VII
Naoto arrived outside of Ide Matsuko's home early the next morning. The media circus was still going strong as a police officer escorted her inside. Her eyes were drawn to the three posters in the entranceway. One for each movie in the series Ide, Seki and Rise had all starred in. Naoto slowed her pace to look at them more closely. She had tried to avoid learning too much about the films but they had been very successful. Furies, Full Speed, the first in the series and the first poster she passed, showed Ide lying on the hood of a sports car in a skimpy outfit. Rise was standing next to the driver side door, as if she had just gotten up from behind the wheel. Seki was standing on the other side, holding two guns. Both were dressed in similarly meager attire. The movie had clearly been made with a teenage boy demographic in mind. The poster for Furies Fight Back, had Ide standing in the foreground again, flanked on either side by the other two actresses. They were clad in skintight black jumpsuits, each holding a different type of weapon. Rise was holding a katana. Naoto wondered if it was a tribute to Souji. Behind them, a man was leaning against the same sports car. Oba Kenji, Naoto remembered hearing his name, who had been given a larger part in the second film after he had proven to draw quite a lot of ladies to the movie theatre. The third poster was for Furies: Apocalypse and showed the three actresses with their back turned towards the camera. Looking at an explosion that - Naoto briefly observed in her professional capacity - they were standing way too close to.
"The crime scene is through there." The officer pointed at the door at the end of the hallway before she turned to say something over her radio.
"Thank you." Naoto braced herself before she opened the door. The body had been taken away the night before but there was still plenty of evidence here Naoto had wanted to look at herself. Two forensic specialists were busy taking photographs of the scene, briefly pausing to politely greet Naoto. She had been too distracted to go through all the pleasantries, however. On the wall at the far end of the room was the self-portrait she'd heard about. It was far larger than she had assumed it to be. It stretched out over the entire wall, swirling crimson lines showing a smiling face. Thinking back to the posters in the hallway, the painting held an incredible resemblance to its subject. It seemed almost absurd that someone would be able to paint such a thing while they were bleeding to death. She voiced this concern to one of the specialists.
"Yes. We thought so, too. Haven't really found any evidence suggesting someone other than her made it. Her fingerprints are the only ones here. And there are lots of them. See these?" He came to stand next to Naoto and pointed at the side of the portrait. Here, there were lighter smudges of blood. Clearer handprints. As if that had been where "she was holding herself up while painting it." Naoto said.
"That's what it seems like. Must have been one hell of a drug." The man said before he turned back to his work.
"Must have been." Naoto muttered to herself before studying the rest of the evidence.
"Anything else in the house?" She asked an hour later. The police officer that had led her in nodded.
"There's some more upstairs." She said.
"Some more what?"
"Blood."
Upstairs, above the bed, was a message written in small characters. Ide must have written it first, not yet fatally wounded, before going downstairs where her body had been found.
'Transformed. I have become. A Goddess. Kagutsuchi.'
Naoto hurried back over to her car, pulling up the initial report that police had written on Seki Haruka's suicide. Hadn't there been mention of a goddess in her suicide note as well? She found the picture she was looking for, it showed how the note had been found. It was waiting in a plain envelope, leaning against the screen of a laptop. On that screen, the results of Seki's last internet search: Fujin.
Naoto was no expert on deities, but had recognized both names. Fujin and Kagutsuchi. Another strange coincidence that both women would describe their suicides as a 'transformation' into these kami. And why had they used these particular names? Naoto took out her phone. Her last girlfriend, Sasaki Are, was a history professor at the university. They had met when Naoto asked her for help with another case, she would be able to help out again. She thought better than to make the call, however. After Rise and her had broken up, Naoto had set up more walls around herself than ever. It had baffled Are when they casually started dating and it had taken Naoto months before she managed to explain her wariness. They had moved past it, but Are was always quick to blame Rise for any conflict between them. It wouldn't be fair on Naoto's part to now ask her for help in a case so closely related to Rise. She'd do the research herself.
