"You ever feel like nothing's right?"
The girl doesn't feel quite comfortable around him yet, not enough to let it all out and attempt one of those angry foreign rock songs, or the few disillusioned raps that found their way into the pages of the karaoke catalog. So she keys in the only current pop song she knows. It's some drivel about true love and destiny by that local idol Risette.
And she sang. Microphone in one hand, she proceeded with the ornate choreography of the music video she'd seen dozens of times with her free arm. She tosses her hair over her shoulders, and shakes her hips. She even grins just like Risette does in the commercials.
Her partner only stares, almost glossy-eyed, taking in her routine with the vigor of a picky toddler presented with broccoli.
And the girl knows that the man doesn't care for her performance, but at the moment, it's enough for the both of them.
...
"Fuck."
An uncharacteristic swear escapes Naoto Shirogane's lips as she heaves herself off the ground.
She bites her lip and assesses the damage. Luckily, even after being chased off the road, both she and her bike landed in the grassy median between the street and the sidewalk. She only has a few bruises to show for the tumble. It is her motorcycle that concerns her.
She mounts the bike again and tries to rev it up, only answered by a hollow turning; no ignition.
"Fuck," she repeats, "not now." Another turn, and still nothing. With a grunt, she gets off of her vehicle and considers her next course of action.
But a noise breaks her concentration before it can begin. Naoto looks up only to see the golden glow of the foggy Fuuto streets. There were sirens in the background. Something was happening, somewhere... No doubt concerning that strange man in the two-tone armor, the man that just nearly took her out. Her prime suspect.
"A proper detective knows when to think, and when to act."
Glancing at her bike one last time, Naoto dashes off into the fog.
...
"You ever feel like nothing's right," the girl repeats. "Like, fate or whatever got everything wrong. Even basic stuff. When you were born. Your family. Everything."
For the first time, she looks to her partner for the evening - a slim man in a business suit. Shaggy hair, and the slight appearance of bags under his tired, but kind eyes. A touch of a smile that tilts a bit to the left. He offers a nod, encouraging her to continue.
And before she knows it, she's sitting at his side, her head nestled in the crook of his neck.
"I've tried before... fighting this. Trying to change, trying to run away from all this. Something goes wrong every single time..." She's twisting her hands in her lap now. "But people tell me that I'm just going through a phase... that I need to grow up. Learn to accept things. It pisses me off so much... It..."
She looks up to the man, and his tired, worn face. Despite his quiet, self-effacing demeanor, there's something there. Something that she doesn't have, but maybe it's something she needs. It has to be, she decides, as she stares into his eyes.
"Come with me," is all he has to say.
She places her hand on his, and the next thing she knows, the pair is rushing out of room.
...
It takes nearly a dozen blocks for Naoto to spot her target again; the mysterious man in the scarf and the multicolored armor, soaring through the city on his otherworldly bike. He rides into the crook between a bar and a motel, and suddenly the roar of his bike goes silent.
Instinctively, Naoto withdraws her pistol from its holster and begins nearing the alleyway, her steps steady despite the uncertainties flying through her head. She's unsure if the mystery man is a man at all; for all she knows that urban legend might actually be an extraterrestrial, or robot. Perhaps her bullet will do nothing to slow the thing. What would she do then? What if-
Just as she's at the mouth of the ally, the revving of the suspect's bike begins again. Gun poised, Naoto turns and points her dark at-
Darkness.
Suddenly she's enveloped by darkness, darkness unlike anything she's experienced before. A cold, thick, tactile darkness both squeezing her like a vice and making her insides feel emptier than her loneliest nights. Darkness like a scream. Darkness like all the spaces inside of her - all the ugliness and lack of polish and gaps in logic -
"Hey!" calls a voice in the distance. Actually, it is two simultaneous voices; two people talking as one.
It's a curiosity she can only notice because the creature's grip on her has loosened, and Naoto can finally breathe. Light peeps into the periphery of her vision, finally. With something between a shudder and a chuckle, the... shadow bounces off into the fog and the streets and the mysterious man loops around to follow it.
Both creatures have disappeared into the distance before Naoto notices that she crouching on the ground, her white-knuckled deathgrip on her gun, and how violently she is still shivering.
...
The girl and the man in the suit are racing down the streets, dangerously fast, considering the sheer thickness of the fog and how low their visibility is. It's a small miracle that no vehicle shows up to run the pair off the street, but perhaps, that's a part of the excitement.
The girl, she likes the danger.
Her mind is racing almost faster than her feet, a slideshow of images flashing through her head. She and the man halting a taxi. She and the man rushing to catch the last bus of the night out of the terminal. Or maybe even running all the way to the edge of town, and boarding one of those locomotives headed out to the countryside...
Regardless of what happens, she's already decided. Whatever was happening that night... this is her escape.
It doesn't hit her until finally they stop and she finds herself in a dark alley, backing toward a chain fence and her companion is looming before her with a terrifying grin. But it doesn't make sense, why did they run so far when the karaoke parlor was next door to a motel? Her heart begins to race.
The man's all back-lit, a shadowy figure against the pinkish-yellow glow of the night fog. And for a girl that's been suspect places with strange men before, for a girl that has even accepted a few of those propositions, she's afraid.
This is not the kind of danger she anticipated.
The man raises his hands, and they become two huge nightmarish claws that stretch the width of the alleyway. With every step the man takes, the darker the man's figure becomes. Darker and darker, until it is even darker than the shadows of the buildings and he envelopes everything, including her and-
And she screams.
...
Naoto has made her way to her feet again. She does not know how long it has taken to calm herself down, but somehow, she is calm, and creeping deeper into the alley.
It is well-lit so there is no question; there is nothing left to shoot, but her grip on her pistol tightens again. Her hands are numb and turning blue in the time it takes for her to take three paces, and for her boots to plop in something on the ground. Naoto shudders, and looks down.
At her feet is a black puddle, surrounding the head of a young woman like a thick, dark halo. It soaks into her long, wavy locks and strains the pastel jacket she's wearing over a strapless dress.
Completely forgetting the man in the two-tone armor, Naoto Shirogane studies the scene, over and over and over. Though she has seen them countless times in books and in articles, she has never seen a dead body in person. She has never smelled the thick, heavy scent of coagulating blood, never tried to make sense of the twisted limbs of a woman - girl - in an alley of the town's red light district.
Never has she looked into lifeless eyes before.
Maybe it is a trick of the light, of the dingy, flickering streetlamp overhead, but she almost swears that the girl's eyes are glowing yellow in the night.