File 9: Yamanoke Presence

Table of Contents

File 9: Yamanoke Presence

1

Back when I was still just a victim...

During the time I left the house to get out from under the eyes of the cult, and was hiding out in the ruins of a love hotel, I can’t confidently say that I was sane. So, I’m not entirely sure why it is that I thought the big red person that embraced me from behind as I lay in the fetal position in a makeshift bed of dusty linens was my mom.

Still, for some reason, the experience was a warm memory for me.

That was why, when dawn broke, I immediately left the hotel and returned home. Then, I waited in the tatami room, alone with a tank of kerosene, for what felt like forever. I remember when night fell, and the house went dark, I felt awfully lonely.

At the time, I had a thought: I need fire.

—What would be a good thing to eat at the after-party when our innards were damaged by the Kotoribako?

We talked it over, and came to the conclusion that rice porridge might be good, so Toriko, Kozakura, and I had come to a Chinese rice porridge place inside the Ikebukuro Seibu department store.

We had come on the simple idea that you eat rice porridge when your stomach’s not doing so well, but this place had a food therapy menu managed by the traditional Chinese medicine pharmacy next door, so it felt like it might really work for us.

“The plum rice porridge set, or the two-color rice porridge set. The ladies’ set comes with kakuni pork, but maybe not enough... Have you made up your mind, Toriko?” I asked.

“The dandan noodles look good,” said Toriko, who had been looking down at the menu.

Oh, come on.

“Weren’t we going to have porridge?”

“Nothing’s meaty enough. This doesn’t feel like the sort of place where we can go, ‘Here’s to a job well done! Cheers!’ either.” Toriko pursed her lips.

It was afternoon on a weekday, the place was at maybe 40% of capacity, and everyone there but us were old ladies. Nearly every drink on the menu was some sort of healthy-sounding tea. The restaurant was selling itself as a place for rice porridge and tea, so that was to be expected.

“What are you complaining about when we came to eat at a Chinese food therapy restaurant?” Kozakura said, glaring at Toriko.

“For now, let’s just order tea,” I suggested. “It looks like refills are free.”

“Oh, they are? That’s a bargain.”

“That’s how tea is in China. You ask for hot water, and can drink it several times,” Kozakura explained.

That made Toriko’s eyes widen, as if an idea had occurred to her. “Ohh! I think I might have done that in Chinatown when I was little!”

“In Yokohama?”

“No, Vancouver. Mom brought me there.”

Her mom, huh?

Whenever she talked about her family, Toriko briefly looked away. Her voice lowered slightly, too, and it took on a calm tone. When people talk as they remember their past, I’ve heard that their eyes move on their own to look in a certain direction. For Toriko, it’s down and to the left... That was probably where the memories of her lost family were in her mental map.

Figuring I should take the opportunity to try a type of tea I hadn’t drank before, I ordered kantoucha. Toriko went for sanzacha, and Kozakura had maikacha.

“What is maikacha? I can’t even imagine.”

“I don’t know, either, but it said it was supposed to help suppress irritation.”

“That certainly does seem like a good fit for you, Kozakura.”

“Yeah, I’m feeling irritated at this very moment. I hope it comes soon.”

When her maikacha came, it turned out to be rose tea. Toriko took a sip of her sanzacha, which turned out to be bittersweet. As for my kantoucha, it had a thin flavor, and was surprisingly easy to drink.

While I was sipping at the warm Chinese medicinal tea, and chewing on the pumpkin seeds that came with it, Toriko started talking. “Hey, Kozakura. What happened to Satsuki’s notes after that?”

Kozakura hesitated a moment before answering. “They’re in the DS Lab’s storage. To keep anyone from reading them.”

The DS Lab—the Dark Science Research Encouragement Association. This organization with its shady-sounding name was apparently founded as a civilian organization in the ’90s in order to carry out research on the other world, which they called UBL, the Ultrablue Landscape. Though, disappointingly, despite their impressive name, their only current work was securing past victims of the UBL, and making (hopeless) attempts at treating them. It was harsh to say this, but their work resembled the cleanup after a losing battle.

The reduced scope of their work included gathering strange items from the other world—UB artifacts. It was the DS Lab that bought the mysterious objects, like the Mirror Stone and the Infinite Seashell that we brought back.

Because the notes of Satsuki Uruma, who had vanished while working for the DS Lab, were written in indecipherable characters, they had been left alone all this time. It turned out they were in the language of the other world, and we had learned firsthand that reading them aloud could cause terrifying phenomena to occur.

“We can’t read any more? But they’re a clue for chasing after Satsuki,” Toriko said.

“Are you an imbecile? They’re beyond dangerous. If Sorawo-chan hadn’t been there, you’d have died.”

“Well, yeah, but... The Kotoribako, was it? It came out of nowhere. I was surprised.”

“I’m surprised you can write it off as a surprise.”

I kept mum as Toriko and Kozakura went back and forth. The two of them thought all that appeared was the Kotoribako, but I knew otherwise. When I read out of the notebook, Satsuki Uruma had appeared.

The Satsuki Uruma who Toriko was searching for was tied to entities on the other side of the ultrablue. Though I had realized that when I dismantled the Kotoribako, I hadn’t told the two of them, or Migiwa of the DS Lab. I didn’t even know if I should. Kozakura seemed to have accepted that Satsuki Uruma was gone, but from what I had seen, Toriko wasn’t there yet. If I wasn’t careful, Toriko might feel pushed to go into the depths of the other world alone again.

Was that what they, the ones who lived in the other world, wanted to lure Toriko into doing? To take her away somewhere like Satsuki Uruma?

I kept drinking tea as I thought, and the meal came as I did. “Oh, it’s here.”

“It looks good! Time to eat!”

I was pretty hungry, so I jumped at the food as soon as it was put down on the table.

Mine was the two-color rice porridge set with crab rice porridge and chicken rice porridge. Mmm, it had a gentle flavor. The salt was used sparingly, so I was grateful that it came with ebi chili and pickled Sichuan vegetables on a separate plate.

Toriko, perhaps wanting something meatier, had gone for the kakuni pork rice porridge set. The big bowl of rice porridge with kakuni pork, bok choy, and goji berry came with a separate bowl of wonton soup. Kozakura had the yamucha set, which came in a bamboo basket, and the boiled gyoza and shumai were letting off steam.

Seeing how Toriko and I were chowing down, Kozakura looked at the two of us dubiously. “Hey, are you two really all right?”

“Yeah, we don’t seem to be having any trouble. Right, Sorawo?”

“It tastes good, and I have a normal appetite...” I responded, though I was perplexed. It had only been two days since then, but the food tasted good.

That, in and of itself, seemed weird somehow.

The heinous mass of curses which ate away at the innards of women and children—the Kotoribako. We had dismantled that box, which Satsuki Uruma threw at us from the other world like some sort of hand grenade, and then somehow returned from the other world alive, but Toriko and I had taken serious organ damage... or we should have.

Yet, when we were examined afterward, we were left confused—nothing out of the ordinary was detected.

The CT image of my innards had no shadows on it. No inflammation, and no bleeding, either. There was nothing wrong with my blood. The tissue sample from my mouth and the urine test both came back fine, too. Blood pressure, vision, and hearing, all good. In other words, I was the picture of health. If I were to pinpoint something wrong, the reading for my liver was a bit high for a twenty-year-old, and I had gained a kilo (Toriko had not), but, honestly, that was all within the margin of error.

This was done in the DS Lab’s expensive medical facility, so it was definitely all correct. It was a thorough physical examination, taking a full two days.

Since we had been hit by the infamous Kotoribako, I had been prepared for some aftereffects. Because of that, the result was unexpected, and it actually worried me more than it reassured me.

Okay, then what was that pain that felt like my organs were being pecked at inside of me? What was the red stuff that those red birds, which were like the embodiment of the curse, flew inside our bodies, and had come out carrying in their beaks...?

The fact was, Toriko had nearly died in front of me. I still shuddered when I remembered the moment I realized she wasn’t breathing, and had no pulse.

Had they torn something out of the two of us after all...? Something important that wouldn’t show in a medical checkup? I couldn’t shake that worry.

Though I felt uneasy in a way that made it hard to be completely happy, if modern science said we were unharmed, there was nothing more to be done. We had been discharged from the medical center, so we left the DS Lab building in Tameike-Sannou and headed back to Ikebukuro. To celebrate our recovery and have an after-party. Without alcohol, of course. Maybe Toriko was right, and it did feel a bit insufficient.

“Hey, your phone’s been ringing for a while now. Is that okay?” Toriko asked, and I looked down to see my phone buzzing on the table.

