Chapter 4.3

May 3 Kimihiko Kimizuka

After hearing about the safe Danny Bryant had left at Sun House, I headed back home. I transferred from bus to train to the bullet train, then to another train. After a ten-minute walk from the closest station, my boring old apartment came into view.

"I was planning to come back here anyway," I muttered to no one in particular.

I'd found out the truth behind those pictures Danny had taken such good care of. That alone was worth that visit to the facility. I was coming home with results, which was why I wasn't seriously hoping that the key to the safe might be at my place.

That was what I told myself, at any rate.

I climbed the familiar metal stairs, turned the doorknob—and there was the apartment, just as it had been when I left it.

That wasn't something I could take for granted, though. Just the other day, a sneaky, mysterious thief had broken in. The apartment's windows were reinforced glass—Danny had been oddly insistent about that—so I had no clue how the prowler had gotten in.

"…Come to think of it, that break-in happened around the time I met Gekka."

As far as damage went, nothing had been stolen. Several magazines that I'd had in the closet had been set out on the bookshelf, and that was it.

"Don't tell me that bizarre break-in was her doing."

Gekka had been after Danny at the time. It wouldn't have been strange for her to do something like that and call it a background check. Next time I saw her, I'd give her an interrogation.

With a small sigh, I headed for the closet. I didn't check it much, and when I opened the door, it smelled musty. There was a ton of junk inside. It wasn't my childhood toys or anything—just souvenirs that Danny had picked up while traveling.

In that mountain of junk, I found a magic wishing mallet made out of ceramic. At a glance, it was just a normal regional craft. If there was one thing that made

it special, it was the fact that it had arrived in the mail a year ago, three days after Danny Bryant disappeared in the Hokuriku region.

This apartment was bursting with antiques and art objects that weren't my thing. Danny had bought all of them. That said, he hadn't accumulated all this stuff because he blew through his money, had a mania for collecting, or because he was a pushover.

For example, those oil paintings by an unknown artist had been the product of a job he'd performed with particular care and persistence. He'd sent this knickknack to the apartment from the place where he'd ended up dying. If I assumed it meant something, too…

"—Found it."

I'd smashed the mallet on the floor.

Among the broken ceramic shards, there was a key.

I hardly need to tell you what it was. On the other hand, I had no idea what sort of secrets this key would retrieve from that black box.

Who had Danny been, anyway? Why had he been running a facility that cared for children with special abilities? Who had he fought a year ago, and who had he been running from? What sort of face had he hidden behind his mask?

All that aside, for now…

Just for now, I closed my hand tightly around the object Danny had left me.

The key he'd sent to this address, right on May 5. A present for me. "I guess I should report in first."

Taking out my smartphone with a sweaty hand, I searched for Gekka's number in my call history. I had to tell her I'd found the key… Actually, I hadn't even told her about the safe yet. As I waited, I was putting the conversation together in my mind, but she didn't answer her phone.

"…Come to think of it, she did say she wouldn't be able to use her phone for a while."

I remembered her mentioning it this morning. She'd said she'd call me when she'd finished her job.

"Way to jump the gun." I laughed at myself.

What was I hoping for? This was such a small thing. The mere possibility that Danny Bryant might have entrusted something to me was—

Just then, the phone vibrated in my hand. Thinking Gekka had finished her

errand and was calling me back, I picked up on reflex.

But the caller was…

"Oh, hello? Am I speaking with Mister Kimizuka?"

Gekka didn't call me that. In which case…

"…Are you the art dealer from the other day?" I asked.

"Oh, good," she said, sounding relieved. "Yes, this is Krone. It was good to meet you."

Come to think of it, we'd exchanged contact information when we'd left the art gallery two days ago. She'd said she might have more information about Danny for me later on.

"I was wondering how your visit had gone. …I wasn't exactly uninvolved, you know."

She was right. Krone was the one who'd connected Danny and Grete, and thanks to the information she gave us, Gekka and I were able to find Sun House. I'd learned about the work Danny had been doing, but I'd forgotten to fill her in.

I told her what we'd learned, about the safe, and the key I'd just picked up.

Since Krone had done business with Danny, I thought she might have some new information for me, but…

"So that's what it was," Krone murmured pensively. "I'm sorry. I had no idea." I could tell she was shaking her head on the other end of the line.

"I see… No, it's fine. I'm about to head over to Sun House again."

