Kami-sama no Inai Nichiyoubi

The car was just like a toy box, divided into three rows of seats and quite s.p.a.cious on the inside. Ai found her right side seat quite comfortable: even if she were to stand up there would still be room to spare. There was a gap between the driver’s seat and the side seat wide enough to walk through to the back.

Yuri and Ai peeked their heads through this gap, fixed their eyes on the back seats, and stared.

The scene there looked rather complicated.

Cast your gaze into the inside of the car. See the ceiling with its electric lights and glow-painted star-shaped stickers; the seats, a light coffee brown, shining with the distinct glow exclusive to much-used leather; the interior damaged all over, with the scars of b.u.mps or spilled liquids clearly visible.

And then the luggage, much of which was of inexplicable purpose. This here was probably a tent; that there was probably a sleeping bag. Pots, kettles, pans, rods, boots, dolls: it was all put together in a way that seemed to defy neatness, which is to say that there was absolutely no way an observer could tell how it was arranged. And yet, looking upon this sight awhile, you’d also find yourself, somehow, enjoying it.

It was surrounded by all these that Scar smiled a soft little smile across the whole of her face. She sat elegantly in the middle of the back seat and gazed down with gracious eyes at the object next to her.

Had Scar not called it a youth, Yuri and Ai would never have discovered it to be a human.

The object in question was a garbage bag, placed horizontally beside Scar. Made of ripped canvas, it had already lost its l.u.s.ter and was now stone-grey in color. If there was a person contained within it, he would find it most narrow and uncomfortable.

Ai moved to act.

She drew her shovel from her seat and poked lightly at the sack. While her expression was entirely serious, the movements of her hands were those of a prank-loving child.

The bag let out an ahhing sound and turned over.

Ai and Yuri looked, bemused, at one another.

“Y-Yuri-san, there’s someone on the car! W-What should we do? Could he be the owner of this car?”

“I’ve been far too careless…Ai, you’d better get ready to get off at any time.”

Saying this, Yuri pulled a revolver from his jacket.

“What are you pulling that gun out for?”

“We’ve never met before, so who knows what kind of person he is?”

Ai saw the meaning of his words and swiftly agreed.

“That’s true… then, the way you put it, meeting strangers for the first time is quite dangerous after all.”

“You get it now?”

“Yup! I mean, I’ve met quite a few people for the first time lately, and they all ended up pointing guns at me or taking me hostage.”

“… I was going to say ‘Of course!’ to that, but now it doesn’t sound like such a good idea…”

It got up.

The garbage bag slowly got up and fell away to reveal the object contained within.

Ai thought this youth from inside the bag was very pretty.

And then she realized that this was the first person she’d met from the outside world and panicked a little, unprepared as she was for this first meeting.

Yuri reacted completely as expected, and even Scar put on quite a serious expression.

But the youth seemed barely to notice the tense atmosphere that surrounded him, and his blank face exhibited only a state of ‘just having woken up’. His dark-eyed gaze wandered in the far-off distance, his light blue hair was a shock of messy tangles like freshly whipped cream, and his lower body was still in the bag, so that only the green sweater he wore was visible to his watchers.

The youth shook his head and looked in order at the gun, smile, and shovel before him.

“…”

n.o.body said a word.

Ai looked around at her companions, casting at them expressions asking “What should we do?”, but it looked as if none of them had any idea as to what to do next.

“…Morning.”

The youth had suddenly dipped his head and greeted them. Ai couldn’t help but be a little stunned at this, but felt that it was only right to respond in kind.

“Good morning.”

The other two seemed to feel the same way, and so everyone, in varying pitches and tones, greeted him a good morning.

The youth then said:

“… In that case…”

In a caterpillar-like motion he twisted his body around and lay down, and pulled the bag back up to the top of his head.

“… Goodnight…”

And he slept.

“Hey, wait a minute! Don’t just go back to sleep like that!”

Ai gave a yell and jumped from her seat over to the youth, nimble as a cat.

“How could you do this?! How could you even dare try to go back to sleep at a time like this?

Without giving thought to courtesy or to the maxim of ‘thinking before acting’, she shook the garbage bag and the youth within it with all her strength.

“Hey!... But… I’m—already—very—sleepy…”

“You’re not allowed to sleep any more! Just look at how dirty this bag is! Hurry up and get out!”

As if faced with a child curled up under his blankets and unwilling to get out, Ai pulled the bag off him in one quick motion. The youth didn’t resist at all, and was rolled headlong beneath the seat, his clothes parting to reveal his stomach.

And then his hands, hitherto concealed behind his back.

Handcuffs.

Steel handcuffs had been clamped around the youth’s seedling-thin hands.

“So tired…”

And the youth, even in this condition, was woozy and half-asleep.

“…”

Silence returned to the car. Ai, hands still holding the garbage bag high, immediately sensed that something was wrong.

“W-What happened to you?! Are you alright?!”

“That’s not important right now… I’m tired…”

“How can it not be important? This is very important!”

“Ai, hold on a second. There’s something strange going on here.”

Yuri squeezed his large body into the first row of seats at the back: and a s.p.a.ce which would have fit three people with ease immediately became very cramped.

“The way it looks… he must have been made to inhale a drug of some kind.”

As gently as if he were handling a newborn baby, Yuri secured the youth’s neck and head and carefully laid him down. He then observed his eyes, examined his hands, smelled the scent in his mouth.

“Looks like the buds of the harumodoki fruit…

“Huh? You mean that red fruit, the tasty one…?”

“It’s that fruit all right; but the buds, when dried, can be used as a psychoactive drug.”

Yuri lifted up the youth’s head and gave him plenty of water to drink. Scar had, in all this fuss, also changed seats and was now acting as his a.s.sistant.

“Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds…”

The rage emanating from Yuri sent chills up Ai’s spine.

