’t worry?”

“Even if Kozakura-san stayed, she was going to be useless, you know? But she’d still keep talking. I figured if I was in pain, too, it would get too noisy...”

“Oh, yeah?” Toriko smiled. That gentle smile, like she was watching over me again.

“Wh-What?”

“I’m relieved. It looks like you’ll be fine even if I go away.”

“Huh? Could you not say weird things like that now?!”

My reaction made Toriko laugh a little.

“I figured I’d better say it while I can. We never know what’s going to happen, after all.”

“Cut it out, okay? Keep that hand moving.”

I told her I didn’t like it, but Toriko continued.

“I was worried what would happen if I disappeared after wrecking your life, but, Sorawo, you can get by just fine. I’ve been watching you all this time.”

Even as she lowered her face in pain, she didn’t stop talking. It was like she was delirious with fever.

“You worked to save the U.S. forces stranded at Kisaragi Station. And though you didn’t like the beach at first, we had a real blast in Naha, and on Ishigaki Island. When Karateka-chan came to you for help, you answered the call. You even came up with a nickname for her. Even though you never did that for me.”

I felt like I could detect a slight hint of dissatisfaction in Toriko’s voice there.

“I was worried about it after what Kozakura said, but Sorawo, you do have a human heart. You’re a real good girl. I know that.”

“No, you’re wrong... That’s not...”

“It was the same just now. You instinctively protected Kozakura. Not me.”

“S-Sorry,” I apologized, wanting to shrink into myself, but I was surprised to see Toriko shake her head.

“That’s not it. Sorawo, you had a tendency not to care about anyone but me, so I was happy to see you could show concern for other people. I told you, didn’t I? You need to learn more about the world other than me. That’s why, when I’m gone, I’m sure—”

“Stop it! Why are you saying that?!”

Just as I shouted that, unable to take it anymore, there was a clicking sound between us.

At the ends of our outstretched arms, in the middle of the pile of puzzle parts that had kept expanding their territory, there was a cubic box. It looked no different in size from the original, but the surface was dirty, and it gave off the impression of great age. It didn’t look like a puzzle. The top face was a lid. The silver light that had filled the area around us was emanating from the gaps of that lid.

We had finally reached it. The center of the Kotoribako—the core of the curse.

“...Toriko, this is it,” I said as I tried to steady my breath.

There was a flock of red birds flying over top of our prone bodies. They were a winged curse that descended in turns to peck at our innards. The pain in my belly felt like someone had pounded a number of burning hot metal stakes through me, and I felt I might lose consciousness at any moment. It must have been even worse for Toriko, who had been afflicted before me.

“Let’s save all the bothersome talking for later. For now, we’ll open this thing up, and bust whatever’s inside. We’re almost there, so please.”

“...”

“Toriko?”

There was no response. Toriko’s forehead was pressed to the floor, her eyes closed. Had she passed out? I reached over to shake her shoulder.

“Toriko, Toriko, wake up. We’re almost done.”

“...”

“Toriko!”

I raised my voice, but she still didn’t stir. Getting worried, I put my hand in front of Toriko’s mouth. I brought the back of my hand enough to almost touch her lips.

She’s not breathing.

“No... No way.”

I crawled closer to Toriko. I desperately sat her up, turning her body over to face upwards. Even as my rough treatment caused her back to hit the floor, Toriko showed no response.

“Come on, don’t do this. You were just... blabbering on and on a little while ago...”

The tremble in my voice wasn’t just because of the pain.

“Wake up! Toriko! Open your eyes!”

I impulsively raised my right hand, and slapped her cheek. There was a smacking sound. I felt bad about it for a moment, but Toriko still didn’t wake up, which blew away the last of that consideration.

“Wake up! Wake up... I said, wake up, Toriko!”

I slapped her repeatedly as I shouted. It was no good; she didn’t respond.

“R-Right. Deal with the inside of the box first.”

Though I was shaken badly, I was thinking... If I just broke the Kotoribako, the curse afflicting us would surely vanish. That had to be right.

I grabbed the remaining box. I could open this lid even without borrowing Toriko’s left hand.

I opened the box, feeling irritated at my trembling fingers, and the light poured out like water from inside. I blinked, then looked inside to try and capture the core of the curse with my right eye—

My mind shut down.

There was nothing in the box.

Nothing I could capture with my right eye. No severed fingers of children, and no blood-drenched umbilical cords.

In my hand, the four sides of the box fell outwards.

The lid fell from my right hand, landing perfectly in a gap in the middle of the scattered parts on the floor.

That was the end.

The Kotoribako had ceased to be.

When I looked up, we were in the middle of a complex woodwork maze. The parts of the Kotoribako we had worked so hard to disassemble had come together to form the walls and floor.

