The fluorescent lights of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department hummed with a headache-inducing frequency. It was 6:00 AM. Outside, the rain had finally stopped, leaving the sky a bruised, purple-grey.
Kenji stood in front of the large whiteboard in the main conference room. He hadn't changed his clothes since the tunnel discovery two days ago. His shirt was wrapped, his eyes red-rimmed, but his mind was vibrating with a terrifying clarity.
On the board, he had taped two photos.
On the left - Taro "The Spider" Suzuki. Suspended upside down. Drained.
On the right - Hiroshi Kurosawa. Charred kneeling in a field. Burned.
Between them, he drew a thick red line.
"Coffee." Manjiro grunted, kicking the door open with his foot. He carried a cardboard tray with four cups. "Black for you. Sugar for me. And two for the Chief, because he looks like he's about to have a stroke."
Chief Inspector Hideo was already in the room, sitting at the head of the table, massaging his temples. He looked up as Manjiro set the coffee down.
"Tell me we have something, Sano," Hideo said, his voice raspy. "The press is already calling. Kurosawa was a prominent figure. The Mayor is asking if we have a serial arsonist(intentionally uses fire to destroy anything)."
"It's not arson, Chief." Kenji said, turning to the board. He uncapped a marker. "And it's not a cartel hit. It's a history lesson."
Kenji wrote a single word under Suzuki's photo: TSURUSHI.
"The first victim." Kenji began, tapping the photo. "Hung upside down. Drained via a small incision. I confirmed with the historian at Tokyo University an hour ago. This method, Tsurushi or 'The Pit,' was specifically used in the 17th century by the Tokugawa Shogunate."
"Used on who?" Hideo asked, sipping his coffee.
"Christians." Kenji said. "And political opposers. People who refused to renounce their foreign beliefs. It was designed to break the spirit, to force a confession through prolonged suffering."
Kenji moved to the second photo: Kurosawa. He wrote: MINO-ODORI.
"The second victim," Kenji continued.
"Dressed in a straw raincoat soaked in oil. Set on fire. Forced to run. This is Mino-odori, the 'Straw Raincoat Dance.' It was a punishment used by feudal lords against peasants who couldn't pay their taxes or who spoke out against the samurai class."
Manjiro sat forward, the chair creaking. "So we have a killer who reads history books."
"It's more than that." Kenji said, drawing a circle around both names. "Look at the victims. Suzuki was a loan shark a predator. Kurosawa was a corrupt developer a tyrant."
"Scum and a suit." Manjiro summarized.
"Exactly. But look at the punishments." Kenji's eyes locked onto Hideo's. "The killer is inverting them."
"Inverting?" Hideo frowned.
"Suzuki was 'scum,' yet he was killed with a method reserved for martyrs and ideological threats. Kurosawa was a 'lord' of industry, yet he was killed with a method reserved for the lowest peasants."
Kenji slammed the marker cap back on.
"The killer isn't just punishing them. He's humiliating them. He's stripping Kurosawa of his status and reducing him to a burning peasant. He's elevating Suzuki's suffering to that of a martyr. He is rewriting their identities through death."
Hideo stared at the board. "The tags. You said there were tags."
"Yes." Kenji pulled the evidence bags from his pocket. He placed them on the table.
Greed.
Oppression.
"These aren't random words," Kenji said.
"They are a verdict. In the Buddhist courts of Hell, the dead are judged by their sins. The killer is acting as the Judge."
"So he has a list." Manjiro said, his voice dropping. "If he's going by sins... what's next?"
"There are 108 earthly desires in Buddhism." Kenji rubbed his face. "But if we stick to the major sins... Theft. Lust. Lying. Vanity."
"That's half of Tokyo." Manjiro muttered.
"He's targeting the high-profile ones," Kenji argued. "Kurosawa wasn't just 'oppressive.' He was the face of oppression in Chiba. Suzuki was the face of greed in Roppongi. The killer is choosing symbols."
The door to the conference room opened. A young officer, Officer Sato from Cyber Crimes, poked her head in. She looked terrified.
"Chief? Detectives? You need to see this."
"Not now, Sato." Hideo snapped. "We're building a profile."
"Sir, it's the internet." Sato stepped in, holding a tablet. "It's... it's trending."
Kenji snatched the tablet.
