Chapter 196 Tomorrow Blooms

"... Cemetery?" Hagiwara Kenji was stunned for a moment, then he remembered that most welfare homes have their own cemeteries, and the children who unfortunately died in the home will be buried in specially designated cemeteries.

They have almost searched the whole house. This room that can accommodate three people is filled with many things, mostly small objects full of the breath of life, such as plush puppets that were not taken away, flashcards, homework books filled with writing, account books, and small booklets used for drawing and sketching. These things seem to be shrouded in a layer of warm and soft light. Through this layer of light, it seems that you can see the two people, who were only in their teens at the time, teaching the white-haired boy to read and write under the light.

The hidden pain beneath the warmth is like this small diary, locked in the bottom corner of the drawer. It takes a long time to find out a little bit. Several policemen have been busy in this small room for a long time, and the information they found is actually pitiful.

Going to the cemetery may find more relevant information. Judging from the tone of Morobu Kagemitsu just now, he may have found more.

"You go first, I'll take a look here." Hagiwara Kenji frowned. After discovering the engravings, he got off the bed and was now touching the wooden bed board inch by inch with his hands, trying to find out more information.

As a personality who has always been hiding in the dark, 124's style of doing things has always been cautious, and he never leaves traces in places that are easy to be found. Even the marks left on the bed are shallow and cannot be distinguished by the naked eye. But in the end, no matter how careful 124 was, he was just a child at the time, and he would always accidentally leave some information that can still be found now, such as the line of words on the bed board that was still faintly left after being scraped with a chisel.

"Then Matsuda and I will go first." Date Kou said, he pushed open the heavy wooden door and looked outside, and saw a window without a guardrail at the end of the corridor, facing the cemetery mentioned by Morobushi Kagemitsu.

The two policemen looked at each other, one observed the situation behind, and the other opened the window and jumped down along the water pipe. Hagiwara Kenji poked his head out of the room and saw this scene, and couldn't help sighing in his heart that even though they were almost thirty years old, they were really no different from when they were in the police academy.

He turned around and touched the bed all over again. There were many places that felt uneven to the touch, but the charcoal pencil marks were all incomprehensible.

The man with half-long hair frowned and touched to the side, and saw another mess of scratches. It was probably because he used too much force when destroying it. The chisel made a mess of the original image and handwriting, and it was impossible to make out anything with the charcoal pencil.

Kenji Hagiwara simply closed his eyes and touched the area with his fingertips. Finally, he could feel the scratches of different depths with his skin. He touched along the marks little by little, and it felt like it was not like handwriting, but more like a graffiti. He didn't know what the boy was feeling when he carved this graffiti. The mark was much deeper than the ones beside it.

He felt familiar with it, and after he had traced the pattern twice, he suddenly realized that it was a flying bird.

As if to prove something, a line of small characters was written with charcoal on the right side of the window sill of the scratch.

[......Flying Bird]

Was it when he named himself "Flying Bird Mist"?

The man with semi-long hair lowered his eyes. From what the researcher said at the exhibition, 124 could actually speak in the laboratory, and should be able to write, but according to Tsukiyama Asari...or the people who had been with the boy, the white-haired boy who had just arrived at the orphanage could not speak or write.

At first, he didn't want to face every bit of the past, and in order to stop the police's sometimes endless questioning, he pretended to be speechless to avoid it. Later, it was because Asuka Kiri, who was completely like a blank sheet of paper, did not share 124's memory of learning to speak and write in the laboratory. After

figuring this out, Hagiwara Kenji continued to look for it. 124's writing was much clearer than Asuka Kiri's, but for the sake of safety, the boy had always used a combination of text and pictures to leave his few traces, but sometimes, all he left were lines of handwriting that were not quite the same as in the diary.

[I am dying]

[That person will come to see him]

[This is... the last chance]

[Our chance]

[......]

Much lighter than the previous carvings, even the strokes are floating, as if someone carved them bit by bit without seeing them. Unlike the previous marks where even the messy patterns and words were intertwined but still neatly arranged on the wooden board, these characters flew upwards diagonally, but at a distance below this piece of writing, the strokes of the two characters were very beautiful, completely different from the floating and powerless characters above.

[Sorry]

It should have been left a few months after the above line of marks, when the boy who was about to die had already recovered his vitality.

