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Pulling a cigarette out of his pocket, Shibazaki lit it. He leaned against a large tree, its roots gnarled into the soil around it. He took a long drag of the cigarette, then exhaled. He hadn’t changed out of his work clothes, his wrinkled shirt clung to his body and his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. The cicada’s chirped, the noise amplified in the small space. Shibazaki hated summer. It was at times like this that reminded him of his childhood. Growing up in Hiroshima after the war hadn’t been an eventful life. Curiously, he eyed the girl in front of him. She was struggling to pound a wooden stake into the ground, which was surrounded by other stakes. Had she put them all up? Lisa Mishima, who was she and how had she gotten involved with Sphinx? Who was Sphinx and what had they wanted? It was on the international stage, especially after the power had come back on. The screams of last night rung in his head, he still was having trouble coming to terms with the fact that the serial bombers were dead. Once the helicopters had flown away, Shibazaki had taken the girl into custody. She had barely put up a fight, she had only hunched over Sphinx’s dead bodies in shock. In the past 24 hours, the Metropolitan Police Department had unsuccessfully tried to get a word out of her, until she had asked to come back here. Initially, she’d wanted to come here alone, but the department had refused.
After some thought, she’d pointed to Shibazaki “He can come.”
The rest of the police department had been against Shibazaki coming here today.
“Stockholm syndrome, she could be dangerous.”
“We should arrest her on the charges of aiding and abetting!”
“What if she’s Sphinx 3?”
“She could be hiding another bomb.”
“Let’s interrogate her!”
Shibazaki had ignored their pleas, and obliged with Lisa’s request. Her brow was now furrowed in concentration as she picked up a mallet with trembling hands.
Her face was red as she cursed. “Damn it! Why won’t you stay?”
Tears pricked her eyes as she finally dropped the mallet in frustration. Shibazaki rose an eyebrow, unimpressed. For the past hour, the girl had been trying to hammer a stake into the grass with no avail. Shibazaki took one final drag of his cigarette and then dropped it, crushing it with the heel of his shoe. He walked over to the girl and knelt, resting his elbows on his knees. Looking at the stakes, the detective realized there were markings on them. Numbers.
“9.” He mouthed.
Lisa looked up, startled. “Huh?”
Shibazaki frowned, running his fingers over the wood. “Nine, was he the one who was shot?”
“No.” she replied sharply, tears stinging her cheeks.
He waited for her to elaborate but when it became clear she wouldn’t say any more, Shibazaki stood up and picked up one of the stakes. He took the mallet and hammered the stake into the ground. When he was satisfied it would stand on his own, he took a step back, wiping his forehead. His gaze wandered over other stakes that surrounded the one he had just put up. Numbers marked every one of them. Shibazaki silently counted 25 stakes altogether.
“You’re kidding me…” He whispered, eyes wide. “It can’t be.”
“Umm…” he turned to face Lisa, who held up another stake, lip trembling. “There’s one more.”
Shibazaki took it from her and turned back to the rest of them. If he had any doubt on who Sphinx had been before, this cleared it up. Blood hammered in his ears as loudly as the stake he hammered into the ground.
Wiping sweat from his brow, stared at the stakes in disbelief. “These are the graves of the 26 children who lost their lives to The Athena Project.”
Lisa sat cross-legged in front of the graves, eyes closed and hands together. “Thank you.” She said, “Even if I had the strength, I - - I don’t think I could’ve brought myself to…” her voice died off.
Placing the mallet beside him, he sat down beside Lisa. Together they sat in silence for a while with nothing but the sounds of summer to keep them company.
Shibazaki spoke up, shattering the silence. “How’d you know them?”
Lisa recoiled slightly, and Shibazaki cursed himself. He’d just broken whatever unspoken agreement the two of them had had. They resorted back to sitting in silence, the sun beat down on them while the cicada’s cried. For a brief moment, Shibazaki was reminded of the funerals he’s been to during his summers in Hiroshima. Strangers, friends and family alike had fallen victim to the aftermath of the war, even though they weren’t soldiers. He grit his teeth, willing himself to forget about those summers. Too many familiar faces had fallen.
“I stumbled across him one day.” Lisa’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Twelve.”
