File 5: The Operation to Rescue the U.S. Forces at Kisaragi Station
File 5: The Operation to Rescue the U.S. Forces at Kisaragi Station
1
The smell of burning meat hung in a dark room.
Each time the red tongues of flame licked at the fat, the fire grew in intensity. The rising smoke stimulated the nose. This smell would adhere to clothing and hair alike, and it wouldn’t go away for some time...
July. With the rainy season over, Tokyo marched onward into summer.
New heat records were being set by the day, and I was pale with worry about the approaching final exam season. In a surprise twist, regardless of what I might be getting up to in my abnormal life exploring the other world, my university courses and papers continued to exist.
There was a time when I’d had my doubts. In true ghost stories, there were plenty of narrators who had these unbelievably bizarre experiences, yet they forgot them for a long time and went back to their daily lives as though nothing had happened. I’d always wondered if that was really possible, but now that I found myself in the same position, I understood.
No matter how bizarre the experience, it was possible to return to your regular life. If you didn’t think about it, it was fine—your body would move on its own.
That was how great the power of daily routine was. It was a sort of homeostasis, the same as the way the human body maintained a stable internal temperature. One mildly mysterious experience couldn’t break down that routine.
On the other hand, there were those who could never return to normal.
Those whose bodies were broken. Those who’d lost their minds. Those whose relationships with friends and family were messed up by the inability to make anyone believe in their experience.
Even if they didn’t do enough damage to utterly destroy a person’s life, there were times when encounters with the bizarre could penetrate the armor of homeostasis and leave scars. Someone might be left unable to sleep without the lights on, become afraid of the sea, or have memories from a certain stretch of time become vague.
In some, their fear might get reversed, turning into angry outbursts.
...Like with Kozakura, who was in front of Toriko and me right now.
We were seated at a table at a yakiniku restaurant, an oppressive silence hanging between us. Even with salted beef tongue sizzling away on the metal net in front of her, Kozakura’s expression remained harsh.
“Um, Kozakura-san. I think it’s fine now...” I hesitantly said, causing Kozakura to glare at me through the smoke.
“You think this is fine? Don’t expect me to forgive you so easily.”
“Uh, no, I meant the meat. I was thinking it looks like it’s ready to eat.”
Kozakura furrowed her brow, snorting indignantly, then slowly picked up her chopsticks and took some beef tongue from the net. Three whole pieces.
“Ohh, it smells good! Let’s hurry up and dig in, too, Sorawo!” Toriko said in an excited voice, letting her chopsticks hover over the edge of the net without permission.
“...Do you even understand what today is about?” Kozakura took a shot at her before I could. “This is a meeting for review and reflection. One where you two reflect on what you did, and apologize to me.”
“Okay. Sorry. You’re right—it is.” As she gave that meek response, Toriko grabbed a piece of beef tongue and stuck it in her mouth with a thoughtful look on her face.
“Mmm! That’s good!”
She’s not reflecting on anything, I thought as I reached out with my chopsticks.
...Ohh. This really is amazing. It tastes so good, even with just lemon and salt.
“What do you want to cook next? Any preferences on order?”
“Anything works, just cook whatever,” Kozakura said, not seeming to care, and took a sip of her beer. The medium-size mug she was using looked awfully big for her little body. It made me feel like I was giving alcohol to a minor. It seemed like she was aware of how it looked, and when we ordered, she produced her driver’s license before the staff said anything.
Toriko laid out some chuck on the net; she was probably better at doing this than I was. This was the first time in my life I’d ever come to a yakiniku place, so I decided to leave it to her.
The reason we were having our after-party at a yakiniku place was the result of a strong insistence by Kozakura. To be more precise, it was because, as Kozakura had said, this was a review and reflection party.
In our last expedition to the other world, I abandoned Kozakura alone in the dangerous night there to search for Toriko.
Inside a massive glitch that took the form of a town, I used the power of my right eye to turn Kozakura into a plant. With night having fallen, I thought she would be safest like that. Inside that glitch, my perception defined the environment around me. I made my decision based on the belief that, if I perceived Kozakura as a plant, she could escape from the gaze of the other world’s monsters.
Kozakura had told me herself that she was scared to death of the other world, so I thought being left alone would frighten her even more, and she’d get mad at Toriko and me for having dragged her into this. However, when I found Toriko, brought her back, and the three of us were together again, Kozakura was acting weird. She seemed dazed, and only gave non-responses to anything we said to her. Even after we returned to the surface world, she was still not talking much. When we escorted her home, she shut herself inside and locked the door without so much as a good-bye.
I was wondering, Is she okay? Then, before I knew it, a week had passed. I got a sudden call from Kozakura, and when I answered the phone, she told me this with a voice full of rage:
“Screw you! I’ve had enough of this bullshit from both of you!!”
It seemed that, after she’d been through such a frightening experience, her mind had wandered off somewhere else for a while.
“Meat...” Kozakura said as I was apologizing profusely over the phone.
“Feed me meat. My anger won’t subside until I’ve had yakiniku.”
“Erm...”
“Good meat. I want quality. If you take me to some cheap all-you-can-eat place, I’ll press your hands against the burning-hot net until it leaves a stylish checkered pattern.”
“Um, is this supposed to be my treat? I don’t have much money... Toriko’s the rich one...”
I got that far before I was cut off by a torrent of verbal abuse from Kozakura.
This was an adult who lived in a high-class residential area in Shakujii-kouen, and she was making an impoverished university student pay for her. That’s pretty awful.
The situation being what it was, I talked to Toriko, and we agreed we would have an after-party, or rather a review and reflection party, with the three of us together. Toriko chose the place, a short walk from the west exit of Ikebukuro Station, in an area where public order seemed a little dodgy. The cost hurt, but it certainly was tasty... I never knew there were so many kinds of meat. I was smiling despite myself.
“Sorawo-chan, what are you grinning for?”
I realized Kozakura was looking at me like I was weird, so I covered my mouth. “Sorry. The chuck was just so delicious.”
“Well, it’s fine. You’re the ones paying, after all,” she said in an exasperated tone. I snapped back to my senses. That was right! Toriko and I were footing the bill.
“Toriko! Don’t over-order like you always do.”
“Whaa, we’ll eat it all. It’ll be fine.”
“This isn’t about the amount of food! And hold on, I’m the one who always ends up having to finish it, right? Toriko, you always order everything you can, and then slow down towards the end.”
“I love watching you struggle to eat it all.”
What was that?
While I was still speechless at her unexpected response, the special kalbi spare ribs she had ordered at some point arrived, and I had to move on.
The three of us raced to snatch the meat cooking on the net. Then, as I was savoring the melt-in-your-mouth goodness of the soft fat, Toriko started speaking in an apologetic tone.
“Umm, so, about what happened this time... I think I was in the wrong. I didn’t think Sorawo would be coming with me anymore, and I’d never have expected Kozakura would come searching for me, too. I didn’t mean to get you involved. Sorry.”
Kozakura and I kept chewing, listening to Toriko in silence.
Kozakura swallowed, and then, sounding unamused, she said, “You say that like it was our fault for chasing after you, you know?”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Couldn’t you put a little more faith in me?” I said, expressing my dissatisfaction.
“I did have faith in you! It’s just... I’d have felt bad making you go along with any more of my selfishness.”
It sounded like Toriko was making excuses. What’s this? She’s more vulnerable than usual.
I felt like being a bit of a bully, so my tone of voice went cold. “You went there alone because you didn’t think you could rely on me, right? You never even thought I might come save you, did you? This, after all we’ve been through together. Isn’t that a little harsh?”
“I’m telling you, I’m sorry...”
I’d made a point of not looking at her when I spoke, but it was still readily apparent how troubled she was.
What do I do now?
This is kind of fun.
“Sorawo-chan.”
“Yes?”
“I’ll have you know, you’re even worse.”
I was about to get carried away, but then Kozakura spoke up in a barbed tone.
“I trusted you, Sorawo-chan. I mean, you were saying you’d leave me ‘in a safe state.’”
“Y-Yes?”
“What was that place...? You abandoned me in some kind of field of flowers.”
“Field of flowers?”
“The next thing I knew, you were gone. There was the sound of flowing water, and I heard people talking all around me, but no one was there. I knew I didn’t belong there, but I couldn’t convince myself to go anywhere else.”
Kozakura spoke in a dazed tone. Her eyes stared off into the distance, and even with the bright red charcoal fire of the grill in front of her, I could see goosebumps all over her arms.
“I was immobilized, like my feet had grown roots, and I was just standing there staring off into space. The voices around me got so noisy that I plugged my ears, but then the alignment of stars in the night sky gradually started to look like it had some meaning, and that scared me silly. The voices were getting angry, too. It was maddening, but I thought that, probably, I was a goner if I blacked out. So I crouched down, staring at the ground and saying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ to someone standing near me... and the next thing I knew, you two were there.”
Kozakura shut her eyes tight, then let out a sigh.
“It turned out all right since you were able to come back, but I was in serious danger there, wasn’t I...? What were you going to do if I went insane, or died, Sorawo-chan?”
“At the time... I thought you’d be okay...”
“Oh, yeah?”
“But you... weren’t, huh? Haha... ha.”
Kozakura’s glare pierced right through me, and my awkward laughter trailed off.
“Kozakura, Sorawo did it to search for me. She had no—”
When Toriko tried to intercede, Kozakura’s eyes widened in anger. “Shut up! If you defend Sorawo-chan now, it makes me look like the bad guy for picking on her! I’m the victim! You were both in the wrong! Don’t make excuses!”
“I-I’m sorry.”
When I apologized and bowed my head, Kozakura got this unpleasantly smug look on her face. “Sorawo-chan, you know, I’ll bet you didn’t give one thought to what would happen to me.”
“N-No, that’s taking it a bit too far.”
“It’s not just me, it’s Satsuki, too. I heard from Toriko. You didn’t hesitate to shoot the thing with Satsuki’s face.”
“That one wasn’t even human...”
“We barely know anything about what kind of effects the other world has on people. Did that not occur to you in the slightest? You must have thought it could at least be related to the real Satsuki, right? You thought that, and then deliberately ignored it. Do you just not give a damn about other people? You don’t care about anyone but yourself, am I right?”
“Kozakura...”
“You shut up, Toriko.”
Toriko arched her eyebrows, immediately cut off. I felt bad about what happened, but this one-sided verbal beatdown was starting to piss me off. I didn’t like that Toriko and Kozakura were talking about Satsuki without me around, either.
I knocked back my beer for courage, then slammed the empty mug down on the table and leaned in hard.
“If you’re going to go that far, I have some questions of my own!”
“Oh? What, you think you have the right to be mad at me now?”
“I’ve wondered all this time, but what the hell are you, Kozakura? A cognitive scientist, was it? Really? What kind of work do you do, shut up inside your house all the time? You’re not old enough to be a professor, that’s for sure. Even I know that researcher positions don’t pay much. How do you put food on the table? Where did that million come from?”
“...The money I gave you, you mean?”
“That’s right! What, was it yakuza money? Is that why you have such easy access to guns?!”
When I turned a suspicious gaze on Kozakura, she gestured for Toriko to lean in a little closer, then asked her, “Toriko, is Sorawo-chan a bad drinker?”
“I don’t think she has a low tolerance. I think it’s that she gets worked up when she’s angry.”
“What’re you two whispering about?!”
