Chapter 6: The Sin Does Not Disappear, the Flames Spread – Part 2

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Translator: Soafp

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The emergency press conference held by Akihiko Sagisawa, a prefectural assembly member, began at 4:00 p.m.

It was the same venue as the press conference three years earlier.

Akihiko appeared on stage in a black suit, bowed with a grave expression, and kept his head lowered for nearly ten seconds amid a storm of camera flashes.

“Last night, my son Reo was killed by an unidentified person.”

His voice trembled as he read from the prepared statement.

No one could tell whether the trembling came from grief over losing his son or from fear of losing his position.

“As his father, I deeply apologize for the trouble my son caused everyone while he was alive. However, the statements currently spreading online were forced from him under extreme duress, when his life was threatened.”

Murmurs spread among the reporters.

“Nor can we rule out that the document released by the murderer calling himself El was fabricated. My son, too, was a victim—robbed of his life by baseless slander and brutal violence.”

The words were almost identical to what he had said three years earlier.

My son, too, is a victim suffering from baseless slander.

Those had been Akihiko's words the day before Sakura Minase took her own life.

A reporter in the front row raised a hand.

“The documents show that two million yen was paid from your political organization to a company managed by your secretary. Three days later, a total of 1.6 million yen was transferred to the four people who carried out Reo's instructions. Is that fabricated too?”

“All expenditures from the political organization were handled properly.”

“Then what was the remaining 400,000 yen used for?”

“We are currently confirming that.”

“We can't reach your secretary, Masao Kiryu. Do you know where he is?”

“I have nothing to say about the actions of individual staff members.”

Akihiko repeated the answers he had prepared.

Another reporter stood.

“An audio recording has also been released showing that pressure was put on the Minase family to withdraw their complaint.”

“I gave no such instruction.”

“What about the fact that Reo's phone was water-damaged the day before the police raided his home?”

“I have no knowledge of that.”

“Your son testified that your secretary disposed of it.”

“As I said before, that statement was coerced by the murderer—”

The door at the back of the press conference room opened.

Himura entered with several investigators. Both of his hands were wrapped in white bandages.

“Excuse me for interrupting your press conference, Sagisawa-san.”

Akihiko's face stiffened.

“Detective Himura… What is the meaning of this?”

Himura walked to the front of the stage and held up a warrant.

“This is a search-and-seizure warrant for your campaign office and your home.”

“You're saying the court issued a warrant based solely on evidence made by El?”

“We've been verifying things on our end since last night.”

Himura opened the documents in front of the reporters.

“The transfer dates and amounts listed in El's document match the banks' records. We also found Reo's instructions and the secretary's payment records on a phone submitted by one of the people who carried out the attacks.”

“That was my son and my secretary acting on their own! It has nothing to do with me!”

“Kiryu turned himself in to the police this morning.”

For the first time, the politician's mask slipped from Akihiko's face.

“…What?”

“He testified that you ordered him to destroy the phone and distribute money to the people who carried out the attacks.”

“That's a lie!”

“He also admitted that three years ago he pressured Yumiko Minase to withdraw her complaint. The recording has been submitted as evidence.”

Akihiko backed away.

The cameras of the press corps all followed him.

“Wait. I'm a prefectural assembly member! You can't just barge in here without—”

“So what?!”

Himura's voice silenced the room.

“You said three years ago that your son was a victim too. With those words, you turned a real victim into a liar.”

“My son is dead!”

“So is Sakura Minase.”

Himura didn't look away from Akihiko.

“But you're alive. And if you're alive, you can stand trial.”

“Are the police going to use illegal information released by El?”

“Ha… Don't get the wrong idea.”

Himura thrust the warrant toward Akihiko.

“We took the information El revealed and investigated it from scratch. It won't be a god who judges you. It will be human beings.”

The investigators moved onto the stage.

Akihiko tried to shout something, but the questions from countless reporters drowned him out.

Thirty minutes after the press conference ended, Akihiko's political party announced his expulsion. A resolution calling for his resignation as a prefectural assembly member was submitted, and his supporters' association dissolved. Several business partners requested contract terminations from the companies run by his family.

Yumiko Minase watched the footage of Akihiko being loaded into a police car on the television at home.

On-screen, a reporter called Sakura “a victim whose life was stolen by false information.”

Those were the words she had longed to hear for three years.

Yumiko held her daughter's photograph to her chest.

“Sakura. They finally… finally believed you.”

Only sobs escaped from the lips that tried to smile.

---

That night, Himura was in Mimosa's office.

The restaurant hadn't reopened yet, and only half the lights in the dining area were on. Outside the window, forensic investigators were still examining the parking lot.

On the desk sat the recovered paper bag in a transparent evidence bag.

An ordinary takeout bag printed with the Mimosa logo.

No fingerprints or saliva were detected. Even though the black smoke had handled it bare-handed and eaten a hamburger from it, the only thing found on it was a trace amount of dust from the air inside the restaurant.

“Did that monster really have this?”

A young female detective asked.

“Yeah. I saw it.”

“But he was eating what was inside. Do gods eat hamburgers? Maybe gods are actually New Yorkers?”

“Don't ask me. Religious studies isn't my specialty.”

Himura turned his attention back to the security footage.

The screen showed Reo and his companions leaving the restaurant.

Thirty seconds later, Inori appeared from the back area carrying two black garbage bags.

“It starts here—”

In the footage, Inori exits through the back door.

Twenty seconds later, the cameras inside the restaurant and in the parking lot go dark simultaneously.

A three-second gap.

When the footage resumes, the mirror cube has appeared in the parking lot.

