Volume 5, Jinnai Shinobu's Apocalypse — Side B — OP_code"Rail_song_jail". Part 14-22
This chapter is updated by wuxiaworld.eu
Part 14 (Jinnai Shinobu — Day 10/03 22:10 - 22:40)
The Zashiki Warashi, Hyakki Yakou’s leader girl, and I left the neon-filled casino city and made our way to the mountain in the center of the island. All of the light faded away and we were surrounded by pitch black shadows that covered the entire area. The pineapple-like tropical trees and the few maple and gingko trees adding some red or yellow all looked like a single pitch-black mass.
“Damn. …This is a hell of a place.”
I used the back of my hand to wipe away the sweat that had dripped from my forehead to my jaw.
My right temple itched.
We had followed an animal trail based on the scenery I knew from the Singer Song Liar story, but actually doing the walking wore me out quite a lot. I was wearing sports shoes, so it had to be even worse for someone in a kimono.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Being surrounded by nature like this is actually more comfortable for me.”
“I’m not worried about you and your infinite stamina. This girl is only about ten, you know?”
“I-I am the leader of Hyakki Yakou, so I can walk a mountain trail on my own. I am not asking you to carry me.”
“You’re so exhausted that you’re letting slip what you really want. C’mon, Miss Infinite Stamina.”
“What are you talking about? This is clearly a job for a guy.”
We ended up playing rock paper scissors and the Zashiki Warashi pinned me down even though I won. I was held in a bizarre Boston crab by a beautiful Youkai in a red yukata and I knew I couldn’t allow a folklorist to record the scene as a new Japanese legend.
“W-wait. Vahhh!? I give!! I give!!”
“Shinobu, you’re supposed to tearfully proclaim that having an unrivalled beauty’s butt sitting on you is the greatest reward.”
“Your strength is far, far too much for that!! I’m going to burst open like something from a sausage commercial!!”
“And what do you say about our game?”
“I lose!! I’ll carry her or anything you want!!”
Even after I was released, I lay trembling on the ground for a while.
With a few mystery leaves in my hair and on my clothes, I was forced to carry a girl who was more frightening than a mafia boss.
Girls are a lot lighter than I expected, I thought as my endorphins gave me that happy illusion, but when I thought of her as simple baggage, I found she was actually incredibly heavy.
At any rate, we continued through the forest.
After walking a bit, we came across a steep slope. The forest was becoming a mountain. The smells reaching my nose also changed from greenery to a chocking scent of black soil.
After climbing the slope for over ten minutes, the trees thinned out and the scenery opened up.
I hurriedly took a step back and checked on the situation from a thicket.
The exposed dirt of the slope contained a two meter hole that looked hand-dug and a few short cabins were located around it. They were probably rest areas for the miners and storage for the digging equipment. There was dim light on in one of the cabins and I could make out several figures moving to and from the tunnel.
My right temple itched again.
“I recognize one of them,” I whispered. “He was in the Singer Song Liar story.”
I had only read it as text, but it had been detailed enough to have a clear picture in my head.
“After the Zashiki Warashi was taken hostage, I ran across these people in the airport. These must be the locals and this must be where they normally work.”
If they were moving back and forth between the cabin and the tunnel, they had to be carrying the explosives and wiring into the tunnels.
The action was filled with malice, but they looked much livelier sweating and moving around than they did sneaking through the carefully maintained airport. They looked like fish in water.
“What are you going to do?”
For some reason, Hyakki Yakou’s leader did not ask to be lowered from my back, but she did whisper to me as if naturally breathing into my ear.
“There are two forces on this island. The locals prepared the Usuhiki Warashi – a Zashiki Warashi subspecies – Package on their own but are desperate to seal it away. The CIA wants to misuse that Package. …However, it wouldn’t be safe to just ignore the locals. If they completed a safety device and fully suppressed the out-of-control Usuhiki Warashi, they would probably get greedy again.”
“If everything is following the timeline, I’ll be buried alive before that.”
That meant I had to do something before they had finished their preparations.
But then the Good-for-Nothing Zashiki Warashi threw cold water on my hopes.
“But Shinobu, there are a lot of them and they have pickaxes, hammers, large drills and other excavation equipment, and even explosives. If an unarmed high school boy rushes in there giving a battle cry, I think he’ll only be turned to mincemeat, so how exactly are you going to safely make them surrender?”
Huh?
Come to think of it, what am I going to do?
“Can’t I just rely on a wonderful Youkai that can’t be harmed by physical attacks?”
“Please don’t joke. Why would I do something like that?”
She bluntly refused me!!
But what am I supposed to do? Even if she does get motivated, we’re still outnumbered. We’ll be right back to square one if they capture Hyakki Yakou’s leader and me while the Zashiki Warashi charges the enemy. And having the girl taken hostage would be especially bad. The scale of the problem could grow even more hopelessly large than in the Singer Song Liar story.
What should I do?
What should I do?
What should I do?
“No, wait…”
“?”
“Zashiki Warashi, you stay with the girl. If it comes to it, you two run.”
“Nn…”
“Why is this Hafuri girl moaning on my back!? If you’re going to fall asleep, do it on the Good-for-Nothing Youkai’s back!”
Hm. She might have divinely inspired skill at moving pieces on the board, but she may not be very good at running around on the scene herself.
“What are you going to do?”
I answered the Zashiki Warashi’s question honestly.
“What I can.”
Part 15 (3rd person — Day 10/03 23:00 - 23:05)
“She” ran through the dark forest.
She wore a maid uniform with a short skirt and shiny enamel shoes. She looked horribly out of place on a mountain, but she did not show any kind of handicap. Like a wild beast of the forest, she nimbly and smoothly made her way to her destination while becoming one with the night and suppressing any sound or other sign of her presence.
The fluttering of her short brown hair showed the flow of the night wind.
Her goal was clear: Jinnai Shinobu.
He was the key to it all. He had been randomly chosen from the great number of people visiting Goldmine Island. Instead of using a chosen VIP and isolating them, they had placed the core on a normal, unrelated individual and then released them. They had decided that letting it dissolve into the sea of information would reduce the risk of interference, but she now had to contact Jinnai Shinobu again.
