Mysteries of Akiramine: Out of Sight
Chapter 1
Once inside the police station, I was directed to an office labeled "Inspector Haruyo Morinaka". When I entered the room, the woman at the desk sighed and stood up. Her face was tense with frustration, and she glared at me in a way that suggested I was not welcome.
"Are you one of the ghost hunters who saw our notice?"
"That’s not a term I’d use for what I do, but I did read about the case you’re working on."
Inspector Morinaka grumbled to herself, pacing behind her desk. She wore her uniform in a way that made her look masculine, and her hair was cut short. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was trying to avoid being treated as inferior at her job for being a woman, knowing what some police forces could be like.
"Did you bring your... crystal ball or EMF reader or whatever?" She turned to frown at me. "Something to see the details that experienced detectives would miss?"
A part of me was expecting some doubt in my abilities or motivation, but not this level of resentment. "Have there been a lot of people claiming to have knowledge on this case?"
Morinaka shook her head. "You’re one of the first to respond to our request for outside investigators. I just don’t like the idea of some... hobbyists being called in on my case."
Her appearance and demeanor were starting to present a possible history in my mind; she had to work hard to get where she is now. Hoping this theory was correct, I decided I’d need to open up a bit to make this work. "I never got to finish my training, but I was once part of a scholarship program to train new detectives."
This comment seemed to derail whatever Morinaka was going to say, because she suddenly stopped pacing and spun to face me. "...Where were you trained?"
"Nishioka, back when they still did the program. 2014 to 2015. It shut down after the Shireishi Incident."
Morinaka considered this for a moment. "Shireishi... wasn’t that the crime wave where everyone blamed some new phone game?"
"Something to that effect."
Inspector Morinaka nodded. "...Perhaps you aren’t intentionally wasting my time, at least." She reached for a folder on her desk and slid it over. "Here’s a copy of the information we’re able to release at this time. How much have you heard so far?"
"Only that people have been going missing, then showing up again a few days later." I grabbed the folder and opened it, starting to skim the notes and printouts.
"The part we’re leaving out–where you come in–is that they’ve been coming back without their eyes."
"Without their eyes?!" I gave Morinaka a look, not sure I was understanding correctly.
"Yes. No eyeballs in their sockets." She crossed her arms. "We initially figured it was some black market organ harvesting operation. But... we’ve found no traces of the eyes showing up anywhere else, and..." She let out a deep sigh. "There are no wounds."
"So we have someone who can remove eyes without leaving any injuries?" I flipped through the papers in the folder, realizing that a lot of them were records of the victims and their official statements.
"Or something, as my boss insists." Morinaka slumped into her chair. "We’re convinced the victims aren’t telling us the whole story, and my boss thinks that means something unbelievable happened. Something no one would tell a cop willingly."
I nodded slowly. "Or it could just be people who don’t want to implicate themselves in something."
"That was my theory, but unless I find a lead soon my boss won’t give a shit what I think is happening." Morinaka leaned on her desk. "So... what do you say? Will you take a look?"
I nodded again, closing the folder and looking at the inspector directly. "I’ll see what I can find."
"Keep in mind that we’re not going to pay a contractor that doesn’t give us viable information." Morinaka stared me in the eyes. "Do you understand?"
"I’m familiar with working on cases without compensation."
"I see. In that case, do what you can."
I turned to leave, regretting how my bitterness about the Shireishi case snuck out. I sighed to myself, hoping that Morinaka didn’t recognize that I had mixed feelings about working with the police again.
When I got back to the apartment, Yuri was sighing repeatedly as she fiddled with her phone on the couch. After I put the folder of case information on the table, I walked over to her. "Something wrong?"
"Just... Kenji is being a jerk again." She put her phone down on the floor. "I asked him to come over tonight, but he got mad at me."
"Did he say why?"
"Not really. Just more of ‘stop doing weird things’." Yuri sat up and looked directly at me. "You know what he said to me, earlier today? ‘I shouldn’t have put my dick in crazy.’ How does he think that makes me feel?!"
I saw Yuri start to get worked up at the memory, so I slowly stepped closer and held her shoulders. "It’s okay, Yuri. You’re not crazy. If that’s how he really feels, and he doesn’t come around, maybe... it’s time to move on."
Yuri tried to catch her breath, shutting her eyes as she clenched her hands into fists. "It’s just... after what Noboru said about me..."
