Mayonaka no X Giten 24

Midnight Cross Method 24

p1: ==============================
My sister’s corpse is gone.
/ And right when we thought we’d solved the case, too.

Kamiya-kun, tell me everything about the day your sister died.
O-Okay.

…When you awoke, you found the murder weapon gripped in your right hand?

…Yeah, that’s what happened.

p2: ==============================
Kamiya-kun… Remember? X is left-handed.
!

Then… Then my sister’s killer isn’t X?!
Yes. The very foundation of our deduction proved incorrect.

p3: ==============================
#24: The Killer in My Memories
[insert]: With my sister’s corpse vanished, we’re back to the drawing board!
Story: Yamaguchi Mikoto / Art: BAREISHO

p4: ==============================
…

…Hm.
I don’t know who this is.

…
…

Kirishima Sachi, which personality are you speaking as right now?

p5: ==============================
I couldn’t say one or the other, I guess?
Two sets of memories dwell within my mind.
/ The memories of the Sachi you knew and the memories of X are all jumbled together.

But the two sets are mixing, fusing into one.
/ I can tell you with confidence that those merged memories are now mine.

…In other words, there’s a fair amount of confusion in your memories,
/ but the merged memories are clear to you?

Yeah…
In all likelihood, X did not murder your sister, Hiroki.

…I knew it.
In that case, what about the letter?

You know, the letter you left behind when you escaped from your cell.
/ You wrote that X’s identity was someone I knew!

p6: ==============================
You’re slightly off there.
/ There were two pieces of information written in that letter.

The first was that I had realized who X was.
The second…
was that your sister was murdered by someone you knew.

…Huh?
/ Then you’re saying…

Correct.
/ The two pieces of information were not connected.

I was convinced that X had killed my sister,
/ so I mistakenly thought it was all a single hint?

p7: ==============================
Therefore,
/ there was never any guarantee Kamiya Yui-san’s murderer was X.

However, the culprit is someone Kamiya-kun knows.
We can be absolutely certain of that, right?

That is the truth of it.
[sfx]: Nod

I have no idea who the culprit is, but it has to be someone I know…

Then our hypothesis and conclusion were backwards.

…Yes, they were. I think it would be wise to ask Master for more details.
…”Master”?

p8: ==============================
It has to do with my Cross Ability.

…You’re this “Master”?
Indeed.
/ Sachi-kun calls me that, in respect for my erudite intelligence.

Umm… I haven’t yet had the opportunity to ask this,
/ but what in the world are you two?

I am Igarashi Daigorou.
And I’m his attendant and great-granddaughter, Igarashi Shino.
I both invented body-switching and am the first test subject of the art.

p9: ==============================
I originally invented it to help heal those like Sachi, whose hearts had been riven.

But before I knew it, my masterpiece was misused for dangerous entertainment and heinous crime.
As the inventor, I could not stand by. Which is why I’m now taking action.

As for the question of why I am like this—
/ GEH!
You can’t keep going on like that, Great-Grandpa! They don’t want to spend all day listening to your story.
[sfx]: Squeeze
S-Sorry. But we are in a hurry, so if you could start by telling us about your Cross Ability?

My Cross Ability is Lucky Detective.

It is the ability to blow past all the deductive reasoning and immediately produce the conclusion.
The motive? The trick? I can’t answer that, but I can tell you the culprit is among us!
[sfx]: Snap!

p10: ==============================
In other words, I can’t tell you why or how,
/ but I can tell you with 100% certainty…
that your sister was murdered by someone you know.

X was one such candidate, of course, but we now know it not to be him.
…

Unfortunately, my ability cannot produce the ultimate answer.
/ That is to say, we have to figure this out using only the information we currently have on hand.

But there can be no doubt.
The culprit exists somewhere in your memories.

p11: ==============================
…Well? Is there anyone that comes to mind?
…This is tough.

Even someone like me has plenty of acquaintances.

Hmm.. Grasping at straws isn’t going to get us an answer.
We have to narrow down the possibilities.

For instance,
/ is there anyone you know who had a grudge against your sister?
!

p12: ==============================
Why are you asking that?

If she wasn’t killed by a serial killer like X,
then the possibility exists that she was targeted from the start.

In other words, the person with a reason to kill my sister is the culprit?
[sfx]: Crush

The first suspects in an investigation are those who may have killed out of enmity, right?
…Though actually, a lot of murders stem from egotistic spite.

…You want me to name someone who hated my sister so much he would kill her?

Hey. I’ve been wondering about this for a little while now, but…
?

p13: ==============================
Why did your sister become a recluse?

From what I saw of her, she never seemed like the type.

W-Well…

I don’t really know the answer to that, either.

My memories of when and why that happened are all vague.
/ It’s like, one day, she suddenly stopped leaving the house.

Perhaps…
could someone have been stalking her?

p14: ==============================
That couldn’t be.
/ Class Rep, you know how good she was at karate.
She’d knock your run-of-the-mill stalker flat on his back.

