She got up in the morning and went to work as if nothing happened. She forced herself to not look back and see if she was followed. Such underhanded tactics would be too simple for the mafia. If Mori was able to get to her at the grocery store, they knew her routine. Changing her routine could be more dangerous than sticking to it. Saskia did her best to act as if she had never heard that voice before or knew when he lied.

"You look tense," noted Matsukata noted when she sat at her table. She didn't have the will to give a response choosing to stare down her cup of coffee. If only she could tell why she was so tense. But there was no safe place for her anymore. Her house was under surveillance, her routine was known and someone at the station must be a rat.

"Matsukata," she spoke slowly. Nothing was happening in her brain or her heart. Empty throughout. The life you carefully built for yourself, the castles made of salt and sand… He would question her, he would doubt her and he would hold it against her. She could just step on the castle and kick the sand around. She could ask a question and get an answer. But if she was wrong, if she would happen to accuse him of being deceitful, disloyal and a fraud, no one would let it be. Ever. That's a slip up that would hunt her for the rest of her career in this department. And it probably would be a long one either…

"Nevermind," Saskia dismissed her own words. She needed to wait and be careful. She couldn't afford to act out of fear and desperation. She needed to be smart about it. She needed to be smarter about many things...

"So, coffee next?" He turned around to look at her. Matsukata gave her a very calm and toned-down smile. And yet she could call it the most genuine one among all the ones she'd witnessed. As if an emotion she couldn't recognize was plastered on his face. It was something she couldn't name.

"Yeah," she agreed out of simplicity it would offer.

Matsukata dropped his mediocrity act when there was no one but her to watch him, it seemed. He didn't look the same or sounded as he did previously. Something shifted within him. As if a burden was placed on his shoulders and only now, he decided to show the weight of it.

"The work you do," he spoke with spite almost, "seems so pointless, doesn't it?" He looked out the window as if looking for something or someone. But then his eyes went up to the sliver of sky one could see from this angle. His stare was intense. She wondered what he was thinking.

"I do?" Saskia almost found his slip of a tongue amusing. "You do it too. Good luck waking up in the morning with that attitude."

"But don't you agree? That place is not where power lies."

"Where does it lie?" Saskia asked disinterested, averting her gaze. She felt tense and on guard again. If this situation did not resolve itself, if Matsukata didn't reverse back into the person he was before, there would undoubtedly be a problem.

"I have a few guesses," he shrugged. "But would you do what's necessary to get there?"

"What?" she questioned, tensing under the flow of the conversation. She had been doing quite a few necessary things recently. Things she wouldn't think of doing before. Things she would be questioning. But fewer and fewer choices were given to her.

"Saskia, you aren't dumb to know it," Matsukata spoke again. "The world is not that simple. Those ability-users, like the ones in Port Mafia, they have power. They were given it at birth. But by whom? And why?" Her eyes narrowed. An incredibly strange course of the conversation.

"Are you talking about god or something?" she asked, profoundly confused. Whatever way this man's mind worked was alluding her.

"Let's call it god. It is divine. The right, the ability to go beyond human capabilities, to be able to shape the world around you."

Saskia unconsciously leaned back, further away from him. Every hair on her body stood suddenly on end. "You hold ability users in high regard," she mumbled.

"Power is power, inherited or granted," he shrugged.

"What kind of power do ability-users have then?"

"Both."

She kept her mouth shut. Blok would never call her ability to be one of power. It offered little but pain and discomfort and more distrust. Her 'power' didn't give her the ability to shape the world around her. This ability didn't bend the world to her will. All she could ever do is to tell a lie from the truth and even that was never enough. This ability offered emptiness more than any sort of power.

"Sorry to bring you down with all this talk," Matsukata said. He reverted as if nothing happened. Saskia felt a shiver ran down her spine. Another man in her surroundings she could tell wasn't truthful. Not lying outright but not being truthful. He said what he said because he thought I could understand him. Saskia wanted to ask him if he was an ability-user, but the department would have to know about it. No, there's a question she should ask first. Matsukata holds ability-users in high regard.

"Are you working for Port Mafia?" she stared him down. Matsukata was visibly shocked by the questing. Either I have him pinned or I just ruined our working relationship.

