.

.

.

Wake up, Johanna
Another bright red day
We learn, Johanna
To say...

Goodbye.

- Stephen Sondheim, Johanna (Reprise)

7 / 18 / 2016

"MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE!"

"Satanael!"

At the foot of a giant steel arm, packed to the brim with all manner of Manikins - within this arm, nested somewhere, lie both Takamaki and Niijima.

A swarm of angelic fuckers tries to dash down on us but Satanael and Robin Hood make quick work of them, shredding and rendering to pieces any who come within three meters. Cat's busy fiddling with the security lock on the big black doors in front of us while Akechi pulls me by the arm up the stairs, and my eyes float over whatever creature I want Satanael to kill next. Blood and remains splatter all over us and the refuse left to rot on the grounds.

A large shift of steel gears sounds off into the night, as the Cat yells out "Got it!" and we all rush into the giant arm, big black steel doors ornamented like jewels opening just for us. And it opens slowly, painfully miserably slowly, so Satanael keeps having to shoot things and Robin Hood vaporizes the stragglers, and once we get ourselves inside we close the doors again. Our bodies, drenched in steaming blood, so hot it nearly burns through our clothes and into our skins. Akechi and I sit ourselves down, propped up against the door; Akechi's hands are shaking as his teeth chatter, and I wonder what the fuck he must want from me, come the end of all this.

"So no Shadow had ever interrupted you while you were in that fucking evidence room?"

He looks outraged I'd get on his shit now, "No! No, they never had!"

"Well, what a lucky fucking bastard you were then." Then I get up, and tell the cat, "Good work, by the way. With the door."

"Thanks," it smiles, twirling a set of keys it had stolen off the Shadow guarding the gates. "Now, we should...go..."

We see where it's facing and we realize exactly where we are.

The hallway before us is lined with large cages on either side, each cage filled with at least ten women and girls. Some girls, obviously below eighteen, others obviously below even that. A good number of them aren't even Japanese. Judging from their skin color, some are Mexican, or Colombian. Some are black, others are white. All of them are naked, with bruises all over themselves, shackled at their ankles. Like the students and teachers in Kobayakawa's Palace none of them bear faces, their heads lacking all features except ears and unkempt hair. Stacked atop one another - this floor, this hallway alone contains three rows of cages on either side, each row containing twenty cages. Stretching far, far ahead.

The sign up above, in the center of the whole goddamn hallway, says everything we'll ever need to know about where we are and what they intend to do to them.

FOR SHIPPING/PLEASURE CENTERS

You traded not only drugs, but women and children. Sold them off like cattle for fucking money. The Manikins all reach out to us from the cages, their arms and hands stretched wide from the bars, but we cannot help them. They do not even exist; they are cognitions, but they represent people in the real world, people he's put price tags on and handed over to those who would use them as toys or worse.

"Where are they? Where's Niijima, Takamaki? We've to get them out of here."

"Agreed," nods Akechi.

"Few floors above us. About three more," says the Cat. I can feel them.

"What're Shadows here like, cat?"

"Dozens, if not hundreds of 'em. None of them near the level of Tsukioka or the Niijima Manikin. But there's one in particular, one big piece of shit who'll give us a hard time...right where I can sense Queen and Lady."

"Very well then-" BANG goes the door behind us, which barely holds together from the impact, and Akechi continues, "-perhaps we should pick up the pace!"

"Let's do."

As we dash ahead, the women keep reaching towards us, and despite the fact none of them have fucking mouths they scream, they scream terrible screams, crying over ghastly wounds painted all over their bodies - children begging me to take them back to their parents, parents begging me to take their children out of this miserable place, women crying and pleading and wishing I could save them all-

In all these cognitive girls I see Niijima's horrified, downcast face, as everything she once knew was stripped away from her like old and decayed wallpaper.

.

.

.

7 / 17 / 2016

Niijima's face is stone-cold and her movements are bitterly stiff as she changes out the film reel. I don't dare step in and tell her to relax, because this frantic horror is pretty much how I feel with the knowledge my own father is an even bigger piece of shit than I ever could've imagined.

What could I do, could I say, could I imagine that would possibly provide her with the stability she desperately needs, when I myself am in need of the same? All I would ever be able to make out is a string of empty platitudes she'll brush aside in an instant. Would she even be so stupid as to acquiesce to the demands of a fucked up piece of shit like myself?

All I can think of is how I would feel. If I'd to come to terms with all these revelations about my father, in front of all the rest of them. Then when I'd see them again they'd be crying their eyes out because I wouldn't be able to, spitting out apologies that mean nothing.

As I turn away from all this I hear her voice, "You need to stay close. In case anything happens, we all need to stay together."

She said that already, and says that now without even facing me, eyes still focused on changing out the film reels.

"I agree," says the cat. "I may not sense any Shadows near us now, but that doesn't mean they won't show up later."

Akechi nods, "Especially considering what we did the last time Tsukioka caught us in his Palace, I doubt we can even stay here for particularly long before he has his security patrol here just in case. Best for all of us to keep close."

"I told you. If you don't want to watch, or listen, you're free not to," she says robotically.

I'm compelled. That's the only explanation I have for when I march over to her and grab her shoulder, "Niijima, just wait for a second, you need to-"

And of course, as I would, she swats my hand away. She faces me, just barely on the verge of tears. Somehow she remains strong, propped up on whatever dignity she's unwilling to lose. "I was the one who got you all in Kaneshiro's sights. I've endangered you and Takamaki more times than I can count. I won't begrudge you for watching any of this, wanting to know about the man responsible for getting that monster out on the streets to begin with. You can stand there and watch. You can turn away, if you don't want to. But if you keep looking at me with the same eyes you've got on now, I will never forgive you."

