Rather than climb to Cloud Nine alone without you, I would fall into Gehenna together with you.
-Stendhal-
In many ways, it was a day unlike London.
There were no clouds at all, and at noon, warm sunlight poured down.
“…Will he be all right?”
221B Baker Street, second floor.
Watson leaned alone by the window, looking up at the sky with a worried face.
Sumr was indeed approaching, but today the sunlight beating down on London felt so intense it could not even be compared to usual.
And that wasn’t all.
In the streets where the wind had died, muggy, heated air sat pooled.
“Hols….”
Watson could sense which side Natural Qi was tilting toward, Yin or Yang, dozens of tis more keenly than other Kung-Fuists.
It was a talent that was not much help, considering it was one of the prices for being born with a severed-ridian illness and having to live a ti-limited life, but thanks to it she could tell how alien the changes happening in London right now were.
Yang Qi with nowhere to go was piling up, layer upon layer, in the great city.
As if it might explode at any mont.
If she went outside carelessly on a day like today, Watson would not escape disaster.
The reason Watson could maintain her condition even in this weather was that she could avoid direct sunlight in the boarding house, and because she carried a Snow Halation Iron dagger that stored Yin Qi.
For Watson, whose Qi circulating through her acupoints was heavily skewed toward Yin, an appropriate amount of Yang Qi was a welco energy that eased her severed-ridian symptoms, but the vast Yang Qi pooled outside was no different from an extre poison.
Even now, in the gaps between worrying about Hols, Watson was desperately keeping watch so the energy within her body would not tilt excessively to one side.
“Miss Watson, how about a sandwich?”
Mrs. Hudson, coming up from the first floor, broke the silence.
“Thank you.”
“You don’t need to worry about Mr. Hols, so rest easy. It’s not because I’ve known him a long ti and I’m saying this…. It’s just that he’s the sort of person who will co back fine no matter what happens, wherever it happens.”
Hudson, watching Watson’s complexion, set a plate on the table and whispered.
“…Mrs. Hudson.”
“So, for now, let’s wait with ease.”
Watson quietly nodded.
Hols and Watson told her to stay outside London for a day or two just in case, but she refused firmly.
‘If the two of you get tired working outside, shouldn’t you have sowhere to co back to? Sumr’s coming, and the weather’s already hot.’
Mrs. Hudson had answered like that.
She said the warr-than-usual weather must be because of the seasonal node, but Watson’s heart, knowing the truth, was heavy beyond asure.
This wasn’t sothing like the season’s influence.
Hols had said.
That the Vermilion Phoenix was a being one could truly call a living sun.
London’s climate change was happening because of the Vermilion Phoenix’s presence, which even now would be flying toward Britain mont by mont.
The Vermilion Phoenix was a spirit beast like an incarnation of Yang Qi, and Hols explained that by its re existence it held one pillar of the natural laws that governed the earth.
It sounded like sothing that would appear only in a fairy tale, but since every other record about the Vermilion Phoenix had proven true, there was no reason not to trust the analyses left by people such as Ancient Midfielder.
The tradition that soone looked straight at an enraged Vermilion Phoenix and went blind.
The myth that the Vermilion Phoenix lted Icarus’s wing-cloak.
They were all filled with things hard to believe, but Watson accepted them.
Because the imnse presence that disrupted the balance of Yin and Yang, even before it reached London, made one feel the power of a legendary spirit beast without having to face it directly.
Surely, if the Vermilion Phoenix appeared over London without warning, no one could guarantee survival.
She wondered if she should go find a cellar and hide even now, but with Hols having steeled himself and gone out alone, she could not cowardly flee to a safe place just to live alone.
Even though she had been discharged, she was still a proud soldier of Britain.
Having decided that if the ending was unavoidable she would accept it, Watson picked up the flower Hols had left behind and breathed in its fragrance.
The rose had opened its petals far more fully than when she saw it in the morning, beyond comparison.
She could feel the Qi in her acupoints, which had been excessively tilted toward Yin, moving back toward neutrality.
It was only a single bloom, but the radiant fragrance emitted by Elagabalus’s Rose cald Watson’s pounding heart.
Most likely, the reason the bud had burst into full bloom was also thanks to London’s weather changing due to the Vermilion Phoenix’s approach.
“…It isn’t only bad things, after all.”
Watson watched Mrs. Hudson for a mont as she beat dust from what had piled up in the room, then turned her gaze back to the rose.
When she was young, her twin elder brother John Watson often told her adventure tales he had made up himself.
Maybe because it was a child’s imagination, small details were missing here and there, but the stories John told had a strange charm that drew in the listener’s heart.
The reason Jane Watson ca to long to write was also the stories her brother told her before sleep.
And what she had just rembered was a short story about the stolen Naval Treaty.
Her second elder brother would tell how an unnad gentleman of imagination recovered the Naval Treaty, and then, unable to contain his feelings, would redden around the eyes.
‘They say a rose is the sign that shows God’s grace best.’
‘Its color and fragrance adorn life beautifully, but they aren’t necessary for living.’
‘The fact we can enjoy such delights proves God’s existence and His grace.’
‘That’s why we can look at flowers and hold hope.’
Watson brought her nose to the rose again.
A deep fragrance of hope rose from the flower.
It felt as if a strong will was lodged within it, as though promising it would protect her no matter what.
“…”
This was the one only one Hols had chosen after deep thought from among five hundred roses.
He said.
