Oyafune Monaka had been shot in the gut.
It took a few seconds for Kamijou to realize that fact.
And Tsuchimikado Motoharu had shot her.
It took a few seconds more for that fact to sink in.
Oyafune hadn't resisted. She had been sticking something hidden under her coat into his side, but it hadn't looked like she had even tried to turn it towards Tsuchimikado. She had accepted the bullet knowing full well what was going on. That's what it had looked like.
(Tsuchi...mikado?)
Kamijou slowly moved his gaze from Oyafune's collapsed body.
There was no change to Tsuchimikado's expression.
The handgun he held in his right hand still had a wisp of white smoke coming from it. Tsuchimikado put the gun behind his back, stuck it in his belt and hid it under the coat of his school uniform. He then picked up the empty cartridge that had fallen to the ground and stuck it into his pocket.
He did all of this as if it was just a job that he had no real interest in.
And then Kamijou's emotions exploded.
"Tsuchimikadooooooooooooo!!"
Kamijou forcefully stood up from the bench and grabbed Tsuchimikado's shirt. Even then, there was no change to the eyes behind those sunglasses. When Kamijou noticed this, he clenched his fist almost completely out of reflex and punched Tsuchimikado's face as hard as he could. He felt the characteristic feeling of punching someone shoot up his fingers and wrist. Tsuchimikado's upper body bent back and he fell to the ground. But even as he fell into a sitting position, his expression didn't change. He clearly hadn't felt the slightest bit of damage.
(You bastard!!)
Kamijou gritted his teeth and took a step forward.
But something got in his way.
A weak hand was clutching his ankle.
It was Oyafune Monaka, the woman Tsuchimikado had just shot.
"...Please..."
She spoke even as her lips were pressed against the ground.
"Please do not...blame him..."
Those words were enough to throw Kamijou into a state of confusion.
Oyafune Monaka continued.
She smiled as she spoke.
It was an expression of thanks for Kamijou's anger at the situation.
"My actions...were not those of a representative of Academy City... My opinions... differ from those of the board of directors as a whole..."
"What?"
"They wish for this war to intensify...and for the utter destruction of the other scientific group calling itself a religion that represents the Roman Catholic Church... They want to take advantage of this chaos, so they would rather this not be solved so easily..."
Kamijou looked back at Tsuchimikado's face.
As before, it had not changed.
It was the face of someone who had known all this from the beginning.
"Letting this war intensify...is completely absurd... It must be stopped."
Oyafune spoke slowly.
There was pain mixed in with her words.
"But even as a member of the board of directors...the power I have is limited. I can't turn this situation around... If you go against the wishes of the one 'above', you have your power stripped from you and what you can do is severely limited. So I had to contact someone who could destroy the current situation.."
She looked up at Kamijou.
She continued speaking as she looked him in the eyes.
"...My contact with you will eventually be discovered. And then I will have to be 'punished' for treason. I could avoid it if it was just me...but if I did that, the target of the 'punishment' would change."
The target.
Kamijou felt a chill run down his spine as he thought about that.
"So if you flee, they'll just go after your family...?"
"..."
Oyafune did not respond.
It was the silence of someone not wanting to worry someone else.
"...I...asked him to do this."
Oyafune moved on to another topic.
"Know this...He said he did not want to do this. So please do not blame him...He gave me my 'punishment' while just slightly missing my vitals...I am the one who gave him such a ridiculous request to carry out..."
"Don't speak."
Tsuchimikado Motoharu finally spoke.
He slowly stood up and looked down at Oyafune Monaka's face.
Kamijou could not see his expression from where he stood.
But he didn't really want to see it.
"I'll handle the rest. You carried out your part perfectly. I'm sure there are plenty of things you want to ask me, but there is only one answer I can give: Don't worry. You just have to remember that."
Oyafune's smile slowly widened at Tsuchimikado's words.
There was a hand-made, but not very well made, scarf around her neck.
That was most likely what Oyafune Monaka was fighting for.
Her reason for stopping the dispute between Academy City and the Roman Catholic Church and for making sure she received her "punishment" for her actions were both there.
Tsuchimikado crouched down and looked through Oyafune's belongings. He pulled out a cell phone and called an ambulance. He then wiped off his fingerprints and set it on the ground.
He then pulled something out of her coat.
It looked like a small handgun for self-defense.
Tsuchimikado put it in his belt and looked towards Kamijou.
"We need to get moving, Kami-yan."
"Understood."
Kamijou gritted his teeth and stared at the foolish woman collapsed on the ground.
"...She went to the effort of setting all that up just to get me to move. What the hell? There's such a thing as being too indirect."
Kamijou Touma wasn't exactly a famous person.
If she wanted him to move, she could have just told him what he needed to do.
And yet she put her life on the line for such a small request.
Kamijou clenched his right fist as he thought about that.
"We don't have time. I'll explain later."
Tsuchimikado continued.
"We're headed for District 23. There's an airplane waiting for us. It's the one thing Oyafune Monaka used her power to prepare. We can't waste it."
"God damn it..."
Kamijou muttered that as he followed Tsuchimikado out of the children's park.
The only thing left in that park was Oyafune Monaka covered in blood.
Kamijou gritted his teeth as he heard the siren of an ambulance in the distance.