The only thing in the whole room making a sound was the light buzzing above him, but he couldn't move his head. Or, at least, Makoto was advised not to, and every tinge of pain that flared up whenever he turned his neck told him all the doctors were right. It even stung just to breathe.

Every breath in, and every breath out, he felt the prickling sutures along the gash where the knife was pressed to his throat. He touched a finger to the patch of cotton taped over the area around the wound.

The only thing in the whole room making a sound was the light buzzing above him. But it wasn't the only thing he heard.

Back off or the kid dies!

Drop the knife.

Put the gun down!

Stay back!

Drop it!

CRACK!

Click!

He rubbed the impression on his wrists, where the handcuffs bit into him too tight. Makoto pressed his mouth shut, hard, and dragged his next breath through his nose. He focused on the buzzing light above him. As droning and as mind numbing as it was. It was all that kept the voices and echoes at bay.

And when he closed his eyes, he could feel it again, the touch of steel in flux, cold and hot and cold again, until a wave of contempt washed over the sterile room.

The door opened, and Sae shook her head at the sight of him. She locked the door, then stood by him, holding a file folder wide open. "I told you not to do anything stupid," she said.

His eyes darted around, dodging her glare. He didn't answer.

"Let's see if I have the right sequence of events here," Sae said. "Yesterday, late in the afternoon, the police received a tip from Kasumi Yoshizawa that you were going to meet with an unknown, suspicious person in Central Shibuya."

She looked up from the file, waiting for a response. When she saw Makoto's eyes still drifting aimlessly, she went on. "You were found by police with drugs in your possession, then taken hostage, and threatened with a knife. Your attacker was disarmed and arrested on the spot."

Her stare shifted down to his throat. "Is this accurate?" A spike of pain stopped Makoto from nodding. "Tap your finger on the arm guard twice." He raised his arm to the barrier on the side of the infirmary bed.

Tap. Tap.

"Well, credit where it's due," Sae said, "The two other arrests you brought about yesterday were useful. That, I can work with." Sae adjusted a chair on the other side of the infirmary bed, keeping a clear line of sight to Makoto's hand. "I assume you intended for this to be evidence of the criminal group you mentioned."

Makoto laid his head back, and tapped twice on the arm guard. From here, his actions had to speak for themselves.

"If that's the direction this case goes, then I suppose I'll have you to thank for it. But I've done this before. Me and…" Sae's next breath was off balance. "Organized crime is never easy to take down."

Makoto wondered if the Phantom Thieves could do this better. He heard thick pages turning.

"For now, let's get your case over with. This shouldn't take long." A plastic pen cap popped. A sheet of paper crinkled in front of him. "Makoto Naegi, you're being detained on probable cause of possession of controlled substances. I have some questions before filing an indictment. First, did you have the drugs prior to meeting the man in the alley?"

He held his finger steady over the rail. No. "Did he give it to you?" Yes. Makoto tapped his finger.

"Before he gave it to you, did you know what it was?"

Makoto knew, or at least he expected it to be something illegal. But precisely drugs? In retrospect, that was something he should have been able to deduce, and avoided the whole operation. No, he held his hand still. He felt Sae's gaze like a floodlight. A lie here, a perjury, could be worse than the drug possession itself.

Was he lying?

Makoto couldn't tell.

"There was an envelope with a number marked on it, found in the alley closer to the main street," Sae said. "Did the man give that to you?" He tapped the arm guard, yes. "And were the drugs inside it?"

Yes.

Sae tilted her head, waved her pen in the air. "Last question, Naegi. Not for the record," Sae said. "Did you go behind my back with this sting operation just to force my hand?"

Makoto tapped twice on the arm guard.

Sae slammed her folder shut. "Then you certainly rose to the challenge. Even if it almost killed you." She stood up, and opened the door. "I'll let the Police Chief know I'm dropping your charges. You should be transferred to a real hospital by the end of the day."

She stepped out of the room. The door hinges creaked softly as a hydraulic arm pushed it shut. And when the latch clicked into place and the last squeak of the hinges rang away past Makoto's ears, all he had left to hear were the buzzing of the lights, and the echoes of his arrest.

The self checkout scanner chirped. Makoto slid an item across the machine, into a tote bag on a carousel on the other side, a large pack of udon noodles. When the weight validated, she scanned and bagged the next item on her grocery list, and the next one after that.

But throughout all these robotic motions, Makoto wasn't thinking about dinner. She was stuck trying to make sense of what Naegi did yesterday. It was stupid. It was reckless. And it could have been a fatal mistake, but wasn't, if only for her own intervention.

It was a step Makoto didn't have the nerve to take for herself.

She dropped the last item into her tote bags, and counted out 11,000 yen to feed into the checkout station. The inner machinery whirred in acceptance, and clattered 37 yen into the coin dish below.

