Volume 4, Chapter 2: Hishigami Enbi // The Present Fluctuates Freely Part 10-14

This chapter is updated by wuxiaworld.eu

Part 10 (3rd person)

Uchimaku Hayabusa asked Detective Sotobori Gaku, a specialist in organized crime, how to deal with the large criminal organization and he was readily told to meet up the following day. He did not know the details, but it seemed that was the perfect timing.

The next morning, Uchimaku travelled to Shinjuku via train. On the way, he met up with Sotobori and walked down a road that was crowded even on a weekday.

“How are we going to get in to speak with them?”

“We just need a justification.”

They were in an area of Kabukichou crammed full of small multi-tenant buildings. A black luxury car was parked there as if ignoring the width of the road. Naturally, no one paid any attention to it.

Sotobori smiled and waved as he approached it.

“Hi there. It’s the police.”

“What do you want? We aren’t looking for anything obvious like protection money.”

A young man with short hair stepped forward. He seemed to be a driver, a bodyguard, or both.

Sotobori ignored him and tried to peer inside the car.

“Is there someone important in here? This is a G550 class, isn’t it? These cost 20 million yen.”

“Get your hand off the door! This is no different from a searching a home. Bring a warrant first!!”

“By the way, did you know this is a no parking zone?”

“Then…”

“You’ve left yourself wide open, you goddamn idiot.”

Sotobori Gaku’s smile never wavered as he kicked the luxury car with enough force to bend the bumper.

“You piece of-…! What the hell do you think you’re- Vggah!!!??”

The young man tried to grab at him, so Sotobori grabbed his neck with the opposite arm.

And he lifted him up.

“Here’s a little lesson, you thug. If you park on a downward slope, step out to pick something up at a shop, didn’t put on the hand brake quite enough, and the car rolls down and hits someone, it’s your responsibility.”

“Gh…oh?”

“This is a no parking zone and your parked car just injured my leg. That’s 100% your responsibility. Sounds like a case the police should get involved in, doesn’t it!?”

With that said, Sotobori tossed the young man onto the hood of the car. The man’s butt broke off the emblem that symbolized the luxury car and he looked as upset as a child on the verge of tears.

The tinted glass on the back door then slowly lowered.

A middle-aged man inside had a troubled frown on his face.

“How about you stop teasing him? He only joined us last month, so he doesn’t know how to treat people yet.”

“You got anything dangerous in there?”

“Avoiding anything that can be traced is the key to a long life. Instead of pointlessly threatening you, that fool should have just let you through.”

The car door opened and Sotobori Gaku and Uchimaku Hayabusa climbed inside. Unlike a normal car, the seats were situated around the perimeter of the back area which was completely separated from the driver’s seat by glass.

Sotobori did not hesitate to pull out a handgun and tap the muzzle on the glass divider near the driver’s head.

“If this thing moves a single millimeter, I’ll blow his brains out for abducting us. Make sure he knows that.”

“He is well acquainted with our rules. Now, what would you like to discuss?”

“Usuta Manabu,” said Uchimaku. “The sound staff member who burned himself to death. He was heavily in debt due to your ‘affiliates’. You had ordered him to investigate Tarot Girls 22. …But you weren’t actually after a scandal, were you? I’ve also heard the top of the industry stands out too much for people in your business.”

“And?”

“The Wheel of Suffering. That’s a human control Package that uses the Youkai called an Aburatori. You were investigating that so you could crush it.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“This is no time to be searching out how much I know.” Uchimaku let out a gentle breath. “Tarot Girls 22 was using the Wheel of Suffering method to control the idols, but what about you? Was it to control the poor customers who were hopelessly in debt? No. If that’s all you wanted, you wouldn’t need a Package. You could’ve just used their debt. …So where were you using the Wheel of Suffering method?”

