บท 127: Chapter 126
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- En-deavor! Must! Take the door! En-deavor! Must! Take the door!
From the top of a skyscraper, I watched the crowds darken the streets of Nagano.
People poured out of the back streets onto the main one to swell the ranks.
There was vuvuzuela, shouts, banners spray-painted or written on pieces of cardboard.
At the front of the procession was a pick-up truck with a banner reading 'Endeavour out', and at the back were masked protesters shouting the slogan into their microphones for everyone else to repeat.
Uniformed policemen lined the field, wielding batons and shields.
Nagano was the seventh city in Japan to join these mass protests against my father.
The phenomenon was spreading like wildfire from the north of the country and would soon reach Tokyo.
Hawks landed quietly beside me, his eyes also fixed on the procession.
- How many? I asked.
- Ten thousand, according to the medias, he replied.
I clicked my tongue.
From the looks of it, I could tell there were at least thirty thousand people.
My eyes drifted to the left, to one of the alleyways in front of the police lines, where the main body of the crowd would soon be passing next to.
Several demonstrators, dressed in black from head to toe - hooded - were exchanging heated words with one of the policemen.
One of the civilians kept looking over his shoulder, as if waiting for someone to arrive - or for something to happen.
- They've found another one, Hawks warned me.
I tore myself away from the disaster around me.
But the smell of fumes and the shrill screams stayed with me.
- Where ?
Hawks pointed to a white, very French building with stone gutters and gargoyles with outstretched wings spitting at the world.
It was in the heart of the city, on our right, not far from the protesters' route.
Strange coincidence.
The son of Endeavor investigating a murder in a city full of people who would like to make a human sacrifice out of him.
- Ground floor ?
- First floor
A large casement window opened onto a granite balcony filled with flower pots.
- Go through the roof, Hawks told me.
His wings flapped gently, his feet gradually leaving the ground.
Then, with a mighty flap of his wings, Hawks shot through the air like a rocket, whipping up a gust of wind behind him.
I had to cling to the building with my chakra to keep the blast from knocking me over.
I hate it when he does that.
I looked around, sharingan spinning slowly in my eyes.
I saw one of the demonstrators raise his fist in front of a policeman's face in slow motion.
I'm not paid enough to deal with this shit.
In fact, I wasn't paid at all.
I crossed the roof of the building in a flash, lightning crackling against my skin.
I scanned the distance to the nearest building.
Twelve meters.
I gathered momentum and jumped, legs up, in a parabolic arc over the main artery.
At the same moment, someone fired a green smoke flare.
The bottle spun around, and clouds of smoke, propelled by centrifugal force, burst like a paintball under my feet.
Maybe it's a trap.
I flew through the cloud, eyes wide open, breathing held back, swirls of smoke in my wake.
Then I landed softly, without a sound, on the building below.
Hawks had already opened the window in the rounded roof that led inside.
He waved me over, smiling, then dropped inside, wings flapping gently.
Crouching down, I took a second to watch the green cloud fall like a poisonous rain on the demonstrators.
More black and blue smoke burst through the air like chalk bombs.
I waited, motionless, chakra humming, for something to happen.
But the procession passed through the cyan wall without alarm.
- En-deavor! Must! Take the door! En-deavor! Must! Leave us all !
You're getting off rails, Shoto. You're completely getting off rails.
I entered the building, dropping smoothly inside.
The flat was spacious and very luminous - the kind of place that would have been perfectly at home in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, but whose splendour reminded me more of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg.
There were mouldings on the walls and the floor was varnished.
Four gilded columns in each corner held up the room, or rather the building.
There was a bed by the French window that opened onto the balcony, framed by two heavy, gleaming columns.
A huge embroidered tapestry hung on the wall behind it, and stretched out on white satin sheets was a man, arms outstretched, a brick on what had once been his face, now a pool of blood and brains.
Hawks was surrounded by two policemen, one with a notebook in his hand, the other with a bloody hammer in a plastic bag marked 'Exhibit 3'.
He motioned for me to join him, looking grave.
The policemen nodded politely, but turned their attention back to Hawks : I was only the sidekick, after all.
- The victim is Shao Nerobomichi, a 37-year-old Hero. He used to work in Hokkaido Prefecture, but had come back to see his family. Judging by exhibit 2-
The policewoman held up a plastic bag containing a black jewellery box.
- He was planning to propose soon. We think he wanted to get the blessing of his parents and his fiancée's too, and that's why he came back.
- Where is the fiancée ?, asked Hawks.
- According to our teams on the ground, she is still in her apartment in Hakodate.
My eyes returned to the body.
The cleanliness of the sheets - if not for the circle of blood - was astonishing, given the presumed weapon and method of execution.
Could it have been a Quirk ?
- She doesn't know he's dead ?, Hawks asked.
The policewoman shook her head, her ponytail flying from side to side.
