After the strangest talk she had with Matsukata, Saskia felt even less at ease around him. Knowing that something within the machinery of his soul could shift so easily only reminded her of the people she was dealing with and the person she was supposed to help find. A shapeshifter. If Dazai's words were anything to go by, they couldn't so much as catch the wind of him. Her mind stressed and desperate for respite started conjuring up a hope of him leaving Japan altogether. But that would be too good to be true. What would Matsukata think of ability-user with a gift like this? Fascinated? Disgusted? Terrified? Tantalizing? She looked at him from the corner of her eye, studying, analyzing. This was the Matsukata that was always there before. The Matsukata everyone knew of. Saskia shivered, remembering the swift and painless transition between her partner and the person she had coffee with. Something about his incident perhaps? But as little as she had heard, there wasn't anything special about the incident. Hit-and-run, in a way. Yet that was the only situation she could put the blame on. What a night it must have been for him to change him so radically. No wonder he considers our job useless now.

And what a day this has been. A not-so-recent victim of Port Mafia resurfaced from the bottom of a canal. No puns there. The body was found by pure accident. It was a classic and all-too-well-known case of a Mafia's handiwork. Matsukata was right. There wasn't much they could do about this case. A dead person is a tragedy, but tragedies are countless. While the victim would be identified, there's little chance they have been reported missing. And while anyone with a pair of eyes could tell what had happened to the poor fellow, there was nothing they could do. Going after the Mafia was equal to go shark-hunting with a fishing rod. At best it would ineffective. At worst, someone would end up just like this guy.

"A week or so," Matsukata said, observing the body. Blok nodded in agreement. A somewhat accurate guess. "Ueda had one recently too."

"Like this one?" Saskia cocked her head. This was a bit surprising. Matsukata nodded. His expression was blank. It gets like this with times. At first, one would feel saddened by witnessing death. Some instead would feel angry and seek justice. Some would do that to stroke their egos, appease the dead, soothe their anger, fulfill their duty… In the end, most continued doing this because that's what they knew how to do and that's the only way they knew how to walk. There wasn't much anger or sadness or anything, truly, behind their eyes. Saskia experienced it firsthand. A case had to be gruesome to elicit any sort of emotional response. Like the Takara case. Either one of them.

"Detective Matsukata?" one of the coroners asked. Satoru didn't respond, just raised his hand up, as if to indicate it was him. "Are you leading the case?"

Blok and her partner exchanged a brief glance. Saskia barely nodded at that. There was plenty on her plate to chew and swallow. She could let this case rest in someone else's hands. It wasn't going to turn into anything big. But the fact there had been another case like this one recently was curious. Mafia must be cleaning up after the mess that occurred after the shapeshifter escaped. Mori might suspect some in aiding him. She caught herself thinking of a mafia boss as someone she knew, someone of the general population, someone she had seen enough times to recognize. She shivered. The memories of his eyes resurfaced. The little girl who accompanied him. And his voice. The menace she felt in his presence. And they pain his words brought her.

"You okay?" Matsukata asked. She nodded instead of making any sort of noise. She didn't trust herself right this moment. She felt as she would break down again. Just like she did before. Saskia breathed in and out. There was no room for her fear or desperation. There was no room for her to start breaking down. No one was there to pick up the pieces. Pull yourself together.

"Let's wrap this up," the leading detective said, looking around. "We know what happened anyway." For a moment, Blok thought she heard something in his voice. A sting of regret, perhaps, or blame. Her ability never allowed to discern emotions, she could only guess as anyone else what was happening in another person's heart.

"And that's what I meant by being useless," Satoru said with too obvious resentment. Saskia didn't react to those words in a manner that would be just as obvious. Her eyes were focused on the road and her mind was unrest. She spared the man on her left a glance when she could. Something about him felt off again. Perhaps displeased by lack of a response, Matsukata continued talking in the same tone of his.

"There's no one who could do anything for that guy," he said. Blok maintained an unshakable demeanor. There wasn't much that could be said to that. She would either sound hopeless or bitter or even insensitive. But Matsukata was hammering the nail on the head. "That's the world we live in," Satoru continued. "Port Mafia is only untouchable because of the ability users."

"Doubt it," Saskia responded. Her tongue was way ahead of her head. She didn't want to engage in this conversation. This was dangerously close to home. "It's not like Port Mafia is the only criminal organization that has ever grown powerful enough to be untouchable."

"True, but where does their power come from?"

"Money, influential people, probably blackmail, human trafficking and illegal businesses like contraband," Blok shrugged. "The only thing we know for sure is that they don't get involved with drugs."

"You think that's the reason the poor guy was shot?"

