Yamago-sensei tightened his grip on the handle mounted on the bus’ ceiling. “Here it is, everybody,” he said. “Fire Valley Gorge! You’ll see it on your left.” With his other, free hand, the junior high school teacher pointed out the window.

From where he sat further back in the bus, the sound of the words “Fire Valley Gorge” made Himichi Kosuke look up from what he was drawing on the tablet computer in his lap.

Wow…

The boy’s jaw went slack.

It really did look like fire.

Autumn blazed across the gorge’s jagged slopes in the swaying leaves of maples and ginkgo. The leaves painted crags in blood-red and gold. Stiff cedars poked up here and there, proud and green. It was early evening on Fire Valley Gorge, and this far into the wilderness, light pollution at all, so there was nothing to compete with the stars as they bedazzled the twilight sky. It was a grand view, and, in a matter of minutes, it would get even grander.

The bridge was just up ahead.

Yamago-sensei continued his explanation. “The truss arch bridge looks wonderful this time of year. Yes, we’ll be talking more about it on tomorrow’s visit to the Ediyaki Museum of Architecture, but there’s still nothing quite like seeing it for yourself.”

The Fire Valley Bridge was a sleek, grand arch that straddled the gorge, seemingly woven from slender metallic tubes that threaded earth and sky.

“The bridge’s red paint was chosen to match the maple leaves in autumn,” Yamago-sensei said. “There was actually talk back in the day of painting it gold, like these branching ginkgo trees, but eventually the red was chosen, as it was more auspicious.”

A familiar elbow nudged Kosuke from his left.

“You know, if you squint,” Hajime said, “the bridge kinda looks like a red string.” He grinned. “You got any girls in mind, Kosuke?”

Across the aisle, one of the girls groaned. “Is there ever a time you aren’t thinking about getting into someone’s pants, Hajime?”

Hajime turned to look. “What?” He smirked. “You interested in the Haj?” he said, pointing his fingers at his chest.

Aimi blushed bright red. Her gaze locked onto the aisle floor and stayed there.

For as long as he could remember, Kosuke had been friends with Hajime, to the point that they were in each other’s earliest memories. Hajime liked to say it was their moms’ fault; their mothers had been college roommates, and, even now, they continued to work—currently, as software engineers for Monimega—much to the chagrin of Kosuke and Hajime’s dads. As the story went, apparently, they became friends when Kosuke’s mother—Setsuna—had helped Hajime’s mom get her purse after it had fallen onto the subway tracks. To this day, mother went on and on about how she’d have gotten herself killed if the more limber Setsuna hadn’t been there to give her a hand.

The two boys had taken to one another just as well as their moms had, so much so that strangers were often surprised to learn they weren’t brothers. Part of the reason for this, Kosuke figured, was because they fit the stereotype of what a pair of brothers should be: they were perfect complements for one another. Hajime was short and stout, while Kosuke was tall and lithe. Kosuke screwed up long division on a regular basis; Hajime kept asking Kosuke for help with remembering his kanji. Kosuke was quiet, while Hajime was loud; Kosuke worked by feeling; Hajime, by logic. Hajime liked first-person shooters; Kosuke liked RPGs. Kosuke liked walks and rock climbing; Hajime liked kendo and tennis.

“Between you and me,” as Hajime liked to say, “we cover all the bases.”

So, when Yamago-sensei was assigning students seats for the day-long bus ride to Ediyaki, there was no doubt as to where he’d put the dynamic duo.

The road had been winding along the cliffside for several kilometers, and though the view had been spectacular all the way through, Fire Valley Gorge still managed to impress. Beyond the highway’s guardrail, the gorge plunged down to a narrow, stony riverbed. Had it been Spring or Summer, the river would have been broad and murky, but now, with Winter around the corner, the river had shrunk to a trickle. But once Winter came and went, the snowmelt would rush down the mountains and fill the gorge’s pebbly channels anew.

The teacher continued his lecture. “There, right above the bridge; that’s the Clawpeak.”

The mountain was unforgettable. Standing a head taller than all the others on its range, it really did look for all the world like a gigantic beast’s claw extruding from the earth. Erosion had done little There was barely any erosion on it, except for striations on its side and, of course, where the pointed tip had broken off.

“Legends tell that these mountains are the Fire Orochi’s burial ground,” Yamago-sensei said. “According to tradition, the Great Wheat God sealed the fire-spitting dragon beneath the earth; the volcanoes, hot springs, and earthquakes are said to be the Fire Orochi stirring in the depths.”

A hand shot up near the back of the bus.

“Yes, Osamu?” Yamago-sensei pursed his lips in concern.

Osamu pushed his glasses up along the bridge of his nose. The setting sun caught the lenses, making them into shining disks. The brightness contrasted starkly with the boy’s pitch-black, bowl-cut hair. “Actually,” Osamu said, “among contemporary geologists, the current consensus is that the Clawpeak is the remnant of a volcanic plug.”

