TW: Violence and elements of PTSD
6
.
She was ten on the night Mr. Worm died.
He was staring at her, straggled limply on the floor with his broad back behind the kitchen sink. There were two gaping wounds on him; one on his stomach and the other straight through his chest. Both wounds were bleeding, staining his expensive dress shirt, pooling beneath him like a crimson puddle.
The stench of something acrid and his cologne reeked in the air. She disliked the smell. It left her nostrils burning.
Mother cooed out a name, and she looked back at her, thinking it was hers.
"It's fine now," Mother embraced her, pulling her small body closer into her arms. "I'm here."
She nodded, returning back the gesture. She stared again at Mr. Worm—no, it wasn't Mr. Worm anymore. She hated its eyes, boring down its lifeless gaze on her head. She averted her eyes in repulse, glancing at her sister who numbly inspected her hands. They were trembling. She was trembling.
A phone rang. Mother jolted, releasing her and scooting over the device. Taking it from his pants, she glared at it and pressed a button, placing it in her pocket. She was about to come to her when she accidentally stepped on the gun lying on the floor. She ignored it.
"You have to do something for me," Mother said softly, her hand cradling her cheek. There was blood smudged on her fingernails. "You must never tell anyone about this night, understand?"
Naive and eager to do anything for Mother, she nodded obediently.
Then there was a knock on the door.
Mother froze. She began to move to the corpse, pulling its arm; a glimpse of inked skin peered under the cuffs. She sent a look on her sobbing sister. "Hide the gun," she instructed, which her sister wordlessly returned with a nod. "I'll take care of the body."
Then Mother gazed at her.
"Answer the door," Mother told her. "But don't let them near the kitchen, okay?"
"Okay," she said, and when she got up, opening the door, she looked up to meet a stranger.
She remembered Mother's words to heart. Whatever happens, never trust the police.
"Mama, there's a strange man outside."
A boy stared at him inquisitively from the doorstep. Kunikida learned that his name was Shigeo from the call of his mother coming up behind him, followed after a prudent chastise about courtesy and a greeting that didn't quite feel like one.
The stiltedness of formalities was one thing, though there was a frigidness to Mrs. Takagi's demeanor that made the pale walls of her house constrict and grow colder around him after sharing a few words with her; an exchange of small platitudes and introductions.
He's already told her his intentions over the phone prior to his arrival, and despite her reception, she lacked that sense of latent apprehension most people had when they're asked to be questioned. A subconscious kind of uneasiness from being suspected by an authoritative figure. One he admittedly has grown too acquainted of in his line of work, and now, a little taken aback when the pattern was broken by a widow who hadn't harbored such qualms.
Or perhaps, she was used to it, being the former wife of an inspector.
Mrs. Takagi didn't seem like a woman that has anything to hide, and her inflections alone were quite blatant in that regard when she cut her words short and polite, letting him catch on that her temperament didn't come from a place of malice, nor was it deliberately directed at him.
It felt deep-seated and quite old, and for her such a grievance to be unearthed after having buried it by the sight of his detective badge, Kunikida couldn't fault her for responding a certain way when it must've been a reminder of her late husband.
She led him to the living room. "What do you want to know about him?"
Nodding, he pulled out his fountain pen and notebook. "Your husband's last case was the one in Shibuya," he tried to be more sensitive of the matter, but she didn't appear affected by it. "Can you tell me if there's anything more you know about it?"
She didn't contemplate about it for too long. "He was caught in a shooting, but more than that? Not much, really."
"Did he tell you anything about the case itself?"
"Wouldn't disclosing that kind of information be inappropriate?" she said, her brows furrowed at the thought. Bothered. "Even if it wasn't, he wouldn't tell me either way. He's very . . . reticent."
"Can you tell me more about him, Mrs. Takagi?"
For all her cold austerity, something waned in her bearings; a semblance of tired pensiveness.
"Akimitsu is a good father," she said first after a moment of reluctance, hands folded atop her lap. There wasn't any indention of a ring on one of her fingers. "He's passionate of his job. Works hard. Perhaps, that's what keeps him reserved and occupied, even in his final days . . ."
Kunikida knew better than to delve into the marital lives of the Takagis, however the strain of their relationship alluded that it's one that had been irreparable for quite a long time. The estranged, almost embittered, responses of Mrs. Takagi were distinctly set apart from his coworkers, even when their sentiments went about the same vein; the latter remarking with respect and awe that Akimitsu Takagi was a good man and an even better inspector.
