The phone rang three times before Kagami answered.
"What?" he said, in the tone of someone who has been interrupted in something.
"I killed two remnants," said Yūta, from the back yard with the washing on the line and the knocked-over plant pot.
Silence.
"Are you all right?"
"Yes. My right shoulder and left side are protesting, but nothing serious."
"Where are you?"
Yūta explained — the alley, the hooded man, the first remnant, the second that had arrived without warning from the wall. Kagami listened without interrupting, which in Kagami was a sign that he was paying more attention than usual.
"I'm coming," he said at last.
And hung up.
Kagami arrived in under ten minutes, which suggested he had not been as far away as Yūta had assumed. He stood at the edge of the back yard and looked around with that attention of his — not searching for anything specific but registering everything without discarding anything.
"Anything else besides the two remnants?" he said.
"No," said Yūta. "Nothing I saw."
Kagami kept looking at the space. The air of the yard, the walls, the ground where the two remnants had dissolved. Then he looked towards the alley on the other side of the wall with the expression of someone reaching a conclusion that does not surprise them, but that they do not like either.
"Since we arrived," he said, "the presence of remnants in this area is heavier than it should be."
Yūta looked at him.
"Why would that be?" he said. "Kato told me there's a possibility that remnants appear when people die. If someone died in this area..."
Kagami looked at him.
"Is that all Kato told you about remnants?" he said.
"Yes. Well, he also explained the thing about unresolved debts and all of that, but about why they appear where they appear..."
Kagami closed his eyes for a second.
"Kato is an idiot," he said.
Yūta opened his mouth. He closed it. He decided he did not have enough information to defend or attack that statement at this moment.
Kagami sighed.
"Sit down," he said, gesturing towards the low wall at the side of the yard.
Yūta sat. Kagami remained standing, which was his way of being at rest.
"What Kato told you is true," Kagami began, "but it's incomplete. Yes, when a person dies there is a probability that they will become a remnant. But that probability is not fixed. It varies."
"What factors affect it?" said Yūta.
"Two main ones," said Kagami. "The first is whether a remnant killed that person. When a remnant is responsible for a death the probability that the person will also become a remnant increases. Not always, but more frequently than with a natural or accidental death."
Yūta processed that.
"So if the remnant last night killed that woman in the alley," he said, "there's a possibility that she also..."
"Yes."
"And the man today?"
"Also."
Yūta looked at the ground of the yard where the second remnant had dissolved.
"And the second factor?" he said.
"The power of the remnant," said Kagami. "The stronger the remnant that causes the death, the higher the probability that the victim will also turn. We don't know exactly why — there are theories, none confirmed. What we do know is that it happens with enough consistency to take it into account."
"So," said Yūta, following the thread, "if since we arrived the presence of remnants has been heavier than normal, and that's explained by there being a source generating more deaths than usual..."
"The remnant behind this is probably more powerful than the two you found today," said Kagami. "Significantly."
Yūta looked at him.
"Did you investigate anything this morning?"
"Yes," said Kagami. "I found nothing. No remnant, no direct presence. Only the accumulated weight we had already been feeling since we arrived, a little denser in certain areas than in others."
"Which areas?"
"Sota's alley," said Kagami. "And the northern part of the town, near the park."
Yūta nodded.
"I'm going to go and get Sota," he said, standing.
"Wait."
Yūta stopped and turned.
Kagami was looking at him with that expression that was not exactly discomfort, but came close — the expression of someone who has something to say and is calculating how to say it as efficiently as possible.
"Don't tell him anything about the remnants yet," he said. "He's already more involved in this than he should be. I don't want him getting more involved or making his state worse."
Yūta looked at him for a moment.
Then he smiled.
"You're going soft, Kagami."
Kagami looked at him.
"Just because something is serious doesn't mean it's bad," he said.
"I wasn't saying it as a criticism."
"I know how you meant it."
Yūta laughed — short, genuine — and put the phone in his pocket.