"Forget Noboru. He admitted he only dated you to fuck you. His opinion about you isn’t relevant."
Yuri nodded, then let out a sigh. "I know you’re right, Shizuka. I’m sorry."
I stepped back, pointing over at the table. "I managed to get the information about that case we found. Want to look it over?"
"Sure." Yuri grabbed her phone and we went over to the table, laying out the papers as I explained the basics.
"Where should we start?" I asked, glancing over the victims’ names again.
Yuri had fully transformed from the sullen look she had earlier to an excitement that seemed almost too intense. "We should really talk to some of these victims... I bet we could learn something that the police weren’t able to get out of them."
"Which one, then? There’s almost a dozen..."
Picking up a sheet, Yuri slowly nodded to herself. "This one." She held the paper so I could read it. "She’s a high school student, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she was afraid of opening up to the police about anything shady."
I read the name. "Tagata?" I leaned back as I recalled the details. "According to her official statement, she was taking a shortcut home to avoid a bully when she was taken. Since her return, that same bully has been... almost doting on her."
"Sounds suspicious, right?" Yuri grinned. "Let’s arrange a meeting at the hospital she’s staying at, see if she’s willing to tell us anything."
"That sounds like a plan to me." I stood up and organized the files again. "Let’s hope she’s ready to tell us what really happened."
Chapter 2
After getting permission from the hospital to meet with Tagata, we made our way to her recovery room. Since she was a recent victim, she was still being observed by the doctors to see if they could figure out what had happened to her. When we arrived at her room, there was a student in school uniform sitting at Tagata’s bedside.
"Who are you?" The other girl stood up and stared at us. "You’re not more science freaks, are you?"
"Science freaks?" Yuri asked.
"Some people in fancy suits came and asked Tagata if she wanted to help them test some sort of robo-eyes. She keeps saying no, but they won’t go away."
I shook my head. "We aren’t here to offer cybernetic eyes. We’re here to investigate the case."
"Like... police?"
"Not quite." I motioned to Tagata. "Is she able to talk for a few minutes?"
Tagata sat up, bandages over where her eyes would be. "I... I’m awake. I can talk to them, Akagi."
Akagi frowned, then nodded and took a seat in the corner. Yuri and I grabbed seats close to the bed. "Tagata, we apologize for showing up on such short notice, but we’d like to find out why this happened to you. Would you be alright with starting with the report you gave the police?"
Tagata shook her head. "I left a lot out... I wasn’t ready to tell anyone..."
Yuri tilted her head. "Are you... ready now?"
"Maybe." Tagata sighed. "You... won’t get me in trouble with the police, will you?"
"We’re not here to incriminate you. We want to help." I leaned in closer. "But in order to help you, we need to know what happened."
She nodded, then adjusted herself in her bed. "I told the police I was hiding from... someone." She turned to Akagi for just a moment. "But... I was actually going to a back-alley eye clinic."
"...Why?" Yuri seemed confused.
"I’ve... always had bad eyesight. I have... had... such big glasses." She sighed. "People... picked on me for that."
I heard squirming from behind me, and I guessed that Akagi was one of those people.
"So when I saw posters for an eye surgery that I could afford, I... saved up my allowance. I wanted to come back to school without glasses and surprise everyone.
"But... I don’t think it was a real eye clinic. The doctor’s face was fully covered, and I could barely understand what he was saying. He seemed to be in a real hurry, which scared me. But I didn’t want to walk away and give up, so I... let him put me under.
"When I woke up... I couldn’t see. I don’t know where I was, but someone found me and took me here."
I tapped notes into my phone as quickly as I could, trying to figure out which details were the most essential. "This doctor, can you give me details?"
"He... his whole face was covered in bandages, like he had just gotten facial surgery. And his coat was dirty. And when he talked, it sounded... like he was always grumbling or growling."
I asked a few follow-up questions about the clinic’s location, but I felt drawn to this description of the doctor. He sounded beyond shady, and I wondered why Tagata ignored the red flags. Her bullying must have been severe to consider risking her live over it...
When we ran out of questions, we thanked her and stood up to leave. While Yuri left the room, I leaned in toward Akagi. "I hope you actually are trying to protect Tagata; she’s been through enough. I would recommend making sure she’s never bullied again."
