File 4: Time, Space, and a Middle-aged Man

1

We were standing in the middle of a field in the other world.

It was close to the end of June in the surface world we had left behind. Did the seasons affect this place, too? From the moment we were sucked into the other world, I was surprised by how humid it was. The air was clearly heavier than it had ever been before.

Though, that heaviness in the air might have been more than just the humidity... There was an awkwardness hanging in the air between us, too. In a situation like this, where two people who didn’t know each other very well were forced to work together, that was probably inevitable.

Though, this time, it wasn’t Toriko at my side.

It was Kozakura.

The diminutive woman who called herself a researcher of the other world glared, with an expression that did nothing to hide her displeasure, at the unknown world which spread out before our eyes.

“U-Um.” Hesitantly, I opened my mouth. “Where should we start looking?”

“...”

There was no answer.

“Kozakura-san?”

“...Aren’t you the one who’d know the places she’s most likely to go, Sorawo-chan?”

“I don’t know, either.”

“Huh? What are we going to do, then?”

“For lack of a better option... look around at random...” I mumbled. Kozakura irritably shook her head.

“Honestly! That idiot!” Kozakura spat the words with contempt. “Getting me wrapped up in this nonsense, too! I’ll kill her.”

“...Good idea,” I muttered.

I felt much the same as Kozakura right about now.

She was dead. So dead. When I find her, she’s going to get it. How dare she up and disappear like this.

It was roughly three weeks after we’d returned from Kisaragi Station, on the 24th of May, that Toriko had vanished.

A few days before, we’d had a fight.

We were in the cafe behind the Junkudo bookstore in Ikebukuro, where we’d gone after meeting up. Toriko was enthusiastically trying to discuss plans for our next expedition when I spoke up. “Look, Toriko. Maybe reconsider? This is a bad way of handling it. We are so going to end up dead one of these days. Both of us.”

For Toriko, who was searching for her “friend” Satsuki-san, she wanted to decide on a date for our next trip immediately. Honestly, I was burned out. Between the Kunekune, Hasshaku-sama, and Kisaragi Station, I’d been through a lot of bizarre encounters in short succession, and all of them had been so scary I could have died.

I figured I had to be within my rights to say, Hey, I need a timeout.

“Well, do you have a better way?”

The afternoon sun that streamed through the window made her golden locks shine. Toriko narrowed her eyes at me, as beautiful as one of the fairies that deceive people and take them away.

“Sorawo?”

“Uh... Right.” I shook my head. I’d met her several times now, so it was about time I got used to it. Trying to get myself back on track, I reached for my drink.

Our meeting that day was supposed to be an after party, too. The table was covered with all the dishes Toriko had, yet again, ordered without thinking what would happen.

There was taco rice, chocolate and sour cherry cake, matcha terrine, and a “Japanese tart” topped with lots of raspberries. As for drinks, Toriko had a caffè latte, while I had ordered grape tea.

I think at this point I could say that the way Toriko went about ordering was weird and wrong. She could have at least waited to finish the taco rice before ordering the cake.

“If you had a better way, I’d be all ears. But you don’t. We have to keep working at it, slow and steady.”

“I never thought I’d hear the words ‘slow and steady’ come out of your mouth, Toriko.”

“Huh? I think I’ve been taking it slow and steady all this time,” Toriko said, as if hurt. She’d been taking it wild and reckless, though, hadn’t she?

“Well, whatever. If you say so, Toriko. Still, even if we’re going to search for Satsuki-san, we have no leads, right? Don’t you think this is all a little haphazardly laid out?”

Toriko averted her eyes. “But...”

“No buts. I get that you want to find Satsuki-san as soon as possible, but don’t you think we need to search properly if we want to do that?”

“I do think what you’re saying is right, Sorawo. But there’s no time. Even as we’re talking, Satsuki could be in danger.”

“Even as we’re talking, huh...”

I looked around the cafe. It was the afternoon, and many of the patrons were students from the nearby university. They were studying, reading, chatting, or having fun in their own ways. To a casual onlooker, we’d probably look like part of the group. Once they saw the mound of cakes and tea burying the table, no amount of excuses would convince them otherwise. Us, going into a dangerous place to save a friend who’d been stranded there? Surely you jest.

Toriko could be such a mess of contradictions. Despite all her rush to search for Satsuki, she still wanted to hold after parties, too. It was so careless. But, just when you thought she might not be serious, she’d turn around and display an incredible show of guts. I had felt like I was starting to understand Toriko after our third trip to the other world, but on further thought, no, I didn’t get her that well after all.

Toriko went on. “Besides, we can’t leave them there.”

“Huh...?”

For a moment, I honestly didn’t understand what Toriko was talking about.

“Those guys, the ones isolated at Kisaragi Station. If someone doesn’t save them, they’re all going to die.”

“...Oh, the soldiers! Uhh, sure, yeah, I guess you’re right, huh.”

I’d completely forgotten about the U.S. soldiers at Kisaragi Station. It was true, they probably couldn’t hold out for long. I know my head was full of my own problems, but still, for me to be able to leave people who I’d talked to behind in that situation, and then think nothing of it, made me pretty awful.

But, you know... Not to make excuses, but they’d treated us like monsters. The only ones we’d even been able to communicate with were that curly-haired lieutenant and the sergeant major, right?

“You were that concerned about them, Toriko? I’m surprised.”

“Why?”

“You were acting more curt than usual with them. I thought you were pretty wary of them.”

“I mean, they were agitated, and I didn’t know when they might open fire.”

“And you want to save the guys who came close to shooting us?”

“Being in that place would mess anyone up. Personally, if we can save them, I want to find a way to do it. Do you disagree?”

Toriko’s earnest words hit me hard, and I struggled to breathe. It was like I’d been looking for excuses to leave them for dead, wasn’t it?

Though, call me cruel and inhuman if you like, but I didn’t want to take risks I didn’t have to just because I got emotional. It was our own lives and sanity we’d be putting on the line here.

“...Toriko. Just now, you said it would mess anyone up. But the fact is, it’s already been messing us up. You remember the phone call with Kozakura-san?”

When I thought back to that, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy. When we listened to the recording of the call we’d made from Kisaragi Station to Kozakura in the surface world, it was complete and utter nonsense. That meant Toriko and I had, without realizing it, been speaking bizarre words into the phone for an extended period of time.

I had heard before that a person who goes insane doesn’t recognize the wrongness of their own words and actions. There were all kinds of insanity, and you couldn’t wrap everything up under that one term, but it felt pretty apt to me here. We weren’t just, “starting to get messed up”—we might already be in a seriously bad state at this very moment.

“Yeah, but it was just that one time. We’re fine now, so—”

Toriko’s rebuttal seemed less than confident. No one could remain completely calm after learning they had lost control of their own actions.

Being as underhanded as I was, I decided to turn the knife.

“It’s not just you, Toriko. During the call, Kozakura-san got all messed up, too.”

When Kozakura had started saying strange things on the other end of the receiver, Toriko and I had been really unnerved.

“We only thought we heard that. Kozakura’s voice wasn’t on the recording, so—”

“It’s true that only our voices were on the recording, Toriko, but don’t you think that’s strange? If we were saying strange things to Kozakura-san, why would she stay quiet and listen the whole time?”

“Ah...” Toriko’s eyes went wide. I continued.

“We don’t know what happens when the other world and the surface world are connected by a phone call. It’s true that, in the surface world, Kozakura-san’s smartphone only recorded the bizarre things we were saying. But it’s also possible that, if we were recording in the other world, it would have picked up the bizarre things Kozakura-san said.”

“That’s... just your imagination, though, right? You have no basis for it...”

“What I’m trying to say is, the other world is having a negative influence on people. Both on us, and on Kozakura-san, too.”

“But researching the other world is Kozakura’s job.”

“So, if it’s her job, that makes it okay if it messes up her head?”

“It’s not fair to say it like that.” Toriko glared at me. “You were happy, weren’t you, Sorawo? You want money, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah, of course I do. But it won’t do me any good if I’m dead...” I hesitated a moment, then continued. “You must realize, right, Toriko?”

“Realize what?”

“About Satsuki-san. How many months has it been since you said she vanished? Three? Or was it more?”

Toriko didn’t answer. The silence became oppressive, so I went on.

“She’s been in that crazy world for three months, and there’s been no word? There’s no way you don’t know what that means, Toriko. We’ve both seen it. The bodies of those killed by the Kunekune, the way old man Abarato disappeared, the U.S. soldiers dying off gradually. It hurts to say this, but...”

I knew I was treading on dangerous ground here, but once I opened my mouth, I couldn’t close it.

“...Satsuki-san’s not alive anymore.”

There was silence. Toriko’s shapely lips drew into a firm line, her eyes cast downwards.

I’d gone and said it.

I’d been thinking it all along, and I’d known I’d end up saying it someday. Still, now that I had a shocked Toriko in front of me, I couldn’t suppress the sense of guilt.

“I-I may have said too much, but...”

“She’s alive.”

Toriko said definitively, cutting me off just as I started to spout what sounded like an excuse. Caught by surprise, I blinked.

“Satsuki is alive. No question.”

“Huh? How can you—”

“It wouldn’t be like her to die there.” She was so full of confidence, I couldn’t say another word. Just what kind of person was Satsuki-san to inspire this level of trust? At the very least, I was certain she was nothing like me.

“Satsuki is special to me. Please, help. If you want, I’ll give you my share of the money, too.”

“Huh?!”

I was dumbfounded for a moment, but then the blood rushed to my head.

You’re saying something like that, Toriko?

You think I’m hesitating because my share’s not large enough?

“Don’t you need money?”

“That’s not it!” I raised my voice in anger. “I get that Satsuki-san is really important to you. But she’s not to me. I’ve never met her or even talked to her. You’re telling me to risk my life for someone like that?”

Toriko’s eyes widened in a way I’d never seen before, and she stared at me. We looked at one another through the steam of her latte.

“Oh... Yeah. I get it.”

Toriko whispered, then looked away.

Standing, she retrieved her bag from the bin under the table meant for holding it.

“Sorry. It seems I misunderstood.”

“Hold on, Toriko.”

“I’ll manage the rest by myself somehow... Thanks.”

“Toriko!”

Ignoring me as I called after her, Toriko left the cafe.

“...Ugh.”

I leaned back in my chair, sighing.

Not only was I underhanded, I was a gutless coward, too.

This is what I really wanted to say:

I’m scared, and I don’t want to get my head messed up any worse. Let’s stop...

But I couldn’t. Because if I did, I was sure I’d disappoint her. What Toriko needed was a partner who could explore the Otherside with her, not some frightened baggage that would only weigh her down.

That’s why I’d said it in a roundabout way, and in the end, I still ended up disappointing her.

What was I even doing?

I sat there, with a mountain of barely-touched cakes in front of me, at a loss for what to do.

“I think it’s a bit much to expect me to eat all this myself, you know?” I muttered, glaring at the empty seat across from me.

2

“Did you two have a fight or something?”

That was the first thing Kozakura said when she picked up the phone, and I struggled to find my next words.

“...Why do you say that?”

“She came to my place alone the other day. Normally, she’s as noisy as a child in elementary school, and it’s annoying, but this time she was so lifeless it was annoying in another way. Could you leave me out of your little lovers’ quarrel? It’s a nuisance.”

“S-Sorry.” I apologized despite myself, but then got indignant. What was she calling a lovers’ quarrel?

“Um, when was that?”

“Three days ago.”

“I see...”

“How long has it been since you were last in contact?”

“Five days.”

“Hmm. I guess that means she was more fragile than you, huh. Well, not that knowing that does me any good.”

“What do you mean?”

“You two fight, and can’t apologize, but neither of you has the guts to contact the other. So you make a call to me, a mutual acquaintance, looking to find an excuse to talk. For Toriko, it took two days, but for you, it took five.”

“Urkh...”

I heard Kozakura snort on the other side of the phone.

“I-I’ll have you know, I did at least try to contact her. But I got no response.”

“Oh, what a nuisance. It’s a nuisance that you’re both so pathetic.”

“Urrrgh,” I groaned. Kozakura went on as if this was all such a bother.

“Sigh... Do you want her personal information?”

“What?”

“The address of Toriko’s house. Why not try going in person?”

I didn’t hesitate for long. “P-Please. I want her info...”

“I’ll send it over.”

“Sorry for the trouble...”

“Don’t thank me. Just send gifts for Obon in summer.”

The address I got from Kozakura was for an apartment building in Nippori. It was on the top floor of a four-story building, and she apparently lived alone.

I headed out the next morning. It wasn’t a particularly new building, but it still looked expensive. I hated that my reflexive reaction was—Little Miss Moneybags sure lives in a nice place, doesn’t she?

I hit a bit of a stumbling block when the automated door at the entrance wouldn’t open. It took me a good five minutes to realize that there was a panel with a number pad, and this was one of those places where you had to dial a room number and have a resident buzz you in.

I’d been thinking I could just go up to her front door and press the doorbell, so this really killed my momentum. After glaring at the panel for a while, I found the resolve to reach out and press the buttons.

