Seriously, who could possibly understand this? I went outside to pick up a few heads, and the moment I climbed back in through the bathroom window, a whole group of men in black gave me a warm welcome. I told them to leave, but they refused unless I took their heads first. With no other choice, I could only accept them with tears in my eyes.
If someone asked Cid how he felt about going out last night, then returning home and somehow ending up with dozens of heads to his name within minutes, that would probably be his answer. Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly something he could say openly.
"That's basically what happened. While I was in the bathroom, a group of men in black broke in. At first, I thought they were thieves, but there were so many of them, and they were carrying knives, so I hid in the bathroom and didn't come out."
"You were remarkably lucky, then. An entire group of such powerful experts, yet not one of them noticed you hiding in a bathroom stall."
A burly man with a mane of red hair like a lion sat across from Cid. In his hands was a document recording Cid's testimony about the mysterious assassins who had attacked the previous night.
"Yeah, exactly. Even I didn't expect to be that lucky. Later, the Vampire Hunter came in with this incredibly cool entrance and didn't notice me either. No, maybe he did notice me and just couldn't be bothered with me."
Cid wore an expression of relief mixed with lingering fear, patting his chest with his right hand as though recalling the frightening events of the previous night. He looked so convincing that one might almost believe every word he said was true.
"Ha. I would certainly like to believe you, but hiding from that many experts is a little difficult to accept. Cid-san, I would prefer it if you told me the truth. For example... perhaps you are an undercover agent planted beside Miss Christina, and the people who attacked last night were your accomplices. That would explain why they didn't kill you, wouldn't it?"
"Th-that doesn't make any sense. Why would I want to kill Christina?"
"That is something I would have to ask you. Miss Christina is the heiress of the House of Hope. There are plenty of people who would like to see her dead. It wouldn't be particularly surprising if someone had persuaded you to betray Christina-sama, would it?"
Knight Commander Gray spoke calmly to the visibly flustered Cid, carefully watching every change in his expression. His confidence suggested that he was certain he had already seen through everything.
"...I want to see First Princess Iris."
"?!"
...
"I'm sorry, Cid. Gray and the others have been worn down by this recent case and haven't slept properly in quite some time. And your circumstances admittedly do look suspicious, so they became desperate and started grasping at anything they could. Please don't hold it against them."
The red-haired beauty apologized to Cid with complete sincerity. The genuine remorse in her voice left the members of the Order of Knights standing nearby completely stunned.
"It's fine. I don't blame them, Princess Iris. Dealing with everything caused by the Vampire Hunter must have been exhausting for all of you."
"Thank you for understanding, Cid. But this is the Order of Knights's responsibility in the first place. They made a mistake, so I will punish them and have the matter reinvestigated thoroughly. Please don't forgive us simply because we've had a difficult time. The Order of Knights exists precisely to protect innocent subjects like you."
Princess Iris pulled Cid into an emotional embrace, and Cid responded with a bright, sunny smile.
He genuinely didn't care that he had nearly been falsely accused.
After all, he was the real culprit.
"By the way, Princess Iris, how are Christina and Kanade doing?"
Thinking about what he had done the night before, Cid let go of Princess Iris and asked as though the thought had only just occurred to him.
"Ah, well... Christina is fine. Nothing serious happened to her. But Miss Kanade is... I think it would be easier if I just showed you, Cid."
Her expression stiffened. After thinking for a moment with a slightly troubled look on her face, Princess Iris offered that solution instead. Once Cid agreed, she turned and led the way.
"Waaah..."
After leaving the interrogation room and following Princess Iris for a while, Cid heard a shrill wailing sound before they had even reached their destination.
It sounded almost like a female ghost crying.
"As you can hear, Miss Kanade is still crying over the atrocity Shadow committed against her yesterday."
After briefly explaining the situation, Princess Iris opened the door and gestured for Cid to go inside.
"Damn you, Shadow! I'll kill you with my own hands a hundred times! Ten thousand times!"
The moment the door opened, Kanade's curses against Shadow came pouring out like an icy wind from the depths of hell, mixed with miserable sobbing that would make anyone who heard it feel sorry for her.
Anyone except Cid.
After all, he was the one responsible.
A faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. He strode forward, then erased it the instant he entered the room and replaced it with an expression full of sympathy.
Inside, Christina was sitting beside Kanade, gently patting her back with one hand as she tenderly comforted the devastated girl.
Kanade, meanwhile, had buried her face against the table while clutching her head tightly with both hands. Even so, through the gaps between her fingers, one could clearly see a large patch of exposed scalp.
