Ask God for the details.
✦ ✦ ✦
And three hours later─after everything had gone dark, Ichihime Yukariki, Jun Aikawa, and I were still in the Director’s office. I had already gotten used to the stench of blood and gore and finally managed to come to terms with the bizarre scene laid out before my eyes. Not that they were terms I wanted to come to, mind you.
As to what Hime-chan thought of this situation, she was waggling her finger around, whipping it up and snapping it down again as always. It looked like she was just at loose ends, but maybe she was pondering something.
Aikawa was Aikawa, so she was eating whatever she’d been able to find on the office shelves. At present she was munching on some fancy-looking sweets. How could she eat something like that here, under these circumstances? Did she have nerves of steel, or just a lot of nerve? Hard to tell.
“Jun. How long do you plan on staying here like this?”
“Huh? How many times are you gonna ask me that?” Putting a cookie between her teeth, she crawled over on all fours and stopped right in front of my face. “What? Aren’t you hungry? I get it, I get it, you get grumpy when you’re hungry.”
“That’s not─”
“Okay, open wide!”
Aikawa tossed the half-eaten cookie into my open mouth.
Delicious.
“─That’s not it! We have no idea how close Shiogi and company are, but we’re still just sitting here─if we stay at the scene of the crime, won’t that make us even more suspect?”
“Man, I don’t get you. Why’re you so negative, always pooh-poohing this, that, and the other? Prince Pessimist over here. Ichihime, you tell him.”
“Master. Good things come to those who vote.”
“I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.”
Come on, is she doing it on purpose?
“Point is, Iitan. The worst thing we can do in this situation is act rashly. To put it in shogi terms, this was a ‘masterstroke,’ okay? It ain’t checkmate yet, but we’re in a real pinch. These situations call for lengthy consideration.”
“But isn’t a bad idea worse than whatever whatever?”
“Yep. So take a breather. In other words, don’t panic,” said Aikawa, before flinging herself down on the floor. Sure, it was dry by this point, but lying down on that blood-soaked carpet didn’t seem to me like the act of someone in her right mind.
“Can’t we just leave it to the police?”
“The police aren’t coming. None of the characters involved in this are on the straight-and-narrow, never mind the school itself. This tale isn’t poor Sasaki’s time to shine.”
“None? But I’m a regular civilian. Don’t drag me into it. At least as far as this particular affair goes, I’m a total outsider. This is what the police are for. Why else do I pay taxes?”
“You pay taxes? That’s rough, you’re still a minor. But listen, Iitan. You seem to’ve forgotten something. The cops are fundamentally a publicly traded company. They’re the friends of whichever fine citizens pay the most taxes.”
Ah. Right, the academy had the intimate backing of both the Origami name and Rule… Compared to that, my taxes didn’t amount to a piss in the ocean. In which case, no chance of Sasaki and her partner making an appearance. Those two would definitely be out of their depth anyway.
“You’ve convinced me…but that doesn’t answer my question: how long are we going to stay here?”
“Thing is, I repaired the door so it’ll lock again, which makes this room the safest possible place for us. This is the safe haven of Hang ’Em High’s eminent Director, after all. Sound-proof, germ-proof, bullet-proof, what safer place could there be?”
“But the Director was murdered in here…”
Aikawa’s definition of “safe” seemed to encompass a psychological sense in addition to a physical one. And it was true, even the Buddha himself wouldn’t expect the fugitive Ichihime Yukariki and her troop to be hunkered down in the heart of the school, and in the Director’s office directly above the “staff room” at that. In that sense, biding our time in this room could qualify as “outwitting our opponents.”
But if you asked me─that’s not what I would call it. Doing the unexpected, deliberately making an odd move, doesn’t constitute outwitting someone. That’s simply moving into someone’s blind spot. And if you move rashly into a “place” like a blind spot, you in fact become unable to move out again. You’re stuck in your place of refuge. I’ve experienced it before, so I know of what I speak. Not that she didn’t know a hell of a lot better than me.
Plus, there was one other thing that was bothering me─just as much as the locked-room murder of Noa Origami.
“Guess we managed to wrap things up before ‘Zigzag’ was deployed─”
Shiogi’s muttered words─those muttered words she let slip having momentarily forgotten that I was nearby, whether out of negligence or a sense of security, I couldn’t say.
“Zigzag”─no way that was a new model of Mobile Suit. In which case there seemed to be something inside this academy that even Shiogi the tactician hoped to keep sealed away.
