Mo Murder had no idea what she was driving at.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Then. . .if she were to be afraid, what might scare her?”
✦ ✦ ✦
"...I-I couldn’t...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Couldn’t begin to imagine. So she was that
✦ ✦ ✦
strong.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Y-yes.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi did not seem to be asking questions so much as merely confirming the answer she had already arrived at.
✦ ✦ ✦
"...was there a physical exam at your school recently?”
✦ ✦ ✦
This question came out of the blue.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Eh? Y-yeah, there was, but...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Was one of the doctors a young woman?”
✦ ✦ ✦
"...come to think of it, yes. She was there in place of our usual physician...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Okay then,” Nagi nodded, and abruptly stood up.
✦ ✦ ✦
Without another word she ran out of the shop.
✦ ✦ ✦
"......?!"
✦ ✦ ✦
Rika and Mo Murder stared after her. Despite his surprise, he recovered quickly. “S-sorry about that!
✦ ✦ ✦
I’ll get the check!”
✦ ✦ ✦
He hurriedly slapped a ten thousand yen bill on the table and ran after her.
✦ ✦ ✦
Rika was left sitting alone, stunned.
✦ ✦ ✦
What had just happened escaped her, but for a moment, in the eyes of the girl who had claimed to be twenty-six, she had seen a look she’d seen just once in the eyes of her dead friend.
✦ ✦ ✦
That look had come when a teacher screamed
✦ ✦ ✦
at Rika for something she’d had nothing to do with.
✦ ✦ ✦
The accusation left Rika in tears. Shizue had hissed,
✦ ✦ ✦
“Unforgivable!” and gone running off to demand that the teacher apologize. Ultimately, not only had the teacher not apologized, but Shizue had ended up getting thoroughly scolded herself, but she had remained furious to the bitter end.
✦ ✦ ✦
“You did nothing wrong! It makes me so mad!”
✦ ✦ ✦
she said, angry for what had happened to Rika.
✦ ✦ ✦
When she went running out of here...her eyes were just like Shizue's..
✦ ✦ ✦
Like she was angry in the dead girl’s place, unable to forgive the horrible things done to her.
✦ ✦ ✦
managing to catch up with Nagi. He grabbed her shoulder.
✦ ✦ ✦
"............"
✦ ✦ ✦
She turned back to him, but did not answer.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What’s going on?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“I remember! She said she ‘wondered why there was such a thing as fear.”’
✦ ✦ ✦
Mo Murder didn’t follow.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Huh? What?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Yes...this was never about whether the killer was scared. It was about the victims. That was the motive! It was the Victims who weren’t afraid of going somewhere deserted. The killer didn’t choose the place; she chose them because of their strength!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“H-hang on. . .what are you talking about?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“And the medical knowledge...the higher
✦ ✦ ✦
education. . .and more than anything else, she’d need to be able to do the research...it’s more than possible!”
✦ ✦ ✦
She brushed Mo Murder’s hand away, turning
✦ ✦ ✦
to leave.
✦ ✦ ✦
“H-hey, wait! What the...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“You’re no longer a suspect, Sasaki-san.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Eh?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“I’m sure you noticed, but I did suspect you. But not anymore. . .which means this is goodbye.”
✦ ✦ ✦
"......!"
✦ ✦ ✦
She put it so bluntly that it floored him. “Wh-what cleared me?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“When I told you to talk to Rika-san, you were flustered. If you were the killer and just acting, you’d have slipped up then. But you remained a nice guy, and were flustered in the normal fashion, and clumsily went about doing something you clearly weren’t ac-customed to. The killer would have relished the performance. And there was none of the phony behavior you might get with that. You were simply. . .awkward.
✦ ✦ ✦
That was enough for me.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Mo Murder tried to ask again, “B-but I’m...
✦ ✦ ✦
I’m...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“What, you think you could kill someone? That’s just an impulse, Sasaki-san. The bug inside you, squirming. You’re really a very nice man. You might think that’s ridiculous,:but you would never kill anyone of your own accord.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“B-but I. . .” killed your father! he almost blurted, but caught himself just in time.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi grinned at him. “Bye!” she said, and left with a wave of her hand.
✦ ✦ ✦
"...w-wait! You. . .you know who the killer is?!
✦ ✦ ✦
You’re going to fight them?!”
✦ ✦ ✦
There was no answer to his call. Nagi simply walked away, without so much as a glance backwards.
✦ ✦ ✦
3.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Heh heh heh..."
✦ ✦ ✦
In the darkness, the Fear Ghoul laughed.
✦ ✦ ✦
Everything was playing out as she had planned Kirima Nagi had clearly figured out that Kisugi Makiko was the killer. Even if she wasn’t completely certain, she was clearly eying her as a prime suspect.
✦ ✦ ✦
But she had expected that. Obviously, she had remembered that when she was still human, she had once let her own fixation slip when talking to that girl.
