Chapter 27 Twenty-seven Ghosts Behind

It was now the end of August, the hottest time of summer in Tokyo, and the Linorea set sail in the hot afternoon, so just as Akae said, when the cruise ship had left the port and Amuro Toru walked onto the deck, there were almost no people here.

He lowered his eyes to look at the white short-sleeved shirt on himself and decided to go back and brag about his subordinate Kazami who helped him buy the clothes.

Fortunately, he changed into this set of clothes before going out today, otherwise he might have been really sweating in the sun.

Toru Amuro stood with his forehead in the shadow cast by the large parasol, and rarely did he refrain from complaining when the ghosts came over from behind him - it was because it was so cool, as if he was carrying a mobile air conditioner with him.

"It's just as I guessed." Akajina Yue said in a good mood, "Gin didn't come to the deck."

Amuro Toru glanced at him and felt that he had every reason to suspect that Gin didn't come to the deck because he was worried that he would get heatstroke from the combination of black windbreaker and high-necked wool sweater.

Who is as bored as them, sunbathing on a cruise ship in the afternoon at the end of August?

...No, why is his way of thinking becoming more like that of the little devil!

It is true that every room on the cruise ship has air conditioning, but the central air conditioning in the restaurant is turned on 24 hours a day, and there is a free buffet and fruit drinks. Amuro Toru saw this in the tourist manual when making the reservation, so they all knew that only a few people would go on deck at this time.

In a sense, it might be easier to be on the deck than in the guest room without having to worry about being eavesdropped.

Of course, Amuro Toru had a purpose for coming here under the scorching sun.

The most famous thing about the Linoleia is their protection of tourists' privacy. This is mainly reflected in the fact that all places inside the cruise ship's cabins where tourists are allowed to go are claimed to be without any surveillance installed.

The only areas covered by surveillance are the decks, the bottom three levels, and the top level—the important operations room noted in the manual.

This is really not a very smart move. After all, the lack of surveillance means that there is no way to keep an eye on the movements of tourists on the ship at all times. If something happens, the staff on the cruise ship will have to spend more energy to deal with it.

At this point, we have to talk about another rule of the Linorea: boarding must be made by reservation, and only 300 reservations are available every two months. At the same time, another 100 places will be given out by lottery.

In other words, this cruise ship, which has enough guest rooms to accommodate a medium-sized cruise ship, actually carries only 400 passengers at a time, which is less than most small cruise ships.

This is also the source of most of Amuro Toru's doubts about the Linorea: there are so many guest rooms, why are they only accommodating less than half of the guests? What are the remaining guest rooms used for?

At the same time, most of the Linorea's activities were carried out on the upper floors. Amuro Toru, who was able to mobilize the organization's internal data, naturally discovered more anomalies here. For example, the so-called "operation room" that was prohibited from entering in the visitor's manual was not marked in the organization's internal data.

So now they are scouting the area - getting ready for tonight's investigation.

Before boarding the ship, Akae Nazuki was eager to reveal the spoilers, but unfortunately even he couldn't tease Amuro Toru in a mysterious way this time: Coincidentally, the Linorea in the main world sank due to some human mischief during a voyage before he inherited the organization, so Akae Nazuki didn't know about this cruise ship belonging to the organization.

However, he could still guess what was going on here, and he believed that Amuro Toru could actually guess it as well, but out of caution, an investigation was necessary.

Come to think of it, Akae Nazuki was a little curious as to why his 18-year-old self chose to end everything on this cruise ship. According to his thoughts, he should have committed suicide on the spot after successfully taking revenge on Black Label and Karasuma Renya.

What exactly is hidden in the Linorea is really curious.

"Don't worry too much. Your friend and his girlfriend are probably only two of the one hundred people who won the lottery." Akae Natsuki could see that Amuro Toru was absent-minded, and yawned lazily to comfort him, "Besides you, there are at least nearly four hundred ordinary people on the cruise ship. Even if it's Gin, at least he won't do anything rash this time."

"For example, they could blow the cruise ship in half, or fly an Osprey to sweep the deck, or use human wave tactics like they did to encircle me eight years ago—"

Amuro Toru called for a halt with a headache: "Stop, your guesses are getting more and more outrageous. We are still within the scope of Tokyo Bay. It would be strange if it turned out like that. The organization is not that high-profile..."

"Oh - low key?" Akae Nazuki deliberately stretched out the sound, waving her arms, letting them pass through Amuro Toru's shoulders and upper body, to express her 'dissatisfaction', "Who are you looking down on, Mr. Amuro?"

He then added in a rhythmic exaggeration: "This is a - great - organization!"

"...Okay, it's a bit disgusting." After saying this, Akajinazuki immediately made a disgusted sound, stuck out her tongue, and her voice returned to normal. "What I mean is, don't underestimate the organization's obsession with completing a mission, and the attitude of Gin's family towards traitors."

