Chapter 1
If that"s the case, then why did she use those kanji?!
Since junior high my old enemies, some delinquents, would always call me "Fuuri (Disadvantage)" during fights, so I"ve gotten used to eluding abusive language.
"Say something s.h.i.+buya[1] Yuuri[2] (Advantageous)!"
"Don"t you mean Harajuku[1] Fuuri[2] (Disadvantageous)"
I"ve heard that cliché 50,000 times. By the way, I was born 15 years ago. That"s right, my name is s.h.i.+buya Yuuri (Advantageous). Not Yuuri (abundant village) nor Yuuri (gentle pear tree) but s.h.i.+buya "Yuuri (Advantageous)". The name of my brother, who is five years older than me, is s.h.i.+buya Shouri (Victory). It"s written as Shouri (Victory) and reads as Shouri, and even if it looks a little like "Katsutos.h.i.+ (to win, same kanji)", it"s not.
With the fresh leaves of May growing thick, I was in the middle of returning home from school on my bicycle.
Up until now I"ve looked up to a member of the middle school baseball team, but now I also look up to another senior on the kendo team, so I was talking about becoming a member of the kendo team just five minutes ago before I rode my bicycle away from my friend. I was stepping on the pedals in a good mood, heading through a quiet park near my home, when I happened across a serious scene.
Collecting money.
That"s only what the bullies who practice it call it, but it"s really plain old mugging. Today of all days I knew all three of them, the a.s.sailants and the victim, from samiddle (the same middle school?), and the one in gla.s.ses who was being pushed up against the back wall of the bathrooms, Murata Ken, was in the same cla.s.s as me in the second and third year of middle school.
Now wouldn"t be a bad time to leave on my bike, especially since no one"s noticed me. If I pa.s.s by quickly, Murata wouldn"t ever know it was me. It"s not like he"s really my friend, and I"ve never really talked to him. Besides, even if I did seem like an ally of justice, no one is looking hopefully or gratefully this way...ah...I slowly stopped my bicycle.
A-Ah, it"s no good...my eyes met with Murata Ken"s.
"...What are you doing over there? Perhaps doing something illegal together?"
And so, I, s.h.i.+buya Yuuri, decided to deal with two delinquents, and for what I guess is the 50,000th time I heard, "Well, is it Harajuku Fuuri?!" All thanks to this small-town sense of justice I was born with. Mugging people is a crime, and fighting two on one is unfair by my ethics.
"We"re just "collecting money". Whatever money is in that guy"s wallet, so that"s legitimately collecting money, right?"
Please, pull out a map and show me, in what country is this legal?
With navy blue and gray uniforms, the two high school students who had fair hair and matching contacts could have been said to have no nationality[3] at all. They kicked me in the stomach and pinned me roughly against the mortar wall.
"Now look, our prey ran off because you were talking too much. Well? You"re the banker"s son, so shouldn"t you know how valuable a customer is?!"
It"s true. Oh, h.e.l.l! I was going to save Murata Ken, and then he turned around and ran away at full speed. But I"m cute, I"ll look around for a.s.sistance. But at 4:30 in the afternoon only grade school students are in the park.
"Why did you come save that guy? Are you friends? Or is it a secret crush?"
"Shut up! Ken is my favorite name, and Tsutomu and Ken are my top favorite names."
Secretly, the teacher whom I admire is named "Tsutomu", and my favourite actor in historical dramas is "Matsudaira Ken".
"Ah? It"s your favorite name? s.h.i.+buya Yuuri Harajuku Fuuri?!"
When they started laughing I tried to gain a tactical advantage. I was drawing out my fists and kneeing them when Delinquent A grabbed my hair and pulled me into the dim bathroom.
"Hey, wait...you...ah, wasn"t this marked as the ladies" bathroom?!"
"Is that so? Hunn, well, that"s fine. There"s a lot more stalls, so we can have our privacy. That"s important."
"That"s right, it"s for our privacy. We want to keep a secret a secret."
Delinquent B matched his tone to his actions, and he began to look for a wallet from the s.n.a.t.c.hed backpack.[4] The blue strap was cut, causing a mobile phone to tumble out; it began to ring as soon as it hit the wall.
"...What"s this ringtone, have you heard it?"
"No. Aah, what is this, it feels like I"ve heard it somewhere...oh, I can"t remember...like something from television. I"d guess from a historical play?"
"About that, who makes ringtones from historical plays other than the recent ones by Mito Komon? Moreover, isn"t that a professional baseball strap? I don"t believe it, s.h.i.+buya Yuuri, what is this about, s.h.i.+buya Yuuri?"
