Makoto ordered the other servants to clear the dining table as we walked to the meeting hall in an orderly manner. The butler observed his underlings in all seriousness. He had a strong leadership aura and persona when he wasn't talking to his masters or me.
The eccentric looking servant embodied the duality of the family perfectly. His mismatched hair color represented the light and dark side of each member. Somehow it all made sense and then it didn't again.
Everyone took a seat in their designated chairs. Kenji compiled and prepared the report files given by his younger brothers before setting up the projector. We had never used it before, but I guess today was a special occasion.
I had never seen another member or staff in the meeting hall before. Usually we would deliberate over a case and each individual would inform their own teams outside of the house.
"I will start with reviewing yesterday's findings and incidents," Kenji turned to his mom for approval.
The lady of the house extended her arm and gestured for him to move on.
"We found significant evidence that the medicines that our father and mother had consumed contained substances harmful to his health. Dad had been in a comatose for a week now. He could have died if we were even a bit later.
"The discovery was prompted by Hiro's suspicion over his friend's involvement. Her full name is Suzannah Izanami, orphaned at the age of seven and was raised by a foster family. No link was found between the two so far," he clicked to the next slide.
I tried to sneak peeks at Mrs. Tanaka's facial expression for reaction. She was even colder than anyone else in the house. Hiro wasn't lying when he said that she was a tough heiress of a rich tycoon that could out-argue their dad.
"After this revelation, Hiro and Ren continued on their research to figure out further possibilities when Ren received a direct and personal attack. Her submission was forged and resubmitted by another student. Her original copy was directly deleted from the database upon submission and re-submission. This resulted in her essay receiving a 75% similarity. The school and faculty sanctioned for her expulsion.
"But we managed to offer a counteroffer. Hiro found the perpetrator who bribed her lecturer to help in this coup. The student mastermind behind this preposterous deed was Clause Akiyama."
My eyes widened at the mention of my friend's name. My eyebrows tensed and curled with frustration. I looked at Hiro for answer, but I couldn't manage a word out; I was tongue-tied.
"As I hold a considerable power amongst the boards of director of the University of Shang-Francisco, I immediately sprang to action as soon as I heard of the accusation. We are in the middle of processing the case. Mr. Akiyama will be investigated further by Tadashi's team and Mr. Smith will be fired, effective immediately. Any input?" Kenji scanned the room for a response.
"I think Ren has something to say," Hiro rubbed my hand to calm me down.
"If we are suspecting Clause for this, I think it's important to know that him and Suze are dating. Both of them are on our look-out list. So, I just think we should see if he was coerced or manipulated into doing so," I suggested.
"Thank you. Yes, that's what we suspected. Mr. Akiyama seemed to be protecting Ms. Izanami's involvement. We found proofs of her posing as him and submitted as well as orchestrated the attack. She knew that she could gain access through him. We suspected that she messed up with Mr. and Ms. Akiyama's laptop and offered them to use hers. In turn, she abused their data and the rest is history."
I sighed happily knowing that my only friends didn't turn against me. For a split second I thought that they might be jealous or even despise me for hanging around the Tanaka mansion recently.
"If there aren't any more input or follow-ups, I'd like to continue to our next subject."
Tadashi took to the podium for the next presentation.
"As some of you may know, I was supposed to be in New York. Due to last minute changes, I decided to refrain from travelling away. My team and I picked up an alarming rate of increase in enemy staffs around us.
"I became suspicious that they might try to act rashly and more directly. As it is my duty to protect the family, I managed to postpone the business meeting and stayed," the fierce man explained.
"Then why did you only come home at night?" my friend asked.
"I wanted to follow my stalkers and map out their density over the city. My team prepared a new file showing the population density of opponent agents around us by location," he showed some figures on the projector, "as you can see, they have matched the number of our agent 1:1. I became worried of them striking even sooner than we had predicted. And my suspicion was confirmed last night.
"I was tailing an opponent's car just outside of our neighborhood when I saw another one tailing one of our cars. My agent told me that a driver was driving Ren home. I continued to follow the car even after it had given up on tailing Ren.
"There were less to no activities around her apartment and I had assumed that she would be fine. Until I saw her car parked next to the pier. The driver died a few minutes after I found him slummed in his seat. His eyes were gouged out and he was left to bleed. He managed to mutter a word, 'Dodomeki'."
Everyone looked at each other in confusion, but no one muttered a single word.
"I panicked and rushed to her apartment. My team informed me that they saw a pizza guy going into her building from a pizza van. What intrigued me was that the van left the premises, but the guy still managed to escape. I parked my car, barged into her apartment and found the pizza box with a pair of eyes as the toppings. They were fresh."
I flinched as I had a brief flashback.
Tadashi picked up my discomforted and continued, "anyway, I brought her here to stay with us while I settled everything else outside. She's done with her current semester and her debate activities can be done virtually. We should minimize our activity outside as the pizza investigation had hit a roadblock. That's all I got for today."
It was Hiro's turn to present my findings about his mom when she suddenly rose from her seat and walked towards the podium.
"Mother?" Kenji muttered quietly.
She kept walking and set her bony pale fingers on the podium, "I'm proud of you children. Everything that you have seen are true. Especially you," she pointed at me.
"U-um? Me?" I stuttered.
"You're a bright one. You found me out," she smiled creepily.