9

I woke up inside an airplane. I could hear the roar of the wind as it flew. The lights in the cabin were off. There were many passengers sitting in the seats, sleeping quietly.

The air pressure was doing funny things to my ears. I swallowed.

Beyond the rows of seats in the darkness, one seat had a reading lamp on. I recognized the person sitting there from behind.

It had been so long... So very long. Just the sight of her made it feel like tears might well up.

The moment I opened my mouth to call out to her, a bird took off from inside my mouth.

The familiar figure stood, and began walking to the front of the cabin. Having become a bird, I soared above the other passengers as I gave chase.

She pulled back the curtain and vanished into First Class. I tried to follow, but as a bird, I couldn’t possibly pull back the curtain. The pretty, blue curtain was getting shredded by my beak.

That’s when a hand reached out from behind to open the curtain for me. Beyond it was a dressing room. There was a large mirror on the wall right in front of me, and no reflection of me in it.

Instantly, I looked down. What had been wings turned into hands with palms. At last, I realized I had been dreaming.

“Are you lucid, Hokage-san?” Ran had appeared in the window in front of me at some point.

“Lucid?”

“I’m asking if you’re able to control the dream.”

“Well, probably. I only just figured out it’s a dream.”

Maybe sensing the lack of confidence in my response, Ran furrowed her brow.

“‘Probably’ isn’t good enough. There’s a strong inertia in dreams. If you’re not doing anything, you’ll lose lucidity in no time, and it will be no different from dreaming normally. Ask yourself this, Hokage-san: ‘Who are you?’”

“If you ask me who I am... A Sleepwalker, I guess?”

“And what does one of those do?”

“Hunt Suiju with everyone...”

“Can you tell me who ‘everyone’ is?”

The questions just keep on coming, I thought, but I answered anyway.

“Aizome-senpai, Tokishima-san, Sakaimori-san, and Hitsuji.”

Ran nodded in satisfaction. “Looks like you’re good. Proper nouns are surprisingly hard to stay lucid for. You might accidentally use a completely different name, and not even notice anything was wrong. Remember the sense of lucidity you have now. If something seems weird, try to return to it.”

I still didn’t feel confident, to be perfectly honest, but I nodded. Ran turned around, walking off inside the mirror.

“We’re going to meet up with the others. Come along.”

Following Ran, I stepped over the edge of the mirror. When I passed through the frame and kept going, a maze of dressing rooms with mirrors in all four directions appeared. We were the only things not reflected in the mirrors.

Then, inside the endless rows of changing rooms, something big went by.

“Senpai, just now, was that...?”

“That was a Suiju all right. Let’s go after it.”

“Huh? We’re going after it? Shouldn’t we meet up with the others before—

“It would be a pain if we lost it. It’s all right—we can handle it, even with just the two of us.”

Chasing after the shadow that swam from mirror to mirror, we pushed onward. In the dressing rooms we passed through, there were discarded clothes and hangers left behind, giving the impression someone had been there until moments ago.

Eventually, the dressing rooms cut off and we came out into a wide open space. It was a hall lined with Greek-style columns, and there was no ceiling. The Suiju we had been chasing was floating in the bright night sky. Paddling through the heavens with its many oars, the Suiju, which resembled a galley, had parts that would have been the bow of the ship that were glass bottles of varying sizes that grew out of it irregularly. When light from some unknown source struck the bottles, they cast a pale blue light.

“Prepare a weapon, Hokage-san.” Ran pulled a large bow from her shoulder; it was a powerful looking bow, with wheels on each end of it and several thick bowstrings.

“A weapon...?”

“You did it before, didn’t you? Convince yourself you have the strongest weapon you can think of.”

“Last time, all I was able to pull out was this weird sea urchin thing.”

“You’ll just have to cultivate your imagination.”

Looking at Ran again, I was sure she’d been in her school uniform a moment up until a moment ago, but at some point she’d changed into the sort of gaudy armor you might see in a fantasy RPG.

“I see you’re used to this, Senpai.”