Of course. She doesn't want our pity. Pity's what got her father to lie to her all his life. She wants to be free. Of all this shit hanging over her head, like some unimaginably dark thunderstorm. Makoto Niijima is stubborn, and proud, and she hates it when people feel so sorry for her that they offer to be her shoulder to lean on.

I'm also stubborn, and proud, and I hate it when people feel so sorry for me that they offer to be my shoulder to lean on.

I can't believe I nearly forgot that fact. "Alright."

She nods at me harshly, with eyes that burn into your soul; Takamaki stares at her somewhat sadly, and Niijima turns back to the hanging sheet as the projector shudders open.

It's a horribly, miserably rainy day. Film shows a bleak and dark sky, pouring large white lines upon the whole world. Tsukioka passes through crowds upon crowds of people, and from his view we can see he's wearing a large, thick-sleeved raincoat, one that shimmers in the storm. He's carrying an umbrella, which explains the hammering sounds of water splashing right overhead, and as he makes his way through we realize he's passing by a school, an elementary school.

All manner of terrible notions fill the gaps in my brain. Was he a pedophile, come here to claim a child for his own to toy with? Had he a son or daughter, who was connected to Niijima's father? Was he planning on trading drugs here of all places, in a move of naked audacity?

Then the obvious stares me in the face with big round brown eyes that've taken on a depressing shade of red.

The little girl is as short as I'd envision Masako would be at four years old, and she has short brown hair, down to her neck. She's wearing a bright pink raincoat with a panda design on her chest. She's carrying a diorama - wrapped in a clear plastic bag, one either her teacher had provided her or one she'd found while waiting. When she looks up at Tsukioka, we see her eyes, and though the film is grainy and monochrome we see patches of irritated skin around the corners, her nose runny as she breathes heavy.

Perhaps she's sick from the cold. But, and this is a gut feeling, I'm of the idea that she'd been crying, perhaps for hours.

Makoto-chan? It's me, Uncle Tsukioka. Do you remember me?

Of fucking course. Niijima does not stop the film at any point. She does not turn away, or scream or destroy all things around her in a blank white-hot rage; she stares at the screen, her shoulders deflating. Her hands, once balled up into furious fists, open wide in defeat. "I... I remember this. This was..."

The little Makoto Niijima on the screen says nothing, but nods.

I'm sorry. Your father asked me to come and pick you up. Tsukioka kneels, his old knees creaking a little as he does so, and he taps lightly against the green of the base, Would you like me to hold this for you? In large motions she shakes her head in the negative, the raincoat making light ruffling noises as she does so. He nods. Alright. Follow me closely. Stay under the umbrella. We don't want to get that wet.

She nods. Tsukioka's hunched over as the both of them make it to his car. Thanks to the umbrella, though the rain dashes on bits and pieces of the diorama, nothing is stained permanently. She sits in the navigator's seat as Tsukioka makes his way to the driver's, and she pulls the hood off her head. Revealing a bob of brown hair, with a red headband. She looks despondent, far too despondent for someone her age.

Tsukioka notices her eyes, and asks, Makoto-chan, what's wrong?

The only thing she says is, Please take me to Mommy.

Even I can feel the man's agony on the screen, though I can't see his face. It comes in the way his voice falters as he says, Your father...asked me to take you home-

Please, she almost pleads, Uncle Tsukioka?

Makoto-chan..., he inhales deeply, then lets loose a wide breath. You've to understand, that-

I wanna show her what I made for school today. Can you please take me there, Uncle? It's important.

Makoto-chan.

It's, it's very important she sees it. I want her to see it.

At once, Tsukioka realizes there's absolutely nothing he can say which could possibly dissuade her. He reaches over, pulls out the leather seatbelt on Niijima's left, and buckles her tight.

We'll get there in about thirty minutes or so. Do you understand? Are you okay with that?

I understand, she nods sadly, looking at her diorama like it's perhaps the most precious thing in the world.

Hold it close and hold it tight. We might run into traffic along the way, so it might take longer than usual to get there.

...okay.

She says that in such a tiny, frail voice; there is traffic on the way there, and it does take longer than usual, and the little Makoto Niijima is anxious and angry and she lets it show in the way her feet tap against the ground, in the way her breaths grow heavy whenever the cars in front screech to a halt, whenever she hears the honking of horns or exchanged expletives between drivers on the street - but she says nothing, throws no tantrums, and she and Tsukioka spend virtually the whole drive in silence.

The rain stops by the time they make it to the hospital and they enter, together, and little Niijima rushes forward in her tiny little boots, dashes of rain dripping down from the coat she hasn't even removed yet. Moving so fast you're afraid she'll slip, but she doesn't - Tsukioka does call out to her, reaches out to her a couple times, but she never listens and never stops. It's by sheer divine providence she doesn't drop the diorama or slip on herself as she reaches the room.

Tsukioka manages to get to her as she opens the door, and the both of them see a burly man, hunched over a hospital bed and weeping terribly. The man is holding onto the hand of the woman in the bed; the woman is so pale the film reel depicts her as being almost completely white, so white to the point where her facial features are obscured. She is horribly emaciated, her husband's arms about thrice the size of her own - if you form a circle with your index finger and thumb, you'd be able to wrap it around her wrist and yet still have enough space to fit in three more of your fingers.

Little Makoto Niijima nearly drops the diorama right then and there. She's sniffling, her words failing her as her father turns around in shock.

She...asked me to bring her here, Tsukioka says mournfully.

Niijima sniffles, her head hanging low as she shows her craft to her father, unwrapping it from the plastic. The plastic did not protect it entirely from the rain; the corners and edges especially are stained wet, but overall it remains intact in all the right places. It's a small house made of popsicle sticks painted in Crayola, with a family made of clay in the front, and a cardboard base with green-colored paper for grass. I wanted to... show this to Mommy. So she won't be mad at you anymore.