“This? It’s called a stage whisper,” Kozakura said, sounding irritated, then grabbed a king oyster mushroom from the corner of the net and popped it in her mouth. “And when it comes to your prying questions, it’s none of your business... is what I’d like to say, but, well, I can understand your concern. No, it’s not yakuza money, so relax.”
“Well, what is it, then?”
Kozakura’s eyes wandered as if she were thinking. “There’s a private organization that trades in information on the other world. I’m a member, and they provide me with some amount of funding,” she said in a careful tone.
“Huh?! This is the first I’ve heard of it!” Toriko’s eyes went wide. So did mine.
“What’s with that? Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“Did I need to? I’m simply engaged in specialist discourse with other researchers. Toriko is just searching for Satsuki, and you’re in it for the money, right?”
“Could you not say it in a way that makes me sound bad?”
“I think you should worry about more than just sounding bad.”
Like what? I thought, but then Toriko leaned over the table.
“Was Satsuki a member, too, maybe?”
“It was Satsuki who dragged me in. Frankly, I’m just filling in for her now that she up and vanished,” Kozakura said angrily, snatching a blackened sliver of kalbi from on top of the net. It looked like Toriko wanted to say something, but she gave up, casting her eyes down sullenly.
There was a bit of a downer mood going on here. Feeling less than satisfied with how that had gone, I sighed. “...Do you want more meat?” I asked Kozakura.
“I do.”
“I do.”
The two of them answered in unison.
I wasn’t asking you, Toriko.
Though I had been prepared for it, the bill came to a substantial sum, which sobered me up real fast. We split the bill, but Toriko was still happily swaying left and right as she walked. Oh, how I hated her.
I was taking the Saikyo Line home, Toriko was taking the Yamanote Line, and Kozakura was on the Seibu Ikebukuro Line. Toriko said she’d walk Kozakura to the ticket gate, and I just sort of ended up tagging along.
When we had passed through the hustle and bustle of Ikebukuro Station and reached the ground-level ticket gate of the Seibu Line, Kozakura suddenly spoke up. “Sorawo-chan, why don’t you come to my place tonight?”
“Huh? I’m not going to, but why?”
“I don’t want to go home alone.”
When she said that sullenly, looking at me with upturned eyes, I was bewildered.
“Can’t you stay the night in a manga cafe or something?”
“No, I’m saying I don’t want to be alone.”
“...?”
I tilted my head to the side questioningly, which made Kozakura get impatient. She raised her voice. “I’m scared! Of being alone!”
“Why are you getting mad?”
“I’m not mad! Take a hint! What am I supposed to do if those three middle-aged ladies come back?”
“Shoot them with a shotgun?”
“You are so heartless!” Kozakura thrust a finger at me in indignation.
I was getting a bit offended, but Toriko leaned in, looking concerned. “Want me to come with you?”
Even though Toriko was being quite nice, Kozakura shook her head. “You, I don’t need.”
“Why not?!”
I tried to mollify Kozakura, and spoke in the gentlest tone I could manage. “We just made plans, didn’t we? Toriko and I will be coming over tomorrow to discuss our next expedition. Please don’t shoot us by accident, okay?”
“If you get scared, you can call any time!”
“Sigh... There you go, treating me like a child,” Kozakura spat distastefully, and turned away. As she headed for the ticket gate, Toriko called after her.
“That meat sure was tasty, huh!”
“...Thanks.”
Kozakura gave us an exhausted wave, and then in no time, she was swallowed into the crowd.
I gave a sidelong glance at Toriko, who watched her go with concern. “Toriko, you’re such a good person, you know that?”
“Really? Gosh, you’re embarrassing me.” Toriko puffed up her chest with pride, but then, reconsidering, she added, “But I think Kozakura is the kindest.”
2
The next day, at 11:00 a.m. on a Saturday, I visited Kozakura’s house in Shakujii-kouen, as promised. I rang the doorbell and waited for a response.
This door had been assaulted by three massive middle-aged women, but it was intact, and the doorknob didn’t even rattle. Instead, the wooden surfaces, and even the hard metal parts, had thin scratches all over them, like they had been clawed at by something. Was it a human hand, or an animal one? As I pondered the incongruity between the phenomenon we had experienced and the traces it had left, I heard footsteps approaching from inside the house.
When the door opened and a head poked out, it was Toriko. Like me, she had also come here in light clothing meant for going on an expedition. Camo pants, and a thin, black, long-sleeved shirt. The golden hair flowing over her shoulders looked great on black.
“I thought the three middle-aged women I’ve heard so much about had come.”
“Wait enough years, and there’ll be one middle-aged woman here.”
“Ahaha. Make that two, if you include me.”
I took off my shoes and went inside Kozakura’s house. The hallway, which was always dark before, was lit up for a change. It made the dust in the corners stand out.
“She says she’s afraid of the dark now,” Toriko said before I could ask. “Has to take sleeping meds to get to sleep at night, too. I’m worried.”
“Oh, yeah?”
As the one who dragged her into things, I felt some degree of guilt. I wouldn’t have cared much if she was just scared, but if there were actual ramifications to it, then that was a problem, yeah.
The door on the left at the end of the hall led to Kozakura’s room. There was light through the door on the right, too, and I could see a combination dining room/kitchen in there. There was a simple, thick birchwood table, and four chairs. Next to a fridge that was awfully large for a woman who lived alone was a pile of garbage bags stuffed full of plastic cola bottles.
Kozakura’s room was not much different from the last time I’d come. If there was one thing that had changed, it was that the shotgun was left out in the open, next to her desk. Surprisingly, the lights were off in this room, and the only illumination came from the multi-monitor display.
When I saw Kozakura perched on her chair, surrounded by towers of piled up books, I had a feeling I understood why this was the only room not lit up. This was her comfortable nest. Her cramped, dark secret base, where she could feel at ease.
“Kozakura-san, the front door’s—”
“I know. I already ordered a replacement.”
The way she glared at me said Not another word about it, but I pretended not to notice and continued on.
“So, do you think that was the work of a tanuki, after all?”
Kozakura blinked, as if I’d caught her by surprise.
“...Huh?”
“The pieces would all fit that way, wouldn’t they?”
“Pfft!” Kozkaura burst out laughing and shook her head. “What are you talking about, you dummy...? Enough about this. Let’s get right to the point.”
When she said that and turned to face me again, I couldn’t help but feel her gaze had softened a little from before.
“You people can go the other world if you want, but I’m never going with you again, got it?”
“Yeah, I figured. Got it.”
I looked at Toriko, and we both nodded.
“We’ve come here today to consult with you about our next expedition—the Operation to Rescue the U.S. forces at Kisaragi Station.” I moved everything off of the low table in front of the sofa, and spread out the paper I had brought with me. “I’ve been thinking it’s about time we had a map.”
Those words, meant for the two who were watching me, may have sounded a little like an excuse.
On the paper was my hand-drawn map of the other world. It was done on A3 paper that I had helped myself to at the university and drawn with a thin felt-tip pen. But despite that, when looked at under the soft light of a bedside reading lamp, it felt like the map of the sort of magical kingdom that would appear in stories. I was a bit embarrassed to make that association.
And yet, what was mapped here was nothing cute. There was the glitch-filled grasslands that Hakushaku-sama stalked, the marsh where the Kunekunes appeared, the ghost town with the Time-space Man and the strange human-sized plants... Even with just the places we already knew, it was already plenty dangerous.
Toriko looked up, brushing her hair back behind her ear, and when our eyes met she grinned at me.
“It’s like a treasure map!”
“...You think so, too?” I said, and Toriko nodded with her eyes sparkling.
“What is wrong with you two?”
Kozakura leaned away, as if repulsed, but I leaned in and pointed a finger right at the center of the map. “This is the skeletal building that’s connected to Jinbouchou. It’s what the U.S. forces would call our entry point. That’s a bit long, so let’s call it a gate. The X out in the east is the gate in Oomiya I was originally using. The geography of the other world is nothing like this side’s, but I felt like there were a reasonable number of solid landmarks. The gates, in particular, look to be stable. Even after I stopped being able to use the gate in Oomiya, there were still traces of it in the other world.”
“The one in Oomiya is no longer functional, right?” Toriko asked.
“Yep, hence the X. You two have been to the other world more than I have, and I think you know more than I do, so if you can add any information you have, I was thinking that’d be good. How about it?”
There was no response, so I looked up. They were both staring down at the map, their faces full of emotion for some reason.
“Toriko?”
“Oh, uh, sorry. I was just thinking... Satsuki made a map like this, too.”
“Always drawing in her notebook, yeah... Even though I told her she should draw it on larger sheets of paper.”
“That’s enough reminiscing.” I cut them right off. “Hold on, Toriko. If we have a map, why couldn’t you bring it out sooner?”
“We don’t anymore. Satsuki took it.”
“Where to...? Ohh, you mean it’s gone like her. Okay.”
When I summed things up crudely like that, they both gave me unhappy looks. Not my problem. I think I’ll just ignore it any time they get sentimental about Satsuki from now on.
When I handed over the felt-tip pen, Toriko and Kozakura reached out to the map, sighing, and took turns filling in details. There were marks indicating a number of buildings west of the skeletal building, and a path leading into the mountains on the north side, past the ghost town. There was something like an aqueduct south of the marsh to the west. Still, as much as I had gotten my hopes up, there was no dramatically new information.
“That’s all? Even if we ignore Kozakura-san for the moment, you’ve been there about ten times, haven’t you, Toriko?”
Toriko shrugged. “When I first started, it was Satsuki taking me there, and we slowly expanded our area of operations as we confirmed things were safe. Once Satsuki vanished, I tried stretching my legs a bit further, but I met you soon after that, and you know the rest.”
“Well, darn. You’re not much different from me, then.”
“If anything, you’re bolder, Sorawo. When I first met you, you were suddenly dying.”
“I don’t know if I’d call that being bold...”
“Sorawo-chan, would you say this is where Kisaragi Station is?”
Kozakura pointed to a rectangle drawn in the southwest of the map.
“I don’t know the precise location, but I just sort of drew it in the corner there.”
“It’s been half a month since then. The Marines have got to be close to their limits by now,” Toriko said, sounding concerned. I nodded and continued.
“That’s why... if we’re going to save them, I think this is our last chance.”
The survivors of the U.S. Marines Palehorse Battalion, which had wandered into the other world during a training exercise in Okinawa, were already pretty exhausted by the time they ran into us. It was probably only a matter of time before they were wiped out.
Kozakura raised a suspicious eyebrow.
“What brought this on? I’m sorry to say it, Sorawo-chan, but I can’t see you being the type who would put yourself at risk to go help a group of strangers.”
“I’m the one who said we should go save them,” Toriko raised her hand and said.
“I mean, obviously, I don’t wholly trust them, either. But I don’t think we can just leave them isolated in a place like that,” she said, her voice filled with passion.
“I see... If you have Sorawo-chan’s eye, you figure you can lead them past the glitches, and to the gate you came in through, huh?”
“That’s right. If we can get that far, we should also be able to use Toriko’s hand to return to the surface world, too.”
“Fair enough, it may be possible. But these people you’re dealing with are the military, and a foreign military at that. If we’re to trust the words of this Lieutenant Drake you met, they’re a secret unit that doesn’t exist in public records. Even if we could safely send them back to Okinawa, there’s a high likelihood it would get us into trouble.”
“So you’re saying we should leave them to die?”
“You always were like that, weren’t you?” Kozakura muttered with no expression on her face, then looked at me.
