It took six hours to get a diving team to the reserve, and longer still to get the team and their equipment all the way to the summit of the hiking trail. They'd been assisted by a few members of staff, Mr Sato Kenta, primarily. He seemed to be everywhere; from holding doors to helping the newest members of the team carry their equipment, even things he'd been told explicitly not to touch. Especially the things he'd been told not to touch.
If Nanata had known better, she would have assumed the man was attempting to tamper with evidence, instead of astronomically stupid. But when Kenta attempted to grab the forensics kits from gloved members of the police force, she wrenched them from him, strategically driving the heel of her shoe into his foot. He recoiled with a whimper and retreated back to the lodge, far from the police, with his tail between his legs.
Nanata hadn't thought of Kenta again. The man was insatiably curious, but from what she could tell, he was just an overzealous idiot, desperate to help and get the retreat back to normal.
But, her mind was whisked away from thoughts of Kenta by the weather. It was unseasonably muggy.
The humidity was stifling and sweat was already dripping off the staff's heads, even as guests were just starting to wake up. Nanata wiped her forehead on her hand and let out a groan of frustration. Even at the hiking trail's precipice, she didn't feel cooler. The heavy air felt oppressive around her, trying to force her to yield to exhaustion. And boy was she exhausted.
She yawned into the crook of her elbow. She wanted to go to a hot spring and tempt falling asleep in the steaming baths. She wanted a peach iced tea so cold she could see the condensation roll down the side of the glass. She wanted a tub of lemon sorbet. Her stomach growled in agreement. When had she last eaten a real meal?
Officer Nanata had ridden to the summit on the back of a rickshaw. She was running on fumes and a thermos filled with a coffee concoction with a triple espresso in the mix. She'd reapplied her undereye makeup, ensuring nobody saw the weight of the case on her shoulders, or on her eyebags. Detective Asakura rode alongside her, thinking out loud as he often did. Nanata wasn't even entertaining transcribing. No, she'd rather have a moment to think. Well, she'd rather have a peach iced tea, or a mountain of lemon sorbet, but she'd take what she could get.
The results from the water sample were due, and Nanata's stomach was in knots. If Mrs Tanaka had been drugged and framed, it all but opened Pandora's Box for prospective suspects. She just hoped that that crude exclamation mark on the stone wasn't a red herring.
Detective Asakura was perched on a stone lip, hunched over a computer, plugged into a portable generator, the angry blue screen bathed his skin in an otherworldly glow. He wasn't sweating, which was weird. Even the divers in their wetsuits were slick with perspiration. But not Asakura, no, he'd put on a pair of glasses as he furiously scrolled through pages of data on the computer, oblivious to the humidity.
"Nanata," he said from his perch.
"Yes, Sir?"
"Remind me to give whichever technician wrote up all these witness statements a bonus," he said, chewing on a hangnail. The pages he sifted through were flickering past rapidly as he searched for an account he could utilise, his thumb colliding with the left click key consistently like the trill of a cicada.
Until he stopped, and took in a long, slow breath, mumbling a series of words from the statement under his breath, "Aigawa Taiga. Coach. Took some of his kids to this very spot on the night of the murder. Legendary fish… Nanata, can you get that legend up from your tablet."
Nanata crossed the narrow stone walkways with precision, weaving through multiple clustered dive teams, "Here we go, Sir. In Yoshida Mai's account, she told us there is a fish here that can grant wishes and it draws tourists far and wide."
Detective Asakura clicked his tongue and flicked to the next account, Aigawa Kaho, who had also been at this very spot during the night of the murder. He scanned her statement and pursed his lips. In her account she indicated she fell into the water. He surveyed the scene from where he was. Many of the pools appeared deep enough to submerge yourself in. He'd need readings. He raised his arm in the air and beckoned one of the officers over.
"I want you to measure the depth of as many of these pools as possible. Any big enough for someone to have fallen in. According to this, a child fell in on the night of the murder. We need to eliminate that as a potential reason that marking is on the floor."
"Yes, Sir," the officer said, "Anything else?"
"Record all the measurements for evidence."
"Of course, Sir."
"That will be all, thank you."
Nanata shifted her weight, about to shuffle away from him when his eyes snapped up to meet hers, "Not you."