Makoto Niijima's father says nothing as he turns to her, takes the little house and places it on a nearby chair, and pulls her into a tighter hug than he'd ever given her before or since. She weeps loudly, bitterly in his arms, as he makes a constant string of apologies and lets out a restrained cry of his own. Tsukioka calmly walks, right over to the hospital bed, and clasps the hand of Atsuko Niijima as the heart monitor lets out a constant and deafening ring.

I'm so sorry, Niijima.

The scene shifts then, to a mass of people, dressed in black suits, all congregating in memoriam of someone; there is a woman, framed in the center of the wall they all look upon. The woman's features are unobscured now; long, black hair that made it down to her shoulders. I can see where Niijima inherited her eyes from, and her lips. A small, button nose; naturally pale skin that's clearer than anything. Niijima and her older sister cry at this funeral, the sister seeming to take it much harder, as she grips tighter on her father's pant legs.

The father looks like a man who has survived war, only to come home and see his home undone by a bombing run. He does not stir, does not move, does not even emote as he stares blankly at the frame. But Tsukioka does not look at Niijima's father, nor does he catch the eyes of his daughters. In fact, most of the funeral is seen through wet blurs, most of the funeral consists of looking at the frame of Atsuko Niijima.

The one time we get a good glance of Makoto Niijima's childhood self, we see her burying herself in a big hug with Tsukioka, who returns it in kind.

Even in this embrace, he keeps watch on the frame of her mother.

The film ends there, the projector making a rattling noise as the reel whirls in and out and in and out. Niijima looks like she wants to lean on something, anything, while simultaneously looking like if anyone catches her she'll kill them on the spot.

I don't dare ask what any of that meant, and neither does Takamaki, nor does Akechi, nor the cat. Niijima tries hard to quell it all down, to focus on changing the reel of film but through the light reflecting off the screen I can see tears streaming through the mask, from underneath and over her cheeks - she's crying, crying like how her younger self had in the film reel.

"Oh shit," Cat says suddenly, its ears perking up.

"What's wrong?"

"Behind us! Big one!"

Before my Persona's name can even emerge out my mouth, he comes -

Abaddon.

He takes maybe four steps, but in each of those four steps his shoes make a resounding clack that rings across the whole room. And when he appears time feels slowed, and some bizarre sense of vertigo I shouldn't have hits me right then, and I'm left more awestruck than anything else.

Abaddon.

A tall and bulky young man, dressed in a blue uniform, hat and badge and strapped gun. The sight of him leaves us all stunned beyond comprehension, but Niijima moreso than any of us. The man is hard-edged and chiseled, with a strong jaw and piercing eyes, it's honestly disturbing and distressing to see this man so clearly when all I've seen of him is grimy footage from yellowed film reels. His eyes shift over the whole lot of us like we're beneath him, and we very well might be. Every movement is measured, with confidence and ruthlessness. He did not even address us verbally from the instant he arrived, nor did he ever need to.

Abaddon.

The tall man immediately makes his way over to Makoto Niijima, and he looks at her with an almost proud glint in his eye. Raises a massive hand up to gently wipe away the tears streaming down her cheeks; he does not thumb his hands through the holes in her mask, just wipes away the tears that come through the underside. He smiles, mournful in a way, and he says, "You've grown so beautiful, Makoto."

Abaddon is the name of the Manikin of Makoto Niijima's father.

Niijima just stands there, a deer in headlights, and she's about to cry all over again - I don't know if she'll fall into his arms or beat his face into nothingness, but the first word I hear from her is "Dad," and she sounds pained, horribly pained. I cannot tell if it's out of sadness, or if it's out of supreme fury, but her agonized voice all but stabs me in my guts and again I'm compelled to do fucking anything to stop this farce.

"H-Hikawa!"

Takamaki's voice startles me a little and I find I've gotten my stupid fucking self between Abaddon and Niijima, and I tell him to "Back the fuck away from her."

"Hikawa, don't-!" cries Akechi as I note that I'm even keeping a hand out like I'm guarding her. What the fuck is wrong with me.

"I see," he says bitterly. "Tsukioka told me that you've finally found friends of your own... I suppose this one's the boyfriend?"

For some reason it becomes very important that this drug-running crooked cop piece of pigshit motherfucker gets as far away from Makoto Niijima as possible, so I place a hand over my mask and say "Sata-" and nael never fucking comes because something with the force of a sledgehammer pulverizes the entire section of my torso that contains my intestines.

"Hikawa!" Niijima and Takamaki dash down and the former holds me close as I cough out enough blood to donate to perhaps a dozen kids with iron deficiencies.

Soon enough, the cat runs over and puts its paws over my guts. "I'm on it, I'm on it."

Takamaki stands and snarls, through gritted teeth, "You son of a-"

Abaddon just whistles. "You want a chance with my daughter, boy, you'll have to learn how to at least take a punch."

Niijima just holds me, and she wants to say a thousand words to the creature bearing her father's face but the fear has gripped her goddamn spine, compressed her windpipe and pushed her into a still silence where all she can say are stutters and shudders.

So I talk in her place, "You fucking pig."

"So you can still talk? I should have punched you in the throat, then."

"This what gets you hot, you druggie fuck!?" I growl, "Victimizing kids, is that why you stuck your fucking nose up Kaneshiro's ass!?"

"Oh my God-" mutters Akechi, as the Manikin shuffles closer.