4-0-4. That should have made the bell ring in Toriko’s room. I stood there, feeling antsy, and then there was static from the speaker.

“...Yes.”

“Uh-Um, Toriko? It’s me.”

“Yes?”

“It’s Kamikoshi...”

“Yes.”

No, Yes, is not what you say there.

I suppressed my irritation at her curt response and said, “Sorry to show up out of nowhere. I got your address from Kozakura-san. Can I come in for a moment?”

“...”

The speaker said nothing more, and then it cut out with more static.

At the same time, the door to the entrance hall opened.

What was her problem? Couldn’t she say a bit more than that?

Fuming silently to myself, I entered the apartment building. I got in the elevator and pressed the fourth floor button. It arrived as I was idly looking at the notice posted on the wall about the water storage tank being cleaned.

Room 404 was at the end of the corridor on the fourth floor. I walked down the quiet hall. On the other side of a chest-high wall, I could see the streets spread out below. Under the clear skies, people and cars went up and down the hill road that went to the station. It was noon on a weekend, so the area was pretty lively. I could clearly make out the announcements from the station and the sound of trains driving past.

Ever since I started going to the Otherside, there were moments like this, where the sounds of human habitation, which once would have irked me, instead made me feel incredibly calm. Before, I’d have thought, Ugh, what a racket, I hope they all die. I still thought that sometimes now, but I could tell I had mellowed out compared to how I was in my thorny high school days. That was in part because I had experienced the terror of silence in the other world, and in part—frustrating as it was to admit this—because I had met Toriko.

Standing in front of Room 404, I looked into the peephole on the door.

Okay, Toriko, I’m here to make up. Now give up and get out here.

When I pushed the doorbell, I heard bumping noises from inside.

I don’t know what she’s panicking for now... As I smiled at the way that even the easygoing Toriko could get flustered if you suddenly turned up at her door, the footsteps got more intense. The thudding made it sound like she was running in circles around the house.

Okay, she was panicking a bit too much.

“Toriko? You can take it easy, you know?”

When I called out through the door, the footsteps stopped for a moment, and then rapidly came closer.

Bam! Bam! Bam, bam, bam, bam! Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bam!

“Bwuh?!”

I was shocked by the sound of footsteps racing towards the door.

As I leaned back reflexively, the door... did not open.

The footsteps made it sound like she had charged in at top speed, but now all was quiet.

“Tori... ko?”

As I held my chest to quell my racing heart, I called out to her in a hoarse voice. There was no response. If I were to judge by sound alone, she had to be standing right on the other side of the door, though...

No, maybe she had collapsed there?

I grew a little concerned, and reached for the door handle. It moved. It wasn’t locked.

“Toriko, you okay? I’m opening the door...?”

As I said that, I turned the handle downward, and pulled.

Hesitantly, I peered inside through the gap—and I gasped out loud.

The other side of the door was filled with a blue light. Blue, and opaque. I lost my sense of distance, and it felt as if the blue might suck me in. Beyond it, there was this unknown shining. Struck with the fear that the shimmering light, which resembled the way the sun looked when seen from underwater, was gradually getting closer, I reflexively shut the door.

I backed away one step, then two, never taking my eyes off the door.

There was no doubt about it. It was that blue, the one I had seen the day I first met Toriko, in the abandoned building in Oomiya. The light I had seen beyond the torii-shaped construct that disguised itself as Hasshaku-sama, and the light above the monster we encountered at Kisaragi Station, they were both this same blue.

I stiffened for a moment, convinced the blue light would break down the unlocked door and come spilling out, but there was no sign of movement, and there was no sound.

It’s just like the abandoned building in Oomiya.

That time, we’d been surprised by the knocking at the door, and when we looked through the peephole, there was a world of blue.

If this was the same pattern as that, the next time I opened the door, it might have returned to normal.

I reached for the door handle one more time, and slowly opened it.

On the other side, it was still blue.

“Seriously...?” I mumbled to myself in disbelief as I slowly closed the door.

Why was Toriko’s room filled with an otherworldly blue?

And... what had happened to Toriko?

Was she in there?

Or had she gone somewhere else, like Abarato?

My legs had started to quake. I didn’t know what to do.

When I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself, I looked outside the corridor and noticed something odd.

It was too quiet. I didn’t hear the sound of running trains, which I had been able to hear until not that long ago.

I put my hand on the wall and looked around outside. There were no people walking by, and no cars to be seen.

“Hold on...” My whisper faded vainly into the air.

Struck by an intense feeling of unease, I broke into a run. When I pressed the call button for the elevator—thank goodness, it worked. Too frustrated to wait, I got in the elevator that came, and pressed the button for the first floor. I pounded that button repeatedly. The door slowly closed.

In the elevator going down, my eyes happened to stop on the piece of paper posted there.

Notice of Cleaning for the Water Tank

Dear Residents,

Due to the repeated complaints of hair coming out of people’s faucets, there was an investigation. The disappearance of the person in charge delayed our response, but a source of hair was found inside the tank, and the appropriate measures will be taken. We apologize for this.

...Was this written here last time I looked?

Before I could process the feeling of wrongness that was rising inside me, the elevator reached the first floor. I rushed through the entrance hall, and left the apartment building. I stood in the middle of the road, looking both ways. Nobody was there!

For as far as I could see, I was the only thing moving. The city was covered in a terrifying silence reminiscent of the Otherside. It was like I was the only one alive in the whole world.

I stood there, as if frozen, when suddenly my smartphone rang. I was so shocked I jumped up into the air. Digging through my bag, I hastily pulled out my phone. Was it Toriko, or Kozakura? I didn’t care who. If I could just hear a voice other than my own, I’d feel relieved.

However, when I looked at the screen, it made me furrow my brow even more.

The caller ID read “ルΟ及Ο丗了.”

More text corruption? Ever since it had gotten immersed in the water of the other world, this smartphone was acting kind of weird. It was supposed to have been repaired, though...

Regardless, I pressed the talk icon, and answered the phone.

“...Yes?”

“Ah! There you are.”

“Yes?”

It was an unfamiliar male voice. As I stood there in bewilderment, the man spoke my name.

”Sorawo Kamikoshi, right?”

“Yes,” I responded without meaning to, then regretted it. Uh, oh. That was careless.

As I became wary, too late, the man continued speaking in a worried tone.

”Oh, I’ll be right there. Stay right where you are!”

By the time I was able to ask, “...Um, who are you?” the call had already been terminated.

Then, from behind me, I heard a voice.

“Yes, that’s right. I found her. I’ll deal with it immediately.”

When I turned around, a man wearing working clothes that were somewhere between gray and blue was trudging down the road towards me. It was a middle-aged guy I didn’t know. I could see a mark like a windmill or a flower on his uniform.

Walking up to me, as I felt a threat to my continued well-being and was getting ready to run, the man let out an irritated sigh.

“You can’t do this. Give up on that girl and go home!”

“Huh?”

“If you don’t, next time, you won’t be able to go back.”

The man spoke in a threatening tone, and then the next moment I heard the sound of a horn.

I screamed and pulled back as a car scraped past me.

The next thing I knew, the sounds of a bustling city had returned. The people walking by looked suspiciously at me for having walked out into the road.

“I’m... back?”

Fighting the urge to collapse in relief, I fled back to the sidewalk.

While I was clinging to a telephone pole and catching my breath, it finally came to me.

The internet ghost story known as, “The Space-time Man.”

3

Here’s how stories about the “Space-time Man” went.

The person experiencing the story would suddenly wander into a world where there was no one else. At school, on their way to work, or in some other place they were used to being, they would suddenly realize everyone else had vanished. There, in a place where they are the only person around, the person experiencing the story would encounter a middle-aged man. The man wore work clothes, often of the kind that would make you think he was a janitor, and he would be surprised to see the person experiencing the story. He would get unreasonably mad, saying things like, “What are you doing here?” and “Hurry up and get out,” or giving incomprehensible warnings, and then, suddenly, the person experiencing the story would notice they had returned to their original world.

There were a number of variations in the details, but the fundamental flow of events matched what I had just experienced.

This story, like Kisaragi Station, belonged to the “wandered into another world” genre of ghost stories. The man was watching out for intruders into another world. That he was a guard who sent back those who wandered in unintentionally, or perhaps a member of some organization of watchers was a common interpretation.

I ground my teeth in frustration. I should have “looked” more closely. Maybe it would be better if I didn’t wear the contact in my right eye after all. When I put in the color contact, it limited my eye’s ability, making it hard to use it on the spur of the moment. But it made me stand out too much without it...

Hold on. The reason Toriko’s room had ended up like that might have been because I’d unwittingly wandered into another world at some point. Into the man’s world, which looked like the surface world, only without people.

The note posted in the elevator had been strange, too. The creepy things written there just weren’t possible. Even if someone had died in the building’s water tank, they’d have worded it more delicately.

I remembered how, last time, when we were leaving the tavern where we had our after party, there was already an unsettling feeling in the air. If we slowly moved to the other world from the surface world, without using a clearly defined entrance, we might pass through a transitory zone between the two worlds. The boundary between the sane and insane, where the staff of the tavern went crazy, dogs barked in the kitchen, people vanished from the city, and postings became nonsensical. I could hypothesize that that had been the man’s world.

If so, then... now that I was out of there, was it possible Toriko’s room had returned to normal?

Tearing myself away from the telephone pole I had been clinging to, I raced back to the apartment. There, I rushed to the panel at the entrance and dialed 404.

...No response.

Uh, oh. If someone didn’t disable the lock from inside, the automatic door at the entrance wouldn’t open.

Could I wait for another resident to enter, then sneak in behind them?

If I waited patiently, I might be able to get in, but given I was concerned about Toriko’s situation right now, I couldn’t wait around. When, for lack of other options, I pulled out my phone to try calling Toriko one more time, I noticed I had gotten a number of messages at some point.

The sender was... me.

“...Me?”

Unable to figure out what was going on, I opened the messages. There was no text. It looked like I’d just sent images.

They were pictures of Toriko.

There was a shot of her entering that building in Jinbouchou, taken from behind. She wore her army surplus jacket, a pair of jeans, and lace-up boots. There was a cap on her head, and she was carrying the kind of backpack you might take when going mountain climbing. She was clearly geared up for an expedition to the other world.

There were four pictures, taken from different angles. The way they were out of focus, slightly at an angle, and had some digital noise in them made it look like they had been taken surreptitiously. The last of them was taken from almost right in front of Toriko, but there was no sign of her noticing.

The timestamps on the photos were from just ten minutes ago. Right when I was panicking up on the fourth floor. Naturally, I had no memory of taking any of these. Moreover, it said I had received them yesterday, at the same time as I was talking to Kozakura on the phone.

“What is this?! The times and places make no sense!”

Here I was, at the entrance to an apartment building where other people lived, but I shouted out loud despite myself. I know I wouldn’t be able to complain if someone got mad at me for it, but this was just too incomprehensible. The events were creepy when taken alone, but when they occurred in sequence like this, my frustration at the unfairness of it all won out.

Okay, calm down... Let’s sort this all out.

I went outside the apartment, and looked up at the fourth floor.

Let’s see... I called Toriko from the front entrance, there was a response, and then the automatic door opened.

Then, when I went to Toriko’s room, it was full of blue light.

When I moved away from the room, the world got all messed up. Either that, or I entered the man’s world.

After that, I got a call from the Space-time Man, and was returned to my original world.

During that time, Toriko was heading to the other world from Jinbouchou, a long way from here, and someone sent me pictures of her.

“What is this...?”

I unconsciously clutched my head. None of the pieces fit together. Each individual event progressed on its own, so there was no way to sort it all out.

Still, if these photos were to be believed, I knew where Toriko was. She’d gone to the other world, searching for Satsuki-san.

Was it okay to leave her alone? Toriko couldn’t see glitches, but she had to be more used to the other world than I was. She’d apparently been there with Satsuki-san, and I knew for a fact that she’d been there several times before she ever met me. She had a hand that could grab substances from the other world now, too.

If she’s pining for Satsuki-san that badly, and she’s just fine without me, then let her do what she wants... was the thought that passed through my head, but then I realized something unpleasant.

It was the third photo, taken from an angle diagonally down and to the left of Toriko, in the dimly lit hall of the building. In the corner of it, I could see someone’s reflection.

The blood drained from my face.

That figure, with the hood of her parka pulled low over her face, was me.

In the shadow of her hood was the glint of my lapis lazuli right eye. My expression as I looked at Toriko was warped and ugly, as if revealing the feelings I held deep inside.

Obviously, this wasn’t me in the picture here. Yet still, looking at the many feelings for Toriko I could see from here, I was hit with a shock so hard it felt like I’d been punched.

The picture was impossible, but those feelings were the truth.

To say it another way—“I saw myself in her.” The me who had that vile look on her face was only captured in the third photo. Looking at the angles, it wouldn’t have been strange for her to have appeared in any of the others, but there was no sign of her in the other photos. Toriko showed no sign of noticing her, either.

Was this what they called a spirit photo? Whatever she really was, my doppelganger’s gaze was fixed on Toriko, and the look in her eyes was concerning.

I stood still for a while, then finally I started to walk. I left the apartment behind and turned back to the station.