On the other hand, his wife had only painted him in shades of gray. "If he wasn't an inspector, I don't know who he truly is. It's as if the man I'm married to had always been a stranger: nameless, faceless . . . he was mysterious. It was what drew me to him back then. Foolish, but I was young and he asked for my hand anyway. But I don't think I can you give you more than what I know now, I'm afraid."
"I understand," he nodded, pushing up his glasses. "Do you have any opinions about Yuriko Kirino and their partnership?"
She took a long minute to gather her thoughts. "I don't know her personally, but there were instances I met her briefly. She's more his subordinate than his partner, though. Akimitsu always gets tasked to monitor new recruits, but I suppose she's more driven than the others before her. She seems to work as hard as him, if not more."
Kunikida jotted down her input. Driven might as well be signed off as ambitious.
"Did she often come over your house?"
"Only to pass notes, I believe. Files from cases and whatnot."
Files. That caught his attention. "Did he leave anything behind after the case?"
"I'm not sure," she admitted. "I've only kept the things from his office."
"Would you mind if I take a look at them?"
Assenting to his request, Mrs. Takagi brought him to another room, in which Kunikida had assumed was an old study.
Inside, he recognized the boy who opened the door for him earlier. The youngest son in a family of five. Kunikida had yet to encounter two of his older brothers, though Shigeo Takagi left the impression of youthful nonchalance, ignoring him and remaining to loiter around by himself amidst shelves that were stacked with volumes of thick paperback manga and tankōbon; under them were an array of VHS videocassettes neatly lined in alphabetical order.
He even recognized a few titles; most from Katai's collection, all of which he spent from his earnings back in the day when he'd been a hacker. Kindaichi Shōnen no Jikenbo, Jiraishin, Sanctuary . . . it wasn't difficult to guess that Takagi was an avid crime fiction fan with his selection of books.
Reluctant as he was admitting it to anyone, Kunikida used to be one himself although perhaps not as enthusiastic as Takagi. Manga was every child's precursor to books after all. Though he gradually turned to de Maupassant and Wordsworth in later years but fell out of love in literature entirely when college took a hit. Then he had to apply for a job as a part-time algebra teacher.
Katai used to rib him about the courier change, and Kunikida had always argued that it had to be done for more practical reasons. Still, there were many other prospects that were open to him, but despite that, he stuck around to where he was now.
Perhaps, Mrs. Takagi refrained from mentioning that her late husband was a manga reader when it didn't seem necessary to bring up. Regardless, he took her word and looked for his files from the drawer under his working desk, combing through an organized pile after asking for her permission; each binder and folder opened, each document and letter thoroughly read, ferreting for any scrap of vital information.
However, they were few, which made it easier for him to finish scouring half of them; consisting of nothing more but his notes and paper clippings that were meant for research purposes.
"Are these all, Mrs. Takagi?" asked Kunikida, flipping through a report about assault charges, petty crime, and . . .
Nothing.
"Yes."
No good.
"By chance . . . did his station confiscate most of his files?"
Kunikida closed the folder and proceeded examining the other one, pasted with old photos and newspaper clippings.
"Well, I suppose so. He was in possession of some confidential documents, I believe."
Sighing under his breath, he only assumed the worse. It's the same with the missing Shibuya report.
A phone rang from the other room, and Mrs. Takagi had to briefly excuse herself, leaving the door open for Shigeo when he was left alone in the room with him. The boy, however, didn't seem bothered of his presence when he stubbornly stayed in place, entitled and guarded of his father's study, after inserting a videocassette in the VHS player.
"City Hunter," Kunikida read out; the title popping up in a blare of snappy music. The Million Dollar Conspiracy.
"Hm, you watch anime, old man?"
"Old man? I'm not that old."
Shigeo lifted up a one-shouldered shrug. "Everyone passed the age of fifteen is old."
Kunikida withheld a comeback, excusing the boy's assumptions for childishness, but caved in from the irony of the situation. "This is an old collection. You're even using a VHS player."
"This is Papa's stuff," Shigeo retorted, scribbling on a Campus notebook. "Besides you can't watch any of the VHS tapes if you don't use a VHS player, duh."
Kunikida craned his neck, looking at him curiously. "What are you writing?"