“I’ve always been a gamer, so I’m good at this sort of thing. Hokage-san, it’s easier if you imagine a weapon from something you’re familiar with.”

Ran pulled a long arrow from the quiver at her waist. The brilliant, peacock-like green and blue of the fletching sparkled in the light cast by the Suiju. Nocking the arrow and pulling it back as far as she could, she fired. The arrow sailed through the air, leaving the cracking sound of the bowstrings behind, and it shattered several of the Suiju’s glass bottles. The sound echoed like a roar, and the Suiju’s body tilted. There were slits on its body, parallel with the oars, and countless lenses popped out of them, turning to focus on us.

“Is it looking at us?”

“It is looking at us, yes.”

I thought I saw the lenses flash, and in the next moment, thin rays of light burned the ground at our feet. We hurriedly jumped back, but the rays of light followed. One of them grazed my arm.

“Hot!”

“Are you all right?”

“Absolutely! Put some of Surugafuki’s okusa on it, and it’ll be fine by morning,” I responded calmly. I knew how to handle this— I’d read today’s feature article in Gekkan Koko Megumi SP, after all. “Senpai, I’ll put some okusa on you, too, so stay still. I’ve always got some on me. Look.”

When I pulled out my personal tube of okusa, removed the cap, and squeezed some out onto my finger, Ran spoke up. “Oh, this is no good—Midori! If you would!”

“J-Just a second!” No sooner did I hear the voice from the dressing rooms behind us when a winded Midori came running out.

“Oh, Sakaimori-san. Let’s put okusa—” I started to say, but Midori reached out and flicked me in the forehead with her finger.

“There!”

“Ow?!” I cried out in pain. That was a serious flick.

“Look at your own hands,” Midori told me. “Please, become lucid. Can you tell me your name?”

“Ho-Hokage... Hokage... Uh, what was it...?”

Midori and Ran looked at one another.

“I’ll wake her,” Midori said, placing a hand over my mouth.

While watching Hitsuji on horseback and Kaede, who had turned into a lion from the waist down, come out of the dressing rooms, my consciousness went dark, and—

When she woke up in the bed, Midori was leaning over Saya to check on her. When Saya cried out in surprise, Midori covered her mouth with a hand.

“Shhhh! You’ll wake everyone else. Calm down, we’re back in Dayland now.”

When she saw Saya had calmed, Midori removed her hand.

“...Sorry, I was saying weird stuff, wasn’t I?”

“You don’t have to worry about it. It was just sleep-talk. Suiju attacks strip our lucidity away.”

There was still a lingering confusion. The sense that a similar but different language had overwritten Japanese in her head was gradually fading.

“Do you want to try resting a bit longer? You can join back in later if you want.”

“Nah, I’m good. I’ll go. Sorry.”

Saya and Midori went back to lying in their original positions on the bed. They were right next to Hitsuji, on opposite sides. Hitsuji was sleeping on her back, breathing softly, and giving off such dense waves of drowsiness that they almost seemed visible to the eye. The Blanket—Hitsuji’s power which could put any person to sleep, steadily wrapped around Saya and Midori.

“Could you not tell Hitsuji about what just happened?” Saya said as she felt her consciousness becoming more indistinct.

“Why not?”

“Uh, I mean... If she knew I got hit by a Suiju and started talking nonsense... It’d be embarrassing...”

“You worry about that sort of thing more than I would have expected, Hokage-san.”

“More than you expected? What do you—”

The Suiju’s body laid on its side in a hall with several collapsed columns. Its keel was cruelly broken, and countless oars were scattered across the cobblestones. The glass bottles of the bow were shattered, not one remaining intact.

“That was fast. They already took care of things here, huh.”

Looking up when Midori spoke, I realized that Hitsuji and the other two were standing atop the remains of the Suiju. It seemed they had noticed we were back, too. Hitsuji stretched and then waved to us.

“So, about what I was saying... Right before we went to sleep...”

