Chapter 2: Half a Page of Last Words

The rain had stopped, leaving Tokyo’s chill damp air thick with the smell of rust and aged timber. I stared at the tattered manuscript page in my palm, the rough paper fibers gritty under my fingertips, stained with dark, umber smears that weren’t blood but a lacquer mix of cinnabar and pine resin.

Masumi Kitamura had finished packing his haori coat, ready to leave. Before he went, he turned and gave me a look laced with lingering doubt.

“Muneyoshi,” his voice was barely a whisper, as if afraid of disturbing the dark currents outside the window. “The Horiuchi retainers didn’t go out tonight. If that escort isn’t a mole, then someone’s deliberately pushing him into the crossfire.”

I offered no defense. I just folded the manuscript and tucked it inside my sleeve, close to my heart. Right there, warm against my skin, was the last thing my father left me: a rusted Yagyu Clan crest. Once Masumi was gone, I pushed aside the heavy shoji screens. The night wind hit me, carrying the biting cold that always precedes the first snow.

The streets were empty, save for the muffled thud of the watch drum from the distant relay station. I knew the real clue wasn’t in the manuscript. It was on that dead escort’s body. He hadn’t been killed by pirates. On him, he carried ironclad proof pointing straight into the city.

The next morning, the interrogation room at the Machi Horyojo (Town Magistrate's Office) was steeped in the faint scent of mugwort. It’s used to ward off miasma, but in this case, to mask the smell of rot. I stood on one side of the raised platform, watching the old coroner. He was carefully slicing open the escort’s ribcage with a sharp, willow-leaf blade.

The corpse lay flat on a polished black lacquered board. The skin had taken on an unnatural blue-gray cast, a sign of prolonged immersion or poisoning. I didn’t crowd the body; instead, I had Kana Asano keeping notes. Her brush hovered for a second, a drop of ink splashing onto the ledger, blooming into a small black flower.

“Muneyoshi-sama,” she looked up, her gaze sharp as a hawk’s. “The stiffness of the joints on this body fits rigor mortis that’s set in at least twelve hours after death. But if the killer struck while the victim was still stiff, those joints shouldn’t be this rigid.”

I shook my head, my voice calm. “Rigor is a natural post-mortem process. It has nothing to do with when the killer made his move. Stop looking at the joints. Look at the last thing he touched before he died.”

I walked over to the body and crouched, my eyes landing on the back of the escort’s right hand. A deep ligature mark ran across the skin, the broken area crusted with dried scabs. Below the mark, jammed in the webbing between his fingers, were a few tiny red grains.

I extended a gloved finger and gently pinched one of the red grains, holding it up to the morning light filtering through the window lattice. The grain refracted a dim, oily sheen. It wasn’t standard cinnabar powder. It was a pigment, ground incredibly fine, mixed with some kind of grease.

“This is Crimson Mist,” I murmured, my eyes flicking to Kana. “Inside the Empire, few people use this specific cinnabar mix in bulk—except for repairing temple murals and rust-proof coatings on state-made weapons.”

Kana narrowed her eyes, her brush racing across the ledger. The ink was still wet, but her brow furrowed deeper. “Crimson Mist? I checked the canal cargo manifests for the last three years. The Horiuchi Zaibatsu’s lacquerware workshops do import bulk cinnabar, but it’s all ‘Dandong’ cinnabar for decorative work. Coarse stuff. Nothing like this fine texture.”

I stood up and moved to the corpse’s feet. I untied the muddy straw sandals from his feet, flipped the soles over, and inspected them against the light. Iron nails, already rusted, were embedded in the edges. In the gaps around the nails, small white crystals were wedged in. I scraped off a little with my fingertip and brought it to my nose.

The smell was briny, with a faint stench of fish. Definitely not regular dirt or sweat. It was high-concentration sea salt.

“Sea salt?” Masumi Kitamura was standing in the doorway, arms crossed, his face unreadable. “Why would a land-route escort have sea salt crystals on his shoes?”

