Reincarnated Into A Dead Woman's Body In Another World-Chapter 358: Arc 5, - 52: Cause of Death?

How long had it been exactly? How much of the evidence was removed? How much had the crime scene been altered? How much could she glean and resist the temptation to pursue anything beyond this room?

"You’re back," Hotaru turned—her voice sombre. "Are you two okay?"

"Yeah, just lost him," Fumeko let the smell of blood envelope her without care as she walked in. She observed the wrists and avoided the face, "We’re supposed to be inconspicuous about investigating wolfy."

"I’m not a coroner, I have to try at least," the redhead gave a sigh. "It’s not like much of a trace is left behind."

Fumeko glanced back to see an elf who stood by the door. Asobi simply pouted and looked past the body, towards the window—her wand gripped in both hands.

The fresher-looking circles and squares on the carpet, cleared vanity and missing bedsheets—most of the clutter had been cleaned out. The circular wooden frame took up most of the room.

She had to force her head to turn to the body and examine it. The brunette had a task in mind, but someone already beat her to it, "Found something Alicia?"

"Something dreadfully curious, yeah," Alicia gave some space and pointed. The victim’s shirt had been open and above her navel, there they were—the dissipating runes. "Figured to check the thing we still can’t understand."

"How would you know about that?" Hotaru’s eyes narrowed.

"Oh, I have my ways," Alicia responded without looking.

Hotaru’s gaze went to Fumeko. Fumeko on the other hand, was much too focused on the faint crimson glow of the runes. These runes made up a much longer line than the ones they had discovered before and was disappearing slowly from the leftmost rune.

"Count the number," Fumeko whispered to herself. Sixteen she counted, before she spoke aloud, "The company still hasn’t decoded it. With six runes before, a word might’ve been harder to find.

This should lead to a breakthrough hopefully. Jotou, you mind?" Fumeko tossed out a new notepad and metal-tip pencil.

Before the blonde could reply, Alicia took a step back and aimed her camera. "Sorry for the intrusion," she said to the corpse. "FLASH!" "There, that should be the most accurate."

Jotou stood with the pencil and notepad still. She began copying the runes regardless. ’With all the supernatural shit going on, I’m not trusting a camera.’

"You think the nails might lead to a location this time too?" Hotaru folded her arms and stood next to Jotou.

Jotou pondered as she sketched, "I wouldn’t count on it."

"Even so, dad and the company’ll handle that part. We should note the nails just in case," Fumeko said with a mild scowl.

"If you lot step back, I’ll have the fresh crime scene ready for viewing at any’time," Alicia aimed her camera.

"You wouldn’t put this in this paper, would you?" Asobi asked.

The smile that was missing on the reporter’s face returned briefly, though it was a bittersweet smile. "Bloody hell, no. You need consent from the family, make it pass through censorship, all sorts’a procedures.

And even then I question if I’d actually publish photographs like this. Oh I wouldn’t. This is for purely investigative reasons. Besides, I still have a deal to keep."

With that, the four stepped away back from the crime scene and allowed Alicia to do her work. While she did, Fumeko held a hand to her chin, "You saw the two hop into the academy at around eleven, right?"

"’bout to strike eleven, ’round that time," Alicia answered. "I’d say proper ’leven when they actually entered the dormitories."

"They had roughly an hour to do all this," Jotou added.

"The exact time of death," Fumeko thought. "It’s within the hour. This all happened in a single hour?"

"I’ll do you one better, we can narrow the time’a death a little. The time it’d take t’walk here and set things up would’ve at least taken maybe, five, ten minutes? I don’t think they’d be running through the halls, they didn’t seem brisk.

Then, we stumbled onto the scene at the same time that mystery man came stepped out. The murder already happened, I’d say at the very least, five minutes before."

"Yay, we’ve narrowed it from an hour to about fifty minutes," Fumeko’s eyes glazed over.

"Could make all the difference," Alicia responded.

"We were pretty late last time, but now," Jotou looked at the body. "Is the cause of death bleeding out?"

"Matches the autopsy results of the last two victims," Alicia affirmed.

’Wait, last time we were sure that the cause of death was a loss of soul. Could we be wrong about last time?’ "Well, how long does it take for someone to die from bleeding out?" Jotou asked.

Alicia took one last photo and checked her lens, "I wouldn’t know the specifics."

"Someone’s healed people from bleeding out multiple times before," Fumeko eyed the wolf-girl.

"And that makes me an expert?" she raised a brow. She let out a breath, "It depends. The size of the injury, how much blood was lost. Exsanguination isn’t immediate, so death wouldn’t be instant, that’s why I even have a chance of healing it.

The shock would kill them, maybe after two or so litres of blood’s been lost? With the amount of blood still dripping here," Hotaru glanced to the floor stained in red... "and all the nails hammered in all those places...

Hm, ten, fifteen minutes at most? It can’t be more than that, there’s enough blood outside the body. I’m sure those nails are keeping those wounds and damaged arteries open too. So the body has- ...had, a hard time stopping the bleeding."

"Another question," Asobi spoke up. "If that evil fiery blinking illusion guy carved the runes and the pen’s supposed to make spooky ghosts come out... why didn’t we see a ghost?" she tilted her head.

"You mean like Alicia’s photo," Jotou considered. "How did it happen last time Alicia, what d’you see?"

Her fingers twisted around the frame of her glasses, "I heard some howl in the air and felt a chill up my spine. I looked through my camera and saw this blur whizzing ’bout out the window.

Although... considering the window here and where we were outside the building, we could’ve easily missed it. It could’ve flown out on our way here through the hallway for all we know."

"No..." Fumeko, as quietly as she spoke, was heard crystal clear. "The timing, it seems too, suspicious. There’s something about the timing here that’s too important and we need to figure out the precise when."

