Pathway to Japanese Literature

I In a painfully clear blue sky, a red dragonfly glided smoothly, smoothly through the air.

“Summer’s already ending, isn’t it…”

Nakano Goro muttered as he entered the reed-screen hut belonging to the now-familiar beach monitor, Mr. Kei. “Honestly... I’ll have to say goodbye to this job soon…”

The sun-blackened beach monitor, Mr. Kei, gazed with vacant eyes at the red dragonfly perched on the tip of the telescope’s barrel. Even this K Beach, once proud in its summer splendor, began to carry an autumn scent in its sea breeze when the red dragonflies came gliding into view—or so it seemed. The swells of the waves had grown noticeably stronger, and the number of parasols and tents that had once colored the beach so densely there was no space between them had been decreasing day by day. The very fact that it had been so splendid until now made its loneliness all the more pronounced.

“Hmm… Guess I’ll borrow it again.” “……” Kei-san merely moved his eyes as if nodding slightly and left it at that. Nakano wiped the eyepiece of the telescope fixed there and then quietly pressed his eye to it. As usual, he scanned all the way from the horizon. Out at sea, hard to see with the naked eye, were two boats. But that was all there was. This time, he turned it toward the cape on the right and looked. “Looking through this telescope is a bit of a… virtuous act, you could say—plenty of ‘rare’ things to see,” Mr. Kei had remarked with a laugh, but for Nakano, it wasn’t just about that meaning; he simply liked peering through the telescope.

It was just a terrestrial telescope—one with a small aperture and low magnification—but even so, simply peering through this simple tube allowed the world beyond naked-eye visibility to be drawn near as if within reach, and this was what delighted him. If humans possess a desire to secretly savor something unknown to others, then the telescope is indeed a mechanical device that allows one to experience just that.

――There was nothing unusual in the direction of the cape either. He could see a man who appeared to be returning from fishing walking along, but no matter how much he looked, the basket on his back seemed completely empty.

But just as he was about to adjust the telescope’s direction—

Suddenly, he noticed an unfamiliar ship moored in a hollow beneath a rocky overhang. It was a sleek white-painted ship of about ten tons. The area around that rocky overhang formed a bluish abyss where ships of that size could easily be moored—he had known this—but today marked the first time he had actually seen one present there. That ship too appeared completely unfamiliar to these waters. Half-hidden by the rocky overhang with its stern name concealed from view, the modern streamlined bow—clearly designed for speed—swayed gently in the waves.

“That’s an unusual ship.” Nakano removed his eye from the telescope and looked back at Mr. Kei. Mr. Kei remained as ever, his sun-tanned face not showing a trace of expression. “Hmm… They’re probably foreigners.” He gave that disinterested reply and didn’t even bother to look over. Nakano reluctantly peered into the telescope again. “……”

Before he knew it—even though he had only just taken his eye away—a figure had appeared on the ship during that brief moment. Moreover, she appeared to be a vibrant young woman wearing a light dress—its hue closer to reddish-brown than wisteria—and that color stung his eyes like the glare of reflected sunlight. Nakano hurriedly wiped the eyepiece again, adjusted the focus, and peered intently through the lens.

She was Japanese, a woman around twenty years old. Her glossy jet-black bobbed hair fluttering in the sea breeze, she leaned against the railing with the white cabin behind her. Whenever the sea breeze caressed her body, her sculpturally symmetrical limbs appeared softly rounded through the lens.

And when her face—turned casually toward him—suddenly met his gaze head-on through the lens, Nakano involuntarily let out a low, though quiet— “Ah!...” he couldn’t help but let slip. So beautiful was she.

II

Then, as he stared without even blinking, another person emerged from the cabin—this time a man. However, he was still Japanese. What Mr. Kei had said earlier about it being a foreigners’ ship now appeared to have been a fabrication. (What kind of man…?)

Having adjusted the focus toward that direction, Nakano—this time— “Ah—”

he had involuntarily let out a sound of surprise. “What’s the matter, Mr. Nakano…”

Mr. Kei, having apparently heard it as well, called out in a drawn-out voice.

