A/N: Sorry it took so long, I've been exceptionally busy. I was amazed at how much time I had wasted. I do, of course, apologize as I hadn't expected my break to take that long. xD
Naoto promptly threw up at the river of the Samegawa flood plain upon arrival.
She had been aimlessly running in fear and shock at what Seta Souji had revealed.
A teen was actively raping a classmate on a weekly basis? Never mind the popularity of the classmate, or the fact he had been able to gain such control in a short amount of time. He was dangerous, a sexual predator as well from the looks of it, could she even stop him? She honestly didn't know. Her conversation hadn't been recorded as she had thought she would simply make him uncomfortable with her piercing but subtle taunts. Reviewing his profile, she had thought for sure that nothing could really be gained that could lead to an arrest on the first interrogation... an amateur mistake. It hadn't really mattered either since she hadn't been conducting an official police investigation but her own personal one out of interest. She should have suspected something when she had heard Tatsumi say that Seta had been spying on their conversation at the textile shop.
Naoto was at a complete loss. Choked sobs came out as tears cascaded down. She had underestimated him for being a typical high school student and he had proved he was just as dangerous with hunting for information on her. What was she to do? What could be done? She was utterly terrified at this point. Assuming that his comment about Amagi-san was true..., it meant she was in danger of being sexually abused herself if she got in his way. Even with her family connections, he had still threatened her, and he had connections of his own in this town thanks to Amagi.
Naoto felt like a complete child as well. Like she had just been playing games with her work on lesser crimes before and had just stepped into a case more serious than she had ever imagined it would be..., rape, unfortunately, wasn't an uncommon case. Naoto had never dealt with such a case of that magnitude. Seta's brutal assaults to her psyche had also reinforced this. She had always been told of the dangers... always been warned... by adults she knew, teachers when she told them of the profession she wanted to undertake, and even her own grandfather...
Had she really been completely stupid the entire time? Just a naïve child that didn't know what the hell she was even getting into? Her grandfather always tried warning her of dangers but..., looking back at it, never did address the true dangers as directly as Seta had. Other people had warned her of dangers as well, the insults from everyday police officers she had worked with for being a child and a girl had got to her at times. Naoto had read books and cases... but never experienced such a threat herself. She had always been sure she could handle herself but Seta had utterly crushed such thoughts so easily with just a few biting remarks. The danger was real and announcing publicly that she had been threatened would reveal her gender to all (assuming Seta didn't plan on doing so already) and ruin any possible cooperation she had wanted with the Inaba police department due to Seta's uncle whom was seen as a hard working a respectable Detective of the town.
Then there was the Midnight channel..., Chie had obviously been delirious when speaking of it when she had questioned her at Chie's home. A world inside a TV was utterly ridiculous... but what did that leave? Nothing... just a mystery she couldn't piece together. She thought for sure she would obtain a lead by trying to scare Seta Souji, hoping for some sort of opening or to antagonize him enough to make him worry and slip-up at a later time in regards to Yukiko Amagi but now that she knew what was happening...?
There was no way she could pin it on Seta with Masato Kato being convicted for the torture of Amagi-san and the murder of Hanamura-san. He clearly had some control over the hospital... and that was likely why he knew of her secret. What could she even do...? Naoto felt so helpless. On one hand, she was now terrified of Seta Souji... on the other she would be letting so much torture and possible deaths continue just by walking away...
What about her grandfather? No..., even her grandfather would be hard pressed to believe a high school student had got away with getting a doctor convicted, especially when Amagi was found in the man's closet. It wasn't like she had any evidence to back-up any statements she made anyway.
Naoto decided to simply sit and think by the river. Her mind was racing a mile a minute, it would be good to have some solitude to calm herself and think rationally.
She didn't notice the figure slowly approaching behind her, at first. Naoto turned her head and looked at the figure in surprise once the footsteps could be heard close enough. She looked at him quizzically.
"Can I help you...?" asked Naoto, uncertainty in her voice. She was confused about why he was here.
"Hello," replied the person cheerily, "the name's Adachi, would you by any chance be the detective prince I've heard so much about?"
On Tuesday, May 17th Souji was convinced that there was only one real prerequisite connection regarding the people who were being thrown into the TV...
