Previously:
'Kouhei-kun… It's a miracle that you were alive and that we were able to meet! So this can't be the last time!' Yuki thought as the wind swept through her hair.
"Everyone! Gather around for a bit!"
"!" she said. "It's Akira-kun's voice. What could it be?"
"Let's go and see!" Kirino said. Everyone who could move gathered around Akira.
"What is it, Sengoku?" Miyauchi asked.
"Just when we're finally able to rest!" Mariya said.
"..." Akira's expression was grim. "Yarai! Come over here!" Yarai came to stand behind him. "Actually… I have a favor to ask of everyone!"
Chapter 15: Good Teacher
"You want to ask us a favor?" Mariya said.
"What's the meaning of that!?" Miyauchi asked.
"..." Akira stared at all of them with a grim expression on his face.
"Sengoku…?" Miyauchi asked.
"I know that everyone is injured and messed up right now, but can you put your effort into one more thing!?" Akira asked.
"Eh?" Mariya and the others said.
"I want to… save Kurusu-sensei!" Akira said, clenching his fist.
"Ku… Kurusu-sensei…?" Mariya asked.
"What…?" Miyauchi said. "What do you mean by that!?"
"Sensei is at Nishikiori's place right now! And she's ill… It's a life-threatening illness!" Akira said.
"Eh!?" they all gasped, horrified.
"The name of the condition is 'intraperitoneal hemorrhage'," Yarai said. "It's where blood starts gathering in the abdomen because of some internal organ injury… It seems she only has weeks left..."
"..." Yuki and Kirino were stunned.
"Th-That means..." Morita said. "Kurusu-sensei will die in a matter of weeks!?"
"B-But, then why is Yarai here?" Suzuki asked.
"!" Yarai said.
"Isn't Kurusu-sensei undergoing treatment now?" Suzuki asked. "Then it would have been better for him to stay with her, right?"
"..." Yarai closed his eyes, waiting for Akira to respond.
'Are you going to say it, Sengoku-kun?' Torako wondered. 'Regardless of the fact that Sensei's life is at stake, the fact of the matter is that he was after Sengoku-kun's life… though he had no choice...'
"Yarai, he… came here to ask us for help!" Akira said. Yarai was surprised. Torako was relieved.
'Sengoku-kun… you...' she thought gratefully.
"Everyone remembers what Yashiro-san and the others said, right? About what Nishikiori did?" Akira asked.
"Ah… yeah… indeed..." Mariya said. "In order to become the leader himself, he just let the sick leader and his daughter die!"
"..." Kokonoe-sensei exchanged glances with Yashiro and Mutou.
"That guy is terrible!" Kashiwagi said.
"Yeah, we were almost killed by him once, too," Akira added. "Despite being a doctor, he just toys with human lives, and thinks nothing of it. He's a terrifying person. That kind of person wouldn't provide treatment just like that. We can't count on him to save Kurusu-sensei either!"
"Bu-But… the only doctor on this island had no intention of helping, right?" Miyauchi asked. "So then how exactly…?"
"I don't know how!" Akira said seriously.
"Eh!?" Miyauchi said. "He-Hey, Sengoku!?"
"Even so, are you just going to let things go like this!?" Akira asked. "Even as we speak, Kurusu-sensei is… suffering under Nishikiori! I don't know what we can do once we're there, but… shouldn't we all try going to see for ourselves?"
"..." Everyone stared at him.
"Excuse me!" Igarashi said, stepping forward.
"!" Akira said. "I-Igarashi-san."
"Hmph! Don't joke around!' Igarashi said. "Nishikiori is an incredibly dangerous guy, right!? Why should I take such a risk for this 'Kurusu' person I don't even know! Instead of that, we should be making boats to go to Okinawa, shouldn't we!? Everyone might be able to return home soon, right!? That's right, isn't it, you guys!?"
"..." Akira's expression was grim.
"I wonder if it'd be all right if I went?" Yamato said.
"Yamato…!" Akira said.
