"The test results are in. The stone of the Buddha statue is exactly the same as the Buddha's Stone Bowl!"
Night deepened, and the moon rose above the treetops. Near Senso-ji's main entrance, several industrial floodlights cast dazzling beams, lighting the area as brightly as day while a group of workers in hard hats worked at a feverish pace.
The Metropolitan Police Department had dug a huge pit in Nakamise Shopping Street.
Digging back from the Buddha's foot discovered beneath the Thunder and Wind Gods Gate, they had ultimately uncovered a bluestone Buddha over twenty meters long, lying flat underground.
"Do Senso-ji's eminent monks have any insight into the origins of this underground Buddha statue?"
Superintendent Matsuura of the Metropolitan Police Department's Fourth Investigation Division addressed the bewildered abbot and several monks of Senso-ji.
Seeing Nakamise Shopping Street, where every inch of land was worth a fortune, dug up like this made the abbot's heart bleed, but he knew he could not fight a power so much greater than his own.
Fortunately, the Metropolitan Police Department had shown some restraint, excavating only the surface of Nakamise Shopping Street's main thoroughfare without affecting the Thunder and Wind Gods Gate or the other main buildings.
"Our temple enshrines Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. This hidden Buddha is not a Kannon statue... We truly know nothing about it."
The enormous stone Buddha unearthed underground was archaic in style. Its upper body was damaged, its surviving right hand cupped before its abdomen. Half its face was missing, leaving its features indistinct.
For the moment, they could not identify which Buddha it depicted, but it was clearly not Kannon.
Senso-ji, also known as Asakusa Kannon Temple, was the head temple of Japan's Holy Kannon School. Yet the Asakusa Kannon Statue, revered as a Japanese national treasure, could not