.

.

.

You see, I've actually realized already
Look, about that thing you said
I didn't feel like thinking about it too much
So I had forgotten about it, but
Living blindly, recklessly, delusionally
Impulsively, impatiently, negatively didn't do me any good

I'm sure that on the last day of my life, when I think of what's gone before
All of it, all of it will be unspeakably precious, but
Ah, on that last day of my life
You won't be there...

- Yorushika, Say It (言って。)

7 / 25 / 2016

Suddenly, Maruki's stuck too stunned to really respond at all. And then his phone rings. Antsy, he picks up the call... and immediately his face is mortified. He hands the phone over to me, like he's been told to.

You people think you're so fucking clever, don't you.

At first it catches me off-guard, this distorted voice through Maruki's phone. But of course, she's been tracking his phone too, and we spent yesterday right in front of her adopted father's house like idiots. Truth be told this was a possibility in all that time - undoubtedly she'd get pissed and call us sooner or later, and since I still don't have that phone she had her people throw at me, she picked the second-best form of contact.

"If I'm clever I'd hate to know what you define as stupid."

You think you can threaten me?

"Threaten you? All I did was go to your house. I'm surprised it took you this long. You must have depressive fits often, don't you? Today must have been awful."

Maruki blanches because I've said something that would fuck the both of us over if I didn't know what I was doing, and in all honesty, I probably don't know what I'm doing - but she and I are spiteful assholes. And if there's anything spiteful assholes like to do to each other more than torture, it's shit-talk.

You... you don't know shit about me. Don't talk like you hold all the cards here, because I still do. I still do, you stupid little-

"You lived in Nagoya with your mother. What was her name? Isshi-something. Fuck if it matters."

What the hell are you-?

"It was in Nagoya that you met Kana, and the two of you had such precious memories together. You and her, running around the school grounds. Cutting classes in nearby forests or large megamalls built in the area. Stuffing your faces with junk food and getting in trouble as stupid kids would."

"Kazuya what are you doing-!?"

Though Maruki grabs my arm he doesn't need to.

"You'd speak to each other and you'd cherish each other, or at least you would cherish her, and that was enough for you. That was enough for you, in a world where everyone judged you for having an eidetic memory, in a world where everyone seemed so far away, like they knew secrets and knew people better than you ever could. You were diagnosed with high-functioning autism when you were ten years old, and no matter how hard you tried you couldn't stop everyone around you from looking at you like your very existence was wrong."

Stop it.

"Oh my God. Kazuya-"

I've struck a nerve, I know it. Don't stop me now. "Out of everyone, she never looked at you like you were wrong. She never looked at you like you were a freak of nature or a mistake, and because of that you loved her. You loved her so much you kissed her in the infirmary of your school."

Fucking shut up, or I swear to God I'll end you-

"You loved her so much that you would have done anything and everything to save her, from the fucking wretch who turned out to be her stepfather. It was you who drove her stepfather to suicide, and it felt good, didn't it? It felt good to drive this worthless pornographer fucking garbage piece of shit, and send him straight to hell. It felt fucking amazing, did it not?"

It takes her so long to answer back. She does without any modulation to her voice whatsoever.

Yes...

Her voice is light. Feathery. She sounds like she's crying.

No, she sounds like someone who's been crying for most of her life.

"You did more for her than I ever could have. She drove you away, because you upended more of her life than you could have ever understood. But you would do it again? Would you, do it again?"

Her voice shudders, again she takes so long to respond, and when she does, she sounds like me.

I'd do it a thousand times over.

"Were I in your shoes... so would I."

Are you trying to appeal to my humanity, don't be so fucking stupid.

"I am fucking stupid. I'm so stupid that I thought this wouldn't be any different. That I thought I could separate myself utterly again, and be a machine, and do what I've always done and forget you ever existed once you're a maddened vegetable stuck in an asylum. But I can't, and I won't."

I don't need you to pity me, you asshole. I need you to suffer.

