On a Knife's Edge

by Nerdlinger1

Ren Amamiya is starting his first year at the Police Academy, and Makoto is ready and waiting to welcome him to campus. With the baggage of his past still dogging him, Ren will have his hands full managing his classes, his new peers, and Makoto's complicated new life. Things get even more difficult for him when a series of suspicious deaths puts him in the crosshairs once again.

17. Chapter 17: Tuesday, May 10th, Nighttime

—Chapter 17—Tuesday, May 10th, Nighttime—

Makoto sat on her couch with her feet up, idly passing the time nibbling on packaged senbei crackers and scrolling through her news feed. Nothing she'd seen led her to believe that Ren had been caught, but it didn't sound like any new evidence had come out that pointed to anyone else, either. This wasn't a surprise—why would they look for new evidence when they already had a suspect? #coplogic. She sighed, dropping her phone to her chest. In a funk, she decided to check in at the other house. She opened her thread with Emiko.

It's getting late. Have you guys learned anything new?

Makoto didn't have to wait long before she got her reply:
No, sorry
Naomi has been sitting in her room watching and rewatching the surveillance footage on Jiro's laptop
I don't know what she expects to find, but she's convinced she's going to crack it
I haven't heard any indication that she's learned anything new from it yet though
You?

Nothing

I'm sorry, Mako

It's alright
I just don't want to go to bed
I won't be able to sleep, but I don't know what else to do

It seemed from the lag in Emiko's reply that she was trying to conjure some helpful bit of advice to send Makoto's way. Makoto watched her phone as the three little dots indicating that Emiko was writing something came and went a couple times without any messages actually getting to her.

Then, a dropdown notification appeared that had Makoto's heart in her throat:

New text message from Ren Amamiya

Makoto gasped, shooting straight up into a sitting position. Anxiously, she tapped on the alert, switching text threads from Emiko's to Ren's. On her screen, she was met with a single, cryptic message: A map location with a pin in it. 'I'm here', it said, followed by a URL. She quickly forwarded the message to her other friends, then promptly called Emiko.

"Did you see what I just sent you?" she said into her phone as soon as Emiko answered.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"I just got that from Ren!" Makoto yelled it so loud that Jiro could hear her from across the room from where Emiko was.

"What?" cried Emiko, shocked. "That can't be good… He must want us to get to where he is."

Makoto could make out Jiro's voice through Emiko's phone: "Shit, that's wayyyy fucking south of here!"

"What are we going to do?" Makoto asked urgently, popping out of her seat and heading for the coat rack.

"Get over here as quickly as you can," said Emiko. "We'll have thought of something by the time you get here, and then we'll leave together."

"'Kay," replied Makoto, immediately hanging up and slipping on her shoes. On the off chance that there was a cop driving past her house at that very moment, she slipped out the back door, and down the service road, on her way to wherever Ren was.

—

Running as fast as her legs could carry her, it was just a few minutes before Makoto could see her friends' house. Before she could knock, Emiko was there, opening the door for her.

Makoto hurried inside. "What's the plan?" she asked urgently. "Did you think of something?"

"It's over half an hour to get there on foot, but only six minutes by car. Naomi is next door asking if we can borrow Momo's."

"Does she know how to drive?"

"She's from the country—they drive all the time," she answered.

The front door opened again, and Naomi's head popped through the opening. She held Momo's keys aloft and jingled them proudly. "Got 'em!" she cried. "Let's go, team! This way!"

Emiko snatched up a small case and pointed to a stack of blankets on the couch. "Jiro, grab those." He complied, and the three of them followed Naomi outside. She led them through a narrow walkway toward the service road behind their house where their ride was parked. There, ready and waiting for them, was Momo's 2002 red Hyundai Accent.

"This is no Kit from Knight Rider," commented Jiro derisively as he crawled into the cramped backseat of the two-door hatchback. "It's not even a Mystery Machine…"

"It's what we've got—don't complain," said Emiko, following him into the back. Makoto took shotgun, and Naomi started the engine. It chugged obediently.

"Okay, you're gonna wanna head south down Nichome-shi for about a kilometer and a half," said Jiro, navigating from his phone. Naomi drove the car to the end of the service road, turned left on the main arterial for her neighborhood, and navigated toward Nichome-shi, per Jiro's directions. Turning south, she was careful not to accelerate too quickly—she didn't want to be pulled over, but more than that, she wasn't sure the poor little car's motor could take the stress.

"Okay, now a right turn here."

Makoto kept her eyes glued to the streets, questioning every pair of headlights and every pedestrian who looked to be anything other than a college student. She knew they could be leading the police right to wherever Ren was, if they happened to be tailing them—but she also knew Ren wouldn't have sent such a cryptic text message unless he had a very good reason. They continued to follow Jiro's instructions, one turn after the next.

"Next left is Yosai-dori," said Jiro. "Then, on your right is Akebono Park. He's there somewhere."

Naomi pulled up to the sidewalk as soon as they reached the park, and everyone climbed out of the car.

"Okay, fan out," said Makoto.

"According to his text, he should be at the southeast corner of the park," said Jiro. "The satellite view shows a lotta trees and shit."

The four kept their eyes peeled for the trees in question, and when they were in roughly the right area, flashlights became necessary. Naomi spotted a pair of feet just barely sticking out from under some bushes, and couldn't help but shriek a little.

"Sshhh!" reprimanded Emiko, though she ran right over to see what had caused her friend to cry out. "Everyone! Over here!"

Naomi tried to pull Ren out from the bushes by his feet, but he was too heavy for her. Giving up, she felt something sticky on her hands, and turned on her flashlight to check it out. Recognizing the red color for what it was, she cried out once more.

"Shhh!" urged Emiko. "Jiro! Blankets! And pull him out!"

Jiro ran over as quickly as he could and dropped the blankets on the ground. Grabbing Ren by his ankles, he pulled hard. By the time he had Ren fully extricated from the shrubbery, Makoto was just running up to them.

