December 15
It was snowing: not the feathery white of postcards, but a cold slush that made it hard to drive and harder to walk. Sae hoped it wasn't an omen as she entered the airsoft shop. Rows upon rows of gold-colored modelguns in perfect compliance with the law stood behind glass cases alongside racks of magazines with titles like Warrior of Fortune. A warning tension spread across Sae's skin. She was sworn to uphold the law, but what she was about to do was ambiguous at best. "Mr. Iwai?"
The lone man in the store glared at her. He was rough, unshaven, and chewing on something that was legal but probably shouldn't have been. The kind of man her dad would've warned her to stay away from before he had despaired of her dating at all. And yet, according to Akira, he was a better surrogate parent than she had turned out to be. "What do you want?" His gaze hardened as he noticed her lapel badge. "Everything's legal here, Prosecutor."
Sae took a deep breath. She could do this. Makoto and Akira's lives might depend on her doing this. She stepped closer to the counter. "Everything out here yes, but not the back room." She leaned closer and lowered voice. "We have a mutual friend in common: Akira Kurusu. And he needs the most realistic weapons you have before tomorrow night."
His gaze flickered in surprise for the briefest of moments before returning to gruff indifference. He searched her face and Sae willed herself not to flinch. "If you're shitting me...that kid's got some powerful people after him."
"I'm aware. And there's nothing I want more in the world than to see them get their due and to make sure he survives it. But I'm not the one who customizes guns for him. I don't know how much he's told you about that other world, but the day after tomorrow he's going to face something very powerful. And I want to help." She took her wallet from her purse. "In any way I can."
Seconds ticked by as he considered. Please, let me help. Everyone I care about in this world is risking their lives, and all I can do is sit at home and wait. She still had debts to repay. Not just for freeing her from Leviathan's shackles, but for Akira naming the stars for her, for reminding her that the world was so much grander than the SIU offices and the courthouse. For believing she embodied the edelweiss that was beginning to cover the living room. She didn't have it in her to give him flowers, but she could do something. He was a samurai of sorts, sworn to the freedom of Japan instead of a daimyo, but for every mounted warrior, there were a hundred people providing support. Let me be one, just this once.
Iwai nodded. "Try not to trip. And if something happens to that kid, well, I still know how to hurt people. Got it?'
"We understand each other perfectly." Here was someone else on Akira's side. They weren't fighting this battle alone.
Any illusion that Iwai was an ordinary shop owner vanished when he led Sae into the back room. It looked like nothing so much as the police armory crossed with a museum of the medieval. Knives, axes, brass knuckles, katanas, even a frighteningly realistic-looking grenade launcher. And handguns. There staring back at her was her father's service weapon: the UHF 1707, symbol of Japan's elite detectives.
Sae was twelve and much too old for her dad to pick her up and twirl her around. He didn't seem to care "Where's your sister? Daddy has the best news ever!"
She fought him, halfheartedly. Dad had looked so tired lately, but right now he was smiling like he had right after Makoto was born. "She's taking a nap." She squirmed free and looked up at him expectantly. "What kind of news?"
"Daddy's getting a promotion! You're looking at the TMPD's newest detective." He gestured to encompass all of the too-small, too-squalid apartment. "All this is a thing of the past. You'll see. Let's go tell your mother."
Iwai's voice brought Sae back to the present. "You like that, do you? I guess that thing would scare the crap out of pretty much anybody. Should fit the kid's hand pretty well. He likes handguns for himself."
"How much?" Of course it would be Akira. Her faith in justice died with her father, perhaps by Shido's demand. This was the closest she could come to the lady giving the ronin her family's ancestral weapon and demanding vengeance. She hadn't been able to locate any of her father's things after he'd died; she'd been to disgusted at him throwing his life away. But now, maybe the old ghosts could truly rest.
"Being a prosecutor pays well. And something for the rest of them too."
Half an hour later, she and Iwai lugged an unmarked cardboard box filled with model weapons that would have given her superiors a heart attack even if they weren't in bed with Shido. She drove toward Leblanc, a kilometer under the speed limit and obeying all traffic regulations. Tomorrow night her masquerade would end, but not a moment before.
The box was heavier than anything containing something that didn't fire real bullets had a right to be, and Sae sweated and huffed as she carried it. Akira sat at the booth nearest the door, engrossed in his problem sets. She must have made a horrible racket because he looked up and turned around and his eyes went wide. He was on his feet in a moment, rushing to hold the door for her as she staggered inside. "Sae? What's that? Let me help."
"I'm not the one with a bad shoulder." She grunted and plunked the box onto the counter. "Since this is the last time I'll see you before you face Shido, I thought I would make myself useful."
He opened the box, and Sae held her breath. These were quality weapons, and Iwai assured her that they were far better than anything Akira had purchased, but she still understood so little of the Metaverse and what was useful.