"Shut up! What do you know about the virtues of baseball?! Ah, hey, you..."
Delinquent B began pulling out money. It was a pair of Souseki-senseis.[5]
"What is this?! You have to be joking, are you really a banker"s son?! Your father must be hesitant to lend you money because you are, but I thought you"d have more than this. He"s doesn"t want to loan you money,[6] s.h.i.+buya-chan."
"I"m not connected to my parent"s business."
I didn"t think to tell them, but I usually had about 500 yen[7] in my possession. He gives me change steadily, but it"s barely enough to use at a vending machine, and my savings are gone in the blink of an eye.
"Ah, ah, think of it as the bank making a special loan to Murata, two blue bills[8] isn"t enough. 20,000 yen at least, 20,000."
Suddenly his grip on my hair strengthened. Currently there were three light blue doors reserved in the lady"s restroom. I was dragged to the center one, and kneed roughly in the back. The toilets didn"t look like what I"d been told, and a Western-style toilet was in front of me.
"Hey, no way, you guys...aren"t delinquents of ten years ago, so..."
"For someone who pa.s.sed the entrance exams[9] you"re not very quick-witted, so how about we teach you not to have a smart mouth for future reference?"
Surely they won"t really dunk my face in the toilet. Even if these guys were junior high school delinquents, it"s the year 2000 AD, who uses such old-fas.h.i.+oned bullying?!
"If you get in our way, should we kill you? Next time it"ll be serious."
As I feared, my rivals pushed my head towards the toilet. It seems like right now old-fas.h.i.+oned things are back in style.
I tried to hold up my neck, but I decided I had about 10 seconds to be prepared.
But a toilet! If I thought about a different type of face-was.h.i.+ng vessel the function is the same. The water began to flow over my chin as it was pushed in. I tried to lift my head as a reaction, but the pressure at the back of my head didn"t loosen at all. I gave up, took a deep breath, and stiffened my body.
After the toilets were modernized, there wasn"t anyone who"d been dunked in the toilets. If that"s true, then I should get in the Guinness Book of World Records. In other words, for just a few dozen seconds, if I closed my eyes and held my breath, even if they push me in, and even if my head is pulled...huh?
Either Delinquent A or Delinquent B"s hand held me from above as usual. But some other force was sucking me in, like there was a black hole in the middle of the toilet!
Is this a joke?! What hidden power brand name toilets have! It must be the ultimate secret of a strong cleaner! I couldn"t fight it any longer, and while my head and shoulders and hips were painfully sucked in I, s.h.i.+buya Yuuri, thought with a scream:
Is it possible, this is the first time this has ever happened?!
For the first time ever, a man was flushed down a toilet?!
Hey, Papa.
What is it, Yuuri?
When we come to Disneyland why do we only go on the "Star Tours"?
What, you don"t like the Star Tours, Yuuri?
It"s not that I don"t like it, I love it! But I at least already know all the lines of the "droid" that is the "pilot", how many times have we ridden it?
That"s great, Yuuri! So you already remember all the lines the pilot droid has? Well then, Yuuri, just to make certain that it"s correct, let"s ride the Star Tours once more! Because someday when you grow up, this will definitely be useful.
That was certainly useful!
As my vision began to return faintly, I expressed my grat.i.tude to my father after a long time. Even though he probably never predicted that his son would be flushed down a toilet over ten years ago, riding Star Tours at Disneyland in Tokyo 10 times in rapid succession was certainly useful.
After whirling down the flus.h.i.+ng toilet, the scene I saw in that clear water was just like repeating what I had seen in my childhood. The droid shouted, and then we warped. The light became grainy and the stars were stretched into lines, and distorted, and then shrunk again into normal stars. My body was extended, distorted and then shrunk again...
Not really.
I could never really be flushed down a toilet. Besides, my body grew adequately, and I"m about the size of the average freshman.
I stretched out my arms and legs as much as possible, and triumphantly became spread eagle. The dirt road didn"t go away after a long time. But the sky was nothing but blue. It was the clear blue sky of an area without things like air pollution or depletion of the ozone layer, with clear air and blue sky. When I tilted my head, I saw green on both sides of the road. At my left hand were woods where the trees grew thick, and at my right hand was a meadow stretching in a slope with a private house. The house seemed like it was made of stone, and in the distance animals could vaguely be seen. Goats or...sheep, I guess.
Because of those bullies, my face was shoved into a toilet and I was dragged into a place that didn"t seem to be inhabited, and I instantly panicked.
But, where is this? The scenery was entirely unlike modern j.a.pan, and I muttered while sitting up.
