Tokyo bombing incident Nth time

The entity that leaves the most traces of its energy in the environment is undoubtedly the one that has had the greatest impact on it; in this case, it's the one that ultimately caused the gas explosion. And based on past experience, the one with the greater impact is clearly the outsider. If the local defenders had caused the gas explosion, they should still be there afterwards.

But no, I couldn't sense the familiar aura of the arsonist at all.

Furthermore, the objects in the room appeared to have been influenced by some kind of supernatural force, but this influence had waned to the point where no effect could be observed. This had never happened at any of the previous locations.

Then... the situation at the scene showed that the explosion started in the kitchen—but the fires in other rooms, whether it was the living room next to the kitchen or rooms separated by a floor like bedrooms and studies, were about the same size. In fact, the fire was the smallest in the living room.

Yuri had to admit that this time it really didn't seem to be the arsonist's doing.

The explosion originated in the kitchen, but the flames did not originate in the kitchen—the flames originated in the living room.

Because of some process whose principle is not yet clear, an influence spread out in a ring from the living room, igniting the surrounding rooms. The kitchen, which had a gas pipe connection, was instantly ignited when it came into contact with an open flame... That's the correct order.

Finally... in the flames, the body did not catch fire. Yuri saw a white line, but the area around the white line was clean, without the blackened marks that should be present on a burning object.

Although it was only circumstantial evidence, the fact that the police were able to find features on the body and compare them with the neighbors' descriptions shows that if the body was truly charred, the neighbors' descriptions would be very different from the descriptions of the body.

An absurd thought popped into Yuri's mind, as if the victim had suddenly self-destructed for some reason.

Haha, that's definitely not true. If it were true, the closer the flame was to the victim, the more intense the burn would be.

Unless the impact of this self-destruction on the surrounding area is random, it is absolutely impossible.

Regardless, Yuri made the final judgment—this incident was not the work of the arsonist they were currently tracking. Both the sequence of events and the traces at the scene suggested it was unrelated to the target.

This explosion also involved supernatural forces, which explains why the reporter misjudged the situation. However, now is definitely not the best time to investigate what kind of supernatural force this is; once it's determined that it's unrelated to our current objective, we should stop.

Yuri was unwilling to give up. He focused his attention, infused his eyes with spiritual essence, and gave the house one last look.

This time, he looked at everything, both the noteworthy and the unnoteworthy.

Excluding the effects of fire and water, the house should have been quite well-maintained, so tidy that it lacked any sense of life.

The melted gas stove was last touched by someone several dozen hours ago, and judging from the rate at which the residual spiritual energy dissipated, its influence was likely effective about twenty hours ago. It's hard to say exactly how many hours ago it reached its peak.

An air switch, or circuit breaker, used to cut off the current when the current is too high, has been deliberately removed. It will never cut off the power, but it may cause a fire at any time.

The exposed electrical wire, which was reportedly clutched in the body's hand, was heated and then stopped; it had already oxidized. It is estimated that the last intense heating occurred about three days ago.

...Three days ago?

Yuri gave it a final review.

The person died three days ago (the power was turned on approximately three days ago), the fire was started more than half a day ago (according to the reporter's records, the neighbors who were awakened by the explosion should not have misheard), the fire started in the living room (inferred from the equal damage to the surrounding rooms), and the time of the spiritual aura's descent was close to the time of the explosion (according to Yuri's brain test results).

Conclusion: For unknown reasons, approximately two days after the victim's death, something in the living room ignited a ring of fire, which caused a nearby fire and ignited a gas pipeline.

Based on current understanding, this is probably the most typical spontaneous combustion phenomenon in this incident.

Although Yuri wanted to continue investigating, he knew that would probably go on forever—he definitely couldn't use this trick repeatedly next time.

This wasn't the target's doing; there's one last place left.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Inside the parking lot, Yuri found a parking space with signs of an explosion.

Nearby vehicles, whether damaged or not, have been moved, leaving only an empty space and two cars stacked together.

But in Yuri's unique perspective, things are not like that.

There were no other burning remains of spirits, but the spiritual aura of the target was definitely left here.

The intensity is not high, but it does exist.

Considering that this is actually the closest in time, the fact that the spiritual energy is so fragile suggests that the spirits here probably did not put up an effective resistance and were killed directly.

He's a weakling, probably even weaker than Yuri.

