Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Oguri Mushitarō

I. Red Jellyfish

The metropolis had opened a conduit for its spillage toward the sea.
That great sewer sucked in society’s dregs and exhaustion.
That polluted water, filled with the metropolis’s secrets, corruption, and ugliness, disgorged them into the sea in torrents.
Yet in every city, there existed a peculiar district right at the spillway’s edge.

It resembled a sharply demarcated archipelago—nowhere did bridges cast their shadows, no true water to speak of.
Shadows touched shadows, the water grew murky, and near the sea, the tides’ intensity turned violent.
The surroundings—glistening oil and factory walls—formed a moat of utter blackness, devoid of any color whatsoever.

Therefore, if even a single bridge were missing at its fringe, that entire district would rise up like an isolated island amidst the decaying mud.

An urban island—anticipating the skeptical eyes you readers will undoubtedly widen, I shall now present its concrete existence.

Gentlemen, you are no doubt aware of the artificial island along the Ara River Waterway’s downstream coastal stretch—long known as the "Suho Residence"—that has stood there since ages past.
It was a place crowded with pilings where currents grew constricted—a location where both rowing and mooring proved perilous beyond measure.
The water raged violently, surging against the stone embankments; save for one western nook, not a single landing spot existed.

Moreover, on days when damp westerly winds brought premature darkness, smoke from the dust incinerator would sweep low across the ground, chaining itself like a dank curtain of stench. Moreover, across the island’s scattered hollows—small swamp-like pools—one could still find age-old clusters of reeds growing there. The rustling of those reeds and the clustered flocks of river cormorants were the very features that spoke through color and sound of this artificial island’s desolation.

The natural question that arose there was why such a desolately decayed artificial island existed at this harbor mouth so close to the city center.

However, this “Suho no Dejima” had originally been the French Embassy’s duck hunting ground.
Even then, the head chef still resided in the former hunting lodge, while elsewhere there existed little more than a hut for bicycle six-day races.

Moreover, with those two or three buildings sparsely scattered across it, were we to visit this island on an autumn evening and walk through the vast field of withered reeds rustling in the sea wind, the color of those storm-weathered, unrepaired stone walls would no longer appear earthly at all.
Neither the masts behind nor the forest of chimneys ahead—even amidst this motley array of what passed for culture and machinery—could alleviate this oppressive gloom.

However, when the stone cliff on the 40-chō 7-chōme side collapsed, the sole wooden bridge—painstakingly constructed—had been rendered useless.

From then on—though only for the time being—the island came to be connected by ferries departing from the reclaimed land.
And thus, within the metropolis of Tokyo, an isolated island that looked as though steeped in twilight came to be created.

Now, I shall chronicle the ghastly human events that unfolded on that artificial island—a record not of cormorants’ wingbeats nor crashing waves, but of earthworms swarming darkly beneath the earth.

That night, the last ferry departed from Suho no Dejima past ten o'clock.

For several days now, this misty rain had been falling—a damp chill that seeped into the very core of one’s being.
On the ferry, a single hooded patrolman sat alone, huddling his hands and feet against the cold as he gazed at the fierce bubbles churned up by the tugboat.

Not a single light remained visible on the artificial island.
Many hulls overlapped and blurred in the driving rain.

Then, as if having seen something, the patrolman suddenly crouched toward the bow.

“A person?!”

When he looked, through the thinning bubbles beneath the ship’s hull, a shadow swiftly drew back—and there emerged something pale, something that appeared vaguely human.

But almost immediately—as if it had been a trick of the mind—it vanished back into the river surface that had begun to bubble once more.
Then, in the next moment, something terrifying appeared—a sight that froze both his heart and eyes.

Amidst the fiercely churning pure white bubbles, something began billowing up from the water’s depths. The black oil-like substance soon began carving strange patterns amidst the bubbles. It would spread into fan shapes; bubbles would collide and become smoothly polished like white skin; stripes and curves would tangle into shudder-inducing interweavings before shattering into scale-scattered fragments—and amidst this...slender finger-like shapes would glow faintly white...disappearing beyond the bubbles like a procession of maggots.

Faced with the creeping dread of that sluggish procession, even the patrolman instinctively averted his gaze.

The ferry was still midstream.

The light of a single streetlight was merely staining the opposite riverbank edge a muddy red.

“What was that just now... Could those have been fingers...”

At last, nothing more appeared within the patrolman’s field of vision.
All that could be heard was the roaring of the propeller churning through the water.

Then, within the fierce currents that surged and flowed, melting and coalescing, a dimly glowing white undulation appeared.
The light stained the valley of bubbles, clouded the peaks mirroring the dark sky, and flickered violently as it burst outward in all directions.

The human form possesses an indescribable, mysterious power.

Even in utter darkness, it draws light from somewhere to manifest form.
The patrolman unleashed a desperate scream toward the tugboat.

“Hey! Stop the boat! There’s a drowned corpse! Stop it! Can’t you hear me? Hey! I’m telling you to stop…”

However, his shouts were drowned out by the wind’s howl and engine’s roar, going entirely unheard.

And then there appeared—truly something so horrific it made one want to cover their eyes, so extreme as a real-world grotesquerie one might think impossible—it was a hellish tableau endowed with blood and flesh.

The water churned in endless spirals and began toying with the corpse—its face indistinct.
Billowing blood drew a seaweed-like band across the water; in the fleeting glimpse of greenish hair-like strands, the corpse sank to the depths with violent undulations.

Then, across the band of blood, a vortex so ghastly to behold swirled up, and crimson spiral-like forms rose upright one after another.

It was less a vision of blood’s horror than a shudder-inducing beauty—dark crimson threads coiling like tiny tails that thickened and melted downward as they spread, precisely resembling a red jellyfish with upturned tentacles.

But soon, before his eyes—replacing the fluttering hands of jellyfish writhing in a nightmare—he felt his stomach and esophagus being yanked inside out.

The moment he perceived blood gushing forth from the depths like crude oil—billowing thickly—the layer seemed to surge high against the water’s surface, only for a gossamer-like lateral wave to sweep swiftly across it.
Then, as if a glimmer had pierced the crimson darkness, something of vivid pale red emerged from beneath the flowing blood.

It was round like a cross-section of tree flesh, with a white tube-like core at its center, and here and there moved fluttering things—filthy yet strangely compelling.

“Ah! The propeller—it severed the neck…”

Then came something thudding dully against the hull as it receded into the distance—and when those vibrations seeped up through the soles of his shoes, the patrolman could no longer comprehend anything at all.
Yet when he finally regained awareness, the ferry was knocking its bow against the opposite shore’s terminal as it arrived.

“I called you so many times—why are you pretending not to hear?!”

The patrolman leaped onto the pier and yelled at the tugboat crew member, but his voice was carried away by the wind and never reached its target.

At the concrete boat landing that resembled a lake, a single streetlight cast a long shadow.

However, the crew member peered into the dark water below while coiling the rope,

“Ah sir, we’ve got ourselves a guest.
“If the ferry’s last run, then this Buddha here’s got no return trip either.”
“Damn—this one’s been chewed up by the propeller.”

In the glaring grease, the completely naked corpse was discerned to be male.
The head was missing, and countless propeller-inflicted cuts were marked across its entire body.
Before long, they attached a rope to its shoulder and hauled it up to the boat landing.