She gasped at what she saw under the illumination of Naomi's cell phone flashlight. "Oh Jesus," she said, taking in the bloodied mess before her. "He's so pale…"

"Some of that is the bad lighting," said Emiko, trying to keep her calm. Taking his wrist in her hand and lowering her cheek to his mouth, she checked Ren's vitals. "He's breathing," she said. She opened up the case that she'd brought with her and pulled out a pair of scissors and a roll of gauze. "Help me cut his shirt off," she said. Examining the shoulder where his shirt had been bloodied, she found the point of entry of the first of the bullets Ren had taken that night. "No exit wound," she said, checking the backside of Ren's shoulder. "Put pressure here," she said, applying a layer of gauze to the shoulder and moving to inspect his legs, where Naomi had first discovered the blood. Makoto pressed down on Ren's shoulder. "Harder," said Emiko, noting the tentativeness with which Makoto was handling him. "You won't hurt him by pressing too hard."

Cutting away the jeans from his left leg, Emiko located entry and exit wounds in the upper part of his calf. She promptly wrapped him up in gauze. "Now, stand him up," she said. "We need to get him back to the car, quickly."

"Do you see his phone anywhere?" asked Jiro. Everyone paused, looking around, grateful for Jiro's presence of mind.

"There!" said Naomi, spotting a glint of reflected flashlight in the dirt. She quickly grabbed the phone and powered it down, then slipped it into her pocket. "I'll pull the car closer!" she said, running off.

Jiro wrapped Ren's right arm around his neck, taking the majority of Ren's weight, and lifted him up off the ground. Makoto was afraid to touch the bloody left arm, but she swallowed her fear and got under it anyway, doing her best to prop him up so Jiro didn't have to drag him across the park. Emiko made sure there was a blanket wrapped around him, then the three headed off toward the street to meet up with the car, Ren in tow.

In her haste, Naomi drove up over the curb, quickly correcting to get all four wheels back on the street. Emiko opened the passenger-side door and pulled the seat forward. Makoto was the first to get into the back of the car, receiving Ren's head and upper body as Jiro lowered him into the back.

"Let me sit back there," said Emiko, stepping in front of Jiro before he could get in. Without a word, he got out of her way and pushed the front seat back once she was seated inside. Finally, Jiro got into the front passenger seat, and Naomi pulled away, back toward their home.

Makoto's heart pounded in her chest as she looked down at Ren's face, his glasses hanging crookedly over his ears. The color was gone from his lips, and she could see the whites of his eyes peeking out from under his eyelids. Her tears fell on his face. One after the other, she wiped them away.

—

In the living room, Jiro and Naomi lay together on the couch. Naomi was on her back with her head on the armrest, and Jiro was on his side, tucked in next to her at the back of the couch, using her belly as a pillow. She played with his hair.

Jiro took a long, exhausted breath. "I can't believe all of this is happening."

"I know," said Naomi. "It's not right at all. Not fair."

"Mmm," agreed Jiro. "Boy, I hope we didn't get any blood on the seats of Momo's car," he said. "It will make the lie that you were just taking me to the hospital for anaphylactic shock a bit harder to believe if she finds blood back there…"

"We can check in the morning, but I'm sure Emi wrapped him up well enough," said Naomi. "She's great at that stuff."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Lucky us that we have the benefit of a doctor in the group."

"Medical examiner," corrected Naomi.

"Don't medical examiners deal in dead people?" he asked. "He's alive. So for tonight, she's a doctor."

Naomi smiled. "You're right."

The door to Emiko's room opened, and she and Makoto came out. Emiko had a steady and professional look on her face, but Makoto looked shaken. In the light of the living room, you could see the smears of Ren's blood on their clothes. Parched, Makoto went to the kitchen sink and filled herself a glass of water, but not before peeling off her latex gloves and tossing them in the bin.

"How's our patient?" asked Jiro.

"I found evidence of at least three gunshots," said Emiko. "One bullet grazed his left arm, one was lodged in his shoulder and had to be removed, and another passed right through his left calf."

"Jesus Christ," said Jiro, sighing. "Who the fuck did that…?" It was a rhetorical question.

"I've stitched up everything I could, and it should be clean. He'll pull through. He lost a lot of blood, but there wasn't any serious damage done besides that. No broken bones, no major organs pierced. Just skin and muscle tissue. I wish I had an I.V. I could put in him, though… We'll just have to get him to drink something once he's regained consciousness."

"Any idea when that will be?" he asked.

Emiko shook her head. "It all depends."

"How are you, Mako-chan?" asked Naomi.

Makoto looked a little shell-shocked. "I'll be fine," she said. "Emiko's right—it wasn't that bad. It was just… hard to watch."

"You were a very excellent second set of hands, Makoto," said Emiko, complimenting her. "You were rock solid."

"Thank you," she said, taking a sip of water. "I didn't feel rock solid, but thank you." Makoto took her glass of water and sat down in the comfy chair in the living room. "What did you do with the bullet you pulled out?"

Emiko sat on the floor next to the coffee table and leaned against the couch. "It's still sitting in the tray in there. Why? Do you want it?"

"I don't know," she said. "I hadn't really thought about it. It just seems like something we shouldn't get rid of."

"It could be evidence," said Jiro.

"Probably not," said Emiko. "Not if it was a cop that put it there."

"We don't know that it was," said Jiro, playing devil's advocate.

"No one else has guns…" she countered.

"What about the Yakuza?" Naomi wondered aloud.

"Right, 'cause things aren't already complicated enough," Emiko sighed. "Why shouldn't he be dealing with the mob?"

Jiro cocked his head, considering other issues. "There's also the question of just what the hell he was doing in that part of town," said Jiro.

"Couldn't he have just walked there?" asked Naomi. "He was gone for a few hours…"

"Yeah, that's possible, I just can't fathom what sense there would have been in him going all the way down there." Jiro sighed, trying to understand. He scoured his brain for anything that might clarify the events of the day, but failed. His mind wandered back to the video footage. "Did you ever find anything new from watching that stupid surveillance tape over and over?" asked Jiro.