Its resistance wasn't strong enough, which was very bad for it, leading to its disintegration. But it was good news for the other vehicles; with less entanglement, there wasn't much fire, and none of the other vehicles were ignited. In fact, even the old car now lying upside down on another vehicle didn't suffer much structural damage, except for a hole in its undercarriage.

The flames ignited the fuel tank, and the blast of the explosion tore through the old metal plate beneath the vehicle. The reaction force then propelled the vintage car into the air. Because the fuel tank was not in the center of the vehicle, the flying car spun several times before crashing into the innocent victim's car.

This is what the target did.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

It took several hours, until around 1 a.m., for Yuri to finish running around the site.

The streets were deserted, and sending Yuri alone to track down the target would violate their previous agreement.

Well then, it's time to go back and report to Akemi.

This trip was very fruitful, but there are still some mysteries that need to be solved.

Yuri rushed back to his residence in a great hurry, only to find that Akemi had not yet returned.

She said she was going to stay up all night researching, and it seems she was serious.

"Fine, there are some things Yuri can do himself," he thought, taking out the map left by Minmei and beginning to study the arsonist's route.

It's not impossible to compare memories in the brain, but it's better to use physical objects.

Yuri gestured on the map, connecting locations by time. After eliminating the second to last one, the situation became clearer, but there were still some oddities.

The arsonist did indeed move along a spiritual vein, which could even be considered one of the main spiritual veins.

In other words, it suddenly deviated from the spiritual vein for unknown reasons—if it had continued along its own path, it should have reached a spiritual vein intersection, which is a train station, and if it had been blown up, it could have caused a large number of innocent casualties.

Unsure of the reason for its deviation, Yuri considered several possibilities, including but not limited to the government having defensive forces here, other powerful spirits occupying the area, or the emergence of spirit gangs due to the strength of the spiritual veins.

In short, it's a good omen, because after deviating from the spiritual vein, if it continues to move forward in a new direction, it will need to pass through a long blank area—given its ferocity, it may not be able to stand the loneliness and turn back.

If you don't go back to the station, you go around the station to a spot a little behind it.

Its movement path has been greatly restricted. Yuri gestured around the area, which was roughly an elliptical region with a major axis of four or five kilometers.

Yuri believed he had found out where the other party might go next.

It's even possible that the other side has already arrived there. They probably didn't stop moving while Yuri was searching for information.

We need to stop it quickly. It might still be possible to do it now, but if we wait another day, it will probably be too late. Once we cross this space, the remaining spiritual veins are extremely complex—in other words, they can go wherever they want.

In fact, if it deflected to the other side instead of this one, tracing it would be much more difficult. The side of the veil is more likely to have access to various branching paths.

"Contact Akemi immediately," Yuri said, pulling out the coin he'd used in the phone booth.

Having memorized Mingmei's phone number beforehand was useful, but I didn't expect to be able to use it so soon.

Author's message

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I wish you all a happy National Day.

Chapter Sixty-Five: Waiting for a Rabbit to Run into a Tree Stump

Carrying a few coins, I went to the midnight street and walked to an empty phone booth.

It was suspicious, but since no one was watching, Yuri started dialing.

Mingmei answered her phone after it rang three times.

"Who is this?" A tired voice came from inside.

“It’s me,” Yuri replied quickly. “I don’t know if you’ve made any progress, but I’ve made a lot. I think I’ve figured out their route.”

Unless the other side retraces its steps or actually moves into the blank area, which Minmei previously said was a low-probability event, Yuri very much hopes it is indeed a low-probability event.

"What?" Mingmei on the other end of the phone immediately perked up. "How did you find—no, don't tell me now, I'll come find you right away, we'll talk when we meet."

“No problem, I’m still in that phone booth—you went there by bike, right?” Yuri quickly calculated the time and distance in his mind.

"That's right, what's wrong? Is there anything special about the car?"

"It's nothing, let me estimate the time—you should come back as soon as possible, and then we can talk."

Yuri estimated that it would be faster for Akemi to come back and take Yuri with her than to meet at the designated destination, not to mention the time wasted at the meeting place due to unfamiliarity with the situation.

The main problem is that Yuri's own running speed is too poor, so in this triangle of "Yuri's location - Okumura-destination", the time it takes Yuri to run one side of the "location - destination" triangle is about the same as the time it takes Akemi to run both sides.