"Hel-LO, dear viewers... It's time for 'Bad, Bad Bathhouse'!" spoke Shadow Kanji on the TV, "Tonight, I'll introduce a superb site for those searching for sublime love that surpasses the separation of the sexes!"
'They're all secretly whores.' thought Souji, staring at the TV in disbelief, 'Every single one of them has had a secret desire for a good fuck.'
'Seriously, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?!'
The idiocy he was staring at now made him honestly believe that theory could be possible regardless of how unlikely it was. Looking back at it, the reporter fucked someone else's husband, Yukiko wanted a good fuck, Kanji DEFINITELY did from the evidence here, and Saki Konishi? Who the fuck knew? Maybe she was BSDM? The girl sure as hell liked torturing herself for a job she never seemed to have wanted in the first place. Maybe Inaba itself was full of stupid perverts? Souji had got hot ass early in his arrival to the town so it wasn't entirely too unbelievable.
It was one thing to be gay, Souji personally had no problems with that, he simply hated Kanji for being a complete dumbass, it was another thing to flaunt their gay shit so excessively and want viewers to watch them fuck each other... what was worse was this meant in the literal sense instead of the figurative. Souji turned off his TV. He felt like he was going to hurl. He had to save this guy? The fucker clearly hadn't listened to the warning (at least not enough for Kanji to keep himself out of danger) and Souji had actually actively tried to be a good Samaritan in this case and only got bruised and stepped on for it... and yet again, in the most literal sense of the term.
'God, this sucks... I really, REALLY don't want to bother saving this idiot.' thought Souji, annoyed, even more so because there was no long-term monetary or sexual reward that could be gained. This combined with the fight and personal humiliation of being stepped because of Kanji had really made Souji even more pissed off about the current predicament than he would have been. 'Yukiko will definitely want me to even though he hit her but only because she cares for his mother...'
Yukiko wouldn't, however, actively go against him. Her family came first and foremost and she wasn't even in a position where she could do anything. He wanted Kanji dead. That was for certain, but he needed to make it look like an accident and Souji no longer had a scapegoat he could use like with Yukiko's bruises and Yosuke's death.
'I don't need one.' Souji had finally come to a decision, 'Idiots make-up whatever excuses they can from superstition to basing their belief off a field they lack any substantial knowledge of. Getting rid of Kanji might even be easier than when I injured Chie.'
While he could let TV land run its course, it would be counterproductive to his entire motivation of decreasing Dojima's hardships. So, the answer was simple: make it look like something else happened.
This was going to be perfect. Finally! Revenge!
Souji smiled a very serene smile as he got ready for bed.
Two days later, Souji had made time to look for Kanji and had easily tracked the bath house's location with his heat seeking ability however a huge wave of revulsion swelled within Souji as he arrived. The comments coming from all around the area just made him feel even more nauseous. The bathhouse's defined stench and hot temperature was already getting to Souji upon arrival.
"C'mere, pussycat..." spoke Shadow Kanji's voice from all around, "Oh... such well-defined pecs..."
Souji becoming increasingly more irritated with the comments, the hot atmosphere around the bathhouse, and the fact he fucking felt like a total idiot for forgetting to wear lighter clothing decided to simply speak his mind.
"Fuck you!" shouted Souji, upon realizing what he said, Souji's eyes widened as he hastily added, "Wait! Forget, I said that!"
The same sense of humiliation came back at him full force with the Shadow's response.
"There's no need to be scared..." replied Shadow Kanji, "Now, just relax..."
Souji felt like he was going to barf. Just a few seconds in and he already felt the impulse to smash the guy's face in.
'I'm gonna do worse than just kill him.' thought Souji, 'This guy's thoughts are worse than Yukiko's whining and I thought that couldn't be possible!'
Upon walking into the entrance Souji scowled as a Kanji wearing nothing but a bath towel around his hip turned around smiling.
Lights out of nowhere blared as a Shadow Kanji spoke with a microphone in his hand.
"Oooooh, my my!" said Shadow Kanji, seeing Souji had finally arrived, "Thank you for your undivided attention!"
"At last, I've penetrated the facility!"
'That's it' thought Souji, as he ran up to hack the shadow to pieces, 'I'm ending this shit as quickly as possible.'
It was too bad for Souji that the shadow ran off and summoned its apparent subordinate as a distraction. Souji would come to regret choosing to ignore the shadow just to pulverize his subordinate out of frustration.
