A thin thread appears against a pitch-black background, stretching across the dark sky like a rope held by a pillar on the right and another on the left. In front of it stands a massive crowd of people wearing masks painted with deeply sorrowful faces, clapping slowly and in a low, muffled tone that sends chills down the spine. Then, a white-haired boy wearing a blank white mask with no features or drawings whatsoever begins walking across the rope. As he advances, his mask shifts from a sad face to a happy one with every single step he takes, until he reaches the other pillar and touches it. At that exact moment, the crowd violently attacks one another, grabbing those masks—which were actually fused to their faces as if they were live organs of their bodies—and ripping them off each other's faces with sheer sadism. They tear through flesh, and blood spatters profusely across the area, while some choose to rip the masks off their own faces as if committing suicide. The person on the rope stops, his mask frozen on a smiling, happy face as he gazes at the crowds in that gruesome, bloody scene. Suddenly, everyone freezes and looks up at him after tearing their own faces apart, exposing white fragments of their skulls, and then the crowd smiles back at him and begins clapping with a frenzied, mad intensity. On the other side, we find that white-haired, green-eyed boy walking through the darkness, mercilessly dragging the blood-stained corpse of a woman behind him, while his own clothes are soiled with crimson blood. He drags her with a twisted smile etched onto his face, saying: "See, Mother? The road ahead of us is still very long." He stops and looks down at the corpse with him, his face splattered with blood; this boy is, in fact, "Togashi," the childhood friend of "Hiroki." Togashi looks ahead and smiles deviously: "Heheh! You've lost a lot of blood; I mean look, you've drawn a clear path with our tracks! Wait, this is bad; they'll know where we were. Can't we just run away together as mother and son? Shall I carry you just like you carried me when I was little? Hahaha, how beautiful the sunset is! Isn't this the perfect ending scene?!!"
Suddenly, the lifeless corpse awakens and begins tearing at its own skin with bare hands. She grabs a tree trunk lying on the ground, holds it tightly, and breaks it, using it to gouge a distorted, wide smile onto her face. She grips "Togashi's" arm, and the scene fades to show the two of them walking together toward the unknown horizon. We return now to the present in the real world, specifically to the beautiful, vibrant area of Shibuya in Japan, where a modest, ordinary house appears in one of the narrow neighborhood alleys that represent the dark, impoverished side of Japan. From this house emerges twelve-year-old "Togashi," wearing his neat school uniform and heading toward his school. He kisses his mother affectionately before leaving, and she bids him farewell with a warm smile, saying: "Togashi... always show me that beautiful smile, and keep it as a mask for yourself, my son, despite all harsh conditions, as long as I am with you!!!" The boy turns to his mother with immense joy, elated by her words, but suddenly the screen of this memory begins to glitch and distort like an old television. His mother appears in a terrifying form, her clothes covered in heavy blood, her face filled with blue bruises, as her trembling hand presses against a deep wound gushing with blood, holding a broken glass bottle that caused this severe injury. Then, the screen returns to normal as it was. Togashi is actually a boy studying in his first year of middle school, distinguished by his good behavior and high morals despite all the family troubles tearing his home apart. He lives in extreme poverty after his father squandered everything he owned, losing all his money to a life of gambling and debauchery, which left the boy growing up without a real father after he abandoned his wife and only son. Here, poverty nested like an ominous raven in the life of this family. Since his childhood, Togashi lived inside a vortex of his parents' problems, fueled by violent arguments and constant chaos throughout their married life. Togashi was just an ordinary student who learned, left school, and returned home to the same dull routine the next day, yet that smile never left his face despite everything, a concept his mother had planted in his mind so he would remain happy. Exactly during his life at the age of thirteen, in his second year of middle school, his father suddenly returned to the family. Back then, the naive Togashi thought that life might finally smile upon him, but the exact opposite happened. His father would return home drunk and enraged, venting all his repressed fury by screaming loudly at his son and brutally beating his wife every single night in front of their poor child, Togashi, who would stand there trembling with fear, not knowing what to do or how to defend himself or his mother, until he eventually reached a point where he desired to rid himself of this fear and attempt to take revenge on his tyrannical father.
