“Yeah...funny, really. The last thing I see is a strange kind of bizarre...”
He tried smiling again, but failed, ending with a very asymmetrical expression.
“You…”
“Mm?”
“You haven't answered yet. Will you choose to be as you were?” the shadow asked.
“Heh.”
Shinpei did not know how he planned to answer. He waited expectantly, wondering what.response his heart would produce.
6
“He was here.”
Mo Murder approached the thing lying in a heap, half hidden in the grass behind the crematorium.
Scarecrow was not moving, showing no reaction to his approach. He was well and truly dead.
Mo Murder had expected as much. He had known the loss of blood would have killed him by now
He had calmly waited until he would be able to deal with the corpse away from watching eyes. He pulled some chemicals that would help dispose of the body out of his bag.
“Still,” he muttered, looking down at Scarecrow's face in death.
He looked so proud, like there was not a trace of regret over what he had done. His face was pale and bloodless, but there was something that still shone within it.
“How did he manage to die looking like that?”
Like he'd led a life worth living.
Mo Murder grumbled the whole time he was disposing of Scarecrow's corpse.
“The End is the Beginning is the End” closed.
Chapter 3
Style
1
The office currently overseeing the copyrights to the works of Kirima Seiichi, eight years after his death, was in the corner of a low-rent building away from the main traffic of the city.
The office manager was an eighteen-year-old high school girl named Kirima Nagi, who visited two or three times a month to clean. She conducted all actual business by mail, so the office was mainly used for storage.
There were two doors. The first had no lock, so that guests could enter and wait comfortably. The second door served as the true entrance to the office.
“…………”
Nagi silently unlocked the three different locks on the door.
Inside, she looked around to see if anyone was there, a habit acquired long ago. Of course, there was no one here.
As always, this made her sigh.
She glanced at the shelves of her father's works, which lined the walls, and headed for the kitchen.
She took out the kettle, filled it with water, and placed it on the burner. The former resident had illegally altered the burner, and it was extremely powerful. The water boiled in no time at all.
She used the boiling water to make a pot of tea. Judging from the stains on the floor, the former occupant had been a coffee drinker, but she preferred tea.
“Coffee is what American detectives drink,” she murmured absently.
She was here to clean, but instead she sprawled on the sofa, drinking several cups of tea and staring absently at the ceiling.
In all likelihood, nobody had ever seen her acting this lazy. Everyone thought of her as frighteningly collected, and she had earned herself the nickname
“Fire Witch.” She deliberately lived up to the part.
But in this one place she was free to be an ordinary listless, apathetic high school girl, doing nothing at all.
Every now and then she whispered,
“Not yet...still not there...” as if there were someone in the room with her.
By the time she found the office, the previous tenant had already vanished. Everything inside had been hauled away.
She had quickly decided to rent the empty office, shortly after she'd turned fourteen. Ever since, she had come here to do nothing.
Absently, she picked one of Kirima Seiichi's books up off the table. The Victor’s Principle, The Victim's Future.
“Unfortunately, genuine effort is never understood by others. It is only understood when you emerge victorious, but when you win, the beauty of the effort extended is subverted into something else entirely. The true fruits of effort lie only within that which is sacrificed.”
It was hard to understand what he was trying to say, but then ambiguity was a distinct characteristic of her father's writings. Nagi was never quite sure why they sold so well.
“Ah-ahhh,” she said, tossing the book aside.
“All my efforts are in vain, Dad...”
Muttering, she stood up, washed the cup and pot, and put them away.
Then she left the office without ever getting around to cleaning. She headed toward the parking meter where her bike was parked, but suddenly she frowned, staring at the garbage area on the ground beneath her.
She saw the battered body of a dead crow lying next to the garbage. It was not a particularly unusual place for a crow to die, but she bent down and picked it up without the slightest hesitation. She turned it over in her hands, examining it.
“…………”
There was no trace of the carefree expression that had been on her face a short moment ago. Her eyes were again those of the Fire Witch.
She stuffed the dead crow into a plastic bag, tied it shut, and stowed it away in her handbag.
Then she pulled out a cell phone and dialed it quickly. It rang once, and someone answered,
“This is Habara.”
“It's me, Kentaro,” she said, using a masculine pronoun.
“Oh! What? Something happening?” Habara Kentaro burbled happily on the other end of the line. He was a year younger than Nagi.
“You free?”
“Couldn't be freer! What do you need? I'm up for anything!” he yelped, excitedly.
Nagi managed a pained smile,
“Right, then I've got a favor to ask. Check out the garbage piles around the west side of town and see if there's something there.”
“Garbage piles...hmm, and what am I looking for?”
“Dead animals.”
“Ick! Why?”
“I'm not forcing you to do anything.”
“N-noo I'll do it! Sure! Dead...like what?”
“Anything. Just see if anything's there, no need to bring any samples back.”