"My book of secrets."
"Book of secrets?"
"Yeah. Papa had a book of secrets too."
"And you've read it?"
"Mhmm. Top-secret stuff."
Could it be . . .
"Do you remember some of it? Can you tell me what you—"
"No way. It wouldn't be a secret anymore," Shigeo snapped at him, as if he were scolding him for not knowing that. "Papa's secret is my secret now."
Shigeo was being difficult, but Kunikida had more patience and a great deal of practice with it, determined on pursuing the truth behind the boy's words. He considered every viable possibility. "How about we trade secrets?" he suggested with his notebook flaunted by his hand. "I have a book of secrets too."
Shigeo scoffed at that. "That's not a book of secrets! Ideals is written on the cover."
"Well, it's a different kind of book of secrets. No one has ever read it aside from me."
"No one? Really?"
"No one," Kunikida reassured him, partially relieved of the thought that he seemed to buy into it, and as to make the bargain smoother and more credulous, he convinced him in an earnest tone: "you'll be the first secret keeper."
Shigeo swayed a little from the thought, unable to curb his excitement through a slight grin on his face. "Well, I guess that's a fair trade."
The exchange was set. Kunikida skimmed through the pages once he had his hands on his Campus notebook. He stopped on a particularly interesting entry.
—
UMIHEBI is a place where snake-workers gather secret infer information from all over the world!
It's an island from the far, far East. No one knows where the island really is, except for the snake-workers. The snake-workers—and Papa—work for a Japanese overlord emperor named IZANAGI .
Izanagi controled all the snake-workers and knows all ther their secrets. That is why Izanagi is the emperor of Japan. Everyone who defies Izanagi are senitanced to death by the well of D ar kness. This is where the bad Oraki Oracles are put to death. Oracles are the children of Izanagi and the snake-workers. Good Oracles becomes snake-workers too, their called KAMIKUU.
—
Kamikuu. Child of the Gods. The drawings were crude in roughly-sketched graphite. The oracles were caricatures of small people with rounded over-stylized eyes and a halo of thunderbolts above their heads. The snake-workers were drawn as stick men with laser-guns, taller and larger than the oracles. Izanagi, however, was an unnerving eye, atop everything like a watchful sun.
Kunikida was mulling over the strange terms, slogging through the passages. The use of mythic characters was put into question. It's as much as a child's make-believe as he expected though he leaned on the small far-fetched theory that it could be a code of some sort.
From what he'd gleaned so far, Takagi was a private man. He wouldn't share his secrets to anyone, and he must've known something, anything. Have been deeply involved in it, strewn around the dark dealings with the yakuza and the disappearance of Yuriko Kirino, and by extension, the entirety of his case. But. The boy's knowledge had little to no consequence of his actions, if everything he knew would come out indecipherable and would be distinguished as a baseless story.
"—hey, hey! What kind of book of secrets is this! It's boring!" whined Shigeo, waving his notebook in protest. "It doesn't even have pictures on 'em!"
Kunikida was about to make amends to the boy for lying until his phone abruptly rang, loud and deep, like a knell.
"You think you've been stalked here and all you can think about is smoking?"
On their first meeting, there's this unnatural calmness to Inoue that seemed deeper than it looked at glance, though for it to crack from the slightest pressure, the dissonance echoed in the way he fidgeted from his seat, intent on lighting the cigarette hanging on his mouth.
"Look. I just really need one. It's been such a shitty day before I made that call . . ."
"Then you have to do it outside the Agency."
"You're kidding?" Inoue bolted up in disbelief. His cigarette almost fell down his lips, if he hadn't caught it by his hand and shoved it on his coat pocket. "Can't I just shoot for a minute on the restroom or something?"
"Absolutely not. It's outside or you don't smoke at all," Kunikida said but sighed from noticing the tension on the other man's shoulders and the unravelling impatience from his mouth, jaws pulled back, as if his vice was still clenched by his teeth, awaiting to be alight. However, something was already smoldering in his eyes, and he was left to interpret it as nothing more but an antsy response to addiction—to nicotine?
Or something darker, crueler? he wondered if it was just a trick of the light. It made him stir for a fraction.
"How about I do it outside, but you come with me? It's safer, don't you think? Well, I'll feel safe," Inoue prompted. "C'mon, detective. It'll be quick, I swear."