This was like extracting information on a specific individual from a massive pool of big data.
If she got her hands on Jinnai Shinobu, she could reverse the damage done. The situation had left the predetermined rails, but she would be able to forcibly bring it all back on track.
And she could take full credit for the victory.
That was why she made her way to Jinnai Shinobu.
She had to continue the preparations for buying Japan so that they could reach for the blue light which was their goal.
Part 16 (Jinnai Shinobu — Day 10/03 22:45 - 22:55)
The enemies were the locals who opposed the casino policy.
From what I could see, there were at least more than ten of them. Once those working inside the tunnel or cabins came out, there was no telling how many there would be.
I expected their weapons to be shovels, pickaxes, hammers, excavation tools like large drills and continuous vibration drill rods, and even explosives for blasting. Needless to say, any tool meant to break through solid bedrock would turn a flesh-and-blood high schooler into mincemeat.
Meanwhile, I only had myself, a single high schooler, to work with.
The only weapon I could hope to get was a rock or stick found on the ground. Even if they didn’t have any of their weapons, it was still entirely possible I’d be beaten to a pulp.
So what was I to do?
My right temple itched. If I was caught here and they were able to tell me what to do, it would all lead to the conclusion seen in the Singer Song Liar story. Yet if I stayed silent and fled, they would begin their attack plan by morning and I would be buried alive sooner or later. If I wanted to alter the flow of events and change the future, I had stop them here.
So…
“Shinobu?”
The Zashiki Warashi sounded doubtful, but I ignored her and began to move.
I slowly raised my hands and walked boldly out in front of them.
Naturally, the atmosphere changed entirely. I first sensed surprise and soon thick tension filled the darkness of the night. Several bright flashlights turned toward my face and I felt pain stabbing deep into my head.
“Who’s that!? …!!”
The figure who asked who I was gasped as soon as he saw my face.
Even if we had met in the Singer Song Liar story, we didn’t actually know each other. Still, he seemed to know me, most likely as the target they planned to attack.
“I want to speak with you! I’m sure this would be of interest to you!!”
Several sets of footsteps ran up and I was quickly partially surrounded by a semicircle. The situation was underway, so there was no backing out now. The thick steel machinery they held was enough to tell me that.
“You’re after the USB memory stick for the Usuhiki Warashi you hid on my suitcase, right? And you need it to restrain your out-of-control Package! Then there’s no need to take a hostage. We should work together!!”
“Where did you learn that?” asked a young man’s voice as a strong grip reached my shoulders. “Where did you learn that!? ‘That’ should still be a secret!!”
“What should still be a secret? That you’re opposed to the casino policy? That you want to blow away the stock transactions of the rich people gathering fortunes here? That you’ll do that by connecting an Usuhiki Warashi to the financial network, causing connection issues in the semiconductors, and accurately destroying only the clusters containing that transaction data!?”
The man seemed taken aback when I yelled from some close.
“You’re the only ones who think any of that’s a secret. Several groups are already on the move. The CIA is trying to steal the Usuhiki Warashi for their own purposes and Hyakki Yakou is trying to obliterate it all to resolve the problem. All of you will be slaughtered by midday tomorrow at the latest. I don’t know what exactly will happen, but I do know the future you’re imagining isn’t going to happen! Not as things are, anyway!!”
Realistically, this conversation may have been meaningless.
Other options had been available to me.
I could have checked on the location and hurried down the mountain. Then I could have found a way to meet up with the Hyakki Yakou leader’s bodyguards or contacted Hishigami Mai. If I did that, those expert killers would have quickly annihilated them for me. At the very least, the odds of success would have been far greater than for an amateur high school boy.
But…
But…!!
“There’s still time.”
Did we really have to fight?
My right temple seemed to writhe eerily. It was true we had been enemies in that Singer Song Liar story. There was no way we could have gotten along there. I knew that.
But that was only because their attack plan had succeeded. In that world, they had buried me alive in that dark cave, they had taken the Zashiki Warashi hostage, and everything had been far too late.
But what about now?
What about before all that?
“You planned revenge. You decided to take everything from the rich people who forced these difficulties on you, so you acquired the Usuhiki Warashi Package! But…but!! That’s all you did. You still haven’t actually taken anything from anyone!!”
Nothing was settled “yet”.
No one had committed a crime “yet”.
Therefore, there was no need for us to fight to the death as if manipulated by a nightmare.
Therefore, we could take a different path.
Therefore, we could work together.
“You can still turn back.”
I swore I would change the future.
That future was not set in stone just yet. It wasn’t certain. Could I really abandon them just because they had died in that “original” version of the future? Straying from one’s path required an appropriately strong will. After acquiring that Package as their ultimate weapon, they had noticed its problems and decided to halt their plan and prioritize safety. Some might accuse them of being cowards, but there was a reason they had been able to stop for fear of sacrificing unrelated people and there was a reason they had been able to force themselves to a stop without moving onward. That reason was human strength. And there was no way I could abandon someone with that powerful will as if they were sacrificial pawns or mere symbols.
If I did that, I would be the one stuck looking at the sickening ending with dark despair in my eyes!
“You can still turn this around! And I’ll give you as much help as you need!! I don’t want to be buried alive and a reality worse than death lies waiting beyond that. And since you’re so afraid of the Usuhiki Warashi Package going out of control, you probably know better than me what that entails!”
“…”
“What will you do?” I asked them with my hands in the air. “This is the final crossroads. Will you continue along the planned path and meet annihilation or will you actually take a step out of this dead end situation? The decision is yours, so which will it be!?”
My words were a mixture of reality and a formless conspiracy, so it probably wasn’t really getting through to them.
However, they had to know they were standing at a dead end here.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t think about rigging their workplace with explosives and burying someone alive.
Silence continued for a while.
“…Can we really stop?”
Finally, the young man holding my shoulders spoke quietly.
“Can we still end this without killing anyone?”