"...The Alps?"
Like that girl Heidi. Even though I couldn"t figure out how I got transported here.
As I quietly realized that my uniform was damp I got a seriously bad feeling. When I thought about this moisture carefully, it might be from the public bathroom...I"d better stop thinking so much. Water is water, there"s nothing different about H2O.
On the other side of the road a young lady carrying a large piece of luggage was walking. Both of her hands were under a wicker basket, but it fell from both hands at the same time. The sound of the fruits that were too large to be called apples tumbling onto the road rose up into the air.
"Umm....."
I began speaking and took a deep breath. Her eyes stared in my direction. And mine were looking at her, too. Some words rose in my head.
A costume player (or cosplayer to abbreviate).
The length of the long skirt that seemed to be dragging on the ground. The old-fas.h.i.+oned triangular straps tied at her chin. Those blue eyes and dull blonde hair...a foreigner! But why was a foreigner in a long ap.r.o.n dress that seemed like that Heidi girl of the Alps climbing up the hill carrying luggage? As the girl dropped her basket, she pointed in this direction and began screaming something.
"Ah, umm, excuse me, I"m really sorry if I surprised you. It"s just that I"ve been dumped at this place, you really don"t need to feel like I"ll harm you or threaten you..."
Her voice subst.i.tuted for a siren, and one by one people ran out of the stone fairy-tale houses, quickly climbing up the slope. There were men and women and children. All the people were the same.
"...Every...everyone is cosplaying?"
No, these people definitely weren"t modern day j.a.panese people. To begin with, all of them were foreigners. If you look at us j.a.panese, the natural blonde hair and natural brown hair, natural blue eyes and natural split chin, I could only think they were a different race. Ten or more people gathered around holding useful farming equipment like ploughs or hoes or sickles. When the girl kept screaming, I couldn"t understand the meaning as I watched her, frozen.
"Wait a minute, really, please wait a minute, I was just dumped here. Umm, what"s a better word for it, eh...abandoned! I was just abandoned here! Ah...ah, I know! I haven"t solved the entire puzzle."
My brains and tongue rotated in a state of emergency. The houses didn"t look like j.a.pan and the people were cosplaying. All of the factors came together in me.
"A theme park?!"
That"s right. Foreigners in cosplay, an outlandish town; if this the type of place was used in two hour suspense dramas, wouldn"t it have to be a theme park?
"Well, that"s probably it. I"m stupid for not realizing it right away. I was abandoned in a theme park. But, even so, where is this? Is there a a place in Niigata with a Russian atmosphere? Even if that"s true, that"s a long way to be abandoned from where I live...ow, ah, why is everyone in the Russian village, wait, why, rocks, and things?! Ow!"
Everyone working at the theme park must have been foreigners knowledgeable of j.a.panese foolishness. Nevertheless, why did they start throwing stones this way while I was frantically explaining?! Even if I didn"t pay the entrance fee, throwing stones and setting up farming tools (they can be used as deadly weapons) is a bit of an over-reaction.
"Ah, umm, my wallet was taken a little while ago so I didn"t pay the entrance fee, but I"ll definitely do it in the future. If someone will lend me a phone, I"ll do it by the end of today."
The end of today?
I was holding my arms over my head as I avoided stones and mud, and I pretended not to see the peasants wielding giant fork-looking spades. I thought as I absentmindedly saw an infant begin to weep with a frightened face while looking at me.
The infinite blue sky? When I was arguing with the delinquents, wasn"t it past 4 in the afternoon? It"s possible to consider that I was unconscious for 15 hours. But no one found me during that time? Even the theme park"s security? Furthermore, even in the May weather, my uniform was still really wet. What in the world happened to me?! My head is so full of questions it felt like it was weighed to the ground. Even though I"m receiving this unjust stoning, no one is helping me.
I heard a strong voice give orders, and I lifted up my head a lot. Thankfully, the shower of stones ceased.
"Who..."
I was going to ask who it was, but then I saw a man on horseback and my words were stopped. His costume design wasn"t different than the villagers, but the brilliance and texture of his clothes were obviously of a different quality, and he dismounted from his horse with excessive action and took two steps this way.
American football, this man absolutely must play American football. His arms and chest seemed that way. With dazzling hair and turquoise blue eyes, a fine, long hooked nose even though it inclined to the left a little, he seemed to be a beautiful Caucasian macho man with a split chin. Foreigner-loving j.a.panese girls would probably form a line asking for photographs in this place, and if necessary they would probably put money in his bikini pants.
The fault of this particular Caucasian was his huge nostrils on his triangular nose.
