“Feeling a presentiment of what lies outside its shell—a world it could not possibly imagine—its form stirs…”

“……?”

Suddenly, Tooru spun around.

He was on the riverside road that led from my house, the Taniguchi residence, to Nagi nee-san’s apartment. It was past time for students to be filtered out from school, and there was no one to be seen in the area.

“Masaki––did you hear that?”

“What’s the matter?” I inquired.

Tooru’s eyes darted around him.

“Huh… Could’ve sworn someone called out my name,” he said.

I strained my ears to listen. “I…don’t hear anything.”

There hadn’t been a soul on the road for as far as the eye could see, and that was still the case.

“Maybe it wasn’t a voice…but there was something. Something directed at me…” he muttered, still wary of his surroundings.

He wasn’t making any sense to me, but the way he was behaving felt like how Nagi nee-san and Master were when they got serious. It put me on edge as well.

And then it happened.

In the direction we were headed––KRR-RASH!––a loud noise echoed, as if something had been violently crushed. It was distant, but the fact we’d been able to hear it meant it must have been pretty loud; it was highly likely that there had been an accident.

“……!”

We briefly exchanged glances and then hurried in the direction of the noise.

Black smoke was rising. The source, a burning scooter that had been overturned and plowed into the guardrail.

“Where’s the rider…?”

We approached the scooter. There was a woman lying down on the ground next to it. Tooru ran up to her.

“Hey, are you all right?”

He made to lift her up, but before he could the woman herself embraced Tooru.

“Takashiro-san!”

Tooru was taken aback.

“H-Honami-san?”

“You know her? Hey, lady, you shouldn’t be moving right now.”

After checking that there was no risk of another explosion from the scooter, I approached them as well.

“T-Takashiro-san! It was terrible...”

The woman’s name was Honami-san, it seemed. In fact, now that I’d gotten a proper look at her, our ages didn’t seem to be that far apart. Rather than a woman, she was a girl, and that girl now spoke with urgency in her voice. She didn’t seem to have any noticeable injuries, and it didn’t look like she’d hit her head. Her gaze was steady, her upper body wasn’t shaking… Perhaps she’d been lucky. But the girl herself seemed to be in no mood to praise her good fortune.

“I was looking for you, Takashiro-san!” she said, clinging to him tightly, as if wringing out her words.

“H-hold on a second, Honami-san. Y-you’re not injured or anything?” Tooru’s face was bright red––it seemed he wasn’t used to women.

“That’s not important right now! Our house got attacked by some strange people–”

“What?! Those guys from yesterday didn’t come for payback, did they?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know anything anymore! I even got split from my brother…”

“A-all right, could you just…let go of me for now? It’s hard to talk like this.”

“Please, Tooru-san, you have to help me!”

“I-I’ll help you, okay, so just…”

While they were busy with each other, I took in our surroundings.

this happening in a relatively affluent residential district was pretty unfortunate. It was early afternoon, the time of day when most people are out somewhere, plus the houses were spaced far apart. No one had shown up despite the noise having been so loud. It seemed that either no one noticed, or there was nobody around.

In short, the area was like a ghost town, despite being smack-dab in the middle of the city.

That was bad…!

“What is it?” asked Tooru. In turn, I asked a question to the girl.

“Uh, Honami-san, right? …Say, how did you end up crashing?”

“Huh…?”

“You weren’t just in a hurry, were you? The real reason…was that you were actually being chased, wasn’t it? Because if that’s so…then we’ve already been caught!”

My eyes snapped sharply to the intersection beyond. One after another, a convoy of motorbikes were cutting a sharp turn, hurtling toward us.

“…What?!”

Tooru had been caught off guard by the sudden development, but immediately returned to his senses and became aware of Akiko, who was still clinging tightly to him.

He couldn’t move while she was hanging onto him…!

“Tooru! Get back!”

Masaki swiftly stepped forward.

Brandishing steel pipes, the group of bikers rushed down the trio’s position.

Masaki stood to take the brunt of the attack. Of course, he couldn’t afford to take a hit––he would simply dodge whatever was swung his way. But Tooru used that time to do as he’d been told and made his retreat, finally succeeding in tearing Akiko off of him.

“Find somewhere to hide!”

Tooru indicated for Akiko to get to the deathly silent houses, while he returned frenziedly to Masaki’s side.

Masaki seemed to be standing his ground. One of the steel pipes had been smacked out of the group’s hands and was now lying on the floor. Tooru picked it up.

“Masaki!”

Waving the pipe around, he rushed to the aid of Masaki, who’d been chased into a vacant lot and was now surrounded, bikes circling him. Two of these bikes split off from the ring and headed for Tooru.

“Just try it!”

Tooru gripped the steel pipe in both hands, assuming a rigid stance.

Just then…

BA-DUM.

