He was in the shadow, just behind the doorframe. She couldn't see him, but feel his presence. She didn't move at all. She was unable to. Actually, the request was so unexpected that no one motioned for a few seconds. Disconcerted, the man with the loudspeaker eventually replied.

"You shall surrender whoever comes to arrest you"

"I shall. I am afraid I would break an arm or two in the process. I know any resistance is pointless, and that you will shoot me if I am being difficult. But all of this can end with no more hurting. I just have this one request."

"Surrender, now."

"Sure."

Without noticing it, Karin, still static, started to quiver. If this person's arrogance and self-confidence was infuriating, his composed and patient tone was baffling.

However, what actually terrified her were not all of these unsettling details, but definitely the voice. Why this voice was so, so not supposed to remind something? Why did she feel that hearing this voice now, despite all the clamor around and all the invisible agitation, was the worst omen she could have encountered?

The man made a few steps, and finally exposed himself to the downpour while entering the dim electric light of the courtyard. He was almost immediately illuminated by a lightening. Karin, already unmoving before, petrified from stupor. Her brain disjointed. She had known the man's identity from the beginning, somehow. Now she just could not avoid the truth any longer.

He stood with dignity for a few seconds. Being two meters tall, his presence seemed to fill the whole place. Dust had turned his white tank top to grey, but that wasn't enough to mask the ostentatiously huge scarlet stains on it. It was torn in many places. The tan face of the giant was a half hidden by his wet curvy hair, but the brunette still managed to discern injuries and cuts, apparently superficial. He was covered by blood, as if leaking from everywhere. It didn't look like it was his own, though. He both looked like a monster, and an apparition. He was sinister and magnificent. He was Yasutora Sado.

Karin wanted to swallow, but that was beyond her ability.

Almost immediately, a myriad of green points covered him. She did not think so many snipers would be mobilized. That meant there were probably very few guys inside; which explained why they had not arrested the titan yet. He casually raised his hands. How could he be so nonchalant? Did he think it was just a game? He appeared to find the whole situation tastefully entertaining.

"See? Unarmed."

A few agents rushed to him. He didn't recognize any of them as being Karin and started to protest. When they reached him, he kept his promise. He tore the arm of the first one, which gloomily cracked. Karin retched as she heard the guy shout out of pain. Some others tried to help, but the giant released the first victim straight away to grab simultaneously the arms of two newcomers, and break them unceremoniously. Despite his wounds and likely tiredness, his unnatural rapidity caught every single officer off-guard.

As he did so, she noticed that he took care to bend his knees as much as he could, in order to shelter himself behind their bodies. Doing so, if the snipers decided to shoot him — even if he wasn't technically armed — they'd have hardly not killed the policemen. Additionally, as the green lasers nervously danced to-and-fro between the agonizing cops and the giant himself, she realized; probably concomitantly as everyone else, that bringing so many snipers was a mistake. Whose visors were aiming at him and not their allies?

He carefully stepped back, still protected, while the two hostages were faintly moaning. What on earth was happening? They had specially trained agents for that kind of situation, where the hell were they?

"Alright, I'm getting tired of this shit. Kurosaki, go up there. Let's finish this."

So, this was her moment. She inhaled deeply, concentrated to not shake and exposed herself to the man's view. He chucked the two cops away and straightened up, as a soldier would do in front of a superior. The other agents who weren't injured apprehensively stood by him, a few steps aside. He did not move. He just waited patiently for her to reach him.

Karin took off the security of her gun, and pointed it at him. She sincerely tried to look as threatening as possible. Unfortunately, she was utterly aware that at this very moment, the most relatable color of her face was probably close to a delicate green.

Out of necessity, she glanced in his direction, but carefully avoided to look at him directly. She sort of gazed at the whole shape of his body, concentrating on everything but pretending to not recognize him. Trembling or not, she nonetheless determinably crossed the courtyard, went up the few steps, and finally, after sensing every single of her muscle tightening up, faced him. The overpowering din of the rain disappeared. The cold, the water, all the other agents around her: everything melted, leaving only the two of them staring blankly at each other.

He smiled. He smiled? This idiot was all goofy and cheerful, just as if they were alone. That shit was unreal. She made a subhuman effort to remain detached and cold. She was still pointing her gun directly on his chest. He did not seem impressed. The sound of his hoarse voice delicately brushed her unprepared ears.

"Hi Karin."

"Give me your hands."

He slowly but immediately raised them a bit, enough for her to handcuff him. It's while doing so that she noticed blood was also incrusted under his nails. The rain was slowly washing him, and a dreadful red pond ominously grew around him.

"What the hell are you doing, you crazy?"

"I wanted to see you again."

As a brutally loud rumbling echoed him, she was savagely precipitated back in the hostile environment around her. Only a few seconds passed before another flash of lightening with a simultaneous thunder ravaged the place. Her eyes widened. He looked so glad, so peaceful and innocent, and yet he was probably as much swamped by water as by blood. As time went by, the red pond kept spreading around him, like a haunting shadow revealing what the eyes couldn't meet.

"I didn't know you were that stupid. You fucking absurd jer—"

"I missed you."

"What have you done…"

The others would have usually intervened, but they were curiously and uncertainty listening, waiting for something to happen. Chad was so docile by then; he didn't look dangerous anymore, even considering he was uncomfortably almost twice her size. The brunette didn't wait for him to answer. She pulled him in the direction of a car where she flung him unceremoniously. She only had to forget he was standing there, looking at her, smiling and acting as if everything was completely normal. All she had to do was to snatch him from this unreal place, and send him back to where he belonged: the past. Before slamming the door on his face, her last words were a venomous hissing.

