Chapter 1 – The Ark, Blade Awakens
I don’t know when or how the world went to ruin.
I’ve been inside the Ark for as long as I can remember. Rather, I was born inside the Ark. For the longest time I thought the end of the world was within running distance of even a child, which lied at the end of that rusted hole-ridden bow.
I never even began to imagine that there were other worlds beyond the endless sea surrounding the Ark.
“Keep your eyes up front, Tougo! You’re gonna trip!”
Tougo came back to his senses upon hearing Takuho’s voice ahead of him.
“I’ll be fine. We’ve gone through here a bunch of times already, anyway.”
Suddenly his leg got caught in a rotted section of the deck. He quickly swallowed the scream he almost let out.
He noticed Rikiya smirk at him mockingly from the side.
“Getting injured actually sounds kinda nice. You’d get Ren to treat your wounds.”
You’re the only one who’d want that, Rikiya. He glared at him without saying those words. You don’t even realize that the Ren you’re so in love with actually likes Takuho. What an idiot.
But what did it mean to like someone? Tougo didn’t really know.
Ren was pretty, that was true.
She was fifteen, only two years older than him, but Tougo found her to be quite mature for her age. Right now she was probably taking care of Dai and Mei back at the Rat Gang’s secret base, like a mother would.
But even if those two kids liked being fawned over by her, Tougo hated being treated like a kid.
“She’ll definitely love this.”
Rikiya proudly showed off what he found.
It was the necklace he stole from a first-class cabin in the Guest Cabin Area. It was obviously a toy. There were children’s clothes in the cabin, so the necklace probably belonged to a child that lived there.
Both Tougo and Takuho had all kinds of loot stuffed in their rucksacks.
There wasn’t anything especially “first-class” about the first-class cabins, which barely differed from the ones Tougo and the rest lived in, other than the oil smell of the latter. It was only natural that the cabins had gotten worn down from floating on the sea for about three hundred years now, but regardless of how snobby the people that resided in them might’ve acted, they were still no different from Tougo and the rest.
In the end, both Tougo’s group and the people living in the cabins had escaped from the same place. Or rather, they were exiled, as Kojirou would put it.
Back then, there were apparently about a thousand people riding the ship. It was originally an enormous passenger boat. Rich old men and ladies enjoyed their rides on it before they died.
I don’t know who named the boat, but calling it the Ark is honestly too ironic. It’s loaded with despair, not hope. You won’t ever find Mount Ararat or any olive branches, I guarantee you that.
That was all according to Kojirou. Tougo didn’t even understand half of it.
Oh yeah, I should go see Kojirou when I get back. Tougo thought about the book he always walked around with in the cloth bag tucked in his clothes.
It was Tougo’s treasure. A story written by Kojirou.
Long ago, there was a battle against monsters known as the Undead that had the survival of the species put on stake. The story detailed the hero that had put a stop to that crisis and ultimately saved humanity from going extinct.
His name was Blade. Masked Rider Blade.
It was of course a made-up story. No such hero could have possibly existed in this world.
But he was Tougo’s hope.
“Hey, Ren will love it, right?”
“Huh?”
“I said…”
“Oh, yeah, I’m sure she’ll be overjoyed.”
“Right? I can’t wait!”
Rikiya got in a good mood even though Tougo answered him having mostly forgotten what he was talking about in the first place. What an idiot.
“Quiet. We’re going in.”
Takuho shushed them as he stood in front of a small hole.
They were going to crawl through it for about fifty meters. It was a shortcut that would circumvent the walls made to separate the Areas from each other, and it led all the way to the Steering Area.
There was a food warehouse midway. In order to lower the chances of anyone happening to notice something was missing, they always made sure to steal something different each time. Sometimes it’d be bread, sometimes canned goods, sometimes candy, etc.
The three of them crawled into the rust-smelling tunnel of darkness with Takuho at the lead.
“There’s only one more day until we reach the island! We have to make a decision already!”
The annoyed voice of the captain could be heard from the meeting room in the Steering Area from the duct.
“We’ve been going to that island for ten years now, there’s no risk of danger. Besides, do you have any better ideas? Do you think you could secure this much food at this price anywhere else? No, you don’t!”
“Yeah, the other islands have already started submerging. The temperature’s gone up, the water level’s gone up, it’s only a matter of time before that island’s done for as well. So we’ve only got one choice here. We’ll get our butts over there as fast as we can, and then we’ll get our butts out of there just as fast. There’s no room for debate!”
That sharp voice had to belong to the chief engineer.
It sounded like the usual kind of meeting.
They’d decide who from what Area would be disembarking onto the island, as well as confirm what they needed to secure, such as food, daily necessities, fuel, and so on.
As a result, the other rooms would become empty whenever there was a meeting.
It was time for the Rat Gang to shine.
