One week has passed since Furuya-san woke up.
Coordination with Public Security is finally complete. The day has arrived for my meeting with Morofushi.
This past week has been grueling. With Furuya-san raging inside, burning through every ounce of physical energy, I've been a wreck—constantly nauseous and feeling like a sick frog.
Vodka dropped by occasionally with energy drinks and easy-to-digest soups. It helped, but I was still in no condition to leave the safe house normally.
Once, he brought Irish along. Even though Irish came of his own accord, he looked genuinely shocked to see me.
"So, you are human after all, Bourbon," he remarked with odd sentimentality.
That really ticked me off.
Of course I'm flesh and blood! What does he think the Organization does—manufacture genetically modified super-soldiers?
But he just laughed, clearly amused. "Sorry, sorry. Here, take this as an apology. It's a breakdown of my personal training regimen. You wanted to learn martial arts, right?"
He handed me a sheaf of notes. I shut my mouth immediately.
Thank you, Irish! I'll put these to good use!
Incidentally, I managed to secure leave from the Organization, claiming I was bedridden with a severe infection.
Ah, the bliss of time off.
I offer a prayer for whatever low-level grunt got saddled with my workload. I doubt anyone else can dodge a hail of bullets like I can. Even for a villain, it's a pitiable fate to be thrown into that meat grinder without warning.
And so, the week flashed by.
As the days went on, Furuya-san grew quieter. I initially assumed he'd run out of steam, but that wasn't it. If he wanted to, he could have rested and then resumed his rampage for days.
Perhaps he reflected on what I said and regained his composure.
I could have dived into his subconscious to speak with him directly, but I scrapped that idea. It was too dangerous. Given Furuya Rei's mental state at the time, if I went down there and he tried to commit psychological suicide out of despair, it would be catastrophic. I'd never be able to face Morofushi after that.
A week later, I dressed sharply and left the base.
The place is just a temporary safe house—a front. The old, rusty lock offers such flimsy security that I could pick it in ten seconds. Still, I went through the motions of locking it and slipped the key into my bag.
The RX-7, neglected for a week, sat under a light coat of dust.
My destination: a detective agency that recently opened for business.
"Hiro Detective Agency."
It was an old prefab structure situated near a grocery store in a rural area, a few hours' drive away.
And this was the current residence of "Hieru Hikaru"... the alias of Morofushi Hiromitsu.
I parked the car in the unnecessarily sprawling lot and rang the doorbell of a building where the air conditioning seemed to be on its last legs.
"It's Amuro."
"...Ah, welcome. Come on in."
The voice that answered was Morofushi's.
My body gave an involuntary shudder. What was that?
"Sorry for the intrusion... You've made the place look quite decent."
"It works well enough as a stopgap, doesn't it? It's not on the level of Vermouth's disguises that transform you into someone else entirely, but staging the room is enough for cover."
Morofushi offered a gentle smile and welcomed me in. "Here, have a seat."
"Then, I'll take you up on that... Hiro?"
"Hmm?"
I clamped my hand over my mouth immediately. My lips had moved on their own.
Could it be Furuya-san?
Quickly, I dropped my consciousness into the depths of the psyche to check his state. Standing in the waters, which had cleared up slightly, he was staring stunned at the scene before him.
I grabbed his hand tight, and with a sudden heave, I flung him from the bottom of consciousness to the surface in one go.
I caught his look of surprise for a split second, but he'll just have to forgive me this once.
Look, it's a long-awaited reunion, isn't it?
An outsider like me has no right to speak here. This is a scene where "Furuya Rei" himself must find the words.
Furuya-san, regaining consciousness for the first time in nearly four years, opened his physical eyes.
He looked around in confusion, clenching and unclenching his hands, until his gaze settled on Morofushi Hiromitsu, who was watching his friend's sudden, strange behavior with concern.
"...Are you alive? Hiro, is this real?"
"It's been a long time, Zero. I was worried about you."
"Th... This... It's..."
He tried to assert his turn to speak, but the words caught in his throat.
Conflicting emotions—relief, joy, fear, doubt—stormed through him, rendering speech impossible.
From the depths of his subconscious, I could feel tears gathering in the body's eyes.
