Editing Phenomeno:Case 08 (section)

===5.===





“H-hey Yoishi! Just wait a second!”

I yelled at the slender figure that continued ahead of me.

“W…where the hell are we?”

“To put it bluntly, we’re in the space that lies underneath the academy.” Yoishi answered, without looking back.

The surroundings were dark, as if they had been painted over and over again several times over. The darkness rapidly continued to swallow the light emanating from the cell phone. The ground beneath my feet was slushy, and sticky at the same time. And yet, I still couldn’t see it properly even after aiming the light from the cell phone at it. Only dim light reflected back, and it wasn’t clear if it was soil or concrete. If darkness had density, then this would be the strongest one I’d ever experienced. The depth of the darkness made it almost impossible to tell if my body was still there or not, so much so that it seemed to drag my consciousness elsewhere. That’s why, I continued to speak in desperation. I continued to speak, to make sure that I was still there.

“Are you alright? I mean, what are you doing in a place like this? How long have you been here? Two days? Ah, you called me, right? You called me from this place?”

“Could you ask me one question at a time?”

“…Ah, sorry.”

I spoke with my hands on Yoishi’s arm, so as to not be left behind.

“So there really—really was an underground space beneath the school?”

Yoishi kept walking in front of me, staying silent for a while before answering briefly:

“If you say it’s there, it’s there; if you say it’s not, it’s not.” 

…What the heck did that mean?

“This is without a doubt the space underneath the Koumei institute; The individual that I am, and the individual you are, definitely exist here. And the two of us are conversing here in the darkness as we walk. That is neither a hallucination nor a dream. I’ve been safe here for two days, and then I called you. I told you not to look for me. And yet, you still ended up coming.”

“…Shut up about that. In short, you jumped off that place two days ago, didn’t you?”

“That’s right.”

Anyhow, I was slightly relieved at hearing that. Just knowing where I was, the fact that Yoishi was safe, and that we could meet again like this was enough of a relief to make me want to drop to my knees. But what was going to happen from now on was a different problem altogether. How far had we walked in this deep darkness? And how much further did that darkness continue? Could we still return to the place we originally belonged? 

But above that, above all else, there was a much more fundamental question that needed to be answered. Why did falling down from the school building bring me—I mean… us, to the underground place? But—

But I was unbearably terrified of asking that directly. The words wouldn’t leave my mouth; if I asked, I might end up learning something I’d have been better off not knowing.

“This is a sealed off place.” Yoishi suddenly muttered. “It seems to have been originally built as a bomb shelter during the war to accommodate a large number of students. The entrance was said to have been sealed shortly after the war.”

“How do you know all that?”

“It’s what I heard.”

Without touching on who or where she heard it from, she continued speaking.

“It was around sixty years ago. A child apparently went missing here.”

“—Huh?”

“Shortly after the war, outdoor classes were held here, and at night, they would hold a test of courage. Most of the children would go in pairs, but one of them – the one who was always bullied by the rest – was sent in alone. He cried and cried, not wanting to go inside, yet regardless, they forced him inside and shut the door. That child continued to bang on the door and screamed, ‘There’s something in here, help me!’ But everyone was too amused to care, and kept him locked in. At last, when his voice disappeared, they opened the door… to find that the boy was gone. The only thing left behind was one of his shoes.”

“…T-that, can’t be…”

“That’s right, the memorial monument behind the library is for that child.”

Yoishi’s voice oozed through the darkness as it reached my ears.

In the slimy, mushy darkness, my breathing became ragged.

Why did Yoishi know something which everyone should have forgotten by now? No, was it really Yoishi I was talking to right now? Where were we headed? And were we on the right path?

The moment I started doubting things, an endless stream of questions gushed forth from inside me. But none of those questions reached the core of my greatest fear. The thing I wanted to know above all else was a far more basic question.

“Say, Yoishi. Just answer me straight on this one.”

In a world of ear-splitting silence, I finally asked it out loud:



“Are we…still alive?”



The moment those words passed my lips, I felt something heavy collapse inside me.

Yoishi and I… we were already dead.

Everything up until now would make sense with that assumption in mind.

If we weren’t dead, there was no way to explain how I could have reunited with Yoishi, who had jumped backwards from the rooftop two days earlier, in an underground space that may or may not exist. We had been walking in the dark for quite some time now, far beyond the range of the Koumei institute.

Moreover—

This darkness was unfathomable. The darkness that should have been driven away by the light of the cellphone, yet it was so dense that it swallowed the light. Seeing the powerlessness of the light, the words ‘futile resistance’ crossed my mind. As if to suggest that hope was meaningless in the face of despair.

“Yoishi, I don’t mind, so just tell it to me straight. We’re already dead, aren’t we?”

I asked once more, unable to control my trembling voice. Yoishi stopped.

“To be precise, we’re not dead yet.”

“…No, but.”

“It would be closer to say that we’re halfway there. But that holds true for all living creatures in this world, so you can’t differentiate precisely. I know that saying that isn’t enough to convince you, so – to put things in another way. This place is like a revolving lantern.” 

“A revolving lantern…? Doesn’t that mean we’re really dead?!”

“No. Like I said, we’re halfway there. The underground we walk in definitely exists. But, it’s not a place the living can reach. This is a place where this world and the world beyond begin to melt into each other. Sensing death close by, the clock in the brain ticks away at full speed and merges with the incorporeal -- with the underground space that should not exist, a buried place that should have disappeared from this world, an illusion that only exists because of someone’s strong desire for it.” 

“Someone’s strong desire – you mean her?”

Ayana Takamura, right?

Yoishi nodded instantly in response.

