Chapter 1: Iori Mutou (1)
“…Huh?”
Men have a plan when they murder someone, and women murder on impulse. Even if it’s done on the spur of the moment, a man will commit murder in a vaguely calculated way, and even it’s been painstakingly planned out in advance, a woman will commit murder in a vaguely impulsive way. Iori Mutou did not subscribe to that idiotic theory predicated on infantile prejudice—not that she was in a position to in the first place, considering she had never even heard of it.
And yet.
Why?
“What. No way…”
Even Iori had once heard baseball referred to as an “unscripted drama.” No predicting future developments, no telling what will happen next, no knowing how things will end up—an improv performance with no outline to follow. On the one hand, Iori found that to be a pretty apt description, but on the other hand, she couldn’t help thinking to herself.
An unscripted drama.
What was so fun about that?
“…For reals?”
For the first time since she was born, the high school girl by the name of Iori Mutou had been faced with imminent peril. Or perhaps that would not be the most accurate way of putting it; to describe the situation more objectively and more correctly, she had been cornered by a peril closing in on her from behind. Thinking back, the danger had always been there, and all seventeen years of her life to that point had been devoted to running away from it. It was much like the games of basketball they would play in her gym class; while everyone else would describe basketball as a sport in which the goal was to steal the ball from the other team and shoot it into the hoop, in Iori’s mind, the goal of basketball—and of any other ball game, at that—was to run somewhere the ball wouldn’t reach. Whether it was volleyball or softball, or even a ball toss game or oodama korogashi[1], if Iori was able to make it to the end of the game without ever touching the ball, she considered that a worthy victory. Of course, it wasn’t quite clear what exactly it was supposed to be worth, or what exactly she was supposed to be winning against.
An image of being chased.
A picture of running away.
The latter may give off a stronger impression, but the moment she was caught, the two would amount to the same thing. Endings always come without warning. Just like when a clock runs out of batteries—or perhaps like when a bolt of lightning trips a circuit breaker, they come abruptly, too uncalculated to be called unforeseen, devoid of any script or outline.
“This is kinda, y’know… a ‘my life is over!’ type of situation… Or is this just what it was all leading up to?”
Thinking back—somewhere deep down in her heart, Iori had always had that feeling. Ever since she was a child. It wasn’t a hunch, nor was it something she had figured out from experience; based on nothing more or less than pure conviction, she had always vaguely thought, “I’m never going to get anywhere in life.” In elementary school, when she had been instructed to write an essay titled “My Dream for the Future,” Iori had filled two full pages of notebook paper talking about her aspirations, writing drivel like, “I want to become a baker. If I can’t do that, I want to become a nurse,” but of course, Iori didn’t really believe she could become a baker or a nurse. (And to tell the truth, she didn’t want to in the first place. She had just plagiarized an essay her older sister had written. Oh, it’s no big deal; when it comes to writing, execution is more important than originality.) On her recent midterm exams, when she had aced the tests for four different subjects, one of the teachers had praised her with, “I could count on eight fingers the number of students in this school as gifted as you. With scores like this, you could get into whatever university you want,” but even then, she only wondered to herself if he was some kind of octopus or spider with the way he was counting things, not believing for a second that there was a single university on this earth she could get into. The very fact that she had finished compulsory education and was now enrolled in high school vaguely—and for no concrete reason—felt like a miracle to her. That morning, before she had left the house for school, when she read the newspaper sitting next to her breakfast plate, when she read the article adorning the entire front page, she had felt a strange sense of empathy. The article was about a 27-year-old man named Tokuhiko Sawagishi who had been found murdered inside a train that ran next to Iori’s high school. It reported that he had been ruthlessly torn to pieces with some kind of sharp-edged blade. It was exactly what would be labeled a “bizarre murder case,” but completely removed from that—although she had never met the man called Sawagishi, and even if he had never been killed, the two of them likely never would have crossed paths, and again, the two of them shared absolutely no connection, past or future—Iori felt something akin to empathy for the 27-year-old murder victim. Just like the man who had been anticlimactically murdered on a train in the middle of nowhere, she was stuck with a never-ending one-way ticket, doomed never to reach any destination.
She would never get anywhere.
An eternal halfway point.
It was much like freediving in a bottomless swamp. Even if she still had strength to spare, the moment she ran out of breath, it was all over.
“…But, c’mon… It’s not like this is really my fault…”
The time was 4:30 PM.
School was finished, and she was on her way home. (She was a member of the “go-home club.”)
The scene was set beneath a bridge, and every few minutes, the unpleasant rattling of a train passing overhead reverberated through the area. There was not another soul to be found—not an “urban air pocket,” as they say, but perhaps what you could call a Lagrange point in the country. There stood Iori, completely alone.
That is, if you disregarded the corpse of a high school boy that lay before her.
“…Okay, no, this is pretty bad.”
Iori was pretty sure the uniformed boy with a butterfly knife sticking out of his throat was one of her classmates. However, he had never made much of an impression. In Iori’s mind, “classmates” were nothing more or less than “peers with whom you learn in the same classroom.” In other words, they were easily replaceable, and in fact, they were replaced with each new school year, so she didn’t bother remembering each and every one of their names. After all, it’s not as though remembering them was ever going to get her anywhere.
For lack of any other options, while taking care not to get any blood on the sleeves of her uniform (it was expensive, after all), Iori nervously stuck her hand into the breast pocket of the boy’s uniform and took out his student ID. Along with a photo, address, and other miscellaneous information, the name “Yasumichi Kagawa” was written there. Oh yeaaah, I remember now, Iori thought, clapping her hands together. His nickname was Yasuchi. The cute pet name contrasted with his rough appearance, so now that her memory had been jogged, she dimly recalled hearing it before.
“…So, why is Yasuchi lying here dead? That’s the million dollar question.”
It certainly was a questionable state of affairs, but the answer was plain as day. The one who had taken that butterfly knife and plunged it into Yasumichi’s windpipe was none other than Iori herself. The situation being what it was, there was no room for a narrative trick to somehow turn that answer on its head. Despite the concern she had shown about getting her sleeves dirty, her uniform was already drenched with Yasumichi’s blood, and the sensation of the kill still lingered in her hands.
“…I totally offed him.”
She had been getting ready to go home, just the same as any other day, when Yasumichi had approached her. She had followed after him at his request, and before she knew it, he had taken her out to a completely deserted area. Oh, wow, is he gonna ask me out? Sure is nice to be young! Iori had thought, but in the next moment, Yasumichi was pointing a butterfly knife at her, screaming incomprehensible things in an unintelligible voice. Even then, Iori had failed to register the “danger” she was in, only thinking, Whoa, that’s a tiny knife. C’mon, do you really think you can kill anyone with a pocketknife like that? Even if you can break the skin, you’re never gonna cut through the flesh. While Iori was occupied with her carefree introspection, comical enough to be inappropriate for the situation, Yasumichi had rushed forward unflinchingly with his “tiny knife” aimed right at Iori’s heart. Iori had been incredibly taken aback, but Yasumichi’s course of action was perfectly logical—once someone takes out a knife, it’s only natural for them to use it—and rather, it was clearly Iori who was out of touch with the situation. However, as surprised as she was, Iori still hadn’t felt that she was in “danger”—or, no.
It was the very same “danger” she had always felt.
…Iori didn’t really remember what had happened after that. All she knew for sure was that she had stolen that knife from Yasumichi, and that she had thrust that very blade into his throat.
“Aw, geez. Now I’ve done it.”
The culprit is me.
It was a picture that could be summed up in one sentence.
Evidently—this was “for reals.”
She was like the killer on a Tuesday Suspense Theater drama.[2] In which case, did that mean there was someone observing this scene from the shadows who would show up to blackmail her later? And thus, she would be forced to commit her second murder. Or would it best to do things like a killer on Columbo (she seemed to recall there being an episode about an actress who would murder people on impulse) and attempt to cover up the crime? Wait, no, thinking about it rationally, there was a chance this would hold up as legitimate self-defense. Yasumichi had come at her with the knife first, so that was clear for anyone to see. Long live self-defense. Viva! But were you allowed to kill people as long as it was done in self-defense? She was pretty sure it was allowed, at least based on her knowledge from TV dramas. But wouldn’t that be a little too cut-and-dry for a TV show? Please, God. Shouldn’t there be limits to how far an unscripted drama can go? Weren’t people bound to kick up another fuss about how she was only a 17-year-old?
