Danganronpa Kirigiri Volume 3 Chapter 4 Part3

"Now, we'd like to question you all individually," the officer announced. "We'll call you into a separate room one by one to hear your accounts. We ask for your kind cooperation."

"Are you kidding me? We have to stay here?" the brunette protested. "My skin's drying out. Are you going to do something about that?"

"You there, in the kimono. We'll start with you," the officer said, completely ignoring the brunette.

He led the spectacled woman into a separate room, with other officers trailing behind them. One uniformed policeman remained behind to keep watch over us.

"I didn't expect things to turn out like this," the man in the sungla.s.ses said. He seemed like an easy-going person. His voice was calm and polite, and he didn't look the slightest bit agitated. "But I'm surprised. I didn't think the two of you were detectives too."

"…'too'?"

"Yes. It turns out, every single one of us gathered here today is a detective."

"R-Really? You're also a detective?"

"Indeed."

"Why didn't you tell the officers?"

Was it something he wanted to hide?

"Detectives haven't had the most cordial relationship with the police. We know from experience that flaunting our job t.i.tle isn't always well received. That's all there is to it."

"You Ryuuzouji grunts don't understand," the man in the Hawaiian shirt jumped in. "A run-of-the-mill detective like me ain't got the same sorta standing."

The industry sounded harsh… Once again, I realized just how inexperienced I was. I had no idea what the life of a detective was truly like.

"Well, it'll come out during questioning, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to identify myself to you. I don't wish to be on Mr. Ryuuzouji's bad side."

The man in the sungla.s.ses pulled out a Detective Library ID from his inner suit pocket.

Salvador Yadorigi f.u.kurou: DSC Number [752]

"I specialize in art forgery crimes."

He was even wearing sungla.s.ses in his ID photo. The guidelines must not have been stringent, since it wasn't an official doc.u.ment like a pa.s.sport or driver's license.

"Wow, you're at Rank 2? I'm stuck at 8," the brunette whined, leaning over with her legs still on the gla.s.s table.

I couldn't picture someone like her as a detective.

She reached into her cleavage and pulled out an ID card. It was covered with sparkly stickers.

Korisu Kakitsubata: DSC Number [488]

"I handle animal cases. Or I guess more specifically, animal welfare cases?"

The stickers doubled her card's thickness. I hadn't heard of any detective who decorated their ID… Could that thing fit into the terminal at the Detective Library?

"My turn," the guy in the Hawaiian shirt said, flashing his card.

Hajiki Yaki: DSC Number [666]

"Gamblin's my forte, but I'm not the one makin' the bets. My job's to sniff out unlawful gamblers and make 'em wish they'd never been born."

"Did you share your ident.i.ties with each other?"

"Yes," Yadorigi answered while adjusting his sungla.s.ses. "It came up in our discussion before you two arrived. We determined that identifying ourselves would be wise."

"Someone musta planned it this way," Yaki said, using the gla.s.s table as a mirror to fix his collar. "We all got the same birthday invitation, but we got sent different requests along with it. I was told this place was an illegal gamblin' den. Since that's in my line of work, the bait was meant for me."

"I was asked to determine the authenticity of the paintings in this mansion," Yadorigi added with overexaggerated hand gestures. "If that request was fabricated, then the person behind this must be quite familiar with detectives. The birthday invitation was suspicious, but that made us more susceptible to take the bolder lie at face value."

"My letter said this place was the site of illegal wildlife trade," Kakitsubata added. "I didn't want to bother coming here, but like, wouldn't it be sad if that was true? Those poor animals…"

"So all of you took the bait and walked right into a trap." I summarized.

"No, we didn't," Yaki snapped.

"No, she's right. We should admit as much," Yadorigi said. "We fell for the criminal's trap and are now suspects in a murder investigation."

This situation reminded me of the Sirius Observatory case from last month. The detectives received fake requests and were lured to the scene, and ultimately to their deaths.

But this time, there was only one victim. With the police on the scene, the likelihood of additional murders was low, but we still couldn't rest easy.

"So? Is it true? Are the two of you really detectives?" Kakitsubata asked.

I showed her my Detective Library ID.

"You look so young, how old are you? Are you in high school? Really? Aren't your b.o.o.bs a little big for your age? Wait, you're not even a homicide specialist, but you get to join the investigation? No fair, I want in on that!"

"Well, these are special circ.u.mstances…" It wouldn't be appropriate to explain everything, so I changed the subject. "Oh, Kyoko over here is even younger than me; she's in middle school. Isn't she cute?"

"What's your specialty?" Yadorigi asked curiously.

"Small talk won't do us any good," Kyoko replied curtly. "You all fell for the criminal's trap and are being suspected of murder."

"Hmm…" Yadorigi crossed his legs and threw out his arms. "You're correct. We need to solve this case. It's not just our honor at stake; we could be falsely charged."

"Murders ain't my cup of tea. You solve it."

"Huh? Murders, like, creep me out!"

While Yaki and Kakitsubata started quibbling, the spectacled woman returned. She gracefully took a seat on the sofa.

"Miss Kakitsubata, the officer asked me to send you in," she said.

"What, it's my turn? I'm sleepy. Are the police going to do something if my skin cracks? Wait, isn't this like getting in trouble at school and getting called to the princ.i.p.al's office? This is exciting."

Kakitsubata continued her monologue on the way to the other room.

"We were introducing ourselves to these young detectives," Yadorigi said calmly.

"Oh, then allow me to do so as well." The woman covered her mouth with her hand and smiled. "My name is Sara Mizuiyama. Have you been informed of the reason we came here?"

