The circumstantial evidence pointed in one direction. All that remained was to find real proof.
“I can’t explain it in detail, but Niimura could be considered an enemy of mankind,” Takanori stressed.
“A criminal?”
“That’s right.”
“So, what we’re about to do will expose his crime.”
“If we can find the images we’re looking for on the guy’s computer, then yes.”
“In other words, what we’re about to do is a meaningful act, born of good intentions. Is that right?”
“Of course.”
“Okay then. I’m not the type of guy who can do something bad. Here we go! It’s on.”
With that, Minakami faced his computer with great intensity and began tapping his keyboard.
“How are you gonna do it?” Takanori asked him.
“It’s easy. The email address of the reunion director, Yoshio Matsuoka, is written right here. First, I’ll send Matsuoka an email, and then get him to install some special software. Well, basically it’s a kind of virus. It’ll be like I’ve taken control of Matsuoka’s computer, so I’ll be able to use it remotely. I’ll sift through every last bit of data saved on his machine and extract the information we need. If Niimura’s on the reunion mailing list, most of our work will be done. I could contact Niimura while posing as Matsuoka, and hijack his computer, or I can take control by sending him an email with a ‘special’ attachment. If Niimura’s not on the list, it’ll be kind of a headache, but they were classmates together at the same junior high, so if I can get into their social network, I can definitely get to his computer. Leave it to me. It might take a little while, but as long as we’re connected online, there’s nothing we can’t do. After I’ve set everything up to remotely access Niimura’s computer, I’ll hand over the reins, and the rest will be up to you.”
“Understood.”
Not wanting to break Minakami’s concentration, Takanori stepped away.
Studio Oz had only four people on staff including the president, Yoneda. Each member had a distinct character and set of skills, and when they all worked together, there was a palpable sense of heightened efficiency in the office.
President Yoneda had a generous and laidback personality, but he enjoyed great trust from his subordinates. He always kept his promises and followed through when he said he’d do something.
Minakami was a capable video production director, but he was not cut out to be a film director. He was a hacker with a strong sense of justice, and a heavy smoker.
Kanako Nishijima, the youngest person on staff, had no interest in cosmetics and was bereft of feminine allure. Yet she could travel abroad just as easily as go down to the convenience store, and like a cat she could land at someone else’s door and hide out there for weeks on end to gather information. That was her specialty. While she bragged that she also sometimes used her feminine wiles, not a soul believed her.
As for myself…
Trying to analyze his own character, Takanori gave up halfway. Grasping what kind of person he was seemed to be the hardest. The only thing he could say was that he didn’t resemble Yoneda, Minakami, or Nishijima at all.
It was precisely because the four of them had such distinct personalities that when they worked together, they achieved more than anyone expected. If four people with the same qualities got together, they wouldn’t be nearly as efficient.
As he pondered this, Takanori remained at a distance and watched Minakami tapping away at his keyboard.
“There’s nothing I can’t do when I’m at a computer.”
Minakami always bragged about his skills that way, and with his help they were sure to succeed. Probably by the next day, he would take over Niimura’s computer and enable Takanori to have remote access. If so, whatever image data were saved onto Niimura’s computer would be Takanori’s to view at will. He would be free to copy them to his own computer, delete them, process them, or do anything else he wanted.
The kidnapper and murderer photographed all of his young female victims—that was Kihara’s take. As if they knew they were going to be pictured, the girls had been posed in the same way. Not of their own will, it went without saying, but the killer’s. But no photos or films of the girls had been found at Kashiwada’s residence. If Takanori could find the images on Niimura’s computer, it would be incontrovertible evidence. Nobody besides the killer could have taken those shots.
For Takanori, it was a double-edged sword.
If he obtained conclusive evidence that Niimura was the real killer, then the inferences they had made thus far would turn out to be true. If a gray card that had been left aside turned white, all of the surrounding gray would also change white themselves. The shallows that only appeared when the tide receded would become a long corridor, never to be covered again.
Beyond the corridor lay facts that Takanori didn’t want to acknowledge. The fact that he’d actually died once, the fact that Akane was Sadako…
Even if those things were true, he needed to confront and accept them. To reveal Niimura’s crime, Takanori had to resign himself to that reality.
When Minakami had finished one stage of the work, he went out onto the balcony to light up again. He was prone to smoking more cigarettes the more smoothly his work went.
His back visible through the balcony door, Minakami was brimming with confidence.
6
The ground was muddy, and the grass was covered with drops of water. Both his hands and knees were on the ground, and when he tried to stand up his right leg slipped and sent him tumbling. He tried again, but the result was the same. He was so frustrated that he couldn’t get any traction with his feet but just kept slipping.
“Welcome. I’m glad you made it.”
Still on all fours, Takanori lowered his body, and that was when a man’s echoing voice came to him out of nowhere. His way of speaking sounded theatrical, and the vibrato he appended to his words offered a hokey welcome.