“That one’s not too hard to figure out,” said Sotobori with a grin. “To fight the new systems put in place to eliminate organized crime, you built up an international network connected to gangs and mafias from countries around the world. China, Columbia, Italy, Africa, Eastern Europe… Your forces are spread out over a vast area to prevent any one nation’s police from reaching you, but that makes it easy for different parts of the same giant organization to come into conflict. You’ve gathered together different countries and cultures from around the world, so you never know when or why some kind of trouble will break out.”

“And so you used a human control package to gather together your criminal organization under a unified set of rules.”

Uchimaku slowly presented that card while convinced of their victory.

And he was naturally watching his opponent’s face as he did so.

“But did you really have the foreign members’ consent in this? Did they understand you were using a Package that includes a Youkai, a concept that can’t be translated into any other language? If the Japanese Comfort Association started it without telling them anything, that would be a problem. If they viewed it as a coup d’etat to take full control, it would trigger that internal conflict you fear so much.”

“…”

The middle-aged man fell silent.

He did not confirm or deny the accusation, so Uchimaku continued speaking.

“In that case, Tarot Girls 22 was a thorn in your side. You wanted to keep things as hidden as possible, but any contact between the idols and members of your large criminal organization would cause conflict and send your Package out of control. If it had been a normal person, you could have just killed them and buried them in the mountains, but an idol group at the top of the industry stood out too much. That’s why you had someone investigate Tarot Girls 22, no matter how dangerous it was. You wanted to destroy the idols’ human control Package and then slip back into hiding.”

Tarot Girls 22’s human control Package had been destroyed, but there was no guarantee its effects would fully vanish right away. It could take days or even weeks. As long as the large criminal organization’s Package was still running with those negative effects remaining, there was still a risk of something unpredictable happening.

“Whatever the case, it looks like we don’t have much time.” Sotobori shrugged. “If this comes to light, your Japanese branch is the one that will suffer. You don’t want to experience the varied torture and execution methods the international community has to offer, do you? And we would prefer for our peaceful country to not end up at war. Public servants don’t get a pay bonus for enemies defeated and those foreign groups tend to use rocket launchers and armored trucks. We also don’t want any civilian victims.”

“Are you asking me to cooperate?”

“End your Package right this instant. Also, hand over a list of the blacklisted debtors who may have come into contact with Tarot Girls 22. They’re having a concert at the Toyosu Outdoor Concert Hall soon and it’s all over for you if any of them die or go crazy in the middle of that, right?”

The middle-aged man gave a heavy sigh and tossed a clipboard to Uchimaku.

As soon as the two detectives left the luxury vehicle, someone spoke.

“That was a quick decision.”

This new voice seemed to slip into the vehicle. A slender young man was sitting inside. Not only had the detectives not noticed he had been sitting there the entire time, but the middle-aged man who had known he was there had completely forgotten until just now.

He was a fortuneteller hired by the Comfort Association and he was the one who had actually put together this Package.

The middle-aged man spoke with clear annoyance in his voice.

“Your method would never have settled this. The members were automatically infected by the Package from the top levels down, so there was still a danger of a conflict of some sort. There was never a safe way of infiltrating Tarot Girls 22.”

“I truly apologize.”

“No, I was wrong to rely on you for this. And we still need a specialized advisor to revise the Aburatori Package. I look forward to working with you in the future, master.”

Part 11

“Any success, detective?”

“You idiot! Why are you standing around this dangerous shopping district wearing not much more than a swimsuit!? Well, I can get after you for that later. Hey, Sotobori. Copy this and send it out to everyone! We need to call all these people and check their residences!!”

The detective was shouting something while photographing a number of documents with his cell phone camera. It looked like he had made some progress inside that luxury car.

I peered over and pointed at something.

“Look, detective. This list has that AD we saw at Hachi TV. It’s Akashi Mitsu-chan.”

“What!? But this is a list of people heavily in debt to the consumer moneylenders involved with that large criminal organization!”

“Hah hah hah.”

The guy who looked like he was wearing armor made of muscles spoke up from the side.

