Next Chapter! Yaaaay!

It's started raining, and the forecast says it's going to continue tomorrow. It's a good thing we got Yukiko out when we did. It was so miserable out that nobody really wanted to do anything, so I headed down to the shopping district. That gas station attendant from the day I moved here was on shift. Seems like the rumors about the Midnight Channel are spreading.

You begin to suspect that your bowl is a portal to the Meat Dimension.

Aiya Owner: "Aiyaaaa! Too bad, Mister! That'll be 3,000 yen. Come back soon! Thank you!"

One day, I will finish you, Beef Bowl Challenge!

I: "...?"

Yu: "Not a word."

I headed home and realized that Nanako still needed dinner. Crap…

Chie had some great news this morning.

C: "Hey hey! Yukiko told me that she'll be able to come to school again in two days! Oh man, I'm glad. I'm so happy!"

Yu: "It was all thanks to you, Chie. Without you we would have been screwed."

C: "C'mon, you know it's because all three of us did our best.…Actually, more like the three of us, and one animal-thingy…?"

Yu: "No. I'm serious. We could barely handle that bird. If that Prince would have kept coming back we might not have made it."

Chie seemed to be thinking it over. She seemed happy so I left it at that. Then school happened. Yay… I love my homeroom teacher… Yep… Later I headed home and sat with Nanako and surprisingly Dojima. But Seriously this rain. Nobody wants to do anything. At least it's going to stop tonight.

Weather Announcer: "Due to this weekends rainfall clear skies seem unlikely in the area. A thick fog is expected to set in tonight and remain until tomorrow morning, with heaviest concentration in the Inaba area. Anyone planning to go out tonight should take care. Now for our hourly weather breakdown…"

D:"More fog, huh…? There's been a lot of that lately. Hopefully it's not a sign of more trouble…Ah-ah-ah. What did I say about changing the channel without asking?" Dojima quickly reacted to Nanako's grabbing of the remote.

Seriously she's a kid. Let her have the TV. You never do anything else for her.

Commercial: "Have a great day even during Golden Week at your local Junes! Come see for yourself, and get in touch with our products! Every day's great at your Junes!"

N: "Every day's great at your Junes!" Nanako sang cheerfully despite the mild scolding.

Well with Golden Week right around the corner, things are looking even more up.

N: "Dad! They're going to be open during Golden Week!"

D: "Haha, I heard. Do you want to go somewhere during the long holiday?"

N: "We can go somewhere!?"

D: "How about it? Got any plans yet?"

A vacation away from crazy fog murder town is pretty attractive. But anything for Nanako.

I: "So you do like kids on some level."

Yu:"Just Nanako." "Nope. I've got nothing going on."

N: "Then let's all go somewhere together! Junes! Junes Junes Junes!"

D: "You're sure you want to go to Junes? We can go there anytime… Come on, girl, time for bed. It's late."

N: " Alright…Every day's great at your Junes!"

I: "Nanako seems very excited about the family outing."

Yu: "Yeah. I hope Dojima doesn't screw it up."

I headed upstairs to check the Midnight Channel, just in case. No one appeared much to my relief. From what Chie told me Yukiko will be back tomorrow. Maybe she'll have remembered something new… Bad luck for that though. She had nothing and all we had was another talk about how that shadow was only one side of her. We did however come to the conclusion that all the victims were female. Then Yosuke was starting to lose his concentration. I'd also like to go on record that this was Yosuke's fault, as with so many things in life. We then ended up owing them steak which I'd rather not think about. But I'm sure our karmic balance will be restored by this whole buying steak thing. Then Adachi showed up being well Adachi and made no sense at all. Any way we ended up going back into the TV to introduce Yukiko to Teddie in a less confusing way. That ended up as a disaster and Yukiki wouldn't stop laughing at a junk pair of glasses.

Later we did some training in Yukiko's castle since we almost bloody died against that Bird Thing. Plus Yukiko needed to get the hang of fighting. After that came another disaster. Freaking Dojima.

N:"Dad's late…"

That was when we got the call.