"Fine," Kunikida grouched out, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'll come down to get you in a minute. But that's it, Inoue. Just a minute and then we're going back here, all right?"
Then his bare hand clapped on his shoulder. "God, you're the best," Inoue smiled, staring back at him. "Just a minute. Got it."
His lips peeled back wider for another lingering second until Inoue broke away from him with an unlit cigarette at hand, carrying it around as if a fire had finally been ignited on the butt end when he walked out of the room.
The feeling of foreboding clung to Kunikida like second-hand smoke.
Before Kunikida could even rationalize it, he succumbed to his gut instinct and went out of his way to follow the hazy track Inoue left behind from the flight of stairs; his footfalls almost mimicking the rhythm of his heartbeat. The descent was hasty, plummeting, shortly after the downpour when he found himself outside the building, anxiously confounded when Inoue was nowhere to be seen.
Even with the rain weighing on his shoulders, the only time Kunikida actually felt gravity was when he stepped on a discarded cigarette.
Before he could pick up on a trail, he was met with the shrill cry of a gun.
Ibuse was marooned somewhere along the rural towns in Alghero, waiting in hiding under another plundered house stuck in the ruins. The world was restless, his mind was restless. Sleepless, starved for days, staving off his thirst with cold muddy water from the nearby creek. Sludge. Bitter as bile.
The rain fell that night; brought by the nuclear fallout in the bombing of Zaragoza five days ago. The contamination was carried here, reaching as far as the south, as it painted the distant Italian shores in an ill tainted blue.
There was a woman amidst the shadows, polluted with filth and resentment, as it dripped down her sooty hair. The watchful hollow eye of her hunting rifle was angled at his temple; dark as the death in her gaze, dark as the black rain. Thunder clapped. Metal clicked in a lightning second.
Then a clatter.
He blinked. The taste of coffee was stuck at the roof of his mouth. The taste of forgetfulness.
"—are you all right?"
A waitress collapsed to the floor. Must've slipped.
He drank, skulking in his brooding corner, as he looked at the bright windows. The sky was clear as day, but the evening wind whistled through the zelkova trees like an ominous howl. It promised rainfall; the calm before the storm.
When he found himself back in the factory, the sun was still sick with paleness, half swallowed by a sweep of ashen clouds that growled above him. He glared at his desk. His hand met the touch of hardwood, unmolested by a stranger's fingerprints but his own. Then he felt a disturbance when he hooked his fingers on the shelf of the desk.
It's gone.
Ibuse rummaged for the Obake's file through the cluttered shelves, and in his livid desperation, he found a transmitter. The storm echoed behind him, followed by the clatter of the listening device thrown on the ground, rattling his bones in a jolt of fury.
Someone put it there. Someone—
But he's deep-seated indignation hadn't been from the discovery, but from some kind of haphazard misplacement of memory. He's forgetting something important, ungraspable by his two violent hands. The bitterness clung from the clench of his teeth.
He barrelled out of his room and cornered the first man stationed outside his room, wrenching him by the collar.
"Who the fuck was it? Who's the bastard that went in my room this whole day?"
"N-no one, boss! It's just you! I swear, it's just you!"
"Don't damn test me. One of you must've been guarding my room. Must've seen someone."
"But boss—"
"Tell me the truth or I'll kill you," he warned; shadows gathering on his tone, on his line of sight. He's stranded in the darkness.
He's seeing haunted eyes again, pitch-black as the rain. They're pulsing out, rolling back to the skull. The blood vessels of the sclera are about to burst like a hot pistol.
I swear I'll kill you . . . I'll kill you . . . kill you . . .
"Ibuse."
He snapped.
Fucking Thunderbird.
"Let him go," said Hiratsuka, tone sharp like steel. She had more balls to raise her voice at him like that than any of the men watching behind her. "He already passed out. Strangle him like that some more and you'll actually break his neck."
Ibuse looked down on his hands, wrung on a bent throat. With the slightest tremble, he let go of the man.
Squaring his shoulders, he scowled at her. "What has this got to do with you, Hiratsuka?"
Clicking her tongue, she dragged a man by the collar and hurtled him between them. He toppled on the ground like a ragdoll, and he remained that way when he didn't even grunt out from the impact.
Ibuse crouched down, hauling him up through his hair. Not a flinch or a word of protest. The bastard might as well be dead, if he weren't breathing.
