Lost Judgment/Chapter 04

Red Knife is the fourth chapter of Lost Judgment.
== Plot ==
Following the discovery of Hiro Mikoshiba's death, telephones ring throughout Seiryo High School, prompting immediate response from the school's chairman and teachers. Back at Yokohama 99, Yagami starts his investigation by recounting the clues from the previous night: Sawa suspecting Mikoshiba of bullying Toshiro Ehara and confronting Mikoshiba because of it, despite her outright denial to Yagami and co., and the mysterious lady that managed to silence Sawa, leading Yagami to deduce that she has to be involved with the case. However, Sugiura notes that there's an oddity to the leads: Mikoshiba's murder was supposed to be more justified if his background as a bully was exposed, yet there's a good effort to hide this; meanwhile, Tsukumo opens a possibility that Okuda may pressure Sawa to stay silent about the murder, which Yagami ruled out due to Okuda and Sawa being on good professional terms.
Back at Seiryo High School, Koda, Matsui, and Sakaki meet Yagami in front of the faculty room, where they're talking about Mikoshiba's murder, and the students ask Yagami to keep them posted about recent findings of the case. Afterwards, Yagami checks the faculty room for Sawa, who refused to welcome him. Not wanting to give in, Yagami exits the room and phones Tsukumo to see if can pin down the location where Mikoshiba's body was discovered. Using Tsukumo's lead, Yagami heads for his next destination: an abandoned building by the river, where he gained access by going through a broken fence nearby.
Inside, Yagami proceeds to investigate the building, starting from a burn mark and a blackened bloodstain, likely to be Mikoshiba's. He then matches the building's surroundings with Mikoshiba's photo and concluded that Mikoshiba was brought alive to the building and that the building is where the murder happened. However, his investigation is interrupted by the police, who proceeds to interrogate Yagami on the spot; one of the officers, who identifies himself as Watanabe of Kanagawa Police's Division One, quickly identifies Yagami as he remembered him from Seiryo High the other day, as well as his background of working on Genda Law Office's payroll, connecting the dots between him, a Kamurocho detective, Saori Shirosaki, who served as Ehara's lawyer, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police closing the door on Ehara, blocking Watanabe's chance of interviewing him. Upon learning that he and Yagami share similar circumstances, Watanabe offers a chance for them to collaborate, which the latter promptly accepts by handing Watanabe the photo of Mikoshiba, taken right there before he died and was given to Sawa by an unknown lady. In return, Yagami learned from Watanabe that the murderer worked in a group and that Mikoshiba was last seen alive on October 7 at 6:30 AM and it was likely that he was abducted near his home by around 2 or 3 suspects before getting murdered at around 7:30 AM, based on autopsy report of digested food being found in his stomach. Watanabe also told Yagami that Ehara was seen at Ikebukuro station at around 7:43 AM, which leads Yagami to think that Ehara couldn't have possibly murdered Mikoshiba due to the narrow time window and Ikebukuro Station being 30 kilometers away from Ijincho; however, he opens a possibility that Ehara is also a part of Mikoshiba's murder conspiracy. Then, Yagami proceeds on questioning Watanabe about further details and evidences collected on Mikoshiba's murder. After exchanging details on the case, Yagami noticed that they were being spied by an unknown party, leading him to chase them before handing them to Watanabe; the unknown man is identified as Akaike, a 30 year-old Tokyo man who works in a biotechnology firm and is on a trip to Yokohama with his high school friends from Kurokawa Academy, a private school in Tokyo, for a class reunion.
Over at Yokohama 99, Saori phones Yagami and he tells her about Tokyo Metropolitan Police blocking out Kanagawa Police's investigation on Ehara, as well as asking Saori about Genda Law's next appointment with Ehara; meanwhile, Saori connects him to Hoshino so they can go to Ikebukuro together to do further investigations.
The next day, Hoshino and Yagami hold a small reenactment with cues from Ehara's groping case and his subsequent arrest. Upon arriving at Shinjuku Station, Yagami notices a small blind spot between the point where Ehara disembarked from the train and the point where he was apprehended. After investigating the stations, Yagami asks Hoshino about Ehara's whereabouts in the station and matches it to Mikoshiba's time of death, leading Hoshino to think that the commotion around the harassment might have been staged and Yagami thinking that he played everyone by using the harassment case as an alibi for murder, enabling Ehara to deny the case; however, Yagami and Hoshino doubt if Ehara has enough money to pay for an assassin, given that he barely had enough money to sue Seiryo High School. Afterwards, Saori phoned Yagami again, telling him that Genda Law is set to meet him the following day at Tokyo Detention Center.
Following the investigation, Yagami returns to Seiryo High School to meet the distraught Sawa and divulge his part of the investigation: Yagami deduced that Ehara may have a hand in Mikoshiba's murder, Mikoshiba was gruesomely tortured before getting murdered, and that Mikoshiba's murder may be done as a way to avenge his son's suicide. Initially, Sawa didn't budge when Yagami asked him if Mikoshiba bullied Toshiro back in the day, but Yagami discovered that she hid a photo of Toshiro behind Sawa's old high school photo, which caused Sawa to finally give the answer Yagami needs, as well as telling him about one of her high school classmates named Mitsuru, who jumped off the school's roof after being bullied and is now in a coma; the case was known by her then-homeroom teacher, who had to resign after facing public backlash, comparing it to Toshiro's case where nobody was held accountable.