N:" Hello, dad? Yeah I'm ok. …Yeah… Yeah.…Okay.… said to give you the phone…He can't take those days off."

She handed me the phone.

D: "Hello? Sorry but I'm going to be late tonight. Maybe you should lock up before you go to bed. And about that time off on the 4th and 5th… One of the younger guys got sick… And, well, that case he's handling, we can't just let it sit… Looks like I'm the only one who can take over for him."

Not much he can do about that of course but I'm still mad…

D: "Sorry to spring this on you all of a sudden… Um… How's Nanako holding up? Would you mind comforting her for me? …Thanks. All right then, see you."

Yu:"Nanako cried herself to sleep. I need to think of something, this is just too much…"

I: "Just take her out somewhere yourself."

J: "I Hate Stairs."

I: "Welcome back."

J: "You didn't even Try to look for me." He accused.

I: "I assumed that you were intelligent enough to find a way back down. So how was your little trip?"

J: "It NEVER Ends. I kept going up and up and up and the stairs just kept going! Then I decided to abandon the stairs and start exploring the actual floors. The halls kept going and the rooms were blank and there were so many turns and I got so lost! It was horrible! I'm not even sure if there is a Top to this place!"

I: "So you're going to try and find it now?"

J: "Yes! And you're coming with me!"

I: "I'd rather not. After what happened with you-"

J: "Come on! It'll be fun!"

KS: "Fun?"

T: "Don't listen to him, Konohana."

I: "If there's nothing up there why would we?"

J: "We don't know what's at the top."

I: "Say we do go up and reach the top… What do you expect to find?"

J: "I dunno."

I: "What would be the point if we did? We would have to go up an undetermined amount of stairs which from what you said seems to never stop. We would then have to go back down at some point as well."

J: "What if once we get up there we can see where we are? What if we can see over the fog?"

I: "I highly doubt that this building reaches the height of the land we all chose to live on."

J: "But what if it does? We'd be missing out on an opportunity to get out of here!"

I: "If it does then how do you suspect we get through the fog without getting lost in it?"

J: "We can figure that out after we check. Now come on! Let's go!"

T: "I am not running up hundreds of stairs and I highly doubt even Pyro Jack would want to float up that many."

J: "I didn't ask you. I asked Izanagi. And you'll come, right? You're my friend, right? Huh? Huh?"

T: "Don't play that card."

I sighed. If they started fighting now then just maybe the topic would change. Then again we'd have to at some point separate them like kids so they didn't kill each other or do too much damage to their users.

J: "I'm not playing any Card. I'm simply asking whether he's my friend."

T: "And wanting him to prove it. Don't you think that's a little shallow even for you?"

J: "Even for Me? What's that supposed to mean conehead?"

T: "It Means you're being an AssHole freakshow." Tomoe sneered.

J: "Freakshow?!"

P: "And so it Begins." Pyro Jack frowned and the insults flew.

KS: Ummm… Shouldn't we stop them before things get too bad?"

I: "Probably."

P: "I say we try after they fight a bit. Might do them some good to get some exercise."

KS: But what if they hurt each other?"

P: "Meh…"

I: "You've been surprisingly tame today." I spoke after a rather… rude insult to Tomoe which resulted in a swift kick to Jiraiya's face. And so the physical fight begins.

P: "I figured if I set anything more on fire you'd all throw me into the fog yourselves. Konohana can get pretty scary when she wants to be."

KS: "I wouldn't call myself scary…"

The next morning wasn't anything special until Chie decided to show up. She invited not only me but Nanako as well so that took care of the Nanako problem. Hopefully she'd be happy. At least she seemed pretty happy as the day went on and not only during that week did I get a social link with Nanako but a fox. Yep. A fox. I went and visited a shrine because of rumors about some crazy animal in the area. The truth, as always, is crazier. Few things are quite as startling as a fox out of goddamn nowhere let me tell you. It was like the fox actually understood what was going on. Which really wouldn't be the craziest thing that I've seen in the past month. So I have a social link with a fox. I don't know how that works but yeah. I'm not exactly sure how this is going to work but if that fox really can help us in the TV world, we're even better off than before. And there was more good news when I got home. Dojima actually got Nanako a gift for Childrens day. I Hope as an apology.