Everything would have to wait until after I'd tried using this key, and we'd uncovered Danny's final secret. Was it classified information from his job, or was it about the people he'd been fighting? Either way, I needed to know. As the one Danny had entrusted this key to, I'd see his final wish fulfilled. That was probably the last thing I'd be able to do for—

"So, Krone, I'll call you again later." Even as I said it, I was heading for the front entrance and slipping on my leather shoes.

If I left right now and hurried, I should make the last train.

Working out the shortest route to Sun House in my head, I turned the doorknob.

"You won't have to."

When I opened the door, a woman was standing there. Krone.

"I was just about to head over there myself."

The woman's witchy rouged lips curled up. Then everything went black.

How many hours had passed?

When I opened my eyes, all I saw was darkness. "...gk. What's…going…?"

I didn't understand what had just happened. I was lying on a hard floor, and when I sat up, a twinge of pain ran down my back.

It was similar to the pain I experienced after having been stuffed into a small space for a long time. And why did that example have to be the first thing I thought of? Because of my trouble-magnet predisposition…

However, while I was thinking, my eyes became used to the dark. Faint moonlight shone into the room, and I recognized it.

"—Sun House."

This was the great hall. Why, though? I'd left this morning after my conversation with Jekyll about the safe. Then I'd returned home, found the key, and then…

"Dammit. Is that what this is?"

I'd just remembered the last thing I'd seen before passing out.

She'd kidnapped me and brought me back here. "What are you after, Krone?" I asked.

A shadow writhed in the darkness. In the depths of the big room, a woman in an elegant gown stepped into the moonlight. "I apologize for being so rough," she said, gazing at me.

"…! Krone. What are you?" Moving unsteadily, I got to my feet.

She definitely wasn't just an art dealer. The only other thing I knew about her was that she and Danny had been business partners. At this point, I didn't even know if that was true.

"Me?" Krone said. "I'm simply on the side of justice." She began pacing back and forth, high heels clicking.

"So in this day and age, allies of justice kidnap middle-schoolers? The world's going to the dogs."

"Lately, antiheroes get starring roles, too. Are movies not your thing?" she asked.

No, they're my one and only hobby.

"If you're an antihero, there had better be one heck of a villain somewhere." Unless the enemy she was up against was so unspeakably cruel they made

kidnapping helpless middle-schoolers seem like nothing, I wasn't buying it. "Yes, that's right," Krone murmured, gazing into the distance. "To me, that's

definitely what he was."

He. Who did she mean? Krone didn't tell me. "Why did you kidnap me?" I tried again.

"When you don't know something, you shouldn't immediately ask someone else for the answer. People who cut corners like that are easily tricked," she responded.

…Yeah, she had a point. That was probably why she'd managed to get me this time.

But why had she kidnapped me? I couldn't possibly be the villain she meant.

Then, who did she have business with? I'd been on the phone with her right before she captured me. What had she asked me? What had I told her?

She'd wanted to know about… "The key?"

Inevitably, I'd reached the answer. Why had she wanted it? To open the safe, of course, but did that mean she knew what was inside and wanted it?

"That's right. For the past year, I've had a vested interest in the secret Danny Bryant hid in that safe," Krone finally answered. "However, it wasn't possible to steal a safe that large, and it was rigged to explode if anyone tried to forcibly break it. All I could do was wait for the key that opened it."

Krone had said she'd visited this facility before, to buy Grete's paintings at Danny's request. Was that when she'd investigated the safe?

But she'd just said "for the past year." She might have learned about the safe on that day after Danny's death. Either way, Krone had won a certain degree of trust due to her connection with Grete, so it probably hadn't been too hard for her to infiltrate the facility.

"I waited and waited for such a long time, and then you appeared. You weren't connected to this facility, but you'd been involved with Danny. He was a cautious man; I thought there was a strong possibility that he'd left the key with someone on the outside. I was surprised when you came to visit the other day," she said, looking at me.

We'd met for the first time that day. Had that been when she'd decided to keep an eye on me? If so, had she been setting a trap when she took the risk of giving us information on Danny, and pointed us toward Sun House and the safe?

"I'd bugged the room with the safe while the old gentleman in the wheelchair was away. Thanks to that, I knew about your plans."

…I see. So she'd known I was going back to the apartment to get the key today, and she'd circled around ahead of me.

"So what the heck was in the safe?"

"I really should have been able to show it to you at this point, but…" Krone sounded rather sad.

As it turned out, however, that emotion was actually disappointment.

