Chapter 621

Kashiwagi Jin! The star Career Track of the Third Section, Investigation Division One!

Uesugi Muneyuki's gaze sharpened instantly.

Shi Shi's news was like a bolt of lightning, cleaving through the fog in his mind.

Huh, how come Old Ren is here too?

Didn't he already break up with Hayakawa Nanami?

He's got a new love now, right?

"Inspector Kashiwagi? Ah, the one spoken of alongside Mr. Uesugi as the Metropolitan Police Department's Twin Prodigies?" Sakura widened her eyes in curiosity.

"Right, that guy." Uesugi Muneyuki nodded, signaling Shi Shi to continue.

Seeing both Sakura-nee and Mr. Uesugi were interested, Shi Shi had no choice but to repeat what she knew.

"Sakura-nee said he's different from others, a very gentle, very upright man. Between them — it's more like lovers, no money involved. Sakura-nee also said if something happens, maybe we can ask him for help. He's a reliable good man, just like — a standard good husband template."

"But I don't have Inspector Kashiwagi's phone number — only Sakura-nee has it. But that day that incident happened, Sakura-nee's phone was confiscated, so I don't know how to contact Inspector Kashiwagi either." Shi Shi lowered her head, tears welling in her eye sockets.

I'm so useless!

Sorry, Sakura-nee, sorry, Mr. Uesugi, Sakura-nee, Shi Shi only knows this much.

I — even someone like me, do I deserve Mr. Uesugi and Sakura-nee taking me in? I really am —

The more Shi Shi thought, the worse she felt.

"Standard good husband template?" However, Uesugi Muneyuki's reaction was even a bit like he wanted to laugh.

That really is a good husband template.

For me, it's a good husband template.

"Thank you, Shi Shi. What you gave me is very valuable."

He soothed Shi Shi with a few calm words, making sure she hadn't mentioned this to anyone else, then turned and left.

Returning to his own floor, he stood before the huge floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the Tokyo nightscape, his brain spinning rapidly.

A plan that could both protect the Metropolitan Police Department and muddy the waters, perhaps even accelerate the collapse of the Foreign Minister's camp, gradually took clear shape in his mind.

Wait!

Uesugi Muneyuki suddenly thought of something.

Mr. Ōsumikawa's side should be at the stage of sending for examination by now, right?

Hehe, hehehe~ hehehehehehe!

Uesugi Muneyuki laughed.

【Wow, Uesugi, you bastard, why is your laugh so scary, just like a cockroach flying at your face from the floor!】 Arimura Hana looked at him with utter disdain.

A beauty by birth, yet forced to be a mantis?

【Murakana-dono, can you take a person's life from afar without them noticing, but perfectly preserve their body and soul?】 Uesugi Muneyuki suddenly said: 【Make it look exactly like they were poisoned to death.】

【Of course, but why?】 Murakana-dono looked completely uncomprehending.

【Because without him, it's very important to us!】

Early September, an afternoon with deepening autumn.

After strict review by the Prosecutors Office, and considering the case's enormous social impact and the public's right to know, Ōsumikawa Minoru was allowed, under tight surveillance, to accept a limited joint press interview.

Inside the interview room, he wore orange prison clothes, sat behind a simple table, heavy restraints on his wrists and ankles. Expressionless bailiffs flanked him; beyond the glass wall, a dense thicket of camera lenses and craning journalists waited.

He was even more emaciated than in the Tree Sea, eye sockets sunken, cancer's torment having wasted him to skin and bone, yet those eyes were abnormally bright, burning with life's final flame.

After the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office's fastest review and swiftest processing, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office formally indicted Ōsumikawa Minoru on multiple charges including murder and terrorism, and handed the case to the court for expedited trial!

It was precisely at the moment of the formal announcement that the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office formally held a press conference. Over two hundred media outlets across Japan and NHK, plus all five Kanto major private TV stations, were present — even TV Tokyo —

Sent two people!

"The bomb was made by me." Ōsumikawa Minoru cut straight to the chase, voice hoarse but clear, carrying through the microphone to every corner of the room: "ANFO, ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, ratio 94 to 6. This is the most stable and most powerful ratio I could achieve. In the Tree Sea I had a small workshop, tools crude but sufficient."

