His eyes paused on the “Psychiatry” sign.
✦ ✦ ✦
"........."
✦ ✦ ✦
What was she doing here?
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi stepped out of the elevator. She crossed the lobby, moving purposefully.
✦ ✦ ✦
He followed, making himself unnoticeable. Peer-ing ahead, he saw Nagi stop in the smoking corner.
✦ ✦ ✦
There was a woman sitting on the sofa who stood up and called out to Nagi, stopping her. She wore a white coat. Must be a doctor. Probably the “Dr. Kisugi” Nagi had mentioned. In the low lighting, he could not make out her face from this distance.
✦ ✦ ✦
"........."
✦ ✦ ✦
"........."
✦ ✦ ✦
They were speaking in low voices...nothing unusual considering they were in a hospital at night...and even Mo Murder’s exceptional hearing could not pick it up. There was some machine humming nearby drowning their voices out.
✦ ✦ ✦
He wanted to get closer, but there was no way to do so and stay hidden.
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Nagi seemed a little worked up. The doctor was shrugging and shaking her head, trying to soothe her.
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"......"
✦ ✦ ✦
At last Nagi shook her head and came back. They were done talking.
✦ ✦ ✦
She went past the boiler room where Mo Murder was hiding, and summoned the elevator again.
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Mo Murder decided to head for the stairs, keeping ahead of her. But just before he stepped out of his hiding place, he noticed the doctor staring at Nagi.
✦ ✦ ✦
"......?"
✦ ✦ ✦
Something seemed wrong.
✦ ✦ ✦
With her watching, he couldn’t leave. While he hesitated, Nagi stepped onto the elevator, and it began to descend.
✦ ✦ ✦
At last the doctor looked away. But what she did next was even stranger.
✦ ✦ ✦
She ran to the window over the entrance, and opened it. She leaned all the way out, and stared down at the ground below.
✦ ✦ ✦
Then she came back to the smoking corner, bent over next to the sofa, and reached underneath it. When he saw what she pulled out, Mo Murder was stunned.
✦ ✦ ✦
It was a rifle. She assembled it quickly, and then carried it back to the window. She pointed the barrel downwards, aiming carefully.
✦ ✦ ✦
At who? Not at Nagi?!
✦ ✦ ✦
Any second now, Nagi would be leaving below
✦ ✦ ✦
that window, heading for her bicycle in the parking lot. Right past where the doctor was aiming.
✦ ✦ ✦
But if she uses a gun here, someone will notice...
✦ ✦ ✦
he started to think, but his experience as an assassin soon told him that this was not the case.
✦ ✦ ✦
For example, what if the gun was firing tranquil-izer darts shaped like small hypodermic needles?
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi would collapse if one hit her. The guards would come running at the sound. When they lifted her up, they would see the needle lying next to her, but those were hardly unusual in a hospital. They would ignore it and take her inside to the emergency room.
✦ ✦ ✦
And the doctor who would come to look at her...
✦ ✦ ✦
".........!"
✦ ✦ ✦
She could pull this off. There were countless ways to kill people. Mo Murder knew that better than anyone.
✦ ✦ ✦
He could see the doctor’s face in the moonlight.
✦ ✦ ✦
Her lips were twisted, smiling.
✦ ✦ ✦
When he saw that, Mo Murder felt like a steel pole had been rammed through his chest.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Ack..."
✦ ✦ ✦
Why had Kirima Nagi, who had only known him
✦ ✦ ✦
a few hours, told him with such confidence that he could never kill anyone of his own accord? He had killed countless people.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Augh..."
✦ ✦ ✦
Why had Kirima Seiichi been able to make such calm and rational choices even as he lay dying?
✦ ✦ ✦
“Aaaaaaauugh. . . !”
✦ ✦ ✦
Why did this bother him so much, why was he
✦ ✦ ✦
standing in his hiding place panicking, why?
✦ ✦ ✦
“Aaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugghhhhhh ! ” he
✦ ✦ ✦
screamed, and threw himself toward the doctor.
✦ ✦ ✦
Mo Murder was on her before she even turned
✦ ✦ ✦
around. He thrust his knife deep into her mid-section...it was a fatal blow.
✦ ✦ ✦
Damn it!
✦ ✦ ✦
His orders were to identify the killer. Killing her was secondary. But he had done it anyway.
✦ ✦ ✦
He looked up into the doctor’s face and lost track of what he was thinking.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Eh?”
✦ ✦ ✦
He knew this woman’s face. Woman? She didn’t look like a woman...she looked like a girl, about eighteen...
✦ ✦ ✦
And she was grinning at him, even with his knife buried in her. A grin filled with murderous fury.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Consider this revenge for Scarecrow!” said the Towa Organization’s synthetic human, Pigeon, as she coughed up blood. She grabbed Mo Murder’s body, holding him immobile.
✦ ✦ ✦
"......!"
✦ ✦ ✦
Mo Murder quickly tried to turn around. But he was too late. Someone else was coming swiftly up behind him, soundlessly.