"The key you had was a fake."

She told me it hadn't opened the safe.

"It wouldn't even fit into the keyhole, let alone turn. I imagine it was just a dummy meant to fool any enemies who were after the safe."

Krone kept talking, but her words weren't reaching me at the moment.

I'd assumed wrong. The thought that Danny might have entrusted me with something special on my birthday had been a convenient delusion on my part.

I'd known that. I'd also known why I hadn't been summoned to Sun House, and why he'd left me all alone in that apartment. As far as he was concerned, I wasn't part of his family.

"Do you have any other ideas?"

For the first time, Krone asked me a proper question. She wanted to know where the real key was. Had she brought me along as insurance? Just in case the key was fake?

Too bad for her, though; I had no way to know. Danny hadn't left me a thing. "What now? You don't need me anymore."

"…True. Neither you nor the children at this facility had the real key. Or rather, that's how it appears." Krone resumed pacing, her heels clicking on the floor. "However, Danny Bryant must have left some hint with the children. Even if they haven't noticed it, I'm sure a memory of the key is lying dormant in their brains, somewhere in the hippocampus."

They may have been enemies, but apparently, Krone really trusted Danny.

"So what? Even if the kids do subconsciously know where the key is, how are you people going to get that information? Are you going to cut open their brains and check or something?"

Even as a joke, that was in pretty poor taste. I'd said it on purpose, to see how Krone reacted.

"Yes, that wouldn't be a bad idea." She didn't even turn a hair, and the words I'd planned to say next vanished. "Ultimately, I think we'll sail to a certain desert island. A companion of ours is there," Krone said, although I really didn't need the information. "He's a doctor who's researching the human brain. He can

interfere with specific memory sectors, erasing them or drawing them out." "...! So you're going to abduct all the children and take them there? That's

crazy. You'd do something that ridiculous just to search for a memory that might not even exist?"

"We do have one more objective." Krone abruptly stopped pacing. "A certain clinical trial is being conducted on that island. Our companion is the physician in charge, and the children at this facility are special samples. I'm sure they'll make good vessels."

Vessels? What was she talking about now?

I racked my brain, but Krone only smiled thinly.

Working from what she'd said so far, I'd come up with a theory I was pretty confident in.

I had no idea what Danny had left in that safe. However, Krone wanted it, and she was putting together a huge plan in an attempt to get it.

Danny still had secrets I didn't know about. Krone knew what they were, at least. There was even more history between the two of them than I'd imagined. That meant Krone's enemy was almost certainly Danny Bryant. And he'd died a year ago. In other words—

"You're the ones who killed Danny, aren't you?" Krone nodded quietly; her eyes still lowered. "Yes." "...! Damn…it…"

I took a run at her. I meant to throw a punch, but the next thing I knew, I was

on the floor. For a second, I thought I'd tripped over my own feet, but that probably wasn't it.

"I'm sorry. I took some precautionary measures."

Step by step, Krone came closer. Maybe she'd drugged me with something; my legs felt weak and like jelly.

"You're a tough one. You woke up faster than I expected, and really, I wouldn't have been surprised if you couldn't move at all." Krone stopped a few meters away. "You'd better thank your mother for having a sturdy baby," she murmured.

"Unfortunately, I've never even seen her."

Besides, if I'm a bit tougher than average, it's not because I was born that way. It's because of that predisposition of mine. I've gotten pulled into gang

wars before, and every so often I'd run into a mugger and take some hits. Weirdly enough, I'm used to physical pain and injuries.

"Krone. Why did you guys kill Danny?" That was another gift from my predisposition: I didn't know when to quit. Since I was going to get dragged into trouble anyway, I didn't hold back and hung in there all the way to the end. That was the only way I could live.

"You're strong." Krone began walking around me. "Our relationship with Danny was an extremely simple one: pursued and pursuers. He had a secret, and circumstances called for us to take action. We fought him constantly."

Danny always used to say that someone was after him. There had probably been several someones, but I was sure Krone's group had been the biggest one. She must have hidden her identity when she made contact with Danny.

"He really was a tricky fellow," Krone reminisced. "No matter how many traps we set or how closely we cornered him, he always got away in the end."

There was a distant look in her eyes, as if she were remembering battles from long ago. Even so, I knew how their fight had ended. All she could tell me now was what had led up to the tragedy.

"All humans have weaknesses. Do you know what his was?" She was asking me what Danny had been afraid of.

