Chapter 1041 - 1041: An Unexpected Confession

Once Reika disappears from view, Ryoma turns around and finds Hayakawa standing near the gym entrance, watching him with an unreadable expression.

Ryoma can't tell whether Hayakawa has overheard Reika's words from where he's standing, but he no longer worries much about it.

"Hayakawa-san," he says calmly as he walks toward the entrance. "Could you prepare my car? I want to see Detective Tachibana."

Without waiting for a response, Ryoma walks straight into the gym.

Hayakawa watches him for another moment, his expression thoughtful, before turning and heading down the corridor toward the mansion's rear entrance.

After briefly excusing himself to Nakahara and the others, Ryoma leaves the training building, heads back to the mansion and goes straight to his room on the second floor.

He opens the old wardrobe he brought with him from his former apartment and takes out a box. From inside, he retrieves a ring binder and immediately heads out again.

On the front porch, he runs into Aramaki, who has just returned with Nanako asleep in his arms.

"Oh, you're back already?" Ryoma asks.

"Yeah. Nanako fell asleep, and I didn't want her disturbing the ladies at the barbershop." Aramaki adjusts his hold on the sleeping girl. "Besides, I figured I might get to do some light sparring with you."

"Not today. I have something to take care of." Ryoma gestures toward the binder in his hand. "I'm heading out for a while."

Aramaki falls silent, an awkward smile crossing his face as curiosity flickers in his eyes.

He's quite familiar with that binder. Back when they still lived in the apartment, he'd often seen Ryoma scribbling sketches in it.

Still, he doesn't press the matter. He simply shrugs and heads inside.

***

As soon as Ryoma arrives at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department building, he draws the attention of everyone in the lobby.

It's not just because he's a world champion and a well-known public figure in Japan. People still remember the crucial role he played in exposing the case involving Hugo Ramimez last year.

Even a female officer who happens to pass him stops to greet him, bowing respectfully.

"Good day, Takeda-san. Is there anything I can help you with?"

"Yes. I'd like to see Detective Tachibana. Is he available?"

"Just a moment. I'll check with the receptionist."

But before she can turn away, Superintendent Shibata calls out to Ryoma from near the elevators.

"Yo, Ryoma!"

Their attention immediately shifts toward the voice. Detective Tachibana happens to be standing beside Shibata.

The female officer smiles and gestures toward Tachibana, but there's no need for her to say anything further. Shibata is already walking toward them, with Tachibana following close behind.

"Look at you, dropping by without even giving me a heads-up!" Shibata says with a broad grin. "It's been a while, hasn't it? How have you been?"

"I'm doing fine," Ryoma replies calmly.

Shibata gives him a friendly pat on the shoulder. "So, what brings you here today? Don't tell me you've come to help us solve another case."

"Actually, I came to file a report," Ryoma says. "And perhaps make a confession."

The moment Shibata hears the last word, his cheerful expression fades. His face grows serious as he exchanges a glance with Detective Tachibana, who has also begun to study Ryoma more carefully.

Tachibana then glances at Hayakawa before giving Ryoma a slight nod toward the elevators.

"Let's discuss this in my office."

***

For a while, all three men expect Ryoma to confess to something they have long suspected: his involvement in Hayashida Muneyaki's murder.

But instead, Ryoma reports the kidnapping incident from 2017, when seven armed foreigners abducted him at the Okura Tokyo hotel.

Detective Tachibana looks slightly disappointed as he listens, though he continues taking notes on the details Ryoma provides.

"From my interactions with them, I picked up a few names. Two of the four Russians were named Maxim and Dmytro. The other two never mentioned their names. One of them was Italian named Iuliano. There were two Caucasians, but I couldn't tell where they were originally from. The one acting as their leader, however, had a distinctly French accent."

At the mention of the Frenchman, Tachibana falls silent for a moment before resuming his notes.

"This happened two years ago," he says. "Why are you only reporting it now?"

"We agreed to treat the whole thing as a misunderstanding," Ryoma says casually. "They just wanted to pay me just to make me deliberately lose a match. The deal fell through, and I walked away without any intention of dealing with them again."

"But still, why now?" Tachibana asks. "What changed your mind? You think they might still pose a threat to your safety?"

Ryoma nods, then opens the binder and flips through a few pages before showing them a sketch.

"I remember their faces well. But after two years, I only managed to draw one."

Tachibana merely glances at it without comment, but Shibata is immediately impressed by its quality and doesn't hesitate to voice his admiration.

"Wow, this looks almost like a portrait taken with a vintage camera. Did you draw this yourself? Kid, is there anything you can't do?"

"I had no real skill at this when I started," Ryoma says. "I just have a good memory. It took me hundreds of sketches to reach this level of accuracy."

Curious, Shibata flips to another page. It shows the same face, rendered at nearly the same level of detail.

He continues flipping through the binder, only to find more sketches of the same man. As he moves backward through the pages, the drawings grow progressively rougher and less accurate.

Then Shibata flips straight to the first page, revealing a particularly crude sketch.

"So you drew this guy's face hundreds of times?" he asks. "Seems you are so obsessed with him, huh?"

Actually, the sketch is of the scarred man Ryoma believes to be the same person who shot him in a bar in his previous life.

It's no wonder he's so obsessed with the man. He has haunted Ryoma's nights more times than he cares to admit.

"That's the guy they called Iuliano," Ryoma says. "And I encountered that man again at the same place where Hayashida Muneyaki was murdered. On the very day he died."

Tachibana's expression immediately sharpens. "Ryoma, you realize what this means, don't you? You're still a suspect in Muneyaki's murder, and this contradicts the statement you gave me ten months ago."

"I wasn't lying to you," Ryoma says. "I had a vague memory of being there, but it felt more like a dream than something that actually happened."

He then explains that he'd just come out of a brutal fight with Cabello that night, leaving him in such a state that much of what happened afterward feels like a blur.

"But Reika suddenly came forward with her own testimony to support my alibi," Ryoma continues, "one I could barely remember myself. I thought she was deliberately lying, only making things more difficult for me."

"Yes, I did find the additional details in her alibi rather odd," Tachibana replies.

"There was only one detail she hadn't been honest about," Ryoma continues. "She really did drive me to that block. And only after hearing her story could I finally be certain that it wasn't just a dream. I really had been there that night."