Everyone is searching for a new world
to attain that overflowing dream.
They all jump over the horizon,
regardless of what lies beyond.
We've run,
we've dived into hope,
and forgotten only courage.
And we've been swept away by the crowd
only to lose something dear to us.
I smile with a twisted face,
and it was the best smile I could put on.
The inside of my mask overflowed with tears
so I covered my wet mask with yet another mask.
I continue to walk through the flat battleground,
and I struggle, unable to warp.
The dream waits quietly on a cape far away.
Even if I fumble around clumsily,
I'm sure I'll still be able to make it there.
"Raizou Shiranagatani"
Fifty million sounds about right. "Raizou Shiranagatani"
As long as it frees me from the curse of the Blade Children...
"Takako Adachi - Translator"
It's more than worth the price. "Takako Adachi - Translator"
Don't you die on me, Sonobe.
You're the only clue to my husband's whereabouts we've had in two years.
I can't lose any more hope on finding him.
The Manor...
The Manor... Of Death...
The Manor... of Death?
This better be good...
A murder at the Manor Of Death!?
Yeah, you think they would have seen it coming.
Anyways, this Manor of Death place Sonobe mentioned...
Turns out it's where Sayoko Shiranagatani lives.
First, she's attacked by Sonobe, and now there's been a murder in her home.
It can't just be a coincidence.
The victim is Takako Adachi, a translator.
She was here last night reading some specialized books
Mr. Shiranagatani keeps in his private library.
Ms. Adachi appears to have died from injuries sustained to her head
but not acquired in a physical attack.
Apparently, she collapsed to the floor, for whatever reason,
and hit her head on the corner of this chair, causing the fatal blow.
Each of you stated that, around two am, the estimated time of death,
you were in your rooms.
"Reiko Hatsuyama - Servant"
"Sayoko Shiranagatani- "Kei Shiranagatani- Raizou's granddaughter" Raizou's niece"
Yeah, we'd all been asleep for hours. "Sayoko Shiranagatani- "Kei Shiranagatani- Raizou's granddaughter" Raizou's niece"
"Raizou Shiranagatani - Mansion's owner"
There's always the possibility this was accidental.
If it was an accident, would she have left that behind?
Good point.
Who was the first to find her?
Uh... That would have been me...
But Sayoko was at the library door first this morning.
She didn't go in, though, 'cause it was locked.
I tried to go inside, but the door was locked.
Sayoko stops by the library every morning before breakfast. It's part of her routine.
And what about you, Kei?
I needed a book for class. I had a test and I wasn't... ready.
I asked Sayoko what she was waiting on, and she told me that the door was locked,
she couldn't open it. So I bent down and took a look in the keyhole,
but there was a key inserted from the other side.
I figured that was why it wouldn't open,
so I grabbed a pen and pushed the key through.
That's when I saw her.
You got scared and rushed to find your in-house servant, Reiko, in the dining room.
That's when you opened the door using a spare key, correct?
Yes. I keep spares to every room in this house.
Are there any other keys to that room?
No, ma'am, just those two.
Who confirmed that the victim was deceased?
Uh... That's me again.
Mr. Shiranagatani, where were you during all of this commotion?
I was in my room.
I made him aware of the situation only after everything settled down.
He isn't in the best of health these days.
I'm sorry. Do you have some kind of illness?
No, ma'am. I'm simply old.
Ayumu, were you the one playing that beautiful music?
Oh, stop brooding for once and just answer me.
You must have imagined it.
Well, fine. If you're going to be smarmy with me,
then I guess I'll just keep my newly acquired secret to myself.
Whatever. I really couldn't care less.
Not even if it's one about Sayoko?
Did something else happen? Is she okay?
Oh... I thought you weren't a fan of secrets.
Yeah, nice try... but the cute innocent bit isn't working for me.
I'll dish on all I know if you play that song one more time.
Sorry, Hiyono... I've given up playing the piano.
Wha- Given up?
Would you settle for a sack lunch?
They're croissants! I baked 'em this morning.
You worked hard to bake them, so I'll work hard to eat them.
This lock is specially warded, not something you'd find at the hardware store.
The key is a copper alloy, and the design...
So complicated, duplication would be nearly impossible.
Yeah, but there's a deadbolt.
The door could just as easily have been locked from the inside.
Why would anyone go through the trouble of using a key?
I'm not sure. What I do know is that the construction of the lock
is such that when the key is inserted, then it's very difficult to turn that deadbolt.
The killer managed to contain the crime scene in a perfectly locked room.
No witnesses.
Then there's the victim's dying message.
Do you think there's some hidden meaning?
No, Detective. I just really enjoy the sound of my own voice.
Uh, that, we believe, was the last book she was reading.
We found her fingerprints on it.
Now, we're on to something.
This is so great... The sun is out.
I've got a tall vanilla soy latte and a buttery, homemade croissant...
Every bite of which tells me how sweet a guy you really are.
You must really love your sister-in-law if you always cook like this for her.
So are you gonna tell me or what?
Tell you what?
Forget it.
I'm gone.
