Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume SS1 - Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Special Division Secret Base / Morning / Sunny

“Hisashige Kakeba isn’t the one who killed him?” I asked, leaning over the conference table despite myself.

“It’s extremely unfortunate, but that is what the evidence suggests,” Sakaguchi replied while adjusting the round-framed glasses on the bridge of his nose.

I had taken the elevator in Skif down to the underground special-operations room. On one of the white walls was a massive monitor displaying a variety of information.

“We reopened the investigation into Kubo’s murder after Detective Ayatsuji’s disappearance,” Sakaguchi told me, flipping through the documents in his hands. “And we discovered a small issue regarding Kakeba’s traffic accident.”

Kakeba, the man Detective Ayatsuji identified as Kubo’s murderer, was a college professor killed by the detective’s skill. I heard that Kakeba had been transported to the hospital after getting into a traffic accident and was pronounced dead three hours later…

“This was something we learned after getting statements from the ambulance crew who took him to the hospital, but there was a discrepancy between the time of the accident according to the police and the actual time of the accident,” Sakaguchi explained. “The ambulance transporting Kakeba was turned away from the first hospital they took him to.”

“He was turned away?”

“The emergency room was full, so the ambulance had no choice but to bring him to a central hospital ten miles away.” Sakaguchi pointed at a map. “Kakeba died soon after arriving. When the Division conducted a detailed investigation, we learned that the first hospital had turned away a number of patients and came to the conclusion that this wasn’t done intentionally.”

After processing this information, I asked, “But…what does this have to do with Detective Ayatsuji? It doesn’t seem particularly relevant.”

“The ambulance took around thirty minutes to reach the second hospital ten miles away, meaning that Kakeba got into that traffic accident around the same time that Kubo’s sports car drove onto that ship.”

“What…?!”

So…Kubo was still alive when Kakeba died?

“But Detective Ayatsuji’s skill…”

I desperately tried to piece everything together. Detective Ayatsuji’s skill killed Kakeba because he was the criminal who’d murdered Kubo. But Kakeba died in a car accident while Kubo was still alive. In other words…

“There’s only one logical explanation,” Sakaguchi declared. “Kakeba died in an ordinary traffic accident, unrelated to Detective Ayatsuji’s skill. Moreover, Kakeba didn’t know any of the victims who died on Reigo Island. Put simply, the detective made up the entire scenario.”

“What?” I couldn’t accept it. “But they found the weapon at his house with the victim’s blood on it.”

“Getting fingerprints and blood from a corpse to create a fake murder weapon would be a piece of cake for someone like Detective Ayatsuji.”

I was speechless. Sakaguchi was absolutely right. The detective could have easily made up some random excuse to gain access to the morgue to get Kubo’s blood. All he’d have to do after that was pretend like he was investigating Kakeba’s residence and plant the fake evidence. Detective Ayatsuji could do that much in his sleep.

But…why would he? What would be the point?

“This is an extremely difficult situation we’re in.” Sakaguchi furrowed his brow. “Detective Ayatsuji falsified evidence in a Special Division case. He snuck past our surveillance team and disappeared. There’s absolutely no excuse for what he did. This is a breach of trust. I made a direct appeal to Chief Taneda and asked him to hold off on judgment until we get a better grasp of Ayatsuji’s actions, but the chief isn’t a patient man. Unless we can come up with a good explanation within the next twelve hours, Detective Ayatsuji will most likely be eliminated.”

Elimination—that was what happened when the Division decided that a Special A-Grade Dangerous Skill User was out of control.

“Tsujimura, I am giving you your next orders as a Special Division agent.” Sakaguchi stood up with an extremely serious expression. “Find who really killed Kubo and pinpoint why Detective Ayatsuji would falsify evidence and go AWOL. You have twelve hours. If you fail to do so…”

He paused for a few moments before eventually lifting his head back up.

“…you will personally be ordered to execute Detective Ayatsuji.”

I needed to find the real killer. That was the only way out of this.

Someone had taken the wooden crate that had been carrying Kubo, and a few hours after that, his mangled body was found washed ashore. Now that Detective Ayatsuji had betrayed the Division and disappeared, I had to find out who did it.

That’s right—I was now the detective.

Detective Mizuki Tsujimura.

It had a nice ring to it.

At least, that was what I would have thought under different circumstances. I probably would’ve done a little dance, too. However, this was honestly a little much for me to handle as my first detective job. I wanted to bury the whole thing in the backyard and forget about it.

How was I supposed to solve a mystery in Detective Ayatsuji’s place? A mystery that he created?

The answer was simple. I almost wanted to stomp my feet and scream in frustration.

The mysteries felt endless. Why would Detective Ayatsuji betray the Division? Who killed Kubo—the man responsible for my mother’s death—and why?

This was more than just a job to me. I sincerely wanted answers to each one of these mysteries, and I didn’t want to leave it to someone else to solve them.

The reality, however, was that I had no idea how to be a detective.

I thought back to how Detective Ayatsuji worked. I had accompanied him on numerous cases to supervise him. I saw up close the jobs he accepted, investigated, examined, reasoned, and solved.

So if I were him, where would I start?

My first vague guess pointed to that smuggler. Whoever killed Kubo must have known which crate he was in, which meant that the murderer had to have some sort of connection to the smuggler.

I decided to meet with that smuggler one more time.

Every single thing in this visitation room at the military police’s special detention center was gray. From the floor to the walls, the ceiling, the windowpanes, the tables, the chairs—nothing could escape this ashy hue. It was totally spick-and-span. There must’ve been a steady supply of model inmates to clean up the place.

My eyes darted around in every direction until the door to the cell block opened, revealing the smuggler and a guard.

“Oh! If it ain’t the young lady from the ship! Long time no see! Just as beautiful as always.”

Dressed in a prison uniform, the smuggler walked over with a sunny smile unfit for a detention center.

“Hello,” I said, bowing my head.

Still grinning ear to ear, he took a seat in the chair across from me. “I’ve been in this business a long time, but this is the first time I’ve been locked up. And ya know what? I kinda like it. Nice and quiet. Food’s good, guards are decent, and most of all, I don’t hafta work. I hate working, if ya haven’t figured that out yet. Maybe I oughta live here.”

“What? Oh, uh… I’m sure you’re free to do so if you want.”

This man really knew how to knock me off my stride.

“Anyway, what brings ya here? Oh, wait. Did you wanna ask me about the time I caught a hibagon?”

“No, not exactly.”

What’s a hibagon?

“I wanted to ask you about that ship,” I continued. “You were the last person who met Kubo, so I thought you might be able to tell me more about what happened.”

This smuggler had been arrested right after we first met, and he’d been under military police surveillance ever since. That meant he wasn’t Kubo’s killer. I still couldn’t let my guard down around the guy, but I felt it’d at least be worth listening to his side of the story.

“You wanna hear what happened?” He scratched the back of his ear. “I mean, all I did was stuff him in that crate and lock him in. That’s it.”

“You locked it…?”

That must’ve angered Kubo.

But when I asked the smuggler, he waved his hand.

“Nah, nah, it’s no big deal. Not like I’m sendin’ folks on a resort vacation. Safety’s far more important than comfort. One time, I had a client who ended up being claustrophobic and went totally berserk in his crate. He ended up getting caught by security. They apparently threw him overboard while still locked inside, to boot. Poor bastard went sleepin’ with the fishes. Anyway, ever since, I’ve been havin’ my clients take pills to fall asleep, and then I lock ’em in their crates just to be safe.”

“What kind of pills?”

“For motion sickness. At least, that’s what I tell ’em.” The smuggler cackled. “Anyway, that one guy—Kubo, was it? He didn’t seem mad when I gave him the sleeping pills. Besides, it’s more nerve-racking to be awake in a tiny box than asleep. He said he knew exactly which crate was the safest and slipped inside on his own.”

I raised an eyebrow. “He chose the crate himself?”

That seemed like extremely important information.

“Yep,” the man replied, nodding. “Usually, I just stuff ’em in some random crate, but this Kubo fella made a specific request. He told me the crates belonged to some bad people. You know—crates full of stuff ya don’t wanna peek at unless you’re fixin’ to end up dead in the ocean the next day. Not even the deckhands want to get near cargo like that. At least, that’s what Kubo told me. That’s why I figured it’d be the ideal place to hide him. But, well, he ironically ended up dead in the ocean.” The smuggler melodramatically trembled. “Ah, gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

What the heck? I shifted my brain into overdrive. Surely, Kyougoku gave Kubo a plan to escape when he boarded that train. That was most likely when Kubo heard about the ship, the smuggler, and the so-called safest crate to hide in.

However, that information led to his demise. Kubo ended up being beaten to death while still inside the crate. How did anyone know which crate he was going to be in, though? How did that info leak?

Hang on.

What if Kyougoku planned on killing Kubo all along? The Engineer was close to him, even among the adherents to the well. Kubo was probably too much of a liability to keep alive, so Kyougoku must’ve decided to kill him while making it seem like he was trying to help.

Hmm…

It just didn’t feel right.

Two things were bothering me. First, if it really was Kyougoku or one of his men who killed Kubo, why would Detective Ayatsuji quit the investigation? He even lied to us about who did it as if he was trying to protect Kyougoku, even though this was his chance to finally defeat the phantom.

Then there was the rationale behind the whole thing. Why would Kyougoku go through all this work and hire a smuggler just to set up a trap? If he really wanted to silence Kubo, he could have easily rigged the train with a bomb. In fact, even I could’ve come up with countless simpler methods to dispose of him.

Also, what happened to the cargo that was originally inside Kubo’s crate? They had to have gotten rid of it somehow so Kubo could fit inside. When I asked the smuggler about it, his eyes softened innocently, and he told me that the police confiscated it all.

I should probably use my connections at the Division to find out what was inside that crate.

“I appreciate your cooperation.” I got out of my seat. “Do you have anything else to tell me before I go?”

“Sure do.”

I shifted my gaze back at the smuggler, since it sounded like there was still some important info that he’d forgotten to mention.

His cheeks warmed into a faint pink while he placed his elbows on the table and bashfully said with a snicker:

“Hibagon.”

“Thanks again.”

I hurried out of the detention center.

Back at the detective agency, I spread the documents out over the desk, then leaned on it and groaned. I’d gathered even more information, files, and photographs on the incident, which were in a chaotic pile in front of me. This included details about the ship, the confiscated goods, and the personal histories of the smuggler and Kubo.

The smuggler had an alibi for the time of Kubo’s death. When I spoke with people in the military police’s criminal-intelligence division who specialized in trafficking, they told me that the smuggler lost a lot of credibility after what happened. Not only did his client die, but the smuggler himself was arrested. That business was all about trust—at least, according to the agent in charge.

In other words, it was hard to believe that the smuggler had willingly participated in Kyougoku’s scheme, since there was nothing in it for him. In fact, he was probably going to be out of a job after this. If he’d known all the details in advance, he would’ve tried to do better.

I also learned about the cargo that had been emptied from Kubo’s so-called “safe” crate. It was registered under the name Saeki, but when the military police arrived at the registered address, the house was completely empty. All they found was a message on his answering machine: “The cops are on to us. Go where I told you to get rid of the goods.”

When I did a little more digging on this Saeki person, I discovered he was some low-level thug in a trafficking ring. When I looked even further, I discovered that they were connected to a smuggling group within the Port Mafia.

The Port Mafia. Of course.

