Clown 

• Heavy gore (including eye trauma and dismemberment)

• Suicide

• Vomiting (episodes 2, 4)

The apartment building sat on a quiet residential street. One could expect to live a peaceful life there amid the abundant trees, normally cut off cleanly from the city.

However, the area had been crowded by onlookers who heard a commotion.

"All right, lemme through a sec. I said let me through! Like insects to a damn lamp."

A group of stern-faced men appeared, pushing their way through the crowd.

"I can hardly stand this crowd, sir. It hasn't been all that long since the incident, but—whoa! There's even press guys here."

"Something funny? Hey, new kid—quit gawking and come pay your respects with me."

"Right! Apologies!"

Disregarding Leather, the flustered rookie detective, Thomas examined the towering apartment building with a sour expression. The building's overbearing presence seemed to speak to the gravity of the case.

Several days earlier...

A serial murder case targeting exclusively prostitutes. When the veteran detective Thomas first heard about it, he had thought the case would be resolved right away. Contrary to his expectations, investigations had been rough.

The modus operandi of each crime was a simple murder by knife. However, though the culprit left no clues leading back to them at the scene, their abnormality was apparent in the way they mutilated each victim, cutting and removing their left wrist and eyeballs.

The number of victims had already risen to four, and not a clue was to be found. The city police took the situation seriously and brought on more investigators, hoping to quell the citizens' fears.

And so, Leather and Thomas came to be involved with the case.

"Good grief... I just got off the night shift, so don't make this any more trouble than it has to be."

"I look forward to working with you, sir! We're gonna catch this psycho with our own hands—that's gotta be worth a promotion!"

"Oh, can it. I don't wanna hear you acting cocky at the ass-crack of dawn."

As Thomas recalled his exchange with Leather, he headed into the gloomy apartment building, gazing astounded at his amped-up junior.

"He could stand to slow down a bit."

He couldn't help but notice the difference in attitude between the two of them.

"W-Whoa..."

They had entered the victim's room.

When Leather first laid eyes on the brutalized corpse, he emptied the contents of his stomach into the sink.

"I...I can't be puking like this if I wanna be a great officer like Dad..." Leather cautioned himself.

"Hey, are you done hacking your guts up yet? If you can't handle it, go outside!"

"I-I can't do that. Let me stay, please!" Leather replied to a scowling Thomas, before proceeding into the living room, where the body lay.

The scene of this crime—the fifth victim—was clearly different from the other cases. Up until now, the murder scenes had been spotlessly clean, like stages set up to spotlight each body.

However, what he saw before him now was nothing but red. Chaotic. Violent. Just plain disorderly. The man had died facing up to the heavens, an abundance of that red scattering from his body. Furthermore, the eyeballs that should have been in his eye sockets were gone, lying in a lonely red puddle.

"Must've been a terrible way to die. We won't know his exact cause of death without forensics, but... Well, I'd wager it's this fruit knife stuck in his throat," Thomas observed, flatly and calmly analyzing the ghastly scene. "But all the murders up 'til now were prostitutes, so why's it a man this time...?"

Leather felt something catch in his chest. Carefully, so as not to destroy evidence, he crouched down to look for clues leading to the culprit.

Just then...

"—this way—"

"That voice...?"

He thought he suddenly heard a young woman's voice. He had the sense of something moving softly at the edge of his vision. When he looked up, drawn in by the movement, he saw the figure of a woman disappear into the bedroom.

"What was that...?"

He had the faint sense that something was wrong. It might have just been his own hallucination. And yet, he was suddenly overwhelmingly curious. He simply had to make sure.

Leather made for the bedroom at once. The room had a lived-in feel, and there were no particular signs it was broken into. A desk in the corner of the room, a bed, a closet. The interior was perfectly ordinary. There were no crevices for someone to hide.

Relieved that he had worried for nothing, he sat down in the chair in front of the desk. That was when he noticed a notebook left on the desk.

