Blades of Despair

-Chapter Sixty-Three-

An Impossible Crime

What did Morino just say? Morihei is the traitor? That's-
"WHAT?" Mina bellowed. "Morino! How dare you accuse Morihei of being the traitor! She can't be the traitor!"
"Yeah, what the fuck, Morino!" Nishi shouted. "Why are you calling her a traitor? You're a suspect too!"
"Guys, please," Morihei implored them. "I appreciate that you're coming to my defense, but I'm the one who is being accused. I can stand up for myself."
"Morihei!" Mina cried tearfully, but Morihei smiled at her encouragingly.
"It's okay, Mina. Please, do not worry about me." Morihei's smile vanished as she returned her attention to Morino. "Before you go on, Morino, I want to ask you something."
"Yes?" Morino didn't look like he even wanted to continue the conversation. For the first time, Morino looked vulnerable, and that only served to enhance my anxieties about the direction this trial was going. Morino's serious about this. He really believes she's the traitor.
"If you're going to declare that I am the traitor," Morihei stated firmly, "then are you prepared to stand by that argument?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Because if your logic is not sound, then you risk becoming the most suspicious person of all," she told him. "I'm giving you a chance to retract your remark. If you do, then we can resume our earlier discussions. However, if not-"
"That won't be necessary," Morino interrupted her. "I am aware of the repercussions of my actions, but I do not fear them. I am sure that the truth will appear. Do you, Morihei?"
"Undoubtedly, Morino." What's going on? How are they both so calm about this? "How long have you suspected that I am the traitor?"
"Longer than I want to admit," Morino said immediately. "I had my suspicions ever since Ouji and Tokunaga's trial, but now I am certain that I have arrived at a correct verdict."
"That long ago?" Ori exclaimed. "How?"
"Well, I've had my suspicions about Morihei for a while now. You see, her alibi in Ouji and Tokunaga's trial has remained flimsy to me, even after we figured out the truth behind their deaths."
"My alibi? I thought we already established that I was innocent of killing Ouji and Tokunaga. Are you suggesting we were wrong?"
"No, not that we were wrong," Morino denied. "After all, had that been the case, we all would have been executed. However, there is one element of that case that we never solved - Tokunaga's defiled body."
"That is true," Nishi mused, "but are you seriously suggesting that Morihei did that to him? And what would her motive be? No new evidence has been found that might be relevant to that case."
"Actually, there might be," Ori said, a look of understanding etched into her eyes.
"Really?" Nishi replied, doubtful.
"Why don't we ask the person who found it then? Mina." Ori gestured towards the shorter girl, who looked vexed by the sudden attention.
"Me? Did I find something important?" She asked, dumbfounded.
"Could you tell us what you found in the insectarium when you were investigating with Morihei? Before Yoneda's death." Ori requested of her, and there was spark in Mina's eyes as she recalled what Ori was referring to.
"Ah! Those things! Hmm... okay, but I don't really know how they could be relevant," Mina pressed a button on her Seiko-pad, and everyone else's flashed. On my screen I saw two scraps of fabric. One was red, and was clearly a scrap of dyed cotton, presumably from an item of clothing. The other was black, and upon close inspection it seemed to be made of a plastic or polymer, but I wasn't immediately sure what it could be.
"You found these inside the insectarium, Mina?" Morino was surprised to see these pieces of evidence, as was I. This is... troubling.
"Yes, but I don't know what they are," Mina said glumly, scrutinising the pictures she had taken.
"Miyagawa, perhaps we could rely on your skills as an appraiser here?" Nishi suggested. I nodded and cleared my throat.
"I can attest to the fact that the red item is a cotton fabric, most likely from a piece of clothing. The black item is a little trickier to identify, but it's definitely a plastic of some kind. My best guess would be that it came from a garbage bag."
"A red piece of clothing and a garbage bag," Mina repeated. "Why would those items be-?" She didn't finish her sentence, for at that moment Ori gasped loudly.
