by Yusuke Kishi
My doubts about Kiroumaru were still there, but I could now see that the root of these feelings were coming from somewhere else.
“The enemy believes they are hunting us, and in their focused pursuit they will not realize until the end that they have become the hunted.”
Kiroumaru’s words echoed in my ears. He was talking about the enemy, but couldn’t it apply to us too?
I had heard the same thing before. When they were teaching us to play Go at Harmony School.
Trapped by the thought of trapping… When you’re concentrating too hard on trying to take your opponent’s pieces, you open yourself up to have your pieces taken.
Why was this saying stuck in my head?
Yakomaru… Back when we still called him Squealer, he had said he learned battle strategies from reading a Go book.
I couldn’t imagine that someone that crafty hadn’t already guess our plans. After being outsmarted by Kiroumaru earlier, would he risk exposing the fiend, his trump card, to danger?
That wasn’t all either. Had Yakomaru really not anticipated losing his soldiers in that attack? His cool disregard for his subordinates’ lives was characteristic of his fighting style.
If he had us dancing in the palm of his hand this whole time…
I started sweating again.
But we couldn’t back out now.
Kiroumaru burst out of the tunnel ahead. We locked eyes for a moment, then he quickly disappeared down another tunnel.
“It’s coming…!” Satoru said in a low voice.
Suddenly, the image of fear itself appeared.
Chapter 4
From the same tunnel came a number of black-clad forms.
Queerat soldiers. They were naked; each wore a leather bag of some sort and held a blowgun made to be used in small spaces like these tunnels.
They seemed to catch our scent. They quickly spread out and put the blowguns to their mouths. Only one in four held a torch, though I don’t know whether it was because they had good night vision or because they didn’t need to rely on sight at all.
Then another figure appeared. It was too dark to make out the face, but I guessed it was either Yakomaru or the fiend.
It came toward us, showing no sign of fear. The only thing that distinguished it from the other soldiers was the hooded cloak it wore despite the heat and humidity. It walked forward, looking around at its surroundings.
The soldiers appeared to have found the tunnel Kiroumaru disappeared into. They turned their attention back to us. The hooded figure bent forward slightly and the light illuminated its hair. In the firelight, it was blood-red…
The fiend.
Satoru and I snapped the necks of the two soldiers nearest us. They dropped without even having time to scream. The other two didn’t seem to comprehend exactly what had happened, but fled down the nearest tunnel in panic anyway.
Now only the hooded figure was left. It slowly raised its head to look at us.
We turned and ran down the tunnel.
I wasn’t sure if the fiend had gotten a good look at us. But in any case, two soldiers killed by cantus ought to be enough of a provocation.
The fiend should be coming after us. We stopped around a bend about twenty meters into the tunnel. I lit a small bundle of roots, held my breath, and waited.
From the tunnel entrance came a shadow of a figure holding a torch. The hooded silhouette of a little god of death.
That was the signal to begin our race against death. We took off at full speed.
There was no time to spare even a glance backwards. We just kept running as fast as we could.
The fiend had the luxury of setting its own pace, but all we could do was run for our lives without even being able to think about how we could conserve stamina. Once it matched our pace, all it had to do was speed up at any time, and we would be done for if we took even a second to look back.
As we had planned, I ran ahead with Satoru following close behind. Although my legs felt weak with fear, I pushed myself harder, feet slapping the ground as I flew around the bends.
I kept running. Don’t think. Any thought that came to my head was trampled under my feet. If I tripped over a pebble or a crack in the floor, our lives would come to a very quick end.
I thought my heart would burst as the fiend slowly gained on us.
We at least had to keep one bend between us and the fiend so that it wouldn’t be able to see us.
The fiend wouldn’t attack recklessly with cantus, since it might end up burying itself alive if it brought the entire tunnel down. Even if that didn’t happen, it might accidentally block the path between us.
As I thought about the breeze blowing our scent toward the fiend, the ground beneath me suddenly felt soft and insubstantial. Even now, I still don’t know how I managed to keep my balance and keep going.
“Saki! Saki! It’s okay. Slow down!” Satoru shouted. “It’s taking its time.”
Of course. It had nothing to worry about. All it needed to do was wait for us to wear ourselves out.
I slowed my breakneck pace. The fiend’s torchlight stopped just beyond the bend and did not come closer. But I could still hear quiet steps. They were the quick, even steps of someone walking briskly, but not running.
We slowed down as well, alternating between a quick walk and running, trying to catch our breath. I was already breathing hard from the run earlier.
There were still the sounds of metal against rock coming from behind. More than before. I wonder what messages they were sending. We had no idea at the time.
“This is alright, let’s keep this pace,” Satoru said, struggling to force himself to breath normally. “They’re probably trying to intimidate us. But if we can enlarge the gap between us, that would be good. Anyway, the scariest part is over.”
“…is this alright?”
“Yeah. Try to get your breathing back to normal before we reach Screen rock. You go on ahead. I’ll stay as long as I can to keep an eye on it. If it starts speeding up, I’ll shout.”
