Ch.76Request Log #009 – How to Wash Away Sins (4)

He probably didn’t even realize he was betraying his wife. No, he’d likely claim he was doing all this for his wife and child. Still, since the Professor had asked me to, I had to question him.

“What are you doing? Why are you doing this?”

Fortunately, these fanatic types of criminals were easy to talk to. They didn’t lie. Not lying didn’t make their deeply unpleasant words any less disturbing, though.

The Hanger of New York was still looking at me as if I were the Rat-Catcher. Ignoring the gun in my hand, he asked with a friendly expression:

“Have you ever had a child, mongrel? I mean, as the fruit of love. Not as evidence to seal a court order for alimony payments.”

“What?”

Another unpleasant conversation was clearly coming. Fortunately, I had plenty of ways to deal with it. I could either listen silently and endure, or listen silently and endure really well. My job always offered an abundance of options.

“Haven’t you heard? Well, you’ve always been busy. My wife is pregnant. It’s been a while, so the baby will be born soon. But then I realized… my hands are too dirty. I saw them covered with my comrades’ blood from Argonne. Do you think I could hold a child with these hands? Could I hold a life that’s just entered this world, more pure than anything else?”

I heard the Rat-Catcher’s voice. For a moment, he wasn’t a vigilante obsessed with murder and punishment, but looked down at his own hands with the face of a comrade.

Except for that, it was all typical. Obsessive fixation on cleanliness and filth was common. Common reasons, common actions… the only uncommon thing was the body of an Argonne Invincible.

He hadn’t betrayed his wife. He hadn’t betrayed his family. Rather, he believed he was doing this for them. Though it was obvious what expression his wife would make if she heard he was shooting people dead for their sake.

His family gave him peace. But they also gave him the obsession that he himself was someone who didn’t belong with family. He yearned for his pure family, and was eaten away by the feeling that he couldn’t reach them.

For someone who hated rats so much, his insides had become tattered like they’d been gnawed by rats. I could no longer see the Rat-Catcher. All I saw was a murderer with the body of an Argonne Invincible.

“Sin can only be washed away with the blood of sinners, mongrel. If the blood of the righteous has defiled us, then the blood of sinners will purify us…”

I didn’t need to hear more. I’d listened too long to the ravings of a madman because I thought of him as a comrade. It was just ridiculous to see him spewing nonsense, hoping he could make me understand.

“Do you know what people use when they want to get clean? If you really want to be clean, go home and get in the bathroom. Turn on the hot water and grab some soap. Don’t give me this fucking sermon.”

Hostility began to flare in the eyes of the Hanger of New York. It was enough to send chills down my spine, but I didn’t tremble. People get angrier when their beliefs are challenged than when they themselves are.

“Then why are you here? Holding a gun means you came to kill someone. You talk nonsense, but in the end, you too use the blood of sinners to…”

His words weren’t worth answering, so instead of taking him seriously, I cut him off again with a sneer. I squeezed the trigger, aiming at the Hanger of New York standing across the long corridor.

“My apartment doesn’t have hot water. And instead of spouting nonsense about washing with blood, I’ve gotten used to washing with cold water.”

The ritual engraved in us allowed him to react at an abnormal speed. Despite my surprise attack while speaking, he threw himself through a nearby doorway.

A bullet or two hit him, but it wouldn’t be a serious wound. I didn’t believe one or two bullets could neutralize a body twice as strong that only took half the damage.

This was probably a building full of offices. The corpse I’d seen when I entered was wearing a suit. I struck the door next to me with my elbow. The hinges broke, and I pushed through the door looking for him.

I couldn’t give him time to recover. When dealing with us, the best approach was to keep pressing without giving any breaks. It would take a while to tire him out, but he would eventually wear down.

He was lying on the floor, growling, but in the gap created while I was breaking down the door, he tried to rush toward me. The distance closed instantly, but it didn’t matter.

Instead of trying to stop, I ran straight into the office, making him crash into the wall, then emptied the remaining twenty or so bullets in my magazine into his leg and waist.

“Ugh, grr… AAARGH! Is some pathetic law more important than the comrades we went through that hell with, mongrel? Whoever gave you that nickname…”

“Don’t talk about the law. We’re worried you might take too long to die in the electric chair and cast suspicion on us. And I’m hunting you because I need the bounty on a serial killer who’s murdered at least thirty people.”

