"F-false evidence?" William repeated, as did the others.

Kazi silenced the naysayers with a single point: "Tell me, why would Asher lie about where he was? He's not the killer so what was the point in lying? Unless...he wasn't."

"Told you so!" Asher exclaimed, standing on his feet. He pointed an accusatory finger at the jury. "These guys were out to get me!"

"Not exactly," Kazi said. "Danzaburou-danuki, a leader and more importantly a trickster. In his mythos, he is known to disguise as humans."

"Wait a minute," Asher said, growing terrified, "that rat was at the front most of the time. Was he the one who killed—"

Danzaburou stomped on the table with his feeble foot. "I'm a trickster, not a murderer! Yeah, I falsified evidence! Yeah, I lied about you Asher! So what? That doesn't make me a murderer!"

"Doesn't it?" John said. "Why point fingers at me when we clearly have a creature that can supposedly turn into a human? When the sole piece of evidence not suspecting the tanukis has been overturned."

'Good point.' The players were immediately skeptical. William, however, noticed Kazi wasn't.

"Well, Kazi?" John asked. "There seem to be many holes in your accusation."

"Because there's nothing to disprove." Kazi shrugged, smiling. "The evidence speaks for itself."

This wasn't over. Not by a long shot. Whatever Kazi had up his sleeve, it was enough to instill total confidence. The players sensed it. John sensed it.

"You better speak fast before you lose the good will of the people," John warned.

"We have been focusing so much on testimony that we've forgotten to properly examine the evidence. Not that I can blame anyone, the most efficient way to find the murderer is by process of elimination. By cross-referencing alibis and finding inconsistencies. But due to the location of the crime, alibis are next to useless." Kazi gestured to the evidence table. "We have a bloody knife, a torn piece of black fabric, and a chess box. The bottle of alcohol and hair dye are gone. Whatever concoction was made is lost to us. Luckily, we can make a few presumptions with what we have left. For example, there was a struggle between Paul and the killer."

"Hence the cloth," Detective Matasaburō finished. "But what about the chess box? At the corner, there is blood. How did that come about? Did Paul use that as a weapon?"

"Not quite." Kazi turned to Danzaburou. "Tell us, Sir Trickster, what did you falsify?"

"Sir Trickster? I like the sound of that." The red tanuki grinned. "Okay, I admit it—I falsified evidence. The chess box, the cloth, that stuff ain't real. I just made it up."

"Huh..."

"What!?"

Hearing the admission, bewilderment crossed William. 'Wait, so…what!? The box we found was fake!?'

"So it's true," Detective Matasaburō muttered. "Kazi and I had checked the garbage beforehand and there was no evidence of the sort. A chess box, a cloth...there was no way he and I would have missed such items."

"It also means we have to reassess our understanding of the case," John chimed in.

William grumbled air through his mouth, frustrated. 'Just how complicated is this!?'

"But everyone put so much effort into finding it! All that garbage…" Pauline shook her head. "N-no, wait, but why? Why trick us? Why do that?"

"To make things interesting, that's why!" Danzaburou announced. "Plus, the killer this time around did an excellent job planning. He was able to bribe me with sweets and make me tell him when the next tunnel would—"

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Hold on," Ksenia interjected, "you know who the killer is?"

"Of course I do! The train told me!" Danzaburou scoffed. "How would I know if you won the game if I didn't know!? How would the jury be reliable if we didn't know!?"

"Everybody quiet," Kazi instructed, his voice firm and deep. There was no qualm or reason for his authority, yet they listened regardless. "You mentioned the chess box and the cloth, but not the bottles. Why?"

"Oh, well, because I saw the killer make that. They cleaned up pretty well though. I thought it would be a shame if no one knew what they did, so I recreated it."

"In other words," Kazi said, his smile returning, "you could consider that accurate evidence?"

"Mhm! I saw what they did, watched them clean up, and recreated it with the same stuff! Nothing false!"

"You're not lying about this?" The detective pressed. "You are absolutely certain that was what the killer did?"

"One hundred percent. The cloth and chess box was made up. You can ask Momoji over here. She was there!"

The blue tanuki gave a nod.