On one dark night, the father was screaming insanely at his wife, and they were locked in a sharp, screaming match. The father slapped his wife forcefully, sending her crashing to the ground. He then violently shattered the window glass, picked up a large, sharp shard from the scattered pieces on the floor, and assaulted his wife, beating and slashing her brutally until he stabbed her deeply in the kidney, causing her to collapse while bleeding profusely. Togashi looked at the horrific scene and lost his mind. He lunged at his father rapidly using another glass shard, stabbing him directly in the eye. He began pulling the shard out of his eye savagely and stabbing him again and again without pause, finally plunging the glass piece into the left side of his head, dropping him to the ground as a lifeless corpse. Togashi turned in panic toward his mother's body as she lay on the floor trying to press down on her wound to stop the bleeding. Togashi grabbed her, and because she was somewhat short in stature compared to her young son, who stood at 155 centimeters tall, he took her by the arm and began trying to drag her with him to escape the place quickly. While they were on the long, dark highway in the dead of night, the body was dripping blood onto the asphalt. The mother's body was dying, and Togashi walked while tears streamed heavily from his eyes, yet the smile he promised his mother he would never erase remained creepily drawn on his face: "Heheh, Mother! We've finally escaped; I saved you from that bastard and killed him! It's not a bad thing that I defended you, right, Mother? Hehehe." The scene suddenly cuts to the mother's body, which seems to have completely succumbed to death; that glass shard appears fully embedded in the kidney area, and it seems his mother had passed away a while ago. Togashi cried out in a hysterical tone: "I was wonderful, isn't that true, Mother? Talk to me! Or at least whisper anything!!!" Togashi looked back to find that his mother's body had completely lost all its strength. He placed her corpse on the ground while smiling, and with trembling hands, he checked her neck, only to be shocked that her heartbeat had stopped entirely. At this moment, instead of crying and wailing, Togashi began laughing with insane hysteria while tears poured from his eyes, because his young brain could not comprehend the sheer volume of horrific events he had witnessed all at once. When the brain cannot process such successive traumas, and to protect its human vessel from losing its sanity and becoming a fool, it activates a psychological defense mechanism, completely shutting down Togashi's feelings of sorrow so that he would never cry again for the rest of his life. Here, the latter rises with total coldness, grabs the leg of his dead mother, and drags her with him along the ground, pulling the body and advancing with steady steps on the highway, leading to that familiar scene you saw at the beginning of the chapter.
We return now to the present inside the nightclub, where "Izana" is seen sitting on that blood-stained bed, staring intently at the large display screen. He ponders in his mind how he can be a good and loyal partner to this terrifying gang, especially after witnessing the brutality and sadism of the leader, "The Pig." However, at the same time, he remembers that he must avenge his treacherously murdered assistant; despite everything, Izana is not a selfish person who only thinks of his own personal interest, but rather cares deeply for his assistants as well. Even though he possesses the video tape containing the footage recorded by the secret surveillance cameras of "Hiroki's" crime—which means the police will never reach a solution to the case or untangle the mystery of these assistants' murders, and the innocent cook will be directly accused because their bodies were found inside his large refrigerator in the form of severed, mutilated pieces and limbs of their bodies, exactly as Hiroki planned, or rather, his dark side that represents absolute sadism, meaning "Ryoma," that dormant monster living inside him. We move now to the other nightclub where Hiroki's previous crime took place; the police, after completely losing hope in finding any tangible evidence, find themselves considering closing the case and registering it against an unknown perpetrator, especially since their current detective is a failure and lazy person who possesses no skill whatsoever. Whenever any complication arises in a case, he immediately closes it and evades it. Suddenly, the sound of firm, heavy footsteps is heard thudding against the wooden floor. The camera slowly reveals the features of the owner of this voice, showing him to be a suspicious figure with an athletic, muscular physique, pitch-black hair styled classically backward with a clean, complete shave on the sides, and sharp gray eyes that exude extreme coldness and a deadly calm. The camera focuses precisely on his neck, where he has a clear tattoo of a familiar symbol from Germany during World War II, intricately drawn with the tails of two snakes wrapping from the sides of the symbol. The camera centers on the right side, where the snakes' tails appear in dark black, all forming mysterious black tattoos. He steps forward, placing his hand in his pocket with a lit cigarette in his mouth on the left side, walking in on them with utter coldness and confidence, saying in a sarcastic tone: "Truly interesting... how do you take this job of yours so 'seriously'?" He says it while his hands move in sign language to express "mockery and joking," then continues sharply: "Huh? Closing the case with such ease and simplicity? Don't you think about those victims who could be anywhere right now? Who knows how many this damn criminal has killed? At least he left you a carefully butchered body to truly cooperate with you, didn't he?!!?"