We don’t die even with this many bullets. The bullets didn’t even penetrate properly, making a thick sound as they lodged in his body. I immediately ejected the magazine and reloaded while the Hanger of New York was trembling.

As he immediately hid behind a desk, I aimed beyond it with a relaxed posture, having loaded a hundred-round drum magazine. When the opponent had no gun, it was better to aim carefully.

Thinking he’d be lying down since he was still in his right mind, I pulled the trigger, but the desk he was hiding behind seemed to shake for a moment before flying straight at me. He had thrown the wooden desk with its partition.

He must have used the desk to block my view and then charged. Any one of us could do that much. I took the flying desk with my shoulder. I stepped back with one foot to regain my stance.

This was my first time fighting an Invincible directly. A normal person would be riddled with bullets before they could even reach out, but he was already reaching for my gun barrel. He was faster than I thought.

His hand gripped the gun barrel. He tried to push it upward. I applied force in the opposite direction, pulling the barrel down as I pulled the trigger again. The gun barrel, pulled up and down by the strength of two Invincibles, made an unstable sound.

But there was no problem with firing immediately. Due to the lowered barrel, only a few bullets lodged uncertainly in his side. That wouldn’t be enough to stop him.

Despite the pain in his side, he gritted his teeth and tried to bend the submachine gun’s barrel with his brute strength. I pulled the trigger, but it didn’t fire properly.

The problem with this submachine gun was that its overly complex interior made it jam easily. And now the barrel was being twisted too. Since I couldn’t fix it right away, I threw the useless gun to the floor.

So it’s hand-to-hand combat again. The Hanger of New York smirked as if he’d scored a point and extended his fist.

“You were always smaller than me, mongrel!”

It was a heavy punch befitting his size, but it wasn’t difficult to avoid. I ducked to dodge it, then immediately punched upward into his side. I used the momentum to straighten up and struck his chin.

“Really? Should I go ask your wife?”

After returning his provocative words with a double dose of provocation, I struck his side again as he merely staggered despite the blow to his chin. The sound of hitting meat echoed, and his body flinched.

Family was likely the Hanger of New York’s sore spot. It was his family that had driven him to the insane idea that he needed to purify his hands with blood, and while he proudly committed murder, he never told his family about it.

The moment his family was mentioned, the calmness and composure in his eyes burned away. Instead of ducking as he’d intended, he tensed his body as if willing to take a couple more hits and swung his fist again.

“You, you fucking little traitor!”

I dodged the fist swinging sideways as if to smash my skull by simply leaning my upper body to the side. I grabbed his wrist and pulled once to break his stance. Then I struck the back of his ribs.

Gritting his teeth and enduring the pain, he shook off my hand from his wrist and swung with his other hand. I raised my elbow and lifted my opposite arm to directly block his punch.

There was a cracking sound. It wasn’t my elbow. It seemed like one of his fingers had been crushed from the punch he’d thrown with his full weight. He could endure the pain of being hit, but not a fracture.

“Ugh, AAARGH! Damn it!”

He had hit hard enough to break a bone in our bodies that only take half the damage. I grabbed his fist with the newly bent finger. He screamed. It sounded like a comrade’s scream. Just my imagination.

I aimed for his chin again with my other fist. I hit him once with a short jab, then threw aside the fist I’d been gripping and delivered another, bigger blow with my full weight behind it.

Our bodies can withstand pain to some extent, but even that doesn’t help when there’s such a clear difference in skill. I walked toward him as he trembled, holding his chin.

As he tried to swing the fist not holding his chin, I reached out and grabbed his shoulder, pulling him slightly. His body came forward half a step, swinging his fist at empty air instead of my face.

This time I pushed the shoulder I was holding to make him stagger, and I stepped back to create just the right distance before striking the side of his face with the edge of my fist. His eyes glazed over momentarily, but he quickly regained his senses.

“Besides being a few inches taller, did you ever have any advantages?”

I swallowed the word “Rat-Catcher.” He wasn’t the Rat-Catcher. Knowing he had created an opening, he swung his blunt fist through the air trying to recover somehow. I immediately ducked in and struck his ribs.

This time it felt like it really connected. I heard that distinctive sound when bones break… not quite a snap, but closer to a crunch, a very fragile sound. He clutched his side where bullets were lodged and ribs were broken.

