Author's note: Thanks, everyone, for the support on my first chapter of this story! It was good to hear from you guys again, and I am happy to be able to give these chapters to you for as long as I can keep this streak up. Cheers!

Jumping right in where Gone to Earth left off in this chapter, including some original characters and minor canon characters who appeared in previous parts of the arc, so fair warning.

Hisoka had thought there were no new types of pain to imagine. Yet a month spent in isolation in the infirmary, watching his own right arm and most of his legs slowly grow back, was an entirely unique and novel experience. Not the most excruciating thing he'd ever been through, not by a long shot, but a hell in its own right, for its own reasons.

It was a month he had to be stuck in bed rather than out there looking for Tsuzuki, or solving Summons cases with his colleagues. A month left alone with his thoughts. And a month of extreme restless leg, and restless arm, and restless everything syndrome and being treated like a very special patient.

Hisoka loathed being treated like a very special patient.

Of course, Watari was fascinated by the whole process. "I gotta be honest, none of us knew for sure if your limbs would grow back. Reattaching severed arms and legs and even heads is one thing, but starting all over from scratch? There aren't many cases of it happening even in the literature, and you never know how much of those old stories about how shinigami bodies work was just pulled out of someone's arse." He didn't exactly have a tactful bedside manner, but Hisoka rather appreciated being talked to like someone who could actually understand what was happening to his own body.

The prodding around the new growth, not so much. It tickled, and not in a good way. As if there was a good way.

It had been particularly bad when his knees came in. Hisoka tried to keep his legs still when Watari checked their progress, but it was damn near impossible. The new flesh started to hurt if it wasn't able to move. Except, moving didn't feel particularly pleasant either. "Well, it looks like muscle and nerves are coming back normally, so at least you shouldn't need physical therapy. Should be up and walking again, I imagine, as soon as you grow some feet. Wish I could speed the process along for ya a bit, but it's not as though I've got a bottle of Skele-Gro in my medicine cabinet. Sure would come in handy. . . .

"The muscle memory might take a little longer to come back, though. For the finer motor skills."

"You mean I'll have to learn to fence and shoot all over again?" Hisoka knew it was useless to be angry at himself for something that was beyond his ability to control, but still.

"Well, sort of, Bon. It's a bit like RAM versus ROM," Watari began, but Hisoka stopped him right there. He didn't need any of Watari's analogies to understand.

"Yet somehow, though half my body gets burnt away, the curse comes right back." Flexing his left hand, which had sustained only minor damage in the form of some truncated fingers and thus had come back first, he could see the red lines beneath his skin.

When his burns had first started to heal, a little hope had grown in Hisoka that he had finally managed to find a way to escape Muraki's curse. He couldn't see any sign of it. But by the next week, it was clear: he'd only been unable to see the lines beneath the scar tissue. Once his skin was fresh and pink, they showed up like a new tattoo.

"You take with you in death what was a part of you in life," Watari told him.

"Yeah. I know. I guess I just didn't want to think of Muraki as a part of me."

He had no memory of being brought to bed after the incident that put him there. Just summoning Rikugou, seeing Tsuzuki among the wreckage and knowing he had to save him. Then seeing Muraki beside him, and losing control. He remembered being consumed by anger—as if all the hate he'd ever felt for Muraki was resurfacing all at once—and an overwhelming desire to see that man burn and burn until there was nothing left. He had only the faintest memory of being consumed by Rikugou's light.

It was too traumatic to remember, Watari said when he asked about his missing memory, but the scientist was unusually spare with details. "You were little more than a charred head and torso with some stubs on it," Watari would say when pressed. "You really gonna make me think about all that again?"

But there was more, more that he was holding back on purpose, not just because it made him physically uncomfortable. Watari wasn't a bad liar, either, when it came to hiding his true feelings from Hisoka's empathy. Maybe he didn't notice the slight changes in his behavior around Hisoka, the way he couldn't quite meet the boy's eyes like he used to do so easily. Watari was feeling guilty about . . . something, but Hisoka so far had no clue what it was.

Hisoka just bided his time. He hadn't remembered what Muraki did to him at first either, but it came back. Even though remembering had put him through the pain of it all over again, he had been grateful at least to know. Knowledge was something he could hold on to. It was something he could use.

Now he could say he was nearly whole again. Only his feet had yet to reach full size, and for now they looked like doll feet, with polyps for toes. Even when Hisoka put socks over them they looked weird. But he could walk on them, and that was all that mattered.

