Continuance

by Vocarin

They say that there are no endings, but only new beginnings. Something finishes, something else starts. Souji Seta is no stranger to new beginnings, but now it's time to make his own.

35. Chapter 35

Author's Notes: Another day, another amazing chapter of the best Persona 4 fic on the internet. Drop whatever work, infants, and heavy machinery you might be handling and sit down for page after page of undiluted awesomeness.

But before we get there, a few words to the reviewers and fans:

Zelenal: A fic writer is never late, Mr. Z. Nor is he early; he always posts precisely when he means to. I admit I don't know about the novel that you speak of which Atlus has disavowed, but it sounds like I'm better off for it – if it's not something they can retcon, it must really be bad. As to your point on pacing, you're right that the previous chapter was a slow slog. Could it have been done faster? Probably. Was it worth it? I like to think so. But you're definitely not wrong in that it had a high page count. Whether it was worth it is something I leave to the audience. I will say that things pick up from here and I'm not going to drag this on unnecessarily. Nothing annoys me more as a reader than when the point has been made and the writer keeps going on to get nowhere fast or even slow, so I won't put you guys through that. Thanks as always for the review – I appreciate honest feedback much more than mindless praise.

Binbix: Pieces of the puzzle are about what I'm aiming for. If I've accomplished that, then I'm glad. Spoiling the surprise would just be rude, but it'll all be worth the slow climb when we get to the top of the mountain. Thanks for reading, and enjoy!

alith anar: Thanks for the review. To (somewhat) answer your question, there's always been a touch of crossover between the games, like visiting the P3 school in P4, seeing Rise's poster in P5, etc, but that's as far as I'll take it. I don't want to rely on one team to come in and bail out another, which undercuts the abilities of one or the other, bloats out the cast list, etc. So references are about all you'll see here, with maybe a nod or two to what might happen in Casino Advantage. You'll have to read that fic (once it comes out) to get it though.

Thanks as always to Firion for his help on this one. Any mistakes are mine.

The plot thickens.

Chapter 35

"You can't really wait on this," Doujima said. "Seems like none of us can."

Souji leaned back in his chair at the desk in his room. "Believe me, I know. I'd like to get back to the rest of my life as soon as possible. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm missing doing class projects and going to work. Looking over my shoulder and waiting for the ax to fall is getting old. But, you know what's crazy? I've missed working on mysteries like this. Working out a problem no one else has the answer to, it's a pretty good feeling."

Doujima chuckled. He was calling to relay information in the guise of calling about family matters. Technically he was still under watch from his job and the government so they had to walk carefully even on their own lines. "Oh, I know that feeling. Why do you think I became a detective? Shirogane and your mother are the same way, so try not to let it get the best of you. I'd hate to think what Amagi would do to you if you went off chasing cold cases and playing private investigator."

"She'd probably come along for the ride, you know. She loves this stuff as much as I do."

"Then gods help us all – you two would be a terror together."

"I'll tell her you said that."

"Don't bother, I'll do it myself. By the way, I found some information on those names you gave me."

Souji turned to the paper pad he'd half filled with his notes and working theories. "Go ahead."

"First off, good work digging up that stuff on Tani and Shirotori. I'm not sure where you learned to dig like that, but you picked it up well."

"I just followed your example, of course."

"Uh huh. Anyway, I got some last-known addresses for you. Right in your part of the city, actually."

"This is after Tani Daiki's death?"

"Yep. Seems like Youta went off the rails after his grandfather died. Before that, all he had on his record was a couple of offenses that barely even rank as minor – parking tickets, loud music, being out late from overworking, that sort of thing. After, though, there's a string of public drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and drug possession. There were only a couple of charges laid, but he walked on them because of his clean record up to that point."

"How long ago was that?"

"Years. He hasn't been in the system since."

Souji grimaced. "He must have cleaned up his act and gone straight. At least we have his prior addresses, that'll give us a place to start."

"What do you have in mind?"

"Canvassing. The best luck I had before came from hitting the pavement and asking questions, finding out what people know that they wouldn't think of otherwise. All of us are going to pitch in, see what we can find. Do you have any other suggestions?"

"Not really. You're on the right track, so I hope your luck holds out."

"Me too. Did you find anything on Shirotori?"

"A longer rap sheet than you did, but his trail went cold around the same time as Tani's."

Souji frowned. "That's an unfortunate coincidence."

"Is that all you think it is?"

"I don't want to borrow trouble just yet. The situation isn't dire enough for that."

Doujima chuckled. "Borrow trouble. You're sounding like an old man, you know."

"That would explain my hair, wouldn't it? By the way, has my mother been in touch with you? Last I heard from her was the message she left me and that's it."

"She gave me some names to pass onto Shirogane and Tatsumi. I don't know where she got them from, but she seems to be doing things on her own. She was always like that, wanting to run her own show."

"I'm the same way," Souji admitted. "We all are, I think. I might not have the time to talk to her, so if she calls, keep her up to date."

"I will, and I'm glad to hear it. Sounds like you're ready to work with her."

"I'm trying. Speaking of that, how's Nanako? Did the government ever send someone to you?"

Doujima made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. "Yes, and they were as big of a pain in my– pardon me, they were as professional and polite as I expected."

Souji chuckled. Nanako must be nearby.

"Things got easier once they saw that Nanako wasn't having any problems," Doujima went on. "Tatsumi's mother and Ryoko-san were a big help, vouching for me and basically drowning the guy in paperwork. You should have seen them – you'd think it was their kid they were sticking up for. They weren't the only ones, either. We had a lot of support I didn't expect, but those two ladies did a pretty good job on their end. It was hard for the government to do much with them in the way. I'd feel a little bad about it if he hadn't been in my grill so much."

"I'm glad to hear that it worked out."

"So am I, but it doesn't change much. For the short term, I'm still stuck passing things on and letting you guys do the work. The government and my bosses will get suspicious if I start acting up as soon as the spotlight moves, and I don't need that kind of a headache."

"That was probably in the cards the whole time," Souji surmised. "If things had gone differently and Nanako had been placed somewhere, you'd move heaven and earth to get back at whoever set this in motion. But things worked out in our favor so you're still stuck in a stall tactic, like a light touch that was never meant to be a big deal."

"I wouldn't be surprised if you're right, which is why I called in a favor."

"Go on."

"There's a guy I know in your area. His name is Uchiyama. Straight cop, tough as nails, unpopular because he doesn't take bribes or play the game, and he likes sticking it to corrupt politicians. Don't go to him with the small stuff or he won't be able to make the impact you want him to, but if you get something big, then he's your guy."

Souiji wrote the name down and got his precinct number and contact information. "I'll do that if I get something big. Thanks for the advice."

"Well, I have one more piece of it. Your mother mentioned that you should finish this before the end of the fiscal year. If you get something and you want to make it hurt, do it at a time when Yuuma can't wiggle out of it or shuffle things around. Same goes for any of his collaborators you find stuff on."

"That's in seventeen days. It'll make things tight, but that's a good idea. I want to make sure this sticks so I don't have to do it again."

"Wise choice. I have to go, but I'll be in touch if anything comes up."

"Thanks. Say hello to Nanako for me."

Souji hung up and put his notes in order. He, Yukiko, Kou, Chie and Yosuke were planning to hit the pavement and ask around about these two names. There was only so much that the internet could tell them and they were still waiting on their other sources to get back to them with anything solid, or anything at all. Rather than waiting by the phone, he wanted to be up and moving and doing something. If Inaba and the investigation had taught him anything, it was that nothing beat in-person meetings for those little, crucial details that blew the case wide open.

Someone knocked on his door just then. "Come in, Yukiko," he said through the door. "I'm just finishing up."

"It's me, actually," Megumi said when she stepped in. "I wanted to wait until you were done with your conversation."

"Were you waiting long?"

"A little while. I couldn't hear anything you were talking about, but what I had to say couldn't really wait."

Souji straightened. "What's wrong?"

"Not really wrong, but I wanted to cover something with you before this whole thing you're involved in goes further."

"That sounds serious. Come in."

Megumi leaned against the door frame, looking around blindly for a moment or two to get her bearings. "Your mom knew who I was when she was here. She really caught me off guard. By any chance, did you know we had that connection?"

"Not at all. I haven't talked to her about that stuff in years, so there was never the chance to, but it didn't come up. She and I haven't talked since she left, and nothing came up about you. I don't think she was expecting to see you here – I got the feeling she was working on the spot. Whatever she's doing now, maybe it's connected to that, but I don't have any insight into that, either."

"That was the impression I got, too. I just wanted to be sure."