"He's suspicious, wearing a transmitter and acting like that. But . . ." then her words drifted off into uncertainty, pausing briefly after to gather the rest of them. "He's not wholly there."
He looked deeper into the void of his hollow stare. He thinks of another transmitter, and then an ability-user.
The silence felt . . . condescending. All this passiveness, all these mind games.
This was contrived and it mocked him from a distance.
Something sprung up within him when it welled on his chest, bloated on the veins of his forehead, about to break open.
Dead, dead eyes stared back. She smiled at him.
The provocation coiled on the joints of his fingers, pressed closely on the trigger of his gun and shot.
Hiratsuka grabbed his arm. "Ibuse, don't—"
He fired on again and again and again. Countless explosions, desecrations, fucking collateral. Everything splintered.
Then there's finally a gut-wrenching scream from the man underneath, though he's not worth saving any more from the blight, viscous and weeping out of his wounds like tar. Blood made his face obscure, laden with black ghastly eyes in the shape of bullets.
A dark splatter stained on his being, and he wanted the apparition watching him to see how sunken he'd been in the filth of his madness for years only because someone was using him and he couldn't remember a damn thing about it. Shards of teeth and brain matter spilled beneath his feet.
Everyone in the room stared at him in horror and disgust.
It was done out of poor taste, Ibuse knew that and he didn't give a shit. He already understood that he'd been an expendable asset to the yakuza, but to be from something else entirely mattered a lot. A ghost in a man or a shadow on the wall, whatever it was, he was out to sniff its trail with a vengeance.
Those bastards couldn't kill her. Damn shrink masks. That's the first thing that popped in her mind from the open window of a passing van. No plate number or face to nail on to the police though the drive-by shooting should alarm the neighborhood. The patrol officer must have scared them off the moment they heard the sirens blaring.
The problem was this couldn't kill her.
They got both her kneecaps. Dug through the bone, probably damaged more than it looked. Somehow, Yosano lucked out and it didn't hit a femoral artery. She couldn't bleed out faster for the wound to be entirely fatal and moving demanded all the effort in the world when her legs screamed from the smallest of movements. She couldn't think straight because of her knees, and if she didn't act fast, the bleeding man next to her could die out before an ambulance could arrive.
"You have a gun, right?" Yosano huffed out, swallowing the pain. "You have to shoot me. Right now."
"You need medical attention," interjected the patrol officer.
"I know what I'm saying! I'm an ability-user. I can heal myself but I need you to shoot me."
"Ability-user, huh. Fine. Where do I shoot, doctor?" the patrol officer readily cocked out a gun though Yosano couldn't shake off her consternation from the click of that trigger. Or how she couldn't tell if there was a face lurking behind the helmet.
"Lung. Just do it quickly," Yosano raised her chin up, bracing for the impact, and there it went in a shock of split-second pain, followed by the sedation of her ability; manifesting out of her into the shape of butterflies. She would admit she hadn't used it on herself for a long time, concentrating on the butterflies that swarmed on her left lung and kneecaps.
When the bullet finally nudged out of her chest, she crawled her way to the man.
The patrol officer pressed on the wound on his thigh, attempting to stop the bleeding through a makeshift bandage with a handkerchief. "He passed out a little while ago," she informed, confirming that he might be in a state of shock from the drop in blood pressure. There were two gunshot wounds on his thigh and another on his stomach. "Can you heal him?"
"Of course. I'll do my best," Yosano had, pouring all her energy in his recovery; each butterfly kissed the wounds. She hoped it was enough. "Just awhile ago . . . you called me doctor," she muttered in suspicion, adding in her observation: "you're not really a cop, are you?"
"Not a lot of people are always what they seem," the patrol officer said, unbothered with the accusation.
"Well, I'm not the one pretending to be something else here."
"I've got my secrets and you've got yours. Besides, I didn't expect they'd lead me here to you. Apparently, you're being targeted by the Kurogo-kai."
"I've noticed," Yosano said with a scoff. The gang had something to do with a case Kunikida was working on, if she remembered correctly.
"You're not the only one. It's a good thing a lot of them are stupid. They think you're just a doctor," and then a shrug; the musing voice that came after it was chilling: "the others, perhaps not so lucky."
The Agency. Tense with apprehension, Yosano glared at her. "Who are you? Why are you even telling me this?"