"What...? Someone's used this thing a lot..."

He picked it up. The notebook was stiff and frayed. The cover was oddly coarse, in a splotchy shade of red. Looking at the complex patterns on it, he was overcome with the strange sensation of being sucked in, spinning around and around.

Around, and around...

The notebook betrayed an intense mania, used so much it felt wrong... Taken in by the patterns, Leather turned the pages.

Flip, flip.

The pages told the daily life of a man who appeared to be the victim. Records of meals, griping about trouble with his boss. Extremely normal.

Flip, flip, flip, flip.

"Haha, he's so earnest—even wrote about getting dumped by a woman. Let's see..."

With every page of the diary he turned, the writing got messier, turning to scribbles. Maybe he had written it too roughly. Incoherent sentences ran every which way.

The strangeness of it made him feel an inexplicable fear. Perhaps it was morbid curiosity. He turned to the next page in a hurry.

...Flip.

There, crammed into the page. A record of the prostitutes he killed. The details of how the women reacted as he cut them to pieces. The way they clung on until death.

A meticulously detailed record. An extraordinarily abnormal delusion.

He picked up the edge of the notebook to turn the page. Something was bothering him. A chill ran down his spine. His reason refused to let him read further. But the diary owner's madness was captivating.

Leather turned. Turned the page.

...Flip, flip, flip, flip.

When he peeled the page open, the smell of rusty iron hit him immediately.

It was painted red. An abundance of blood.

Looking closer, he could see scratchy letters—

"...Eeek!"

Leather reflexively threw the notebook away.

On the open page was written:

Your turn.

The autopsy ruled the fifth victim's death a suicide. To substantiate that, it was confirmed that the murder weapon used in the prostitutes' cases and the knife the victim had apparently stabbed himself in the throat with were the same. After gouging out his own eyeballs and thrashing around, he stabbed the knife into his throat and died...an impossible story by normal standards. Furthermore, the left hands and eyeballs of all the past victims were discovered in this victim's refrigerator.

In other words...the murderer was no more. Still, Leather couldn't shake his unease from the memory of that woman he glimpsed, flickering at the back of his mind.

"You gotta believe me, sir! I felt her presence, right before going into the bedroom!" Leather implored Thomas as he prepared to head home from the locker room.

"There's no way. There were other detectives in the room. Civilians couldn't enter—it's a locked room, so to speak. Even a rookie like you should know that."

Just as Thomas said, his story was dubious, so naturally no one paid attention to it.

"You saw a pretty shocking corpse. It got a few screws loose in your head, so what? But..."

"But what?"

"...Well. The case isn't over yet. You think so too, don't you?"

Something about Thomas's gaze was different from usual, like the sharp eyes of a hunting dog.

"If he was just gonna commit suicide, he didn't have to gouge out his eyes. That has to mean something. Makes me think the case isn't solved until we understand that."

"Sir...!"

Leather automatically grabbed Thomas's unexpected helping hand.

"Whoa, don't be weird! Anyway, go home and rest. Get your head on straight and it'll work properly."

"Yes, sir!"

Leather went home as he was told. His home was in the city center, about ten minutes by bike from the police station. He didn't mind the biting winter headwind as he rode, but today was especially cold, and after what had happened to him, he felt a bitter chill.

"Whew... I'm pretty beat..."

The moment he parked his bike in front of the house, all his built-up fatigue hit him. He opened the door to his room and threw himself onto the bed, falling unconscious at the same time.

The next day...

"Morning...? I seriously fell asleep like that. Damn it, and I still feel tired..."

He should have gotten enough sleep, but his body felt leaden, a dull pain wracking his joints. Even so, his head felt clear and his mind relieved.

"Feels weird... Oh, no. What time is it?"

When he blearily checked the time, he noticed that the cell phone he had tossed by the bed before falling asleep was vibrating. The caller was Thomas.

"Wha—twenty messages!?" he cried, then answered the call. "I'm so sorry, sir, I overslept!"

