Ryou Ashihara was curled up in a fetus position at the bottom of a blue pool.
He was able to feel a sense of calmness like no other from the core of his body like this.
All noises from his surroundings would be cut off, and even his heart would grow quiet, with his heartbeats becoming the only thing that could be heard.
He would always remain underwater for long periods of time to help him concentrate the day before a race. By doing this, he was able to feel strength coursing throughout his muscles.
It was as if he was waiting for his expanding muscles to explode.
Ryou slowly opened his eyes.
But what he saw was not the calming blue of the pool, but the dull ash-gray of a ceiling.
As he began to snap out of his drowsiness, he realized that he was sleeping in his apartment.
This wasn’t the pool. Instead of the wide expanse that gently greeted him free of any unnecessities, he was looking at his small, messy one-room studio apartment.
Looks like I’m still hung up about the swim team…
His lips twisted as he ridiculed himself.
Even though my body’s become like this…
Ryou Ashihara was born in a fishing town where the sounds of the approaching waves never went away.
On that day, the town was sealed off by a record snowstorm, and the spray from the raging waves was hitting against the Ashihara residence’s windows.
As Ryou’s mother was suffering from labor as the midwife watched over her, she dreamt of a giant castle appearing in the sea and rising up to the sky.
Once the castle reached the heavens, Ryou Ashihara let out his first cry.
Comprehending that dream as a divine message, she became sure of Ryou’s future.
This boy would one day become a person that would accomplish something great.
But his father threw that idea aside.
That dream is nothing but an omen.
There’s no such thing as a castle that can reach the skies. Such a castle would no doubt collapse. This boy is fated to die at a young age.
Ryou’s father was the stereotypical man of the sea. His face was deeply tanned by the long years of sea and sun, and his hands were like hammers.
His father used those hands to catch tuna. Ryou’s father was the most respected man in the town, and the greatest tuna fisher.
Once Ryou grew past his infancy, he joined his father on his fishing boat. When he was in the boat, he was constantly looking up in the shadow of his father’s large back. His father shunned his fellow fishermen for using equipment such as fish finders or fish shockers.
He said it was because that wasn’t the same thing as winning against the tuna. A fisherman is someone that challenges their intuition, knowledge, and skill.
Ryou’s father spoke with the ocean and listened to the seagulls, and caught more tuna than anyone else in the town.
Upon becoming 15 years old, Ryou was allowed to use a harpoon. It essentially meant that his father had recognized him as a man.
Standing next to his father fighting against the tuna, Ryou readied his harpoon. When he saw the tuna rise up, he was to deliver the final blow. Ryou immediately lifted his arm up and learned the trick to piercing their vitals in just one strike.
The tuna’s blood spread throughout the ocean water, symbolizing his victory.
On the day they fished up that tuna, his father let him eat its heart.
The heart wasn’t something that could be sold, but it was the most delicious part.
Thinly sliced and fried with just some salt and pepper, tuna heart was Ryou’s favorite food.
Ryou was born and raised alongside the sea.
He naturally learned how to swim.
He loved the sea, and at the same time feared it.
He felt that the sea was alive.
It wasn’t in a poetic sense. His body instinctively felt that way.
When he was 12 years old, Ryou experienced a close encounter with death.
During a freediving session, he ended up diving down to depths he had never been to while he collected horned turbans.
He had felt that his breath was lasting longer than usual, which led him to keep diving deeper and deeper.
But Ryou had yet to know that that was the sign that one was drowning.
After a while, he sensed a presence.
It wasn’t one of an animal or beast.
Some unknown thing was staring straight at him.
As he rushed to reach the water’s surface, black clouds began to rise up from below.
Those shadow-like black clouds quickly spread and wrapped around Ryou’s body.
As he was enveloped by darkness that he couldn’t escape out of no matter how much he flailed, countless eyes lit up inside those clouds.
Bubbles were rising up from the seafloor. The bubbles that were coming out of Ryou himself were like eyes that were observing him with an expressionless face.
Oh, I’m going to die like this.
The sea is looking at me. The sea kills people by looking at them.
For some reason, it wasn’t that bad of a feeling for him.
There was no fear or pain. Rather, it almost felt pleasant.
By the time the last eyeball left Ryou’s mouth, a strong hand firmly grabbed onto his arm.
Thanks to his father who came rushing to save him, Ryou was saved from death’s abyss.
After spurting out water multiple times and regaining consciousness on the shore, his father struck him with his fist with the might of a hammer.
You mustn’t try to become friends with the sea, his father told him.
You must fear the sea. Fear it as much as you can. That way, the sea will love you in return.
