Prologue: Breakthrough

Deep in the forest primeval walked a company of men.

It was just past noon, yet the place was dim. Not dark, exactly, but like a thin film had been laid over everything. The bright sunshine that might otherwise have washed over everything was blocked out by the layers of gnarled tree branches. Only a dappled haze found its way past the leaves.

It was trees, trees, trees, as far as the eye could see in every direction. The stripes of light in all their different sizes acted like an optical illusion, distorting the sense of distance. If you turned around, you would be hard-pressed to tell which direction you had come from just seconds before. The steel spikes pounded here and there and the rope running between them were the only signs of human hands in this forest, and the men clung to them like a lifeline.

Aokigahara Forest. A dense wood located at the foot of Mount Fuji, popularly known as the “Sea of Trees.” From time immemorial it had been a favorite place for suicides, and it was sometimes said to be haunted: once you went in, people claimed, you never came out. In reality, though, it was a tourist spot, with a walking path and everything. There were parks and campsites nearby, and plenty of people came for a simple stroll in the woods.

Because of the amount of iron ore in the area, people claimed that magnetic compasses didn’t work, or that electronic devices would go haywire. But the truth was that compasses would just be slightly off, not unusable, while modern electronics were too advanced to be affected by the relatively weak magnetism in Aokigahara. These details had been used for dramatic effect in books and movies so often that the notion of a “haunted forest” had taken on a life of its own.

“Jeez,” Fujita Keisuke muttered in exasperation, “today’s tourists aren’t afraid of anything.”

There was something white at his feet. A used contraceptive device—a rubber condom.

“Who comes all the way out here just to do... that?” Someone, obviously. They were well off the walking path, but here was the evidence.

“Some kids, probably,” one of the guys walking beside him said easily.

Work was work, but this was one depressing job. Keisuke tossed the condom into the trash bag he was holding and heaved a sigh.

Keisuke and the others had removed their familiar navy-blue uniforms, instead donning vests and gray work suits. Each wore a hat on his head. They had thick gloves, of course, and climbing boots. Each also carried a lamp, a sturdy nylon rope, a canteen, and other supplies on the belt at their waists. They had a pouch made of synthetic fiber in which resided a compass, a map, and a portable radio.

The words “Yamanashi Prefectural Police,” the organization to which Keisuke belonged, were embroidered on his vest. Only Keisuke and the guy beside him were wearing vests; everyone else was wearing a neon armband instead.

They were a patrol unit. The Sea of Trees being famous as a place to commit suicide, people came from all over Japan in order to kill themselves there. After all, while Aokigahara might be a perfectly civilized tourist location, it was also a vast forest of ancient pedigree. If you left the path with no equipment, no knowledge, and no experience, there was a good chance you really wouldn’t come back.

Hence patrol units were formed, comprising both members of the local Yamanashi police force and volunteers from all over the country. They conducted regular sweeps of the woods hoping to find and prevent potential suicides, or at least discover the remains of those who had gone through with the act.

The job as such had existed for a long time now. But recently, the work of the patrols had come to include picking up garbage.

Inevitably, when people are told something is dangerous, it will make some of them even more eager to see it. Some people deliberately left the main path as a perverse test of courage, so the patrols would find empty cans or cigarette butts strewn here and there in the woods. As if that weren’t enough, there were even some people who came to dump industrial waste away from prying eyes. Aokigahara Forest got filthier every year.

“This place would stay cleaner if it really were haunted,” Keisuke groused.

His colleague nodded. “No kidding.”

That was when they heard the scream. Keisuke and the others spun around.

“What was that?!”

Civilians participated in these patrols on the understanding that they were responsible for themselves, and in general most of them were used to mountaineering or foresting. But still, if anything happened to one of them, people would no doubt hold the police accountable. Keisuke and the others hurried in the direction of the sound.

“It’s Kawamura-san! He—”

“He fell! He fell!”

The other volunteers were clustered around where the person who had screamed—a man named Kawamura, apparently—had fallen. Some of the people were pointing their portable lanterns at the ground, while somebody else was quickly lowering a rope.

