Chapter 853

Yae Ken originally thought he would have to take all his secrets to the Yellow Springs Hirugasaka, but seeing that he now had a chance to tell everything, Yae Ken immediately spoke like a rapid-fire cannon: "Isomura was killed by me. It was me. I led the detectives in, and if I hadn't taken that road, if I hadn't flanked from that direction, I wouldn't have run into him, and he wouldn't have been exposed. Those people saw his face and remembered it. He could have escaped—his superior had already ordered him to withdraw. But he couldn't leave, because his face had already been seen."

From Yae Ken, Uesugi Muneyuki learned another version of the events.

The content was largely the same as what Watanabe Eiji had said, but Watanabe Eiji was ultimately the on-scene commander, not a frontline officer, so Yae Ken added many details:

The Criminal Investigation Division 1 of the Metropolitan Police Department was investigating another case, but this group belonged to the same violent organization.

To the criminal police, this violent group was merely an ordinary narcotics smuggling ring, with no connection to international terrorism or former extremist Self-Defense Forces members, but in reality, there was some overlap in personnel between the two sides.

The Criminal Investigation Division 1 had been monitoring them for a long time, had gathered evidence of their drug trafficking and arms smuggling, and decided to carry out the arrest late that Friday night.

The team was led by Watanabe Eiji, chief of Criminal Investigation Division 1.

At that time he was forty-two years old, at a crucial stage of pushing from "competent mid-level" toward "upper echelon ranks." If this case could be wrapped up neatly, it would be a significant boost to his record.

The criminal police were unaware that the public security police were conducting another operation at the same time and place.

The public security police also did not know that the criminal police would act that night, and Isomura's group was unaware as well.

The public security police arrived first, then made contact with the violent group's informant, "Nezumi," preparing to begin the operation.

Then the criminal police arrived, with flashing emergency lights and the low wail of police sirens, surrounding from all sides, startling the violent group and also putting the public security police in danger.

The violent group's members reacted first, beginning to flee outward.

The terrorists then attempted to detonate explosives.

Amid this chaos, Isomura Eigo ran into trouble—he was meeting the informant "Nezumi" when Yae Ken Tetsuya appeared, recognized Isomura, and stepped forward to ask what had happened.

This question triggered very serious consequences: not only was Isomura's identity exposed, but his face was also laid bare before the violent group.

"In other words, from that moment on, Isomura was almost certainly doomed?" Uesugi Muneyuki figured out some details.

"Yes, at the time he stayed behind to cover our retreat, to let me take the informant out. He died. I lived. I've lived for eleven years, and every day I've wondered—why wasn't it me who died?"

Uesugi Muneyuki said nothing.

He knew that at such a moment, any comfort would be the utmost disrespect to the dead.

Yae Ken Tetsuya's voice began to tremble, each word's waveform in the consciousness space violently shaking as it transmitted.

"We were classmates at the police academy. He was one year younger than me, but better than me in everything—shot more accurately, had superior physical fitness, even scored higher on written exams. He shouldn't have died on that broken ship. He should have been promoted to Assistant Police Inspector, then Police Inspector, then Superintendent, and one day sat in the Police Superintendent's seat. He should have married Asakina, had children, and taken them to the park on weekends to kick a ball around. He has nothing now. Asakina has nothing now. All because I took that road that night."

Uesugi Muneyuki did not respond to that, but he also did not urge him on.

"What happened afterward?"

Yae Ken continued.

At this point, the violent group had already triggered the bomb, and Isomura Eigo had already been seen by both the violent group and the terrorists.

He could never again engage in any form of undercover or intelligence work. To those people, his identity was now a completely exposed secret. Worse still, this "exposure" was uncontrollable.

The violent group members might be arrested, might confess during interrogation that "a public security police officer appeared at the scene that night."

The terrorists might escape, might continue operating in the shadows, might use his identity information for counter-infiltration, and might threaten his informants, his colleagues, even his fiancée.

