Psychic Detective Yakumo / Shinrei Tantei Yakumo

Volume 2 - That Which Connects Souls

PROLOGUE

-

The rain was beating down that night.

-

Entering March, the days were becoming warmer, but it was still cold once the sun went down, especially in rain like this.

Gotou Kazutoshi was writing his work log at the police station.

He hated doing it. It had already been two years since he entered the police force, but this was the one thing he could not grow accustomed to. He would rather some sort of incident occurred.

Gotou reclined on his chair as he mulled over these indiscreet thoughts in his head.

The sound of pouring rain rang in his ears.

Suddenly, he noticed that somebody was standing in front of the police station.

He was a man in his mid-thirties. Even though it was raining so heavily, he was not carrying an umbrella, and his black coat was completely soaked.

That wasn't all. It was a rainy night. Even though visibility was already not that great under the circumstances, the man was looking down and had on dark sunglasses, as if to hide his face.

There was a strange atmosphere.

Gotou stood up and headed towards the man at the entrance while keeping a hand on the police baton in the holder at his hip.

'What are you doing there?'

When he spoke up, the man slowly raised his face.

'A child...'

'What?'

Gotou could only hear the beginning of his sentence, the rest of which had been drowned out by the rain.

'A child is about to be murdered.'

The man spoke in an emotionless voice. Almost like the synthetic speech of a machine.

'What did you say?'

'A child is about to be murdered, officer.'

The man's expression was serious, and it did not feel like he was lying or joking. However, something was missing.

Urgency.

A child might die. Even though he came to inform Gotou about such a dangerous situation, this man was not panicking at all.

'If you don't hurry, the child will die.'

The man spoke while water dripped from the tip of his chin.

He was right. There was no time to think about that sort of thing. If what the man said was true, it could be too late.

'Where's the kid?'

'I'll show you the way.'

The man said that quietly, turned around and started walking.

Gotou rushed out into the rain after him.

The rain was incredible. His uniform was soon completely soaked through. He couldn't see anything. The man was doing very well walking perfectly in a situation like this while wearing sunglasses.

Still -

'A kid's going to be killed, right?'

Gotou yelled at the man's back.

'Yes.'

The man stopped and looked up at the rainy sky.

'Then we have to hurry.'