by Yusuke Kishi
“Well, I guess they are not very interested in me to begin with. Perhaps they believe that I will not be much of a threat if left to my own devices. They underestimate me.”
“Kiroumaru dealt them a serious blow. Maybe they want to keep their distance,” Satoru said, holding his nose and barely moving his mouth as if that would stop him from smelling the guano.
“Did he really kill that many of them?”
“Yeah. It was quite a display. He took out seven of them.”
“That many? How?”
“First he lured them out with our scent and led them to the cave where the black widow mites lived. It wasn’t a pretty sight. The group broke apart as they all tried to run away. But Kiroumaru wasn’t done yet. He baited another group of mites and invaded the enemy’s camp. Without their guards, Yakomaru and the fiend were forced to flee again. But this time the plan backfired. Without anything to feed on, the mites started coming after us. That was also when we realized that although they couldn’t move around on damp walls, they could travel on water just fine.”
“Really?”
“They can stick together like balls of algae and float on the water. …still, the fact that they were all stuck together made it that much more easier to burn them all at once.”
As Satoru excitedly continued his story, I began to have doubts once again. How exactly was Kiroumaru able to kill all those queerats?
“Did he really kill seven enemy soldiers?”
“Yeah. But that’s only what I was able to see. There were probably more.”
“But didn’t he say that there were only seven in total at the very beginning?”
“As the underground troop was injured, more came from aboveground. Still, the ground troops probably didn’t have enough soldiers to make up for all the losses, so we think the underground team has five members now,” Kiroumaru explained, looking more like a golem every minute as the covered himself in muck.
“Hey, why didn’t you warn us about the Bobbit worm?”
Kiroumaru cocked his head. “What is that?”
“The bristle worm creature near the beach. Because of it, Inui…”
He let out a long sigh. “I didn’t think it was necessary to bring up the dangers that appear near the shores at night. Sorry, I might have if you were alone, but you had a Wildlife Protection Officer with you, one we call the ‘god of death’. Also, I did not know the identity of the creature. It’s true I lost a lot of my soldiers to it, but I never had a chance to see it.”
Satoru placed a hand on my shoulder to stop me from interrogating Kiroumaru further.
“This is not good..” Kiroumaru said, his nose twitching. “It’s started raining aboveground.”
“Why is that bad?” Satoru asked.
“Usually it’s a good thing since it helps wash away your scent, but right now we want them to follow our scent trail.”
The sound of rain was finally reached our ears.
“This tunnel won’t flood, so don’t worry about that. There are dozens of tunnels deeper underground for the water to drain from…”
Rain was streaming through multiple holes in the ceiling. The sound echoed cacophonously throughout the tunnels.
“Hurry. We need to finish this battle as soon as possible.”
We followed Kiroumaru deeper underground, going from large, arterial tunnels to small, capillary-like ones.
He never seemed to lose his way even for a second as we went down the branching paths.
I could hear Satoru breathing laboriously. His wounds were taking their toll on him.
After a while, the tunnels started sloping upward. The stones became more and more slippery from the rain and we had to step carefully.
Just as I was wondering how long the slope was going to go on, we reached the top. We must have been close to the surface since the rain was much louder here. There was also a faint light coming from somewhere that might have been stronger if it weren’t pouring outside.
“We’ll set the trap here,” Kiroumaru said.
I looked where he pointed and saw a hole in the rock three or four meters across.
“This was probably a tunnel made a thousand years ago. The good thing is that it goes on without branching for a kilometer and a half before exiting aboveground.”
“Why is that good? We’ll only have one way to escape,” Satoru said, grimacing in pain.
“It’s easier to calculate their distance to us when there’s only one route they can take. But there are enough complicated curves throughout the tunnel that we can try to stay ahead and out of sight.”
His remaining green eye glinted unpleasantly from his mud-covered face. Rain and sweat were starting to wash off muck.
“Still, although it doesn’t branch, there are still a number of small paths leading off from it. They are all dead ends though, so make sure not to go down any of them.”
“How do we tell the paths apart from the main tunnel?” I asked uneasily.
“They look completely different. They’re much narrower than the tunnel and are not rounded. You won’t get lost as long as you follow the main tunnel.”
His tone of voice suggested that he found it quite pitiful that I had no sense of direction.
“…but is this really the best place to do it?” Satoru asked.
“For our purposes, this is the only place,” Kiroumaru said confidently. “This wind is our greatest advantage.”
There was a breeze coming from up ahead. For some unknown reason, there were constant breezes criss-crossing through underground Tokyo, creating complicated airstreams.
We would be heading straight into the wind and the fiend would be downwind from us. That way, when we broke open the psychobuster, only the fiend would be infected.
But would it go that smoothly? We all felt incredibly apprehensive, but couldn’t come up with a better alternative.
“This is a bad omen… The rain is heavier than I had expected,” Kiroumaru said, looking up at the ceiling, listening to sounds we couldn’t hear. “The original idea was to lure the fiend through the tunnel and use the psychobuster before we get to the exit. But I am beginning to think that may not be such a reliable plan.”