"Doesn't matter right now! Get to the scene, now!"

"Huh? What's going on!?"

"We've got a case! There's a new victim!"

With just one word, Leather snapped awake and got onto his bike without even getting properly dressed.

The new victim was someone Leather knew well. It was the assistant commissioner of investigation HQ, from the prostitute serial murders.

The corpse sat in a chair in his own bedroom with his head split open, his brain pulled out and books stuffed into his head. As a final flourish, his eyeballs were thoroughly crushed. It was as if the culprit were laughing at the police, saying, "The case isn't over yet!"

The method was notably different, but it was highly likely from its brutality that it was linked to the series of murders.

"Incompetent police...is that what the culprit wants to say? The joke's not funny. Hey, Leather... I said hey! Gonna throw up again? Get used to it already!"

"S-Sorry... Can't help it..."

Leather met the eyes of the assistant commissioner's body. No, to be precise, it was not his eyes in their original shape, but the dark hollows filled with blood and translucent gel that gave him that illusion.

Leather left the bedroom, fighting back the swell of nausea. He went from the second floor to the bathroom on the first floor. After vomiting for some time, he washed his face and braced himself mentally.

"Ugh... I can still feel it in my mouth... What am I doing here, really...?"

He vomited up the rest of it and left to return to the second floor. The moment he made his way to the stairs, he sensed something moving.

"Who's there!?"

He turned around at once, but no one was there. All he heard was the creaking of an open door.

Creak, creak, creak...

"Hm...?"

He could hear something else along with the door. Leather leapt out suddenly toward the sound. Down the hallway, on the stairs to the second floor, he could faintly see a pair of slender legs climbing up.

"The woman from back then...? Wait!"

She didn't respond to his call, and kept climbing until she disappeared from view.

"That's her...! I've gotta catch her!"

Leather ran up the stairs to stop her from getting away. Then, just around the last corner, he finally caught sight of her.

Her physique was slim and wiry. Dressed in contrasting black and white, two horn-like things swayed gently from atop her head. She looked just like a clown.

"You there! You won't get away!"

At his shout, the woman, who had had her back to him, turned around with a strained creaking sound, letting him glimpse her appearance.

"...A mirror...?"

He couldn't see her face as it was covered in a mirror-like mask that gave off a dull gleam. Reflected in her mask was Leather's own face. Seeing his own face reflected in the mirror as the woman stood eerily silent, an indescribable fear gripped his heart.

He tried to raise his voice to say stop mocking me!, but perhaps because of the chills running down his spine, he couldn't look away, let alone speak.

Swish, swish.

Even though she was getting closer.

Clack, clack, clack.

She stared at him, her face tilted.

"—You...are—"

The voice that came out of her was cold. Sharp.

She was already in front of him. The moment her wire-like fingers reached for his cheek—

Thomas leapt in from behind. "Leather, what happened!?"

Leather, who had been in a state of paralysis, could move freely again at the sound of his voice. He turned toward Thomas and explained in a strained voice, "Sir! I saw that woman from the apartment building! She must be the culprit!"

He pointed to where the woman was.

However...

"What are you talking about?"

"...?"

There was no trace of her there, only curtains swaying in the cold winter winds. It was as if everything that happened until now was just a bad dream.

I'm dreaming. Walking aimlessly through a flat, hazy expanse. Don't know where I am.

Creak, creak, creak...

All I know is I'm walking towards the sound. I don't know what's making it. Even so, I stagger through the darkness like an insect drawn to a lamp.

Creak, creak, creak...

I can faintly see someone's feet where I step. I look upward to see who it is.

Long, slender legs. Clothing adorned by lace. A body swaying gently. I can tell she's a woman from her elegant style of dress. I reach out to put a hand on her shoulder—

...creak.

The moment I try to touch her, I hear a sound behind me. I turn around, and a woman with empty eye sockets laughs—

"—Whoa!"

