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sparklyjojos · 6 years

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Let’s Read & Suffer: Tsukumojuku by Maijō Ōtarō [part 19]

Today`s recap: In which Tsukumojuku finally enters the Illusionary Castle, reunites with a character that I honestly forgot existed, discovers a very convoluted serial killer puzzle, and then things once more get pretty damn meta. [tw: gore]

STORY 4 PART 3

After Tsukumojuku discovered her crime, Serika and Seshiru had to escape once more. They both looked very hurt, with Serika crying and saying that she didn’t want to get separated from Tsukumojuku again, even if she understood that he had his own life now, what with his marriage and kids. [No, I don’t know how he can get married at like 16 either.]

(Love was a memory kept by the whole body. Made in the brain, spread with the blood throughout one’s entire being, and would never cease. ...and the love he once held for Serika was nothing more but a distant memory, he realized.)

When the twins fled Chofu, they left two disembodied hands of a man in the hidden room. According to Serika, that man’s name was Okubo Kengo. Well, that's proof enough. Tsukumojuku returned Ryouko's hollowed-out body to the police, and said that the criminal was Seshiru, leaving out the truth about Serika. A lot of bodies were later pulled out of the river, among them Okubo Kengo.

Tsukumojuku got the 10 million yen prize, transferred half of it to the twins' bank account, bought the magazines for his mother-in-law, and returned home in time. Whew! The mother-in-law questioned why he only got half the money, and he couldn't thought of a reason other than “er, must have dropped it on the way here?”, but it seemed they believed him.

He then learned that since Yanbe Tetsuo, the Illusionary Castle's owner, was quite rich, a prize for solving the Castle case had been funded: 30 million yen, which was something they could definitely use.

–

That night Tsukumojuku read the Third Story. Apparently Okubo Kengo was a serial killer there. In reality... well, you could say a lot of killing was done by his hands. [*rimshot*] In the Third Story, Seiryoin Ryusui was trapped in the Castle... maybe that meant they’d meet tomorrow, once Tsukumojuku got through the underground waterway. (The Castle’s underground... wasn’t that where the monster Gajobun was supposed to live?...) Maybe him thinking about the flag of Gibraltar, showing a key under a castle, really did make sense after all. Did the cross and the crown mean something too?

When he went to the park next morning, there was still a lot of policemen in there, investigating the terrain around the hidden room. A journalist came up to him like “Oh, so you're that Great Detective Tsukumojuku”. Since Tsukumojuku was afraid Ms Suzuki or Tsutomu would learn from the media where he is, he made the journalist faint before he could get any material. The police warned him against more noisy reporters, and didn’t say anything as he entered a manhole, although they looked a bit confused as to why he was doing that. Tsukumojuku went some distance underground, turned on the flashlight he'd brought with him, and looked around.

The waterway was full of ghosts.

STORY 4 PART 4

Of course the waterway was full of ghosts, their faces twisted in sadness or anger; lots of people had died in the Castle. Maybe they were trying to look for their way back? As he walked forward, their numbers increased, until he had to practically squeeze between them to proceed. Finally, he found the place where all the souls were looking up at the same spot. A hole in the ceiling. It seemed no soul could pass through it: a lot of them were frozen in mid-air reaching for it, and Tsukumojuku used that fact to climb them like a makeshift ladder. [Sure.]

Once he climbed out, he noticed a rope ladder, that this “Seiryoin” had probably been using to exit the Castle. If he really was the culprit of the Geneijo case, and these souls were the victims, then it’s kinda weird they didn’t do anything to him.

Tsukumojuku wandered the Castle’s cramped passages for some time before hearing upset voices:

“...I don't knoooow! This makes no sense! Enough! Enough!” “Calm down, Abe.” “I'm serious! I want out of here, right now!” “Stop crying, it's annoying! There's no reason for it! We're fine! Your assistant should be able to do something...” “He’s not my assistant, he’s more like a little brother to me...”

