"Ijinkan Village Murder Case" (aka "The Mummy's Curse Case") is the second case arc in the File Series of The Kindaichi Case Files.
After helping out a student with regards to a Teacher/Student Romance scandal at Fudo High School, Kindaichi and Miyuki are urged by her teacher/lover to see her arranged marriage to another man in her hometown, a Western-style village in the shape of the Star of David known as Rokkaku Village. The bride undergoes the village's customary marriage ritual...only to be found decapitated afterwards. A series of horrific murders in the village ensues...
Tropes include:
- Always Murder: All deaths except one are the result of murder. The lone exception is one of the village figureheads, who dies due to a fatal heart failure.
- Arranged Marriage: The student in the Teacher/Student Romance is called to return home to be wed to another man, but she gets killed in the serial murder before that happens.
- Betrayal Insurance: Part of the backstory goes that each of the six village figureheads houses a dead body of one of the girls who died in the church fire instigated by said figureheads for the sole purpose of preventing any of them from ratting out the others.
- Couldn't Find a Pen: Many a message the murderer leaves next to a murder victim is written with blood (presumably the victim's own).
- Crazy Cat Lady: One of the village figureheads is an elderly lady with a large number of cats for company. She has a moment of emotional outburst shortly after meeting Kindaichi and Miyuki, and Kazamatsuri remarks that she has been acting that way since her son died in an accident five years ago.
- Crime After Crime: The motive behind the six village figureheads' murder of the seven girls is in order to Leave No Witnesses for their murder of the pastor couple, who adopted said girls. Too bad for them one of the girls ended up being rescued and surviving it before raising a son, who would then carry out her agenda of revenge in turn.
- Damsel in Distress:
- One of the village figureheads kidnaps Miyuki for her own personal reason, right before the culprit kills said village figurehead. That being said, Miyuki is still in danger, as the culprit sets said village figurehead's house on fire, though Kindaichi manages to save her and get her out before the house completely burns down.
- After the culprit, Ryuichi Rokusei, is exposed near the end of the case arc, he takes Miyuki hostage before heading to the marijuana field. The man who was to be wed in an Arranged Marriage is mortally wounded in the ensuing struggle with Rokuseinote , who also shoots Kindaichi, though non-fatally, before Kazamatsuri shoots Rokusei and leaves the latter with mortal wounds.
- Ear Ache: Played for Laughs. This case arc begins with Miyuki dragging Kindaichi by his ear to strong-arm him into going to school with her instead of playing hooky.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Played with. Ryuichi Rokusei carries out the serial murder in accordance to the wish of his mother, Shiori. He killed her in the past, but only because she asked him to do so in order to desensitize him for his upcoming crime spree.
- "Everybody Dies" Ending: Ryuichi Rokusei's intent is to kill every member of the Rokakku Village who murdered his mother's entire family — except Kazamatsuri, who saved his mother from burning and the only person Rokusei's mother asked her son to spare, though Rokusei doesn't discover the reason for it until his dying moment. Once the murder case ends, none among the participants besides Kindaichi, Miyuki, the village figureheads' servants, and the police remains alive.
- Foreign Queasine: A village figurehead is fond of cooking and eating exotic dishes, which he illustrates in a house party in his own mansion, as one of the dishes he serves is a Chinese dish with a cat as the main ingredient, according to him. While he eats the dish eagerly, Kindaichi and Miyuki have thoroughly lost their appetite after taking a gander at what he's serving and promptly excuse themselves by requesting to use the bathroom instead.
- Homage: The big trick behind the case is a homage to Souji Shimada's The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, to the point that the case has been called a blatant ripoff of it, and reprints of the case come with a disclaimer to read Tokyo Zodiac first if they don't want that story spoiled. The method behind the first murder is also taken from the story, albeit in the original story it's a false solution while in here it's the real one.
- I'll Kill You!: The eccentric elderly lady figurehead with a large number of cats flies into a rage at the male figurehead serving a cat for a dish and screams bloody murder at him. Nothing comes of it, however, as both of them are found dead as murder victims the next morning.
- Kill and Replace: As Kindaichi reveals late in the case arc, Ryuichi Rokusei murdered a man and took on his identity in order to make his move on a student he targets via a Teacher/Student Romance-induced scandal.
- The Killer Becomes the Killed:
- Four of the village figureheads that killed the pastor couple and six of their adopted daughters wind up as murder victims at Ryuichi Rokusei's hands.