“To use such a large dose on a kid like him… If they’d only slipped up there’d be after-effects for sure…”

With Yuri being so angry at the men who’d treated the youth thus, Ai was immediately infected with his sense of righteousness, and her breathing became a little deeper as well.

“I can only say that this has the air of a conspiracy!”

His attention divided, Yuri responded with a noncommittal “Completely” and continued to treat the youth. He undid the b.u.t.tons on the youth’s shirt, loosened his belt, and put him in a lying position, carefully lest he vomit. Scar also helped him from the side.

Ai wanted to help too.

“… Is there anything that I can help with?”

“No.”

Yuri’s reply was quite cold.

“Really?... No?...”

Ai felt as though she were being ostracized, and went desolately to a corner.

“Ah… No, wait.”

“Okay! I’ll do anything!”

“No, I’m talking about this.”

Yuri clapped his hands together as if he’s just come up with a good idea.

“We’re not going to get a chance like this again, so we’d better try to find out anything he knows—hey, kid! Where’re you from? What’s your name? Why’re you in a place like this? Who was it who did this to you?”

“You villain—!”

Ai yelled out loud in the midst of this wilderness.

“It’s a villain! There’s a real, live, evil villain here!”

The lizards around turned their heads toward the commotion as if to ask, “Ah, is that so?”

“Hey! Don’t make it sound so bad!”

“But you really are a villain!”

Ai chased Yuri away to protect the youth.

“…Ah…I am a citizen of Ortus, and my name is…”

The youth replied the questions as though he was talking in his sleep.

“You don’t have to answer, you know.”

The youth ignored Ai and continued to speak.

“My name is… Kiriko… Pox… Rex… Diva… Oreus… Veruera… Ul… Helios… Melza…Gaug… Digg…”

The youth still hadn’t finished speaking his name.

“… Amita… Baaz… Geiauf… Elsespoff… Setzafuore…” [1]

It didn’t matter how you look at it, this string of enchantment-like words just didn’t seem to be a person’s name.

Ai stood slack-jawed in bewilderment, so incomprehensible did she find those words.

“… Did you say Oreus?”

But that didn’t seem to be the case with Yuri.

“Yuri-san, is there something you know about this?”

“… No, nothing at all.”

From Yuri’s expression it was clear that he regretted his choice of words, but he persisted in barefacedly evading Ai’s questions.

Ai wanted to continue questioning him, but at this point the youth’s voice became thick as he struggled to speak.

“… I was… captured… by those men…”

“You don’t have to force yourself to speak, you know; and besides, we can’t understand a word you say.”

“Ha… You haven’t changed a bit… You’re still just the same as before…”

“He said I haven’t changed a bit, that I’m still just the same as before!”

“He probably mistook you for someone else, so just let it go.

“Ha… Ha ha ha…”

The youth suddenly began laughing as though impossibly happy. His smile was just like a child’s: completely genuine.

“Your Highness… You’re lively and well today, I see.”

Your Highness?

“Huh? Is he talking about me? No, don’t go calling me a Highness, I’d get embarra.s.sed.”

“Don’t worry, he’s definitely not talking about you.”

“Besides… aren’t you a little short for my Princess?”

“Hmph. How rude.”

“Ha ha ha… I beg your pardon.”

This youth was probably fourteen, fifteen years old, and yet now seemed even younger than Ai as he laughed in the most innocent of manners.

“Even if he somehow regressed to being a child this doesn’t seem entirely right.”

“Yeah, it just doesn’t match how he’s so very childlike but his speech is so refined.”

“… Do you even have a right to say that?”

“Huh? Is there something wrong about it?”

Yuri very courteously shut his mouth and kept his silence.

“Ha ha ha, Your Highness.”

The youth continued to address Ai in a manner completely unbefitting her, so Ai could only reply:

“Okay, okay, I’m a princess, what is it?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“So why’d you call me?”

“I just suddenly wanted to.”

“Honestly… Your Princess-sama is going to get angry at you now.”

“Ah, scary…”

So the youth said; but the smile on his face didn’t seem frightened at all.

“But if Your Highness were to actually get angry… That would be difficult. It would be difficult for everyone, difficult and painful. Of course it’d be the same for me… This really would be quite difficult to deal with.

The youth smiled gently and continued to speak.

“So, my Princess, please do not be angry.”

“…… Honestly… I’m not angry any more, look.”

It was sighing that Ai said these words.

Hearing it, the youth smiled a child’s smile.

“Thank you very much, Your Highness………… Your Highness?”

His smile suddenly dimmed.

On his expression of innocence was tinged the color of consciousness, as on a canvas of pure white is streaked a brush of red.

“………… Who are you people?”

His black-colored eyes instantly recovered the sharpness they should have had at this their master’s age, and stared with complete poise at the row of people before them.

His expression had already lost its resemblance to a kitten fed full that only knows happiness; now, it was more akin to a cat injured and ready to spring at any and all.

“Ow!”

The youth had wanted to prop himself up, but at that the handcuffs on his wrists had dug into his flesh, hurting him so much that he’d fallen over on the spot.

“Hey, don’t move around so—

“Do not touch me!”

Even with his hands cuffed, even with his mind drugged, the youth hadn’t lost his fighting spirit and he shouted with all his might.

“Who are you people! Where did they go!”

“When you say ‘they’ who are you talking about?”

“Huh?... The people who rescued me, the owner of this car…”

“Oh… I think they probably died…”

“This I know! What I meant was what happened to them afterwards!”

Ai’s eyes widened in surprise, but she continued to answer his question.

“They… should be buried there…”

She slid the door open with a shaaang and pointed at the two graves some distance off.

“… Idiots… To be buried by Grave Keepers…”

The youth’s tone was tinged with regret, and he hung his head in sorrow.

Ai looked up at Yuri beside her.

“I just can’t make head nor tail of what’s going on.”

“Me neither.”

“Excuse me, could you explain it all more clearly to us?”

“… You… what kind of…”

“Ah, I never told you my name, did I? I’m Ai—Ai Astin.