“And you’re awfully willing to tag along, too, Sorawo-chan...”
“If I’m being honest, I have another goal here, too.”
“What?”
“It’s guns. I want new guns.”
“...Why?”
“Taking on monsters with nothing but a Makarov, as you might expect, has been making me feel a little uneasy lately. The rifle and shotgun felt powerful when I tried using them, so I want the U.S. forces to give us guns and ammo.”
Kozakura glared at Toriko. “Did you put her up to this, too?”
“Nope. I’ve already got an AK.”
“Oh, Kozakura-san, do you happen to have any other guns you keep hidden?”
“Uh, no.”
“You, Toriko?”
“When I went to the other world with Satsuki, we would hide the guns we found over there... I’m not confident I could lead you back to those same spots, though.”
“Welp, I guess that means I’ll need to get them from the U.S. forces after all, then.”
Kozakura looked at me with an inscrutable expression, then seemed to say that she’d given up. “...I’ll pray you don’t get shot to death.”
“I’ll be with her, so it’ll be fine.” Toriko probably had no real basis to say that, but it was still reassuring.
“But how do you intend to get there to begin with? You haven’t found a gate leading to Kisaragi Station, right?”
It was a reasonable issue to bring up, but I had an idea about that.
3
It was a Saturday in Shinjuku, and two women who looked like they were dressed to go participate in some survival games, along with a woman who looked like a middle-school-aged shut-in, were walking along with the crowd. Objectively, that’s how we must have looked. Even as we entered a tavern at lunchtime and were seated, the look of dissatisfaction on Kozakura’s face didn’t fade.
“I’d never have thought I’d come all the way to Shinjuku just to eat lunch,” she said.
“Hey, where’s the harm, once in a while? What’ll you have?” Toriko asked.
“Mackerel simmered in miso.”
“I’ll have the ginger pork set. And you, Sorawo?”
“Huh? Uh, the karaage chicken, I guess?” I answered, still lost in thought as I looked around the tavern. The place was open for lunch, and filled almost to capacity. It felt a lot different from how it did at night, but there was no mistaking that this was the same place we had come to before.
The tavern where Toriko and I were having an after-party that day, when we unwittingly stepped into the night of the other world. Nothing looked out of the ordinary right now. No barking from the kitchen, and the busy staff were speaking and acting like sane, ordinary people.
“You really plan to do this? Here?” Kozakura asked dubiously.
“We’ll do it. I don’t want to go when it’s night again, so if we’re going to test this out, it has to be at lunchtime.”
I removed a Ziploc bag containing a woman’s wide-brimmed hat from my backpack. It was the foreign object Hasshaku-sama left behind. It was my hypothesis that this was the cause of our accidental entry into the other world the time we went to Kisaragi Station. We had come here today to replicate the conditions, and deliberately enter the other world.
“Hey, Sorawo, if we’re going to recreate the same conditions, shouldn’t I be the one to do it?”
“No, I’ll do it this time. If it doesn’t work, then I’ll ask you to,” I responded, staring at the Ziploc bag. It looked like a folded hat. Nothing out of the ordinary about it, but on close inspection, it really did have a silver halo of light around it.
The truth is, there’s a reason I said I would be the one to do it. Kozakura had checked it with a Geiger counter, and done a chemical analysis of the sample of fibers taken from it and turned up nothing unusual, but I still couldn’t be certain there were no ill effects on the wearer. Toriko had used it once, then I would use it once, and I wanted that to be the end of us using it.
“Kozakura-san. If we’re able to go to the other world again like this, could we get you to buy the hat off us?”
“Even if you can go, you can’t say with absolute certainty it was the hat. The issue could be with the entrance, or with this tavern itself.”
“If that were true, wouldn’t all the customers disappear?”
“Or perhaps you yourselves are the cause. Maybe once you’ve been to the other world once, it forms a habit.”
That point of hers hit a soft spot. Has going to the other world several times changed us in a way that makes it easier for us to be drawn towards it? It wasn’t the first or even the second time that thought had crossed my mind. Like, the time I encountered the Time-space Guy? That was clearly a case of contact coming from the other side.
“Well, if that’s true, you’re not in that different a situation from us, huh?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“So, first, I’ll ask you to leave the tavern. Then Toriko and I will use the hat before leaving. If that leaves you in the surface world, while we go to the other world by ourselves, I think it’s highly probable that the hat is responsible.”
Kozakura’s eyes went wide. “That’s why you brought me along? To use as your guinea pig—”
“N-No! I mean, you were the one who said you’d come, weren’t you?”
Yes, for all her belly-aching, Kozakura had still gone to all the trouble of following us to Shinjuku. I wish she’d stop making me sound worse than I was.
Kozakura scowled unhappily. “Well, fine. If you can go to the other world, then come back, I’ll buy it off you.”
I nodded in relief. My livelihood was on the line here, after all.
The first to finish eating was Kozakura. She left her pickled vegetables untouched, so I helped myself to them, and as I was doing so she pushed her chair away and stood up.
“Well, I’ll be going on ahead.”
“Sure, see you later. Sorawo, you want my pickled veggies, too?” Toriko asked.
“Give ‘em here.”
“You like pickles that much?”
“I just hate to see them left behind,” I replied to Kozakura.
“Sorawo, you sure do a good job cleaning your plate,” Toriko said with a grin. Was this something I could take as a genuine compliment?
“I’m going to drop by the Yodobashi on my way back, so if using the hat doesn’t work out, get in contact.”
Kozakura left a 1,000 yen bill on the table, then left the tavern by herself.
“You think that means she wants us all to head back together?” Toriko cocked her head to the side. That thought hadn’t occurred to me, so I was perplexed.
“She’s too scared to go home alone? I’d understand if it were at night, but it’s still broad daylight out there.”
“Either she’s scared, or she feels uneasy when she isn’t with someone.”
Was that it? Even with the terrible attitude she had towards others...?
“Well, how about we get going, too, then? Toriko, you good to go?”
“I’m good.”
I opened the Ziploc bag, pulled out the folded hat, carefully unfolded it, then placed it on my head.
As I did, Toriko took a picture of me.
“...What’re you doing?”
“It’s a novel look for you.”
“Does it suit me?”
“Erm...” Toriko hesitated to answer, so I took the hint and took off the hat.
“You know what? Forget it. Don’t say anything.”
“Ah! No, that’s not it, it actually does suit you. Yeah...”
As she groaned, struggling to say something, I took a peek at Toriko’s smartphone screen.
In a way, the hat did look good on me.
The combination of a large, white, wide-brimmed hat, which might have suited a well-off girl visiting a summer resort on a windy plateau, with my clothes—a long-sleeved khaki shirt with a black undershirt—left an impression similar to that of a mother out weeding the fields.
“Yeah, I think it’s cute in its own way. You don’t look entirely unlike a guide at a safari park.”
“I told you not to say anything.”
I’m never putting it on again. Having pledged that in my heart, I violently folded up the hat and returned it to the Ziploc bag.
“You’re putting it away already?”
“You didn’t wear it for very long back then, either. Let’s get out of here before this place gets all messed up.”
“Oh! Yeah, let’s.”
If we were really going to recreate the circumstances from last time, maybe we should have waited until things got messed up. But I just couldn’t convince myself to. If we waited indoors, where there was nowhere to run as the people around us started to go crazy, it was going to drive me nuts.
I rose from my seat, shouldering my heavy bag, and walked over to the register to settle the bill. When we left, I didn’t feel anything especially abnormal.
The streets outside were the same as ever, too. In my experience, when we transitioned into the other world, the first sign of it that manifested was a weirding of language. I listened to the conversations of people passing by, of touts calling customers in for lunch time, and I paid close attention to the text on signs as we started on our leisurely walk back to the station.
“Toriko, how long would you say the gap between you putting the hat on, and us noticing something was wrong was last time?”
“I put it on right after we got to the tavern, right? We were drinking for maybe three hours or so.”
“If that was a factor, it’s going to be a pain. Having to walk back and forth through these crowded streets for three whole hours is a bit much...”
It was the middle of summer, and we were lugging around our equipment for the expedition, which made it even worse.
“...It’s not changing, huh,” Toriko said quietly.
“Yeah...” I said, lowering my eyes to the asphalt and staring at the feet of people who passed by, my confidence gradually waning. “Maybe it didn’t work this time. Sorry.”
“No... Looks like that might not be it.”
Suddenly, there was a tenseness in Toriko’s voice.
When I looked up, at some point, everyone around us had vanished.
“Huh?”
I was baffled when I spotted a group of iron bars growing out of the pavement at random. They were all about 50 centimeters long. The rusted and bent rebar had strings of all colors hanging from it, and they swayed in a breeze that came from somewhere. Until just now, I had been perceiving these things as human legs.
The street had changed, too. The glass doors of the shops facing onto the street had curtains in faded colors or red and white curtains covering them, and out-of-tune music could be heard playing from inside. There were growling voices keeping in time with the melody, as if they were singing karaoke, then when it ended there was a monotonous clapping of hands.
“Sorawo, look. The signs.”
The sign for what had been a hamburger joint on the corner was now indecipherable. It was the linguistic obstruction phenomenon. I thought it looked awfully dark on the other side of the glass door, but the entire building had turned into a water tank. The entire floor was covered with crustaceans, like prawn the size of a person’s arm, and I could see their antennae perked up and writhing about.
We turned to look at one another in unison. In a small voice, Toriko asked me, “Is this... the other world?”
“It’s probably something else. This is an interstitial space, I’d guess.”
“Like the place you were talking about, the man’s world?”
“...I’m regretting that name.”
We walked through the changed streets. We had moved into the other world while trying to reach the station that time, so we headed the same direction again.
“Toriko, did you notice the moment it changed?”
“Nuh-uh. I mean, that strange costumed character was muttering to themselves, and they were kinda filthy and smelled bad. I didn’t like it, so my attention was focused on them. When we got further away and I looked in front of me again, everything had already changed.”
“There was a costumed character?”
“There was. I’ve never seen one that weird. It looked like it’d been drowned in a swamp.”
I may have been looking down at the ground, but you’d think I’d have still noticed if someone went by in a costume like that. Still, there was no way to check now.
“Unlike going through the elevator or a door, this method takes some time... This interstitial space is unpleasant, so I’d like to get through it quickly.”
“Hmm, but when we use the elevator in Jinbouchou, we see floors that shouldn’t exist, right? Wouldn’t you say that’s the same?”
“Oh! That’s right!”
When I remembered the first time Toriko took me for a ride on that elevator, it made sense to me. That dark floor may have been part of the interstitial space.
“Though there may be a difference in how long it takes, the fact of the matter may be that we always pass through this space. You’re smart, Toriko.”
“Really? You’re embarrassing me.” Toriko smiled, not minding the compliment.
“In which case, maybe we should find the gate with the shortest transfer time. I hope there’s one around here. I never want to put that hat on again.”
“Want to go looking?”
“That might be good. Maybe we can spot one with my eye... Whoa.”
Before I noticed it, the area around us had changed once again. What I had thought were buildings were now gray rocks. The ground was an unpaved road, thick with grass.
From there, the changes came quickly. The two ruts at our feet were gradually swallowed up by the thickening grass. By the time the road came to an end and we stopped walking, there was nothing but plains as far as the eye could see, both in front of us, and behind. We had arrived in the other world.
“Oooh. It worked. Nice one, Sorawo.”
