The Test In the Forest Part 3

Higashimatsuyama, Saitama Prefecture, Japan

The day continued without waiting for anyone, the sun was about to give way to the moon, and the golden sunset filled the sky completely. Three detectives were taking a break to rest, the day had been quite busy carrying out the initial investigations and organizing the facts, even so, they still had a lot of work ahead of them, but normally there is only so much a body can do without rest. Inspector Yamamoto took out a bento wrapped in several cloths, it had been prepared by his granddaughter, both for love and health, the old man felt honored to have such a luxury for his life. Detective Dojima in his place had returned from buying food, it was fast food, several hamburgers with fries, and his traditional coke, for him it was a matter of time, he simply did not have it, it was not the healthiest but it was the necessary trick for days like these. Adachi, on the other hand, was a disaster in cooking, he had tried it several times but it had not worked, to make matters worse, he was a very poor person financially, he could barely afford the expenses of his daily life, so his food was reduced to instant soups until the good times came if that would happen.

"The results of the electronic chip are here"
"Looks like it's a Lion Saber tracker"
"Top-notch military equipment"
"It is normally used by the U.S. military to keep track of supplies dropped on airplanes" Dojima said eating while reading his phone.

"Military equipment?"
"A drug gang wouldn't use something so valuable and so easily lost"
"Much less leave it near defenseless people"
"Besides, the Americans are very careful with their equipment, I doubt it would be an unintentionally lost item" Said the old man, it seemed that the news did not surprise him at all, as he continued to eat as well.

"I really hope that this clue and the mystery packages really lead us to something"
"As much as I think about it I can't find the connection between these packages and the victims of the past few weeks"
"...."
"What if we are making a mistake and looking in the wrong place?"
"At the moment it all looks like circumstantial clues, nothing that we can really use to know what happened"
"Besides, something like that must be pretty expensive"
"Maybe they stole it and don't know its real value or maybe they have so much that they don't know what to use it for" Adachi said without thinking too much just to add to the conversation.

The two older men even stopped eating for a moment in order to process the first and probably the last correct conclusion the young man had made that day.

"As much as I would like to finish cases like these stories sooner, the reality is that they are the ones that take the most work"
"We are not dealing with a simple supermarket thief who doesn't even know how to use a knife"
"We are talking about a criminal right out of a comic book."
"Someone or a group that is doing very specific and calculated actions"
".... Or at least so far"
"We don't know why they do it, but they do have a purpose"
"We have to find out what it is and we can catch them" Dojima spoke again.

Yamamoto was silent and thoughtful, he had not yet finished eating, but at the same time, he kept looking at the half-full plate. Dojima looked at him and understood what was going through the old man's mind.

"Are you still thinking that?"
"Keep going round and round in circles will get you nowhere"
"....it was an accident, nothing could be done"
"I thought the same thing, I did my best but I couldn't find anything"
"I'm sorry" by surprise it was Dojima who was now speaking out trying to help.

"????"
"What are you talking about?"
"Do you have any major suspicions?" Something that all this is related to? Adachi asked, unaware of what the other two were discussing.

"What?"
"No, it's not that"
"It's another topic"
"A personal one" The inspector replied nervously, something very out of character for the old man.

"Yamamoto lost her daughter at the beginning of the year, just on January 1st."
"She and her husband were returning from a job near Mt. Haruna in Takasaki, Japan"
"They had a traffic accident, their car went off the road and fell several meters, and they were not found until the next day"
"When I heard the news, I immediately went to investigate on his behalf because he was out of the country"
"But no matter how hard I investigated I could not find anything, I could not find an answer to what happened" Dojima explained to the new man, trying to say it as tactfully and conscientiously as he could, but he was not very good at it.

"Really!?"
"I'm so sorry"
"Something like that must have been terrible"

"The day before she called me to give me New Year's greetings."
"She said she was in Tokyo with her family that day"
"She was not a liar"
"What happened made no sense at all"
"I am sure there is something else" replied the inspector, more to himself than to the other two.