Hearing this, the youth’s eyes immediately widened, and he wore again his previous expression of innocence.

“Kiriko Zubreska.

It wasn’t the same as the one he’d said before.

“I am a resident of Ortus, city of a million souls.”

On Monday, G.o.d created the world.

On Tuesday, G.o.d demarcated order and chaos.

On Wednesday, G.o.d arranged the numbers of the universe.

On Thursday, G.o.d permitted the ebb and flow of time.

On Friday, G.o.d explored every nook and cranny of the world.

On Sat.u.r.day, G.o.d rested.

And then on Sunday, G.o.d forsook the world.

Fifteen years ago, G.o.d suddenly appeared before the people and said:

“h.e.l.l and Heaven now are crowded and full, and soon the time will come for this Earth too. Ah, I have failed.”

G.o.d left behind just these words before vanishing without a trace. At the time, humanity, still busy rejoicing with song and praise of their spring-like world, was naturally set a-trembling with fear. Their species had existed for fewer than a billion years and it was their first time meeting G.o.d; and yet His first words to them were ones of farewell.

From that day onwards, humans no longer died.

Even as their hearts stopped and their flesh decayed, the dead continued to move.

From that day onwards, humans were no longer born.

It was as if some divine factory had stopped production and would never again manufacture new humans.

And in the world G.o.d had forsaken mankind keened for its loss. Billions keened and wailed and shrieked until their throats gave and they coughed up blood, until they stood on the very verge of death. The living soon dwindled in number, and the world teemed to overflowing with the dead.

And afterwards, the Grave Keepers appeared.

The Grave Keepers were G.o.d’s final miracle to men.

They built graves and buried the restless dead to prevent them from disrupting the peace of the living. It was only then that men could rest in easeful sleep.

Children not being born; the dead always wandering; the Grave Keepers always in pursuit.

Such is the very image of the apocalypse.

Ai was a Grave Keeper, and she had a dream.

She dreamed to save the world.

Her mother had built Heaven, her father had vanquished[2] h.e.l.l. Ai had inherited their dream and wished to be able to save the world.

Even though she knew not any means of doing so, she did not want to give up.

For the journey had only just begun.

Merely an act as simple as driving a car forward was enough to elicit a great many emotions in Ai. The car scared her to no end at its shaking and rattling; the scenery as it flashed by shocked her at its speed, so much greater than that of walking; and the view of the featureless wasteland in front frightened her at how it changed not once despite how fast they went.

Ai opened the side window to the full, not caring that the wind whipped her hair wildly into her face, and not minding that Scar quietly disapproved; she was concerned only with act of greeting the wilderness in as loud a voice as she could muster. That no matter how long she waited no echo would answer her was something she found difficult to grasp.

Whether it was the car, the scenery, or the winds of the wild, to Ai it was something glorious she had never before seen or felt or tasted. She took in with her every sense all that was about her.

Her very first time leaning out of a car window earned her her very first rap on the head from Yuri. “Don’t lean your head out of the window.”

Ai felt at the still-smarting bruise and continued to gaze out at the wilderness.

It was supremely wide and s.p.a.cious, seeming to be practically boundless in size.

“Now that you’ve looked your fill it’s about time to close that window.”

She wanted very much to refuse.

“… It’s not good for his body.”

Ai saw the truth in his words and quickly reached to shut the window. The rubber was a little sticky, giving her no little difficulty in her task; but eventually she closed it tight with a snap.

Ai’s ears had already acclimatized to the interior of the car and automatically blocked out any noise from the engines. Thus, without the howling of the wind the car became abnormally quiet.

“…Kiriko, are you awake?”

“No, he’s still sleeping quite soundly.”

Ai sneaked a look behind her and saw that Kiriko, taking up an entire row of seats, was indeed very deeply in sleep.

After telling them his name a moment ago, Kiriko had immediately collapsed with exhaustion and lost consciousness. It seemed that his sudden awakening and the exciting of his emotions had done no good to his body.

Ai let out a breath and watched the sleeping youth.

His face was ashen and his breathing shallow. His brows were knotted in a frown and his countenance was as dark as if he were in the middle of a nightmare: nowhere was there even a trace of his earlier glowing[3] gentleness. Ai began to wonder which one it was that was the true Kiriko. Was it the Kiriko soft and pleasant, or the Kiriko like a hedgehog?

“… Scar-san, please tell us immediately if something happens to Kiriko.”

“All right.”

Scar replied so from the back seat. Completed with her task of nursing Kiriko, Scar had squeezed to the back of the car to tidy up the mess there and was currently seeing eye to eye with an agreeable-looking[4] piggy-bank made of ceramic. Ai quietly swore to herself absolutely not to disturb her labors.

Silence.

Yuri, seeming to have merged into the being of the car, drove on mutely.

Ai sat with rigid posture in the side seat looking at him.

Silence.

Yuri, sensing a pothole some distance ahead, vacillated between turning left or right to avoid it.

Ai peered all about herself looking at the various devices installed on the car. She couldn’t work out what purpose the two rods on the windscreen served.

Silence.

Eventually Yuri decided to turn right to avoid the pothole.

Ai had nothing left to do and so could only look out ahead of them.

Silence.

The wilderness seemed to stretch on without end.

“Hey, is it going to be like this forever?”

“… What kind of nonsense are you spouting now?”

Ai pointed with a finger at the wilderness and then at herself.

“It’s just that… You know… I’m so boreeeeed.”

On Yuri’s face could have been written in large block letters the words “What gives?”

“… What’re you whining about this to me for?”

“But, but! Doesn’t it feel like something’s about to happen? Like once it happens we’re not going to be able to stop? Doesn’t it?”

Yuri slammed his foot on the brakes.

Ai slammed her forehead on the windscreen.

“Hey, it hurts!”

“Sorry, there was a pothole that I didn’t spot there.”

Yuri released the brakes and the accelerated forward. The scenery began to fly by once again.

“Journeys are by nature boring like this.”