Sure enough the rains came once again after some slightly happy events.

C: "Whoa, it started raining. I guess the weather report was right."

Y: "That means the show's probably gonna be on tonight."

YK: "I hope we don't see anyone…"

Y: "Yeah, that'd be the best. But if we do, maybe we'll see some kinda clue that can point us toward the killer…"

C: "Well everyone, don't forget to check your TV tonight! Got it?"

We checked the Midnight Channel, and sure enough someone appeared.

Yu: "Great…"

I quickly called Yosuke.

Y: "Oh, it's you. I was just about to call your cell. So, what do you think? That was a guy, wasn't it? I wish I could tell what he looked like… Let's get together and talk more about it tomorrow!"

The guy seemed damned familiar, but I can't quite place where I've seen him before. Maybe one of the others knows. I'll have to ask got together the next day to go over what we know so far.

Y: "We will now hold a meeting on our investigation of the serial kidnapping slash murder case here in Inaba."

C: "Dude, take a breath!"

YK: "Oh, then does this make this place our special headquarters?"

Y: "Yes! Exactly! Nicely put, Yukiko".

C: "Special Headquarters… Hmm, it does have a nice ring to it…"

Y: " Anyways, as for what was on last night…"

I hoped maybe one of the others had recognized the guy.

Yu: "So does anyone have any idea who that was last night?"

C: "I saw it too! I couldn't get a good view of the person's face, but it was a guy, wasn't it?"

YK: "So that's how I looked on TV… Hm? Wait a moment. Didn't all the victims have one thing in common? That they were females with ties to the first incident?"

Y: "That's what we thought… But we still don't know who exactly we saw."

YK: "In my case, the image on the Midnight Channel changed after I was kidnapped, right?"

Y: "Yeah, the screen got clear all of a sudden and the program looked like some low-budget TV show. Come to think of it, maybe Teddie was right… Maybe we were seeing the other Yukiko from that world. But last night, we couldn't clearly see whoever it was. Could that mean… he isn't inside the TV yet? If so, then…"

I think Yukiko was right on the money, he's not been kidnapped yet.

Yu:"He's still safe for now."

YK: "Uh-huh, I think that's safe to assume. If we can figure out who he is, can we prevent him from being taken?"

Y: "Yeah… And if all goes well, we might catch the killer in the bargain. *sigh * But to do that, we need to know who the latest Midnight Channel star is… I hate to say it, but I guess we'll have to wait another night and see what happens."

C: "Ahehem... Well, that means if my deductions are correct… Though the image was hard to make out, and we can't say for sure who it was, it was definitely a young male. But if that's the case, it goes entirely against our prior assumptions… Since we cannot identify the person at this time, we have no choice but to wait and see what happens!"

Y: "That's exactly what we just said."

C: " Shut up!"

I: "They fight almost as much as Jiriaya and Tomoe sometimes."

YK: "*chuckle *"

Yu: "It's good to see Yukiko's back to normal but man when she gets going she just doesn't stop."

YK: "Heehee, aha, ahahahaha! You're so funny, Chie! Ahahaha, oh no! M-My funny bone…!"

C: "Not again…"

YK: "S-Sorry, heeheehee!"

Y: "This is how Yukiko really is, huh… Who'd have thought?"

C: "By the way, about that guy we saw? I get the feeling I've seen him before… Pretty recently, too…"

Y: "Oh, you too? Yeah, I've been thinking the same thing since last night… Well, let's check the TV again tonight and think about it more tomorrow."

YK: "Heehee…"

C: "Grrr, when are you gonna stop that, you crazy hyena!?"

YK: " Ahahaha! That's a good one, Chie!"

This time, the Midnight channel was just a bit clearer, and we could tell who it was.

Y: "Did you see that?"

