Chapter Five: Separation of Main Island and Divine Land (3)

It began to grow dark around them, so Yuki and company decided to return to the beach. It was after 6:00 P.M.

When they arrived at the top of the rocky shore where the waves broke, Yuki briefly explained into the transceiver the events leading up to the discovery of the black cat's corpse. Then he finished with them.

“The tracks of the black cat-Visitor were headed towards the Divine Land, so it's probably a safe bet that it's here with us. The three of us can protect each other if we work together... The problem is Mr. Motegi, who's still acting alone.”

“Nothin' we can do but hope he's safe.”

That was Yanagawa's voice. After she finished her explanation, Mikumo almost completely stopped talking.

Saijou took out a cigarette as he looked out over the sea, sinking into the evening darkness. The brand was Six Stars, same as Kikyo's. After lighting it with a lighter, he spoke anxiously.

“What are we going to do?”

Yuki pondered for a moment, then lifted the transceiver so Mikumo and the others could hear.

“For now, Ms. Yanagawa and the others should avoid leaving the former community center. The Visitor should be confined here in the Divine Land, but there's no need to take unnecessary risks.”

“What 'bout you, Ryuuzen?”

“We'll wait for the gravel path to reappear so we can cross back to the main island, and while we're here... we'll trap the Visitor in the Divine Land.” 

“W-Whuzzat now?”

“We'll cross over to the main island, then we'll keep a watch over the gravel path. The black cat might be wary and not leave the Divine Land, but that's okay. ...If we stay until the tide rises and the gravel path is submerged again, the Visitor won't be able to leave the Divine Land.”

“I getcha, since the Visitor ain't one fer swimmin'. It can't travel 'tween the islands durin' high tide.”

Someone snatched some of the filming materials from the pocket of Yuki's bag. The kitten inside must have felt the movement, because its panicked voice began to fill the air.

Not caring about the glare Yuki shot him, Kikyo turned the pages and began to check the tide chart.

“The next low tide is at 3:46 A.M.”

Yuki told Yanagawa to double check his findings, then resumed his explanation.

“We were lucky the Visitor crossed over to the Divine Land. All we need to do is monitor the gravel path before and after low tide and turn the Visitor away if it tries to cross.

After a while, Mikumo's voice was audible for the first time in a long while.

“In the worst case scenario, there's the possibility the Visitor could impersonate Professor Motegi and try to cross to the main island. ...If that happens, can you really turn him away?”

When she voiced the possibility, Yuki choked on his words.

He remembered that they had no way of telling the difference between the real Motegi and the Visitor.

Visitors will drown if thrown in the sea, Mikumo had said... but that also applied to people who couldn't swim. What's more, the currents around the island were fast. The area near the port should have been relatively safe, but anywhere else, even Yuki, who was a fairly competent swimmer, may have drowned.

Not only that, but the area around the gravel path had a particularly dangerous, fast flowing current. It would be difficult for them to ask Motegi to dive into the sea there just to prove his innocence.

Suddenly, Kikyo snatched the transceiver from him and spoke with no expression at all.

“I don't care if it's the Visitor or the scholar, if they show their face here again, I'll drown them and throw their body to the sea myself, so don't worry.”

That sounded too good to be true, but Yuki took the transceiver back from Kikyo without a word.

“Forget it. I'll see if I can come up with something better by next low tide. Let me know if you come up with anything on your side.”

With that, communication with the main island was, for the time, ended.

The transceiver's battery was running low after getting so much use, but fortunately, the transceiver had a USB charging port. The mobile battery Saijou had been carrying was enough to prolong its life.

It had gotten dark, so Yuki took out his flashlight. It was the type that could also function as a lantern, so he set it up on a rock and the three of them gathered around it.

Kikyo took out a cigarette, lit it with a lighter, and took a drag. He'd been smoking nonstop since their arrival at the Divine Land. He was going through cigarettes even faster than usual.