Yamago-sensei barely suppressed his groan. “Thank you, Osamu…”

Kosuke knew for a fact that Yamago-sensei thought that conclusion was balderdash, and that the truth was far wilder than anyone might have imagined. His teacher was never one to pass up a good story.

Hajime whispered into Kosuke’s ear. “Do you think Osamu’s going to be like this the whole trip?”

“It’s what he’s usually like, so, yeah,” Kosuke nodded, “of course.”

Kosuke knew in advance that this field trip was going to be the longest uninterrupted stretch of time he’d spent with his classmates to date, so he’d been expecting to receive a triple dose of their usual quirks.

Kosuke had been in the same classes as Ishioka Osamu since elementary school. He got perfect scores on everything, and was already taking classes at Noyoko University. According to legend, Osamu knew all the kanji—and Kosuke was inclined to believe it.

“Ow!” Aimi snapped. “Watch it, Moriko!”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Kosuke saw Aimi duck down as Moriko waved a smartphone over her seat-mate’s head.

“I’m trying to get the wi-fi signal, Aimi,” she said. “It’s not my fault the reception out here fucking sucks.”

“Moriko, language…” Yamago-sensei chided.

She groaned. “Sorry, Yamago-sensei.”

Moriko was the president of the computer science club; in fact, she was one third of the computer science club. She probably had more electronics stuffed into that backpack of hers than everyone else in Class 23 combined; that, and chewing gum. Strips of her hair were dyed blue. Kosuke thought it made a good match for her green beret. The girl sitting next to her, Aimi, was the class’ drama queen, as well as Hajime’s on-again off-again girlfriend; Hajime loved how much of a tsundere she was, and was probably the only person in the class who felt that way.

One of Kosuke’s life-goals was to get his best friend to stop using animanga terminology in real life. He seriously doubted it would ever come to fruition, but that didn’t stop him from trying.

“Could you please keep it down?” Hiro groaned, “I’m trying to sleep. I was up late last night.”

“You are always trying to sleep, Hiro,” Osamu said.

“Well, I stay up late a lot. Not everyone gets their homework done as quickly as you do, Osamu.”

The ride had been like this since they’d boarded the bus in the morning, and would probably continue throughout their four-day field trip to Ediyaki. Though Noyoko-Tensoka Junior High School offered several multi-day field trip experiences for its student body, everyone agreed that the Ediyaki trip was the best of them all, so much so that rumors of its wonders percolated down through the grade levels, all the way to elementary school. Kosuke had been dying to go on it for years, and—finally—the dream was coming to pass.

Sure, Noyoko had its fair share of old architecture—especially the world-famous Tokuwatsu Palace—much of the smaller scale stuff had been lost to earthquakes and time. The same could not be said of Ediyaki. From the Sado clan’s ancient hot-spring temple to Daiist holy sites like the Sunken Way or the Waterfall of Awakening and the old houses clustered on dirt-paved streets, the whole city—if not the whole Prefecture—was like one big museum; a time capsule, just waiting to be explored. If they had time, they’d even get to see—and taste!—hand-harvested sea salt from Ediyaki’s centuries-old salt-farms. The city and its people were just like the salt: no matter how much history raked its maguwa over them, they never went away. Also, Monimega had its headquarters in Ediyaki. The importance of that fact could not be overemphasized.

Having gotten his fill of the scenery, Kosuke returned to the drawing he was making on his tablet.

I can use the landscape for my next sketch.

Kosuke liked drawing; probably even like liked. Sure, as an infant, he’d grabbed the coin instead of the paintbrush—much to his father’s delight—but fate had other plans, allotting him an innate skill with drawing at the expense of any mathematical finesse. The unending enmity shown to Kosuke by the multiplication table had dashed his father’s dreams of him being a well-to-do salaryman accountant. To add insult to injury—not that Kosuke was ever going to let his father hear it—Kosuke wasn’t even sure if he would ever try to make a career out of it. He was thinking about possibly going into teaching.

Yamago-sensei certainly enjoys it.

Even if it wasn’t going to be a career, that didn’t stop Kosuke from enjoying drawing for its own sake.

Kosuke regularly drew things, often highly imaginative things. Importantly every once in a while—such as when on a day-long bus ride—Kosuke would draw a kaiju, out of sheer impulse. Maybe it was because he’d been obsessed with kaiju ever since he was little. If his Dad was to be believed, his parents had been forced to subscribe to the Noei studios streaming service just so toddler-Kosuke could satisfy his obsession with watching Dorago over and over again. Or, maybe it was just because he thought they were cool.

Or both. It could be both, he thought.