She pressed her lips into a fine line and nodded once, leaning onto the lip of the rock face to peer at the computer. Asakura and Nanata browsed the next record, one from a Matsuoka Naseru, who apparently fished the girl from the water and compared their notes. Neither indicated that they'd marked the floor. Meaning it had to be either the killer or a coincidence.
"Sir," one of the divers said, "We found something, and have a mini-sub ready to deploy."
"Set up the video feed," Detective Asakura said, handing the laptop to Nanata. She stood up and placed the laptop securely on the stone perch before seeing to herself. She tried, without success, to sit more comfortably on the lip, feeling the uneven surface digging into the soft flesh of her thighs.
"Show me where you found it," Detective Asakura said to the diver. He was wearing a standard-issue police diver wetsuit in black, with the officer's badge number adhered to left breast with vinyl. There was a hefty belt on his waist, supposedly to help anchor him and bring him to the surface if needed. He still had his oxygen tank on, strapped to his back. The officer waddled, his flippers slapping against the stone. They passed half a dozen pools before the diver drew to a stop and pointed into the very pool marked with an exclamation mark.
"Excellent news," Asakura said, "It could still be a coincidence, but there could be some merit in finding what was so important to mark it with an exclamation mark."
"I can't identify it, myself," the diver conceded, "But it looks old and important."
"Interesting," Asakura said, turning to Nanata, "Ready?"
She gave him a thumbs up.
The diver plopped the mini-sub, an ostentatious cartoon of a submarine brought to life, from its canary yellow colour to decorative port holes, and a periscope camera at the top, the motor was concealed beneath a small stationary propeller at the bow. The sub had a large name badge on the top, alongside some numbers, identifying which police department it belonged to, and its make and issue number, declaring its name was Kiiro Sensuikan. Yellow Submarine. Of course.
The diver grabbed a remote control with several joysticks, switches and flashing buttons. He flipped one switch upward and pressed a square-shaped button.
Detective Asakura glared at the yellow submarine. It felt like a mockery. He pursed his lips and willed the thing to disappear so the reminder of his team's shortcomings could vanish from the forefront of his mind. And yet, when it finally did whirr to life, and the divers began to serenade it with the very song that gave it its name, he couldn't help but groan. The mini-sub dove well below the surface level algae and other slimy globules.
"We have an image!" Nanata exclaimed.
If Asakura was doomed to have fallen in the water, it would have been then, when he dashed from one end of the clearing to the other, barely glancing at where his feet ought to have landed. He leapt over small pools, barely deep enough to be puddles and skidded to a halt in front of Nanata. She rolled her eyes.
"You were like a kid on Christmas just then, Detective."
"Good to know, now show me."
The image was, in hindsight, anticlimactic. It simply showed the murky water lapping around the sub as the diver attempted to manipulate the machine and move to wherever it needed to be.
"You'll know when you see it, Sir."
Several of the other diving teams had ceased their work, shivering under fluffy retreat towels and waiting in anticipation, their gazes flickering from Asakura and Nanata over to the diver moving the submarine like a volley.
Nanata leaned closer to the screen, squinting as she continued to move closer, there was a blur of something dark and solid, a different colour and texture to the rest of the water.
"I think," she said, "I think you're there."
Back in the gym, Kaho couldn't help but watch Tomohiro. He was one of the only kids who still visited the agility poles multiple times a day. Usually with one or two of the other Hanagawa players in tow, mostly there for moral support. Even Naseru had found himself at the poles, reluctantly providing some semblance of a buffer for him as he practised.
The style of play Tomohiro used was wild and utilised his broad wingspan, but he was still losing the momentum and rhythm as he went from holding his arms closer to his body, to further away. He was getting better. Taiga had been right about that.
Fumiko was practicing with some of the other students, from Hanagawa, Seriran and Kuroyama. What started as a game of hot potato became something more reminiscent of piggy in the middle. It allowed students to practice jumping and blocking passes, as well as their accuracy.
But their hearts weren't in it. Even Ryota was waning, his beloved neon pink basketball was on the bench beside Fumiko's clipboard. Even members of Kuroyama's starting basketball team were sitting amongst their clubmates and playing games on their phones. Captain Isamu was sprawled out on his back, glaring at the ceiling lights, either completely above the throngs of gameplay and practice or somewhere else entirely.
