Can't reply to guest comment so here's a thank you to Bobbyneko for liking this story:)
It's nine at night, the summer sun has just set below the horizon and night quickly falls, bringing darkness along. The small neighborhood which didn't have much activity in the first place is now even more quiet. Genta Kojima takes in a big mouthful of coffee and then a bite of the eel from his bento. Though they've been staying at the same location and waiting for four hours, no one can be sure if there might be actual progression with the case the next second, so it's vital that he satisfies his belly at all times in order to put in 120% effort to work and focus efficiently.
"How's it going?" The sound of a woman suddenly appears to break the long silence within the car.
"Nothing so far." As Mitsuhiko Tsubaraya says so towards the Detective Boys Badge, he also keeps watch of the streets to not miss any changes.
"Remember to report any new progress you make."
"Gotcha." As Ayumi Yoshida says so, she also observes everything carefully with the only pair of binoculars that they have.
"The target came out!" Accompanying the hoarse yet loud sound of Genta which travels into her ears happens to be the sound of the car engine doing its work. Haibara originally thought that the day would just end like this, who knew that she would actually receive their news about an hour later.
Although she can't be sure, but the fact that the target actually came out in the middle of the night to do god knows what shall be done firms her view even more; that certainly isn't any kind presence.
They spend nearly seven hours following the target who went to all sorts of places including a pharmacy, a supermarket, a high class restaurant, a park, a gym, a flower shop, a food stand on the side of the street, a river, a beauty salon, a hardware store, a photographic studio, etc. The Detective Boys get tired out, and in the end they just return to the starting point. Haibara looked through all the messages and photos that they provide by text, and still cannot make anything out of them. She feels as if they've been fooled.
Wait a moment….
She revisits the photos one by one starting from the very beginning. It seems that every place that they went to, there's always this one man wearing casual clothing who appears in the most unnoticeable corners of certain photos. The main thing is, with the change of location, he also changes into an outfit that's somewhat different from the previous combination. The only thing that remains the same is the casualty in his style, and those dark orange decoration glasses before his eyes.
There's no chance of that, the fact that this tall man who seems to be in the 180s in centimeters appearing everywhere they go, being any coincidence. He seems to have changed his disguise every time, and from the angle that they snap the photos, it isn't possible to identify the specifics of the way he looks. Could it be that—
Kudo Kuroba once again comes to the Tsukiya Psychological Consultation Clinic. Once again he comes to the first and second underground floors, and eventually before the lab.
It may be that he didn't sleep enough, somehow he keeps seeing double images. So he pinches himself, and this condition gets a little better.
Once again he sits on the seat of The Dream Exploring Machine and quickly falls asleep. This time, all there is in front of him is darkness, and all he can hear is the hasty yet rather routine breathing sound of a man.
He opens his eyes to see a familiar figure fighting hard with all his might. His vision slowly clears up. He sees that this person is dressed fully in black, and what surrounds him, is a crowd of machines—
Not until his sight fully clears up, it suddenly darkens again. Then, he awakes with a sentence in his mind, a sentence by Suzukawa.
He doesn't know what that dream meant, but he believes that the figure should have been Futoumiya, and that the lab must have been Suzukawa's lab—
"Haibara Haibara," Mitsuhiko says while she was thinking, "another person came out." As he says so, another photo gets sent over.
"Follow him!" she immediately commands after seeing who that is—
"Ai-chan," says Ayumi as she breathes heavily while trying to catch her breath, "we looked for a long time, yet we still can't find her."
The sound of something dropping onto the ground is followed by the sound of mixed-up signals. Frightful surprise appears in those eyes which open wide. Genta hits the gas pedal without hesitation and immediate heads towards Hakase's house.
"It can't be..." Ayumi thinks to herself as tears circle in her eyes, "Ai-chan and Hakase will be fine."
Burning with impatience, they could not help but feel angry and fearful at the same time—
A short-haired lady walks before the plain house and knocks on the door. An older yet still rather beautiful woman with long light brown hair walks out and welcomes her in.
"Already done? Thanks a lot," that older woman tells her using sign language.
The short-haired woman nods her head, and then the long-haired woman pats her on the head. They then go walk down the stairs and into the undergrounds.
After fingerprint verification and iris recognition are done with, the doors automatically open. Yet unlike the doors, everything behind them are not familiar to her. However, she does feel as if she has seen this place before. Dark blue light dimly shines upon the entire laboratory. Located in the most interior and tied to the two ends of a machine, happens to be two bodies which look exactly the same.
"Thanks a lot, for actually coming here to seek your own death." There isn't any change in the tone of her voice, but on her face there's the addition of a smile.
The short-haired woman hadn't replied yet when the long-haired woman reaches into the inner side of her large white lab coat and takes out something that looks like a phone. "You should practice more with your sign language."
"You knew it from the start," the calm voice of a man comes out the mouth of the short-haired woman, "that I'm not Mai." Along with the slight change in the tone, he lets out a slight smile.
"So what do you do now?" says Tsukiya as she takes a few steps forward until there's only two meters of distance between them. She takes a swipe on the screen of the remote using her thumb, and a blue light comes on. "It seems that the first-party won't live for much longer, and you should be the only one left in the second party by now." As she says so, she smoothes her hair back and reveals the earphone worn on her right ear. The silence on the other side really satisfies and assures her—
The Detective Boys, with Genta leading the way, rush out from the car to see that all there is before them is just ruins, and leaning against the wall is a pile of broken down metal garbage—
"Mission..." she says with an abnormal voice, without any particular emotion involved, "target locked." That kind of tone accompanied by the emptiness in those eyes results in a chill crawling up the back—
"This is all part of your plan." Kudo stares dead straight into her eyes, not allowing any details of her actions to escape from his view.