Souji continued. "But still, you and I meeting like we did and things turning out like this, that's a pretty unlikely probability when you think about it."

"I got the same feeling. My mom and I are… well, we're estranged. That's the most polite way of putting it."

"I know what that's like. The specifics probably aren't the same, not from what I got out of your conversation with my mother, but the other stuff, it seems we have that in common. I wish we didn't, it's not a fun group to be a part of."

"We can definitely agree on that. It was a surprise, having it come up like that, but I wanted to mention another surprise, and this is one I've known about since you and I met."

"What's that?"

"Your father and mine know each other. They've worked together in the past, and they might still be connected even now."

Souji let that sink in, idly calculating the odds of meeting someone this tied to his own life circumstances at two points by complete chance. There were a lot of zeroes after the decimal and he concluded that he needed to invest in lottery tickets more often. "You're serious?"

"Very. Seta Yuuma is a name I've encountered before, and you're a dead ringer from the few times I saw him. I'd heard he had a son, so I knew who you were right from the start, even if it didn't mean anything back then – I wanted as little to do with that world as you do. When you weren't anything like him, I decided not to bring it up."

"For us to wind up knowing each other… that's pretty crazy. I had no idea – I'd never heard your name mentioned before."

"You wouldn't have. Takenaka is my mother's name – she wasn't married to him and didn't want the reminders after they had their falling out. He's Kato Akio. You wouldn't have had a reason to tie him to me if you'd heard of him before."

Souji grimaced. "And I have. He's a big name in the business world."

"I have a knack for the numbers like what you do, but I picked a different major because I wanted – want – that little to do with business."

"Was that what my mother was talking to you about? Pumping you for information?"

"Basically. I couldn't give her anything. I'd give you more if I could, but what I know wouldn't fill a shot glass. Either way, I wanted you to know in case it came up. I don't know how it would, but I didn't think that you and your friends would be on the receiving end of so much like you have been, and we're already living with odds that should be numerically impossible, so here it is."

"Thanks for telling me."

She looked to the side, seeming unusually hesitant. "Everything's circling us like birds on the beach. All that stuff I didn't want to be a part of, it's all coming back. I thought I'd left this behind. I haven't spoken to either of my parents for years because I didn't want to be part of that world anymore, but now…"

"You wanted to forget your past, but your past didn't forget you," Souji offered. "I know what that's like."

"I wish I didn't. I don't know what you guys are going to dig up, but I have this feeling like everything's coming to a head with your situation, and I'm being dragged along for the ride whether I want to be on it or not. If there is anything about me that can be used against you, you needed to know before the fuse was lit."

"Thanks for the warning. I wish I could say I'm sorry things wound up like this, but we were both in this before we had a say in the matter."

"That isn't the part that bugs me. It's more, how do I put it, me wondering who else is going to be dragged into this and what it's going to look like when it's over. I wonder where we're all going to be situated when the pieces are done moving on the board."

"I feel like you're referring to your mother on that one."

"That obvious, was I?"

"It's a pretty understandable concern, given what my mother was like. I wish I could give you some idea of what to expect, but I'm as much in the dark as you are."

"I'm not ready to talk to her. After some of our fights, I'm not sure when I will be."

"Hey, I get it. I didn't expect to be where I am, either." Souji rose. "But if you're open to some advice, try to keep an open mind about things like that. You never know what life will throw you, and if it's a chance to mend your bridges, well, that might be better than holding onto the anger. Carrying around stuff that you haven't addressed or that you think is resolved when it isn't, that's not good for anyone. I've seen enough of it in others to know that much."

She looked at him through narrow eyes. "Do you think that's what I'm doing?"

"I don't know, and I'm not going to pretend to have insight into your situation. It's yours and no one else's, so you're the one who gets to deal with it. Just make sure that when you make the choice, it's the right one for you and you're not going to end up with a bunch of baggage that you don't want. That's all."

"Sorry if that was bitchy of me. It's been a rough few days."

Souji chuckled. "I know all about that, trust me. No offense taken. Actually, you're not as out of place with this stuff as you'd think. Yukiko, Chie, Yosuke, all of us have been through something like this before. It's how we met. If you need someone to listen or help to get everything back to normal, we can pitch in."

"That's a pretty noble offer, you know."

"Maybe. The world feels pretty small when other people can't relate to what you're going through. Having friends who get it makes all the difference, or at least it did for me."

"Thanks, I might take you up on that. You know, you seem like you have things together a lot more than someone our age should. Like you've been through stuff that no one else has."

"Life just kind of turned out that way. And like I said, I had a lot of help from these guys. Without them, things wouldn't have worked out so well."

"Yukiko in particular?"

"Of course."

"That explains why you're so close. You two're so cute together." She smiled. "Switching gears for a minute, you're going out to look for clues about your guys today, right? Do you have room for two more?"

"Do you and Yoshiro have the time for it? I don't want you to get dragged down by my problems."

"They're kinda my problems too, or that's how it feels right now. I'd rather be doing something than waiting around here. And if I can help, then even better."

"Then we'd be glad to have you. Thanks for the help."

"Thank you right back. Now, let's get to work so I don't have to think about all this other stuff."

That was how the canvass started. Megumi with Yoshiro, Yosuke and Chie with Kou, and Souji with Yukiko. Once everyone had someone with them who knew the area, they split up the responsibilities and areas of inquiry and set out. Pounding the pavement was a welcome joy that eased the weight of the world from Souji's shoulders. It was like being back in Inaba and digging up clues for the next run on the TV World, getting to the bottom of the mystery and having a purpose again. Despite the crowds and the people pushing their way around him, despite the ticking clock he had in the background, it was good to be active and chasing leads again.

That Yukiko was with him only brightened his day. In her usual red, she stood out like sunlight through paned glass against the drab blacks and whites of everyday attire around them, and no few people watched her pass or eyed her up even while she was on Souji's arm. It was twice as bad when she wasn't – she had to show off her engagement ring when the guys got too pushy. When he came back out of a convenience store where Tani Youta was known to frequent, he saw a slick-looking host putting the moves on her.

She could handle herself, and Souji knew that. But on the other hand, this was his girl. He moved up next to her and politely asked the guy, "Oh, do you know my fiancée?"

The guy was smooth enough to not look surprised. "You know, I think so. She's from around here isn't she?"

"Not even close," Yukiko answered. "I don't live in this part of the country. I'm just visiting and I'm sure we haven't met."

By then, however, the guy was looking at Souji, or seemed to be from behind his designer sunglasses. "Sorry? Oh, right, yeah that must have been my mistake. Excuse me." He left without waiting for an answer.

"That was fast," Souji noted. "I didn't think you had that effect on people."

"I think that was all you. He seemed to forget all about me once you showed up."

"You must be imagining it – you're much prettier than I am."

She giggled and hugged his arm in reply.

The rest of that day proved fruitful, and when the group assembled that night they had a clearer picture and timeline for Tani and his activities. The places he stayed and hung out at, where he shopped and for what, even locals who remembered him and could only offer that they hadn't seen him in a while. Some even remembered Shirotori, but commented that he was eccentric and never stayed in one place for long.

It was the next day, however, when the next big lead found them.

The group had split up like before, this time in a different part of the city. Souji was finishing up a productive talk with a grocery cashier and leaving the store when his old instincts, born from months of forced education on combat preparedness and situational awareness, called his attention to a specific set of movements. Footsteps among the crowd, movement out of place, and the sense of intent amidst busy disinterest. Without thought, he pivoted and brought his hand up, catching the arm of a woman who had wound up to slap him, and pretty hard, judging from the way she stumbled from overbalancing.

Souji held her forearm firmly, staring at the face of someone he'd never seen before. A few inches taller than Yukiko and a few pounds heavier, but the weight was carried in her curves, she was certainly a looker when she wasn't glaring at someone, which was precisely what she was doing now.

"Can I help you?" Souji asked.

"Let me go," she ground out. "Right now, or I'll scream."

"You tried to assault me from out of nowhere and now you're pretending to play the injured party? Not a chance. Who are you?"

"Aya. Tani Youta's girlfriend. You've been asking about him, haven't you?"

"Yes, but how did you know that?"

"I got word from someone that you were with a girl in red. The silver hair's a dead giveaway, too."

"You must be friends with that guy who was hitting on Yukiko, then."

Aya shifted her weight, and Souji prepared for another slap. "Might be."

By then Yukiko had come over, daggers in her eyes even while she had honey in her voice. She laid a hand on Aya's free arm and came in close like an old friend. "Don't even think about hurting him. Not for a second."

"Why's that?"