Following the voices, Tsukumojuku opened the door to what looked like a giant chapel, with stone pillars and stained-glass windows. Above the altar, maybe 15m above the ground, a giant crucifix with a figure of Christ was suspended. There were about 20 men and women in the chapel, and one of them was someone very familiar to Tsukumojuku: Abe Atsushi, or Daibakusho Happy. (安倍敦, or 大爆笑ハッピ)

[If just like me you have already forgotten who the hell was that -- it’s that private tutor from the First Story who couldn’t teach for shit, constantly repeated the rakugo “Dowry”, and hanged out with little Tsutomu a lot.]

Tsukumojuku followed Abe’s horrified sight to see what this was all about. On the altar, there was a box with a woman's head inside. Her pale face had a red circle painted on the right cheek, and a blue circle on the left cheek. Her eyes were open, dark eyeliner and fake eyelashes applied. On the box’s inner side was written the name “Geneijo” in red, and the number “5” in blue. On the head's right side somebody had put a clown doll dressed in black.

Oh, and there were 42 other boxes.

Small or large, all rectangular, sometimes containing a head and sometimes half a body. All were decorated with colors, had some kind of toys inside, and were numbered.

Three boxes didn't have bodies: one was numbered “7″ (seventh column from the left) that happened to be next to another “7″. “5″ (tenth column) was empty too, and also had another “5″ as a neighbour. A “1″ (2nd column) also had another “1″ next to it, but instead of being empty, it contained a hand made of clay. So, a double box number would distinguish the empty ones?

The 43 boxes all symbolized individual covers of the 1975-1999 issues of Geneijo, a detective novel magazine. The empty boxes corresponded to '75 July Extra Issue (with Edogawa Ranpo on the cover), and '76 May Special Issue (with Yokomizo Seishi). The box with black clay hands was the '78 New Year Special Issue.

[The next four pages are Tsukumojuku’s drawings of the boxes -- don’t worry, you don’t actually have to pay any attention to these for the plot, but I’m putting them here just because.

Columns 1-2:

Columns 3-5:

Columns 6-8:

Columns 9-11:

–

Among them Tsukumojuku found Ryouko’s head, wrapped in pink scarf, with lips painted pink. (He hoped the white rose in the box would be, as stupid as it sounded, a bit of a comfort to her lost soul... though her soul was still stuck behind that bookshelf.)

He quickly understood the reason why the criminal had used 12 bodies from outside the Castle. During its first year being in circulation, the Geneijo magazine was published by a company called Geneisha, which eventually bankrupted. The magazine was from then on published by a new company called just Geneijo. So the first year issues, from February '75 to January '76, were “from outside Geneijo” -- from outside the Castle. And so were the victims.

- - -

Tsukumojuku approached the group of people, and told Abe that he was Tsutomu's older brother. Abe recognized him (“Oh, it’s you! You alright? How did you get here? Does Tsutomu know you’re here?”) Tsukumojuku told them about the waterway entrance, and everyone cheered, for some reason shouting “Kick-kick-kick, four-dimensional kick” in happiness. A tall man thanked Tsukumojuku for coming, said that everyone in the chapel was an entertainment group [as in actors] called the Angel Bunnies, and asked for his name.

“I’m the Great Detective Tsukumojuku.”

The cheering stopped abruptly.

"What the fuck?!” Abe yelled in tears. “That's already the third Great Detective Tsukumojuku! I don't understand anything! Is the world made out of Tsukumojukus?!”

The tall man tried to console Abe saying that it was all fine, they could leave now -- but Tsukumojuku quickly said that actually, they couldn't leave yet, since the criminal may be among them.

“But,” he said, “I can guarantee that the case will be solved in the next 30 minutes!” Just in time to get back home for lunch. “So please be patient and--”

“But that's exactly what the other Tsukumojuku sa-a-aid...!” Abe was completely hysterical, so Tsukumojuku asked everyone else to look away and took off the sunglasses. Now that the nuisance was temporarily gone (along with two other people too curious for their own good who also had looked his way), he put the glasses back on.

