Don't forget to read the first part, or the previous post if you haven't!
I decide to---
⬢ >shout for her to stop.
>sneak up behind her.
>try to take a closer look.
Maybe screaming at her will spook her enough to forget about the paper?
>shout for her to stop.
"Hold it, you!" Almost as soon as I shouted, Mr. Kogure rushed out. He ran an amazing dash, unfitting for his huge body.
Startled by the intensity of the situation, the student screamed, "No!" A "kyah!" would have been enough, but a "no!" was a rude thing to say to Mr. Kogure.
A large man running after a high school girl trying to flee. If a stranger saw this, they would definitely call the police.
The student, with her short hair in disarray, grew smaller and smaller, and then disappeared around the corner of the school building.
Kogure's mad dash could not make up for the nearly 50-meter difference, and unfortunately, he missed her.
"Haa, haa... Sorry, sir..." Mr. Kogure bowed his head in embarrassment.
"No, it can't be helped. I didn't even..." I felt guilty for not even trying to run, so I offered him a handkerchief as an apology.
"Sir, what was that female student doing?" We walked over to the area where she was crouching to check it out.
"Sir... That's..."
"From the looks of it, she dropped this."
A crumpled-up piece of paper lay there. She apparently wanted to burn it.
They even tried to dispose of it out of sight at the temporarily closed school. The scent of mystery wafted through the air.
Nevertheless, Kogure-san's fear is more useful than I thought. If we hadn't come to the back of the school building at his suggestion, we wouldn't have discovered this.
Mr. Kogure might have a natural antenna sticking out of his head, considering he also found that strange piece of paper in the library.
With this thought in mind, I unfolded the crumpled paper.
On it was written a string of characters that looked like a cipher. Hiragana [The most used Japanese syllabic alphabet] from "A" to "N". Numbers from "0" to "9".
"Yes" and "No". "Man" and "Woman". On top of that, black circles and a torii-like symbol can also be seen.
"Sir, this is an {Ouija board}."
[Yes, I forgot again, sorry...]
According to Mr. Kogure, this is the paper used to play the {Mr. Kokkuri} game.
In this game, people summon fox gods or spirits to divine their fortunes.
I think I remember a girl in my class doing this in elementary school.
"Oh man, this brings back memories. I used to play this game when I was in elementary school. Touching fingers with a girl I liked made me so happy..."
Nobody asked for that much information.
Taking advantage of my silent listening, Mr. Kogure blushed and tried to time-travel back to the days of his youth.
"Mr. Kogure!"
"Wh-what is it, sir!?"
Safely back in reality, Mr. Kogure shakily straightened his back.
"Please look at this, Mr. Kogure." The bottom left corner of the Ouija board is stained reddish black.
"Is it... blood?" Mr. Kogure's face turned pale again---
[Very suddenly, everything cuts to black]
In the end, we were unable to obtain any more clues. After finding the Ouija board, we were summoned by the Chief and assigned a particular task.
That was my first and most grueling assignment.
When Kaori Itou's family learned of her death, they rushed to the scene looking like demons, lashing out at the school and the police.
Her parents kept repeating, "She would never commit suicide!" while her younger brother, who appeared to be an elementary schooler, cried out, "Give me back my sister!"
The Chief put the burden of everything on me and Mr. Kogure, then retreated to the main office as if he were running away.
We spent the rest of the day calming Kaori Itou's family down.
They even said they would sue the school, but were lulled into a state of calm by the principal's irresponsible words: "The police will definitely get to the bottom of this."
I was opposed to the principal's attempts to place the blame on the police's shoulders, but we had a duty and responsibility to solve the case for the sake of the deceased students and their families.
Thus ended the first day of the investigation.
Serial suicides.
Massive blood loss.
Strange talisman.
Ouija board.
Mr. Kokkuri.
Unorganized words are swirling in my head.
Truth and fiction were intermingling as if to mock me.
I may have just become involved in a terrible affair...
[Another cut to black]
Something dwells in my heart.
I don't know when it began.
I feel like I'm becoming less and less me.
Love. Jealousy. Friendship. Resentment. Sorrow. Hate.
I feel a sensation like a black snake crawling inside me.
The snake grows bigger and more ferocious by the day.
It will eventually overcome my will and leap out of me.
My heart turns black.
I can feel my heart being dyed by the darkness.
However, there is a single light that shines in my heart.
My beloved you.
I live only for your sake...
Saturday 9:25 AM
Kamone University Hospital
The next morning. I met Mr. Kogure at Kamone University Hospital, where the postmortem of the second suicide victim, Kaori Itou, was to take place.
