seven the youth (ultraseven for adults) #41 battle underwater

#41 battle underwater

HATAORI Kazuo was told to come to a farewell party for a co-worker.
But he could not decide whether he would go or not,
so he had not answer yet.

The co-worker was a woman he had loved
before depression made him take a leave of absence from work.
And she had loved him, which meant they had loved each other.

She was a P.E. taecher named Reiko,
nine years younger than Kazuo.

Kazuo, Reiko, and Keigo, a new graduate,
met first at the same year, at the same workplace.

One day at a drink party, the trio got along very well.
They would often go to amusing parks or hot spring facilities.

A few years ago, Keigo got married
and gave a wedding party in his hometown, Tsu-city, Mie.
Then, Kazuo and Reiko spend drinking together until the next morning,
and as a result, they started dating.

After a while, Keigo returned to his hometown,
and Reiko moved to another workplace.
They could not meet as frequently as ever,
but they continued dating.

Kazuo sometimes thought when he will propose to Reiko.
He felt happy just to imagine about their future.

But he had depression because of his work and parents,
which more and more often prevented them from meeting.
Reiko was so worried about Kazuo, and often called him.
Nevertheless, he had been unable to answer her call.
Once, she told him to have him see and talk with her,
but he did not answer it.
She stopped calling him some day,
and at last he got a good-bye mail from her.

Reiko felt greatly lonely as she could not see Kazuo.
But he was full of things about himself.
He knew she felt lonely, but he could not do anything.

One day while he was leaving work, he got a mail from Reiko.
She said she would resign and go to Numadzu, Shizuoka.
Kazuo got surprised to hear from her,
because she would not quit working, he knew,
even if anything should happen to her.
It meant that she would get married with somebody he did not know,
which hurt his heart so seriously.

Kazuo was lost until the last minute,
but he decided to attend the party.

Accidentally, the bar was where they had drunk together for the first time.
There were about ten people meeting at the party in Tachikawa.

Reiko

Kazuo was the second youngest among them,
so they forced him to be a interviewer to her.
Nobody knew Reiko and Kazuo had once love each other.
He saw her for the first time in one year and a half.
Reiko looks so beautiful probably because she would get married soon.
His eyes sometimes met hers, but he just realized her strong decision.

Her right wrist wore a watch,
which he had given her as a birthday present.
Seeing it broke his heart more severely.

At the end of party, the time had come
when they should a message to Reiko one by one.
He forced his words from his lips,

"Thank you very much for happy memories.
Have a happy wedding."

Kazuo felt deadly lonely, but smiled in his face.
He almost got crazy.

At the good-bye station, she went though the gate,
turned around, and waving her hand quick and wide,
as if he would be able to see her the next day.

When he was left alone on the platform,
Kazuo got more and more worried about his future.
So worried that he felt the urge to dive into the railroad.
Kazuo stood at the edge of platform, looking down.
Then, there was a small pool, kind of rainwater on the track,
where reflected himself, and his reflection looked up.

(To dive, I'd like at Ogikubo Station.)

That was because Ogikubo was full of his happy memories.

(It's Friday.  He might well be singing there.)

Kazuo got in the crowded train,
as if he entered his parents' house. 

His desire to die clearly became stronger and atronger.
But he had repeatedly put it off because of regret and fear.
On his way to the goal, he was letting his idea come and go.
The other day, a friend of his said he was deadly happy.
He could not at all understand what it meant,
and it was a world Kazuo could not even imagine.

(Why have a lot of difficulties fallen upon me one after another?
I cannot but think the unhappiness as a penalty for every evil of mine.
As if God told me not to live any more.)

Kazuo arrived at Ogikubo Station,
went upstais in the direction to Kichijoji,
and found the young man singing to the guitar
He was singing his original song 'LIFE,'
which Kazuo had once heard several times.
Now the song did not move him in the least.

