Authors Note: One of the chapters I most looked forward to writing. Of course, there was a sizable scene or two that I cut in the final draft; we'll see those in the next chapter.

I want to warn readers that this chapter will contain mentions and brief descriptions of gore and mutilation.

But, as always, enjoy the story and let me know what you thought.

It had happened rather suddenly.

Maka and Soul had still been at the precinct, going over the photos, bouncing ideas and theories off once another, exploring every avenue they could find to try and identify the two suspects in the kidnapping case. Specifically, the two had been in the middle of a heated debate over what the tattoos might mean, having realized that they were going at it wrong when assuming the tattoos were matching. Maka had thought the tattoos were simple kanji, but that had only been a part of it, she hadn't considered that it might be more complicated than a generic matching gang markings.

They had been making progress. The table had been littered in papers, ideas put down in ink so not to be forgotten, possibilities to explore. Maka had felt that they were close to making a breakthrough—

And then Elijah had come into the room, looking furious, looking stressed, as if something bad had happened that needed their immediate attention. Perhaps another kidnapping, that had been Maka's first thought when she saw the look in his eyes.

It hadn't been another abduction. But, at the same time, something bad had happened.

A murder.

Maka found herself riding with Elijah to the mortuary, neither knowing what quite to expect yet, only to prepare themselves for the worse. Soul, on the other hand, was staying at the precinct to sit with the witness, see what information he could get.

It was a solemn ride. Dead and death were not things Maka was unfamiliar with—she was a meister, she followed the laws set by Death himself. And yet, that did not make the task of seeing the dead any easier. There was a difference, she liked to think, about dead humans, dead witches, and dead Kishin Eggs.

Seeing people dead made her angry, it made her want to seek justice for them, to find their killers and bring them down. Someone took their lives and they needed to be avenged, their killer couldn't be allowed to walk free.

But when she and Elijah entered the morgue and saw the bodies, Maka found herself angry for a different reason.

"This puts a wrench in our plans," Elijah said, crossing his arms as he stared at the victims faces. "When I planned on catching them I didn't mean for it to be like this."

Maka bit the nail of her thumb, feeling angrier the longer she looked at the corpses. "Please, please tell me they left something on them that'll help us find the kids." She could feel the headache forming, a throbbing ache in her temple. "Unless the dead start talking, this is the last thing we wanted." Even with them dead, she couldn't even send their souls to Lord Death in hopes he might be able to pry some information from them; she couldn't sense their souls at all. Most likely, they had been devoured or naturally passed on to the next life.

Not that that did anything to help her mood.

With a frown on his face, Elijah looked over the file the coroner had given him, just skimming through the first page. "Doesn't seem like it. If anything, this is going to take us back a few steps," He said, his voice tense, but otherwise coming across unaffected. Was it from experience, that he was used to these kinds of hiccups? "The time of death is placed at around half-past two in the morning."

"That was barely an hour ago."

"Exactly. Which is good, bodies are still fresh, they'll have the most evidence to accumulate once the coroners are done—they haven't had the chance to do a full examination yet. What's more, it means the killer is likely still in the area," Elijah said, flipping to another page. "There's a chance this was an inside job."

An inside job?

Maka stared at their pale faces, taking in the bruises littering their cheeks, the broken noses, the dried blood, the dirt, at the obvious signs of a fight, a struggle. "It would make sense," She conceded. "Someone else in the group could have caught on that these two were compromised, that we were onto them, searching for them, and to avoid the entire ring getting caught, killed them so as to stop us."

"An effective way to get rid of a problem," Elijah nodded his head, still not smiling, still keeping that firm frown on his face. "By the initial exam, it looks like they did everything they could to make it hard to identify the men, or to link them back to the main group."

Maka tilted her head, looking from him to the bodies, "How so?" she asked. "Burned I.D.'s? missing fingerprints?"

"Mutilation."

Whipping her head up to stare at Elijah, she had to pause to find her words. "I'm sorry, they did what?"

