CHAPTER 11 #2
He understood Teruo’s anger toward the organization, toward the fucked-up way they did some things.
There was plenty Shinji disagreed and despised them for, from the way they treated Sakai Haruna—his former superior officer in Hiroshima—to the dubious ways they dealt with situations arising in the land of the dead, to their underhanded style of controlling various governmental institutions.
Often times he felt guilty that he worked for the organization, but as with everything, things weren’t black and white, and the Onmyōryō did plenty of helpful things for the supernatural community. And corruption was everywhere, even at the TMPD. It would be hypocritical to think otherwise.
With a long breath, Shinji pushed those thoughts aside and soon, he reached the destination.
It was a beautiful neighborhood in Sumida, with mid-rise apartment blocks, painted in soft light brown, with large windows and open balconies.
It was surrounded by a horizontal slat fence with a concrete base.
A couple was just going inside and Shinji showed his badge, kindly asking them to let him pass.
Morimoto Hiroyuki’s apartment was on the third floor and Shinji let the couple go ahead, then turned to Keiko and Tamura. “Might be better for you to wait here. This will be difficult news to deliver to a sixteen-year-old. Watch the area and keep an eye out for anyone suspicious.”
“Got it,” Keiko said.
“How would we know they’re suspicious?” Tamura asked.
Shinji pondered over that. “If they’re hiding in a bush, they’re suspicious.” He kept it simple since, after all, Keiko knew what she was doing. Or, they’d both end up rummaging through bushes.
“Makes sense.” Tamura nodded sagely, and Shinji couldn’t tell if Tamura was being sarcastic, but didn’t have time to check.
“See you in a bit.” Shinji turned on his heel and headed to the third floor.
After he knocked on the door, the son answered.
The boy was dressed in uniform, and had a school bag slinging over one shoulder.
He looked ready to leave for classes and Shinji caught him right on time.
He was a supernatural, but untrained, and the spiritual energy hovered around him, transparent and undulating like heat rising from the asphalt.
The boy’s gaze fell on Shinji’s reiryoku and he paled when he realized Shinji was a Shinigami.
“Hello,” Shinji said. “I’m Sergeant Miyazaki, from the Metropolitan Police. Are you Morimoto Junichi?”
He seemed taken aback by the introduction, likely expecting Shinji to say he was from the Onmyōryō, not the TMPD.
“Yes, I am,” the boy replied, his lower lip quivering. He was probably holding in a sob, but wanted to seem put together. Then he leaned forward and looked left and right along the building’s corridor. “Where’s my father’s ghost?” he asked, his voice a trembling whisper.
Quite understandable. A Shinigami finding themselves at a supernatural person’s doorstep usually meant they were bringing along the spirits of their loved dead ones.
“May we speak inside?” Shinji asked. “It’s about your father.”
“Where is he?” Junichi insisted, in a mix of impatience and fear.
Shinji waited for a moment until Junichi finally registered the words and stepped aside to let him in.
Junichi dropped the school bag on the floor, then quickly picked up a pair of slippers, offering them to Shinji with a trembling hand before gesturing to the living room.
It was spacious and well-lit, with a gray sofa, and a game controller on top of the coffee table along with empty cans of soda.
The smell of freshly cooked breakfast came from the kitchen.
“Sorry for the mess,” Junichi mumbled and grabbed the cans fast, ran to the kitchen to throw them away and came back. “Uh… tea. I’ll bring tea—”
“It’s okay,” Shinji said. “Don’t worry about it.”
Shinji settled on the sofa while Junichi sat on an armchair, hands clutched in fists atop his knees. His left foot bounced a little.
“Can you confirm your father is Morimoto Hiroyuki?” Shinji asked.
“Yes, that’s him. Please, tell me… is he dead or not?” Junichi muttered.
“Your father has passed away, but his spirit isn’t around anymore,” Shinji spoke carefully.
Junichi nearly jumped off the armchair, but held himself in place. “You already sent him to the other side? Why? I needed to speak to him!”
“I didn’t send him to the other side.” Shinji took a breath, then continued, “Your father’s reiryoku was extracted by a rogue supernatural. The Metropolitan Police found him and three others dead on Monday. He’s been dead since at least Friday, last week.”
Junichi stared wide-eyed for a long moment before crumbling in on himself in a quiet cry, his knuckles rubbing his knees with jerky movements.
“Why would someone do that? My father was a good man, did his duty. Why are the police investigating this? What’s the Onmyōryō doing?
Aren’t you working for them, too?” Junichi shot the questions quickly.
“I am, but I’m also a sergeant at the TMPD.
The Onmyōryō are taking care of it from their side, but I want to work a different angle just to cover all of our bases.
” Shinji tried to reassure him to avoid getting into the topic of the huge breach of security that let an extractor loose.
He couldn’t help but wonder what sort of plan the Onmyōryō had since they wouldn’t be able to send supernaturals after this person.
He hoped they weren’t stupid enough to count only on the TMPD for this.
“What can you tell me about your father’s job? ” Shinji asked.
Junichi wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “He was a field agent…”
“What type of field agent?”
Junichi sniffed and picked up a tissue from the table.
“A criminal hunter. He and his team mates hunted down supernatural criminals and brought them back to the Onmyōryō. It didn’t always go well and I remember he said he despised having to take care of them himself.