"You're going to have more than just one patient. I can guarantee that," the patrol officer reasoned as she stood up and whipped out his gun towards the shadows. The first three shots were fired, clacking against cement, but by the fourth one, it hit something—someone, a spindly figure in black; a man, Yosano thought, wearing a ratty coat and a face mask.
What is it with these people hiding their damn faces?
A lunge, the glint of a switchblade, a precise aim to the ankle and the knee, and then a pained groan.
That poor bastard was going to have difficult time being carved with bullets on his legs. More so, when Yosano was done fixing him up.
The patrol office padded to him, crouched down to point a gun on his head as he laid there straggled, incapacitated. Her back to Yosano, she appeared to lift up the shield of his helmet for a closer inspection. "Don't attack me," she said and a click tailed after his warning. "Who sent you? What're you doing here?"
Grunting out in pain, the man confessed: "Mafia. T-they sent me to spy on the Kurogo-kai."
"What else have you learned so far?"
"They attacked a member from the Agency . . . I lost their trail because of you, you—"
Then it took a hard thump from the back of his gun to put her assailant to unconsciousness.
"Mafia! What has the Port Mafia have anything to do with this?" argued Yosano, registering the terse interrogation between them.
By the flick of a finger, the patrol officer returned back to the anonymity of her helmet shield. "From what I see, the Mafia's just overprotective. I don't think this one here's attempting to finish you off, though. Nothing much yet," she shrugged halfheartedly and returned back to her motorcycle, revving it back to life.
Yosano caught on, troubled and confused, pushing for an answer. "Hey, what do you mean by that?"
"Just watch your back, doctor."
Yosano was about to speak up in protest though it was cut short with the hot screech of tires, racing off the tracks and disappearing in a cloud of pale smoke. Just like that, she got away. Soon after, the police arrived and the mafioso was dragged to the station in custody.
It still bothered Yosano. She wasn't even able to get a name.
Yasunari Kawabata reminded Chuuya of a senile blond fox in their meetings.
Kawabata never donned on an executive's darker colors, nor did he ever seem to be concerned in being stained by them when he was astutely responsible for the boon of the Mafia's business transactions through a series of successful entertainment establishments; all of which hosted unsavory matters that went by a long unapologetic history of prostitution, racketeering, underground drug cartels, and so forth.
Yet the one so cutthroat to make such cold business decisions limped as old men limped, hunched as old men hunched, holding a kind of graying sophistication that made him both delicate but respectable. Perhaps, in his own way, he was someone to be feared, especially when he was one of the founding members of the Mafia, older than Mori himself.
"You must truly be confident to think that young man will come back here," spoke Kawabata, appraising as ever in their discussion.
Chuuya clenched his fists under the table at the mention of his ex-partner. Kouyou could only give him a knowing glance from her position.
Kawabata didn't have the most commanding voice in the room, but it held a persuasion that made his opinions always have some kind of subtle authority to those who listened. "Who would suit better for the role after all? Oh, I doubt Kyusaku will succeed you, especially when the boy only grows rebellious and deranged. Unideal, considering he is a . . . failed experiment, no?"
A failed experiment. Chuuya had heard things about that. All sorts of nasty things; being created for a project in a government-owned lab, born out of hand-picked genes that carried the insane ability that screwed over his mind. In a way, it was what made them almost alike, bred from the madness of men and malignant science and something else entirely. Something dark and terrifying.
"But I digress," Kawabata waved his hand. The glint of a ring caught the light. "You accepted the proposition of the Baisotei-Ise-gumi to let them commit bloodsport in our territory. Even if the Kumicho hadn't tipped us the whereabouts of Shimazaki's heir, how are we certain she would stay true to her concessions?"
"Shiki Masaoka had gone out of her way to meet me in person herself and she is a woman of her word," said Mori, who had none of that honor-bound bullshit that he put so quaintly into words.
"Yet all this trouble only for one person?" Kouyou said, recognizing the doubt and insight of Kawabata's criticism. She was always a shade closer to him, which made the blatant sides in the room even.
"I understand both of your suspicions. I don't base my decision from sentiment nor will I allow the Baisotei-Ise-gumi to interfere with the Mafia's affairs. So far as I know, it's a fairly simple rule: should the yakuza breach our agreement, our involvement is paramount. Besides, our benefit comes in waiting for the right opportunity and the large compensation we'll have to reap from it, knowing the vast scope of the yakuza of Ikebukuro has in store."
