On Tuesday at noon, it was raining in Ibaraki. June always was a time for crazy weather in Ibaraki and will continue through July, but this year was different because the rain level was low and temperature was high.

Ippei and Akira were sitting in their classroom, lunch time had just started and they brought out the food they've prepared. Ippei was focusing on the Yakisoba he bought this morning, which looked ghastly but it'd give him enough nutrition to go through the day, while Akira appeared dejected about his rice ball as well, because that's all he could've gotten as the weather meant he couldn't go out and buy anything else.

"I hate the rain, haaaaah." Akira commented while looking out the window, which Ippei thought was pointless as the weather wouldn't change even how much he'd complain.

"You said that like you haven't lived here your whole life. It's always raining in June." Ippei replied nonchalantly.

"I wish tomorrow it'd be sunny..."

"Make a sun doll then."

"That never works... right?"

Akira turned to look at Ippei who's focusing on eating his food like it's not just a terrible mush, at the same time looking at his phone screen and grinning like an idiot from time to time.

"I take it's going really well then." Akira commented.

"Huh?" Ippei turned and looked at Akira, perplexed.

"With you and Sachiko-chan." Akira clarified.

"Oh, right." Ippei seemed to slightly blushed, before turning and chatting with Sachiko via the phone again.

Akira knew this guy was madly in love for sure, Ippei had always been appearing aloof, so when he changed into this grinning idiot it was very obvious to anyone, he's been like this for weeks now and everyone within their circle knew.

Akira couldn't deny he's a bit jealous, a kind of default status for a single guy whose friend was hanging out with less and less, although deeply he's happy for his friend.

"Went somewhere nice on the weekend?" Akira asked though didn't expect Ippei to answer.

"Oh we went to Cinema Sunshine last weekend." Ippei replied, still looking at the phone.

"At Aeon mall?"

"Yeah. We went there to buy some stuff and decided on a whim to watch some movies."

"Something fun? Something romantic? I haven't followed movies for a while now."

That continued question from Akira changed Ippei's expression subtly, it turned more bemused, not unhappy, but it was very weird.

"Well, I wanted to ask you about this, but I wasn't sure..." Ippei said, a bit reluctant.

"What is it?"

"Well, I let Sachiko choose the movie, right? I thought that was the right thing to do in that situation, but the movie she chose was, eh..." Ippei answered, but stopped mid sentence.

"If it's between the understanding of you two, I can't see how that would be an issue."

"Well she chose a movie I had no interest in, but I didn't say anything, yet she insisted on asking if I'm alright with it, I said no, she insisted on having me suggest something else because she didn't want me to be unsatisfied. I insisted that no, I'd be happy to watch it."

Akira's eyes glazed over a bit as Ippei quickly rattled that off. Akira was indeed pretty confused.

"So finally I relented and told her to choose something else, she did, but would that not make her unhappy?" Ippei continued, looking genuinely concerned about all of this.

"Huh?" Akira was making a very confused noise and expression.

"Like, I did not say anything right? I didn't want to watch it, but I wouldn't object anyway. At the moment I probably let out my dissatisfaction about her movie choice unknowingly. Would she be mad about it, you think?"

At that moment, Akira noticed another message appearing on Ippei's phone screen, he guessed it was Sachiko, and it was a bunch of happy looking emoji. Truthfully, she didn't appear mad in slightest.

"I think you just worry too much, my friend." Akira tried to sound reassuring, but mostly because he's so confused about it all he didn't know what else to say.

"Yeah, but, women don't like to express themselves honestly, do they? That's why I'm scared." Ippei continued.

Akira knew Ippei had always been pretty neurotic, but at this point he's wondering if his friend had become schizophrenic. Akira didn't know how to reply to that in the slightest.

"So what was the movie she chose at first?" Akira asked, purely from curiosity.

"Huh? Oh..." Ippei looked uncertain. "...Er, it was The Return of Dangerous Detective."

Akira nearly choked on his rice ball with that answer.

"What the...?" Akira was completely in shock, which Ippei couldn't care less and was now looking at the phone again.

"It looked like an old uncle's movie, so I didn't want to watch it." Ippei continued, while also typing back to Sachiko.

Damn right, Akira was thinking, is Sachiko secretly an old uncle or something? He knew her only passingly via friends, she wasn't someone who he imagined would be interested in Dangerous Detective, not in a million years.