The boy's ghost was still hanging on Amuro Toru's back like a boneless person, with his chin resting weakly on his shoulder. His voice sounded a little unclear because of this posture - Amuro Toru was very confused. Akae Nazuki couldn't touch him at all, so how could his shoulder press against his cheek while he was talking - but one could clearly hear the schadenfreude in his words.

"Besides, what I said before was not a guess."

Akae Nazuki shook his index finger and said slowly, "He really did it before. Although some of them were not done in Japan, it doesn't matter. That's why you should be thankful that there are still many ordinary people this time. Gin's methods will be slightly restricted."

Amuro Toru couldn't describe how speechless his expression was at that moment. Thousands of words surged from his heart, and finally turned into a faint whisper through gritted teeth: "Damn organization..."

Akae Nayue, who heard it clearly, once thought that Amuro Toru would say "Gin, get out of my Japan".

Ahem, it doesn’t matter.

The Linorea was quite large, and they spent an entire afternoon on it, finally visiting all the accessible areas before sunset.

When they returned to the deck, even Amuro Toru, who was ridiculed by Akae Nazuki as a "physical monster gorilla", felt a little tired. However, he just sat under the parasol for a while and soon regained his spirits.

By this time, the temperature on the deck had almost dropped, and most of the tourists who had stayed indoors in the afternoon were scattered on the deck in twos and threes, admiring the scenery of the sea as the sun set.

After a good rest, Amuro Toru, in order not to make himself too conspicuous, also followed the advice and strolled to the west railing with his invisible spirit, and relaxed a little.

As soon as he relaxed, some doubts that had been suppressed before reappeared in Amuro Toru's mind.

"How much do you remember now?"

He was really curious. The little devil acted calm and relaxed most of the time. He didn't have the flustered look of a person with amnesia. Amuro even believed that if the other party had not taken the initiative to say that he had lost his memory at the beginning, he might not have discovered it until now.

This is not difficult to understand. After all, Akae Nazuki is the type who will not let others find that she is at a disadvantage. Amuro Toru has a deep understanding of this. To sum it up, even if she is seriously injured, she will act as if it is just a "scrape". He himself will sometimes act like this. However, Amuro Toru is still very concerned about Akae Nazuki's memory recovery. After all, the main purpose of their boarding this cruise ship is to help Akae Nazuki recover more memories and solve the secrets of eight years ago.

"Well..." When Akae Nazuki spoke, he was trying to hang himself on the railing next to Amuro Toru's hand. There was a fist's distance between the two. Hearing this, he answered without raising his head, "Except for what happened on the cruise ship, I basically remember everything."

Amuro Toru was almost scolded: "Wait, 'all'?"

Although if he thought about it carefully, he was not that surprised. After all, they had learned so many things from Tsuda Atsushi before. This stimulation must have been enough to help Akae Nazuki recover a lot of memories. If she even remembered how to play the violin, then there would be no suspense about other things.

But it was still very unexpected!

The ghost behind him hung on the railing, a pool of liquid cat flags, pretending to be blown by the sea breeze, and he kept nodding in response: "Yes - Yeah - otherwise how would I know Gin's style of doing things, are you just reacting?"

Toru Amuro covered his face: When he was on the deck in the afternoon, his attention was all on worrying about his squad leader and the action at night, and he really didn't think of this connection.

Moreover, regardless of whether Chi Jiang Na Yue had recovered her memory or not, she always looked very relaxed, so naturally he was not very sensitive in this regard.

It was also his fault that he had developed an unconditional trust in Chi Jiang Na Yue, and accepted everything she said within seconds, even habitually not asking about the source of the information.

This is not a good habit.

"Don't worry, I promised you when I was in Manhattan."

Cat Flag turned his head, and the hood covering his head almost covered his sparkling eyes. Amuro Toru lowered his head slightly and met his eyes. He only heard the other party say in a joking tone: "I had no choice before, but now I want to be a good person."

Toru Amuro was stunned and closed his eyes.

"It's really touching." Amuro Toru said coldly, "If you didn't learn the lines from the movie."

The exposed ghost showed an innocent and pure smile again. If you only look at his appearance, no one would guess that he was once a killer.

"He's an intelligent killer." Akae Nazuki Masamasa, "It's not impossible to rely on force, but it's a bit troublesome to explain to Yuu-chan that the blood on his clothes was not left by me beating up my classmates."

Amuro, Active Public Security Officer, Toru twitched his lips and said, "It's a shame that you can say such things so bluntly in front of me."

"Because I trust Mr. Amuro very much." Akae Nazuki said with a smile.

This is truly a heavy trust, thought Toru Amuro.

"Hey, Mr. Amuro?"

Someone behind him said in surprise: "I thought I was seeing things, but it turned out to be you."

Everyone behind them turned their heads in sync and saw a group of five people coming out of the corridor.

There were three men and two women, one of whom was Ida Kou and his girlfriend Natalie. The remaining three looked slightly familiar to Akae Nazuki.

"Oh." The schadenfreude in his voice became even stronger. "It seems that our Detective Amuro has another case before the expedition tonight."