"One."
Kenji kicked the sliding wooden door.
The latch shattered. The door flew inward, crashing against the inner wall.
Manjiro didn't hesitate. He pulled the pin and tossed the flashbang grenade into the center of the room, aiming high to clear the candles.
BANG.
The explosion was deafening. A brilliant, blinding white flash washed out the warm orange glow of the candlelight, followed instantly by a concussive boom that rattled the floorboards and shook the dust from the rafters.
"Police! Get down! Get down!"
Kenji charged through the smoke, his weapon raised, his eyes streaming from the acrid magnesium cloud. He didn't wait for the smoke to clear. He knew the layout. He knew where the target was.
He sprinted toward the center of the room.
"Manjiro, take the Second!" Kenji roared, banking left. "I have Hideo!"
Through the haze, the scene re-materialized like a nightmare developing in a darkroom.
The flashbang had knocked over a dozen candles, extinguishing them, but hundreds more remained burning. The circle of fire was intact.
In the center, Chief Inspector Hideo Yamato hadn't moved.
He was kneeling on the white tatami mat, his back rigid, his hands gripping the tanto the short sword with white-knuckled intensity. He was staring at the blade as if it were the only thing in the universe.
Behind him, standing in the shadows of the alcove, the armored figure of the Shogun stood motionless. The red Tengu mask stared down at Hideo's exposed neck with a frozen, demonic sight. The katana was raised high, poised to strike.
"Drop the sword!" Manjiro screamed, leveling his shotgun at the armored figure. "Drop it or I shoot!"
The Shogun stood like a statue of death.
"Hideo, don't!" Kenji shouted, diving forward.
He was ten feet away. Five feet.
Hideo took a sharp, shaked breath. He didn't look at Kenji. He looked at the tip of the blade.
"Honor." Hideo whispered.
He drove blade inward stomach.
Thwuck.
The sound was wet and sickeningly solid.
The steel point pierced the white fabric of the burial kimono. It pierced the skin. It drove deep into the abdomen, burying itself to the hilt.
"NO!" Kenji hit the floor, sliding on his knees across the polished wood. He crashed into the circle of candles, sending hot wax spraying across his hands and face. He slammed into Hideo's side just as the Chief began the second motion the upward twist intended to sever the aorta.
The impact knocked Hideo sideways. The tanto remained buried in his gut.
Blood bright, arterial red erupted from the wound, soaking the white kimono and pooling on the tatami mat.
"Sano..." Hideo gasped, his eyes losing focus. He slumped into Kenji's arms, his hands still clutching the handle of the blade, slick with his own blood.
"Manjiro! Secure the room!" Kenji shouted, pressing his hands frantically over the wound, trying to stem the tide. "The Shogun! Get him!"
Manjiro didn't fire. He rushed the standing figure, swinging the butt of his shotgun to knock the katana from the Shogun's hands before tackling him.
"Police! On the ground!"
Manjiro slammed his body weight into the armored figure.
CLATTER.
The sound wasn't the thud of a human body hitting the floor. It was the hollow, clanking noise of wood and plastic.
The armor collapsed under Manjiro's weight. The helmet flew off, rolling across the floor. The Tengu mask spun away, coming to rest face-up near a candle, its painted grin mocking them.
Manjiro scrambled up, aiming his gun at the pile of black plates.
"What the..." Manjiro breathed.
There was no body inside the armor.
It was a mannequin. A wooden training dummy, dressed in antique armor, rigged to stand upright. The katana had been taped to the gauntlets.
"He's not here." Manjiro whispered, staring at the empty shell. "Kenji... he's not here."
Kenji looked up from Hideo's dying body. He saw the pile of empty armor.
The horror of it washed over him. The Shogun wasn't there.
He had set the stage. He had dressed a doll. And he had let Hideo kneel in front of it, believing that a warrior was watching him.
"He did it alone." Kenji whispered. "He made him do it alone."
Hideo coughed, a wet, rattling sound. Blood bubbled past his lips.
"The Second..." Hideo wheezed, his eyes seeing a armor. "Is... is it done? Did he... cut?"
Kenji looked at the mannequin. He couldn't tell him. He couldn't tell a dying man that his final act of honor had been performed in front of a toy.
"Yes, Chief," Kenji lied, his voice breaking. He gripped Hideo's blood-soaked hand. "The witness is here. The honor is restored."
Hideo smiled. It was a gruesome sight, teeth stained red, but his eyes softened.
"Good." Hideo whispered. "The fire... it stops now. I paid... the price."
"Stay with me, Hideo." Kenji pressed harder on the wound, though he knew it was useless. The blade had severed the abdomin. The Chief was bleeding out internally. "The ambulance is coming. Just hold on."
"Too late, Sano." Hideo's voice was barely a breath. He looked at Kenji, his vision fading. "You were... always... the best of us. Don't... don't become... the ghost."
Hideo Yamato shuddered. His grip on Kenji's hand tightened for a second and went down.
