Miss Holmes, the Professor Is Not a Villain
"Miss Holmes, the professor is not a villain."
"Don't lie!"
The girl cried out at his serene falsehood. Her shout carried the sting of betrayal toward the man she had once admired, tangled with the complex emotions she still harbored for him.
But Moriarty opened his mouth with a mocking smirk.
"It was just a simple logic puzzle I gave you to solve before summer came... You didn't review it properly, did you? If I'm not the villain, of course I'd say so. And even if I were, would I meekly admit it?"
A brief silence fell. Then, as if to provoke her further, Moriarty pressed on.
"If I'm lying, Miss Holmes, isn't it the detective's duty to expose that lie? Isn't that your role—someone who unravels riddles?"
"Don't try to wriggle out of it now!"
"Truly difficult... you're still so young. Well, I suppose I must make allowances. But I'm disappointed you've forgotten everything I taught you, Holmes. When we began mathematics, what did I emphasize first? Mathematicians spin all sorts of conjectures, but without proof, they're worthless—meaningless exertions, nothing more than crumbling sandcastles. So... can you prove it?"
At Moriarty's taunting question—like a gauntlet thrown down—Holmes felt her lips sting. She'd bitten them until they bled, without realizing it. Yet her mouth remained sealed, as if locked with a padlock.
No matter how she turned it over in her mind, she couldn't refute the man. Evidence? There was none. What Sherlock had pieced together was merely an unproven hypothesis, and no one but her would dare suspect the man standing before her. A hypothesis without proof could never uncover the truth.
But she couldn't let it end like this. Above all, she'd spotted the flaw in his words—a gap so obvious she wondered why it hadn't struck her immediately.
A flicker of unease tried to hold her back, but the betrayal burning toward Moriarty overwhelmed it. The girl spoke.
"Y-You're lying! Bluffing! If it were just me, you might have won... but I'm not alone! I have Mycroft oppa and Sherrinford oppa! At least people won't dismiss it lightly! We'll find the evidence you overlooked and send you to prison! You're wrong—it's over!"
Another brief silence. No answer came, and in a choking sob, Holmes wailed.
"Why? Why is it like this? I liked you—more than anyone! Why?!"
Sherlock wanted Moriarty to twist that impassive face in rage upon hearing her words. She longed for him to lunge at her, to harm her just to prove her right.
But he didn't. Instead, he mocked her.
"Well... you might not be entirely wrong. But tell me, Holmes—can you really go to people with this? You? Is it even possible?"
"W-What are you saying?"
Sherlock's voice trembled. She saw him advancing slowly, mockingly, but her feet were rooted, as if nailed to the spot.
She had to run. The truth no longer mattered. That certainty seized her.
But with a gentleness that was also cruelty, Moriarty knelt before her, patted her shoulder as if consoling a child, and whispered.
"You're desperately looking away, Sherlock. How can you become a good detective like that? Class isn't over yet... Remember this: never turn from the truth."
"W-What? What do you mean? No... don't! Don't say it! Please don't!"
The resolute girl had crumbled into tearful pleas.
But her teacher imparted the truth she'd tried to ignore.
"You were part of it too, weren't you? You helped kill your parents, Sherlock."
"I... I...!"
She hadn't even noticed he'd switched to her given name with intimate familiarity. Sherlock bowed her trembling head, fleeing his gaze.
As if it were inconsequential, Moriarty whispered on.
"By your own hypothesis, it wasn't just me, was it? You were in it too, Sherlock. You're a villain as well. We killed them together. You planted that seed of suspicion between your parents, on my advice. Leaving out your involvement isn't a good habit, my young disciple."
"N-No... I didn't! I didn't kill them! It's... all lies! No! I didn't! I... I...!"
"Sherlock, Sherlock—don't disappoint me further. You're no ordinary child; you're just too clever by half. I like you that way, of course... but can you truly claim you knew nothing? You already know it in your heart—you admit it to yourself. You're an accomplice. Don't deny it; do you think I can't read that in you? It was us, together. We brought about their deaths. Well, assuming your flimsy little hypothesis—so don't take it to heart. No one can prove it anyway, right? Or shall we just confess?"
"P-Please... don't... No... it's... all my... my fault... Ahh...!"
The girl couldn't deny her teacher's words. He was right. She'd sensed it vaguely already. But the horrific truth was too much to accept fully, so she'd pushed it away, denied it.
Moriarty's words struck home, and without realizing, Sherlock half-collapsed.