"Thanks for everything, Watari, but I can't stay here anymore," he told the man when he came in to bring Hisoka his morning cup of tea. "I'm going back to work."

"Today?" Watari blinked. "But . . . we haven't had time to plan a welcome back party for you yet."

As though that was something Hisoka would even want. "Everyone's hard at work but me. Reading up on case files may keep me from dying of boredom, but it isn't doing anyone else any good." Though he was grateful Tatsumi had at least let him do that while he healed. "I need to be out there in the living world, helping people. Doing my job."

"And your injuries? You sure everything's grown back?"

"As long as I keep my shoes on, I'll be fine." Besides, he was sure his toes would be back to their normal size by the end of the day. Tomorrow morning at the latest.

Watari looked for all the world like he wanted to keep protesting that Hisoka wasn't ready. Once again, it seemed there was something crucial he was holding back, some missing piece that would allow Hisoka to finally see the whole picture of what had happened that night.

But whatever it was, Watari was keeping a firm lid on it. No amount of probing on Hisoka's part did any good.

Then again, maybe Hisoka was just misreading regular-old concern, and hoping for something that wasn't there in the first place.

"Alright," Watari capitulated with a sigh. "I know I can't stop you, so I might as well release you. But promise me, Bon, you'll take it easy."

"I promise I won't run any marathons," Hisoka told him, though he knew that wasn't entirely what Watari had meant.

The whole walk to the office, Hisoka had been dreading just this.

Cheers of "Hisoka!" and "Kurosaki-kun!" and "You're back!" greeted him when he entered the offices of the Summons Division, mixed with curiosity and trepidation about the extent of his injuries.

Wakaba saw no problem with throwing her arms around his neck and giving him a long, firm hug. She, at least, knew to be careful about her emotions, and Hisoka was glad—and a little overwhelmed—that what she let him feel were not flashbacks of that night, but relief and welcome and love. "We're so glad you're okay," she whispered by his ear, and Hisoka thought he heard tears though she didn't let him see any.

"Yeah. It's good to have you back, kid."

He recognized the voice. But not the face it came out of. "T-Terazuma? Is that really . . .?"

Terazuma's stripes and pointy ears were gone, his jet-black hair a somewhat dull ebony. His face seemed just a tad rounder than usual, his shoulders not as wide or straight, and his eyes were a run-of-the-mill brown, missing the fire Hisoka was used to.

One thing remained the same, though: He bristled at Hisoka's surprise, and stuck an unlit cigarette in the corner of his lips.

"Kuro-chan left him," Wakaba explained in a low voice for Hisoka's benefit. "We're not entirely sure what happened. Just that when your shiki went into a frenzy, she got hit, trying to protect me and Nonomiya, and there's been no sign of her since—"

Though it hardly seemed like half of what they deserved from him, "I'm so sorry," Hisoka began to say. "Nobody told me—"

But Saya and Yuma each glomping onto an arm cut his apology short. "We thought we'd lost you forever!" Saya wailed, tears streaming down her cheeks, and Yuma said that if she'd known Hisoka was going to come back today, she would have made a cake. Or something to that effect. It was hard to tell exactly through her blubbering. Really, the two of them together were so overwhelming psychically, he couldn't focus on what they were saying.

A cleared throat made the two quiet and let go of him. Tatsumi stood by the open door of the chief's office, beckoning Hisoka in. Just like old times. Everything back to normal, like nothing even happened.

This time when Hisoka stepped into the smaller room, however, Tatsumi did not follow him. Just closed the door behind him, with a knowing grin.

It was Konoe who rose from behind the desk to greet Hisoka, clapping him on the shoulders but stopping short of an embrace. Still, his "Welcome back" had a certain weight that felt to Hisoka like it was lifting him up; and he was so happy to see Konoe here once more, where he belonged.

"Does this mean you're back to being our chief?"

"I am." With a gentle hand, Konoe guided him to one of the chairs, and moved back around the desk again.

"If you don't mind my asking, sir, how did you score that coup? I've been worrying for a month that King Enma was going to punish our whole division for going over his head to find Tsuzuki, but it doesn't seem like anything's changed."

"I was as surprised as you are. Suffice it to say, it is his will that I am here now." Konoe did sober at that thought, however, and at what he had to say next. "There are a few strings attached, however. For starters, Enma requests a full accounting of all our parts in the matter."

"He wants us to write up a report? Like it was a case?"

"Yes, in a manner of speaking, that is precisely what he wants."

