Chapter 13: Pawn

December 12, one hour before Ikeda lost his sanity.

The instant the words “September fourth” left Tian Yi's mouth, Ikeda went pale with alarm. He felt he'd fallen into another trap, yet had no idea how far it extended.

Tian Yi sneered. “Every time I see that look on your face, it disgusts me. Utterly pathetic. Of all the people I've made deals with, you're the one I find most unpleasant.”

“All the people you've made deals with?!” Ikeda cried. “You've made deals with other people!”

Only now did he seem to understand a few things. Unfortunately, it was too late.

Tian Yi said, “Yes, that reaction. How many times have I seen it over the years? Every one of you overlooks the possibility that there might be others making deals. To be honest, I'm not surprised. That's how humans react nine times out of ten. Whatever people like you turn your minds to, the answers you come up with are stupid, stupid, and nothing else.”

Ikeda asked, “Who else have you made deals with? Don't tell me… Miura?! Matsuo!”

Tian Yi sighed. “Ah, talking to an idiot like you is such hard work. Enough. The game ends here. I don't feel like playing with you anymore. We've more or less got all the clues and conditions in place anyway…”

He took a sip of coffee and continued unhurriedly. “Before any of this happened, I'd already worked out how you might react. The deals were just a way of steering you, to see whether you'd do anything I hadn't anticipated. Unfortunately, nothing happened that I hadn't accounted for.

“Hmm… let's start with your father. All these years, you've thought of him as an irresponsible drunk. You weren't wrong, but there is one thing Ikeda Takeshi won't compromise on, and that's your welfare.

“You always think your life hasn't amounted to much, but open your eyes and take a good look. Money was tight, yet he still sent you to a good college-preparatory high school. He beat and scolded you to make a decent person of you. The man who left you at the zoo when you were little was also the man who later searched desperately everywhere for you, wasn't he?

“While you were casting yourself as the hero of a tragedy, complaining that life hadn't given you enough to work with, it never occurred to you to change anything through your own efforts. Of course someone like you sees nothing ahead but despair.

“You've never considered anyone else's point of view. You're seventeen now. Do you know your father's birthday? Do you know his past? Do you understand what he thinks? You don't know anything. Like every other mortal, you think only about your own feelings, envying people born better off than you, people like Fujita and Miura.

“But put you in their place, and you wouldn't be Ikeda anymore. You'd just be another Miura.

“Your father made you who you are, yet you have no gratitude. Your heart is full of envy and self-pity, but you're a coward, afraid of trouble, and you aren't capable of much. In the end, your father paid the price for you. He killed Miura for you.”

“What!” Ikeda trembled and shook his head, his eyes vacant. He muttered, “Impossible… that's impossible… Why would Dad kill Miura?! They don't even…”

“That's why I asked you just now whether you wanted to change the terms of the deal and hear who killed Miura. But your choice was just as selfish and stupid as it was when we finished our first deal,” Tian Yi interrupted. “When you went home the night before last after witnessing Matsuo's death, your father wasn't actually asleep. He was simply ‘not speaking to you’ to fulfill his deal with me, so he had to pretend to be asleep.”

…

“He got home in the middle of the night, found his son gone, and just went to sleep without a care.”

…

“Yesterday morning, while you were at school, he came to my shop to complete the deal, then asked me where exactly you'd gone the night before. Since I'd told him to keep silent around you at specific times, naturally he assumed I knew something.

“I told him his son had gone to school in the middle of the night, found a body, and left clues behind, but I didn't mention any details.

“So we made another deal afterward. I had your father pass a message on to you, to see whether you'd catch on. You remember your father suddenly deciding to look for the news on TV?”

…

“As the New Year approaches, public safety in Hokkaido continues to deteriorate, once again ranking last among all regions of the prefecture. In addition to frequent burglaries, violent crime is also on the rise. A police spokesman declined to comment on these figures. Today, our reporter joins several invited experts to…”

…

Tian Yi lazily rolled his neck a couple of times. “Judging by your expression, your memory isn't too bad. Actually, I don't pay much attention to media reports myself. I usually just leaf through other people's thoughts, so I can find out in advance what news will be on television.”

“Just how many people have you made deals with?” Ikeda asked, stunned.

