"Wh... what... are you... talking about?" Neru panted and slid down against the door.

"Do you remember the first time you fought with Hatsune? Back at school?"

"Why are you... bringing that up now..." She yawned.

"And the second time you both fought, do you remember how different it was compared to the first?"

"... Different...?"

"As in, you barely put up a fight against Hatsune. No offense, but you were a lot worse there than you were before."

Her head languidly lolled over in my direction and her eyes narrowed. "You trying to... pick a fight with me, Kagamine?"

"No, no. You know it yourself, Akita. It was unnatural how easily you were beaten when you could keep up with Hatsune earlier. Didn't you notice it, too?"

"... What's your point?" She was beginning to catch her breath, but she looked confused and conflicted over whether I'd just insulted or complimented her.

"The point is that something changed about you during the time between the fights. You could tell that you were a lot slower than you normally are, right? And even now, after sleeping for hours, you look exhausted. Don't you think that's weird?"

Neru shifted around where she sat on the floor. She seemed uncomfortable talking about herself, especially about her failure to beat Hatsune. It occurred to me that I might've been acting insensitive, and though I could empathize, I also felt that it could lead us to something important if we talked more.

She straightened her posture. "I don't exactly... remember everything that happened back there. I felt tired for some reason... and I don't remember even getting knocked out. I just blacked out for however long and woke up... in your bathroom."

"There was a good reason for that," I interjected, suddenly feeling defensive. "I wasn't—"

"Save it." She held up her hand to cut me off. "Haku and I got picked up by my mom when school ended and drove us home. I didn't feel tired until the time I met with Miku again, and you know more about what happened after that than I do. I didn't do anything to make me so tired after fighting her."

I shook my head. "That's because nothing weird happened to you after the first fight. It was during the first fight."

"What?" She blinked. "Would you stop acting so damn mysterious and just be straightforward for once?"

"Alright, alright. The reason you lost against Hatsune was because you didn't get a fair fight. You were drugged, Akita."

She stared at me like I was crazy. "I was what?"

"Doesn't it explain everything?" I got out of my seat to give Neru a hand up. She looked like she wanted to argue, to say that she didn't need my help and could get up on her own, but she just turned her eyes away from me and begrudgingly accepted it. "Why you lost so easily, why you were asleep for so long, why you're tired even now after sleeping for so long."

"Wh…" She slapped my hand away as soon as she was standing steadily and leaned against the door. "Drugged? How could I have been drugged in the middle of a fight?"

"Easier than you'd think. Don't you remember my handkerchief?"

From there, it happened so quickly that I didn't get a chance to react. The blue-haired girl shot up from the ground and stuffed my handkerchief in Neru's mouth. She dropped her phone in surprise, but almost immediately grabbed the other girl by the wrist and hurled her backwards.

"Hatsune didn't do that for nothing. She used that opportunity to force you to take something that would make you tired."

"That's just stupid." She scoffed. "I would've known if there was something being shoved down my throat."

"That's not necessarily true, Akita. Think about it. You only saw the handkerchief, so that's all you would have expected. Besides, it's not as if you had tons of time to sit and think about it. You needed to react immediately if you didn't want Hatsune to attack you again, and whatever the drug was, she probably would have thought ahead to make it subtle enough for you to not notice."

"But that's…" She began. "How do you know your napkin thing wasn't just dirty or something? I think I saw you and your sister using those on the bus, Kagamine."

"That couldn't be it either." I said. "If the cause were something wrong with my handkerchief, it wouldn't make you pass out for three hours, it would make you sick. You know, like a cold or something caused by germs."

"So you let her shove your used napkin thing in my-"

"But," I cut her off quickly, clearing my throat. "That's besides the point. A handkerchief to the mouth is a pretty weird and out of place move compared to everything else she did. Why not just use it on your eyes to blind you if all she wanted to do was distract you enough to take your phone?

"This is exactly what I mean by Hatsune making things harder for herself on purpose. Taking hostages instead of confronting your mom, drugging you when she probably could've defeated you without it—no offense—, even telling you to bring me along when she could've just kept it between you and her... there has to be a reason for all of it. I just don't know what in the world it could be..." I held my chin in my fingers, frustrated and dispirited. I really had felt that I'd be able to come up with something good and useful, something that'd help us figure out what to do next, and it had amounted to nothing but more answerless questions. "Damn..."

"So... what was the point in bringing all this up again?" She yawned, disinterested.