"But like I said, I wouldn't object, I meant it when I let her choose. Then she chose Mad Max: Furiosa instead anyway and it was much better I think. I hadn't seen the previous film either but it was better than Dangerous Detective." Ippei explained further.

Akira could only look at his friend in disbelief, the whole situation was weirder than he'd imagined. Although, Akira also thought that maybe it's why they were attracted to each other. Ippei was not an ordinary teenager either by any means, but apparently Sachiko was even more extraordinary.

"I really think it's fine." Akira insisted, wanting to move on.

"Apparently it was because her dad put it on repeat when she was young." Ippei explained.

"Well that makes sense... I guess."

—

2 PM. The rain shower was clearing up while Norio Hattori was driving on the Joban Expressway going north in his yellow Swift Sport, he's heading to a trading company in Mito City in order to negotiate a sale of cucumbers which were recently harvested. It's been way too long since the last time he had to do this, but he still felt competent enough to handle it.

Even if the pay was lessened from his cushy office job at the university, Norio felt immediately that the decision to quit was right from day 1. After he got back from Shizuoka he started housekeeping and found that his mother was overloaded with work unintentionally. She planted way too varied crops and was not really able to keep up, he'd take up that slack, including today.

The venture was still making okay profit, amazingly enough in Norio's opinion, but a changeover would totally transform it into a really good, sustainable operation.

Norio did schedule a meeting with a few old colleagues for some advice, as he'd been away for too long in this industry, but catching up and learning how the pricing trends did make him quite confident, it wasn't that different after all, even if it's a completely different region he could confirms it via the internet easily.

Starting from the simplest thing, Norio was heading to a warehouse of a trading company, part of North Tochigi Trading Group, owned by the well known Sawatari family. Norio heard that the Ibaraki branch apparently was into a dispute with the Tochigi branch recently, but it's more of a family dispute which wasn't really talked about in public all that much except within a few agricultural producers.

Following Google Maps, Norio got off at Mito Interchange heading towards Mito City itself. He's been here often enough to not get lost on the way, even if it was for personal matters.

The company was in a generic office which had a few other businesses in the same building, Norio parked the Swift, and in this big car park the yellow hatchback was incredibly distinctive in the sea of corporate shitboxes. Norio observed the fleet of vehicles and couldn't help but glance at the company's Probox, even if it was merely a reminder of that one, and not really the same.

Norio got the sample box out of the trunk of the Swift, a tiny one containing a few cucumbers, and headed towards the building. He went through the front door and was greeted by a man about his age, but looked youthful.

"Good day," The man greeted Norio with a bow. "you must be Hattori-san?"

"Yes," Norio greeted him back. "mister?"

"I'm Aoi Obara."

"Norio Hattori."

The two exchanged cards as they greeted each other.

"You must be Ayumi-san's son, correct?" Aoi asked.

"That's right." Norio confirmed.

"Great! Send my regards to your mother as well, she's done business with us for more than a decade at this point."

Norio thought that this guy was smarmy as hell, and he looked barely 30, yet talking like he's been here for decades.

Norio handed the box of cucumbers to Aoi, who accepted it, then was invited to sit on the sofa inside the office.

"So, I understand you have a shipment of cucumbers to sell?" Aoi continued, to which Norio nodded.

"A Carry truck load, yes, 400kg or there about." Norio replied, it's just confirming what they'd already talked beforehand.

"It's not a huge amount, but we'd be happy to take it for the usual wholesale price of 150 yen per kg."

150 yen per kg? Norio knew that this was the start of the cucumber season so the price was getting low, but 150 yen? That's way too underpriced from what research he'd done.

"That's a bit low, isn't it?" Norio noted immediately, he expected 200 yen minimum, closer to 250.

It was at this point, Norio saw a subtle change in expression on Obara's face, it really rubbed him the wrong way as it was as if Norio caught onto something.

"Well, we're open to negotiation if the product is of good quality." Aoi clearly was trying to backpedal in Norio's opinion.

"The company's been buying it for more than 15 years by this point, maybe even 20, why would it not be of acceptable quality?" Norio pointed out straightforwardly.

"Yes, but as you know, the price of products is low right now due to the recession..."

Bullshit, Norio thought, he checked with the agricultural association website before coming and saw that the cucumber price was rising this week.

Then, it was at this point, Norio had a realization. The price purchased probably stayed relatively the same all these years, even if the product's price shot up. That did sting.

Norio decided at that moment, he had to do something.