The tall man was like “oh shit, that really is the Great Detective Tsukumojuku, what's with the unnatural beauty and all”. Huh? So that other “Tsukumojuku” was just as beautiful as him?

- - -

The Angel Bunnies introduced themselves to Tsukumojuku. [You don’t have to remember these names at all, don’t worry.]

The name of the tall man was Fukushima Manabu (福島学). People who had fainted alongside Abe were Kawabe Keisuke (河辺恵介) and Nakai Sayaka (中井紗也香).

Other members, men: Kawai Kazuhiro (河合一洋), Hongou Takeshi (本郷雄士), Tanaka Masatsugu (田中正嗣), Kumono Takuya (雲野巧也), Hoshino Masato (星野真人), Aoyama Gen (青山元), Furutaka Masayuki (古高雅之).

Other members, women: Mizoroki Fumie (溝呂木文枝), Kajiwara Ayako (梶原亜矢子), Nomura Rie (野村りえ), Obata Aki (尾畑亜紀), Nonaka Mami (野中麻美), Yoshida Yukino (吉田由貴乃), Iwai Yumi (岩井ゆみ).

A total of 19 people. There were 20 of them once, but unfortunately Higashimoto Mika (東元美佳) was currently stuffed in the box symbolizing the November '76 issue of Geneijo.

As for what they were doing there: apparently Tsutomu (now Great Detective Daibakusho Curry) had been invited to the Castle party. He and Abe were a part of the Angel Bunnies, so when he got the invitation to the Castle, everyone went together with him to have some fun.

Needless to say, it wasn’t fun. Among other casualties, Seiryoin Ryusui vanished without a trace the very first day. Other weird shit was going on too. Apparently some actual JDC members had appeared out of nowhere: Ajiro Souji, Hikimiya Yuuya (氷姫宮幽弥), and the Detective God Tsukumo Juku himself. The rumor was that they had come to protest the publishing of Seiryoin's JDC books, and that Tsutomu / Daibakusho Curry was secretly cooperating with them.

Three JDC detectives... each with his own method of reasoning. Ajiro Souji would ponder the topic endlessly, Detective God would wait patiently and gather evidence that showed up with time, and Hikimiya was mostly there to write the data down. Apparently this now meant that Ajiro was worrying himself with Geneijo on a break from his usual telephone detective stuff. Detective God mostly closed himself in his room and napped [probably because why bother when the evidence hadn’t showed up yet?]. Hikimiya was running around and calculate many weird things like how many chairs and bed there was on the first floor (the same that the number of pages in Seiryoin’s Cosmic, apparently), the number of windows (99, like the number of chapters in Joker), and how much space the carpet took (the same as all the illustrations, table of contents etc. in Carnival.)

Hikimiya was now busy reading through the entirety of the library, counting how many times individual characters show up, or some weird specific shit like that. (...Tsutomu’s cooperation probably meant he was taking care of poor Hikimiya while he was working. Tsutomu was just the kind of person who’d want to take care of others.)

- - -

Since the Angel Bunnies had no idea what the hell the Geneijo magazine even was, Tsukumojuku explained.

Geneijo was called that after Edogawa Ranpo's famous essay. The same essay’s name was also given to the mysterious castle showing up in Seiryoin's book -- in these books, the Castle’s owner was even called Hirai Tarou, which happens to be Edogawa Ranpo's true name. In Joker, a serial killer called the Artist killed a whole lot of people in Geneijo, and the JDC detectives had to stop him... but of course, that was just a story. To make things even more meta, in the JDC books there actually appeared a character called “Seiryoin Ryusui” who was simultaneously writing the JDC books.

Just a story... But the JDC detectives had appeared in reality now, as the Angel Bunnies pointed out. But maybe they were just cosplayers, who would made up things using words and numbers -- anagrams, math puzzles, word plays and so on. If you kept doing this long enough, one thing would always lead to another. For example,let’s say we want to connect “words” and “numbers”. If you moved the voiced consonant in “kotoba” (word) from end to beginning you'd get “gotoha” which you can write down as “五とは” which has the number 5 in it, isn’t it just amazing?

