When I was in the FBI, I was on the special investigations team, where I used my superpower called psychometry. But even though I had a special power... I never believed in ghosts.
Sure, even in America people talked about the occult. Actually, they believed in it more than we did. But all the criminals I ever dealt with were living people. Even the strangest cases always came down to having tricks or natural phenomena behind them. Maybe that’s why ever since I was a little girl, I never believed in the occult.
Come to think of it, Moritsuka always talked to me about the occult with that innocent smile of his. No matter how many times I told him it wasn’t real, he always said the same thing.
“But don’t you think it would be more interesting if it did exist?”
Right in front of me there was a ghost—if you could call him that.
It really did exist.
In the booth at a small, abandoned radio station. Everything I’d discussed with Yuta Gamon here was making my head hurt. Maybe this was all a dream. If it was, I hoped I could wake up.
Suddenly, I glanced down at the radio—Gamon had just told me it was called a Skysensor—that I was holding. Maybe it was because I was holding this that I could see him. I used my psychometry by mentally flipping a switch, but there was a chance that my power was still leaking out.
Did that mean that if I carried something of Moritsuka’s, I’d be able to see him, too? No, that was stupid. It was avoiding reality. I drove the scene, which was rapidly starting to resemble a romance movie, out of my mind.
“Listen, um, Asunya—I mean, Kizaki. There’s one more thing... I’d like your help with.”
“One more thing?” I tensed up a little, expecting him to ask for money. But the next words he spoke were serious.
“Can you catch the person who killed Myu-Pom’s friend?”
“Myu-Pom? Who’s that?”
“Oh, her real name is Miyuu Aikawa. She’s Basara Girl Number Two. She does fortune-telling on livestream. She was the fortune-teller I just mentioned... and one of the 256.”
Fortune-telling, huh? That sort of uncertain stuff had never been a part of my life, so I didn’t really understand it.
“Myu-Pom’s friend... was just killed. And they haven’t caught the person who did it.”
“When was ‘just’? Where?”
“A place called Enmeiji...”
I instantly remembered. Shinoyama had told me about that case, where the victim was a student at Seimei, just like me and Gamon.
“I see. So you knew the victim.”
“Indirectly.” He was a little weird, but he seemed to really care. Maybe I’d had the wrong idea about Gamon a little.
“I’m with the FBI, so I can’t directly arrest anyone in Japan. But I can ID the killer and get the cops to act. Of course, I’ve got the rights to do that.”
“Then...”
“I can’t promise you I’ll catch them, but I’ll do my best to try. At least, as long as I’m alive,” I said.
Gamon looked a little relieved. “You’re exaggerating, Asunyan.”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“I-I’m sorry.”
Was he making fun of me because I looked like a little girl? It honestly felt like he was just trying to make me mad.
“Oh, um. Thanks. Kizaki.”
“It’s fine. She was a student at my school, too. Even if we never met.”
Anyway, an “exaggeration,” huh?
As long as I’m alive...
I wasn’t exaggerating. I’d meant it. I didn’t have a lot of time left. Of course, there was no reason I had to explain that to Gamon.
“By the way, why do you think there are two of my Skysensors?” Gamon’s radio, which was now slung on my shoulder; he was pointing at it, confused. “I mean, I’ve got one, too.” Gamon showed me the one that was slung from his shoulder.
They both looked the exact same. They even had the same anime character strap attached to the base of the shoulder belt.
“Can I touch it?” Gamon reached out with shaking hands toward the radio I was holding.
“Can ghosts touch things?” I asked, just as his fingers touched the radio.
No, I couldn’t tell if he touched it or if his hands went through it. The second his fingers reached it, I was shocked to see the one on his shoulder disappear, bag and all.
“What...”
There was no flash of light or anything, like out of a fairy tale. It simply vanished in an instant, without a sound. As if it had never existed...
But Gamon himself didn’t even notice.
“Yuta Gamon... where’s your radio?”
“Huh? H-Huh?” Only when I told him did he realize. He was frantically looking around for it. “Wait... Where is it? Where did my Skysensor go?!”
This was another bizarre thing I’d just witnessed.
Moritsuka, what’s going on in this town? I asked silently. No, Gamon was a ghost, so trying to use normal logic on him was a waste of time to begin with. At least, that’s what I tried to tell myself. If I didn’t, I might start panicking like he was. “It disappeared.”
“It disappeared? What do you mean?!”
“Don’t ask me.”
Both Gamon and I sat there in silence staring at the spot on his shoulder where the radio had disappeared. Of course, no matter how long we waited, the radio didn’t come back.
Gamon’s shoulders slumped. Maybe he’d given up.
“Listen.” And then he turned towards me with a serious expression. “Can you turn the power on on the radio you’ve got?”
“Why?”
“I want to see if it’s broken or not. It’s something that reminds me of my dad.”
I nodded back, then had him tell me which of the many switches on the radio to flip, and turned the power on.
--Zzzzzz zzzzzz
Static began to pour out from the speaker. It had sunk into a lake once already, so it must have been pretty sturdily built.
“Good, it’s not broken.” Gamon was staring at the radio with a look of relief. As the anger he’d displayed when I brought up his parents suggested, he really cared about his family.
“Has anybody but your dad ever held this radio for a long time?”
Gamon seemed confused at my question. “What do you mean?”
“I just used my psychometry on this radio. And there was a weird girl’s voice.”
“A-A weird girl’s voice? Zonko, maybe?”
“What? Who’s Zonko?”
“Sometimes this radio just starts talking. In a girl’s voice. It’s really bratty and always tells me to do things.”
What was he talking about? No, I couldn’t use common sense on Gamon. I just couldn’t. He was dead.
“Who is this Zonko girl, though?”
“This.” Gamon pointed at the character strap tied to the radio. “MMM’s Zonko.”
“An anime character?”
“That’s right. Master Mast Murder.”
“And it talks?”
“Oh, no. The radio talks, and it felt to me like it was Zonko talking. So I just decided to call it Zonko.”
My head was starting to hurt again. I had no idea what he was saying.
I decided to stop listening to Gamon and use my psychometry again. I told Gamon to sit back down in his chair, took off my glove, and touched the radio. I did the same performance as I’d done before.
“I’m sorry.”
There it was again. I could hear it. And...
Something seemed strange about what I was seeing after Gamon sank into the water. I took a closer look.
The moon was flickering on the surface of the water, and deep within its light, I could see another image. That’s how it felt.
This happened sometimes, when I read memories. It was probably particularly strong memories from another temporal axis, leaking out onto this one.
What time were the memories from? I focused my mind on tracking it down. It was like finding a thin thread and following it. Given how exhausted I was, it wasn’t something I really wanted to do.