Author's Notes: Another day, another dollar, another chapter of the best Persona 4 story out there. What else needs to be said, really?
Thanks as always to Firion for his input and feedback.
Incidentally, if any of my readers are interested in where I see things going in Kanji and Naoto's future, I put together a little something called Help Me Forget over on AO3 (it's mostly smut – I apologize for nothing). If that's in your wheelhouse, give it a gander.
Xoraan: Welcome back! I've missed your comments, so seeing this one really lit up my day. I'm glad you're still reading fantastic stories. Regarding Naoto and Kanji, I'm glad to be of service in the arena of great ideas. And on your comment on Makoto, I see you too are a man of culture. Thanks for reading, and enjoy.
codywhite162: I'm glad you liked it! Wait no longer!
Zelenal: Glad to see your feedback. As always, it's a good balance of commentary and criticism, and I appreciate both. The aim before, as with this chapter, was to make things happen and escalate. I like to think I pulled that off, and I'm glad you liked it. On the topic of Naoto, this is where we disagree. I go into more detail on this at the end of the chapter, but Naoto getting involved in the fight was never in the cards. There was no reason for it. Her goal was to secure the documents, not throw down and take names – had she done that and lost the papers, then she'd have failed in her objective. Throwing punches and taking hits is what Kanji was assigned to her for, so it's his job, not hers, to do the fighting. Simple as that. And Naoto isn't a damsel. She's the one Souji trusts to be the other half of the investigation to get his life back. She's central to what's going on, even if that doesn't take the form of her kicking and aggravating her attackers or inviting even more beatings. Serving as a distraction is an important part of strategy too, after all. I appreciate your passion for the story and I welcome your comments, but this is a detail we do not agree on.
Myalko: The fact that your re-integration into fanfiction involved a completely rereading of my work shows you are a person of class and taste. Yes, excellent in both cases. There's more excellent story to partake in, so enjoy!
Binbix: Closer and closer still. Souji's part with the doctor was pretty fun to write, and the investigation has been a blast to follow for me - and I'm the one writing it! Thanks for the review.
And with all that out of the way, on with the show.
Chapter 36
Souji shuffled the papers in front of him and stared. He shuffled and stared, shuffled and shuffled more, stared and then shuffled and then stared again, and sometimes he looked at everything sideways and upside down to see if it could make any less sense.
It hadn't, though the idea had been grimly amusing at the time.
He'd been looking over Shirotori's notes since they got back from Dr. Akizuki's office. Souji had hoped that with enough application and some luck, he could crack whatever shorthand Shirotori used and get the information he knew was there. He'd come too far and this was too good an offering to come to nothing, and he knew plenty about the business world. With that knowledge in common, surely he'd be able to piece something together.
Those expectations turned out to be as naive as they were fleeting.
Shirotori, Souji learned to his despair, had been both a genius and a product of hard work. Often enough, savants and naturals coasted on their inborn talent but stopped cold in higher education when their lack of studying experience and untested work ethic came back to bite them hard. Similarly, a lot of hard workers had a strong ethic but lacked the creativity to go beyond the box and innovate. You needed both to be great, and Shirotori's notes reminded Souji of his classmates who would definitely go places in the business world, people who were both gifted and driven.
The problem was that while the notes were almost certainly a gold mine of information, they were also completely unintelligible. Shirotori had utilized a mix of personal shorthand and insider slang for every table, every paragraph, every note and citation of every page. Using shorthand made sense – it was faster than writing everything out, and so long as it was accurate, Shirotori was the only one who needed to know what they said. The problem was that to anyone without some understanding of what Shirotori meant, or an interpretation cipher, the notes were impossible to read. To make things worse, those on the spectrum often thought in different ways from normal minds – that was what made them so exceptional at what they did, assuming they had a way of accurately expressing themselves and interacting with the world – so even the most fundamental basics of common understanding were out of place here. Souji was no stranger to codes and puzzles, and he used his own shorthand in his class notes to keep up with the material, but this didn't even resemble proper sentences or numbers. It barely looked like Japanese at all.
This was why no matter how much Souji looked at it, no matter what languages he ran the notes through or what patterns he tried, he was no further ahead than when he started. What progress he'd made wouldn't fill a shot glass.
"Any luck?" Yukiko asked as she came up to the couch.
"Does no luck at all count?"
"Yes."
"Then sure, I've had some luck." There had also been the matter of Naoto's phone call earlier, reporting on the night she and Kanji'd had. Between that and spending all this time getting nowhere, his mood wasn't great.
Yukiko came around and sat next to him, folding her legs under her as she leaned against him and looked over the notes herself. Souji tried to clear his head and explain where his biggest roadblocks were, but she would shift or move and he'd get distracted by her softness against him, or how her legs looked in those jeans, or how good she smelled – his favorite of her perfume selection, he realized after his third failed attempt. She prompted him again, idly stroking his arm, and when he caught her eyes, he saw the laughter in them.
"You're being a brat again," he informed her.
Her eyes went wide and innocent as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. "I don't know what you mean," she protested while adjusting herself and coming into greater contact with him. Nothing pushy or heavy, but he found it was impossible to think about his work when he had something much more interesting to look at. Her make-up was light but distinct; her hair was glossy and set off her skin, still fair even after days walking around in the sun; and her feet were bare and cute. She'd even painted her nails – red, of course.
Souji leaned in, ignoring the notes. Her eyes turned up in an impish smile that her lips wouldn't show, but when he rubbed her on the side in just the right place, she squirmed and bit down a giggle. He caught her in another spot and she jerked closer, a patented Amagi laughing fit in the making. She stood no chance as he attacked her ticklish spots, and when she tried to stop him by pouncing on him, it just meant she squirmed right on top of him.
Their fun continued for a few minutes longer, and she was wiping her eyes by the end of it. Souji found his cheeks were hurting from how wide he was smiling, and his frustration with the stuff in front of him had vanished. He kissed her, lingering softly, and held her. "Thanks. I needed that."
"I know you did."
He pulled her closer. "Brat."
She hummed in agreement, nestling in close and breathing in deep contentment.
Souji stroked her back and drifted down to her legs. It had been a while since they'd had a night alone. While the others would have understood and given them some privacy if asked, there was the sense of having to gag themselves out of decorum. Sleeping in the same bed was a pleasure in having someone warm to wake up next to, the promise of the future they were fighting for, but the anticipation of intimacy they couldn't make good on was a slow grind on their discipline. Souji knew she could feel it too, and while it went unspoken between them to put things off for now, they were both working to wrap this case up so they could get back to normal. A celebratory night with just the two of them was in order, perhaps with a day on each side, too.
With her next to him, so warm and gentle and real, Souji would do anything to keep this. Anyone who tried to take it from him was an enemy to be dealt with. No exceptions.
The door opened and Yukiko shuffled off him to his side, but didn't move from it. The others had gone out to get breakfast, not wanting to deal with cooking for the time being – Chie and Yukiko had offered, but had been swiftly vetoed by Souji and Yosuke. Souji waved them over.
"Let me guess," Yosuke began. "Bad news to start the day off?"
