I want to deliver the fragments of the wind from that day—

To you, far away from here.

The evening glow glistened on the river streaming along the meadow path. From a far, Kaito could recognise his childhood friend standing ahead, shading her gaze from the blinding sunlight that shone red hues on her silhouette.

Kaito cupped his hands around his mouth, shouting for her to hurry up. Aoko simply squinted and curled her fingers around her eyes as she stared at him through her make-shift binoculars. The playful glint in her eyes darkened, and it was only then Kaito felt the stiffness of his suit and the familiar weight of his cape hanging from his shoulders.

"It's not what you think—" he started, pulling his tie loose and walking up to her. Blazer thrown on the floor and his monocle somewhere lost in the grass. "Please, believe me—"

"Spare me that nonsense," Aoko replied, fastening her gaze on the incriminating evidence bearing witness against him. Her voice carried away with the wind as the gentle evening breeze brushed by, prickling his skin as she stepped closer, holding him still as her fingers curled over his shoulder. "People like you make me sick the most."

Aoko leaned forward, and her scent of vanilla crept into his nose, thick enough to make him nauseous.

"You two-faced pile of—"

.

.

.

Kaito hit the floor with an air-filling thud, awakening yet from another dream, drenched in cold sweat. Across him, Jii-chan frowned at him reproachingly, momentarily diverting his gaze from the laptop neatly perched on his lap. "Another nightmare?"

"No," Kaito lied as he pushed himself off the floor, trying to regain his lost dignity when Jii-chan's stern gaze already saw through him. Kaito gestured vaguely to the couch. "It's just too tiny for a nap, you know?"

Jii-chan raised a disbelieving brow, and Kaito was secretly glad his elder didn't mention the several occasions Kaito had slept on it peacefully without qualms. Instead, Jii-chan simply redirected his gaze toward the news streamed on the TV and muttered the same thought that had had been plaguing Kaito's mind as of late.

"Isn't it strange that no progress on Kid's case has been made?"

Well, yes, Kaito thought, even though he said. "No, they're keeping everything under wraps, remember?"

"Yes, but with Nakamori-Keibu on the case, I kind of expected him to be knocking on our doors already," Jii-chan said, looking at him sharply. "Is there any specific reason why he hasn't yet?"

"How would I know that?" Kaito asked, countering the elder with another question, and whilst it was effective, it only parried Jii-chan off for a moment, as he took the time to wipe his glasses with the edge of his shirt as he thought aloud:

"I'm wondering whether there's something you haven't told me yet?"

"As if there's anything," Kaito snorted, keeping a warily glance at the elder, who tried his best to place two and two together even though there was nothing to add.

"Still, I can't help but think there's a reason why Nakamori-san hasn't taken action yet."

"And what reason would there be?" Kaito asked, indulging him. "Aren't you forgetting that Nakamori-Keibu's hands have been tied ever since his place from the Task Force has been stripped?"

"But do you think that would have been enough to stop Nakamori-Keibu from catching Kid?" Jii-chan asked, and Kaito wasn't entirely sure how to answer. Sure, considering how much Nakamori-Keibu wanted to bring Kid behind bars, he would be the first one in line advocating for Kid's arrest with or without his police rank. After all, the inspector's zealousness didn't allow for anything to stop him from reaching his goals. But that only counted for Nakamori-Keibu – the officer.

The priority list for Nakamori-san didn't entirely share the same sentiment. For the father, there was only one matter more important than Kid, and possibly the only reason why someone as driven as Nakamori-Keibu would ever cease his pursuit of Kid.

Kaito tightened his grip on his trousers, barking out a laugh, sudden and light, as though the entire notion was too ridiculous to comprehend. "Aren't you thinking about it too much?"

"Kaito, aren't you thinking about it too little?"

He shook his head, firmly, throwing every word Jii-chan hurled at him out of his ears. "No, what you're implying is too far-fetched to be true."

"But what if it isn't?"

Kaito chewed on his tongue, rethinking the probabilities, but even then it seemed so ludicrous. Still, Kaito clambered onto his feet and grabbed his jacket, figuring to check it out even though he doubted it could possibly be the case.