The lower abdomen gaped open like a split pouch, from which peeked the end of a small intestine tinged pale lavender.

The crew member warded off swarming ship worms with volatile oil while—

“Hey sir, could this be murder? I mean, it’s not exactly weather for stripping down to cool off...”

“Well… there’s no telling for sure.”

The young patrolman stood drenched in rain spray, arms crossed in silence.

“At any rate, we’ve gotta have the corpse examined.”
“You must be wanting to rest after returning—I’m sorry about this, but…”

At that moment, there was a man with his foot thrust into a small stream, staring fixedly at the scene.
From a distance, it cast a shadow into the flickering streetlight glow upon the stream—a specter-like silhouette one might mistake for a ghost.

“Hey boatman—no, captain, heh—set sail for me.”

The stone-cold drunk, coatless man approached the crew member while his feet were dragged by the stream.

“Set sail! Get this boat moving!”

“This ain’t a joke—time’s up.”
“This here’s the Tokyo City Bridge Section’s ferry.”
“Official business, you see?”
“This isn’t some fare-collecting ferry—there’s a whole different deal here.”

"Please—I have absolutely urgent business on Suho no Dejima tonight."
"Hey you—Your Honor—please, I'm begging you—put in a word for me!"

But soon the man's gaze was fixed neither on the patrolman nor the crew member.
It was a mournful yet morbidly fascinated stare—a probing gaze—now directed at the corpse on the boat landing.

"Well then, Your Honor—you said you couldn't determine whether this corpse was murdered or committed suicide."
"You—why not try pressing its stomach?"
"Hahahaha! If that helps you figure it out, do put in a word about my overseas trip as your reward."

Beneath the patrolman’s hood, suspicious eyes flickered as they regarded the forty-year-old man. A grime-stained, stiff unshaven beard covered his entire face, yet through his well-defined nose and somewhat haggard features, a dignified spirit faintly revealed itself.

“I see. Even that’s not enough? Shall I elaborate until it covers the ferry fare?”
“Now, regarding the lower abdomen wound—”
“Observe—only this one remains perfectly straight, as if struck by the propeller.”
“That’s precisely why I say your training remains woefully inadequate.”
“Generally speaking, natural human hand movements follow curves.”
“If one isn’t looking at the object—to take an example, like the hand movements of a blind person—they can never naturally draw a proper straight line.”
“However, in this corpse, that logic is reversed.”
When grabbed from behind and stabbed with a sickening thrust, the corpse’s body underwent a continuous reflex motion—bending and straightening.
“Therefore, the wound’s distortion corresponds to that flexion and extension.”
“A positive number transforms into a negative number.”
“In two stages—the curves get forcibly corrected into straight lines.”
“Hahahaha, have you grasped it now?”
“Moreover, this one—judging from how the wound tapers—is unmistakably left-handed.”
“Hey Your Honor, the culprit who did this corpse in is left-handed, I tell you.”

Instantly, the light vanished from the patrolman’s eyes, and he stood frozen like a fool, mouth agape. His haggard appearance, his hair like dripping mugwort—around which a hazy will-o’-the-wisp-like glow was rising.

This man possessed a mysterious power that could even reshape what appeared natural. To the patrolman, he now seemed eerie—as though embodying something mystical beyond human ken. Then creases of a jeering smile began etching themselves across his face,

“Hahahaha! Still not grasping it? Left-handed—that’s where it barely holds together. Catch the culprit fast, and by nightfall your pockets’ll be properly warmed through.”

As he said this and took out tobacco, striking a match—the instant the patrolman saw that hand, he felt cold water cascade from his scalp to his soles.

Could this man be left-handed?

Reddish in the flickering matchlight, the shadow—carved as if chiseled—stared back at him. The patrolman’s heartbeat began thud-thudding as he gazed fixedly, fearfully, at that apparition.
And so, between the fine rain and cold darkness, a suffocating silence settled over the two men.

Then, footsteps sounded from behind, and a police inspector abruptly thrust his face out.

“Didn’t you say a headless body turned up somewhere?”

However strangely enough,the police inspector remained motionless,having fixed his gaze intently upon the man’s profile.A complex hue mingled with half-surprise passed fleetingly across his face.After murmuring in hushed tones about something together,[he] soon ordered the crew member to depart once more.

“Thank you—you’ve saved me.”
“You do understand after all.”
“Hey—Tokyo City Bridge Section official—huh—set sail!”

The man reverted to his drunken slur once more and, while raising his collar, staggered into the ferry.

The patrolman felt enveloped in some sort of unknowable, fiendish mist—but there was a corpse here—and so he snapped back to reality.

The propeller began gently churning the swollen river’s surface, and the stern light carrying this mysterious man disappeared into the distant rain.

“Inspector Etō, what on earth is going on here?”
“You let that suspicious man board the ferry—”

The young patrolman, as if finally waking from a dream, rounded on the inspector.
However, Inspector Etō gazed at his agitated subordinate as if gently soothing him,

"Naturally, someone unaware of the circumstances like yourself would think that way."
"Who do you think that man was just now?"
"You must know—Mr. Saei Hachirō, who made waves as a chief prosecutor just four or five years ago…"

"Ah… Saei Hachirō…"

Yet for the patrolman, the fact that this man was Saei Hachirō made things even more perplexing than if he had remained an unnamed stranger.

“But I simply can’t believe that.”
“What on earth could explain that downfall?”
“A man of Saei Hachirō’s standing—the one who smashed the ‘Europe Navigation Group’ to splinters—what in blazes…”

“That’s right. The reason that person ended up like that lies in the recent mass arrest of the ‘Europe Navigation Group.’”
“Though I shouldn’t be saying this while on duty—I’ll give you the gist until the police doctor arrives.”

After completing their report to headquarters and arrangements with the water police, the two sat down side by side on the ferry waiting bench.
The wind calmed, and the ferry’s light—hidden until now by the waves—reappeared.

“Now this ‘Europe Navigation Group’—you’re no doubt aware—was a massive smuggling ring cooked up by ex-sailors.”
“What’s more, they ran brothels in every port and operated large-scale human trafficking operations spanning the globe.”
“Speaking of their structure—it became a secret cabal of four members.”
“Among them, Kōsaka Mitsuden stood as their undisputed leader. The others had names following numerical order if I recall right—Funaba Shirōta came third, Yabuse Godayū fifth... and one more I’d momentarily forgotten—ah yes—Naruto Rokumatsu made four.”
“But eventually they turned on each other. You see, Mitsuden here was ice-cold ruthless—a natural dictator. The other three clashed with him out of self-preservation.”
“A power struggle, plain and simple.”
“When grudges and conflicting interests boiled over, it ended—as everyone knows—with Mitsuden’s death.”
“This only came out after we arrested the gang—Yabuse Godayū shot Mitsuden through the heart at their Yokohama office.”
“The body went out the window into the sea and was never found, but make no mistake—Mitsuden’s death is absolutely confirmed.”
“He must’ve thought ‘Surely he won’t actually pull the trigger.’”
“Mitsuden just sneered—made them inspect the cartridge clip—then threw open his coat like some showman, chest bared as if saying ‘Go ahead! Shoot!’”

