Chapter Forty-Seven: Finding Resolve
Detective Nakagawa stood at the crest of the concrete stairs.
Under the sweltering heat of the mid-afternoon sun, his skin streamed with sweat, drenching him along his unbuttoned collar and under his arms. Overpowering his deodorant, the stink of his musk orbited him like a cloud, offending his nose until he couldn't smell it anymore. He reached up, plucking his battered fedora from atop his head, and ran his fingers through his slick hair. Then he put his hat back on, his bangs pasted to his forehead.
What was he doing here?
Nestled on a hill in a dense residential neighborhood, a quaint Shinto shrine lay before him. Its courtyard was dappled by the shade of the lofty trees that studded the grounds, all of which were dwarfed by the massive tree on the far side. Flanked by granite lanterns, stone-lined pathways crisscrossed the area, converging towards the two-story home that stood at the center of the grounds.
His attention drifted downward to the pathway at his feet and a knot tightened in his chest. What was he doing here?
After wiping his hand dry on the front of his suit vest, he stuffed it into the coat he had draped over his arm and pulled out his smartphone. His thumb slid in a pattern over the screen, unlocking it, and he opened the text he'd received the day before. Again, he read through the plea. The gratitude for his help weeks earlier. The belief that because of his act that he was a good person. The mention of the yakuza and their supernatural oyabun. The call for his help one more time. And an address deep in the mountains of the Saitama prefecture.
Since he had received the text, he'd read it so often that he was certain that he could recite it without looking. And still, he found himself pulling it up to read again. When he had decided to give the demon his business card, this wasn't what he had in mind, though if he thought about it, he hadn't had anything in mind except for a few questions that needed answers. Questions that had multiplied since the video of the demon's escape from a collapsed parking structure emerged on social media the day before.
Without thought, he exited the text app and tapped on the phone icon. He scrolled through his contacts until the name 'Jin, Fumiko' appeared. His thumb hovered over the call button beside it.
Then he clicked the phone off and dropped it back into his coat pocket.
The evidence he had was a text from a number that never replied and where all his calls ended instantly with a generic voicemail. And while he'd been able to do a basic search for a name and an address, that had been the end of it. No criminal history or abnormal activity. Nothing to follow up on but a hunch. That wouldn't be enough for his by-the-book partner and she was too sharp not to wonder why he was sent the text to begin with. Still, in his opinion, if someone was in danger, his career didn't mean as much as their life.
With his palm, he dried his face of sweat. Then he nodded, girding his resolve, and headed down the pathway.
Birds flitted overhead, twittering as they hopped between branches. Between their songs and the rush of the surrounding city, there were no other signs of life. Yellow and gold, leaves lay scattered about the grounds, the only clutter to be seen at an otherwise immaculately kept shrine. While he was no gardener, it seemed like no more than a couple days' worth of leaf fall. As if the family had taken a weekend vacation and would be back any minute.
Then the knot in his chest swelled.
As he approached the front door, he noticed that it sat wide open, leaves from the yard filling the entryway to the house. Blindly, he untucked the lanyard that held his badge from his vest and it swung loosely against his abdomen.
"Hello!" he shouted as he walked cautiously towards the open door, keeping his profile narrow and guarded. "Is anyone home?!"
The house answered back with silence.
"My name is Detective Nakagawa Eiji," he continued, holding his badge up to the shadowy entryway. "I'm with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. We received an emergency call from this address. Is anyone home?"
The silence persisted.
Slowly, he approached the doorway, his lack of a search warrant drumming in the back of his mind. A fly buzzed past his head. And then another. The stench of something rotten wrinkled his nose.
"Hello?!" he shouted again, his badge still in hand. "I'm coming inside. Don't be alarmed. I'm here to help."