Akagi seemed to understand the implied threat of being reported for her past misdeeds, because her eyes went wide. "I promise, I won’t let anyone pick on her again!"
I nodded at her, then left. I figured Tagata’s bullying problem wasn’t going to exist for much longer. If only I could fix her sight as well...
A few days after meeting with Tagata, we managed to arrange a meeting with Asagiri. While Tagata had been in the hospital, Asagiri was apparently discharged and had been languishing at home until we called. He quickly agreed to meet us at a streetside cafe, to which he arrived using a cane.
We called him over to where we were sitting, and he collapsed into his chair. "You the girls who called me, right? The ones doing the cops’ job?"
"In a sense, I suppose. You’re Asagiri?"
He spread his arms wide, as if it were obvious. And it was clear that he was one of the victims, considering the lack of eyes behind his large wrap-around shades.
I took out my phone. "Can we start by going over what you said to the police?"
"Whatever, I guess."
"The record here puts your story this way: you were checking to make sure one of your fares made it home safely when you were jumped and dragged into an alley. You woke up in that same alleyway without your eyes, only to discover that two days had passed."
Yuri frowned, shaking her head. "It doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me. It doesn’t seem to add up..."
"Sometimes, life be that way." Asagiri shrugged. "After all, I thought the only thing that would kill my taxi-driving dream career was all of those car-sharing apps. But life found a way to fuck me in the face first."
It seemed like Asagiri was banking on us not knowing much about him, and this was just an excuse to vent. But I was here for information, and so I decided it was time to make him take this seriously. "Something that stands out to me is that it was your eyes that were taken. Based on some records I dug up, it seems like you were at risk of being fired if you didn’t get corrective lenses or surgery. Why would an organ harvester go after a random person’s eyes, without checking to see if they’d be worth anything?"
Honestly, I wasn’t even sure eyes had any value on the black market, since I didn’t think eye replacement surgeries had been successful before. But I was glad the police found that eyesight test documentation on Asagiri when they found him, since mentioning the test made him sit up straight.
"Look, I was going to lose my job if my sight got worse. A friend of mine told me that this doctor would do surgery for cheaper than it would cost to get glasses."
I wished he could see me adjust my own glasses as I waited for him to continue. "And you... trusted this cheap back-alley doctor?"
"Hey, sometimes people sell the best stuff for cheaper than the garbage big companies throw at us. I figured maybe doctors did it too." He sighed. "I should have known better when that nurse or assistant came in, though..."
"Nurse?" Yuri asked, leaning closer.
"Yeah, she had her whole face covered in bandages and she had a dirty coat on. She sounded like she was smoking a pack a day, too."
I made note of this, curious why there was a gender discrepancy between the stories. "Any other details about the doctor, the nurse, or the clinic?"
Asagiri explained where the clinic was, which didn’t match with the other location we had. But the more he described the "nurse", the more I figured there was only one bandaged person. Still, I stuck to Asagiri’s story for now.
"So this nurse put you under, and you woke up in that alleyway?"
"That’s right. Nothing was stolen except my eyes, as far as I could tell. That doctor freak and his nurse must get off by taking them or something."
Yuri had been quiet for much of the conversation, seeming a little disgusted. I decided we had enough information for now, not wanting to drag this out. "Well, that’s all of our questions for now. We’ll let you know if we need anything else."
"Good luck playing detective, girlies. You’ll need it with those freaks on the lose."
Yuri and I quickly left, and Yuri seemed a lot more at ease within minutes. "So, we have a common suspect but multiple locations."
"That makes sense. I’ll bet each location is only used a few times before the suspect moves to the next location."
"Could there be more than one person behind this?"
"I’d assume there would have to be. How else could someone with such specific skills be two steps ahead of the police?"
"In that case..." Yuri sighed. "This might get dangerous, from here on out."
"...You’re right." I stopped walking. "After we talk to some more victims, we may want to turn our information over to the police. Let them handle the arrest."
"That’s a good idea. We’re not trained in capturing dangerous criminals."
I nodded, checking the notes on my phone. "Let’s hope our findings will be enough to help the police solve this case..."
Chapter 3
A week after we presented the results of our investigation to the police, I found myself in Inspector Morinaka’s office again. She looked tired as she tapped the desktop, trying to think of where to begin.
