Mozu Season 1 ~ Mozu no Sakebu Yoru – Episode 3 Synopsis

Episode 3: A man’s scars and a family’s memories

Kuraki breaks into the apartment but neither Shingai nor Miki are there. He proceeds to examine the contents of the bedroom and stops to look at the cage with the impaled creature before moving on to the bathroom. As he shuts the mirror cabinet, Miki appears behind him holding the side of her neck. Her cover has been blown, but she was saved from danger by his arrival. Although she notes with an accusatory tone in her voice that he had followed her, Kuraki pointedly ignores it and says she never told him that Shingai has a younger sister. He presses her to tell him everything she knows this time.

Miki gets Osugi to join her and Kuraki at the document archive room. Osugi finds it hard to believe an Athena Security director is involved, but when Miki reminds him to refrain from action that will jeopardise her investigation, they start squabbling over their respective assignments until Kuraki asks them to break it up. Miki confirms that Shingai has lost his memory and tells the two men about Shingai’s distinctive style of killing by stabbing victims on the back of the neck with an ice pick, how he never leaves evidence behind, and that he did not have time to plant the bomb in Kakei’s bag because it was placed under Kakei’s seat beyond his reach and Kakei was already with the mysterious woman when he entered the cafe. Osugi reports that they still do not know anything about the woman who was with Kakei.

At this point, Kuraki observes how Miki has been deliberately doling out information bit by bit to him to the extent that he is no longer sure if she is telling the truth this time. He points out that if she is lying about it, a completely different situation will materialise. It is also possible that this mysterious woman was her in disguise. Osugi agrees. Seeing that they do not trust her, Miki declares that she has nothing more to say in this case. Turbulence is in the air but the gulf between the three of them is clear.

After Miki leaves, Osugi asks Kuraki about the rumour that the top secret Glarke Alpha mission which Chihiro participated in five years ago was the reason why she resigned from Public Security. He wonders what happened to her during the mission. Kuraki does not know about it too. This mission might have had a great influence on her, but he admits that he never once asked her about it and she also never talked about it. Staring at Kuraki in disbelief, Osugi calls him a failure as a husband even though he himself is currently separated from his wife. He wonders aloud whether the Daruma had anything to do with that mission.

When Kuraki returns home that night, he notices that the top drawer of the dresser in the bedroom is locked. Was Chihiro hiding something? His wife’s secrets grow. Letting go of the drawer, he gazes at the likeness of himself that his daughter had drawn. It is cute portrait drawn with a child’s hand. Noticing the irregularity of the paper, Kuraki turns it over and starts to shade the back of the drawing with a pencil. What emerges is a terrifying possibility. The Daruma.

Miki reports to Tsuki that she was almost stabbed in the neck with a metal skewer by Shingai. He seems to find something odd about this. Learning that Osugi has clued the investigation task force in on Shingai, he wonders what moves they will make. But the problem they face is Shingai’s memory loss because there would be no meaning in arresting him if he cannot remember.

On the other hand, Shingai, who still has not regained his memory, contacts Ami whom he met while he was hospitalised and asks her to run a background check on himself. Ami visits the elementary school which Shingai attended and borrows a copy of the graduation yearbook which he was photographed in at that time. She also visits his family home at night and timidly sets foot inside the dilapidated dark house.

At the police box, Narumiya notes with interest that RDX military explosives were used in the time bomb. Since the Japanese Self Defence Force does not have RDX, this suggests that the explosives were smuggled in from abroad and even the possibility of organised crime.

Meanwhile, Kuraki has a new suspicion regarding the bomb explosion and swings into action. He inquires about the investigation into the bomb explosion using his status as Chihiro’s husband, only to learn from Wakamatsu that there has not been much progress. They do not know origins of the bomb or how it came to be in Kakei’s hands although there is a high chance it was smuggled in from abroad. Kuraki says they should look to the Middle East in that case. Noting that the Sardonian President who is due to visit Japan next month has had 15 attempts made on his life by terrorists, he reasons that Sardonia terrorists could have propositioned Parasite Net or Kakei himself to join their struggle to assassinate the President and sent in the bomb. Wakamatsu scoffs and dismisses Kuraki’s theory as absurd. So Kuraki demands to know if he has other theories but Wakamatsu takes offense to the tone of his voice.

After Wakamatsu leaves the room, Kuraki asks Muroi for his opinion. Muroi cautions him that if the media gets wind of such rumours of a plot to assassinate the Sardonia President in Japan and his visit is cancelled on those grounds, there will be a big delay in Japan’s plan to develop a new oil supply route. Kuraki thinks they should thoroughly look into this since the best defence is to eradicate the root of the problem. However, Muroi feels that the priority right now is to suppress unnecessary rumours. This is what political judgment demands, he adds.