He calmly narrated the manufacturing process, like an old craftsman introducing his work; this calm sent chills through the journalists present.

Then his tone changed, filled with unresolvable grief and hatred: "Why did I do this? For my daughter!" He spoke of his daughter publicly for the first time, voice choking.

"She was a good child, kind, loved to smile — until because of that matter — she was ruined!" He didn't name Akimoto Shota, but everyone knew who he meant.

"She suffered a mental breakdown, her mother — ran off with dirty money! My daughter, in the end —

Chose Aokigahara Forest, that woods she once found beautiful and sad — and left this useless father!"

He wept openly, his gaunt shoulders trembling violently; that heartrending grief infected everyone present, camera shutters falling sparse for a moment.

The nation's system's darkness, ordinary people's scars, an engineer who worked diligently for decades, society's backbone, in the end actually met an ending like this?

What did he do wrong? He only wanted to protect his family!

Japanese people inherently approve of "homomorphic revenge"; all the more so since Ōsumikawa had cause!

Chushingura gets remade every generation; no one thinks the Akō Domain samurai killing Kira was wrong. On the contrary, even the Tokugawa Shogunate at the time deeply sympathized with this homomorphic revenge, let alone modern people.

Ōsumikawa could feel the sympathetic and approving gazes around him. He took a deep breath, struggled to compose himself, and turned to gratitude — to everyone's surprise: "I was pressured to resign by my company, at my wit's end. It was the Metropolitan Police Department that, after I did something irrevocable, gave me a chance to end things with dignity. Especially Dr. Uesugi Muneyuki." He looked at the camera with a complex respect, "He saw through me, used science, and also — something I can't put into words, made me realize pure destruction might not be the only answer. I thank him for stopping me from dragging more innocents down to Jigoku with me."

"Here, I want to say one thing to my company, the Metropolitan Police Department, Dr. Uesugi Muneyuki, and all those I caused trouble and injury to."

"Red bean paste, private, masai!" Finished speaking, Ōsumikawa, supported by two police officers, bowed deeply at the waist.

These words caused another stir.

A terrorist thanks the police and forensic pathologist?

Is this Uesugi Muneyuki's charm?

Just then, a journalist seized the chance and asked a sharp question: "Mr. Ōsumikawa, regarding Foreign Akimoto Daijin Shin'ichirō's recent public statement that, considering your family tragedy and your own health, he has forgiven your actions and will visit you personally to apologize — what are your thoughts?"

"Forgive — me?" Ōsumikawa Minoru froze a moment, then his face showed an extremely bizarre smile, mixing absurdity, rage, and extreme mockery: "Visit?"

He slowly lowered his head, as if overwhelmed by this sudden "forgiveness," even appearing somewhat abject. But beneath those lowered lids, his pupils abruptly contracted; a bone-chilling mockery and fury detonated in his heart!

【Forgive? Visit?】 A sharp mockery rang in his heart: 【How hypocritical! How lofty! My daughter's bones are cold, my life shattered to pieces, his Akimoto clan is the source of all this tragedy!】

【Now, however, he wants to play the magnanimous holy father, using my ruined body to give his filthy political image one final coat of whitewash?!】

I surpass you, horse!

I super love you horse!

He felt a wave of visceral nausea; the agony from the cancer seemed to intensify because of this ultimate irony.

He tightly clenched his shackled hands hidden under the table, his knuckles white from the force.

【Want to visit me? Want to use my wretched state and dying breath to set off his "benevolence"?】 A vicious and clear thought, like poison ivy breeding in the darkness, instantly entangled his entire train of thought.

And just at this moment, Uesugi Muneyuki, sitting not far away, suddenly spoke up, and again in that very special way of speaking.

【Mr. Ōsumikawa, Akimoto Daijin does indeed intend to personally visit your hospital room.】

【Then what? Truly high and mighty! You damn Japanese! You damn Peerage! You damn politicians!】 Ōsumikawa was already used to conversing privately with Uesugi like this: 【Apology? If apologies worked, what do we need police for? I want him dead, I want him disgraced and ruined! You promised me! You promised!】

【Yes, so————I have a small suggestion.】 Uesugi Muneyuki said softly: 【Since Akimoto Daijin longs for this performance so much————then let this play close according to our script.】

【If after he comes to "visit"————you "happen" to die?】

【？？？！！！】