"Not anymore," he said with a poor display of shame.

"What did you do for them?" Her voice was cold and distant. Her mind was blank and removed from the conversation. This was routine. This was the procedure. She interrogated and cross-examined countless people before. Yet her heart was pounding while she was not paying attention to it.

"Information, obviously," he confessed. "That's what everyone wants. Whoever holds the right kind of information has power too. That's the power granted or, more often than not, taken."

"Did you give them information about our personnel?"

Matsukata smiled. It was just a tug in the corner of his lips and it was there for barely a second. But Saskia noticed it. He felt smug. He felt contempt. "I did not," he said. And Saskia knew better than to trust him. But she couldn't doubt his words. Her ability wasn't triggered. He was still maintaining eye contact. His expression shifted again. This was an expression of surprise. She didn't understand it.

Feeling the creeps all over her body after the conversation with Matsukata, Saskia couldn't get herself to go into the store again without anyone accompanying her. Shaken to her by the appearance of that man, she left hurried and with her mind panicking. She forgot things. But there was little doubt in her mind Mori had picked her for good reasons. He knew who she was, who she was associating with, where to find her and probably suspected her being one of the ability users. What could she save by not telling Dazai? To avoid his obvious questions. He noticed. Of course, he did. Dazai noticed everything. She told him everything she could make head and tails of meaning she told him everything. Dazai wasn't reciprocating one bit. He didn't say anything, just hummed, smiled, and looked rather pleased. Nothing of use. Saskia didn't expect any reassurance from him either. Once this case is done, the mafia should lose interest in me. Unless they find out my exact ability. Dazai didn't react to that thinking either. Whatever. She would beat it out of him, she would beat him into helping her and getting her out of hot waters neat and dry. But for now, she just needed his company. In case anything was about to go terribly wrong.

"Are you even trying to find the gifted without me?" Blok asked. Her eyes were scanning the brand names of teas.

"Got some bright ideas, detective?" Osamu asked. His hands reached for the box first, successfully taking it away from her.

"Well, damn, sorry I asked." Saskia forcefully took possession of the box. While he was surely hiding just enough of his amusement, Dazai was fully enjoying her angered expression.

"We are busy," he added, "but nothing about our elusive gifted."

"So, what do you do? You can't be possibly keeping an eye on high-profile people while searching for clues and possibly taking care of other jobs coming in. Not with your limited human resources."

"Hmm, never you took you for a chamomile type," he said instead of answering.

"Recently I've been feeling like I need it," she spoke through gritted teeth. Another question without an answer. Another question Dazai simply glances off. And yet he dared to speak of trust to her and how it was a two-way street.

"Why did I react to the girl? Got some bright ideas?" she asked.

"No bright ideas," he answered, dispassionately. "I just happen to know why. She isn't real. Elise is Mori's ability." He was leading into the pet food aisle.

"What the actual fuck?" Blok asked in bewilderment.

"She is an illusion of sorts," he shrugged. This should have affected her the way it did. She just stepped into the world of strange and impossible and wild. Saskia stopped before the pet food aisle, processing the idea of the girl she recently saw being unreal. That girl who asked for her help was an ability. Not a person with history and feelings and thoughts. She didn't know how she should feel about it. Glad that the child in the hand of Port Mafia's boss is not real? Disgusted by the idea that this is the kind of power a person could have? A power that is neither inherited nor granted. A power that is both at the same time too. No one paid her a piece of their mind as she stood before the pet aisle and saw nothing before her. The world ceased to exist. The word that shouldn't exist the way it was living.

"What?" Dazai asked, looking back at her. He picked up some dog treats. I would never peg him for a dog person. Blok shook her head in dismissal. It was not nearly a conversation she wanted to have or was able to have.

"That's not how my ability works," Saskia said, dumbfounded.

"Have you seen many illusions before?" Dazai raised a brow.

"No."

"Have you seen many that talked?"

"Obviously not."

"Then how would you know?" he asked matter-of-factly. And he was right. Dazai Osamu was always right. Saskia could only appreciate how removed she was from the world of the gifted. Oblivious to her limits and capabilities. Because she never took any interest in them.

"Let's go then," he said. She followed, her mind absent and blank. This was routine too. This was a procedure of sorts as well.