In the morning, the police were summoned in connection with the finding of Shinichirou Kanazawa's dead body.
Police officers arrived around 4 am.
Akira Kobayashi, upon arrival, looked at Kanazawa's body.
- Two bullets in the head, it seems to me that someone here probably endangered the Yomiyama group.
After a while, Kobayashi was approached by another police officer
- Officer Kobayashi, it looks like the victim is not carrying any valuables.
- That is, there is a possibility that it was a robbery attack, or the victim simply did not take any valuables with him.
Is anything known about his identity yet?
- Officer Kobayashi, this is Shinichirou Kanazawa 34 years old worked for the Minazuki Company, a company registered in Macau.
- Macau huh?, A company registered in a tax haven, interesting…
Akira knelt down and carefully examined the deceased, And once again carefully inspected the body, it seemed he was looking for something.
After a while, Akira found something, however, instead of announcing it to the rest, he secretly hid it to himself, knowing what it was.
- It looks like he didn't have anything else with him...
Also on the team that investigated the crime scene was Chigusa Nomura, after some time she noticed traces of blood drops a few meters from Kanazawa's body.
- Did the deceased have any stab wounds on him?
- Yes, he did however the gunshot wounds to the head were mortal.
- In that case, he was defending himself, or the victims are more than one
After which, Chigusa looked around the area, where she found more blood trails that led in the opposite direction from Kanazawa's body.
After a while, she noticed a pile of garbage, which she instinctively approached.
She looked at it for a long time when she noticed a shoe sticking out.
The trash pile was dug up, and underneath it was discovered the body of Ria Hironiwa, she still had a knife stuck in her neck, and a shocked expression on her face.
Both bodies were moved to the laboratory where they were looked at more closely.
A day later, Naoki also learned of Ria's death.
He felt no sadness, however, he wondered if there was any way to avoid her death, and whether Kenshin or the rest of her family had found out about her interactions with him.
So he decided to recruit Mei for this once again.
She was alone in the classroom, not even Sakakibara, who was elsewhere at the time.
After looking around to see if anyone was in the hallway, he approached her and whispered to her
- I know who might have killed Fujioka.
Mei, with a little doubt, asked.
- Like who?
- But know that if I tell you, you will help me get rid of him, trust me I also have my reasons for killing him.
- Hm?
- Which I will not reveal to you for now, do you want to be involved or not?
Mei thought about this offer for a while, rekindling anger and sadness over her sister's death
However, she didn't fully trust the story of Misaki's poisoning, but thought she might check it out, just to deflect suspicion.
- I want to
-In that case, I'll let you know next week when it's your turn.
Here's my number.
Naoki handed Mei a piece of paper with his number on it, but at the last minute he changed his mind and gave her another number.
Mei's attention was drawn to the fact that the number had an area code written on it.
- Just don't tell anyone, even Anju doesn't know I have a second phone.
Mei, not knowing what was going on, was slightly irritated by the whole thing, but when it occurred to her that the fact that Naoki had given her the number on the other phone - made her suspicious.
When she wanted to ask for more details - she noticed that Naoki had left, leaving her alone.
Mei sighed and went back to her business, tucking the number into her pocket.
After Naoki finished her class, she spotted Ayato, Kouichi, Naoya and Yuuya outside the school.
- Naoki-kun! Come with us!
Ayato tried to convince his friend, however Naoki turned his head and ignored him.
- Oh, come on!
Teshigawara added, at which Naoki stopped and looked at the rest with an extremely serious look.
- I refuse.
After which he walked away.
Ayato, Kouichi, Yuuya and Naoya went without Naoki, after a few minutes Yuya stated.
- Muneyoshi-kun seems to be troubled by something...
- Him? He's like that, he's always been like that,' Naoya stated.
- 'No, ever since Anju-kun joined us and Naoki started hanging out with us, when he didn't feel like hanging out with us, extraordinarily in the world he would leave completely ignoring us. This is the first time since we've known him that he's done that.
Kouichi looked at Yuuya, and after a moment came to a certain conclusion.
- - We don't really know what Muneyoshi-kun meant by stopping and making it clear to us that he doesn't feel like it.
Anju-kun, does Naoki often do that?
Ayato thought for a moment, then slightly distressed replied.
- Muneyoshi-kun, like everyone, has had worse days, but never...
He never said that.
I think we should leave him alone for a few days, it must be something serious.
Naoya was slightly annoyed at these words
- Leave? That's probably the worst thing you could do Anju-kun!
- You know, different people handle difficult situations differently
I think Anju-kun is right.
- Well, maybe you are right...
Naoya said, after which they all moved on.
