In Tokyo, a mercury gray Lexus ES250 arrived outside of the restaurant, parking beside the multitude of other cop cars that flashed their lights in a call for attention. An inspector got out of the vehicle, walking straight into the restaurant and under the police tape.
He walked around the room, observing the scene before him as well as looking at the dead bodies being placed in body bags. He headed for the back of the room, where he saw two police women, as well as a few straggler officers, looking at the body and head of Yosuke Lee.
"Sir, you're here." One of the officers, an ocean-haired woman, stood up and looked at him.
"Umi Sonoda and Kotori Minami, right?" The inspector uttered.
"Yes, sir." Umi bowed. The other policewomen, Kotori, also bowed to show respect.
"So, what have you found out?" He questioned.
"Yosuke Lee, aged fifty one, manager of this restaurant." Kotori reported, "His head was cut off by a sharp weapon, presumably. His other workers were also killed in cold blood. Gun shots, throats sliced." Umi nodded in agreeance before continuing on for her.
"A person by the name of Tom Arnold reported the incident to us at 9.28pm, when he drove past the restaurant and saw this scene." Umi stopped for a moment before dejectedly letting out, "So far, there has been no clues to deduce who the killer is. Gloves were most likely used."
The inspector squatted down and inspected the body. He darted his eyes left and right to see if he could find anything related to the killer. A single thing out of place could be the tipping scale in what seemed to already be a cold case.
"By the looks of it, this looks like a robbery." Kotori announced, "Whoever killed him had taken his wallet and his phone, not to mention the money in the cashier too. However, we're not too sure either. It doesn't look like a clear-cut case."
He shook his head in disappointment as he couldn't find any clues on who took the life of the manager. He stood up and told them to continue searching for anything that might be related to the murder. After the officers dispersed, the inspector walked over to Tom Arnold, who had just gotten his statement written down by another police officer.
"May I talk to him?" The inspector asked. The officer nodded his head before walking off to give the inspector space to work.
"Hello, Mr Arnold. I am Inspector Huang Zi Yang, but you can just call me Mr Huang." The inspector introduced himself, "So, may I get a recollection of what you've seen?"
"Umm..." The old man fidgeted with his fingers. He explained that he was driving back home from work to celebrate the festival with his wife and son. He had been released late because he had some overdue work. He couldn't rush home as fast as he liked though due to being afraid of hitting any drunk wanderers. As he drove past the restaurant, he saw the lights on but the people in there weren't celebrating. Focusing a moment longer, he noticed the bodies on the floor, including Yosuke's sliced head. At that point, he stopped in his tracks and called the police.
Zi Yang thanked Tom for his time and recount. At the same time, Kotori and Umi went to him. They leaned down, whispering the worst possible news. There was nothing that could help them identify the culprit. He sighed, knowing that his superintendent was not going to be happy about it.
Back in the Russia airport, Eli sat down on one of the seats in the departure hall, waiting to get into the plane. She took a sip from her water bottle before whipping out her phone to check the news.
"JUST IN: Manager found dead in his own restaurant on Mid Autumn Festival" read the headlines of the featured news. Peaked in interest, she clicked on it and began to read the article.
'Yosuke Lee, the manager of Lee Lee Restaurant, along with twenty eight of his workers, were found dead in the said restaurant. The workers were either killed by gun shots or blade cuts on the throat, while Yosuke's head was found decapitated on the floor when the police arrived at the murder scene. There were no witnesses or bystanders that saw the crime unfold. It was assumed that it was a robbery as cash and Yosuke's phone were stolen."
Eli sighed before switching off her phone. Just this past week, she has seen six news articles about murders. In four of those cases, numerous innocent people were killed. A bank robbery, a mall shooting, and two car accidents. She sighed thinking about the number of innocent lives taken away from all these horrendous crimes.
She thought about the justice for the families of the deceased. There wasn't much of it. The police often dismissed the cases as they weren't able to find the killers. Furthermore, they were also dealing with a crime syndicate. The families lost a loved one, someone close to them, someone who was a part of their day to day life. Yet, there was nothing they could do. They could only watch in agony and sadness as they watched body after body get covered up in the morgue.
Since young, Eli had seen a lot of superhero movies. No matter what the villains had planned, the superheroes managed to stop them dead in their tracks, defeat them, and save the day with the citizens being safe. She wanted to be like them. She wanted people to be safe and sound. She wanted to restore peace in the country and seek justice for those affected. She probably could be a police officer, but given the situation now, it wouldn't help much to her cause.
