Previously:

CRACK!

"Mh? I stepped on something…?" Akira said, looking down. His eyes widened, and he paled with shock. "!?" It was a human skull. He suddenly realized the ground was littered with the remains of human skeletons. He wasn't the only one.

"Hii!" Rion cried, horrified.

"Wh-What's this…!" Miyauchi exclaimed.

"Bones! Human bones! There's around one hundred!" Mariya said.

"B-Be careful!" Akira said. "This isn't… normal!"


Chapter 22: The Fourth Tower


"What's this! Why are there so many bones!?" Akira asked.

"Th-This is..." Rion said, trembling as she took a step back. A bone cracked under her foot. "Kyaa!"

"Be careful, Rion," Akira said. "These bones are pretty brash."

"They're completely weathered… Seems that they are pretty old," Mariya said, examining some.

"… Damn. More corpses…!" Akira said.

"Sengoku?" Mariya said.

"I mean, think about it… There was a corpse at the 'lighthouse'. The 'pyramid' had a couple of mummies, too… And here we got all these bones!" Akira said grimly. "Wherever we go on this island, we find death… Basically this is a 'tower of death'. Pretty fitting for the rest of the island…!"

"Tower… of death..." the president said. He and a number of the others were disturbed by that.

"Wh-What now, Sengoku… Are we pulling back…?" Miyauchi asked.

"Pulling back? Don't be stupid..." Akira said. "We came so far. We have to go inside now."

"Th-Then..." Miyauchi said.

"Yeah. I'll go," Akira said seriously.

"… Then we'll conduct an investigation of the last tower now," Mariya said. "But we can't have everyone go in there. We can't rule out the worst case after all. Okay. We'll split into three groups… Group one investigates the inside of the tower. Group two investigates the outside of the tower. Group three stays on standby here and stays ready to aid group one. That means the plan for building boats is put off for now. The problem is who to send inside, the most dangerous job… It's quite spacious, so I would like about ten people to search… Our idiot Sengoku will go even if we try to stop him, and I'll go too, since I set up the teams. Well, I've got a bond of friendship with him after all."

"Bond of friendship…?" Rion said.

"Doesn't that apply to us, too…?" Oomori said. They both stepped forward.

"We, too, were with you from the beginning," Rion said.

"You two aren't being fair, just keeping it between boys…!" Oomori said.

"Rion… Oomori-san!" Akira said.

"… I forgot. You do have a point," Mariya said.

"That's so like him," Rion said with a smile and she and Oomori giggled a little bit.

"Yeah," Oomori agreed.

"What's with you!!" Mariya said, blushing.

"I'm going, too!" Miyauchi said, making sure her hair was tied up tight. "..." 'I'll do what you couldn't do… Okay, Zaji…!'

"I'm coming, too," Tokiwa said. "Just waiting is boring."

"… Okay, me too," Morita said, holding his camera. "Looks like this here will get some time to shine!"

"I'm coming along, too," the vice president said.

"Eh!? You!? Why..." Takahashi asked.

'I feel like we have overlooked… something underneath the pyramid,' the vice president thought. 'I might get to know what when I investigate this tower—'

"Okay. Looks like I have to go, too!" Yuki said. 'At this rate I'll just be no-good for sure. I have to save Kouhei. I'm sure there's a way to save everyone. For that, I'll do anything...'

"I'm going too!" the president said. "..." He watched Yuki's back. 'Sakuma-kun, should something happen to you, I'll definitely—'

"Well, we're going, too!" Rei said, hooking arms with Tooru.

"H-Hey, Rei, whey even me..." Tooru asked.

"What's the problem. It sounds fun," Rei said, smiling up at him.

"… Geez," Tooru said, scratching his cheek. 'Can't be helped...'

"This calls for my help," Igarashi said, rolling up his sleeves.

"Igarashi-san!" Seigou said. "That's unexpected. Why?"

"I told you before. They're still kids. We adults have to support them," Igarashi said. "I have to stay true to what I said."

"Honestly. Guess I'll go, too," Yashiro said. "I don't think that old man will do any good."

"Yashiro-kun! Me, too..." Mutou said.

"You stay here!" Yashiro said. "We can't have anything happen to our doctor! Well, it might be good stuff for my novel. So I'll tag along for a while."

"… Segawa, look after Sensei," Yarai said.

"You're going, too, right, Yarai..." Segawa said.

"Yeah," Yarai said. "I saw all four towers directly. That might prove helpful to solve the mystery of this island."

"You can say the same for me. I'm going, too," Torako said.

"I thought you might say that. Though, I'd rather you wait here..." Yarai said.

"If you're going, I'm going," Torako said.