What normally scares people? The idea that what they hold dear may be destroyed.

Then what do people hold dear? Their lives? Or maybe… "His family."

The answer presented itself promptly, although it didn't feel real to me. However, I'd seen what those emotions looked like recently. Besides,

everyone knows that feeling.

"But a family? Danny didn't have—" Just as I was about to finish my sentence, it hit me.

He had. He'd definitely had a family: All the children who lived here.

"That's right. The children of this facility were Danny Bryant's one weakness.

When he asked me for that favor, I was sure of it."

That favor—she had to mean when Danny had asked her to buy Grete's paintings. That request had shown her that the children of Sun House were more important to Danny than anything else. And most likely, she'd used that knowledge to her advantage.

"On that day, a year ago, we planted a bomb here." Krone was explaining what had happened on the other end of the line during that phone call last year.

"After we'd driven Danny to the edge of a cliff, we gave him two options." Krone put up two fingers.

"Either see his precious children killed, or die and take that secret with him."

…Oh, so that was it. Krone's group hadn't wanted to learn the secret. They'd been trying to erase the people who knew it, so that it never got out. That was why they'd forced Danny to make that extreme choice.

I already knew what he'd chosen. Not that I was happy about it. I remembered the gunshot I'd heard during our last phone call.

"…But Danny's death didn't solve your problem?" From her obsession with that safe, it clearly hadn't.

"No, we'd miscalculated. He had died and taken the secret with him, but we learned afterward that he'd left a hint in that safe that would lead others to it."

"And that's why you were looking for the key?"

"Yes. If the secret itself had been in there, we could have simply blown the whole thing up. But that black box held a map that led to the secret. We had to retrieve that map, find the secret he'd hidden somewhere in the world, and dispose of it with our own hands. Danny really was a cautious man," she said. She narrowed her eyes, remembering her sworn enemy.

"He thought this through that far, and then he…"

On that day last year, he'd read their intentions, seen right through them, and died protecting what he'd chosen to protect.

But why? Why would Danny sacrifice his life for the children at the facility?

They weren't even related…

I didn't mean to say the words aloud, but they slipped out.

"He must have seen them as a stand-in for his daughter," Krone said, lowering her voice just a little.

"What are you talking about?"

She gazed at me with pity in her eyes. "He didn't even tell you that? …He had a family of his own, ten years ago."

Then Krone began to tell me about Danny's past. Things I'd never known. "Ten years ago, Danny Bryant lived with his wife and daughter. Life

happened, and they divorced; Danny took custody of his daughter and raised her with care as a single father."

A year ago, during that last phone call, Danny had talked like he'd had family. "Back then, he was working as a private detective of sorts. He'd take any

request, from minor jobs like investigating cheating spouses to solving murder cases."

That had been true when I knew him as well. He'd called himself a jack of all trades and traveled all over Japan—all over the world—carrying out a variety of jobs.

"One day, he arrested the founder of a cult. The man was a serial murderer who slaughtered children on the pretext of exorcising demons."

That incident was way too big for a private detective to handle. That said, intuition and experience told me that Danny just might do it.

"As it turned out, however, the criminal's family owned a huge financial group. They took extralegal measures, and in the end, the law failed to punish him."

It was a common story, even though it should never happen at all. That's what happens when you're part of a privileged class.

"It would have been better if the story had ended there. But you see, the founder of that cult was very proud… Well, more like he took great stock in the teachings of his god. His god had not judged him, yet that detective had put him behind bars, if only temporarily. As far as he was concerned, the detective was the devil."

"What a load of— Wait, no, did he go after Danny?"

"No. The criminal didn't spare a glance for the devil. Instead, he felt he needed to exorcise the detective's daughter."

Meaning… No, he couldn't have…

"One day after work, Danny Bryant came home and discovered his daughter's corpse."

Krone told me he'd begun working to shelter disadvantaged children from around the world a year after that.

He hadn't told me any of this. Not one single thing. Not about his family, and not about his loss.

I was sure he'd been blaming himself since the day he lost his daughter, and working to save kids around the world had been his way of atoning. It was his job, and the way he lived. It had been a secret he'd kept from me and everybody else.

So, of course, he'd never told anyone about it. And yet.

"Why do you know about Danny's past? You're an outsider." I glared at her. Krone didn't mock me. She just quietly told me the truth.

"Because it was one of my companions who killed his daughter."