"Wah! Why did you two come in?! Get out! Don't look at me!"
Hearing the door open, Kanade instinctively raised her head from where she had been crying. The moment she saw that it was the First Princess and Cid, who had only recently left, she immediately started shrieking.
"Of course I came in. We're companions, after all. What kind of friend would I be if I left you here crying all by yourself?"
Cid spoke with absolute righteousness, though the corners of his mouth were already threatening to curl upward.
"Really? I'm so touched... Do you seriously think I'd believe that?! Before you say something like that, wipe that smile off your face! There's no way a sadistic schemer like you would suddenly be this nice! You came here to laugh at me, didn't you?!"
Kanade immediately caught that fleeting hint of amusement.
Her mental state, already hanging by a thread, snapped completely. She dropped the hands covering her head and pointed furiously at Cid.
With her hands gone, what she had been desperately trying to hide was finally revealed in full.
A straight white line ran across the top of Kanade's head.
Against the short black hair surrounding it, the exposed strip of scalp was painfully obvious. It looked as though someone had taken a blade and shaved a perfectly straight line across her head at an extremely precise angle, creating an utterly ridiculous hairstyle.
"Of course not. Kanade, you're my best friend. Unless it was so unbelievably funny that I genuinely couldn't hold it in, why would I ever laugh at you? Pfft."
Here was a question.
If you saw a flying sword coming straight at your head, what would you do?
A. Dodge left.
B. Dodge right.
C. Stop it halfway.
And when Kanade was faced with this exact question last night, her answer had been...
D. Obtuse angle.
Sorry, wrong subject.
The real answer was D. Jump up and catch it.
Cid swore to heaven that he had only meant to scare Kanade.
But when faced with a flying sword aimed at her head, Kanade had actually chosen to jump upward. That response had genuinely caught him off guard.
Even though Cid had carefully calculated the sword's maximum range so that it would stop right at the edge of her scalp, Kanade's sudden jump had still caused the blade to shave a line through her hair.
"You laughed just now, didn't you?! You definitely laughed! Cid, you bastard! You're just like Shadow, always bullying me! Christina-sama, do something about him... Huh? Christina, what are you doing?"
Kanade glared furiously at Cid, then turned toward Christina, hoping she would uphold justice on her behalf.
Instead, she found Christina covering the corner of her mouth, amusement visible in her eyes as she watched them.
"Christina-sama, even you're joining that wicked Cid in bullying me... I... I don't want to live anymore! Waaah!"
"That's not what I was doing, Kanade!"
Realizing she had been caught, Christina hurriedly lowered her hand and tried to comfort Kanade.
But once the words reached her lips, she had no idea what to say.
Was she supposed to admit that the moment Cid and Kanade got together, she simply couldn't help wanting to laugh?
"Well, it looks like Kanade's fine now."
Watching Kanade clutch her head and cry while Christina frantically tried to calm her down, Cid nodded in satisfaction.
"Hmm... Is this how you and Alexia usually interact, Cid? It looks rather entertaining. Although Alexia..."
Princess Iris spoke hesitantly. Watching everything happening in front of her had reminded her of Cid's relationship with Alexia, and a hint of suspicion appeared in her eyes.
Alexia had never shown any particular tendency toward this kind of ridiculous behavior.
"Kanade probably doesn't find it entertaining."
Cid's remark struck directly at the heart of the matter.
He and Christina might both be laughing, but judging by Kanade's declaration that she was going to kill him, her mental state was unquestionably close to collapse.
Her body was stronger than an ordinary person's thanks to Magical Power enhancement, and there was also a specially made hair-growth serum available, but it would still take more than ten days before her hair grew back enough that no one would notice.
Until then, Kanade would have to walk around with this hairstyle.
For a girl, that really was one of the cruelest forms of torture imaginable.
"Is that so? I suppose you're right. Alexia may be innocent, but she doesn't seem like the sort who would quietly accept being taken advantage of."
Whatever Princess Iris was imagining, she nodded thoughtfully and, just like Christina earlier, began watching the scene with obvious interest.
"Princess Iris, you really don't seem to understand Alexia very well..."
That single sentence was enough for Cid to sense the distance between the sisters.
He had a feeling the two of them were bound to explode at each other someday.
Still, that had nothing to do with him.
He could just enjoy the show from the sidelines.