"Kanji and Naoto were hurt last night," Souji answered, not wasting any time. "Someone didn't like them digging something up and six guys jumped them. They were adults, and it seemed like a focused attack. Naoto has some bruises and cuts. Kanji's in the hospital with cracks, breaks and lacerations."
"Six guys?" Yoshiro sounded incredulous. "How are those two okay?"
"I'd be more worried about how many pieces Kanji left them in," Yosuke answered. "If they hit Naoto, odds are good that they'll need a coroner, not a doctor."
"Probably yakuza, to be working like that," Chie put in.
Yoshiro shook his head. "Still, six guys? You know some interesting people, sure, but isn't that pushing things?"
Yosuke laughed grimly. "Trust me, if you saw Kanji and what he can do, you'd see what we mean. He'll be fine soon if he isn't already."
"It'll be a few days before he's up and out of there," Souji said. "He's healing fast, but they still did a number on him. Doujima is already putting in for some extra security now that we've got a good reason for it."
"What did they find?" Megumi asked.
"It sounds like business records and a ledger. Naoto ran off some copies and sent the original." Souji looked at Kou. "She had to throw your name around. She didn't want anything to be intercepted, so she had some of your family's people send it by courier. It should be here today."
"I got the call this morning," Kou replied. "I gave her the go-ahead, and if there are any costs, I'll deal with them."
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it. I'm just glad they're okay. Hopefully it didn't rattle her too much."
Souji chuckled grimly. "Naoto's pretty solid. She's been through worse before."
"Where does that put us?" Yosuke asked.
"Waiting for whatever Naoto found and hoping it's solid. Shirotori's notes are all in his own code. I'm sure there's important stuff in here – I can't imagine he'd want them hidden if they weren't – but unless he left a Rosetta Stone somewhere, I can't read them."
The mood of the group dropped. After talking to Akizuki, they'd been sure they had a winning ticket.
Everyone moved through the condo for the rest of the morning, listless and spitballing ideas and wanting to do something, but they were stuck waiting for the clues to emerge. During times like that, Souji knew, time dragged out and closed in like a straightjacket. He'd been through it often enough during the murder investigation and knew how to stay busy while being ready for the next clue to present itself. Chie and Yukiko and Yosuke were doing the same, set back in that headspace that they knew so well that they probably weren't even aware they were in it.
It was early afternoon when Yukiko's phone went off. "Hello? Yes, speaking. Who? You're from… Oh, yes. Wait just a minute." She scrambled to the living room and waved the others over, then set her phone on the table and put it on speaker. "Nurse Shinohara from Kyoto. I've got some other people on the call, could you repeat what you told me?"
"Of course," the woman on the line said. "You were looking into a Tani Youta, weren't you? Information and living address and that sort of thing? I heard about you through some mutual friends of ours."
"That's right. We met his girlfriend the other day and she's very concerned about him. We haven't been able to find him."
"That doesn't surprise me, from the state he was always in. He came in here on drug benders or for detox. It happened more than once, but he hasn't been around in quite a while."
"Why has it been so hard for us to find him? Was he going under a different name?"
"He wasn't going by any name at all. I knew who he was because I met him more than once and because he reminded me of my uncle on my mother's side. The resemblance is pretty close, you'd have to see it to believe it. You see, he gave a different name each time he came in – Tani Youta was just one of them, and it was how I first met him. He was a wreck. He matched your description, so I called you."
Souji patted Yukiko's knee. Her call to Inoue and the use of Rise's connections was paying off.
"How bad was he?" Yosuke asked.
Shinohara replied, "I've seen plenty of addicts on the decline. He fit the bill. Enough lucidity to not be a problem, but you could tell he wanted to stay clean and didn't have the willpower or the resources to do it. He was also living on the streets and didn't have ID or insurance. He came in just long enough to get what he needed, then left before security found out."
Souji asked, "How long ago did you last see him?"
"More than a year. He wasn't getting any better, but he said he'd at least found a place to live. I like to think he struck the right combination and turned his life around and got better, but he didn't have a phone so I couldn't get a hold of him even if I tried."
"Did he mention where he was living?"
"He didn't give me an address. When he talked about it, he wasn't lucid, so a lot of the details got garbled. But I thought you might ask for that, so I put together what he told me." Shinohara gave them a broad area of neighborhoods and rough landmarks.
"I know those places," Chie said. "They're all residential districts. Working class, low crime, pretty normal."
"Did he say anything else, either before or that last time?" Souji inquired.
Shinohara replied, "People say a lot of things when they're under the influence, but the most consistent thing he said was that he hoped someone didn't know where he was. He never said who, not when he was clean or when he was high, but he seemed like he was running from someone. Whether that was legitimate or if he was imagining it and exaggerating, I don't know. He also said he regretted not talking to her, that there was someone he missed but couldn't go back to. He didn't say who this was, either, but now you tell me he had a girlfriend. I hope she's not taking it too badly."
None of them wanted to address that particular topic just yet. "How bad was he the last time you saw him?" Yosuke asked.
"He was never in great shape, but he was pretty bad that last time."
"Does anyone else remember him?"
"I doubt it. The other nurses didn't care much for him, and there are rules about helping people without ID or insurance. I did it on the side, but that was all I could do. If he was getting help from anyone else, he didn't mention it."
Souji nodded. "I understand. Thank you. You've just cleared up something we were wondering about."
"There was the offer of payment for this information. It is confidential, and you sound like it was useful. I have bills, you understand."
Yukiko stepped in. "Of course. We'll call our people right away and make sure they give you what was promised. Thank you again."
The call ended and Souji tapped the table in thought. "Kyoto, huh."
"That's a long trip by yourself, even by bullet train," Yukiko said. "But if you need to go in person, I'm coming with you."
The idea of a trip away together was hugely appealing, but Souji shook his head. "There's too much going on here. If I leave now, I know I'll miss something important." That said, he didn't like the alternative. Naoto and Kanji had already gone above and beyond for him, and now he would be asking for another favor. Hearing that they'd been hurt for his sake brought up old memories of trying to rescue Nanako from the Shadows, of losing everyone to Izanami, that he didn't want to revisit. Facing those things himself was one thing, but to sit back while the others suffered in his place was something he well and truly didn't like.
But then again, he was their leader, and no one ever said being a leader was easy.
"I've got some calls to make," he decided.
Naoto had hoped for at least a night to rest from being ambushed by the yakuza. The extent of her injuries was quite manageable, especially compared to Kanji's, but some time to recover wouldn't have gone unappreciated.
Lucky for her, she got almost six hours of it before the phone rang.
"I need you in Kyoto," Souji-senpai had said, giving her the details of Tani Youta and the fruits of the investigation up to now. "If there's anything to find on the ground there, I trust you to dig it up."
"I'll be there tomorrow morning," had been her promise.
"There might be something… familiar there, too," he continued, describing his experience with Dr. Akizuki. "Keep an eye out for it. I'll send someone along with you to help out as much as possible."
"I'll make some arrangements on my side. Kanji won't like this, though. He's already miserable being stuck in the hospital."
"I'll talk to him."