- Ryuichi Rokusei himself is shot dead by Kazamatsuri as the case arc nears its end. It also doubles as Offing the Offspring, as Kazamatsuri is actually Rokusei's father.
- Leave No Witnesses: After killing the pastor couple for trying to burn down the marijuana field, the six figureheads rounded up the pastor couple's seven adopted daughters inside the local church building and set it on fire in an attempt to kill them and make sure their secret of murders would stay hidden. Unfortunately for them, Shiori, one of the seven girls, was secretly rescued, taken out of the church, and hospitalized, before she disappeared and raised her son, Ryuichi, to carry out her agenda of revenge.
- Love at First Sight: The man who is intended to wed the girl in an Arranged Marriage fell in love with her after seeing her pictures (and only pictures).
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Kazamatsuri turns out to be the father of Ryuichi Rokusei, though this is not revealed until the case arc is near conclusion.
- Matricide: Ryuichi Rokusei killed Shiori, his mother, but it's only because she asked him to do it.
- Not the First Victim: Ryuichi Rokusei's first serial murder victim turns out to be a man whose murdered body was discovered months before the case arc took place, as he killed the man and took his identity in order to wait for a chance to get close to the student from the village he wants to visit. Then it turns out that even he wasn't the first person Rokusei had killed, as Rokusei killed his own mother on her order before then.
- Off with His Head!:
- One of the girls who died inside the local church building after it was burned down was discovered with her head missing.
- The corpse of the girl in the would-be Arranged Marriage is found decapitated as well. It's not until the case arc is near its end that the police force manages to find her missing head (and the missing body parts of the murdered village figureheads with body parts missing nearby, too).
- Offing the Offspring: Kazamatsuri kills Ryuichi Rokusei to put a stop to the latter's murder spree. This is how The Killer Becomes the Killed in this case arc.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The student that got involved in the Teacher/Student Romance has been noted for being headstrong, so seeing her shedding tears as she says goodbye to Kindaichi and Miyuki early in the case arc strikes them as unusual. After the case arc concludes, with said student being among the victims, Kindaichi surmises that she might have anticipated her own death back when she said goodbye to them.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Besides Kazamatsuri, three other village figureheads have a child each, two of whom have fallen victim in this serial murder case before their respective parent also perishes in the selfsame murder case while the other died in an accident five years ago.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Kazamatsuri stores shotguns within his own mansion, as hunting is his hobby. Ryuichi grabs hold of one and takes Miyuki hostage after Kindaichi exposes him as the culprit, before he kills the last village figurehead he intends to target and flees with Miyuki, and he also mortally wounds the man who was going to be wed in the Arranged Marriage when the latter attacks him. He's himself killed the same way later, as Kazamatsuri shoots him with one other shotgun.
- Struggling Single Mother: Ryuichi Rokusei claims that her mother, Shiori, had to provide for him as a single mother after surviving the church fire that claimed her adoptive sisters, but it was difficult because she was declared officially dead following the fire, which made stable work impossible.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Exploited, as the culprit seduces the student into sex and getting caught on purpose so that she (the student) would be called back to her native village and culprit (the teacher) can then follow her there for his serial murder spree.
- Theme Serial Killer: The murder victims are found with the same missing body parts as the respective mummy that the household said victims belong to — all but one, anyway, and the discovery behind this one inconsistent exception helps Kindaichi to solves the case.
- Town with a Dark Secret: A century ago, missionaries arrived at a secluded location where Rokkaku Village stood, with the intention of establishing their version of "the Garden of Eden". They managed to fund such a plan via cultivating the marijuana that already grew in the wild, with the help of the six figureheads in said village, who reap profits from selling/trafficking marijuana, which continued after the missionaries returned to their own home countries and left behind a church run by a local pastor. Twenty-seven years ago, the local pastor couple wished for the marijuana operation to cease, but the six village figureheads disagreed and shot them dead before said pastor couple could burn down the cultivated marijuana field. In addition, said village figureheads confined the seven adopted daughters of the pastor couple inside the church building and had the building burned down in order to Leave No Witnesses. Afterwards, each of the village figureheads takes a body each to ensure that no one among them would rat the others out, all while claiming to others that said corpses were "guardians" of the village, and the marijuana field was to be roped off, with only said figureheads being allowed entry and telling others that the roped-off field has toxic gas leaking out from underground to ward off unwanted outsider attention.
