old, indeed.

“I had prayed that I would be proved wrong, ” he said in a broken

voice. “We have found the hidden lair of the necromancer.”

“It was Kanno, ” said Sakahara numbly. “Kanno is the Ginza

Monster!”

“And it was I who taught him what he knows, ” said Yohaku.

“May God forgive me for what I’ve done.”

“It wasn’t you, Sensei, ” said a voice from behind them.

Akiro and Sakahara spun around.

“Fugisawa!”

“The one who taught Kanno what he knows was here, ” said

Fugisawa. “Her name is Leila. And she’s a monster far worse than

anything you could imagine.”

CHAPTER Twelve

They conducted a quick search of the necromancer’s sanctuary,

then went back up into the basement, and after

Yohaku sealed up the portal once again, Fugisawa told them

everything. He left out one piece of information that he did not

think they needed to know. He did not tell them about Morpheus.

What Modred had once been would only cloud the issue, he thought.

He downplayed his own relationship with Kobayashi, telling them

only that Kobayashi had agreed to cooperate to serve his own

interest, and that he had been unofficially assisting Fugisawa in his

own investigation, which was what had led them to Kanno.

Initially, he had intended to speak only with Katayama. He had

not counted on Sakahara being placed in charge of the investigation

or on Yohaku being there, but that had turned out to be fortunate.

Knowing how hard it had been for him to accept the existence of

the Dark Ones, Fugisawa had expected to have a difficult time

convincing Katayama, but Yohaku’s presence had made his task a

great deal easier.

“No, it must be true, ” he had said, when the others expressed