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Inumi Sanae, sixteen years old, under the alias of Downtown Detective and ranking number twenty-two in the Detective Alliance, keeps trying to convince herself that she’s ready to become the next victim of the Quartering Duke.
The black gloves made to handle the wire trap makes her palms feel almost sweaty, and she plucks them off with ease, looking down at the short acrylics on her nails with disinterest that she’s not sure is fully fake. Gray eyes glance back up to her partner in crime as the two of them are setting up their own deaths - not enough progress to not back out of it, but enough to might as well carry on. An awkward halfway point. The taste is bitter in her mouth.
“Hey …” She drawls out, flicking a lock of her blonde hair over her shoulder as she draws Senior’s attention. They’ve been quiet for too long, and she can’t resist the temptation to run her mouth. “Are we seriously gonna do this?” She shifts on her feet, putting a hand on her hip. “There’s still time to back out, y’know.”
She doesn’t deserve to back out of this, in all honesty – the flutter in her chest from killing the people in the research facility is long gone, now. It’s always been a fleeting thing, but it was always enough to quiet the emptiness inside her.
Senior Detective is quiet for a moment, looking at her sharply from where he’s working. They only have one shot at this. They need to get it perfect . “Minus one point,” he says, finally, and she can’t help but to be a little bit offended at the older man. “The moment is here at last, and you’re hesitating, Downtown Detective? We’ve already taken twenty-two lives – far be it from us to cling pathetically to our lives at this point.”
She doesn’t mention the lives she’s taken outside of this, nor her own enjoyment from it, her brows furrowing at the older man’s words. Her fingers come up to play with the chain of her necklace. She thinks about a head of dark hair that was brought to Morgue with the two of them. He looked the same age as her, actually.
“So why’d ya bring some random kid to the island, then?” Back to playing with her hair, shifting in place again as her heels tap against the carpeted floor of the manor. “I’m not gonna tattle on you to the Duke or anything,” Because god knows how he’ll take it, he’s worse than Inumi is, and that’s saying something, “But that’s like, totally against the rules … right?” It has to be, she thinks. It’d fuck up the Duke’s plans, probably incomprehensibly. Inumi knows the sort of victims that are dead because of him.
That gets a dry laugh from Senior, shaking his head slightly. “I’m not sure.” He admits, and Inumi doesn’t know how truthful he’s being - and she doesn’t care to look deeper into it. “Until now, I’ve always lived with the feeling that I’ve missed my chance to die.”
That almost makes her scoff – sure, she thinks. And she’s been too cowardly to really take her own life - working for the Duke because of Miyuki, and all too eager to take the chance of being one of his victims.
There’s only one person in this world that she cares about, she reminds herself, so everyone else can get screwed. She doesn’t care about anyone else, and she certainly doesn’t feel scared to get crushed to death under a chandelier. She’ll be framed as a poor victim instead of a suicidal mass murderer.
To entrust him with a fulfilling life I was never able to lead. What bullshit, she wants to say.
“Right,” she says, her voice coming out in more of a huff as she stretches. They’ve been working in between the chatter, and it helps her, a little bit. Gray eyes stare up at the lights, and the bitter feeling only grows. “Whatever – I just hope this doesn’t screw up our plans too heavily.” She’s scared. She turns on her heels, smoothing down the front of her skirt.
“I’m gonna go back down. I know what to do already.” Insist on coming here first, because it’s hot , and surely this place has gotta have an AC . She’ll rush off excitedly, and abandon her companions under the guise of being helpful to them.
They’ll come to find her corpse in the entryway.
She’ll get her release, finally, and she’ll take hers and Miyuki’s secrets to the grave. She’ll be hailed as a victim.
She tells herself that the fluttering in her chest, tightening up her throat, isn’t fear. It’s excitement.