All of this corroborated with the information he had heard at the exhibition, like a thread that had finally been untangled. Now the only question left for Kenji Hagiwara was what the relationship was between the member who was related to the mysterious organization and had a relaxant and Tsukiyama Asari.

The man paused, and suddenly remembered what he had heard about Tsukiyama Asari's family and the brother who had been missing for decades. For a moment, he felt his brain buzzing, and even the last ball of thread was torn apart, and he was naked in front of him.

Hagiwara Kenji subconsciously felt that Morofushi Kagemitsu should know about this matter, and he understood it more thoroughly than them, but he was not in a position to ask about the other party's work. If he wanted to prove this guess that he was sure was correct, he would have to wait until the cooperative mission that he and Matsuda Jinpei had signed up for was finally assigned.

But that time is not far away.

The man stood up and felt a tightness in his chest. He was probably suffocated by the stale smell in the room, just like he had been suffocated since childhood. He picked up the phone and called the few people who had just climbed through the window to check the situation.

"Xiao Jinpei, you... cough cough." It was only after he spoke that Kenji Hagiwara realized how hoarse his voice was. He closed his eyes, pushed back the emotions that surged with the things he had just found, and the shadow of the white-haired boy that was always swirling in his mind, and coughed twice, only then did his voice become a little more normal, "How are you doing over there?"

"Are you still in the room?" The voice on the other side was also a little hoarse. Without waiting for a response, Jinpei Matsuda continued to ask, "Read the numbers on the bed board again, the last few numbers in each line."

"The last few...?" Kenji Hagiwara repeated the other party's request while turning his eyes to the side, "1...3.12, with an × at the end."

"...same as above, died on March 12th of the first year..."

It was the voice of Morobushi Kagemitsu, and he sounded unsteady, as if he was squatting to check something. Hearing what he said, the half-long-haired police officer instantly realized that the tombstone in the backyard matched the record left by 124. He pursed his lips and read the rest, "1...4.11, the third one is also 1, 7.23..."

"April 11th... This one is from April 11th." Ida Kou listened to the movement on the other end of the phone and walked quickly to a small tombstone he had seen before. Sure enough, the same time was engraved on it as on the bed board.

"The one on July 23rd is here." Matsuda Jinpei said, he stood in front of another small tombstone, his expression unreadable.

"It seems that none of the children rescued from the laboratory survived." The officer with a crew cut sighed, but the anger in his chest did not come out much. He did not care about the mud left on the stone steps after the rain, and simply sat down on the stone slab next to him. "They are all children under six or seven years old."

If it weren't for the 124-gun demulcent, this cemetery would have added another tombstone like the others.

"Squad leader, look at this." While Date Kou was silent, Matsuda Jinpei walked back a little, seemed to have found something else, and greeted quietly.

The man stood up and walked over. He saw a small stone slab some distance away from the tombstones. The workmanship was not as fine as the others, but it looked like he had carved it himself.

[Bread]

was the name of Kasugawa Shugo's puppy that died less than a month after arriving at the orphanage. Matsuda Jinpei's eyebrows jumped and he looked down along the stone slab. Below the name, the space where the birth and death dates should have been carved was empty. Further down, where the epitaph should have been carved, a few somewhat inexplicable words were carved in the same handwriting as the name.

[Go back.]

It was like a light-hearted farewell.

The man was a bit overwhelmed by the continuous information. He simply sat down on the not-so-clean steps beside him like Date Kou did. He also took the bottle of water handed to him by the always careful Morobushi Kagemitsu and used the cool water to sober himself up.

The past that the bastard had hidden well was finally torn open by the continuous accidents and information. The broken beads strung together barely outlined the fragmented body of the other party.

He remembered that Kasugawa Shugo had a light taste. He said that it was because he lived with his grandmother when he was a child, so his taste was like that of an old person who liked traditional Japanese food. But before going to the welfare home, he had been living with his father who was a hired mercenary.

The only reason that could make the father who valued his child so much take him from a stable place to live with him was probably... the death of a relative.

For the boy who was still young at the time, was this also another kind of abandonment?

No one spoke anymore, just sitting there casually, digesting the accumulated emotions bit by bit. After an unknown amount of time, Hagiwara Kenji's slightly anxious words came from the silent phone.

"There are footsteps in the corridor. It might be the security guard at the door coming up to check the situation. You'd better hurry."

