Part 4: Chapter 8

    The next day, the reporters in the Politics section of the Tokyo Daily were abuzz with the news that Hamano Masahiro, Minister of Foreign affairs, had pulled out of the upcoming elections.
    "Now where the heck did I stick that file on Foreign Minister Hamano?" The young reporter Motoyama dug through a veritable mountain of manila folders piled up on his desk.
    "Now Ota is a shoo-in for chairman," murmured the veteran reporter Watanabe while shaving. The phone in front of him had been ringing, ignored, nonstop.
    From behind a desk, Imura chimed in. "That guy's just been on a roll since passing the National Secrets Protection Act."
    "Don't you think this whole thing is Fujita basically giving his approval of Ota in light of his ability to get that thing passed?" responded Watanabe.
    "So you think that Hamano abandoned his bid once Ota got Fujita's support?"
    As the two grizzled veterans chatted amongst each other, Motoyama picked up the still-ringing phone next to them. With a skeptical look on his face, he listened to the voice on the other end of the line for a while before hanging up with a curt "You want the Society section for that."
    "What's up?" Watanabe asked the question as if he wasn't too interested one way or the other.
    "Oh, it's just more people talking about recent chains of mass unexplained disappearances in Musashino ward. It's probably just a load of crap, though."
    "Come to think of it, I've heard that Tanouchi over in Econ hasn't shown up for work lately--doesn't he live in Mitaka city?"
    Not thinking of the disappearances any further, the two reporters headed out to interview the politicians they were in charge of.