“So what's the plan? Did you bring anything to eat or drink?”

“Not much, I'm afraid.”

As Yuki rummaged through the plastic bag, the kitten, perhaps feeling that he'd sat down, poked its head out of the bag and looked up at him.

“I've got one bottle of mineral water and one bottle of barley tea. The barley tea's half finished, though. And five nutritionally-balanced meal bars.”

There was also some outdoor use bug spray and some insect repellent incense. The reason he'd come so prepared was in case anything went wrong during his revenge plan, but... there was no need to tell them that.

Saijou also removed his backpack and unloaded its contents.

“I have a bit of coffee left over and three chocolates.”

Kikyo raised his eyebrows.

“Well, aren't you two prepared. I wonder if we even need anything else.”

He had no bag, and he looked annoyed as he searched his pockets, but eventually, he did pull out three small bags.

“Oh, my dried bonito flakes!”

Yuki's eyes widened at the declaration, making Kikyo yell at him.

“I just put the leftovers in my pocket so I'd have a snack on hand before I went to bed. ...You don't need them, do you?”

Somehow, they were eventually able to convince Kikyo to hand them over, and Yuki successfully traded two nutrition bars for two bags of dried bonito flakes. Of course, they were for the kitten. Strictly speaking, they had a poor balance of minerals and weren't very good for cats, but it was an emergency.

He took the kitten out of the bag and gave it some bonito flakes softened with barley tea, which the kitten ate with gusto.

It looked like it hadn't eaten in days.

Saijou, who had been chomping on a nutrition bar, looked over, and the kitten threateningly raised the hairs on its back. Saijou's face filled with confusion.

“It already hates me... You decided what to name your cat yet, Ryuuzen?”

Yuki nodded as he tossed one of the chocolates into his mouth.

“It's Fuwawa.”

Kikyo nearly burst out laughing, spraying mineral water everywhere.

“What sort of name is that!?”

“I knew someone once who had a cat. Her cat's name was Mei, and she always said that if she got a second cat, she'd name it Fuwawa... Is it not good?”

With that, Yuki smiled at the man who'd sent Naoko to her death. Kikyo spat his response without making eye contact.

“Do whatever you want. It's a wild cat, so it's bound to have fleas and diseases. The vet will charge you a fortune when you get back to Tokyo.”

No one spoke again until after their small dinner.

Fuwawa, the kitten, gave a small mew and willing dove back into Yuki's bag. It seemed she'd grown fond of it. Shortly afterwards, the small sound of her sleeping began to emanate from the bag.

Without anyone proposing the idea, all three of them sat with their backs to the sea, facing the virgin woods. If the Visitor attacked, it would be from that direction.

It was so deeply dark they couldn't see a meter into the trees. Every now and then, the wind would rustle the leaves, and they couldn't help but tense up, wondering if they'd soon see the black cat's shining eyes... or Motegi.

When it was after 7:30, a nearly full moon appeared above them.

The moon gave off enough light for them to see their surroundings without use of the flashlight, but the forest was still an impenetrable black.

As if he couldn't stand the silence, Kikyo tossed a twig away and began talking.

“If you think about it, isn't it a bit suspicious that that old hag was able to fight the Visitor 45 years ago? Could she really have defeated it?”

“First of all, don't call other peoples' grandmothers 'old hag'... Second, considering the circumstances, I have no doubt that the Visitor was defeated.”

In response, Saijou, who had been swatting away insects around him, asked

“Why's that?”

“It was in Unsolved Mysteries. Kakuriyo Island was an islander where visitors – lowercase 'v' – were rare. The reason why Mr. Sotani came to the island the day after the incident was because Ms. Eiko asked him to. I think it's safe to assume that no boats came to the island before the Eirianmaru that brought Mr. Sotani there after the incident.”

Kikyo chuckled.

“Again with the quibbles. Though I suppose I don't disagree.” 