"What was her job?"

"She was an artificial intelligence programmer"
"Lines of code and stuff"
"Her husband worked for the ISC as a medical researcher but was laid off so he was starting to work in a clinic in Kitamoto, near here" Dojima added again.

"Geez, it seems like all of us have lost someone"
"I lost my father when I was still in school"
"He was also a detective, a pretty good one, once helped catch a gang of bank robbers"
"...."
"However he died one day, robbers broke into the house on his day off, he couldn't do anything about it"
"When I got to the house that day there were a lot of patrol cars everywhere"
"...."
"My family has always been related to the police, so I thought I would carry on the tradition"
"I'm glad I did it, my dad sure is proud of me"
"...."
"If at least I managed to keep the job." Said Adachi also sharing his past

Yamamoto's phone began to ring, the tone it had was quite lively, contrasting with the ever-present seriousness of the old man, which as soon as he heard it he hurried to answer immediately, it was his granddaughter, who had called him worried about the work of his grandfather, he replied that everything was fine and that he was finishing eating what she prepared for him, she replied happily to the fact, both satisfied to know how the other was hanging up afterward. Although as a cheerful gesture, his granddaughter sent several pictures of where she was right now, it was once again the same place as always, in them you could see Haru with several girls in costumes, each one crazier than the previous one. They were all workers at that place that he already knew a little bit, they were the friends he had made there, and they looked like they were trying to bake some kind of cake between all of them. 

Dojima was seeing a golden opportunity to change the theme to something much more cheerful than the one they had before, as he managed to see a bit of the photos that were sent.

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"Nice pictures you got there, old man"
"Isn't that the coffee shop you usually go to after work?"
"So is that one of your secret tastes? Some love came to the surface again?"

"What?"
"No"
"It's just my granddaughter showing me where she is"
"The cafeteria belongs to a good friend of mine, so most of the time after school Haru goes there to hang out with her friends"

"Oh right, White Moon Cafe"
"..."
"However it is a maid cafe themed right? Something like fantasy"
"The girls who work there are dressed as maids and everything else, cat ears and all that"
"The place must be popular with the youngsters, but you go there quite often too"
"I heard they recently got someone to play as a mermaid"

"Really?"
"That's incredible!"
"It's really catching my attention"
"May I know where it is? Maybe I should stop by and see what it looks like" Adachi showed genuine interest in the topic.

"You seem to know a lot about it too, Dojima."
"May I know from where?" said the frustrated inspector.

"Well my daughter discovered the place when she went to one of her friend's birthday party"
"She was fascinated by the place and was telling me a lot about it"
"She wants her party there too"
"It looks like it's amazing what they managed to do" Dojima said smiling for the first time during the day.

After finishing their meal, the cops got back in the car and headed for Kitamoto, the place where the Toyashi Clan was now residing. The rookie was worried for his safety as he thought what they were about to do was quite a risky idea. The other two, although also concerned, were less tense, because even though they were in theory rivals it was very likely that they would even want to cooperate to find the culprit of what was happening. In any case, there was not much the yakuza could do either, for killing policemen, especially someone with Yamamoto's reputation alone would be nothing but suicidal, as the government would be interrogating even the rocks looking for those responsible. This would only be a casual meeting between groups, a simple exchange of information, there should be no problems. 

Up the mountain road, the detectives came to a large estate, so large that even after passing the entrance they had to drive a little further, it didn't seem that a group that had been expelled from the capital would have the money for something like this, perhaps Yamamoto had underestimated them, even Dojima thought.

When they arrived at the house, something was wrong, several guards were smashed at the entrance, their bodies mutilated, it seemed to be recent because the guards at the entrance had not noticed it yet. Seeing this, Yamamoto, with his well-known seriousness and calmness, got out of the car and began to search the place and the corpses, not even bothering to take his hands out of his pants pockets. Dojima took his gun with a steady hand and looked around skillfully, searching for the source of the threat. Lastly, Adachi was frightened by what was happening, this was his first time in trouble, he also had his gun in hand and ready to fire, he didn't want to be a loser but in his mind, he was already thinking about how his adventure had only lasted so far.