Yuri genuinely meant what he said, but Ai was having none of it.

“Ha!—I refuse to believe that.”

“… Since you’re so bored, I sincerely hope you learn to drive soon.”

“Oh! Can I drive?”

Ai was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with enthusiasm at this, but Yuri quickly threw cold water over it and put it out.

“… What, can you reach the pedals?”

“…”

It was a cruel silence that followed.

“…”

And the car was from this moment on dominated by silence, with Ai not even mentioning the word “bored” again.

“It looks like Kiriko-san is about to wake up.”

It was only a long while afterwards that Scar spoke this, breaking the silence within the car.

Ai picked out a pocket watch and checked the time. It felt as though much, much time had pa.s.sed, but in reality they had not reached even noon yet.

“Ahhh…”

Ai let out a delicate yawn and looked backward to find Kiriko still asleep and his color rather improved.

“He looks like he’s still sleeping to me.”

“Indeed, which was why I said he was about to wake… his breathing patterns have altered, and I trust he will recover consciousness soon.”

Scar’s prediction came to pa.s.s in mere seconds.

Wrapped in a rug, Kiriko weakly opened his eyes and looked blearily about him.

“Oh, are you awake?”

“… And who might you be?”

Saying this, he immediately retracted his lost expression and spread out in its place one of wary grimness.

“… Was I unconscious all this time?”

“Yeah, you’d just finished telling us your name before you went and fainted away.”

Kiriko didn’t seem to have regained complete control over his body just yet, resulting in his gaze wandering continuously all around the car, examining its every nook and cranny.

“You don’t have to be as cautious as this now, do you…”

“Whether or not I must be cautious is something I will decide for myself.”

Ai sighed quietly. It looked as though this p.r.i.c.kly, wary Kiriko was the true one after all. Looking at him, Ai was put in mind of a wounded fox[5] she had once found on the mountains.

“… Where are you driving to?”

Kiriko had noticed the scenery flying past and raised the question.

“To Ortus.”

Ai replied thus.

“What are you people trying to…”

Still speaking, Kiriko tried to prop himself upright and discovered something.

In order to push himself up, he had automatically reached out with his hands to support his weight.

“Ah, we couldn’t unlock your handcuffs so we just cut the chain for now.”

“…”

Kiriko raised his hands as though receiving a gift of some sort and appraised them: the chain linking the cuffs clamped around his wrists had indeed been cut and the whole a.s.semblage rendered nonfunctional.

“… What are you people trying to do?”

Kiriko repeated his question once more.

“We’re not trying to do anything at all.”

“……”

“… I’m telling the truth, you know.”

Ai sighed.

“Ai.”

Hands on the steering wheel, Yuri addressed her.

“I know you’re telling the truth, but if you say that to a stranger you’re just going to put him at a loss. Don’t give him too much of a headache.”

Kiriko supported his still-woozy head with his arm and sat upright.

“… What exactly are you people?”

“I would rather you did not pursue this line of questioning.”

Yuri deflected the question very firmly.

“… Ah, that’s true. Excuse my presumptuousness.”

Despite very clearly being rejected, Kiriko merely apologized with a relaxed calmness by way of response.

“… Looks like you’re quite a sensible person here.”

And that, of course, upset Ai.

“…… So you’re saying that I’m not?”

“Ai, in this world honesty is not a virtue at all… Ah, never mind, just go sit and watch from the side.”

This said, Yuri began to speak to Kiriko, their eyes never meeting.

“I’ll introduce myself first. I am Yuri Sak.u.ma Dmitriyevich; nice to meet you. This here is Scar. My hands are full right now, and you’d best continue lying down to rest, so let’s leave the handshakes for later.”

“I am Kiriko Zubreska. I thank you for your kindness in friendship… and also in rescuing me.”

“If you’re thanking people don’t forget about those two: they’ve been very worried about you all this time.”

“Oh, then—thank you very much to the two of you; it’s all because of you that I am saved.”

With a shocked expression on her face Ai accepted his thanks. In a drastic departure from their earlier tone and manner toward each other, the two now conversed with such great ease that they might have rehea.r.s.ed it all beforehand.

“So how did you end up like this?”

“Apologies, but this is a matter which concerns the welfare of the entire city: and so I must request you not to ask me of it any more… Equally, I shall not probe into your respective affairs or histories.”

In Kiriko’s eyes gleamed an eagle-sharp light.

“… Your circ.u.mstances are most curious, after all… You just appeared on foot in exactly that sort of place… And you, a woman and a girl of the last generation… You don’t like much like family either…”

He spoke these words of intimidation most politely, but Yuri brushed them off seemingly without noticing them.

“How’s Oreus doing nowadays?”

“…… What did you just say?”

On Kiriko’s face there appeared an expression of great shock.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t reply: after all, if it’s something I don’t have to know then I have no interest in finding it out.”

Silence.

“But I think it’s best that you tell me about your capture, because that could very well bring on immediate danger to us all.”

“…”

“Or do you not wish to reveal even that much?”

Yuri was implying that if Kiriko was considering such a course of action, he’d have no choice but to change his mind soon.

“… No, you are quite right. This is something I should be telling you of my own volition.”

Kiriko apologized, and began to tell his story from its beginning.

The conversation had gone very smoothly, but Ai found herself disliking that interaction between the man and the youth.

Kiriko lived in a city called Ortus, and was an intern working in the public sector. His main day-to-day work consisted of running errands for his superiors, and it wasn’t unusual for him to have to traverse the entire city to deliver an item or a message. Sometimes his errands even took him out of the city: in these instances he would have to ride a motorcycle out to the neighboring settlements that were his destination. This time he’d taken his letters and boarded his bike as usual, and gone and ridden a whole day out in the wilderness.

He said it was when he was out delivering letters that he was kidnapped.