Matsuda Jinpei responded. He stood up and stretched his stiff shoulders and neck, which resulted in a series of crackling sounds. "We've finished here. We'll go upstairs in a while."

"Okay, remember to go in the direction of the bathroom."

After Hagiwara Kenji finished speaking, he quickly hung up the phone. Not long after he hung up, the door of the room was pushed open again.

"Excuse me, sir." The man who came was wearing a security uniform. He looked to be the security guard in charge of the old building that Mrs. Kuwashima mentioned before she left. He scratched the back of his head and said, "I have to go to the new building at this time every day to check the facilities and have dinner. It will take me almost two hours to come back, so I came to ask when you will leave. If it's fast, I will wait a little longer."

"We'll leave now." Kenji Hagiwara replied. After listening to the security guard's words, he realized that they had been here for a whole afternoon and had almost found everything they could. He had just wiped off the charcoal that he had smeared on the bed and restored it to its original appearance. Staying any longer would only arouse suspicion. "But the two of them went to the bathroom at the end of the corridor, so they should wait a while."

"Well, then I'll wait for you in the security room downstairs." The security guard said kindly. He lifted his legs and walked outside, but pushed the door back after a few steps. "Sir, remember to close the window when you leave. It's raining a lot recently. If rain falls into the room, it might damage the wooden boards." "

Okay." Hagiwara Kenji responded. Before closing the window, he looked to the other side and said with emotion, "Does anyone often take care of the backyard? It looks really beautiful from here."

"No one takes care of it. Maybe it's because few people come, so it looks beautiful." The man in the uniform vest took over with a smile. "Before, looking out the window, you could see the trees and flower beds on the cemetery side, but after the new warehouse was built a few years ago, you can't see them from the outside. I'll go down first, and just lock the door in a while."

Was the warehouse newly built in recent years?

Kenji Hagiwara was stunned for a moment, and paused when he was about to close the window. He looked back again, as if he had seen the cemetery that was blocked at the end through the newly built warehouse.

Too many times before, the white-haired boy who had recorded the information of the children who had been injected with drugs and died like himself on the bed board, could see the cemetery where he might be buried as long as he lay on the windowsill.

Kenji Hagiwara closed the wide-open window and locked it again.

After he put everything in the room back to its previous state, the two guys who had just climbed out of the back window finally returned to the room.

"Let's go."

Date Kou locked the door again, and when they went out, he returned the key to the man in the security office, and went to the activity room to say goodbye to Mrs. Kuwashima. When they walked out of the welfare home, the sky had darkened a little, but the street lights were not turned on yet, making some of the already muddy roads in the town even more difficult to walk on.

The few people returned to the car and didn't say much. When they were almost approaching Beika Town, Morobushi Kagemitsu finally said, "Has the ** Processing Team received the notice of the cooperation project?"

"We received it the morning before yesterday." Hagiwara Kenji was driving, and he finally smiled when he heard it, "It seems that we will be working together for a while, Officer Morobushi."

Morobushi Kagemitsu smiled and met his friend's eyes through the rearview mirror in front of him, nodded, "You all participated."

"Of course. Xiao Zhenping is the ace of the explosives department, so he will be the first one to be chosen for this kind of mission. The squad leader has also been notified." The police officer with semi-long hair patted the co-pilot's shoulder with a smile and joked, "Of course I have to keep an eye on Xiao Zhenping and make sure he doesn't offend everyone who is working with him this time."

Date Kou nodded when Hagiwara Kenji mentioned him, confirming the news the other party had received.

Matsuda Jinpei rolled his eyes at him unhappily and slapped his hand off his shoulder, "Watch the road."

"Don't worry, I'm always paying attention." Ever since he was beaten up by the other party seven years ago, Hagiwara Kenji has become adept at replacing his previous words "nothing will happen" with more reassuring ones in such situations. He looked back at the lights and speed limit signs on the side of the road that were already turned on, slowed down the car a bit, and then said seriously.

"The collaborative mission this time should be the organization you and Furuya are investigating, right?"

"Yeah." Morobushi Kagemitsu nodded, his face solemn. "We have obtained a lot of data and information before, and weakened their power in many fields. But after all, it is a huge monster that has spanned so many years. It will probably be difficult to completely eradicate it."