“Nah… it’s nothing.” Nakano clung to the telescope as if hanging from it while staring intently, muttering a perfunctory reply. But in truth, his eyes were pressed against the lens like they meant to devour it. Beyond that lens stood a white-haired old man on the ship’s deck—none other than his uncle Hosokawa Sannosuke, who had vanished without a trace since the Great Kanto Earthquake fifteen or sixteen years prior. Though considerably aged compared to Nakano’s memory from when he had just entered middle school, there could be no mistake about the man’s identity.

That uncle—whose death anniversary had been set as the day of the Great Kanto Earthquake and who had already been enshrined in a mortuary tablet—was alive and well right there— And to think he was leisurely aboard a ship in a place like this— Yet why hadn’t he sent even a single postcard to notify us at home—? To begin with, this uncle—Hosokawa Sannosuke—was known to be an eccentric scientist who not only secluded himself in his laboratory with absolutely no contact with society but had stubbornly refused to accept a doctorate degree. Even so, the fact that he had vanished from his collapsed laboratory without leaving a single notification until today was already too bizarre—let alone the utterly unimaginable event of him now cruising along this summer beach in a sleek ship accompanied by a beautiful girl.

It was only natural that Nakano was left dumbfounded.

Dumbfounded, Nakano removed his eye from the telescope, blinked two or three times as he gazed at the ship, then—without even informing Mr. Kei—leaped out of the slightly elevated reed-screen watchtower and dashed across the sandy beach. He wanted to get closer and confirm it for himself.

When he crossed the jagged rocks, the ship suddenly loomed before his eyes. Strangely, there was no trace of anything resembling a ship’s name anywhere. But such details no longer mattered. The figure on the deck—

As expected, it was undoubtedly his uncle Hosokawa Sannosuke.

“Uncle—”

“……” Startled, my uncle raised his face, and for an instant, a flush of joy reddened his features. But after that, he didn’t utter a single word and averted his face as if forcing himself. “Uncle! It’s me—Nakano!” “It’s Nakano Goro!”

But Hosokawa Sannosuke remained silent as ever; not only that, this time he turned sharply away. However, the trembling of his aged white temples seemed to betray some intense inner turmoil. The beautiful woman beside them also seemed on the verge of saying something as she looked between their faces, but then let the hand she had raised to her chest drop limply. A hollow feeling lingered among them, as though invisible glass partitions had been erected between everyone.

Amidst it all, only the elegant white ship carrying his uncle and the others lay breathing in the abyss of low waves, its shadow vividly cast.

III Despite having met his uncle by chance after over fifteen or sixteen years of complete silence, the sheer aloofness of his uncle’s demeanor left Nakano himself overwhelmed by something akin to bewilderment.

And so, having indignantly descended the rocks, yet when he gazed at the ship still floating quietly even as mid-afternoon arrived, Nakano found himself able to reconsider once more.

Earlier, he had resented his uncle’s utter lack of response, but even so, Hosokawa Sannosuke—who in the past had never shown any expression, as befit a scientist, remaining utterly calm—must have been experiencing intense turmoil within, given how he had briefly flushed and his temples had trembled, if only slightly. If that were the case, there must have been some reason his uncle couldn’t respond—some reason preventing him from exchanging words with Nakano. Perhaps it was precisely because of that reason that he had deliberately severed all contact for fifteen or sixteen long years.

(The reason—?)

Of course, he had no idea.

Nakano decided to go once more and ask at least that. Earlier, with that girl by his side, perhaps Uncle had found it even harder to speak.

After finishing his lunch, he properly put on his summer clothes for the first time in a while and walked along the shore.

The White Ship was floating just as it had been earlier. The surroundings were deathly quiet, not a single human voice to be heard.

Nakano stealthily boarded the ship. As he climbed aboard, the first thing he noticed—judging from the feel underfoot and other details—was, to his surprise, that the entire ship seemed to be constructed entirely of duralumin or some similar type of lightweight metal. Somewhere, machinery ticked with clocklike regularity. He strained his ears for a while but could discern nothing else.

Nakano had been standing still, lost in thought, but abandoning his initial plan to search for his uncle, he hid his body behind a nearby box that appeared to be a lifeboat storage container.