I figured it had to be them after the smuggler at the detention center told me that even opening those crates was a death sentence. If Kubo truly believed he’d be safe using one of the Port Mafia’s crates, then he was gravely mistaken. The Port Mafia was behind the car chase I was in at the harbor; they’d tried to kill me and Asukai after we witnessed one of their shady deals going down. If the goods they’d been smuggling were that important, then the police would’ve been on the scene within a few hours to investigate.

Basically, Kubo had been tricked, but I still couldn’t figure out why.

“Gah… This makes no sense.”

I slid forward in the chair, then helplessly lay back over the backrest, letting my arms dangle. The first thing I saw was the ceiling fan. With the agency’s master gone, only the fan was watching over it in silence.

I wasn’t cut out for work like this. Detective Ayatsuji would have been able to solve this mystery in the blink of an eye.

Where in the world was he anyway? Why would he abandon the agency and betray us?

I was assigned to the Ayatsuji Detective Agency because I’d requested it. The detective didn’t know this at the time, but I’d already figured out long ago that he was the one who killed my mother. So when I was headhunted by the Special Division for Unusual Powers while I was still in training, I gladly accepted, provided that it would allow me to get closer to this one detective. I trained even harder after that until I was officially assigned to monitor him.

I’d always planned on asking him about my mother and what she’d been like before she died a murderer in one of his accidents. Was she really so evil that she deserved death?

I never got the chance to ask…because I always avoided the question, telling myself that I could bring it up some other time.

But maybe I would never get another chance. I was finally concerned about my mother now, of all times? Ridiculous.

“Come on, Mom… Do you really have to keep bothering me even after you’re dead…?”

My mother’s work kept her away from home most of the time. She’d barely ever said more than a sentence or two to me a week, and whenever she did say something, it was about mundane things like repairs on the house or the car. Always very businesslike.

The nanny was basically the one who took care of me growing up. In fact, I spent more time with her than anyone else, with the exception of my friends.

I still remembered accidentally calling her “Mom” one day when I wanted to ask if I could have a cookie from the pantry. I almost immediately caught myself and felt so stupid. She seemed really uncomfortable…since my real mother was standing by the doorway.

There was no way my mother didn’t hear me, but she casually came inside, got changed, and started working in her study. She didn’t seem concerned at all that I’d accidentally called someone else Mom.

Deep down…I wished she got angry. I wanted her to be in a bad mood and snap at the nanny and me. It would have been a huge relief just to know that she cared…but that never happened. We had grown so far apart that she wasn’t concerned who I called Mom.

There was no longer any way to fix that. My mother was dead. She died a murderer.

I sat up and rubbed my face. I had far too many things I needed to think about, so I had to get her out of my head so that I could focus. Easier said than done, though. Even now, whenever I was alone, it still felt like her ghost was nearby.

All of a sudden, one file floated to the floor. I halfheartedly picked it up and noticed it was a report on evidence from the ship. Maybe it’d been hidden in the pile of papers, and I just missed it? At any rate, it detailed the guns, the car, and what the smuggler had on his person.

There was even a report on the cargo confiscated from the wooden crate.

Apparently, the smuggler had swapped out the crate that’d originally been there with another one to hide Kubo, but the police confiscated the original soon afterward.

Oh, right, I thought. I totally forgot to check.

The original crate had been carrying…lemons.

Tens of pounds of lemons ready to be processed.

Lemons? The most illegal of organizations—the worst of the worst—the Port Mafia was smuggling lemons?

The heck? Must’ve been some important lemons.

Confused, I started imagining mafiosos in black suits baking lemon cakes.

The phone suddenly rang. Not my work cell phone—the Ayatsuji Detective Agency’s landline.

I wondered who it could be. Usually, all investigation requests went through the government, so I couldn’t really think of anyone who would suddenly call the agency like this.

Except for one person, that is.

I sprinted to the phone as quickly as I could and answered.

“Hello?”

I was right.

“Stop stealing tea cakes from the agency pantry, Tsujimura.”

“I’m not!” I reflexively shouted.

It was Detective Ayatsuji.

“Anyway, where are you, Detective?!” I immediately began to shout even more. “Get back here this instant! Everyone in the Division is furious with you! Do you like shoving your head into pots of boiling water or something?! What is wrong with you?”

“What is wrong with you? Why do you think I’ve been letting some second-rate government org like the Division keep me tied to a post like a horse?”

I couldn’t even breathe for a few moments.

“What are you so shocked about? I haven’t even gotten to the good part yet. A secret government team has snipers watching me twenty-four seven, and if I refuse to do a job, they’ll shoot me to death. Who in their right mind would be happy to be in a situation like that?”

“Wha—?!”

I didn’t know what to say. It felt like extremely powerful emotions were condensing at the very top of my head.

So that was why he’d suddenly disappeared?

“You talentless mouth breathers will never be able to catch me. I am done with the Division and its suicide missions.”

“Do you really think they’ll let you do this?!”

I had never shouted so loud in my life.

“You’re a Special A-Grade Dangerous Skill User! You need to be under government surveillance whether you like it or not, even if it puts your life at risk! You have a responsibility, do you not?!”

Tears started welling up in my eyes for some reason.

This was the man I’d been following? The one I’d been monitoring, guarding, and assisting with investigations? Had I really been doing all this for someone so selfish?

“That selfishness of yours…”

The words gushed out of my throat before I could even process what I was saying.

“That selfishness of yours is what killed my mother!”

My furious scream echoed across the room.

I was breathing heavily; my blood was circulating the rage throughout my body.

Detective Ayatsuji fell silent. It was a weighty silence, but one he eventually broke.

“That’s not my problem.” His voice was as cold as ice, deep, and crystal clear. “A bit of advice: Don’t pursue this case any further. You don’t have what it takes to uncover the mystery of the Engineer’s death.”

I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t find the right words.

“Don’t get assigned to any more dangerous skill users like me, either. Take care.”

He hung up, leaving me trembling with the phone in my hand.

“…Fine, have it your way,” I muttered, only for my words to fruitlessly vanish into the darkness of the room.

I was walking through town that evening. Every once in a while, someone would pass me by on this hillside path, but the only thing following me under the rich orange glow of the setting sun was my long, dark shadow.

I immediately contacted the Division after the detective called me. They promptly began tracing the call, but it was going to be a waste of time. Detective Ayatsuji wouldn’t allow himself to be caught that easily.

However, our phone conversation seemed to bother the Division higher-ups. Detective Ayatsuji was most likely going to be labeled a traitor. Apparently, the Division was shifting their focus to how to stop dangerous skill users. The twelve-hour time limit Sakaguchi had given me would probably be cut short, too.

Not that I gave a damn, since my mission had effectively been put on hold the moment the detective disappeared. No longer would I be treated like his maid. No longer would I have to watch my back twenty-four seven.

It was over.

I honestly wanted to give up on the investigation into Kubo’s murder as well, because the more I involved I got, the more I couldn’t stop thinking about my mother and Detective Ayatsuji. Unfortunately, Sakaguchi ordered me to continue looking into the case; there’d been a new discovery about the lemons in that crate.

“I had forensics take a look at the confiscated lemons,” Sakaguchi told me over the phone. “And they actually found something quite interesting. Those weren’t ordinary lemons being smuggled.”

“They weren’t…?”

I wondered if they were some sort of rare variety.

“They looked like lemons, but they weren’t even fruit. This was cutting-edge technology that replaced the inside of the lemon with a weapon.”

A weapon?

It didn’t even make sense to me. Why would anyone go through the trouble of coming up with a way to put weapons inside a lemon while leaving the peel intact?

“The details are still unknown,” Sakaguchi said without even a note of emotion, “but what we do know is that only an expert can disassemble these lemons. Handling them incorrectly could be life-threatening. Therefore, we reluctantly decided to make a deal with the Port Mafia.”

“A deal?”

The Special Division and the Port Mafia?

“I used a personal connection to get in touch with one of the executives. We offered to exchange these extremely rare weapons for some information on them. The Port Mafia accepted, so we handed over the crate. One of their messengers should be with you shortly.”

It took me some time to wrap my head around the situation.

I’d never heard of the Port Mafia striking deals with the government, let alone handing over top secret information—especially anything that involved illegal weapons. It was unprecedented. Those lemons must have been extremely important to the Port Mafia.

“Furthermore, Tsujimura…,” he muttered hesitantly. “About Detective Ayatsuji—”

“I don’t want know,” I cut in. “He’s got…nothing to do with me anymore.”

“If you were given the order to shoot and kill him, would you do it?” he asked emotionlessly.

For some reason, I couldn’t answer him immediately, even though I knew what I wanted to say.

“…Of course.”

It was like someone else’s voice coming out of my mouth. Regardless, the mission was over, including my relationship with Detective Ayatsuji.

Sakaguchi told me he would contact me again before promptly hanging up.

In the darkness of twilight, I stood almost in a daze with my phone still in hand.

The path ahead was long. So was the path from which I came. Although sparse, utility poles stood here and there. On my right was a wire-net fence, with a smooth, ash-colored hill on the other side.

The air was a deep vermilion so rich that I could almost drown in it.

They say twilight is the witching hour. A haunted time between night and day, a border between this world and the next. It’s a crossroad for various evil spirits, ghosts, and demons. This was Kyougoku’s realm.

A terrifying thought crossed my mind.

Could Detective Ayatsuji have traveled into the realm of evil spirits…where Kyougoku resides?

There was no guarantee that he hadn’t. He’d been acting strange ever since he ran into Kyougoku at that underground shelter. I read through the report detailing what happened, of course, but that didn’t necessarily explain everything.

Maybe Detective Ayatsuji had only been working for the government and stopping murderers because it was convenient. Nothing more, nothing less. Maybe he’d gotten too close to Kyougoku and turned evil as a result?

If so, I had to stop him whether I was given orders to execute him or not.

I placed a hand on the holster at my waist and ran my finger down the heavy pistol inside.

That was when I noticed—someone was watching me from behind.

A chill ran down my spine. I knew instinctively that this someone wasn’t human. Not even the most wicked of people had such a cold, eerie gaze.

It took me a while to turn around.

The witching hour. An empty road. And something was standing right behind me.

The only reason why I managed to muster up enough courage to turn around was because I thought it was Kyougoku, and I couldn’t afford to let him escape.

I did an about-face, drawing my handgun.

Nobody was there.

No signs of any humans. Utter silence. The empty path continued into darkness, vanishing with the city soundscape.

All of a sudden, I felt a painful prick on my leg. I looked down and saw it:

The Shadow Child.

It was emerging from my shadow like some creature peeking its head out from a swamp. Its black scythe had pierced me just above my ankle.

After I leaped back in shock, the Shadow Child slowly crawled out of my shadow. Its form flickered, the outline quivering as it quickly transformed into a bipedal beast with horns like a goat. But no matter how hard I stared or squinted, its wavering figure made it increasingly difficult to see it clearly.

Why now? What’s it doing here?

The Shadow Child slowly slid across toward me, still clutching its scythe. It was emotionless, unthinking. There was no way to communicate with a creature that possessed no such means.

Even though I couldn’t make out where its eyes were, it was eerie how strongly I felt its gaze.

I stepped back. I couldn’t control the Shadow Child. I had no idea what it was thinking or what its purpose even was—but I did know that it could kill. Once it started to move, it didn’t stop until the target was down, and it didn’t miss.

It took a step forward, and I took a step back.

