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I had to fit in with the ladies and gentlemen with money, time, and libido to spare (although they would never admit it), so I focused on changing how I controlled the axis running through the center of my body. I accurately took the “actions” that would match the dress that showed off every line of my body and the obviously impractical stiletto heels. I moved like the 3D polygon dolls that performed graphic dances based on motion capture data.

“We’re only in the passageway and there’s already a mini-skirt maid, so what are things like inside? Are the police holding a Black Mass or something?”

“Is she like a waitress?” asked the Sunekosuri.

“They really need to stop making this kind of mistake!! A maid and a waitress are completely different things!! A maid is supposed to wear a long skirt and an apron dress! Don’t give them a corset and a skirt with suspenders that accentuates the breasts! That’s just indecent!! The point of a maid is to have beauty too great to be fully hidden by the plain and conservative outfit! Hmph!!”

“I have no idea what has you so mad.”

As I walked past, I grabbed a cocktail glass from the tray the mini-skirt maid held in one hand. I couldn’t tell what the clear liquid was until I tasted it, but it turned out to be a martini. To be honest, that wasn’t my kind of drink. It was more for a police detective who thought he was hardboiled. Y’know, something that’s more about the atmosphere than the drink. Like black coffee.

“B-but what do we do now? We got on the ship, but it’s pretty big.”

“Yeah, there are one thousand seven hundred beds, so it would take us all night to check each room individually. But the biggest merit of the ship was the heliport to sneak things onto the island, remember? That means Sid Clouds will only be in the areas where he can control the heliport.”

“M-meaning?”

It’s a straight shot from the heliport to the ship’s cargo area. With normal guests and the National Police Agency here, he’s going to hide anything he doesn’t want seen somewhere safe. Reality isn’t as fascinating as a story. Let’s reliably search him out and reliably take him out.”

If we directly ran across him, that would work. But even if we didn’t, we could destroy his equipment or set off a bomb to gather the police’s attention.

At that point, I heard footsteps and saw a group walking boldly down the center of the corridor. They were clearly police bureaucrats, but there was no reason to panic. They would pass right by people like me if we smiled and moved out of the way.

As I did so, I spotted someone pretty famous in the group: Mishima Jun.

Based on his rank insignia, he seemed to be chief superintendent.

“Hm.”

I moved past them without paying too much attention and casually muttered to myself.

“So he’s still alive.”

Part 8 (Jinnai Shinobu — Day 10/03 21:10 - 21:20)

Just as the Zashiki Warashi and I were about to head into the casino city, we were caught by Hyakki Yakou’s young leader. It seemed she could see through everything we were doing.

Walking through the neon-filled streets at night with a girl of around ten seemed like too high a hurdle for me, but for the time being, no righteous heroes showed up. Also, I couldn’t even imagine how many bodyguards or other Hyakki Yakou members were hidden in our surroundings.

“It would help if you told me what you intend to do now. Or rather, tell me the specifics of the Singer Song Liar story. I only know the overall outline.”

I answered all her questions while my right temple twitched.

“I’m going to defeat a con artist making a ton of money at the casino. His name is Kodama Ryou. It’s settled with a single round of poker, so it won’t take much time.”

“Is that really necessary to destroy the Amanojaku Package sending lies into realty or to deal with the sale of Japan that is occurring alongside that?”

“We can’t move on until my lost suitcase arrives at the airport, so everything until tomorrow morning is just the lead-up. Give me this much.”

“But...”

“I’ll get it over with quickly. I can’t ignore this one.”

A casino door was thrown open and what looked like three stuffed animals were chucked out.

It was a fox, a tanuki, and a badger.

I caught them all in midair like magic, leaving the Youkai dizzy and confused.

“Wh-what!? Who are you!?”

“That is no way to speak to the kind person who caught us!”

“Mh. I feel a chill running down my spine. Is my natural enemy somewhere nearby?”

Honestly, these things are just as noisy in reality as in the Singer Song Liar story.

Still holding them, I spoke casually.

“Hey, we don’t have all the time in the world, so let’s hurry up and defeat Kodama Ryou to win back the money he stole from the old lady. It’s going to cost a lot to heal the kid suffering from some kind of artificial illness, right?”

This time, the three of them fell silent and looked up at me and the Zashiki Warashi spoke to me from the side.

“Shinobu, you’re talking about finishing him off in a poker game, but a big game in a casino is going to take quite a lot of money. Where are you going to get enough for your initial bet?”

“That’s the thing.”

My temple twitched.