Souji broke open the final door to Kanji's location. He was pissed off with how long it had taken. If not for the steam and the heat all over the place the trip upward to this specific room on this specific floor would have been MUCH shorter. Souji's hatred for this place had increased tenfold. It's floors, its oppressive steamy atmosphere, and just about everything! The monsters had been easy to deal with, so easy that he hadn't bothered to summon Bloody Izanagi the entire trip upward. And why the fuck would he? To make Bloody Izanagi suffer the same cruel atmosphere when his help wasn't even needed? Yeah, right.
'Oh fuck no!' thought Souji, upon seeing the events in front of him. 'Not this time, not fucking again, and if I can help it, not ever again!'
"I-I..." said the real Kanji, at a loss for words at what his shadow was telling him.
He had been struck into silence at whatever the shadow was telling him.
"Oh, come now, enough with the charade. Isn't it awful to deceive people? To deceive yourself...?" spoke the shadow, "What's so bad about doing what I want to do?"
"That has nothin' to do with- AHHHHH!!!" Kanji stopped speaking to the shadow and hollered in pain as Souji had just cut his left arm off with his sword. The limb fell off as blood sprayed all around the area from the fresh wound.
Souji then slammed the hilt of the sword on the back of Kanji's head knocking him out. He wasn't going to fucking wait around for Kanji to do something stupid. Shadow Kanji stared in momentary shock at what had just happened within the brief few seconds of Souji entering the room. Whatever the shadow had planned to do it didn't get the opportunity to do so as Souji immediately summoned Bloody Izanagi to eat Shadow Kanji.
Kanji, the real one, was already on the floor unconscious. Souji slammed his right knee on Kanji's back and pulled his head back by holding on tightly to Kanji's hair with his left hand. Souji then repeatedly slammed Kanji's face on the hard floor. Each slams using more force than the last. Raising his head, tightening his grip, and then slamming the stupid fucker's face on the floor! Souji was repeating the motions continuously until he felt satisfied. Souji couldn't care less if the idiot deserved it or not. What was important was that Souji himself was frustrated and it was because of how this idiot treated him. Souji didn't let up until he noticed the pool of blood on the floor. Finally he raised Kanji's head up one final time and simply let go.
He got off Kanji and simply watched for a few moments. Kanji's face was facing his left side, where Souji was standing. Bloody Izanagi already finished its meal. It had shimmered back into Souji's breast pocket some time ago. Souji assessed the damage he had done. A few broken teeth, a severely broken nose, and a lot of blood coming from all over Kanji's face. There were severe bruises on the face, of course. The arm he had chopped off lay in between where Souji stood and where Kanji lay unconscious. It was twitching due to the nerves. Souji noticed he had severed the arm off from the shoulder blade and Kanji would likely die soon of blood loss from the arm if he wasn't rushed to a hospital quickly.
Fortunately beads had the distinct power of healing injuries in this world, so Souji was free to heal Kanji's wounds and beat upon his broken body all week if he wished. He had brought fifty beads with him just to make sure and hadn't suffered any injuries when arriving here. He could freely heal Kanji's less severe wounds and stop the blood loss. He couldn't do anything about the arm though, not that he cared to begin with, Kanji would forever live life as a cripple.
'This isn't good enough.' thought Souji, unimpressed with himself, 'This stupid ass deserves more.'
Souji raised the sword he had been holding with his right hand and took out some beads from his pant pocket in his left.
'This is gonna be soooo much fun.' thought Souji gleefully, 'He'll never bother me again or have the chance to. And I get to screw-up his entire life. Not that anyone in the town would truly care apart from his mom.'
'By tonight, he'll wish the serial killer had killed him like the two others.'
"Oops... sorry, uh.., did I catch you at a bad time?" asked Adachi, he had a look of uncertainty when gazing at Naoto and scratched the back of his head with his left hand. "I..uh, you were just alone and I thought that now was a good as time as any, you know?"
Naoto had been sitting alone at the Samegawa tunnel, on the wooden floorboard, sitting by herself just gazing out at the water trying to think of what to do.
"I..." began Naoto uncertainly, she decided to get up and turn around to give Adachi her full attention. "Um... what do you need...?"
Naoto had spoken softly, her gaze was downward, she didn't want to face this right now but it could be important. The man was one of the detectives from the precinct if she remembered correctly.
