Chapter 07 – Flight from the Past

From the Breathless Room, Mutta and Kenji had taken the immediate exit that led south, and in the moments that followed, they caught their breath. The young and able father was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He was taking big breaths; when he exhaled, the gelled tail of hair that went down the middle of his forehead was lifted back up. When he inhaled, the hair went back down.

Mutta was hunched forward, his hands pressing into his knees. His rear end was sticking out, and his face was pointed at the brown carpet. His suit was starting to get wrinkles, and already his hair was getting split ends. "They got Teshima-san!" Mutta growled, between breaths. "Whoever it was, they got Teshima-san!"

"It could be someone acting alone," Kenji suggested, stroking the area between his bottom lip and his chin with his index finger, while supporting his bottom jaw with his thumb. "Although, if that's the case, that might even be more worrying than if there's several people involved. This was not just an ordinary killing. It was very fast, and whoever did this—whether one person or a group—managed to overpower Teshima easily enough to tie him up like that. You noticed it too, Mu-kun?"

Bending back, beyond the point of standing upright, Mutta clasped his lower back with his hands and stretched. "Yes, I noticed," Mutta said, nodding. "But, in case you are not thinking of the same thing as I am—what did you notice?"

He looked over at Kenji, his thoughts screaming at the back of his mind, "I have no idea what he's talking about! What else was there to notice?" His friend crossed one foot over the other.

"The cuts on Teshima-san were only present where the rope didn't bind him," Kenji explained. "Someone had taken a combat knife to him, butonly aftertying him up."

Mutta was now standing upright. "How did he notice that, with everything else going on?" Mutta wondered silently. He inserted his hands into his pockets.

"Which means that whoever this is could overpower Teshima-san enough to tie him up beforekilling him," Kenji concluded. "The loss of blood is what killed him. I think the Rubik's cube through the heart was something that happened afterword, as a sort of symbolic marking." He blinked hard. "This Rubik's Cube Killer is someone quick and strong. I think we can safely say that neither Yamato-san nor Fukuda-san can be the Rubik's Cube Killer. While dangerous, if they were as strong as whoever killed Teshima-san was, we wouldn't be here right now."

Mutta and Kenji both looked ahead, at the cream colored walls. A single door was at the end of the hallway, and Mutta was thinking about how once he passed through it, there was no way to know what would await them. He wondered if that was the same thing that was on Kenji's mind, or not.

"And since we saw no one else along the way aside from those two, we have no real leads," Kenji whispered. "It could be any of the others, or even someone from JAXA." He let his hands fall to his side. With a nod, he communicated something to Mutta—that it was time to go. As he passed Mutta, Kenji turned his head slightly, to look at him.

Mutta nodded in return and began to walk alongside him. His hands were still in his pocket, and his gaze was fixed ahead. The hallway was soundless.

"Kenji, there is something I probably should tell you."

Number 5 stopped walking and turned, to notice that Mutta had stopped a few steps prior. "What is it, Mu-kun?"

"Before I was approached by Fukuda-san, I saw Tomii-san in the Lobby," Mutta quietly responded. "I didn't think much of it at the time, but when I asked him to guard the restroom for me, while I went inside… He left. When I went back outside, Fukuda-san was there. If you didn't see him, he must've passed through this hallway shortly after."

Kenji's facial muscles tightened suddenly, and he looked intensely back toward the door they had come out of. "Which would put him in the Breathless Room before we would have got there," Kenji echoed Mutta's thoughts. "Tomii-san… Alright." He continued walking again.

"One more thing," said Mutta, who remained still.

Kenji merely turned to look at him.

"After you went through the door on the left, Serika-san confronted me in the pantry," Mutta explained. "She explained her Diary to me. It's the Gourmet Diary. It tells her where her next meal will be."

The intense look was back in Kenji's eyes, and he asked abruptly, "Which direction did she go?"

