Part 11
On the next morning, Kagami and Misaki boarded a small boat, heading toward the opposite shore of the Ganges.
Misaki, who said she had arrived in the area a few days ago for sightseeing, had been looking for someone to join her in riding the boat to the other side.
Kagami held some doubts since she wouldn’t go into details, but he still complied.
When Kagami arrived at their meeting place before dawn, Misaki had already arranged a boat for them.
Kagami and Misaki boarded the small boat and began paddling toward the Ganges.
Unlike the ghat side which was filled with the hustle and bustle of beggars, cows, and people bathing and washing their clothes, the opposite shore of the Ganges seemed like an untainted place with nothing that could defile its purity. However, it was actually the other way around.
“The other side of the Ganges is known as the Impure Land.”
“Impure Land?”
“It means it’s a dirty place.”
“Why are we going to a place like that?”
“…Because it seemed like it was a fitting place.”
“A fitting place for what?”
Upon turning around, Kagami noticed a dozen or so small boats trailing after them.
And the people on those boats all had buglike eyes.
Upon taking a look at Misaki, she too had those eyes.
Kagami then finally realized it.
“So you and all of the people on those boats were all Native mimics.”
But for some reason, Kagami was completely calm.
“At least tell me this. Is the real Misaki still alive?!”
“Yes. Right now she’s making the preparations to restore the Discabil Family at a restaurant that replicates the cooking of Tsurugi Kamishiro’s beloved butler.”
“I see. That’s good…”
“Now would you hand over the Gattack belt without making a fuss? I have the memories of the original Misaki, so if possible, I’d prefer not to fight you.”
“I… can’t do that.”
“I see… By the way, why are you in a place like this?”
When asked that, Kagami proceeded to interrogate his own heart.
“Why am I here?”
Kagami instead asked Misaki.
“Would you happen to know where the ends of the earth are?”
“The ends of the earth… Well, in Portugal, there’s a place called Cape Roca.”
“Cape Roca?”
“Yes, it’s on the very west of Eurasia, and there’s apparently a stone monument with the words ‘This is where the land ends and where the sea begins’ written on it.”
Upon hearing that, Kagami pictured a scene in his head.
A scene of Tendou walking along the stone pavement of Portugal, looking for Hiyori with a relaxed look on his face.
“Are those Misaki’s memories?”
“The original me once promised a man that she would go to Cape Roca with him one day… But he ended up getting murdered by a Worm…”
“Wait, is that why Misaki joined ZECT?”
“…Who can say. I’ve forgotten the past.”
And the conversation stopped there.
The boat reached the opposite side of the river, and Kagami and Misaki stepped foot on the shore known as the Impure Land.
Kagami walked forward on the empty expanse that was much like a desert.
Upon turning around, he saw Misaki make a listless face as she transfigured into a Lanpyris Worm.
At the same time, the people that had been following them transfigured into the pupae forms of the Native Worms.
“Tendou once said that there’s no point in changing the world for your own sake. By changing yourself, the world will change too. So let’s stop fighting. There’s no reason why humans and Worms can’t coexist.”
“Just be quiet and hand over the Gattack belt.”
Misaki’s personality could no longer be felt.
Kagami wrapped the belt around his waist and raised his right hand.
The Gattack Zecter soared through the sky and flew into his hand.
“Henshin!”
Kagami transformed into Gattack’s Masked Form.
Around fourteen Worms attacked Kagami all at once.
“Cast Off!”
Once Gattack entered his Rider Form, he mowed down the Worms with his Double Calibur.
The Lanpyris Worm entered Clock Up and shot out plasma energy balls from its right hand.
Gattack entered Clock Up as well, deflecting the plasma with his Double Calibur before landing his Riding Cutter on the Lanpyris Worm.
“I think I get why you said that the Impure Land would be a fitting place for our battlefield now… You knew just as well as I did that this battle’s pointless… And that’s why you considered this to be the most fitting place for the surviving Native Worms to meet their end…”
The Lanpyris Worm reverted to her form as Misaki to smile for but a split second, and after assuming a position that seemed as if she was welcoming something, she returned to her form as the Lanpyris Worm once again.
Gattack let out a Rider Kick.
Taking the full brunt of the attack, the Lanpyris Worm’s body dispersed in an explosion.
Gattack undid his transformation and returned to his form as Kagami.
“What?!”
Standing there on the opposite shore of the Ganges was Hiyori.
“Hiyori!”
Kagami found himself shouting out.
Hiyori’s eyes stared straight at Kagami.
The River Ganges’s morning glow was red and silent.
Part 12
Kagami once again found himself immobile on a bed in a cheap hotel nearby the Ganges.