In the Singer Song Liar story, I had brought some fake Jinnai Brewery junmai daiginjo under the assumption Kodama Ryou would notice (although it was really just a way of putting the Zashiki Warashi at ease so I could set her up as the prize), but would that actually work?

Even if reality was following the Singer Song Liar story, there had to be a limit. When I didn’t know how strong the rails were, I couldn’t risk everything on this. The mere fact that I was walking through the casino at this time was a divergence from the original story.

That meant there was a risk of failure.

When the rails led to the sale of Japan, some freedom was certainly desirable, but it brought a dull pressure to my stomach here.

“In other words, if you fail here, you’ll have a few of your organs taken? This is just like a drama.”

“Huh? Ow, ow, ow, ow. Talking about that makes my side prickle, so could you stop it?”

“That didn’t actually happen, so there’s nothing to worry about. Of course, it was overwritten so many times that it would be hard to return history to normal at this point.”

“If we’re talking about ways to settle a debt at a casino, wouldn’t putting a collar on a glamorous symbol of good fortune and selling her at a secret auction house be more appropriate?”

“Ow, ow, ow, ow. Shinobu, talking about that makes my head prickle, so could you stop it?”

“What in the world happened to you before you ended up at our house?”

At that point, the Hyakki Yakou girl reached into her kimono’s sleeve and spoke.

“I’ll settle this.”

“What is that?”

“I can get you up to one billion right away. Just write the amount you need on this check.”

“Wow. I’ve never actually seen someone pull a bunch of money out of their sleeve before. Do you think you’re eccentric beauty Madoka-chan or something!? I’ll have you know that’s a very bourgeois way of having fun!!”

“This is not for fun.” The bob cut girl gave me a composed look. “If you know for certain you will win and you have a means of winning, then isn’t it a safe investment to pile on as much as you can? And any amount of Japanese yen will be meaningless if Japan itself collapses, so hurry up and finish this so we can deal with the real issue.”

I had no choice but to accept her offer.

I didn’t really know how to use it, but I took the first check I had ever been given.

“But we’ve already done a few things different from the Singer Song Liar story, so it seems like there’s a possibility I could lose horribly. No complaining if that happens, okay?”

Hyakki Yakou’s leader started hopping up and down trying to take back the check, but I straightened my back and stretched my arm upwards to keep it out of reach.

Youkai weren’t allowed in the casino and I needed them to set up the magnet trick on the switchboard behind the casino, so only the kimono-wearing girl and I entered the casino.

We walked through the front door.

“Please win!! You decided to do this, so please make sure you win!!”

Surprisingly, the bob cut girl had some tears in her eyes as she waved at me.

As I made my way around the casino, I found the place was filled with familiar scenery even though I had never actually been here before.

I walked down the hall and called a classmate with my cellphone.

“Madoka-chaaan. I’m about to make a ton of money at a casino, so can you contact an accountant and tax advisor for me? I want someone to manage the bank account.”

“Eh? What? I can do that, but can you explain to me how you’re in this situation?”

“Today or tomorrow, something I do might cause a chain reaction in Japan’s exported financial systems which will destroy the world economy and make you really, really mad, but don’t worry. I’m working at keeping that from happening.”

“Shinobu-kun, what the hell did you just say?”

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to explain.

I sat at the same table as the snakeskin man named Kodama Ryou, slammed the check down on the table, and made an announcement to the little con artist.

“Let’s play a game, man-eating snake. I’ll take you out in one go.”

Now.

He was 100% cheating and I already knew I couldn’t win by playing normally, so it was time to see how much I could do in reality when faced with the Usuhiki Warashi Package that swapped out the cards.

Part 9 (Uchimaku Hayabusa — Day 10/03 21:05 - 21:20)

In Harbor Alley, the Mystery Freak (dressed as a bunny) returned to land from the restaurant cruiser that was crammed in with all the others.

There were trivial rumors of boats, helicopters, or long distance swimmers trying to meet up in the “demonic sea”, yet never finding the other person, and three Tokyo residents who had investigated the rumors out of pure curiosity had ended up dead.

Most of the small ships that had left for the “demonic sea” were stored in, serviced at, and left from Harbor Alley.

“What? I guess not all of them are restaurants or food stands.”

As we wandered around, we found something else mixed in among the filthy cruisers. Instead of the aroma of cooking meet or boiling stews, I found one boat that smelled more like solder. In fact, there were a lot like that.

Thinking they all served food had brought a heavy sensation to my stomach, but it looked like that wasn’t the case.