“Did the TV industry look that nice to you, Uchimaku-chan? It brings in a lot of money to the top earners, but it isn’t easy reaching that point. Those who never make it anywhere will never earn more than your average part-timer. And since they have to go along with the extravagant industry rules and events, it isn’t uncommon for them to make use of loan sharks.”

“Then it’s possible she was being used by them. And due to the conflict between Packages, the puppeteer’s strings will have snapped.”

“Akashi Mitsu. She would bite her thumbnail when we spoke, wouldn’t she?”

“Infantile regression is a type of defense mechanism. It’s a lot like how Anemura Kaede-chan the Empress would cross her arms when she felt awkward, so that AD might have been trying to force down a similar sort of pressure.”

“You mean the competition between Packages was affecting her? Dammit!!”

The detective frantically pulled out his phone and called the number on the list.

But after about ten seconds he clicked his tongue.

“She isn’t answering!!”

“Detective, for three days starting today, Tarot Girls 22 is having concerts at the Toyosu Outdoor Concert Hall. Hachi TV is supporting them, so she must be at the TV station! What is she in charge of and what’s her schedule!?”

“How am I supposed to know!? …No, wait.”

He began calling another number.

I glanced at the screen and saw the name Atou Minori.

“You want to know where Mitsu-chan is?” said the voice over the phone. “Hold up. Have you started going after younger girls now? You’re going to make me sad. I feel like I’ve been thrown out to die.”

“What? I already know you’re an idiot, so please understand that this is an emergency!!”

“She should have been at the concert hall in Toyosu since this morning. She’s part of the filming team, but she’s more or less a security guard meant to guide the audience.”

After ending the call, he waved down a taxi.

The other detective who looked like the captain of a judo team was taken aback.

“What am I supposed to do!?”

“Check the residences on the blacklist. Akashi Mitsu is the most suspicious, but there might be others who could be set off at the same time. Check out all the other possibilities!!”

I used the confusion to slip into the back seat of the taxi.

“What are you doing, mystery freak!?”

“If you don’t scoot over, I’ll sit on your lap.”

The taxi started on the way to the outdoor concert hall.

Now, then. Now, then.

“That AD can get in and out of the concert hall more easily than anyone else. Will we actually make it in time?”

“If something happened, the news would reach the taxi’s radio. Also, if a member of Tarot Girls 22 is killed like this, gangs and mafias from all over might start a war inside Japan.”

Part 12

The result was completely anticlimactic.

The detective pulled out his police badge and forced his way into the staff entrance, but the facility was completely carefree. We found nothing remotely resembling an incident. A temp worker glared at him while clearly suspecting he was abusing his authority to get a signature.

There was a concert every morning, noon, and night and they were currently on a break.

“Where is Akashi Mitsu?” asked the detective while looking all around in a corridor. “Akashi Mitsu, an AD from Hachi TV, should be here. Does anyone know where she is!?”

The sweaty staff members who had towels around their necks all shook their heads.

However, they did not simply mean they had not seen her.

“We haven’t heard anything from her. She normally never misses a day, so she must’ve been really unlucky to oversleep on the morning of such a major event.”

“…”

It was not that everything was fine. It was because everything wasn’t fine that Akashi Mitsu-chan wasn’t here.

The difficult part of this case was how we could not predict how the conflict between human control Packages would show itself. The person might try to kill Tarot Girls 22 or they might secretly commit suicide. In the latter case, it was possible she was no longer alive.

At that point, the detective received an unexpected phone call.

It was from the muscular detective we had parted ways with earlier.

“This has gotten dangerous, Uchimaku. You need to get out of there right away!!”

“What?”

“I checked Akashi Mitsu’s apartment. It was empty, but I found her on the surveillance cameras of the nearby stores. She stole a tanker truck refueling at a nearby gas station!! It was full of the waste liquid used in gilding. In other words, a high concentration of cyanide. If she even gets into an accident and the truck catches on fire, it’ll spread a deadly gas over the entire area!! Smoke that will kill anyone who inhales even a little will cover several hundred meters!!”

“Seriously? Do you know where she’s headed!?”