"I see... He had considerable nerve... and quite the showman, that one."

"After all, he'd even volunteered as an antimony miner in French Caledonia—work that would make devils themselves quake—then drifted across Europe afterward. When it came to skill and nerve, Mitsuden stood utterly unmatched."
"But Mitsuden had underestimated him—never dreaming he'd actually pull the trigger—when Yabuse took aim and fired with a bang."
"Mitsuen cried out, clutched his chest, and tumbled straight out the window into the sea."
"Yet when we made the arrests, we found Mitsuden's hoard of illicit gains had vanished without trace."
"But that was child's play compared to what came later—the facts that surfaced were stranger than any fiction."
"Then—not long after Yabuse's execution—Funaba Shirōta, out on bail no less, went and blew his brains out with a pistol."

“—‘The culprit is me,’ he wrote in his suicide note.”

The Europe Navigation Group executives—Kōsaka Mitsuden, Funaba Shirōta, Yabuse Godayū, and Naruto Rokumatsu, their names coincidentally aligned with the numbers three, four, five—met their ends thus: one was killed by a comrade, another received the death penalty, and yet another committed suicide after confessing in a suicide note.

And so only Naruto Rokumatsu remained—serving a four-year sentence at Toyotama Prison.

Thus, the Europe Navigation Group was destroyed.
However, what renders their demise so ambiguous is the emergence of two perpetrators for a single murder.
Unfortunately, since the corpse had fallen into the sea and gone undiscovered, it remained unclear which of the two bullets had struck Mitsuden—or whether both had—and though positional analysis of the body could have provided answers had it been recovered, all possibility of proof had now vanished.
However, on the other hand, when examining Funaba’s suicide note, one felt as though they had somewhat unraveled that doubt.

“Now, regarding the contents of the suicide note—I think it probably said something like this.”
Yabuse’s hand trembled, his arm unsteady.
Since the bullet would likely graze his shoulder and fly off behind, I took the shot in his place.
It was nearly simultaneous with Yabuse’s shot, and those present didn’t seem to realize that I had taken the sniper shot.
"But as it said," I thought with dawning comprehension.
“In short, the problem lies in the shooter’s skill.”

The sound of shipworms swarming in the corpse’s matting added an even eerier chill to this bizarre tale.
However, the young patrolman blinked rapidly as if dazzled,

“But among those present—was there no one who understood those nuances?”

“But you see—the ear’s a fickle thing. If extremely high-pitched sounds hit both sides at once, they say a person loses all sense of where noises come from. That fact was testified to by a witness on the scene—a kept prostitute named Oetsu. And according to Funaba’s maid, that suicide note was scrawled in just five or six minutes—not a single discrepancy in the handwriting. With all that, Prosecutor Saei just up and threw down his resignation.”

“The man he prosecuted—the one sentenced to death—being innocent…”
“Even for someone other than Prosecutor Saei, that would be unbearable.”

“After resigning, Prosecutor Saei fell into self-destruction—his wife left him, he had no real assets to speak of, and how he manages to live now lies utterly beyond reckoning.”
“Ah, were anyone to see that haggard, desolate figure today—who would recognize him as the prosecutor of old swathed in judicial robes?”
“But I can’t fathom such feelings at all.”
“Whether his prosecution was right or wrong—”
“Ha ha ha ha! That Mr. Saei’s a philosopher.”

Having said that, the inspector put on an air as though Saei’s resignation didn’t sit right with him.
However, to the young patrolman, neither Saei’s anguish nor his state of being wracked with self-reproach—and yet despite all that—could shake the sense that he was intently focused on something.

"I think Prosecutor Saei must have some doubt that only he himself is questioning."
"A problem that human power could never resolve—isn’t he attempting to solve it entirely on his own?"
"And…"

He was about to say when—as if startled—the patrolman clamped his mouth shut.
Between the two existed a generational divide.
Moreover, for him to voice such thoughts to his superior—the inspector—was hardly appropriate given his current standing.
He, sensing something tragic in Saei Hachirō’s bearing, then began to ponder in silence.

We are constantly committing errors.

However, there was not an iota of error in the prosecutor's grounds for indictment.

The fact that Funaba Shirōta left a confession in his suicide note and died was not something anyone—being human and not divine—could even begin to fathom.
Moreover, Yabuse's crime had been accompanied by a confession.
So to speak, it was a fact beyond certainty.
When a terrifying force appeared—one capable of overturning it in an instant—people resigned themselves cleanly, without leaving a single fragment of regret, accepting it simply as irresistible.

Humans know the limits of their own capabilities.

However, those rare individuals endowed with exceptional inherent natures often seek to place themselves in positions far beyond human bounds.
Is it not indeed from this that both the prosecutor’s anguish and torment of conscience arise?
He now wanders the roadside, struggling against the irresistible.
Whether humans judge or God is judged—that is surely humanity’s most valiant form.

And before long, there came to the young patrolman the sensation of something earnest and piercing that struck his chest.

However, precisely at that time, on Suho no Dejima—where Saei Hachirō had been delivered—the omens of tragedy seethed densely in the shadowy darkness, growing ever thicker.

II. The Man Who Rides the Seasonal Wind

In that hunting lodge on Dejima lived Nakamura Ginjirō, head chef of the French Embassy.
Or rather—using his name’s mere presence in the ledger as convenient cover—he had secretly resumed moneylending.
And there resided Mitsuden’s wife Ose, who had turned it into a clandestine brothel she operated.

This woman called Ose—nearing fifty—was a notorious figure who had long roamed Europe with Mitsuden. Yet at Mitsuden’s unnatural death she’d been in Shanghai; given her amorous nature, rumors claimed she’d secretly orchestrated his demise by manipulating three others like puppets.

During the Great War, she had been gang-raped by German soldiers in Belgium, resulting in a spinal deformation that left her with an unnaturally crab-like gait. Moreover, whether from missing teeth or some other cause, her face stretched and contracted like a grotesque lantern, mottled with indescribable blotches resembling stains.

It could be attributed to the mercury used to combat mold, but this face could also be thought of as the manifestation of long-standing depravity and wickedness.

Saei Hachirō now proceeded toward the hunting lodge, treading through dried reeds.

However, dear readers, you must be harboring doubts as to why Saei now sought to visit this very group he had excised and eradicated. Yet between Saei Hachirō and this faction, an unusual connection had long since been forged.

The very beginning of it all had been on the night of this year’s first snow.
Saei visited the house of Godayū in Senzoku as if being drawn there.

At that time, Yabuse had already ascended the execution platform, and among bereaved family members there remained only his sole daughter named Sanae. That Sanae was a girl with an air of nervous intensity in her gaze; though lacking conventional beauty, she possessed a purity surpassing all others.

“Oh. Another house search.”

When Sanae saw Saei, she coldly uttered those words—yet this man, whom she would have recoiled from given any chance, remained as silent as a mute for reasons she couldn't fathom. Anguish flooded his face; the tendons of his throat stood rigid like braided ropes.

Time flowed on—he did not attempt to open his lips.
Flurries of powdery snow whispered past the window, and Sanae found the silence growing increasingly eerie.

“What brings you here? If you have some business—”

“The truth is—”

With that, Saei opened his mouth heavily.
On his forehead, sweat had broken out in tiny beads.

