“The entire house is covered in spiritual energy,” Shinji said, his breathing labored.
Teruo placed his hand on Shinji’s forearm. “Is that why you look so sick? Is it hurting you?”
“It’s quite heavy and I can’t get my bearings.”
“What would covering the house in spiritual energy accomplish?”
“Usually, this is used to hide something. It could be a spirit or even thereiryokuuser.”
Teruo held his breath. “Shit… you serious? Can they hide ghosts even from you? Aren’t you like, I don’t know, a major expert on ghostly things?”
Shinji arched a brow. “Major expert? Well, I am good, but it’s a highly unpredictable field, so I don’t consider myself an expert.”
“You also said ‘hide themselves’. What do you mean? Please don’t tell me this person who usesreiryokuis here, right now, with us.”
“It’s highly likely. With the way thereiryokuis dispersed it practically ‘touches’ all of us. Even you and I.”
Teruo patted his suit jacket to clean off thereiryoku, which made Shinji chuckle.
“That’s not how it works,” Shinji said. “Anyway, because thereiryokutouches us all, I can’t pinpoint the person using it. I have my suspicions, but I’m not a hundred percent certain. This spiritual energy—” Shinji circled a finger in the air. “—is the same one from Ishida’s apartment, from the medical center and from the parking lot.”
“This is getting out of control fast,” Teruo said. “You’re thinking the murderer has an accomplice among us? And maybe you became the target because of your powers?”
“I’m not sure if it’s an accomplice or if we’ve been looking at this crime the wrong way. Come with me.”
Teruo followed Shinji back to the bedroom, but they didn’t enter, instead remaining at a safe distance. The forensics were busy taking pictures and sweeping the house for evidence. Suddenly, Kojima perked up and looked toward them. She quickly turned away, re-focusing on the victim, but peeked at Shinji from time to time.
“Did you see that?” Shinji whispered. “How she stared at me?”
“Yeah,” Teruo said. “So what? She probably has a crush on you. We all do.” Teruo shrugged.
Shinji huffed and shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a crush.” His face betrayed worry and he pushed Teruo into the empty living room, leaving the door ajar. “Back at the medical center, she touched me right when I felt a strange energy inside the room.”
Teruo’s jaw clenched. Kojima was like Shinji?
“That same energy was the one choking me,” Shinji continued. “And I feel it in this house. There has to be something tying her to our victims. She could’ve choked me at any point these days, but she did it last night. My theory is that the laptop belonging to Yamato has something on it she doesn’t want people to find. Remember how we spoke about the laptop at the medical center? The only ones who knew that were you and I along with Suzuki, Taniguchi and… Kojima.”
Teruo turned that information around in his head. The spiritual side added up, but not the rest. And the fact that Kojima had been working with them this entire time made things worse. Sensitive information pertaining to the crime was basically at her disposal.
“She wasn’t among the classmates,” Teruo said, “but I’ll do a background check on her and see what high school she went to and whether she has any common acquaintances with either of our victims.”
“Yeah, do that. I’ll do some research of my own too.”
Teruo peeked again toward the bedroom, making sure everyone was doing their jobs and not eavesdropping, then spoke, “Shinji, I admit, whatever shit Kojima is pulling is very strange. The problem is that none of the evidence points toward her and we can’t arrest someone based on… spiritual energy stuff.”
“Of course not.” Shinji ran a hand over his face. “Like I said, I’m not a hundred percent certain it’s her. I’m… I… I don’t want to be pointing fingers at a fellow investigator. Truly, I don’t. But someone here is covering the house in energy.” He tapped his foot impatiently. “One thing is clear, though. The missing link is in that laptop. I just need to find it.”
CHAPTER 25
Shinji
Shinji held onto the desk in the victim’s bedroom as the pressure of thereiryokuhung over him. He had rarely encountered such strong surges of energy during a case. Most times, it had been supernaturals who weren’t aware of how much spiritual energy was oozing from their bodies. But this was different.
Whoever was responsible knew exactly what they were doing. The bedroom was the area of focus with the largest amount ofreiryokuand it was definitely a fellow Shinigami’s energy.
He couldn’t tell whether it was Kojima doing all of this or someone else, but he couldn’t start questioning everybody in the room. Shinji scanned the forensic team one by one. They seemed fine with no visible reactions to the strongreiryokuwhich meant they weren’t supernatural. Nevertheless, Tokyo MPD had quite a few supernaturals in its employment, so he sent a text to the superintendent about the situation. The Onmyoryo would interview all of them just in case, but Shinji wasn’t convinced they’d have any results. The Shinigami who had taken away the ghosts was a rogue therefore the chances of getting useful information from their supernatural officers were slim to none.
“What do you think?” Teruo asked.