Kaito entered the garage and threw his leg over his motorcycle, tightening his grip on the bars when his fingers trembled. Silently, he breathed from his nose, shutting his eyes, remembering:

Don't forget your poker face.

Kaito turned on the engine, stilling the jumbled thoughts in his mind as he raced through the city, knowing for Nakamori-Keibu to be occupied with anything other than Kid could only mean that he hadn't taken up his position as an officer yet. He was only a citizen right now. In other words, Nakamori-Keibu wasn't anything more than a father right now. And naturally that meant—

Aoko has woken up.

Whether the thought elated him, or despaired him, Kaito wasn't entirely sure. He barely knew how to face her when he parked and unfasted his helmet, climbing up the stairs in two's and crossing the distance, that spanned between the entrance of the hospital and the room he had spent countless hours waiting for her to wake up—for her to face him and tear down his façades as angry and upset as she was—as angry and upset as she should be—as he had expected her to be.

Yet, strangely, she had surrounded him with nothing but silence, lying quietly and so still – unperturbed and undisturbed by his presence. Almost as if there were no ambers of ignited hate slumbering inside the depth of her heart, but rather a tranquil gentleness that emanated from her being.

As though it had been any other day that she had spent sleeping – fallen asleep at the table with stray worksheets piled underneath her cheeks. A cover over her shoulders that he had placed before he had left to wash their cups in the sink and stack them up at the dish drainer in her home that felt more familiar than his own.

But even when Aoko seemed strangely at ease in his proximity, Kaito wasn't so easily fooled.

As tranquil and gentle as she may seem, Kaito was certain, she was hating each second she had to lie next to him – to endure his presence when she would most likely want nothing more than rip him into pieces. But even then, Aoko lay silently on the bed, her lips firmly shut, and her eyes firmly closed, as though the lingering spirit of her wrath never existed in the first place.

Or at least that was what she wanted him to think.

But Kaito wasn't so easily fooled. He knew that even without Aoko's hatred for Kid that set her heart ablaze—even without the injury she received by some strange thief with a gun, the sole fact that her best friend and childhood friend had lied and ripped her entire reality to pieces was enough for Aoko to take her father's lighter and burn ten years into ashes.

The mere thought that she might not be angry was nothing more than shallow fantasies concocted by his wishful mind. No matter how peaceful she slept, surely it couldn't be any more than an act. A ploy to trick him into lowering his defences so she could easily wrench his heart as ruthlessly as he had wrenched hers. But even then—

"This isn't like you. Isn't telling me off what you do usually?" he had asked her once when the hours stretched too long.

But even then, Aoko remained silent, even though Kaito knew she was wide awake underneath the thin sheet of her eyelids, listening and fathoming, knowing she had never given him the silent treatment before. The mere fact that she was giving him one spoke louder than any screaming-fest she could have ever summoned.

But the sentiment hadn't thrown Kaito off track as much as the action itself. The act alone caused Kaito to wonder whether he might have made a mistake thinking he wasn't fooled when he might have been fooled from the very beginning . . .

Kaito tightened his grip on her doorknob. But the unease still hadn't dissipated from his clutch, weakening his grip until he lost the strength to turn it. Even though he had thrown out these thoughts, they were relentlessly pushing and shoving forward into the forefront of his mind, and Kaito knew it was too late to ignore them any longer when they were so clearly visible even for Jii-chan's specs-less gaze.

Kaito shut his eyes and leaned his forehead on the door, enduring it as he had always done.

I just want to protect these memories –

Tangled with the inevitable thorns.

Standing in front of the Keishichō without his typical police rank, Ginzō felt like a trespasser entering the building. He walked past the elevator toward the reception desk, inquiring where in this entire building the quarters for the Secret Task Force were situated.

Whilst Ginzō met them in his line of work on occasion, he had never particularly visited their offices since they had been steadily coming to his. As Ginzō thought about it, he was strangely perplexed as to why that was, until he was told their quarters weren't anywhere near the mid-upper floors – where the usual branches of the second division were – but rather the lower floor levels, close to the third division.