There had been something wrong with me. I couldn’t believe I’d thought, even for a second, that it was okay to leave Toriko alone when she had gone to the other world by herself.

The unforgettable words of the Space-time Man came back into my mind.

“Give up on that girl and go home,” was it?

Considering the situation, he had to have been talking about Toriko.

He said something about me not being able to come back next time, but he shouldn’t have taken me so lightly. I don’t know who the old guy was, but if he thought a threat like that would deter me, he had another thing coming. I was heading straight to Jinbouchou, after Toriko... and I was going to bring her back. It was beyond reckless of her to go alone when she couldn’t even see glitches, and I was going to give her an earful about it.

I descended the hill road to the station, snorting fiercely, but as I was walking I reconsidered.

No, no, it would be far too careless to go dressed like this.

I should go home first, get my equipment together. I need the gun, after all.

Is there anything I need to buy? I’ll want a flashlight for when it’s night, and food, too...

If I head back and then set out now, it will take at least two hours.Longer if I go shopping.I want to avoid the search dragging on so long it becomes night over there.Maybe I should just hold off for today, and go tomorrow instead?

The more I thought, the heavier my feet became.

Huh?

What was wrong with me? For some reason, my feet weren’t moving forward.

My breathing was labored. My chest ached. My mouth felt dry.

I’m scared.

That’s right. I was scared.

I was terrified of going to the Otherside. That feeling, which seemed so natural now that I had named it, slowly seeped into me, slowing my feet until... finally, they stopped.

I had nearly forgotten how terrifying it was to go into that place, with its unknown dangers, all alone.

Was that possible? For me, who had been so close to death so many times, to have forgotten how frightening the other world was?

I knew all too well why I had.

Toriko.

The reason I had been fine in that place filled with madness and malice was that Toriko had been at my side.

Each of us sort of knew the other’s weaknesses, but we could still trust them to watch our back. No matter how crazy the situation, if we were holding hands, that was all it took to keep me calm. She was a partner like no other. With Toriko gone, the fear of the other world, which I had been able to distract myself from before now, came back with a vengeance, and it was leaving me unable to take another step.

Oh, Toriko, you’re so amazing.It’s a wonder you could go to a place like that alone.

Aren’t you scared?

No—she HAS to be scared.

When the Kunekune almost got us, and when Kozakura started acting weird on the other end of the phone, Toriko had been properly frightened.

You’re scared, but you still went.

Just how gutsy are you, Toriko?

Just how much does Satsuki-san mean to you?

I... I can do it, too. I’m going.

Just you watch me, damn it.

4

“So, why did you come to my place?”

Unable to meet the irritable Kozakura’s eyes, I looked down at the mug filled with hot cola that was sitting on her desk. “Um, I thought maybe... you could come with me...”

“No way. Too much of a bother.”

Her instant rejection made me panic. “Toriko went there alone, okay?! Her room was all screwed up, too, and I got sent these weird pictures, and there’s definitely something bad going on here!”

As soon as I arrived at her mansion here in Shakujii-kouen, I’d told Kozakura the story of what happened at Toriko’s apartment. Despite that, Kozakura was uninterested.

“I get that it’s bad, but why does that mean I should have to go?”

“Huh...?”

This was unexpected, so I stared at her. Looking like she thought it was too much of a bother, she went on. “You’re all dressed up and raring to go. Why don’t you just go and not invite me along? If you keep dawdling, the sun’s going to set, you know?”

That was true—ultimately, I had gotten my equipment in order before coming. I had the Makarov stowed in the bottom of my bag, and on the way here from my home in Minami-Yono, I’d stopped at the LOFT in Ikebukuro to pick up a flashlight. Like Kozakura was saying, I might have been better off heading straight to Jinbouchou. But...

“Kozakura-san, you’re not worried about Toriko?”

“I’m not suited for field work, that’s all. I don’t like jumping and running around like the two of you, so I don’t want to go outside.”

“Hey, it’s not exactly my specialty, either.”

“The moment you went diving into that place, you showed you had the potential for it. Come on, get going already.”

“The thing is... I’m, uh, afraid to go alone...”

“Huh?! After everything you’ve been through? You got scared by a spirit photo, and now you need me to go to the bathroom with you?”

“I don’t think it’s on the same level as that...”

“Going to the washroom with other people was never my thing.”

Kozakura took a deep breath. “Well, let me see it. What’s this strange photo?”

I reluctantly booted up my smartphone, opened the message window, then passed it to her. I had told her about the phenomenon I had encountered at the apartment, but I hadn’t shown her the photos yet. I didn’t want her to see the expression that I (though it wasn’t me) was looking at Toriko with.

“Hmm... A Sorawo-chan doppelganger, huh. Fascinating. That’s one nasty face.”

“It’s my face.”

“And your point is...? Hm?”

Kozakura’s fingers which were scrolling the screen came to a stop.

“Hey... Hold on. What is this?”

The screen which Kozakura thrust towards me displayed another picture, one I hadn’t seen before.

It was a woman in black standing in front of a ruined building, half-buried in the grass. The image quality was bad, and it was blurry, but I could make out her stark black hair and thick-rimmed glasses.

“Huh? Where was this photo...?”

“Before the four with Toriko. The date’s... May 14th.”

That was the day I’d first met Toriko.

“I never noticed it. Is it someone you know?”

Kozakura didn’t immediately answer my question.

“Kozakura-san?”

“Yeah. I know her. I know her well,” Kozakura said in a whisper. “Satsuki Uruma. The person Toriko’s been looking for.”

This was her...

I looked back to the photo again. Seeing “Satsuki-san” for the first time, I noted that she was quite tall, though not as tall as Hasshaku-sama. There was a certain grace in her pose, her face turned away from the camera, and I found her striking even in this grainy image.

“You’re saying you never noticed this photo before now?”

“R-Right.”

There was doubt in her eyes, but Kozakura quickly looked away from me.

“I don’t like it.”

Kozakura groaned. Her elbows on her desk, she pressed her fingers against her temples.

“Unreasonable events clustered together... forming a seemingly meaningful context... yet with no clear indicator whether this is a malicious threat, or a benevolent sign...” she muttered to herself, then ominously added, “Just like with Satsuki.”

Then a chime rang, and both of us turned to look at one other.

It was the doorbell.

Kozakura hesitated a moment before reaching for the keyboard. One of the monitors switched over to a color video feed. It displayed the entrance distorted through a fisheye lens. There were three middle-aged ladies standing there.

“Who is it?” Kozakura asked through the mic, and the woman in the middle responded.

“I’m sorry to bother you.We have some questions regarding the person who lives next door.”

“Next door? I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t socialize with the neighbors.”

“It’s awkward to discuss at the door, could we speak with you directly?”

“Maybe it is, but I don’t know anything. Who are you people anyway?”

“Relatives.It won’t take long, could I ask you to open the door?”

“Not happening. I told you, I don’t know anything.”

I stared at the screen as Kozakura brusquely handled the three women. Something felt off. There was nothing especially bizarre about their appearance... or so I thought, but then it suddenly hit me. The three of them were awfully big. They had broad shoulders, and their blouses and skirts didn’t fit.

The middle-aged woman stubbornly continued to ask Kozakura to open the door. When I saw the way she persisted, as if she didn’t understand the words being spoken to her, even once Kozakura raised her voice, it kind of creeped me out.

Then, I noticed a small mark on the woman’s chest. It was blurred by the camera, but the shape made me think of a windmill or flower, and—

Instantly, I reached out and snatched the mic away from Kozakura.

“Whoa, what’s wrong, Sorawo-chan?”

“It might be better not to talk with them,” I said in a whisper, still holding the mic. “They might be like the Time-space Man...”

Kozakura’s eyes widened as if she’d realized something.

“Could they be the MIB?”

I pointed at Kozakura despite myself, and nodded in fervent agreement.

“Yeah! That’s it! They’re the MIB, in a sense!”

Even though we had creepy visitors at the door ringing the bell, seeing how quick Kozakura caught on to what I was saying got me fired up.

The Men in Black. A group of black-suited men who visited those who encountered UFOs.

They spoke like agents of the government, saying things like “don’t disclose information about the UFO to any other parties” or “we’ll erase all of your memories,” but on closer inspection, their actions were bizarre, and they exhibited physical traits that didn’t seem entirely human. They often came up in American accounts of UFO sightings.

“In Japan, accounts of encounters with the MIB aren’t common. If we assume that the MIB in America are a local manifestation based on the distrust that the people there hold for the CIA and other governmental agencies, then in Japan, if something was going to suddenly visit your home, it might take the form of a middle-aged man or woman who was acting suspiciously. In fact, I remember reading a number of experience reports that featured a visitation by a group of two or three strange middle-aged women. I can’t imagine there have been enough for it to form a pattern, though,” I rambled on, speaking quickly.

Kozakura cut the mic, leaning back in her chair and looking at the three women on screen.

“Then these three aren’t the middle-aged women they appear to be.”

“Right. I think the Time-space Man was the same.”

In the accounts online, the Time-space Man was interpreted as a guard monitoring for intrusions into another world.

However, for some time now, I had been unable to dispel the feeling that something was wrong with that interpretation. This guard or watcher stuff... it was just too “easy” of an explanation. Especially now that I knew about the Otherside, it seemed like a joke. In that place which defied logic, filled with madness and the unknown, was there room for such an easily understood job(?) to exist?

“The guy we met that time we encountered Hasshaku-sama, Abarato, told us something. He said that pseudo-humans from the other world stalked him on this side. I thought it was a paranoid delusion at the time, but maybe it wasn’t complete nonsense.”

“The Time-space Man was trying to make you stay away from the other world, but these middle-aged women came here on their own. Isn’t that contradictory? Are they playing Good Cop, Bad Cop to shake us up?”

“I don’t think that’s it. The man told me to go back, and he threatened me, but he also said to give up on Toriko. Nobody would just give up after being told to like that, right?”

“Mmm, that depends on the person, doesn’t it?”

“Y-You think...? Well, anyway, I don’t think we need to spend all that much thought on what their intentions are. They’re forming sentences, but they’re like bots, there’s no meaning behind it...”

“It’s true they don’t appear to have a proper sense of purpose,” Kozakura said quietly, looking at the video. Even without any response from us, the woman in the center was still saying something. The women on either side kept their mouths shut, neither of them changing their posture in the slightest.

“You called them bots, but they could be a phenomenon... maybe.”

“What does that mean?”

“We should interpret all of these sorts of events as a single phenomenon. The phenomenon that accompanies encountering the Time-space Man. The MIB, and these three women... they make it confusing because they take human form, but they’re an experience, no different from waking up with sleep paralysis, or hearing rapping noises...”

When Kozakura finished speaking, there was a change in the video.

The woman who was talking all this time closed her mouth, formed a fist, and began knocking on the door. The woman on the right grabbed the doorknob, and started pulling on it with all her strength. The woman on the left reached for the doorbell, and repeatedly rang it.

Knock, knock, knock, clatter, rattle, rattle, rattle, ding-ding-ding-ding, ding-dong, ding-dong—

While the three crazed women assaulted the front door, their faces on camera became horribly distorted. They turned into pixelated masses where you couldn’t make out their features.

Even from inside Kozakura’s room, we could hear the incredible racket at the entrance. I didn’t know how strong they were, but the metal of the hinges and doorknob was creaking. The way things were going, they might bust down the door.

“I-Is this a ‘phenomenon,’ too?” I asked in a quivering voice, and Kozakura responded with a forced smile.

“No matter how intense the experience, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a phenomenon. Probably.”

“Then there’s no way to distinguish it from reality, right?”

“Especially if it’s being experienced by multiple people at the same time.”

Kozakura got down from her chair, then walked over to one corner of the room. She started moving aside a tower of books by splitting it into smaller piles.

“If this is a phenomenon which humans experience from time to time, whether that is in connection with UFOs, or with the Time-space Man, then what meaning does it hold exactly?” Kozakura asked.

“I couldn’t say... In the field of true ghost stories, individual experiences and phenomena have no meaning. We can only say that they’re unreasonable.”

Kozakura shook her head. “You can’t just give up on interpreting things there. If the reflection of an external entity in our perception is not true to reality, then there’s something strange happening in our cognitive process.”

While I was thinking she could occasionally talk a bit like a researcher, Kozakura finished moving the books, revealing a secret hatch. When she crouched and opened the hatch, I felt some slightly cooler air brush against my feet. It seemed there was a storage space under the floor there. I took a peek from behind her, wondering what could be inside, and Kozakura pulled out a large firearm, making me back away in fear.

“Whoa, what is that?”

“A Remington M870. It’s an ordinary 12 gauge shotgun.”

“No, but what are you planning to do with that ordinary shotgun?”

Kozakura sat cross-legged on the floor, loading cylindrical cartridges into the gun one by one. “I’ve tried to keep my distance from the other world all this time, but if they’ve come to me, what else is there to do? I don’t want them wrecking my front entranceway.”

When she finished loading the gun, Kozakura stood up. Compared with the imposing shotgun she now held, her slim body looked even smaller than her roughly 140 centimeters.

