Pursed Lips
Asahi-cho, Tsu-han, August 1864
“Why didn’t you tell me!?”
Norito’s eyes bulged as Akashi gripped him by the throat. With all the drunken force he could muster, the captain slammed the boy into the wall of the Sakashima residence. Nozomi screamed and quickly retreated inside, leaving the beleaguered detectives alone in the swirling mists.
Disbelief struggled for supremacy with anger as Akashi choked his subordinate. “Suzushi Yosome isn’t a resident of Asahi!” he screamed in the boy’s face, unable to believe it himself. “How could that have slipped your mind? You’ve lived here your entire life!”
“I…I didn’t think it was important,” gurgled Norito. Whatever feelings he might have been harbouring towards Akashi earlier that night had been displaced by pure terror, as he fought for his life in the captain’s iron grip. “She…wasn’t involved in any…of the cases…”
Akashi did a double take. “She wasn’t involved?” he gasped, shocked at the boy’s stupidity. “When did she arrive Norito? How long as she been here?”
The boy looked back at him pleadingly, but Akashi was unrelenting. Fury burned his veins and what little control he might have had over himself had long fled into the night. “I think…she arrived here at the same time as you…” Norito stammered.
The captain’s eyes widened momentarily and his grip slackened somewhat on Norito’s throat. Two months, he thought to himself. Exactly the same time as the killings had started, or near enough… Did that mean that Suzushi Yosome was the murderer? No, she hadn’t been to the Itoguchi residence the night before. That woman was up to something else; something they would have to deal with later. Then who was the killer? Unless…
“Norito…” Akashi spoke slowly, trying to piece together this new puzzle. “Who lived in Suzushi’s residence before her?”
The boy was now so white in the face he was unable to speak. He looked imploringly at Akashi and the captain finally decided to relinquish his grip – if only out of necessity. Norito collapsed to the earthen ground, surrounded by the mist. He clutched his throat with shaking hands, spluttering across the dirt beneath them.
“You grew up in the house next door!” Akashi barked at the keeled over mess of a man before him. Covered in dirt and still splattered with Yaridama Chiryo’s blood, Norito Tsuya looked pitiful.
“I don’t know,” gasped Norito eventually, still massaging his throat. However, before he could even think to rise, a sharp boot to the stomach sent him flying across the mud.
“How can you not know!?” Akashi screamed, unable to control himself now. “You’ve lived here your entire life – you know every single person who has lived and died here! You count every meaningless, Godless peasant here as a member of your own clan, yet when it comes to anyone who might actually have an ounce of purpose, you don’t know?”
Norito whimpered in the dirt, tears streaming down his face from closed eyes, unable to meet the gaze of the wrathful Akashi. He was nothing but a boy – a mere boy playing policeman in a fairy tale town, detached from any grand picture or scheme. Akashi had finally run out of patience. What ally was this? The boy had no use anymore – whatever purpose he might once have served was now spent. It was time to leave.
So Akashi turned and retraced his footsteps back towards the police station, leaving Norito bleeding and bruised in the mud.