Sato Kenta was arrested at just after ten that night and was carted off to the local hospital with no fewer than four attending officers. While it was clear Kenta had made an attempt on Kaho's life, and Detective Asakura doubted that a second killer would deem an environment with a heavy police presence a good place to attempt murder, he needed the evidence.
But, as he and Officer Nanata tended to Kaho, wrapping her up in a foil blanket and giving her a cup of tea, the only thing he could say with certainty was that Aigawa Kaho knew something; she fit the vague description of the girl looking for the infamous Jun and Yoko.
While Kaho gave an oral statement, to be transcribed via Dictaphone, her older brother, the Hanagawa High School coach, brought two of the teenagers in his care to see to her. They waited patiently for their time with her, and for her to be returned to her brother's care.
Officer Nanata glanced over at the group that had assembled for Kaho; there was a boy with an athletic frame with bright pink hair, wearing a pair of pyjama pants and a mismatched shirt. He was wearing a pair of trainers, but was crushing the backs with his heels. Beside him was a girl with shorter hair and a plump and curvy figure. She was still in the clothes the officers had bought the girls stuck on site; a white t-shirt and a pair of cycling shorts, and had an envelope partially concealed within her fist. A black envelope with a red wax seal. She was doing her best to hide it, like she hadn't meant to have it on display.
Detective Asakura stared at it, and nodded, glancing from the teenagers back to Kaho. She was wrapping her story up, explaining to the officers, and their recording devices how on the first morning, Taiga had been chased out of that very trail by a boar, and he'd saved himself from its tusks by launching himself into a tree. He'd joked that it was a lifesaving skill, to get himself that high up in a tree, and it turned out, he wasn't wrong.
Taiga looked worried, there was no amusement on his face, even as his sister recalled how his own foolishness had inadvertently saved her from a killer. No, he looked like he'd seen a ghost. He was in a pair of jogging bottoms and a tank top. He squeezed his phone in a closed fist, and his skin was pale and clammy. He had been the one to raise the alarm with Nanata's colleagues that one of the high schoolers had been attacked. Kaho looked fine, if not for a few superficial scrapes. She'd been lucky that she'd managed to get to higher ground when the boar came running at her. Otherwise she may have found herself in hospital with Mr Tanaka.
"Alright, Miss Aigawa, we might need to chat with you tomorrow, but go back to your room and get some rest, okay?" said Detective Asakura.
"Yes, Detective," she said, her oak-brown eyes meeting his for a moment. He stared into them as if they could confess every thought she'd ever had. He nodded and have her a gentle push toward her brother, who scooped her up into his arms like she was a toddler.
He held her close to his chest squeezing her and spinning, his face smooshed against hers as he babbled about how worried he'd been. He put her down and her friends hugged her too, first the pink haired boy, and then the girl, and then the pink-haired boy again.
Officer Nanata watched the teenagers head back to the cabins and smiled, "That could have gone a whole lot worse. We have a suspect that we can hold for as long as we want, because he assaulted that poor girl."
Detective Asakura nodded, and headed back to his quarters, not entertaining Nanata's thoughts anymore. His mind was abuzz with thought.
Naseru was waiting for Kaho by the French doors that led to the dining room, holding two mason jars filled with smoothies. He held one out to her and she accepted it gingerly. She didn't go inside, instead, she let Naseru lead her outside, and to the tree they'd spoken at the other day.
"You okay, Aigawa."
She shrugged. She didn't know; none of her thoughts or feelings felt right. She was almost glad Kenta's attention had shifted from Akane to her, because she was, somehow able to keep him at bay. She'd thanked every god, deity and figurehead she could think of, for giving her the strength in body and mind to come up with a plan, and for it to have worked. It wouldn't have been hard to come up short, she'd run with all the power she'd had, but it could have been easy enough to slip or trip again, and hurt herself. She could have been in the hospital, sporting scars from where she'd been gored by a boar. She could have been dead, covered in stab wounds, like Kenta would have wanted.
Would he have tried to frame Taiga if it had been her?