“The reason I came to visit you tonight is that I thought if it were you, you would save me.”

“Wh-what are you saying?”

At these unexpected words, Sanae peered into the man’s eyes as if probing them—might this man have gone mad?

“How you must think of me—”
“I indicted your father and sent him to the gallows.”
“However, later I realized that fact was mistaken.”
“You know your father was strangled without reason, don’t you?”

“No—regarding that matter, I hold not the slightest resentment. Everything is fate.”
“Besides, even Father did terrible things without my knowledge…”

“Then, have you forgotten that I appealed?”
“Do you realize what became of the first trial’s prison sentence precisely because of that?”
“If I had allowed your father to serve his full sentence, Funaba Shirōta’s confession would have erased the murder charges.”
“Look at these hands.”
“These hands have cruelly snatched away that precious opportunity.”

Then, the blood drained from Sanae’s face.

With that single remark, she felt as if she'd been doused with cold water.

But above all, what remained utterly incomprehensible was this man’s attitude—as if urging her to hate him.

“You must know where the root of this misfortune lies—I can’t imagine you’re unaware of it.”
“Now that he’s dead, you must have realized there were no savings.”
“How are you supposed to keep going from here? And yet even as you look upon the face of the man who cast you into the abyss, you don’t so much as spit at him…”

And just as a glimmer of hatred finally surfaced on the woman's face—unexpectedly—the man let out a sigh like slackened tension.

Even after resigning from his position, he had been thinking about how he could mend the fissures in his heart.

I now feel a single sin and am tormenting my own soul.
I am wearied by groundless pangs of conscience.
There is no reason—truly, absolutely no reason—and yet…
Why does this consciousness of punishment or atonement come surging forth?

That was the earthworm-like thing dwelling in some corner of Saei Hachirō’s mind.
In other words, it was the ideal self of Narcissus—reflecting his form in water and falling in love with it.
And so, as he constantly battled that powerful impulse, before he knew it, he came to develop an abnormal interest in tormenting himself.

Become servile. Become poor. Be despised by others—the only path he could see to save himself from madness seemed to lie in those things alone.

“Since that time, I too have been truly wretched. I indulged in every whim, lost what little money I had, and in the end even stripped my wife of her kimonos—that was when I found myself utterly alone.”

As she listened to this, Sanae’s expression gradually hardened.
She fixed eyes on the snow-laden window frame and stared intently in thought, but eyelids—once moistened—eventually dried completely.

Even as she endured the body-rending torment of stirred hatred, Sanae resolved in her heart to show this man no mercy.

She knew that even in despair, this alone stood clearly as a beacon. She would cast aside her own flesh and drag this man down to utter corruption. To forge a being devoid of shame or pride—something thoroughly rotten—and ultimately drive him to commit crimes himself—Sanae, overlaying her father’s phantom upon the present, judged this to be the hour of vengeance she must not let escape.

“But more than that—is it not your reinstatement that truly matters?”
“If Shirōta’s suicide note were found to be forged, I believe that nightmare would surely vanish.”

“Ah, that suicide note? But for me, there’s something more important than that.”
“That man Funaba—he doesn’t possess a shred of character inclined toward remorse or suicide.”

Saei’s eyes took on a faint glow.

It was a strange, razor-sharp glint—something never before seen in him—as though he’d developed a split personality.

That semblance—like divine light descending into the courtroom to weigh human destinies…
However, that soon vanished, and something like a spasm arose in Saei’s body.

“Moreover, I’m despicable, aren’t I?”
“After that, I even took up gambling, you know.”
“But tonight—I ended up winning like this…”
“But I—however—am penniless.”
“If I don’t borrow from you, I can’t go home now…”

At this indescribable, insoluble contradiction, Sanae stared fixedly at the man’s face for a time—but soon Saei took out a bundle of bills and set fire to it in the blink of an eye.

When the flame died out, he stomped down hard on it,

“Hey, please—I’m begging you. Could you possibly lend me just enough money to get home? Throw it. Make it clink on the floor—like you’re tossing coins to a beggar.”

And then，when he grasped a few silver coins from the dumbfounded Sanae’s hand，Saei suddenly felt something scorching in his brain.

In an instant, all anguish and anxiety vanished somewhere, leaving only an abnormal vitality he had never known before surging forth. Moreover, driven by an intensely surging unethical impulse, he suddenly seized Sanae’s hand and yanked her toward him. However, Sanae did not try to break free and was embraced as if she were a child feigning sleep. At the corners of her lips dwelled something shameless, challenging, cunning—and in her eyes, damp, dark droplets of water lingered. Saei realized that the trembling he had momentarily sensed in the woman had faded away, leaving her slumped limply.

The next morning, Saei rose with the sensation that his entire body had shattered into pieces.
Wrapped in the same futon, the same quilted cover... The electric light was extinguished, the window faintly bright with snowglow.

However, when the strange night dawned, one became bound by hatred, and the other became unable to leave due to an abnormal purpose that wasn’t even love.

Before long, Sanae visited Mitsuden’s wife for livelihood purposes and came to work at the brothel on Suho no Dejima.
And so, former prosecutor Saei came to be sustained by the meager sum Sanae scraped together through her self-sacrifice.

From her, hatred and contempt came flying incessantly like a whip.
From the Suho no Dejima gang came mockery—was this the wretched end of the very man who had once brought down his hammer upon them?
But if one were to consider a scenario where that state had not been temporary, perhaps Saei would have gone mad in his battle against those very impulses.

Saei walked through the rain, bathed in rain spray, heading toward the faintly leaking lights of the hunting lodge.
And just then, one of the veteran prostitutes named Oetsu gazed at the rain through the steam-fogged window with Sanae.

“Hey, this loneliness—it’s not even something you can talk about.”
“Ever since the bridge collapsed and the ferry began operating, it feels like we’re being registered in some census—customer numbers keep dropping, and on rainy days like this, I can’t help recalling those times when Mr. Mitsuden reigned supreme.”

Bandō Oetsu—this veteran woman—had never once left Mitsuden’s side.
She was short in stature with a perfectly round face and a thick neck that perpetually glistened with sweat.
Yet despite her age, her skin retained an unnatural glossiness, giving her less the air of a prostitute than of some consumable object.
A liar yet gullible fool, easily manipulated by others, she lacked any capacity to distinguish good from evil in her own actions.
Having betrayed Mitsuden—to whom she owed profound gratitude—by informing three others of his arrival, Oetsu afterward carried herself with complete nonchalance as though nothing had occurred.

“Back then, when you said ‘Ship,’ it meant something proper among the clandestine entertainment spots,”
“Unlike now, there were about two groups, you know.”
“The ‘White Star Group’ and the ‘Blue Ribbon Group’—even us women had these contrived ship names like ‘Golden Arrow’ or ‘Silver Wing’ assigned one by one.”
“And they called ones like you ‘Small Steamers,’ you know.”
“There was even a courtesan name like *Suisei no Shibe*—‘Water Spirit’s Stamen,’ if you will.”

“So what name did you go by back then, Big Sis?”

“Me? I was ‘the Boulanger General,’ you know.”