Oh, I see. That must have been how their history with each other started. These guys, Krone's group, had been behind all of it—

"Don't worry. He's no longer among the living…" "You can stop talking now."

Mustering all the strength I could in my legs, I ran at Krone. Maybe because of the drug, I didn't have much sensation in my arms. Even so, fueled by the uncontrollable mass of emotion inside me, I raised my right arm high.

"Oh, you poor thing."

The voice came from behind me.

Krone had somehow circled around behind my back before I noticed. She put her arms around me, pulling me close, and whispered in my ear: "Danny Bryant created a false family for himself, but you weren't even part of that."

Stop it. Don't pity me.

"That's why you're crying. You have nowhere to vent that impulsive anger, and it's driving you forward."

I'm not mad, and I'm not crying!

I just want to avenge him, at least…!

"That's enough. You don't need to worry. There's something else I was supposed to tell you, but I'm sure your heart can't take any more. We'll put you out of your misery now. That's our duty, as those who do what's right in the world," Krone said.

The hall's big window shattered, and a figure stepped through it. They wore a hooded cloak and a monkey-like beast mask, and their right hand gripped a bloody ax.

"Behead this poor little lamb, Baht."

Was this another of Krone's friends? One of the antihero posers who'd killed Danny—

" !"

A rush of heat swept through me. It felt as if my blood were boiling, but my body couldn't keep up with my emotions. My legs were numb, and my knees buckled under me.

"It's all right. Baht has dispatched that Fiend with Twenty Faces already. Evil has been vanquished," Krone told me.

"…Gekka?"

They'd even attacked her. Was that why my call hadn't gotten through?

Because the man in the beast mask had killed her? "Damn…it…"

Following Krone's instructions, the beast soldier was closing in, step by step. My legs wouldn't move. I didn't even have the strength left to scream What do you mean, Gekka was evil?! Just simple feelings and emotions wouldn't help with the situation I was in.

…What was I supposed to prioritize over emotions at times like this? I closed my eyes, maybe because I was afraid of dying, and I kept them that way as I thought.

Hadn't somebody said something to me about this once? When you're not sure, or when you've reached an impasse. When you're in a situation where emotions can't save you. What had he told me to consider? What had he told me to look at? —Yeah, I had to at least look. I had to see what was happening.

Just as I opened my eyes, wind rushed right past me. "Who's that?!" Krone screamed.

That invisible wind closed the distance in no time and kicked Krone across the room.

It was the masked soldier in the cape.

Krone was moaning in pain; she'd hit the hard floor and rolled. "Who…are you?" I asked the caped soldier.

Facing away from me, the figure removed its hood, and long hair spilled out.

I'd never seen that back before, but it belonged to a woman.

She turned around, removing the beast mask, but I didn't know her. This hero had appeared out of nowhere, and I didn't recognize her face.

Even so, the words that came out of my mouth weren't "Thank you" or "Are you on my side?" but…

"You sure are beautiful."

The woman's face had been expressionless, but finally, her lips curled up into a small smile.

"Of course. I'm Ms. Gekka."

"What are you doing here?!"

On the floor a few meters away, Krone muttered, "—Baht's surprise attack failed?" Blood was trickling from the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away, slowly climbing to her feet.

"He meant to catch me off guard, but a certain well-informed individual had told me the enemy's location in advance," Gekka said. "By the time he reached for his weapon, I'd already secured my victory."

While she was revealing what had happened with her, she came over to me. I still hadn't managed to get up. "Sorry, kid. I know this wasn't your preferred cosplay," she joked, smiling faintly.

"Well, if you dress up as a cat-eared maid sometime, it'll work out."

"That's news to me," Gekka said. She continued, "Get back." Stepping in front of me, she faced Krone.

"…The plan's gone off course." Krone's expression was still grim, but her gaze was wandering restlessly. Had the unexpected intruder shocked her, or…?

"Don't move." Watching the enemy with something like pity, Gekka drew a pistol from inside her cloak.

"White?"

It wasn't like the handgun the redheaded policewoman sometimes showed me.

I'd never seen a gun that color or shape before.

"This isn't a finished product," Gekka told me, without turning around. "I'd really prefer a longer barrel. It would be much cooler that way."

Krone took something out of her bodice, and Gekka shot her right arm. "Ghk! Aaaah!"

The bullet grazed her shoulder, and Krone groaned in pain.