"But wouldn't that be like admitting to plotting treason?" Not that anyone actually had, but that was not to say their actions couldn't be construed that way. Were these reports just a way to make it easier for Enma to tailor each Summons agent's punishment to his or her exact crime, at the time of his choosing?

"Not the way I see it." Konoe carefully measured his words. "And I don't think Lord Enma plans to shake up Summons any more at this time—though I suppose I can't say if he plans to use our confessions against us when it comes time for us to retire from here. But that's a bridge to cross when we come to it. For now, we owe him our explanations. It's the least we can do to show we are still loyal subjects. And that we appreciate his clemency.

"Most of us have already turned ours in, but we can't speak for you, of course. I think everyone in Judgment is eager to learn how you survived the shikigami's explosion."

"But I don't even know how I survived!" Surely there were other witnesses who could answer that question better than he could.

But then, their testimony would only further the mystery, as no one had been in Hisoka's unique place, engulfed in the fullness of Rikugou's power. No one that had survived, that was. "I didn't mean to do it. For that matter, I didn't mean for there to be an explosion either. I feel like I must have just . . ." There wasn't any other way to put it, Hisoka supposed: "Lost control. But King Enma won't like hearing that very much, will he?"

There was no point sugar-coating things for an empath, so Konoe didn't try. "Just write it as faithfully as you can remember it. That's really the best you can do with such an uncomfortable business. But before you get too far into that, I want you to take a look at these. Tell me what you think."

And so saying, he slapped a short stack of files on the end of his desk.

Hisoka took a cursory look. "These are different from the homework you've been sending to me." But the sectors and shinigami assigned to the cases were from all over Japan. "You think these are connected?"

"Did you get that from just a glance, or am I that obvious?"

Hisoka wasn't entirely sure Konoe meant that in a teasing fashion. "Sir, you usually don't want my opinion on other sectors' cases. I figured there had to be a good reason."

"Let's just say I have a hunch, and my hunches aren't usually wrong. Go and find yourself a nice quiet place to pore over those, Kurosaki. We'll meet back here at a quarter to noon to go over your first case back."

It felt good to be back in his old familiar haunts again. Even someplace as humdrum as the Judgment Bureau library was a welcome return to normalcy for Hisoka. He had always felt at peace among the stacks—both an audible and spiritual quiet—and the aura of knowledge and stability that surrounded the place.

The Gushoushin, for all their excitement to see Hisoka back, had in that same spirit recognized his desire to be alone with his thoughts and files and left him mostly to his own devices. Though they had been eager to help in whatever way they could. The Younger, especially, it seemed, wanted to ask Hisoka about the night he had seen Tsuzuki, but knew it was best to keep that conversation for when Hisoka brought it up himself, and clamped down on the urge to ask with all his willpower.

Hisoka thought he had a pretty good picture of things by the time he returned to the office, the files Konoe had given him tucked under his arm.

He experienced something of a start, however, to see Nonomiya already there with the chief, waiting for him. "You're still here?"

It came out much colder than it should have. That Hisoka realized when he saw Nonomiya's slight flinch, and could feel her hurt, and Konoe's embarrassment. "I mean," he was quick to amend in a gentler voice, "I thought you would be back with Peacekeeping by now."

"So did I," said Nonomiya. "But my chief thought it best if I stay on. For the meantime."

"Ms. Nonomiya is our new Peacekeeping liaison," Konoe said as he stood. "Officially."

"Right. Even if it is just a fancy way of saying my boss wants nothing to do with me. He still hasn't forgiven me for fighting alongside Summons, obstructing his apprehension of Tsuzuki. . . ."

When she put it that way, her words laced with bitter frustration a lifetime and more of training kept in check, Hisoka couldn't help feeling sympathetic. It had been quite a risk for Nonomiya to stand up to her colleagues, throwing spells at them and defending Summons agents from their attacks. It was more than any of Summons had a right to ask of her, yet she had volunteered her help without hesitation. Because they were friends of Tsuzuki. How was she supposed to go back to Peacekeeping now, when everyone who used to work beside her saw her as a traitor?

Konoe said to Hisoka, "While you've been recovering, Ms. Nonomiya's been kind enough to help us out on a few cases, even though it goes beyond her new duties here. As you probably noticed from those files . . . Well, it should become obvious soon enough, if it isn't already, that Summons has had more on its proverbial plate lately than its usual number of staff can handle."

Tatsumi, Watari and Natsume were already in the briefing room when the three of them arrived, leaning over some strange contraption that the newcomers knew instantly was one of the mad scientist's inventions. A box of tea cookies sat next to it, one cookie already loaded into the device.