"Of course you do. Because everything you could possibly do to me is something you wish you could do to yourself a thousand times over."

Your proselytizing won't save you. Or your friends. Or that fucking bitch you've gotten yourself attached to-

"You won't hurt them."

And why won't I do such a thing? You're going to kill me before I could?

"Because you don't give a shit about them. They don't matter to you. Only I do. Your rage is singularly focused on yourself, and for as much as you'd like to destroy yourself, it's so much more fun to pick at a spider's legs one by one by one instead."

Why wouldn't I rip off their legs, too!? One by one by fucking one!? How would you like your new squeeze to start crawling on the stumps where her limbs used to be, and get fucked a thousand times by obese fucking bastards with warts all over their cocks!?

"If you were willing to do that at any point these past few days, you would have already. You and I both know the Make-Him-Suffer-For-As-Long-As-Possible maxim is bullshit you find in cheap fucking shows and movies that wanna prolong their lifespan artificially. If you hated me so much you would destroy everyone around me to get your anger loose, then you would have just crushed them all the instant you decided to take your vengeance."

You don't think I can do it?

"I know you can, I don't think you will."

I'll do it, you little fuck, don't you think you can goddamn test me!

"I'm not testing you."

I'LL HAVE THEM ALL SHIPPED OFF TO FUCKING TIBET SO THE CHINESE CAN HARVEST THEIR GODDAMN LUNGS! DON'T THINK I FUCKING WON'T! YOU SNIVELLING PRICK YOU DON'T FUCKING ACT LIKE YOU KNOW ME!

"I know what it means to be angry, Futaba Sakura. I know what it feels like to find someone you can wreak all your anger and self-hatred upon and feel no remorse. You hate everything because you hate yourself and you hate yourself because for as difficult as it is for you to love someone, they can disappear so quickly it'd be like they had never existed at all, and for as hard as you try - for as hard as you try, you -"

You can never have them forever.

"...you can never have them forever."

I wish she could have been with me..., she shudders terribly, voice breaking, all our lives. What was the child like?

"What?"

I never wanted to touch her again, after she'd left me - she growls, chagrined and agonized, I didn't look her up or find her profile for years and the one time I do I find out she's dead. What was her child like? What was Masako like? I never - I never got to... I never got to see her.

All at once, I don't know what to say. My hand's shaking. I almost drop the phone on the spot. I take in a deep, deep breath.

"You could hold her in your arms and you'd never feel like they were ever big enough to protect her. You would look into her eyes and you'd do anything to prevent tears from dropping down her face. You would hear her laugh, and you would kill a thousand men before you would ever let her cry."

Why couldn't you do anything to save her?

"I've never been more sorry for anything."

Why couldn't you do anything for her? Why couldn't you do anything for her? She sobs inconsolably, so loudly Maruki would be able to hear it even without putting the call on speaker, Why couldn't you do anything for her? Why couldn't you do anything for her?

The phone hangs up then. Just as suddenly as it came.

"We have at least the next few days all to ourselves," I tell Maruki.

"What...? How're you so sure?"

"I'm sure. And even if I'm wrong, even if she'll give back in to her rage in a matter of minutes, we don't have a choice but to bring everyone else into this before taking another step."

"I can find Niijima and the others, I can bring them here," says the cat. "Or, or at least somewhere closeby."

"Bring them to Shujin. Everyone, except Yoshizawa and Akechi."

"Shujin? Why there? And, and why not Yoshizawa? I can get Akechi, guy's a fucking weirdo, but not Yoshizawa?"

"Summer vacation begins tomorrow. Fucking nobody's gonna be there except janitors, maybe. And... I don't want Yoshizawa to be involved in this. She's, she's got too much to deal with as it is."

"Everyone's got too much to deal with-"

"Cat."

"Fine, fine. I'll get everyone to Shujin. ASAP?"

"Tomorrow morning. Like, nine AM or so."

