Kuma-san also had an affinity for a superpower (or so went the setting), but he himself was particular about beating up the supernatural while remaining a “normal human,” so he turned out my offer to help him awaken his Seed. In light of that, when I asked about his request for a PSI drive, he replied that using weapons was fine. To each his own, I suppose. Well, it wasn’t as if I didn’t get where he was coming from. The fact of using tools and implements as well as one’s wits and tact to quickly adapt to and overcome situations carried more meaning for someone “powerless.” It was that rush from overcoming all odds that was key, I suppose. As a prime example, he did only use a piece of drain spout to acquire greater reach and thoroughly thrashed Shouta-kun in their fight.
And as our newly joined external cooperator, the two students turned to him for help almost immediately. Presumably, during the time when the PSI drives were smuggled out, he was as yet completely uninvolved with Amaterasu. And yet now, he was so deeply involved with us that he was arranging things on our behalf within the police. In other words, he was definitely not the culprit and was a pro at investigations, which made him an extremely reliable ally. I would have been even more surprised to see them not rely on him.
The original plan was to have the students slowly gather clues that we drip fed them, battling with their internal doubts while slowly closing in on the truth. However, after the students consulted Kuma-san, he went straight to the cases whose contents had been switched out to take fingerprints. Then he sent that to the police lab for analysis.
Consequently, it immediately became revealed that Baba was the culprit.
Isn’t it cheating to use professional forensics for this? Admittedly, it was entirely logical, and was a great way to quickly discern the culprit’s identity with certainty. However, they had basically taken a shortcut through all the clues and feints that I had painstakingly prepared. How about you try being in my shoes and see how I feel? It was like a master swordsman barging into a mock sword battle between kids.
However, there was no point crying over spilt milk. In the first place, the scenario was already in shambles the instant these two detectives showed up. I suppose I should actually be happy that we’ve managed things well enough to be where we are right now, right?
On that fateful day in spring, the two students came to Ama-no-Iwato after sitting through their high school entrance ceremony and called Baba to the training room in our secret base.
The training room was covered with anti-heat tiles, and also lined with thick steel plates underneath. Aside from the ventilation fan and door, it was a completely barren room. In short, it was built and maintained in a way that it could withstand quite a bit of rampaging, even of the supernatural kind.
Having successfully called her over under the guise of wanting to ask her some questions about the PSI drives, Shouta-kun locked the door after all three of them had entered the room.
Baba tilted her head. “Hmm? Is there something that you do not wish for anyone else to overhear?”
“Oh yes it is. For you, that is.”
The sight of Shouta-kun blocking the way to the door with a hard look on his face caused Baba’s expression to also quickly turn stiff.
“Touka, this is—”
“Baba-san, please answer our questions honestly. Can you swear to Buddha that you definitely won’t lie?”
Touka-chan had circled around behind her back, so Baba turned around to shoot her a look, but only found herself being pressed to give oath.
“I-Indeed, I give mine word.”
“Baba, was it you who switched out the PSI drives in storage with red herrings?”
“......Whatever are you talking about?”
Hats off to Baba for that slight pause before her answer. The devil is always in the details, isn’t it.
“We’ve discovered that several of the PSI drives in storage had been switched out with red-colored herrings two months ago. Baba, your fingerprints were found inside all of those cases.”
“Finger... print?”
“You don’t know about fingerprints? It’s these swirls on your fingers.”
When Shouta-kun spread out his hands and pointed to the tip of his fingers, Baba laughed.
“Whatever are you talking about? Everyone has those. Though the size and dimensions of each person’s finger may differ, they are the same for elders to babies and everyone else in between. Did you not know this?”
“That’s probably true only for elves. You are the one who apparently doesn’t know, but each and every single human’s fingerprints are different.”
When Shouta-kun took out a fingerprint comparison chart and spread it out to show her, nervousness started creeping into the composed look on Baba’s face.
Seriously, how are you making such detailed faces? You’re amazing, Baba. Is that even cold sweat that I see?
“I...... am the developer of the PSI drives. I pack them into the cases personally, so those fingerprints are surely from that time. Red herrings? I know nothing about that.”
“We found your fingerprints on the red herrings too.”
Shouta-kun’s cold tone made Baba suck in a sharp intake of air. Actually, what he just said was a lie. It was impossible to take fingerprints from the surface of a fish, what with all the scales and the slimy layer. Rather, this was a trick question that Shouta-kun had thought up under direct tutelage from the master of trick questions, Kuma-san himself. The truth regarding the fingerprints was that every Amaterasu member’s fingerprints had been found on the outside of all the cases, but only Baba’s had been planted on the inside of the switched-out ones.
“Didn’t you swear to Buddha just now, hmm? You swore that you definitely wouldn’t lie.”
“Eep?!”
Touka-chan clasped a hand on Baba’s shoulder from behind and stared at her up close with her pupils thoroughly dilated, which caused the latter to let out a small shriek. Scary scary scary that’s freaking scary! Even I, who was watching through telekinesis, got freaked out. You look like one of those cursed Japanese dolls, Touka-chan!