01x07 - Preparing to Conquer the Steel Lady

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The victim's entire head hadbeen smashed in by a bluntobject.

It was so bad that we couldn't

identify his face or matchany dental records.

But we're certain that thevictim is Sergeant TorkanowskyTerada.

We're still unsurewhy Detective Terada went

to an abandoned gasstation by himself

in the middle of the nighton his cell phone, we found some

personal text messages exchangedbetween the two of you.

The estimated timeof death was today

between the hoursof two and a.m..

Where were you and what were you

doing? I was at home alone.

The body of a manthought to be an officer

of the Makurazaki CityPolice Department was

found around a.m.It was reported

that a bodywith its face smashed

in was found at an abandonedgas station along the freeway.

You okay? Huh? Chief, I. Yes,sir. Though a little stunned.

Detective Terada seemedreally happy lately because

he was hitting it off with you.

Oh, there's a highlikelihood he was k*lled

due to a grudgeincurred on the job.

Suffice it to say, otherofficers are being questioned

about their interactions withDetective Terada, just as youwere.

The Makurazaki Police Departmentstaff are the ones beingquestioned first.

By the way, you Mihara.Is it true

that Detective Terada wasinvestigating Steel Lady Nanase?

Yes, I mentioned it during myinterrogation when I was asked.

The investigating detectivealready knew. Wait, Has themedia gotten that info?

No, it hasn't been leaked yet.But there

are peoplewho are trying to connect

the incident with DetectiveTerada to Steel Lady Nanase.

Since his face was smashed induring a late night encounter,

apparently that's makingsome people believe it was

steel Lady Nanase.Talk about a sick joke.

Yes, it is quite irresponsibleinventing rumors aboutsomebody's death like that.

Just have a hard time believingthat Detective Toronto,

of all people, was beaten todeath. What could have possiblyhappened?

If only. If only I wouldhave been more reliable.

I should have donea better job warning him.

This isn't your fault.You, Mihara.

But still, it feels like I.Of course,

there's no trace of a fightor of him struggling

or of the suspect because he waskilled by Steele. Lady Nancy.

I can't help but feelthat I was too cold to him.

After all, I had only justrecently learned his first name.

That's not your fault,Detective. Terada hated thatname.

Said it was tooold fashioned and meek.

He hated being called it.Most people never knew it.

The police won't be ableto capture the real culprit.

Neither Steel Lady Nancynor the imaginations

of the people that created her.

The case will likelygo unsolved. The only

ones who candefeat that monster are

those who knowthe truth and have

the power to dosomething about it.

Right after the newsthis morning. The Internet

went wildwith the story that Steel

Lady Nancy had finally killedsomeone and a cop at that.

Even a few TVpersonalities are saying

this deathis connected with Karen.

Nancy's. This went nationalinstantly. The posts have beenmultiplying exponentially.

I'm tired. I can't rememberthe last time it rained.

I miss the comfortof the bench at the hospital.

It was so quiet, yet so freeing.

I want to drift to sleep there

as I listen to the soundof the falling rain.

It'd be even better if Currowas right by my side. Iwanaga.

Time for a break. Have some.Keep your blood sugar up.

It's a bit lackluster.Just enough to make me hungry.

That's what you say After beinggiven high quality chocolates.

That snark is richfrom the person

who's stayingat the same hotel as

me yet got a separate room.

Aren't you supposedto be my boyfriend?

Look,I did that because I wanted

you to get some actual sleep,okay?

How about youdon't let me sleep?

Early to bed. Early to riseis the key to good health.

Did an Immortal just try to talk

to me about health? What's up?Nothing. Just thinking.

Have you made any progresswith your research on the wiki?

Well, things have definitelytaken a turn since the incidentthis morning.

The vast majorityof the comment section

believes that thisis the work of Lady Nancy.

If you do a searchfor the victim's name,

you can see that he was evenan Olympic candidate in judo.

