Chapter Two: Main Island, Filming Begins
Wednesday, October 16, 2019, 11:55 A.M.
From behind Yuki came the voice of Saijou, half admiring and half exasperated.
“As usual... You're really strong, Ryuuzen. Just watching you makes me nervous.”
“Producer Kikyo is a real gourmand, isn't he?”
“He does always eat two bentos on every location shoot. With lots of dried bonito flakes on top.”
“And if he doesn't get at least three of his favorite tenmusu shrimp bentos, he gets cranky, like a little kid.”
Kikyo was famous within the station for his love of bonito flakes. He even carried bonito flakes on him to season his meals on location shoots, which explained why there had been dried bonito flakes at the highball bar earlier.
Saijou pointed to Yuki with his thumb and spoke to Mikumo in a mischievous voice.
“Oh, don't let his honest look fool you, Ryuuzen's a real two face. He acts like a hapless dope when he's getting lectured by the boss, but that's not who he is.”
Mikumo answered him with a smile, showing absolutely no surprise.
“I know. He's also a liar.”
Saijou whistled softly.
“Looks like she's already seen through you, Ryuuzen.”
“Can we talk about something other than me? Anyway... Ms. Mikumo. I'm sorry about earlier.”
Yuuki stopped and said that, and Mikumo looked back at him in surprise.
“Was there something you had to apologize for?”
“Yes. I'm sorry I forced you to entertain two company bigwigs by yourself... Either Shigaraki or myself, we should have thought of that and dealt with it before we brought the luggage to the old community center.”
Mikumo's expression softened.
“Oh, so you have a kind side, too.”
“I have my moments.”
“But... the president of my company was there, alongside a producer from JTV, right? I thought it was a good chance to promote myself, so there's nothing for you to apologize for.”
Her words left Yuki with mixed feelings.
He knew that Kikyo and Koga would be dead within a few days, and that was the basis of his thoughts. As a result, he hadn't considered the possibility she'd mentioned.
That was a bad sign. He couldn't let a simple mistake like a slip of the tongue ruin his plan. It seemed he would need to be more careful with his words in the future.
After returning to the port, they started filming the opening sequence.
Since the location shoot had only a small crew, there was no one on microphone holding duty. Yuki and Saijou traded the role back and forth depending on the current needs of their work.
When it was time to start shooting, Mikumo looked nervous. It was understandable, seeing as how she'd never done acting work before. Although there were a few scenes that needed to be reshot, the footage for the opening was recorded without any major issues.
Thus, Yuki called Unno on the transceiver, saying it was time to deliver his report.
Judging from the unusually low tone of his voice when he answered, it seemed the Motegi team's shooting wasn't going as smoothly. He told them that, since they would be shooting with the microphone for the time being, it would be fine if they didn't report in unless there was an emergency.
Afterwards, Saijou took a piece of pizza bread from his lunch out of his backpack and began eating it without sitting down. When he was finished, he looked down at his watch.
“...It's 12:45. There's still plenty of time until dusk. Where do we want to go next?”
“Follow me, it'll be faster if I explain while we walk.”
Saying that, Yuki made his way in the direction of the former community center.
“Our group will focus on three places on the island: the ruins of the village, the cemetery, and the Divine Land. I checked them during the location scout, and they're all really impactful.”
“Where should we start?”
Mikumo's voice was a bit energetic. It seemed she was curious about her roots after all.
“Shall we go to the village ruins first?”
With Yuki serving as their guide, Mikumo and Saijou followed him while munching on their food.
There had once been fields growing along the road from the port to the village. After the war, they had mostly grown sugarcane there, but now, nothing grew but weeds and shrubbery, leaving no trace of civilization.
Once they passed the former community center, the pavement of the road rapidly grew weathered, and it seemed it would only be a matter of time before it was retaken by the local plantlife.
There was some concern about navigating the rough path in a resort dress, so Mikumo asked to put on some black athletic compression shorts. That allowed her to move a bit more freely and keep the bugs away, killing two birds with one stone. Just to be on the safe side, she also made sure to remind everyone to use plenty of bug spray.