And so he had. To call Kanji a bad patient was an understatement of gargantuan proportions. He'd spent more time grousing than he had sleeping; if it wasn't the (poor) quality and quantity of the food or the (too short) size of the bed, it was how often his recovery speed was being tested. Hearing about the phone call didn't make things any easier.
"If you're goin', then I'm goin'," he declared. When he tried to swing his legs out of the bed, he paled and bit back the pain. He healed as fast as the rest of them – and had the scars to prove it – but the beating he'd taken still needed time to repair properly. Thinking back on it, Naoto was sure that a normal person would have been in bed for months and in need of restorative surgery, assuming they could have walked away from fighting six men at all. As it was, she still had a bruised jaw, a black eye and a lingering headache. She'd had to resort to Rise-san's past lessons on make-up application to make it not look like Kanji abused her.
Then again, she thought with a smile, if anyone insinuated that her boyfriend hurt her, she could show them his bruises and let them imagine where he got them. Who would ever imagine that she could hurt a grown man like him? Or the men who attacked her? She wasn't an action movie heroine, after all.
"If you get permanently injured from pushing yourself, then would you be able to fight off someone else?" she asked kindly. Easier to navigate a minefield crawling and blind than the egos of the sick, but she understood what was driving him. To not contribute now when she and Souji-senpai needed him must feel like he'd let them down when it mattered most.
"This is nothing."
"It's not nothing, and I'm sure you've heard that already."
Kanji looked to the side. "Senpai called. Told me the next lead is in Kyoto."
"That's right."
"He also said you were the best shot of him gettin' what he figured was there, and that I needed to make sure I healed up so I didn't tear something serious. Said Yukiko-senpai couldn't patch me back up."
Naoto bit her lips so she wouldn't smile at the image. "He said the same to me."
"That means you goin' off on your own. To a place where you could be attacked again."
"I'm going to residential districts where normal people live, and I'll be doing it in broad daylight. I've also got a contact who can offer some security, and Souji-senpai said he'd bring in someone else to help out. I'll be okay."
"I don't like it."
"I don't either, but you know what his timeline is, right?"
"Yeah, I do."
"If we want to meet it, then–"
"Then you've gotta go as soon as possible. Could mean missin' Senpai's schedule or screwin' things up otherwise, an' I'm not about to do that. It's just that this sucks."
"It does." She went to his side and embraced him. Given the beating he'd taken, it was a trick in itself finding a place he wouldn't be hurt as much. "I'm still looking forward to our vacation, you know."
"Yeah?"
"Yes. I'll be thinking about it. If you're discharged before I get back – and I mean properly discharged, not forcing it because you want to get out – then come find me in Kyoto. If we close the case, you and I can go home together."
"You promise?"
"Yes, but only if you do too."
"All right. I know you've gotta do what you have to, and you're the best detective Senpai could ask for. I worry about you, that's all. Just be careful."
She kissed him softly. "I will, and I'll keep in touch."
It took a little longer for him to let her go, but he did eventually. She left before she could convince herself to stay.
She was in Kyoto the next day, having made her arrangements and lined up all her plans. She'd made the most of the train trip, assembling the information that had been gathered on Tani Youta. Her friends did good work – there was a lot to go through and a lot of the details were just what she needed to conduct a proper investigation. By the time she arrived, she had a map of the different places where his house might be, what stores he was likely to go to for his preferred vices, and an idea of where else to go in case her assumptions struck out.
When she disembarked on the train platform, she heard a familiar, "Nao-chaaaan!"
She sighed. When Souji-senpai had described his experience with Dr. Akizuki, he'd told her he would ask Teddie to offer assistance. "He's had the most experience with that stuff out of any of us," had been the rationale. "I'm sure you'll know it when you see it, but it won't hurt to have another… nose? Set of eyes? Whatever. Just make sure he doesn't get lost – gods only know what he'd get up to in Kyoto."
She understood the logic, but that didn't stop her from hoping this wouldn't turn into, no pun intended, a total circus. "Hello, Teddie."
Her teammate slipped through the train station crowds with remarkable agility to stop in front of her, his face-splitting grin lighting up everything around him. He was dressed as she expected from him, in a button-up shirt opened at the neck, a casual sports coat and slacks with sharp, polished shoes. He had a travel bag slung across his back and looked for all the world like a tourist. He would have fit the image perfectly if not for his perfect Japanese. Several university-age girls were looking at him appraisingly and glancing at her sideways, likely assuming he was loaded and a worthy mark.
"Sensei said you might need my help," Teddie went on, ignorant of the attention he was getting as he came over to her. "When I got his call, I dropped everything to come see you."
"He has a lot of faith in you. He did call you personally, after all."
"Exactly! I can't wait to see this place. Do you think it will be haunted? I'll get as many pictures as I can!"
Naoto noticed that not only did Teddie have his cell phone, but he also wore a camera around his neck with the lens covered. The first assessment she had was that it was going to be as much work keeping him out of the sightseeing trips as it would be conducting the investigation, but then she realized that no one would think of Teddie as a threat. She'd seen firsthand what his reflexes were like and how hard he could hit, but to anyone else, he was a typical ignorant gaijin waiting to be fleeced. They would either think she was guiding him around town and not on an investigation, or they'd underestimate him and be in for a surprise.
She had to hand it to Souji-senpai – he covered all the angles.
Naoto said, "We have to find the place first, and we have someone to meet before we get started. Let's go."
The someone in question was Shinoda, a friend of her grandfather. Naoto didn't know Shinoda's full name, and she suspected it wasn't his birth name at all. More than six feet tall and graying at the temples, he was built like a soldier and exuded an aura of silence that she'd never gotten used to. What she knew of him was that he'd spent time abroad doing 'nondescript work,' he spoke four languages and could get by in three more, and he'd settled in the country with his wife to look after their growing family. He didn't talk much, and when he did it was with a rough rasp that sounded like dragging slate over gravel. After Naoto had told her grandfather about the fight, he'd calmly insisted on contacting Shinoda and having her looked after. Given Kanji's current condition, she wasn't going to turn down the extra help, but now she was concerned for the continued respiration of anyone who did try to jump her again.
Shinoda greeted her, nodded at Teddie, and shepherded them into the car he had waiting. Naoto didn't know Kyoto very well, and the easiest way to stand out in the crowd was to look at a map, so she was glad to have someone with her who knew the area. She put her notes together and gave directions to the neighborhoods she deduced Tani Youta might be in.
The day passed slowly, but Naoto was surprised by how well things went. People were ready to help her when she showed her badge, but those who seemed unwilling to share what they knew either were inspired by the cold look they got from Shinoda from behind his reflective shades, or were charmed by Teddie's gregariousness. Most people hadn't heard of Youta, but some had, and what she gathered helped to fill in the blanks of what the others had to offer.
The further the three went and the more people they spoke to, the more pieces fell into place until someone gave a rough description of a place they thought Youta was staying at. It was in the fourth and last neighborhood Naoto had circled as a possibility, a pleasant little district that was off the beaten track.
Teddie, through the interviews and questionings, was as effervescent as ever. He had his camera out and was taking pictures of the unusual and the mundane, enough to make Naoto wonder if he was actually any good.