Kaho shook her head and leaned against a tree trunk. She slid down the length of the tree trunk and curled up in a ball, setting down her smoothie and hugging her knees.
"Aigawa?" Naseru said tentatively.
Kaho flinched.
"He pretended to be you," she said quietly, staring at the blades of grass by his feet.
"Me?" Naseru said, his voice raising an octave, "Why me?"
Kaho shrugged, "He pretended to be you, and I went into the woods, thinking you were just going to do something stupid. I don't know. I just went, and I didn't even think until he was there that it could have been him. I didn't even think, Matsuoka."
Naseru took a slow, shallow breath and crossed the distance between them, setting down his own smoothie. He crouched in front of her and flicked her forehead.
"Hey," he said.
She let out a little huff, "Hi."
"I'm sorry he pretended to be me to steal you away. I must give you the creeps now, huh?"
Kaho shrugged, but her body was still stiff and rigid. Naseru frowned and shifted so he was sitting in front of her. "It's hard at the start, when things happen that spook you like that. But you're strong, Aigawa. You have friends who care about you. You'll be okay in the end."
Kaho let out a non-committal grunt, "What about until then?"
"An outlet," Naseru said gently. He paused, "Like Makoto. How he painted Kibata Mae, and the other girls. Maybe you could try painting your feelings?"
Kaho shrugged.
Makoto was processing everything he'd seen, heard and done in the hidden room in that massage parlour he and Naseru had discovered. The Tokyo Lionfish gang had done something to hurt him, if not physically, mentally. Sayuri still hadn't come back to school, and while Makoto may have been talking to her, like Hikaru, there was no way to know.
Maybe he was processing what going down there had done to him? And maybe his art was the key to him still being a good person?
Kaho shrugged, shuffling on the floor so she was facing the lake, "Maybe."
"I'll take a maybe. Have you spoken to your family?"
"Just Taiga. Mum would lose it, and Dad's abroad, so there's no point talking to him," Kaho said with a shrug, "I don't want to worry Mum. She's done so much."
"Hey," Naseru said quietly, joining her, looking at the water, "It's not your fault."
"Thanks, Matsuoka."
After breakfast, Officer Nanata managed to convince Mrs Tanaka to join her for one more conversation Just her. While Detective Asakura saw to Kenta in the hospital, to try and get a confession out of him, it was Nanata's job to try and get the confirmation that Mr Tanaka had managed to find that artefact in the water, and what it could mean.
Mrs Tanaka looked rough; she'd looked rough since her husband's death, but this was somehow different, she was haggard, like she was haunted by thoughts. Her hair was greasy, and pinned back off her face, and she was wearing clean clothes that the police gave her, not dissimilar to what the girls from the basketball clubs had been given; a white shirt and a pair of jogging bottoms.
Mrs Tanaka and Officer Nanata commandeered the same room that Nanata and Detective Asakura had used to interview Mr Shirotani and Mr Tsukishima. Nanata gently pressed the button on the recording device, and after the formalities were over with, she was quick to get down to business.
"Mrs Tanaka, I was wondering if you could tell me more about what your late husband did for work."
She shrugged, "He looked for old historical artefacts and records for some private buyer. He used to work as a museum curator, and met the guy at a museum auction a year and a half ago-ish? Hiroshi was dedicated to finding treasures, recording them, and recovering them, if possible. He'd taken me on over a dozen vacations in the last few months to find some ancient relic. His boss wanted it, if he could, and the museum wanted to know where it was so it could be recorded."
Officer Nanata nodded, producing a laminated series of images.
"For the record, I am presenting Mrs Tanaka with Exhibit 92A, drawing recovered from Mr Shirotani Botan's wastepaper basket," she paused and handed Mrs Tanaka with the drawing her husband had drawn of the relic.
She nodded, "That's it. I'd know that twisty symbol there anywhere now."
"I was wondering if your husband told you that he'd found this relic, and whether you were informed of the worth of such an artefact."
Mrs Tanaka nodded, "Hiroshi said we'd be talking a few million, eight or nine, I think. If he could get it out of the water, we'd be talking double. Apparently his boss was willing to buy the land from the owners, and wouldn't have spared an expense to have that rock in his collection. I thought he was a weirdo – don't get me wrong, but he was going to pay more money than we would have ever seen in our lives. All Hiroshi needed to do was get it."