"I won't accept anything lower than 300." Norio said, trying to contain the fuming anger inside as it'd be impolite.

"I'm sorry, we can't accept that offer." Aoi retorted, clearly alarmed but was still holding firm.

"300 sounds like a nice number..." Norio restated

"Maybe we can raise the price to 200..."

"300 is the price, it's fair and your company can afford it. Come on."

That was true, Aoi may have been representative, but it's not like the cost was coming out of his pocket. 300 was not steep at all, in fact, compared to typical market price, 300 was low. Norio could confirm from that moment that Aoi was banking on him being a fresh face, not a knowledgeable person coming in as a substitute for his more experienced mother.

"Can I talk to my manager about this?"

Aoi was about to stand up from the sofa when Norio just started chuckling pretty loudly, enough that the entire room of the office they were in was interrupted looking at them.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Alright. We accept 300 yen..." Aoi said, defeated.

"Paid in full on delivery, no installment." Norio continued, which gave Aoi a bit of a fright.

"Ehhh?"

"I'll deliver it tomorrow at your warehouse. First thing, 9 AM, I'll prepare the invoice. 120,000 yen."

Aoi was fuming at Norio's way of acting, even if it was his fault from the beginning.

"Alright..." Aoi conceded.

It was at this point, Norio was staring at the guy with a death glare, which actually scared Aoi quite a bit.

"Thank you for your business, Obara-san," Norio said as he was standing up, which Aoi followed but couldn't say anything in return, "and I was thinking I'd have to take a trip to Shimohaji."

That was not a random comment about a random out of nowhere town in Ibaraki, and Aoi understood the message completely. Norio just patted the shoulder of Aoi when he was bowing to say goodbye, before walking away without saying anything further.

Norio left the office building, before coming back to sit in the Swift, sighed from the encounter which angered him so much a few minutes back. At that moment, he had to do something quite quickly, so he called his mother on the phone.

"Hello, what is it, son?" Norio's mom answered.

"Hey, mom, do you happen to remember what price you sold the cucumbers to Sawatari Company last year?" Norio asked.

"Cucumbers? We don't have a lot of cucumbers right?" Norio's mom wondered, trying to recall.

"Well this batch was 400kg. A Suzuki Carry full."

"I believe it was 200 yen a kilo? Somewhere around that, the price dropped from 250 because of the economy."

That kinda confirmed everything Norio was suspecting about the company, even if he was pretty sure already before.

"Oh, you're going to sell the cucumbers right now, right? How much did you get?" Norio's mom realized, so she asked.

"Yeah, I got 300 yen per kilo, 400 kilos is 120,000 yen in total."

"Ehhh? That's a lot, isn't it?" Norio's mom was surprised, "I can't recall ever getting above 250."

"Yep..." Norio's was still furious, even if he's not showing it, "and just a heads up, we aren't selling it to them anymore."

"Hahh? Why? Wouldn't trying to find a new buyer be difficult?"

"Don't worry about that, mom, I'll take care of it."

"That'd be great, although I still can't quite understand why. I'm sure you can explain when you get back. Anyway, I have to go deal with something, talk to you at home okay?"

Norio's mom quickly put the phone down, leaving Norio to sit there, wondering. How much had they been ripped off before, and were any other companies buying the produce had been ripping off them?

There was more for him to uncover and fix, huh...

—

11PM. Ryu and Kai were two friends who heard about a new spot for racers appearing on the Tsukuba Mountain from the internet. They have been going to various mountain passes to observe the local street racers in Ryu's red Porsche 718 Boxster.

Ryu's a rich kid, so was Kai, they knew each other since high school and now were studying in different universities, yet they still liked going to various places where they knew there would be street races.

Tonight was the same, as soon as they heard about the Tsukuba Fruits Line becoming a popular spot, they made an hour-long journey towards Ibaraki from their home in northern Saitama.

They were very excited as they turned right at the Asahi Tunnel south intersection, heading up the Fruits Line. Although a bit wary of police presence in the area, they've never actually encountered one, as the problem of mountain runners had been considered all but eradicated, at least in the public's eyes. In truth, there were still people who did mountain runs, at legal speed or otherwise, of course there were. It's just that they weren't as common as it once was.

"Hey, Ryu, you reckon there'll actually be racers up there tonight?" Kai wondered.

"There ought to be, a lot of people were talking about it in the Line group." Ryu answered.

