A shocking state of affairs before my eyes, I came to know Kyouko-san's dizzying movements to that point had been her slamming the brakes—what happened after that truly was the fastest.
"Oyagiri-san! There was an AED in the elevator hall, go get it!"
Just as she cried out, Kyouko-san raced towards the old man's body—she didn't freeze up for a single instant. Contrarily, unable to stir, I followed her order like a robot—AED? Was there one of those around? There was.
When I climbed back up the stairs, it was lined next to the fire extinguisher diagonally across the hall—so Kyouko-san even checked a place like that.
Confirming the location of an AED was admittedly, the basics of the basics, but in most cases, it's a basic recalled alongside a feeling of regret—I should've checked where it was, that sort of sentiment.
Incorporating every possibility, it seems she had gotten rid of that regret beforehand—but now wasn't the time to be impressed.
I opened the door to the base, carried out the AED, and brought it back to the basement—while trying my best to remain calm, I was flustered, and I ended up pushing the elevator button once; right, it wasn't operational.
Calm down your heart, thing—as I recall, and AED should be a device to return a chaotic pulse to a normal state, and it won't have an effect on someone's whose heart has completely stopped. In that case, Kyouko-san determined old Wakui wasn't dead yet?
When I saw him collapsed, pierced with a knife, I reflexively concluded he had been 'killed'—but the knife was stabbed into his abdomen. Did it miss the vitals…? No, if any internal organs were punctured, that would still be considered a vital, wouldn't it?
It seemed like I was thinking, but I really was not—my thoughts turning round and round in circles, by the time I returned to the basement room, I found Kyouko-san had already finished taking that appropriate measures.
Setting old Wakui face-up, she rested his head on the sweater she'd been wearing—with his monk work clothes torn open, the old man's upper body was exposed.
A bandage(?)-like cloth had already been wrapped around the wound, she had done everything she could to stop the blood—however, the knife itself hadn't been removed.
At a time like this, there are some who say it's better off not to remove the blade, and some who'd disagree but by some criteria, Kyouko-san had chosen to firmly fix the blade in place.
I wondered what she used to cut open his clothes and substitute a bandage, but this was a framer's workspace, with surely no lack of tools. Meaning Kyouko-san used anything she could get on hand for emergency measures—no, life-saving measures, apparently. Though for that, the old man's face showed too few signs of vitality.
"—Is he alive?"
"His spontaneous respiration's been restored."
Kyouko-san answered to-the-point.
On close inspection, right beside him, a simple artificial respiration device likely fashioned out of a PET bottle was littered—It would also have to have been improvised.
"His heard had stopped, but it's been restored with a massage. Please connect up the AED. Hurry! Get it moving, and the machine will tell you the rest!"
Kyouko-san said as she pulled out a cellphone—I thought it was a familiar smartphone, before realizing it was mine.
She must have swiped it from my pocket when she raced off—as modern-day phones were now more of a high-efficiency storage medium than a means of communication, the forgetful detective couldn't carry one around. Of course, I considered myself more secure than average, and the phone was locked, but you didn't need a passcode to dial emergency numbers.
While Kyouko-san placed a call to the fire department, I hastily stuck the defibrillator parts onto the old man's body—at the time, my hands touched him, and from his heat, I finally knew for sure old Wakui was alife. But something felt strange—it probably happened when Kyouko was giving him a heart massage, but his ribs were broken. It told me just how much power Kyouko-san must have put into those slender arms when she massaged him…
"When there's such a large wound in his stomach, is it alright to send electricity into him?"
I raised my face to ask her, and she wasn't there—all that remained was my phone, discarded on the floor.
"It's made to not flow a current if it's not supposed to, you're fine!"
The answer returned from a different direction—when I looked, Kyouko-san was restlessly moving all over the basement. She did seem to be gathering timber, but I couldn't tell what exactly she was doing… just looking at her, it could also look like she was simply confused and taking meaningless action… the sort of panic that would have one make off with the blanket from the scene of the fire.
But when she had taken such pertinent emergency measures, there was no way I could shout something as off-the-wall as 'calm down'—more so, the one who needed to calm down was me. Believing she was surely doing something meaningful, I entered the AED procedure, of which this would be the first time I conducted in a real situation.
Right, back when I worked at the security firm, I'd experienced it in practice—this was a device made so anyone could use it without specialist knowledge.
'Preparing shock. Please move away from the patient.'