…Uh, but even so…
My sister certainly did act like she was afraid of something.

If that’s true, then was there something she didn’t tell me about?
Some reason she felt her life was in danger?

That would be why she withdrew, why she hid herself.

If I’m right, then who was it? Who do I know…
who could have made such a strong woman tremble in fear?

p15: ==============================
Kamiya-kun, Shion-san, can I have a moment?

Kirishima-kun said he’s remembered something.
!

I truly would prefer if I could explain it all at once, but…

As I said before, the two sets of memories in my mind have begun to meld.
/ In the midst of that, one thing has become clear.

During the Cross Act that day, the body X entered…
belonged to Furuyanagi Kou.

p16: ==============================
Furuyanagi Kou.
/ He was one of the people who participated in the Cross Act on the day of the crime.
A man of 86 years, he lived in a hospital strapped to a bed.

I gave myself a look at this diagram.
[sfx]: Flip
I assume this is a diagram you made of the Cross Act before going to capture X.

However, there’s a mistake here.
/ After all, X didn’t enter your body, Hiroki.
[paper]: Kirishima Ai (X) -> Kamiya Hiroki.
[lower right of paper]: Mikuni
[upper right of paper,cut off] Kirishima Sachi

Which begged the question: whose body did X enter?

Look at this photograph.
Is this… some ceiling?

This is the ceiling of the hospital where Furuyanagi Kou is staying.
I had a detective take it for me.

p17: ==============================
And furthermore…
/ The ceiling X saw after swapping bodies was unmistakably the very same.

Why I can be so certain of this memory, you ask?

Because, now that my memories have fused,
/ I can recall a clear difference in the ceiling Sachi saw in the body he entered.
[box, upper left]: The ceiling Sachi saw
[box, lower right]: The ceiling X saw

To sum this all up, fixing the diagram…
…gives us this.
[paper] {
[upper right]: Cross Act Participants (8 total)
[upper left, counterclockwise, from top]: Furuyanagi Kou / An’no Shin’ichirou / Kirishima Ai (X)
[lower right, counterclockwise, from bottom]: Kamiya Hiroki / Mikuriya Mikuni / Kirishima Sachi
}

p18: ==============================
Hmmm.
/ Nevertheless…

The fact remains that about these two, we know—

In fact,
/ there is one more thing I’ve remembered regarding that.
Do you remember, Hiroki, what Sachi experienced in the body he swapped into?

Yeah.
/ That would be this person here, right?
He was an adult man in a hospital, as I recall.

Additionally, you said you could hear the faint sound of water.

That’s exactly it.
/ Now that I’ve come here, I’ve figured out what was making that sound.
What do you mean?

p19: ==============================
The answer lies there.
*Drip*
*Drip*
…The IV?

But if he’s a patient, there’s nothing strange about him receiving an IV.
/ That can’t be particularly vital information.

About that…
It might be possible that the person is in fact not a patient.

When I compare the memories X experienced when he truly took the body of Furuyanagi Kou, a man forced to lay all day in bed,
with those Sachi experienced of being in a bed unable to move…

I find that the sensation of each is clearly different.
/ While it came in waves, the sick man in bed faced a constant stream of pain.
However, Sachi experienced no such pain. If anything, he even felt a strange comfort.

p20: ==============================
I suspect that that was because he intentionally ensnared his body using some sort of drug.

Then that’s why he set up the IV?
That would be the conclusion, yes.

…
/ What is it, Kamiya-kun?
N-No, it’s nothing.

Well? Did that provide you with a hint?

A feeling rose in my gut. It said we were close to grabbing hold of something concrete.

…

p21: ==============================
…But ultimately, we made no further progress that day.

I see… So that’s how things have gotten now.

At the moment, the clues we have that are connected to the culprit…
/ are that he is someone you know, Hiroki…

That it’s likely someone who had a grudge against my sister…

And that Sachi entered the body of a man who used a drug to keep himself stuck in place.
…That’s about it, I guess.
[sfx]: Rub, rub.
Huh? There’s one more thing, right?

p22: ==============================
That the culprit’s a perverted bastard who stole your sister’s body.

…Huh?

Don’t “huh” me. Her body disappeared, right?
/ That was the first thing you told me!

Which means the culprit’s the only person who could have taken it. Get it?

…She’s right…
How did my sister’s body disappear?

p23: ==============================
[sfx]: Tremble
…Hello?
/ Hello?!

Out of all the people I know,
who stole my sister’s body?
Who hated her so much…
that she lived in fear of the person?

…Mikuriya, what sort of Cross Ability did my body have?
Huh?

I couldn’t completely tell,
/ but it was some sort of ability where even if I went to bed, I’d soon wake up, I guess?

…Oh… So that’s what it is.
…Hiroki?
Hah… Haha…

p24: ==============================
Umm… Are you sure you’re all right over there?
[sfx]: Tears

…Mikuriya…
/ Maybe my sister’s death was suicide…