Or that the word “suuji” (numbers, 数字) would also be read “suuji” when written as 崇辞, and if you now swapped the second kanji in that for same-reading 詞, you'd get 崇高な詞 (a sublime word?) which are 本物の言葉 (real words). Words within words. Words without unnecessary decorations. (余計な装飾のない言葉). Words by themselves, to sum it up.

[I’m equally confused by the word play onslaught, don’t worry.]

There were a whole lot of these word games, and obviously some common theme would always crop up if you banged one concept into the other hard enough. These puns and anagrams were the essence of the JDC series, so naturally, it wouldn’t be strange that these “hardcore JDC cosplayers” would also love them.

- - -

In an attempt to solve the mystery, Tsukumojuku then took Ryouko’s head out of her box and using a knife carefully cut off her face to make a mask, which caused the horrified Angel Bunnies to run away to the other side of the chapel because what the actual fuck, dude. Tsukumojuku put the makeshift mask on, and just like when putting on her skin, Ryouko’s memories instantly attacked his brain. They were so strong he fell on the floor in convulsions, and actually broke three ribs in the proccess. Too many memories, way too much information, too great of an impact, and then suddenly – the memory from just before death.

Chofu, near the river, late at night. Somebody trying to catch Ryouko – it's Serika, wearing Okubo's hands like gloves. Ryouko ran, but was caught and tackled to the ground. Serika sat on her chest, and yelled for someone to keep her legs down!”. A man with long black hair and glasses -- Seiryoin.

Mystery solved. In Geneijo, Seiryoin was God.

And as he took the mask off, that God’s “Angels” -- Ajiro, Hikimiya and JDC’s own Tsukumo Juku -- entered the chapel along with Tsutomu.

- - -

IMPRESSIONS:

*Maijo voice* how many layers of meta are you on? you’re like a little baby, watch this

Jesus, just how many tiny kanji can you fit on all these diagrams, Tsukumojuku? Good thing the details don’t really seem to matter in the grand scheme of things, at least as far as I’ve read, so I don’t have to translate this mess.

I love the scene with the ghosts. The soul ladder reminded me of the Kars ladder from Jorge Joestar, for some reason.

I don’t know if this is the intentional reading here, but I love the idea that the Detective God would just chill out in his room while shit is going on because he knows how mystery novels work and that the case’s not gonna get solved before the writer wills it. “Gonna take a nap, wake me up once the scared witness gets shot just before revealing the killer’s name.”

In the JDC series, Hikimiya Yuuya specializes in crime statistics and such, which requires him to always carry a laptop he can calculate data with. He loves quoting mystery novels whenever he can. While working as an assisstant to such great detectives like the Detective God or Ryuuguu Jounosuke, he has some complexes about his own power of reasoning. Not a very remarkable guy, at least on first sight.

>>>>NEXT PART>>>>

#sparkly reads tsukumojuku #long post #maijo and jdc stuff

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sparklyjojos · 6 years

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Let’s Read & Suffer: Tsukumojuku by Maijō Ōtarō [part 22]

Today`s recap: In which Inugami Yasha attempts to explain the case of the Cross House, people switch places with Jesus Christ a lot, and Tsukumojuku has a headache. [tw: brief eye horror]

STORY 7 PART 2

Tsukumojuku couldn't understand, and he cursed God. He cursed God for killing Tsutomu. In wrath, in grief, in despair, he pulled out his eyes, threw them on the ground, and crushed them under his shoe. Now he didn’t have to see that anymore, anything, ever again...

But he could still see everything. (Why? Why could he still see...?)

“Gajobun?”

He turned around. His dear Seshiru and Serika were standing there, both grown up, now a beautiful man and a woman. Glittering, almost. Dazzling. They were already pretty as kids, but now it was as if all that was beautiful that once hid deep inside them was now visible outside.

And Tsutomu--- with Tsutomu's head busted open like this, face in an unrecognizable shape, Tsukumojuku couldn't know if he had grown up to be beautiful, too...

