Prologue: Breakthrough
Deep in the forest primeval walked a company of men.
It was just past noon, yet the place was dim. Not dark, exactly, but like a thin film had been laid over everything. The bright sunshine that might otherwise have washed over everything was blocked out by the layers of gnarled tree branches. Only a dappled haze found its way past the leaves.
It was trees, trees, trees, as far as the eye could see in every direction. The stripes of light in all their different sizes acted like an optical illusion, distorting the sense of distance. If you turned around, you would be hard-pressed to tell which direction you had come from just seconds before. The steel spikes pounded here and there and the rope running between them were the only signs of human hands in this forest, and the men clung to them like a lifeline.
Aokigahara Forest. A dense wood located at the foot of Mount Fuji, popularly known as the “Sea of Trees.” From time immemorial it had been a favorite place for suicides, and it was sometimes said to be haunted: once you went in, people claimed, you never came out. In reality, though, it was a tourist spot, with a walking path and everything. There were parks and campsites nearby, and plenty of people came for a simple stroll in the woods.
Because of the amount of iron ore in the area, people claimed that magnetic compasses didn’t work, or that electronic devices would go haywire. But the truth was that compasses would just be slightly off, not unusable, while modern electronics were too advanced to be affected by the relatively weak magnetism in Aokigahara. These details had been used for dramatic effect in books and movies so often that the notion of a “haunted forest” had taken on a life of its own.
“Jeez,” Fujita Keisuke muttered in exasperation, “today’s tourists aren’t afraid of anything.”
There was something white at his feet. A used contraceptive device—a rubber condom.
“Who comes all the way out here just to do... that?” Someone, obviously. They were well off the walking path, but here was the evidence.
“Some kids, probably,” one of the guys walking beside him said easily.
Work was work, but this was one depressing job. Keisuke tossed the condom into the trash bag he was holding and heaved a sigh.
Keisuke and the others had removed their familiar navy-blue uniforms, instead donning vests and gray work suits. Each wore a hat on his head. They had thick gloves, of course, and climbing boots. Each also carried a lamp, a sturdy nylon rope, a canteen, and other supplies on the belt at their waists. They had a pouch made of synthetic fiber in which resided a compass, a map, and a portable radio.
The words “Yamanashi Prefectural Police,” the organization to which Keisuke belonged, were embroidered on his vest. Only Keisuke and the guy beside him were wearing vests; everyone else was wearing a neon armband instead.
They were a patrol unit. The Sea of Trees being famous as a place to commit suicide, people came from all over Japan in order to kill themselves there. After all, while Aokigahara might be a perfectly civilized tourist location, it was also a vast forest of ancient pedigree. If you left the path with no equipment, no knowledge, and no experience, there was a good chance you really wouldn’t come back.
Hence patrol units were formed, comprising both members of the local Yamanashi police force and volunteers from all over the country. They conducted regular sweeps of the woods hoping to find and prevent potential suicides, or at least discover the remains of those who had gone through with the act.
The job as such had existed for a long time now. But recently, the work of the patrols had come to include picking up garbage.
Inevitably, when people are told something is dangerous, it will make some of them even more eager to see it. Some people deliberately left the main path as a perverse test of courage, so the patrols would find empty cans or cigarette butts strewn here and there in the woods. As if that weren’t enough, there were even some people who came to dump industrial waste away from prying eyes. Aokigahara Forest got filthier every year.
“This place would stay cleaner if it really were haunted,” Keisuke groused.
His colleague nodded. “No kidding.”
That was when they heard the scream. Keisuke and the others spun around.
“What was that?!”
Civilians participated in these patrols on the understanding that they were responsible for themselves, and in general most of them were used to mountaineering or foresting. But still, if anything happened to one of them, people would no doubt hold the police accountable. Keisuke and the others hurried in the direction of the sound.
“It’s Kawamura-san! He—”
“He fell! He fell!”
The other volunteers were clustered around where the person who had screamed—a man named Kawamura, apparently—had fallen. Some of the people were pointing their portable lanterns at the ground, while somebody else was quickly lowering a rope.
“Took a slip, did he?” Keisuke pushed through the crowd of civilians to get a look at the scene.
“What the hell...?” one of the other police officers muttered in his ear.
A fissure yawned in front of their eyes. Twenty meters long, it was almost three meters across at its widest point. The conical shape and the leaf mold along the edge gave it the impression less of a trench than of a hole.
How deep was it? They couldn’t tell. The crack didn’t go straight down, but appeared to slope, so the light from their lanterns didn’t reach the bottom. It was impossible to say just by looking how deep it might be. Neither, of course, could they confirm the safety of whoever this Kawamura was who had fallen in.
Most likely, this cave had already been present in the bedrock. Something had caused the ceiling to collapse, taking the former surface—leaf mold and all—with it. In effect, a booby-trap, though one planted by Mother Nature and without malice aforethought.
“Heeeey!” Keisuke called. “Are you okay?”
There was no answer. Was it so deep that Kawamura couldn’t hear him? Or...
