The Last Trial
"Shall we begin, Suguru Anzai? Solving the riddle of the game you started."
"…"
"It took me a very long time to get to you. After all, everyone was a suspect except me, and there was no evidence to identify the culprit. I guess you must have been so confident in your plan that you gave the order to track you down in this final experiment.
The reason you are so sure is because you knew I would inevitably exclude you as a suspect. But it will only work if I myself survive and prove your alibi. In other words, you deliberately chose me to play the role of the last survivor, and then manipulated things so you could remove yourself from suspicion.
You and I have been in this game together for a long time. Even if you disappear from my presence several times, if I see you on other occasions, you can deceive me that it is impossible for you to cause this series of incidents. Well, I finally figured out it was you with a hint from Kazuhiro and Hiroto."
"A hint, you say?"
Suguru Anzai calmly asked.
"You must have been listening in too. Kazuhiro and Shōta are from Kanagawa Prefecture. Minami, Risa and Keisuke are from Tokyo. And I’m from Chiba Prefecture. That's why that guy's the only one left out. This alone doesn't tell us anything. What we do know is where are we from. There is an outcast among these. In other words, Kazuhiro is saying that there is a culprit among us.
But I didn't know who it was. If you're smart, you might figure this out when you hear this. If we had at least one more region, there is no one to be isolated. This is what Kazuhiro said to me before."
"Region…"
"That’s right, regions. The term "regional areas" generally refers to places outside the metropolitan area. I will repeat. Kazuhiro and Shōta are Kanagawa, Minami, Risa, and Keisuke are Tokyo, and I’m Chiba. The one thing we all have in common is that we all come from the Kanto region."
"The Kanto region…"
Suguru Anzai muttered quietly.
"Yeah, But if it were only this, everyone is from the Kanto region and no one is an outcast of the group. So I thought of an idea. Maybe there's something else we have in common besides where we are from, something related to a region in Japan."
"…!"
Suguru Anzai said nothing, merely staring wide-eyed.
"Seems like you noticed. What Kazuhiro wanted us to focus on was the Kanto region and our surnames. Kazuhiro Noda, Keisuke Fujisawa, Shōta Sano, Risa Ōta, Minami Okazaki, and Shūhei Tsuchiura."
"…"
"Well, it wasn't until I heard Hirohito's hint that I became convinced. Do you remember? Between B and M is as blue as the ocean, but between A and D is as red as blood.
Hiroto was very familiar with computers. So much so that, while still in middle school, he could hack into his teacher's computer. When it comes to the alphabet on a computer, it's the keyboard. Between B and M is N. Between A and D is S. N is as blue as the sea and S is as red as blood. I know Kazuhiro likes the ocean, but I don't know Hiroto did like it too. But in terms of expression, S is probably the culprit.
Both of these letters represent directions. N for north, which is kita in Japanese. And S for south, which in Japanese called, minami. Isn’t that right? Minami Okazaki!"
