He and I (II)

How did you successfully kill a passerby you had never met?

First, you had to abandon morality.

Because he had never met you, there was no love or hatred, resentment or obsession between you.

Killing him was purely a way to satisfy the malice and madness inside you.

But if you were already insane, successfully killing a passerby you had never met was simple.

A knife, a street, one casual stab, then suicide.

It required no skill, and there were no psychological barriers to overcome.

Then, to take the question a step further: how did you successfully kill someone you had never met, but who had committed countless evils?

You needed enough reckless guts.

Never having met him meant he existed in legends passed from mouth to mouth, in rumors, in stories.

Killing him required drama.

Because recklessness gave a person a sense of purpose, and that sense of purpose brought out the performer buried deep within.

Take a samurai sword and find that person. Then stab him to death in full view of everyone.

You would receive flowers and applause.

You would become a new character in a legend.

But in the end, the police would take you away.

Like the hero's death in a tragedy.

That sort of killing wasn't difficult, because there wasn't much to think about.

Then, to change the question: how did you kill someone you had met by chance, who had shown you kindness, but was actually, at his core, a person who had committed countless evils?

All right, let me put it more simply.

How was I supposed to kill Suguru Geto?

(I)

Standing in a twenty-four-hour convenience store, I stared absently at a cleaver.

The cleaver was as long as my forearm, a neat rectangle.

Judging by the edge, it was fresh from the factory, without a single nick. From the blade's sheen and material, it was refined steel mixed with stainless steel. Even chopping down a few trees wouldn't make the edge curl.

I reached out to gauge its size.

One chop with this could split even bone in two, and there definitely wouldn't be any flesh left connecting the pieces.

"This one, then?"

Toji leaned over to ask me.

I looked up at him and asked uncertainly, "Are you sure you won't shatter the knife again while chopping beef bones this time?"

Toji rubbed his nose sheepishly. "I'll do my best."

"Then let's buy it."

I tossed the cleaver into the shopping cart and continued browsing the supermarket with my family.

A week had passed since the night of that failed kill.

In those seven days, I hadn't set foot in that tourist attraction.

I knew what I was hesitating over, and I knew what was troubling me.

But knowing and facing it were two different things.

I couldn't casually shoot someone who had once comforted me the way Yuanyin had.

Suguru Geto was no longer the demon king in a story.

With my own hands, I had put a filter over him that made me waver.

But that was all.

Magical Hawaii had tipped the scales in my heart entirely toward Megumi Fushiguro and Toji.

For them, I would pull that trigger.

I just wanted to repay Suguru Geto's kindness.

It felt as though only then could I tear away that filter making me hesitate, with my own hands.

"Want onions in it?"

Toji picked through the vegetables with his head lowered. His raw, untamed presence clashed with his domestic competence, creating a charm that captivated middle-aged and older women and made teenage girls swoon.

"No, just use your old recipe."

Dodging women of every age who wanted to get to know Toji through me, I waited for him at the checkout.

My desire for beef bone soup, which wasn't exactly a sudden whim, had awakened Toji's long-dormant urge to shop.

He moved among the vegetable and meat counters, using his practiced patter to buy the finest ingredients, all because I'd mentioned last night that I wanted beef bone soup.

I felt guilty.

Because my sense of taste was still on strike. I couldn't taste anything.

So I wouldn't get to savor that pot of food whose aroma alone could lift someone's spirits.

That pot of beef bone soup was actually the witch's "poisoned apple."

Dinner was lavish, and both Megumi and Toji found a moment of pleasure in the food.

While they gathered in front of the projector to watch television, I ladled a bowl of soup into an insulated container, then placed that "poisoned apple" into my void space.

Among the people I knew, Suguru Geto liked beef bone soup too, besides Megumi and Toji.

Finding out his preferences wasn't difficult. I had a source of information that always kept up with current events.

He liked beef bone soup, so I would give him some, just as he had given me that piece of candy I couldn't taste.