“Say, Yoishi. That’s the thing I wanted to ask the most. I met a pale faced girl in the sports ground who was muttering incomprehensible things. She called herself ‘Takamura’. She was the one in the picture with Krishna-san, and the one who I saw reading a book in the café. In short, was that Ayana Takamura, who died five years ago? Am I starting to see ghosts too?”

“That’s not it.”

“—Huh? I mean, that’s common sense, but what I saw was not a dream. It wasn’t a case of mistaken identity or an auditory hallucination. Then, in the end, just where did Ayana Takamura disappear to five years ago? Is she still alive somewhere?”

Then, Yoishi asked me a question in return.

“Tell me, what do you think it means to live?”

“Huh?”

“The word ‘live’ is often used in the biological sense of living, and in the philosophical sense of living one’s life -- in the former sense, she is dead, and in the latter sense, she is still alive. In short, you, who can’t see the dead, met a girl, and that girl was not Ayana Takamura.”

“W…what do you mean?”

“There’s a girl named Takako Takamura in class D of first year.”

“Takako… Takamura?”

“She’s likely to be the younger sister of Ayana Takamura. Five years, ago, after Ayana Takamura’s disappearance, there was a lot of conflict between the school and the Takamura household. I don’t know the details of what happened after that – but Takako enrolled in the school this year. I can’t think of a good reason why you would want to enroll in a school where your sister disappeared, except if she was trying to investigate the mystery behind her disappearance.”

“No, wait a minute. According to Krishna-san’s story, they were step-sisters, right? In that case, isn’t it strange for her step-sister to resemble Ayana Takamura, who as I recall, resembled her mother?”

Yoishi’s response was cold:

“The exterior can change as much as you want it to, depending on what lies inside.”

“…What?”

“Meaning that she too is already a vessel for Ayana Takamura.”

I shuddered as I heard Yoishi’s mumblings about things I didn’t understand -- and raised my voice in a shout as I asked:

“H-how the hell do you know so much? Where and when did you find out about all of this? I don’t think you’re the type who would know what’s happening on campus, and you’ve been here for two days straight. Just how--?”

“Like I told you, it’s what I heard.”

“…Heard from who?”

“From the one who is dead, Ayana Takamura.”

It’s an answer I had already predicted -- but hearing it spoken out loud was enough to make my feet violently tremble.  

Yoishi then pointed towards the depth of the darkness.

“We’re on our way to meet her now.”


   ◯


“The institute’s original sin was in sealing the underground facility.” Yoishi spoke, walking with firm strides in the darkness.

“Without searching or giving a burial to the young boy who had gone missing nearly sixty years ago, they buried everything in the darkness. They built a memorial afterwards, but it always remained as a negative memory. In the Christian world, it’s known as having a cross to bear, and that is the true nature of the atmosphere that covers over this school since long past.”

…Ah.

Everything ended before it even began. It was the atmosphere of this institute that I’d constantly felt: the strangely insular, closed-off nature. Instead of thoroughly experiencing and enjoying my allotted years in a positive way, the school culture made me feel like I was barely getting by.

“When Ayana Takamura disappeared, there might have been a teacher who recalled the existence of this underground space. Or due to it being an old story, its existence might have been forgotten completely -- but as evidenced by the fact that a settlement was reached with the Takamura family, this school's culture of keeping scandals out of the public eye has been passed down from generation to generation. Even if you put a lid on its existence, it won’t simply disappear.”

I felt I had heard something similar before.

That’s right—if I recall correctly, in Krishna-san’s story, those were Ayana Takamura’s words.

So in short, that means that what Sako had said back then about this school being distorted since its foundation – it wasn’t just that the design of the school building was based on the Marian faith, or the poor way of treating the memorial monument, but in something that was connected with the two: the idea of complete escapism, of closing one’s eyes to what one does not wish to see. 

After knowing the true nature of the insular atmosphere of this institute, I gulped down the bitterness swelling up inside me, and asked:

“I heard there are many suicides in this university, so was that the reason?”

“Yes, it is. A negative atmosphere is connected to the negative thoughts of people after all. Places of frequent suicides are created in such a way. Not to mention the clock tower, which had nothing to do with the school originally, was located nearby - well, you could call it bad luck.”

“Then, in the end, what was Ayana Takamura trying to accomplish?”

“Who knows.”

“Who knows--? You don’t even have an idea?”

“I’m a contrarian, after all.”

“Huh?”

“Knowing that her wish is for us to imagine it, I’m not so naïve as to imagine it up for her.”

Her words hit me like a splash of cold water, and made me remember.

That’s it – That was exactly it. When you realize it, it becomes reality. Was Ayana Takamura trying to make us imagine the underground space? And in that underground space, was she trying to conceive the worst things imaginable from the depths of our mind? And that would end up manifesting through the negative thoughts that had been accumulated through the taboo words posted throughout the school. The shape of people’s fear itself would manifest in its original form.

“That’s why you shouldn’t think about it.”

I nodded vigorously in response to Yoishi.

At any rate, I emptied my head of all thoughts, and focused single-mindedly on following Yoishi.

Relying on the dim light from her cell phone, we continued forward. 

In the deep darkness resembling the deep sea – only the sound of Yoishi’s steady footsteps echoed.

Both myself and Yoishi, we had left our shoes on the roof, and only had our socks on now. We both walked on the ground, not knowing whether it was wet or dry. The temperature was neither hot nor cold, only a lukewarm air surrounded us. Holding up the light from the cell phone wasn’t enough to see even a few meters ahead, I couldn’t tell if my surroundings were wide, or if the ceiling was tall. I felt as if I was in a vast underground lake, and it also felt like I was present in an ancient ruin that had been destroyed and buried. Forgotten gods from far off lands were looking down on me, and even dinosaurs that were supposed to be extinct were wandering around—

Right then, I vigorously shook my head. 