“Step aside. It’s dangerous.”

“I-I’ll go with you.”

“You don’t have to push yourself.”

Kozakura left me behind in the room. I hurriedly dug through my bag, pulled out the Makarov and followed her.

I could see the entranceway at the end of the dark hall. The doorbell wouldn’t stop ringing. The door creaked with each blow, and through the ground glass window I could see a shadowy figure the size of a sumo wrestler moving around violently.

I caught up to the shotgun-toting Kozakura, and proceeded to the entrance.

“Hey! Cut it out! I’ll shoot!” Kozakura shouted, pulling the slide on her weapon, and pointing the muzzle towards the door. Behind her, I readied my gun, too.

Suddenly, the ringing of the doorbell and the rattling of the door stopped, and all fell silent. The shadow on the other side of the glass had ceased moving.

“...Wh-What now?”

“Go open it.”

“Me?!”

“I can’t get my work done until they’re chased off.”

Putting my shoes on, I hesitantly approached the door. I put the chain on, then turned the lock and opened the door. There was no sound from the other side.

Huh? This situation...

“Kozakura, I know this one.”

“What?”

“It’s the same as the ruined building in Oomiya and Toriko’s room. There were violent noises on the other side of the door, and then when it was opened there was nothing there. Now that I think about it, it’s a common pattern in true ghost stories, too.”

“We’re being stalked by a horror cliche?” Kozakura was dubious.

“A classic one, too. In the old days, they’d have called it tanuki-bayashi, strange sounds thought to be caused by tanuki.”

“If this really was the work of tanuki, that would be too funny. So, if we open the door, there’ll be no one there, then?”

“P-Probably,” I answered, but I could still see a figure on the other side of the glass.

I couldn’t help but think, If only Toriko were here. If Toriko were with us, I could have remained calm, even in this tense situation.

Hesitantly, I gripped the doorknob, then carefully turned it. Pointing my gun at the gap in the door, I slowly pushed it open.

...No one was there.

“I thought so.” I had half-predicted this, but I still let out a sigh of relief. At some point, the figure on the other side of the glass had vanished.

“Well?”

“No one’s there.”

When I turned back to look, Kozakura stepped down from the raised threshold and put on a pair of sandals.

Hm? I just realized this, but I just got used as a scout, didn’t I?

As I was grappling with that strange feeling, Kozakura wedged herself between me and the door I was holding in order to take a look outside. When I lowered my gaze, I could see the top of her head. She was so tiny...

“What do you think, Sorawo-chan?” Kozakura asked as she peered out through the gap.

“I’m gradually starting to understand. Entities from the other world appear in the context of weird tales humans tell. The Kunekune, Hasshaku-sama, and Kisaragi Station were all like that. Maybe when they exert their influence on this side, it’s the same.”

“If so, why stop short like this? This isn’t an assault, it’s a ding-dong dash. It’s almost like they’re going out of their way to try and frighten us...”

She was looking outside as she grumbled, so I opened the door as wide as the chain would allow for Kozakura’s benefit.

That was when a giant face suddenly appeared out of the shadow of the door.

The woman’s face must have been two meters across, and it was so close we could make out the pores on her face. Her lips which were the size of tires moved as she spoke in a strangely drawn out voice.

“Leeeet meeee iiiin.”

“Gahhhh!”

As Kozakura and I screamed in unison, the face lunged. Kozakura recoiled so hard she fell over, but I caught her.

Before we knew what had happened, the face rushed in through the door which should have been held shut by the chain.

In my arms, Kozakura raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger. The sound of the point-blank gunshot and the flash from the barrel made me involuntarily shut my eyes tight, and I felt a rotten wind rush by.

When the wind passed, a warm, heavy air remained. Hesitantly, I opened my eyes, and found we were standing in a grassy field with nothing around to block our view.

The face, Kozakura’s house—all of it was gone.

Smoke and the smell of gunpowder rose from the muzzle of Kozakura’s shotgun up into the skies of the Otherside.

“A-Are you okay...?” I asked, snapping a dazed Kozakura back to reality.

“Huh?! The hell is this?! What am I supposed to do, being thrown out here in this state?! Are you trying to kill me?!” Tearing herself away from me, Kozakura kept shouting. I couldn’t blame her. A baggy T-shirt and spats, with clogs on her bare feet. Unlike me, she was totally wearing indoor clothes.

“What is this?! Hitting us with a sucker punch like that! It’s not fair!” Kozakura raged, prowling back and forth in front of me like a caged mountain cat.

While still trying to recover from the shock of it myself, I spoke up quietly. “U-Um. I don’t think there’s much we can do about it now. But, hey, now that we’re in the Otherside anyways, why don’t you help me look for Toriko?”

Kozakura stopped, turned back, and stared up at me. “Sorawo-chan... You’ve got a real nice personality, you know that?”

“Huh?”

While I was still taken aback, Kozakura hung her head and sighed.

“Ugh... Oh, whatever, fine.”

“Th-Thank you...” My words of thanks were swept away by the lukewarm wind.

Kozakura and I stood there, both feeling awkward.

Still, we had to search for Toriko.

5

We started by heading for a spot with a good view to get the lay of the land. The fields of the Otherside sloped gently up and down, and there were places high enough that you could call hills.

There was nothing in the place where we had appeared, so we decided that I would walk in front, beating a trail for us. This tall grass was harsh on Kozakura’s bare legs.

Before we got walking, I remembered to take out my color contact. Though they were pretty hard to see under the daylight, this did make it possible to perceive the shining of the glitches. Fortunately, I didn’t see many around. Even in the Otherside, it seemed there was an uneven distribution of glitches.

“Are your legs all right, Kozakura-san?” I called out behind me as I stomped down the grass. “Um, if I’m going too fast, let me know. I’ll match your pace.”

“...Yeah.” Perhaps on the rebound from her earlier rage, she was being awfully quiet.

When I turned back to look, Kozakura was looking down, as if deep in thought. “Listen, Sorawo-chan.”

“Y-Yes?”

With an air of importance, Kozakura started to speak. “To give you an example: when you go inside a haunted house, there are some people who are just fine, while others are too scared to take a step, right?”

“I’ve never been inside a haunted house...”

“Me neither.”

Then why use that as your example?

“Well, it can be horror movies, or anything else, really. Anyway, tolerance for fear varies from person to person. This is a purely physiological issue. It’s determined by the degree to which the fear signals coming from the amygdala, deep inside the brain, exert control over the frontal lobe. Whether a person is easily frightened or not is determined by genetics. If the serotonin transporter gene’s activation sequence is long, more serotonin is produced in the nervous cells, and the tendency towards unease is lessened. Which is to say, you get less scared.”

“Right...”

While I was confused about what she was getting at, Kozakura turned an annoyed eye towards me. “Basically, my serotonin transporter gene is short...”

“Ohh! You’re a real scaredy-cat, then?”

“That’s right!” Kozakura snapped.

“Why are you getting mad?”

“I’m not mad! Damn it, I can’t handle this place.”

“You can’t?”

“I’m scared. Scared to death. I never wanted to come here again.”

I was surprised by this unexpected confession.

“Whaaa? But didn’t you say you were doing a joint research project on the other world with Satsuki-san before?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t as bad when Satsuki was around, but even then I was only able to enter the other world three times. Once I refused to do the field work, Satsuki and I gradually stopped getting along so well. Eventually, she brought in one of the students she was tutoring. Said she was her new partner.”

“That was...”

She’s talking about Toriko.

“Toriko was the opposite of me. She had a resistance to fear. The perfect choice for Satsuki’s partner. Unafraid, able to use a gun, and loyal to Satsuki. The woman was practically born to come here.”

I felt there were some implications to be unpacked in the way she said that.

“What did Toriko think about it?”

“She was head over heels for Satsuki, of course. She had some wits about her, but she was still just a high school girl, unfamiliar with the workings of the world. It took no time for Satsuki to win her over. It was always like that with Satsuki, though. She charmed anyone who came near her, using them as she pleased. A natural born alpha female.”

There was an indescribable frustration in Kozakura’s voice as she spoke. While I was considering how I should respond, Kozakura seemed to come to her senses and returned to the topic at hand.

“What I’m trying to say is, if something attacks us here, I doubt I’m going to be any help, so watch yourself.”

“That can’t be right. I mean, you’ve got a shotgun. It’ll be fine.”

“Ahh... The shotgun, right. Satsuki gave it to me, saying it was so I could hit things even with my eyes closed. Here, look.”

When I looked closely, on the muzzle, there was a part with deep cuts in it. It was shaped like the mouth of an alligator.

“The GATOR shotgun spreader. You put one of these on, and it spreads the shot horizontally. It turns a broad, fan-shaped area in front of you into a kill zone. So, listen, if there’s an emergency, make sure you’re not standing in front of me. Because I’ll shoot whether you’re there or not.”

I’d been standing in front of a person holding something that dangerous?

“Then could you take point? I’ll follow behind you.”

Kozakura shook her head vigorously.

“If we had an encounter of the first kind in the surface world, I could still bear it. But in the other world, I’m too scared to restrain myself. Even now, it’s taking all I have not to start screaming.”

Kozakura hesitated, then continued.

“There are times when I think phenomena in the other world are deliberately trying to frighten humans.”

I agreed with her there. This time was one example, but something had also felt off about the Kunekune and Hasshaku-sama. It was like they were trying to show people a form that would frighten them. When we were at Kisaragi Station, I had felt an even more clear intent to frighten humans and drive them into madness.

“...I understand. Let’s find Toriko quick, and get back.”

“I’d appreciate it if we could,” Kokakura said with a serious look on her face.

Standing on a hill, I looked around the area. I still didn’t really understand the geography of the other world. I had considered using the landmarks dotted around the vast plains to make a map, but hadn’t gotten started on the idea yet. It was night, and we couldn’t tell what was going on last time, and the time before that, we’d only covered a limited area.

“Can... Can you see... anything?” Behind me, a wheezing Kozakura caught up and asked.

“Erm... North is probably this way, so...”

With a wobbling compass in hand, I squinted, searching for familiar places. The grassy field at the bottom of the hill was sparkling; there was apparently something there that reflected light. When I looked past there, there was a gray, barrel-like structure.

“Found it!” I cried out despite myself. It was Toriko’s usual point of entry, the skeletal building that connected to Jinbouchou. Things were looking good.

We were on the hill west of the building now. To reach it, we would have to cross the marsh. When I first met Toriko, I’d nearly died there. The sparkling at the foot of the hill was coming from the water pooled around the roots of the grass.

That meant the glitch-filled field where we’d met Abarato was to the right. As for the white, coral-like building where we had our encounter with Hasshaku-sama, it might have been hidden behind one of the groves of trees that were scattered around, because I couldn’t see it. The tracks which led to Kisaragi Station weren’t around, either. I remembered having seen something like them from the rooftop of the skeletal building, though...

“Let’s go.”

When I turned back and urged her to follow me, Kozakura was squatting like some delinquent, hanging her head. She was breathing really fast. If she was winded climbing a little slope, she was as unhealthy as she looked.

“A-Are you all right?”

“Damn it, I’m in sandals here.” With a groan, Kozakura used the shotgun as a crutch to help herself up.

I began descending the hill slowly, making sure not to open too much of a gap between us.

“Sorawo-chan, you’re a surprisingly good walker.”

“Huh? Am I?”

Compared to Kozakura, maybe everyone was.

“You’re able to keep up with Toriko, so you have to be. She’s a stamina monster, too, after all. Did you used to play sports?”

“Maybe it’s because... back when I was a student preparing for entrance exams, I was always taking walks at night. Oh, and exploring ruins on my own was a hobby of mine, so I’m used to walking in places with bad footing.”

“There’s a rather dangerous hobby. Exploring ruins, alone, and as a woman? Crazy,” Kozakura said, sounding surprised.

“Well, you’re right. I certainly had my share of scares...”

Abandoned ruins were kind of dangerous. Delinquents would do bad things there, and weirdos sometimes made them into their hideaways... Besides, while I was making it sound cooler by calling it ruin exploration, I was just trespassing. I could have fallen through a rotten floor, or gotten tetanus off a nail that was sticking out. There were plenty of physical dangers. If I thought about it calmly, it was utter lunacy for a high school girl to be lurking around those places alone.

“...I was having a rough time back then, and may have fallen into a bit of desperation.”

“Oh, why’s that?”

“Something with my parents. Involving religion.”

“Hmm.”

“Oh, no. It was no big deal, really.”

I was making excuses despite myself.

“My mother died young, and then my father and grandmother fell in with a cult, so things were a bit weird. They threw out our household Shinto shrine and Buddhist altar, and they went to this place called Tashiro Pass in the Ouu Mountains a number of times... Our house became a place for believers to gather, and people spread rumors about it at school. They tried to make me join, and I really didn’t want to, so I tried to stay away from the house as much as possible.”

As we walked down the hill, I kept talking, as if trying to fill in the awkwardness between Kozakura and me.

