Chapter 025
AYUMI CAME RUNNING.
Her efficient muscles moved in sync.
She was graceful like an animal.
Several men came running toward her from left and right.
They were wearing uniforms.
They were patrolmen.
They were saying something she couldn’t hear.
At that moment, Hazuki was in the middle of a wide road slightly higher up looking down at the scene. What was Hazuki going to be scared of now?
Would her legs collapse and stop moving? Maybe she was scared and nervous and resisting internally a little, but she was going to swallow all those fears, swallow them and be okay and think nothing of this. That was how useless she was.
Ayumi came running at her.
She hit Hazuki on the head.
“What are you doing?!”
“I was—”
“Come here!”
She grabbed her arm. The touch of a human.
“Run!”
Hazuki screamed.
The area patrol approached.
From the front and from behind.
Hazuki was yanked by Ayumi, her body falling from the sky, and she ran.
She ran around to behind the building annex.
They came from all sides. Hazuki was thrown against the wall.
“Ayumi!”
A large group of area patrol officers gathered around Ayumi.
This is my fault.
Because Hazuki had come here without thinking.
“Stop it!” she yelped. Like a child.
Several area patrols ran toward Hazuki.
Please, no!
Something moved above Hazuki’s head.
She looked up.
Cat.
On the ledge above them was Rey Mao.
Rey Mao flew off the wall to avoid hitting Hazuki and kicked the closest patrolman on her way down. She quickly spun around.
She brought her arms immediately back up and drove her fists into the patrolman’s face.
“What are you doing here, Hazuki?!”
Ayumi slipped past her.
“Rey Mao!”
“Ayumi!”
Ayumi rushed to Hazuki’s right to lure in her pursuers, and Rey Mao stood to Hazuki’s left, fighting off several officers at once.
They stood nearly back to back, Hazuki in the middle, to protect her.
“Why did you come all the way here?”
“You got the message on the dove, right?”
The patrolmen regrouped, and the girls were now trapped against the wall.
“Now we’re surrounded,” Rey Mao said. “I was so well hidden in the corner too.”
“You were exposed,” Ayumi said. “They only thinned out the personnel here to lure you out. Their plan was to go after you when you slipped through the crack to escape. The area patrol is probably not allowed into the building. That’s why I thought it would be easy to make contact.”
Hazuki had gotten in their way.
“And do what then?”
“Trade places. There was something I needed to talk to you about.”
“Trade places?”
With their backs still to each other, Rey Mao looked to Ayumi.
The lights on the officers’ belts clicked on.
Those were their monitors.
Finally, one of the officers broke through the ranks and approached.
“Hey, you kids,” he said with no nervousness. “What are you doing all huddled up? These are just a bunch of girls. Who’s responsible for this?”
“I am,” said one of the patrol officers. He showed his badge to the other one.
He read the badge with his own monitor and said, “This is no good.
Obviously, protocol is to call the police. And I have to come out here to check out the scene? You’ve gone totally overboard. All these patrols for a few kids who’ve gotten lost on the grounds. Were you planning to intimidate them with your batons?” he said, slapping the baton one of the patrols was holding. “You’ve gone too far. Too far. I need to file a claim with D&S from prefectural headquarters. Are the employees under review? This is child abuse. Report it to the administration.”
“But this girl, she was resisting us.”
“Of course she was. I’m sure she’s scared. Look at all of you. How many of you are there? At least thirty. Three kids versus thirty adults. What about your posts? What if terrorists attacked the main entrance?”
The man turned to the group and looked at the patrol officers with disdain. “There’s been no burglary or violence. You say things like, ‘We come in peace,’ but what kind of patrol officer attacks a lost child? I’ll take care of these kids,” he said. He approached Hazuki and the others.
“Hi. I’m…oh, wait.” He pulled up his card on the monitor and turned his display toward the girls.
Investigative Unit R Section Chief, Police Division, Shoji Takasugi.