I had eaten the candy, and he would have drunk the beef bone soup.

Then there would be no debt of kindness left between us.

(II)

How many steps did it take to kill Suguru Geto?

Choose a murder weapon, find a place to do it, then wait for him to finish the soup, kill him, and finally dispose of his body.

I still chose to snipe him with Ice Explosion, not because it was convenient, but because I couldn't think of a weapon that was quieter or more capable of killing in one hit.

For selfish reasons, I didn't want him to hurt too much.

While dinner was still underway, I checked the location sent to my phone and took a taxi to the building opposite Tokyo Skytree.

Suguru Geto and his two classmates were having dinner on the third floor of Skytree, where prices were the highest in Tokyo.

I spent a little money to have the beef bone soup delivered to the three teenagers' table.

In an elegant soup bowl, that "poisoned apple" replaced the original miso soup, giving them little reason for suspicion.

Through the scope, I watched the boy sitting on a partially enclosed sofa, with the Strongest in the World and the Pseudoscientific Therapist beside him.

Naturally, I wasn't foolish enough to act while they were there.

Once Suguru Geto had drunk the soup, someone would lure his classmates away.

The moment he was alone would be my chance to strike.

Kneeling on one knee atop the building opposite Skytree, I felt my hands stiffen for some reason, though the early winter night wind should have had no effect on me.

I freed my right hand and shook it out. When I settled back behind the rifle, the boy in my sights had already picked up his soup.

He held the soup bowl in his left hand and a porcelain spoon in his pale right hand.

The spoon stirred gently. In a daze, I heard the crisp clink of porcelain against porcelain and imagined hearing the boy's supposedly rich, beautiful voice.

He smiled and said, "Why is it beef bone soup?"

The classmate beside him with the beauty mark beneath her eye seemed to reply, "Who cares? You like it anyway."

The boy gave a gentle smile, not a fake one, but a reassuring one.

Who was he reassuring? His classmates?

He was only answering a question. There was no need to smile so gently.

An inexplicable flicker of anger ignited in my chest. The "Yuanli" tormented by anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder clamored incessantly inside me.

So annoying. So damned annoying.

Why are you so gentle? You need to be more forceful.

Someone who would destroy the world should have an oppressive air of superiority, even when being gentle.

Why are you smiling? Why do you look so reassuring?

A villain steeped in evil shouldn't be so vulnerable, so eager to please.

I shook my head, suppressing my restless subconscious.

I warned myself that this was an illusion.

Throughout history, there had been no shortage of hypocritical villains.

He was just a better actor. He just hadn't rotted all the way through yet.

The boy raised the porcelain spoon. As his thin lips were about to touch it, my whole body tensed and my head began to burn. I almost wanted to finish him off immediately, regardless of the circumstances.

I threw all those carefully ordered plans out of my mind.

Filled with malice, I wanted him dead.

With a sick, frantic urgency, I wanted to rid myself of the anxiety his influence caused.

Damn this anxiety disorder. Damn that smile. And damn that eagerness to please.

The porcelain spoon tilted slightly. Just as the broth was about to touch his lips, the white-haired boy beside him, who had remained silent all this time, suddenly snatched his bowl away.

Then he looked toward my scope and flashed me an arrogant grin, his expression exaggerated but not grotesque.

He downed the entire bowl of soup and began clowning around, acting out the symptoms of poisoning with his whole body while shouting over and over,

"Shoko, I've been poisoned! My stomach hurts! My stomach hurts!"

I wasn't in the mood to watch him continue his boring little skit.

An energy bullet shattered the bowl in his hand.

The Strongest in the World's expression froze.

He pulled off his sunglasses, revealing eyes as magnificent as shards of ice.

He was glaring at me.

He had spotted my position.

He was trying to see through my mask and hood.

Now, brimming with fighting spirit, he wanted to come after me.

Tch.

So annoying.

The Six Eyes were so annoying.

Suguru Geto was so annoying too.

And I myself

was even more annoying.