"No…" said Naomi, frowning. "Something about it bugs me, but I can't figure out what it is."

"You mean besides all the poorly-timed pixelation?" said Jiro, being facetious. "How about all the hot security footage of me playing Tetris through the window? Go on, tell me how much sex appeal I bring to the world of competitive puzzle-gaming."

"You looked bored to death," said Naomi.

"What do you mean?" said Jiro, sounding almost sincerely defensive. "Tetris is an aerobic exercise, the way I play it."

Naomi scrunched up her face. "Jiro-kun, are you being serious?"

Jiro was silent for a moment, puzzling over her question. "Well, not that I'm trying to be argumentative or anything, but yeah, actually… I move all over the goddamn place when I'm playing Tetris. I can't control it. I get the crazy techno music in my ear, and I just start bopping around while I do shit. It's kind of a compulsion."

After a moment's consideration, Naomi abruptly stood up from the couch, dumping Jiro's head into the middle of the cushion.

"Oof!" he said as he hit the fabric. "Everything okay, babe?"

She ignored him, running to her room. A moment later, she was back with his laptop.

"What's up?" he asked, genuinely perplexed.

"I gotta see this again," said Naomi, pulling up the footage from the surveillance camera.

"Again?" said Emiko. "What do you think you're going to see this time?"

Naomi set the laptop down on the coffee table and sat down next to Jiro, who was now fully sitting up. Makoto came and joined them on the couch so she could see the screen. Emiko leaned over to get a better view from her spot on the floor.

"Okay, here," said Naomi, resuming the playback from the moment Ren punches Tetsuo in the stomach and leaves him heaving on his hands and knees. "Look at you."

Everyone watched as Jiro, seen in profile in the upper left corner of the screen, controller in hand, played Tetris. He weaved and bobbed left and right as he played, clearly very into it.

"See? I told you," said Jiro. "Aerobic. Exercise."

"Keep watching," said Naomi. Ren is seen wiping off his knife and talking to Tetsuo, all the while Jiro continues to play his game, balls to the wall. "See here, after Ren leaves…"

"This is where the elementing becomes particularly bad," reminded Jiro.

"Yeah, but look at you," she said.

Everyone watched, inching closer and closer to the screen as they studied Jiro in the corner. By the time the pixelation had resolved, Tetsuo was motionless, lying prone on the ground—and Jiro was frozen in place.

"What the fuck?" said Jiro. "Did you pause? Why aren't I moving?"

Naomi pointed to the timestamp at the bottom of the screen. They watched as the seconds continued to tick forward, though Jiro remained frozen in time. The screen of his TV was not visible through the window, but almost all of Jiro was, and he was utterly still.

"What the… That's… I should be…" Jiro stuttered as he tried to find the words for what he was seeing. He couldn't. The pixelation went in and out some more over the next few minutes, even as Jiro failed to budge. By about 11:30, after some intense pixelation, Jiro could be seen moving around again. Eventually, he turns around in his seat to face the door, apparently greeting Ren as he entered their room. The timestamp reads 11:33 and 14 seconds.

"Okay… What the fuck happened there? It's like the video was just frozen for a few minutes!"

"Oh my god," said Makoto, realization dawning on her. "I think that's exactly what happened…"

The others contemplated the only explanation Makoto could be implying, but it didn't make sense. They sat there silently, unable to give it voice—it was too preposterous to say out loud.

"The surveillance footage has been altered," said Makoto, putting it out there. "This is a lie."

Emiko let out the breath she'd been holding. "Okay—who would do that? And why?" she asked.

"Who has access to this footage?" asked Jiro. "Would the cops have fucked with it?"

"Well, maybe," said Makoto, "but why would they need to? If they didn't like what the footage was showing—for whatever reason—they could have just kept it to themselves. They wouldn't need to alter it because they already control who else gets to see it."

"We pulled this footage from the school, not the police, right?" said Emiko. "If it was altered, it must have been altered before it was handed over to the police. Don't you think…?"

"And all that goddamn pixelation could've been done on purpose to cover their tracks!" shouted Jiro. "If so, it's clever that they started adding it before it was necessary… Made it seem normal by the time it was actually being used to cover something up… Fuckers…"

"That, or we need to double check all those other areas for evidence of more tampering…" observed Makoto.

"So are you saying that someone, whoever did this, selectively cut out some sections and stretched out others to fill the empty space, letting the clock continue to tick by?" asked Emiko. "Is that what you're saying?"

"Right," said Jiro. "The bits where I'm not moving are the bits that were stretched out. The bits that were cut were of the fucking killer coming in and finishing Tetsuo off."

"So does that mean…" said Makoto, piecing things together, "Does that mean that the killer is the one who edited the footage? Or maybe it was edited by someone trying to protect them…?"

"Either or," agreed Jiro, shrugging. "Or there's some third reason we're not thinking of…? My head is starting to hurt…"

"Did you check any other cameras?" asked Makoto.

"Uh, yeah, but only before, not after. I looked at the camera trained on the front of the dorm, and confirmed that Tetsuo pulled his car up about fifteen minutes before Ren got there."

"Check again," said Makoto, her pulse escalating. "Only this time, look later. When did Ren leave the scene?"

Naomi rewound the footage to the moment in question. As she did so, everyone's eyes were trained on the timestamp in the corner.

"Eleven twenty-six," said Makoto, as Ren's reverse-walking visage quickly came back into view. "Look then."

Jiro pulled the laptop closer to himself so he could manipulate things more easily. He had downloaded the footage from the alley, but to get to the other cameras, he would need to get back in through the backdoor he'd left for himself. "This'll just take a minute."

While Jiro did his thing, Emiko stood up and headed into the kitchen. Opening the fridge, she pulled out four sodas and grabbed a bottle opener from a nearby drawer. Returning to the living room, she handed each person a bottle. "Everyone, drink something. I have a feeling we'll be up for a bit longer, and I suspect everyone's blood sugar is really low."

