“I hired someone to keep a close eye on him, too. I’m sorry, Ms. Natsuki. I thought it would worry you even more, so I didn’t tell you. I hardly expected the Diet member who’d been so friendly with the chairman all these years to accept our heroic tale without a fuss.”
Sora checked the location of the lookout sent by Tamuramaro, but the dot on the map was still in front of Odajima’s house, likely detained.
“You’re both shockingly efficient and calm somehow…”
Their stolid manner steadied her nerves, and she seemed to be breathing a bit easier now.
“Ms. Natsuki, you can scold Mr. Odajima later. He probably knew this was coming,” said Tamuramaro.
“Oh.” Odajima’s doubtful expression as she asked him her last question—“Is there anything else you’re worried about?”—flashed through her head.
“Where did you hide the GPS?”
“In the body of the fountain pen. He often puts it in his breast pocket, and I thought he’d have it on him at all times. I slipped it in when I asked him if I could see the pen.”
Tamuramaro determined the pen’s location, and it was one of the places that he’d already listed as possible destinations. “As clichéd as a movie,” he remarked, half incredulously.
“Is it by the bay?” Sora peered at the tablet.
“You mean Tokyo Bay? That’s where the IR resort would’ve been built… Are they trying to sink him along with IR?!”
“We’ll rescue him before that. He’s still close,” Tamuramaro assured her.
“But they’ve already passed through Tokyo Circular Route 8, heading toward Route 7,” said Sora. “Maybe they’re trying to avoid the security cameras on toll roads.”
“In that case, we’ll take the Metropolitan Expressway. We’ve got a rental car ready, so don’t worry, Ms. Natsuki. You can wait here.”
They’d only had the car on standby just in case, but now their hand was forced. Sora picked up the car keys by the entrance.
“I can’t just wait here! I’ll have a heart attack.”
“Woof!” Fuuka, now caught up on the situation, put his paw on Sora’s shoulder and demanded to be brought along.
“No, Fuuka. You look after the house while we’re gone.”
Fuuka fully understood that Sora was going somewhere dangerous, and he wasn’t about to let him go alone.
“Ms. Natsuki. Please, could you wait here with Fuuka?” Sora wanted to reassure Fuuka by reminding him that he couldn’t die, but he stopped himself in Natsuki’s presence.
“Woof, woof!” Fuuka refused to stay behind, and he snatched away the car key.
“Am I doing a good job of protecting you, Sora?”
Perhaps Fuuka had been cursed to protect his brother. If it was a curse, Sora wanted to free him of it. Sora caught his breath and looked to Tamuramaro for his opinion.
“I guess it’s all right,” Tamuramaro murmured. Instead of his usual open way of talking, his words were tense with anxiety.
Tamuramaro probably understood better than anyone: Sora had now discovered the sheer danger his belief in a single, irrefutable justice had posed. Throughout history, too, the belief in one absolute justice had sometimes led to the deaths of multitudes.
“That’s impossible.”
Fuuka’s actions must have followed Sora’s emotions in the beginning, but now he had said he couldn’t stop himself of his own will.
“Fuuka. You remember what I asked you not to do, don’t you? If you do, I’ll let you come with us.”
Sora knew it wasn’t something to bet on, but even so, he wanted to believe in a future in which he and Fuuka could walk on a new path together.
“Wait, you’re taking Fuuka with you?” asked Natsuki. “Some thugs from a gang that Representative Yamagata sent over are about to drown Mr. Odajima where IR’s resort was meant to be built, right? What if something happens to your doggo?”
“You have a thorough understanding of the situation and well-developed skills for articulating it, Ms. Koudera…” It was no time to be impressed by such things, but Tamuramaro couldn’t help it.
As for Sora, he was staring at Fuuka. Natsuki’s question had come as a shock. He’d always been too busy worrying about whether Fuuka would kill someone that he’d barely had any time to consider whether Fuuka himself would get hurt.
“Fuuka,” he called to him and wrapped him in a tight embrace. “I’m sorry.”
“Coo.” Fuuka whined.
“If you’re gonna sit around hugging your dog, you better take me with you, too! I know I’ll get in the way, but I could keep hold of his leash at the very least!!” Natsuki stomped her feet impatiently.
“Well said,” Tamuramaro agreed. He didn’t tell Sora that everything would be all right, but even so, he gave him a pat on his back.
Both Sora and Tamuramaro had a driver’s license, but they decided that Sora would drive while Tamuramaro kept his eye on the GPS tracker in the passenger seat.
“How does it look? He hasn’t been buried yet, has he? Not drowned in the bay?” Natsuki and Fuuka sat nervously in the back of the hybrid rental car.
“The police and an ambulance are on their way. The watch stationed at Mr. Odajima’s house was beaten and tied up, but he’s alive. There was no time for them to kill Mr. Odajima on the spot, and we’ll be with him in five minutes,” Tamuramaro explained patiently to her as they entered the bay area, lit by rows of artificial lights by the sea.
“Coo…”
Fuuka whined softly, staring up at the lights streaking past as if he was seeing something otherworldly. It was the first time Fuuka had seen such a cityscape at night, Sora realized. Living side by side all these centuries, he’d been so obsessed with the idea of turning Fuuka back into a human being that he hadn’t gotten around to showing Fuuka how much there was in the world. His chest tightened at the thought.
“I never realized how unreal the view is here at night,” Tamuramaro said, though it sounded out of place in such a tense moment. It was probably a coincidence that their thoughts aligned.