Case 00: A Person Who Is Nothing (2)

The living room across the corridor was already visible from there. And the father was still hanging there.

I only realized it now, but something like a puddle of body fluid had formed under his feet.

“What now?”

In response to the old man’s question, Sako proceeded to the living room without a word. He then surveyed the surroundings, and eventually shook his head.

“It already disseminated. That might have been our only hope.”

(--Do you mean to say that the father’s spirit is not here?)

I asked, but of course my question went unnoticed, the old man and Sako then proceeded to the storage room this time still wearing their shoes. I didn’t want to see it anymore, so I waited in the corridor.

“This is the mother. Can you find out anything?”

“……..”

Sako crouched on the spot, and seemed to be examining the cuts and other details.

I took deep breaths and stared at the white wall, trying my best not to recall the mother’s body I had seen this morning.

Sako eventually emerged from the storage room at a brisk pace and went upstairs.

He then opened the doors of all the bedrooms one after the other, and dashed into the sisters’ room. He then continued to glare at midair. The old detective seemed to have had enough of his bizarre behavior, and finally asked.

“…Hey, did you figure out anything?”

However, Sako didn’t answer him at all. He continued muttering something to himself.

“…However, if that’s the case then what will happen? It’s not my intention to pile hypothesis upon hypothesis – but if that’s the case, then only one line ties it together… That thread leads nowhere else…”

“Hey, Sako!”

The moment the old man placed a hand on Sako’s back from behind.

Sako slowly turned around.

His scrawny cheeks cast a shadow, but he seemed to be smiling somehow, which brought a shiver down my spine.

“What happened?”

“No, I ended up realizing it.”

“Realizing… what?”

Without answering the old man – Sako slowly swayed and slipped past us towards the outside of the room.

“…H-hey! Sako!”

The old man chased after Sako as he began to descend the stairs. I, of course, followed.

“Wait, what do you mean?”

The old man caught up to him downstairs and asked him while pulling on his sleeve, Sako turned around shakily as if he had had no weight at all.

“It means we can’t stay here anymore.”

“…Huh?”

“It means that we are all just pawns.”

For some reason… those words made my hair stand on ends. I had no idea whatsoever what Sako was trying to say, but his words seemed to touch on something that was at the heart of the matter.

“Me, you, and Mr. Guardian spirit. All of us are pawns of ‘Yoishi’.”

“That’s what I’m saying you should explain.”

“Even though I intended to proceed with the ample knowledge of Yoishi having intelligence – and I was also aware that it was a mass of malice – but until I revise my understanding of it even further, I cannot deal with it.”

“By malice… you mean having such young sisters witness such a spectacle?”

“…That’s not it.”

Sako spoke as he began to walk unsteadily.

“That was merely the surface. The reality was to force you, me, and everyone else to be an actor without realizing it.”

“I’m asking you what tha--”

“At any rate.”

Sako turned around, and spoke with an expression of seriousness I had never seen before.

“I will be leaving now.”

“…Wha--?”

“My very presence here might be its trap.”

Saying that, Sako disappeared into the sunlight like a gust of wind.

“…What is wrong with that guy?”

For a while, the old man stared dumbfounded at the front gate where Sako disappeared, but eventually clicked his tongue violently and looked around the mansion.

“A trap? What is he talking about? He had the nerve to leave me alone in a place like this.”

The old man didn’t seem to realize that I was still there as he talked to himself – but I felt the same way. A furious rage swelled up inside me; After all that talk, after all that knowledge, and after all that pompous lecturing, he just ran away from the enemy at the end of the day. That was why I stayed here. It felt as if I were declaring to someone that I was different from Sako.

“Whatever the case, I can’t just leave those two sisters alone.”

However, the old man’s words suddenly made me realize.

…That’s right. Enough of that bastard Sako for now. I think they’ll be fine and safe inside the car even if Leo comes close, but I’m certainly worried.

The old man was about to return to the sisters, when he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

“But… just what was it that he figured out?”

--Ahh, the old man was a detective after all. It would be impossible for me to be alone in a place like this with two bodies. I would have run off straight away. Or rather, I would go call for help. However, since the chief priest known as Sako had disappeared, the old man might have instead hardened his resolve. The old man’s movements had gotten sharper. He took out a pair of white gloves, wore them on both hands and moved closer to the father’s corpse once more. After putting his palms together for a bit, he gazed at the beam, and at the surroundings. Then, as if being struck with an idea, he ran towards the storage room the mother was in. He confirmed that a step ladder was present there, and grabbed it. He returned to where the father was, set it up there, and nodded. Perhaps he thought that it could have possibly been used to hang the father. Thereafter, he once again returned to the storage room, and after placing his palms together in front of the corpse of what was once the mother, crouched down and began to investigate.

“The cut sections of the body have the same cuts. It was probably this.”

He said, picking up a saw that must have been originally present in the toolbox. Ah, why didn’t I realize it in the first place? If you looked closely, you could see what looked like a dark red piece of flesh clinging to it.

“No hiding the murder weapon, or washing it, huh?”

I somehow understood what the old man was thinking.

It added credibility to what Sako had said before he came here, 『’Yoishi’ is not present inside the dog. 』It was true that a small sized dog like a Yorkshire Terrier couldn’t put a saw in his mouth, much less drag a step ladder out to the living room.

“But the enemy – is that ‘thing’.”

The old man whispered as if warning himself, and I recalled once more.

--Ah, that's right. When he was talking to M, he spoke of a woman possessed by ‘Yoishi’ who was also easily able to dangle a child with one hand. So, if it possessed a dog, was that possible?

