She’d just remembered what it was and decided it took priority. She patted the seat next to her, causing Azuma to look blatantly annoyed. He probably expected she was going to nag him about something—not that he was wrong.
“Well? What is it…?”
“It’s about today. I know it’s always been your tendency, but aren’t you getting a little too reckless lately? You’re not immortal, you know.”
“I didn’t mean to fly off the handle or anything—”
“It doesn’t matter if you meant to or not. I’m telling you that you did.”
Koyuki knew Azuma was probably wrestling with his own demons. When you got down to it, it was their fault that Kaguya was in a coma right now, after all.
“I was just trying to… Never mind. I don’t think there’s really a difference now from how I used to do things.” As expected, Azuma was deflecting. “But I’m sorry if I worried you. I’ll try to rein it in going forward.”
“That’s all I ask.”
Koyuki settled back into her seat on the other side of the sofa while Azuma frowned. She had a feeling there was more to whatever was making Azuma behave this way. Even despair wouldn’t drive a person to such lengths.
“You don’t need to get so carried away. We’re all in the same boat, Azuma.”
“…”
Azuma was silent for a moment, seeming to understand what she meant. A moment later he turned away.
“Even if Kaguya wakes up tomorrow, we can’t go on like this. The same thing will just happen again because she won’t stop. We need to find a way other than just defeating the heroes.”
“Yes, you’re probably right…”
So that was what was behind all of this.
Azuma had tried sending Kaguya away once before out of concern for her mental and physical health. At the time, they had all agreed—Azuma included—that they would just defeat the heroes like they used to. No more saving them.
But then Kaguya returned—and she showed them. They were forced to realize that they couldn’t go on just killing the heroes.
“We were doing just fine before she came along. We can be fine again, so long as we just keep defeating them.”
“Yes, so long as we just defeat them… You can see them now, right? The human faces inside the heroes.”
Azuma had told her about it a little while ago. As an aftereffect of temporarily turning into a hero, he could now see into the shadows that covered the heroes’ faces.
“Yes… Not that I want to.”
“That’s tough…” Not only could he hear the heroes’ eggs, but now he could see the heroes’ faces as well. “Is that why you’re always in such a hurry to take them out so quickly?”
“Maybe… It’s not a very pleasant thing to see. It would be hard to scrub their faces from my memory, no matter how hard I tried.”
Unlike Kaguya, Azuma couldn’t speak with the heroes. He could only see them. The stress, Koyuki imagined, had to be tremendous.
“But not so much that you want to stop going on missions, I’m guessing? What if you just covered your right eye while you fought?”
“No… I mean, Kaguya’s not here right now,” Azuma said, a faint smile playing on his lips as if he was embarrassed. “If I don’t look…there will be no one to remember their last moments. They really will die as just monsters.”
“So you’re looking at them on purpose…”
The captain can be a real softie in the most unexpected of ways sometimes, Koyuki mused. The creatures they fought had already transformed into heroes; it was too late to save them. And yet he was purposely putting himself through the pain of looking at them just so that there would be someone who would remember their faces.
“You used to say they were just monsters, nothing more and nothing less.”
“Yes, but the past is the past… Speaking of heroes,” Azuma said, annoyed and purposefully changing the subject. “Today’s hero gave us some trouble. I couldn’t tell where the egg was. We got lucky earlier, but…”
Today’s hero had been small, meaning they had been able to destroy it with a single strike—egg and all. But if it had been as massive as some of the heroes they had faced in the past?
“Things won’t always go as easy as they went today,” Azuma added. “We need to come up with a better plan.”
“You’re right… Maybe we should try asking Second Lieutenant Takanashi. She’s used to fighting heroes without knowing where their eggs are located, after all.”
There was another slight squeak as the door opened, and Koyuki and Azuma turned to see who was there.
Speak of the devil—it was Haru Takanashi. Her eyes widened slightly in surprise.
“What are you doing here at this late hour…?” she asked Koyuki.
“You’re one to talk.”