"By the way, Princess Iris, did you find some kind of clue?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Why else would you be in such a good mood? If Kanade saw that smile on your face, she'd probably think you were laughing at her. Of course, she definitely wouldn't have the courage to complain to you about it."
"Huh?"
Princess Iris froze, then reached up to touch the corner of her mouth.
Realizing that she really was smiling, she gently shook her head.
"Your guess is wrong, Cid, but I really did uncover a clue involving Shadow."
"Hmm?!"
"Don't worry, I can tell you. For you and Christina, this isn't anything that needs to remain confidential. Shadow could never have imagined that I've already seen through his evil objective. This time, I won!"
"...???"
Cid stared wide-eyed at the utterly confident First Princess Iris.
Then he fell silent.
"What is Shadow trying to do?"
"Wait. I need Christina to hear this as well. You all need to know so that you don't fall into Shadow's scheme and worsen your conflict with Marquis Despoht."
"???"
For the first time in his life, Cid genuinely began wondering whether he had somehow lost part of his memory.
Wasn't the situation already obvious?
"Princess Iris, what are you talking about? Hasn't it already been confirmed that Haushold Hedd of the Nightsword Society led people into my mansion last night and tried to kill us? Shouldn't we immediately take troops to arrest the remaining Thirteen Nightblades and preserve the peace of the Kingdom of Midgar?"
Christina, you're saying exactly what I'm thinking!
Christina, who had been comforting Kanade, had also heard Princess Iris. She immediately stopped tending to Kanade, hurried over to Iris, and anxiously asked for an explanation.
Among the black-clad intruders from the previous night, one had already been identified.
He was Haushold Hedd, one of the Thirteen Nightblades.
That was precisely why Christina couldn't understand why the righteous First Princess was still saying that they had all been deceived.
"That is exactly Shadow's evil conspiracy!"
What conspiracy did I come up with this time?
Unable to hear Cid's thoughts, Iris merely struck her right fist against her left palm with absolute conviction.
"First, the organization known as the Thirteen Nightblades, just like the Diablo Gang, does not actually exist. Those are merely malicious rumors spread among the public about Marquis Despoht and the others."
"This is the Guard's investigation report. Marquis Despoht and the others do indeed know one another, but they are simply friends."
Christina stared at her in complete confusion.
"???"
"Second, this morning, the Guard discovered eight bodies inside an abandoned building. They belonged to eight of the other individuals rumored by the public to be members of the Thirteen Nightblades."
"But that isn't the important part. According to the investigators, there were originally nine people inside that room. Or rather, there should have been nine corpses."
"So why were there only eight?"
Wisdom gleamed in Princess Iris's eyes as she slowly laid out the mystery in a suspenseful tone.
"According to the autopsy report, Viscount Haushold Hedd's time of death was slightly later than those of the other eight, though the difference was small."
"An ordinary person might not have been capable of it, but Shadow certainly was. After killing eight people there, he could easily have taken Viscount Haushold Hedd to Christina's mansion, dressed him in black, and killed him there."
"So there can only be one truth..."
Princess Iris declared this with complete certainty, pointing dramatically in the direction where the other eight bodies had been discovered.
"Last night, the evil Shadow brought nine people, including Viscount Haushold Hedd, into a secret room and tortured eight of them to death."
"When Viscount Haushold Hedd was on the verge of death, Shadow brought him here. At the same time, he ordered his own subordinates to launch an attack."
"Then, just as you were about to fight the men in black, Shadow appeared and killed them himself. He left Viscount Haushold Hedd at the scene dressed in black, creating the illusion that Viscount Haushold Hedd had personally led the attack."
"And the purpose behind all of this was to deepen the conflict between Christina and Marquis Despoht, convince you of the existence of this so-called Diablos, discredit Marquis Despoht, and make Shadow himself appear to be the righteous one."
"That is the truth behind everything that happened last night. Shadow truly is evil by nature. He even murdered his own subordinates to silence them."
"Huh?!"
Thanks for having so much faith in me, Iris, but I searched the entire Royal Capital and only found eight people to play with me. That ninth guy came over on his own and practically handed me his head.
Watching Princess Iris grit her teeth as though she wanted nothing more than to fight Shadow to the death on the spot, Cid found himself wondering what kind of extraordinary geniuses surrounded Iris for them to arrive at a conclusion like this.
There was nothing else he could do.
He could only smile.
Had it never occurred to them that the ninth person might have been the Vampire Hunter himself?
Hanging from the ceiling, disguised as a corpse, with the sound of dripping water counting down the time.
That was insanely cool, wasn't it?
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