His eyes widened. "Wow." He picked up the punch-daggers nearest the top. They gleamed red like blood in the light of the café. He turned them over, not quite touching the edge as he inspected the blade. "Wow. You could gouge a Garuda's eyes out with this thing. Well, if they had eyes." He looked at her, and a flush spread across his cheeks. "You bought all this? I—I cant... "I'll pay you back."
"Now you know how I felt about the coffee and curry." She dared to put a hand on his arm and turned him towards her. "I'd buy out the entire store if it came to that. All that matters is that you come home safe. All of you." She dug to the bottom of the box and pulled out the handgun. "This is yours. Give Shido a bullet from me."
Akira was too busy staring at the weapon to hear her. He took the stock gingerly, as if it were hot coals. "This is a cop's weapon. Your dad had something kind of like this, right? Makoto showed me a picture."
"It's the weapon of those who fight for justice." Tightness seized her chest, which was ridiculous. Thousands had wielded this pistol before her dad and thousands had after. But Iwai had been right: it fit Akira's grip as if it had been made for him. He held it, finger off the trigger and pointing away from either of them, like he'd been practicing gun safety his whole life. "It suits you But yes, Dad had something like that."
"Thank you. Thank you so much." His voice was rougher, older, and even though he wasn't wearing his glasses, she couldn't read his expression. "I promise I'll be worthy of it. On this and any excursions to come." The air was thick and heavy, as if a contract was being signed and executed, or an oath being sworn before a real god. He put the gun down and came to her. "And you? You'll keep yourself safe tomorrow too?"
"Oh, I imagine I'll be blamed for you escaping custody, but Handa and his friends will be too busy gloating to put the pieces together. The stupid, naïve girl who let her heart get stolen and can't remember a thing. A con to rival one of yours, and they already half-believe it anyway." Sae had tried very hard not to think about what would happen if they didn't. It didn't quite work. Shido's yakuza lackeys who knew how to make death linger, how to so fill the mind with pain that the victim would beg for release. Some of the bodies the police had fished out of the sea had only been identifiable by their dental records. And there would be extra horrors for a woman who had dared overstep her place.
The thought kept her up some nights.
Akira must have been thinking the same thing because his eyes darkened as he stroked her cheek. His fingers were wire-tense, and he shook with a barely suppressed rage. "Not tame" she had thought the first time she had spoke to him after the interrogation, but that wasn't quite right. He was safe for her and for anyone who meant well. But to those who threatened those he loved, he would be more terrifying than another atom bomb.
"If anyone lays a finger on you," he whispered, "I will k-" He froze and relaxed with visible effort. "No. I promised no more vengeance. If they hurt you, I will go into the Metaverse, and I will wring every secret they have from their miserable Shadows. Every front company. Every bank account. Every crime. And I will destroy them."
She really ought to have made a joke about how that was a more effective threat anyway, anything to ease the tension stretched taut between them. There had been an anime about Western fairytales when she was a child: princesses cursed to dance every night, princes who had the face of beasts but were far kinder than the boys who teased Sae for being too tall and too opinionated. She had dreamed of having a prince like that, of not having to choose between romance and ambition, until she had learned that that was an even more outlandish fairytale. Except maybe there was such thing as princes and knights among the twisting streets of Yongenjaya, only they wore hoodies or trenchcoats instead of shining armor.
"I will be safe," she said, her voice shaky. "I promise. And after tomorrow, you won't be a dead man anymore."
"I won't, will I?" He slid his across Sae's cheek, down the line of her jaw and to her throat, leaving blossoms of heat in his wake. "I'll have to go back to school. And you won't have to pretend to be an idiot at work anymore."
"You'll get to go back to school, and my real work will begin." The heat bubbling within her wasn't just from Akira's touch. He would rebuild the life Shido had shattered, ace his exams, and prepare to work for JAXA or discover a comet, or wherever that brilliant mind of his took him. She would finally serve the justice she had sworn to uphold. It would be a slog that would mean more than one night stuck in her office with tax returns, but Shido and his conspirators would learn at last that Japan was a nation of laws and not men.
"And you? You'll be able to work at the SIU? You won't need to come to Leblanc?" Akira still stroked her, but his voice was flat.
"I'll always need to come to Leblanc. The coffee is wonderful." She smiled. "And you're here."
"I'm here? Oh." He blinked. "I wasn't quite sure that you would need…chivalry once you got back to your regular life. Well, hopefully a happier version of your regular life. You know what I mean." His hand stilled. "This is so much easier when I'm faking it."
She stroked Akira's face in turn. His cheeks were more hollow than they had been in May, and there were lines around his eyes that she didn't remember being there. Soldier. Samurai. Knight. Too many military titles for someone so young. The way he was looking at her now, like he still half expected her to vanish into the air... Grief encircled her heart. It wasn't fair. He deserved so much better than the hand he'd been dealt. And she wanted so much more than she was permitted. Shouldn't they have so much more than breadcrumbs? "I will always want chivalry from you," Sae said. "For as long as you want to give it."
