Evidence
The blonde bombshell performer from Va Va Boom nightclub was found dead on the street. The famous night performer Hiraya Yamamoto was the latest victim of the devil we called The Night Scythe. Her body was found lying on the ground on a Tuesday Morning. …Decapitated.
"Hiraya?" her eyes widened after hearing who the latest victim was from the news on her TV. She's the number one night performer across the village and it bothers her so much because the killing becoming more frequent lately. She doesn't want to worry about it but it bugs her sometimes. Her attention was now split on being needs to be aware of this serial killer and her plan on killing the detectives.
"Such pain in the ass! Ugh! Why did you have the urge to kill when I'm here in your village executing my own plan? This fucking serial killer!" she groaned while lying on her couch.
She remembered Hiraya, the blonde beauty of Va Va Boom. The way she dressed and the way she danced on the stage, it's no doubt that people voted her as the top one-night performer. Temari can't help but feel pity for these girls.
Suddenly, she realized something. All of the girls that were murdered recently were from a foreign land, not a citizen of Konoha.
Hiraya was a migrant from Takigure, just like Yukata….just like her.
The young detectives were seated again in the conference room along with their seniors, Kakashi has a piece of new information about the case that he gathered recently.
He flashed a couple of pictures using a projector, it was Kiba's wound shots. A scanned copy of the captured images of his wounds and injuries was presented in front. Unconsciously, their heads bowed, and gaze lightly at their table. It was hard for them to see the brutal images of their passed co-worker who they had been inside the same room last year in front, displayed as the victim.
"Here's the image of Kiba's cut in the neck. His wounds were measured and checked to know what weapon the killer used"
He clicked his remote to move to the next slide.
"And here are the wounds and cuts of the victims from the Night Scythe's case"
All of them stared at the gruesome images of dead people flashed on the whiteboard. Trying to figure out what Kakashi was trying to say, Shikamaru has a hunch that he was telling them that there's a similarity between these two different cases but he's waiting for Kakashi to confirm.
"We got a digitally designed knife that the killer used, these were measured as per depth, the pattern of cut, and how thin the slice was on the victims"
A 3D image of a small scythe was flashed in front, it was a size of a cleaver knife but shaped like a scythe, like it was customized.
"I'm actually surprised, I expected that the knife used by the killer was the one that already sold in the market. But I was wrong, it looks like he specifically made this knife just for his killing"
Shikamaru observed and memorized the image of the small scythe that was shown in front. Finally, he had a good image of the weapon that the killer used in all the murders, including Kiba.
"So, we have this hunch that one of the killers from Kiba's case is also the night scythe" Kakashi spoke while he leaned on the wall with crossed arms.
"Gaara?" Neji said
"That makes sense since Gaara is nowhere to be found now and the killer was freely roaming around. This is possible" Sakura exclaimed
"It's possible. But what if he's not? Do we have any other possible suspect that matches the night scythe?" Sasuke added
"Yes, we do have, it's still not final. We need to sort them out but Gaara is the closest one that has the same pieces of evidence as the night scythe. Even if he's not the killer, we still need to catch him since he escaped from prison" Kakashi responded
They all nodded in agreement. The police department was able to confirm that Gaara and Kankuro were siblings after they extracted their DNAs for reports. However, they didn't know that they have another sibling back in Suna, their sister.
Her blonde hair and teal eyes were far different from Kankuro's brown hair and dark eyes, and Gaara's red hair and emerald eyes. The department has little to no information about the siblings as the Suna government was very restrictive when it comes to their people's information, especially since the news brought their village a bad image, having two Suna murderers flashed to every station.
"So, I think I'll wrap up our discussion for this morning. We got one candidate as suspect and we got a clear image of the suspect used in the killings"
Their meeting adjourned, and the discussion about the earlier announcement starts to wrap around their small office room. Neji was firm that it was Gaara but Shikamaru wanted to have a broad option of possible suspects before he could assess who may be The Night Scythe.
The clacking sound of their shoes halted when they all saw a familiar detective standing in one of the almost abandoned workspaces, Shino was back.