“Yeah, I’m glad it did... though I’m not sure I should be.”
I wasn’t making excuses. Things were about to get crazy.
The grass at our feet was a deep green. I had thought the plains of the other world were all dried colors, so it caught me a little by surprise. Could it have been caused by the changing seasons?
Setting that question aside, the first thing I did was remove the colored contact from my right eye. I looked around the area, verifying there were no threats nearby.
“Okay, looks like we’re fine for the moment. I’ll keep watch, so you get prepared.”
“Please do.”
Toriko set down her pack, then quickly put together the disassembled AK-101 she had been carrying in it. Tying her hair up in the back, she put on a cap, switched to leather tactical gloves, and then lifted her pack again.
“Okay, you’re next, Sorawo.”
Toriko picked up the AK and stood, taking my position as watcher. I pulled my equipment from my backpack and put it on. The Makarov went in its leg holster, like always.
“I’m ready. Let’s go.”
I stood up and immediately started to move. I felt like a trained soldier, and that got me excited... But if I was still thinking that way, it just showed how inexperienced I still was. I was simply afraid of being attacked by monsters again, like before.
There was a rising slope to the east, and I had it pegged as being where the tracks were. We quickly cut across the grass that swayed in the wind, avoiding glitches as we went.
This time, I had introduced a pouch of nails to my equipment. Originally, I wanted a tool bag, like carpenters or construction workers wore around their waists with a handful of bolts inside. Even with my right eye, glitches could be hard to see in the daylight, so I had brought them to be able to throw and check, as a form of insurance. I tried imitating the way Abarato, the man we met the time we encountered Hasshaku-sama, did it, but it was a bit too heavy for me and made it hard to walk.
When I was in a hurry, I would focus my eyes rather than throw, so maybe the whole idea was a failure. If anything, I might have been better off trying to improve my daytime vision.
I led Toriko up the embankment, and when we reached the tracks, we took a breather. Now that our vantage point was higher, I took another look around the area.
The plains spread out to the east and west. Perhaps because it was daytime, I didn’t spot any monsters like before. Far to the east, I could see a number of large, roundish things moving together, but whether they were living creatures or something else was beyond my ability to discern from here. Looking to the north, the tracks disappeared into the trees. They continued due south for some distance, then gently curved to the west. I thought Kisaragi Station was most likely in that direction.
“Looks fine. Let’s go...”
Having said that, I looked back to Toriko, and was shocked to find her staring at my face from a distance of almost 30 centimeters away.
“...Sorawo, you really should ditch the color contact. That eye’s pretty.”
“Huh...? Wh-What’s this, out of nowhere? No way. It stands out too much.”
“Standing out’s not so bad.”
“It is, too! Maybe a beauty like you could pull it off, Toriko, but with my looks, heterochromia would just make me seem like an awkward otaku.”
“Then why not make the rest of you look good, too?”
“You make that sound so easy.”
She didn’t even deny it when I called her a beauty...
“Don’t talk about strange stuff, geez. Let’s just go, okay...? Oops, almost forgot, one thing before that.”
I set down my backpack, then pulled out a white towel.
“Tie this around your rifle. In place of a white flag.”
“Like saying, ‘Please, don’t shoot us’? You think they’ll see it’s white? Wouldn’t yellow or orange be better?”
“If it’s yellow, they won’t be able to tell it’s a white flag.”
“I don’t think we need to get so hung up on tradition...” Even as she muttered to herself, Toriko tied the towel around the barrel of her AK.
“Well, I don’t think they’ll just up and shoot us. But just to be safe.”
“Just to be safe, huh.”
Raising the white flag, we walked down the tracks.
4
Holding up a white flag with a hole in it, we were lying on the ground next to the tracks.
“They just opened fire...” Toriko said.
“Th-That was dangerous! We could’ve died!”
The sun-baked gravel was hot, but I had no desire to raise my face from it. My head hadn’t caught up with everything that had happened a moment ago. We were ambling down the tracks when, whish, I heard something tear through the air, and the towel fluttered. Hm? I thought, and then, instantly, the long echo of gunfire reached my ears. When Toriko threw herself to the ground, pulling me with her, I finally realized they had shot it.
The moment I finally tried to look ahead of us again, another bullet sailed over my head, putting another hole in the towel.
“Eek...! Isn’t this a bit harsh? We came to save these guys!”
“I’ll bet they have their doubts whether we’re even human.”
Toriko rolled onto her back, and raised the white flag so it flapped with the blue sky behind it.
“If they meant to kill us, I think we’d both be dead. They fired twice, and hit the towel both times. They’re good.”
“So, it’s safe to stand?”
“I’m not that confident. Mind if I try a little something?”
“Go for it?”
Toriko lowered the AK, and put her finger on the trigger, so I plugged my ears.
She fired one, two, three times. Then she left a shot pause, before firing three more shots. This time, there was a longer interval between each shot. Then, she fired three more shots with short intervals.
The echoes of gunfire faded into the plains.
“...SOS?”
“It’s the only Morse code I know. I should’ve gotten Mama to teach me properly,” Toriko said, sounding embarrassed. “We’re not really asking to be saved, but it should at least show them that we can talk... hopefully.”
Toriko raised the AK again. The broken white flag fluttered in the wind. This time, no bullets came flying. We each looked at the other, then finally stood up.
We returned to the tracks and started walking again. Toriko was holding up the AK, so I put my hands up, too. It was exhausting, and I was starting to regret putting my hands up without being ordered to, but then the tracks came to an end in front of us.
When we got closer, a large section had been carved out of the embankment, rails included. Looking down into the broken part, amid twisted rails and wooden slats, there was a single train lying on its side, burned pitch black.
When I looked up, on the opposite side of the break in the embankment, there were a number of Marines, and they had their guns pointed at us. I recognized the face in the center. It was the curly-haired young man with the distinctive melancholy eyes—Lieutenant Will Drake. He looked even more exhausted than last time, and wore an expression of utter disbelief.
“Oh! Hey there.”
Our eyes met, so I bowed my head despite myself. Oops... I had to ask myself, couldn’t you have made a cooler entrance? This was like the sort of lazy greeting you might give when you ran into your neighbor in an apartment building.
“You’re the same girls... from back then?”
“Sorry for the wait. We’re here to rescue you,” Toriko said on my behalf.
When we detoured around the wreckage of the train to join up with the Marines, we headed to Kisaragi Station surrounded by filthy, emaciated soldiers.
“So, you survived. I thought you two had been hit by the train.”
“It was a close one, yeah. What happened to you guys after that?”
“That you two defeated that monster did wonders for morale. Still, we couldn’t do anything about the shortage of supplies, and we took twelve losses while searching for a way to return to the entry point.”
“That’s...”
I didn’t know what to tell him. Was there anything we could have done? Should we have been here sooner? But these guys did try to kill us. Well, not so much these guys as Sergeant Major Greg.
“Um. I want to make something clear before we meet anyone else. Yes, my eye is like this, but no, I’m not a monster. Neither is Toriko.”
“I understand.” The lieutenant nodded so easily, I was actually perplexed.
“Huh? You’re fine with that explanation?”
“Nothing has made sense since coming here... Our comrades were far more dangerous when they lost their minds. Their actions were more unstable, and made less sense, too. You’re different. Besides, you’re the ones who shot that monster dead...”
“Maybe Sergeant Major Greg doesn’t agree?”
“No... He’s already...”
When the lieutenant hesitated to say more, I got a bad feeling.
“Did something happen?”
“That time, when you two were run over by the Meat Train in front of his eyes, he lost whatever psychological balance he had left. He launched an attack on his own authority, and succeeded in blowing away the tracks and one train using explosives, but lost his life in the battle with the Monkey Shines that came out from inside...”
Toriko and I looked at one another.
“Uh, sorry, you two shouldn’t let it weigh on you. He was already at his limit. He feared being swallowed up by the Otherside and losing his heart more than anyone, so maybe it’s fortunate he was able to die in battle.”
He said that, but...
“That train had already taken away a number of our comrades. It looked like they were trapped inside, so we had been hesitant to attack, but the sergeant major was able to cross that line. Maybe we should have acted sooner...”
While I was walking beside the mournful lieutenant, I had other things on my mind. How was I to interpret the fact that the sergeant major had been able to destroy an entity from the other world?
My eye was likely able to adjust the perception layer in a way that allowed us to hit monsters from the other world with our bullets. If the sergeant major’s explosives were able to have an effect on the train, did that not mean he was able to match his perception layer to that of the train?
Did it happen because he lost his mind? Basically... did going insane bring humans closer to entities from this place?
While I was thinking about this, the line of troops with the lieutenant and us at the center of it arrived at Kisaragi Station. Seeing it during the day, it was exactly what you’d expect from an abandoned station in the countryside. Maybe because it was summer now, but the grass by the sides of the tracks had grown quite long. The one difference from the surface world was the complete absence of the chirping of cicadas and birds.
“So, the trains don’t come anymore, then.”
“No. They still come,” the lieutenant replied to Toriko in a monotonous voice.
When we passed through the ticket gate and entered the camp, the soldiers’ cries of surprise surrounded us.
It’s those two. Didn’t they die? What’s with that eye? I could imagine them saying things like that in English, but they just stared at us from a distance. Looking at them under the light of day, their eyes were sunken, and they looked like their cheeks had been hollowed out with a spoon. Their exhaustion was readily apparent.
The lieutenant ignored the voices seeking explanation as he led us to a tent.
“Major, we’re coming in.”
When we entered, the tall Major Ray Barker quickly rose to his feet. His light-hued eyes glared at us, without a hint of dropping his guard.
“You’re—”
“The Girls have come to save us, Major.”
For some reason, the lieutenant sounded proud. Apparently, that had become our code name at some point.
5
Though this should have been obvious, the major took the news we had come to rescue them with suspicion. Yet the moment I told him I could see glitches—what they called ‘bear traps’—his expression changed.
“Is that true? If it is, it changes the situation entirely.”
“We can escape, Major,” the lieutenant said with heated passion. When we met up at the railway tracks, the lieutenant had already seen a demonstration of my powers. The major seemed to be keeping his cool; he was sitting back in his chair with his hands on his desk.
On top of that desk was the map of the surrounding area that they had been able to put together, taking casualties as they did. On top of a proper grid, it showed the tracks running through the plains to the station building, with defensive lines drawn in.
Their theoretical entry point—the gate they wandered through while on a training exercise—was estimated to be in the middle of a forest roughly five kilometers from here. It was only five kilometers, but once you factored in an invisible minefield, those five kilometers seemed despair-inducingly far.
The major thought in silence for a while, then suddenly looked at me and Toriko with sharp eyes.
“You’ve brought us very good news. If it’s true, you’re more reliable than any cavalry team. But I have just one question: why didn’t you say that last time?”
“Oh... Yeah, about that.”
It was a fair question, especially from a man responsible for the lives of all his subordinates. When I hesitated to answer it, Toriko cut in bluntly. “Everyone was so on-edge that time. If we’d said one wrong word, I’ll bet you’d have shot us.”
“What made you think that...” the major started to say, then looked at the lieutenant. “...Ahh, maybe there was some risk of that.” He took a deep breath, then closed his eyes. “That’s fair, you’re right. Forgive me. If you’ve come back into this hell to save us, I can’t thank you enough.”
“That’s cool, but we actually have a favor to ask in return.” I felt awkward about the apology, so I spoke up despite myself.
