It seemed there was still some beef left, which Rion had thrown together with some vegetables for an impromptu stir-fry.
“Hey, I know I asked you to save me and all, but do you know how that’s going to go down?” Rion asked. She didn’t seem to have a concrete idea of her own for how she wanted to be saved.
“We’ll just have to find a way off of this island,” Yuichi said. “Once we’re back in civilization, my sister can handle the rest.”
“Don’t you think you’re being rather irresponsible, Sakaki?” Natsuki commented. “You did the same thing when you fought me: never thinking more than one step ahead.”
“Uh...”
Natsuki’s observation struck Yuichi into silence. She was right. Anything he didn’t want to be bothered with, he always left to his sister.
But in order to leave things to his sister, first, he would need to save her.
“You mentioned Kukurizaka’s mansion, right?” Yuichi asked. “That should be our first stop. If they’ve been captured, they’ll be there. If they’re not there, they’ve probably escaped.”
“Kukurizaka’s mansion is right up the mountain,” Rion said. “But it’s pretty big, and there’s gonna be heavy security there just before the festival. I doubt it’ll be all that easy to just get inside and search it.”
“Where are they holding the festival? It’s not at the mansion, right?” Yuichi asked.
She had said the girls were going to be sacrificed, which meant that Mutsuko and the others would likely be brought alive to the festival location.
“The festival site,” said Rion. “But you can only get to them from the mansion...”
Rion thought for a minute, then seemed to remember something. She walked into the back room, and returned with an old sheet of paper.
“This is a map of the island. The festival site is here.”
The picture depicted the nearly circular island, broadly divided into upper and lower areas. They were currently in the lower area, the side commonly known as the “front.”
The festival site was on the back side, on the diametric opposite side of the mountain from Kukurizaka’s mansion.
“I’ve only ever gone there through the mansion, but if it’s the way it looks on this map, maybe you can get to it from the back,” Rion said. “But the back side is off limits to visitors, so I’ve never been there. I don’t know much about it.”
“The back side, huh?” Yuichi pondered. “If security’s as strict as you say, then it seems like it would be dangerous to go there from the mansion, so...”
Yuichi wanted to make it there as inconspicuously as possible.
“Security, eh?” Natsuki asked. “What exactly are they protecting it from? I can’t imagine the island gets many visitors.”
Yuichi was wondering the same thing as Natsuki. To get to the island, you’d need to charter your own boat. You couldn’t exactly get there on a whim.
“Oh, it’s like... There’s been rumors going around on the internet, see? About this secret festival we hold that people can’t talk about,” Rion explained. “It’s more than just rumors, too. Somehow, it got out that the festival is tomorrow. I mean, it’s not like there are all that many ways to get to the island anyway, but it’s the long-awaited festival of The Head of All’s revival and stuff. It’s, like, the moment the villagers have been waiting for ages, so if it fails, they’re nothing. The island might as well not exist anymore.”
“By the way, you keep mentioning ‘The Head of All.’ What is that, exactly?” Yuichi asked.
“They say it’s a god, that it fell from the sky long ago, and it was just a head, like the name suggests. They say it gave the people of the island the power to change into animals, and ever since, all the kids on the island have been born with that power. The ‘revival’ thing is about the head wanting a body again. We exist to give it that body. Once a year, a lot of people are offered as sacrifices. The Head of All absorbs them to recover its body.”
“So, does it really exist?” Yuichi asked. To him, a god was an invisible figure in the sky, looking down on the people and protecting them from on high. But Rion was clearly talking about something far more tangible.
“Yeah, and everyone believes it’s a god,” Rion said. “I don’t buy into it myself, but they say this whole world is all a dream by The Head of All. They say this is his dreaming time.”
“Dreaming time, huh? That reminds me of an Aboriginal legend. In ancient days, when half-man, half-beasts roamed the world, the people would go there when they slept.” Yuichi thought back to Tomomi’s words. She had mentioned, in the talk about worldviews, something about a faction that believed the world was just someone else’s dream.