Leather jumped out of bed. The sheets were awfully soaked with sweat, perhaps from his nightmare. He tossed away his drenched shirt and headed for the sink.

"Shit... What a dream..."

He sighed and hurried to headquarters.

It was the day after the incident. Investigation HQ reported the results of their on-site inspection. There were no signs of forced entry to the assistant commissioner's home, nor were there signs of a struggle. Since it hadn't been ransacked, the crime wasn't a murder committed during robbery by an outsider. Given all of that, it was highly likely that the culprit was someone who knew him.

However, when looking at the grotesque nature of the crime, it shared some similarities with the prostitute serial murders, and the meeting decided to continue investigating those in parallel.

"You must be so special if you can afford to oversleep again at an important time like this. And it's just sad that you forgot your badge and notebook, too. Don't you think so!?"

"I am so sorry..."

After the meeting, Leather apologized profusely to the chief. He had been visibly exhausted ever since getting involved with the case. Whether it was from seeing that woman or the grisly murder scenes, he didn't know. It was inevitable that he would make frequent small mistakes as a result.

"Don't ever do that in front of me again! Honestly, your father was such a great man, and what are you doing...?"

Leather was compared to his father at every opportunity—he was the son of the former commissioner. He understood full well that being on the front line instead of doing office work was proof of everyone's high expectations.

That was why he wanted to solve this case as soon as possible and prove that he was different to get out of the promotion race. At least, he would have wanted that, but his expression said that he didn't have time to think about that kind of thing right now.

The chief left headquarters after he finished scolding him. Leather watched him go in a daze before letting out a deep sigh.

"Don't mind him, Leather. One of our own was killed; everyone's pissed," Thomas called out, having seen the whole thing. A silver rank insignia gleamed on the left side of his chest.

"Thank you, sir... Huh? What's that insignia for?"

"They made me acting assistant commissioner for some reason. Never thought I'd get promoted so easily. Guess the guys at the top can't afford to care about appearances."

Thomas lit a cigarette and started puffing.

"If there's another victim from the higher-ups, maybe you'll get promoted too, just like that. And I could make chief eventually, yeah?"

"This isn't a joke...! And anyway, I'll work my way up on my own merit!" Leather said, storming out of headquarters.

"Heh, give it your all, kid."

----------

It was several days after that.

A new victim appeared, as if to ridicule Leather's intentions.

Record-breaking rainfall poured onto the streets. In the midst of it, a vehicle pushed through, sirens wailing. The rain drummed relentlessly on the hood, as if to condemn the police for still not having caught the culprit.

"Are you gonna remove yourself from the investigation? Leather."

Without turning his head from the passenger seat of the police car, Thomas called out to Leather in the driver's seat.

"No..."

Leather's face was unnaturally calm as he replied, not a trace of emotion there. He seemed to be gazing somewhere distant.

"Don't push yourself. If you want, I'll talk to the higher-ups," Thomas offered, exhaling smoke from a short cigarette.

That was all the conversation they had before arriving on the scene.

The new victim was Leather's father. In other words, the former commissioner.

Leather's parents lived in a rural town about two hours from the city by car. Since the method was the same as in the assistant commissioner's case, there was no doubt the crimes were committed by the same culprit. However, the seemingly connected crimes had all occurred within the same city, but for some reason, this one happened outside. The fact that someone had intentionally gone to this rural town to kill the victim meant they must have had a serious grudge against him. Furthermore, it could only mean that the culprit knew the inner workings of the police well.

In other words, the culprit was among the police...

When he arrived at his parents' home, Leather dashed off at top speed without an umbrella, practically tumbling into the house. His heart pounded nonstop as he imagined the worst possible scene.

He climbed the stairs and was relieved to see his mother, who was broken down crying in front of his father's study, along with the investigator looking after her. But that only lasted a moment. He looked in the direction his mother's trembling finger pointed.

What had once been his father was lying there.

"Ah, aaah..."

The stifling stench of blood and the dampness clinging to his cheeks would stick with him forever.