He grabs my face, cupping my cheeks with his hand, pulling himself closer to me. "Keep up that kind of talk and I just might come to like you." Even though I bite his fucking palm he doesn't even rear back away from me. When he ungrips my face I fear I may lose teeth at the sensation of his pulling away so I let my jaw fall open. "I'd a feeling you'd come around here, ever since word broke that my daughter arrived with a cabal of thieves, at the front door of the Palace. I had hoped she was smarter than that, but well. She isn't. But I don't and can't blame her. After I died, she must have felt so lonely, for so long."

At that point it registers to her again - this isn't her father. It's Tsukioka's cognition of her father, an asshole's interpretation of another fucking asshole. So while she doesn't budge an inch and keeps me still as I'm healed, she's got enough backbone to reiterate this truth: "You...are not Daisaku Niijima. You are not my father."

"Not exactly, I suppose, but I've got all the barest essentials. Dashing good looks, a strapping and gravelly voice, a body count in the dozens, and the ability to make dough out of even the most unprofitable fuckups imaginable. If anything, I'm the only trace remaining of your father, whether in the cognitive realm or the real one. So don't backtalk me, my lovely baby girl. You might not get the chance to make amends, sooner or later."

"Why have you come here?" Akechi snarls, raising his toy gun upwards.

"Relax. Whatever happens next, depends on you all."

"And what's that supposed to mean!?" cries Takamaki, hand on mask.

"I could call Tsukioka and his stooges here and have him rain a hail of bullets upon every one of you fuckers, but I won't. I came here because I heard that my daughter had come and demanded answers. I came here...to ascertain those answers for her. For I am her father, and everything I have tried to keep from her for all her life, she is now aware of. I will be here and I will answer every question she has."

"What...?"

"I will be here, as a father to my daughter, keeping watch over her and her bad influences. I will provide my daughter with my thundering velvet hand once more, one last time. For her sake, and yours. And then you will all leave this place, forever. Never to return. If after this day I so much as catch a whiff any one of you that isn't my daughter, I'll have each of your backs opened and your spinal cords made into the legs of a chair."

"Bastard...," I growl at him. "Making demands of us?"

"If you raise a hand against me I will serve you steel and fire. If you bend the knee, I'll throw your arm over my shoulders and help you on your way out. The choice is yours."

Every cell in my body wails with the urge to crush this creature and blow his body to smithereens, but something else, something ferociously guttural in the walls of my stomach - tells me the instant I touch him, I die. It is not fear which grips me, it's animal instinct - the knowledge that this creature is one that perhaps may just be a cut above the rank and file gutter fuckers I've had to deal with thus far.

And even if I can fight him, I'd rather nobody else here even comes close to the risk of dying. So fuck it. "Niijima...your call."

"Wh-what?"

"This is your father. We came here to help you through this bullshit. What do we do next?"

It takes her time. It takes her a long time. She decides. "Please...let them leave. Let them leave. I'll stay. You can answer my questions from here on out, just let them go."

What the fuck is wrong with her!? "Shut the hell up."

"Hikawa, listen to me-"

"I'm not leaving you here alone with him."

"Neither will I," Takamaki hisses, but the Manikin just smirks.

"Would you both please just listen to me!?"

"Well I didn't say you couldn't keep your friends here. Long as they behave themselves, I won't lay a finger upon their heads." The cat removes its paws from my stomach and I'm able to speak without blood pooling at my mouth, Niijima helps me up as I rise to my feet, keeping my eyes locked on the fucking cognitive shit standing right in front of us. "Have I your word that you'll behave yourself, boy?"

"He's stronger than you are," the cat says.

"What...?"

"He's weak to Nuke... but Niijima's Persona doesn't hold a candle to him, as she is now. Anything she does'll tickle him. He's impervious to all forms of physical attacks, so whatever you think you can pull, it won't work the way you'd like."

"I can still-"

"He's stronger than the Palace Ruler! Stronger than Kaneshiro!" Cat shouts. "Tsukioka must admire the guy so much that his cognitive version's stronger than he is, in even his own Palace."

"F-for real...?" Takamaki mutters, terrified.

"We don't touch you, you don't touch us. We finish these reels, and then we leave," Akechi says calmly. Then he turns to us, to me, "That's acceptable, isn't it?"

Copper grins at us, and I think of all the things I could possibly do to this man that will get us all out alive, but everything's working against me. Manikin that's stronger than Kaneshiro, stronger than even the Ruler of this Palace - so unbelievably powerful even I can feel it surging through to my bones. Room is cramped with bookshelves and furniture, which'll get in the way of our movement, but will likely not even faze this motherfucker. Satanael's horribly, viciously destructive, so he can compensate for whatever I lack - but everyone else. Can I guarantee I'll be able to protect everyone here, make sure we all get the fuck outta here alive?

No, I can't. So I just nod.

"Deal," Niijima says to the beast wearing her father's face.

He smiles, then looks upon the sheet, "Atsuko. You were watching my last day with Atsuko. Do you remember that diorama you'd made, Makoto? You remember why you made it?"

She blinks, small tears dripping from her eyes, "I...I do. Y-you and, and, and Mom would fight, a lot. And I'd never know why. You wouldn't tell me, she wouldn't tell me."

"She found out what I was. A few months before you were born. The things I did, the things I was going to do."

"She...she knew about you...?"

"But, well. Shortly after that, we found out she had nasopharyngeal cancer. She couldn't just leave me, after that. And she couldn't leave you with me, either. The last few months we had together, she did everything she could to survive and make it so that you wouldn't have to be raised by a monster."

"She never told me anything about you..."

"You wouldn't have understood. And even if you would have, she couldn't tell you what I was, because that would've broken your heart. Atsuko was the only woman I could have ever loved. Even when she despised me, she was more than I could have ever asked for in anyone. Do you still have it with you? That diorama?" he asks her.

And she doesn't answer him.