It wasn’t his heart, but a sensation. The very flow throughout his body had seemed to pulsate all at once. It was as if switches all through his body had all been flipped on simultaneously. And…

Huh…?

Tooru was puzzled by the sudden feeling that had welled up within him. Though the bikes that rushed toward him possessed a potentially lethal force that could very well rupture his insides and smash his bones on impact, all Tooru could do was wonder about the thing he was seeing that moment.

What are these…? Lines?

The enemy bearing down on Tooru had somehow become the lesser priority. Because such a thing was already trivial in his eyes. He knew what he was able to do.

“Kiiiiyaaaaah!” With a guttural cry, one of the biker guys flailed his pipe about as he launched himself at Tooru. The next instant, he was blown clean off his bike and slammed down into the ground.

The other biker with him could not be surprised by this turn of events. Why? Because he himself had been flung off with a swing from Tooru’s pipe and had met the same fate as his friend.

“…?!”

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

What did Tooru just do?!

He’d swung the pipe––that much was obvious. But to knock both attackers off their bikes with a single swing, and in the same breath…?

“W-what the…”

It appeared that the bikers who’d been going at it with me had also been shaken by this anomaly. They gave up on me and rushed in Tooru’s direction.

Tooru, seeming perfectly composed, adopted a focused stance with the steel pipe in hand and awaited the approaching storm.

“…………!”

A chill ran through me. Because I realized from the way he was moving what would happen next. But…that couldn’t be. I was sure that when he’d faced me earlier, he was…

A tremendous sound rung out. But it had come from the bikes that had spun out of control, been overturned, scraped the road and crashed straight into the guardrail and wall; what had actually happened at the center of it all was a quiet action.

A single swing of the pipe.

That was all it had taken. Its path seemed to have been sucked in towards the opponents’ weak points as if the whole thing were a staged fight scene, and they were blown away instantly.

One after another, it took them down. His opponents couldn’t have avoided it. Even if they’d fled, they couldn’t have done so until after the exchange of offense and defense had played out. Since they were the ones attacking, they would have had to change direction themselves. There was no chance of that.

In contrast to the whirring bikes and their riders atop them, Tooru’s movements seemed almost sluggish. There was no excess motion, which made him look slow despite it all. But…

But that couldn’t be!

When he’d been fighting me, Taniguchi Masaki, I was convinced that he was an amateur in the way of the sword. It wasn’t an act or anything of the sort! He really should have been clueless about any kind of fighting style to do with swinging a weapon around!

But then how did that explain the things he was doing, things like a master who’d spent decades in the depths of the mountains?

“………”

As I stood there agape, he finally finished off the last of them before my eyes.

“H-hiiiieeee…!”

His back to the mayhem, he tried in desperation to distance himself from the place, but it seemed that his leg was fractured, and he could only crawl, clutching frantically at the ground with his hands.

He was the man Tooru had blown away at the very start. His helmet had come off, exposing the youthful face underneath. It had the distinct features of a child still in his teens.

“N-no goddamn way… H-he’s a monster!” he huffed as he crawled away to safety, but before he could get any further, a shadow loomed before him.

He looked up to see a girl.

“…………”

The girl, who gazed down at him callously, was none other than the one who had been rescued by Takashiro Tooru––Honami Akiko.

“This wasn’t part of the deal!” he lashed out. Even as he looked her in the eye, he refused to be intimidated. “You never said anything about a crazy guy like that! The plan was just to freak ‘em out a little!”

But the girl seemed virtually unfazed by his desperation.

“The moment you took the cash, you became their opponents. Even if the circumstances are different, the fact remains. Are you just going to run away while you have the enemy in your sights?” she said coolly. Her voice was no different than when she was clinging on to Tooru earlier, which made it all the more disconcerting.

“…A-are you serious?”

“Desertion in the face of the enemy is one of the most unforgivable acts imaginable. Punishment for such a misdeed will be handed down immediately…and swiftly.”

“……!”

By the next second, her nails had retracted to normal length. It had happened so quickly, there was barely any blood on them.

“Still…as I suspected, the samurai broke out of his shell. And his battle capabilities far exceeded even my expectations… We’ll have to move to the next stage of the plan,” she murmured.

Then she turned on her heel and walked in the direction of Takashiro Tooru and Taniguchi Masaki.

“…Takashiro-san!”

The girl Tooru had called “Honami-san” came back to us. It seemed she’d been hiding.

“Was everything all right?” Tooru asked in a gentle tone. He sounded like his usual self, but…

“H-hold on a sec, Tooru. Mind telling me just what the hell’s going on here?!” I demanded, marching up to him. “Were you actually strong? Or was there some kind of reason for that?”

Tooru looked puzzled by the question.

“You know, I don’t really get it myself… I’m not sure how I’m supposed to explain.”

“But come on…!”

As we argued, a face peered out furtively from an entrance, evidently having noticed the commotion. I glanced their way and, startled, they closed the door. At this rate, the police would surely be on their way.