“Yes,” I answered. “The CIA and Hyakki Yakou are only your enemy because the Usuhiki Warashi Package is still active. If we destroy it beyond repair, the CIA won’t be able to take it for themselves and Hyakki Yakou will have no reason to kill you. That will settle everything.”
The young man swore.
It felt less like his gentle conscience was rising to the surface and more like his tension had lapsed and he had lost the resolve to kill.
But whatever the reason, they were hesitant to kill me.
They too had to be proper “humans”.
“Now,” I said. “Let’s change the future.”
Part 17 (Uchimaku Hayabusa — Day 10/03 22:45 - 23:05)
I handed admitted hardware cracker Kozakura Sobiki to the uniformed police officers I had called in.
“Ah... Hey, hey!! I’m going to be okay, right? You haven’t forgotten what you said about a summary indictment and a fine of ten thousand yen, have you!?”
The suspect girl seemed relatively energetic even as she was dragged away by a police officer on either side.
Mystery Bunny Enbi then whispered to me.
“(I don’t know what cracking gets you, but couldn’t her punishment get extended a good bit if additional charges get added?)”
“(That’s none of my concern. Still, she looks young enough to fall under juvenile law, so I doubt she’ll be imprisoned for long.)”
Left alone, the two of us looked down at the memo Kozakura Sobiki had given us.
Someone had hired her to rig the undersea cable with a special wiretap that included a bundle of old coins to affect a Youkai-related Package. The payment method had been too complex to be the locals…or so she had claimed, but she herself had apparently tried to use a method she hadn’t wanted to specify which allowed her to keep some evidence.
And that evidence was on the memo.
“It’s hard to tell what it is with just the string of a dozen or so alphanumeric characters.”
“So it went through the financial server on the Yakata-II cruise ship? …Is this true?”
If the ship’s casino had a financial transaction service, then it would indeed have a powerful satellite line connecting them to the card companies. And you would be able to use that to make a secret payment, but…
“This isn’t good. I clearly can’t investigate a luxury cruise ship filled with VIPs.”
“Well, that was probably their intention.”
“Even Chief Superintendent Mishima of the National Police Agency is a guest on that ship and there’s nothing I can do outside of my Tokyo jurisdiction.”
“Even though there are hints of an actual crime here? A Youkai-related wiretap can be used to interfere with a Package someone else has built into the network. I doubt anyone who went to the trouble of preparing that would never actually use it.”
“I’ll do what I can, but still.”
“Now, now. Enough formalities. I know you’ll step out into the party hall when it comes down to it. I’m looking forward to seeing how cool you are☆”
As we argued, my cellphone rang.
I didn’t recognize the number, but when I answered it, I heard Chief Superintendent Mishima’s voice.
“Hi, Uchimaku-kun. I hear you’re hard at work this late at night. I just got word of the suspect you arrested.”
“Ohhh, yes.”
“If you have a moment, can I ask something of you?” He did not hesitate to begin. “There was a bit of trouble on this ship. Based on the situation, it’s looking like pressure from a number of sources is going to erase all hints that anything happened, though.”
“…”
“Anyway, we’ve determined one individual who fled the Yakata-II: Hasukawa Yumi. And the real surprise? While she doesn’t actually have a diplomatic passport, it seems, under normal circumstances, she would be picked up by a car with a diplomatic license plate. If the uniformed police questioned her, the Public Security Intelligence Agency and the Foreign Affairs Division would rush in and start intimidating everyone. Do you know what kind of person I’m talking about?”
“A spy or intelligence agent? And from an allied nation?”
“Yes. Normally, information on this kind of ‘personnel’ doesn’t get around to us in the police even when they’re helping on the scene. The information gets suppressed along the way. But this time, we got it. There must have been some trouble on a scale that’s preventing the information suppression system from functioning.”
“And what do you want me to do?”
“The Public Security Intelligence Agency and the Foreign Affairs Division won’t do a thing because they don’t want to cause any trouble with America. If nothing is done, other hidden elements will probably deal with this hidden element and nothing we do is likely to change things much, but should a police officer really just ignore this? Either way, not many people can move freely here. That’s why I’m leaving the rest to you. And of course, you’re free to take it easy if you would prefer.”
“I will do the best I can.”
“That’s what I like to hear. Then I’ll send you Hasukawa Yumi’s location. …She must be protected by a pretty secure system under normal circumstances. Otherwise, she would have at least turned off her cellphone.”
He hung up and I saw Bunny Enbi’s face right in front of me, most likely to listen in.
“What will you do, Detective?”
“Shut up and move back. It seems an American spy has vanished from the cruise ship we were suspecting. It’s unclear if she has any connection to the wiretapped undersea cable or the deaths of the freelance writers, but it couldn’t hurt to pursue her.”
Normally, I would have dismissed Bunny Enbi at this point, but she would have followed me regardless and it would affect her safety if she ran across a criminal where I couldn’t see her. In the end, I could only bring her with me, just like she wanted.
“By the way, do you remember what Kozakura-chan said earlier?”
“She said a lot, so tell me what exactly you mean.”
“Why she thought she was being attacked. The reason other than opening the wiretap unit.”
“Oh, you mean what she saw on the ocean bottom?” I asked, a little annoyed. “Do you really think that’s true? If it is, it means this entire area rose pretty quickly thanks to an undersea volcano.”
Part 18 (Jinnai Shinobu — Day 10/03 23:10 - 23:18)
There was no way I could remember more than ten people’s faces and names in such a short time, but it seemed the young man who had grabbed my shoulders was named Emura Ryouichi. My right temple throbbed. I was pretty sure I had met him at the airport in the Singer Song Liar story.
After ensuring everything was safe, I met up with the Zashiki Warashi and the girl leader of Hyakki Yakou.
“I certainly didn’t expect it to end like that,” asked the girl.
“Oh? You didn’t? If you think about it carefully, the attack only happened in the Singer Song Liar story. Fearing that and making a preemptive strike seems like boarding those imaginary rails and letting them determine the future.”