"About a year ago, I… was suspected of shoplifting at a convenience store," Yamato said. "I was standing there and reading for a long time, so I guess I looked suspicious… They grabbed me when I was leaving the store, and unluckily, there were some magazines I bought at another store in my bag. The store manager was a nasty guy! No matter how much I explained, it was like he didn't hear me at all, and he made me call home and the school. Mother came at once, but she was crushed by his threatening attitude as well and just kept apologizing! And then, the one that came rushing over from school, was Kurusu-sensei! Sensei faced me directly and spoke… 'Yamato-kun, is is true?' I told her I didn't do it. And then Sensei argued fiercely on my behalf, but the store manager didn't back down either… While that was happening, Sensei's face was dripping with tears. Can you believe it? She trusted me to the point of crying! She didn't doubt me for a moment. … That made me happy."
"Sensei does have that quality, huh..." a girl said.
"Hey, everyone, do you remember that time?" another girl asked. "During physical education, the physical education instructor, Ikou, was in a bad mood. And just because someone mouthed off a little bit, he made us run twenty laps in the falling snow! Ikou's just a meathead, so words were useless! Kurusu-sensei saw this, and… she said, 'I'll do it too. I'm responsible for these kids, after all!' It had nothing to do with her at all, but she ran with us. She was cheering for us the whole time. But the next day, Kurusu-sensei was the only one who had caught a cold..."
"I have a story like that too!' Suzuki said. "It's when we were pretending to be dead bodies in the pool. Kurusu-sensei thought I was really drowning… She leapt into the pool, and with that weird swimming style… What was it?"
"Yeah!" another girl said. "That 'traditional swimming method', right!?"
"That's it, that's it! She rescued me with that..." Suzuki said. "But that was one of the rare days that Kurusu-sensei was wearing a nice outfit. It was totally ruined! She was all teary-eyed, right? She said that when she saw that I was drowning, she forgot all about her clothes. Though if she had calmed down a bit, she would have noticed she was mistaken right away."
"Ahaha! That's just like Kurusu-sensei," another boy said.
"Hahahaha!" they all laughed.
"Sensei may be clumsy… but for our sake, she's always tried her very best," Yamato said.
"Yeah..." the others agreed. "..."
"All right, let's go!" Miyauchi said. "To where Kurusu-sensei is!"
"I'm going too!" Kirino said, even though her broken arm was in a sling. "It's no problem, with small injuries like this!"
"Kirino-san!" they said.
"..." Igarashi watched them.
"What will you do, Igarashi-san?" Seigou asked.
"Hmph! A foolish teacher like that, I guess it's fine if I drop in on her!" Igarashi said.
"It's decided, then..." Akira said, looking at Yarai. Torako was at his side. "Everyone will go together! To the 'pyramid'!"
—∞—
The sun was rising by the time they had finished preparing to go.
"The night is over, huh..." the president said. "Let's set off soon! Prepare yourselves, everyone! We're headed for Nishikiori's territory!"
"Yeah! We'll save Sensei somehow!" Yamato said. Yarai looked at Torako. She had her spear again, and her injured wrist was bandaged and splinted. It was just a sprain, but it was better for her not to move it.
"Stay close to me," he told her. She looked up at him, a little surprised.
"All right," Torako said.
"..." Kokonoe-sensei watched them. Akira was standing next to Yarai and Torako, but he was looking at something else.
"What is it, Sengoku?" Mariya asked. "What are you staring so intently at?"
"Yeah, Mariya..." Akira said, holding up the map of the island that Yarai's group had found. "At this!"
"The map…?" Mariya asked.
"Yeah… It's been on my mind… the fourth… the final tower!" Akira said. "You remember what Yarai said, right? If this is the 'residence area', like Yarai says, there might still be people there now!"
"…!!" Mariya said.
"If there are people alive there now, they must know something about this island! And even if there's no one there, there must be some clues left behind!!"
"..." Mariya couldn't disagree.
"I want to know why we came here," Akira said. "And what we've been swept up in! Just what this island is!!"
"I feel the same!" Miyauchi said behind him
"Miyauchi..." he said, turning to face her.
"Well… since we've come this far already, it should be fine to take a little side trip, right?" Miyauchi said. "Nothing's going to be clear at this rate otherwise! Right, everyone!" she said, turning to the others. They nodded.
"..." Akira stared at them. 'When we've solved all the mysteries of this island, maybe our journey will come to an end!' "All right! Let's go, everyone!"
"Ooh!" they cheered.
"..." Oomori stared at the base of the 'antenna'.
"Oomori-san, let's go!" Kirino said.