Despair quickly settled over the volunteers. “At that depth, he must have...”
But Keisuke shook his head, lowering a rope. “It’s too soon to give up hope. I’m going to have a look.”
He fastened the lifeline to himself, tying the other end to a sturdy-looking tree root. He had been in the mountaineering club in college and was still something of an outdoorsman, so this was all familiar to him. Once he was confident the rope was securely attached to the root, he nodded to his colleagues and began to move gradually over the cliff and into the crevice.
“Hmm.”
The gradient of the wall was gentler than he had thought. Supported by the rope, Keisuke walked backward, heading downward at a tilt. The easy angle meant there was a good chance Kawamura was still alive.
Keisuke worked his way down, periodically calling, “Heeey! Are you all right?” But there was still no reply.
At length, he estimated he had descended nearly twenty meters. This hole was deeper than he had expected. He was just starting to think maybe he should report back when a strange feeling overtook him.
It was as if he were floating underwater. His feet slipped. This was because the rock face, which his boots had bitten into with such assurance just a moment before, was suddenly floating. He didn’t know why. The rope was slack. Suddenly, Keisuke felt as if he had no body weight—no, that wasn’t it. It was as if the world had been turned upside down...
“Whoa!” he shouted, confused. His hands clawed at empty air. His body spun. He was falling... up?
“Ahhhh!”
He had completely lost any sense of direction. But then he felt himself being spit out of something. Something soft caught him. He rolled two or three times, then registered that the
ground was completely covered in grass.
He lay there, blinking. A wide, grassy field spread out around him. It was green off into the horizon—and for all he knew, it was green to the horizon after that, too. The whole place was awash in brilliant sunlight, and a gentle breeze was eddying past. It practically begged him to settle in and relax.
“...Wait,” Keisuke said dumbly. Hadn’t he been headed for the bottom of a hole just a moment ago?
He sat up frantically to find a middle-aged man sitting right nearby in the grass, just like he was. Judging by his outfit, it was the Kawamura who had fallen earlier. He was looking at the scenery with the same dumbfounded expression as Keisuke.
This wasn’t possible. A place so vast and open couldn’t exist underneath the Sea of Trees.
“It’s inconceivable,” Keisuke said under his breath. Where in the world were they?
Unconsciously, he began looking around for the familiar peak—the top of Mount Fuji. But no matter how he searched, that most famous of Japanese mountains was nowhere to be found. Flummoxed, he turned around.
And then he froze, speechless.
For a second, he didn’t understand what it was. Or rather, he knew, but some kind of deeply ingrained common sense refused to let him believe it was real. Because it couldn’t be. The only place it existed, he thought numbly, was in myths and legends and stories. And yet...
“A d—” he groaned. Beside him, Kawamura noticed his strange expression and turned as well—and then he froze, too.
“A d—”
The thing that had pinned the two men in place was a gigantic blue creature. Even with its wings folded and its limbs beneath it, it was as big as a house. It was breathing gently, producing a fetid wind that rustled the grass. Did we mention it was massive?
“Dragon?!”
As if in affirmation, the impossible creature opened its mouth wide, its jaws full of fangs.
Chapter One: Well, Whaddya Know—It’s Another World!
Everything in sight was drenched in the color of the setting sun.
The twilight scene looked like a faded photograph, filling me with a strange melancholy. A kind of sadness welled up in my heart, like love for something already gone, never to be regained. In contrast to the inexplicable impatience I felt, everything around me seemed sluggish, as if this moment might drag on for eternity...
What a ridiculous thought. But there it was, in the corner of my mind.
“I really... like you.”
It was a textbook confession scene.
We stood facing each other in the schoolyard, the place crimson in the light. No one else was around, just our shadows stretching out along the ground. The voices of the baseball team practicing on the school field seemed somehow far away. Nothing felt real, as though it were all happening according to a script, as if she and I were the only ones left in this unending twilight world. I struggled a little for breath.
“Would you go out with me?”
I dived right in: the words that begged for love. The sign of my commitment.
If I didn’t tell her about the feelings swelling in my heart, we would just go on as we always had, a familiar, comfortable, yet ambiguous distance between us. It would have been easy enough just to go along with it.
But that would condemn me to endless waiting.
Feelings are living things. If you keep them shut up for too long, eventually they die.
I had mustered all my willpower in order to say the words, and now they faded into the silence.
She blinked twice, three times. And then she said...
“No way!”
..............................Huh?
“I’m sorry... What did you say...?” I asked tremblingly.
“I said no way,” she said indifferently. And then, as if to really drive the stake through my heart, she went on, “I have zero plans of going out with you, Shin-chan.”
There was a long pause. I grunted as if all the blood in my body had suddenly reversed direction.
I couldn’t believe she’d rejected me. I couldn’t believe I’d failed.
I had been so sure she would say yes to me. The two of us were friends growing up: our houses were close by, and we were practically a part of each other’s families. I’m not the type to make risky gambles. I’d told her how I felt because I thought I knew how she’d respond.
