In the end, he’d had to flee after all.
He was back in the common bathroom at the front of the library. As soon as Takamura had left, the passengers had begun buzzing like a poked beehive. Seiji had excused himself, ducked into the restroom, and gone Merlion again.
“Daaaah, argh!”
He struck the sink, taking out his frustration on it, and a dull pain ran through his palm. When he looked at his hand, he discovered four nail marks, discolored purple. He’d been clenching his fists so hard, he’d caused internal bleeding.
Just then, someone spoke behind him. “Well, well. You put up an excellent fight back there.”
A hand patted his head in a “good boy” sort of way, and Seiji felt an ache well up in the depths of his nose.
This is Shiroshi, after all.
He’d probably known that Seiji wanted to run. Even so, he hadn’t tried to stop him or defend him; he’d just silently encouraged him.
That probably meant he’d believed in him.
“…I’m sorry. That was basically pointless, wasn’t it?”
“No, not necessarily. At any rate, I don’t think it was.”
That hand kept on ruffling his hair, so Seiji ended up sliding down to sit on the floor. Two guys chatting in a bathroom was a pretty sad sight, but since they didn’t want the other passengers seeing them, they didn’t have much choice.
“…Still, there’s something very odd about this,” Shiroshi said. He folded his arms and tilted his head. “If the detective’s conditions for victory are as Takamura outlined, then if two or more of the sinners targeted for execution survive, we will win. You’ve already confessed your sin, so we only need one more. We could persuade someone to confess or unmask the executioner and halt their crimes. However, the rule itself seems quite unlike Ibara.”
Hm? How so?
“The detective’s advantage is too great. If the passengers are gradually killed off, the circle of potential culprits will shrink with each death. The more people die, the greater the risk to the killer. It is an inevitable demerit when one commits murder inside a closed circle, but…this is Ibara, after all. There may be something more to it.”
Shiroshi had a point. It really didn’t seem typical of that guy, except…
“But we’re up against a proxy this time, aren’t we? Not Ibara.”
“Yes, and so I may be overthinking it. Frankly, it’s still too soon to say.”
In that case, their greatest concern was the question of who that proxy was.
“Tosu seems like the strongest candidate, doesn’t he?”
“I believe he is the likeliest suspect, but…why don’t we organize the information we have?”
Shiroshi took a fountain pen and black leather notebook out of his Shingen bag and began to write in a flowing hand.
Kenji Godou—Aburabouzu
Fumihiko Tosu—Kowai
Shiori Nomura—Makuragaeshi
Fumitake Ishizuka—Azukiarai
Mao Unoki—Shoukera
Atsushi Kaganuma—Yonaki-ishi
He made a list of yokai ordered by the passengers’ room numbers. Then, on the next page…
First—appropriated a large sum of money out of wickedness—Kenji Godou?
Second—killed a pregnant woman, robbing her child of its mother
Third—drowned his wife on a stormy night
Fourth—caused the death of someone they envied
Fifth—informed on others, causing several deaths
Sixth—stole their elder brother’s life
Seventh—left the corpse of a friend to rot
“Whoa, impressive as always! You remembered all of them?!”
“Heh-heh-heh. Well, it is me.”
“Um, Godou’s crime was embezzlement, so he’s the first one, for sure… But what about the others?”
“Let’s see. The clearest is probably the yonaki-ishi,” Shiroshi said. His pen skimmed over the notebook again.
Killed a pregnant woman, robbing her child of its mother—Yonaki-ishi—Atsushi Kaganuma?
…I see. Kaganuma, huh?
“The legend of yonaki-ishi hinges on a boulder in the Sayo-no-Nakayama pass in Shizuoka Prefecture,” Shiroshi explained. “The boulder was originally a place to pray for a safe journey when crossing the pass, but at some point, it’s said to have begun crying at night.”
According to Shiroshi…
Long ago, a pregnant woman known as Koishi-hime was attacked by a bandit in the pass. Her stomach was slashed open, and the infant leaped out, surviving in exchange for his mother’s death. Seeing the baby crying on the rock at night, the head priest of a Buddhist temple took pity on him and raised him. After he had grown and become a renowned sword sharpener, the young man killed the bandit who had murdered his mother, avenging her death.
…Did that count as a happy ending?
“Still, putting aside the legend,” said Seiji. “Kaganuma hasn’t been caught by the police yet, has he?”
“I don’t believe so. The only sins the Mirror of Illumination shows as yokai are those who have escaped punishment in the mortal world. So either it hasn’t been acknowledged as an incident yet or the case has gone cold.”
If Kaganuma’s sin was “killing a pregnant woman,” then the fact that the executioner was after him now was…
“He’s just reaping what he sowed…isn’t he?” Just as Seiji murmured those words to himself…
“Hey. Comin’ in.”
“Eeeeeep!”
The intruder was Kaganuma himself. Seiji shrieked and plastered himself against the sink, like a gecko hunted by a snake.
“Listen,” said Kaganuma, “when you said this guy wasn’t doing so great, did you mean his head?”
“No, no. He’s merely being Seiji; please don’t concern yourself. Did you need something?” Shiroshi smiled; he’d quickly slipped the notebook into the breast of his kimono and out of sight.
Eyeing him dubiously, Kaganuma stuck a hand into his jacket pocket. “I’ve got a favor to ask Scrawny over there.”
I don’t want to hear it.
Seiji would have loved to tell him so, but the only correct response in this case was to nod like a bobblehead.
“Once you’re off the train, stick a stamp on this and drop it in the mail.”
Kaganuma held out an envelope. From the fact that it was embossed with the train’s emblem in foil, it was clear he’d taken it from the library. It was addressed to an apartment in Tokyo, and he’d left the space for the sender’s name and address blank.
“Um, what’s in this?” Please tell me it’s not white powder or a letter of challenge or something.
Seiji had swallowed the second sentence, but Kaganuma seemed to have read it in his expression. He gave a sly grin.
“If you’re curious, go ahead and look. There wasn’t any glue, so it’s not sealed. If you damage it, though, I’m using your head as a piñata.”
…Agh, enough, I can’t stand this barbarian.
On the verge of tears, Seiji timidly opened the envelope and found a flyer, folded into quarters. It was from a Western-style pub focused on original cuisine. The phrases Opening Celebration and Free Glass of Wine danced across the paper.
Hm. Setting aside the fact that the flyer was shockingly ragged…
“…What is this?” Seiji asked.
“A letter. To my little bro.”
…No matter how charitably Seiji read it, the paper was just an ad.
However, it was addressed to Hitoshi Kaganuma. Perhaps that really was his little brother.