“Nah, it’s fine. I’m sure it’s just Karateka.”

I picked up my phone, checking it just in case, and, as expected, the one shooting messages at me was Karateka—Akari Seto, a first-year student at my school. Akari Seto, who did karate. The only kouhai at my school I had any interaction with, who I had gotten to know when she was attacked by ninja cats.

During our two-day medical examination, we’d had a lot of free time, so we were whiling the time away watching Netflix, but my luck ran out when I carelessly responded to a message Karateka sent my way. Ever since, she may have let it go to her head, because she was talking to me an awful lot.

It tended to go like this:

“What are you up to now?”

“Who are you, my girlfriend?”

“Do you know this urban legend?”

“I know it, I don’t care, and your knowledge of it is shallow.”

“I found a place nearby where accidents are always happening. How about it?”

“How about what?”

They were all pointless conversations, and I tried to be as curt in my responses as I could, but she showed no sign of getting discouraged.

“One of my friends had something scary happen during a test of courage. Are you interested, Senpai?”

“Nope.”

“When I told her a bit about my experience, she seemed interested, so I was hoping you could talk to her with me some time.”

“What’re you doing? Don’t tell anyone about that.”

“It’s cool. I haven’t told anyone about THAT.”

That message was followed by a gun emoji stamp. I furrowed my brow unconsciously.

Ever since we saved her from the ninja cats, Karateka seemed to have mistaken Toriko and me for “experts on the supernatural,” and was always coming up with new excuses to get involved with us.

It seemed she had always been interested in scary stories, but I felt she was coming on a bit strong, even considering that. When I looked at Karateka using my right eye, there was clearly something wrong with the way she spoke and acted. Was it possible my personality had influenced her...? Whatever the case, it really wasn’t good to have a ghost story maniac who was so eager to act on things.

Going to spiritual spots for a test of courage to have frightening experiences, kicking over gravestones, bringing back items...

Many of the true ghost stories I had read featured people who had crossed the line like that, and they almost always met a miserable end. I wasn’t all that attached to Karateka, but I didn’t want it to be my fault if something unfortunate happened to her.

“I’m busy eating now.”

I sent that message to terminate the conversation, then set my phone to airplane mode.

“You don’t need to talk to Karateka-chan?” Toriko asked.

“Yeah. I’m already this close to blocking her, but if I did she’d just hassle me at university again.”

“She respects you, right? Give her a bit of your time.”

“Well, hey, I don’t want to drag her into anything. She already knows too much, to be honest.”

“Well, yeah, but...” Toriko pursed her lips in dissatisfaction.

Her attitude towards Karateka was wavering. The fact that they were both students of Satsuki Uruma must have come as quite a shock to her. She’d always believed she was Satsuki’s only “friend.”

Despite that, when I was brusque with Karateka, Toriko didn’t look all that happy about it. I’m sure she was just superimposing herself on someone who shared her own circumstances, but that was none of my business. If I played along with the sometimes completely unhidden adulation that Toriko and Kozakura had for Satsuki Uruma, I’d go batty.

“...So, you two are planning to go there again, huh?” Kozakura asked as she chewed on a sesame dumpling.

Toriko and I looked at one another, and then I nodded.

“Yes. Though, I’m not planning to travel far this time.”

“Yeah. Sorawo and I were talking about it, and we thought we’d start with a light trip from one gate to another.”

“You say ‘light,’ but they’re pretty far apart, aren’t they? I mean, sure, the distance is technically walkable, but...”

Having walked with me the time we were dealing with the Time-space Man, Kozakura had a sense of the distance between things in the other world. Toriko nodded. “We’ll be using the AP-1 this time. That’s why we’d like to use your house as our entry point this time. Do you mind?”

Toriko’s words made Kozakura frown. “If I told you I did, would you give up? Do what you want.”

“Thanks.”

Picking up where Toriko left off, I continued. “I’m thinking we’ll gradually expand our range like this. Up until now, we haven’t traveled that far from each gate, so even though we had multiple entry points, it never made much difference. That’s why I want to secure safe routes between the gates we already know of. For the future.”

“Is there any such thing as a ‘safe route’ in that world?” Kozakura asked.

“Well, that it’s free of glitches is all I really mean by that.”

“If we leave marks—like a trail of breadcrumbs—behind us as we go, it’ll make things easier in the future, right?”

“...Well, yeah.”

There had been an awkward pause before I responded to Toriko. It was true that if we posted signs along our route, it would make later operations in the other world easier. Because then, even if I didn’t use my right eye, we could act without having to worry about glitches.

In short, Toriko would be able to act without me again...

Then again, even if we secured relatively safe routes, the rest would still be just as dangerous as before. I didn’t think I’d need to worry too much.

“After all the horrifying things you two have been through, why don’t you stop? You saw the miserable state of the people who had encounters of the fourth kind, didn’t you? I can’t believe you still want to go after seeing that. Why?”

“Hmm... I really think that we’re in a different state of consciousness on that side compared to this one,” I said.

“Huh?”

“When you have a nightmare, it’s really scary when you’re asleep, but once you’ve been awake for a while, even if you vividly recall it, that state of fear is gone, right? You’re not going to say, ‘I’ll never go to sleep again.’” I explained it to Kozakura, who was looking at me dubiously. “I think the experiences of fear we find in true ghost stories have an element of that to them, too. The teller saw something unbelievable, was shocked, and was scared senseless, but they’re able to go back to their daily life. That’s similar to a scary dream, right? I thought it was simply a matter of the homeostasis of the psyche, but the other world clearly exerts some influence on our brains, so our state of mind over there must be different from over here. That’s why, once we return to the surface world, we’re naturally able to think about going there again.”

Kozakura clutched her head. “I didn’t ask so that you could start analyzing the mechanisms of cognition. What about you, Toriko?”

“I... Yeah, I really do have to go pick up Satsuki,” Toriko said, having finished her annin tofu and set her spoon to the side. “I don’t know what she’s doing now, or what’s happened to her—maybe Satsuki’s ended up like one of the patients you showed us at the DS Lab. But that’s all the more reason for me to go get her. I mean, there isn’t anyone else searching the other world.”

“I know how you feel. I really do. Even I want to...” Swallowing whatever it was she’d started to say, Kozakura trailed off. Then, after letting out a long sigh, she seemed to notice something and asked, “What’s wrong, Sorawo-chan? Not feeling well?”

When she called my name, I realized I had been staring vacantly at my now empty plate. “No... I’m fine.”

I shook my head and looked up. I had been afraid to look at Toriko’s eyes as she talked about Satsuki Uruma.

Whenever she did, Toriko didn’t look down and to the left, or up and to the right. She looked straight ahead. It was a distant gaze, chasing after Satsuki Uruma who had gone far away. No matter what else was in front of her, it didn’t enter Toriko’s vision.

There were times I thought about it. What would have happened if Toriko had gained the power of my right eye, which tore away the veil over our perception of the other world?

I’m sure she would have used it like crazy, and gone deeper and deeper into the depths of the other world. Chasing after Satsuki Uruma, and paying no heed to me.

As I was thinking that, my eyes met Toriko’s.

“Sorawo, have you thought about what we’ll make to bring along this time?”

“Huh?”

Was there something we ought to make?

Seeing me perplexed, Toriko grinned. “Lunch boxes. We were saying we’d make them to bring on our next expedition!”

“Oh... Ohhh. Yeah, that’s right, huh?”

I recalled us saying something along those lines while we were rescuing the U.S. forces from Kisaragi Station. Because of all the accidental trips to the other world since then, I had forgotten, but I guess she’d been serious about that...?

“You’re acting like it’s going to be a picnic. This is exactly what worries me,” said an exasperated Kozakura.

“We’ll head out early, eat our lunch boxes, then come home while it’s still afternoon.”

Even after I said that, the dubiousness of the look Kozakura was giving us didn’t relent in the slightest.

2

Saturday, 10:00 a.m., the following week.

We had met up in Kozakura’s yard, and were preparing to head out.

Our guns were already put together, magazines loaded. Though, as always, I’d left assembling the rifle to Toriko. Two Makarovs, Toriko’s AK-101, and my M4 CQBR. There was a high fence and some trees between us and the neighboring house, so I don’t think anyone could see, but the fact we were armed with guns in a residential neighborhood of Japan still put me on edge.

“What do we do if a delivery comes now?” I asked.

“We could insist it’s for survival games, or cosplay?” Toriko replied.

“If they take an interest, that’d be even more hassle.”

“Delivery people don’t have time for that. It’ll be fine, okay?”