The Chief of Police was dead.
Kenji stayed there, kneeling in the pool of blood. He held the body of the man who had given him his badge. The man who had taught him the law. The man who had sold his soul for a new precinct building.
The silence of the Dojo returned, heavy and suffocating. The candles that hadn't been extinguished continued to burn, indifferent to the tragedy.
"Kenji." Manjiro said softly. He was standing over the pile of armor, looking sick. "He played us. He played all of us."
Kenji gently laid Hideo's body down on the mat. He reached out and closed the Chief's eyes.
He stood up. His trench coat was soaked in blood. His hands were red. He walked over to the mannequin. He looked down at the Tengu mask lying on the floor.
"He wasn't summoned to a meeting." Kenji said, his voice cold and flat. "He was summoned to a theater. The Shogun knew Hideo wouldn't fight. He knew Hideo wanted to die. So he gave him a costume and a prop and let guilt do the rest."
"It's psychological warfare." Manjiro said, kicking the empty breastplate. "He killed the Chief of Police without even being in the room."
Kenji looked around the vast, shadowed hall. "He was here, Manjiro. He set this up. He lit the candles. He dressed the dummy. He oil the hinges."
Kenji walked to the perimeter of the room, his eyes scanning the darkness.
"He wanted to watch." Kenji said. "The Shogun is arrogant. He wouldn't miss the finale. He was here."
"But where? The doors were closed. We would have seen him leave."
Kenji walked to the back of the room, behind the spot where Hideo had died.
There, standing against the wall, was a large, traditional Shoji screen. It was pristine white paper in a black wood frame. It glowed softly from the candles placed behind it.
"The screen." Kenji whispered.
It was placed perfectly to act as a backdrop for the suicide. A blank canvas for the bloodspray.
But there was no blood on the screen. Hideo had fallen forward, onto the mat.
Kenji approached the screen.
"Manjiro!" Kenji said. "Bring the light."
Manjiro shone his tactical flashlight onto the paper.
The screen wasn't blank.
Someone had been there. Recently.
There were items laid out on a small table behind the screen. An inkstone. A calligraphy brush.
And the brush was wet.
But it wasn't dipped in black ink.
Kenji looked at the floor leading away from Hideo's body. There were no footprints. But on the screen itself...
"He wrote something." Kenji said.
The characters were painted on the white paper in thick, heavy strokes. The liquid used to write them had dripped down, creating long, jagged tears on the page.
The liquid was dark red. Viscous.
"Is that...?" Manjiro recoiled.
"He harvested it." Kenji said, realizing the timeline. "Hideo didn't die instantly. He bled. The Shogun... he must have been here before we breached. Or he collected blood from somewhere else."
Kenji looked closer. The smell of iron hit him.
"No." Kenji realized. "This isn't Hideo's blood. It's too dark. It's old."
"Old blood?"
"He brought his own ink." Kenji said, disgusted. "He brought the ink of the victims."
Kenji stepped back to read the message. It was a tag. But it wasn't a single word like the others.
It was a poem. A riddle.
The characters seemed to pulse in the flickering light.
弱虫
(COWARD)
In the banquet of the living, my twin and I must never touch.
But in the smoke of the pyre, we are the only ones who can hold you.
I cannot lift the white bone alone.
I drop the soul if I am solitary.
To cross the River Sanzu, the bridge requires a pair.
Count the sticks needed to carry your sins to Hell.
Kenji stared at the words. His mind raced, fighting through the grief and the shock.
My twin and I must never touch.
I cannot lift the white bone alone.
Count the sticks.
"It's a puzzle." Manjiro whispered. "Like the Ten Kings. But what does it mean? 'River Sanzu'? That's the Buddhist river of the dead."
Kenji felt a chill that had nothing to do with the corpse cooling on the floor behind him. He knew this imagery. He knew the cultural taboo the killer was invoking.
"It's not just a puzzle.." Kenji said. "It's a forecast."
The sirens outside grew louder. Car doors slammed. Voices shouted commands. The perimeter was finally secured. The paramedics were running up the path.
But they were too late for Hideo. And they were too late to stop the Shogun.
Kenji turned away from the screen. He looked at the mannequin, then at the dead Chief.
"Bag the screen." Kenji ordered Manjiro, his voice devoid of emotion. "Bag the brush. Bag the armor. Bag everything."
"Kenji, you're covered in blood. You need to—"
"I need to solve the riddle.." Kenji interrupted. He walked toward the open doors, into the cold night air. "Because if I'm right... Hideo wasn't the last one."
"But he was the Sixth Pillar!" Manjiro argued, following him. "Money. Land. Law. Science. Authority."
"The diagram was the history." Kenji stopped at the edge of the veranda, looking out at the rain. "This poem... this is the future."
He looked at his hands, stained with Hideo's blood.
"Count the sticks." Kenji whispered to the darkness.
He knew the answer. And the answer terrified him more than the sword.
Chapter 20 Ends - What was that riddle meant to be?