"I can't wait to show the others," Teddie said as he lined up another shot of a sakura tree. "They'll love them, won't they, Nao-chan? Or maybe I'll send them into a magazine, or one of those photography beariodicals. I could become famous!"
"Lots of people get their starts at that level," Naoto commented as they walked through the neighborhood. "If what you have is good enough, then I don't see why… Teddie?"
He'd stopped still and was looking at a small house that was set back from the street, shrunken behind overgrown foliage and a weather-beaten wall like it was trying not to be seen. "Is that one of the places we were looking for, Nao-chan?" he asked in a quiet voice.
Naoto checked her notes and nodded. She'd been watching the house numbers but hadn't expected one to be so well hidden. She felt something was off just then and looked around, taking note of the people walking by. They were workers and families and locals, everyday people living normal lives, but they skirted around that particular house. Conversations were interrupted to check where the speakers were walking, mothers hurried their children along and turned their faces, and Naoto was almost bumped into by someone trying to skirt the place.
Everyone was behaving the same way. The place was a shared secret they had all been in on for so long that no one even needed to talk about it. Naoto hadn't felt this kind of unease in a while. She didn't bother asking anyone for directions or insight, knowing that even her badge wouldn't get her far with people this eager to not see something.
"What is it, Teddie?" she asked when she walked up to him.
"Something bad happened," he murmured. "I can't see it, it's not like that. It wasn't recent, but it's still there. It smells… terrible."
Naoto walked closer to the house, and then a cold unease ran along the senses she hadn't used since Izanami. Negativity, dread, the remaining echo of something that was stuck in the house and couldn't get out. Souji-senpai had been right, and Teddie's senses had attuned him to this. If this wasn't where they needed to be, then it had to be close.
They went to the house and saw that it was locked, something unusual for Japanese residences. She gestured Shinoda over and asked for a way in. He went up, looked at the door, and had it open in less than six seconds. Naoto hadn't even seen him pull the lock pick out.
The door opened with an uninviting creak. She asked Teddie, "Will you be okay?"
His eyes were distant, looking so unlike the happy tourist of a minute ago, but he nodded. "I've felt much worse. I wasn't expecting it, that's all."
She nodded and stepped in, coughing on the residual miasma that hung in the air like smoke. The entrance led to a small living room and kitchen, there was a bathroom to one side and a bedroom on the other. Even by Japanese standards this place was small, but Naoto felt like the dark misery and despair was compressed from the short distance between the walls, like there was more here than what the building could contain.
"You were right, Teddie. Something bad happened here." She looked back at Shinoda and asked, "Do you feel anything strange?"
Shinoda stepped in, looked around, and breathed deep. "Stagnant air. Decay. Something else. It smells like work. That's strange for Japan."
More confirmation that Naoto really didn't want to know what Shinoda had done for a living. Even if he couldn't sense the full weight of the miasma, he could still feel something. This was a great explanation for why the locals avoided this place.
Teddie sniffed around and dabbed at his nose with a handkerchief, keeping to the walls. An even layer of dust was on everything, and there weren't any footprints or broken windows or signs of being ransacked despite its vacancy. Even the local punks and homeless knew not to come here.
There wasn't much else to lend itself to being a home, Naoto concluded as she looked around. Chairs and a table, a ratty couch in the corner, and a gaudy rug in the middle of the floor. Even the side room, just big enough for a futon, was empty. No sign of an inhabitant or Tani Youta.
Teddie said quietly, "He had nowhere else to go, but this wasn't a home for him. It should have been, but it wasn't when he needed it to be, and that made it worse. Can't go forward, can't go back, can't go anywhere. So he didn't leave."
"Do you know who it was?"
"I don't know what his name was, but he didn't either. He wasn't clear, wasn't really himself."
"Senpai said he was a drug addict."
"That's probably it. I think he was trying to get away from his name and what it meant."
"That fits what we know so far, but where did he go if he didn't leave?" Naoto looked at the rug and noted the creases in the middle, the crookedness of the edges, and wondered. It was ugly, to be sure, but it also didn't seem to fit with the rest of the furniture, set cock-eyed and not lining up with any of the other furniture. Either someone had set it here without any sense of style or symmetry, or…
She got Teddie to help her move the table and chairs to the side, then rolled the rug up and pushed it to the side. She hissed in pain as the cold cut into her hands when she touched the floor. A scream without sound hit her face, passed her by and swirled in the air, and when she reopened her eyes she saw spatters and smears, black as ink and set in a semicircle on the floor.
Ink didn't splash like this. But blood did.
"They tried to get rid of it," Teddie said, "but it wouldn't go away. It wouldn't wash out with soap and water even when they couldn't see the blood anymore."
"So they covered it up," Naoto concluded. "What happened? Was this murder?"
"People were responsible for this, but they didn't kill him." Teddie walked over, knelt before the smears, and traced up his stomach with his fingers from pelvis to navel and then across, left to right. His hand went out to where a long smear was apart from the others.
Naoto closed her eyes and said a silent prayer for the departed. The resident had committed suicide, undergoing seppuku in a final effort to regain some shred of his honor and pride. Under traditional circumstances, there would be someone there to behead them as the pain reached the peak – cutting one's stomach open was a bad way to die. But as she looked at the spatter and imagined the wound, she realized that Tani Youta's heart had been beating for a while after he'd started cutting. He'd suffered and died alone, slowly, here in the dark.
She traced the smear Teddie had touched and noted that it was the right length for a dagger. The heaviest part of the stain even resembled a blade.
"There must be a police report for this," Naoto decided. "But is this all there is?"
"He wanted to get back to her," Teddie said, looking around. "It was what he wanted more than anything. He left his wishes and past here – that's why it feels like this. They looked and didn't find it, or maybe they didn't look at all. They didn't understand, but how could they? They didn't know him."
Naoto checked the drawers and cupboards and bedroom for something, anything, that looked like it might be useful. She quickly realized that there hadn't been a reason to ransack the place since the inhabitant died – whoever had found him had evidently cleaned the place out and never needed to come back. There were no papers or books, no toiletries, not even silverware and plates or emergency water and supplies in the floor. Nowhere could she find any sentimental trinket or a last memento. That word made her shiver. Memento mori, the reminder of one's inevitable demise. They were just words, but in a place like this, those words had power.
She knocked on the wall and checked the floor again and came up with nothing, but when she looked up she noticed small divots and creases on a ceiling tile just above the spatters. Strange – there weren't creases on any of the other tiles, so it wasn't part of the design. She pulled a chair over and reached up, pushing away the loose square – the divots had been from a broom handle or dents from pushing too hard – and reaching around. Plastic rustled when she touched it, and she pulled it down.
Notes. Several books and scribblers, and what looked like a journal. She flipped through the pages and saw that they were in clear Japanese, wordy to the point of verbosity, and they went back years to even before one Aya-san was mentioned. Naoto found one in particular that started with, "We're in Fujisawa now."
Evidence and confirmation. She'd found Tani Youta's suicide site, and these were what he'd left behind. Naoto looked at the stains again, saw them shift and churn. The thick miasma lightened a little, and she could breathe a bit easier.