Oh, honestly! Don’t act so calm now that we know the answer, you good-for-nothing! Do you have any idea how many years I worried off of my life getting to this peaceful resolution!?
At any rate, we had defeated the Singer Song Liar story for the first time, so we all began strategizing how to use that in the next step.
“The goldmine had always had a limit,” said Emura. “When talk of inviting in casinos first arrived, we rejoiced at the change to the island’s environment. But it was no use. None of the money that produced ever came back to us. The living infrastructure remained old and worn out and the only school is on the verge of shutting down. In the end, the locals dry up while the entertainment companies get all the money. It was set up like that from the beginning, but we didn’t catch on until afterwards.”
“And so you tried to destroy that cycle of profit?”
“Yes, even though getting rid of the casinos would only leave the dying island. It wouldn’t give us any new life. Still, we were going to collapse if we didn’t have some kind of goal.”
But something must have led them to stop.
Something great enough to make them fear the Usuhiki Warashi Package and try to seal it away.
“It was the deaths of the freelance writers,” said Emura. “They were caused by a malfunctioning automatic brake system, an exploding cellphone battery, and carbon monoxide leaking from a hot water heater. The people investigating Goldmine Island died strange deaths one after another. We initially thought it was a coincidence, but as we investigated the Usuhiki Warashi Package, we realized it could do all that. But I swear to you it wasn’t us. Someone had taken control. And once we realized that, we got scared.”
If they didn’t do anything, something even worse would happen and all of it would be blamed on them, so they had decided to abandon the Package they had acquired.
“What are you going to do now?”
“The heart of all this is the USB hardware key hidden on my suitcase which can stop the Usuhiki Warashi. By taking over the Package, the CIA will use Japan’s exported financial systems to spread fear around the globe and place all responsibility on Japan. That way they can drive down the price of an entire nation. We need to somehow safely retrieve that suitcase.”
The locals and the CIA had likely considered having a double retrieve the suitcase or making an attack on the airport itself. In the end, the risks had probably outweighed the benefits, so they had decided to let me retrieve it.
My right temple itched.
But if we followed the same series of events, a hellish conclusion awaited.
And just as I started wondering what to do, I heard an odd rustling sound.
I looked over toward it.
“Phew… I-I am exhausted.”
A tanuki that looked like a round stuffed animal left a thicket.
“What in the world are you doing?”
“I am here to repay our debt, of course. It was not easy following your scent all the way here.”
Come to think of it, they saved me at the airport during the Singer Song Liar story.
The Zashiki Warashi tilted her head.
“Can this tanuki transform into a human?”
“Why of course.”
After a burst of comical smoke, the round tanuki became a maid with a nice body. It pained me to admit it, but my eyes were drawn to the thighs below her miniskirt.
Hyakki Yakou’s leader clasped her small hands in front of her chest.
“Then can you transform into Jinnai Shinobu to fool the CIA?”
“She did that in the Singer Song Liar story. Even if we get the fox and badger’s help too, we won’t be able to change the flow of events.”
The kimono-wearing girl gave a start.
She reached into her sleeve and pulled out an extremely simple cellphone. She held it in one hand, poked at the buttons with her other index finger, and wrapped both hands around it to answer it.
“Yes, yes. …Yes?”
For some reason, she held the phone out to me.
“It’s for you, apparently.”
“Who is it?”
“Hishigami Mai.”
Pointless tension ran down my back.
It felt like death’s fingertips were stroking my spine.
I stared down at the phone for a while, but I finally held it to my ear since I had no choice but to answer.
“Hi, Jinnai Shinobu-chan. How does it feel for the grim reaper to know your name?”
“Oh, dear. This is no laughing matter.”
“By the way, the grim reaper in this case isn’t me. Where are you right now?”
“Where?”
For some reason, I hesitated to answer.
“The mountain. It’s a ten to fifteen minute walk from the casino city. There’s a hand-dug tunnel entrance and about three cabins nearby.”
“That’s enough. Don’t you die until I get there.”
I thought I was going to pass out.
When she said it, words like “die” or “kill” had an entirely different meaning than from the dimwitted delinquents that liked to use them so frequently. They held their pure, original, and thoroughly honed meanings.
“What? What are you saying is going to happen to me!?”
“I don’t have time to explain. It will probably take me ten minutes to arrive if I go all out, so working to survive that long is the bare minimum required of you. Don’t even think about defeating this CIA agent. Just think of ways to buy time. And be especially cautious of miniskirt maids with short brown hair.”
“…”
I froze in place when I heard that.
I felt like an invisible thread was wrapped tightly around my heart.
Miniskirt. Maid. Short hair. Brown hair. As I thought of those four criteria, I slowly and hesitantly turned my head as if photographing the stars.
The wet nurse tanuki was there.
She was smiling with the others in our group, but what was her current form?
I took a slow step backwards.
That’s…that’s right. How did she so conveniently find this spot just now? Did she really follow my scent? And if not, who was the skilled person who would have gone on a rampage in the airport in the original flow of events?
As I wondered that, my intense unease managed to distract me for just an instant.
And in that instant, I was suddenly hit on the side of the head so hard I thought it had to be a hammer or something.
“Gah…bah…!?”
I was knocked to the ground and someone had climbed on top of me. She had short brown hair and a maid uniform with a short skirt, but the face I could see in the darkness looked completely different from the wet nurse tanuki.
What is going on?
If Hishigami Mai hadn’t called, I wouldn’t have been distracted. No, if I hadn’t had the advance information from the Singer Song Liar story…
It’s like the rails we finally started to get switched over are being forced back to the Singer Song Liar story!
“Damn…it…!!”
“Once I have you, it will all be settled.”
The others quickly caught on, but before they could do anything, the miniskirt maid had pulled a small handgun from her thigh.
“If I overclock the Amanojaku, all of the appearing options will be flattened down. The protruding nails will all be hammered down and the future will be corrected back to the plan. If today ends and tomorrow begins, the rails will return to normal and we can reach the blue light.”
I heard a series of gunshots that seemed far too rapid for a handgun.