“So you really are alive?” Seshiru said. “He knew that you were, and solved the case. ...Let’s go.”

- - -

In the mountains behind Himago-tani, even further than the small hut where Junko's body had once been found, there's a part where cars can't go any further. Going up the mountain way from there, you'd find yourself at the feet of a transmission tower. If you then entered the northern forest, and climbed a small hill, you'd arrive at a giant cross-shaped house with “CROSS HOUSE” written over the entrance.

The southern end of the vertical bar of the “cross” was near a cliff, from which you could see the dense cedar forest beneath. Walking inside the house put you in a winding hall surrounding 24 rooms. The hall and the rooms were made of worn out wood. Apparently, somebody had been secretly here, managed to climb the mountain unnoticed and maintain the house. The mysterious carer tidied the place up, changed the mattresses, even cleaned the bathrooms.

Each of the 24 rooms contained a bed, a bookcase, a desk set, and a closet. The bathrooms and the dining room were in another, smaller building northwest of the Cross House.

At the northern end of the cross, there was a small chapel, with fourteen pews in two rows, a pulpit for sermons and an altar. Behind the altar there was a cross, but without a figure of Christ.

- - -

On 9th September, around 11 AM, Kato Takashi had come to check on the state of the Cross House, as some guests were living there for the previous two weeks -- members of a video production group from Shibuya, the Angel Bunnies. Abe Atsushi, who was one of them, had asked Mr. Takashi if they could do some filming there. Their movie was based on the original work of Ayatsuji Yukito [an actual Kodansha writer] called The Cross House Murders [十字館の殺人 -- a pun on Ayatsuji’s real novel's title, The Decagon House Murders, 十角館の殺人. ]

When Mr. Takashi came to the Cross House that day, he found the dead body of “Tsukumojuku” in the hall in front of the chapel’s open door. Surrounding the corpse were seven candles, their flames illuminating his naked body and the arrow in his chest.

- - -

When everyone from the Cross House gathered in the chapel, Seshiru [who’s going by Inugami Yasha, as the twins are still wanted for murder] said, “As a last thing in this investigation, I'd like once more to review everyone’s alibi for the time of the murder, 11 AM.” He drew a map of the Cross House on the whiteboard, numbered the rooms 1-24 clockwise and wrote down all their alibi.

1: Hongou Takeshi – sleeping.

2: Tanaka Masatsugu – checking the script. A few times went out to knock on his neighbour Hongou's door to try and consult some parts with him, but it seems Hongou was sleeping all this time. Moved only between their rooms.

3: Kumono Takuya – working on their Internet page.

4: Yoshida Yukino – woke up around 10:30, changed clothes, at 10:45 went out of the room, then through the eastern entrance and walked around the chapel to reach the big washroom, met Mizoroki there, at about 11:00 went back to her room the same way.

5: Hoshino Masato – sleeping.

6: Aoyama Gen – sleeping.

7: Mizoroki Fumie – like 4's Yoshida, went to the washroom and then returned the same way.

8: Kajiwara Ayako – sleeping.

9: Nomura Rie – sleeping.

10: Obata Aki – at around 10:50 woke up, knocked on the door to room 11 (Nonaka's) but there was no answer, so she returned to her room and finished changing. At around 11:00 knocked on Nonaka's door again with the same result. Then she knocked on the door of rooms 9 (Nomura) and 8 (Kajiwara), but they were also still sleeping, so she decided to go to the washrooms alone through the eastern door. Returned to her room the same way at around 11:30.

11: Nonaka Mami – sleeping.

12: Kawai Kazuhiro – sleeping.

13: Fukushima Manabu – sleeping.

14: Abe Atsushi – woke up at 10:30, took three roundtrips to knock on the door of room 16 (Iwai) to go with her to the washrooms, but because of lack of an answer gave up after the third time and went back to sleep.

15: Furutaka Masayuki – sleeping.

16: Iwai Yumi – sleeping.

