Beastars: A Steep Fall From Light

Chapter 33: When Staring Into the Face of Death, How Will You React?

"There's no way," Detective Sen said over the phone. "We checked the handwriting, no variation. We checked the voices, they're all the same. Even the ones with a voice disguiser."

"But can you match voices to handwriting?" Yahya asked.

"I guess not," the bulldog said. "So are we dealing with a copycat as well?"

"No," the horse answered. "There's too much continuity between the two to make it a coincidence."

"Partners?"

"Possibly. Though I'm dreading the third option."

Sen nodded. There was nothing worse than two competing killers trying to take credit for all the kills. That's when the bodies would really start to pile up.

"Anything else to go off?" the detective asked, glancing back inside the conference room.

"Nothing yet," the horse said with a little disappointment.

"We'll look into it when I get back," he said. "I've got a call to trace."

"Right," he said. "Watch yourself. I'm afraid a list of allies is difficult to draft up at this point."

Sen hung up on that eerily accurate statement, turning back to the tracing crew as they set up their equipment in the conglomerate conference room. It was funny, and scary, how quickly an hour could pass.

"Are you all set?" he asked.

"We need another minute to link everything together and connect to the phone lines," a hyena said, unwinding a cable and plugging it into a laptop.

"The clock is ticking gentlemen," Sen reminded. "That call will be coming in any minute now. Ma'am?"

He motioned for the chairman's proxy, and wife, to stand by him.

"Is the chairman aware of what has transpired?"

"I thought it best not to involve him," she said. "He's taking a lot of heat right now. This report about his company on top of the head injury he received."

"Head injury?"

"He was jumped last night," she said. "Just outside the front door. He didn't get a look at the attacker but they injected him with snake venom."

"Oh my god," Sen said. "Is he alright?"

"Thankfully," she said, clearly trying to keep in the fear. "A family doctor got him his treatment and he should be fine by tomorrow."

She shook her head to shake away the feeling. And ran a hand over her eye, wiping away the tear before it left her eye.

"I have no idea what's going on," she said. "I don't know why he's doing this to us."

"We're going to catch this guy," Sen said, laying a hand on her shoulder. "If all works out, hopefully today. When that's over, we'll see about the conglomerate, okay? Just, one step at a time."

Azuki inhaled deeply before exhaling away part of her anxiety. With that single bout of over emotion out of her system, she reverted back to her cool and collected self.

"We're all set," the hyena said. At that exact moment the phone rang.

"Alright get ready to tell those squads where to go," Sen said. "Remember to keep him on the line until we find where his call is coming from. Are we ready?"

The hyena nodded, giving a thumbs up and Sen gave Azuki the all clear to answer.

"Have you considered my offer?" Razor asked. Sen could confirm it was the killer's voice he had heard before.