The glass door of the supermarket opened to a wide pavilion outside, lined with food trucks and dotted with tables. Off center, Makoto spotted three girls in lively conversation, a certain red head among them, and she dragged her grocery bags to the table.

The girl wearing a blue dress turned around with an apologetic smile. "Excuse me, please, but we're in the middle of something." There was a sweetness to her voice that Makoto couldn't quite place.

"It's okay, Mika," the red headed girl said. "I know her." She pried open the back panel of a camera, and stored the film canister inside a special case she had on her. "Actually, we're done for the day. I'll make sure the magazine gets the pictures. Did you want a copy too?"

The girl in the blue dress, Mika, turned back to the photographer. "If it's not too much trouble, Mahiru," she said.

The third girl at the table, with huge blonde pigtails and a telltale black and red skirt besides, swayed her head. "Can we see them now?"

"Ann, they're real photos," Mika said, the look of a scowl peeking through. "They have to be developed first."

"It's like Mika said. Sorry about that." Mahiru set the camera's back panel in place again, and clipped it onto its strap. "You both looked great. I'm sure they'll turn out well." She tugged on her shoulder strap. "Oh yeah, I guess this is farewell."

"I hope we can do this again," Ann said. She shook Mahiru's hand and got up to leave, only sparing enough time to cast Makoto a glare that burned like embers before she was gone.

And the moment she was, Mika pulled away from Mahiru's hand and turned to Makoto. "I saw that," she said. "Whatever Ann thinks of you, I wouldn't take it too seriously."

"It's fine," Makoto said. "If it's what I think it is…" If it was a year of silence on Kamoshida's abuse, or transferring away at the last minute, Ann wasn't wrong about that. "I'd blame myself too."

Mika's arms dropped and her face turned cold. "Well, if that's how you feel, I guess I won't hold it against her. My name is Mika, by the way. Mika Umesaka."

Makoto set one of her tote bags down on the pavement, and shook hands over their brief, and possibly only meeting ever. "Makoto Niijima." Mika got up to leave right after, and Makoto took a seat in her spot. She let go of her other grocery tote, and picked at the edge of her bandages.

Mahiru caught her instantly. "Didn't Mikan tell you not to touch that?" Oh, yeah. Makoto stopped fidgeting with it. "Speaking of her, you have no idea how hard it was not to call Mika 'Mikan' by accident during the shoot."

Makoto looked across the table with a completely blank expression. "Yeah," she said. "That sure sounds like a challenge."

"Anyway, thanks for waiting, Makoto. There was something you wanted to talk about?"

"Two days ago, there was a huge, fat man with slick hair talking to Fuyuhiko," Makoto said. "They were talking pretty loud, like they didn't care who heard, but, before I get into that, do you have any idea who it might be?"

"And you're not just asking Kuzuryu because…?" Right when she heard herself, Mahiru shook her head. "Oh, yeah, who am I kidding? I swear, he never tells anyone anything. Who the heck thought being a Yakuza was a talent?"

The same people who decided to turn luck into a literal lottery. "It is what it is now," Makoto said. "And he already told me to get lost, so, no chance I'm getting anything out of him any time soon."

"What about Peko?" Mahiru said. "She's always there for his business meetings, and she's a lot more reasonable than Kuzuryu is ever gonna be. I bet you could at least get a name out of her."

"That's true," Makoto said. "She did tell me two other names already, like it's no big deal." She drummed her knuckles on the table. "Okay, the rest of it is, I think Slick Hair did something, and I want to know if I'm on the right track with this."

"Oh. Yeah, that sounds a lot more specific than just a name." Mahiru tucked her arms in. "In that case, she might not say much either, if it's Yakuza related." She looked Makoto straight in the eye. "What do you think this man did, exactly?"

Deep breath. She already told Sae. She already laid out her logic. All Makoto had left to do was say the words.

"I think he murdered my father."

It took Mahiru's breath away. It took the air, the wind, the car horns, the footsteps, and left behind only the gravity of what Makoto just said.

"If it's that important," Mahiru said, "I may have something we can try. No promises. I'm sorry if this doesn't work out." Makoto's steely intensity didn't reflect a moment of hesitation.

Mahiru took out her phone and made the call to the final lead. The phone ran long, long enough for her to guess she'd be talking to the raspy voice on the other end. "Crossroads Bar, this is Lala. If you're looking for Ichiko, I can take a message for her."

"Hello, Lala. Can you try to wake her up? It's Mahiru."

"Mahiru! It's nice to hear from you again!" Lala said over the phone. "But, no can do, I'm afraid. She's out cold."

"Geez, why today?" Mahiru rolled her eyes up. "Well, it's her fault, Lala, not yours. Just tell her to call back, not this call, but the next one. It'll be one of my new classmates, Makoto Niijima. It's pretty important."

"I'll make sure she does. You have a good night, Mahiru."

"Thank you, Lala. You have a good night, too." She pulled the phone away and started swiping around for a number.