I stuttered, starting to second-guess myself. "There was... it was definitely worth bringing up, I'm sure, it's just..."

"Great." She rolled her eyes. "Thanks for wasting our time, Detective Kagamine. Anyway, it looks like my plan is still our only chance."

"I'm not breaking into someone's house, Akita. That's not going to work."

Wait... wasting time...?

"The time!" My fist slammed so hard onto my palm the sound echoed throughout the room. I grabbed Neru's wrists absentmindedly in a fleet of excitement and held them between the two of us. "That's the reason, Akita! Why Hatsune drugged you!"

She wasn't as excited. "Don't you dare touch me, you-!" Neru tore her arms free of my grip and huffed. "Just what are trying to say, Kagamine?"

"Look, I'll explain later, we're more limited on time than we thought." I picked up a pen from our side table and surveyed the room for a blank paper. "I really, really, really hate to say this, but we may need to go through with your idea after all."

Cold wind sailed past our ears as wheels turned and pushed further and further down a winding sidewalk. One of Neru's arms were wrapped around my waist (after much resistance), while the other occupied a flashlight to clear a path through the dark of 10:52 PM.

Neru was wearing a hurriedly picked out ensemble of Rin's clothes, since hers were too wet and too thin to wear outside while it was so cold. It had not been a pleasant task, digging through Rin's disorganized drawers with her unmentionables mixed in with her trillions of shorts mixed in with her spare hair bows. Neru was stuck with a very mismatched puffy orange sweater and bright green shorts of just barely knee-length (I don't think Rin owns any normal pants). She looked like a pumpkin.

I'd known better than to leave the place a mess for my dad to find. I put back all of the items Neru had thrown at me in Rin's bathroom where they belonged, I wiped up the water drops resting on the staircase and the surrounding floor from Neru's attempted "escape." Not much could be done about the wet couch she had laid on other than to turn over the cushions. Because I didn't want dad to worry and call the police or do something else unhelpful, I wrote him a note and taped it on the door, which read:

Dad,

Rin and I are at a party that our classmates threw for us. I'll make sure she doesn't cause any problems. If we aren't back by 1 AM, it means we couldn't get a ride home. The address is on the back of the paper. Sorry for not calling.

-Len

I knew 1 AM was pushing it, but giving us only an hour to get into Hatsune's house and find the hostages wouldn't be long enough. And instead of just saying that someone's parents would drop us off home, it felt better to have dad as a backup in case we got into trouble. More trouble than we were already in, anyway. I wrote the address to Miku's house that Neru gave me and went for my coat.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't happy about lying to my dad. Lying isn't fun, whether they're little white lies or serious lies like the one I'd just scribbled on a piece of paper. How terrible was it to not tell a man that his own daughter had been kidnapped? I didn't even want to think about the consequences. But it's not as if I had a choice, my hands were tied. What else could we have done when not even the authorities would help us? No, the authorities were against us. Staying clear of them might've been the safest thing for us to do.

After giving Neru two cups of ramen and some tea, we headed out on my bike to Hatsune's house.

"So... you wanna tell me the big important breakthrough you came up with back there?"

Her voice was loud enough to cut through the whistling air behind us, where we'd been riding in complete silence except for the sound of wheels turning over subtle gravel.

"Oh, that," I'd completely forgotten that I hadn't explained it to Neru yet. "I didn't think you'd care, as long as we went with your idea."

"It's not like I do care or anything..." She shone the flashlight to the left. "But... you may as well tell me now that we have the chance."

"There's no need to pretend you're not curious." I veered the handles in the direction the light went. "If you really want to know, I'll tell you."

"Just who said I was curious? I could figure it out on my own if I wanted to."

I rolled my eyes. "Then why don't you?"

"Fine!" I felt her grip around my waist loosen. "I will."

We were quiet for a while longer.

"Akita, could it be that you're one of those, uhh..." I racked my brain for the term. "... tsundere types?"

"Wha..." She sputtered. "Who the hell are you calling tsundere?!" Her fist slammed onto my back and messed up my balance. We swerved left and right for a few havoc-filled seconds until I regained stability.

"Hey! I'm the one driving here! Don't start hitting me unless you want us both to get a faceful of concrete." I huffed, tightening my grip on the handlebars.

"Then don't go calling me a tsundere like you know me so well, Kagamine!"

"I don't have to know you well to tell that you're impossibly stubborn." I muttered. She didn't hear.