"Because he's mine. If anyone touches him, they have to answer to me."

Souji cleared his throat and wondered, ever so briefly, how big of a scene was about to go down. "I feel like we're talking past each other here, Aya-san. I've been asking about Tani Youta to find him. My understanding is that he went dark years ago and I have some questions for him."

Aya struggled under Yukiko's surprisingly solid grip. "Oh yeah?"

"Yes. I wouldn't lie about this if it's important to someone, and he seems to be important to you. Why don't we go over here, get out of the crowd a little." Souji went on one side of Aya while Yukiko took the other and they gently directed her to the tables of a nearby park. Halfway along, she huffed and walked on her own strength. A few minutes later, the others joined them and looked at Aya without seeming like they were caging her in – no one wanted the cops to interfere.

"Now that we're here," Souji offered, "why don't we start from the beginning, like what I did to warrant a slap as an introduction."

"You match a description that You-kun gave me, someone he said was going to help him make it big. That person stopped taking his calls and You-kun started to spiral. When I saw you, I figured you had to be him."

"Youta was in the business world, so I assume this person was business related. And if you were going by my description, would the hair and eyes have something to do with that?"

"Hmph. That's right."

"The guy you're looking for is probably thirty years older than Souji," Yosuke pointed out.

"I know that now, but when I heard about him asking questions, I put the pieces together and came to see for myself. What are the odds that there's two people who look like that, and in the same area? I mean, are you even Japanese?"

"Yes, but your point's a fair one."

"If a bit impulsive," Chie noted.

"Yeah, like you can say that," Yosuke replied.

"Pipe down."

Souji glanced over, cutting off their bickering. "What was it that this person promised Youta that he was putting so much importance on? It must have been a big deal if it affected him that much."

Aya shook her head. "I never followed his work stuff. Business and shares and all that just never clicked with me. But I knew how hard he worked and he always seemed to know a good thing when it came to him. Him and Shirotori. If you put them together then they were a mess, but in a good way."

"I assume that means they went into crunch time with projects and came out ahead when they were done."

"Yeah, that's right. Almost exactly right. I guess your old man taught you a few things. I mean, that's why you look like him, right?"

"Yes, if we're talking about the same person. And there's almost no chance that we aren't. The information I've got says that Youta and Shirotori have been off the grid for years. Do you know where they went?"

"No. One day he started getting really worried and panicky. He got antsy when his projects were due or when there was a new job coming up, sure, but this was completely different. I tried to calm him down but he started using drugs and couldn't sleep, and I had to work to keep the bills paid. One day I came home and he was gone. No note, no message, nothing. I haven't heard from him since."

"You've been trying to contact him all this time, haven't you?" Yukiko asked softly. "He was special to you."

Aya looked at her suspiciously and said nothing, but sniffled nonetheless.

"What were some of the things he said before he left?" Yosuke asked. "Anything out of the ordinary?"

"He was completely out of the ordinary by then. It was so weird that it was like I was talking to a different person. He talked about how close he was, but that someone else got to it first – he used that a lot, 'it,' but he never talked about what it was. You-kun tried calling Shirotori, called anyone who knew where he might be. I don't think he got anywhere, because he started talking like he was being watched all the time, like there were people in the walls and they were blocking him from getting what he was going for. And he didn't work after that. It was like whatever magic he had at one point was totally gone and he couldn't get it back. I tried everything I could, but nothing worked. That was when he disappeared."

Souji made a few notes on his paper pad. "So things went bad, then Shirotori disappeared and that's when Youta went off the rails?"

"That's right."

"How long between Shirotori's disappearance and Youta's?"

"A few days. I thought it was another job they took on together, but then You-kun never called."

"And what about Shirotori? Any idea why he wasn't returning Youta's calls?"

"Shirotori was weird. Not in a bad way, but he had something going on in his head that I couldn't figure out. You-kun tried to explain it to me once, said he saw things differently and had a hard time fitting it with everyday society. That's one thing, but when he's coming over and crashing on your floor at two in the morning, it's a different story. Shirotori had certain habits and ways he wanted things, and he'd get agitated if they didn't work out that way. Then he'd leave town and not talk to anyone for weeks. You-kun said it was for work, so even when things were quiet, they weren't completely apart. He had a much better handle on Shirotori than I did, and so long as they didn't make too big of a mess, I was fine with it."

"Youta knew how to handle Shirotori's condition and make the most of it. They worked well together, and that's why."

"Yeah. You know a lot about this."

"My uncle's a detective, and this matter's important to me. I did my homework."

"Well he was pretty okay when he was medicated. I didn't mind him then."

"Where did he get his drugs?"

Aya gave an address, threading her fingers together and twisting them at the knuckles. Yukiko brushed Souji's foot with her own and led the conversation from there, asking Aya how she met Youta, how long they were together, what his favorite activities were. The woman gave the first answer quickly, that it was through Daiki-san that she met Youta, and like a door opening she talked non-stop about her beau. Three and a half years, and they'd been planning to get married in the fall before he crashed. Sudoku puzzles and word games were his favorite, and hers too – it was how he proposed to her. For almost half an hour the words came out, and it was clear just how much he'd meant to her. When she was done she looked surprised, like she hadn't expected to talk so much or for anyone to listen.

"Thank you for sharing," Yukiko said before giving her number and getting Aya's in return. "I know you're worried about him, but we'll try to find him for you. If we hear anything, I promise you we'll be in touch."

Aya nodded and looked at them like she had something else to say. A moment later she rose and left with a nod and nothing more.

"Talk about a lucky break," Kou noted. "That gives us a lot more to go on."

"Only if we can find him," Souji replied. "And we need to track down Shirotori. If Youta was the people person, then Shirotori was the workhorse. He'd know what sort of backroom deals were going on, and we need to find out what they were working on before they left and why my father would be so interested."

"Where to now?" Yoshiro asked.

"Shirotori's doctor. If Youta was getting paranoid and using drugs, then the odds are that he'd go to someone he already knew. Pharmacists always know where to get the hard stuff, if only to keep their customers away from it. We can handle this from here, you know. It's getting late."

"Not a chance," Yoshiro replied. "This is getting way too interesting. If you guys find the big clue that solves the case and I wasn't there to see it, I'd be pretty pissed."

"We said we're in this," Megumi added. "That means all the way."

With that said, the group followed the directions to the doctor's office. Halfway there, Yosuke moved close to Souji and said quietly, "You know, those habits she described and being out of touch for a long time, there's one perfectly solid reason that fits the bill."

"I know where you're going with that," Souji answered, "and I'm not considering it yet. Not until I see the evidence. Bad enough if these guys started seeking enlightenment and are in a Buddhist temple somewhere, or if they pissed off the wrong people and had to go dark, but if it's more than that… I don't want to think about it."

"But you have. I just wanted to make sure we're considering all the angles."

"I am. I want to be sure. If that's the answer to this, then this gets very messy very quickly, and you saw Aya-san. That's one phone call I don't want to make."

"Yeah, I hear you."

They walked for almost twenty minutes before they found the doctor's office Aya-san had mentioned. It was out of the way and set back from the street, resting between two vacant storefronts.

"Not exactly standing out for business, is he?" Kou said. "Good for the locals, maybe, but I doubt anyone knows he's here who wasn't invited."

Souji stepped forward. "If the regulars know where he is, then that's plenty, and depending on the yakuza in the area, sometimes you really don't want attention." He grabbed the door handle, but stopped in a flash. A familiar chill raced up his arm and sped through him, and he jerked his hand back.

"What's wrong?" Kou asked.

"Nothing. It just shocked me, that's all. Static."

Yosuke was next to him, though, and looked at the door grimly. He'd felt it too, and when the two glanced back, they saw Yukiko and Chie rubbing their arms, having felt the residual effects but not the full impact.

That made sense. Out of any of them, Souji and Yosuke had the most exposure to the TV World except for Teddie. With so much experience came a sense for the shift and flow of the negative emotions that constituted the Shadows. The place they were about to enter had an imprint on it of such anguish and misery that it stained the place like ink on white cloth, and it reminded Souji of the alternate version of Konishi Liquor where Konishi Saki, so frustrated and torn by life, had fled to her death.

Souji had felt this before in the TV World, but not since. He didn't know that he could still sense this sort of thing. It wasn't threatening or warning him off, but whoever was in here was in a very bad state of mind.

"That's interesting," was all Yosuke said.

Souji pulled on the handle – the effect was weaker now – and stepped in.