"I wish I knew." Depending on one's own definition of a lie, this could be considered lying. While she had no knowledge of what exactly got the poor guy killed, she started to have some guesses. There was no solid and were mostly formed by her mind wandering around and fumbling with the pieces of reality presented to her, yet there wasn't anything that proved her wrong either. They settled into silence when the car stopped on the red signal. Saskia didn't look at the man on her left but she could tell when she was being watched closely. Carefully and without being obvious, but Matsukata was observing her. His gaze was heavy and unwavering. He must be looking for or already seeing something. That didn't make her feel any better. Her mind if unrest before now felt like pierced by needles. When the car started to move again, the silence was broken.

"Say, do you believe in god?" Matsukata asked.

"Not really," the woman laughed for a moment at the question. They were back to the talk about god and divine powers or something like that. "It's not like I believe there's no god, more like I don't find it important to believe in any."

"Why?"

"I don't — it's — ugh," Saskia struggled with the wording. "I think if anything divine does exist, it's in parallel to us. Sort of."

"Meaning we'd never meet god even after death?"

"Why would we?"

"Well, I believe in god," Matsukata said. "And I believe he had a better plan for us all. Until we made it fall apart. Until — Nevermind. I don't want to bring you down with the talk." Saskia knew that her face betrayed nothing about the conversation. Despite how strange he found his words or how irrational she found them to be. All she knew for certain is that Matsukata didn't lie about his beliefs. And Saskia couldn't help but wonder if his belief in god and greater purpose had anything to do with ability users. She glanced at the man once again. Yet he had already reverted back to the Matsuakta of the police station. Blok tensed. I'll have to talk to Ueda.

Back at the station, Blok spied someone else. Someone she didn't want to see today of all days. Tanizaki. She'd duck down and crawl back to her table if only it didn't look suspicious to Matsukata. He would ask questions. And she didn't like the questions he asked. Tanizaki, however, wasn't all that oblivious. From the other corner of the hall, he was able to recognize and comprehend the simple gesture that told him to stay away: a hand going through Saskia's neck. Immediately he pulled out his phone. But no matter how many times she checked, no messages were delivered to her. The screen of the phone lit up again as her fingers tapped at the screen again. Nothing was wrong with her reception.

"Waiting for your boyfriend to text you?" Matsukata asked from behind. Damn it. She wanted to swear. She wanted to shout. She wanted to accuse him. But the only person she had to blame right now was herself. Something in her demeanor was betraying. And Matsukata was still watching her. She could feel his eyes on her back. That's not how a partnership should feel. The watching of each other's back shouldn't feel so literal.

"We had an argument," Saskia lied.

"Is that why you were so tense all day?" he continued to press.

"Yes," Blok lied again. It came easy. Too easy for her liking. But people lied for many reasons, and she was not above a single one of them. She'd lie more if that guaranteed the catching of shapeshifter and the end of her partnership with Matsukata. The end of her partnership with Dazai.

"Didn't you say it was nothing serious and falling apart?" Satoru pressed more. Her eyes shut close as if expecting a hit on the face. She did say that. She completely forgot. He could catch on the fact she was lying. She was lying from the very beginning. She didn't want to throw him off so quickly. Not before she got more answers out of him. If he was ratting out to Port Mafia before, he could know who was doing it now. Or at least suspect someone.

"Doesn't mean I want to end so badly," she said instead, tiptoeing around her forgotten lies.

"You must like him then." She didn't see the man's face, but he was surely smiling. She clenched her jaw in annoyance. A moment to gather her wits before offering a vague enough response anyone could buy into.

"Perhaps," the woman nodded and stood up. "Talk later." She turned around to look at his face. Matsukata Satoru. A man, apparently, of many faces. She shouldn't have assumed his averageness to be the core of what he was. The man hid his many-faced nature immaculately well. But he didn't look any different now than the man she barely knew a few months ago. Right at this moment, it was the Matsukata everyone knew of. Saskia walked away from her table, feeling the last glance Matsukata was sparing her distancing figure. Behind the doors of a woman's washroom, Saskia was quickly tapping at her phone. Today was about as good as any other day to tell Dazai what she had gathered about Matsukata. It felt disgustingly normal. There was no guilt or hesitation in her action, not a sliver of doubt. And she was reporting to an outsider about her colleague. She should have felt something. She should have some qualms about trusting Dazai. But the ability user from a detective agency seemed as good as a friend at the moment. She wouldn't get to talk to Ueda tonight without her work partner knowing. And that's not a conversation to have but in person.

"Damn-it-fucking-all!" Saskia kicked the door of the stall in frustration. Besides needing proof, she needed plenty of other things: a clue towards the shapeshifting gifted and a piece of mind. She breathed in and breathed out and for a moment the world around stilled. But only for the moment she held her breath in her lungs. The phone's notification ringed and echoed. A reply from Dazai.