He headed toward the room where the new receptionist directed him, knocked three times, and entered once he received the go ahead in the form of a quick "Come in".

Ginzō was startled to see that their office consisted of a small room containing a coffee table and two couches, a coffee machine, and handful of cubicles scattered at each side of the room with respective name tags hung on them. All in all, a considerable downgrade from Ginzō's own office at the second division.

Across him, three officers were sitting on the couches, materials scattered on the desk, and from what he could gather, Ginzō realised he had been interrupting their meeting, or rather he had come late for the meeting. But before he could apologise, Reika motioned for him to have a seat.

Ginzō held back the urge to ask her whether the three of them were all of their members, and simply sat down, knowing it was more important to be up to speed on their data. But he was rather startled at Reika's sudden disclaimer.

"As I said before, anything discussed here is strictly confidential. If anyone else were to know any information shared here, it won't be hard to find out whom it came from, and the person identified will be prosecuted accordingly."

"Isn't such a matter obvious enough?" Ginzō said, wondering whether these disclaimers were a ritual part of their meetings, but Reika simply shook her head.

"You're new here so I'm not expecting you to know this. But right now, we're dealing with a crisis that makes it a necessary requirement."

"Ah, that's right," someone else chimed in, and Ginzō wasn't entirely sure whether he had seen the person before. His confusion must have shown on his face since the officer started to introduce himself. "I'm Taichi-Keibu-ho. I'm not sure we met but I was part of the evacuation force last heist."

"I see," Ginzō said, shaking his hand and introducing himself too out of politeness, certain they knew who he was since they had worked under his guidance. He glanced at the remaining unaddressed officer and ascertained his thought, recognising him as none other than the Junsa-buchō who had been classified as missing during the ō remembered issuing the order to place him on the watchlist as one of the potential candidates Kid could personate to infiltrate the gallery—

"Since you were a part of the second division, I'm sure you've heard about the contest?" Taichi asked, gauging how much the inspector knew. Whilst Ginzō has heard about that none-sense, he hadn't particularly paid attention to it, having focused all his energy first into his preparation to catch Kid and then into the evacuation process which had almost sapped the soul from his body from the stress.

"I have," he said at last, realising they were waiting for an answer. "What about it?"

"Well, we were the ones who asked the Superintendent to give the go ahead for that event to take place," Taichi admitted. "It was a necessary step to take. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to carry out our objective."

"Which is?" Ginzō asked, more perturbed than perplexed, not entirely sure which kind of objectives needed such weird measures. Across him, Taichi quieted down, seemingly thinking how to explain it to him, an outsider to their force even if recently relegated.

"Well," Taichi started, still hesitant, and he glanced at his colleagues for help, who suddenly found their mugs increasingly interesting. Ginzō figured the matter must have been more serious than he had initially figured.

"Are there any files I can refer to?" he asked, trying to help the lad out from having to explain.

"No, we haven't documented anything yet," Taichi said, rubbing the back of his neck, glancing yet again at Reika, who was fully concentrated picking imaginary lint from her blouse. "This is more of a hunch than anything—"

"You made a serious decision based on a hunch?" Never had Ginzō thought that Chaki-Keishi would accept such nonsensical demands based on a mere hunch—

"It's not that we didn't document out of failure to uphold police proceedings – it's rather we couldn't," Taichi said. "We didn't want for our plans to be revealed."

"You don't mean to say—"

"Exactly that. The second division has been infiltrated," Taichi said, and Ginzō couldn't entirely comprehend it. At least not yet when his mind was still racing through the heist to find any inconsistencies that matched their argument.

"What gave you the impression?" the inspector asked at last, coming up short.

"Well, the first indicator was the fact that Snake's men had entered the gallery without anyone's notice. And whilst that's possible for several reasons," Taichi added once he saw Ginzō opening his mouth to protest. "The second and most convincing indicator was that the bombs had been installed without anyone having been caught on the security footage that Suzuki had set up a week prior. And naturally that's only possible if someone knew exactly where the cameras were."

