Shizuo was lost almost as soon as he ran into town. Which caused him to groan in annoyance. He had never been good with maps and it didn't help that he couldn't see any street signs till he was standing right next to one.
When he was standing by the hospital and saw the hospital was on the other side of town from the school, he punched the wall.
"Dammit." he growled, rubbing his hair out of his eyes.
Izaya stared up at the school, the black and empty building looming over him with an intense sense of foreboding. He definitely didn't want to get stuck here when the darkness comes.
In uncertainty, he looked back down at the picture, knowing he hadn't interpretted it wrong.
He groaned. "Dammit," he muttered.
Heiwajima Kasuka stared at his phone in shock. A voicemail sat open on his phone, asking him if he'd like to repeat the message.
He had gotten a message from Shizuo. It was garbled and a little hard to make out, but it was definitely Shizuo. But that was impossible.
Shizuo had died in a plane crash two weeks ago. Kasuka had found out about his brothers' death by the news three days before the authorities called him and his family. There was a long report on television about how the flight had crashed a mere twenty miles from its destination. The authorities of America were still recovering the bodies and wreckage from the field it had crashed into at that time but they weren't able to find a reason as to why the plane crashed as of yet. They then did a short display of all the people who died on the flight—Heiwajima Shizuo and Orihara Izaya being on that list.
His family was still in mourning. His mother in particular said she didn't want to have a funeral without a body while his father was saying they should have a funeral so they can accept his death and move on. Kasuka didn't know where to stand on the decision. He didn't want his brother to be dead but he knew it wasn't healthy to hold onto the impossible.
But now, Kasuka was staring at his phone, debating whether he should believe that this message was really from his brother.
There was no way Shizuo could be alive. It was a plane crash. There were no survivors on the report, why would Shizuo be the only one who made it?
And yet...
Kasuka played the message again.
"Hey, Kas...It...Shizuo...left my phone...so...gave me one of his. I...in Silent Hill...made it but...lost Iza...find him—have to find him—we'll be home...Don't know—when—though. I'm not okay. This place...don't—know. Just bad. I'm scared, Kasuka...Really scared...I'll come home...promise..."
"End of message. For further options, press—"
Kasuka replayed the message.
When it finished, he replayed it again.
And again.
And again.
"Yuuhei-san..." Ruri walked into the bedroom, holding two cups of tea.
"Thank you." He took the cup and replayed the message again.
Ruri sat down next to the actor and listened to the message as well.
"...It sounds like him." Ruri said once the voicemail finished again.
"It does."
Kasuka played it again.
"I'm not sure, though."
"What do you want to do then?"
"...I think I want to get a second opinion."
"You're parents, then?"
"No. I don't want to give them false hope." Kasuka stood, saving the message, and pocketing the phone. "If this is fake, I don't want to make them cry again."
Ruri stood as well. "Then who?"
"...Kishitani Shinra and the Black Rider were good friends with my brother."
The monotone actor grabbed his coat and car keys before turning to Ruri, who also grabbed her coat.
"Are you okay with going? Your stalker—"
"I'll be alright. This is important to you so I wish to be there for you."
"...Thank you very much."
Ruri smiled at him. Then they both turned and headed to the door.
Izaya entered the school, the double doors slamming loudly behind him, which caused him to turn around. In the stain glass window above the door was the strange cross from the picture. Izaya's eyes narrowed at it, making him curious as to what it really stood for.
But he decided not to dwell on that for too long. He turned and headed up the steps, greeted with a hallway of many doors on either side. Izaya turned to the first door on his right, but couldn't open it. However, seeing that their was a wide window right next to it, he knew it had to be the sign-in office—which meant it was important for clues.
So he turned and went into the room across from it in hopes of finding a key.
He entered a nurse's office. Beds with dust-stained sheets lied around the room. Some were knocked over on their side, others completely flipping over.
Izaya went straight to the nurse's desk, pulling open the drawers and shuffling papers around. The pages he found were near useless, nothing more than reports on injuried kids and letters for more supplies. He found batteries, tweezers, and a pair of long scissors but nothing else.
He closed the drawers and went to the metal cabinet. Lots of medical supplies sat in it: rubbing alcohol, peroxide, three different sizes of bandages, bandaid boxes, Q-tips, and a bundle of CPR mask cases. He pushed some of the supplies to the side, still looking for a damn key but was unsuccessful.
He then went over to the first aid cabinet, grabbing each first aid kit and opening them, tearing them all apart.
He was unsuccessful again. He groaned and began putting the kits back together.
Then thought back to the CPR mask cases.
'...Why would anyone hide keys in one of those? I'm over-thinking it.'
And yet, he couldn't bring himself to overlook it.
So, once he put the first aid kits back, he turned to the metal cabinet and grabbed all the mask cases. There were eight in total that he set on the floor. He sat down as well and went about opening them.