She was driving away the others with a storm of lead before they could approach and surround us.
“Kyah!!”
The wet nurse tanuki shielded the miners who had yet to move and she was blown backwards. While a Youkai was immune to physical attacks, she could not cover for them forever. And this miniskirt maid would not shy away from bloodshed.
She was overclocking the Amanojaku directly linked to the Singer Song Liar story.
That would flatten down the appearing options. It would hammer down the protruding nails.
It would correct the future back to the plan.
Even if I did not understand what each individual part meant, it was enough to get my right temple itching. She was going to crush whatever it was we had finally started to change and she would bring it all back to its original path. She wanted to bring about that conclusion that made me want to vomit when I so much as thought about it.
The maid sitting on top of me aimed her handgun at the Zashiki Warashi and Hyakki Yakou’s leader.
I won’t let you do that.
I won’t let you just do whatever you want any longer!!
“Goddamn youuuuuuuuuuu!!”
“?”
I gathered all my strength and moved my body with her still sitting on top of me. I didn’t so much push her off as I crawled like a caterpillar with her still on top of me.
But that was enough.
We were on a mountain slope near the tunnel entrance. Other than the artificially maintained parts, the ground was steeply sloped, so I only needed to get us started. From there, we would follow gravity and roll down on our own.
I felt something sliding and a prop being removed.
I heard dry gunshots, but the Hyakki Yakou girl was not bloodied.
The ballistic paths had been thrown far off course.
The maid and I fell quickly down the mountain slope.
Part 19 (Jinnai Shinobu — Day 10/03 23:18 - 23:28)
I rolled.
I rolled and rolled. I rolled into the forest and my back slammed into a thick tree trunk. The shock was enough that I thought I was going to cough up blood, but it was also enough to finally stop me.
The miniskirt maid had already separated from me, but not because I had thrown her off. She was only a few meters away. Too far for me to reach her, but close enough to kill me with her gun. She had avoided the collision by pressing her hands and feet against the slope like a wild animal.
Her eyes glowed eerily in the moonlight and they were accurately trained on me.
“What will you do now?”
She asked in human language.
Someone with a human form spoke in human language. That was a perfectly normal phenomenon, yet it seemed horribly wrong somehow. I simply could not place this enemy in the same category as myself. That was how powerful the invisible “something” surrounding her was.
“Will you oppose me, or won’t you? Will you persuade me, or won’t you? Will you collapse into tears, or won’t you? Any of them is fine and all of them are fine, but the outcome will not change. The outcome has been set from the beginning.”
“What are you trying to do?” I groaned while having trouble breathing.
Human speed could not hope to win against a bullet. I knew that, but I still tried to think. I needed to buy time and make sure I could move my body.
“You’re going to spread fear around the globe, force all responsibility on this country, and drive down the price of Japan. …It’s simple enough to say, but how many people do you think are going to have their lives turned upside down by that? It won’t just be the Japanese hanging themselves. A lot of people trust in the Japanese yen. If it collapses that badly, investors the world over will have no choice but to hang themselves. From the shadiest investment fund to some newlywed wife investing her spare change, you can’t know how far the damage will spread!!”
“That is simple.” That monster in a woman’s body accurately aimed the gun at me and answered in undeniably human words. “This is all for you and your country. We must snuff out the blue light.”
“What…are you…talking about?”
“You do not have to understand. It is because you are so immature that someone else must protect your country from the blue light.”
I did not understand a word of it.
Language was a tool meant to convey people’s thoughts and it had no meaning if it was an empty container. That philosophical thought felt disturbingly real to me here. It felt as threatening as being handed a blank sheet of paper and being told to decipher it. I couldn’t help but be overcome by confusion.
“How can I accept that?”
“You are free to accept it or not, but the outcome will not change.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“?”
“A certain woman told me to survive for ten minutes. She said that was the bare minimum required of me. She said not to think about defeating you and to think of ways to buy time.”
So…
“All I have to do is wait. I just have to drag out this conversation by any means necessary!!”
I don’t think she had time to turn around.
A moment later, the woman in question, Hishigami Mai, rushed in as a gust of black wind.
Part 20 (Hishigami Mai — Day 10/03 23:28 - 23:45)
The forest was quiet and the mountain was sleeping.
A clawless and fangless human that had given up its fur was an outsider there. It was said a soldier with their senses honed to the extreme could detect the scent of shampoo from four hundred meters away. If they knew the general direction, they could turn all five senses toward their surroundings and find the person hidden there.
At any rate, I was lucky to get the first attack in.
Does it hurt to have a knee digging into your cheek? Then how about I push you down and finish you off!?
“Tch!!”
Dry gunshots rang out, but I moved just my upper body around to avoid the bullets while still sitting on the maid’s stomach.
Or that’s what should have happened.
“?”
Something warm trailed down my cheek.
Once I realized it came from the scrape of a bullet grazing my temple, I quickly made a change of plans.
I forcefully jumped back to put some distance between us and the maid fired more bullets.
This time, I was sure I had dodged them.
I kept my body entirely away from the straight line running from the muzzle of the handgun.
Yet in reality, the bullets opened dark red holes in my right shoulder and side.
“What…is going on!?”
“That is not what you should be surprised about. The true surprise is that you still haven’t been fatally wounded.”
She threw aside the old magazine and replaced it with a longer one that was twice the length of the gun itself. She then pulled the slide to load the first bullet.
“I am using the same resources. I could not prepare a new Youkai. Just think back to Sid Clouds’s method.”
“He was boosting his muscular strength with the Ubume’s baby. Did that leave the Ubume itself available!?”
I had lost a fair bit of blood, but my bones and organs were untouched. I relied on my speed and rushed back in toward the maid to swiftly get in a fatal blow.
But…
“!?”
Once I was in range for a certain kill, the maid’s body vanished like fog or an illusion and I heard dry gunshots from the side. I was far too slow to react to the sound, so one arm was destroyed and the bullets stopped just before reaching my organs.
This woman!!