"Someone understands," Teddie murmured. "Someone can help. Even if it's too late for him, it might not be for someone else."
Naoto stepped back to the wall, looked at where the stains were even now beginning to fade, and bowed in respect. "We'll use these properly," she promised the memory of the poor, traumatized man she'd never met. "I promise, we won't let this be in vain. We'll make all of this right."
"Sounds like you did all right," Souji said to Naoto two days later on the phone.
"There weren't any people to interfere with things this time," she answered. "No yakuza, anyway."
"You said there was more to the situation than just the notes. What else happened?"
"It's a bit of a long story. Are you sitting down?"
"I am now. On a nice soft couch, no less, so let's hear it."
"First, the notes I found have been sent to you by the same courier I used before. Please pass on my thanks to Kou-san. His family's people were very accommodating."
"I will. He'll be glad to hear it."
"You received my first package?"
"Got it yesterday. We're already putting the pieces together." Those words made it seem like a few seats and set pieces were being utilized, but the entire living room had been repurposed for this. Chairs had been moved, tables were on their edge, even the couch Souji was on was technically in the kitchen because they needed the space. Now there were cork boards and stands and surfaces to write on with markers to allow for the numbers and data to be displayed. That's where Yukiko, Megumi and Yosuke were right now, putting things up and running red lines and thread between them to work out the spider web of connections they were looking at.
"I'm glad to hear it," Naoto said. "I've got copies of what I already sent, by the way, in case you need them."
"Hopefully we won't, but it'll be good to have them. What else did you find out?"
She sighed. "More than I wanted to. First off, I can confirm that Tani Youta is deceased. I spoke to the local police and confirmed that they got a call about a suicide in the home we found. They followed proper procedure and closed his file when they couldn't identify him."
"They didn't have his prints on file? He was into drugs here, so I assumed he was at least in the system."
"Not from what I saw. Either the other precincts didn't communicate that, or he skated on the charges and talked his way out of being fingerprinted and put on record. Either way, the police here had no point of comparison, so they chalked it up to another homeless vagrant and didn't dig any further. They had no reason to."
"So it's a dead end there."
"Not anymore, it isn't."
Souji hadn't heard Naoto this angry in a while. Her words chilled his phone across the miles between them. "Go on."
"There were some details about the house and the suicide scene that I didn't like, so I kept digging. It turns out that Tani Youta's parents are dead and he went to Fujisawa with his grandfather."
"Tani Daisuke. We found the grave plot."
"Daisuke-san was divorced from one Satojima Yumi. It took her two days and seventeen hours past the divorce papers clearing to change her name back. What I could find on her tells me that she wasn't a pleasant person to begin with and afterward she was even worse. It turns out that when Daisuke-san left Kyoto, Satojima decided to work on his remaining family. Youta-san had cousins and a sister here, but they all kowtow to Satojima now. By the time Youta-san came back here, if any of his family did help him, it only happened once. After that they ignored him, shut him out, and on two occasions even called the police on him when he wouldn't leave their houses."
Souji whistled. "She sounds like a real piece of work. Who knows if whoever he was running from here would have found him there, but his family shutting him out would be a death sentence for someone in those circumstances."
"Correct. He needed capital and resources to get back on his feet, even on a smaller level, but no one would work with him. His family wouldn't help and everyone else he went to, no matter how distantly tied to the family, wouldn't even see him. He had no better luck with investors or small businesses, either because of the economy or thanks to Satojima's influence. I've spoken to his sister and she confessed that Satojima was the main reason no one stepped up. She was also the first one the police called to identify Youta-san's body – there's a record of the call and her signing in at the morgue – but she said she didn't know who it was. The staff thought that was strange and pushed her, but they got nowhere. The rest of the family was called in, and they all said the same thing."
Souji frowned. "Is it too unlikely to think that she had connections with the people we're looking into? It seems like a long shot, but it would explain her actions."
"I thought the same thing, but I can't find anything that ties her to any business east of here. No family connections, no money trails, nothing. I think she's just a very bitter woman. Tani Daisuke wasn't the first man she married and took advantage of, and she's apparently very effective at undermining people and making them subordinate to her. She had years to work on the Tani family, so they'll do whatever she says now just to not put up with her."
"None of that is illegal, even if it makes her a terrible human being."
"I'm still looking at that. The house we found belongs to the family, specifically to a distant uncle who rented it on the side to Youta-san for next to nothing, but that uncle died of an aneurysm six weeks before Youta-san was found. The family tried putting it on the market for sale and demolition, but no one bought it and pretty soon no one even wanted to go in there. That's what the neighbors told me, and you should have seen how much they avoided the place. What had happened was too intense to go away, and even normal people could feel it, so the place sat empty."
"It sounds worse than what I felt with Dr. Akizuki."
"I wouldn't want to make the comparison, but maybe so. Teddie was invaluable in putting everything together, actually. He found the best clues and that gave me what I needed to run with."
"I'm glad he could help. Sounds like it all turned out for the better."
Naoto chuckled. "I'm not done yet. Standard police procedure is to process a crime scene and then release it to the owners. The sister and her husband cleaned the place up all at once – the dust says as much – but Youta-san's presence wouldn't leave until we found the notes. I had Shinoda, my grandfather's contact, come in and check the place out, and he couldn't see the bloodstains. I suspect it was the same with Youta-san's family. They couldn't see anything wrong, but everyone could still feel it in the air, and that includes possible buyers. They knew where the body was found, though, and they decided to cover it up to see if that would help. That explains the rug and why they locked up the house. Between Satojima coercing the family to help her, her refusal to identify the body, and the duress we can prove Youta-san was under, I'm talking to the police about laying charges of suppression of evidence, intimidation of witnesses, induction of suicide, and causing death through negligence. Maybe they'll stick, maybe they won't, but this woman could spend the rest of her life behind bars. I want to make her sweat."
Souji smiled a dark, grim smile. "This is a cruel side to you, Naoto. I like it."
"You should have felt it, Senpai. No one was there for Youta-san. Even if he wound up being a bad person, and I don't think he was, he didn't deserve to be cornered and cut off like this. Someone put him there, and they should be brought to justice."
"That's the idea on this end. Someone chased him there and left him to Satojima's mercies. That's a crime all by itself." Souji sighed just then, not wanting to ask the question. "By the way, do you know which police station and hospital handled his body?"
"Yes, but I cleared them and their staff already. They followed protocol and I would have done the same as they did."
"That's not what I meant. Aya-san's still waiting for him to come back. If we're going to tell her the truth, we need to give her somewhere to go."
"You could let the police know. They make those calls all the time."
"They closed the case and thought he was a vagrant. Would they bother?"
The reply came back, hesitant. "I'm not sure. I could ask."
"We're already here, Naoto. Send the information over and we'll handle it."
After a few more minutes of details they hung up. Souji rose and went to the boards, asking the three, "What do we have?"
"Some names and a lot of numbers," Yosuke said. The ledger sheets from Naoto's first package were neatly reproduced, and they had been going over them. "Two names in particular show up here more than once, but neither are your old man's."
"That's unfortunate, but smart, I suppose. He wouldn't want to have the connection to the yakuza."
