"Morning."
"Ichikawa, morning~~"
Students from all over gathered at Homitsu High School, greeting each other.
Although it was a third-rate public high school where most were just coasting, not everyone was vicious. Most people just 'went with the flow'; only a small fraction of scum took pleasure in bullying others.
A very small portion studied hard, trying to change their destiny.
And these, in turn, would be bullied by the scum.
Everyone's slacking off, why are you working so hard?!
The former Akiyoshi Yuu also belonged to this bullied category, but now it was completely different.
As he stepped into the classroom, everyone's eyes focused on him, then shifted away as if nothing had happened.
Except for:
"Yuu, are you okay?"
The class president, Nao, stood up and walked over.
She carefully examined Akiyoshi Yuu from top to bottom, and only after seeing no injuries did she breathe a sigh of relief.
"Thanks for your concern~~ What could happen to me?"
Akiyoshi Yuu shrugged and walked to his seat.
"That's good."
Patting her magnificently sized chest, the class president Nao's gaze swept over an empty seat.
Yamamoto...
With her understanding of him, he actually didn't cause trouble for Yuu-kun?
"Yuu, be careful on your way home from school."
If she could, Iai Nao really wanted to walk to and from school with Akiyoshi Yuu.
But... her relationship with Yuu's sister was very tense, and Nao didn't want to go home early either.
"Yeah."
Akiyoshi Yuu nodded at the class president's concern.
As the teacher walked into the classroom, another leisurely day of high school life began.
Ayase Town, 3-chome.
"Hehehe, just as I expected."
In a shop with a sign for cuisine, the 'Boutai' division's 4th division deputy chief, dressed like a biker: Iori Ichika, squatted on the ground and extended her palm.
Her five fingers spread open, hovering over the mangled corpse:
"These kinds of scratches can only be left by human fingers."
The corpse lying on the ground was burly, holding a handgun. The scar on its face seemed to have seen something incredible. Its chest was as if mauled by a tiger, no, something even more terrifying, with four deep claw marks that reached the bone!
"The scratches cross the entire chest, about six centimeters deep. The muscles, ribs... were all torn apart without any resistance..."
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, what a crazy beast!"
Click, click, click.
At this time, several police officers from the forensics division were taking pictures of the scratches on the walls and chairs with their cameras. But the more pictures they took, the more uneasy they felt.
"Chief Iori, a beast... a beast doesn't have such long claws and fangs."
Looking at the deep gashes gouged out of the wall, the hearts of these police officers, who had been called to preserve the scene, were pounding wildly.
"Do your job."
Standing up, Iori Ichika, who had already made her judgment, waved her hand impatiently.
"As for the rest, don't think, don't ask, and don't say!"
"This is for your own good, understand?"
"Understood!"
Turning and leaving the restaurant, she walked out the door. The surroundings were already cordoned off. Iori Ichika took out a cigarette, lit it, and took a deep drag.
That surveillance footage wasn't fake. The supernatural actually exists!
How exciting...
"Hmm?"
The walkie-talkie on her body crackled.
"Ichika, come to the Metropolitan Police Department."
Chiyoda Ward.
Kasumigaseki, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.
If Tokyo is the heart of the island nation, then Chiyoda Ward, where politicians congregate, is the heart of the heart.
And Kasumigaseki, located in front of the Imperial Palace, is the triple-nested doll of the heart, known as the 'Central Government District'.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Justice, Metropolitan Police Department, Public Security, and other government agencies are all concentrated here... in the truest sense, if you threw a brick, you'd hit someone rich or noble. Even a small driver is a big shot that people from other regions need to curry favor with.
And a place like the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department is usually not accessible to outsiders. Today, the atmosphere was extremely serious.
In the parking lot of the Metropolitan Police Department, a row of black sedans silently spoke of the distinguished status of their owners.
Even the receptionists in charge of entry and exit could feel the solemnity in the air.
And in the conference room of the Metropolitan Police Department sat one big shot after another with terrifyingly high positions.
The Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission, the head of the Tokyo Police Headquarters: Superintendent General Takeya, the Director-General of the Public Security Intelligence Agency of the Ministry of Justice... the most heavyweight was the Chief Cabinet Secretary sitting at the head of the table—under special circumstances, the Chief Cabinet Secretary can act as the Prime Minister.
"Phew."
Having changed into a women's suit, she tugged at the uncomfortable tie.
Iori Ichika, the chief of the 4th division of the 'Organized Crime Countermeasures Division', had a position so low in this conference room it was tear-jerking.
If it weren't for the fact that she had just returned from the scene in Ayase Town, she wouldn't even be qualified to be here.
"Ahem."
Under the cough and serious gaze of her superior, Superintendent General Takeya, the newly 'reinstated' Iori Ichika reluctantly stepped forward to act as the presenter.
"Everyone, please look. This is the footage we extracted from the internal surveillance monitors of the Zanshi building."
Saying that, she inserted a disposable USB drive into a physically air-gapped device.