He was the real thing.
“Now, what are you doing here? Where did you get in? The premises are vacant today for maintenance. I apologize, but could you explain your situation in brief for me? Our intruder alert system picked you up on the sensors. We saw you on our security cameras, and whenever that happens we have to get statements from whomever we apprehend.” Takasugi spoke very politely.
He seemed normal. Unusually normal.
Yes, police information could very well have leaked. The two men who attacked Hazuki were also dressed like area patrols, and he was certainly no different. Even so…
It couldn’t mean they were all bad.
That was impossible.
This couldn’t be a police-wide, area patrol-wide conspiracy. In which case…
Hazuki looked at Ayumi. Ayumi was looking straight at Takasugi.
Rey Mao was looking for an out.
The police had an arrest warrant out for her.
Of course it was best for her to try to escape.
Ayumi grabbed Mao’s arm as she made the slightest movement with her body. Rey Mao looked at Ayumi in her peripheral vision. Ayumi didn’t take her eyes off Takasugi and pulled in Rey Mao even closer.
Ayumi was…What was she going to do?
Takasugi looked perplexed and turned his head slightly.
“Well, I’m sure you were scared. Let’s just go inside for now, shall we. If you just tell me what happened I can release you quickly. Let’s have something to drink. Is that okay?”
“Sure,” Ayumi said.
Rey Mao widened her eyes and glanced at Ayumi’s face, then turned her gaze toward Hazuki.
Hazuki felt the gravelly texture of the wall against her back and looked down.
“Let’s go then,” Takasugi said. He then turned to the thirty-odd patrol officers and barked at them to go back to their posts.
The patrol officers all lowered their heads and went away without a word. One rubbed his neck and walked with a limp, probably thanks to Rey Mao.
“Like I said before, we’re doing maintenance today. Everyone in this area knows that, but you see, tomorrow is the anniversary of our founder’s birth. There will be celebrations and everything, so we’re fixing up the place today and tomorrow. You girls are from another area, aren’t you?”
“Area 119.”
“Ah, well, that’s too bad,” Takasugi said.
The patrols lined up at strategic points.
Takasugi and the girls climbed low neo-ceramic stairs with a midcentury tile pattern and passed a large terrace. They traversed a wellgroomed garden on a walkway to an open courtyard. There, the path continued on a slight slope with stone steps.
“Normally the escalator is running. It’s stopped today. You should be okay though. You’re young,” said the officer as he descended the stairs.
Rey Mao stopped for a moment.
Ayumi, sensing Mao’s sensitivity, turned her head.
There were area patrols lined up along the steps. Hazuki and the others were still surrounded.
“The main entrance is over there. Now how did I make a wrong turn?” Takasugi said in a loud voice, then beckoned the girls forward.
“It’s all right. You aren’t in danger anymore. I just want to hear your story. Depending on the mitigating circumstances we might even let you go without having to contact the community center or your guardians. I mean, really, depending on the situation.”
At the bottom of the stairs was a sign pointing toward a hall on the other end of which stood the main entrance. It was a ridiculously extravagant entrance made of neo-ceramic and reinforced glass.
They looked up.
A bright white structure appeared to burst upward through the air.
It looked very different from up close. It was grotesque.
“This is normally where you arrive when you come here from town. There’s even a solar transport shuttle that runs directly from the residential district. But as I said, today’s a day off. So…” Takasugi kept talking to no one in particular and showed his ID to a patrol officer.
“Good work. The intruder alert has been taken care of. We just need to process their surveillance per the usual. Oh, why don’t I just process these girls?”
“Officer Takasugi, I still need them to show ID to enter the premises.”
“Ah, that’s all right. If we just let them in unregistered I can contact the security office myself. It’ll be a bigger hassle to start up the system when everything’s shut down. And just to process tracking devices.”
A tracking device.
As if he’d heard her thinking that, Takasugi looked at Hazuki and smiled.
