The sirens didn't stop. They were a constant, wailing banshee song that wrapped around the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Headquarters, vibrating against the reinforced glass of the windows.
It was 14:00 PM, nine hours after the death of Judge Tanaka in Shiba Park.
The sun was high and bright, but the mood inside the quarters was pitch black. The massive wall-mounted monitors, usually tuned to traffic feeds or internal briefings, were all locked onto the news channels. The footage was apocalyptic.
In front of the Shibuya, a police barricade was burning. A car had been overturned, its tires spinning lazily in the air, flames licking the undercarriage. A mob of thousands pressed against the riot shields of the Special Assault Team. They weren't chanting for peace. They were chanting a name.
"JI-RO! JI-RO! JI-RO!"
Kenji Sano sat at his desk, nursing a cup of lukewarm coffee. His hands were clean now he had scrubbed the Judge's soil and blood from his fingernails for twenty minutes, but he still felt dirty.
"They're not calling him a murderer!" Manjiro said, slumped in the chair next to Kenji. He was holding an ice pack to his jaw, where a bottle thrown by a protestor had caught him earlier that morning. "They're calling him a political prisoner."
Kenji looked at the screen. A reporter, wearing a helmet and flak jacket, was shouting over the roar of the crowd.
"The arrest of Jiro Yamamoto, the construction worker who wielded the saw, has sparked the worst civil unrest Tokyo has seen in decades. The hashtag #FreeTheSawman is trending globally. The public is calling his actions 'justifiable homicide' in the face of judicial corruption."
"Justifiable." Kenji scoffed, crushing the paper cup in his hand. "He sawed a man's neck open, and they call it justice."
"Because they agree with him, Kenji." Manjiro winced as he shifted the ice pack.
"That's the Shogun's real weapon. He didn't just kill the Judge. He made the Judge the villain and the executioner the hero. If we keep Jiro in custody, the city burns. If we let him go, the law is a joke."
Chief Inspector Hideo walked out of his office. He looked like a man who had aged ten years in a single morning. His uniform was immaculate, but his eyes were hollow, rimmed with the red of sleeplessness and stress. He held a bunch of papers furious demands from the Ministry of Justice and the Prime Minister's office.
"Turn it off." Hideo ordered, gesturing to the screens.
Officer Sato hit a button, and the burning car vanished, replaced by the static logo of the TMPD. The silence that followed was heavy.
"The National Guard is deploying to the Minato and Shibuya wards." Hideo said, his voice flat. "The Prime Minister is calling this an act of domestic terrorism. They are threatening to take jurisdiction away from us."
"Let them have it..." a young detective muttered from the back. "We can't fight the whole city."
"We are not fighting the city!" Hideo slammed his hand on the podium, the sudden noise making everyone jump. "We are fighting one man. One criminal who thinks he is a god. And we are going to catch him before he tears this department apart."
Hideo turned his gaze to Kenji.
"Sano. You predicted the Boiling. You predicted the Saw. What is next?"
Kenji stood up. He felt the eyes of the entire room on him. They were looking for a lifeline.
He walked to the whiteboard. The red marker circles around the victims seemed to pulse.
Suzuki (Greed) – The Pit.
Kurosawa (Oppression) – The Raincoat.
Takeda (Theft) – The Boiling.
Tanaka (Falsehood) – The Saw.
"He's winning because we are playing defense." Kenji said, staring at the board. "We are reacting to the sins. We need to look at the structure."
"Structure?" Hideo asked.
"The Shogun isn't just picking random corrupt officials..." Kenji traced a line through the names. "He is dismantling the Chiba Land Deal, piece by piece. Think about what it takes to steal a town, Chief. It takes more than just a loan shark and a developer."
Kenji turned to the room.
"Suzuki provided the Money. Kurosawa provided the Land. Takeda provided the Political Cover. Tanaka provided the Legal Immunity."
"The Pillars of Society." Manjiro realized.
"The Economy, The Industry, The Government, The Law."
"Exactly!!" Kenji nodded. "He is knocking down the pillars that hold up the lie. If you remove the money, the project stops. If you remove the law, the project is exposed. But there is one pillar missing."
"What?"
"The Justification." Kenji said. "How did they justify evicting three hundred families? How did they justify building a waste processing plant on agricultural land?"
"They said it was safe." Manjiro recalled.
"They said the environmental impact was negligible."