“The truck’s GPS is still active and she’s headed straight for the Toyosu Outdoor Concert Hall! Even if she drives the speed limit, she’ll be there in less than ten minutes!!”

Oh, dear.

It seemed Akashi Mitsu-chan went on the attack when she felt cornered. Just swinging around a knife would only kill one or two people, so she had chosen to drive a tanker truck of poison into the concert hall so she could kill every member of the group.

I asked a question just to be sure.

“Do you think we can evacuate everyone in time?”

“The midday concert is about to begin, so there are fifty thousand people in here. She’ll ram into the building while we’re slowly guiding everyone out! Unlike a dome, this is an outdoor concert hall, so the wind will carry the poison gas in even if we stop her with a barricade!!”

After shouting his answer back at me, the detective focused on his cell phone again.

“Hey, Sotobori. Where’s the closest police box to here? Or the closest police car! There’s gotta be one driving around to look for scalpers, right!?”

“Wh-what? There’s probably one at the train station near there. If they don’t put a police box there, all sorts of shady people would gather.”

“Send the GPS signal to my cell phone. Please!”

“Wait a second. What are you planning!?”

“I have to do what I can.”

He ended the call, clicked his tongue, and kicked the corridor wall as hard as he could.

Some people must have heard the commotion because a few heads poked out from behind a corner. They were Tarot Girls 22 members. The Lovers, the Emperor, and the Hanged Man were all wearing their stage outfits and Anemura Kaede-chan the Empress was mixed in with them.

It was a fairly trivial thing that led people to truly resolve themselves for something.

The detective brushed a hand through his bangs and finally spoke to Anemura Kaede-chan.

“I’ll do something about this, so don’t lose to those numbers or that monster or whatever. What you’re doing here is worth risking one’s life for. And all the people gathered here think the same thing.”

With that, he ran off somewhere and left me behind.

One of the staff members with a towel around his neck gave a dumbfounded comment.

“He was asking where a police car is, wasn’t he? Don’t tell me he’s going to run off on his own.”

I heard a loud sound.

It was only after I heard it that I realized my hands had grabbed at the man’s neck and slammed him against the wall.

“You don’t seem to understand a thing about this, so let me enlighten you.”

But I did not care.

I had seen all sorts of crimes, but I simply couldn’t stand it when someone survived after standing around without a thought in their head and without making any effort whatsoever.

“He was asking about the police cars because he plans to stop the tanker truck by ramming it with his own car, you idiot!!”

Part 13 (3rd person)

Uchimaku Hayabusa ran off the outdoor concert hall’s grounds, descended the steps of a pedestrian bridge, and climbed into a police car parked on the side of the road. The uniformed police officer who had gotten out to look for scalpers cried out, but Uchimaku ignored him and drove off.

He ignored the law and pulled out his cell phone while driving.

“What’s wrong, Sotobori!? Where’s the tanker truck data!?”

“Are you serious, dammit? Giving you that is tantamount to cop killing! And you have to be crazy to think you can stop a tanker truck with a small 4-door!!”

“I know that. I’m going to hit the connector from the side and detach the rear tank. Unlike in movies, that tank is solid enough to stand up to a bullet. We don’t have to worry about it rupturing unless it’s enveloped in flames and the internal pressure builds up. And the tank is only being towed along. If it’s separated from the engine on the front, we can avoid the worst case scenario!!”

“But what about you!?”

“If I don’t do this, fifty thousand people will be dragged into this. And putting up a barricade to stop it would sacrifice all the people on that area of the road. The only way to end this cleanly is to use an intersection to ram into the side from a right angle! And to do that, I need the truck’s location. Are you going to help me or not!?”

“Dammit!!”

That shout was followed by a simple message from the map service. He displayed the map instead of the call and saw a new dot added.

The Toyosu area was made by several areas of reclaimed land connected by bridges. It was easier to predict the tanker truck’s path than in Shinjuku or Shibuya which were filled with a complicated network of intersections between large and small roads.