It wasn't Elijah who answered, instead it was the coroner who came shuffling over to them, moving some tools about, not stopping her prep work even as she talked. "Numerous stab wounds were present on both bodies. Victim A had seventy, Victim B had fifty-six. Many wounds show signs of being inflicted post-death. Several toes and fingers were cut off, teeth pulled, remaining fingers were burned," she listed, a tone of disgust in her voice. "The tattoos were cut off, too. You can look under the sheets to check, but I'd recommend against it. The rest of the bodies aren't as pretty as the faces."

Maka reached for the sheet despite the warning, her hand trembling. She had seen bodies before, it was commonplace in her line of work, but this one felt different. What she saw were victims killed by Kishin Eggs, and in those cases the Kishin Egg was so far gone all it wanted was the soul. The murders tended to become simple, not brutalized.

"It goes beyond overkill," Maka said after a silence. "Beyond just killing someone to remove the weak link. This is rage."

With a dry laugh, the coroner walked over to the bodies, snapping on a pair of surgical gloves. "If you think that's bad, then I hope you haven't eaten anything yet," she said, reaching for the sheet of the closest one. "It goes beyond just that."

She peeled back the sheet, allowing them to get a full view of the body.

As had been said, there were numerous stab wounds all over the body, no definitive sign of any aim, as if the attacker just kept jamming a knife into whatever piece of flesh they could get. A furious flurry of blows. Fingers were missing, a chunk of flesh torn from the arm, bruises and scrapes, blood all over. But, just as the coroner said, there was more to it.

"What the Hell?" Elijah asked, fumbling over his words, standing stiff, "What the Hell? Were they trying to cut the men open?"

Running a finger along the foot long gash on the chest, the coroner just shook her head. "Not just 'trying'. Whoever did this succeeded. Cut through skin and muscles, shattered the sternums on both, as well as several ribs broken and moved," she said, grimacing as she spoke. "Their hearts were removed."

Maka spluttered, "I'm sorry, the what was removed?"

"The hearts. Not cleanly, either. The initial look has it that they might as well have been grabbed and yanked from the body, not cleanly cut."

She stared at the bodies, wide-eyed. "Whoever killed them-that's not a simple process," she breathed. "You have to break past bones, cut through muscles. It takes time to do."

"Meaning whoever did this must have felt confident enough about not being caught while out in the open, or just didn't care if someone saw," Elijah said, looking to Maka. "While this doesn't disprove the idea of it being someone within the same ring, it does raise more questions than it answers. It just—Shit! Their hearts, and only the hearts were taken?" he asked.

"The only organ removed was the heart," the coroner confirmed.

For the first time since they started, Elijah looked panicked, as if someone had pulled the rug from under him and sent him tumbling into an abyss. Was there some greater meaning behind a missing heart? "Were the hearts found? Or any of the parts cut off?"

"I'll have the investigators on scene search the area, I haven't heard from them yet on what they've found over there, and it's unlikely they'll disregard chunks of flesh," Elijah was already fishing out his phone, "but I want them prepared for anything over there."

Not only was her headache pounding, but now, after seeing and hearing what happened, Maka felt queasy. Her stomach churned; she felt the need to vomit. She tried not to visualize what the scene must have looked like upon first arrival.

She felt sick, but also angry.

These two had been their only leads on finding the missing kids—and now they were dead! They may as well go back to square one after this if nothing useful can be found from the witness or bodies.

"Here's hoping Soul have better luck with the witness," she muttered, tearing her eyes away from the bodies. "I… I'm going to get some air."

But Elijah was already making his way to the door. "You can get some air in the car, we're not done," he said, an urgency in his voice, a tenseness. "We need to go, now. Doc: call me when you finish the full exam the moment it's done, got it?"

Heather Cawfield was a beautiful woman in her thirties. She worked as an accountant for a local business, was on good terms with most of the community, and generally known as a fairly upright person. She did her taxes, she obeyed traffic laws, and was a very charitable soul. She wasn't the kind to go out and party or drink late into the night, maybe have a glass or two early, but never enough to become intoxicated.

It was fairly safe to say that Ms. Cawfield wasn't the type of woman to get in trouble.

And yet, there she was, in the police station, shaking and pale as a ghost from the trouble she found.

"Hello, Ms. Cawfield," Soul greeted politely as he pulled out a chair and took a seat across from her at the table. "I'm Soul from the DWMA, I'm helping the police with the recent cases, I just want to ask you a few questions if that's okay."

