Otherside picnic volume.., p.14
Otherside Picnic, Volume 7, page 14
“Uh, right...”
That serious scolding left me feeling awkward. I looked at Toriko, and she gave me a disapproving look too.
“Sorawo, it’s not good to get carried away like that. Or to tease someone who can’t argue back.”
“Urgh... Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me, apologize to her.”
With no other choice, I turned to Runa. “Sorry.”
“Mm.”
Runa responded with a look that said, Oh, whatever... It was so frustrating.
Still, their anger was reasonable. Out of the four of us who were going to attend a funeral, everyone but me had a powerful emotional connection to Satsuki Uruma. If I was the only one acting goofy, it wasn’t going to be received well. But she was just an irritating enemy to me, nothing more...
Migiwa, who was ignoring the awkwardness in the air, pulled out a little key. “I leave the key to her gag with you. Urumi-san’s other belongings are in her bag.”
“Her belongings? What else does she have?”
“Her wallet and student ID, which we retrieved from the Farm, as well as a change of clothes and some small personal items. Our nurse was the one to handle them, so I am not aware of the precise details.”
Basically, she had everything she needed to head out, then.
“Got it. Well... We’re off, then.”
“Do take care,” Migiwa said with a polite bow.
“You’re up, Toriko.”
“Okay.” Toriko removed her glove and walked to a spot a short distance away. There was a white line, about three meters long, drawn in the middle of the floor, indicating the location of the gate.
We’d done this again and again, so she was used to it now. Toriko stuck her hand out in midair, moving her hand to the side like she was shifting aside a heavy curtain. The space warped, opening into a gate rimmed by silver phosphorescence.
“Let’s go.”
I took the lead and headed through the gate. On the other side was the basement of the Farm, fifty kilometers away, where a massive metal ring had been installed in the vast, concrete space. A dusty smell assaulted my nostrils. I could also feel it was just a little colder. It was pitch dark when I first entered, but the sensor next to the Round Hole detected me and the lights turned on. They were the kind used on construction sites; narrow, but strong, and felt awfully bright if you accidentally looked straight into them.
Once I’d taken stock of the situation around me, I turned back to the gate. “Okay. Come on through.”
Kozakura timidly entered the gate and Runa followed behind her unconcerned. Toriko brought up the rear, crossing the Round Hole and then letting go with her left hand, allowing the tear in space to close again.
“Oh, it’s this place...” Kozakura said, not happy about it. This was where Runa’d had her at her mercy, so she had unpleasant memories of the place.
“Mm! Mm!” Runa was gesturing with her chin. It looked like she wanted the gag off.
“I’ll take it off once we’re on the Otherside, so deal with it for now.”
“Mmph!”
With that angry grunt, Runa opened her backpack, and out came the whiteboard she’d used in the medical ward.
“Take it off. I’m not going to cause trouble now.”
“Why? Do you have something you want to say here?”
“Mmph!”
I looked at the other two. They both furrowed their brows, expressing their concern nonverbally.
“If it’s something you can communicate with that board, then write it down.”
“Mrrgh.”
Runa wrote furiously.
“What’s that?”
“That?”
I turned to look where Runa was pointing. By the rear wall, there was a large pile of construction materials and equipment.
“Ohh. You know how your cult was digging out the back of the building so you could bring cars down here? We’re thinking we’ll take over construction and make it so we could go up to the surface from here.”
“Why?”
“Well, it’ll be convenient to be able to bring vehicles in and out when we’re using this place. I mean, it is connected to the parking garage at DS Research, after all.”
“Use it for what?”
“For what? You guys created a whole bunch of gates for us, so...”
I got that far in my explanation, then realized Runa hadn’t had the basic premise explained to her yet.
“Oh, right. Sorry, sorry. So, yeah, this building? It’s mine now.”
Runa blinked at me.
“Huh?”
“It’s mine now.”
“You’re making no sense. I never gave it to you.”
“Well, you won’t be needing it anymore.”
“That’s not the problem. It’s mine, okay???”
“No, it’s not yours. You made someone prepare it for you, and then used it as you pleased.”
“Mmph.”
As Runa groaned with displeasure, I continued. “I had Migiwa-san look into it, and he says no one else is going to object. So I took it for myself.”
Runa looked at me in disbelief, her marker running across the whiteboard.
“You’re kidding.”
“No one’s using the building, so you just took it over?”
“Did you come here from the Sengoku Period or something, Kamikoshi-san?”
“Pfft!” Toriko burst out laughing in a voice that didn’t suit her face at all. That last shot at me must have really tickled her funny bone, as a fit of wheezing laughter left her unable to move for a while.
“Why are you laughing...?” I asked.
“B-Because! That’s just how you are, Sorawo...”
“I get it. Sorawo-chan’s got that sort of barbaric side to her, doesn’t she?” Kozakura said.
“Mmph!”
“Kozakura-san... What do you mean, ‘barbaric’? I don’t think you should throw that word around so casually.”
Kozakura snorted at my complaint. “It’s touching to hear you starting to talk like a university student.”