“It looks like these three intersections would be the best ones. Sotobori, I’m going to ram the tanker to stop it, but I want to avoid any civilian deaths from secondary damages. There are more uniformed officers around the concert hall for security, right?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Report a bomb threat or whatever it takes. Just have those officers evacuate the pedestrians from the intersections. Right now!!”

In truth, Anemura Kaede the Empress had not liked singing, dancing, or gathering attention.

She had developed better or faster than her peers and the focus from her male classmates during PE had frightened her and brought about her current withdrawn personality.

She had wanted to overcome that part of herself.

She had been afraid that the part of herself she did not like would determine who she was.

That was why she had steered herself in the opposite direction she would have normally taken and that had just so happened to succeed. She had gradually come to enjoy singing and dancing, but she had never been working toward any original hope or dream like the police detective had said.

But what was it she had originally wanted to do?

What circles had she wanted to join once she had overcome her insecurities?

After thinking that far, she gave a small smile.

She had never thought about it.

Ultimately, that was her answer. She could not find anything she wanted to be proud of or that she wanted to protect, but that did not matter. She suddenly felt incredibly foolish for having feared those numbers or that monster.

If those things wanted to surpass her, she could let them.

Even if they did, she could continue on with what she believed would change her.

All of the people here proved that. She did not need the “number” of fifty thousand. If even a single person arrived wanting to see her performance, that was enough to prove it.

“U-um, what are we going to do? We can’t evacuate everyone, but can’t we at least evacuate the girls?”

The adults were discussing something, so she gathered her strength and cut in.

“No, let’s do this. If the crowd panics here, it could lead to deaths. We too should risk our lives for the people who have gathered here.”

She faced straight forward as she spoke and she had a quiet thought.

Now, let’s head out onto the battlefield that has been prepared exclusively for us.

The tanker truck was closer than expected.

It was ignoring traffic lights and signs and it was performing reckless U-turns, so horns were sounding all over.

It was five hundred meters from the intersection and it would arrive in less than thirty seconds.

Uchimaku gave a heavy sigh and stepped on the gas pedal.

But then…

“Detective☆”

“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!?”

He let out a true scream when he saw a girl’s face in the rearview mirror. The police car weaved a bit while moving at full speed.

“Wha- You- Why the hell are you here!?”

“This whole incident has left me feeling exhausted. When you get involved with people who are still alive, you have a way of getting seriously reckless. If I hadn’t climbed aboard, you would’ve gone off to die, right? I won’t get mad, so just tell me.”

Hishigami Enbi the Mystery Freak could still grin despite saying she was using her own life as a shield.

“Now, detective. You aren’t going to get a middle school girl killed for your own selfishness, are you? Then what are you going to do? How are you going to protect all these innocent people’s lives?”

“Goddamn you!!”

He punched the steering wheel.

But then he switched over his train of thought.

“Thank you all for showing up even though we started on a weekday!!”

A girl shouted as loud as she could with a microphone in hand and with the Fool and the Universe on either side of her.

Anyone who did not know might think this was a safe zone filled with people who would only show kindness to Anemura Kaede the Empress, but in truth, this kind of audience was cruelly honest and frank

In a year or three or five, the same people here might not gather like this. The most trivial of things had brought them in and an equally trivial thing would have them leaving in droves. The lifespan of an idol was truly short. That was the first truth they were taught at their debut.

For that reason, this was a battlefield.

If she failed even once during these three days…no, during the three performances for this day alone, it could set a fatal series of events in motion.

“To be honest, I worried about a lot before today. I was exposed to baseless rumors, pursued by unseen numbers or monsters, and just about lost sight of what made this so enjoyable.”

At this crucial moment, she completely removed her mask for once.

And then she smiled.

This was not a fake smile. This was an expression that could only be seen when the mask was lowered.

“But in the end, I just can’t let all of this go. I was reminded of that fact! I love this stage to a lowly, shameful, and disgraceful degree!! And I won’t give it up to anyone. I am doing this for the fans who showed up today, for the staff who prepared the stage for me, and for the people who are secretly fighting to protect this stage!!”