The interior was as unobtrusive as the front. The place sparkled with the attention to detail that any medical facility should, and the polished floors and neat display of everything on the shelves reflected a meticulous mind. But there was a tension in the very fabric of the place as though the building itself awaited close scrutiny or a critical question to bring it all down, and the air was painfully still. Yukiko and Chie looked around in recognition of the feeling, and even the others seemed disquieted.

"We're closing soon," someone, presumably the doctor, informed them from the back of the store. "Please see to your business quickly."

Souji walked forward. "You're Doctor Akizuki?"

"That's right. What do you need?"

The others moved around the storefront, looking occupied while listening closely. "Information," Souji continued. "We're looking for someone and we were told you were a contact of his."

Akizuki scoffed as he approached. He was a tall man, but sallow and thin. Not trim or athletic, but like he'd been missing meals. From his posture, he didn't seem like he was on good footing. His face was creased with deep lines, and there was a sunken quality to his eyes that made Souji wonder if he was looking at an upright cadaver. "I'm sorry but doctor-patient confidentiality prohibits me from discussing any such details."

"That's for specific material like someone's medical history or specific drugs or diagnoses," Kou pointed out. "We're not asking about that. You've been here for a while, I'm sure, and you hear and see things that go on around here like anyone else. I'm sure those are things you can talk about."

"That depends on the person and the nature of the question, of course. Who are you and why are you asking these questions?"

"We're students and locals. There's a matter we're looking into and it's led us here."

"You're not police or detectives. I assume you don't have a warrant or any official backing for this inquiry?"

Souji offered a stony smile. "No, we don't have any of those things. But Detective Uchiyama would be interested to hear about this place, I'm sure."

"That sounds like a threat, young man. I don't respond well to such things."

"It was an observation. You're off the beaten track. I can't imagine that your suppliers have an easy time getting your stuff to you, but your shelves are fully stocked. I'm sure you run a perfectly legitimate business here, doctor, but surely there are some transactions that go on here that don't all end up on the books. Nothing wrong with that, everyone does it."

"I resent your implication, young man. I think you need to leave."

"Uchiyama might be busy," Kou began from where he was at the wall, looking at Akizuki's posted degrees and credentials, "but the local business bureaus might be interested in your establishment. Your license is out of date."

Akizuki's eyes darted over. "It's right there in front of you."

"Last year's is, and this other one is supposed to have two stamps but it only has one. You're short on half the government approval you need to legally operate. To keep running a practice and prescribing meds when your paperwork is out of date is a little irregular, isn't it?"

"You're wrong about that."

Kou glanced over. "If so, then you won't mind if I ask some people I know who deal with this sort of thing, will you?"

"We don't want to make trouble for you," Souji put in. "Help us however you can and we'll leave without saying a word to anyone."

Akizuki glared while sweat caught in the cracks of his face. "This is blackmail."

"It's business. Look, Doctor, you don't strike me as a bad or malicious person. You do an important service to the community around here and I'm sure the people love you for it. But I'm against the wall myself and I need your help. I'm told you're the only one who can help me, so please, just hear me out and answer my questions if you can."

"Two people are missing," Yosuke added. "Off the grid and no one we've spoken to has heard from them in years. If your oath to help people still holds, then help us."

Akizuki looked at them, then sighed and sank back. "Ask your questions. What do you want?"

"The people we're looking for are Tani Youta and Shirotori Takehiko."

The response was immediate. Akizuki looked at them jerkily, turning pale and clammy.

Souji stared. The cold feeling from before intensified, and he knew what the source of the feeling was. Not a residue from the past, but a still-living person in the present. Something bad had happened here.

"We heard that you supplied Shirotori with his meds," Yosuke went on. "Nothing wrong with that. From what we heard he needed them to stay on par, and he sounded like a pretty okay guy overall. But he's disappeared. Can you help us?"

"Shirotori…"

"Youta, too," Kou said. "We heard he hit a bad patch, started abusing drugs and alcohol when he wasn't like that in the first place. Did you see or hear anything before he left town? I assume he left, because his girlfriend's worried sick right now. She's still looking for him, you know. Hoping that, even years later, he'll come back to her."

Akizuki began to tremble.

"Maybe you don't know anything, but if you do then it'd help us to track him down. It's important."

"You need to leave," the doctor finally croaked out. "All of you. Now. You need to leave."

Souji stepped forward. "Because of which one? Tani or Shiritori?"

"I have… I have nothing to say. You need to go."

Souji gestured to the girls. Chie turned the sign in the window to 'closed' while Yukiko locked the door and the others stood firm. "Not without our answers, Doc. Call the cops if you have to, but we both know you don't want that, and we'll stay here all night until we get the full story. That's how seriously we're taking this."

Akizuki backed up until he hit the wall. He shuffled against it like he didn't realize he couldn't go any further back.

"You can't talk about it," Souji went on, approaching slowly. "Maybe it's the Hippocratic Oath or maybe someone's got something on you. Fair enough. Here's what I think happened – you don't mind me just thinking out loud, right? Those two were customers of yours. Good guys need their meds, same as anyone else. Youta was in business so maybe he helped you out with suppliers and rent, got you ahead in some way or other. But then they both go off the rails and no one can find them." He let his voice deepen and lower, shifting into the timbre that he'd used when giving orders in the TV World and defying the Shadows. "It's not enough that these two have a bad day or two, though. They get louder on the hard stuff, don't they? They're out of control now, way beyond what you can rein back in, and now people are starting to wonder who their supplier is. That makes me wonder, was it their circumstances that led to their drug abuse? Or was it a mistake on your part? Did something happen with your stock that you didn't see until it was too late, and you accidentally pushed them over the edge?"

"No…"

"No one would blame you if it was a mistake, you know. These things happen, companies change the ingredients to their meds all the time, and someone can have a reaction to them. It looks bad at first, sure, but you didn't know, right?"

"That's not… what…"

"Of course it wasn't your fault. It's not like you spiked their meds yourself, right? They came to you for help, so you wouldn't hurt them. We can't find them, but that's a coincidence. Nothing to do with you at all."

Akizuki looked hunted and haunted. "I didn't hurt them…"

"No one's saying you did. Drug overdoses make people perfectly happy before they die. No hurting involved, right? Maybe it was even what they needed at first. You're just a doctor doing a service for his patients."

"That's not what happened…"

"Come on, Doc, you can do better than that. Who supplies you with your drugs? The yakuza? They'd love a cut of the action, wouldn't they? Did Youta piss them off?"

"That's not what happened!"

"Did they do it for you? Or did you do it for them to prove you were good with killers and human traffickers and–"

"I SAID THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENED!"

The room went silent except for Akizuki's soft, broken sobs. He sank to the floor and resembled nothing so much as an empty shell of a human being bereft of any will or support.

Souji knelt next to him, softening his voice. "Something did happen here though, didn't it? Something bad, and it's killing you, eating you up from the inside. You didn't intend for it to happen, you didn't want it, but things went sideways and you've been holding it in this whole time, haven't you?"

"How.. could you know…"

"I just do. It's all over this place and it left its mark on you. You've been trying to live with it for years, but it's not working very well, is it?" Souji let that sink in.

Akuzuki wracked and rocked with his misery.

"Please, Doc. You didn't ask for this but you can't keep living like this. It's not living at all. If I had to guess, you don't have problems with business here, do you? Lots of shops and houses nearby, kids and families that use your services. So why the missing paperwork? You wouldn't make a mistake like that, you're a smart, established guy in the business. But why now, and why that? Because this is getting to you. I doubt you're eating well if you're eating at all, you look terrible, and those little details are starting to cause some pretty big cracks, aren't they? How can you help your patients if you're shut down? Worse, what if you make a mistake with them?"

"How did you know all of that?"

"Like I said, I just do. I know that good people can fall into bad situations, and I know that keeping those things to yourself will only make it worse if you don't address them. You don't want that and neither do I."

Akizuki spat out a laugh behind the tears and mucus. "You missed your calling as a detective, you know."

"One in the family is enough for now. Now, please. Can you help us find Shirotori and Youta?"

Akizuki rose and sat in his chair, head hung and face in his hands. It was hard to imagine that an adult could look so small. Just then, it seemed like a strong breeze would blow him over and scatter him across the floor like so much dust. It was a few long, painful moments before he spoke, the words raw and bloody. "Takehiko-kun was a regular. We worked on his meds to find the right balance. He had a gift for numbers and patterns, but certain meds would make him too normal and stifle his feeling for his work. That's how he described it to me, that he didn't want to be normal if he couldn't 'feel' the numbers. So we worked on it and found the right combination. No problems, and unless he was working for days at a time, he didn't miss them and didn't have too many problems. Even Tani wasn't that big of a problem. He'd use stimulants to stay awake for a few days and he liked to party after a big project, mostly just light drugs and alcohol. Hardly ideal but nothing serious. Takehiko-kun avoided anything besides his usual meds; he didn't want to risk upsetting his balance. He might not have shown it very often, but he was a good kid and didn't want to hurt anyone. He made sure he was safe around other people."