"Um..., so are you the detective prince or is that just a, uh.., cosplay?" asked Adachi, with a look of befuddlement on his features. "I mean... I want to make sure..."
Naoto looked at him with the expression of surprise. If Naoto hadn't been a serious person or even in such a poor mood, she would have started laughing at the idiocy surrounding that statement. Naoto looked at the man as if he were an idiot.
'THIS is one of Inaba's finest?! Just how does this man conduct his investigations?' thought Naoto, Naoto couldn't help but keep the expression on her face due to the man's words. 'Do these people have any hope of catching the serial killer?'
"I am Shirogane Naoto, yes." replied Naoto, looking up at the man expectantly. Adachi only gazed at her with a questioning look. They stayed like that for a few minutes before Naoto mentally kicked herself for not understanding how slow this man was. "I am the Detective Prince."
It was a single statement and it seemed to have clicked to the man that he had found whom he was looking for.
"Oh good!" said Adachi, appearing happy to have found whom he was looking for, "I was hoping you weren't some fake just cosplaying as him."
"Um... right..." said Naoto, not knowing what to make of that statement. "So... could you please get to the point?"
She didn't have the patience to deal with something like this right now and so was trying to be polite as possible. Adachi merely nodded happily in response.
"Well...uh.., Shirogane-san, was it?" began Adachi, he seemed unsure of himself. Naoto merely nodded as a reply. She didn't want to sound annoyed. "The precinct got word that you were conducting your own investigation and... well, they didn't have anything better for me to do but send me as an errand boy to check what someone as famous as you was doing in little old Inaba."
Adachi rubbed the back of his head and laughed at this. Naoto gave him a slightly annoyed look.
'Now of all times?!' thought Naoto, 'I... I have to pull a confident appearance but...'
It was how people always needed to appear, especially detectives. Confidence was a key factor in assuring others of one's capabilities. The truth of the matter was however, that she just so unsure of herself due to what had happened and she wasn't even sure what she wanted to do anymore. Thinking quickly, an idea popped into Naoto's head.
"I'm... simply here to observe." said Naoto plainly, while she doubted lying about coming on vacation wouldn't trick this fool. The people he was reporting to wouldn't be as easy and likely wouldn't believe such a story. "If I may be so blunt: The mysterious double-homicide piqued my interest. It's rare that such mysterious cases ever happen and I am willing to help the police department in any way I can if they need my assistance. No charge."
Perfect, or as perfect as such a lie could ever be. Hopefully it would satisfy the hounds at the precinct and if not?
"You should tell your Captain that there are other parties interested in this case."
The media, the local government, and the people should be what they were more concerned about. Instead of feeling threatened over her because of her age and presence in the area.
"Ah, I think that would just get me in trouble." joked Adachi, chuckling at what he thought was a joke.
Naoto wasn't amused.
"You think that's a joke?" asked Naoto, was she being treated like a kid even when viewed as an embarrassing threat? "I would suggest you take my words more seriously."
The precinct was losing the respect and confidence of the people. Anybody could see that. Perhaps this man was 'special' even by the standards of a moron?
"No, I-I didn't mean to offend you!" said Adachi, putting his hands up in defense, "I-I just meant that... well, my Captain would punish me with more paperwork if I said that to him! I mean, he'll probably think I'm insulting him!"
Naoto looked at him with a hardened gaze. She didn't believe him.
"Why would he not? I'm assuming he sent you hear to ask what my intentions were, correct?" said Naoto, Naoto had meant that statement too since she didn't want the police uselessly coming to her to "check up" on her or worse, somehow accuse her out of desperation instead of doing their job properly. "Just tell him I said that."
"Well... uh, if you really care so much than why don't you do it?" posed Adachi, trying to get out of the situation and push it on her, "He'll take you more seriously than me."
Naoto just stared at him incredulously. Was this man being serious?
'Is this man really a police officer?' thought Naoto, 'Because he certainly seems more like a practical joker... or a clown.'
"Adachi-san, with all due respect," began Naoto, "I question the logic behind allowing me to answer for a task you were given by your commanding officer."
"What exactly makes me more reliable? Certainly he would trust anything you had to say over me since you're his subordinate and it's your job to begin with..."
Adachi politely shook his head. Naoto raised an eyebrow and gave him a questioning look.