But someone likehim being beaten to death

with no signsof a struggle sounds so bizarre.

It's easy to think SteeleLady Nancy is to blame.

People are spouting off theoriesand rumors concerning DetectiveTerada's death.

Then there's the net creepsgoing on about Carrie, Nancy'sboobs.

If that makes a lot of sense.Her chest was incredibly bouncy.

What, did you touch them or did

you try to squeeze them whenyou were holding onto her?

I wasn't thinking aboutthat at the time.

You definitely could have.If he throws

a future where you brushedagainst them, you had theopportunity.

If I caredso much about big boobs,

I never would have datedyou or Saki.

You may have yearned forsomething different just once inyour life.

You might have wanted tomanhandle those exceptionallychoice mounds of fat.

Can you swearto Amaterasu that you

didn't have such pervy thoughts?Cross your dirty mind.

This is starting to soundlike you're projecting.

Let's get back on topic.At this point,

it's hard to dismissLady Nancy as being

nothing more than a mere rumor.

People are now more inclinedto believe it was a ghost.

It was already happening beforenow. Ever since the rumors ofSteel,

Lady Nancy beganthe idea that this

was a ghost and that it washarassing people were wellreceived.

The scales are tippingtoo far toward one side.

Look, Kuroe.I'm going to be blunt.

Go on. I think that Rekha isheavily intertwined with thiscase.

In truth,I think she's at its core.

I knew that. But I can't defendher now that someone's dead.

I'm sorry for running late.Are you okay, Saki?

I'm fine, thank you.

There's no doubt, is there?

The Steel Lady caused DetectiveTerada's death. Correct.

An Ayakashi who sawthe incident as it happened,

came to see me this morning.

He gave mean eyewitness account.

I see. This may bea stupid question to ask,

but will Detective Terada bea ghost wandering this world?

Well,it's not as though everybody who

dies just becomesa ghost and roams.

If he doesn't, that's preferred.They're better

off not being left to wander.

Of course.I guess it was a stupid

question. Regardless.This isn't good. True.

We would have beenfar better off

if the culprit was anyoneother than Steel Lady Nancy.

They say the victim'sface was smashed in.

Could it be whilepeople were stirring

over the factthat this might have been

an actual m*rder by SteelLady Nancy? Wait.

Now they're sayingthat his death might have been

an accident if that had spread.

Instead, this would havebeen confirmed as a rumor

and toned everything downat the same time.

The thr*at of Steel LadyNancy would have weakened

and her popularitywould have waned.

Then we could useKuro's ability to find

a more favorable futureand discover a way

to destroy Steel LadyNancy once and for all.

After I heard about whathappened to Detective Terada,

to be honest, I was hopingthings would turn out that way.

Still,Lady Nancy was behind his death.

If the police are pursuingthis incident as a m*rder case,

they're going to needto get more

consistent informationmaking things more difficult.

But now the biggerproblem is the fact

that Steele LadyNancy has instantly become

a more violent entitysince she has

now gone past scaring people andhas actually committed a m*rder.

Still,Lady Nancy is now something more

violent that pursues hervictims until they're dead.

At this rate, there will nodoubt be another victim tonight.

Huh? The worst case scenario?It might

not just be or .There could be multiple victims.

No, that can't be. This is nowbeing talked about nationally.

The fantasies are expandingin an extreme way,

causing the monsterto grow in an instant.

TV show research teams aretrying to verify information onher,

and fanatics of the occult mayeven start flooding into thecity.

If any of those groupshappen to run

into Steele, Lady Nancy,they'll be slaughtered.

Lots of places havesecurity cameras. If they

capture footage and itends up being leaked,

more people will learn about hermaking her existence evenstronger.

And from that point on, logicalfiction would be useless.

What are we supposed to do?If that happens?

Then how canpeople still wish for

the existence of Steele,Lady Nancy?

They probably won't wish for it,but at that point,

too many people willfear Steele Lady

Nancy as an actual ghost,not just an urban legend.