These shops had nothing to do with food.

“This boat is filled with bare speakers, this one is packed full of capacitors and transistors, and this one has...what? Those aren’t lightbulbs. Are they vacuum tubes?”

“Looks like a small electronics marketplace. They’re probably stripping them from somewhere.”

A lot of boxes had “defective” written across them in permanent marker.

It made me want to ask the owner if any of the products weren’t defective.

“Why does this shop have dozens of similarly-shaped massagers shoved inside umbrella stands?”

“Eh!? W-well, you know, detective. The women might be too embarrassed to bring those ‘specialized goods’ to the register, so this gives them an excuse that hides their true reasons.”

“?”

“Oh, c’mon! It’s a device that vibrates when you switch it on! Try to imagine why someone would buy that!! Japan doesn’t that have that many people with stiff shoulders!!”

For some reason Enbi’s face was beet red.

Hmm. This middle school girl has no problem walking around at night in a bunny suit, so why did this produce such an extreme reaction?

Confused, I looked back at the Mystery Freak, but she did her best to not look me in the eye and used her small hand to frantically fan her heated cheeks.

When she spoke, her voice was more high pitched than usual as if trying to hide something.

“O-ohh, I see. They secretly gather up any defective products before they’re disposed of at the factory. Mass production ensures that there will always be a certain number of these.”

“Hm? How do you know?”

“I-isn’t it obvious!? A completed product has a number printed on it to indicate which factory it was made in. That means it’s a proper piece of electronics. But that part comes last because they don’t want to print the number on defective products they’re only going to reject.”

“And they still work?”

“This is why they’re labelled ‘defective’.”

We looked around a few of the cruisers but didn’t find any useful information.

What were we even supposed to ask about? I couldn’t exactly pull out my police badge to question them about the truth of some rumors and there wasn’t a clear target like Hanako-san or a Kuchisake-Onna. It was nothing more than boats and helicopters not being able to find each other in the nearby ocean. Other than those who actually went out into the sea, the people on the island wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary.

“Detective, don’t tell you’ve decided this is hopeless and are considering leaving.”

“If you can read my mind that well, I’d prefer you made the much kinder choice of not getting me involved in the first place.”

“You can’t do that!! If you don’t take the investigation part seriously, you’ll pay for it later! You’ll be hit by a metal bat from behind or stabbed in the gut by a fruit knife and realize you’d seen something after all as your consciousness fades away!!”

“This isn’t a mansion mystery where the mountain road is blocked by a landslide, so nothing that harsh is going to happen!!”

“Detective, have you forgotten we’re on a desert island isolated out in the middle of the ocean!?”

“It isn’t a desert island and it isn’t isolated. This is a tourist destination with proper infrastructure!!”

“Not to mention that a genius beautiful mystery-solver and a foolish policeman have come to that island with a meaningful lead-in!! Something’s bound to happen, right!?”

“I’m not even going to bother getting after you for the ‘foolish’ part. I’ll just get right to the point: get away from me! Now that you mention it, you look a lot like the Grim Reaper!!”

The police may be the home of scientific investigation, but even we could be superstitious.

For some reason, the Mystery Freak started trying to hug me, so I grabbed her face and tried to pull her way.

Suddenly, something heavy grazed my nose and made a large dent in the side of the cruiser next to us.

“!?”

Something had flown our way.

I reflexively turned toward the loud noise and saw something fall into the ocean between the boat and the wharf. I only caught a glimpse, but it was about the size of a softball. However, it wasn’t actually one. Even when thrown at 160 kph by a pitching machine, a softball wouldn’t have the destructive power to dent a ship’s hull that was built to withstand collisions with other ships or running aground.

The dent in the cruiser’s hull was the size of a fist, so that was how large the blunt weapon had been.

I guessed it had been a stone.

I couldn’t take this lightly. I seriously doubted it had simply been thrown by hand, so some kind of device had to have been used to throw it. And with that weight and speed, even a fully equipped riot squad would have their helmet and skull split open by a hit to the head or have their ribs utterly crushed through their bulletproof vest by a hit to the chest. In a way, this weapon was more dangerous than a handgun.

“How did they pull that off!?”

“Where are you looking, detective? Don’t look where it hit. You need to look where it was fired from!!”

The Mystery Freak grabbed my shoulders and turned me around.

Harbor Alley had several cruisers placed atop some flat concrete ground in addition to those moored along the wharf. Rather than just having the engine die, those worn-out boats probably couldn’t even float in the water anymore, so they were being used in place of tents.

