My mind went completely blank when I heard what she said next.
“I’m going to take you with me now—to IU, that is.”
IU. The ones who framed Aria’s mother, Kanae Kanzaki, leaving her with a prison sentence of eight hundred and sixty-four years and employed the “butei killer,” Riko Mine Lupin the Fourth … to kill my brother …! I admired him so much ever since I was a kid—my brother, who was stronger, wiser, and kinder than anyone. And they were the ones responsible for his …! I could feel the blood rushing to my head. The butterfly knife, which I kept as a keepsake of my brother, shook audibly in my trembling fist.
“And one more thing.” The girl’s voice became slightly more lucid. “There was just one thing that didn’t go according to my calculations. It seems I misread your personality. I was under the impression that you were the type who kept her promises.”
“… What do you mean …?”
“‘I’ll turn myself over to you without any resistance. In exchange, don’t involve the students of Butei High—especially Kinji Tohyama.’ You undoubtedly made that promise. I heard it with my own ears. But on the rear side of things … you were calling him.”
Her voice was being projected in a different direction when she said those last words. She was obviously pointing them in my direction.
She noticed me.
Realizing that, I made my next move.
“Shirayuki, run!” I yelled out as I darted towards them. It wouldn’t be entirely incorrect to assume that I had just lost my patience. But it wasn’t as if I rushed out without any ideas. I had a good sense of where the enemy was, based on the direction from which her voice came. If that were the case, I would bring this to a quick end by throwing myself onto and subduing her. There was also the fact that this is an explosives warehouse. I wouldn’t be able to use my gun, but the same applied to my opponent. There were fifty meters separating me from the enemy. With my speed, it would take seven seconds to close that distance. There was no way seven seconds would be enough time for to her discover what my weapon with me running towards her, decide whether to fight or to flee, ready a weapon of her own, and position herself for combat. There was no way she could pull it off!
“Kin-chan?!” Shirayuki’s voice echoed in large warehouse. “… Don’t come this way! You’ve got to get out of here! A butei can’t win against a choutei!” Shirayuki cries were akin to screams of terror, and as soon as she finished, something came flying towards my feet at lighting fast speed and embedded itself in the floor.
“Whoa?!” my voice reverberated in the warehouse, and I pitched forward, falling on my stomach. Next to my feet, an elegantly curved silver blade was sticking upright in the floor. I had seen this weapon before in the Assault textbook, so I knew what it was. It was a French bayonet known as a yatagan. They were like short sabers that attached to the end of long, narrow, old-fashioned guns.
“L’anse de la Pucelle. Butei, know the humiliation of one made out to be a criminal and placed in shackles.”
On finishing her statement, something white began to radiate outward from the bayonet. Whatever it was, it made crackling noises as I felt it fix my feet to the floor.
I-I can’t move.
“Urgh?!”
I tried to get up, but the white substance had spread to my knees as well.
What is this?! It’s cold. ... Ice …?!
The bayonet didn’t look as if it were specially equipped with anything, and underneath my feet was just a regular linoleum floor.
How in the world is she doing this? I can’t get up. ... My body is being sewn down by ice.
“Those of my clan don the light. Our true form is the rear side of the shadows. We outwit the schemers and excel in our own schemes. And the one thing I loathe above all else—is a ‘miscalculation.’”
Our enemy, still concealing herself in the shadows, ended her sentence, and the emergency lamps in the room suddenly went out. We were now surrounded in complete and utter darkness.
“… N-No! Stop! What are you doing?! … Ngh …!”
I could hear metallic sounds coming from Shirayuki’s direction. The enemy was on the move.
“… Shirayuki!”
There was no answer from her.
What’s going on?! What did she do to her?!
I was starting to go into a panic, but being pinned to the floor with ice as I was now, I couldn’t do a thing. No. It wasn’t just this particular instance. Again, I was powerless to do anything. Far from saving Shirayuki, I had only made matters worse. That was how it had been from the very beginning—ever since I started acting as Shirayuki’s bodyguard. I was unable to assess the situation correctly, I idly just let time go by without making any preparations, and when the time did come for me to take action … in the end, all I did was waltz in here and cause problems for Shirayuki. I was witnessing danger befall upon Shrirayuki, yet was helpless to do anything about it. All I could do was watch the situation take a turn for the worse!
I heard a second bayonet traveling through the air. It was pitch dark, but I was fully aware. It was a blade meant to finish me off! At almost that exact same moment, I heard another blade being thrown from behind me
Clang!
For a brief instant, sparks scattered in the air.
I’m . . . still alive. Huh? What happened just now?
“You can hand the baton over to me now.”
It was an anime-like voice that cut through the total darkness. A light turned on in the corner of the room. It was followed by more lights, coming on one after the other like a row of falling dominos that encircled this warehouse as expansive as a gymnasium. The jet-black darkness was replaced with pure white light.
“There you are . . . Durandal! I’m placing you under arrest on the suspicion of attempted kidnapping of a minor!” cried a girl dressed in Butei High’s sailor uniform, making her appearance after trampling over my back and skull.
“Aria?!” I cried.
“It’s you, is it, Holmes?” Again came the voice of the unidentified girl. She had vanished … along with Shirayuki. She seemed to have been dragged away behind the shelves of explosives. From an open space in one of those shelves, two bayonets flew out at Aria. Aria spun her katana in a circle like the vanes of a windmill, deflecting both of them.