I turned to the Magistrate, a man who was as upright as he was stubborn. “Masumi Magistrate, the canal docks in Tokyo see thousands of ships coming and going daily. Sailors and laborers hauling cargo easily pick up salt crystals from evaporated seawater on their soles. But the key is this: that warehouse is inland, not at a port.

If the dead man’s shoes really have sea salt, it means he recently visited a port, or he handled goods that had just been shipped from one and hadn’t been air-dried yet.”

I pointed to the arrow wound on the back of the escort’s left shoulder. The edges were already blackening, but the arrowhead hadn’t fully sunk into the flesh; it was lodged sideways near the shoulder blade.

“This arrow came in from the rear-left to the front-right. The entry angle was shallow, which tells us the shooter wasn’t taking a long-range precision shot. It was a close-quarters ambush, likely fired from below or the side in the middle of a scuffle.”

Masumi scowled, pacing over to the body to inspect the arrow wound himself. He crouched, traced the trajectory, then stood up, his gaze hardening. “If the arrow came from the side, that means the shooter was at a lower level or behind cover. Did the escort yell out or move in a specific direction before he died?”

I nodded, pulling a small scrap of cloth from my pocket. It was the heart-guard padding I’d torn from the escort’s waist, still bearing the vibration patterns of a final, muffled cry.

“Based on the tear direction of the muscle fibers, his body jerked violently to the left before the arrow hit. Combined with the grip strength in his right hand, it’s highly likely he was trying to grab something on his left, or pushing the attacker away.”

Kana chimed in, her voice cool and pragmatic, carrying that sharp accountant’s edge. “Muneyoshi-sama, if you connect the dots of the cinnabar, the sea salt, and the arrow’s trajectory, it doesn’t point to a pirate camp. It points to the government canal warehouses in the west of the city.

They’re storing state-allocated lacquer and sea salt, and due to the recent storms, their inventory controls have slacked off. Several patrol squads were reassigned.”

“You’re saying the killer is hiding in the government warehouse?” Masumi asked, sounding almost skeptical. “That’s the emperor’s own eye. No matter how arrogant the Horiuchi Zaibatsu is, they wouldn’t dare commit murder right under the government’s nose.”

I gave a light chuckle, though it didn’t reach my eyes. “You’re only asking ‘if they dare,’ Masumi Magistrate, but you’re ignoring ‘how.’ Horiuchi doesn’t need to show his face. He just needs to move the middlemen who rely on the canal routes. Use the chaos to stage the body as a pirate killing. And this escort? He was probably one of those ‘middlemen.’”

I placed that grain of cinnabar on the back of Masumi’s hand. The red speck glared against his skin. “This wasn’t just surveillance. It was a hunt. He wasn’t looking for gold or silver. He was looking for proof that Horiuchi was monopolizing canal rights and skimming off government-ordered production.”

Just then, the bright chime of a wind bell drifted in from outside, breaking the heavy tension in the room. I looked up to see a woman standing in the doorway, wearing a plain gray kasaya. Two young monks stood behind her. She was gaunt, her eyes lowered, but there was a quiet, unmissable power to her presence. It was Ayano Ono, the abbess of Seiren Temple.

She didn’t step inside. She stood behind the half-open door, her gaze dropping to the corpse, then slowly moving to the tattered manuscript in my hand.

“Doctor Muneyoshi,” her voice was soft but every word was distinct. “I recognize this paper.” I tightened my grip on the manuscript, holding my guard. Ayano stepped into the room, her footsteps light against the blue stone floor.

She stopped beside the body, not touching it, just studying the creases and texture of the paper.

“Thirty years ago,” Ayano said, her finger brushing a gold thread on the manuscript’s edge, “Seiren Temple sealed a set of fragmentary scrolls called the Canal Chart. The paper was made with a special Mica Slurry paste, incredibly strong, with a faint sandalwood scent. The fiber alignment on this manuscript matches the Canal Chart perfectly.”

Masumi stepped forward immediately, his voice urgent. “Abbess, you’re saying this manuscript came from the archives the government sealed?”