I can't imagine it. This is the world that Ayana Takamura, a denpa of the highest order, wished for, and whatever we think of with fear in our minds could become a reality.

But—Even though I thought that, I was afraid.

Feeling myself melting away little by little, I was scared to death.

“…H-Hey Yoishi.”

It was pathetic, but I was about to ask her if I could hold her hand, when—

“We’ve arrived.”

Yoishi suddenly stopped, and focused the light from her cellphone somewhere. 

There, between the collapsed rubble and debris—

Something white and shiny was sitting in the narrow darkness.

For a moment, I couldn't make out what it was, so I turned the light of my cell phone toward it as well.

And the instant I realized what it was – I leaped towards Yoishi.

It was the corpse of high school girl.

It was a corpse, but it retained a beauty beyond the concept of all the corpses I had seen in books and at funerals. Her eyes were closed and her soft lips were slightly open. Her cheeks were translucent white, and her shoulder-length hair was wavy, as if it had been groomed. But all of it shone slimily, reflecting the light as if it were wet. And naturally, there was no sign of life from her at all.

“No way, Is this…?”

“Yes, this is Ayana Takamura.”

It was—

It was… a perfect sculpture.

I had seen it before on an occult website. Adipocere, an organic substance that is formed when a corpse is preserved in almost the same condition it was in when it was alive, by changing the fat in the body from liquid to solid under low temperature with a certain level of humidity. The characteristic feature of the body is that the skin and hair shone like a wax doll. I had only seen photos of the famous Italian girl Rosalia<ref> https://www.amusingplanet.com/2017/01/rosalia-lombardo-mummy-that-blinks.html</ref>, but this was much more than that. She had a divine presence, as if she would open her eyes and start talking at any moment.

“Did this girl -- I mean, did she jump off from the school building five years ago like us -- and came here alive? And she died here, because she couldn’t find a way out?”

“Probably.” Yoishi answered quietly. “This person probably saw too much. She may have been able see ghosts, She may have even seen the patterns of erosion in the human spirit that taboo words achieved. That’s why, she tried to control all of it. She tried to control it all, and to accomplish something with it. What that was - no one knows anymore, and it's best not to think about it. The fact that in this school, which was founded in an attempt to create the Virgin Mary, had various distortions in its origins, yet the fact that she still conceived – perhaps you could call it a miracle.”

“…What the hell do you mean?”

“You could say that she was probably the first woman in history who successfully conceived a virgin birth.”

“Huh…but, this person was…”

I was about to mention what happened between her and her father – when Yoishi shook her head.

“Say, have you heard of Pseudocyesis?”

“What is that?”

“In the broadest sense of the word, it’s also what’s known as a nocebo effect. Remember when you chanted ‘Agyousangyou’ and believed you had lost your guardian spirit? It’s the opposite of that. In other words, she was not pregnant.”

“H-how do you know such a thing?”

“Because—”

Yoishi answered.

“The strange rain that recently occurred at Musashino were menstruations caused by this place.”

...Eh?

“M…menstruation, that means…”

“Yes, menstruation - or a woman's period - is when the lining of the uterus is expelled with the blood, which happens when fertilization does not occur. It doesn't happen to pregnant women. Whether she had relations with her father or not, I don’t know the truth. But I suspect that because she was not fertilized, countless pieces peeled away from this place defined as the womb. It was perhaps small animals and their pieces that this womb gathered to protect its vital composition, in opposition to her thoughts.”

“…J-just wait a second. Didn’t you just say that Ayana Takamura was the first woman in history to successfully conceive a virgin birth?”

“Conception did occur. But it was not done through regular insemination. By believing she was pregnant, and by denying the father with her soul, she ended up created this nightmarish corridor. And the child she believed in her womb was--”

That instant—

I sensed an even darker presence lurking in the depths of the darkness.

A blackness darker than black.

A darkness deeper than dark.

It had a width that surpassed the ceiling, whose location I didn't even know; it covered an overwhelming width, one I couldn’t even imagine. As I recognized it, all measures of instrument in my head started going crazy.

“…W-what the hell…is that?”

Something enormous was wriggling and squirming, slowly moving in the darkness.

[[Image:Phenomeno-vol3-3.jpg|Height in pixel|thumb|]]

While staring at it, Yoishi – suddenly collapsed.

With a pained groan, vomit and excreta spilled from her mouth.

In front of a malice only she could see -- she was now vomiting painfully.

“---This is wrong.”

Yoishi grimaced, her eyes shining in pain.

“This kind of conception… is wrong.”

With those words—

I realized. Up until now, was there any malice in Ayana Takamura’s actions? Were they not the result of pure, innocent, untainted actions devoid of any corruption? That is why Yoishi did not vomit in the clock tower, nor in the Miiko incident, nor in the library. Because she didn’t feel any malice there. Because coarse feelings like malice were not mixed in.

“She just didn't like the impurity.” Yoishi spoke. “She disappeared before she could corrupt the world around her -- and yet, she was reborn here in combination with the countless negative thoughts and malice that she herself collected. What inseminated her was the innumerable malice and the unrestrained egos of people that she herself collected.”

Hearing that, I now knew that that the lump of darkness I saw above me was alive.

But it was still something in a form I didn’t understand. It was something that was repeating self-denial in a tormented manner, trying to figure out how to break itself down and form itself anew.

And just when I thought that, something rises up inside me as well.

That’s right. The black mass writhing in the depths of the darkness was—

It was just like me. The figure without a shape was me: unsure about what kind of person to be when it went out into the world, and who was completely at a loss for what it should become. The me that raged like a rising cumulonimbus cloud, with the ego I couldn’t throw away, and the dogma I carried, which had been concentrated and fermented to the point of decay, and which continued to churn out obnoxious theories. Self-denial. The ultimate self-hate. The irrepressible loathing that comes when facing your mirror-image up close. A doppelganger in the occult -- what a perfect example. The feeling of fear and repulsion from one’s shadow. it came to me suddenly, and with the feeling of my stomach churning, I threw up there as well.