“I am a university student. Have been for years.”
“Why shouldn’t she say it?” Toriko asked, having somehow recovered from her laughing fit.
“We need to learn the lessons of nineteenth century colonialism.”
“Maybe pick up on the fact that I’m saying you operate on the same logic as a nineteenth century colonialist.”
“Hey, it’s more recent than the Sengoku Period.”
“Mmph!!!”
I didn’t care what Runa’s complaints were, I wasn’t listening to them. The fact of the matter was that Toriko and I were the only ones who could properly manage the Farm.
“Listen... We can’t leave a place this dangerous to anybody else. The building next to this one was absolutely nuts. The rooms were all full of gates. There’s no telling what might happen if a normal person went in there.”
“Mmmm?”
“Yeah. I’m sure you couldn’t see them, but they were there, and the way things were going even you would’ve gotten hurt. Once we make it so we can come here directly from DS Research, we’re going to seal off the road that comes up here, and make it so no one else will come here.”
“Mmm.”
“And you’ve brought us to this crazy, dangerous place...?” Kozakura shuddered. “Let’s hurry up, get this over with, and get out of here. What do we do next?”
“We choose a gate upstairs and head to the Otherside. Then we summon Satsuki Uruma.”
“How?”
“That’s where Runa comes in.”
“Mm?”
“We’re going to have you call ‘Satsuki-sama.’”
The three of them were giving me dubious looks, so I filled them in on the plan I had come up with.
“It’s been a mystery all this time what kind of ability Runa’s Voice is. It can brainwash people who hear it, and that would be more than powerful enough on its own, but...would coming into contact with the Otherside really end up giving her such a convenient ability?”
“You’re saying there’s side effects?” Toriko asked, looking at her own hand.
“Not quite. Take my eye, for example. Sure, it can drive people crazy, but that’s basically just a nice bonus. Its primary ability is to see through the layers of phenomena from the other world, allowing me to perceive something deeper, their true form. I think that driving people mad is just a coincidence. It’s what happens when you try to do the same thing to a human.”
“That’s the side effect, then,” Kozakura said with a nod.
“Yeah. I don’t know if the layers I see exist in reality or if they’re merely a texture being applied by my brain, though.”
“Then my hand is—”
“The same way, I think. It’s strictly an ability that allows you to perceive things from the other world through the sense of touch, and you’re coincidentally also able to use it to plunge your fingers into human bodies. We don’t know what applications that could have yet, so maybe we should look into it more.”
“R-Right...” Toriko replied noncommittally, clearly not that keen on the idea.
“Mmm?”
“Yeah, so, I figure it’s the same way with you, Runa. If my guess is right, your Voice is able to call entities from the Otherside.”
Kozakura’s eyes bugged out. “Sounds dangerous...”
“It sure is.”
“I thought brainwashing was crazy enough as is, but that’s...even worse.”
Toriko, who seemed to have noticed what I was getting at, spoke up. “Doesn’t that mean she could suddenly call up the kind of things we encounter in the depths of the Otherside...?”
“Yep, she might be able to call them the moment we enter the gate and are in the shallow parts of the Otherside.”
“That’s nuts...”
“So Satsuki-sama will come if I call?”
“I think there’s a good chance that something that looks like Satsuki Uruma will show up, at least.”
As I was trying to explain to Runa, Kozakura got this panicked look on her face. “Whoa, whoa, hold up. If your guess is right, Sorawo-chan, then some super scary thing from the depths of the Otherside will get summoned in the shape of Satsuki? Those things drive you crazy just by thinking about them a little...”
“That’s what I’m expecting, yes.”
“If one of them shows up, it’s just gonna go the same as before, right?! This won’t be a funeral, it’ll be all of us getting messed up and killed!”
“If we weren’t prepared to handle it, yeah.”
“...And are you?”
I nodded. I wouldn’t be carrying out a plan like this otherwise. “If the thing we call up is changed by our perception of it, then we should be able to turn that against it.”
“By changing Satsuki into something else, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“But even if the shape she takes changes, what’s inside won’t be any different, will it? Like how whatever was inside Satsuki last time was still a monster.”
“I agree...” Toriko piped in. “What do you plan to turn her into? A stuffed animal or something?”
“If we did that, we might have an experience so scary you’d never be able to look at stuffed animals the same way again,” I said before shaking my head. “I don’t think turning her into something ridiculous will help. Even if we could force her into that sort of form, if it’s not convincing enough to us, we’ll just be taken in by her air and it’ll all be over. Something scary’s coming, and we’ll just have to deal with that. So it’s better to find a form that’s just scary, but not harmful.”
“A form that’s scary but not harmful...? Is there anything that convenient?” Kozakura asked.
“There is. I’ve got just the story for it,” I said, looking around at the three of them before continuing. “Have you ever heard of Cow Head?”
2
The ghost story that is said to be the scariest of all—Cow Head, or Ushi no Kubi.
A story so frightening it would shake anyone to the core.
Some said you would die mere days after hearing it, while others suggested speaking about it alone was enough to invite calamity. Now, if you’re wondering what it was about...