“Why not?”
“The rain is washing away our scent. We need to force the fiend to come after us no matter what. A better bait…no we need a decoy.”
“Hey, wait just a sec. What do you mean by decoy…” Satoru said, a note of doubt in his voice.
“Let the fiend catch sight of you, if only for an instant, then run into the tunnel. It won’t be able to control itself and come after you.”
“Are you insane? You want us to play tag with the fiend? We’ll be within its striking distance,” Satoru shouted. “It’s impossible. If we stumble for even a second and get into its line of sight, we’re dead.”
“You are both healthy adults. The fiend is just a child. You should be able to run faster than it.”
“Don’t be stupid!”
“There’s another thing. The psychobuster needs to be released at close distance. With all this moisture in the air, the powder won’t be able to travel very far. And if you don’t do it right, it might just stick to the walls,” Kiroumaru continued, ignoring Satoru.
“No way. It’s impossible,” I said, looking right into his eyes.
“Impossible? What do you mean?” he returned my look coldly.
“I mean…”
“How many do you think have been sacrificed to get you this far?” Kiroumaru said harshly. “It is understandable that you do not care for the lives of my species. But how many people, starting with Inui-san, have given their lives for you? They all died so you could have this one moment, this one chance to kill the fiend. They trusted you enough to pay the ultimate price. Are you going to waste this one and only chance? Did you come all the way here only to back out like frightened children at the last minute?”
I hung my head in shame, unable to respond
“You still hav
e the chance to kill the fiend and survive. A very good chance, in fact. You just need to have courage in this moment. …if you don’t, you will regret it for the rest of your lives. You may live a little longer, but sooner or later, the fiend will kill you. When that happens, the last thing to go through your minds will be overwhelming regret. Why did I waste the opportunity to kill the fiend…”
His words cut through my heart like a sword.
“…yes. You’re right,” Satoru said quietly. “We came here, ready to lay down our lives, with one goal in mind. Are we going to stop now because we’re afraid? …but what are you going to do? Are you just going to watch while we gamble our lives playing tag with the fiend? That’s convenient for you.”
Kiroumaru’s eyes flashed. “You sound like a spoiled child. ‘Why do I have to die but the queerat doesn’t? That’s not fair. It should die first.'”
“Watch your tongue! How dare you!” Satoru snapped.
“Fine, please suggest an alternative since you don’t like any of my ideas. If you have an idea to kill the fiend that requires me to throw away my life, I will do it in an instant. …or you could kill me yourself right now. There’s only one reason not to. You would have no one left to bait the fiend.”
“But if you lure it here, won’t it just keep chasing you?” Satoru said, sounding remorseful now.
“This is the crucial point. In order to separate the fiend from its guards, you two must be the bait. The fiend will come after you, but the soldiers will be too afraid to. If I were the bait, the fiend wouldn’t be interested.” Kiroumaru shook his head sadly. “I cannot force you. On the other contrary, I would be no more than a worm crushed by your wrath if I were to invoke your ire. …the decision is yours to make.”
My vague doubts about Kiroumaru were still swirling around inside me. {You’d never succeed at anything if you wanted all your plans to be fail-proof, but I couldn’t help but feel uncertain.}
At least now I knew what I needed to do.
It had been two hours since Kiroumaru had taken our underclothes to leave a scent trail.
In that time, we had finished scoping out the entire length of the tunnel that was to be our final battleground.
“It’s in better condition than I expected. The ground is pretty smooth, and there aren’t any rocks or things that could trip us. …the only thing we need to watch out for are the three places where the tunnel splits off,” Satoru said, running through the course in his head. “Are you okay, Saki? Can you remember that?”
“I only get lost when there are a lot of forks. This one is pretty straightforward,” I said sullenly, slightly offended that he considered my sense of direction to be that terrible.
“But we’ll be running in complete darkness this time. If you don’t remember the path perfectly, you might run into a corner or a wall.”
“Can’t one person hold the light? It shouldn’t affect our running speed that much.”
“No, we can’t do that,” Satoru said decisively.
He seemed to have automatically assumed command now that Kiroumaru was gone.
“We’ll be running at pretty much the same pace, but the fiend won’t. If we light the way, then it’ll be able to chase us at full speed. But in the dark, we’ll be much faster since we know the route.”
“Wouldn’t the fiend come with a light?”
“That would be even better. We can put it out and it’ll have an even harder time adjusting to the darkness.”
“Then it might get too cautious and decide not to come after us at all.”
It probably knew we couldn’t use cantus on it. So it would come after us without fear of being attacked. Still, being in complete darkness might make it a little more cautious.
“I guess you’re right. If it decides to give up before getting in the tunnel, the plan would fall apart. …let’s do it this way. You run ahead with a small light. I’ll rely on that to follow you. The fiend will come after us with its own light, so it’ll be going fast.”