“…Oh boy. Looks like things are gonna get hairy.”

Confused as I was, I decided I should start off by calling Nagi nee-san to tell her about the incident and took out my cell phone. But try as I might, I couldn’t get through to anyone.

“That’s weird. Is it broken…?”

Maybe it had gotten damaged in the scuffle earlier. But I didn’t recall something like that happening. It looked fine from the outside, and the power light was still on.

“Mine’s not getting through either,” said Honami-san earnestly, phone to one ear.

There shouldn’t have been any problem with the reception given the location and time of day. What was going on? Was something somewhere jamming the signal…?

We exchanged glances, feeling a vague sense of unease.

“Let’s borrow someone’s phone.”

Just as I said this, sirens wailed and two cop cars drove up to us. Four police officers got out and readied their guns. That’s a pretty sudden response for Japanese cops, I thought.

“Freeze! Throw down your weapons and put your hands in the air!”

The three of us obediently raised our hands into the air. Tooru dropped the steel pipe he was holding.

“Listen, officer…” I tried to explain, but they made no attempt to listen to us. Three of them came up and grabbed hold of us, twisting our arms. I’d expected them to put us in handcuffs, but perhaps that wasn’t the sort of thing they’d do unwarranted.

“A fight, was it? Looks like you made quite a spectacle, kids. Judging by all those folks wiped out, I’m guessing it wasn’t just you guys, eh? Where’d the rest of ‘em go?”

So they asked, but the fact was that Tooru had floored them all by himself, so without any way to answer we could only stay quiet. They apparently took this as a sign of defiance and wrenched our arms even more tightly.

“Well, whatever. We’ll wring it outta you one way or another. Come!”

Shoving me forward roughly, the officer called over to his lone colleague by the patrol cars.

“Hey, get in touch with the station. Call an ambulance too. Let’s detain the guys on the ground.”

It appeared their first priority was taking care of the bikers. Sure, all right, I thought. It looked like that would be the end of this mess for now. The police would probably give us a pretty stern talking-to, but at least there was no danger to our lives.

Then, just as I was thinking these carefree thoughts…

–––BANG.

To the unsuspecting person, the sound would have felt oddly muffled. But that sound––the sound of gunpowder exploding––was a gunshot.

The cop by the patrol cars had fired without warning, and his gun was still drawn. And, the grip of the officer who’d been pinning my arms suddenly slackened.

“Wha…?”

The officer, face painted with blank surprise and unaware of the red stain spreading from his chest, slumped down onto my body and lay there still.

There wasn’t enough time for the remaining two officers to grasp what had just happened. The shooter followed up without a moment’s hesitation and pulled the trigger two more times in succession.

“Guh!”

Blood gushed out from both their backs, each having taken a hit through the chest, and they collapsed.

I immediately ducked down. And that was the thing that saved my life. Because the guy who’d taken down the three cops had been aiming for me next. The awful sound of the bullet narrowly scraping my head whistled past.

“––Daah!”

With a battle cry, Tooru seized the moment to hurl his steel pipe at the guy who’d suddenly opened fire. It was a direct hit, and he fell to the ground.

I picked myself up and then ran.

But not towards him. In terms of distance, I knew that I wouldn’t have been able to make it; he would already have readied his gun before I could reach him. So instead, I ran for the patrol cars that the cops who’d just been killed had driven here in. The doors were still open.

Because they’d levelled their guns at us and started their proceedings as soon as they’d arrived, the engines were still running. I dove straight in, stepped on the accelerator and turned the steering wheel.

“–––––!”

The mystery shooter had no choice but to dodge out of the way of the oncoming vehicle. I used this time to spin the wheel again, making for Tooru and Honami-san.

“Get in!” I yelled. Tooru, having already figured out my plan, leapt into the back seat with Honami-san in his arms.

The shooter regained his balance and fired on us again. A terrible cracking sound ran through the bulletproof glass, but it did its job and didn’t break.

“We’re gettin’ outta here!”

I floored the pedal as hard as I could and, finally closing the door amidst a hail of bullets from the back, we left the scene.

“…………”

The officer who’d mercilessly shot his colleagues to death gazed in the direction of the patrol car driving away with hollow eyes.

“…………“

When he realized that he wouldn’t be able to catch up to them, he was instantly compelled to proceed to the next order stenciled into his head by the hypnosis of sorts that he’d been subjected to.

“…………“

He lowered his gaze to the bikers lying on the ground, pointed his gun at their unconscious bodies, and again calmly pulled the trigger. When he’d run out of bullets, he took out some reserve ammo that he shouldn’t originally have been supplied with, swiftly reloaded and resumed his work. Twenty seconds later, the only one alive on that scene was him.

“…………“

Then he went straight up to the remaining patrol car and took hold of the intercom. He stated the vehicle number, informed them that this was an emergency and then initiated his broadcast.

