Following the trail pieced together from the archives, Eiya and Izumi made their way to a remote stretch of Konoha's back mountain. A few scattered households dotted the area.
The suspect Eiya had marked was an isolated farmer named Umino.
The case files showed he had been investigated several times. Each time, alibis and lack of evidence cleared him.
Eiya didn't approach the door. Instead, he and Izumi hid in a nearby grove.
"Senpai, shouldn't we investigate up close, maybe question him?" Izumi whispered. This process was nothing like the investigations she had imagined.
"No. The chain of evidence is still missing a key link. Questioning him now would only spook him," Eiya said evenly. Then he added, "When he comes out, use Shiden to take him down."
"A-attack him?" Izumi blurted, shocked. "That's not right!"
Eiya turned to her, eyes calm as still water. "Why not?"
Her mind raced with the gruesome details from the case files.
Five victims in three weeks—one even a Konoha genin—each killed with their organs removed, yet their faces bore peaceful expressions. The killer was cruel, cunning, far beyond ordinary.
And yet Umino was nothing more than a fifty-something farmer. Neighbors called him honest, quiet, even timid.
Izumi shook her head. How could this gentle farmer be that monster?
But just then, the door of the small thatched house creaked open. Umino stepped out, stooped, a rusty hoe over his shoulder, ready for the fields.
Eiya's voice pressed at her ear. "Still hesitating?"
Izumi didn't answer. Logic screamed the man was innocent. But maybe—maybe he was only pretending. Maybe he was really a rogue shinobi.
This was a test, she convinced herself. A real-world trial.
Resolve hardened in her eyes. She raised her hand.
Crackling purple arcs gathered at her fingertip, compressed into a sharp needle.
"Shiden: Senbon!"
The bolt whistled through the dawn air, aimed low at his leg to spare his life.
But the sight froze her blood.
Umino collapsed instantly, hoe clattering to the ground. He clutched his leg and writhed in the dirt, screaming in pain.
Izumi stood paralyzed. This was no agile dodge, no vicious counterattack. Just the helpless wail of a wounded farmer.
Guilt crashed over her.
"Wh-why…" she stammered, staring at the man writhing in the mud. "Senpai, he… he's just—"
Eiya strode toward the fallen farmer. "I never said the killer had to be a shinobi."
Izumi hurried after, flustered. "But how? He's just a man—how could he kill a genin, silently, like that? Even an ambush…"
"Assassination is never a fair fight," Eiya cut her off coldly. "It only takes patience, timing, and the right weapon."
He pointed to a flowerpot on the farmer's windowsill.
In the records, Eiya had noticed faint traces of pollen on the victims' clothes—every single one. At first it seemed coincidence. But when he touched the flowers earlier, his fingers numbed slightly.
"The spores from those ghost mushrooms all over the hills react with this pollen," Eiya explained. "Alone, harmless. Combined, they produce a colorless, odorless anesthetic vapor. Even shinobi can't resist."
He carefully bagged the pot as evidence.
Izumi still frowned. "But the Police searched this place. No blood, no organs, no tools."
"Of course not," Eiya replied flatly. "Because the organs were never hidden."
"They were eaten."
Izumi's eyes widened, her face blanching. She staggered back, hand over her mouth. "Eaten?! That's—insane!"
"Too insane to believe?" Eiya asked with a grim smile, fixing his eyes on the farmer.
Umino no longer cried. He lay in the mud, pale and limp, as if the truth stripped away every scrap of resistance.
"I'm right, aren't I?" Eiya said. "No matter. Once you're back in custody, you'll confess everything."
Umino's head lolled to the side. He collapsed into unconsciousness.
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