'You can kill me, if [Messiah] wants to be [Satan].'
'I found Satan'.
Ichijō Mirai gazed at Morofushi Hiromitsu.
His eyes were a darker shade of red, more subdued in the dimly lit street, almost black, but with a reddish sheen.
There was an aura of danger emanating from them, enveloping the surroundings.
Killing aura is a vague thing, but criminals, the police, or the more perceptive can really detect a certain cold aura.
Morofushi Hiromitsu sensed it.
As if he hadn't noticed, he kept a flat expression, and even smiled under Ichijō Mirai's gaze, as if he were talking to a classmate about something light and casual.
A few words circled around in his throat, 'You care about [Satan], about your older or younger brother, about your blood relatives, and even if you don't agree with him, you will protect him.'
'So, after I mentioned him, you instinctively felt the crisis, and are now considering whether or not to silence me.'
'Will I be the first person you kill?'
In the end, Morofushi Hiromitsu didn't say anything.
These words were so provocative that it was almost as if they were saying that if Ichijō Mirai didn't shut him up, Morofushi Hiromitsu would inform the police of Satan's existence, so that they could follow the trail to Satan and arrest or kill him.
This is to force Ichijō Mirai to kill himself.
...Even if the police can't kill Satan at all.
Morofushi Hiromitsu doesn't fear death, and he's even willing to accept it if there's a good reason for it, if there's a tense situation in which he has to die.
But that doesn't mean he's lost the desire to live, and can just go ahead and die, and by doing so, force a 'sun' to fall into darkness that is still clinging to its bottom line, and is somewhat isolated from its blood relatives' beliefs.
Therefore, what Morofushi Hiromitsu said was: "Are you looking for a time to kill me with a single blow?"
Ichijō Mirai shook his head, "No."
He asked in return, "Are you looking to die on purpose?"
Morofushi Hiromitsu smiled and denied it, "No, I'd like to live if I can."
"Of course, if it's not possible, I'll accept death with open arms."
Dying while on a mission to protect people or arrest criminals.
He said, "For example, in a bar."
"If you order me to die, and it really takes someone to die for us to catch all the criminals in one fell swoop..."
"I would."
Ichijō Mirai raised an eyebrow, "I'll tell you to die, and you'll do it."
"You really surprised me."
Not because 'Morofushi Hiromitsu accepts death', not because 'Ichijō Mirai ordered that the situation is urgent and Morofushi Hiromitsu can die', but because: "You're actually laughing now."
"I thought that you, you, the police cadets, the police, would show some not-so-wonderful-but-beautiful expressions of horror, revulsion, disgust, when you learned the truth."
"Or disgusted, showing a struggle between 'former classmate friendship' and 'police instinct to arrest criminals', and finally gritting their teeth and raising their guns."
'You' being Morofushi Hiromitsu, 'you' being the red camp that robbed the bank, followed by the 'cadets' and 'police'.
That's an interesting division.
Interesting in the sense that it vaguely and indistinctly outlines one thing: to Ichijō Mirai, the five students from the red camp who robbed the bank are not just police cadets and classmates, but something more than classmates.
Morofushi Hiromitsu is laughing: "But I didn't."
Ichijō Mirai: "But you didn't."
The street was empty, only the dim light remained, Morofushi Hiromitsu was still smiling, "I surprised you again."
"..." Ichijō Mirai repeated, "You surprised me again."
"From what I know of you, you shouldn't."
Though seemingly mild-mannered, Morofushi Hiromitsu was far from being a soft touch, but rather, he was firm in his convictions, proactive and decisive, intelligent and perceptive, yet with a bottom line.
How can such a person smile in the face of 'Satan', the executioner of three bloody cases?
Question.
"Yes, I shouldn't have done that," Said Morofushi Hiromitsu, "If I were a younger man, I would have called the police without hesitation."
Even if the police found out, there was nothing they could do.
But when you meet a bad person, when you find something bad, you call the police, you ask for their help, right?
If his parents hadn't died and the police hadn't been able to do anything about it.
If the police hadn't been so overwhelmed by the many cases they've faced.
If the police system wasn't a rigid tower of blue-and-white building blocks, all tangled together to make a bloated, stinking, undead monstrosity.
If only there were fewer police like Matsuda Jinpei had met and more like Date Wataru's father.
If only the police, even though incompetent and corrupt, had a chance of slowly improving themselves.
Unfortunately, that's not the case.
"But, from a young age, I became acutely aware of my own incompetence," Morofushi Hiromitsu's tone was calm, "and of the incompetence of the police."
"When I first entered the police academy, I realized my own incompetence and the incompetence of the police even more deeply."
The police can be incompetent.
But they can't be zombie flesh that's stupid and poisonous, with only a handful of people struggling to hold on, emitting light, and upholding the glory of the police.
"Even if the police are told," He said, "they can't do anything about it."
They couldn't even catch Ichijō Mirai, let alone Satan.
"I respect the police, I want to be a police officer, but what I admire is not the police as they are now, but the police that people think they can rely on, the police that can solve cases on their own, get to the bottom of them, do justice to the victims, and give the murderers the punishment they deserve."
Ichijō Mirai: "..."
He wanted to say, "Oh, you're dreaming."
Given the strength of the police in this world, Morofushi Hiromitsu couldn't see the police he agreed with even if he fought his whole life, so it was better to go to sleep and dream, or to die and go to a world where the police strength wasn't so monstrous.
"A lot of police," Morofushi Hiromitsu said as if he hadn't noticed Ichijō Mirai's subtle expression, and continued on, "killings are summarily dismissed, robberies are brushed aside, and burglaries are just lazily investigated for three or four days, and there's no way to get away with it."
"Extortion, bribe-taking, bribe-giving, gangsterism..."
"They're not the police I want to be."
"Compared to these police, you," he paused before continuing, "are a 'criminal',"
Is Ichijō Mirai a criminal?
Morofushi Hiromitsu answered himself: yes.
Even though he doesn't share Satan's beliefs and insists on following the accepted path of the Light, he grew up in the Black Organization and harbored both the Black Organization and Satan.
He's an accomplice. He's harboring him.
But for such a criminal, compared to many police, Morofushi Hiromitsu slowly said, "But more like the police than them."