"Ah… Y-Yes!" Oomori said. "..." She looked back again at the plaque. She turned away and followed the others. 'Everyone's so pumped up about this. It's not something I can say now… Plus, I have no confidence in this either… the second line of that phrase… it's been bothering me all this time because I think I've seen it somewhere before… Only one thing comes to mind, that has the initials R.I.P. If the missing parts of those words were to spell out the Latin phrase 'Requiescat In Pace… Then in English, it would have the meaning of 'Rest In Peace.' 'Rest in Peace'...' She knew that was what they put on tombstones. 'It's hard to believe, but… this tower is a tomb...'
—∞—
"..." Akira was eating while looking at the map. They had stopped to take a break and feed themselves. "It's been three days since we left the 'antenna'… About one more day until we get to the 'pyramid'."
"It's been quite fast… I had heard that it took closer to a week..." Mariya remarked.
"Yeah… Thanks to the map Yarai's carrying, we were able to take the shortest route," Akira said.
"We'll arrive on time, but, the problem is that, Sengoku," Yarai said.
"Yeah," Akira agreed. "What are we going to do about Nishikiori!? He's a dangerous man who laughs as he kills people!"
"And on top of that, he's taking advantage of being a doctor to manipulate more than fifty people," Torako said.
"It's like he's the king of this island!" Akira said. "A guy like that… What could we do to make him perform surgery on Kurusu-sensei?"
"..." Everyone gave it some thought.
"Yashiro-san, Mutou-san, the two of you were with Nishikiori the whole time, right?" Akira said. "Do you have any good ideas?"
"No-No way, no way! There's no way!" Mutou, the man in the flower shirt, said, waving his hand. "We're trying to save someone, but we won't even be able to save ourselves. In fact, it's be best if we called it off now."
"What did you say, old man!?" Miyauchi asked angrily.
"No… I know what old man Mutou is trying to say," Yashiro, the man in the striped suit, said. "After all, that guy… rules over people with the same method that the Nazis used!"
"Na-Nazis…?" Akira asked.
"That despicable… method of 'whistle blowing!'" Yashiro said.
"!" Torako said.
"Whistle-blowing!?" Akira asked.
"You look like you know what I'm talking about," Yashiro said to Torako. "Why don't you explain it?"
"… I've met someone who lived through it," Torako said. When the show passed through Germany. The old man she talked to had been a child at the time. "During World War II, to suppress rebellious parties and those dissatisfied with the government, Nazi Germany endorsed 'whistle blowing.' Through this anonymous reporting, parties opposed to the government were identified and brought down. 'Whistle blowing' even took place amongst families and friends. And because of that, the citizens monitored each other, and everyone became paranoid! They became incapable of joining together to rebel."
"Nishikiori is doing the same thing?" Akira asked.
"Yeah," Yashiro confirmed. "Reported parties are bullied mercilessly. The bullied parties, in turn, report on others.. in this way, no one can trust anyone other than themselves! And of course there's no desire to rebel, as well."
'How awful!' Akira thought, remembering the odd reaction of their classmates who had been in Nishikiori's group when they invited them to leave. 'So that was the reason that they didn't come with us!'
"You sure know a lot," one of the girls said to Yashiro. "Even though you look like you're yakuza..."
"Yakuza? Hey! Who are you calling yakuza?" Yashiro asked exhaling smoke from his cigarette. "I'm a writer. I'm an adventure novelist..."
"… Eh?" Akira said as he and the others stared at him.
"Eeeeeh!?" Rion exclaimed.
"A… A writer!?" Akira asked, pointing at him.
"Yeah, you didn't know? 'Love Texas Road' is a best seller!" Yashiro said.
"Umm… Well..." Yuki said.
"Did you know, Mariya?" Akira asked.
"I don't read novels..." Mariya said.
"Tsk! My works aren't meant for kids, after all," Yashiro said with a vein throbbing on his head.
"How unexpectedly awesome, a writer!" Kashiwagi said excitedly.
"Then, could it be… that Mutou-san also does something awesome?" Suzuki asked.
"Nah! Unfortunately, I'm just an ordinary bonesetter doctor," Mutou said, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's just a small operation I manage myself, at this point, it's probably sinking under!" he added with regret.
"He's as gloomy an old man as he looks, huh?" Suzuki said.
"But Mutou-san, you said you did Judo, right?" Kirino said. "Could it be that you're strong?"
"Him? No way!" Yashiro said.
"Huh?" Kirino said.