“…”
…However, she got the feeling that wasn’t the real issue here. As unfortunate as it was for this “Yasumichi Kagawa,” what truly mattered here wasn’t the fact that she had killed him. The real problem here was the sense that she had touched the thing she had been running from all this time—the thing she had been avoiding as if it were a basketball. Iori had been fine all that time she was running around from place to place, but the moment she touched it even once, she had lost.
She had lost.
Something she had just barely been holding together had collapsed in on itself.
That was how it felt.
“Ugh… This is all ’cause Yasuchi just had to attack me out of nowhere.”
She tried pinning the blame on someone else for lack of anything better to do, but she genuinely meant every word of it. Thinking about it, her classmate had been acting strangely from the very moment he approached her. As one could guess from his nickname, Yasumichi was typically more the lively, energetic kind of guy, but today there had been an empty look in his eyes, and he had spoken to her without making eye contact. She had thought it was a bit odd at the time, but that hadn’t been enough reason for a relatively normal person like Iori to anticipate that a classmate was going to attack her with a knife.
“But… this doesn’t make sense. No wayz I could do something like this.”
She tried saying it in a cutesy way, but there was little point to it.
She stole the blade from him and stabbed him with it. That may be easy enough to say, but it was hardly something a delicate, frail, adorable girl (self-described) could pull off against a muscular, athletic boy. Even the magic phrase “many miraculous coincidences happened all at once” would not have been enough to explain the situation. Iori had stolen the blade from Yasumichi exactly the way she had envisioned it in her mind, and she had stabbed him with it exactly the way she had envisioned it in her mind. That was the one thing she vividly remembered. Her hands—her body remembered. No unforeseen miracle had occurred. As one could assume from the metaphor about basketball, Iori Mutou was not athletic, held absolutely no interest in martial arts, and even including her childhood, had never fought with a friend using anything but words. And yet, as if she were playing a CD she had listened to millions of times on repeat, as if she were following a routine, her body had taken action against Yasumichi. Like the ritual at the beginning of every class—stand, attention, bow, sit.
“Maybe I’m like the hero of a shounen manga, and the moment my life was in danger, ‘my sleeping powers awakened’? I dunno, like… maybe I had a talent for killing people all along… Ahaha.”
She tried laughing it off, but it wasn’t very effective.
At any rate—now that things had come to this, she had no choice but to turn herself in. She was a minor, so if she surrendered herself, her sentence was sure to be lightened. Wait, or would it be best to talk to her family about it first? If they were to suddenly hear via a third party that their baby daughter had been arrested, the shock might be enough to kill them. That would be awful. Or was it important for her to take responsibility for her actions on her own? That was what she had always been taught. As that internal debate unfolded in her head, Iori decided she should get away from the area (even though she had been the one who killed him, she didn’t particularly want to look at the corpse of someone she knew) and turned around to leave, but she quickly froze in her tracks.
With a presence so natural it was as if he had been standing there since long before Iori and Yasumichi had arrived, a man was looking straight at her, leaning against a concrete wall. He was almost too tall to look Japanese; however, he was too thin to give the impression of a large man. Even taking into account the overall height of his body, his legs and arms were unusually long. He was dressed in a suit and necktie with slick-backed hair and silver-rimmed glasses, but that ubiquitous fashion looked shockingly unflattering on him. In a way, his figure looked reminiscent of a wireframe model.
“…!!”
He witnessed it, Iori realized, tensing up.
If someone reported the crime before she confessed, it would no longer count as a self-surrender and she would receive a heavier sentence (complete self-interest). Who was this guy? Why was he watching her out in the open like that? If he was going to watch her, it would be easier to deal with if he did it like he was supposed to and spied on her from the shadows… Wait, no, if he had been watching the entire time, then he was sure to understand that it wasn’t Iori’s fault—that it had been legitimate self-defense. Not only was blackmail out of the question, but he could even serve as a witness. In that case, this was like a dream come true. …No, she couldn’t get ahead of herself. There was nothing to suggest that he had conveniently arrived in time to see the whole thing. In a worst case scenario, it was possible that he had only witnessed the scene starting from the moment she had stolen the knife.
However, as she ran through those perfectly natural calculations in her head, in the corner of her mind—or rather, the calculations were secondary, and what occupied the front of her mind… was a “strange feeling.”
Huh?
Huuuh?
This man. This man…
Hadn’t she met him somewhere before…?
“…Just now,” the wireframe man said to Iori, making no attempt to introduce himself. It was hard to read any particular emotion from his voice. “Just now, you said something with a great deal of truth to it. Almost as if you were the Buddha himself.”
“…H-Huh?” Iori responded, taking a step backwards. What? What did that mean? As if she were the Buddha himself? What kind of greeting was that? “W-What are you referring to?”
“But if I may point out a single mistake—while still conveying the utmost respect for the accuracy of the statement, of course—it would be better described as a ‘disposition’ than a ‘talent.’ It’s true that ‘talent’ and ‘dispositions’ are very similar, but we mustn’t ignore the striking difference between them: the former is something you cultivate, while the latter is something you repress. Oh, but careless mistakes happen to the best of us; don’t let it get to you.”
“W-What are you talking aboot?”
In her state of utter disarray, she flubbed her words.
Ignoring her reaction, the wireframe walked past Iori and crouched down next to the prostrate body of Yasumichi Kagawa. Then, he gave a soft, eerie laugh.
“A single stab to the throat, hm…? Impressive work. A bit too impressive. So impressive it becomes more of a downside, really. Perfection is rather monotonous, you see; it lacks an individual touch. And when it comes down to it, individuality is all about what a person lacks and where they lack it. While it’s true that the concept of individuality is a mere illusion, a world devoid of fantasy would be a rather dreary place. By the way—um, what did you say your name was? My dear young lady.”
“Huh? Oh, i-it’s Iori. My last name is—”
“Oh, I don’t care about that. I was only asking about your first name. Iori, hm? The same name as the adopted son of Musashi Miyamoto[3]; I’m almost jealous. Never before have I met one who bears such a noble name.”
“It’s, uh, nice to meet to you, too…?”
“Yes, it’s nice to meet you. The question we’re now faced with, however, is what will become of this meeting, and what this meeting will become.”
As if he had just thought of something, the wireframe man grabbed the handle of the knife and pulled it out in one forceful motion. The moment the stopper had been removed, dark red blood started to gush from the wound. The body had begun to look more and more like a corpse, and Iori reflexively averted her eyes with a yelp.
“…It’s amazing that you actually managed to kill someone with this little toy. Color me surprised. Look, see this? The blade is broken. And it’s not even because it hit bone, either; it was ruined by the time it was halfway through the muscle. This is why I’m not a fan of Western-style knives. They can barely withstand any impact,” explained the wireframe man, showing off the bloodied knife to Iori. Once again, Iori averted her eyes. Noting her reaction, the wireframe man tilted his head to the side in puzzlement. “Hm? Oh, I see. Could this be your first time killing someone, Iori-chan?”
“H… Huh? What do you mean?”
“In other words, I’m asking if you commit murder as a part of your daily routine, day in and day out.”
“T… The answer should be obvious.”
“You obviously do?”
“I obviously don’t!”
“I see, I see. Just as I suspected.” The wireframe man nodded, before muttering, “‘Obvious,’ hm?” in a somewhat unenthusiastic tone. “Then I was quite right to compare you to the Buddha. Oh dear, it would seem that I hit the nail on the head yet again. In any case, while it’s natural to feel nervous about your first time, you shouldn’t worry about it quite so much. When was my first, again…? Well, I suppose anyone who remembers how old they were at the time is still wet behind the ears.”