Yukiko said, "Technically it's not even a connection. It seems like everyone's operating through proxies and shell companies, cases where there's a name and a number but no staff or movement of product."
"It seems like a good setup for embezzlement and money laundering," Megumi offered, "but we can't confirm any of that, either. The files aren't publicly available, which means they aren't on the stock market."
"Big enough to work, but small enough to stay under the radar," Souji concluded. "That's a good way to lose anyone who starts sniffing around. What were the names that showed up the most?"
"Kato Akio and Iwamoto Masahiko," Yukiko answered.
Megumi had a bleak look to her face and said nothing, nodding slightly when Souji looked at her.
Souji pointed out, "Kato is Megumi's father, and he's had dealings with mine, apparently."
"Really?"
"Yep. I've never met the man, but I've heard of him in shady circles. He has a reputation for being manipulative, cunning and smart among people who are all just like him, so I'd say he's pretty bad news. Do we know who Iwamoto is?"
Yosuke chuckled in a strained voice. "If it's the same guy, then my research says he's a former Diet member."
"Japan's main governing body? Are you serious?"
"It's looking like it," Yukiko said. "I went back into some newspaper articles on the political circuit. Around the same time these money transfers were happening, Iwamoto got a boost from an anonymous supporter. Everyone figures politicians are corrupt, and people tried to get him out of office or dig into his background. You'd have to talk to Naoto or Doujima-san about the cases, but what I could find shows that inquiries went away and Iwamoto came out on top each time."
"My father runs on the same principle," Souji noted. "It wouldn't surprise me if they know each other. And retired Diet members can hold corporate positions and use their connections however they like, so corruption is part of the game. I assume these records were from when he was in office, otherwise it wouldn't make sense to have a retired Diet member in on the plan, unless he has something on them to stay in on his own. What else can we tell from this?"
"Not much," Megumi admitted. "Payments through shell companies no one is tied to and no corroborating witnesses makes this hard to use against anyone. There's no smoking gun here. Maybe that cop you mentioned, Uchiyama, can use it somehow, but aside from the names and there being a common thread to your father, there's not much I can see here."
"I'll dig into it and see what I can do," Souji said. His phone vibrated just then. When he checked it, he grimaced – Naoto had sent over the details on the hospital and police station Youta had been processed in. "Great," he muttered.
"What is it?" Yukiko asked.
"We've confirmed where and when Youta died. I need to tell Aya-san."
"I'll do it," she told him. "You've got enough going on."
"I was the one she tried to smack. If there's a connection between him and I, then I should be the one to–"
Too late. Yukiko had glanced at his phone, saw the hospital name and police precinct number, and went to the couch and tapped a number. By the time she sat down, the call connected. "Aya-san, it's Amagi from the park a few days ago. Yes, I remember, and it's fine – I understand why you felt that way." She took a bracing breath. "Aya-san, do you have a pen and paper nearby? Because I'm going to give you the numbers and addresses of a police station and hospital in Kyoto, you'll need to– No, I can't say for sure, I'm just passing on the information– That's not really– I'm sorry, I can't. You'll have to– Aya-san? Are you…" Yukiko lowered her phone and ended the call, closing her eyes to hold back the tears.
Souji sat next to her and hugged her, letting her bury her face in his chest. "She's a wreck," Yukiko reported. "She broke down right away. I hope she can come back from this, but…"
Souji squeezed her tighter, looking back at the board and meeting eyes with Yosuke. Burning there was the same fury that had driven them both to the edge and past it in Inaba, that had sustained them against horrors and bloodshed, the shared anger at injustice and drive to right the wrongs, or at the very least avenge them.
Souji hoped there were some more answers to come. Too many people had been hurt in this to come away with nothing now.
Three days later, very early in the morning, Souji would think back on that sentiment and wonder if ignorance would have been the better option. He didn't have this feeling often, and when he did it was more a reflection of deep exhaustion and crushing concern than a genuine desire to throw in the towel and hide in a closet, but this was one of the times it seemed warranted.
From the moment Youta's notes had arrived, everyone had been set on dissecting them and finding out what they could. It turned out that Youta had been an even more prolific keeper of notes than Shirotori, and his weren't in an unreadable shorthand. Because of the notes, and the fact that the two men had worked together on so many of the same projects, the opening of one book became the opening of both, verification and clarity when Souji needed it most.
Here he was, staring at the board where everything had come together. The others had gone to bed hours ago, Yukiko was asleep on the couch behind him, and he couldn't remember the last proper rest he'd gotten. He knew he was exhausted, but finally he had the full picture. The enormity of it all, of the names and connections and deals, loomed like a tower before him.
A door creaked and Kou came out, padding softly to avoid waking anyone. He saw his friend standing there, saw his expression, and asked, "Up early?"
"Up late."
Something must have shown on Souji's face, because Kou didn't reprimand him over his health. Instead he asked, "How bad is it?"
"Pretty bad. Where do I even start?"
"You should wait for the others first. There's no point in saying it more than once. I'll make some coffee, you look like you need it."
Souji agreed. He poured himself a cup and helped Kou with breakfast. Yukiko woke up and offered to help, but by then the others were coming awake. All of them were up earlier than usual, and none of them wanted to leave the mystery unsolved.
Once they were in the living room again, Souji rubbed his face. "This is bigger than we thought," he began.
"Wouldn't be the first time," Yosuke replied. Chie and Yukiko agreed.
"This might be different. This involves some very important people."
"How important?" Megumi asked.
Souji rolled his neck and drank coffee until the exhaustion dulled. "Let's start from the beginning. There were four major names that Youta and Shirotori worked for, four people that are tied up the most in all of this: Kato Akio, Seta Yuuma, Iwamoto Masahiko, and Fujioka Kenzo. We know who the first two are already, and the second two are a former Diet member and his replacement, respectively."
Yosuke whistled. "So this isn't just a coincidence, is it? We tugged on the cat's tail and got a tiger instead?"
"It's looking like that. The work our guys did for them is mostly illegal, things like money laundering, facilitating blackmail and political espionage by moving finances around, and making everything seem legitimate when all that was really there were shell companies and yakuza deals. A lot of this money vanishes even in these records, so I'm guessing there's a lot of taxpayer money in a foreign account somewhere that no one's accounted for yet. Smart money says that Youta and Shirotori were paid on the side and never officially worked for any specific company. That would give the powers that be the chance to cut them loose if anything went wrong. But there was some official protocol involved, probably the promise of normal employment or great references and connections, otherwise they would have clued in earlier that they were breaking the law. Either way, they both kept records for themselves in case anything ever happened."
"If they had the records, why didn't Youta-san go to the police?" Yukiko asked.
"Because he never knew who was after him. He did work for Kato and Iwamoto, but Fujioka was an unknown and my father was the legitimate face of the operation. Youta refers to him more than once as the main contact for these projects, the one who passed on the orders. I'd wager it was my father's call that Youta was waiting for while the others chased him to Kyoto, and he fell Satojima's influence until he died. Our four were all very careful about disguising their activities, so even if the work directly benefited them, it also benefited others around them, so it could never be clear just who was pulling the strings the most. It's only now that the winners have risen to the top and the losers have all fallen to obscurity that we can tie everything together."
