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"Chūya, I'm not trying to put you away because it's the right thing to do or something. These criminal organizations spit kids out like disposable pawns, and the same thing is gonna happen to you eventually. That's why I want you to return to the world of the light before that happens. Me—and the law—can help you do that." |
Murase (村瀬, Murase?) was a detective affiliated with the city police and the brother of N.
Appearance[]
Murase appeared to be in his forties and seemed light as noted by Adam Frankenstein. He had fluffy, wool-like hair and wore a long, dark green coat over a collared shirt and leather shoes that had lost their shine. He also donned a silver-chained necklace that had an empty brass shell casing at the end of it with a hole in the center where the chain ran through, which he kept hidden beneath his shirt.[1]
In the stage play adaptation, Murase was a bespectacled man with black, slightly unkempt hair and wore a cream-colored shirt tucked in a pair of trousers and a black belt. He also wore a navy blue necktie with a dotted pattern, a watch on his left wrist, and a beige pea coat with both sleeves slightly rolled up.[3]
Personality[]
Murase, casually called by his nickname Mura by his peers, was an unassuming detective who was quite "popular" among his colleagues, accounting this attitude with the notion that he was working for small payment and needed to at least be popular to be worth it. Nevertheless, as he had claimed himself, Murase possessed guts, particularly owing this to his past job as a security guard in a military facility where he outlasted his other co-workers. He was also quite chatty and preachy to the point of repeating anecdotes in elaborate detail and even turning his stories to complaints then to lectures.
Nonetheless, Murase was quite persistent with his constant attempts to usher the young Chūya Nakahara away from the Port Mafia in hopes of bringing him "to the world of the light" before the boy could be disposed of as a pawn. Despite knowing that Chūya was a member of the erstwhile illegal Mafia, Murase had been pursuing him and gave him several chances to leave the organization.
Skills[]
- Intelligence: As a detective, Murase was quite competent in the field of investigating, having solved various cases in his profession and even offered helpful advice to other detectives to successfully catch suspects.
Background[]
Murase was the younger brother of N, who recommended him to a job as a security guard in the military facility he worked in towards the end of the Great War. Due to financial problems and thinking it was a regular paying job, he applied for and got it, but he soon found out that the job was to keep anyone from the facility with a shoot-to-kill order, including children who tried to sneak inside to steal food due to shortage supplies brought by the war.
At some point, Murase became a detective for the city police. He also encountered Chūya during his time as part of the Sheep and eventually when he joined the Mafia, and he had since been presumably trying to get him out of such organization before they could discard him. Moreover, sometime during these circumstances, he was in contact with his elder brother who was recorded deceased and likely knew some of his researches to a certain extent.
King of Assassins Incident[]
A year after the Arahabaki Incident, Murase struck a deal with the director of the factory where Buichirō Shirase worked and arrested the latter for illegally possessing firearms, also with the intention of bringing in Chūya to sign a plea deal to sell out Mafia secrets in exchange for releasing Shirase. Chūya rejected his plea deal, so Murase told him about his harsh encounters in his past job killing anyone, including children, as his job in a military facility.
Murase then offered his help of getting Chūya out into the world of the light before he could get disposed of by the Mafia, similar to how Murase himself killed a child of the same age as Chūya whom he surmised was part of an underground syndicate at the time. However, Chūya advised him to save his sympathy "for a fellow human".
Subsequently, King of Assassins Paul Verlaine broke into the jail and got into a skirmish with Chūya. Murase later came to Chūya's aid, but once spotted by Verlaine, the assassin immediately killed the detective by twisting his neck before retreating. Adam scanned Murase's vitals, confirming his death with his C2 to C6 vertebrae broken. Adam also found a cross carved from white birch, which was part of Verlaine's modus operandi and cemented the fact that Murase was one of Verlaine's assassination targets instead of Shirase than previously thought.
Legacy[]
Adam later found a blue cell phone on Murase's person and found an encrypted message to someone he referred to as his "brother", whom Adam knew from records to be the allegedly deceased researcher known simply as N. This then brought Chūya, Adam, and Shirase to be directed to N in a secret military facility. Ultimately, after N remotely released Demonic Beast Guivre from Verlaine, he amusingly wished for the assassin's death and offered his final act to his late younger brother.[1]
Quotes[]
- (To Chūya Nakahara) "You're not gonna grow big and tall if you don't eat right, so you better get to it. Oh, and don't forget to stay in school. You need to think about your future and start saving. No staying out late at night, either. You hear me? Granted, you should have a little fun while you're still young, though. Oh, and one more thing. You need to pick better friends."[1]
- (To Chūya Nakahara) "What, you wanted some? I figured with all that money you're making in the gemstone black market you wouldn't care for peasant food like this anymore."[1]
- (To Chūya Nakahara) "My brother got fed up and landed me a gig as a security guard, but it was rough, let me tell you. You wouldn't even be able to imagine it, I bet. My coworkers quit almost as fast as they started. It was either that or they ran away. I managed to survive thanks to guts alone. Yeah, that's what you need: guts."[1]