"But did any of them actually say they were coming?"

"Come on, you know most of them are wusses. Ibaraki racers are much more hardcore, you know?"

Kai doubted that observation from Ryu, he'd never heard of Ibaraki street racers being that much more into it than any other places, maybe in the Showa era, but not today.

The red Porsche went up the mountain at a pretty high rate of speed, obviously, Ryu thought he was a better driver than he actually was.

"Slow down a little bit, why don't you?" Kai pleaded from the passenger seat, which made Ryu laugh.

"You're scared already? It's still uphill!" Ryu continued to laugh as he's steering the Porsche around the hairpin.

"I don't see any other racers up here..." Kai observed, "Are you sure there would be people here? It's a weekday."

"A weekday is good, isn't it? Racers wanted the road to be completely quiet."

Kai was still doubting that.

The Porsche was driving at a brisk pace up the mountain, and got to the peak point, the mountain was in complete darkness, and they did not see a single vehicle parked anywhere. Ryu kept driving as he'd never been and didn't know where the meeting place usually would be.

Unbeknownst to him, there was indeed one car parked discreetly along the gravel path leading to the old hang glider site. They did not notice that car at all.

Now the road was going downhill, on the Fruits Line north section itself.

"Look now, Kai! We're really going now!" Ryu shouted, as Kai was holding onto his seat.

"Uwohhhhhhh!!!" Kai shouted, scared completely shitless.

The red Porsche wasn't going that fast, all things considered, but it was using the full racing line and going at much higher speed than the 30 km/h posted.

Once they got past the flower park sign at the bottom of the Fruits Line course, they still hadn't seen any other cars on the road tonight.

"It's weird, isn't it? Why is there no other car around?" Ryu finally conceded that clear fact.

"Hah. What? Ehhh..." Kai was hyperventilating, trying to think of the answer.

"I mean... we've driven this far for nothing. Gotta make use of it anyway, right?"

"Sure. Man." Kai still couldn't really answer coherently.

Of course, they both still hadn't noticed the silver, unremarkable looking car following behind a few hundred meters away.

Ryu parked on the shoulder of the road once he got to the intersection that's clearly not on the mountain anymore, and decided that the drive through Asahi Tunnel probably would be quicker than turning around to go up, he thus turned left and headed towards the Fruits Line south section entrance again.

This time, turning left from the Route 199 at Asahi Tunnel south intersection, the Porsche got up the mountain once again, Ryu was excited to try this new road, while Kai was still scared.

The Porsche was driving more aggressively and erratically with each and every corner, which made the driver of the silver car behind decide the next course of action around the time they got halfway up the hill climb south section.

"Hey, Kai, somebody's following? What car is it?" Ryu asked.

Ryu noticed the headlamp of the car behind shining after he got through one of the corners on the uphill.

"I don't know, Ryu, could be another racer?" Kai answered after turning around to look at that car.

Ryu felt a bit creeped out, and he was now also a bit scared. How long had that car been following them? Maybe the guy just caught up recently?

Ryu tried to shake it off with more aggressive driving, going into the corners at greater speed as much as he could, even if he's unfamiliar with the course.

"The guy's driving really well, I have to say. You couldn't shake them at all." Kai noted, which made Ryu slightly annoyed.

"What could that car be? It's matching my speed." Ryu wondered.

Ryu got the answer after the next corner which he took with a racing line to try getting the most speed out of the Porsche, because as soon as he did that, there was this image coming through the rear view mirror that made both of them now feel terrified.

A little red rotating light coming out of the roof of that car behind, with the familiar sound of siren accompanying. It's the cop.

"Shit! Ryu!" Kai shouted, scared, even if he's merely a passenger.

Sergeant Genta was driving his usual unmarked silver Toyota Crown, he'd been observing these guys for quite a while now, and even if he wanted to be lenient for a person just driving on the mountain pass for leisure without anyone else racing them, when they went over the dividing line in order to make the corner, that was the last straw.

"These punks, huh." Genta mused in his car, still calm.

If there's one thing Genta wished for was that the Porsche would not try to run away, as Tsuchiura still couldn't get the Ishioka station to set up a checkpoint at their side of the Fruits Line. This meant that he was alone without backup, apart from Ishida, a junior traffic squad officer who's in the passenger seat.