Then, pathetically, I pressed the issue.
“What? But—”
Even as I was saying it, part of me knew how bad it was. There’s still time, it told me. I could still laugh it off, say, “Of course you don’t! I was just kidding!” I didn’t have to make the wound any deeper. Maybe I could at least end the conversation gracefully. Then I could still look my old friend in the eye when I saw her the next day.
But the refusal to leave well enough alone gave me a shove, and I went tumbling toward a far more tragic outcome.
“Why...?”
Was it because I wasn’t handsome?
Were my grades not good enough?
Was I not a talented enough athlete?
Was I—
The possibilities rolled through my mind, not helping anything.
“Well, Shin-chan—” She batted her big eyes at me.
She seemed to be genuinely puzzled, as if she wanted to ask why I didn’t know the answer to such an obvious question. And even that expression looked adorable on her face. I really was hopeless.
Finally, the reason came out:
“—you’re an otaku, right?”
My normal life ended when I opened my eyes. It happened entirely without my consent—in two or three senses.
“What’s wrong with being an otakuuuuuuuuuuuu?!”
I woke to my own scream.
I blinked a few times, the tension leaving my body. It was hardly the first time I’d had a bad dream, but today... Today, my head hurt for some reason. Maybe it was from yelling at the top of my lungs. It felt like I had a giant spitball buried in the middle of my noggin.
“...Just a dream.”
It had happened more than a year ago, yet in my dream, the memory was as clear as if it were yesterday. On the other hand, though, I couldn’t quite think straight, as if the dream were still clinging to me. Thinking of anything at all felt like a tremendous effort.
I was lying on my back. I slowly opened my eyes and looked up.
“An unfamiliar... ceiling...”
Immediately I quoted from an anime that shall remain nameless (note: it’s from episode two of the TV series). Okay, so even I had to admit it showed what a lost-cause otaku I am. But never mind that. There was an unfamiliar ceiling above me, for no apparent reason at all.
Wait. Doesn’t it seem kind of... close? Like, pretty low?
“Where... am I...?”
The ceiling I was looking at was definitely not the ceiling of my own room, which I’d spent an awful lot of time staring at. If it were, it would have had a life-size poster of Madoka, the heroine of the masterpiece magical-girl anime I so loved, Rental☆Madoka. But the ceiling I was looking at now showed no sign of that magical (in every sense) girl, whose invigorating smile would be enough to keep your spirits up even if you worked at the blackest, most awful temp agency.
What I saw instead was an oddly rigid pattern carved into the ceiling.
Wait a second... It wasn’t the ceiling of a room at all.
The surface wasn’t flat, but gently curved; in other words, it formed a half-sphere. The four pillars supporting it were attached to the edges of the bed I was sleeping in. I was in a canopy bed.
Yes, a canopy bed, the very symbol for “rich guy” in anime, manga, games, and light novels. A commoner like me could barely hope to lay eyes on such a thing unless I was transported into the middle of one of those stories.
And here I was, sleeping on just such an expensive piece of furniture.
I sat up with one question in my mind: Why?
A look around revealed a startlingly large Western-style room. I
would say it was at least three times the size of my room at home, nearly twenty tatami mats. But I hardly saw any furniture; the bed was sitting smack in the middle of the room, as if to boast that the owner of the house could afford to waste all this space. The room was dim, most likely on account of the heavy curtains drawn over the windows. Bright light leaked in between the curtains, probably on purpose to prevent the room from being completely dark.
“Okay, seriously—where am I?!” I practically groaned.
For a place with so few furnishings, the wallpaper bore an elaborate pattern, the curtains were embroidered, and there were decorations all over the window frames and the pillars that stuck out slightly from the walls. The walls also bore lamps that had another detailed pattern on them.
I had never seen anything like it except in anime, manga, games, and light novels. It sort of looked like a traditional European mansion. If anything, it seemed like the sort of place that might show up in one of those stories where the house is as much the star as the characters.
Maybe that was why I didn’t notice her at first. She seemed like such a natural part of the room that she almost faded into the scenery.
I looked right past her once, then jumped a little and looked again. Someone was standing against the wall.
“A m-m-m...”
As soon as the realization hit, it ran like fireworks along my gray matter. The black dress. The white, frilly apron. The similarly frilly headdress. The dark-red ribbon with its jade-green clasp at her neck.
Could it be? It was! One of the stalwarts of the adorableness that was moe, with admirers aplenty whether she appeared in anime, manga, games, or light novels! And that costume! Practically an aphrodisiac, despite how little skin it shows. How many pop-culture addicts has it sent into a moe-addled lather?
“IS THAT REALLY A MAID?!”
The maid standing against the wall jumped in surprise when I pumped my fist and shouted. In fact... it almost looked like she was against the wall because she had been trying to keep her distance from me. Well, I guess anyone would stand back if they saw a guy jump out of bed and start shouting.
But to think! To imagine the day would come when I would see a maid! In real life! In 3D! In the flesh!
The Power of Moe Page 1