"Have the losers really disappeared? Aren't there any opponents that have stuck around or seen the same pattern we are? We can't be the only ones who figured this out."
"Maybe not, but no one else is in a position to do anything. Those who lost fairly have moved on or were given different positions, like a second-place award just to keep them quiet. Others who made noise found themselves on the receiving end of a financial scandal or in possession of narcotics or, in one case, in the middle of a sting involving sex with a minor. Everyone knows that this stuff happens, but it's different when the associate editor of the largest media company in the country is there in person."
Chie noted, "That sounds pretty convenient."
"Very much so. Chances are that things sounded good and they took the bait, only to get a bigger hook than they expected."
"What are the odds that the money they said their opponents embezzled is what they stole themselves?"
"I haven't chased that lead down yet, but I wouldn't be surprised. It's the kind of thing people love to hear." Souji took a breath and glanced at Megumi. "Either way, some of this stuff goes back years. There are initials of other people who helped out with some of these projects back before Youta and Shirotori got involved. S. I. and T. J. come up more than once."
Megumi stiffened. "You're not suggesting…"
"I can't prove it, but Shirotori made notes that some corporate moves that were credited to a Takenaka, no first name. He admired her work, said she – and it was a she – had great instincts for the business world and that she would have been an asset if she hadn't fallen out of favor with Kato Akio. Youta took a different angle and said that the chain of events around her seemed too precise to be a coincidence. Kato's career took off right as Takenaka's sank like a rock in the same year. Because of the extent of Takenaka's crash, she didn't need to be discredited further – she kept herself down. Or at least that's what Youta wrote."
Megumi braided her fingers together and squeezed until they trembled, then rose and left, excusing herself in a rush while she went to her room. Yoshiro rose and followed her, waving to Souji to continue.
"That's pretty twisted, using someone like that," Kou noted.
"It seems in line with how Kato operates. He's ruthless."
"What are we really looking at then? Is all of this the blueprint on how these four screwed everyone else over and got to the top of the pile?"
"It seems like it. They had to work carefully or someone would notice. I think that's how Fujioka got involved. He wasn't part of any of their operations until one point, and then his star rose right as he probably made their acquaintance. This isn't a close alliance of friends here, I get the feeling these guys all had the same general goals and disregard for the rules. They were all going in the same direction and found ways to help each other, but only so long as they weren't in the way. No one's influence really crosses over to the other, so they can all spread out and get what they want."
"I don't know if that's better or worse," Kou put in. "You think of conspiracies as guys in an ancient society with secret handshakes and bloodlines that go back to the days of the shogunate or something. This is guys with money and power wanting more money and power. They're just people who took advantage of the situations around them, but look at what they've done already."
"Can we prove all of this?" Chie asked
Souji nodded. "A fair amount of it, yes."
Yukiko brought up, "What should we do with it? We're in this to scare off your father. Will it really help us if we go after Kato and the others, too?"
"I'm wondering the same thing. The problem here is how much work Youta and Shirotori did for other people and how much legitimate business was done to blend in with the illegal stuff. There's a lot of names here. Some examples are the Kirijo Group, where they were looking for some capital investments and acquisitions of some kind of research instruments. There aren't any details, and there haven't been any transactions in years, so it looks like their new chairwoman is clean. There's records of work for media companies in Tokyo and in the country, talking about the spread and placement of rumors and how that affects public perception. They did some research on the activities in Sumaru City, but it looks like it went nowhere. Next, there's jobs that involved local politicians, probably to help the people who were useful to them – one assemblyman, Masayoshi Shido, comes up a few times. So does that Diet member they kicked out years ago, Toranosuke Yoshida. There's even records of food companies like Wild-Duck Burger and reports on their continued solvency. There's a tonne of this stuff, and if we try to give this to anyone, I'm afraid they'll get lost in the weeds unless we keep things focused."
Kou shook his head. "That's all in there?"
"Yep. All with the small touches that have bigger results somewhere else and never with a clear line of accountability. That's why they've gone on undetected until now."
"This is big," Yosuke concluded. "But you're right, we're only in this to get your old man to back off. If there's evidence of his buddies doing this stuff and he's implicated, then he'll get dragged down with them. He won't take that chance."
"That's what I think." Souji looked around at his friends, all who had the look of firm resolve in their eyes. "All right. There's someone I need to talk to."
Megumi paced and fumed in her room. Yo-kun stood by the door, out of her way.
"This doesn't change anything," she said. "You know what she said to me before. You were there for some of it. You remember the bruises? What she'd throw at me when she was really bad?"
"I remember," was her boyfriend's soft answer. "I couldn't forget it if I tried."
"She can't take that back. Drunk at my school events, picking fights with my teachers. How am I supposed to get past that?"
"If you're not past it yet, then maybe it's something that needs to be faced and put to bed."
She clenched her hands into fists, breathing slow to control her temper. "What do you mean?"
"If this didn't mean anything to you, you'd still be out there. You'd have buried this and let it skate past you because it really didn't mean anything. But you're here, and it's getting to you."
"Of course it's getting to me! This is an out for her! Everything I went through, all the times she was a drunken mess, and she can blame it on being used by some politicians and businessmen."
"Did she ever blame it on them? I know she blamed it on your dad–"
"Don't call him that. Not anymore. Please."
He picked up where her request was coming from. "Okay, then Kato Akio. Did she ever blame anyone else besides him?"
Megumi pulled the words up her throat and out through her clenched teeth. It hurt to say them. "Not that I remember."
"Probably because she didn't know about them. I'm not justifying what she did, but if she was a target for these guys, then she was pushed to become what she is."
"Is that supposed to change everything?"
"It should change something. If it were anyone else, would we be arguing about this?"
"It isn't anyone else. It's her, and you know that means it's different."
His eyes clouded over. "I know. Trust me, I know what this means to you. But if she was a victim too, then she's not your real enemy. If you're over this, then fine, be over it. This has been in the background for you the whole time I've known you, though. It made you into what you are, and–"
"I'm over it," she said coldly.
"I was going to say, if this is something you have to put to rest, then do it. Running away and ignoring it won't help you."
"You think I should let it all go? Do you think she has it in her to change who she is?"
"No, but I didn't think Souji would be able to talk to his mother again, either. You've heard him talk about her before, could you imagine them every burying that and moving on?"
"They haven't yet."
"They still might. There's a chance."
"And a chance is enough?"
"That's up to you."
She tried to smile back. "But you want me to take that chance, right?"
He met her eyes firmly. "Maybe this goes somewhere, or maybe it goes nowhere. There's only one way to find out. Thing is, you still have this opportunity. You know what happened and maybe that's what she needs to wake up. No guarantees, but it's better than losing that chance forever."
"Because even a walking disaster is better than no mother at all? Is that what you're saying? There's nothing there to bring back, no matter what miracles might be out there, and just because you want to make up for what happened to you–"
"Stop," Yo-kun growled in a low, dangerous tone. "We don't have to deal with this right now if you don't want to, but do not finish that sentence."
