༺ The Shadow of Britain (2) ༻
“Hey, you know.”
“……….”
“You’re kinda amazing.”
A few minutes after Isaac Adler, sporting a fierce expression, had spat curses on Jill the Ripper…
“… Cough.”
“It’s my first time feeling so much pain.”
Jill the Ripper, her cheeks swollen red, managed to finally restrain Isaac Adler on the chair with great difficulty. Staring at the restrained Adler with a dazed look, she muttered to herself in a whispering chant.
“Honestly, it was even a bit scary, you see… Being grabbed by the collar, slapped multiple times across the face, kicked in the stomach, and then strangled by you as you climbed on top of me…”
“………”
“It was a rare experience that someone can’t usually have. The feeling of being a victim… It was so thrilling.”
Her eyes slowly began to dye with the sweet colors of allure and desire.
“Ah… I really love it, Adler.”
– Puhk…!
“Keep looking at me with that contemptuous gaze, okay?”
Jill the Ripper, more careful than she had been moments before, pushed the medical knife deeper into Adler’s heart, pressing her swollen cheek against his as she whispered to him in a subdued tone.
“And keep resisting me like that when you’re being killed from now on, okay? Just like you did before, thrash around like an animal and strangle me.”
“………”
“I’ll also do my best to slaughter you, that’s a promise, okay?”
Hearing her chilling words, Isaac Adler gazed at Jill the Ripper as though he was looking at a disgusting cockroach.
“Heheheee… I love you.”
– Ahdeuk…
Unable to control the pounding in her chest at the gaze Adler directed at her, Jill the Ripper suddenly pulled Adler into a tight embrace, and his sharp teeth dug into her chest.
“You’re being reckless, Adler.”
– Chomp…
“Hey, if you leave a scar on my chest, that’d be a sin, you know? So, maybe like before, it’d be better to hit somewhere less visible like the stomach, or to strangle the neck…”
She looked on blankly, then muttered with a worried expression.
“… You speak as if you actually are royalty?”
“Huh?”
“Even though you stole that body away.”
At his sarcastic remarks, Jill the Ripper quietly started scratching her head while blinking rapidly.
“It’s disappointing to hear you say that.”
“What’s there to be disappointed about…”
“I may have many bodies, but this one is closest to my original self.”
Then, she sat down neatly beside Adler, with a decadent smile gracing her luscious lips.
“Of course, my identity is a bit of a jumble. I can take on any identity, just need to kill them with my own hands.”
She suddenly started explaining, slowly, her expression modest.
“A Jewish barber working in a bustling barbershop, a kind lawyer who dabbles in medicine as a hobby, a painter who has a penchant for painting eerie pictures, even a nurse who dresses herself like a man…”
“……….”
“The feeling of transforming into a being whose life ended at my hands is truly the best. The sensation of stealing someone else’s life and being reborn, although it’s not quite as thrilling as the murder itself, is absolutely amazing.”
When Adler still directed the same disgusted gaze at Jill the Ripper, she blushed heavily and gingerly leaned her head on his shoulder.
“But, in the end, I was born in this very body. It might sound conceited coming from my own lips, but my body is graceful and noble. The perfect body of a royalty.”
“………..”
“That’s why the proposal to become my consort wasn’t a trap, but rather my sincerity to you. A sincerity, not of the worst serial killer that’s being reported in the newspapers, but that of a princess…”
Her gaze turned slightly frigid.
“… Why do you have to make it so obvious.”
– Puhk…!
“Then I’ll have no choice but to treat you as the murderer they portray.”
Simultaneously, as she spoke, Jill the Ripper pulled the knife out of Adler’s heart and thrust it back in with vigor.
“Iloveyou, loveyou, loveyou, love…..”
“… I have a question.”
As Adler, with a face as pale as a sheet of paper, watched her repeatedly stabbing his earth with each word she uttered, he reached out, grabbed the knife, and posed a question to the murderer.
“Why are you trying to kill me if you say that you love me?”