His body was no longer fit for fighting. He seemed to be barely holding on with the power of adrenaline, but soon it would start to sting.

The stinging would soon become burning pain, and what came after that I didn’t want to imagine. I saw momentary fear flash across his face. I didn’t care. I looked at him with a reassuring sound meant to mock him.

I picked up the trench knife that had been hanging from his fist with the broken finger. The aftereffects of adrenaline seemed to be fading, and pain was starting to register. He began to tremble, his body almost convulsing as he gritted his teeth.

He would have been better off not throwing the desk and rushing to twist my gun barrel. I could have killed him relatively simply with the gun, but without that, I had to subdue him with pain.

His fist was clenched so tightly his hand looked white, but he couldn’t put strength into his broken finger. When I struck the cracked finger once more, he dropped the knife. I caught it as it fell.

I clicked my tongue seeing the blade maintained with such care it had a clean shine. I slipped my hand through the knuckle guard and gripped the handle.

I stabbed the blade into his neck as he could barely move from the pain. Then pulled it out. I tried to remain detached. I think.

Blood flowed with each heartbeat. His heart pounded like an oversized engine in an old building, but blood couldn’t reach his brain. With each beat of his heart, his eyes grew more unfocused.

Whether he was trying to resist somehow, or wanted to stop the bleeding from his neck but couldn’t control his body, he waved his arms for about ten seconds before completely losing consciousness.

His heart was still pounding, trying somehow to send blood to his brain. But that didn’t last long either. That’s how the Hanger of New York died. He died the day after deciding to commit murder.

Yes, it seemed the detective who handles everything as a day job had completed his work today. I threw the trench knife far away. I leaned against the wall. I couldn’t fight gravity. My body slid down.

It was probably about fifteen seconds. Any longer and I’d get sentimental. I got up. I steadied my breathing and approached the wanted criminal who had died with his eyes open, checking his pulse. He was definitely dead.

Another comrade gone. This time by my hand. Before the police arrived, I dragged him to the glass window. I lifted his body over the broken window and tried to see his face in the reflection.

I still couldn’t see his face. The reflective surface only showed the distorted, blurred portrait of a sad human. I threw the Rat-Catcher I’d been dragging by the collar onto the floor.

My body was fine. I definitely heard screams from upstairs, so there must be people there. I jumped over the desk to avoid the dead Rat-Catcher and his pool of blood, and left the shattered office.

On the stairs coming down from the upper floor, a person who looked like an ordinary office worker was leaning forward to assess the situation.

Seeing my appearance that clearly showed I’d been in a major fight, he tried to run away, but I stopped him.

“Wait. Did you call the police?”

“Y-yes I did… but seeing you ask that…”

The Rat-Catcher wouldn’t have even tried to talk. He wouldn’t mistake someone with a different voice, build, and face. The man came down one step, still trembling.

They were the winners again. I had chased the Rat-Catcher with all my might, found him, fought and killed him, but it was they who survived and would continue working and living tomorrow or the day after.

If I hated this, I wouldn’t be a detective. To the man who had shown a fragment of trust, I tapped the wall of the office where both doors were broken.

“I killed him. He’s in there, so go in and see for yourself if you want to be reassured.”

I began to faintly hear the sound of angels’ wings. I heard the office window breaking, and the sound of the glass door with its broken lock shattering. Soon angels gathered around.

Burning eyes, curly blonde hair, and expressions full of wariness and fear. Fortunately, they were all fallen angels. A voice rang out from behind me.

“Hands behind your head, then lie down! New York Police!”

I usually didn’t sneer at the police, but right now I felt I needed to throw in a word or two. I had fired a submachine gun several times here, and they would have come twice as fast if they’d heard those sounds.

“You mean the fucking late New York Police. I’m a civilian collaborator with Officer Yehoel. Michael Husband. I should be on your list.”

Still, I put my hands behind my head as the police wanted. It made life easier to follow police instructions. As I was kneeling down and about to lie on my stomach with one hand on the ground, the office worker who had been peering out raised his voice.

“Th-that’s not him! The m-murderer was bigger, and had brown hair! Th-this man lured the murderer who was trying to come up to the second floor toward himself!”

The appearance of a decent human being was quite disgusting. Probably because I had just done something indecent myself.