Despite denying her existence,they'll also be praying

that she nevercrosses their path.

There's no way to tell what kind

of power that ghostis about to get.

This is messed up. Has the truth

always been so paper thin?You can rip it apart.

I wouldn't say paper thin,but you're

correct to believe that itcan be ripped to pieces.

It's exactly whysomeone out there has

to protect that truth. Thiswill decide everything, huh?

We have to defeat Steele,Lady Nancy.

And we have to do it tonight.You want to do it by tonight,

But there's no time left at all.Saki.

I need information inorder to create

logical fictionto take the ghost down.

I will need the truthat all times.

So there weren'tany traces of dr*gs

or alcohol in DetectiveTerada's system, right?

They weren't ableto find out anything

useful from his body. Thank you.

It's just starting to sound moreand more like Carrie, Nancy'sdeath.

The media hasn'tsaid anything about dr*gs

or alcohol in his system either.

And on the Internet,they seem to be amused

by the fact that he was k*lled

in such an unusualand unique way.

Because that seems morelike still Lady Nancy. Right.

Because how do you hope to wina fight against a ghost?

They all agree on one thing,at least.

They'd be helplessly k*lled,too. But if this wasn't

really the work of a ghost,

how were theyable to b*at Detective

Terada to deathwithout a struggle?

Needless to say, finding a wayto explain that will bedifficult.

But to really defeatsteal Lady Nanase,

we need to find a likelyculprit other than her.

The fictional culpritcan be more than one person,

and they don't haveto commit the same crime.

Surely we can also make it seem

like the previous eventswere unrelated, right?

The issue with that is then we'd

have to explain whythe culprit wanted

to make their crimesseem like something

steal Lady Nanasewould be guilty of.

What if Detective Terada'sdeath had nothing

to do with steal Lady Nanase?

Maybe the detectivehad crossed the wrong people,

and someone with a grudgekilled him.

But the wayhe d*ed seemed like steal.

Lady Nanase did it.Do you think that could work?

Even if they can'tnarrow down who did it.

If we givea similar explanation, we can

distance ourselves fromSteal Lady Nanase.

And then all we have to do

is explain the motivebehind the att*ck.

From there, we give otherexplanations as to whathappened.

Divide each problem intoas many parts as possible.

It sounds feasible, but it'slikely impossible to fully cuther off.

People seek dreams in theirstories and hope that reality issimilar.

Knowing it's justa coincidence is more

disappointing than the much moregrand interpretation thatsomething was fate.

If this was a realincident and we had

the data and deductionskills we need,

we could have trackeddown the truth by now.

But what she's tryingto do is conceal

the truth and create a new truth

with a manufactured culpritthat doesn't even exist.

We basically wantpeople to believe and

say, Of coursethat's totally possible.

It's not deductionthat people are looking

for here.They want something else.

Yes. This isn'tabout deductions. Then I'll

just go down the middle.Which is it?

Why is this so frustrating?Even if

we're able to explaineverything rationally,

the rumorsof the Steel lady create

a surprisingly effectiveexplanation of this case for theoutside observer.

Devising an explanation that'ssimple and most importantly,

convincing is far more difficultthan one would imagine. Home.

Until yesterday, people werewondering who was behind theserandom att*cks.

What was their motive?If we create

false answers and theygain enough traction,

we'd be able to make steellady nannies disappear.

But now we havea number of things

we're going to haveto completely fabricate.

The first,why did these att*cks happen

and why were they framed asbeing committed by steel ladynannies?

The second who actuallyperpetrated these incidents?

The third? Why was DetectiveTerada k*lled? In a way to makeit look

like steel?Lady Nanase was the culprit.

The fourth. Why was thedetective k*lled with no sign ofresistance.

And fifth, who actuallymurdered Detective Terada?

But solving those thingsstill won't be enough.

We have to be able to makesure these lies work for us

without having the personwe make into the suspect

get arrested without bringinggreat harm or suffering to aninnocent person.

