Even so…
He treasured that chair his brother left behind, and now this?
Being shot dead by somebody he cared about that much would be utterly… No. It was just too cruel.
“I see. You really are an impressively stupid dog,” Ibara said, abruptly narrowing his eyes. Shifting his shotgun to his left hand, he raised his right, as casually as if he meant to swat a fly.
“Out of the way.”
His hand began to descend, headed straight for the side of Seiji’s face, and then…
“Huh?”
…something flew toward them and struck Ibara’s fingers. When Seiji took a closer look, it turned out to be a very familiar black leather ankle boot.
Déjà vu.
Hadn’t he been through something extremely similar just three months ago? The two sets of footsteps he heard from the spiral staircase on the left only strengthened the resemblance.
“Well, this is even uglier than I’d anticipated.”
So did that voice, as dignified as a white peony in bloom.
“It’s been a long time, Ibara. You as well, Seiji.”
The next thing Seiji knew, he was looking at a small white back.
It was right there, half a step in front of him, as if to shield him.
It’s Shiroshi.
“Wh-why…?” he tried to ask, but his voice came out sounding delirious.
Turning back quickly, Shiroshi put an index finger to his lips. Does he want me to be quiet? Or maybe he means “Leave this to me.”
Meanwhile, Beniko was performing first aid on Odoro’s bloodied body.
…For some reason, as soon as Seiji began to think that the man might survive, he abruptly stopped caring.
Ibara had tipped the gun back so that its barrel lay across his shoulder. He cocked his head, birdlike. “It’s been, what, three days?”
“Yes, it seemed all the players were finally in place, so I took the liberty of coming back to life.”
It was a strange sight.
Black.
White.
As the pair faced each other from a distance, they seemed like complete opposites, yet also terribly similar. It was as if they were mirror images of each other.
Shiroshi tilted his head in the other direction. “You aren’t going to say ‘But you’re supposed to be dead,’ then?”
“As the villain, I probably should, shouldn’t I? I did have the feeling you weren’t, though. Frankly, the one Kazutora killed was far too easy.”
“I see. And that’s why you hid yourself so carefully?”
What’s he talking about? Seiji was perplexed.
“Let me relate what happened after you killed me. In fact, I came back safely three days ago, on the day of the wildfire. Your misdeeds were exposed as soon as you let me slip through your fingers. For the past three days, I’ve been working with the Enma Ministry to locate you. We kept me officially missing, disguising the search for you as a search for me.”
What?
“Takamura informed you that Great King Enma had personally taken command of the search for the mastermind, didn’t he, Seiji? That separate unit was actually the main force. In other words, this wasn’t a search for a criminal but a fox hunt.”
So it hadn’t been Shiroshi or Seiji who was being hunted but Ibara, who should technically have been the hunter.
However…
“No matter how we searched, we couldn’t trace your movements. Then today, I had a sudden thought. Although I’d rather we weren’t, if you and I were similar, I thought we might have chosen similar places to go to ground. ‘It’s always darkest under the lighthouse,’ as the saying goes. It was possible you’d returned to the place you knew best.”
Ah. That had been the Rindou Detective Agency, then.
“Therefore.”
“Huh?”
Abruptly, Shiroshi did something unexpected.
Sticking a hand into Seiji’s coat pocket, he pulled out his pack of cigarettes. It was the one where he’d found the twisted paper note. When Shiroshi turned it upside down and tapped on the base, a small object rolled out onto his palm: a listening device even more compact than the one in the chair.
“Oh,” Seiji said, startled.
“Please visit Odoro’s detective agency and stay there for as long as you can.”
Shiroshi had given him those instructions through Beniko so that he would go to the place he suspected Ibara was hiding, as his “ears.”
Oh, yeah. I completely forgot.
That’s right—scheming was what Shiroshi did best.
“As they say, ‘A snake half-killed will return to bite you.’ If you put someone through something awful, then fail to finish them off, they’ll retaliate later—which is exactly what’s happening to you now.”
The protagonist of this dramatic reversal smiled like a white peony in full bloom. “Do you remember what I said earlier? ‘On principle, I only fight opponents I know I can defeat.’ Naturally, that includes you, Ibara.” He tilted his head in a way that made him seem very young. “I apologize if I’ve offended you. I’m merely being myself,” he said, his face clearly that of a victor.
“…Oh yes?” Ibara murmured. His voice was flat, and the air went tense.
His finger connected with the trigger, and by the time Seiji gasped, the muzzle had snapped up to point at Shiroshi. It was too close, too fast—there was no time to run.
A shot rang out.
With a dry noise, the bullet gouged the floor…at Ibara Rindou’s feet.
His eyes widened in surprise.
A moment before his shotgun could fire, a shot from directly in front of him had scarred the floor at his feet.
“Um, I borrowed this from Odoro when I got the handkerchief out of his jacket,” said Seiji.
Stepping in front of Shiroshi—who looked uncharacteristically startled—he’d leveled the revolver Odoro had been carrying for self-defense and fired at Ibara. Still threatening him with the gun, Seiji glared at him. “The next one won’t be a warning.”
In order to fire, he’d had to muster all the fuzzy knowledge he’d picked up from reading magazines in the aisles at convenience stores. But the bullet had struck the floor accurately, right at Ibara’s feet.
To a bystander, it would probably have looked like a warning shot, fired as a restraint.
Yes, that was how it had looked.
“What were you actually trying to hit?” Shiroshi whispered.
His head, Seiji mouthed silently.
“…I see. Next time, let me do it.”
That would be great!
On the inside, the pressure of taking a second shot had Seiji nearly in tears. But as he was secretly feeling relieved…
“Heh-heh-heh.”
…Ibara had begun to chuckle. He sounded amused, entertained. From the look in his eyes, he could have been watching a dog perform a trick with his master.
“I see. You truly are a stupid dog. Still, I suppose that means you and your master suit each other well.” Ibara glanced at Odoro, then turned and started toward the spiral staircase, as if he’d lost interest.
“What are you really trying to accomplish?” Shiroshi called after him.
The white-haired revenant looked back over his shoulder with a smile that was almost alluring.
“That should have been obvious from the start.”
That was all he said, and then he vanished like a ghost on a dark night.
Only a hush was left, like the stillness after the wind has died. Beniko had finished performing first aid on Odoro, and a faint trace of color seemed to be returning to him.
All else aside, it was over.
“Um, Shiro…” Seiji tried to call the boy’s name, but his throat closed up on him. His chest grew tight, and his trachea spasmed. Still, when he moved his lips desperately, the word came out, carrying what felt like years of nostalgia. “…Shiroshi.”
“Yes?”
“Are you really you?”
“Yes.”
Seiji was relieved—too relieved; the strength went out of his legs, and he sat down right there on the floor.
“My, my.” Smiling wryly, Shiroshi ruffled his hair. Seiji felt the depths of his eyes and nose sting, and he softly bit his lip.
Still, at this point, the mere fact that Shiroshi’s hand was there made Seiji feel as if he could put up with anything.
Shiroshi’s alive.
He was right here next to him.
“Now then, we should be going… Can you stand?” Shiroshi held out a hand, and Seiji took it. The hand was as pale as bone or wax, but there was a living, human warmth to it.
Even if it didn’t belong to a human like he was.
“Let’s go home, shall we, Seiji?”
“Yes!”
Seiji set off after Shiroshi’s small back.
He stayed half a step behind, just like always.