After opening four, he groaned in annoyance at finding nothing.
'This is stupid...'
Fifth.
Nothing.
Sixth.
Nothing.
Seventh.
"...Holy shit, no way."
Izaya pulled the mask out and saw a silver key sitting on the bottom.
"No fricken way."
Izaya stood, leaving the CPR masks on the ground and rushed to the sign-in office.
He used the key on the door.
It opened.
"No way!"
'Holy shit!'
A little ecstatic, Izaya pushed the door open and looked around. He immediately went to the desk on his left that sat in front of the window and went through the drawers. In the longest drawer, he found a thick key ring with nearly twenty different keys. In one of the lower drawers, he found a flashlight. He turned it on, the light flickering before letting out a strong beam. Izaya put his hand through the wrist sling on the end, turned it off, and went back on the search.
On the wall, adjacent to the desk were mail boxes for teachers, all with little doors to keep people out. Izaya went over to one and used a key on it.
Wrong one.
He tried again.
Another wrong one.
He tried again.
Wrong yet again.
He groaned in annoyance.
Another try.
Wrong.
Another.
Wrong.
Another.
Wrong.
Another.
*Click*
'Finally.'
Izaya opened the mail box. There was nothing in it. He quickly did a count on the rows and columns, coming up with ten by eight, meaning 80 mail boxes in total. He groaned. But knowing from the CPR masks, he shouldn't overlook this.
So he went through each mail box going by columns so as not to lose track. Lucky for him, the key he had seemed to be the skeleton key for all the mail boxes so he didn't have to fumble with that.
He didn't find anything until he reached box 42, which was addressed to a female teacher. Inside the box, he found a folded up piece of paper and upon opening it, he saw it was another childs drawing. This time it showed the same dark-haired girl standing in the middle of a circle of other girls. All the girsl except for the one in the center had on white clothes.
Izaya studied the picture, looking for a clue as to where it was at other than the teacher's name. But he found nothing. So he pocketed the picture and continued looking.
In the 79th box, he found another piece of paper. It was a hand-written letter and only two sentences long, addressed to a man named Colin asking him to go clean up the girls bathroom on the second floor of Building B since one of the toilets was broken.
'The janitor, huh?'
Izaya put the paper back and turned the flashlight on. He shined it on the wall, hoping to find a map of the school and, luck have it, there was. But it was behind a sheet of plexi-glass. Instead of breaking the glass, he decided to look for a screwdriver.
After wasting twenty minutes looking for one, and coming up empty, he decided to put his photographic memory to the test and sat memorizing the map for the next ten minutes.
'This is a big school.'
He found the classroom with the teacher's name and the girls bathroom—which were both in Building B. With a goal set, Izaya turned and walked out of the room.
Shizuo was so~
Absolutely~
And completely~
Lost.
He was really, really, really lost.
Somehow he managed to get to a carnival ground, which bordered a lake with no boat and no bridges to cross the outerior—however he had crossed a bridge to get there. When he checked the map, he saw he was even farther away from the school than he was when he was at the hopsital. He let out a long~ and loud groan of irritation, before turning around and headed back across the bridge.
As he reached the middle of the bridge, he started to see a hunched over black figure slowly making its way towards him. He automatically stiffened, clenched his fists and getting ready to fight. He noted his phone didn't go off, didn't start staticing and spasming in his pocket, but that didn't mean he wasn't in danger since it seemed to not react to Alessa.
"...And in the fire they shall be consumed. They are liars, they are sinners, they are..."
Shizuo backed away when the thing looked up at him. He was half surprised to see it was a woman. She looked to be in her 40's or so, ragged and pale as snow with gray hair that draped to her ribs and hid most of her face. She wore black robes that were torn and tattered but hid absolutely every part of her body except for her hands and face. He could see her feet peeking out from the black whenever she took a step, showing she was barefoot—which caused her feet to turn black from dirt and soot.
"...You are not one of them." She stated matter-of-factly, her voice low and breathy.
"U-um, he-hello...?"
"You are definitely not one of them. You are not anyone from this place. A lost child stumbling into a basilisk's den."
"Are you...human?"
"If you're looking for a way out, there is no way. No one leaves Silent Hill without permission, and she gives permission to no one."
"I didn't think there were people here. I thought it was abandoned. Are there others? Do you know where they are?"
"Speaking a foreign tongue will get you no where, child. The liars only speak the launguage of their people, but it is best you don't speak to the liars."
"Please, I'm looking for my friend." Shizuo approached her hesitantly, reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone.
"They'll decieve you, like they decieved me. They took my child."
"Him." Shizuo pulled up a picture of Izaya, a selfie the flea must have taken awhile ago. "Have you seen him? Do you know where he is?"
