A full week had passed since the tragedy at the Sato estate, and the investigation in Osaka had hit a frustrating standstill. No fingerprints, no unexplained security logs, and no traces of the stolen items had surfaced. Despite her fierce attempts to lock her mind against the betrayal, Naea found herself completely unable to stop thinking about Akira. Every silent corner of the house, every look at little Naria, only brought back the haunting question of why she had been left completely abandoned.
Meanwhile, professional duties required Daisuke Otome to travel to the central Tokyo police headquarters to clear a backlogged jurisdictional file.He was wrapping up his paperwork and walking down the heavy concrete corridors of the detention wing when a face caught his eye through the reinforced glass of an interrogation room.It was the family driver of Mrs. Takahashi the wealthy, influential matriarch who had close ties to high-society circles. The man was in a horrific state, slumped over a metal table, clearly subjected to hours of intense pressure.Daisuke frowned, stopping a passing Tokyo transit officer. "What's the status on that suspect? Why is he holding a cell in the heavy felony wing?"
The officer glanced at the clipboard, sighing. "He's booked for a brutal, high-profile multi-homicide. Allegedly executed five victims in a single night. The evidence is being pushed down from high-level political channels."
Daisuke's analytical mind immediately sharpened. Five victims. A single night. The chilling parallel to the unsolved Sato case in Osaka sent a jolt through his spine.
"If the political backing is that strong and the crime is that severe, why is he still being handled so aggressively in standard holding?" Daisuke asked, his voice low. "If he's guilty, force the arraignment."
The officer shook his head, lowering his voice. "That's the issue. The higher-ups want a clean, closed file immediately, but the man completely refuses to sign the confession. He won't break.Sensing a thread that might connect back to his own dead-end files in Osaka, Daisuke used his prosecutor credentials to enter the secure room. He dismissed the guard, pulled out a chair across from the bruised, trembling driver, and set his briefcase down with a deliberate thud.
"Listen to me," Daisuke began, his tone cold, objective, and measured. "In cases like this, dragging out the process only increases the legal penalty. If you signed a statement, the torture stops, the processing speeds up, and you get away from the heavy-handed interrogators. Confessing is your only leverage against an absolute breakdown."
The driver slammed his shackled hands against the metal table, his voice cracking with pure, agonizing frustration.
"I didn't do anything " the driver yelled, tears blurring his swollen eyes. " I don't even know what happened" . " I don't understand why Mrs. Takahashi is lying to the police! Why is she telling everyone that I did it " ? I have been completely framed, and I don't understand any of it ! "I think Mrs. Takahashi is in league with that woman," he said, his voice trembling as the weight of the situation caught up to him. "She's the reason I'm trapped here, even though I didn't do anything wrong..."
As the final words left his lips, his composure completely shattered, and he broke down into tears."However, seeing the sheer, brutal intensity of the torture being inflicted upon the man in standard holding felt excessive, even for a high-profile felony. Driven by a prosecutor's natural curiosity and a basic instinct to see what the Tokyo precinct was handling so aggressively, Daisuke had simply stepped inside for a routine, casual inquiry.He didn't know who the man worked for, and he didn't know the background of the arrest. But the moment he struck up that brief, standard conversation to find out why the man was locked up, the pieces began to scatter in a terrifying new direction.
The casual question had unlocked a floodgate. Hearing the desperate man yell about a five-person execution, a powerful matriarch like Mrs. Takahashi framing her own staff.
While Daisuke inside the interrogation room, the ambient noise from the bullpen outside bled through the heavy door. A guard sitting just past the window was scrolling through his phone, watching a live media broadcast. The audio bounced off the concrete walls the anchor's voice carrying reports on the Sato family massacre in Osaka, analyzing the lack of leads and the supposed "robbery" angle.
Hearing that specific broadcast echo into the room broke the driver's remaining composure. He became violently agitated, pulling against his hand restraints until the metal rattled furiously.
"Without a doubt, she did this too!" the driver shrieked, his voice climbing into an aggressive, unhinged panic. "This isn't a robbery case! She is incredibly cunning! She plans everything perfectly while everyone looks the other way!"
Daisuke's patience snapped. Slamming his hand flat against the metal interrogation table with a deafening crack, he cut the driver off.
"Shut up and sit back down!" Daisuke commanded, his voice booming through the small room.
The raw authority in Daisuke's tone shocked the driver into silence. He shrank back into his chair, trembling under the prosecutor's furious gaze. But even as he cowered, the man couldn't stop shaking his head, whispering frantically under his breath. "She definitely did it... she definitely did it..."
Daisuke leaned over the table, his features locking into an incredibly cold, lethal expression. "How on earth can you say that? What actual proof do you have to back up these unhinged accusations?"
