Vol. 9 Chapter 1.2 – Detective JK Hunting

“Haa, haa, haa, haa…”

A back alley in Roppongi. Take just one step away from the brightly lit main street, and the scenery changes into something like an old downtown neighborhood being swallowed up by the city, with miscellaneous multi-tenant buildings and detached houses sparsely mixed together.

There, I—Claudia—and Onee-chan were both leaning against the wall of a building, catching our breath.

‘Ah, no…that’s not quite right. I’m the only one panting…’

Being an indoor person really sucks at times like this. I honestly can’t even remember how many years it’s been since I last ran properly.

“Still, this has turned into something seriously crazy…”

I thought back over what had just happened to us.

About an hour earlier. We had thought we had cornered Fumio with the TV special, only for a completely different person to appear—and on top of that, a real demon showed up and started rampaging, plunging everything into an unbelievable situation.

Taking advantage of the demons turning on each other, we slipped out of the filming studio, where angry shouts and screams were echoing everywhere, and somehow managed to escape from the building.

Red warning lights spun around, while the wail of an ambulance siren could be heard in the distance. When I looked around after getting outside the TV station, the police officers who had just arrived were hurriedly climbing out of their patrol cars.

Along with the staff and celebrities who had escaped, crowds of onlookers had gathered from all over and were packed together, leaving the entire area in an uproar.

“P-p-p-please, let’s have the police protect us!”

Pompoko-san, who had escaped with us, had been bawling her eyes out the entire time. Like a frightened child, she kept tugging insistently at my hand.

“No way.”

“Yeah.”

Onee-chan and I exchanged looks and nodded to each other.

Even if the police took us into protective custody, it would only leave us unable to move freely. Our enemies were demons. They were the kind of creatures who could appear out of nowhere, just like that goat-headed butler. A police station would be nothing more than a dead end.

It was helpful that the demons were killing each other, but we were messengers of an angel-sama—saints. To demons, we were sworn enemies. There was no chance they would simply look the other way.

“Anyway… for now, we run! Then we hide ourselves! If we keep fighting monsters that dangerous, no number of lives would ever be enough.”

“It infuriates me… but with one arm like this, I suppose there’s no helping it.”

Personally, though, I was actually glad Onee-chan was injured.

‘If she’d been in perfect condition, there’s no way she would’ve agreed to run…’

For the time being, I flashed a grin and shook off Pompoko-san’s hand.

“See you, Pompoko-san.”

“Huh?”

She looked confused. But parting ways here was the sensible thing to do.

There was no real reason for us to run away together, and if anything, staying with us would only put her in more danger.

“Let’s go, Claudia!”

“Yeah, yeah! Whoa…”

Following after Onee-chan as she dashed off, I plunged into the crowd of onlookers too.

Ignoring the irritated complaints from the crowd—things like,『Hey! Don’t push!』and『Come on!』—we somehow managed to break through the encirclement.

Then, as though melting into the darkness of the night, we put more and more distance between ourselves and the studio.

×××

“Ahh… I’m thirsty.”

I took off my mask and hat, then loosened my tie.

We had fled straight from the studio. There was no way I had any money on me.

I stared resentfully at the brightly lit vending machine diagonally across the road.

“Now then… the problem is what we do from here.”

As expected of a track-and-field coach, Onee-chan spoke with a perfectly composed expression despite having just finished sprinting at full speed.

“We left all our stuff in the dressing room… and without our wallets or phones, it’s pretty unsettling, isn’t it?”

“Well, we can manage somehow when it comes to money. If we sell an information broker the details of everything that happened today, we should at least be able to scrape together enough for the Shinkansen fare home.”

“Yeah, true. Honestly, losing the phones hurts more.”

My phone contained the contact information for all the collaborators I had built connections with up to now.

I always made sure to delete my call history and SNS exchanges, so there wasn’t really anything on it that would look dangerous at a glance, but losing it would still be a serious blow.

“Haa…”

Just as I let out a deep sigh—

“Don’t worry. I made sure to recover them.”

—A voice suddenly came from behind the vending machine diagonally across the road, making me catch my breath.

“Claudia!”

At almost the same moment Onee-chan moved into a guarded stance as though shielding me behind her, a girl stepped out from behind the vending machine.

“…Shiratori?”

Illuminated by the vending machine’s light was the same sullen face as always.

It was our collaborator, Saki Shiratori.

“I followed you. I saw you running off.”

The color clinging to her words was blue. She wasn’t lying.

“I went ahead and recovered your things from the dressing room… These are the right ones, aren’t they?”

As she spoke, she lowered my backpack and Onee-chan’s shoulder bag from her shoulder onto the ground.

“You’re way too competent.”

“…Seriously.”

Onee-chan and I looked at each other and let out relieved sighs. Shiratori really was incredibly capable.