"About the murder, right?" she asked, her voice weak

Heather shrunk back, hugging herself tightly, still trembling terribly. "I was just trying to get home, sir. I had missed the last bus, so I was walking home. It was late—I was tired and I just wanted to sleep, and then—" she cut herself off with a whimper that broke into a dry sob.

She was a normal person, Soul thought. It was no wonder she would react so badly when seeing the crime scene, it had to have been beyond traumatizing for her. He reached out across the table to place his hand on her shoulder. "You did nothing wrong, miss," he assured her in his softest voice. "I promise you we'll get through this quick and I will have an officer take you home. Is that okay?"

Heather nodded her head.

"Good, okay." Soul settled back into his seat, looked at the first page of the rather small file he had been given. "What can you tell me about what you saw tonight?"

There was another pause as Heather whimpered, and Soul waited patiently, not wanting to push her, not wanting to rush her. He understood that this was difficult for her, he had to be patient—he was going to be patient.

"I didn't see them at first—I just saw the blood, a lot of blood. I… I was curious…what could have caused this? So, I went in to look and then I…" she cut herself off once again, hitching her breath in a dry sob. "I stepped on it."

"What did you step on?"

She shivered, tears were in the corners of her eyes, "A finger," she answered. "Someone had cut his finger off and thrown it aside."

Even Soul blanched a little at that, but he quickly jotted what she said down as a note. No doubt Maka and Elijah already knew about severed fingers from visiting the bodies, but it didn't hurt. "Do you think this was right after the murders?"

"It had to be, if not, just shortly after, they were, they were—" her breath hitched and she began shaking even more.

She was going into a panic attack, if she did, then Soul wasn't going to be able to question her, to glean any information out of her. He had to change this topic before things went bad.

Rising from his seat, Soul reached out to her, "It's okay, it's okay. You don't need to talk about what you saw in the alley; we can do that later. Let's talk about something else, okay?" he asked, waiting for her to calm back down. It took a few moments, but she did. "You said you saw the killer, right? What can you tell me about them? Anything at all will help us to catch him."

"Right… right… okay. I can do this," Heather whispered, shivering. Soul had half a mind to offer her his jacket, but didn't, knowing that she wasn't shivering because she was cold.

"He…he was young, thin…a little shorter than you," she said after a prolonged silence. "I saw him coming out of the alley, he was—he was swaying, looked like he was trying to do a one-man waltz, but kept stumbling and swaying—kind of like if he was drunk," Heather recalled, fingers tapping nervously on the tables surface.

Soul wrote that down, "Do you think he was drunk?"

"Maybe? No? I don't know," she said quickly, fearfully.

"That's okay, that's okay," he held up a hand in a sign of peace, trying to assure her. "What else did you notice about him? Anything that stood out?"

She looked down, "He was covered in blood. Like—a lot of blood. His clothes were a mess, he was limping. I thought someone mugged him, so I was going to try and talk to him, see if he was okay, you know? See if he needed me to call anyone to pick him up."

"And that's when you noticed the alley?"

Heather nodded her head once more. "There was so much blood, so much—"

"You don't need to talk about what was in there," Soul reminded her.

Earning another nod, Heather swallowed, taking a drink from her paper water cup. "I… I screamed. I was terrified and I screamed and he—he noticed me. He looked right at me," she hiccupped, letting out a dry sob. "He saw me, he could have come after me—he can still come after me."

"No one is going to come after you, we'll have an officer on standby at your residence if that will make you feel safer," Soul interrupted, trying hard to remain patient and understanding. "He noticed you, but he didn't do anything to you, so what is it that he did?"

There it was again, that frustratingly annoying long silence. He hadn't considered himself the type to hate silence before, but now, with how many times his witness had gone silent in this interview, well, he'd found himself wishing that she were the type who responded to trauma by being extra chatty.

After an agonizing pause Heather spoke once more. "He ran."

"He ran," Soul repeated, arching a brow.

She nodded, "There was a wild look in his eyes when he saw me, like a feral animal that got cornered, he looked like he was going to charge at me—the knife was still in his hand—but then he turned and took off, he dropped the knife and took off running down the street."

