Chapter 42

I stared at Kitsunesaki's face, pale with desperation. The other side's goal is to throw off my pace and stop my reasoning.

It's not like they're presenting any major problem that would overturn my deductions. So I declared it boldly.

"There are two reasons she couldn't dispose of the cat. The first is that she was the second person to discover the body. She must have thought that if she moved carelessly, she would look suspicious."

"B-but still. She could still have approached Kanbara's corpse to try to wake her up or check her condition......! The first discoverer couldn't move, after all."

"Ah...... The fact that the first discoverer couldn't move is the reason!"

"Eh!?"

She probably never imagined I would see through this much. Even for me, obtaining the answer to this situation was thanks to chance and good luck.

If, on the morning the incident came to light, I hadn't been attacked by the cat.

If I hadn't passed the first discoverer at the school gate.

If the first discoverer hadn't sneezed and stared hard at me.

If, the moment I was hooked by the riddle "Why didn't she dispose of the cat's corpse," Detective Chikage hadn't spoken to me like a cat.

I wouldn't have been able to give an answer to the question.

"The girl who was the first discoverer must have had a cat allergy."

"So what! What does that have to do with Professor Kitsunesaki!? She could have disposed of the corpse regardless......"

"No way! If that girl were just anyone, later saying something like 'There was a cat corpse at the crime scene'—since it wasn't actually at the scene—well, the police would probably just think she mis-saw it in the shock of seeing the corpse, and it would end as a minor doubt. But—"

"But?"

"If the testimony came from someone who, because of a cat allergy, always paid close attention to cats—how would the police take those words now......"

"......Eh......"

"The culprit, Kitsunesaki, must have thought: 'Because it's this child's testimony, the vanished cat will definitely be treated as important in the investigation.'"

"N-no way......"

"I'm pretty sure the girl with wheat-colored skin is on the track team, so if the faculty adviser was doubling as adviser to both the PC Club and the track team, she'd know. That the student has a cat allergy. Ah, or maybe Professor Kitsunesaki is such an unkind teacher that she figured student allergies were none of her business!? Senior Kishi!?"

"N-no...... that's...... that's......"

At my forceful words, Kitsunesaki—pretending to be Senior Kishi—rolled her eyes. Of course she would. She has to accept this truth one way or another.

Is Kitsunesaki really a cold-hearted person? Or is she someone who committed murder for her own revenge?

"Well then, Senior Kishi...... Won't you stop protecting her? Let's admit that Kitsunesaki is the culprit, all right?"

"N-no...... There's still no evidence! The dying message is just an illusion Kanbara created on her own. That girl might have left a fake dying message just to harass her!"

Evidence, huh.

Sorry, but I don't have any direct evidence that Kanbara-senpai was killed and that the culprit is Kitsunesaki. However, there's a way to win even without evidence.

"Why do you trust Kitsunesaki that far?"

"Wh-what, all of a sudden!?"

"No, I mean—why are you so desperate to protect her?"

"Because that person is pitiful! Someone precious to her died, and now she's even being suspected of killing Kanbara! Well, if—if she really did kill, it was revenge. There's nothing wrong with that. She did it for my sake! That kind, adorable person was thinking of me, so I have to answer her feelings—"

Someone precious. Is that you, Senior Kishi?

If she killed...... she's saying she did it as revenge for me.

I've more or less grasped what he's trying to say. So I answered like this:

"Smothered in lies, yet you call it happiness."

"Hah!?"

"It's all Kitsunesaki's lies, isn't it? You're not Kishi. You're the ideal Kishi conjured up by Kitsunesaki's illusions."

"Huh!? I—I'm me, you know!? What are you trying to say!? I'm Kishi, the one who was dating Professor Kitsunesaki!"

An absurd reversal, and what I felt because of what happened to Miiko.

Marriage to the dead.

"Ah, yes—Kitsunesaki only started dating Kishi after Kishi was already dead."

"Hah? Haaaaaaaaah!? Wh-what nonsense, wh-what insane thing are you saying!?"

Even her eyes are trembling. Yes—because I've come to know what she wanted to hide. The thing she herself had kept buried deep in her heart all this time.

"Here's your scheme, Kitsunesaki. You learned that Kishi, who died partly because of Kanbara's bullying, had passed away. A teacher who was closest to her as the PC Club adviser must have been in quite a bind. After all, she'd be bashed with the accusation: 'Why, as a teacher, did you let that child die from bullying?'"

"Uuuuuuugh......!"

Kitsunesaki started to cover her ears. I spoke in a voice even louder than the hands trying to block it.

"But you came up with an idea. You'd just act as if you'd never known about the bullying at all. But you had no easy basis for claiming ignorance. So—yes—why not just say Kishi had been your lover, the person closest to you! Even you, closest to her, hadn't noticed the insidious bullying—that would work!"

"Wh-how could you!? My phone has her photos and her contact info, you know!"

"A setup like this doesn't even need foreshadowing to deduce! You must have fiddled with the phone during the wake or something, entered your own data to make it look like you'd been dating!"

"Aaaah!? Aaaah!? Aaaah!? Impossible, impossible, impossible! A teacher doing that!? The girl I believe in would never do that! Never, never, never!"

"That's how Kitsunesaki ran away. By claiming the person she loved had died, society and everyone around you couldn't press her. She cleverly escaped blame that way!"

"Y-yeah. She invited me on a date. That day I went out...... went out...... went out......"

A date.

No one will deny that Kitsunesaki and Senior Kishi had a date.

But that truth was a trick that deftly handled both Kanbara-senpai's bullying and the real heart of Senior Kishi.

Now I'll lay that bare.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.