“… I probably don’t have any right to say this, but those men who kidnapped me were complete amateurs, both in their equipment and in their methods…”

Even with his memory hazed over by the drug, Kiriko remembered this particular part with complete clarity. Of the kidnappers there were ten or so men; they had set up a ramshackle trap on the road and with it crashed Kiriko’s motorcycle when he came along.

But what followed afterward was difficult to explain: it seemed that there was infighting among the kidnappers, and before anyone was really aware of it Kiriko had been stuffed into this car.

Its two owners were once living men.

Kiriko stressed “once” here, because the two had died in the process of rescuing him.

“They got to have a lot of fun and died happy… All along they never really had any intention of saving me, and only wanted a chance to have an ‘honorable’ death and go out fighting.”

Which explained their quick burial.

“… I might be better off if it had not been for them.”

And that Kiriko finished his story.

“… I don’t think you should make the people who saved you sound as bad as that…”

Ai spoke unhappily.

“Indeed, that is true… I’ve been too critical of them.”

That he could retract his words with such great ease made Ai bristle at his manner even more.

“… Do you actually think that?”

“That’s what I said, so of course I do.”

Sparks flared between the two.

“Hmm, so the region around Ortus is probably unsafe…”

Yuri gave up caring about the two children and began to think, ignoring everything about him in his concentration.

“Okay, we’re not going to Ortus after all, then.”

“H-hey!”

The two who had been glaring at one another just a moment ago hurriedly swung their joint gaze towards Yuri.

“T-that’s different from what you just said!”

“Well, now, just calm down a little first, both of you.”

Saying this, Yuri stopped the car.

He took out a map from within his shirt and showed it to them.

“You were originally headed to this town here, right?”

“… Yes.”

“All right, then I’ll drive you there.”

“… I see. All right, this works out even better for me… but what about you?”

“We’ll turn back once we’ve brought you to the town. We’ll say our goodbyes there.”

“Huh? What? Why?”

Ai was the only one unable to accept this new development.

“Ai, you asked me the reason for this, so tell me: why is it that you want to go to Ortus?”

Yuri returned with a question of his own, incomprehension clear on his features.

“Well, that’s obviously because I want to go there.”

“I’m asking you, why do you want to go there?”

“What do you mean, why?... It’s because I want to.”

“… Argh, is that so? So it’s just because you want to, is that it?”

Yuri looked as though he was trying to bear with a headache, and a painful one at that.

“All right, never mind, we’ll find some other day to go to Ortus.”

With this, Yuri pressed down on the accelerator. Ai was deeply displeased with his manner, but was unable to say a word about it.

She was carsick.

Ai wondered where she did wrong. Was it her thinking about the future, or her helping Scar on the back seat clean up that strange tanuki-shaped plaster statuette? Or was it her counting, in her boredom, the serrated parts of the window frames all the way up to eight hundred…?

Whatever it was, the upshot was that Ai gave everyone on the car a headache. She switched places with Kiriko and tried to sleep on the middle row of seats.

With her face half covered with a towel, she looked aimlessly up ahead.

She could see up on the front seats Kiriko and Yuri both peering at the map and conversing in whispers to one another. When she focused her gaze on the map she felt like vomiting and so quickly looked someplace else.

“Ah, are you awake now?”

Kiriko had noticed her gaze.

“… I was always awake.”

That was what Ai said, but it wasn’t convincing at all. Without her noticing it, the shaking that rocked her body had eased somewhat, and her urge to throw up had diminished greatly. Ai slowly sat up and looked out the windows, and found that the road had already become much wider than before: it seemed that she’d fallen asleep some time ago without being aware of it. She checked her watch and saw the hour hand had progressed two hours from before. The weather was no longer the sunny clearness of noon and it was now overcast, the grey clouds crowding up the sky looking as solid as rocks and just as hard too.

Ai could see flashes of lightning far off in her field of vision, so far away that the accompanying thunder was completely inaudible.

And close to where the lightning flashed, she could also see a roiling, twisting dragon of white.

“… Is that a tornado?”

“Where!”

Kiriko asked this with a grim expression on his face and looked where Ai was pointing; and at this he relaxed.

“So it’s still that far away… we’re lucky you spotted it early.”

The two of them watched through the car windows. Little raindrops attached themselves to the gla.s.s and danced in adorable motions along with the shaking of the car. Beneath that seeming-solid layer of cloud it hammered with rain or flashed with lightning or gusted up into tornadoes, but everywhere else the sun shone bright and rainbows could be seen connecting the sky and the earth.

The sun, the rain, the tornado, and the storm. All these were as disparate as oil and water, but as they existed beside one another, each minding its own business, they melded together to form the emulsion of an inconceivable photograph.[6]

“… It’s my first time seeing a tornado.”

There was a sight completely removed from those of the mountains, right before her eyes.

“… I want to go someplace closer to watch it…”

“I would advise against that.”

Kiriko replied with a serious expression on his face.

“Don’t underestimate a tornado just because it looks small and thin: when it comes to it it can tear up not just cars but houses too, and as for humans we might as well be stray leaves for all it cares.”

“Really?”

“It’s true. That’s why every house in the towns on this plain has a bas.e.m.e.nt to be used as a tornado shelter.”

“Ohhh. Does your house have one, Kiriko-san?”

“No. But that’s because Ortus rarely ever gets tornadoes, since the mountains always deflect the winds southwards.”

Saying this, Kiriko fiddled with some b.u.t.tons on the dashboard and turned on the radio. From its speakers issued—complete with plenty of noise—a weather program warning travelers about the tornado in the area.

“W-what is this!”

“What do you mean, what? It’s a radio… Did you not even know that?

“Well, it’s my first time seeing one, or maybe I should say hearing one.”

“…… You’re strange.”

“Ahem!”

At this point there was a cough deliberately intended to break up their conversation.

“You can see it now.”

Yuri pointed ahead with his chin. Kiriko inspected the map and Ai peeked her head over the front seat headrest, eyes fixed on the windscreen and what was to be seen through it.

She could see buildings spread across the horizon.

