"It's all gone too far. We both know we've broken the rules. Things can still be salvaged. You may outrank me, but I know what these kids need. What this city needs."

"You're right on one count. But don't expect to be right on anything else."

23: Two Minutes to Midnight

Fret stepped out of the hospital and onto the open street. He expected two things – a blast of cool air and friends to be waiting for him. Neither arrived. For one, after days of an unusually chilly summer, sweltering heat now engulfed the city, leaving Fret cursing the fact he'd just left an air-conditioned room. A salaryman, shirt stained and collar unbuttoned, slumped his way past Fret and down the sun-baked pavement. He was the only greeting Fret got upon exiting the hospital – not so much of a text shot his way or a missed call. He would need to text Boss and get the details on when they'd be meeting for EFest and what the event even was – would he need to throw together a budget cosplay, get something to prove his fandom, come better prepared and more well-researched before booking into a 30,000 yen a-piece event next time? – and other such particulars he had spent little to no brain-space on prior to this day. What could he say? Assault and battery was exhausting. So was questioning and being told to go down the station on Monday. This case had confused the police to no end and, as the Detective he had already forgotten the name of – Shigechi, or something – had stressed, the Shibuya police were already stretched because of some other incidents happening around town. No details. Just 'incidents'. Peons like him weren't allowed a look behind the thin blue veil.

He smirked to himself as he began the slow waltz to Shibuya station. He'd seen who really controlled Shibuya, and wasn't impressed. Some stick-thin twenty-something looking Angel with a bad sense of style and a worse haircut. Didn't seem to bother the rest of the Twisters that guy was watching over them like some sort of prissy hawk – the older ones even had some sort of love for the guy. Rindo and Shoka wouldn't speak ill of the man– deity who brought them together. Nagi seemed to carry a healthy respect for authority. But Fret knew those eyes and those words, the confident ones that played with people and strung nooses of smiles and snares of pleasantries around their necks and feet, before revealing the ground beneath the gallows never was going to open up to begin with and that the snares had never been designed to catch. The hurt faded, the people within distance if he chose to reach out again but the scars remained. How many scars had he left, toying with people like that? Getting close to strangers before pulling the rug when they no longer were fit to fill what void of emotion he felt needed filling? Returning like a flash of lightning only to fade away once more? Joshua had his eyes. Had his smile that ended there, too. Fret spat on the pavement and felt a pang of guilt as he watched it sizzle on the scorching brick. The city didn't deserve that. But the ones ruling it did.

"Miss?" Nagi groggily opened her eyes, sealed firmly shut by sleep for a moment or two, to a call from somewhere above her.

"Miss?" The voice repeated, harsher this time. Her eyes snapped open and her head, still throbbing, mustered whatever clarity it could give to her immediate situation. Her legs were aching, almost on fire, assumedly from retaining the kneeling stance she had collapsed into this state in. Her head felt hot and her body sweaty, not just from the terrible experience of the night prior, but also from the sun, clearly energetic today, heating the air in the alleyway to an awful, thick and nigh unbreathable concoction. She looked a wreck, the vending machine glass told her so, but next to her was a pair of legs, clad in blue and attached to a torso that seemed to be wearing a uniform of the same shade. A beat cop, assumedly. Nagi quickly rose to her feet, rubbing dried vomit off her glasses with her shirt and dusting herself down as she did so. She couldn't fix the tragic state her shirt was in, unfortunately, nor how dehydrated and disorientated she felt, but she could rely on her conversational instincts here – of that she was sure.

"Ah, good, you're up. Can you speak?"

"Yes, officer," she replied, trying her best to make her voice sound like the opposite of one that had spent nearly the last twenty-four hours without food and the last god-knows-how-many under deep sleep.

"Very well. I'm going to need you to show me some ID, young lady." The officer, young, with a boxy face and messy auburn hair poking out in tufts from beneath his hat, wore a glum expression on his boxy face – as if he'd expected to find her a murder victim whose discovery would make him the talk of the force and instead gotten Nagi Usui, who looked like a corpse but certainly was not one.

"Will this do?" She asked, producing her TMU ID card. The officer snatched, took a look at her, then at the card, then at her again, before returning it.

"Yes, I suppose. Another drunk university student I have the honour of being the alarm clock for," He groaned, as if she wasn't there in front of him. "Honestly, Thursday night, too! Don't you kids have classes to attend? …Hang on, you're too young to be drinking." He produced a notepad.

"Ah, with all due respect, I nary a drop of alcohol touched my lips last night." Nagi informed him.

"Tell that to the poor schmucks who'll be cleaning up the mess you made all under and on that machine. And the citizens using it," He scoffed.

"I understand, but…" Nagi was about to explain the voice and the mockery and then realised that would quickly earn her a trip to the asylum as opposed to the precinct, so quickly came up with a reasonable enough excuse. "Whilst at an entertainment establishment for underage students such as myself, my non-alcoholic drink was spiked. I attempted to leave early, but luck was not a lady willing to show mercy that night. As I left, I was sick and collapsed in this alley here."

"Pfft, it cause your Japanese to come from the seventeenth century too or is this just you uni lot's way of speaking to us on the beat?" Was this man ever satisfied, Nagi wondered to herself before he sheathed his notepad.

"Well, cover your drink next time. Even if that was a lie I'm not out to arrest students just being students," he stepped out of the entrance to the alleyway he was blocking, "and next time be more careful. Your wallet could've been snatched while you snoozed there."

"Yes, officer," Nagi responded, hiding how irate the whole situation had made her, as she made her way out from relative shade to blazing heat.