"And when the farmers got sick?" Kenji asked. "When the family started coughing up blood? What happened then?"
"The lawsuits were dismissed," Hideo said.
"By Judge Tanaka."
"Yes, but why were they dismissed?" Kenji's mind was racing now, connecting the dots that had been invisible until the Judge's death illuminated them. "A judge doesn't just dismiss a case on a whim. He needs evidence. He needs an expert opinion."
Kenji grabbed a fresh marker.
"He needs Science."
The room went quiet.
"Officer Sato." Kenji barked. "Pull up the Chiba case files again. Specifically, the medical records of the plaintiffs. The farmers who claimed they were poisoned."
The young officer typed furiously. "I have them, Detective. Case 21-409 through 21-450."
"What was the official cause of death for the Sato family patriarch?" Kenji asked.
"Suicide!" Sato read. "But before that... he was treated for 'chronic bronchitis' and 'psychosomatic stress'."
"And the others?"
"Skin lesions ruled as 'dermatitis'. Respiratory failure ruled as 'pneumonia' or 'natural causes due to age'."
"Who signed the reports?" Kenji asked.
"Who was the Medical Examiner?"
Sato scrolled down. "These weren't done by the police coroner. They were outsourced. The court ordered an 'independent' medical review."
"Outsourced to who?"
"Ogawa Biomedical." Sato said. "The lead pathologist was Dr. Arata Ogawa."
Kenji froze. The name hung in the air like a guillotine blade.
"Dr. Ogawa?" Hideo repeated, frowning. "The celebrity doctor? The one on the morning talk shows?"
"The same!" Kenji said. "He runs the most exclusive private clinic in Roppongi. He's the face of modern Japanese healthcare. Trustworthy. Handsome. Rich."
Kenji drew a new circle on the board, right next to Tanaka.
"He falsified the reports." Kenji said, the anger rising in his chest. "The farmers were dying of toxic exposure from Kurosawa's illegal dumping. But Dr. Ogawa looked at their lesions, looked at their blood work, and wrote 'Stress'. He used his medical license to turn a poisoning into a mass hysteria."
"That's Forgery." Manjiro whispered.
"Creating a fake reality."
"The Sin of Deceit (Gizo)." Kenji wrote the word inside the circle. "Using the authority of Science to lie to the public."
"He fits the profile." Hideo admitted.
"Wealthy. Connected. And he was the final nail in the coffin for the farmers. Without his medical clearance, Takeda couldn't have rezoned the land, and Tanaka couldn't have dismissed the case."
"He's the Fifth Pillar." Kenji turned to the Chief. "The Science."
"If he is the target..," Manjiro stood up, ignoring the pain in his jaw. "What is the punishment?"
Kenji closed his eyes. He let his mind drift back to the dusty pages of the ancient texts he had been studying, the Kujigata Osadamegaki.
"For those who counterfeited documents." Kenji recited softly. "For those who created false passes to cross the checkpoints... or who used their seal to certify a lie..."
He opened his eyes.
"The punishment was Haritsuke."
"Crucifixion." Hideo breathed, his face paling.
"It wasn't just about killing them." Kenji explained, his voice grim. "It was about exposure. The criminal was tied to a cross-frame. Spears were driven into the sides not to the heart, but to the gut. It was designed to keep them alive while they were displayed to the public."
"He's going to crucify a celebrity doctor." Manjiro said. "In the middle of Tokyo."
"He wants to show the lie." Kenji grabbed his jacket. "Tanaka was the Law, so he was killed at the Temple. Takeda was the Thief, so he was boiled in luxury. If Ogawa is the Liar of Science... the Shogun will put him somewhere where the lie is most visible."
"Where is Ogawa now?" Hideo barked.
"He's at his clinic in Roppongi." Officer Sato replied. "His social media says he's 'working late to serve the community'."
"Secure him!" Hideo ordered, pointing a trembling finger at Kenji. "Go. Take a SWAT team. I don't care if you have to drag him out by his hair. Do not let the Shogun take him. If Ogawa dies... if the Science falls... there is nothing left for the public to believe in."
"What about the riots?" Manjiro asked. "The streets are blocked."
"We take the chopper." Kenji said, already moving toward the door. "We land on his roof."
As they ran toward the elevators, Kenji looked back at the screen one last time. The burning barricade. The chanting crowd.
Free the Sawman.
They didn't know yet. They didn't know that the Sawman was just the opening act. The Shogun wasn't just punishing individuals anymore. He was preparing a sermon.
