– What standard could there be? There has never been a standard in this world.
“Just one more, please! Just one more!”
Urged on by the officers from various divisions, Ichijō Hi sat in the armored vehicle, quietly lost in thought.
She had initially only recounted a few cases she’d personally handled, seeing that the officers from various divisions were idle with nothing to do, hoping to keep them from slacking off. Yet, to her surprise, the officers had become utterly engrossed, demanding more stories as if addicted.
As the head of the Detective Division, Ichijō Hi was well-versed in confidentiality protocols. Thus, she only shared cases that had long been made public or declassified. However, the officers, having trained in different disciplines at the police academy, weren’t all exposed to criminal investigations; for instance, those in the Armaments Division often had no knowledge of detective work.
Their keen interest in these peculiar cases was certainly within her expectations, though she hadn’t anticipated quite such an enthusiastic reception.
After a moment of contemplation, her gaze happened to fall upon Yagami Saichi, seated in a corner, and a particular case suddenly sprang to mind.
“There was a case, quite a long time ago. Yagami Saichi actually helped us with it back then.”
Following Ichijō Hi’s gaze, the assembled officers, clad in their various uniforms, collectively turned their attention to Yagami Saichi in the corner.
She sat perched on the rear step of an armored vehicle, a black phoenix butterfly fluttering beside her. In her hands, she held a portable computer, its power cable snaking from the emergency port at the vehicle’s rear.
The sudden scrutiny from the officers left her somewhat bewildered. She glanced at the armored vehicle’s emergency port, slowly unplugged the power cable, and then closed the port.
Only when she saw everyone turn their heads back to Ichijō Hi as she continued speaking did Yagami Saichi realize no one was about to report her for unauthorized use of the armored vehicle’s emergency port. She then reached out, reopened the port’s cover, and reconnected the power cable.
She hadn’t always possessed such a disposition. It was an event during the World War, specifically the fall of Worldly Affairs City, that profoundly altered her character. Since then, she had become a person of few words, her emotions rarely fluctuating, always responding to her surroundings with an expression as calm as still water. Perhaps it was precisely this detachment from external influences that allowed her to achieve such remarkable efficiency in her archival work.
“This case dates back over a decade. A primary school girl went missing. Her mother reported it, explaining that the child had gone to a classmate’s house to play the previous day but hadn’t returned all night. When she went to inquire at the classmate’s home that morning, she discovered the child had never even arrived. That’s when she came to us.”
“That same afternoon, a driver reported finding a body in the roadside foliage along the river. We rushed to the scene, and there, the worst possible outcome unfolded before us. We found the girl’s body by the river. She had no intact clothing whatsoever, her entire body was covered in wounds, her lower region was completely mutilated by a sharp implement, and blood stained the ground everywhere.”
Yagami Saichi subtly raised her head. She knew this case, yet she couldn’t fathom why Ichijō Hi would choose to speak of it now.
After observing for a moment and noting the rapt attention of her colleagues, she shifted her gaze back to her screen.
‘A storytelling session, then?’
She had no interest in such storytelling. Her usual state was to immerse herself completely in her work, oblivious to all ambient sounds.
“The findings from the forensics department indicated that the child had endured severe violent abuse prior to her death. She had been bound for an extended period, then repeatedly stabbed in the lower body dozens of times with a sharp implement. One thrust had directly pierced her internal organs, leading to massive hemorrhaging and ultimately her demise.”
“The forensics department concluded that the sharp object was likely a military-grade long bayonet or a similar elongated piercing weapon, rather than a mere dagger.”
“Given that the victim’s clothing had been practically shredded, we initially leaned towards a case of sexual assault and murder. Although no suspect DNA was found within her body, the probability of the assailant, enraged by a failed assault, resorting to savage torture and murder was deemed extremely high. We thus commenced our investigation with this premise at its core.”
As Ichijō Hi delved into the details of the case, an armed officer, bearing a ‘Shell City police badge,’ raised her hand. Though not particularly tall, a certain prominent physical attribute immediately drew Ichijō Hi’s attention.
“A question?”
“Why was it an attempted sexual assault?”
The other officers cast sidelong glances at her, perplexed as to why she would pose such a question.
“I’m not entirely sure what you’re trying to ask.”
Ichijō Hi, too, found herself somewhat puzzled, but fortunately, the officer quickly clarified.
“Given that the assailant had already bound the victim, and the victim was merely a child, how could it have been an attempted sexual assault? It would have been quite simple to succeed!”
Ichijō Hi frowned slightly. She grasped the underlying meaning of the question, but it delved into certain details that were perhaps not ideal to discuss openly. Fortunately, the majority of those present were female officers, so there was no harm in explaining directly. After all, this wasn’t a matter of privacy, but a very serious criminal investigation.
“Because the victim was very young, her body had not yet begun to develop. Objectively speaking, it would have been exceedingly difficult for the assailant to carry out a sexual assault…”
As she spoke, she carefully watched the officer’s expression. If the officer grasped the implication of her words, Ichijō Hi would immediately cease her explanation. This was, after all, a discussion of case facts, not a lecture on human physiology.