Megumi bit her lip, stopping the words from coming out. They wanted to, were trying to, but she knew full well what kind of damage they might do. She stopped talking until she was sure what she would say wouldn't set off a bomb on her face.
Until she met Souji-kun and his friends, Yo-kun was the only one who could appreciate what her life had been like. Yo-kun's father had suffered from severe anxiety, and with the high-stress job he'd worked and the rigors of raising a family, breakdowns and trips to the hospital were commonplace. Instead of therapy and medication, alcohol had been the treatment of choice, and with that came the arguments, the explosive temper, and the bruises and estrangement. Eventually he got to the point of leaving the house for hours on end, at varying levels of sobriety, just to stabilize himself, but one day he didn't come back. It had been raining hard half a week by then, and when the body was found, it had been so battered and tumbled by water and rocks, so bloated by water, that the police had needed to consult dental records to make a match. The cause of death had been ruled an accident – his shoes hadn't been found at any of the bridges upstream, suggesting it hadn't been suicide. The body had been found with 2/5s of the usual amount of blood in it, and the long gash on the inside of his arm had been credited to a cut from a rock or the bottom leg of a ladder. Officially, that wound had been deemed evidence of an attempt to get out of the river, but Yo-kun always wondered if that had been the pre-emptive insurance policy in case the fall hadn't done the job. Even if his father could have fallen and everything had been an accident, Yo-kun believed it had been a messy suicide.
It changed him. From that point forward, Yo-kun had sweated blood to keep his grades high and help his family, being the oldest of three. He'd channeled his anger and grief into learning what signs people were giving off, reading their emotions and understanding them. He always said it was his way of using what he'd learned from gauging his father's sobriety, but Megumi wondered if he was still stuck back there, trying to find the right tells his father had given off the last time he saw him. She wondered if he thought there had been something he could have done and didn't.
It was a scar that no one, not even she, dared tread upon.
"I'm sorry," she said finally. "I didn't mean that, it's just hard to think of her like this right now."
"Take your time," he encouraged, the anger gone from his face. "This whole thing just turned pretty weird. I wouldn't expect anyone to have the perfect answer right away, so process it and make your decision later. But try to give it an honest shake. You could give Izumi-san a call. It sounds like she knew your mother before she became like this, so she might give you something to work with. Maybe forgiveness is in the cards, maybe it isn't, but I'd hate for you to lose a chance at making things up with her because of the past."
"That past is our foundation for the present, isn't it?"
"And sometimes we're strong enough to move beyond it and be ourselves, not just something shaped by other people. It takes a lot to be your own person."
"Souji-kun said something like that to me."
"Yeah, well, I've been saying it for a lot longer, though."
She embraced him. "Yes, you have."
She wondered at times if words would ever be enough. Being with Yo-kun had become natural to her, a state as normal as breathing, but what he meant to her and the place he held in her heart was such that she wondered if she'd ever be able to express all of it. It was like their broken, most jagged edges were where they'd fit together the best, bonding over having alcoholic parents and moving toward normalcy from there. She wondered if Yukiko-san felt the same way about Souji-kun, if their relationship had its peaks and valleys and what they looked like. More than that, she wondered if Souji's efforts were going to be enough, if he'd fall short even after all this work, or if he was, however uncertainly, breaking free and blazing the trail.
After so many years, maybe she'd finally found someone to show her the way forward and out of the mire she'd been treading in for as long as she could remember.
"You've been busy," Izumi commented after Souji concluded his findings.
"You sound tired," he answered.
"I'll be fine, sweetie. I've just had some long nights."
The endearment came out easily. Naturally. Souji found that he didn't mind it.
"You're ready to do this, then?" she continued.
"Yes. If this is what I have to do to get out from under his thumb, then so be it."
"Then I'll set up the appointment and get back to you."
"Were we in time? What if the meeting's after year end?"
"I'll make sure it isn't. I have my ways."
He cleared his throat. "You know, some of this stuff implicates you, too. If we bring it up, won't you be affected?"
"Thanks for your concern, but if this is what we need to do, then it's what we're doing."
"But will you be all right? I mean, when all this comes out?"
"I've been through worse, sweetie. Don't worry. You have copies of all that information, right?"
"Naturally."
"Good. Keep your schedule open and don't let that stuff out of your sight. The last thing we need is for it to get lost somewhere. You did good work, you know. You've got some good friends with you, but you really pulled through in a pinch."
"I… thanks. I learned from the best."
She chuckled. "Make sure you tell your uncle that; he always says you got it from him. All right, I'll get to work on my end. Get some rest. You sound terrible."
"I will, but you get some too."
They ended their call and Souji leaned back. This was it. All the work he'd put in, the concerns and fears up to now, was coming to a head. He knew this feeling from the investigation, knew how to ride the current, and a steely look came to his eye as he traced out how the meeting might go.
It was time to settle this, once and for all.
Author's Note, Post Script: I'd like to address the comments on Naoto's performance in the fight in the previous chapter. There were some honest inquiries regarding her lack of a pistol or means of fighting back, and those are fair questions. Regarding guns in Japan, they're hugely restricted even for police officers – they have to file reports that account for every round fired, and Japan's very densely populated so any shot has a chance of hitting bystanders. Naoto occupies the gray area of being a civilian detective. She has some clout, but none of the official training. She's not in a position to carry in the first place, and right now she's not working an official case – she's doing her own thing, which means no support or toys. She used a gun and a Persona in the TV world, but in the real world of careers and lawsuits, she's not going to have that option (Kanji's there in part to be her protection, after all), and she doesn't have a Persona. I suggest reading up on Japanese gun laws, they're pretty interesting if all you have for comparison might be your local laws and what American TV broadcasts. For instance, the former Japanese PM, Shinzo Abe, was killed by someone who had to put a firearm together from duct tape and PVC pipe because guns are so intensely regulated; the neighbors of gun owners can be interviewed by police to see if the person is still mentally sound; reasons for ownership are restricted to things such as hunting, antique collection, manufacturing, or athletic competition; and committing suicide with a gun can warrant a criminal charge against the deceased's estate because they broke the law by using the gun to kill themselves.
Regarding her fight performance, Japanese police are trained in martial arts to maintain a high level of self-protection for the officers, but this comes back to the civilian contractor detail – Naoto isn't a cop. She wouldn't have had to go through the same training and meet the same standards, and also, she isn't Chie, who has been practicing, even informally, for years. Simply put, Naoto doesn't have the means to fight multiple men at close range. People like to think that women have a fair shot in hand to hand against men, but even a woman with prime conditioning and training will struggle against a man with less training and who is in worse shape. Humans are a sexually dimorphic species – that means differences in muscle building and retention, muscle mass, skeletal structure, and everything else that make men and women different. Naoto was never a fighter, she isn't built like one, and she is up against multiple trained yakuza enforcers, guys who do this for a living and so are in the condition needed to do it well. If she'd tried to get involved in that fight (when her goal was to keep the documents safe, bear in mind), then at best she'd be a distraction for Kanji while he's doing the fighting. At worst, she'd have been seriously injured and failed in her goal, all because she got involved in a fight she had no place in. It's a nice idea that it would have gone differently, but video game logic doesn't trump biology.