The sun was high now, burning through the smog of Tokyo, casting a harsh, flat light over the city. It was 10:00 AM.
Kenji Sano and Manjiro Tenken were parked in the shadow of a vending machine in the Shinjuku district, drinking cold coffee that tasted like battery acid. They hadn't slept in thirty hours.
They were ghosts in the machine. Suspended. Rogue. Hunting a killer who had gone silent.
"Nothing." Manjiro slammed his tablet shut. "No chatter on the dark web. No ransom demands for Reika Kurosawa. The family is keeping a lid on it tight. They think they can negotiate."
"You can't negotiate with a natural disaster." Kenji said, crushing his empty can. "And that's what he is."
Kenji stared at the police radio scanner dashboard they had rigged up. It had been mostly riot control chatter all morning. Boring. Repetitive.
Then, the tone changed.
It wasn't a shout. It was a whisper.
"Dispatch... this is Patrol Unit 9-1... requesting... oh god... requesting immediate backup at the Koto Heavy Machinery Yard."
The officer's voice was trembling so violently the words were barely intelligible. It sounded like he was vibrating.
"Unit 9-1, state the nature of the emergency." the dispatcher replied, sounding annoyed. "Is it a riot spillover?"
"No... no riot." the officer gagged. The sound of retching came over the open channel. "It's... it's a slaughter. Send the coroner. Send... send everyone."
The radio went dead.
Kenji looked at Manjiro. The color had drained from his partner's face.
"Koto Heavy Machinery." Kenji started the car. "That's near the port. Industrial. Isolated."
"The officer sounded broken." Manjiro said. "I've heard guys scream when they get shot. I've heard guys cry. But that... that was pure fear."
Kenji slammed the car into gear. "We found her."
10:30 AM. Koto Heavy Machinery Yard.
The drive to the Koto Ward took twenty minutes. Kenji drove with a cold, predatory aggression that parted the traffic.
When they arrived at the machinery yard, a sprawling lot filled with cranes and earthmovers near the bay, the police presence was already massive. But it was strange.
Usually, a crime scene was a hive of activity. Officers taping off areas, detectives taking notes.
Here, the police were clustered near the gate, facing away from the scene. Two uniformed officers were on their knees in the gravel, vomiting. A sergeant was smoking a cigarette with a shaking hand, staring at the ground.
Nobody was moving toward the large metal hangar in the center of the yard.
Kenji pulled the sedan up to the tape. He stepped out, flashing his badge he hadn't turned it in yet, and in the chaos, nobody checked the suspension list.
"Detective Sano..." the sergeant looked up. His eyes were wide, glassy. "You... you shouldn't go in there."
"What do we have, Sergeant?" Kenji asked, his voice steady, though his heart was hammering against his ribs.
"It's the Kurosawa girl... Reika" the sergeant whispered. "We found her ID in the purse by the door."
"Where is the body?" Manjiro asked.
The sergeant pointed a trembling finger at the hangar.
"It's... everywhere."
Kenji felt a cold hand grip his spine. He looked at Manjiro.
"Stay here if you want." Kenji said.
"No." Manjiro racked his shotgun, though there was clearly no one left to shoot. "We finish this."
They lifted the yellow tape and walked across the gravel lot. The hangar door was wide open, a gaping maw of darkness against the bright morning sun.
As they got closer, they heard it. The sound of engines.
Rum-rum-rum-rum.
Diesel engines idling.
"The machines are still running." Kenji noted. "He left them on."
They reached the threshold of the hangar.
Kenji stepped inside.
The smell hit him instantly. It was a thick, coppery fog that coated the back of his throat. Blood. Massive amounts of blood. Mixed with the stench of diesel exhaust.
Kenji raised his eyes.
He froze.
For a second, his brain refused to process the geometry of what he was seeing. It looked like an abstract painting red splashes on gray concrete, yellow steel, black cables.
Then, the shapes resolved into horror.
In the center of the vast space, two massive yellow machines faced away from each other. A bulldozer and a heavy-duty tow truck.
Between them, suspended in the air by steel cables, were the remains of Reika Kurosawa.
But she wasn't one person anymore.
The cables were pulled taut, singing with tension.
