As night fell, the tide came rising in.
That white fog, churning as if it were a living thing, would come rolling in from the far reaches of the sea, gradually spreading and shrouding the surface of the water, swallowing every living creature and every vessel of the open ocean.
And yet it kept itself starkly, unmistakably apart from the land.
This seemed to have already become a piece of common knowledge that everyone in this world understood.
Only the shallow seas near the cities, partitioned off by great bridges, were exempt.
Just like... the bay into which Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi had fallen—pressed up close against the city, and under the protective radiance of Saint Michael, that was the only place where that eerie, bone-chilling white fog, with its sense of horrifying distortion, would not come churning up.
From the time they were little, Su Yuzu and Soga Yura had listened to their sister Iori tell them that monsters lurked within that white sea fog.
Once, there had been a girl about their own age who, out of curiosity, had waded into the white fog of the shallows.
The next day... all anyone found were the girl's shoes, washed back onto the shore by the tide.
No bloodstains.
No drag marks.
It was as if the girl had simply vanished from the world.
Stories like that were passed around among the common folk.
But tonight, the wind was clear and the moon was bright.
The luminous moonlight spilled across the black surface of the sea, raising glittering ripples of light—not exactly something one could call magnificent or beautiful, even... a touch sinister.
And yet there was not the faintest trace of white fog to be seen.
It was simply abnormal.
Even at the Harbor nearest to the Tokyo metropolitan area, the surface of the sea at night would churn up a thick, heavy white fog.
That fog was saturated with the breath of Catastrophe, churning as though it were alive.
It was like a dim, hazy octopus concealed within the mist, slowly stretching its tentacles out toward the living creatures upon the land.
On occasion, when the wind was light and the clouds thin, and the sea was somewhat calmer, no white fog could be seen in the near waters.
But even then, one could still make out, at the very limit of one's distant vision, the white fog churning along the horizon of the sea.
Not like it was now——
Beneath the veil of night the bay's tide surged turbulently, yet there was not the slightest wisp of mist.
It was as though... it had all been devoured by something.
"Actually, half a month ago, the fishermen living nearby had already noticed the anomaly here."
Tsukiyomi Fuya explained to the girls.
"They reported it to the local Investigation Bureau, but those good-for-nothing wine-sacks and rice-bags couldn't have cared less."
"It wasn't until we were about to come and investigate that the fishermen's reports were finally passed into our hands."
"Fishermen?" Su Yuzu found it hard to imagine that, in a world like this, there could still be such a profession as fisherman.
At night one had to return to port; it was forbidden to remain anchored out on the sea, otherwise it meant mortal peril—it was utterly impossible to go fishing in the deep sea.
Even by day.
Accidents could befall you while you were out fishing.
Those monsters hidden beneath the seawater... those Aberrants that had fallen into the Abyss—to fishermen who had no abilities to speak of, they were practically creatures out of myth.
In the presence of those Aberrants or Catastrophe Beasts, the fishermen were no more than food in a can floating on the sea... bits of food with hardly any ability to struggle.
One needed only to tap the can lightly... to give it a shake.
And one could reap a canful, brimming over, of terror.
To an Aberrant or a Catastrophe Beast, that was the finest of fodder.
But... Su Yuzu then immediately thought that, no matter how harsh the environment, in order to survive... in order to keep the pot boiling at home, there would always be someone willing to go out to sea.
"They wanted to ask the Investigation Bureau."
"If there's no white fog over the sea... whether they could work at night."
"That's far too dangerous." The little rabbit couldn't help but cry out in alarm.
"As a matter of fact, some of them have already done so." Tsukiyomi Fuya's experience of the world was clearly far greater than that of the pampered little rabbit, who had been coddled since she was small.
There would always be those on the very brink of being unable to go on living... there would always be those who chose to take the desperate risk.
"Then what about them..." The little rabbit was very worried.
