“Yeah... if you put it that way...”
✦ ✦ ✦
Mmm? Misora frowned, suddenly. A moment before, Ryuzaki has insisted there was no difference between killing a child and killing an adult, but the motive for it bothered him? A reason like this one...
✦ ✦ ✦
did that have anything to do with anything? A child in her teens...
✦ ✦ ✦
A child? A child?
✦ ✦ ✦
A little child?
✦ ✦ ✦
“…No, Ryuzaki.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“In this case—lower case is perfect,” Misora said, her voice shaking.
✦ ✦ ✦
Shaking with anger.
✦ ✦ ✦
“That’s why the killer chose a child.”
✦ ✦ ✦
A thirteen-year-old child.
✦ ✦ ✦
Her initials.
✦ ✦ ✦
Upper case, lower case.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Because she was a child—lower case. And that’s why she was face down—upside down!” It would be some time later before Naomi Misora realized that it was Ryuzaki who had enthusiastically pointed out the matching initials, who had pointed out that the victim was a child, and who had given her the sugary coffee that had sent her into the bathroom, where the mirror provided the inspiration she needed to figure things out.
✦ ✦ ✦
But either way... the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases.
✦ ✦ ✦
The missing link had been found, the critical detail that would, in later years, give the case its name.
✦ ✦ ✦
Imagine that you were going to kill someone. What do you think would be the most difficult part?
✦ ✦ ✦
Three, two, one... time’s up! The correct answer: killing someone. Now, now, calm down—I swear I’m not making fun of you, or playing linguistic tricks here. I’m completely serious. People, in other words, humans, have not been designed to die that easily—at the least, people almost never grunt or moan and immediately fall over dead. Strangulation, blunt force trauma, stabbing—none of these kill people easily. Humans are surprisingly sturdy creatures. Additionally, people have a tendency to resist being killed. Nobody wants to be killed, and there’s a good chance they’ll try to kill you back. Physical strength in humans doesn’t vary that much, and in a one-on-one fight, winning can be rather difficult.
✦ ✦ ✦
From this point of view, the ability to kill someone just by writing their name in a notebook is a flagrant violation of fair play, as I’m sure you can imagine.
✦ ✦ ✦
However.
✦ ✦ ✦
When Beyond Birthday went about committing this series of murders, he did not have any difficulty killing his victims. After all, the murders themselves were not his purpose, and he had no intention of expending undue effort on them—but even so, it was not easy to see exactly how he had avoided trouble. Certainly, he was using weapons and drugging his victims, but at this point all three of his victims had been killed without showing any real sign of resistance. In most cases, defense wounds are a key element in identifying the killer, but in this case the victims had all died as if it were only natural for them to have done so. The FBI Agent Naomi Misora never did understand why, and even the century’s greatest detective, L, did not manage to create a working theory until several years after the case had ended.
✦ ✦ ✦
But enough buildup.