After saying this, she chuckled deep in her throat for a while—but then Oetsu seemed to suddenly remember something,

“So Sanae dear—Naruto still hasn’t come back.”
“All this moping about loneliness and pouring tea—this whole wretched life ends tonight anyway.”
“Even I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting for this day.”
“Nobody does this work because they like it—if I could’ve washed my hands of it sooner, I would’ve.”

That day’s arrival meant rebirth not only for Oetsu alone but for the entire gang as well.

This referred to the return of profits reported missing during the mass arrest—funds Mitsuden had deposited under an alias at a certain bank. The trio had finally succeeded in concealing this, and last night Naruto Rokumatsu set foot in the outside world after so long, meaning that money would at last see the light of day after four years.

Tonight, a warm golden rain would fall—Oetsu’s double chin quivered, but Sanae fell silent with a gloomy expression upon hearing this.

“With my share of the money, I want to start a small business—and for now, I plan to tend to this body.”
“But honestly? I don’t think this sort of thing can last forever.”
“First off—if I don’t keep earning, this body of mine just packs on fat.”
“Oh Sanae dear—what’s with that gloomy face?”

Oetsu had been staring intently at Sanae’s face when she abruptly tossed aside the tobacco she’d been about to inhale.

“Enough, let’s stop this already.
“I’ve truly become appalled by your tenacity.
“Your scheme to corrupt that person and make him commit crimes just to laugh at him—well, considering your father, I wouldn’t call that impossible.
“But if that happens, first of all, won’t you yourself end up in a complete mess?
“Hey, you should try listening to your own heart a bit more.
“Sanae dear, what do you think—could this just be my baseless suspicion?
“Haven’t you changed lately?
“You’re not still hating that person all the time now, are you?”

So pointed was Oetsu’s remark that Sanae couldn’t conceal her flustered expression—Oetsu had struck at the very core of her heart.

The fact that she had maintained an abnormal fixation on one man now yielded nothing but stagnation.
The fierce hatred she had initially nurtured now seemed to breed a mutual pull in recent days, leaving Sanae tormented by a grotesque psyche where love and loathing coexisted.

Yet she shook her head vehemently at Oetsu’s words.

“I wondered what you’d say—Big Sis, you’re quite the amateur psychologist.”
“But my feelings haven’t changed.”
“Even with the money, I intend to keep working this trade for now.”

“Well, I’m appalled.
“So you’re the real whore here, then.
“You’ve got money and could manage to live decently, yet still crave men’s company—that’s what makes a true harlot.
“In that case, I have a proposal to make…”

Then Oetsu’s lips suddenly grew moist, and something brazenly indecent—wide open—began to glimmer in her eyes and limbs.

“It’s nothing too complicated, but if your heart hasn’t changed, Sanae dear—why not? Since it’s our last night—couldn’t you let me borrow him just for tonight?”

At that moment, Sanae found Oetsu's fang-like canine teeth so terrifying that she had been driven to a point of no return.

For a while she stared fixedly, pupils motionless as she concentrated—then gradually her face tightened like a coiled rope.
Her expression grew strained, breathless, as if wrestling internally—until at last, with all laughter vanished from her face, she gave a lazy vertical nod.

“Is that so? My apologies.”
“After all, even I wasn’t entirely displeased with that former prosecutor of yours.”
“By the way—has that lover of Madam’s, Inanoya, returned from her place yet?”

That man Inanoya was, to Madam Ose, more of a kept man than a lover.
Yet strangely enough, no one had ever seen the man’s face.
Moreover, whenever he came, he always slipped in through the back door secretly. Though his retreating figure had been glimpsed once or twice as he left, no one had ever truly confirmed what his face looked like.

What made it even stranger was that the man’s visits were strictly limited to winter—there being a fixed season from November through the end of February.

So, that man must be making regular voyages along some scheduled sea route—such rumors had even arisen in this den of iniquity.

However, dear readers, through this single individual Inanoya, you will have perceived that the current has finally begun to flow into this narrative.
No one has ever seen his face, and there is a strange season governing his visits.

“Ah—that person? I caught a glimpse of them returning through the window around nine-thirty earlier.”
“Probably made it just before the last ferry—Big Sis! Madam Ose is calling for you.”

Then, going together to Madam Ose’s room, they found Madam Ose and Naruto Rokumatsu there, their paper-white faces turned toward each other.

Madam Ose tried to say something, but her voice was drowned out by sibilant hissing.

“Oetsu dear, something terrible has happened.”
“You must truly trust us.”
“It’s… unless this is a dream, something unbelievable has occurred…”
“Actually, when you had Naruto-san go collect the money earlier, the bank said they’d already handed it over four years ago.”
“The day they handed it over was exactly four days after Mitsuden’s death… And the person who received it… y-you, stay with me now… It was Mitsuden himself, they say.”

“Huh? Mitsuden was alive…”

Even the usually unrestrained Oetsu turned deathly pale at this.
She pinched her own flesh to confirm this wasn’t a dream—so unbelievable was Mitsuden’s survival.
He was shot in the heart—even now, vivid colors and visions rose clearly from that moment.

In his death, unless human physiology had undergone a complete transformation, there was no room—not even a shred of doubt—to be interjected anywhere.

They say Christ rose after seven days, but Mitsuden’s case… Was it a ghost? A disguise? Or had he truly returned to life? Thus did the four of them vividly conjure Mitsuden’s visage before their eyes.

Mitsuden’s round-nosed, egg-shaped face—sickly dark yellow yet sneering—now gradually transformed into something terrifying, faintly wreathed in ghostly flames.
And so, in this room, a silence thick as swarming insects continued to deepen.

“That man wouldn’t hesitate to take revenge on us.”
“But him being alive… Anyway, there’s four of us here—Madam, me, Oetsu, and Saei.”

The rain let up slightly, and beneath some floorboard, earthworms droned on.
The earthworms’ droning too—alongside Naruto’s unceasingly trembling voice—seemed like the foretaste of Mitsuden secretly savoring his revenge.
Just then, the door opened, and there appeared the muddily drunken figure of Saei Hachirō.

“Well, well. What have we here.”
“The entire household gathered without exception, wearing ashen faces...”

Only Saei’s footfalls—emanating from where he leaned against the wall—rang out sharply, while the assembly remained deathly still.
Ose’s lizard-like visage seethed with resentment… Naruto’s shifty-eyed calculations… Their bitter expressions collided, yet no words took form.

“It’s Mitsuden, see...”

Oetsu seemed to regard even this current matter as likely being Naruto’s handiwork.

“I don’t understand a damn thing about what’s going on, but anyway, since Naruto-san here says it’s all a mess, you know.”
“Are you all out of your minds?”
“Kōsaka Mitsuden—Mitsuden is alive.”
“Mitsuden appeared at the bank on the fourth day after his death, they say.”

“So—when you said there was more, I thought it’d be something else. A ghost story?”
“Mitsuden—Mitsuden has appeared. The supposedly dead Kōsaka Mitsuden has returned to life, I see.”

Saei’s voice—charged with an unnatural rhythm and chant-like cadence—abruptly ceased. Then, within those eyes clouded by drowsy lethargy, something earnest began to gleam.