Well, that was something. This guy was capable of taking down two men who were both bigger and likely physically stronger, but Heather, who would have been physically much weaker than the other two, he fled from. She saw his face, could identify him, and yet instead of silencing her, covering up his tracks, he fled.

It just raised more questions about the whole thing.

"His face," Soul found himself asking. "What do you remember about it? Would you be able to describe him to a sketch artist?"

"No, that… that wouldn't be possible."

Oh? Soul leaned back at her response, keeping his face as neutral as he could over this whole ordeal. "Not possible? Did you not get a clear enough look at his face? It doesn't need to be perfect, just enough for us to narrow down a suspect pool."

"It's not that," Heather shook her head, her fingers once again tapping anxiously against the table. "I could see his face, but at the same time I couldn't—there was, he was wearing a mask, it covered up everything below his eyes."

A…mask?

Soul felt the gnawing sensation of worry, that feeling that something was going terribly wrong. "What kind of mask was it?" he asked, not that he felt he needed to. But, no, he had to make sure.

"It was black… not one of the paper ones, a washable one."

"And his hair, was it kind of on the longer side? Say…reached around here?" Soul raised his hands and gestured to just above his shoulders, "A bit on the messy side?

By now, Heather didn't seem as nervous, she looked confused, "Yeah… that's right, actually. It was dark, and with the lighting I couldn't tell if it was black or just a dark brown, but it was around that length."

"And you said he was shorter than me, was he thinner?"

"He did look rather thin," she shook her head and stared Soul in the eyes, "Do you know who this is?"

By this point, Soul was already rising from the table. "I think I got a pretty good idea of just who you saw at the alley. Thank you for your time, Ms. Cawfield. I'll have an officer take you home, and they can stay with you until morning if that makes you feel safe," he held out a hand to shake hers. "We're going to catch him, I promise you."

Once they shook hands, Soul was out of the room. He hailed down the nearest officer and told them what to do, sending them in the room with Heather, and then kept walking. He tried to call Maka, but there wasn't any answer; either her phone was dead or she was busy. He didn't even have Elijah's number, so there wasn't any point there.

Not that it mattered, Soul was confident he could handle what's next on his own.

This whole thing was leaving a sour taste in the weapon's mouth. Confident or not about his own abilities, he found himself just not wanting to believe the guy had it in him to kill those two. Granted, Soul knew he didn't know much about the kid, but the idea that he'd go and murder people, it just felt wrong.

Something was off about this, and he wanted to figure that out. But, there were more pressing issues at hand. If he wasn't the culprit, he was a viable witness, and Soul wanted to have him in the station as soon as physically possible.

"You," Soul said when he entered a room full of computers and techies, pointing to an older woman at a computer. "I need you to find me everything there is on a Haruto Arakawa. I want his number, his address, and where he lived before coming here, places of employment. Every possible thing."

The woman looked startled by Souls sudden order, but it didn't take much more than a sharp look for her to face her screen and start typing away. "Just to be sure," she said carefully. "Arakawa, is one word?"

"Yes, one word. And I don't care if I'm in the middle of a bathroom break—as soon as you find anything, I need to know," Soul turned to another techie. "I need you to get ahold of the men at the crime scene right now, I need to talk to them."

"Where are we?" Maka asked as Elijah brought the car to stop in front of a small townhouse. "And what are we doing here?"

Since leaving the coroners office, Elijah hadn't said a word, but Maka hadn't needed to be able to see his soul to feel the anxiety that rolled off of him. It went beyond just the two murders, she could tell that much, but he hadn't given her anything else to go by.

"My house," Elijah said simply, turning the car off and getting out. "I've files here that we're going to need. God if I ever expected to need the bloody things for a Pocklington case," he added that last bit under his breath in a hiss.

Maka followed, curious and confused as he unlocked the door and held it open for her.

The house itself was spacious, not in the sense that it was large, but by there not being too much clutter or large furniture taking up space. The entryway had a simple coatrack along the wall, and a little wire basket to place shoes in so as to not track dirt into the house.

"Don't bother taking them off," Elijah said when he saw her looking at it, already heading further into the house, flipping on light switches as he went.

Past the entryway, the kitchen, dining room, and living room merged together in an 'L' shape. There were few decorations, a few family photos, a couple of potted plants—fake potted plants at that. He led her up the stairs to the second floor, not saying much.