"Sounds like a good situation. What changed?"

"They did. Both of them, at the same time. I don't know what caused it, but they came back from work paranoid and desperate. Tani behaved like there were people after him, said 'they' knew how to get to him and that even the police couldn't help him."

"Did he mention anyone who looks like me? Went by the last name Seta?"

"Yes, but only once or twice. He talked about a lot of people – he liked to talk in general. He mentioned a Seta in the context of not getting a call, or perhaps expecting one and missing it. It wasn't very much, and by then he wasn't making sense."

"If he didn't trust the police, then I imagine he stayed out of the hospitals, too."

"Yes. That was the best place for him and I told him that over and over, but he refused. You have to understand that I deal with sick and unwell people all the time – they're the ones I want to help the most – but I've never seen anyone more paranoid than him. He was caffeinating himself to stay awake and keep moving as though the yakuza were after him. The first time I saw him, he'd been up for more than fifty hours. I spoke to people, I tried to help, but he was… strange. It was like he was chasing after something and running away at the same time, and from the toll it was taking on him, that's like driving a car with a foot on the gas and the brakes at the same time. After a while he stopped coming to see me or take my calls, and after that I heard that he'd left town. Rumor and second-hand information, but this is the first I've heard his name since then. I've hoped that he found help somewhere else, but if you're still looking for him… I don't want to know what happened."

"And he didn't leave anything behind that you know of? Any clues or prescriptions or anything we can follow?"

"He didn't."

Souji braced himself with a breath. Every instinct told him this was about to get worse, but he plunged forward anyway. "Shirotori did, though? What happened to him?"

"Tani turned into a wreck, but that was a short-term development, extreme but sudden. Takehiko-kun… I knew him. I knew how he was, what he could do when he had things under control, and most of the time he did. But when he crashed, it was worse than a train wreck. He went from light drugs to hard stimulants and amphetamines. He blew through his savings in just eight days, bought yakuza goods and had them after him in no time, but the whole time he said that 'they' were after him. The same 'they' that Tani talked about, I suspect, but I'm sure he didn't mean the yakuza. He didn't say."

"What was the context?"

"Work. They both took on high-risk business projects, the sort that tie corporate money to political power. It was the sort of thing that we're not supposed to know goes on behind the scenes, and I'm sure a lot of it wasn't legal. They did well there, though. That was the edge they worked on and that was what they did best and excelled at. Plenty of people take risks, but those two had it down to an art and made a killing at it."

A ripple went through the group. Souji nodded but repeated, "What happened?"

Akizuki let out a shuddering breath. "Takehiko-kun came to me in a panic. He was a wreck but lucid at the same time. He said he was in trouble with the police. He'd tried to buy drugs from the wrong person and ran when he realized it was a sting operation. He wasn't a strong person, but he was so wired that two policemen couldn't hold him down. He ran here to talk one last time, asked if he could use the back door, but then he said they were already there. He ran out to the street and…"

They knew what was coming, but waited for him to say it. That was all they could do.

"He died a minute later," Akizuki concluded in that same hollow tone. "Hit by a truck. Dragged under and crushed."

Souji rubbed his face. "Why wasn't there a police report?"

"The police have come under scrutiny in the last few years. There have been cases of excessive force, accusations of fabricated evidence in court, and some people have even died under suspicious circumstances when the Special Investigations Department got involved. Even if there hasn't been any official case or charges laid, there are all sorts of stories about their interrogation techniques. The news has been looking for any instances of police entanglements or malfeasance, and having a suspect die while the police were in pursuit was just the kind of story that nobody wanted. Because Takehiko-kun had a prior record, and because of the circumstances, they ruled it an accident and swept it under the rug. I'm not sure if he was even given a death certificate."

"We looked and never found one. Either we were looking in the wrong place, or someone buried it."

"I'm not surprised. The day after he died, some thugs and yakuza came around, asking questions and making threats. I grew up in a rough neighborhood, I know what they look like and what they do. People around here called the police to drive them off, but the response was slow, and by the time the officers came everyone told them to leave anyway."

"Yakuza right after Shirotori died," Yosuke noted. "Is there any chance it's a coincidence?"

"Unlikely. The speed limit of that road was changed the year before to account for the close quarters and sharp turns in the area – accidents were pretty common up to then. No one should have been going fast enough to kill someone." Akizuki laughed a dead, rattling laugh. "I saw the same thing back home in Tokyo. A detective who was trying to help the locals fight organized crime was hit and killed by a delivery truck. The driver claimed he fell asleep at the wheel and I don't think anyone believed him, but the investigation didn't turn up anything. No suspects, no trial, just a dead police officer – one of the good ones – and his two daughters left alone in the world. His wife died before that, apparently. I left that place to get away from ever seeing that again, but when it happened to Takehiko-kun, I knew I couldn't say anything. You know, it's funny. That detective was a good man, someone who really believed in justice and a friend to all of us, but I can't remember his name anymore. Ni-something. What a doctor I am, to see these things and do nothing."

"You are doing something this time," Souji told him. "You're telling us, and we'll take it from here."

"You didn't give me a choice, did you? I don't know whether I should thank you or hate you for that."

"Make that decision in the morning. You've had a bad enough day already. After Shirotori died, is that when Youta ran?"

"Yes. Two days later. I suspect he was hiding and getting all his money to leave town by then. I haven't heard from him since. Aya-san came and talked to me right after, that's how I knew he left."

"You couldn't give her anything."

"No."

"What about Shirotori?"

Akizuki went quiet again. The group let him take his time. "When Takehiko-kun came by," Akizuki finally said, "he gave me his notes. He kept books full of his ideas and projects – it was how he kept his thoughts straight when the noise got too loud, that's how he described it. I knew about them, encouraged him to use them and even bought them for him for Christmas. They were cheap enough, after all. That last time, he gave me his books and ran out of here before I could stop him."

"You still have them?"

"Yes. I don't trust the police anymore, and whatever was in them might have gotten him killed. Some part of me wanted to find someone, anyone, I could tell this to. I didn't think it would be students, though. I should have burned them or gotten rid of them, but I couldn't. Every time I thought about it or tried, I just couldn't."

"Can you give them to us?"

"Didn't you hear me? People are killing to protect these secrets. Why do you want to get involved?"

"Because I'm already involved. I'm in this situation whether I want to be or not, so if I'm going to get out of it, I need some firepower. Shirotori's notes might be exactly what I'm looking for."

"There's a good chance," Yosuke mentioned, "that these are what the yakuza wanted. They would have had the time to toss his place and look for any other notes he had, but they still came looking after he died. That means they didn't find what they were looking for."

Akizuki looked at them. "If I give them to you, I'm putting you in danger."

Souji looked at him right back. "If you don't, you'll stay right where you are: stuck on that day, hating yourself for not helping Shirotori, and rotting until it kills you. No one deserves that."

"It's the least of what I deserve."

Kou stepped over. "The people here would disagree with you. They need you alive and at your best, and that's part of the oath you swore when you became a doctor. That means you don't get to check out."

"It also means that the people who did this to Tani and Shirotori are still out there," Souji put in. "They need to be brought down, or other people will be hurt or killed just like these two were. That can't stand, and you know it."

"What can you do?"Akizuki asked. "You're just kids."

"We're a lot more than that."

"Yes, it seems that you are. If I do this, you'll look after yourselves? Take the necessary precautions?"

"Yes. I promise."

Akizuki rose and went to the back of the store, pulled up a floorboard and opened a safe. He handed over two notebooks, wrapped in plastic and bulging with pages. "I deeply hope this isn't going to be a mistake, but I'm already afraid it will be. Take them, before I change my mind."

Souji secured the books in his bag. "You're doing the right thing now, Doc."

"Maybe. Remember what I told you. Be careful with those."

"We will. Please look after yourself."

The group left the building, and behind them sat the doctor, hollowed out and alone with his memories and grief.

Souji let out a breath when they were outside. "This wasn't how I expected my day to go when I woke up this morning."

"You handled it pretty well," Yosuke said.

"No kidding," Megumi added. "Where'd you learn to do that to people? It was like you hypnotized him. Even I felt it."

"You told me that I had things together more than most people our age. That's part of it. Honestly, I'd hoped to never have to feel that again."