“Uh. Uhhhhh.” Iori panicked. This was bad. This was bad. This was bad. This was bad. This was really bad. This guy was a total weirdo. “What you have to say is truly fascinating, and I wish I could just listen to you talk forever, but I’m afraid I must make haste to the police station… Feel free to continue on your own if you’d like, but is it alright if I leave now?”
“The police station? What for?”
The wireframe man stood up, with a look that said he really didn’t understand. Iori was far from a short girl, but looking at him like this, it seemed like an entire child could fit in the height gap between them. Iori recalled a phrase she had learned in Japanese class, “tall enough to pierce the heavens.” By association, she also recalled the phrase “heaven on earth,” but that had nothing to do with the current situation. As the wireframe man moved towards her, Iori considered running away, but despite some of the obvious flaws in her personality, Iori had a reputation throughout the school for being a sociable person. She wouldn’t want anyone saying she had a bad attitude because she ran away from the wireframe man here. The thought was enough to make her stop and face the man once more after she had begun to turn away.
“What do you mean, ‘what for’…?”
“Hey now, Iori-chan. Hey now, hey now, hey now, hey now, Iori-chan. Wait just a second. I sincerely doubt this is the case, and my legs are quivering at the possibility that you might think I’m an idiot for asking, but Iori-chan, you wouldn’t possibly be thinking of turning yourself in, would you?”
“Uh, yeah! Of course I am!” Flustered, Iori flapped her hands in front of her chest. “This isn’t some silly mystery novel, so there’s no way I could cover up a crime like this. I don’t know what part you started watching from, but let me make this clear: Yasuchi was the one who attacked me first, so this was a perfectly justifiable homicide.”
“I suggest you give up on that plan. If you go to the police, you’ll just end up killing them,” the wireframe man stated firmly—firmly enough to be strange. “You should refrain from talking with family, friends, and teachers, as well. You wouldn’t want to kill your family and friends, would you? I’m sure you have mixed feelings about your teachers, so I can’t speak to that one. It’s too late; you’ve strayed from the right path, so if you meet with someone now, you’ll only be able to think about killing them.”
“C’mon, no way… What are you talking about? You’re making me sound like some kind of homicidal maniac.”
“Well, you are a homicidal maniac.”
He declared it outright.
He concluded it—outright.
“Only a fresh newborn, but still. When I sensed the wicked aura around you, I was so sure you must be my little brother… Oh dear. I suppose I came to the wrong place, after all. What a mess, heheh. I truly didn’t see this one coming. It’s a predicament analogous to a failing amusement park. What am I supposed to do now? What exactly is being demanded of me here?” The wireframe man raised both of his arms in an exaggerated surrender, turning away in the other direction. “Goodness. It’s like Ittetsu Hoshi had his way with my timetable.[4] Heheh, heheheh,” he continued, using a metaphor that was completely lost on Iori as he walked aimless circles around the corpse. It looked like he was thinking about something.
“…Um.”
Not that she was attempting to imitate him, but Iori decided to do some thinking as well, folding her arms in front of her chest. First, there was the current situation. What was she to do with this wireframe model of a man who had so rudely called her a homicidal maniac (not that she could deny it entirely, considering she had, in fact, killed a person)? He was dressed in a suit, but he certainly didn’t give the impression of a businessman making the rounds, and he was strangely calm about the dead body lying in front of him (not that she was one to talk). Wasn’t he going to report her to the police? (Not that she wanted him to.)
He was a strange person.
A weirdo.
However—no matter how much of a weirdo the man standing before her was, the way she was feeling right now was just as strange. It wasn’t just strange; it was downright baffling.
After all.
With this wireframe man standing before her…
She had begun to feel like killing someone wasn’t a big deal, that it didn’t matter all…
That… couldn’t be true.
That’s right. She had killed a person.
And yet, why…?
Why didn’t she feel the least bit nervous?
Or was it always like this? Once you had killed a person—once the deed was done, was it not that big a deal? Then how was it any different from, say, the boyfriends and relationships the girls in her class would always brag about? Once you’ve actually done it, there’s nothing to it—even an elementary school student could say the same about riding a bike for the first time.
Even though she had killed someone.
Was that really okay?
Even though… she had killed someone.
“Hmmm. Oh well.”
The wireframe man gave a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders, glided backwards on the heels of his shoes, came within five centimeters of Iori with his back still facing her, and then finally turned around. Five centimeters. It was an awfully close distance to keep with a stranger.
“By the way, just by the by, Iori-chan. You don’t need to feel bad about killing him. And… you don’t need to feel guilty that you don’t feel bad. The fault lies with him, after all.”
“Ah…”
It was so very much like he had read her mind—though of course, it was probably just a coincidence—that it took her a moment to react to what the wireframe man had said. Once she had actually processed it, however, she realized it was good news, at least as far as she was concerned.
“T-Then, you were watching when Yasuchi attacked me?”
Whew, what a relief. Iori couldn’t help but break into a smile at the thought, but the wireframe man simply shook his head, expressionless, and said, “No.”
“I wasn’t watching anything. The only thing I’ve seen is the result we have here. By the time I got here, everything was already finished. ‘Finished,’ hm…? Heheh. And so, let me ask you a question, Iori-chan… Did this boy say anything strange to you?”
“U-Umm…” Iori faltered. “Come to think of it, I think he did yell something weird. What was it, again…?” She couldn’t remember it very well. What had he said? “Oh, right. I think he asked me if I’d read The Inugami Family.”[5]
“Okay, okay, very okay. Your powers of memory appear to be about as defective and unreliable as they come, but that’s enough to give me a good idea of what happened.”
The wireframe man nodded to himself, as if the pieces of a puzzle had fallen into place. But in the next moment, he tilted his head to the side and knitted his brows in a troubled frown.
“Mmm. Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here, Iori-chan. I’m not Fukuzou Moguro.[6] If you’re expecting something straight out of The Strange World of Yousuke[7] to happen, I’d prefer you abandon that hope now.”
“Huh?”
“In other words, I haven’t shown up to rescue you from the crisis you’ve found yourself in, nor have I come to help awaken your ‘talent for killing people,’ as you called it. While I have my trusty pair of scissors, I’m afraid I don’t possess a bow and arrow.[8] I wouldn’t want you under the impression that I’m that extraordinary of a person.”
“Hunh…?”
“Hm? Was the metaphor lost on you, perhaps? You look terribly confused. Heheh, thanks to the influence of a ‘certain someone,’ I read quite a bit of manga. Enough that you could call me a fanatic, probably. I’m actually a history buff first and foremost, but you’d find those references even more obscure, wouldn’t you? I make the utmost effort when it comes to communicating with the younger generation, so I’d appreciate it if you could give me a pass on this one.”
While she gave him credit for trying, she thought it was a waste of effort.
Also, quit patronizing the younger generation.
“I don’t believe they’re that popular these days, but foreign films used to be filled with stories about a young blonde girl who would commit a crime because she wanted to save her poverty-stricken family, or because her unscrupulous friends had talked her into it, or because she was struck by one of the impulses of youth, or perhaps in self-defense or out of revenge—basically, for some reason she couldn’t help—only to be approached from behind by a man in a suit who would then lure her down the back alleys of the underworld. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a blonde girl, and the man doesn’t necessarily have to approach from behind, but either way, I have no intention of taking a page from their book and playing the part of an agent. As proof of that, I didn’t call out to you until you turned around, did I? ‘Someone is sure to show up at a turning point in my life’—the thought goes beyond arrogant and becomes downright laughable. There is not a single person on this earth, myself included, who can help guide you down your path. Why, you ask? Because it’s too late. You will never reach any destination.”
“I’ll never reach…”
“Then again, you had the air of someone who’s given up on ‘something’ from the get go, so perhaps you never had the illusion you would end up anywhere.”
He was a man who spoke in a way that left no room for argument, all while rubbing others the wrong way. Still, Iori understood what he was he getting at. Part of her had wished for a hero (whether it be one aligned with light or with darkness) to conveniently appear in her moment of crisis—part of her had wished for someone to save her—part of her had prayed for something to happen—but that would be far too convenient. People don’t run into angels offering salvation or devils offering to grant wishes so easily. And so, Iori answered, “You’re right.”
