They split up: Kido and Seto go with Mary in Seto's car, while Momo and Shintaro search the surrounding neighborhood on foot. Hibiya uses his allowance money and shares the bill for a cab with Konoha (who produces money of his own. Claims he doesn't know where he got it.), the two of them disappearing down the dark road. They all have their phones on them (Ene goes with her Master, as she always does), and Kido makes them promise to keep in touch.
It's almost three in the morning, and they've almost called it quits. Kido doesn't remember Mekaku City being so dark and gloomy before, and Seto can't see much with factory smog and cigarette smoke filling the sky. He considers asking a woman if she's seen his brother, but she is rough edges and mink coats, sneering at anything that isn't thirty years old and married with kids.
He passes her by, and wonders if Kano would venture so far out, in the first place.
He hopes not.
Come to this address, Shintaro texts and attaches his current map location. Hurry.
On our way, Kido texts faster than she can read her own words. Seto makes a sharp left turn, earning the wrath of the other drivers via honks and middle fingers.
They can't get there fast enough.
Hibiya and Konoha get to Shintaro and Momo before Seto and Kido do. The names are enough to give Hibiya whiplash—reminding him of their circumstances, and how none of them would have been brought together if they didn't share the same tragedy.
If their eyes didn't shine the same color.
"What's going on?" he murmurs, voice drowned by the pattering rain. It's been drizzling all day, stopped for a while, and now it's a bucket of water away from a full-on downpour. He pulls up his hoodie, and pretends he's wearing a long-sleeve sweater, instead. "Did you find him?"
Konoha is silent, but his face falls when he realizes something. Shintaro and Momo haven't said anything themselves, but they're hesitant to answer. "I think it's best if I show you," Momo insists. She steps aside, revealing more of the brick wall standing behind her.
Hibiya approaches it—groaning as the water has leaked through his shoes, and into his socks-with caution. "W-Whoa," he sputters. "What is that?"
"Who is that?" Konoha agrees. "She—"
"Her name is Ayano Tateyama," Shintaro explains. He seems to be move involved in this issue than he thinks, or wants to be. "And she's, she's—"
"Dead."
They turn around, and come face-to-face with the leader, herself. She is aghast at the sight of it—of the paint splattered on the brick wall in chunks, sprayed in layers of uneven handling. Maybe it's the rain, but the colors are all washed out, and only the lingering red remains.
Seto is silent. Kido dares to speak the mural into existence. "Ayano Tateyama," she reads the smudged handwriting at the bottom. "The world is not as bright without you."
They don't find Kano that night, or the night after that, or the night after that. They don't find him for weeks on end, and it sucks because if they weren't vagrants or orphans or children tortured with powers beyond their comprehension, they might have filed a missing persons report with the police.
But they are vagrants, orphans, and children tortured with more than just their own powers. They are broken, haphazard, and clinging onto the lie that they have their lives in order, instead.
Kido returns to the scene of the crime: the back alleyway leading to a painted wall, although rain and time have almost eradicated the mural in whole, and the only evidence left of Kano was retrieved long ago.
His gas mask and his paint roller.
It's only now that Kido realizes, the words written at the bottom of the wall are crumbly and dry—much different from the washed-out paint textures above them.
She realizes that the words, Ayano Tateyama. The world is not as bright without you, are written in blood.
She laughs before screaming.
Months later, and the kids are at the beach. It's not a sudden thing, but Momo wanted them to do something fun, for once. Get their minds off the pain and suffering. Get their minds off Kano.
It's taken a long time for Kido to consider the idea, let alone go through with it. Yet here she is, sitting in the sand, collecting shells and burying her feet in mud. And there Momo and Mary are, splashing each other like kids, screaming before the waves hit them both. Behind her is Seto, who plays volleyball with Hibiya and Konoha. It lasts for five minutes before Konoha spikes the ball too hard, causing it to deflate. They've switched over to building sand castles, now.
Kido even cooked lunch, for once, and maybe it's because months have passed since her last home-cooked meal, but it tastes delicious. The last of it is packed away into her giant canvas bag, but she can still taste the chicken in her mouth.
It is almost, almost, almost a perfect day. The waves are beautiful and blue, and Kido can't hear her thoughts over the sea gulls, circling around them with curious eyes.
She stares into the horizon, past the waves and the boats and the little islands up ahead. She stares at the clouds, wispy and white, swathed against a blue sky—robin's egg and full.
Time passes, and everyone is just about done with the beach. The energy level comes down, receding with the waves which have also calmed. Mary's ribbon flies out of her hair, and Kido, seeing it flail across the sand, calls out "I'll get it!" and runs to catch it. She kicks up sand with every step, and thinks vaguely about the public showers, and how they'll all need to rinse the gravel out of them. Seto's car is beat up and nearly ruined, but making it worse isn't going to help whatsoever.
She thinks about saltwater, seafood, sunshine on their backs—just as she thinks about sand, dirt roads, and daisies that spring from the sidewalk, her thoughts all come crashing down. Suddenly, it's as if her head is empty, and her throat closes up on a scream that wants to come from her core, come bubbling up to the surface.
There is a piece of clothing stuck to the jetties.
It's black and soaked.
She stumbles to it as if drunken, mesmerized, hazed. She falls to her knees, and crawls her way over, scraping skin against rocks and shells but not caring in the least. She cries out for help, her voice lost to the sea and the winds picking up around them.
Ene hears her, and summons the others. There is a parade of footsteps behind Kido now, and she barely registers the noise.
She reaches out to the rocks. The clothing is black and white, well-worn, familiar. It's been in the water for some time, though, because the material of the cloth isn't soft anymore. It is drenched, squishy, soaked at her fingers. She opens the jacket, gasping for air at the clumps of sickly yellow hair fall out. Streams of red are wet and renewed by seawater, but stains on the inner folds reveal them for what they are—blood.
"No," she whimpers out. "No, no, no, no!"
She holds the jacket to her chest, shutting her eyes closed as she remembers the sights, remembers him for what he is.
For what he might never be.