“…What the hell is that? What did Ayana Takamura give birth to in this place?”

‘Give birth to’. I had ended up using those words unconsciously, but—

Somehow, I was so sure of it that I couldn't take the words back. Takamura Ayana had given birth to something here. This was the womb, and this lukewarm darkness was amniotic fluid. And that thing here right now was a baby, struggling to get out of here, trying to become something.

“A new Ayana Takamura.” 

Yoishi spoke in a whisper. 

“She incarnated herself here.”

“Incarnated—?”

The meaning of incarnation. A child of God is born as a human. If that was the case, does that mean Ayana Takamura became a God? No way. There’s no way that could be true. God was nothing but a man-made thing, and it existed only in the hearts of those who believe in it, and...and—

“And it’s a little more sane!”

I screamed out loud while still in pain from the gastric juices that kept rising up inside me...when suddenly—





''--Say, isn’t it so fun to see people in distress?''




A clear, bright voice resounds from amidst the darkness.

With a start, I swing around to see Ayana Takamura’s corpse. I focus the light of my cell phone to the body, wondering if she had come back to life. But a corpse is a corpse. It did not move. It only glowed in silence.



''--The belief that humans are fundamentally good, and the belief that they are fundamentally evil. I believe in neither of those. Humans intrinsically hold neither of those traits. They are simply weak.''


Hearing those words makes my stomach churn once again. I feel a violent, nauseating surge of gastric juices rising up inside me.

“W…Who’s there?”

I intended to strain out my voice, but what came out was a faint whimper.



''--They are simply weak and act according to their own convenience each and every time. They get hungry, so they eat what lies in front of them. Be it plants or animals: they eat. There is no morality in that. Things like morality are merely drivel spewed by the gluttonous individuals with too much free time on their hands, it’s a concept that is nothing more than air to those who hover between life and death. That’s all there is to it, so don’t you think it’s ridiculous to talk about things like God or the Devil while being blind to those shortcomings. Why do people feel elation when someone else is being bullied? Oh, and please don’t be boring and claim you’re any different. We don't need that kind of boring pretentiousness since we’re the only ones here. You’re the first one to think ‘Ah, I’m so glad I’m not the one being bullied. I’m so glad I’m not the one being humiliated.’ And just like that, after you recognize that you’re in a safe place, you feel a sense of joy from deep inside. You’re from the ‘pressure-free’ generation, after all. <ref> Generation that received relaxed education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yutori_education </ref> You just want to find an even weaker target in a society that’s already weakened as a whole. And it's not wrong. It's the delight that comes with avoiding ridicule. It's that feeling that has kept humans alive all along. Humans have only survived this long by valuing their lives. In short, human misery is enjoyable. Immensely enjoyable, isn't it?''




I couldn’t move at all.

Unable to argue back, I was simply overwhelmed by that voice. My entire body was drenched by those black words.




''--When you finally recognize that, I believe that’s when humans can go to the next level.''




Dammit, this wasn’t good. Listening to this voice was not good at all. I don’t know about her being pure or not – but she was a taboo word user whose words were enough to incite the heart of the listener. 

The next thing I knew – I was screaming.

I screamed recklessly, summoned my full strength, and grabbed Yoishi’s hand, who was right beside me.

“Yoishi, let’s go!”

I turned around and started running blindly back towards the path we came from. I had no idea where to run or how to escape from that voice and that mass in the darkness, but I kept running regardless, with Yoishi’s hand in mine. 

However—

“Tell me, don’t you think the human who created God is the greatest genius in history?”

The voice chases me. 

In total darkness, with no way to see in front, behind, above or below me, a cheerful voice closed in behind me. I felt a giggle so close to me as if it were right next to my ear – my heart started throbbing violently at the same time, and I felt a sickening premonition bubbling up from deep inside me.

“To take something as vague as God, to make people believe in its existence, and then siphon off their wealth, Isn't it the most successful business model in the history of mankind?”

Tears welled up in my eyes at hearing the voice right next to me.

“…H-hey?”

But the moment I started to look back—

“Don’t turn around.” I heard a cold voice.

“…Yoishi? It’s you, isn’t it?”

I scream as I grip her hand and continue running.

“It’s me. I’m right behind you. So don’t turn back. Just keep running.”

“O-okay.”

I didn’t know what was going on, but those words spurred me on as I kept running.


But the darkness grew even stronger. It was lukewarm, clinging to my entire body, it was as if I was engulfed in water and my body wasn’t moving as I commanded. But I still kicked the ground with as much strength as I could muster. I gripped Yoishi’s hand tightly and ran desperately in order to escape.

But—

“It’s useless.”

The voice was still right behind me.

“It all stems from the ego – you have to accept that. Humans are the embodiment of malice. Pushed into a corner, a parent will consume even their young. It's a mistake to blame them for that.”

It was as if it was transmitting from my arm connected with Yoishi, reverberating in my bones, in my flesh.

“It’s useless to regulate it with morals or religion. Malice lurks in the depths of the heart. There it simmers, only to burst out one day unexpectedly. It will become thicker, darker and burst forth into this world.”

“H-hey, Yoishi?”

“…”


I shouted out once more behind me. 

The voice, which seemed to have echoed directly in my head up until now, was now clearly pouring into me as a real, physical voice that made the air tremble. It reached my ears as if the voice had truly gained a form, and it echoed in my surroundings – and that thought which had already taken root inside me, was difficult to shake off.

Was the person behind me right now, really Yoishi?