“I nearly got kidnapped by another religious group on the way home from school, and someone torched the manga cafe where I was staying, so I was camping out in ruins for lack of any other option. Then, one night, in this run-down love hotel, I had this dream where I was hugged by this really soft, red person. I was like, Ohh, is this my mom? But, no, of course it wasn’t. She was dead, after all. But that time, the person asked me, Do you not need those people? and I said I didn’t. When I woke up, I was out of food and money. I went home, thinking about how much I didn’t want to. I got some kerosene ready, and I waited.”

“...Kerosene?”

“But I waited for days, and in the end no one came. Just when I was thinking ‘good riddance,’ uh, the police called, and they told me the bodies had been found. They told me that they got taken out by gas that had settled in a depression in the mountains. All of them. They wouldn’t show me the bodies, though. Now I was alone. I managed to get into university somehow with a student loan, but those people, they were so passionate about charity they didn’t leave me an inheritance. I mean, in the end, student loans are debt, right? I felt like I’d never repay it, and I had no idea what I was going to do, and then I met Toriko.”

When I realized Kozakura wasn’t saying anything, I stopped.

“I-I’m sorry, this can’t be very interesting. I mean, it’s no big deal, just ignore—”

“What do you mean, ‘no big deal’?”

When I turned around, Kozakura was staring at me in blank amazement.

“Um, what?”

“Do you honestly believe that?”

“Huh... Is something strange? I think my story’s a fairly common one.”

“No, it’s not.”

As I stared blankly as her, Kozakura shook her head in exasperation.

“You’ve had a bad run of luck, too, huh.”

“Sure...”

“Well, I can see why you’re so unusually resilient now.”

“Huh? I’ve never thought of myself that way, though.”

“You had me completely fooled. You don’t have the same strong sense of presence that Toriko does, after all.”

“Yeah, compared to Toriko, I’m nothing special... What made her personality like that anyway?”

“I don’t know about her personality, but she’s Canadian-born, and her parents were soldiers. They were in a special operations force called JTF2. Seems they taught her all sorts of things, from a young age. That shaped her character, I think.”

“Hmm. So that’s why she can use a gun.”

I nodded in satisfaction. It seemed they’d taught her well.

“Her parents are in Canada?”

“I hear they passed away.”

“Oh...”

For some reason, that wasn’t surprising to me. From the moment I met Toriko, I’d had that feeling. Toriko was in a hole like me, but despite that, she seemed to have something I lacked.

Well, then... from Toriko’s perspective, how had I looked?

6

The water in the grass was knee-high.

But that was my knees.

Kozakura was up to her thighs in water, and her face was pale.

“This is cold, okay?”

“Let’s get through quickly. From the way things looked up top, it’s not too far to dry land.”

It would have been a long way around if we wanted to avoid the marshland. There wasn’t much time until the sun set. I wanted to avoid encountering a hostile entity at night when I had Kozakura with me.

“The grass touching me underwater feels gross... Ah! Hold on, my sandal’s coming off.”

Kozakura seemed to be gradually losing her composure. Maybe to assuage her fear, she’d started getting more talkative. If she would just watch where she was pointing that gun, she was welcome to complain all she wanted. In fact, it was actually kind of cute how scared she was.

“Don’t rush. Just hold on to my clothes, and walk. If you see something in the water, could you tell me?”

“What do you mean, ‘something’?”

“Anything other than grass.”

What I was afraid of were glitches in the water. I had taken a quick look before we entered the marsh, and I hadn’t seen any of the silver haze that indicated danger, but my eyes didn’t reach underwater. We had to take each step cautiously.

“Ohhh, no, no, no, no, no...”

Ignoring Kozakura’s chanting behind me, I pressed forward.

We’d walked for probably over ten minutes. Noticing something abnormal ahead, I raised my voice.

“Stop!”

“Ungh.”

Kozakura plowed into my back and stopped.

“Wh-What?”

“It’s a glitch.”

That glitch, which we would have stepped right into if I wasn’t looking out for it, was beautiful. There was a clearly defined cylinder in the water, and inside it was a vortex. I was able to see it because there were foreign objects inside the eddy. I had thought it was trash at first, but it was the twisted, torn-apart remains of a fire-extinguisher. Inside the cylinder, which was less than a meter across, there was a raging current, strong enough to tear apart hard metal.

What name would Abarato have given it? Something easy, like a “Washing Machine,” maybe?

“We’ll divert around to the left. Follow me slowly.”

I couldn’t be sure how far its area of effect was just by looking at it. If we were careless and got too close, it might pull us in all at once, so I led Kozakura away from it, keeping more than ten meters away. Once we’d cautiously made it through to the other side, I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

“Whew. That was dangerous, huh.”

“What’re they doing over there?”

“Huh?”

“I saw people I don’t know.”

I turned towards the lifeless voice, and Kozakura was looking off into the distance, up ahead of us on the right.

Her mouth hung open, drool dripping down to land in the water below.

As I followed her gaze, what jumped into my vision was four white scarecrows in the grass...

No, wrong.

Those were Kunekunes.

A harsh stench like that of raw fish struck my nose. I looked down before thinking, and I covered Kozakura’s eyes.

“Don’t look, Kozakura-san!”

When I shouted in her ear, Kozakura jumped a little.

“So-Sorawo-chan. Blech. Those things, they’re crazy.”

“Don’t worry, we’re fine. Those ones—I’ve beaten them before.”

I talked fast, supporting the shotgun that Kozakura was holding.

“You can do this with your eyes closed. I’ll look. When I say shoot, please shoot. Can you do that?”

“Just... Just do it, already...” Kozakura said, groaning in a way that wasn’t cute at all.

She didn’t have to tell me twice. I looked up, gazing directly at the Kunekunes.

When I perceived them, it caused an instant bout of nausea. The Kunekunes were trying to invade me through my sense of sight.

Still, four of you? You lost last time, so you’re trying to win with numbers? Screw that power creep. You’re not enemies in an RPG, okay? Unfortunately for you, though, I’m not the same person I was back then. I mean, I have the power to see you for what you really are now.

Huh? But wait, though. Didn’t my right eye end up like this because I came in contact with a Kunekune?

By the time that thought occurred to me, my right eye had already recognized the Kunekunes.

In the next instant, I was cast into a strange world.

I was sliding over a watery surface that curved into a hemispherical shape. In the area around me, there were white spheres connected by thin string structures that were moving around. Everything was blue above the water. Beneath it was dark like a well. When I turned my consciousness in that direction, I was quickly pulled down into the very bottom of the well. In the darkness, I felt a prickling sensation. Overlapping of sensory patterns, forming some kind of meaning. White... scarecrows... rice paddies... snake scales... binoculars... As each concept rose to my mind, my mouth—my human mouth—moved, and I could feel it forming words.

Then, I understood.

The curved surface, it was my eye.

I was looking at myself from the Kunekune’s perspective.

Half-crazed, I tore my mind away from it. My mouth formed words. The sound reached my ears.

“Shoot!”

The shotgun roared. The shot was spread horizontally by the GATOR, and it blew away two Kunekunes up ahead of us.

The tears flowed like I was a broken faucet. Catching the other two in my blurry vision, I yelled out.

“One more shot!”

The gun kicked, and on the other side of the grass the white shadows scattered.

The ejected shell fell into the water, then was instantly sucked into the Washing Machine. As the red plastic cylinder was torn to shreds, tears poured from my eyes.

The echo of the gunshot faded. I couldn’t move. If I hadn’t been leaning on Kozakura, I’d likely have slumped into the water.

“Urkh, get off... You’re heavy...”

Kozakura’s complaining finally pulled me back to reality.

When I got up, taking my hands off her, Kozakura squinted and looked around the area.

“Did we get them?”

“Y-Yeah.”

“Sorawo-chan, you were babbling some weird stuff, you know?”

Kozakura looked up at me as if she was creeped out. I slowly nodded.

“It was like that when I encountered one of them with Toriko, too. Unconsciously spewing some bizarre language... So that was it. Those things, they were contacting the knowledge of the Kunekune inside me.”

The bizarre language that came out of my mouth when I went Kunekune hunting with Toriko. It had seemed meaningless and random, but something about it bothered me. There were a number of words I recognized. When I looked it up later, I figured it out. It was fragments from the text of a net lore account of the Kunekune, patched together into something else.

“The creatures of this place use monsters as a template, but are still trying to access human knowledge of monsters...?” Kozakura frowned as she thought about it. “So, basically, they act in ways we expect monsters to act? Does that mean they’re created inside the human brain?”

“But I’ve never heard anyone talk about the true identity of the Kunekune being a creature that moves around inside your eye. I’m having a hard time imagining the Walking Gallows we encountered at Kisaragi Station came out of any preexisting ghost story, either.”

“In that case, there must be something in the other world, and it uses the horror stories inside people, and their concept of monsters...”

“Kozakura-san, you said it before, didn’t you? That the phenomena of the Otherside looked like they were deliberately trying to scare humans. In order to cause fear, maybe they search the human brain, drawing from our database of horror stories, to create the forms they take?”

“Or, perhaps, it’s the opposite. Their goal isn’t to cause fear... It may be that contact with the other world inherently inspires fear in humans. The monster database in our brains simply happens to lie along the channel through which we make contact with the other world...”

Then, we heard a noise in the distance, and we both stopped.

There was the same sound once more.

The bursting noise that rang out twice—it had to be a gunshot.

“...It’s Toriko.”

Without a shred of doubt, I knew.

Toriko was calling me.

7

Once we had shaken off the shock of the Kunekune encounter, we started walking once more.

As we progressed east, the water level gradually dropped. The sun started to set, and the wind picked up. When a moist wind blew across the water, it made it feel even chillier; Kozakura was shivering so bad I felt sorry for her.

“See? I told you Toriko was alive. You should’ve just left her alone instead of putting me through all this.” Trying to warm herself up with seething rage, Kozakura muttered a torrent of hateful invectives towards Toriko.

“I’ll turn that bird brain into fried chicken... Or chicken soup... If we had a saucepan, I’d add some fish and make hot pot...”

“It isn’t hot pot season.”

“Oh, shut up. I’m cold.”

The water receded from knee-level to calf-level, before we finally made it to dry land. Kozakura crouched down, totally spent.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course not. I was sliding my feet the whole time, trying to avoid losing a sandal. My thighs are killing me.”

“Okay. Let’s take just a three minute break.”

“What are you, some kind of ogre...?”

“Come on, Toriko’s calling!” I said with more passion than I’d intended to.

If she made the choice to shoot twice, that likely meant she was able to hear the two shots we’d fired against the Kunekunes from where she was, too.

“Toriko’s not far, so let’s keep doing our best until we get to her.”

Kozakura looked up to the heavens with an exhausted expression on her face.

“I thought you were a subculture maniac with no communication skills, but you were actually a psychopath with dependency issues? Give me a break.”

“Did you just say something really awful?”

“I wish you had some degree of self-awareness. Seriously.”

When I looked at Kozakura, clutching her shotgun and her knees, shivering, I started to feel a bit sorry for her. “Um, I don’t have any clothes to offer, but, uh... Would you like a hug?”

Judging by Kozakura’s expression, that was not an appropriate offer.

“Erm, just in case you’re misunderstanding, I, uh, don’t have anything against you, Kozakura-san.”

“Stop it, stop it! I still want to cling to the hope that I’m talking to a human being that understands words!”

“R-Right...”

“Before you go and say any more weird things, I’m going to start talking myself. MIT created an image generator called the Nightmare Machine. It’s a program that uses deep learning to warp peoples’ faces, or make scenery seem sinister, creating images that unnerve humans. If you just put things through a filter that follows certain fixed rules, it’s simple to frighten humans.”

“Oh, I can understand that. I think you could apply that sort of formula to true ghost stories and net lore, too,” I said.

“The output of the Nightmare Machine is visual, but I’m sure it would be possible to create natural linguistic output in the same way. The point is, ‘scary’ is something you can make.” Tapping a finger on her temple, Kozakura continued. “Let’s call this filter for ‘scary’ a fear function. When the input of the sensory organs is passed through a fear function, anything we see or hear becomes scary. This is something that is known to happen in the case of things like alcohol dependence and depression, too. It’s a malfunction of the nervous system, one that is completely inside the brain, but if the fear function existed externally, you would expect the same things to happen.”

“Externally...?”

“In a place that warps the cognition just by being exposed to it. It could arise from societal causes, or physical causes such as air pressure or chemical substances, but the result would touch a weak point in the human brain... What we’d call ‘haunted locations’ may be an example of one such place.”

“So, basically, you’re saying that the Otherside causes anomalies in the human brain, and it acts as a massive fear function?”

“Yes. I do have one piece of evidence that this place exerts an effect of the brain.” Kozakura pointed to the barrel of her shotgun. “Look at your own gun. You shouldn’t be able to read the inscription or numbers on it.”

I drew the Makarov from its leg holster and looked at it. Kozakura was right. The text carved into the metal had turned into some strange symbols, the meaning of which was completely indiscernible.

“Come to think of it... Whenever we came to this place using the elevator, the text on its panel got all weird, too.”