The rain poured down. Without a care for Leather's feelings, the sound of rainfall surged over him like white noise. Down, down, violently stirring up his mind. That sound blocked off all thoughts, and even his senses faded. His consciousness was a twig engulfed by a muddy torrent, sinking deep below. Down to the chaotic depths, deeper, deeper...

"—ah, where..."

Leather was lying on the sofa. He recognized the ceiling. Without a doubt, it was the living room of his parents' house. He stared up at it, ruminating in memory, a sudden wave of relief washing over his chest.

"That's...right. My...dad..."

"Oh, you're up?"

He looked toward the voice to see Thomas and the chief of investigation standing there, sorrow on their faces. They said that they had carried Leather here after he lost consciousness in the bedroom.

"...I'm so sorry for the trouble."

"I'm sorry about this morning. That stuff I said... I didn't think your father would end up..." Thomas apologized, scratching his head instead of bowing.

The chief, too, expressed his concern for him, saying, "Don't push yourself, Leather. You won't be able to conduct a proper investigation like that. You should stay with your mother."

"I'm grateful for your concern... B-But..."

Leather tried to stand, covering his eyes with his left hand.

"Jeez, what're you gonna do, stumbling around like that? You've got bags under your eyes. You hardly get any sleep, do you? I can tell just looking at you."

Leather felt obligated to find out everything about this case. Of course, that was in part because his own father was a victim, but beyond that, the serial murders of the assistant commissioner and former commissioner had cast doubt on the entire police network. Leather himself and his partner Thomas were no exception.

Leather remembered the words Thomas said before.

"If there's another victim from the higher-ups, maybe you'll get promoted too, just like that. And I could make chief eventually, yeah?"

He felt the slightest suspicion of Thomas budding in his heart.

"I-If I dont give it my all right now, then when will I..."

Leather was determined, but a tiny poke from Thomas abruptly sent him falling onto his backside.

"Told you so. I'll take over here, chief. I'm sorry, but could you send him out of here?"

"Understood. I'll see to that."

If he went back to the station like this, Thomas would stay at the scene and destroy evidence. That absurd idea crossed Leather's mind, but he had no more energy to stand, only to stare vacantly at Thomas's face.

I can't decide he's the culprit. That would be too ridiculous...

The chance was actually quite low. It was simply the dark emotions boiling within him that had him jumping at shadows.

After a bit of hesitation, Leather decided to obey his instructions.

"I understand... Take care, sir."

"Yeah, I'll handle the rest."

With some lingering regret, Leather and his mother were taken to the station. Thomas watched them go, then resumed his on-site investigation.

Leather dozed off inside the shaking car. After a series of events so disconnected from reality, he couldn't help but think it was all a bad dream, and he would eventually wake up.

That woman... Yes, it's her. Ever since she appeared, I...

Awake or asleep, she was there. For Leather, the boundary between dreams and reality had become incredibly blurred. His mind was reaching its limit.

"Leather? Are you all right?"

"Yeah... More...or less..."

He turned to speak to his mother sitting to his right.

Except it wasn't his mother sitting there, but the clown woman in a gray mask, tilting her head with a slow creak and staring at him.

"You must be tired... Why don't you sleep a while?"

The mask reflected his own face back at him like a kaleidoscope. Dragging him into an endlessly fragmented world. His unsteady mind collapsed with a crash.

"Y-Y-You! You did this...!"

"What's wrong, Leather? What are you shouting—"

Just as the chief turned around, a gunshot rang out.

----------

Meanwhile...

As Thomas proceeded with his investigation, he found a clue to the culprit on the body.

"Th-This means... Is that even possible...?"

He clenched his fists and ran away from the scene. Then, he snatched the police car parked in front of the house and got in.

"Please... Let me make it in time..."

He started the car in a hurry to catch up with the three who left for headquarters.

The rain that had been pouring down the whole time soon stopped, covering the peaceful country landscape in gloomy gray.