The attack seemed to have been quick and deadly, so with the violence that the police were investigating, it all seemed to be a terrible coincidence, but it stopped being so when shots were heard inside the big house, there were several, but just as quickly as they originated, just as quickly they stopped. The inspector is thinking to himself about what was going on and trying to compare it with his past adventures. This had happened before, once before in Korea, when someone was trying to erase important evidence from an investigation. Yamamoto followed his hunch and thought that something similar was happening right now, the Toyashi Clan was about to reveal important information and they were being attacked, hence the brutal and unplanned nature of the enemy.

The old man still without taking his weapon went to the door and entered the place to try to stop the destruction of the evidence, Dojima followed him helping his companion, Adachi only followed them because he did not want to be alone. 

Screams of wounded men filled the place, one stiff monster filled another. The young man was convinced that there was a horrible monster lurking, the detective tried to calm him down, as he did not want to get shot by the new one, but the inspector did not stop walking, more and more sure of what was happening, someone was tying up loose ends with whatever was going on. They went to where the leader of the Yakuza was, but found him dead, in the hands of his assassin. A horrible huge monster, more than two meters tall, black face and covered with hair all over, it had human form, but also that of a canine. He was standing next to the body trying to nail it to the wall with the stakes from the bag he had on his back, he didn't even use a hammer, only his hands. When Adachi saw it, he got scared and shot as fast as he could, wasting all his magazine and ran away without thinking twice, the monster did not seem to flinch from the damage, but when he saw something running away he woke up again his hunter instincts, he got on all fours to start running. The other two policemen, seeing the beast approaching, walked backwards and closed the door to distract it for a couple of seconds, seconds in which the inspector took the opportunity to grab Adachi's arm and pull him out of the way, saving his life. Dojima also fired his gun after the creature passed through and destroyed the door, but although his gun was more powerful than his companion's, it did not stop it, nor did it flinch. The three were impressed by the monster's resistance, which had already easily eaten about forty shots. The demon turned its huge body with the same difficulty due to its size, returning to the charge soon after. Dojima, calling out to Adachi who was in a panic attack, dragged him back to the room where the yakuza boss was, leaving the immediate sight of his enemy. Yamamoto did not move from his place, he was right at the door of the long corridor, looking his enemy in the eyes, thinking about how to stop him if his plan failed. He calmly watched the animal run straight at him, took out one of his hands, grabbed his powerful revolver, and fired a single shot at its face.

But the beast did not stop, instead the brutal damage it inflicted caused it to lose an eye, but its fury was too much to stop at the pain, and its speed increased, even more, it wanted revenge.

Despite the fact that his faithful weapon and plan had failed, the old man remained serious and calm and coldly began to carry out the second plan he had drawn up if this case happened. He still had 4 shots left in his huge revolver, three of them were spent again in the face, but still not enough to stop the brute force of the monster. In the last shot, knowing that it would lead to the same result, he used it in a different way, already only a few meters between the two rivals, Yamamoto shot at one of the front legs of the animal, which completely destroyed it and from the pain it slipped in a course already planned by the inspector, avoiding it with a simple step backwards. The beast was still alive and now furious about the damage. The inspector took advantage of the moment to reload his revolver with perfect mastery, five new shots would be enough even against a truck, and the only thing he needed to do was to deliver them first.

The old man smiled, it had been a long time since he had enjoyed the thrill of a fair fight, he felt he had returned to his glory days.

But life had other plans, for his dream would not be granted. As the monster rose to resume his attack, a single hiss came from his chest, only to explode later without any further warning. Just a big red spot was all that was left of that demonic thing, where just a second ago it was and now it was not. Yamamoto kept his surprise to himself, while the other two detectives came out of hiding wondering what the hell had happened.

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