I kept walking through the darkness Abel had trapped me in, opening door after door.
I initially thought that all the worlds they contained were there to torment me with guilt, thinking that must be what Abel was after, but only the first held something I’d actually lived through. From that point on, I witnessed the many evils and sins that infested the world and people for whom they caused constant suffering.
Through the second door was a middle school girl. Her classmates had started bullying her over some petty little thing, and the torment had gone on for more than a year. One day, her class got a transfer student, a boy with a learning disability, and the bullies had immediately started going after him instead. The girl was relieved. Now she wouldn’t get bullied any longer. And this time, to put herself on safer ground, she joined in the bullying.
Beyond another door, I saw the tragedy of a young immigrant. Not knowing the law, he’d ended up getting caught smuggling illegal drugs for a paltry sum of money. Depending on the country, the penalty for drug smuggling could be severe, and in the end, despite there being insufficient evidence, he was sentenced to death. Later, the media pointed out that the jurors had shown a racial bias, but that didn’t fix anything. It was already too late.
I even saw entire worlds through several of the doors. In one of them, two countries were fighting a war that had dragged on for ages. The people in power on both sides seemed to be fighting for just causes, but the way they were going about it was clearly wrong. It was unacceptable to use and discard soldiers like pawns in a game of chess. Yet, for a fleeting moment, I sensed a certain justice in the way those powerful people had thought before things devolved to that point. I was evil, too. Or would anyone have felt like that if they were in my shoes?
As I went on opening doors, seeing an endless stream of evil intentions and the people tormented by them, I picked up cuts all over my body.
They hurt so much I couldn’t believe they were an illusion. At first, I thought the wounds in my heart were being made physical, but then I realized I was wrong.
This is punishment.
The world overflowed with malice that I normally wasn’t even aware of. I’d always ignored it. It wasn’t just me; people overlooked far too many of the sins others committed. That was what I was being punished for now. These wounds were proof that people were evil.
“Owwww…!”
No one heard my cries.
Even the cradle of darkness wasn’t gently enveloping me now. My feet trudged along, dragging, as I faced my sins. Word-soul was absolute.
It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.
If this responsibility and punishment was mine alone, I could have put up with it. However, it belonged to everyone. Everyone had sinned, and everyone had to be punished. The pain I was feeling reflected that truth. That was why it hurt so much.
“I’m sorry.”
Who was I apologizing to?
I wanted to go to a world where this pain and suffering didn’t exist. If there was an ideal world like that…a new world where there was no evil, then I wanted to hurry up and—
“—No.”
No. That was wrong. We’d fought that day because we’d been sure it was wrong. That program had claimed to be working toward a new ideal world, and Kimihiko and Charlie had tried to destroy it.
That’s why we would shoulder that pain. We’d continue to hurt as we sought our ideals. I would leave this cradle of darkness behind and walk through scarred, blinding light.
“After all, I’m the detective.”
With my wounded hand, I opened another door.
“This is…”
I found myself on a cliff overlooking the ocean. I was sure I’d see someone’s malice…their sins here.
After I’d walked for a little while, I saw the back of a man in a shabby suit. The edge of the cliff was right in front of him.
He couldn’t be thinking of…!
That was true, though: Suicide was also a human sin.
“Don’t you dare!” I shouted.
I knew he couldn’t hear me, but I had to try something.
I couldn’t bear seeing people get hurt right in front of me any longer. I reached out a hand and desperately ran toward him—but that only made my feet tangle beneath me, and I fell.
“…Mnff.”
I’d tripped over in spectacular fashion and let out what even I thought was a pathetic groan.
My wounds weren’t visible in the worlds inside the doors. On the downside, though, my skirt had flipped up, revealing everything underneath. Even if nobody noticed, it was just as embarrassing as you’d imagine. I was hastily trying to get up when—
“Oh, young lady. Are you all right?”
A voice spoke to me, and my thoughts froze. Someone could see me?
That had never happened before. It might be a shock, but I should have been thrilled. However, this was the worst possible situation for it to happen in. And based on the voice, the person standing there sounded like a middle-aged man…
“I, I, I-I-I-I-I’m all right!” Stammering incoherently, I got up and put some distance between us.
That was embarrassing. Way too embarrassing…
When I was more than ten meters away, I turned back around. As I’d predicted, the speaker was a man in his thirties or forties. He wore a top hat pulled down low over his eyes, so I couldn’t see his face that well.