“Wow... you know a lot about stuff like that, huh, Yuichi?” Rion said in admiration.
“I don’t know a lot about it,” he said. “I’m just remembering things my sister told me. Anyway, I doubt Australian legends have anything to do with this island. So what kind of guy is this ‘Head of All’?”
“I’ve only ever seen it through a screen,” Rion said. “It’s pretty big... well, whenever I look at it, I feel so scared, I can barely move. Same goes for most people. Anyway, the people who live here have been doing this for a long time. And it seems it’s finally almost time for The Head of All’s body to fully recover.”
“What will The Head of All do once it’s fully recovered, or revived, or whatever?”
“They say it’ll destroy humanity, and create a planet where anthromorphs rule.”
“That’s a pretty big deal.” It was hard for Yuichi to know how seriously he should take all of this. But god or not, it was worth committing it all to memory. “Anyway, let’s go to the festival site and see what’s there. Takamichi, could you stay here? We’ll come get you later.”
“Do you have a cell phone?” Rion asked.
“Huh? You mean this island gets reception? I don’t, though. It was in the ocean for so long...” He had realized his phone was broken when he changed clothes, so he’d just left it there.
“Got it,” she said. “I’ll wait here. But you’d better come for me, okay?”
“What about your parents, by the way?” he asked.
“...I doubt they’ll go along. They’re really all-in on the island’s way of doing things. I doubt they’d ever be willing to live anywhere else.”
“Got it,” Yuichi said. “Everyone’s got their circumstances. But I promise I’ll come back for you.”
“Ah, wait. Take this, if you like.” As they were about to leave, Rion called out.
She gave him the map from before, as well as a ring of keys.
“What’s this?” Yuichi asked.
“The key to a mini-truck,” she said. “It might come in handy.”
Yuichi had no experience driving cars. He looked over at Natsuki.
“I can drive.”
Yuichi took the gifts gratefully, and despite a deep sense of foreboding about it, he allowed Natsuki to handle the driving.
✽✽✽✽✽
Mutsuko strode forward purposefully through the large mansion. Aiko and Yoriko followed behind her.
Fortunately, it seemed rather deserted despite its large size, because they didn’t run into anyone. That also meant they had avoided any more fights.
“Um, do you know the way out?” Aiko asked.
“Oh, don’t worry! I remember it all, easy as pie! I could see it, after all,” Mutsuko said with perfect confidence. “I can see even through a blindfold! I have perfect direction, even in a car!”
“To catch you up, my big sister runs a lot of ‘what if I were kidnapped?’ simulations,” Yoriko explained. “Would you like to learn how to do it, too? You seem to have a very ‘kidnap me’ sort of face.”
“A what sort of face?!” Aiko fired back at Yoriko’s mocking words.
She glared at Yoriko for a moment. But as she noticed the way Yoriko’s right arm dangled uselessly at her side, the glare turned into a look of concern.
“Yoriko, is your arm okay?”
“Yeah. It’s nothing much. What, are you worried about me?”
“More like... concerned,” Aiko said.
“I’m fine. I injured my right hand, and I’m right-handed. That means I’ll have a hard time eating.”
“But isn’t that...” Aiko had a hard time seeing how that was “fine.”
“Yes. That means I get to make my brother feed me! I’m sure he’d indulge me if he knew I’d wrecked my good hand! ‘Say ah, say ah,’ he’d say! He might even be willing to do mouth-to-mouth feeding! Ah, I don’t suppose I’ll end up so bad off that it would require mouth-to-mouth feeding, do you?”
“What?” It took Aiko a few seconds to understand exactly what Yoriko was talking about. “Wait, are you saying you used your right hand because...”
The thought that she had immobilized her good hand, on purpose, for something like that... it gave Aiko a new respect for Yoriko’s sheer nerve.
