Tokyo: Officer Rabbit and Her Evil Partner

Chapter 23

Kazama Takusai snapped on his hood, shoe covers, and gloves, then motioned for Minamoto Tamako to stay by the door.

"Just watch from there. You're soaked; you'll contaminate the scene."

The driver gave a cheeky chuckle and cast Tamako a sidelong glance. Preening, he stepped forward—only for Kazama to glance back.

"You too."

"Huh? I can take off the suit; my shirt's only damp—"

"You're in the way," Kazama cut in.

"..."

A good twenty meters away, Tamako saw the chalk outline circling the stage. The memory of Fushimi Shika being carried out of the auditorium knifed her heart.

Half an hour earlier, the class leader had done a dorm check, found Fushimi absent, and sent the intern patrol officers to look for him.

The cadets had meant to stroll around for appearances, but the auditorium doors were unlocked. One peek inside—one man and two women on the floor, blood everywhere—and they bolted for an instructor.

Tamako had reached the auditorium just as Fushimi was lifted onto a stretcher and rolled into the ambulance.

From hurried questions she pieced together the facts:

—Nagano Kawai and Sakurai Chizuru were dead; Fushimi Shika clung to life in emergency care.

Why?

Tamako couldn't grasp it. She still had so much to ask Kawai. They had promised to leave the past behind, to graduate together as officers... What had happened? What had they endured?

She had played countless deduction games, devoured shelves of mysteries, yet never had she burned to know the truth like this.

She tracked Kazama as he moved into the hall. When he glanced back at the bench, she called out, "What did you see?"

Without turning, he answered, "A bullet hole. The slug's lodged in the backrest."

"Blood?"

"Yes." He paused. "Your read?"

Watanabe scratched his head. Read? I can barely see from the doorway—how am I supposed to read anything?

"Ricochet," Tamako said. "It passed through a body, lost velocity, and didn't punch clear through the wood. Blood came with it."

"Same conclusion," Kazama nodded.

Watanabe looked down at the shrimp beside him, irritation flaring. He sensed his star slipping.

I'm the Section Chief's right-hand man! No way some cadet's stealing my spotlight. Next question, I jump first.

"Names of the deceased?" Kazama asked, skirting the blood.

"Sir!" Watanabe shot up a hand. "I dunno!"

"Then stay quiet."

"The older woman is Sakurai Chizuru, Class A instructor," Tamako said. "The cadet in uniform is Nagano Kawai. They knew each other and fought last night."

She summarized the anonymous letter and the diary theft without omitting a detail.

"Noted." Kazama's tone stayed flat. "Listen up—scene description."

"Sir!" Tamako and Watanabe answered in unison.

"Sakurai Chizuru: three clear gunshot wounds—forehead, lower-right abdomen, upper-left abdomen. Kidney, spleen, and brain appear perforated. The abdominal wounds show powder burns; the head wound does not."

"Nagano Kawai: one through-and-through wound to the right chest, lung likely pierced. Soles caked with mud, uniform soaked."

"Both bodies have blood on their right hands. At the scene: one dagger, one New Nambu M60 revolver. Drag marks on the stage, no footprints, the word 'Heavenly Punishment' written in blood on the wall..."

Kazama rattled off facts at machine-gun speed—clinical, detached.

Watanabe tried to memorize, gave up after the third detail, and resolved to read the official report later.

Whatever, this isn't for me anyway...

He glanced down. Tamako's eyes were shut.

"Hey! Listen to the boss! Can't nap through this!" he hissed.

"Watanabe, quiet," Kazama cut in. "She's profiling. Don't interrupt."

"Yes, sir! My apologies!"

"I said quiet."

"Sorry! Shutting up now!"

Tamako heard neither squabble nor thunder. Her brain filtered every distraction.

Yes, profiling—yet not the textbook kind.

A criminal-psychology expert would synthesize data to reconstruct the killer's psyche, replicating personality and logic through obsessive data processing and self-hypnotic imagination. That was the "profiling" idolized in dramas and novels—the holy grail of detectives.

Tamako couldn't do that. Instead, she threaded every clue into a living reconstruction of the scene.

In her world there was no "human nature," only logic.

Rain reversed, rising skyward; blood flowed back into veins; the dead rose. Tamako opened her eyes inside her mind, seated in a dim study that held a scale model of the auditorium.

She looked down. The downpour began anew—thunder this time. The roof had been lifted away. Two miniature figures stood on the stage, one behind the other, mouths moving. A soundless barrier muted them.

The murders replayed.

Nagano Kawai's gun jammed. Sakurai Chizuru drew a dagger. Fushimi Shika picked up the revolver and shot Sakurai...

Wait—

Where did the sixth bullet come from? Was there a fourth person?

The diorama froze. Tamako rewound and replayed, but every simulation stalled after the sixth shot.

What happened after the two women died?

Why write on the wall?

Where did Fushimi's injuries come from?

The model fractured, scattering into blurred fragments.

"Still missing pieces, still missing clues..." she whispered.

—Smack!

A hand landed on her shoulder, yanking her back. Kazama stood beside her, right palm steady on her left.

"Come." He opened an umbrella.

"Eh? We're done?" Tamako blinked. "Where are we going?"

"Forensics will compile the scene report; evidence won't sprout legs," Kazama said, walking into the rain. "People matter most. The golden window for interrogation is ten hours post-incident."

Watanabe watched their backs—master and protégé—feeling suddenly redundant.

"Hey! Boss, wait for me!" He held his suit jacket over his head and splashed after them.