“The ceiling is not very high here, but the space is wide open. There are usually a lot of visitors on working days. Therefore simply swiping an ID doesn’t suffice. We have to set a tracker on everyone’s monitors so we know who is where throughout the compound. There’s also a hospital. If an elderly visitor collapsed somewhere unattended, for example, or if a child gets lost. Just that when we’re closed like this, the system isn’t operational, and if you don’t have your monitors, it becomes a real hassle to set the tracker. We have to get you special rental units. And on an off-day it’s not just people like you but even the patrols who go around the grounds without these tracking units. Shall we go in then?”
Takasugi had the patrol move to the side, passed his ID card against a hidden card reader adjacent to the large door in the middle of an even bigger gate, and finished by very deliberately pronouncing his name: ta, ka, su, gi.
The gate opened soundlessly.
“This is a voice-operated gate. Now go in, quickly. You can’t get in or out without me.”
Ayumi entered.
Hazuki also entered, prodded forward by Rey Mao.
Rey Mao then went in and Takasugi closed the gate behind them.
He turned around and said, “Keep it up,” to the guard.
The entrance hall was at least four times as wide as the community center’s racetrack.
The space was ventilated from very high up.
It was a wide-open space.
Still, the floor and the beams were all polished bright. In the middle of the hall was a marble statue of an elderly man in old clothing.
How tacky, Hazuki thought.
There were six wide glass pipes running up the face of the wall. They must have been capsule elevator shafts, but shafts weren’t usually as long as these pipes were. Takasugi took them directly to the elevators and pointed up.
“Look, you can see. Up there. On the fifth floor is the interrogation room. Let’s go there. We have beverages and…oh, I hope the dispenser is working today.”
Takasugi pointed his hand above his head and the gate to the third pipe elevator opened.
Ayumi went in. Rey Mao went in. Then Hazuki.
The elevator let out a short melody and closed the doors. A faint G appeared and the girls glided up as if slipping. The floor of the entrance hall quickly disappeared.
After all that climbing and descending the hills. To think of how much energy Hazuki used to raise her own altitude. Now she was ascending in a matter of breaths.
“What time is it right now?” Ayumi asked Takasugi.
Takasugi nodded smartly and pulled up his terminal.
“It’s 5:05 pm and twenty seconds.”
“Thank you,” Ayumi said.
They came out to what looked like a lounge.
There were tables, chairs, and drink dispensers lined up around the space.
Takasugi said, “This way,” and proceeded to the rear of the room, swiped his ID card and uttered his name again, which opened a golden door.
“Please, come in.”
It was a glossy hallway.
There were several doors.
Upon entering the hall, the golden door shut behind them.
“Let’s see. Where shall we go…” Takasugi said as he playfully looked at each of the doors and finally chose one.
“Let’s go in here.”
The doors inside the hall were apparently not voice-operated.
“Please, enter. What would you all like to drink?”
It was a simple but classy-looking greeting room.
Takasugi stood by the door and gestured toward the room.
But Ayumi wouldn’t move.
As if suspicious of her movements, Rey Mao, who had until then been initiating all the moves, gave Ayumi a curious look and then looked over at Takasugi. He was smiling. Rey Mao turned her face away and walked into the room. Hazuki too. It was just as she entered the room that Ayumi spoke.
“Mr. Takasugi?”
“Yes?”
It was just as he turned his head.
Takasugi disappeared from before Hazuki’s eyes.
The door closed.
“What the?”
Rey Mao pushed Hazuki away.
She slammed her hands against the door.
Of course it wasn’t going to open.
No door was going to open without an ID card.
“Ayumi! Ayumi!” Rey Mao yelled as she banged on the door.
“Hazuki, what just happened? What happened to Ayumi?”
“I didn’t see anything. Just heard their voices.”
“What did you hear them say?” Rey Mao said and grabbed Hazuki by the shoulders just as the door reopened.
