Where in the World Is Susaki?!

Ah, another day at the Susaki Journal office. It was the start of summer break, which meant I could spend more time at my job. Everything was nice and quiet, and the smell of fresh coffee filled the air. Of course, Mom said I was not allowed to have coffee, as I was only seventeen. The Journal was a local effort, perfect for a city like Susaki. Contrary to the calm atmosphere, the actual interior of the office was a furious mess of papers, wires, and computers that were way older than me.

It wasn't much, but it was a fairly decent starting job. Gotta climb my way up to being a journalist somehow.

Today, only five of us had to show up for work: editor Shuichi Kaneko, photographer Keiko Aoki, journalists Hiroki Sakamoto and Chihiro Masuda.

And the girl who just walked through the door? That's me, Ayame Tanaka. The intern.

“Did ya see that Dragons-Tigers game?” Kaneko asked Sakamoto.

“You are the last person I need to be hearing about that game from,” Sakamoto answered. “Bases loaded at the bottom of the ninth, and the Tigers just had to get that home run? I'll never hear the end of it!”

Those two… whenever the Dragons and Tigers were playing, they would always argue about it the next day over coffee and whatever was left over from last night's order.

“Of course, I d-didn't forget about the meeting with the mayor,” Masuda nervously said over the office phone. “He said he's not giving any c-comments about the otter incident.”

Otter incident? That made me want to ask even more questions than she normally did.

“Tanaka!” Aoki shouted at me. “Have you seen the info Sakamoto got last night?”

“Is this about those three students who disappeared from Kōchi University?” I asked her.

Keiko Aoki was known more for her looks than her skill in photography. Sources varied as to what her job was prior to joining the Journal; some said she was a runway model turned runaway model, others said she was a movie star before some freak accident scared her away from the business, others still said it could have been both… neither…? Nobody really knew. She never spoke out about her past. In spite of whatever happened, she always seemed to have that perfectly poofy burnt-blonde hair in check, and she always wore outfits that were much too expensive for her pay level.

“They aren't disappearances anymore,” Aoki corrected me before showing me pictures from a crime scene. “Got these from local police. They're upgrading the cases to murders.”

“Murders?”

“Yep,” Aoki confirmed. “Mr. Doro was here this morning telling us we need to invest more resources on this case immediately. Something about the scoop of the century.”

“Mr. Hedoro was here?! The publisher?!” I asked. Mr. Hedoro was the name we had in the office for that slimy businessman. Everything about him screamed grimy, slimy, sludgy, whatever words could have come to mind. Aoki immediately shushed me.

“He doesn't like it when people call him Mr. Hedoro,” Aoki corrected me. “But yes.”

“Doesn't Mr. Hedoro have like thirty other newspapers in Japan he could draw resources from to chase his scoop of the century?” I asked her.

“Well, yes, but ours is the only one in Kōchi Prefecture that Mr. Doro owns,” Aoki explained. “He justified his decision on the lines of…” She cleared her throat in an attempt to mimic Mr. Hedoro's voice. “Half this operation is automated anyways, so why not make it more automated while we chase this case?!”

“Why do you insist on calling Mr. Hedoro by his real name now?” I asked her. “Is he still here?”

“I'm not sure, but I wouldn't take that chance.”

I picked up the crime scene photos. Nothing like this before had ever hit my eyes. The bodies were barely recognizable as human, or perhaps used to be human.

“So the police are calling these murders? It almost looks like someone cast a spell that went haywire,” I noted.

“You must be reading too much of those magical girl manga, Tanaka,” Aoki insisted. “Magic is the stuff performers do like the knives-in-a-box trick or the one where they have to escape from a straitjacket while in a pool full of water. Magic doesn't kill people.”

Unless the magician performs a trick that's more than they can handle, that is.

“Still looks too bizarre to be anything conventional,” I insisted. “Even burning the bodies doesn't do… whatever that is… Does Mr. Hedoro realize we aren't equipped to solve murders? We aren't detectives!”

“He says we are now, Tanaka,” Kaneko said as he walked up to me. “If we can beat the cops to the punch on this one, it'll put our paper on the map.”

“Seems he doesn't have very much confidence in the police,” I said quietly. I then turned back to Kaneko. “So what does Mr. Doro need me for? Am I supposed to be fetching coffee while the four of you are catching crooks?”

“Actually, Mr. Doro wants you out on the front lines with us,” Kaneko told me. He then handed me an official press badge. “Enjoy your promotion.”

My eyes instantly lit up at the sight of the badge. I couldn't believe my eyes! It even had my name and my picture on it! I was, at least for now, an actual journalist.

“T- thank you…”

“Sakamoto, get Miss Tanaka up to speed on the case!”

“On it!”

“Masuda, I need you and Aoki to really push the mayor on the otter incident. We need answers yesterday!”

“Of course!”

“Uh… Mr. Kaneko,” I interrupted. “What's this I keep hearing about an otter incident?”

“What, you don't know?” Kaneko asked me in response. “The whole town is talking about it! Apparently someone spotted a rare otter on the outskirts of the city, and the mayor…Well… Let's just say he struck out when he tried to make contact with it.”

“Sounds painful,” I noted.

“Not so much painful as it was very embarrassing,” Kaneko corrected me. “Unless you count the emotional damage. The mayor hasn't been seen out in public since.”

“That's the top story for today?” I asked. “Surely there's, like, crime or a really big feel good story we could put on the front page.”

“It's been a slow week,” Kaneko told me. “It was either this or we talk about, oh, I don't know… the school entrance exam scores again.”

“Yeah, that does sound like a slow week…”

“Miss Tanaka? Can I get you up to speed on that missing persons case?” Sakamoto asked me.

“Sure.”

“Okay, so two weeks ago, three students disappeared from Kōchi University right after the last class of the day,” Sakamoto explained. “There was no trace of any of them until…” He then showed me the crime scene photos that Aoki had already shown me. “Last night, the bodies of two of the students were found in Downtown Kōchi in… that condition.”

“I told Aoki that it looked like someone cast a spell on them that went haywire,” I responded.

“That's not how magic works, silly,” Sakamoto insisted. “Magic is -”

Not this again! I kept telling them that nothing conventional could have caused this! It was just too bizarre!

“Stage tricks and illusions,” I groaned. “Yes, Aoki told me all of that. Still, don't you think it's a bit odd that only two of the students have been found?”

“Oh, good call, Tanaka!” Sakamoto complimented me. “The third student is still unaccounted for, so it is possible they may still be out there. Maybe they were the culprit!”

“I was going to say if maybe we could find them alive, we could ask them questions about what happened, but that works too.”

“Good news, everyone!” Kaneko called out from the other end of the office. “I just got the okay from Mr. Doro. We'll be heading out to Kōchi this afternoon to get up close and personal with this case!”

Ah, my first time out in the field. Truly, I was living my best life.