My heart throbbed at who is in front of me. The Oni that I saved back during the war years ago, is now in front of me smiling.
"You looked like you've seen a yurei."
As soon as she finished her sentence, I see June from the corner of my eyes, pointing her gun at her. Calmly, I made her put it down.
"So, he's the one, Sara?" The little Malzeno girl asked.
"Yes, Lucrezia. He's the one that saved me during the war, and I healed his wound. Is it still hurting?" The Oni, Sara asked.
"I'm fine... And pardon me if I'm being rude, Miss Malzeno--"
"Hush, a person Sara trusts is also my friend. You're free to call me by my given name."
"I heard that you're investigating a murder, involving this factory?"
"Y-yes, Sara."
Sara grins, and continued to speak.
"What if I tell you, that I know the next stop that specific murder truck is going?"
"Please tell me, I can't let more people die."
"Tak, tell me you're not just gonna trust her. She pulled a gun on your--"
"This is our best shot, June."
"But still, that truck driver will be spooked if we get too close!"
"Everyone, please calm down. Lucrezia Malzeno doesn't accept rash behavior!" Lucrezia stated in third person.
She puts a finger on her chin, and spoke again after a few seconds of thinking.
"That ice cream truck belonging to this murderer you mentioned of, Sara knew the routes thanks to her habit of exploring places. It will surely skip it's destination if a cop or someone wearing a getup like Messer Detective here gets too close. So we go as buyers."
"Now I get it, Madonna Malzeno, you and this Demon here can go to one of it's destination, see if the truck that stopped is indeed the correct one, and she'll signal us!"
"Good plan, let's go Sara." Lucrezia said, opening her parasol to protect her from the sunlight before she walked to her limo.
"I still can't believe you vouch for her. After all she did in Freedom City--"
"You want to blame her for everything? Even that explosion in Fort Freedom?"
"I know the radio said it's caused by the Morelli Family, but I still feel that level of destruction is her deed."
"And? Where's your evidence?"
June stopped talking, and went to Lance.
"Hey, can I get one? A chocolate cone?"
"This ain't a local store, but luckily I brought my cooler to work. There's only popsicles, though." Lance replied, taking a cool box from under the desk.
June pays him 10 credits, and left with me. We entered my car, and followed Malzeno's limo as June eats her popsicle in frustration.
Sara stops the limo in a car park beside a playground, and left the driver's seat. She waves at me, and I opened my window to give her a thumbs up. Now we wait until a truck came by... It's still 10:15 in the morning, that could be any truck now.
"June, got anything for us to use in this stakeout?"
"Sure, I got my binoculars that I got during scouting." She replied, opening her magic storage and pulling out a pair of binoculars.
It's made out of ornate bronze, to my surprise. It also has a moonlight colored gem on top of it.
"I know I said that I couldn't afford rent, but I got that from winning in a competition back then. The third best scout."
"Huh, that explains it."
"That gem can help you see in the night more easily. But since it's daytime by now, there's not much use."
I reversed the car, giving a good distance from us and Sara. After that I turned off the engine, and began to see through the binoculars.
"I told Madonna Malzeno that Sara will signal us as soon as she sees the correct seller. But don't pay too much attention to her!"
"What? You're jealous of her, aren't you?"
"What? You're the one simping for her, and you don't even know if she felt the same for you." Oof, I didn't expect that comeback.
"Point taken, I'll stay silent to you for the rest of the case."
Sara stood there in a polite manner as I eyed her, despite June's warnings. Her eyes are filled with life when we talked and now I didn't see any of it right now. It kind of scared me.
A minute later, an ice cream truck drove by and stopped in front of the playground. A group of children then went on to buy from the seller, who came out and opened the truck's back door. Sara didn't even move an inch, meaning that this isn't the correct truck.
"Look, that seller is having his eyes on her."
"No, he's not." I replied nonchalantly.
"Admit it, now you're jealous." June teased.
"Said the one who's jealous too if I looked at Sara too much."
"Grr... Alright, alright. I'll stop teasing."
After 2 minutes, the seller hopped on back to the truck and it drove off. We waited again, until 10 minutes later June let out a yawn.
"This is taking forever!"
"You sleepy, June? You should head home and rest."
"No, Tak, it's still early. It's just boring, all this waiting and all."
Now I get the feeling from the detectives in my world, whenever they did stakeouts. It can be boring due to all the wait and such, but patient detectives can overcome that. Luckily, my patience level is beyond Mount Everest thanks to all the waiting I spent in my world, waiting for new manga chapters to come out, and weapon mods for a video game that I liked. But that's all in the past now, and what remains of me as of now includes my high level of patience.
A second truck then finally showed up, and our luck scored low again, as Sara stood there as still as a statue. No signals, no dig. This costs us another 10 minutes, in which a third truck shows up but Sara still didn't give the signal. Wait, if all 3 trucks have passed here, then what truck is the fourth one from? The factory only had space for 3 trucks.