Back in her office, Naoto was looking at the new clues to the puzzle. Kagutsuchi, the god whose blood had created eight other deities, written in blood on the wall of a young starlet. Fujin, the god of wind, the last thing Seki had read about before jumping to her death. Naoto was busy wondering if they had chosen those names after deciding their methods, or if the names had decided the methods for them. If someone had orchestrated it this way. Had forced them.
Her cellphone rang, its screen showing Rise's full name.
"Rise, is everything alright?" There was a short pause on the other end of the line. The sound of a glass being played with. Was Rise drinking?
"Everything's fine, Naoto. I was… I was wondering if you found out anything today."
"Yes." She didn't want to give away too much of the gruesome details and was praying Rise wouldn't ask for them.
"Did you, uhm, did you see her? Matsuka-san?" Naoto could hear Rise get up and pace around her hotel room.
"No," Naoto hated doing this over the phone, "Rise, would it be alright if I came over?" The silence after her question seemed to stretch forever.
"Yes, please."
VIII
Naoto stood in front of Rise's hotel room door for over a minute, hand outstretched, ready to knock. Even though she'd already seen the other girl three times this week, the thought of having to talk to her again had Naoto on edge. Finally, the suspicious look the officer standing guard was giving her won over from her nerves.
Rise opened the door almost immediately after the first knock.
"Naoto, hi." She seemed out of sorts. Sitting inside all day had clearly made her as anxious as Naoto now felt.
"Good evening, Rise-san. Can I come in."
"Yes. Yes. Of course." Rise held open the door. Naoto gave one last nod to the police officer before going in.
"How are you feeling? I hope staying inside here isn't too hard on you."
"It's fine. It's… safe, I guess." Rise had made her way over to a small couch. Naoto went to follow her. Briefly considering her options, she went to move the chair that had been standing at the vanity across from the couch.
"They won't tell me what happened to Matsuko. And they won't let me check the news." It was a wise choice to not show her the bloody images all over the media right now, but Naoto understood how rotten it felt to be so clueless. She picked her words carefully.
"It would appear that Ms. Ide invited the media to her house to find her after she'd… ." How could she put this.
"After she killed herself," Rise finished the sentence. Naoto nodded and Rise's expression turned even more worrying. She drew her legs up, wrapping her arms around her knees. "How did she… how did it happen?"
"Rise…"
"Please, I want to know."
"She cut her wrists."
"Fuck."
Naoto hesitated for a moment to tell her the rest of it.
"She was found underneath a portrait she seemed to have painted of herself with the… blood." Rise's eyes went wide, she didn't respond. Naoto wasn't sure how to continue. "We didn't find any evidence suggesting there was someone else there at the time. Do you know if she would be able to… draw something like that?"
"I guess. She told me she used to take lessons as a child but had to quit when she started acting. I've never seen any drawings she made, though," Rise had turned her face away from Naoto, but she could still see how the loss of her friend had hit her, "Sorry. I should have offered you a drink. I have a mini-bar." Voice already cracking, Rise got up from her seat so she could hide her tears from Naoto more fully. She didn't see that Naoto also stood up
"There's not a lot in it though. Mostly hard spirits. I'm not sure if you want to-" Rise stopped midsentence as Naoto pulled her into a tight hug. Soon, her hands clutched the front of Naoto's jacket and her sobs grew muffled as she pressed her face into her shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Rise." Naoto said when the sobbing had calmed down.
"I've missed you." Rise whispered. Naoto didn't let go for another while.
Naoto had been the one to get Rise a drink after that. She had sat next to her ex-girlfriend on the couch and she told her everything she had found out about the case.
"So you don't believe it was suicide anymore, right?"
"I couldn't say for certain."
"You don't have to be certain, Naoto. I just… I want to know what you're thinking."
