Suzaki 'Knocking' Reports Reach 28; For the First Time It Starts on the Third Floor, as a Covert Patrol Officer Joins the Night Watch

Reports of "knocking" at Suzaki Third Housing have risen by one, from a previously reported 27 to 28, with the new incident occurring in the early hours of the 14th. The two-knock signature remains unchanged, but for the first time, the management association told this paper, the pattern broke from its established rule of always starting on the first or second floor and moving upward — this time beginning on the third floor.

Following consultation between the management association and police, a covert patrol officer from the Tokei chapter of the Patrol Guild joined the night watch starting the same day. The role sits alongside licensed sword bearers, previously reported, as one of the modern professions descended from an older tradition, tasked ordinarily with confirming residents inside cordoned zones. The officer assigned was Iori Kiryu, 29, who — true to her familiar line, "not being heard is the job" — carried out the confirmation along the corridors without being seen.

"I wasn't sent to catch a cause," Kiryu told this paper. "What the association asked for was simply a quieter set of eyes, to confirm once more that no one is really there." She said that, as with the security cameras previously reported, no human figure was observed tonight either — "but I think the confirmation itself, that nothing was seen, has meaning of its own."

TDA reiterated on the 14th that the permeation index in the area remains at normal levels, with nothing in its records corresponding to the reports. Police said cooperation with the Patrol Guild would continue "for the time being." The management association is holding to its earlier instruction not to respond to the knocking. Even with the first-ever shift to the third floor, neither the cause nor the truth of the matter has been resolved.