Case 08: Does the Place Underground Exist, or not? (7)

However, there was no sign of the police nearby. Nor of any students. The lights were still switched on in the staff room, probably because they were still being interrogated about the situation.

As if slipping into the darkness, I headed towards the entrance. As I reached there, I thought to change into the slippers reserved for guests, but since my current shoes would be useful if I had to escape, I regretfully decided to enter the school building with my own shoes. Despite saying that I would look for Yoishi, I didn’t have the faintest clue where to start looking, but on my way back here, my mind was made up. The rooftop. The last place she had been in.

I ran up the stairs, trying to make as little noise as possible. Passing through the second, third, fourth floor — I arrived at the top. The iron door that led to the rooftop was covered with yellow tape and a sign that read, ‘Usage forbidden’.

“…Is this even necessary? It’s not like someone’s dead yet.”

Grumbling to myself, I stepped under the tape, twisted the key and opened the door. I slid through the door and unto the rooftop in the night.

A nice breeze was blowing across the pitch-dark rooftop.

I closed the door, put my hands in my pockets and walked on alone.

Naturally, there was not a soul to be found. There were a few lights on in the university facilities visible from here, indicating that there were still students there, but here, the buildings of the high school had fallen into complete darkness.

I headed straight the water tower and put my foot on the iron ladder as I began to climb. There was a low fence around the tower, which made it a small blind spot. I felt that if I sat down, no one would see me. Feeling at ease, I sat down. Then, with my bangs blowing in the night wind, I thought to myself. Starting from the beginning. I would rethink everything I had learned here --from the very, very beginning.

Yoishi had disappeared yesterday at 2pm, during the middle of math class. She was headed towards the infirmary, or so she said, but never arrived there. So that would mean that that was the point at which she disappeared. There’s also the fact that her teachers were negligent, but there’s been no contact from her at all for a full two days now.

Yoishi had been searching for a depressing spot. And she had probably quickly recognized the existence of the ghost inside Miiko: ‘Ayana Takamura’. The Ayana Takamura that disappeared five years ago, with only her shoes left behind. Along with those creepy words she left behind in the school, she disappeared abruptly from this world.

And today, once again, new shoes have been discovered. I don’t know if those shoes belonged to Yoishi or not. I couldn’t get a proper look at the shoes myself from up close. But I had a strange conviction. It felt like Yoishi had definitely been here. It was partly because the shoes that belonged to Ayana Takamura, who had disappeared five years ago, were also here, but more so than that, when I sit here like this, I strongly feel Yoishi’s presence. Her lonely looking profile, and her long hair blowing in the wind as it bristly touches my cheek. There’s no doubt about it. She must have been here, sitting just like this.

“Say, Yoishi—Just what were you doing up here?”

I ask, looking up at the jet-black sky.

“And… just where did you disappear to?”

Ayana Takamura – The senpai that disappeared five years ago in the same way as Yoishi.

What did Krishna-san say again about what that senpai of hers was trying to do?

If I remember correctly, that senpai of hers had realized that the structure of this school was built to create an artificial Mary, and she had planted Kotodama words in order to try and create something. The book of taboo words in the library must have also been a remnant of that. So, did Yoishi see it? Like Krishna-san said, did she chase after her Senpai taking the same spiritual path she had taken? But, where did that lead to? In all likelihood, to the underground place. Because it was the place Ayana Takamura had mentioned.

But -- I didn’t know anything beyond that.

How would you head to the underground place from the roof?

In the first place, there’s no such thing as a vast underground space in this school. We went to check the boiler room, but there wasn’t even a single sign of there being an underground place, nor anything resembling an entrance. If you think it's not there, it's not, was it? Then if you thought it was there, could you go there? How would you think it was there? How would you believe in its existence?

Lost deep in thought, I started rummaging through my hair in frustration, when—

All of a sudden, I caught a glimpse of something beyond the vast darkness from the rooftop.

A building. A long and narrow…building.

--The clock tower…?

That instant, I shuddered and gulped, recalling the accumulated malice that lay there.

And in between that clock tower and this rooftop, the vast sports ground lay spread out.

“Huh… wait a second…”

--The clock tower forms the phallus, and the gymnasium forms the womb.

