That was when Fukuzawa finally realized his thoughts were heading in a bizarre direction:
—Ranpo solving more difficult mysteries.
—Fukuzawa, right there with him.
"So we're going to the station, right?"
Ranpo's voice dragged Fukuzawa back into reality.
"I really wanna ride in the police car, but just thinking about doing paperwork and being interviewed is boring me to tears. I'm just gonna get in there and out in two seconds and go home. It'll probably take forever to get it over with if you're there, old guy, so I'll go on ahead, okay?"
Fukuzawa didn't reply.
"Hey, you listening? I'm leaving...?"
"...Hmm? Oh, okay."
Ranpo looked up at Fukuzawa for a few moments.
"Oh? I see... Anyway, about ready to go, Officer?" Ranpo asked before patting the officer on the back.
Absurd. Working together with Ranpo from now on? Solving cases together? Absolute nonsense.
However, Ranpo was truly extraordinary. Somebody had to protect that talent and utilize it to its fullest potential. On the other hand, Fukuzawa had always been alone ever since that one incident. He didn't need anyone's help, and he didn't feel the need to work together with others. To Fukuzawa, depending on others meant there was something he lacked. Deliberately ignoring his own shortcomings and relying on others would only warp who he was.
He could also become a demon that killed others if his allies so requested. He could hardly even imagine teaming up with someone, let alone creating an agency and becoming its leader.
Many people had witnessed Ranpo's talents bloom today. Nobody was going to put him on phone duty or make him run errands at a construction site ever again. Whether it be for good or evil, somebody was going to use Ranpo's talents and do something big. Perhaps the day would come when he would rise to the top of some group of thieves or an illegal organization. But that day wasn't today; therefore, it had nothing to do with Fukuzawa himself.
"I'm going to discuss the aftermath with Ms. Egawa," Fukuzawa said to Ranpo. "You go ahead to the station. Officer, take good care of him for me."
"You got it," the officer replied with a smile.
"Come on! Let's go!"
Ranpo hopped over to the exit with mirth in his step, and Fukuzawa's eyes were naturally drawn to him. All of a sudden, Ranpo stopped at the exit and turned around.
"Mr. Fukuzawa," he said with a smile. "Thank you."
And just like that, he got into the police car and left.
Fukuzawa went to see Murakami after that. The dressing room was being used as a temporary interrogation room. Inside were three guards and Murakami sitting in the center. When the actor saw Fukuzawa, he feebly smiled before lowering his head.
"I've done a lot of things in my life, but this is the first time I've ever been handcuffed." He showed the handcuffs around his wrists and smiled. "Everything's an experience. This'll only enrich my acting."
Fukuzawa was both exasperated and impressed at the same time. It appeared that performers faced a fate incomprehensible to most.
"I have two or three things I want to ask you."
"Be my guest."
"I want to see the device that made the blade come out of your stomach."
"Oh, that? It's over there."
Murakami pointed at the device with his chin. Leaning against the wall was a thin, cylindrical instrument that looked as if a sheet of metal had been bent into a circle. It was as thick as a human's torso, with piano string–like wire with a loop on the end sticking out.
Murakami explained how he wrapped it around his waist and hid it under his clothes. Then he ran the piano wire through his costume and pulled it to tug the metal plate over his stomach open. The metal plate was thin, and its surface was finely polished, which was probably what made it look like a blade under the powerful lights. It was a rather simple device to understand after hearing how it worked. It was a device only a theatrical performer would have thought of due to his familiarity with how props appeared to the audience.
"The biggest hurdle was seeing whether it would fool the first person who came running over," Murakami boasted with a smirk. "I knew you were used to seeing dead bodies, being a bodyguard and all. That's why I was cheering on the inside when my acting fooled you. It's an accomplishment I'll be proud of for the rest of my life."
And as a result, everyone in the crowd was deceived, and the police were utterly confused. Fukuzawa couldn't blame him, especially since he wasn't the type to lecture others. He simply said, "You're hopeless."
"You could say that again." Murakami smiled.
"There is one more thing I want to ask you," continued Fukuzawa. "It's about the man in the suit who was tied up and unconscious. Who is he? Why did you do that to him?"
"Oh, that guy? I heard he's...another one of the plan's objectives," said Murakami with a shrug.
"You 'heard'?"