"Okay, if there's nothing else, I'll hang up now. I need to concentrate on driving."

There was nothing else, Yuri replied affirmatively.

It will take Mingmei quite a while to drive back.

Yuri hurried to make final preparations.

The spiritual essence depleted due to stagnation during the final stages of the exploration needs to be replenished.

We need to think carefully about whether there are any other loopholes.

Next, you need to mentally prepare for this sudden encounter with an opponent.

...It seems there's not much we can prepare. Aside from the fact that the opponent uses fire, we know too little.

If only he could know the root of the problem beforehand… Yuri shook his head, dismissing the unrealistic fantasy. If such a spell existed, at least Yuri hadn't learned it; close observation would likely be helpful, but time would probably be an issue.

As for the known flames... Yuri doesn't seem to have any particular affinity or incompatibility with the opponent's abilities. It would probably make no difference if it were replaced with something like ice, lightning, or corrosion, unless the opponent recognizes Yuri's source of trouble at a glance and starts drawing symbols in the air.

Mingmei's clothes have undergone some fire-retardant treatment. Although they are still mainly made of fabric, they shouldn't catch fire easily.

Fortunately, the other side probably knows nothing about Yuri either, so neither side should suffer a loss.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Mingmei completed the journey that usually takes nearly an hour in just thirty minutes.

The first thing that came to Yuri's mind was... it seemed that when he was hanging on the back of the car, Akemi had gone easy on him.

"Okay, tell me quickly where the other person might be, and then tell me why you think so?"

“The other party should be there.” Yuri roughly described the location based on the map in his mind. “As for why, I’ll tell you on the way—don’t drive so fast. It’s already dangerous to talk and analyze while driving.”

If Akemi continues her speeding driving behavior on her return journey, Yuri believes there is a very high chance of her crashing halfway through.

So it is, and so it is.

Yuri recounted his previous analysis to Minmei.

“Hmm… It’s not perfect, but this is the best we can do.” Akemi didn’t raise any objections. “Then, I think I understand why there’s a detour—the area you mentioned can be further narrowed down, and the station location can be excluded.”

"That's good," Yuri thought, "this reduces the range of possible encounters by half. But..."

"Why?" Is there anything special about this place, the train station?

“You’ve seen that map too. The station is located at the intersection of spiritual veins, making it a spiritually significant location.” Mingmei maintained her driving posture without turning around.

"Yes." Hearing this, Yuri had a pretty good idea of ​​what was going on.

"However, this sacred land has its owner. Although it is not under his absolute control, those who try to rush in and cause damage will mostly come to a bad end."

Just as Yuri guessed, it was a good place, but it had already been occupied—and precisely because it was a good place, the person who occupied it was exceptionally powerful.

"I see. Who controls this place? Is it some kind of occult figure connected to the Tokyo government?"

Yuri pictured some monks and sorcerers in his mind, but unfortunately, since he had only seen them in history books, they were all rather... ukiyo-e style.

This is not just wild speculation. The government is the one who decides where to build the station. If it's not a coincidence, the government should be the one occupying this location.

“Actually, I’m not entirely sure either, but Uncle Okumura seemed a bit uneasy when he mentioned it, and simply advised me not to go. Based on what I’ve gathered indirectly, it shouldn’t be the Tokyo government directly… maybe it’s the Tokyo Metro or something? There are several rail operating companies in this area, so it should be one of them—of course, it could also be the government, and I might have misunderstood.” Akemi’s tone was very uncertain, suggesting that a large part of her statement was based on guesswork.

"What exactly did he say? Can you tell me his exact words?"

"I doubt you'd understand even if I told you, so he just said 'damn train' and then stopped."

Yuri didn't understand, so he changed the subject.

"In short, there's a big shot guarding the station—and our new arsonist was afraid of him, so he took a detour, is that right?"

"Yes."

"...How did this new arsonist know there was a wealthy family here?"

Yuri never spotted any other targets outside his field of vision.

“…I don’t know, perhaps the spirit has its own unique methods.” After a brief silence, Akemi gave an answer that was equivalent to “I don’t understand either.”

We may have to ask the arsonist or the unknown tycoon himself/her spirit to make a final judgment.

The topic of conversation died down, and a moment of silence fell between the two, with only the sound of the engine audible.