Tian Yi replied, “People you know, people you don't know, people the people you know know. Ha! The connections between people are like a tangled web of threads. Find the right method, and in a little place like Hokkaido, you only need a handful of deals to set everything in motion with a single tug.” He turned to look at a cabinet in the corner beside him. “My hands are sore from burning so many books these past few days…”

His coffee cup was empty again. Tian Yi refilled it and continued, “Unfortunately, for someone who's always dreaming of becoming a hero, you have far too little sense of social responsibility. To be perfectly honest, I don't think your dream is to be a hero. It's to enjoy a hero's privileges without paying a hero's price. That's all.

“That's why you had no reaction at all to the news. No questions, no feelings. Pathetic. And that's why it never even occurred to you that there might be ‘others making deals’ until I told you.”

Tian Yi took a book from a drawer, turned to the end, and held it out to Ikeda. “These are some of Miura's final thoughts.”

Ikeda read the words. “Kill him… kill him… bastard… that bastard… I've got to kill him…”

“That Soggy Mosquito Coil lives way out of the way. Along his route home from school… I've got to slaughter him, whatever it takes…”

“Damn it, what's a drunk doing here? I'll have to chase him off.”

“This guy! What the…”

The words ended there.

Tian Yi said, “When you came running here yesterday, your father was following you the whole time. But he had to get home ahead of you to keep pretending to be asleep, so he couldn't come in to see me.

“This morning, while you were having that run-in with Miura at school, Jingniao went to your house and asked your father a lot of questions, making him increasingly uneasy. So this afternoon, your father came here looking for answers. I showed him Miura's book. By then, the writing had reached Miura's plan to kill you. After your dad read it, he went home and got a knife.

“Originally, he meant to lie in wait and give Miura a scare. But that fat bastard was a born brawler and started grappling with your dad. In the end, your dad decided he might as well go all the way and killed him.”

Ikeda lunged forward and grabbed Tian Yi by the collar. “It was you! You manipulated everything! This is all your fault!”

Tian Yi casually pushed him away with one hand. “Like father, like son. You're exactly the same.” He straightened his clothes. “And after I was kind enough to help your dad clean up the scene, slice up the body, and move it somewhere else. That old fellow… How can you just throw down the knife and run after killing someone? It's hardly like pissing or shitting in the street.”

“Why did you do all this?! Why?!” Ikeda shouted.

Tian Yi said calmly, “On the evening of the eighth, when Matsuo came back after delivering the videotape, he asked me the same question. I told him, ‘Because I want to see your greed.’ Later, with a little guidance from me, he gave up on his own Book of the Heart and made a deal for someone else's secret, one that could make him rich. You were mistaken the morning before last. He wasn't smirking at you. He was looking at Miura, who sat behind you.

“Miura came to ask me the same question on the ninth. I told him, ‘Because I want to see your brutality.’ So he made a deal with me too. I promised I'd keep my mouth shut forever, and all he had to do in return was beat you up the next morning. He had his doubts, but beating you was routine. He had no reason to turn down the deal.

“On the tenth, the day before yesterday, when you walked into my shop full of resentment, did you ever imagine that today I'd tell you I merely wanted to see your envy and hatred?”

“You're insane… insane!” Ikeda backed away.

“Hahahaha…” Tian Yi really did laugh like a madman. “All right, get out. For a piece of trash like you, I can't even be bothered to leave an ‘inverted cross.’ Still, you did play some part in my game, so I'll tell you two last things.

“First, Jingniao never suspected you in the first place. He has an extraordinary ability. Fingerprints, footprints, bloodstains, and so on—he can spot them immediately with the naked eye. He can reconstruct everything that happened at the scene that day.

“There were two ligature marks on Matsuo's neck. Although they overlapped in the middle, once he'd been hanging from the beam long enough, the marks on either side of his neck would differ in depth from those in the middle. Any police officer would eventually be able to tell it was a staged suicide. And the fingerprints you left on the floor wouldn't serve as evidence against you, because the guard on duty that night did exactly the same thing you did. After seeing the body, he also dropped to the floor and scrambled backward. A killer wouldn't leave traces like that. No one would be frightened by a scene they'd just arranged themselves.

“Yesterday, all I had to do was use Miura to provoke you a little, and you did exactly what I wanted. In fact, Miura wasn't all that clever either. I supplied his murder method, but he still made mistakes carrying it out. That's why I said he'd ‘committed a fairly good murder.’ There's a long way between good and perfect.

“So you see, none of the deals you've made here has brought you any tangible benefit. Your own narrow-mindedness simply drove you to become my pawn.

“And second, your dad…” Tian Yi said offhandedly. “Might he kill himself for fear of punishment… Want to hurry home and check?”

With chilling laughter ringing out behind him, Ikeda charged headlong out of the bookstore and never returned.