Okay, okay, hold on. Where's your sense of humor? I'm just playing!
My sources tell me that last night at Sayoko's house,
a murder was committed in a locked room, no way in or out.
In a locked room?
Yeah, I thought it was weird and all, seeing that Sonobe tried to kill her
and now there's a body found at her home.
It's too much of a coincidence for there not to be a connection.
The Blade Children.
Our conclusion is going to be a bit upsetting,
but based on the security system settings of the manor,
we have to conclude that this is not the work of an outsider... So...
Raizou Shiranagatani, head of the house.
Sayoko, his granddaughter.
Kei, Sayoko's cousin.
And the housekeeper, Reiko Hatsuyama.
From here on, you should all consider yourselves suspects... Wataya?
Oh, yeah. We also discovered that none of the victim's personal effects
had been tampered with in any way.
We can, therefore, eliminate robbery as a motive.
There were also no signs of a struggle, leading us to believe that the killer
either snuck up on or was familiar with the victim.
I don't know if all of you are aware of the victim's dying message.
On the verge of death, the victim left a symbol
meant to be a clue as to the killer's identity.
We found a square spiral scrawled on the floor near the victim's hand.
This book I'm holding is the last thing Takako ever read.
Inside this book I found a character that looks strikingly similar
to Ms. Adachi's message.
The character translates as 'lightning gate' but is called 'Rai-Mon'.
Which I find very interesting...
Don't you, Rai-zou?
"Rai" Don't you, Rai-zou?
I doubt it's a coincidence.
Oh, no...
But I'm not sure that you're digging in the right place, Inspector.
Ayumu!?
Oh, not you again.
Sorry for listening in on your conversation!
Great. You're here, too?
Now march yourselves out those doors and away from my crime scene!
The Blade Children...
Not this again.
You can't tell me they haven't been on your mind, too?
You know something... I can sense it about you.
Raizou Shiranagatani, former CEO.
You built up a multi-million dollar empire in real estate single-handedly.
Then you sent the business world into near catastrophic shock.
After adopting Sayoko, you quit everything to take care of her.
Where did you hear this?
He got it from me!
And now... There's today's incident.
The Blade Children... This has to do with them, doesn't it?
That's a big mouth you've got.
All right, Ayumu... Now that we've been kicked out,
do you wanna tell me more about these Blade Children?
Ayumu?
After what's happened to her,
I was surprised to see Sayoko at school this morning.
You really keep your finger on the pulse of this place.
Of course, silly! I am the editor of the school newspaper.
It's my job to know everything about everyone here.
Ever thought of using that book of yours to blackmail teachers?
That is so unethical! Ayumu, I'm surprised.
Sorry to interrupt.
Hi, Sayoko.
Got some interesting news about our victim.
Apparently, Ms. Adachi told her heart doctor
something about acquiring a large sum of money.
Her heart doctor?
She suffered from a rare heart disease.
Seems that anything, even the smallest shock could cause an intense attack.
Where was the cash coming from? Blackmail maybe?
Could she have been blackmailing the old man?
"Newspaper Office"
I've been told...
that my memory loss happened after I took a bad fall
down some stairs when I was twelve years old...
But no matter how I've tried, I've never found a picture of me before I was twelve.
I don't know what's true.
Not that I have anything against my current family.
They've been wonderful. It's just...
Strange things have been happening, and it's bringing up questions.
What did you come here to ask me?
What are the Blade Children?
Takako said that one day she would tell me about them, but I never got to find out...
With her bad heart, she was hardly around...
Now she's dead and I'll never have the chance to ask her again.
Her bad heart...
Right, got it.
Please, Ayumu... If you know anything about the Blade Children, you have to tell me.
It might be the one thing that shows my true past.
Without my memory, every single thing in the world is surreal to me...
It's like watching myself on TV and not actually living.
Surreal. I feel it, too. Why does something feel fake or out of place?
There's something missing.
That's it!
There is something missing. Something very specific.
Sounds like the notes of truth are playing.
The killer had an accomplice... Time.
How's that?
He manipulated time and space
to cheat our perception of what actually happened in that locked room.
The view from the keyhole is very limited.
If the perp wanted to stay hidden in that room,
there would have been plenty of space for him to do so.
So the killer was still hiding in the room?
Thanks for keeping up, Detective.
So, when Kei and Sayoko leave to go call the police,
our perp walked right out of the room.
He closed the doors behind him, and... here's the tricky part-
he used a small thread of some kind, to stick through the space in the keyhole
and locked the deadbolt from the other side.
That means the killer is...
Raizou Shiranagatani...
You are under arrest for murder.
That's quite a brazen conclusion you've come to there, Inspector.
There is a slight flaw.
Wouldn't the killer need to carry the string with him in order to pull the deadbolt?
I don't see this physical evidence anywhere.
You carry it with you all the time.
The neckstrap on that watch of yours.
Of course.
By your deduction I am indeed the killer.
Sweet! A confession!
You losers... He couldn't have done it.
I apologize for her bluntness, but she is right.
As you can clearly see, I am completely blind.
Impossible!
So that is a talking watch around your neck.
