In the evening, when most of the police officers have knocked off after a long day, Kanan was still sitting at her desk, thinking about where Zi Yang could have gone. He seemingly disappeared without a trace after his fight with Jeff, and she couldn't find him anywhere in the lawmaker's building.
She knew he was a workaholic, never wasting time on anything else other than work, so she was surprised when she didn't see him in his usual hangout spot: his office room. Instead, it looked very empty now, with the books on the shelf cleared, and his table had nothing on it.
He would normally be contactable before dinner time, but no matter how many times she dialed his number today, no one picked up the call. It was like he was suddenly gone, his existence wiped off from the surface of the earth. She was puzzled. Even so, she figured that the superintendent might know what had happened to him, so she decided to go straight to her office.
The superintendent was filling up a report on the attack at the lawmakers' office building. As she was scribbling away, she heard a knock on her door. She allowed the person to come in while she was still writing. Once she was done penning a paragraph, she stopped what she was doing and looked up, only to see Kanan standing in front of her desk.
"Inspector Matsuura, to what do I owe the pleasure?" The superintendent placed her pen down on her desk, "Do make it quick, though. I need to finish this report by tonight and submit it to my boss. Today was very eventful, so there's a lot to write."
"Ma'am, have you seen Inspector Huang after the lawmakers' office building attack?" Kanan questioned, "He was missing for almost the whole day, and I could not get to him at all. I am quite worried for him. I was wondering if you had talked to him or vice versa."
"So this is what you're here for?" The superintendent asked, "Here I thought you were gonna discuss something important with me." She then stood up from her chair and picked her cup of coffee up. She went to the window and sipped her drink.
"But I shall fill your curiosity today, and absolve you of your worries." She continued, "Huang Zi Yang has resigned from his job. I received his resignation letter in the afternoon. From today onwards, he is no longer part of the police."
"What?" Kanan widened her eyes in shock, "Why would he quit? He wanted to become a police officer his whole life. He wouldn't just call it a day and leave this post he has been working so hard to get."
"How would I know? I'm not his mother, Inspector Matsuura." The superintendent replied, "However, even if he didn't resign today, I would've fired him. He never does his goddamn job. Today was no exception. He is just an arrogant asshole who thinks he's always right and that he's a big brain genius, but in reality he's just a really useless bum."
"Yes, Zi Yang has some unorthodox methods on solving a case." Kanan responded, "Some of them don't make sense, and I agree on that. However, he had good intentions to help the police. He committed himself to bringing justice to this city. He still did his job."
"Are you deaf, Inspector Matsuura? Or are you blind? Or both?" The superintendent retorted, "Like I said earlier, he never completes the tasks that were given to him. Did he catch any one of the girls? No. None of them appeared in the station. What about Jeff Connor? His dead body was found by the officers at the scene, not Huang Zi Yang. He promised me he was going to catch Jeff, yet he didn't. If he killed Jeff, then that's another offence. Either way, he never did his job."
"Why are you so fixated on the four criminals instead of the crime syndicate, Ma'am?" Kanan asked with annoyance, "I'm not trying to question your judgement, but I am really astounded by your words and actions."
"You really are a nosy person, aren't you?" The superintendent sighed, "Nonetheless, I wish to get over this, so I'll tell you how I see it. The crime syndicate is such a big force. We won't be able to bring it down at once, even if we use all our resources. In fact, we would die instead of them. We have to be slow and careful to eliminate it, and it takes a lot of time."
The superintendent put down her drink and turned towards Kanan before speaking, "However, Eli Ayase, Maki Nishikino, Umi Sonoda, and Jeff Connor are just four human beings. It wouldn't be hard to apprehend them first because they can't do as much as a big organization. They're all criminals, so it's one less crime for Tokyo. Efficiency at its finest."
"But…"
"You said you don't mean to question my judgement, but here you are, doing it and testing my patience." The superintendent walked up to Kanan and glared at her with menacing eyes, "I don't have to tell you everything, do I? You have the balls to question me, a higher-up. Do you want to lose your job like Huang Zi Yang did? If not, you'd better get the hell out of here and report to work on time tomorrow. Don't waste your time and mine on some stupid bullshit like this. I still have a report to do. Now, scram." The police inspector clenched her fists in anger and stormed out of the office.
She went into her car and laid her back against the driver seat. She needed to cool down. She was on the verge of punching the unreasonable superintendent, but she didn't. Why was she so obsessed with arresting the four outlaws? Kanan couldn't prove it, but like last time, she felt like the superintendent had a strong bias against Zi Yang. Not only did she trash-talked about him, she was happy that he resigned. Was this what people call 'workplace abuse'? She couldn't stand her higher-up insulting her partner when he was trying his best.
