Tokyo Detective Chronicles

Miyazawa Rin took a deep breath and walked to the center of the open space.

She closed her eyes, slowly raised her hands, palms facing the air.

A deep blue light emerged from the depths of her pupils, gradually spreading and covering her entire eyeball.

Spiritual ability [Reappearance], activated.

At first, nothing happened.

A few seconds later, the air above the open space began to distort, like a scene seen through a heatwave.

The light is refracted and folded, creating double images of objects.

Then, the scene began to appear.

First, there was the sound... the children's chorus, clear, ethereal, and sacred.

To her surprise, Miyazawa Rin discovered that after what had happened, her abilities had actually evolved; she could now hear the sounds from the recreated world…

The song echoed through the ruins, and Fushimi could tell that it was a hymn of praise to God that should only be found in a church, with a solemn and dignified melody.

Immediately afterwards, figures appeared one after another.

There were twelve children, both boys and girls, all around six or seven years old. They were dressed in matching white robes, barefoot, and standing in a circle, holding hands.

Each child's eyes were covered with a white cloth strip, which was tied in a simple knot behind their head.

Their expressions were eerily calm, devoid of fear, curiosity, or the liveliness expected of children their age.

Of them, only one will remain... as the incarnation of the Lord of Life.

The children stood quietly, their faces upturned, their lips moving as they sang that sacred song.

"Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus..." (Holy, holy, holy...)

The song echoed among the ruins, and all that lay before them was desolation and ruin.

Fushimi stood there, sealing Hoshino's sight and hearing with a talisman... He had a feeling that something terrible was about to happen.

Rin Miyazawa's body began to tremble.

The deep blue light flickered violently in her eyes, and a fine layer of cold sweat beaded on her forehead. Recreating a scene from the past on this scale was clearly a huge burden for her.

The scene continues to unfold.

When the children sang a certain part, they simultaneously raised their right hands, palms up, in a gesture of dedication. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, as if they had rehearsed countless times.

Then, two figures appeared in the corner.

The woman wore a white lab coat and glasses, her hair loosely tied in a bun at the back of her head. She leaned against a half-collapsed wall, a cigarette between her fingers, the butt glowing in the dim light.

It was Dr. Hoshino when he was young.

She smoked a cigarette, her eyes fixed on the children in the room, her face expressionless.

Standing next to her was a man in his thirties, dressed in a clergyman's robe, his hands forming complex hand gestures.

His lips moved rapidly as he muttered something, and black blood slowly seeped from his seven orifices, sliding down his cheeks.

But he didn't stop or wipe it; he just stared intently at the center of the field.

The children's chanting reached its climax at this moment.

"Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi..." (The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world...)

At this very moment...

A gigantic black hand emerged from the void without warning.

The palms were ridiculously large, with the fingers spread out almost covering the entire open space... The skin was pure black, with honeycomb-like holes covering the surface.

It hovered above the children's heads for a moment.

Then, gently pinch with your thumb and forefinger.

"puff."

The head exploded like a ripe watermelon.

Red and white liquid and shards splashed onto the white robes and faces of the children around them, but they seemed oblivious and continued singing without a tremor in their voices.

"Dona nobis pacem..." (Grant us peace...)

the second.

The third.

One by one.

Amidst the sacred singing, the black hand moved slowly and deliberately, and heads exploded one after another, like small flowers gradually blooming under the warm sun.

The singing remains the same.

Against the backdrop of the pure and holy children's choir, there are muffled sounds of skulls exploding and the pattering of liquids splashing.

Fushimi felt a churning in his stomach... He looked away and glanced at Dr. Hoshino in the corner.

The woman was still smoking.

Smoke billowed from her lips, rising slowly in the dim light. Her expression remained numb, but Fushimi noticed that her fingers holding the cigarette were trembling slightly.

The cigarette ash had accumulated to a long length, but she didn't flick it off.

the seventh.

"Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth..."

(Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth...)

The eleventh.