It was after about ten minutes of driving that Thomas found it. The vehicle the chief and the others rode in had veered off course, toppling sideways and scattering debris.

"Whoa... whoa, whoa, whoa!"

Even Thomas couldn't hide his distress at the gruesome sight before him. The situation had gone toward the worst possible outcome at an alarming rate. Hoping things wouldn't get any worse, he ran toward the vehicle.

An arm stretched out weakly from the shattered window glass. It was Leather's mother.

"Shit, I'm too late..."

There was no pulse from her wounded arm.

Next, he reached out to check on the chief, who had been driving. However, he immediately caught sight of the chief's face—when he saw the hollow between his eyebrows, Thomas's outstretched hand wavered in the air with nowhere to go.

"Haha... The bastard really did it..."

An intense feeling of emptiness overcame him, and he collapsed to his knees.

"...Where'd he go?"

He leaned over and looked inside the car again, but Leather was gone. If he was there when it went sideways, he couldn't have gone very far. With that in mind, Thomas looked around.

A set of footprints extended from the vehicle...and at the end, he saw Leather walking with faltering steps.

"It's him...!"

It didn't take long to catch up with the staggering Leather. Leather noticed him rush over and turned around, continuing to mutter inaudible sounds, his eyes unfocused. A few moments later, he seemed to finally recognize Thomas.

"It's you, sir... Thank God... Th-That woman was in the car... The one...in the mask!"

"What are you talking about? There's no one like that anywhere! More importantly, you better tell me everything you've done!"

He threw something at Leather. It was an object he brought back from the crime scene—a bloodstained notebook that held a photo of Leather's face.

"Aha... That's...what I was looking for... Couldn't find it at all... Sir, let's find...that woman, she, she, she, she, sh-sh-she, she, shhhhhh..."

Like a suddenly broken record, Leather repeated the same word. Seeing the state he was in, Thomas finally realized that Leather had lost his mind. He watched as Leather dropped to his knees, slumped his shoulders, and stared vacantly at the ground.

"Hey... What happened to you...?"

He approached the disturbed Leather cautiously and tried to restrain him, but Leather's scream interrupted him. He suddenly faced the sky in a wide-eyed panic.

"Ah, aaahhh! Sir, she's behind you! Let him go...!"

His body shook dramatically, and before Thomas knew it, Leather gripped a gun in his hand. The muzzle pointed straight at Thomas.

He was insane. Looking back at the events so far, it was clear that he either was the killer himself, or he was involved in the crimes in some way.

Having come to that conclusion, Thomas took the gun from his holster and aimed it.

"Shit...! Leather! Drop the gun!"

Leather, the rookie detective and the murderer. Mixed emotions ran through Thomas's head, but right now his top priority was restraining him. Neither of them moved, their guns trained on each other. Thomas glared straight ahead, while Leather seemed to be looking somewhere in the sky. Maintaining his line of sight, Thomas slowly moved his thumb to release the safety.

Amid the tension, the first to move was Leather.

"Why... Why are you pointing your gun at me!? You're working with th-th-that woman too, huh!?" Leather screamed madly, his legs shaking.

Thomas was forced to make his decision.

That was when it happened.

"She's gone!"

From Thomas's perspective, it was only a moment.

Leather was constantly checking his surroundings like a distracted child. The woman he had seen behind Thomas until now was gone. Because she disappeared so suddenly, Leather was about to lower his gun when he heard a voice from out of nowhere.

"...im."

The scene before his eyes passed by ever so slowly. His own breathing and the sound of that voice, however, were excessively clear... It felt like it passed in an instant.

"...ill...him..."

The voice made him shiver. A chill crept up his spine. It was just like back then, when he was paralyzed, unable to move. As if his mind had been cut cleanly from his body.

"Kill him—kill Thomas."

Drawn in by the sweet, resonant voice, Leather focused on the gun in his hand. All that was clear in the colorless scene before him were his own hand and Thomas's suspicious expression.