“Somewhere in the transition from the surface world to this world, our linguistic abilities are being invaded. As proof that this is a non-permanent change, the inscriptions on our guns will go back to normal when we take them home from the other world. It’s not the text itself that changes, it’s our ability to read. This phenomenon resembles sensory aphasia, one impairment of our higher brain functions. If there is damage to the Wernicke’s area in the temporal lobe of the human brain, a person loses the ability to understand the meaning of words, and they might start speaking nonsense. However...”

Kozakura reached out, writing the kanji for “moon” on the ground. I could read it without issue.

“If something is written here, we have a mutual ability to understand it. However, what I’ve written here should have no meaning back in the surface world. Then what exactly is it that I’ve written? This may not only affect written text, either. Are we really managing to have a conversation?” Kozakura looked me in the eye then continued. “If what you just experienced through the Kunekune’s perspective is true, the Kunekune are indeed having an effect on our linguistic capacity. The strange language is only a by-product of that. We didn’t need to wait for an encounter with the Kunekune for that to happen, though. From the point we enter the other world, there’s already something shoving its hands into our human brains. And so...”

“...as a part of that process, or as the result of it: fear is born.”

We looked at one another, feeling a little chilled. Hesitantly, I opened my mouth again. “That’s all very interesting, but your three minutes are up. Let’s go.”

Kozakura’s eyes went wide. “Seriously? Give me another three minutes...”

“Umm. If you’d prefer, Kozakura-san, I can go on by myself.”

“No! You ogre!”

8

Once we actually got walking, we reached the skeletal building in no time. I was prepared for a reunion with the dead body of that person who was killed by the Kunekune, but I didn’t see it this time.

We reached the foot of the building where the bare concrete was exposed, and we had a look around the area. The ground floor was covered in soot, with a metal barrel left sitting there. No sign of Toriko.

“I’ll go look up top, okay?”

Without responding to me, Kozakura tottered over to the barrel and looked inside.

“Sorawo-chan, got a light?”

“I do, but I don’t think this is the time for a bonfire.”

“I don’t care, give it here.”

I pulled out a box of waterproof matches, giving them to Kozakura, then I put a hand on the rusty ladder and started climbing.

...I didn’t recall that climbing ten floors worth of ladder was actually pretty hard until I had already gone up enough floors that it was too late to turn back. My arms got tired, and when I happened to look down, I was shocked to find I was higher up than I expected.

Huh? What is this? This is nuts...

Wasn’t it kind of insane, going up and down this ladder...?

I wasn’t counting, but I was probably four stories up. If a rung broke, or I lost the strength to hold on, wouldn’t that be the end for me?

The evening wind blew past, fanning my body. I panicked and clung tight to the ladder.

Kozakura seemed to have misunderstood me, but I wasn’t fearless. Just desperate. That was why, when I came back to my senses like this, I couldn’t take it anymore.

Calm down, I closed my eyes and told myself. You’ve used this ladder before. It was fine then, wasn’t it? You just have to take it one rung at a time, just like back then.

Like back then...

Oh, right. Toriko was there, though.

Just because I didn’t have her with me, it was this scary?

When I had Kozakura following me, I’d managed to keep tricking myself somehow, but the moment I was all alone, I turned into a mess. I had just finished making it through the Otherside, full of monsters and glitches, but now the mere height of a ladder was enough to immobilize me.

Had I always been this cowardly? That shouldn’t have been the case. If this were back during the time when my anger and irritation at everything drove me to go prowling through ruins at night, by the light of a single flashlight, this ladder wouldn’t have been a big deal.

I’ve gotten weaker.

It hadn’t been that long since I first met Toriko, but I was already useless without her.

That woman whose situation resembled mine just a little, but otherwise was nothing like me.

That woman who had all these things I didn’t, but seemed to be missing something even worse than I was.

That woman who was beautiful, good-natured, and strong, who was a completely different type than I was... and yet the two of us got along great.

That woman who said the most insensitive things with a straight face, and who didn’t understand me in the slightest.

That woman who had suddenly turned up in my life, turned it upside down, and then just up and disappeared.

The more I thought about her, the angrier I got.

I glared at my right hand, which was clenching the ladder and refusing to let go. Move! Let go! Not missing the moment my grip weakened, I moved my right hand up to the next rung. Next was the left. Open! Move up!

The engine of rage was revving up inside me. I was starting to get going. Right, left, hand, foot. My pace gradually accelerated. See? I really was better when I was angry.

“Even if you’re not here...” I started out loud. “Even if you’re not here, I can do this by myself.”

I beat the Kunekunes. I can climb this ladder, too.

“So... So...”

Narrowing my eyes at the roof that was drawing nearer, I grumbled.

“So... Hurry up... and come back, Toriko!”

Finally crawling onto the roof, ten floors up, I collapsed onto my back.

I looked up into the cloudy evening sky and let out a little laugh despite myself.

“Haha... What was that? I’m so weird.”

I’m fine by myself, so come back?

I was going to find her anyway, so what was I saying?

I stood up, drew the Makarov, and disengaged the safety. I pointed the gun skyward, plugged my ears, then pulled the trigger. Twice in a row.

There was the sound of gunfire echoing, and then the clear sound of the expelled casing bouncing off the concrete roof.

I waited for a time, but no shots rang out in response.

“...Come on, respond when I call you.”

I lowered my arm, Makarov still in hand, and began walking along the fence around the edge of the roof. I had a good view of the surrounding area from up here. Like I had remembered, far off in the east, I could see a set of tracks. Down that way was Kisaragi Station, where the U.S. Marines might still be struggling, unable to escape.

The south side was wide open, and when I looked towards the shadows, I was able to pick up the silver shimmer that indicated the presence of glitches. Looking at it again, I couldn’t believe we’d set foot in that place when we were so defenseless. The big white building where we’d met Hasshaku-sama was more full of holes than I remembered, making it look even more like dead coral. What happened to Abarato when he vanished beyond that blue light?

The west side was the marshland we’d just passed through. The way the evening sun reflected off the water there was breathtakingly beautiful. Then, I caught sight of a thin, white shadow standing there. I braced myself, thinking it might be another Kunekune, but apparently not. It looked like a large bird... maybe a heron? As I was watching, it stuck its curved neck into the water, then returned to its prior upright standing position. If it was really a bird, that would make it the first animal I’d seen since coming to the other world, but I couldn’t let my guard down. When I remembered something we’d seen last time, a massive bird that spread the smell of oil as it flew overhead, I looked away.

I continued following the fence around to the north side, where I stopped still in shock. On the north side of the building, there were scattered woods on land full of exposed rock. Beyond that, a city spread out.

Well, I called it a city, but that was just my first impression. It wasn’t that large of an area. Maybe a village, at best. We hadn’t headed north yet, but I had no recollection of having seen this place from the north side of the roof. The roofs had shingles that had fallen off here and there, and the walls had been made dirty by exposure to heavy rain, which made it hard to think it was constructed recently.

In between the houses, something moved.

Someone was there. Someone, or something.

Glowing crimson in the light of the evening sun, I saw the back of a head with long, bouncing locks of blonde hair.

“Toriko!” I shouted, leaning out over the fence. “Torikoooo!”

Instantly, I raised the Makarov above my head and fired.

Undeterred by the ringing in my ears, I unloaded the whole clip. The slide recoiled, and then there was quiet. I didn’t know if she heard, but that crimson brilliance hid in the shadow of a building.

Then, down on the ground, there was movement. Kozakura was tottering through the woods towards the city.

“Kozakura-san!”

There was no response to my shout. For some reason, Kozakura disappeared into the woods without looking back.

There was something wrong with her. I pushed away from the railing, turning back and returning to the ladder with long strides. I put the Makarov away in its leg holster, and then, grabbing onto the ladder, my foot nearly slipping as I did, I descended as quickly as I could. With each rung, I grew more impatient. If this were a game, I could have just grabbed onto a support pillar with both hands, and then slid all the way down.

Once I was finally standing on the ground, I looked at the first floor. Kozakura was gone, and dried leaves I could only assume she had gathered from around here were crackling in the barrel. Next to the fire was the box of waterproof matches I’d given her earlier, along with Kozakura’s abandoned shotgun.

With how frightened she’d been before, there was no way Kozakura would have left without the gun. I picked up the matches and shotgun, then took off running.

9

I’m not catching up.

Her pace had seemed relaxed when I was looking from up top, but I’d run until I was winded, and I still didn’t see Kozakura’s back.

The sun was shining in from the west, and the trees of the forest cast long shadows as it finally began setting. When sunset passed, night would come; that was the time of monsters.

I’d fully discharged my Makarov on impulse, and now I regretted it. I still had bullets, but I hadn’t thought to bring a spare magazine. If I got attacked, it was looking like I’d have to rely on the shotgun. The problem was: this was my first time touching this gun. Toriko might have been able to master any gun easily, but I was an amateur who just happened to have it fall into my hands. I didn’t even know if this shotgun I was swinging around had the safety engaged or not.

How many times did Kozakura shoot again? I tried to remember as I ran. Once at the entrance. Twice at the Kunekunes. Was that all? And how many shells did she load into this thing in the first place...?

Before I had time to remember precisely, the forest came to an end. Suddenly, there was a paved road in front of me.

The asphalt in front of me was dried and cracked like in a desert area in Mexico, and weeds grew freely from between the cracks. An electrical line dangling from a tilted telephone pole swayed in the wind. The rows of houses on either side of the road were quiet, and there was no sign of life. The words “ghost town” seemed an apt way to describe this lonely scene.

Before approaching, I focused my consciousness into my right eye to look for glitches. The moment I did, I let out an involuntary cry of surprise.

That was because the whole of this town, which was dyed crimson by the setting sun, was wrapped in a silver halo.

“This is... all a glitch?”

I stared at the city in disbelief. Was it a trap? No, maybe not necessarily. Glitches were supernatural traps found dotted around the other world—that was what I believed, since that was what Abarato told us, but I had seen the train we used to escape Kisaragi Station, and Hasshaku-sama’s other form wrapped in a silver haze, too. In contrast, when we came to the other world from Shinjuku, I had seen the same sort of pale radiance, too. So, basically, it might have been the case that what my eye was detecting were spatial anomalies.

I picked up a pebble from the ground and threw it onto the asphalt. That was my substitute for the bolts Abarato had used. The pebble bounced with a hard sound, then came to a stop without incident. It didn’t burst into flames, or explode, or anything like that.

I poked the road with the barrel of the shotgun, then quickly pulled it back. The metal part hadn’t become abnormally hot, and it hadn’t melted. When I brought the wooden stock close to the road, it was the same. There was no visible effect.

Normally, I would never move any closer, but I’d seen it from the top of the roof. The bouncing of Toriko’s gorgeous, golden locks.

It seemed I was going to have to steel myself for this.

I raised up one of my feet, on which I was wearing hiking shoes, and carefully, cautiously, I stepped into the city.

“Hey.”

“Gyah?!”

A sudden voice from behind me made me jump into the air. It was a throaty, deep male voice—I whipped around, and unconsciously pulled the trigger. Nothing came out. The safety, huh? I thought, and then went pale. Did I almost shoot someone just now?!

The muzzle was aimed towards a middle-aged guy in work clothes. His face... I don’t know what his face was like. I could tell that he was middle-aged, and that he was male, but I couldn’t make out his face. If I directed my attention towards individual parts, his eyebrows were bushy, there was stubble on his face... those details would enter my consciousness. But I couldn’t assemble a full picture of his face inside my head.

“I told you you wouldn’t be able to go back, didn’t I?”

The faceless man said, clicking his tongue.

From the way he spoke and acted, and the way he was dressed, there was no mistaking him. It was the Time-space Man.

I searched above the trigger with my finger, and found a protrusion it felt like I could move. I clicked it in, and the trigger, which had been locked and immobile up until now, lightened as if it had been set free. It must have been the safety.

“Don’t move. I’ll shoot.”

When I said that, the man looked dubiously at me, or so I thought.

In my conversation with Kozakura, I had posited that the Time-space Man might not be a living being, but in fact a bot. I think Kozakura was using the term “phenomenon” in the same way. He looked human, but was in fact just something like a piece of stage equipment that acted human.

If so, why should I care about shooting him? I thought, but at the same time, I had serious reservations about pulling the trigger on anything that looked human. In an attempt to figure out what these guys really were, I focused my consciousness into my right eye.

For a moment, I didn’t understand what I was seeing.

It wasn’t a man. It wasn’t even a bipedal creature.

It was a tall plant, growing out of the ground. Its green stalk rose straight up out of the asphalt, splitting in two in the middle, and then each end of the stalk bore five bunches of small red fruits that resembled salmon roe. There were arrowhead-shaped leaves growing from the whole of the stalk, and they blew in the wind.

Once I had recognized it as a plant, I couldn’t see it as human anymore. I realized I was alone, on the street, staring vacantly up at a tall plant with my jaw hanging wide open, so I shut my mouth. I had no recollection of this thing growing here up until a moment ago.

“...What is this?”

I backed away in confusion. The plant was just growing there. It didn’t move, and it didn’t talk. It felt like it was watching me, and that was creepy. Even as I worried it might attack the moment I turned my back on it, I turned to look towards the city, and when I did, I screamed.

At some point, the whole area had filled with plants.

