Hinode woke early the next morning—if one hour after midnight even counted as morning.
All detectives had been given a thick file on the murder case. Pictures, police reports, DNA tests, a list of suspects and more. It was a lot more than Hinode had worked with before, though a lot of the supposed ‘evidence’ were nothing but red herrings and false ends.
Hinode scoffed, going through the pile with a scrutinizing gaze. He’d take nearly no evidence to this any day.
***
When it neared eight in the morning, there was a scream.
Hinode’s head snapped up, and he almost jumped out of the chair and smacked his knee on the table. He reared backwards in pain and tripped, landing on the carpeted floor with a thump. “Ow!”
Dammit, he really hated western-style shit. Give him a futon or a nest any day and he’d thank you for it. Give him a pile of candy and snacks, and he’d declare himself your best friend for life. But no, he had to sleep on a too-soft mattress, he had no sweets as he couldn’t take them into Ephemeral Dreams, he was solving an extreme-priority Case with a human of all beings, and someone was knocking insistently at the door. What had the world come to?
Hinode got up leisurely even as people yelled and the knocking at the door became more frantic. He brushed himself off and strode over to the door with a few steps, yanking it open and dodging the next knock that was coming down at his face.
“Sugar!” Smith said, obviously relieved, but then her eyes hardened. “There was a murder.”
“Not a murder. It was deleted,” Hinode corrected as he brushed past her. “You can’t think of these NPCs as real people, Smith. That’s how you get killed in Cases.”
“But…” she was obviously hesitant.
Hinode felt a little sympathetic for her. He acknowledged, “They look like people and act like people, but they’re not. Sure, if you die, your Energy Condensation will be absorbed into the Case, and you’ll become an NPC or a prop or even a monster. But there’s a key difference between Energy Condensations that look like NPCs and actual NPCs. Those NPCs? They’re nothing. Look at their feet. What do you notice?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Pa bcis abbx Vwlat j wbwfca ab oluegf bea ktja tf kjr ajixlcu jybea. Rba yjv. Vtf ktlrqfgfv, “Ktfs vbc’a tjnf rtjvbkr.”
“Tfjt.” Llcbvf ujnf tfg tlr yfra rswqjatfalm rwlif (la qgbyjyis kjrc’a nfgs rswqjatfalm, yea la kjr atf atbeuta atja mbecafv, gluta?). “Gbc’a offi yjv jybea qertlcu atfw lcab vjcufg bg ktjafnfg. Vb ibcu jr kf rbinf atlr Jjrf jcv ufa bea bo tfgf jilnf, atja’r jii atja wjaafgr.”
***
The dead being was the NPC that’d asked about the payment. The method of ‘death’, at first glance, looked straightforward. It was naked (not a nice sight) and laying close to the sink in its bathroom. Its temple was caved in and bloody, while its neck was gruesomely twisted and wrought. Its hair was wet, as was its body. It really did seem like it’d come out of the shower, only to slip, smash his head against the sink and break his neck while at it. Boom, deleted.
…this crass way of speaking about murder cases is probably why Hinode can’t have nice things.
Hinode looked around, frowning when one of the NPCs knocked their feet against the drainage cover and it rattled. He stepped forward towards the deleted NPC when everyone else scattered and checked its body over carefully.
“He was murdered,” one of the detectives said before Hinode could say the same thing (though he most likely would’ve said it more harshly). “May he rest in peace…”
“But why would anyone want to kill him?” the servant asked, wringing its hands, watching as the others went around looking for clues.
“Probably because of this,” another NPC held up a diary. “It says here that he figured out who the murderer is.”
“Already?!”
“Drear—” here, it nodded at the corpse “—is, no, was, called the world’s greatest for a reason, you know.”
Hinode snorted, mind running at a hundred miles per hour. Smith sidled up next to him, looking at him questioningly. After one last scan around the room, Hinode tilted his head gently towards the door. Luckily for him, Smith understood and headed out. He waited for a beat, two, then three, and followed.
“So?” Smith asked as they waited in the hall, but Hinode shook his head.
“Not here. The walls have ears in Cases such as these and it’ll adjust accordingly if it hears what I’ve managed to figure out. We’ll need to set up a barrier, first.”