Secretly I think of him as "Denver Broncos", that"s the only NFL team that I know. He said a few words to the villagers, and then he knelt down and peered at me.
"...Umm...seriously, thank you, for calming down everyone..."
His huge hands, which balanced out his figure, grabbed my head firmly.
I thought he was going to throw a 90 yard long pa.s.s like this. Furthermore he could probably get a touchdown like that. But as he gripped my frontal lobe (no way) he didn"t throw me, and with the power he put in his fingers I couldn"t move for a minute.
"...Ow..."
As the pain hit me from five places I unintentionally raised my voice. You might call it shock more than pain. [10]I was more afraid from the shock that he would close his fingers too strongly by mistake than in pain. Finally the man separated his hands. A stream of sound flowed in at the same time. The root from my ear to my brain hurt as if water had gotten in it.
Wind, trees, cries of the animals, cries of the baby that sounded like an animal, and words.
Suddenly everyone began speaking j.a.panese. What, everyone can speak j.a.panese?! That"s it, they"re workers away from home (and probably taking their families) who came to j.a.pan to work with tourists,[11] so they"re sure to have mastered everyday conversation. If that"s the case, why did they keep speaking Russian (?) until now? What rude people. The beautiful macho man laughed.
"How is that? Can you understand us now?"
"Aah, it"s strange to see a foreigner speak fluent j.a.panese."
My tension was relieved a little bit when I understood him. At any rate, I needed to understand the situation. To make it easier for them to understand, I tried to ask in a fake foreign accent.
"And, I"m not sure how I got here, or where or what time it is...ah, but we can find out the time from a clock... Umm...[12] Excuse me, where is this? How can I get back home?"
"What..."
Denver Broncos (or otherwise American football guy) put both hands on his waist and looked down at me.
"Just when this one looked good, this Maou is just an idiot?"
Idiot?
"...How can you call an easily hurt young boy an idiot the first time you meet him?"
My bad habit reared its ugly head. When I was a grade school child, my brain functions became overcharged and a red switch would flip on and off, and I"d begin speaking with terrible vigor. My fourth grade music teacher was impressed that I could ramble until I thought of something to say. She nicknamed me Turkish March. Only she called me that before or after.
"Certainly my enrollment in a prefectural high school is not really because I surpa.s.sed the results of anyone or am someone to be jealous of. Even a child returning to his home country can be persistent, but I was in Boston for half a year after I was born. All the same, I"m not an idiot, what"s with calling me an "idiot" all of the sudden? If you look, my father is an elite banker, and my brother is a student at Hitotsubas.h.i.+."
I try to cover up my mediocre self by bringing up my family pride.
"By the way, my mother graduated from Ferris!"
"Fe...what? Is that a rural aristocrat somewhere?"
That was the response, and I found myself at a a loss for words. Questions of academic background weren"t effective globally.
"Even so..."
Even so, the actors of a theme park shouldn"t call their guests "idiots". Basically for people who work in the service industry, customers are G.o.ds. Somehow I stood up to preach about typical j.a.panese economic methods.
The people playing the villagers yelled abnormally.
"The demon stood up!"
"It"s a genuine demon wearing black that stood up hurry and take the children inside!"
"It"s already useless this village will be burned down like Kentenau twenty years ago."
"Wait this one is still young and unarmed and if you can get a person with black hair and eyes I hear you can get the power of eternal youth in the country to the west they"re offering a reward."
"Ah I"ve heard about that too on at least one small island you could buy an eyebrow."
"Be careful even if he"s unarmed this guy is a demon he should be able to use Majutsu."[13]
"No Adalbert-sama is with us Adalbert-sama please protect this village please confine us with G.o.d"s power so that this demon can"t reach us."
What are these people saying! I can"t figure out where to put punctuation marks even if they"re speaking j.a.panese, it"s not entering my head smoothly. Unconsciously I checked my right wrist. It had a solid and clunky G-shock.[14] I don"t know if it"ll work, but if I hit someone with it I might get a little power boost. Wait, how can I hit someone, wait a minute, what am I thinking! But, these guys are looking at me with hostility, and everyone has the right to defend themselves. It"s a state of emergency, no, it might be called an emergency evacuation. So, self-defense should be ok? I"m completely panicking.
The villagers picked up their dangerous weapons again, sidling up with desperate looks. The guy called Adalbert didn"t have farming tools or stones in his hands. Instead, he was wearing a long sword on his hip. The man that seemed to have a lot of attack power said:
"Well, settle down all of you. This guy hasn"t learned anything yet. We could persuade him before it"s too late..."