We find a chair and a stool.

We all stand behind Niijima, who has sat herself in the chair; sitting across from her in the stool is her cognitive father, looking at her with crossed legs and his chin in his palm.

"How did you...involve yourself in this business in the first place," Niijima asks him, hollowed out beyond comprehension.

"You want the whole truth, or just cliffnotes?"

She blinks. "The whole truth."

"Then...easily. I involved myself in it, rather easily. Tsukioka had been police chief at that point; he and many other cops in the precinct had already made deals and connections with very specific yakuza families. No major deals, just, promises of a few cash on the side while we turned a blind eye or even gave a helping hand in illicit activity. When I found out of all this, I was more or less quick on the draw. There was no harm in accepting a little hush money for all my work as a police officer. By the time your mother was pregnant with Sae, I understood I had to do it to help sustain the both of us. By the time your mother was pregnant with you, I was already in too deep for my own good."

"What...exactly...did you do...?"

"Mmm, well, that's...there's a lot of specific things I did," he rubs the back of his head, almost awkwardly. "But I suppose what I did the most of was cart a trunkload of drugs from point A to point B. On patrols I would carry boxes packed with cocaine and methamphetamine and meet with specific cops, who would then meet with specific yakuza and gangsters, who would then distribute to the highest bidder."

"And you would do this everyday."

"Most days. Many late nights, I spent just handing out packets of white powder and crystals. Money was good, and I wouldn't dare touch the product myself."

"But you would give it to people, from all over the city."

"People will want to fill their veins with coke until they die, and no amount of laws or regulations will stop those who really, really want to get their high. The city imparted upon us a duty to maintain peace and order, but sometimes the things they tell us to do require more money than they think it does. More blood than they'd like. More dirty deals than they could possibly imagine."

"Specifically. What. Did. You. Do."

He's almost taken aback by how furiously blunt she is, but he explains himself. "I killed more than a few cops, for one thing."

"You what!?" cries Takamaki.

"You - you killed fellow officers!?" Niijima stands up from her seat and I see the blood boil in the veins in her eyes.

"Some upstarts think they can expose the corruption in the system try and fail, and every now and again I'd have to clean up the mess. I'd throw their bodies into Tokyo Bay, or just bury them out in the woods someplace. Make it look like self-defense, or write it up as a missing person's case."

"You...you...how could you even...!?"

"Particularly fucked up individuals, we'd treat rather harshly. Once we caught wind of a child prostitution ring, and every now and then we'd have to rough up suspects to get the right information. One of them in particular, an old bastard with a dragon tattoo along the arm named Tsuruya. Fucked girls as young as two months; the oldest he'd ever had was twelve years. I beat him so hard five of his teeth ended up stuck in my fingers, and a few dozen more were washed out into a nearby drain. And it worked. Two dozen girls, freed...at least for a time. Some of them went right back to hooking. Others died. Three in particular were just gone. The remaining ones did well enough."

She says an obvious truth, but she says it so tiredly, in so much pain. "These are crimes."

"Politics is crime. To believe otherwise is naive, Makoto."

"That's not what you taught me," she growls. "You taught me to stay true to everything I know is right."

"Because I wanted you to be everything I wasn't. You weren't going to become a cop, and if you ever wanted to be I told myself I'd dissuade you from it. I didn't want you involved in this, even in the slightest."

"The force was so corrupt you had to indulge in all this horror...?"

"In all fairness, there were relatively few cops who knew of all the shit we did behind closed doors. There's about, what, a few hundred to a few thousand corrupt officers in a force that's on average forty-thousand strong. Just so happens that part of that few hundred are the ones who matter most. Bureaucrats and head honchos who want to make even more money than usual. We'd still take some blood money here and there. Make deals with the right people, informants and the like. The SIU was relatively not that corrupt, for a time. For a long time."

She scowls, "Until Kaneshiro."

He nods, taking in a deep breath. "How did you come to know about my involvement with Kaneshiro in the first place?"

"I told her," says Akechi. "I viewed the footage on those reels, sir. I saw you, speaking with Tsukioka-san about the deal you'd made with Kaneshiro."

"I suppose that's the gist of it, but there's more to it than that," he turns back to Niijima, "about four or so years ago, there were numerous rival gangs, vying for power and territory in specific districts in Tokyo. The Kamikis, the Yamamoris, the Fujibayashis...more names than even these. They were all disputing about routes for drug trade, human trafficking and prostitution. Some families were muscling in on others' territories, stealing their customers and shit. Now, we'd make deals with certain families and even help them drag their drugs around, but we couldn't have a gang war. And they weren't gonna listen to us, so we had to find ways to get them to calm the hell down."

"And maybe make some money along the way."

"That was a bonus."

"And that's why you made a deal with Junya Kaneshiro."

"In secret, the man had been an information broker for the police for decades. He got arrested, found at the scene of a massive haul of opioids... and made a deal with us. I chose to accept the offer. Tsukioka-san wasn't pleased with it, himself. But, well. I could show you his reaction to my offer now, if you'd like? He wasn't there during questioning, and he was livid when I told him the truth. But he accepted it all the same."

Niijima's back teeth grind against each other, to the point where a few of them crack, but she steadies herself soon enough and she says with a cold voice, "Show me."

Calmly, he sets up the film reel dated 4/23/2012 upon the projector-

-and we see him, in an office, papers and shelves at his sides. It's midday, and Tsukioka's looking directly at him across from his desk.

We have to do it, Niijima says.

Don't be so stupid.

I'm not. This could make us, Tsukioka-san, sir. I promise you.

It could destroy us, is what it could do. The cops, in league with the yakuza. Imagine the headlines. Imagine what would happen if word gets out, it'll be chaos. Can you live with that, yourself?