The USB drive would be destroyed after being removed, and would later be physically shredded. All devices and mobile phones in this room were unable to connect to the outside world.
On the screen in the conference room, the projector displayed the images. Although there was no sound, it didn't affect the overall viewing.
"Last night, a murder occurred at the lair of the Zanshi-gumi."
The footage had been edited, spliced, and restored.
On the screen, in the lobby of the first floor of the Zanshi-gumi building, a... priest? Onmyoji? suddenly appeared out of thin air.
He, or she, wore a simple, wide kariginu, and their gender was indistinguishable. They wore a towering black eboshi, a magatama pendant at their waist, and geta on their feet. Excluding the hat, they looked to be about 1.4 meters tall. A white cloth hanging from the front of the hat covered their face, with the stark black character for 'Three' on the white cloth being exceptionally conspicuous.
Cosplay?
The mysterious person, who looked like they had stepped out of history, immediately attracted the attention of several Zanshi-gumi members.
These yakuza members surrounded them, and from their impatient movements, it could be seen that they were preparing to drive away this inexplicable person.
The next second, as the 'mysterious person' raised their hand and waved lightly, black shadows flew out of their sleeves, turning into... women with long hair covering their faces, tattered clothes, and emaciated limbs?!
These women floated out, extending their withered arms. As soon as they touched those yakuza members, they immediately froze in place! On the silent screen, there were only the terrified faces of the Zanshi-gumi members.
Then, the mysterious person took out a stone.
The frozen yakuza members immediately began to convulse, their eyes wide open, as if they had witnessed an unspeakable great horror!
Finally—
streaks of phantoms,
flew out of the bodies of these yakuza members and into the stone in the mysterious person's hand.
And those yakuza members, as if... no, their souls had been sucked out, leaving only their husks to fall silently to the ground.
Just like that, the 'female' black shadows released by the mysterious person scattered. Anyone touched by these 'women' immediately froze, with only their fear-filled eyes trembling. And the mysterious person walked past leisurely, calmly harvesting life after life.
It wasn't that they didn't encounter resistance, but bullets could only pass through the 'female' black shadows in vain. Daggers and baseball bats could tear the black shadows, but those torn female black shadows would regrow from the severed parts, splitting in two!
Faced with these black shadows that were immune to any attack, the members of the Zanshi-gumi were all 'possessed', and then one by one, after the phantoms left their bodies, they fell to the ground motionless.
The video was not short. From the appearance of the mysterious person to their arrival at the kumicho's office on the eighth floor, it took about an hour.
Normally, how would the big shots in the conference room have the time for this?
But today, they all stared at the screen, afraid of missing any important information.
Until the mysterious person reached the eighth floor, and in the Zanshi-gumi kumicho's office, after killing the kumicho and three members, they 'conversed' with a young man kneeling and begging for mercy for a few sentences, tapped the other's forehead, and the mysterious person and those 'female' black shadows all disappeared into thin air.
After the playback, Chief Iori projected a series of photos onto the screen.
Compared to the somewhat blurry surveillance footage, the on-site photos taken with an expensive camera were clearer, clearly showing the sheer terror on the faces of those yakuza members.
"A total of 53 deaths were found at the scene, all members of the Adachi Ward violent group, the Zanshi-gumi."
After speaking, Iori Ichika discreetly observed the expressions of everyone present.
Except for her superior, Superintendent General Takeya, who had been to the scene, the expressions of the others were hard to describe, a mixture of confusion, absurdity, and bewilderment... the usually stoic big shots were just short of having question marks written all over their faces.
"Superintendent General Takeya,"
The Chief Cabinet Secretary thought for a long time before speaking.
"Are you sure this really happened, and isn't some... CG animation?"
Only the Chief Cabinet Secretary could ask this question so openly. After all, he was here representing the Prime Minister.
"It is real, Minister Suzuki."
The Superintendent General of the Metropolitan Police Department stood up and bowed slightly.
"The fifty-three bodies have now been gathered at the nearest institution. The scene is still preserved, and there is also a survivor in this incident. We are currently stepping up our efforts to track his whereabouts..."
"Then, can I assume that this is... this is..."
The Chief Cabinet Secretary thought for a moment. He felt he had a lot to say, but for a moment, he didn't know what to say.
Finally, the spokesperson, who was equivalent to the island nation's government secretary-general and represented the 'face' of the government, spoke with a strained tone.
"A supernatural incident?"
He could sit in this position, what kind of storms had he not seen?
But today's surveillance footage... was really challenging his worldview.
Ghosts and gods...
Are you sure it's not April Fools' Day?
"Yes."
Superintendent General Takeya replied with a serious expression.
"Although it sounds incredible, we have repeatedly confirmed that this is indeed a supernatural incident!"
His words were firm, but to the big shots present, they sounded like a fairy tale. Many people looked left and right, suspecting that they were hallucinating.
For a moment, the only thing left in the conference room was silence.