“If the Visitor had survived, the radio on the island would have already been destroyed by Ms. Eiko... so it would have waited at the port for a ship to pass by. Even if Mr. Sotani's boat had arrived, do you think the Visitor would have called the police on itself using the onboard radio? No, it would have threatened Mr. Sotani, still in the guise of Professor Sasakura, and made him take the Eirianmaru back to the Kyushu mainland.”

Saijou seemed to get it.

“Ryuuzen's right. As soon as it got access to a boat, the Visitor would have made escape its first priority.”

But Kikyo narrowed his eyes and disagreed.

“I'm not convinced. It's possible that Sotani called the police before the Visitor got to him. In that case, the Sotani who returned to Kyushu with the police might have actually been the Visitor.”

It was a shrewd observation, but Yuki shook his head.

“That isn't likely either.”

“What? How can you deny that so easily?”

“Even if Mr. Sotani had made the report, there would have been no need for the Visitor to wait for the police to arrive, right? Instead, it should have threatened Mr. Sotani and fled to the mainland on his boat... In short, Mr. Sotani's action of 'waiting for the police to arrive' is the best evidence that he wasn't the Visitor.”

The moon rose higher into the sky as their conversation continued, but there was still a long time until the next high tide. Yuki wasn't tired, probably because his nerves were too on edge.

Occasionally, he looked to Kikyo, and every time, he thought the same thing.

...Why can't I just push him into the sea?

No matter how you looked at it, for Yuki to protect the target of his revenge was absurd. If he killed Kikyo here, Saijou would definitely see him, but Yuki was getting to the point where he didn't care, as long as he could accomplish revenge with his own two hands.

Still, he couldn't act, because he knew exactly what would happen if he did.

First, Saijou would panic at the sight of Yuki committing murder. There was nothing he could say that would stop Saijou from trying to escape from him. Saijou and Yuki would both be helpless if the Visitor struck while they were divided like that.

Thus, everyone in the Divine Land would be annihilated, and the Visitor would take on the form of either Yuki or Saijou. The Visitor would use its new form to attack the main island and kill the four people there. Then, it would take the boat that came to pick them up and escape the island.

Yuki shook his head. He couldn't allow himself to be responsible for such a horrible future, even if it was for his revenge. ...For the time being, he had no choice but to abandon the plan.

The virgin forest remained silent.

Kikyo had been so determined to kill the Visitor, but he'd already gotten bored and started kicking the stone monument by the forest. Yuki got fed up and started admonishing him.

“Don't take out your frustrations on that.” 

“Blame whoever put this thing here in the first place. It's probably a statue of whatever god these people worshiped. Some Divine Land!”

Seeing him kick even harder, Saijou spoke weakly.

“It's not a statue, it's a monument. There's a poem engraved on it.”

Yuki was taken aback and picked up the flashlight. He shone the light on the monument, and Kikyo stopped moving, glaring at him with one leg still in the air.

“What now?”

“I might be overthinking things, but... that monument might be a code.”

The three of them looked at the waka poem, visible in the light. It read:

“The four ostracized golden beetles. In their hearts dwell the truth.”

After reciting it aloud several times, Yuki nodded.

“I knew it... The 'golden beetles' reminded me of Poe's The Gold-Bug.”

Saijou was puzzled.

“I think I read that in English class in college. It was a short story involving a code?”

“Yes, it was. It was a short story about a search for Captain Kidd's treasure based on a piece of parchment found by chance. It's famous as an early pioneer in the use of ciphers in mystery stories.”

Suddenly, Kikyo erupted into a belly laugh.

“Oh, I remember, and there were rumors that Kidd's treasure lies on Kakuriyo Island, too. Don't tell me that if we solve this code, we'll find the hidden treasure?”

“...Even if we find the treasure, we're still being targeted by the Visitor, you know.”

Even Saijou was being a downer. Yuki's shoulders slumped in disappointment.