She did not bother to mention that she would do that.
“Ok. If I'm on the west side, will you be checking the east?”
“Yeah. Meet me at the usual place on the national road. In two hours.”
“Sure. Oh, hey...”
“What?”
“When we're done, mind if I eat at your place?”
Nagi smiled her pained smile again.
“Hitting on Aya?”
“O-of course not!” Kentaro stammered, flustered.
“Just kidding,” Nagi said, amused.
“I'll call her.”
“Great, thanks.”
She should be thanking him, she thought, but hung up without saying so.
Her smile vanished, and she glared at the garbage pile again.
“So,” she said, her eyes gleaming.
2
It had been nearly five years since Kirima Nagi began secretly helping people.
She started right after she had abruptly recovered from the illness that kept her in the hospital for six months. Exactly why she had recovered remained a mystery. All she knew was that her body was healthy once again, and there were several months to go before she could reenter school.
She honed her weakened body by training with an old friend of her father's, her guardian, Sakakibara Gen. He was a karate expert, and in no time her physical instincts were sharp as a blade.
Afterward, Gen had found himself in a spot of trouble. It was serious enough that he had to leave Japan. When he left her, Nagi felt like she might have been able to save him if she had tried.
That event, along with a few other things, started her on her current trajectory.
When she began only he knew what she was doing, but now she had friends like Suema Kazuko, Niitoki Kei, and Habara Kenta
ro, who'd gotten mixed up in something she'd dealt with and afterward pledged to help her out when she needed it.
Nagi was doing her level best to avoid putting any of them in danger. In the past she had lost a very good friend because of her choice to involve the person in her business. Habara Kentaro, in particular, was continually sniffing around after her, poking his nose into dangerous places. That was exactly why Nagi had begun asking for his help when she was fairly sure matters would not turn out to be too dangerous. Not that Kentaro's abilities weren't impressive -- he'd taken care of one big incident all on his own.
Even so, Nagi was constantly reminding herself not to rely on him unless it was absolutely safe -- or absolutely necessary.
***
“Welcome home!”
When Nagi and Kentaro had finished their investigations and returned to Nagi's home, her housemate Orihata Aya greeted them brightly.
“Hey, Aya-chan! Long time no see!” Kentaro called out.
Aya snorted,
“Habara-san, you were just here last week.”
“Oh? Was I?”
Both of them laughed.
“That smells good. What is it?” Nagi asked, pulling her boots off.
“Beef stew. I was making a lot anyway, so when I heard Habara-san was coming...it was kind of a relief, honestly.”
“You're so nice,” Kentaro said, nodding earnestly. Then he suddenly asked,
“Oh, right -- mind if I wash my hands?”
He was off down the hall before anyone answered. He'd been over often enough to know where the washroom was.
Nagi shook her head.
Aya stared blankly after him.
“What's with that?”
“Probably touched a dead cat or something,” Nagi said.
Aya's eyes widened,
“O-oh...”
“More importantly, dinner's waiting, right? Sorry we were late...”
“Oh, no, not at all,” Aya said, shaking her head and smiling.
Looking at Aya, Nagi marveled again at how much happier the girl seemed. When they first started living together she had been very stiff but she had opened up considerably since then.
She had originally been friends with Nagi's stepbrother, Masaki. But a certain incident had left her alone in the world, and Nagi had taken her in. Nagi was only a minor, but she was also wealthy.
No sooner had the three of them sat down to eat than Kentaro, spoon still in his mouth, moaned,
“You're getting even better, Aya-chan!”
“Thank you!” she said, beaming.
“He's right. Your training's paying off,” Nagi agreed, once she'd tasted it.
Aya was attending a cooking school. It was pretty intense -- designed specifically for would-be professionals. Aya had decided that the best way to plan for her future was to ensure her employability, so she had quit high school and enrolled there.
“But I'm afraid it does taste a little burnt. That's a problem for stew,” Nagi said.
Kentaro sighed dramatically.
“Harsh, isn't she?”
“No, I actually prefer to have people come right out and tell me if something is wrong. Helps me improve,” Aya said, smiling.
“She keeps pushing you too, huh? Bet it would be a lot more fun to cook for Masaki,” Kentaro teased.
Aya turned bright red.
“N-no, I..”
“Shame he's been confined to the dorm as punishment for truancy. You never see him!”
“Oh, but I don't...”
“She calls him every day,” Nagi interrupted.
“Oh, she does? Hee hee hee.”
“Augh...” Aya moaned, softly.
“But you do miss him, right?” Kentaro said, insistently.
Aya didn't answer.
Instead, Nagi said calmly,
“They're better off apart for the moment. Give them both some time to cool their heads.”
“Maybe so. Oh, Nagi, what's going on with the Taniguchi house? With Masaki in the dorm and you in the apartment, is anyone living there? Masaki's parents are still abroad, right?”