They hadn't gone far before they heard a loud noise from the bushes to their right. Yuki stopped in shock, and next to him, Saijou also tensed up.
“Is it a wild animal?”
“...I don't think so.”
Peeking through a gap in the bushes, Yuki saw Professor Motegi. The loud noise was apparently him turning over a rock to examine something underneath.
Mikumo sighed in relief.
“Huh, the other team was filming surprisingly close by.”
“You're right, I don't even need to use the transceiver.”
Looking at him, Motegi didn't look happy. He ignored the rock he'd just turned over and spoke to Unno and Yanagawa.
From what they heard in their eavesdropping, it sounded like Motegi wasn't satisfied with the results of his fieldwork, and was taking his frustrations out on the two of them... Apparently, they'd been able to collect an expected amount of samples from plants, birds, and insects, but they'd made no progress on animals.
As a researcher, Motegi was famous as an expert animal tracker, able to track a beast by its footprints, feces, or food scraps, but it seemed even he was unable to find any fresh traces of wild animals on the island.
“What is going on here? Is this island only home to house cats?”
When Motegi gave a shout, Yuki couldn't stifle his laughter. Hearing him, Yanagawa noticed their group. Yuki waved to her and walked off.
After a while, Saijou spoke up.
“...About what the professor said, it's surprising that there are cats on a deserted island, isn't it?”
“It isn't strange at all. I saw a mother black cat and her kitten when I came here on the location scout.”
“Oh. I guess they were pets that went wild.”
After a period of the three of them discussing trivial things like that, the paved road leading into the forest began to grow uneven. The chirping of birds echoed throughout the forest, but just as Motegi had said, there were no traces of animal life. Of course, it was entirely possible they'd just sensed the presence of humans and gone into hiding.
After about six minutes of walking, Yuki turned right onto a side path. Near the corner, there was a weathered stone monument that made a convenient landmark.
Mikumo crouched in front of the monument and spoke in surprise.
“This isn't a direction.”
On the stone was engraved:
“Th- four ostr--i--d gold-- beetles. -- their h--rts dwell the truth.”
“I guess waka poetry was popular on this island in the past. The same poem was engraved near the port.”
This monument was in better condition than the other, but much of the lettering was still worn away. Mikumo folded her arms and frowned.
“What's the point of engraving a poem like this on a stone monument?”
“I don't know. Maybe it's the work of some famous poet from Kakuriyo Island.”
Yuki walked down the side road, casually listening to their conversation. Eventually, the trees thinned around them and they emerged into a clearing.
Saijou let out a small gasp at the sight that unfolded before their eyes.
“...This is even more, how do I put it...? Fantastical than in the research materials we were given.”
The village had about ten houses lined up.
Most of them were single story, probably designed that way as protection from hurricanes. Some of them were made of stone, rare in the Honshu region. Perhaps the island's unique climate was more suited to that.
They all had white exterior walls. They must have once been beautiful, rows of houses in an exotic air like a Mediterranean paradise. Now they were covered in vines and surrounded by weeds taller than a man.
The sight of the island being swallowed by vegetation made them think of the end of the world.
Parts of roofs and walls had collapsed, and every surface was covered in cracks. It was clear that 45 years of wind and rain had left the entire village on the verge of collapse.
“This village... twelve people lived here in 1974.”
And it was also the site of a horrifying incident. Knowing that made Saijou grimace.
“They said most of the bodies were found here, right?”
“Yes. The incident supposedly took place on October 4th, and ten bodies were found in this village. They'd each died after being stabbed in the heart with some sort of thin spike, like an ice pick.”
Yuki's explanation returned the feeling of nausea to Saijou's voice. He nearly choked.
“How terrible.”
“What makes things especially puzzling is that one of the bodies was found horribly mutilated, as though it had been attacked by an animal. That's why the case was called the Beast of Kakuriyo Island incident.”