Nothing.
It was about nothing.
The story called Cow Head had nothing to it.
—There’s this super scary story. It’s called Cow Head. You ever hear it?
—No, I haven’t. Is it that scary?
—Yeah, it is. It’s so scary, once you’ve heard it, you’ll wish you never had... But worse than that, horrifying things happen to those who hear it, and who tell it. It’s a really scary story...
Nothing more ever came out about the story.
Basically, Cow Head was a story we knew was scary, but didn’t know anything else about it. It was a ghost story about ghost stories; what you might call a meta ghost story.
When I explained this, Kozakura, who’d had her hands ready to plug her ears at any moment, lowered them, looking almost disappointed.
“That’s all...? Really?”
“There’s nothing more to add. Don’t worry.”
“It’s not so much a ghost story as a storylet.”
“But depending on how it’s told, it could be scary, right?”
I was happy to hear Toriko say that. “Yeah, that’s right. That’s why it’s treated as a ghost story. If it ended with them just going, ‘It’s scary, it’s scary,’ it’d be disappointing, and you’d be like, ‘What was that all about?’ But a story so scary it’s like nothing you’ve ever heard, and just telling it could bring consequences... If you handle that right, it could be pretty spine-tingling. That’s why, while it’s not a true ghost story, I happen to like this one a lot.”
“Okay, so how do you plan on using this meta ghost story?” a sober-eyed Kozakura asked me.
“Oh, right...”
I’d gotten carried away talking about it. I cleared my throat, then started explaining again.
“First... Let’s hypothesize that the Otherside reads our knowledge of ghost stories, then outputs phenomena in line with the text of them in an attempt to communicate through the medium of fear. The process up until now was for them to make contact with us. The phenomenon of Satsuki Uruma has been one part of that, and I think they’ve used her over and over because she’s been so effective.”
“Effective... Effective at what?” Toriko cocked her head to the side.
“We don’t have nearly enough evidence to guess at how they might measure that, but to make it real simple I’ll suggest maybe it’s because we’ve had such strong reactions to her. They get complex responses, different from being ignored, or us unloading on them with firearms. They’ve probed us in a variety of ways, like with Michiko Abarato and T-san, and they noticed Satsuki Uruma always gets a reaction out of us.”
Complicated expressions appeared on Toriko and Kozakura’s faces. Runa, I couldn’t tell. The gag made her expression hard to read. They didn’t seem to have any questions, so I continued.
“But if Satsuki Uruma’s form is only a temporary guise they assume, we should be able to influence it. If we don’t get overwhelmed, and can modify our perception, then we should be able to get the phenomenon that’s putting on a Satsuki Uruma display to change into another form. My eye’s able to see the layers of the Otherside, so I’ve already tested this in other cases.”
“Really? Haven’t you told me that you’ve run into a bunch of monsters that didn’t change when you looked at them, Sorawo-chan?”
“It’s a weak point in my theory, I’ll admit. Satsuki’s form didn’t change when I looked at her in Oomiya either.”
“I’m uneasy about this.”
“But when I look at monsters using my right eye, even if I see their ‘true forms,’ I feel like many of them still reflect the ghost stories they were based off of. The thickness of the layers of perception and the way they overlap isn’t uniform, so there may be cases where I have to peel back many layers before reaching a different form. When you put it that way, I think this Satsuki Uruma’s a thick, hard layer, and one it’s hard to break through perceiving.”
“And you’re going to use Cow Head to break her down?”
“That’s the plan. We force the phenomenon that appears as Satsuki Uruma to believe that, no, you’re Cow Head. We turn a super scary woman into a super scary story that has no substance to it. Imagine it as one ghost story supplanting another.”
“Hmm...” Kozakura touched her lips as she pondered this.
“What do you think?”
“It’s easier to overwrite something scary with something that’s scary but harmless than it is to overwrite it with something that’s not scary at all... It’s a neat idea. I almost forgot my fear for a moment.”
“I know, right?”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“We bail immediately. That’s why the plan is to do it right by a gate. If we think it’s failing, we’re gonna turn tail and run in an instant, so be ready for that.”
“I’m glad to see you’re still just barely sane,” Kozakura said in a monotone voice.
“Well, are we all good now? Let’s go. We’re going to go into the Otherside upstairs. I know a number of gates that it’ll be easy to retreat through, so even if Satsuki Uruma doesn’t appear at one of them, we can try doing it at a few different spots.”
With the prospect of going to the other world becoming more and more inevitable, Kozakura was getting pale. I put my hand on her shoulder, trying to reassure her. “It’s going to be fine. If you get too scared to move, I’ll drag you with us, so don’t worry.”
Kozakura just gazed at me resentfully, unable to respond.
“I’ll be watching Kozakura, so you look out for Runa, Toriko. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Toriko’s response was always perfect. When you consider how many feelings she had to be suppressing about this “funeral” I’d concocted this time, it felt like a human-shaped hole had opened up beside me, and I suddenly got scared. I shook off the feeling, and raised my voice.