I spotted a small figure darting behind one of the cruisers packed in like it was a full parking lot.

Was that a child?

And what was that in their hand?

It had looked like a bow gun. It was seventy to eighty centimeters long. It looked quite large, but part of that would be due to comparing it to the small figure holding it. However, the bow portion was strange. It was not curved like a crescent moon. Like the letter M, a fork-like metal part extended from each side to join with the string.

“We can think about it later! They’ll get away, detective!!”

“Idiot! Don’t run after someone when you don’t know what they’re armed with!!”

I remembered words would never stop her, so I grabbed the Mystery Freak’s arm as she tried to run up ahead and I lightly threw her. I supported her body just before her back hit the concrete ground and I gently lowered her.

“I’ll give chase! You lie here!!”

I began running before she could complain.

Why had this person targeted us so suddenly? Why at that moment? Had they been targeting me or the Mystery Freak? Who even were they? Several questions spiraled through my mind, but I would never answer them if I lost sight of this person.

Despite all the cruisers packed together, there were still narrow pathways like the lines on a Go board. There were a lot of things to hide behind, so it would be easy to lose track of them even at close range, but I was most worried about a surprise attack. To make matters worse, I didn’t have my gun. Unlike in police dramas, detectives didn’t wear a revolver on their hip every day.

I passed by a few cruisers and caught sight of the small back.

Their white shirt stood out in the darkness.

Just when I thought I was going to catch up, the figure turned back toward me.

They accurately aimed the strangely-shaped stone-throwing bow gun and I saw a small flash of red light in the darkness.

A laser pointer!?

“Dammit!!”

As soon as I ducked behind a cruiser, I heard a spectacular dull sound like a frying pan being crushed by an elephant’s foot. The hull of this cruiser had been dented, too. If that had hit me, it would have smashed the bones wherever it had hit.

The plastic hull really scared me. It was probably no weaker than metal, but I had a lot more trouble trusting it.

I guessed they were using stones instead of arrows because of the Minor Offenses Act. Even if they don’t violate the Swords and Firearms Control Law, electric drills and spare razor blades technically violated the law if you carried them around “for anything other than their intended purpose”, but no one was going to stop someone from picking rocks up off the ground.

And unfortunately, bows did not violate the Swords and Firearms Control Law. No registration was needed to purchase one and no one would get after a kid for making their own arrows by whittling down bamboo with a knife.

But all of that brought a question to mind.

Then what crime am I supposed to accuse them of when I catch up?

I changed my line of thinking when I heard a spine-chilling sound greater than a full swing of a metal bat.

Attempted murder will do nicely!!

Two fist-sized stones had flown my way in quick succession. That meant their plan was not to shoot and run. They may have decided to take me out to make sure they could escape safely and they may have changed their mind after I didn’t fire any warning shots with a gun. Perhaps I should have shouted “stop or I’ll shoot” even though I didn’t have my gun.

“This isn’t good...”

A third sound of impact shook my surroundings.

When I instinctually stepped back, I realized the chased and the chaser had swapped positions and a boiling heat filled the bottom of my stomach.

And at that point, I finally noticed something.

My surroundings were very quiet. Too quiet. Even if the cruiser in front of me was a piece of junk, I still would have thought its owners would come running when it was being damaged. Either when eating at the Chinese restaurant or when going around the electronics shops, someone must have informed them that the police were here. Everyone had long since evacuated and then lured me into these hunting grounds.

“But why?”

What was this person so afraid of? Why were they willing to kill me just because I was with the police? Was the Mystery Freak right and Harbor Alley had some great secret? Were the rumors true? Was something more lurking here? Question after question raced through my mind, but one especially large sentence pushed all the others out of the way: then what do I do?

The straining sound of a tightening string hurt my ears.

Most likely, this person was pulling back the string of their special bow gun.

What do I do!? Run? Hide? How far will either of those get me against someone who can fling stones with enough force to smash human bones!?

The straining sound of the string continued.

However, it did not stop. I didn’t hear the string catching on the notch from the trigger. Confused, I hesitantly poked my head out to check and I found an odd sight indeed.

First of all, the attacker was a girl with short hair who was about the Mystery Freak’s age or possibly even younger. She wore what was not quite a school uniform. The outfit was made up of a sailor shirt and shorts. It looked more like an actual sailor suit than a school’s sailor uniform.

“Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!”