I didn’t know why it was here or what it was trying to do. This thing was completely alien and far beyond anyone’s comprehension. I just knew that this piercing gaze belonged to it—this creature inside me.

The gut feeling that something bad was going to happen only got worse.

“Stop right there.” I pointed my gun at the Shadow Child. “Stop, or I’ll shoot.”

It continued forward, unfazed. Warnings were pointless; it didn’t understand language.

The shadow kept approaching, so I fired my gun.

A perfect shot to the head, and the bullet hit the ground behind it. The Shadow Child was momentarily thrown back and faintly convulsed, but it almost immediately regenerated—as if nothing had happened.

A gun was useless against a shadow.

What the hell is this skill?

My veins constricted, robbing my fingertips of warmth. My throat felt like a desert. I couldn’t fight back. This shadow would almost definitely outrun me.

I stood there completely numb as the Shadow Child leaped toward me—

“Hey, dumbass! Guns don’t work on skills like that!” a voice barked behind me.

Someone reached their arm past me and grabbed the creature’s head, slamming it into the ground.

The Shadow Child hadn’t even flinched when I shot it, but it couldn’t escape this person’s grip. In fact, it couldn’t get back up, instead struggling pathetically. Even after it was released, the creature still squirmed on the ground.

It was as if its own gravity was weighing it down.

The Shadow Child tried to free itself from its invisible binds before it suddenly stopped moving. It then melted into my shadow and disappeared.

“The Special Division must be really hard up if they’re hiring chicks who get freaked out by a puny skill like that.”

The person who’d just saved me clapped his black gloved hands and looked at me.

He was a boy—no, a young man.

He had on a black porkpie and a black jacket. Black gloves, too, and even a black leather choker. I wouldn’t call him dressy, but every article of clothing he wore was top-of-the-line and expensive. His sharp tongue belied his high-end wardrobe.

I could immediately tell that this young man was steeped in violence and bloodshed. Everything about him was unique to people who walked with death in their shadow—kind of like Detective Ayatsuji.

At any rate, I instantly recognized who this guy was: a member of the Port Mafia.

“Tell Four-Eyes that thanks to him, we were able to dispose of the traitors trying to sell our product on the black market,” he said. “Once I give you this info, we’re even. Got it?”

The young man pulled out a few pieces of paper from his pocket and tossed them at me. They fluttered in the air and fell to the ground.

Those traitors he mentioned must have been the men in black suits we’d fought at the harbor. They were trying to sell those lemon-shaped weapons to a third party right under their boss’s nose.

“I’m guessing the Port Mafia sent you?” I asked the young man.

“Yep. Gotta say, that Four-Eyes is outta his mind, still contacting the Port Mafia after everything that’s happened. I woulda killed him already if my boss let me. But, eh… I guess thanks to him, we recovered the bombs that my men went through the trouble of making.”

Wait—those lemon-looking weapons were bombs?

The young man glanced at me after he finished rambling. “Cat got your tongue?”

Only then did I finally realize that I wasn’t breathing.

“How do you know Sakaguchi?” I asked.

“Long story.” The mafia executive swiftly turned around and began to leave. “None of your damn business.”

I knew I should have said something, but all I could do was watch him in silence as he walked away…until he abruptly stopped.

“…Ah, goddamn it! I just realized I owe that four-eyed traitor a personal favor.” The young man scowled. “That asshole must’ve remembered, and that’s why he called me… Hey, you.”

I looked up.

“Your boss saved my ass once, so I’m gonna give you a few words of caution in return.” He pointed at me. “That black beast-like skill that attacked you a few minutes ago—you know, the thing I handled for you? That ain’t your skill.”

I froze. The young man’s voice traveled throughout the darkness before fading into nothingness.

“I knew it,” he said. “You thought that skill was yours, didn’t you? That’s an autonomous skill. It reeked of death, so its owner probably kicked the bucket already. Anyway, be careful. Wouldn’t wanna be killed by someone who’s already dead, would you? Think back to when you got that skill and who died around that time. There’s your clue.”

I stood in a daze. There was only one person who fit that description.

The young man silently walked down the straight path. Meanwhile, I could neither move nor talk. All I could do was silently stare at my shadow shrinking under the escaping vermilion glow.

Ayatsuji was perched on the rim of the well, alone. The forest around him had an otherworldly hue, and the vermilion light of the setting sun turned the well and its surroundings into something ethereal.

“The witching hour, the haunted crossroads… The twilight… The hour of dawn… Hmph,” Ayatsuji muttered to himself.

It was all so clear to him.

This well was positioned on the prefectural border and faced a river. It was a boundary. Narrow crossroads were traditionally considered boundaries. Wells, too, were boundaries between the worlds of soil and water.

What Kyougoku wanted to accomplish had been presented to me from the very beginning. I simply didn’t realize it. That’s all.

Ayatsuji found four shrines on his way here that were built almost exactly like this well: one by the entrance of a cemetery, one by an abandoned gravestone beneath the cliff, one under the bridge over the river, and one by a hut at the foot of a sacred mountain. Each served as a waypoint between the world of daylight and the world of darkness. In other words, they were gates between the land of the living and the land of the dead—places vulnerable to passing spirits. There were most likely countless other shrines throughout the country.

Bad things came from boundaries.

The “evil-creating device” set up in these wells was Kyougoku himself. He granted evil to those with motive, gave them the confidence and motivation to push forward, and drove them down a one-way path to wickedness.

However, why would Kyougoku have created such a device? What was he trying to accomplish that required him to come up with such a grand plan?

Ayatsuji simply had to ask the man himself.

“All right, then.”

When he stood up, a powerful gust of wind swiftly passed through the woods.

The darkened trees violently rustled and stirred as if the forest itself were a life-form whispering to him. He was surrounded.

Nevertheless, Ayatsuji didn’t even blink. He took out his pipe, lit it, and inhaled. The smoke flickered like a soul before fading into the cold forest.

He walked away. The time for battle was near, and Ayatsuji already knew where Kyougoku was: the site of their first battle—atop the waterfall spirit lord’s waterfall.

I was at the port. The crime scenes had been inspected, and most agents had already gone home.

I aimlessly wandered the harbor while all the recent events swirled in my mind. That Port Mafia executive told me the Shadow Child belonged to a dead person.

I first saw the Shadow Child that day five years ago when my mother died, and it had been ominously following me ever since. Even now, I could feel it watching me from my shadow.

There was only one possibility when I put it all together. The Shadow Child was my late mother’s skill.

There were various different kinds of skills. Most manifested around their user, but there had been cases of skills that left their master’s side in order to attack.

Some skills even remained after their user’s death.

The Division’s research into unusual powers was generations ahead of private research, and I had read more than a few papers on the subject myself. Most skills vanished when their wielder died, but there was a trend of remotely controlled long-ranged skills like this one where they would continue to attack their target, even after their host was long gone. It was as if they were upholding their master’s dying wish.

I didn’t want to think about it anymore. I never wanted to imagine that the Shadow Child was my mother’s curse.

There were multiple times when I wished it helped me: when we were surrounded by that task force, and when we were under attack by the Port Mafia. If my mother had ordered the Shadow Child to protect me, then it should’ve done that already.

But all it did was watch me in cold, eerie silence. My mother was gone, but her curse remained. The thought alone chilled me to my core until it felt like my intestines had frozen over. Was I destined to live out the rest of my life in fear of this mystifying emotion?

I was lost in thought until my cell phone rang in my pocket, but when I glanced down, I noticed it was from work. I wasn’t thrilled, but I still had to answer.

“Tsujimura speaking.”

“Did you find anything on the lemons?” Sakaguchi calmly asked.

“I did.” I took out the files I received from the Port Mafia executive. “The lemons contain a unique explosive that’s untraceable, which makes them the weapon of choice during turf wars or at crime scenes. But the only person who has the technology and knowledge to create them is one of the Port Mafia’s head scientists, so obviously, countless illegal organizations are trying to get their hands on them and figure how they’re made.”

“And that’s why they could sell them at a very high price… What a reckless bunch,” Sakaguchi grumbled. “I have some new information for you, too. Saeki, the man who the crate was registered under, was found dead on the side of the road.”

“What…?”

Didn’t he smuggle goods for the Port Mafia?

“The cops are on to us. Go where I told you to get rid of the goods”—that was the last voicemail he’d received before disappearing.

“While he was fleeing, he fell down the stairs of a pedestrian overpass near the harbor and broke his neck. He was pronounced dead at the hospital,” Sakaguchi clarified. “Given the circumstances, it would be a little too convenient to rule this an accident. It’s highly likely that he was murdered.”

Something was nagging at the back of my mind.

A man who accidentally fell to his death. A crate registered in his name.

The voicemail message pointed to Saeki being the one who snuck the lemons off the ship. He betrayed the Port Mafia and tried to sell one of their weapons on the black market, but he was worried that an agent was going to catch him, so he panicked and tried to dispose of the lemons. That was Saeki’s part in all this.

But if that was true, then something still didn’t make sense. Kubo had been fast asleep inside the crate when someone must have mistaken it for the one containing the lemons and taken him away. In other words, the person who killed Kubo had to be someone different from the one who stole the crate. At the very least, Saeki had no motive to kill him. He was afraid that government agents were right on his tail, so he had neither the time nor the reason to beat some stranger inside a crate to death.

It was all too bizarre. I couldn’t even imagine what kind of person would have the motive to kill Kubo. The only names that came up during the investigation were people whose situations were urgent and were only taking risks for personal gain or self-preservation. None of them had the time, let alone motive, to kill the Engineer.

“Tsujimura, did you find out who really murdered Kubo?”

It was hard for me to tell Sakaguchi the truth.

“Not yet.”

“It’s probably about time we move on, then.” The issue seemed to weigh heavily on his mind. “Regardless of the truth, a Special A-Grade Dangerous Skill User is currently out of control and on the loose. I honestly despise moving forward on cases like this when we don’t have all the information, but… At any rate, you still remember what you learned in training on pursuing and neutralizing threats, correct?”

I told him I did. After all, I’d been playing it by the book these past few hours, thinking back to everything written in the secret agent manual.

In fact, I’d been going by the book ever since I was assigned to monitor the detective.

“Sakaguchi. Detective Ayatsuji said that talentless mouth breathers like us would never be able to catch him,” I managed in a whisper. “And he hasn’t been wrong even once so far since I’ve known him. Do you genuinely believe that the Division can find him?”

“We are taking the necessary measures to track him down. The Ministry of Home Affairs is expediting negotiations to use government surveillance satellites. Once that happens, we should be able to locate the detective immediately as long as he is outside.”

They had already started dispatching satellites…which meant that finding and killing the detective had become a matter of national security.

I groaned. My body had been hurting for a while, but I still didn’t know exactly what hurt. Of course I didn’t; it was my soul that was in pain.

I ended up talking on the phone until I was standing before a certain bridge in front of a ship—the same bridge where we’d been hit by that airburst launcher and got into a gunfight.

Most of the cargo on the bridge had fallen into the ocean, probably when the bridge rose. All that was left were a few pieces of scattered debris.

In fact, I never really thought about it during the fight because I’d been so focused on surviving, but why was there cargo just stacked in the middle of the bridge like that anyway?

“Tsujimura, are you listening?”

“Yes, I’m listening.”

“I need you to remain calm and listen to me,” Sakaguchi began, followed by a pause. “The Ministry of Home Affairs just finished their council meeting. The vote was unanimous. Detective Ayatsuji is going to be executed.”