We already are living with it.

You know the fucking sheep can't know about any of what we've-

Kaneshiro knows where the Yamamori family conducts its dealings, knows where the Nishikiyama family goes for weapons, knows where the Kanzaki family's hid its stash of drugs. And he may very well know a helluva lot more. Trust me.

Are you out of your mind, how could you trust him? For all you know he'll feed us all to the wolves.

Or he'll get us to these three, get us a better chance at putting an end to their bullshit. The Kaneshiro family's small fry, Tsukioka. These three are the real deal. It's all about balance, all about persuasion.

Makes you think you can persuade Kaneshiro at all into giving us what we need? I don't want to provide him anything.

Guy proposed to provide info surrounding Yamamori and his fuckers in exchange for better living spaces.

Better living spaces? Hell does he mean by that?

A small apartment. Somewhere in the city.

He can't be serious. The only living space his kind deserves is a ten by ten cell. I don't like this, Niijima.

It will be worth it. A thousand times, it'll be worth it. I promise you.

You see no possible pitfalls, here. No possible way this could go south.

Of course I see pitfalls. I'm not blind. But as long as we'll be careful, this deal'll mean everything to us.

You think you can trust him?

With all due respect. It's an exchange, sir. Nothing more. A deal. There are always risks in these kinds of wagers. I firmly believe the reward is well worth the risk.

He'll ask for more.

He'll be kept under house arrest. An ankle collar, to ensure we can track wherever he goes. Constant watch, between twelve hour shifts. We'll know when he eats, when he sleeps, when he shits. No television, no internet, phone only connected to channels we've access to. There's no way he's getting past us, in any capacity whatsoever.

And you're certain?

I'm certain.

Tsukioka remains silent for so long. But he looks up. I've seen what the Munenoris do to make a lesson of those who cross them. Women's corpses laying on the streets, their fingers cut off and shoved into their mouths. They mostly leave them around the Shibuya districts, to scare off the Kamikis and the Nishikiyamas.

Yes.

You see your daughters in these girls.

Niijima says nothing for a very long time, but he then says, We live in Shibuya, sir, so...yes. I don't want my children to run into these corpses. I don't want my children to end up as corpses, themselves.

Tsukioka sighs. I suppose we can afford a chance.

Very well. We'll let you know once everything's been set up.

Take the night off, Niijima. You've been working hard these past couple months. Your children must be waiting for you.

Yeah, they - shit.

What?

It's Makoto's birthday. I promised I'd take her and Sae out tonight to celebrate and I completely forgot to make reservations.

You should go. I'll have someone cover you.

Thank you, sir.

Niijima trembles, her hands balled up into fists as she turns to the closest thing she has to her father in all levels of reality, "Torture, drug-running, money laundering, murder, giving benefits to psychopaths in exchange for information - what, what else, then!? Are you proud of all this!? Are you happy you've made yourself a monster!?"

"That's the funny thing, Makoto," he smiles, his eyes tired as he looks at his shaking hands. "The first night I killed a fellow cop, I cried the whole ride home. The first night I drove around the block passing drugs to people, my fingers trembled at the wheel. The first time I beat someone for information I looked at my bloody palms in the station bathroom for hours. But then come the second times, and then the third, then the fourth and fifth... one day I was washing my hands at home and I realized I'd just distributed Xanax to a neighborhood full of children that afternoon."

Makoto Niijima just stares at this creature. This beast, wearing her father's face. She shakes her head, and she sounds on the verge of tears as she speaks.

"You...you aren't my father. You aren't even remotely close to my father, you're, you're a cognition. A Manikin. You're what Tsukioka thought my father was, it's, it's useless to even argue against-"

"Reel number five." She pauses, and he looks at her with narrow eyes. "Place reel number five. If you still doubt. If you still question."

She scowls at him, at the reel, and retches as she faces him again, "What's on reel five?"

He closes his eyes. "Years after I made that deal with Kaneshiro, I learned that children were going around the city, passing drugs to dealers. Foolishly, I decided to be a good man for once and get to the bottom of it, and I found a man named Shintaro Busujima. A dealer, an arrogant fucking prick who'd flaunt himself on the streets like he wanted to be arrested. And...he wouldn't say a thing to me. For some reason, every time I'd bring him in for questioning, I'd be ordered to let him go. Even when it was plain as day he knew something. So. I decided to take matters into my own hands."

"And what's that supposed to mean!?"

"What do you think that's supposed to mean?"

"Tell me what's in the reel."

"No, you should see."

"No, you tell me!" cries Niijima.

"Why? So you can remain an optimist and make up some positive rationalization for all the uncertainties you'll allow yourself to leave inside your head? My father might not have been all that bad because I don't know what he did, is that it?"

"You, you can't, you won't, I-"

"Niijima," I grab her by her shoulder and she pulls herself away-

"You're not going to, you're, you'll tell me, you-"

"Fine. I'll tell you. Do you remember that day in your childhood I was horribly injured?"

"Wh-what?"

"They brought me to a hospital and told you I'd been attacked by gang members, and I had to stay there for three weeks while my bones became whole again."

Niijima thinks back, her teeth chattering mildly as she admits, "I...I..." I remember, is what she doesn't say. "What does this have to do with...?"

"I brought Busujima to an abandoned warehouse and demanded answers as to why he was carting drugs around an area where my daughters frequent when they head to and from school, and he laughed at me and told me he'd fuck my daughters all goddamn night, every goddamn night, until their pussies bleed for the rest of their lives. So I took a crowbar to his testicles and destroyed them in minutes. I kneecapped him with my baton and tore out each of his fingernails with pliers."

Niijima shudders, "Stop."