Before he realized, Mikumo started to wander away with a sleepwalker's gait. Yuki started and called out to her.
“Please don't go near the buildings. I heard from the village office that these ruins could collapse at any moment.”
Whether she heard him or not, Mikumo stopped and stared at a certain building. Even for that village, it was strange.
She eventually spoke in a daze.
“...Could it be?”
“Yes, that building belonged to the Mikumo family. In other words, it's the house your grandmother lived in.”
The former Mikumo home was built on higher ground.
It must have once been a large, impressive manor. It was built on a larger plot of land than the other houses, and it was the only two story building... but it had also suffered the most extensive damage.
The biggest difference between that house and the others was that the Mikumo house was black. However, the walls and roof of the Mikumo house hadn't originally been that color. They had been stained black by a fire. Parts of the house were charred, and the rest was covered in black soot. There were large holes in the walls and ceiling left by the fire, and the gaps had been completely filled with vines and ferns.
Ignoring Yuki's warning, Mikumo walked up to what was left of the front door. All that was visible through a wall of stems and leaves was a black knocker.
After a time of staring blankly up at the building, she mumbled to herself.
“I didn't know there was a fire.”
“It was about twenty years ago, so it's not surprising you didn't know. Apparently, the old Mikumo home was directly struck by lightning, causing it to burn.”
Yuki repeated what he'd been told by the village office staff.
“Can't we check inside?”
Mikumo looked back at him expectantly, not aware of how bad the damage was. Yuki shook his head.
“Sorry, but that's how it is. The village office warned us not to go inside. Apparently, some important pillars were damaged. It's a miracle the building's still standing.”
She gave the building a momentary sad look, but then she regained her usual sarcastic demeanor and spoke up.
“Too bad, I wanted to see inside... Ever since I heard the Ryuuzen family motto, I've wanted to find out if what my father said was true.”
That caught Saijou's attention.
“You two keep talking about things I'm not in on. What's the story with Mikumo's old man?”
Mikumo turned around and gave Saijou a smile pregnant with meaning.
“I dunno. Maybe my father just wrote scary stories to frighten children? It's so ridiculous I don't think I can say it here without dying of embarrassment.”
“Saying that just makes me more curious.”
Even if it did, she just laughed and refused to elaborate further. Saijou tried to get more out of her, but eventually he was forced to give up. He began talking to himself.
“Ms. Mikumo... You're real stubborn.”
Yuki waved his hands and did his usual routine of half-heartedly interjecting.
“Now, now. Maybe tonight the atmosphere will be more suitable for a ghost story.”
Saijou glared at him.
“Don't dodge the question. I don't even know about your family motto.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You...”
Having exhausted Saijou, Yuki put on his serious face and spoke again.
“Seriously, everyone, we're going to be shooting here until 1:40. Let's get what we can.”
Mikumo quickly began checking her script, but soon she grew a suspicious look.
“Why so strict about the end time?”
“After this we're going to shoot in the Divine Land, and we've got to go at low tide.”
Leaving the ruins of the village on schedule, Yuki and the others went the opposite direction of the port.
The road was still uneven, and on the left was a steep hill, sending them through a drastic change in elevation. The walk was difficult enough that none of them could get a word out until they arrived.
The filming around the old Mikumo home had gone smoothly, and they'd completed half of the planned filming in the village ruins. The forecast for tomorrow said that it would be sunny, so at the rate the Mikumo team was going, they'd be able to complete all of their filming by tomorrow.
Having thought that, Yuki shook his head slightly.
No, there would be no filming tomorrow. By that morning, someone would be dead.
Yuki's plan was to put everyone else to sleep with the sleeping pills he'd brought with him, then take Unno out on the port in the middle of the night. Then, after forcing the truth out of him, he'd push him into the sea. Unno was a poor swimmer with an abnormal fear of water. If he fell into the ocean at night, he would panic and drown helplessly.
There were about twelve hours until his plan was put into action.
