We stayed in the Okinawa training camp for about 3 months.

If you drove out about 3 or 4 minutes from the headquarters by car, you would reach an island. Then, further off from that island, you could see another island. Though usually you would get to that island by boat, I started wondering if I could try and swim there.

Since I almost drowned as a child, I had always been terrified of the ocean. That didn't mean I didn't swim. At this boarding house, I got the idea that I was going to conquer my fear of the ocean.

I swam halfway there and then swam back. I would do that every day, and then I said, "Today I'm definitely going to swim out there to that island!"

I went out swimming with the keyboardist of my band.

That day, the tides were farther out than usual, and the waves were higher.

When I looked over, he wasn't there anymore. We had gotten separated.

Had he already gone ahead? Did he go back? Did he get here and then turn around?

Floating in the choppy water, I anguished about this for a while, but because I'd promised that I would swim to the island, I once again aimed myself towards it.

I just barely managed to make it to the island. My keyboardist wasn't there. I walked around for a little while looking for him, but I couldn't find him. All the while I was thinking that he must have turned around and gone back earlier, but anxiety flitted through my mind. Was he safe?

I immediately did a U-turn.

The trip back was very intense. The tides were even stronger, and I realized that I would quickly be swept out to the open sea. As I was swimming back, with all my might, I was thrown under by the waves.

"Ah, I'm going to die."

In my own mind, that revolving lantern began to spin. Bits and fragments of memories from my childhood until that moment began to surface one after the other. Along with those fragments, the faces of different adults floated up. Friends, fans who had cheered for me, staff, my family…

"I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for dying like this."

I apologized to everyone. As I fell, I began to lose consciousness…and then, suddenly, the revolving lantern stopped.

"Everything before this…when did it happen?"

As I was conscious of my death, the thought of sex suddenly floated up into my head.

For three months since we had been in Okinawa, I hadn't had any. I was always training and songwriting. I hadn't been connected with a woman.

"Can I really die like this?"

The instinct inside me was whispering.

"If you die, it will be after you've done it."

At that moment, my consciousness became clear, and within a dream, I began to swim. I didn't even know which way was up, but I kept swimming. At the moment that I reached the surface of the ocean, I vomited out all the ocean water that I had drunk. With that, I came to my senses again.

"I have to rescue him!"

Already forgetting that I had just almost drowned, the only thing in my mind was the guy who I had gotten separated from.

I arrived back on the beach, and when I finally got there, the sun was beginning to set. Because we'd started out to the island at noon, I realized that we had been drifting out there for a long time. I was exhausted from using all my strength, but I started running. It was a long way where I was to the point where we first started out.

Finally I reached our starting point, but the keyboardist hadn't returned. I even thought about preparing to send a search boat out for him.

While I was doing all this, he returned by himself. It was about an hour after I landed on the beach.

He hadn't gotten to the island after all, but midway he had made a U-turn and had been pulled under by the waves. No matter how hard he paddled, he couldn't make any progress, seeming to be swimming towards a tanker he had seen from far away. He drifted to shore about three kilometers near it, and walking back had cost him time.

Anyway, we were both glad we were safe. We were told by the other members things like, "That was stupid," "At any rate, you came back," and "Don't be so reckless!"

That night, as the two of us were reflecting on what had happened, we watched "Titanic."

The scene in which DiCaprio sank into the icy ocean coincided perfectly with what had happened to me.

In that instant for the first time, I felt true fear. From the next day on, I wouldn't go near the ocean, and I discontinued my swimming training. Though I had believed I would conquer the ocean, now I was even more afraid of it. It was a mess.

That time, I thought, "I can't die before I have sex again." If I had had sex the day before, then as I was seeing the revolving lantern at the last moment, I would have died.

However, even as I thought "I'll probably die," my body responded, "Damn it, I can't die like this! I can't die without leaving any descendents!" And at the last minute, I switched.

For the first time, I understood the reason that often, a boxer will abstain from sex the night before a match.

That was the last time I ever saw the revolving lantern. It's been 3 or 4 years since then. In order to recognize my own limits, thinking about when I pushed myself to the brink of death and saw the revolving lantern, I changed myself.

When I was a child, I thought I wanted to become a terrorist. I was going to completely destroy human life. I wanted to erase everything. People were the guns of the world. They were the most useless thing on the face of the earth.

If you ask me today if I have changed my mind, I didn't change it because of what happened. If the existence of humans makes them into the guns of the world, even now, I still believe a part of that.

However, is that all?

Denying that would be easy. Thinking about it, denying it, becoming nothing. It doesn't take a great effort to do that. There would be no meaning in living. Certainly, humans may be the guns of the world. If that's true, in order to become something else, won't we have to struggle harder? Not only thinking about it, acting it out, experiencing it, we begin to see the things that are wrong. Isn't that the meaning of being born on this earth?

Believing that, that is the kind of person I am now.

When I wanted to become a terrorist, I was struggling. In the Okinawa ocean, I switched my view on life. Still, I have to continue to struggle. I can't just sink. I have to keep on floating.

When I was floating on my own, then I thought of my friends. There was a time too when I was hungering for friendship. I felt inferior, and it was a time when I didn't trust in anyone or anything. However, I still struggled during that time, fighting with loneliness and myself.

After returning to Tokyo, I met with the most trusted person on my staff, who was like my right arm. I talked with him and told him this:

At first when I returned from Okinawa, I was like broken, fragile glass. It was almost as if I was afraid even to speak. I was always in a frenzy. It so bad that it was like I projected an aura of "if you touch me, I will kill you."

Though it was just me alone, I was fighting till the end. I was full of spirit and energy.

That spirit inspired the staff member I was talking to.

"If it's him, isn't he doing something for me? If it's me, then isn't there something that I can do for him?" he started to think.

Because of my struggle, I made a friend. Now, he is the most important member of my family.

Little by little, I started to change the people around me. Maybe on that day, I took another step across what it means to be human.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES
You'd think that Gackt would learn after the FIRST time that swimming and Gackt don't go together. >.> Then again, who knows: third time might be the charm, if he ever decides to try it again. Maybe he should go swimming somewhere other than Okinawa - that spot seems to be cursed for him.

I'd also like to say that I'm glad Gackt decided that being a terrorist was a bad idea.

This chapter was a pain, because it wasn't even all that hard but it took me three days because I'd do a page and then get tired and decide to save the rest for later. I'm not sure why. It was pretty easy reading when I read it without trying to translate to English, but once I tried to switch between languages, it killed my brain.

I think I'll do the Okinawa boarding house chapter next. It sounds fun.

And if anyone doesn't have the above mix of Laruku's Kasou that I'm listening to in "current music," you should get it. I hate remixes as a rule, but this one is just awesome.

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