"Do I even want to know?" Konoe began.

"We were just running one of Watson's confections through my handy-dandy portable mass spectrometer," Watari said. "You three arrived not a moment too soon. We should have a result any second. . . ."

Tatsumi said, "It's been driving us mad trying to figure out what his secret ingredient is. How that man can be so talented in the kitchen is beyond my understanding."

"Especially when he needs to stand on a chair to reach the counters," Natsume put in.

Konoe felt like knocking all their heads together for wasting his time with this lunacy, and only hoped he wasn't somehow footing the bill for it. He could already feel the vein starting to pulse in his forehead. "The special ingredient is rose water. Watson puts a little bit into everything he bakes. Count's request."

"How do you know that?"

"I asked him! Of course."

"Of course!" Tatsumi hit his fist into his palm. "That would explain the high-class taste!"

Watari blinked up at him. "Somehow it shouldn't surprise me you can taste class, Tatsumi."

"It just had to be something expensive, didn't it? So much for my plans to replicate the recipe. . . ."

Natsume shrugged. "On the bright side, I was half prepared to find out the secret ingredient was Watson himself. Parts of him have been known to fall off on occasion."

"Just because the Count says Watson throws himself into everything he does doesn't mean you should take it literally." And so saying, Konoe grabbed one of the cookies and jammed it in his mouth.

A moment later, the mass spectrometer gave an anticlimactic ding. Watari stared intently at the results, before grumbling a barely audible "Essence of Rosa damascena. . . ."

Konoe cleared his throat. "Now, if the three of you are done wasting brain cells on this nonsense, I wanna bring the kid up on this latest string of cases we've been working, make sure we're all on the same page here."

"Certainly, Chief," said Tatsumi, back to his professional self with an adjusting of his specs.

They covered the old files first, cases involving patients staying in hospital who were scheduled to die after long battles with cancer, Alzheimer's, or a slew of other degenerative disorders—until their candles suddenly flared back to life in the Castle, stronger than they had been in life for a long time.

"We had no reason not to treat them all as separate cases initially," Konoe said. "They appeared in all corners of the country, and were all folks who were already being treated for disease. We had no reason to suspect when the first few came in that they might be part of a larger pattern."

"But by the next week, the number of similar incidents had doubled," a grave Tatsumi said. "And it kept climbing from there. Summons has hardly had a moment's rest between these cases, some of us working two of them at a time. Ms. Nonomiya has generously lent us her assistance in the field as well." He looked down at the table between them. "I don't mind saying that it has been an incredibly taxing few weeks for all of us."

Hisoka understood. You tried to distance yourself from your cases, but taking the souls of people who were desperate to live despite their suffering, in turn took its toll on the taker. That part of the job never got easier.

"But cancer patients go into remission all the time," Hisoka said. "We don't take their souls if they manage to get better."

"These were all, without exception, terminal cases, Bon," Watari said. "Folks who'd already gotten their second opinion, and a third, and so on. They weren't so much receiving treatment for their diseases as they were being eased as gently as possible into the next life. Trust me, their miraculous recoveries were not natural occurrences. Not to mention, the Kiseki never changed its mind. Their names were still written there. Whether we agree with it or not, our mission couldn't be clearer."

"So, maybe they were on some sort of new drug," Hisoka suggested. "Couldn't we trace that?"

"Yeah," said Natsume, "but each one was on their own particular cocktail of drugs. We thought that might be the connection as well—"

"Except that whatever the substance in common was," Watari jumped in, "if it is in fact a substance we're looking for, it wasn't listed in their medical records and it didn't show up in any of the hospitals' reports. No one who's showed up for judgment so far has been much help, either. I'm thinking something experimental—something so secret, even the cases themselves didn't know what they were getting, or that they were getting anything special."

"So, ironically, the fact that we have no clues may be one of the biggest clues we have," Nonomiya said. "It isn't ethical to just inject people with something without their knowledge or consent. But then, I don't need to remind Summons agents, of all people, that not everyone who works in medicine follows ethical guidelines. . . ."

Hisoka shook his head. "This is getting ridiculous. It seems kind of cliche by now to say it, but—"

"It sounds like something Muraki would be involved with?" Natsume finished for him. "Join the club. We all asked ourselves that when we first started noticing the similarities."

"Aside from the fact that these cases don't match what we're used to seeing from him," said Tatsumi, crossing his arms over his chest. "Where are the rumors of vampires or ghosts, raising corpses from the dead? If this is his handiwork, why would he suddenly be focusing his efforts on curing people?"

