L'élève transféré du pays des colosses

Prologue: The Train Passes the Behemoth's Ankle

When the train crossed the bridge, Eiji Kanzaki fell asleep.

When he opened his eyes again, what lay beyond the window was not a river. It was a foot. The toenail was wider than the platform, and lodged in the grime was a bus whose lights were still on.

The announcement came in a perfectly calm voice: "Next stop, Anklebone West. Passengers bound for the Beast's Spine, please transfer to the cloud ladder."

Eiji looked at his commuter pass. The pass was still there. The world had already finished renaming the stations.

Chapter One: The Transfer Student Has No Enrollment Record

The transfer paperwork was handled at a school built upon the Beast's Spine. The registrar looked at his student ID and frowned. "We discontinued this enrollment system a hundred and twenty years ago."

"I only arrived today."

"Then you are a transfer student." The teacher stamped an enormous seal. "The Nation of Behemoths welcomes you. Please do not lure the young beasts away during class. They will treat the classrooms as toys."

Outside the window, an eye passed behind the clouds, and the pupil reflected the entire city. For the first time, Eiji understood what it meant for population density to be written on someone else's retina.

Chapter Two: The Blade Inside the Umbrella

The folding umbrella was the only piece of luggage he had brought from home. When it rained he opened it out of habit, and with a click a length of silver blade slid out along the ribs, cutting the rain and a young beast that had leaned in at the same time—the rain split in two, and the young beast was only startled back, a shallow cut left on the tip of its nose.

"You carry a blade." The spear-girl Roki dropped from the roof and set her spearpoint against his umbrella handle. "Carrying a blade without a permit means the special training camp."

"This is an umbrella."

"Here, anything that can cut rain is a blade." Roki looked him in the eyes. "Come with me. The instructor likes new transfer students the way he likes new shields."

Chapter Three: Roki's Special Training

The special training camp stood in the shadow of the behemoth's shoulder blade. The instructor was built like a bear, but he spoke slowly. "World Directive One: stay alive. Two: keep the person beside you alive. Three: an umbrella can also be a sword."

Eiji was thrown onto the mat sixteen times. On the seventeenth he snapped the umbrella open, and the blade stopped Roki's spear. Sparks fell onto the skin of the shoulder blade, and the behemoth, itchy, gave the city a gentle shake.

In the distance, buildings rearranged themselves like building blocks. Roki drew her spear back and, for the first time, smiled. "Transfer student, your enrollment record will probably stay."

Eiji lay on the mat and looked at the sky. The sky was the beast's wrinkles. Suddenly he wanted very much to send a message to his old world: the train is late, and there is no last stop.

Chapter One: The Station Crushed Underfoot

The day the station was crushed, the cloud ladders fell like rain.

Eiji held the umbrella blade level in front of the crowd, and Roki's spear drew a safety line higher up. The instructor braced the behemoth's toe with his shoulder, as if reasoning with a mountain.

"New streets will grow out of the footprint," someone shouted.

Sure enough, concrete and green grass spread again along the gaps between the toes, and the street vendors began hawking their wares before the mud had dried. Watching all of it, Eiji suddenly understood why this country had survived until now—they treated disaster as urban renewal.

Chapter Two: The New Street

The new street was named after Eiji. He refused, and in the end it was called Umbrella Lane.

Roki pinned a special-training-camp badge to his umbrella handle. "The transfer student is official now. Next time the young beasts come, you take the front row."

Eiji nodded. The commuter pass in his pocket turned transparent, as if it had finished its work as a relic.

The train still stopped at Anklebone West. The announcement was as calm as ever: "Passengers bound for the Beast's Spine, please hold tight to your courage."