“We have a homicide case. The perps have killed three officers, hijacked a patrol car and are currently in flight within the city. The felons are extremely ruthless and possess handguns. One has been identified as Takashiro Tooru, a large man averaging 190cm, wearing a strange samurai outfit…”

And once the broadcast had ended, he pointed the handgun to his own chest…and pulled the trigger.

He slumped backward, fell and ceased moving. A detailed forensic examination would immediately have been able to tell that it was suicide, but right now, while the case was developing, even if they’d performed a concurrent analysis, they wouldn’t have been quick enough.

The report must have given them cause to rush, as the sound of police sirens steadily began to approach that corpse-strewn site.

Seeing the waves of patrol cars racing throughout the city one after another, sirens wailing, Honami Akiko had a sense of foreboding.

She was on the road, making her way to the apartment where Takashiro Tooru lived. She’d once taken a sneak peek at Tooru’s résumé at work, so she was relying on her memory of that to try and find the address. You could get there with one train and then switch to bus, so it wasn’t especially far away.

Could something have happened…? Surely it’s nothing to do with Takashiro-san…?

[You kiddin’? Something’s gotta be up!]

As she speculated, the portable device around her neck spoke up. She was wearing it like a pendant and had tucket the normal-looking device between her breasts.

[And I sure as hell bet the big guy’s gotten himself wrapped up in this!]

Akiko twitched at this.

“W-what makes you say that?!” Her voice was low, but she responded on impulse with a firm tone.

[The timing’s too good. Yesterday he’d already half-broken out of his ‘shell.’ If something were to have happened in that state, that guy, being unaware of his own ‘talent,’ wouldn’t have known how to rein himself in and could have done something reckless. Might’ve even killed a buncha people by now, I figure. Heh-heh!]

It was a hurtful way of putting it.

“…………”

Akiko’s unease grew, as she knew she couldn’t completely deny that possibility. Regardless, she decided she had to ask the question nagging on her mind.

“What is…Takashiro-san’s ‘talent’?”

[Dunno personally, I’m already cut off from the guy. He’s probably hearing a voice from within his heart, but it’s just a resonance. Got nothing to do with me. But Miss Honami Akiko, if it’s your half-awakened talent we’re talking about, I’ll tell you what that’s all about once it starts to show. On one condition, that is. You gotta kill me.]

“…………”

Akiko remained silent.

[It’s easy. You’ve just gotta take that vessel I’m in right now and smash it to pieces. I’m nothing but a wave of energy when it comes down to it, after all. Once this reflecting shell that surrounds me is gone, I’ll disperse and vanish. Yeah, I’m like a ghost. No point in me even existing in this world.”

“…………”

Of course, nothing he was saying made even a lick of sense to Akiko. But this also told her that this couldn’t have been her delusion. And he was saying that she had a “special something”…

I don’t have anything like that…

She was a totally ordinary person. Just an average girl. She didn’t do any extraordinary things like that delinquent Kirima Nagi.

That’s right. I’ve got nothing like that…

Just as she thought this, something a certain person once said to her surfaced in her mind…

“It means, Akiko-chan, that the act of living, that the existence of ‘life’ in this world… Is, in itself, a kind of miracle.”

But why had she suddenly remembered him now?

Why…?

She realized that just thinking about him still made her heart ache.

…No, wait. That’s right, there was a rumor that Kyou nii-chan was doing some strange business…

Akiko was on the verge of remembering as she walked down the road to Tooru’s apartment. Then her legs froze stiff.

Surrounding the apartment were numerous police officers.

“…W-what is this?”

[Seems a little too well-timed to be a coincidence, eh? Heh-heh-heh.]

Again with the mocking. But there was no time for her to be angry about it.

At a parked squad car, a police officer was communicating with someone over the radio.

“Yeah, we’ve suppressed the suspect’s room but he hasn’t fled here. We’ll continue surveillance.”

That was a snippet of what she’d heard… “Suspect”?

It couldn’t be that…Tooru actually had killed someone and was being hunted by the police?

Cautiously, she approached the apartment, but there were cops all over the place, so if she was going to slip by them, the only option would be through the narrow gaps between the houses that could barely even be called ‘paths.’

[Uhh, that’s some risky stuff you’re up to. Hey, it’s pretty much guaranteed by now that the guy did something. So how about we quit doing stuff that’ll get us caught?]

“…Could you just shut up for a second?” she snapped.

Then, right next to where she was standing, there was a dull thud. When she turned to look, she almost screamed.

With the land packed tightly in the closely-knit neighborhood, the gaps between the houses had to be narrow. For that reason, the electricity poles were arranged in such a way that they seemed to conceal the space between the walls. Fencing off just this area were square walls to keep things out.

And, the source of the sound was in just such a spot, which couldn’t be seen from the alleyway simply by peeking in.

There, a boy lay. And he was drenched in blood.