"You have the right to remain silent."

The car carrying Chad hurtled off. At the very same moment, the ambulance entered the courtyard. They had almost forgotten that there were other people up there.

Karin looked at the police car as if it was a recurrent nightmare fading out in the opalescent nightfall: she wished to never remember it, but she knew that this vision would haunt her for many, many nights. Old wound had been re-opened. The thunder mumbled again and the light was more uncertain than ever, fluctuating at every second.

Tatsuki carefully approached, but the smirk she was unable to dissimulate deepened the brunette's brooding. She really, really wasn't in the mood for putting up with her acolyte's remarks, whatsoever they would be. If she intended to sound dry and exasperated, she was horrified to hear her own voice as feeble and coarse.

"Hey Karin. That was something."

"Wow, I handcuffed somebody. Biggest intervention of the year."

"Do you still want to be part of the special force?"

"Not sure. Where the hell were you? You were needed down there."

Arisawa gauged her friend and crossed her arms before answering.

"We were verifying that there wasn't any other threat. You do realize that for a shooting and a brawl of this measure, several people were involved. This building is huge, and it took some time. We heard you people needed help, but thanks to your mind-blowing intervention, everything was in order, and we decided to finish our job. So, you still want to be a part of it?"

"More than ever."

"If that warms you up… I guess you'll be noticed after that… Thing."

"I wish…"

"So… How does it feel to have a psycho secret voyeur obsessed with you?"

"He's my ex boyfriend."

"Oh my… Wow, I, uh I'm sorry. Did he… Uh, was he already, um like that?"

"Like what?"

"Violent?"

"No. He's always been physically able to do that, but he has never ever been violent."

"So why was he…"

"Don't misunderstand him. This carnage was a way to get to something, not his actual goal, not an end in itself. I guess he found no other way around this."

"Uh. Still crazy."

"I'm still trying to figure out how he could have concluded this was the best solution. Maybe he has turned mad indeed."

"What are you gonna do?"

"What the fuck do you want me to do?"

"I dunno. Are you gonna help him?"

"How and why would I do that? We've broken up a few months ago. And he'll soon be in jail, for murder, I don't think I really need that."

"I agree. It's just… Do you still love him?"

"Hell no. I'm just a bit… Pitying him. And embarrassed. I had some kind of old weird affection, but I think it just vanished. That's it. I don't know what to do with him. He's so dumbly stubborn sometimes. This little piece of shit."

"Oh right. Remind me to never ever become your ex boyfriend."

Karin scowled at a friend with a renewed intensity that was close to hatred.

"I was just trying to cheer you up."

"Don't bother. You're making it worse."

"Okay. Nice talking to you. See you later."

She wanted to apologize, but didn't find the courage to do so, and watched her friend leaving. She shuddered. She bet that the next time they'd see each other, both would act as if she hadn't just been a dickhead. That thought softened her.

The ambulance men coming back from the building spared Karin to keep feeling guilty about the way she treated Tatsuki. She usually liked to spend some time with her, but the last thing she wanted to talk about was Chad, and especially about what just happened.

What was brought out of the crime scene was terrifying. There was a total of three corpses and five severely injured people, unconscious for most of them. They were all portentously covered by the same crystallized brown-red substance. The amount of blood up there must have been horrendously gigantic. Even the rain was inefficient to completely wash them off. Did Chad do all of this? What kind of demon had he been locking in forever and decided to released today?

The victims all looked like sort of trampy-junky hoodlums. They seemed pretty young for most of them. Karin had no idea what all those people could have in common, and why they were there today. And why goddamn why Chad was involved with them. But investigating wasn't her job. Her implication in this affair was over.

Still, thanks to that freaking idiot, everyone was just staring at her. Whispering bullshit, she'd bet. Well, that really was a hell of a day. And she wasn't done yet. She looked at the chaos around her. Completely disheartened.

Once back at her workplace, she took the longest time possible to have a prolonged and boiling shower in order to relax a minimum, but her back muscle had turned into iron. Eventually, she just had the time to look for a coffee that she was interrupted in her thoughts.

"Karin? Are you there?"

"Nanao is that you? I'm having a coffee."

"Ah, there you are. Your presence is required in Yamamoto's office."

The young girl only frowned in response.

"Karin: your presence is required now."

"Uh… Alright? Did I do something wrong? I don't understand?"

Nanao paused, then softly chuckled before answering in a gentle and compassionate tone.

"Nothing that I'm aware of, but don't you think that you were involved in something a bit… Unusual?"

"Ah, that… Yes. Maybe. Already heard of that, uh?"

She re-adjusted her glasses and winked at her.

"I'm sorry for you… But the whole basement talks about that. Like… Right now."

"Greaaat. Today is getting better and better, really."

"Nanao? I need you sweetheart! Where is my favorite secretary?"

"I'm coming Shunsui! And stop calling me that. I'm your only secretary."

Nanao rolled her eyes as yelling so, and gave Karin a knowing glance before saluting her. For once, the small brunette was the one who couldn't hold her smirk, but she resisted the temptation to make any comment about the handsome captain that was calling her colleague "sweetheart".

"See you later, Karin. Good luck!"

"Yeah, thanks. You too, I guess…"

The girl sighed. Her amusement didn't last long. As soon as she was left alone again, she felt her features collapse. She wondered what the interview with the master would be like, but she wasn't really hurried to discover it. She went anyway. Shambling.