After Naori went to the police station and brought Inui back to the shrine, he found Ayato sitting in front of Satsuki's body absentmindedly. Inui determined it a homicide and called back the police who had left, opening the investigation. After a thorough autopsy by Yuzuru and the police forensics, it was concluded that Satsuki's cause of death was strangulation, and that her limbs had been severed after death. Suspicion was naturally turned toward the residents of the Shigusa Shrine. Her time of death, estimated with the temperature and such of that day in mind, was determined to be roughly 10 hours before her body was discovered, that preceding night. Everyone from the Shigusa Shrine had been at the Hinagami residence in Kamihinna that night, and Inui had been there, too. Inui himself could prove that it was impossible for any Shigusa to have committed the crime. Satsuki's corpse wasn't there when the Shigusa family returned home. Of course, Inui wasn't satisfied with that, and searched every nook and cranny of the shrine grounds. He had no evidence, but requested a search warrant from the courthouse. He even checked the inner sanctuary of the shrine, where no one was usually admitted, but found nothing. Of course, there was a sizable gap between the discovery of the corpse and the investigation, so they'd have had plenty of time to destroy the evidence. Even taking that into consideration, however, it remained true that none of them had been present at the time of the crime. Could the crime have been committed by an outside party? No, the people of the settlement didn't hesitate to call this "Hinna-sama's Curse" as well. If someone died there, it was all made into the "curse." No one thought past that. It was something Inui had experienced many times. But Satsuki's body displayed clearly different characteristics. Her severed limbs. This hadn't occurred in any of the prior incidents called "Hinna-sama's Curse." Could it have been something other than the curse? It certainly didn't seem like a simple murder to him, though. It may have been so that he couldn't take her fingerprints -- so that her identity couldn't be determined. What led Inui to believe that was the very identity of the victim -- of Shigusa Satsuki. No one lived at the Tokyo address she'd given him. Naturally, he pursued the matter relentlessly with the Shigsas. But they conceded nothing, merely stating that the address was correct. After a thorough investigation of the family register, he was able to determine that Yoshimitsu's eldest son lived in the area. But the eldest son's register contained no record of Satsuki. There was the possibility of her being a bastard not entered into the family register, but he wasn't able to investigate the eldest son. There were political reasons for that. Because of things like jurisdictional disputes, Inui wasn't able to get ahold of the information. Shigusa Satsuki -- now just Satsuki -- was shelved as an unidentified corpse. The country went to war while her murderer and their motive remained unknown, and the investigation was closed...🏁

Submitted by qoiauve - 10/24/2025

After Naori went to the police station and brought Inui back to the shrine, he found Ayato sitting in front of Satsuki's body absentmindedly. Inui determined it a homicide and called back the police who had left, opening the investigation. After a thorough autopsy by Yuzuru and the police forensics, it was concluded that Satsuki's cause of death was strangulation, and that her limbs had been severed after death. Suspicion was naturally turned toward the residents of the Shigusa Shrine. Her time of death, estimated with the temperature and such of that day in mind, was determined to be roughly 10 hours before her body was discovered, that preceding night. Everyone from the Shigusa Shrine had been at the Hinagami residence in Kamihinna that night, and Inui had been there, too. Inui himself could prove that it was impossible for any Shigusa to have committed the crime. Satsuki's corpse wasn't there when the Shigusa family returned home. Of course, Inui wasn't satisfied with that, and searched every nook and cranny of the shrine grounds. He had no evidence, but requested a search warrant from the courthouse. He even checked the inner sanctuary of the shrine, where no one was usually admitted, but found nothing. Of course, there was a sizable gap between the discovery of the corpse and the investigation, so they'd have had plenty of time to destroy the evidence. Even taking that into consideration, however, it remained true that none of them had been present at the time of the crime. Could the crime have been committed by an outside party? No, the people of the settlement didn't hesitate to call this "Hinna-sama's Curse" as well. If someone died there, it was all made into the "curse." No one thought past that. It was something Inui had experienced many times. But Satsuki's body displayed clearly different characteristics. Her severed limbs. This hadn't occurred in any of the prior incidents called "Hinna-sama's Curse." Could it have been something other than the curse? It certainly didn't seem like a simple murder to him, though. It may have been so that he couldn't take her fingerprints -- so that her identity couldn't be determined. What led Inui to believe that was the very identity of the victim -- of Shigusa Satsuki. No one lived at the Tokyo address she'd given him. Naturally, he pursued the matter relentlessly with the Shigsas. But they conceded nothing, merely stating that the address was correct. After a thorough investigation of the family register, he was able to determine that Yoshimitsu's eldest son lived in the area. But the eldest son's register contained no record of Satsuki. There was the possibility of her being a bastard not entered into the family register, but he wasn't able to investigate the eldest son. There were political reasons for that. Because of things like jurisdictional disputes, Inui wasn't able to get ahold of the information. Shigusa Satsuki -- now just Satsuki -- was shelved as an unidentified corpse. The country went to war while her murderer and their motive remained unknown, and the investigation was closed...🏁

Submitted by qoiauve - 10/24/2025