Ch.237Chapter 237 – The Detective’s Sorrow (2)

“…Ugh.”

“Holmes.”

As Sharlotte, who had been walking with an emotionless expression, lost her balance and staggered, Watson, who had been watching her with anxious eyes, hurriedly supported her.

“…Will you be alright? Shouldn’t we call a carriage?”

“No…”

Thanks to the drugs she had excessively abused for a year, Sharlotte’s body was damaged to a serious degree, but nevertheless, she waved off Watson’s suggestion and began to walk again.

“It’s not a place I want to go to with such a light mindset.”

“What does that have to do with…”

“I want to ruminate on it for as long as possible. I’ll ask for your understanding.”

Her eyes were filled with such murderous intent that Watson, who had been reading the atmosphere, quietly bowed her head and followed behind Sharlotte.

– Swish…

“…Holmes, you can’t do that.”

However, she couldn’t just stand by and watch as Sharlotte took out a syringe from inside her clothes with trembling hands.

“Are you thinking of doing drugs on the street in broad daylight? Please come to your senses.”

“This isn’t drugs. It’s a nutritional injection.”

“Haa…”

“It’s true! Look… Ah?”

Watson grabbed her hand to prevent her from injecting herself and seized the syringe that Sharlotte had held out with trembling hands, then smashed it on the ground.

– Crack…

“…I’m not joking.”

After crushing it with her shoe, Watson whispered to Sharlotte in a cold voice with a serious expression.

“If you do any more drugs from here on, our friendship is over.”

“…!”

“Remember that.”

Hearing those words, Sharlotte’s eyes widened, and then her whole body began to tremble.

“O-Okay. I understand…!”

Suddenly raising her voice, she grabbed Watson’s arm with hands drenched in cold sweat.

“P-Please… don’t leave me…”

She lowered her voice and muttered with a frightened expression.

“If you leave too… I… I…”

“…Holmes.”

“Ah, augh… ugh…”

Watson looked at her with equally haggard eyes as she began to show symptoms of another seizure.

“I won’t leave, so let’s calm down. Okay?”

“…ugh, augh, ugh.”

“We’re friends, right? Friends who would risk their lives for each other…”

She knelt down slightly and began to care for Sharlotte as if treating a patient with war trauma.

“But…”

“…?”

“Adler… said the same thing…”

As Sharlotte, who had lost all traces of her usual intellectual demeanor, muttered with an expression that a frightened girl of that age might make, Watson was at a loss for words.

“That’s…”

“What, what am I supposed to believe?”

“……”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore… Watson…”

Watson sat quietly for a long time, holding Sharlotte’s hand, enduring the stares of passersby.

“…Let’s go.”

“Wh-Where to?”

“You said it yourself.”

As she gritted her teeth and stood up, Sharlotte, in a state of stupor, asked with an anxious voice.

“To the professor’s office.”

“…Ah.”

However, as soon as she heard Watson say “the professor’s office,” her sharp gaze returned.

“That’s… right.”

Sharlotte, who had been holding her forehead and staggering as if dizzy, muttered in her normal voice.

“That’s right… After 10 months… I was going to see the professor… I was.”

“……”

“…Sorry, Watson. For showing such an unsightly state.”

And then, she began to stagger forward again.

“By the way.”

“…?”

“What are you planning to do there?”

When Watson grabbed Sharlotte’s shoulder and asked the question, Sharlotte whispered in a low voice.

“…You wait at the entrance.”

“Holmes.”

But Watson shook her head quietly and answered.

“I brought a gun too.”

“……”

“You said we’re friends who would risk our lives for each other, so you’re not thinking of leaving me out now, are you?”

At those words, Sharlotte smiled a complicated smile and quietly continued walking.

“We’ll share a cell then.”

“…Well, that might not be so bad.”

.

.

.

.

.

How much time had passed like that.

“”…….””

After much difficulty, Sharlotte, who had finally obtained a visitor’s pass to the academy, walked down the corridor with Watson, both wearing tense expressions.

“It’s right ahead.”

“…I know.”

“The professor should be… in there.”

After repeating this for several minutes, they finally arrived at Professor Moriarty’s office.

“What should we do? Are we going to barge in?”

“Shh… wait a moment.”

She gestured for Watson, who had been whispering beside her, to be quiet and poked her head through the gap in the door.

“She might not be inside, so we need to check first.”

– Swish…

Eventually, she used her mana to slightly grind away the tightly sealed gap between the doors, creating just enough space to peek through.

“……”

She began to peer inside through that gap with a cold expression and without hesitation.

“…So, how is it?”

Watson looked around nervously and asked in a low voice.

“………”

But for some reason, Sharlotte remained motionless.

“…Holmes?”

Moreover, her face seemed to have turned several times paler than before.

“What on earth is happening in there…?”