The cabins and lockers in the Steering Area was where Tougo got all his favorite books or magazines on animals and plants and the like, as well as maps, compasses, and writing materials. Kojirou requested that he get note paper.
“No, I’m saying that we absolutely do need to debate this!”
“No, we don’t!”
Suddenly a cacophony of yelling arguing voices burst out, causing Tougo and the rest to cover their ears.
As they crawled through the cramped dark duct as fast as they could to get past the meeting room, Takuho came to a stop.
“What’s up?”
“Shh!”
Following Takuho’s example, Tougo and Rikiya pressed their ears against the inner wall.
“…We should all know full well just how fast the Ark is deteriorating. Our repairs can’t keep up. In that case, perhaps we should do what I mentioned earlier, which would be having everyone on the ship disembark-”
“How many times do we have to go over this?! Why bring that up now?!”
“You know just as well as I do! The passengers are already all at their limit!”
“You don’t get to decide that!”
“Then who says you should either?!”
They didn’t quite understand what they were talking about at first.
“The passengers are at their limit”, “everyone should disembark the ship”, “we should abandon the Ark”… Once they pieced things together, Tougo and Rikiya raised their voices.
“What do they mean by that?”
“Wait, so we’re going to live on the island now?”
“Shh!”
Takuho shushed them and began moving once again. Tougo and Rikiya quickly followed after.
“Wait, Takuho!”
“If that happens, then what’re we gonna do next?!”
“Nothing. We just do what we’ve always been doing.”
“But…”
“That doesn’t explain how we’re gonna… Ah!”
Rikiya’s shirt then ripped from being caught on something, causing his necklace to slip off and fall through a slit in the duct.
The angry yelling down below ceased in an instant.
Tougo and the rest sat on their knees in the middle of the meeting room.
Sandwiched between Takuho—who wasn’t scared to glare back at the adults—and Rikiya—who couldn’t keep his eyes off the necklace on top of the desk—Tougo gritted his teeth in fear over the physical punishment that awaited them.
They were usually whipped around thirty times. The marks left behind made it so they couldn’t sleep on their backs for about a week. Ren would use the medicine Takuho stole from the infirmary to rub their backs every single morning and night. Tougo was sure that that was what got Rikiya to start liking Ren.
“These brats again?!”
“Damn rats!”
Only a few people were left in the room now, including the captain and the chief engineer, their adjutants, and the top officers from both sides.
“They’re orphans, right?”
“I believe so.”
The vice-captain responded to the captain’s question.
He was correct, Tougo and the rest were orphans. They weren’t affiliated with any groups in any of the Areas, either.
They had forgotten the faces of their parents long ago. They either died from illness, killed themselves, or were murdered by others, but Tougo and the rest didn’t care. They had no interest in what happened to them. But their status caused them to be treated as troublemakers who were chased out of any Area they showed up at.
“The Disposal Area, huh?”
The chief engineer spat.
It was a section that had all of its rooms closed off from entry due to its submerged state that proved restoration unfeasible. It was a gathering place for people such as those that were exiled for causing problems or those that couldn’t get along with the others and chose to abandon their Area.
Tougo and the rest lived there at first, but they eventually chose to leave that Area as well and live on their own. The adults always treated them like henchmen or minions even in a place like that. That’s why they hated it.
They wouldn’t become anyone’s henchmen. They were their own people.
“Give it back.”
Rikiya shouted out that order while staring at the necklace. I knew he would say that. Now we’re going to get punished for sure.
“It’s mine! Give it back!”
The men looked at each other and then burst into laughter.
“There’s not a single thing here that belongs to you.”
“You have no place here.”
The captain and chief engineer that had been arguing with each other just a few minutes ago nodded in agreement.
The desk was piled with all the loot they confiscated from Tougo and the rest’s rucksacks. Of course, Tougo’s cloth bag was there as well, including that book.
“We’re searching your nest right now. We’re taking back everything you stole.
“That’s the rule.”
That’s just a rule you adults made up. Tougo mentally retorted with those words, but Takuho spoke loud and clear in his place.
“We’ll just steal them again. We’ll steal as many times as it takes!”
As if that was the signal to start moving, Rikiya charged towards the necklace.
But they had him completely read. Just as Takuho and Tougo tackled the officers trying to pin Rikiya down, the captain slid a chair forward.
After ramming into that chair, Rikiya fell onto the ground. The chief engineer then began kicking him. He continued to ruthlessly kick him as Rikiya cowered with his hands over his head.
“Stop it!”
“You’re gonna kill him!”
Takuho and Tougo shouted while being held down, but the chief engineer didn’t stop, nor did the captain attempt to stop him.
“Rules must be kept!”
“You will receive the appropriate punishment!”
Then Ren showed up.
She was carrying Dai with Mei at her side, who she had brought from the secret base.
“Stop this, please! I was the one who asked him to steal that necklace for me! He just did what I told him to do! If you need to punish someone, then punish me instead!”
The adults froze upon hearing her dignified voice.