My eyes need a little more time to adjust, Takanori thought, but with the darkness locking him up he still couldn’t spot any figure. But the man most definitely knew where Takanori was. If I stay still, I’m giving him a chance. I’ve got to move. Yet Takanori didn’t know where to go.
At that moment, he heard a woman’s voice. While the man’s voice fell upon him from everywhere, making it impossible to track the source, he could somewhat make out the direction of the woman’s.
It had come from inside a deep hole behind him on his right side.
“Tak, you don’t need to worry about me.”
The voice was Akane’s.
I don’t need to worry about you? What am I supposed to do?
Takanori wished she’d just tell him what she wanted him to do.
“‘Tak’? That’s so sweet, normie. Wait, no, you’re more like a big lure.”
The man’s voice was becoming more and more vicious. Takanori knew that he shouldn’t allow himself to be provoked, but he just couldn’t stand it. Listening to the voice deepened his anger, and propelled by it, he moved his legs furiously. When his feet touched something solid, at long last he stopped slipping and stood up. Looking around carefully, he realized that the solid object he’d touched was a brick, half of which was buried in the ground. It was a small footing carved into the earth.
“So, you can finally stand up. Okay, go on, Mr. Lure. Make my wish come true.”
The man’s tone was different now. Though it had sounded like it was falling from nowhere in particular, now it seemed to be coming from a more focused point. A black clump taking shape ahead of Takanori was the source.
“Two prey. A big one, and a small one. They’re right behind you.”
Takanori stepped forward, keeping his body low. His anger continued to swell, giving him the strength to press on.
“No, not this way, don’t come here. Can’t you see? There’s a fishpond right behind you. The deep, round pond. It’s small, but it goes very deep. The
two prey are swimming around in the mud at the bottom, so fish them out with your lure for me.”
Though his feet still got stuck in the wet mud, he wasn’t slipping anymore. His anger rose and transformed into a murderous urge, and as his will grew more determined, the muddy ground grew harder. Now I see—the uncertainty of my footing was my own will.
“Oh, I oughta tell you this first: even if you fish for them well, those prey are mine. So don’t complain, no matter how I cook them. Well, I’ll be nice and give you a little of what’s left after I’ve eaten.”
The voice was coming closer. He was right there. Now that Takanori’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he could see the area around the man’s legs.
“Tak, please, just ignore him. Don’t give him the satisfaction…Please, just leave it to me,” Akane appealed desperately. Her voice had its own vibrato effect, and she clearly seemed to be in a small, damp space. Her voice sounded almost like a bell.
“See? Why don’t you listen to her? Not this way, that way. Climb down to the bottom of the well and bring my prey to me. That’s your job. You guys are the same, right? Both of you died once already.”
Yeah. So what? Takanori felt ashamed now that he’d tried to push Akane away for being a reincarnation of Sadako. Like you said. We’re birds of a feather. That was precisely why they shared a deep bond: both of them were unnatural beings. They hadn’t simply imagined hearing their gears click upon meeting for the first time.
Akane is the woman of my destiny—we were fated to meet each other. Nobody can take her away from me. If you wanna tear us apart by force, all I can do is fight back with all my will.
Just ahead, the man’s kneecaps appeared in the dim, weak light.
Takanori didn’t know where the light was coming from. An old streetlamp might have stood at the end of a guardrail on the road. Though it was very weak on its own, if several mirrors were combined to reflect it, it might create a certain level of brightness.
When he joined the mirrors together, the spotlight that it made illuminated a pair of legs that were as thin as a scarecrow’s. Takanori aimed at them and jumped forward to tackle the man. Linking his hands behind the man’s back and ramming his head into the man’s crotch, Takanori knocked him backward.
“What’re you doing? Dumbass. That’s not what you’re supposed to do!” The man’s voice sounded panicked now. “I just wanted to keep playing! You guys are totally lame…”
Taking care not to let go, Takanori butted his head into the man’s chin over and over and sat astride him. Not even knowing what he wanted, or his purpose, his body simply moved by itself, obeying instinct. The man kept talking nonsense, so Takanori put his hands around his neck, wanting only to shut his mouth. Then it felt like he was touching something soft and rubbery, and its elasticity pushed against his hands.
“Hey, stop it.”
The man started flailing his arms and legs even as he was pinned down, hitting and scratching Takanori’s face, head, and wherever else he could reach.
His fingers and fists—his whole body, really—were as soft as rubber. It reminded Takanori of an invertebrate rather than a human being. The man was tangling him like a huge octopus.
When Takanori put his palms on the man’s throat and pushed with his body weight, the sound of breathing echoed around his ears.
Just a little more and he’ll stop breathing.
But no matter how long he pushed, Takanori kept hearing a whoosh like that of a balloon deflating, never reaching the point of finishing off the man.
His cervical spine was supposed to be in the center of his neck, but Takanori’s hands couldn’t find it.
They were growing numb and tired. With no strength left, he gave up strangling the man. Getting his own breathing under control, he groped on the ground with his hands, and his fingers touched something hard. It was the brick.