"All right," he said. "I won't say anything."
Kagami nodded. And if there was anything more he wanted to add he kept it to himself, which was generally where Kagami kept most things.
The school bell in Misato rang at quarter past three with that precision of school bells that admit no negotiation.
Sota Miyazaki had spent forty minutes occasionally looking out of the window with the specific casualness of someone who knows they should be paying attention in class and cannot quite manage it. The sky outside was the ordinary sky of Misato at that hour — low clouds, a little wind, the light beginning to change colour, though it was still some time before dark.
Nothing unusual.
Sota knew that. He knew it rationally, with the part of his mind that had accepted that what he could see through the window was exactly what it appeared to be. But there was another part — faster, older, harder to convince with arguments — that kept checking the gaps between the buildings and the shadows the trees made on the ground with the attention of someone who has learned that strange things do not give warning.
When the bell rang everyone stood with that specific noise of twenty chairs moving at the same time.
Sota gathered his things more slowly than the others.
"Sota," said Toma, appearing beside his desk with his usual energy. "Shall we do something? Masa says he wants to go to that place we always go."
"Thanks," said Sota. "But I've got plans. I need to get back home."
"Have you always got plans now?" said Masa, from the corridor, not with the tone of criticism but of someone observing a pattern.
"Another day," said Sota. "Seriously."
Toma looked at him for a moment with that attention of his that sometimes saw more than Sota wanted it to.
"All right," he said at last. "But another day for real, yeah?"
"For real," said Sota.
The three of them went out together to the school door where the paths separated. Toma raised a hand in farewell. Masa nodded with his usual brevity. Sota watched them turn the corner and then looked the other way.
Yūta was leaning against the wall opposite with his hands in his pockets and a completely ordinary expression of someone waiting for someone — with nothing to suggest that two hours ago he had fought two remnants in a back yard and still had his right shoulder reminding him of that fact with every movement.
"Hello," said Sota, crossing the street.
"How was it?" said Yūta, walking beside him.
"Fine," said Sota. "I mean, classes were fine. The other thing..."
"The other thing will get better," said Yūta.
Sota glanced at him from the corner of his eye.
"Did you do something today?"
"I went for a bit of a rest," said Yūta. "Nothing special."
Sota nodded in the tone of someone who does not entirely believe it, but decides not to press.
"Right," he said.
They walked along the alternative route — the one that did not pass the alley, the one Yūta had memorised that morning when he walked Sota to school. Misato at three in the afternoon had a different rhythm from eight in the morning — quieter, with fewer people moving about, with that specific quality of afternoons in small towns where time seems to move differently.
Sota looked to the sides of the street less frequently than in the morning. Not because the fear had disappeared — but because there was something about walking beside someone who knew what he knew that made the constant checking feel less urgent.
They reached the Miyazaki house with the afternoon still present.
Sota stopped at the door and turned to Yūta.
"Thank you," he said. "For everything you're doing."
"Don't worry about it," said Yūta.
"How long will you be here?"
Yūta thought for a second — not because he did not know the answer but because he wanted to give him the right version.
"Until we can sort out the problem," he said. "We'll stay as long as it takes."
Sota nodded. Then he looked at the ground for a moment with the expression of someone who has more things to say and is choosing which one.
"Thank you," he said again, more quietly this time. "Really. I don't know what I would have... " He stopped. "Thank you."
Yūta looked at him with his usual calm.
"We'll see you tomorrow," he said.
Sota nodded. He went up the entrance steps and opened the door.
Before closing it he turned one more time.
"Tomorrow," he said.
"Tomorrow," confirmed Yūta.
The door closed.
Yūta stood on the pavement for a moment looking at the house — the windows, the light beginning to come on inside, the silhouette of Yuriko Miyazaki moving about the kitchen with the rhythm of someone who is cooking and does not know there is someone standing outside looking.
Then he put his hands in his pockets and began to walk.
His right shoulder protested with the first step.
Definitely ice, he thought.