“What kind of place is that?”

“… It’s an old-style supply station. They earn money mainly through the inn, gas station, and repair shop that form the economic center of the town. There’re still people there, like food sellers, who’ll run up the road to you without caring for their own safety, so we’d best be careful.”

“Both food and the dead are welcome to me.”

“Huh? What? No, there probably aren’t any dead among the residents here, because this is a town of the living.”

Yuri coughed loudly in an obvious attempt to stop Ai from saying things that shouldn’t be said.

But it wasn’t very effective.

“Yuri-san, did you catch a cold? Take better care of yourself, okay?”

The car pulled to a stop, the driver’s door opened, and Yuri got off the car. Grasping Ai by the collar, he lifted her outside from the middle seats and walked seventeen steps to the north.

“Ai.”

“W-what are you doing? You’ll break the collar…”

“Please do your best to conceal your ident.i.ty as a Grave Keeper.”

Ai blinked several times in quick succession and, ignoring the fact that she was still being carried like a kitten, raised a finger.

“Technically, I’m half human and half Grave Keeper.”

“… That you have to hide all the more. If you agree to this, you’d be giving all of us a big help.”

Aspect filled with dislike, Yuri held the object in his right hand further away from him.

“Ai, I’m now going to say something very important to you. Please don’t feel hurt at it.”

“You’re telling other people not to be hurt at something you yourself are saying to them. That’s really quite inconsiderate, you know. Just as I’d expect from Yuri-san.”

“What are you, a prodigy at riling people up?”

“I’m hurt now.”

“Really? Then you’ve got to try harder… Ai, listen to me.

Saying this, he glanced toward Kiriko. The youth had stayed very politely in the car, and hadn’t looked even once in their direction.

Yuri suddenly released Ai and set her back on the ground.

“In this day and age mankind bears enmity toward the Grave Keepers.”

“Huh?”

“Just think about it: the living and the Grave Keepers have nothing to do with one another and so they don’t mind each other’s presence. But as for the dead… The ones that still roam the earth are almost all of them people who don’t want their lives to end. If you were to tell them that you’re a Grave Keeper, they’d kill you without a second thought.”

Ai’s mouth gaped wide as she looked up at Yuri in shock.

“… Look, over there.”

Yuri pointed toward a patch of ground out of which stuck a pole with a handle.

“… What’s that?”

“It’s the grave of a Grave Keeper.”

Upon closer inspection, the pole turned out to be a shovel thrust into the ground.

“A Grave Keeper’s grave…”

“Most likely he or she was killed by the dead, and then buried here.”

“How…”

Ai sank helplessly to the ground.

“This just isn’t right.”

Yuri nodded his head in agreement.

“But that’s the way it is. That’s the way civilization has now become… From that day fifteen years ago, bit by bit the world changed until it’s now become like this.”

Ai did not respond.

“Do you understand now, Ai?”

“…”

“Ai.”

Yuri had to have her reply. Despondent, Ai picked up a handful of sand, stood up, and cast it aside with what force she could muster.

“… I understand, all right… But I just can’t accept it…”

“I’m not asking that much of you… Just knowing it is enough.”

“But…”

Ai continued to speak. Defiantly she looked right up at Yuri and his blue-colored eyes.

“But, Yuri-san, if there comes a time when I think I have to, then…”

Her gaze was pointed practically vertical; and, barely even thinking of the height difference between her and Yuri that was as great as an amputated limb, she opened her eyes wide and spoke.

“I will surely be unable to help saying it.”

“When that time comes you can decide for yourself.”

The two returned to the car. On the way back Yuri had taken two steps and Ai three, when—

“Yuri-san.”

“Hmm?”

“It hurts.”

“…”

When the two finished walking their respective fifteen and thirty steps back to the car, Kiriko only greeted them with a “Welcome back” and asked them no questions at all.

Yuri released the handbrake and pressed down on the accelerator.

The town grew nearer and nearer.

“All right, looks like this is goodbye… A lot happened, not all of it pleasant; but thank you all very much regardless.

Ahead, they saw a white-colored building that seemed to spill out from the horizon.

“… That went by fast, didn’t it…”

Yuri fixed his eyes forward, suspicious.

“It’s not as if anything sad happened anyway”

Was it the buildings?

“Ai.”

“Ha! Have it your way.”

“Ai!”

Yuri let out a loud exclamation.

“W-What is it?”

“Take a look at the town for me… Ah, don’t bother, I can see it now. d.a.m.n it! What kind of joke is this supposed to be!”

The town was structured like a sandwich. The buildings were the bread, the road was the filling in between: the former cl.u.s.tered in neat rows left and right, and the latter leading straight into the horizon. The bread of the this sandwich was very colorful, much more so than the filling within: each building was painted in a different color, some in more than one, making the town seem wonderfully bright and gaudy.

And this same colorful section lay before them, in ruins.

“What happened here…”

The party took a collective gasp of shock. Not a single one of the houses before them lay complete and whole: the entire town had been devastated so thoroughly that even the walls and pillars of houses had been splintered and reduced to wood and stone, flotsam of this ferocious gale.

“It was the tornado…”

Kiriko was muttering dazedly to himself.

“It must have swept straight through…”

The car slowed and entered the town. The remains of houses that lined the road seemed too few to account for the wholesale destruction that had occurred here, and soon they saw why. All along the road had been strewn splintered wood-shards and scattered belongings. Magazines of every variety fluttered on the ground like fallen petals, lending a surreal festive atmosphere to the entire scene.

Ai tugged at Yuri’s sleeve.

“Yuri-san, please stop the car…”

“No, it’s too dangerous.”

“But what if there are survivors…”

“It’s those who survive who pose the greatest threat to us.”

“No way…”

“… Strange. There is very little wreckage on the road itself. It feels as though we’re being led into a trap here…”

Ai stealthily shifted away from the front and moved to the back of the car, and began to whisper casually into Scar’s ear.