14:45 PM. The Skies Over Tokyo.
The police helicopter cut through the smog, the rotor blades thumping a rhythm of urgency against Kenji's chest. Below them, the city looked like a circuit board on fire. Plumes of smoke rose from Shibuya and Shinjuku. The traffic was a gridlocked river of red and white.
"ETA to Ogawa Clinic, five minutes!" the pilot shouted over the headset.
Kenji looked out the window at the Roppongi district. It was an area of high-end clubs, foreign embassies, and glass towers. It was a fortress of wealth.
"He thinks he's safe." Manjiro said over the comms, checking his weapon. "He thinks he's too famous to touch."
"So did Kurosawa." Kenji muttered.
"Kenji!" Manjiro hesitated. "Do you think we can stop him? The Shogun? He's always three steps ahead. He knew we would be stuck in traffic this morning. He knew the crowd would turn."
"We have to stop him." Kenji said. "Because if we don't, this city will eat itself. Jiro was just a regular man, Manjiro. A grieving father. And in five minutes, the Shogun turned him into a murderer. If he does that to the whole city..."
"Visual on the target!" the pilot announced.
The Ogawa Private Clinic was a gleaming spire of glass and steel, standing apart from the older buildings around it. It looked clinical. Sterile.
"Roof is clear." the pilot said. "Going down."
As the helicopter descended, Kenji looked at the massive digital billboard on the building across the street. It was playing an advertisement for Ogawa's clinic.
A giant, fifty-foot face of Dr. Ogawa smiled down at the chaotic city. The text beneath him read: TRUST THE SCIENCE. TRUST OGAWA.
"Trust?" Kenji whispered, unbuckling his harness. The Shogun hated that word more than any other.
The skids touched down. Kenji and Manjiro leaped out, followed by four SWAT officers. The wind whipped their coats as they ran toward the roof access door.
Kenji hit the door. Locked.
"Breach it!" he ordered.
A SWAT officer slammed a battering ram into the heavy steel door. Clang.
It flew open.
They poured into the stairwell, weapons raised.
"Dr. Ogawa!" Kenji shouted, his voice echoing in the concrete shaft. "Police! We are coming to you!"
Silence. No alarms. No panic.
Just the sterile quiet of a hospital.
"Manjiro, take the elevator to the penthouse office." Kenji ordered. "I'll take the stairs. Surround him."
As Kenji descended the stairs, skipping two at a time, he had a sinking feeling in his gut. The Shogun was theatrical. He liked an audience. He liked noise.
Why was it so quiet?
Kenji reached the top floor, the Executive Suite. He burst through the door into the hallway.
"Clear!" he shouted, sweeping the corridor.
The receptionist's desk was empty. A phone was ringing off the hook, the blinking red light the only movement in the room.
Kenji ran to the double doors of Dr. Ogawa's office. He kicked them open.
"Doctor!"
The office was massive, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the burning city. The leather chair was spun around to face the view.
"Doctor Ogawa, we need to move you." Kenji said, approaching the chair.
He spun the chair around. It was empty.
On the glass desk, a single tablet computer sat propped up. The screen was on.
It showed a live feed of the helicopter landing on the roof moments ago.
And beneath the video feed, a message was typing itself out, character by character, as if a ghost were hitting the keys.
YOU LOOK TO THE SKY FOR SALVATION.
BUT THE ROOTS OF THE LIE ARE DEEP.
TOO LATE.
Kenji stared at the screen.
"Manjiro!" Kenji shouted into his radio. "He's not here! The office is empty!"
"I'm in the server room." Manjiro's voice crackled back, sounding breathless. "Kenji... the servers are wiped. Physically destroyed. Someone took an axe to the mainframes."
"When?"
"The heat is still coming off the drives. Ten minutes ago."
Kenji looked around the pristine office. There was no sign of a struggle. No blood. Just an empty chair and a mocking screen.
"He hacked the building." Kenji realized. "He probably sent Ogawa a fake alert, told him to evacuate via the basement while we were landing on the roof."
Kenji ran to the window and looked down at the street. The traffic was crawling. Thousands of cars.
Somewhere down there, in the veins of the city, the Doctor was already gone.
"He has him." Kenji whispered to the empty room. "He has the Science."
And if the pattern held... the crucifixion was already being prepared.
Chapter 13 Ends - Can the doctor be saved?