"Yes. Originally, I came up with this plan with the playwright, Kurahashi, but he apparently had his own goals in mind. I don't know all the details...but apparently that man in the suit rarely ever shows himself, so meeting him was one of Kurahashi's goals or something. I wasn't expecting him to catch the guy and tie him up, though."
"What?" Fukuzawa knitted his brows, at which moment—
"The suspect! Bring me the suspect!"
—what sounded like pounding footsteps was immediately followed by the door to the dressing room being thrown open. A slightly older detective stood at the doorway, trying to catch his breath.
"What happened?" asked Fukuzawa.
"W-Watchdog! We've got big trouble! Has the suspect been here this entire time?!"
"He's been under surveillance the whole time, as you can see."
Fukuzawa glanced at the nervous-looking actor, whose eyes were darting back and forth between Fukuzawa and the detective. It seemed he had no idea what was going on.
"The playwright—he was found dead in his home! Somebody killed him!"
"What?!"
The detective spoke while trying to catch his breath, his eyes shaking with fear.
"The door to his room was locked, and something impaled him from behind—but there was no weapon or any signs of a struggle at the scene! It's like an invisible person just came in and stabbed him!"
Ranpo Edogawa sat in the back of the police car alone, idly gazing at the nightscape as it went by. The sun had disappeared before anyone even noticed. As darkness with hints of blue hung over the city of Yokohama, only white and yellow lights drew his eye as they drifted across the car window's glass like rain. Ranpo stared at the city while resting his elbow on the door. The city's night was bright. The countryside he grew up in didn't have artificial light, and everyone would be getting ready for bed at this hour.
The city is so much better.
Ranpo was absorbed in thought. Boisterous and puzzling still beat out quiet and dismal in his book. He hated the countryside. He hated the people, the school, and essentially everything else there. The only thing he liked was his parents.
"Hey, Officer." Ranpo suddenly struck up conversation with the young cop driving. "How much longer until we get there?"
"We're almost there," the officer answered with a bright, amiable tone.
"Oh," Ranpo vaguely replied before returning his gaze to the city.
After glancing at Ranpo through the rearview mirror, the officer cheerfully said:
"You really impressed me today! Seriously, that deduction made me emotional! You're a real mini detective! You and Fukuzawa make a great team together. I can already see your name in tomorrow's morning paper!"
"Eh, what can I say? But I don't think that old guy's gonna team up with me."
"Huh? Really? I totally thought yo
u two were—"
"He's afraid of others," Ranpo bluntly stated.
A few seconds of silenced passed through the car.
"Uh... That bodyguard guy's supposedly a master martial artist. Plus, he's known to be extremely scary... I heard even the police and military's top brass get nervous when they meet him."
Many members of police organizations hold qualifications in kendo and jujutsu. At times, their respect for masters of the art, be in a senior disciple or instructor, surpasses professional rank and position. Therefore, a martial artist of Fukuzawa's caliber had quite a bit of influence in these organizations. In a sense, Fukuzawa was feared by both villains and police alike.
"It's not quite the same. The old guy is afraid of something else."
"Uh-huh... If you say so. You never cease to impress me. You just met Fukuzawa, and yet you've already seen right through him. I guess you can never underestimate the power of skill users, huh? What was it again? 'The ability to uncover the truth'?"
"Yep," confirmed Ranpo with a relaxed nod. "But you don't believe that, do you?"
"Wait, wait, wait. Of course I do," the officer replied in a panic. He then assumed a fake smile in a troubled manner. "Heh... I guess the cat's out of the bag?"
"You wouldn't even need to be a skill user to see through you. You mentioned that I had 'just met Fukuzawa,' which meant you called headquarters and found out that he and I first met this morning during the case of the murdered CEO. Why? Because you wanted to know how good I was."
"I'm impressed. I underestimated you."
"I don't blame you. I don't like being doubted, so...how about I prove to you that I'm a skill user?"
Ranpo pulled out a pair of black-framed glasses from his pocket—his priceless gift from Fukuzawa.
"Oh, are you sure? What a treat. Feels like I've got a front-row seat to the honored skilled detective's show."
Ranpo put on his glasses with a sigh, then looked out the window.
"This car isn't going to the police station, is it?"
Silence. Ranpo and the officer exchanged glances through the rearview mirror until a few moments went by.