The world distorted before me.

The time had finally come.

It was an order that I’d known was coming, one I was prepared for. But actually hearing him say those words felt like an iron ball falling on my chest. I almost dropped my phone.

“Tsujimura… Are you all right?”

“…I’m fine,” I managed to reply after taking a few seconds to steady my breathing.

Orders from the Division could not be ignored. There was no going back once the higher-ups made their decision.

“You will be briefed on your upcoming mission back at headquarters until we can deploy the satellites, so I need you to come back.”

I couldn’t say a word.

Sakaguchi tried to say something as well, but he stopped himself. A few moments of silence went by until he eventually hung up.

As I stood alone in a daze on the bridge, Detective Ayatsuji’s final words to me repeated in the back of my mind:

“A secret government team has snipers watching me twenty-four seven, and if I refuse to do a job, they’ll shoot me to death. Who in their right mind would be happy to be in a situation like that?”

The Special Division for Unusual Powers was the country’s top organization of skill users. Our Special Forces, also known as the Black Tiles for their all black attire, were especially skilled in neutralizing dangerous skill users. There wasn’t a single human alive who could escape from them. Even Detective Ayatsuji wouldn’t stand a chance, especially since they already knew what he was capable of.

At any rate, if the detective meant what he said and truly despised the Division’s surveillance team, then the Division would probably be to blame for his newly decided fate.

An indescribable emotion swelled in my chest. Perhaps being this shook up was proof that I wasn’t fit to be an agent. But I still had to carry out my duty.

I turned around to go back to headquarters when I got a notification on my phone. It was a file containing electronic data from the military police. They’d apparently uncovered who this Saeki person really was. The data contained a photograph of his face, his height, his body type, and so on. I skimmed the whole thing, hardly even processing any of it.

That is, until one part caught my eye.

Saeki was a con man before he began working as a lower-level thug for the Port Mafia and made a living extorting money from a major company. However, once he became a murder suspect, he left that world behind once and for all.

Something clicked in my head. Something made me uncomfortable about this information. I felt like I’d heard this story before.

I frantically began flipping through the files, then pulled out the report detailing Detective Ayatsuji’s encounter with Kyougoku in the underground shelter.

There was no mistaking it. Saeki matched the description of the criminal behind the “Murderer’s Box”—a case that Detective Ayatsuji solved. It was the same person.

But…what did that mean? Saeki was murdered in order to be silenced. If someone ever figured out where he took that crate, then the real criminal would be naturally caught as well. Therefore, Saeki was pushed down the stairs and killed.

Hold on.

He fell to his death.

It was an accident.

Saeki died right after Detective Ayatsuji solved the locked-room mystery.

It all made sense now. Why didn’t I realize this sooner?

Saeki was murdered to keep him from talking, but nobody was directly involved in his death. He died because Detective Ayatsuji’s skill activated the moment the detective solved the locked-room case.

In other words, this, too, was merely a small part of Kyougoku’s scheme. He had the detective solve the mystery of that murder in order to kill Saeki. But why? What kind of dirt did Saeki have on him?

Saeki died soon after transporting that crate somewhere. If only the Division had gotten to him earlier, he would most likely have confessed to something. Detective Ayatsuji would have never been asked to solve the mystery of Kubo’s murder, either. In other words, Kyougoku wanted to create a situation where Detective Ayatsuji would have no choice but to take that job. But why?

While lost in thought, the tip of my toes bumped into something. I looked down and found a pale chunk of wood lying on the ground—most likely a part of a crate I’d sped through on the drawbridge. It was nothing more than a single piece that had survived the crash and didn’t fall into the ocean, but something about this stood out to me for some reason.

The old me two years ago wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but after experiencing multiple cases by Detective Ayatsuji’s side and witnessing the moment he solved these mysteries, I couldn’t help but feel like there was more to it. I picked up the piece of wood.

It had definitely been part of some sort of container, but it was hard to imagine what it used to look like before I ran over it. At any rate, this color looked oddly familiar…

I began hearing things.

“Mystery solved, Tsujimura. You did it.”

Past events surged through my head in the blink of an eye.

Lemons. Smuggler. Port Mafia.

“The cops are on to us. Go where I told you to get rid of the goods.”

After someone from the Port Mafia gave Saeki those orders, he must have hurried to get that crate off the ship. He probably felt that he would be done for if anyone learned about the lemons, so he needed to destroy all the evidence to throw both the police and the Port Mafia executives off his trail.

But how would he do that? He didn’t have much time to work with. Not even our crime lab could dismantle those lemon-shaped explosives, and if you tried to hide them, some government agent would have found them after our gunfight, since every single inch of that ship and the harbor was searched. Maybe he considered tossing them overboard, but that would be pointless. The lemon bombs were perfectly sealed—the seawater wouldn’t even affect them. A diver would have been able to easily find the bombs after the crate sank to the bottom of the harbor, and it wouldn’t matter who that diver was working for; the traitors would be killed all the same.

Then what could he have done? How would he have been able to erase the evidence without a trace?

What if Kyougoku predicted this entire scenario?

Kyougoku made sure to time it perfectly so Kubo would arrive at the port by a specific time, and that time happened to be in the middle of those Port Mafia traitors’ shady deal, which forced us into a gunfight. But what if Kyougoku wasn’t only manipulating Kubo? What if he was behind the lemon smuggling?

Think back to the well, Mizuki, I told myself.

Kyougoku essentially gave these people the illusion of free will while he manipulated them to his liking, so maybe he put it into their heads that they could steal bombs from the Port Mafia? Maybe that well told them how to do it without getting caught, and they believed it. Even if they were caught, they had a way to completely dispose of the evidence. “I will give you all the knowledge in the world. Whether or not you use it is up to you.” That must have been what Kyougoku told them.

The traitors also knew how to dispose of the evidence: Detonate them. That was the only way to get rid of all the bombs without leaving a trace. But these bombs were extremely powerful; you’d have to set them off remotely, and that would require a code, which the criminal would somehow have to get their hands on. However, that head scientist of the Port Mafia—the creator of these explosives—would most likely catch them in the process. Therefore, the ideal solution would be to get someone to step on them. These lemons would explode simply by trying to dismantle them, so stepping on them was an easy way to get rid of all of them at once. And that was why Saeki was given orders to place the crate of lemons somewhere that got a decent amount of traffic.

Put simply, the drawbridge was the perfect spot. Once the lemons exploded, everything would fall into the ocean. The explosives would turn into dust and fall overboard as well, making it impossible to analyze and trace them. The center of the drawbridge, where it would split in half, would be the ideal location if you wanted to make sure everything fell into the water, and that was where I was standing right now.

Kyougoku’s scheme.

The well.

Detective Ayatsuji lying to us when he said that someone else was behind Kubo’s death.

“…But then…”

The truth hit me like a tidal wave.

I sank to the ground, unable to breathe.

Detective Ayatsuji had it all figured out. Once his skill activated, there was no way to cancel it. Even if the request had been withdrawn, the skill wouldn’t stop until the criminal was dead.

Furthermore, what the detective’s skill defined as a criminal followed a set of rules. The criminal had to have the intent to kill, and the victim had to die of a physical cause purposely orchestrated by the criminal.

So who had this intent to kill?

The smuggler had no intention of killing anyone. He was just trying to do his job, which was stuffing Kubo into a crate and giving him some sleeping pills. He acted of his own free will.

Same with Saeki. All he was trying to do was his job: sneaking the crate off the ship and placing it on the drawbridge so someone would run over it. He acted on his own will.

The Port Mafia had no intention of killing him. The drawbridge had no intention of killing anyone, either.

So who wanted Kubo dead?

—I’m going to catch him, no matter what, and once I get my hands on him…

I covered my face with my hands. I couldn’t stop trembling.

I was the one who wanted to murder him.

I hit Kubo with my car and killed him.

Detective Ayatsuji betrayed the Division because he didn’t want me to die in an “accident.”

Ayatsuji was walking through the mountain pass alone.

The evening glow gradually faded as darkness crawled from the depths of the forest. Once twilight had passed, the woods belonged to the beasts that watched Ayatsuji through the black thickets.

The detective paid no heed to the creatures of the night during his quiet stroll. A deep silence fell upon the forest. The beasts soundlessly, lamentably observed Ayatsuji’s journey ahead.

He had lost.

Ayatsuji had earned himself unadulterated defeat that filled every cell in his body. Each step he took along the uneven path was heavy and unstable, to the point that he could hardly keep himself from falling forward.

Nevertheless, he had to keep moving, for the final battle awaited.

Kyougoku had called for him so that they could settle this once and for all. Even if only defeat awaited ahead, Ayatsuji could not back down. Somebody had to end this. Far too much blood had been spilled, and Ayatsuji couldn’t afford to let the conclusion to their game be stretched out any longer. Even if this meant Kyougoku had won, someone had to close this case.

Before Ayatsuji even realized it, the silent drizzle had dyed the air on the mountain path a pale blue. Each breath he took rose like a cloud of white smoke as the night dragged on.

The night belonged to the revenants.

“We have our target. He’s approximately three miles from here on the forest trail,” the radio officer reported inside the police armored vehicle.

Sitting in the troop carrier seats were two fully equipped Special Forces members, four Special Division agents, and two MP investigators. Faintly illuminating the individuals sitting in these bench-like seats was a single red light, creating shadows that crawled up the walls like ghosts.

This wasn’t the only vehicle transporting Special Forces members, either. Four other vehicles were here to completely surround the target.

Not even Detective Ayatsuji would be able to escape this many soldiers.

Not even Detective Ayatsuji…

“Tsujimura, did you make sure to check all your equipment?” Asukai casually asked by my side.

“…”

But I couldn’t reply.

“There’s no telling what’s going to happen when we get there, so you should at least check your bulletproof vest and make sure you have enough spare ammo.”

I knew that I needed to listen to his advice for my own sake, but my mind was preoccupied with something else, and there was no way any outside information was going to get inside.

Asukai scratched his head in a troubled manner. “Oh, hey. I have some pickled vegetables. Want some? They just came out with this flavor.”

“…No thanks…,” I replied in a thin voice that took everything I had.

The same questions had been tormenting me ever since I figured out what happened.

What should I do? What can I do?

Detective Ayatsuji had run away to save my life. After he received orders to search for Kubo’s murderer, his skill partially activated, and there was no way to cancel it. All he needed was the tiniest shred of evidence, and then I would be dead.

That was why he’d had no choice but to abandon this case. He could only delay it, since his skill couldn’t be stopped, and now he was being hunted by the Division because of that.

No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with anything new. I couldn’t change the situation or how it was going to turn out. There was nothing I could do. I’d been given orders to shoot and kill, and once you were given orders, you couldn’t refuse.

Even if I told them the truth, that didn’t change the fact that Detective Ayatsuji went AWOL, lied about who the murderer was, and betrayed the Division. In fact, being allowed to freely go outside was probably nothing short of a miracle for a Special A-Grade Dangerous Skill User, even if someone was always keeping an eye on him. The recoil hit me all at once.

“I know how you feel,” Asukai abruptly told me, heaving a deep sigh. When I looked over, he was staring hard at a single point on the wall. “I’ve been thinking the entire time about how we could fix this, but the situation couldn’t be worse. There’s nothing I can do.”

I couldn’t see his expression in the dimly lit vehicle, but I heard how his hushed tone echoed off the shaking vehicle’s walls.