We returned to our routine of her guiding me throughout Sorairo with the flashlight. I didn't know what time it was, but I was starting to feel tired. Pedaling for the weight of two people at a time of day when I'd normally be asleep easily wore me down, and it showed. The only things keeping my eyes open were the occasional winds blowing into them.

"How much farther is Hatsune's house, anyway..." I proposed through a yawn, hoping that talking would help me stay awake.

Neru was slow to respond. "... Still a way's to go..." She sighed. "What did you expect? Someone like Miku wouldn't live around a place like this."

It made sense. I sighed an unmotivated sigh and struggled to keep my head up. "Why would you go all this way just to meet Hatsune for sleepovers...?"

"I dunno." I felt her shrug. "I guess it was worth it back then."

"My house is coming up. Stop here."

An estimated 40-50 minutes had gone by since leaving my house. In that time, it had become clear that both of us would pass out on the street if we rode much longer. I was relieved enough to hug her when Neru said that we could stop at her house for a break.

She and I both nearly collapsed on the ground getting off my bike. My legs were sore and ached from overuse, hers numb from almost an hour of inactivity. We stumbled our way to the front door down her driveway. Her house had a western look to it, completely white with pink flowers lining every visible window. The roof was arched instead of flat or pointed like most of the houses we'd passed by in the neighborhood, and her yard had dandelions, daisies popping out of the grass. Rectangular hedges with tulips peeking out of them surrounded the border of the house, sectioning it off from other houses. It was smaller than ours, distinctive and pleasant in its own way, but not at all the house I'd expected Neru to have. The way she had accused me of being innocent and a "goody two-shoes," I didn't think she'd have such a... cute, dollhouse-looking home.

Neru reached under the welcome mat on the doorstep and withdrew a key with a cat face chain on it. She opened the door and walked inside. I followed.

Slow piano music rolled into my ears and a flowery aroma filled my nose. Neru dropped her shoes in a convenient square wicker basket by the door. "I'm gonna go put on my own clothes. Leave your shoes there and sit or something." She called out, already disappearing down a hall. I placed my shoes alongside hers in the basket as told and idly leaned against a wall. There was a soft-looking rose-colored sofa not two feet away, but I chose not to sit in spite of my fatigue. I knew that if I relaxed for even one second, I'd fall asleep in an instant.

I kept myself distracted by observing the room. Painting after painting of flowers and scenery hung over maroon walls while potted plants dangled from the ceiling. The shelves held neatly aligned books of varying size and mahogany tables harbored flower vases. An easel stood near a broad window with a half-painted canvas balancing on the foothold.

Curiosity stemmed from boredom made me want to get a closer look at the painting. Someone like Neru probably wouldn't want me observing her house so much, but what damage could be done by looking at some artwork? I shrugged and walked towards it.

I stepped on a body behind the sofa.

Both of us shrieked. I tripped and landed on my back, but hurried to scramble away from it. All sleepiness and grogginess had instantly drained from my body, replaced by fear and panic. Slowly, the figure rose from the glossy hardwood floor, moaning like a ghost. I reached for the vase on a lowtable and raised it above my head, preparing to bring it down on the rising body the second it tried to attack me.

"Oh, geez... I fell asleep on the floor again..."

I stiffened as the sleepy female voice came from the stretching body. Squinting through the dim lighting of the room, I made out a paint-splattered apron and short red hair. The "body" belonged to a woman, who propped herself off of the ground and adjusted her glasses. I realized that this person might be a member of Neru's family, and I was the suspicious stranger in her home at night. I put the vase down.

"Neru-chan, is that you...?" She turned towards me blankly and took a step closer.

"Uhh... no. Sorry." I got off of the ground and sheepishly bowed my head. "I'm... a friend of hers. Something like that."

"Oh!" The woman beamed. "I see! A new friend of Neru-chan's. I'm her mother, it's so nice to meet you!" She clapped excitedly and tried to pat down her messy hair. Excitement and energy was evident on her face instead of suspicion or hostility. She didn't ask me a million questions or force me out of her house, just an earnestly welcoming grin. We stood in silence except for the piano music in the background.

"Erm..." She looked all around the room. "I don't see her anywhere, though..."

"She's... in her room, I think. Changing her clothes."

"Ah... alrighty then."

More uncomfortable silence.

"It looks dark out there... are you staying over for the night?"

"No, I'm waiting for her to come back out." I scratched the back of my head, choosing my words carefully. I had no idea I was that bad at talking to adults. If Rin were there, she would have chatted up a storm within seconds.

