messiah novel (you are in shine, part 23)

[devilism]

Something like the roar of the sea suddenly filled up Eiri's heart as they came closer to the Umeoka station of the Odawara line.

It was the neighbourhood of his parents' house, which he hadn't returned to for many years now. He often took this train passing by the station and moving underneath the feet of the neighbourhood's residents as well to go out and play.

When he was in elementary school he used his pocket money on the gachapon machines which were lined up in front of the stationery shop. His mother sometimes scolded him about him having to think better about how he used his money.

In those days groups of elementary school boys gathered in the "gachapon street" that was in the overhead passage between the northern and southern exits. They traded the cards and prizes inside, and played with the cases by throwing and kicking them as if they were balls. They could always find one or two empty gachapon cases which had been abandoned like shells on the beach.

(How nostalgic.)

Eiri gazed out of the car at the scenery without realising it. Over a long distance of about 3 or 4 kilometers cherry blossom trees were standing in rows along the foothpath.

One or two branches were blooming ahead of the rest. But there were a lot of cherry blossom trees that were showing no sign of activity.

During the spring of each year a cherry blossom festival was held along this street. Many people from the nearby neighbourhoods spread out mats in the park and came for the special day. Although most people only got to enjoy the cherry blossom season in such a short way, it was different for Eiri's family. Since they had a magnificent cherry blossom tree in their garden.

Haku slowly stopped the car.

--- The house Eiri hadn't been to in a long time.

That's where that guy was. The one who killed his parents and his little sister, Egor Ginzburg.

(I won't let him get away this time.)

He subconsciously grasped his right hand tightly. The damage that Ginzburg had caused to his right arm still hadn't completely healed. But it wasn't as if he couldn't move it at all. And he could also hold a gun with his left hand.

This time he'll return uninjured.

A message immediately showed up on the palm-sized electronic pad. It was from their classmate, Gojyo Souma. He and his partner, Shiba Shuusuke, had investigated the state of Eiri's house. He must for sure have been looking into the thermal signs from the most nearby skyscraper.

"There are only heat signs from one person. Ushio Yoshiya must be somewhere else."

That heat signature from one person had to be Ginzburg for sure. Eiri got out of the car with the pad, knowing they wouldn't be able to get closer this way.

This was the road he used to head down in the past with a telescope tied to his bike. Thinking about that, he could barely breathe, even though he was still walking.

Only Ichijima and his Sakura classmates were aware of this place. This information hadn't been passed along to the police department. So there weren't a lot of people monitoring the house and them.

Ichijima had said that he'd entrust the support to Shiba and Gojyo. Even though the information would be shared with the information desk at Maru School, there were essentially only four people who would be able to act, Eiri and Haku included.

Suddenly the LCD screen got distorted and an error message appeared.

Haku spoke up.

"There's a jamming signal somewhere around here. Maybe so the microphone won't pick up sound."

They had brought along a wiretap in case Ginzburg was at Eiri's house. Then Gojyo and Shiba would be able to rush over right away if they could find out Ushio Yoshiya's whereabouts in their conversation with Ginzburg. But it seemed that they wouldn't be able to use it thanks to the North's interference.

It seemed like Ginzburg didn't cooperate well even with his own side, hence how he was able to appear in front of them easily.

(That was careless. No matter how talented of a spy someone was, they couldn't just come alone.)

Perhaps it was a trap.

But Eiri and Haku didn't have any time left to hesitate.

The disarmament summit had already began. The Japanese Prime Minister was expected to speak around two o' clock in the afternoon. And the vote would be at 9 o' clock in the evening. There were only six hours left.

Could they really extract useful information from Ginzburg and save Ushio Yoshiya before then? There were limits as to how much they could act while the police had set out a dragnet. So this was their last chance.

"No matter what it takes, we have to find out Ushio Yoshiya's whereabouts ahead of the regular police. If we'd fall behind, then even if the government would continue the disarmament, all of the blame would be put on Sakura's shoulders and they would consider disbanding Section Five."