“Tsujimura, you’ve been quiet this whole time…but be honest with me. You have a good idea why Detective Ayatsuji ran away, don’t you?”

“…Yes.” I faintly nodded.

“I knew it.” He sighed again. “This was all part of Kyougoku’s plan, wasn’t it?”

“I…think so.”

The accomplices—the smuggler, Saeki, and the Port Mafia—had no intention of killing Kubo.

The criminals who put Kubo in that crate and carried him to the bridge were only interested in benefiting themselves. None of them ever imagined that they were helping to kill someone. In other words, they weren’t going to be targeted by Detective Ayatsuji’s skill.

The closest thing we had to a criminal in this case was me.

There was no way this was a coincidence, either. The smuggler, Saeki, and the Port Mafia thugs all unknowingly played a part in the Puppet Master’s scheme.

This was an attack that capitalized on the flaw of a skill that caused criminals to die in accidents. It was the single weakness of Detective Ayatsuji’s skill, which nobody could have even predicted.

There was only one man who could have done this: the detective’s archnemesis, the Puppet Master…

“Kyougoku…”

It was too well planned and created with the wisdom of a demon. It was like precise gears moving perfectly in motion with one another.

I trembled. The exit had been completely sealed. There was no way to escape now.

I had no idea just how colossal the enemy we were up against really was. There were no bounds to his evil and cunningness.

“Kyougoku has finally driven Detective Ayatsuji into a corner,” Asukai softly muttered. “But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do.”

I slowly looked toward him. “…What?”

There’s still hope…?

“Detective Ayatsuji is going to settle things with Kyougoku face-to-face,” Asukai said; he seemed to be racking his brain. “Even Detective Ayatsuji won’t be able to outrun the Division, so he’s most likely planning on going straight to Kyougoku to settle things before his time runs out. This brief moment will be our last chance to catch Kyougoku.”

“‘Catch Kyougoku’?!” I yelled despite myself.

“Keep your voice down,” Asukai whispered. “I know this isn’t the smartest plan I’ve ever had, but the Division is surrounding Detective Ayatsuji as we speak, which means we’re also that much closer to Kyougoku. We can use that to our advantage and arrest him. Kyougoku’s confession is the only thing we have that can prove the detective’s innocence.”

But still…

…would such a reckless plan even work on this man?

“…A few years back, my partner and I were investigating Kyougoku,” Asukai said out of the blue. “It was an uneventful case. I mean, our suspect was just a regular guy. Hadn’t even committed a single crime. He was completely clean. But after a while, it was like murders were following him wherever he went, so we were given orders to surveil him just in case.”

He looked like he was taking a trip down memory lane.

“But one day, when I returned to the surveillance room, I found my partner dead. Sliced right open.” Asukai rubbed his face, seemingly exhausted. “I found the criminal almost immediately. He was just an ordinary burglar sneaking into what he thought was an empty house. There was no evidence that anyone gave him the orders to do what he did, but I knew what really happened. Kyougoku was behind it.”

After removing the leather gloves that he always wore, he quietly stared at his hands as if he could still see his partner’s blood staining them—as if he could still feel the weight of her lifeless body.

“I learned later that my partner, Yui, was three months pregnant.” Asukai shook his head. “I’ve been chasing Kyougoku ever since then. I don’t need any evidence. All I need is to see his dead body lying on the ground in front of me.”

I closed my eyes. “Same here.”

The battle between Detective Ayatsuji and Kyougoku was one between gods in the heavens, and all ordinary people like us could do was watch in awe.

However…if Kyougoku believed that he was too high up for our bullets to reach him, he was wrong.

“You heard the update, right? The satellite found Detective Ayatsuji near a path in the woods. But the forest cover this late at night is making it impossible to track him any further, so the Division is going to encircle the area and search for him on foot. They think he’s trying to run away, so they’ll slowly close in on him, but—”

“Detective Ayatsuji isn’t running from anyone,” I said. “I think I know where he might have gone.”

“The moment the Special Forces surround him, he’s dead.” Asukai cautiously nodded back at me as he put his leather gloves back on. “So in order to save the detective, we need to get to Kyougoku first and force a confession out of him. This is our last chance, as slim as it may be.”

Getting Kyougoku to confess to his crimes… We understood very well how difficult and unrealistic that would be, but there was nothing else we could do.

I breathed in and out.

“That selfishness of yours is what killed my mother!”

That day, I let my anger get the best of me and yelled at Detective Ayatsuji over the phone.

I was wrong, though. He didn’t run away because he was selfish or anything remotely close to that. If I’d let my guard down for even a second, the sadness would swell in my throat until it expelled from my mouth.

I had no idea if Detective Ayatsuji would be able to face Kyougoku. Nor did I know if I’d catch up to the detective before Kyougoku disappeared. But there was one thing I did know—and I could no longer hide it.

Even as a top-class agent who followed orders, even if shooting the detective was the right thing to do, even though I’d been training for a day like this—

—I couldn’t shoot Detective Ayatsuji.

The waterfall roared. Splashes of water rose up the ravine like smoke.

No longer was there any light from the evening sun, and any man-made light was far off in the distance. If twilight was the hour of evil when the border between this world and the next were connected, then the top of the waterfall that night was the path to the netherworld. The rules of the material world did not apply in this world. The only light was the crescent moon carved by the claws of a wraith.

A single shadow was silently standing tall in the realm of demons.

He was a tall man, wearing a flat cap and sunglasses while staring emotionlessly into the distance as the night breeze brushed against his body.

This man, the Homicide Detective, remained perfectly still and silent. Only his thoughts wandered the curtain of night before melting into profundity.

“This really brings back memories,” he suddenly commented.

His deep voice resonated like a stringed instrument, vibrating the air until it was absorbed into the rustling trees.

“It truly does,” a voice eventually replied behind him. The easygoing voice whistled like a flute as if to hide what the man was really thinking. “I believe we had our last battle here three months ago already. How time flies.”

“You fell from this cliffside.”

Kyougoku appeared to be in a trance as he reminisced about that day. “It felt like a dream.”

“You’ve been preparing for this moment ever since then, haven’t you?” Ayatsuji said, looking back.

A silhouette slithered forward from the mountain’s shadows without making a sound. The right half of the elderly man’s face was hidden under the shadows of the trees, while the left was illuminated by the dim moonlight. It was like half of his body had melted and blended into the darkness, fusing with the mountain forest as if he were a part of this otherworldly ravine.

“I have no authority. I have no companions. All I have is this head. Inside here…” Kyougoku tapped his temple. “Paradise exists. There is such a thing as a perfect world. ‘As a lump of salt exists purely in its taste, so too does the atman—the self—exist as wisdom.’”

“Quoting Sanskrit scriptures now? Have some consistency.”

“I seek only the truth in my readings. Sun Tzu, Kant—even ‘Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?’”

“Now you’re reading up on Einstein’s EPR paradox? I suppose you would like quantum mechanics, since it deals with perception and the undefined.”

The jet-black trees rustled in the wind. Pale mist from the waterfall basin hovered between the two men.

“Ayatsuji, I am truly grateful to you,” Kyougoku said, lifting his chin. “You were a great help in achieving my goal. Nobody else could have accomplished what you did.”

“I bet,” Ayatsuji replied. The dead leaves at his feet faintly crunched as he slowly walked over them. “Your goal isn’t murder. Nor is it to defeat me. So tell me. What are you after?”

“Diffusion,” Kyougoku promptly replied in a hoarse voice. “Do you understand the true nature of ghosts?”

Ayatsuji silently glared at the Sorcerer.

“The true nature of ghosts is to diffuse.” Kyougoku rubbed his fingers together. “On a personal level, to live is to experience fear. In the mountains, in the water, in the darkness of your own heart—there are other worlds with concepts beyond human understanding. Nevertheless, fear alone means nothing; it produces no specters. Ghosts spread through writings and word of mouth. That is how they migrate to the hearts of others. The gyuuki in rivers and beaches, the smoke monster enenra, the invisible bird Basabasa—specters are information-based life-forms that feed off fear and then spread. They are built into villages, towns, and cities, and they are immortal.”

“And they don’t exist,” Ayatsuji insisted, his voice low.

“Precisely. Ghosts do not exist,” Kyougoku agreed. “By that same logic, neither do gods. Nor do money, gender, authority, and even language exist. These are all merely shared ideas.”

Ayatsuji pondered in silence for a few moments before replying, “Like memes.”

“Exactly.” Kyougoku nodded with evident satisfaction. “I knew you would find the humor in it. Memes as described in The Selfish Gene spread through word of mouth and then replicate. They’re just like ghosts. Take the typical inugami—possession by a dog spirit. This spirit’s meme spreads throughout the population until it becomes a shared delusion—a folie à deux. In other words, ghosts are living memes that infect the human mind. Memes and genes are two sides of the same coin, a Noah’s ark of information. If you ask me, ghosts, who spread and live on as memes across millennia, are far more exceptional specimens than humans, who spread slowly through genes.”

Kyougoku took a step forward, but his step didn’t even make a sound.

“And just as ghosts are memes, so too is the concept of evil.”

When the detective looked up, the moonlight illuminated the flash of realization on his face.

“So that’s what this is, Kyougoku. Your goal is—”

I was running up the mountain path. Sweat dripped down my forehead, and my ragged breath came out of my lungs in explosive bursts. My feet were throbbing from moving around so much in my shoes. Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop sprinting as fast as my legs would carry me. If Detective Ayatsuji came to these mountains to settle things with Kyougoku, then there was only one place he could be: by the cliffside of the waterfall. It was the same place they’d fought three months ago and the place where the detective defeated Kyougoku.

Detective Ayatsuji must have uncovered how Kyougoku survived that fall, so this time, he was going to make sure to put an end to the phantom once and for all. But this was still Kyougoku he was up against, and there was no telling what that man would do. Plus, the Division was closing in on Detective Ayatsuji, which put him at a disadvantage already. That was why I had to reach him first, no matter what.

“Detective…Ayatsuji…! Why are you…like this…?!” I yelled while running.

I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. Although my lungs felt like they were going to pop, my legs gradually started to move more quickly in spite of the pain. I continued to push myself ahead across the beaten path to get there even if only a second sooner.

It wasn’t muscle moving my legs. Blood wasn’t giving me the power to sprint. The source of this speed was something that couldn’t be seen with the human eye. They were indescribable words escaping from my throat.

“You think I’m just a kid…so you…!”

I squeezed the words out of my trembling mouth.

“You left without…even saying a word…! You coldhearted jerk…!”

I felt no pain nor fear running through the dark mountains. Something was going to happen to Detective Ayatsuji, and before that happened…I had to talk to him.

“What is evil?” Kyougoku said with a raised finger. He walked toward Ayatsuji, his steps utterly silent. “The question has been asked countless times—in a court of law, in history books, in fairy tales… However, I believe that life is inherently evil. That is to say, all living beings prioritize themselves.”

Kyougoku kept walking, his voice melting into the mist.

“Lions will kill the previous leader’s cubs after taking over a pride. Chimpanzees will kill their neighbors or infants and devour them. Dolphins will gang up on porpoises for fun, taking turns biting chunks out of the victim for long periods of time before beating them to death. Life contains the seeds of evil from the very beginning. Harming others for one’s own benefit is unacceptable in our society—that much is true. Such behavior would destroy this system as we know it. However, protecting yourself and those you love are part of what make us human. Wouldn’t you agree? When society becomes nothing more than a machine to suppress the true brilliance of man, what is there to bring humankind freedom if not evil?”