"Sigh. You got me," admitted the officer as he scratched his cheek. "I should have mentioned it before, but I got a call over the radio earlier. They told me there was an accident and to bring the great detective with me."
"I see," said Ranpo. His tone conveyed no indication as to how he was feeling.
"But you wouldn't need to be a skill user to guess that much, right? I mean, I'm not doubting you, though. I just thought that since the police station was near the train station, it would be pretty obvious that we weren't going there."
"You're exactly right." Ranpo grinned. "Shall we raise the bar, then? How about this? You'll ask questions about today's incident, and I'll use my skill to answer. If I get stumped, you win. If I uncover all the mysteries, I win. How does that sound?"
"Oh, now we're talking! It doesn't matter whether I win or lose because this is going to be fun! There's no reason for me to say no! Can I start?"
"Be my guest," Ranpo said.
The officer then pondered to himself for a few seconds while tilting his head.
"I'm sure this is something everyone wanted to ask, but..." The officer tapped the steering wheel with his finger as he spoke. "Like, you remember that man in the suit who was tied up onstage? The one who used the fake name. How was he captured and carried to that spot behind the screen?"
"Using a rug," replied Ranpo while pushing up his glasses with a finger. "There were a few long-haired rugs near the theater entrance, right?"
The officer looked up while rubbing his chin with a finger. "Oh... There were, now that you mention it."
"After the panic, one of those rugs went missing," claimed Ranpo. "The floor was bare, and there was a faint but strange smell coming from where the rug used to be. What's that stuff called again? The stuff you find in paint and plastic that has that weird smell..."
"Organic solvent?"
"Yeah, that's it." Ranpo nodded. "It was faint, but I smelled the same thing coming from the man who was tied up. In other words, the criminal wrapped that man up in the carpet and carried him there. The smell was probably coming from an adhesive. The criminal used a spray adhesive on the carpet to catch that suited man as he tried to escape. Then he used some drug to knock him out before rolling him up in the rug and taking him away. That man must be really good at running away for someone to go through that much trouble."
"Hmm... Well, the stage was very hectic after the incident with ambulance crew and performers cleaning up blood and whatnot, so I guess if someone came walking through with a rug, they wouldn't really stand out... But why? I know the accomplice was probably the one who carried him, but why would he go through all that trouble?"
"It wasn't the playwright."
"Huh?"
"The playwright didn't even lift a finger. In fact...he was probably killed before the play even started," Ranpo added as if it were obvious. A change came over the officer's countenance.
"Th-that can't... Then who?"
"Everyone—other than me, of course—is so stupid and foolish and oh so lovable for it, which is why I wanted to save as many people as I could," Ranpo said as he languidly rolled his neck. "But there's nothing I can do for people who die before I know the truth, and that includes that elderly man who was killed solely to deceive."
"Elderly man...?" asked the officer.
"I'm talking about that poor elderly man who died at the hospital in Murakami's place," said Ranpo with a subtle lift of his brow. "When I was explaining how I solved the mysteries, I lied that Murakami probably switched out IDs with someone who just happened to be similarly injured like him. But wouldn't that just be too convenient for something so important to the trick? It was unnatural. It wouldn't make sense for someone who was elaborate and bold with his scheme to leave things to luck like that. They waited for the perfect moment to stab and kill that elderly man. Sigh... All that just to kidnap a single man?"
"Do you mean...the murder wasn't the objective?"
"That's exactly what I mean. This large-scale scheme was put together solely for the purpose of kidnapping that gentleman in the suit. It was one long, elaborate trap. The playwright and Murakami were being used as well. They're nothing more than pawns, too... Now do you believe I'm a skill user?"
"I—I..."
Ranpo leaned toward the flustered officer. "So how about you just tell me where this car is really heading?"
He then brought his head to the side of the driver's seat and whispered into the man's ear:
"I can smell organic solvent on your clothes, Officer."
"Why can't you get ahold of him?!" roared Fukuzawa.
The second floor of the theater was being used as a temporary police station where they were holding a meeting.
"I told you, I wish I could, but they still haven't arrived at the station. They should have had plenty of time to get there, though..."
Three officers were sitting in the theater's conference room while exchanging information with their colleagues over the phone. The moment Fukuzawa heard that the playwright had been killed, he knew. The case still wasn't over yet. If anything, this was only the beginning.
Because...