"The day Mrs. Takahashi came to see me before my arrest, she was completely transparent!" the driver stammered, leaning forward. "There was an unnatural, terrifying fear written all over her face! I saw it with my own eyes!"
Daisuke let out a sharp, mocking scoff. "And you call that legal proof? A look on someone's face?"
"No! Look at this!" the driver yelled desperately. He reached deep into his hidden vest pocket, his shackled fingers fumbling until he pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, sliding it across the metal surface. "I saw an Osaka station ticket on her! She threw it into the garbage bin right after she arrived, and I secretly pulled it out! Look at it! This is the exact transit ticket proving Mrs. Takahashi came straight from Osaka back to Tokyo on that specific date!"
Daisuke picked up the faded, crumpled thermal paper. His eyes locked onto the printed timestamp, scanning the departure grid, the transit route, and the final destination scan.
The date on the ticket matched the exact night of the Sato family executions.
A heavy, chilling realization settled over Daisuke. The fury in his expression suddenly froze into pure steel.
"She was in Osaka... on the exact night of the murders," Daisuke murmured, his voice dropping into a dangerous, icy whisper.
Without uttering another syllable to the suspect, Daisuke pocketed the piece of evidence, turned sharply on his heel, and stormed out of the interrogation room. The connection was no longer a theory. The shadow had left a paper trail, and it led straight back to the highest tier of Tokyo's elite.
Leaving the Tokyo precinct behind, Daisuke didn't waste a single second. Armed with the crumpled transit ticket, he drove straight to the corporate headquarters of the Takahashi estate.
When he arrived at the top floor, Mrs. Takahashi's executive secretary immediately blocked his path, offering a cold, practiced corporate smile. "I am sorry, Sir , but Mrs. Takahashi's schedule is completely booked for the upcoming week. She is not accepting any unscheduled visits, official or otherwise."
Daisuke didn't blink. He calmly leaned over the reception desk, his sharp eyes locking onto the secretary as he spoke in a low, terrifyingly clear voice.
"Tell her that if she doesn't open that door right now, my next step isn't requesting a meeting it's issuing a public warrant. And tell her I'm not just here to discuss her . I want to know exactly where that woman is."
The secretary's face went entirely confused at the mention of that woman that she don't know about this . She immediately buzzed the inner office, whispering frantically into the receiver.
Less than thirty seconds later, the heavy double doors to the main office swung open. The sheer mention of Akira's shadow had stripped Mrs. Takahashi of her power, forcing the untouchable matriarch to break her own rules and face the prosecutor.
Inside the luxurious top-floor office, the atmosphere was suffocating. Mrs. Takahashi sat behind her massive mahogany desk, attempting to maintain her usual aristocratic composure, but her tightly clasped hands and the rigid set of her shoulders betrayed her. Across from her sat Daisuke Otome, his sharp eyes missing absolutely nothing. He could see the subtle, flickering nervousness beneath her polished exterior.
Daisuke smiled slightly, a knowing look in his eyes as he looked at her. "I knew it," he said, his voice calm but certain. "I knew you would definitely come to meet me the moment you heard about that woman Mrs. Takahashi."
She immediately defensive, her eyes widening as she shook her head. "What woman ?" she protested, her voice rising slightly to cover her nervousness. "I don't know anything about any woman you want to know ! That's not why I'm here at all."
She looked away for a moment, trying to regain her composure before looking back at him. "I only agreed to meet you because I didn't want to insult you by turning you down..."
It was time to play his first card.
"I have a feeling, Mrs. Takahashi, that you are sitting on a secret," Daisuke began, his voice smooth but laced with an underlying threat. "And it's not a minor corporate discrepancy. It's something monumental. Ironically, I only came to Tokyo from Osaka for a routine jurisdictional file. But look where that routine work has brought me straight to your desk. It would be highly beneficial for you to simply confess what you are hiding."
Mrs. Takahashi forced a cold, dismissive laugh, masking her panic. "I haven't the slightest idea what you are implying, Prosecutor. I don't know anyone, and I am hiding nothing."
Daisuke let out a quiet, mocking chuckle.
"Incorrect," Daisuke said, his voice dropping into a lethal chill. "You are the only one who knows everything."
With a deliberate, slow movement, he reached into his breast pocket, pulled out the crumpled thermal paper, and slid it smoothly across the polished wood of her desk.
"This is a transit ticket from Osaka Station to Tokyo," Daisuke noted, tapping his finger against the paper. "Timestamped on the exact night of the Sato family tragedy in Osaka. So tell me, Mrs. Takahashi... what were you doing in Osaka on the night a prominent family was brutally executed?"
Her breath hitched. For a fraction of a second, her mask slipped entirely before she aggressively forced her confidence back into place. "I... I traveled to Osaka that afternoon to handle an urgent, private business acquisition."