I was sure this time. It was that guy from the news, Tatsumi.

Yu: "It might be Kanji Tatsumi."

Y: "Yeah, I think so too. I knew I saw him somewhere! It was on TV! He was on that special news report! He's one scary dude. He was even yelling at the camera to "Get bent!" Alright, so we finally have a lead. Let's all get together tomorrow, okay? Oh, I almost forgot… It's kinda off-subject, but as long as you're on the line, mind if I ask something? It's something I've been meaning to ask for a while. So… what do you think about Yukiko and Chie? I mean, let's not mince words: Which one's your type?"

Yu: "God damn Yosuke putting me on the spot. I mean I just met them, I barely even know them, how the hell should I know?"

I: "Saying that may give you bad karma."

Yu: "What are you going to curse me or something?"

I: "Keep that up and I'll find a way."

Yu: "Neither."

Y: "Hahaha! Kinda harsh, don'tcha think? Well, I kinda understand. They're great girls, but you saw their ugly sides right off, and I guess your first impression is the one that sticks. Hey, but don't worry. This is just between you and me. Okay, see you tomorrow."

I: "Don't worry, huh? That doesn't sound good."

Yu: "It was pretty much when he told me not to worry that I actually started doing so. He'd better not tell them what I said, I don't want to get slapped or kicked or something."

We looked into Kanji today. It… could have gone better.

C:"The one who was on last night. It's THAT guy right?"

Y: "Kanji Tatsumi, huh? He definitely didn't look like the social type."

C: "Now there's an understatement. Isn't he really scary? Did you see the news special the other day?"

Y: "Yeah, I saw it."

YK: "You mean the special on biker gangs? I watched it too. He wasn't like that when he was younger, though…"

C: "You know him, Yukiko?"

YK: "Uh-huh, but we haven't talked to each other in a long time. His family runs a textile shop, and we've been a customer of theirs for many years. So I speak with Kanji-kun's mother from time to time. Oh, why don't we go there now? We might be able to talk to him in person."

C: "Sounds good. At the very least, we can ask if anything strange has come up lately. I wouldn't want to run into him in a dark alley, but I'm pretty sure he won't fly off the handle in his family's store."

Y: "Alright, then let's get going."

C: "If things get rough, we're counting on you guys! "

There was some weird guy talking to Kanji's mother already when we got in there. I guess the person was leaving as we entered. I hadn't seen them around before, maybe they weren't from around here.

YK: "Hello."

Shop Owner: "Ah, Yuki-chan. It's so nice to see you."

?: "Well then, if you'll excuse me, Ma'am."

Shop Owner: "I'm sorry that I couldn't help more."

?: "It's all right; you've given me plenty to think about. Thank you."

Y: "What's up with him…? Weirdo."

C: "I 'unno. Never seen him before."

Shop Owner: "Yuki-chan, you're as lovely as always. Your features are starting to remind me of your mother when she was young. How can I help you today? Are you out shopping with your friends?"

YK: "Oh, um… Well, actually…"

Chie saw something that brought back some bad memories while we talked with Mrs. Tatsumi.

C: "Hey this scarf… I've seen this somewhere before."

Y: "Hm? Huh, you're right. Where was that…?"

C: "Oh! It was that place! Inside the TV!"

Y: "That's right! That room with those faceless posters… Then… it's that announcer's…"

Shop Owner: "Are you acquaintances of Ms. Yamamo?"

Y: "Uh, well, kinda… Um… Did Ms. Yamano happen to have a scarf like this?"

Shop Owner: "Yes, it was a special order she placed. She actually ordered a pair, but in the end, she said she only wanted the women's scarf. It left us with no choice but to sell this one separately."

C: "Oh man… There IS a connection to the first case…! What are we gonna do…?"

Y: "H-How should I know…?"

Just then a delivery came, and Mrs. Tatsumi had to leave.

Deliveryman: "Hello?! Delivery here for the Tatsumis!"

Shop Owner: "Oh, I'll be right there. I'm sorry, you'll have to excuse me."

