Enta kept his eyes lowered as he stood up, hands clenched at his sides. “It doesn’t matter how much you devote yourself to someone. If they never even think about your feelings, it’s all pointless.” His hand grasped at the wire fencing in front of him, trembling.
“You’re the one who gets to decide whether you want to devote yourself to someone or something. Wouldn’t it be easier for you to just quit?”
There was no compassion in Chikai’s words; he was a stranger and had no emotional investment in this situation. Besides, Enta knew that quitting wouldn’t make anything easier for him.
Suddenly, he spotted two people down below. “Those are…”
Reo and Mabu were patrolling the interior of the Hanayashiki park.
“The sign said ‘siblings only.’ You can’t tell me the two of us look even remotely like siblings trying to bond,” grumbled Reo.
“They probably only let us in because we’re policemen.” Mabu’s entirely-too-stiff-and-proper answer spoiled any humor Reo found in their situation.
“Thanks for the brilliant analysis, Sherlock.” Reo looked bored as he bit into his ningyo-yaki.
Chikai slipped over Hanayashiki’s blue wall, landing squarely in the alley behind the park. “Hup…!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa… Gaaah!” Enta had good reflexes but terrible luck. He tripped over his own feet and slammed his face into the pavement.
“Might be about time to leave,” Chikai remarked as they walked along.
Enta agreed. “Yes, please hurry, get your brother and get out of here!”
“Kwaaaaah!” An eerie battle cry sounded behind them.
“Huh?” The two looked back to find a man with a shaved head, save for the fine designs chiseled into the remaining bristles. The man sported glasses, a mustache and beard, and a tailored black suit. His entire getup screamed “thug.”
“Chikaaaai!”
“Wh-who the heck is that?!” demanded Enta. It was obvious that he and Chikai knew each other, though you could tell by the tension in the air that they weren’t friends.
Chikai stared at the man, then mumbled, “Yasu this time?” And then, “Ah, shit…”
“I’m here to avenge my bro!” The man whipped out a dagger from his pocket, drew it from its sheath, and began charging toward them. “Kwaaaaah!”
“Huh? What?! What the?!”
What do we do, what do we do?! Enta’s brain was spinning. This is like straight out of one of Grandma’s yakuza films!
He felt something slam into him from behind. For a moment, he almost wondered if Keppi was at it again, but realized it was Chikai’s foot. “Geh!” Enta went stumbling toward the bald guy, arms splayed out and chest flung forward, until the blade was just a few centimeters away. He let out a strangled cry and yanked himself back.
Yasu, as Chikai called him, sneered. “What’s goin’ on?”
“Retreat, retreat, retreat, retreat…!” Chikai left the two behind and was dashing down the street.
“What?! Seriously? H-hold on!”
“Hey, kid. You in league with Chikai?!” Yasu snatched Enta up by the collar and pressed his face uncomfortably close.
“N-no!” Enta was bending the truth a little, but it wasn’t entirely a lie.
“Don’t play games with me! I know today’s the brother-andsister-only event here! What’ve you got to say for yourself, huh?!”
Enta shrank back from the dagger as it slowly drew closer. Then suddenly…
“Stop, or we’ll call the police!”
It was a line heard frequently in television dramas and movies.
I’m saved! Enta thought as he whipped his head to look back at the very same officers he’d seen just moments ago in Hanayashiki.
“We are the police,” pointed out the uniformed man in glasses.
“Yeah, but the scene’s not complete without that line, right?” remarked the blond beside him. The former—Mabu—appeared to be struggling to understand why someone wearing a law enforcement uniform would need to call for the police.
“He’s just a kid,” said Mabu. “What are you doing to him?”
Reo added, “Also, weapons like that are against the law, you know?”
Yasu didn’t seem intimidated by their appearance at all. “Kwaaaaah! The reason I’ve kept going this long is so I can finish off Chikai!”
Yasuda Yasu was an underling of Yuri Kamome, who was murdered four years ago. He was the one to restore order to the YURIKAMOME gang after it lost its boss. He was a sentimental man as well, and lived with the promise of vengeance in his heart for four years.
“No, no, no, no, no…!” Enta managed to wriggle free of Yasu’s grasp and scramble desperately to some nearby trees for cover. Once he was out of harm’s way, he peered out to watch how the scene unfolded.
“Chikai… Do you mean the wanted man, Kuji Chikai?” Mabu asked, not expecting to find information on their target here of all places.
“Like I’d hand him over to the cops! He’s gotta pay for what he did to my bro!” Yasu was too agitated to listen.
“How sentimental,” Reo remarked mockingly.
“Seems like Kuji got away.” Mabu said. The two lost interest.
“Quit flappin’ your mouths! Kwaaaah!” Unable to tamp down his rage, Yasu charged the two officers. His attack was easily foiled when Reo stuck out his foot to trip the lumbering thug, pitching him forward. When he regained his balance and glanced back, the two were staring coldly down at him.
“Don’t get in our way.”