“Oh well… I’m the one who killed Yasuchi, so I guess that makes me the bad guy here.”
“…No. Like I said, you aren’t the bad guy.”
She was contradicted yet again.
Furthermore, it was a particularly forceful refutation this time. The wireframe man spoke decisively, with such overwhelming gravity that it allowed no room for counterargument.
“It’s just as I said before—the ‘evil’ in this situation is this boy you call Yasuchi.”
“…!”
For the second time, Iori froze. Without any build up or lead in, the wireframe man had taken out something like a giant pair of scissors from the inside of his suit. Its exterior looked like that of a pair of scissors, but that was only because there was no better term to describe it; thus, while it just barely qualified as “something like a pair of scissors,” its true form was something else entirely. Compared to that, the butterfly knife Iori had used before was indeed nothing more than a mere toy. But what had truly caused Iori to freeze up…
Was the scene unfolding behind the wireframe man.
With blood still gushing from his neck, Yasumichi Kagawa had stood up—and was staring at the two of them with dead, hollow eyes.
“Y-Yasuchi…”
“Correct. Yasuchi is the bad guy.” As he spun the unwieldy scissors around his fingertips, the wireframe man chuckled. “He received a fatal wound from a knife gouged into his neck and is well on his way to his death, yet still he stands back up and tries to kill his target—if that isn’t ‘evil,’ then what is? Well, ‘evil’ though you may be, you’re too far gone to be called ‘evil’—exactly the same as that man I met on the train. I do sympathize, but I won’t hold back.”
The wireframe man addressed Yasumichi, who—perhaps due to the large amounts of blood leaking out of his body—looked strangely pale, even more reminiscent of a corpse than before.
Why? Iori wondered, turning comparably pale.
There was no way he could be alive.
She had dealt him a decisively fatal wound.
He shouldn’t have been alive; he should have been at death’s door…
“…Yasuchi-kun. You ‘fail.’ There is absolutely no hope for you.”
The scissors caught the light and gleamed.
The fact that they had appeared to gleam—was in itself a miracle. Although they had been spinning around the fingertips of his right hand just moments ago, they were now rotating in his left hand.
In the same moment, the wound Iori had created disappeared from Yasumichi’s neck. Or, to put it more accurately—his entire neck, wound and all, vanished.
Yasumichi Kagawa’s head and body had been cleanly separated.
The head hit the ground first, accompanied by an empty thud reminiscent of a watermelon being dropped on the floor, and then the rest of the body fell in a heap on top of it. This time for sure, he would never stand up again—even in Iori’s panic, she knew that much.
Her panic.
No—that wasn’t quite right.
She wasn’t panicking.
She was shivering. She was tingling.
She was… excited.
The man in front of her had sliced off a person’s head without so much as turning around—and yet, here she was, feeling something akin to awe.
His movements just now, his technique just now…
Compared to those, the way Iori had moved when she stabbed Yasumichi in the throat had been mere child’s play. So much for “exactly as she had planned it in her mind,” so much for “exactly as she had envisioned it in her mind.” So much for “just as she had planned it in her mind,” so much for “just as she had envisioned it in her mind.” Her movements had been absurdly clumsy, terribly comical, merely part of a desperate struggle.
The two were worlds apart.
“I am Soushiki Zerozaki,” the wireframe man finally introduced himself. “Iori-chan…”
“Y-Yes?!”
Instinctively, she found herself straightening up.
There was a tension running through her body, all the way from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She had been completely, utterly wrong. At the very least, this man—this person—was more than just a weirdo. He was someone who stood at a far greater height than Iori did. Upon closer inspection, she noticed that he was quite handsome, as well. Those slender eyes hidden behind his glasses had begun to look irresistibly alluring to her. That’s right, this man wasn’t just some weirdo…
“Would you like to become my little sister?”
“…”
He was a pervert.
As Iori Mutou, after killing someone and confronting the first ever crisis in her life, was now immediately faced with her second predicament… a certain presence watched over the scene from a distance. The total number of figures “observing this scene from the shadows,” as Iori would put it, was two.
“Hmm, hmm—hmm. I don’t really get what’s going on here or what the situation is, but it looks like… there are two of them.”
“…”
“What do you think this means?”
“…”
“Are they both Zerozaki? Judging from the situation, it sure looks that way—but a female Zerozaki is something of a rarity. It’s my first time seeing one, at least.”
“…”
“Right, Brother?”
“…”
“Brother? Could you please say something?”
“The girl in the knit cap is unascertainable… but we can presume that the lanky one in the suit is Suicidal Thoughts—Mind Render. Considering those large scissors and the way he carries himself, there can be no mistake.”
“…Which means that man is Soushiki Zerozaki? The Soushiki Zerozaki? …Hoo boy, then we’re in trouble. Real, deep trouble.”
“…”
“Brother?”
“…”
“Hey, Brother, this isn’t the time to be showing off how taciturn you are. Mind Render is the one known as ‘the Twentieth Hell,’ commander of the Zerozaki Family’s special attack unit, right? We’ve lured in a big catch right out the gate, it looks like.”
“…And on top of that, the other one is an utterly unknown element. How peculiar… It is difficult to say whether this is good fortune or not.”
While one half of the duo played the fool, the dour look on the other’s face showed no signs of relaxing. It appeared the two figures possessed entirely opposite personalities. However, both of their gazes were fixed on the same point, without the slightest bit of divergence.
Dispassionately, they pressed on with their disjointed conversation.
“I guess, at the end of the day, a shortcut is just a shortcut. That’s what we get for trying something new. …Well then—what shall we do next, Brother? I think it’s about time we do away with the small fry and check on the situation ourselves. It’s better we avoid catching too much attention.”
“…”
“I’m talking to you, Brother.”
“…That is fair reasoning… However…”
“You’re right—we’ve already caught ourselves so much attention that it’s a little late to be worrying about that now. Honestly, those ‘Zerozaki’ don’t have any concept of restraint. How dreadful, how truly frightening. They don’t give the slightest thought to the time or place or even the situation.”
“Indeed. Just as the rumors said, the Zerozaki are devoid of mercy for anyone but their relatives…”
“Hmm. So, what should we do, Brother?”
“…”
“Broootheeer.”
“…I will go meet with ‘her’ one more time. Putting aside the extra… if our enemy is the Twentieth Hell, in a worst case scenario, this may be too much for us to handle alone.”
“Worst case scenario, hm? You’re as cautious as ever.”
“…”
“Hehe—hehehe. Well then, since I couldn’t care less about the worst case scenario, I’m thinking of jumping in ahead of you and making my move.”
“…”
“That’s fine with you, isn’t it? Brother.”
“…Do as you like. I give you permission to act freely.
“Mow them down as you see fit.”
The two figures vanished in the same instant.
(Tokuhiko Sawagishi—Failed) (Yasumichi Kagawa—Failed) (Chapter 1—The End)
————————————————————–
[1] Oodama korogashi is a Japanese relay race where participants roll a giant ball as they run. It’s a commonly played game during school sports days.
[2] Tuesday Suspense Theater was a programming block on Nihon Television that featured one-off suspense dramas, broadcast every Tuesday for two hours.
[3] Musashi Miyamoto was a famous Japanese swordsman, believed to have been one of the most skilled swordsmen in history.
[4] Ittetsu Hoshi is a character from the sports manga (and anime) series Kyojin no Hoshi. He is most known for an iconic scene in which he loses his temper and flips over the dinner table.
[5] The Inugami Family is a 1972 Japanese mystery novel written by Seishi Yokomizo.
[6] Fukuzou Moguro is the titular salesman from the manga series The Laughing Salesman. His job is to help people achieve whatever desire they want; however, the moment they betray or deny his help, he ruins their lives.
[7] The Strange World of Yousuke is a multi-volume anthology of short stories by the prolific manga artist Yousuke Takahashi.
[8] This is a reference to the powerful item Bow and Arrow from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 4. It has the power to awaken the Stand of any living creature it cuts.