"Ori? What's wrong?" I called her name, but Ori was staring wide-eyed at her own Seiko-pad. She pointed a shaking finger at her screen.
"That red cloth... it can't be!"
"Do you know what it is?" Nishi demanded.
"Umm... it's only because we were recently talking about Tokunaga. Wasn't the suit that he always wore the same colour?" I froze. She's right... this fabric-!
"You're absolutely right, Ori," Morino agreed, despite the shocked expression on his face.
"Why is a scrap of Tokunaga's clothing in the insectarium?" Nishi shouted. "I thought he was in the forbidden classroom before he died? He only went to the garden to retrieve a rock to kill Ouji."
"I don't think Tokunaga did go to the insectarium, Nishi," I replied.
"Huh? Then how-?"
"That isn't to say that parts of him didn't wind up there, though." Nishi's eyes bugged.
"You're saying that Tokunaga's severed limbs, still wrapped in his original clothes, were taken to the insectarium?" Morihei snorted. "Do you have any proof?"
"The black plastics," I told her. "If they are from a garbage bag, then that would explain how there were no traces of blood outside of the forbidden classroom. Tokunaga's arms and legs were undoubtedly removed from the scene of Ouji's murder, but not a single drop of blood was spilled. Obviously, the traitor placed his arms and legs inside a plastic bag to stop the flowing blood from leaving a trail, and took them to the insectarium."
"That is plausible," Morihei admitted, "but there is no indication that I was the one who did it."
"You and Nishi are the only surviving people here that were on the third floor at any point before Ouji and Tokunaga died," Morino countered. "The difference between you two is that Nishi had an alibi thanks to spending time with Mitsumi. You on the other hand, Morihei, do not." At this point, I was expecting the Ultimate Coleopterist to look shaken, anxious or even confess. Despite the flurry of accusations, she had kept her cool the entire time, not flinching or indicating slightly that we were hitting the truth of this case. Are we wrong? Is she really not the traitor?
"There is also a refrigeration unit inside the insectarium, correct?" Ori added. "It would be possible for the traitor to hide the body parts in that unit. That would have ensured that they remained... fresh for longer." She shivered as she thought about the image she had conjured.
"Now that I think about it," I mused, "I seem to recall that we never checked the insectarium before Ouji and Tokunaga's trial. Why was that?"
"That's a good point," Morino agreed. "Looking back, we only focused on the garden and the shed due to the evidence we found, in other words the rock and missing items. Nobody ever searched the insectarium. Also, based on our alibis that night, we know that Morihei was the only one that was in there."
"That may be true, but we also concluded that Ouji and Tokunaga died after I had left that floor," Morihei argued.
"We only thought that way because that's what you testified," I shot back. "The rock that Tokunaga used to kill Ouji came from the gravestone that Nishi and Mitsumi built. During the trial, you told us that the grave was still intact when you left the insectarium, meaning that Ouji and Tokuanga were still alive at that point."
"Which was the truth," Morihei replied, confused.
"So you say," I scoffed. "However, that could have been a very easy lie for you to tell, Morihei. By that part of the trial, we had ruled out the theory that you were the traitor, so you were free to obfuscate your testimony as much as you wanted. Now that you're under suspicion again, we have to call into question the validity of your statements, as you technically have no alibi."
"Am I to understand," Morihei began to summarise, "that you are accusing me of lying about leaving the insectarium when I did? That I waited for Tokunaga to kill Ouji, trapped him inside the classroom so that Monomenon could execute him, removed his limbs and stored them inside the insectarium's refrigeration unit?"
"You are the only person who could have done those things, Morihei," Morino countered. "Furthermore, if you weren't the traitor, then the bag containing Tokunaga's limbs would have been a huge surprise once you found them inside the insectarium."
"I see," Nishi realised.