17: Nakai Sayaka – morning exercise routine.

18: Kawabe Keisuke – storyboarding.

19: Higashimoto Mika – sleeping.

20: Satou Kazuhiro – surfing the net, writing an entry on the Heaven's Voice boards.

21: Taniguchi Touru – doing pushups.

22: Hanada Sawako – calling dad in Fukuoka (recording as proof).

23: Hiraki Takako – sleeping

24: Room for luggage.

- - -

Seshiru wrote down all of this, then asked if anything strange happened back then. (Tsukumojuku noticed that Seshiru didn't write down any alibi for himself.) Nobody really said anything, so Seshiru hinted, “Well, if you still don't understand, then maybe you should try... asking God.”

As he said this, Serika showed everyone a large crucifix with a Jesus figure attached to it.

“This,” Seshiru continued, “is the figure of Christ that had been made for this movie. It's really well done. And speaking of everyone's alibi... well, if you look carefully at the whiteboard, you’ll see that... nah, you know what?” he casually put the whiteboard away, “let's just stop with this. It's quite bothersome.”

Everyone was pretty confused, until they realized that while Seshiru was directing their attention away with the whiteboard, Serika had managed to replace the Christ on the crucifix with a full-size, realistic-looking doll. Pale skin, long hair, a crown of thorns, stigmata, a bleeding spear wound on the chest. The doll also happened to look exactly like one of the Angel Bunnies, Aoyama Gen.

“That figure of Christ you’ve made was only put on the cross in the chapel during the shooting. It was originally prepared as the background prop for the scene in which Mr. Aoyama would play a victim. Now, this doll here sure resembles both Mr. Aoyama and Christ a lot.” He removed the long wig from the figure. “...Although the hairstyle is quite different from God’s.”

(listening to him – to that “different from God’s” phrase – Tsukumojuku remembered for some reason: God is different, if something's different from God then it cannot be God...)

“The culprit secretly put this Aoyama doll on the cross. Then, the supervisor of the movie saw the doll, thought it was a threat, and without telling the crew summoned a great detective called Tsukumojuku to investigate the situation.”

...That other “Tsukumojuku”. Who was he? What was he doing here? Tsukumojuku didn’t know anything.

If you don't know something, think about it deeply, Yuuki had said, and--

Yuuki?...

Right. Morimoto Yuuki [森本有紀], from the Sixth Story...

His head was hurting a lot. As if that plant from Little Shop of Horrors was about to burst out of it and start singing about eating people, or something. [Yes, the narrator actually says that. What a nerd.] It really hurt. “Eating people”... Like the urban legend about Seshiru and Serika, like the man-eating Detective God... Why all this eating people stuff? What the fuck did that mean? He didn't know, he didn't understand. He had to really think about it, probably. He only got this far by thinking about things he didn't understand.

If you don't understand something, please think about it carefully, Yuuki had said. Yuuki? But why was he thinking about Yuuki...? He had no clue what was going on. There were so many things he didn't know or understand...

- - -

Seshiru continued, “And so, while the Great Detective Tsukumojuku was being given a tour around the place, nobody noticed that the Aoyama doll was replaced – this time with the culprit himself. He waited up there until Tsukumojuku came by to investigate the chapel by himself later, then shot him dead using a modern crossbow. Then he arranged the scene with the seven candles to confound the police.”

“So it was Aoyama?!” Kawabe asked.

“No. But since his doll was used, the culprit probably hoped it'd cast a suspicion on Mr. Aoyama. However, he's not the only person here who resembles Jesus Christ and thus could be mistaken for the figure – in the movie, Mr. Aoyama’s character has a fraternal twin, even... And you, Satou Kazuhiro, are the one playing him. Your alibi wouldn't hold in court, too. However… everyone here is sure you’re not the kind of person to commit murder.” Everyone nodded in agreement. “If so, then who prepared this stunt?”

The silence was deafening.

“Mr. Furutaka.” Seshiru turned to him.

Mr. Furutaka just grinned at him.

