Chapter Three - 2

2

 

Kirisame entered the library through the rear entrance and rubbed his cold fingertips together, seeking warmth. Even inside the library, it was cold enough to turn his breath into a white mist. Most likely, no one had turned on the heating yet. Kirisame wiped the snow from his shoes on the mat, put his umbrella in the umbrella stand, and made for the office. With his hands in his pockets, he walked through the quiet hallway with its flickering fluorescent lights and opened the office door. No one was there. The office computer was running, its internal fan softly humming away. The display still showed the initial start screen.

Kirisame tilted his head and opened the box where the keys were kept, searching for the ring that held the keys to the library and reading room. That ring was already gone. Utamika must have arrived ahead of him and gone to unlock them already. The staff members other than himself and Utamika weren't due to arrive until the afternoon. The director was away on a business trip. Utamika was the only one who could have opened the rear entrance, turned on the hallway lights, and turned on the computer.

Kirisame turned on the coffee maker and prepared two cups for himself and Utamika. He decided to sit at his desk and wait for the coffee to be done.

He opened a drawer and took out a small lapis lazuli pendant. He put it in his pocket, planning to give it to Kimiyo later.

By the time the coffee was finished, Utamika still hadn't returned. Kirisame felt uneasy and left the office. The whole library was cold, as though it had frozen over. He walked past the unmanned front desk and into the hallway, looking sideways at the door to the library. He looked into the reading room first. There wasn't a soul in sight. Next, he went to the library proper. For some reason, his heart was thumping in his chest. Driven by a sense of urgency, he reached out and grabbed the door. It was stuck in place and wouldn't open.

When he looked through the glass window on the door, he saw a horrifying scene worse than he could have imagined. Kirisame reflexively pulled his hand from the door and stood motionless. Books had fallen from the bookshelves and been scattered all over the floor. Expensive academic texts, children's picture books, heavy dictionaries, countless stories in novel form, and research papers had all been thrown around haphazardly.

And on their pages were red spots of blood. As far as the eye could see, the whole library floor was a chaotic maelstrom of books and blood. Kirisame put his face to the glass and looked around. Some of the books on the floor had been lined up with some care. Some lay face down, while others stood vertically, with their pages slightly open. Most of the standing books seemed to have hardcovers. But more than any of that, what caught Kirisame's attention was the woman lying in that sea of books. It was Kimiyo. Through a half-empty bookshelf, he could see her lying on the floor. From this vantage point, he couldn't tell if she was safe or not.

The door was locked. There was no time to go look for Utamika and reclaim her keys. Kirisame kicked the door with the bottom of his shoe. A harsh noise echoed through the Library at the End of the World.

Kirisame heard footsteps behind him and turned around. It was Kito. He ran up to Kirisame, panting for breath. The library wasn't supposed to be open yet. Kirisame decided not to ask what Kito was doing there.

“What's wrong?” Kito asked, his face blank.

 “Kimiyo's lying in there,” Kirisame said, giving the door another kick. “Help me break it down.”

Kito and Kirisame kicked the door down. The door was wood, not very thick, and not very sturdy. After only a few kicks, it fell into the room. Kirisame stepped on the door's panel as he went inside.

“Call an ambulance and the police.”

Kirisame turned and gave that order to Kito. Kito nodded and ran for the entryway. After making sure he had gone, Kirisame stepped into the library. He heard a noise like the flapping of falling books. He kicked away the books scattered around the door. It would be hard to walk without digging a foothold.

Kirisame looked up towards Kimiyo. Something impossible had happened. A dagger had been thrust into her chest. That dagger hadn't been there before. But now, there it was, lodged in her left breast at an angle. Kirisame looked around cautiously. The person who had stabbed Kimiyo might have still been in the room. Both windows were locked. There was no sign of anyone.

There was something round hanging by the window. Upon closer inspection, it was a human head. Kirisame's head spun at the sight, but he decided to put Kimiyo first. He stepped on books and rushed to her side.

Kimiyo lay on her back with her limbs splayed. Her chest was stained an angry red.

She was still breathing. White puffs came from her in short, rapid bursts.

“Kimiyo.”

Kirisame called to her, as casually as though he were waking her from a nap. Kimiyo's eyelids fluttered open at the sound of his voice. Her wet eyes looked back at his.

“It's alright, a wound like this isn't serious. You'll make it through this.”

“...No. I'm going to die.”

Kimiyo's voice was pained. Kirisame held a handkerchief to her chest and pressed down. There was nothing else he could do. But the blood flowed out past it, until both of his hands were stained red.

“I was ready to die, but... not like this.”

“Kimiyo, don't talk. Save your strength.”