(So Mitsuden—the one who’d had his heart blasted out, who should be rotting in his grave—had come back to life? Ah, I see... These foxes must be staging this farce to hog all the profits for themselves.)
But what if that were the absolute truth?
If Mitsuden were alive—if that were true—wouldn’t Funaba’s suicide note and his own anguish all be woven into some cunning artifice of a plot that must surely exist?)

And so he had come to believe this absurd tale might one day bring illumination.
Yet when rationality surged within him, those very thoughts began feeling like superstition—until ultimately he could believe in nothing at all, returning once more to those clouded eyes of old.

"But rather than ghost stories," he said, "I've witnessed something real tonight."
"That last ferry coming here—there was a man's corpse aboard. Apparently murdered."

As he spoke these words, Ose’s complexion turned paper-white.

“What? A man’s corpse?”
“Saei-san—surely you’re not joking.”

“Not only that—I saw it with my own eyes: a headless corpse mangled by the tugboat’s propeller. The lower abdomen was sliced straight across, and what’s more, the killer’s left-handed.”

“Ah… Then Inanoya—”

Ose writhed in agony and let out a death-rattle scream. Hearing this, the three others stiffened their jaws as if struck by lightning.

Ah—what cruel irony—Mitsuden was left-handed.

Moreover, Inanoya Hyōsuke had left this house just moments before the last ferry’s departure—was that not so?

Here, in this place where Mitsuden’s survival had been half-believed yet doubted, conviction finally took root.
He must be using this night as his foothold to exact revenge upon his faction—those betrayed souls driven to their doom.
It felt as though eyes were boring through the silence from some void—a sensation of some grave, dreadful thing creeping up to assail their very beings.
And thus did that night deepen its shadows, accompanied by the sound of earthworms.

However, about two hours later, Saei awoke abruptly to a scorching thirst.

In that room earlier, he had the sensation of having collapsed drunk in a chair, but had no recollection whatsoever of where he had been taken afterward. The room was dimly lit, draped in a light blue covering, and a strangely seductive warmth crept over his shoulders and waist.

Ah, this must be Sanae’s room—he thought. As he stretched forcefully, matching the other’s ankle, he noticed that the nape hair which usually grazed the area above the sternum had slipped much lower tonight, reaching beside the breast.

A rancid, sour smell of hair wafted up and assaulted his nostrils.

It was Oetsu—the moment he realized this, he couldn’t help but doubt why he had been brought here.

At that moment, from beyond the single-layered wall came the sound of someone click-clacking about as they walked.
Tonight, in the pitch-dark neighboring room with no guests—the moment he thought this, an uncanny pulse named Mitsuden began throbbing unbidden within him.

However, when he strained his ears further, it was not coming from the neighboring room. In this very room—and moreover, close at hand.

And then, as he tried to peer over Oetsu’s shoulder at the bed’s floor, he froze at the sight of something horrifying there.

In Oetsu’s chest, a thin mechanical drill-like object was plunged deep into her heart, from which a crimson fountain gushed forth ceaselessly.

Creeping along the edge of the bedsheet, threading through gaps between raindrops... And even then, he heard the earthworms' hoarse voices.

Three: The Shadow’s Gills

Wrapped in bedding of crimson ground with a Genji wheel boldly dyed upon it, Oetsu lay dead as though merely asleep. Her face showed not a shadow of agony, and were one to touch it even slightly, her lips seemed likely to part once more. But Saei crossed his arms and began to stare intently in thought.

“To meet her maker right in bed—now that’s a death befitting this whore.”
“But there was no one else in this room besides me.”
“In the same bed, under the same nightclothes… No matter how drunk I was, can I really keep insisting I knew nothing of this woman’s death?”

Beside the bed stood a freestanding three-paneled mirror stand, while a washbasin and several rubber vessels holding various liquors hung from the walls.
The window was firmly latched from the inside, and the door refused to open no matter how one pushed or pulled.
Moreover, the key remained jammed in the keyhole—wouldn't that render any attempt to manipulate it from outside utterly futile?

Ah, this room was a locked room. As it was, exiting or entering should have been impossible. And yet, someone had pierced Oetsu's heart.

It was not suicide.

This woman—like Senba—lacked the disposition for self-destruction, Saei repeated to himself unknowingly, utterly perplexed within the tobacco haze.

In truth, it resembled a state where sorcery had manifested in the modern world. His head weighed heavy, his temples burned with searing pain, and Saei detected no trace of the soft leather flowers' scent from the vase.

However, he could not conceal this tragedy from the other three.

“I killed her... cleaned the ditch...”
“What does it matter if one or two whores like this get killed?”
“You’re making such suspicious faces… Hey Naruto, I’m the one who killed her.”

When he saw their three faces, as if unable to bear it any longer, he shouted out.
As he looked at those six eyes—burning with hostility and suspicion—he discerned a final judgment emanating from Sanae and a hue of retaliation from the other two.

“Oh, I’m well aware.
“In this locked room where no one can enter, there’s no one who could’ve killed her but you.
“Hey Naruto-san—what should we do with this one?”

Ose said this while looking back and forth evenly between Saei and Naruto.

"But Madam, I can't figure out why this guy would've killed Oetsu."
"Why don't we hear his side?"
"Hey Saei, how about you just come clean about everything here and now?"

"Sure, I'll spill it—vomit it all out from the very bottom of my gut."
"Now then, first—this mechanical drill here."
"As you can see, for a single thrust wound, the tip's a bit too dull."
"If you think you could finish this without waking Oetsu using something like this, then I'd like to hear your reasoning."
"Ha ha ha ha! Even Oetsu's dull nerves would've required narcotics with this!"

And Saei kept staring at Naruto Rokumatsu’s faltering face with his corpse-like expression.
Dull and yellowish like a blind man’s sclerae—yet within that blurred haze lurked a mysterious force that seemed ever ready to endure.

“Therefore, confessing would mean the culprit isn’t me.”
“Why would I kill her?”
“Are you claiming I crushed this woman—this louse infesting humanity—?”
“No. It was you.”

Sanae’s voice was low, but carried an unnatural tension.

“When they brought you here, you were completely out of your senses, weren’t you? You got confused… Oh, how pitiful Sis was! Mistaking me for her, without even properly looking at her face—you must have killed her.”

“Now then—Sanae.”

Even Saei could no longer conceal the overflowing look of bewilderment at this.

The final moment came at last.

In this woman’s heart, there were no more pages left to turn.

“What if you confessed… But wouldn’t that make for a fine disgrace?”
“After all, you’ve spent so long looking down on people who’ve done nothing wrong.”
“You’ll soon be standing under that platform yourself, Your Honor.”

At the moment when Sanae’s resentful face seemed to loom menacingly before him, he unexpectedly responded in a composed manner.

“So Sanae—you’re claiming I left this room, shot Oetsu dead, and then came back in?”
“But where would I have such a firearm?”
“You don’t even know how Oetsu was killed…”

“What? A firearm?”

At these words—so utterly unexpected, seeming nothing but desperate sophistry—both Ose and Naruto let out involuntary cries of surprise.

Then Saei pointed to a discolored inlay on the right-side wall panel—visible only upon closer inspection.
That spot was something akin to the “magic mirrors” often found in dens—a rubber panel of nearly identical color had been embedded there.

However, judging by the state of the dust, there was no sign it had been removed recently.