"We’ve tracked down and raided every back-alley eye clinic we can connect to this case. All of them were abandoned, with no new leads. DNA samples only showed up as the victims or some local dogs."
I lowered my eyes. "So the police need help again."
Morinaka took a fist and nearly slammed the table, then forced herself to stop. "If people would have just talked to me or my subordinates, we could have done this on our own. I hate that we have to hire damn freelancers to do our job!"
I remained quiet for a moment, hoping to not upset her further. Then, I tentatively looked up. "What about the suspect’s description? Are there any matches?"
"We’ve asked around, but we are running out of places to look." Morinaka sighed and looked at me. "Personally, I have a hunch. It has no solid proof, but I think something is there."
I leaned in. "What’s this hunch?"
Morinaka took a deep breath. "The rest of the people on the case are focusing on unlicensed doctors with lung conditions. But I tracked some of that dog DNA, and there are a few samples that aren’t from local pets. I think our suspect may have forgotten to clean his coat of some dog hair from an unregistered pet."
Nodding, I tried to fit the pieces together in my head. I could see the doctor’s dirty coat having some dog hairs on it. "Did you have someone in mind? Someone you know that has an unregistered pet?"
"No, but I do have reports of barking and howling in a neighborhood near some of these clinics. No one there has registered dogs."
"That sounds like something that could be a lead. Why haven’t you checked there?"
Morinaka scowled. "My boss thinks I’m making too many leaps of logic, and I don’t know if I’ll keep the case if I start making random guesses."
Holding in a sigh, I nodded. I could tell where this was going. "But if I check this person out, you can say it wasn’t your idea."
"I’m not investigating this person, after all. She’s not relevant to the case." Morinaka slid a sheet of paper over to me.
Looking at the record, I immediately noted that the suspect had no official photo. Most of her information was blank, aside from some recently-added notes about her raspy voice and refusal to show her full face.
"My friend and I will look into this. I hope the rest of the case goes well."
As I stood up, Morinaka nodded to herself, playing with a pen. "Right... the rest of the case."
Yuri and I went to the suspect’s place of residence, which was also where she worked as a car mechanic. We cased the block for a few hours until no one else was there, then hurried inside while it was still light outside.
As we entered the workshop, I was surprised the police didn’t consider this woman relevant to the case. She wore a surgical mask over layers of bandages, with only her eyes and hair visible. She wore dirty overalls filled with tools and a long-sleeved shirt with heavy gloves. I could see why some people might mistake her for a man at first, considering her clothing and body shape.
"We’re looking for Kinu Hanabusa. Is that you?"
The woman glanced up at us, and I was immediately surprised by how big her brown eyes were. "That’s me. You don’t seem to have a car, though. Did it break down somewhere?"
Yuri seemed to be about to say something, but I held out a hand to stop her. "We’re not here about cars. We heard that some people in this neighborhood are complaining about loose dogs. Are you having the same problem?"
Hanabusa paused, gripping a wrench in her overalls. It almost seemed like her nose twitched under her mask, then she relaxed. "Dogs don’t bother me, so I’ve not paid too much attention to that sort of thing."
"Do you like dogs?" Yuri asked, stepping forward. "I think they’re cute. I like how excited they can get over little things."
"I suppose I’m fine with dogs." Hanabusa shrugged.
"Have you ever owned a dog? Maybe before moving here?"
"No. Never lived in a place that would let them in, really." Her mouth moved in an odd way as she said this, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it reminded me of.
"That’s sad..." Yuri looked away. I frowned to myself, thinking of our last case.
Hanabusa turned to a workbench. "Well, I hope you manage to find this lost dog, or whatever you’re up to. I need to organize my tools so I’m ready for the next job."
As Hanabusa looked around at the different tools, her nose seeming to twitch, I realized what her face reminded me of. Her nose and mouth was elongated... like a dog’s.
"Before we go..." I stepped forward, then suddenly felt fear flare up in my chest. I realized, all at once, that what I did next could very well risk my life. "...have you been to any medical clinics lately?"
I hoped that Yuri would run if Hanabusa attacked me, but I was too afraid to turn and check on her. Instead, I pretended to be confident as I waited for my answer. Hanabusa stood up straight and turned around slowly.
After almost a minute of staring each other down, Hanabusa went to close the door and flip the sign to say she was out. I shot a glance at Yuri, hoping she understood my warning. Then, Hanabusa pulled down her mask and peeled off the bandages over her face.
