I'll Be Back Shortly
Captain Earth and Captain Kid were heading back by car.
"……What do you make of it?"
Captain Kid shot him a glance.
"What the phantom thief said?"
"Yes."
"……I don't think it was a lie."
Captain Earth believed the phantom thief had told the truth.
"We already had suspicion enough."
"That is true. But there was never any decisive evidence."
"Right. That's the problem."
The villains had taken an enormous commission and carried out the attack. Under interrogation, from the small fry all the way up to the officers, their statements had been consistent. That much was beyond dispute.
The trouble came after. They could not identify the client, and several of the boss villains had locked their mouths shut.
"We're out of time."
Only a day had passed since the attack on Hawaii. There was neither time enough to investigate nor the people to do it. They did not even have prisons enough to hold the villains. How were they supposed to investigate anything?
Superpowered villains had to be confined in special prisons, and Hawaii had few of those. Back in the United States, they were still arguing over a separate transport all the way to the mainland.
"We cannot leave Ilshikgyo as it is."
"No. But this isn't the place that's urgent."
If it were only his heart, he would have torn Hawaii apart in the search. But the moment he pictured the slaughter unfolding on the far side of the world, the choice refused to come easily.
"You mean to go? The Hero Association will not be pleased."
"If they've got a complaint, they can drag Nelson and Dmitri along. Then I'll at least hear them out."
Captain Earth snorted.
"……You and your jokes."
"Even those two would've been furious, and they still would've let me go."
"I guarantee they would have tried to stop you like men possessed."
"And if you add Peyton?"
"Oh……."
Captain Earth—no, Steven Turner—thought of the old comrades who were gone, and chuckled.
"If they'd lived this long, it would've been quite a time."
"I will not deny that……. Would you still have been a soldier, even then?"
"Well. You've got a point there, too."
Steven Turner closed his eyes, then opened them.
He was Captain Earth again.
"Anyway, I've already decided. Don't try to stop me."
"And when have you ever listened?"
"That's true, too."
The two of them laughed, quietly.
"Watch the villains closely. Don't let a single one of them die. The moment someone dies, from then on it's certain."
"I will remember. Then when should I go?"
"Hmm……."
It would have been a comfort to have Captain Kid beside him. Even so.
"You stay here."
"……Will you be all right? It will not go as you imagine."
"I suppose not. But I can't shake the feeling."
"A kind of instinct?"
"That, and the Korean heroes are on my mind."
He thought of them. The boy named Dan Chuyeon, who stirred an odd, immediate familiarity. His father, who carried a vast Life within him. The teacher, bearing an immortal's presence that could not possibly belong to her years. A very peculiar cat. A mother who looked like a hardened special operative. And a phantom thief whose identity he could not grasp.
"Would they have come to Hawaii for no reason at all?"
"I doubt it."
"The story about a vacation is probably true. But there may be another purpose inside it."
Captain Earth trusted his instincts.
"Stay on good terms with them. You can follow them around, for all I care."
"Understood."
The car stopped.
"Will you leave at once?"
"……I should."
Earth weighed it, then answered outright.
"Have the private jet ready."
"Understood."
Captain Earth looked back the way they had come.
——.
What had the phantom thief meant by those first words? And how had he known?
What is he. What, exactly.
The man had definitely been at the meal. Retrace the memory, and he had definitely been there. Yet Captain Earth had not been able to feel his presence at all. He had dismissed him the way one dismisses the scenery of nature itself, and only when the man spoke did he finally know. No—not know. He had been made to know.
Kid didn't say a word.
He had never given a profile of the person called the phantom thief. No. He had. The problem was that the memory was faint, nothing more than the sense that such a person had been present. Only after Captain Earth recognized the phantom thief did the memory come back whole.
Who are you. Who.
A concealment-type power? Or something in the line of memory manipulation?
Captain Earth felt it in his gut. This was not a fact he could let pass lightly. There was something about the phantom thief. Something very special.
No answer.
The friend who had always been at his side was silent.
This is the first time.
The friend showed no feeling at all. He stayed perfectly consistent, as if the phantom thief had never existed in the first place.
"To exist, and yet not exist……."
A contradiction.
"Earth, we're ready. By tomorrow you can be in France."
"All right."
Captain Earth folded the phantom thief away with care and set him down inside his heart, as if swearing he would never forget.
Before he left, he posted a single line.
That one sentence sent a tremendous echo through the world. Great enough to bury the incident in Hawaii.
A tremendous echo.
We slipped out of the hotel where we had been staying and headed for the airport.
"This is serious."