His exposure was not due to his own mistake, but the consequences must be borne by him. This is an unwritten iron law in the public security system: an exposed intelligence officer is irrecoverable waste.

It's not that you did something wrong—it's that you're no longer useful.

In this regard, public security police are no different from many national security agencies, the KGB, or Military Intelligence Section Six: once exposed, they won't acknowledge you as an agent or spy, but will instead apply Justice Cutter.

If he had left alive, his career in the public security system would have ended, and his very existence would become an unsealable leak. His superiors would not tolerate this leak.

Isomura Eigo made a decision: he told Yae Ken Tetsuya to take the informant "Nezumi" and evacuate from the small cargo ship, while he himself faced the attacking violent group and terrorists.

"I got Nezumi out, but Nezumi was injured, and when he ran to the passage exit, his foot caught on a steel bar that had bent up from the ground, then the blast's shockwave threw him forward, and he fell face-first, striking the back of his head on the edge of the concrete steps, letting out a dull thud." Yae Ken said painfully: "Then he passed out, never woke again, and no one can prove or tell what really happened then."

"And you?" Uesugi Muneyuki pinched his chin.

"I am a former Self-Defense Official." Yae Ken said this, and intense resentment and unwillingness nearly overflowed: "That's enough."

"Yes, that's enough." Uesugi Muneyuki understood.

He was the only one still standing at the scene.

Isomura Eigo was blown to pieces in that small cargo ship, the informant became a vegetative state, other public security officers were forced to withdraw early during the criminal police's raid, and no one saw what happened behind the containers.

No one knows whether what Yae Ken Tetsuya said is true.

No one can prove he is innocent.

The public security police have never trusted him from the start.

In their view, a former Self-Defense Forces member appearing at the bombing site of a former Self-Defense Forces terrorist, with a public security police officer blown up beside him, the informant unconscious, and only he walking away unharmed—this is too suspicious.

This scene is too suspicious.

Yae Ken Tetsuya remained at the Metropolitan Police Department for several more years.

He could never let go, could not return to normal work, could not face colleagues who knew nothing, and could not pass the Metropolitan Police Department Memorial without looking at Isomura Eigo's name.

He ultimately chose to resign.

After resigning, Yae Ken became a private detective, spent seven or eight years, used various channels—including naturally his former Self-Defense Forces channels—to piece together an information network, gradually reconstructing the full truth of the Port Incident Night.

"The senior leadership of the public security police already knew before the operation that the criminal police might conduct a raid at the same place and time. They did not order the criminal police to stand down, nor did they communicate with the Metropolitan Police Department's Criminal Investigation Division 1 in any way. Because they needed an accident." Yae Ken said softly: "You understand, Uesugi Chief, when Isomura told the Shadow Administrator over the walkie-talkie that he had been accidentally exposed, the Shadow Administrator had already————"

"————already decided to let him die." Uesugi Muneyuki understood: "Using blood to unveil this scene, using life to prove their accusations against the Self-Defense Forces are not false! Isomura and the other three officers are the bloody 'pledge of loyalty'."

It was originally intentional—arranged to have the criminal police "die in service" a few people, but since an accident occurred, the public security naturally could also sacrifice.

"And yet this cannot be made public—they gave their lives to protect the nation, but outwardly, they are merely four officers who died in an accidental bombing while inspecting the pier for firearms and narcotics smuggling."

Letting him disappear as a "died in service" is the cleanest way.

No trial, no resignation, no scandal.

A hero's funeral, a fiancée's tears, a file forever sealed—this is all there is.

"Where did the gun come from?" Uesugi Muneyuki asked: "You, a former Police Sergeant who resigned seven or eight years ago, couldn't get hold of that kind of gun."

At that moment, Yae Ken Tetsuya's dead soul suddenly stabilized, his eyes shifting from confusion to focus, then from focus to a long-suppressed, finally releasable excitement: "Also a former Self-Defense Official—name I cannot tell you, but he————"

"Kondō Fumihiko, right?" Uesugi Muneyuki pulled a photo from his pocket—the man from the Tokyo Bank Heist.