✦ ✦ ✦
Unable to dodge, an overhand blow struck Mo
✦ ✦ ✦
Murder from behind, splintering his spine, pulping his organs, and breaking all the way through the other side of his body.
✦ ✦ ✦
“...guh...gah...?!”
✦ ✦ ✦
He just managed to turn his head and look behind him. Kisugi Makiko, someone whom he had never met, stared down at him with a look so haughty it was longer human, but that of an all-powerful god.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Hello, Mo Murder-san...and good-bye,” Fear
✦ ✦ ✦
Ghoul said coldly, and swung Mo Murder’s body into the air, tossing Pigeon away across the floor.
✦ ✦ ✦
Then she flung Mo Murder out through the open window.
✦ ✦ ✦
As he flew through the air, all Mo Murder could think about was the boy he had killed, and his sad face.
✦ ✦ ✦
"...I warned you, didn’t I?”
✦ ✦ ✦
And then he hit the ground.
✦ ✦ ✦
But there was no one there.
✦ ✦ ✦
"............"
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi never once let her guard down. Her body was tense, well aware that this might be a trap. Though she was alert, what actually happened was still able to stun her.
✦ ✦ ✦
Someone fell from above, right in front of her.
✦ ✦ ✦
"......?!"
✦ ✦ ✦
He hit the ground, bounced once, and did not move again. A pool of blood formed under him.
✦ ✦ ✦
He was not bleeding because of the fall. There was a huge hole already opened through the middle of his body.
✦ ✦ ✦
And his face...
✦ ✦ ✦
“S-Sasaki-san?!”
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi tried to run to him, but someone else hit the ground in front of her.
✦ ✦ ✦
However, this person did not fall-instead, she had jumped. The person landed from more than ten meters above, with no damage to her legs at all. Upon landing, she stood upright easily.
✦ ✦ ✦
No human could do that.
✦ ✦ ✦
It was Kisugi Makiko.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi gasped, and the Fear Ghoul grinned wick-edly.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Nagi-Chan,” she said, waving her hands as if declaring her innocence. But her hands were covered in blood. The victim lying behind her explained where the blood came from better than any words.
✦ ✦ ✦
".........!"
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi could feel cold sweat running down her back.
✦ ✦ ✦
4.
✦ ✦ ✦
"A Scarecrow and a Pigeon? Not the best couple.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“It’s crows that can’t stand scarecrows, not pi-geons.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Ultimately, it must have been love.
✦ ✦ ✦
Pigeon only knew Scarecrow through work, but she loved him...very much. She did not realize what that love had meant until he betrayed the Towa Organization, and was killed.
✦ ✦ ✦
Taking care of Scarecrow’s office and apartment had been left up to her, and she had cried the whole time. At times she cried so much she wasn’t even sure why she was crying. The loss was so overwhelming, she feared that if she faced it directly she might go mad. Looking back on it now, that might have been a better choice than the one she made. Still, she remained alive, and carried out her duties like she always had before.
✦ ✦ ✦
She was able to do that, but she could not shake the grief. She could not bear the thought that Scarecrow’s death had, ultimately, had no real effect on her life. She had loved him so much!
✦ ✦ ✦
When her duties required her to contact Mo Murder, the very man who had killed Scarecrow, she felt a fiery anger boiling over inside her.
✦ ✦ ✦
And then. . .that woman appeared.
✦ ✦ ✦
“I know how you feel,” she said. “That’s why I’m going to give you a chance.”
✦ ✦ ✦
She asked what the woman meant.
✦ ✦ ✦
The woman laughed. “Is it not a beautiful thing to die in pursuit of revenge?” she asked.
✦ ✦ ✦
She was terrifyingly good at getting what she wanted by working her way into the weaknesses in people’s hearts.
✦ ✦ ✦
Pigeon had done as the woman said. She had acted as bait, drawn him to her, and used her life to prevent Mo Murder from dodging the woman’s attack.
✦ ✦ ✦
And indeed, she was now dying.
✦ ✦ ✦
"........."
✦ ✦ ✦
The cold hospital floors were sapping all the heat from her body. The world seemed so very cold, and was gradually going dark.
✦ ✦ ✦
Yet Pigeon did not regret what she had done. She had taken the side of an enemy of the Towa Organization. She was just like him now. She felt completely at peace.
✦ ✦ ✦
Her face could no longer form expressions
✦ ✦ ✦
properly, but there was an approximation of a smile forming on her lips.
✦ ✦ ✦
Because there was a shadow standing before
✦ ✦ ✦
her.
✦ ✦ ✦
Ah...
✦ ✦ ✦
The shadow wore a dark colored hat and cloak. It looked less like a person and more like a pipe.
✦ ✦ ✦
Scarecrow... you came!
✦ ✦ ✦
If she had looked closer, she would have seen that this shadow was shorter than the man she had known, and that its shape differed from his, but she was beyond the ability to make such distinctions.