Before he knew it, thin, wiry fingers covered Leather's hand.

The chill crept higher.

"S-Stop..."

Her fingers intertwined smoothly with his, as if leading him in a dance. Gracefully, she took control of his right hand. Then, her slender fingers slowly wrapped around Leather's index finger and pulled the trigger.

Gunfire resounded, shaking the very air. The bullet hit Thomas in the stomach, slowly staining his shirt red. Unable to get words out of his open mouth, he collapsed to the ground.

It wasn't clear if he was dead or alive. For a moment, Leather felt an awful lightness in his chest, and his mouth twisted unnaturally. It was a sweet feeling, like relief at his problems melting away...

As the woman's presence faded, so did that feeling. When Leather slowly grasped the reality before him, he fled in fear, not even checking whether Thomas was alive. His heavy breathing cleared his mind.

"I, I-I... I k-ki-ki-killed..."

He killed him because a woman only he could see had told him to—who in the world would believe his ravings? His mind had been torn to pieces by this succession of events, so eroded by madness he could no longer distinguish dream from reality.

"I can't go back there anymore... What am I...What am I supposed to do...?"

He had nothing to rely on.

The father he looked up to, the mother who was so kind, the senior he depended on. All destroyed. All scattered.

There was nothing left. His eyes saw nothing left in this world. His overwhelming fear and grief drowned out even his guilt.

"...I've gotta...hide somewhere..."

He looked around. Suddenly, he realized this area was close to the secret base he used to play in as a child.

"Oh, yeah... It should be there..."

He moved onward, drudging up memories from back then. There was at the canal where Leather had once tested his courage. It was a deep, dark place even the light couldn't enter. He walked into the gaping darkness. Here, he could get by for a while.

Shrouded in darkness, Leather finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'd better get moving at night... To a place no one can reach me..."

Overwhelmed by his pent-up fatigue, he sank down to the ground. Eventually, he realized how parched he was. He gulped at the sound of flowing water.

"Now that I think about it, I haven't had any water... Can't remember the last time I drank anything..."

He reached out to scoop up the water. A face was just barely reflected on the water's surface. However, it wasn't the face that should have been there—but that of the woman in the gray mask.

He panicked and jumped back. When he checked behind him, she wasn't there.

Then, her voice trickled into his ear.

"You and I killed them all..."

"Damn it! Where are you!? I'll kill you, too!"

The harrowing, hair-raising sensation made him immediately take out his gun and fire indiscriminately. But the bullets only hit the water and the wall, and nothing happened.

"The culprit...is here..."

He nervously approached the voice resounding from the water's surface. The masked woman reflected in the water simply stared at Leather.

The mask was reflected on the water's surface. Slowly, it changed into a woman's face. He felt like he had seen that beautiful face somewhere before. However, it wasn't a face from his own memory. It was like something born from the unconscious, its beauty eerie and otherworldly.

Her lips moved, and Leather could tell she was speaking to herself. He shouldn't have been able to hear her voice, but he could understand it perfectly.

"Feeling the warmth of a hand held for the first time. The wish of a man filled with hatred for women who refused him, granted."

"The wish of a man who wanted to prove himself to those around him, granted."

Shaken by her words, Leather couldn't help but ask, "Y-You're saying that's what I wanted? To kill them!?"

"Your heartfelt wish was kept tucked away in darkness, was it not? You killed, and killed...and little by little, you were set free."

"I-I wished...for...?"

"The 'me' you saw was a vision you created on your own. I wonder, how does it feel to be reborn as your new self?"

In that moment, a muddy torrent of memories swept over him in waves.

A memory of killing the assistant commissioner. A memory of killing his beloved father. A memory of shooting the chief dead. Then, a memory of shooting his respected senior dead.

Bright, cheerful feelings ran through him with each memory... Was I...smiling back then?

"You killed all of them."

"I-I killed...uh...gh...aaah..."