Naoto had never been good at telling Rise what she was thinking. Two months after graduation, Rise had first made the remark. They were leaving the cinema after seeing a romantic movie that had left Naoto quieter than usual. "I want to know what you're thinking." She'd said it with a smile suggesting she was just goofing around, but it had awakened a new area of anxiety for Naoto. To tell Rise what she was thinking. Her first answer had been short. "Nothing." And the other girl hadn't pressed any further, she simply grabbed Naoto's hand as they went back to the train station. She hadn't pressed any further while they were sitting on the train, instead only talked about how ominous the clouds over Inaba were starting to look. "If it starts raining, I'm laying claim to your hat." She'd lifted the hat off of Naoto's head, putting it on her own backwards. She hadn't pressed any further when they finally arrived at the tofu shop. "Goodnight Naoto", "Goodnight, Rise-san."
On her way back to her families' estate, Naoto had started preparing the speech. When she got home she spent an hour trying to write it out in a letter. Then she spent another hour staring at herself in the mirror as she tried to memorize the complicated sentences she had composed. Outside, the first rain started. Another fifteen minutes later, the rain had turned into a storm and Naoto had made peace with the fact that she would probably mess up some parts of the speech. Rise would just have to accept that. Going over the first sentences again, Naoto forgot to put on her coat.
By the time Naoto had arrived back in the shopping district she was drenched. She would have laughed at the cliché of it all if she hadn't been wracked with nerves. She rang the doorbell.
"Naoto-kun? Oh my god, you're soaked. Quick, come inside." Rise grabbed hold of Naoto's arm, trying to pull her into the house before Naoto loudly interrupted her.
"Rise Kujikawa, for the last two weeks… No, that's not right. For the last two months, I…" Naoto couldn't remember a single word she had prepared. "For the last two months, we… ."
"What are you doing, Naoto? Just come inside." Rise had started pulling on her arm harder.
"Rise, please. I'm trying to do a thing here."
"What thing?" She let go of Naoto's arm.
"I'm trying to tell you what I was thinking, before, but I… I'm not as good at this as you are, okay?" She was yelling, frustrated at herself.
"Did you run all this way?" Rise interrupted her stuttering again.
"Yes. Because I wanted to tell you that I…," this was nothing like the speech she had prepared, and she was still talking way louder than necessary, "I wanted to tell you that I was thinking that I loved you. So. There." She finished, half expecting Rise to start laughing at it all. Rise hadn't been laughing, though. She'd taken a step forward, joining Naoto in the rain, and had kissed her deeply.
"I love you too, Naoto-kun. Now will you just come inside?"
I want to know what you're thinking.
The longer Naoto and Rise had been together, the better the detective was becoming at voicing her thoughts. Sitting next to the actress in her hotel room, however, had her worrying over phrases all over again. She made it a point to never share vague theories before she had evidence.
"I… don't think these were simply suicides, no."
"Do you think someone forced them to do it?"
"That would be a possibility."
Rise groaned. "Is it a possibility you believe in?"
"Rise, I-"
"Couldn't say for certain." Rise took a small sip from her glass.
"Would you know of anyone who might do something like that?" Naoto asked, hating how much she sounded like a detective when she should be sounding like a friend.
"I don't know. I've been thinking about it all day. Like, who they had in common and stuff. I don't think they have any enemies or anything. I mean, how could I even tell, right," she returned, handing Naoto a glass, "I couldn't tell with Adachi… ."
"None of us could." Naoto added, feeling a sharp twinge of sadness when she thought about everything Rise had had to endure. The TV world, her shadow self, the arena, the midnight stage. And now she had had two friends dying in an unexplained way.
"Thanks. For coming to talk to me." Rise said suddenly, looking at Naoto.
"Of course." Their eyes met.
"It wasn't all bad, right? With us?" It was the first time Rise had mentioned the relationship.
"No, almost none of it was bad." Naoto hoped the words were enough to convey the truths behind them. Rise nodded.
"Good." She finished her drink, Naoto understood the unspoken suggestion.
"Goodnight, Rise-san. I'll call you when I know more." She stood up to leave. A subtle sadness returned to Rise's face. She didn't want to be left alone, Naoto knew.
"You should… try to get some rest." She knew the suggestion would offer little comfort.
"I will. Thanks, Naoto."