"I strapped him to a table then, and took a nearby hacksaw to his armpits, digging into the tendons of his shoulders and pectoral muscles. Lucky for me I had a swiss army knife and was able to cut vertically into each of his fingers, from tip to base, spreading the flesh on them open to the air."

"I said, I said stop!"

"You told me to tell you, so I'm telling you. The hacksaw went to his elbows next, and he wouldn't stop screaming and cursing so I grabbed a hammer and pried out his teeth, one by one by one. Until he had just enough to speak clear enough words. The teeth I pulled clattered on the ground like marbles, tink tink tink tink tink, and once he was done threatening my family he talked, and he began to share such secrets with me."

"No, no, please don't."

"Secrets that would've been mine alone to know... but, in the end, it was my fault that I realized too late...Tsukioka had put a tracker inside him."

He reaches his hand out to the projector and Niijima cries out, grabbing him and shouting "STOP IT!"

But he pushes her back to the floor and everyone dashes to her and the projector rolls.

Tsukioka opens the door to the warehouse and finds Niijima's father, covered in blood and grease and oil, shaking and trembling like he'd been running on adrenaline for hours. On the operating table is a figure unrecognizable, made almost completely black and grey as a result of the monochromatic filter; no details come through the grain, but whatever's on the table twitches and writhes, and Niijima's father is too struck by shock to react when Tsukioka smacks him across the fucking face-

What in God's name is wrong with you?

My daughters, my kids, he said he'd hurt my kids, he knew their fucking names-

What, what, what is this, Niijima?

Kaneshiro, sir, sir, it's Kaneshiro. Niijima grabs him by the shoulders, looks him dead in the eyes, this tall and hardy man is terrified beyond words, blood over his face as his watery eyes shimmer all too clearly in this grainy footage. It's Junya fucking Kaneshiro, he's behind all this, the drug trades in the streets between kids sir, I, I know it's him-

Niijima.

Sir, we have to stop this. We've, we've given him too many benefits and he's, he's used it sir, he's used it to, to, to fund a fucking operation even when under watch-

We?

Niijima pauses then. Stammering out, pacing around the place and kicking the hacksaw accidentally as he does so, Sir, I-I know this was my mistake. I fucked up bad, I didn't, I didn't want this to happen. I swear to God I'll find out what caused this, I swear to God I'll get to the bottom of all this fucking horror and make sure-

BANG.

A bullet through the head of the man on the table. Smoke billowing out Tsukioka's gun. Niijima's dumbstruck, startled by the sound, he manages a few guttural stammers but then Tsukioka mashes the butt of the gun into his head with a wham.

Daisaku Niijima crumples, his left eye swollen from the impact and he screams in pain, guards at Tsukioka's sides grab him by the shoulders and Tsukioka hammers the butt of the gun into his head again, and again, and again, and again. Crude whacking noises, harsh enough to cause the bottom of the handle to split at the seam, they're harsh enough and blunt enough to sound like a hammer driving in a nail, and Niijima slurredly explains in detail everything he had done to that man and why - as Tsukioka demands he do so while pounding at his skull.

Makoto Niijima just watches as her father is brutalized on screen, right before her eyes - she watches him confess to elaborate forms of torture to a man who had insulted and threatened his daughters, and the tears erupt from her eyes and cascade down, down, down and never ever stop.

You little shit, do you realize what you've done?

Tsukioka asks, but Daisaku Niijima can't answer. His red, bleeding face is swelled to the point of being unrecognizable, and his mouth is busted open. We don't even fully understand what he's saying completely, just vague statements with the term Sir peppered throughout, filled with words that don't even remotely sound like words.

The one thing we can hear clearly besides Sir is Why?

Why? asks Tsukioka. I'll tell you why. That fucking animal you just tortured to death is the mediator between the fucking SIU and Junya Kaneshiro. He's the one we've been funding to help with his fucking operations and you just fucking killed him, how fucking stupid could you be.

What? Niijima throats out.

"They didn't tell me. They didn't want to tell me," the Manikin says. "I didn't know that Junya Kaneshiro had ended up making a deal with Tsukioka and other SIU officers under my watch. I didn't know he would promise Tsukioka bills and coins and whores...and in turn, Tsukioka would set him up to be a kingpin."

You useless stupid fucking cocksucker, I made a deal with him and you fucked it all up. Don't you FUCKING LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT! Another crash from the gun to his head and I'm surprised the fucking cop lasts as long as he does. You gave him benefits and he gave you money. You gave him a fucking hotel room and he gave you a fucking flatscreen as big as the fucking world, so don't you suddenly look like you're better than me, better than any of us!

Thuh, thuh, th-this isn't right, sir- Niijima murmurs, each syllable sounding far too drawn out for its own good. I, I took money, I took fundings, I gave him benefits I, but I didn't, I didn't - I d-d-didn't want -

I didn't want you to fuck everything up! Tsukioka then kicks him right in the sternum, then the stomach, then his balls, then the sternum again. His henchmen do the same, kicking and crushing their boots into most of his organs and looking at what remains after their expletive-laden boot-smashing you'd be hard pressed to think the man still alive.

His body is mangled, his face and torso swelled and ballooning into purple. Still he finds the gumption to grab onto Tsukioka's pant leg, S-sir...

And Tsukioka kicks it aside. Useless fucking busybody piece of shit. Then, he grabs Daisaku Niijima by his cheeks, bringing him closer, You say a word of this to anyone, and I will kill your children. I will have them ripped and raped and thrown to the fucking wolves, do you understand me? Now shut the fuck up for the rest of your fucking life, and wait for me to fix up your goddamn mess.

The film reel cuts out right there.

Makoto Niijima looks like she wants to tear the whole planet in two, with her bare hands alone.