“It's empty,” Nagi said, simply.
Kentaro grimaced.
“That's a shame. If his parents come back and find the place deserted they'll be shocked.”
“Do you want to live there -- look after it? You can take the rent out of your pay. You should end up getting about fifty thousand yen a month.”
“You always were stingy,” Kentaro sighed, then began plowing through his stew.
“Mm, this is so good!”
“There's plenty more!” Aya said, and Kentaro quickly held out his empty bowl.
Despite her complaints, Nagi ate steadily as well.
She felt very much at home.
***
“...corpses at about a third of the locations...?” Nagi said, glancing over the notes Kentaro had taken. They were done eating and had moved to the living room.
“Like you said, a decent number. They'll probably be eaten by other animals by tomorrow, but...”
“So many different kinds, too.. ."Aya said, glancing over the data.
“Crows, rats...”
“The garbage areas...the animals would only have been able to feed for an hour or two before the garbage was collected. It was collected this morning, but then why didn't they take the dead animals? Or were they placed there after the trash was picked up?”
“But what for?”
“Hmm...maybe it was just a prank?”
“But if you put dead crows and rats in a garbage pile, nobody would notice. Pranksters would go for something more obvious.”
“Good point.”
“…………”
Based on the notes, Nagi began breaking down the data.
“Find anything?”
“The only noteworthy fact so far is that there are no corpses in the larger collection areas,” Nagi said.
“Ah!” Aya exclaimed.
“You're right!”
“I didn't notice. Yeah, they were all in narrow residential streets, nothing near big apartment complexes or office buildings,” Kentaro shook his head, bitter that he'd overlooked the pattern.
“But what does it mean?”
“Hmm...” Kentaro thought hard.
“Maybe they were poisoned? The poison could've been mixed into the garbage. Maybe it was some sort of sick prank...”
“But if it was poison, the bodies wouldn't be damaged. Instead, they would have thrown up, and you'd see evidence of that,” Aya pointed out.
“Urp,” Kentaro said.
“M-maybe the rats got them afterward?”
“Rats would have taken the whole body somewhere safe before consuming it.”
“Urp.” Kentaro clutched his head.
“When Nagi first called I didn't think this was a big deal, but...the more I look at it, the less sense it makes.”
“............” Nagi silently pored over the information.
“Nagi, what do your instincts say?” Kentaro asked.
Aya nodded, clearly wanting to know. Both of them stared at Nagi.
“The corpses were not taken away, probably because it was against regulations,” Nagi said quietly.
“Regulations? What do you mean?”
“No, wait...you mean the garbage collector's contracts? Corpses don't count as garbage?”
“Oh, that makes sense,” Aya nodded.
Kentaro did as well, continuing,
“If you put out oversized garbage it just gets left there as well. Dead animals are probably the same. That explains why they aren't left in the big places as well. Those places would have different people collecting, and it would all get hauled away together.”
Nagi agreed.
“Some of the garbage men probably picked it up without thinking. But if they left it there, they weren't being lazy. There are strict regulations about that sort of thing.”
“So corpses weren't at a third of the places, but at a lot more?”
“It seems to be a reasonable assumption.”
“Then what is going on? This is happening on such a large scale...” Kentaro groaned.
“That makes me understand it even less!”
“…………”
Nagi stared down at the information without answering.
***
At two o'clock in the morning, Aya's eyes snapped open. The sound of the air conditioner through the wall had woken her.
She pulled a cardigan over her pajamas and left her room. Nagi was still up, with thin rubber gloves on, examining the dead crow on the table.
“Um,” she said.
“You have school tomorrow,” Nagi said, not turning around.
“Go back to bed.”
“Y-yeah...you too.”
“Yeah. Just as soon as I check this one thing,” she said, her hands never pausing. She would be up all night. She always was. She usually slept in class, instead.
“…………”
Aya stared at her back for a while.
After a minute, Nagi turned around.
“What? Something on your mind?”
“N-not really. I just...you're really working hard, I thought.”
“It's a habit by this point,” Nagi said, shrugging.
“How do you do it?” Aya found herself asking.
“How? Hmm...let's see. Aya, why do you like Masaki?”
“Eh?” Aya said, surprised.
“Uh, well, b-because...um...” She couldn't find the words.
Nagi grinned at her.
“See? Not everything can be explained.”
Aya was flustered now. She had only wanted to express her admiration.
“...sorry,” she said, lowering her gaze.
“Nothing to apologize for,” Nagi grimaced, and turned back to her work.
Aya watched her a little longer.
Eventually, Nagi asked,
“Aya, would you make some tea?”
“S-sure!” Aya said, brightening visibly. She bolted for the kitchen.
“Earl Grey?”
“Yeah. In a pot. Milk on the side, I'll add it myself.”
Boogiepop At Dawn Page 4