"Well aren't you smart." She doesn't avoid him, and there's no delay to her verbal response. It seems that she's looking forward to the next step he takes.
"Saiesu Tsukiya, legend has it in the science field that she's an extraordinary genius. She started attending Waseda with a major in the arts at the age of sixteen, and then decided to go into the Department of Life Science and Medical Bioscience a month later while also minoring in Computer Science and Engineering. Few could match up to her accomplishments with research in genomics, especially cloning technology, at least when she was in school. After she graduated, it seemed as if she suddenly just disappeared. No one knew what kind of work she got into." Haibara's words replay themselves in his mind.
"Professor Suzukawa may have already, unfortunately, been murdered by her."
An image appears in his head in which that black-clothed person fights against that figure who appears to be Shinsanrou Suzukawa. Contrary to his appearance, he does not have any trouble moving around with great agility; in fact, he's so quick to the point that one could hardly find any weak spot and so could only manage to maintain a posture of defense.
"You're the one who killed Suzukawa."
"Why no," she says as she removes her glasses and puts them in her pocket, "all I did was have someone else dirty his knife." In those eyes, one could sense a feeling of sincerity.
Hidden behind that lightness, is the face of a devil. She takes a few more steps forward, and for the sake of being cautious he starts to take some steps backwards. He gets closer and closer to the two original bodies, and doesn't stop until she stops.
"What's your purpose for doing all this?"
She takes a look at the original bodies of Kudo and Kuroba. Without moving, they seem like dead bodies.
Yet somehow he could feel that they're still alive.
"Takes quite some effort and time to explain everything."
"Futoumiya of Tahou T20 actually accepting the deal as a private one, what's the chance of that?" Haibara's voice appears in his head again, "and arranging the meeting at the Psychological Consultation Clinic which is suited for investigating your lost memory even before knowing what you're requesting him to do, what's the chance of that?"
"Has to do with Futoumiya and Tahou."
"Beautiful, beautiful deduction."
He closes his eyes. What first pops up in his mind are the multiple warnings that Haibara gave him. Then, he sees a black-clothed man who seems to struggle a little as he fights with his bare hands. Although he's not familiar with that face, but he has a feeling that it's definitely Futoumiya.
Many wounds are visible on Futoumiya's body, and a fresh blood red bleeds through the openings on his black shirt. The only wound that's not bleeding happens to be the one on his charming fair-complexioned face. Of course Kuroba and Kudo know, that's because he's wearing a mask.
There's also wounds on the fake Suzukawa's body, yet those cuts are instead like empty holes without any red. There's also a wound on that face, a long one from his left eye to his right face, serving as a large seam.
Yet it doesn't seem to bother that guy at all. His face is expressionless and his eyes are full of emptiness. The next second, a punch hits Futoumiya right on the belly and another goes for his head.
He didn't get to the result of that punch when the image suddenly disappears. He opens his eyes to see that Tsukiya just removed her finger from the remote, and on her face there's still this strange smile which makes him feel hatred.
"She was one of our brilliant research scientists. After she had worked for us for more than a decade, she switched to being a psychological consultant." Another voice pops up in his mind. Those are the words that Futoumiya said when they first came here.
An interesting thought pops up. "Do you have some conflict with Futoumiya?" This sentence suddenly just escapes from his mouth.
"Indeed I do," she says as she frowns a little, "but I do have to thank him for granting me freedom."
Seeing that confusion is written all over his face, she continues to talk: "Since you won't live for long anyway." There's a unique feeling to that voice, the sort of low voice of a woman. As she says so, she takes out a gun located to the side of her body on her belt.
From the tone of her remark, he senses danger. The best choice to do now is to seize that gun and then that remote. But when he attempts to focus his eyes somewhere else, so does her eyes, they also move in the same direction as his, as if she sees through what he's thinking.
"Seventeen years ago, I joined Tahou after just having graduated from university, and I became one of the members of the Scientific Research Department." As she says so, she takes a seat on the experiment stand which has nothing on it, and casually wipes the gun using her lab coat. "You can't even imagine...besides the difference in basic authority and power that comes along with the ranked positions, equality thrives in that place more than any other."
She sets the gun and remote aside, and lifts her head up, as if she's expecting and looking forward to some sort of reaction.
He only knows a little bit about Tahou, but Kudou can really imagine the reality of the equality that she talks of.
No matter if one knows nothing of the world matters, if one's hands are coated with blood, if one is famous in a good or bad way, and no matter if one is on the black or white side...as long as one wills to submit to and work for Tahou, they'll accept anyone as part of them no matter who that might be. Yep, even if it's a family like Futoumiya, for every generation there has always been people who sell-willingly join, and others who accept the condition of never telling people about the existence of Tahou so that they can go live their normal lives.
Equally distributing those profits that belong to the members, dealing with members who do things wrong in a fair way, and just plainly existing on this world as they maintain control over everything. There's no need to a name, and neither to a stance. This is the type of organization that Tahou happens to be.
It's an organization whose founding date is unknown, and whose ends are yet to know.