“… You did the same thing last time.”
Then, relaxing her grip slightly, she began to murmur.
“That figure of yours, being mercilessly stabbed by me in that place full of those beasts, yet not blinking an eye and still asking me questions…”
“Answer the question.”
“… It’s that very figure.”
Her eyes glowed in an eerie dark hue.
“Imagine this. A serial killer who only feels love and happiness when killing people, one day meets a victim who, no matter how much they are killed, doesn’t die. How do you think that would feel?”
“Is it… a curse then…?”
“A curse? I’ve never thought of it as a curse…”
She tilted her head in that state, continuing her story while gently stroking Adler’s cheek, which had become as cold as a slab of ice.
“If you call it a curse, doesn’t it feel like you’re trying to justify something? I don’t like that. I’m saying that I find killing people to be the most enjoyable thing in the world for me. It’s like I’ve been chosen for it.”
“………”
“No, but it’s a bit strange, though. The ones I liked and killed all turned out to be criminals… I used to think it was just a coincidence. But it started to feel less and less coincidental…”
Her expression suddenly became gloomy.
“Yeah, now that I think about it, that’s probably why I hit a slump.”
“Do criminals get slumps too?”
“But just then, you appeared with a Ta-da~!“
However, her face brightened up once again in just a few seconds.
“When I first saw you, I felt the strongest urge to kill I’ve ever felt in my life.”
“……….”
“It was love at first sight. Since that day, my heart has always been captivated by you, Isaac Adler.”
“… Ugh?”
With a voice filled with heat and desire, she suddenly reached out and grasped Adler’s neck with her hand.
– Swish…
“I love youuu…..”
And then, without even her realization, Jill the Ripper climbed on top of him, drooling as she started strangling him with her hands.
“… Huh?”
Adler, staring intently at her, extended his hand with all his might and grasped Jill the Ripper’s throat, causing an awkward smile to spread across her face again.
– Squeeze…
Thus began their sincere strangling contest.
As their eyes slowly became hazy, they both began losing strength in their grips.
“”……….””
After several more seconds went by, they both collapsed onto each other, having lost consciousness simultaneously.
“… Heheheeeee.”
The first to regain consciousness was Jill the Ripper, her head buried in Adler’s chest.
“Puha, haah…”
“Look at this, Adler.”
As Adler suddenly gasped for air, shivering violently, she began to whisper with the expression of a girl in love, erasing the concerned look that had briefly appeared in her eyes.
“You really will never die, no matter how many times you’re killed.”
“………”
“So, I’ll make you one last offer.”
She held Adler’s hand and said in an eager voice,
“Leave the detective and the professor behind; come to me.”
“………”
“Let’s live happily ever after, trying to kill each other for the rest of our lives.”
However, seeing Adler keeping his silence, Jill the Ripper started to whisper with a slightly flustered look.
“Hey, I’m in line to be the next queen, you know? I have the power to easily make you into my royal consort.”
“………”
“Of course, if you don’t like it, we can live an ordinary life.”
She glanced at Adler with a shy smile on her face.
“I can learn household chores. Things like cooking and knitting, I may not be good at them, but I’ll learn diligently.”
“…….”
“So live with me.”
“………”
“Until we get sick of each other, trying to kill one another, okay?”
But Adler remained silent until the very end, just quietly gazing at her with the same gaze.
“Adler, can’t you hear me…”
“I refuse.”
At that moment, when Jill the Ripper’s voice was becoming slightly agitated, a firm voice leaked out of his lips.
“What?”
“I have no intention of being with you.”
Then, Jill the Ripper’s expression twisted rapidly, and she began to look at Adler with a serious glare in her eyes.
“Why? Whywhywhywhywhy?”
She began to viciously stab Adler’s body with the knife she was holding tightly in her hand.
“I love you, so why don’t you love me back?”
“… Ugh.”
“I love you, I’m telling you I love you! Adler?”