Today’s kaiju was a cross between several different creatures which Kosuke had picked more or less at random. Its main feature was a big, bulky tortoise shell, adorned in wicked spikes that matched the ones at the tip of its thick tail. Its body was covered in a mix of long, fibrous golden fur—golden like the ginkgo leaves—and tough, dully cyan scales, thickening to bony scutes on its chest and belly. Most of the fur was dorsally located—on the back of the tail, between the head and the clavicle, on the outer part of the upper arms, and backs of the lower legs. The scales covered everything else, save for a feathery, blood-red mane on the top of its head and the back of its neck. Along with its fearsome claws, Kosuke had topped off the kaiju’s wolf-lizard head with two spiraling horns, like ox’s, only pointing forward. The drawing showed the monster being shot at by hovering aerostats as it climbed up the Tokuwatsu Palace. The beast swat away its attackers with its claws.

Leaning forward, Hajime stared down at the tablet in Kosuke’s lap, stretching his blue blazer a bit more than the school uniform was designed to handle in the process. “Wow! That’s gotta be your best one yet!”

“Eh… it’s okay,” Kosuke replied. “I think I could have done a better job with the feathers, and I kinda cheated by tracing the palace from a stock photo online.”

“Dude, though, yeah, there are a lot of things on the list of things that are just ‘okay’—your math skills, my writing skills, Moriko’s social skills—“

“—Hey!” Moriko quipped, drawing Hajime’s attention.

“He’s kind of right, you know,” Aimi said.

Hajime turned back to face Kosuke. “Those things are just ‘okay’.” He tapped Kosuke’s tablet. “But this?” Hajime shook his head. “This is not one of them. It’s a fricken masterpiece, Kosuke. You gotta believe in yourself more, Kosuke. I’m gonna say it again: you should start making a manga. It’d be great!”

“Believing in myself won’t get others to believe in me,” Kosuke said, with a sigh. “And I couldn’t make manga. I wouldn’t have anything interesting to write about.”

“Yamago-sensei,” Hana asked, “when are we going to stop to eat?”

“Soon, Hana. Soon.”

Hana was the biggest, tallest, strongest person in class. Despite that, she was rather soft-spoken. She kept her hair done in a long braid.

“You said that an hour ago,”Hana replied. “Eating late is gonna mess up my work-out routine.”

“Hana, you’ll get plenty of exercise walking around the—”

—Out of nowhere, Kosuke heard something unlike anything he’d ever heard before:

…mwirrmwirrmwirrmwirrmwirrmwirrmwirrmwirrmwirrmwirrmwirr…

It was deep and atonal, like a chant, only one sung by voices that were not voices. It started softly and grew louder, agonizingly loud. Kosuke closed his eyes and plastered his hands on his ears, but still the sound rose, rattling his bones and crawling through his skin, unbound by nature’s laws. It reached a fever pitch.

Kosuke gasped. His body spasmed. His tablet fell out of his hands and onto the floor.

I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe!

He felt like he was drowning.

“Kosuke, what’s wrong?!” Hajime shouted.

Kosuke yelled for help, but the sound wouldn’t come.

Yamago-sensei came over to the seat as quickly as he could, but by the time the teacher arrived, the sound had died back down seconds later.

“What’s wrong with Kosuke!?” Aimi asked.

Kosuke’s heart raced in his chest. His breaths were hot and heavy.

“I… I…”

“Can you breathe?” Yamago-sensei asked, leaning over the seat.

Clenching his fists, Kosuke blinked in confusion. Slowly, his breaths calmed.

“I…” gulping, he nodded. “Yeah, I can.”

“What happened?” Hajime asked.

Kosuke stared at the two of them, jaw agape. “You… you’re telling me you didn’t hear that?”

“Didn’t hear what?” Yamago-sensei stood up tall in the aisle.

Then, something spoke. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. It spoke without words: a deep, resonant growl, impossibly loud. Everyone screamed.

The earth shook.

And then everything broke. So much happened. Too much.

Trees shivered. Birds took wing. The Fire Valley Bridge jiggled like a jump rope. The road rollicked beneath their seats. With a shriek of skidding wheels on the asphalt, the bus veered to the left, slamming into the highway’s guard rail. Force plastered Hajime onto Kosuke, and Kosuke onto the window seat wall, ripping his tablet out from his lap. Yamago-sensei fell.

He hadn’t been holding a handle.

Metal crunched and snapped as the guard rail gave way, and then groaned as the bus careened off the cliff and plunged into the gorge. The world spun. Everyone screamed. Rock based against metal. Red, brown, green and gold whirled past the windows as the bus tumbled and rolled. Jagged slopes shattered windows. Kosuke’s seatbelt tore into him, rasping against his chest as gravity flung him with its jaws.

A tree loomed large on the windshield at the front of the bus like the nose of a golden rocket. Then, with a hideous crunch, everything stopped.