Ichijima had said that through Gojyo, starting a fire under them by implying that everything was up to them now.

If Sakura had to be disbanded, people like them without any family register would literally have no place to go.

He opened the back door leading to the garden.

The place that had once been Eiri's house was now obviously a deserted house that had fallen to ruin. It was no wonder, considering the incident where a whole family was killed and fire was set to the house had been talked about a lot in the news back then, and too many people would have died there to consider living in it.

It had been seven years since the owner of the house disappeared. It seemed like the realtor the court had ordered to take care of the house hadn't done much. The burned wood was rotting, and here and there it had rotten enough to the point of there being holes. It looked worn down with even just one glance. It was strange for the house to be kept in a state like this in the middle of a quiet residential area, but maybe it was since there was a shinto shrine on the other side of the house, where no one lived.

The shrine's land was to the northeast, a road to the south and the neighbourhood's assembly hall to the west. It was the sort of place you could live without having to fear people from the other houses watching you.

Like a place for a spy.

The house was mostly burned, and the entrance and bathroom had been completely covered by vegetation. There was no indication that anyone had lived there for what seemed like over a hunderd years now, let alone Eiri's family.

If you pushed aside the dry grass, surely the nostalgic bathroom tiles would pop up again. The blue tiles of the bathroom where his father had let him give his little sister baths when she was still a baby...

This was all that was left of his house. His father's study, which Eiri liked to use as a secret base of sorts, had also been burned down on the second floor.

The only thing that hadn't changed by now was the early blooming cherry blossom tree, giving color to the dreary garden.

"I'm home."

Eiri said.

Those words came out naturally, to a point that it was surprising even to himself. When they left his mouth, and his ears picked them up and they resounded inside his own head, it made him think of how long it was since he last left this place, and it made him feel like he was sucking a deep breath inside of his chest.

— — — — — — — — —
The man who had entered Eiri's house without permission was in the garden.

There was an old leather oboe case at his feet. It was black and shiny, as if it had barely been used.

There was no sign of any other person.

Egor Ginzburg was standing with his back turned towards Eiri and Haku who entered through the backdoor, staring motionlessly at something.

He was looking at the cherry tree. The snow white flowers seemed to shine against the backdrop of the evergreen trees of the Shinto shrine.

Had it originally been a tree belonging to the shrine? Perhaps the plots of land had been seperated.

---- Perhaps it was since the trees on the other side were leaning against each other, but it seemed awfully lonely.

... That's right, Eiri remembered those words his father had said to him before.

Ginzburg was turned towards it, to a point that his back was just too defenseless.

His hair color was that kind of brown you'd often see on Japanese people, but it was thinly mixed in with very unique cappuccino colored hair in places.

With him looking like that, Eiri felt that he really looked like Haku from the back like this.

His twin brother who had disappeared when he was just a child. It really was a twist of fate that the guy who looked exactly like his partner was also the person who had killed his parents.

It was almost too impossible to be real.

"Only this was left here without being burned down, huh?"

He spoke up in fluent Japanese. Eiri surpressed the urge to twist his neck now since they had to hear where Ushio was first. Don't be hasty. They would lose everything right now if their opponent escaped.

Moreover, Egor Ginzburg had a diplomatic passport. In other words, it wasn't possible for anyone in this country to restrain or arrest him.

"How is your dominant arm doing now?"

Remembering the humilation of how easily his dominant arm had been twisted by this guy on that rooftop on the day of the mock exam, Eiri's eyes were sharp.

"For what reason did you really come here?"

Eiri said.

"You must've heard everything about me and about Haku from Japanese betrayer that spilled information to you guys."

"Be-tray-er."

Hearing his voice for the first time in a while made it sound like water. Although it was supposed to sound like Haku, Eiri thought they didn't really resemble each other in this way. Was it since his mother tongue had already been changed into the one from the North?