All in all, the house seemed nice. It was clean, it was organized. It was clear that Elijah did spend a good amount of time keeping his house in a nice state even with his busy work schedule, it was something Maka could admired and respect. She couldn't stand messy work areas, how was someone to find what they needed when there was no order to anything.

Though, she couldn't quite keep that opinion standing when Elijah led her into his personal office space.

There were boxes upon boxes full of what appeared to be files. So many so that it was cramped, almost claustrophobic. Even on his desk, there were numerous open cases left there from when he was home last. There was no discernable order or reason to where everything was placed. Oh, it was just too easy to imagine Kid's mental breakdown if he were to enter this room.

"It's in here somewhere," Elijah muttered as he began looking at the different boxes, at the case names and numbers written on them with a black sharpie. "Where is it… where is it… Ah, here we go."

With that, as if he were a master Jenga player, Elijah pulled a box from a tower and managed not to have the boxes atop to fall over. They, instead, landed on the bottom box with a heavy thud, swaying dangerously over, before settling in. Maka hadn't even realized she had been holding her breath when she saw it.

"This is what we needed," Elijah said as he held the old looking box up.

Maka peered at it, the ink on the box that labeled it had become illegible after the years, just smears of ink over the cardboard. "What is it? And what has it to do with our current case?" she asked.

Bringing the box over to his desk, and shoving the other files aside, Elijah opened the lid and started taking the pages out. "It's a case file I've been working on since my days in London," he answered. "My last actual case before I got transferred here five years ago. Probably the reason I got transferred. Technically, I'm not on that case anymore, it was 'officially' closed by the London police."

"You're going to have to slow down there, because there's a lot of information you're omitting there," Maka said, raising a hand up to stop him. "You used to live in London, this case caused you to get transferred, and somehow this is all connected to our current case?"

"Right, right," he didn't seem apologetic at all. "I grew up in London, that's where I served my first few years on the force at. About five years ago we had a string of murder cases. It was my first big case, and it was a brutal one. People on the streets likened it to a modern day Jack the Ripper."

Maka grimaced at the name, remembering a Kishin Egg she and Soul had hunted back when they were younger that went by the same moniker.

"Not that it was too far off. The Ripper would cut throats and then brutally disembowel and mutilate his victims, our suspect showed the same degree of brutality to his victims as well," Elijah began handing Maka files. Newspaper clippings of the cases, articles and interviews, copies of the original file that Elijah most certainly did not legally obtain. "There was no connection between victims, no discernable victimology, it was as if he was just picking his victims at random."

Maka felt a wave of nausea hit her as she saw a photo of one of the victims. An older man who had been mutilated to the point he was almost unrecognizable. Face burned, gashes all over, missing fingers, numerous stab wounds. "You said the case was closed, doesn't that mean you found the culprit?"

To that, Elijah scowled, his grip on the current papers tightening. "We had a suspect. A known druggie. He had a history of violence—was dealing with untreated schizophrenia and the delusions and hallucinations would cause him to lash out. The chief had us go after him, and when he went into another episode, they shot him down," Elijah explained, his voice tense, angry. "Our only suspect was dead and the murders stopped, so people just believed that the guy really was the killer."

"I take it you didn't believe that was the case?"

Elijah shook his head, "No. I'd known the guy, got in a few scuffs with him before. He was a big guy, pretty strong, too. The knife wounds on all the victims? They were somewhat shallow, showed signs that the killer either wasn't using his full strength, or he wasn't physically strong enough to push the knife all the way in through the muscles and past the bones. Plus, the wounds were far more…organized. Our suspect lacked the ability to be organized in any way, there was a method behind the mutilations, and our guy wouldn't have been able to be as meticulous about it."

"That's a pretty important detail," Maka said, finding another photo of a discarded knife. "Were there any fingerprints linking your suspect to the murders?"

"There weren't any fingerprints besides the victims anywhere," Elijah answered. "Likely wore gloves. The fact of the matter was that the guy was an easy target and the higher ups wanted to pin the blame on someone and call it quits, wanted to move on to something else."

Maka looked from the file to him, "You didn't."