That didn't mean we'd won, though. In almost the same moment as the gunshot, there was an explosion so loud it nearly lifted me off the ground. The floor shook as if an earthquake had struck, and the hall's right wall blasted apart in an avalanche of black smoke and flames.

What Krone had grabbed right before being shot was a detonator switch—and flames were closing in on us from the demolished room next door. The smoke stung my eyes, and the air was so hot that my throat was burning with every breath.

"Just surrender quietly! I don't intend to kill you," Gekka said hastily. Even as she watched, the fire began to encircle Krone. However, those blazing flames also shielded her from Gekka's physical attacks.

"Do you think this is all right?"

The woman spoke from within the fire.

Her eyes reflected the leaping flames. I was far away, still sitting on the floor,

but those eyes were fixed on me.

"Kimihiko Kimizuka. You're the only one who can stop Danny Bryant now."

Krone's eyes stayed on me. It was as if she didn't even see the flames around her or the barrel of Gekka's gun, and her words snuck into my heart.

"Everything I told you today was for a certain truth. The secret Danny Bryant hid was something that should never be exposed to the public eye. Our vigilante group fought him in order to prevent that."

"What are you…talking about?"

I still didn't know what sort of secret Danny had been hiding. I did know that having it had made Krone consider him her greatest enemy and pursue him. What on earth was it?

"Danny Bryant wasn't sheltering gifted kids and children with difficult family situations here. He didn't get their parents' consent. He just kidnapped them."

"Kid, you don't need to listen to this!"

A gunshot rang out, but the wavering heat mirages threw off her aim, and the bullet went wide.

"Kimihiko Kimizuka, hadn't you noticed that Danny was abnormally obsessed with children?"

Her question brought memories to the surface. Danny was always cool and composed, but every so often, his emotions would get out of control.

It was always when a child was caught up in domestic trouble. Kids couldn't choose their parents, yet their parents were the only ones they could rely on. He'd held a deep sympathy for them, and I'd seen the sort of anger and melancholy he'd normally never shown.

"Danny Bryant's warped love for children eventually morphed into the idea that only he could protect them."

Why had Danny paid so much attention to children, even total strangers, and eventually gotten attached to them? As Krone had said, it was because he'd thought of other kids as stand-ins for his murdered daughter—

"That wasn't all Danny was plotting. He also bore a grudge against the ones who'd taken his daughter from him. The people who'd just let her die. His own country. He researched the families of the prosecutor and police officers who'd been in charge of the incident and selected their children as his next victims."

"You can't mean that Danny was trying to…"

Danny had caught a murderer and incurred the man's anger. As a result, his only daughter had been killed. According to Krone, however, the one responsible had already died. That left only one target for his revenge: the

country that hadn't punished the murderer appropriately. And maybe, the means he'd chosen had been—

"That's right. Danny was planning to kidnap innocent children, and that was only the beginning. Our vigilante group was a necessary evil. We existed in order to put an end to his scheme." Krone claimed that hounding Danny to his death a year ago had been justified. She called herself an antihero because she'd needed to be the lesser of two evils.

"Kid, you don't have to listen!" Gekka shouted again, but her words didn't even sound like human speech to me. Before I knew it, Krone's words had become the only thing I was listening to.

"This Fiend with Twenty Faces was looking for the list of their locations Danny left behind, somewhere in the world. That was why she made contact with you after his death. It was all to get the key that would lead her to the list."

Yeah, that's right. Gekka had mentioned that at one point. She'd said she was looking for Danny, tracing his footsteps, for the sake of a certain objective.

"The Fiend with Twenty Faces was probably trying to find children who had special abilities or skills. Depending on how they were used, they could bring in plenty of money."

A girl who could make perfect copies of world-famous masterpieces. A boy with a brain that could beat a quantum computer. There were plenty of kids like those two at this facility, and in other unknown places around the world. Had Gekka been following Danny in order to find them?

…Right, someone had hired her to track him. Her goal really had been—

" ! !" Gekka had turned back and was desperately saying something.

For some reason, though, her voice didn't reach my ears, let alone my heart. She was probably lying anyway.

She hadn't even shown me her true self.

That's right: I didn't know anything about Gekka. Not her real name, or her real face, or the real reason she'd approached me. Had the Fiend's words been leading me astray this whole time?

But right now, Danny was more important.

"…! Why would Danny plot those kidnappings? Didn't he treasure kids more than anybody?"

Why would he direct his revenge at little kids who'd done nothing?