"There were two factors to this murder... You can think of it like a shrimp and a whale."
Ranpo knew that from the very start. He knew there were two sides to this case. He figured out there was a greater, more sinister side to this other than the staged murder. The playwright was dead. This wasn't a sham, but a real murder. Murakami had been clearly flustered ever since he heard the news. He was honestly confused and kept asking the police to explain things o
ver and over again.
Fukuzawa felt in his gut that this wasn't an act. While he was nowhere near as talented as Ranpo when it came to observation and reasoning, Fukuzawa had sharp enough insight to see that Murakami's fear was real. Even a famous performer like him had forgotten how to act. Regardless, the playwright's house where he was found was rather far away from the theater, and Murakami had been under police surveillance ever since Ranpo finished his stage monologue. Timewise, it would have been physically impossible for him to go to the playwright's house, kill him, and return to the theater before that.
Who was really the one pulling the strings?
Who was the real culprit?
According to Ranpo:
"It'd be easy to catch the shrimp...but if you want to get the whale, you're gonna have to use the shrimp."
He'd probably already figured out who the "whale" was. Murakami was obviously the shrimp. Ranpo implied that the shrimp was the mediocre part of this case. It made sense, though. Nobody died, and solving the case itself wasn't that difficult, either. Even without Ranpo, Murakami wouldn't have been able to live as a dead man and hide out for the rest of his life. The truth would have come to light.
But in the end, only half the case was solved. There was someone pulling the strings who used Murakami and the playwright for their scheme. The only person who could have answered that was dead. Now the only one who could follow the lost path to the real criminal...was Ranpo.
What if Ranpo's sensationalized monologue onstage was all part of a bigger plan? What if his plan to catch the whale was still ongoing?
"What was the name of the police officer taking Ranpo to the station?" Fukuzawa asked.
"Jun Mitamura," answered the detective, intimidated by Fukuzawa.
"Why can't you reach him?"
"That's odd... His cell phone is turned off. He isn't answering his radio, either."
Fukuzawa began to get impatient.
What happened during the short amount of time he took his eyes off Ranpo? It didn't matter that the kid was a quick-thinking genius. Even if he had already found out who was behind this and was trying to lure them out, he wouldn't stand a chance if they attacked him. He was still just a boy, and the darkness of this lawless city was rampant with violence. Some wouldn't even hesitate to kill a child like Ranpo.
"I'll go look for them." Fukuzawa quickly retired from the conference room.
Something had to have happened to Ranpo while he was heading to the station. Fukuzawa racked his brain, briskly walking forward. Did Ranpo have a plan? But he had no idea how corrupt this city was. Ranpo thought he knew everything, but he wasn't a skill user. There was no way for him to know something unless he saw it with his own eyes.
And the one who made Ranpo believe he was a skill user was none other than Fukuzawa himself. He strode through the lobby until he reached the front entrance. Most of the patrons had left, and the area was now quiet. The moment he walked outside, he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye where Ranpo had gotten into the police car. When he strained his eyes, he saw something white by the building's wall and decided to check it out. It was a white business card. A rock was lying on top, perhaps to keep it from being blown away by the wind. When Fukuzawa got close enough, he immediately recognized that it was his business card.
It can't be—
He picked it up, and sure enough, it did have his name and contact information on it. He couldn't discern who he originally gave it to, though. Fukuzawa flipped the card over. Messily written on the back in pencil was:
Mitamura is the real culprit. Search for the cane.
"No way. Come on." Mitamura shook his head while smiling as he drove. "I can't believe such an extraordinary skill user slipped under our radar."
Ranpo didn't respond. He simply stared at Mitamura through the rearview mirror with his young, piercing gaze behind the glasses.
"I guess it would be impolite to make excuses or deny it in the face of such a master detective. Now that you've found me out, I should probably do the right thing and tell you the truth and my motives," Mitamura continued with a smile. "Just wait a little bit longer, please. There's a more fitting place up ahead for me to welcome you, Master Detective."
"All right, but make it quick," Ranpo demanded with indifference. "It's already late, so I'm getting tired."
"I'll do my best."
The police car drove through the city night until it reached a seemingly empty commercial district. Driving down a road with no streetlights, they soon reach a brand-new four-story building and park.
