Chapter 11 - Kaiketsu: Solution

1

After several close calls with the monster, Hiroshi and Takuro finally managed to reach the breaker room. They dashed inside, slamming the door behind them and pressing their backs against it to hold it closed. They looked for a way to lock it, but there didn’t appear to be any mechanism for that. The monster’s freakish strength would have been enough to break through easily, but it seemed to have given up for now. Perhaps because it could no longer see them. Takuro pressed his ear to the door and listened for any movement outside. All was still.

“...We’re safe.”

Sighing with relief, Takuro sank to the ground. With the adrenaline dying down, all the pent up stress drained out of him. His lungs burned from the intense running. His right calf was also spasming slightly, which he hadn’t noticed before. But standing just across from him was Hiroshi, who was as composed as ever despite not training in soccer practice every day like Takuro did.

“I’ve found it. This must be it.”

He calmly approached a panel on the wall and flipped the breaker.

“There’s no telling when the monster will attack again. This place is dangerous. I suggest we press on,” Hiroshi said, scanning the other walls with his flashlight. “Takuro. Can you walk?”

“Of course.”

He slapped away Hiroshi’s extended hand and stood up. In truth he would have preferred to rest a little longer, but he wasn’t about to let Hiroshi show him up. Making sure the monster wasn’t waiting to ambush them outside, they left the breaker room. With the lights on now, the place appeared completely different. Bigger, even. Every step caused Takuro’s exhausted muscles to cry out in pain, but he was determined to hide it and pretended to be just fine as they hurried along.

“Thank you very much for earlier,” Hiroshi suddenly said from behind Takuro.

“What’re you talking about?” Takuro asked curtly, half taken aback.

“When the lights went out, I lost my head. I couldn’t move. If you hadn’t pulled my arm, I would have been instantly killed by that monster.” He paused for a bit, then continued. “But why did you save me? It doesn’t seem like something you would do.”

Hiroshi’s frank words made Takuro smile wryly.

Has he seen through my act in only a few hours? Or did he know all along, and I was the fool for thinking otherwise?

It didn’t matter one way or the other. He wasn’t about to pretend to be a good boy at this point. Takuro’s lips curled into a crooked grin, and he spoke truthfully for the first time.

“I would have left you if you were Takeshi. But you’re different. I need your brains in order to escape this place.”

“That’s good.” Hiroshi looked relieved. “I was worried you were about to say you didn’t want to lose a precious classmate. I can’t understand such emotion.”

Takuro was confused. Hiroshi hardly ever talked to anyone at school, preferring to study insects all day. He’d assumed their personalities couldn’t be more opposite, but surprisingly, it seemed they might have something in common after all.

Eventually, the two boys arrived at the door to the annex. Light from the other side leaked through the cracks in the door.

“And I can’t do without your physical strength. Let’s continue to assist each other,” Hiroshi said, sticking out his right hand.

“Yeah, all right,” Takuro answered, taking Hiroshi’s hand and shaking it.

The most important thing is my safety. Hiroshi is just a pawn for my protection.

Takuro’s selfish personality hadn’t changed one bit since coming to the mansion. And yet, something was different.

“Now, let’s go.” Hiroshi opened the door and proceeded through.

“Yeah.” Takuro followed suit.

They were still trapped in the monster’s mansion. Nothing had really changed. Yet in spite of that, Takuro felt refreshed, as if a stubborn boil had suddenly fallen off.

2

As they ascended the long stone staircase, the sound of static like an out-of-tune radio grew louder. It was only once they reached the dance hall that Takuro realized it was rain.

For a dance hall, the place was rather small—more like it was meant for hosting pretend wrestling matches. Opposite the stairs where they emerged was a large window. There were no boards or iron bars blocking it off to them. Great droplets of rain continually bombarded the glass. There were a round wooden table and chair visible just through it, suggesting there was a deck on the other side.

“Do you think we can escape from here?” Hiroshi began to walk over to the window.