Tsukiyomi Fuya gently patted the little rabbit's head, the way one would soothe a child.
She was very curious about that strand of ahoge atop the little rabbit's head, the one that seemed almost to be alive.
"They didn't meet with any accident."
"The catch they hauled in at night was even more plentiful."
"And so more people came to take the desperate risk."
"But before long, the people of the Investigation Bureau put a stop to them, and sealed off the surface of the sea."
"Then their livelihoods..." Sakura Mai was very worried.
"The subsidies funded by the academy have mostly been put in place; their livelihoods are nothing to worry about for the time being." Tsukiyomi Fuya gazed out over the sea, surging with the sound of the tide.
"Those fishermen don't understand the sea's anomaly."
"But we ought to."
"After learning that the fishermen came back safe and sound from their night fishing, the Investigation Bureau also dispatched a ship to investigate the open sea."
"And then... it never came back."
"There's something in the sea."
Tsukiyomi Fuya suddenly gave a smile, her expression turning very grim.
Honestly... I suppose I ought to say——
It would be the strange thing if there were nothing in the sea, wouldn't it.
"It was as though that ship simply vanished out on the sea. The last message they transmitted back was..."
"Mermaid——"
"There are monsters in the sea like mermaids."
Hearing Tsukiyomi Fuya's words, Su Yuzu suddenly turned her head, and sure enough, Soga Yura, perfectly in sync with her, was looking over at Su Yuzu as well.
Tsukiyomi Fuya noticed the Interact between the girls. "What is it?"
Su Yuzu glanced at Tsukiyomi Fuya, then glanced at Soga Yura, and then handed over the right to speak entirely to Soga Yura.
"Actually..." Soga Yura wrestled with how to phrase it.
"When Yuzu and I were little... we once ran into... a 'Mermaid.'"
"What!?" Tsukiyomi Fuya was stunned for a moment.
"She was swimming within the white fog."
"And what's more... although she looked like a woman who was half-human, half-fish, in reality she was enormously tall."
Soga Yura recalled the scene of that woman snatching her up in the palm of her hand in a single grab, just as one would snatch up a doll.
Her expression turned very grim.
That counted as one of the few scenes Soga Yura did not wish to recall.
Even granting that her own self back then was still a little loli.
Still, that monster... was at the very least two stories tall.
And if you factored in that exaggerated fish-tail, like some great blue fish, her build was longer still.
"And besides..."
"She was not an Aberrant."
"She was a 'Beast.'"
"A 'Beast' with a near-human appearance... that could speak the language of humans."
"What!???" Tsukiyomi Fuya stood right up, her expression far more aghast than Soga Yura had imagined.
"Little Yura is saying... 'she' could speak?"
"Yes..." Soga Yura had not yet realized why Tsukiyomi Fuya would be so aghast, agitated, and flustered.
"Teacher Tsukiyomi...?" she asked tentatively. "Is there some problem?"
"There's a problem——"
"Of course there's a problem." Tsukiyomi Fuya paced back and forth.
"Language is important!" Tsukiyomi explained to the girls. "The formation of linguistic capability has two foundational prerequisites."
"One is a vocal apparatus capable of producing specific syllables."
"The other... is a brain capable of processing complex information."
"At the same time, language also represents creativity and the capacity for accumulation—and that is its most terrifying aspect of all."
"Are you certain?" Tsukiyomi Fuya, her expression agitated, gripped Soga Yura by the shoulders. "That 'Beast'... could speak?"
"Yes." Soga Yura nodded with the utmost certainty, and at last she realized the true reason for Tsukiyomi Fuya's agitation and panic.
Because... that meant...
What humanity faced was not merely a kind of powerful lifeform that fed upon human despair and eroded the world.
What humanity faced... might... be a civilization, a nation.
That sort of possibility.
It was far more terrifying than the anthill-like structure that, as far as humanity knew, existed among the Aberrants.
[Eternal Night draws near——]
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