To that, Elijah grimaced again, looking away, "I had too many doubts to just let it slide, so I kept an eye on it. I never had anything concrete, I couldn't find any new information. But I kept analyzing what evidence I had, looking for that one thing to change everything."

"You still haven't told me what this has to do with our current case," Maka pointed out, putting the clippings down to pick up a general summary of the case. Five dead. Different genders, age-range, ethnicity, orientation, religions, and economic status. He was right, it seemed the murders were pretty random when it came to targets.

For a moment, Elijah said nothing, just fingered through the different files still in the box, brows furrowed, searching for something in particular. Maka waited in patient silence as she continued to read through the papers she was given.

Then, a stack of photos were given to her. "It's because of this," Elijah said, his face serious, dangerous. Maka took the photos, and as she began flipping through them, her face growing pale, the detective continued to talk. "In every victim, the heart was removed, and was the only thing on the victim never found."

The photos were grizzly. Men and women laying on autopsy beds, their chests carved open and the chest cavity void of that crucial organ.

"It's messier than the two we have," Maka pointed out, her voice quiet, her words slow. "Bloodier."

"The guy has had five years to practice," Elijah reminded. "Half a decade to hone the craft, little wonder if he's gotten better at cutting people open."

Putting the photos down, Maka turned to face the detective, her expression hard, her resolve strengthened, "If your theories are right and the same guy is responsible for both these murders, then it's pretty clear we have a serial killer on our hands," she warned. "And if their deaths was done by the ring, that this group possibly has a serial killer working with them."

Elijah sighed, ran a hand through his hair, pulling his ponytail out and letting the strands go free. "It's not a pretty picture," He confessed. "But, better to expect the worse out of this. For now? How about you give me a hand on these files. A fresh pair of eyes looking at them might be what we need to find a link."

Almost an hour had passed and they weren't making much ground on any of the avenues Soul sent them on.

"What do you mean you've got nothing?" he asked, his temper flaring as he stared at the analyst. "You've got to have something. A licenses, an I.D., something!"

The woman shook her head, "I've searched all over, there's no one under that name showing up anywhere," she explained, typing away, still searching. "Either he's not in the systems, which while possible, is very unlikely, or he gave you a fake name when you met."

Soul wanted to tug his hair out. Of course it wouldn't be that easy. But, he hadn't expected there to not be a single thing about Haruto in any databases. It was possible that Haruto had a different legal surname than what he used with Soul. It wasn't too uncommon to use one parent's surname for legal documents, and another's for everything else. That could be the case here. He should have taken that into account.

"Is there anything we can do to find where he is?" He asked, though it felt like a demand. He was running out of patience; they were running out of time.

Someone else approached him, "I called his places of work," he said, "I was able to get in contact with the employers, and after explaining that it was an emergency that needed immediate compliance, I was able to get some information."

Soul tapped his foot impatiently, "And?" he asked.

The guy, though older and taller, shrunk back. "There is no record of a 'Haruto Arakawa' in their employment. However, the café has a 'Haruto Suda' and the bar has a 'Haruko Furukawa'."

More fake names. Similar enough that if someone from one establishment called him by one name in front of coworkers of the other, he could brush the name off as a nickname, or some other lie to evade suspicion.

"Are we certain these are the same people?" Soul asked. It was most likely that they were, but there was always the slim chance—he wanted to be absolutely certain before going on the hunt.

The man nodded, "Yes. The names are different, but the addresses are the same," he said, taking the paper he had and holding it out to Soul. "I looked up the apartment, it's rented out to a 'Sota Kimura'."

Another fake name.

"He's using a different name for everything. He knows what he's doing, probably been at this for a while." Had 'Haruto Arakawa' just been a name he made up on the spot when they met? Was it his real name? Soul had so many questions he wanted to ask. But he needed to find him first to ask them.

"If Maka or Detective Cain get back before I do, tell them I'm heading to his apartment, I'm taking one of the cops with me, too," Soul said quickly, reading the address and making his way out of the room. "I'm going to grab him and bring him back to the station."

"Sir?" the woman he had been talking with originally called out. "I don't—I don't think that's safe!"

He gave her his grin, full of sharp teeth and cockiness. "We'll be fine. Don't forget you're dealing with a DWMA weapon," he reminded them and with that he was out the door.