Smith nodded, motioning for him to take the lead which he did so with the ease of someone who was used to taking charge. They didn’t talk, both of them not close enough to start a conversation, though Smith obviously wanted to know what the relationship between the ‘mysterious kitsune detective’ and her captain was.
Hinode let her into his room, taking the file of evidence and putting them out on the little coffee table in two piles.
“…how do I open inventory?” he asked, squinting at the air in front of him. “Do I just… open inventory? Oh, that actually worked. Damn.”
There was a shimmer in the air and a strange, pulsating green orb appeared in his left hand.
“What’s that?” Smith asked. “I didn’t get anything like that.”
“Of course not. The Council probably didn’t want to show off any more of the Arcanes’ secrets than needed. That, or they didn’t want to waste any on you guys.” Hinode frowned at her. “You do have the emergency exit button though, right?”
Smith nodded wordlessly, her brows furrowing, shoulders tightening and lips thinning. Hinode relaxed. “Good, they’re not total bigots.”
When Hinode mentioned nothing of her obvious discomfort, Smith finally couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Seriously, what is your problem with humans? All of you!”
Hinode shot her an inscrutable look. For all Smith knew, it could’ve been disgust, pity, or anger. He opened his mouth to speak, “Should we really be doing this here? Now of all times?”
“Well, why not? It’s not as if your deductions or those bodies are going anywhere, is it?” Smith snapped. “I’m sick of you Arcane treating me—us—like we’re something lesser. You say ‘human’ as if it’s something derogatory and I can tell you’re one of the more open-minded Arcanes!”
Hinode watched her rant with a blank face. He known this would arrive sooner or later, but he’d just been hoping it would’ve been a bit later.
“—and I know I’m being unprofessional or whatever, but you’re being unprofessional too, letting your prejudices get in the way of teamwork! So either start being better so you can meet me halfway or buckle up and get ready for a whole lot of hatred, sass, and karma, bastard!”
They stared at each other, Smith seething and her chest heaving and Hinode staring at her coldly as his easy nature vanished. A person could tell with a single glance that both of them were furious in their own ways. Hinode took a deep breath and let it out.
“Did you know,” Hinode started, “that Arcane cannot cause Malevolents to be born? It’s all you humans. Your greed, negativity and general sin are what is causing the world to crumble.
“Outwardly, everything is fine, like a sturdy old Oaktree. Look a little deeper though, and you’ll see that the roots are rotting, and the trunk is hollow, the soil poisoned. That is all you humans.
“You cause Malevolents to be born but do nothing to stop it. That job falls to us, the Arcane, the original protectors of the land. Before humans, everything was perfect. It was fine. And then along you came, trampling on our beliefs, our systems, our life, and our lands. You cut down tree nymphs for wood and housing, drowned the koi with your poison and stained the golems with blood and hatred.
“We forgave, at first, but forgiveness is hard when you do not die, and things get worse and worse. We forgave, and forgave, and forgave until we couldn’t forgive without killing ourselves. That’s when hatred began to build. For as long as this earth has been here, hatred and resentment built. More than a hundred thousand years of hatred, Smith, cannot be diffused with a single partnership.
“So yes, I am trying, for the sake of…” Hinode paused, hesitant, but then he forged on. “But others will not be too willing. So you tell me, Edith Smith, how can humans meet Arcanes halfway after all that they have done?”
Hinode’s throat hurt. That was the most he’d ever spoken, he thinks, in a long time. He felt… strangely better, after spitting the words that all Arcane harbored in their chests. It wasn’t solely Smith’s fault, Hinode knew, but it was hard to remember that when there was a guilt-free target right in front of him that he could shoot down.
He’d regret it later, he knew, when he lay in his nest outside of this blasted Case. Hinode would think of his words and the look in Smith’s eyes. But right now? For now, he couldn’t help but bathe in the shame gleaming in her eyes.
sheesh, tell her how you really feel!
thanks for the chapter <3
Some things need to be told before they make theories on their own and start causing problems
Thanks for the chapter~
Considering all the bullshit that’s gone down over those thousands of years our little fox is still trying pretty hard at not being to mean. I really hope the lady understands that too after the shock. The Fox really is a softie for feeling already bad after spitting out the truth. Such a sweet guy. ☺💖
Thank you for the chapter 💛
damn snapped
thank you for the chapter 💗