Heavenly Demon Holmes: London’s Subjugation

Forgetting gives birth to enlightenment of an even higher realm.

-Friedrich Nietzsche-

“This can’t be.”

The shocking discovery was trying to rob me of my cool judgment.

“It doesn’t seem like Elder Gould’s material is fake…”

I examined the draft I received from Elder Darwin again and again, and it was unmistakably something written decades ago.

Yet the face drawn on it was unquestionably James Moriarty’s, the man I had encountered in front of Westminster Palace not long ago.

He was far younger than when I had seen him before, but the outline of his face and the shape of his features matched what I had carved into my eyes while facing him in my previous life.

I can say it with certainty. James Moriarty is a master who has undergone Rejuvenation. Considering that Moriarty even reproduced natural phenomena found only in certain parts of Europe through personal ability, his might was above Her Majesty Victoria’s.

He might even surpass my master, Phileas Fogg.

…In truth, I cannot state that as easily, since I have never witnessed my master’s full strength.

When I recalled that he once turned a hill into flat ground with a single advancing step, he too had clearly stepped beyond the human realm.

In any case, if what Elder Gould drew truly was Moriarty, then I needed to form at least a hypothesis about what had happened to him.

A man born in 1846 appeared before 1830.

And had that face Elder Gould left in drawing not matched almost perfectly what I had seen recently?

“Does it mean he did not age at all? No, the very idea that he existed before he was even born makes no sense.”

Could such a thing even be possible?

A huge question kept swirling in my head.

Was the visage-scar record I had just seen of some other man who resembled my nemesis to a sickening degree, or was it truly James Moriarty himself?

I could only hesitate over whether to believe a sighting report that a man with Moriarty’s exact face had appeared in the Himalayas fifteen years earlier than history should allow.

But once the impossible is excluded, whatever remains, no matter how unbelievable, is the truth.

Rather than lazily believing in coincidence, it was right to prepare for the worst.

I had personally experienced the bizarre event of turning back time and returning to the past, so I could not say Moriarty could not undergo something similar.

For now, I needed to build a hypothesis under the premise that what Elder Gould witnessed truly was Moriarty.

‘So it was that pocket watch playing a trick, after all…’

When I attempted a suicide attack at Reichenbach Falls, the pocket watch that left Moriarty’s hand surely had the mysterious function of winding its owner’s time backward.

If I was swept up in the pocket watch’s power and came to this world, there was no guarantee something similar did not happen to Moriarty as well, since he was nearby.

The problem was that while I returned to 1881, the year I first met Watson, Moriarty seemed to have crossed to a far earlier time than that.

One thing I could not understand was this. Even a Kung-Fuist who has completed Rejuvenation is supposed to age again as time passes, yet Moriarty as witnessed in 1830 and 1881 showed none of that.

Not for one or two years, but for more than fifty years, to live with a face that looked no older than the late twenties to early thirties, would require a mighty Kung-Fu and enlightenment that completely overturned the martial world’s common sense.

I did not know what trick he had used, but he undoubtedly possessed a secret others didn’t know.

“I wondered how one man could be so thoroughly versed in so many fields, but the watch was the secret.”

There were not just one or two points that puzzled me while facing Moriarty in my previous life, but once I considered the watch’s existence, it became easy to accept.

The Moriarty I met in that world had an appearance and air that looked far older than his actual age.

That might not have been mere premature aging, but the result of truly living longer than others by repeating the same time again and again.

“If he learned longer and trained longer than others, it would not be strange for him to possess outstanding ability.”

In the world I lived in, Moriarty showed brilliance in many areas and was recognized as Europe’s representative genius mathematician and astrophysicist.

It would have been fine if he stayed quietly in sunlit places like academia, but his true nature manifested in the shadows.

With exceptional skill, Moriarty conquered Europe’s underworld faster than anyone, and came to be hailed as the Napoleon of Crime.

I alone, in all of Europe, began to grasp his identity and gather clues.

I tried to seize irrefutable evidence and prove Moriarty’s crimes, but it was never easy.

Because Moriarty erased evidence with an agility that made it seem as if he had seen the future.

“The vile swindler.”

The frustration I felt then was beyond words.

As if he could see straight through my thoughts, he prepared his next move.

He killed a witness who was in hiding, sent subordinates to target my life and Watson’s, and caused incomprehensible incidents throughout Europe so I could not regain my footing.

Now that I thought of it, perhaps the absurd genius he displayed had been possible because he could turn back time again and again.