In the middle of the gateposts of the nearest house, there was something that looked like an elliptical sunflower framed with blue, white, and gold bumps. It had four large leaves, resembling the eight-fingered leaves of the fatsia plant, growing from close to the root of it.

Peeking out from behind a telephone pole, there was a pale plant with leaves that looked like the spread legs of a spider, and in the middle of its stalk there was a swell that looked like an insect gall. The ends spread out like the tip of a calligraphy brush, each carrying a green mass that looked like dandelion fluff blown up to a massive size.

Further along there was a plant with three fern-like leaves growing in a line in the center, and then two light pink buds growing off it. It was a little shorter than the rest, but still as large as a child in the upper years of elementary school. Its stalk bent under the weight of the buds, which made it look almost as if it were peering towards me.

The scene made it look like a great many people had frozen in the middle of whatever they were doing, and then been turned into plants like that. It felt like when you turned around playing Red Light, Green Light... I looked over my shoulder despite myself, and the first plant I’d encountered was still in the same spot. By this point, I could no longer be confident that my conversation with the man had even happened.

Unable to handle the tension, I started running.

I avoided the plants as I pushed towards the center of the city. Nothing interfered. I wasn’t attacked. Not by anyone, or anything. The setting sun hung over a hollow city, full of nothing but human-sized plants.

“Toriko! Kozakura-san! Where are you?!”

There was no response. I went off the road, and even went into people’s yards. I noticed the lingering remains of the former inhabitants’ lives as I searched for Toriko and Kozakura. An open door, buried in the grass. A rusty abandoned tricycle. An old tire filled with water. The posters pasted on the concrete block walls had completely faded, and only the outlines of people on them were still vaguely there.

Walking around, I noticed one other thing that was abnormal. The city never ended. When I’d seen it from above, it hadn’t looked this big, but no matter how far I went, I never reached the outside.

I cut across a parking lot with a broken chain-link fence and returned to the road. The sun hid behind the rows of buildings, while the silhouettes of plants were drawn in its lingering illumination. The image of many human beings looking towards me in the darkness popped into my head, and I shuddered.

What happened to the people who were once here? Those plants... Are they what’s left of the residents? No, no, that can’t be right. But...

Shaking my head to dispel my unpleasant imaginings, I had a sudden realization. Somehow, the plant next to me seemed familiar. It was short with pink buds. The human-sized plants I’d seen in this city all looked different, but this one stood out as unusual because it was child-sized, so it left an impression on me.

Child-sized...?

The moment I had a flash of inspiration, my ears were filled with the sound of shouting.

“...-chan! Sorawo-chan! I said I’m over here! Listen to me, stupid!”

“Ko-Kozakura?!”

Kozakura was right next to me, shouting. When I responded, Kozakura’s eyes widened, and then she put her hands on her knees and hung her head.

“Whew, I finally got through,” Kozakura said, her shoulders heaving with each breath. I don’t know how long she was shouting, but her voice was hoarse.

“Wh-Where did you come from?”

“I’ve been here the whole time! You caught up with me, so I called out to you, but you wouldn’t look at me, so I thought something must be wrong.”

“Sorry. It seems I was looking at something else...”

As I spoke, I looked around the area. The plants other than Kozakura had vanished, like it was all a dream.

“Why did you come here, Kozakura-san?”

“I, um... felt something calling out to me,” Kozakura said in a vague tone. “I was thinking I’d start a fire in that barrel. I gathered up all the dried leaves from nearby, and lit a match... Somehow, that managed to get the fire started, so I decided to go look for more kindling. Then, as I was walking around the building, all of a sudden, I heard Satsuki call my name.”

“Satsuki-san did?”

“I remember that it seemed natural to me that, ‘If she’s calling, I’ve got to go.’ The next thing I knew, I was in the middle of the city. For a moment, I thought I’d gotten out of this place... I realized I hadn’t pretty quick, though. I was alone, in a deserted residential area... and I’d lost my gun, too. I got scared. Just when I thought I was in trouble, you came. I was so relieved.”

Kozakura must have felt really lonely, because she kept talking. I cut her off before she could say more and asked, “You didn’t come across Toriko?”

“Huh? No, I haven’t seen her.”

“She should be nearby. Somewhere in this city.”

“Here? Seriously? I haven’t seen anyone but you and me.”

Kozakura seemed dubious, but I was confident. I had only seen it for an instant, but that blonde hair was definitely Toriko’s.

“I’m going to look a little more. Kozakura-san, you can go back without me.”

“Go back where?”

“If you go up on top of that building, there’s an elevator. You should be able to go back to the surface through there. I’ve used it before.”

“Don’t be stupid. You think I could go back on my own?”

“If you run, the building’s right there. I don’t have time for this, so please go home right now. I’ll give this back to you.”

I tried to turn over the shotgun, but Kozakura wouldn’t take it. I continued to talk, trying to persuade her. “Um, I understand that it’s scary to be alone, but things are about to get even more crazy here.”

“Why?”

“The sun’s setting.”

The city had sunk deep into twilight, and it was already getting hard to make out each other’s faces. The deep red light that remained just licked regretfully at the roofs of the houses. It wouldn’t be long before it, too, disappeared.

“If night comes, let me be honest—I’m not confident I can protect you. So...”

Kozakura let out an irritated sigh.

“You showed me that picture, and now you’re going to say that?”

“That picture...? You mean the ones of my doppelganger?”

“No. The one of Satsuki. Sorawo-chan, you really do have no interest in anyone but Toriko, don’t you?” Kozakura’s voice rose with exasperation. “I’ve always thought Satsuki died here. But... if she’s alive, I want to go see her. That’s why I can’t go back alone, Sorawo-chan.”

Just as Kozakura finished saying that, that last meager light of twilight finally vanished from the sky.

Night had come to the Otherside.

10

Night had just fallen, and the sky was still a deep blue, but the stars were already shining.

Did the night come this quickly without artificial light? The deep blue changed to dark black before my eyes. The number of stars, which were so dense they seemed to blot out the sky, overwhelmed me. Even back when I would look up to the night sky from the ruins near my home, there were never this many.

“I can’t make out any constellations. Have they changed from the surface world? Or has my pattern recognition been messed with...?”

As she stared up at the stars, Kozakura had at some point started holding onto the bottom of my shirt.

“Is this your first time in the Otherside at night, Kozakura-san?”

“Satsuki warned me well enough that I’ve never seen it before. Though, I had heard it was pretty. It really is,” Kozakura said, murmuring, “I wish I could have seen it with Satsuki.”

“Too bad you’re with me instead, huh.”

“Tell me about it.”

You’re not going to deny that?

“Well, please, take your time observing the stars, then. I’ll be going on ahead.”

“Listen, Sorawo-chan. You’ve got a real nasty personality, you know that?”

“But you said that I had a real nice personality before, didn’t you?”

“Sarcastically! Besides, where are you going? Even if you’re going to search, walking around at random is just dangerous.”

“I have one idea.”

It was an idea that occurred to me because of how Kozakura appeared as a plant before.

My right eye certainly seemed to be able to detect spatial anomalies. At the same time, it also seemed to be able to see through to the true nature of things—like with Hasshaku-sama and the bull-headed monster that attacked Kisaragi Station. I didn’t understand the logic behind it, but my eye had torn back the veil of illusion that the Otherside cast over human perception a number of times now.

I hadn’t used this ability to see through a glitch before. And right now, I was inside a massive glitch. If this city wasn’t a real city, in the same way that the man wasn’t a man like he appeared to be, then by seeing through to the glitch’s true nature, would I perhaps be able to see Toriko, who I know should be inside the city...?

Kozakura listened to me explain with trepidation.

“Now, assuming my guess is right, I should be able to leave you in a safe state, while I can go find Toriko.”

“Huh? What? Hold on. In a safe state? What does that mean?”

“Um... Before this, you were a plant, so I was thinking I could have you become one again. Oh! It’ll be fine, I’ll make sure to turn you back.”

“You make no sense. What do you mean, a plant?”

As Kozakura said that, sounding worried, we heard a howl from somewhere out in the night.

If I listened closely, somewhere in the darkness of the other world, I could sense something beginning to wake up. The air filled with the presence of living creatures. With a cry that sounded like a scream, something flew by high in the sky. The howls went back and forth, gradually increasing in number. They sounded dog-like, and yet also like a human imitating a dog. I was forced, like it or not, to recall the man-faced dogs that Toriko and I had encountered last time we were here.

Close by, in the abandoned houses to our left and right, there was secretive whispering. I couldn’t tell what it was they were saying, only a certain gloominess came across in their conversation, but for some reason I couldn’t help but think they were talking about us.

Kozakura huddled close to me.

“Hey... Those howls, they’re getting closer, aren’t they?” Kozakura asked.

“No doubt about it.”

Even as I answered, I was fighting the impulse to run away screaming. They might not attack us directly, but the mere presence of something malicious watching us was terrifying enough on its own. Shaking her head in terror, Kozakura resignedly said, “It seems we don’t have many options, do we?”

“We’re good, then?”

“There’s nothing ‘good’ about it. But I’ll trust you, Sorawo-chan.”

As she said that, Kozakura gripped the bottom of my shirt tighter. Was it a show of trust or a manifestation of unease? It didn’t matter one way or the other. What I was planning to do wouldn’t change.

Ignoring the unsettling presences that were closing in, I focused my consciousness into my right eye. I made the entirety of the scene before me its target.

Suddenly, the area went quiet. When I looked down, noticing I felt lighter, Kozakura, who had been clinging to me, was now a plant once again. One of its leaves was touching me. Looking up, I gulped—I was completely surrounded by human-sized plants.

The clustered plants formed a circle, centered around me, many layers deep. It was like I’d wandered into a field of mutant sunflowers.

They just stood there, frozen like in the moments before the final stage of Red Light, Green Light, when the plants would touch Kozakura and me.

Did I just barely make it?

The thought occurred to me, and then a chill ran down my spine.

I couldn’t say how exactly, but the situation may have been far more dangerous than I thought.

Come to think of it... Was this the true nature of this glitch? It wasn’t the result I’d expected, and there was no sign of Toriko being around.

...Huh? Hold on.

When I first entered this city, I saw that man.

When I saw through the man’s true nature, he was a plant.

After that, I saw through another plant’s true nature, and it was Kozakura.

Then, when I tried to see through the true nature of the city, it turned into a world of plants again.

I’ve gone backwards, haven’t I? I mean, just how many true natures are there here?

If I was seeing through things, that process should have only worked in one direction. But my perception had gone from one thing to another, then back again.

Which meant... This right eye of mine wasn’t necessarily “seeing through” to the true nature of things? Well, what was I seeing then?

Mystified by this, I continued to look, and the plants surrounding me vanished. Only Kozakura, transformed into a flower, remained.

Across the street, a man wearing a suit turned and looked at me. He had a shocked look on his face, and wore a badge that looked like a windmill or a flower on his chest. Before the man could try to say anything, the scenery changed again, and I saw three middle-aged women standing in front of a nearby house. They persistently rung the house’s bell, shouting something at those inside.

Suddenly, I felt eyes on me. Looking down, I saw myself looking up.

“Huh?!”

Crouching at Kozakura’s roots, I saw me.

That me persistently stared at the me who let out a cry of surprise, then stood up, walked over with a smirk—and vanished.

Okay... I was gradually figuring this out.

It wasn’t that my right eye “saw through” to the true nature of things... It was able to freely move between recognizing several aspects of a single phenomenon.

The Time-space Man who kept appearing, the three old women, the doppelganger, they were all fragments of this one “phenomenon.”

I had realized, much too late, that I recognized this deserted city. It had gone to ruin, so I never noticed before now, but I knew these streets. I had seen them just recently. This was near Toriko’s apartment, in the residential area in Nippori. The sky had brightened at some point. It looked like I’d returned to noon today, to the time when I went to visit Toriko.

When I looked up towards the roofs, I spotted Toriko’s apartment building. It was covered in ivy, the elevator had fallen apart, and the water tank on the roof had some unidentifiable black seaweed hanging down from it.

I could see me on the road up ahead, apparently heading to the apartment building. I started to walk, following me. When I focused on the doppelganger, I felt the city around us grow faint.

The veil over my perception was being stripped away, one layer at a time. The houses and roads suddenly flattened, folding up like paper, then vanishing outside my field of vision. In a world losing its form, the other me’s existence acted like the needle of a compass, pointing towards the way to go.

It might seem obvious that a being that looked the same as me would be creepy. But my face in that picture—the meanness and the lack of confidence, the unfounded arrogance, the selfish desire, it was all so very “me.”

That was why I could be certain of one thing about the me walking ahead of me. Even if she might betray me, she could never betray Toriko.

“I” would have to go search for Toriko. Beautiful, strong, earnest Toriko.

The other me stood up. In front of me, there was a single door. It was just a door—if there was anything else in the area, I could no longer identify it. It felt like there was some bizarre entity, beyond even the Kunekune, scratching away at the edges of my vision, but if I diverted my attention even a little, I felt like I’d lose sight of my destination, so I didn’t take my eyes off the me in front of me. However, with so many veils stripped back, I could sense that I’d come to an incredibly deep place.