“Wait. Don’t move,” Takuro quickly warned.

“What is it?”

Hiroshi turned around, and the glass of the window suddenly shattered. A blue sphere the size of a softball flew in from the balcony. It was the same color as the monster, but it had long, insect-like antennae, six legs, and a shrimp-like tail. On its back was a creepy pattern that looked like a human eye, which seemed to be watching Takuro and Hiroshi.

The instant Takuro saw it, fear like nothing he’d ever experienced before engulfed him. His whole body went weak as he sank to his knees.

Idiot. What are you doing?

He quickly tried to stand, but his legs were shaking like a newborn deer’s. They just didn’t want to listen to him.

Skritchskritchskritch...

The blue bug scuttled across the floor, moving its antennae and legs.

“Uwaaaaaah!” he screamed pitifully.

Takuro finally understood why his body was failing him. The way it looked, the way it moved, the disgusting sound it made when it did... It all reminded him of the singular thing he hated most. The monster in front of him resembled a bizarre, mutated cockroach.

“Takuro. Are you okay?” Hiroshi, who had been staring at the cockroach with deep interest, turned to Takuro.

“It’s nothing.”

I don’t want to look like a wuss in front of him.

Despite pretending to be fine, Takuro’s legs still refused to work. It was as if they were simply rejecting the signals from his brain. For some reason, an image of Takeshi surfaced in the back of his mind.

“Just give me a second. I’ll be better soon.”

He knew they couldn’t afford to waste time here. The clock was counting down to the moment the monster would smash in the door to the annex. Takuro shut his eyes. He thought being unable to see the cockroach would help, but it just made things worse.

Skritchskritchskritchskritchskritch...

The revolting sound of it scuttling along only intensified, and Takuro could still see it vividly in the darkness of his mind. Fat beads of sweat poured down his brow. His skin was clammy and warm, yet his insides were frozen solid. The shaking in his legs grew worse. He was on the verge of losing all control.

“Hold your breath for a second,” Hiroshi said out of nowhere.

Confused, Takuro went to open his eyes. But before he even could, a sharp pain shot through his right thigh. He looked down to see a screwdriver sticking out of his leg.

“Wh-What the hell did you do?!”

Takuro instinctively pushed Hiroshi away and pulled out the screwdriver. A dark red stain began to spread out from where it had been.

“Are you crazy? What are you trying to pull?”

He grabbed Hiroshi’s collar, furious. However, Hiroshi merely pushed up his glasses with his pointer finger, unperturbed. He spoke calmly.

“Look. You’re standing now.”

“Huh...? Oh.”

He looked down at his feet. It was just as Hiroshi had said. At some point, he’d gotten up off the floor.

“Pain is the best radar an organism has for danger. Without pain, we’d be unable to detect abnormalities in our bodies. We would have died off as a race long ago,” Hiroshi explained, cool as a cucumber as he picked the screwdriver up off the floor. “When you feel pain, your brain naturally perceives an emergency situation. By stabbing your thigh, it seems I managed to reconnect your stymied mental circuity.”

What was his brain made of? Takuro was beyond impressed and now just speechless. He could only stare blankly at Hiroshi. But as he did, the smell of something burning filled his nose. He looked around and spotted a black stain on the floor. Faint wisps of white smoke rose from it.

“It seems to excrete a strong acid.”

The horrifying creature crawled around at the edge of Hiroshi’s sight. A seared, black line in the carpet trailed behind it, just like the spot where it had landed.

“Let’s be careful. If we accidentally touch that cockroach, I can only imagine it will be bad.”

I wouldn’t touch that thing even if you paid me a million yen!

Cursing the situation internally, Takuro heard a strange sound.

Vvvt... Vvvt... Vvvt...

He was hearing a vibrating cellphone over the sound of the pouring rain. Struck by hope, he reached his hand into his pocket to grab his, but he still had no signal.

No... It sounds like it’s coming from outside.