“The Ubume appears on a road at night and she prefers intersections of multiple paths, be it at a crossroads or a bridge. That is of course because the common point between a number of paths raises the odds of more victims encountering her.”
By the time I heard the voice, the maid was already gone.
“I have made a broad interpretation of that trait. In other words, I can freely control the probability of an ‘encounter’. I connect to the surrounding space, bind all of the paths together, and divide that which will meet from that which will not meet. Just like the Ubume meets her victim and separates that victim form any witnesses to ensure their death.”
It sounded like we were in an echoing cave. The source of her voice was dispersed to the point I couldn’t pinpoint a direction.
“You will not meet me.”
Only the dripping of my blood on the ground was clear.
Not good! Really not good! As long as I’m caught in her technique, I’ll be killed in a completely one-sided game!!
“But my devilish attacks will always meet you.”
The voice was directed straight toward me, just like the sights of the gun.
“After all, bullets follow a ballistic path, so I can freely bind them to you.”
Gunshots rang out.
The multiple lead bullets flew like lightning and accurately pierced my body.
Part 21 (Uchimaku Hayabusa — Day 10/03 23:45 - 23:50)
The continuous gunshots stabbed into our ears.
Hiking up a mountain in a cheap, impractical suit and leather shoes was not fun, but that discomfort was immediately swept from my mind by the sense of danger that spread from the center of my head to the farthest reaches of my body.
“This isn’t good. That wasn’t just a hunting rifle. It was lighter and rapid fire.”
“Probably a machine pistol or a submachinegun. Either way, it’s firing handgun rounds. But it sounds like there’s only one source, so I don’t think they’re fighting a war at the port or anything.”
Why are you grinning? This isn’t just some news on TV. We can get dragged into the center of it at any time.
I really shouldn’t have brought her along.
I don’t have a gun with me and a bow gun was enough to give me trouble.
“Mystery Freak, you stay here. If you hear gunfire again, run straight away no matter what’s happened.”
“Um, are you serious, detective?”
“We can’t just sit in safety, observing the suspects and hunting down the criminal anymore! This is beyond what you can handle and I can’t guarantee I can protect a civilian minor here!”
“Not what I meant.”
Bunny Enbi placed her index finger on my lips to silence me.
“According to that NPA guy, the enemy here is the CIA. I don’t know if she’s an official agent or a local helper, but a criminal protected by state secrets has shown herself. You may have taken one step outside of the formal police agencies, but do you really think that’s enough here? You can’t take your other foot out, so it would be best to have someone with you to step in the puddles and pick up the items.”
“I wasn’t taking you with me to turn you into a criminal.”
“Thank you for looking out for me. If you had added ‘I love you’ at the end, I might have forced myself onto you right here.”
But Enbi quickly changed her tone.
“This doesn’t look like the time to be carefully choosing your cards. Can’t you feel this tense atmosphere, detective?”
“?”
“This isn’t like the Funa Yuurei on Zashou Island or the Aoandon in Zenmetsu Village. It isn’t that we’ve gotten ourselves involved in my sister’s territory. This is a surprise, because I didn’t know there was a world beyond even that.”
Part 22 (Jinnai Shinobu — Day 10/03 23:45 - 23:58)
I could only watch.
Hishigami Mai’s body tilted. She had taken several bullets to the back and she was limply collapsing to the ground. Only after seeing that definite loss of life did I realize she too was a human just like the rest of us.
She could fail and she could make mistakes.
No matter how much she showed off and how full of herself she was, there was no guarantee she could keep her promises.
“It’s over now,” said the miniskirt maid, far too easily. “Didn’t I tell you? Whether you do anything or not is your decision, but it will not change the outcome.”
I wouldn’t have stood a chance against someone with a normal gun, yet this woman was using a Youkai power and had overwhelmingly defeated even Hishigami Mai. What could a normal high school boy do against a true monster like that?
“Once I have you, I can overclock the Amanojaku.”
She slowly but surely walked toward me.
“That will correct the twisted path and return everything to normal. We will be able to reach the blue light for your sake and for your country’s sake.”
Was it all over?
I could not stop the CIA. They would misuse the Usuhiki Warashi Package, spread fear around the globe concerning the exported Japanese financial systems, place all of the blame on Japan, and buy Japan at a vastly reduced price while claiming to be assisting its recovery. Was this leading to that future?
I just about gave up, but then some oddly muffled gunshots were directed toward the maid’s back.
“…?”
“You showed your back, didn’t you?”
I heard a voice.
It came from Hishigami Mai who was collapsed on the slope. At some point, a small handgun with a suppressor attached had appeared in her hand.
“You can connect all ‘paths’ and manipulate their encounter rate, but for some strange reason, you never showed your back. Yet if you could simply determine my attacks wouldn’t hit, that shouldn’t have mattered.”
The maid slowly turned around.
It didn’t seem Mai could get up, but she showed no sign of caring.
“That means your back is the exception. Wasn’t that your Achilles’ heel? The Ubume is said to be a collection of the women who died in childbirth and their persistent desire to at least protect their child. An Ubume cannot exist as just an Ubume. There must always be a symbol of the child. They ask a passerby to hold their baby and kill them by the baby’s ever-increasing weight, but it’s said they leave and stop trying to kill the victim if they sense any danger to the baby.”
“You…mean…?” I muttered without thinking.
Mai responded with a smile on her bloody lips.
“The Ubume appears holding her baby, but since your back is your weakness, are you carrying it on your back? It might be a paper doll shaped like a child and it may just be stored inside your maid outfit to make it look like you’re carrying it, but it would be deadly for you if it were damaged. The Ubume will always keep her baby safe even if it means abandoning her fearsome power, so you’ve lost your special ability. You can no longer connect paths and manipulate the encounter rate!!”
More muffled gunshots continued and the miniskirt maid could only let them hit her.
But…
I clearly saw the woman smile.
“No,” I muttered as I spoke what I could instinctually sense. “She wasn’t relying on the Ubume. She’s been fixated on another Youkai from the beginning! So…!!”
“Yes, I was using – and truly wanted to use – the Amanojaku.”
