This...this case. It started with a simple missing person, a dame named Manami. Her fiance, Takahiko, a lovesick sap right out of a pulp novel, hired me to find her. She'd vanished after a trip to his hometown, a backwater village called Shironawa. He called it "beautiful". I call it the kind of place that swallows folks whole.
Turns out, Takahiko's old man runs the show there, a real piece of work named Tomikura Nagatarou. Thinks he's some kind of patriarch, spewing about tradition and family. He's got a wife, Ayaka, young, pretty, the kind that'd make a saint forget his vows. And there's the rub.
This whole town, they worship some snake god, Kagachi-Sama. They call it "comforting", but it's just a fancy name for a ritual that makes Sodom and Gomorrah look tame. The women? They're offered up like sacrifices, year after year. Turns out, Ayaka's been playing the part of the dutiful wife, but behind those innocent eyes, there's a darkness.
Takahiko, the poor sap, he gets played like a cheap fiddle. Thinks he's going to rescue his damsel, but walks right into a trap. That's the thing about these cases, always more than meets the eye. The DVD arrived a few days later. Let's just say, it wasn't the happy ending my client was hoping for. It was like watching a Greek tragedy, full of betrayal, lust, and enough irony to make a fella choke.
Turns out, "happily ever after" in Shironawa is a twisted, messed up kind of thing. And I'm left with a pocketful of cash and a bad taste in my mouth, wondering if ignorance really is bliss.
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