I’ve done it. All this time spent disguised as a detective has finally paid off. All those shoes worn away investigating love affairs was not for nothing.
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He should’ve felt the bliss of success earned after so many years of empty results. But why did he not feel happy?
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“...ha.” Suddenly, face twitching, he started to laugh. “Ha ha ha ha, ha ha, ha ha ha ha ha...”
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It was a hollow laugh that shook the air in the hospital, causing the temperature to drop. A cold echo spread out around him.
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4.
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Mo Murder received emergency orders.
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Publicly he was an ordinary salaryman named
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Sasaki Masanori, but in truth, he did not work for any company. There were records that could prove his employment at a major food manufacturer, but those were fakes provided by the Towa Organization. His real career was in a different field.
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He was an assassin.
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Mo Murder was a simple combat-type synthetic human, and it was his job to dispose of anyone who might harm the Towa Organization.
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This time the call came to his cell phone while he was walking the streets as always, pretending to be a normal businessman while actually searching for signs of an MPLS.
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“Sasaki here.”
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“...D3 in progress. Accept order at NH33W,”
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a voice said in lightning-fast Hungarian, and then hung up.
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He quickly headed to the specified location, an ordinary coffee shop named Changlese.
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A contact was disguised as a waitress there, and she gave him further information which he immediately proceeded to act upon.
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"...name of Scarecrow, human name Kuroda Shinpei. Kill on sight for treacherous actions. Namely, an attack on facility RSZZTTU..."
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Why the hell did he do that?
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“Destroyed the facility, reasons unknown. . .damage concentrated on drugs and equipment.”
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Was he trying to get some sort of medicine or related equipment? What& he going to do with them?
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He checked over his target’s combat abilities, made a few educated guesses at his mental state, analyzing the data as best he could. But his conclu-sions were inadequate, based on insufficient data, so he was forced to decide his best plan was to exercise extreme caution and attack at full strength.
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From the data, he chose an escape route that seemed likely. His plan was based more on his finely honed instincts as an assassin than the unreliable data.
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Mo Murder pursued Scarecrow like a hound
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dog.
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On her way back from the restroom, Kisugi
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Makiko noticed the hospital Window was half open.
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She frowned.
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She was on duty in the psychiatric ward that night.
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She was a new doctor, having just completed her residency, and was often given the unpopular jobs.
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“That’s strange. . .” she muttered, closing the window. Burglary seemed unlikely. This was the seventh floor. No thief would climb this far up.
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Had someone simply forgotten to close it? That certainly seemed to be the most probable scenario. She turned and began to head back to her office.
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Then she heard something clink.
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She stiffened, and called out toward the sound,
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“Is someone there?”
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From a different direction she heard a loud
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pounding, and someone swearing. Kisugi Makiko ran toward the noise.
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The door to the room of one of the patients she was counseling, Kirima Nagi, was half open and still moving. Yet, there was no sign of anyone inside.
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“Wh-what...?” she stepped hesitantly into the room.
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The window here was also open. She looked
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outside, but saw nothing but darkness.
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The patient was sound asleep. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Perhaps she was hot-both of her arms were outside of her blanket.
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“Mm?”
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There was a small bottle under the bed.
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It was a medical ampule, with the seal broken.
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About half-full, the contents had been carefully measured into a syringe. But used ampules were usually disposed of immediately.
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It was very strange for one to be lying around like this.
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And she had never seen this particular ampule being used in this hospital. Not only this hospital-she had never seen anything shaped quite like it in med school or in her years as a resident, either...
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"............"
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She found herself reflecting on the contempt she received from the head doctors on account of her gender, on the sneers of the older nurses because she was new, because she hadn’t graduated from a particularly prestigious school.
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Before she knew it, she was lowering the am-
✦ ✦ ✦
pule into her pocket, careful not to spill any of its contents.
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A moment later a security guard came run-
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ning...he must have heard her voice.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Dr. Kisugi, something wrong?”
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Careful not to let him see how fast her heart was beating, she said quietly, “No, it was nothing.”
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The half-filled ampule was carried away unseen in Kisugi Makiko’s pocket, moving to a place unrelated to the present situation.
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Mo Murder ground his teeth.