“Ha-ha!” he laughed cheerfully. “Sorry I startled you.”
I couldn’t sense any hostility or malice in him. He also didn’t look as if he’d been considering suicide at all.
“What are you doing here?” I asked without thinking.
Everyone in these worlds had committed some sort of sin or was the victim of one. In which case, there must be a reason he was here.
“That’s a good question,” the man said. He took out a cigarette and lit it. “If dying and leaving behind precious children is evil, then maybe I’m a sinner, too.”
White smoke rose into the blue sky, climbing higher and higher.
For a little while, I couldn’t say anything.
“What about you, though, young lady?” the man asked after finishing his cigarette. “What are you doing here? Oh no, you don’t have to tell me everything. I get it. You got dragged into this, didn’t you? But you’re still doing your best to withstand it.”
How did he know all that? Was he connected to Abel? —No, he really didn’t look like it.
“Go ahead and tell me about it. It’s all right; I won’t let anyone so much as peek into this world. I’ll lock it, just in case.”
When was it? I had the feeling someone else had said the same thing.
“I’m powerless.”
Before I knew it, I’d begun to talk.
“All I can do is take on everyone else’s wounds.”
This man had a mysterious charm that made me want to tell him how I truly felt. He was reassuring in a way that gave me the impression that I could speak freely with him.
“What are you saying? That’s more than enough,” he said, sounding as if he genuinely knew all about my situation. “It’s incredibly difficult to accept other people’s malice. Not only that, you also have to acknowledge that your own true nature is evil. Nothing could be harder or more painful.”
“…Yeah. But just getting hurt doesn’t mean anything will be forgiven. I can’t let myself feel like I’ve resolved anything just by working hard and toughing it out, right?”
“You’re pretty hard on yourself. However, becoming acquainted with pain is the first step. You took that first step before anybody else, young lady.”
…Well, maybe. I’d worked hard believing that was true. But…
“The thing is, sometimes I lose heart, and it feels like I might not be able to take any more of this.”
“I see. In that case, take somebody’s hand.”
It took me a second to figure out what he meant.
He was telling me to find someone who would bear these wounds with me.
“But that’s awful! I could never…”
“The world’s a bigger place than you think. There may just be one great fool who wants to get caught up in your eccentricities.”
Those words made me think of the face of one particular young man. His profile seemed to suit kind sighs and always came to mind at times like this.
“Is it really all right for me to be the one who takes that person’s hand, though?”
I knew of one person who was fit to walk beside him: a girl who had once held my position and shouldered this same mission, whose fate had been decided in the distant past. It didn’t seem as if I had any right to monopolize him.
“Oh-ho. A rival in love, is it?”
“I-it’s not like…!” I denied it on reflex, but even that made the man smile under the brim of his hat.
“Young lady, I bet you get told often that your personality is a drawback. Don’t you?”
“My friend tells me I seem like I’ll give up something important at a crucial moment and regret it…” I admitted the truth without even thinking, and the man practically split his sides laughing.
“I see. I never would have thought the incumbent was a kid this funny.”
“‘The incumbent’?”
Still grinning, he shook his head. “Anyway, you should think about doing what only you can do before you compare yourself to somebody else. Figure out what job you should actually be doing right now. Everything else comes after that.” The man’s face had gone serious again. “Why are you being shuffled around these worlds? An enemy is putting you through this. What is he thinking, and who is he really? Think. Only those who never stop thinking will come to see the truth, and seeking that has been our mission since antiquity.”
“It can’t be… Is your name…?”
The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed them back down.
Actually, never mind. I didn’t need him to tell me.
It wasn’t the sort of thing I should learn about here. What mattered was the fact that I’d met him now and that we’d talked. Our wills had connected. That alone was enough.
“Also, just so you know, guys like girls better when they’re a little selfish.”
“…Would you quit it with that already?!”
Haaah. Just when the conversation seemed like it was going to end on a feel-good note…
I gave a wry smile, and a door appeared behind me.
I started toward it to peek at someone’s remembered sin and carve the next pain into myself.
“That’s fine by me.”
That was my mission. The job of Nagisa Natsunagi, Ace Detective.
I would identify sins, and with the crimes carved into me as physical evidence, I’d go in search of the truth. I was on an endless journey to figure out who Abel Arsene Schoenberg really was.