"My, how pitiful."

The contours of his reality, the world itself, grew vague and distorted, consumed by his rage and remorse. Crying and furious, Leather no longer had the strength to control his emotions.

"No no no, no no no, no no no no no no!"

"This is everything you wanted."

"Shut up! Where are you!?"

He fired at his own face reflected in the water. It was pointless, but he could do nothing else. Water splashed up to his height.

"You are me, and I am you. Accept your reborn self."

Her glimmering mask and her voice that echoed in his mind wouldn't go away. There was no way he would accept the darkness in his own heart.

A murderous urge boiled within him.

Scared, scared, scared. Run away, run away, run away. How can I get away from her...?

"Oh, yeah... I can do...this..."

The disturbed Leather thrust his fingers into his eye sockets. Then, with all his strength, he ripped and tore.

"...There...with this..."

"We are one and the same. Look, you can still see me, can't you?"

They were his own words, uttered unconsciously. When he realized that, Leather's heart collapsed with a crash.

"Why, why...?"

His vision was supposed to be gone, but he could see the woman's figure emerge.

"Ahhhhhh! H-How, why... How can I see you...?"

No matter what he did, he couldn't escape her. Then there was only one option left.

"That's too bad... You'd better aim straight, hmm? If you don't, you won't be able to kill me."

He took the gun from his temple. Then, he pressed the hard muzzle of the gun into his mouth and squeezed the trigger tight.

Having been forcibly discharged from the hospital, Thomas sat alone with his thoughts, smoking a cigarette in the now-defunct headquarters. After discovering the bloody clothing and weapons in Leather's room, there was no doubt he was the one who killed the others. However, he still couldn't believe Leather had committed the previous serial murders.

The prostitute serial murders and Leather's crimes were somehow connected. Not directly, however, but in a way Thomas couldn't put into words. It was his detective's intuition whispering to him.

The origin of his doubts was the bodies of Leather and the serial killer, who committed suicide. The investigation determined that both of them had torn out their eyes with their own hands.

"If it was just suicide, they didn't need to go and pull 'em out. So then why'd they have to do it?"

In Thomas's eyes, that action was from trying to escape from something, and they chose suicide as a result.

"You gotta believe me, sir! I felt her presence, right before going into the bedroom!"

He recalled Leather's words that he had considered nonsense.

"...A woman, huh. It's almost like—"

Almost like the woman's soul had transferred from the killer to Leather.

Thomas had reached such an occultish answer that he quickly dismissed the idea.

"What the hell am I thinking? The investigation is still going. We have to get out of this depressing situation to make it right to the ones who died."

Reinvigorated, Thomas left the room with the investigation materials in hand. A detective's job was steady work. Even with a clue the size of a grain of sand, one could follow the logic to an answer. That was what it meant to be a detective.

"Back to the scene of the crime, again and again. I'll find a lead for sure."

Thomas headed to the scene, determination in his eyes.

----------

Near the scene of Leather's suicide, Thomas stopped the car at the road facing an irrigation canal.

"All right, let's get started."

It was just as he was about to put his hand on the car door handle. A creeping chill ran down his spine.

"...Huh? Jeez, what the hell was that?"

It had only been for an instant. Thomas felt a strange gaze and peered out the window.

Creak, creak...

He looked to see a woman walking down the alley. She was dressed in monochrome, wearing a hat with two points.

Somehow she didn't seem of this world—a clown-like woman.

"Hah, that's funny."

Thomas was astonished, but a detective would latch on to even a small grain of possibility. It was an invariable principle—if he felt there was a chance, he would investigate.

"If she's around here, she might know something."

Creak, creak, creak...

"But what's that sound? It's weird, like it's ringing in my head... Well, better go after her before I lose sight."

Thomas turned the corner of the alley and chased after the woman, who had disappeared.

He stepped forward, like an insect drawn to a street lamp.

Creak, creak...

Into the gloom of the back alley.

...creak, creak, creak.