“Scar-san, are there any dead people here?”

“No; if there were I wouldn’t be able to stay put here like this.”

“… That’s true… Then, are there any of the living here?”

“About that I cannot tell. After all, we as Grave Keepers are only able to sense the nearby presence of the wandering or buried dead, as well as that of other Grave Keepers.”

Yuri could make neither head nor tail of this entire situation.

Without knowing whether it was just him being overly suspicious or whether they had already plunged into a trap, Yuri continued to drive the car forward.

They avoided scattered planks of wood and heaters, rolled over carpets, crushed ceramic cups, and so proceeded onward. All these objects that had no place on a road but inhabited it regardless numbered in the hundreds, fomenting a nightmarish tension that leavened and thickened the atmosphere.[7]

Steering around a lion statuette soaking in a bathtub of mud and making their way past a large broken-off washbasin, Yuri came upon the sight that he’d dreaded seeing all this time.

The road was blocked with a barricade of rubble.

Yuri saw the barricade and immediately gunned the accelerator.

The explosive acceleration threw them back into their seats and the car sprang toward the roadblock with a dizzying speed. Yuri turned the steering wheel in small, precise motions, making minute adjustments to the erratic motion of the car and steering it on a path towards the thinnest and most vulnerable part of the barricade.

A snapped bonsai, the sh.e.l.l of an oven, and a sign saying “Car Repairs and Checkups” loomed before them—

And the car punched right through.

The impact shook the car roughly, but it came out on the other side intact. Splinters of wood painted red, white, and yellow danced up into the sky, and a great number of toilet bowls lifted up briefly before smashing back onto the ground.

It was then that Ai saw the figures of people among the ruin. A group of gun-wielding men had appeared and were shouting at their car, the younger and more hotheaded among them even taking aim and opening fire. Their shots veered far and missed on every occasion. Yuri accelerated to throw the gunmen off and the street quickly disappeared from their sight, to be replaced again by the wilderness. The blue colored car continued at its highest speed toward the horizon.

The car traveled west until the sky became streaked with red; in the end, despite Yuri’s earlier promises of lodging in town they would had to camp after all. Taking advantage of the last remaining rays of sunlight, they hurriedly put up a tent. Ai would be bedding with Scar, while Kiriko and Yuri seemed to have planned to sleep on the front and back seats of the car.

They started a fire just as the sun set using wood that had gotten stuck under the engine cover when they crashed through the barricade. They’d built it just so that its east-side was covered by the car, so that n.o.body from the town would see their light.

“How is it?”

“Not good. The suspension is broken.”

Kiriko climbed back out from under the car, saying this.

The car had started becoming faulty from the moment they crashed into the barricade. It would shake wildly when in motion, and when they hit potholes the impact would vibrate uncushioned right up through to the pa.s.sengers.

But they couldn’t have stopped there anyway. The blue car had driven on, and smoke had finally begun to issue from the engine not long ago.

“I’ve just about managed to fix it over on my side.”

Yuri went over to the back and checked the engine, staining both his hands black in the process. Sawdust from the wood had entered the car’s vents and disrupted the cooling system which, along with the motor oil leaking from all the shaking, had started a flame in the engine.

“But we still have to make proper repairs soon, or we’ll be in trouble.”

Ai took some bread, dried meat, and tea to the two who’s just finished their work, and they all gathered around the fire eating ravenously.

“Let’s go to Ortus, then.”

Yuri spoke as he sipped on his tea.

“… Indeed, it looks as if we have no other choice.”

Kiriko, after swallowing a mouthful of bread, gave his a.s.sent.

“I can help you organize free repairs and lodging. That should be possible.”

“That would be a great help. But is it okay for you to do that?”

“The city has always had a principle of rescuing to travelers in need, so it should be fine to give you a little more aid. But I can’t guarantee it for sure…”

“That’s more than enough. Thanks a lot.”

“…”

“…”

Ai was unusually quiet.

“Ai, are you okay? You haven’t spoken for a while.”

Except for when she was eating, her mouth, normally so lively and wild with a never ending stream of words, stayed shut. And of course she had finished dinner much quicker than everyone else; her mug of tea, too, she had finished early on.

“Yuri-san…”

Ai’s face was illuminated by the flickering light of the fire as she spoke.

“Isn’t there any way to help those people back there…”

With a pained[8] expression, Yuri shook his head.

“We can’t.”

He left no room for argument. What he’d said was not that they wouldn’t help them but that they couldn’t, making him seem even more resolute on this matter.

“But…”

“You want to know why? Of all the reasons there are, the first is the most basic one of all: we don’t have anything to help them with.”

After all, a hundred people homeless just wasn’t a problem a mere few could solve.

“Second of all, they’ve already become bandits. Third, they’ve already found a way to survive. That second reason is their very means of survival. And in any case, while it wouldn’t do them much good, surely they’ve got at least one car or motorcycle in the whole of that town. Kiriko, am I right?”

Hearing this question from Yuri, the hitherto silent Kiriko nodded his head.

“… There should be cars in their emergency underground garages… And they should still be able to contact other towns or villages… The only reason they haven’t said anything to Ortus is probably that they don’t want to rely on that city even if it means trusting to luck…”

“Were they the ones who kidnapped you?”

Kiriko hugged his knees and chewed on a fingernail, casting his mind into an ocean of thought.

“… Now that I think about it, there doesn’t seem to be any other possibility but this.”

Blue flame shrouded from view the burning charcoal, and in Kiriko’s somber eyes glowed a quiet superiority.

“They probably wanted to take me as a hostage to use as a bargaining chip… These living people are just completely unfathomable. To think we had given them help on many occasions before, and they not only neglect to thank us, but repay our kindness with enmity.”

“… A conflict between two towns, is it?”

“Not a conflict, they"re just raising a ruckus on their end.”

“Wouldn’t it be nicer if you could all live in harmony?”

“… That’s what I think too.”

The two sighed in unison.