The current detective replied to him in a furious rage and shouted: "Hey! Who do you think you are? This is none of your business at all! I am Detective 'Jaski,' the person in charge here, and you have no business or authority in this place! Who the hell are you? Are you a foolish journalist or something? Where is your camera then?? You damn idiot!!!" The new detective responded with utter coldness and confidence, saying: "Just shut up; with your stupidity, you ruined one of the most important previous cases, don't you remember, huh?! The famous Maze Killer case, that monster who used to kidnap innocent children and make them live inside their dark nightmares until he killed them with a freezing heart!! I... I am the one who solved that complex case all by myself during my shift, while you were hosting that damn wedding party of yours! A poor father begged me while crying, and he stained his hands with blood just to find his kidnapped daughter, but it ended very badly for him in the end!!!" He was panting from the sheer fury, as if the subject of that old case touched a sensitive, wounded chord in his heart. Then, he slipped his hands into his pocket and smiled a mysterious smile after his nerves calmed down a bit, pulling out his official ID card and holding it in front of his face: "Detective 'Locke'... consider this your last investigation in the police force, you blockhead; you have been officially fired! Director, step forward immediately!!!" Lieutenant "Dox" steps forward with heavy strides, saying: "Good, very good, Detective Locke." Then he turns to the current detective, Jaski, standing face-to-face against him: "Well, Jaski... do you call closing difficult cases an investigation, huh? You damn failure, I don't want to see your face here again, get out of my sight immediately!!!" Jaski replied in a spiteful tone as he left: "Fine by me, but just wait a little... you will deeply regret this decision!!!" The lieutenant turned to Locke and said: "Alright, Locke, the case is now under your full responsibility, do you understand??!!"
The lieutenant leaves, leaving the brilliant detective "Locke" alone at the horrific crime scene. He begins to focus intensely on the dismembered body and approaches it slowly, pulling out his white medical gloves and putting them on to begin the actual investigation into what happened with precision: "It appears that the body was cut with a very sharp and precise tool, and there is no doubt that the killer used a large cleaver; it is the only tool capable of causing this mutilation. However, looking closely at some obvious mistakes in one of the flesh pieces, it seems he was afraid and agitated during the act. Perhaps he didn't want to get into this mess in the first place... perhaps what we are dealing with here is not a case of premeditated murder and sadism, but rather a mere case of self-defense that led to a disaster!!!" Locke stands up straight from the floor beside the corpse, holding his cigarette in his hand, and walks with calm steps to the large window overlooking the street, where he throws the remains of the cigarette outside. Suddenly, his sharp eyes lock onto a group of young men exiting the main door of the casino; they are "Hiroki's" new companions. Here, the clever detective "Locke" thinks deeply that these youths might be involved in one way or another in this heinous crime. He gazes and locks his gray eyes on them intently, casting his piercing glances toward each one of them, one after the other, reaching "Hiroki," who suddenly turns back toward the casino, specifically toward the kitchen window, with total coldness and a mysterious gleam in his eyes, raising suspicion and doubt in the mind of the professional detective. Here, Locke thinks to himself deeply: "Could it be possible that this boy with glasses is the prime suspect in this massacre?"
To be continued...