"The person spying inside of S School who quickly told you guys about me. The person who could quickly infiltrate the Ushio household and take out Ushio Yoshiya, despite the SP guarding him. And the person who was able to stain the back of Ushio Yoshiya's shirt with a paint ball on the day of the mock exam---"

Haku had spied on the list of names of the teachers at S School during the break between classes. The students, the people who cleaned the school, the transport guys who delivered the things the school had bought. And the staff of the school store, the school janitor, and the exchange students. But from all the aforementioned people, there was only one among them who would have been able to do all of the above.

"The betrayer who had been leaking information to you guys was Ushio Yoshiya himself. Isn't that right?"

The man's back didn't even do as much as twitch. Eiri thought that was slightly detestable.

"Ushio Yoshiya became an informant for you guys due to certain circumstances. I don't know how long ago that started, but the North thought of a way to be able to use Ushio Yoshiya well during this summit. In other words, you asked Ushio himself to play a part in the charade, pretending that he had been sniped and had been kidnapped. You and me met that day. Ushio Yoshiya hadn't been sniped until after the mock exam was over. If that was the case, the stain on his back must have appeared between the end of the mock exam and the time he left the building."

But he had gone to the bathroom after the mock exam ended. From the toilet next to the classroom that had been used for the mock exam it only took less than a minute to get to the building's entrance. It wouldn't be a good time to try and hit someone with a paint ball when they're heading towards the entrance along with hunderds of other people. So if it had been possible at all, he would have been sniped when he was in the bathroom.

"But unfortunately the bathroom Ushio Yoshiya used on the very day of the mock exam was a private room."

Ginzburg moved his head just a tiny bit.

"Haku watched on that day. The toilet that Ushio Yoshiya used was opposite the stairs. And yet he specifically took his jacket and bag with him to the toilet. So you could say that he took them along in order to be able to quickly go home after using the toilet. But it wouldn't have been possible to snipe him in a private bathroom without windows. That means I can only think of one thing. Ushio took his jacket along to the bathroom specifically to shoot at it from point-blank range with an air gun with a silencer on it. And so he went from the toilet to the entrance afterwards."

Eiri continued, the feeling that Haku was at his back giving him strength.

"Ushio gave detailed reports to the North about how I approached him. Since you knew about Haku, you would have known everything about our secret identities. You knew that Haku and I were Sakura, even though the Japanese special police didn't even know about the existence of Sakura. And you used that knowledge as much as you would. Through the kidnapping of the son of the Prime Minister, Ushio Yoshiya. On that day you guys got in touch with Ushio to make him invite me over to his house, as he had done many times already. When I came there, I noticed that the housekeeper was hurriedly collecting the trash. That housekeeper forgets about the garbage collection day every week, and is known across the neighbourhood for being late in putting out the trash. Moreover, according to the reports by the SP, that housekeeper had been told to buy a special garbage collection box with wheels. That seems like Ushio Yoshiya's doing, doesn't it? Maybe the abduction plan had already been set in place back then. Ushio would get into that box himself, so he would be taken out by the housekeeper. Once I had left the Ushio household, Ushio pretended that he had gone up to his room on the second floor, but he had actually hidden himself away in the box. The housekeeper pulled the box along, not knowing a thing, and only having to put in a little bit more effort than usually since the box was heavier. Since he would be taken outside that way, there was no need for anyone to take the risk of going into the house and stunning Ushio on the second floor."

— — — — — — — — —
"All this talk about wanting to leave them behind made me think of something. There was a story in a mystery novel about transporting dead bodies."

"Dead bodies?"

"A ninety litre bucket is exactly the right size for a person."

— — — — — — — — —
He talked about carrying dead bodies in a bucket in such an unnatural way.

Perhaps everything had already been set in stone at that time.

A sniping incident without a clear culprit, an abduction without a declaration of criminal intent. Both were Ushio Yoshiya's own doing---. It was only natural to think that.

Ginzburg looked over his shoulder.

"This right here is a good opportunity. I always thought about wanting to take Haku back with me."

That face still looked so much like Haku's.