Sara Mizuiyama: DSC Number [527]

"My story is the same as the others. I received a request for advice on remodeling this mansion. My specialty is architecture."

"Oh, I forgot to ask earlier, but do any of you know anything about the man who was killed?"

"His name was Suntetsu Shirasu, 52 years old," Yadorigi answered. "We searched through his belongings. The only thing of note was his Detective Library ID. His DSC number was [126], which means he dealt with crimes of religion, specifically those involving oriental cults."

"I wonder if this case has anything to do with religion," Mizuiyama said, tilting her head.

"That's a plausible theory," Yadorigi replied. "Maybe he was killed because of his line of work."

"What happened to him before we arrived?" I asked. "He seemed to be taking shelter in that room, but…"

"Taking shelter? That ain't right." Yaki reclined onto the sofa and waved his arm left and right. "He up and disappeared… 'Cause of that, we started wonderin' if he was the one who invited us here. That's why we peeked at his things and found his ID. Then we started lookin' for him and ran into that shut door."

"I was able to enter the dojo earlier in the afternoon," Yadorigi explained. "But when I returned later, the door wouldn't open. Since the door has no keyhole, I surmised that someone was keeping the door shut from the inside. As I wondered who it could be, everyone else joined me, aside from Shirasu."

Naturally, they concluded Shirasu was holed up inside the room. While they were struggling to open the door, Kyoko and I appeared.

Shortly afterwards, the case occurred.

The moment the victim was stabbed, Yadorigi, Kakitsubata, Yaki, and Mizuiyama were with us on the other side of the door. Logic thus dictated that none of them could be the murderer.

But the locked room presented a mystery—how did the murderer enter and exit the dojo?

"Would you mind recounting in detail everything that happened before we arrived?" Kyoko asked.

"Very well," Yadorigi answered with exaggerated gestures. "I'll have to explain everything to the police anyway, so a practice run wouldn't hurt…"

They arrived at the Takeda Haunted Mansion today (or more precisely, yesterday), January 10th, at around 1 PM.

I had unsealed the Duel Noir envelope an hour earlier, at exactly noon. That meant all of the actors had gathered at the stage within an hour of the curtain rising on the Duel Noir.

It was impossible to lure everyone to the mansion in that short span of time. Did the criminal predict that I would open the envelope at noon on the 10th, and prepare everything in advance?

No, most likely the criminal had sent out the invitations in advance and was waiting for me to unseal the envelope before executing the crime. For better or for worse, that happened to be the same day everyone was to gather here, so the killer quickly set their plan into motion.

After arriving at the mansion, they quickly introduced themselves to one another. At that point, everyone was still wary of the others and hid their true ident.i.ties as detectives.

They waited a full two hours together, until 3 PM. The host never showed up, causing them to grow suspicious of the situation. Everyone then decided to explore the mansion by themselves. We would need to ask for their accounts individually.

At 9 PM, they started questioning the legitimacy of their investigation request. Someone suggested they all leave. But then, Kakitsubata revealed herself to be a detective. In succession, the rest of them revealed their true reason for visiting the mansion. Except Shirasu—at that point, he had already gone missing.

The others now strongly suspected Shirasu to be the man who invited them all and began searching for him. However, they couldn't find him.

At 10 PM, Yadorigi noticed something odd about the door leading to the dojo. It wouldn't budge, no matter how hard he tried pulling.

In the next thirty minutes, Kakitsubata, Yaki, and Mizuiyama appeared. Another thirty minutes pa.s.sed as they shared their findings.

That was when Kyoko and I showed up.

I knew what happened after that. While we were trying to open the door, a noise came from inside the dojo. We broke into the locked room, turned on the light, and discovered a man lying in the center of the room with a katana in his back.

"Was that noise we heard Shirasu being stabbed and collapsing onto the ground?" I asked.

"I believe so," Kyoko responded. "When I rushed over to the body, blood was still seeping out from the stab wound."

"Ain't it weird that the killer wasn't in the room?" Yaki asked with his arms crossed.

"The room was pitch black," Mizuiyama added pensively. "What if the murderer used the darkness to escape through the door we opened?"

"Can't be. My a.s.s was still on the ground when you all went in and I didn't see n.o.body come out. Nowhere for them to hide behind the door either, since it opened outward."

"I had to feel around for the light switch, but that didn't even take a minute," Yadorigi explained. "If the criminal escaped under the veil of darkness, they couldn't have gone far."

"But there ain't nowhere to run to."

"Kyoko and I checked outside after that, but there weren't any footprints in the snow."

"Then where did the killer disappear to?" Mizuiyama asked, bringing her pointer finger to her lips and tilting her head.

"Only one answer. Those warriors," Yaki replied, furrowing his brows.

"The armor was empty. There's no changing that," Yadorigi refuted.

I had also inspected the armor. n.o.body was hiding inside. And I didn't find any suspicious device or tool either.

"Not that. You know what I mean…"

"What?"

"A ghost! You really gonna make a grown man like me say it?"

"You think a ghost possessed the armor and stabbed Shirasu with a katana?" Yadorigi asked sternly.

The possibility was nonsensical; it went against logic and science. A man couldn't be killed by a ghost warrior…

Besides, this was a Duel Noir. Straying into the occult was a waste of time. The killer used some trick to carry out the murder for the sake of revenge—that much was certain.

But the question remained—how?

The room was completely sealed. When the victim was attacked, the suspects were outside. The lack of footprints around the mansion eliminated the possibility of an uninvited guest.

Everything pointed to the murder being an impossible crime.

Next: Chapter 4, Part 4 (Coming Soon!)
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