Not a detective

Page 215

I just kept hitting him without saying a word.

Under the pure suppression of power, it seemed that even such a monster had no way to deal with me.

A putrid smell suddenly filled my nostrils; the smell had a shape, like tangible blood wrapped around my chest and abdomen.

"Go away!"

As my left knee slammed into me, I heard the sound of my shinbone scraping against each other. I opened my eyes wide and saw the black shadow that had been hit collapse into a two-dimensional silhouette, yet it projected a three-dimensional image onto the wall.

Its shape is very special, like something from a higher dimension, a brief projection before my eyes.

“…Very good, there really are such special beings in this world.”

I laughed. This proved that my years of searching had not been in vain, and I had finally found evidence of the existence of extraordinary elements.

I chased after them. The projections were breathing, changing their structure as I moved. "It" was running away.

In an instant, I moved three feet, and as my right palm cleaved through the wall, I caught a glimpse of the girl in the split shadow.

A dark shadow enveloped her...!

It seems they intend to take her away as a hostage!

"You won't succeed!"

I shouted angrily and quickened my pace.

Smashing the glass of streetlights one by one, chasing the receding tide swiftly above the alley, Nue's figure was fully unleashed in the Tokyo night sky for the first time.

Wherever I went, darkness descended. I couldn't tell if the attack was caused by the monster or if I, who was chasing after me, was more terrifying.

And I finally found the rhythm of my breathing.

— "Listening to the energy is like listening to the tide"—it's that simple.

In that instant, I felt as if I had attained enlightenment.

"It's actually better to encounter such a formidable enemy!"

He leaped into the air, twisting his heels to unify his waist and stance, and crashed heavily into the core of the dark figure like a meteor, pulling it into the ground and creating a deep crater several meters deep.

With a loud crash, the traffic in the middle of the intersection was forced to stop, and sirens blared as drivers stuck their necks out of their seats and shouted curses.

The noise woke up almost half the block, but no one knew what was happening; to them, the strange shadows simply didn't exist.

It was as if I was briefly pulled into a strange world, and then somehow broke out of it.

As the smoke dissipated, the sticky membranes clinging to my body began to evaporate. I slowly stood up, and suddenly everything around me became quiet, with no more noise.

I was in the deep pit, my clothes were tattered, but my body was unharmed. The dark mud flowed backwards on my body, as if imprinting some kind of mark on me.

I didn't kill the monster; instead, it wrapped itself around me!

To passersby, I now appear like a terrifying demon in the night, a devil descended upon the world, with dark lines creeping up my neck and emitting the sharp screech of a crow.

It became the most jarring instrument.

I felt like I couldn't breathe, but I felt that the embrace was extremely gentle. In an instant, I felt like I was falling into it without thinking, wanting to be completely filled by it, as if I had been bewitched.

"No...give it to me!" I struggled free from my senses, gritting my teeth, and clawing at my face as if trying to tear it off completely: "Give it to me, let go!"

I ripped the mask off with such force that it almost bent my spine, preventing it from entering my face.

But why is the indentation behind that mask the girl's face?

She seemed to still be conscious and smiled at me.

"Hi--"

The broken pieces turned into a rusty mist, eroding my consciousness and thoughts, leaving only the boy who had collapsed on the road, with no further memories.

Nue's Summer: Chapter Eight: Escape

Chapter of Lu

What exactly happened at that time?

Even I can't fully recall it.

I am a victim in this case. I spent the whole process in panic and fear. I couldn't see many things clearly, only blurry shadows.

After that, the psychological damage and trauma caused me to selectively avoid recalling it, and due to various factors, this may lead to inaccurate descriptions.

But at least I can still recount the main events of the case.

That evening after school, I stood around the school, waiting for Nue as usual, so we could go home together—it was a routine.

During that time, I also encountered a lost little girl who said she was looking for her mother. I kindly gave her directions, but this had nothing to do with the case; it was just a minor incident.

Just when I thought it was just another evening like any other, nothing unusual was happening.

Just then, I noticed a suspicious guy around Nue.

I immediately sensed something was wrong; this had never happened in the past two weeks.

And as it turned out, my hunch was right; this unexpected event did indeed bring terrible danger.

“No… No!”

Nue seemed to realize something and immediately changed its stance, launching a fierce attack.

I don't know what he saw in that instant, but it was as if he had witnessed something extremely terrifying; his expression was more tense than ever before.

"Who are you... why... why?"

The low growls and hoarse grinding of teeth, along with the sudden approach of the battle atmosphere, were the first time I had ever witnessed such a scene, and I was immediately stunned.

But nothing in that alley was spared; everything was captured, and the monster quickly launched an attack on us.

I tried to run away, but the asphalt suddenly bit into my heel.

The walls in the alley were bleeding—not red, but the grayish-green that seeps out when a moldy cassette tape is rewound; a fleeting memory seemed to be beating my brain.

My beautiful dream shattered instantly, as if the hand that had always held me back from my blissful embrace.

He emerged from the convulsions and epilepsy of the streetlights, without a sound of footsteps, only the sound of shards of glass being digested in stomach acid.

His gesture of raising his hand was like a broken projector, with each frame showing a double image.

"Run—"

The moment I saw him, I almost lost the courage to resist. All I could think about was running away. I yelled and ran backward, but he was faster than me.

The violent impact of the bones made my stomach churn, as if I were about to vomit up both lunch and breakfast.