Chapter 1: Iori Mutou (1)
“…Huh?”
Men have a plan when they murder someone, and women murder on impulse. Even if it’s done on the spur of the moment, a man will commit murder in a vaguely calculated way, and even it’s been painstakingly planned out in advance, a woman will commit murder in a vaguely impulsive way. Iori Mutou did not subscribe to that idiotic theory predicated on infantile prejudice—not that she was in a position to in the first place, considering she had never even heard of it.
And yet.
Why?
“What. No way…”
Even Iori had once heard baseball referred to as an “unscripted drama.” No predicting future developments, no telling what will happen next, no knowing how things will end up—an improv performance with no outline to follow. On the one hand, Iori found that to be a pretty apt description, but on the other hand, she couldn’t help thinking to herself.
An unscripted drama.
What was so fun about that?
“…For reals?”
For the first time since she was born, the high school girl by the name of Iori Mutou had been faced with imminent peril. Or perhaps that would not be the most accurate way of putting it; to describe the situation more objectively and more correctly, she had been cornered by a peril closing in on her from behind. Thinking back, the danger had always been there, and all seventeen years of her life to that point had been devoted to running away from it. It was much like the games of basketball they would play in her gym class; while everyone else would describe basketball as a sport in which the goal was to steal the ball from the other team and shoot it into the hoop, in Iori’s mind, the goal of basketball—and of any other ball game, at that—was to run somewhere the ball wouldn’t reach. Whether it was volleyball or softball, or even a ball toss game or oodama korogashi[1], if Iori was able to make it to the end of the game without ever touching the ball, she considered that a worthy victory. Of course, it wasn’t quite clear what exactly it was supposed to be worth, or what exactly she was supposed to be winning against.
An image of being chased.
A picture of running away.
The latter may give off a stronger impression, but the moment she was caught, the two would amount to the same thing. Endings always come without warning. Just like when a clock runs out of batteries—or perhaps like when a bolt of lightning trips a circuit breaker, they come abruptly, too uncalculated to be called unforeseen, devoid of any script or outline.
“This is kinda, y’know… a ‘my life is over!’ type of situation… Or is this just what it was all leading up to?”
Thinking back—somewhere deep down in her heart, Iori had always had that feeling. Ever since she was a child. It wasn’t a hunch, nor was it something she had figured out from experience; based on nothing more or less than pure conviction, she had always vaguely thought, “I’m never going to get anywhere in life.” In elementary school, when she had been instructed to write an essay titled “My Dream for the Future,” Iori had filled two full pages of notebook paper talking about her aspirations, writing drivel like, “I want to become a baker. If I can’t do that, I want to become a nurse,” but of course, Iori didn’t really believe she could become a baker or a nurse. (And to tell the truth, she didn’t want to in the first place. She had just plagiarized an essay her older sister had written. Oh, it’s no big deal; when it comes to writing, execution is more important than originality.) On her recent midterm exams, when she had aced the tests for four different subjects, one of the teachers had praised her with, “I could count on eight fingers the number of students in this school as gifted as you. With scores like this, you could get into whatever university you want,” but even then, she only wondered to herself if he was some kind of octopus or spider with the way he was counting things, not believing for a second that there was a single university on this earth she could get into. The very fact that she had finished compulsory education and was now enrolled in high school vaguely—and for no concrete reason—felt like a miracle to her. That morning, before she had left the house for school, when she read the newspaper sitting next to her breakfast plate, when she read the article adorning the entire front page, she had felt a strange sense of empathy. The article was about a 27-year-old man named Tokuhiko Sawagishi who had been found murdered inside a train that ran next to Iori’s high school. It reported that he had been ruthlessly torn to pieces with some kind of sharp-edged blade. It was exactly what would be labeled a “bizarre murder case,” but completely removed from that—although she had never met the man called Sawagishi, and even if he had never been killed, the two of them likely never would have crossed paths, and again, the two of them shared absolutely no connection, past or future—Iori felt something akin to empathy for the 27-year-old murder victim. Just like the man who had been anticlimactically murdered on a train in the middle of nowhere, she was stuck with a never-ending one-way ticket, doomed never to reach any destination.
She would never get anywhere.
An eternal halfway point.
It was much like freediving in a bottomless swamp. Even if she still had strength to spare, the moment she ran out of breath, it was all over.
“…But, c’mon… It’s not like this is really my fault…”
The time was 4:30 PM.
School was finished, and she was on her way home. (She was a member of the “go-home club.”)
The scene was set beneath a bridge, and every few minutes, the unpleasant rattling of a train passing overhead reverberated through the area. There was not another soul to be found—not an “urban air pocket,” as they say, but perhaps what you could call a Lagrange point in the country. There stood Iori, completely alone.
That is, if you disregarded the corpse of a high school boy that lay before her.
“…Okay, no, this is pretty bad.”
Iori was pretty sure the uniformed boy with a butterfly knife sticking out of his throat was one of her classmates. However, he had never made much of an impression. In Iori’s mind, “classmates” were nothing more or less than “peers with whom you learn in the same classroom.” In other words, they were easily replaceable, and in fact, they were replaced with each new school year, so she didn’t bother remembering each and every one of their names. After all, it’s not as though remembering them was ever going to get her anywhere.
For lack of any other options, while taking care not to get any blood on the sleeves of her uniform (it was expensive, after all), Iori nervously stuck her hand into the breast pocket of the boy’s uniform and took out his student ID. Along with a photo, address, and other miscellaneous information, the name “Yasumichi Kagawa” was written there. Oh yeaaah, I remember now, Iori thought, clapping her hands together. His nickname was Yasuchi. The cute pet name contrasted with his rough appearance, so now that her memory had been jogged, she dimly recalled hearing it before.
“…So, why is Yasuchi lying here dead? That’s the million dollar question.”
It certainly was a questionable state of affairs, but the answer was plain as day. The one who had taken that butterfly knife and plunged it into Yasumichi’s windpipe was none other than Iori herself. The situation being what it was, there was no room for a narrative trick to somehow turn that answer on its head. Despite the concern she had shown about getting her sleeves dirty, her uniform was already drenched with Yasumichi’s blood, and the sensation of the kill still lingered in her hands.
“…I totally offed him.”
She had been getting ready to go home, just the same as any other day, when Yasumichi had approached her. She had followed after him at his request, and before she knew it, he had taken her out to a completely deserted area. Oh, wow, is he gonna ask me out? Sure is nice to be young! Iori had thought, but in the next moment, Yasumichi was pointing a butterfly knife at her, screaming incomprehensible things in an unintelligible voice. Even then, Iori had failed to register the “danger” she was in, only thinking, Whoa, that’s a tiny knife. C’mon, do you really think you can kill anyone with a pocketknife like that? Even if you can break the skin, you’re never gonna cut through the flesh. While Iori was occupied with her carefree introspection, comical enough to be inappropriate for the situation, Yasumichi had rushed forward unflinchingly with his “tiny knife” aimed right at Iori’s heart. Iori had been incredibly taken aback, but Yasumichi’s course of action was perfectly logical—once someone takes out a knife, it’s only natural for them to use it—and rather, it was clearly Iori who was out of touch with the situation. However, as surprised as she was, Iori still hadn’t felt that she was in “danger”—or, no.
It was the very same “danger” she had always felt.
…Iori didn’t really remember what had happened after that. All she knew for sure was that she had stolen that knife from Yasumichi, and that she had thrust that very blade into his throat.
“Aw, geez. Now I’ve done it.”
The culprit is me.
It was a picture that could be summed up in one sentence.
Evidently—this was “for reals.”
She was like the killer on a Tuesday Suspense Theater drama.[2] In which case, did that mean there was someone observing this scene from the shadows who would show up to blackmail her later? And thus, she would be forced to commit her second murder. Or would it best to do things like a killer on Columbo (she seemed to recall there being an episode about an actress who would murder people on impulse) and attempt to cover up the crime? Wait, no, thinking about it rationally, there was a chance this would hold up as legitimate self-defense. Yasumichi had come at her with the knife first, so that was clear for anyone to see. Long live self-defense. Viva! But were you allowed to kill people as long as it was done in self-defense? She was pretty sure it was allowed, at least based on her knowledge from TV dramas. But wouldn’t that be a little too cut-and-dry for a TV show? Please, God. Shouldn’t there be limits to how far an unscripted drama can go? Weren’t people bound to kick up another fuss about how she was only a 17-year-old?