The paths stretched in all directions, and seemed to stretch on forever as they branched off. It was as bright as noon. When I looked up, the maze had no roof, and a deep blue light spread out above the walls.

It was the sky of the other world.

The birds had ceased their assault, and yet the pain in my belly was unchanged. My organs felt heavy, and it was difficult to even breathe. Toriko wasn’t moving, either. The red birds, resting their wings on the walls above, looking down at us, didn’t so much as chirp.

“Hey, Toriko. This is bad. Get up already.”

My voice was sucked emptily into the blue sky. Still, I kept talking.

“It looks like we came to a really deep point...”

We had come to the depth of the other world twice before now. The time with the Time-space Man, and at the beach in Okinawa. The ultrablue abyss above the maze felt strongly like those times.

In both cases, I had encountered something shaped like Satsuki Uruma.

My mind was dulled by the pain, but the understanding slowly came.

The bookmarked page. The black-clothed woman who had appeared when I read the text on it. The Kotoribako which she had thrown like a grenade.

And the path to the depths of the other world which opened with the Kotoribako.

Was it all a trap to bring us here?

The birds up on the walls all moved their heads in unison, looking down the corridor.

I could see a tall shadow approaching from inside the woodwork mosaic maze.

Glossy black hair, and black clothes that looked like they belonged at a funeral. Deep behind a pair of eyeglasses, eyes so blue they were terrifying.

It’s Satsuki Uruma.

I crawled to my backpack, which leaned against the wall. Opening the zipper, I pulled the Makarov out. Honestly, the assault rifle would have been more reliable, but it was disassembled inside the bag, so I couldn’t use it now. If I’d had Toriko teach me how to assemble it instead of acting like it was such a bother... No, even if I had, there wasn’t time to do it now.

The woman in black came to a stop. Toriko lay at her feet. When I turned the gun on her, those two unfathomable blue eyes stared back at me.

Was she the real deal? The windmill woman had clearly been a monster, but this time she had a human form. She looked the same in my right eye as my left. When I was looking at her like this, I realized again how beautiful she was. But that actually made me more uneasy. If this suddenly turned into a scary face, like Kankandara’s, the rapid change in attractiveness might make me die of shock.

“Are you... Satsuki-san?” I asked, but the woman didn’t respond. Her eyes strayed from me to Toriko who lay at her feet. I got a bad feeling, and in the next instant I heard a fluttering of tiny wings.

The flock of red birds all took to the air at once. The cries I heard from overhead sounded not so much avian as human. Ominous whispers, indistinct, as if spoken on the other side of a wall. The birds looked down at us, turning their beaks towards the ground, tucking their wings in, and diving.

If we took all those curses at once, we were through. My already weakened body couldn’t possibly take it. I shut my eyes tight, and prepared for intense pain.

It’s not coming.

I’m not the target!

I opened my eyes in time to see a deep red current of birds sucked into Toriko’s body with incredible force.

“No!” My shout was erased by the beating of wings.

The moment after all those curses disappeared inside her belly, Toriko, who was lying on her back, jumped up.

From inside Toriko’s belly, an intense whirlwind rose towards the sky. It resembled the structure that Toriko’s body unraveled into as we were facing the windmill woman. She was being sucked into the sky with no less force than back then. The woman in black looked down at her with no expression.

Toriko was being taken... Taken away!

I took aim with my Makarov, and pulled the trigger.

There was no hesitation. The bullet struck the woman’s left breast. She turned her head, looking in my direction. Using both hands to suppress the recoil, I kept on firing.

Miss.

Right shoulder.

Upper left arm.

Miss.

Throat.

Face.

Face.

Out of bullets.

I lowered the smoking Makarov and looked. Six out of eight bullets had hit, yet the woman in black was still standing. There were holes where she’d been shot, but she didn’t shed a drop of blood.

The woman swayed like a tree in the wind. The bullet holes regenerated before my eyes, like with the Horned Man at Kisaragi Station. Though, slower...

Nothing about the phenomenon affecting Toriko changed, even though this had been enough to stop it with the windmill woman. Breaking the Kotoribako didn’t help, shooting the woman in black didn’t help. I had completely unloaded the Makarov. What was there left that I could do?

“...I’d decided not to do this anymore, too.”

Now that it had come to this, I’d have to do it.

“This is your fault for not waking up faster, you know?”

Whispering an excuse she couldn’t possibly hear, I focused my right eye on Toriko.

Using my right eye on humans. When I used it on Karateka recently, I nearly drove her insane. Ever since, I had done my best not to focus on people even if they entered my right field of vision, but now that it looked like I might lose Toriko, this was the only way I could think to change the situation.