"Not to mention, that one of our co-workers had installed the cameras in such a way there would be no blind angles," Reika suddenly chirped in, pushing one of the documents closer to Ginzō, who recognised that the single sheet of paper depicted several aligned pictures from the surveillance footage, each of them black.

"Ah, so someone switched them off," Ginzō glanced up. "Wouldn't the one who installed them be the first suspect?"

"Well, unfortunately, he has passed away at the heist." Reika said, passing over another document, containing another set of images from the surveillance footage. "He had been shot by her – Tachibana, she used to be your receptionist, if you remember."

Of course, Ginzō remembered. Tachibana had been one of the few people he had trusted to help prepare the logistics of his anti-heist measures . . .

Ginzō lowered his gaze, breathing in deep when his airways suddenly constricted, feeling lightheaded as the realisation had bulldozed over him.

"So, that's the reason why we had such a high casualty rate," his hands curled into a fist. "A trusted member of the police force had aided the criminal?"

"No, not a member," Itsuki mumbled and after Ginzō's burning stare, he cleared his throat, speaking louder. "It's not a member of the police force but a group of officers working together with the criminal."

Itsuki picked up a file from the table and pulled out two pictures. "That's Tanaka, she used to be part of the Secret task Force. And the other one is Naomi. She used to be part of your Task Force. Other than them, they are plenty of others. But we haven't had a chance to smoke them out yet."

"And I take the both of them are missing since no arrests were made." Ginzō said after a while, still digesting the fact that the members of his Task Force had been infiltrated without him knowing. "But why wasn't I informed? Surely, we could have caught them during the heist—"

"No, that was out of the question," Reika informed him. "After all, we didn't know your allegiances. For all we knew, you could have been secretly working together with Kid or Snake."

"And what made you think otherwise?"

"The fact that you didn't know any of this was going on," she answered. "You've been so immersed in the heist I was certain you had no idea that Snake had been ten steps ahead of you. Not to mention that even your own daughter was injured by the man himself."

Fair enough. "How about you?" Ginzō challenged. "How did the three of you realise any of this had been going on when no-one else knew?"

"Well, the Secret Task Force has been trying to infiltrate into Snake's group for some time now." Reika revealed. "A couple of months ago, one of our colleagues finally managed, but she died before she could hand in a statement. The circumstance of her death led us to believe that she had been murdered."

"On what grounds?" Ginzō asked, flicking through the file, browsing the details outlined between the pages. "Wasn't her death deemed a suicide?"

"It was. But only because falling from a building couldn't be anything else without evidence stating otherwise," Reika said, a small frown perched between her brows. "Likewise, proving our claim that she was murdered is impossible without relevant evidence."

Ginzō furrowed his brows. "But without relevant evidence, how could you be certain that the second division has been infiltrated? As far as you've told me, you have no substantial evidence connecting the Task Force to your colleague's death."

"The fact that her death coincided on the day she agreed to hand in her progress report speaks volume enough." Reika said. "But that only gave us a reason to be vigilant, of course. We didn't have a chance to test our hunches until you decided to bring Kaito as a temporary member to the police force."

"And why is that?"

Silently, Reika gripped the ear of her cup and raised it slowly, sipping for what felt like an eternity. Ginzō averted his gaze toward the other members of the Secret Task Force browsing through the files, rigid and erect to a point Ginzō knew the stiffness from their shoulders couldn't stem from anything but an uncomfortable truth.

"You ran a background check on Kaito, didn't you?" Ginzō said. "He is the perfect bait – that's what you thought, didn't you?"

An indescribable feeling flooded onto the surface of his skin, red, hot and sizzling. Ginzō recognised it as pure, unadulterated anger that took more than a moment to defuse, and Ginzō reminded himself that he was Nakamori-Keibu right now, the inspector. Not Nakamori-san who had known Kaito since he was a toddler fresh out of kindergarten.

