Two hours later, at the Rindou Detective Agency…
Seiji had come back as wet as a drowned rat. When he gave an enormous, flamboyant sneeze, Odoro frowned in disgust and threw a bath towel at him.
Snuffling, Seiji rubbed down his soaked head and body, then huddled up with the towel pulled over his head and around his shoulders like a cloak. At that point, finally, he started to feel like himself again.
He didn’t have the strength to move a finger anymore, but his teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. Intense chills raced through him, and his head ached as though he’d been punched in the temple. He was coming down with a cold.
Still, he’d been running around in the freezing rain without an umbrella, so maybe he was lucky to have gotten off this lightly.
After all, the other guy who’d been out wandering in the rain had died from a fall into a construction site. Not only that, but he’d been driven there by sunekosuri, the ghosts of the dogs he’d killed.
You reap what you sow. Ill begets ill. What goes around comes around. His death probably matched those sayings pretty well… At least as far as the oni who’d handed out Hell’s punishment was concerned.
“Dammit!” Seiji muttered to himself, and it set off a coughing fit he couldn’t stop.
Between the fatigue and the headache, his mind was hazy. On the other hand, he felt the urge to start yelling at the top of his lungs. Cussing somebody out now wouldn’t help anything, though.
That guy was dead. He wouldn’t come back.
That was a fact, and nothing could change it.
Son of a bitch, Seiji swore silently, rolling onto his side on the floor.
That was when the chair beside the window caught his eye. That leather upholstered armchair, the one somebody had once treasured. It had probably been Ibara Rindou’s regular seat.
…Hm?
Just then, an unpleasant chill ran down Seiji’s spine.
Something was off here. He was sure of it.
He couldn’t put his finger on what, though.
He felt an overwhelming sense of unease, and his heart began to race. A strange premonition came over him that he couldn’t afford to stay in this place. Then it gelled into near certainty, and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end.
There was tension, anxiety, and fear.
And at the same time, he had an odd feeling of déjà vu. It was almost… Yes, almost like what he’d felt just before the wildfire that night, when he’d left the deserted temple by himself.
It felt like he was being watched.
As if a snake’s unblinking eyes were fixed on him, drinking him in.
“U-um… I think there’s something weird about that chair,” Seiji started to say, although even he didn’t know exactly what he was trying to get across. He pointed at the armchair. “Uh, if you look closely, there’s this spot on its back that came apart, then was messily sewn up with thread in the same color. It’s just, it really doesn’t seem like the sort of thing you’d do.”
Seiji tried to put himself in Odoro’s shoes and imagine it.
If Shiroshi never came back, and his chair became like a memento… If the seat fabric tore, could Seiji bring himself to use his shaky sewing skills to clumsily patch it up on his own?
No way.
He’d either leave it as it was, or he’d have it repaired professionally. On top of that, as a rule, Odoro seemed to completely avoid looking at the chair. Even if his life were on the line, he’d never be able to do it.
However—no, for that very reason—the situation raised a question. After all, Odoro was the only one at the agency now.
“So who mended that?”
Odoro had been listening dubiously, but at this question, a tremendous surge of agitation swept over his face. Grabbing a letter opener from the desk, he ran to the chair by the window and sliced through the mended bit. An object emerged from behind it: a small black box. It looked like the sort of compact listening device that showed up in movies.
“When on earth…?” Odoro muttered, dazed.
Then, out of nowhere, they heard a soft creak. One of the sections of the document shelf at the back of the study had swung open, almost like a hidden door—no, that was exactly what it was.
“Huh?”
A young man Seiji didn’t recognize stepped through it.
Even in the gloom, his white shoulder-length hair had a beautiful luster. Behind his long bangs, his eyes were a terribly familiar amber.
In his dark Inverness cape, his thin frame looked more like a magician’s than like a detective’s. Maybe it was because, even though he was fairly tall, there was something rather feminine about him.
He was thin, delicate, and soft.
…And yet he possessed the intimidating, spine-chilling beauty of a predator. On top of that, he was holding a sinister-looking shotgun.
Odoro’s eyes were so wide that his eyelids seemed liable to tear at the corners, and he’d gone as still as a statue. Finally, his trembling lips moved slightly.
“Ibara.”
It was as if he were calling someone who’d returned from the abyss. His twin, who was supposed to be dead.
As if in response, the gun in the ghost’s hands came up. Removing an earpiece that seemed to be connected to the listening device they’d found, he said:
“You’re in the way.”
There was a roar.
A sickeningly vivid red mist bloomed like a flower. The man’s pale finger had pulled the trigger as smoothly as the falling blade of a guillotine.
For a few seconds, silence fell.
Then Odoro staggered backward and collapsed to the floor. He’d been shot through the left shoulder; it was drenched with dark blood. The gun hadn’t been loaded with buckshot, so he’d been hit in only one place, but the bleeding showed no sign of slowing down. Of course not: The wound was far too big. It was practically a crater.
Looking down at him arrogantly, Ibara wiped a streak of his victim’s blood off his cheek. “You know I’ve never been good at sewing. That was the only place where I could be sure you’d never find it, though. That chair was a memento of me, after all. I assumed a sentimentalist like you wouldn’t even be able to take a proper look at it.”
His voice was nearly a whisper. He spoke without inflection, almost as if he were reading a poem aloud.
He gazed at Odoro through half-open eyes, as if he found this tiresome. “You may be my little brother, but that was pathetic. Still, it was very like you.” Slowly bending down, he grabbed a handful of hair at the back of Odoro’s head and pulled, bringing his face closer. “You haven’t changed. You show no mercy to the strong, but you can’t ignore small children or the elderly—and you have a particular soft spot for animals. That’s why I found that client for you. I knew you were sure to act, even if it meant ignoring the Enma Ministry’s orders. I had some business outside that I wanted to take care of today, you see.”
Then Suzu had gotten that business card either from Ibara himself or from an accomplice. Not only that, but it had been Ibara who’d suggested that she visit the agency today.
No, but…wasn’t he dead? Seiji thought, desperately confused.
Odoro gave a wet, murky cough. He was spitting up blood. Wheezing should have been all he could manage. Even so, his pale lips moved; for a moment, it looked as if he’d even forgotten the pain he was in.
“…Ibara?”
His twin’s smile deepened as far as it would go.
“If possible, I never wanted to hear you say my name again.”
Straightening up, he brought his shoe down, stomping on his brother’s bloody wound. Bone snapped and crunched, and Odoro roared. It sounded like the howl of a dying animal.
As Ibara looked at his brother, who’d finally blacked out, there was something like pity in his eyes. Then, with a clank, he slid the forestock back.
He’d ejected the spent shell…and loaded a fresh one.
“N-no, wait! Please wait!” Seiji said impulsively. Dashing over to Odoro, he searched inside his suit jacket, found a handkerchief, and pressed it to the wound on his shoulder. It wouldn’t come close to stopping the bleeding, but it was still better than nothing.
…Technically, he didn’t care if this guy died.