"They took my daughter. They did horrible things to her. Terrible things. My child. Alessa."
Shizuo's eyes widened. "You saw him with Alessa? Did you see him with Alessa?"
"My daughter..." Her voice cracked.
Shizuo stared at her then pulled out Izaya's drawing, getting into her personal space to show her the phone again.
"Izaya," He tapped the phone. "Looking for," He put his hand to his forehead and looked around to do the motion of search. "Alessa." He unfolded the drawing. "Have you," He pointed to the woman. "Seen either of them?" He pointed to his eyes.
She looked at the picture only for a moment before she was staring intently at the drawing, grazing her hand over it. She then looked up at Shizuo, her green eyes flooded with so much grief so suddenly that it threw Shizuo off.
"Yes. She's mine."
"What?"
"She's mine."
"So you've seen them?"
"She's mine." The woman grabbed the drawing.
"W-wait. Let go of it."
"She's mine!" Her voice deepened into a growl as she began pushing Shizuo back. "She's mine! Mine!"
"Ge-get off me!" Shizuo pulled away, hearing the paper tear as he yanked his hands away.
He then turned and ran.
The woman stared after him, holding the tattered paper that had a picture of Alessa's face drawn in the corner.
"She's...mine..."
Shizuo ran and ran without looking back and without stopping. He stuffed his phone and picture in his pocket and continued on his way down the streets. Running, running, running. He had no need to stop. He just had to run.
He finally stopped when he, again, had no idea where he was. He quickly looked around himself, only for his eyes to widen in shock.
He was in front of the elementary school.
How he did that he had no clue, but he did it. He made it to the school.
"I-Izaya." Shizuo quickly pushed through the gates. "I hope you're in here. Please be in here."
Shizuo ran to the front doors.
Kasuka stared at the Headless Rider, the underground doctor, and the yakuza executives he did not expect to see with an expression that was blank and unreadable.
"Play it again, please." Shinra said.
Kasuka obeyed.
"Hey, Kas...It...Shizuo...left my phone...so...gave me one of his. I...in Silent Hill...made it but...lost Iza...find him—have to find him—we'll be home...Don't know—when—though. I'm not okay. This place...don't—know. Just bad. I'm scared, Kasuka...Really scared...I'll come home...promise..."
A long silence followed.
"...So...they're alive?" Shinra asked.
"I am not sure." Kasuka said. "It is from a number I don't know. Although, Nii-san is the only one besides my parents who have my personal phone number, it could still be a fake."
Shinra and Celty pulled out their phones, going to their contacts. Shiki followed their lead once he realized what they were doing, then Akabayashi did the same. They then held them out to Kasuka and Ruri.
"Is anyone of these the number?" Shinra asked.
Ruri took Akabayashi's and Shiki's while Kasuka took Shinra's and Celty's, resting his own on his lap.
"...This one." He pointed to Shinra's, showing it to them. "The third one down."
Shinra smiled slightly. "That means it's Izaya's phone. Izaya must have given one to Shizuo. The message had some credibility."
"Have you tried calling the number back?" Shiki asked.
"I have." Kasuka said. "The call will not go through."
Ruri turned to look at him. "Maybe you should try again, just to be safe."
Kasuka stared at her then did as adviced. He put the phone on speaker as it began to ring. However, the phone only rung twice before it ended. Kasuka redialed, only for the same thing to happen.
Kasuka closed the phone as the others lookked at each other.
"Has Orihara-san attempted to contact any of you?" Kasuka asked.
"No." Shiki said.
"No." Shinra stated.
"We were pretty certain Orihara-san died." Akabayashi said, leaning forward on his cane. "No one else survived the plane crash. Although Shizuo-san is extraordinary, the messsage sounded like it said he lost Izaya and had to look for him. Which stands to reason Izaya survived as well. But Orihara-san is completely normal, so how is it possible?"
"Akabayashi." Shiki said with a warning tone.
"I'm just saying, none of us should get our hopes up. The possibility of either of them surviving—let alone making it to their destination when they were over two hours away from landing—is extremely slim."
"...Unless the demon had something do with it." Shinra said.
The two Yakuza's stared at Shinra in confusion, Ruri cocked a brow, and Kasuka's expression remained blank.
"Demon?" Shiki inquired.
"Like the Saika sword?" Akabayashi added.
"We don't really know." Shinra started. "See, Izaya apparently suffered from nightmares that caused him to sleepwalk."
"We're aware of that." Shiki said.
"In the dreams, there was a little girl—at least, that's what Izaya had told us. And when he gets cut in the dream and the girl touches it, it'll be transferred over to his body in the real world."
The two executives cocked their brows in skepticism.
"We suggested that maybe Izaya had a crazed stalker, but he'd hear nothing of it so we suggested he see a psychic to help figure out his dreams. The psychic was convinced Izaya had a demon named Alessa Gillepsie following him."