A cool shadow fell over him as he crossed the threshold of the doorway and entered the house. Inside, he could hear an overtaxed air conditioner whine, struggling to keep up with the invading summer's day. In the hallway ahead, he noticed splintered wood and chunks of plaster scattered across the floor, and he instinctively dug into his pant's pocket and pulled out a pair of latex gloves. Something bad had happened here and he didn't need the additional shame of contaminating the crime scene.
Like a spider's web, cracks radiated along the hallway wall from a large, triangular point of impact. Without touching, he traced it. Then his eyes widened. A head and a pair of shoulders had struck the wall well above a normal person's height and as he scanned downwards, he spotted two dents in the shape of human heels. Someone had been thrown against the wall and held there. It wasn't necessarily a superhuman effort, but it required a tremendous amount of strength. And he thought about the shaky video of a concussed demon tossing a policeman away as if he were nothing more than an annoyance.
He blinked away the memory.
Using the dented wall as a guide, he looked across the hallway to discover a family room. Or what remained of one. Mindful of the debris, he walked carefully inside. Alongside plaster and drywall, he found more splintered wood strewn about the floor, its source at the farthest side of the room where most of a table hung embedded in the wall.
Something crunched under his shoe.
And an expletive rolled from his tongue.
If Yoshino, their best forensic lead, saw him now, she'd never give him the scoop on a crime scene ever again.
Carefully, he lifted his shoe and underneath, he discovered shards from a ceramic teapot. Sprinkled amid the debris, he discovered more pieces. Teacup fragments. A shattered tea tray. And swarming with flies, the splattered remains of a cake. He knelt beside a bulbous belly of the teapot and turned it over. A clump of tea leaves poured out, still damp. The woman who had sent him the text had welcomed her attacker. Maybe attempted to reason with them. But ultimately, it wasn't enough.
His eyes widened. Across the floor where the table had once sat, he spied a dark stain. His gaze fixed, he slowly rose to his feet and picked his way to it. It was reddish-brown, almost black, in color and he fumbled for the phone in his coat. Jin's number appeared on the screen and he nearly hit the call button when he noticed something curious. The blood was dry. He looked back at the broken teapot and the wet mush of tea leaves beside it. His attention returned to the blood stain. It was generous in size, suggesting that whoever spilled it had been seriously injured. And it didn't appear old either, so for it to have dried before the tea leaves meant that it had happened before the fight.
He remembered watching a bloodied man climb a building, a girl cradled in one arm.
"Being a demon is hazardous work," he muttered to himself and wiped away at the sweat that dampened his brow with the back of his forearm.
The knot in his chest softened.
If it wasn't the woman's blood, then there was a chance that she could still be alive. That she had been taken instead. And that meant that there was also a chance that she could be saved. His eyes fell to his phone and he opened her text again, reading its familiar plea. He paused at the mention of a supernatural oyabun, a beast more powerful than the demon whose home he stood in, and he knew that he had a decision to make. As a detective and member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, his purpose was to protect and seek justice for the people of the city.
Looking around, he took in the shattered remains of the room and the battered hallway.
This woman and the city needed his help, and he needed a hero.
OOOOOOOOOO
The black emptiness of dreamless sleep wrapped Mama in its void, its embrace neither warm nor cold. There she hung, frozen, waiting for change. She was always the one who waited. She had waited for her husband on the night that he didn't come home. She had waited for her daughter every time she had leapt into the dry well. She had waited for the newest members of her family whenever they left to patrol the city. And now she waited for the darkness that enveloped her to recede. Because if she had learned anything in life it's that waiting is never eternal. It always ends. And she was ever patient.
The soft rush of air conditioning blowing through a vent penetrated the silence and she felt her existence gain shape and weight. Texture came next as the softness of silk tickled her skin. Then, she inhaled, and the bright scent of lavender filled her lungs, a pleasant lure to consciousness.
Slowly, her eyelashes fluttered open and a white blur greeted her vision.
