True, if Kunagisa were here, she could work some computer magic and take care of this in no time.
Which reminds me, did Kunagisa know what was really going on at this academy? When she was telling me about this place, she didn’t say a word about it. But she wouldn’t want to tell me about that kind of thing, so it’s possible she knew and just kept quiet. Either way, it was no wonder she hadn’t been able to get her hands on a uniform. Now I realized why she’d been so quick to let it go.
Hunh? But then, how did Aikawa get her hands on a uniform (and not just one, but two)?
…Did she make them herself?
“Can you lock it normally from the inside?”
“I’m trying to remember. I think so, but I’m not sure.”
“Yeah? Then, maybe she’s in and just pretending that nobody’s home… Gimme a goddamn break.”
At that point, I finally noticed that there was a surveillance camera behind us. I informed Aikawa in a panic, but she dismissed it out of hand: “The circuit’s already been cut.” True, in spite of being a surveillance camera, it didn’t seem to be doing any surveilling.
“I took the liberty of attending to all those little details before I came to save you guys… I cut the alarms too. Quit worrying so much. Ah, shit. Does this mean we can’t get inside?”
“But you knocked and no one answered, so doesn’t that mean the Director isn’t in there?”
“Nah, Noa’s like me, she’s not interested in running away. She planning on holing up for a siege? Or is she just ignoring me… Either way, one thing’s for sure: she’s trying to make me look stupid.”
Okay, now I’m pissed, Aikawa muttered, the determination clear in her voice, and produced some kind of black lump from her uniform. It was a squarish object, small enough to fit perfectly in the palm of one’s hand: the thing colloquially known as a stun gun. Its chunky look was enough to make anyone instinctually fearful.
“Ms. Jun, it’s rare to see you with a weapon.”
“Yep. This is a special occasion. Since the need arose to get a certain person out of here in one piece─but anyway. Here we go…”
Aikawa pressed the tip of the stun gun against the biometric scanner and turned it on. Electric sparks flew and everything went crazy, then an instant later a dull BABABA sound rang out. When my vision returned to normal, the scanner had been pulverized. A noxious trail of smoke was rising from it.
“Wow, that thing’s powerful…”
“Yup. I had it made special. And that was with the limiter on. Give someone a dose of this bad boy, and the shock’s liable to erase their memory of the last two or three days.”
So Aikawa claimed, but she must’ve been exaggerating. What kind of chump would lose their memory because of a little thing like that?
Aikawa peered perfunctorily into the guts of the scanner.
“Mm-hmm, fried those circuits good. The rest is a cakewalk… Come on, Maijin circuits? Guaranteed mediocrity. Okay, just gimme a sec.”
Aikawa shoved her hand inside the scanner, and just kind of swirled the contents around with her bare hand. She seemed to be begging for an electric shock, but knowing Aikawa, maybe she had some kind of special dermal coating? At last she said, “There. Unlocking complete,” and opened the door. I had assumed it would be automatic, given how massive it was, but seemingly that function had gone down when she fried the circuit board.
“Unh. Heavy bastard…”
She began pulling at the door with both hands, and slowly but surely it opened, sending an ominous slithering sound very unlike that of a door opening echoing down the hallway.
“…”
What an insane feat of strength. She certainly didn’t seem like someone who was about to engage in negotiations. She was clearly spoiling for a fight with the person in that room. Aikawa was pretty belligerent and hot-blooded, and I felt a little frustrated at the thought that it might come to that after all. Dammit, why couldn’t she learn a thing or two from ol’ no longer human? He was a really good guy.
“Geez, Ms. Jun, still as headstrong as ever.”
Even Hime-chan, a real Aikawa adherent, looked astonished at her behavior. Though her astonished look also contained a certain sense of relief, as if she wouldn’t be Jun Aikawa otherwise.
Once the door was halfway open, Hime-chan and I followed Aikawa into the Director’s office─
And there discovered the dismembered corpse of Noa Origami, divided into twelve pieces.
“…” “…” “…”
Chest, abdomen, pelvic region, left and right arms and hands, left and right thighs, and left and right lower legs─the former constituents of Noa Origami’s body had been rent apart and now lay scattered around the room in a truly ghastly, truly atrocious fashion. The stench of blood, the stench of cerebral fluid, the stench of gore. Every inch of the luxurious carpet and every piece of furniture was drenched in blood. It was a wonder the stench hadn’t escaped the room.
And Noa Origami’s head─was hanging from the ceiling, her long black hair tied to the fluorescent light.
It was a scene out of a nasty snuff film. The face attached to Origami’s head possessed a youthfulness that belied her thirty-nine years, but what did that matter now?
A severed head hanging from the ceiling. How could one feel anything other than terror and shock?
“Did you─” said Aikawa in a quiet voice, suppressing her emotions. “Did you see anyone leave this room?”
Silently I shook my head. Hime-chan did likewise. None of us looking at each other. We were nailed to the spot by the sight of that dismembered corpse, as if nails had literally been driven through our feet.
“Ha. What a laugh,” spat Aikawa, her voice barely audible, before she began moving around the room. Her shoes were getting covered in blood and gore, but she didn’t seem to care at all. Under the desk, inside the sofa…she examined every possible hiding place in turn.
Next she walked past me, heading towards the door. I tagged along to have a look. She seemed to be inspecting the locking mechanism. She had only destroyed the exterior one, and its interior counterpart seemed to be relatively intact.
“Mm-hm, mm-hm… Interesting. Well, can’t be helped.”
As Aikawa muttered this, it finally dawned on me that the mutilated corpse was lying there in full view of Hime-chan. That’s, I mean, it’s too─but her eyes were ice cold as she gazed at the head suspended from the ceiling.