And we need to makesure this explanation

is one mostpeople can agree with.

If we can manageall of these things,

will we be able to make steel

lady nannies disappeareven though we have

an advantage dueto Kuro's abilities?

This is stilla difficult situation.

Iwanaga. If a singlesolution isn't enough,

why don't we try stackingup several? It's not like steel.

Lady Nancy was born yesterday.There had

to have beensome trial and error

until she wasable to k*ll someone.

Rumors spread, the site wascreated, posts gained attention.

Soon it was popular.It's obvious they must have used

various methods to make sureher popularity didn't fade.

Otherwise,then it wouldn't be possible to

manifest sucha monster so quickly.

We aren't limited to onesolution to solve everything.

You said it yourself earlier.Divide each problem.

We'll take stepsto shape the reality.

The thousands of fantasiesall closer to

the solution you want to create.

But until that's done,I'll strive to determine

the future that'sgoing to happen.

But if you do that,then it means

that you'll have to diea whole bunch of times.

And yesterday you saidyou would. I guess I did. Mm.

To.

She's been breaking down all ofthe information since yesterday,

figuring out howwe can use it and what

truths we can make into lies.

What was still uncertain, whathas been absolutely verified.

She must have triedover and over

taking the misshapen blocksthat compose our

reality and determining how tocreate a past that neveractually existed.

Rather than seeking the truth,she's creating

alternative facts,a new, ludicrous fiction.

And with the pieces aligned,it's about to be completed.

Thank you. Yes, That's sweet.You got this?

I think so. I've comeup with four solutions.

Now I'll use them to roundout a truth that I want.

I will defeat her tonight,no matter what it takes.

I'm going to sleep for a bit.

Please wake me up before :.Until then,

if there's word of steel, is safe here.

We can just play it by ear.

Let's go and get some food for

Iwanaga so she caneat when she wakes up.

That said, we should probablygrab something for us too,right?

We've ordered the yokaiand monsters around the city

to contact us if they seesteal Lady Nanase.

If they see her,I'll head straight

to the scene and stopNonna's safe from getting away.

And then I canfight all night if needed.

Which means I can stop herand prevent further victims.

And whatif the steal lady escapes?

We'll use ourIntel network to find

her again, and I'll stop her.

Sounds like trouble.And yet it's still the best way.

If we hear from them,then I would

like to ask you to helpme get to the scene.

I've already linedup a rental car.

Sorry to get you involvedin all of this,

but can I count on your help?

The last thing I want to seeis any more innocent victims.

Plus, I need to get over this.Already.

It's been a while, huh? I meant

since you started goingout with her.

It's been around two and a halfyears since we first met.

So right after we broke up.Well,

no, Iwanaga onlystarted talking to me in May,

and it's not likewe started dating immediately.

I never really hadany intention of going

out with her. Well, it's..

Not like I have any rightto complain about it,

but I believe you, I guess.

I mean, Iwanaga really is theexact opposite of your type.

Yeah,you're totally right about that.

Yet you two seemto be doing perfectly fine.

I think it's good. You reallyshouldn't keep chasing afterRika anyway.

Sucky. Why did youbring up Rekha's name?

Well, Khuhro.Because Rekha is % your type,

whether you accept it or not.

Rikka Sakuragawa Kuro's cousin,who's three years older thanhim.

I'd heard rumorsthat she'd passed away since,

but while Kuroand I were still dating,

she was a long term patientat a university hospital.

Hospitalized fortesting for three years.

Well, a lot happened.I didn't visit

her that often in high school.

But the hospital is soclose to the university,

I get to go visither more often now.

Oh,then will you take me up there

to meet her sometime?Sure thing. That sounds nice.

She was a beautifulwoman with the

palest skin and a frail body.

Steel Lady Nancy is graduallycementing her existence.

Who is this Rikka Sakuragawa.Who's controlling the futurefrom the shadows?

Next time,she who spins fiction.