Later that night, Haru Takanashi was speaking with someone on the phone. No one else was around.
“Lieutenant Shinohara’s unusual behavior these past few months…”
Haru had been spying on Kaguya. She had been sent to Charon and permitted to take the field as an informer. The reason she was making this call was to deliver her report.
Kaguya’s strange behavior…
“That was just her idea of fun.”
“…? Fun?”
“Yes. There’s no question about it.”
It wasn’t even really a lie. Kaguya seemed to have been hell-bent on exposing herself, even when there was no personal advantage in doing so. What else could that be, if not her own strange predilections?
“As far as I could see during battle, her behavior involves no particular hindrance to combat. Well, whether she winds up dead or not is her own affair, but otherwise no hindrance. No further investigation is necessary in my opinion.”
“Wait… Is that all you have to say?” The person on the other end of the line sounded both put out and completely baffled. “Your assignment was not to clarify, it was to counteract with whatever it took, even false accusations. You were supposed to drag Lieutenant Shinohara back here with you, that was your job. Her inappropriate behavior—”
“Was a bit of fun, just as I said,” repeated Haru, her voice firm. She knew there was nothing they could say in response.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Second Lieutenant Takanashi…but you were supposed to smoke Kaguya Shinohara out. Are you telling me that isn’t necessary?”
“…Yes.”
As Haru spoke, she recalled everything Kaguya had done.
She hadn’t abandoned Haru. She genuinely cared about the hero, and though she had more reason to be scared of death than any of them, she had gone so far as to expose herself to danger to save it.
Not once, but repeatedly. Even when she knew no one else would understand.
“I see. Then what you are saying is you are against us. Are you sure you are ready for that?”
“I’m sure,” Haru asserted without hesitation. “Besides, what’s fair about an investigation if the report has already been decided? I can see full well that this order didn’t come from our people—from Inspection. This was your own arbitrary stunt.”
Haru heard a small grunt. The person on the other end seemed to be at a loss for words.
“I don’t know why you marked Kaguya Shinohara out as a target, but I won’t be accepting any more unofficial orders, even if that means being tossed out of Inspection.”
“Biting the hand that feeds you, I see. So this is how the hand feels… Don’t you want those records anymore, about the heroes?”
“Of course I do. But records, of all things—well, maybe not of all things—but records aren’t that important to me anymore.”
It wasn’t a lie.
Kaguya, for all her unusual ways, was much more valuable than a bunch of documents that might have been fabricated. Knowing this, it made no sense to keep clinging to some possibility that may or may not even exist. That was all.
No. Not all.
“Besides—I thought I might try on a little naïveté for myself, for a change.”
With that, Haru hung up the phone, not even waiting for a response.
Haru’s dream of stopping people from turning into heroes might not collapse just because Inspection got rid of her, but it was probably going to be harder now. She wouldn’t be able to get her hands on the information she needed.
But strangely she did not regret her decision, not after what she had seen, and how Kaguya had kept trying, again and again, even when things didn’t go her way the first time.
In fact, despite everything, the expression on Haru’s face right now was almost cheerful.