Chapter 624

The alarm sounded like a funeral bell, striking the opening chord of chaos. The originally orderly ICU area was instantly flooded with a large number of personnel—tense-faced doctors and nurses, Metropolitan Police Department officials responsible for guarding, and several plainclothes individuals with stern demeanors and sharp eyes who were US CIA agents.

(The CIA used St. Luke's International Hospital as a cover for the Japan-US medical cooperation project, but in reality conducted numerous activities involving international leads and protection of key witnesses here, which is also why the Japanese Public Security placed Ōsumikawa here, firmly believing no one would dare to act here.)

Something happened! Something big happened!

The Special Mission Unit members in front of the TV stared blankly!

At the Superintendent General's headquarters on the seventh floor of Sakuradamon, Watanabe Eiji, the newly appointed Director of the National Police Agency Criminal Investigation Department, Mouri Takayoshi, as well as Director of the Metropolitan Police Criminal Investigation Department Uchimura Kanji and Chief of Criminal Investigation Division One Sugishita Ukyo were all stunned.

Even the Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission next door at the National Police Agency, Nanko Taro, Director General Tamaru Juzaburo, Kanchoukanbou Onoda Kimiaki, and Security Department Chief Shinzou Kamiya were momentarily unable to react.

Ōsumikawa, is he not going to make it?

Everyone knows Ōsumikawa Minoru's importance; he is living proof of guilt, and also the key node connecting the Sakikawa Restoration Army and the Akimoto family scandal.

However, despite the top-tier medical resources being instantly invested, and various rescue equipment emitting urgent beeps, the emaciated figure on the hospital bed still had its vital signs trace a merciless downward straight line on the monitoring screen, ultimately settling into a cold horizontal line.

Ōsumikawa Minoru, confirmed dead.

Deathly silence fell over the resuscitation room, leaving only the monotonous termination tone of the equipment.

The attending physician, Dr. Klinhan, an internationally renowned expert, slowly removed his mask, his face extremely grim.

He was not disheartened due to rescue failure, but because, relying on his rich clinical experience, he instantly perceived a shocking possibility.

At this moment at the hospital entrance, Ōsumikawa's death news had not yet arrived, and the surrounding reporters, after a moment of stupor, instantly reacted, like sharks smelling blood, as the camera once again frenziedly focused on Akimoto's changing face!

"Minister! Minister! Mr. Ōsumikawa's condition suddenly deteriorated, what is your opinion on this?!"

"Was it because the emotions during the earlier meeting were too intense, leading to this incident?"

Akimoto Daijin could not utter a single word, fine cold sweat seeping from his forehead. His meticulously planned "Benevolent Excellence" rapidly deteriorated in under three minutes, turning into a massive public opinion disaster that pushed him into the eye of the storm.

And in the ward, amidst the medical personnel's frantic rescue efforts and noisy chaos, the violently fluctuating curve on the life monitor seemed like Ōsumikawa Minoru's silent, final, and most vicious mockery.

The sound of running leather shoes came from the hallway, as US CIA Director AO Smith and several CIA agents rushed in, panting, only to witness the failed rescue scene.

"Dr. Klinhan! What on earth is going on?!" Commissioner Smith flew into a rage.

Beside him, the face of the Japanese Public Security Police chief Kino-shita Tōya turned even more deathly pale.

Damn it!!!

The furious Dr. Klinhan turned toward the highest-ranking Public Security Police official at the scene and that CIA Director A. 0. Smith, speaking with an indisputable professional tone, pointedly said: "The time of death highly coincides with Minister Akimoto's departure. The preliminary cause of death is judged as acute hyperkalemia combined with malignant arrhythmia leading to cardiac arrest."

He further explained, speaking quickly and clearly: "Late-stage pancreatic cancer patients are indeed prone to electrolyte imbalances, but Mr. Ōsumikawa, upon admission, we had already conducted strict regulation, his potassium levels were within controllable range, especially since he needed to attend today's meeting! We had already administered medication in advance!

This kind of extreme, sudden surge without any warning in an extremely short time is highly unusual!"

"Considering the patient's extremely weak physical condition, any strong external stimulus—for example, extreme emotional fluctuations such as anger, fear, or immense mental stress—could trigger a catecholamine storm, causing rapid release of intracellular potassium ions into the blood, instantly breaking the balance, just like————(he searched for an appropriate metaphor) delivering a final lethal electric shock to a heart about to run out of energy."

He did not directly say "murder," but each of his sentences, each professional term, was like a scalpel, precisely dissecting the core of the event, and unmistakably pointing the finger at the sole outsider who had just had an "emotionally intense" meeting with Ōsumikawa—Akimoto Shin'ichirō!