It had been about ten minutes since they left the village ruins. Just as they were starting to sweat, they heard the sound of waves. Then, the road suddenly sloped downwards, and the pavement turned to concrete.
Yuki stopped to catch his breath and checked the time. It was just before 2:00 P.M.
“We've reached the other side of the island. We'll be crossing over here.”
The main island of Kakuriyo Island was an oval with a diameter of roughly 900 meters on the short side and 1,400 meters on the long side, equaling a circumference of 4 kilometers. Thus far, Yuki and company had been walking from one end across the short side of the island to the other.
“The tide's just started lowering. Let's go.”
As he said that, he began to walk down the steep concrete slope.
When the trees that had been blocking their view disappeared, a circular green island came into view. The island was about 150 meters away from them, and had a diameter of roughly 600 meters, less than half the size of the main island.
Yuki pointed at the island visible on the opposite shore as he continued.
“That's the Divine Land. It was once known as a sacred area and an object of worship... If someone says 'Kakuriyo Island', they're usually referring to both the main island and the Divine Land.”
Saijou, who had a habit of not reading location materials, looked awkward as he spoke.
“Even though they're called two islands, it looks like they're connected together.”
As he'd observed, the two islands were connected by a gravel path about 50 cm wide, sandwiched between blue sea. Indeed, this didn't appear to fit the definition of a separate island.
Mikumo took the opportunity to explain in a mischievous voice.
“The Divine Land is usually separated by the sea, but for a few hours at low tide, a gravel path appears and it becomes connected to the mainland. It's a kind of tidal island, like Mont-Saint-Michel.”
“Really? That's rare.”
“Why don't you shoot some footage? It could be useful later.”
Saijou hurriedly looked into his camera's viewfinder.
Yuki decided to stay on the main island for the moment so as not to interfere with his filming, and Mikumo stayed with him.
Since it had already been decided that music would be played over this panoramic shot later, there was no need for them to worry about the audio this time. So for the two of them, this was little more than a leisurely break.
Mikumo squinted out at the ocean.
“I don't think I've ever seen such a beautiful sea. I can even see down to the fish swimming in the water.”
“But from what I heard from the guide, the current's too fast to swim in.
“Come to think of it, my father also used to tell me how frustrating it was, being able to see sea urchins right in front of him but not catch them.”
Suddenly, Yuki remembered something that had been bothering him since his first arrival on the island.
“I've been wondering about this for a while now... Is that the remains of a gate?”
At the bottom of the slope on the main island side, two meter tall concrete walls had been built on both the left and right sides of the slope. Their lower portions were covered in barnacles, which would probably give someone with trypophobia a stroke.
The area between the walls was three meters. On the right wall hung the remains of a rusted metal gate, and there were traces of hinges on the left wall. The gate had probably been about 10 cm thick.
The two walls were about five meters long and constructed such that they touched the cliffs of the island. If the gate that had once been there was closed, it would have blocked the gravel path leading to the Divine Land.
Mikumo nodded as she blocked the strong sunlight with her hand.
“I heard that a gate had been set up to keep people out of the Divine Land. Except when there was a festival, the gate was bolted shut with a steel bolt so only Mikumo family members could enter.”
Even after hearing her explanation, Yuki wasn't convinced.
“I think the gate and walls should have been built on the Divine Land side. This way, someone could easily cross over to the Divine Land.”
“How could they do that?”
“Circle around the island with a boat and then get on the gravel path at low tide. If I were planning to do something wicked, that would definitely be my approach.”
Mikumo flinched.
“I don't know. I guess they never thought of that.”
“It looks to me like, rather than trying to keep people out of the Divine Land... they were trying to keep something on the Divine Land away from the main island.”
“How could that be possible?”
Mikumo's voice was suddenly cold, and her eyes bulged from their sockets.
Yuki had no idea what he'd done to provoke a reaction like that. When he paused, stupefied, Mikumo looked down as though she were ashamed of her reaction.
“Of course, the Divine Land isn't to be tampered with. That's why they couldn't have built a wall or gate there even if they wanted to.”