"In that case, be sure to stick close to me," Yarai said.

"B-But… Will you be okay…?" Matsumoto asked them.

"… Heh. I think I told you. I'll be sure to save you all," Yarai said as he started walking away to join the others. Torako followed him and soon caught up.

"Okay, we got sixteen people," Mariya said. "That's enough. We'll go with these members."

"… Uhm, are you sure you're staying behind, Kokonoe-sensei?" Miki asked.

"… Yeah," Kokonoe said. He thought Torako would be safe if Yarai was with her. "I have something else to do." He recalled how Oomori had called him over to speak with her away from the others.

««« Flashback «««

"Ehm, Sensei, I need to talk to you..." Oomori said.

"What is it, Oomori-san?" Kokonoe asked.

"There's something really bugging me… It's about the letters engraved into that plate at the 'antenna'…" Oomori said. "I didn't mention it so as not to worry the others, but… I think I understood them."

"Eh!?" Kokonoe said, surprised.

"Rest in peace… It's a common foreign engraving for graves..." Oomori said.

»»» End Flashback »»»

"..." Kokonoe gazed up at the sky. 'That tower is a grave… As much as I want to believe it… Well, she asked me to 'look after her'...' He looked over at Isurugi Miina. 'So I won't take my eyes off this girl for a while...' The group of sixteen approached the gate.

"..." Akira stared up at the building. 'Finally… Just what awaits us past here...' "Okay, let's go, guys."

"W-Will they be okay?" Takahashi asked Yamato.

"Of course they will with that lineup," Yamato replied. "Okay, we're splitting in two groups, too."

"Yeah!" the others said.

The group of sixteen stepped through the gate with Akira in the lead.

"This gate is pretty old, too..." Miyauchi said.

"Mh… Looks like this gate was once electrical..." Mariya said, inspecting it.

"..." Akira looked ahead at the space before them. There was grass and weeds growing everywhere. "Nature took over completely..." He waded into the tall grass. "Be careful. We don't know what might jump out of the grass."

"Okay," Miyauhi said.

"… Mh? Seems there's something over there…?" Akira said when he noticed something in the shadow between two buildings. "Looks like a box… What is it…?" They all moved closer to see what it was. "!? Th-This is… a car… It's a car!! This island had cars…!?"

"They used it for transportation," Rion said.

"! Bones inside..." Akira said when he saw a skeleton in one of the cars.

"… Looks like some accident made them unable to leave," Yarai said. "Look, there are more behind." In fact, there was a small pileup of them. They looked as if they had been crashed.

"The bones outside must be from the people who couldn't flee with cars..." Torako said, frowning. She was worried. Whatever killed them, it must have been something that happened fast, for them all to have died in the middle of running away.

"But what car is it?" Akira asked. "What type?"

"It's a Yotsubishi, quite the expensive car..." Rei said, looking at the hood ornament with the company's logo.

"Rei-san," Akira said.

"I'm actually quite knowledgable about cars. After all you can judge a man's worth on his car," Rei said.

"… So, what is it?" Akira asked.

"..." Rei took a better look at the rest of the car. "Mh? Huh…? What car is that… Strange. I don't think I have seen it before… I should have memorized nearly all Yotsubishi cars..."

"Eh?" Akira said.

"Hey! We found an entrance!" the president called. While they were looking at the cars, he, Tokiwa, and Morita had kept exploring.

"!" Akira said.

"Here! A door is open," the president said, calling their attention to the entrance.

"O-Okay, let's go inside!" Akira said. They all stepped inside and found themselves standing in an enormous space. The floor was tiled black and white like a chess board, there were seats off to the side, and there was a large, wide staircase ahead of them. "Quite big… Is it the entrance…?"

"Looks like a lobby in a hotel," Torako said.

"The ceiling is so high," Akira said, looking up. "It goes up four floors." While they continued to look around, there was a small clattering sound above them, and a shadow fell over the ground on one of the above floors. "So that's the inside of the 'building'— Quite spacious… Let's split up and search this floor."

"Okay," Miyauchi said.

"This is..." the president said, examining one of the sofas.

"A spot for reception…? Quite the luxurious one," Igarashi said, judging by the materials that had been used.

"This looks like the toilets, Yuki said when she and Oomori opened the door to an abandoned bathroom.

"Oho, look here. They even had a bar!" Yashiro said when he spotted a counter that had the remains of stools in front of it and bottles of alcohol still on the shelves behind it.

"They really went all out. It's like we're in a five-star hotel…" Akira said.

"Living in such a place, the people here must have been some kind of elite?" Rion said. Tokiwa sensed something.

"..." She stared up at the upper levels.

"Mh? What's up, Tokiwa…?" Akira asked.