No matter how eloquent Mori put it, he made them still sound like vultures.
Then Mori stared at him; his eyes amused and conniving, like his protégé's. The resemblance never consoled Chuuya out of his upset mood when he's put on the spot, the attention drawn towards him. "You've been awfully quiet, Nakahara. What's your say in this?"
"You're the boss. It's your final decision," Chuuya sighed, disgruntled, as he played along his cards. "So I'll go through with it."
Kawabata only raised a brow, fine and sharp as a knife. "And what about the issue of a war, should it potentially happen?"
Mori smiled at him. "Then we best be prepared, Kawabata."
When the meeting was over, Kawabata sauntered off with the soft rustle of his pale haori; Kouyou tailing behind him after the invitation of afternoon tea.
Kouyou's loyalty to the Mafia was unquestionable, and Chuuya would personally vouch for such a thing, should anyone doubt all her efforts, though as ruthless and intelligent as she was, the flaw that hindered that loyalty was her lingering affections. They parted her in half from the scheme of her robes, cleaved between her chest, and he understood that because even his emotions overtook him at times, and once again, he found himself an executioner for someone else's sake.
This would be easier, Chuuya thought. He had no ties to cut off, no shade of regret, when he had nothing to lose in this ordeal.
Mori may have cladded himself in Mafia colors, with Dazai a close second to him, though it was Chuuya that always wore them on his hands like true corruption, and without a doubt, these same hands would take the life of Yasunari Kawabata.
"Your partner? Ah, you mean Mr. Kunikida from yesterday, Mister . . . ?"
"I'm Dazai Osamu. It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Takagi."
"Oh, I remember now. I think he did mention a partner. I'm sorry, please come in," Mrs. Takagi opened the door for him after having seen his detective badge. "Are you here to ask about my husband? I already told your partner what I know about him."
"It's a little embarrassing, but I believe he forgot his notebook in Mr. Takagi's study. He couldn't come here himself, unfortunately. He got into a bit of an accident."
"I hope it isn't too serious," said Mrs. Takagi, leading him to the hallway.
"He'll be fine," Higashino smiled. "I'm just doing him this one favor for saving him the trouble, is all."
His surroundings closed around him with a dull sense of familiarity, overlapped with Kunikida's memories and his acute attention to detail: the dull sheen of the walls, the old room full of books and manga memorabilia, and even the boy he knew as Shigeo, lazily scrawling on his Campus notebook, with the television turned on for background noise; a recollection he'd put on a pedestal after disclosing an encrypted entry.
Higashino would give him credit, though. Kunikida was on the right to suspect that there was a conspiracy that meant something deeper, larger than himself or anyone in this room, existing far longer and prevalent than the wild imagination of a child.
How did the said child know of these things was what he simply came here for.
Mrs. Takagi had urged Shigeo to clean up after himself, though unaffected by his mother's chiding and aware that another visitor was watching their exchange, this had only emboldened Shigeo to remain where he was, as if there was something to prove in making a show of his impudence.
Higashino liked that. Mutiny meant agency for one and disorder for another.
Still, he reassured Mrs. Takagi that he didn't mind the mess, gently reminding her that he was here only to retrieve his 'partner's' notebook. She relented with an apology and another gripe at her son, after leaving him when an older boy called out to her from the door, urgently asking help about something. Must be Shigeo's brother, he assumed.
Amusingly, everything seemed to reassemble itself back into place like Kunikida's memory.
This time, him and the boy alone. Takagi had a book of secrets, eh?
"Impressive," Higashino whistled low, grinning in approval at the sight, as he inspected the rows upon rows of classic manga. He was a bit tempted to read some of the titles on display, if he hadn't been working. "By chance, did your father have a favorite manga . . . hm, Shigeo, was it?"
Shigeo only shrugged. "Don't know. Papa likes everything here."
"Do you like everything here?"
"Hmm, I haven't read everything."
"Well, what's your favorite? Mine's Monster."
"Oh. I didn't bother with that. It drags a lot."
Higashino regarded the him with doubt. "Isn't Monster a bit adult for you, though?"
"My older brother wouldn't shut up about it. Just because he has the same name as the protagonist," Shigeo complained, scrunching his face in mild annoyance. "I sort of prefer Jakyo no Kami. It's about evil gods."