She blinked a few times before reaching out from beneath her covers to rub the sleep from her eyes. An unfamiliar plaster ceiling came into focus and as she lay in the deep plush of her bedding, she looked around. In luscious hues of green, exquisite, forest-themed murals flowed across a wall of rice paper. And on the other side, she spied the jagged crests of skyscrapers, glowing gold in the late-afternoon light.
She sighed gently. The skyline brought her unexpected comfort in a strange place and it took her a hazy moment to realize why. It was downtown Tokyo and the mystery of where exactly she had woken up deepened.
Not content to lay in bed and wonder, she moved to sit up.
And white-hot agony struck her back down.
A groan escaped her as she lay writhing, pain radiating through her shoulders and spine and thundering inside her skull. She remembered now. What happened before the darkness had taken her. Burning, opalescent eyes. She had pushed too far.
A light knock tapped against the rice paper wall and before she could speak, a hidden door slid open. In its gap, a young woman in an elegant kimono waited.
"Higurashi-san," she greeted with a deferential bow. "My name is Yukina. Allow me to assist you."
"Uh, no," Mama replied, waving her off. "I just need a moment, um… Yukina-chan."
She stepped into the room and shut the door behind her with a soft clap. "I must insist. It's my duty to attend to you during your stay."
"I appreciate that, but—"
"I have ibuprofen," she interrupted, producing a pair of tablets in one hand and a cup of water in the other.
Mama frowned thoughtfully.
Palm up, Yukina waved her bribe enticingly.
She sighed wearily. "You win."
"We both do."
In a rustle of silk, Yukina crossed the room and then with impeccable poise, she knelt beside her with the pills and brimming cup outstretched.
Warily, Mama picked up the tablets and examined the printing on their surface. It's not that she expected that they would poison her. She was certain that if the oyabun wanted her dead then she wouldn't have ever woken up. But it didn't hurt to check. Finding everything in order, she threw the pills into her mouth and chased it with water. And it wasn't until she had tipped her head back to lap up the very last drop that she realized how thirsty she was.
"Once I've helped you dress," Yukina assured in a pink-lipped smile, "I'll bring you some more water. However before then, I promised Oya-sama that I would see you to your duty as soon as you wakened."
A flurry of questions hit her at once, sending her mumbling, "Wait… what?"
"You needn't worry," she soothed as she leaned over. Folded in a neat pile on the polished floor beside the bedding was a fine kimono and obi sash along with assorted hygiene products. She plucked up the undergarments and rearranged what remained in the order of dressing. "You're a guest here and will be treated well."
"I don't even know where to begin with that."
"Begin with why you reluctantly accepted pain relief. Having nothing more than bruises is proof of her mercy. It's not a quality that the yakuza, let alone the Shikai Clan, are known for."
"Be thankful that I'm alive is what you're saying?" Mama asked, raising an eyebrow. "Trapped in what I imagine is a modern-day fortress and assigned to some mysterious duty?"
"Is the alternative better?"
She frowned.
Yukina waited.
"I suppose not."
Her expression gentle, she held out the undergarments for her to take.
And Mama accepted them. With a grimace, she shed the yukata robe she was wrapped in and slipped on the bra and underwear. Reaching out, she grasped Yukina's forearm for balance as she climbed to her feet. The kimono was next, and she shrugged into it, finding it to be a perfect fit. Then lastly, she secured the sash around her waist, finishing the look.
"Beautiful," Yukina purred as she fussed over each fold and smoothed out every wrinkle. She picked up a pearl-handled brush and ran it through Mama's hair, blending away her bedhead. When she was done, she stepped back and nodded with satisfaction. "Perfect."
Mama blew out a breath. She knew how to wait, because the key to waiting is that it never lasts forever. So, she could be patient. She could bide her time. Because opportunities always arise, and when they do, she knew how to seize them.
"Are you ready, Higurashi-san?" Yukina asked.
Smiling kindly, she looked at her. "Why yes. Yes, I am."