Still, she was determined to check up on Zi Yang. Even after that long talk, none of the words the superintendent spoke had made her less worried. Despite that, she didn't have much information about him. Besides herself, Zi Yang did not have any friends and lived in solitude. She also didn't know if he had places he enjoyed visiting. The only place she could think of was his own home. She knew his address as she used to send him home before he got a car. She set the destination there and started driving her BMW M5.
At night, Eli, Maki, and Umi walked into Grace's house. Grace, who had just stepped out of the toilet after her bath, heard the trio's footsteps and went to the living room. Eli was staring outside the window while Maki and Umi sat down on the couch, with the latter two looking very solemn. She knew something was up, but she had to break the ice to find out what went wrong.
"Hello, girls." She greeted them, "How did your mission go today? Pretty good?"
"The lawmakers were brought back to their homes by the police." Umi commented emotionlessly. Just then, Jordan came down from the stairs and was about to tell Grace something when he caught sight of the three fugitives.
"The hell are you girls doing here?" He questioned, "Aren't you supposed to go back to wherever you live? This ain't a hotel which you can check in. You can't enter as you please."
"Shut up, Jordan." Grace whispered to him, "Can't you see they're miserable or something? Stop making remarks like those." She turned towards the trio and cleared her throat.
"Oh, by the way, where's Jeff?" She queried, "Did he not finish this mission with you?" Umi and Maki looked down on the floor.
"Grace, could you by any chance bring a dead man back to life and heal him?" Eli asked.
"As much as I would like to be able to do that, I can't." Grace answered, "I can heal people that are nearly dying, but once their heart stops beating, I am unable to do anything for them. It's over for them." Upon hearing that, Eli shrieked in agony as she slammed the wall with her fist.
"Hey, watch the wall, lady." Jordan said, "That costs a few hunnid bucks."
"Would you shut that damned mouth of yours for once?" Maki scowled at him, "Are you trying to rub salt into the wound?" Jordan raised his hands in defeat as he mouthed an 'alright' and kept quiet.
"Wait, wait, wait, I don't understand what's going on." Grace spoke up, "Someone, fill me in on what's going…"
"Jeff's dead." Umi rejoined, "He got killed earlier today."
"Oh, I see." Grace said, "I'm…sorry for your loss. My condolences." The room was filled with dead silence for a few seconds before Eli went out of the house. Umi and Maki quickly followed suit.
Eli drove to Jeff's house and parked his truck in his garage. She, along with Maki and Umi, got off the vehicle and went into the living room. The blonde woman walked to the balcony and remembered the casual conversation she had with Jeff.
She proceeded to make her way down the stairs to the basement, where the four of them would always gather. Jeff would brief the trio about their next mission and how they should go around completing it. After that, she went to his laptop, where all the information he had gathered about the crime syndicate was located.
She noticed that the projector was off, so she switched it on. Immediately, the map of Tokyo appeared on the screen with just a few red dots left, which signified the areas where the crime syndicate was executing their unlawful activities. It was way much lesser compared to the numerous dots she had seen when she first stepped into this room.
That was when she realized that the trio and Jeff, with Esther's help, had managed to stop the crime syndicate from carrying out many of their illegal acts, from the robberies to the murdering of lives. They were so close to taking the organization down. It would be a shame if they were to pull the plug now. If they were to stop, all of their efforts would go down the drain. More importantly, without them, the families of the victims would never get an answer to the unfortunate deaths of their loved ones.
Eli always had the same aim; to seek justice for the families of the victims, save the city from crime, and bring the crime syndicate down. She was not going to give up just because of one setback. With that thought in her head, she was determined to see this through.
In the living room, Umi was sitting on the sofa, calling Kotori and letting her know the current situation. She told the police officer about Venus's ambush, Jeff's death, and how Eli was trying to cope with it.
"Do you think Ayase-san would be fine?" Kotori asked with concern.
"I hope she doesn't think or do anything stupid." Umi responded, "She's pretty rational and logical though, so she likely won't do it, but I'm still a little worried for her."
"I'm more worried for you." Kotori said, "Are you feeling okay? Are you sad or devastated or anything? After all, you've been on a journey of justice with him for a long period of time."
"Even though we were inexperienced in crime fighting at that time, he took us in and even allowed us to fight alongside him." Umi replied, "He treated us like true friends too, so we were all devastated when he passed away. However, life still goes on, and the crime syndicate still carries out crimes every single minute they have. The least we could do to honor Jeff is to take them down."
"Mhm, I agree." Kotori uttered, "I will help you whenever I can, Umi-chan."
"Thank you, Kotori."
Meanwhile, Maki was standing at a corner, texting Honoka about the current situation. The sweets shop's cashier sent a few encouraging words to her girlfriend. She also told Maki to stay strong while she would cheer the red-haired girl on from the sidelines. Maki smiled at Honoka's messages and thanked her for it, saying that the latter's words were appreciated.