"Station, this is special unit 02, we're following a red Porsche Boxster, number plate Kumagaya classification 341, sequence 7 18. The car's driving erratically on the Tsukuba Fruits Line, going currently 60 km/h, requesting the continued pursuit into Ishioka municipality in about one minute." Ishida reported via the radio.

The silver Crown was nothing special, a hybrid model procured via a national government funded fleet, but it was a surprisingly competent machine on the mountain road which even Genta was surprised by. Considering this was the first time he had to pursue an actually fast car on this sort of road in this Crown, which came into service only in 2022.

"The guy's a novice, clearly." Ishida observed, while Genta still focused on the driving.

"Yeah, can you announce it to stop with the loudspeaker?" Genta requested.

Ishida did as told, he picked up the microphone and turned on the loudspeaker to announce to the Porsche driver, who was not pulling away from the Crown.

"Stop the vehicle on the side of the road, please." Ishida said, which both Ryu and Kai heard.

"Please, stop..." Kai pleaded, "Do as told, please."

"The police got what? A Mark X? A Crown? Surely I can shake them off in a Porsche, huh?" Ryu said in a confident tone, hiding his actual nervousness.

Ryu changed down, and continued to accelerate as he's getting to the peak of the Fruits Line, this of course made Genta sighed as it was something he wished against.

"The suspect is trying to get away, we're going through the border into Ishioka. Please notify the station, over." Ishida continued to report to the Tsuchiura station.

It's a pretty common misconception that the police will not pursue a suspect over the municipality line, this was not the case at all, especially if the municipalities were in the same prefecture, which made both serving under the same authority. And even if it's a cross-prefecture border, once the pursuit started, the police could continue following the suspect without needing authorization at the moment.

The Porsche was not cornering quickly at all, despite trying to accelerate away thinking they'd have the advantage. This meant that Genta in the police Crown was still able to follow very closely behind.

"If you can't shake them, just stop!" Kai continued trying to reason with Ryu.

"You're not the one driving, you're not the one at risk of losing the license!" Ryu answered angrily, annoyed by the fact that the police were still behind him.

Ryu's driving was more erratic as he was more scared, Genta and Ishida kept a slight distance, but made sure to not get left behind. Genta was a pretty decent driver in the academy even if he wasn't the best, and he's more familiar with the roads around here.

"I'll leave them behind on the next straight after the hairpin, watch this." Ryu announced to the absolutely terrified Kai, who's holding onto his seat for dear life.

The Porsche got through the hairpin quite erratically, and accelerated hard onto the not quite straight acceleration zone in the middle part of the Fruits Line North section. It was true that the Crown was not able to keep up, but the acceleration zone was actually too short for it to pull away. Although, it was not short enough.

"Ah, that's dangerous!" Ishida noticed quite quickly as he saw the Porsche shooting off into the straight.

Both Genta and Ishida knew that it'd get into an accident eventually, considering how it was driving the entire time.

On the hairpin corner right after the acceleration zone, the Porsche did not brake at all until it was way too late. This meant it shot off the turn and into one of the trees on the outside of the corner at a very high rate of speed.

"Shit..." Genta immediately shouted, as he followed to park right behind and turned to Ishida, "You report to the station!"

"Station, the Porsche crashed. I request an ambulance to the Fruits Line, ASAP. Ishioka part, halfway up the mountain. Approximately 2 kilometers from the foothills."

Genta quickly got out of the Crown and rushed to the Porsche, which was now an expensive piece of crumpled mess embedded into one of the trees. Genta shined a flashlight at the passenger compartment, then the embankment to verify that it was safe to traverse to its occupants. Luckily, the dense trees stopped the Porsche from careening off the mountain, it actually rested halfway still on the road.

Still, it was bad. Really bad. The Porsche was left nearly unrecognizable, and its components scattered everywhere, both down the embankment and on the road.

Genta noticed that both the occupants were still breathing, although unconscious and clearly in very bad shape. He shined the flashlight to see if there's any medical intervention he'd need to perform immediately, but couldn't see much.

Even a seasoned cop such as Genta was terrified by everything that had happened. Ishida quickly rushed to him with the first aid kits, and they both tried to help both the passenger and driver the best they could.

It was going to be a long, long night...

At midnight, going into Wednesday. Tadamori got a phone call which woke him up startled. A phone call at this hour meant something bad happened, always. As a traffic squad officer, it usually meant one thing, especially if it came from his superior, Inspector Kawakita.

"What is it, Goro?" Tadamori spoke into the phone, still confused.

