“Well, people should be filling the seats right about now.” He stood out of his chair. “I ought to get going. We’re both professionals here, yes? And a professional protects their client and makes sure nobody gets harmed. I’m counting on you.”
There was no way to reply to a statement like that other than simply “Very well.”
After that, Fukuzawa met with the other performers and asked the same questions. There was a total of twelve actors who were going to be in the show: seven women and five men including the lead, Murakami.
Given the theater’s large size, it seemed fair to assume that each actor would have their own dressing room, but apparently, Murakami was the exception. The others had all gathered in one big dressing room where they checked their costumes, practiced their lines, and swung around small props like swords. Fukuzawa heard that Murakami was going to have around half the stage time to himself.
“He’s actually a really popular actor,” commented an actress. “This is basically a one-man show. He’s got way more lines than the rest of us, and he even has a fight scene,” she claimed as she checked her makeup. “He had a lot of meetings alone with Kurahashi, the playwright. He seems to have really put a lot of stock in it. I even heard that someone saw him yelling at the stage carpenter.”
Fukuzawa asked another actor about the events.
“Nobody actually believes someone is really going to get murdered,” answered a slightly older actor while he looked at the program. “We work in entertainment, after all. Jealousy is far from unheard of. There are even fanatics who worship the troupe. We don’t have time to worry about every single threat. Granted, I only have a side part, so there would be no value in killing me. If anyone in the cast is gonna get death threats, it’s Murakami. He has a ton of groupies, followers, that sort of thing.”
The actor smiled, but another actress knitted her eyebrows.
“A threat?” She wore a large silver wig and was fixing her makeup. “Honestly, I’m sure everyone knows where the death threat came from.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know…” The actress winked. “It’s a small industry, yeah? People get together… They break up… Maybe someone banged one of the new girls, or they broke up and she quit. Who doesn’t have one or two people on their hit list?”
“Do you?” Fukuzawa asked her, but she just giggled and evaded the question.
Hopefully, this was nothing more than a crime of passion, and the threat was just made to scare someone. Fukuzawa thought back to the assassin killing the secretary this morning.
What if the one who made the death threat was an assassin of that caliber? Fukuzawa wasn’t confident he could protect everyone: the spectators, the performers, Ranpo, and himself.
He retired from the dressing room after hearing what everyone had to say. As he walked down the hallway, he thought.
I could handle fighting one-on-one even if the assassin were a skill user, but no matter how skilled the bodyguard, there are only so many people that can be protected at once.
If Fukuzawa were the assassin, then four police officers wouldn’t change anything. He could break through, take advantage of the commotion, and kill the target with no problem at all. But Fukuzawa was there to protect, and if he wanted to creat
e a safe space with an ironclad defense for everyone in the theater, he was going to need ten men. This was an obstacle Fukuzawa naturally encountered as a bodyguard. No matter how talented of a martial artist he was, the enemy would break through the holes in the defense. He was only one man. He couldn’t protect the lives of every good person with just one body. Evil, on the other hand, would need only one body to pick a place, find an opening, and attack. All they would need was enough power and one moment to unleash it at maximum efficiency.
There was an imbalance between the power needed to protect and the power needed to attack. The only way to protect oneself from incredible skill and power was to have skill and power of your own, but unfortunately, the scales strongly favored one side. Therefore, something other than brute force was needed to make up for it.
“Whatcha thinking about, old guy? I’m getting hungry, just to let you know.” The boy by Fukuzawa’s side suddenly spoke up in a lackadaisical tone.
Just then, Fukuzawa was hit with an epiphany.
Who was it who found the company president’s real killer this morning? Who was it who uncovered Ms. Egawa’s secrets during their first encounter?
“Hey, kid. Has anything jumped out at you since you’ve been here?”
There was no denying this boy had something extraordinary. Fukuzawa wasn’t sure exactly what, but perhaps it was something that could compensate for the difference in necessary force between attacking and defending.
Ranpo simply stared at Fukuzawa, eyes fixated on him. He could see something.
What’s he looking at?
“Nothing’s really stood out to me. It’s just confusing. That’s all.” Ranpo tilted his head in a bored manner.
Fukuzawa stopped in his tracks. He was standing in the theater’s entrance lobby. There was a long line with people already entering the building for the show.
“I see.” Fukuzawa sighed. Nothing had caught his attention?
Fukuzawa had been inadvertently depending on Ranpo for an answer. Looking back, that was probably why he brought him along to talk to the performers, despite knowing the negative consequences. Perhaps he’d even brought Ranpo to the theater just to witness his talents. It was a rather pathetic thing to do for someone who was initiated in the Sankyo school of ancient Japanese martial arts.