Villain: Your Heroines Were Delicious-Chapter 221 - 9

Outside the charred, skeletal remains of the Otsuka Sanatorium, the mid-afternoon sun felt uncharacteristically weak, as if the building were actively leaching the warmth from the sky.

The three of them stood in the tall, dry weeds of the perimeter, their breathing coming in synchronized, ragged puffs as the adrenaline of the lobby encounter slowly ebbed away.

They turned their heads back toward the looming structure, its hollowed-out windows staring back like the empty sockets of a skull.

"It seems like this will be harder than I thought," Seijirou muttered, his breathing starting to calm down.

Rindou’s brow was furrowed, her lips pressed into a thin, hard line as she clenched her fist in frustration. "I agree. Aside from the obvious traces of gang activity and the residual filth left by those ’Blowers,’ we haven’t found a single concrete clue as to why this specific haunting is targeted to Kusana-san. A location can be cursed, yes, but this level of persistent, long-range manifestation usually requires a physical catalyst or a blood debt."

Just then, Tamaki spoke, her voice was barely a whisper, loke a fragile thread of sound that seemed to tremble in the air. "I... I think... I think I may have found something. Back there. In the dark."

Seijirou and Rindou both turned their gaze toward her, their expressions sharpening into a focused, clinical intensity.

Tamaki swallowed hard, her eyes darting toward the hospital one last time before looking at her feet. "W-While those things were surrounding me... while the world was swirling... I saw her. A spirit of a girl. She wasn’t like the others. She wasn’t smiling. I... I saw her getting raped by those ghosts at the back of the lobby. It was like a memory playing on the walls. It was so real... I could hear her crying. Then...then...she turned at me...as if...as if wanting me to stay there..."

Rindou’s eyes brightened, a flash of professional inspiration crossing her face. "That’s a clue. A strong one."

Seijirou nodded slowly, his mind already beginning to map out the causality. "Now all we need to know is who that girl is. Once we identify her, we can solve the issue of how and why she is haunting Tamaki. Once we deal with that haunting stuff, we deal with those gangsters who are using this place as a playground."

"Let’s go to the police station," Rindou decided, her voice regaining its authoritative edge. "We need access to the cold case files and the missing persons registry from the last two decades. We’ll ask my father for help; he has the clearance to bypass almost every thing and allow us to see those things. Do you think you know what that girl looks like? Can you describe her, Kusana-san?"

Tamaki nodded, her hands still shaking. "I... I couldn’t picture every detail clearly because of the flickering light, but if I saw a photo, I’d be able to recognize her instantly. Her face... it’s burned into my mind."

"Very well. Let’s go. Every minute we spend in the vicinity of this building only strengthens the link," Rindou said, gesturing for them to follow her back to the waiting black sedan.

*

*

*

The 24th District Police Station.

The atmosphere inside the police headquarters was a stark contrast to the stagnant rot of the sanatorium.

It was a place of high-intensity fluorescent lights, the rhythmic clacking of keyboards, and the bustling energy of detectives.

Rindou led them past the front desks, her status as the Superintendent’s daughter and, secretly, a Grand Order associate granting them an unimpeded path to the upper offices.

Seijirou, Rindou, and Tamaki waited in a quiet, glass-walled office that smelled of ozone and strong coffee.

A few minutes later, the door swung open, and Kobayashi Ieyasu, Rindou’s father, walked in.

He was a man who carried the weight of the city on his broad shoulders, his face a map of stern lines and suppressed weariness, and he was holding a thick, manila folder.

"I got your message. These are the files containing the information of missing girls and unsolved deaths reported after the hospital was partially burned down twenty years ago," Ieyasu said, his voice a deep, gravelly baritone.

He looked at Seijirou for a moment—a look of cautiousness and respect—before handing the folder to his daughter. "Take your time. I still have a briefing with the Commissioner regarding the Rebel Council’s movements, so I have work to do. Don’t leave the station until I return."

He walked out, the door clicking shut behind him with an official finality.

"Let’s see," Rindou murmured, spreading the contents of the folder across the mahogany desk.

There were hundreds of faces—young women with bright futures, their lives summarized in cold, clinical police reports.

The three of them began to search through the photographs, the silence of the room punctuated only by the rustle of paper.

