Takeda Haunted Mansion Case

**Spoiler warning: *Plot and/or ending details follow. Read at user's own risk!***

## Details

### Host

Gekka Ryūzōji
Takeda Family

### Number of Survivors

6+

The **Takeda Haunted Mansion Case** is one of the 12 Duel Noir cases from the Twelve Zodiac Duel Noir Challenge featured in the third volume of *Danganronpa Kirigiri*. The participants of Takeda Haunted Mansion Case are members of the Detective Library, with Gekka Ryūzōji as the allurement, and Suntetsu Shirasu as the target.

## History

### 1800s to 1945

Similar to previous Duel Noir sites, the Takeda Haunted Mansion was rumored among occult fanatics to be haunted by spirits. The Takeda clan, consisting of descendants of warlord Shingen Takeda, had been a family of influential landholders who held tremendous power in the region from two hundred years ago up until World War II. With their might, they mercilessly suppressed uprisings and squashed revolts, leading to them being feared as the Takeda Headhunters for a time.

However, their domain was ravaged during the war, and with their honor fading, the surviving descendants settled into a quiet agrarian lifestyle. Time continued to pass, and the rapid depopulation of the village and the passing of the family patriarch resulted in the decrepit Japanese-style household being left abandoned in the darkness. And thus, the once-glorious mansion lost its prestige, becoming nothing more than one of the many haunted locations across the country. According to online rumors, souls of fallen warriors wander the grounds, and any sentient beings who dare to venture inside are chased around by cackling, floating severed heads.

### Duel Noir

Yui and Kyoko make their way to the train station and head off to the Takeda Haunted Mansion, to participate in the next Duel Noir Challenge. Rumored to be haunted by spirits, located up towards the mountains. Arriving to the Mansion, the two made their way through an old gate, finding at least five pairs of shoes near the entrance. Making their way through the hallway someone was calling for help. Nearing the door, Yui attempts to open it with no success as it couldn't budge. Nearby the door were four other people who were summoned to this Duel Noir. They consisted of Hajiki Yaki, Sachi Mizuiyama, Korisu Kakitsubata, and Salvador Fukuro Yadorigi.

Hajiki attempted to force open the door yet again, complaining about a resistance pulling back. Kyoko reminded Yui that the challenge card listed rubber bands as an item, and just as she was about to act, a strange noise emit from the room. An object crashing, a man's muffled voice, another heavy object collapsing on the ground with vibrations, then silence. Hajiki then attempted to pull open the door, which faintly revealed some rubber bands tied to the doorknob, in which Salvador cut open. After the door was forced open, a sight of an elderly man laid face down, a katana lodged deep in him had taken his life. Two empty suits of armour surrounded the corpse, giving the crime scene a bizarre look. The man was then identified as Suntetsu Shirasu, the fifth person called to the mansion. The police and medical personnel were called due to an order from Kyoko, but she knew Suntetsu was already dead.

The investigation began with the suits of armor inspected, and Salvador noting they've been moved from their prior spots (originally at the walls, now in the center of the room). The group determine that nobody should have been able to get in or out, thus making it a locked room murder, and Kyoko confirms that the murder weapon - a dotanuki katana - was the one used on Suntetsu. When the quartet asked about the two girls, Kyoko is able to brush off their suspicions to have them focus on investigating. Yui and Kyoko check outside to the courtyard, noting there were no footprints in the snow.

At midnight, police officers and forensic officers streamed into the mansion, taking their own way into the investigation. The others claim they were lured to the mansion by a fake invitation, in which they arrived with no guest. When the topic turned to Yui, Kyoko and their involvement in this case, while the latter isn't willing to cooperate, the officers on the scene receive word that the girls were working with Gekka Ryūzōji and Gekka's word allows the two to get into the officer's good graces (though neither is pleased given they know of Gekka's involvement in the Victims Catharsis Committee and Twelve Duel Noir Challenge).

The officers then began questioning the four called to the mansion, taking them in one by one for private interrogations. During this time, without the officers present, the four invited guests admit that they were detectives, each lured to the mansion to investigate it for a specified reason (and didn't reveal their profession since law enforcement and detectives don't typically have good relations) and that Suntetsu was one too. Salvador then explained the timeline of the events to the two. The group arrived at the mansion at 1PM, in which Yui unsealed the envelope an hour later. The group then waited until 3PM in which the host never showed up, in turn they explored the mansion themselves. They started questioning the legitimacy of the request at 9PM, in which they were prepared to leave until Korisu revealed herself as a detective, in which the rest did so as well. At that time, Suntetsu had gone missing. At 10PM the door was sealed shut. In the next 30 minutes Hajiki, Sachi and Korisu appeared, sharing their findings. After that is when Kyoko and Yui showed up.

In addition their alibi's for that time period was as follows:

* Salvador was inspecting the art scrolls of the mansion, occasionally running into Suntetsu (but noted nothing off with him).
* Sachi, for 3 PM onward, was in the common room, reading up until the murder. She did meet Suntetsu when he came in to the room to check his phone for stocks.
* Hajiki was wondering about the mansion, occasionally meeting Korisu (who would yell at him since she was on the phone).
* Korisu was walking about the mansion talking with her friend, no real time given.

After the explanation, they continued on investigating. Kyoko took notice of the warrior's shoes, were were slightly covered with mud and wet. The shoe size of this warrior was 10.5 inches. When it came to why Suntetsu was killed, a police officer's conclusion of a suicide was refuted by Kyoko. In terms of the rubber bands being used, it was discovered that, while hard, it still would have possible for someone to set-up to get through (thus making the crime scene not a completely locked room).

