Hisashi Nabeshima

**Hisashi Nabeshima** (鍋島 久志, *Nabeshima Hisashi*) is the head inspector of the Kyoto Prefectural Police First Investigation Division.

## Personality

Nabeshima is quite serious in his duty as head inspector of the prefectural police. As such, he opts to employ methods in order to solve cases, even if it hurts his "pride" as a police officer. This primarily includes inviting mere civilians, such as Hideo Himura and Alice Arisugawa, to help in their investigations.

He also holds great respect for Himura for his consistent aid in his field work, learning various pieces of advice from the criminology professor regarding the field. Furthermore, Nabeshima personally believes that it is a police officer's duty to solve any case, no matter how big or trivial it is.

Outside his formal character, Nabeshima is an avid fan of Anakubi, an underground female idol group.

## Plot

### Hotel Cadenza Homicide

On 9 January 2016, Julia Kaneko, a show assistant of spiritual artist Nick Hallelujah, was found murdered in the latter's hotel room. The Kyoto Prefectural Police, including Nabeshima, Keiichi Sakashita, and Munenori Yasoda, believe the case to be a locked-room murder, with both the window and the door of the room locked from inside. Having found Nick's fingerprints on the murder weapon, they make him a prime suspect for the case, despite his denial of their allegation. Nabeshima then calls Hideo Himura together with Alice Arisugawa to help in the case.

As the two arrive, Himura interrogates Nick and his manager Yoshinaga, initially to the distrust of the latter two due to the criminologist's seemingly irrelevant questions and remarks. Nonetheless, Himura eventually correctly names Yoshinaga as the culprit behind the homicide, leading to his presumed arrest.

### Night Prowler Assaults

Kyoto is plagued by random street assaults that fall every Tuesday, with victims being women in their mid-20s stabbed from behind. Two weeks after the latest street assault, a third murder occurs. Nabeshima once again contacts Himura and Alice to aid in the investigation. Like the other victims, there was a piece of paper left in her mouth, in which was written "Night Prowler".

Upon investigation, the police find out that "Night Prowler" is a character from a video game called *Screaming Castle*, and crime lab results reveal that the three murders were conclusively performed by the same person. Nabeshima orders his men to find the serial killer and stop the assaults before a fourth case occurs.

The next day, Nabeshima, Ono, Sakashita, and Himura visit Simbalinx, the software producer of the game, to interrogate them. Due to the media's and the police's relation of the game to the recent assaults, its producer and director find it frustrating that the game is being blamed for murders, plummeting their sales. Later, Nabeshima and Sakashita try to suppress rallying members of the Shangri-La Crusade while expressing their desire to free their leader, Sanae Moroboshi, from incarceration.

That night, despite not being a Tuesday, a fourth murder victim has been found, identified as Yukie Ōwada. Puzzling the police even more, Nabeshima calls Himura and Alice. Himura rushes to the crime scene, finding the fourth and final message in her mouth being "Game Over". As Himura tries to deduce what had happened to the fourth case, Ono spots Sada within the crowd. After he jeers at the police and declares that the game has been completed, Nabeshima orders him to be taken away. Himura states that the fourth murder is different from the other three.

Back at headquarters, the team struggles to comprehend how Night Prowler was able to escape them on the night of the fourth crime. Later, Nabeshima arrives together with Ono and Sakashita at the hospital to apprehend Eiji Ōwada, Yukie's brother, whom Himura pinpoints and forces a confession out of as Night Prowler.

## References

1. ↑ *An Odd-looking Customer*
2. ↑ *Waiting for Jack the Ripper — Part 1*
3. ↑ *Screaming Castle Murder Case*