“…”
…However, she got the feeling that wasn’t the real issue here. As unfortunate as it was for this “Yasumichi Kagawa,” what truly mattered here wasn’t the fact that she had killed him. The real problem here was the sense that she had touched the thing she had been running from all this time—the thing she had been avoiding as if it were a basketball. Iori had been fine all that time she was running around from place to place, but the moment she touched it even once, she had lost.
She had lost.
Something she had just barely been holding together had collapsed in on itself.
That was how it felt.
“Ugh… This is all ’cause Yasuchi just had to attack me out of nowhere.”
She tried pinning the blame on someone else for lack of anything better to do, but she genuinely meant every word of it. Thinking about it, her classmate had been acting strangely from the very moment he approached her. As one could guess from his nickname, Yasumichi was typically more the lively, energetic kind of guy, but today there had been an empty look in his eyes, and he had spoken to her without making eye contact. She had thought it was a bit odd at the time, but that hadn’t been enough reason for a relatively normal person like Iori to anticipate that a classmate was going to attack her with a knife.
“But… this doesn’t make sense. No wayz I could do something like this.”
She tried saying it in a cutesy way, but there was little point to it.
She stole the blade from him and stabbed him with it. That may be easy enough to say, but it was hardly something a delicate, frail, adorable girl (self-described) could pull off against a muscular, athletic boy. Even the magic phrase “many miraculous coincidences happened all at once” would not have been enough to explain the situation. Iori had stolen the blade from Yasumichi exactly the way she had envisioned it in her mind, and she had stabbed him with it exactly the way she had envisioned it in her mind. That was the one thing she vividly remembered. Her hands—her body remembered. No unforeseen miracle had occurred. As one could assume from the metaphor about basketball, Iori Mutou was not athletic, held absolutely no interest in martial arts, and even including her childhood, had never fought with a friend using anything but words. And yet, as if she were playing a CD she had listened to millions of times on repeat, as if she were following a routine, her body had taken action against Yasumichi. Like the ritual at the beginning of every class—stand, attention, bow, sit.
“Maybe I’m like the hero of a shounen manga, and the moment my life was in danger, ‘my sleeping powers awakened’? I dunno, like… maybe I had a talent for killing people all along… Ahaha.”
She tried laughing it off, but it wasn’t very effective.
At any rate—now that things had come to this, she had no choice but to turn herself in. She was a minor, so if she surrendered herself, her sentence was sure to be lightened. Wait, or would it be best to talk to her family about it first? If they were to suddenly hear via a third party that their baby daughter had been arrested, the shock might be enough to kill them. That would be awful. Or was it important for her to take responsibility for her actions on her own? That was what she had always been taught. As that internal debate unfolded in her head, Iori decided she should get away from the area (even though she had been the one who killed him, she didn’t particularly want to look at the corpse of someone she knew) and turned around to leave, but she quickly froze in her tracks.
With a presence so natural it was as if he had been standing there since long before Iori and Yasumichi had arrived, a man was looking straight at her, leaning against a concrete wall. He was almost too tall to look Japanese; however, he was too thin to give the impression of a large man. Even taking into account the overall height of his body, his legs and arms were unusually long. He was dressed in a suit and necktie with slick-backed hair and silver-rimmed glasses, but that ubiquitous fashion looked shockingly unflattering on him. In a way, his figure looked reminiscent of a wireframe model.
“…!!”
He witnessed it, Iori realized, tensing up.
If someone reported the crime before she confessed, it would no longer count as a self-surrender and she would receive a heavier sentence (complete self-interest). Who was this guy? Why was he watching her out in the open like that? If he was going to watch her, it would be easier to deal with if he did it like he was supposed to and spied on her from the shadows… Wait, no, if he had been watching the entire time, then he was sure to understand that it wasn’t Iori’s fault—that it had been legitimate self-defense. Not only was blackmail out of the question, but he could even serve as a witness. In that case, this was like a dream come true. …No, she couldn’t get ahead of herself. There was nothing to suggest that he had conveniently arrived in time to see the whole thing. In a worst case scenario, it was possible that he had only witnessed the scene starting from the moment she had stolen the knife.
However, as she ran through those perfectly natural calculations in her head, in the corner of her mind—or rather, the calculations were secondary, and what occupied the front of her mind… was a “strange feeling.”
Huh?
Huuuh?
This man. This man…
Hadn’t she met him somewhere before…?
“…Just now,” the wireframe man said to Iori, making no attempt to introduce himself. It was hard to read any particular emotion from his voice. “Just now, you said something with a great deal of truth to it. Almost as if you were the Buddha himself.”
“…H-Huh?” Iori responded, taking a step backwards. What? What did that mean? As if she were the Buddha himself? What kind of greeting was that? “W-What are you referring to?”
“But if I may point out a single mistake—while still conveying the utmost respect for the accuracy of the statement, of course—it would be better described as a ‘disposition’ than a ‘talent.’ It’s true that ‘talent’ and ‘dispositions’ are very similar, but we mustn’t ignore the striking difference between them: the former is something you cultivate, while the latter is something you repress. Oh, but careless mistakes happen to the best of us; don’t let it get to you.”
“W-What are you talking aboot?”
In her state of utter disarray, she flubbed her words.
Ignoring her reaction, the wireframe walked past Iori and crouched down next to the prostrate body of Yasumichi Kagawa. Then, he gave a soft, eerie laugh.
“A single stab to the throat, hm…? Impressive work. A bit too impressive. So impressive it becomes more of a downside, really. Perfection is rather monotonous, you see; it lacks an individual touch. And when it comes down to it, individuality is all about what a person lacks and where they lack it. While it’s true that the concept of individuality is a mere illusion, a world devoid of fantasy would be a rather dreary place. By the way—um, what did you say your name was? My dear young lady.”
“Huh? Oh, i-it’s Iori. My last name is—”
“Oh, I don’t care about that. I was only asking about your first name. Iori, hm? The same name as the adopted son of Musashi Miyamoto[3]; I’m almost jealous. Never before have I met one who bears such a noble name.”
“It’s, uh, nice to meet to you, too…?”
“Yes, it’s nice to meet you. The question we’re now faced with, however, is what will become of this meeting, and what this meeting will become.”
As if he had just thought of something, the wireframe man grabbed the handle of the knife and pulled it out in one forceful motion. The moment the stopper had been removed, dark red blood started to gush from the wound. The body had begun to look more and more like a corpse, and Iori reflexively averted her eyes with a yelp.
“…It’s amazing that you actually managed to kill someone with this little toy. Color me surprised. Look, see this? The blade is broken. And it’s not even because it hit bone, either; it was ruined by the time it was halfway through the muscle. This is why I’m not a fan of Western-style knives. They can barely withstand any impact,” explained the wireframe man, showing off the bloodied knife to Iori. Once again, Iori averted her eyes. Noting her reaction, the wireframe man tilted his head to the side in puzzlement. “Hm? Oh, I see. Could this be your first time killing someone, Iori-chan?”
“H… Huh? What do you mean?”
“In other words, I’m asking if you commit murder as a part of your daily routine, day in and day out.”
“T… The answer should be obvious.”
“You obviously do?”
“I obviously don’t!”
“I see, I see. Just as I suspected.” The wireframe man nodded, before muttering, “‘Obvious,’ hm?” in a somewhat unenthusiastic tone. “Then I was quite right to compare you to the Buddha. Oh dear, it would seem that I hit the nail on the head yet again. In any case, while it’s natural to feel nervous about your first time, you shouldn’t worry about it quite so much. When was my first, again…? Well, I suppose anyone who remembers how old they were at the time is still wet behind the ears.”