Now that I thought about it, we both had new equipment this time. Slings! ...By which I mean perfectly ordinary straps we could attach to our rifles, letting us hang them from our shoulders. Following a tip on a survival games blog, I tried buying something called a Magpul Multi-Mission Sling off Amazon.

Adjusting the length, I was able to hang the M4 off my shoulder.

“How’s it feel, Sorawo?”

“Super easy to carry...”

“I know, right? We should’ve bought these sooner.”

“If you knew, you could have said something. I can’t believe I was lugging this heavy rifle around with just my hands.”

“It never occurred to me we could buy gun accessories on Amazon.”

It had started when I was chatting with Toriko and had mentioned it was exhausting how heavy our rifles were, and I learned about the existence of slings from her. Surprisingly, accessories that could be used with a real gun were unexpectedly cheap, and official products and high-quality replicas could be bought normally, even in Japan.

“We’re running low on bullets. Think there’s anywhere we could restock?” I said as I was counting the remaining bullets in a cardboard box, and Toriko thought about it.

“There were a few places where Satsuki left supplies in the other world, but the locations were vague, and I’m not confident I could get to them. It wouldn’t take us too far from our area of operations, though, so if I can get us there, we could try going.”

“Okay. Let’s put that one down on the to-do list.”

I did up the zipper on my backpack and rose to my feet.

“Okay, we’re heading out.”

I was calling out to her, but Kozakura gave no response. Looking over, I saw her leaning against one of the pillars of her front porch, arms crossed. She seemed to be suffering. Her brow was furrowed, and her eyes squinted.

“Kozakura-san? Is something wrong?”

When I approached, Kozakura let out a long sigh, opened her eyes, and kicked me gently in the shin.

“Ow! What was that for?!”

“Just so you know, I’m prepared for the fact that I may never see your faces again this time. I always thought I was the unemotional type, but... it still weighs on me pretty hard.”

“Kozakura...” Toriko walked over and put a hand on Kozakura’s shoulder. The difference in height between them was incredible. Looking at them like this, they were like two sisters with a large age gap.

“Mom cried a lot, too. When your partner is a soldier, you never know when they’ll go on a mission, and death is always a possibility. She said, when you see someone off, you always think this might be the last time.”

Kozakura looked dubiously at the hand on her shoulder, then glanced up to Toriko’s face.

“Do you have some advice for me, based on those sad memories?”

“For Mom, it got a bit easier on her when she joined a support group for the families of those in the military. Oh, also, she liked drawing manga, so she would draw all sorts of stuff and upload it to the—ow!”

Toriko jumped back after taking a kick to the shin.

“Okay, enough of this! I’m sorry! Sorry I said something weird!”

“Don’t just snap all of a sudden...”

“Shut up. Just go already.”

Toriko and I looked at one another.

“You don’t need to worry. It’s going to be fine, Kozakura-san,” I said.

“Yep, yep. With me and Sorawo together, we’ll be fine no matter what happens. That’s how it’s been so far, hasn’t it?”

“I really can’t understand that abnormal confidence.” Kozakura shook her head in resignation. “Well, whatever. Come back if you can. Take care of your sanity.”

Kozakura said that like she’d say, “Take care of yourselves.”

Toriko gripped the space that made up the gate with her translucent left hand. The transformation that had once only affected her fingertips had now spread to her entire hand. When that hand which sparkled in the sunshine moved, it was like a curtain was pulled back, and a grassy field that was not of this world appeared. We nodded to one another, then stepped through together. When we passed through the cross-section marked off by the gardening poles, a moist air that was different from what we had felt a moment before, and an invaluable silence wrapped around us.

We walked between the two old totem poles at the base of the hill, and into the other world once more.

When Toriko let go, the gate closed behind us, completely severing us from the surface world.

My skin felt a bit colder than it had before. Had fall come to the other world, as it had to the surface? At this rate, we were going to need to prepare for snow in the winter.

Next to the gate sat a great mass covered by a blue plastic sheet. Once we had undone the thin ropes wrapped around it and removed the sheet, there was a red and white agricultural vehicle with a small set of treads on it. This was our AP-1. I breathed a sigh of relief despite myself.

“Thank goodness, it’s all right.”

“All right?”

“I was worrying a little about what we were going to do if it had changed in some weird way. You know, like how the U.S. forces’ robot stepped into a glitch and got turned into a monster.”

I couldn’t even imagine what happened in the other world while we were in the surface world. If there wasn’t already the precedent of the guns Toriko had left here, I doubt I’d have been able to leave our valuable AP-1 behind. The thing was expensive, after all. Enough to nearly max out my credit card...

That being the case, I was now out of money. I wasn’t done paying back my student loans, so if I didn’t bring back something from the other world, I was in serious trouble.

Toriko walked up to the AP-1, putting her bag on the roof rack. She was about to sit in her seat, too, so I called out to her.

“Help me fold up the blue sheet first.”

“Oh, right. Okay.”

Toriko and I both took hold of the sheet, brushing it off, and then making the edges match. It was a fairly large sheet, so it took some effort folding it.

Toriko looked me in the eyes, then suddenly smiled.

“What?”

“So, we’re holding the sheet, facing one another with our arms outstretched, right? I was thinking it’s a bit like we’re doing a social dance.”

“You can dance, Toriko?”

“Yes, I can! I did it in gym class at secondary school, so—oh, um, in Japan, I’d have been around the second year of middle school, I guess?”

“Hmm.”

“And you, Sorawo?”

“I feel like I got forced to do the bon odori during elementary school.”

I thought it wouldn’t measure up to her experience as I answered, but Toriko’s eyes lit up. “Teach me to do the bon odori. I’ll teach you social dance.”

“No, I don’t remember it well enough to teach it properly...”

“If we play the music, I’m sure it’ll come back to you.”

Tying up the folded blue sheet using the rope, we loaded it onto the roof rack. I put my backpack up on top of it.

Before sitting in my seat, I started the engine. The engine sounds echoing across the grassy field were reassuring to me, but at the same time I felt like they might attract the attention of something that lived on this side, and I looked around despite myself.

There were trees scattered across a sea of faded grass. Rocks with shapes that seemed to harbor some meaning. Electrical poles with severed lines. Collapsing buildings visible off in the distance.

I looked to the hilltop. We had taken the AP-1 up there before, and looked down into the marshland to the east.

“...”

“Sorawo? What’s up?”

Toriko suspiciously followed my gaze, looking up to the top of the hill.

“Can you see something?”

After a momentary glance at the profile of Toriko’s face, I shook my head.

“...Nah. I was just thinking about what course we’ll take.”

“We want to get to the gate to Jinbouchou, right? I think cutting across the hill would be fastest, but...”

“There’s Kunekunes on the other side of this hill, aren’t there? I think we can handle them, but there’s no need to go out of our way to subject ourselves to that gross experience.”

“Ohh, yeah, you’re right.” Perhaps remembering the nausea from that time, Toriko scowled and stuck her tongue out.

“There’s water on the ground there, too, and I’m not sure just how well the AP-1 can drive through it. Let’s go south around the hill, and approach from the grassy field full of glitches where we first met Abarato.”

“That’s where Hasshaku-sama appeared, though. You sure?”

“It’s not great, but if I have to choose one of the two, I’ll take it.”

“Hmm...” Toriko said as she looked around the area. “Well, in that case, why not take a course we haven’t before? Let’s go around the north of the hill, not the south.”

“North, huh?”

“Is there a problem?”

“It would suck if the AP-1 couldn’t handle the terrain, but... if it happens, it happens. We’ll deal with it then.”

“Nice, it’s settled.”

We both got into our seats. Toriko on the left, me on the right. There was a gap in between us, but not so wide we couldn’t reach across it.

“Okay, and we’re off!”

“Yeah!”

After her shout, I moved the lever to change direction. The little treads spun earnestly, slowly changing the direction of the vehicle.

“...I should have saved that cheer for after you changed direction, huh?”

“Want to do it one more time?”

“I dunno about that...”

Finally, we finished changing direction. When I pushed the lever, the AP-1 began to move forward.

3

We were moving slower than we would have if we were traveling on foot—at a speed of 3 kmph—making the scenery drift past us at the pace of a leisurely stroll.

The road was smooth after we left the gate, and the ground was more or less level. The marshland spread out to our right, the surface of the water there glittering. There were bubbles rising in some places and eddies that had formed in others, likely indicating some sort of glitch. It would be a pain to have to deal with a Kunekune if I saw one, so I made a conscious effort not to focus my eyes too far off in the distance.

“I’m keeping watch with my right eye, but just to be safe, would you mind throwing some bolts, too?” I asked.

“Okay.”