After tilting her head for a moment, Watson also poked her head through the slightly opened door gap.

“”……””

And a moment later, both women fell silent simultaneously.

– Rub rub…

It was because Professor Moriarty was smiling with her eyes and rubbing her cheeks against the cheeks of two babies she was preciously holding in her arms.

“Heeing…”

“Wooing…”

Although the children didn’t seem to be enjoying it much, anyone could clearly see that the professor’s expression was full of maternal love.

– Grind, grind…

“……”

Sharlotte, who had been staring intently at the scene, began to grind her teeth with her hands clenched so tightly that blood couldn’t circulate, while Watson simply lowered her head in silence.

“Even if dirt gets in my eyes… that sight…”

In that situation, Sharlotte, with bloodshot eyes, reached her trembling hand toward the doorknob, but.

“…Ah?”

At that moment, a surprised-sounding voice came from the professor’s direction.

“”……?””

At that bewildering gasp, the two women immediately fixed their gaze on her again.

“”……!?””

And then they could only doubt their eyes as they stared with wide eyes.

– Drip…

Tears were falling from the professor’s eyes as she had just opened a gift box.

“Ah… aah….”

“”……””

“Ah, augh… aaah…”

As those tears turned into sobbing, Sharlotte and Watson’s gazes grew darker.

“No… that’s…”

“……”

“That’s fake…”

Despite gritting her teeth and trying to reach for the doorknob again, Sharlotte stopped.

“I miss you… Adler…”

When the professor’s sincere sobbing came through the door gap, her hand lost its way and began to wander in the air.

“Just once, even just once would be enough.”

“Hwaaaaaang…”

“Heeeeeeing…”

“I want to see my beloved you again….”

As the professor and her children burst into tears simultaneously, her hand fell limply.

“…Holmes.”

As Sharlotte began to quietly shake her shoulders with her head bowed powerlessly, Watson placed her hand on her shoulder with a complicated look.

“…Let’s just go for today.”

“……”

“We’ll come back another time, when the children aren’t here. Okay?”

When she carefully asked, having instinctively judged that this wasn’t the right time, Sharlotte, who had been shedding hot tears from her eyes, quietly nodded and turned around.

“”……””

And so, the two walked back down the corridor in silence for a while.

“…You know, Watson.”

Among them, it was Sharlotte who broke the silence first.

“Those children earlier… it’s the first time I’ve seen them in person, not in photos…”

“……”

“…What should I do?”

As she showed signs of another trauma attack and muttered in a trembling voice, Watson silently turned her gaze to her.

“The faces I’ve been longing to see so much… the faces I’ve only dreamed of were right in front of me…”

Toward her, Sharlotte muttered with a pale face.

“…But mixed in those faces was also the face of the woman I hate most in the world.”

At those words, even Watson couldn’t provide any answer or solution this time.

“What… am I supposed to do now?”

Because it was a question that had no answer to begin with.

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A few days later. The professor’s office, which had been closed for a while.

– Knock knock knock…!

“…Hmm.”

Inside, Professor Moriarty, who had finally stopped crying after several days and was carefully breastfeeding her children herself, hurriedly adjusted her clothes at the sudden knock.

“…Come in.”

And with a single word, she released the locking spell on the door.

“If you have business, please make it brief, because right now the children are…”

“…It’s me.”

“…!”

She was startled to find Sharlotte Holmes, who had returned to the office with Watson after several days, and hugged her children to her chest.

“Not the children!!!”

And immediately, she began to threaten them with murderous intent.

“You promised…”

“……”

“That after 10 months… you would end all of this yourself.”

She quietly avoided Sharlotte’s emotionless gaze and answered.

“…I found a reason why I can’t do that.”

“Those children?”

“Don’t come any closer!!!”

And then, as Sharlotte tried to step forward, she raised her voice again and even cast a ‘command’ on her.

“You never intended to keep your promise from the beginning?”

“You can think whatever you want. I don’t mind if you reproach me for being cowardly.”

As Sharlotte, whose expression contorted at the unpleasant feeling of her body becoming paralyzed, asked with a cold expression, Professor Moriarty hugged the children even more deeply and answered.

“But I have found a reason to live.”

“Don’t lie…”

Then, Sharlotte, who had been growling at Professor Moriarty with eyes full of anger.

“That meager emotion is no different from what you did to Adler, isn’t it?”

She began to shout, having almost lost her reason.

“Yes, just selfish possessiveness! I can’t entrust Adler’s children to something like that!”

– Swish…

“So…! Ah?”

As the professor raised her head and stared at Sharlotte, she stopped speaking and froze.

“I’m sorry.”

She had just realized that the professor’s arrogant gray eyes, which had seemed like they would never change, were now dyed a brilliant golden color.

“…For realizing it too late.”

As the professor’s words, mixed with grief and guilt, ended, a long silence began to fill the office.