Makoto took the bottle from her friend's hand, offering her a look of abject appreciation. "Thank you, Emi."

Emiko returned her thank you with a warm smile. "I'm glad to help," she said softly.

"Okay, I'm in," said Jiro, gratefully accepting the bottle from Emiko as he browsed the available cameras. "Let's see… 'Northwest Dorm, Entry'," he said, reading off the screen. "That should get us something. Where's yesterdayyy…" he droned the word out as he scrolled through the history of available dates. It didn't take him long to find the right one. "Okay, what time did we say?"

"Eleven twenty-six," said Makoto, taking a swig from her soda.

"Elevennnn twenty-siiiiiixxx…" Jiro's eyes were glued to his laptop. Except for his fingers and the subtle motions of his eyes as they searched the screen, he was totally still, completely absorbed in what he was doing. "Bam, found it," he said, punching the 'return' key to emphasize his triumph. Everyone pulled closer to the screen as they watched.

At 11:26 and 12 seconds, Ren could be seen exiting the alley and turning west to cross in front of the building. Only a few lights were on in the dormitory, and though their room was one of them, you couldn't see Jiro at his desk from this view. They watched quietly for a short while, though nothing was happening.

"I'm gonna speed this up, juuuust a touch," said Jiro, increasing the playback speed to 1.6 times normal. They continued to study the footage, glancing from the alley, to the street out front, to the dorm room window, and all around in between. Four sets of eyes looked for any little thing that might point them toward their next lead.

And then, there was something new. "Who the fuck is that?" said Jiro, quickly pausing the video at 11:29:32pm. A large man, dressed in what looked like a track suit, was exiting the alley, headed south and east. From what they could see through the front-facing dorm window, Ren hadn't even made it back to their room yet.

"Eleven twenty-nine," said Makoto, her heart racing. Everyone exchanged glances.

"That dude should've been in the footage from the alley," said Jiro, stunned. "Who the hell is he? And why isn't he in the other video?"

"Can you zoom in on his face at all?" asked Naomi.

Jiro nodded, slowly overcoming his shock. "Yeah, I can—sort of. Hold on." Jiro backed the footage up to the exact moment the man first came into frame, when the view of his face was the most direct. "Hopefully the fidelity doesn't go completely to shit," he muttered as he brought up a cross-hairs, dragging it over the portion of the screen where the man's face was.

The image thus magnified, everyone leaned in to get a good look at the man's face—the image was pixelated, but they could still make out his appearance. Examining closely, Jiro's brow crinkled up in scrutiny. "Where have I seen him before…?" he asked, scouring his brain for the source of the déjà vu.

"He does look awfully familiar," said Naomi. "But I can't place where I've seen him." Just then, her phone pinged, and she brought it up to look.

"Don't forget your sodas, everyone," said Emiko, taking a sip from her own bottle. "It will help you think."

Phone in one hand and soda in the other, Naomi navigated to her email, and the reason for the ping. "Google News Alert," she said, tapping on the email and taking a swig. She almost spat out her soda when she read the headline. "Mmph!" she cried, lowering the bottle and choking down her drink. "Sixth victim!"

"What?" blurted the others, nearly in unison.

"Turn on the TV!" she shouted, unable to navigate putting down either her phone or her drink. Makoto picked up the remote and aimed it at the TV, turning up the volume. It was already tuned to the local news.

"—ight Blade. This incident is particularly alarming, because it marks the first instance of the killer actually entering someone's home to murder them. According to the victim's husband, who is—"

"Holy shit, was it a woman this time?" interrupted Jiro.

"Shhh!" commanded Emiko, taking the remote from Makoto and turning it up even louder.

"—and proceeded through the house after killing her. He reportedly says that The Midnight Blade entered his study and proceeded to attack him. Amazingly, he claims that the killer actually threw a knife at him, only narrowly missing him, the knife embedding itself in the wall behind where he was working. Capital News Four can confirm that the police have obtained the weapon in question. Additionally—and we're still waiting on confirmation for this—but one of the officers on the scene stated that the victim's husband has positively identified Ren Amamiya—the suspect seen in the surveillance footage from the killing just yesterday—as the man who attacked him in his office…"

"Oh Jesus," said Makoto, losing her color. "It just keeps piling on…"

Emiko sat down next to Makoto and placed a warm hand on her back, nudging her to take a sip of soda.

"No word yet on where Amamiya—or rather, the suspect, as Amamiya hasn't yet been confirmed—fled to after escaping the home, but he is believed to be injured. CPF officers are combing the neighborhood as we speak, looking for any trace of the suspect. This has been Midori Juuichi of Capital News Four, reporting live from the Academy district's south side."

"The south side," said Jiro solemnly.

"'Injured'," added Naomi, frowning.

"Does he… Does he have his knife on him?" asked Makoto, looking like she might be sick to her stomach.

The four of them looked worriedly at one another, mulling over everything they'd just heard. "Let's go check," said Emiko, turning off the TV and standing up. No sooner had she turned around than she stopped dead in her tracks. Watching her, everyone followed her gaze to the other side of the room.

Standing in the doorway to Emiko's bedroom, leaning against the door frame, was a very pale and haggard-looking man, shirtless, wearing only three-quarters of a pair of jeans. Clutching his injured left arm to his body, he looked pleadingly out into the room of his peers. He'd only heard the tail end of the news report, but he'd caught the gist.

"Ren!" cried Makoto. "Oh Ren, you're awake!" She hastily stood up from the couch, knocking her bottle of sugary soda off the table. Naomi quickly grabbed it before it could hit the floor. Careful not to handle him too roughly, Makoto ran to him and held him close.

Dipping his face to brush against her forehead, he returned her affection as well as he was able. "Makoto…" he said weakly, closing his eyes.

"Are you able to talk?" asked Emiko, looking him over. "You look weak as a sick puppy…"

"Mm, hungry…" he muttered.

