Something is wrong.

Hiromichi's small claim of victory over Arata was just a mere distraction from the brief peace they had. The situation was grave. Since the nation's police force was lacking in manpower, even the Japanese Self-Defence Force (JSDF), the army, was involved in doing menial tasks. Yet, that didn't stop the order to come down on the pair to investigate potential crime scenes, which was much more tedious than it sounds.

First, they were sent on missing person's report investigations like recording statements and testimonies from the witnesses. However, too many incidents in which the victims were mauled resulted in bloody crime scenes that were left behind. This forced certain improvisations made by higher authorities such as the National Police Agency (NPA) to speed up their duties.

In Hiromichi and Arata's case, their job was to solely investigate domestic violence calls, visit the incident site, validate, report back and protect the scene of the crime from evidence destruction. They stood guard at the crime scene until the Crime Scenes Investigation Unit (CSI) arrived to take in the evidence.

After the CSI arrives, the pair would move onto another potential crime scene. If there was a crime, they would report it and protect the crime scene until the CSI arrives. This was their usual routine, day and night.

The increase in murders with unknown ulterior motives greatly shocked the nation. Although gag orders were sent through, the news still reported but was understating the gravity of the situation. This was to not cause panic.

The cabinet of Japan was at a loss of what to do. This global phenomenon hinted the presence of a vast singular or multi-organisational entity that operated on an international level and so the nations of the world have started coalescing.

There were so many crime scenes that police stations have requested for additional supplies to be sent from the cities. Supplies like trace evidence collection kits which includes:

Acetate sheet protectors.

Bindle paper.

Clear tape/adhesive lift.

Electrostatic dust lifter.

Flashlight (oblique lighting).

Forceps/tweezers.

Glass vials.

Slides and slide mailers etc.

This wasn't including other evidence collection kits like the blood collection kit, bloodstain pattern documentation kit, excavation kit (for the missing bodies that were suspected of being buried somewhere), fingerprint kit, impression kit, pattern print lifter kit, trajectory kit etc.

However, the cities, no, Japan itself had instantly run dry of crime scene equipment after responding to the requests. The manufacturers were quickly expanding their production but were overwhelmed by the demand. Their products were being depleted the moment it was produced.

The police were forced to make substitutions like using cotton balls, ear swabs for test swabs, plastic microfuge tubes for fancy glass vials, regular tape for adhesive lift tapes etc. They had to even abandon wasting resources looking at every evidence of the crime scene as the result was usually the same.

Most of the time, the killer couldn't be identified and the victim couldn't be found alive or dead. It was as if the victims cut themselves and ran off into hiding. When the body was found at the scene or hidden somewhere, they were mostly devoured. This made most people afraid of a mass cannibalism cult running its course.

If the wave of cannibalism spread like mass hysteria, then the country would fall inside out. A few extremists were already stocking up on supplies and barricaded themselves up in fear of a zombie apocalypse.

Since they ran low on crime scene processing equipment, they saved their efforts on the most important pieces of evidence and did the barebones of CSI work.

They tried to obtain the minimum number of evidences from the crime scene to produce reliable and convincing arguments for future court hearings as just about every evidence locker in the country was full.

The bureau of the National Police Agency, the Security Bureau of the National Police Agency (NPA SB) were now in charge of everything related to police operations. The Prime Minister provided the funding for the NPA SB to hire the entire buildings of police property rooms.

These were buildings where a third-party auction off unclaimed items that were discarded from the evidence storage or lost items from regular storage rooms. These buildings were used to store the new influx of evidence.

These are just a few of the problems that the nation was dealing with never mind public relations, internal affairs, foreign affairs, civil unrest and the unsolved murder cases that were piling up. The state was in turmoil and Japan wasn't alone.

They finally arrived at the 11th house where it was reported that there were screams. Officer Arata walked up the doorsteps mechanically and twisted the doorknob. It was open as he had expected.

"Police, MPD, is anyone there?" Arata called out before stepping in.

"We're here because of -"

"Blood." Arata interrupted Hiromichi's regular spill.

...

Their coordination was clockwork. After the discovery of blood, they could enter the house without a search warrant as the blood indicated an emergency in which police have the power to enter because of a serious violent offence.

Even if they didn't see any blood, the fact that the door was open combined with an anonymous call from the neighbours, they could enter under the pretence of a serious domestic violence situation.

This was in fact illegal in this prefecture until the cabinet and NPA SB pushed for a particular family violence act that only existed in one prefecture to be applied to all 47 prefectures. Japan is divided into 47 prefectures which are in turn geographically divided into eight regions.

After Hiromichi routinely called it in, they both searched the house with their guns pointed. After securing the house, they avoided the blood on the living room floorboards and waited outside the house for the CSI unit to come because of the smell of blood. Still, a metallic scent would waft occasionally into their noses.

Arata walked over to the next door and knocked on it.

"This is the police."

"..."

No response as usual.

Hiromichi has already given up trying to solve anything yet Arata pushed on, investigating the witnesses. The witnesses weren't usually home when they investigated the crime scene or often weren't the right ones who called.

Fear of getting involved caused many witnesses to call in anonymously. They had met several people with frightened looks on their faces who were probably the ones who called it in but they denied everything. Even if they identified one, the testimonies weren't much help.

Hiromichi looked at the back of the unrelenting rising star. His eyes were devoid of hope. Arata furrowed his eyebrows as he looked at the door before him.

Something was wrong.

Something was dreadfully wrong.