"Do you know if he found it?"
She shrugged, "I think he said he think he found it? He was rambling about a rickshaw and then I fell asleep. You know the rest."
She curled up into herself, clutching the skin of her arms, like she was hugging herself. Her grip was tight, her knuckled were turning white as she squeezed herself, Nanata waited patiently as Mrs Tanaka worked her way through the thoughts that plagued her. Nanata's heart ached for the woman. She'd had the toxicology report back and she had been drugged, but she wasn't exactly looking to tell her until she had all all of the information she needed.
"He said he was going to get the caretaker to help him. Sato, I think?" Mrs Tanaka said, "I don't remember if he said Sato was gonna help him look, or help him get it out or what? I don't even think he went to the water again."
Nanata bit her lip, "I'll check the CCTV. I promise. We're going to catch him. Interview terminated at 11:07."
The arrest of Sato Kenta had breathed new life into the basketball teams essentially being held hostage in the reserve. Suddenly the kids wanted to play ball again. Probably because they knew the person who'd killed Mr Tanaka was safely under arrest. And Akane was safe. Furthemore, those who knew he'd gone after Kaho instead, were reinvigorated by her refusal to sit in silence. She was keeping herself busy. She'd spent half an hour that morning doing the same dribbling drill with Tomohiro. They'd be going home, hopefully in the morning, and that meant that they didn't need to be as concerned about knocking the poles over, and they could just utilise their proximity to other players. It was like the training camp had restarted with some moor oomph than it had since before the murder.
Music was blaring through a speaker, and multiple groups of basketball players, from both basketball clubs and basketball teams were playing together. Ryota was deep in the throngs of a one on one with a guy from Seiran, who had incredible form. Kaho was enthralled by how rhythmic their play was against each other, like they were repelling magnets, being forced together. Neither could get a one up on the other and it was tense on Ryota's court. But even as he played, hammering his neon pink basketball against the floor, one of dozens of balls on the floor, Kaho could hear him singing along to the pop song, too. He was having fun. He was revitalised.
Even Naseru was on the court. Not that he was actively playing like Ryota. But he was there, and from what she could see, he was talking to Jean-Luc Barbier and another guy from Seiran. Translating, his hand gesturing from Barbier to his teammate. Kaho smiled.
Taiga was on the bleachers with Coach Itomi and Coach Tomogawa, sneakily passing a bottle of sake between them as they celebrated the vigor coming back to their teams.
Captain Isamu and his team were playing a half-court match against Matsushita, Tomohiro, and a few guys from Seiran. It was weird to watch the teams so blended on the court, when it only seemed to be happening on the sidelines. It was nice.
Kaho grinned across the court at Fumiko, who was playing too. She had her bad leg in a support, but was deep in the fray, all bony elbows as she wove between massive players from Kuroyama's bench. She was laughing with Konoishi, who was trying to copy her, with significantly less success, and a lot more elbows in his way. The Kuroyama bench warmers lacked the same data, Kaho remembered Fumiko saying as such at some point, so it made sense that she'd be playing against them. For data. For science.
Most of the other second years from Hanagawa, aside from Kaho and Ryota, were on the furthest court from the agility poles. Even Naseru had crossed the gym to join in, even if he didn't look as excited as the other second years. Maybe because Naseru apparently "couldn't play."
Eiji was across the court from Yuta, on Naseru's team with Yamada Ren, they were, evidently refusing to show their hands to anyone who looked too closely. Not until they were deployed in real games. Yuta stood with Captain Fujisaki Daisuke from Seiran, who was smiling from ear to ear.
"Hey! Kaho!" Yamada exclaimed, "We're taking turns playing with Captain Fujisaki and then against him! Want in?"
"Sure thing, Ren!" Kaho said, jogging over. She high-fived the Hanagawa boys and greeted Captain Fujisaki with a bow of her head.
"That's the spirit," Captain Fujisaki grinned, "Now, let's win."