'What does this mean?' William asked. 'Did the killer poison someone—'

"It's not poison," said Kazi. "I can already guess what it was and Danzaburou you can try and confirm—it was a sleeping agent, right?"

"Yes, yes, yes!"

Mutters. Curiosity. A sleeping agent? For what?

"We arrive at the hour of reckoning, my friend." Kazi spoke directly to John, not bothering to mince his words. "You snuck a sleeping agent in Paul's ice cream. I'm sure those at the dining area saw the two of them together. John and Paul, happily eating ice cream, but I bet none of you noticed the slip of the hand."

"Sleeping…?" Ksenia repeated. As if remembering a crucial memory, she gasped. "Oh! Is that why...?"

"Paul was level 19. He was no slouch, despite his looks, and John understood that." Kazi's claim was absurd. It should have been. "However, with an agent that caused him to be drowsy, he could kill him in one fell swoop."

Why?

Why was William suddenly remembering the fact that the smoke ball came close by? From a direction that John would have been at?

'And that body type…tall and lithe, just like the masked man…!'

The man sitting beside him, as calm as a regal prince, could he really be the killer? The man who ruthlessly killed Tony and Paul? That fought him and Noor off? He had the power and the skill to do it. He...

'It really could be him!'

"I have a simple question." John looked at William. Those eyes, grey and dull, suddenly intensified. It was subtle. It was small, yet the fire could not be mistaken. His heart skipped a beat. "I noticed the way you've been hunched over…Ms. Sun-young. Tell me, what are you hiding?"

Silence.

Kazi immediately came to her defence. "It was an injury from a previous Gate—"

"A previous Gate? Or the current Gate? Perhaps an attack from Paul before he went down? Hm? Or maybe something fresher?" John recrossed his legs, a fist to his cheek. "Tell me, Noor, you fought a masked figure, did you not?"

Noor did not appreciate her name being mixed in. She clearly wanted to listen and not get involved. "So what?"

"Where did you injure the figure?"

Noor opened her mouth, then closed it. She was having second thoughts. So was William. He couldn't remember for some reason.

"...the mask," Noor answered.

"Not the stomach?" John asked. "I believe your memories—"

"I didn't expect this from you," Sun-young muttered, her words like a ghost. She didn't look at anyone. She didn't glance at her accuser. She stood up, marched to the middle beside the evidence table, and lifted the thick layers of her tunic and chainmail up to her lower abdomen.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

William's expression blanked, then transformed into revulsion and horror. It wasn't just him, everyone regardless of closeness reacted in the same way.

"How long—"

"What kind of injury…?"

"Good Lord!"

It was a nasty, gooey wound. A wrist-sized slash of darkness embedded deep in her stomach and gushing out blackness instead of blood. Exposing it to the open air, Sun-young's complexion paled. Bluish-green veins coursed through her temple.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

The black goo didn't stop.

"W-what!? Y-you haven't been…walking with that…" William asked, trailing off. He looked to Kazi, who seemed to have known the entire time.

William couldn't believe it. 'Why didn't they tell me!?'

Did they not trust him!? Were they not teammates!? All of a sudden, his head was hurting again and he balled his fists.

Sun-young didn't acknowledge his question. She craned her head and asked Noor, "Does this look like the attack you made?"

The mage didn't bother hiding her disgust. A hand on her mouth, gagging, she replied, "Nope. I use fire attacks, not…whatever that is."

"I've had this injury since the inception of the Gate. John…" Sun-young's expression twisted, hurt by something deeper than physical pain. "Your accusation has been disproven."

Even John appeared surprised by her injury. Whatever he expected, it wasn't that.

"You knew about the tunnel," Kazi began, "you asked Danzaburou about it. I mentioned in my testimony that you claimed to be grabbed. You were lying. You were simply moving to the bathroom to kill, weren't you?"

Now, all eyes were back to him. Kazi's accusation ran deafeningly. All eyes were on John Smith.

The killer. The masked man.

Could it really be him? The man they trusted? The man that had been with them since nearly the beginning? The man who helped them, who talked to Paul and William cordially, who seemed mysterious yet staunchly noble?

A bonafide killer.

A Spy of the Cold World.