The maid slowly aimed her handgun at Hishigami Mai.
The bullets had definitely hit her, yet there wasn’t a single red stain on her miniskirt maid outfit.
“That Youkai can replace everything with lies. That is why I deceived you so easily.”
It happened far too quickly.
As several bullets struck her, Hishigami Mai transformed. The face that symbolized her transformed. It splattered apart like a jigsaw puzzle thrown to the floor.
There was nothing I could do.
The situation had suddenly gone two steps too far for me to even feel fear or sadness.
I forgot to even scream and simply spoke in a daze.
“You mean you only made it look like you were using the Ubume in your tactics? And all so you could misuse the Amanojaku’s lying trait?”
“Yes. It was really just an elementary illusion. I was a little let down when it looked like I was going to win without having to use this, so I’m glad I was able to use everything I had stocked up.”
All was lost now.
Every single chance of victory had slipped from my fingers.
“Whether you do anything or not is your decision. Who will you rely on now? That Zashiki Warashi and the local miners? Or maybe the detective who is only now carelessly entering the forest with a girl? They will arrive here eventually regardless, but all of them will die once they do. That is how this is set up.”
It felt like she was reading from a book of prophecy.
And an extremely cruel one that went on and on about all sorts of destruction yet never mentioned a way to stop it.
Anyone who met her would die.
And at this rate, it was only a matter of time before a whole lot of people approached this monster.
“So choose for yourself. At what stage do you want this to end? At Hishigami Mai’s death, at the annihilation of the Zashiki Warashi and the others with her, or at the detective’s discovery of all the corpses? You have options, but you cannot undo your previous choices. So choose for yourself when you will step down.”
“…”
My mind went entirely blank.
After all, there was nothing I could do. What could I possibly do? It was obvious that struggling and resisting any longer would only increase the number of deaths. It was plain as day. So what was I supposed to do? My right temple itched. Was my best option to follow the Singer Song Liar story while ensuring everyone survived so I could at least regain the country decades later? Was that really the best option? Could I really accept that?
“You are free to choose whatever you want,” said the maid. “But there is only one result. No one can escape the Amanojaku. You understand that, don’t you?”
She seemed to be tempting me, soothing me.
She made that bold and triumphant announcement while completely looking down on me.
But…
No one can escape the Amanojaku?
“Wait.”
What are we dealing with here?
Both my Singer Song Liar story and this miniskirt maid’s power come from the Amanojaku. That’s a single Youkai. This isn’t about the Usuhiki Warashi, Kechibi, or Ubume anymore. If everything is ruled by the Amanojaku alone, I can turn this all on its head by finding a way to defeat that Amanojaku. I can still turn this around!!
Think.
You have to think.
What is the Singer Song Liar story anyway? Sticking a Youkai in a fantasy is too simple and vague. If it was built into a Package, there has to be some kind of concrete, physical system. The Amanojaku is a contrarian Youkai that answers any question with a lie. It commits small pranks like reading traveler’s minds to mimic them and surprise them, but it’s also known to commit great crimes like killing a princess, wearing her skin, and taking her place. To include an Amanojaku, there must be a huge symbol of a lies. It has to be a concrete, physical, secure, and sturdy symbol of lies and not something easily shaken or erased like an automatically-generated story.
Think back to the Singer Song Liar story and what happened in reality.
Think back to everything presented there, seen there, and heard there.
Goldmine Island. A small island off of Kyushu. The temperature is twenty eight degrees. It’s a mining island originally known as Heavy Cruiser Island. It’s now the stage for a new casino policy, but the profits aren’t evenly returned, creating friction between the locals and the entertainment companies. The locals claim the companies are mining deep below the island with work ships and that’s why there’s no more gold in the mines. The locals thoroughly hate the casinos. The pineapple-like tropical trees have some red and yellow from the few maple and gingko trees still mixed in.
“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Oh, I get it.”
“?”
I had finally found it.
I had found the symbol of lies and the system prepared to store the Amanojaku.
And of course, the entire Package would cease to function if that was destroyed. It would all disperse and her plan would fail.
In that case, I had no reason to hesitate.
I would reveal the lie.
I would defeat the Amanojaku using the truth.
I would turn everything on its head.
I would end it all in just a few words.
And so I spoke those few words to the woman of lies who ruled everything here.
“This island isn’t in its original location. It was artificially moved from its original coordinates.”
I clearly heard the sound of cracks running through glass.
“You slowly moved Goldmine Island far from its original location, but moving it wasn’t your goal. You wanted an environment where everyone was unknowingly being deceived. It was all for your symbol of lies, the Amanojaku!!”
“What…are you talking about?”
“You tricked everyone here!! You threw us all inside a giant lie! That allowed the Amanojaku to use its full power and that made my story so tremendously effective!! That’s all it was!!”
“Ridiculous. Do you really think we could do that? Even if it’s a small island, how much mass do you think that is?”
“The amount of mass doesn’t matter. As long as you can achieve buoyancy, any object will float. There’s been talk of strange work ships stopping at the island since the casinos were first invited in. They would secretly carry out huge amounts of dirt and sand, so people thought they were digging up gold without permission.”
The locals hadn’t been wrong, but they had only been looking at it from their interests.
“But they were doing something else. They were creating a spider web of tunnels deep below the island and filling them with a foaming substance like polyurethane. If they separated the island from its roots with a bunch of explosives, Goldmine Island would float up like a life preserver!”
To put it more liberally, it was like floating the entire island on a giant kickboard.
As the casinos arrived, the beaches had apparently rapidly shrunk. Everyone had accepted it as sea level rise due to global warming, but that probably wasn’t it.
After spending more than a year slowly moving the island a few kilometers, it had been sunk down and affixed to a “new base” prepared on the ocean bottom. And they had done that by removing the foaming material.
But it had rocked in the waves while being moved. And when it was affixed to the new base, a height difference of a few centimeters to a few dozen centimeters could have been introduced. That would have made it look like the ocean level had risen and the beaches had shrunk.
The miniskirt maid tensed her lips.