The first song’s intro began to play and the lighting clearly changed as she gave one last shout.

“I will not back down!! No matter what!!”

“Whatever the case, I can’t change my plan now. I have only one shot at this and fifty thousand lives are on the line!”

“And? You aren’t someone who will tell a minor to die because of that, are you?”

Uchimaku clicked his tongue and removed his seat belt.

“We can use the reclining lever. But let me be clear. Even this only has a fifty-fifty chance of survival! I’ll do what I can, but don’t blame me if you die!!”

“Sure, sure. I like the look in your eyes. That’s the detective I love.”

They were approaching the final intersection.

He kept the police car at full speed despite the traffic light.

And then a giant form entered from the side and blocked their way.

“Found it!”

“She looks pretty surprised.”

Someone with a clearly shocked expression sat in the tanker truck’s driver’s seat. And it seemed even someone trying to kill fifty thousand people would honk their horn.

But it was too late.

With two people aboard, the police car rammed into the side of the tanker truck’s connector at full speed.

The small, cute police car almost seemed to slip below the truck and it was turned to scrap in an instant. The sounds of shattering glass and bending metal exploded into the air.

Its height was literally crushed down to less than half of what it had been.

Meanwhile, the truck’s connecter had a great strain put on it as it was lifted up from below. As it twisted, a solid sound of snapping burst out. The rear tank rolled along like a toy and scattered orange sparks as it scraped along the asphalt. The front portion slammed into the pole for the traffic light and stopped moving.

There was no explosion or poison gas.

All that remained was the continuous sound of glass shards falling onto the asphalt.

The police car had been smashed flat and nothing remained of the driver’s seat or the back seat.

A clanking sound came from within the back door that had been crushed beyond recognition. Someone was kicking it. The door’s latch must have been broken in the impact because it opened with a loud creak.

Uchimaku Hayabusa and Hishigami Enbi were embracing each other in the back seat’s foot space.

Just before the impact, Enbi had pulled the reclining lever and pulled Uchimaku toward her when his chair had fallen back.

“Ow, ow, ow,” said Uchimaku. “H-how’s the outdoor concert hall?”

“It’s fine, of course.”

“Any damage to the surrounding area?”

“There was a good bit of destruction, but it doesn’t look like anyone died. The tank’s contents are fine too.”

“Can we even get out of here?”

“Eh heh. I’m fine with staying in here like this for a while longer.”

“This is no time for cruel jokes.”

The Aburatori human control Package surrounding the Tarot Girls 22 had been stopped. The one used by the large criminal organization was still an unknown, though. It was unclear how far the data corruption from the competition had spread, so the risk of a future incident remained until they confirmed that the Package had been completely brought to an end.

Part 14 (3rd person)

The national TV stations did not provide special news broadcasts unless something truly major happened. The internet news sites received information faster, but they lacked credibility.

Surprisingly, radio was treated as the medium that had both immediacy and credibility.

That was why the old system still remained after so long.

Inside a black luxury car caught in a traffic jam, a middle-aged man breathed a sigh of relief while listening to the announcer on a special-order audio system that included vacuum tubes.

“So they somehow managed to avoid the worst case scenario.”

As a part of the Comfort Association, the Japanese branch of a large criminal organization, they had secretly completed a Package involving an Aburatori. Due to growing to a global scale, conflicts could break out between the members of different nationalities and cultures, so this human control Package was meant to bring them all together. The Comfort Association wanted nothing more than to keep their business running smoothly, but the foreign members could view it as the Japanese branch attempting to take control of the entire organization.

They had needed to control the underlings who could lose control and reveal the Package’s existence.

A slender young man known as a fortuneteller sat in the car. A voice slipped out from between his lips that could barely be seen moving.

“It is too soon to say everything is over. The AD behind this, Akashi Mitsu, will be taken in by the police. She will be thoroughly investigated, including her mental state. If they find any trace of the Package, the risk of the foreign members finding out returns.”

“Th-that’s true.”