“I guess a religious approach could explain it.”
“Oh? You don't sound very convinced.”
They looked at each other for a while. Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say they glared at each other. Yuki wasn't the sort of person who could let something like that go, and apparently, neither was Mikumo.
They heard Saijou, who had finished shooting, give a small sigh.
“You're both talking nonsense. Let's stop talking about things like that and go to the Divine Land.”
So saying, he gave a hum as he stepped onto the gravel road. Yuki and Mikumo followed him.
Pieces of seaweed and shells more beautiful than any they'd ever seen lay at their feet, and the smell of the tide and the sound of the waves were both pleasant. Although they knew there was time before the tide rose again, Yuki and the others still hurried to the Divine Land.
As they approached the island, Yuki felt that something had changed since his last time there location scouting. After pondering the cause, he realized that a tree was gone.
“I see, the tree disappeared.”
Saijou, who had been walking in front of him, looked back in puzzlement.
“What was that?”
“When I was here on the location scout, there was a large tree growing on that cliff to the right. But now it looks like it's been almost totally annihilated. See? It's right there, next to the tree with orange flowers.”
Saijou had a hard time finding the tree in question, but as they approached the Divine Land, he realized what Yuki was saying.
The tree that had once grown on the cliff had been reduced to a lump of black char, and what appeared to have been its trunk was split down the middle.
“...A lightning strike?”
Mikumo, who was also looking at the top of the cliff, sounded unsure.
“Maybe. This area used to hold a Thunder Festival, so it must have been prone to lightning. It must have struck here after my location scouting visit.”
If they'd been unlucky, it could have started a large fire, but fortunately, the damage appeared to have been constrained to this one tree. It was probably due to rain or the area's high humidity.
...The rule was that the Thunder Festival was held after a large lightning strike in the Divine Land. If that incident 45 years ago hadn't taken place, would the tradition still be observed today? The question crossed Yuki's mind.
Saijou had come within a few dozen meters of the Divine Land when he took out his camera and began shooting again. Almost simultaneously, Mikumo's voice rang out.
“It's a cat!”
She pointed to a black mass peeking from the bushes on the far shore.
As soon as the cat noticed Yuki and the others, it jumped from its hiding place with a dull thump and began slowly crossing the gravel path across the ocean. Saijou, a cameraman to his core, had been following it with his camera since the moment Mikumo pointed it out.
Cats were usually averse to water, but this black cat seemed unconcerned with it and even approached the area where the waves crashed against the path. Yuki had the impression that this wild cat was unusually strong.
Even though it had gone feral, it wasn't any larger than the sorts of domesticated cats Yuki was used to seeing. However, its body was tight as a drum. It was a beautiful cat, with shining gold eyes and soft, velvety fur.
When Yuki had visited the island before, he'd seen a black mother cat. This might ee the same black cat he'd seen those ten days ago. Although if it was, she didn't have her kittens, black and gray, with her now.
The black cat's curious eyes lit up as she observed them from a distance. When the cat stepped on the gravel, it made a crunching sound of shifting pebbles, no different than a human's.
Perhaps trying not to alarm the cat, Mikumo crouched down and smiled.
“...Do you understand how this tidal island works?”
The cat answered her with a sweet “meow”.
“I think she instinctively understands. She probably lives on both islands.”
Saijou tried to approach the cat as she spoke, but Yuki hurriedly stopped him.
“That cat might look like someone's pet, but don't forget, it's still feral. It'd be dangerous to go over and pet it.”
“Don't worry, I won't touch it.”
The cat put its nose right to the camera's lens and sniffed it, but it soon realized the three of them were harmless. The cat slid right past the camera, sat down next to Yuki, and began to lick him.
Yuki grinned from ear to ear at the adorable sight.
“It... It's safe to pet you now, isn't it?”
Yuki had a pet cat as a child, and just as he was about to reach out, Saijou gave him a hearty slap on the back.
“Oi, Ryuuzen, don't give into temptation that easily!”