He indicated the hole there—no larger than a needle tip—

“You might find this lecture-like, but I still remember some things from my former trade.”
“According to that data, firing at four hundred meters per second through a five-millimeter rubber panel leaves a hole no wider than a hatpin.”
“Naturally, the hole size increases with distance and depends on the tip’s sharpness.”
“But with this mechanical drill, I contend a needle-tip hole would be inevitable.”
“Well? Was it you—or you, Madam?”
“Surely not Sanae?”
“The one who fitted a silencer and knew the precise angle to pierce this chest…”

And so at last, Oetsu’s death was no longer a locked-room murder.

Was it Ose? Naruto? Sanae?—Or perhaps then, Mitsuden’s wing-like shadow once again descended, stretching wide.

Inanoya had been killed, and then—within less than five hours—Oetsu was struck down.
One case of adultery, another of betrayal—their sneering echoes lingered faintly as Naruto stamped on the floor where earthworms writhed, unable to endure it any longer.

And so once more, this room became occupied by only a corpse and two people.

“Ha ha ha ha! You fools.”
“Do you think firing this mechanical drill would leave nothing but a tiny hole like that?”
“This room remains an impenetrable locked room—not even an ant could enter.”

Having said this, he threw down the dagger’s concealed drill bit with a clatter onto the floor—and though his cunning ploy had succeeded, his expression reverted once more to its original gloom.

However, the resurrection of Kōsaka Mitsuden had now been all but confirmed.
Who but him—who other than him—could perform such an extraordinary feat as breaching a locked room?
The suicide note from Senba and his own fate—within Saei’s heart, something like the first light of dawn began to stir.
Against the formless Mitsuden—earthworm-like and insidious—he resolved to wage a desperate battle.

At last, the night began to break dimly into dawn.

The tide rumbled, clouds heavy with rain hung low, and the fog still sealed the harbor.
Yet even that day, amidst the encroaching terror, eventually gave way to night.

Then, late into the night, someone stealthily knocked on the door of the vacant room he occupied.

“I came to apologize tonight. Actually, I realize now that I was truly wrong to have obsessively clung to such baseless resentment all this time.”

Sanae buried her face—flushed crimson from weeping—into Saei’s chest. Undulating contours, pliant exhalations, rounded shapes and firm breasts with tautened peaks began provoking him to the brink of agitation.

“I… all this time…”
“Whenever I plotted to destroy you—that’s when I cherished you most.”
“And when affection grew unbearable—so unbearable it pained me—I inevitably made those gestures that seemed inadequately spiteful on the surface.”
“But please forgive me.”
“I don’t want ever to be parted from you—no matter what occurs.”
“Hey… what’s wrong? Why this silence…”

Saei let himself be shaken, yet kept his gaze fixed, staring unwaveringly at a corner of the ceiling.
It was a coldness that would have withered away had Sanae noticed it…….

“But setting that aside—there’s something I want to ask you. You seemed to trip over the gas stove valve last night.”
“Before that—didn’t you notice how the valve was positioned?”

“It was open—just a tiny bit.”
“But…”

Upon hearing this, Saei—forgetting even Sanae’s caresses—began sinking into gloomy contemplation.
Moreover, twitching his nose, he tried detecting some scent permeating the room.
Yet this wasn’t the carnation-like body odor clinging to Sanae.
Last night in that chamber, he hadn’t sensed even a trace of the leatherflower fragrance now present here.
And still, this room held a cool pollen-like aroma—as though diffusing from Sanae’s very passion itself.
Ah—why hadn’t that fragrance wafted through last night?

“And one more thing I want to ask—have you ever seen Inanoya’s face?”

“No, I never saw his face even once.”
“Just once—was it this New Year’s Day?—when everyone was watching the bridge-opening fireworks. Madam hurried past me in the hallway then. That’s when I saw what looked like her retreating figure heading back.”
“A person of medium height and stocky build—Madam really hated being seen by that one, you know.”

Then, Saei abruptly sat up on the bed.
He was breathing with wheezing breaths, his pupils burning as if ignited by some hope.

“I understand.”
“Sanae, that headless corpse I saw last night—it wasn’t Inanoya Hyōsuke.”
“This murder has no connection whatsoever to the case.”
“Just think—if you reason from body positioning—”
“How could Mitsuden, being so tall, have gouged out that short man’s stomach?”
Why had I been so careless as to overlook this until now?
“Of course you can’t discern features from a mere glance—but regardless, I’ve confirmed it’s not Inanoya Hyōsuke.”

And then, upon Saei’s face there surfaced a mournful resolve unlike anything seen before—as though he meant to decide the contest in one stroke—when suddenly he stood up and burst into the hallway.

The corridor of that night—devoid of guests and holding a corpse—was filled everywhere with a crushing, cold darkness that crept and drifted.

When Saei reached Ose’s room, he turned to face Sanae,

“Now you understand, don’t you? Tonight I’ve absolutely got to question the madam—there’s something I need to get to the bottom of.”

However, even after knocking brought no response, he eventually found her in the downstairs kitchen.
But Ose met Saei’s gaze,

“You seem quite worked up tonight—what’s this? Planning to burn Oetsu’s body here?”

“I want you to produce Mitsuden.”
“Where is he? That Inanoya Hyōsuke—isn’t he Mitsuden’s alias?”

“Huh? What nonsense are you spouting?”

To this, her expression—utterly unexpected—was not at all what Saei had anticipated.

"You—quit your mocking already."
"At least say I'm Mitsuden."
"As you know, he was in Shanghai up until then."
"No one knows his face—if you must name someone, picking me would make sense—but you claiming Inanoya's Mitsuden? Then me standing here now becomes some drunken farce."

Saei, amidst the interrupted words, stared fixedly at the movements of her face—but,

“Even tonight, isn’t that right? Whenever I think about when Mitsuden might come… I can’t even rely on door locks anymore… Here I am, frozen in place… And Naruto—well, Naruto’s in Oetsu’s room tonight…”

And then, the moment Saei’s blinking abruptly ceased, his gaze fell upon the gas meter beside him.

Somewhere a valve appeared slightly open, the meter's needle trembling in continuous minute vibrations.
Then, in an instant, Saei turned as pale as paper.

“Madam, this makes the third one.”
“Look here—this needle’s movement is Mitsuden’s breathing rhythm.”

At that instant, it seemed as though every sound on earth had ceased.
If his words held truth, Mitsuden now had to be somewhere within this house.
Sanae, overwhelmed by terror, sank her teeth into the man’s shoulder with leonine ferocity.

“Then where—where are you saying he is? Where are you saying Mitsuden is, anyway?”
“Probably Naruto’s in Oetsu’s room, I’d say.”
However, that room had its latch securely fastened, just as it had been the previous night. Moreover, it appeared the key had been left inserted in the keyhole—even with a duplicate key, the latch wouldn’t budge. The metal fittings held a faint warmth, and the sound of burning gas whispered like a murmur.
And thus, the door was finally destroyed.

However, when they crossed the threshold, the three were struck by a horror that seemed to halt their very heartbeats. There, in a state identical in every detail to last night’s, Naruto lay stretched out on the floor. The flowing blood, reflected in the flames, glistened with an iridescent sheen. Ah, and once again at that moment, the scent of leatherflower failed to touch their nostrils.

