Chapter 35 – Offensive and Defensive Battle in the Station (Part 3)
The massive fireball exploded, but instead of spreading out from the center, it split neatly in two and then faded into the air.
“What?”
Everyone froze at the unexpected turn, unable to imagine how that was even possible.
Once the flames scattered, their opponent was still standing there without a scratch. Only when they saw the long blade in his hand did they finally understand.
They spoke their realization out loud, still in shock.
“Did that guy just cut the flames in half with his sword?”
Hiyori took the opening to loosen up her body.
Yeah, just like before, but once you get used to it, it’s fine.
Just then, a voice came from her pocket again.
“Forget them. Get upstairs, now.”
“Got it.”
Hiyori leaped past the stunned officers and rushed up the stairs. By the time they snapped out of it, they were scrambling to chase after her.
“All the way to the eighth floor. The vault’s there.”
“Right.”
Hiyori suddenly remembered that strange phenomenon from earlier and lowered her voice.
“Lord Ryuto, what was that just now?”
“I’d say it was a gravity Jujutsu Paper. A field-type one.”
“Field-type? Like when a bunch of people work together to affect a whole area? Wouldn’t that be more like an esper power or magic?”
“It’s possible, but judging from how it felt, it wasn’t. If someone had that kind of esper ability or magic, they wouldn’t stop at that level. And if they had a trump card like that, they wouldn’t have let us slip away so easily. No reason to hold back.”
“That’s true.”
As a supplement, Ryuto gave another reason.
“There’s also one very standard way to tell.”
“?”
“If it was magic, there’s no way you wouldn’t have sensed any Kinesis or mana from them, Hiyori.”
“Yeah. I didn’t feel even a trace of Kinesis or mana.”
“So if you didn’t feel anything at all, it has to be Jujutsu Paper. That’s its defining trait. Normal people can use it, so there’s no Kinesis or mana involved. Even if the user is an esper or mage, it’s still the same.”
Hiyori nodded in agreement.
“Right. Even espers or mages don’t cause Kinesis or mana fluctuations when they use Jujutsu Paper.”
“Well, if they combined their esper powers or magic with Jujutsu Paper, that’d be a different story. But at the very least, that thing earlier wasn’t esper power or magic.”
“Mhm. I didn’t think Lord Ryuto knew this much about this stuff.”
…
Was that supposed to be praise or an insult?
Ryuto decided to ignore it and went back to the topic.
“Anyway, by itself it’s not a big deal. But if it’s triggered in an instant, the sudden shift in gravity makes the enemy lose their footing. And with a field-type, once you set the coordinates, you can trigger it remotely in a set range. Normally, it’s almost impossible to guard against. But in exchange, it needs a certain number of users, and the power is usually pretty low.”
While they talked, they’d already reached the fourth floor. The pursuers behind them were growing in number. There were some officers coming from above too, but because the forces were spread out, none of the groups were that large. Breaking through their lines was no big deal.
Everything so far was going in their favor.
Meanwhile, in the monitoring room—
A male officer’s panicked voice rang out.
“Miss Katsuragi, the suspects broke through the lobby defense line. They’re heading upstairs.”
“Already saw.”
The girl answered without hurry.
Her calm made the male officer even more stunned.
“Miss Katsuragi, did you… foresee this?”
“Yeah.”
“If that’s the case, why did you still spread our people so thin? It’s practically—”
“Practically like we’re giving them a chance on purpose, right?”
“…”
Her blunt reply cut him off completely.
“Honestly, I’d like to say that’s what I did. But it’s not. I put serious thought into the guard layout. Against normal people, they might not have been able to make an arrest, but there’s no way they’d be overrun this easily.”
“So their strength is just that far beyond what we expected?”
“That’s one reason. But don’t you think there’s a more important one?”
“More important?”
Her words only confused him more.
“That’s right. Don’t you feel like he knew our guard placement from the very start?”
Hearing that, the officer forced himself to calm down and replayed the scene in his head.
“Now that you say it, it really does seem that way. No matter where we tried to ambush them, they acted first. But there’s no way they could’ve known our layout beforehand…”
Mid-sentence, he realized something.
“Did he hack into our security cameras?”
Given the situation, that was the only conclusion the officer could reach.
But the girl seemed to disagree. She shook her head slightly with her eyes still closed.
“Obviously not. The security systems on these cameras are at a national level. A regular individual can’t hack them. And besides… I specifically placed our people in the blind spots.”
Blind spots…
With that reminder, the officer finally noticed.
“You’re right. In that case, then…”
He was left with the most terrifying conclusion.
“Exactly. With no data at all, he deduced our ambush positions purely through inference. I expected him to be good, but not this good. This opponent isn’t a normal criminal. He’s more skilled than anyone I’ve dealt with before.”
He never expected someone to earn that kind of praise from the “Modern Holmes.”
Hearing her, the male officer’s confidence crumbled.
“Then…”
The girl seemed to catch his thoughts and spoke calmly.
“You don’t have to be that discouraged. We still have chances to move. And now we’ve basically figured out his skills and his destination.”
“Destination?”
Her sudden shift of topic confused him again.
“Yeah. I kept thinking they had to have a reason for coming here. Their actions from the start have been very goal-oriented. That lines up with my theory. So I listed a few possible spots they might head to. And their movements so far confirm which one it is.”
“Then where are they headed?”
She answered him directly.
“I’d say the vault in the station.”
“The vault?”
“Mm. They ignore every other route and just keep going up. Even when they run into guards, they never try to change paths. With that in mind, the only important place on the upper floors is the vault.”
“Are they going there for something specific? There are items stored there that were seized during investigations, but… it’s hard to imagine that’s their goal.”
“Those things might not be worth much money. But to some people, that doesn’t matter. Stuff that looks worthless to us can be tied to their lives or careers. And it’s obvious money isn’t their motive this time. If they were just after cash, there’d be no reason to make this big a scene. Besides… with talents like his, there’s no way he’s short on money.”
“So this incident’s related to some past case. And the culprit now is either someone from that old case, or someone acting on behalf of a person involved back then.”
The officer quickly reached his own conclusion, and the girl’s response stayed ambiguous.
“Well, either way, we don’t have any evidence yet. If you want to know, just ask the suspect directly later.”
She neither confirmed nor denied it.
“But with the situation the way it is, even if we find that out, it still…”
He couldn’t help getting anxious about how bad things looked. In contrast, the girl remained completely composed. Her plan had been disrupted, but she wasn’t rattled at all.
He knew her calm didn’t come from experience with chaos. In fact, from what she’d said, she’d never faced a situation like this before. There just weren’t many people capable of breaking her plans. Almost none, really.
Even so, the first time she ran into someone like that, she showed no sign of losing her cool. Part of that was because she still had backup plans. But the bigger reason was that this was just who she was—someone who stayed unshakably calm and rational no matter what happened. There was no other explanation. And that was precisely what made the “Modern Holmes” so terrifying.
Just as the officer was thinking that, the girl kept her eyes on the screen and spoke quietly.
“Don’t panic. The real show’s only just starting.”
