Fuuka had managed to stop by his own will.
“Stop right there.” Tamuramaro pushed down the man who was about to flee from Fuuka’s feet. “That guy’s got ropes for tying up the chairman. Sora, you tie their hands behind their backs.”
Sora wanted to rush over to Fuuka, but at Tamuramaro’s orders, he bolted over to the man on the ground with a concussion, grabbed the rope, and tied him up.
“Give me some rope, too.” Natsuki held out her hand. Sora hadn’t even noticed that she had rushed out after Fuuka.
“Ms. Natsuki…we asked you to stay in the car.”
“I’ll deal with the police. I’m Mr. Odajima’s consultant, after all. I won’t let them take Fuuka away. It’s true he was attacking the culprit, but we never know what they’ll think.”
Natsuki had seen everything: how Fuuka rescued Sora and nearly bit into the man’s throat.
“Thank you…for saving Mr. Odajima,” Natsuki added.
“I really owe you one,” Odajima chimed in. “Thanks, everyone. And this adorable doggy you have here.”
“I’m not letting you off the hook, Mr. Odajima!” Natsuki cried at the easygoing chairman.
“Thanks, Natsuki.” Odajima knew full well that Natsuki loved him as if he were her real father. “Sora,” he called calmly, gazing at the red flashing lights approaching them.
“…Yes?”
“Those crimes you said were profitless and useless—they’ll be snuffed out soon enough. They really are useless now. The judicial system is moving in that direction. Our old ways won’t work anymore.”
As they listened, Sora and the others realized that Odajima had been planning to end not only his work as a chairman but also his life.
“When I started on the ground, I was mad with envy to see the higher-ups sitting in the president’s room holding fountain pens. I wanted to beat them and get what they had.” Odajima looked wistfully at his own fountain pen as though it was some relic from the past. “But you know what? By the time I’d climbed up high enough to hold a fountain pen myself, everything became electronic. And now, there’s not much use for these except times like these. I suppose I don’t need it anymore.”
He swung back his arm to throw the fountain pen into the sea, but Natsuki grasped his hand in a tight grip.
“Let’s drink together at the roadside station, Mr. Odajima, and have that seafood set. Treat me to some good sake!” Natsuki declared. Her voice was full of its usual exuberance, most likely for Odajima’s benefit.
“Right.” In a moment, light came back into Odajima’s eyes, which had turned dull and dazed as if his own life had been taken away along with his fountain pen. “I haven’t seen that place yet. There’s still something I want to do before I die, after all.”
“Exactly!” she replied. “Sora, you can go ahead. I’ll tell them I drove the car and came here by myself.” Natsuki hurried him, looking at the police cars about to arrive.
“Will you be okay by yourself?”
“The police are here now. I’ll be fine.”
Sora and Tamuramaro looked at each other, then made sure the three men they’d tied up couldn’t get away. They decided to leave with Fuuka, who was watching quietly.
“I thought you looked like a kid when I first met you, but you’ve grown up somehow, Sora,” Natsuki said, holding Odajima protectively as Sora started to walk away.
Sora glanced back at her for a moment, then broke into a run with Fuuka and Tamuramaro to get away from their parked car. They stopped to watch the police arrive from a distance, arrest the three culprits, and bring Odajima and Natsuki into their protection.
“They’re about to start their on-the-spot inspection. Let’s head to the other side for now.” Tamuramaro pointed in the direction of Sea Forest Park, which normally wouldn’t have been the kind of place for anyone to walk in.
Sora was silent, searching for the right words to say to the wolf padding along in between them.
Fuuka hadn’t killed anyone. He had bared his powerful fangs but stopped himself. He had learned not to kill.
“Brother.”
Sora stopped in his tracks at Fuuka’s human voice. He turned to see his brother standing between them as a man in white robes.
“Fuuka…you’re a human outside? Are you completely human now?!”
Although it was deserted around them, it would have been impossible for Fuuka to retain his human form somewhere they could encounter people.
“This is great… Fuuka, you’re finally a human…!” Sora choked back tears of joy and flung his arms around Fuuka.
But Fuuka said quietly, “Sora. It’s time…”
“Huh…?”
“I have to say good-bye to you here.” Fuuka smiled and looked around quizzically. “Wonder where we are?” He gazed at the Sea Forest Waterway nearby, then at the hotels and ships glittering like stars. “It’s so different from where I was born.”
“Yes, Fuuka. Now that you’re finally a human…let’s go back to where we were born. Let’s go up north together. Right?”
To Sora, Fuuka looked like a man contemplating the view around him for the very last time before his death. He grabbed Fuuka’s hand desperately.
Tamuramaro looked on, remembering the last farewell between him and his friend in the distant past, though Fuuka didn’t know it.
“I’m not going to the north. I need to part ways with you here, Sora. I hope I’ll be able to break myself.”
“Why? What do you mean, break yourself?!” Sora gripped Fuuka’s arm tightly, determined never to let go.
“You see, I’m your sheath…,” Fuuka began, voicing the word sheath carefully, lovingly. “But you’re not a sword anymore. You don’t need one.”
“Of course I need you! You’re my precious little brother!! You’re right; maybe I’m not a sword anymore. So that means you don’t have to kill anyone ever again, Fuuka. You did it—you stopped yourself back there.”
“It’s only because I learned how to write sheath from Tamuramaro the other day. It popped up in my head, and I went blank. Just a fluke,” Fuuka explained. He hadn’t stopped because he’d intended to, but only because he was carefully tracing the strokes of the character in his mind.