The doppelganger disappeared, as if being sucked into the surface of the door. It was a door I’d seen before... It was the one to Toriko’s room, Room 404. I put my hand on the door handle, slowly pulling it open, then I stepped inside.

At the end of the entrance hall, I could see a room with wooden flooring. I walked right in without removing my shoes. There was no furniture inside. In that space, which was empty, as if she were preparing to move away, I found Toriko.

Toriko was sitting beside the glass door that led out onto the balcony, her back leaning against the wall. She was dressed in her expedition clothes, the same as I’d seen in the photos. Her AK lay haphazardly on the floor.

“Toriko!”

As I rushed over to her, Toriko waved a gloved hand and smiled softly at me.

“Sorawo. You came, huh?”

“Wh-What are you acting all relaxed for?” Setting aside my joy at our reunion, I jabbed at her despite myself. “Now, listen! I searched for you forever! No matter how much I called, you never heard, and when I fired the gun, you didn’t respond!”

“Oh, so that was you. I thought it was the guys from Kisaragi Station.”

“Why?! Of course it was me!”

“I didn’t think you’d be coming here with me anymore.”

There was something weird with her. She seemed oddly enervated.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Are you hurt somewhere?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Well, okay then... Come on, let’s go home?”

I pulled her arm, but Toriko made no attempt to stand.

“Sorry, Sorawo. I can’t go home—I found Satsuki,” Toriko said plainly.

“Where?” I asked, but Toriko just pointed out the window.

I felt a voiceless groan escape my throat. On the other side of the balcony, what I had thought was the sky, was that blue space. There was a woman in black floating there, looking down at us.

Her neatly cut black hair. Her pale skin and black-rimmed glasses. Her eyes, deep behind the lenses, which were incredibly blue. A far more terrifying shade of blue than my right eye.

Satsuki Uruma. Toriko’s missing “friend.”

I couldn’t grasp the scale of it. She looked so close, yet so far. Being in her presence made my hair stand on end, but it wasn’t just because I was intimidated by her.

She definitely looked just like the woman from the picture, but... she was different. This person was... not anything I could call human. I mean...

Ignoring me as I cowered, Toriko stood up, sliding open the glass door and stepping out onto the balcony.

“About Satsuki. She’s a special person to me.” Looking up at that thing, Toriko spoke. “I’m no good at making friends. It never worked out for me at Japanese schools, so I stayed cooped up at home. That’s when Satsuki appeared. First, as my tutor. Then, later, as my friend.”

Toriko kept talking in a dazed voice, like she was a young girl, dreaming—and I mean that in a bad way. Her eyes were unfocused, and it was clear her mind had taken off elsewhere.

“It was easy studying for school, so I didn’t think I needed a tutor. But Satsuki taught me all sorts of things. So many things I didn’t know.”

“Stop, Toriko.” I didn’t want to hear how close Toriko was with Satsuki-san before she and I met.

“She told me we were friends. And since we were friends, she taught me about the Otherside. She took me exploring, too. ‘I’m going to keep on teaching you all sorts of things,’ she said. And then... she disappeared. She changed my life so much... I could never go back to the way things were. And then—she suddenly vanished. Satsuki was all I had. So...”

“No.”

Chasing after Toriko, I stumbled out onto the balcony. Even getting a few steps closer to that thing floating in the blue space, I started dripping with cold sweat.

Toriko continued. “That’s why I came looking. Now, at last, I’ve found her. She really is alive. I have to go now... to be in the same place as Satsuki.”

When Toriko put her hand on the balcony railing, I grabbed her by the shoulder. “You can’t go, Toriko.”

“Why not?”

“Because—no, that’s not her...”

My right eye could see it. A different aspect of the entity that took the shape of Satsuki Uruma.

There was a massive windmill with hundreds of blades, or a great flower with an unbelievably complicated design, slowly spinning in the blue world. Every part of it ceaselessly recombined as it revolved, making it look like a kaleidoscope. That there was a woman’s face in the center of it seemed like a joke, but there was nothing to laugh at here. How incongruous it felt was just creepy and frightening.

“I have to go...”

I noticed something off about Toriko’s head as she mumbled that. When I took another look with my right eye, I shuddered. Toriko’s head was starting to unravel.

Her pretty face stayed the same, but her ears, her hair, and her neck rose up in thin, downy strands, and they formed a vortex. At the end of that eddy, they were sucked into the blue space, and disappeared.

“Listen, Sorawo. I feel like I’m starting to understand... Why it was Satsuki disappeared. Why I was called. What lies beyond there.”

Even as she spoke, Toriko kept unraveling. She was falling apart.

“The truth is, we need to be scared. To be so ridiculously scared to the point we go completely insane. Every living creature experiences fear, but exploring that fear, getting to the bottom of it? Only humans can do that. Imagining fear and putting it to use is also uniquely human. That is why they use fear to access us. They are so utterly foreign, so completely beyond our comprehension, fear is the only channel on which they can interact with us. Fear is the means of contact, and also their goal. Sorawo, I figured it out...”

“Toriko, you can’t understand that! There’s no way!”

I clung to her in desperation. I held onto Toriko’s head, trying to keep her from unraveling, but it wouldn’t stop. Toriko kept going to pieces. Worse yet, my body started unraveling with hers. There was no pain, just a strange loneliness that spread through me.

“Sorawo...? What are you doing? I’m the only one who needs to go.”

“Shut up! I’m not letting you go, okay?”

“Sorawo... This is none of your business.”

“Huh?!” I raised my voice despite myself. “You’re the worst, Toriko! What you just said is the absolute worst! You come in, you mess up my life, and now you have the gall to say that? That’s not going to fly. Toriko, you sound like a child, so cut it out.”

“What...? I don’t get it,” Toriko said in irritation.

“You don’t?! You’re so aggravating! Listen, if you don’t want to get me caught in this, then turn back right now. That’s not Satsuki you’re seeing. It’s a monster wearing the guise of someone precious to you!”

I remembered our encounter with Hasshaku-sama. That time, I was the one who was tricked, and Toriko just barely held me back. This time, it was my turn. I wasn’t letting them take Toriko anywhere. No matter who or what they were—I didn’t care.

I put my left arm around Toriko’s head, raised the shotgun with my right, and rested the barrel on the balcony railing. I glared at the revolving aberration that filled most of my vision.

So, big-ass windmill woman, what do you think is the biggest lesson I’ve learned in all of my experiences so far? It’s this: if I look through my right eye when I shoot, no matter how far beyond my ability to understand some entity is, the bullets will do their job.

“...You’re so dead.”

I disengaged the safety and pulled the trigger. The 12 gauge shot expelled through the GATOR spreader punched a straight line of holes in the giant revolving flower.

“Huh... What? Satsuki’s face...” Toriko said in a dazed tone.

Ignoring her, I hooked the slide on the railing and ejected the cartridge. I fired a second shot. The whirling kaleidoscope spasmed, and it started to distort. I kept firing. A third shot, then a fourth shot. Finally, with the fifth shot, I ran out of ammo.

The massive flower that had been all torn up by my shots was still spinning, but it suddenly seemed to reach its limit, and every part of the thing began breaking down at the same time. With parts of her scattering in all directions, the windmill woman broke down. That face stared right at me. Neither blaming me, nor smiling.

As if she’d just woken from a dream, Toriko started shouting. “...Huh?! No! This isn’t Satsuki!”

You... Oh, you...

“I told you so, didn’t I...? Don’t be so easy to manipulate. Yeesh.”

“Huh? What? What do you...? Hold on, Sorawo, my head, is something kind of weird happening to it right now?”

“Just stay put a moment, okay? It’ll settle down soon, probably.”

Toriko’s unraveling body gradually returned to normal. There was no time to breathe, though, as the balcony disappeared out from under our feet. The apartment building itself went away, leaving Toriko and me in a world of endless blue.

We didn’t fall, but it was hard to tell if we were actually standing up, either. It felt like we were going to trip and fall over, so, simultaneously, we both leaned on one another for support. I felt a clenching feeling in my stomach that told me if we fell over, we might keep falling forever.

Perhaps having calmed down a little, Toriko hesitantly opened her mouth.

“Um, er, Sorawo-san.”

“Yes? What is it, Toriko-san?”

“...What was I trying to do?”

“Why, I do believe you got hooked by a monster and were trying to go off somewhere without me.”

Toriko fell silent for a while.

“...I’m so sorry.”

“I’ll never forgive you, but it’s fine. I’ll never forgive you, though,” I said.

“Which is it...?”

Having decided I wasn’t going to give the uncharacteristically worried Toriko’s question an answer, I opted to change the topic. “It was probably a trap. All of it. The city, and the man.”

“What do you mean, the man?”

I couldn’t help but feel like we’d been lured in by someone. Satsuki was bait for Toriko and Kozakura, and Toriko was bait for me.

I was sure the Time-space Man and the other phenomena were all just parts of that trap.

I could only speculate as to what their goals were, but that thing about contact that Toriko said while ranting stuck with me. There was something beyond the blue light, and it had set a trap because it took an interest in us? Had we managed to escape it...?

I thought about it, but couldn’t find an answer. Eventually, the construct with a woman’s face on it finished breaking down completely, and it vanished into the blue.

Toriko watched with lingering traces of loneliness in her expression. Or so I thought, but then she opened her mouth.

“Let me just say that this is partially your fault, too, Sorawo.”

“Huh?”

“Because you were saying things like, ‘I’m not going to go there with you anymore,’ and, ‘You’re not my friend.’ I was so shocked, I—”

“Whoa, hold up. That’s not what I said.”

“Well, it’s what I heard! If you feel bad about it, then think about how we’re getting back home from here.”

Toriko pouted. She retrieved the AK, which was floating nearby, by pulling on its strap.

“Ugh... You’re so high maintenance!” I said, accidentally letting my blunt opinion slip out. I thought she’d get mad, but Toriko seemed to be happy about it, somehow.

I thought for a little while. “Fine, but before we head back, we’re making a side trip. We have to pick up Kozakura-san.”

“Huh? Kozakura came, too?”

“Yep. When she sees your face, you’re gonna get murdered, Toriko, so be ready for that.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see soon enough.”

I extended a hand to her, and Toriko took it.

The moment our eyes met, Toriko suddenly started chuckling.

“What? Laughing when you see someone’s face is a little rude, you know?”

“No, that’s not it, sorry. The thing is, I’m actually really shy, but for some reason, I’ve been fine with you since the first time we met. I was just wondering why. Then I remembered the first thing that helped break the ice.”

Who’re you calling shy?

I wanted to take a jab at that, but fair enough, I did feel like she’d been pretty brusque in her interactions with Abarato and the Marines.

“What was that?”

“I called you Ophelia, remember?”

“Ohh, yeah.” She was talking about the time I got taken down by the Kunekune, and was enjoying the lie-down bath of death.

“When I did, your expression was so totally, ‘What is she even talking about?’ It made me think, ‘Oh, now here’s a girl I can get along with.’ I figured you had no intent of hiding who you were.”

“The thing about that...” I began, but then swallowed the words I was about to say.

The thing about that, Toriko, is... I was just staring at you in fascination.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s the look. That’s why I like you, Sorawo.”

“...Is that a fact?”

“Don’t get mad. I’m complimenting you.” Toriko gave me a flawless smile.

“All right, let’s go home. What do I do?”

“Okay. Well, could you just grab something at random then?”

“Okay.”

I looked at the space around us with my right eye, and Toriko grabbed it with her left hand. Her translucent fingers tore through the blue light like it was paper. On the other side, I could see another light. It was the nighttime ghost town I was in until just a little while ago.

The two of us spilled out through the rift, and came out just outside the apartment building.

“Whoa, it’s dark. It’s night, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. Be ready to use your gun.”

Holding Toriko’s hand tight, I focused my consciousness into my right eye, and we walked backwards down the path I’d come.

We couldn’t let our guard down yet. We still had to go back to where Kozakura was, return her to human form, make it through the monster-infested forest, then climb up the skeletal building.

Kozakura was going to be pissed. She had stayed behind hoping she’d be able to see Satsuki-san, but it ended up being a waste of her time. I wracked my brain, thinking how best to explain it to her.

I think what we met was a fake Satsuki, but Kozakura seems as hung up on Satsuki as Toriko is... If I tell her I shot it without checking first, I’m sure she’ll go ballistic.

Maybe I’ll tell her while she’s still terrified by the Otherside, and then take off before she gets her bearings again once we’ve returned to the surface world.

Or maybe I ought to just pull her up by the roots, and bring her back in plant form. I kind of want to see how those pink buds would look when they blossom.

...No, no, I couldn’t do that.

As my thoughts started drifting in a more unsavory direction, Toriko brought her face close to mine.

“Hey, Sorawo. I forgot to say this, but... Thanks for coming after me.”

Then, with a slight smile, she brought her lips close to my ear and continued.

“So... When should we come next?”

I looked back at Toriko, slowly blinking.

Feeling driven by an impulse to find out, if I could shift the aspects of the world right now and turn Toriko into a plant, I wondered what kind of flowers might bloom from her.