“Listen, buddy… For someone who likes to keep things vague, you’re awfully fixated on getting results,” said Aikawa, sounding fed up.
“What do you mean? I can’t let that pass, even from you.”
“Didn’t you say something once about being ‘used to waiting’? Yeah, you really are a patient guy. If the waiting game was an actual game, I bet you’d win it hands down. But that’s only when you know what the outcome’ll be. When you can’t see what’s coming, you get anxious. Even though waiting is your forte, you’re no good at waiting for something if you don’t know what it is.”
“You’re talking like you know it all.”
“I’m talking out of my ass. ‘Resignation’ and ‘compromise’ are at the root of everything you do. So a situation like this, where you don’t know what to give up on or who to pander to, is, to put it bluntly, tough for you. But ya know, well, that’s the thing. You gotta try, gotta give it your best shot.”
Apparently she really had gotten fed up, because her speech started to lose momentum halfway through. I mean, you can tell me to give it my best shot all you want, but I still have no idea what I’m supposed to be giving it to.
“Jun, Master, we mustn’t fight amongst ourselves,” Hime-chan stepped in to mediate. “Let’s all try to get along. The three of us can’t get out of sync with each other now.”
“Ain’t it the truth. Ah, such a beautiful thing is friendship. Listen, Iitan, if you wanna leave this room, go ahead. I’m not trying to confine you or keep you here. Even if I’m trying to keep people out, I have no intention of trying to keep anyone in. If you go, though, you go of your own volition, so don’t count on my protection afterward.”
“…”
“But listen, Iitan, and listen good. All the other peaceniks in this country may have their heads in the sand, but the people here in this academy have turned their backs on the path of humanity and set out on a more dangerous road, whether because they have goals, or convictions, or because they have no choice.”
“Turned their backs, on the path of humanity?”
“You think this place is a training facility or a boot camp or something, Iitan, and it is. But it has another role as well, a more important one: it’s a front. A front─in other words, the best students here also comprise a tactical combat unit.”
Then…forget about a school, we’re talking about a full-on private militia. A tactical combat unit of teenage girls. No need to ask What year is it, anyway? Of course the setting is today. But, but…
“If you underestimate them because they’re girls and they’re younger than you, you’re in for a rude awakening. As long as you and Ichihime are in this room, I, Jun Aikawa, can guarantee your safety, so siddown and shaddup. I’ve had enough fun for one day.”
“What about you, Hime-chan?” I turned the conversation to her. “Do you have an opinion…or any suggestions? In terms of knowing the terrain, you’ve been a student here for a little over a year, right?”
“Uhhh. Hime-chan thinks there’s no problem with leaving everything to Ms. Jun. I’m a washout, I don’t amount to much, and Master is an amateur at this kinds of thing. So I think we should follow the advice of the professional.”
She was right. So right that it made me sick. Not that I’ve ever been left feeling refreshed and invigorated by someone being right.
“And I think it’s true that this place is safe. You might call this room a sort of secret cemetery in the heart of Hang ’Em High.”
“You mean sanctuary.” Though the words are kind of similar, I must admit. “Don’t amount to much, huh… I have to say that if you can make that kind of level-headed judgment about yourself, maybe there’s no need to be so self-deprecating.”
“I’m not being self-deprecating. People are weirdly liable to lose control when they’re ‘strong’ or whatever, and that’s no good for anyone. Hime-chan strikes exactly the right balance.”
Lose control─yeah.
They lose control, then lose perspective, and eventually someone loses their life.
Indeed…I know countless people who’ve been driven crazy by their own needlessly excessive “strength”─or ability. Those geniuses on the island, Mr. No Longer Human, the list goes on. In terms of someone who has the power to take on the whole world but manages to maintain her equilibrium without a hint of anything having gone awry─there’s Aikawa, and that’s about it.
“Not to blow myself up, but Hime-chan thinks weakness is something to be proud of.”
“You’re a terrorist?”
Blow my own horn, she meant. Not that it martyrs anyway.
“Balance, huh─”
Then, what about me? Aikawa was right: so self-confident even though I’ve got nothing─bursting with pride even though I’m completely hollow─a “walking contradiction.” No way around it, my equilibrium is as bad as can be. But I’m not crazy. I’m not. I think. I’m pretty sure I’m not.
“I hope not, anyway,” I muttered, and finally let it drop with my usual, “It’s all nonsense anyway.”