Nagi agreed. “Some of the garbage men prob-
✦ ✦ ✦
ably picked it up without thinking. But if they left it there, they weren’t being lazy. There are strict regulations about that sort of thing.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“So corpses weren’t at a third of the places, but at a lot more?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“It seems to be a reasonable assumption.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Then what is going on? This is happening on such a large scale...” Kentaro groaned. “That makes me understand it even less!”
✦ ✦ ✦
"........."
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi stared down at the information without
✦ ✦ ✦
answering.
✦ ✦ ✦
She pulled a cardigan over her pajamas and left her room. Nagi was still up, with thin rubber gloves on, examining the dead crow on the table.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Um,” she said.
✦ ✦ ✦
“You have school tomorrow,” Nagi said, not tum-ing around. “Go back to bed.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Y-yeah. . .you too.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Yeah. Just as soon as I check this one thing,” she said, her hands never pausing. She would be up all night.
✦ ✦ ✦
She always was. She usually slept in class, instead.
✦ ✦ ✦
"........."
✦ ✦ ✦
Aya stared at her back for a while.
✦ ✦ ✦
After a minute, Nagi turned around. “What?
✦ ✦ ✦
Something on your mind?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“N-not really. I just. . .you’re really working hard, I thought.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“It’s a habit by this point,” Nagi said, shrugging.
✦ ✦ ✦
“How do you do it?” Aya found herself asking.
✦ ✦ ✦
“How? Hmm. . .let’s see. Aya, why do you like Masaki?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Eh?” Aya said, surprised. “Uh, well, b-be-
✦ ✦ ✦
cause. . .um. . .” She couldn’t find the words.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi grinned at her. “See? Not everything can be explained.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Aya was flustered now. She had only wanted to express her admiration. “. . .sorry,” she said, lowering her gaze.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Nothing to apologize for,” Nagi grimaced, and turned back to her work.
✦ ✦ ✦
Aya watched her a little longer.
✦ ✦ ✦
Eventually, Nagi asked, “Aya, would you make some tea?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“S-sure!” Aya said, brightening visibly. She bolted for the kitchen. “Earl Grey?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Yeah. In a pot. Milk on the side, I’ll add it myself.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Okay!” Aya said, happily.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi smiled to herself. It was like they were newlyweds, she thought. or...or shes the adorable assistant of a worn-out detective...
✦ ✦ ✦
The role she’d never managed to adequately play.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi sighed, covered the dead crow with a sheet, and stood up.
✦ ✦ ✦
3.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Nagi, what do you think bemg normal means?”
✦ ✦ ✦
Kirima Seiichi asked as he died. He was coughing up blood on the floor of his work room, gasping his last breath.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi had said, “I-I’ll call a doctor!” and tried to run off, but Seiichi just grabbed her hand and squeezed tightly.
✦ ✦ ✦
Then he said, “Being normal means abandoning change. . .staying exactly the same forever. So if you don’t want that. . .then you have to be something that isn’t normal. That’s why. . .why I..."
✦ ✦ ✦
He was muttering words that made no sense. Nagi had already realized that he could not be saved.
✦ ✦ ✦
She also was aware that he knew he was dying, as well.
✦ ✦ ✦
Her father had something he could not tell her, but was trying to get something across anyway, which was why he was talking like that...she knew this instinctively.
✦ ✦ ✦
But even so, Nagi could not answer Seiichi.
✦ ✦ ✦
The ambulance arrived, and he was placed on a stretcher, but by then he was already dead. The cause of death was gastric perforation leading to dissolution of the internal organs. Everything around his stomach had melted.
✦ ✦ ✦
People gossiped that he had worked himself to death. It was like he had died in battle, and his death seemed only to increase his popularity.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi herself received a number of offers from the media. She bore a heavy burden, as she was the daughter of a celebrity and was also very beautiful.
✦ ✦ ✦
But Nagi rejected every proposal. Some of them were very persistent, but Sakakibara Gen was able to help get rid of them.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi occasionally asked Gen about her father’s death.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Sensei, did my father like his work?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Dunno.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Gen was a tall, skinny man with an impish expression. At a glance, you would never guess he was a martial artist. No matter what, his first reaction was to insist he knew nothing. It was hard to tell if he wanted her to think for herself or was just being cautious, but that’s the kind of man he was.
✦ ✦ ✦
“He always seemed like there was something
✦ ✦ ✦
driving him forward. Looking at it now, it’s easy to say it was ‘death,’ but somehow I just can’t quite make myself believe that.”
