Chapter 24
I decided to start by talking about the time loop, prefacing it with a statement saying, ‘It sounds like something out of science fiction, and I know you probably won’t believe it’.
“The reason I know your faces and names is because I have already met you both. And just in case things went wrong, I asked each of you for a ‘secret only you would know’. The note I left for Yasuhara-san was something he gave me. He told me to just say, ‘Did you kill Anna?’ He didn’t explain the exact meaning of the words, but he said that should be enough to get his attention.”
Yasuhara kept his brow furrowed the whole time. I don’t know who “Anna” was, or if it was some kind of secret code only certain people can understand. But it clearly seemed to hold deep significance for Yasuhara.
“Then there’s Kamiya-san. What I heard from you was a story from your childhood.”
“Me too?”
Kamiya looked back at me anxiously.
“You’d always gotten perfect scores, but there was one time you didn’t. You threw away that test paper, didn’t you?”
“Huh?”
She covered her mouth with her hand and widened her eyes.
“But you were ashamed of what you did, and you never did anything like that again…… Right? You said you had never told anyone about it.”
“…… Is that so?”
Yasuhara looked at Kamiya. Kamiya nodded slightly, her face slightly pale. She wasn’t agitated by having her secret revealed; rather, she was in awe of my existence.
“Yasuhara-san is both the ‘Demon Yasuhara’ and the ‘Buddha Yasuhara’. I heard this from Kamiya-san. He’s a very practical person, and he always says, ‘Do the right thing’… ah.”
I remember now.
“…… What is it?”
Yasuhara called out to me as I suddenly fell silent.
I had just remembered something.
‘Even if no one is watching, always do the right thing. The sun is always watching during the day, and the moon is always watching at night.’
Those were the exact same words my grandfather used to say. They were the very same words my grandfather, who had always doted on me, used to say.
“No, when I heard you say, ‘Always the right thing’, it just made me feel a bit nostalgic. My grandfather used to say the same thing. ‘The sun is always watching during the day, and the moon is always watching at night.'”
“That’s …….”
Yasuhara frowned for a moment.
“You’re both police officers, facing cases every day. I imagine you spend your days thinking about how to uncover the truth and what is right. So my story— this outlandish claim that I’m ‘repeating the same scene over and over’ —you might believe it. But I want you to believe me. After all, if my time loop were a lie, I’d have no way of knowing their secrets? …Right?”
After I rattled off my words in one go, the two of them fell silent. They were probably struggling to figure out how to respond or how to interpret what I’d said.
“…… So, who’s the culprit?”
Yasuhara finally spoke up. But I had no intention of answering that question. Not yet, anyway.
“Not yet. Yasuhara-san, you still don’t really believe what I’m saying. Last time, you tricked me and I ended up in a terrible situation. You too, though.”
“Me too?”
“Yes. Because you died, Yasuhara-san.”
“Huh?”
Kamiya was the first to speak up. She hurriedly clamped her mouth shut, but it was too late. And I was certain. Kamiya harbored romantic feelings for Yasuhara, who was old enough to be her father. There was no doubt about it.
“Yasuhara-san, you didn’t listen to me, and ended up dying alongside the culprit. That’s why I won’t say anything more until you truly believe me. From here on, the choice is yours. If you want to treat me like a madwoman and conduct your own investigation, that’s fine. I can redo that scene as many times as I need to, so I’ll think of something else. A different path that doesn’t rely on you two…… But if you two truly trust me, I’ll tell you everything. He intends to turn himself in. He doesn’t want to keep running away!”
In the end, I ended up raising my voice.
That’s right. It’s such a simple thing.
He just wants to turn himself in without dying.
“…I understand. With all this evidence in front of us, I suppose I have no choice but to believe you.”
“Yasuhara-san.”
Kamiya looked at Yasuhara.
“What about Kamiya? Do you think I’m lying?”
Yes, when asked,
“…No, I’ve really never told anyone about the test before. I’m the only one who knows about it. So, unless you heard it from me, there’s no way you could know that information.”
I let out a sigh of relief.
“So, you really believe me then?”
In response to my question, the two of them nodded vigorously.
“Thank you very much!”
I bowed deeply.
“Ah, please, have some tea. It might be cold by now, though.”
I was thirsty.
I drank my tea in one go, then took out paper and a pen. Even if I wrote it down on the paper, it would disappear once the loop restarted. As the number of loops increased, I felt like I was going to forget the events from the beginning.
Hang in there, my memory!
“I’ll explain everything step by step, starting from the beginning. It might take some time, though. If you have any questions, please ask. I’ll answer them properly.”
I won’t lie.
With that resolve in my heart, I began to tell the story step by step from the beginning.
“First of all……”
How he abandoned his car, wandered the streets, and resolved to turn himself in. And yet, he was stabbed at the police station he went to.
“Was that the North Precinct?”
Yasuhara asked.
“Yes, that’s right, but ……?”
I didn’t say which police station, so how did they know?
“You heard about the commotion at the North Precinct yesterday, didn’t you, Kamiya?”
“Ah!”
“Could it be… that a man with a knife went on a rampage?”
I see.
What happened when Shinji got caught up in it would have happened even if he hadn’t actually gone there. If that’s the case…….
I will continue the story.
“…So, this is where I first met the two of you. Were you here at this hour?”
Were the two of them in that town when we were heading to the Western-style restaurant?
“Yesterday…… we didn’t go there.”
“That’s right. We’ve been at the station since morning, checking the public transportation surveillance footage.”
They weren’t… there…?
“Ah! I get it!
I clapped my hands with a ‘pop’ sound.
“At that time, we took the train. So, you two must have spotted us on the security cameras and headed to that location, right?”
“I see.”
“But this time, we didn’t use public transportation, so we weren’t caught on security cameras. So the two of you wouldn’t have gone to that place either.”
That’s right. Their actions change in accordance with our movements. But accidents and incidents that happened without Shinji or me still exist. In other words…….
“Did a car crash into a police box somewhere yesterday?”
Yasuhara slapped his knee just like I did.
“Along the main road in Minamimachi!”
“Yeah, that runaway car plowed right into it…….”
“It exploded, didn’t it?”
It’s not exactly the kind of thing we should be getting excited about, but I couldn’t help it.
“We got caught up in that accident. Because of that, I thought maybe we shouldn’t be traveling by car, so we stopped driving and started taking the bus. Right after the bank robbery, there was an accident between a bus and a truck, right? The truck failed to overtake another vehicle and rear-ended the bus.”
“Yes, that happened! I heard the Traffic Division say it was a miracle no one was injured.”
“The back seat was a complete mess, wasn’t it?”
I write on paper as we talk. Shinji had died once in that accident.
“…… Looking at it this way, everything fits together, doesn’t it?”
Yasuhara let out a deep breath and looked at my notes.
“But even then, if someone says I’m just twisting facts based on what I heard on the news, I wouldn’t have anything to say in response.”
I muttered with a hint of self-deprecation. I wonder just how convincing this theory really is……
“No, it’s not a stretch at all. This accident, where a runaway car crashed into the police box, hasn’t been reported on the news yet.”
“Huh? Really? Why not?”
It was such a major accident, you’d think the press would have swarmed the scene and it would have made headlines.
“Because the driver was the son of some big shot.”
Yasuhara spat out the words with a look of disgust on his face.
Sads Translates 