He had decided—he would see just what kind of place his uncle was living in. Another factor that had made him so easily decide to stow away seemed to be the presence of that beautiful girl who had been on the ship earlier…

And how many minutes had passed? It hadn’t even been ten minutes yet, but Nakano noticed the sea breeze had grown strangely chilly. Now that he thought of it—though faintly—the ship seemed to be vibrating.

(Hmm, has it started moving…?)

Even as he thought this, the speed seemed to be soaring higher and higher. A wind pressure strong enough to nearly blow him away began to bear down. Startled by the suffocating wind pressure, Nakano managed to leap toward a hatch just two or three steps away and tumbled frantically into the ship’s interior. He finally caught his breath. The ship seemed to have set off at an unimaginable speed.

Then, perhaps having heard the noise of Nakano tumbling in, the cabin door opened, and out popped the face of that beautiful girl. “Oh…” There, upon seeing Nakano leaning against the wall and gasping for breath, she seemed utterly startled.

“Ah—my apologies for earlier… While I was hoping to see my uncle again—before I realized—it had already begun moving…” “…because while trying to meet him… it started departing.”

He gave a quick bow and crafted as ingratiating a smile as he could manage.

“Well, you were on the deck this whole time… It’s a wonder you weren’t blown away!” “Honestly… What incredible speed. And since it started so smoothly, I didn’t even notice when we began moving.” After catching his breath, “Even so… There’s not a trace of engine noise.” “Engine—?”

She echoed his question but immediately nodded to herself. “We don’t have such outdated things attached—this is an electric ship.” “Ah, so it’s running on storage batteries or something after all…” Nakano realized that the reason this ship had such a sleek, streamlined shape was because it lacked a smokestack. “We don’t use such heavy, space-hogging things like storage batteries.” “Hmm… Then what kind of mechanism does it use?”

“What kind of mechanism… How should I put it? We receive power wirelessly and use that to propel it.” “Ah…” “In other words, it’s receiving broadcasted power like a radio and operating that way, you see.” “—That’s quite an ingenious idea… But does such a ‘Power Broadcasting Station’ really exist?” “There is one—it’s not that it’s moving because there is one…”

“...I see.” “It’s your uncle’s invention.” “Ah! Uncle—Hosokawa’s uncle’s—”

“Yes…”

“Wh-where is he?”

“Shall I show you to the machine room over there…?”

“No, later is fine—” “I am someone called Nakano Goro—” “You heard it earlier, didn’t you? Ohohohoho… My name’s much catchier—Koike Keiko.” “Koike Keiko—san” “Yes, even backward it’s Koike Keiko… Easy to remember, right? Ohohohoho.”

She was a cheerful girl who seemed utterly devoid of any worries or shyness.

Four

Hosokawa Sannosuke, now with magnificent white hair, was leaning alone against a large desk in an opulent room resembling a captain’s quarters. “Ah… you…” When he saw Nakano—who had been guided in by her—he seemed to involuntarily begin rising from his seat, but then immediately wiped all expression from his face.

“Why did you come here—” “While I was careless, the ship had already started moving… And besides, I was just talking with Keiko-san.” “This is troublesome… We’re already over a thousand kilometers from land. There’s no time to send you back now.” “A thousand kilometers—? Th-that far…?” “That’s right—this ship is far faster than any airplane you’ve imagined. It moves at the same speed as sound—three hundred forty meters per second. Even at that rate… we’ve already been traveling for thirty minutes, covering nine hundred fourteen thousand meters—”

Hosokawa Sannosuke now turned his gaze toward Keiko. "Why didn’t you tell me sooner that this sort of man had boarded?"

“...I’m afraid I wasn’t paying attention.” She made an embarrassed face—as if for the first time in her life—then gave a quick bow and left the room.

“This is troublesome… We’re heading somewhere no outsider should see.”

His uncle furrowed his brow deeply and began pacing around the room. This habit, too, was something Nakano remembered. Uncle had often done the same thing in the past whenever he had something to think about. “Where on earth are we going?” “Where on earth? Well, it can’t be helped—it’s an island in the Pacific. An island not on any map, of course.” “Does such an island exist?” “It does exist. Of course, it’s located far from regular shipping routes, and since it’s a low-lying island, even if you came quite close, you’d hardly notice it.”