Ayano nodded, her expression complex. “The Canal Chart documents the contractual relationship between the Yagyu Clan and the Canal Office, involving massive profit rights and land ownership. Thirty years ago, a fire was the official story for its destruction. In reality, it was moved to a secret location for safekeeping.

Last year, someone tried to steal these fragments from our temple. I intercepted them.” She turned to me, a flicker of pity in her eyes. “Doctor Muneyoshi, your father… he disappeared while searching for the Canal Chart.”

“Disappeared?” I pressed, my voice trembling slightly with agitation. “Or dead?” Ayano was silent for a moment. The air seemed to freeze. She turned to Masumi, her tone serious. “Magistrate Masumi, I’m telling you this because I trust the impartiality of the Machi Horyojo (Town Magistrate's Office).

But know this: if this gets public, everyone involved in that sealing—or the destruction of evidence back then—will see me as an enemy.” Masumi clenched his fists, his knuckles white. “Abbess, please speak. If it involves my father’s bloodline, I will investigate to the very end.”

Ayano took a deep breath, her gaze falling on the cold corpse. “That escort wasn’t a pirate. He was sent by Horiuchi to retrieve the remaining part of the Canal Chart. Before he died, he asked one of our traveling monks about any mentions of the ‘Yagyu Clan.’

He thought our temple held the complete Canal Chart. In reality, we only hold one page of a ‘final testament.’”

I flinched, looking down at the manuscript in my hand. Up until now, I’d been focused on the paper’s origin and the cinnabar stains, never truly reading the text. Now, guided by Ayano, I examined the scrawled lines of small script. The writing was slanted, written in a hurry, the brushstrokes broken, radiating extreme fear and despair.

“This line,” I pointed, my voice rough. “‘If this scroll resurfaces, then the Yagyu bloodline is not cut. The crime of the canal is not the fault of the dead, but the evil of the living.’” Masumi’s face went pale instantly. He looked at me, shock flooding his eyes. “Muneyoshi, your father…

He left you a clue to clear his name in that manuscript?”

“No,” I shook my head, a complex emotion churning in my chest. “It’s not just about clearing a name. It’s a warning. ‘The evil of the living’ refers to those who currently hold real power over the canals. This manuscript was written under duress. He wasn’t just recording the truth. He was guiding his descendants to find the complete Canal Chart.”

Kana was flipping through the ledger nearby when she suddenly looked up, a flash of insight in her eyes. “Muneyoshi-sama, if the Canal Chart’s location is the key to this whole mess, why did the Horiuchi Zaibatsu send an escort to Seiren Temple? Don’t they know the Abbess already intercepted some fragments? Unless… they suspect she’s hiding another secret that hasn’t been revealed.”

Ayano stood up, adjusting the collar of her kasaya, her expression grave. “Ms. Asano is right. What I intercepted was only a part. The rest was taken by that missing escort. He thought he was stealing it. In reality, it was the last testament his father left for him.

Until the very end, he didn’t understand that he wasn’t chasing wealth. He was chasing his father’s innocence.” I looked at Ayano, my gaze firm. “Abbess, please bring out that section. I need to compare the paper texture and handwriting to confirm if they’re from the same person and written at the same time.”

Ayano produced an exquisite wooden box from her sleeve. Opening it, inside lay a yellowed paper scroll. I placed the two scrolls side by side, my fingers rubbing over the paper, feeling the subtle differences in the fibers.

Back inside the room, Masumi had arranged for Kana’s messengers to leave. I looked at the black box, my gaze sweeping over the group. Ayano had her hands pressed together, softly chanting sutras. Kana was organizing her ledgers, her expression unreadable. Masumi stood with his hands behind his back, brow furrowed. I reached out, my fingertips touching the latch. The metal was cold, almost biting. In that moment, time seemed to stop.

I realized that opening this box meant stepping irrevocably into the heart of the vortex. There was no turning back. And what lay inside was either the key to solving the riddle of the “Sleeping Yagyu,” or a lethal trap set by Horiuchi. I took a deep breath and slowly released the latch.