I saw you wearing it earlier. That's when I figured out you couldn't see.
Butting in again?
If this "locked room murder" had been pulled off perfectly,
then there would have been no clues left behind
and the culprit would have vanished into the darkness of the night.
That didn't happen. But a couple of things did
that will allow us to uncover the real criminal here. The first of which is...
Ooh... It's Ms. Adachi's dying message.
Thank you...
The second clue is something that should be among her personal items but isn't.
Nothing was reported stolen.
That's not what I mean. The victim had a bad heart.
Her medicine! Of course.
She had a disease that could rapidly bring on life-threatening cardiac arrests.
So why would the medicine to prevent that from happening be missing from her things?
It was removed from her bag before she ever entered that room. That's it...
The perp murdered Ms. Adachi by causing her to have a heart attack.
Here's how the killer did it.
A simple knock made Ms. Adachi walk to the door.
As she grabbed the key, the killer struck without ever setting foot in the room.
So the killer used a stun gun or something to give her an electric shock...
That's why she scrawled the dying message.
I think you're right, but before that, something else had to happen.
She would have gone to her purse for her medication,
knowing it would be where it always was.
But it wasn't there, and she got dizzy... That's when she collapsed.
On the way down... she never saw what was coming.
Hitting her head on the chair caused severe brain trauma
but didn't kill her immediately.
It slowed her system enough for her heart to calm down,
as her dying brain had one of its final thoughts.
The thought of justice. The thought of a single clue
to point at the killer with her last ounce of strength.
Now... Hold on just a second there, Sherlock!
You're saying anyone could've done it.
At this point in the story, that's true.
Like I say... The melody of logic always plays the notes of truth...
and, of course, points to the guilty party.
It stands to reason that if the killer wanted to make a clean getaway,
he or she would have tried to slip the medication back with Ms. Adachi.
But with the way she died, and fresh blood on the floor,
the killer couldn't chance leaving evidence behind
by charging back to the crime scene.
We can now see the killer had to be someone in a position to get back
inside the room with a duplicate of that room's key.
Someone who could get close enough to Ms. Adachi
to remove something as personal as medicine.
Someone like... the housekeeper.
I don't know if it was on your boss's orders or what...
But you're the only one... who could have pulled this off.
Reiko...
Inspector!
Mr. Shiranagatani knew nothing about it.
I take full responsibility for what happened here...
I just hope you all can forgive me for my horrible actions.
Why did you do it?
My parents died in a factory accident.
For some reason the town blamed me for their deaths...
From there, my life went downhill, and it was Mr. Shiranagatani
who pulled me from the gutter and gave me my life back.
To repay him, I took on the responsibility to protect him and this manor at all costs.
Takako kept talking about the Blade Children.
A subject that has been tormenting both Sayoko and Mr. Shiranagatani for some time.
So... To fulfill my duty to protect this house,
I could not allow Takako or Sonobe to get away.
S- Sonobe? Then you mean...
You mean you're the one who attacked Sonobe?!
I know what I did is unforgivable, but Sayoko was in grave danger,
and something had to be done...
It was clear to me that this was the only choice there was.
I still do not know what, exactly, the Blade Children are, but I can tell you
that they seem to be the cause of Sayoko's suffering.
How do you come up with that one?
A decade ago, my daughter left to be with a man.
Then just a few years ago, she returned with Sayoko.
I never learned the details, because my daughter died days later
from some unknown illness... From that point, I was father to Sayoko.
The poor child mumbled things about being cursed.
She was always frightened, like she knew ghosts were around every corner.
Looking at these recent events, it looks like she's right.
Nothing in the world can sadden my heart more.
What if Sayoko is a cursed child?
After all that has happened, I still know nothing of my past.
It's still possible that with time, your memory could return to you naturally...
But it might not be what you've wished for in your dreams.
I don't care... Anything's better than this fake life.
A person sacrificed herself to protect this life of yours.
Makes you wonder...
if it's so fake, why is it worth sacrificing so much to keep it that way?
I'd think about that one for a while, if I were you.
Nice work on today's case, Ayumu. You solved that one in no time,
and you'll get a huge write up in the paper because I was there to catch it all.
Each time I ask the question, the mystery seems to deepen, but I can't stop myself.
At this point, I have to keep asking... What exactly are the Blade Children?
A sweet scent washes into my throat
and my feelings continuously overflow...
Don't look at me with that same gaze
that's like you're following a soccer ball.
I've already grown used to my third year at the office,
but did I lose something instead?
Those days long ago when we would talk about anything...
We're finally old enough now
to have those slightly awkward discussions about love.
A single day seems so long, but a whole year ends so quickly.
A whole year seems so short,
but how well will I be able to live the rest of my life?
Time for Hiyono's Useful News Report!
Now what's going on? It sure is thrilling and mysterious!
Your eyes are stuck on the Spiral, aren't they?
The highlights in the third episode include a beautiful piano melody
and a little turtle's monologue! Turtles! Turtles!
On the next Spiral: The Cursed Children!
Don't miss the next episode! That's all for today's Hiyono's Playhouse!