"Let's get him to a chair," said Jiro, stepping over to assist them into the kitchen. Ren hobbled over to the table on his injured leg, collapsing, exhausted, into the nearest chair. Just moving those few feet from the door to the table had his head swimming, and the room spinning. Makoto took off her blood-stained cardigan and draped it over his bare shoulders.

Emiko opened the fridge and pulled out another soda, popping the top and setting it in front of him. She then reached into a pantry and produced a package of crackers, adding it to the offering. "You lost a lot of blood and I'm guessing you haven't eaten anything in hours. You're hypoglycemic. Go slowly, but eat and drink as much as you can."

"Thank you," he said, wearily reaching for the bottle in front of him and taking a sip. He swallowed, breathing deeply before drinking down a couple more swigs of the refreshing liquid. His eyes were unfocused, staring ahead of him. Setting his drink on the table, he refocused his eyes, looking right at Makoto. "Who are they saying I killed now?"

"Never mind that for a minute," said Makoto, placing her hand on top of Ren's. "Can you tell us what happened to you? Why were you in that part of town?"

Ren's addled brain dug back through his memories of the extremely long day he'd had. "Is it still Tuesday?" he asked.

Makoto nodded. "Barely."

"So it's only been a few hours…"

"What happened?" she asked again.

Ren took another sip from his bottle, thinking where to begin. "After I left your place, I wandered around for a long time. I should have just hidden in a dumpster or something…" he said, sighing, a pained expression on his face. Makoto squeezed his hand. "I fucked up. After a while, someone spotted me, and pretty soon the police were all over the place. I ran. Just when I thought I was about to be caught, this white car pulls up and the man inside yells at me to get in. Says he knows I'm innocent, and he can help. The cops were closing in on me, so I did as he said, and got in his car…"

"Is that how you got to that part of town?" asked Jiro.

"I guess so," said Ren. "I don't know where I was—I had to keep my head down as he drove. We didn't really talk on the way, either—he had a police scanner, so we listened to that the whole time."

Naomi's phone pinged, and everyone turned to look at her. "Is that another Google News Alert?" asked Jiro.

"I'll check, hold on," said Naomi. "Keep talking Ren-kun, don't mind me."

Ren helped himself to a cracker from the box on the table and chewed it slowly, letting his memories return to the back of the dean's car. "So we got to his house, and then—"

Naomi gasped, staring wide-eyed at her phone. Everyone jumped and looked at her again.

"What? What is it?" asked Emiko.

"They've released the name—and photo—of the victim."

"Already?" cried Jiro, shocked. "Aren't there, like, a couple victims in between whose names aren't out yet? Why are they releasing this one so soon?"

"Look who it is…" said Naomi, holding up her phone for them all to see. Everyone leaned in to get a better look.

It was a photo of the victim and her husband, taken last year at the Policeman's Ball. Jiro's eyes went wide with recognition. He and Naomi locked eyes, and, in unison, cried out their shared conclusion. "It's the jogger!"

Ren cocked his head in confusion, leaning in even closer to study the image on Naomi's phone, squinting at it. "What are you talking about? Can somebody get my glasses? I can't tell what I'm looking at here…"

Emiko ran to her room and fetched Ren's glasses from off her nightstand, handing them to him. He reset the frames to his face and took another look at Naomi's phone. "Okay, what jogger?" he said, studying the image. "That's the dean—he's the one who picked me up in his car. Dean Yoshinora."

"Dude, that's the jogger. Look," he said, walking back to the living room and collecting his laptop off the coffee table. Setting it on the kitchen table directly in front of Ren, he showed him the blown-up image of the face of the man mysteriously seen leaving the alley just minutes after Ren did.

Ren's brow crinkled in confusion. "What am I looking at? I'm telling you, that's the dean. Where did you get this picture? He's not dead, is he? He's the guy who shot me…"

"That's definitely the same guy in both pictures," said Makoto, comparing the two images side by side.

"The victim's name is Yuki Yoshinora," said Naomi, scrolling through the news update. "His wife. Is the jogger also the dean?"

"Oh, fuck! That's why he looked so goddamn familiar!" cried Jiro, stomping around the kitchen as the epiphanies came to him, one after the other. "We've seen him on the news already! They interviewed him this morning after Ren was formally identified. Jesus Christ!"

"Whoa, whoa, everybody calm down," said Emiko. "Let's back this up. Ren, you're saying the dean of the Academy picked you up in his car?"

"Yes, he did. He even gave me his name: Giichi Yoshinora. He said he knew I was innocent, and he wanted to help me."

"Well, it sounds to me like only half of that was a lie," said Jiro. "You're obviously not the killer if he's the one who did it."

"Wait, sorry… I'm still pretty out of it," said Ren, putting his hand to his forehead. "So, is the dean's wife dead?"

"Apparently, yes," said Makoto. "The latest victim is a woman, killed in her home—last name 'Yoshinora'… The husband—the dean, I guess—claims you entered their home, killed her, then attacked him before fleeing the scene."

"Oh Jesus," said Ren, throwing his head back and closing his eyes. "That motherfucker… He did it when I was right there…"

"So wait… He killed his wife?" asked Makoto.

Ren lowered his head, staring into the table. "He must have. When we arrived at his home, he left me alone in the car for a while. Said he had to 'take care of his wife', and he'd come back for me when the coast was clear. He fucking killed her…"

Makoto could hardly believe her ears. "Why would he bring you to his house and then kill his wife? Jesus Christ, you don't think…?"

"—It was his plan to pin it on Ren…?" supplied Emiko. "What kind of monster…?"

"The serial killer, that's who!" shouted Jiro. "This explains perfectly why he didn't appear in the surveillance footage from the alley—son of a bitch edited himself out! And if he knows Ren is already under suspicion for something he did, then this would be a convenient setup to pile more evidence on him…"

With that, suddenly everything Ren had experienced in the last few hours made perfect sense to him. "Oh my god, if he'd killed me… I finally understand…"

"What? What do you understand?" asked Makoto.