The cold hand I was clutching in desperation right now, did it really belong to Yoishi?

“Hey, did you notice?”

Those…were the last words Ayana Takamura left behind in the notebook. ‘Dictation -- or the research of texts or sequences of text whose meaning, when understood, can cause spiritual phenomena’. Don’t become aware of it, is what Krishna-san had said. Don’t become aware of the thing Ayana Takamura hopes for. If you become aware of it, it ends up becoming reality. 

This was a trap.

The last and most important trap set up by Ayana Takamura. 

But—if that was the case, then what should I do? What should I do from now on? Just looking back and seeing Yoishi’s face once should be enough to shake off this fear. However, if I look back and don’t see Yoishi there…. If I see Ayana Takamura’s waxed corpse laughing at me instead… then I surely wouldn’t be able to stand anymore.

Isn’t this—

Isn’t this just like some sort of legend?

That’s right, the story of Izanagi’s escape from the realm of the dead while being pursued by Izanami – or wait, was it the story of Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction? Wasn’t there was also a similar story in Greek mythology? Which mythology was it from and in what form? Shit, I can’t remember. In any case, the common aspect in all of them was that you must never look back. Everyone who looks back ends up dead. That's a death flag.

“Haven’t you learned? When you combine all the colors, you always get black.”

Kekekekekekekeke, A voice that sounded like a creepy, monstrous bird roared in the darkness.

Even though I didn’t look back, I could feel someone behind me laughing so hard their red lips were split open.

But—But my knees were at their limits. It was impossible to keep running in this disturbed psychological state any longer. I had my feet planted firmly on the ground, but it felt like I could fall down at any moment. Without conviction in your actions, you can’t exert your true power. That’s what motivation is all about. Even for something like running away, motivation is necessary. In other words, no one can run away unless they are sure that they can escape. And besides that, if the hand I was holding right now didn’t belong to Yoishi, then all my actions would be meaningless. Having jumped off that rooftop with tears in my eyes would be completely meaningless.

Was I really holding Yoishi’s hand?

Was I on the right path in order take Yoishi back to the real world? 

If not, then I had to go back. And this time, I would have to take the real Yoishi with me and run away again. And for that, I had to look back once… Look back firmly, and confirm who was behind me—

As I arrived at that thought, I started slowly tilting my head around, when—

“Let go of my hand.” I heard that voice. “That is the most rational and correct course of action.”

“…Yoishi?”

“As long as I’m with you, you’ll probably never get out of here.”

“S-stop messing around.” I yelled at her as I ran, and my tilted neck turned back to lock itself face-forward once again.

“Listen to me. I can’t deny that darkness isn’t comfortable for me.”

“Hey Yoishi! Stop bullshitting. Just run. No, it’s fine even if you walk. Just don’t stop!”
	
But there wasn’t any strength left in Yoishi’s arm. I couldn’t feel the strength in her grip anymore.

“You and I stand in different places. The scenery we view is different.”

Hearing that—

Unawares, I realized I had stopped in my tracks.

With our hands tied together as if they were bound, we stood there in the darkness of the endless world.

There was no color here. No sound. Not even hope. Yet there was a plethora of malice. It was so full of malice that there was no place to stand unless you surrendered yourself to it.

And this darkness was—

The world that Yoishi Mitsurugi had always been looking at.

I was trying to pull Yoishi up to the world I saw. To a brighter world. A world everyone could smile. Krishna-san always told me that it was impossible. And yet, I still somehow felt I could do it. But, in order to pull her up, I would have to go to the place she stood at. I had to be strong enough to stand in this darkness and bear the weight for both of us without being consumed by it. That—was something my entirety could not bear. And if I couldn’t do that, then I shouldn’t have gotten involved to begin with. It would have been better for me to have feigned ignorance along with the rest of my schoolmates and lived happily within the limits of what I could take responsibility for. That would have been the smart thing to do. Isn’t that how everyone should live? Becoming an adult is all about that, right? It’s about making compromises. It’s about making distinctions between what you can and can’t do. That was something a kid like me could never do. That’s why I felt so cut off in university. I couldn’t be one of them.

“I’m—”

A tear rolled down my cheek before I’d realized.

“I’m… such a brat...”

This was a step towards adulthood. And a hard fact of this world that you had to give up in order to move forward. I was cut off because I’d been stubbornly running away from that fact up until now. Because I’d been acting so childishly, I ended up getting involved in all sorts of paranormal events. 

The path everyone takes. Giving up. Giving up on what you can't do, that’s what it meant to be an adult. I was enveloped in a myriad of regrets, the strength draining from my body. ‘Get yourself together,’ shouts a voice inside me, but it was quickly fading away. My fingers, which had been barely holding on to Yoishi’s fingers, were finally about to break away, when –





“That’s why – I couldn’t figure it out.” 





Those faint, quivering words reached my ears. 

“No matter how many days I thought, no matter how much sleep I missed, I couldn’t come up with an answer.”

“…To what?” I ask in a hoarse tone of voice, and—





“What in the world did I need to do, to be your friend?”




The moment the meaning of those words reached the bottom of my heart—

Countless fragments came rushing together all at once. I heard the scattered parts of something become whole again, with a clink. I realized I’d gotten something spectacularly wrong since the beginning.

No way, She—

No way, for so long, she’d been—




“It’s been twenty days, seven hours and forty-two minutes.”




I recalled the words Yoishi first said to me after I’d returned to Tokyo.

Twenty days, seven hours and forty-two minutes, you mean to tell me she had been thinking about it as the seconds ticked by? In front of the clock tower – when she was leaving school in the cat incident. And so incessantly that she stayed locked up in the library. She had been brooding on it with bloodshot eyes, earnestly and devotedly.