As the violence escalated, Adler’s mind began to grow faint from the excessive blood loss.
“Aren’t you going to kill me? Won’t you kill me? If you don’t want to die, just say that you love me too…!”
“You’re mistaken, that’s not it.”
“… Eh?”
However, Adler, with a clear gaze, looked at Jill the Ripper and with all his remaining strength, kicked her in the stomach in the midst of her violent stabbing.
“Ugh…”
“What you are doing right now is not love.”
Then, clutching her stomach and sweating coldly, she collapsed to the floor, to which Adler began to whisper in a low voice.
“What is it, then…?”
“This is just violence. It is nothing but your one-sided violence, not love or a display of affection.”
“No, it is. It’s definitely love…”
In response to his whisper, Jill the Ripper murmured dejectedly with an expression signifying she was not able to understand what Adler was uttering.
“Real love, you see…”
Quietly gazing into her eyes, Adler suddenly leaned in his head towards her.
“… Hmph.”
And his tongue gently slid into the mouth of the bewildered Jill the Ripper.
“”………..””
And silence ensued between them.
“…? …..???”
Jill the Ripper, experiencing an unknown feeling for the first time, froze solid; imaginary question marks written all over her face.
“… Puhaa~”
After rolling his tongue inside her mouth while she kept her eyes tightly shut, Adler slowly pulled his head back and silently gazed into her eyes once more.
“It’s like this.”
As their mingled saliva stretched and finally broke between their lips, he began to whisper to her again.
“It’s not the violence you are committing, this is love and affection.”
“……….”
“Do you see the difference now?”
And hearing him, the eyes of Jill the Ripper began to tremble in silence.
“It’s weird.”
“What is?”
“My tongue tickles. It still feels like you’re still rolling your tongue in my mouth.”
After a moment, she, mumbling blankly till then, soon bared her teeth and began to growl.
“It’s really weird. My chest is burning hot. I don’t like this.”
– Puhk…!
“The slimy feeling is still there. It’s unpleasant. I, I feel terrible.”
As her knife dug into his neck, Adler’s eyes gradually began to lose focus.
“What is love anyway? No matter how I think about it, this isn’t love.”
“Ughhh…”
“I feel so strange. Foolish. Annoyed. Weird. I really hate…”
While looking at him with what seemed like a flustered gaze, Jill the Ripper was trying to remove her knife from Adler’s neck when he spoke in a faint voice.
“Next week, same time.”
“…….?”
“How about we go on a date? Just us two…”
Holding her arm with his cold hand, Adler began to whisper in a calm tone.
“I will show you what real love is.”
– Puhkkk…!
“… Ugh.”
It was precisely at that moment, as Jill the Ripper looked down at him intently, and, not knowing that she was shedding cold sweat, exerted strength on her knife…
– Bang…!!!
From behind them, a sharp gunshot rang out.
“Argh!?”
In a flash, Jill the Ripper twisted her body to dodge a fatal shot, but she couldn’t avoid her shoulder being torn open.
– Szzzzz…
Staggering briefly, she immediately began dissipating into black smoke and scattered around the room.
“… What are you?”
Reappearing in a corner of the room as a shadow, she clutched her shoulder which was, unlike usual, not healing, and muttered fiercely.
“Why are you interfering?”
“……..”
The one who fired the shot was staring coldly, holding the gun emitting smoke.
“… Didn’t you say you wanted to confront me, inspector?”
Taking a deep breath to withstand Jill the Ripper’s murderous intent, she caught sight of Adler’s pale smile, tied to a chair and lacerated, and bit her lip hard.
“… Right now, I’m here as your lover.”
Then came her apt response.
“”……….””
The most formidable inspector in all of Britain and the worst serial killer began exchanging their gazes, sharp enough to bore holes in the other, in the quiet of the room.
“Are you prepared, princess?”
“You’re bothersome, you know that…?”
The collision between Lestrade’s bullets and Jill the Ripper’s knife, creating a blinding flash of light, occurred mere moments later…