"So, do you recognize any of them, Kusana-san?" Rindou asked after a few minutes.

"No... not her. The hair is wrong," Tamaki whispered, flipping through a stack of IDs. "No... not this one either."

"I see. Then let’s just keep searching. We have the time," Rindou encouraged.

It didn’t take long. Barely half an hour had passed when Tamaki’s hand suddenly froze over a black-and-white photocopy of a school ID.

Her breath hitched, and she pointed a trembling finger at the image of a girl who looked painfully shy.

She was wearing thick, wire-rimmed glasses, and her dark hair was neatly tied in two long braids.

"Her! It’s her!" Tamaki cried out, her voice cracking with a mixture of terror and relief. "I’m sure of it! The eyes... she was looking right at me in the vision!"

Seijirou leaned over, reading the typed information beneath the photo. "Koyuzu Mira. Attended Shinju High ten years ago. Went missing after attending a localized ’mixer’ party near the industrial zone. No suspects were ever named, no witnesses came forward, and because there was no body, the case was eventually categorized as a runaway and forgotten by the system."

"That’s her! Definitely her!" Tamaki insisted, her voice rising in pitch.

Rindou frowned, her eyes scanning the report for any mention of the Blowers gang, but found only blank spaces.

"So she is the one haunting you, huh. Kusana-san, think carefully... was the night at the hospital the very first time you had ever seen her or heard her name?"

Tamaki nodded frantically. "Yes! I’ve never seen her in my life until last week! I don’t even know anyone from Shinju High!"

"Then she must be a Bounded Spirit," Rindou explained, her tone turning professional. "If I remember correctly, these are spirits so filled with resentment or agonizing regrets that they cannot move on to the afterlife. They stay trapped in the exact location where they died, reliving their trauma in an endless loop. You have been haunted for so long, and if that is the first time you’ve seen here, it means she couldn’t leave the place."

Seijirou frowned, "If so, why is she haunting Tamaki to such a degree? Why follow her almost anywhere? Tamaki, are you absolutely, one-hundred-percent certain you didn’t take anything from that ward? Not even a discarded button, or even a piece of glass?"

Tamaki nodded, tears of frustration forming. "Yes! I told you! I just fled directly! I didn’t even break a spiderweb or touch the walls if I could help it!"

Seijirou rubbed his chin, his Origin’s instincts, which allows him to see the most optimal path, providing him a dark, but logical alternative. "Then, could it be possible that this girl... Koyuzu Mira... is simply jealous?"

Rindou raised an eyebrow. "Jealous?"

"Think about it," Seijirou continued, his voice cold. "She went to a mixer ten years ago and ended up being brutalized and killed in that basement. Tamaki goes to a mixer ten years later and, by some miracle or high alcohol tolerance, manages to escape the exact same fate. Mira is watching from the shadows of the void. She is jealous that Tamaki was able to run away into the sunlight, while she herself was forced into a cold, dark death. So, she went mad. She wanted Tamaki to experience what she went through. She wants to pull the survivor back down into the dirt, just like her."

The room went cold as the logic settled in.

Rindou nodded slowly. "That... makes a horrible kind of sense. A vengeful spirit taking out her hate toward the victims who survived, wanting them to end up just like her. A ’misery loves company’ manifestation on a spiritual level."

"T-This... will I be haunted like this forever?" Tamaki asked, her voice small and broken. "Will she never let me go?"

Rindou shook her head, her expression hardening into one of absolute resolve.

She stood up, the light reflecting off her bright blue eyes. "Now that we know the source of your suffering, we can proceed with a targeted exorcism. Tonight, we go back to that hospital, but this time, we aren’t just investigating. We’re going to lay Koyuzu Mira to rest, whether she wants to or not."

This is not only her duty as a nominal member Grand Order, but also since her Origin, the Order, wouldn’t allow her to simply ignore this.

The dead must not interfere with the living, the same way the living must not interfere with the dead.

This is the law that must be obeyed.

Seijirou remained silent.

For some reason, his instincts are telling him that things aren’t as simple as it seems.

Especially with how coincidental this haunting stuff is with the time when the fragment escaped from him.

However, he didn’t think about it too much, after all, he’d know once they get there.