The streetlights of Arakawa were few and far between, leaving the narrow alley behind the Hino residence draped in a suffocating shroud of darkness. The air was humid, heavy with the promise of rain that refused to fall, clinging to the skin like a damp sheet.
Sherlock Holmes moved through the shadows not like a man, but like a rumor. He wore tight, dark clothing, having shed his consulting detective's tweed for the practical attire of a burglar. Dr. Watson followed, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs, feeling every year of his age in his stiff joints.
"Quietly, Watson," Holmes breathed, his voice barely audible above the hum of a distant vending machine. "The neighbor's dog is a light sleeper. We must be ghosts."
They reached the back door. It was a sturdy, modern thing, reinforced steel. To Watson, it looked impenetrable. To Holmes, it was a momentary inconvenience. He produced a slender set of tools from his pocket, the metal glinting faintly. His hands, usually so expressive when conducting an argument, became instruments of terrifying precision. There was no fumbling, no hesitation. He inserted a pick and a tension wrench.
Click.
Three seconds. It had taken him three seconds to violate the sanctity of the home.
Holmes pushed the door open, slipping inside with the fluid grace of a cat. Watson followed, closing the door softly until the latch engaged with a barely audible snick.
They were in.
The house was silent, but it was a silence that felt heavy, charged with a static tension. They moved through the kitchen, the linoleum cool beneath their soles, and approached the narrow hallway that led to the servant's quarters.
Holmes paused at the door to Akane's room. He did not enter immediately. Instead, he withdrew a magnifying glass—his "tube glass"—and a small penlight. He dropped to his knees, sweeping the beam low across the floorboards, inspecting the gap beneath the door for hair triggers, dust disturbances, or tripwires.
"Clear," Holmes whispered, rising. "But tread carefully. The floorboard near the window creaks."
They slipped into the room. It was exactly as they had left it: sterile, cold, and smelling of abandonment. Holmes went straight to the loose floorboard in the corner. He pried it up, and Watson let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
The silver laptop was still there.
Holmes sat cross-legged on the floor, placing the device on his lap. The screen flared to life, casting a ghostly blue pallor over his sharp features. The password prompt blinked, a mocking cursor demanding entry.
"Now," Holmes muttered. "Let us see if the uncle is as predictable as his Zippo collection."
He typed rapidly. Takeshi.
Access Denied.
He frowned. T_Hino.
Access Denied.
Landlord. Guardian. 1998 (The year the house was built).
Access Denied. Access Denied. Access Denied.
The blue light seemed to mock him. Holmes's typing grew faster, more aggressive. He tried combinations of the address. He tried the date of the fire. He tried the name of the antique shop.
Nothing.
Holmes stopped. He sat perfectly still for a moment, and then, with a sudden, violent motion, he buried his face in his hands. His fingers dug into his scalp, messing his hair.
"A fool," he hissed, the self-loathing in his voice startling Watson. "A blind, sentimental, staggering fool! I am losing my edge, Watson. I looked at the puzzle and I saw only the pieces that fit the frame I built!"
"Holmes?" Watson whispered, glancing nervously at the door. "What are you saying? Keep your voice down!"
"I constructed a narrative of greed!" Holmes whispered furiously, looking up, his eyes wild. "I saw a wicked uncle and a victimized niece. I assumed she was hunting him. But if she was hunting him, and living in his house... why use his name as the lock? One does not lock a diary with the name of the monster one hates. One locks it with the name of the thing one protects!"
"Protects?" Watson blinked. "But who..."
Holmes turned back to the keyboard. "We saw the family portrait, Watson. On the mantelpiece. The uncle. The aunt. And the boy. The boy with the sullen eyes and the lighter in his hand in the picnic photo. The cousin."
Holmes's fingers hovered over the keys. "What was it... Kenji. Yes. Kenji Hino."
He typed it in. K_E_N_J_I.
He hit enter.
The screen flashed black, then dissolved into a desktop filled with folders.
"It opens," Watson gasped.
"It opens," Holmes repeated, his voice hollow. "Because she wasn't hunting the uncle, Watson. She was hunting the son."
"Very clever, Mr. Holmes."
The voice came from the doorway. It was flat, dead, and utterly devoid of hope.
Watson froze. Slowly, he turned his head.
Takeshi Hino stood in the frame of the door. He was wearing a bathrobe that hung loosely on his frame, his hair disheveled. In his right hand, shaking violently, was a revolver.
"Mr. Hino," Watson said, raising his hands slowly. "Please. Put the gun down. We are simply seeking the truth about Akane."
"The truth?" Hino laughed, a wet, cracking sound. "You want the truth? Look around you. Look at the walls."
Watson frowned, his eyes darting to the wall beside the door. He hadn't noticed it in the dark, but now, in the spill of light from the hallway, he saw them. Two framed photographs had been taken down from the hallway and propped against the baseboard, draped in black ribbons.
One was of Mrs. Hino. The other was of a young man—Kenji.
"Where are they?" Holmes asked, his back still to the gunman, his eyes fixed on the laptop screen as he rapidly scrolled through files. "Where is your wife, Mr. Hino? Where is your son?"