According to Krishna-san, that’s what Ayana had wrote down. Could it be – that she had intentionally omitted the middle of that process? In other words, the direct connection between the phallus and the womb. And what if the womb was not, in fact, the gymnasium, but a place that was far closer? And if you’re talking about a place underground, then could it mean the space beneath the sports ground?

And then – I suddenly remembered.

That’s right, we heard it in class A. A girl was asked by Yoishi what place depressed her, and she answered, ‘The school grounds’, Krishna-san started acting weird since then. No, rather, you could say that she had recalled something when she heard that story. In short, Krishna-san might have figured out that the underground place Ayana Takamura was pointing to was the school grounds. Or perhaps it was in the school grounds that she heard the story. Maybe she was trying to keep me from getting too deeply involved again, or maybe she was afraid of the words ‘if you become aware of it, it becomes a reality’ – I believe it was probably the latter this time.

Of course, this was all complete conjecture.

However, when I got to that thought - I glimpsed of a flicker inside me.

As I recall, the teacher who held the shoes apparently belonging to Yoishi had said it at the time:

『…But, it’s strange. They were arranged facing inwards.』

I took off my sneakers and lined them there.

“Facing inwards… would be like this, right?”

I tried placing them facing the direction of the stairs coming into the rooftop, not facing the outside of the school building.

“He said it was strange, I guess it would have made sense if they were found facing outwards.”

In other words, that was a scene you would often see at the scene of a suicide. Something you would often see in dramas: Shoes would be lined up facing the sea on a precipitous cliff as a silent display, as if to say: ‘I'm going to disappear into the sea’. But – it’s true, I feel like they are facing outwards every time.

I guess only a suicidal person can really know what it's like to be in a suicidal state of mind, but having them face inwards was like falling backwards -- definitely odd.

I stood up. Being aware of the shoes of that Yoishi lined up facing inward, I stood with both feet facing inwards in the same way. A sudden violent breeze blew upwards, and at the same time, I was seized with a terrible fear. I was so scared that I froze and sat back down again. Flustered, I gripped something with my hands.

“T…that was scary…”

It took much more courage to be there than I thought it would.

I had stood on the edge of high places before, but it was still scary. It was also because the scenery in front made me strongly aware of the height. It was quite overwhelming. It made me keenly recognize the gateway to death, if I fell, I was sure to die. But facing backwards, it creates double the fear. You’ve run out of places to put your feet in, and the fear of not knowing when you will fall adds to it.

--Why was she standing here like this?

Yoishi, who lacked a sense of fear, did she stand here trying to understand fear?

No – that’s not it. Her thought process isn’t that of one who plays around with their life in order to feel fear. If that were the case, she wouldn’t be into the occult, being a speed maniac on a bike or being a skydiver would do. She’s not the type that would try to understand fear by going through life threatening situations. If that’s the case, then why?

I took one gulp, and once more, slowly stood back up again.

My knees were shaking. The wind blew through between my legs. There was nothing behind me. There was only a distance of a few centimeters to the edge. If I were to make a slight misstep, I would slam straight down to the hedges from the fourth floor. Tears were flowing in my eyes. Wow, I was acting like a complete fool. Just what was I doing in a place like, with tears in my eyes? Wasn’t I just being reckless with my life? Wasn’t I just toying with the one life I’d been given? The strong wind made my body sway. My shaky knees began losing their sense of stability.

However—

I closed my eyes tightly.

Only Yoishi’s face appeared in my head.

There was only one reason she was standing here.

Right now, there was death right behind me. It wasn’t the roof of the school building, but a deeper darkness spread out. That… was hell. A bottomless, entrance into the realm of the dead. I think she stood here like this in order to feel the realm of the dead.

--I’m scared. I’m hopelessly scared of this situation. I'm scared of myself for having arrived at such a stupid idea. Because it meant -- in other words, that there was still a part of me that was broken. I was so broken that I ended up finding my way to the entrance of the world Yoishi was in.

People are constantly looking for ways to preserve their own lives unconsciously. As long as the brain isn’t absolutely certain that you won't die even in the worst case, it will put strict limits on your actions. This function, known as a ‘limiter’, is sometimes removed at will, but that’s an extreme mental realm that only a limited number of people can reach. This is where the value of the best athletes and artists lies.