Motoki Sanpei was 15 years old.

He’d been having the most terrible spate of bad luck recently. Thinking back, perhaps it had started around February this year, ever since he witnessed that strange thing.

He’d come to the big department store in front of the station, Twin City, but alas, that day was the one day of the month when they were closed.

It was windy that day. One of the curtains on the roof for keeping the wind out of the exhibition hall had come off, and he could see it billowing in the wind from below.

“…Tch.”

Naturally, he was fuming. Of all days, why did it just so happen to have been that day? He couldn’t help but feel that he’d been dealt a great injustice and was deeply exasperated by it.

And then…

From the roof that he was looking up at, he glimpsed a leaping shadow. Sanpei was astonished.

I-is that a suicide?!

…Huh? W-what’s going on…?

And then, reflected in his wide eyes was yet another curious sight.

A mysterious silhouette wearing a pipe-like black hat and wrapped in a similarly colored cape, seemingly human and yet inhuman, hopped into view where the sheer walls of the building cleanly demarcated the dusk sky.

Their gaze darted in various directions as if searching for something. Then, in the next moment, they had withdrawn. Though standing in a position where one would normally have their heart in their mouth, there was not a fragment of indecision in their movement. You might even say it was like a phantom floating there. No, from the way they appeared, it might have been more fitting to call them a shinigami.

W-what the hell was that…?!

Perhaps the figure he’d just seen jump out into the open for a split-second was a soul that that shinigami was taking away to heaven? …The sight had even made him dream up dumb thoughts like that.

If he had been a girl, he would have immediately thought of the subject of the bizarre rumor that’s widely known among only female students in these parts. It’s said that it kills those when their body and soul are most beautiful to prevent them from becoming uglier. With a black hat and wrapped in a black cloak, they say its name is Boogiepop…

“A-aaiiiee…!”

He became scared and made a run for it, because a creeping sense of dread had inescapably begun to rise within him.

This was the beginning of his misfortune.

He’d been getting into more fights with his parents, with whom he wasn’t on the best of terms to start with, snapping at even the most trivial thing. He would hit his mother and get beaten up by his father.

And eventually, on the spur-of-the-moment, he blurted out, “Screw this, I’m getting outta this goddamn house!”

…and he really did fly out of the house.

Sanpei was at his wits’ end. He couldn’t go back home after all that, but he didn’t have any close friends who’d let him stay over or be willing to lend him money.

God-fucking-damn it!

Becoming desperate, he turned his mind to theft. He’d happened to notice that the window to the room of a second-floor apartment had been carelessly left unlocked and half-open, so he clambered over the railing and snuck in through it. He could tell from the silence inside that its owner was absent.

And yet the moment he’d entered the room, a shrill noise came from beyond.

“…Ehh?!”

It was the sound of cop car sirens.

That’s ridiculous, he thought. How could the police have shown up with such perfect timing? It was at that instant that he became convinced of his horrifically bad luck, and he was spot on. The cop cars had come to investigate the room of Takashiro Tooru, an accused criminal, and the room that he’d snuck into belonged to an OL who lived right next to him. What was it if not a coincidence? There wasn’t a single reason that he should be the one to encounter these quirks of fate, no rational cause other than “bad luck.”

If he had stayed put, the police wouldn’t have had come to where he was just to check the room adjacent, but Sanpei, who could never have dreamed that that was the case, panicked and leapt out the window.

And as he stepped on the railing, his foot slipped.

He fell two floors and hit his head and back hard. His consciousness was hazy, but hearing the sound of the cop cars mercilessly approaching, he crawled desperately, escaping into the narrow gap-like alleyway between the houses. His whole body was scuffed from having crawled and blood was oozing out, but his head was pounding so hard that he didn’t notice. And then at last, he reached the fenced-off space that had been built afterwards to surround the electricity pole and slumped down, out of strength. Inside his skull, which had taken a heavy blow, a brain hemorrhage had started. He didn’t have long left.

Damn it… It’s all that shinigami’s fault things turned out like this… I really have the worst luck.

As Sanpei’s consciousness faded, he vaguely thought such things.

“………….!”

Honami Akiko, witnessing the shocking state of Motoki Sanpei, was very nearly on the verge of a scream.

Not because he was covered in blood and lying on the ground. If it had just been that, she would likely have just let out her scream, the police would have come running, the dying boy would have been discovered, and that would have been that.

But it didn’t turn out that way.

What Honami Akiko saw, clinging tightly to the body of the boy, was something like mist.

She immediately understood the nature of it. She already knew what it was even though she’d just seen it for the first time.

It was the boy’s life leaving his body. And once it had finished seeping, spilling, flowing out of him, that would be the moment he died. She knew that.

But why was it that she could see such a thing? …She didn’t know, and that was the reason that she couldn’t scream.

“W-what is this?!”