“What is this, your new religion?” Ayatsuji’s tone was frigid. “Is this why you made that well that could ‘turn people evil’?”

“Not everyone is as strong as you, Ayatsuji.” There was faint warmth in Kyougoku’s hoarse voice. “People were drawn to my well because they felt they were being crushed by society. These innocents couldn’t even scream, so they clung onto evil as a last resort to restore their humanity. In a way, what I did was an act of charity.”

“That’s some twisted logic you’ve got there,” Ayatsuji spat. “Let’s not forget that you made a married couple shoot each other in the head. Was that charity, too?”

“At the very least, both of their daughters were saved.”

“…”

Ayatsuji glared murderously at Kyougoku.

“Of course,” said Kyougoku, “I understand that this is sophistry, but a meme such as ‘evil’ truly does tug at the heartstrings. It inspires. In other words, it can reproduce. I do not intend to save the world with that well. What’s important to me is reproduction. The fertility of ghosts and urban legends is similarly essential to my life’s work. You, too, are just as irreplaceable to my mission.”

Kyougoku walked right up to Ayatsuji’s side.

The white waterfall. The slender crescent moon. The roaring of the falls and howling of the wind.

It was like looking into a mirror of their battle three months ago. The players were the same. The sound of the waterfall was the same. There was only one difference.

“I’ve been doing all the talking here.” Kyougoku laughed. “It’s your turn, Ayatsuji. Time for the detective to solve the mystery.”

“…Yeah,” Ayatsuji quietly muttered.

“Let’s hear your answers. There are two mysteries. The first: how I survived your skill when you produced that copper coin as evidence. The second: how I disappeared from the underground shelter after you solved the case. Ready?”

“Instead of answering, I’m going to give you this.”

Ayatsuji held out a gun he had been hiding and aimed it at Kyougoku.

“…Oh?” Kyougoku seemed taken aback. “I thought detectives preferred to use their heads to solve cases.”

“I don’t have any preferences when it comes to you.”

“Clearly,” Kyougoku said, cackling. “But are you sure, Ayatsuji? You are being pursued by the Division as well. If they catch you with a gun, they’ll surely kill you on sight before you even get to explain yourself, yes?”

The detective forcefully pressed the gun up against Kyougoku’s temple with a loud thud.

“I don’t care.”

Ayatsuji cocked the gun, then placed his finger over the trigger.

Kyougoku gazed up at the night sky with a smile. “What a beautiful moonlit night.”

Bang.

A chill suddenly ran down my spine. I briefly froze.

Gunfire. And three shots, at that. Even the sounds of roaring gunfire were absorbed by the surrounding black trees.

The top of the waterfall was just up ahead, and the flashes of light I saw were coming from that direction as well. Did Detective Ayatsuji shoot Kyougoku? Or did Kyougoku shoot him? Whatever happened, the final battle was reaching its conclusion almost right before my eyes.

“Detective Ayatsuji!”

I sprinted once more while taking my pistol out of its holster. Kicking dirt into the air with each step, I leaped over a pile of stones toward their face-off.

When I arrived at a clearing, I noticed a tall, shadowy figure illuminated by the moonlight.

There was no doubt about it. It was Detective Ayatsuji with a pistol in his hand. I made it in time. Kyougoku had to be nearby.

“Detective! Get away from Kyougoku!”

I approached them with my pistol held at the ready, staying cautious of my surroundings.

“Tsujimura,” the detective quietly uttered once he glanced at me. “You came all this way… You really know how to be a thorn in my side, don’t you? What about the Special Division? They should be here any moment to kill me.”

“There’s no time!” I shouted. “Where is Kyougoku?! We can make him confess to everything! That’s the only way I can save you!”

My pistol searched for the enemy. It’s too dark. Too many shadows. Where is he? Where’s Kyougoku?

“Kyougoku’s right here.” Detective Ayatsuji glanced to his side. “Say hello, Kyougoku.”

“Kyougoku’s right here.” Ayatsuji looked over his shoulder at Kyougoku. “Say hello, Kyougoku.”

“Greetings.” The Sorcerer grinned. “Your familiar is quite the loyal one. She ignored her organization’s orders and came here all by herself. I’m jealous.”

“She isn’t my familiar,” Ayatsuji insisted, shifting his gaze at Tsujimura, who was still desperately searching for Kyougoku.

“She isn’t my familiar,” the detective told someone at his side.

I promptly aimed my gun where he was looking.

I’ve got you now.

“Kyougoku, can you hear those footsteps? They belong to the Special Forces.” Detective Ayatsuji peered into the forest. “The end-time for us is near.”

I heard footsteps as well—the footsteps of soldiers running through the woods. We were out of time.

“What? Oh, sorry about that, Kyougoku. I’m sure you wanted to see me terrified, but unfortunately, I don’t get scared when I already know what’s going to happen.”

Detective Ayatsuji was talking to Kyougoku. That much was undeniable.

“…No, Kyougoku,” the detective said. “You of all people should understand… What?”

I searched for the enemy with my gun drawn, but when I stopped in front of Detective Ayatsuji, there was nobody there.

Cold dread filled my throat.

“Detective!” I shouted with my gun held out. “There’s nobody here! Nobody!”

“You’re wasting your time, Tsujimura.” The detective placed a hand on Tsujimura’s shoulder. “I realized it when I was in the underground shelter. That bunker was an unescapable prison. Not even the smartest man in the world could escape without me noticing. Therefore, there was only one explanation.”

Kyougoku grinned by his side. “You got me.”

“Kyougoku was never there to begin with.”

Tsujimura gaped in astonishment.

“That was the trick behind his escape,” Ayatsuji told her. “The reason why Kyougoku was able to survive a fall from the top of the waterfall was because he actually didn’t survive. Nobody can escape death once my skill activates. Occam’s razor, Tsujimura: The simplest hypothesis is the right one.”

He directed his gaze to the grinning Sorcerer and revealed:

“Kyougoku died when he fell off this cliff three months ago.”

“B-but…” Tsujimura turned pale, her voice trembling. “Then this… Everything that’s been happening…”

“All that’s left are remnants of the man—his spirit. Right before he died, he used his skill to possess me, and that’s why there’s no way you can get him to confess to prove my innocence. He is no longer of this world.”

Detective Ayatsuji’s deep, resonant voice reverberated under the moon. I staggered forward on trembling legs.

“This…can’t be happening…”

Kyougoku was dead? Detective Ayatsuji was talking to an evil spirit created by Kyougoku’s skill?

I desperately tried to recall the sequence of events.

The first time Kyougoku appeared after that incident three months ago was when that married couple shot each other in front of Detective Ayatsuji. The only other witnesses were the husband and wife—who were both dead. Me and the Special Division knew about Kyougoku’s return solely because of the detective’s report. We hadn’t actually seen him ourselves.

The next incident with Kyougoku was at the train tracks after we caught Kubo. Kyougoku had talked with Detective Ayatsuji through a wireless communicator. Nobody else even heard his voice. Everything we knew came from what Detective Ayatsuji told us.

Then there was the incident in the underground shelter. Once again, Kyougoku and Detective Ayatsuji were the only two people there. Nobody else saw Kyougoku.

Neither the smuggler nor Kubo had met Kyougoku in person. Nobody… Not a single soul…

“But…that’s…” My hand holding the gun was trembling. “Kyougoku’s…dead…? Then what are we even fighting…?”

“Kyougoku was a singularity born in this country,” the detective quietly explained. “The massive, intangible tricks he came up with before he died are transmitted through other people. They transcend time and spread like a disease. Whether or not he has a physical body is hardly an issue now.”

“But then… Why?” My voice quavered. “Why would he want to do this…even after death…?”

“You made it all this way without figuring it out?” There was no emotion in his voice. “The well. The rumors of the evil shrines. The self-replicating memes—his intentions are clear.”

Detective Ayatsuji shifted his gaze to the empty space next to him—and he muttered hoarsely:

“You wanted to become a supernatural entity—a creature of folklore. Didn’t you, Kyougoku?”

“Drop your weapons!” a voice on the cliff top furiously shouted.

They had surrounded us without even making a sound. It was the Black Tiles, Japan’s strongest forces for neutralizing skill users. There were twenty-two shock troops and six snipers—we couldn’t escape.

“Wait!” I shouted. “Detective Ayatsuji didn’t betray the Division! He was trying to protect me, so he—”

“Tsujimura, stand back. Motive no longer holds any meaning,” a calm voice demanded.

Sakaguchi emerged from the darkness of the woods. An exceptional Special Division agent and a master at handling skill-related crimes who had successfully completed a great number of top secret operations.

“Ayatsuji, you have been deemed a threat to the peace and order of this nation,” Sakaguchi said. His chilling, commanding voice echoed over the cliff. “You are not a simple criminal but a Special A-Grade Dangerous Skill User, and as such, you will be ‘disposed’ of as required by the Special Division for Unusual Powers.”

“Wait…!” I cried.

But when I tried running over to stop him, a jet-black hand suddenly grabbed my arm from behind.

I was robbed of my gun, and I felt more hands on my neck and shoulder before I was slammed onto the ground. Numerous Special Forces in black were now straddling me, leaving me incapacitated.

My ribs began to crack as if they were crying. I felt the air in my lungs being squeezed out.

But that wasn’t enough to get me to stop shouting.

“Detective Ayatsuji! Tell them what really happened—!”

Something cold touched the back of my skull, and I realized that I had a gun to my head.

Even those who tried to cover for targets of elimination would be eliminated. That was the rule.

“Stop! Tsujimura isn’t a criminal! Put your guns down!”

I could hear someone sprinting this way—Asukai. I couldn’t see him, since I was pressed face-first onto the ground, but I could feel him ripping the gun away from my head.

“Surely, this situation doesn’t surprise you, Detective Ayatsuji.”

Only when I heard Sakaguchi’s chilling voice did fear finally start to take over.

He was always calm and composed, strict and intelligent, and although sometimes sarcastic, he was a good, reasonable boss who I could always count on.

However, the instant I heard his voice, it dawned on me.

Sakaguchi wasn’t even remotely uncertain anymore. He was more than ready to kill Detective Ayatsuji. Right now, Sakaguchi thought robbing a criminal of their life was no different from plucking a piece of fruit off a tree. His cruelty knew no bounds. He was a god who stood in the heavens just like Kyougoku and Detective Ayatsuji.

“If you want to shoot me, Sakaguchi, then do it.” The detective’s voice was absolutely quiet. “I lost to Kyougoku. Our match ended three months ago when he fell off this cliff. If he wishes for me to die, then there is nothing I can do to stop that from happening.”

I managed to lift my head and look in the direction of the voice.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Detective Ayatsuji standing perfectly still in front of the waterfall. Soon enough, I also saw Sakaguchi slowly approaching him with his gun at the ready.

The detective was surrounded by armed Special Forces with the waterfall behind him. There was nowhere left to run.

If they were ordinary police officers, Detective Ayatsuji would probably be able to talk his way out of this. But that wasn’t going to work on Sakaguchi and the Division.

“I included my thoughts on this case in a report hidden in my office. Make sure to give it a read once I’m dead.”

Sakaguchi’s expression showed a brief moment of hesitation when he heard those quiet words.

“Thank you…for everything you’ve done.”

His gun was aimed right at the detective’s head.