I handed her the heavy nail bag. Toriko stuffed her hand into the bag and threw the nuts and bolts she took out in the direction we were going.

The glitch density is low here, making it easy to move forward... is what I was thinking when one of the bolts she threw fell to the ground, and what looked like rainbow ferns started sprouting from it.

“Whoa, what?!” I gasped.

“It makes no sense...”

This wasn’t the first time that things had made no sense. I tried not to think too much as I carefully went around it.

“We really can’t let our guard down. I think I’d have seen it if we got a bit closer, but we don’t want to get that close to these things to begin with.”

“I’ll take my throwing duties a bit more seriously...”

There was no question that things that happened in the other world were deeply tied to our perception. However, each time we encountered something as nonsensical as this, I was left with a strong impression that there was more involved than just that. It also felt slightly different from the sort of unreasonableness found in true ghost stories. Or, maybe this was born from some interaction between the other world and human cognition.

If I looked at the vast grassy field, it was by no means uniform. There was an angular rock, much like a gravestone, partially buried beneath the grass. A rotten cardboard box with multiple yellow cable-like things coming out from under it. Something that looked like a mobile which had grown upside-down out of the ground—was it artificial, or a plant that happened to be shaped that way?

There were some glitches you could tell were dangerous even without the silver halo, while some were clearly suspicious but didn’t look abnormal to my right eye.

If I looked off in the distance, there was a series of electricity pylons. The power lines were wrapped around them like ivy, and on top of them there seemed to be something triangular going back and forth between the towers. Were those creatures that were active in the other world even active during the day? It could have simply been a natural phenomenon, though.

Throwing bolt after bolt, a serious expression on her face, Toriko spoke up. “Hey, where do you want to eat our lunch boxes?”

“You’re thinking about that already?”

“Well, hey—I’m looking forward to it. Eating lunch boxes with you, I mean.”

I felt like lately the way Toriko acted was more childish than when I first met her. Was I imagining that?

Occasionally I turned back, checking our rear.

“What’s up? Is there something behind us?” she asked.

“Nah. I was just wondering how far we’ve come.”

The AP-1 crushed the grass under its treads, leaving two trails that stretched all the way behind us. We were gradually leaving our marks on the once-blank map...

“Sorawo, you’re smiling.”

“Huh? Am I?”

“You seem tenser than usual, but also happy.”

“Don’t watch me so much...”

Despite responding to Toriko that way, I found myself agreeing. I had always wanted to do something like this ever since I had found the other world.

I’d wanted to explore this unfamiliar grassy plain—where I was the only person around—to my heart’s content.

Kozakura found it mystifying that I continued to come to the other world after the frightening experiences I’d been through, but my motive was the same as it had been from the beginning, before I’d even met Toriko.

I still vividly remembered the irritation I felt when I first encountered her. Back then, more than anything, I was shocked to learn that the Otherside was not a secret place just for me. On top of that, just as I was getting excited about how I was going to explore it, the entrance vanished right before my eyes.

If Toriko hadn’t come and found me after that, and if she hadn’t told me about the gate in Jinbouchou, I have to wonder what would have become of me without the Otherside.

Abarato, the man we met the time we encountered Hasshaku-sama, had searched incredibly hard for his vanished wife, and found a gate to the other world on his own, but I can’t imagine I would have had that level of determination. That I was here now, doing this, was thanks to Toriko being there.

I stared at Toriko, who was beside me and continuously throwing bolts.

“Hm? What?” she asked.

“No... I was just thinking. I’m glad I was able to meet you.”

“Whaa? Why so suddenly?” Toriko asked with a grin.

I’d gradually started to figure her out—she acted like this when she felt shy. I tried my best not to look away, not wanting to lose to those golden lashes and the beautiful indigo irises they framed, and... okay, she started acting weird.

“Sorawo, don’t stare so much. This is embarrassing.” She looked away, her ears red.

Though she seemed aloof, if you complimented her directly, she was more bashful about it than you might expect. I’d realized that the time we changed into swimsuits at the beach we’d wandered into in Okinawa.

I turned to look behind us; with a gulp, I opened my mouth.

“Th-The two of us, all alone like this, exploring an unfamiliar world. It makes me happy. I’m really grateful that you chose me.” I managed to get into a groove as I spoke, and the words flowed out of my mouth smoothly. “That time, you called it the closest relationship in the world. Honestly, at first, I didn’t know what you were talking about, but—”

“Wh-Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. What?”

Unable to take anymore, Toriko’s eyes widened and she turned back to look at me.

“What’s up, Sorawo? Don’t you think you’re acting funny today?”

“Y-You think? Aren’t I always like this?”

“No way. Not a chance. I mean, are you all right? Did you see something that messed you up?”

Now it was Toriko’s turn to stare at me, concern on her face. Taking advantage of an opening when I faltered, she pinched my cheeks. Then, as she squeezed them, Toriko said: “What should I do if you’ve gone crazy? Will hitting you or slapping you fix it? Hey—”

“Don’t rub my face!”

I shook her off, but the motion nearly made me fall out of my seat.

“Whoa, there.” Toriko reached out in time to grab my arm and pull me back. “See, that’s what happens when you get rough.”

“It was your fault, Toriko!”

My response made Toriko cackle. “Oh, good, you’re back to the usual Sorawo.”

“Why do you always rub my face? Is seeing funny faces on people that much fun?”

“Hmm, when I see you making a scary face, I get the urge to bring you back to normal, and it just happens.”

“Did I have that scary a look on my face?”

“You were looking kinda stern just now.”

Huh? You look way more stern than me... Is she being sarcastic?

Though I felt slightly irritated by that, I glanced behind us. The track—which was mostly straight, with the exception of the places we had avoided glitches—swerved around like the driver was drunk where we had been during that last exchange. While I drove on ahead, the marsh to our right grew more and more shallow, then eventually ended. The ground sloped gently upward, and I could see scattered groves of trees ahead of us.

“Just a little farther, then we turn. After that, if we head due east, we should come to the gate to Jinbouchou.”

Toriko raised her hand. “Commander, when is it lunch box time?”

“Can’t it wait until we reach the gate?”

“Whaaa. The mood won’t be right if we do it after we reach our goal. Let’s stop for a break somewhere along the way.”

The AP-1 slowly and steadily climbed the hill. For whatever faults it had, using a vehicle really did make this trip a lot less exhausting. The woods up ahead looked like the ground would be fairly level, so we’d be able to pass between the trees.

“The mood, huh? Okay, let’s stop somewhere around here and—huh?” Noticing something on the other side of the grove, I squinted. “Toriko, isn’t that a building? There.”

“Oh... Hey, you’re right.”

“And this sound...” When I listened closely, I could hear a constant low sound, like the grinding of some heavy object.

We looked at one another, then nodded. Toriko grabbed her AK, checked the chamber, then rested the barrel on the AP-1’s luggage rack and remained alert. I checked my M4’s bullets, too. When I began to move the AP-1 forward again, it wasn’t long before what had been hidden by the branches came fully into view.

It was a tall building made of concrete. The outside was falling apart and covered in moss and plants. On the very top of the building was a thick dish that was easily the size of a whole floor, and its circumference was made entirely of glass.

The disk was spinning slowly. The low grinding I had been hearing apparently came from it.

Stopping the AP-1, the two of us looked up at the building.

“What do you think it is, Sorawo?”

“Isn’t it an observation deck?” I answered easily. Toriko’s eyes widened.

“How can you tell?”

“There’s a place called Mt. Kanpuu in Akita, and I went there for a field trip when I was in elementary school, or something like that. I just remembered there being a revolving lookout like this there.”

“Revolving... Yeah, it is spinning around, huh? Think it’s dangerous?”

“I don’t see anything that looks like a glitch from here.”

As I looked, I moved the AP-1 closer to the building. Taking a quick glance around the area, I found an open entrance, then went down from the vehicle and took a peek inside. It was empty inside, with a railed staircase wrapped around the central support pillar going upwards.

I turned off the engine, and we waited a while to see what would happen. There was no sign of motion, aside from the observation platform revolving above our heads.

“Seems safe enough,” Toriko said, lowering her AK. “Want to go up? The observation platform’ll give us a good view of the surrounding area, and besides—”

“It’s the perfect place for lunch?”

“Bingo!”

Toriko laughed gleefully when I finished her sentence for her. It seemed she was dead set on having lunch.

4

Was this the first building we’d been inside in the other world since the one where we’d encountered Hasshaku-sama? It looked the same on the outside, but the inside was bare, and it was hard to imagine it having ever been in use. Kisaragi Station, the Time-space Man’s ghost town, and the beach house in Okinawa had all looked like they were brought in from the surface world, but this observation deck seemed to be somewhat lacking in detail.

