It's strange.
Matsuda Jinpei himself was startled when his murderous aura fluffed up like a ball of wool, and he slowed down half a beat to shut up.
He heard Ichijō Mirai's energetic, nonchalant voice on the other end of the line, as if he hadn't been assaulted by the loud volume, "There's a fire at the Beika department store, and now there's a bomb, so come quickly."
It's short, it's energetic.
It was also very simple and effective in hitting Matsuda Jinpei's anger level, and his aura shot up a notch, and then he was stunned: what, what's going on?
Was he so angry just now?
But isn't it a habit to be left alone?
Obviously, he had agreed with the others to pretend to be angry at Ichijō Mirai, but why was he really so angry... so inexplicably angry...?
He hesitantly thought, "Am I getting infected by this guy, and I'm starting to learn how to get angry too?
Ichijō Mirai on the other end of the line was clearly not going to discuss the matter with him, and hung up the phone when he was done.
Before the call was cut off, Matsuda Jinpei heard Morofushi Hiromitsu's typical bullying-on-the-back-of-a-bully whisper, "What's wrong, is it 'Satan's' side...?"
The call was cut off.
Leaving Matsuda Jinpei where he was, blankly and angrily looking at the cell phone, he raised his hand and rubbed the back of his neck, "Hiss, it's so strange, it's not just anger, there's also."
There's also a sense of happiness and reassurance.
I don't know why, but when I heard Ichijō Mirai's vibrant voice and Morofushi Hiromitsu's voice being bullied as usual, my heart, which had synchronized with the panic at the moment when the murderous spirit rose up, was quietly soothed.
There was still a little bit of disappointment, as if somewhere in a corner of the world that he had forgotten, something had happened to these two lively classmates that he was concerned about, such as a serious injury.
...And death in the line of duty.
Only to be swallowed up by the fragments of time and faded from everyone's memory, no one remembers.
For the police, the death of a colleague in the line of duty being forgotten and not remembered by everyone is as unacceptable as not successfully solving a dangerous incident, and Matsuda Jinpei was very concerned about it.
His brow remained furrowed until the last vestiges of this emotion disappeared like sand blown up by the wind.
The phone rang again, from Kenji Hagiwara, and as soon as Matsuda Jinpei answered it, he heard him inquire, "Bomb disposal kit?"
You got the report of the fire at the mall and the bomb at the scene, and you're rushing there and looking for a bomb disposal kit?
"Uh," Matsuda Jinpei collects his thoughts, "two sets."
One for himself, and one for Kenji Hagiwara.
With five bombs at the scene, without knowing about the countdown and Kenji Hagiwara's knowledge of defusing bombs, he certainly didn't defuse them himself.
Just as he answered, he felt his cell phone vibrate with a new message.
The new message was from Morofushi Hiromitsu, but in the tone of Ichijō Mirai: [By the way, don't look for a bomb disposal tool, there's a knife at the scene...]
...Huh?
A knife?
While a question mark popped up in his head, Matsuda Jinpei actually felt a sense of security once again: okay, very beat up, it's the familiar Ichijō Mirai, thank you, and his blood pressure started to shoot up.
"This guy," he gritted his teeth, abandoning the idea of taking a detour to get the bomb disposal kit and re-routing to take the shortest way to the department store, "is so beat up!"
"No way, I'm going to kick his ass somehow!"
Kenji Hagiwara, who was on the phone with Matsuda Jinpei, had apparently received the text message as well, and his tone of voice ranged from surprise at the text message to a mixture of surprise at the angry words, "Really? But you said that last time, and last time, and last time, and last time."
He tried to keep a tally, but after a few incomplete counts, he became acutely aware that Matsuda Jinpei's anger seemed to be shifting.
There was no other way to transfer the overflow of anger against Ichijō Mirai when his anger level was already full and could not be increased.
So Kenji Hagiwara had the good sense to stop counting, and just said in general: "You always said that during the last three blood pressure exchange meetings that were organized on the spur-of-the-moment because you couldn't sleep at night."
And then, after venting his anger, he stopped being angry.
Everyone does.
-No way, no way, you can lie to your friends but not to yourself, it's just talk, no one really wants to take revenge on Ichijō Mirai, right?
If they did, they'd be the most memorable man in the first half of the great Savior's life, and maybe even retire with a bit of a screw-up.
"As if you hadn't said that," Matsuda Jinpei retorted, frowning as he recognized the new text, "this text, is."
It was a couple of photos.
Small black squares outlined by simple lines, with green, orange, and red circles scattered between them, and a long grid organized around the edges of the squares partially blocked by messy black lines.
It's...
"A map?"
Matsuda Jinpei recognized it with some disbelief, "It's a map of a department store!"
He immediately paid attention to the differently colored circles, and quickly determined some information: the red circles were the locations of endangered people who would die if they weren't rescued, the orange circles were those who were in bad shape but wouldn't die anytime soon, and the green circles were those who were in good shape.
Individual red circles also indicate leg injuries or asthma.