Standing at the open door with her back to them was Ayumi.
She stepped into the room, and the door closed.
“Ayumi! What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? What about that patrolman?”
“He’s over there.”
“There?”
Rey Mao looked to the door.
It was closed.
She couldn’t see anything.
Rey Mao kicked the door.
“Shit! We’re trapped in here. What the hell were you thinking, Ayumi? He’s a police officer. If we get stuck here there’s no getting out. You guys might be all right, but what about me?”
“This is obviously a trap,” Ayumi said at the door, her back still to Rey Mao.
“Trap?”
“That officer, Mr. Takasugi. He already knows all about us.”
“He knows…all about us? But…”
He looked so normal.
One could say that Hazuki and the girls were clearly conducting themselves in an unusual manner. Anyone from the police who hadn’t any idea what was going on would come into this situation and behave exactly like Takasugi.
“No,” Rey Mao’s face soured. “He’s prefectural police. There’s no way he wouldn’t have known about me.”
“But what if it were someone who just looked like you?”
“Huh?”
“That man said it would be a hassle to assign trackers to us without terminals. No girl walks around without a monitor these days. If they did, it would have to be because they are unregistered or just ran from home without their monitor because they were being attacked or something. Like us.”
“But it wasn’t like we told him we didn’t have monitors. That’s only if.”
“When I asked him for the time, he pulled out his monitor without any questions. He didn’t think anything about it. Normally if someone wanted to know the time they’d look at their own monitor. No one asks other people what time it is. If they did you’d ask them why they didn’t have their own monitor. He told me the time because he knew I didn’t have one.”
“Then…” Rey Mao narrowed her eyes. “You walked into the trap on purpose?”
“I couldn’t do anything unless I got inside. Besides, we’re safer in here than outside.”
Rey Mao and Hazuki called her out. “Ayumi?!”
“Watch out for Makino,” Ayumi said.
“Watch out? What are you saying?”
“She thinks we’re friends but we’re not.”
“Ayumi,” said Mao.
“Just stop it.” Ayumi sighed with her back to them.
Hazuki was at a loss for words and just stared at the white nape of Ayumi’s neck.
“You can be her friend, Rey Mao. You’re strong and can look after Hazuki.”
“What the hell are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Ayumi said. “But I can’t stay here. I can’t get saved with you.”
“Can’t…Why can’t you? I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
Ayumi stared at the door without answering.
“Ayumi. You aren’t possibly thinking of taking on all the bad guys alone or anything stupid like that, are you? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You think you’re a superhero now?”
“No,” Ayumi said. “I don’t know who the bad guys are. I don’t know what’s supposed to be right or wrong. I don’t believe in anything and have nothing to protect. I’ve never felt the need to defend anything.”
“Then what is it? What the fuck are you going to do?” Rey Mao yelled.
“Ayumi, are you planning on rescuing the kid who got arrested?”
“Is there someone else in here I don’t know about?” Rey Mao asked.
“Kisugi. It also sounds like Mio’s been apprehended as well.”
Are they all right?
“Mio? That idiot.” Rey Mao sat in a chair. “She’s always been weird.”
Ayumi looked back and glanced at the girls, but said nothing.
“Ayumi, you talk about rescuing them, but we’re about to be imprisoned. You know how many of them are outside. Who knows how many are inside? This is a war. It was hard enough just to hide from them. If someone really is being held captive here, of course you’ll want to rescue them, but don’t think you are the one to do it. Not alone.”
“I didn’t say I think I can do anything about it.”
“What?”
“It’s not like I don’t want to rescue them.”
“Ayumi,” Hazuki said and reached out to touch her. Ayumi backed away.
“You have it all wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“I, I can’t be with you. I have no intention of being friends with you two.”
“Why not?”
“I’m a murderer.”
Ayumi kept looking forward and raised a hand.
In her hand was a knife.
From the knife dripped red blood.