"Get dressed, quickly, there's an incident on the Fruits Line." Goro answered was curt and to the point, and it made Tadamori sprung from his bed.

"What is it?" Tadamori was scared to hear the next line.

"An out of prefecture Porsche went off into the trees, both occupants are in critical condition and one of them has a 50/50 chance of surviving. Come, quickly, in your personal car. About 2 kilometers from the north entry point. I will not be coming so you just report to me in the morning, alright?"

Goro hung up as soon as he finished explaining, and Tadamori rushed to get dressed as he was ordered to. Anything will do, no one will care at this hour.

At this point, Tadamori wondered, he knew from Goro that Ishioka station would be placing a patrol car there on the mountain tonight, as a continued effort against street racing. Some punk in a Porsche still went up there and caused an accident? He already notified Mizuho to put up a notice telling every Geo Timer user not to attend the course for 2 weeks minimum, so it was clearly not a user.

So many questions were rolling around Tadamori's head, but he picked up the key to his Mark II and headed off as quickly as he could.

Driving to the scene, Tadamori could not go as quickly as he wanted because he's in his personal car, from his apartment in Ishioka, onto National Route 6, it still took less than 20 minutes to get to the south entry of the Fruits Line, and 5 minutes to reach the peak point.

If the accident happened 2 km from the north entry, then it'd be around 1.5 km from the Flower Park sign on top of the course, so Tadamori was watching where the group of cars would be. He got to the second acceleration zone after the hairpin, and once through the slight wavy bit at the start, he noticed a lot of red lights on this usually completely quiet road.

Both Ishioka and Tsuchiura traffic police were there, there were 3 police cars, 2 marked, and one unmarked Crown driven by Genta parked there blocking the road completely. There was also the investigative team Hiace parked there which Tadamori noted was from Ishioka.

Immediately as soon as the black Mark II approached, the Tsuchiura police were tensed up as the noise was so obvious it was a tuning car. The office prepared to wave Tadamori away, when the Ishioka police gently stopped them. Tadamori parked it behind Ishioka's traffic accident investigation Hiace.

The guys from Tsuchiura station all wondered who this burly man in a Mark II was, except for Genta, who was leaning on the unmarked Crown, not saying anything.

"What's up, Tadamori." The first person to greet him once Tadamori got out of the Mark II was Toru, an officer from the accident investigation team.

"Toru-san, can you give me a rundown?" Tadamori said, very concerned and tired.

"Well, as you know, the Tsuchiura police camped an unmarked Crown in the gravel path of the hang glider point, right? They then observed the Porsche for a while, before the driver started driving very erratically and dangerously."

Tadamori and Toru started walking by all the police vehicles parked there, towards the Porsche itself which was still in the tree. Tadamori stopped as soon as he reached the silver Crown out front, and he noticed Genta.

"Oh, good morning, Genta." Tadamori greeted, with a slight joking tone considering the time and occasion.

"Good morning, Tadamori." Genta replied, while Ishida, like most others from Tsuchiura station, wondered who this guy in the Mark II was.

"You must be Ishida." Tadamori greeted Ishida, who's standing next to all of them.

"Good evening, sir." Ishida bowed, as he expected Tadamori to probably be someone pretty senior.

"Ishida, this is Sergeant Tachi from Ishioka station, he's basically me." Genta explained, half jokingly.

"Nice to meet you, Sergeant." Ishida said. Tadamori noted that Ishida was wearing a required high-vis jacket, unlike Genta who was a lot more casual.

"So it was you who followed, huh." Tadamori said, looking at Genta.

"Yep..." Genta replied, he looked very tired and quite a bit shook by everything, like Ishida was too.

"Huh..."

Tadamori didn't say anything further, and continued to walk to the Porsche with Toru.

The red Boxster was surrounded by a few investigative team officers, it was completely destroyed. From looking around, Tadamori guessed that it went into the very hard tree at more than 100 km/h with tire marks starting way too late into the corner.

"Fucking hell..." Tadamori said under his breath.

"There's no way it could've made the turn, or stopped." Toru noted the obvious, which Tadamori agrees with.

At that moment, an Ishioka officer ran towards both of them, clearly very startled.

"The hospital called, the driver just died a minute ago." That officer reported to both of them, which made Tadamori feeling grieved and Toru sighed.

The mountain had always been a dangerous place for the uninitiated. The unwary would always be punished, and not all of them would be lucky to recount the experience.