"Sir... Good morning, sir." Mr. Kogure's appearance right on time demonstrates his personality.
But, I get no feeling of vigor from him. "Sir... Do we really need to be present for the postmortem?" Mr. Kogure asked with a look of obvious displeasure.
"I don't do terribly well with blood..." Everyone has a pet peeve, but a detective who isn't good with blood is something else.
But I can't say I'm a big fan either. I'm a little nervous about attending my first autopsy. No, I am very nervous.
[Sound of a bike's wheels drifting on concrete]
The loud sound of the engine, not unlike that of a busy hospital, blew away my nervousness.
"Oh? If it isn't Junya-kun." I was wondering which biker gang came here, but then I saw a very familiar face.
"S-sir, who is that woman...?"
"This is Ms. {Hitomi Shikibu}. My brother-in-law's {friend}. Ms. Hitomi is an assistant professor at Kamone University's Medicine Department. She is also a coroner."
"T-this woman is what? Then, sir, today's autopsy will be..."
"Yeah. I'll be in charge of it. I'll be in your care, Detective Kazami."
Ms. Hitomi salutes me with an insinuating smile. I guess she knows that I'll be attending my first autopsy and is trying to tease me.
Mr. Kogure's rough face slightly blushed, showing his infatuation for her. Ms. Hitomi is certainly a beauty. But...
She is one of the few friends of my brother-in-law who can have a conversation with him.
We've known each other since before I joined the MPD, and we've met several times at the university where my brother teaches. [It's entirely possible the brother referred to here is his brother-in-law, but for now, I'll leave it up in the air.]
She is 29 years old. And as anyone can see, is a beautiful woman.
She studied forensic medicine at Kamone University's Medical Department and currently teaches as an assistant professor at the school, while also serving as a coroner.
I would like to say that she is a perfect woman with beauty, intelligence, and status... but according to my brother, she has "three barriers".
The first is her "occupational barrier". Most men who come wooing her run away with a yelp once they learn what a medical examiner does.
The second is her "topic barrier". She's a very hardworking woman, and her topics of conversation are generally related to her work.
Her job's... in short, dissecting.
It's pretty difficult when she keeps talking about how the body from the other day was badly decomposed, or how yesterday's dismembered body had nothing left but its neck and legs.
The last one is the "barrier of her past". My brother was tight-lipped about this one and didn't tell me what kind of barrier it was.
...And that is how she scared off all the men who approached her, one after another, until the present day.
The fact that she's still doing this work suggests that she doesn't intend to break down these barriers herself for the time being.
"Well. What are you doing, Junya-kun? Your anatomy class is about to begin."
"Let's begin the postmortem.
Starting time is 10 on the dot. I look forward to working with you."
[A wide shot of the autopsy table(?) is shown, with no corpse thankfully]
How much time has passed since Ms. Hitomi's cold voice announced the beginning of Kaori Itou's autopsy?
The dissection room is filled with the smell of blood and sweat. Perhaps it is because of the large number of people crammed into the closed room, but the air feels thin and suffocating.
I had imagined that a postmortem would involve about one medical examiner and one assistant, but I was greatly mistaken.
There were the coroner, Ms. Hitomi, her two assistants, and from the police, the Chief, his assistant, Mr. Kogure, me, and the other investigators for a total of 8 people.
Although this number was chosen because of the high possibility of this being a suicide case, it is frightening to know that nearly twice as many people would gather in this locked room if it were an obviously criminal corpse.
The medical examiners and us witnesses must not overlook even the smallest anomaly found on the body.
Knowledge and experience are required, as well as the ability to concentrate and pay attention during the long hours of dissection.
That is why so many people need to come together like this.
Unfortunately, it was not because we cleared this difficult condition that Mr. Kogure and I became witnesses.
It's because someone had to document the results of this autopsy, and we ended up taking this job.
Otherwise, the Chief wouldn't have approved of our presence.
No one else willingly joined knowing that you not only had to personally witness the autopsy but also deal with the huge amount of paperwork following that.
It wasn't until this morning that the Chief gave us permission with a bitter face.
The sound of medical equipment echoes in the room from time to time. And the sound of meat and organs being dismantled lingers in my ears.
Ms. Hitomi continued her work in an unemotional and efficient manner while documenting the condition of the corpse on a tape recorder.
Meanwhile, Mr. Kogure looks as if he is about to vomit, with greasy sweat on his forehead. Or rather, has he already thrown up?