A month after that, Ryou had decided not to enter the sea anymore. If he was to fear the sea, then he felt it’d be best if he were to never approach it again.
Even so, the sea called out to him.
As long as he was on this small island, the sounds of the waves would never go away.
From the moment he was born upon this world, he had been listening to the raging waves.
He had listened to his mother’s heartbeat while within her womb, and the sounds of the waves had embraced him in her stead when he came out into the world.
It would be impossible for him to escape from the sea like that.
Ryou once again headed for the sea.
He gave up on diving into it. He knew he had no chance once he dived.
He chose to swim instead.
To Ryou, crawling across the sea’s surface was the same as cutting into the sea itself.
He wanted to cut deeper into the sea than anyone else.
That way, Ryou’s existence would become deeply engraved within the sea. He believed that would be the equivalent of diving deep into the sea.
Ryou never forgot his fear towards the sea.
Before he entered the sea, he would always perform a personal ritual to represent his fear.
That being said, it was still a very simple ritual.
He’d stand beside the sea and perform a yoga-like exercise of intense abdominal breathing for about 10 minutes. He’d then clap his hands together and bowed towards the sea. That’s all there was to it.
It was a very short and simple exercise, but that was his way of showing the sea his respect. And that respect came out of fear.
Ryou entered the sea almost every day, while at the same time making sure he kept his distance from it as well.
From the shores in front of Ryou’s house, the grey opposite shore of the main island almost seemed like an illusion.
No one has ever made it that far through swimming, his father had told him.
Ryou had then made it his dream to swim there one day.
If he were to directly lay his hands on the opposite shore and make that illusion a reality, then that would mean he won against the sea. That’s what he convinced himself.
His father did nothing but silently watch over him, but his mother couldn’t help but be worried sick.
When she saw Ryou swim far enough away from the shore to the point where she couldn’t see him anymore, she’d panic and start calling out his name again and again.
And then when her son came back to her, she’d cling onto him and put her ear against his chest to hear his heartbeat, making sure that her son was well and alive.
To his mother, Ryou would always be a child.
And not just any child.
She never forgot that castle she saw during his birth that stretched out from the sea to the heavens. There was no doubt that it was the sea god’s castle, and that Ryou was a child who had fallen from that castle.
After refining his self-taught swimming style, he displayed his skill in the swim class at his school.
Compared to the sea that had the power to kill someone, the pool was quite docile.
When Ryou was in his 2nd year at high school, he won the tournament at his prefecture with a record-setting time and received recommendations from numerous universities.
The next year, his father had died.
On that day, after leaving Ryou in bed who had surprisingly caught a cold, his father went out to fish on his own.
Both the sky and the sea were calm.
Almost too calm.
The sky was completely clear without a speck in sight. The townspeople began chatting about how the only things that could fall from such a clear sky were flowers or saints.
On that day, his father did not return.
On the morning after that, his empty fishing boat washed up on the shore.
The only thing left was his pair of boots on the deck.
Dad forgot to fear the sea, Ryou thought to himself.
Ryou knew.
Just like how Ryou would perform a ritual before entering the sea, his father would always put his hands together in front of their Shinto shrine.
But his father simply passed by it that time.
His father lost his fear.
After seeing that his mother was more overjoyed to learn that her son was safe rather than feeling grief over the loss of her husband, Ryou realized that he had always despised his mother.
His mother did not look at him.
His mother did not love Ryou, but rather someone else entirely that did not exist in this world.
On the day after his father’s death, Ryou went out into the sea on the fishing boat alone.
When he came back, he gave his mother over 300 kilograms worth of tuna he fished up, telling her that he was no longer a child.
I will live on my own and leave the island.
That night, after completing his usual ritual, he swam out towards the illusionary shore that no one had ever swum to.
He cut apart the sea with more vigor than he had ever done so before.
He cut apart the sea wider than he had ever done so before.
That was his way of showing his revenge towards the sea.
After swimming for around 12 hours, he reached the opposite shore.
As he felt the hard and tough reef against his hand, he knew that this was no longer an illusion.
I won’t go into the sea anymore, he thought to himself.
From now on, this will be a battle with time. After being trained by the sea, I’ll challenge myself to see just how far my swimming will take me. In other words, a battle with time.
Ryou parted ways with the sea.
However, Ryou’s life as a competitive swimmer was far shorter than he had ever imagined.
Using the scholarship he received from a university that fell in love with his talent, Ryou enrolled in school.
Within a year’s time, Ryou made incredible achievements.
After participating in the 100 meter and 200 meter long races in the national athletic meet, he won both of them with record-setting times.