Not the Nakamori-san who had found the younger curled up in the waiting room, stilling the quivers from his body with nothing but the arms he had wrapped around himself as he gripped the fabric of his clothes, caked with blood and the scent of vanilla.

And certainly not the Nakamori-san who had placed a reassuring hand on Kaito's shoulder outside the Emergency Room, as though he hadn't heard the younger hurl the contents of his stomach in the toilet moments prior.

"To my defence – anyone would have thought so." Reika said, after a moment of silent contemplation. "You must admit he is the best possible candidate to be Kid after all."

"Is that why you pushed the narrative?"

"I needed to make sure Snake and his men took the bait – but even then I never forced him to be our decoy." Reika added. "He volunteered—"

"And you thought that would make it okay?"

"Here, in this Task Force, we follow the hunches we believe are right—"

"What gave you the certainty they were right though?" Ginzō knew as an inspector, he couldn't allow his emotions to spiral out of control. But the mere thought that they had not only placed his daughter and her childhood friend in jeopardy – but every other spectator who had come to visit the gallery – surged an anger inside his chest that accumulated in waves, threatening to submerge him, until Ginzō was certain he would combust any time now from the fury he withheld in himself.

"Nothing. It's just a matter of gut feeling," Reika answered. "We mainly work undercover and taking risk and ploughing seeds is what we do. Whether the results are positive or negative doesn't matter much since we're kept secret after all."

"Are you telling me, just because your existence is kept from the public, you were happy to do as you pleased, even though your actions could have had such a negative impact?" Ginzō was unable to understand how they could have had the audacity to wreck such havoc and detrimental damageunder the excuse of justice. "Where on earth is your sense of responsibility?"

"With the victims, of course," Reika answered. "They won't ever get to know who the criminal was that did this to them if we only follow the usual conventional matters. Both Kid and Snake aren't simple thieves that can be easily caught, but professionals who we need to outwit."

Ginzō knew that – or at least, the officer in him knew that. After all, it was because of Kid's expertise in magic that Ginzō had invited Kaito to become a temporary member in his Task Force. But still, the fact that he had come close to lose his daughter and her childhood friend because of their dereliction remained undisputed. No reasonings and explanation could ever justify the implications of what might have happened. The officer in him be damned.

"Are catching thieves more important than the lives we're meant to protect as officers?"

"It's by catching thieves we protect the lives we swore to save as officers," Reika corrected, and even though Ginzō had always abided by that opinion, he couldn't exactly agree with her, knowing how far she would go to catch those very same thieves, and so he asked:

"Even if it means sacrificing the very lives we swore to protect?"

"Taking risks is what we do," Reika repeated. "Kaito was aware of it too. We briefed him extensively before we dispatched him on the field. I'm sure he had his own reasons for taking up that task."

"Have you asked him what his reasons were to put himself at risk to that extent?"

"Of course not," Reika answered easily, stacking the files together. "If I asked you why you've joined our task force, would you have answered truthfully?"

Of course not. Ginzō didn't even need to think twice about it. He blew the air from his cheeks, barely believing he had found himself in such a position. Chaki-Keishi's decision to withdraw him from the case couldn't have been more of a punishment. In fact, being required to remain impartial as an officer, who couldn't side with anyone other than the law couldn't have been more of a punishment in this moment.

How could anyone remain impartial when it was their own family involved?

Ginzō pinched the bridge of his nose. He had vowed to rip the truth into pieces when he had accepted his temporary position in the Secret Task Force. And yet, going after Snake and catching these infiltrators had nothing to do with his extensive Kid knowledge. For what reason had Chaki-Keishi relegated him here?

Ginzō couldn't help but wonder whether his purpose could have been something else entirely. And after a moment of silent thought, Ginzō was certain he wasn't summoned here to catch Snake, or a bunch of infiltrators, but rather someone else who had played a much larger role in the heist than he had initially thought . . .

After a moment of silent thought, the answer Ginzō received knocked the breath out of his chest. It couldn't be –

No way.

.

.

.

Meetings and partings continue to repeat—

Are you beginning to realize how repetitive fate is?