“Okay.”
The vague feeling of unease returned. But I followed Satoru’s instructions anyway, telling myself it was just my imagination. Everything was going according to plan.
Now that I had time to think, all sorts of stuff started flooding my mind.
Was Kiroumaru in league with the enemy? Was everything part of Yakomaru’s plan? I tried not to think about it. The dice had been cast. Everything would be decided in a few minutes. There was no use worrying about it now.
Strangely enough, the next thing that came to mind was a creation myth we had learned at Harmony School long ago.
After Izanami died from the burn wounds she received during childbirth, Izanagi wanted to see his wife so terribly that he made his way to the underworld. Even though Izanami told him never to look upon her, he could not help but do so. What he saw was a terrible, rotting corpse filled with maggots.
Izanagi was so frightened that he fled back to the world above. Embarrassed, Izanami sent the hag of the underworld to chase after him.
Of course, I didn’t just happen to remember this story as I was running for my life. I saw it almost like a vision, lighting up the tunnel in vivid colors. It was possible that my mind was so full of fear that it reawakened my memory of this story.
Chased by the hag, Izanagi barely got away by using his hair comb as a distraction.
But we were a good distance away from the fiend now. So…
It’s strange.
A voice spoke.
Shun… Is it Shun, I asked myself.
It’s strange. Don’t you think so?
The quiet voice persisted.
Strange? What is?
Don’t you hear it?
Again, I heard the metallic banging of the enemies communicating through the rock. It wasn’t just coming from one place. The message was being sent from multiple locations simultaneously. But what about it?
Careful. It’s a trap.
I co
uld clearly recognize Shun’s voice now.
Stop, Saki.
“Stop? Why? We can’t!” I cried aloud without realizing it.
Haven’t you noticed? The fiend hasn’t been coming after you.
I slowed, sped up again, then stopped.
“Saki! What are you doing? Hurry and go!” Satoru shouted from behind.
“Satoru, it’s a trap!”
“What are you talking about? Are you seeing things? You’ve been muttering to yourself this whole time.”
He pushed me from behind.
“Wait. The fiend isn’t chasing us at all, why?”
Satoru looked behind him, surprised.
“It’s probably walking. If we stay here, it’s going to catch up soon!”
“But do you hear any footsteps? All I’ve been hearing is the sound of rain and the enemy sending messages through the rocks.”
“You’re right. …but still, we can’t go anywhere but forward. There’s only one exit to the tunnel.”
“But, wait. What if it…”
I shoved Satoru with all my strength. And saved both of our lives by a hair.
The part of the tunnel we had just about to walk toward suddenly collapsed with a deafening rumble.
Boulders and water came crashing down and were swept right at us.
“Run!”
We turned and started running the way we had come. But wouldn’t the fiend be waiting? We had been driven into a corner. Satoru lifted the cross from his neck and gripped it tightly. If the fiend killed him, it was going down as well.
Forty, fifty meters back into the tunnel and the fiend was still nowhere to be seen.
“Where did it go?” Satoru stopped and whispered, his voice shaking.
I turned and looked down the tunnel. Rubble seemed to have stopped falling. Thanks to the moisture in the air, the dust had already begun to settle. A faint light came in from above; it appeared the collapse reached all the way up to the surface.
“Let’s go back.”
“Which back?”
“Back to where we started…downwind,” I said.
Satoru seemed uncertain.
“Isn’t the fiend there?”
“It shouldn’t be.”
I was still in the grip of fear, but my mind was becoming clearer.
“Don’t you get it? This is a trap. Yakomaru predicted where we would go and caused the collapse.”
“So Kiroumaru is in on it?”
“I’m not sure about that… Anyway, it’s suicide to keep going. They’ll be waiting.”
“But the fiend is back this way,” Satoru said, looking frightened. “So we should keep going forward. The collapsed part leads all the way aboveground; maybe we can get away from there.”
“No! Think about it. How do you think they brought down all this rock?”
Satoru went pale.
“It wasn’t explosives. We didn’t smell gunpowder or sulfur, and there wasn’t the sound of an explosion. The tunnel just collapsed. …but, that’s impossible.”
At that moment, my eye caught something on the floor of the tunnel. Satoru followed my gaze.
It was a wig made of red hair.
“Son of a bitch! We’ve been tricked from the start,” he groaned.
We had been playing right into Yakomaru’s hands.
Thinking back, it was strange that the fiend would be wearing a cloak. First, it was hot inside the tunnel, and second, wearing a cloak made the fiend difficult to distinguish from a queerat, meaning we might have killed it on accident. Of course, we would have died from death feedback too, but since the fiend was the enemy’s only trump card, they wouldn’t have risked it.
It wasn’t the fiend. They had cut the fiend’s hair and made one of the soldiers dress up as it to chase us down the tunnel. The aboveground troops were kept informed of our location through messages sent through the rocks. That way they could collapse the tunnel without the danger of accidentally burying themselves at the same time.
That means the ones lying in wait were…
“Run!” I shouted.