"—Above. There's someone..." Tokiwa said, furrowing her brow.

"!?" Akira and Rion gasped.

"Wh-What? A person…!?" Akira asked.

"Wh-Where..." Rion asked.

"Over there..." Tokiwa said, pointing up. "At the fourth floor."

"W-Wait a moment. I'll zoom in with my camera," Morita said, aiming his camera at the fourth floor, looking around with it. "… And!? I don't see anything..."

"Hey! Is someone there!?" Akira shouted. The only answer was silence.

"..." Akira, Rion, and Mariya were at a loss.

"No response… Are you sure you saw someone, Tokiwa?" Akira asked.

"Yeah," Tokiwa said with certainty.

"It's pretty unlikely that it was human," Mariya said, adjusting his glasses.

"Yeah, maybe it was an animal that snuck in?" the vice president said.

"I think so, too," Morita said. "We haven't met any other humans so far after all. So I doubt there are any here."

"..." Tokiwa knew she saw something.

"..." Torako was looking around with Yarai and Miyauchi, when they passed a table. Torako and Yarai stopped, making Miyauchi stop.

"What is it?" Miyauchi asked.

"Look at this," Yarai said.

"This…?" Miyauchi said, looking closer at the table. "Is it some kind of map?"

"It's a model..." Torako said.

"Of what?" Miyauchi asked.

"Don't those pieces here and there look familiar?" Yarai said, pointing out little landmarks that had been added to the model.

"Ah!" Miyauchi gasped. "That's…!"

"Exactly," Yarai said.

"I'll go get Sengoku's group!" Miyauchi said. She dashed off to fetch them.

"A model of the island, huh? I wonder why a model and not a map..." Torako said.

"Hey, Sengoku! Found something?" Miyauchi called when she found them.

"No, nothing," Akira said.

"Then come here for a sec.," Miyauchi said, waving for him to follow her.

"What?" Akira said.

"I want to show you something! Come here already!!" Miyauchi said.

"What?" Akira said.

"Just go?" Rion said. They were surprised, but they followed her.

"..." Tokiwa took one last look at the spot where she saw something move before joining the others. Miyauchi brought them over to the table with the model on it.

"This is what you wanted to show me?" Akira asked, looking down at it.

"Yeah," Miyauchi said.

"What's this…?" Akira asked. "Some kind of toy…? It's quite dirty..."

"Hey, you don't know what that is, Sengoku?" Yarai said.

"Eh?" Akira said.

"That's a model of this island..." Yarai said.

"Eh? A model of this island?" Akira said, surprised, taking a closer look.

"H-He's right, look!" Rion said, pointing to the same landmarks Yarai's group had noticed earlier. "That's the 'antenna', isn't it?"

"Ah!" Akira said. "Then that's the 'pyramid'…? And to the right it's the 'lighthouse'? And this is… the 'building' where we are at…?"

"Wait a sec..." Mariya said, pulling out the map again. "The positions of the towers matches with the one on the map…! That means our plane crashed around here..." He pointed out the spot on the model. "And the possible manmade 'demon mountain' is here!" Mariya pointed to the spot on the model again. "Then this is the forest where the big apes attacked us…?" He pointed to a forest on the model. "I must say, this island is quite big…" 'But why do they have a model here? A map should have sufficed...'

"Huh…? Look at the side… something's written here," the vice president said, noticing some kind of marking on the side of the table near her.

"Eh…?" Akira said as they all had a look. It appeared to be a triangle with a line running vertically through one third of the triangle and a 'G' crammed in next to it. "… What's this…?"

"Huh? I'm sure that..." Morita said, pressing buttons on his camera.

"What's up, Eiken?" Tokiwa asked, leaning to see what he was doing.

"I have seen that mark before… at the 'antenna'," Morita said, bringing up footage of the other tower.

"At the 'antenna'?" Torako asked. She didn't remember that.

"Yeah," Morita said.

"Really?" Akira said, moving to have a look for himself.

"It wasn't too obvious, but at the top should have been… There!" Morita said, showing Akira the part where he had zoomed in on the top of the tower.

"Ah!? You're right. It's the same!" Akira said. "What's this!?"

"Isn't that the mark of the Isurugi's…?" Igarashi said.

"I-Igarashi-san, do you know this mark?" Akira asked.

"Huh? You guys don't know it?" Igarashi said. "That's the mark of the big group that rose to a world scale from finance to IT, medicine, and military goods in just one generation by the hands of Isurugi Yoshimi, the Isurugi corporation!!"

"..." Akira and the others stared at him.