“I don’t believe we’re in a position to offer you much, but please, ask away.”
“Really?! Okay, could you give us guns?”
“Guns...?”
“Yeah, and bullets, too. If you have any to spare, that is.”
A shadow of bewilderment fell over the major and lieutenants’ faces. I was rushing things too much, so Toriko pulled on my sleeve.
“Sorawo, Sorawo.”
“Huh? What?”
“I think there’s a better way to broach the subject... Here, let me take over for a bit.”
Toriko stepped up and started speaking to them in English. Instantly, there was a flash of understanding on both their faces.
Sure, sure, of course you need guns here. But no grenades. Only small arms. Okay? No problem. Thank you so much.
The conversation was over in no time.
“They say it’s cool.”
“What did you tell them?” I asked.
“We don’t feel safe with the weapons we have on hand, so we’d like them to lend us some until we escape.”
How was that any different from what I said? I was trying to explain it to them just like that.
Before I could accept what just happened, the major said to the lieutenant, “Is anyone out on reconnaissance?”
“No, sir. The survivors are all in camp.”
“Okay. We’ll move while it’s still light out. Prepare to pull out. Send a few guys my way. You show these girls to the Doghouse, then oversee the preparations to withdraw.”
“Yes, sir.”
The lieutenant gave him a firm salute, then turned back to us.
“Please, come with me. I’ll take you to the armory first.”
Once we followed the lieutenant outside, Toriko spoke up, complaining. “Sorawo, you moved too fast.”
“Don’t they say you’re supposed to cut to the chase in English?”
“But you weren’t speaking English, were you, Sorawo?”
Walking shoulder to shoulder with an unamused Toriko, we followed the lieutenant.
“I hope we’ll have something suited to someone of your build,” the lieutenant said inside the tent being used as an armory.
It was true that many of the guns on the racks were large, and I was at a loss for what to do with them lined up in front of me.
“I just need the bullets.” Toriko approached the ammo shelf. “Can I have this?”
“That’s 5.56 NATO. Toriko-san, your gun is an AK, isn’t it?”
“This is an AK-101. It’s a low caliber, so I originally thought it took 5.45. It’s black, too, which I thought was weird for an AK.”
Deciding to let the rest of whatever incantations they were speaking go in one ear and out the other, I perused the weapon racks. I already had the Makarov, so I didn’t need another handgun. The shotguns were tempting; they had some resembling Kozakura’s Remington here.
As I was staring at a rack with the sort of assault rifles you saw all the time in movies lined up on it, Toriko and the lieutenant finished their talk and came over.
“That’s an M4. It’s a gun we’re all used to using.”
“Maybe it’s a bit big for me... Which one’s the gun I shot with last time I was here?”
“Could it have been the M14?”
The lieutenant picked up a long-barreled rifle for me. It was the one I’d fired while Toriko supported me last time I was at Kisaragi Station. Now that I was holding it again... Yeah, it really was heavy. It might be a bit exhausting to carry around.
“Do you have a lighter version of this?”
“Sorry. We don’t have that many kinds of sniper rifles.”
“Sorawo, you like rifles?” Toriko asked curiously.
“I was thinking one might be a good match for my eye.”
I had been thinking it would be handy if I could look through the scope with my right eye’s ability and snipe them, like I did to the monster at Kisaragi Station.
“Obviously, I don’t think I’m able to become a proper sniper, so the best I can hope to do is to imitate one.”
“If you’re able to maintain some distance, how would this work?”
The lieutenant pulled a compact assault rifle that was shaped like an M4, but had a shorter barrel.
“It’s an M4 CQBR. Try holding it. It’s a lot lighter than the M14, right? They shortened the barrel of an M4 to make it easier to maneuver with indoors, but I think this might actually be easier to use for your intended usage, Sorawo-san. You’re not looking to get into a shoot-out with other humans, right?”
“R-Right. If it’s easy to use when we come up against monsters, that’s enough. I just want to shoot them before they get close to me,” I responded, even as I was confused by the lieutenant’s sudden eloquence. He gave me a big nod.
“Got it. Naturally, it doesn’t have the same ability to focus fire as a sniper rifle, but let’s compensate for that with a scope. Were there any other optional parts you wanted to put on it?”
He said that with the same ease you might say, Would you like fries with that?
“Err, I don’t really know, so I’ll leave it up to you.”
“Well, how about this? An ACOG 4x scope, a rail handguard and vertical foregrip, and a Magpul CTR stock...”
“Whoa, hold on. What?”
The lieutenant pulled parts off the rack like he was shopping at the supermarket, handing them to me one after another.
“Do you need a dot sight or a SureFire...? Those would make it heavier, which might be more of a hindrance. Let’s not do that. You want it as light as possible, right?”
“Oh! Yes.”
“Toriko-san, would you know how to attach all this?”
“Well, probably,” Toriko responded, surprised.
“Glad to hear it. Anything else you need? If we’re done, then please follow me.”
The lieutenant left the armory, and walked speedily to our destination. Carrying a new gun and a variety of parts for it, I rushed after him. “Um, is it okay for you to be so generous to us?”
“Yeah. It’s not like we can take most of the stuff here with us.”
The camp had gotten rather busy. We passed a column of Marines as we headed to a place on the outer edge where a number of vehicles were parked. There was a large jeep-like vehicle, a number of large trucks, and an armored car with the barrel of a machine gun sticking out through the roof. There were vehicles that had been dismantled and had their tires removed.
In the middle of all that, I could see two bizarrely-shaped vehicles that stood out from the rest. They both had rough and angular bodies sitting on fat octagonal pillars. They had a lot of peepholes, and I could see something like an armored viewing platform on the top of them, too. There were a number of soldiers doing welding work on top of the vehicles, producing a lot of noise and sparks.
What was this? I looked at Toriko, but she shook her head to say she didn’t know. In the middle of all that noisy welding, the lieutenant spoke. “The Israeli forces have an Armored Personnel Carrier called the Nagmachon. It’s a vehicle made strictly for the purpose of going into the Palestinian Territories and fighting personnel. The unique feature of it is they removed the turret from a tank, and instead installed a sealed combat room called the Doghouse. They can look out through the windows, and point their guns in all directions. It’s a hedgehog-like vehicle, specialized for killing humans.”
There were disgusting weapons like that...? Not noticing I was a little put off by this, the lieutenant continued his explanation.
“We brought an explosion-resistant vehicle called an MRAP to the Otherside, but the threats to us here weren’t explosives or terrorists with anti-tank weapons. The bear traps are like IEDs, in that they’re a threat that exists on the road, but... If anything, I see our situation as akin to IDF soldiers on reconnaissance or a mission, or maintaining security in the Palestinian Territories. That’s why we made them. Our own Nagmachon Doghouse.”
He sounded like he was bragging about a toy.
“This one with an arm on the front of the body is the Gorgon. It’s based on a Buffalo mine-sweeping vehicle. The armored school bus behind it is the Owlbear, based on an RG-33L armored vehicle. They both have a Doghouse based on a modified OGPK turret kit, allowing attack in all directions. We know it’s all over if we step in a bear trap, but these were made to be our last hope. With you here, they can do their job. I’m really glad.”
“Th-They sure are amazing, huh.”
I just barely managed to get that much out. I didn’t have a lot of practice at keeping a conversation going while a man bragged, so I had no idea how I was supposed to respond here.
“Wow.” That one word was all Toriko said. It still made the lieutenant smile, and he looked up at the monster of armor and gun turrets with pride.
“Please wait here a moment. Everyone will gather around quickly.”
With the welding done, the soldiers came down from on top of the vehicle. The lieutenant gave some quick orders, and then two stood sentry while the rest rushed off.
“...Don’t you think we could have complimented him a bit more?”
“If he’s satisfied, I’d say it’s fine. Could you pass me yours, Sorawo?”
“Which?”
“All of them.”
When I turned over the gun I was holding and the optional parts for it, Toriko sat down where she was and began dismantling the gun. I sat on the Gorgon’s ridiculously huge tires and watched the soldiers’ hasty preparations for withdrawal in a daze. I wonder what they’ll do with the tents, I thought, but they showed no sign of folding them up. It looked like, as the lieutenant had said, they meant to leave almost all of their equipment behind here.
Hmm... Couldn’t we come back for this later?
I was watching two soldiers put a red and black cable around the camp while thinking about how to pillage their equipment when Toriko spoke. “Lieutenant, you really managed to assemble a light set of parts. It might even be lighter with these.” She sounded impressed. Toriko removed her tactical glove and skillfully went about disassembling the gun and swapping out parts. Her ghostly translucent fingers slid across the body of the gun as though she were playing an instrument. I stared, despite myself.
“...You’re good at that, Toriko.”
“Disassembling a gun is surprisingly easy once you’ve actually tried it.”
“Did you learn that from your parents, too? They were Canadian, right?”
“Hmm. Yeah, they are. Did I mention that?”
“Sorry, I heard from Kozakura-san.”
“Oh. Mama was, yeah. She was in the Canadian military.”
“Oh, I see.”
I had thought her father was the soldier, so this surprised me. Now that I thought about it, when she fired the gun using Morse code, she mentioned her mom then, too.
“There, done. Try holding it.”
The gun she handed me was surprisingly light, compared to how rough it looked. The earth-colored custom parts stood out against the black barrel, making it look surprisingly stylish... I guess?
“Ohh, it really does feel light.”
“Doesn’t it, though? Use it for a while, and if it doesn’t feel like it’s working well enough for you, you can customize it again.”
“I dunno if I’ll be using it that much.”
“Could you stand there for a bit? Hold the gun in both hands.”
I stayed standing in front of the Gorgon, while Toriko took about ten steps back and put her fingers out in the shape of a frame, like she was taking a picture of me. “Yeah, it suits you.”
“Is that something I should be happy about?”
“Take the compliment for what it is.”
“Well, fine. How should I hold it?” I asked.
“I’ll teach you. Come this way.”
Toriko pulled my hand and led me around behind the Gorgon and Owlbear; the two sentries eyed us suspiciously.
“The basic thing is to put the stock against your shoulder like this, and look through the scope. You can hold the handguard with your left hand, or you can hold the foregrip, too. There are some people who hold it in front of the magazine catch, too, though.”
“Like this? Is this it?” While I struggled with the unfamiliar assault rifle, Toriko reached around from behind me to adjust my stance.
“Don’t spread your elbows so wide. Keep yourself compact.”
Wrapping her arms around me from behind, she pressed my elbows in, and put both her hands on the gun. I could see Toriko’s face beside mine, so close our cheeks might touch. Her eyes were in the distance instead of on me, but for some reason I felt even more stirred up than when we each looked into the other’s eyes. I dragged my attention away from her long blonde hair, and tried to focus on where the muzzle was pointing.
“Feel like you’re hiding yourself behind the gun. If you act like both your arms are fixed to the gun, your body will move quickly with it.”
Her directions for me were sharp, and she was a bit different from usual. The person who taught her to use a gun, her mother, might have behaved in a way similar to this.
“It’s longer than a handgun, so always be aware of where the muzzle is pointing. Never put your finger on the trigger when you don’t intend to fire. Okay?”
“O-Okay.”
“Good!”
Once she had gone over how to remove the magazine, and explained the safety and how to select the mode of fire, Toriko and I turned around and went back to where we’d been before.