“Took a slip, did he?” Keisuke pushed through the crowd of civilians to get a look at the scene.

“What the hell...?” one of the other police officers muttered in his ear.

A fissure yawned in front of their eyes. Twenty meters long, it was almost three meters across at its widest point. The conical shape and the leaf mold along the edge gave it the impression less of a trench than of a hole.

How deep was it? They couldn’t tell. The crack didn’t go straight down, but appeared to slope, so the light from their lanterns didn’t reach the bottom. It was impossible to say just by looking how deep it might be. Neither, of course, could they confirm the safety of whoever this Kawamura was who had fallen in.

Most likely, this cave had already been present in the bedrock. Something had caused the ceiling to collapse, taking the former surface—leaf mold and all—with it. In effect, a booby-trap, though one planted by Mother Nature and without malice aforethought.

“Heeeey!” Keisuke called. “Are you okay?”

There was no answer. Was it so deep that Kawamura couldn’t hear him? Or...

Despair quickly settled over the volunteers. “At that depth, he must have...”

But Keisuke shook his head, lowering a rope. “It’s too soon to give up hope. I’m going to have a look.”

He fastened the lifeline to himself, tying the other end to a sturdy-looking tree root. He had been in the mountaineering club in college and was still something of an outdoorsman, so this was all familiar to him. Once he was confident the rope was securely attached to the root, he nodded to his colleagues and began to move gradually over the cliff and into the crevice.

“Hmm.”

The gradient of the wall was gentler than he had thought. Supported by the rope, Keisuke walked backward, heading downward at a tilt. The easy angle meant there was a good chance Kawamura was still alive.

Keisuke worked his way down, periodically calling, “Heeey! Are you all right?” But there was still no reply.

At length, he estimated he had descended nearly twenty meters. This hole was deeper than he had expected. He was just starting to think maybe he should report back when a strange feeling overtook him.

It was as if he were floating underwater. His feet slipped. This was because the rock face, which his boots had bitten into with such assurance just a moment before, was suddenly floating. He didn’t know why. The rope was slack. Suddenly, Keisuke felt as if he had no body weight—no, that wasn’t it. It was as if the world had been turned upside down...

“Whoa!” he shouted, confused. His hands clawed at empty air. His body spun. He was falling... up?

“Ahhhh!”

He had completely lost any sense of direction. But then he felt himself being spit out of something. Something soft caught him. He rolled two or three times, then registered that the ground was completely covered in grass.

He lay there, blinking. A wide, grassy field spread out around him. It was green off into the horizon—and for all he knew, it was green to the horizon after that, too. The whole place was awash in brilliant sunlight, and a gentle breeze was eddying past. It practically begged him to settle in and relax.

“...Wait,” Keisuke said dumbly. Hadn’t he been headed for the bottom of a hole just a moment ago?

He sat up frantically to find a middle-aged man sitting right nearby in the grass, just like he was. Judging by his outfit, it was the Kawamura who had fallen earlier. He was looking at the scenery with the same dumbfounded expression as Keisuke.

This wasn’t possible. A place so vast and open couldn’t exist underneath the Sea of Trees.

“It’s inconceivable,” Keisuke said under his breath. Where in the world were they?

Unconsciously, he began looking around for the familiar peak—the top of Mount Fuji. But no matter how he searched, that most famous of Japanese mountains was nowhere to be found. Flummoxed, he turned around.

And then he froze, speechless.

For a second, he didn’t understand what it was. Or rather, he knew, but some kind of deeply ingrained common sense refused to let him believe it was real. Because it couldn’t be. The only place it existed, he thought numbly, was in myths and legends and stories. And yet...

“A d—” he groaned. Beside him, Kawamura noticed his strange expression and turned as well—and then he froze, too.

“A d—”

The thing that had pinned the two men in place was a gigantic blue creature. Even with its wings folded and its limbs beneath it, it was as big as a house. It was breathing gently, producing a fetid wind that rustled the grass. Did we mention it was massive?

“Dragon?!”

As if in affirmation, the impossible creature opened its mouth wide, its jaws full of fangs.