“What? What did you just say? What did you just say, Ayumi?”
Hazuki looked at the floor. At her feet, it was red.
“I am the killer.”
Ayumi turned around.
She was red from the neck up.
“I’m the one who killed Ryu Kawabata and Yuji Nakamura. Just now I killed the cop too.”
“Idiot!” Rey Mao said. She rushed to the door.
It wouldn’t open. She turned around.
Ayumi was holding the knife up by her face.
“A-Ayumi. Hey…”
“You might die if you stay with me.”
Rey Mao’s eyes widened, and she looked past Ayumi.
“Hazuki…”
Hazuki didn’t understand what Ayumi was trying to say. “What is she saying?”
“That night. After I was attacked and blacked out, you killed that boy?”
“Yes. Afterward, I killed Kawabata.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not. I spilled a lot of blood that day. I washed and I washed but the beastly smell wouldn’t go away.”
I smell like a beast.
“Then that day…Ayumi, you…”
That day, at that hour, Ayumi was…
“I’ll be all right. I’m the killer. Just don’t get me wrong. I didn’t do it to protect Yabe or anything like you did. I didn’t kill Kawabata to punish him either.”
“They attacked you first, right? They had it in for you? Because you were a witness? Right? It was self-defense,” Rey Mao said. “You had no choice.”
“That’s not what happened.” Ayumi lowered her knife. “Kawabata noticed me and started to run away.”
“R-run away?”
“Nakamura actually ran off. I had no intention of following him. I was just going to go home. But Kawabata tripped and fell. Then he said to me, ‘You saw it, didn’t you? Listen. Don’t tell anyone. If you do, you’ll be the one arrested,’ Kawabata said. Thinking about it now, he probably already knew someone in the police force. Even if they killed Yabe, they couldn’t be tied to the murder without a witness. That’s how he spoke.”
“They had a collaborator in the police?”
“I…killed Kawabata and decapitated him.”
“Why? Why?!” Rey Mao screamed.
“I don’t know either. I was scared, that much is certain. But it wasn’t to protect myself. I had a clear motive to kill. I knew that if I took him on he’d die. Even a child would have seen that. But at the moment, I could think of nothing else.”
“Nothing else?”
“I couldn’t think of anything other than killing him.”
Rey Mao gulped loudly and stepped back.
“It was the same with Nakamura,” Ayumi said. “The night Yabe went to Makino’s house, you followed the area patrol after they’d taken Yabe. It was then. I didn’t lose the trail of Yabe and her patrols. It wasn’t that I couldn’t keep up. It just happened that I ran into Nakamura.”
“Nakamura was there?”
“Yes,” Ayumi said.
“The police were probably sheltering him. Mao…”
Rey Mao didn’t respond.
“He’s probably the one who ratted you out to the police. He would have told them about me too, but he didn’t know I existed. You stood out because you’re already an undocumented resident. I had no distinguishing characteristics. I was fine.”
“As soon as they secured Yabe, the police insider probably informed Nakamura. On the other hand, they could have sent an area patrol car to the people who attacked Makino and apprehended Yabe. If she ended up in police custody, they couldn’t kill her. I don’t know why but whoever sent those guys wanted Nakamura to attack Yabe. Nakamura was scared when he saw me. He turned pale and ran. I chased him.”
“Were you planning on killing him?” Rey Mao asked quietly. “Did you chase him down so you could kill him? Answer me, Ayumi!”
Rey Mao was crying.
Hazuki was tearless.
“No. I wanted to hear his story. I didn’t think of killing him. But he was…”
Ayumi looked down at her blood-covered knife.
“He disappeared into the abandoned building in Section C near where Tsuzuki lived. I figured he was hiding in there. When I entered the building he screamed, ‘Don’t come in here! Don’t come in here!’ I…”
These aren’t the only killers.
Killing people is real.
There’s a killer right beside me.
“Am I really that frightening?” Ayumi asked.