“Have you been there for over a decade? What have you been doing there?” “...I’ve been conducting research at someone’s request. To keep the secret, we agreed to cut off all communication... Even this time, I went to buy necessary supplies thinking a crowded place like K Beach would make me less conspicuous, but you being there was the final stroke of bad luck.”

“However, judging by this ship and such, it seems you’re involved in something quite large-scale—but who exactly is running it all?” “I can’t reveal the name—you’d recognize it immediately if I did. To put it plainly, this person is a wealthy man who supposedly lost his sanity after being rescued from a shipwreck on his return from America.” “In truth, after discovering this island while adrift, he feigned mental instability to leave the mainland and has been gathering people like us to construct a grand scientific nation on that island.” “In that sense, the earthquake disaster presented an unparalleled opportunity for scientists to vanish en masse.” “Most of those reported missing at that time are now deeply immersed in research, you see.”

“...It’s like something out of a dream, isn’t it?” “Don’t talk nonsense. …Though I suppose from your perspective, it might seem like ‘something out of a dream.’ But nothing else can match this ship’s speed. You are now within the highest speed humanity has ever achieved. There’s no clearer explanation than this.”

“…………” “A speed of three hundred forty meters per second—equivalent to the speed of sound—is nearly equal to the Earth’s rotational velocity. Therefore, if this ship were to travel in the opposite direction of the Earth’s rotation, it could remain forever unaware of night… I daresay it’s likely the greatest speed achievable in the atmosphere.” “It’s incredible… But there’s absolutely no vibration at all. Don’t the waves cause any problem?”

“Wave?” “Ha ha ha!”

His uncle began to laugh,

“Don’t be absurd—if we were really gliding over the sea, we could never achieve such speed. This ship is actually flying about five meters above the water. Its shape is merely to avoid attracting people’s attention…”

As he was saying this, there was a sudden sensation of the speed decreasing, and the gentle undulation of the waves began to be felt. “We’ve landed on the water?”

“Yeah, we’ve reached the island.”

“What kind of island is…” Nakano dashed to the window and peered outside. However, there—right in the midst of a vast, boundless ocean stretching as far as the eye could see to both left and right—not even a speck of an island was visible— “Not yet, then?”

“No, that’s it right there.” “But it’s nothing but ocean as far as the eye can see…” “The island’s been hidden to keep outsiders from approaching.” “Is the island hidden?”

“That’s right. In other words, it’s a mirage—an artificial mirage—that makes the entire area appear as a vast sea.”

“Oh…” “I find this rather interesting. “For instance, suppose enemy planes came to bomb Tokyo in a massive formation. “Defense planes would take to the air, but they couldn’t possibly shoot them all down. “About half would break through at dusk, raining down poison gas bombs and explosives until all of Tokyo fell into chaos and became a complete wasteland—only for them to discover it was merely an artificial mirage, the real Tokyo floating safely over the Pacific. The enemy would’ve risked their lives transporting bombs across vast distances just to dump them into empty ocean… What do you think? “Isn’t that a brilliant scheme?”

Hosokawa Sannosuke was being remarkably talkative.

While it was indeed an intriguing tale, Nakano Goro had become utterly absorbed—first by Keiko’s eyes as she peered through the narrowly opened door behind them, then by his own imaginings of the unseen island veiled beyond the Artificial Mirage—and was left only half-listening to the conversation.

V

Accompanied by Koike Keiko, Nakano Goro marked his first step onto Nisshōtō—the island of science concealed beyond the artificial mirage—and from the very outset found himself astonished, his courage shaken as he stared wide-eyed.

Given that it was called an island of science, he had imagined a thoroughly charmless landscape reminiscent of a concrete factory district, but upon taking a single step through the barrier of the artificial mirage, what suddenly unfurled before him was Nisshōtō—a garden where a hundred flowers bloomed in dazzling profusion, just as the phrase suggested. In the bright southern light, cherry blossoms, wisteria, gladiolus, dahlias, patrinia, bellflowers… flowers of all seasons blooming in unison presented a splendor that defied ordinary comprehension. And beyond that stretched research laboratories of hardened glass with dreamlike contours—.

