“I’m bored.”
“Come on! Is that all you have to say?” Yuichi asked.
“I’m suffering the indignity of letting you grope my chest, aren’t I? Talking to me is the least you could do.”
Now that she mentioned it, trying to pretend like he hadn’t noticed wasn’t going to work. He couldn’t help but think about the way his arm twisted and contorted Natsuki’s soft bosom each time he made a stroke.
“Don’t put it like that! But, sorry... It’s true that I haven’t been very considerate,” Yuichi said. Indeed, just swimming in silence would drive anyone out of their mind. “But I’m not sure what to talk about...”
Yuichi didn’t know much about Natsuki. They went to club meetings together, but they didn’t talk much. And even when she dropped by Yuichi’s training, all they did was fight. All Yuichi knew about Natsuki was that she was a serial killer, and that she was very strong.
“Hey, if you wanted to kill me, it would be pretty easy now, wouldn’t it?” he said. It was the only thing that came to mind. There was probably a more normal subject he could have picked, but after all his thinking, that was what he ended up with.
“If I killed you now, I’d drown,” Natsuki said. “And as I told you before, it’s not satisfying to kill someone who can’t resist.”
“About that...” he said. “It’s something I’ve never understood. Why do you have to kill people at all?”
“I was ordered to ‘devour this species,’” she said.
“Hey, that’s going around a lot lately, huh? Ibaraki quoted Parasyte, too.”
“...How humiliating. To have to share material with him...”
“Hey, don’t actually get mad about it...”
“It’s the truth, anyway,” Natsuki said. “I’ve had someone living inside me for as long as I can remember.”
“You mean... Jack the Ripper?” he asked.
Jack the Ripper. The terrible serial killer who’d terrorized London long ago. For a time, that had been the label that had hung over Natsuki’s head, for reasons he didn’t understand.
Natsuki used surgical scalpels when she fought. They were Jack the Ripper’s weapon of choice, so clearly there was a connection.
Ibaraki had suggested there were others who named themselves after famous serial killers, too. That worried Yuichi. Ever since he’d begun seeing those strange words, he’d gotten mixed up in a lot of strange incidents. There was a chance he could end up running into another of those serial killers.
“I don’t know,” she said. “That’s what he seems to think of himself as... which isn’t to say that I can distinguish his thoughts from mine. His hunger is my hunger. That hunger expresses itself as the urge to kill... and it seems that’s directed at you, for the moment.”
“You make it all sound so matter-of-fact...”
“I don’t really understand it, either,” Natsuki said. “But it seems the killer inside me isn’t interested in killing anyone but you right now. So you can rest easy. I won’t kill anyone until I kill you.”
“What the hell? Does that mean I have to stay with you forever?” Yuichi felt weary. Now that he knew Natsuki, he couldn’t let her kill anyone else. Which suggested that she would be completely dependent on him from now on. He hadn’t realized it before, but it was looking like he might need to take drastic measures at some point.
Natsuki chuckled. “You’re quite confident. It’s like you don’t think it’s possible that you might just die.”
“After everything that’s happened, I can’t just let you kill me,” Yuichi said. “I’ll stay with you as long as I can.”
“Can I interpret that as a proposal?”
“Why would you?! Why would I marry someone trying to kill me? What kind of bloodthirsty marriage would that be?”
“But it’s till death do us part, isn’t it? That’s the marriage vow. For better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.”
“Oh... fine, whatever,” he muttered. “Anyway, there must be some way. There’s a lot of weird things out there, so there must be some way to make you a normal person, right?”
Yuichi really wanted some way out of having to keep fighting Natsuki until he grew old and died.
“A normal person... hmm. If there was a way, I’d love to hear it...” Natsuki sounded rather sad. “It’s not as if I’m doing this because I like it. I want to have friends, too. I want to live a happy life as a normal person, just like anyone.”
“Really? You seem to treat ‘normal people’ as a different class from you. Why don’t you try to get closer to them? You build all these walls...” Yuichi had never seen Natsuki make the effort to really get along with anyone.
“In that regard, you build walls between you and me, don’t you?” she asked.
“I would be lying if I said I didn’t.” Yuichi was being honest in that respect. He couldn’t put her murdering past behind him.
“I don’t like that part of it either, but I don’t worry about it too much,” he continued. “Trying to push human legal rules onto otherworldly beings seems pretty pointless. If someone dies somewhere in the world, it’s not my problem. It’s not that different from hearing about the kids starving to death in foreign countries.”
The words seemed heartless, but in the real world, people couldn’t worry about every little thing. You couldn’t save people you’d never seen or known about.
“Also, if you were human, what you’ve got could be classified as schizophrenia, right?” he asked. “Legally, crimes committed when you’re not in your right mind don’t count.”
The 39th article of the legal code stated that the mentally ill weren’t considered culpable for their crimes. It was a controversial law.
“Thanks,” Natsuki said.
The sudden words caused Yuichi to stiffen. “Why thank me?”
“I feel like you’re trying to make me feel better. You want to protect me. I appreciate that.”
“Sh-Shut up! It’s just that I’m bored, too.”