When Hanabusa turned to face us again, she looked like a hybrid between a wolf and a human. She pulled a hand out of her glove to show that it had the same hairy fur as the rest of her body, then put her glove back on.
"I know the police have me dead to rights, but I didn’t hurt those people. I didn’t know what was going to happen to them, and I told that fucker to get lost when I found out he did it."
I raised a hand, trying not to show my relief too obviously. "Slow down. Let’s go over the details before we rush into anything."
A sudden giggle or squeal made me jump as Yuri bounded over to Hanabusa, peering as closely as she could without touching. "Oh my god, are you some sort of dog-person? Are there more of you? What is your family like? Can you mate with humans, or only your own kind?"
"Yuri!" I grabbed her and pulled her back a step. "Give her some space. She’s taking a risk, showing herself to us like this."
"Considering that so many types of yokai no longer exist because of humans, this is a risk. But..." Hanabusa sighed. "If the police are on to me for those maimings, I need to take whatever risks keep me away from them."
"A yokai! Yokai are real!" Yuri giggled. "If ghosts and yokai are real, what else is out there? Why don’t we know more about these things?"
Hanabusa made a face that seemed to be a frown. "Humans control, devour, or destroy everything they find. My family only exists because we live separately; so only one of us will be caught at any one time."
Yuri’s smile slowly melted away, and she took a step back. "S-sorry..."
"Let’s stay focused." I turned to Hanabusa. "Since you’ve essentially admitted to being who we came here for, could you please describe to us what happened to the people who lost their eyes? We’re looking for the person who took them."
Hanabusa sighed, turning away. "Sure, I can tell you who took those people’s eyes. As long as the police know that I didn’t mean for this to happen."
Inspector Morinaka pulled the power from the interrogation room’s camera, then stepped down from the chair she was using to reach it. "We better make this quick. The precinct isn’t going to want to deal with rumors of questionable interrogation methods."
Yuri and I turned to look at Hanabusa, who was seated at the table with us. Seeing that the door was locked and the camera was disabled, she began to take off her facial coverings.
Morinaka was too busy getting back in her seat to notice immediately, but when she saw Hanabusa with her face uncovered she gasped and nearly fell out of the chair. "What the hell?!"
"Don’t yell." I tried to keep from sounding too disrespectful, but I almost hissed the words out. "She’s putting a lot of trust in us."
"The hell am I looking at?" Morinaka looked like she was ready to stand and leave. All of her usual sternness had been replaced by open fear.
"Your people call me a type of yokai. Most of us that aren’t human in shape have to hide, or we’d be hunted to extinction like so many other animals and yokai."
It took a few seconds, but Morinaka seemed to regain her senses. "That explains your voice, I guess..." She examined Hanabusa’s snout, her hands still trembling a bit.
"She’s promised to lead us to the culprit if you agree not to arrest her for being an accomplice." Yuri leaned on the table. "The culprit is another yokai... so Hanabusa figured she had an obligation to help him. She didn’t realize he was up to no good until after the eyeless people started being found."
Morinaka frowned deeply, clasping her hands together. "...Explain from the beginning."
Hanabusa told the whole story, as she had to us. She had been approached by another yokai who tried to blend into human society, this one claiming to be a skilled eye doctor. He needed someone to find and prepare patients for him, then take them from the clinic to his home, where he actually worked. At first, Hanabusa had assumed he was eccentric and in need of a friend.
But when the "patients" began showing up without eyes, she eventually confronted this "doctor" about it. He all but admitted to having taken the eyes, at which point Hanabusa cut ties with him.
Inspector Morinaka rubbed her forehead. "All of this talk of yokai is... really difficult to deal with."
"You have proof sitting in front of you." I noted.
"I need to speak with my boss. I’ll be right back." Morinaka stood and walked out the door, closing it behind her quickly.
Yuri and I looked at each other, then at Hanabusa. She sighed deeply. "Well, I tried to make it work. I thought a city would be an easy place to blend in."
"Don’t give up just yet." Yuri turned to me. "What should we do?"
I shrugged. I wasn’t sure what we could do, all things considered. Even if we got the information from Hanabusa, the police had to agree to keep Hanabusa out of their records somehow.