"The timing of what?" Hotaru responded. "The time of death? The time of when the injury was enacted? The timing of that man’s escape? Is there something special about the hour before midnight with ghosts?"

Fumeko squinted as she pulled on a loose red string in her mind, "Were the runes on the body carved post-mortem or, before...?"

Everyone turned to her.

"Alicia doesn’t know, but when we investigated the last victim, we couldn’t find a clear cause of death. We pretty much said that the runes summoned the victim’s soul and that’s what killed them."

Alicia pouted to the side, "There’s no fooling an autopsy report, the blood loss would’ve had to’ve come from hard evidence."

"Me and Jotou saw how much blood there was, it wasn’t this much. I mean, a lot of it had dried, but it was too little to say someone bled to death."

"Was there a carpet? Was it soft?" Alicia snappily retorted.

"Yeah?"

"Did you check under the carpet?" her pink eyes darted to the blonde and brunette.

Jotou and Fumeko glanced at each other and blinked a few times. "No..." they both synced.

Alicia hummed to herself.

"Granted, I wasn’t much of an expert then as I am now. Everything I said should’ve been taken with a pinch of salt," Jotou admitted.

Hotaru voiced, "Well, if we’re looking back on that, there were cult members going there to use that body as a map. They could’ve easily cleaned up some of the blood to obscure the cause of death."

"Ifs and maybes, ifs and maybes," Alicia shook her head. "Could’a been cleaned up, could’a soaked under the carpet, could’a been internal bleeding.

Listen, we’re not forensics, so let’s no go ’round playing pretend. Let’s go off of what we know. The victim here, clear as a bright sunny day, bled to death. The first victim’s scene, none of us saw.

The second, you lot investigated after who knows how many cult members had a reunion party in there. What we do know, is that the autopsy results by Dolpool Police officially lists exsanguination as the cause of death in both cases.

Now, obviously somethin’ supernatural’s going on and I’m no expert on that; I mean, there’s a wooden frame here, that somehow bloody got here. But I still think—call it intuition—the cause of death for all three is true."

"So, could it be that when they die with the runes carved on them, that’s when the soul gets taken?" Hotaru threw a theory out.

Not giving up quite yet, Fumeko pulled her thoughts together and said, "No, I think both causes of deaths can be true."

The redhead’s ears folded down, "...What?"

"They all died twice? That’s even worse!" Asobi shuddered.

’I’ve already died once, I’m sure I’ll experience that at some point.’ "I don’t think she means it literally," Jotou caught on.

Fumeko squinted and raised a hand, "Obviously." She sighed, "Remember that guy who got thrown off the upper floor of the warehouse and went splat? The spirit-mage asked if he was marked."

"That would mean the runes on the body definitely need to be there before dying," Jotou agreed.

"Hmph, leaving me out on crucial details are we?" Alicia grumped. "I don’t have any news on your tango with the cult."

"Lucky us," Hotaru remarked.

"Just keep following, I’m sure you’ll figure it out," Fumeko said to the reporter. "We didn’t witness the scene of the first murder, but on the second, we saw disappearing runes. Now, we have a fresh set of runes in the process of doing the same. We know those for a fact."

"The runes were carved first on the body of the victims, then they were killed to get their soul," Jotou continued.

"But why such a slow and painful method?" Fumeko posed the idea.

"It must be more than just for presentation. If they just need souls, they wouldn’t even need to do the whole wooden board thing. If they just want a serial killer cover story, there’s so many other methods to choose from," Jotou figured.

"Especially if all the victims complied, they could be as slow and as meticulous as they wanted. I think, there’s a reason they chose this method of bleeding out."

"It’s so they could have more time to do what they needed."

"More than that," Fumeko bounced off of Jotou, "They needed a specific moment in time. The victim had to be right at the brink of death and that’s when the soul is collected, not a moment after."

"The moment between life and death? Maybe, but it’s more of a theory," Hotaru furrowed her brows.

"No, it’s a fact," Fumeko refuted. "A fact we should’ve realized sooner. There’s living proof of it right here," she faced the blonde. "At what point were you brought into this world?"

Ignoring the fact Alicia would hear all this, Jotou answered, "At the moment of death, not a second after."

"Oh yeah, we figured that out on your birthday," Asobi recalled.

"Jotou’s alive here, her ’soul’ at least; her other body’s dead in a crash. By my count, that’s two lives—one dead, one remaining. The remaining one, is Jotou herself now, in full control," Fumeko explained.

"I’m on the same track as you detective, but I was brought here by some sort of enchantment magic, not spirit-mage related. As far as I’m aware anyway. I got fully reincarnated immediately, I didn’t wander as a soul or something."

"Even if that’s the case, it gives us some insight to how souls would work. That spirit-mage probably controls all of the souls she collects, so it’s not like they can get reincarnated.

By being controlled by the spirit-mage, they might as well be brainless minions till they die or possess someone. Once the soul is gone, the physical body is just an empty shell. And using this method, since the shell’s already bleeding out...

In other words, the cause of death to the body was blood loss; the cause of death to the person was the loss of a soul—two causes of death," Fumeko summarized.

"And that’d add up why they’d be so inclined to choose a slow method of death. They wouldn’t miss their opportunity," Alicia seemed to follow in the end.

"It also connects with the autopsy reports. If the death didn’t make sense, the authorities would look into it deeper, sooner." Hotaru smiled a little, "Good work. Still, ’two causes of death’ is a stupid way to put it."

Fumeko pouted to the side, "It made sense when I thought of it wolfy."

"Well, fantastic, fine and dandy, let’s get outta here before security shows up," Alicia ushered them out of the room.

"Wait, wait," Fumeko blinked into the hallway and faced down it. "I have to go check on someone." At least, if she was there that is...