“Actually no, there’s one more thing. It’s a promise I made to Mikoko, so I’d better uphold it. Muimi.” My final question. Can you forgive your own─“As a murderer, can you forgive your own existence?”
“What’s to forgive?!” She cracked at last. “I haven’t done anything wrong! Nothing! There’s nothing wrong with what I did for Mikoko! I’m the one who cares about her the most! I’m not looking for criticism from someone like you! It was all for Mikokodel! I’d do anything for her! I would kill or die without a second thought!”
“…”
For justice. For faith. For truth.
For others. For the sake of a buddy.
For her friend.
She killed.
“I loved Mikoko, unlike you! You don’t care enough about anyone to ever feel love, and you’ve got the gall to go on living with a straight face! You can’t do a thing for anyone! You’re just a defective product without a single human emotion inside you, so shut your goddamn mouth!”
Because it was for somebody else’s sake.
Without hesitation, without deliberation.
Without a hint of uncertainty.
Without even regretting it.
Without ever feeling shame or reflecting on her actions.
She killed.
“If only you hadn’t shown up! Then Tomoe and Mikoko and Akiharu and I would still all be living happily! If it weren’t for you! We all got along so well! Since elementary school and high school, and even in college! As soon as you appeared we all went to shit!”
Because you were an annoyance.
Because you were an obstacle, a hassle, a bother.
Because it was irritating, unstable, unpleasant.
She killed.
“It was all for Mikoko! She’s mine, and I’m hers! We’re best friends! I would kill my own parents for her, and she would kill even you for me!”
Because it was for someone important.
She would kill anyone.
She would kill any number of people.
Dozens, hundreds.
Herself or anyone else.
Even a best friend.
“I’m not wrong! I’m right! That’s why I’ll do it again and again! Even if I could go back in time, I would do the same thing! Mikoko forgives me!”
Not due to excessive force.
Not due to going too far.
As simply as taking a breath.
Like a random slasher, like a serial killer.
Like she was a defective product, like she was no longer human.
She killed.
“I─I forgive myself!” she screamed, stomping on the cluttered floor.
“…Huh.” As I watched her, my eyes were no doubt terribly calm. “Are you done?”
She shot me a glare. I didn’t care.
“That’s enough, then. Please, shut up. Your voice is offensive to the ears and your presence offensive to the eyes. So you do whatever you want to do and say whatever you want to say. Great. Does that satisfy you? You’re completely broken. Bankrupt.”
“Bankrupt? Me?”
“Exactly what have you done for Mikoko’s sake? You’re just putting the blame on her, aren’t you?”
“Like you know a damned thing…”
I could tell she was struggling to refrain from lunging forward. If I hadn’t brought up Mikoko’s name, surely she would have.
Right now, Mikoko Aoii was the only thing keeping Muimi together.
“Then…” She spoke in a low voice like a growl from the depths of hell. “What about you?! You don’t feel the least bit responsible for her death?! Answer me!”
“I don’t. Not at all. The dead simply died.”
“…”
Muimi turned pale. Her mind was already past enraged. Nevertheless, I made no attempt to cut my speech short. I just continued on, spouting words like a machine.
“I’m not so arrogant that I’d attempt to interfere with other people’s lives. People should take responsibility for their own actions. You’re no exception.”
“What’s your problem? How can you think that? How can you have such a disgusting outlook? You’re nuts. You’re not human.”
“I just don’t approve of clinging to others to the point of swallowing them up. I’m annoyed by people who live life saying for so and so’s sake, for so and so’s sake, like that’s supposed to grant them a full pardon for whatever they do.”
It was like looking at myself, in fact.
“I once said you and Tomoe were similar, but I was mistaken,” Muimi growled as if to curse the devil himself. “Tomoe was the embodiment of an inferiority complex, keeping her distance from everyone, but you… You’re just plain hostile.”
“Hahh…” I let out a sigh on purpose. I couldn’t argue with her, nor did I feel like doing so. What I wanted to do was ask her if she’d realized that only now. Things that are similar but not the same are, in the end, different. It was as simple as that. “Whatever. Do what you want. We’re just two people who have nothing to do with each other. I don’t have any interest in getting in your way…but killing Akiharu was a bad move, Muimi. They’ll be coming to arrest you soon enough. I doubt that’s what Mikoko wanted.”
“I could care less about the law. So I’ll be arrested. I bet I will. But there’s still time before that. Plenty of time to make you suffer. To kill you.”
Muimi got onto one knee and put herself at eye level with me. She held aloft a gleaming knife she had apparently been pointing at me for some time. It was the very knife that Dark Garb had used that night. The one that had grazed past my carotid artery.
“Nothing’s gonna get in the way this time.”
“What will killing me accomplish?”
“Who cares? Talk all you want, but it’s time for you to take responsibility for hurting Mikoko.”
“…………”
Ahh, sure.
So in the end, Muimi, you’ve missed the point. You’ve been going on and on about how you did it all for Mikoko, all for Mikoko, all for Mikoko, but that’s just an excuse, pleading your case, an apologia.
Your actions are spurred by:
Plain jealousy toward me.
Ordinary remorse towards Mikoko.
Your own boring sense of guilt.
That’s all.
“Enough of your nonsense, Muimi,” I stated, ignoring the knife in her hand. “So are we going to pick up where we left off last time? You’re going to beat me and beat me, hurt me and hurt me, and inflict and dish out every kind of pain there is, and then kill me off?”
“That’s right.”
“You don’t say.”
I clutched my right forefinger with my left hand.
“So for example, you might break my fingers, like this?”
I forced it backward, breaking it myself.
A sound─
Like a branch snapping off.
Muimi’s face froze in shock.
An overwhelming, maddening pain ran through my hand, but I didn’t even flinch and displayed my mangled digit.