“I won’t say a word. But be careful—if there’s something you’re dwelling on during a Sleepwalk, it can cause you to lose control of the dream. It’s a weakness the Suiju can attack, so you might want to say it yourself before she finds out.”

“Gotcha. I’ll bear that in mind.”

Following Midori, I walked over to where the other three were.

Saya spent her days frequenting Sakaimori Bed & Bedding’s warehouse, going on Sleepwalk after Sleepwalk. Most of their meetings were on Wednesdays and Fridays after school, or on Sundays, the times it was easiest to make their schedules agree.

With the amount of time they operated growing longer, it had become difficult to get home before evening, so she explained to her family that she had started a club at school with some friends.

She agonized over what club it was, but eventually settled on something incredibly close to the reality: the Napping Club. It was a group of girls who were light sleepers, or prone to nightmares, so who had gathered so that they might pursue quality sleep together. This explanation of Saya’s, in light of her impressive past achievements in insomnia, was believed more easily than she’d expected. Thus, the stage was set for her to Sleepwalk even on weekdays.

However, Saya’s Sleepwalking didn’t improve that easily. The first difficulty was maintaining lucidity, and no matter what she did, she lost control right after entering Nightland.

Saya protested that this wasn’t anything like their initial suggestion that she was a Neversleeper, and unaffected by dreams, but her companions were just as confused.

“This isn’t how you said it’d be, Aizome-senpai!”

“It’s strange, huh... Maybe you simply have no natural talent?”

“Isn’t that a bit harsh after you dragged me into this?!”

While Saya and Ran were bickering, Hitsuji interjected. “It’s okay, Ran. I’ll look after her.”

“Huh?”

Hitsuji looked up at Saya from the sofa and continued. “If you get lost in Nightland, Saya, I’ll definitely come for you. So don’t worry.”

“S-Sure... Got it.”

Overwhelmed, Saya nodded. With the sense that that had resolved the issue, their travels through Nightland could continue.

When I came out of the ticket gate, I saw a path up the steep slope of mountain continuing upwards, off into the distance. Perhaps there were hot springs nearby, because a thick steam covered the area. There were only serious climbers with proper equipment around, and they passed me by as I stood still, climbing one after another.

I wondered why, unlike them, I had come in such normal clothes. The incline was too steep, and the stairs that I could see in places were practically walls.

The number of people coming out of the gate rose and the mountain path grew crowded. Pushed along by the crowd, I began climbing the mountain, as I had no other choice.

I advanced on all fours for a while. When I looked down by chance, the station I had left before was now way down below. My arms and legs froze up. This was scary. I couldn’t go another step.

Ignoring me as I clung to the wall, the climbers passed me one after another. While I remained unable to ascend or descend due to the fear, a ladder was erected beside me, and Hitsuji climbed up.

“Hey there, Hitsuji.”

“Saya, you’re always afraid, aren’t you?”

“Heheh, that’s not true at all.”

“There’s no need to put up a strong front, my beloved. I do love that part of you, though.”

“I’m no match for you, am I, Hitsuji?”

“Look over there. There’s a Suiju nest on the mountain. If you just keep climbing like a straightforward idiot, you’ll be playing right into its hands. Let’s go together from here. I’ll put up a ladder for you.”

Looking where she pointed, I saw a structure that looked like a bird’s nest with iron scaffolding wrapped around it. There was a Suiju that looked like a mix between a train and a three-headed bald eagle inside it, and it was gobbling up the climbers one after another as they arrived.

“That’s it, huh? Okay!” Having gotten worked up by having Hitsuji next to me, I floated into the air with ease.

“Saya, just a moment?”

“Don’t worry, leave this to me. I’ll smash it all up.”

I tried to imagine the strongest weapon I could. A gun... A cannon... A bomb... Oh, yeah, a nuclear bomb! If I dropped a nuclear missile on the summit, the Suiju was bound to be obliterated instantly. Why did no one else ever think of this?

I envisioned it. The nuke going off, and the Suiju’s nest being vaporized.