After talking with Sawa, Yagami returns to Yokohama 99, where he met Kuwana, who was hanging out with Kaito and co. over beers and shogi and still wanted Yagami to include him in his work, citing his know-how of the city. Due to the 99 being Tsukumo and Sugiura's place, Yagami leaves the decision to both men, which agreed to be accompanied by Kuwana. Not long afterwards, Tsukumo confirms Yagami's deduction that Mikoshiba's murder was fueled by revenge through articles from the internet, and that Mikoshiba's murder was kept off the record. However, their exchange was cut short by the masked assailants, who pelted stones to Yokohama 99's office, causing Yagami to chase the assailants to a shady part of town. There, one of the assailants named Tesso warns Yagami that Ijincho is off-limits for him, leading to a fight against Tesso, followed by the rest of the Liumang assailants. Following the fight, Tesso is impressed at Yagami's ability to defeat them, prompting Kuwana to praise Yagami for gaining Tesso's respect. They then head back to Yokohama 99, only to find Sugiura passed out and Tsukumo having his pinky broken after getting attacked by unknown masked assailants; they also give photos of Yagami from when he checked the crime scene and the train stations as a form of warning; Kaito thinks that Liumang is a bait to lure Yagami and co. away from Yokohama 99's office. After getting help for Tsukumo and Sugiura; Yagami, Kaito, and Kuwana inspected CCTV footage and discovered that the assailants were not Liumang as they wore clown masks, leading Kuwana to deduce that the assailants might be either Seiryu Clan and Geomijul, but quickly dismissed that due to Seiryu Clan supposedly having more decorum and Geomijul's shady nature.
The following day, Yagami returns to Kamurocho to meet Saori, but not before conversing with Tsukumo, who suspects that the clown masked assailants are connected to Ehara and the murder case and suggests Yagami to exchange more information with Kanagawa Police. Along the way, Kaito notices that there were more thugs than usual, and one of them happened to approach them, looking for a bespectacled man with long hair who used to managed a girls' bar who went missing for the last five years. Yagami, not wanting to give free information to the thugs, decided to fight them. While fighting, a blond-haired man noticed Yagami and Kaito, which the latter recognize as Daimu Akutsu, a fellow ex-Tojo Clan man just like Kaito. Akutsu restates that he has an order from a man named Soma, also an ex-Tojo Clan who now runs a syndicate named RK, and that he shouldn't be disrespected. After the encounter with RK thugs, Yagami continues his trip to Genda Law and makes his way with Saori to Tokyo Detention Center.
At the detention center, Saori confirmed Ehara's words about a corpse in Ijincho and questioning his knowledge about it, which Ehara claimed as a "miracle"; however, Yagami, asks if Mikoshiba is the one to blame for Toshiro's death and the lawsuit against Seiryo High School, which Ehara confirms. Ehara then proceeds about how Toshiro was bullied back in the day, which confirms Sawa's memories, before stating that he doesn't want an appeal and no longer needs a lawyer. In a bid to gain his attention, Yagami decides to spill his suspicion that Ehara actually murdered Mikoshiba and that the latter died painfully, before revealing the photo of a badly beaten Mikoshiba and the story behind it, which Ehara responds by ranting about the broken justice system, leading Yagami to suspect that Ehara did not act alone, which he does not respond positively to. Back at Kamurocho, Saori deduces that Ehara was guilty of the murder, but notes that such accusations should be confirmed with strong connection to the murderers.
Yagami decides to return to his office, where he meets Kaito. There, Kaito tells him about an e-mail from Tsukumo, which contains the murder footage. The footage shows a badly beaten Mikoshiba and a man wearing white coat, gloves, and a white crash helmet holding a combat knife, which is none other than Ehara himself, prompting Kaito to suspect that either the case was an alibi or a massive cover-up, given that Ehara was in custody for the groping case the whole time; however, he had a hunch that the footage was real.
==Tasks==
*Return to Seiryo High School
** Reward: ¥100 & 400 SP
*Head to the Faculty Room
** Reward: ¥100 & 400 SP
*Find the Crime Scene
** Reward: ¥100 & 400 SP
*Sneak into the Building
** Reward: ¥500 & 2,000 SP
*Find the Spot Where the Body Was Found
** Reward: ¥100 & 400 SP
*Catch the Suspicious Man
** Reward: ¥300 & 1,500 SP
*Return to Yokohama 99
Side Case: Dastardly Detective: Introduction
*Return to Yokohama 99
** Reward: ¥100 & 400 SP
*Get Some Rest at Yokohama 99
** Reward: ¥100 & 400 SP
*Talk to Sawa
** Reward: ¥100 & 400 SP
*Return to Yokohama 99
Side Case: A New Partner?
*Return to Yokohama 99
** Reward: ¥100 & 400 SP
*Get Information from Tsukumo
** Reward: ¥100 & 400 SP
*Catch the White Masks
** Reward: ¥1,000 & 1,500 SP
*Defeat Tesso
** Reward: ¥1,000 & 3,000 SP
*Defeat the Yokohama Liumang
** Reward: ¥1,500 & 4,000 SP
*Return to Yokohama 99
** Reward: ¥100 & 400 SP
*Rest on the Couch at Yokohama 99
** Reward: ¥100 & 400 SP
*Head to Kamurocho
** Reward: ¥100 & 400 SP
*Talk to Saori
*Defeat the Thugs
** Reward: ¥1,000 & 2,000 SP
*Talk to Saori
** Reward: ¥100 & 400 SP
*Go to the Tokyo Detention Center Via Taxi
** Reward: ¥100 & 400 SP
*Return to the Yagami Detective Agency
** Reward: ¥100 & 400 SP
==Related trophies/achievements==
Icon	Name 	Description 	Trophy Status (PlayStation)	Gamerscore (Xbox)
 	Trending Video	Completed Chapter 4.	Bronze 	15G
==Trivia==
* The news report at the beginning of the chapter states Mikoshiba was 21 at the time of his death, however, other in-game sources state he was 22.
Category:Chapter Summaries
Category:Lost Judgment Chapter Summaries