It was a truth too heavy, too grotesque for any girl to bear—a mere fragment of it, even.
One couldn't blame Sherlock alone.
Moriarty had advised using a red herring to divert her mother's attention. Only now did she realize she had been that herring.
But what did it matter? Only now could the girl see she couldn't fully curse the man before her.
She understood the root of her tangled emotions.
How could she hate him completely? She'd played her part, just as he'd said!
And could she bear to tell Mycroft and Sherrinford, risking that horrific truth's exposure?
She was terrified. Everything terrified her now.
For a girl as young as Sherlock, it was an unbearable ordeal.
Of course, a touch of cool reason would show there was no fault in her at all. She'd simply been used by the monstrous villain Moriarty—no one could brand her accomplice or say she'd aided her parents' deaths.
Her devoted brothers would never resent her for it.
But did that matter now? When she couldn't forgive herself?
And so the girl Sherlock crumbled to the ground.
Moriarty watched silently, studying her as she lay there motionless, seemingly lifeless.
Her face was unreadable; he couldn't probe her mind.
But as he stared at the back of her head—frozen as if her spirit had shattered—boredom washed over him suddenly.
Oh dear, has she broken after all?
Moriarty thought. If so, a pity. In the end, she was just a girl. The world would grow dull again.
But that was that. She would have been ideal, yet he'd just proven other diversions awaited.
Still, he'd be lying if he claimed no regret. A cherished disciple would have made it all the more thrilling.
Leisurely, he waited for the pupil he must guide.
Silence stretched on. Sadly, she lay utterly broken, unmoving.
Moriarty sighed, turning to go.
But the grind of her teeth pierced the air, halting him unwittingly.
Turning back, he saw Sherlock—smiling. Radiantly so.
In stark contrast, the girl fixed him with a murderous glare, staggering to her feet.
Still reeling from the shock, wobbling slightly, but Detective Sherlock Holmes locked eyes on Professor Moriarty and cried out in a howl of defiance.
"Next time... next time it'll be different! Y-You won't stop here—someone like you! I'll... I'll catch you! Destroy you! I'll stake everything to ruin you and prove I'm right! My whole life if I must! I'll... erase you! Make you regret!"
"Yes. I'll be waiting, Holmes."
"You'll regret sparing me today! I'll stop you—for good!"
She drew deep breaths to quell her frenzy. She ached to exult, but this was merely the beginning.
Astonishingly—beautifully—the girl hadn't shattered! She masked her fractures with that glare, but she stood unbroken! What a splendid child.
As her teacher, he yearned to praise her, but preparations were needed for his student's sake.
A carriage approached from afar. Moriarty departed with lingering regrets, refusing to glance back as he hefted his luggage and strode toward it.
No need—he knew. London's premier detective—no, Britain's—was glaring daggers at her nemesis.
How exquisite!
Soon the carriage rolled away. He kept his eyes outward, shunning the dreary hamlet.
Instead, glorious days brimmed with delights tailored for him alone.
"Life is so beautiful, London! England! You're lovely, yet so dull! Moriarty leads the way—Holmes will follow."
No drink had passed his lips, yet like a man intoxicated, he whooped once they'd gained distance.
A rightful rapture. For now, everything truly began.
He must ready the fitting education for the Sherlock who would seek him out.
Fortune smiled: Britain and London had prepared it all for him.
This place, once boring to the point of hatred, was crafted for him!
Much work lay ahead. No more tedious cities.
London and England—teeming with vagrants, whores, pickpockets, murderers, laborers, greedy, trite capitalists, and politicians—craved order. He would forge a new kingdom.
Purge the petty-crime cesspool. Replace it with a sinful metropolis brimming with riddles—for him and Sherlock.
He thanked it all sincerely, this reborn life.
In repayment, now came the unraveling of everything.
Crafting riddles, shattering them—pure ecstasy.
Sherlock had proven it all possible.
Thus, raze London and England, culminating in Sherlock's exquisite ruin—a fitting tribute.
The proper stance for the greatest detective's grandest pleasure.
He adored his young disciple—as such, though distinctions in affection hardly mattered.
Moriarty loved the world and its demise; loved Sherlock Holmes and her downfall.
That winter's end, the twenty-one-year-old James Moriarty published a paper on the binary integral equation, drawing the acclaim of Europe's mathematical circles. For this achievement, he was appointed professor of mathematics at Oxford Christ Church College.