On the screen was a video. It was shaking, grainy, clearly shot from a distance with a drone or a high-zoom phone camera. It showed a dark field. A flare being thrown. And a man in a burning straw coat running through the night.
"Kurosawa." Kenji breathed. "Someone filmed it."
"It was uploaded twenty minutes ago to a dark web forum." Sato explained rapidly.
"Then mirrored to Twitter, TikTok, Reddit. We can't take it down fast enough. It has three million views already."
Kenji scrolled down to the comments.
"Justice served."
"Who is the hero?"
"The police protect the rich. This guy protects us."
"The Shogun has returned."
"The Shogun," Kenji read the hashtag. #TheShogun.
"That's what they're calling him." Sato said.
"Because of the historical methods. People are saying he's a modern Samurai cleaning up the corruption."
Hideo stood up, his face pale. "This is a nightmare. A vigilante with a fan club."
"It's worse than a fan club." Kenji handed the tablet back to Sato. "It's validation. The killer is watching this. He sees the likes, the shares. He thinks the city is on his side."
"He's right."
Manjiro said grimly. "Kurosawa evicted hundreds of families. People hated him. Seeing him burn... for some people, that feels like justice."
"It's not justice," Kenji snapped. "It's murder."
"To us." Manjiro countered. "But to the guy who lost his farm? It's payback."
Kenji walked back to the window. The city of Tokyo stretched out before him, grey and vast. Somewhere out there, a man was washing the smell of smoke from his clothes. A man who likely practiced calligraphy and studied ancient texts. A man who believed he was more than a killer.
"We need to get ahead of him." Kenji said, turning back to the room. "If the public supports him, he will escalate. He will go for a bigger target. Someone everyone knows."
"Who fits the pattern?" Hideo asked.
"Greed. Oppression. What's the next logical step in a corrupt society?"
Kenji looked at the whiteboard. The red line connecting the two dead men.
"Suzuki provided the money." Kenji murmured. "Kurosawa provided the land. But they needed permission. They needed a stamp."
"A politician?" Manjiro guessed.
"Or a Judge," Kenji said. "Someone who looked the other way. Someone who betrayed the public trust."
Kenji grabbed a fresh marker. He drew a question mark next to Kurosawa.
"The sin of 'Theft' isn't just stealing a wallet." Kenji said. "In the old code, stealing from the public corruption was considered the highest form of theft."
"And the punishment?" Hideo asked, dreading the answer.
Kenji closed his eyes, recalling the old scrolls he had read in the university library years ago.
"For thieves who stole from the Shogunate." Kenji said softly, "the punishment was Kama-yude."
"English, Sano." Hideo demanded.
"Boiling," Kenji opened his eyes. "Boiling alive in a cauldron."
The room went silent.
The hum of the lights seemed to get louder.
"He wouldn't." Manjiro whispered.
"That's... that's mythical stuff. Ishikawa Goemon stuff."
"He hung a man upside down for eight hours." Kenji said cold as ice. "He made a billionaire dance in a fire suit. Do you think a pot of hot water is beneath him?"
Hideo slammed his hand on the table. "Find the connection! I want every politician, every bureaucrat, every judge who signed off on Kurosawa's projects. If Sano is right, one of them is about to take a very hot bath."
"I'm on it." Manjiro grabbed his laptop. "I'll run the Chiba zoning permits."
"And Sano." Hideo pointed a finger at Kenji.
"Talk to the press. Control this narrative. Do not let them turn this butcher into a hero. If the city turns against us, we've lost."
Kenji nodded, grabbing his coat. But as he walked out of the conference room, he knew it was already too late.
He checked his phone. The trending list had updated.
#TheShogun
#KurosawaBurning
#WhoIsNext
The city wasn't horrified. The city was waiting for the next episode.
Kenji walked into the rooom, the eyes of every officer tracking him. They knew he was the lead. They knew he was the one hunting the ghost.
He stopped at his desk and picked up the printed photo of the wooden tag: Oppression.
"You want a war." Kenji whispered to the photo. "You want to drag Tokyo back to the dark ages."
He pinned the photo to his corkboard, right next to a map of the city.
"Fine." Kenji said, grabbing his keys. "Let's see whose blade is sharper."
Chapter 5 End - Dark age starts!