Then again, if Rin were there, I wouldn't have been struggling to make conversation in the first place. I stared at the floor.

"Are you okay? You don't look too good." She asked as she took off her apron and hung it on a coat rack.

"... Yeah." I lied. "Sorry."

"Oh, no, don't be sorry. There's nothing to apologize for." She said with a faint smile and shook her head. "Are you sure you're a friend of Neru-chan's? You're so polite."

It took me a while to realize that she was joking. I didn't say anything.

Why is Akita taking so long...

"How about some tea and castella?" She offered. "I was just thinking about making some for Neru-chan. It's her favorite, you know? They shouldn't take too long."

We really don't have the time to waste eating snacks... "Sure. Thanks."

"Mhm! No problem." She turned away from me and went to the mini-kitchen in the corner. Not wanting to just continue standing there, I took off my jacket and seated myself on the couch, waiting to see who would finish first, Neru's mother or Neru herself.

Her mom won. The flowery aroma lurking about the room was soon replaced by the permeating scent of castella. She came out from the kitchen holding a silver tray with cups and china on it, then moved around the decorations on the table in front of me and set it down.

Castella was brought over to Japan by European missionaries back in the 16th century. It's a pretty simple dish; a small, soft, usually rectangular vanilla sponge cake with no toppings. That's why I was surprised to see amanatto beans embedded in a black-colored castella being handed to me.

"Is this... burnt, or..." I couldn't help but ask. She laughed.

"Oh, it's not burnt, but I can see why you'd think so." She took a teacup from the tray. "I used black sesame and muscovado sugar to give it that color. Adds texture, too!"

"... Thanks..." I only stared at the dish. I didn't want to eat; I wanted Neru to come back out so we could get moving as soon as possible.

"Not hungry?" She looked up from her tea.

"Sorry. It looks good, but…" My eyes wandered to the clock. "I really need to speak to your daughter. We've got important things to do."

"Say no more, I gotcha." She waved her hand dismissively and placed her teacup on a coaster. "I'll go get her for you, okay? Just sit tight."

I thanked her as she fixed her slightly lopsided glasses and entered the same hallway Neru had disappeared in. It was good that her mother was so easygoing, my dad doesn't take surprises very well and might've attacked Neru with a fire extinguisher if he'd seen her in our house without me there to explain. Kind of similar to when I was going to hit her mom with a vase when I found her sleeping on the floor...

Anyways, it was 12:21 AM then. We had under an hour until my dad drove to Hatsune's house on his own to find only Rin, possibly endangering her even more since I wasn't supposed to tell anyone about this. I was antsy and restless, retying my ponytail again and again while tapping my foot, impatient. Minutes later, her mother returned without Neru. I raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry! I hope you can wait just a little bit longer. You'll have to forgive Neru-chan, she fell asleep in her room half-dressed."

Neru had finally come out of her room with a backpack after being woken up by her mom. It took 9 minutes for her to finish getting dressed and come up with a good excuse to explain why two kids needed to go out alone at 12:30 at night. She seemed uncomfortable telling a lie to her mom and rushed outside immediately after, leaving me alone with her as I hurried to put on my coat.

A footstep out the doorway, she reached for my shoulder to stop me from leaving again. "One last thing! I almost forgot. You still haven't told me your name!"

"Oh. It's Kagamine Len." I thought she was going to call me out on Neru's lie. "... It was nice meeting you, Aki-"

The teacup she held fell to the ground instantly and shattered against the hardwood floor. Her hands flew to cover her mouth. Stepping back in surprise, I watched Neru's mother drop to her knees lifelessly and shake with trepidation. "K..." She stuttered. "Kaga... mine... Len...?" Wild eyes slowly turned on me, wide and afraid and filled with anxiety.

"A... are you okay?" The shards of the broken glass must have cut her when she fell, there was blood slowly flowing out from beneath her knees. "Wh—what do I-"

"You are... Kagamine Len...?" Her voice was quiet and wavery. "Wh... why are... you both..."

"Akita-san, you're bleedi—"

"Kagamine, come on!" Neru yelled from the front of the house, completely unaware of what was happening to her mom. "Weren't you the one who said we were limited on time?"

Looking back and forth between the two of them, hesitant and indecisive, I had no idea what to do. Here was Neru's very, very strange mother, going into some sort of shock because I told her my name and Neru waiting for me to get on the bike so that we wouldn't have to hand over her very, very strange mother to Hatsune. I checked the clock again. 12:35 AM.