"It was pretty obvious," Yukiko said, slipping under his arm and letting him de-stress from her presence, "all the pain he was in. I hope he can get some peace out of this."

"Me too, but I also hope he doesn't try to check out now that he's talked to someone." Souji looked at Kou. "Sorry to ask this, but do you know anyone who can look out for him? I don't want him having any accidents in case we have any more questions or if things escalate."

"I might know a few people. I'll ask right now."

"This is where we're at, huh?" Chie brought up. "Chasing the leads through Shirotori's journal, trying to figure out what he meant?"

Souji nodded grimly. "Looks like it. Hopefully Naoto and Kanji are having better luck than we are right now."

---

Naoto wished that her luck was better right now. She'd been hopeful when she noticed the guys tailing her that she was on the right track. It made sense, after all – you didn't go following people when they were nowhere near where you didn't want them. It stood to reason that the closer her tails followed her, the closer she was to something important.

It was a sound theory. It made sense.

It was also turning out to be wrong.

She'd gone down the list of the names Doujima had first given her, chasing the leads and expecting to find commonalities even in the lies. Those were the threads she could follow, the little details that would lead to the truth.

The problem was that no one was giving her that common link. She'd interviewed grocery store suppliers, construction foremen, fishing boat captains and truckers and secretaries, even a news anchor. The one thing she found, after days of work and more days of combing through her notes, was that they had nothing in common at all. Not friends or family, not education or hometown or earnings, not client lists or operational methods. Even her tails were inconsistent now, appearing twice more before disappearing, then popping up just the other day and now nothing at all.

She hated to admit it this far into an investigation, but she was confronted with the reality that she'd hit a dead end. Senpai had contacted her with his projected timeline and she'd been so certain that she could make it work, but six of those days had passed and right now she had just as little as when she'd started. To call her frustrated was an understatement of monolithic proportions, but she kept it locked down. She'd faced challenges before and hadn't cracked. She wasn't about to start now.

"Still," Kanji muttered when they went over her notes yet again, "you'd think there'd be something. Doujima isn't the kind of guy who gets it wrong."

They were in the two-bedroom hotel room they'd been working out of in the city. The common room had become their planning space, the table and couch covered in their notes and theories and scratched-out plans. The initial novelty of being together this far from home, sleeping just a short distance from each other, had long since given way to their focus on the job at hand. They weren't even trying to be professional or put on appearances for each other anymore. Naoto had her collared shirt unbuttoned at the throat, distracted as she was by the case, and Kanji looked rumpled from sleeping on the couch so he could consult the notes with any ideas that came in the middle of the night.

Naoto rubbed her face. "I can't imagine Izumi-san is any different. It sounded like she was pretty sure of some of these names, but I can't find any connection to Senpai's father or to a Kato Akio anywhere."

"You notice how she gave us these names but Senpai didn't talk about them? I'm kinda curious what she's doing and why she knows this and he doesn't."

"As am I, but I trust her to do what's best for him, even if we're not seeing the full picture right now. Okay, let's go over this again. We've covered all the bases, and I have to believe that we have or we've been doing this whole thing wrong."

"You haven't. You know what you're doing."

"Thanks. The problem is that nothing is standing out no matter how hard we're looking at it, right?"

"Yeah, seems right. There's no lead taking us where we need it to."

She tapped the page of financial records and posted earnings she'd hastily copied from the accountant who'd given them to her as fast as he could to trip her up. She'd flashed her badge and pulled rank with the weasely little bureaucrat to get even that much, and he'd thought he could brush her off by reciting the numbers as fast as she'd heard anyone talk. He'd been smug and pompous while he looked down his nose at her – amusing, because he was shorter than she was. Then that expression had melted off entirely when she recited the numbers verbatim. She looked at the columns and numbers, let her eyes shift in and out of focus to try and make any kind of sense of what she had, and it wasn't until she was looking at the list of expenses that she stopped and murmured, "Of course. It had to be something simple, didn't it?"

"Did you find something?"

"The most foundational approach to detective work involves collecting as much evidence as possible and seeing what you have. Put it all together and you have a complete picture, or as close to one as you can get, right?"

"Right."

"That's not working here, so where does that leave us?" She tapped the sheet. "Subtraction, not addition. We know there's more to some of these numbers, so why aren't we seeing it? Because the good data is mixed in with the bad. Let's start taking things away and see if the information holds up."

Kanji nodded in understanding. "I gotcha. You take that half, I'll take this one."

They dove into the reports once again, taking their own notes and cross-checking with what they'd recorded already. Two hours passed in relative silence before they had enough to share, but it was Kanji who found the first thread.

"Out of all the places we checked, six of them posted no change in their finances for the last three years. They weren't making huge money, but they stayed afloat and posted some profit when their competition declared losses. I remember some of these guys. Ma said it was weird that they were doing badly when their competition was mediocre at best."

That did sound like Tatsumi-san, polite even to people she didn't like.

"Whoever handled the money was smart, though," he went on. "They didn't throw any big parties, no flashy events or huge purchases, nothing that would give it away that they were making money on the side. If you didn't have everyone else as a yardstick, you wouldn't think anything was wrong, and that's probably why no one's found the connection until now."

"The two most common trails to follow are money and self-interest," Naoto said. "We just had to put it into context and look at it properly."

"What'd you find?"

"I checked the six you mentioned. Four of them, the local news station included, have connections to companies in Tokyo and the surrounding area. That's not unusual, except that the posted reason they're tied to Tokyo – permits, senior staff, that sort of thing – fills a role that you could manage out of Kyoto at a fraction of the cost. More local connections and much shorter travel times should be the first option of any business owner, so going further out for the same thing is an expense without clear justification."

"Did Kato's name pop up at all?"

"Once, but not in any real context, and I did come across someone named Iwamoto twice. There's no reference to what he does or why he's involved. That's what's most interesting about it, actually – there's no clear reason for him to be tied to either business, but he is." Naoto sat back. "Two dots on the graph gives us a line, but that's still not enough. We need something definitive, something that clearly ties them all together."

"A business that fits the bill that we haven't dug deep enough into, huh? I guess I know where we're going next."

That next day, the two hit up the businesses that they'd sifted out from the others. Naoto immediately had the sense of being on the right trail this time. The owners were smooth and gave bland, non-specific answers, but as soon as questions about Tokyo were asked, they got a cagey look in their eye and gave no answer at all. Naoto made a note of the people in charge and the businesses in particular. Doujima-san would be interested in talking to these guys. So would the tax bureau, particularly if she could find out how much money wasn't being declared. Seta Yuuma wasn't the only one who could use the government to his advantage, after all.

The last one on the list was a raw materials supplier. The sun was setting when they caught the owner, one Ryota-san, and managed to talk to him.

Unfortunately, he didn't have much to say, and was making that patently clear.

"There aren't any irregularities in my numbers," Ryota-san told them sharply. "If you found some, then you should look at them again. We're working hard for the clients we have, so your insinuation is without merit."

"The business has recorded a change in ownership recently," Naoto pressed. "I assume that's when you took over. What if these things happened before your time?"

"I looked over the numbers myself, miss. I trust the previous owner implicitly, and I won't hear his name slandered any more than I will my own."

"Those clients you mentioned, none of them have the names Seta, Iwamoto or Kato?"

An elderly fellow behind Ryota-san jerked when he heard the names, then hunched over to look like he hadn't.

The owner would have none of it, however. "My client list is none of your business, but I'll answer this one question so that you'll leave: no, they don't. Now, your time is up. If you persist in this inquiry, I'll expect to see a warrant or you can expect to be served with one yourself."

Naoto handed him one of her cards. "If you remember anything else, please call me or forward your inquiries to the Inaba police department. They'd be happy to see whatever warrant you plan on serving me." That done, she bowed as little as was absolutely necessary and left without another word. When they were outside, she glanced at her partner. "What do you think?"

"Typical manager, big ideas for himself and something to prove to the world. A lot like the others, except this one actually talked to us. The others just ran in circles and didn't actually say anything even when their lips were moving."

"I agree. He might have been condescending, but he was still engaging with us directly. Either he thought he could bluff us where no one else even tried, or he had nothing to hide in the first place. I think it's the second option – did you see the older man in the back?"

"Yep. The whole time you were talking he was getting twitchy. Cleaning the same spot, not moving, and when you dropped those names, he looked like he'd fall over."

"He's the weak link here. We need to talk to him."

Kanji nodded to a nearby alley. "There was a side door down there, probably as an emergency exit for smoke breaks. I saw it before we went in."

