Published at 31st of August 2019 12:39 am

Volume 1, Part II: The First Homicide Inquiry - II

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

On the day the finals for the second quarter ended, I saw a very unusual thing.

Inside my desk was a letter, which automatically makes it a bit weird, but it didn’t end there. It was the content of the letter and its sender that surprised me. It was Shiki brazenly asking me out on a date. The letter said something simple like “take me out on a date, will ya?”, but something about it was vaguely threatening, almost like an ultimatum.

I came home that day, not knowing what to make of what I just read. I waited for the next day to come, with all the dread of a samurai who had just been ordered to commit seppuku the first thing in the morning.

I’ve been waiting for what must have been an hour in the place Shikidesignated: the statue of the dog Hachikō in front of the train station, when I finally see her walking towards me from quite a bit away. The first thing I notice is that she’s wearing a different colored kimono today, the color of autumn leaves. It actually goes well with her bright red jacket. Though I see Shikialmost every day, I’ve never really noticed how small she is, looking at her from this distance. The walk that animates her makes her features look distant and cold, and yet she carries herself with dignity and grace; a contradiction not unlike the one you would find on a puppet, a puppet almost alive in its appearance, and yet ultimately dead.

“Yo, Kokutō. Been waiting long? My bad, man. Losing Akitaka was a pain in the ass.”

The second thing I notice is that she pronounces my name weird, and I get the feeling she’s referencing some long-dead French poet with it. And that’s not even going into the way she’s talking now. It leaves me stunned for a second, and I look at her a bit too long, as if to confirm whether it really is Shiki or some sort of elaborate but dumb prank by Gakuto.

“What, being an hour late is a cardinal sin now?” Shiki says. She must have noticed my mouth now hanging half-open. “Unclenching your ass some would do you wonders, my friend.” Shiki’s black eyes stare at me weirdly. The same eyes that always looked like they were staring at some- thing far off, even during the first time we met on that snowy day.

“Um, I—I just wanna check,” I stutter, laughing in my head as I do so. “You’re Shiki, right?”

She raises an eyebrow at me. “You were expecting maybe the school

principal?” Shiki laughs, leaving a suspended grin on her face afterwards. “Well, time’s a-wastin’. I’m not good at this, so I’m gonna have to leave it to you where we go.”

She then grabs my arm in a solid grip and starts to walk. Making a mock- ery of her final statement, she strings me along by the arm across a variety of specialty stores, never really buying anything, but moving on to a new shop after she gets bored. I try reasoning with her, see if she wanted to go to a movie or a coffee shop to take a breather, but she parries with an immediate and resounding “No.” She’s probably right, anyway. Going to such boring places wouldn’t fit Shiki’s character now.

She talked. A lot. Quite a contrast to the usually quiet Shiki I knew. It’s like she’s high or something. Most of the stores we visit are clothing stores. Given the state she’s in right now, it made me breathe a sigh of relief that she’s still going to women’s clothing stores. Finally, after four hours of keep- ing up with Shiki, she says she wants to eat, and so after much wandering, she decides on a fast food store.

The second we go inside the restaurant Shiki attracts attention with her ridiculously out of place kimono, but she doesn’t seem to mind. As she places her jacket on her seat and sits down, I decide to ask her the obvious.

“So, is this the way you normally talk out of school, Shiki?”

“Only in my case,” she says in between furious chewing of hamburger chunks. It looks like she doesn’t like it. “But really, how you talk means absolutely nothing. I mean, you could change how you talk right now and you’d still be the same guy, right?” Shiki finishes the hamburger in seconds. “I’m sure I’ve got you absolutely confused right about now.”

She has no idea.

“I guess I have some explaining to do. This is the first time you’ve seen me after all. I’ve been quiet until now because me and Shiki were on the same wavelength on this one.”

The words are going in, but I don’t understand what she’s saying at all. “It’s what you would call a split personality. I’m Shiki, and the one you

usually see is Shiki. But don’t get me wrong, we’re not like different people or anything. Shiki Ryōgi has always been one person. The only difference between us is our priorities.”

While she says this, she puts a wet finger to a paper napkin, writing her two names, with two differing characters but the same pronunciation. One Shiki that means “weave”. Another Shiki that means “ritual”.

“I just wanted to give you a friendly neighborhood chat, is all. Shikiwasn’t keen on the idea, so I took over in her place. You get me?”

“I…suppose so,” I answer uneasily. The truth is that I really do sort of

get it, when I think about the time we met at the school orientation. We’d met before that, but when we talked at the orientation, she said she didn’t know anything about it. I thought it was because she hated me or some other similar reason, but I guess now I can kind of understand.

Being with her for half the day, I come to understand there really isn’t so big a difference between today’s Shiki and the Shiki I supposedly know. Like she says, she talks differently, but the way she moves is the same. So much the same, in fact, that doubting the veracity of what she says seems now a foolish notion.

“But why tell me?” I say.

“Figured it’s only a matter of time before you knew.” She takes a sip from her juice but immediately puts it down. She doesn’t really like cold things.