Daisuke laughed out loud, leaning back in his chair. "Another lie. A billionaire manufacturing tycoon of your stature traveling via a standard passenger train for an urgent acquisition? I am a prosecutor, Mrs. Takahashi, not a naive child. Tell me the truth right now. Because if my team digs it out ourselves, the consequences will be catastrophic. And the person you are so desperately trying to shield? They won't survive the fallout."
At the mention of the danger surrounding the perpetrator, Mrs. Takahashi's maternal instinct for Akira overrode her tactical restraint. Genuine panic flooded her eyes.
"She hasn't done anything wrong!" Mrs. Takahashi cried out, her voice cracking with fierce protectiveness. "She is entirely innocent! Please, just take your theories and leave my office!"
Daisuke stood up slowly, buckling his suit jacket. Instead of walking toward the exit, he calmly walked around her desk, stopping just inches away from her chair. He leaned down, placing his hands on the armrests, cornering her completely.
"I am a man of my word, Mrs. Takahashi," Daisuke whispered, his voice dangerously low. "If you cooperate with me right now and give me her location, I can personally guarantee a reduction in her charges. I can place her under maximum federal protection. But if she runs, if she forces my hand and is captured by active tactical units later... saving her will be impossible. You need to understand how the system works. If I lose my patience, I won't hesitate to clear the file with a direct, lethal encounter on sight."
Mrs. Takahashi's heart hammered violently against her ribs, the sound echoing in her own ears. A cold sweat broke out across her neck. She wasn't terrified of going to prison herself; she was utterly paralyzed by the terrifying realization that this relentless prosecutor would shoot Akira down without a second thought if he tracked her into a corner.
Daisuke pulled back, a cold smile playing on his lips, and turned toward the double doors to leave.
"Akira!"
The name left Mrs. Takahashi's lips in a desperate, breathless gasp. Daisuke stopped dead in his tracks, his back still turned, his eyes narrowing in victory.
"Her name is Akira..." Mrs. Takahashi wept, rushing out from behind her desk to catch up to him. "She is a good woman .. she really is! She would never do anything wrong without a profound reason! There has to be a reason for what happened!"
Clutching at Daisuke's sleeve, the untouchable corporate matriarch completely broke down, descending into absolute desperation. "Please, I beg of you, just protect her! Save her ! I will give you whatever you want name any amount of cash, billions of yen, anything! Just keep her safe!"
Daisuke looked down at her hands on his sleeve, his expression completely unbothered by the staggering offer of wealth.
Daisuke stopped just as his hand touched the heavy brass handle of the office door. A quiet, mocking laugh escaped his lips as he turned back to face the trembling matriarch.
"Just a name, Mrs. Takahashi?" Daisuke asked, raising an eyebrow with cold amusement. "Tokyo is a metropolis of fourteen million people. How am I supposed to find her with just a first name? More importantly, how do you expect me to protect a ghost if I don't even know where she hides her shadow?"
Mrs. Takahashi wrung her hands, her mind racing. Looking at the prosecutor's unyielding gaze, a strange, desperate instinct took over. Despite the danger, she chose to place her final shred of trust in the raw integrity she saw in Daisuke's eyes.
"She..." Mrs. Takahashi stammered, her voice shaking with an intense, suffocating fear. "She used to be a prosecutor in Osaka. Then... then she was shifted here, to Tokyo. She works within the high-level agency pipelines..."
She could barely force the words out before the sheer weight of what she was betraying caught up to her, freezing the breath in her throat.
Daisuke's sharp eyes widened for a fraction of a second as the final, massive piece of the puzzle snapped into perfect alignment. An ex-prosecutor from his own district, turned black-ops agency executioner. The chilling precision of the Sato crime scene suddenly made flawless, terrifying sense.
"Don't worry," Daisuke interrupted smoothly, his voice locking into a tone of absolute, icy certainty . From here on out, I will handle the rest."
"If she is caught..." Mrs. Takahashi called out after him, her voice cracking as she stepped forward, tears spilling over her immaculate makeup. "Please, I beg of you, bring her straight to me. Just don't let them hurt her. No harm can come to her! If a single scratch touches her, I will—"
Before she could finish her desperate threat, the heavy double doors clicked shut.
Daisuke stepped out into the sleek, quiet corridor of the corporate high-rise, entirely tuning out the muffled cries from behind the glass. He didn't care about a billionaire's warnings. His mind was already hyper-focused, calculating his next strategic moves as he picked up his pace toward the elevator. The faceless shadow finally had a history, a past, and a clear tactical profile.
With the name Akira and her history as an Osaka prosecutor locked into his files, Daisuke Otome strode out of the building and into the bright Tokyo sun, ready to launch the official hunt.