C: "Oh, it's okay. We should get going."

YK: "I'll come again, Ma'am."

Shop Owner: "Is that so? Well, then please say hello to your mother for me."

Y: "It really is connected to the first case after all… But it's just a scarf. Would the killer target someone just because of that…? Dammit, what's going on…? C'mon, let's talk outside."

YK: "Huh? It's Kanji."

Y: "Wha-Quick, hide!"

Kanji was talking with the boy from earlier.

C: "You're not fooling anyone, you know."

Y: "Shhh! I can't hear what they're saying!"

K: "T-Tomorrow's fine with me… Huh? S-School? 'Course I'm going to school…"

?: "Then I'll meet you at the gates after school tomorrow."

K:"D-Did he was he was interested…? He's a guy… and I'm a guy… But… he's interested in me…?"

At that point Kanji noticed us. I mean we weren't exactly hiding so much, not a surprise.

K: "Huh? What the hell are you pricks looking at?!"

We ran.

C: "That scared the hell out of me. He's even worse in person than on TV."

I: "Did you meet with Kanji yet?"

Yu: "Well…We ran our asses away, not gonna lie."

YK:"The one on TV last night was definitely Kanji-kun…"

Y: "Yeah… And I just realized something. Remember the common points we were talking about? His mom fits the pattern. She's a woman, and she knew Ms. Yamano. But it was her son who appeared on TV… So what does that mean?"

Yu:"Patterns or no, it's clearly people who've been appearing on the Midnight Channel who have disappeared."

I:" So you have nothing. That doesn't help us any."

Yu: This isn't exactly easy." "Kanji is a target. That, we are sure of."

Y: "Yeah, that's what it seemed like, based on the TV image… But his mother fits the pattern more than he does."

YK: "Oh… Maybe it's similar to my case. If you think about it, my mother fit the victim profile more than I did. She was the one who dealt directly with Ms. Yamano… but I was the one who was targeted."

C: "Does that mean it'll be the kid again, instead of the mother? But if that's true, then the killer's motive makes no sense at all. It'd have nothing to do with silencing witnesses or revenge or anything."

I: "Chie makes some scary good points sometimes. This really means you do have nothing."

Yu: "Shut up. I know."

Y: "Y'think maybe we're on the wrong track…? Maybe the first case had nothing to do with grudges or revenge… Or is there some kinda secret in the textile shop itself…?"

Argh! I'm totally lost!

YK: "But we can't ignore this."

C: "Hmmm… Why don't we just go ahead and ask Kanji himself? We could at least see if anything odd's happened lately. He scares the wits out of me, but…"

Y: "Hey, wasn't Kanji making plans with that weird kid a moment ago? Something about meeting up at school. I heard he's been skipping school ever since the new year started… Doesn't that see a little suspicious?"

C: "Yeah, something did seem weird. Yeah, it's suspicious all right. There's something funny going on here… I can sense it."

Y: ""Sense"? You sound like Teddie… Still, we might find some clues. Alright… Let's try staking out both Kanji and his family's store. We definitely don't want the killer getting ahead of us."

I: "How could the killer be ahead of you? A murderer won't just stop or stray from their traditional cycles over suspicion."

Yu: "Yosuke is like the least smooth person ever, just to point it out."

Y: "That being said… Yukiko, can I have your cell number?"

I: "No kidding."

C: "Hey… Was this your plan all along?"

Y: "Uh, no? I got everybody's number except for hers. And the Y section of my address book needs some filling out."

C: "*sigh * While we're on the subject, could you stop calling me at night just to tell dirty jokes? You really sound like a pervert."

Y: "H-Hey! I'm trying to have a conversation with Yukiko here!"

YK: "…Oh, that reminds me… I need to buy tofu on my way home."

Y: "Whoa… She didn't hear a word I said…"

C: "Okay then, the stakeout is set for tomorrow. Hmm… Stakeouts… Tailing people… Whoo, I'm getting goosebumps!"

Yu: "Hopefully tomorrow's stakeout will go better than today's little mission did."