When we moved around in front of the Gorgon, we were met by a line of dozens of fully-armed Marines looking at us. The major and the lieutenant were standing in front of them, and the major had just been in the middle of speaking to his men in English.
The major looked at us, then spread his arms wide and introduced us. I feel like whatever he said meant something along the lines of: The Girls have come to guide us out of the Otherside.
The sharp glares of Marines with sunken cheeks pierced me, and I froze solid. Maybe I should have said something like, “Uh, hi,” but their desperation, like they were hanging on to the edge of despair with just one finger, wasn’t something I could stand to face with a silly grin.
The major nodded to the lieutenant and took a step back. The lieutenant stepped forward and raised his voice. Okay, guys! Get in the vehicles! Move it!
Hoorah! The Marines cheered, and all went into motion at once.
The diesel engines of the Gorgon and Owlbear whirred to life. The soldiers piled into the other vehicles that could still move, too. Not everyone could ride. Those who were left over spread out to a fixed distance, and remained alert with their guns pointing in all directions.
The major came over to Toriko and me, who were standing close together.
“We’ll be using all of our remaining fuel reserves. You two are our last hope. Please, get us home,” the major said.
I was so intimidated that I simply nodded, unable to say a word.
The lieutenant returned and waved to us. “Please, get in the lead car. We’ll be counting on you to lead the way.”
With the lieutenant dragging us along, we climbed on board the Gorgon. The body of the vehicle was ridiculously high; we boarded from the rear, then climbed a ladder leading up to the newly added combat room. When I went through the hatch in the ceiling, I could see a fairly wide area around the vehicle. It felt like I was looking down from the roof of a two-story house. Right next to us, looking like a folded fork used by a giant or something, there was an arm meant for dealing with mines.
Toriko came up after me, and we sat down side-by-side on top of the turret. The engine revved up, and the vehicle slowly began to move. The lead car was the Gorgon, with Toriko, the lieutenant, and me aboard. The rear car, with three other vehicles between us, was the Owlbear. The line of vehicles slowly advanced, leaving the camp at Kisaragi Station. It was half past three in the afternoon. We didn’t have much time left before sunset.
6
I squinted out from the top of the Gorgon, trying to find that silver shimmering in the grassy summer fields. The whole area was riddled with glitches. If you couldn’t see these, there was probably no avoiding them. In the areas where they were thickest, they blocked us like walls, and we had to route around them looking for gaps large enough to allow a vehicle or group of people to pass through.
It was more difficult giving directions than I had thought. Left, right, straight, a little to the right, stop, a touch left, back up five meters, thirty degrees to the right... and so on, and so on. I tried a bunch of things out at first, but there were limits to how subtly I could control them with just words.
The first fifty confused minutes were behind us now, and we hadn’t even made it a hundred meters from the camp. This was no good... Sweating under the silent pressure from inside the vehicle and the convoy behind us, I carefully considered what I should do.
“Sorawo, you okay?” Toriko asked, bringing her face close to mine.
“I’m okay... Lieutenant, do you have a long stick? One that could reach the driver’s seat from here.”
“Let me take a look.”
After a little while, I was passed a long extending metal rod from down below. The end split into two, and each end of the T was rounded so you could hook something with it.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a pole for hanging an IV drip pack.”
When I fully extended it, the tip just reached the driver’s glass window.
“Please, proceed in the direction I indicate with this. When I want you to stop, I’ll tap twice. At any other time, you’re good to keep going at the same speed.”
If I hooked it on a gap in the ordinance disposal arm, I didn’t need to constantly hold the IV pole in place, too. When I threw a bolt into a nearby glitch, it melted it, or flashed, or emitted a strange sound, making the soldiers jump every time. I had been thinking that bringing the nail bag and bolts was a waste of effort, but they were handy for making other people aware of danger.
We had been making good progress for a while when there was a bright flash behind us. I turned to see a massive explosion swelling at the former site of the camp.
When the roar of the explosion and its shock wave reached us, they made my whole body shake. After watching the fireball and the rising black smoke in shocked silence with Toriko, I panicked and shoved my head down inside the vehicle.
“Lieutenant?! The camp!”
“Yes? Ohh, right. You weren’t told, were you? It’s fine. This was a deliberate detonation.”
I was taken aback by his cool-headed response.
“Wh-Why?!”
“We’d left too many traces of our presence. With this, now the abominable Station February is just a pile of rubble.”
“I-I see.”
That was the end of my plan to help myself to the supplies left in their camp. I went back to look-out duty, still not quite over the shock.
“Sorawo, what’s wrong? Focus.”
“I know I have to, but... Ugh.” I let a sigh of disappointment escape despite myself.
“...Were you thinking of doing something bad?” Her tone was suspicious, and I averted my eyes.
The convoy continued across the plains of death. When I poked it in the nose with the IV pole, the diesel beast beneath us obediently changed direction. It felt like I was leading a horse with a carrot.
Maybe an hour and a half passed. The number of glitches gradually dropped, and I didn’t have to make fine changes to our course anymore. Low bushes started to become noticeable in the area around us. When we crossed a hill covered in thick, green moss, I could see a gloomy forest down at the bottom of the slope.
“Come up here, Lieutenant.”
When I called into the vehicle, the lieutenant climbed up the ladder and poked his head out through the hatch.
“Did something happen?”
“That forest... Are you sure it’s the place you all came out of?”
The lieutenant looked down at the map, thinking for a moment before raising his face again.
“Most likely. It was at night, so we didn’t have a complete grasp of the situation, but judging from the distance and direction of the camp, it seems highly probable.”
“Then we’re almost there, huh?” Though he nodded in response to Toriko, the lieutenant looked towards the forest with his expression still tense. Even as we were talking, the convoy continued through the valley. There were no glitches ahead of us. If we went straight like this, we would continue into the woods.
As I rubbed the back of my head, which felt stiff with eyestrain, there was a commotion from the rear of the convoy.
The lieutenant confirmed the situation with one of his subordinates, then furrowed his brow.
“What’s up?”
“They say someone’s coming.” That was all the lieutenant said before descending the ladder.
Someone...?
When I turned around, the soldiers were stretching their necks, looking behind us with concern. We had just finished descending the gentle slope. I could see someone standing on the ridge at the top of the hill.
Inside the car, the lieutenant and his men had a hurried exchange in English. When they did that, I could barely understand a thing. Without using the radio, they were hearing a report from the rear cars delivered by messenger.
“Toriko, can you tell what they’re saying?”
Toriko, who had her ears perked up, was mumbling to herself suspiciously. “He’s saying... Don’t leave, take me with you...?”
“There was a survivor, then?” I tapped the front window with the IV pole to get them to stop, then I peered through the M4’s scope. It was a short scope, so it was easier to look through it if I placed the stock against my shoulder.
What I saw with my right eye, magnified four times, was certainly human. He was dressed the same as the other Marines. A faded camo uniform, body armor and a helmet. He carried a gun that looked like mine, and was waving his arms this way. I couldn’t see his face, though. It might have been the light levels here, but under his helmet was awfully dark...
I focused my spirit into my right eye, and his form changed entirely. He still just barely looked like a man in camouflage, but his body was a mess, like a chunk of the ground covered in dead leaves had stood up. He didn’t even have arms. The cut on his shoulder was covered in something like moss. His face was covered in the same stuff, and I couldn’t see his expression. Moss spilled out of his open mouth.
“Blech...” As I shuddered, another fake soldier appeared on the ridge. Then another. And yet another. One after another, the mossmen increased in number. There were some who only had one arm, others missing half a head, yet others with deep gashes in their torsos...
“Lieutenant—those aren’t survivors! It’s the enemy!”
When I raised the alarm, the lieutenant shouted inside the car.
“Contact! Open fire!”
As if they had heard those orders, the mossmen began rushing towards us. Fire! Open fire! The orders were quickly passed through the convoy, and the Owlbear at the very rear opened fire. The gun turret spun around, and the muzzle spat fire.
Next, the soldiers scattered around the convoy opened fire. When a bullet hit, the moss scattered into geometrical fractals. When a number of shots had hit, the mossmen flipped over and then fell to the ground as red and green shards scattered everywhere.
“Get inside quick, you two. It’s dangerous,” the lieutenant called out to us with urgency, but I shook my head.
“We can’t. If I’m not here watching, the bullets won’t hit.”
“But...”
“Lieutenant, don’t worry, just shoot! We’ll be fine!” Toriko stuck her head down into the car to shout, then closed the hatch at her feet and put her hands on my shoulders.
“I’ll stay with you.”
“Yeah.”
I gave a little nod, then stood on top of the gun turret, doing so to widen my field of vision as much as possible. Toriko was still kneeling, holding her AK at the ready. The muzzles of guns stuck out from the combat room below, and the Gorgon opened fire, too. I thought maybe I ought to shoot as well, but opted against it. It was dangerous to limit my field of vision. I was this convoy’s lifeline, after all.
“Toriko, could you tell me if the enemy comes in from the sides?”
“Got it. Leave it to me.”
There were mossmen all over the ridge to our rear. They dashed down the hill at full speed, only to be caught by my right eye and the bullets, and they were dropping like flies. It felt like the unceasing roar of gunfire was going to drive me crazy.
In order to ensure none slipped through, I turned my head back and forth like a searchlight, desperately trying to catch enemies in my field of vision, but they kept on appearing. We were gradually being surrounded.
“Sorawo, isn’t it bad for us to stay here?”
“It is, yeah. We’ve got to move.”
Toriko opened the hatch and shouted down at the soldiers who were firing in the combat room.
“We’re moving! Tell the people in the rear, too!”
I tapped the front of the window with the IV pole. The Gorgon let out a burst of exhaust, then began moving forward once again. While I kept an eye on the enemies closing in from the rear, I also looked for openings to check if it was safe ahead of us. I was way too busy!
The Gorgon, which had picked up speed going downhill, mowed down the grass as it sped along. Toriko and I clung on to the edge of the turret, trying not to be shaken off the top of the bouncing vehicle.
When we got right next to it, I noticed there was a metal fence that was close to two meters high going around the forest. It had rusty barbed wire and a number of red cords wrapped around it. There wasn’t the glow that indicated a glitch. When the Gorgon ran into it, the folded arm on the nose of the vehicle easily tore through the fence. The barbed wire that had been severed made a boing, boing sound as it bounced around very close to us.
“Watch your head!”
Toriko pulled me out of the way right in the nick of time as a large branch scraped the top of the gun turret. We lost our balance and fell into the hatch. Bouncing off the thick shoulders, backs, butts, and legs of the three soldiers who were firing out from inside the combat room, we finally tumbled to the floor of the vehicle.
“Oww...”
“A-Are you okay, Sorawo?” Toriko stammered.
“Somehow...”
Even though we struggled to disentangle ourselves, we managed to stand up somehow.
“Girls, is it okay to keep going this way?!” the driver yelled to us, and I went to look out the front window. I couldn’t see any silver phosphorescence out in the gloomy woods. It was creepy how safe it seemed.
“It’s okay. Please, keep driving at a gentle speed.”
I left those instructions for the driver and then turned around and hurried back through the vehicle.
On the deck at the rear of the vehicle, Toriko and the lieutenant had their guns pointing behind us. On the other side of the vehicles and the soldiers who were shooting the enemy as they retreated, a large number of mossmen were closing in. Because my line of sight had been interrupted, it looked like they were almost on top of us now. The moment I went out on the deck and my field of vision opened up, mossmen started going down in a hail of bullets left and right.