Detective Ayatsuji wasn’t even wearing a bulletproof vest. Even if he was, that wouldn’t protect him from a gunshot to the head.

“Stop… Stop!” My throat felt like it was on fire. My entire body was in pain. “I understand we have rules, but please…!”

Sakaguchi took aim, not even seven feet away from his target. There was no way he could miss.

“Detective Ayatsuji,” Sakaguchi muttered while closing his eyes. “Job well done.”

When Detective Ayatsuji directed his gaze to me, our eyes met…and that was the first time I had ever seen him smile at me.

He opened his mouth as if he was trying to tell me something—

Three shots.

His head flew back, knocking him off-balance until he fell off the cliffside and into the waterfall basin.

Not a single sound could reach my ears.

My soul was crying.

Almost unconsciously, I grabbed the arm of the Special Forces soldier holding me down and twisted it in the opposite direction, weakening his grip and allowing me to take off sprinting.

“Detective Ayatsuji!”

Why?

Why? Why? Why?

Why did this have to happen?

I sprinted down the mountain path by the cliff while the world before me flashed red and white. I couldn’t think. Every muscle in my body carried me forward with unbelievable power.

Why? Why did the detective…? And for someone like me…?

The waterfall basin was roaring violently as a faint mist rose into the air. It was as if I’d ended up in another world. I couldn’t find the detective like this, let alone get near the water.

I thought back to the report on Kyougoku three months ago. This waterfall basin was extremely dangerous, and there was no way to survive a fall.

“This can’t…be happening…”

This piercing sensation from my head to the tip of my toes burned every last cell in my body. The realization that the detective died in order to protect me…was too much to bear. Soon enough, I could hear a few sets of footsteps surrounding me.

“Any traces of the skill user or any accomplices?”

“No.”

I could hear Sakaguchi in the background giving the Special Forces orders, but I was processing none of it.

“Finding a body in this darkness would be difficult. Let’s keep cautious and continue the search tomorrow morning.”

I didn’t even turn around. I simply continued to stare idly at the water basin.

Why? Why did Detective Ayatsuji protect me?

None of this would have ever happened if he had just told them that I was Kubo’s murderer. He would have still been alive.

Why did he save me?

My heart was screaming. I knew the answer, and yet I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

It was almost abrupt. A single question came to me as if a burning fire had been ignited inside me before bursting out of my head.

Who did this to Detective Ayatsuji?

“Tsujimura.”

I heard Sakaguchi’s voice in the background.

“We’re done here. Return to headquarters.”

I didn’t reply.

“Tsujimura.”

I looked back at him. “This doesn’t make sense.”

“Tsujimura…”

“It doesn’t add up. It doesn’t make any sense.” My voice was flat, robotic. “Think about it, Sakaguchi. How was Kyougoku able to pull this off? How was he able to prepare all this before he died three months ago? He had to have done it. There’s no other way to explain what happened.”

I felt my mind convulsing, and I couldn’t stop the words from flowing out of my mouth. It was as if my brain were on fire.

“Kubo genuinely thought he could escape, and yet he died. The date and time he got on that ship, the date and time of those Port Mafia thugs’ side deal, the timing of the drawbridge automatically opening and closing—somebody had to make sure that all three of these things happened at the right time, or they would have never been able to make the perfect trap to defeat Detective Ayatsuji. But if it wasn’t Kubo who did it…then who? Somebody had to be fine-tuning this trap of Kyougoku’s to make sure it worked exactly as planned.”

“That’s…” Sakaguchi seemed to be reflecting on my question. “Of course, it is possible that Kyougoku made this extremely elaborate plan where he somehow perfectly timed all this before he died. But even if he could predict when Kubo would escape and when the drawbridge would rise, trying to pinpoint the exact date and time of that Port Mafia side deal at least three months in advance seems extremely unrealistic. Wouldn’t you agree? Even if he could control someone with the teachings of his wells, the plan had too many moving parts. Would Kyougoku really come up with a scheme that had this much uncertainty? A scheme this important to him?”

Someone was speaking inside me.

I was just an ordinary person, not even remotely anywhere on Kyougoku’s or Detective Ayatsuji’s level. But even then, I had watched the detective solve cases countless times by his side, and right now, that experience was borrowing both my brain and my mouth in order to say something significant.

This case…

“Someone was helping Kyougoku,” I announced. “Kyougoku has a pawn working for him, and they’re close by. Somebody was taking care of these wells and spreading the rumors. Someone was keeping up with every step of the investigation and loyally following Kyougoku’s commands, and they were adjusting this scheme while somehow predicting everything we would do. Someone had taken over this ‘ceremony’ for Kyougoku after his death.”

What were these people called again?

Oh, right. “Familiars.”

Kubo wasn’t Kyougoku’s familiar, because he wasn’t aware of the whole picture. He was merely a pawn.

So who was the familiar—?

“Not another word, Tsujimura.”

All of a sudden, I heard gunfire, followed by a burning pain in my thigh. I let out a voiceless scream and started to fall forward.

“Gah…!”

The only reason I didn’t collapse to the ground was because someone had violently grabbed me by the wrist from behind.

“Sakaguchi, put down your weapon. I don’t want to kill anyone I don’t have to.”

The voice was so close behind me that I could feel the vibrations on my twisted wrist.

“Wh-what…? Why?”

All I could see was red as my entire body was signaling an alarm. Although the voice was faint, it sounded familiar.

“His ceremony isn’t over yet.”

Unable to move my head, I was limited to what I could see around me.

“Why…?” I said. “Why would you…?”

A pistol was placed against my left temple, and I could feel the person behind me.

“I don’t want to do this, either, Tsujimura. But I’ve got no other choice.”

I grabbed my throbbing wound. I still couldn’t believe what was happening. My mind was a storm of agony and confusion. I couldn’t process the situation, but even then, I still managed to say:

“Why would you do this?! Kyougoku killed your partner! So why?! Answer me, Asukai!”

Inspector Asukai, a high-ranking investigator with the military police, had his gun to my head. This tough agent, who so relentlessly pursued Kyougoku, was behind me.

“I’m scared, too,” he whispered in my ear. His voice—it was trembling. “That’s why I didn’t do anything until the detective was dead… You get it, right?”

“Get…what?” My voice was also trembling.

“The time has come, Tsujimura… This way.”

Asukai pulled me back. His hand was gripping me so tight that I couldn’t even attempt to free myself. He continued walking backward, dragging me with him…to the waterfall basin.

What’s he trying to do?

My thoughts were a mess.

Why? Why would Asukai…?

He’d been after Kyougoku all this time. He despised Kyougoku and wanted revenge for his partner. And he had helped Detective Ayatsuji and me on several occasions throughout our investigation. During the car chase at the harbor, he got in my Aston Martin and nearly died when the Port Mafia shot at us in pursuit. If he really was the one behind Kyougoku’s crimes, then—

Wait.

Was it…the other way around?

Asukai was there when we were attacked at the sewage treatment plant. Our rendezvous was top secret; I took special care in selecting that location to keep anyone from finding out.

But it would’ve been extremely difficult for Asukai to time it so that my car was on the drawbridge at just the right moment. The entire plan would have been ruined if I’d crossed the bridge before the crates had been put in place.

“Tsujimura, look! That’s his car!”

“Tsujimura! That’s his car! It’s on that ship!”

Had he been leading me to where he wanted me to go?

“Now that Detective Ayatsuji’s dead, we can finally move on to the final stage of the ceremony,” Asukai said calmly from behind me. “The ceremony, by the way, is a sequence of instructions given to me—and this is the last step.”

He placed the gun against my head.

Thinking back, he would have been able to hide Kyougoku’s corpse, too. But why would someone with such a strong sense of justice do that?

“Asukai, don’t tell me—” I managed to push through the pain and spit out a few words. “Did he… Did he possess you with an evil spirit?”

“No, I’m not possessed by any spirit. I’m doing all this of my own volition. I fought ‘him’ once. When I was assigned to his case. But I soon learned that he’d gone far beyond the realms of what was humanly possible. And there’s no way a human can defeat a phantom.”

A phantom—Kyougoku. He’d made me the criminal behind Kubo’s murder and set Detective Ayatsuji up to kill him.

“What do you think people have done since time immemorial when they’re faced with something beyond human understanding? Let me tell you, Tsujimura. They fear and worship these beings. They give offerings and prayers so that these greater existences don’t reduce them to ashes on a whim. There’s nothing else they can do.”

I got a glimpse of Asukai’s pistol after I managed to move my head enough.

“And that’s why I did exactly that…just like I did five years ago.”

I noticed something strange out of the corner of my eye.

Asukai always wore leather gloves—but he wasn’t wearing them now. Under the light of the moon, I saw an old white scar on one of his pale fingers. It wrapped around the entire finger. The scar was so faint that I never would’ve noticed it unless I was this close to him.

That old scar—it almost looked like the tip of his finger had been chopped off.

He was missing…part of his left ring finger.

“No…,” I moaned. “You can’t be…!”

I thought back to Kubo, who’d admitted he was behind the Reigo Island Massacre. But there wasn’t any actual objective evidence to prove it.

“Let her go, Inspector Asukai,” Sakaguchi demanded with his gun drawn.

Asukai, meanwhile, was hiding right behind me and using me as a shield. I couldn’t possibly fend him off with the gunshot wound to my leg.

“I don’t plan on getting out of here alive, Sakaguchi,” Asukai avowed in a quiet voice. “The three of us—me, Detective Ayatsuji, and Tsujimura—will make this our final resting place. Only then will the Shrine of Malevolence be complete. That is his Word—the Word of the unrelenting phantom who devours all who pursue him. He grants evil to the faithful who worship him. Tales of him will proliferate and continue to live on in this country nearly forever. This is what the man who couldn’t pass on his genes wanted.”

I grunted as we retreated into the numbingly frigid basin.

“Come,” he said. “It’ll all be over soon.”

Asukai took another step back. We were already waist-deep in the water and close enough for the powerful roar of the falls to rock our heads. I heard a click near my ear.

“Farewell.”

It was the sound of the end.

So this is where it ends…

I never got to ask about my mother. Detective Ayatsuji had thrown his life away to protect mine, and I wasted it.

“Mom…” The word instinctively slipped off my tongue. “Somebody… Help…”

I felt a gun pressed against my temple.

“Save me…”

I couldn’t stop the words from flowing. I’d lost a ton of blood, and I was starting to fade in and out of consciousness. I no longer had any idea what I was saying.

“Mom… Help… Detective… Help me……”

Warmth gradually escaped my body.

Slowly, I was enveloped in death’s embrace…

“‘Help me’? Spoken like a true top-class agent, Tsujimura.”

I was hearing things. Hallucinating.

There was no way that voice was real.

Because…

Because that voice…

“The same goes for you, too, Asukai. The moment I died, you immediately started giving yourself away… It looks like nobody but Kyougoku can even give me a challenge.”

“What…?!”

Asukai tried to turn around and point his gun in the direction of the voice, but his arm froze as if by some sort of invisible force.

“I figured out Kubo wasn’t the Engineer when I met him. No one that inarticulate could have possibly instigated seventeen people to commit murder. It had to be someone more persuasive—for instance, someone with governmental authority, like a military police investigator.”

There he was.

A tall, shadowy figure dripping wet from the waterfall.

His skin was pale like a doll’s, his eyes bitterly cold as if all the life had been robbed from him.

His entire body emitted a chill icy enough to scare off even a cold-blooded snake.