"It's Minister Akimoto! It must be him! In the earlier meeting, he stimulated the patient in a way we don't know of!" a young US doctor couldn't help blurt out, voicing everyone's thoughts.

And the other US doctor said: "Wait, that invisible assassin Takikawa Tsubasa announced by the Metropolitan Police a few days ago—"

"No! Not me! I didn't do anything! I did nothing!" Akimoto Daijin, urgently recalled and still standing at the hotel entrance, hearing this accusation, felt as if struck by lightning, his face instantly turning as white as paper.

He wanted to defend himself, to say this was just a coincidence, that this old man's time had simply come!

But in the face of the strict medical logic and the ironclad "timing of death," his denial appeared so pale and powerless, like a snowflake falling into boiling water, instantly melting.

And at this moment, the Japanese Public Security Police present, as well as the Japanese Police watching the TV screen in front of the television, felt no longer anger, but a deep-seated shame that penetrated to the bone marrow!

They, the Metropolitan Police Department, from top to bottom, under pressure, honored their promise to protect Ōsumikawa, even tacitly allowing that interview which stirred up a storm, all in order to seek a greater truth within procedural justice.

They guarded this criminal like a national treasure, and the result?

Akimoto Shin'ichirō, this minister whom they should have protected but who repeatedly brought them trouble, actually dared—he actually dared right under their noses, under the joint watch of the police and (they vaguely knew) US personnel, to use this sinister method, nearly equivalent to "silencing"!

This is no longer mere illegality; it is the utmost contempt and blatant trampling of the entire Japanese Police Organization!

A sense of humiliation, being regarded as nothing by superiors and played with at will, made every officer present clench their fists, their faces turning dark as iron.

However, colder than the shame of the Japanese Public Security, was the gaze from Commissioner A. 0. Smith.

This tall CIA Director, with gray hair meticulously combed, had been calmly observing everything.

When he confirmed Ōsumikawa's death and heard the doctor's preliminary judgment, his blue eyes first flashed with disbelief, then transformed into a mixture of anger, humiliated fury, and a look of contempt for hopeless fools.

Minister Akimoto, you???

Nín? You TMD are you crazy?

This is St. Luke's International Hospital! This is our CIA's turf!

You actually dare to kill someone under our CIA's very nose?

You, you exactly what do you want to do????!!

Are you trying to rebel???

He stepped step by step toward Akimoto Shin'ichirō, without shouting, without agitation, even without speaking, merely fixing him with a questioning gaze, like a venomous black mamba, silent yet extremely deadly.

Commissioner A. 0. Smith swept his gaze like a scalpel over Akimoto's deathly pale face, ultimately leaving a barely concealed threatening look, as if saying:

TMD, you this damned Japanese, do you think our CIA is fake or something?

Do you think your little bit of dirty political tricks can defile the territory we control?

Commissioner Smith turned around, and in English coldly tossed to his deputy: "Fulllockdown.

provocation." (Full lockdown. No one allowed to leave. Contact Langley Headquarters. This is an outright provocation.)

Akimoto Daijin stood isolated and helpless there, before him the medical authority who had judged him "murderer," beside him the Japanese Police feeling immense shame and glaring angrily, in the distance the US Commissioner regarding him as a provocateur with icy eyes.

He opened his mouth, but could not utter a sound, as if bound by countless invisible ropes, dragged into an abyss of no return woven by Ōsumikawa's final moments of life.

It wasn't me who did it!!!

Akimoto Daijin screamed in his heart.

Am I sick? Why would I kill him? Why would I do this? Why would I harm myself?

It wasn't me who did it! I don't need to do this, Ōsumikawa was already on his last legs, he was as good as dead, and had no value left! Why would I kill him, I—

However, Akimoto Daijin could not defend himself, as when he looked around, the gazes of those around him were either fiery, or icy, or shocked, but without exception, they had already regarded him as the murderer.

Yeah, before he entered the ward, the patient's indicators were stable, all values steady, and a routine injection was even specially conducted, all for the sake of this Century Great Reconciliation!

Then when he came out, Ōsumikawa suddenly died?

Dead!

This, he cannot explain away regardless!

Could it be that those few sentences of mine really stimulated him?

But, by what right?

Your daughter merely lost her chastity, but I lost my son!

Moreover, our N Network's entertainment is almost all voluntary participation, by what right do you hypothesize she isn't a whore but a chaste and heroic woman? Your wife is a whore, whore genes are contagious!

Over this bit of matter, Ōsumikawa, I'm not finished with you!

However, the slender instrument's sound reminded Akimoto Daijin, Ōsumikawa was already dead, the sole suspect was him, the sole opportunity to commit the crime was only those three minutes when the two were together away from the camera!

He himself began to doubt himself!

Now, it's over!!!