For the first time, she personally asked a question to the “egg” on her chest. However, its answer contained none of its usual frivolity.

“…Jesus H, you just hit the jackpot, Honami Akiko… So you have the power to see ‘life’ and do something about it? To think that an MPLS like this really exists…” it simply said, its voice hoarse.

“Ugh!”

She didn’t know what to think, but she decided first of all to kneel down by the boy’s side. And she reached out to the mist-like substance. When she touched it, it was less like a gas and more like jello. Because a substance like that mist was seeping out from her own hand, and because the two were repelling each other, she could “touch” it.

“W-what is even going on…?” she cried, while stuffing the “life” back into the boy’s body. It sort of felt like rubbing gravy into chunks of sliced meat for a dish.

Around half of it had already spilled out, but she decided for now to keep doing what she was doing until it stopped leaking out of the boy.

“Um… Taniguchi-san?” asked Honami-san––or whoever she was––gingerly from the back seat. “You do know how to drive, don’t you…?”

“Well, it’s true I don’t have a license. But I spent a lot of time overseas, so I know a little.”

Master had let me drive mostly for kicks. It had been a second-hand Japanese car, so it didn’t handle any differently to the one I was steering now.

“That’s amazing…”

“Masaki is the number-one student of an amazing Sensei. I’m hoping to learn from him,” said Tooru proudly.

“You don’t say…”

The atmosphere was starting to feel pretty relaxed.

“…It’s not really the time to be talking about this stuff. What’s the plan now?” I stressed, a little irritated.

It was all well and good that we’d escaped in a squad car from the policeman who’d seemingly become confused and fired at his colleagues, but now the three of us––Tooru, Honami-san and I––hemmed and hawed about what to do.

“What should we do?”

“Seeking protection from the police––I mean, police who aren’t insane––would probably be the quickest solution.”

As I drove, I reached a hand out to the built-in transceiver, thinking that we might be able to get in touch with someone. It would save us a lot of time if that were the case, and if we told them we were using the car without permission, they would come flying to meet us whether they believed us or not.

…However, all that could be heard from the transceiver was a whole load of static.

“W-what is this? Is it broken?”

Our mobile phones hadn’t been able to connect at all earlier either. Hard to believe this was just a coincidence. Could someone really have been jamming our reception? But from where? We were already getting further from our last location. If someone was using special radio waves to cover such a wide area…it was hard to imagine they were using anything other than military grade equipment.

 But then, that means…all this won’t end with just a bit of trouble…

I felt as if the machinations of something big were at play behind the scenes.

“…………”

As I remained silent, I could see Honami-san in the rear-view mirror staring at me from the back seat. It gave me a slight shock because the look she’d given me was so…sharp and piercing.

“W-what is it?”

She quickly lowered her head.

“Ah, it’s just…I was thinking about what might have happened to my brother,” she said dejectedly.

That’s right. She said that she’d got separated from her brother. Anyone would be worried. It was no surprise that she’d be glaring. Here, Tooru interrupted.

“Let’s just try and find a police box and tell them what happened. That would be the quickest way. They might end up apprehending us, sure, but at least they should be able to send out a search party for Hiroshi,” he said, stating his thoughts. He was on the mark.

“Yeah, you’re right… Let’s do that.”

I turned the steering wheel. And then…

All of a sudden, a voice could be heard coming from the transceiver’s speaker.

“…Whoever is driving car no. 12, if you can hear this please answer immediately!”

Hurriedly, I grabbed the microphone.

“We hear you, loud and clear!”

“…We got through!”

At the police Special Measures HQ, successfully getting through to the unidentified mass murderers roused everyone’s excitement. It was time to start negotiations.

But as the conversation progressed, they were unable to hide their confusion.

It seemed that the perps had no recollection of killing anyone themselves and were insisting that an officer was to blame of all things. And they had even acted like they hadn’t done anything wrong.

“What’s the meaning of this…?”

Voices murmured in the HQ. Then a detective spoke up.

“…If this is what they truly believe, we’ll have to regard them as exceptionally delusional,” he said.

With that one statement, every head in the room nodded with an expression of relief.

“Ahh, I get it.”

“But then, that would mean our normal methods of getting them to turn themselves in won’t have any effect!”

“Won’t we be forced to take firm measures? They’re still within the city and they have handguns. We have to prevent harm to the general public at all cost!”

“What shall we do?”

“For now, let’s make use of the fact that they believe themselves to be the victims. Perhaps we could lure them somewhere.”

“It’s worth a try.”

For a person––no, in this case for an organization––there are several patterns in which it’s hard to believe certain things. For example, things such as the existence of a police officer committing a crime, so long as it hasn’t been clearly proven, are not very welcome ideas within the police force. And so, when just one detective proposed another line of thinking, it immediately became recognized as the will of the entire department. It was an easy feat. They’d been made to rule out the police as possible suspects, ironically leading themselves astray, much like they do upon others with their oft-performed “leading questions” and “sting operations”.