But what surprised him even more was the ten or so girls who had come out to greet him—each one exactly identical to Koike Keiko, who stood smiling beside him, as if stamped from the same seal.

Twins might have a touch of the comical about them, but when ten girls with identical faces and figures stood lined up before him, Nakano felt nothing but an oppressive weight. "What in the world is this…"

As Nakano stood dumbfounded, Keiko looked up at his profile with apparent amusement. "Heh heh heh." She laughed triumphantly—exactly like a mischievous child who'd successfully tricked someone. "Quite a spectacle, isn't it...? At first, I felt like my shadow was wandering everywhere—it was so strange... But I've gotten used to it. There are even good sides! When I play pranks, nobody can tell who's who anymore!"

“But… how on earth did you manage to gather so many people who look exactly alike?” Nakano had, in fact, felt an overwhelming emotion from the very first moment he laid eyes on Keiko—as though he had encountered his ideal woman, one he believed he would never meet anyone surpassing in his entire life. But when he saw these women—identical to Keiko—lined up in such a row before him, he felt a dizzying sensation wash over him.

“We didn’t gather them—they were created.” She said something outrageous with complete nonchalance. “Created—?” Nakano, startled, looked around once more. However, for artificial humans, they were far too precise. They were excessively precise.

However all-powerful this secret scientific realm might be, he simply couldn’t believe every single one of these people had been artificially created. “If you say they were ‘created,’ does that mean they’re artificial humans—?”

The moment he said that, a tremendous commotion broke out. “Aww, no way!” “No way! Us being called artificial humans…” “He’s a bit flustered, this person.” “Hey, Keiko-san—what’s this person’s name?” “Tell me already! What’s the harm?” “Hey, isn’t he kind of handsome?”

The Keikos, who were lined up in a row, all began chattering at once. Their mischievousness remained utterly unchanged even on this island of science. Nakano knew that blood was rushing to his head. But amidst it all, “No way! Us being called artificial humans…”

Only those words rang sharply in his ears.

*(Aren't they artificial humans? If not...)* Then he couldn't comprehend what Keiko had meant by "created."

Nakano was clutching his head, nearly about to flee. If Hosokawa Sannosuke, who had been directing the unloading from the ship, hadn’t arrived at that moment, he might truly have run away. When Uncle said something, he promptly shooed the "Keikos" toward the laboratory. “What’s all this commotion so soon after landing on the island…” “Honestly, I don’t understand it myself.”

When Nakano questioned the meaning of "created," "Ah, I see—so that's how it is. That's on Ms. Keiko for failing to explain properly."

Uncle glared pointedly at Keiko and, “Unfortunately, even on this island, we haven’t reached the point of creating artificial humans with such precision.” “After all, those people are real women… It’s just that plastic surgery has advanced enough to freely alter whether a face is beautiful or ugly.” “Even when speaking of beauty and ugliness in a face, the basic structure remains unchanged—two eyes, one nose, and one mouth.” “In short, it’s a matter of how those features are arranged.” “If we arrange those features appropriately, even plain women can instantly become peerless beauties… But we can’t just tweak them on a whim like reversible trinkets—hence the need for a model.” “The one chosen as that model was Ms. Keiko here.” “So we ended up with a whole row of exact duplicates of the same beauty…”

“I see…”

Nakano had finally understood. At the same time, he felt a certain satisfaction. As he’d thought—she was beautiful enough to be chosen as a model even here on Nisshō Island. “But ugh—when you suddenly run into them on the street, it’s such a shock!” “I suppose so—but that’s a small price to pay—”

“Well…”

She, her cheeks like rose petals, deliberately turned away.

Six

Under his uncle’s guidance, Nakano proceeded through a garden where flowers of all four seasons bloomed in profusion, heading toward the laboratory.

