[OLD] Densetsu Side-Stories

Inspection

The General Government's detective Balfour Sonozaki pushed his glasses to his eyes as he investigated the crime scene in New Albany. Man, I came all the way out from Truth Island for this? He observantly examined the ground. Blood was scattered about. He looked at the hollowed eyes of the victim: a man with black hair wearing a silver coat and a red hat. He looked at the victim's eyes questionably.

“There's no sign of a weapon, detective,” said one of the officers backing Balfour at the crime scene.

“This is the fourth case this week,” Balfour noted, “It seems as though bodies are just dropping one by one. First were the incidents in Alvira and Daiki...”

“Is there any connection, sir?” the officer asked. Balfour nodded.

“I think so,” he said. “All of the related incidents have matched this victim's description. Black hair, hollowed eyes...” He observed the corpse hesitantly. “Well, it's highly possible that the other three victims were quadruplets...”

“Come on, think rationally, man!” demanded one of the officers, “This isn't an ordinary case! We already figured that out with the second murder!”

Balfour shook his head. “You're right,” he said, searching the ground near the victim's corpse. “But still...No blood, no evidence... Just a corpse. And they aren't the same corpse; we've collected each corpse upon sight. It isn't likely that the corpse left our facilities and jumped off a building. Well, what do you think?”

“This is nuts,” an officer said, “Why would someone go out of their way to make all their victims have the same appearance?”

“True,” Balfour said, “And we aren't talking about black hair and blue eyes. We're speaking of a particular style of hair, and perfectly hollowed eyes, drained of all blood. It's almost too perfectly organized, as though it was coordination for some kind of movie scene.”

“You aren't suggesting that this is all a game, are you sir?” an officer asked. Balfour looked at the ground once more.

“Certainly not,” he said. He noticed a small white marble on the ground by the corpse's leg. “This is interesting...” He picked up the marble and dropped it in a plastic bag labeled “Evidence”.

“What is it, detective?” the officer asked, taking a closer look at the marble.

“I am unsure,” Balfour replied, examining the marble himself. “From the looks of it, the victim was holding it in his hand when he was killed.” He could see a tint of red inside the marble. Looking closer, the face of Akabani could be seen inside. “How peculiar. There is a man's face inside this marble. He almost looks as though he is begging for help.”

“Let me see that thing,” one of the officers requested, taking the bag from Balfour. He looked inside, examining the face of the man inside. “I swear I saw that guy move,” he said, his tone racing a bit. “Could there be a person trapped inside?”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Balfour scolded the officer, “It's probably just some sort of old antique gemstone with a portrait inside. They made these often back in the 60's.”

“But why would the victim have one of these?”

“I wouldn't know,” Balfour replied. He took the bag back from the officer. “For now we should probably report our results to the commander. I'm sure he'll be interested in finding out more about this marble.” The officers nodded and walked back towards their helicopter, which was surfaced near the crime scene.

Balfour took one last look at the crime scene before taking his leave. Something tells me this was not a natural death, but I still don't have the evidence to prove it was a murder... However I now know that the previous three incidents were related to this one... Well then, my culprit, we shall see who ends up on top of this battleground...