"All of them, right? Even that Sakamoto kid?"

"Everyone except Yoshizawa."

"Makes you think that guy'll even wanna help?"

"I don't. I'm hoping. That's all any of this is."

I tell it everything that's happened to me, I tell it to give everyone else the rundown between me and Futaba Sakura. Cat hums once it's all said and done. "Okay. Will get to it now. Wait outside the school gates, at nine AM."

"Appreciate it."

Cat leaps out the apartment window and I hold my head in my hands once it's gone. "I can never even come close to repaying you for any of this, Maruki."

"I don't want you to repay me," he sighs. "I just want you to..."

"To what?"

"To stop being you, for at least the next few days or so."

He sighs, preparing an apron as he drags a piece of tupperware out the fridge, for dinner. We remain silent, for the rest of the night.

.

.

.

7 / 26 / 2016

The next morning is cold as balls, the grey sky raining lightly down upon us all. Not so bad that it floods the streets, but bad enough such that Maruki and I'll need umbrellas. I get anxious on the way and the anxiety creeps up so bad once I get there that I'm nearly brought to my knees. I see them, all of them, under their own sets of umbrellas. Early arrivals to the front gates of the school. There's not a single soul other than us all and I am defeated when I see Niijima.

Through the rain her and my eyes meet again, and she bears such a disappointed look - normally I wouldn't give two shits about what someone else could think or say of me, but there's something cutting in Niijima's eyes. I spent so much time with her. I didn't think I could share any of the things I've shared with her, with anyone after Kana. And now, now she looks like she can't even bear the idea of spending another second on this Earth so long as I exist.

Takamaki is obviously anxious but she doesn't carry the same disappointment - she's more wary, more open to hearing me out. She'd love to be anywhere else but here, but feels some strange attachment to me - perhaps she still feels she owes me for Kamoshida.

Sakamoto's back, and he's willing to actually look at me again. Naked hostility blooming in his eyes. It's almost comforting, really - shows he's still got his head on his shoulders after all the shit I've put him through. But behind the three of them is a fourth.

Red umbrella. Red hair, done in a ponytail. Her eyes are cast in shadow but I can see her dark pupils reach mine all the same, and from her I feel a greater sense of shame than anything Kana or Niijima could ever instill into me.

"What...?"

The cat pops out of Niijima's bag. "Don't be so surprised."

"I told you-"

"And I didn't listen. Your headspace is all fucked up, and if you really are gonna go after this person without wanting to kill them, you'll need way more help than your therapist can provide."

"Oh my God. Yoshizawa. I... I didn't..."

She doesn't say a word. She just looks unfathomably tired.

"Let's take this inside," Niijima says, getting between them and me. "I've spoken with Sawamura. We have the student council room all to ourselves."

I realize now that she isn't disappointed at all. Seeing her up close.

I realize she feels awful for me.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" Sakamoto asks Maruki.

"I'm...his therapist."

"My God. They don't pay you enough, whatever you make."

"They, er... don't pay me at all."

We're all of us in the student council room, our wet umbrellas leaning outside, just against the door. They've all got their eyes on me. All of them except Yoshizawa, who keeps focus on the table. Niijima and I are on opposite ends of the table. Takamaki and Sakamoto on my left (her right), Maruki and Yoshizawa on my right (her left). She's got her arms crossed and her eyes have gone cold and distant, like how they were when we met each other for the first time. The cat's sitting curled up on the table, at her side.

There's no sense in wasting time any longer.

"I need your help."

"We know. Morgana told us."

"Has it told you why?"

"Somewhat," Niijima says. "But we need to hear it from you, directly. What is it exactly that you want from us?"

"I need you to help me change someone's heart."

She nods, "You've found a new Palace... and you won't be able to steal their Treasure on your own, you figure?"

"Do you want us to kill somebody?" Sakamoto's words are sudden, firing off like a bullet in the middle of quiet space. He's courageous enough to look me in the eyes as he repeats, "Do you. Want us. To kill somebody?"