The sound played, as I quickly abided, a sound similar to hitting the floor with a blunt weapon resounded—the sort of sound that, forget his rib cage, made me wonder if old Wakui's slender body itself would break.
Even if I knew what I was doing, I flinched, wondering if I might have used it wrong,
'Heart rhythm restored,'
The sound flowed from the AED—putting me at ease.
Of course, it didn't change that he was in critical condition, but whatever the case, if his heart was beating at a regular rhythm, it was certain we'd crossed one peak.
The rest had to be wagered on old Wakui's life force. In the time I pat my chest, "Over here!" Kyouko-san cried. Her orders were to the point, with no space to mishear—while it was as if she was accustomed to this sort of situation, was it even possible for the forgetful detective who didn't pile up experience to grow 'accustomed' to anything?
I moved as instructed, then doubted my eyes—something that made me doubt my eyes had been completed. A stretcher made out of cloth and wood that had been lying around the place. It wasn't put together with nails, but with rope and thread, firmly fastening each part in place—it looked sturdy enough.
You're telling me she made that in the few minutes I took my eyes off of her? No, it was definitely a simple construction, but there should be a limit to DIY—no matter, in the present state where the elevator was unusable, it was an absolute necessity.
Where we were in a race against every minute, every second, did she plan to get Wakui's body aboveground before the ambulance arrived?
"Hey, quit spacing out! Gently place Wakui-san on top! We'll be climbing the stairs, so you take the feet, Oyagiri-san!"
To make sure his body didn't fall off by any mistake, Kyouko-san fixed it with spare cloth strips—she was too dexterous, at a level I couldn't capture her speed with my eyes.
So expedited one was better off calling it violent. But at the important parts, she came with a carefulness that would certainly never rush. And when less than ten minutes had transpired since we discovered a collapsed Wakui, Kyouko-san succeeded in carrying his serious condition body above ground—it came at practically the same time as the ambulance.
"He's seventy-two years old, blood type A. It seems he has a number of chronic ailments. Here's his medication."
Just when did she find that? Kyouko-san handed over what looked like his medical history to the emergency team.
Just how attentive could she be? Though it seems it was the professionals who wound up surprised,
"Please hurry. His consciousness level is dangerously low, there is no telling what will happen with Wakui-san's condition."
Kyouko-san urged them on—thus, with a flashy blaze of sirens, the ambulance with old Wakui took off for the nearest hospital.
"Ffuu…"
Kyouko-san finally took a breath.
Perhaps with the recoil for moving at full speed, it seems she could no longer stand on her own,
"I'll be borrowing your shoulder for a bit."
She leaned against me.
With a plop, she wholly entrusted me her white-haired head.
"Whoah…"
As I hurriedly supported her up, I braced my legs, but there was no need—her body was too light to require it.
To think this small body showed such movements, such specs, such performance… while I do think I placed some part, I was fundamentally just following her orders, and I probably wouldn't have been able to do much alone. No doubt I would have panicked every which way before a collapsed old Wakui—not to mention, if I were alone, I wouldn't have even been able to discover him in his predicament.
"… Do you think he'll be alright?"
I spat the phrase with a sense of powerlessness.
My formal employment had yet to begin, but that had nothing to do with it—once again, I failed to protect what I was supposed to protect. My apologies to my grandfather, but I wanted to throw away a name like Mamoru.
"I don't know."
The detective wouldn't provide some arbitrary consolation.
While she certainly gave the fastest, optimum measures, there was definitely a limit to that—there was his age to consider ant all.
"But… Kyouko-san, are you sure we shouldn't have gone with him?"
With that momentum, I was sure she'd board the ambulance, and follow him all the way to the hospital, but… id we really not have to explain the situation to the doctor?
"We're not friends or relatives. Even if we followed, there'd be nothing we could do—and no circumstances we'd be able to explain."
"You do have a point…"
"More importantly, how about we do our own job?"
"O-our job?"
"Yes. Our job."
With that, Kyouko-san parted from my body—the fastest girl’s rest time didn't fill thirty seconds.
With a strong pace, she turned—she turned to Atelier House.
When an ambulance had come and gone with a shrill siren, not a single soul had left its confines—perhaps it could be summed up in the apathy of the big city, but considering the circumstance this high-rise complex carried, and the eggs under its wings, that only made it all the more ominous.
Kyouko-san—the forgetful detective pointed out Atelier House, the embodiment of the danger of bad eggs, and strongly presumed.
"— The culprit is in our midst."