When my back was turned, I heard the sound of something rhythmic. The sound grew rapidly and everyone was bewildered. I figured it out by listening. The sound of hooves. Several horses kicking the ground as they galloped, a powerful clatter like an earth tremor, the sound of hooves.
"Yuuri!"
I looked back as my name was called. A n.o.bleman riding a white horse, coming to save me...
"...Gah..."
It"s understandable that with my first impression I finished with "gah". It wasn"t just three knights or n.o.blemen riding white horses, but when I turned my gaze towards the sky a little bit, I saw something outrageous approaching. "Something" flew up there. In fifteen years and nine months, I could never imagine something like that.
It was a skeleton, tawny brown from age, and it seemed like oil paper attached to a bamboo frame had grown into wings. Moreover it flapped like a shuttlec.o.c.k, and flew in the sky as if it was natural.
If you attach wings to a skeleton, it can fly?
It is wonderful, wonderful and elaborately made. I couldn"t see any piano wire, or hovering devices or propellers that would keep it afloat. I wonder how this device works.
"Get away from him, Adalbert!"
The three rescuing knights rode close to the chestnut[15] with star on its forehead, and they seemed to be soldiers with their swords drawn. But then, if I call it a chestnut like the JRA[16] would, the villagers won"t understand. The young man seemed to be the leader, even though I couldn"t see his face his voice controlled the two following people.
"Don"t draw your swords at the villagers! They aren"t soldiers."
"But, Your Excellency-"
"Disperse!"
The three horses forced their way through the people working as villagers, neighed, and reared up. I covered my mouth from the cloud of dust and coughed miserably. Inside the beige mist, there were blue and orange sparks. Followed by clunking, the sound of metal striking each other heavily, the villagers trying to escape, the confused screams, and the sound of gra.s.s.
Someone grabbed my arms. Slowly the surrounding scene became vague.
"Von Grantz Adalbert! Why did you approach our border?!"
"You"re the same as ever, Lord Weller, a hero among cowards!"
Ah, I get it. It"s like a rule in mock battles, that they can"t fight until they introduce themselves? As I"m was thinking that, my body was slowly lifted off the ground. The dust cleared away from the slope, the cavalry chasing away the villagers, and the young man who jumped off his horse to face the American guy with his sword. When I thought that the ground was becoming distant, I was suddenly turned away from that place and being flown away. My arms hurt from being suspended with my body weight.
"How am I flying...you"re kidding?!"
Holding both my arms and transporting me was the skeleton device that was so elaborate that I couldn"t figure it out. The tawny oil-paper wings flapped, chattering and flying forward. Wasn"t it just a skeleton that had wings attached to it? Even if I looked up from right under its spine it was a jawbone and skull with no expression, and dark caves in the eye part of the face looked down.
"What should I say, thanks."
Even though I was being abducted, I wanted to at least express my grat.i.tude, and I tried with all my might. It seemed that if it lost strength for even a minute it would fall. The flying skeleton desperately flapped its wings as it clattered. Adalbert made a fleeting glance this way, and remarked as he fought with Lord Weller, who seemed to be the leader of the soldiers.
"How clever! Using kotsuhi to transport him!"
"They are loyal to us, and don"t lose themselves to personal grudges."
"And how about you, Lord Weller? Woah-"
From what I could see from twisting my neck and looking, Mister Brawns[17] who was called Adalbert, barely avoided the tip of the sword of the leader called Lord Weller.
"Don"t you think your skills are too good to use for those guys?"
"Unfortunately, Adalbert,"
I could only see the Lord Weller"s khaki back and dark brown head. Somehow I knew that he smiled that moment.
"My love isn"t as single-minded as yours."
When his subordinates returned from driving away all of the villagers, and they drew their swords out at the same time. Adalbert jumped onto his horse, and called out to me as I moved at the height of the trees.
"Be patient for a while, I"ll come save you soon!"
"Save...am I being kidnapped by the good guys or bad guys right now?!"
Under my eyes, the leader with brown hair stopped the soldiers that were trying to chase their enemy.
"Stop, don"t chase him too far!"
"He is alone. I thought we should use his disadvantage, if we can catch up to him now..."
Lord Weller (I still haven"t seen his face) ordered strictly. So cooool. "Right now our top priority is taking His Majesty"s body to safety."
Taking His Majesty"s body to safety, does this mean this has turned into like a super-kabuki show? As I was partic.i.p.ating in the super original theme park, with the super elaborate attractions, I secretly muttered as His Majesty.
"...Can you get me down from this super well-made sky ride for the time being?"
(Translated by Emeryl, originally posted on Onadoru Euphoria. Re-posted with permission.)