"Your contact is asleep?" Makoto fished out her own phone, ready to key in the number.

"Not sleeping. She's blackout drunk." Mahiru found the contact page and showed it to Makoto. "Her name is Ichiko Ohya, she's a journalist who publishes some of my photographs. And also a dysfunctional alcoholic. But, she might be your best bet."

Makoto's phone rang to a factory standard voicemail message. She hung up without a word, the number getting through was enough. "Do I really just wait to hear back?" she said. "What if this time tomorrow, she's passed out again?"

"Yeah, fifty-fifty odds of that happening," Mahiru said. "You just saw, I've had a pretty hard time reaching her just to send photos. She never totally ghosts me, though, so I wouldn't worry about that, but it could take a while."

With little else to do but wait, Makoto put her phone away and sat up straight. For now, she was alone with Mahiru, who looked to still be fiddling with her phone. For a moment at ease, Makoto wondered if this, so casually and effortlessly expressive, was how the photo shoot with Ann and Mika went.

And if the Ultimate Photographer trusted themselves like this, and the Ultimate Yakuza and the Ultimate Swordswoman, and all the rest of Hope's Peak all trusted in their talents like second nature, maybe Makoto could trust hers as well.

Whatever Ultimate Luck meant, as long as she was willing to face it, a fifty-fifty chance was the best odds she had in years.

The hospital door closed on an evenly cut black ponytail. Makoto tried looking after it, turning his head this way and that, with none of yesterday's pain. He looked around at the fixtures, the equipment, the rail for a curtain, and aside from a few things being moved around as they were practically used, he thought he'd been in this exact room before.

Over a few minutes, he concluded that it was, but it could just as easily have been any other room in the hospital, since he also thought he remembered Shiho's room looking just like this too.

A knock at the door interrupted Makoto's thoughts, just as well too, because what was he even thinking?

A nurse let Niijima in, and gave them the room. She approached him slowly, only seeing the extent of his injuries now for the first time. Some of it, she'd missed forever.

Or just until next time.

There could always be a next time, Makoto thought. And at this rate, it wouldn't even be that far away.

"Naegi," she said, pushing a seat by the corner of the hospital bed. She sat down, directly in view. "How are you doing?"

"Not so bad now," Makoto said. "I can talk again, so there's that." His voice leaked, not a full recovery by any stretch, but good enough to get out of here and back to school. "Thanks for saving me, back there."

"It's the least I could do," Niijima said.

"You could have done nothing," Makoto said.

"No." Niijima shook her head. "I really couldn't just stand by and do nothing. Not anymore. I can't, and you can't. But we also can't act alone."

"So, wait, did you know what I was trying to do?" Makoto's head sprang up.

"I had a feeling." Niijima leaned forward, head down over his ankles. "Sis told me you brought something up to her, and there was an article in the school paper about a part time job scam. I figured, if you were talking to my sister, about anything, it'd be that. But there's more to it than you think."

Makoto felt at his neck, raw, but closed. "I gathered as much, these past two days," he said. "There's a lot going on I don't know about. That's why I wanted her help-"

"But she won't budge without evidence," Niijima said. "That's what you were doing in Shibuya, wasn't it? You wanted to expose the whole criminal organization."

"She told me it wasn't going to be easy, even with the two dealers arrested," Makoto said. "She said she knew someone who tried."

Niijima said something under her breath, a startled gasp. She took out her phone. "I have one last lead on the head of the gang," she said. "A journalist who, until recently, did just what we're doing now. She's proposing a trade. A Yakuza boss, for the Phantom Thieves."

"I can't." Makoto had spilled their names to enough people now, people who wanted to take them down, wanted to be the ones to do it, no matter if it was right or wrong, no matter what the cost. "It's their secret," he said. "I'm sure they have their reasons to keep it."

"I know you stood up for them before," Niijima said. "What if we can trust her with this? We can talk as long as it takes to find out. It'll be up to us."

They didn't know what Niijima's contact would do with the Phantom Thieves' identities. Publishing them was a pretty safe guess. But if she knew, and was willing to tell, who the kingpin behind the blackmail was, maybe she could see things their way.

Makoto had made his stance clear. Everyone he discussed it with, he felt like he could tell their stance just as clearly. If they talked things through, they could definitely find out where the journalist stood.

He looked up, locked eyes with Niijima, and nodded. "It's worth a shot."

As long as they could know what she'd do, it wasn't about trusting the journalist. It was about trusting themselves. If they couldn't trust their own judgment at this point, then what were they even doing?

Niijima made the call. "Ohya, it's Niijima," she said. "We made up our minds. We want to talk face to face, so there's no misunderstanding. That works. We'll see you tomorrow."

Tomorrow, it was settled. It was a familiar, inevitable feeling. Tomorrow, Makoto would lay his cards on the table, and see what happened.