“Uh. Uhhhhh.” Iori panicked. This was bad. This was bad. This was bad. This was bad. This was really bad. This guy was a total weirdo. “What you have to say is truly fascinating, and I wish I could just listen to you talk forever, but I’m afraid I must make haste to the police station… Feel free to continue on your own if you’d like, but is it alright if I leave now?”
“The police station? What for?”
The wireframe man stood up, with a look that said he really didn’t understand. Iori was far from a short girl, but looking at him like this, it seemed like an entire child could fit in the height gap between them. Iori recalled a phrase she had learned in Japanese class, “tall enough to pierce the heavens.” By association, she also recalled the phrase “heaven on earth,” but that had nothing to do with the current situation. As the wireframe man moved towards her, Iori considered running away, but despite some of the obvious flaws in her personality, Iori had a reputation throughout the school for being a sociable person. She wouldn’t want anyone saying she had a bad attitude because she ran away from the wireframe man here. The thought was enough to make her stop and face the man once more after she had begun to turn away.
“What do you mean, ‘what for’…?”
“Hey now, Iori-chan. Hey now, hey now, hey now, hey now, Iori-chan. Wait just a second. I sincerely doubt this is the case, and my legs are quivering at the possibility that you might think I’m an idiot for asking, but Iori-chan, you wouldn’t possibly be thinking of turning yourself in, would you?”
“Uh, yeah! Of course I am!” Flustered, Iori flapped her hands in front of her chest. “This isn’t some silly mystery novel, so there’s no way I could cover up a crime like this. I don’t know what part you started watching from, but let me make this clear: Yasuchi was the one who attacked me first, so this was a perfectly justifiable homicide.”
“I suggest you give up on that plan. If you go to the police, you’ll just end up killing them,” the wireframe man stated firmly—firmly enough to be strange. “You should refrain from talking with family, friends, and teachers, as well. You wouldn’t want to kill your family and friends, would you? I’m sure you have mixed feelings about your teachers, so I can’t speak to that one. It’s too late; you’ve strayed from the right path, so if you meet with someone now, you’ll only be able to think about killing them.”
“C’mon, no way… What are you talking about? You’re making me sound like some kind of homicidal maniac.”
“Well, you are a homicidal maniac.”
He declared it outright.
He concluded it—outright.
“Only a fresh newborn, but still. When I sensed the wicked aura around you, I was so sure you must be my little brother… Oh dear. I suppose I came to the wrong place, after all. What a mess, heheh. I truly didn’t see this one coming. It’s a predicament analogous to a failing amusement park. What am I supposed to do now? What exactly is being demanded of me here?” The wireframe man raised both of his arms in an exaggerated surrender, turning away in the other direction. “Goodness. It’s like Ittetsu Hoshi had his way with my timetable.[4] Heheh, heheheh,” he continued, using a metaphor that was completely lost on Iori as he walked aimless circles around the corpse. It looked like he was thinking about something.
“…Um.”
Not that she was attempting to imitate him, but Iori decided to do some thinking as well, folding her arms in front of her chest. First, there was the current situation. What was she to do with this wireframe model of a man who had so rudely called her a homicidal maniac (not that she could deny it entirely, considering she had, in fact, killed a person)? He was dressed in a suit, but he certainly didn’t give the impression of a businessman making the rounds, and he was strangely calm about the dead body lying in front of him (not that she was one to talk). Wasn’t he going to report her to the police? (Not that she wanted him to.)
He was a strange person.
A weirdo.
However—no matter how much of a weirdo the man standing before her was, the way she was feeling right now was just as strange. It wasn’t just strange; it was downright baffling.
After all.
With this wireframe man standing before her…
She had begun to feel like killing someone wasn’t a big deal, that it didn’t matter all…
That… couldn’t be true.
That’s right. She had killed a person.
And yet, why…?
Why didn’t she feel the least bit nervous?
Or was it always like this? Once you had killed a person—once the deed was done, was it not that big a deal? Then how was it any different from, say, the boyfriends and relationships the girls in her class would always brag about? Once you’ve actually done it, there’s nothing to it—even an elementary school student could say the same about riding a bike for the first time.
Even though she had killed someone.
Was that really okay?
Even though… she had killed someone.
“Hmmm. Oh well.”
The wireframe man gave a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders, glided backwards on the heels of his shoes, came within five centimeters of Iori with his back still facing her, and then finally turned around. Five centimeters. It was an awfully close distance to keep with a stranger.
“By the way, just by the by, Iori-chan. You don’t need to feel bad about killing him. And… you don’t need to feel guilty that you don’t feel bad. The fault lies with him, after all.”
“Ah…”
It was so very much like he had read her mind—though of course, it was probably just a coincidence—that it took her a moment to react to what the wireframe man had said. Once she had actually processed it, however, she realized it was good news, at least as far as she was concerned.
“T-Then, you were watching when Yasuchi attacked me?”
Whew, what a relief. Iori couldn’t help but break into a smile at the thought, but the wireframe man simply shook his head, expressionless, and said, “No.”
“I wasn’t watching anything. The only thing I’ve seen is the result we have here. By the time I got here, everything was already finished. ‘Finished,’ hm…? Heheh. And so, let me ask you a question, Iori-chan… Did this boy say anything strange to you?”
“U-Umm…” Iori faltered. “Come to think of it, I think he did yell something weird. What was it, again…?” She couldn’t remember it very well. What had he said? “Oh, right. I think he asked me if I’d read The Inugami Family.”[5]
“Okay, okay, very okay. Your powers of memory appear to be about as defective and unreliable as they come, but that’s enough to give me a good idea of what happened.”
The wireframe man nodded to himself, as if the pieces of a puzzle had fallen into place. But in the next moment, he tilted his head to the side and knitted his brows in a troubled frown.
“Mmm. Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here, Iori-chan. I’m not Fukuzou Moguro.[6] If you’re expecting something straight out of The Strange World of Yousuke[7] to happen, I’d prefer you abandon that hope now.”
“Huh?”
“In other words, I haven’t shown up to rescue you from the crisis you’ve found yourself in, nor have I come to help awaken your ‘talent for killing people,’ as you called it. While I have my trusty pair of scissors, I’m afraid I don’t possess a bow and arrow.[8] I wouldn’t want you under the impression that I’m that extraordinary of a person.”
“Hunh…?”
“Hm? Was the metaphor lost on you, perhaps? You look terribly confused. Heheh, thanks to the influence of a ‘certain someone,’ I read quite a bit of manga. Enough that you could call me a fanatic, probably. I’m actually a history buff first and foremost, but you’d find those references even more obscure, wouldn’t you? I make the utmost effort when it comes to communicating with the younger generation, so I’d appreciate it if you could give me a pass on this one.”
While she gave him credit for trying, she thought it was a waste of effort.
Also, quit patronizing the younger generation.
“I don’t believe they’re that popular these days, but foreign films used to be filled with stories about a young blonde girl who would commit a crime because she wanted to save her poverty-stricken family, or because her unscrupulous friends had talked her into it, or because she was struck by one of the impulses of youth, or perhaps in self-defense or out of revenge—basically, for some reason she couldn’t help—only to be approached from behind by a man in a suit who would then lure her down the back alleys of the underworld. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a blonde girl, and the man doesn’t necessarily have to approach from behind, but either way, I have no intention of taking a page from their book and playing the part of an agent. As proof of that, I didn’t call out to you until you turned around, did I? ‘Someone is sure to show up at a turning point in my life’—the thought goes beyond arrogant and becomes downright laughable. There is not a single person on this earth, myself included, who can help guide you down your path. Why, you ask? Because it’s too late. You will never reach any destination.”
“I’ll never reach…”
“Then again, you had the air of someone who’s given up on ‘something’ from the get go, so perhaps you never had the illusion you would end up anywhere.”
He was a man who spoke in a way that left no room for argument, all while rubbing others the wrong way. Still, Iori understood what he was he getting at. Part of her had wished for a hero (whether it be one aligned with light or with darkness) to conveniently appear in her moment of crisis—part of her had wished for someone to save her—part of her had prayed for something to happen—but that would be far too convenient. People don’t run into angels offering salvation or devils offering to grant wishes so easily. And so, Iori answered, “You’re right.”
