Reo was so close, and yet Mabu’s hand—his voice—couldn’t reach him. Mabu pressed his hand into the left side of his heart. “It hurts.” No doubt his machine heart was having some kind of malfunction.
“This is the innermost room of this place, ribbit.” Keppi rolled himself to a stop. Despite being stuck in the restraining device, he managed to master how to move in it.
Right now, they were in the deepest level of the cylindrical tower. Darkness spread out all around them, so they had no way of guessing how big the room really was. If they glanced up, they could see an enormous round object floating above them, with a ring orbiting it like Saturn. The planet-like structure in the middle was actually a gigantic taiko drum. The four silver Wishing Plates were inserted into the rim of the drum.
“There they are!”
When Kazuki tried to approach, the drum suddenly began to beat. The Saturn-like ring emitted a light, and a mysterious creature from deep within began to groan.
“D-d-d-d-darkness!”
The transparent interior of the drum filled with liquid, and something pitch black within glared out at them with red eyes, seeming ready to leap out at any moment.
“So I’ve finally found you, ribbit. Black Keppi…!”
“Black Keppi?” Kazuki asked, confused.
“That’s the embodiment of my despair. The otters stole him from me, ribbit.” Keppi began to recount the story, his tone gravely serious as he spoke. “During the war, I lost so many people who were important to me that despair threatened to swallow me whole. Thus, I split my own shirikodama in half, ribbit.”
“So then that thing is…?”
“He’s my other half. I came to this world to fuse myself with Black Keppi, so I could take down the otters, ribbit.” At long last, Keppi revealed his true motive—something none of them were privy to before.
The situation was a bit difficult to grasp for Kazuki and Enta. The only thing they’d fought up until now were Kappa Zombies. “Just what are these otters?” Kazuki asked.
Suddenly, a spotlight cut through the darkness in the room. “Odd-er. We are your desires in their rawest form.” Within the ring of light, a single dark shadow appeared—an otter.
“That’s…an otter?” said Kazuki.
Enta was just as confused. “I really don’t get what’s going on.”
No matter how much they squinted, the outline of the figure remained little more than an undefined, indiscernible silhouette. It was like a mosaic, like a larger shape broken down into a thousand tiny pieces—but neither the pieces nor what they added up to made any sense. If someone asked them to later recall what they had seen and draw it on paper, the sketch would be blank.
“We are an amalgamation of desire with no singular form. We can manifest ourselves into whatever shape the person seeing us wishes.”
The spotlight switched over to the tire-shaped Keppi. The otter now stood on top of his head.
Keppi barked up at him, “What have you done to Reo and Mabu, ribbit?!”
“What otter slander. Enough of your accusations. We just saved two pitiful kappa, that’s all,” the otter asserted loudly.
“Saved? You took advantage of their weaknesses and manipulated them, ribbit!”
“They were otterly broken to begin with, which made it easy. Just like this…” The otter’s body suddenly transformed, melting into a liquid-like substance that bolted through the air toward Kappa-Enta.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! What’s that?!”
“Odd-er!”
In seconds, the dark shadow dove right inside Enta’s nostrils. He collapsed to his knees and went silent.
“Enta?!”
He was a bit unsteady as he returned to his feet, eyes now dyed red. “We’ll be taking those plates. We’ll use despair—the kind without beginning or end, rooted in the inability to connect to others—and we’ll rule over this world!” The otter’s voice reverberated inside Enta’s head.
“Mm… Where am I…?”
Enta opened his eyes to find himself at their secret soccer practice area. At some point, he returned to his human form and was now clad in his soccer uniform. There was no one else in the area. He couldn’t even hear the sound of the Sumida River.
Suddenly, a soccer ball rolled over to him. His eyes followed its trajectory back to a familiar silhouette.
“Kazuki?”
The other boy wore the same soccer uniform as Enta. It had been a long time since he’d seen Kazuki wearing his. His heart was secretly pounding.
Kazuki shook Kappa-Enta, calling out to him and trying to wake him from his daze. “Enta! What’s wrong?! Hey, can’t you hear me?!”
Seeing the other boy’s condition, Keppi groaned. “This must be… They’ve got Enta in a trance.”
“Oh no! What should we do?! Enta!”
His little kappa body jolted. It looked as if he was reacting to the sound of Kazuki’s voice, but the way he stared blankly forward without meeting Kazuki’s eyes was strange.