“Ayumi…”
“Nakamura practically looked like a small animal who’d just encountered a bloodthirsty predator. I wasn’t menacing him or anything. I didn’t even take out a weapon. But…yeah. He was begging for his life and I killed him.” Ayumi spoke in exactly the same way she always did. “I’m a murderer. I kill people that cross my path. I’m a man-eating wolf.”
Rey Mao crept backward and sank into a chair.
“You still want to be my friend?”
Rey Mao turned her head away.
“Yes. That’s the right response, Rey Mao. Don’t look at me.” Ayumi sounded sad. “You understand too, right, Hazuki?”
Hazuki just stared at Ayumi’s clear eyes. She had no response.
“Ayumi, you…”
“I cast doubt upon you by not speaking up. I’m sorry about that. That’s why I had to take your place. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Ayumi said as she drew an ID card from her pocket.
Takasugi’s ID.
“So I’m going now. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I have to go.”
“Wait,” Rey Mao said, still looking down.
“You can’t leave now. I don’t believe you,” Rey Mao said.
“Even with this?” Ayumi held up the knife again. “I’m a murderer.”
“Ayumi.”
Hazuki stepped up to Ayumi.
“You rescued me, Ayumi.”
“I did. I did rescue you, but I’m still a murderer. It won’t matter. Not all the good deeds I’ve performed. I still have a stink on my hands that can’t be scrubbed clean,” Ayumi said, and raised her blood-drenched hands. “Look. These are the hands of a killer.”
No.
“But Nakamura and Kawabata were killers too.”
“That’s no reason to kill them,” Ayumi said. “Even if they were killers, villains. Whoever kills them is already worse than the killer himself, Makino. Murder is never right. I don’t know between right and wrong or the difference between truth and falsehood, but I am certain of one thing. I am not a good person.”
“That wasn’t your first time, was it? Kawabata wasn’t the first,” Rey Mao said. “Who was it?” Rey Mao said quietly but distinctly. “What about it, Ayumi?”
“Stop it.”
Hazuki stared at Rey Mao. “It’s a lie. Ayumi’s lying.”
“Hazuki, she’s…I’m sorry, but she’s not lying,” Rey Mao said.
Ayumi quietly started talking.
“The first time was in those hills.”
“Hills?”
“Here. It’s here I stopped being human.”
“There? In those hills?”
“I used to walk along that freight road. I don’t know why. When I moved to my new house I started walking on that road. I’d walk all afternoon because at night it would be trafficked with freight transporters.
I’d spend the night in the hills and walk back the next morning. Then last summer, I was attacked by a man there.”
“Attacked?”
“He happened to fall on top of me. I didn’t think anyone else was there, so I was caught by surprise. That was stupid. Thinking no one would be out that far. But when I thought about it, it was only far from my home. It wouldn’t be far for someone who lives in the area.”
“Then what happened?” Rey Mao asked.
“I tried to run away and he hit me. Then he kicked me. He held me at knifepoint. I was scared, so I fought back with all my might. I even screamed. I didn’t know what was going on. Then, suddenly, he stopped. He apologized.”
“Apologized?”
“Yes. He got on his knees and lowered his head, said ‘I’m sorry I scared you. That was wrong. I’m sorry.’ He was in his mid-forties.”
“Was he a pervert?”
“He said he was wrong in the head. Thirty years ago he’d killed a girl, and when he was found out, he killed his whole family, was arrested, taken to a hospital, and released several years later. He was examined, treated, and told he was okay.”
Killing people is wrong.
“That’s what he said to me. I told him I knew plenty well that it was wrong. I’ve reflected upon it, regretted it, thought many times of killing myself. He kept talking. Kept apologizing to me over and over. I was just scared. He was…”
They had been under the light of the full moon.
“He said there were times he couldn’t get over it. Times he felt like breaking everything and nothing he could do about it. That’s why…”
Ayumi looked at her knife.