Takuro looked to the balcony and froze. He stifled a near scream.

A swarm of cockroaches was clinging to the window. What he’d heard was the sound of their wings buzzing together. Maybe they were just innocently hiding from the rain under the roof. But the eyes on their backs made Takuro think they were keeping watch to make sure he and Takeshi didn’t escape.

“If I’d actually gone over to the window, I would have been dissolved, it seems. You’ve saved me again, Takuro. Thank you very much,” Hiroshi said as he gazed at the window from afar. Even a sucker for rare bugs like him wasn’t about to rush over to a mass of cockroaches that produced strong acid. “But how did you know approaching the window would be dangerous? And not only that... The safe password, the breaker room—Takuro, you know way more about this mansion than anyone else. You said this was your first time coming here. Was that a lie?”

“It wasn’t. If I’d known a monster lived here, I never would have come in the first place,” he spat, averting his eyes from the window.

The giant cockroach scuttling across the floor suddenly stopped moving, as if to better eavesdrop on them.

“Then how is it that you know what you do?”

“Because this place is just like the game I played last night.”

He regretted saying it as soon as the words left his mouth. There was no way Hiroshi would ever believe that. Takuro doubted it himself, and Hiroshi was an extreme realist. Takuro was sure that Hiroshi would just tell him not to let his imagination run away with him, but what he actually said next shocked him.

“I suspected as much.” Hiroshi put a hand to his chin and nodded, then continued as he kept an eye on the unmoving cockroach. “I’ve been wondering that for a while now.”

“Wait. You actually believe that crap?”

“Scientifically speaking, it’s basically impossible. But so is our entire mysterious adventure here. There’s no point in dismissing empirical evidence just because we’re predisposed to think it’s invalid. All progress in science stops when we ignore the truth just because we don’t understand it. We just have to keep thinking about it until we do understand it. So for the moment, yes, I’m willing to field your hypothesis.” Hiroshi took a breath after his speech, then continued. “Takuro, you know what to do after this as well, don’t you?”

“Y-Yeah, pretty much.”

“Then I shall follow your orders. Things will only get more difficult if the monster shows up again, so let’s hurry.”

He didn’t need to say that twice. This cockroach nest was nothing short of hell for Takuro. Takuro wanted out yesterday. He followed Hiroshi quickly out of the dance hall. They headed for the stairs, Takuro carefully watching the cockroach behind them as they went. It was still sitting there on the floor, not moving. Only the eye on its back appeared to be following them.

“Hey, Hiroshi,” Takuro said, looking away from the cockroach.

“What is it?” Hiroshi asked, glancing back at Takuro over his shoulder.

“...No, never mind.” He shook his head and shut up.

Takuro couldn’t bring himself to convey the important message Hiroshi so desperately needed to hear.

3

Hiroshi and Takuro carefully edged out of the dance hall, eyeing the cockroach in the center.

“Come on! The cockroach won’t attack as long as it’s not provoked, so they don’t have to be so careful,” Shun said, clearly on edge.

But for all his desperation, it wasn’t like Hiroshi, Takuro, or the streamer could hear his advice.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Anna asked as she peered over his shoulder at the monitor. Something had been nagging at her “...Is this really being controlled by Takuro?”

“Yeah. Without a doubt,” Shun replied, biting his lip in frustration. “I should have realized it earlier. There must be something wrong with me. T is even talking while streaming the game.”

Anna didn’t blame him. There was no way they could have predicted the streamer was someone so close to them.

“But Takuro’s inside the Jailhouse right now, right? That doesn’t make sense.”

As Anna was talking, the sound of a fire engine’s siren wailed over her.

“Anna, sorry, but could you be quiet for a second?”

Anna tightly closed her mouth. Rather than from outside, the siren was coming from the computer speakers.

“...You said there was a fire near your house last night, didn’t you?”

Shun turned around and intently leaned in closer to Anna.

“Uh, yeah.”