"He wants to 'retire'..." he said, making air quotes with his good arm. "In his office, before he shot me, he went on this diatribe…"

"Don't tell me he fucking confessed everything right before he thought he was about to kill you," interrupted Jiro. "That is so TV villain!"

"Shut up," said Emiko, smacking Jiro on the arm. "Let him talk."

"I wouldn't call it a 'confession'," said Ren, "but he definitely said some suspicious shit. He gave this weird speech… He said he was fed up with everything, and that things had spiraled out of control. He said it was time to 'retire', but he said it so weirdly that it felt like there was some… subtext to what he was saying. I asked him if he meant he was going to quit being the dean, and he said yeah, but also quit his marriage and 'everything else'… 'Start over', he said." Ren took a long pull from his warming soda. "If he'd managed to kill me, he'd have successfully ended his marriage, his career, and his killing spree, with me taking the fall for all the murders. Had he killed me there, he'd have retired from everything as a hero for putting down The Midnight Blade…"

There was a long period of quiet following the conclusion of Ren's explanation.

"Jesus… that's some dark shit," said Jiro. "He must be pretty pissed that you're not dead then…"

"Most likely," said Ren. "Though, if it wasn't for you guys, I would be dead. Thank you," he said, looking each of them pointedly in the eyes.

"Aw, buddy, no worries," said Jiro. "You're too sexy to die."

"It was all Emiko," said Naomi, beaming with pride in her friend.

"Thanks, but it was a team effort," said Emiko. "I'm just glad I could contribute."

"You did more than you'll ever know," said Makoto, with a look that pierced right into Emiko's heart.

She blushed. "Thanks, Mako-chan."

Jiro had continued putting things together in his mind, and was mentally cross-referencing these new revelations against what he'd heard on the news not long ago. "Don't tell me," he said, looking at Ren. "—that's your fucking knife they recovered from his house, isn't it?"

Ren closed his eyes and bit his lip. "Yes, it must be."

"How did he manage to get it from you?"

Ren set his jaw and shook his head, frustrated with himself. "Because I'm a fucking idiot, that's how."

Makoto looked at him, perplexed. "What do you mean? You didn't give it to him, did you?"

"Not exactly, but close enough," he answered. "He already knew I had it on me, so it was just a matter of manipulating me just right to get me to get it out. He insisted that I demonstrate throwing it…"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," said Jiro. "Just tell me you didn't aim for a picture with his face on it…"

Ren creased his lips. "That is literally, exactly what I did."

"Oh, dude! Why would you do that?!" cried Jiro, stomping in circles around the kitchen. "That's so incriminating it's comical!"

"Shhh, leave him alone," said Makoto, in Ren's defense. "I'm sure if it had been you, you'd have done the same thing."

Ren sighed. "He'd been so good to me up to that point. He'd rescued me from the cops, given me food, offered to let me use his phone to call my friends—which I never got around to doing, of course, but was still hoping to when he asked me to demonstrate my skills… I was just trying to be a gracious guest."

"Yeah, but… aiming at his face?"

Ren threw his hand up dejectedly. "That's where he told me to throw! You should have seen his office! It was like a fucking French conservatory! Anything I aimed for would have meant millions of yen in damages—he said he was getting divorced anyway, so to aim for the portrait of him and his wife that hung on the wall behind his desk. 'It's coming down anyway,' he said… I mean, god dammit!"

Ren stared at Jiro, who looked back at him with his eyebrows raised incredulously. He had the most ridiculous grin on his face. The others glanced back and forth between the two of them. One of them was going to break. Maybe both of them.

Nope, just Jiro. Bending over at the waist, he bellowed in uproarious laughter, clutching his stomach as the muscles tensed painfully with each guffaw. He was nearly out of breath before he was able to stand back up again. Sucking in a chestful of air, Jiro renewed his mirth and cackled out a first-rate ribbing. "Man, this isn't a thriller, it's a comedy! You're like Inspector Clouseau! Or like, if Clarice Starling had gone to Buffalo Bill's house and offered to pose for photos wearing the woman-suit!"

"Man, fuck you," spat Ren, hiding his embarassment behind his soda bottle.

"Okay, I actually get that reference," said Makoto. "But I'm not sure it's a fair one…"

"Oh dude, it's fair—that's what makes it so hilarious!" Jiro had gotten a cramp from laughing so hard, and collapsed in an empty chair at the table. "Sorry man, I don't mean to come down so hard on you, but wow… You're not making this easy."

"Dick…" said Ren. He wasn't amused enough to smile, but you could tell he wasn't really mad. "At least Inspector Clouseau gets the crook in the end," he said.

"Yeah, he does," said Jiro. "I'm so proud of you for knowing that. And how, my dear Inspector, are we going to take down Buffalo Bill?"

"Do we have to discuss this now?" asked Emiko. "It's so late… Aren't you all exhausted?"

Makoto downed the last of her soda in one big gulp. "I think we have to discuss this now. The police are going to look at this as conclusive evidence—they have his knife, with his prints, and a credible eyewitness saying it was him. If they're not staking out my house right now, I'd be shocked, and it won't be long before they track us here. We're running out of time to solve this—to end it. We need to come up with a plan. Now."

"We can put the dean at the scene of Tetsuo's death," said Jiro. "We know he was there. Could we take that to the cops?"

"We could," said Makoto, "I'm just not sure that's enough. They still think they have footage of Ren delivering the mortal blow."

"But come on, it's the dean we see here," he said, gesturing to the image of the jogger coming out of the alley. "He gave them that footage in the first place—you don't think the fact that there's conflicting evidence that puts him at the scene of the crime warrants investigation?"

"I do, it's just… not enough, like I said," she repeated. "I'm just worried that if we reveal our involvement to the police, and it ends up being inadequate, then we all go down, losing our ability to continue to investigate. Meanwhile, the killer goes free, and Ren is still found guilty in the end."

