Chapter 1

Prologue II The serial killer Seiren Higano had rules. He always wore a white lab coat when he killed. He only targeted beautiful, elegant young women. He always took one part of their bodies. And he cut off their faces. However, it wasn’t as though he cared so much about beautiful women or had a fetish for a specific body part. These rules were only meant to send a signal to others. “Well then,” Higano said. “What am I going to do now?” He took off his white coat, speckled with blood. Underneath, a bespoke black Armani suit skimmed over the lines of his lean physique. He folded the white coat carefully so as not to stain his suit, and hung it over his arm. The refined gesture gave him the air of a capable butler swiftly clearing away his master’s tablecloth. Higano glanced down at the dead body. The muddy waters of Tokyo Bay washed in gentle waves against the concrete tetrapod blocks near the shore. On top of one block lay the body of a beautifully-proportioned woman. She was dead. A slender leg dipped into the water. It was easy to imagine that, when she’d been alive, she’d been captivating: her slender, seductive limbs stretched out from a flashy, well-tailored dress. She had a beauty mark on her collar bone that heightened her charm. Her long, well-manicured nails were blood-red and even a little mysterious. But this glamorous mystique was quickly punctured. Her beautiful left leg was severed at the ankle. The foot was gone. The corpse’s face had also been scraped off so the contours were ruined. Her once-elegant features were completely unrecognizable. These signs all suggested the crime had been committed by Seiren Higano, also known as the serial killer Masquerade. However, throughout his career Higano had removed many faces, and he judged the technique used on this corpse as extremely crude. The lips and everything on the face above the nose remained intact; conversely, the neck had been needlessly cut up. It wasn’t very attractive. “This is unacceptable.” Higano turned his head and averted his gaze, unable to look any longer. He calmed down quickly once he could no longer see the body. — The serial killer Masquerade. His name came from his trick of cutting his victims’ faces off, as well as an urban legend that witnesses of the crimes had seen a man wearing a mask. It wasn’t clear who had started the rumor. However, as his killings on Odaiba went unchecked and the case got bigger and bigger, that name, which had begun online, permeated society at large. Now there wasn’t a single person in all of Japan who didn’t know about Masquerade. He was a serial killer who killed victim after victim, but left no traces behind. The story stirred the public’s imagination, leading to a froth of discussion as to his true identity. Some thought there were multiple killers, some that the killings were conducted by the mafia, and still others firmly believed that it was the establishment, that the whole thing had been made up, or even that the paranormal was involved. The serial killer Masquerade had, irrationally, become such a large presence in society that for each crazy rumor there was certainly a contingent willing to believe it. But in the end everyone’s inflated imaginations would fail them. They would discover that Masquerade wasn’t anyone powerful or fantastic—he was only the forgettable Seiren Higano. — As the serial killer Seiren Higano strolled along on his usual morning walk, he mulled over using Crystal Mountain or Mandarin beans for his coffee. He smiled and also pondered the target for his next kill.