So in other words, we were going to play tag on hard mode.
“But come to think of it, this isn’t a bad situation. It’ll be easy to tell how far away the fiend is. …we just have to keep a safe distance and lead it to Screen Rock.”
Screen Rock was where we decided was the best place to use the psychobuster. It was at the end of a path near a thin slab of rock that looked like a folding screen. We would hide behind it to wait for the fiend. Once it got close enough, we’d break open the psychobuster.
The problem was what would happen after. The psychobuster would kill the fiend days later, but wouldn’t knock it out then and there. For a few hours at least, it would be able to move around as usual.
We’d have to do a hit-and-run.
“…wouldn’t it be better for me to carry the cross? Both your arms are injured.”
Satoru seemed to read my mind.
“They’re fine. Besides I’ve always had better aim than you.”
“But…”
“Think about it this way. Since you’re running ahead, I’ll get infected too if you break open the psychobuster.”
“That won’t happen though, since I’d be waiting for you to get to Screen Rock before I use it.”
“No, I should carry it. If you accidentally trip and break it open, we’re screwed.”
He was trying to joke about it, but I could tell that if worse came to worst, if the fiend caught up to him, he intended to take it down with him.
The rain continued to fall. Here and there, water had completely soaked through the rocks and ran across the floor in little streams. The air was heavy and sticky.
“Can we really do it?” I said quietly.
Satoru looked questioningly at me.
“Can we really…kill another human?”
“Stop!” he said sharply. “Don’t think about it. All we’re doing is breaking open the cross in front of the fiend. It won’t die immediately.”
He was wording it differently because he couldn’t do it with the mindset that he was committing a crime.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“It’s fine. …we’re just doing what we have to do. Don’t think any more than that.”
“Yeah. …but-”
I had to tell him about it now. I felt that if I didn’t say it now, it would be too late.
“Is Maria and Mamoru’s child really a fiend?”
“We’re going back to this topic again?” Satoru said, sounding impatient. “You’ve seen what it did. It killed people indiscriminately. Isn’t that what fiends do?”
“I know that. But it just seems fundamentally different from all the fiends that have appeared before.”
“…well they’re probably all different to some degree. There are a couple of types of fiends, right? But who cares if it’s different? We’ll…stop it first, then figure it out.”
“I simply don’t think it’s a fiend.”
Satoru stood up and ran his hand through his hair.
“Cut it out! Why do you keep saying things that make me doubt myself?”
“Sorry! But listen. I can’t help wondering whether the child knows what it is.”
“So what if it doesn’t? We have to stop it either way. If we don’t, the town will be destroyed and all of Japan will fall under Yakomaru’s control. The number of fiends will grow and eventually queerats will take over the world.”
“I know. I know we have to stop it at all costs. But it’s Maria’s child. I want to give it a chance. Just one.”
“A chance? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“If we can somehow make it recognize…!”
I explained my plan. He was the only one who could do it.
“Are you serious? It might not do anything.”
“Isn’t it worth trying just once? We should have a chance right before we use the psychobuster.”
Satoru crossed his arms and considered it.
“…I can’t promise anyt
hing.”
That was the most I could get out of him.
“I’ll give it a shot if there’s time. But we’re not putting the original plan in jeopardy. If it looks to be impossible, use the psychobuster.”
“Alright. I know you’re right. Thank you,” I said earnestly. “I really mean it, and I can’t say it enough.”
“I understand…how you feel,” Satoru said, then went quiet.
It seemed like he didn’t want to get into the subject.
There came a clanging sound, like metal hitting stone, from far away. I jumped in surprise.
“That sound…!” I shouted.
Satoru put his finger to his lips.
I heard it again. It seemed to be traveling on some convoluted path to get to us. Part of it echoed down the tunnel while another part seemed to be coming directly through the rock.
“It’s them. The troops aboveground are communicating with the ones down here.”
They were starting the chase. Kiroumaru was the prey.
The next moment, I heard a different sound. A long, distinctive howl like a wolf’s.
“Kiroumaru!” Satoru shouted.
They were getting close already. That was the signal that the fiend had fallen for the bait.
“They’re coming. Let’s get in the tunnel. …we have two, maybe three minutes.”
I moved into place, twisting a bundle of tree roots together and lighting it to make a torch. The first moment was crucial. The fiend needed to get a clear glimpse of us.
My heart was pounding so hard it made my hands shake. Cold sweat broke out all over my body. The fiend was going to appear any time now. Failure was not an option. Not only our lives, but the lives of millions of others were at stake.
I felt dizzy and nauseated. My head began to throb with pain.
And then it happened.
My thoughts became surprisingly clear. I felt my mind opening up to everything, like I was no longer just myself. It was a strange, but not unpleasant sensation. I felt an almost overwhelming joy, that could almost be described as the moment of sexual climax. That was it. I was sure. Shun was whispering in my ear, in my thoughts.
I could clearly see all my feelings of indirection, uneasiness, and doubt as if through someone else’s eyes.