"This mission is very simple, and the likelyhood of success is very high. Kaidou Eiri, just like you said, our collaborator was very proactive."

His gaze shifted to Haku, who was standing behind his back.

"When I was ten years old, I was taken away by investigators from the North."

He started speaking almost as if he was confessing to a crime which he had kept secret for a long time.

"We lived in an apartment building near Keisei Funabashi Station. It was an amazingly poor and empty house. All we had were things that we had either found in the trash or stolen. My treasured possession was an oboe I had stolen from a middle school student who was part of our neighbourhood's concert band and who had been practicing in the park. What was yours, Haku? I'm sure it were the empty boxes of sweets that were all stuffed into the closet. Our mother was a foreigner who worked two jobs at a place that sold snacks and a public strip club. I didn't know who our father was. 　Even now I still remember that the lady who had the next shift selling snacks after her didn't come until the morning. And that there was no bath in the apartment. The toilet was outside on the veranda. Haku, I wonder if you still remember all of it? Often when we disobeyed our mother, we were locked up in the triangular storage under the staircase. It was super narrow in there since the next building's hot springs were next to the corridor, so you couldn't easily escape from there. I really hated that place since it was so suffocating."

Ginzburg slowly walked under the cherry blossoms, practically spitting the words out.

"Every day the two of us would go far away on our bikes to go shoplifting at a supermarket. I said that we had to put the things into a basket so it wouldn't look suspicious, and you always wanted juice and chocolate. That sweet drink called Nanny, for example, or sugar coated sweet buns. You were the timid type and couldn't steal at all, so I always did it for you. No matter what store we went to, when we went, or who was working there, I always knew well where the manager was. I had stolen a city map off the side of a police box to mark the supermarkets we had stolen from to make sure we wouldn't steal from there during the next three months. Thanks to that I wasn't caught even a single time. Oh, and do you remember this too? The snack food we had put so much effort into stealing was all eaten up by a guy that our mother had brought along who smelled of alcohol. And you flew into a frenzy and hit that guy."

Ginzburg laughed in a way that sounded like it came from the bottom of his heart. But Haku didn't move at all.

"I wanted to stop it back then, but when I saw you getting pummeled by that guy, I lost my cool more and more and jumped on him. At the end both of us got involved. That man was the worst. He even stole the 200 yen that our mother had left us to get something to eat."

Ginzburg spoke with a sigh.

"It sucked that he kept stealing from us. So you killed him, and the two of us dumped him behind the strip club. Oh, that's right, that long clothes hanger that had been left there by former residents-- that stick from when you got locked in the closet-- we frantically struck him with that. But since that guy just didn't die at all, and both of us were on the verge of tears, you got him to go towards the stairway and pushed him off. We were nervous as we carried his body on a car we had stolen from the liquor store on the other side of the street. We were relieved when we left him there like that under the stairs, as if he was just a drunkard who had gotten into a fight."

The nostalgic memories that came out of the mouth of the brother Haku hadn't seen in about ten years or so were carrying the stench of blood.

"But a man spotted us while we were doing all of that."

Haku, who had been standing behind Eiri all this time, moved for the first time at that. It felt to Eiri like he was squirming.

"That man was a spy from the North. He spoke up to us to ask us if we wanted to come with him. It would've been a big deal if he had abducted children from a home with loving parents to some brutal country. But there are a lot of people no one would miss if they were to disappear. It seems that guy had a mission in Japan to look for children that could be raised to become great spies. There were inevitably children with mixed blood in the city where a lot of foreign illegal workers gathered. Ethnic characteristics didn't matter a lot-- as long as the children looked like they could blend in at any city, they could become long-running spies if they were trained well... So that man thought. That man was an old-fashioned spy who had given a lot of time and effort. He passed by coincidentally while we were trying to cover up our crime, and he liked us. Back then I felt like it was so mysterious that I'd like to go with him. I knew that our mother wouldn't live long with all the drugs she used. If we stayed, we'd just be sent off to an orphanage. The man told us that he didn't have much time. He was leaving Japan in three days. There was barely any time, since he also had to forge fake passports. But.. Haku, you didn't come along. You couldn't leave our mother."