He looked so much different from before after they encountered Kankuro and Gaara when they tried to catch them. Shikamaru can't help but pity him, he looked so damaged.
Shino was now wearing a long coat, almost covering his injured hands which were still full of bandages. There's a large collar-like part of his coat that covers his mouth, which was also injured and sliced from cheek to cheek. His eyes were covered with pair of tinted glasses making the detectives hard to decipher his emotions due to all the things that covers his face.
"Shino, I'm glad you came back" Jiraya said while walking towards him.
He just nodded; no words escaped from his mouth.
"Don't worry, we're going to catch Gaara anytime soon. That fucker must be imprisoned" Neji exclaimed while patting his shoulder.
He released a faint chuckle after Neji said that, he must be still hurt about his partner's death. He was now working as a lone detective in their department and the man behind the reason for his wounds just escaped from prison, it was like he just sacrificed for nothing.
Each one of them walked and passed Shino's workspace to acknowledge his presence. When Shikamaru reached his spot, he dropped a piece of paper covered in a plastic binder on his table and smiled at him. Shino kept on cleaning and placing the stuff on his table trying to refrain to glance at the paper that Shikamaru placed on his table. When he left his spot, he grabbed it and fished out the piece of paper inside of the plastic binder.
It was Kankuro's last letter, his suicide letter.
After finishing a session with her therapist, Temari decided to grab some groceries that day. A slight curved formed on her lips while reminiscing about what they discussed in her session, she felt silly and childish when she found herself being emotional on her third session. Maybe Shikamaru was right, she needs this.
When she reached her door, a box wrapped in brown paper was placed outside her apartment. It was small, about 6 to 7 inches in size. She lifted the box from peeked from side to side, thinking there might be a written message on it so she would know where it came from, but only her address was written on the front.
She locked herself inside her room, attempting to open the package that she just received. She didn't order anything online so she didn't expect to receive anything from the courier.
Overthinking, her minds start to convince her that it could be a bomb or anything that could create an explosion once she opened it. Her feet lead her to the empty study table inside her room and she opened the lampshade that was sitting on her table to get a clearer view of what was written in front, there might be decoded words along with her address.
But to her shock, she recognized the handwriting. How can she forget Gaara's dexterity in writing words on a piece of paper?
"Gaara" she softly whispered.
Her heart starts to beat faster when the splurge of emotions starts to take over her again. She ripped off the brown paper that was covering the box and slowly lifted the tip of it to glance at what was inside.
A knife that was customized like a scythe was hidden underneath the brown straws inside, it was full of blood. The metallic sharp edge of the knife was covered in dried blood, she starts thinking who's blood was that from.
Temari gasped and stood up from her seat. She covered her mouth with one hand while having confusion, fear, and shock inside her.
Suddenly, her phone rang, it was a call coming from an unknown number. Her quivering hands reached for her phone, contemplating if she will going to answer it or not but she prayed and hope to hear her brother's voice on the other line. She pressed the green button lightly with her thumb and placed the phone on her ear.
"Hello?" in her husky and breathless voice
"Temari" A low masculine voice called her name on the other line. Her heart felt relieved after hearing her brother's voice.
"Gaara….Gaara…where are you? Huh? Where are you?" she cupped her phone in two hands to condense her voice.
"Leave…..Konoha…..now" he whispered
"Where are you? Gaara! Where are you?" she frustratedly cried out
"I cannot tell you now, I'll call you again soon …..but please leave Konoha now" he said while the statics from their line starts to invade their conversation.
But before she spoke her next words, their call was cut and ended.
A/N:
I felt this chapter was kinda short but packed (*cough packed with hints), lol or am I delusional? Sorry I wasn't able to update sooner my work bugged me till the weekend haha (internally crying) and I'm going to another city (the internet might be a problem cause it was the rural part of the country) for work again so I might upload the next chapter on the weekend. But I promise to upload three chapters on Saturday or Sunday, coz I might get time to write it in somewhere.
Thank you! Who do you think is the killer?