No matter how brilliant a human brain may be, it has limits, yet Moriarty moved in ways that defied reason, as if he truly knew the future.

Once I reached that thought, I found myself newly curious about the pocket watch’s specific function.

“All things in the world require a price… He could not have reversed time at will without risk.”

Things and phenomena have beginnings and ends, and this is an unchanging principle that applies to all under heaven.

Human life and death follow that principle as well. It could not be easy to bend a truth that pierces heaven and earth.

The truth that one cannot defy heaven’s will without paying a proper price has been proven by countless practitioners of Demonic Arts.

He handled a vast concept that did not belong to man as he pleased, so he may have had to pay some price.

And even if not, it does not matter.

If this world were so easy and soft that one could live after reversing time without any worry, then there would be no reason for me to live.

“The price… he may have paid it.”

When I thought carefully about what Moriarty lacked, the answer came naturally.

The Moriarty I faced at the falls before my regression had aged to a degree that made his birth year hard to believe.

Considering that when I returned to the past, my body also became young in accordance with the year, it was difficult to understand.

Come to think of it, if Moriarty had possessed a sound body fitting his age, I might not even have been able to attempt a suicide attack with him.

Judging by his conduct thus far, and his suspicious words and actions at the time of the fall, Moriarty must have turned back time not once, but many times.

His excessive aging must surely have been affected by repeated regressions.

Perhaps that was the wages of sin Moriarty had to pay.

“Wait…”

If the Moriarty I know truly crossed to this world like I did, then why did he not recognize my face?

Was he pretending not to know?

No.

I can say it with certainty. The day I met him at Westminster Palace, Moriarty did not recognize who I was.

He has more than enough strength to kill Watson and me.

If he remembered me, he would have launched a killing strike on the spot.

Even in the world he came from, Moriarty used every method to kill me.

If he crossed to this world with his memories intact, he would never have left me alone.

“There may be another reason he cannot recognize me.”

For this, I lacked clues and could not form a proper hypothesis.

If I had to guess, perhaps the pocket watch took yet another price from him, beyond youth.

If I succeeded in drawing Irene Adler to my side, I would be able to see Moriarty directly, so there was no choice but to confirm it then.

“For now… I should solve what is in front of me first.”

While I was speculating about what happened to Moriarty, I also recalled Elder Gould’s testimony that he had attempted to steal the Vermilion Phoenix’s young in the Himalayas.

‘Alexander II favored his eldest son, Nikolai, who died in ’65. Fishing was the hobby of the second son newly designated as Crown Prince. What the Tsar enjoyed was hunting. It so happened that the time the Tsar found a new adviser overlapped with the time he began leaving for the lake every week to fish.’

Mycroft definitely said that.

That years ago, the late Tsar found a new adviser.

And it overlapped strangely with the time Russia planted the Golden Apple tree and began preparations to draw the Vermilion Phoenix to the lake.

Above all, the Tsar accurately predicted when the Vermilion Phoenix’s egg would hatch.

It made no sense that Russia, which could be called barren compared to Britain in spirit-beast research, possessed that level of capability.

It was only possible with outside help.

Was the new adviser not an expert who knew the Vermilion Phoenix’s ecology inside and out, or someone comparable?

For example, someone who had coveted the Vermilion Phoenix’s young since fifty years ago?

“…An idea befitting Moriarty.”

If Moriarty truly approached the Tsar and coaxed him into drawing the Vermilion Phoenix’s nest in, then the inexplicable parts of this case could be explained.

Why Irene Adler stole the egg, why the theft was exposed, why London had to burn.

“So he means to burn London while also obtaining what he failed to acquire in the Himalayas fifty years ago.”

He carries out sabotage to buy something valuable at a pittance.

It was a method I often witnessed in my previous life.

The Phantom Fist incident, which painted telephones as vile things, must also have been for the sake of swallowing up telephone company shares cheaply.

“I thought I was dealing with the Tsar.”

It seemed the Russians too were being toyed with by Moriarty’s silver tongue.

But they would not be the sort of people to listen just because I persuaded them, so I would have to offer certain courtesies on my side.

“Mycroft. Before we carry out the operation, we must bind the Tsar’s feet, so he cannot interfere.”

/<The Butler Agency is already monitoring him.>

“No, not such a tame method.”

/<What will you do?>

“How about I provide a scoop to the Homeless Clan’s Dragon Head.”

/<…The Russians living in London will be delighted.>

Because of the angle, I could not see what expression Mycroft wore.

“Yes. Mainly the assassins.”

But it was easy to imagine that he was wearing a nasty smile.