"Only we already established he wasn't curing them," said Konoe. "According to the Kiseki, they were still considered dead men walking."

"You know what I mean. Whoever is doing this is making people better. Better than they have any right to be. It seems too altruistic. Especially for him."

Hisoka was wont to agree with Tatsumi on that, having experienced Muraki's emotional milieu personally. However altruistic Muraki's actions might appear to be, Hisoka could never believe that man did anything because he actually cared about another human being. Though he couldn't hold it against Natsume either when he suggested, "I suppose it's too much to hope he's had a change of heart, started thinking about his immortal soul? Try to do some good in the world while he still can?"

But his question landed in the room as though it had been nothing but a bad joke all along.

"More likely," Konoe said, "we have to face the possibility that there's another person out there like him. Or, to be more precise, like his grandfather, Yukitaka."

It did fit. The elder Dr. Muraki's fatal crime had been playing death-god, robbing Enma of his rightful dead, using what he had learned from Tsuzuki to keep people alive past their allotted years. The problem was, he had left far more failed experiments in his wake and caused far more untimely death and misery than what handful of medical miracles he had successfully performed.

But Muraki Yukitaka's soul had been destroyed by Enma, if Konoe and the Count's story was to be believed. It had to be someone else continuing his work, perhaps even unknowingly.

And if that were the case, what were the odds the grandson didn't know about it?

"We haven't found any solid evidence of a connection between the Murakis and these cases," said Konoe, as though reading his mind. "But my instincts tell me the odds of them being unrelated are too great. And if I've learned anything in all my years here, that's to trust my intuition. And that of my agents."

"If a connection exists," said Hisoka, "we'll find proof of it. It's only a matter of time."

Natsume grinned. "And now that we have an empath back on the case, we should get to the bottom of this mystery that much faster."

Konoe nodded his concurrence. "I'm sending the two of you to Wakayama to visit the next person whose candle has suddenly flared back to life. If you're feeling strong enough for it, Kurosaki."

"I'm fine." That wasn't what piqued Hisoka's concern. "But isn't Wakayama a bit outside Section Two's purview, sir?" Quite a bit, to say the least.

"We've been so inundated with cases like these, I'm putting my men on them as soon as they become available. And the two of you are the next available pair."

"Ms. Nonomiya and I are technically on break from our own investigation in Tokyo," Tatsumi supplied.

That was a new one to Hisoka. Tatsumi working in the field with an officer of Peacekeeping, and Peacekeeping working a Summons case. But then, crises had a way of tearing down traditional barriers and making them seem petty.

That didn't prevent Tatsumi from fulfilling his own duties as secretary either. "Here are the dossier for your summons and your budget," he said as he passed Hisoka and Natsume the appropriate paperwork. "You shouldn't need overnight accommodations for this operation. Your target has been in hospital for weeks waiting to die and isn't scheduled to be moved. Even with this new development. It seems her doctors want to keep her around for observations."

"You mean, for study," said Hisoka. Figure out just how she miraculously recovered from a terminal illness.

Tatsumi nodded. "That should give you plenty of time to get in and do what needs to be done."

"What about finding the cause? Doesn't Enma want us to get to the bottom of this?"

"Find out as much as you can," Konoe told him. "Any information you can gather could turn out to be the key to finally putting an end to these cases. But I don't expect you to find much. Whoever is doing this is an expert at covering their tracks."

Imai's first thought when he walked into the offices of the so-called Peacekeeping Division was that it wasn't so different from the office he shared with his old partner back at the Kumamoto Police Department. Though he supposed police and security headquarters must be pretty much the same anywhere you went.

With one major exception, of course: Everyone here was dead.

Including himself.

Or so they told him. Admittedly, that was a thought he was still getting used to. Sometimes it felt like a joke the people around here were trying to pull over on him, while at other times, he felt the full, undeniable weight of what had happened to him. But mostly he was just having a hard time believing there was really a place like this to go to after death, that felt familiar and even comfortable. It was too surreal.

"You know, I have to admit," said the woman who was showing him the ropes, a tall, athletic and no-nonsense broad who had introduced herself as Kazuma Shin. "So far you're taking this shinigami thing remarkably well for a new recruit."

So, maybe it was normal to feel traumatized by the whole ordeal. Though, so far, no crisis of faith had been forthcoming. Imai looked around himself at the definitely-material desks and filing cabinets, the coffee maker whose contents he could smell in his own nostrils, and wanted to tell Kazuma it was the believability of this place that made the transition easy.