Mutta swallowed and answered, "Her Diary instructed her to go to the Breathless Room. I was following her, and that is how I ended up finding Teshima-san. I haven't seen her since she appeared in the pantry."

After reaching inside his leather jacket, Kenji pulled out the gun he had stolen from Yamato. "The prime suspects in the murder of Yuri Teshima are Tomii-san and Itou Serika," he declared. Kenji then resumed walking, with Mutta following close behind.

"Serika-san wouldn't kill someone," Mutta was quick to think. "Even if she were in a corner and forced to defend herself—that wasn't the case with Teshima-san. There is no way that Serika-san would have cut up Teshima-san like that, even if she had been able to overpower him and tie him to that chair. Still, Tomii-san… He is quiet and does not appear to be that strong. Would he really be able to do something that requires this much physical strength?"

The two stopped at the door. "We may not be the only alliance in this survival exam," Kenji said suddenly. "There is the slim chance that both Tomii-san and Itou Serika are responsible, in that they worked together to kill Teshima-san. It's a slim chance, so don't worry about it too much." Mutta nodded. "Mu-kun, are you ready?"

Mutta looked toward the door and gave a nod. Kenji opened the door; they both stepped through it—and found themselves back in the Lobby. A map had formed in Mutta's mind, and he reconstructed the events and the places in which they occurred. Going through the Moon Chamber led him to the Pantry. The door to the right led to a maze of hallways, and one of the end results of going this route was the Breathless Room. The Breathless Room then led back to the Lobby. He considered that, as they had not seen the others yet, some of them likely found different exits from the maze of hallways.

The Lobby looked as it had before. It was an ordinary room, and he did not see anyone inside. Then his eyes drifted toward the chairs toward the center. When he first saw Tomii, the young man had been sitting in one of the chairs. Apparently Kenji was looking the same direction, because he had grasped Mutta's shoulder and was screaming.

Mutta did not hear him. He was motionless and tense, his eyes fixed on what was laying among the chairs—on whowas laying among the chairs. Contrasting with the white ceramic floor was a small pool of blood.

The two moved automatically, shoving away chairs to clear the scene. Mutta's face and body felt a total numbness, as his eyes began to trace up the victim's arm. There were several cuts made with a combat knife along the way up to the shoulder, shredding through the person's sleeve and causing blood to gush out of the exposed flesh. While eying the shoulder, Mutta caught sight of a Rubik's Cube embedded where the man's heart was. An image flashed before his mind; just like with the last killing, the colors on each side of the Rubik's cube were the same. Both were solved puzzles.

Then Mutta glanced up at the face—catching a glimpse of a deep cut in the man's neck on the way. His eyes were wide-open, staring up at the ceiling, motionless.

"My Diary didn't even go off," Kenji whispered to himself. "Or I didn't notice... How could this have happened?" He slammed his fist down on the floor.

Mutta found that the pool of blood was expanding, and he shifted his knees back, to avoid getting blood on his suit. He looked again at the face—it was a face that knew serious physical pain, something that Mutta now realized he had never really encountered. His life had been so safe. The closest thing to danger in his childhood was when he and Hibito would sneak out of the house and go investigating in the swamp, but even then, he always had Hibito there to protect him. In turn, he was always there to protect Hibito. Mutta blinked away any tears that might have formed and looked away from the face—he did not want to see Fukuda like this any longer.

"The Rubik's Cube Killer has already struck again," Mutta muttered to himself, in a tone that declared total amazement. "He must have gone straight from the Breathless Room to here."

Kenji nodded, adding, "And this killing appears to be fresher and more rushed… Notice how he didn't tie up the victim this time. He must be aware that he's being followed. He might still be nearby…"

Mutta looked back at Fukuda. He saw that the pool of blood was still expanding; this had to have just happened. Although he saw what had been done to the body, for the sake of his own conscience, he had to verify that Fukuda was truly dead. He reached forward, to check his vitals.

