“Cool. When I say go, then,” I declared, putting one leg out leaning forward into a standing start position. My clenched palms were slick with sweat. “On your mark, get set… Go!”
I pressed the Start button on the timer, and we both took off running, with me taking the lead. The torii whooshed past one after another as I dashed down the corridor, going at about eighty percent of a full sprint. Given that Anzu had handily shown up every girl on the track team, I was pretty sure she’d have no trouble keeping up with me no matter how fast I went. As I started breathing harder, I looked at my phone to see that only ten seconds had passed. Still no exit in sight. I shot a quick glance over my shoulder to see how Anzu was doing. She seemed to be managing just fine, so I picked up the pace a bit.
The timer hit twenty seconds, then thirty. Outside, it would be tomorrow afternoon. So far, there hadn’t been a single change of scenery in the tunnel—just torches and torii as far as the eye could see.
Suddenly, a familiar question popped back into my brain. Just what was Anzu trying to gain from the Urashima Tunnel, anyway? She and I had talked quite a bit over the past few days, yet still I had no idea what wish she wanted the tunnel to grant for her. It wasn’t constantly gnawing at my brain, mind you, nor did I think it was necessarily any of my business, but I did feel like it would be a good idea for us to be on the same page in that regard—especially if there was any risk of it obstructing the investigation going forward. I decided to make a point of asking her as soon as we made it back out of the tunnel.
We’d almost reached the end of the first minute, and my legs were officially killing me. Just as I was looking down to check the time, however, I heard a loud rustling sound coming from ahead. Bringing my gaze back up, I saw dozens—maybe even hundreds—of sheets of plain white paper all fluttering to the ground, like a whirlwind of oversized confetti that had come absolutely out of nowhere.
“Whoa!”
One of the countless sheets came flying toward me like a flyer in a hurricane and slapped me right in the forehead, entirely covering my eyes so that I couldn’t see a thing. I panicked helplessly for a moment before trying to reach up and peel the sheet off my face, but I lost my balance and fell crashing to the floor.
“Yeowch!” I shouted.
“Tono-kun?!” cried Anzu.
Finally, the paper drifted gently down from my face—just in time for me to watch my cell phone go skidding across the rocky tunnel floor. The inertia from the impact had made me lose my grip and sent it sliding like a curling iron nearly three meters away.
No! We need that timer! I scrambled onto my hands and knees and crawled over to pick it up. Luckily, aside from a little crack in the screen, the phone appeared to be mostly unharmed. Phew, thank God… Wait, forget about that! We’ve gotta go!
“My bad! C’mon, we can’t waste any more… Hanashiro?”
I was convinced I’d find her either already way ahead of me or standing by my side ready to help me up—but she was in neither of those two places. She was standing stock-still, right where I’d fallen, looking in disbelief at one of the fallen sheets of paper, which she now held in her hands. The rest of them lay in a scattered pile at Anzu’s feet. There had to be at least a solid hundred sheets.
“Hanashiro?” I called again, but there was no answer.
If the way her shoulders were heaving was any clue, she was on the verge of hyperventilating—though surely not merely due to exhaustion from the minute-long sprint (she was in much better shape than me, after all). Something definitely wasn’t right here. I got back up to my feet and ran over to her.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” I asked.
“But… But this is…” she muttered to herself in a daze, her voice trembling.
I wasn’t sure she’d heard me. Curious, I peered over her shoulder at the piece of paper. It had crude little characters drawn on it, separated into distinct panels like a comic book… It almost looked like some random kid’s hand-drawn manga. What in the world was this doing here in the tunnel…? It was a mystery, to be sure, but we didn’t have the time to stand around contemplating it. I looked at my cell phone again: we’d passed the one-minute mark. A cold sweat trickled down my forehead.
“Hanashiro, we have to go back.”
Still no response. She didn’t turn her head to look at me. In fact, she dropped to her knees and started scrounging around on the floor, frantically gathering all the other sheets of paper.
“Hanashiro, stop!” I yelled, still to no avail. “What the hell are you doing?! We don’t have time for this!”
“Just go on without me!”
“What?! Are you crazy?! I’m not leaving you here!”
“Well, I’m not leaving this here either!” she snarled at me. Her voice was feral and distressed, like a bloodthirsty animal with its leg caught in a trap. The sheer desperation in the way she struggled to gather them all made it abundantly clear that this was not the Anzu I knew. I realized very quickly that nothing I could say would convince her, and for a moment I considered trying to physically drag her out with me. But that would have taken far too long.
“Ugh, fine!” I growled.
I got on my knees and started to help; it seemed like the best possible option left. As soon as the pages were gathered, we both got up and sprinted as fast as we could back the way we’d come. We couldn’t afford to waste a second checking the time—we just ran and ran until we were safely on the other side of the torii and back to where time flowed naturally.
“Whew… I’m beat, man…”
I had to fight incredibly hard to resist the urge to let myself collapse on the ground right then and there, but I somehow managed to hold it together and wait until we were fully back outside. As we approached the exit, the interior of the tunnel grew brighter and brighter, and we were greeted by a gradual crescendo from the local cicada choir. The moment we stepped out of the tunnel’s shade and onto the parched grass, we were assaulted by the brutal midday sun.