"How do you know————truly, nothing can be hidden from you, Japanese Police, you truly have the blessing of the Eight Million Gods————" Yae Ken's dead soul violently shuddered once, like a reflection on water disturbed by a thrown stone.

"It's him! He gave me the gun, he planned the route for me, he told me the information. He still has contact with that group."

"He told me one thing: you think you're looking for answers for your friend, but actually you're doing our advance work for us.

You go in, you die there, and then those people will know!"

"I didn't understand what he meant at the time. I understood it the moment I died. At the moment I died, my bullet wasn't hit by an accidental discharge. It was someone who, in a struggle, pointed the gun at me and pulled the trigger. The Shadow Administrator is undoubtedly one of those twelve department chiefs at the scene. I know Watanabe Eiji and his few Criminal Affairs close associates, like Criminal Investigation Department Chief Uchimura Kanji, are not, but the others—"

"I see." Uesugi Muneyuki fell silent for a moment: "The informant? The one you found."

Yaegaki Tetsuya's image fell silent the moment the words "informant" were mentioned. That silence was not emotional calm, but the brief void before a great emotion surges forth, like the eye of a storm.

"His name is Cao Liangming. A member of the Dehua Gang from Yokohama Dehua Street. He was the only one that night who knew all the details, the only one who knew what actually happened between public security, criminal investigation, terrorists, and violent groups."

"He was blown into a vegetative state, lying in bed for a full ten years. Public security thought he would never wake up, so they didn't put much effort into him. Over ten years, guards became lax, visits became rare, and by the time he was transferred to the third rehabilitation hospital, no one remembered who he was."

"I got him out. Half a year ago, I forged a hospital transfer notice, used a fake identity, and moved him from the hospital's long-term care ward to an abandoned small factory in Kanagawa Prefecture, hoping he would wake up, could tell everything, give Isomura justice, give Keiko justice, give me justice, but—whether he can still wake up—"

"It's been ten years." Uesugi Muneyuki shook his head: "And it's been two days since you started acting until now, with no one taking care of him, a ten-year vegetative state may not even be alive anymore—don't pin your hopes on this lead."

"What else did you do?" Uesugi Muneyuki realized this case was difficult.

Yaegaki Tetsuya's voice suddenly became very soft at that moment, so soft it seemed afraid of being heard by something.

"I also wrote a letter. I put everything I found, everything I deduced, everything I pieced together from Cao Liangming's fragmented notes inside it. I sent it to the Metropolitan Police Department, addressed to Chief Supervisor Okochi Haruki of the Police Affairs Department. I don't know where that letter went, I don't know if anyone has read it, I don't know if it still exists in this world. All I know is that after I sent it, I never received any reply."

Uesugi Muneyuki's eyes lit up: "You're sure you sent it out?"

"Yes, I'm sure." Yaegaki Tetsuya said seriously: "By regulation, whether true or not, supervision officers should give an official reply."

"You should have sent it to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, idiot!" Uesugi Muneyuki couldn't help but say: "The prosecutors office would want to solve this, because it's a stunning political achievement, a windfall of merit, while inside the police—"

"I, I how would I know so much?" Yaegaki Tetsuya said: "I'm a former self-defense official! Will the elite in suits at the prosecution office really listen to you seriously, will they really listen to me seriously?"

"————————Indeed." Uesugi Muneyuki said nothing more, the prosecutors office is arrogant and demands evidence, while Yaegaki Tetsuya has nothing.

"Do you have anything else to say?"

Yaegaki Tetsuya's dead soul lifted its head, those gray-white, pupil-less eyes staring straight toward Uesugi Muneyuki's consciousness: "Those people aren't done yet!"

"Who?"

"Those former self-defense officials! Those of Fumihiko Kondō's group!"

"What?" Uesugi Muneyuki's expression changed.

"They seem—

"