Hadn't he loved them like family, as much as he'd loved his own daughter? "Sometimes love gets warped," Krone said. "Danny Bryant lost his beloved

daughter, and he changed the way he lived because of her. In the process, love

and death began to blend into one thing inside him. Maybe he lost sight of which was the end and which was the means. However, he may not have seen any contradiction in defiling precious children with his own hands.

"You've experienced something similar, haven't you?" she asked, questioning my subconscious. "You looked up to Danny as a father, yet you bore a grudge against him. You wondered why he wouldn't look at you. Why you, and only you, couldn't be part of his family. Why he died and left you. Listen, kid." Just as someone else had, some other time, Krone whispered in my ear. Even though she couldn't really have been there. "Check the inside pocket of your jacket."

Like magic, her soft voice slipped into my ears and heart. Although Krone had to be in the midst of those blazing flames, the next thing I knew, her voice had enfolded me, body and mind.

"The detonator is in there. You can use that to end all of this."

Krone was the enemy. She was evil. I knew that. It was an undeniable fact. However, Krone had caused that incident last year fully aware that she was evil, and she was still standing against us. It was all to shut down a greater evil, Danny Bryant's plan.

"The facility's children have already been evacuated. The only things that would be lost in the explosion are our three lives, and the map that would lead us to Danny's secret."

I felt something hard in my inner pocket. Had she given me a detonator switch as insurance, just in case something happened to her?

If I pressed this switch now, we'd blow up along with the safe. If that happened, the map to the secret would be gone, the ones who were trying to misuse that secret would be dead, and innocent children would probably be saved.

Of course, Krone wouldn't be able to dispose of the secret with her own hands, and someone else like Gekka might come looking for it again. There was no sense in worrying about what might happen later, though. For now, I should

—

"You're okay with dying?"

"Yes. It's the duty of an antihero." Krone's illusion gently touched my hands.

She was saying we should take down the enemy together. The next thing I knew, my fingertip was on the switch.

"That man betrayed you. He didn't make you part of his family. It's frustrating, isn't it? It's sad." At the sight of my trembling fingers, tears rolled down Krone's cheeks, as if her heart ached for me.

"You couldn't be Danny Bryant's son. But there's a mission you can carry out now."

Oh, I see. Danny was gone, but I shouldn't inherit his last wish. I should make sure it never happened. I shouldn't avenge him.

The one I really needed to defeat was the ghost named Danny Bryant—

"Yes, that's the only tie you can form with him: history. Detonating this bomb will be your final rebellion against that ghost."

I'd destroy what Danny had left behind with my own hands. Justice and evil had nothing to do with it. Even if triggering this detonator was evil, being a villain didn't scare me.

I'd always been this way. I wasn't scared of becoming a murderer, or of turning the world against me. By pressing this switch, I'd destroy what that man had left behind, along with this building. Since I hadn't been part of his family, I was the only one who could do it. In that case, I'd—

"I don't understand human emotions that well."

The voice wasn't Krone's, but all of a sudden, I could hear it. Probably because of the bullet that had shattered the window. My pitch-black vision seemed to clear. When I turned, Gekka was standing there, facing me.

"So all I can give you is a hypothesis based on objective facts."

She was holding a gun. Using her free left hand, she slowly withdrew a USB drive from her cloak.

"That's…!"

Beyond Gekka, surrounded by leaping flames, Krone screamed. Her gentle embrace had been nothing more than a con artist's sweet illusion.

"That's right. This is what Danny hid in that black box." Gekka turned toward Krone. "I opened the safe on my way here."

"…You did, Gekka?" My mind still hadn't cleared completely, and I sounded delirious. How? Where had she found the real key?

"It was the key to your apartment," Gekka said casually. "Or really, it's more of a spare key. It's the one I used when I first went to visit you. I had a hunch, and when I tried it on the safe, it turned out I was right."

What did she mean, she was right? What's this about? What was Gekka seeing? What had she noticed?

My heart was racing. Was it anxiety, or…?

"Danny Bryant was waiting for this day all along. Do you understand?"

Gekka turned back to me. "One year ago, he knew death was closing in on him, and he was braced for it. He was sure someone would try to determine the truth behind his death, and that person was bound to make contact with you. He thought you'd probably be depressed after he died, but that person would help you find a reason to live again. Danny predicted all of that."