“This will also make it hard to get dressed! I’ll need my brother to help me with that, too,” Yoriko declared. “‘Oh, what a bother! I just can’t do it! Whenever I try to dress myself, the pain just gets so bad’... and then I can make him hold me, and guide his hands, and collapse on him, and lie on top of him, and he can’t shake me off! Because I’m injured! He can’t say no to his dear sister’s requests at a time like this!” Yoriko’s eyes glimmered like never before at the thought of having the foolproof excuse.
Aiko narrowed her eyes at her.
“Of course, it doesn’t actually hurt very much,” Yoriko said. “I’m using the effect of furukami to dull the pain. Once you’re as good as my brother is, you can completely sever all sensation.”
Perhaps realizing she had gone too far, or just feeling awkward about having Aiko stare at her, Yoriko walked the subject back.
“Even so...” Aiko said. Yoriko couldn’t move her arm below the shoulder, and painful-looking purple welts were visible on the exposed flesh. It was hard to believe it didn’t hurt, as she’d claimed.
“Oh, remember the ‘pain, pain, fly away’ chant? That really works,” Aiko said. “Did you know that?”
“Really? I always thought it was a placebo effect,” Yoriko said.
“That’s part of it, but poking the part that hurts also lets you reroute the pain signals. It’s called Gate Control Theory. The words have an effect, too. The way a person thinks about pain can make it feel better or worse. So if you tell them that the pain has gone away, it actually sort of does.”
“Hey! Noro, are you interested in Gate Control, too?” Mutsuko interrupted, bubbling with curiosity.
“Huh? No, I’m not actually—”
“Gate control theory! The ‘gate’ refers to the substantia gelatinosa cells of the dorsolateral fasciculus near the entrance to the spinal cord! Pain travels through that to reach the brain! Thin nerves called the A-delta fiber and the C fiber carry the pain through the gate! A-delta fibers handle short pain, while C fibers handle lingering pain! But the momentary pressure stimulation used in ‘pain, pain, fly away’ increases the signals traveling through the thick A-beta fibers, which send pressure information! The gate can allow information from multiple fibers through at once, but since the A-beta fiber is thicker, overloading it can overwhelm the gate and keep the thin fibers’ information from getting through! That in turn keeps pain signals from reaching—”
Aiko stopped listening halfway through.
Mutsuko seemed to have an impressive memory, though, and they arrived at the mansion’s entrance without a single wrong turn. The shoes they had taken off were still there, so Aiko put hers back on.
Aiko was on her guard, but as she looked around, she didn’t see anyone in sight.
“There were two guards here when we got in, but I don’t see them now! Thank goodness!” Overjoyed, Aiko and the others flew out the door.
Aiko didn’t learn this until later, but preparations for the ritual were complete, so the two guards were already on their way to the festival site. The island patrols were on their way there, as well.
Four groups of six guards each. In other words, twenty-four anthromorphs on their way to the festival site had just returned to Kukurizaka’s mansion.
This meant that the moment they flew out of the mansion’s front door, they were greeted by a mass of anthromorphs, all glaring at them with cold eyes.
Chapter 7: Aiko’s Dog is Here
“We... can get out of this, can’t we?” Aiko looked imploringly to Mutsuko as she felt the sweat dripping down from her forehead.
“Hmm, I dunno... This is pretty...” Apparently not even Mutsuko could come up with a plan to get out of a situation like this.
Aiko looked around.
There were anthromorphs everywhere — too many to count at a glance. There were probably at least twenty.
They were barely outside the Kukurizaka mansion.
Aiko was about to suggest going back inside, but just then, they heard footsteps from behind. Apparently someone had realized they had escaped, and their pursuers had finally caught up with them.
“I guess there’s no fighting our way out of this one,” Yoriko said defeatedly.
“Um, what if we just let them catch us again? They did take pretty good care of us...” Aiko proposed, but knew that it wasn’t a realistic suggestion. They had taken advantage of that “good care” to get out once already, which meant that their captors would probably increase security next time, robbing them of a future chance to escape.
“Hey, Noro! You think Yu might just happen to come along and save us at exactly this minute?” Mutsuko asked.