"No. Quite the opposite, actually."

"Really?" he sneers.

"Sakamoto," Niijima cuts in, and he considers biting back at her, but just leans back in his seat. "Hikawa. I have some concerns. We all do. We have a basic understanding of what happened to you. Morgana told us all. You were beaten and attacked by someone who had hacked into your bank account, threatened you and all of us with stealing our funds unless you did as they said. We're fortunate nothing's happened to us just yet... but I'm concerned. Because if you wanted to go about this the way you always have, you'd have just gone into her Palace and stolen her Treasure yourself. Even if the Palace were too dangerous for you alone, you'd still have gone in on your own because you wouldn't have wanted to involve any of us in it. You might have brought in Morgana, maybe even Maruki, but not us."

"Why do you talk like he actually gives a shit about us?" Sakamoto groans.

"Ryuji," Takamaki hisses.

He gets up off his seat, looking right at me. "I'm only here because I know, I know you've got some fucked up thing up your sleeve you're not telling us. You're planning to drag these people, drag me back into a mess that I wanted out from months ago. Senpai spoke to me over the phone, told me she thinks you're trying to fucking help this person, and I'm here so I can tell her and everyone else stupid enough to hope in you that they're wrong."

"Sakamoto!" Niijima gets off her seat now, her glare almost forcing him back down, but he persists.

Sakamoto growls at me, "Knowing what we know about what this person did to you, why would we believe you want to help her and not fuck her life up!? How do we know you're not secretly planning on throwing her off the top of her goddamn house again!?"

It's Takamaki who finally pulls him back down, and though he's obviously resentful by the way he pulls himself away from her, he keeps his eyes on me like a dogged animal. Niijima asks the same question silently. They all do. Except Maruki.

"Why do you need us to help you?" Yoshizawa asks, almost so quietly none of us can hear her.

"Because I want to save this person. Because she's horribly, miserably depressed, and I'm afraid if I go do this alone, I'll just end up destroying her."

Everyone's silent, for an obscenely long time.

"Why do you care?"

It's Niijima who asks that. Spoken in any other way, from anyone else, it would have sounded hilariously rude. But it's a completely valid question. Every single time I've entered a Palace I've wanted and pushed for the Ruler's absolute destruction. To ask this question is not brusque of her at all. They need to know what sparked this sudden change.

My hand is trembling.

My hind teeth grind against each other.

I feel insect legs scraping against the back of my skull.

There is a woman with blazing green eyes standing above them all. Her wrists are open, pouring fountains of red. Her skin is pale and she's drenched from head to toe in water. Thick, wet strands of her long locks of hair strangle everything in this room with a neck, and her glare all but renders me silent. For a minute I think to just drive everyone here away from me again, to say something so horrible that they beat the shit out of me and leave me bleeding in the middle of the room.

But I see Niijima.

I see someone who wants to help me, with everything she has.

I see someone who said she had faith in me.

And, for some ungodly reason, I want her to know that that faith isn't misplaced.

Even though, for all intents and purposes, it is.

"He can't even tell us, fucking hell."

Sakamoto gets up off his seat and heads right out the door. Niijima yells, "Sakamoto!" as she follows right behind him.

The two of them are gone completely, leaving Takamaki, Maruki, the cat, and Yoshizawa in the room. It's Yoshizawa who asks, "Do you love this person?"

"No."

"Do you know this person?"

"...perhaps."

"Why do you want to save her?"

"Why are you here?"

Yoshizawa turns to me slowly. "Niijima-senpai told me you wanted to help someone, for once. Or at least that's what she thought you wanted. And I came here because I want to hear you out."

"Why...?"

"Because... I want to know if there's anyone out there like my sister. Anyone like her out there... whose heart I can actually change. And considering what this person could do to you, I...," she exhales deeply. "I can't imagine the kind of pain she must be feeling inside."

