Because more time had passed, even traces of police searches were hard to see. Yūki slipped into the grove and used the pale light of his phone screen to scan the ground.
Only startled insects skittered away through the grass.
Wasn't there supposed to be something? A shining clue that everyone overlooked…
Unwilling to give up, Yūki grabbed a handful of dirt and sniffed it.
No blood.
Only earth.
He felt stupid.
The system remained silent.
Yūki stood, brushed off the dirt and dust, and looked toward the hospital. From here, he could clearly see the bench where Shiki had sat earlier.
He still didn't know why she'd been there at dusk. If she wasn't visiting him, had she also been inspecting the crime scene?
It was possible. Shiki did seem like someone who could be interested in that.
Still, the result was the same.
Nothing.
Yūki left the grove and headed to the final location.
A spot beneath a bridge over the river that ran across Kanbuzi City.
Under the bridge, a dead angle lay in pitch darkness. If you went down the embankment far enough, you'd see nothing even in daylight.
Yūki stood on a ledge between the banks. The air was damp; the wind carried the faint fishy scent of algae. Nothing else.
This was a place he vaguely remembered as a possible future scene. Maybe in a few days another mangled body would be found here.
Yūki moved further in, took a quick look, and decided to leave.
He wasn't a detective. Even if he found evidence, it would just be trouble.
What he wanted was the rule behind Fate Power. Since there had been no notification, he'd assumed this was another empty trip.
"Nothing again…"
Yūki sighed softly. Still, this small adventure almost felt like being a student again—his old life.
Like a detective game.
It wasn't so bad.
With that self-comforting thought, Yūki turned to go home before dawn. He still had things to do in the day.
[Fate Power +1]
As if rewarding his effort, the system chimed at the moment he decided to give up.
And in the very next instant—like a cruel joke—Yūki felt danger unlike anything before.
"Yo. You're Ryougi Shiki's friend, right?"
When he turned, a man was standing behind him.
A boy who looked not much older than Yūki—wearing the upperclass uniform of Kan'onji High School, with shoulder-length brown hair.
Under the crescent moon, he wore a faint, hard-to-read smile as he studied Yūki with interest.
From appearance alone, he looked like a slender, gentle senior.
If it weren't two in the morning, Yūki might have treated it as a normal greeting.
"Shirazumi… senpai?"
"Oh, you know me. I see, I see."
Shirazumi raised his chin slightly, curiosity bright in his voice.
"How much do you know?"
Yūki forced down his pounding heart, inhaled, and started organizing his words.
Yes—odd timing, but it didn't matter. Negotiation. Neutralization by conversation. That was what he was good at—
"Ah, sorry. Never mind."
Before Yūki could speak, Shirazumi changed his mind. There was no room for negotiation at all.
What poured out of Shirazumi was pure malice.
"Either way, you're going to die here tonight."
He smiled.
"I wonder what kind of face Ryougi will make when she sees you torn into pieces."
…
…
…
For Shiki, Yūki was rare—but not incomprehensible.
It wasn't that Asagami Yūki couldn't make friends; it was that he didn't need them.
Aside from childhood ties, Shiki's value to him also came from her being "Ryougi"—future business relations were possible.
If he wanted, he could get along with almost anyone. And at the same time, he was wary of everyone.
Not a bad person—but always wrapped in falsehood.
He drew close to maintain appearances… then carefully pulled away, never touching Shiki's inner world.
She didn't like him, but she could coexist with him.
Because the Asagami family had separated from the original Asakami line long ago, Yūki knew nothing of what Shiki had grown up around—mages, supernatural power, any of it.
If anything was special about him, it was only that "the other Shiki" seemed to like him.
So Shiki let it be. With that attitude, she maintained a surface-level connection and passed a relatively calm stretch of school days.
Somewhere deep down, she didn't hate the feeling.
Until late June—five nights ago.
As a personal habit, Shiki sometimes wandered alone at night. Born as "two people," those nights gave her the illusion that she was only one—while savoring the gentle numbness of unease.
That night, Shiki did her usual moonlit rounds—
And found Asagami Yūki collapsed by the roadside, drenched in blood.
An ordinary person like that being dragged into danger should have been pure coincidence.
Though Yūki was covered in blood, most of it wasn't his. Shiki quickly judged his injuries weren't immediately fatal.
Even if she did nothing, his odds of dying were… maybe fifty percent.
"The other Shiki" would have wanted to save him.
But "Shiki" had her own reasons not to.
So she stood beneath the streetlight and watched her "friend" in name only.
Until his sister sent a desperate text.
Today, Shiki almost regretted that decision.
Five days later, seeing Yūki again, she sensed he'd changed.
He seemed to be hiding more than ever—yet he was also worse at hiding it.
The old false, slippery feeling was gone. Instead, he would occasionally reveal honest emotion, plainly.
It annoyed her. It irritated her.
Maybe her action that night had made him misunderstand something.
Unfounded trust. Sudden lowered guard.
Especially the way he'd forced himself to shield her at the corpse scene—like he was "protecting" her—had pushed that discomfort to its peak.
She'd sensed eyes then—the killer might have been nearby. Yet she hadn't moved.
Because of that discomfort.
Even now, it was the same. To understand it, to cut off the source before it grew, Shiki said she'd stay another night.
And that was why she noticed Yūki slipping out in the dark.
-------
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