Shibazaki opened one eye lazily “Hmmm?”
Lisa took a deep breath and continued. “He’d been planting bombs in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.” Shibazaki stifled a gasp, hiding the detective in him. There was so much more he wanted to know. How had they gotten the bombs past security? How far had they planned ahead? Had Lisa known beforehand about the bombing? “And I’d been evacuating the building when Hisami – I mean Twelve handed me a bomb … and told me not to let go of it. He made me promise.”
Shibazaki gave Lisa a blank stare. Was Lisa Mishima just an idiot? “Why wouldn’t you let go of it? Clearly it was dangerous.”
Lisa gave him a small smile. “It’d been disguised as Kururin.”
“Huh?” Shibazaki’s face was still blank, not understanding.
Lisa blushed. “Oh! Um, Kururin is… never mind.” Shibazaki wanted to press on, but Lisa never gave him the chance. “After that, I became an accomplice to Sphinx.”
Shibazaki swore under his breath and Lisa’s face went red. “Were you the one responsible for the subway bomb?”
Lisa’s eyes flew open as she waved her hands frantically. “No, no! That wasn’t me, it wasn’t exactly Sphinx either though.
“Wasn’t exactly?” Shibazaki rose an eyebrow. This piqued his interest.
Lisa sighed in response. “Never mind, it’s a long story.”
Tilting his head back, Shibazaki checked his watch. “I have time.” Even after finding the atomic bomb and Sphinx, the department hadn’t officially welcomed him back. He’d told them he’d be back with Lisa in a couple of hours, but he had no obligation to.
“Won’t your friends be worried?” Lisa asked, “I mean, you go off with a suspected terrorist and don’t answer their calls?”
Shibazaki snorted at that. “They’ll live. Although I’m not sure I will at the hands of a suspected terrorist.” It was Lisa’s turn to laugh at that.
Shibazaki pulled a recorder from his pocket and tilted his head towards Lisa. “May I?” He didn’t care if he was being too blunt, he just didn’t know if he’d ever get a chance to hear the story again.
Lisa hesitated for a moment before nodding. Shibazaki pulled out a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. He ran his hand through his hair before stating “I should warn you though, anything you say can and may be used against you in the court of law.”
Digging her fingers into the folds of her dress, Lisa took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
The summer sun hung high in the air now, plastering Shibazaki’s hair to his forehead as Lisa began to tell her story. It shocked him, some of the things Lisa admitted. Her gestures were animated and her eyes were wide, as if she could hardly believe the story she was telling herself.
At times, she paused, as if it were a fragment of a dream she had trouble hanging onto “And when the police questioned me, I was terrified. I thought they’d take me back to my mother.”
Shibazaki looked at Lisa questioningly. “Why’d you run away from home?”
Lisa took a sudden interest in her fingernails, in an attempt to ignore the question. Shibazaki’s question still hung in the air. “Oh… Things were never great between my mother and I. she… she made me believe that I would be an awful person if I left her. For years…” her voice caught now, thick with pain “She used me as a punching bag after dad left.” Whereas her voice had been like the gentle caress of the wind before, it now carried the darkness of a summer storm. “I hated it, every second there. When Twelve rescued me from the police, I’d never felt so free.” She finished, voice breaking on the last word.
She slumped down, tracing her finger in the dirt in front of Twelve’s grave. After collecting her thoughts, she continued to recall her story. She admitted that she’d played a role in the Tokyo Haneda Airport bombing, but she confirmed the detective’s suspicion of Five.
“Who was that woman exactly?” Shibazaki interrupted.
Lisa thought about it for a while. “I’m not entirely sure. If I had to say, I’d say she was a part of The Athena Plan as well. Nine — he looked like he knew her.” She motioned to a stake marked with the number 5. “He’s the one who put it up.”
Lisa proceeded to tell her story, up until the final moments she had spent with Nine and Twelve. “I thought things would stay this way.” She admitted. “I guess I was naïve to think that.”
The moon was up and a cool breeze rolled through Shibazaki’s hair. It wasn’t as hot as it’d been a few hours ago.