But I can.

I can, completely.

"What do you want to do, Hikawa?" Takamaki asks me. "If you want to change this person's heart, I'm game to help. But what exactly are you looking for, by doing this?"

"I'm looking...," I shake my head and get off my seat. "I'm looking for proof that all this time, I've been wrong."

Niijima and Sakamoto are arguing in the hallway, quite loudly. If any teacher found them they'd take them straight to the principal on the spot for disturbing the peace.

I go to them, Maruki and the others following me somewhat close behind, and I pick up the pace when Sakamoto meets my eyes-

And I sock him right in the jaw, so hard he tumbles to the floor.

I punch him so hard I feel a knuckle crack, but being a worthlessly skinny young man I'm sure I've barely even broken the skin.

"Hikawa!" Niijima cries out, for she doesn't understand, but she will soon enough.

The punch I threw doesn't hurt him, for he has tremendous resilience despite a bruise on his jaw, and he does what I've expected him to do.

The fight, if you can call it that, is his the minute he throws a punch back. The rain smattering all over the windows, thrashing wildly and viciously just as Sakamoto is.

He's angry at me. Violently, voraciously angry to the point of madness. Like Sakura. Like me. But unlike us both, he's the kind of person to let it go once he's brought it all out of himself. Taken it out on the one person who's caused him so much grief all these months. When he pounds on my face he's letting loose an anger he's bottled inside for months.

He was an athlete, for a time. In Palaces I'm a Shadow-killing machine, but here and now I'm just a stupid skinny kid who's never been in a fistfight before. Within seconds I'm lying on the ground, Sakamoto pressing down on my center of gravity. I lose count around the ninth punch. I can barely even see out both my eyes by the time Takamaki and Niijima get him off me. Maruki stands by, watching, his expression something I can't even determine. My face aches, warm blood dashing down in far too many places. It's by sheer luck I can still talk coherently at all.

Sakamoto pulls himself away from the two of them, trembling now, seething. When I look at him I don't look at him-I look at what he's become in my eyes. A tall figure with red knuckles, standing proud over what he's put down. This must be what Sakamoto himself saw, when Kamoshida had decided to make an example of the only kid bold enough to stand up to him.

"You're right to call me the Devil." I drag myself up, sitting upright on the floor as I cover my eye with my hand, an elbow on my knee. "You're right to hate me the way you do."

Sakamoto looks like he wants to say something smart, but he just breathes firmly. Looks like he's about to leave me sitting here, my face bleeding and busted. But I continue. And he listens.

"Do you know why I threw Kamoshida into his Palace, Sakamoto?"

"Because you hated him and you wanted him gone as soon as possible," he growls at me. "That's all it ever was."

"Yeah," I nod. "Yeah. That's what I told you. That's what I felt, deep down. But do you know why I felt that way?"

"Who cares?"

"You do. If you didn't, you'd have left the second I opened my mouth," I eye him. He's tetchy, anything I could say could blow his fuse again. "It's because that's all I'm good at."

"What the...?" he scoffs, but part of him sounds like he just wants to cry. "Don't."

"You had all the reason in the world to want Kamoshida dead, but instead you wanted to be a fucking boy scout. Throwing him in his Palace was a last resort for you. You wanted to do everything you could before stooping to those lows. You wanted to stop Kamoshida but you didn't wanna lose yourself. If I had even a fraction of that in me, I could have been king of the world by now."

"Shut up. If I have to hear another word out your mouth I swear to God-"

"I had a daughter."

He says not a word then. None of them do. Sakamoto's confused. Takamaki's dumbstruck. Yoshizawa's scared of me all over again. None of them know what the hell I'm even talking about. I drag myself back up to my feet and they look at me like I'm some eldritch unknowable thing that's revealed its unsightly true form. But Niijima doesn't carry the fear she had of me, nor the anger, nor the pity-she looks as if she's ready to step forward and wipe the blood away from my eyes.