Her right arm and leg were connected to the bulldozer. Her left arm and leg were connected to the tow truck.
The winches had pulled her apart.
It wasn't a clean cut. It was a tear. Brutal tear and brutal for the young girl. The force of the machines had slowly, agonizingly dislocated every joint, stretched the skin until it ripped, and separated the limbs from the torso.
The torso hung in the center, suspended by the neck from a ceiling beam — a mercy, perhaps, or a way to keep the head upright to watch the limbs detach.
The floor beneath her was a lake of crimson.
"Jesus... Tskkkk that bastard..." Manjiro whispered. He dropped his shotgun. It clattered on the concrete.
Manjiro turned away, doubling over, his hands gripping his knees as he dry-heaved.
Kenji didn't turn away. He couldn't. He was paralyzed.
He had seen death before. He had seen the Pit, the Raincoat, the Boiling Pot, the Saw, the Cross, the Seppuku.
But this... this was butchery.
This was Ushi-zaki. The Ox Tearing.
It was medieval. It was a punishment reserved for traitors in the feudal era. But seeing it done to a twenty-two-year-old girl in a white fur coat...
The coat.
One of the severed arms, lying ten feet away near the bulldozer tracks, was still draped in the sleeve of the white fur coat. The white fur was matted with red, looking like a slaughtered animal.
Kenji felt a tremor start in his hands. It traveled up his arms, into his chest, until his whole body was vibrating.
Fear.
Real, primal fear.
Not fear of the killer. But fear of the hatred required to do this.
To set up the cables. To start the engines. To watch the slow, inch-by-inch stretching. To listen to the screaming until the vocal cords snapped.
"He hated her." Kenji whispered. "He hated her more than the others."
"Why?" Manjiro gasped, wiping his mouth. "She didn't do anything! She just spent the money!"
"That was the sin according to that ruthless bastard" Kenji walked slowly into the blood-slicked room, his boots making sticky sounds on the floor.
He approached the central torso. Reika's face was frozen in a mask of unimaginable agony. Her mouth was gagged, her eyes wide open, staring at nothing.
Kenji looked at the ground beneath her.
There was a tag.
後継(Kōkoi) - Heir.
And also there was a credit card. A Black Card, platinum-plated, belonging to Reika Kurosawa.
The Shogun had scratched a word into the magnetic strip with a knife.
"Heir", Kenji read the word in anger.
He looked around the scene. The Shogun had painted a message on the bulldozer blade in red spray paint.
THE FRUIT IS ROTTEN.
Kenji backed away. He felt small. He felt like a child trying to stop a tidal wave with a paper shield.
"He knew." Kenji said, his voice trembling. "He knew we wouldn't find her. He knew the family wouldn't call. He had all the time in the world."
Kenji looked at the tow truck. The engine was chugging rhythmically.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It sounded like a heartbeat. A mechanical heart that wouldn't stop beating until it had consumed everything.
"We can't stop him." Kenji whispered. The thought terrified him. "Manjiro... I don't think we can stop him."
Manjiro stood up, his face pale and sweaty. "Don't say that. Don't you dare say that."
"Look at this!" Kenji shouted, gesturing at the carnage. "He tore a human being into four pieces! He planned this! He engineered it! While we were chasing shadows in Ueno Park, he was here, watching her! I will fucking rip him apart... That damn mother fucking bastard..."
Kenji grabbed his own hair, pulling it.
"He's not just a vigilante anymore. He's a butcher."
The sound of sirens finally approached outside more units arriving, the coroner, the press. The circus was coming to town.
But the show was already over.
Kenji looked at Reika's face one last time. The Shogun had erased her humanity. He had turned a person into a pile of meat and expensive fabric.
"Let's go." Kenji said, turning on his heel. "I can't be here. I can't look at this."
"Where?" Manjiro asked, picking up his shotgun.
"Away," Kenji walked out of the hangar, into the blinding sunlight. "I need to think. I need to understand."
As they walked past the trembling officers at the gate, Kenji felt a cold realization settling in his gut.
Hideo was dead. The Akiyama couple were dead. Reika was dead.
The Shogun had won every round.
And Kenji was terrified that he was saving the worst for last.
Chapter 28 ends - How can he kill with such hate?