Bloody Monday Episode 7: The Beginning of the End

“Everything is set, the stage is lit, now let the show begin.” — J.

Prelude:

“It’s an exchange killing. He kills the man my wife is cheating with for me…” Silence. “If I didn’t kill Sakura-san (the other guard), he’d…” More silence follows Ishikawa’s eerily calm confession. “We’ve heard of this a million times!” complains one of the interrogators, “But he has not set a foot outside of that cell, how does he kill?” “That person has power. The power to determine the life and death. (If he truly possess such power, he would be roaming the streets right now, wiping out anyone that dares to cross his path with the tap of a finger. But of course, killing the guard must be an intentional act.) He told me a name and she died.” The elder of the interrogators leans in slightly and presses, “What’s the name?” “Yasuda Yukiko (the first victim of Bloody-X),” comes the reply. The mention of the name triggers a response in Ishikawa that he starts to twitch violently, making incoherent noises of utmost mortification as if suddenly infected with the vilest of diseases.

THIRD-i is informed of the linkage between Kamishima and the terrorist group and took immediate action to follow up on the cult leader’s history. They confirm the cooperation between the two groups and discover Kamishima’s means of communication with the outside as Morse code. The soundwave of the tapping finger is sent through the body to the bare foot. The signals are picked up by sensors in or near the penitentiary and transmitted to the outside world. (Personally, I think detecting change in air pressure around the finger would be more plausible than recording the soundwaves, although it’s probably no more feasible than measuring soundwaves.)

People are sent out to look for the sensors in the jail cell — everything is going according to J’s plan.

ACT I:

Takagi Fujimaru successfully extracts the essential information from the computer and pinpoints the location of the cure. He leads the two agents, agent Kano Ikuma and agent Minami Kaoru, as well as the deceased Dr. Sosuke’s assistant to the final destination: the cottage where the Takagi’s used to go to for vacations — with J and Bluebird following.

They break into the cottage and starts the search…

In the THIRD-i base unit, the mood is sacked to the bottom with the addition of a new member. Precisely, the new boss, who will be overseeing THIRD-i’s every action, making every decision, whether big or small, from now on. Mr. Douchebag Extraordinaire promptly introduces himself and dives into Goro’s various mistakes and incompetencies with remarkable arrogance.

Politics is a dangerous game, much like the Bloody Monday case at hand. Knowing full well the rules of the game, Goro clenches his fist — something he does fairly often recently —  and forcibly acquiesces. But the frustration doesn’t stop short at being stripped of executive power…

The search of the cottage proves to be an easy one. Too easy.

100 doses worth of cure slash antidote are found, but thanks to Sosuke’s ex-assistant, Fujimaru and the two agents are also surrounded. Due to the changes in the power distribution within THIRD-i, no aid can be dispensed at the time to help those besieged inside the cottage. But when one door closes, another opens. Fujimaru sits down and slides the laptop out of his backpack…

Through intercepting the bluetooth signal that the attackers wore, Fujimaru is able to use J’s voice as a model to synthesize commands of his own and send them out to confound the enemy. (How does he know they wore bluetooth in the first place?) It works and buys them just enough time to escape through one of the rear windows.

But not enough time to escape all together. The enemies soon picked up their tracks in the woods and after a feeble fight back, they are held at gun point for the antidotes. Once examined the little glass tubes, Maya mindlessly remarks that there are less finished products than she had anticipated. Reminded by her own words, she turns her head sharply and points the gun at Fujimaru’s head. The air intensifies. The two lock gaze, then slowly, Fujimaru reaches into his pants pocket and reluctantly drops two test tubes into Maya’s hand — interrupted by one of the vassals who runs up to informs the arrival of the THIRD-i aid team. (The way the handing played out makes it seem like Fujimaru is still in possession of another bottle of cure.) “Gotta watch out for the boy,” Maya remarks after pocketing the two tubes of cure. Before leaving, she gives Fujimaru one hard look and laughs wryly, “By the way, thanks to Monagata-san (the assistant). Thanks to your information, we were able to find our way here.” Then she smiles sweetly and walks away without looking back. 😀

The look on the people’s face at Maya’s stab is priceless: hilarious in a perverse way. (Which is the effect Maya is aiming for.)

The assistant looks from Fujimaru to Ikuma, then from Ikuma to Kaoru, incredulity, confusion, and awkwardness written all over her face. If the wrath of the three people around her can materialize right now, she would be burned to ashes on the spot.

Back in the car, with Fujimaru’s father as the chauffeur, Maya reports her success to J (after torturing Ryonosuke by recounting how she nearly killed his son). J is satisfied with the success of the mission, he chides Maya for not killing the assistant (which means the assistant is going to play a larger role in the near future) and double checks with Maya that she has indeed taken all of the cure. “If any is left uncollected, you know the result.” 😀 😉

Surely enough, a tiny vile is saved by hiding behind Fujimaru’s ear.

ACT II

Douchbag Extraordinaire is a well deserved title for this new boss in THIRD-i. He doesn’t deserve the title with just his bombastic manner, his exceptional talent to meddle with events and play havoc with the heroes of the story is what crowned him the nickname. With power, a man may do peculiar things without being questioned. This douch orders to have the tape of Dr. Sosuke’s kidnap scene to be taken out of the archive and has a policeman showing it to Haruka in Fujimaru’s home. The tape elicited an extremely negative response in the child and in turn affects Fujimaru vastly. Fujimaru runs out after the policeman, who is a douch himself, and disputes with the man. Soon afterward, the man is found dead, making Fujimaru the primary suspect of a murder — clearly orchestrated. The event is magnified by the fact that the victim is a member of the police, drawing the attention of both THIRD-i and the police department.

Meanwhile, Fujimaru is falsely convinced that the recent tape incident is the direct result of agent Goro’s order. Consequently, he isolates himself from any contact with THIRD-i and attempts to evade the police who are looking for him everywhere.

With no one to tust no one to turn to, it’s Fujimaru’s friends from the newspaper club who find him and bring him back to safety.

The assistant is searched and interrogated. From her possessions, the agents find a USB drive containing a tracking device. She reveals that she does not own the USB, it was given to her by a mathematician. His name is… Kanzaki Jun, commonly known as, J.

Fujimaru bemoans the terrors life has imposed on him and his sister in the recent days. Sensing his despondence arises from his love and concern for his little sister, his two best friends, Otoya and Aoi, agree to check up on the sister for him. Fujimaru’s face lights up instantly — only to be turned to a frown the next second.

Blood is oozing out of Tachikawa Hide’s orifices. A lot of them.

—

I noticed recently that images, when scaled down, tend to become blurry. So, click on them if after squinting at the pictures, you still couldn’t make out the details.

Not too much thoughts about this episode. It’s on the slow side of things, in terms of plot development and action. It did introduce a number of problems to fog things up, as well as a new old character, but my fatigued brain is refusing to be impressed by the attempt so I’m moving on, hopefully quickly, to the next episode.

One thing I would like to comment. While it’s ingenius (sort of) to use Morse code to explain Kamishima’s communication with the outside, it’s too far fetched to actually work. Afterall, he’s not tapping into a sensor that directly records his message. The noise in the surrounding would have to be filtered out first before the terrorist group can communicate back and forth/the THIRD-i analyst can extract the meaning. Things can get quite messy.