"Dear passengers of flight XF215, you are able to board the plane to Tokyo now." The announcement broke her train of thoughts, "Please present your ticket before boarding. Thank you and have a nice day."
Eli stood up from her seat, following the flock of passengers as they collectively entered the plane. She settled down in her seat, buckling herself in, before waiting for the plane to take off. Meanwhile, an announcement was made through the speakers by a female flight attendant.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we will be taking off shortly. For your safety, please fasten your seatbelts whenever you are seated. Thank you." With that, Eli decided to take a nap as the plane flew off into the air.
A few hours into the flight, Eli was watching a movie while she ate the dinner provided. It was just rice with some meat, gravy, and peas. She didn't really like it, but she forced herself to eat it so that she could fill her growling stomach. A red-haired air stewardess came to her with a tray of drinks.
"What would you like, Miss?" She asked gently, "Orange juice, coffee, or tea?" Eli realized from her voice that she was the same person that made the announcement earlier. Eli found her voice very nice. Nevertheless, she took the orange juice and thanked the stewardess.
A few meters in front, a man was waiting behind a woman for the toilet. He looked left and right, up and down continuously, like he was looking out for something. Once he felt that the coast was clear, he took out his phone and opened the camera app. He slowly lowered his hand and repositioned it under the dress of the woman.
The person in the toilet finally came out and went off. As the woman was about to move into the cubicle, she saw a phone under her dress. The man realized that she saw him recording an upskirt video, and quickly ran away in the other direction.
"Someone, stop that man!" The woman screamed, "He took an upskirt video of me!" The man slid under the tray of drinks the air stewardess was carrying before continuing to sprint.
"Help me hold this for a while, will you?" The air stewardess placed the tray on Eli's lap and quickly ran after the man. Eli placed it on the seat beside her as she turned to the back to see what was happening.
In no time, the air stewardess was able to catch up to the man. She pulled his hand to stop him from running away. He turned towards her and tried to punch her on the face, but she swiftly dodged it and kicked him in the groin with her heels. He grabbed his crotch as he groaned in pain.
Seeing that he was weakened, she pulled his left tricep towards her with her right hand and pushed his wrist outwards with her left hand, in turn twisting his arm. She quickly ran to the other side while she gained control of his arm and pulled his arm behind him. Finally, she kneed him to the ground swiftly, causing him to feel pain.
"You sickening pervert." She growled, "How dare you try to run away after doing something so horrid! I won't let you get away with what you have done!"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" He cried out, "I know I'm in the wrong! It's painful! It's so painful! Please let me go! I've learnt my lesson! I won't be so bold to do it again!"
"After I let you go, you'd better delete the video and report yourself to the police." She snarled, "You understand what I'm saying, young mister?"
"I'll do whatever you say! Please, just let me go!" The man screamed, "It's really painful as hell!" She let him go, and he took out his phone. He glared at her and threw the phone at the direction of her face before running away again.
The air stewardess swatted the phone away and chased after him. She managed to catch him once more. This time, he tried kneeing her on the stomach, but she pushed his leg away. She kicked his other leg, which made him fall on one knee, tearing her stockings at the same time. She then chopped his neck with the side of her hand, knocking him out.
The passengers started clapping for her, including Eli, who was amazed and surprised. She did not expect an air stewardess to take down a man with her own self defense techniques. The air stewardess huffed and puffed for breath before looking around her.
When the plane landed on the runway of the Tokyo airport, she sat down on one of the seats and looked at her torn stockings. She sighed and shook her head as she grumbled. She shouldn't have used so much force while taking down the pervert. So many stockings have been thrown away because of her fighting.
"Maki-chan." An air steward went to her, "Mr Ronson wants to see you tomorrow. He has learnt of the situation today, and wants to talk to you about it." She nodded her head. Nothing was new. She had been reprimanded by him for similar incidents, so this time would be no different. Still, she can't prevent herself from helping those innocent vulnerable people. She'd be going against her own morals.
After her colleague left, Eli approached her as the other passengers were leaving the plane. She sat down on the seat behind the flight attendant.
"Nice fighting out there." Eli praised her, "Not only do you have such a gentle and beautiful voice, you have really good self-defense techniques right there. I'm impressed."
"Thanks, I guess." Maki muttered, looking away, "I was just trying to help a defenseless woman out. Baddies doing evil stuff don't deserve to walk away scot-free, especially when they're doing it to people who can't fight back and can only watch in fear."
"I agree." Eli replied, "There should be justice for those innocent people. Those who do not deserve to suffer, or their lives to be taken away. I admire you." She then stood up and left the airplane. Maki looked at her with confusion, wondering if they were even talking about the same thing.