You mean…

As I made the connection internally, she said it aloud. "He rigged this Pandora's box to open when you started to look toward the future. Listen, kid…" This time, Gekka was the one who said it. "He placed a lot of trust in you. I'm not going to let you tarnish his last wish by misinterpreting it."

Paying no heed to the flames that were enveloping the room, Gekka Shirogane, the Fiend with Twenty Faces, stood tall and asked me a question.

"Do you really think Danny Bryant would have used children as tools for his revenge?"

She'd said she didn't understand human emotions, so she'd put together a hypothesis using nothing but objective facts.

We were the same. She and I were the same.

I didn't understand human emotions. I didn't have anyone to teach me about love.

There was no point in pining over things I didn't have, though. And that made me just like Gekka.

I'd been wearing a transparent mask that let me avoid seeing things I didn't want to see and avoid noticing what I didn't want to notice. It also kept everyone from realizing I was doing that.

At some point, however, a crack had formed in that mask. That was why, when I'd first met Gekka, I'd taken the fall for that man who'd wanted to see his daughter one more time. I'd wanted to know about parental love.

I'd felt that maybe doing so would help me understand Danny's true motives a little more. Maybe then I could understand the heart of a parent who was thinking of their child.

"Give me that."

Just then, beyond the blazing flames, a shadow rose up.

With a furious snarl, Krone caught Gekka off guard, shoving her to the floor.

She was holding the ax Gekka had used when she pretended to be a soldier.

"—! I knew you weren't really going to burn the contents of the safe." Even though Krone had her pinned, Gekka was interrogating the other woman. "Were you just planning to have the kid and me die in the explosion?"

If I'd pressed that switch a minute ago…

"Kid!" Gekka shouted. She threw the flash drive, and it slid right up to my feet. "Listen to me! Don't fall for con artists' honeyed words! If you're like me, then use solid facts to decide what sort of person Danny was!" Krone tried to bring the ax down, but Gekka held her off desperately. "What did you see?! What sort of man was the Danny Bryant you knew?! What sort of jobs did you do together?!"

What had I done with him?

I remembered calling all the houses on a list. "Ask if their kid can come over and play," he'd said. The people I'd called had been skeptical, of course, since I hadn't actually known their kids. Even so.

"At this point, you understand what that was about, don't you?" Yeah, I did. Danny had been protecting the kids.

Those children had been exposed to abuse or trouble at home, and he was telling them they had an ally. He'd also made sure the parents knew someone was watching, so that they'd think twice before tormenting them further.

"Kids have a future, and their lives take priority every time."

Danny had said that, too.

Afterward, he'd headed to a home that was in trouble to save a child he'd never seen.

Kids with a future. Come to think of it, had he smiled at me as he said that? No, that didn't matter now. Even if I'd misunderstood, it didn't matter. The one sure thing, the one important thing, was the fact that Danny Bryant had put himself in danger to save children.

I was sure he'd acted that way because of his regrets. When he'd said, "Parents are all kids have," he'd been reminding himself.

He'd been all his daughter had, and he hadn't kept her safe. He'd let her die. It was his fault.

When Danny had stared into the distance every so often, he was looking at a mirror that reflected his past.

"Yeah, that's the kind of guy you were."

My father figure, my teacher—it didn't matter what I called him.

Danny Bryant regretted his past. He couldn't change how he'd lived. He loved every kid in the world as if they were his own daughter—and this time, when he'd died, he'd protected them to the end.

In that case.

"This is my real answer."

When she heard me, Krone turned, finally realizing I was holding what she was after.

But by then it was too late.

I'd thrown the flash drive into a particularly hot patch of flames.

"What did you just—!" Krone turned toward the fire, her expression a mixture of panic and despair.

"Fantastic job, kid."

Suddenly, real warmth enfolded me.

Was this what it felt like when someone hugged you? I was still too drugged to be able to move, and Gekka had scooped me up in her arms. "Embarrassed?" she asked, running toward one of the blazing room's windows.

Depending on how you looked at it, this probably did seem like a bridal carry. Under the circumstances, though, there was no point in trying to look cool. "Nah, not really. Besides—"

In the next moment, Gekka jumped out of the broken window, with me still in her arms.

Almost immediately, there was a huge explosion behind us, and the hall we'd just been standing in was a sea of flames.

Once we'd put more distance between ourselves and the building, we collapsed like dead men.

"…Are you okay?" Gekka asked. She was sprawled out beside me in the grass.

I told her what I'd started to say earlier.

"Yeah. Getting saved by an older woman isn't bad."