“Nothing that ridiculous could have happened. What about the airplane pilots? Or the ship captains? How could we have fooled them? How could we guide them to Goldmine Island’s supposed new location!?”
“These days, no captain navigates with a sea chart and compass in one hand. They’re entirely reliant on the electronic control and digital display, so you just have to fake those numbers. If the island was moved bit by bit in a circle around a central point without changing the actual distance, the pilots just looking at the numbers won’t know that the numbers have been swapped out and that they’re being guided in a different direction!!”
Someone who determined directions by looking at the moon or stars may have noticed something was off, but no one captained a ship or piloted an airplane with those primitive methods anymore.
And while it would be a lot of trouble to swap out those numbers, that made sense too.
The Amanojaku was a Youkai of lies and it would answer any question with a lie. When the ships and airplanes sent out their “questions”, the navigation equipment would “answer” with false data, guiding them to the island of lies.
That setup had to have been quite comfortable for the Amanojaku.
“GPS systems are reliant on America, so you in the CIA can easily make changes to all the map apps and car navigation systems that use it. The same goes for airport control and ship navigation systems. Even if the equipment itself is made in Japan, the software inside is all made in America. It wouldn’t be difficult for you to swap out the numbers for this island that everyone was looking at.”
If someone had dived down to the ocean bottom, the terrain around the island may have looked completely wrong.
That would have turned Goldmine Island’s surroundings into a demonic area of sea. After all, the actual coordinates and the data were completely different. If one was using older means of determining direction or a navigation system that didn’t rely on America, it was possible two ships could head to the same coordinates and never find each other even as they spoke over the radio or phone. That was to be expected when their ideas of the “same coordinates” were so different.
“But you failed. I saw through it. I used the truth to break through your world of lies! This is no longer a world running on lies. By bringing in the truth, the conditions you need to keep the Amanojaku will have crumbled. That power won’t last much longer!!”
“Don’t… Don’t be ridiculous. We were not doing anything like that. Your method of refuting us was wrong. Your incorrect deductions won’t do anything to the Amanojaku’s power.”
“Really?”
Then why are you cutting in like this?
Are you panicking?
“Yes, really!! No one on Goldmine Island has noticed anything off. And even you have no proof of any of this, do you? Do you really think you can force this onto someone else when you can’t even convince yourself!?”
It did indeed hurt to have her point that out.
I wasn’t a forensics expert and I didn’t have time to call one in. If this miniskirt maid silenced me, she would probably be able to reach the Amanojaku almost immediately and that would determine the future. This country would fall into ruin.
That meant I had to do something with what I had here.
I had to prove this was an island of lies using what I had at my disposal.
“We’re currently farther north than Goldmine Island’s original location, aren’t we? Whether it’s five or ten kilometers, it has to be enough to make the island’s mere presence here a lie.”
“What are you saying?”
“My cellphone says the temperature is twenty eight degrees. Just like a tropical island, the temperature has fluctuated between twenty five and thirty degrees over the past week. This is a warm enough night to forget it’s October.”
“What’s your point?”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
I pointed, but not at the miniskirt maid.
I pointed at the tree behind her.
“The maple trees are turning red. But if this midsummer heat was constant, they never would have started changing color!! It’s possible to place dry ice at the base of a tree to make its leaves change color early, but I can’t think of a single logical reason to do that on a tropical island like this. That means the maple trees are changing naturally!!”
“…”
“But why!? Why is there a difference between the temperature on the screen here and the color change in the leaves? That’s because Goldmine Island is supposed to be south of here where it’s warmer and the trees haven’t started changing color yet! When falsifying the data to fool the locals, you had to swap out the meteorological data like temperature and humidity, didn’t you!? And that’s why the leaves have started changing color several days early!!”
From the very beginning, I had thought this island was “chilly”.
When I had checked my cellphone and seen the lie that it was twenty eight degrees, I had just assumed it was due to the low humidity and the night wind.
“There’s a huge difference between the actual color of the leaves and the temperature shown on the screen here!! This proves that the island was moved from its original location and that we’ve been thrown into a giant lie!!!!!”
Multiple gunshots rang out and dark red holes opened from my chest to my navel as if I had fallen victim to a giant sewing machine.
She may have tried to silence me before I made the decisive statement. She may have decided she could include “Jinnai Shinobu” in the system as long as my brain or heart remained.
My body tilted to the side and a rusty flavor rushed up into my throat.
There was probably no saving me.
But make no mistake.
All I needed was the strength to move my trembling lips.
Her power was a collection of lies. No matter what she accomplished, it was nothing but a house built on sand.
If the lies were revealed, it would all disappear.
I just had to use the truth to break the many tragedies she had created.
“It was all…lies. This is the truth!!”
With that, I heard shattering glass and our surroundings entirely changed.
They were overwritten.
The many holes in my gut vanished. The corpse with the smashed face returned to Hishigami Mai’s lovely form.
It had all begun with a lie, so no matter what was piled on top of it, it would all come tumbling down once the foundational lie vanished. It was just like a tree trunk and branches. No matter how long the branches were, if you took an axe to the trunk, the entire tree would fall.
That was what had happened here.
“Ah…ah…”
The miniskirt maid glanced around.
She seemed to be thinking about how to recover from here, so I spoke.
“Checkmate.”
“Don’t act so full of yourself! You’re just an amateur!! Just because I can’t control the Amanojaku doesn’t mean that you can defeat me here. I can vanish for the moment, rebuild my foundation, and return it all to normal!!”
“Yes, you can escape right now, but without the Amanojaku Package, we won’t do what you say. You can’t take over the Usuhiki Warashi and you can’t buy Japan. So is there still any reason to fight?”
“!!”
“So that means you have a choice. At what stage do you want this to end?”
I repeated the same question she had asked me earlier.
“Defeating me and continuing on would be easy. I’m just a normal high school boy. But a more powerful enemy will show up next. Will it be my detective of an uncle? Or if he isn’t enough, will it be the skilled agent that even Hyakki Yakou fears? How far can you get now that you’ve lost your power?”