In the meantime, Naoki carefully watched his way home - paying attention to every car - every person, and anything that could potentially follow him, leaving thoughts of Ria's death to the background - for now, he assumed the worst case scenario - that the Hironiwa clan had killed her, and there was a possibility that he could also be their target.
When he returned to his house, Naoki looked out all the windows and even checked possible places where an eavesdropper could be installed.
Suddenly, one of his phones rang, Naoki - slightly irritated - walked up and saw the unknown number - for safety precautions he took his gun, and walked away from the window.
Slowly, he picked up the phone and waited for the voice.
After a moment, silence, Naoki spoke first.
- Who?
Mei's voice came from the phone.
- You gave me a strange number, then I asked Sakakibara...
Naoki didn't let her finish and hung up.
Knowing it was Mei he calmed down a little.
After which he said to himself.
- I knew it would be like this...
After a while, he received a text message from Mei saying
'If you keep dismissing me like this, I'm out'.
- 'Call the other number'
- ' "Why?"
- 'I'll explain later.'
- 'I'm out'.
- 'Just call this number and I'll explain everything to you'.
After a while, Naoki's second phone started ringing, Naoki picked it up.
- I'm doing this for safety reasons, I'll tell you more in private when we meet.
Naoki was about to disengage when, he remembered the importance of Mei in the intention of his plan, so to clarify he added.
- It's not that I'm dismissing you.
It's just that I'm going to get the information first, I'll let you know everything tomorrow.
Mei, after listening to Naoki, hung up first, Naoki then lay on the bed thinking about Ria's death.
'Why, why, despite the fact that we would have been no one but partners, do I feel grief over her death?' 'Who was she to me?'
These questions, Naoki asked himself for quite some time until he was interrupted by a phone call from Ayato, which he did not answer.
Some time later, Kaito returned home, and at the hospital he performed a complicated surgery.
Kaito was tired, so he was only going to eat something and go to sleep right away.
During dinner, he noticed that his nephew was in a worse mood than usual.
- Naoki, is something wrong?
He asked Kaito with concern.
On the one hand, Naoki wanted to get any advice, however, he didn't want to torment Kaito with it.
- In fact... No, never mind.
- Are you sure?
- Yes.
Kaito understood that Naoki did not want to broach the subject, so he tried to help him as much as possible - Naoki was like a son to Kaito, so he treated him as such.
- Naoki, you know... you can tell me about anything.
Naoki looked away, then walked away from the table.
- You should rest, Kaito said.
I'd rather talk about this topic tomorrow.
- Well, if you think so...
Kaito briefly finished his dinner and went to bed.
Naoki waited until a late hour, then went to the place where Ria Hironiwa was murdered.
He was cautious to look around - closely examining every possible spot in the alley.
After searching the entire location thoroughly, he realized that he would find nothing here.
However, just as he was about to go, he heard someone's footsteps from behind him - a middle-aged man approached him.
- So this was your plan, Naoki-sama.
Naoki moved a safe distance away from the stranger, then coolly looked at him and asked.
- Who are you?
- My supervisor told me that you would find yourself exactly at this place at this time.
- Who do you work for?
- Who do you have in mind?
Naoki sensing a ruse, had no intention of naming potential candidates for this man's boss.
- You probably know who I have in mind.
- No, I don't work for the Hironiwa clan, or anyone else from the Great Clans.
My supervisor, is fully independent of them.
Naoki grabbed his gun, tucked in his black coat, looking at the man.
The man raised his hands in the air and approached him.
- I have no ill intentions towards you, my superior just wants to know what connection you had with Ria Hironiwa, before her death
When the stranger got close enough, Naoki looked into his pupils - activating his ability.
The man seemed stunned and surrendered to his will.
- I don't know who I work for, I don't know his real identity, I'm at the bottom of his... let's say group.
- Are these people affiliated with the Hironiwa clan?
Or anyone else?
- No
Naoki, already feeling the impending pain in his right eye, decided to ask one last question.
- Does the person associated with your "boss" have anything to do with the murder of Ria Hironiwa?
The man, stupefied, had no barriers to speaking the whole truth.
- Yes, he was the one who ordered it.
After giving this answer, Naoki let go of his control, grabbing his right eye, which had begun to bleed.
The man woke up, however, completely unable to remember what he was doing, he looked at Naoki with surprise and suspicion, not knowing what to do.
- Naoki decided, despite the pain, to use his skill once again.
Using his left eye, he repeated what he had done before erasing the man's memory of their encounter.
Soon he felt a piercing pain in his right eye - Naoki, despite having a high tolerance for pain, gasped, then walked off in the direction of his house.