"Damn it... Sorry, Akita-san, I don't know what... I can't..." She was still unresponsive with no reaction to her injury, possibly unaware that she was hurt at all. With little resolve, I took a deep breath, ignoring the red slipping into cracks between the floorboards, and lifted Neru's mother off of the ground. I unflatteringly carried her like a wet towel over my shoulder and quickly laid her down on her couch. Numerous shards, small and large, were sticking out of her bare legs.

"KAGAMINE! GET OUT HERE!" She shouted from outside a second time. 12:37 AM. We needed to get going.

"Sorry, Akita-san..." I ran after Neru, leaving her mother in that same confused state as she mumbled more incomprehensible things about me.

Why did she freak out when I told her my name?

Does Neru's mother know me somehow?

Is Neru hiding something from me?

Can I really trust Neru?

Why did Hatsune tell Neru to bring me along with her?

Didn't Neru say Hatsune had a nervous breakdown in her house once?

Are these two incidents related to each other in some way?

What's really going on here?

"Akita... is your mom sick?"

Fifteen minutes of distance were put between us and Neru's home. We were out of Sorairo County by then, on the outermost extremities of Ejima. It's structured in a pretty weird way; the most metropolitan areas are located in the very center of the city, and it gets less inhabited and more isolated as you go further away in diameter, like a big circle. There weren't anymore houses in our way, just the road and 30 foot tall trees passing us by in blurs of dark green. I chose not to tell her about what had happened until I calmed down enough to think straight.

"Sick?" She repeated. "She wasn't this morning. What're you asking that for?"

"Not sick as in a cold," I started. "Sick as in... in the head."

"What? What are you even talking about?"

I couldn't think of a way to ask without offending her. "Nevermind."

"... Weirdo." She muttered quietly.

So I let the topic stand idle for the rest of the ride, not doing anything with it but not forgetting about it either. The way Neru's mother just broke down suddenly was too unsettling to ignore. She'd probably be okay... it didn't seem like she had lost so much blood that it'd be a threat to her life. I had too many things to worry about over my head to think too much about that woman's outburst. But still...

Suddenly, Neru flicked the back of my head. "Hey! You missed it! We were supposed to stop back there."

"Huh?" I dragged the heel of my shoes in the ground to bring the bike to a stop. She quickly hopped off and gestured for me to follow her.

There were only a bunch of trees where she was heading. "Akita, I don't see any house over there."

"Of course you wouldn't! It's in here." Neru stepped over a bush and pointed the flashlight through the thicket of branches. The light she swung around felt infinitely small compared to the monstrously thick layers of darkness underneath the sea of trees. You don't even have to ask if I was scared; I was, I definitely was. Part of me wanted to grab the flashlight and get the hell out of there, while the other part of me knew that that would be stupid and inconducive to rescuing my sister. It was my decision to go through with Neru's plan, after all. I had a strong hunch that Hatsune was buying time for herself, and that's why she drugged Neru - to end the fight quickly and thus keep Neru from pursuing her for as long as possible. Chances are Hatsune didn't use anything worse than a few sleeping pills, which would have made it impossible for me to go after her because I needed Neru to tell me what to do.

That also ties into how Hatsune told us to meet at 6:30 PM, four hours after school ends. After-school club activities don't take any longer than two hours, which would leave the school emptied out by 4:30 PM. If she only wanted to wait until the time when no one would be around, then 5 PM at the most should've been perfect. Instead, she chose to meet an hour and a half later. That led me to believe that Hatsune was stalling for something, or that she had a strict schedule she needed to follow in order for her plan to work. A strong sleeping pill would keep Neru unconscious for six to eight hours, probably, leaving her unable to do anything until tomorrow. What Hatsune didn't count on was Rin. She had no way of knowing that Rin would follow me there. I think it would've actually been me getting kidnapped and driven away in that long black car if it hadn't been for my sister. Because of that, she improvised and took Rin along instead, not seeing any point in taking both of us since we'd both be helpless as long as Neru was asleep. If I hadn't been so impatient and turned cold shower water on her, things might've gone exactly as Hatsune had planned. That's the reason why I figured it'd be best if we left immediately to catch her off guard.

Of course, I could've been utterly, completely wrong. Those were only my assumptions based on a few coincidences. Who knows, we could've been walking right into a trap, but I felt a lot better trying to do something than waiting at home for Neru to wake up.