After a few minutes of anxiously waiting for Morinaka, she returned and took her seat. "My boss... claims we may have an old procedure for situations like this. If we can confirm you didn’t commit the crimes, we’ll put you on... an unofficial probation for a few months. Maybe some community service for being an accessory to the crime."
It took a few seconds, but Hanabusa’s ears eventually flipped upward and she nodded. "Gakuto Toriyama. That’s the name of the man you’re looking for."
Morinaka pulled out her phone and looked up the name, apparently finding something in the police database. "We have an address on him. It may be time for a house call." She looked at me. "Since you... seem familiar with these kind of creatures, would you come along?"
I nodded at Yuri. "We can join you, just give us the time you need us."
"Yeah, we want to see this through."
Hanabusa snorted. "Most humans call my kind unnatural, and yet you two run towards another yokai."
"Someone has to keep people safe, right?" I fixed my glasses, thinking about what we might find. "What is this yokai like?"
"Toriyama looks kind of like a human, but very short. He’d look like a child to you. I don’t know much else about him, but he must have some sort of skill or power to have extracted eyes so easily."
"We’ll be careful, then. As we should always be when dealing with unknowns." I stood up. "Let’s go, Yuri. Morinaka and Hanabusa should have some privacy to discuss their deal."
Yuri got up and followed me as we left the interrogation room. I silently hoped that Hanabusa would be okay. I didn’t want to punish someone who hadn’t done anything wrong...
Chapter 4
We joined Inspector Morinaka on the way to Toriyama’s residence, finding ourselves in a run-down part of the neighborhood where the fake clinics had cropped up. Even with a police officer leading us, I felt uncomfortable walking through a place like this. These hidden pockets of the city could be dangerous, even without supernatural threats to worry about. This was the kind of place where people who had nowhere left to go would end up living, and it was easy for such people to feel backed into a corner where survival and kindness were incompatible.
As we walked down the streets of this neglected stretch of the city, I noticed more foreigners than I usually saw. I briefly wondered if this diversity, coupled with the underpolicing of the area, was what led Toriyama to make his home here. But before I could consider that for long, Morinaka turned to an apartment building. "We’re here."
The front door of the complex was unlocked, and so we entered the small lobby. No one was present, but there was loose trash scattered around the place. The building looked like a derelict... reminding me of when we hunted the Nightmare in abandoned buildings around town.
"Doesn’t look like many people live here." Yuri slowly pushed open a door that hadn’t been locked or shut. "This room is empty, it looks like."
"It’s possible that the person paying the property taxes for this place isn’t keeping a close eye on the residents." Inspector Morinaka checked a few doors before moving to the stairwell. "I suspect there may be homeless people sleeping here at night."
Before hearing that theory, I was going to ask if the building was going to be highlighted for an inspection. It clearly had slipped through the cracks, with some agency forgetting to send a proper official to make sure everything was in order. But knowing that this might be the last refuge for someone that was stuck in the city with no home or family, I didn’t want to plant that idea into Morinaka’s head.
The three of us climbed the stairs. They creaked under our feet, but were more solid than the stairs from the derelict buildings a few years ago. Morinaka read the numbers on the apartment doors, eventually finding the one registered for Toriyama. Finding no other way to announce her presence, she knocked loudly against the door.
"Inspector Morinaka of the Akiramine police force. Open up!"
I heard movement behind the door, and it seemed like my muscles were tensing up. When the door opened, a little man looked up at us.
"Oh, police? We don’t see you around this place too often. Sometimes, I wonder if we’re just too nice to commit any crimes around here, and that’s why you never show up." The man rambled, glancing around at us. "Did someone do something bad? I hope not. We like being nice to people here. We don’t want police to show up if it means someone is being bad."
"Are you Gakuto Toriyama?"
"Oh, yes, that’s my name. You see, the person who let me stay in the place, he didn’t think I knew how to write that name. But I told him, sometimes we spell names differently. Just because I spell it different doesn’t mean it’s not a real name. He thought I was trying to trick him, but–"
"Enough!" Morinaka nearly raised her voice to cut him off. "I need to ask you a few questions. May we come in?"
Toriyama led us into his apartment, which was cluttered with TV monitors. There were monitors in all shapes and sizes, from old CRT monitors to partially cracked curved flatscreens. Many of them had color testing bars displaying, but some of them had menus open as well.