The laboratory, constructed of hardened glass, had flawless lighting. Above ground, only one floor was visible, giving it the appearance of a Heike-style residence, though in reality it was an expansive structure with dozens of subterranean levels. Every basement room was fitted with cold-light lamps. These cold-light lamps used 100% of their energy for illumination, rendering them incomparably more efficient than ordinary electric lamps that wasted most energy as heat while converting mere percentages into light. Furthermore, air—purified and meticulously adjusted for temperature and humidity—circulated refreshingly throughout. The sole disappointment was that Keiko had disappeared without his notice... yet.

Uncle paid no heed whatsoever to such matters and proceeded so rapidly that he gave Nakano no chance to even glance back.

The first door they pushed open had a placard reading "Room 256" hanging on it. And when they opened the door, a small animal suddenly came clinging to their feet. When he involuntarily stepped back and checked, it was undoubtedly an elephant—albeit no larger than a small dog. When he gasped and looked up, his eyes now met a monstrous cricket that seemed as large as a calf. There seemed to be various other creatures as well. But before he could take another look at them, the cricket rubbed together its door-plank-like wings and began an ear-splitting, cracked-bell-like jingling. Judging by how it began its jingling, it seemed not to be a cricket but a pine cricket; however, he had no time to confirm such a thing. Nakano turned pale and rushed out the door.

“What would you like to do?”

Nakano was still out of breath. The spot on his foot where that dog-sized elephant’s frail, slender trunk had licked him still seemed to tingle.

“What in the world is this chamber of horrors…?” “It’s a bit hard to explain in a word, but this room researches why things have fixed sizes. In other words—rabbits stay rabbits, mice stay mice—their proportions are generally constant.” “No matter how much you improve their nutrition, you can’t make a flea as big as a dog; nor will you get a sea bream as small as a medaka no matter how you starve it—this research has nearly reached completion, allowing us to create pine crickets cow-sized and elephants like lapdogs.”

“…” “You look like you’ve had the fight knocked right out of you,” he chuckled. Uncle gave a knowing chuckle and delivered a single solid tap to Nakano’s silent shoulder.

“Well then, let’s head over there…”

They proceeded steadily down the long corridor once more and came to a stop before a room labeled “Room 502.”

“This room has claimed quite a few victims recently—”

“Victims—?” Nakano, wondering just what might come flying out from inside, hesitated for a moment—yet driven by morbid curiosity—and timidly peered in.

There, a large silver-white object resembling a submarine had been assembled to about seventy or eighty percent completion. “It’s a lunar-bound rocket—the second model.” “The second one…?” “The first one ended in failure.” “Because of a miscalculation by one-tenth of a second, we ended up causing a disaster.”

“You’re saying it was just a mere one-tenth of a second difference?” Nakano asked again.

“That’s right. That’s precisely why it’s such a catastrophe.” “The average distance to the moon is roughly 380,000 kilometers.” “Assuming we launch the rocket at 500 meters per second, it would take roughly eight days and twenty-one hours.” “A speed of 500 meters per second is simply unimaginable.” “Moreover, the initial velocity required to achieve such speed is truly tremendous. A person who’d get knocked over by something as trivial as a city tram’s sudden start would likely be slammed against the floor and killed the moment the rocket launches—that’s how it ends.” “However, a preventive measure for that has been established.” “…But during the first rocket’s launch, due to an error of one-tenth of a second—specifically, miscalculating the decimal placement by one digit—when the rocket finally reached the moon, there was a discrepancy of roughly 75,264,000 meters.” “It’s a disaster.” “For that reason, the first rocket ended up flying into the empty space where the moon had already passed…”

“And then what happened to it?” “…And since it failed to reach the crucial moon, that Nissho Island No. 1 Rocket is still flying through the boundless universe.” “Through the pitch-black darkness of minus 270 degrees—” “Of course, by now both oxygen and food must have run out, so the rocket—now a coffin carrying the corpses of fifteen Earthlings—continues to fly.” “Since it’s in the vacuum of space, it will never stop.” “It will continue moving infinitely… In other words, it has become a star.”

Even Hosokawa Sannosuke sank into gloom and closed the door.