"Well, you're famous... so people are more likely to listen to you..." said Adachi, slowly, shrugging while having said the statement. "It's the truth."
Naoto simply shook her head in disagreement. While fame did help with popularizing some product or other useless junk, it couldn't help convince the Captain of a precinct about her honest intentions regarding the case... especially when she wasn't sure what she wanted to do at the moment.
"I think he would simply get angry at the both of us if I were to do as you were told." said Naoto, "And I don't believe a man in such a respectable position would simply believe me because of how well-known I am."
In Naoto's opinion, this man was being childish and in Adachi's opinion, Naoto was being unrealistic. Adachi just shook his head in disagreement. Naoto lost what little patience she had at that point. She couldn't stand to be around this idiot any longer especially if all he was going to do was try and push his work on her.
"I'm sorry but I must be going." lied Naoto, wishing to get away from him, she bowed respectfully and ran off before Adachi could say anything. Adachi just scowled after she left and headed back for the precinct.
'Stupid kid thinks he's right about everything.' He thought, 'Just like everybody else, always whining about how they're never wrong in what they say.'
The day after Souji's trip to Kanji's bathhouse, Kanji's body was found in a grotesque and critical condition nearby a dumpster by his mother's textile shop. His mother, who found him, rushed him to the Inaba municipal hospital as quickly as she could. The doctors rushed Kanji to the emergency room quickly upon spotting him during his arrival. Upon examination and treatment of Kanji's body, the doctors found scarred cuts and bruises all over the boy's body from what could only be described as wounds from sword stabs, broken teeth that had to be removed, and a broken nose which could be fixed with surgery. The missing teeth and arm were never recovered from the site of where he was found. The doctors were eventually able to clear Kanji out of the critical condition his body was found in but could do nothing but wait until he recovered from his coma.
The police hadn't found any leads since there weren't any footprints or fingerprints found on Kanji or around the crime scene. His mother reported that she had found his hair completely soaked as if someone had taken the time to thoroughly hose his head. The police investigating the case seemed certain that this was a case of a premeditated attack and questioned the biker's that Kanji had picked fights with over the course of his life since the 8th grade. When finding no leads and even more unfortunately, no clues at the scene. They decided to wait to see if the boy would recover from his coma. Some police at the station spoke secretly about how they had expected something like this to happen for some time especially when Kanji had been reported missing by his mother. Most denizens of Inaba felt bad for his grieving mother as some secretly wanted Kanji to have disappeared.
The boy's mother, distraught over the state that she found her own child in, closed her shop to grieve over what happened. Unfortunately, after the police let most of the biker gangs free from questioning, some returned nearby the textile shop to ride freely without the threat of the scary bully in the way. The more vocal bikers remarked openly about how Kanji had got the karma that was coming to him. Kanji's mother, upon hearing these boastful comments from within her shop, in her emotional state, snapped at the bikers. She came out of the shop and threw whatever textiles she could find in her mad dash for the door. She, much unlike her kind and sweet demeanor, openly cursed the bikers, accusing them of having harmed her poor son, and started balling up and throwing textiles at them. Although most of the biker's laughed at the attempts of the old woman, one of the more annoyed biker's decided to try and scare her. The biker sped at the old woman at a fast speed, intending to circle around her to scare her; Kanji's mother had thrown a textile directly at his incoming bike. The biker was immediately blinded at the piece of cloth covered the biker's vision and fellow bikers watched in horror as their friend crashed into the old woman and fell off the bike.
When the police and EMT's arrived at the scene, due to passerby calling them to tell what happened, the biker's who witnessed the incident were rounded up and sent to the precinct again. The biker that crashed into Kanji's mother was sent to the hospital due to injury. The biker was found to have broken her arm once doctors could properly examine her and she was later told by the police that the old woman whom she had crashed into had died on impact. She was convicted of second-degree manslaughter at her trial.
Souji smiled when he heard of his accomplishment on the local news. He thanked Bloody Izanagi for volunteering getting the body to the textile shop after he had washed Kanji's head in one of the empty bathrooms of the Inaba municipal hospital. Letting Bloody Izanagi simply fly away with him after opening one of the larger windows had been easy enough.
Souji owed a lot to his Persona and had no qualms with believing he'd be nothing without Bloody Izanagi. But, Bloody Izanagi was him in a sense, so it was all good.