"Good catch; I missed that. If our man is as nervous as you say, then maybe he'll be out for a cigarette soon. Let's see what he has to say."

They staked out a corner near the door and waited. As night fell and the street lights came on, the man they picked out before came out, dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief. Naoto and Kanji approached at opposing angles to hem him in, and they were almost on top of him before he noticed them – something seemed to have his attention. When he looked up, startled, Kanji cleared his throat and beckoned him over.

"Seemed like you had something to say in there," Kanji said by way of introduction. "Figure that maybe since we're out here, away from your boss where no one can hear us, you can tell us what you wanted to say."

The man looked at the door nearby. Naoto shook her head. "Please don't. We've come a long way and worked very hard to get this far. I don't want to have to push you harder than is necessary, but we will if you make us. I can't think that you came out here just now without thinking we might be here. I don't see a lighter in your hand, for instance, and you don't seem to have any cigarettes."

He sighed, a long, defeated sound, and looked at them. "You're sharp, miss. But then you'd have to be to become a detective at your age." He shut the door behind him. "I'd like to make a request."

"You're not going to pretend you don't know anything?" Kanji inquired. "Not going to make this hard?"

"No. Why should I? You know there's something amiss, and you seem the sort to keep digging. Besides, I don't have much time, and if I help you then I can negotiate for something in return."

"I can't promise anything," Naoto warned. "Even if you cooperate, there's only so much I can do."

"It's still better than saying nothing. This has been going on long enough already, and I don't want him to be caught up in it."

"You mean Ryota-san?"

"Yes. The irregularities you mentioned and the unusual contacts, they were from before his time. He doesn't know that they ever happened, and the books make it look clean. We worked quite hard to keep the whole thing to ourselves, but it seems it wasn't meant to stay that way forever."

"Then let's make this count. I didn't catch your name, sir."

"Okajima Hachiro."

"Okajima-san, what was it you were asked to do?"

"Things we knew were illegal. Transporting goods to certain places so that certain people would be found with them, or not be found with them. Leaning on people to keep certain stories from getting out or helping other ones spread around. All things that people will take money for, all things that smart people in Tokyo know the locals are better at. We know the right people and we don't catch attention like the yakuza do."

"Were the yakuza ever involved?"

"Probably, but I can't prove it. My situation was unique. I was low enough on the list to only get some of the work and not stand out when someone made a mistake. You see, I wasn't the only one doing this, but I was smart enough to not say anything. A lot of people weren't – I wonder if they were chosen because of that – and when they stepped out of line, things turned bad for them."

"Something similar to what you were doing? Blackmail, setting them up and dropping them, that sort of thing?"

"Yes. We did the jobs against normal people as much as for our own kind when they stopped being useful. I did the work and took the money, but they haven't called me in years. I wonder if they forgot about me."

"Maybe your utility was used up."

"That could also be it. I'd be glad if that were the case."

"You recognized the names I mentioned before?"

"Yes. I never caught a name for whoever was giving me instructions – I never asked those questions – but I did hear them from other people. Those were the ones who asked around too much and wound up sinking. I wasn't about to take my chances digging around, so I've remembered the names and not said anything until now."

"So Kato was a part of these operations?"

"Yes, right from the beginning. He and Seta both were. I got the feeling that we weren't the only place they were pulling this plan, but I have no proof of that. They worked through proxies and were very good at covering their tracks – I don't know what they do now."

"Corporate stuff. One of our friends, his life is being interfered with by Seta Yuuma right now. That's why we're here."

"So you're doing the right thing. Please understand, miss, we did what we had to with the economy the way it is. I have a family of my own and at the time it seemed like it was the only option."

"Everyone's having a hard time, doesn't give you the right to cheat," Kanji snorted.

Naoto cleared her throat. "What can you offer us? Testimony and proof?"

"I kept notes and records of what I could. Names and dates and times. I can give them to you in exchange for that favor I mentioned."

"You want a lesser sentence?"

"That would be nice, but what I truly want is that you charge me and me alone for any punishable crimes. Ryota knows nothing about what we did, and by the time he purchased the business, the calls stopped coming. There was no aiding and abetting on his part – it was all me, and I'll pay the price for it."

"Let me guess," Kanji said. "He's your kid?"

"My son-in-law."

"You'd still take the heat for him?"

"Yes. He's made my daughter very happy and he's taken this job on even when he didn't need to. I injured myself when he and my daughter were dating, and work became much harder. He had other plans with his life, places he wanted to go, but instead he bought the business at a generous price to make our lives easier. I've been able to support myself and my wife because of that, and he lets me keep working even if I slow him down."

Naoto looked up from her notes. "Those are your terms?"

"Yes. The notes and my testimony in exchange for whatever sentence comes down, so long as it's on me."

"I know some people. I promise you I'll do what I can, but I need those notes right now. The clock's ticking for our friend."

"I'll get them."

Okajima-san went back into the building. A load lifted from Naoto's shoulders. "That's a relief. Depending on his notes, this could be huge."

Kanji looked down the alley. "I hope he's good for it."

"What's wrong?"

"Just had something on my mind. It's nothing."

The door opened and Okajima-san handed her a leather folder. She looked inside and saw yellowed sheets of paper, lined and patterned like a ledger.

"This is all I can do for now," he told them. "I have to get back to work. I've held up my end of the bargain – I swear that those are all the records I have. I'm glad to be rid of them."

"I'll do what I can for you. Here's my card, call me if you need to, and I'll speak to my people right away. Thank you for this, Okajima-san."

"I hope it's all worth it."

They left, Naoto quickly reading over the notes as they did. "He kept good records. There are definitely things we can use here, but our people were quite good at covering their tracks."

"Pretty convenient that he hung onto those records, isn't it?" Kanji noted.

"That's the first rule of corporate deals – the one thing everyone wants to know, no matter the product, is where their money is going."

"Let's get back to the hotel. Doujima-san needs to hear about this."

It was dark when they got into the streets, and a weeknight to boot so the crowds were already thin. What foot traffic there was meandered and lulled around, leaving stretches where the pair were on their own. As they tracked the familiar route back, Kanji swore and glanced back. "I'm pretty sure we're not alone."

Naoto glanced into a traffic mirror and saw one of her tails following them. Either this was a stellar coincidence, or what they had was important indeed. She moved in close to Kanji, using him as concealment from their man. She pulled the sheets from the folder and slipped them into the two inside pockets of her coat, subtle little things she'd asked for the last time Kanji had taken her measurements. Then she opened the top of her shirt, ripped the relevant pages from her notebook, stuffed them down her bra, then buttoned back up. She hoped the precautions wouldn't be necessary, but the air was tensing in a way she knew from the TV World, and Kanji's entire bearing told her that he was feeling it too.

They were halfway down the block when their other tail stepped out of a store ahead of them. He said nothing, but he didn't need to. He wasn't going to let them pass.

The pair heard the first tail come up behind them and knew they were short on options. A place this open meant normal people might get caught in a fight, and an outsider might as readily call the cops on them as on the others. Between that and how long the police would take to respond to a call, they didn't even entertain the notion of phoning 110.

Kanji led her down the nearby alley, which was empty except for business signage and a few vagrants. He told her, "They can't corner us down here, and we've got some privacy." He pulled his gloves from his pockets, fitted them into place and flexed his fists. They looked like simple leather gloves, but he'd made them to be soft on the hands and hard on anyone who fought with him – he'd weighted the knuckles for a discreet form of self-defense.

Naoto used the moment to appreciate how glad she was that he was here with her. This was the scenario that Doujima was afraid of, and having Kanji with her meant–

He stopped, and she stopped by bumping into him. She looked around him and drew her breath in.

Those two vagrants hadn't been vagrants. They stood in the way, were muscled enough to be a threat, and had the same feel as the other two who were now coming up behind them, cutting them off.

How careless, she berated herself. What a rookie mistake. Seeing two tails should never have let her think there were only two tails.

Kanji shrugged out of his leather jacket, handing it to her before stepping forward, the neon lights around them showing the ridges and dips of muscle and thin scars for anyone to take note of. "I'm only saying this once," he told them coldly. "Let us go and take a hike."

That got laughs from all around. "Pretty cocky for a kid," one of them said. "You're a ways from home, country boy. Don't you know how this goes?"

"If you need four guys to take down a girl and one country boy, then I'm guessing you're not your boss's first choice. Probably not even his second."

Their amusement turned to anger. "Watch your mouth, or you'll be eating your food through a straw. Give us what we want and this goes easier for you."

"I told you pricks to get lost. Is this a no?"

"Pretty sure it was obvious, kid."