"We're here. Officially, this building's an office for a 'shipbuilding company' if you know what I mean," Mitamura joked while looking up at the building. "In reality, we own it. It's what they call a shell company. Now, come. Please watch your step."
Ranpo got out of the car as requested, and they walked through the empty building's front door. At a glance, it looked just like any other building in the city. However, there were no lights on inside, nor were there any guards. As Mitamura and Ranpo continued to walk, all that illuminated the dusk was the greenish hue of the emergency lights.
"This way, please."
Mitamura opened a glass door. The room was empty, but one of the walls was completely made from glass, giving a clear view of Yokohama's skyline in the distance. Ranpo started entering the room as requested before speaking up.
"A gun?"
"Hmm?"
"That thing. The gun."
Ranpo pointed at Mitamura's waist. Hanging there was a city police–issued black revolver.
"I've never wanted to die before, but I don't want it to hurt when I do. I've thought about it, though. The moment the bullet pierces your head probably hurts. But I've never talked to a dead guy before, so I can't say for sure."
"Ha-ha. I'm not going to shoot you with this." Mitamura smiled while touching his gun. Then his eyes narrowed. "...As long as you do as I say."
Fukuzawa quickly passed through the empty theater's hallway to the auditorium. Everyone had already gone home, and only Fukuzawa's footsteps eerily echoed. His expression was intense, but there was no hesitation in his gaze. There was only one thing that came to mind when he saw the word cane. He casually climbed up onto the stage, stepped over the faint stain of blood, and headed toward the back.
Fukuzawa immediately found the cane. Underneath the white fabric screen that Ranpo tore down was a T-shaped cane casually lying on the ground. It was somewhat old, but the grip had gold foil decorations embedded in it, suggesting high-end quality. The polished body seemed to be made from a camellia tree. It was the cane that the suited gentleman had been using.
Fukuzawa hadn't heard where the owner of the cane was currently. Some said he was taken to the hospital, while others said he ran away to avoid any complicated matters that may have followed. If he ran away, then there would be no way of finding him now. The cane was what was important at the moment. Fukuzawa immediately noticed something was off when he held it: The center of gravity was somewhat high. Such a small oddity would be noticed only by someone who had held countless wooden swords and real swords, such as Fukuzawa. He carefully checked the handle and noticed a pronounced gap among the decorative gold. Something about as thick as a sheet of paper could be slid into the crack.
He first thought it was a sword cane, a typical weapon for an assassin. It was deadly, as well as something Fukuzawa used on rare occasions, so he was very familiar with them.
But this was different. There wasn't enough space to hide a blade. Then what could it have been used for?
He held down the hidden notch while twisting the handle until the decorations indeed came off, revealing the inside.
"...?"
It was empty. No weapon, no drugs—there was nothing there. It was just a hollowed-out piece of wood.
Why would Ranpo ask me to find this?
Fukuzawa looked into the cavity. It was surprisingly deep. Using what little light he had, he measured the depth. A document could fit inside if it were rolled up first.
—A currently empty crevice.
—A document.
I see.
Fukuzawa figured it out: Whatever was inside had already been taken. It was only reasonable to come to such a conclusion. There was probably something inside it when the suited gentleman was carrying it. Was he bringing it somewhere? Or was he simply trying to keep it close by? He was knocked unconscious, and whatever was in there—perhaps a document of some sort considering the size—was stolen. Then the cane was tossed away after serving its purpose.
The mystery of the suited gentleman, the mystery of the empty cane, and the mystery of the real culprit who had stolen what was inside—there were many questions stemming from this single cane. But it gave no clues to what Fukuzawa needed to know the most: Where was Ranpo?
So Ranpo didn't leave that message to tell Fukuzawa where he was. And the message was clearly from Ranpo; nobody else would have left a note accusing someone of being the true culprit. Was there something else to this cane?
Fukuzawa pondered. Ranpo didn't have time to touch or check the cane. Even then, he knew there was more to it, which is why he told Fukuzawa to find it. While Ranpo may have had unattainable heights of insight, he figured something out about the cane without even touching it. Failing to find out what that was even after examining it was starting to make Fukuzawa feel as if he had failed as an adult.
The only thing that caught Fukuzawa's attention was how relatively easy it felt getting to the hidden cavity. This would be fine for sword canes that needed to be unsheathed at the drop of a hat, but it had to be a lot harder to open for something that was solely made to hide a document.