“…………”

The detective who’d greatly influenced the situation snuck quietly out of the Special Measures HQ. On hurried feet he left the scene, passed through a back alley rarely used by the police department and headed outside.

But as he was turning the corner just before the entrance, he stopped dead.

“…………!”

There stood a figure.

It wasn’t especially tall. Yet it was slender, and from the facial features it looked to be a boy. But there was something of a sharpness to him, an air that was anything but childlike. Wearing clothes of pale purple, he quietly turned to face the detective and spoke.

“That face… Did that traitor Pearl tinker with your skin to make that disguise for you? So you killed the original and took his face and identity, eh?”

The detective took a step back.

“W-who the hell are you?”

“One of your friends already told me everything last night, of their own free will. It was the Diamonds, wasn’t it? They were the ones the deserter Sidewinder tried to sell the Embryo off to. He wanted to gain some short-term getaway money, but then the other party changed their mind at the last moment… The Diamonds are highly capable because they have Pearl, but your numbers are regrettably small. And since you lack the manpower on your own, it’s easy to predict that you’d use the police force.”

As he spoke indifferently, the man known both as Lee Maisaka and Fortissimo advanced, matching the pace of other’s slow retreat.

“U-urgh… Y-you’re with Towa…?

The detective… No, the one who’d been outed as a fake in the guise of a detective, was now covered in a greasy sweat.

“…………”

Fortissimo took another step forward, wearing a soft, gentle smile.

“A-are you an assassin? You…came to kill us?”

Tinged by the man’s fear, Fortissimo’s smile grew deeper, into a smirk.

“You know…that’s a very good question.” Then Fortissimo stopped moving.

In that instant, the man responded. He pulled out a handgun and tried aiming it at Fortissimo. But the gun in his hands, which he was sure he’d drawn, was not there.

When he heard a clank, he snapped to his senses and looked toward the sound. It came from Fortissimo’s feet, and…his foot was stepping on the handgun that he had surely just drawn!

When had he taken it…? No. That level of thinking could no longer be used to explain what had happened. If he’d taken it, it should have been in his hands. But then why was it at his feet, and under his foot at that? He shouldn’t have been able to do such a thing in the fraction of a second!

…W-what kind of…!

The man realized that he’d encountered a being that surpassed all common sense of the world he’d come to understand.

“O-ohh…”

As he moaned, Fortissimo’s eyed widened and he snorted.

“Come now, that just now wasn’t even anything special.”

“…Huh?”

“You know reflex actions, right? Let’s say you’re riding a bike. Once you’ve learned to ride, then whatever situation you might end up in, your body automatically keeps its balance. That’s the same as the trick just now.”

“………..?”

“You must’ve seen your fair share of battle. And your battle training’s been drilled into your body too. When you take out your gun, you do it subconsciously. Which is why…just now, you’d intended to draw your gun. You’re not reaching into your breast pocket, taking hold of the grip and taking aim consciously, it’s happening instinctively. And that’s exactly why you didn’t notice that instant. You didn’t notice that your gun was already missing from your breast pocket. And in your brief moment of confusion, I dropped the gun I’d taken and secretly dropped it behind me at an angle you couldn’t see, stepping on it at the same time. Haha! See? Simple, right? Your gun didn’t just instantaneously teleport from your hands to my feet, it was already missing before that…

“…………”

Before Fortissimo, who seemed to be enjoying the exposition, the man turned pale and was shaking uncontrollably. Simple? A trick? Like hell that was the explanation. If that were the case, when and how exactly did he steal his gun…?!

Here, Fortissimo changed his tone.

“By the way…where are you going?” he asked coldly.

“W-what…?”

“I’m off to exterminate the traitor Pearl and retrieve the Embryo, but…where are you headed?”

“…………?”

“What I’m basically trying to say here…is ‘Are you man enough to stand up to me?’” he asked with an icy laugh.

The man came sharply to his senses.

The guy was…already a step ahead of them. He’d presumably even identified the current form of the Embryo, which even they hadn’t figured out yet. That was why he was so sure of himself…!

It’s over… Even if Pearl is on equal footing with the Towa Organization, we don’t stand a chance against this guy… It’s all over for us…

Having come to this conclusion, the man whipped himself around and fled not for the exit in front of him, but into the police station.

Without a moment’s delay, Fortissimo kicked up the handgun and pointed it perfectly at the fleeing man’s back.

However…

He only raised the corners of his mouth into a smirk and did not pull the trigger. His eyes simply followed the figure until he disappeared behind the turn of the corridor.

“Now, the organization will disband. You’re on your own now, Pearl,” he whispered, and then crushed the handgun in his hands like a scrap of paper. When he opened his hands, there was nothing left.

Then he too turned on his heels and left the police station.

“C’mon… What’s he doing?”