Inori doesn't appear on any camera.

There's no footage of him returning to the restaurant after the black smoke disappears. By the time anyone notices, he's already in the corner of the kitchen eating omurice.

“Don't tell me, Himura… you think this boy is El?”

“I didn't say that.”

“But you suspect him, don't you?”

Himura didn't answer.

He rewound the footage a little.

It showed Inori talking to Nao in the kitchen. The security camera's audio was unclear, but the voices remained on the business terminal Nao had been recording in case of trouble in the restaurant.

“For that customer's steak, please make it a cut steak and well-done.”

“Cut steak too? Didn't he order it medium?”

“I'd rather not serve it undercooked and have him complain of a stomachache later. Though either way, he'll be a cut steak before long.”

Himura stopped the audio.

One hour before the incident.

Inori had predicted that Reo would be cut apart.

If it was a joke, that was all it was. But even if it was only a coincidence, it was too grotesque and too perfect to justify an arrest.

“What do we do with this boy, Inori Amou?”

The young detective asked.

Himura stared at the paused footage.

On-screen, Inori slightly lifts his head just before going out the back door. He seems to have noticed the security camera—or perhaps to have known the footage was about to cut out.

“Keep him under surveillance for now.”

“Seriously? He looks like a completely ordinary high school student.”

“An ordinary high school student doesn't say someone will be a cut steak an hour before they're cut apart.”

“That's… just a sick joke, isn't it?”

“Maybe.”

Himura played the footage again.

Inori disappears beyond the back door, and twenty seconds later the screen goes dark.

“But if a detective believes in coincidence, he'll miss the inevitability left at the scene.”

For now, the only things connecting Inori Amou and El were this ambiguous footage and Himura's intuition.

It couldn't be called evidence.

That was exactly why Himura didn't rush. He started reviewing the footage from the beginning again.

---

Late that night, Mimosa's one-day emergency closure came to an end.

The lights in the dining area were off, and the police tape that had remained outside the window was removed once the forensic investigation finished. The huge crowd of reporters had vanished too, leaving only the cold winter wind blowing through the parking lot.

Inori sat alone at a window-side seat, eating a late dinner.

He had finished three plates of the large serving of Napolitan Nao had made and was reaching for a fourth when the phone in his apron pocket buzzed.

—A new item has been listed.

A notification ordinary users never received.

Inori opened the screen.

The item photo showed a single black loafer.

Mud and dried algae clung to it, and there was a deep scratch on the toe. Inside, on the white cloth, a child's handwriting spelled out the owner's name.

—Mizuki Shiraishi.

Item: My daughter's single loafer.

Condition: Scratches and signs of wear.

Price: 13 yen.

The seller was Takanori Shiraishi.

The description contained a long message, written as if his father had spent three years revising it over and over.

“My daughter, Mizuki Shiraishi, died when she was thirteen.”

“The two boys who pushed her into the water tank were fifteen at the time.”

“But they testified that she slipped and fell on her own.”

“The video showing her being assaulted had the part just before she was pushed into the tank deleted.”

“The school concealed the fact that my daughter had consulted them about their extortion.”

“The two were disciplined for extortion and assault in another case, but they have never been punished for killing my daughter.”

Inori opened the private file.

Three years earlier, Mizuki had witnessed third-year students at her middle school extorting money from younger students. She helped one of the victims and planned to speak to a teacher the next day.

That evening, a message arrived on Mizuki's phone.

Let's talk.

The place they named was an abandoned water-treatment facility on the edge of town.

Waiting for Mizuki were two third-year middle school students.

All of them were fifteen.

They surrounded Mizuki and beat her to make her promise not to report them. They filmed it while laughing, then drove her to the edge of the water tank.

The video submitted to the police ended there.

The two boys claimed Mizuki had tried to run away on her own and slipped. The school denied that extortion had been going on and denied that Mizuki had ever consulted them.

Her death was treated as an accident. No evidence proving murder was found.

The boys' names and faces were never made public.

In the news, they were referred to as Boy A and Boy B until the end.

Boy A, the ringleader—Renji Kuze—was now eighteen.

He had made his past in juvenile detention public and now gave lectures as “a young man who turned his life around after delinquency.”

The autobiography he published was titled The Courage to Start Over.

On his livestream, he spoke about the value of life and smilingly described how the Juvenile Act had saved his life.

At the same time, he used footage from that time to blackmail his former accomplice and kept demanding hush money.

And every year on the anniversary of Mizuki's death, an envelope with no return address arrived at the Shiraishi home.

This year's envelope contained a photograph of the water tank at the treatment facility and a short message:

If Mizuki had just watched where she was going, she could have grown up too.

At the end of the listing, Takanori had written:

That boy hasn't reformed.

He still enjoys having killed my daughter.

As Inori ate his Napolitan, he checked the attached files one by one.

The god was not omniscient.

He couldn't pass judgment based on a father's appeal alone. Had Renji Kuze really pushed Mizuki in? Did he still feel no remorse? The trial required the man's own words and Inori's direct confirmation.

At the end of the file was Renji's lecture schedule.

In three days, a lecture for the entire student body would be held in the gymnasium of Inori's high school.

The title was—“Even if you can't change the past, people can change.”

“What a wonderful title. It's more ironic than anything I could come up with.”

Inori murmured, sounding impressed.

“Though it seems the past of the person who died is the one thing that never changes.”

The purchase button at the bottom of the screen was not yet black.

—There is insufficient information to begin the trial.

Inori closed the photo of the loafer and took another bite of Napolitan.

In three days, Renji Kuze would come to Inori's school to talk about the value of life.