“He bought this knife and started walking around with it, and the unfulfilled dreams, the dreams he couldn’t satisfy, would be tempered. That’s what he said. Then, with his head still lowered, he handed me the knife. I killed him,” Ayumi said plainly.
“That was my first time.”
“Why did you do it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you kill him?”
“I told you, I don’t know. If I knew, I wouldn’t have done it,” Ayumi said. “All I know is that I was being attacked and that I was scared. I was annoyed by his sorry way of explaining himself. But I didn’t have any destructive motives. I wasn’t trying to break him. I wasn’t mad at him, and it wasn’t spiteful. But when he handed me this knife…”
Ayumi held the knife up close to her face.
“With his head lowered, crying, yeah. It was a full moon. The round moon was high up in the night sky. And then…and I knew that was the moment.”
“The moment?”
It was a brief moment.
A thousandth of a second. The slightest of openings.
“The very next second he was dead. A lot of blood spewed from the gash across his throat. I was confused and didn’t know what to do, and for a whole day I just sat there staring at the dead body. Finally, I dug a hole, buried him. You saw it, Hazuki.”
“That stone?”
That large stone.
Under that large stone.
“That’s his grave. The grave I made for him. Since then I’ve been going back to the grave all the time.”
“You were feeling guilty.”
“No, I wasn’t. The time of guilt has passed. Even a child could tell you that. There’s no point in apologizing to a grave. That’s just selfish. I just…I kept wondering why I did it. I decided to go to the police when I figured it all out,” Ayumi said. “And I’m not just saying that. At the time, I wouldn’t have been able to explain anything if they’d arrested me. If they’d asked why I did it, I wouldn’t have been able to answer. It’s the same now. I wasn’t taking revenge against bad people. But at this rate,
I’m becoming a serial killer. I didn’t do anything for the good of mankind. It wasn’t to make up for lost friends. I’m just a murderer,” Ayumi said, and let just a single tear fall.
“I talked with Miss Fuwa and gained some perspective. I finally understood that killing people is indeed wrong. That’s why I…”
“You’re not planning on killing yourself, are you? Because that would be unforgivable,” Rey Mao said. “Don’t make this some beautiful self-realization. That would be tacky. What about it, Ayumi?”
“I don’t think about wanting to die.”
“But it sure as hell sounds like you’re prepared to die.” Rey Mao lifted her head and slowly stood up. “I don’t care if I have to use brute force, I’m not letting you go.”
Ayumi looked at Rey Mao with a sad face. “You’re a friend.”
Rey Mao moved swiftly to the card reader to block it.
“Stop it, Rey Mao.”
“No. You asked once if I liked protecting the weak. I couldn’t answer then, but I want to now. I do. I am a petty humanist for narcissistic reasons. It’s just like you said. I like rescuing cats, taking care of them.
I’m a teenage braggart. I knew it as soon as you called me out. That’s why I consider myself your friend,” Rey Mao said. “Though I realize what a nuisance it must be for an undocumented resident to be saying that to you.”
“Nuisance is right.”
“Ayu…”
There was a knife at Mao’s throat.
“You can’t stop me.”
“A-Ayumi.”
“I’m going to say it again,” Ayumi said. “I’m a weak fighter. I don’t know how to fight. But I do know how to kill. All you can do is punch me. All I can do is kill you.”
“Ayu—”
Hazuki approached.
“Ayumi.”
“Don’t come any closer, Hazuki.”
“But—”
“I…I might kill you too.”
“No. I don’t want you to do that,” Hazuki said.
“If I end up killing you, what am I going to do next? So don’t tell me we’re friends. Let me go. I’m sorry,” Ayumi said, and withdrew the knife and put her hand on Rey Mao’s shoulder to push her away from the door.
The door opened.
“Ayumi…”
The blood-soaked young woman turned toward Hazuki’s voice.
“I’ll be all right.”
The door closed.