“I wanted a more beautiful death than this... I wanted to make you a bento, Kirisame...”

Kimiyo began to cry. Her tears ran down her temples, across her small ears, and onto the floor.

“Kimiyo...”

“I'm scared...”

“Don't worry. It's okay, it'll all be okay.”

Kirisame held Kimiyo's hand.

“I'm scared... I don't know what will happen to me... Kirisame, please, help me.”

Kimiyo grabbed Kirisame's hand with her own trembling hand. She squeezed him with strength that contained her final desire to live. But Kirisame couldn't say anything.

“The culprit is Kito...”

Those were Kimiyo's last words.

“Hey...”

Kirisame bent down and cradled Kimiyo's head against his chest. His shirt was wetted with her tears. He stroked her soft hair. Then he wiped her tears. Kimiyo died. Right before Kirisame's eyes...

Kirisame gently laid Kimiyo down and looked at the head hanging near the window. It was Utamika. She gave the ceiling her usual blank stare. There was another head. This one hung near the back of the room. It was Miki, the college student. The two heads were both still dripping fresh blood to the floor.

Looking around, Kirisame noticed that the scattered books had formed a geometric pattern. It was a seven-pointed star. Kimiyo had been stabbed slightly off-center of the star. (See figure)

 

The curse of the daggers. Kirisame felt a surge of disgust.

Kirisame picked up Kimiyo and left the library. They passed the front desk and went to the entryway. He laid Kimiyo gently on the sofa. He sat down next to Kimiyo and waited for Kito to return. Without a single thought, he watched the hands on the clock turn. Kito returned with a nonchalant look on his face. His report was calm and unhurried.

“The phone isn't connecting.”

“I'm sure. We're out in the end of the world up here.”

Kirisame stood up, walked over to Kito, and punched him in the face. Kito fell to the floor and looked up at Kirisame, expressionless. That lack of response just made him angrier. Kirisame grabbed Kito and strangled him with both hands. His grip was flawless. Kirisame strangled Kito with intent to destroy his entire being. Kito's face gradually turned a bluish-purple.

Kito never resisted, right up until the moment he died.

It was a swift revenge. Kirisame was satisfied with his work. He returned to the office, retrieved the hidden “I” dagger from the shelf, and returned to the entryway.

He needed to finish the job.

He thrust the dagger into Kito's chest. The blade seemed to graze his ribs, but he was able to stab it in surprisingly easily. Blood slowly stained Kito's chest.

Kirisame took a breath, sat down next to Kimiyo, and looked up at the ceiling. He wiped the sweat from his face. It was only then that he realized he was crying. He wasn't sure what for.

“Good job.”

Suddenly, a voice echoed through the hall. Kirisame turned around and saw a youth dressed in white standing there. They were smiling with a handsome face that was difficult to call as belonging to a boy or a girl. On their head was a hair clip with an ornamental feather. They wore a beautifully decorated skirt. The sudden visitor seemed to float above the bleak situation they'd intruded upon.

“That's a wonderful turn of events. Of course, I'd already figured it out.”

“What are you talking about? Who are you? The library's closed. Go home.”

“I can't. I have no home to go to. Well, that doesn't matter right now. How do you feel after killing a man?”

“Tired.”

“Do you think Marie is happy with this?”

“Marie?”

“Oh, sorry, she's Kimiyo now, isn't she?”

“Kimiyo won't be happy. She's hard to please. But it doesn't matter whether it makes her happy or not. I needed to do this. I don't plan on defending myself. But I don't think I did anything wrong.”

“It was quite the vivid murder. Downright simple compared to the tragedy that's about to unfold.”

“I see. Well, no, I don't. I don't understand a thing you're talking about. Can you leave me alone? I need to think about something.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“It's not something I should discuss with a kid.”

“On the contrary, it's something you can only discuss with me.”

“I just killed someone. Aren't you afraid of me?”

“What do I have to be afraid of? Nothing at all. So you killed one person. Big whoop. Come on, tell me what you're thinking. I like to listen.”

“You'll understand as soon as you see. I'm trying to figure out how this happened. There's so much that doesn't make sense. In the first place, who even was that Kito guy I killed?”

“Kito was Kito, wasn't he?”

“Was he lying about being reincarnated?”

“That wasn't true. But it wasn't a lie, either.”

“...You sure know an awful lot, don't you? Just who the hell are you?”

“I'm a detective. Call me Snowy. I'm a detective who manages the chaos of this world.” Snowy closed one eye. “Until recently, I was in France in 1916. But I thought it was time to end that. So I flew here to Japan in 1989. It's just a bit of point-to-point travel,” Snowy said with a smile.