✦ ✦ ✦
Scarecrow was fleeing through the nighttime
✦ ✦ ✦
streets. If Mo Murder had not let himself be so over-come with surprise that he made a sound and attracted the attention of that woman doctor, he would have been finished long ago.
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But the hospital room Scarecrow had probably chosen at random to hide inside...Mo Murder had recognized the name of the patient, and it had rattled him.
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Kirima Nagi...that man’s daughter. The daughter of Kirima Seiichi, the man he had killed four years earlier.
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Of all the places for him to hide...
✦ ✦ ✦
Scarecrow had only gone to the hospital to acquire nourishment. Mo Murder had seen him stealing glucose. He was also injured, so he must have been looking for pain killers, as well.
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He had probably ducked into that room to inject himself without anyone noticing. But for that room’s occupant to be one of the few people who could ever have slowed Mo Murder down. . .it was a staggering coincidence.
✦ ✦ ✦
But it was a coincidence. This has nothing to do with that man. My fate is not still tied to his!
✦ ✦ ✦
Mo Murder shook his head, desperately trying to stop himself from thinking about Kirima Nagi.
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Scarecrow was fast, but he was wounded, and could not run forever.
✦ ✦ ✦
Mo Murder cleared his head, and put aside his blunder, like an athlete trying to achieve a come-from-behind victory.
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Quietly and unerringly, he pursued his target.
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5.
✦ ✦ ✦
As Shinpei ran, he asked himself, “Why?” over and over.
✦ ✦ ✦
The assassin’s attacks were astonishingly precise and swift. They were over in an instant, the assassin gone before he even had a chance to fight back. His assailant wasn’t trying to finish him off directly; instead, he was just picking away, gradually weakening him.
✦ ✦ ✦
It was working. Shinpei was beginning to believe he would not make it out of this alive.
✦ ✦ ✦
But questions were still spinning around inside.
✦ ✦ ✦
Why did I do that?
✦ ✦ ✦
She was just a kid...he’d spent a couple of hours with her at most. Why would he go and throw his life away for her?
✦ ✦ ✦
He had stolen a powerful drug called the “Evolution Medicine” from a Towa Organization facility.
✦ ✦ ✦
Then he had injected Nagi with it (his hands had been shaking, so first he had taken some pain-killers as a sedative).
✦ ✦ ✦
The medicine would accelerate the evolution of any human, but in Nagi’s case, since she had already started to evolve, it would act as a vaccine against the possibility lurking within her body. At least, in theory.
✦ ✦ ✦
If all went well, her body would become that of an ordinary human again, and she would avoid being killed as an incomplete possibility.
✦ ✦ ✦
He had carefully chosen the amount to inject, but even so, it was very risky. It might have no effect, and its potential side effects could easily kill her instead of saving her. If that happened, all of this would be in vain.
✦ ✦ ✦
He knew that. So why had he risked everything on a gamble that might save her?
✦ ✦ ✦
Honestly, what was I thinking?
✦ ✦ ✦
The assassin’s attacks came persistently. Eventually Shinpei was so badly injured he could barely stay on his feet. He had lost a lot of blood, and his eyes would not focus.
✦ ✦ ✦
The assassin jumped out of an alley and struck him hard on the head.
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But Shinpei still wore his hat, under which he had hidden a metal plate. The assassin’s knife was deflected, twisting his assailant’s hand awkwardly.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Ack!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Ha! Gotcha. . . l” Shinpei cried, attempting to flee, but there was nowhere to run.
✦ ✦ ✦
He staggered around the back of a building, across the grass, and collapsed to the ground.
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“......ah.........”
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All his strength left him.
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He looked up at the sky. It was morning now, and the sky was clear and blue. He hadn’t noticed the transition from night to day.
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There were a lot of people behind him. He wondered where he was, and then heard a voice over a loud speaker:
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“Mourners attending the Miyashita funeral, please come to the main hall.”
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He could just make out a tall pipe rising to the sky, with smoke coming out.
✦ ✦ ✦
A crematorium...huh... the perfect place...
✦ ✦ ✦
He wasn’t getting up again. No force of will could make him move...his body was dying. It was surprising enough that he’d managed to run this far.