"I loved someone, two years ago. I made a man comatose... because he would have hurt her if I had stood by and done nothing. She had a child I accepted completely as my own. I loved the both of them with everything I had. After I returned from jail, I lost them both."

Sakamoto understands nothing, but knows he doesn't want to hear this. "What are you even-?"

"I saw the daughter die right before my eyes. She was a baby. She was a small little girl. You could hold her in your arms and you'd never feel like they were big enough to protect her."

They're all too disgusted and horrified to talk, the most Sakamoto can do is turn to Niijima, beg her silently that none of what I'm saying is true. Niijima doesn't say a word at all, which all but confirms everything. There's not a thing Takamaki nor Yoshizawa can find to say either, not a thing at all. Maruki just turns away.

"I saw her brains splatter against cupboards, I heard her bones crack as she was smashed against mirrors and furniture. There's so much blood I can see it even now. I can hear her crying for me, crying for her mother. I'd read her a book, Sakamoto. I'd sit down with her every night I could and I'd read her a storybook, and she could read, she could read even though she was far too young to understand any of the words. She was so smart, you'd look into her eyes and you'd see someone who'd change the world. But now every time I think of her eyes, I think of how they're stuck in the floorboards, five feet away from each other, between them strings of her insides."

There is supposed to be this unrelentingly burning hatred. It's what's allowed me to walk forward and wake up every single morning since the day she died. I'd tell myself I had to live, because to be with this pain is what I deserve. Then I'd tell myself I had to live, because there's someone out there responsible for all this madness and I had to make them suffer the greatest death I could possibly inflict upon them. But that anger no longer matters. The dying no longer matters. None of it ever really mattered at all.

"Her mother would never smile again, and think of the whole world as her own personal Hell. It was the first Palace I'd ever entered. The sky was red. Not even a cloud, not even a star, just a vast and wide and endless red. Buildings everywhere, collapsed into themselves. Walking, irradiated corpses, stretching as far as the eye could see. She was going to kill herself. She was deadlocked on a suicide course and I thought that if I just sat around and did nothing she'd die. It took me a matter of days to find her Treasure and steal it and God help me I tried to keep her alive. My desire to destroy Kamoshida and Kaneshiro meant nothing compared to my desire to give her a life to live, and all I did was take it away. I killed her. With these two hands I killed her. I stole her Treasure and told her I loved her but it meant nothing because she'd seen too much and I'd known too little and the morning after I thought I saved her life I found her in my bathtub in a pool of her own blood.

"I found out just a few days ago, that she had lied to me. Throughout all the time I had with her. She didn't sleep with some fucking stupid kid her age, her stepfather had raped her to the point where she became pregnant with his child. Her mother had been all along this ignorant bitch who refused to face what had been happening to her daughter for ages, and then had an electric shock to her conscience once she realized the child she'd neglected was getting more action from her husband than she was. The child I had read books to turned out to have been a child by rape, one that her mother had repeatedly tried to stuff into garbage cans before taking her back into her arms. And the girl who's been hounding me, the person who's been fucking me over these days has a goddamn Palace, and she loved Kana just as much as I did, perhaps even more. So much so that she was able to drive the man raping and taking pictures of her to suicide.

"She is now hot on my tail and on all of yours because she hates me for letting Kana die and she doesn't even know I killed her. And for as much as I've hated her and wanted to end her fucking existence the fact of the matter is she did more to save the girl I loved than I ever had. The fact of the matter is I've relied on killing whatever's in front of me for all this time and I'm only now beginning to realize that that hasn't been working either. That all I'm good at is destroying things but no matter how many things I destroy I'm still stuck in the same fucking place I've always been and I thought I could take it because it's what I deserve but for fuck's sake I hate it and there are some people I want to save but I don't know how to be anything else. I don't know how to help people, I don't know how to do good things for people, I don't know how to be a good person, but you do. You all do. If I knew even a fraction of what you know, if I could even have a hint of what you have, if I knew what it meant to be fucking normal I'd...I..."