“When murders are committed, why is it that only at the scene does the leatherflower lose its scent?”

He thought that uncovering the secret of that pollen might ultimately hold the key to solving the locked-room mystery.

Pollen and locked rooms, poetry and mechanisms—

That—like some eternal mystery knowable only to God—tormented him.

“Madam, then tomorrow night—it’ll come down to either me or you.”
“There’s no need to tremble so much.”
“For Ose—who once roamed the seven seas—to be in such a state at this critical hour!”

When he thought how the following night would again see someone’s blood create something like a shimmering heat haze, even Saei appeared unable to remain calm, seemingly losing his composure. However, when night fell, he appeared again in Ose’s room.

“Of course, this isn’t conclusive evidence.”
“But tonight, I have something particular to discuss with you.”
“I’ve considered various possibilities, but it seems the one who appeared at the bank and this Mitsuden are different, don’t you think?”
“Hahaha! Even if you change complexion now, it’s far too late!”

Having said that, Saei began gazing pityingly at Ose, whose countenance had altered.

A low steam whistle; the flow of bilge water; through the mist-covered window, the harbor lights were visible.

“From the very beginning, what troubled me was why the leatherflower’s scent vanishes whenever a crime occurs.”
“I considered it might be some neutralizing phenomenon.”
“That there was an odor permeating that room—one that couldn’t be detected…”
“Hey, even if you flee, I know precisely what’s in that drawer.”
“Madam—to prevent that, you introduced leatherflowers into the room.”
“Their fragrance neutralizes ether, you see.”
“Now, there’s something I want you to witness…”

So saying, he took out a small vial roughly the size of a little finger from his coat pocket.
When he sniffed it, a pleasant dizziness washed over him.

“I found this in that room’s keyhole—but Madam, where did you pick up such tricks?”
“You mixed spermaceti wax with ether and packed it inside here, didn’t you.”
“Then you made an air vent and hid it in the keyhole.”
“At ten degrees Celsius, this freezes solid.”
“But at twenty-five degrees, it starts boiling.”
“That makes the plug gradually rise and push up the latch lever from below.”
“The door opens—then with the victim half-drugged by ether vapor, you calmly finished them off.”
“How’s this? The so-called divine plan behind these crimes lay in your kitchen prowling last night.”
“But the ether’s sorcery didn’t stop there.”

Ose’s face held not a trace of color—had she resigned herself?—even a shadow resembling a mocking smile could be seen.
Saei continued, wary of her movements.

“That you employed monstrous sorcery to conjure this phantom called Inanoya Hyōsuke.”
“Madam, that blend of ether and spermaceti wax sees use on stages and lecture platforms.”
“When it boils away, it vanishes gradually from the outermost edges inward.”
“So were one to sketch a human form upon a screen and raise the temperature, would that not perfectly mimic a figure retreating into the distance?”
“Madam, these dual roles you engineered—their intricacies surpass mortal craftsmanship... A scheme as finely woven as the shuttle’s thread through a loom.”
“First you materialized this fictional Inanoya—using him to cloak Mitsuden’s shadow.”
“Through collusion, you first had Mitsuden seize the profits.”
“Then under guise of vengeance, you methodically eliminated each gang member who might come investigating.”
“Mitsuden operates the black curtains while you take center stage.”
“Now then—at this juncture, you’ll disclose Mitsuden’s whereabouts.”
“I implore you—I stand at the threshold of either apotheosis or amending this existence I call my own.”
“I implore you—where is Mitsuden?”
“How did that man return from death?”

Saei's forehead beaded with sweat like millet grains, his eyes locked unblinkingly on Ose's lips.
This single chance was indeed the last—bestowed finally after arduous struggle.
Was it Senba or Yabuse who shot Mitsuden?
Please let it be Yabuse—he now clung to that very force he'd bloodied himself against in their endless feud, clinging as if praying.
But Ose sneered and said,

“Oh how pitiful.”
“Becoming a god isn’t just anyone’s game now, is it?”
“Well now Mr. Saei—though it pains me to say—Mitsuden died long ago.”
“As for whether Yabuse or Senba pulled the trigger—if you’re kin, why not ask God himself?”
“Truth be told, I’ve been pulling three men’s strings from the shadows.”
“When that death notice came by wire, I had my man in Tokyo act at once.”
“With my means? You think I’d lack convincing stand-ins or forged seals?”
“Hohohoho! So my fortune’s spent while yours ends in ruin—is that the way of it?”

And so he had triumphed over Ose, yet ultimately been defeated in his battle against society.
He exited Ose's room, crossed his arms behind his back, and began walking in silence.

In his gait swirled an air of sluggish melancholy that no earthly being could possibly possess.
What is a god?
What is a human?
God reaches the summit, while humans in their ascent… It is humans who realize all too soon that they cannot climb higher.
And so at last, Saei abandoned his struggle.

The next morning, the first faint light after the rain fell upon the face of this solemn vanquished man.
Before a faintly white, wavering dawn, Saei departed this world.

However, as noon approached, Sanae knocked on Saei’s door, but receiving no reply, she thought he was still asleep.
This very morning, she had sworn in her heart and resolved to begin a new life with Saei.

“Oh, he must be sleeping.”
“Or perhaps… Madam’s room…?”

But there, lying before her, was something that froze Sanae's heart.
Ose's eyes, brimming with resentment, had snapped wide open toward the void as she lay coldly severed on the floor.
Moreover, Sanae discovered something astonishing in the hair.

To explain—what could it be?—it was an ingeniously crafted wig, beneath which lay sparse, short hairs that were half-white. And there, clutched in the corpse’s hand, was a single crumpled sheet of paper.

Saei-kun, this morning I address you not as Ose, but as Kōsaka Mitsuden.

The truth is, I hadn't actually been killed.

Having sensed those three's presence well in advance, I had loaded Yabuse's pistol with graphite bullets.
As you know full well, graphite bullets don't fly when fired—they simply shatter into fragments.
Clean it afterward with a cleaning rod, and not a trace will remain.

At that time, I staked everything on a grand gamble—a true all-or-nothing throw.

Then Senba’s suicide too was, as expected, a blood-drenched charade I had orchestrated.

I revealed the graphite bullets to him as he stood stunned, and proposed: “How about we stage the performance of a lifetime?”
To fully savor those ill-gotten gains, first we needed to expunge Senba Shirōta from the family registry.
So I forced him to pen that confessional note, showed him the graphite rounds, and instructed: “When you pull the trigger, first plunge into the river—follow precisely in my footsteps.”
Yet having stealthily swapped those bullets for live ammunition, Senba Shirōta—consumed by his own greed—departed for the afterlife.

After that, I disguised myself as Ose and came to plot the second and third waves of revenge.

Hey Saei-kun, with that suicide note, I’ve actually shot back at you too.
Thus, I concluded my revenge.
My life will end like this—but eye to eye, ear to ear, I’ve sucked even the dried blood from the very last person.
As for who that last person is—Saei, you should know best.

It was truly a confession from Mitsuden the Earthworm so horrifying that merely reading it made one's flesh crawl.

The storm had passed.

Sanae, bathed in gentle sunlight, gazed at the harbor flag swaying on its mast.

She knew only of this arch-villain’s death and did not know that Saei had slipped from her heart.