High-end apartment named ロリエ Ginza.

Eighth Floor.

Room with house number 8006.

After Yoko Kobayashi arranged for someone to go to the garage to deal with the man who had just attacked, he took Kitahara Nanfeng into the house.

Inside the room.

Exactly tragic.

The same hanged father and son also looked at the door with their eyes open.

This is exactly the same as the third case.

It made Kobayashi Yoko stunned.

But she quickly realized, put on gloves silently, and began to investigate the scene.

However, as the investigation deepens.

The tighter the frown of Kobayashi Yoko frowned.

Because, it is really exactly the same as the method in the third case, except for the different characters and the environment.

Yoko Kobayashi straightened up and came to the bathroom again.

Still exactly the same.

Only the mother who died kneeling in front of the mirror had a gun on her forehead.

This time she committed suicide, died of excessive blood loss and air embolism.

It is different from the decent death of a person who commits suicide in a TV series.

The mother who committed suicide was covered with blood clots and sputum from her chest, neck, and mouth and nose. Not only was she not decent at all, the blood spurted from her throat was sputtered onto the wall and ceramic tiles.

Black blood stains.

It makes the already dark and cold bathroom look particularly vague.

But strangely... the mother, who knelt in front of the mirror and committed suicide, looked very peaceful, and even had a hint of leisure on her face.

“…too much.”

Kobayashi Yoko saw the miserable situation in the bathroom at the door, and saw the expression on the mother's face, and her footsteps paused.

Beiyuan Nanfeng patted her back.

Yoko Kobayashi took a deep breath, then stepped into the bathroom, after observing it skillfully, squatted down, picked up the mother's hand, gently took the knife from his hand, carefully put it into the evidence bag, and began to carefully examine the wound.

Beiyuan Nanfeng looked at his mother in front of the mirror, and then looked at another woman drowned in the bathtub. Although he had seen similar pictures of the crime scene, he still felt a little uncomfortable.

So he just took a look, then looked away, went to the shower room, and carefully checked the environment.

He had no experience in examining the body.

But he can help check if there are any suspicious things around, such as residual objects.

However, the north and south wind were checked.

Nothing special or unusual was found.

These are all items that are often used.

“…”

Beiyuan Nanfeng walked out again and came to the place where he could change his clothes.

The clothes basket is empty.

But the washing machine not far away was on.

Beiyuan Nanfeng turned on the washing machine, and the clothes inside emitted the smell of fragrant beads, and there was nothing special about it.

He was about to turn off the washing machine.

But at the last moment.

Beiyuan Nanfeng suddenly attracted the attention of a doll in the washing machine. To be precise, he was attracted by the characters behind the doll.

He turned on the washing machine again and took out the doll.

It was an ordinary cloth doll, the size of a palm, and it looked quite cute. There were no residual spirits on it and there was nothing special about it.

but.

Beiyuan Nanfeng looked at the words on the doll's abdomen, and always felt that he had seen or heard it somewhere.

"Oh かし... do you know what this means?"

Kitahara Nanfeng suddenly asked Yoko Kobayashi with the doll.

"The meaning of "The Mountain of the Censor, the Scarecrow, the dummy" also means "the meaning of "the puppet without souls""

Kobayashi Yoko looked back and then replied casually while examining the deceased's wound.

"..." Beiyuan Nanfeng looked down at the doll in his hand, remembering it.

I've heard it where I have.

On the other side.

Yoko Kobayashi also suddenly reacted and turned to look at Nanfeng, Beiyuan.

The two looked at each other.

...

Three hours later.

Police Department.

Sumiko Nichi's office.

Beiyuan Nanfeng took the doll and placed it on the table.

Yoko Kobayashi was holding a large stack of information.

"I just confirmed that the forensic class that all four of them committed suicide, but unlike the three cases in the past, there was no trace of struggle, neither of them was the hanging father and son, nor the drowned daughter and mother.

In the third case, the daughter was forced to drown by someone's head, the mother was shot, and the son was also hung on a rope. Except for the father who hanged himself, the other three people were more or less forced from the traces.

But this time, the family had no trace of being forced. The father hanged himself, his son grabbed him and climbed to a high place, put his neck into the rope, his daughter knelt on the edge of the bathtub, buried her head alone in the water, and the mother... holding a fruit knife, like combing her hair, cut her throat lightly. She had never moved, and even cut her throat with one more knife."

Yoko Kobayashi gently placed the photos taken at the scene on the desktop: "The method of committing the crime is the same, but to some extent, the method of committing the crime is completely different."

"You suspect it's an imitator?"

Beiyuan Nanfeng asked.

Kobayashi Yoko shook her head, pondered for a moment, looked at the doll on the table, and asked, "Nanfeng, Beiyuan, do you really don't know, can you control people's techniques?"

"I don't know, but when I see the words on the doll, I remembered one thing."

Kitahara Nanfeng leaned on the back of the chair and recalled: "Before, more than a month ago, one of my classmates encountered some trouble. Then a young man who claimed to be from the Fujiwara family ran over and wanted to be detrimental to my classmates and was killed by me."

Yoko Kobayashi: "…"

"This young man with the surname is Fujiwara. Before his death, he had filed a deal with Kuroda Seiichi, the former deputy director of the Countermeasures class who was removed from the list. Kuroda Seiichi asked at that time to want a special technique from the Sanfeng Shrine, and the young man from the Fujiwara family agreed."

Kitahara Nanfeng rubbed his eyebrows and continued, "After the incident, I asked a brother of Shiratsu, and he told me that this shrine called Sanfeng is located in a small place called Yogawa in Saitama Prefecture. And かし, pronounced as Kakashi, means "a soulless puppet" in Japanese.

And that so-called special technique is called...'puppet'."

“…So, do you think someone is using this technique?”

Although Yoko Kobayashi doesn't want to admit it.

But all the clues point to a possibility.

"It's possible, although I haven't seen this technique."

Kitahara Nanfeng knocked on the table, was silent for a moment, and suddenly asked, "By the way, I haven't asked you yet, the son of the Tokyo Governor you mentioned, the most dazzling star of the Metropolitan Police Department, the youngest deputy director of the Metropolitan Police Department, Hirosuke Fujiwara... Did he come from the Fujiwara clan?"

“…”
Chapter completed!