Fukuzawa discovered the cavity almost instantly. Th
e person who stole whatever was inside probably found out how to open it quickly as well. Perhaps it was a slight oversight.
But from Fukuzawa's point of view, this carelessness didn't match with the impression he had. The gentleman was big game. The culprit had to set up this entire scheme to catch him, since he was so cautious that he had tried to escape the theater the moment he detected something was wrong.
Which meant there was only one other possibility.
Fukuzawa observed the cavity once more. It was perfectly curved without a scratch. He touched it with a finger. To his senses, the polished wood felt almost like a perfect circle. He put his finger in the hole and held the inside while firmly pulling the cane. After a few moments, he felt the inside slightly move. He pulled some more. Thereupon, the inside of the cane popped right out. It was what they call a false bottom, a gimmick to trick thieves into stealing whatever unimportant thing was stuffed in the first cavity. In other words, the real hiding place was in the back side of the interior cylinder.
Fukuzawa gazed into the cylinder he pulled out and instinctively knitted his brows. The back side was an electronic memory device. There was nothing else suspicious about it. Bonded onto the surface of the cylinder was a curved circuit board. Even Fukuzawa almost immediately knew what he was looking at: an ultrathin memory terminal. The hidden cavity was a red herring. While it was a false-bottom cane, the walls of the cylinder itself were the real carriers of information. Fukuzawa had heard rumors of an organization who transported information like this.
"Then that means...," Fukuzawa grunted.
That suited gentleman was a skill user, and he was hiding from a criminal syndicate after him. Now there was finally enough information to reason who the real culprit was.
Fukuzawa began to walk without even a second of hesitation. He could finally see, albeit dimly, the whale that Ranpo was trying to catch.
"So where are we?" Ranpo indifferently asked as he stared out the window.
"One of our more convenient bases. As you can see, we can do whatever we want at night without being seen or heard here. It's the perfect place to do anything, whether it be hiding, having a secret meeting, or—"
"Torturing someone?" Ranpo blurted out, causing Officer Jun Mitamura to raise his eyebrows in a theatrical show of surprise.
"Oh my. I thought I made myself clear earlier. I brought you here simply so we could welcome the great detective into our home. The thought of torture didn't even cross my mind. This is all one big misunderstanding."
"Those are a lot of armed guards for a misunderstanding. There were four—no, five of them, weren't there?" claimed Ranpo with a nonchalant shrug. Mitamura fell silent, seemingly caught by surprise. The guards were perfectly hidden. They were all hired from the outside—foreign ex-military—and they had been trained to be able to observe their target without leaving a single trace. They had been watching from a blind spot, not once ever leaving a footprint or clearing their throat.
"Wow... You never cease to impress me." Mitamura scratched his head in a troubled manner. "How did you know?"
"I told you already. That's my skill," said Ranpo as he put on his glasses.
"Hmm..." After thinking for a moment, Mitamura spread out his arms as if to show he meant no harm. "Well done. But I want to make sure this is clear so that there are no misunderstandings. Those men have absolutely no interest in harming you. They were originally brought here to stand guard and keep an eye on the target—the man in the suit who you revealed onstage to the entire audience. So, essentially, they are just working overtime right now. After all, who knows what kind of lawless thug might come after the world's greatest detective?"
"Lawless thug, huh...? Wish I knew who you were referring to. Anyway, why'd you bring me here?" asked Ranpo as he took a seat in the nearby chair.
"We have ourselves a little situation. As you well know, we had a rather elaborate plan in motion at the theater, so the higher-ups are pretty pissed off. They told me to catch the guy who messed everything up. Wanted me to make you talk. Figure out how you knew the truth. Figure out where you got that leaked information. Rather shortsighted if you ask me. Oh, and don't even get me started on the confidential document I found in that man's cane. Good grief. It was a fake. Can you believe it?" Mitamura shrugged melodramatically. "Of course, it's a big deal if someone leaked our plan to an outside source. It's a matter of internal discipline, after all. But you and me, Great Detective, know that's not the case. It was all thanks to your supernatural ability. That's why it doesn't matter how hard I squeeze you to get an information source out of you. It doesn't exist, right?"
"..."
Mitamura glanced at Ranpo's silent expression before continuing.