"Old man, hold out your hand," Yashiro said.
"…?" Mutou said, doing as he asked. Yashiro began pouring something red and sticky on his wrist. "Ya-Yashiro-kun, what is this?"
"It's blood," Yashiro replied. "Animal blood." Mutou paled and bent over.
"Oh, Geeez!" he said, throwing up.
"See? This is a gutless old man that vomits just from the sight of blood," Yashiro said. "He won't be that useful."
"Blood? Why do you have something like that, Yashiro-san?" Akira asked.
"Ah, you didn't know?" Yashiro asked. "You can make a kind of sauce from animal blood. Blood mixed with alcohol, with herbs, from this island added in! It was in an old novel. I tried making it, in my own way, that is."
"Huh...?" Akira said. '… There was no hint of a strategy to use against Nishikiori, huh?'
"Too bad we don't have a slow-acting poison and its antidote," Torako said. "We could poison Nishikiori, then tell him he'd only get the antidote if he performed surgery on Sensei and she survived."
"..." Everyone was staring at her.
"I'm not saying we would kill him," Torako clarified, just in case they were misunderstanding her.
"You can be a little scary sometimes, Fukui," Akira said. 'But that just might work… but we don't have anything like that...'
"..." Kokonoe watched them. "Hmm… It looks like Sengoku's in a bit of a bind, huh?"
"You talk as if it's totally unrelated to you!" the vice president said with her hands on her hips. "What about you, Kokonoe-sensei? Do you have something up your sleeve?"
"I do," he said.
"Ehh?" the vice president said.
"Gigaflash DX!" Kokonoe-sensei said, producing another homemade explosive.
"Gi-Gigaflash…?" the vice president asked.
"Yeah. This is an improvement over the explosives I made before," Kokonoe-sensei said with a grin. "Something special's mixed in!"
"Something special?" the vice president asked.
"It's this!" Kokonoe-sensei said, holding up a scraped-up cell phone.
"A… A cell phone?" the vice president asked.
"The newest cell phone covers are mostly made of magnesium," Kokonoe-sensei explained. "I scraped this to make magnesium powder, and mixed in about 70%. I sure worked hard. Kukuku!"
"So… wh-what does that do?" the vice president said.
"That… is a secret!" Kokonoe-sensei said with a smirk.
"Eh?" Takahashi, who had also been listening, said.
"No fair! You said this much already!" the vice president said.
"..." Seigou happened to look over in their direction. The girls were leaning over so much that he could almost see their panties from his view point.
"Please tell us!' the other girl said.
"No way, no way!" Kokonoe-sensei said.
"..." Seigou coughed, blushing a little bit. He dropped down to the ground and got a perfect view of their underwear. 'Ooooh! Score!' He blushed and drooled a little bit.
"Seigou-san..." a voice said.
"Eh?" he said, looking up in its direction. He found himself facing an angry Yuki, Rion, and Miyauchi. "Haaa!" he gasped, sweating nervously. They started yelling at him and hit him.
"You perverted monk!"
"What are you thinking, at a time like this?"
"You perverted monk!"
"Ow! Owww! Save me, Sengoku-kuuun!" Seigou cried, running for his life.
"Ugh… It's unbelievable! That pervert!" Rion said.
"Yeah! It's just like Sengoku from a little while ago!" Miyauchi said.
"Ah… I wonder if Akira-kun will become an adult like that in the future, too?" Yuki said, crossing her arms.
"..." Rion started sweating. She really didn't want that to happen.
"I knew it! Their panties are white!" Seigou said as he sat next to Akira, blushing. "Plain white is the best! Don't you think so too, Sengoku-kun?"
"Umm… Seigou-san?" Akira said, sweat-dropping.
"Putting that aside, why is the student council vice president wearing such daring underwear?" Seigou asked behind his hand.
"As if I'd now!" Akira said, blushing.
"Hey, hey, Sengoku-kun… C'mon, laugh a little! You won't come up with any good ideas, frowning like that!" Seigou said.
"..." Akira sweat-dropped again. "Kurusu-sensei is in danger, I have no reason to be laughing!"
"But this might be the only time that you'll be able to laugh," Seigou said seriously.
"Ehh?" Akira said.
"..." Seigo stared at him.
"…?" Akira said.
"Hey, Sengoku-kun. I have this vague uneasiness," Seigou said.