That—

In short, on that day at Tokyo station, those brief words she ended up saying to me—

Those brief words: I’ll become your friend.

She had been agonizing over how to make that small, trifling promise into a reality. She wasn’t agonizing over the fact that she could see ghosts, nor the fact that there was no salvation for those involved with ghosts – all her attention was simply devoted in searching for an answer to the existence known as ‘friend’. 

But—Is such a foolish thing like that really possible?

No…no, if it’s Yoishi we’re talking about, then it’s possible. The world that Yoishi saw constantly must have been her answer. It was… this darkness. Without a doubt, she must have been unsure of herself. The pain of having a friend. That hopeless path. Friendship is an emotion that develops between equals. It’s a relationship of sharing the big and small things. That's why she was so obsessed over a world as trivial as ‘friend’. It was because she knew the pain of being alone, and the comfort of it. That’s why, she didn’t know if it was right to forcibly make the cold darkness she saw as her friend. 

As I recall, in the cat incident, Yoishi pointed at me and said: ‘This person is a friend candidate of mine’. I wondered what the hell that meant at the time, but now, I finally understand. At the end of her hellish struggle, making me a ‘friend candidate’ was her point of compromise. She couldn’t have come up with that term without going through so many absurd and complicated ghost stories. At the edge of my rope, I finally realized something I shouldn’t have, and having realized it, I knew it was something I had to do, it was finally clear to me.

--She’s an idiot. She’s been such a big idiot.

“Hey, you goddamn idiot!” 

I yelled – and with a sudden jerk, turned to look back.

I didn’t care if turning back in this case was a death flag or whatever. I didn’t care if the Grim Reaper was laughing right behind me. So what if the numerous gods had met with tragedy in all those legends. In the end, I was an idiot, just like her. Only a fool like me could confront the fool who had been so sincere in confronting something as trivial as becoming friends. I don't know what I don't know, and I am afraid of what I am afraid of. I want to see what I want to see, and I can't let go of what I can't let go of. However, if I lied to myself about that, then I’d stop being myself anymore, and I couldn't walk with my head held high. That was the thing that scared me above all else. That, Yoishi, is the scariest thing in this world. 

I intended to say that as I turned around – 

And aimed the light from my cell phone towards Yoishi. 

The only thing that appeared there was Yoishi Mitsurugi's pale face. Without being enraptured by the darkness in the back – my vision was fixed on Yoishi's pitch dark eyes. 

"A friend isn't such a profound thing!"

I spoke, facing the girl I couldn't feel any emotions from. 

"Just having someone be there when you need them is enough." 

However, despite that, she would respond in that way, right?

She would wear her depressed looking face, with a posture that suggested she was carrying something heavy, and she would say that, right?

That she stands in the bottomless darkness. 

Then, I'll say it as well. I'll say it again and again.

–So what? 

You’re crying there, aren't you? Aren't you in pain, crying there all by yourself? Even though you lost the feeling of fear, but didn’t it just stop reaching your brain? The truth is, you're scared, aren't you? You're so scared that you're shaking. 

"In times like that, someone who stands by your side is what you call a ‘friend’."

The moment Yoishi’s eyes widened slightly at these words, I suddenly felt a strange sensation take hold over my body. 

It was a wind. 

A strong wind was blowing in from somewhere. 

Taken aback, my eyes darted around here and there. 

"A way out? Where is it blowing in from?" 

With my face still messed up with tears, I gripped Yoishi's hand once more. 


--Wait. 


Suddenly, I thought I heard a sound in the wind



--Hey, wait for me.


The voice blended in with the wind as it continued to echo.

It wasn’t the clear voice filled with confidence and arrogance from before. That voice was a quivering, frail and weak voice like a child pleading to its parent.


--Don’t leave me alone. I’ve been here alone for more than five years. No one came here. The darkness I yearned for, the darkness I loved, the darkness I was entranced by – it’s far darker here than I wished for. It’s so black that it could swallow me whole. It wasn't supposed to be like this. If you leave, I’ll be left alone all over again–



“Don't overlap your consciousness.”

Yoishi whispered.

“Right now, she embodies antisocial personality disorder in the truest sense of the word.”

Those words brought me back to my senses, as Yoishi continued:

“Having excessive self-esteem, and being self-centered. No remorse, no feelings of guilt, apathetic, and no empathy. They are talkative and friendly at first glance, but they cannot take responsibility for their actions – in that definition for antisocial personality disorder, there’s actually one more trait.”

“One more, you say?”

Nodding in affirmation, Yoishi added in a somewhat pained tone:

“They lie to an abnormal extent. Of course, that is just a scholar's label for an entity he doesn't understand. However, that label has taken a life of its own and become a Kotodama that has shaped Ayana Takamura's current existence. That is why we should question everything she says—”


“Then there’s no problem, is there?”

Yoishi, who was busy weaving a web of words, became bewildered at my sudden outburst.

“I mean, you said it before, didn’t you? That every single aspect of that definition applies to you.”

I spoke to the darkness - to the wind that was bursting in.

And I spoke to the dark eyed girl who stood close to me:

“if that’s the case, then I guarantee it. You, who are so bad at reading the room and so good at uncovering hidden truths, are so incapable of lying that it makes me want to tell you to at least lie a little - in other words, you're different from her.”

“Are you a genuine idiot? That’s not what I’m talking about at all--”

“That’s right, I’m an idiot. A goddamned idiot! But both you and me, and everyone else in this world is an idiot! Humans have always been foolish to a helpless degree, but we’ve managed to get this far because we accepted it and struggled with it, haven't we? Listen carefully: Me and you are both just idiots, and we’re not broken in any way. That’s why – That’s why…there’s no need for you to stay here in this dark place!”

That moment, the wind changed its direction.

And that sad voice reached my ears as if scattered by the wind.