Almost like it was some sort of a “pseudo-building.”

Even so, the stairs were made of sturdy concrete, and they didn’t give way under our feet, though the paint on the metal railing was faded and beginning to flake. It peeled away easily when I touched it with gloves, revealing the rusted metal beneath.

In the event that something were to happen, it might’ve been better for Toriko, who was used to using firearms, to be the one leading the way. But without my right eye it was possible she wouldn’t even notice what that “something” was. That being the case, we stood shoulder to shoulder on the narrow staircase and climbed together. I used the sling to put my rifle on my back, and held the Makarov ready as we slowly poked our heads up onto the upper floor.

“Yeah, no sign of any glitches.”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

We stepped from the staircase into the observation room.

The entire wall was made of windows, so the room was pretty bright. There was gravel and shattered glass scattered across the bare concrete floor, and a line of metal benches near the windows.

That was as much as I had seen when, beside me, Toriko shouted.

“Who’s there?!”

I turned in surprise and spotted a human figure slumped against the support pillar in the center of the observation room. I jumped and turned my gun towards them. The figure didn’t move. Their whole body was covered in baggy clothes. Their head was hidden behind a helmet with a visor, so I couldn’t see their face. No matter how I looked at it, they were...

“...An astronaut?” Toriko asked dubiously.

“A-Are they alive?”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

Toriko adjusted her grip on her AK, bringing the barrel of the rifle closer to the figure. There was no response. She hooked the barrel under the visor, and lifted it up.

The suit was empty.

“It’s empty.”

Having half expected to come face to face with a corpse, I let out an unintentional sigh of relief. When Toriko retracted the barrel of her rifle, the visor lowered to its original position.

“Think they wandered in from the surface world, too?”

“From space, you mean?”

“I dunno.”

I looked up, but there was no hole in the ceiling. Just a socket for a fluorescent light. Toriko crouched down and began inspecting the spacesuit.

“There’s something written here, but... of course we can’t read it on this side.”

Now that she mentioned it, I could see corrupted text here and there.

“Hmm. I dunno what the original language was.”

“I’m not exactly an expert on the subject, but I’m pretty sure American and Japanese spacesuits don’t look like this one,” I said. Toriko cocked her head to the side.

“Is this even a spacesuit to begin with? It could be some sort of protective suit.”

“Protective suit? Against what?” I asked.

“You know, like chemical weapons.”

“Ohhh.”

As I looked at the spacesuit (?) with its legs akimbo, I started feeling somewhat nervous.

“...What do you think happened to the person wearing it?”

“Well, there’s no weird smell, and it doesn’t seem like they died wearing it,” Toriko replied.

“Did they strip out of it, then wander off somewhere else?”

“Like, they floated into the air and flew off?”

“What...?”

Thinking about this wasn’t helping. We could be sure, at the very least, that the suit wasn’t going to attack us, so we decided to leave it be and go somewhere else.

In one corner of the observation room, there was a revolving rack that had fallen over, and faded paint had been splattered on the floor around it. There were picture postcards with watercolor paintings of scenery, photos of European-style street corners, cats, dogs, and more, along with the occasional group photo of an unfamiliar family, or an upper torso shot like you would take for an ID photograph. I didn’t see a silver halo, but I picked up a few at random and put them into a Ziploc bag. Hopefully, they would help pad my wallet somewhat.

There was a large pair of binoculars installed in there, as you would expect for an observational platform. It was the coin-operated variety, but I couldn’t convince myself to bother trying it. If I accidentally ended up looking at a Kunekune, that would ruin my day, to say the least..

Once we had been around the room once, we returned to the windows to look out.

“It’s quite a view, isn’t it?”

“Nah, it’s nothing that special.”

Toriko was just saying whatever came to mind, so I retorted despite myself.

The fact was, this observational platform had been built on what was practically flat land, so most of the view was just branches from the surrounding forest.

Looking to the south, near the marsh, was the hill we had left behind. To the east was the destination of this trip, the skeletal building with a gate that led to Jinbouchou. A little further north were mountains, and the mountainside was covered densely with trees. On the west side, far in the distance I could see something that looked like a bridge.

This observational platform had been spinning all this time, but... what was the power source? There had been light bulbs that lit up without electricity at Kisaragi Station for some reason, too. It didn’t have the silver halo, so it didn’t seem to be a glitch or a UB artifact.

“Well, it seems safe, so how about those lunch boxes?” Toriko asked in a cheery voice, making me look at her half in disbelief.

“We’re really going to eat here?”

“Can’t we?”

“I won’t say we can’t, but... Don’t you feel uneasy? I feel eyes—”

“Eyes? Whose?”

“Um, well. Y...”

Turning around, my eyes fell on the empty spacesuit (we’ll just call it that) sitting in the center of the observation room. I could see the two of us reflected in the visor.

“Ohhh, I get it... Okay, well, let’s do this, then.” Toriko turned around and walked toward the spacesuit. She crouched down, grabbed it under the armpits, and started dragging it over toward us.

“Huh, what? Wh-What are you doing with that?”

“You feel uneasy because you think it’s watching. If we have it sit here...”

While I looked on in exasperation, Toriko sat the spacesuit down on one of the benches by the windows. Then she plopped herself down next to it, putting her arm around the spacesuit’s shoulders and giving me a thumbs-up.

“Look, see? Now it just looks like a person looking out from the observational platform.”

I watched Toriko as she spoke with obvious satisfaction, then shook my head. “Toriko, there are times when I think you’re seriously insane.”

5

Sitting on the bench beside the spacesuit, we opened the lunch boxes we had pulled out of our packs.

Toriko’s was a small basket of sandwiches. There were colorful napkins laid out, and they looked pretty. Toriko pointed to them one after another, explaining the fillings of her sandwiches.

“This one’s ham, cheese, and cucumber, and this one’s cream cheese. This one’s peanut butter and strawberry jam. This one’s Nutella. Oh, and there’s this.” She opened two plastic food containers and revealed chicken salad and cut fruits.

“Well, aren’t you fancy.”

“How so? This is pretty normal. What’d you bring, Sorawo? Show me already.”

“Oh, geez. Fine.”

Toriko was breathing heavily as she watched me open the lid of my own plastic food container. If she had a tail, it would have been whipping back and forth.

“I don’t think it’s anything to get so excited about...”

Pollock roe onigiri, chicken karaage, a salad of edamame and hijiki, mashed tofu salad with spinach, and meatballs in bean sauce. When Toriko saw the contents of the container, she let out a cheer.

“Wow, it’s an actual lunch box! Did you make it yourself?”

“...It’s frozen food. Along with instant food, and ready-made stuff from the supermarket.”

“And the onigiri?”

“The one thing I made myself.”

“I thought so! It’s so you.”

Huh? How so?

With no regard to my confusion, Toriko pulled a water bottle out of her luggage with a smile.

“I brought coffee. You’ll have some, right?”

“Oh, sure. I’d love some.”

When she poured the coffee into paper cups, that familiar scent rose together with the steam.

Now that she mentioned it, it hadn’t occurred to me to bring a drink. Portable water was heavy enough on its own, and I didn’t want to increase the load too much, but now that we had the AP-1 it was something I could think about in the future.

“Let’s dig in.”

Using plastic plates and disposable chopsticks, we shared the contents of our lunch boxes and started eating.

“The onigiri’s delicious, Sorawo.”

“I think they taste about the same no matter who makes them, but thanks.”

“No they don’t. They taste like you.”

“I used plastic wrap while I made them, okay?”

“Huh? Is that how you do it? I didn’t use plastic wrap when I made the sandwiches.”

“Uh, well... I don’t think it matters for sandwiches, does it?”

It was a bit funny imagining her cutting the bread and putting in the fillings with that see-through hand of hers. Though if Kozakura saw, I’m sure she’d say “Don’t do it with your bare hands,” or something like that.

Toriko ate the frozen karaage and the instant meatballs, and was kind enough to tell me they were good. We had the product development team’s hard work to thank for that; not any skill of mine, though.

“Oh, right.”

Toriko set her chopsticks down, poured a little more coffee into a paper cup, and stood up. She walked to the neighboring bench, and laid it next to the spacesuit looking out the window.

“That for the suit?” I asked.

“Yeah. I was starting to feel bad that we were the only ones eating.”

“Well, me too, then.”

I took another paper cup, put a bit of the spinach with tofu and sesame sauce in it, and stood up. I put it next to the cup of coffee, along with a spare set of chopsticks.