“Tsundere?”
“There’s no ‘dere’ there!” Yuichi screamed awkwardly.
He could tell that his words had truly made Natsuki very happy. After a moment of self-consciousness, Yuichi focused on his swimming once again.
A little while passed in silence before Natsuki addressed him again. “That’s clearly unnatural, isn’t it? What do you think it is?”
“What do I think what is?” They were both facing in nearly the same direction, so he realized what she had meant at once.
There was something in the water, moving at such high speed that it kicked up a spray of water behind it.
Just like Yuichi and Natsuki, it was heading in the direction of Kurokami Island.
“You don’t think it’s... a shark, do you?” Yuichi gritted his teeth. He knew a few things about how to fight in the water, but his options would be limited as long as he was holding Natsuki. He’d need to let her go and finish it off in a single hit for them to stand any chance.
Suddenly, the thing seemed to notice Yuichi and Natsuki, and changed course to make a beeline towards them.
“A dog?” he wondered. It did look like a dog. A dog with black fur pasted to its body in a way that gave it a slightly wilted look.
Once it was close enough, Yuichi could make out the words above its head.
“Fenrir.”
He had no idea what that meant, but like “Nihao the China,” it sounded like it must be some sort of description.
For a second, Yuichi felt sure that they were in real danger. The aura it was giving off suggested extraordinary power.
Not good!
He vacillated. He’d need to make a split-second decision about how to deal with it.
The dog, however, didn’t seem to notice Yuichi’s alarm in the slightest. Once it got close enough, it matched his speed and began swimming parallel with him.
“Hey,” the dog addressed him. It looked like an anthromorph, wit
h a canine face on top of a body that was more or less human. It was also quite large. “Is that Kurokami Island?”
The anthromorph dog-paddled with one paw while the other pointed to the land mass that was coming into view. Yuichi hadn’t realized it had gotten so close.
“I think so?” Yuichi just answered the question honestly.
“I see. Thanks a lot.” With that, the anthromorph picked up speed again and headed straight for the island.
“What the heck just happened there?” Yuichi murmured once the creature was out of sight.
Chapter 5: Leave the Anthromorph-Slaying to the Serial Killer!
Yuichi arrived on the island just before sundown.
“Graaaah!” With one final burst of strength, he pulled himself up on the pier. Once he was up, he released Natsuki, rolled onto his back and went limp.
He checked the time. It was 6:00 PM. He had been swimming for close to five hours with nothing to eat or drink. Understandably, he was exhausted.
“Are you okay?” Natsuki asked him in concern. She was just as soaked as he was, which just happened to render her white blouse completely see-through. But he was in no mood to think about that at the moment.
“I’m not okay at all... where are the others, anyway?” he asked.
“They don’t seem to be in the area.”
“...You’d think I’d get a little more appreciation...” he murmured. Mutsuko was one thing, but he’d thought at least Yoriko and Aiko would come to greet him. It was a big disappointment.
“You did very well.” Natsuki squished Yuichi’s wet hair around. It was a small gesture, but it did make Yuichi feel better.
Of course, feelings were only that. It didn’t change the state he was in.
He was at his limit. He could barely move. He’d hit the wall. He’d also hit low blood sugar, due to hunger.
There was no way he could get his body to listen to him now. He could hardly even think straight.
Still, he began to realize, there was definitely something strange going on. Mutsuko should have known he’d arrive in this condition and made preparations.
“...Hey, is there any food or water nearby?” he asked.
Anything would do. The island was inhabited, so there must be something.
“Hang on, I’ll look around.” Natsuki left and returned after a while. It was faster than he expected; she couldn’t even have left the harbor.
“Here.” Natsuki offered him a nutritional supplement bar and a plastic bottle.
Yuichi took them with trembling hands, crammed the supplement into his mouth, and washed it down with the water.
That calmed him down a bit. Slowly, he sat up.
“There’s more. Eat lots.” Natsuki handed him all the supplements she was carrying.
“Thanks... where did these come from?” Yuichi asked.
“They were over there.”
Left by Mutsuko, Yuichi thought. Still, that was a pretty detached way of doing things. It wasn’t like her.
Regardless, he needed to eat them and recover. Yuichi stuffed as much food as he could into his mouth. “You eat too, Takeuchi. You’re hungry, aren’t you?”
At his urging, Natsuki ate one of the supplements, as well. Although she had been carried the whole way, just being in the water consumed a lot of a person’s energy.
“We’d better change our clothes fast, or we’ll freeze to death,” Yuichi said. Even though it was summer, the temperature would still drop once the sun went down. They might lose all the energy they had recovered.
Feeling quite a lot better now, he finally stood up.
“Look at this... There’s definitely something strange going on,” Yuichi noticed.
The luggage was piled up nearby in a haphazard heap. The tents, the utensils, and all the food... even the bags with changes of clothes had just been left where they were. There was one open bag, and it was full of the nutritional supplements from before.
“I brought them from here,” Natsuki said as she followed him.
“I wonder where they are and what they’re doing,” Yuichi said. It looked like they’d just left all their luggage behind. “For now, let’s just get changed. Your luggage is there, right, Takeuchi?”