‘By unavoidable circumstances, I’ve ended up having to give flowers to soone I have no interest in.’
‘I don’t want to see that harpy of a woman looking pleased.’
‘So—’
‘I’ll leave the best single bloom here. You keep it for .’
The rose whose thorns the detective had removed with his own hands could not prick a finger and draw blood.
But its aning had lodged in Watson’s heart and showed no sign of coming out.
“…Until you return, it’ll keep hurting.”
The army doctor murmured as she stepped back from the window, holding the token of friendship in her hand.
Judging by the state of her middle elixir field, it wasn’t good to keep taking hot sunlight while staring outside aimlessly.
Even if only to greet her friend with a bright smile, she needed to rest well for now.
“Haa.”
But even lying in bed, sleep would not co.
“…What a brutal weather.”
It was all the weather’s fault.
Watson covered her heated face with both hands and buried her head in the pillow.
Irene ordered the butler to bring an appropriate cushion and prop the Little Heavenly Demon’s head, which had fallen onto the table.
Because she didn’t want the expensive tablecloth soaked with blood.
“Even if only for the sincerity of bringing flowers, I won’t be too cruel. As long as it doesn’t touch my Qi Frequency, the poison won’t run wild, so you may rest easy.”
“Kuhuk!”
Watching the Little Heavenly Demon’s back heaving with the force of coughing blood, she leisurely lifted the bouquet placed at the center of the table.
“How badly you wanted to look good, to bring hundreds of roses…. Well, I get this so often that it doesn’t really move . You know my profession, right?”
Irene put on a playful smile, untied the bouquet’s ribbon, and began laying them out on the table one by one.
“One, two, three…. Let’s talk more after I count them all. Seems we both want sothing.”
Irene’s clear, innocent expression as she deliberately stalled for ti was in stark contrast to Hols writhing in pain.
“W-water….!”
“My, what a short temper. You’ll have to wait until the food cos out.”
Irene pulled a hairpin from her hair and threw it.
-Puuk!
“Aaagh!”
The sharply fashioned projectile pierced through the back of Sherlock Hols’s hand.
Just like that, it pinned his right hand to the table.
“Don’t get handsy. Even as a guest, you must keep your manners.”
Twenty-two, twenty-three.
A lody flowed from Irene’s lips as she lined roses up along the long table.
Lucky Seven, the poison she had planted in Hols, had various efficacies, and among them, the efficacy that churned up the acupoints and made one unable to exert internal energy had outstanding effect in subduing a strong enemy and forcing him to kneel before her.
Even if one detoxified the fast-acting poisons that served as ingredients, one could not avoid Lucky Seven’s toxicity.
Lucky Seven was a poison completed inside the target’s body following a specific order and ratio.
To detoxify it, there was no choice but to take the antidote made by the one who compounded the poison, or draw the poison out of the body and study it outside.
The forr was in Irene’s possession, and the latter was impossible.
After counting up to three hundred roses, Irene slipped her fingers into her cleavage and took out a small glass vial attached to the end of a tal cord.
“If you drink this, the poison will go away completely, you know.”
The green liquid inside the necklace was Lucky Seven’s antidote.
However, the antidote was only one dose, so even after Hols drank it, Irene planned to use the lives of the cross-dressing military doctor and the boarding house landlady as hostages to ta the Little Heavenly Demon.
“If you are soone skilled at soothing a lady’s heart, you’ll know what you must do to obtain the antidote from .”
“So the gift didn’t please you.”
“Yes…. I suppose five hundred roses are a bit lacking?”
When Irene said that, the Little Heavenly Demon burst into laughter out of nowhere.
“You noticed well, even though you haven’t even finished counting.”
“What?”
At first Irene didn’t understand what Hols ant, but soon she quickly swept her eyes over the roses remaining in her hands.
“Four hundred ninety-nine…. You’re right. I thought you’d brought exactly five hundred. Where did one go? I’m disappointed. It’s a gift offered to a lady, and you can’t even count properly. I heard you were the Heavenly Demon’s successor, so I was curious about many things, but if this is how it is, I shouldn’t have hosted you—”
Irene froze without realizing it.
In the Little Heavenly Demon’s lifted gaze, a deep light of mockery lay.
“Of course. I wondered what business you had with . So that’s what it was. The Heavenly Demon’s successor. Right. You had business with my master.”
Looking at the Little Heavenly Demon smiling as if amused, Irene Adler felt a foreboding that was hard to put into words.
The power over life and death was clearly on this side, yet the other party had even dropped honorifics and was mocking her.
“…Do you truly understand your own situation correctly?”
“Of course.”
As she debated whether to release her Qi Frequency again, the Little Heavenly Demon spoke once more.
“I gave the most beautiful single bloom to soone with a heart that suits it. For a woman who is only glossy on the outside and lacks the most important thing, I thought the remaining ordinary four hundred ninety-nine would be enough.”
It was an insult she had never heard from a man before.
As the estate’s owner, and as a woman, she could not overlook this.
“I see. If we are to have a serious conversation, it seems I must host you more attentively, great hero.”
Irene Adler glared at Hols.
She sent internal energy through the ribbon that had been tying the bouquet and looped it around the Little Heavenly Demon’s neck.
No matter how tough a man was, if he could not raise his internal energy, snapping his neck like this was easy.
But Irene didn’t notice.
That while her eyes were off him, soone began moving the roses scattered across the table with Poltergeist, in place of the Little Heavenly Demon who could not pull up his internal energy.
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