“Detective…Ayatsuji…?!”

He wasn’t dead.

He was alive.

But how—?

“If dying and coming back to life was Kyougoku’s forte,” Detective Ayatsuji began, narrowing his eyes, “then I figured I was just going to have to beat him at his own game.”

“What the—?! My gun… I can’t move my arm…!”

Asukai grabbed his arm. It was as if his hand had been stapled in place in midair even though no one was touching him.

“I obtained a confession. Now I have everything I need.” The detective, soaking wet, exhaled a glacial breath. “There’s no reason for me to be dead anymore.”

“This can’t be! Detective Ayatsuji…you have to die! Because otherwise, Tsujimura is going to die!”

“You’re right. But it’s already too late.” The detective cast a serpentine glance my way. “Can’t you tell? Death—a fate-defying death—is coming for Kubo’s murderer as we speak. Watch.”

I instantly began to tremble.

The one who killed Kubo…

The person who ran over the wooden crate he was in and killed him…

I suddenly noticed something crawling around my feet, so I looked down at the water.

Something was struggling, and its shrieks sounded like metal being twisted. I peered deeper into the water.

An intangible black beast—it was the Shadow Child, contorting violently as if it was being broken apart piece by piece.

“That’s who killed Kubo,” Detective Ayatsuji quietly revealed. “Kubo was run over by a car. But before he drew his last breath, the Shadow Child slipped into his crate and slashed his neck. Why? Because that was what it was ordered to do. Its late master—the true owner of that skill—ordered it to murder anyone Tsujimura tries to kill.”

I thought back to our fight against the special task force in the sewage treatment plant.

Back then, I had my gun drawn on one of the officers who was aiming his gun back at me, and I wasn’t in any position to go easy on him. I had to fire my weapon even if that meant taking his life. And if I did pull the trigger, the bullet would have hit him right in the face, either killing him instantly or, at the very least, leaving him critically injured.

But I never got to pull the trigger.

Before I could even try, the Shadow Child stabbed him in the chest.

I trembled.

Kubo’s body had been torn up and badly beaten. It was obvious that most of his wounds were from getting hit by a car. But no one would have noticed a laceration from a scythe among his many injuries. If he’d received all those wounds around the same time, then even an official autopsy wouldn’t be able to determine exactly which one had killed him.

The Shadow Child.

The cursed skill my mother left me.

But…this meant that the Shadow Child knew in advance that this was going to happen…right…?

“The Shadow Child isn’t Tsujimura’s skill,” the detective revealed. “Its true skill user died five years ago, but the skill lived on and continued upholding its orders and protecting Tsujimura—all for its late master’s daughter.”

Hang on. Then my mother—

“Anyway, I’ve kept you waiting too long, Asukai.” Detective Ayatsuji slowly began to walk. “It’s your turn.”

“W-wait! Detective, I still—!”

“That’s the reaction I wanted to see.” The detective smiled, and cold air escaped his slightly parted lips. “You knew this day would come, Asukai, ever since you orchestrated all those murders on Reigo Island as the Engineer. Or maybe you figured it out even earlier…like when you slaughtered your partner per Kyougoku’s orders.”

Asukai couldn’t fight it. He lifted the gun against his own will. He tried to push it down with his other hand, but it continued to move as if it had a mind of its own…until it was pointing at Asukai himself.

“Y-you…you can’t k-kill me yet!” Asukai shouted, his voice trembling. “I—I still have information on Kyougoku’s scheme that—”

“I don’t need it.”

The detective faintly smirked. It was a soul-sucking grin, one chilling enough to rival a demon’s.

The cold-blooded reaper…

Asukai pressed the muzzle against his own chin.

“Bon appétit,” said Detective Ayatsuji.

After Asukai’s mouth automatically opened, he shoved the muzzle of his gun inside. His eyes opened wide with fear he’d never felt before. However, Detective Ayatsuji stood before Asukai and gazed at the horrific scene as if he was amused.

“Farewell, Inspector Asukai. You were an exceptional agent…and a piece of shit leagues more disgusting than even a cesspit of dead maggots. You’re no Kyougoku, though. That’s for sure. Do society a favor and die. Quickly, before that filthy face and breath of yours rot any more brains.”

“Gfff…!”

But before Asukai could say another word, a flash of light erupted in his mouth.

The shot blew off chunks of flesh.

The hollow-point bullet bore a hole through the bones in his throat, shattering them as it expanded into the skull on impact.

Once the bullet scrambled the motor center of his brain, Asukai’s entire body involuntarily began to convulse, including the tip of his finger, causing him to continue to pull the trigger multiple times against his will. Each bullet removed a different piece of flesh, shattering through bone until blood was spewing out of every hole on his face while he screamed. Ligaments, muscle, and pieces of brain shot into the air, and blood and brain fluid flew back.

Detective Ayatsuji just watched, unblinking.

It wasn’t long until there wasn’t even a single bullet left. And yet, Asukai’s trembling finger continued to pull the trigger. Then it was over. He was gone. With less than half of his face remaining, a flutelike whistle escaped what was left of his throat, and his head tipped backward.

His death was followed by a deep silence.

“Rest in peace.”

The detective patted Asukai’s blood-covered shoulder a few times and slowly pushed the corpse into the water. There was a faint splash before it sank to the bottom.

Nobody in the Division—not a single one of these seasoned soldiers—could utter a word.

The Homicide Detective.

The unbelievable power and unnaturalness of this skill was too much to handle. Everyone stood in silence, unable to even lift a finger.

“…Detective Ayatsuji,” muttered a shadow—Sakaguchi in his typically cynical voice. “For the last time…we can’t have you going rogue like this. I had no idea that Tsujimura was behind Kubo’s murder, and I didn’t know that the Shadow Child had been ordered to kill Tsujimura’s enemies, either.”

“I gave you more than enough information to work with, Sakaguchi,” the detective replied in his usual tone. “I told you to shoot me with nonlethal rubber bullets. I asked you to hide a net inside the waterfall for me to grab onto and climb down. I even said to act like you’d really killed me so that the actual criminal would let his guard down. What else did you need to know?”

A few seconds went by. I blankly stared back and forth between the two men until it finally hit me.

They were on the same page. This was their plan from the very beginning.

They had to make Kyougoku’s familiar think that Detective Ayatsuji was dead in order to throw the familiar off. The detective must have gotten in touch with Sakaguchi secretly to tell him the plan.

“Are you kidding me?!” I shouted despite myself. “This isn’t fair! How could you do something so awful?! Would it have killed you to tell me the truth beforehand?!”

“Sakaguchi, you heard the lady. Tell her.”

Detective Ayatsuji shot Sakaguchi a glance as if he couldn’t be bothered to answer.

“Tsujimura, we couldn’t tell you because you’re too easy to read,” my boss bluntly replied with a blank expression.

What jerks! Both of them!

“It was relatively easy to guess that somebody within the police had been infected by Kyougoku’s folie à deux,” Detective Ayatsuji explained. “Only someone who’d been involved in the investigation could have taken Kyougoku’s corpse from the waterfall basin. We didn’t have any proof, though, so I had to get Sakaguchi to pretend to kill me. I knew that Kyougoku’s familiar would make a move once he believed he didn’t have to worry about my skill anymore.”

“But…” I tried to argue with him. “Did you know…Asukai was the Engineer?”

“I figured it out during the investigation.” Detective Ayatsuji shrugged. “I realized immediately that Kubo didn’t have what it took to be the Engineer, but Kubo genuinely believed he’d done all that. Therefore, it was only reasonable to assume that the real Engineer was trying to pin his crimes on Kubo and that Kubo was given false memories.”

“‘False memories’…?”

“Kubo apparently used to hallucinate—he mentioned that he’d seen a monkey. That was probably Kyougoku’s skill at work; Kubo must have been possessed by a satori, an evil monkey spirit.”

A satori?

“I’ve heard of those before,” Sakaguchi mentioned. “I believe they’re mind-mountain-dwelling monsters that can read minds.”

I stared blankly at them.

Am I the only one here who isn’t an expert on ghosts and folklore?

“Exactly. But those weren’t Kubo’s memories—they were Asukai’s. The satori peered into Kubo’s thoughts and memories for so long that Kubo began to believe that he actually was the Engineer behind the Reigo Island Massacre. But, well, he thought he was special until the very end, so I guess he died a happy man.”

I thought back to Kubo’s arrogant demeanor at the train station.

He truly believed that being ostracized from society for committing murder was proof that he was special. He was convinced that evil was the easiest way to keep himself from being crushed by society. That must’ve been why Kyougoku had chosen him.

Grant evil and save the individual—that was what Kyougoku was trying to do with that well.

“At any rate… This case gave me quite a fright.” Sakaguchi sighed. “Detective Ayatsuji, you’ll be coming with me to explain things to the director later, because I refuse to listen to him complain all by myself.”

Sakaguchi looked exhausted. He ordered the Special Forces to return to their vehicles. I quietly watched them leave.

“Detective,” I muttered, shifting my gaze toward Detective Ayatsuji. “I just… Thank you.”

He stared down at me, showing almost no concern or even interest.

“For what?” he asked.

“For… You know? For that. Like…” I began searching for the right words. “The reason why…you ignored Division orders and ran away…was because—because I…”

He raised an eyebrow. “Spit it out already. What are you getting at?”

“You know—because…for me…you, like…” My face gradually started to get warmer. “Oh! Is this what I think it is? You know what I’m trying to say, but you’re trying to get me to say it myself, aren’t you?”

“I get you’re trying to imply something…” The detective shot me a quizzical look. “But I have no idea what you’re trying to say.”

“Seriously?!”

Why does he always suddenly become dense during times like this?!

“You ran away because you didn’t want me to die, right? I’m just…really happy, okay?! So I wanted to thank you! That’s it!”

A faint smirk instantly played on his lips. “Heh. Honesty is the best policy,” the detective smugly replied with a nod. “By the way, I knew that the real killer was the Shadow Child from the very beginning. I only made it look like the government was after me so that Asukai would let his guard down. In other words, running away to save your life never once crossed my mind. Do you honestly think anyone would do something like that for you?”

My soul immediately left my body.

“Huh…?”

I started feeling hot, and I shook uncontrollably.

“Sheesh… You still need a lot of work. For starters, a good servant wouldn’t even hesitate to say thank you.” Detective Ayatsuji tilted his head to the side. “Training starts tomorrow.”

“Excuse me?!”

I swung my fist without a second thought, but he nimbly dodged it. He must have seen it coming from a mile away.

“It’s my job to keep an eye on you! Not the other way around!” I shouted.

“Which is exactly why you need training. My work would be so much easier if I had a watchdog that was actually obedient and disciplined.”

“How about I throw you off that cliff again?!”

I lunged at him in a fit of rage, but the agonizing pain in my thigh stopped me dead in my tracks. I started to fall forward…only to be caught in his long arms.

“…You’re an idiot,” Detective Ayatsuji griped. “Let me take you to the hospital. I want my servant in perfect health before she comes back to work.”

“I told you… I’m not…your servant—”

“I’ve made up my mind,” he said abruptly with his arm wrapped under mine. “You promised to do anything I wanted for an entire day, right? Well, that day is tomorrow.”

“Hey?! I’m badly injured, y’know!”

“Which means you’ll be more obedient.”

His mouth curled into a smug grin, and he started to help me walk.

The nerve of this guy! I’m gonna shoot him in his stupid face for real next time!