The middle-aged man pulled a bottle of red wine from a small refrigerator.

“But risks we know are easy to eliminate. There are countless ways to make it look like the vehicle transporting her was in an accident. If we eliminate her, we can eliminate any trace of the Pack-…”

“More importantly, this is where it all begins for me. The risk of competition with a similar Package has now been eliminated.”

The middle-aged man frowned at being interrupted.

But he realized he could not move his face. His body would not even make the slightest of movements. While in the awkward pose of grabbing the wine bottle, he desperately tried to move his eyes that could not even blink, but his body would not even accept that command. He felt the pain of his eyeballs gradually drying.

“What…did you…do?”

His mouth could move, but he did not realize this was because the man behind it was toying with him.

At some point a thin tablet had appeared in the young man’s hands.

“Have you gone senile? Why would you have someone outside the organization assemble the human control Package to manage and manipulate every single member of your large criminal organization? Countless backdoors can be placed in something like that.”

At least three handguns were hidden within arm’s reach, but he could not even move his fingertips.

“You don’t mean…you betrayed us? What are you after!? Are you with another organization…or the police?”

“Have you forgotten?”

The young man opened a free website creating app on the tablet. He could lay out the text and images to freely create his own online news articles.

Yes.

The Aburatori they had used was a rare sort of Youkai that had actually been mentioned in newspapers during the Meiji period. This young man had used that fact to control the Youkai by writing fictional newspaper articles on a closed network that no one else could read.

“Perhaps your everyday life is just so bloody that you have forgotten.”

The fortuneteller’s tone changed as he spat out those words.

He brushed up his bangs and his face was covered in silent hatred.

“Long ago, there was a child hitman. The child was altered accordingly and forced to bear that fate he did not want. A certain old-fashioned detective truly tried to save that child. …Have you really forgotten why that detective died?”

“…”

Most people were unaware, but that old-fashioned spirit had been carried on by the police officer named Sotobori Gaku and it had pulled the trigger that drove a man known as a fortuneteller. Even a dead man who was only spoken of in bars as a distant memory had a life and that life could influence how others lived their lives.

Most people were unaware that a certain life someone had found precious had been cruelly taken.

And it had been taken by the young hands of a sobbing child who had been forced into the role of hitman.

“I have been waiting for this moment.”

The young man who had once been a child gave a thin smile.

“If I ran around assassinating people with a gun, killing one or two would be the most I could manage. That would end with those who truly set up that killing realizing what I was after. And even if I crushed the nearby Japanese branch, I would only be damaging a single leg of a global criminal network. So I have been waiting for the moment when I could grasp it all and crush it. I have been waiting for so very, very long.”

“Fortune…tellerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!”

The man shouted and shouted and shouted.

But it was already over.

There was no way to overturn it now.

“I have only given a single instruction. Every member around the world will turn themselves into the police and answer honestly when asked what they have done wrong. I doubt anyone will be saved by a malfunction due to that conflict with the other system. I will not even allow you to die. You will get a front row seat to watch your empire crumble before your eyes.”

The wine bottle slipped from the middle-aged man’s hand.

It shattered on the floor and the red liquid scattered everywhere.

The young man opened the black luxury car’s door and slowly stepped out.

The traffic jam was showing no sign of ending.

As he weaved between the lines of cars on foot, someone called out to him.

It was a taxi driver.

“What’s this? Is it actually faster to walk?”

“Yes. Moving ahead bit by bit on my own two feet may be better.”

“I’ve got a passenger in the back. I feel bad having the meter go up as time goes on, so maybe I should ask if they just want to get out.”

“Perhaps. This congestion seems to be due to an accident, so it is unlikely to clear up anytime soon.”

“No way! Really?”

“Yes. A police car and tanker truck collided at a large intersection. Fortunately, it seems no one died.”

The fortuneteller said that with true jealousy in the bottom of his heart and he walked off through the traffic jam.

He silently vanished while leaving behind the result of his revenge.

Liked it? Take a second to support Novels on Patreon!