The Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office in Otsuka was a stark contrast to the dripping, filth-choked tunnel in Minato. Here, everything was blindingly white, smelling of bleach, formaldehyde, and the metallic tang of refrigerated air.
Kenji stood behind the observation glass, watching the steam rise from his paper cup of coffee. It was cheap vending machine brew, bitter enough to strip paint, but it was warm. That was all that mattered. The chill of the tunnel, the feeling of that darkness hadn't left his bones yet.
Inside the autopsy room, Dr. Kaori Sato was moving around the stainless steel table with the grace of a dancer. She was young for a Chief Medical Examiner, barely thirty-five, with sharp features and glasses that constantly slid down her nose. She was currently dictating notes into a hanging microphone while dissecting the pale, drained man from the tunnel.
Manjiro was sitting on a plastic chair in the corner of the observation room, unwrapping a convenience store rice ball (onigiri). The crinkle of the plastic wrapper sounded like a gunshot in the quiet room.
"Do you have to eat that here?" Kenji asked, not turning around. "We are looking at a man who was marinated in sewage."
"I missed lunch, Kenji. And unlike you, I don't run on nicotine and self-loathing."
Manjiro took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. " besides, the glass is soundproof. He can't hear me disrespecting him."
The intercom buzzed. Dr. Kaori's voice crackled through, crisp and professional.
"Detectives. You can come in. I've finished the preliminary external."
Kenji tossed the rest of his coffee into the trash and pushed through the swinging doors. The air inside was colder, sharper.
The body lay on the table, cleaned of the filth. The victim looked even more pathetic. He was thin, wiry, with the hard-earned scars of a street life knife marks on the forearms, cigarette burns on the knuckles. But it was the paleness that drew the eye.
He looked like a wax doll.
"victim identified." Kaori said, stripping off her bloody gloves and snapping on a fresh pair. "Taro 'The Spider' Suzuki. Mid-level pimp and loan shark operating out of Roppongi. Multiple arrests for assault, extortion, and trafficking. A charmer."
"Someone didn't like his charm.." Manjiro said, stepping up to the table, wiping a grain of rice from his lip.
"That's an understatement." Kaori muttered. She adjusted her glasses with her shoulder. "I've seen a lot of bodies, Sano. Jumpers, floaters, shotgun blasts. But this... this is physiologically fascinating."
"Fascinating isn't the word I'd use." Kenji said, looking at the man's face. It was peaceful, almost asleep.
"Look at the lividity." Kaori pointed to the man's head and shoulders. "Or the lack thereof. Usually, with hanging victims, blood pools in the extremities. If he was upside down, his head should be purple, swollen with congested blood. His eyes should have blood filled. But look."
She turned the head gently. The skin was pale white.
"He's empty." Kenji said.
"Precisely. The incision behind the ear." Kaori pointed to the small, clean cut Kenji had spotted in the tunnel. "It severed the superficial temporal artery. Not the carotid, not the jugular. Those would have caused a spray, a massive drop in blood pressure, and death within minutes."
She looked up, her dark eyes serious behind the lenses.
"This artery? It's a slow leak. Based on the coagulation and the body temperature... I'd estimate it took him six to eight hours to die."
Manjiro stopped chewing. "Eight hours? Upside down?"
"Conscious for most of it..." Kaori nodded grimly. "The cut relieved the pressure in the brain, so he didn't pass out from the blood rushing to his head. He just hung there, in the dark, feeling his life drip away. It's... medically speaking, it's brilliant. And incredibly cruel."
"It's Tsurushi!" Kenji said, the word tasting like ash in his mouth.
Kaori raised an eyebrow. "The torture method? I thought that was a myth used to scare Christians."
"It was real..." Kenji said, walking around the table. "And it requires knowledge. You can't just hang a man and cut him. Cut too deep, he dies too fast. Cut too shallow, the blood clots and stops. This killer... he knew anatomy. He knew exactly where to cut to maximize the duration."
"We found this" Manjiro said, producing an evidence bag. Inside was the wooden tag. Greed.
Kaori peered at it. "Japanese Cypress (Hinoki). Expensive wood. And the ink... that's Sumi ink. High grade. Not something you buy at a 100-yen shop."
"So we have a killer who knows medical anatomy, historical torture, and has a taste for expensive calligraphy supplies." Manjiro summarized. "That narrows it down to... what? Traditionalist doctors? Calligraphy teachers with a grudge against pimps?"
"It narrows it down to someone disciplined." Kenji said. He looked at the victim's hands. The fingernails were broken, scratched down to the quick. "He tried to climb up. He tried to reach his legs to untie the rope."