Kappa-Enta squirmed, seeming embarrassed as he muttered back, “K-Kazuki…?! What is it?”
Enta had no idea what was going on. Kazuki—dressed in his soccer uniform—was now hugging him from behind.
He could feel Kazuki’s warm breath against his ear. Kazuki’s arms were wrapped around his front, gently caressing him and holding him in place. As pitiful as it was, Enta couldn’t even move an inch.
No, this is the luckiest moment of my life, one I’ll never get to have ever again, why can’t I move?!
In truth, his mind was basically overloaded. He was on the verge of tears.
Just then, he heard Kazuki chuckle. “Hey, Enta. Won’t you give me that Wishing Plate?”
“Huh?” Enta instinctively peered back at the other boy. Kazuki’s beautiful face was so close and smiling at him. It almost sent a chill down his spine.
“Don’t you like me, Enta?”
“O-Of course I do! We’re the Golden Duo, after all!” Enta turned his face away as he spoke, unable to handle their close proximity.
He could feel something soft press against his earlobe—Kazuki’s lips. “If you give me that plate, I’ll let you do whatever you want to me.” Kazuki’s whisper felt like it was crawling straight into his ear.
Enta’s gray matter seemed to tremble, as if he’d taken a punch right to the head. His whole body was so filled with emotion that he didn’t know what was happening. A hand gently cupped his cheek, turning his head until he could see Kazuki’s large pupils staring back at him. He couldn’t look away anymore.
“Now, come. Do this for me…”
“Do it for…Kazuki…” Kappa-Enta slipped out of Kazuki’s grasp and took several unsteady steps forward.
“Enta…?”
He was approaching the giant Saturn-like structure floating above them. Out of nowhere, underlings came and lifted Enta up through the air by his little arms.
“We’re in trouble, ribbit!”
Enta hovered, as if led by angels, until he finally landed safely on the outer ring of the structure.
“Enta! Stop this!”
Kazuki’s voice couldn’t reach him.
Kappa-Enta slowly reached back into his shell and pulled out the last silver Wishing Plate. Kazuki entrusted it to him, just in case anything happened.
Back in the practice area, where time had stopped, Enta was drowning in ecstasy. This love was a wish he was sure would never be granted—a wish he was sure would one day fade away—and yet Kazuki’s warm body was there, right before Enta’s very eyes. Kazuki had a satisfied look on his face as he accepted the plate.
Kazuki’s thin fingers caressed Enta’s cheek, brushing over his lips. Enta just closed his eyes and remained silent. He felt completely fulfilled, wrapped up in Kazuki’s embrace like this.
“Thank you, Enta. Now instead of just being the Golden Duo, we can be even more special to each other…”
“…What are you talking about?” In an instant, Enta’s eyes snapped open. A relationship more special than being the Golden Duo? No such thing existed in this world!
The real Kazuki wouldn’t just do whatever I wanted!
He snatched the plate back and shouted, “Kazuki is fine just the way he is! That’s the Kazuki I want to be connected to!”
Enta threw the plate to the ground, shattering it into pieces. Then, heaving, he toppled backward. As his body went plummeting down through the air, Kazuki raced forward to catch Enta in his arms.
“Enta! Are you all right?!”
The other boy painfully rasped, “Sorry…for breaking the plate.”
This wasn’t the time for such words. Kappa-Enta couldn’t see it himself, but the timer ticking down his life had almost run out. Without the fifth plate, the silver Wishing Plates were worthless.
Suddenly, Kazuki recalled what Keppi told him before. “I can transfer your shirikodama to him, ribbit. If I do that, his life will be restored, ribbit.”
That’s right, there was a way!
“It will be as if you never existed in this world to begin with, ribbit.”
Still, he had to do it.
“Keppi, use my shirikodama—” Before he could finish speaking, a weak fist flew at him.
“Loser…!” There was a light tapping sound as Kappa-Enta’s fist made contact with his cheek. Enta was out of breath, but his voice still carried the full weight of his anger as he scolded his friend. “Only a loser would sacrifice themselves like that, moron!”
“But—”
“I’m not giving up on the possibility of a future where we get to be together… If you give up first, I’ll resent you in the afterlife…”
“Can’t you just forget about me?” asked Kazuki.
In true, stubborn kappa fashion, Enta just flashed him a thumbs up sign and said, “Don’t underestimate the power of our Golden Duo—ngh!”