The Manikin pulls his daughter into a tight embrace, hugging her as a father would, like she'd just bruised her fucking knees playing - "There there, my love. I know it hurts, but this is necessary."

Almost immediately she pushes him away from her, "NECESSARY!?"

"Restrain them."

The cat's head blows open from a gunshot and suddenly, arms and hands clad in black leather grab me and Takamaki and Akechi - they are cops in SWAT uniforms, tall beyond measure, they force us down to the floor and our heads rattle as they're slammed down, and they cuff our fucking hands and we can't reach our fucking masks with our goddamn hands clasped together behind our backs and we're fucked all fucked all restrained to shit and even if we could-

Makoto Niijima's forced to the ground, herself, her father pressing down on her spine with his left leg - while grabbing her left arm and pulling it upward with a snap -

"AAAAGHHH!"

"Niijima-san!" cries Akechi.

"STOP IT!" I shout.

"Any of you fuckers move, I rip her arm right out of the joint."

"Let her go, you fucking bastard!" Takamaki roars out.

"Dad, please! Please let them go, let them go...!" Niijima bellows, through agonized tears. "LET THEM GO I'M BEGGING YOU FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!"

"No. You have to learn. You all have to learn. Insert reels four and six."

Guards shove reel four in the projector and we see nothing we could have ever wanted to see before. Water torture, waterboarding, car battery to the balls. Blunt-force trauma to the head, blood spilling everywhere, monkey wrenches to the teeth and testicles, fingers pulled out their sockets, fingernails pulled out their sockets, feet and toes mashed down by sledgehammers, cops presiding over the whole affair and demanding questions and answers. Some of them laugh at these miserable fuckers getting tortured, some of them laugh really loudly; Daisaku Niijima never laughs, never emotes, never makes any facial expressions at all, but he carries his job precisely, ingeniously. With burning tools and other such miserable things.

Reel six is a clearer look; he participates in the bloodshed, in the torture, in the breaking of bones and snapping of wrists, the film reels are not any one event in particular but a myriad of them, a whole reel comprised of the tortures committed by this dirty cop and his cronies, viewed by the police chief-now-director of the SIU, and his daughter screams as she's forced to watch, she screams loudly and horribly in a way I cannot even begin to endure.

"I did all these things," he says to his daughter, whispering as he grips her by her hairs. "This is what it means to fight for justice."

Niijima just keeps screaming, trying to wriggle out of his grasp like a trapped animal, she shouts how she's going to kill everything and everyone and how she'll destroy Hideyoshi Tsukioka and send him straight to Hell-

But her father just says, "Insert reel seven."

And the film plays.

Niijima stops screaming.

My name is Daisaku Niijima. If you are seeing this, then I am dead. I have made, a terrible mistake.

Her father, on the screen. Looking right at her. Unlike past films, this is shown on an aspect ratio similar to that of a cellphone; vertical view. This was recorded on a phone. Her father seems to have recovered from his wounds in film five, though he still wears bandages and patches of his face are still purple. It's in the middle of the night. He is in a car.

When I became a police officer I did so with the intention of helping my community and weeding out those who would seek to harm them and those close to me. But when I learned of corruption in the system I chose to remain complacent, and indulge myself rather than fight against it. I took bribes from criminals. Stole money during raids. Killed my fellow officers to preserve my name and those of my collaborators and I - I remember every life I've taken. I remember their names, I tell them to myself every night.

His voice is cracking. He's breaking, horribly, like a ceramic sculpture; tears stream down his eyes.

But nothing can change what I've done. I came in contact with a member of the yakuza named Junya Kaneshiro and I sought to use him to stem the tide of numerous other gangs in the city - he was, he was an information broker, and I, I wanted to use what he knew to stop criminals I thought were worse. In exchange for this information I gave him a, a hotel room, money for intel, shit that I didn't, I was, I was stupid, I was so fucking stupid, I didn't know he'd gotten his fingers into the whole fucking division.

They want him to control the drug trade in Tokyo; they want him to bring all the yakuza organizations to heel, while getting a cut of the pay. They didn't let me know because, because even after all the dirty shit I did they knew I wouldn't stand for this and I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I fucked up bad. I wish I could take it all back, I've done so many terrible things I, I shot kids, I shot rookie officers, I. I tortured and killed people and I'm sorry but none of this means anything. None of it. God. Atsuko, you were right about me. You said I would destroy myself, destroy our kids, and I'm sorry, you were right. I'm sorry.

Makoto, Sae, I love you so much. I've never been home and I'm sorry I've never been home. But I love you. I loved you since the day I first held you both in my arms. I loved you since the day you spoke your first words. I loved you the day you kept bugging me to watch Buchimaru and all those other shows I could never catch with you. I'm never home enough times to tell you enough times how much I love you but I do, and if I could I would stay and be your father forever but that isn't my choice anymore.

That isn't my choice anymore. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I love you so much.

He can no longer look at the camera, and closes the phone, and the last we hear and see of him is him weeping loudly and horribly inside his own car.

His daughter, eyes planted on the screen as the film reel cuts out, doesn't say a word or even move. Though the Manikin unhands her, she remains lying on the ground, as a corpse would.

Makoto Niijima, plainly and deeply horrified and saddened, can do nothing but curl up into a ball and weep - loudly, bitterly, viciously, at the Manikin wearing her father's face, at the horrors and tragedies her father had endured and performed on-screen, at everything she's come to know - Takamaki weeps alongside her; the cat and Akechi bear no emotion whatsoever other than sheer rage.

Her cries burn into my ears, into my heart, and the second I'm given the chance I promise myself and her, that I will kill everything in this room that isn't human.

.

.

.

So that happened.

Climax of the arc, coming next chapter. Stay tuned for not one, not two, but three interesting boss fights ahead.