✦ ✦ ✦
She knew things might turn out this way eventually.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi was smart, and the Fear Ghoul never underesti-mated her opponents.
✦ ✦ ✦
But... you have no proof, do you, Nagi-Chan?
✦ ✦ ✦
If she went to the police, there was not a single scrap of evidence that could lead to her arrest. Even if there was, she had a large number of policemen under her control.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi did not know that, but even so...judging from her personality, her sense of responsibility, she would come in person. And alone.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Heh heh heh heh...!"
✦ ✦ ✦
She was ready for her.
✦ ✦ ✦
It would not be long before that girl’s incomparable strength would be hers to play with...
✦ ✦ ✦
It was easy enough. Nagi might be unusually
✦ ✦ ✦
observant for a child, but no matter how closely she paid attention, she was just a human-Mo Murder was an expert at hiding and tracking, and had been born to do nothing else. If he put his mind to it, he could follow anyone without their ever noticing.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi first went to an apartment building-presumably her home. Mo Murder had no way of knowing, but it was where Sakakibara Gen had lived. He had signed it over to her when he left Japan.
✦ ✦ ✦
She soon came out again, with a bag over her shoulders.
✦ ✦ ✦
What Is in the bag? Surely not a weapon of some kind?
✦ ✦ ✦
Given Nagi’s track record so far, it seemed like a distinct possibility. She might really be planning to fight the killer in person.
✦ ✦ ✦
Fool! What you ’re about to fight isn’t even human!
✦ ✦ ✦
He longed to tell her. But from a mission standpoint, allowing Nagi to draw the killer out would give him a distinct advantage. From that standpoint, what she was doing was ideal.
✦ ✦ ✦
But...
✦ ✦ ✦
But...argh...damn it!
✦ ✦ ✦
Mo Murder found himself tortured by anxiety he did not fully understand.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi jumped aboard a touring bicycle and sped off at a speed rarely obtained without a motor. She even had her helmet on. Such a well-prepared young woman!
✦ ✦ ✦
Where's she headed?
✦ ✦ ✦
Following behind, Mo Murder desperately tried to determine how Nagi had figured out the killer’s identity. No matter how he examined the evidence, he still had no idea who was behind the murders.
✦ ✦ ✦
Perhaps Nagi knew something he didn’t, but he had been with her the whole time. He was an assassin, an expert at investigation, yet he had not even grasped the slightest hint of the identity of the killer.
✦ ✦ ✦
She said the “motive” was key...
✦ ✦ ✦
He did not understand what she meant. Come to think of it, despite all the people he had murdered, he had never once thought about why people killed each other.
✦ ✦ ✦
“There’s a bug inside you.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“The bug inside you, squirming.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi’s voice, and the voice of the boy he had killed, echoed together inside his skull.
✦ ✦ ✦
What bug?!
✦ ✦ ✦
Everything about those two was different, but they had said almost the same thing.
✦ ✦ ✦
He did not know it. . .but one of Kirima Seiichi’s books, When a Man Kills a Man, contained the following words: “Humans do not possess a single, focused will. In their hearts, they have countless bugs, buzzing in all directions. There are times when all these bugs in pounce on the same food, but when they are focused on different desires, people take actions that can only be described as incoherent.” Both of them had taken the phrase from that passage.
✦ ✦ ✦
Why? Why?
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi sped through back roads, reaching her des- a tination almost completely unseen.
✦ ✦ ✦
Once again, Mo Murder was surprised.
✦ ✦ ✦
This was the hospital where Nagi had once
✦ ✦ ✦
stayed. . .and where he had attacked the Towa Organization traitor, Scarecrow.
✦ ✦ ✦
The sky was already dark. The sun had set, and a full moon shone in the sky. Gray clouds, bathing in the moonlight, drifted from the east.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi glanced up at the building above her and then headed around the back. The front entrance already had a Sign placed in front of it that read, “Visiting and examining hours are over for the day.”
✦ ✦ ✦
At the back entrance she found a security guard and the head of maintenance. They looked surprised to see her.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Nagi-chan, what brings you here?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Nothing major,” she said. She’d been here long enough to know them both.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Visiting hours are over for the day...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh, no...I’m supposed to meet Dr. Kisugi. You mind calling her?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“No problem,” the guard said, picking up the phone. “Uh, Dr. Kisugi? Kirima Nagi’s here, says she wants to talk to...oh, yes. Okay. Absolutely. Nagi-chan, go right up.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Thanks.”
✦ ✦ ✦
She wrote her name on the night visitors log, putting “private business” down in the “purpose of visit” field, and went inside.
✦ ✦ ✦
The lights were dimmed in the halls at night, and her footsteps echoed softly.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi knew the layout well. She headed right for the elevators and pushed the call button.
✦ ✦ ✦
from the shadows, having snuck inside while she spoke with the guard.
✦ ✦ ✦
What floor is she going to?
✦ ✦ ✦
Without a sound, he ran up the stairs near the elevator shaft, stopping when it did.