Satoru just stared blankly over my shoulder.
From the settling cloud of dust came the light of a torch and the silhouette of a child…
We took off at lightning speed.
I heard the sound of running behind us. There was no time for the chase, victory would have to be decided right now. There was only one bend left between us and the fiend. Once we hit the straight part of the tunnel, it would have a clear shot at us.
An idea suddenly came to me. I reached out with my right hand and grabbed the backpack Satoru was wearing.
“Saki, what are you doing?” he yelled.
I felt around, grabbed the fake false minoshiro and tossed it behind me, feeling like Izanagi throwing his hair comb at the hag.
The fake false minoshiro, sensing danger, heaved its many legs and began climbing up the wall like a roach.
Not a moment after we had rounded the next bend, a blinding light burst behind us. The fake false minoshiro was using its defensive light to disorient the fiend.
Just as I was wondering how long the rainbow-colored light would last, it was snuffed out like a candle. I had no idea what the fate of the fake false minoshiro was, but at least it had stopped the fiend for a short while. In that time, we had managed to run through the straight part of the tunnel. If it wasn’t for those few seconds, we would have died already.
I had thought we put a good distance between us, but the footsteps behind us started up again. It was faster than I imagined. I guess its small size made it easy to maneuver in the narrow tunnels.
Still, even though we were running desperately for our lives, we had an advantage. We’d been through this tunnel a number of times, and knew where all the turns and obstacles were.
Thanks to that, we were able to keep the distance between us and the fiend for the moment.
I was starting to wheeze and my lungs felt like they were on fire. My endurance was reaching its limit. Fear was sapping my strength.
The worst thing about the situation was that we were running downwind, opposite of our original plan. Even if we both died using the psychobuster, there was a good chance that the fiend, being upwind, would not be infected.
Suddenly, Satoru stopped. I passed him, and turned around.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m going to try your plan.”
Behind him, the air started shimmering and a gauzy screen appeared, blocking the light and leaving me in darkness.
Less than two seconds later, the fiend appeared. Its torch shone through the screen so I was able to see it, but from its perspective, the light was reflecting off of a giant mirror.
It halted, holding the torch high and observing the mirror suspiciously. It was wearing a loose straw trousers and boots, looking like nothing more than a normal child.
If only it would realize that.
I had explained my plan to Satoru. Since it had been raised by queerats, it probably thought of itself as a queerat as well. What would happen if we put a mirror in front of it? We had never seen a mirror in a queerat colony, since they didn’t have a habit of using them. It had probably seen reflections of itself in water, but might not have ever realized that it was different from everyone else.
Once it realized that it looked like its enemies, in other words, human, would it question its own identity? And if it did, it might awaken its death feedback.
Are you sure? It might not have any effect at all.
That’s what Satoru had said. But now he was risking his life to do what I had asked.
“Saki, leave this to me and go,” he whispered.
“No.”
I had no intention of going anywhere. I didn’t want to run anymore. Moreover, I didn’t want to abandon him. In any case, if this idea failed, there would be no point in running.
The fiend…Maria’s son slowly approached the mirror. I couldn’t see his expression, but his body language was
clearly one of confusion.
“…that’s right. Look closely. You’re human. Same as us,” Satoru said quietly.
As if in response, the fiend started speaking.
“Grrrrr…ÏϒガØ▼Ë◎◿?”
“ÏϒガØ▼Ë◎◿?”
“ÏϒガØ▼Ë◎◿?”
He was repeating the same word over and over. He cocked his head, and just when I thought he was going to recognize what he was, he started howling in a piercing, high-pitched voice.
“ヸ★＊∀§▲ÆAÄヺヹ!”
The wall beside him cracked.
“Watch out! Run!” I shouted, ducking down.
Satoru was just a moment too slow.
The wall broke into chunks of rock and came flying through the air. They passed through the mirror and over our heads. One of them hit Satoru squarely on the temple.
He pitched forward, but managed to stay standing through sheer force of will.
I looked up and gasped.
The mirror had dissipated.
I was about fifteen meters away from Satoru, and Satoru was ten meters away from the fiend.
Satoru stood completely still, blood dripping from his head. We were like frogs frozen by the stare of a snake.
The fiend walked unconcernedly toward us, knowing full well that we couldn’t do anything to it. Under the messily cut hair was a face as beautiful as an angel, but its eyes gleamed with the cruel, hungry look of a cat hunting a mouse.
“Run, Saki,” Satoru sad calmly.
Just as I was wondering what he intended to do, the breeze in the tunnel slackened.
“Satoru?”
He didn’t have the skill to reverse the wind in such a narrow tunnel. But with immense effort, he managed to stop the breeze for the moment.
“I’m ending it here.”
“No…stop!” I screamed, realizing what he was about to do.
The fiend was only five meters away.
“Here, catch!” he said, holding up the cross and hurling it at the fiend.
Suddenly time seemed to stretch indefinitely.
Everything looked like it was being replayed in slow motion. I could see the movement of the cross as clearly as if they were individual photographs.