Did I make it? Or did they get some of us? How many? I dispelled the questions forming in my head. Don’t think! This isn’t the time to be thinking about the number of victims.
The lieutenant placed his gun on the railing of the deck, just firing off one shot after another. The lieutenant’s gun was also an M4, but the barrel was pretty heavy, and the scope was large, too. With each shot, the head of a mossman that was pretty far away would burst, and they would flip over and collapse to the ground.
“...He’s good,” Toriko whispered to herself, looking at the lieutenant.
Following the Gorgon, the rest of the convoy continued into the forest. The enemy attack stopped, and on the other side of the slope scattered with the remains of mossmen, there were a large number of figures on the ridge, looking down at us. One shadow was especially large. It was just a silhouette, but it was humanoid, with complexly branched horns, and beside it was a long, slim four-legged monster that resembled a giraffe with no head.
It’s him! It was the monster who appeared before me and Toriko the first time we entered the other world at night. I had heard that the four-legged beast was a robot that the Marines had brought in here that had stepped into a glitch.
When the lieutenant fired into the air, the head between the horns exploded beautifully.
Nice! I thought, but it was short-lived. The monster’s head acted as if it was a video being played backwards until it had returned to its original state.
“The Horned Man... He’s a hunter from the Otherside who persistently hunted us over this past month and a half.” There was an anger in the lieutenant’s voice that he couldn’t suppress, but I was in such shock I didn’t have time to worry about that. I was looking, but he didn’t go down! I knew I had him captured in my right eye, too!
The bullet most definitely hit, and it had an effect for a time, too. But after that, the Horned Man regenerated. It looked like there were guys in the other world who couldn’t be neutralized just by hitting them with a bullet.
“...He’s not coming after us, huh?” Toriko lowered her AK.
The enemies came no closer. The convoy proceeded into the forest, and the Horned Man and the mossmen faded out of view.
I was still in shock when the driver yelled to me. “Girls, give us directions!”
“R-Right!” Coming back to my senses, Toriko and I rushed down from the gun turret. I put my hand on the ladder to climb down, but the soldiers in the combat room held up a hand to stop me. They turned their palms towards me, telling me not to come down.
“The branches are right above us, so it’s dangerous,” I said.
Toriko interpreted for me. It was true—I’d nearly been knocked off earlier.
The field of view from the driver’s seat wasn’t that great. I couldn’t see any glitches ahead of us now, but if there was something in the trees overhead, or in a blind spot to the left or right, I might discover it too late.
I thought for a moment. “...Toriko, I’m going outside for a bit. Would you come along?”
“Of course.” Toriko nodded without even hesitating.
We returned to the rear deck of the vehicle again; we were running all over the place. When we told the lieutenant, who was receiving a report from a messenger, that we would be heading back outside, his eyes went wide.
“It’s dangerous out there... Though, I guess that goes without saying.”
“We’ll be together, so it’s okay. It’s too hard to see from inside the car, so it’s actually more dangerous for me to be here.”
Leaving him with those words, Toriko and I climbed the ladder from the slow-moving Gorgon’s deck and hopped down to the ground. The soldiers in the rear looked at us with surprise.
We ran alongside the Gorgon, and then went out the front of it. Toriko and I started walking at the head of a convoy consisting of dozens of soldiers and five military vehicles.
7
The sun hadn’t set yet, but the forest was already dark. The twilight that shone down through the forest canopy barely illuminated the area, but as we continued on, that light weakened, too. The Gorgon turned on its headlights, causing us to cast long shadows as we walked in front of it.
We turned around in response to footsteps behind us, and saw four of the soldiers had caught up. They nodded to us, then stayed about five meters back, carefully watching the surrounding area as we advanced. It looked like they trusted us enough that they were willing to protect us.
One dug through his pouch, then tossed a small package to us. Toriko caught it. Inside the package were two cookies. There were candy-coated chocolates of all colors embedded in them. Judging from the simple packaging, he was likely sharing some of his military ration with us.
In return, I tried giving him some of the bite-sized salty youkan jelly that I had brought as food on the go. The soldier accepted it, and flashed his white teeth at me for the first time.
Toriko and I each took a cookie, bit into it, then looked at each other. The oil had seeped into the dough, and it was all sticky and sweet. Frankly, it tasted awful. When I looked at the guys behind us, the soldiers were looking at the black blob that had come out of the salty youkan package with an expression that said, What even is this?
Toriko leaned in close and whispered. “Too bad you didn’t bring some better food along!”
“Uh, yeah, sure. We should’ve made boxed lunches for them or something, huh?”
I intended it as a joke, but Toriko’s face lit up.
“I like it! Let’s make them later!”
“...Huh? Are you serious?”
Just as I asked her that, in the headlights up ahead, I saw a rope that was starting to rot, tied to the trunks of two trees.
When we approached, the area past there was open, with no trees growing there. Toriko pulled her own light out of her bag, and then used it to illuminate the area beyond the rope. It was a hexagonal space, made by tying ropes to connect six thick trees. There was a box, which was about the size of an offering box at a shrine, that had been left in the middle of the space, and it emitted a silver light. When I viewed it with my right eye, I could see something overlapping with where the offering box should have been.
“It’s a glitch—or maybe a gate,” I said. Toriko held up her hand to the people behind us, signaling for them to stop. The convoy halted. The lieutenant disembarked from the Gorgon and rushed over, looking over our shoulders with the four soldiers.
“Isn’t this your entry point?” I asked. The lieutenant thought about it.
“You... could be right. It’s true, I feel like I’ve seen this light before...”
He was being awfully vague.
“This place is pretty distinctive. You really should remember if you’ve seen it before, shouldn’t you?”
“I should, yes, but the memory is fuzzy.” The lieutenant’s brow furrowed as he looked down. The sweat beaded on his forehead, then began to run down his face.
“It’s... coming back to me. That’s right. We definitely were here... We were in the mountains, then before we knew it, we were here... Then...”
The lieutenant suddenly looked up. His eyes had gone wide.
“...We saw something, something terrifying.”
I was shocked to realize that the other four soldiers were all making the same expression. It was a hollow, frightened expression. Like they were re-experiencing a terror hidden deep in their memories. They stood there in a daze, like young children who had woken from a nightmare.
Toriko and I looked at one another. This fear was abnormal.
“Stay here. We’ll take a look,” I said, and the lieutenant slowly nodded.
Lifting up the rope, Toriko and I entered the open space together. There was a scrunching sound beneath me, and I looked down. I was stepping on some paper. It was cut in a zigzag shape, like the sort of paper hung from the shimenawa, enclosing ropes, at shrines... What was that called again...? Shide, right.
Then, was that old rope a shimenawa?
I approached the box in the center. The box was wooden, with metal bits reinforcing the corners. They were rusted, as if they had been exposed to wind and rain for a long time. There was a mesh on the top of the box, but there was a board beneath it, so I couldn’t actually see inside. The side of the box bore a number of symbols drawn in chalk which looked like family seals. I moved around to the back side, and a board there had been removed, allowing me to see inside. There were four thin pots lying on their side, and traces of some liquid having been spilled over the surface. There was something super small, in the shape of a stick, lying there. In the middle of the fully dried stain, there were three V-shaped spaces that were clean.
...Could this be?
Just as a name came to me from my knowledge of netlore, Toriko tapped me on the shoulder silently.
I turned around, and a hoarse squeak escaped my throat.
At the root of one of the trees surrounding the plaza, I saw a face. It was a woman’s face. Her mouth was open wide from side to side, her top and bottom teeth bared. Toriko’s flashlight shone directly on her, but the eyes that stared back at me did not blink.
This must have been how the birds felt when they looked at one of those eyeball patterns meant to keep them away. In the middle of the two eyes, which were opened unnaturally wide, two round, pitch black pupils were staring in our direction. That expression, which displayed nothing but malice, was terrifying.
I heard gasps from the lieutenant and the soldiers, too. They had followed our gaze and seen her.
“It’s her,” the lieutenant said with a moan. “The one we saw, it was her...”
With her eyes still completely fixated on me, the woman’s face rose up alongside the trunk of the tree. It continued to rise after reaching a person’s height, then stopped at six meters high.
Toriko’s hand on my shoulder was trembling, too. Unable to look away, I could feel the panic bubbling and seething inside me. With a shout that was like a scream, I cried out, “To-Toriko—Shoot! Hurry!”
“Ro... Roger!”
Toriko seemed to snap back to her senses, pulling the trigger on her AK.
Almost simultaneously, the soldiers opened fire. The intense roar of assault rifles blew away the silence in the forest. The fire from their muzzles was blindingly bright to our eyes, which had adjusted to the darkness.
When the woman was shot, her jaw dropped. Ching, ching! Ching, ching, ching! The sharp sound of bells rang from inside her gaping maw, and for an instant, I felt a prickling pain rush through my arms and legs.
Suddenly, hands appeared next to the woman’s face on the trunk. Three long-fingered left hands. On the neighboring trunk, fingers appeared. This time, it was three right hands. Using the left and right trees as supports, suddenly the form of a six-armed, naked woman rose up into the light. From the waist down, her body wasn’t human, but that of a snake covered in glistening scales.
In one corner of my paralyzed mind, I came to a conclusion.
I thought so. I know who she is.
“Kankandara.”
There was an internet ghost story where three delinquent boys entered a forest that was off-limits, and encountered a monster that was half-person, half-snake. That monster’s name was Kankandara. The kanji used, 姦姦蛇螺, were likely chosen for their visual appearance, rather than their meaning, to represent a six-armed woman (女), with the lower body of a snake. Looking at her directly, her appearance, which was less like that of a ghost and more like the kind of monster that might appear in a movie or video game, was more than just overwhelming.
Her snake body, which was just thick enough you could barely wrap your arms around it, slithering along, bringing Kankandara out into the open space. Even her apparently human parts—the six arms, from their shoulder joints, down to their finger joints, writhed like they belonged to some legless insect.
When the lieutenant called out behind him, soldiers came running. They scattered around the area, both inside and outside the rope, and opened fire one after another. Exposed to the line of fire, Kankandara’s body shook and convulsed, and there was a loud sound, like hundreds of bells ringing in unison.
“Aghh!” Toriko let out a sharp cry. The soldiers and I called out in pain and staggered, too.
It hurt—both my arms and both my legs hurt! It was a prickling pain, like I had been burned, and it made me groan despite myself.
The Marines were all suffering from it, too. There were soldiers who fell down, like their limbs had gone rigid, and thrashed around on the ground, too, and the pain I felt was getting stronger. Not good!
As I resisted the terror and pain, I focused my consciousness into my right eye. Kankandara’s body faded, and I started to see another pattern.
That terrifying face was gone, and even the six distinctive arms vanished.
What was there instead were six pieces of square timber moving together. I called them square timber, but they didn’t look like they were actually made of wood. They were whitish objects of some unknown substance. There were three V-shapes connected together, and they moved in this sort of spinning, tumbling way that was like how a snake moved, but also different. Just the points where the pieces of square timber touched were painted red, so, in a way, it looked somewhat like a match puzzle. There were bullet holes gouged out of the surface, but that didn’t seem to be making it any harder for the thing to move.
“T-Toriko. Head to the back,” I said, gritting my teeth against the pain which grew stronger with the sound of the bells. “A big gun. Get us something big! This isn’t working!”
“Got it! I’ll be right back!” Toriko slapped me on the back, then ran away on shaky legs. Her footsteps faded into the distance.