“I guess it kind of looks like an offering now.”

“Maybe we’ll get a blessing for it.”

Returning to our original bench, I looked out the window. Because the platform was revolving, the scenery outside was slowly changing. The branches of dense woods beneath us were a deep green, and the quiet afternoon sun cast lattice-like shadows on the floor by the windows.

Huh?

Something about that struck me as odd, but I couldn’t really put it into words all that well.

“Hey, I’m gonna take the last karaage, okay?” Toriko, who was sitting beside me, said.

“Oh, sure. Let me have that sandwich, then. I thought peanut butter and jam would be too sweet, but it’s really not.”

“There’s sweetened and unsweetened peanut butter. I’ve liked this kind since I was a kid.”

“Hmm. It’s my first time eating it, but it tastes good.”

“Oh, good. I’ll make these again.”

There hadn’t been much food to begin with, so it took no time at all for the two of us to finish eating.

“Satisfied now, Toriko?”

“Yeah. I’ll be coming back, though.”

“Maybe we should’ve brought some soup base?”

“Good idea! And if we brought a gas stove, we could boil water.”

“Then we could make ramen, couldn’t we?”

“Let’s try cooking next time.”

It felt like we were discussing camping plans, but this wasn’t some park we were in, it was the other world. Like Kozakura said, though it was a bit late to be bringing it up now, having a relaxed picnic like this was pretty crazy.

“Want another coffee, Sorawo?”

“Oh, sure. Come to think of it, I just remembered I still have a mooncake I bought at that Chinese rice porridge place we went to. This seems like a good time, so let’s share it.”

“You’re the best, Sorawo!”

“You know it.”

Once we had put away the empty basket and plastic containers, I split the mooncake in two, and then stared out the window as we nibbled at it between sips of coffee.

Feeling a little relaxed, I asked, “Hey, Toriko, why were you so eager to eat our lunch boxes?”

“Hmm? It seemed like it’d be fun.”

“Well, yeah, it was definitely fun. But you have a way of getting worked up about things sometimes, like when we went to the beach in Okinawa. The one who wants to do things we probably shouldn’t be doing in the other world is you, not me.”

“Do I?”

“You do.”

Toriko went mum for a little while. “It was kind of frustrating,” she finally said.

“What was?”

“When Satsuki brought me to the other world, if I’m being honest, I didn’t really get it... Just how scary of a place this is. Or how abnormal. I didn’t know what was here, other than us. That’s why, when I saw this unfamiliar place, I got all excited about what we were going to do—and then Satsuki vanished before I could do any of it.”

Toriko lowered her eyes as she continued.

“That always frustrated me. When I started playing with you, I made a decision not to hold myself back anymore. I was going to do all the things I wanted us to do together. That’s why I may have been a little pushy. Sorry.”

“Nah.” I shook my head. “I can understand the frustration. It’s a bit different for me, but... when I’m under pressure, I can never be passive.”

“What do you mean?”

“I told you before, right? My family fell apart when they joined this weird cult. Oh, this was after Mom died, so it was everyone but her. I was abducted for some sort of ritual, and there was trouble at school, too...”

The more I said, the darker Toriko’s face got.

“Huh? Didn’t we talk about this before?”

Toriko shook her head.

“Oh. Well, it’s not really worth bringing up, but I started getting angrier and angrier. Like, why do these guys get to control my life? That’s why I decided not to be a victim anymore.”

“...What does that mean?”

“Whether I ran from the cult or fought them, for as long as I thought of myself as a poor victim, they’d continue to rule my life. That’s why I changed my way of thinking. They had nothing to do with my life—I was the only one in control. If they were going to get in the way of that, it was simple: I would just destroy everything.”

“And... how did that go?”

“It’s almost disappointing, but they all died before I could do anything, and the cult was wiped out. All’s well that ends well, I guess.”

“...”

As I spoke, one thing started to make sense to me. If I set my mind to it, it was possible for me to stop being a victim. But I’d never had an answer to the question of... if I wasn’t a victim, what was I? I had no intent of becoming a victimizer. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. It’s not like there was some binary option of being a victim or victimizer, but I felt like I was hovering somewhere in between the two.

That’s when I met Toriko, and she gave me that word.

Accomplices.

The concept hadn’t felt right to me at first, so I wonder when it became so important to me? With that one word, Toriko gave me a new place to be.

When I realized Toriko was silent, I panicked.

“Oh! I’m sorry. For talking about this silly stuff, I mean. Basically, what I’m trying to say here is—”

Mid-sentence, Toriko suddenly hugged me.

“Guh.”

“...”

“To-Toriko-san? You’re making it hard to breathe. What’s up?”

“I’m sorry. I never realized.”

“Nah... How could you have? I never said anything.”

Come to think of it, I had spoken to Kozakura about this before, hadn’t I? I guess Kozakura never told Toriko.

Toriko hugged me and didn’t let go. It seemed like I’d given her a shock. When I breathed in the scent of shampoo from her hair, along with Toriko’s own sweet smell, it somehow calmed me.

Still, what was such a shock to her?

I stared out the window as I patted her on the back. The red of the sunset slowly cut across the revolving observational platform’s windows.

“...Huh?”

A moment later, it hit me.

“To-Toriko! This might be bad.”

“Huh?”

“The sun’s going down!”

Toriko stopped hugging me and then turned to look, her eyes widening.

“No way! It shouldn’t be that time yet.”

“We need to leave right away. We gotta reach the gate before it gets dark!”

We hurriedly packed our bags, raced down the stairs, then headed out through the open doorway.

“Wha...?!”

I shouted despite myself. The AP-1, which had been parked in front of the building, had disappeared. Even as we stood there in a state of shock, the sky above the treetops was rapidly darkening.

Night was coming. The terrifying night of the other world.

6

“Sorry, Sorawo, I didn’t notice the time going by.”

“No... It shouldn’t be night so soon. Even if we add together the time it took to search the observation platform and to eat lunch, it couldn’t have been more than an hour.”

Up until now, I had thought there was no difference in the passage of time between the surface and the other side, but maybe I was wrong about that. Inside the woods, it was already so dark you couldn’t see what was up ahead. The wind had picked up, rustling the branches overhead.

I took a flashlight out of my bag and turned it on. The cone of light licked at the grass beneath the trees.

“Hey, Toriko, were there always so many trees here?”

“I thought that was weird, too. It felt more sparsely wooded when we came. The AP-1 couldn’t make it through these dense trees.” As she was speaking, Toriko seemed to come to a sudden realization, and she held her AK ready. “Hold on. Are these trees monsters, then? Like, maybe they’re creeping towards us?”

I focused on my right eye and took a quick look around us.

“...Doesn’t look like it. These are all ordinary trees. I don’t know if they’re beech trees or oak, though.”

“Then why is it different from when we came?”

I pointed the flashlight down, focusing the light on the ground. I couldn’t see any trace of the treads that we had left when we came. In their place, there was a gap in the trees, and a pitch-black mountain path.

“Did we come out in a different place entirely...?”

“There was only one entrance and exit, right?”

“Yeah, but...”

I turned to look back at the building behind us. I stared at the dark entrance, then looked upwards to where the round observation room was revolving with a heavy noise.

“It could be that the location of this observational platform’s exit changes as it spins around. Or maybe not the location, but the state? The aspect? Something like that.”

“I don’t really get it.”

“Before—the time when you took off without me, while I was in a glitch, I saw the aspect of the other world change. There was something in the ghost town that could look like a man sometimes, and a plant at others. While we were in that observation room, the same thing may have happened, making the woods become deeper, and the time advance to night.”

“So, the observational platform moves through this... aspect? Sort of like an elevator?”

“While we were looking out from up there, there was one moment where I sort of went, ‘Huh?’ It felt like the forest was deeper than before. If I’d realized what was happening then, it might not—”

“Shh!” Toriko lowered her voice and cut me off. “I heard something.”

“...!” I followed Toriko’s example and held my rifle ready. I shut my mouth and listened closely.

She was right. I could hear fragmented voices. That sound, which resembled air leaking from a large bag, said, “Ten... Sou... Metsu.”

There was a presence coming down the mountain path, making sounds like something soft being struck as it came.

“Ten... Sou... Metsu... Ten... Sou... Metsu...” the voice repeated over and over.

From the moment I heard that distinctive phrase, I knew what it was.

“...It’s a Yamanoke.”

I turned the barrel of my M4 towards the path and released the safety. It took me some time to get my left hand on the foregrip while still holding the flashlight.

“Yamanoke? What’s that?” Toriko asked as she made the same motions I was making.

“To put it simply, it’s a monster that possesses women.”