"You have a lot of TVs..." Yuri noted, glancing around at each one as she took in the room.
"I do, yes! I ask people for their old TVs, so I can tinker with them." He smiled as he walked over to a TV that was taller than he was, and I examined him as he rambled on about TVs to Yuri. He looked like a short old man, probably barely over 100 centimeters. His clothes looked like they had been stitched together by hand from much bigger clothing, and his gray hair was slicked back and down to his shoulders. As he talked about the color testing bars, I noticed that he had two different eye colors... one brown and one green.
As Morinaka was about to begin her questioning, I tapped her arm and leaned in closer to her. "He has heterochromia. Could be a coincidence, but it makes me suspect him even more. Try to keep his attention so I can look around."
Morinaka nodded, frowning at being told what to do. Still, she turned to Toriyama and interrupted his speech about TV monitors and began questioning him about the case. As Yuri joined me in peeking around the apartment, I could hear Morinaka starting with the non-threatening questions.
"What are we looking for?" Yuri asked quietly.
"Eyes. Tools. Anything that might implicate him or get him to out the culprit."
Unfortunately, it seemed like Toriyama was still able to pay attention to us as we searched. When Yuri reached for the door to the apartment’s bathroom, Toriyama squealed out. "No, no! Do not use my bathroom, it is for only me! Please, it is my private place."
Morinaka stepped in front of Toriyama before he could move toward Yuri. "I had hoped you’d give yourself up, Toriyama, but you leave me no choice. I have a warrant to arrest you and search your residence."
"But why? I am telling you, I do not visit bad doctor clinics. I do not want eyes."
I was trying to think of how to back up Morinaka when Toriyama turned to me, looking up at me with two green eyes, as if pleading for me to help him.
"Morinaka, his eyes are the same color now. Check where he was standing!"
Morinaka blinked in confusion for a second, then walked over to the TV Toriyama had been showing off. After checking around it for a few seconds, she picked up an eyeball with a brown iris.
"Do not touch it! You will squish it, or dry it out." Toriyama reached up for the eye, begging like a child who just had his toy taken away. "Do not break it!"
Clearly shaken, Morinaka gave the eye to Toriyama, who slipped a jar from behind a TV and dropped the eyeball into the liquid it contained. I turned to Yuri and nodded. She nodded back, then opened the bathroom door.
Following Yuri into the bathroom, I gaped at what I saw. The shower area had a tub for taking baths, which was filled with a clear liquid. Floating in the liquid was dozens of eyes, still connected to their optic nerves. Seeing so many disembodied organs made me feel sick, and I had to turn away.
"We found the eyes." I muttered to Morinaka. "I think they’re all here."
Morinaka pulled out a telescoping baton and a set of cuffs. "Toriyama, I don’t know what crime we’ll have to charge you with, but you’re coming with me."
"No! No! No!" Toriyama started crying, then slapped his head until his eyes popped out into his jar. Now eyeless, he cradled the jar to his chest. "I need my eyes. How else will I see all the different colors? I need to know how everyone will be seeing these colors..."
Since Morinaka seemed uncertain of what to do, Yuri came out of the bathroom and knelt next to Toriyama. "Why did you do this? All those people you tricked... they aren’t seeing anything."
"I like the TVs. I need to know all the different ways people see the different colors. Clear, blurry, colorblind... I need them all."
I took a breath to collect myself, then stood up straight. "Toriyama. You don’t have a right to steal people’s eyes just because you like seeing what they would see." I decided to take a risk, hoping Yuri would back me up. "But since you have taken their sight from them, I suppose we have no choice but to punish you..." I grabbed one of the TV monitors, tapping it so he could hear. "Maybe selling these off will help pay for some of the damages you’ve caused..."
"No, no, do not! Please, I took so long and spent so much to collect these!"
Yuri seemed to have some idea of what I was trying to do, because she gave Toriyama a weak smile. Even though he couldn’t see her face right now, he could probably hear her tone becoming more gentle. "But we need to do something for all of those people you hurt. And it’s not like we can give them their eyes back..."
"You can, though! You can!" Toriyama squealed out, then suddenly seemed to regret. He turned away from us, hugging his jar closer.
Morinaka extended the baton. "Toriyama, you had better explain what you mean by that. We do not have the capacity to restore the eyes you’ve collected."