"But you know how it is with honor and dignity and all that. I can't let you go that easily, so I'm having a little dilemma here. As things are now, the boss is going to make us hurt you even though we don't want to, and you wouldn't want that, right? I know I wouldn't. So here's my offer..."
Mitamura took a step forward in the dim room. His shadow grew lengthwise in the light coming through the window from the night outside. He sat before Ranpo, who was closing his eyes, then whispered:
"...How about joining us?"
An uncomfortable silence reigned over the room.
"We are men with ambition. Our only wish is to cleanse this country of evil, and we would love to have a talented skill user such as yourself. What do you say?"
The backlight obscured Mitamura's face in the darkness, but one could easily imagine his cold, thin smile from the abyss.
"...Hmm?" Ranpo, sitting down, lifted his head up and looked in the direction of the gaze. "Oh, sorry. You just kept going on and on, so I got bored and stopped listening... Could you make it more interesting next time?"
Mitamura's face froze. A tense air filled the room.
Fukuzawa was rushing toward an underground prison. It was a square, one-story building adjacent to the police station. He had already contacted them in advance, so he greeted the guards and headed straight down the long staircase. Unlike a detention cell that temporarily held suspects, the facility was built with the principal aim to keep any criminals from ever leaving. Fukuzawa reached a thick steel double door. There were no windows in the cell, and the walls were reinforced with steel frames. In the back was a boy.
"You awake?"
The boy wore a straitjacket and was constrained with multiple chains in the empty concrete room. He slowly looked up. His empty, emotionless eyes were a reddish brown. Fukuzawa looked through the narrow observation window on the door and saw the assassin's face. It was the hit man from this morning who'd killed the secretary. He quietly stared at Fukuzawa from under his short crimson hair, not so much as a hint of emotion in his eyes.
"How's the cell?"
"Not as bad as some others. The air-conditioning works."
Even Fukuzawa, who had faced numerous villains and assassins, had never seen eyes like his. Most skilled hit men looked down on others as if they were insects. Their eyes were cold and lacked compassion. But this boy's were different. They weren't cold or any temperature. They were just empty. Not only was there no compassion or kindness, there was no hate or passion to kill. His eyes were those of a person who had given up all hope and despair—the eyes of a person who had removed himself from emotional things.
This kid's different from the old me. Perhaps he never felt any joy from killing others. He was probably only killing because he had nothing else to do.
"I came because there's something I want to ask you," Fukuzawa said, facing the observation window. "Have a look at this."
Fukuzawa held out the case toward the observation window, showing the cylinder with the memory device.
"This is a memory device used by a certain national organization. It needs special equipment to be deciphere
d, and stealing the information inside is next to impossible. It's used by people under the witness protection program so they can remain invisible to the public while exchanging information with the witness protection organization. In other words, key figures targeted by criminal organizations would possess this device. Furthermore, there's something all these key figures have in common. They're all skill users."
Fukuzawa closely observed the hit man, but the hit man's gaze didn't change.
"Now let's talk about why I'm here. You are a highly skilled assassin who's worked for outside organizations as well, I'm sure. So have you received any requests to capture a skill user as of late?"
The boy didn't answer.
"Which is it?"
"...I can't reveal my clients," answered the boy in a hoarse voice.
"Doesn't have to be about your clients' requests." Fukuzawa tried to bargain. "Have you heard recently about anybody around here searching for someone who could capture a skill user alive? It's a difficult target, someone who pops up randomly and is currently under the witness protection program. The client would have asked for this man to be found and captured alive in secret. The payment would have been exceptional, and the client would have kept their identity confidential. The client would have probably called themselves 'Angel' or 'V.'"
The moment the boy heard the name "V," his shoulders twitched. This assassin knows something, Fukuzawa thought.
The government, which didn't officially acknowledge the existence of skill users, was secretly protecting those skill users, and the gentleman in the suit was most likely one of them. They were preeminent figures even in this city, beings sought after by foreign military parties, domestic criminal organizations, and countless enemies. It wasn't clear why these people were after them, but it wouldn't be a stretch to say they held secrets connected to the foundation of the country.
A run-of-the-mill group of thugs wouldn't even be able to find a footprint left by someone of that caliber. Even if they did find them, they wouldn't be able to break through the witness protection organization's police line unless they were a top-class assassin. Plus, the organization behind this—the so-called V—refused to dirty their own hands. They would solely use people from the outside.