Kyoko then measured the shoe sizes of the rest of the group:

* Salvador - 11.5 in
* Hajiki - 11 in
* Suntetsu - 10.5 in
* Korisu - 9.5 in
* Sachi - 8.5 in

The girls went outside, taking note a 15ft-20ft drop into a ravine behind the fence of the mansion and noticing a scratch on the fence from a wire of sort. From there, they went into the watermill located nearby, finding a jack inside the mill and thick icicles that Kyoko believed was key evidence. Mainly due to the white line running across the middle, horizontally, of one icicle. Concluding the search, Kyoko makes her way into the mansion, explaining to the rest of the officers the tricks and structure of the murder trick.

After knocking out Suntetsu in the dojo, the killer created a flimsy locked room, using the rubber bands. From there, between 10 and 11, they stabbed Suntetsu with the propped up katana (using the warriors to get blood splattered on them to make the scene look like a suicide) and 'closed' the door off with the rubber bands. After that, they used the jack from the watermill to pry open the door and escape it. She explained that one of the group members took advantage of the trick, believing that only someone small enough could commit the crime: the only one fitting the bill was Sachi. One of the officers requested that Sachi go through the small opening of the door to prove the theory, but as she refused, she was arrested and lead out of the room by the officers.

As the case concluded, and the officers then escorted everyone out of the mansion, Kyoko then revealed to Yui that Sachi being the 'culprit' was an act to bring the real killer's guard down. As Yui, Kyoko, and the police officers distanced themselves from the mansion, the real culprit came back and was in the process of destroying the evidence. Up until they were busted by the police and the two girls: this person was Korisu Kakitsubata.

As they try to get Korisu to confess, Kyoko notes that a piece of evidence that implicated Korisu as the killer: the messy sandals found on the crime scene. Korisu had to use them in order to finish setting up her murder after drugging Suntetsu, but her shoes were stuck out where she couldn't get them due to Salvador lurking about that area. Not wanting to raise suspicion, she was forced to use the sandals to head outside in the snow. However, because the sandals were either too small for the other's feet (Salvador, Hajiki) or were too big (Sachi), it meant only Korisu could have worn them.

In addition, Kyoko also revealed the entire murder trick. First, Korisu would drug Suntetsu to sleep. Then she would prop him on the armored warriors in order to keep him in place. Then, she would put the wire through the holes of her katana. The ends of the wire would to two places. One, to the backyard's water wheel, or rather the wheel's icicle (which was thick and wouldn't break so easily) and the other over the backyard's fence and tied to a weight. Once that was done, she would open the double doors a bit, and jam the handles with her jack. From there she put the katana through the door handles, which pulled back the rubber bands, stretching them back with the guard of the blade.

What would be in place now was something resembling a bow, with the katana acting as its arrow. Then Korisu would go out to the weight from earlier, tossing off a cliff that lead into the stream below. The bow wouldn't fire immediately thanks to the wire also being wrapped around the thick icicle from earlier. But, once it did, there was no reason to keep the jack in anymore since the force would make sure to keep the doors open. Eventually, the wire would be released from the icicle and the force would cause it to send the katana right into the chest of the Suntetsu. The wire itself would be pulled by the weight still going downstream, and drop into the water, likely to never be found.

Thus, Korisu's murder method was exposed and she herself essentially admits it. She reveals that she killed Suntetsu due to an incident eight years ago, where a fire broke out on a mountain railway. Korisu managed to get out, but her family was stuck inside after Suntetsu shut the emergency exits, thus preventing the smoke from killing more people. Korisu's family perished in the fire and she wanted revenge to appease the voices of those she lost calling out to her. After revealing she had no money to pay back the Victims Catharsis Committee, she fearfully goes with Kyoko's advice of turning herself in after she becomes aware of the Committee executing those who fail the Duel Noir.

With the case closed, Kyoko and Yui retire to a hotel for the night at about 4 AM.

This Duel Noir is often cited in later novels.

### Legacy and Impact on Pop-Culture and Political Landscapes

Main article: **Danganronpa: Togami**
As the years went forward, the Takeda Haunted Mansion Case became somewhat of a cult phenomenon, likely due to the method of killing being so obscure and convoluted. During the World Domination Proclamation in Prague, the Myst'ry Research Society of Hope's Peaks Junior High School, started to create *Operation: Global Locked Room Transformation*. One of the many murders the M.R.S admit to was based on the Takeda Haunted Mansion case, where they stabbed a Citizen of Cesky raj in the chest with a dotanuki sword.

## Black Letter

Location: Takeda Haunted Mansion — 30 million yen

Weapon: Dotanuki Katana — 30 million yen

Trick: Locked Room — 100 million yen

Other: Rubber Bands — 1 million yen

Total Cost: 161 million yen

The assigned detective for this Duel Noir is Yui Samidare

## Participants

### Host

**Gekka Ryūzōji**
 **Takeda Family**\* | -

### Participants

**Yui Samidare**

**Kyoko Kirigiri**

**Sachi Mizuiyama**

**Hajiki Yaki**

**Salvador Fukuro Yadorigi**

**Suntetsu Shirasu**
***(Target)***

## Death Order

**Suntetsu Shirasu**

## Results and Aftermath

* A follow-up Duel Noir case continued as the Twelve Zodiac Duel Noir Challenge continues after Yui received 12 different Black letters on the same novel.