I might have been able to save her in the first place.

I might not have had to kill anybody at all.

I might be able to save my father.

I'm crying. I've been crying for so long now. I can barely even stand. Breathing takes everything I have. Trying to stay put in my own mind and not look up from a cloud somewhere - it's agony.

"I can't save anybody. Someone like me, I... I'd never be able to do a single good thing for anyone, even if I tried," I place my hands on both his shoulders, my head hanging low as tears stream freely out my eyes. "Hate me as much as you like, for as long as you like. But I beg you. Help me save this person. I can't do it. I don't trust myself to do it. I need, I...I..."

"I'll help you." Sakamoto and everyone else turns to Yoshizawa. She isn't afraid anymore. She isn't drained of herself. She's strong, far far stronger than I could have imagined her ever being. "If this person is who you say it is... then I can't turn away."

"Yoshizawa...?"

"I've lived all my life deciding that others should resolve their own problems, but... it isn't wrong to give or receive help. It isn't wrong to be there for people when they need it. Before it's too late. This person needs us. You need us."

"What the hell," Sakamoto shakes his head. "You don't think he's lying!?"

"He isn't," Maruki says, clearly and strongly. Facing him now. "He isn't."

"I...," Sakamoto all at once doesn't know what to say. "He isn't...?"

"I'm in," Takamaki says. "Like always. You can count on me."

"As am I," Niijima nods. "I want to help save this girl."

Sakamoto doesn't understand it at all. "You people're all fucking crazy! He's a goddamn psycho piece of shit and just because he has this fucking sob story at the ready, you're all gonna throw your lives down for him!?"

"It isn't for him," Niijima snarls.

"Well what is it for, then!?"

"Someone out there needs our help," she blurts, almost sounding outraged. "She's so embittered and driven to anger that she's willing to go to lengths I can't even imagine to take out her revenge, and once everything is said and done she'll either have ruined our lives, or ended her own. And I can't stand by and let that happen. We can't stand by and let that happen."

Sakamoto's silenced. Grits his teeth, trying to come up with anything to say back. Nothing comes.

Niijima breathes. "But nobody here could blame you if you'd want to. It's your choice, Sakamoto."

"I... I...," he marches over to one of the lockers, all but slams his back into it, and crumples to the floor with his head in his hands. "Goddamn you all, I'm in. I'm in."

Takamaki's speaking with Sakamoto, crouched down together with their backs against the lockers. Yoshizawa and Maruki and the cat have gone off to buy everyone drinks.

I'm in the nurse's office, with Niijima procuring bandage tape from a dusty cupboard, placing them over the busted rim of my eye.

"You realize I can heal myself in the Vortex World. This is all unnecessary."

"It isn't," she says, eyes focused on placing the bandages just right. "You're bleeding. Whether or not you can just heal your wounds later, you shouldn't have to go home with blood all over your clothes again." Side of my eye's all taped up now. She dabs alcohol on the rest of my wounds, all cold and business-like.

"Thank you for being willing to help me."

"Don't mention it."

My left hand trembles again and I try so hard to keep it steady. It remains shaky even as I grip my wrist with my other hand. "I'm sorry that you had to see all that. It won't happen again."

"Hikawa."

I face her and she takes my hand. The knuckle is bruised, from the punch I gave to Sakamoto; she dabs it with alcohol too, and I feel her palm - most of it's somewhat callused, a little creased in the center lines. I realize my hand's stopped shaking too late.

She doesn't look at me at all, keeps focus on my hand. "When I first met you... I could never imagine you feeling guilt for anything."

"I couldn't come to anyone else with this. I didn't know what else to do. I felt that if I went at this alone, I'd...," I chuckle joylessly. "The more I think about it, I... there isn't any logic here. Perhaps there's never been."

"What are you talking about?"