Just as I had imagined, there was a bright flash above us. A ball of toxic red and yellow flames was born, expanded, swallowed up the summit, and trimmed years off our lives with the Crispy Clark-kun effect.

The banks failed one after another.

Fish vanished from the marketplace.

While watching the explosion grow larger and larger on TV in a child’s room, we were stricken with uncertainty.

“What’s going to happen from now on?” While I cried uncontrollably, Hitsuji scrutinized me for a moment, then reached out and bopped me on the back of the head.

“Ouch.”

“Okaaaay, come back to lucidity now, please.”

“Huh?”

Having whacked me back into lucidity, Hitsuji elaborated. “Just being powerful isn’t everything, Saya. Try to create something beyond your ability to imagine and you’ll lose control in no time. That’s why each of us fights in a way that’s easy for us to understand, right?”

Now that she mentioned it, Ran used an RPG-style sword and bow, while Hitsuji fought with her gauntleted fists. Kaede was good at transformation, so she used animal fangs and claws.

“What about Midori?”

“That girl isn’t good at imagining fighting at all. That’s why she supports us as a Bedmaker.”

“I don’t think I’m all that good at it, either, you know. I had a big gun during the tiger hunt, but that felt like I was just using something that had already shown up in the dream.”

“You brought out that sea urchin bomb thing, didn’t you? You have some aggression in you, Saya. Now it’s just a matter of giving it a form that’s easy to use. It’d be easiest to build a template, then adapt it when you want to use it, I guess.”

“Right...”

While I was mumbling, the walls of the child’s room got blasted away, and the Suiju stuck its three heads in.

“Wahh!”

Hitsuji reacted by punching the thing. One of the heads flew away, and two more grew in its place. Now with four heads trying to force their way inside, we were pushed back against the wall.

“Come on, Saya! Can’t you think of anything familiar to you that you could probably use in a fight?”

“O-Okay, then...”

Something easy to imagine... Something I was familiar with... From my daily life, that I could use in a fight... Driven into a corner, my imagination finally forced itself to come up with a weapon. In the next instant, I had a can of bug spray in one hand and a BBQ lighter in the other. When I lit up the lighter and sprayed the bug spray, the line of flames grew longer and longer, enveloping the Suiju’s whole body. The Suiju swung its heads around like crazy as it rolled out of the child’s room. I leaned out through the broken wall to watch the Suiju that had become a fireball roll down the mountain and out of sight.

I was overjoyed to have finally come up with a weapon, and filled with a sense of accomplishment at having taken down the Suiju, so I turned my best smile towards Hitsuji.

“Heehee. Well?”

Hitsuji summed up her impression in one phrase:

“So plain!”

Depending on how the members felt, they would change up the bedding in the bedroom from time to time. The beds in the warehouse each had palettes under them, and Midori would operate the forklift herself to swap them out.

“We can sell the beds we’ve used for a high price,” Ran said as the exchange was completed and they were watching the previous beds be carried off by the forklift.

“Huh...?”

“There’s a marketplace where beds that have been used by Sleepwalkers are sold at a high price.”

“That’s creepy, you know?!”

“Many of the people who were attacked by the Suiju suffer from sleep disorders. They have trouble getting to sleep, or are tormented by nightmares... If the beds and bedding that we Sleepwalkers have used can be even the slightest use to them, don’t you think it’s worth it?”

“...”

“Don’t worry, we’ll make sure they’re properly cleaned before they’re sold.”

“Well... If that’s the case...” Saya said hesitantly. Hitsuji leaned in to peer at her face.

“You’re sure you’re okay with that, Saya?”

“I don’t even know anymore.”

After utterly failing in the attempt to stuff and preserve my pet dog, only the ambiguous form of the dead body of the animal remained. The eyes of the marbles filling its head, which had collapsed like a manju looked at me accusingly, so I turned to the stuffed animal and tried to explain myself.

I’ll get it right next time, I said, faltering, but the stuffed animal tore into me with a harsh tone, saying, There won’t be a next time. This happened because you didn’t take it seriously.