- The Chief wants us to work as hard as we can while the trail is still hot. And he doesn't want the media making a fuss about it, especially with all the demonstrations in the streets. That could create a panic.
- When did the murder occur ?
The second, taller policeman looked at his watch.
- About an hour ago.
I exchanged glances with Hawks.
That was about how long it had taken us to get there from the last murder to Hiroshima.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
- Do you think you've found a motive?
The policewoman shook her head.
- He had no criminal record, no previous convictions, and no particular connections with any dubious circles. Nerobomichi was a Hero like any other.
Like the eight other heroes murdered before him.
- And the method? Do you have any idea who it could be?
She shook her head.
Then another policeman, who was taking photos of the crime scene, added:
- I've seen this kind of execution before. It's the Russian mafia.
- Why would the Russians come to Nagano?
The policeman shrugged.
- All I know is that it's their preferred method. Bricks and hammers never fail with them.
The policewoman took the notebook from her colleague and stuck her nose into it.
- We have good relations with Russia, she mumbled, rereading her notes. If he'd said Chinese mafia, I might have given him some credit, but here...
Hawks nodded, then motioned for me to go around the flat.
He walked towards the body, no doubt hoping to see something the other cops had missed with his raptor eyes.
I walked towards what looked like the kitchen and bathroom, stepping aside as two policemen came out of a room, talking quietly.
The only reason the police called in heroes for cases like this was because they expected trouble and needed people who could handle it.
Heroes were not qualified to conduct investigations, let alone replace the police in their work, according to Hawks.
I slipped through the door they had left ajar and found myself at the top of a spiral staircase.
Hmm ?
I went down a few steps and saw the first floor, which consisted of what looked like a large living room.
Policemen - more than upstairs - had already cordoned off the area with yellow ropes and small numbered signs in odd places.
I went downstairs to have a look around and, apart from the first glance, no one paid any attention to me.
I walked between the sofa and the fireplace, glanced at the large half-moon window, paused for a moment at the front door and then walked through the immaculate kitchen area.
All the way I didn't notice a single hair, fingernail, eyelash or bit of dead skin that should have been on the large carpet under the sofa.
And, more importantly, I hadn't found a single untraceable scent to one of the policemen.
Calmly, I made my way back up the stairs, pausing for a moment under the large green and red stained glass window above me, from which the light poured into the room like a rainbow.
Upstairs I opened the second unexplored door.
A spacious bathroom, with a large bathtub on golden legs and a glass shower attached to one wall.
Two policemen, deep in conversation, were already there.
They barely looked up at me before returning to their conversation.
In front of them, on the sink, were a hairbrush, a comb, an old razor and a toothbrush, each in its own little plastic bag.
I looked around briefly, but again there was no hair and no smell.
And the circular window was locked from the inside.
I went back to the bedroom.
Hawks was talking to the policeman who had made the remark about the Russian mafia. He reeked of sweat and of the kind of thing that is illegal to smoke in Japan.
The sound of the solemn, oppressive silence was barely covered by the muffled chatter and cacophony of the protesters outside.
I approached the policewoman, who was still talking to her colleague.
- How did you find out about the crime ?
She looked up at me, her eyebrows still furrowed.
- I beg your pardon ?
I covered the ground floor with my hand, pointing to the front door and window with my chin.
- There's no sign of forced entry, I continued. And if I'm to believe what you've told us, he was alone. So how did you find out about the murder?
- To tell you the truth, someone called us.
I looked at the policewoman twice, waiting for her to correct what she'd just said.
- An anonymous informant ?, asked Hawks, coming back to us. Were you able to trace the call ?
- The call lasted about ten seconds: we got the name and address and that was it. As soon as we put the name into our database and knew it was a Hero, we came straight over.
I exchanged glances with Hawks.
The anonymous call alerting the police just as we were about to return to Tokyo, the murder zone, strangely close to this huge manifestation...
- It's like a treasure hunt, said Hawks. From the north to the south of the country, the crimes coincide with the wave of marches, always within a few days of each other.
The policewoman raised her eyebrows.
- You don't think the manifestants are behind all this, do you?
- No, but I have a feeling that the people who did it are hiding-
And suddenly something whistled in my ears, and Hawk's wings flapped, and the French window shattered.
I threw myself to the ground, hands at my sides, as bullets whizzed around us.
Outside there were heart-rending screams.
Someone had opened fire among the crowd.
*
Old author's note from March 2024
Hello everyone,
I have decided to take a month long break because I am getting really tired of mass writing and translating. I have been going non stop for 7 months and I believe I can be pretty proud of myself for it.
Furthermore, as I am getting closer to the end of the story, I am taking more and more time to write chapters as I often need to go back to correct things previously written which is really time consuming and absolutely not sustainable for my tight schedule.
Don't worry, I won't dissapear forever, I am hell bent on getting to the end of this story : I only need a bit of time off.
As a departure gift, I uploaded tomorrow's chapter in advance.
Take care everyone and, as always, see you in the next update.
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