Then, was I an athlete? An artist? No, I was just a normal person. An ordinary man among the ordinary men out there, a hopeless lump made up of deep-rooted delusions. That’s why a voice rings out inside me, telling me to stop. It’s telling me that it’s not a place someone like me can get to. It’s telling me it’s a world that can only be grasped by those dark colored eyes that have despaired of this world.

But—

I rebutted that inner voice.

What was it that she was really despairing about?

That’s right, Yoishi had told me that she had no interest in animals in general. She had full knowledge of human foolishness, and exhausted by the malice that lay in people, she staggered onwards with a gloomy look on her face.

She can be frustrated at times as well, and there are times when something bothers her so much that she can't sleep. She can make snide remarks towards me as well. That's because she’s a living person. Because she has actual emotions. I don’t feel that a person who is despairing would have emotions. Because, that person’s heart would have already been crushed. Because their heart would no longer be functional.

When she saw Ayana Takamura inside Miiko, she said:

--I won’t show you mercy.

Wasn’t that an emotional expression of anger?

But nonetheless, the incident in the library happened. That dark gaze was still with me. And then, she said that the subject of Ayana Takamura’s experiment was someone other than Krishna-san.

Let's say that the subject of this experiment, which I don't even want to think about it, is me.

If that’s the case, then—

The reason she jumped off from here, was for my sake?

Was that why she had gone to the place where Ayana Takamura was?

“Haha…”

I let out a dry laugh as I arrived at that conclusion.

I began crying, and snot came out of my nose. I might have even pissed my pants. Every hole in my body was slovenly open, and I probably leaned back at that moment.

In short—

I jumped from the roof facing backwards, with both my hands spread out.

My body seemed to float softly, and my balls shriveled in an instant. I felt a life-threatening emergency, as if an electric current surged from my spinal cord to the top of my brain.

But even so, I believed. The underground place must exist beyond the darkness. And that she would be there. At any rate, there was no reason I couldn't go to the place someone else had gone. Thrown out into the emptiness, my body was naturally caught by gravity, and fell to the ground at a speed of 9.8 meters per second. Two seconds later, 19.6 meters per second. Three seconds later, I fell at an accelerated rate of 29.4 meters per second. I knew it would only take three seconds to fall from the top of the four storied building to the ground, but if it took more than that, victory would be mine. I will have crossed through something. That was the entrance to the border between this world and the next. I would cross through something separating this world and the next. The world Yoishi had crossed over to. I would go there, and bring her back. She was still there, alive —

--I fall, fall, fall.

I keep falling… endlessly.

Am I in a revolving lantern*?" For some reason, Saki-chan was there, wearing a red school bag. There was Momo, gazing at me with her orange eyes. My friends from middle school, and the lady in the neighborhood who used to get angry with me when I was a kid. The lost bicycle that I had once cherished, it was there in its original form, before it had been crushed in a car accident and thrown away. Memories from the past that I had stowed away and forgotten overflowed from the depths of my mind. I wanted to cry, knowing that I had not erased them all, and that I still had them.

*TL/N: Referring to the Japanese phrase, 走馬灯のよう (like a revolving lantern), meaning to see your life flash before your eyes before you die.

I’m still falling, I thought to myself while crying. Didn’t I already fall far enough to hit the ground, have my skull crack open and my spinal fluids spilled all over the place? Could it be that I was already dead? Repeating the memories in the faint remnants of my consciousness before my last moments? It was too long. I kept falling, falling and falling without end.

I must have already gone past the ground long ago.

Beyond the limits of my consciousness which falls into the darkness, melts into it, and scatters.

Towards the deepest depths of hell.

All of a sudden, I realized my body had stopped floating.

I had fallen on top of something soft.

It was dark all around me. The darkness seemed to cling everywhere. Was I dead? Was this the other world?

But suddenly, a light was lit within the darkness, causing me to squint my eyes in a panic. That rectangular shaped light, was from a cell phone. The light from someone’s LCD cell phone cut through the darkness as it flowed into my eyes.

“…Ah.”

I realized my head was resting on someone’s lap. And as soon as I saw the beautiful, pale, gloomy face behind the light of the cell phone, I felt the strength leave my body. My feelings were a mixture of relief, nostalgia, happiness and irritation in a way.

As I opened my mouth, trying to find the words to say—

Yoishi Mitsurugi spoke, in an exasperated tone of voice:

“Even though I told you not to look for me…”