--Was I… mistaken?

--Did I fail to become a Mary in this school?

Why was it?

I didn’t know why – but I was getting irritated.

An intense anger was welling up from the bottom of my stomach.

Not everyone who comes to this closed off space called school finds their purpose in life. The timing for finding it is different for each person. That is why, people lose their way. They are unsure about their actions and become lost. I can say it now: A university is a place to be lost at. I’m sure that me, Yoishi, the other students, and even Krishna-san are always lost. And probably will be for the rest of our lives, until we die. Being an adult isn’t about compromising. There are undoubtedly adults out there who don’t compromise. That’s why there’s no such thing as a boundary line between adults and children. Everyone has to struggle to the bitter end for the rest of their lives. They have to properly face up to each wall that comes their way. 

That’s why, I said it.

In the wind, I yelled so loud I thought my throat would burst.

That wasn’t directed at Ayana Takamura.

It was directed at something that Ayana Takamura was trying to destroy – or rather, it was someone in this world who was trying to squeeze us into a mold. It was the society that called us carefree, the adults who fantasized about artificially creating a Mary, the intellectuals who labeled incomprehensible thoughts a personality disorder. I screamed at something solid, something firm that formed the world, something that I couldn’t move, no matter how much I struggled.

“Hey, listen to me, you goddamn idiot. I don’t know anything about religion. And I don’t have any sense of duty to some guy who died more than 2000 years ago. But I do have one thing to say in defense of that bearded carpenter. Being a messiah is definitely not an inherent trait, get it? And it’s not something that’s created by ganging up together. It’s definitely an acquired achievement! To be born in a hopeless world, to experience countless despair, and yet, to still be an idiot and somehow try to save everything while facing that infinite wall – isn’t that why he’s still called the messiah, even after 2000 years?!”

In an instant--

With a bang, the world cracked open.

Something began falling down. Something was falling down in a fierce downpour.

“…Ow.”

I picked up the thing that hit my head, and found it to be a small fish. There were frogs, nails, and even a turtle. There were countless other small animals, water, and hair frozen in ice.

“S…strange rain?”

“The darkness… is collapsing.”

Yoishi replied to me as I crouched trying to protect my head.

The falling objects soon turned into a rain of organic matter so furious that it was impossible to look up. It was melting in a way that was nothing compared to the collapse of the dream mansion that had once existed inside of me. And then I heard a twisting cry from somewhere -- this wind pressure. My balls, or rather my groin, felt like they were shrinking. I remember this one - but no, wait a minute. This is the sensation of a body plummeting somewhere. Oh crap. The ground beneath my feet was empty. There was no ground to stand on. Right now, without a doubt, I was falling down somewhere.

And at the same time, I felt the darkness slowly fading. 

The cold air that seemed to reject life was changing into something warm and full of life, and various smells suddenly wafted through the air. A fierce gust of wind blew through my hair. My clothes were flapping about, and I finally remembered that I was wearing a blazer from Koumei Institute High School. 

--Hey, this place is…it can’t be.

Now I was surrounded by countless neon lights shining in the darkness of the night. Lights where people live. Peaceful lights of people relaxing at home. I knew it -- that was it. Was it the place where I jumped off the school building? Was it a replay from that time? I mean, even though it was my fault for diving, wasn't this a bad ending no matter how you slice it?

That moment, I felt a slight warmth from the tip of my hand. I was gripping something. I look toward the tip of my hand – to see Yoishi Mitsurugi, whose hair was also blowing in the night sky.

“Are you alright?”

“For now.”

“Well, that’s to be expected.”

I share a nonsensical conversation with Yoishi as we both fall down.

“I mean, this is a helpless situation, right? We’re going to end up smashing the ground if we just keep going on like this.”

“Usually, a revolving lantern is the thing you see just before you die, so I guess so.”

I finally started panicking after hearing Yoishi’s calm retort.

“Oooh, Oi, stop messing around! I don’t wanna die! Do something!”

“That’s why I told you not to look for me.”

“This is not the time to complain about that! What are we supposed to do?”

“In Ayana Takamura’s case, her body disappeared because she was swallowed by the other side at this point of time. She became a rare case whose body and spirit transferred to the other side in its entirety.”

“And in our case?”

“Unless something convenient happens, we're both going to die.”

…Hey, you’re fucking kidding me.

I still have lingering attachments to this world. I haven’t even married yet, I wanted to ride a big motorcycle, and I was thinking of driving a classic American car someday. I wanted to visit the Inca ruins, I had a mountain of video games I wanted to play, movies I wanted to watch, manga I wanted to read, so many songs I wanted to listen to. All of these were my little dreams that were supposed to come true once I was out in the world and earning money. I'm a mass made up of unfulfilled, deep-seated delusions!

Teary eyed, I had intended to shout that out loud, but—

In reality, all I could do gape my mouth open.

However, in the blowing wind - Yoishi’s calm words reached my ears.

“I’m glad.”

“What the hell?”

“This way of dying -- it's too good for me.”

“—Glad? Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not glad at all!”

Wouldn’t this be a suicide? No wait, my body will be discovered together with Yoishi who disappeared two days ago. This will be a mystery that will endure to the end of time, right? The title ‘Mystery of the additional corpse: The bizarre Koumei Institute double suicide’ or something along those lines will surely delight occult fans all over the world. Ahh Dammit, how trivial: a lover of mystery stories becomes a mystery story himself in the end. This is what they mean by the phrase ‘The mummy hunter himself becomes a mummy’. Krishna-san, I’m sorry. Thank you for taking care of me. I really was an idiot for getting involved with Yoishi. But a hopeless guy like me would probably repeat the same thing again even if I were to be reborn. I can’t be the one to say that for Yoishi: I was the bigger idiot all along.