"Those guys" listened to the other party's words and recalled the scene he saw in the welfare home before, the ship that was burning with a raging fire, the special police officer in a wheelchair who was traveling with him in the hot spring hotel, and the good friend who had to give up his past identity in order to temporarily get rid of the shadow of death. Matsuda Jinpei's face sank, and the emotions that had been suppressed in the welfare home before finally leaked out a little.

The man's eyebrows were filled with anger, making his temperament even more stern.

"No matter what the reason is." Hagiwara Kenji gripped the steering wheel tightly, "We have to do our best."

"Of course." The black curly-haired police officer frowned, but before he could say anything else, he heard his childhood friend ask again.

"Can I tell you now, Jinpei." While waiting for the signal light, the man turned to look at his friend and asked in a low voice, "It was about the cruise ship time. You seemed a little strange when Shugo was taken away by the helicopter... What happened then? Did he say anything to you when he was on the stretcher?"

Hagiwara Kenji had always been puzzled by his childhood friend's excessive worry about Kasugagawa Shugo, and suspected that it was because the other party saw the other side of Kasugagawa Shugo too early, but many times they acted together. Now that he thought about it, there were only two possibilities. One was that Jinpei Matsuda, who was facing Kasugagawa Shugo at the time, saw something, and the other was that he went out to get something in the ward the next day and returned to the ward early and captured some information.

"...Don't go." After a long silence, Matsuda Jinpei finally spoke. He closed his eyes slightly, and his nose seemed to smell the strong smell of blood that day again. "He said don't go."

The man with half-long hair was stunned.

As a team that went to support that day, it was naturally impossible for them to accompany their friends to leave the ship with the trapped people. No matter what, it was their responsibility.

But...

the man lowered his eyes, and before he could say anything, he was interrupted by a phone ring.

"Hello, this is Matsuda." It was an unfamiliar number, Matsuda Jinpei quickly picked up the phone and answered the sudden call.

"Jinpei." It was the voice of Amuro Toru on the other side. The black curly-haired man was stunned. He didn't expect the other party to call him by his name directly on the phone. Then he thought that this number was different from the one that Toru Amuro usually used as a waiter. The other party was most likely at the Public Security Headquarters and was talking on the phone there.

"I'm here at the Public Security Bureau." As he guessed, Toru Amuro explained the current situation in a few words, and then asked directly, "Are you with Shugo now?"

"No, we just came back from the welfare home." The man's originally locked brows tightened a little, "What's wrong?"

In

the ward at the destination, Shugo Kasugawa, who slept until the afternoon, sneezed twice again.

He rubbed the tip of his itchy nose and ate two mouthfuls of the hospital's soup and watery dinner with disgust. He only hoped that his friends would bring him some midnight snacks to satisfy his craving when they came back.

After all, it was the legs that were injured, not the throat and stomach.

Thinking of this, the chestnut-haired man remembered that the comics had been updated, and quickly asked Tsukiyama Chaori, who had been staying with him in the ward this afternoon, to open the forum.

Sure enough, the above scene had been updated to the last few people leaving the orphanage. After they walked towards the car, the scene suddenly changed to what happened in his ward this morning.

[Hey, the past in the welfare home, hey, the blade, hey, I have become immune to the bear knife after swiping it several times! I can’t be the only one who has to take the knife. Even if you are from the police academy, you have to take the blades of Little Bear and Bear Daddy!!!]

[Wuwuwuwu, are the sisters in front okay? There are not only Little Bear’s knives here, but also Xiaowu’s, Chaoli’s and A Miao’s knives. Run!]

[Such a cozy little house, but who knows how many pains of three people are hidden in this cozy place. I like to watch the daily life of the family of three in the welfare home. Now think about it, they are all big knives]

[‘Hate to say goodbye’, so you left in a hurry first...]

[Wait a minute! Shuugo, didn’t you just hurt your leg? Why are you so stubborn? Wait a minute, wait a minute!! ]

[Look at the last close-up of Asari #Tsukiyama Asari lying on the bed sleeping#, why does it feel strange to suddenly put this picture, he is not sleeping at all, right? ]

[Haha, no, what else can he do if he is not sleeping, it is not possible that he just happened to be awake and heard the words "I will never give up"...... (twisting on the ground in pain)]

.....?

Tsukiyama Asari blinked, turned his head and met the eyes of Kasugawa Shugo who was also confused next to him.

The author has something to say:

Thank you for reading

I made up for the 3k I took off on Thursday, so this chapter is a total of 6k~