The armed officer furrowed her brow in thought, then, as if struck by a sudden realization, her eyes widened in understanding.
“I understand!”
Her emphatic declaration, though slightly jarring, drew no reprimand. Everyone was too eager to hear the continuation of the case.
“Given such brutal treatment of a child, we suspected a deep-seated hatred towards the family. However, it was a single-parent household, and the mother rarely interacted with others. We began to meticulously investigate the child’s mother’s social circle.”
“At the time, based on the mother’s descriptions, we identified several men she suspected of having motives. Yet, not a single one had an alibi, nor did her social network reveal any suspicious individuals.”
“We then shifted our focus to random acts of violence, as sexual assault cases often exhibit a high degree of randomness.”
“However, after extensive screening of numerous men in the surrounding area, we still came up empty-handed…”
At this point, her gaze grew somber as she looked out at the assembled officers.
Some officers watched her intently, awaiting her continuation, while others murmured amongst themselves, exchanging their interpretations of the case.
Some theorized the reporting driver was the culprit, while others argued it was improbable, suggesting another driver might have left the body in the roadside grass. Still others posited it was a transient offender from outside the area, explaining why local searches yielded no results.
There was even an overly speculative theory that ‘Vega only uses short daggers as bayonets, whereas Xuanji Star equips its forces with numerous military long bayonets, therefore the killer must be from Xuanji Star.’
As they debated the case, back and forth, Ichijō Hi remained silent, simply observing them.
‘At the time, I thought the same. As for the outcome…’
“What happened then?”
An officer broke the hushed murmurs, drawing everyone’s attention back to Ichijō Hi. Seeing her hesitate, the officer assumed Ichijō Hi was displeased by the whispering that had interrupted her.
“Later, the investigation reached an impasse. It was then that a single remark from Yagami Saichi provided a crucial insight.”
“What did she say?”
An officer leaned forward, curiosity etched on their face. Ichijō Hi, however, felt a chill creep through her as she reached this part of the story. Her eyes swept over every officer present, and she took a deep, steadying breath.
“Is there a possibility… that the perpetrator of this sexual assault and murder… was not a man?”
The moment these words left her lips, a profound silence descended upon the assembled officers. They stared at Ichijō Hi, wide-eyed and dumbfounded, as if she had just uttered some fantastical tale from another world.
The perpetrator of a sexual assault and murder not being a man… it utterly subverted their understanding.
“If we consider it from a different angle, it’s precisely because the perpetrator wasn’t a man that they didn’t sexually assault the victim. Instead, they used a sharp instrument to repeatedly inflict injury upon the victim’s lower body as a form of disguise. What appeared to be a violent outburst stemming from their inability to commit the act was, in fact, a deliberate attempt to conceal the assailant’s true identity.”
An officer gasped, staring at Ichijō Hi with a mixture of fear and unease. A horrifying answer was beginning to form in her mind, one too shocking to truly comprehend.
“Ultimately, we shifted our perspective, and by following this new line of reasoning, we apprehended the culprit.”
The officers gazed at Ichijō Hi, the very air seemingly suspended in anticipation.
“The killer… was a woman?”
“Yes…”
Ichijō Hi met the gaze of the horrified officer, then slowly closed her eyes, nodding in a gesture of profound sorrow.
“It was the child’s mother.”
A deathly silence fell over them…
The officers stood frozen in place…
Each person found the answer almost impossible to believe, yet they found themselves without a means to refute it. None had personally experienced the investigation, and moreover, this was a closed case, long since settled, with no need for their re-evaluation.
“Wh-why… why would a mother… kill her own child?”
Ichijō Hi looked at the questioner. Though merely recounting a past case, her expression remained troubled. Even after so much time had passed, merely speaking of it stirred a deep unease within her.
“She was a single mother, but the child’s father hadn’t died on the battlefields of the World War. He was a Xuanji Star soldier.”
“The murder weapon was indeed a military-issue long bayonet. As for its origin… I believe you can all surmise.”
“During the World War, this mother—who was then still a student—was captured by Xuanji Star forces and subsequently subjected to brutal abuse.”
“Later, she gave birth to this child…”
“Driven by her resentment over the abuse and sexual assault she had endured, she channeled all her hatred onto the child. In her mind, this child was the root of all evil, the sin left behind by that Xuanji Star soldier. She wanted to inflict everything that soldier had done to her, upon his child.”
“Piercing the child’s lower body with a bayonet wasn’t solely to conceal her identity; it was also an intense expression of reproductive hatred. She believed the Xuanji Star soldier’s child deserved the same treatment she had received. However, due to objective physiological limitations, she couldn’t sexually assault the child, so she resorted to this method as an outlet, a hatred aimed at severing the soldier’s bloodline.”
After Ichijō Hi finished narrating the case, her listeners remained silent, no longer eager to hear another story.