"Wait, I'm confused," said Ren. "Is this picture you have of the dean from the alley? Did you see all the surveillance footage? If he was there, why is there any question that it was him who killed Tetsuo?"

"Dude, keep up," said Jiro exasperatedly. He rattled off a glib summary of everything they'd uncovered while Ren was on the lam: "We saw the footage, the footage was doctored so that it looks like you did it, but I was frozen playing Tetris and we found this other camera… It's a whole thing. Just shut up and look pretty while the adults talk, okay?"

Ren shrank under his friend's hasty rebuke. He helped himself to a cracker while he listened closely, trying to 'keep up'.

"What we need is a confession," said Naomi, heading into the fridge to pull out some more brain food.

"In a perfect world, yes, but how would we go about getting one of those?" asked Emiko. "Seems idealistic and naïve…"

"Villains give themselves up in movies all the time, don't they Jiro-kun?" asked Naomi. "What makes them do it?"

"Ha, well, it sounds like our villain's big monologue already happened," said Jiro, helping himself to some of the cold cuts Naomi had just set down. "Trouble is, no one but the scapegoat was around to hear it."

"He didn't confess to being the serial killer," said Ren. "He just 'knew' I didn't do it, and said a number of weird things that, in retrospect, sounded very suspicious. Like, he knew way too much about how to kill someone with a stiletto, said he had 'great appreciation' for my skills, and he 'took care' of his wife, his marriage to whom he was planning to end anyway. Now that I'm looking at it from the rearview mirror, I can better see just how creepifying it all was…"

"Okay, well, that's actually good," said Jiro. "If he didn't already confess everything to you, then that means there's a chance he still might. The hubris of villainy is that they really want everyone to know that they did it."

"That's not just a movie trope?" asked Makoto.

Jiro shrugged, chewing thoughtfully. "I know the villain-monologue is an overused cliché, but there's actually a very legitimate, psychological motivation for it—it eats away at the bad guys that no one knows how smart they are. Unless they're caught, the fact of their cleverness is never known, so the compromise they make with themselves is that they'll tell someone, bask in the satisfaction that their victim can see how great they are, then kill the one they told so it never gets out. It's like a drug—telling someone gives them their fix." Clearly, Jiro had once seen the cover of a book about Jung.

Emiko creased her forehead incredulously. "So… Are we actually considering a plot to make him confess now?"

Everyone looked around the table at one another, sharing a quiet, tentative moment. What they were considering doing was very, very reckless.

"Hypothetically," said Ren, chewing a bit of food that was more substantial than the crackers he'd started with, "if we were to try something like that… How would we wanna do it?"

"We could record him on our cell phones?" suggested Makoto.

"But how would we get him to talk?" asked Emiko.

"He'd need to think he was safe to speak freely," said Jiro. "Either somewhere on his turf, or in a neutral location."

"Are you suggesting a meet-up?" asked Ren. "On what grounds would he agree to meet with me?"

"Oh, I think he wants to meet with you—he needs you dead, remember?" said Jiro.

Emiko nodded. "If the police take you alive, you're a wild card. You'll talk and then it's a crapshoot if they believe you or not."

"Yeah, like, how much of what you say will the police investigate?" Naomi added.

"As long as you're alive, you're a threat to him," said Makoto.

"Exactly," agreed Jiro. "But if he can just 'happen' to find you someplace and finish the job, then maybe he reclaims his 'hero' status—taking vengeance for his 'poor, dead wife' while he's at it… The trick will be, giving you a reason to want to meet with him…"

"Because why would I be asking to meet with him somewhere, when he's already tried to kill me once," said Ren.

Jiro nodded. "Right—why. If there isn't a good reason, he sees through the ruse right away, and we fail."

"I've got it," said Makoto. They all looked at her expectantly. "First of all, we need there to be a reason other than 'because he wants to kill Ren' for him to agree to meet us, otherwise we'd be idiots for requesting the meet-up. To make this believable, we need it to look like we have something to offer him other than Ren's head on a platter."

"And we need something reasonable to ask for in return, otherwise…" said Ren.

"Otherwise you're a fool for putting yourself out there," she said, finishing his thought.

"A quid pro quo," said Jiro, tapping his fingertips together, Monty Burns-style. "Dude, this is sounding more like Silence of the Lambs every minute." Other than a crooked smile Naomi threw his way, they ignored him. "So what can we offer?" he asked.

"Evidence," said Makoto. "We say we have incriminating evidence that proves he's the serial killer, and we offer to let him have it—or dispose of it—if he'll help Ren get out from under these accusations."

"Okay, so less of a quid pro quo than just straight-up blackmail, but I gotcha," said Jiro, cocking his head. "But wait," he added, incredulous, "if we had evidence that proved the dean was the killer, wouldn't we just take it to the cops ourselves? Wouldn't that get Ren off the hook, without us having to wheel and deal with the Big Bad?"

"Ren can't take it to the cops himself, because he knows they'd never believe him," said Makoto. "At least not as long as he's the prime suspect. The dean is a man of privilege and power—his word holds sway."

"He did say he used to be a cop, and still has friends there," said Ren. He gasped, remembering. "He even told me, 'I know what the cops know, and I know that what they have on you doesn't prove you're a serial killer.'"

"Wait, is that good?" asked Jiro. "If he knows you know that the cops know it wasn't you, then why would you risk meeting with him?"

Ren had to think for a minute to suss out what Jiro had just said, but eventually, he nodded confidently. "No, it's good," he said. "He understands that my circumstances make me a convenient target—only a few scraps of evidence need to point in my direction in order for me to be a suspect. If someone with clout were to get behind me, then we could make it all go away."

"At any rate, the dean just has to believe that that's what you're angling for in order for this to work," said Makoto. "If he believes that you believe that he can get you off the hook, then we have something."

"And it's something that speaks to his ego," said Emiko. "He gets to use his position and his gravitas to control who lives and who dies."

