𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐂𝐄 - ★彡[ᴋᴀᴍɪꜱᴀᴛᴏ ᴀʏᴀᴛᴏ]彡★

三十七 - 37

 Heizou led me back to the Kamisato Estate. Ayato looked up and sighed as if he had expected our premature arrival.

"Did you find any information?" he folded his long slender fingers together and settled them on the table, and I couldn't help but let my eyes be drawn to the action.

Heizou rummaged through the papers that he had placed on the table a few hours ago and pulled a folded sheet out.

"Of course, I wanted to give you some room to think for a bit, but it looks like it isn't necessary now that I have concrete evidence to display," he smiled. "With that being said, if you choose not to trust me, there's nothing I can do. I ask for your trust on the behalf of my job, and with the utmost certainty I swear that this is what happened." 

While he was being semi-dramatic, Ayato still complied with a solemn nod.

"I see no reason why you would lie about this."

"The criminal organization that's the main suspect for this case is one that was affiliated with the bounty case on Miss Shimoda here. The Tenryou Commission caught a member of the group and tortured them, ripping out their fingernails and repeatedly drowning them for several days. It happened on the fifth day– the man finally spoke. He said that you killed their leader, and they're out for revenge. This was obviously a big pointer towards the fact that they were the ones who committed this crime. It's pretty self-explanatory. The head of the group is someone who calls themselves 'Hiruko.'"

"Hiruko?" Ayato's brow furrowed with confusion.

"Hiruko is the first child of Japan's creation god and goddess and is born with a physical disability. He is deemed a worthless child by his own parents and is cast away into the ocean in a bed of straw," Heizou smiled. "He is the confirmed current leader. Not many people know this, as it is confidential. Only the higher-ups in the Tenryou Commission are informed, meaning that Hiruko can wander around in the public without much apprehension. He has not committed any crimes firsthand so it is impossible to arrest him under the current laws of the justice system. He is allowed to wander free because he uses his underlings to do all the work for him; quite an evil man."

"Did you see Hiruko when we were in public today?" I inquired.

Heizou nodded. "Seeing him alone wouldn't be a matter where we would have to run away immediately. If he was minding his own business, I would simply just tell you guys later on. But I spotted him, and he was staring directly at you, Missy. The strange thing was, he was coming from the same direction Thoma had run from as well."

Ayato clenched his fists. "You are positive it was this 'Hiruko' you speak of?"

"Yep, you can't miss him," Heizou pointed at the man's left eye in the photo, "because he has that weird scar across his eye right here."

He was right. Across 'Hiruko's' left eye was a long and jagged scar.

"That man had one exactly identical to the one shown in the picture. There's no doubt they're the same person," Heizou's voice was solemn. "Him and Thoma being so close together are far too suspicious to let slide. I suggest we do a further inspection on Thoma and his relatives. We cannot say with certainty that he and Hiruko are correlated with each other, but it's the best shot we have to find your sister."