“Again...? So was the Kotoribako. There’s too many of these things going after women, don’t you think?”

The Yamanoke was a monster that a man had encountered while driving with his daughter in the navigator’s seat. It approached repeating the mysterious “Tensoumetsu,” possessed his daughter, then vanished. In order to save his daughter, who had lost her sanity, the father drove down the mountain, and ran to the nearby temple.

But...

“Ten... Sou... Metsu.”

The voice drew nearer, and its owner appeared at the entrance to the mountain path.

A white body with undefined features appeared, floating in the light of the flashlight. It had a human-like body, but no head. In place of one, there was a large human face on its chest. It had been jumping down the mountain path on its sole leg.

“Ugh,” Toriko muttered, already fed up with it. The broad grin of the face on its chest was the kind that inspired instant revulsion.

Humans react with fear to things that have human parts but are assembled wrong, or that have missing or extra parts to them. Take, for example, the Xingtian, which appears in the Classic of Mountains and Seas. In Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, it describes the Blemmyae people as having no heads, and the Sciapodae people are described as only having one leg. It’s likely that the Yamanoke comes from the same group of aberrations.

The Yamanoke came to a stop. Its eyes were staring in my direction.

“Tenguri... Sougi... Metsutsuki,” it said, then turned its eyes toward Toriko.

“Tenrou... Souryou... Metsugimono.”

What? What is it saying...?

As if to take advantage of our momentary confusion, the Yamanoke suddenly moved.

It hopped around at random on its one leg, waving its arms around like it was throwing a fit. It twisted its quivering body as it came towards us at a frightening speed.

Toriko and I both cringed despite ourselves—the way it moved was super unsettling. We had encountered a number of things in the other world before, but this was the first time where the way it moved was scary on its own. It was flopping around like a many-legged bug after it had been hit by insecticide. It was definitely not the way anything with human parts ought to be moving.

While we were overwhelmed by our disgust, the Yamanoke got right up in front of us. The bizarre movements came to a complete stop. When I saw its face—which had already been unbearable—grin, I couldn’t hold back any longer.

“Ahhhh!” I screamed as I pulled the trigger. The barrel of my M4 flashed in the darkness, briefly dyeing the surrounding trees in shades of red. In that instant, the white body vanished as if being erased. At the same time, a bizarre shock ran through my entire body, as if I had been struck by something soft and elastic. The cartridges fell to the ground. The smell of smoke tickled my nose.

The Yamanoke was nowhere to be seen.

Toriko, are you all right? I tried to say, but the words that came out instead were:

“Got in.”

“Huh?” Toriko looked at me, a dubious look on her face. “What did you say?”

“Got in. Got in. Got in.”

Aww, crap. It got me.

I had been possessed by the Yamanoke. At least, that’s what I wanted to tell Toriko, but my mouth just kept repeating “got in,” over and over again.

My mind was foggy, like I’d had too much to drink. As if my field of vision were narrowing, my existence began to fade out, starting from the edges.

At the same time, a new sensation cut in. Toriko’s body in front of me began to warp. The balance of her limbs got weird, her torso twisted, and I stopped being able to recognize the parts that made up her face. When I looked down, my own arms and legs were badly twisted, and it got harder and harder to tell what was part of me and what was not.

The hand-like parts split off at the end, and fell heavily to the ground. Shocked by my body going to pieces, I let out a scream.

“Got in got in got in got in got in.”

“Sorawo! What’s gotten into you?!”

A large, soft, wavy, golden thing embraced me.

“Pull yourself together, Sorawo.”

Tugged by that voice and fragrance, my consciousness, which had been about to drown in the madness, managed to surface once more. Clinging to Toriko, I desperately said, “My hand. My hand fell off.”

“Your hand? No, you just dropped your gun.”

When I looked closer, it wasn’t my hand that had fallen, it was the M4 and the flashlight.

“Are you okay? What did you mean by ‘got in’?”

“I-I’ve been possessed—by the Yamanoke!”

When I had crossed the marsh area with Kozakura, for a moment, I saw myself from the perspective of a Kunekune. In the same way, this time it was the Yamanoke’s perspective that invaded my cognition. This was an even worse situation. The Yamanoke was inside me.

Catch it in my right eye, then shoot it with the gun. That was how we defeated monsters in the other world. If it got inside me, we couldn’t do that anymore.

“Okay, what should we do?”

I thought about Toriko’s question. How could I look at the Yamanoke within me... look at myself...

“U-Up.”

“Huh?”

“Go back, up, go back.”

I tried to turn back to the observational platform. Unable to trust my own feet, I nearly fell over.

“You want me to take you back up there, right? I’ll pass you your gun. Can you hold it?”

I tried to nod, but I have no confidence that I succeeded.

As I was pulled along, feeling came back to my body, although in a fragmented way. Toriko lent me her shoulder, and half dragged me into the building.

We passed through the entrance, then stopped.

The inside must have changed. What had been a bare concrete space now had a tatami floor, and the walls around it were all shoji. On the other side of an ornate lintel, there was apparently another, separate room. In the center of the Japanese-style building, a bizarre thing stood with a bright red pillar at its back. It was like a three-meter-tall art installation made by piling up mortuary tablets, candlesticks, bells, and other Buddhist altar equipment. An old wooden fish lay on top of the pile.

“What did you do?!” the pile suddenly shouted.

In a dazed tone, Toriko mumbled, “A-A priest...?”

Is that how it looks to Toriko?

I was beginning to get a vague understanding.

In the story of the Yamanoke, the father rushes into a temple to save his daughter, who has been possessed, and the first words out of the head priest’s mouth are: “What did you do?!”

The narrator, who had a frightening encounter, is scolded by a grandfather—or a Buddhist or Shinto priest—some senior figure who understands the situation. “You’ve done something that cannot be undone,” they say, sparking even more fear. It’s a horror story trope. It seemed that Toriko saw a priest, but all it looked like to me right now was a mound of garbage. I wasn’t focusing on it with my right eye, so why?

Oh. I get it now.

Since earlier, I had stopped being able to recognize humans as being human. The Yamanoke inside me was screwing up my brain’s ability to perceive the human body. It was the opposite of the monsters at Kisaragi Station that used the simulacra phenomenon to make people mistake the patterns on their bodies for faces.

I’m sure that just like the human OS came programmed with a facial recognition function, it must have also come with a human body recognition function, and the Yamanoke was attacking that. That’s why it wasn’t just my body that seemed warped, but Toriko’s, too.

That was why this “head priest” didn’t look even slightly human to me, and I could only perceive him as some piece of modern art.

I focused on the sensation in the palm of my hand. I was apparently still holding the M4’s grip. It felt so heavy that it would probably throw me off balance if I tried to lift it up with just one hand. I managed to point the barrel at the object somehow, and I squeezed the trigger.

The barrel jumped as it sprayed bullets. The object was smashed to pieces by a hail of gunfire, and scattered across the tatami mats with a lot of noise.

“...It wasn’t human, right?” Toriko asked in a stiff tone of voice. I didn’t have the mental leeway to answer her, so I just vigorously shook my head. There was no way any sane person was around here.

Toriko supported me as we climbed the spiral staircase. We both looked smushed, like clay models of the human body that someone had played around with. If I lost focus, I would no longer be able to distinguish my own clothes and equipment from the walls, stairs, and handrails that were around us.

Once we somehow crawled our way up to the observation room, I collapsed to the floor.

Raising my face, I looked to the window. I tried to see my reflection in the glass. In the meager light of the flashlight, there was a disgusting mass writhing and undulating on the floor... That was me.

In an attempt to regain human form, I caught the window in my right eye, and was left aghast.

It was no good. No matter how I looked at myself with my right eye, I didn’t change in the slightest.

If my OS—if the function in my brain that was able to recognize human forms had been taken over, did that mean there was nothing I could do?

I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling like I might be crushed under the fear rising inside me.

The Yamanoke possesses people. There was nothing in the account I read about what happens to those who are possessed, but I could imagine now. I would cease to be. My very existence would. Once I was completely unable to distinguish what was and was not my own body, I would no longer be able to maintain my sense of self.

I was melting. Disappearing. My skin vanished, and my body went to pieces. All that remained was terror as all was swallowed into a muddy surge of madness.

Then—suddenly, my consciousness resurfaced. Something soft and warm was touching my surface. It traced the contours of my body, as if to draw a boundary with the floor and area around me. I clung to that sensation. Gradually, spots of feeling returned to my arms and legs. I could feel my shape coming back to me, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle slowly being assembled.

These things stroking my body were... Toriko’s hand.