‘Seriously, I wish she’d become our manager…’

“If we head for Tokyo Station now, we can still make the last Shinkansen.”

Onee-chan said that while looking at the smartphone she had taken out of her shoulder bag.

“Yeah. I think we should get out of Tokyo as quickly as possible. It’s turned out pretty differently from what we originally planned, but we did accomplish our objective, more or less…”

We hadn’t managed to expose Fumio’s true identity, but that had only ever been a means for us to gain publicity in the first place.

The boy who had appeared in Fumio’s place back then was probably Kasuya. I realized that when I saw Hikari come rushing in with a look of utter alarm on her face.

‘Does that mean… Hikari was on the demons’ side too?’

The goat-headed one had looked like he’d come for no other reason than to save Kasuya and Hikari. If that was the case, then there was really no other way to put it—my judgment had been completely useless when I scouted Hikari.

As I slipped my arms through the straps of my backpack, Shiratori gave me a faint smile.

“I think you’ve already gotten plenty of publicity, but just to be safe, I’ll arrange for an official statement to be released through the talent agency saying, 『The demon was driven away by Detective JK.』 With this, Detective JK will become a hero overnight.”

“Oh, you’re going that far? That’s amazing, Shiratori.”

“Detective JK becoming famous benefits me too… after all!”

She put a strong emphasis on the end of her sentence, then suddenly snapped her fingers.

In the next instant, four doors appeared, surrounding us.

“Wha!?”

“What is this!?”

Ignoring our startled cries, the doors opened with a creaking giiii sound, and a figure stepped out from each one.

“Tch! We’ve been tricked!”

“Sh-Shiratori! What is the meaning of this!?”

Four maids had appeared. Aside from one of them having platinum-pink hair, they were all short-haired girls wearing the same maid uniform.

But in their hands were massive weapons like a battle axe and a greatsword—things you would almost never expect to see in modern-day Japan.

“What do you mean? From the very beginning… I was only enjoying hunting Detective JK.”

The color clinging to her words was blue.

She wasn’t lying.

“That’s impossible. Then why…?”

“You’re wondering why you couldn’t see through my lies?”

Shiratori raised one eyebrow and spoke in an exasperated tone.

“Well, I suppose the fact that you don’t understand that is exactly why you’ve ended up in this situation.”

Did that mean she had some kind of method for deceiving my eyes?

But this wasn’t the time to be thinking about that.

The real problem was how we were supposed to escape from this situation…

‘Yeah, impossible. At least for me. But if Onee-chan were alone…’

I quietly whispered to Onee-chan.

“Onee-chan, leave me behind and run.”

“…No.”

“Don’t be selfish. It’s the only way. You can escape, Onee-chan. So get away for now, then come back and save me later. We already know where Shiratori lives, after all.”

As long as Onee-chan could escape from here, she should be able to corner Shiratori later and force her to release me.

It seemed she understood exactly what I was trying to say.

Onee-chan clenched her back teeth with a grit.

“Now then… I’ll leave the rest to you.”

“「「「「Yes, Saki-sama!」」」」”

At Shiratori’s command, the maids slowly began tightening the circle around us.

There was no way for me to judge just how strong these maids were, but at the very least, one of them was dangerous enough to have seriously injured Onee-chan.

It was probably the girl holding the axe—the one Onee-chan had been glaring at the entire time.

I exchanged a glance with Onee-chan, then raised my voice.

“I surrender! I surrender! I’ll behave, so don’t hurt me!”

I raised both hands to show that I had no hostile intent, and for a brief moment, the tension among the maids seemed to ease.

Of course, that was exactly what I had been hoping for.

“Claudia! Sorry!”

All of a sudden, Onee-chan turned her back on the axe-wielding maid and charged toward the maid with platinum-pink hair.

“Y-you’re coming this way!?”

The platinum-pink-haired maid hurriedly raised the hammer she was holding.

“Y-you little…!”

But Onee-chan hadn’t charged at her at random.

She must have deliberately targeted the opponent carrying the heaviest-looking weapon—the one that seemed the hardest to maneuver.

Onee-chan sidestepped the hammer as it came swinging down from overhead, then dashed past the platinum-pink-haired maid.

But the only one who panicked was the platinum-pink-haired maid.

The other maids didn’t even spare a glance for Onee-chan as she ran off. Instead, they grabbed me by the shoulders and hair and twisted me down onto the ground.

“Ow! That hurts! I said that hurts! Say no to violence!”

‘Ow, ow, ow… What ridiculous strength. She’s smaller than me, but there’s no way this is normal.’

For now, it was probably better not to resist.

There was no chance I could overpower them anyway.

‘Onee-chan will definitely come back to save me. I just have to make sure I stay safe until then…’