And then,

“Ah well, this time it will succeed.” “Soon we’ll plant the first Rising Sun flag on the lunar surface and show you.” “Now let me take you to that plastic surgery department I mentioned earlier…”

VII

The room’s number was 665. “Now, step inside…” Uncle briskly entered further in. Nakano also followed. Upon hearing that this was the plastic surgery department where they created beauties identical to Keiko, Nakano narrowed his eyes even more intently and passed through the door.

It seemed there were more rooms further back, but the first one had the feel of a hospital examination room. Moreover, perhaps the procedures on the beauties had already concluded, for lined up in rows on the chairs beside them were rather unattractive-looking men who stared intently at Nakano as he suddenly entered and whispered among themselves in hushed voices. Hosokawa Sannosuke, utterly unconcerned by such matters, went to where a bald-headed old man in a white coat was examining medical records at the back of the room. After exchanging hushed whispers for some time, the two of them eventually nodded in agreement and motioned Nakano over.

“Huh… What’s this…?” “Could you lie down here for a moment?” He pointed to something resembling a surgical table beside them.

“Wh-what? H-here?” “You don’t want to?”

“No, I don’t want to! There’s nothing wrong with me anywhere!”

“It’s too late to back out now.” “That’s why I brought you here without a word—because I intended to ask this of you…” “Wh-what are you going to do?”

“It’s nothing. You just need to become a model for a bit.”

“Model—?” In an instant, Nakano completely grasped the meaning. The unattractive-looking bunch lined up row upon row in the chairs across the room were striving to take on the appearance of Nakano’s handsome visage—his spitting image.

According to Uncle’s words, it seemed they had brought him to this island precisely for that purpose. He had been brought here as a model.

Nakano tried desperately to escape. He thought he had dodged in a flash, but before he could, the bald-headed doctor seized his right hand with a forceful yank.

“Ah—!” He had thought this not merely because he was grabbed, but because he also felt a sharp, needle-like pain on top of it.

At the same moment, his body suddenly went limp. They must have injected him with an extremely potent drug.

In his hazy consciousness, Nakano faintly remembered being carried onto a platform and something being pressed against his entire face as though taking a death mask...

×

Nakano felt the searing sun beating down and finally awoke.

His body still felt floaty—. But this time, he realized it was because he was on a boat at sea. (Why am I on a boat…?)

With great effort, he finally managed to sit up. As his blurred focus gradually sharpened and his vision steadied, Nakano suddenly jolted and stared wide-eyed. Right before his very eyes, the man working the oar was a perfect duplicate of Nakano Goro—so identical it was as if he were gazing into a mirror, without the slightest difference—. “Oh, you noticed…” At the voice, he widened his eyes again—there at the stern, steering the helm, was Koike Keiko.

“Ah… You too…?”

“Yes… You’ve finally come after all…” Keiko gazed intently at Nakano’s face with faint amusement. “Well then—since you’ve noticed too, Mr. Nakano… we’ll be taking our leave.” “In about ten minutes, the Nippon Kisen steamship will pass right by here—there’s no doubt…”

The man identical to Nakano stood up as he said this, bowed deeply to the two of them, then leapt into the sea and swam away with swift strokes.

Nakano hurriedly looked around. However, no matter where he looked, right in the middle of that boundless expanse of the open sea, he couldn't believe he could swim across it.

That’s right—Nisshō Island, hidden by artificial mirages, is right nearby…

he realized. However, no matter how he strained his eyes to look, he ultimately could not discern it. When I thought back on it, it was like a long nightmare. But since the beautiful Keiko was smiling right before his eyes, this couldn’t possibly be a dream. On the horizon, a steamship appeared as a tiny speck; it must have eventually spotted the drifting boat in this vast ocean. It approached, sounding its steam whistle. Nakano waved his hands vigorously alongside her, and when it occurred to him that back on Nisshō Island, men who looked exactly like him were likely living and falling in love with women who resembled Keiko, he was suddenly overcome with the urge to survey his surroundings once more. He quietly pinched his own thigh.

(I am real, but is this Keiko truly genuine...?) And—. (“*Yūmoa Kurabu*” *Yūmoa Kurabu*, October 1939 issue)