"Dead," Hino whispered. Tears began to stream down his face, tracking through the stubble on his cheeks. "They are in the morgue, Mr. Holmes. They took the pills this morning. An overdose. Together."
Watson felt a wave of nausea. "Suicide? But... why?"
"Because of you!" Hino screamed, the gun wavering wildly. "Because of the police! Because of Kira! We saw you sniffing around. We saw the news. 'Kira is watching.' 'The police are investigating.' Kenji... my boy... he was weak. He was terrified. He thought Kira was coming for him. He thought you were coming for him. He couldn't take the fear. And my wife... she couldn't live without him."
"Because Kenji set the fire," Holmes said. He didn't ask it. He stated it. He clicked a file on the laptop. A video window opened. It was shaky footage, taken from a hidden camera. It showed a younger Kenji Hino, laughing, pouring gasoline on a pile of antique furniture.
"He... he didn't mean to kill them," Hino sobbed. "He was sick. He liked the flames. It was just supposed to be the shop. He didn't know Akane's parents were working late upstairs. It was an accident!"
"An accident that killed two people," Holmes said coldly. "And yet, Akane knew. She had this video. She had the proof." Holmes turned his head slowly, looking over his shoulder at the gunman. "So tell me, Mr. Hino. Why didn't she go to the police? She had this for three years. Why did she stay here? Why did she scrub your floors and cook your meals?"
"You don't know?" Hino stared at him, his eyes wide and bloodshot. "You're supposed to be a genius."
"I know," Holmes said softly. "But Watson does not."
"She loved him," Hino whispered.
Watson's jaw dropped. "She... she loved the man who killed her parents?"
"It broke her mind," Holmes said, his voice tinged with a strange mixture of disgust and pity. "She found the killer, and it was her cousin. The boy she grew up with. The boy she adored. She couldn't turn him in. But she couldn't forgive him. She was trapped in a paradox of her own making. To love the sinner is to betray the victims."
"She went mad," Hino said, wiping his nose with his sleeve. "She would cry at night. She would scream. She hated us, but she couldn't leave Kenji. That's when... that's when He found her."
"B.B.," Watson realized.
"She was looking for a way out," Holmes deduced. "She was looking for judgment. She couldn't judge Kenji herself, so she sought a higher power. A god."
"He... that monster..." Hino trembled. "He told her that morality was a cage. He told her that her pain was art. He became her Messiah because he offered her the one thing she couldn't give herself: permission to stop caring. Permission to let the world burn."
"And now they are all dead," Hino choked out. He raised the gun, steadying it with both hands. The barrel was pointed directly at the back of Holmes's head. "My wife. My son. My niece. Everyone is gone. And it is your fault. If you hadn't come here... if you hadn't scared them... they would still be alive. You killed them!"
"Mr. Hino, no!" Watson shouted, stepping forward.
"Goodbye, Detective," Hino snarled, his finger tightening on the trigger.
CRACK.
The sound was not the boom of the revolver. It was a sharp, high-velocity snap, like a dry branch breaking, followed instantly by the wet thud of impact.
A small, red hole appeared in Takeshi Hino's temple.
His eyes went wide, filled with a sudden, absolute nothingness. The revolver clattered to the floor. A split second later, Hino collapsed, crumpling like a marionette whose strings had been severed.
Watson stood frozen, staring at the body. The window behind Hino had a neat, round hole in the glass.
Holmes did not flinch. He simply closed the laptop, unplugged the power cord, and tucked it under his arm. He stood up and looked down at the body of Takeshi Hino.
"Mr. Holmes," Watson stammered, looking from the window to the corpse. "Who...?"
"We are leaving, Watson," Holmes said sharply. "Now."
He stepped over the body, but paused for a brief second. He looked down at the tragic tableau—the dead man, the photos of the suicide victims, the remnants of a house consumed by secrets.
"If there is an afterlife, Watson," Holmes murmured, his voice low and somber, "then pathetic, poor souls like these deserve it the most. For this world gave them nothing but fear."
He turned and marched out of the room. Watson grabbed his hat and scrambled after him, his heart pounding in his ears.
Two hundred yards away.
On the roof of an abandoned office complex overlooking the Hino residence, a figure lay prone in the darkness.
He adjusted the scope of the long-range rifle, watching the two Englishmen exit the back door and disappear into the alleyway.
He was a man who officially did not exist. A man who had died of a heart attack in a subway station months ago, according to the official records of the Kira investigation. He was thinner now, his face gaunt, his eyes hollowed out by months of hiding, of living as a ghost in the machine of Near's operation.
Raye Penber exhaled slowly, his breath misting in the night air.
"Threat neutralized," he whispered into his comms. "The detectives have the package. The Hino loose end is tied up."
"Good work, Agent Penber," Near's voice crackled in his earpiece, devoid of emotion. "Return to base. The endgame has begun."
Raye began to disassemble his rifle. He didn't enjoy killing. He never had. But in a world ruled by gods and monsters, sometimes the dead were the only ones free enough to pull the trigger.