For a tense moment, we all waited for a response. Then, Toriyama sighed and set the jar aside. "I take them... the eyes... very gently, to not make bloody mess. I can... attach again. If I have to."
"You absolutely have to, if that’s an option." Morinaka stated, handing me the baton as she went to cuff Toriyama. "But for now, you’re coming to the station. I am not letting you get away to terrorize more people."
Yuri and I watched as Morinaka cuffed the sobbing Toriyama. Even if he was a yokai, he looked little more than a sad old man right now. To think that he had caused so much more pain himself...
Chapter 5
Morinaka met with me and Yuri at a park, sighing as she sat down at a bench with us. "Boss says it’s time for us to settle up on the reward, so I’ll need your signatures before we send the transfer."
"We’re still getting paid, even though only part of the case is on the record?" Yuri asked, leaning over to look at Morinaka.
"My boss..." Morinaka sighed again and shook her head. "Those of us working on the case think we wouldn’t have solved it without your help. At best, we might have arrested Hanabusa and thought we handled it and figured we were taking an unnatural creature off the streets. We’d probably never have found Toriyama, at least not as quickly."
Even hearing that we were going to get paid didn’t raise my spirits, as something else had bothered me over the past week. "What about Toriyama’s promise? Was he actually able to replace the eyes?"
"That’s... the weirdest part." Morinaka frowned at me. "We’ve been having the victims we could identify come in and get their eyes returned, but we didn’t expect it to work at first. But for everyone we’ve called so far, it’s like they were never missing their eyes. It’s... incredible."
Yuri snickered. "If only Toriyama had become an eye doctor instead of getting obsessed with TVs."
"Speaking of his damn TVs, I managed to convince my boss to let Toriyama bring some of his collection to his prison cell. Once we’ve done what we can for the victims, he’s going to keep tinkering in prison." Morinaka seemed embarrassed, turning away from us. "Look, he’s annoying when he doesn’t have his TVs. We’re punishing him, not the warden."
I think I saw Yuri smile at hearing Toriyama wouldn’t be separated from his passion, but I didn’t really care about that. As long as most or all of the victims got their lives back, I’d feel a lot better about the case. "Who has gotten their eyes back so far? Are you going to check in on them to make sure there are no long-term effects?"
"Some hospital is going to be doing the check-ins, so that’s out of my hands." Morinaka looked right at me. "But you might recognize one of the people who has been helped so far... Tagata."
Recalling which victim that was, I nodded. "Is she doing okay? She was being bullied before this all began."
"She’s doing fine, as far as we know. That girl who visited her at the hospital every day was there the day Tagata got her eyes back, and she said something about making sure Tagata was safe." Morinaka shrugged. "Keeping tabs on high school socialization isn’t really part of my job, though.
I nodded, taking a deep breath. "I guess it’s all wrapping up, then. Toriyama can’t hurt anyone else, the victims are getting help, and Hanabusa will be more careful about shady deals."
"I still can’t believe we’re dealing with yokai." Morinaka groaned, rubbing her forehead. "How many more of them are hiding among us?"
"I mean, that sounds exciting to me." Yuri grinned. "Maybe we’ll meet more of them someday."
"I can do without." Morinaka stood up, handing us slips of paper. "At any rate, sign these so we can send the reward money."
We filled out the payment forms and signed them, then returned them to Morinaka. As we went to leave, Morinaka tapped my shoulder. I turned to her, frowning. "Hmm?"
Sighing, Morinaka averted her eyes. "Hirose, I... want to apologize." She bit her lip. "I... went and read the official story about the Shireishi Incident. Even without more... unbelievable details that I’m sure were left out, you went through a rough situation."
"You had every right to be suspicious of someone claiming to have knowledge of supernatural events. Most are falsified or exaggerated."
"Even so..." Morinaka ran a hand through her hair. "If that training program hadn’t been shut down, we might have both been detectives."
I tried not to think too hard about how it felt when I was living through that change. "But it was shut down. So this is how things are instead."
Morinaka nodded, returning to her usual stern expression. "I suppose so. But if we have any other situations like this, we may call on you for advice."
"I don’t have all the answers." I started to turn away. "But... I’ll try to help if I can."
Yuri had gone on ahead without me, and was now waving for me to come join her. I nodded farewell to Morinaka, then followed Yuri away.