The next second, a sharp blade sliced ​​through my earlobe, the spray of blood exploding in the air transforming into strange powdery scales. Those scales burned my retina, leaving eerie marks even without touching my iris. I saw a third mouth split open behind the monster's neck, singing a strange song…

"crazy……"

I covered my ears, because I turned my head in time, so the injury didn't seem serious.

I wanted to back away, but the asphalt had already climbed up my calves. The nauseating sensation was like veins growing out of my body, and I couldn't tell if it was from before or if it was new.

The attack gave no chance to breathe; the horizontal shadow suddenly split into six segments, each folding in a different direction, leaving no room to dodge!

"Well!"

A sharp pain suddenly shot through me, and my ribs shattered.

The sound grew clearer the moment my fingers brushed across the wall, like the tides of the ocean. Although I've never seen ocean waves in person, my mind was filled with such images.

I was driven to desperation. I endured the pain, grabbed an iron pipe from the roadside, and smashed it at him. But the pipe passed right through his body and didn't hurt him at all.

The next second, it felt as if the iron pipe had grown into my own body, and only then did I realize that I had been attacked.

He flew high in the sky, and in that instant, he spread out countless wings, blocking out both the sun and the night. It wasn't just complete darkness, but utter despair.

I had no idea where else I could hide, and the alley was still closing in on me, the walls on both sides were pressing in, as if obeying the monster's command, becoming narrower and narrower.

In desperation, I could only forcibly tear open the wall that was closing. Inside, there were countless old photos embedded in the inner layer of the wall, surrounding me and reminding me of the past.

"don't want……"

The asphalt road started to vomit, and I even thought about stuffing myself into a sewer opening... all I could think about was escaping.

The dark clouds in the sky have already fallen.

In the end, Nue rescued me from danger, and when I finally saw his face after passing through layers of shadows, I burst into tears.

It felt like a long-awaited reunion that had spanned countless years.

...

Interlude (Part Two)

What exactly happened at that time?

Even without using the first-person narrative, and even detached from the original context, recalling it with a relatively objective and calm mindset today, it is still a chaotic and elusive mess.

In short, it means "We were attacked by some kind of supernatural force and were seriously injured. Fortunately, Nue was there and saved everything. The real culprit escaped and disappeared."

Supernatural power? Perhaps by now, dear readers, your eyebrows are already raised in dissatisfaction.

This doesn't seem to be a mystery novel. Based on the description above, it's more like a fantasy novel with a combat theme or a horror novel with a Cthulhu theme.

Both Nue and I witnessed the situation that day, and the real culprit never showed himself, but instead remained in the shadows, launching terrifying and bizarre attacks.

Nue's power was also strong enough. Fortunately, he was there, otherwise I didn't die that day. Otherwise, you might not have been able to see the rest of the book.

But three years have passed, and I am still searching for the truth.

Was what happened back then really an attack by a supernatural force, or a collective hallucination, a vision seen after we became mentally deranged?

Therefore, I have always wanted to break free from the appearance of "supernatural phenomena" and uncover a truth that conforms to the logic of reality.

Let me call it the "realistic theory" for now. Of course, the "realistic theory" and the "supernatural theory" are not contradictory; they can coexist. I have not completely denied the existence of supernatural forces, but only one thing is certain: "There must be a mastermind behind this case, and the real culprit must have committed the crime in accordance with some kind of realistic logic."

For the past three years, I have never stopped investigating.

After that incident, I didn't call the police and ran straight home. But after I left the alley, there were quite a few witnesses, so other passersby called the police.

After investigation and questioning, although the eyewitnesses did not witness the exact events that occurred in the alley, they generally provided a very strange testimony:

— There were three people at the crime scene.

One is the boy Nue (whose identity is still unknown to the police), the other is the girl victim (me), so the other one is obviously the real culprit.

No matter how hard the police searched, they couldn't find any trace of the real culprit.

When I saw these testimonies, I was also very surprised, because in my opinion, there were only the two of us, Nue and I, at the scene. As for the other person, they were obviously not human.

Then... how could that be considered a "person"? I was completely baffled.

Could the incident three years ago really have been the result of mental instability? My confused memories are simply unreliable; in reality, someone actually committed the crime against us?

No matter what, I can never forget this sentence. I believe it is the key to solving the mystery.

Nue's Summer: Chapter Nine - Past Events

When Asakawa Riku turned to this page, he was forced to stop.

No one interrupted him; he simply had to stop. The mental pressure of reading this book was too great, and he needed to catch his breath.

Having been trained by Chizuko-senpai, he actually reads quite fast. He can usually finish a mystery novel of over 100,000 words in one or two days. This type of novel relies on the suspense of the mystery to keep you reading until the final ending reveals the truth, so he usually reads very quickly and won't be interrupted unless something is particularly important.

But this book is different.

The manuscript, though only a dozen pages long and less than a few tens of thousands of words, was not thick, yet the reading speed was incredibly slow, with my eyes struggling to crawl across the pages.

It's like being stuck in a twisted, muddy road.

Especially when watching the account of the crime, Asakawa Riku felt as if his brain had been replaced by heavy black mud, and he could almost hear the sound of waves and the distorted, sharp tinnitus.

The monster that evolved from the words seemed to form the memories and scenes of that day, invading his eye sockets little by little and devouring them.

So he had to stop.

Because he remembered.

"...Asui Shi...is that girl from back then."

Asakawa Riku murmured, as if he had discovered something very important. His face was devoid of tears and smiles, maintaining a state of emptiness and nothingness.

Asukai Shi's face overlapped with the face in her memory, exactly the same, without any difference.