“Not an ideal place to do this, but whatever.” Reo slipped his gun out of its holster.
“I’m not gonna fall for your empty threats, kwaaah!” Yasu, who missed his opportunity to pull back, readied his weapon and leaped forward.
“Now, let us open a door. Is it desire, or love?” The sign on the gun changed from Extraction to Attack.
“Kwaaaaaah!”
BANG!
A single bullet blasted through the top of Yasu’s head.
“Kuu…waah…” Smoke rose from his forehead as he flopped back onto the ground, motionless.
“Oh, no, no, no no…” Enta, who watched from the shadows of the trees as the whole thing played out, trembled as he ran from the scene.
“What should we do about this?” Reo asked.
“He’ll make a good Kappa Zombie,” replied Mabu. “We can’t let him go to waste.”
“I figured you’d say that! Then you carry him back,” Reo retorted childishly. There was something disquieting about how casually they talked while staring at the corpse before them.
“Was that the sound of a gunshot just now?!”
“Someone’s collapsed on the ground!” Two men—actual police officers who’d been on patrol—rushed over.
“Well, heck,” mumbled Reo. “We’ve been found out.”
The two men examined the body, turning pale as they asked, “Are you two the ones who shot him?!”
“One shot right through the head… No one’s going to buy that this was self-defense!”
“Hey! We’re talking to you! Answer us.”
Reo grinned at them.
Suddenly, one of the two officers blurted out, “The one who shot him was Kuji Chikai.”
“What? What are you on about all of a sudden?” demanded his partner.
“This man’s had a grudge against Kuji since the incident that happened four years ago.”
“Yeah, exactly,” agreed Reo. “Kuji’s the obvious culprit here.”
The one man regarded his partner—and the unfamiliar young men in uniform in front of him—skeptically. “What proof do you have of—”
Mabu flicked a small pin at him. It had the symbol of a heart on it, and it landed squarely on the officer’s chest, where it seemed to gleam in the light.
“Let’s clarify,” said Mabu. “Who murdered this man?”
The older officer answered after a short pause, “It was Kuji Chikai. I’m absolutely certain.”
Reo cackled. “Now, while you’re at it, why don’t you carry this body for us?”
At the Kaminari 5656 Kaikan’s Tokiwa Hall, darkness hung like a curtain with only a bright spotlight to illuminate the stage.
“I’ve been observing these men for the past couple of days. I’m certain they are the ones holding Dark Keppi-sama captive.”
Images in a slideshow depicted two beautiful men working at the Asakusa Otter Police Box. There were photos of them eating yakisoba, drinking tea with Enta’s grandmother, searching for lost cats, and finally, shooting a yakuza.
“I never dreamed the two of them were still alive, ribbit…” Keppi watched each slide with disbelief.
Sara, who was seated beside him, suddenly stood. She spoke like a host on a TV shopping channel, showing off a new product. “And this is our Super-Secret Anti-Otter Weapon, dish. ✩”
The spotlight onstage illuminated the item in question.
“What does it do?”
“With the press of a single switch, we can freeze our enemies into a block of ice and capture them alive, dish! ✩”
This was one of the Kappa Kingdom’s most convenient devices. It was nearly identical to a machine made to keep beer nice and cold during the summer.
“Very well. First, we should confirm their location, ribbit.” Grateful for his betrothed’s talent, Keppi began fiddling with the display screen of the weapon.
“You can’t fight on an empty stomach! ✩” Sara took a break to have some of Kappa Ken’s cucumber ramen delivered. One of the options was a bowl with an entire cucumber on top. She began adding extra pepper to it to accent the flavor. “Pepper, pepper—ack!”
Almost predictably, the lid to the shaker fell off, dumping the spice all over. The resulting puff of smoke tickled at her nose, and Sara sneezed so hard that her foot went swinging through the air, slamming right into her beloved prince.
The door to the Super-Secret Anti-Otter Weapon swung open and poor Keppi went tumbling inside.
“Eek! My prince?!”
Gwoooooom!
The machine rumbled, and the prince was jostled around inside. A few moments later, the lid opened and sent him flying back out in a cloud of chilly mist.
Crackle… crackle…
The crown prince of the Kappa Kingdom stood there in his full ice statue glory.
“W-we’re in big trouble, dish! Ah, wait, it’s time for my live show to air, dish! ✩ I can’t be late! ✩” Sara was a conscientious professional, and so she temporarily abandoned her prince to go on air for Asakusa Sara TV.
Scene 4
CHIKAI AND ENTA stood on a terrace near the Sumida River. The sun was beginning to set behind them.
“Pretty incredible that you survived that, kid.” Chikai laughed as he leaned back against the embankment wall.
“You’re a real jerk! I thought I was a goner!” Personally, Enta would have preferred to never see the man again, but Chikai reappeared in front of him once Enta fled from the cops and Yusa’s corpse. He hadn’t offered a single word in apology, either. The guy sure had some nerve.