Kirisame was at a loss for words and shook his head. It took tremendous strength on his part to even comprehend every strange phenomenon that appeared before his eyes. Kimiyo was dead. Kito had also died. A person appeared claiming to be a detective. It was simple in a summary, but the details were complex and difficult to understand.

“If you know anything, please, tell me. Kimiyo, with her final breaths, told me the culprit was Kito. But Kito helped me kick down the door to the library. The door was locked, and all the windows were locked. How did Kito manage to get out of the library after putting her to sleep in the star? And that's not all. When I first saw Kimiyo through the door, there was no dagger in her chest. But when I entered the room, it was there. How on Earth did that happen? Kito went back into the entryway before I entered the library. How did Kito manage to stab her?”

“You'll understand if you just calm down and think. Can you really think straight after killing someone?”

With those soft final words, Snowy disappeared into the library. Kirisame got up and followed them. He felt as though he had been told to follow without anyone saying a word. He hesitated to leave Kimiyo there in the entryway, but she would no longer insist that she wasn't feeling lonely.

Kirisame tried to enter the library through the front door, but it was still locked. He decided to go around and enter via the door he had kicked down. The floor was still covered in blood and books. Snowy stood behind a bookshelf.

“The windows have ordinary crescent locks. You know, those locks shaped like half moons that you lift and hook into a groove in the frame? I'm sure they were both locked.”

Utamika's head was hanging by the window near Snowy. Utamika was still looking at the ceiling. A string attached her hair to the curtain rod. A large book, the size of an atlas, was scattered directly beneath her, catching her falling blood.

“A horrid performance,” said Snowy, crossing their arms as they avoided the blood. “Put on to camouflage the trick, no doubt. It's decided.”

Kirisame ignored Snowy muttering to themself and examined the books on the floor. Most of them were scattered about, but the ones that made up the seven-pointed star were folded over each other in orderly lines. The direction they had fallen also differed depending on their location on the lines that made up the star.

“Why did Kito draw a seven-pointed star?”

“It's the emblem of the daggers.”

“Are you saying that the star summoned the dagger from the void? I can't accept that. Where did that dagger come from?” Kirisame looked up. “There's nothing on the ceiling.”

“What about the severed heads?”

Snowy had found Miki's head and was observing it. The lively impression she had given off in life was gone, and she now stared blankly down at the floor with a gloomy expression. Like with Utamika's case, a string had been tied to her hair, with the other end on the fire alarm cord on the ceiling. The blood pouring from the severed neck was staining the books on the floor black. Scattered on the floor were large atlases. A copy of the Colored National Atlas was directly under her neck, and had absorbed blood until it was pure red.

“Did Kito really do all this? Why did he have to kill Miki and Utamika and hang them?”

 “Come on now. They came in early this morning and witnessed the crime, so he killed them. Utamika and Miki might have come in together through the rear entrance.”

“That might be it. The lights in the office were on. What about Kimiyo?”

“She's been locked up in here since yesterday.”

“But I patrolled before I left.”

“Then you must have missed her.”

Kirisame closed his eyes and grit his teeth. If he had done his rounds properly, maybe none of this would have happened.

“Ah, here it is.”

Snowy suddenly squatted down and started going through the books on the floor. Inside one of them, they found a set of keys. All the keys to the library in one bundle. None of them were particularly unique, but no spares for any of them had ever been created.

Snowy proudly showed off their keys, waving them wildly. They keys jingled together.

“Kimiyo was murdered in a locked room. And then there's the seven-pointed star and the hanging heads. The murder weapon, the dagger, seemed to suddenly appear in her chest as if by magic. And of course, there was no one else in the library.”

“Is there any chance that Kito isn't the culprit?”

Kirisame said something he hadn't thought of before. But he had no choice but to think it now. It was impossible for Kito to have snuck into the library through the door by the front desk after he kicked the hallway-side door down. The key had been left in the library.

“Didn't Kimiyo say that Kito dun it?”

“But how could he have?”

“That's a simple story. A simple story indeed. But I'm sure you don't actually want the truth. I know that... and yet, I am a detective. I have to destroy it. My purpose is to destroy you and this world. I may unravel all the tangled threads of this case. But it's a trigger. A major trigger.”

“There's no point in saying that now. I'm already broken.”

“I understand.” Snowy was smiling. “But before that, there's something I want you to do.”

“What?”

“You're forgetting something, aren't you?”

Kirisame tilted his head as he looked at Snowy. He couldn't think of anything.

“Give Kimiyo her jewelry.”

“Oh.” Kirisame pulled the lapis lazuli from his pocket. “How did you know about this?”

Snowy's smile was not an answer.

 

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