Instead he said, "Yeah, well, my partner on the force believed in things like this. Aliens and conspiracies and vampires, shit like that. So I guess all his crazy kinda rubbed off on me after a while."

"Uh-huh." Kazuma snorted. "Which one of those do we fit into?"

"Er, sorry. I guess those probably aren't very politically correct terms around here," Imai said with a grimace. So far it didn't seem like he was making a real great first impression. "But I'm pretty sure I can cross out 'aliens' as a possibility."

"M-m, I wouldn't be so sure about that."

But by her wink, Imai guessed she was joking. Probably.

Then she sighed, and busied herself pouring a cup of coffee. "Guess it's my turn to say sorry," Kazuma said. "Joking about it probably isn't making this any easier. It isn't respectful, I'm told. Of what you're going through. What you've lost."

Imai shrugged. "Doesn't bother me." Should it have, though? "I'm used to dark humor. Sometimes the only way you can keep your sanity when you're facing the worst humanity has to offer. You know?"

"Sure. I know. But you can cut the tough-guy detective routine, because we all have to go through it. Coming to terms with the fact that we're dead.

"Dead, but still alive, I suppose," she said in a low, wistful tone, almost more to herself than to him. Then she held out the cup. "Coffee? I should have asked, but you just didn't seem like the tea sort of guy. . . ."

"It's fine." He took the proffered cup. "And it's not being dead that bothers me. I mean, not when I see how normal it really feels. It's not like I have anyone back home to cry over me, either. I guess I cared for that Asai kid more than I realized when I was alive, but better me than him when he's the one with a little kid at home, right? That is, if he did survive. I can only hope. And, okay, so maybe I was just starting to think that me and the ex- had a chance at starting over—but to be honest, that was probably just wishful thinking on my part. . . ."

Sympathy he wasn't going to ask for. But it seemed he had it nonetheless. Kazuma's smile was full of understanding as she leaned back and folded her arms over her ample chest, and just listened. No one in his life had ever just shut up and listened to him like he had anything worthwhile to say. Other than Asai, anyway—which, now that Imai thought about it, explained a lot about their relationship. It was different, but good-different.

"I mean it, though," Imai said. "Try to sell me on all this shinigami crap a year ago and I would have held you overnight for psych evaluation. It's kind of a relief in a way, to know there's something waiting for us after we die. Once you get past how impossible it is. I mean, I was raised on some Buddhism, but nothing this supernatural."

"You might not think it's such a relief after being here a few decades," said Kazuma. "But do your job well, and you could earn a pretty decent rebirth."

"Hey, anything I can get is fine by me. Uh, unless Hell is a real place too, that is. I thought for sure I was a goner when that bird-thing showed up—"

"You remember your death? Already?"

The newcomer to the conversation was a middle-aged man of tight, muscular build with a military haircut. He didn't need to introduce himself for Imai to know he was a figure of some authority in the department. The cocky smile on his face and the way he held himself spoke volumes. His register with Imai was one of a superior to an underling. "Usually those memories are blocked out for newly-minted shinigami. Save you the trauma of remembering your own death while you're experiencing the trauma of learning there's an afterlife. It would be like trying to be a child while remembering every second of your own birth."

"Detective, may I introduce Major Todoroki, chief of the Peacekeeping Division," Kazuma said while the other extended his hand to Imai.

"And you must be Imai Yuuto," said Todoroki. His handshake was firm, possessive. "I've been looking forward to making your acquaintance. As you'll probably hear soon enough if you haven't already, two of my best agents were recently, er, retired rather unexpectedly. It will be good for office morale to see a new face around here, especially one with some actual experience in law enforcement."

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Imai admitted, "I don't remember that much of how I died, actually. It's more like, the basic facts are there. I could give you the rundown, but it wouldn't mean much for me personally. I haven't yet made the connection that would make it all make sense. If that makes any sense. . . ."

Todoroki chuckled at that. "It'll all come back to you. Eventually. It always does. And when you find out what—or who, as the case may be—was responsible for your death, you and I will have plenty to talk about."

A glance out of the corner of his eye showed Kazuma was none to pleased by those words, or the grin on her boss's face. Imai might have guessed something about the chief disgusted his erstwhile Beatrice—

But Todoroki's clapping him on the shoulder turned his attention to other matters. "For now, let's just make sure you're settling in nicely. Now, did I hear correctly you were with the Kumamoto PD in your old life? . . ."