"Every single problem I've ever had since this Palace shit began, I'd resolve it by just brute-forcing my way through. And it's worked, it's worked wonders for us all. But I think about this. I think about this girl, and what she's done for the woman I loved. And I think that if I do as I've always done, then I'll face something terrible. Something... worse. Like karma. I don't even believe in God. But I believe in this. I'm such an idiot."

"You are," she says bluntly. "You're ruthless. You're violent. You're reckless. Impulsive and self-destructive. Perpetually, exhaustingly depressed and angry. But you're wrong when you tell me all you're good at is destroying things. Everything I am now, I owe to you. And I'll stand with you until the end."

When she applies one last strip of tape upon my open skin, I'm left wondering how lucky I am to have ever met my polar opposite.

"I was... happy. When I spoke to you last Sunday."

"So was I," she says honestly. "I had fun."

I'm wearing a black jacket with a large inner pocket. From out of the inner pocket, I pull up a small book. The cover and pages are yellowed and frayed at the edges - you'd think they're a hundred years old. The cover features a boy in a green shirt and pants, looking over the stars while standing on a small purple planet.

"I...wasn't able to get this to you yesterday. I'm sorry for that."

She looks at the book, takes it in her hands, and closes her eyes, before handing it right back to me.

"I'll be happy to read it, once we finish all of this," she declares, and there's no space for me to argue.

"Okay."

She takes me by both of my hands. "We can do this. Do you believe in that?"

"I believe in you. All of you."

"No," she says so firmly it almost startles me. "Believe that we can do this. Tell me that you can believe that."

"What's the point?" I exhale. "Either we do it or we don't."

"Because every single time I've heard you say we can do something, we're able to do it. And every single time you tell me you can't or won't be able to do something, you prove yourself right. So tell me that we can do this."

"Come on."

"The Vortex World is based on cognition. On self-belief. If you're going to deny that much then you're lost to me. We've made it this far by imposing our will on other people's cognitive worlds, and you're anxious when you try to make a positive impact for once."

"Niijima," I face groundward, and she just grasps my hands tighter.

"Tell me that you, and I, and everyone else can save Futaba Sakura. Or else we'll fail. You'll fail. Look at me."

And I see her.

The rain's finally let up, after a constant storm all morning, and the light shines in and I see her. Her skin is almost white in the glow, for she is naturally pale but not sickly so. Both her eyes are bright red now, makes her look frightening and awe-inspiring in equal measure. She looks at me harshly, as if she's pressing me to do something I'm far too afraid to do-but there is kindness in her eyes, there is courage in the way she speaks to me, and most of all there is sincerity in her conviction.

"We can save Futaba Sakura. Just say it."

And for once in all this time...

I'm willing to believe her, just a bit. "We can save Futaba Sakura."

.

.

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BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN, BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN

When writing out this arc, I wanted to make three things clear:

1) I wanted to show a Futaba who was actively working against the Phantom Thieves and exactly what she could accomplish when she wasn't on their side.

2) I wanted to show a connection between Futaba and Kazuya - that at their core, the both of them are just extremely depressed kids lashing out at everything the only way they know how. The difference being Kazuya acts consciously, and Futaba somewhat unconsciously.

3) Most of all, I wanted to show a connection between Kazuya and Kana herself.

The song at the beginning of this chapter is an upbeat but horrifyingly sad song about someone who's lost a friend to suicide and laments how said friend was never able to tell them what had been affecting them so deeply. The singer desperately wants their friend to find happiness and tries to be that happiness for them, but their friend is already gone, and all they can do now is lament the fact that their dearest friend is no longer with them and no longer will be with them for the rest of their life.

While this fits Kazuya and Kana's dynamic pretty well, it also fits Kazuya's dynamic with Makoto just as nicely. For Makoto is trying to get this self-centered, devilish man to see that the skies can be blue, and all he needs to do is put his trust in her and the others.

Will she succeed? Guess you guys'll have to keep reading.