I guess he meant killing them,” Junichi’s voice turned to a whisper, “though he never outright said that to me. I think—” His shoulders shook as another sob broke out of him. “—he was trying to protect me.”
“I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“My mom was a field agent too. She was murdered by the criminal she was chasing.”
Shinji sucked in a breath, his heart breaking for this boy who had lost both his parents now. He sat still, giving Junichi a few moments of silence to cry undisturbed.
If Morimoto Hiroyuki was a hunter, then the others were the same.
Had this extractor been their target from the very beginning?
Had the hunters become the prey? This whole thing could have been a hunting mission gone wrong and perhaps the Onmyōryō was trying to cover it up since a loose extractor was their fault.
Kazuya was a hunter too, though as far as Shinji knew, he was rarely sent to apprehend, and mostly to eliminate the threat swiftly.
Shinji wondered if Kazuya could offer some insight, but the missions for these types of field agents were on a need-to-know basis which now explained why they were classified when he searched the database.
Junichi seemed to have calmed a little. He heaved out a shuddering sigh and grabbed another tissue.
“Is it okay to ask a few more questions?” Shinji spoke gently.
“Yeah…”
“Has your father ever shared details of his missions with you? Even something small could be helpful.” While that was definitely not allowed, he knew some supernaturals offered little bits to the ones they trusted most.
Junichi sniffed and shook his head. “He wasn’t allowed to, so he didn’t. But sometimes I could hear him speak with one of his team mates, Shigeharu. I don’t know his full name, though.”
“I see.” Shinji nodded. That was Nishino Shigeharu, one of the other victims. “Do you remember what they spoke about?”
“Usually, dad kept it vague: ‘Maybe we should change tactics.’ Or ‘We should approach from north-west.’ Then he’d catch himself, and say ‘Let’s meet up again.’ That’s when I knew they’d likely go to one of those buildings that the Onmyōryō uses for their field agents.”
Shinji listened, absorbing the information.
It added up. Morimoto, Wada, and the Nishino couple had died in such a building, so they had been meeting there for a mission.
The words Junichi overheard had probably been attack strategies to ambush the criminals on their list. It seemed they couldn’t agree on strategy and argued about it.
Not that unusual if the mission was particularly tough since there were a lot of factors that needed to be taken into consideration, from non-supernaturals living in the ambush area to the number and skills of the criminals.
“Was that a recent discussion?” Shinji asked.
“No…” Junichi stared blankly at the floor. “But the most recent one was an argument a few weeks back.”
“Between your father and Shigeharu?”
“Yes.” Junichi shook as a shiver rippled through his body. “Mind if we continue in the kitchen? I need some tea.”
“Sure.” Shinji stood and walked beside Junichi, carefully monitoring him because the boy looked like he might collapse. “Why don’t you sit and let me make the tea?”
“No, you’re a guest—”
“It’s okay.” Shinji helped him sit, then grabbed the kettle and poured water from the tap. “Tell me about this argument.”
“Dad sounded concerned,” Junichi said. “He kept saying: ‘This is a big mistake. We have no proof.’ and the other guy said something, dad snapped, started cursing, then stopped and said: ‘Listen to her, she’s right.’” Junichi rubbed the heels of his palms against his eyes.
“That was it. He ended the call there, but he was extremely agitated, muttering curses under his breath. And he had been going to the Onmyōryō, even though he had days off.”
“Wait,” Shinji said. “He had days off?”
Junichi nodded. “He was supposed to have a week or so off, but when he left Thursday night, he told me he had something urgent to take care of, so I assumed the Onmyōryō canceled his time off and sent him to another mission. That’s why I didn’t call him.
I didn’t want to bother him.” Junichi’s eyes welled with tears.
“All this time… he was dead and I didn’t tell him goodbye. ” Another painful sob rattled his body.
Shinji poured tea into a cup and placed in front of the boy. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.” Junichi took a sip of tea, his face pale as a sheet of paper.
“May I check your father’s bedroom? I’d like to take any important documents or laptop with me for analysis.”
“Sure,” Junichi said. “Door on the right.” He pointed at the opposite side of the living room that opened into a small hallway.
Shinji stepped through the hallway and into the bedroom.
The bed was neatly made, and the nightstand had a tablet on it.
Opposite the bed was a dresser and by the window stood a desk with files on it.
Shinji grabbed the tablet first and turned it on.
It had no password, and he put it under his arm, then went to the desk.
The papers had ambush strategies, attacks, tactics for the use of seals and barriers to trap the enemy, as well as schedules for training sessions.
But the way Morimoto phrased everything was ambiguous, likely some sort of code only understood by him and his team mates.
It seemed Morimoto had combat experience and was at the vanguard of the attacks.
Shinji browsed through the papers but none seemed to explicitly name targets or any mission-specific details.
Upon opening a desk drawer, Shinji found a laptop inside, and more papers underneath.
The laptop had a password, so Shinji figured this was where he’d find important info.
He picked up an empty backpack that was resting on the floor against the desk and put everything he’d found in it, hoping he’d get useful information before the Onmyōryō could get its claws on it and classify it.
A photo fell out of the stack of papers. It seemed to have been taken at one of the Onmyōryō’s conferences because they all had lanyards with badges around their necks. Shinji recognized all four victims, but not the other two women.
Shinji’s hand tightened on the photo. Was this a six-people team? If it was, would the killer target these women? Or did they have another connection with the victims? Whichever it was, Shinji needed to find them.