Ahh! What are you going to do about this?! I’m finished because of you! How are you going to take responsibility?!

“Sorry. I thought I could do it. Sorry.”

If you want my forgiveness, trade bodies with me. You be the stuffed animal. You be the failed stuffed animal!

The stuffed animal actually chased me down and cornered me against the wall. I don’t want to be a failed stuffed animal! Even as I thought that, I knew I was the one in the wrong, so I couldn’t argue back. When I tried to accept it, crying, the stuffed animal was torn in two vertically, and fur and stuffing scattered everywhere. Hitsuji clapped her gold gauntleted hands, leaning over to peer at my face.

“You okay, Saya?”

“Hitsuji... Fancy meeting you here.”

“Why is it you’re so strangely bold whenever we meet in Nightland?”

“Because seeing your face makes even the worst troubles go away.”

“You’re putting on airs, too. Okay, lucidity, lucidity.”

When Hitsuji slapped my cheeks, I became lucid.

“Sorry to always trouble you.”

“Yay.”

Leaving the classroom with the stuffed animal, we began walking down the cold beach by the sea. Beneath cloudy skies, faded grass blew in the chill wind from the sea, as did Hitsuji’s airy hair as she walked in front of me.

“Hey, Hitsuji?”

“Whaaaat?”

“Why did you show up in front of me?”

“I could ask you the same, Saya. You know, I never thought I could like someone this much.”

“Same here. Even though we both know it’s only in our dreams.”

“Ahaha... Yeah, you’re right.” Hitsuji laughed in a low voice.

“Why is it we like each other?” Saya asked. “From the moment we first met in the dream, we were suddenly lovers.”

“It’s because we slept together, don’t you think?”

“You’re making that sound worse than it is.” I laughed despite myself, but Hitsuji went on.

“I mean, lying down in the same bed, our eyes closed, feeling one another’s warmth, our breathing slowly synchronizing... It’s like we’d become one being, don’t you think?”

“Sure, but isn’t it the same with the others? We’re all sleeping together.”

“True. We’re all comrades sharing the same sleep. That’s why we’re all super close.”

I nodded. It might have been hard for anyone who hadn’t Sleepwalked to understand our closeness.

From what I had heard, Ran and Midori were both from families that had inherited the secrets of the Sleepwalkers. Midori and Kaede were otaku friends who had met online. Hitsuji’s abilities as a Blanket were readily apparent, so she was scouted by Ran shortly after starting high school, and they had hung out together since.

The reasons they’d met were all different, but once they all Sleepwalked together, there was no way they could part.

I could digest all of it quite easily now. Like them, I had been turned into a Sleepwalking “addict” and dragged into this, but I don’t think it was just a hunger for sleep. The closeness between people, the warmth, the desire to touch another... Once a person was able to touch those things with a high degree of purity, they would lose the ability to let them go.

“Still, you and I are special, aren’t we?”

When I spoke, Hitsuji stopped, turned around, and leaned her head against my chest.

“You’re right. I wonder why. I love you, Saya.”

“Me, too. I wish it could be the same in Dayland.”

As I embraced her fluffy head, Hitsuji went silent for a moment, then answered in a quiet voice.

“Yeah. That really would be nice.”

I understood that these warm feelings I felt in sleep would dissipate in Dayland. As soon as we woke, Hitsuji would look away from me, and our bodies that had nestled close would awkwardly part. Even so, in this brief moment, she was unbearably dear to me.

Over the course of many Sleepwalks, Saya gradually got used to it. It was still common for her to need help from her comrades to become lucid, and the weapons she created were still plain, but she got used to fighting in Nightland. Before she realized it, she was so absorbed in the fight against the Suiju that it felt like she had been doing this forever.

However, she still couldn’t get used to her relationship with Hitsuji. In Nightland, they were close lovers. In Dayland, strangers. No, strangers was a bit much; they were friends, or perhaps comrades was the better word. Still, the emotional gap between when they were asleep and awake was confusingly vast.