“H-Hey, yeah! This is right around the time Sakaki always shows up! I’m apparently the love interest, after all!”
“Even ignoring that love interest nonsense, my brother would never fail to save his darling little sister!”
The three called out in unison:
“Yu!”
“Sakaki!”
“Big Brother!”
Their cries echoed off the mountain.
Aiko could feel the anthromorphs’ gazes grow one level colder.
“Hey! Why isn’t Yu here? This is gonna be hard to overlook! You’ll be punished for this later! With Yugo-style torture!” Mutsuko declared.
“Sis, if we don’t do something, there won’t be a later!” Yoriko wailed.
The anthromorphs had surrounded them.
“Who are these people?” one of them wondered.
“Oh, I know. We captured them yesterday, the group I was part of.”
“So they escaped, huh? Was their guard asleep on the job?”
“Well, it’s perfect timing, right? We’re going to the festival site either way, so let’s just take them with us.”
They didn’t seem to want to kill them right away, it seemed; they must be too valuable as sacrifices.
What do I do?! Aiko was uncertain.
Should she unleash her vampiric powers? Or should she let herself be caught and wait for rescue?
She could suck Mutsuko or Yoriko’s blood and become a vampire, perhaps... but could she really handle so many enemies? She didn’t know, but she had to try. It was all Aiko could think of. And if she couldn’t beat them all, or they couldn’t get away, then at least she would be the only casualty; Mutsuko and Yoriko would still have value as sacrifices.
Aiko walked over to Mutsuko and whispered to her softly, “Um, Mutsuko... could I suck your blood?”
“Oh! So that’s your plan. No problem! But are you sure?” Mutsuko asked.
Mutsuko gave ready consent with no hesitation whatsoever.
Aiko got around behind Mutsuko, who crouched down. Aiko softly put her lips to her neck...
She was just about to concentrate on extending her fangs, when suddenly, it happened. What looked like the heads of a dog, a weasel, and a bear flew through the air.
“Huh?”
Just as Aiko looked up to confirm she hadn’t imagined it, they were jo
ined by the heads of a cat and a pig. Heads were flying left and right as if in a joyous rhythm.
Aiko watched, dumbstruck. The next thing she knew, all the anthromorphs around her had fallen over. Not one of them still had a head.
“Sakaki? No... it’s not, is it?” she asked. No matter how superhuman Yuichi was, he couldn’t possibly do all this.
Aiko looked around her. There was an anthromorph standing there.
It was a wolf-man. His facial features had a masculine cast to them, and he was about two meters tall, strapping and burly.
It was immediately clear that he wasn’t one of their captors; he was the one who had killed them. He had a presence about him that was lacking in the anthromorphs they had met on this island so far.
The wolf-man walked over to Aiko and went down on his knees. He bowed so low that his nose touched the ground — though he still appeared very large to the petite Aiko.
“U-Um...” Aiko stammered in confusion.
“Noro! I bet you’re supposed to say ‘rise’! He seems like that kind of guy!” Mutsuko declared.
Certainly, it did seem like he might stay that way if she didn’t say something.
“I’m sorry. Could you rise, please?” Aiko asked.
The wolf-man did as he was told, raising his eyes to look up at her. He was truly a beautiful wolf.
“What would you call that, a WILF?” Yoriko murmured as she eyed the werewolf.
“Um, thank you. You did save us, right?” Aiko asked hesitantly.
“I am unworthy of your words...”
Aiko drew back in surprise. The wolf was crying.
“Um... could you please act normal?” she asked. It was hard to know what was normal for him, but Aiko had a hunch that the conversation wouldn’t get very far with him carrying on like this.
“You saved us, right?” Aiko added.
“Indeed,” the wolf-man said. “I saw that harm was about to strike my princess, and so I took their heads without hesitation.”
“Princess? Um... yeah, okay, I guess I see where this is going. You mean me, right?” Aiko asked. She felt a little self-conscious about acknowledging that she was being addressed as a princess.
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