"Kagamine, quit standing there already! It's this way!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming."

Neru got tired a few minutes after walking on her own, so I ended up having to carry her again and left my bike behind. Ducking under branches and avoiding tripping over roots was a pain, especially with her on my back complaining about everything despite insisting that we needed to stay quiet. Every so often I stepped on a twig or a bunch of dead leaves and Neru would squeeze my shoulder to stop and listen to see if anyone was following us, which was nerve-wracking and annoying.

"Can't use it any closer than this, they'll see us." She turned off the flashlight.

"I can't see us either." I wasn't making a joke; we were completely swallowed up by the dark the second the light disappeared. I couldn't even see my own hands, much less the supposed house we were looking for.

"Quiet." Neru whispered. "No more talking from here on out. And let me down."

The seriousness of her tone made me nervous. I did as she asked.

She took my hand in hers and tugged on it for me to follow her. I could vaguely make out her bright orange-yellow hair, but other than that, the only sign that Neru was there at all was the ghostly feeling of her cold hand leading me forward.

I regretted the entire thing as soon as I saw the house come into view. If the trees around us were 30 feet tall, Hatsune's house must've been at least 60. It was pure white, making it stand out enough to be visible. I won't bother giving you more estimated measurements, so just imagine a really, really, really, really, really big house and multiple that by two. That's what I was looking at.

Neru didn't react at all and simply continued on. I heard her panting lowly as she led us to an inconspicuous clearing between the forest and Hatsune's house, getting slower but persistently moving forward unlike before. I think I could understand why she was suddenly so determined. Rin and her friend were close. The sooner we got in that house, the sooner we could find them, get out, and put an end this nightmare.

"Through... here." She wheezed. "Don't make... any noise..."

We pushed through some bushes and found ourselves coming out through a clearing of grass. Hatsune's house was just 20 feet away from us and there was no other way to get closer without running across out in the open. I couldn't tell if her guards were nearby or make out any cameras, leaving us blind to the dangers of getting caught.

I sound just like a bank robber...

"We're gonna run as fast as we... can... and go to that pile of... bricks... over there. See it?" Neru pointed at a very dull spot of brownish-red resting next to the white of the house. I nodded.

"Good." She said, squeezing my hand tightly. "Ready?"

My heart pounded against my chest. It was still hard to accept that we were seriously about to break into someone's house. Heck, it was still hard to accept that I was in this mess, period. I kept wondering throughout the ride here whether or not I was having some wild dream, that Neru was just some strange girl I'd conjured up who didn't really exist. I wasn't ready at all.

"Uhh... yeah. I guess."

"Okay, come on!"

It wasn't nearly as dangerous as Neru made it out to be. She tripped over a sprinkler on the way to the other side and I had to carry her bridal-style (again) for the remaining 10 feet, but if you ignore that little incident, we made it to the bricks without any problems. There wasn't even a single guard in sight to bother us. Which was... unnaturally serendipitous. Neru—did—shriek a little when she fell down, but not even one guard came. With a house like that one, there should've been at least a few people outside to protect it from robbers (like us)...

Neru wasn't concerned at all, though. She didn't try to catch her breath, just began to unstack the bricks against the wall as soon as I put her down.

"What the hell... they're way... way heavier than before..." She groaned, unable to lift any of them.

"Move, I'll do it."

Neru stubbornly continued trying to pick them up. "Grrr... why can't I..."

"Hey, I got it. Relax." I demonstrated this by grabbing a brick with both hands and pretty easily lifting it off of the pile. "You can't do everything you could before, remember? Drugged."

"Ugh... pain in the ass... Miku... When I get the... chance, I'll—"

"Akita." I interrupted suddenly.

"I'll destroy that psycho! And if she ever—"

"Akita!" I squeezed her shoulder.

"What? What? What's the holdup?" She faced me.

"... Turn around."

Five feet behind us, two enormous bulldogs crouched, alert on their heels, snarling, growling, seconds away from attacking the both of us.

A/N: Phew. Writing this took nearly an entire month. It's the longest chapter since CH1, and also the most eventful! After this, though, I don't know how long it'll be until the next. With two consecutive deaths in the family, writing this became less of a personal project and more of a chore. I need a little break. Because of this, the next chapter may not appear until next month!

P.S. Len calling Neru by her last name in dialogue and her first name out of dialogue is intentional.