…I have my phone, so I could call and ask Sis for help, but she’ll probably get super mad at me…
Sousei readied his gun and stood up. For the moment, there didn’t seem to be anything abnormal going on at the front door. Kinoshita might attack from the sliding glass door in the living room, in which case Sousei would find himself being attacked from behind. Where he was now, he had to keep watch on both his front and his back.
The bathroom…
There was a door partway down the hall to the living room. Behind that door should be a toilet and sink connected to a separate room with a shower and bath.
Sousei went down the hallway and opened the bathroom door. His nose was hit by the strong smell of chemicals. He closed the door behind him, shutting himself in.
The door to the shower and bath was made from a semitransparent piece of acrylic. Sousei took out his flashlight and turned it on. When he opened the door to the bath, a strange, foul odor rushed out. It wasn’t completely unexpected. To a certain extent, Sousei had mentally prepared himself for something like this, so it hadn’t come as a shock.
He illuminated the bathtub with his flashlight. It wasn’t empty, but filled with liquid. It didn’t seem like regular bathwater, though. It was probably some kind of solution made from a cocktail of chemicals. There was quite a lot of it, too. The woman sitting in the bathtub was soaking in it up to her shoulders.
The solution wasn’t transparent. It was tinged slightly red.
The woman was completely naked. She looked to be in her twenties, probably around twenty-five. Shoulder-length hair. He’d seen her before.
She’s the woman from yesterday…
Sousei approached the bathtub. The woman’s eyes were closed. Her eyelids seemed strange somehow. Perhaps her eyeballs had been gouged out. When Sousei lit up the inside of the bathtub with his flashlight, he saw that the side of her abdomen had been cut open. That was probably how they’d removed her organs.
In the corner of the room was a big plastic bucket with a lid. Sousei really didn’t want to check what was inside.
It seemed Kinoshita didn’t use this bathroom to bathe. The small plastic shower chair and bowl next to the tub were probably also used in his “work.”
Instead of shampoo, conditioner, and soap, the shelf on the wall contained a lot of tools: a coping saw, hammer, kitchen knife, medical scalpel, and a case shaped like a box, among others…
“This is where he works on them…,” Sousei muttered to himself.
He wasn’t so inexperienced that something like this would make him vomit, but he still felt sick.
I was told that he’d killed eight people outside of work, and there were at least three corpses in this house. He’s probably killed more, and he doesn’t just kill them—he even takes them apart. This is the handiwork of someone who murders for pleasure. And he’s killed so many…
Sousei let out a sigh.
No, this is no time to be sighing. I should be angry at Riamu Kinoshita. He can’t get away with this. I have to get rid of him. If I don’t do anything, he’ll just keep murdering people. That’s why I have to kill him. Not to mention, I’m down lives. I need to at least make up for how many I’ve lost so I can break even…
Kinoshita could attack him at any time. Sousei would lie in wait and kill him.
He left the bath stall and returned to the room with the sink. As Sousei pressed his ear against the door to the hall, he got a strange feeling. What was it?
He used his flashlight to light up the area. Something black was seeping in through the top of the door. Smoke.
“…Does that…smell like something burning?”
Sousei hurried to open the door. That let out a lot more smoke, making him almost choke. The living room. It was going up in flames.
Fire… Someone lit a fire? Who…?
Had some random outsider happened to appear and start a fire? No, that made no sense. In which case, it must have been Kinoshita.
Did he plan to burn down the entire house along with the corpses? That might not have been the only reason. Kinoshita knew that Sousei was in the house.
He wants to burn me to death or smoke me out…
The fire appeared to have started in the living room, meaning that Sousei would have to escape via the front door. Naturally, Kinoshita would have anticipated that, and he’d shoot at Sousei the moment he came out.
Sousei held his breath and burst into the living room. The light from his flashlight was no help at all against the haze. The smoke was awful. Sousei’s eyes stung with the heat. The floor near the sliding glass door and the area around the sofa were burning particularly quickly. He started getting cold feet, but there was no other option. He had to go.
Sousei cut across the living room. Fierce flames swirled all around the sliding glass door. He couldn’t open his eyes at all and thought the fire might have already started burning his body. He squeezed his eyes shut and plunged into the flames, exiting through the sliding door. As he rolled across the ground, Sousei set his sights on the fence. His clothes were on fire. He could smell burning synthetic fibers and hair, but he hadn’t become a ball of flames. He also hadn’t breathed in much of the smoke, and his nose and throat seemed fine. Although he was partially covered in soot, he wasn’t hurt.
Sousei climbed up the fence and down the other side. That was when he first heard the wailing of the sirens. Police cars. The locals must have reported hearing gunfire.
Avoiding the side street running along the front of three houses—which included Kinoshita’s safe house—Sousei made his way into the bushy area behind the properties. Finishing his job was out of the question. Fire trucks would also be arriving before long, so right now, Sousei had no choice but to get out of there.
He decided to avoid the houses that had their lights on, and soon after, he heard the wee-woo, wee-woo of fire truck sirens.
Sousei somehow managed to reach a short tunnel beneath a railway track. It was the same tunnel that Kinoshita and the woman had messed around in.
A fire starting in a house that shouldn’t have anyone living in it, leading to three burnt corpses being discovered… It seems like this will become quite a major incident.
Sousei exited the tunnel and took out his phone.
I’m going to have to contact Sis after all…
Just before he unlocked his phone, Sousei felt a strong impact against the back of his head.
“Ah…!”
Immediately after, something loomed over both of his shoulders. Were they legs? Something else? No, not something—someone. That someone pulled out whatever they’d buried into Sousei’s head, then stabbed it back in again.