"...Thank God, Hiro. Thank God you're alive. I'm sorry for everything. I... on that mission, I killed someone for the first time... I killed a human being."
"..."
"What a fool I am. I knew it was part of the job from the start. And as a sniper, it must have been harder for you, but I wasn't ready."
"...Zero."
Furuya-san's voice trembled as he spoke in broken, halting sentences. Morofushi watched him, his eyes filled with anxiety and hesitation.
"Because of that, my consciousness split... even though my sin won't go away. I shut myself out, and when I thought you had died, my mind became such a chaotic mess I wanted to scream."
Furuya-san's confession of guilt was scattered and incredibly emotional.
Hmm, I see.
In other words, the reason he lost consciousness originally was the trauma of being tainted by his first murder during an Organization mission. He shut his consciousness away to escape it, and that was when I inhabited his body... leading him to mistakenly believe he had developed Dissociative Identity Disorder.
So, I can't rule out the possibility that he remained unconscious all this time because the psychological strain of my continued killing kept him under.
I'm sorry... I'm so sorry, Furuya-san. It was my own lack of ability. I had no other way to survive inside the Organization.
"Zero, calm down. It's okay. This doesn't mean you're weak."
"But my other personality committed all kinds of atrocities for the Organization..."
"He saved me, you know?"
Morofushi suddenly lifted his shirt, revealing raw, vivid scars carved across his torso.
Furuya-san gasped at the gruesome sight. It looked as if a massive beast had mauled him; the wounds were still dark with scabs, and the bandages hadn't even been fully removed yet.
The agonizing claw marks stopped just short of the center, where his vital organs lay. That was exactly where the fake blood bag had been.
"I planned it with Bourbon beforehand. We mapped out the extent of the injury, the escape route, and the Public Security arrangements that followed."
"!!!"
"That way, Bourbon used the absolute trust he commands within the Organization to help NOCs whenever possible."
"...The voice I heard in my dreams sometimes... was it..."
"Bourbon's voice? He told me he was giving you daily mission reports while you slept."
I heard a faint sob and breathed a sigh of relief. It seems the misunderstanding is mostly cleared up.
If I rise just to the edge of the surface, I can take control of the mouth to speak without fully emerging—just like Furuya-san did earlier.
I gently pushed against the "lid" to let my voice through.
"I don't mind that you've terribly misunderstood me all this time. What matters is that you're awake."
Furuya-san's shoulders jumped in surprise. It really is startling, isn't it?
After all, I'm just a "strange visitor," not a native of this world. I'm a traveler who loves the original story; witnessing the joy, hatred, sickness, and fate of this world is enough for me.
I'll watch over all of you like I'm gazing at a distant, starry sky.
In other words, I'm like "Big Mom." No, scratch that—that makes it sound like we're sailing the Grand Line. I need a better metaphor.
"Don't worry about me. You can do whatever you want... Wait, you... my mouth..."
"Are Bourbon and Zero speaking together... right now?"
"Yes, that's right... It's a strange feeling. Are you my other personality, Bourbon?"
Technically, I'm a "transmigrator" possessing you, but saying that would only complicate things.
When I answered "Yes," Furuya-san furrowed his brows in sorrow.
"I apologize for everything until now. Because of my weakness, I dumped the harsh tasks on you... You didn't have a choice, did you? So I don't care... No, I can't leave it at that. It would be incredibly ungrateful of me."
"It looks funny, like Zero is talking to himself nonstop."
"Hmph. We're discussing something important, so keep quiet for a moment."
"I'll go make some tea. Call me when you're done talking!"
"Hiro... you've become so free-spirited over these four years... That's what happens when you rub shoulders with an organization full of people who do whatever they please."
Breathing in the air that "Free Spirit Hiro" had just disordered, I smiled from the depths of consciousness.
This is good. This is very good.
This scene alone makes all my effort worth it.
Now, if Furuya-san would be so kind as to take over Bourbon's duties for me, it would be perfect.
Is it impossible for a normal human to act as a legendary fighter who pulls off impossible acrobatic stunts?
Not my problem.
Since I, a normal human, managed to do it, you'll just have to do your best, too.
Chuckling internally at the thought, I basked in the peaceful atmosphere along with them.