In the center of the ruins, only one child remained.

Her white robe was stained dark red, and broken flesh and brains were scattered on the ground. The last child was still singing, the blindfold soaked with blood and stuck to his face.

A drop of blood slid down her cheek, like a tear.

Dr. Hoshino finally finished his cigarette.

She threw the cigarette butt on the ground and stubbed it out with the sole of her shoe.

Then she reached out and forcefully pressed down on the shoulder of the man next to her.

The man was on the verge of his limit, bleeding profusely from all seven orifices, his body trembling violently, and he could barely maintain his hand seals. But he still obediently followed her and knelt down before the girl in the center of the arena.

The two men placed their foreheads on the ground, adopting the most respectful kneeling posture.

The last child... was the chosen incarnation of the Lord of Life...

They are waiting.

We await the final child to be chosen, and we await the arrival of the Lord of Life.

The black hand stopped on the head of the last child.

It was a little girl, her long, dark brown hair peeking out from the edge of the cloth strip, fluttering slightly in the bloody wind. She tilted her head back, her lips moving as she sang the last verse.

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

(And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil...)

The palm slowly descended—

"puff……"

The singing abruptly stopped.

silence.

A deathly silence, suffocating and unbearable, filled the air. All twelve chosen children were dead…

Dr. Hoshino and the man remained kneeling on the ground, their foreheads pressed against the cold earth. A few seconds later, the man blankly raised his head and looked towards the center of the arena…

He opened his mouth, his throat trembled slightly, but he couldn't make a sound.

Twelve headless corpses, dressed in blood-stained white robes, stood hand in hand in a circle.

The ceremony...failed?

No.

The appearance of the Lord of Life indicates that the ceremony is complete... He has made His choice.

But... who was chosen?

Is there a thirteenth child here?

These two adults, so corrupt, could never be the Lord's choice...

The man's gaze swept blankly over the corpses, finally settling on the woman beside him, Dr. Hoshino.

No, not her.

It's her abdomen.

Dr. Hoshino was still wearing a white coat, which was loose and made it impossible to tell anything.

But the man stared intently at that spot, his pupils contracting little by little, his face displaying an expression that was a mixture of shock, ecstasy, and some other emotion that Fushimi couldn't understand.

He got it.

Dr. Hoshino finally realized what was happening.

She sat up abruptly, her hand pressed against her lower abdomen, her pupils trembling violently.

Cold sweat instantly soaked her back, and her white coat clung to her skin, outlining the lines of her body that were tense with fear.

"vomit--"

She suddenly bent over and began to gag violently.

There was nothing in my stomach, only acid and bile rising up my throat, burning my esophagus.

She vomited violently, tears and snot mingling and covering her face. Her fingers dug so hard into the ground that her nails broke and bled.

The man had already prostrated himself on the ground again, kneeling in her direction with the utmost devotion.

It was as if the unborn child in her womb was the Lord himself.

Dr. Hoshino, his eyes red, looked up at the children's corpses.

Those broken, blood-stained little bodies, hand in hand, stood in the pool of blood.

Her vision blurred, and an unprecedented fear washed over her...

Then she hurriedly turned around and looked at the man kneeling beside her.

The last trace of color drained from her face, leaving only a deathly pallor. She reached into her white coat pocket and pulled something out... an old-fashioned pistol.

The gun was pointed at the man's head.

The man seemed to notice, his body stiffened for a moment, but he didn't move or look up... because one cannot look directly at a god.

"Bang!"

Gunshots rang out amidst the ruins.

The man's body fell forward, blood splattering onto Dr. Hoshino's white coat. She gripped the gun, her hand trembling, the muzzle still smoking.

She just stood there, standing there, like a stiff sculpture.

After a long while, she slowly lowered her head and looked at her still flat stomach.

His lips moved, but no sound came out.

But from the shape of his mouth, Fushimi read three words through lip reading:

"...Why?"

The scene was shattered, and the empty space returned to silence.