Pressing down on the man’s shoulders with both knees, Takanori raised the brick in the air, and the spotlight enhanced by the mirrors revealed the man’s face.
Takanori felt as if he were being told, If you’re going to kill your enemy, you must witness his face first.
It fit perfectly in a ring of light. His skin was white, his eyes were wide open, and his nose line was nice and neat. His thin lips gave the impression of cruelty, but he could be categorized as handsome. His neck stretched out unnaturally long, with white lines visible here and there.
Back when he couldn’t see his adversary’s face, it had felt like an invertebrate, made of rubber, but as soon as Takanori saw the man’s features, the reality dawned on him that he was trying to kill a human being.
He stayed his hand, the brick suspended in mid-air.
“No, don’t! What are you thinking? Don’t do such a stupid thing. Please!” the man begged for his life.
But Takanori couldn’t afford to miss this chance. If he did, he would live in fear every day. The moment he let his guard down, his lover would slip through his fingers and be lost forever.
“You’re too cocky for a guy who’s already died once,” the man said.
Those words gave Takanori the impetus to follow through.
Wanting to end it with a single strike, he aimed at the man’s head and tried to crush it with the brick, but the man moved to avoid the blow. Missing its target, the brick smashed the man’s chin instead. His bright pink gums, shaped like a fan, bent, and the blood spilling out stained his teeth red. His tongue was moving like a slug in the pool of blood. He coughed, choked by the blood flowing into his throat.
Yet it still seemed like he wanted to say something.
“Nnnah bahd fuh a dehh guy.”
The man couldn’t enunciate properly and sounded like a lisping little child.
That wasn’t enough to finish him.
Once more Takanori lifted the brick.
I won’t miss this time, he thought, aiming at the man’s head and striking again. The blow caved in his skull, and Takanori could tell pieces of bone had jabbed into his foe’s brain.
Yet the man still wasn’t dead, and was trying to say something.
“Mommm…pleeese plaaay wishhh meee…”
Takanori couldn’t stand hearing any more. He lifted the brick again to shut the vicious mouth for good…but then suddenly, the scene shifted.
He couldn’t tell where he was at first.
Takanori sat up suddenly from his sofa and turned his head right and left. He was soaked with sweat from his back to his hips.
On his right was the window with the lace curtain drawn, and on his left was the table with his computer on it.
Oftentimes when he was dreaming, he would notice another part of him whispering, This isn’t real. This other self would speak to him as he soared through the sky or struggled desperately, chased by a monster.
It was clearly playing the role of a buffer, to cushion his landing back in reality once he was finished with the dream’s strangeness.
But in the one he’d just had, the objective viewpoint hadn’t appeared until the end. He’d been unable to distinguish between dream and reality, understanding only after waking that it had all been a dream, and his heart shrank.
He’d been lying down on his sofa and thinking, and he must have fallen asleep at some point. Looking at the clock, he saw it was half past six in the evening. He’d dozed off for only ten minutes. And he must have been dreaming for an even shorter duration.
Nevertheless, the scene of that black mountain slope was stuck in his brain. What stayed with him most was the feeling of the man’s neck stretching like rubber, no matter how tightly he strangled it, and the feeling through the brick when he’d crushed the man’s chin and skull. The sensations lingered in every part of his body, and he couldn’t wipe them away.
Takanori recalled one of Kihara’s phrases from the book he’d written about serial killers.
“People can die so easily that you might be surprised how little it takes. But once you intend to kill a person, somehow, they can’
t be killed so easily. You can strike him with a stone or stab him with a knife, but he’ll resist, and chase after you like a zombie. That’s why killers tend to persist in attacking their victims, out of fear.”
Takanori agreed. He too had kept on hitting with the brick until he was sure the man was really dead. If he hadn’t woken up, his attacks would surely have continued.
He knew perfectly well why he’d had that sort of dream. It was, quite simply, wish fulfillment.
The hacking begun by Minakami the day before had succeeded, and as of that afternoon, everything had been in place for Takanori to gain remote access to Niimura’s computer and take complete control.
Wasting no time, Takanori broke into Niimura’s machine and looked for the images in question. There were an endless number of folders in the Pictures section of Niimura’s Documents. Opening up the pics one by one and checking everything would take forever. He typed “Sadako” as a keyword hoping to locate the ones he needed right away, but there were no hits. He tried all the keywords he could think of—”Ring,” “serial abduction and murder of girls”—to no avail. Then he thought of typing SADAKO in upper-case letters, but changed his mind and just typed “S.” That was when he found something.
All of a sudden, five folders appeared onscreen, entitled S-1, S-2, S-3, S-4, and S-5.
As he’d expected, the pictures of the girls right after their murder had been saved in folders S-1 to S-4. There were no films, only still images.
The girls were sitting on the quiet mountainside and leaning against tree trunks, with both hands primly on their knees and their heads lowered slightly. If a flash had been used, the mysterious atmosphere would surely have been destroyed, but the photos had the perfect amount of shading. With neither too much nor too little natural light from the sunset, the picturesque compositions arguably reached the level of art.