He has escaped outside the room at least 20 times since the autopsy began. His fearless face is now but a shadow of its former self, with his expression becoming emaciated.
I'm not in a position to worry about other people's problems though, as my stomach fluids have begun flowing back and forth since a few minutes ago.
Maybe it's because of my stubbornness before the Chief that I've managed to hold on.
"Detective Kazami."
"Y-yes!" The sudden call caused my voice to crack.
"Do you know how many bodies that may be related to crimes... are considered to be "dead under mysterious circumstances" in the 23 wards of Tokyo alone every year?"
Although she added "Detective" to my last name because I was in front of the Chief and other supervisors, Ms. Hitomi was definitely treating me as if I were a student.
[Why not try to guess yourselves? It might be fun. Well, as much fun as talking about dead people can be.]
"Eeh, isn't it..."
>Around 1.000?
>Around 5.000?
>Around 10.000?
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>Around 10.000?
Tokyo's a pretty big place considering it has 23 wards, meaning they had to divide it into 23 parts for administrative purposes, so anything less would be basically utopic.
"Correct, the right answer is 10,000 bodies. Of those, only about 25% are sent for autopsy after a physician examines their physical conditions."
That means that 2,500 autopsies are performed every year. No one is asking me to attend all of them, but the number still makes me feel a bit overwhelmed.
"Well then, what's the difference between a post-mortem and an inquest?" While talking, Ms. Hitomi continues to perform the autopsy quickly and efficiently.
This is getting more and more like a real class...
>An inquest is performed by a police officer, while a post-mortem is performed by a doctor.
>An inquest is performed by a doctor, while a post-mortem is performed by a police officer.
>Inquests and post-mortems are the same.
[Remember that this is Japan, so while I use these names because of the similarity between these procedures, they may be widely different in application or function.]
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>An inquest is performed by a police officer, while a post-mortem is performed by a doctor.
Just in case you don't know, an inquest is an investigation launched after somebody's death, and a post-mortem is an examination done after death, which is the same as an autopsy in the West but seems to be a different proceeding in Japan.
"That's correct. The examination of a corpse by the police is called an inquest. The examination of a body by a doctor is called a post-mortem or a coroner's inquest."
Incidentally, an autopsy is different from a post-mortem, according to the procedure: a police officer or a prosecutor performs an inquest, then a doctor performs a post-mortem, and lastly, the autopsy is performed.
"Now, for my final question, Detective Kazami."
"After the postmortem, the body must be cleaned, sutured, and returned to the bereaved family, but who do you think is responsible for that?"
I answered while fighting back nausea, with...
>By the doctor of course.
>I-it can't be by a police officer, right...?
>Since we're talking about corpses, probably by an undertaker.
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>I-it can't be by a police officer, right...?
That's probably the biggest difference we've seen yet.
"That's right. That's your part as police officers."
I didn't think that was possible, there was no way... Mr. Kogure had already taken a few steps back once he heard Ms. Hitomi's words.
"Fufu, rest easy. I'm not going to force you to do it". Although I felt guilty for the deceased student, I breathed a sigh of relief from the bottom of my heart.
I realized that I couldn't become involved in this work with such a half-hearted attitude.
While Ms. Hitomi may not have been surprised, I believe I gained a little bit of respect from the Chief.
"...That's all. With this, the autopsy is over." With the end of the autopsy, I was released from Ms. Hitomi's class.
I looked at my watch and saw that lunchtime had long passed, but it was unlikely that I would be able to finish my dinner, let alone my lunch. It was hard to imagine what my future life as a detective would be like.
After witnessing the autopsy, the police officers concerned left the autopsy room one after another.
As I was about to close the door after being the last to leave the autopsy room, I saw Ms. Hitomi holding her hands toward the corpse.
It was unexpected. I thought Ms. Hitomi was a much colder person.
"I don't feel anything when I see a corpse because I deal with dead bodies every day. I just quietly go about my business."
I looked at her that way.
But it was all wrong. Hitomi's "three barriers," as told to me by my brother, may instead be walls meant for protecting herself.
Death always accompanies the work of a coroner. If you have a loved one, you may even see them overlap with the corpse in front of you.
If I were in Ms. Hitomi's shoes, I wouldn't be able to stand it. A question then suddenly popped into my head, why did she choose this job?
Why indeed. Sadly, any other inquiries will only be answered next time. We've learned quite a lot, haven't we? But I doubt this will help us in daily life, lol. Next time, we'll learn about the conclusions brought forth by the autopsy, and see an unexpected side of the Chief.
See you then!
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