Yuichi picked up the bag that contained his change of clothes, and looked around for a place where they could get changed.
Natsuki carelessly removed her blouse.
“Hey! You can’t get changed here!” he exclaimed.
“No one else is watching. You should get changed right away, too,” she said.
“Why are all the women I know so indiscreet...” He already had two sisters who felt comfortable getting naked in front of him. Learning that Natsuki was the same way was kind of disappointing.
But realizing this was no time for modesty, Yuichi steeled his nerve. He stripped off the weights along with his wet clothes and underwear, wiped dry, then put on a new shirt and jeans.
He considerately kept turned away from Natsuki the whole time.
After a while, he decided it must be safe, and turned around.
Natsuki stood there, dressed in a full-body black leather bondage outfit. It was covered all over with what looked like holsters, with medical scalpels mounted in each.
“Um, Takeuchi?” Yuichi was utterly dumbstruck. He couldn’t help but be impressed.
“Sakaki,” she said. “You understand the situation, right? Is the blood not properly flowing to your brain yet?”
“Huh?” It was true his head wasn’t working right. The gears in his brain had slowed tremendously.
“I thought so,” she said. “You need to snap out of it. They wouldn’t have just left their luggage out here. They must have been taken by someone.”
“Taken by whom?” he asked.
“Why don’t we ask them?” Natsuki pointed.
Yuichi turned to look...
A cow was standing there. Above its head was the label “Anthromorph (Cow).”
Actually, it was more like a person with a cow’s head. The black and white blotches suggested a Holstein, and the chest was especially large, suggesting that it was a female.
Yuichi knew another word for a creature like this: a Minotaur, the bull-headed monster from Greek legend.
Next to it was “Anthromorph (Pig)” which had a pig’s head, and brought to mind a certain character from Saiyuki.
An elephant-headed creature that evoked the god Ganesha bore the label “Anthromorph (Elephant),” while another resembled a white equine. At first, Yuichi thought this one had a horse’s head, but there was a horn growing from his forehead. The label said “Anthromorph (Unicorn),” so that was probably right.
There was also another with a canine head, similar to what he had seen before. Although this one technically said “Anthromorph (Dog),” it was hard to tell it apart from the werewolves.
Up until now, they had all been mammals, but there was also an “Anthromorph (Snake)” that had a snake’s head, bending forward on a long neck.
Though a chaotic assortment, they were all anthromorphs. It felt vaguely like a fairy tale had broken out around him.
Yuichi realized that he was currently not fully in his right mind. It was a shock to realize he hadn’t noticed so many obvious presences in the vicinity.
“Not good... I haven’t recovered at all,” he murmured.
First, he needed a way to force his condition back to normal. Yuichi began to focus his breathing...
✽✽✽✽✽
Aiko and the others had been captured without resistance. They were totally outnumbered, and they knew that a little struggling wouldn’t change anything.
Fortunately, their opponents were apparently quite confident in their ability to keep the prisoners in line, so they hadn’t felt obligated to rough them up at all. They clearly thought that if their prisoners tried to run or resist, they could easily put them down.
The girls had left their luggage out in the open when they had taken it off the boat, but the anth
romorphs had shown no interest in it, only bothering to confiscate their cell phones, watches, and such. Afterward, they were taken by car to the anthromorphs’ headquarters.
Kurokami Island’s most distinguishing feature was the volcano that towered over it. It got higher and higher up as one moved towards the center, and about halfway up the slope squatted a peculiar Japanese-style mansion.
Its inconsistent architectural style suggested a building that had been added to repeatedly over time, but it was large enough that it was hard to take in the full scope of it at a glance.
The minute they got inside, Aiko could tell that something had changed in the air around them. It felt kind of slimy, kind of sticky. There was a sour smell about the place; it made her skin crawl just standing there.
They were led deeper inside.
It was dim there, with only naked light bulbs to provide light. It was hard to say if that was intentional, but it meant that there was always darkness somewhere around them.
How long had they been walking? It was around the time that Aiko had completely lost track of their current position that they appeared to arrive at their destination.
It was a sliding door prison — a Japanese-style room lined with wooden lattices.
They were sent inside of it, and naturally, the door was locked behind them.
Their only guard was a single human man who sat in front of the door. But he was most likely an anthromorph, and could transform if he had to.
“What’s gonna happen to us?” Aiko asked with a sigh as she took a seat on the tatami floor.
She genuinely had no idea what was going on. They had come to the little isolated island for their training camp, and minutes later, monsters had appeared and locked them up. This was not what she had been expecting, to say the least.
Mutsuko, for her part, seemed unaffected. “Whatever will happen, will happen! For now, let’s take it easy and wait and see.” She lay down on the tatami floor, completely at ease in this situation.
“How are we going to go to the bathroom?” Yoriko asked, inspecting the room. Apparently, she wasn’t scared anymore, either.
“The toilet is... there,” said a voice from somewhere in the room’s dim light.
Humanity’s Extinction Happens During Summer Vacation?! Page 9