“Oh well… I’m the one who killed Yasuchi, so I guess that makes me the bad guy here.”
“…No. Like I said, you aren’t the bad guy.”
She was contradicted yet again.
Furthermore, it was a particularly forceful refutation this time. The wireframe man spoke decisively, with such overwhelming gravity that it allowed no room for counterargument.
“It’s just as I said before—the ‘evil’ in this situation is this boy you call Yasuchi.”
“…!”
For the second time, Iori froze. Without any build up or lead in, the wireframe man had taken out something like a giant pair of scissors from the inside of his suit. Its exterior looked like that of a pair of scissors, but that was only because there was no better term to describe it; thus, while it just barely qualified as “something like a pair of scissors,” its true form was something else entirely. Compared to that, the butterfly knife Iori had used before was indeed nothing more than a mere toy. But what had truly caused Iori to freeze up…
Was the scene unfolding behind the wireframe man.
With blood still gushing from his neck, Yasumichi Kagawa had stood up—and was staring at the two of them with dead, hollow eyes.
“Y-Yasuchi…”
“Correct. Yasuchi is the bad guy.” As he spun the unwieldy scissors around his fingertips, the wireframe man chuckled. “He received a fatal wound from a knife gouged into his neck and is well on his way to his death, yet still he stands back up and tries to kill his target—if that isn’t ‘evil,’ then what is? Well, ‘evil’ though you may be, you’re too far gone to be called ‘evil’—exactly the same as that man I met on the train. I do sympathize, but I won’t hold back.”
The wireframe man addressed Yasumichi, who—perhaps due to the large amounts of blood leaking out of his body—looked strangely pale, even more reminiscent of a corpse than before.
Why? Iori wondered, turning comparably pale.
There was no way he could be alive.
She had dealt him a decisively fatal wound.
He shouldn’t have been alive; he should have been at death’s door…
“…Yasuchi-kun. You ‘fail.’ There is absolutely no hope for you.”
The scissors caught the light and gleamed.
The fact that they had appeared to gleam—was in itself a miracle. Although they had been spinning around the fingertips of his right hand just moments ago, they were now rotating in his left hand.
In the same moment, the wound Iori had created disappeared from Yasumichi’s neck. Or, to put it more accurately—his entire neck, wound and all, vanished.
Yasumichi Kagawa’s head and body had been cleanly separated.
The head hit the ground first, accompanied by an empty thud reminiscent of a watermelon being dropped on the floor, and then the rest of the body fell in a heap on top of it. This time for sure, he would never stand up again—even in Iori’s panic, she knew that much.
Her panic.
No—that wasn’t quite right.
She wasn’t panicking.
She was shivering. She was tingling.
She was… excited.
The man in front of her had sliced off a person’s head without so much as turning around—and yet, here she was, feeling something akin to awe.
His movements just now, his technique just now…
Compared to those, the way Iori had moved when she stabbed Yasumichi in the throat had been mere child’s play. So much for “exactly as she had planned it in her mind,” so much for “exactly as she had envisioned it in her mind.” So much for “just as she had planned it in her mind,” so much for “just as she had envisioned it in her mind.” Her movements had been absurdly clumsy, terribly comical, merely part of a desperate struggle.
The two were worlds apart.
“I am Soushiki Zerozaki,” the wireframe man finally introduced himself. “Iori-chan…”
“Y-Yes?!”
Instinctively, she found herself straightening up.
There was a tension running through her body, all the way from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She had been completely, utterly wrong. At the very least, this man—this person—was more than just a weirdo. He was someone who stood at a far greater height than Iori did. Upon closer inspection, she noticed that he was quite handsome, as well. Those slender eyes hidden behind his glasses had begun to look irresistibly alluring to her. That’s right, this man wasn’t just some weirdo…
“Would you like to become my little sister?”
“…”
He was a pervert.
As Iori Mutou, after killing someone and confronting the first ever crisis in her life, was now immediately faced with her second predicament… a certain presence watched over the scene from a distance. The total number of figures “observing this scene from the shadows,” as Iori would put it, was two.
“Hmm, hmm—hmm. I don’t really get what’s going on here or what the situation is, but it looks like… there are two of them.”
“…”
“What do you think this means?”
“…”
“Are they both Zerozaki? Judging from the situation, it sure looks that way—but a female Zerozaki is something of a rarity. It’s my first time seeing one, at least.”
“…”
“Right, Brother?”
“…”
“Brother? Could you please say something?”
“The girl in the knit cap is unascertainable… but we can presume that the lanky one in the suit is Suicidal Thoughts—Mind Render. Considering those large scissors and the way he carries himself, there can be no mistake.”
“…Which means that man is Soushiki Zerozaki? The Soushiki Zerozaki? …Hoo boy, then we’re in trouble. Real, deep trouble.”
“…”
“Brother?”
“…”
“Hey, Brother, this isn’t the time to be showing off how taciturn you are. Mind Render is the one known as ‘the Twentieth Hell,’ commander of the Zerozaki Family’s special attack unit, right? We’ve lured in a big catch right out the gate, it looks like.”
“…And on top of that, the other one is an utterly unknown element. How peculiar… It is difficult to say whether this is good fortune or not.”
While one half of the duo played the fool, the dour look on the other’s face showed no signs of relaxing. It appeared the two figures possessed entirely opposite personalities. However, both of their gazes were fixed on the same point, without the slightest bit of divergence.
Dispassionately, they pressed on with their disjointed conversation.
“I guess, at the end of the day, a shortcut is just a shortcut. That’s what we get for trying something new. …Well then—what shall we do next, Brother? I think it’s about time we do away with the small fry and check on the situation ourselves. It’s better we avoid catching too much attention.”
“…”
“I’m talking to you, Brother.”
“…That is fair reasoning… However…”
“You’re right—we’ve already caught ourselves so much attention that it’s a little late to be worrying about that now. Honestly, those ‘Zerozaki’ don’t have any concept of restraint. How dreadful, how truly frightening. They don’t give the slightest thought to the time or place or even the situation.”
“Indeed. Just as the rumors said, the Zerozaki are devoid of mercy for anyone but their relatives…”
“Hmm. So, what should we do, Brother?”
“…”
“Broootheeer.”
“…I will go meet with ‘her’ one more time. Putting aside the extra… if our enemy is the Twentieth Hell, in a worst case scenario, this may be too much for us to handle alone.”
“Worst case scenario, hm? You’re as cautious as ever.”
“…”
“Hehe—hehehe. Well then, since I couldn’t care less about the worst case scenario, I’m thinking of jumping in ahead of you and making my move.”
“…”
“That’s fine with you, isn’t it? Brother.”
“…Do as you like. I give you permission to act freely.
“Mow them down as you see fit.”
The two figures vanished in the same instant.
(Tokuhiko Sawagishi—Failed) (Yasumichi Kagawa—Failed) (Chapter 1—The End)
————————————————————–
[1] Oodama korogashi is a Japanese relay race where participants roll a giant ball as they run. It’s a commonly played game during school sports days.
[2] Tuesday Suspense Theater was a programming block on Nihon Television that featured one-off suspense dramas, broadcast every Tuesday for two hours.
[3] Musashi Miyamoto was a famous Japanese swordsman, believed to have been one of the most skilled swordsmen in history.
[4] Ittetsu Hoshi is a character from the sports manga (and anime) series Kyojin no Hoshi. He is most known for an iconic scene in which he loses his temper and flips over the dinner table.
[5] The Inugami Family is a 1972 Japanese mystery novel written by Seishi Yokomizo.
[6] Fukuzou Moguro is the titular salesman from the manga series The Laughing Salesman. His job is to help people achieve whatever desire they want; however, the moment they betray or deny his help, he ruins their lives.
[7] The Strange World of Yousuke is a multi-volume anthology of short stories by the prolific manga artist Yousuke Takahashi.
[8] This is a reference to the powerful item Bow and Arrow from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 4. It has the power to awaken the Stand of any living creature it cuts.