“I’m what you would call Shiki’s destructive impulse. I represent the things she wants to do the most. But until now there’s no one I could direct this impulse at. Shiki had no real interest in anyone.” She mentions this with disinterest and just a tinge of regret, as if dreading the fact that she had to say it at all. She keeps looking at me seriously, and I’m afraid of what she’ll do should I move.

“You can relax, man. I’m still myself, and I’m just being a mouthpiece for what Shiki thinks right now. I’m not gonna go Charles Whitman on you.” There is a pause for a moment, as her face grows more stern, as if to pres- age the saying of something important. “Though…we are beginning to be out of sync, so I’d take myself with just a little grain of salt, if I were you.”

“’Out of sync?’ Does that mean you and Shiki got in a fight?”

“I like how you think someone can have a fight with himself. But no, not like that. See, whatever I do, it has to be something we both want. Shiki’s at the helm here, so meeting you was a mutual decision. She probably would have gone about it entirely different, though. It’s not really in her to just go out and take you on a date. You can thank me for that one.” I nod without really thinking, focusing more on what she’s saying, partly because it’s interesting, and partly because I can’t take in half of what she’s say- ing. Shiki laughs. “See, I like that about you. Shikithinks otherwise. That’s what I mean when I say out of sync.”

The way she worded it, I don’t know if Shiki doesn’t like that I don’t give it much thought, or if Shiki doesn’t like that Shiki likes me. I’d like to

believe it’s the latter though, for the sake of my pride at the very least. Quite abruptly, Shiki stands up, and puts the money for the food she ate on the table.

“Well, guess that’s about it. Let’s call it a day.”

Putting her jacket on, she makes her way to the door with a happy skip

in her walk, leaving with only one thing to say:

“You’re all right, man. I like you, so we’ll see each other real soon.”

After parting with Shiki, I start to make my way home. Once I reach the street, I’m surprised to see the city being bathed with the warm glow of sunset. Though it’s still a relatively early time, there’s a lot less people in the main road than usual thanks to the recent murders.

I must be tired after talking (not to mention window shopping) with Shiki for that long, so I make my way inside my house with only a cursory

greeting to my parents. I was planning to inhabit the kotatsu for a good warm nap, only to find my cousin Daisuke, a frequent visitor and a good friend, had already usurped the table. Wordlessly, we initiate a battle for the warm table, struggling with our legs to gain the most ground. In the end, however, I am no match for him, and while he lies down, half his body being warmed by the kotatsu, I end up having to stand up.

“You must be busy these days, Daisuke,” I say while eating some of the oranges on top of the table, resignation clear in my voice.

“Yeah, real busy, what with five murders in three months. Sorry for crashing in your house like this. Figured your dad’s house was closer to the police station, and I only get one hour of R&R before I need to get back, so going home would have been a waste of time.”

My cousin Daisuke is a homicide detective in the city police, an irony since he’s “kind of a lazy guy.” His words, not mine. Why the department would put a man so unfit for the position of solving crime is a mystery not even he can solve. He’s my go-to source for all of the crime related stuff that happens, a convenience that seems to be proving its worth with every passing day.

“How’s the search going?” I ask.

“Baby steps. We were pretty hard up for leads, but in this fifth vic, the suspect finally threw us a bone, even if it does seem intentional.” Daisuke sits up and faces me, a grim look on his worn out and sleep-deprived face. “What I’m about to tell you is confidential, Mikiya. You’re not entirely unre- lated to this, so listen up. I told you about the first vic, right?”

Daisuke then proceeds to describe the situation with the second and third victims. While hoping that not all policemen in the country are this loose-tongued, I listen to his story. The second victim was vertically sliced in half from the crotch to the head. Murder weapon unknown. One of the halves was stuck to the wall.

The third victim had his limbs cut off, and the arms sewn to the legs. The

fourth was cut into pieces, with what looked like a symbol or some other marking left on the body. The fifth was arranged such that the arms and legs formed a manji symbol.

“Obviously someone with some sort of mental disorder,” I say, trying to hold back the growing sickness in my stomach.

“Too obvious, though. This guy has some sort of point to make here. What do you think?”

“Hmm. I don’t think there’s any meaning in them all being killed by a cutting weapon. Other than that, I don’t know. But…”

“But?”

“He’s getting used to it. All the victims until now have been outside. The next one might be a break and enter job.”

Daisuke puts a hand on his temple. I really do pity the stress this job, and heck, this case is giving him. I know he’s barely had any time to him- self. “There’s no motive, no pattern,” he observes. “And he might try going inside houses next if he doesn’t find anyone outside to kill. I hope the brass gets the same read on this guy and have some sort of plan for it. Probably not, though.”

He closes his eyes, right hand still resting on his head, nursing an invis- ible wound. “As for why I told you all of this…we found this in the fifth crime scene. Suspect probably dropped it.” He produces a small plastic bag from his pocket; the kind used to preserve evidence, and inside is our school emblem. We have to stick it somewhere in our clothes when we go to school.

“The area had a lot of vegetation, so the suspect might not have noticed that he dropped this. Or it could have been intentional, some sort of mes- sage. I don’t know. But it’s the only lead I got. I might be paying your school a visit in a few days,” Daisuke says, almost like a premonition for an ill omen.

Share