"An island that isn't on any maps… extinct animals… I'm not surprised the corporation is involved with this weird island. And the fact that his grandchild was on our flight wasn't a coincidence either, in my opinion..." Igarashi said.

"This makes it clear. This tower is hiding something… Something that's related to what this island really is!!" Akira said. Everyone wore serious expressions as they nodded in agreement. "Okay, let's go! We're going to find that 'something'!"

Outside the wall surrounding the 'building', the two Miinas were walking at the front of one of the remaining groups that had split up. The lolicon trio and Kokonoe were closest to them.

"Just waiting was boring, so we went looking around… but there truly isn't anything here!" Miina said.

"Honestly," Heero said.

"Too bad we don't get a chance to shine!" Quatre said.

"Yeah. If you had done well… I would have given you a reward. " Miina said, smiling and winking at them as he lifted his skirt a little to show off part of his girly panties.

"!!" the lolicon trio exclaimed, blushing. "Sieg zion!!" they cheered.

"Ha, guys are so simpleminded," Miina said, shrugging. "Well, I'm a guy."

"Let's do this!" the lolicon trio cheered.

"But the more you see of it, the weirder this building gets," Suzuki said. "Small windows, a high wall… rather than living quarters, this looks like a prison."

"..." Takahashi stared up at the building, too.

"What's up, Asuka…?" Miki asked.

"Somehow it feels like… I have seen this building before…?" Takahashi said.

"Huh? You, too?" Miki said. "I also felt the same."

"Eh? You, too, Miki-chan?" Takahashi said.

"Now that you mention it..." a third girl said.

"Heh, you, too? Really?" a boy asked.

"Isn't it just your imagination? I don't have that feeling at all," Miina said.

"Hey, I guess the structure has some kind of meaning after all?" Takahashi said.

"Eh?" Miki said.

"I mean, Mariya-kun said… that each tower has the 'will of its builder' in it… so this tower should have some meaning, too..." Takahashi said.

"Uhm, what do you think, Mami-san?" Miki asked.

"… I don't know, but I get a bad feeling about this..." Mami said, unable to shake the feeling that something terrible was about to happen. "When I look at this tower I get a really bad feeling..."

Inside, Rei was trying to kick down a door.

"Wraar! Open up..." she yelled at it, attempting to force it open.

"Damn! Why aren't the doors opening?" Akira asked. "It doesn't seem like they're locked..."

"… Maybe..." Mariya said.

"Mariya?"

"The lowest floor of a building is exposed to the greatest pressure, because the whole weight of the building presses on it," Mariya said. "This building is pretty old… Unable to bear the pressure it bended and thus the doors won't open anymore."

"I see, if that's the case… maybe it would be better not to open them..." Torako said while trying a different set of doors with Yarai. 'If the building is bent, then moving something like that could possibly make it more unstable… but the other buildings seemed to have been built better than that, so maybe...'

"What are you thinking about?" Yarai asked. "You've been looking a little troubled ever since we found that model."

"No, well, it's just… don't you think there's something strange about the Isurugi mark being on that model?" Torako asked. "Back then, Igarashi-san said that Isurugi Yoshimi brought up the corporation in a single generation… That would mean the corporation is forty years old a best, right? But everything we've found so far appeared to be at least ten years older than that… Isn't this tower way too old to be related to the Isurugi corporation?"

"I see. So you noticed it, too..." Yarai said. "It's also strange that no help has come so far. A jumbo jet crashing is big news, even more so if the heir of a powerful corporation was onboard. Yet, the last few months, not a single search plane or boat appeared… The truth of this island might actually be completely different from what we think it is."

"… Something else that's been bothering me is that drawing Segawa-san found..." Torako said. "It was clearly Isurugi Miina's style, and I would've sworn she drew it, but it was old and aged, and we found it in that room that had been locked for so long that its lock had nearly rusted shut, and it was among computers that were at least fifty years old… But now, I think—and I know how crazy this sounds—that maybe Isurugi Miina did draw that picture… but decades ago. If the corporation that helped build this place is too young for it to be possible in our time… then maybe… we..."

"…" Yarai stared at her, eyes slightly widened. "… Are you saying you think that we were displaced in time?"

"Like I said, it's crazy—" Torako said, waving her hand as if to shoo the idea away, but suddenly—

CRASH!!

"!?" Yarai and Torako said as their heads snapped over to look in the direction of the sound. Was it their imagination, or did the building tremble a little bit? They looked at each other, then hurried over to see if the others were okay. They found everyone staring at a huge pile of rubble with shocked expressions. Rei was lying on the floor near it.

"Tooru…?" Rei asked. Torako looked around and noticed that Tooru wasn't with them.

'Don't… Don't tell me he's… under there!?' Torako thought, alarmed.