He was staring at a pattern on the ceiling.
“How many different roofs of cheap hotels have I seen by now… Why am I such an idiot…!”
A bed damp with sweat, a humid room, and a beat-up electric fan. It was an environment he was all too familiar with, and the words that he was tired of hearing repeated themselves again within his heart.
“What the hell am I doing in a place like this?”
Kagami had been suffering from a fever of unknown origin for three days now.
“I always screw up at the worst moments…”
When he defeated the Native that had mimicked Misaki, he saw Hiyori on the opposite shore and rushed onto the small boat to get to her, but by the time he arrived, she was already nowhere to be seen.
“I made her see something horrible… I wonder what I looked like to her when I defeated those Natives… It’s only natural that she disappeared after seeing something like that…”
Kagami desperately searched for Hiyori that day, but in the end, he was never able to find her again.
Eventually, he fell into exhaustion.
The crowds, the muddy roads, the cow feces, the beggars, the burned corpses, the stench, the burning sun, and so on. Kagami eventually collapsed from a fever of unknown origin.
And no one came to help him.
The city of Varanasi existed right beside death.
“Of course this would happen. This is a place you visit to die…”
On that bed in that cheap hotel, Kagami fell into a slumber that was as deep as the ocean.
He wasn’t sure how long he slept.
Sometimes he would sense the presence of someone nursing him nearby, but he couldn’t tell if it was an illusion or reality as he continued to persist in that mudlike sleep.
“…Welcome home.”
For some reason, Kagami muttered those words in his sleep.
“…I’m home.”
Hiyori, who was nursing him, reciprocated those words.
And Kagami once again fell into slumber with what felt like relief.
During the dim early hours of dawn, Kagami woke up covered in sweat.
But he felt great, having recovered from his fever.
Upon exiting the room, he saw Hiyori gazing at the Ganges river on the terrace.
Kagami went next to her and gazed at the river as well.
The ghats were filled with people as the sun began to rise.
“What did you come here for?”
“I honestly don’t really know myself… I just, really wanted to see you… Even though Tendou told me to go home.”
“Is he here too…?”
“No, I just met him in Bangkok. But I’m sure he’s out there somewhere looking for you.”
“…I still don’t want to see anyone yet.”
“Tendou actually asked me to pass a message to you if I were to ever find you.”
“?”
“He said that on that day when the Shibuya Meteor fell, when he wasn’t able to move underneath the rubble, you were the one who gave him the courage to keep living.”
“The courage to keep living…?”
“Yeah. He was able to keep going because you were by his side…”
“……”
Hiyori was quiet.
“Hey, do you know the words ‘mai pen rai’?”
“……”
“I’m sure you’d know since you went to Thailand.”
“It means something like, ‘don’t worry about it’, or ‘take it easy’, right?”
“Yeah. I’m sure it’s been really hard on you to keep living while knowing that you were born a Native. But mai pen rai. As long as you’re alive, I’ll always be there for you. And I’ll protect this world where you’re alive.”
“…Are you being serious?”
“Dead serious.”
“…Am I really allowed to live?”
“Of course you are!”
“……”
“You being alive brings everyone around you the courage to live! I’m sure of it!”
“You… haven’t changed at all.”
“You can call me obnoxious or overbearing, but that’s just who I am.”
The morning sun finally poked its head out, and its rays of sunshine lit up the river’s surface from between the clouds.
Hiyori didn’t say anything else.
Kagami stayed silent as well.
They simply stood next to each other as they gazed at the Ganges river together.
The next day, Hiyori returned to her journey and disappeared into the dusk.
Kagami decided to stop following her.
But he still felt from the bottom of his heart that it was worth it to have found Hiyori.
And he was thankful that he was able to travel this far.
“Thank you everyone, for supporting me all this way.”
As he mumbled those words, the faces of all kinds of people surfaced in his head.
Tendou, Misaki, Tadokoro, the old lady at Tendou’s house, Nai who deceived me, Nai’s family who I worked at the food stand with, my friends in Bangkok, Rin who treated me to food, and Hiyori who I finally met up with again, with that unsociable but kind face of hers…
“My journey’s finally coming to an end, huh…”
Tears welled up in his eyes.
Even after reaching what he once thought was the ends of the earth, he felt like he had traveled even farther than that.
But he was happy with that.
Kagami looked up at the clear sky and put his feelings into words.
“I’ll go on a journey again someday. And then I’ll meet you at the ends of the earth.”
The sky he looked up at was connected to the world.
And the sky was blue.
An endless blue that stretched out as far as the eye could see…
The End
Kamen Rider Novel Translations 