Akane was notably absent. She'd been hailed from the gym that morning by a white woman with oily black hair and an aquiline nose, wearing a tweed blazer and matching skirt that rested above her nobbly knees. Breakfast had barely concluded and to say Akane was in low spirits would have been an understatement. All fifty of her classmates from university were on their way to their first exam of the year, one that had a twenty percent weight for the final year's grade for the class, and she was guaranteed a zero because someone had killed Mr Tanaka.
The looming threat of Akane's own demise aside, especially since nobody had dared outright tell her she was the next victim on Kenta's radar, meant that Akane was bundled up, having failed to revise, considering her study materials were back at her university campus, and forced to sit down with her mason jar smoothie, and take the test.
Said test was taking place in a side room, adjacent to the main gym. It was probably a vacuum of noise, taking in everything and consuming it. But, by attending the exam, in whatever way shape or form this constituted as attending the exam, Akane wouldn't flunk out of college.
Kaho swallowed the lump in her throat, glancing at the door. One police officer was guarding it, likely to authenticate the controlled conditions, and while the rest of the students milled about in the gym, Kaho couldn't help but think of the other people that had heckled the detective. There would be a wedding without a bride. There would be offices without staff, and schools missing huge chunks of their cohorts. How many supplementary classes was she going to be subjected to in the coming weeks to compensate?
Kaho groaned, putting her head in her hands. The last thing she needed was to be tossed into extra classes because the cops hadn't caught Mr Tanaka's killer yet. She wondered if they'd found anything of evidentiary value that could point them to Kenta, or if the attempt on Akane's life would be better left concealed. If Kaho blabbed, or better yet, got Akane to, they could point the finger of suspicion clearly at Kenta. But, it would also mean Akane, Naseru and Kaho herself would get into trouble for being Jun and Yoko from the Hoshimiki Beetles.
She groaned again, turning her gaze to Akane's door, she wondered if she was focusing on her study materials or whether her mind was equally as occupied as her own.
In the half an hour the detectives had been watching the mini-sub feed, Officer Nanata had falsely identified the cavern arches four times, not what the dive team wanted them to see. The feed had been confiscated, and Nanata, like the rest of the officers, waited in their own nuanced purgatory, waiting for the answers.
She fanned the sweat from her neck and ran a hand through her hair, "Detective, we need to break for lunch soon."
Detective Asakura groaned, but his stomach, roared in agreement, grumbling like whale song. Nanata was sure that multiple of their colleagues heard it. She certainly had.
He stared forward blankly, his cheeks getting redder as everyone turned to stare at him. He blinked once. Twice. And again. Then he cleared his throat and turned back to the laptop beside him.
"Maybe you need aqua cameras, too, because we're not seeing it," Asakura conceded, "Perhaps it's the video quality."
The diver swore, "Kinguchi. Hold her steady, I'm going back in."
After a moment of staring at the same blurry, out of focus arches, the camera suddenly jerked. The submarine was back in the diver's arms, being steered manually to whatever they were supposed to be seeing.
Had this man been on the premises prior to that very morning, instead of an import from another precinct, Asakura may have found his frustration suspicious. But the divers were tired, perhaps not as exhausted as he was, or Nanata, but, he wasn't sure how long they'd been on the road to come here.
It took a moment for the camera to steady, the image and lens were concealed by the divers' hand. He was giving a thumbs up.
"I think your guy wants the sub back on," Nanata said uncertainly. She squirmed on the cold stone and rubbed the underside of her thighs, peering back at the camera. There were a few flashes, from the aqua cameras, since Asakura had mentioned them. But, it wasn't long until they could see it.
It was a massive, stone statue, fully submerged, with a bulbous top and offshoots coming from eight separate sections. It was worn, with dirt, grit and pondweed growing on it, and very much a part of the habitat.
The submarine moved closer and two eyes, shaped like 'u's were present on the statue's face. But above them was a metal plating, somewhat dislodged, that was engraved. The shape on the metal looked almost like an orca, with cross-hatched shading between sections of unscratched metal.
The submarine took a lap of the stone relic, capturing pictures and video files for size reference. From the looks of it, though it may have been a forced perspective from the sub's angle, it looked more likely that the relic would need two people to recover it.
"Now that's interesting," Nanata said, "Sir, I think we need to have another chat with the owners."
"I do too," Detective Asakura said.