The girl had the front of the stone-throwing bow gun pressed against the ground, her feet held a metal ring-like part down, and she was using both hands to pull on the string. Or at least I thought that’s what she was trying to do. Really, she was just crouched down and trembling while red in the face.

She must have been really focused on the work because she showed no sign of noticing my movement. She hadn’t even noticed that crouching down like that just about gave me a view of her modest chest through the collar of her sailor suit.

Oh, that’s right.

When I thought about it, I remembered this was a giant bow gun that fired fist-sized stones with enough force to dent a ship’s hull. It would use thick leaf springs and other things to thoroughly strengthen the string and it had no special mechanisms like pulleys or a hand crank, so it seemed unlikely she could pull the string back so many times in a row with those skinny arms.

But...

Um...

Then...

What does this mean?

Can I really walk right up and take that dangerous toy from her?

...No, no.

That can’t be it. No, no, no, no, no!! She might finish setting the string and stone the instant I run out and then smash my skull from head-on. Just because she’s stupidly crouching over, sticking her shorts-wearing butt backwards, and groaning in an oddly suggestive way doesn’t mean I can do anything so reckless! Don’t forget that you’re in the middle of a life-and-death exchange with a fleeing suspect!! Don’t laugh, Hayabusa, you need to keep a straight face!!

I decided to take a more careful route.

I filled my lungs with air and formed a megaphone with my hands.

And then I gave a shout.

“Boo!!!!!”

I immediately saw a sight that was rare even in my life as a detective.

A girl in a short-sleeved sailor suit and shorts had a stone-throwing bow gun pressed against the ground and was holding a metal ring-like part down with her feet while she used both hands to forcibly pull the string upwards.

My shout had caused her shoulders to jump and she hopped up a bit herself.

Her hands were still holding the straining string and she removed her legs from the bow gun itself.

What would happen then?

This was nothing as simple as a “twang”.

It was more of a series of crashes.

The force of the string sent the back end of the bow gun straight up into the girl’s jaw as a powerful uppercut. The bow gun itself may have been five or ten kilograms, so it was a weighty blunt weapon of steel and wood.

Her small form collapsed backwards like a toppled mannequin and her legs spread open in an M-shape. The ridiculous pose placed quite a burden on her shorts, but as she didn’t look embarrassed or try to squirm, I could only assume she had completely lost consciousness.

All I could do was bring a hand to my forehead.

Part 10 (Hishigami Mai — Day 10/03 21:30 - 21:45)

You could call it a sense of fellowship or an illusion of community, but once you were on the same boat, no one would suspect you. They cheaply assumed that everyone had gone through the same process to be here and thus everything was fine. And yet everyone around them was a complete stranger and they had no idea what any of those people were thinking.

Japan truly is a peaceful nation.

Anyway, the Sunekosuri and I slipped away from the group and down some stairs.

I had memorized the Yakata-II’s layout ahead of time, so I knew how to reach the ship’s hold on the lower levels and which routes would be the most deserted.

Sid Clouds had to have gathered materials brought in via the heliport to accumulate power for himself. In Japan, he would use Japanese Youkai. In Europe, he would use European fairies.

If what Jinnai Shinobu said was true, he was using a Kechibi and an Ubume.

It was up to luck whether we would reach the Amanojaku at the center of it all or not.

“B-but won’t they find it suspicious if they catch you in these worker’s corridors or stairways in an open-back dress?”

“There are multiple elevators and stairways. If you take the location of the facilities into consideration, you can figure out where you’re more or less likely to run into someone. You know how identical soba stands and convenience stores can be full of customers or completely empty depending on their location, right? This is the same. By noting the probable flow of people based on the layout, it isn’t difficult to choose a good route.”

“But isn’t that an issue of probability and statistics? It’s all over if one of the crew comes down this way on a whim.”

“Then it comes down to my posture and gait. I drank a disgusting cocktail earlier, so if I claim I’m lost with alcohol on my breath and flushed cheeks, they’ll just guide me out of the backyard. Besides, only the control room, engine room, or other facilities directly related to controlling the ship are actually off limits to normal passengers.”

Fortunately, I didn’t need to put on an act like that.

After descending the metal stairs to the bottom, we arrived at a “large box” with one of the walls missing. It was a floating object with the same area as a small school building. In other words, it was the ship’s hold.

The Sunekosuri spoke up in surprise while rubbing against my shins.

“There are piles of containers everywhere. This doesn’t feel like a luxury cruise ship. It’s more like a rough cargo ship.”

“There are 1700 passengers onboard. If you add in the cre-->>

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