"Vague uneasiness…?" Akira asked.
"Sengoku-kun, do you know what the most terrible animal in the world is?" Seigou asked.
"Most terrible animal? You mean like that chimera from before?" Akira asked.
"No. The most terrible animal in this world, isn't that monster from before, nor is it any extinct animal," Seigou said. "It's humans!"
"Humans…!?" Akira said. "Seigou-san what do you mean by…?"
"Nah… really, it's just some sort of premonition I had..." Seigou said. "But… it's best that you be prepared. Things that you haven't experienced before may start to take place."
"..." Akira's expression was grim. 'Things that I haven't experienced before…?'
"..." Oomori stared at the 'R.I.P.' she scratched into the ground. 'Just what is this? If the words on the plate are really R.I.P., then the 'antenna' is that Miina-chan's tomb! Is something like that possible? If that's the case, then this island...'
—∞—
Nishikiori was inside the pyramid, looking at a room with walls that were lined with countless drawers.
"How surprising!" he said. "Just how many thousands of different kinds of DNA samples are stored here!? This is no mere 'Svalbard'. This is a modern Noah's ark!"
"It's just like those kids said," one of the men who was with him said. "This is unbelievable!"
"Yeah. But judging from the state of things, about fifty to sixty years have passed," Nishikiori said.
"Fifty to sixty years!?" another man said.
"That would have been during wartime, no?" a man with glasses said.
"Unbelievable!" another man holding a torch said. "Facilities like this, during wartime!"
"It's not that preposterous," Nishikiori said. "After all, war forces science to develop at light-speed."
"War..." the second man said.
"Forces science…?" the man with glasses said.
"For example… did you know computers were originally developed for complicated missile calculations?" Nishikiori said. "The communication techniques for cell phones, GPS systems, all of them were originally adapted from military technologies. The 'principle of induction heating' used in microwaves was coincidentally discovered in the development of military radar." They entered a room filled with large, cracked, and broken cylindrical tanks that had wires coming out of them. "There's a gap of many years before military technology is adapted for civilian use… Present day science is more advanced than we think."
"I-I see… If so, then it could be believed that these facilities are old, as well..." one of the other men said. Nishikiori narrowed his eyes.
'These are indeed, probably facilities from the wartime era!' Nishikiori thought. They reached a door that had 'Authorized personnel only' written on it in foreign languages in addition to Japanese. 'However, the words on this door… English, German, Portuguese… and moreover, Japanese and Chinese as well… A time when so many counties joined together to pursue research… was there such a time in the past? Or instead… what sort of agency that transcended national boundaries existed?'
—∞—
Meanwhile, Kurusu-sensei was suffering inside the small hut Yarai's group shared. She was trembling, covered with sweat. She was doubled over in pain. Tears were in her eyes as she gripped her side and clutched at the leaves of her bed.
"Se-Sensei! Hang in there, please!" Shigeno pleaded.
"Sensei…!" Matsumoto said anxiously.
"Hold on!" Segawa told her.
"Haa! Haa! Aaaaugh!" Kurusu-sensei cried, breathing hard. "Haa! Haa! Haa! Haa!"
"It looks like it's gradually getting worse!" Shigeno said.
"What… What should we do?" Matsumoto asked.
"Aaagh!" Kurusu-sensei groaned.
"For now, let's refresh the cloth on her forehead!" Segawa said, rinsing he cloth and wringing it out.
"Her fever isn't going down at all, either!" Shigeno said. "If this continues..."
"Damn it! Where did Yarai and Fukui-san go?" she and Matsumoto cried. Segawa furrowed her brow and clenched her fists. It bothered her that Yarai and Torako were together, but right now this was more important.
"We'll just have to handle it ourselves!" Segawa said anxiously.
"I-I'm fine," Kurusu-sensei told them, putting on a brave face. "Haa! Haa! I'm… I'm fine, so..."
"Se… Sensei!" the three girls cried with tears in their eyes.
"Uhhhhhhh!" Kurusu-sensei groaned.
"Se-Sensei! Hang in there!" Shigeno said.
'Damn it, Yarai! Where are you!?' Segawa thought, worried.
—∞—
Yarai and Torako stood on the outskirts of the pyramid's territory with Akira and the rest of his group.
"Finally, Sengoku," Yarai said.
"Yeah!" Akira said, furrowing his brow.