Kojirou was a writer.
He lived at a Disposal Area separate from the one Tougo and the rest lived at.
It was a place riddled with alcohol and drugs where painters, poets, musicians, and any other kind of self-proclaimed artist deemed useless to the Ark all eventually wound up at.
“It’s like a saloon.”
That’s what Kojirou said, but Tougo didn’t understand what he meant.
A place where he got drunk whenever he couldn’t write any new stories. That’s how Tougo thought of it.
“But how did you think up this story? It’s amazing!”
Tougo was obsessed with that book. He was in love with the hero known as Masked Rider Blade.
“Well, you see… it was all because a god descended before me.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Me neither. Anyway, it was just really sudden. One day, I woke up and just started writing the story I never could quite write. It was like my pen was moving automatically.”
“Awtohmatikuly?”
“But that only ever happened once, I never experienced that feeling ever again. In the end, I still don’t know what to make of it. I can only assume that a god really did descend before me. Know what I mean?”
“Do you think it might have been your grandfather or great grandfather or something?”
“Okay, well, things would make more sense if that was the case, but I’ve actually already looked into it, like my family tree and stuff. And guess what, not a single author in my family. So just what the heck’s going on?”
“Don’t ask me, I wouldn’t know. But anyway, are you working on a new story yet?”
“Have you ever thought about what exactly this place is? Have you ever thought about how strange it all is?”
“Huh?”
“I basically want to write a story that captures that idea of something feeling not quite right.”
“What do you mean?”
“To put it in another way, I’m talking about the fantastical concept of this place not being what it seems like it is.”
He was making less and less sense.
There were several islands here and there that the ship sailed to in order to restock food and other supplies. Those were the only places Tougo had visited outside the Ark. But that probably wasn’t what Kojirou was referring to. Tougo was able to figure at least that much.
But then what would this place be if it wasn’t exactly what we thought it was?
Tougo thought about what Kojirou talked to him about back then.
While Tougo and the rest were being forced to sit on their knees again as they waited for their punishment to be decided on, at some point the officers had stopped talking about them and ended up returning to their previous argument.
Whether or not to abandon the ship. Maybe that had something to do with going to some place that wasn’t here, like what Kojirou was talking about.
“…Besides, do you really think three hundred people would simply accept moving to the island just like that?”
“Those that want to disembark can disembark. We have at least a hundred people in the Engine Area. I’m sure those of you in the Steering Area would gladly stay behind, anyway!”
The captain and chief engineer were yelling at each other.
Takuho was absorbed in their argument, soaking in every word they spoke.
“Do you really think that you can get away with this outrageous plan?!”
“If we were to leave, then keeping the Ark moving would prove to be incredibly difficult. That’s why you’re against it. Admit it, that’s where your issues lie!”
Dai and Mei had begun squirming about in boredom, which Ren stopped by cuddling them. Not a single trace of that imposing face she had on previously could be seen. She had returned to the usual sweet and kind Ren.
Rikiya was glancing at her from the side while biting his lips. The pain of frustration from failing to give her the necklace he found far surpassed any pain he felt from getting kicked. It was like he had completely forgotten that it was that very same Ren that had saved him from his predicament.
“There was discrimination at Antarctica. That’s why we boarded the Ark. That’s what the elders have told us, but if you ask me, the discrimination here is even worse.”
“What are you trying to say?”
The conversation had taken a huge turn, and the captain was at a loss for words.
But Tougo knew it was true. The Disposal Areas and the Rat Gang’s circumstances were proof of that. He thought of it as common sense. If anything, the adults that didn’t share his opinion were the strange ones. He didn’t want to become an adult if that was the kind of person he’d end up becoming.
“Would you like to trade spots then? Should we have every single member in both Areas switch to the other?”
“Like you have any intention of doing so.”
“What did you say?”
“You might not mind, but what about the others? Do you think they’d want to move from the Steering Area with the nice view and superb ventilation to the cellar-like Engine Area?”
“Well, that’s…”
The captain fell silent.
“See?”
“Anyway, we can’t go with your plan this time around. There isn’t enough time. We can discuss it as much as you want after the next procurement-”
“What if I were to say I wouldn’t wait?”
“Well I won’t let you say that!”
The captain’s adjutants took their guns out from their hips. At the same time, the chief engineer’s adjutants readied their guns as well. A dry sound rang out, and they instantly began firing at each other.
“Eek!”
Rikiya let out a scream. Ren drew Dai and Mei close to her. Takuho stood up to protect Tougo and the rest.
The people who were punishing Rikiya just earlier had fallen back into conflict and were attempting to slaughter each other. This is why I don’t understand adults. They make no sense at all. Tougo’s body was frozen still from fear, but he mentally whispered those words.
It was then that a shrill voice screamed out from the speaker.
“Castaway sighted! Castaway sighted!”
Kamen Rider Novel Translations 