“...You're right.”
Yuki cleared his throat and took out the tide chart he'd had in his pocket.
“Peak low tide today is expected to be at 3:26 P.M.”
As if corroborating his words, the gravel path had widened by about a meter while they were crossing it. That meant the tide had lowered since they'd first set foot on it.
Mikumo spoke as she looked at the tide chart.
“I've heard that how long the gravel path appears varies from day to day, so how's it look today?”
“Meow.”
Yuki couldn't stop from laughing when the black cat tried to answer her question.
“Actually, it looks like today and tomorrow have particularly low tides. So the path will appear for three hours a day, which is one of the longest stretches in a year.”
There were days when it was difficult to get to the Divine Land at all, so when choosing the date, Yuki and the others had chosen the tides and weather conditions as their top priorities.
Mikumo stopped and thought for a moment, then spoke again.
“That means we'll be able to cross back and forth until almost 5:00, right?”
Saijou chose that moment to raise his hand.
“Sorry, I didn't read the data properly. How long does it take for the tides to change?”
“Today, high tide will be around 9:30 P.M., and the next low tide will be around 3:45 A.M. tomorrow.”
“Got it. Okay, let's get back to shooting.”
Saijou said that and began to climb up the steep, rocky slope with his camera in hand. Yuki helped Mikumo, who was wearing a dress, up onto the Divine Land.
There was no path on the rocky terrain. The only man made object was a stone monument, hidden behind a tree. The three of them exchanged a look.
“It can't be the same poem, can it?”
Saijou, who was the first to look at the monument, had an unreadable expression.
Perhaps because it was protected by the ivy, this stone monument was in good condition, and every word was legible. Yuki, who had been careful thus far because of Mikumo's presence, couldn't take it anymore and shouted out.
“Seriously, just how popular was this poem!?”
“...I never heard anything about waka poetry being popular from my father.”
Mikumo looked a bit uncomfortable. Saijou plucked the ivy from the monument as he spoke.
“It's strange, isn't it? It's written in standard, modern Japanese, so it must have been written after the war. It's hard to believe something like this could be part of an ancient festival.”
In the end, the only thing engraved on the stone monument was the poem, and they had no idea who had written it.
Mikumo stared off into the densely wooded wilderness, dark even in the middle of the day.
“Are you... going to shoot in there?”
Yuki shook his head reassuringly, seeing that she was frightened.
“The Divine Land is untouched wilderness. The village office told us to be careful here. So... all we're going to do is have you stand around while we take a few shots. If we wind up needing anything else, we'll come back tomorrow.”
The black cat, lying on the gravel road across the sea licking her belly, looked up at the three of them as they jabbered away.
After a quick filming session of about fifteen minutes, the three of them returned back to the gravel path.
The black cat appeared to have taken a liking to them, and followed them all the way across. As they went, she took the occasional nip at their legs, enough to make them almost trip and fall several times.
But the occasional “purrrrrr...” she let out was so cute that Yuki couldn't be mad at her. The other two showed similar expressions.
Around the time the former community center came into view, Mikumo asked something.
“Weren't we going to the cemetery?”
“We still are. The cemetery is behind the former community center.”
In the area in front of the former community center, portable stoves, Dutch ovens, and other cooking equipment had been set up as preparations for the cooking steadily progressed.
Shigaraki had been chopping vegetables, but he looked up when he heard the group's footsteps.
“Oh, so your team is back, too?”
“We're just passing through,” Saijou replied.
Shigaraki took the opportunity to explain the meal schedule.
“Producer Kikyo, the gourmand, ordered me to prepare dinner early. We'll be ready to eat at around 5:00, so be ready for that.”
The table where Kikyo and Koga had been enjoying drinks had been cleared, and the two were nowhere to be seen. The cheeses and dried bonito flakes were also gone, so their party must have dispersed.
The black cat began to wander around Shigaraki, perhaps attracted by the smell of food. Yuki and the others left her behind as they proceeded behind the building.
At the top of a steep stone staircase was a raised platform.