After Honoka stopped replying and went back to work, Maki walked over to Umi, who had just finished talking with Kotori. The two outlaws then decided to check up on their leader, who they assumed was in the basement. They were so engrossed in conversing with their partners that they kinda forgot about Eli and how she was doing.
As they were about to go down to the basement, Maki's phone rang. She told Umi to go ahead while she stayed back to take the call. To her surprise, it was Nozomi. Out of all the people she knew, she wasn't expecting the nurse to give her a ring. For what reason would Nozomi be contacting her? Nonetheless, she answered the call.
"Maki-chan, you picked up." Nozomi said, "It's been a long time since we talked. Are you free now?"
"I'm kinda in the middle of something, but shoot your question."
"Well, it's like this." Nozomi continued, "I heard from the news earlier today that one of your friends had…died. My condolences…Jeff Connor…he uhh…been on adventures with you and the two other girls…"
"Look, Nozomi, I don't know what you're trying to tell or ask me." Maki said in a guarded tone, "I don't even know your motive for calling me. You may be Nico-chan's friend, but I won't give you or her my location…"
"...in case I might report you to the police." Nozomi interrupted her, "I know you are wary of me because of the circumstances you're in. I get it, and I don't blame you. However, I really have no intention to report you or your friends. I just want to find out…if E…Eli-chi's doing okay."
"Eli-chi?" Maki asked, "Who's that? Do you mean Eli Ayase?"
"Y…yes. I saw you on the news with her, so I thought you and her were on the same team."
"I was on the news? Wasn't I the only one who didn't get recognized?" Maki was bewildered, but decided to shrug that thought off her mind for now.
"Please, Maki-chan." Nozomi pleaded with her, "I just want to know how she's doing. I'm…worried for her…I know this is very sudden, so it's okay if you don't want to tell me. Just let me know…if she's still alive or not." Maki initially wanted to reject her as it sounded a little suspicious, but hearing the genuity in her voice changed Maki's mind.
"Eli's just a bit low-spirited at this time, grieving over his death." Maki responded, "Physically, she's fine. No injuries whatsoever."
"Thank goodness." Nozomi heaved a sigh of relief, "I'm glad she's alright."
"Nozomi, don't mind me asking, but what's your relationship with Eli?"
"She's a friend of mine." Nozomi answered, "Anyways, thank you for informing me of her well–being, Maki-chan. Please take good care of her. I'll be going off." Before Maki could say anything else, Nozomi hung up the call.
Maki had some burning questions in her mind. Why was Nozomi so worried for Eli? What was the relationship between Eli and Nozomi exactly? How did she get identified in the news? She got interrupted, from her thinking, yet again when Umi called her down to the basement.
Once she got there, she saw Eli leaning against the wall and Umi sitting on the sofa, both staring at the projector. They turned to her upon hearing her enter the room. With all of them present, Eli walked to the laptop.
"Our aim is to seek justice for the victims and their family, restore peace to the city, and to bring the crime syndicate down for good." Eli spoke out, "However, I've always wondered if what we had done with Jeff actually made an impact."
She then pointed at the red dots on the projector screen, "Turns out, with the help of Esther, we managed to take much of the crime syndicate out, to the point where we are only left with these few spots. Essentially, we prevented the crime syndicate from committing crimes that could result in casualties or, even worse, deaths."
She turned to look at Maki and Umi before she continued talking, "We succeeded not because of one, but rather all of us. Our hard effort paid off and even though Jeff is no longer here to celebrate with us on our road to victory, or help us with our next tasks, we shouldn't stop doing what we're doing now. This is what we want to do, after all. The crime syndicate still exists, and it's a threat to society so long as it stands. We fought proud and hard for the outcome we have achieved today, and we don't want it all to go to waste."
She extended her left arm out with her palm facing downwards, "For me, I want to see this through to the end. I personally want to make sure the crime syndicate goes down in flames, and that the families of the victims finally get closure for the deaths of their loved ones. At the same time, I want to honor Jeff's last wish. So, what do you say?"
Maki was the first one to place her hand on top of Eli's, "I agree with Eli. Even with the misfortune that had happened to us, I still feel we're able to seek justice for the victims and take the crime syndicate down just the same. I really want to do this, and I'm glad I'm able to join you guys on this journey."
"I feel the same way too." Umi grinned as she placed her hand on top of Maki's, "If I didn't meet you girls, I wouldn't have been able to save so many people and have this sense of satisfaction. I would probably still be feeling hopeless. Let's continue seeking justice together, and bring this goddamn crime syndicate down."
"Yeah!" Maki and Eli screamed simultaneously. The three women then lifted their hands as they cheered.