Right after he reached his second year, that had happened.
First, he became able to live within the water.
He was able to remain underwater for hours at a time.
Falling into confusion over what exactly was going on, he began to feel fear.
He remembered the dream his mother had when he was born.
A giant castle appearing in the sea and rising up to the sky.
You are the bastard son of the sea god, his mother told him.
He began feeling doubt over whether or not he was even a human, or whether or not he was in the process of losing his humanity.
In order to make sure other people didn’t find out about this, he made sure to make a show of breathing during practice even when he didn’t need to.
After a while, muscles all over his body began heating up and convulsing.
After spending a few days in the hospital, he returned to his apartment to recuperate, but the seizures involving intense heat and convulsions in his muscles never completely stopped.
Ryou was tormented by a sensation of some unknown creature trying to break out of his skin and come to life. And then that eventually became a reality.
The first signs were shown when his swim coach came to visit him.
Ryou suddenly lost consciousness, and when he came to, he was gripping his coach’s neck with his hands.
If he had just been a few seconds too late, he would have by no doubt ended up snapping his neck.
Ryou got out of his bed and left his house for the first time since his coach had visited him a week ago.
He had no idea what was happening to him.
He couldn’t help but feel suffocated with unease while he was alone, but he didn’t have any friends he could talk to about it.
After an hour of walking and traveling by train, he arrived at an elegant-looking apartment.
He went up the elevator and stopped in front of the door labeled “402”.
After a moment of hesitation, he rang the doorbell.
“Coming.”
He soon heard Mayumi’s voice.
“………”
Ryou did not respond. I really shouldn’t have come here, he thought. There’s no way I could show my face to her after all this time. I’ll just head back.
“Ryou?”
The sound of the chain and lock being undone could be heard as the door opened.
A girl with short hair and large eyes was looking at Ryou.
“How did you know?”
Ryou questioned her without looking at her.
“Silly.” Mayumi let out an exasperated sigh. “You can’t even figure that out?”
“Coming in?” asked Mayumi, to which Ryou responded with “Could you take a little walk with me?”
After the door shutting once, Mayumi popped out again grabbing onto Ryou’s arm with light-red lips that caught his attention.
Mayumi attended the same university as Ryou and was the former manager of the swim team.
Ryou had no friends because that’s how he preferred it.
It was like that for him on the island as well.
To the young Ryou who spent all his time diving in the ocean, he couldn’t help but feel that developing human relations was too much of a bother.
The sea did not seek conversation. Just by being there, the sea would at times accept Ryou, at times reject him, at times go into a rage, and at times show kindness.
The sea itself was emotion. That’s why he didn’t need any friends.
“It’s because you ended up being the only thing I looked at.”
That was the explanation Mayumi gave on the day after she quit being the swim team manager and coincidentally ran into Ryou on campus.
That night, Ryou slept with Mayumi.
It wasn’t that he especially liked Mayumi or anything. He was just happy that she looked at him for who he was.
“It’s been about 3 months since then, huh? You wouldn’t answer even when I called you.”
Upon reaching the park, Mayumi spoke those words as she sat on a bench.
To Ryou, the act of sleeping with her wasn’t a representation of anything or a promise.
As motivated as he was with swimming, he had no interest in dating women whatsoever no matter who the girl was.
“I heard you haven’t been showing up at practice, either. Did something happen?”
“…I can’t swim… I can’t compete anymore…”
“Why not?”
Ryou averted her gaze without responding.
“You’re pretty selfish, you know? You ignored me all this time because you didn’t feel like it, and now you’re coming back to rely on me. And on top of that, you won’t even bother explaining anything.”
“………”
“You’re a selfish brat and a huge weakling.”
It was the first time he had ever been told something like that.
Including his parents, no one had ever said anything about his character.
This woman is a good woman, he thought.
Ryou stood up from the bench.
“It’s just like you said. I never should have come here.”
Mayumi stood up from the bench as well and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“It’s fine, you can rely on me all you want. Even if you’re a selfish weakling, I still love you.”
And then…
“Attack…”
Hearing a low voice seeming to come from underground, Ryou instinctively put distance between him and Mayumi.
“Attack… Attack…”
“What’s the matter?”
Mayumi’s voice began to grow far away.
“Attack!”
And then Mayumi’s voice grew closer.
It was a blood-curdling scream.
Ryou’s face grew green and twisted.
Two insect-like feelers broke out of his skull.
His hands, now transformed into claws, stretched out towards Mayumi.
“Run.”
He approached Mayumi speaking only that word.
Kamen Rider Novel Translations 