At that moment—

A crashing thud ran through my back.

My breathing stopped, and my spine crackled so much it felt like my body was falling apart.

I couldn't catch my breath fast enough and I started coughing violently

“*C…cough*”

But—wait?

I’m alive. I’m…alive?

Or, I’m dead and that’s why the pain isn’t so bad?

I was dumbfounded and thinking such thoughts, when—

“Are you an idiot?”

A nostalgic abuse fell down upon me.

My blurred vision slowly came into focus with the speaker of those words.

It was Krishna-san, dressed in the Koumei high school uniform. She looked down on me with tears welled up in her two large eyes lined up on her baby face.

“…K-Krishna-san?”

“Welcome back.”

Next to her wearing a smile of relief, was the handsome looking high school student, Yukihito Kurimoto-kun.

“…Eh? How, what happened…?”

I finally twisted my head and looked around—

Me and Yoishi were hand-in-hand, laying side-by-side on a giant gym mat.

“Thank goodness we made it in time.”

When I looked closely, I saw that Krishna-san was out of breath. It seemed that both Krishna-san and Kurimoto-kun had dragged this giant mat all the way over from the gym room.

“How…did you know we were going to fall right here?”

The tone of my voice had begun to tremble, Krishna-san smiled weakly in response.

“Hah, you have no idea – we barely made it! But it’s all thanks to you. I realized it at the last minute, all thanks to your hard work.”

“Uh…I have no idea what you mean.”

“It’s all thanks to the Fafrotskies phenomenon translation we both did together.”

“…Huh?”

“Only one type of thing rains down.”

…Ahh.

Is that so?

So that’s how it was.

That voluminous research material that got sent over from England. The strange and mysterious Fafrotskies phenomenon: On certain days, things such as frogs, fish, blood and stones would suddenly rain down from the sky, in Japan it was called ‘Strange rain’ since times immemorial.

After she went to the university, Krishna-san had gotten worried and came back to the high school together with Kurimoto-kun. There, she caught glimpse of me facing backwards as I staggered on top of the roof; She apparently called out to me in a panic but I didn’t respond to her voice – and that’s where the idea stuck her like a bolt out of the blue. 


“Yoishi was there two days ago. The possibility was also high as she had left her hallway shoes there. And right now, you were standing there, Nagi-kun. You were standing on the edge of the water tower, facing backwards in the same way Yoishi had probably done just before she disappeared. That’s when I suddenly remembered. A single sentence that was written in the countless cases that we had worked so hard to translate. The commonality of what rains down is that it is of a single type. And then it came to me: What if the Fafrotskies phenomenon is a space-time shift that occurs in the psychological state between life and death, where a gap in space-time perception affects reality. That’s why I thought you had arrived at that hypothesis and were acting in that way. And I knew that in the next moment, you were going to jump down. But my intuition told me that what would fall down would be of a single type – You and Yoishi together.”

…Uhh, no. I wasn’t thinking about the Fafrotskies phenomenon at all at that time. 

“That’s why I’m saying it’s all thanks to the work you did. The fact that you stayed up so many nights working on it even while you were busy with your part-time job left a strong impression on me. That's why I was so convinced. And this is the fruit of that.”

I grabbed the arm that was extended out to me and stood up, finally turning around to look in Yoishi’s direction.

Yoishi was lying down on top of the mat with her arms and legs stretched outwards. Her short skirt was turned up to an almost obscene extent, but she made no attempt to fix it. She was looking straight up at the sky, as if she were perplexed at having returned alive to this world.

“It’s forbidden...to look.”

“…Huh?”

--Look? At what?

But getting lured in, I also looked up.

A conspicuously bright star stood out in the night sky. Umm, if I remember correctly, it was Vega.

“Ah… you mean the constellation Lyra?”

Krishna-san, seemingly sapped of her strength, sat down and also looked up at the sky. 


“She’s referring to the ancient legend of Izanagi and Izanami, in which it was forbidden to look back; Turning to look back or looking at forbidden things despite warning brought misfortune and sorrow. In psychology, it’s known as the Caligula effect.”

I listened to her words in a daze as Kurimoto-kun also sat down clasping his knees. By chance, we were all looking up at the night sky as if we were drawing a four-sided shape with Vega at the center.

“Similar stories are found all over the world. And there’s also one about that constellation. The constellation Lyra, which is named after the lyre given to Orpheus, the son of the sun god Apollo, who, after having lost his beloved wife, goes to Hades, the god of death, and asks him to bring her back to life.”

Ahh, I finally remember. 

It was Orpheus. The guy I was trying to remember back then. 

As if all the accumulated grime had been peeled off from the sky – in a rare event, a multitude of stars shone in the Tokyo night sky.

Under the starry sky, Krishna-san continued her story:

“The lyre Orpheus played in memory of his dear wife deeply moved Hades, who decided to break the rules and return his wife to him. But he warned Orpheus not to turn back until he had left the realm of the dead, and yet, Oprheus did end up looking back. He was worried whether or not his wife was really with him. And thus, his wife was returned to the realm of the dead once more, and Orpheus, drowned in sorrow, also died. It is said that Apollo, saddened by his demise, placed his lyre in the night sky.”

“The prohibition of ‘not looking’, is a portent of misfortune that is sure to come.”

Krishna-san nodded in response to Yoishi’s words.

“I see. So it's compassion from the gods that makes the shock of the inevitable unhappy ending a little easier to accept.”

I didn’t quite understand –in short, what was Yoishi trying to say would happen to me, having looked back when I wasn’t supposed to? I tilted my head in confusion, Yoishi let out a sigh and slowly got up. She gave me a glance and muttered:

“Even though I told you not to look for me...”

Sounding somewhat embarrassed this time.