"He couldn't!" Kaori said softy. "His shoulders were dislocated. Both of them. Likely done before he was hoisted up. To prevent him from saving himself."
Kenji felt a flare of anger. It wasn't the violence that bothered him, he was used to violence. It was the calculation.
"What about the toxicology?" Kenji asked.
"Clean," Kaori said. "No drugs. No sedatives. The killer wanted him sober. He wanted him to feel every second of it."
"Suzuki was a big guy." Manjiro noted.
"Scrappy. He wouldn't go down easy. Was he tased? Hit on the head?"
"That's the other strange thing," Kaori frowned. "No blunt force trauma. No injection marks. No defensive wounds other than the fingernails. It's like he just... let it happen. Or he was subdued by something we can't test for."
Kenji turned away from the table, pacing the small room. The pieces didn't fit. A street thug like Suzuki gets taken without a fight, dislocated, hung upside down in a forgotten tunnel, and executed with a method not seen since the 17th century.
"Greed!!" Kenji muttered, looking at the evidence bag in Manjiro's hand. "Suzuki was a loan shark. He lived on greed."
"You think it's a vigilante?" Kaori asked. "Someone cleaning up the streets?"
"Vigilantes use guns." Kenji said. "They use bats. They want instant gratification. This... this is performance art. This is a message."
"To whom?" Manjiro asked.
"To the city. To us." Kenji stopped pacing.
"He didn't hide the body, Manjiro. He put it where maintenance crews would eventually find it. He wanted it found. But he wanted it found too late."
Kenji grabbed his coat.
"Dr. Sato, run a full analysis on the rope fibers and that wood. I want to know where that Cypress tree grew. I want to know where that ink was ground."
"Where are you going?" Manjiro asked, tossing his trash into the bin.
"To Suzuki's apartment." Kenji said, opening the door. "If he was taken without a struggle, he was taken from somewhere he felt safe. And I want to know who Suzuki was afraid of."
"Kenji," Manjiro warned, his voice low. "If this is a Yakuza internal purge, kicking the nest is a bad idea."
"This isn't Yakuza." Kenji said, looking back at the pale, hollow corpse on the table.
"The Yakuza cut off fingers. They don't recreate Edo period history. This is something new, Manjiro. Something old."
He stepped out into the hallway, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.
"And I have a feeling Suzuki isn't the only sinner on the list."
"TSKKKKK.. Fu** that bastard!!!! How can a human could kill another this cruel. I will never leave him!!". Kenji thought in anger and burst out off the office and went out.
Kenji's boots echoed down the hallway, the sound bouncing off the sterile white walls. He didn't notice the chill anymore his pulse was hotter than the fluorescent lights buzzing above.
The faces in the corridor looked up as he passed junior examiners, technicians, a janitor frozen mid-swipe. They all knew better than to speak when that look was on his face.
Manjiro jogged to catch up, still adjusting his coat. "Hey, hold up. You planning to just storm into Roppongi like that? It's past midnight, Kenji."
"Good." Kenji said without slowing. "Less traffic."
"More bodies." Manjiro muttered, rubbing his temple. "You think the neighbors of a propeller are gonna chat with police this late?"
"They'll talk." Kenji said quietly. "One way or another."
They pushed through the back exit, the automatic doors sighing as the night air slapped their faces. Tokyo's skyline shimmered under a sea of neon and drizzle. The wet pavement reflected the glow, turning every puddle into a distorted map of the city.Kenji paused beside their unmarked car, lighting another cigarette despite the wind. The flame flickered, barely catching.
"You know." Manjiro said, glancing around the street, "Dr. Sato was right. Whoever did this had training. Maybe ex-military. Maybe ex–medical school dropout."
Kenji exhaled smoke, the glow of the ember lighting half his face. "Or maybe he's not ex-anything. Maybe he still has a license. People like this they hide in plain sight."
"You're talking as if you've met one."
"I have," Kenji said. His voice cut through the wind. "Once. Back when I was still in Narita Division. He killed women. Said he was saving their souls."
Manjiro shocked. "You caught him?"
"I thought I did." Kenji flicked the cigarette. Sparks danced on the wet asphalt. "But three days before trial, he clawed his throat open with his nails. No note. No confession."
The detective looked away. "You think this one's the same breed?"
"No." Kenji opened the car door. "He's worse. That one hid his madness. This one he's proud of it."
They drove through the city in silence. The wipers struggled against the growing rain, scraping across the windshield like restless metronomes. The streets were half drowned in mist, the rail crossings blinking red in slow, rhythmic beats.
Chapter 2 Ends - What next?