He exhaled, long and shuddering. "You know, if you'd told me last March that I'd never want to leave the city, I wouldn't have believed it. Now, I just want the next three months to last forever."
Three months. Sometimes, Sae could almost forget that there were more time limits in the world than ones that dealt with calling cards. Her grip tightened. "You had friends before who are probably missing you a great deal and just can't say it. School somewhere a little less chaotic than Shujin." The words felt like marbles in her mouth, what she was supposed to say as the responsible adult. "And once you graduate, you'll be back that April. University of Tokyo and all that."
"No, not April. March. I'm going to be on the first train back as soon as the graduation ceremony is over. Everything I want is here. Everyone I love is here." He covered her hand with his and pressed her palm into his cheek. "So you can't get yourself killed tomorrow night."
Time slowed. From the time she was a child, Sae had learned how to tease apart ambiguities. How to find meaning in what was and wasn't said and how. An important skill for anyone but especially a prosecutor and especially a woman caught in a chaste affair with the seventeen-year-old boy responsible for the fate of Japan. Everyone he loved was in Tokyo, so she couldn't die.
He loved her. All the breath left her lungs. Akira Kurusu loved her. She wasn't—maybe had never been—pining after something she couldn't have. The prosecutor and the Phantom. It would be a scandal even if he weren't a high school student. It was one thing for bored civil servants to flirt with him for money. But this...
The flush became a deep crimson as Akira backed away. "I'm sorry. This stuff with Shido has me really stressed. I would never-"
Akira loved her, and he really might die the day after tomorrow. She might die before that. And she was supposed to cower before convention and let him languish? "Don't be sorry." Sae said. She put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him.
It wasn't like what she thought it would be. He smelled of coffee. He tasted of coffee, the full rich kind that they served for breakfast at the Wilton. His lips were chapped from the cold outside. He held himself perfectly still, neither pulling away nor responding. Sae stopped and good sense reasserted itself. She was a very much adult prosecutor with more than a career to lose. He had even more on the line. They were in his guardian's café. What was she thinking? What was she thinking? "My apolo—"
He kissed her back and Sae forgot all about apologies. Akira was a scientist even in this, varying the pressure and learning what made her gasp. His hands ran the length of her back, tracing the curve of her spine as if it were a constellation. Sae matched him movement for movement. If she was going to break the rules, she was going to break them. There was lean muscle under his shirt. Another hand tangled in that messy hair of his. She wanted to touch and explore until she knew every centimeter. She felt giddy, greedy for every touch he was giving her. When she finally pulled back, they were both red-faced and breathless.
Her forehead rested against his. The only sound in the café was their ragged breathing. She waited for guilt to overtake her. It didn't. Sae was warm and happy and unafraid for the first time that night. "So that's what it's like to misbehave," she said.
"I guess it is." Akira sounded as dazed as she felt. So much for the dashing phantom thief. "You liked me doing that?"
"Yes. Oh yes."
"Then..." He took her hand and this time he didn't release it as soon as he squeezed. "What do we do about that?"
What were they going to do about it? She knew what she wanted: to kiss him again as soon as possible. But that wasn't a plan. Her dad's murder had buried what little interest she'd had in dating along with all other desires besides material success. And Akira was no ordinary suitor. "I won't do anything to jeopardize your future."
"Then we...keep it discreet? Sort of like what we're doing now, but more fun. Sit the others down once Shido's taken care of, wait for them to stop freaking out, and then we play it by ear and enjoy ourselves as much as we can for the next three months."
Three months. There was still no future here, at least not right now; but it was so nice to be wanted for who she was instead of as an accessory and to want him in return. "For as long as we can."
"For as long as we can," Akira repeated and grinned, a roguish Joker sort of grin that made Sae's breath catch. "I get to teach the prosecutor about sneaking around with boys."
She made a noise in the back of her throat, trying her best to sound offended. "I know plenty about sneaking around with boys. I even did it. Once." This was going to be fun. More than fun. He was precious to her in a way no one had been in years. Sae sobered and burrowed her nose into the soft, safe warmth of his neck. "Be careful. After all, everything I love is in Tokyo too."
"I will. I've got too much to come back to." He kissed her again, an almost-chaste brush of his lips. "I should be getting to bed. Big day tomorrow for all of us. But when this is over..."
Sae laughed, and a little more of the weight on her shoulders fell away. When this was over, they would get to live.
December 16
There was a bouquet on Sae's desk that morning. The usual edelweiss but also peonies and forget-me-nots. There was no card, but she hardly needed one. She wondered how he had managed it.
She smelled the flowers and smiled. Competence, courage, and true love. Not a bad combination to pin your hopes on. "Good luck, Professor," she whispered to the air and prepared for her greatest performance.