He caught his breath.

"I had only taken along the beloved oboe case that I had stolen. Why did I steal it? It didn't even sound nice for that long, but it was still the most precious treasure to me. Maybe it was since it was the most expensive thing we had. It was a cold day. You nor I said anything. All that escaped our lips was white breath. The man ended up buying candy. I gave all of it to you. -- That's how we were separated."

Every time he stopped, his gaze went past Eiri to look at Haku.

"The man and I went through China to the North. I got adopted by his relatives over there. But I never forgot about you. Even so, I never imagined we'd meet this way again. Where were you working..? Were you going to university with a scholarship..? Those were the kind of things I thought about. After I graduated from university at sixteen, I spent several years at a special military organisation. I even went to the Caucasus. After that I got called Yasenevo, and I got assigned to carry out jobs in Japan. When I first went to Japan, I just carried out a small task. I went between the North and Japan several times, and got responsibility for killing Japanese people."

At that his gaze caught Eiri's for the first time.

The wind blew. It was lukewarm, like someone's breath. Rather than being a premonition of spring, it seemed more like the life that died and rotted away in the winter, fermenting together all at once--

"When I heard that you and Haku were assigned to be a Sakura pair together, my instinct immediately went to work. Kaidou Eiri. Both that guy's son and Haku should come with me to the North."

"... Why would I go to the country that killed my parents?"

"There's a few reasons. For one thing, your father wasn't really your family. He was an enemy."

It felt like a crack had appeared underneath Eiri's feeth, to the point that he almost felt a tremor.

"Moreover, you won't be able to be saved if you stay here."

His left hand slowly moved towards his waist. He had put a gun in his back pocket.

"Stop that."

Ginzburg said.

"I know that Haku is part of the Japanese secret intelligence agency, but I have a reason for wanting to take him along to the North like this. There are ideological and political sides to that reason, but most of all it's due to the deep-seated problem in this country. That being the indifference."

He said that he had been waiting ever since he was young for someone to save him.

"I've always been waiting for a savior. But we couldn't even ask for help. If we'd do that, it'd feel like we were betraying our loving mother. That's why I didn't raise my voice. I've been close to death many times. And yet I still never raised my voice, since there was something more important than saving myself. That's how everything works. An organisation, for example. Even if there's something I really want right in front of my eyes, I still have to abide by the rules of the organisation. There even are rules you must abide by while fighting a secret intelligence war behind closed doors. But there was an organisation which didn't abide by them. Your parents were killed by that organisation, Eiri. Your parents weren't part of Japan's Public Safety. They weren't spies from the North either. I'm not the one who killed your parents. It was the Japanese government."

Ginzburg said, showing a thin smile.

"Your father was in charge of sending money to an independent terrorist organisation operating within Russia. That's why the North asked the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs his whereabouts, and Public Safety tracked him down."

".. You're lying."

"I'm telling the truth. The Japanese government had actually abandoned you guys. Your father didn't matter to Japan. The enemy of that terrorist organisation was Russia, not Japan. But to the North it was an big problem. In any case, around that time the Olympic Games were scheduled to happen at St. Petersburg. If there was a terrorist attack around that time, it'd turn into an international problem. The information about your parents was easily bought. Public Safety started acting through the force of an influential member of the parliament from Hokkaido. The information was sold just so he would give a positive statement about the Northern Territories issue."

Eiri realised that he had been holding his breath and didn't know for how long he had been doing so already.　He quickly sucked in a breath. But he choked since he couldn't breathe well and started coughing violently.

Stupid, stupid. That couldn't be. Our enemy was an eloquent and skillful Russian spy. Don't believe anything he says. It's all bullshit. It was just his way of trying to ensnare him.

But he didn't have the strong feelings from back when he had confronted the other on top of that rooftop. Somewhere deep in his head, it really-- He already knew it was true.

