The train raced on through the night.
Clackety-clack, clackety-clack. The vibration of the wheels was like a heartbeat. It didn’t even register as noise at this point, and it never stopped.
It was five in the morning. One hour left until dawn.
The train window abruptly brightened, and then white light swept through the car, illuminating the figure sitting across from Seiji.
Mao.
They’d passed through a station somewhere. Before Seiji had time to make out the name on the sign, darkness engulfed the window again. The fog had cleared, but the world was still shrouded in night.
“Thank you for letting me out of my compartment. It would have been more convenient for me to stay inside, but it wouldn’t have been as satisfying. Not when we have time before dawn.”
Her voice was nearly a whisper.
They were in the dining car, which still had wine stains on its carpet. Mao was facing Seiji and Shiroshi across a pure white table. They might have been travelers who’d awakened too early and were waiting for the breakfast service to begin.
The girl chuckled. “Just so you’re aware, you aren’t allowed to tie me up. That was the arrangement tonight, after all: The Sanmoto and Shinno factions must not harm each other’s members. The moment you try to restrain me by force, you’ll have violated the rules.”
“I’d expect no less from Ibara’s proxy,” Shiroshi said caustically. “It takes unmitigated gall to talk like that when the duel itself is practically fraud.”
Mao’s smile deepened. With a light clunk, she set her smartphone on the table. It was in a rather large, wallet-type case. “By the way, Mr. Saijou, when did the two of you figure it out?”
“It was Seiji who noticed it first, not I. The hint was the yokai he saw. Aburabouzu, kowai, makuragaeshi, azukiarai, yonaki-ishi—all of them were humans who became yokai after death. The common thread was that each had already died once before.”
Exactly.
The aburabouzu, the oil-stealing apprentice monk, died of an illness and became a ghost.
The kowai stole another’s food and became a monster after death.
The makuragaeshi was the restless spirit of a traveler who’d been robbed and murdered.
The azukiarai was said to be the ghost of a drowning victim.
The yonaki-ishi was possessed by the grudge of someone who’d been cut down in cold blood.
Each sin had taken the shape of a yokai who’d already lost their life due to illness, accident, or murder. If that was a reflection of the sinners’ own circumstances, it meant each of them had already died.
The trigger for that realization had been…
“We saw something identical four months ago, on a remote island in Nagasaki,” said Shiroshi. “My elder brother Hibana, who had been resurrected by the Art of Soul’s Recall, turned to water and vanished.”
The secret Art of Soul’s Recall restored the dead from bones—or so Seiji had been told, anyway. It was a technique mentioned as early as the Heian period, in which skeletonized corpses were gathered and restored to the shape they’d had in life.
However, the technique came with a taboo: one couldn’t tell the dead person their real name. If that falsehood comes to light, both the creator and his creation will dissolve and vanish.
When Hibana had appeared to his little brother, Shiroshi, his memories had been altered, and he’d been convinced that his name was Aka.
If the same thing had happened on this train tonight…
“It’s very likely that the memories of those five passengers were altered, and that the names they gave were not their real ones. While they were using false names, there was no danger that the taboo would be violated. However, as chance would have it, Seiji had met Godou before, and as a result…”
Shiroshi didn’t finish the sentence. That didn’t change the reality, though: Godou had turned to water and disappeared because Seiji had said his true name.
“Seiji Goshima!”
Godou had left the dining car right after that.
The physical changes had probably started after he was back in Room 201. When he abruptly began turning transparent, starting from his fingertips, Godou had run to the door, shouting for help.
However…
“Mr. Godou! What’s wrong?!”
By the time Seiji had heard the scream and started pounding on the door, the other man had already dissolved and vanished. In other words, the puddle by the door had been Godou himself, or all that was left of him.
Seiji’s stomach turned over, and he fought down a surge of nausea.
It was guilt—though fear was quickly overtaking it. After all, he’d turned a person into water without even knowing he’d done it. Wasn’t that the same as having killed him?
Shiroshi patted him firmly on the back. His hand was warm; it felt as if he were trying to share that heat with Seiji. Then he turned to face Mao again.
“In a way, this train was Night on the Galactic Railroad, wasn’t it?” he murmured; he might almost have been talking to himself. “In that story, with the exception of the protagonist Giovanni, nearly all the train’s passengers are dead. The siblings and their tutor who died when their ship sank, for example—and Campanella, who drowned in a river while trying to save a friend.”
Oh, I see. Seiji nodded.
So those two hadn’t been able to continue their journey together after all.
Still, though they couldn’t stay side by side forever, they had definitely been together once. Passengers on the same train, even if it was no more than a fleeting dream.
Abruptly, Shiroshi’s eyes narrowed until his gaze was as sharp as a blade. “While Godou’s disappearance was unanticipated, it was convenient for you. As a result, Tosu began to suspect Seiji. Then you thought up a string of incidents that would make use of the smoke machine and record player, devices you’d installed on the train in advance.”
The moment Seiji heard that, a shudder ran down his spine. So she improvised all that?
Was that even possible? No, of course it was. After all, she was a proxy for that inhuman fiend, Ibara Rindou.
Seiji spoke up, his lips pale and trembling. “Then, um, Ms. Nomura—”
“Yes, I erased her,” said Mao. “After she left you and returned to Room 301, I called her telephone. Though I only said her true name, like you did with Godou.”
No…, Seiji thought, but he couldn’t say even that much.
Then, unexpectedly…
“Still, there’s one thing I really don’t understand,” Shiroshi said, putting a hand to his chin. “In order for the detective to win, two or more of the sinners must be alive when we reach our destination. I also understand that no one aside from you and Seiji would ever have counted as a ‘survivor,’ although I maintain that such an argument is mere sophistry, and basically fraudulent. However,” he went on, “that means it genuinely didn’t matter whether the remaining five passengers lived or died. Why did you kill them?”