"Exactly," said Makoto.

"He even said he would do that for me…" said Ren, shaking his head. "He promised to go to the police tomorrow and smooth it all over."

"A promise he dangled in front of you just before asking you to hand over your knife in the most incriminating way possible," said Jiro. "What a dick."

"And what about the knife?" asked Naomi. "They have his prints on another knife, in the presence of another body… Plus the dean himself identified him as the attacker. Doesn't that make 'smoothing things over' a little harder than it was before?"

Everyone shared a worried look. "It does," said Makoto. "But we may need to gamble a little bit… Perhaps we could ask the dean to recant? Blame it on mistaken identity?"

"But Ren's prints…" rebutted Naomi, uncertainly.

"The harder it is to fix, the more payoff the dean feels if he can pull it off?" suggested Jiro. He shrugged lamely. "I feel like we're starting to get really deep into the weeds of criminal psychology here. I don't suppose any of you are majoring in that?"

"Sadly, no," said Makoto.

"If I'm on the run," said Ren, "then it's reasonable to think that I wouldn't have access to news. It's believable that I wouldn't know he'd I.D.'ed me… Or that his wife is even dead. We could be negotiating strictly over the connection to Tetsuo's death."

"Hmm, that's sort of true," said Emiko, cocking her head thoughtfully. "Let's keep our demands focused solely on that, and play dumb about everything else."

"Seems thin…" cautioned Jiro.

"A little," conceded Makoto, "but that's why we need to do things quickly. Put him under pressure so that he doesn't have time to sit and think through it all."

"It didn't take us long to see problems…" Ren said glumly, through a mouthful of cold cuts.

"But we're a group talking it through together. He's on his own. He doesn't have anyone to bounce ideas off of," Naomi said, hopeful.

"Anyway, we're going around in circles," said Makoto. "Let's brainstorm the other parts of this plan before we get too hung up on the fake reasons we're suggesting for a meet-up. Could we make this plan work logistically?"

"Okay, so we're assuming he agrees to a meet-up…" said Jiro. "I guess next would be… figuring out how to arrange said meet-up—"

"—And how to coax a confession out of him," said Ren.

"And how to record it," added Naomi.

"Let's start at the beginning," said Makoto. "How would we arrange it?"

"Ooo! Oooo! We send a calling card!" cried Naomi, flapping her hands in excitement. Ren and Makoto exchanged an incredulous look.

"Like the Phantom Thieves?" asked Jiro.

"Yes! Just like them! That would be soooo coooool!" she squealed. "Please, please, pleeease, can we send a calling card?"

"Naomi… are you serious?" asked Emiko.

"Hell yes, I'm serious! The Phantom Thieves are agents of justice! This would be such a fabulous homage to them—I wanna be a Phantom Thief! Ohmygod can I please have a code name?"

"Uhhh," said Makoto, stuttering. "I, uh, I didn't realize you were such a fan."

"Ohmygod, Phan with a 'PH', YES. They're why I'm a copppp…"

Jiro went over to where Naomi was sitting and held her head in his arms, patting her hair as he exchanged looks with his other friends. "She seems really fixated on this… Homages aside, could it work?"

Makoto glanced between Ren and Emiko. "Well… I guess it could, yeah…"

"OH YES PLEASE LET'S DO ITTTTT!" There were blood vessels visibly bulging at Naomi's temples, and she was bouncing in her seat.

"Okay," agreed Makoto, begrudgingly. "What, uh, what do you think it should say? Lord knows I've no idea how a calling card should be written…" Ren narrowed his eyes at her, a coy smile on his lips.

"We say…" said Naomi, leaning forward, palms outstretched, "'Dean Giichi Yoshinora: Your sins have caught up to you—I have evidence that proves that YOU are The Midnight Blade… But I'm willing to negotiate… Meet me tonight, under the cover of darkness, at blah blah blah location, or I will expose your wicked deeds to the world… Sincerely, The Phantom Thieves'—I mean, 'Sincerely, you-know-who'."

Naomi put her hands in her lap, grinning widely at everyone in the room. "Well? What do you think of that?"

"Uh, that's great!" said Makoto, her eyes bright, and her smile only partly fake. "We'll, uh, we'll workshop that, but, uh, it's a really terrific place to start!"

"Nice job, sweetie," said Jiro, going in for a kiss.

"I want my code name to be Talim…" said Naomi quietly, but with conviction. "You can be 'Sticks'!" she said, pinching Jiro's cheeks.

"These are all terrific ideas," said Ren, sounding serious in spite of his nagging incredulity. "Do we include any snippets of actual evidence in what we taunt him with?"

Jiro nodded. "I think we should, or he might not take it seriously—I mean, with a calling card like that, he'd be a fool to take us lightly—" he added, interrupting himself, "—but I think putting some teeth on it would go a long way toward getting him to actually show up…"

"I think this picture ought to do it," said Makoto, pointing at Jiro's laptop, and the blown-up image of the dean's face. "I mean, the zoomed-out, in-context version of this picture. He doesn't need to see the detail on his face to know that it's him—he just needs to recognize himself at the scene of the crime, with that timestamp in the corner."

"I can deliver it!" volunteered Naomi.

"Where would we put it?" asked Jiro.

"The clock is ticking—we need to do this now. Tomorrow," said Makoto. "I think we'll have to deliver it to his house, since no grieving widower would come to work the day after his wife's murder…"

"Finding his address should be easy," said Jiro. "We know his name already, and roughly where it is. Whatever barricades they might have thrown in place to protect his privacy are no match for my mad hacking skillz…" He laced his fingers together and stretched his hands out, doing that thing that's supposed to make your knuckles crack—except that his didn't.

"Okay," said Makoto, "That's a start, but we've got a lot more to do before we've got a real plan." She spoke cautiously, but felt genuinely hopeful that they might, maybe, be able to pull this off. With any luck, in twenty-four hours, a serial killer would be brought to justice, and Ren would have his life back.