In the superintendent's office, Zi Yang stood in front of her desk as she slowly took a sip of her coffee in her cup. He stared at her in silence, unsure if he should tell her that he found nothing.
She took out a case file and started reading it. He watched her every move, moving his eyes left and right as she flipped the pages. She then drank the rest of her coffee and slammed her cup on the table.
"Instead of staring at me, Inspector Huang, how about you start talking about what you have found in Lee Lee Restaurant?" She questioned in an annoyed tone. He knew the results weren't going to please her, but he can't keep his mouth shut.
"When we were in the restaurant, we tried searching for clues." He told her, "We tried our very best, Ma'am, and yet we couldn't find any clues that tell us who the culprit is. However, Yosuke Lee's wallet, phone, and money from the cashier were taken away, and it was a whole big mess with broken stuff. We think it could be a robbery."
"'Tried our best', 'couldn't find any clues', 'we think'." She glared at him, "Those are phrases I hate to hear! What do you think we're running, Inspector Huang? A fortune telling company?!"
"No, Ma'am."
"We can't have 'I think' or 'I assume' as an answer to the six bloody murders that happened this week!" She screamed, "Have you seen the public's reactions to our previous six cases?! And now we have one more?! What do you think they would say if we were to just tell them that we assumed it was a robbery?"
"They wouldn't like it, Ma'am."
"Precisely! We hope for the public to trust the police force. That's us! And in order to do that, we need to give them a definite answer and arrest these damn criminals so that the public can be rest assured we're doing our job! I don't care how you're going to catch these bad guys, I just want you to catch them ASAP!"
"We're trying our best, Ma'am." Zi Yang groaned while rolling his eyes.
"Are you still trying to talk back to me?"
"No, Ma'am!" He did a salute, "I will do my best..." He stopped talking when he heard a growl from her.
"I will definitely catch those criminals and put these cases to rest!" He corrected himself and smiled with glee, "If there's nothing else, I'll leave."
The moment he stepped out of the office and closed the door, he frowned almost immediately and cursed under his breath, "Stupid bitch. Always forcing us to work with thin air. If it's that easy, she should do it herself. Sitting in that office like one fat ass."
He went to Umi, Kotori, and another woman with navy blue hair. The two policewomen were sitting on their own desks, looking through the files of the previous murder cases, while the woman was helping them. They were trying to find any links to the people.
"Kanan." He called out. The navy blue-haired woman turned back and waved at him. He glanced at what the other two women were looking at. One was examining the mall shooting case, while one was studying the bank robbery case.
"They're revisiting these incidents again to see if they can find any trace that tells us anything about the criminals." Kanan explained to him.
"Please, on god, find something." He sighed, "We can't even solve any case, and the bossy unreasonable witch is always on my damn tail. She made it sound so easy."
"You know her, Zi Yang." She patted his shoulder, "She's always like that. Everyone knows her pattern. She's constantly been the sort of a crazy person. Besides, we also have to find a way to stop the crime syndicate. Anyway, we found..."
"Nothing." Zi Yang assumed the answer. He has been met with disappointment so many times from all of these. He hasn't felt this hopeless since the big major case he had to solve to get him promoted to Inspector.
Kanan, however, shook her head and pointed at the computer screen on Umi's desk. With curiosity taking over him, and surprised that there was some sort of clue, he went to take a look at the screen.
In the carpark of the mall, a Toyota Corolla was parked there for the exact duration of the shooting. There seemed to be a person inside, but the figure can't be made out. Only the last two digits of the number plate can be seen, which is 79.
Kanan then pointed to Kotori's computer screen, where it showed that the same car was outside the bank when the robbery happened. Only the front part of the number plate, が4, could be seen. There was someone in the car too, but the lens of the surveillance camera was too misty, making it hard to see.
"If my instincts are right, both the same person and car were there for these two cases." Kanan told him, "Possibly the other cases too, except the Lee Lee restaurant one. We're only missing the second digit, but I'm sure we're able to find the car quickly because it is within a range."
"I'll get to the number plates tomorrow, Madam." Kotori uttered.
"Thank god you women found something new!" Zi Yang heaved a sigh of relief, "I don't want to be reprimanded by that..."
"That's enough, Zi Yang." Kanan said, "Let's call this a night, pack up, and go home to rest." Everyone agreed with that, and they all left the office afterwards.
Once Umi got into her car, she looked at her rear view mirror and sighed. The police still couldn't solve any of the murder cases. She felt bad for the victims and their families, and yet there was nothing she could do.