Jakyo no Kami, huh. Higashino scoured for it. "Is it still here? It sounds pretty interesting."
"I have my own book. Papa's is somewhere here, I guess. Haven't seen it for awhile."
"Oh, just curious, Shigeo. What does the cover look like?"
"There's an island . . ." Shigeo told him; his questioning eyes boring behind his back. "Hmm, Mister, aren't you here to search for Mr. Kunikida's book of secrets?"
"Yes, I am," muttered Higashino, pulling out a book. There was a lone dark isle on its hardbound cover.
"Why're you searching for Jakyo no Kami?"
Perhaps, Akimitsu Takagi would be proud. His son was as warily observant as he was.
And that's what got him killed.
His lips curled up into a knowing smile. It must've appeared crooked from the shadows reshaping the cast of his face. "I like stories about evil gods. Monsters," and all the dark reverent creatures that embodied man's depravity, who overturned the world and abused their gifts for their crusades and rotten self-justifying ends.
Who was good or evil, it didn't matter to Higashino. The path they paved for themselves was red, no borders or anything split in-between, and it was one he closely pursued all his life with a resolution he would personally thank Hanaoka for one day.
Then Higashino peered at him from his shoulder, and perhaps from the glint of his eye, Shigeo must've understood like a bad premonition what lurked in the chilling stare he sent back at him. He smiled a little wider from this. "Thought it'd be interesting to just take a small peek, if you don't mind."
"O-oh, okay," stuttered Shigeo, averting his eyes from him, and all his bravado in their first meeting sapped out of him when he finally stood up, awkwardly skittering to the door with a nervous mumble about needing to use the bathroom; a last bluster to save face, when the insistence was empty and he was certain that the boy won't be returning anytime soon until he's not left the room.
Higashino chuckled under his breath. Perhaps, he'd overdone it, but he shrugged it off and welcomed the privacy either way.
"Takagi, why do you have to prove you're a sly bastard?" said Higashino, scratching the back of his neck. When he opened the book, the secrets spilled. Secrets that everyone would kill for. It was clever of Takagi to hollow out the actual contents of the manga and replace it with his little journal. Still. What a pain in the ass.
He sighed. This meant a change of plans.
It hadn't taken long for him leave. From the sidewalk, Higashino closed in on the parked car and invited himself inside. "Knew I could count on you, Ooka," he said appreciatively, knowing he came in when he dialled him awhile ago. He tugged at his seatbelt on the driver's seat. "You sure I can just go ahead without you?"
Ooka hadn't spoken a word; only shuddered out a filtered breath. The respirator mask always did make him appear more waspish, more a monster than a man. Perhaps, ability-users were born to be living calamities in the world, and in turn, were more terrifying than monsters.
The moment Ooka stepped out of the car, there was that raspy finality in his voice. "Sure."
Accidents happened all the time.
Like how the Takagis' house was burned to the ground.
From the rearview mirror, Higashino watched the secrets turn to ashes from the distance, carried to no one by the whisper of the wind. The sirens came, but there wasn't anything left to save from the fire.
[1] I might come back and revise Kunikida's scenes because they were hell to write. I hope the lack of Natsuo and Dazai's interactions doesn't take anyone away from the story because it'll take awhile for them to meet again. Natsuo disappearing, but lurking everywhere in the background is more eerie than what it looks. Aside from that, the plot is moving somewhere! It'll get pretty confusing at first, but I swear everything will come meshing together by the end.
[2] Again, lots of references from Natsuo Kirino's work, as well as Akimitsu Takagi's. Referencing Urasawa's Monster was perhaps the most fun I had, considering how I took so much inspiration from it into writing this story. I highly recommend it. (Shigeo badmouthing this masterpiece hurt my soul).
[3] The mafioso spying on the Kurogo-kai is actually Gin. No one knows she's actually a girl as of yet, lol.
[4] So obligatory recap: Kunikida is in trouble. The Agency is in trouble. The Mafia's getting involved in this either way. Innocents are going to die. With the abrupt events that took place in the last scene, as Higashino puts it, this meant a change of plans.
[5] Lastly, I massive shout-out to everyone who waited in, like, more than half a year for an update! All your support and reviews are precious to me so I really hope this recent update makes up for lost time! For those curious, I made a Christmas AU drabble for this called All the Bright Lights in my tumblr ( penrose-quinn).