Yoshihiro Kira's trust in Inori hovered at essentially negative — and Inori hadn't expected useful information from him anyway. He was an old man who had died years ago, with nothing left to live for but his son. Now that son was dead by her hand. He had no reason to go on.
Inori couldn't think of a single bargaining chip that would work on this particular ghost. If Yoshikage Kira had still had breath in him, all she'd need was to hold the son hostage — the old man would agree to anything in an instant. But that ship had sailed.
She didn't regret killing Kira. Taking him down had been satisfying in a way few things were. If she had to do it again, she wouldn't hesitate.
"It's fine. I have a general idea of where things are hidden anyway."
"Hmph — you think saying that will get me to talk?" The old man in the photo snarled back. "You can't bluff me! I'm taking Yoshikage's secrets to the grave!"
"I'm not bluffing. I genuinely just have a few guesses."
Inori suppressed a laugh and answered with complete candor.
True, what she'd said did sound exactly like a bluff designed to provoke Yoshihiro's suspicion and get him to inadvertently reveal the bone's real location — but fishing required bait, and she had none. What was she supposed to lure him with?
Going by Kira's way of thinking: he would never have kept the relic bone close to home. A piece of bone, if seen by his wife or child, would be impossible to explain. That left two candidates. First — the old Kira Residence, but Inori's team had swept it and found nothing. Second — Lovers' Cape.
Because a man as clever and self-assured as Yoshikage Kira favored contrarian logic. The most dangerous place was the safest place. The relic bone had originally been found at Lovers' Cape — returning it there would both confuse anyone looking and hide it in plain sight.
In any case, that was all predicated on him still being alive.
Even if the relic bone turned up, it hardly mattered now. In Kira's view, the only person who knew he'd become Kosaku Kawajiri was his own father — the bone was a liability with no upside while he was in hiding. More than anything, he had voluntarily abandoned his original body and surrendered the Stand Arrow that had served their family for years — all to fool Heaven's Door and make Inori's group believe he was truly dead.
He had intended to bury the bone alongside the decoy corpse, but thought better of it: what if Inori used it to uncover the secret of Great Days? Better to hide it somewhere else.
—Based on everything she knew about Yoshikage Kira, that was exactly how he'd have thought.
Of course, there was a real possibility she was just flattering herself, and Kira had simply dropped the bone in the nearest bin, where it had long since been swept out to sea or recycled into something else entirely.
"Kill me already! Stop dragging it out, get it over with!"
"You're not getting anything about Yoshikage from my mouth!"
"Mm."
Inori had never intended to let him live anyway. Setting aside whether the man was good or evil — leaving him to go on existing in the agony of grief over a dead son was its own kind of cruelty.
She folded the photo with both hands and walked briskly out of the study, heading for the second-floor bathroom.
"Where... where are you taking me?"
"To see your son."
A faint, wicked smile crossed her face.
From the living room downstairs came a sound — a cry, sharp and devastating. The Kawajiri mother and son. They had apparently just received word of Kosaku Kawajiri's death at the accident scene.
"Do you hear that? Another family destroyed by you two."
"...Please! Don't — I can't drown — please, anything but that — just make it quick!" The moment he caught sight of the gleaming toilet bowl, every scrap of bravado left the old man. Never mind other people's suffering — Yoshihiro had always had a deep, visceral fear of water. Drowning was the most agonizing death imaginable. And not just drowning — being flushed down into the pipes below, mingling with all of that filth down there—
"Wallow in the sewer in despair and enjoy the treatment you deserve. This is the ending that suits two maggots like you and your son."
"No — no — NOOO!"
No amount of screaming would help him. Inori balled the photograph up in both hands and dropped it into the bowl. The paper softened in the water with a low, burbling sound — it seemed the old man was drinking deep down there.
"Bon appétit."
She gave a cold laugh and pressed the flush.
Yoshihiro Kira's soul followed the photo down with the current, swept deeper and deeper into the dark — where he would suffer for hours before finally going still.
Go ahead and reflect on your sins.
The wailing from downstairs lodged in Inori's chest and wouldn't leave — but it was unavoidable. The same words she had once said to Shu Ouma came back to her: don't mistake what happens in front of you for your own failure. No matter how strong you are, you cannot save everyone. Sacrifice is inevitable. The ones who owe the dead an answer are the criminals — the only thing you can do is make sure those criminals face the consequences.
Hayato had understood this already. He was calm, accepting. But Shinobu Kawajiri had broken completely, her sobs escalating into something raw and uncontrolled.
She had never much liked the husband she'd had before — but the husband who'd come back to her lately had been so different. So unexpectedly tender. Something had begun to stir in her. And yet, and yet — they had shared a bed for so many years. The warmth of familiarity doesn't die overnight. And now her home was falling apart.
Inori didn't go back to see Hayato. She thought it was probably better that way — the boy might not want to look at his father's killer.
The time was just before ten-thirty. She'd promised to look after Jolyne, and instead she'd left the girl with Josuke for nearly six hours — that was going to sting. But there was nothing to be done. Even she had things she couldn't manage simultaneously, and she hadn't mastered Shadow Clone Jutsu to be in two places at once.
After leaving the Kawajiri household, Inori walked the empty night road and decided to call Josuke first.
"Hey! Onee-san, you finally picked up — where did you go?!"
The call connected to Josuke yelling at full volume. Inori reflexively held the phone away from her ear.
"I ran into a Stand user. Taken care of."
She wasn't going to tell them about Kosaku Kawajiri. Let the real Yoshikage Kira stay dead from that day forward, as far as everyone was concerned.
"You scared me half to death."
Josuke exhaled with relief. False alarm.
"You took off from the restaurant this afternoon without a word... everyone was worried."
"Were they? I..."
She stopped mid-sentence.
—They don't remember Yasuho anymore. The world has already closed over her existence.
She had been a surplus presence — someone forcibly transplanted into this timeline by Killer Queen. Everything connected to her was being quietly corrected. Even the reason Inori had left the restaurant this afternoon had been erased from everyone's memory. Anything relating to Yasuho would be overwritten — for instance, Hayato had already believed the person who'd rescued him and brought him here that day was Inori herself, not Yasuho.
"Just needed some air~"
Inori laughed it off, light and easy.
The truth, the beautiful, and the memories — all of it dissolved into the cold night breeze against her face.