“The islanders wouldn't have written a treasure code in a place like this. Think about it... there are several identical stone monuments in prominent places around the island. I think this message is intended for outsiders.”

“You mean it's for us?”

Kikyo, who had finally stopped laughing, looked down at the stone monument. Yuki thought for a moment, then called the mainland on the transceiver. Soon, a response came in Mikumo's voice.

“Did something happen?”

“We might have discovered something. The waka poem found in various places around the island might be ciphers.”

“You mean the ones that go 'The four ostracized golden beetles. In their hearts dwell the truth'? ...They're strange poems, so I memorized them.”

Yuki was surprised by her memory, but he mentioned Poe's The Gold-Bug and told her his theory that the poem might be a message for them.

“Kakuriyo Island was regularly attacked by Visitors. I think the islanders must have realized the risk of the worst case scenario, of them all being wiped out. ...Didn't your father ever tell you anything?”

“Yes, he did say that my grandmother must have left information on the Visitors somewhere. My grandmother was the sort of woman who never did anything without careful preparation.”

“In that case, this poem may have been written by Ms. Eiko.”

“But when my father went back to Kakuriyo Island to collect his belongings, he said he couldn't find anything that looked like documents. It seems there were hardly any papers on the island to begin with. After all, the details of the True Thunder Festival were passed down orally.”

“I think the real reason he couldn't find the documents is because they were hidden outside the Mikumo family home... Also, if you want to leave a message that will persist for 45 years, a stone monument isn't a bad way to do it. It's a recording method resistant to both water and fire.”

Kikyo snarled in an unthreatening way.

“What you're proposing is too strange. If they wanted someone from outside the island to read it, they wouldn't have made it a code at all. They'd have just written the location of the stash in plain Japanese.”

That was also a valid objection, but Yuki once again shook his head.

“What if they knew that humans wouldn't be the only ones to read this?”

The moment he heard that, Kikyo's complexion paled.

“...The Visitor?”

“The Visitor!”

Mikumo responded almost simultaneously over the transceiver.

“Yes. If the Visitor were to find the material first and destroy it, there would be no way to get it back. That's why they had to encode the location so the Visitor wouldn't find it.”

Saijou, who had been staring intently at the monument, looked up at Yuki.

“If the 'golden beetles' part is a hint that this is a code, then there being four of them, being ostracized, and having truth in their hearts is the location of the material... Ryuuzen, do you already know where it was hidden?”

Yuki was surprised to see Saijou read his mind. In fact, he had been contemplating whether he should reveal his thoughts.

“One possibility has occurred to me that could be where the materials are hidden... but I'm not sure if I'm right, and I don't want to give anyone false hope.”

“Are you deliberately trying to raise your death flag?” 

Hearing Mikumo say that over the transceiver, Yuki couldn't stop himself from laughing.

“Looks like Mr. Motegi's words got to you all. Its true that, in a mystery novel, someone who said something like that would definitely get killed.”

Kikyo grinned with a amusement.

“If you value your life, you'd better hurry up and spill it.”

“I understand... I think the cemetery is suspicious. But if I give any more details, someone currently in the former community center might sneak off and look for them alone, won't they?”

A hearty laugh came from the transceiver.

“Don't worry. No one here would do anything that stupid.”

Unfortunately... Yuki didn't trust that. Ever since the incident, one person after another had ignored his suggestions.

Koga had gone out of control, and let the Visitor escape. Motegi and Kikyo had both ignored his warnings not to act on their own. Even Saijou, well-intentioned as he was, ignored his instructions to stay at the former community center.

Good intentions were honestly more troublesome. Koga probably didn't have any of those, but that still left Mikumo, Yanagawa, and Shigaraki as people who might go off on their own.

“I guess... I'll tell you the answer to the code after trapping the Visitor in the Divine Land. Let's look for the documents together after we return to the former community center tomorrow.”

With that, Yuki ended their communication.

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