"I guess you already know. Eiri. You already understood. Who is your real enemy?"

"I won't be misled by anything you say. Even if my father and mother had been sold out by the Japanese government, you're still the one who killed them, right?!"

"I said I didn't kill them. Ah, too bad. Are you still devoting yourself to the country? You know that you won't be saved."

A groan emerged from his throat.

"Moreover, we don't kill people in that flashy sort of way. It causes too much of a disturbance. That incident ocurred while I was monitoring your family for a few days after I had received orders to only get rid of your father. It was a member of a terrorist organisation that killed your parents and sister. I guess they were afraid that their information would get leaked. You and I happened to come across each other right after that. You remember it, right? Back then I taken the SVD out of the case."

As he said that, Eiri tried to remember that time as well as he could.

It was true. Moreover, there was no use in carrying around a rifle at such a close point-blank range. It'd be natural to assume that he'd be shooting with a regular gun. But...

"No.. Everything you're saying is bullshit, it's not true, I won't be deceived!"

Eiri looked straight ahead of himself, somehow managing to stay steady on his wobbling feet.

"I remember. There were fresh blood splatters all over the window back then. It hadn't dried up yet. If you think about it calmly, there should have been some terrorist who would have been there to dispose of my father. But there was no one there. Just you!"

He glared at Ginzburg with the intensity of the cut of a knife.

"If you looked at at how my family was lying on the floor, they should've been shot from the yard. It would be strange if the culprit bothered using the front door then instead of just going into the garden. When I came back and fire started, the fire was mostly just in the living room. If I were the culprit, I wouldn't have made it such a noticable fire. So if the culprit came from the yard, he must've tried to leave through the yard as well. And that's where we met."

As he rambled on one-sidedly like that, Eiri noticed a strange expression on Ginzburg's face. His face looked as if he was mourning. It was the kind of face that asked him back on that rooftop whether he really was being saved.

"--- Fine. I admit that's true. Back then the culprit entered from the yard, killed your mother and little sister, and set fire to the living room. And I ran into you under this cherry tree."

His heart was pounding rapidly.

Eiri already understood why he suddenly heard the sound of his heart. It was since maybe Ginzburg would tell the truth now.

"Eiri. Have you ever thought about how your parents met, why they got married, or why your house was here?"

"Hold on."

He mumbled with a fragile voice, even though he had wanted to hear the truth from Ginzburg's mouth only a few minutes ago.

"Listen up. I thought this was what you wanted? Just have a little bit of courage. Your father was subordinate at a company when he married your mother, whose maiden name was Hara Yuiko. At that time Yuiko was 26 years old, and had just divorced, having a 5 year old son and a newborn daughter. She was struggling to get an income."

"Stop..."

Only negative words spilled out of his mouth."

"That's wrong. That's not true. That's..."

"For Yuiko, your father was like a white knight. 　Back then he proposed to her so they could raise the two children together rather than her having to do it by herself. Yuiko remarried and retired from her work. Since she had a husband with a stable income, they were able to get a fairly big house in Setagaya, even though it was a rented house. Her husband was also kind to her children, and her children easily took to their new father. For about ten years after that she was satisfied with living like that. --- Until that day."

(I don't want to hear it!)

If there had been some invisible hand, Eiri would have covered his ears with it right away. But Eiri couldn't cover both of his ears like that in the presence of other people.

"When she learned why her husband had chosen her and why he had spent his life with her, Yuiko was killed. Along with her poor daughter. She was murdered because she failed to fulfill her duty--- There was one Japanese person who chose to help out the terrorists due to a slight feeling of righteousness rather than choosing to be sold out to his motherland."

Eiri himself had wanted to know the truth.

That was why he couldn't stop the truth now it was being told. It was like a bullet that had been shot and couldn't be stopped until it'd hit Eiri's eardrums.

"You saw it. On that day your father killed your mother and sister and then turned the gun onto himself, with a facial expression that knew there was no salvation for him."

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