He got so close to her so suddenly that her heart began pounding as she nodded in response to his question.

“What time was that?”

“I heard the engine pass by our house around the time my aunt’s favorite show was starting, so it must have been just after 10:00.”

“Is your place close to Takuro’s?”

“It’s not that far, actually. How come?”

“I see... That’s what’s going on.” Shun pointed at the monitor and quickly explained. “This video isn’t a live stream.”

“Huh?”

“It’s a recording. I think it’s being shown as if he’s playing now, but it was actually recorded last night.”

“But the clock at the bottom right of the screen is showing today’s date.”

“That’s easy enough to change if you mess with the computer’s settings. You couldn’t prerecord a soccer game or a local festival or something like that, but if you’re just playing a game in the confines of your own home, you could record it as far in advance as you wanted to.”

“Then shouldn’t he just say it’s a recording? Why lie and pretend like it’s live?”

“To create an alibi.”

“...An alibi?”

“Take this one, for example.” Shun pulled up the list of previous streams again and pointed to the piano one. “Look at the date. That’s the night I jumped from the classroom window and twisted my ankle, right?”

Anna nodded slightly. She’d noticed that too.

“But what if he’d recorded this video earlier and streamed it to make it look like he was playing it in real time?”

“Still, why would he do that?”

“You were there in the classroom that night. I know, Anna. You might have forgotten, but you told me so in the Jailhouse.”

“...”

“Takuro told me that he had the perfect alibi. That no one would ever suspect him.”

“Oh. You don’t mean—”

Anna finally realized what Shun was suggesting. The video Takuro had prepared was a cover-up. If anyone ever caught on to what he’d really been doing that night, he could use it to defend himself. It even included comments coming in as he played the game, but that would have been easy to fake from a smartphone.

“He must have planned something for today, as well. I think that’s why he prerecorded this and set it up to stream tonight. That way, if anyone suspected him, he could say he was at home.”

Anna continued to read through T’s video list as Shun explained all this. One video in particular entitled “Top Fashionable Christmas Presents” stuck out to her. It was broadcast on the afternoon of Christmas Eve—right around the time of the accident that took her parents.

“Hey, Shun...” Still facing the monitor, Anna’s lips moved slowly. “Do we... really need to save him?”

That was what she honestly wanted to know the most.

“I mean... Isn’t it too late for us to help? The game’s already over by now. Everyone’s fate has been sealed, right?”

Shun paled. Unease wavered in his eyes.

“Shun?”

“I just remembered...” he said, lips trembling. “Late last night, I called Takuro. Now that I think about it, it was a premonition. I had a feeling something bad was going to happen. I got so worried that I called him to warn him not to go near the Jailhouse.”

But of course, Takuro was in no mood to listen. Why would he be? To Takuro, who’d only ever treated Shun like an insect, his excited rambling probably sounded like nothing more than the annoying buzz of a fly.

“‘Damn it. I was so far, too. It’s your fault I got a game over.’ That’s what he said to me.”

A shudder ran through Anna’s body.

“That means my phone call is the reason the game ends, right?”

They looked at the video stream. Hiroshi and Takuro were working in tandem to tear a board from the wall to use as makeshift bridge to get over a hole in the floor.

“When did you call Takuro?” Anna asked Shun.

“Around 10:30...” Shun answered, his quiet voice threatening to fade into nothing.

“We just heard the siren go by, which means we still have half an hour before the game ends.”

“It’s no use. We can’t do anything now,” Shun said, his face filled with despair.

Anna couldn’t care less about Takuro. But she couldn’t bear seeing Shun so tortured.

Please... Save him.

Anna hadn’t prayed since the accident on Christmas Eve. God hadn’t even listened to her then, so she hadn’t bothered since.

I’m sorry. I’ll never hate anyone again. I’ll never consider taking my own life again. I swear to keep living. So please, God... Heed my prayer this time.

Anna shut her eyes and thought she saw her parents smiling at her.