"Yes. Worse than expected."
The streets of Hawaii were so ruined there was nowhere left for a car to pass. Construction machines worked without pause, clearing the collapsed buildings, and the people on the sidewalks wore stricken faces. Here and there someone wailed at the top of their lungs, and the shops had their doors shut tight.
"……Mr. Phantom. You can catch Ilshikgyo, can't you?"
"I don't know."
If I could have, I would have caught them already.
"Seeing this, I have to wonder whether we ought to go on with the vacation."
"You're welcome to go back. I can handle it myself."
Hong Yumin clicked her tongue.
"Rotten wretch. You do know how to choose only the unpleasant things to say."
"You already agreed, didn't you?"
"Th-that mouth of his!"
"Mr. Phantom……."
Dan Miryu's brow gave a small twitch. Hong Yumin's face turned vicious.
"Grr!"
San-gun's paw swelled, and he cracked me across the back of the head.
Thwack!
"Well struck, Lord San-gun."
"As expected of San-gun."
"Hit him just once more."
"San-gun is the best."
How did I not have a single person on my side?
"If you're not leaving, then there's nothing I can—"
Thwack! Thwack!
"Grrrrrr!"
"Kyaaa! Lord San-gun! I love you!"
"Our San-gun is the greatest!"
Hong Yumin and Mi Soryeong bounced San-gun up and down, heaping praise on him. Dan Chuyeon clenched a small fist. Dan Miryu looked thoroughly satisfied.
"……It's the airport."
"I know. Be quiet."
"……Yes."
I folded in on myself and stayed quiet in the car. In the rearview mirror, San-gun glared at me.
How sad.
We took a plane to the Big Island, one of the islands of Hawaii. Yes—the one with Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The place where the active volcano Kilauea stood.
"I thought we would come here much later. The schedule has gotten tangled."
Dan Miryu smiled bitterly.
We dropped our bags at a luxury hotel, then drove out to the national park.
"We can't get in."
"……Damn."
But we could not enter. Some directive must have come down because of the attack on Hawaii. Ordinary vehicles were barred from the park. A man who looked like security approached and turned us away.
"Do we absolutely have to go in there?"
"Yes. We have to."
I was the one who had insisted we come to the Big Island. Of every place in the original story, this was where Ilshikgyo's movements had come to light.
"We'll have to sneak in."
"……How did it come to this."
Dan Miryu heaved sigh after sigh.
By Hong Yumin's power, we slipped into Kilauea without being seen. The mouth of Kilauea. Halemaumau Crater. The nearer we drew to the crater, the more the heat pressed in.
"Ms. Hong Yumin, are you keeping them properly protected?"
"What do you take me for. The protection is certain. Do not fret."
Dan Chuyeon and Mi Soryeong stood at Hong Yumin's side. They did not seem to feel the heat at all.
"Is it all right for us to be here? I feel we would only get in the way."
Mi Soryeong let her worry show.
"Leave the two of you on your own, and it will be trouble if something happens. At a time like this, it is better to move together."
"Mmm……."
"Well. A crater is hardly a place one comes to easily. Think of it as sightseeing."
"……Haa."
Mi Soryeong smiled bitterly.
"Ugh. Master, I'm dizzy."
"Do not play at being frail. You, who hold nature itself, staggering before a volcano—what do you mean to do."
"The power of fire and earth feels too strong!"
"Do not refuse it. Accept it."
Hong Yumin taught Dan Chuyeon as if the moment were an opportunity.
"Mr. Phantom. Do you see any trace of Ilshikgyo?"
"……."
I looked all around the crater. There was no trace.
"Ms. Hong Yumin, do you see anything?"
"Nothing. Not a thing, mask."
Hmm.
I looked to where the lava spilled free. Magma surged up out of the pit and became lava. Halemaumau Crater was a lake of it.
"It's dangerous, Mr. Phantom."
"There can't be nothing."
Dan Miryu tried to hold me back, and still I went close enough to fall. Something. There was something. Something inside this. A powerful pull. The phantom thief's power told me so. Just as with Hong Yumin, there was a hidden place.
"Mr. Dan Miryu. Ilshikgyo is on the Big Island. They must be. If they are not here, go to Mauna Loa. If they are not there either, search the shadows."
"Mr. Phantom! Get out of there!"
A deep groan rolled up through the stone. Lava spilled over its banks. The volcano shuddered.
"I'll be back shortly."
"Mr. Phantom?!"
I ignored Dan Miryu's shout and threw myself into Halemaumau Crater. For an instant I was weightless. Then the lava swallowed me.