Inside Toriko’s body, which I now had caught in my right eye, I could see a donut-shaped object. It was the countless red birds which had flown inside Toriko before, all spinning around so fast they seemed to overlap with one another. The thing sprouting from the center of it was a three-dimensional geometric figure that resembled down feathers.

I remembered an observation Toriko had spouted when we encountered the windmill woman. If there were unknown beings on the other side of the blue light, and they were attempting to contact us, what would they do to understand us?

Would they try to process us into something they could understand? Was that the process I was witnessing right now?

Whew, there was a sound like air leaking.

Toriko had opened her mouth, and inhaled.

Nearly slumping to the ground in relief, I shouted, “Toriko! Wake—”

That’s when I realized.

This was no good. If she regained consciousness now, she’d see the woman above her.

I discarded the Makarov, and threw myself towards Toriko. I jumped in front of where Toriko, who had coughed as she resumed breathing, was about to open her eyes, and hugged her head.

“So... Sorawo, what are you doing...?”

“Don’t open your eyes. Don’t look at anything. If you see it, it’ll drive you crazy.”

“Is whatever’s there... that crazy?”

“Yeah. That’s why you absolutely can’t look.”

“Are you all right, Sorawo?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

I looked up as I answered her, and the regenerating woman in black was looking down at us. Don’t say anything. Please, just shut up. There was murderous intent in the look I gave that woman.

“More importantly, Toriko, is your body okay? Is your head?”

“My head? What’s that supposed to mean?” Toriko laughed a little.

“I bet your stomach still hurts, right?”

“Not anymore it doesn’t. Not at all!”

Her response was strangely cheery.

“Actually, I feel light. Like everything unimportant is just melting away. It’s only going to get easier from here.”

“E-Excuse me?” I said.

“Why don’t you try it, too, Sorawo? I dunno how it works, but you probably just take a deep breath, jam your hand right inside your belly, and fish around at random.”

Aww, I knew it. This was no good.

No, wait. Hold on...

If I looked with my right eye... and she used her left hand...

“Toriko, you may be onto something.”

“Huh? You’re gonna tear your belly? Like, riiiip?”

“U-Uh...”

“Oh, good. I can go without any worries then! Because you can go there with me!”

I was speechless.

“Right?”

“...Just shut up. I’m borrowing your left hand, okay?”

“Okay. Be sure you give it back.”

I took her translucent left hand. “Listen, Toriko. When I give the signal, I want you to grab what your left hand is touching, and pull it out, okay?”

“Ahhh, hahh. The same as usual, huh?”

“Yeah, you’ve got it. The usual—here we go.”

I lifted her left hand at the elbow, and thrust it inside her own body.

“Urgh,” Toriko groaned. The translucent fist dug into her belly, and began influencing the red torus. The birds’ courses were disrupted, the revolution was warped, and the surface of the torus became uneven and wavy.

“Yeah, grab that! When you feel it, give it a pull! Can you do that?”

“I-I can, but, urkh! I feel kinda queasy. I think I’m gonna hurl.”

“Just do it!”

“Fine... Gwuh!”

When Toriko grabbed and pulled with her left hand, the warped torus was slowly dragged out from inside her belly.

As the torus was pulled out, the whirlwind rising out of her belly was disrupted, and then vanished. Once it was fully pulled out, what she was holding looked like a thousand bright red, folded paper cranes.

When Toriko’s hand moved away from it, the overlapping mass of red birds fell to the ground with a splat.

There! How do you like that?! You won’t take Toriko away that easily!

When I looked up to the woman in black, snorting furiously, I was shocked to find her face closer than I expected. Though she had shown hardly any reaction before, at some point she had leaned over as far as she could, leaving her face so close to mine that they were almost touching.

“Huh? This smell... It feels so—”

Before Toriko could say familiar, I hugged her tight to block out her sight, hearing, and sense of smell.

That was when I heard a low, female voice whisper in my ear.

“Let’s—, —you, too.”

“Huh...?”

I hadn’t been able to perceive her words. However, I had the impression that whatever she said was horrifying.

The woman I had been able to glare at before had, merely by using words I didn’t understand the meaning of, become the source of intense terror. I didn’t want to see anything. Didn’t want to know anything. Despite that, my head rose against my own will.

When the woman’s face entered my vision again, my right eye glimpsed something behind her. There was no question. This woman was connected to the ultrablue. They who existed beyond the depths of the other world. The great and bizarre beings that sought to make us cross the blue abyss with terror and madness—I felt their presence, and that alone was enough to overload me.

Every one of my sensory organs bugged out, and as the error caused my brain and nervous system to crash, I looked on indifferently, as if it were someone else’s problem.

7

When I came to, I was lying in a bed.

Kozakura, who was sitting next to me, knocked her chair back as she rose from it. She had a panicked look on her face as she leaned over me.

