"Say, Suema, what are murderers thinking?" Kyoko suddenly asked me, one day late in fall, as we were on our way home from school.
"Eh, why?"
The two of us were walking along the bank of the river.
Kyoko and I were the only two members of our circle of friends that walked to school, so we always went home together. Most students take the bus to school. Hardly anyone walks, so there was no one but us on the street.
"Oh, no reason," Kyoko dried up.
"You're always asked me stuff like that recently. What's up?"
"Oh, nothing. Nevermind."
But there had to be a reason for it.
"Tell me."
"You see..." Kyoko whispered very quietly.
"Yeah?"
"She's suspended now, right?"
"Huh? Oh, you mean Kirima-san?"
Two weeks ago, she'd been suspended for smoking on school grounds. She was due back the next day, though.
"Do you think... She would really kill someone?"
"Hah?" I doubted my own ears.
Sure, she was the odd girl out, but Nagi was still our classmate. She hardly deserved to be called a murderer.
"What are you talking about?"
"You said it yourself... When was it? We were eating lunch."
That had been a long time ago. I had completely forgotten.
"Uh, did I? I might have."
"Do you really think so?" Kyoko was creepily serious.
"Even if I did say that, it was just an example," I hastily explained.
Kyoko's expression didn't change.
"The girl is scary."
"Well, I'll grant that she's not easy to get to know..."
"She did something to this girl I know. She hasn't been the same since," her voice trembled.
She meant it.
She wasn't kidding.
"Something? What?"
"Threatened her, I think."
"For money?"
Kyoko shook her head. "No, not money. She's rich, you know."
"Yeah. she has her own apartment. Then what?"
Kyoko didn't answer.
Like anyone on earth would, I told her that I could keep a secret, but she still didn't say anything, so I asked, "Does it have anything to do with Kirima got suspended?"
"I don't know..."
"You don't know?"
"I feel like she got herself suspended because of it..."
Kyoko said, but I didn't follow.
Come to think of it, Nagi had not been suspended for smoking, but for having a cigarette in her lip.
And the place where she'd been caught - the teacher's restroom. It would have been extremely strange if she had not been caught. A female teacher had found her, and Nagi had glared at her so fiercly that she fled and got a male teacher, making quite a fuss.
She made no excuses. Or apologies.
She never did.
I had never once heard her say 'sorry' during all the times that the teachers had yelled at her.
One time, a teacher scolded her for staring out the window, and Nagi had curtly quipped, "You're boring." However, her grades were too good for the teachers to take any drastic measures.
Still, she skipped a lot.
We're not just talking leaving a bell early, either. No, she would drop the whole day; never even come to school... For three days running! Yet when she came back, she knew everything that we had covered while she was gone, and she could answer any question that the teachers threw at her.
Nobody knew what she did when she wasn't in school and no one ever had the guts to ask.
She was enigmatic and more than a little scary, so somewhere along the line, her nickname became "The Fire Witch."
Word had it that this was because she knew some form of black magic, like the "Karma Dance," which sounded plausible enough.
Even so, it was hard to imagine that she had intentionally gotten herself suspended. Suspensions went on your permanent transcript.
"That's going a bit overboard," I told Kyoko, but she didn't answer.
She stared up into the air, muttering, "She's going to kill me..."
This, I could not ignore.
"Why? What for?"
Suddenly, Kyoko's entire body shuddered once, then froze. "Eeeeee!"
I followed her line of sight.
There was a girl standing on the road a short distance from us. She had been sitting on the bank, and stood up when we approached.
She wore an old, worn leather jacket and thick leather pants. There were metallic guards on her knees and elbows, like what bikers wear. Her slightly wavy hair was bound in bandanna, and beneath her eyebrows, her eyes were less glittering than gleaming.
She glared at us... At Kyoko.
"I've been waiting for you, Kinoshita Kyoko," she said, in her distinctive manly voice.
It was the suspended Kirima Nagi, in the flesh.
"No! Ahh!" Kyoko screamed.
She fled behind me, shoving me towards Nagi.
Reeling, I almost smacked right into Nagi as she ran towards us.
But Nagi slid by me without so much as a glance in my direction and took off after Kyoko.
"W-wait!" I yelled as I hurriedly gave a chase, but Nagi was fast.
Looking closely, she was wearing big black boots. I thought they were rubber at first, but I was wrong. These were steel-toed work boots, the kind that construction workers wear. The kind that can't be crushed, even if several tons fall on them. Kick someone with these, and they might as well die.
This was clearly not a fashion statement. It was a level beyond biker wear on air sneakers.
The bag on her back was strapped to her body, and didn't budge as she ran. It was like... Like she was dressed for combat?!
No normal highschool girl would ever dress like that. Not even a gang member.
She looked more like a hitman.
"H-help me!" Kyoko yelled.
Nagi snarled back, "You call for help, and you'll have to talk to the cops!"
The shut Kyoko up. She stopped in her tracks.
That was enough for Nagi; she closed the distance between them, and tackled her mercilessly from behind. Both girls hit the ground, sliding down the river bank.
Wheezing, I caught up to them to find Nagi twisting Kyoko's arm behind her. It looked just like a hold from something I'd seen on TV, like judo or kung fu.
Kyoko couldn't move a muscle. We clearly hadn't learned this sort of wrestling at school.
"Ow! Ow! Ow! Let go!"
"Want me to go ahead and break it? Even you'll take some time to heal then, eh, Manticore?!"
I have no idea what she meant by that.
"No, don't! I'll never do it again, I swear!" Kyoko shrieked.
"Stop that, Kirima-san!" I cried, jumping on her, but she kicked me away.
She spoke to Kyoko again, "It's not just me. Echoes is looking for you too! Keep pretending and you'll lose an arm! And then, you won't have any hope of winning!"
What on earth was she talking about?
"I sear! I swear to God I'll never do drugs again! Please don't! Please!" Kyoko sobbed. Drugs?
"I know you killed Kusatsu Akiko! Don't lie to me!" Nagi roared.
I thought my heart was going to stop.
Kusatsu Akiko-?
That was the name of a first year girl who had gone missing.
"I didn't! I didn't! It wasn't me, I swear! She just gave me the drugs!"
There was an unpleasant popping sound from Kyoko's arm.
Kyoko's eyes rolled up in her head.
"Damn, you're normal!" Nagi snarled and let go.
Kyoko rolled down the bank.
"Kyoko!" I shouted, racing over to her and putting my arms around her.
"Don't worry. I stopped before the joint was destroyed. It'll hurt for a few days and then it'll be fine," Nagi said.
Kyoko was trembling.
"What's going on?!" I screamed.
"You should ask Kinoshita herself, Suema-san," Nagi replied, her voice completely serene.
Kyoko's teeth were chattering. She'd been scared half to death. Understandably; so had I.
"This is going too far!"
"But it's better than getting arrested, right, Kinoshita?" Nagi said.
Kyoko stiffened.
"I hope you learn from this. Next time, you'll know better than to do stupid shit just because your friends do it."
She turned to leave.
"Wait!" I yelled.
Nagi looked at me, and said, "Suema-san, maybe it's time to let go of what happened five years ago. Get too hung up on something like that and it'll come back to haunt you."
Her gruff voice matched her boyish face perfectly. But that wasn't the problem.
"H-how did-?"
How did she know I'd nearly been murdered five years ago?!
"H-hold on a minute..." I tried to stop her, but the Fire Witch stalked away without another word.