In my blurring vision, the white square timber and that damn scary woman’s face appeared as a double image. As I stared back into her eyes, unable to flee, I suddenly was struck with uncertainty about something.
Why is she staring at me? She’s been glaring at me the whole time, like we’re having a staring contest or something... even though there are lots of other people.
No... Could it be?
Is she trying to intimidate me? To make me look away? Our attacks won’t be able to hit her if we can’t recognize her, so to stop my right eye’s power from working, she’s staring me down with a super scary face...?
The moment I thought that, I was so indignant I surprised myself.
...You’re taking me lightly. What are you? Some delinquent from out in the boonies?
Don’t think you can scare me into looking away. I’ll kill you instead... I’ll murder you with this eye!
...Not that I’ll be doing the dirty work myself, though!
You would think after staring this long, I would have gotten used to it a little, but for some reason, I wasn’t able to adjust to the terror of her face at all. Still, as I stubbornly kept looking, my vision gradually started flickering, and my head started to hurt, too. Kankandara’s face warped and twisted, and it was hard to grasp how far away she was. It felt like she was getting further and further away.
Wait, don’t run. Stay right there. Toriko’s bringing a big gun now. One shot from that, and you’re toast...
That was when there was a horn sound, and it was loud enough to blow away the ringing of bells.
The pain withdrew for an instant, and my fading consciousness returned. At some point, one of my knees had touched the ground, and I had been hanging my head. As my head snapped up, with the roar of its engines, and the brilliant flash of its headlights, the Gorgon burst into the open space.
The previously folded arm was raised high, and pointing forward. The end of it carried a nine-bladed plow for ordnance disposal. The horn blared once more, and the soldiers scrambled out of the way. Spewing black exhaust, like the snorting of an enraged bull, the Gorgon charged.
Its massive body, over eight meters high, charged across the open space at an incredible speed. It grazed the offering box in the center, and before my eyes the bizarrely modified MRAP collided with Kankandara.
The nine plates on the front arm cut deep into the white timber. That didn’t kill its momentum, as it kept pushing Kankandara, slamming her into one of the thick trees that made up the rim of the open space.
The sounds of bells as Kankandara thrashed around were wiped out by the roar of the engine and the blaring of the horn. The arm dug in deeper, and the sound of bells rose like a death wail, and then, snap, there was an incredible noise as the white timber was broken.
Kankandara’s whole body stretched out into a straight line, then suddenly, as if her batteries had died, she ceased to move.
The sound of engines slowly softened, then stopped. The headlights faded out, too. The open space was suddenly dark, and quiet, and the soldiers who had been in agony now rose, groaning, to their feet.
“Sorawo! Are you okay?” Toriko rushed in from outside the open space, and because I had slumped to the ground, she helped me to my feet.
The driver and soldiers got out of the Gorgon. As they looked down at Kankandara’s corpse—the remains of that thing—they spoke excitedly amongst themselves in English. Unbelievable, What a huge snake bitch... Holy shit.
I had to agree with them on the unbelievable part, at least.
Taking Toriko’s arm and pulling myself up, I shook my head in disbelief. “I know I told you to get something big...”
“It was the biggest one we had.” There was an undisguised sense of pride in Toriko’s voice as she responded.
The lieutenant rushed over, and turned a light on us. “Oh! Are you okay?!”
“We’re fine... We pulled it off, huh.” I tried to give what I thought was a relieved smile, but when they saw me in the light, the lieutenant and Toriko both reeled back in shock.
“Huh? Is something—”
Before I could finish, Toriko reached out with both hands, sandwiching my face between them, and rubbed my face in all directions.
“Bwah, buh, no.”
Finally managing to shake Toriko off, I shouted at her. “Stop it! What’re you doing?!”
I was mad, but Toriko looked relieved.
“You should’ve seen the look on your face, Sorawo. It was just like that woman’s.”
“...Seriously?”
While I was rubbing my face in shock, the other soldiers and vehicles entered the open space. The major got out of the Owlbear and joined us. The lieutenant looked around the space, seemingly mystified. “This is definitely it. The first place we came out of in the Otherside. I wonder why we ever forgot.”
“I’ve heard that when people go through an incredibly traumatic experience, it can sometimes cause memory loss. Perhaps you all saw that monster in the beginning, and scattered in terror.”
What I was saying sounded perfectly reasonable, but all my knowledge of human psychology came from gathering true ghost stories. The lieutenant and major, who didn’t know that, nodded repeatedly.
“We took a lot of casualties because of that,” the lieutenant said, sounding frustrated.
“We’d better get you boys home before anything scarier than this happens.”
I walked to the center of the open space, and stopped in front of the offering box. I pointed at the silver shimmering around the outside of the box, and spoke to Toriko. “Could you grab here?”
Toriko removed her glove, then thrust her translucent fingers through the shimmer. “Here?”
“Around there. Now, keep holding it as you walk.”
When Toriko moved, it looked as if the offering box had been squished. In its place, it looked like a parallelogram had been cut out of space. It was a gate. Beyond it, I could see what looked like a stone patio overgrown with grass, and an empty lot covered in palm leaves at night. Warm, humid air drifted in through the gate. This was the air of the subtropics, pregnant with the presence of living creatures. The throaty cheering of Marines erupted from behind us. It was Okinawa in the surface world.
“You can go home through here. Please, hurry.”
Turning around and gesturing to their men, the lieutenant and major gave their subordinates the order. All right, boys! Let’s go home!
Hurrah! The men shouted in unison.
The tired, dirty faces of the Marines broke into full-faced grins for the first time since we met them. They gave the thumbs-up to me and Toriko who were standing next to the gate, then seeking high fives and fist bumps as they passed by, they vanished into the surface world one after another. I think I heard a lifetime supply of thank yous.
Oh, and The Girls, too. Thank you, The Girls. It’s all thanks to you, The Girls. You get out of here quick, too, The Girls...
I had been ignoring it up until now, but what was with the definite article in that nickname? Were we a really plain girls’ band, or something?
Just as my cheeks started to hurt, exhausted from responding with a smile I wasn’t used to, the last soldier went out the gate. That only left the lieutenant and the major.
“This is all thanks to you. We’re truly grateful—”
When the major started thanking me again, I held up a hand to stop him.
“Nah, enough of that. Just get going already. There’s no telling how long we can keep it open, after all. We’ll talk later.”
“Really? Then see you on the other side,” the major said.
“Well, we’ll be going on ahead.” The lieutenant smiled at us, then vanished into the surface world.
As the major was about to go through the gate last, I stopped him and asked a question I had tried to avoid until now. “Can I ask just one thing...? On the way from the camp to here, how many casualties were there?”
The major turned back and looked down at me, solemnly opening his mouth. “...Zero. Your rescue operation was a perfect success. It’s awe-inspiring.”
I was struck with such relief I felt like all the strength had been drained out of my body. The major smiled, took a step forward, and reached out a hand to us through the gate.
“You’re the only ones left. Come on—”
“Uh, sorry. This is as far as we go,” I said.
“Come again?”
“That’s enough, Toriko.” When Toriko released the space she had been holding, the gate closed, and the major’s bewildered face vanished.
Silence returned to the forest. The silhouettes of abandoned military vehicles in the vacant lot rose up like massive boulders in the darkness.
I had discussed our plan to split off from the American forces in the chaos of the escape with Toriko in advance. No matter how friendly they were, and how indebted they might feel, any further involvement would bring more trouble than anything.
“He said no one died. Are we awesome, or what?”
“Yeah. I’m glad...” Toriko whispered in relief. “Because those people have families waiting for them to come home, too, you know? I really am glad.”
“True that. Good work, Toriko.”
“You, too, Sorawo... Whoa, are you okay?”
My legs got shaky, and then I collapsed right there. Toriko rushed to support me.
“Whew... That was exhausting,” I said, meaning it from the bottom of my heart. “It was a whole lot of trouble, but somehow we got everyone... home...”
I stumbled over the words I had tried to continue with half a smile, and my vision blurred in a way I hadn’t expected.
Oh! That’s not good, I thought, but it was already too late. The tears overflowed, running down my tense face.
“Whoa, hold on, hold on, I’m sorry.”
Seeing me go into a panic, Toriko gave me a hug. I hugged her back. Or, more like I clung to her. Toriko was as sweaty as I was, but she smelled so amazingly good.
“You were really giving it your all, huh, Sorawo,” Toriko said gently, stroking my head.
Stop it... If you do that, you’re only going to make me cry more. “I mean, you said you wanted to save all those guys, so I...” I said through my sobs.
Toriko’s arms tightened around me. “You listened to my selfish request.”
“I mean, it was no big deal. I just wanted a new gun.”
Toriko laughed a little. “Even though you didn’t shoot your new gun so much as once?”
I shook my head with my face still pressed into her chest, continuing to make excuses for myself.
“The truth is, I honestly didn’t care. I had forgotten about those guys until you brought them up again. I mean, I’m a heartless girl who never thinks of anyone but herself, right?”
As I slowly forced those words out through my sobs, Toriko shook her head.
“That’s not true at all. You’re a real good girl, Sorawo. You’re kind.”
“As kind as Kozakura-san?”
When I asked that in a quiet voice, Toriko went silent for a moment. “...That line bothered you?” she asked.
“...!” My face suddenly got hot. I very quickly started to feel embarrassed about hugging her, and I tore myself loose.
“I’m sorry, I lost my composure there, and—” When I tried to apologize, Toriko reached out, and started rubbing my face.
“Sto... Stop that! What are you doing?!”
I batted her hands away, then glared at Toriko. She grinned happily. “I like seeing you try your hardest. You know that, Sorawo?”
“...Why?”
“Because even when it comes to things I couldn’t ever hope to do alone, I feel like I can do them if I’m with you.”
When she said that so easily, I was at a loss for words. The tears that had almost subsided felt like they were going to start pouring again.
That’s my line, Toriko.
I tried to say it, but suddenly, something tugged at the back of my mind.
Huh? I feel like I heard the same thing not that long ago...
Narrowing my eyebrows, I asked, “...Is that why you always order more than you can eat, too? Because even if you can’t finish it yourself, I’ll do my best to help?”
“Oh...! Uh, that could be it,” Toriko said, her eyes wandering.
Oh, you...
It all started to feel stupid, and I let out a sigh.
“Let’s just... go home already.”
“Yeah. Let’s go. Where are we going back from?”
“We didn’t really think through the return trip, huh. Worst-case scenario, we can use this gate here, but we’d run right into the U.S. forces, so...”
“That’d be super awkward, yeah.”
“Well, let’s look around a bit.”
We passed by Kankandara’s remains, and walked deeper into the forest.
“Hey, what do you want to eat at the after-party?” Toriko asked.
“Didn’t we have one of those just yesterday?”
“That was for last time. Besides, it wasn’t an after-party, it was a meeting for review and reflection, remember?”
“Fine, whatever... but I don’t have much money left. When we get back, I need Kozakura-san to buy that hat off me.”
We walked along, searching through the dark woods for a gate, engaging in idle banter as we went.
Jumping straight to the conclusion, we got home safe.
Before we could be attacked by the monsters of the other world’s night, we found another gate in the forest not far away, and secretly returned to the surface world without encountering Palehorse Battalion again.
Still, at this point, I never would have anticipated I would be enjoying the sunny beaches of an Okinawan resort together with Toriko.