“Sorawo-chan, do you understand me? Can you see me?”

“...I can see you, and I understand you, yes,” I answered in a hoarse voice. Kozakura breathed a sigh of relief.

“Phew... Don’t worry me like that, you idiot...”

I detected a faint scent of antiseptic from the pastel blue linens. I couldn’t see the rest of the room past the bedside curtain, but I quickly realized I was in a medical facility.

“What about you, Kozakura? Are you all right?”

“I’m just fine. How about you?”

“Good enough, I guess.”

The truth was, my belly still felt heavy. Hopefully there wasn’t too much lingering damage.

“Where is this place? That hospital ward, maybe? How long have we been—”

I tried to sit up, but Kozakura stopped me.

“Don’t push yourself. This is the DS Lab’s medical examination room. It’s been about three hours.”

I looked at the bed beside mine. I could already tell by the feeling of my left hand, but Toriko was lying there. The two beds were placed side-by-side, without a gap in between.

“You two were both completely deranged. You were huddled, like in a flexed burial, and singing nonsense songs to yourselves. You were holding hands tight, and wouldn’t let go, so we laid the two of you down together. Anyway, you just rest. I’ll go call Migiwa.”

“Is Toriko... all right?” I hesitantly asked, and Kozakura twisted her lips sarcastically.

“She was up and hollering not that long ago. Is Sorawo-chan all right? Will she wake up? ...She got tired and went back to sleep, though. It seemed like she had more energy than you do.”

With that said, Kozkaura turned and left the room.

Resting my head on the pillow, I looked at Toriko’s sleeping face.

“This, after you said all that stuff about what’d happen if you were gone...”

In her sleep, Toriko had my hand clutched in her own right hand, and she showed no sign of letting it go.

“Ngh...”

Toriko opened her eyes slightly, mumbling. “If you don’t like it, I’ll let go,” she said.

“No one said that,” I replied with a sigh. “Do you remember what happened?”

Toriko’s answer was vague. “I remember up to us opening the box... Not much after that. I feel like you did something for me, though.”

“Yeah, well, it was nothing major, really,” I guiltily mumbled, and Toriko bit her lip.

“Sorry. This was all because I asked you to do something like that. I—”

“Oh, geez. Let’s just drop it already.” I got irritated, and cut Toriko off. “Listen, Toriko, you seem to think you’re making me help you search for Satsuki-san, and you feel guilty about that, but... It doesn’t bother me at all. Actually, the fact you feel that way pisses me off way more.” I kept on talking, driven by an impulse I couldn’t control.

“You told me to make friends and broaden my horizons, but that’s not it. You’re the one who’s broadening my horizons. Like with the beach... Though, I feel like the alcohol is half to thank for that one, too.”

Toriko listened to me in silence.

“The reason I worked so hard to save the guys from Palehorse Battalion was because I didn’t want any more people in my other world than necessary. I wanted them to get out already. Having that many people around? It’s a real downer.”

“Wh-Whaa... That was why?” Toriko was so taken aback that her mouth hung open.

“Yeah, it was. From the very beginning, my objective has never changed. I just don’t want other people messing up the playground I found for myself.”

Toriko’s eyes widened, and I told her: “But I want you there with me. I wish we could play together forever. So, please—don’t treat me like a victim.”

Toriko rolled onto her side beneath the blankets, looking straight at me.

“Oh, I see. That’s right. We’re partners in crime, after all.”

“Darn straight.”

She finally gets it, huh? I thought with a nod.

“I see. So that’s why with Karateka-chan you...” Toriko whispered to herself, then giggled.

“...Is something funny?”

“Nah. I was just thinking, ‘Sorawo’s a real pain to deal with, huh?’”

“Huh?!” I felt insulted, and just sat there with my mouth hanging open. The look on my face must have been funny, because Toriko laughed out loud.

“What’s so much of a pain to deal with about me?”

“Who knows? Maybe think about that yourself.”

“Toriko...!”

I tried to press her on it, but Toriko hid under the covers. Was she going to pretend to be asleep? She wasn’t coming out. How rude. Calling a frank person like me a pain to deal with? Who was she to talk? Getting angry, I laid my head back down on the pillow.

Was that woman in black really Satsuki Uruma? What did she mean to do, luring us in, transforming us... and then what?

I was too tired to think properly, so I gave up and closed my eyes.

Satsuki Uruma’s notebook. The beings waiting in the depths of the other world, where those who had an encounter of the fourth kind went. The increasing number of things I was hiding from Toriko.

I had a lot of things to think about, but not now. First, I needed to recover; regain my stamina and sanity.

Once I’ve got my energy back, we can ride the AP-1 together, across hills and fields, as far as adventure might take us...

With that whimsical thought in my mind, I drifted off to sleep.