Some time later, Osugi joins Kuraki in the smoking room. Breaking the silence between them, Kuraki tells him that the Daruma may have appeared in his wife’s dreams as he recalls how Chihiro would wake up with nightmares. After that, she grew mentally ill little by little. However, Kuraki is not certain that the Glarke Alpha mission had anything to do with the Daruma. With a pained look in his eyes, he says for all he knows, the Daruma may have even appeared in his daughter’s dreams.

Kuraki gets into a taxi headed for Miki’s house and places a phone call to her at the same time. He tells her that there is something he must ask her in person and hangs up before she can muster any protest.

Nakagami, who has received instructions from Higashi to take Kuraki out for a while, goes after the taxi. Noticing that he is being tailed, Kuraki issues a series of instructions to the taxi driver in order to shake Nakagami off. Just when Kuraki thinks he has succeeded in doing so and is about to resume his journey, he sees a car hurtling towards the taxi. Before he can react, the car crashes into the taxi and the force of the impact knocks him out cold. Nakagami stops a distance away and grins in triumph.

Miki hears her doorbell ring and opens the door to find Kuraki covered in blood and barely able to stand. Her eyes widen in alarm, but he refuses to let her call for an ambulance. He tells her that this is proof that they are close to the heart of the matter. Miki guesses that Higashi and Nakagami did this to him. Despite the pain that he is in, Kuraki insists that he has to talk to her. He accuses her of telling lies when the need arises, and she readily admits to doing so. She stresses that Shingai was the target she was tailing, and not Kakei. However, Kuraki asks if she started tailing Shingai because she saw that he had undertaken terrorism? If Shingai was following Kakei, would it not be normal to suspect that Kakei was the target of terrorism? In that case, there is no way she would have let the two men out of her sight even if the situation was adverse.

Then Kuraki mentions that he went to the cafe today and showed Shingai’s photograph to the staff on duty on the day of the bomb explosion. No one could recall Shingai’s face. When he asks what she thinks about this, Miki replies that dozens of people go in and out of that cafe every day. On the contrary, Kuraki thinks it is possible that Shingai never went inside or that Shingai never stood between her and Kakei. She wonders why he seems determined to make her into the mysterious woman. Kuraki believes things would make sense that way.

Abruptly changing the topic, Kuraki guesses that Miki knows the National Police Agency’s Assistant Commissioner Tsuki. He says that he caught sight of her with Tsuki the other day and asks about their relationship. She calls it a very private one and points out that she and Tsuki are both single adults who go on dates sometimes. Seeing no point in quibbling with her over the blatant lie, Kuraki expresses his interest in Tsuki’s position. Even though he has heard that the Special Inspector General’s job is to investigate misconduct and crime within the police and crackdown on it, the truth is that it is a job which covers up scandals so that it does not get leaked out, especially to the mass media. Kuraki thinks Tsuki has risen to someone’s bait. Miki pretends that she does not know what he is saying. But Kuraki thanks her and says it was worth coming to talk to her. As he makes his way out of the apartment, he momentarily confuses Miki with Chihiro. Pinning an unnerved Miki against the wall, he starts to ask her about the dresser drawer.

On the other hand, Ami tells Shingai that she visited his family home and had an unexpected encounter with their neighbour. Although the neighbour knows nothing about his family, she found a picture book with the motif of the shrike in his sister’s room. She thinks he may be able to recall something if he sees it and informs him that she is on her way to Tokyo. What she does not mention is the scare she got when she stumbled upon the ghastly sight of dozens of insects impaled with metal skewers on a straw figure in the same room.

Back at home, Kuraki breaks the lock of the dresser’s drawer and discovers a box with a pair of red shoes meant as a Christmas present for Shizuku. He smiles at it as memories of his wife and daughter decorating the Christmas tree come back to him. Then he slumps to the floor and loses consciousness … …

Related Posts:

• Mozu Season 1 ~ Mozu no Sakebu Yoru – Episode 3 Digest & Episode 4 CM
• Mozu Season 1 ~ Mozu no Sakebu Yoru – Episode 2 Digest & Episode 3 CM
• Mozu Season 1 ~ Mozu no Sakebu Yoru – Episode 2 Synopsis
• Mozu Season 1 ~ Mozu no Sakebu Yoru – Episode 1 Digest & Episode 2 CM
• Mozu Season 1 ~ Mozu no Sakebu Yoru – Episode 1 Synopsis

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