“Well, this way Ortus will soon hear of the town, and I’m certain they’ll find some way to help. We don’t have to worry about this.”

“Hmmmm…”

“What, are you still not happy about this? And besides, it’s not as if you’re bound to them by blood, so why would you want to help them out?”

“Well, that’s because…”

Yuri immediately felt his body stiffen, and he tried surrept.i.tiously to make Ai stop talking.

“That’s because I am a champion of justice.”

“… What?”

Bemused, unable to comprehend what that declaration was supposed to mean, Kiriko glanced at Yuri. He was muttering embarra.s.sedly to himself, “She actually said it…”

“If people are in trouble in the west, we’ll go help them out; if people are making trouble in the east, we’ll go teach them a lesson! That’s what my journey of world salvation is about.”

“I-Is that so?”

“Yes—Hey, you know, it’s been three days since the journey began.”

“That’s short! So you’ve only really just started on it!”

“That’s why I want to go help them out…”

Ai pulled her legs close to herself and rested her chin on her knees, looking as melancholy as someone of her size and age could get.

“Hmm…”

Kiriko propped his face up with a hand. The handcuffs clamped uselessly around his wrist jangled with a harsh noise.

“—What a foolish dream.”

“H-how could you call it that…”

“Am I wrong? I won’t even ask you your reasons for having so ridiculous a dream… But I’ll tell you now, having an unachievable dream is in the end just chasing the wind.

“…”

“No matter how big your dreams are, no matter how much you want to do, right now you’re still powerless to see them through.”

“I know that…”

“They won’t expect you to help them either, and think of some way by themselves.”

“Like I said, I know…”

It was because she knew all this that Ai was so pained, so melancholy.

“… I’ll go sleep now.”

Ai stood up.

She looked about her, saw only the night painted black and the sky bespeckled with stars.

“… I’m…”

The night was cold and large, seeming almost to swallow up their tiny fire.

“I’m really quite… small… aren’t I…”

There was a still, unmoving silence.

“… Well, you’re still a kid.”

“Indeed, still a kid.”

Ai aimed a kick at the two men’s legs and went into the tent.

n.o.body woke the others up, but by the time the sun had risen everyone was awake.

The thin layer of frost the wilderness had acquired over the night had already been swept away by the sunlight, and steam rose from the engine of their blue car to be a.s.similated into the low-lying clouds above them.

They put away the tent, cleaned up the fire, started the engine to warm it up.

After boiling water on a Primus stove, they had tea for breakfast and bread as well.

“Let’s go.”

They put their luggage into the car and got on. Ai popped a sweet into her mouth as makeshift medicine for carsickness.

She allowed the lemon-flavored sweet to slide left and right in her mouth before eventually stopping it on her tongue; and at the same time they prepared to leave. As the car’s pre-warmed heart began to beat faster and faster, its sound languidly split apart the early morning air.

Ai sat in the back seat and seemed lost in thought about the steadily receding town.

She was thinking of how nice it would be if everyone could live in happiness.

At around noon Kiriko took over the driving. Shocked, Ai had asked, “You can drive?!” and gotten as reply “As long as they can reach the pedals, anyone can.” Kiriko hadn’t meant anything in particular by this remark, but Ai was incensed by it and since then had lain on the middle seat trying to fall asleep.

The car had stopped once for lunch and thrice to cool down the overheating engine, and it was now a long time past noon.

The first to notice that something was amiss was Scar.

“I sense unburied dead.”

“…… Whaa…? That’s a really tasty cake you have there……”[9]

“Ai, please wake up.”

Scar looked out from the back seat and said this quietly.

“… Huh? No, what do you mean, I wasn’t asleep at all… Not at all… Ah, I didn’t sleep yesterday either… Ooh…”

“I can sense unburied dead around; they’re right where we’re going.”

“Huh?”

In order to bury the dead the Grave Keepers were endowed with various powers, one of which was the ability to sense the presence of the dead. They had many ways of knowing who and where were those that they had to bury. But the criteria for “people they had to bury” was hopelessly complicated, such that while most Grave Keepers would go for the nearest dead, exceptions abounded and some were even to this regard a little faulty. For instance, Ai had no such power. And in fact it was said that even among pure Grave Keepers there were those who could go in circles around the dead and never find them. But it was precisely because of this tendency of Grave Keepers to be attracted to the dead that they were sometimes called ‘Lords of the Cadavers’.

Back to the travelers.

Ai stared ahead.

Logically speaking, Ortus lay in that exact direction.

“… Here we go again… Then, Scar-san, how many of them are there? One? Two? Ten? A hundred?”

“At the very least… a million, I think.”

“I see, a million… Wait, a million?!”

Ai looked again to the front as she exclaimed this. The cloudless horizon suddenly seemed threateningly ominous, making her feel as if their continued driving forward was an act of utmost idiocy.

“There’re probably even more than that… It’s just that they’re all packed too close together, so I can’t detect their numbers with any accuracy.”

“That’s accurate enough! Kiriko-san, stop! Stoooooop!”

“Huh? What? What is it?”

“What do you mean, what is it! There’re over a million of the dead where we’re going…”

“But of course.”

Kiriko didn’t seem to mind this at all, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“After all, where I live is the Land of the Dead, the world’s greatest city of departed souls. Ortus.”

Ortus was a city that covered the vast hills it was built on.

Its coordinates were 48° 5’ 2” N 109° 2’ 58” (using the Elzargo [10] Meridian). Situated in the middle of the continent, its climate was cool and dry. It had a population of 1.2 million, all of whom were dead.

This state began as a nomadic monarchy with a history thousands of years old. Fourteen years ago, but a year after the world underwent its transformation, it shaped itself into an organized band of the dead and set about its business, even surviving the armed persecutions by the living and repelling countless Grave Keepers to grow and grow in size and number.

And finally, nine years ago, they had built on this earth the city they had long dreamed of.

This city that had begun with a mere twenty thousand grew larger an