It was already past one AM. Haru would have usually been fast asleep.
“I had business with Captain Azuma,” said Haru. “Since he wasn’t in his room, I figured he might be here. But I didn’t expect you to be up as well.”
“Well, excuse me for wasting space.”
“That’s not what I… Never mind. You can be really high-maintenance sometimes, you know that?”
Haru looked overtly annoyed. While her reaction was a little aggravating, even annoyance was far more emotion than she had originally been willing to give them. Now her reaction was almost charming in a way.
“You wanted to speak to me?” asked Azuma. “If it’s not too urgent, maybe it would be better to wait until tomorrow…”
“No… It’s not an emergency, but I do think it’s something that qualifies as fairly urgent.”
“What is it?”
At the word urgent, Azuma tensed involuntarily. He leaned forward slightly so that he could better listen to what she had to say.
“You don’t need to be so formal about it. But…well, it’s something that feels a bit heavy for me to handle on my own.” Haru spoke to both Koyuki and Azuma. “I have a favor to ask…”
A favor?
Koyuki and Azuma glanced at each other.
The two looked puzzled. Haru sat herself down on the sofa in front of them, their four eyes boring into her.
“What do you mean?” Koyuki said, the first to speak. “What kind of favor?”
“I want to look into why Inspection was so interested in Kaguya.”
“You think they’re up to something? Something to do with Lieutenant Shinohara?”
“Before I can answer that, there’s something I need to explain…”
And she did. Haru explained what had first brought her to Charon and the things she had done after she arrived. It was actually her first time confessing all of this, but Azuma and Koyuki did not seem very surprised by what she said. They remained fairly levelheaded as she spoke.
“Because I was transferred from Inspection so suddenly, I still have access to the database. Someone will probably notice before long, but in the meantime, I’ve been extracting all of the data that I can.”
“E-extracting…? Isn’t that a problem?”
“Oh, it’s a big problem. But this is no time to be sticklers for the rules. The Director was just murdered, after all. But here, look at this,” Haru said, pulling a photograph from her inner breast pocket.
“Is this…a photo? On paper? I didn’t know stuff like this still existed,” Koyuki mused.
“Warrant Officer Ezakura discovered it with Lieutenant Shinohara in the archives at Headquarters.”
Azuma and Koyuki were barely listening, however. They were too shocked by what the photograph showed.
“Judging by this picture,” Haru began, “the origin of the term ‘hero’ might be somewhat different from what we were led to believe. But if so, then I wonder why they are called heroes.”
And why was it kept hidden?
“Obviously, the Director was murdered. There’s no doubt about that. And I think it is somehow related to their interest in Lieutenant Shinohara.”
Azuma lifted his head slowly, fixing his eyes on Haru.
“That means…,” he said.
Haru could see the panic in his face. He looked like a wild animal that had been spooked.
“What if—what if Kaguya is in danger, too? Just like the Director?!” Azuma demanded.
“Calm down. None of this is for certain. But…yes, it could be dangerous to leave her alone.”
“C-could be…?”
“There’s no need to panic. Warrant Officer Ezakura is almost always in the room with her. However, that does have something to do with the favor I wanted to ask you.”
Azuma stared at Haru dubiously.
“I wanted to talk to you about taking me off mission duty for a little while,” she continued calmly. “I don’t make much of a contribution to battles to begin with, so I don’t think it will be much of an issue in terms of combat strength.”
“But why…?”
“It’s not just about Kaguya Shinohara. There’s a lot of things I need to dig into, and I need to do so as quickly as possible.”
Azuma furrowed his brow ever so slightly. In that brief moment, a million thoughts ran through his head. But his expression immediately returned to normal. He nodded, giving his approval.
“I’m interested in knowing the truth myself. Fine. You’re off missions for the time being.”
“Thank you.” Haru’s eyes relaxed with her warm smile before immediately taking on their usual hard glint. “The Bureau is hiding something…”
And whatever it was, she had a feeling it was big.