I'm sure the fourth one is the suspected murderer's truck. After another 10 minutes have passed, I turned on the engine, and pretended to heat it up. Not long afterwards, the fourth truck stopped by, and Sara waved at me. She took a popsicle from the seller, who appears to be a fair skinned man wearing glasses, a white shirt and blue pants. Sara then 'paid' the seller and went to the limo to inspect the popsicle even closer before eating it. Sure enough, I see something fleshy snaking out of the popsicle as soon as she took a bite. It looked like someone's innards. She, however, remains unfazed and went inside the limo, before speeding away. She can even drive with one hand on the wheel effortlessly!
The truck leaves, and I stepped on the accelerator a little to go slowly, tailing the truck.
"There he goes, let's see where this prick is going, and what kind of I-Scream that he is selling."
"I-Scream? That's your pun of a grotesque ice cream like what you saw just then?"
"Yup."
The truck turns a corner, and drove off on the road toward Somberly Hills. This guy works or lived in somewhere rural, it seems.
We followed him up the hill, and beyond where we go along a curvy road leading to a path leading downhill towards an abandoned housing development, Rancho Uno. The truck stops in front of an old one-story farmhouse, and we see the seller getting off the truck, and inside the house.
The house is rickety and appears to be falling apart. It's wooden walls are rotten, and mostly eaten away by termites. Even the windmill like thingy on the back has collapsed.
We quietly left the car, and followed the man inside the house only to get myself getting hit by a blunt object to the back of my head. Everything went black afterwards.
Some time has passed, and I struggle to open my eyes. I see the man, grinning maniacally as he giddily chose on what to use from a surgical tray on a table. I looked to see that there is a scalpel, a syringe, and a bone saw on the tray, and a big pair of shears on the table, placed right next to the tray.
"Woke up, are we? Do you think that I didn't notice the feeling of being followed? Gumshoes like you and Ian East should just mind your own business."
"Where's June?"
"The cop girl? Oh, she's on the dining table awaiting dissection to be the ingredients for the toppings of my wonderfully made ice cream. You on the other hand, will be the happy customer to savor her."
"You cannibalistic freak, you'll pay!"
"You can't even do anything in your current situation, no? Oh, where are my manners before I feed a soon-to-be satisfied customer, my name is Dean Curly."
"Heh.. The I-Scream Man, should I call you that instead?"
"Clever name. Maybe I should leave it on every each one of my next victims' bodies?"
He then approached June's unconscious body on the table, with the scalpel in hand.
"Stop!"
"Oh, you care for her? Is it love? Affection?"
"She's a rookie officer. She doesn't deserve to be cut up like a pig!"
"Haha! So does that mean that you deserve to be cut up? War hero? I salute you for being the sole survivor of that P.O.W camp back in the war, but now that you insisted, maybe the flesh of a hero can be appetizing for all to savor."
He puts the scalpel back onto the tray, and approached me with the shears. I closed my eyes, accepting my fate, only to hear crashing sounds of glass and wood instead of a blade to my flesh. I opened my eyes again to see a female silhouette effortlessly dodging and counter attacking Dean's slashes with quick jabs to the chest. Getting pissed off, Dean thrusted the shears, attempting to destroy the heart of the silhouette, only for her to catch the blade with her bare right hand, and yanked it off from his grip. Dean is then met with a punch to the side of his skull, so powerful that it sends him tumbling to the floor. The silhouette then took the shears, and begins to plunge the blades into his foot, permanently crippling it.
"Aghh!"
"You shouldn't have messed with my property."
Property? Me?
She then plunged the blade onto his other foot, before proceeding to do the same to his arms, disabling all four limbs as a result. She dropped the shears, and walked over to me. The light from the candle reveals the figure to be...
"Are you alright, Takkun? Do not worry... Your lover will protect you."
It's Sara. Her face and apron are stained with blood, and her eyes are open, as wide as dinner plates while her pupils are so small that it makes her look like a psychotic maid rather than an elegant one.
"Your strong, perfect lover will definitely protect you."
I gulped. I couldn't even process a word as the grotesque scene, even more than anything I encountered back during the war plays in front of me. Is she going to silence me as well, for witnessing Dean's torture?
I widened my eyes as the sound of snipping is heard. She cut off the ropes that bound me to the dining chair, and she casts her free right hand, offering me to take it.
"Now, let's close the case." She said with a smile.
We managed to bring Dean to the ER, and he still lives. He was given the death sentence, which is suggested by Lucrezia during court. I was about to object, but Sara held me back.
"Lucrezia has power over the judge presiding in this court, let her be." She said, before kissing my cheek.
I touched the spot where she kissed me, as my body felt warm. She smiled, and left the courtroom as Dean was given the sentence. Grace and June looked at us with scowls in their faces.
At least the case is finally closed, and I get to meet the Oni from my past. And perhaps I shouldn't eat any ice cream for some time after what happened.
Patreon
+1 yandere. That is good.
Gonna miss out on June and Grace at the end? ;)