It didn't take long after that to find an officer to go with him to the apartment.

All Soul had to do was grab the first one he saw that wasn't doing anything important, not stop walking as he did so, and quickly explain the plan while dragging said officer along. He didn't have the time to stop and go through a screening process for a temporary partner. He needed someone to go with him to watch his back, and he took the first person he found. Lucky for him, she was eager to go along, both ready and willing to help catch a possible murderer, and soon enough, they were on the road heading to his apartment.

"It's not that far from the town center," Soul said as they pulled to a stop in front of the building. It wasn't anything fancy, rather it was one of the lower-priced apartments. Four floors, and a good amount of rooms on each floor. "Close enough to work to walk if needed, far enough that a bus wouldn't be strange, either."

"It's a good location," the officer, Watson he had learned on the drive, agreed. "Discrete, too. Not too many people around here are going to care if you come home bleeding, they'll just assume you got in a fight and lost"

Getting out of the car, Soul watched her put the keys in her pocket before making her way to the apartments entrance. They had taken her personal car so as to not immediately draw attention to themselves with a police cruiser, and Soul wondered if he should have had her change into civilian clothes, too. No, no, that would have taken time, and they didn't have much to spare.

Soul was quick as he went through the doors and marched up the stairs. "He has a sister, younger, so be careful. We don't want to involve her, and we don't want her put in danger," he added as they climbed the steps.

"Let's hope he doesn't use her as a hostage," the officer said.

Shaking his head, Soul said nothing. From what brief encounter he had with Haruto, he found it hard to believe the guy would use his sister like that, but he didn't say it. "Just focus on apprehending Haruto, don't shoot him. We want him alive, there's still not concrete proof he killed anyone."

"No concrete proof?" Watson repeated with a laugh, "We've a witness who saw him leaving the scene with the weapon, I'd say that's concrete enough."

Again, Soul had nothing to say to that.

They reached the door and immediately Soul saw the bloody handprint on the doorknob. It was as much a sign as any that they were at the right place. After looking around to make sure the coast was clear, listening the door and hearing nothing but silence, Soul nodded to her.

Watson knelt down, pulling a set of lockpicks from her bag and got to work while Soul stood guard. They didn't know what to expect, he didn't know what to expect.

Personally, he wanted Maka here, it didn't feel right to do this without her at his side, it felt wrong. They were a team, they were partners, they were a unit. They worked together, fought together, they were stronger together than when they were apart, that was just a fact of life. Soul could fight, he had no doubts about that, but Maka was the strong one, she was the one who could kick ass better than anyone here. Maka was the one who made him dangerous.

But he couldn't just sit and wait for her to answer, for her to arrive. He couldn't just sit back and let time tick on and do nothing.

Time wasted waiting was time others could use to cover up their tracks.

"There, we're in," Watson whispered, breaking him from his thoughts. "We're good to go, are you ready?"

The door was unlocked. Soul nodded to Watson, who was gathering her tools and standing back up. Slowly, he pushed the door open, tense, ready for anything.

What he saw in the darkness of the entryway was blood. More blood. Handprints on the walls, globs on the floor, a mask and hoodie both covered in blood. As if he stumbled in and began discarding the blood soaked clothes right there.

Soul nodded to Watson. "Watch the door. We don't know if he's home, I need you out here in case he comes back," he whispered. He had faith that he could handle himself if he found Haruto and it came to a fight, he was a weapon. But, he couldn't afford to have Haruto sneak out while they were both investigating the apartment, he needed to make sure the entrance was watched.

"Give a yell and I'll be right over," she promised, stepping out of the apartment.

Soul gave her a smile, "I'm counting on you." And with that, he dived in.

The apartment was quiet, too quiet for how late at night it was. It was suspicious. With how much had happened, shouldn't there be more noise? Perhaps they were asleep?

Or had Haruto already fled? He could have taken his sister and dipped town as soon as he cleaned up, he might not even be here anymore. It would make sense, though. If Soul were under suspicion for murder, he wouldn't stay in town to get caught.

Following the trail of blood, Soul kept his eyes peeled. Just because he didn't hear anything didn't mean no one was home. If only he could sense souls like Maka, that'd make it easier.