“Sorawo, do you understand? Okay, breathe slowly. Can you hear my voice?” Toriko whispered to me in a calm tone.

“To-Tori-ko.”

“Yeah. It’s going to be alright, okay? You don’t need to rush this.”

It was Toriko’s left hand that was touching me. Her clear hand, with the glove removed, stroked my head, touched my face, going from neck to arm, almost massaging me as she moved downward. The places her left hand touched gradually took back their human shape.

“Toriko, what—how?”

“I was thinking I could do something like what you’re always doing with your right eye.”

As she spoke, she went on to rub my back with both hands, not just her left. That’s where she stopped. She touched me here and there, seeming to search my back with the palms of her hands.

“There’s something here...” Toriko said in a low voice, focusing.

“One sec,” she said, and no sooner than she had, she rolled up my clothes to reveal my back.

“Whuhhuh?!”

“Sorry, I’m going to touch you a bit.”

With no regard to me and my confused cries, Toriko’s left hand stroked the skin of my back.

It’s cold.

Now that I thought about it, I had hardly ever touched her left hand directly. That was in part because she usually covered it with a glove, but maybe she was being considerate in her own way.

The left hand probing my back came to a complete stop.

“Got it.”

“Huh?”

Before I could respond, there was an impact on my back, and my head jolted backwards.

“Whoa?!”

Slap! There was another impact. Toriko was striking my back with her open hand.

“Ow! That hurts!”

“Suck it up.”

The slaps mercilessly rained down on my stinging back.

“This guy’s stubborn...”

“What are y—Gah! St-Stop it!”

Paying no mind to my yelping, Toriko slapped away.

She was dead serious about this. Her hand came down at full force, and I couldn’t restrain my voice. Yet despite my screams, Toriko wouldn’t stop. Was she enjoying this? With eyes full of tears, I began to suspect exactly that, and between panting breaths, Toriko shouted, “How... do you like that?!”

Slap! The hardest and most painful slap yet struck the center of my back like an explosion. The shock left me short of breath, and as I coughed and sputtered, something came out of my mouth.

A whitish slug-like creature fell onto the concrete with a splat. It had two branching arm-like appendages on one end of it, and on what I assumed to be the tail end it was twisted like a spiral shell.

“There! That’s the thing that was inside you!” Toriko shouted.

This little bugger...!

I caught the white slug in my teary right eye, and searched for my gun...

But before I could, Toriko’s foot came down on the slug right before my eyes.

“Huh...?”

“Oh! Sorry, couldn’t help myself...”

When Toriko tenderly lifted her foot, the flattened slug was twitching on the concrete.

Feeling had returned to my arms and legs. Once I had fixed my clothes back into place, I managed to get to my feet. I sniffed, wiped my tears, and only then was I finally able to speak.

“Whew... Thanks, Toriko.”

“I’m glad it worked,” Toriko responded, shaking her hand.

My whole back stung. If I could look in the mirror, I was sure it was covered in bright red handprints.

“Do we have anything like fuel?” I asked Toriko, taking a match out of my bag.

7

We had no fuel on hand, so we used some of the picture postcards that were laying around as a fire starter. I tore up the dry paper and set fire to it. The slug shrank as it roasted in the little bonfire. I watched until it was charred black, then put out the fire and stomped it once more for good measure.

Even as I did that, the rotating observational platform continued to slowly spin. It gradually brightened outside the windows, and day returned once more.

“Ah! Sorawo! It’s there, it’s there!”

We had been looking out the opposite sides of the observation room, and so I rushed over to Toriko’s side.

Beneath us, I could unmistakably see the AP-1.

“It was super weird the way it appeared. Like, unyoooong,” Toriko said, making a gesture like she was stretching mochi. I let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank goodness...! With the two of us together, we might have found a gate somewhere, but...”

“There’s no replacing the AP-1, right?” Toriko hoisted her bag and started walking. “Let’s go. If we don’t hurry, it’ll get lost again.”

I shouldered my bag, too. We hurried down the stairs; there wasn’t any trace of Buddhist altar equipment in the space below the observation room. I walked out of the barren building into the light of the sun and raced to the AP-1. I started the engine, then leapt into my seat.

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“You said it.”

The AP-1 drove off at top speed.

...3 kmph.

We proceeded eastward through the gaps between the trees, which were as sparse as when we came.

“...Hey, Sorawo.”

“Yeah?”

“This vehicle can handle bad terrain, but, hmm... Is there any way we could, uh... power it up a little more?”

“...Here’s hoping.”

The revolving observational platform vanished into the distance at the same speed as if we were walking. The last time I turned back, I saw the visor of the spacesuit shine as it reflected the other world’s sunlight.

Things were peaceful after that. Though the going was slow, we arrived safely at the skeletal building, and we were able to park the AP-1 in a space on the first floor.

Scaling ten floors’ worth of ladder (it was a lot of exercise having to do this every time), we got up on the roof. I leaned on the fence as I looked out over the area. It had been a while since we’d come here.

My analog watch showed the time was 4:00 p.m. I couldn’t read the numbers in the other world, but I could look at the position of the hands, so it was still usable.

“Toriko, my watch has only moved forward four hours since we entered the observational platform.”

“Same here. It felt like we spent the night there.”

“I guess there must’ve been something weird about the building itself, huh?”

If so, that might mean it was possible to use that place to move into a different aspect of the other world.

“Do you think maybe the reason Satsuki vanished is that she went to a slightly shifted place like that?” Toriko asked quietly, but I pretended not to hear.

“Let’s head back for today. We’ve achieved our primary objective. That’s pretty good when we’re still recovering.”

“...Yeah.”

Once I indicated it was time, Toriko moved away from the fence. We hid our guns, and tidied up our appearance. I pushed the down button, and waited for the elevator to arrive.

“...I’m thinking we need fire,” I said, and Toriko gave me a blank look.

“What do you mean?”

“We’re falling way short of the survival skills we’re going to need to do a serious expedition. I was a little shocked when we couldn’t immediately start a fire there.”

“You’ve got a point. I’ve gotten rusty. I’m supposed to have learned some of this stuff.”

“For the time being, our objective should be... surviving a night in the other world, I guess? We can’t do longer trips without that. It shouldn’t be impossible. Old man Abarato had been living in the other world for several days.”

“Yeah. I think that should be doable.” Toriko nodded with a serious look on her face.

“You’ve learned survival skills, Toriko?”

“It was way back. Just something we did while the family was out camping.”

“So, from your mom, the Canadian soldier?”

“No, that’s Mama.” Toriko shook her head.

“Huh?”

“You see, there was Mom and Mama.”

“Come again?” Not quite sure what she meant, I blinked and asked her, “Uhhh? You mean your dad remarried?”

“No. There were only Mom and Mama.”

Toriko was staring at me. Like she was watching to see how I would respond.

I don’t get it.

“Uhhh? If I remember, your mom was the soldier, right?”

“That’s Mama.”

“And Mom is...?”

“The non-soldier.”

What is this?

There was Mama and Mom? No dad and Toriko?

I was still bewildered when I heard a ding and the elevator door opened.

“It’s here, it’s here.”

Still blinking, I followed Toriko into the elevator. I looked to the blank face beside me, probing for the real meaning behind her words, and Toriko looked back, suddenly smiling.

“You finally looked straight at me, Sorawo.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I feel like ever since we entered the other world today, you spent most of the time looking somewhere else. It was bothering me a bit how you wouldn’t look me in the eye.”

“...Aren’t you just imagining that?”

I looked away from Toriko, turning my eyes to the closing door.

“There you go, looking away again.”

“Oh, be quiet. I’m always like this.”

She’s sharp, I thought. Then the door closed, and my vision of Satsuki Uruma standing on the roof was cut off.

Satsuki Uruma had been stalking us, from beginning to end, during this entire expedition.

She first appeared on top of the hill when we entered through the gate at Kozakura’s house. I froze up at the suddenness of it, but when I realized Toriko couldn’t see her at all, I was able to regain my focus.

That was in part because her presence was faint, and I couldn’t feel the intense pressure that I did when we encountered her in the deep places of the other world. Her eyes were constantly fixed on Toriko, without so much as a glance to me, so I decided she was something like a hologram. If I kept quiet, Toriko would never find out. That’s why I ignored her as we moved around, but it got to me that she followed us without really doing anything.

Was she going to show up again next time we went to the other world?

She wasn’t going to be standing there when the elevator reached the first floor, was she?

And, um... what was the composition of Toriko’s family again?

When I looked back at Toriko, she had kind of a silly grin on her face.

The elevator descended from the other world to the surface world, carrying me and my frayed heart.