“Everyone, you may notice that Mr. Furutaka resembles both Mr. Aoyama and Jesus Christ a little. He'd need both of their inanimate counterparts that morning. The Aoyama doll to put on the cross, and the Christ figure to put in bed and pretend it’s him, asleep. Since it's pretty dark in the rooms, nobody would notice the difference. Here,” Seshiru showed everybody two polaroids, “are photos I've taken of this Christ figure when I found it hidden under Mr Furutaka's bed. As you can see, whoever would glance inside the room wouldn't notice it at this angle.” Two more photos. “And here's the doll of Mr. Aoyama, found under the bed of Mr. Aoyama himself. Same situation.”

“Wait, wait!” Mr. Aoyama shouted, “I didn't know that was there!”

“Of course you didn't. Mr. Furutaka put it under your bed while you were asleep. Whether he'd put it under yours or Satou's bed, it didn't really matter, either one would be suspected when the doll was found. He couldn’t hide it back in his own room -- the morning when Tsukumojuku was killed, Abe Atsushi made a few round trips to Mrs. Iwai's room, which involves passing by Mr. Furutaka's door, so he’d be noticed. The time before somebody noticed the body was running out, so in panic he hid the doll under Mr. Aoyama’s bed. Then in confusion over the murder he sneaked back to his room and quickly put the Christ figure under his bed. And that's how I had the chance to find Jesus.”

Furutaka kept on smiling.

“But here's the question, Mr. Furutaka. When you used this,” Seshiru showed everyone a modern crossbow, “whose heart did you pierce with the arrow? Because that wasn't Tsukumojuku. Tsukumojuku's sitting right there, perfectly alive.” He pointed at him. “Then who is the victim, Mr. Furutaka?”

“I don't have a damn clue, you idiot,” Furutaka answered, “'cause it wasn't me who killed the dude.”

“Then why was the Christ figure found in your room?”

“That's the only thing you have on me, huh? Then I'm gonna tell ya this had nothing to do with it. That ass cloth the figure has, remove it.”

Seshiru was confused but did so, and discovered there was a cylindrical hole drilled in the figure.

“See that?” Mr. Furutaka grinned. “That's where I put my--”

While everyone was shouting in outrage, Furutaka fled the scene, a few men chasing after him. Seshiru was just standing there stunned.

(Seshiru, you oaf. You were always an idiot. You still are one.)

“Seshiru,” Tsukumojuku quietly called his real name to get his attention.

In the Fourth Story, there was an imposter Christ, Seiryoin, and that event had to be a prediction about the progress of the current case. In the Fourth Story also, the Detective God called Tsukumojuku a Beast... and now it seemed like it was correct. To kill “God”, he'd now speak the words “God” wanted...

He looked pointedly at the ceiling in the middle of the chapel, and said, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” [Revelation 6] He stood up and approached Seshiru. “Seshiru... we were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of our fellow servants, our brothers and sisters, were killed just as we had been.”

The Fifth Seal had been opened. Finally, he understood everything.

Everything had meaning.

- - -

IMPRESSIONS

I’m not sure how much of Seshiru and Serika’s new “beauty” is there because of them growing up into better people (or whatever is it that is implied here?), and how much of it is just the result of Tsukumojuku looking at them through rose-tinted glasses caused by emotions after losing Tsutomu.

The “everything has meaning” ( (全てに意味がある) phrase Tsukumojuku uses here, and that’ll get used a few times more in this book, is the very same phrase that Japanese Jorge frequently uses in Jorge Joestar.

The Arrow Cross House in Jorge Joestar also happens to have 24 rooms, if we don’t count the four little hallways, or the study (=Cube House).

“My head hurt as if that plant from Little shop of Horrors was about to burst out of it and start singing about eating people” is not a phrase I expected to read, but one I whole-heartedly welcome.

>>>>NEXT PART>>>>

#sparkly reads tsukumojuku #long post #maijo and jdc stuff #unfortunately the illustrations are of worse quality than in the book since I had to work around the ebook reader screencap block

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