The old man took a phone out of his pocket.

He held it up for a while, but it must have been out of range. He clicked his tongue and put it away again.

“It’s no use, I have to call forensics for this.”

He then walked straight out of the front door. With a gloomy look on his face. he shoved his hands in his pockets as he made large strides in the direction of the gate.

However, midway through, he looked back for some reason. And his eyes opened wide as if he had noticed something.

“…Ah.”

(--Eh?)

The old man started running. He ran towards the rear of the mansion.

(--W, where are you going?)

I tried to ask, but it quickly entered my field of vision as well. Between the gate and the mansion was a narrow path, overgrown with weeds. Something light brown was lying down at the base of an oak tree.

--It was Leo.

I knew it was Leo. The old man took out his gun from his waist as he ran. He held it up at about two meters away and spoke sharply.

“Don’t move.”

Those words might have been a bit comical to someone unaware of the situation. For the opponent was a small-breed dog collapsed motionless. However, I had seen Leo sneering at me this morning. I was cowering behind the old man, afraid that he could start moving at any moment, and speak ‘Yo’ in a low tone of voice.

“Hey, it’s you, isn’t it?”

The old man called out once more, keeping his sights at the collapsed dog. However, Leo didn’t even twitch. The old man slowly drew closer with his gun still drawn. He slowly crouched down, touched Leo’s neck, and turned him over. I, too, came in front of him, and looked carefully.

However, Leo – was already dead.

There was a large wound between his forelegs and back legs, and he had breathed his last.

--Did that mean that the old man’s bullets hit him back then?

I cocked my head in puzzlement, when—

“No… I’m sure I missed back then.”

The old man muttered behind me.

--Then what did it mean? Did it mean that he died of the bullets that had missed him? No, the most important thing now that Leo was dead was… what about ‘Yoishi’ that was inside? Was it alright now that Leo was dead? Or did it transfer to someone else?

“…Hmm?”

At that moment, the old man suddenly reached out his hand. He reached in and felt around Leo’s mouth with the long fur -- one of the characteristics of a Yorkshire Terrier.

“What the hell is this?”

I couldn’t look at it properly. I waited for the old man to pull out his hand and check it with his own fingertips.

“…Is this, a bond?”

(--Bond?)

Ah… If I recall correctly… M seemed to have been constantly worried about Leo’s mouth and kept wiping it.

Did that mean that someone bonded the hairs around Leo's mouth into a smiling shape? In short, the sneer I saw on Leo’s face was an illusion caused by the bond, and ‘Yoishi’ wasn’t inside Leo? It can’t be, when he ran up the stairs… he wholeheartedly wanted to see M and A?

That realization stabbed my chest coldly, and a heavy regret filled my heart.

--Ahh…if that was the case…

Then I had forever lost the only existence that ever acknowledged me with certainty. I foolishly doubted the precious existence which brought tranquility to me as a ghost, and –

(And just as Sako had said, ‘Yoishi’, was now…)

I had thought that far, when I heard a loud and dull thud from behind.

A groaning sound subsequently reached my ears, and I looked around in a hurry.

The old man's face was distorted. A cold sweat appeared on his forehead, and I had no idea what the source was of his expression—but eventually he collapsed, and a familiar smile appeared behind the sunlight.

It was…A.

Her short bob of healthy hair was illuminated in the sunlight, and she was grinning broadly.

(...Eh, why is A here? What happened to M…?)

However, I noticed it in the next moment.

A was clutching a large pair of sewing scissors in her right hand, and its pointy tips were dyed in dark red.

The collapsed old man groaned while clutching his right side. The right side of his business suit was stained black in the blink of an eye, and fresh red blood flowed from the crevice of the burly hand that held it down.

“…Y, you.”

As the old man strenuously tried to turn around, A showed her white teeth.

“Yo, it’s been a long time.”

That voice was as deep as a man’s.

“You shot me before, didn’t you?”

Saying that, A painfully kicked the old man in the stomach with the toe of her shoes.

Even though it didn’t look as if she put her back into it, it was a kick sharp enough to make the old man’s body jump.

“The pain from back then was nothing compared to this.”

Saying that in a deep voice, A then held the sewing scissors inverted, and before I could yell at her to stop, she thrust them deep into the old man’s stomach. And then, as if relishing the old man’s squirming, she twisted the tip of the scissors around inside his body before taking it out. Fresh blood splattered all over and dyed A’s face red.

“And here too.”

Next, A indifferently stabbed the old man in his thigh. The tip of the scissors must have struck a bone, a thudding noise sounded and when she took it out, blood gushed out.

I watched the scene in a daze.

I was helpless, speechless, as I watched the moment of a life being cut off.

Eventually, the old man stopped moving, and A looked in my direction.

It was a natural gesture, enough to make me forget that I was an invisible existence no one could see.

--A dark colored…light.

For some reason, those words suddenly appeared in my mind… as I looked at the radiance that resided in her eyes when she fixed her gaze towards me.

“Hey, you there. Try doing something about it.”

She then contorted her lips into a sneer.

I finally realized at last, as I looked at the smile that made my knees buckle.

I heard the sound of it all clicking together: all the doubts, the questions I had left unanswered until now.

--The rumor that Kii-chan’s ghost appeared in the classroom at night. The originator of that rumor.

--Who it was that suggested this family trip.

--The shadow which I thought was the mother when I was in the bath with M.

Was it A…?

Did that mean it was inside A the whole time…?

“There’s no way you can do anything about it.”

A stared at me as if looking down on me,

“Now then, there’s only one thing left to do.”

Saying that, she happily threw the scissors down on the spot and turned her back on me.