Inside a car parked in front of the police station, Honami Hiroshi was fidgeting. Upon hearing that Akiko had gone missing, the man called Lee Maisaka who had rescued Hiroshi made a proposal. “Then how about we go to the police?” he asked and dragged Hiroshi along with him. Hiroshi had been in shock; he’d just seen Lee kill someone right before his eyes. But Lee had spoken calmly.

“Nah, that wasn’t a person. It was a type of robot. Look, you can tell from where its head was severed. No blood, see? And on top of that, watch this.”

As Lee pointed, the corpse…or whatever it was began to crumble away like sand. When Lee opened the window, the fine powder was swept up by the wind and blew outside.

“…………”

Of course, Hiroshi had never heard of anything as fantastical as a mystery robot, but seeing it before his very eyes, he was forced to believe it. There was that…and also because Lee had said he wanted to go to the police himself. At least he didn’t seem to belong to some sort of dodgy gang or something.

But now that they’d arrived in the front of police station, it seemed like squad cars were heading out incessantly and it was noisy. They were out for blood. Seeing this, Lee left Hiroshi behind and went into the station alone.

“How long is he gonna take…?”

In reality, he probably hadn’t even been waiting ten minutes. But to Hiroshi, it felt like hours, so when Lee finally came back, he let shout a jubilant “Ah!”

“H-how’d it go?!” he asked, but Lee shook his head.

“It’s a real mess. Your sister and some guy called Takashiro Tooru are currently on the run from the police for killing a bunch of people, including police officers,” he said in a whisper.

Hiroshi was dumbfounded.

“W-what did you say?!”

“Now calm down. As to whether they really killed them, I have my doubts. Your sister and her friend have been framed.”

“F-framed…?”

“But now we know that we can’t expect the police to work with us. We’ll have to do something about this ourselves… That is, if you want to join me?”

“Uh, yeah!” Hiroshi nodded repeatedly.

“Good. Then let’s hurry. We can guess their general location based on the info the police have obtained.”

Lee started the car.

“Nnngh…!” Hiroshi opened his eyes wide, biting angrily on his right thumb.

Here, Lee asked a question.

“By the way… You’re sure it was a portable gaming device your sister took out of the house?”

“Y-yeah… But I still can’t believe what that was. That it had such a great secret or whatever to it… And I’d been carrying it around…”

“Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t your fault.”

That’s right––Sidewinder takes the credit for that, whispered Lee out of Hiroshi’s earshot.

The car raced steadily down the road toward the source of the problem.

…In the end, while we made our escape in the patrol car, we were only able to contact the police for just a short time. We couldn’t get through to them again after that.

But in that space of time, the police had managed to give us a location where they could take us into custody immediately, so that became our immediate goal.

“Phew. Well that sure is a load off,” said Tooru with a sigh of relief.

“I guess, yeah. We’ve earned ourselves some breathing room. Now if I can just find some way of contacting nee-san…”

It was clear by now that the situation was abnormal. I stopped the car once and, prepared for danger, tried to get in touch with her from a public phone, but by some freak coincidence, they were all broken. They seemed fine from the outside, but I just couldn’t get them to work, so I was left exchanging glances with Honami-san, who’d come along with me. Once we’d given up on that approach, we decided we’d just follow the police’s directions.

“…Still, gotta wonder how Hiroshi’s doing,” Tooru said quietly, staring at Honami-san.

“Yeah,” she nodded.

…I wonder indeed.

Even Pearl, who had borrowed the appearance of Honami Akiko, was nodding inside. Her compatriots should already have suppressed that brat, but nobody had contacted her about it. The jamming device that she was carrying disguised to look like a cellphone allowed them to act independently. It was a powerful thing, capable of scrambling the internal circuitry of public phones, but it was also a double-edged sword, as it had in fact prevented her from communicating with her allies.

Wouldn’t be surprising if the Towa Organization had started to catch wind by now… We’ll have to exercise the utmost vigilance.

For the present, everything was going well… Even using the police was going as planned. But…she felt that she was missing something.

Of course, the uncertain element in all this is that we don’t know a thing about that guy’s power…Takashiro Tooru.

In her mind she nodded, reminding herself that figuring that out was priority one.

The engine revved, and the squad car Taniguchi Masaki was driving sped on into the center of the city.

[1] Something I’d like to start doing occasionally is pointing out what I think are some clear points that inspire some other Japanese media, just for some fun facts. In this case, does Pearl’s nails remind you of a certain homunculus?

[2] The events of VS Imaginator, obviously

[3] One of the deeper cut connections to other books. This is most likely the Boy inspired by Seiichi’s books in Boogiepop at Dawn, who was subsequently killed by Mo’ Murder.

[4] Yet another subtle callback. This is Anjou being thrown off the roof and subsequently saved by Boogiepop in VS Imaginator Part 1.

[5] Roughly $175 USD in 1999