Thoughts of the Sensei II

Of course, this happened again, it was predictable, but what wasn't was simply the method, how does one continue to do such atrocities?

It seems to me that this animal is just dismembering whomever they find, and the fact still remains is this person was as careful as a brain surgeon.

How does he do it, how does he continue to be so wreckless during the murder, but so intricate beforehand, it's as if it were two completely different people doing these crimes, but that simply isn't the case.

There was only one man according to the eyewitness, too bad he couldn't get an ID on him.

The kids are not going to be happy, hell, this just makes me sick that this sonofabitch is still out there, but what can I do with my hands still empty.

I need something.

I entered the conference room that the group members used to go over the evidence and announced to them the news, it's the only way where it was easy for me and alarming at the same time.

"We found another body earlier this morning!"

"Did you catch him?" Yuki asked, he seemed the most eager out of all of them to catch him, but he still doesn't quite understand just how this process goes, we simply can't be vigilante's lurking the streets looking for this bastard, we have to be professional.

"No…"

"What?! So he's still out there while we're in here—in here drinking tea!" Yuki replied, once again letting his emotions get the better of him.

He did show great promise, however, he's still predictable, to say the least.

"You need to relax, we all want to get to the bottom of this."

"Do we at least have more evidence this time?" Anastasia asked, as cool and collected as she usually is, sometimes looking at her I see myself, I'm not sure if that's necessarily a good thing.

"Yes, we do. He left behind the knife like last time. But he also left behind somethin' else."

"What is it?" Vivian asked.

"Here, take a look." I showed them an image of the item we found at the scene, it was a gold pendant that had the image of a snake wrapped around some type of rod or stick or something.

"Me nor any of my guys back at the station could figure out what it means…"

"It looks sinister, maybe it's religious." Vivian said.

"I know what it is." Kaso softly said, he intrigued me the most out of all the kids within group one, if only he wasn't his own worst enemy.

His words got the attention of everyone within the room, I'm surprised they even heard the kid.

"Well, what is it kid?"

"It's the rod of Asclepius." Kaso replied.

"What's that?"Alex asked.

"It's a common symbol for medicine and even hospitals." Kaso said.

"How does that give us any clues?" Vivian strongly asked.

"Well, it could mean one of two things, and it does narrow the search for this guy." Kaso said, now he's got my attention.

"Seriously? This does all that? How?" Olivia asked.

"Well, it could mean that the murderer either works within the medical field, or that his killings can somehow be connected to Asclepius, the god of medicine and healing." Kaso said.

"Hm. It is possible that the killer can work within the medical field with the way he dismembers the victim's bodies."

"So… how would we be able to find someone like this. That's two huge possibilities." Olivia said.

"I doubt the killer works within the medical field though. So that only leaves the killings being connected to this god of medicine." Anastasia said.

"Explain." Olivia said.

"Do you know how long it takes to dismember a body the way the last two bodies were, especially being able to do it again on such short notice. Whoever is doing this has much more free time than whoever would work within the medical field. I'm guessing that whoever the killer is, is a middle aged male working a regular nine to five job." Anastasia said.

Well damn, she easily broke that down in a matter of seconds... she may have better detective skills than I thought, just who the hell is this kid anyway?

"But if that's the case, what does the god of healing and medicine have to do with these horrible crimes? Isn't that doing the direct opposite of what this God symbolizes?" Yuki asked.

It's apparent these kids were already working, whether they knew it or not, too bad I have to cut it short soon, but I still want to see where this goes.

I can easily submit myself into this, but it's better if I allow them to continue depending on each other rather than the proctor.

After all, these kids want to be agents someday, they're doing a fine job right now, let's keep it that way.

"It has to be more than that though…" Kaso said.

"I agree. We need to research a little more on who the God of Medicine is and maybe see if there are any books of worship on him." Anastasia said, this is probably the most I've heard her speak by far, I guess whenever she chooses to do so, she makes it count.

"That sounds like our best bet right now." Kaso said, showing much more volume than he did a mere couple of minutes ago.

"That's a great Idea... we should go over the photos, but first I have something for you guys to do."

I wish I could just let them continue, they're one hell of a group if they work together, but I still have to have them complete their damn requirements for the day.

If it were up to me, I'd let them continue, but sadly, it ain't. This is an order from the IJA, not me.

"Oh, what is it?" Yuki asked.

"Is it a special mission for us?" Olivia asked.

"No, you all need to do 50 laps around this motel."

I know that was very disappointing to them, being that it halted something that was beginning to spark between them, but once they've finished it, they can continue where they left off.

It only took two hours for them to complete it, which gave me more than enough time to relax after seeing the scene not too long ago.

I'll even cut the bastards some slack and give them some water, after all with the way they looked, they needed it.

"Are those for us?" Yuki gasped, pointing at the six water bottles I left on the table.

"Yeah… Now, the victim this time was a mother of two. Her name was Aiko Watanabe." I provided the youths with a photo of the victim as well.

"Who here is good with computers?"

I clearly didn't adjust to technology the way others my age did, I can barely work a damn photocopy machine let alone what I was looking for.

Also, I never put much effort into technological tasks, it never intrigued me enough.

"I am." Vivian said as she halfheartedly raised her hand.

"Good. We need to find out what Aiko was doing all the way up to this morning for the past week. Here are all the receipts that were in her wallet and weekly schedule given to me by her husband"

After handing her all the materials she needed, she didn't get directly to it, neither did she even look prepared for such a task.

"Where's your computer?"

"Don't worry, I bring it wherever I go." Vivian said this as she sleekly pulled out her slim laptop from under the table, I couldn't tell if she kept that within her clothing or was it hidden beneath the table. She dumped out all the materials that were neatly placed within a bag and scanned them, she looked like she turned into a different person, then said "This shouldn't be so hard."

"Now, since we have this pendant already figured out. We need to figure out if this woman was targeted or if it was random."

"We'll have to compare the two victims and see if there are similarities." Anastasia commented.

"Precisely——I'll assign you to that."

"What should the rest of us do, sir?" Alex asked, I'm still not one hundred percent sure he's recovered from the other night, but it wasn't my place to care.

"I'll need two to three people to go over the crime scene photos and see if you can find things that haven't already been labeled. I'll check back on you guys in an hour."

I'll leave this to them, even though I'll still be working on it, but I still had my hands full, this isn't the only unsolved crime that has happened over the past few days, and even though it's by far the strangest, I still had other responsibilities to do.

I trust them to handle this anyway, they've shown more than enough for me to do so.