In addition to this, the blank spaces outside the squares are labeled in black with a warning that unconscious people will randomly appear on the map, so please be aware of this while exploring, and keep your eyes peeled.
Ignoring this very Ichijō Mirai tip, Matsuda Jinpei quickly memorizes the maps representing the locations of the trapped people on each floor, and the more he remembers, the more incredulous he becomes.
Kenji Hagiwara asked his question, "...It's only been ten minutes since the call, right?"
How did Ichijō Mirai identify the location of so many trapped people?
First of all, the police and firefighters were excluded from the search, the emergency news wasn't broadcast, and the people in the street were walking around as if nothing had happened, so obviously they hadn't received any news, so the fire probably hadn't happened for long, and the officials couldn't have arrived in that timely a manner.
The fact that Ichijō Mirai was informed in such detail can only mean two things, either he was at the scene of the fire at the time of the notification and searched the seven floors in ten minutes.
But ten minutes on seven floors is a bit much even for Ichijō Mirai, isn't it?
Either that, or someone he knows is in the fire.
The person who knew about the fire was probably there before it started, and informed Ichijō Mirai.
Such a person...
Matsuda Jinpei's heart fluttered, "I may know."
"You know, Morofushi and that guy have a lot of secrets," He said with some hesitation, "probably related to one thing."
"Well, he's very interested in our past, looking at the files and all, and sometimes he's even more overbearing than the Prime Minister."
"...I guessed something."
"From the archives."
Ichijō Mirai has blood relatives of the same age.
Morofushi Hiromitsu apparently knew about this secret that Ichijō Mirai never told, and Ichijō Mirai apparently knew about Morofushi Hiromitsu's secret, so they had a bit of an understanding a lot of the time.
Matsuda Jinpei didn't really know much, just some generalizations, and he said, "I guess that guy's relatives sent him the information,"
"That's why he felt comfortable sending us the rescue map without verifying it in time."
Why would Ichijō Mirai be so trusting?
He's a man who doesn't even trust his fellow survivors, and he's a man who goes off on his own when things go wrong.
When he was memorizing the map, Matsuda Jinpei didn't quite understand, but when he arrived at the scene, he coaxed Morofushi Hiromitsu, whose anger value soared to the highest point, helped adjust the placement of the defused bombs, and participated in the emergency rescue. When he and Furuya Rei carried a stretcher to carry a trapped person whose leg was crushed by a heavy object out of the fire scene, and heard the sharp wind and the screams around him, he understood a little.
The wind was not strong, the reason why the sound of the wind, because it swept up a red banner hanging from above and below the mall building, above the flames, the red banner like a high flag, friction between the sound of rustling.
And above it flew the words.
[This is only the first gift, Prime Minister Uemoto, 'Satan'.]
With just one sentence, it managed to create an outcry, followed by silence.
Uemoto was nothing, whatever official, either before or after, had to come out and bow to show the public how thin the hair tops were.
But 'Satan'...
Years seemed to have slipped by, and then nothing seemed to have passed at all, remaining in the dark hours when a bloody bloodbath dominated Tokyo with word of mouth and news.
The code name had become associated with the emotion of fear, fear at the sight of it, fear at the sound of it, and even more fear at the thought of it in a crowded public place.
But now, in all its splendor, it has reappeared.
In the midst of a major fire, where it was obvious that there would be a casualty scene too beautiful to look at.
Rather than taking its usual place on the culprit's throne, it was, quite miraculously, in the position of being the victim of retaliation.
But for a short time, no one reacted, the crowd fell silent with an instinctive gasp at the sight of 'Satan', the news helicopters that slowly swung around and began broadcasting live were silent, and on the television, the hosts who were trying to make up their lines as they watched the camera footage were silent.
All of Tokyo fell silent.
In the midst of the silence, Matsuda Jinpei took a deep breath as he stared fixedly at the red banner, which was as bright as blood.
He turned urgently to the police officers who were maintaining order at the scene and told them to be careful of the surroundings, as there might be dangerous people in the neighborhood, and then hurriedly re-entered the building.
The red banner was from the top floor.
Halfway up the stairs, Matsuda Jinpei saw that the red color had disappeared from the outside of the building, not knowing whether it had been taken down or engulfed in flames.
His cell phone rang, and the caller ID showed a newly added contact, one of the police who was in charge of maintaining order downstairs. As soon as he answered the phone, a voice so panicked and disturbed that it didn't belong to the police rang out, "Please, is this Matsuda-san?"
The police officer was rusty when he called Matsuda Jinpei's name, obviously trying to remember Matsuda Jinpei's self-introduction mixed in with the rescue and handover of the injured.
"Well, dangerous people," he inquired with trepidation, "do men in black who don't look like good people count?"
"I-I just saw what looked like a handsome man with long hair dressed all in black go in door number two on the side of the building,"
"...But wasn't door number two blocked because of the fire..."
The police officer plucked up the courage, "Excuse me, that very elegant man-"
"Is it 'Satan'?"