In that moment, Fukuda coughed up blood and blinked. Mutta and Kenji both fell back, off their knees and onto their rears. Fukuda, after turning his head to spit the blood out, looked squarely at the two.

"Fu-Fukuda-san," Mutta whispered. "Are… Are you alright?"

The man with the Rubik's Cube sticking out of his chest let his head fall back onto the floor. "Do I look alright, Nanba-san?" Fukuda laughed, and in the process, began to cough up more blood.

Mutta leaned forward, but when his hand was halfway to Fukuda's shoulder, it stopped. It hovered there, shaking, not knowing whether to move to comfort the dying man or to recoil. "You are going to be alright," Mutta said, shakily. "Just hold on a bit longer."

A silence elapsed, in which Mutta realized the impossibility of his words. The only way Fukuda could get medical care is if JAXA allowed him to leave and be taken to a hospital, but there were greater chances that JAXA would send in an assassin to finish what remained of Fukuda's life than send in someone to save him.

Kenji straightened up and asked, urgently, "Who did this to you?"

Fukuda closed his eyes. "If I tell you that… w-will you promise to avenge me?" His eyelids lifted up again, so that the old man could glance at the two before him. "And kill him?"

Looking toward Kenji, Mutta felt a weight in his chest drop. "We have decided to only fight in self-defense," he considered in his thoughts. "But if we actively pursue this Rubik's Cube Killer and attack him, we would be the aggressors…"

Kenji gave an unshakable nod. "Yes, we will kill him." Mutta's eyes darted from his friend to the body of the man who had first tried to kill him.

"It was Tomii-san," Fukuda admitted, straight at the ceiling again. "He c-came rushing… when I didn't expect it. It… all happened so, so fast."

Mutta and Kenji exchanged glances. Itou Serika was not the perpetrator, but knowing that relieved Mutta only so much, knowing that already Tomii had killed two would-be astronauts.

Fukuda swallowed what must have been the blood in his mouth and resumed, "14 years ago, I lost my family… My wife wanted a man who… Who could be there for her and for Ryoko, our daughter. I worked so tirelessly, building rockets that would one day go to space. But, what I really wanted was to fly in them. S-so, I gave up my family to take on a series of JAXA examinations… And since then, since I failed that first exam, I have been on a flight from the past… I have been running from the mistakes I made. Mistakes I can't fix, now."

"I thought this was my... My last shot," he explained further. "And I don't regret taking it. I would've killed you, if I could've. But I'm too old for this game… Ha, I thought I could still make it, but, I guess I didn't deserve my dream, after all."

Kenji and Mutta both bowed their heads.

"If you two want to go to space, or even if you two really want to run away from this chance and leave the exam," Fukuda said, "You need to kill Tomii. If you don't… He'll kill you." He paused. "And Nanba-san…"

Mutta scratched his ear and looked at him. "Yes?"

The old man, whose dream had so clearly cost him his life—in one sense, the other, or both—betrayed no emotion in his expression. He simply said, in the tone of one who knows these are his last words, "Nanba-san, you are an idiot."

Fukuda's eyes remained open, fixed on Mutta's face. When he didn't blink, Mutta got up and, stepping in the blood, manually closed the man's eyes. He took a deep breath. Words were in his mind, but he did not know what sort of form to give them. He merely looked back at Kenji, who was still kneeling.

The Guardian Diary updated, and when the phone buzzed, a frightened calm was apparent on both Mutta's face and Kenji's.

Taking the phone out from the inside of his jacket, Kenji flipped it open and checked the screen.

"Who is in danger now?" Mutta asked, his voice without the inflection of one particular emotion. "Who do we have to save from the Rubik's Cube Killer?"

The phone was shaking in Kenji's hands, and Mutta's ally looked up at him, startled. "It's… It's—" Kenji swallowed and looked back at the screen. "The one in danger is Tomii…"