Talked to MOROBOSHI,
MOROBOSHI was always noisy and persistent.
So, Kazuo looked at him from a distance.
As usual, not a single passenger was listening to him.
Kazuo found himself standing at the edge of platform,
when he looked down at the small pool on the track.

underwater

In the pool, another Kazuo, reflected in the pool,
looked up at real Kazuo

"You must NOT live any longer."

It did not matter which Kazuo had said so.
The moment, another Kazuo got out of the pool,
and held real Kazuo by the right arm.
Kazuo was falling into the track, 
when the train bound for Takao was coming in.

"Sen-sei!"

Running after Kazuo, MOROBOSHI cried,
but his voice was drowned out by the train horn.

Soon the platform get crowded with onlookers and station staff,
but they could not find his body anywhere around the track, 
only to see the smaller waterpool there than a few minutes before.

(Exactly, he fell onto the track, but he disappeared.)

MOROBOSHI was running to Kazuo's condominium.

(Something is staring at me.)

He found the eyes staring from the pool after rain, 
and the eyes moved from one pool to another.

Suddenly, from the large water surface,
DAYCROSS-RAZOR, a monster controlled by alien TEPETO,
rose up, spinning its body at a high speed.
On its head was a kind of saucer like KAPPA,
with a lot of blades like a saw around it.
It was turning on one foot like a top,
seemingly using water stream as energy in the saucer.
It had no eyes, no nose, or no mouth,
but wore Kazuo's clothes.

(It's Kazuo sen-sei.)

His colossally accumulated negative energy was being controlled,
which had neither will nor meaning to live.

MOROBOSHI picked up a stone and overthrew it at the top of head.
The stone broke the saucer, which slowed down the spining body.
When its rotation stopped, the monster turned to real Kazuo.

Looking into the pool,
MOROBOSHI caught sight of the spaceship sailing away.
Putting on red glasses,
he dived into the small pool.

He was able to be underwater just about ten minutes.
The pool began to close, and the entrance became smaller and smaller.
And another DAYCROSS-RAZOR was shot from the spaceship.
Underwater, energy of water stream was unlimited,
so, this time, it was spinning more powerfully.
In contrast, MOROBOSHI's motion got slower, of course.
Speed and the power of EYE SLUGGER declined,
and ULTRA BEAM reflacted or diffused in the water in a distance.

The monster changed Its foot, which had been a pivot on the ground,
into a spinning sharp drill, and approached MOROBOSHI.

Scarcely had the monster hit him when it ripped to shreds
He just held the knife of light, EYE SLUGGER, in his hands,
the edge of which caught the drill tip of monster.
So, its own force had torn itself into pieces.

The alien's spaceship tried to escape from underwater,
when he spinned himself,
sidethrowing the knife with all his strength.
The next moment, the alien TEPETO's ship was drowned at sea.

And his time limit underwater was drawing near,
so, anyway, he ruched into the nearest water gate.
When he got out of the gate,
he found himself at the public bath several meters from Ome-kaido.
No customers were in the large dark bath room, late at night.

Kazuo, unconscious, was lying on the narrow back street,
and MOROBOSHI took him to his room and laid him on the bed.

After some minutes, he woke up to feel much pain
in his head, especially vertex., the top of head.

"Why am I here?  Certainly, I fell on the track."

"Sen-sei, you were almost run over, do you remember?"

"You saved me again.  You always save me."

"I don't know what happened to you, but you need a good rest today.
And an email seems have come to you, I heard.  Bye now, sen-sei."

MOROBOSHI got out of the door.
Water track followed him 
because he had got soaked into the skin underwater.

Kazuo read the email, covering the top of head with his hand.

     Dear Kaz,

     Thank you for the party last night.

     I am relieved to see you,
     because you looked better than I thought.

     I give you some advice.
     You are so serious that you will work too much.
     When you return to work again,
     you must not feel pressed.

     Life is not short, but still long.
     Nothing else is so important as your life.
     When you have difficulty,
     you must get irresponsible, sometimes.

     I am sorry if you feel I am arrogant.
     I always hope you will do well.

Before he had finished reading,
his eyes got filled with so many teardrops
that they could not see who the sender is.

pool after rain

#41 the end