Even so, he was quiet as he walked, ears perked for any noise, any sound at all.

So far, the apartment was weirdly empty. Had it always been this way? He couldn't have had enough time to pack everything and leave, and yet there was nothing. All there was that he could see was the very bare minimum, even less than that, to be considered a home.

And then, he was out of the narrow entryway and into the apartments living area.

"Oh… holy shit," Soul whispered. Even in the dark apartment, he could see the photos.

Dozens upon dozens of photos were tapped to the walls of the apartments living room, so many so that barely any of the actual wall could be seen under them. There were even some taped to the ceiling. It was all the room had, save for a couple of seating cushions and a coffee table.

He drew closer to the wall to get a better look, his eyes strained in the dark. Taking the risk, Soul withdrew his phone from his pocket and turned on the flashlight. Instantly, he could see the faces in the photos. The same face in every single photo.

Amanda Lewis.

"Shit… shit, shit, shit," Soul hissed.

Each and every photo was of Amanda. Candid shots, ones she clearly never even knew were being taken. He recognized the places. Photos of her in front of the school, photos of her sitting by the window during classes. Photos of her at the local arcade, entering shops, walking the streets. There were photos of her at the canal riverbed, at the bridge. There were even photos of her in front of her own house.

Soul continued looking, feeling disgusted. He hadn't even considered Haruto to be involved in Amanda's kidnapping, had no reason to be, but it was painfully clear that he had been stalking her, for a good long while as the changing seasons in the photos showed.

And then, the photos began to change. While the bulk of them were of Amanda as she was twelve, perhaps even eleven, he started to notice changes in others. The setting became the same, over and over again being inside rather than outside.

They were taken within the apartment. She was looking at the camera in them, she was aware of the photographer, of Haruto, smiling—genuine? He couldn't tell. It could be forced. She was getting older, the photos becoming less frequent. The older ones, she was covered in bruises and bandages, clear signs of injury, and yet the photos taken within the apartment, there were fewer and fewer injuries until there were none left at all.

At least, Soul thought, he could assume she wasn't being harmed. But that didn't make this okay, no, it didn't make this okay at all!

"This is messed up," Soul whispered, taking a step back, still starting at the walls. "This is so, so messed up," and then there was the one, the one photo that wasn't just Amanda.

It was taken right where Soul was standing, the photo-covered wall right behind them. Haruto sat on the floor, his hair a brownish-sort of blonde, looking a little younger, a little softer. He still had the bags under his eyes, still wore a mask. There, seated in his lap was Amanda. She was twelve, still pretty battered, but she was smiling, there was a little twinkle in her eyes. She was the one taking the photo. He couldn't see the camera, but he saw her hold her hand out in that way when you took a selfie.

This could be proof. The apartment isn't under Haruto's name, but this photo was proof that he was involved.

"My lil' sister," Haruto snapped, glaring at Soul with a burning hate. "Who is probably fuckin' starvin' right now cause yer wastin' all my time."

He had a little sister. Haruto never did tell Soul how old she was, but he had a little sister.

"How long have you been living here?"

Again with that hateful glare. "Don't know why it's any of yer business," he growled out. "Probably around three an' a half years."

Right before the kidnappings had begun. Just standing there, Soul was piecing together their conversation, taking every little thing Haruto had said, making the connections that he hadn't realized.

There had been that remorselessness when they departed, that cold look in his eyes, but full of resolve, an absolute certainty as though it were a law set by the Gods.

"I'll kill anyone who fuckin' tries."

Soul felt his breath hitch in his throat. The signs had been there, but he hadn't had a reason to pursue them. The guy came off as odd, something about him felt wrong, but there had never been a valid reason to truly pursue any suspicion.

The photos, his statement that day, the witness—it was undeniable that Haruto was involved.

"I need to call Maka. I need to get the others in here," Soul said, swiping his thumb across the screen of his phone. "Shit, shit, we need to—"

He had been too distracted to hear the gentle creak of a door opening, too focused on the photos, on his conversation with Haruto. Too focused on what was in front of him that he didn't realize what was behind until it was too late.

It was the faint reflection on his phones screen.

Soul turned around, too slow. The only thing he could see was a pair of green eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness, and then his world went black.