"See what? I don't understand what's going on!" Mina exclaimed. She was completely crestfallen as she spectated the fight between Morihei and myself, Morino and Ori. She must be so torn. She doesn't want to believe that Morihei is the traitor, but I can tell that our arguments are making sense to her. She's starting to believe us, and it's breaking her up inside... Mina, I'm so sorry, but this is the only way we're going to survive.
"If Morihei did indeed find the bag containing Tokunaga's body parts in the refrigeration unit," Nishi explained, "then she would have immediately told us what she found, right? But she didn't say anything..."
"And the only reason she would have hidden that from us is because she was the one who planted them there. Well, Morihei, do you have any objections?" I asked her, my own chest aching. I do not want to do this, Morihei, but your actions have left us no choice. You killed Iowa and Yoneda, and you're the reason Yoneda went off the rails. I just don't understand why! I thought you were our friend, Morihei!
"I understand where all of this is coming from," she said after a few moments of thinking, "but this is all conjecture. There is no evidence to suggest that any of this is true, and if you're wrong, you will kill us all. Quite frankly, it is unfair to risk everyone's lives on the basis that at some point I was near the place where Tokunaga and Ouji died."
"Very well," Morino conceded, "you are right. We did not find any evidence during our investigations."
"Really? You're giving up, just like that?" Mina was shocked.
"No," Morino was smiling, but it was a smile that unnerved even me. "I am simply suggesting that we focus on evidence that was given to us."
"Evidence that was given to us?" Nishi repeated.
"Yoneda's note," Morino retrieved the scrap of paper from his pocket and held it up to us. "These numbers. Eleven, thirty and seven."
"Did you decipher what they mean?" Morino nodded, and I was mystified. "But, did we not all say that we had found nothing?"
"I lied," Morino replied, unfazed. "Yoneda's note did lead us to a clue about the killer and traitor's identity, but I would not have realised it without Mina's assistance." Mina squeaked at the mention of her name.
"Me? What did I do?"
"You were the one who reasoned that the numbers might relate to a library book, yes? Well, you were correct."
"I was?"
"Ridiculous! How can a book be proof that I am the traitor?" Morihei jeered.
"I must clarify one point first," Morino stated. "The note does not refer to three numbers, but two. We had believed that we were looking for a book with a reference of eleven, thirty and seven, but we missed a crucial and distinct possibility. Instead of eleven, thirty and seven, what if Yoneda's note was actually eleven and thirty-seven?"
"That... would make sense," Ori admitted. "The references followed a particular pattern. They each began with the letter that corresponded to the section the book was in, followed by a two-digit number, then a three-digit number. Eleven and thirty-seven would fit that criteria if you put a zero in front of the thirty-seven, which would indeed be three digits."
"In other words, eleven, zero, thirty-seven," Nishi abridged Ori's explanation.
"Was there a book with this reference though?" I hastened Morino for an answer.
"Yes. In fact it was this one," Morino pressed his Seiko-pad's screen and an image of a dense, thick book appeared on my screen. When I read the title, my heart plummeted.
"An Advanced Encyclopedia on Coleoptera," I read aloud. I looked over at Morihei, and for the first time in this trial, she seemed unsettled, and I saw faint traces of panic in her eyes.
"This encyclopedia has a reference of 'C11-037', and it is my understanding that Yoneda was referring to this book in his note. It's too much of a coincidence," Morino declared.
"But does it really contain anything that confirms that I am the traitor?" Morihei challenged. "This could be a very elaborate bluff."
"No, it is no bluff," Morino told her. "You see, Yoneda must have known that this would happen, that we would eventually come to this discussion. He left us another clue." With those words, Morino touched his Seiko-pad again, and another image flashed. It was a close-up photograph of a page from the encyclopedia, one paragraph of which had been circled in red pen. Next to it was an annotation, which simply read 'YN.' Yoneda Naosuke, I thought.
"What's this all about, Morino?" Mina questioned him. "Does this photo really prove that Morihei is what you say she is?"
"By all means, read it and see for yourself," Morino gestured towards the screen, and I peered down at my own and began to read.