Three days.
It had been three days since Shiroshi had vanished in that inferno in the mountains of Okuhida. According to Takamura, who was leading the search, they still hadn’t found any clues.
“It isn’t just us. The police and fire brigade have cordoned off the area and are continuing their search, but they’ve had no results to speak of.”
“…I see.”
Takamura seemed tired, and Seiji couldn’t look straight at him. He looked down instead.
As usual, they were in the study. The Queen Anne chair where Shiroshi always sat was unsettlingly empty.
“My, what’s the matter?”
Seiji could visualize Shiroshi tilting his head, puzzled, but the sight existed only in his memories now. Even that seemed like it might blur and fade, and a permanent chill settled into Seiji’s spine.
Even though it’s only been three days…
Or had it been three days “already”?
“Some of the dignitaries seem to feel there’s no hope of Master Shiroshi’s survival. According to them, we should consider him dead and hasten to make our next move. And since the criminal may have carried him off, I’m not certain we can afford to spend more time searching the site.”
“Th-that’s true, but, I mean…”
In the end, it wasn’t even clear who had been behind this incident.
On the heels of the affair in Kyushu, someone had used Mayuka’s journal to lure Shiroshi and Seiji to that abandoned temple deep in the mountains. If the culprit had known that Shiroshi ran a proxy service for Hell, and if the mystery surrounding Kuniomi’s murder had been part of a trap to keep him there, they’d been astoundingly thorough.
On top of that, a barrier so large that it defied belief had apparently been cast over the entire site. Because of that, the flames hadn’t spread to the outside world, and the fire had been extinguished with unprecedented speed, but…
“Come to think of it, didn’t they say they’d recovered bodies from the ruins?”
“Yes, the burned corpses of a man and a woman. From their teeth, they are presumed to be a pair of villagers who had been missing for half a month.”
Kazutora and Mayuka. In the end, both had died without revealing anything about the incident sixteen years ago.
“Did whoever set the trap for us kill them, too?” asked Seiji.
“The police believe it was a murder-suicide. From the state of the bodies, they think the man probably strangled the woman with something like an obi first, then poured gasoline over his head and set himself on fire… However, no one knows for certain. Beniko will have been the only witness, and she is as you’ve seen.” His tone was solicitous.
Seiji squeezed his hands into tight fists on his knees.
“Master Shiroshi is dead.”
Beniko’s words still lingered in his ears.
At the time, she said, she’d been hiding nearby, on Shiroshi’s orders. In other words, she’d been keeping an eye on the two of them like a ninja, the way she had during the Shidou family incident. That meant she’d probably witnessed everything that had happened in the inn after Seiji had headed down the mountain.
However…
“…I can’t remember.”
Even after Takamura had appeared out of the ether as usual and taken her and Seiji into custody, Beniko had kept mechanically repeating those words.
Apparently, she’d had a shock that had temporarily impaired her memory. If something that bad had happened to Shiroshi…
Feeling a surge of nausea, Seiji put a hand over his mouth.
Right up until this happened, he genuinely hadn’t understood that Shiroshi could actually die.
“I promise we’ll go home together. So wait for me, please.”
He’d never considered the possibility that promise could end up becoming a lie.
He’s alive.
He’ll come home.
All Seiji wanted was to believe that, and yet…
The memory of Inokoshi dead in that moldy bathroom abruptly flashed through his mind, and he swallowed what reflexively welled up inside him.
I know.
When somebody died, that was it. There was nothing after that. Nothing, period.
Nothing at all.
“However, a parallel search for the mastermind is still being conducted. If there are any developments on that end, there may be something we can do.”
“Are you leading that one as well, Takamura?”
“No, Great King Enma himself has taken command. Since Shinno Akugorou is suspected of having been involved, it’s possible that the agreement with the Enma Ministry has been violated.”
Ah. So as the judge, he needed to find out who was responsible for the violation.
The agreement made through the Enma Ministry specified that, until the contest to send sinners to Hell was decided, neither camp was allowed to harm the other. If this incident turned out to have been a plot by Shinno Akugorou’s faction, it would be the clearest violation imaginable.
“He insists he knew nothing about it, but that may not be true. However, at present, we must consider him innocent until proven guilty.”
“Um, then is it possible that Odoro was in on…?” Seiji hadn’t even finished his sentence before he shook his head. Nah. There’s no way.
It was completely unlike him.
Odoro Rindou was an arrogant jerk who still viewed Shiroshi with contempt for being only half-supernatural. As far as he was concerned, using foul play against an opponent that far beneath him would have been an everlasting embarrassment. Calling him “proud” sounded like a compliment, but broadly speaking, he was an idiot.
“We’re having him stay at his agency just in case, but yes, the possibility that he was involved is extremely low.”
“But then who…?”
Exactly. That put them right back where they’d started. In the first place, Seiji knew only bits and pieces about the situation. Takamura was keeping him up to date like this only out of kindness.
Although I’m sure he’s worried about Shiroshi, too.
“Come to think of it, have you known Shiroshi long?” asked Seiji.
“Yes, I would say so. I made Master Shiroshi’s acquaintance before he was old enough to remember me. After all, it was I who cast the charm to keep people away from his residences.”
Whoa.
“As a result, I occasionally came by to make small talk and play sugoroku with him. When we first met, I thought, ‘It can’t possibly be all right for a child to be such a force’…and he hasn’t changed much, really.”
I bet not. Seiji nodded, smiling faintly.
The look in Takamura’s eyes softened. “And so I believe he is alive. He is Master Shiroshi, after all.”
He bowed respectfully, taking his leave, and vanished.
After that, Seiji was alone with that empty Queen Anne chair.
I guess I’ll go back upstairs for now.
With a little sigh, he got up and quickly left the study, as if he were running away from it. The three of them had cheerfully taken tea in here only three days ago. At this point, that felt like a distant dream.
Just then, his eyes fell on the goldfish bowl in the bay window.
“…Huh?”
Something seemed off. Seiji stopped, perplexed.
Are the goldfish’s pearl organs gone?
That couldn’t be right. Ending its spawning season in just three days? Just how passive could you get?
It’s not sick, is it? He ran a hasty search on his phone, and then…
“What?”
…he blinked. He’d stumbled onto some information that he found hard to believe.