✦ ✦ ✦
He scratched his scraggly beard. “Then what
✦ ✦ ✦
was it?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Hmm. I just think he was pissed off. I mean, it was like he felt, ‘Things ought to be working out okay, so why had the world turned out this way?’ After all, he was an enemy of society.”
✦ ✦ ✦
That had been Kirima Seiichi’s self-selected nickname.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Pissed off. . .that’s so simple it actually makes it harder to understand.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Ha ha ha. Seiichi said that to me all the time.
✦ ✦ ✦
‘Gen, everything you say hits the truth with such accuracy it completely misses the point.”’
✦ ✦ ✦
“But he was friendly with you. He didn’t spend all his time being angry.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“No, well. . .he was never much good at meeting people, and would never work particularly hard at getting along with anyone.”
✦ ✦ ✦
"...yeah, like Mom?”
✦ ✦ ✦
"...mmm, it’s complicated,” Gen sighed.
✦ ✦ ✦
For a moment they sat in silence. Nagi was the first to break it. “Sensei,” she said.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Did my father think he knew everything? That he was the smartest person in the world and could understand anything? Did he ever feel like that?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Not sure. Certainly he was smarter than anyone else I’ve ever met...but he always insisted that I was much smarter than him. ‘Course, he might have just been making fun of me. But when he learned something he didn’t know, he would always say,
✦ ✦ ✦
‘Fascinating.’ He was never embarrassed by a lack of knowledge. And he often said that he was really an idiot, didn’t he?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“I never knew if he really meant that.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Neither did I.”
✦ ✦ ✦
...even eight years later, Nagi never knew how serious her father had been.
✦ ✦ ✦
There was no one on the road running along the river. The only sound was the gentle burbling of the river water. There were homes nearby, but everyone was still sleeping. The area was one small gap in the constant bustle of the world.
✦ ✦ ✦
They had recently finished repaying the road, and the new asphalt gleamed on the surface. Footsteps were tapping along it.
✦ ✦ ✦
They came from a man in a suit and tie. He
✦ ✦ ✦
appeared to be a dedicated worker, a middle-aged government employee. There was a plastic garbage bag in his hand.
✦ ✦ ✦
The dark shadow of exhaustion was on his face.
✦ ✦ ✦
He must have been under a lot of stress.
✦ ✦ ✦
He sighed loudly, and hefted the garbage bag, staring at it contemplatively.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Guess I should hurry,” he said, and tossed it onto the garbage area next to the road. It was still early, and there were only two or three other bags there...probably put there the night before in defiance of regulations.
✦ ✦ ✦
The man turned around, and headed back the way he had come.
✦ ✦ ✦
"............!"
✦ ✦ ✦
He stopped a few seconds later. There was someone in front of him. How long had she been there?
✦ ✦ ✦
I see. So it was you?”
✦ ✦ ✦
The man went stiff. Not only because he’d been addressed directly, but also because this person was majestic, and seemed to be radiating a beautiful light.
✦ ✦ ✦
She wore a leather jumpsuit and sturdy steel-tipped boots. It was Kirima Nagi.
✦ ✦ ✦
The girl people called the Fire Witch.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Wh-who are you?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Who I am is not important. The problem lies with you.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Wh-what do you mean?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“You’re the bad guy, aren’t you?” she said,
✦ ✦ ✦
abruptly.
✦ ✦ ✦
The man gaped, taking a step backwards.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi took a step forward. “I understand two
✦ ✦ ✦
things,” Nagi explained. “First, that you were acting alone. This was not carried out by any group. Those clothes...that suit...is a fraud. Even if someone sees you, they’ll just think you’re a salaryman who’s been asked to take out the trash. It keeps you from attract-ing suspicion. If you had help, you’d never need to do that...you could all coordinate your tasks together.
✦ ✦ ✦
This case had that air about it from the beginning, but now I’m sure of it.”
✦ ✦ ✦
The man flinched. She was unrelenting. But he quickly coughed and tried to gain the upper hand.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Who do you think you are? You look like you’re still in high school! What are you blabbering on about, anyway? What case? What do you mean? I have no idea what this is about.”
✦ ✦ ✦
He seemed sure that children would be cowed if he just acted arrogant enough.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What school do you go to? Depending on what you think you’re doing, I may have to report this to your teachers!”
✦ ✦ ✦
Certainly, the average high school student would get flustered if an adult suddenly scolded them. But Nagi was no ordinary girl.
✦ ✦ ✦
She carried on as if he’d never spoken. “Second, you are acting calmly, in full knowledge of the possible consequences. That’s why the hand that darted into your pocket when I called out to you swiftly came out empty. If you used the gun you’re carrying you would not be able to talk your way out of this.”