What…?
Her heart began to waver at this question. Or perhaps it had already been unsteady, and this was just the first time she actually noticed it.
What am I…doing? I want to destroy Sir Shizuo. To understand and confirm the strength of humanity.
It was a desire she’d always held about those who were considered powerful, going back to her days in Russia. It was one of Vorona’s purest desires, as twisted as it was.
But now that she had experienced ordinary life here with Shizuo and Tom, there was another emotion budding within her, beyond the simple urge for destruction.
No… I am…not allowed to have an ordinary life. Why did I choose to betray Father and President Lingerin…?
She shook off her moment of weakness and tried to view Shizuo as an enemy again. But even then, she couldn’t keep her heart steady.
No, not like this. Sir Shizuo and I must crush each other with everything on the line…or all of this is meaningless… It cannot happen in this way, as a kind of afterthought…
Vorona was shocked to realize her mind was finding excuse after excuse not to shoot Shizuo at this moment. Now there was no way she could argue against Slon’s assessment that she had grown tepid and soft.
What…?
What do I want to do?
✦ ✦ ✦
Flying by the seat of his pants, Seitarou suddenly yelled at Vorona, “H-hey! What are you doing? Shoot him dead right now!”
“…Hey, old man.” Shizuo’s voice caused all the air around them to freeze. “That don’t sound like it’s exactly right, now does it…?”
There was a clear note of irritation in his statement. He turned around slowly and met Seitarou’s gaze. The look caused the other man to tremble. It froze Seitarou in place, causing the muscles in his hips and back to dislocate slightly, paralyzing him with pain.
“…!”
“When you kill a person…you gotta be prepared for them to kill you first… So if you’re gonna order Vorona to kill me, that means you’re tellin’ her to accept dyin’ in retaliation, right? So you’re sayin’…you want my precious coworker to perform a job that you know might kill her…? Is that it?”
“W-wait! I… I’m…!”
Seitarou tried to scrabble backward, hands and feet flailing, like an insect. The man who had barely batted an eye at the various freakish things he’d seen today now felt his heart leaping into his throat with terror at the slowly approaching man in the bartender’s vest.
The distance between them closed without mercy before Seitarou could so much as regret his decision.
✦ ✦ ✦
“…”
Vorona hadn’t recovered from her confusion in any way. She tried to point the gun at Shizuo as he closed in on Seitarou. But Kujiragi placed a hand over her arm and motioned her to lower the weapon.
“You were not hired personally by President Yagiri. You do not have an obligation to obey his orders.”
“…”
“Both you and I are being misled by personal feelings. My rule from experience is that bringing personal sentiments into work will lead to bad results. It should be reflected upon and learned from.”
In Kujiragi’s head was the image of Ruri Hijiribe, whom she had once treated as a transactional product.
If only she hadn’t let personal sentiment move her. Or perhaps if she had let it motivate her to save the girl, it might have resulted in a different outcome. She shook her head—it was pointless to wonder now.
“Let us pull back now, to sever this vicious cycle.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Wh-what?! Kujiragi! What are you doing?! You have to save me!”
Seitarou couldn’t hear the women’s voices, but he could tell from their actions that something bad was happening.
Kujiragi then cruelly informed him in a businesslike manner, “My duties for the day do not include your personal protection, President Yagiri.”
“Wha…?”
She held out her palm to indicate the large bag Vorona had brought, and she gave him a deep, formal bow. “As we agreed, I have brought you one of the products. I shall deliver to you the dullahan body and Saika at a later date.”
“W-wait! Isn’t that the dullahan’s body? That thing atop the buildings?! What are you thinking?”
“That it will be difficult to recover it at this moment.”
If they used the contents of Vorona’s bag, it should be possible to get it from its current state back to the original humanoid form. But she wasn’t anywhere near confident that she could keep a newly cognizant dullahan trapped with Saika and deal with Shizuo Heiwajima. And with the way the cursed sword was aflutter at Shizuo’s presence, she wasn’t sure it would even be successful at keeping the dullahan trapped for long.
So she concluded, with that robotic flatness of affect, a most human of rationales.
“I do value my life, after all.”
✦ ✦ ✦
As she listened to Kujiragi speak and Seitarou wail, Vorona lowered her gun.
I can’t. No matter what I do in this situation, I cannot fulfill my desire. To destroy Sir Shizuo will require…more resolution than I am able to summon at this moment.
This side job was, in fact, intended to give her that resolution, but she wasn’t prepared to run across Shizuo right in the middle of it like this. Like Kujiragi had said, it was probably best to withdraw now.
Vorona steadied her breathing, trying to control herself, and looked up at the night sky. She saw the shadow mass again and squinted.
But at the same time, she noticed something wrong. It was something she noticed only because her past work history had required her to be very observant of details.
Do they engage in construction at such a late hour in Japan?
The black creature was tangled up in wires just about in the center of the space between buildings.
But above it, near the top of the building currently under construction, there were bright lights shining. Not the red warning lights for the benefit of airplanes, but something brighter, like halogen lamps.
If this was true, then the workers up there could easily witness what was going on below. Curious, she moved a few steps to get a better view of the top of the building.
The results were still suspicious. She could see a forklift perched right near the edge of the structure. It had to be very close to the edge indeed if she could see it from the street. She squinted, finding that rather dangerous, and noticed something else.
The payload end of the forklift was actually extending over the edge—and it was loaded up with building materials of some kind.
Right next to it, there was a small human figure…
…!
And then Vorona realized what it was the person on the roof was about to do.
“Sir Shizuo!”
She was running before she knew it—right for Shizuo, who was still approaching Seitarou Yagiri with laser focus.
Just scant seconds later, she slammed hard into Shizuo’s back.
“?!”
He lost his balance and stumbled several steps forward. “Hey, what the hell was that for, Vor—?” he shouted, turning back to protest.