Kanji grabbed his opposite shoulder and cracked his neck. "Then I hope you assholes like hospital food." He bolted forward, faster than anyone expected someone his size to be, and Naoto moved in close behind him. He crashed into the two 'vagrants' and fought like a storm to keep their attention, punches and kicks getting him a short-lived advantage while the other two would be close behind. She slipped around the melee, and when one of the men grabbed at her, he caught only Kanji's jacket. She ran deeper into the alley, angling to turn and get back to the street while he fought without her at risk.

This contingency was the result of an argument between her and Kanji, a pretty bad one that he'd eventually called Doujima in for, deciding what would happen if they got into trouble of this sort. She'd wanted to find some way to help, to contribute and not leave Kanji to face alone whatever came at them. She'd been part of the Investigation Team so there had to be something she could do if things turned from bad to worse. Doujima had coldly told her what she already knew intellectually, what the differences in weight, body type and muscle mass would be between her and any of the men they would encounter if things did go that route. The sheer difference in striking power between her and the average man, let alone an enforcer, was too great for her to counter or even work around. Add in that she lacked the physical training that Chie-senpai excelled at and she'd had to swallow the harsh reality that she didn't have a place in this fight.

So while Kanji was tackled and kicked, grappling with four men and fighting them with every move, Naoto ran to keep the information safe and to possibly split up the pursuit. She ran and left Kanji to take the hits so she wouldn't get hurt in the crossfire, and she hated herself for knowing this was the best option and going along with it.

When she turned the corner, however, she ran right into two more men. When they sprang up and grabbed her, she froze with a sudden, cold realization.

Not four, but six. This wasn't a shakedown or a scare tactic, this was a planned hit. She now knew why Okajima-san had been left alone for so long – he was bait for anyone who came looking into those numbers or asking questions, and the best mole was someone who didn't realize that's what he was.

While the shouts and curses from the alley were stressed and tuned to the sound of breaking glass and bodies crashing into lights and signs, Naoto was hefted up from behind, a hand clamped over her mouth.

"Bad luck for you, pretty little thing," the man in front of her noted, an unpleasant gleam in his eye. "Questions first, fun later. Where's the information you got from the old man?"

Her mouth was uncovered, but she fought and struggled while saying nothing. A hard backhand sent the world ripping past her eyes, leaving her dazed.

They yanked the leather folder from her hand and checked it. When they saw it was empty, they tightened their hold on her and said, "I know you have them so this is the last time I'll ask. Where are the papers?"

The fighting around the corner was getting even more intense. Trash cans were crashed into, a store's night-time sign sounded like it was in pieces, and there was a note of desperation and disbelief in the fight now. She knew, she had to believe, that Kanji was coming back around. This time when the hand came near Naoto's mouth, she bit at it and fought back harder. The men swore and punched her even harder, splitting her mouth and giving the taste of blood, then rifled through her coat pockets. They missed the hidden ones, but then they ripped her shirt open and found her notes.

"Lovely place to hide them," one of them said with a leer. "End of the road for you, missy. Next stop for you'll be Shanghai; I hear they treat their girls well when they're stacked. You should have stayed out of this business."

One of the alley fighters was propelled back and knocked from his feet. Another was sent tumbling, holding his side as he crawled away. There was a repeated impact against metal – over and over, accompanied by a rough, raw grunt each time. Distantly, just loud enough to be heard, there was the sound of running steps heading in the opposite direction.

Naoto grinned past the blooming headache and double vision she was enjoying. Kanji had come this far. She had to believe he had enough in him to take these two down, and now that she was in this situation she had to do whatever she could. "Seems like you're the ones having a bad night. You shouldn't have made him angry."

They looked at her, bravado giving way to reality as they heard someone whimpering just under the repeated blows.

"You see, bad things happen when he's angry."

"Worse things happen to kids who don't stay down when they're told to," the man in front of her answered. He picked up a bottle and broke the end, hiding behind the corner. "Go on, girl. Call to him. He'll come running for you."

Naoto stared back at him, refusing without saying a word. But when the man holding her grabbed her notes and groped her for good measure, she saw an opening to exploit. When his hands were occupied, she shoved back with her legs and pivoted, breaking free at the expense of her modesty and turning to run. She made it a few steps, but was yanked back by her hair, pulling out a startled, pained cry as she fell.

The impacts concluded with a thunderous crash into glass. Heavy breathing approached, the distinct steps telling her that her partner was coming. He was hurt and probably bleeding and he wouldn't know about the man with the broken bottle. She knew what sharp glass did to human flesh, and she knew what kind of damage even shallow cuts could inflict. "Kanji!" she shouted in warning.

When he turned the corner, the bottle slashed at his stomach, the soft spot in a dragon's armor, and he was too close to avoid it. But whether it was the combat high or his experience and instincts, Kanji twisted down and in and took the hit on the ribs without so much as a grunt. The guy must have been expecting a recoil or a scream, because he paused when he got neither, and that one second was a second too long. Kanji grabbed the hand that held the bottle and crushed it with the other. The glass shattered, shards lacerating the man's hand and digging deep. His screams were cut off when Kanji head butted him and delivered a hard left hook that sent blood and teeth everywhere.

The last one, the man holding Naoto, backed up with his hands raised. She looked up and could see why. Kanji was cut and bleeding from at least four spots, bruises already showing and ugly in the night light. But his face was the most frightening, half obscured by shadow and scratched and bloody, and that furious, icy glare said everything for him. He was usually easily given to words and high volume, but his silence was far more terrifying, even for Naoto who knew she had nothing to fear. Because she knew him, had seen his good and soft side, but this was his darker half that he'd let rest since the fight with Izanami, the battler that fought until the end and didn't stop until it won. Recognition of what he was just then was so easy because it was so primal, like looking upon an apex predator and knowing you were next on the menu.

The last man standing backed away slowly, hands out appeasingly while his voice had a shrill edge to it. "Look, it was the other guy. He hurt your girl, ripped her shirt, that was all him and not me. This was a misunder–"

Kanji was done listening to the lies. Before Naoto could point them out as such, he'd run in close at the same preternatural, predatory speed and hammered the last one with a haymaker, blasting his wind out in a gust. When he doubled over, Kanji followed up with a wicked uppercut that sent him onto his back and laying still. Kanji stood tall and looked around, certain now in his victory that there weren't any other threats. Then, saying nothing, he came over to her. Naoto propped herself up, pulling her shirt closed, but he gently, quickly, checked her face, side, stomach, shoulder. He was instinctively checking her for injuries while he was bleeding all over her. That same dark look lingered in his eye, held in abeyance and waiting for any other threat to appear.

"It's okay, Kanji," she said softly, one hand taking his and the other on his face. "It's over. You won."

"Are you hurt?"

"A bit banged up, but I'm fine. Look at you, though. You're the one who needs help."

His feral mask held firm for a moment longer, then the yin gave way to the yang and he deflated, sagging against her. Ignoring his injuries, he hugged her. "When they caught you, when I heard you scream… it's been a long time since I've been that scared."

"You're scared? After what you went through? Look at you."

"It's okay. I've had worse."

"It was different then. You're not bulletproof, and…" she murmured, the words just for him, "and it scared me too, thinking you'd be hurt. I haven't been scared like that since… maybe ever."

Kanji's shy, boyish smile shone with his sincerity, but was crooked from the bloody lip and bruises on his face. "Glad we're on the same page. Let's not do this again tonight."

She tried to laugh, but her bruised jaw and cut lips made it hard. She gathered her notes and collected his jacket and tried to give it to him, but he pushed it to her. "You wear it until I can mend your clothes. It'll be a while before I can get them back to you – blood's hard to get out."

She felt enveloped by his jacket, far too big for her but smelling and feeling like him. She dug out her phone and called Doujima, asking for an EMT and giving their location. They'd agreed to only call directly like this when they had something or there was an emergency, and this qualified. He promised to get someone there ASAP, and the two walked toward the hospital on his instruction, him limping and her under his arm, holding him up.

"They really wanted us to not have this stuff," he noted. "That means it's important."

"I'd say so. I'll send it to Senpai and see what he can do with it."

While they walked, she stayed by his side and under his arm. When they encountered people and were asked if they were okay, she insisted on staying with him, catching him when he faltered and as his injuries started to make themselves known. He towered over her and was half again her weight in muscle, but she took to his side when he needed her and didn't move from it no matter how heavy he was. As they limped down the street, met the EMTs, and went to the hospital, the whole time she bore his weight and helped him, never once flinching or complaining, and not the insistence of the medics or the orders of the nurses could separate her from his side.