Lisa looked up at the stars, and back down at the graves. “You know how the rest of the story goes.” She stood up, stretching her arms. She bit her lip, fiddling with her hands. “Um…” she motioned to the recorder. “Will you tell the police what I just told you?”
Shibazaki stood, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He was sore from sitting outside in the sun for too long. “Well, it’s complicated. If I give the police the testimony, you could be in trouble as well for aiding and abetting criminals.”
“They weren’t criminals!” Lisa shouted, her voice filling up the space.
Shibazaki just looked at her sadly. “I know, but the justice system won’t care. As for me, I’m not on the police force anymore, so I’m not obligated to turn this,” he held out the recorder, smirking. “In to them.”
Lisa seemed to deflate a little. “Oh… but I was hoping…”
It clicked together in Shibazaki’s mind. The reason she’d come out here today. Maybe she hadn’t planned it initially, but once she told him what had happened, she’d wanted it to go public. “You want the truth to get out.” She nodded, eyes glued to her feet. “You know what that means, don’t you?”
Lisa looked up at him, anger flickering across her face like lightning. “I – I don’t care for my life!”
Shibazaki remembered that boy. How young he must’ve been to shoulder such a heavy burden. He remembered when he got his phone call, pleading to stop the airplane. In a way, Nine reminded Shibazaki of himself when he’d been young. “Well, I did promise that boy.”
Lisa looked up. “So you’ll do it?”
“Miss Mishima, if I do this, you will be at risk.”
Lisa’s hands were trembling “I don’t care if my mother –“
“Not your mother.” Shibazaki cut her off sharply. “The Rising Peace Academy. How many politicians and government officials do you think were in on The Athena Plan?”
Lisa faltered. “I don’t –“
“These are people who have the money and the means to make you disappear if their own reputations were at stake!” He thought back to Dr. Mamiya, and how he’d had the power to keep Shibazaki working in the archives.
Lisa squared up against Shibazaki, her voice betraying her brave face. “Nine and Twelve – they risked their lives to let people know! I need…” her sentence broke off as she teared up. “I need to make sure that people hear their story.” She took a deep breath, wiping her eyes with the palm of her hands. “I don’t care what happens to me, please help me!”
While his grandmother had been alive, she had told Shibazaki that teenagers were the season of summer. Shibazaki had been a teenager himself then, despising the sweltering summers he’d had to endure. Now, he was seeing what his grandmother had meant. Lisa and Sphinx, they were the embodiment of summer. After their birth, they’d struggled to grow against harsh winter winds. They’d survived the winter only to bloom in a rainy spring. Now, they were restless, they had grown like weeds. They were the sun in the summer, demanding to be felt. They were storms in the heat of the summer, impatient, dangerous and quick to strike. Before him, he saw that Lisa would not give up. She would fight with all she had and in the glare of the summer, she would stand tall.
“Summer, huh?” Shibazaki looked up at the sky, smiling. “I get it now, grandma.”
He held his hand out to Lisa, who stared uncomprehendingly at it. “I’ll help you.” He confirmed.
Lisa’s eyes widened. She hadn’t expected the detective to help, even though Nine had held such faith in him. He was bound by the law after all.
But here he was, holding his hand out to Lisa “Um, thank you very much…” Lisa started, “Why’d you agree? I thought you’d been against Sphinx!”
Shibazaki wasn’t too sure himself. “I was against Sphinx.” He confessed. “But in an older life, they would have been called something else.”
He remembered how he and his friends had been in the riots, protesting for the government to do something about the radiation that was slowly killing the city. He remembered bits of how long the court proceedings had taken. In the end, the Japanese government set up a tribunal for those who’d been affected by the atomic bomb. Shibazaki had been livid with the result. There would never be any compensation for all of those who had died — were still dying in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Everything summer had stolen away from him, his friends, his father and his grandmother. He could never get those years back, never get his loved ones back.
But looking at Lisa, he could do something to help her. “They reminded me of myself.” was the only explanation he offered as he began walking away from the graves.
Lisa stood there, shocked but when she realized what Shibazaki had said, she ran up to him, a new spring in her step. As they started making their way back to the police force, Shibazaki was deep in thought. He might’ve reached the fall stages in his life, but he was beginning to think that this summer was the start of something new.