The view of the ocean was stunning, with a deep blue sea so beautiful it made you want to cheer. On the other hand, there was a small mountain behind them blocking their view of the Divine Land.
“...'Death' is something different religions and cultures view extremely differently. Maybe the people who used to live on this island didn't think of death as something to be mourned.”
As Saijou had said, the atmosphere of the island's cemetery was different from that of one on the mainland.
The gravestones lined up in rows were made of a stone that shone with a brighter white than the granite slabs usually used. In addition, lively bamboo and trees with colorful flowers surrounded the gravestones, making “death” seem even more remote.
The tiles covering the path through were also unusual.
Each was about 5 cm square, and in some places their surfaces were covered by soil and moss. Most of the tiles were gray. However, no two were the same color.
Some were off-white, some were dark gray, some were tinted with orange or blue or yellow... There was an entire spectrum of gray at their feet.
As Yuki walked down the path, he noticed that there were only four tiles that weren't gray at all. They were dull, but their colors appeared to range from plum and salmon pink.
Yuki looked up from the tiles and opened his mouth.
“Incidentally, the graves here weren't built until after the war.”
Mikumo's eyes sparkled with interest.
“I didn't know that.”
“Before the war, the customary funeral on this island was burial, and the graves were simple and made of wood. After the war, cremation was introduced, partly to prevent the spread of disease and partly due to guidance from the local government.”
That had been written in the story from Unsolved Mysteries, and also matched what Yuki had heard from the village office.
Even as late as 1974, there was no crematorium on Kakuriyo Island. Therefore, the island's deceased were given open-air cremations by placing their coffins on top of piles of firewood. In the past, remote islands often employed different funerary rites, ranging from conventional burials to having the body left in the open air. An elderly village official had earnestly spoken at length about the different funeral traditions of the islands.
After his explanation was finished, Saijou spoke in a grim voice.
“...This was also a crime scene, right?”
“Yeah, two bodies were found in this cemetery. One was an island and the other was Professor Sasakura, who is believed to be the one responsible for the incident. The body of Ms. Eiko, Ms. Mikumo's grandmother, was found washed up on a rocky area not far from here.”
Yuki answered in a low voice, and Mikumo sadly wandered further into the cemetery. A stone railing stood crumbling, and beyond it was a sheer cliff, the ocean directly below.
“This must be where my grandmother fell into the sea.”
According to the police's interpretation, Sasakura was seen by an islander while he was robbing the graves in search of Kidd's gold, which was rumored to be hidden on Kakuriyo Island.
Sasakura killed the islander, and then, like a madman, he killed the rest of the islanders in their sleep. Only Mikumo Eiko was able to escape, but she and Sasakura struggled near the cliff in the cemetery, and the two both lost their lives, Eiko fatally wounding him before falling into the sea.
That was the official story of the Beast of Kakuriyo Island incident.
In contrast, in the pages of Unsolved Mysteries, Kamo Touma had proposed a different theory... Yuki thought that the theory of an unknown large dog was a bit of a stretch.
The former inspector's story was a bit dubious, and even the veterinarian's opinion wasn't sure to be correct. The truth behind the Beast of Kakuriyo Island incident was that the pet dogs had attacked Sasakura's body.
After they finished filming in the cemetery, Yuki began brushing the ivy and overgrowth that had attached itself to the gravestone of Mikumo Eiko. That would be an important part of the scene where her granddaughter visited the grave.
However, the task proved more difficult than expected.
The gravestone was covered in thick-stemmed plants too tough to break by hand, and the grave itself was covered in dirt and mud, making it difficult to read what was carved on the surface.
After a few minutes of futile struggle... Yuki called out to Mikumo and Saijou.
“We're going to need tools for this. Let's break here. Until Ms. Eiko's gravestone can be cleared, you two can go back to the old community center.”
He'd brought a small collapsible sickle and a brush with him to the island just for this eventuality. If he grabbed them, he'd be able to clear the grave in under 30 minutes.
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