"...Orihara-san went to a psychic?" Shiki scoffed. "That sounds uncharacteristic."
"Well, he was kinda at his wits end. He sleptwalk out of his house and made it all the way here so he was a bit shaken up."
"What did the psychic say about Silent Hill?" Kasuka asked.
"Nothing. Izaya never mentioned it either. Nor Shizuo-kun."
"I'd like to speak to this psychic, then." Shiki said.
"...That'll be a little hard to do. He kinda died when he visited Izaya."
"Excuse me?"
"He tried to do a spirit-demon summoning thing. Celty and I don't really know how it happened but the psychic had swallowed barbed wire somehow prior to his arrival and died in the middle of it."
"...How does someone swallow barbed wire and continue on like it is nothing?" Ruri inquired.
"You got me." Shinra shrugged.
A short silence incased the room.
Then Kasuka spoke. "Black Bike-san."
Celty jolted, feeling a little flustered that Hanajima Yuuhei was addressing to her, then pulled out her PDA and typed a message.
:Yes?:
"You and my brother were very close friends so I wish to ask a selfish request."
Kasuka stared at the headless woman with his dead eyes, his expression remaining blank and his voice monotone. However, he gave a telltale sign of his conviction, by clenching his fists against his lap.
"I want to go to Silent Hill. If there's even a minute chance my brother is alive, I want to find him. But, I'm scared to go alone. Nii-san was never good with horror movies, he was never able to sit through one fully and never enjoyed haunted houses either, but those were the only times he ever admitted he was scared. If the message is really from him and he had really admitted to being scared and admitted that he's not okay, then I can say without a doubt I am terrified. I want to find him and bring him home, but I'm going to need help. So, please," Kasuka bowed forward ever so slightly. "Will you come with me?"
Celty fumbled with her phone, becoming even more flustered that Hanajima Yuuhei was bowing to her.
:Th-there's no need to bow!: She quickly typed, Kasuka sitting up straight to read it. :Of course I'll come!:
Kasuka nodded. "Thank you very much. I am in your debt." Kasuka bowed again, making Celty flustered all over again.
"We'll assist as well." Shiki said, catching their attention. "We know that this 'Silent Hill' is in the America's and I don't believe Black Bike-san can get on a plane."
Akabayashi grinned ever so slightly as he stared up at Shiki.
"The Awakusu-Kai company has a private jet at our disposal." Shiki continued, leaning back to rest on the couch comfortably but officially businesslike. "We'll handle the arrangements."
"Eh? Why's Shiki-no-Dono taking an interest?" Shinra asked.
"If Heiwajima Shizuo is alive then it stands to reason Orihara Izaya is alive too. It would be in the Awakusu-Kai's best interest if he returns to Japan."
"...Thank you, Shiki-no-Dono." Kasuka said. "Your help would be a great addition."
"Think nothing of it." Shiki stood, followed by Akabayashi. "Our aid is purely selfish."
The executives gave a curt bow to the four.
"We shall be taking our leave now. Black Bike-san, we'll let you know when everything is set."
Celty typed a message that Kasuka didn't catch, then Shinra told them good-bye while handing them a small paper bag.
Once the Yakuza's were gone, Ruri spoke up.
"Yuuhei-san, I wish to go with you."
"I think it'd be safer if you stayed here."
"I can help with the search. I won't get in the way."
"That's not why I don't want you to come..."
Kasuka trailed off. If he left Ruri behind, he'd be leaving her to deal with the stalker and Yodojiri Jinnai by herself. But on the other hand, he'd be taking her to a potentially dangerous place that even his older brother couldn't handle. After sitting there, contemplating his odds, he finally came to a decision.
"Okay, Hijibe-kun. But we must be careful."
"Of course."
"Celty, Celty!" Shinra called as he wrapped his arms around her. "Let me come too! If we find Shizuo and Izaya brutally disfigured then I can take some blood sam-plah ahm Shelty tat hursh."
Celty only pulled his cheek harder as she used her shadow to type furiously. :That's the worse thing to say!:
"I'm shorry." Celty let him go only so he could talk. "What I mean is my medical skills might come in handy. What's more, I can act as your alibi if anyone starts questioning your humanity."
Celty would not forgive Shinra easily for that first comment, however, he did have a point.
:Fine. But nothing funny, got it? If we find them, nothing shady better happen with Shizuo's blood or any other part of his cells.:
"I promise, I promise."
Celty sighed before turning back to Kasuka. :Then we are all set.:
"I believe so. Let's exchange numbers so we can stay in touch."
Celty obliged, giving Kasuka her number then texting her phone to give Celty his. Once that was said and done, the two couples went their separate ways to go prepare for a trip to America.
