Pre-Chapter Notes:

- Trivia: This is the longest chapter so far. You can blame Kanako and Suwako for that, and also for late-night writings fueled by chainsaws with e's. Also, title chapter is from In a Big Country by Big Country, like the other AyaHata fic I have, just because I can.

- Trigger Warning: Self-harm, mentions of murder with sharp things/blades. By the way, if you've forgotten, all the past trigger warnings from the other chapters still apply to the entirety of the fic unless/until I say so.

- To reviewers and readers: Thank you very much! This fic is going to end soon, perhaps at around ten chapters, so I can give way to start on the rest of my AU ideas. I have... way too many, suffice to say. (Yes, they're all AyaHata.)

She shakes her head immediately. It's no big surprise. The fear is visible in her brown eyes, swimming with confusion and almost what looks like anger, but it's not like Aya can blame her. She's quite angry with Kanako, too, anyway.

"It's okay, I'll speak for you," the reporter starts to say, but the brunette is still shaking her head. Aya pauses, a little confused, as she stares at Hatate. "Um… is it something a little more specific than I'm used to?"

A nod. Then Hatate looks away, much to Aya's surprise. A small, tiny, tiny voice; "You can't."

"W… What do you mean I… can't?"

Hatate shakes her head again, but doesn't elaborate this time. Aya frowns. This won't do. Could it be from her nightmare? Well, her mother did just recently pass away, and…

"Hey, Hata, what if I receive her questions and you answer to me?" the reporter suggests.

Hatate looks up. She blinks. "Would that be okay?"

"Sure, it'll be fine, and it might be a little tricky, but maybe if you write some of it down, I can read from it and…" she trails off, a little unsure about it. Is Hatate comfortable about writing as her form of communication? Probably not, but if it's writing to Aya, then maybe…

The reporter is, of course, surprised at the small nod the brunette gives. "Wait, really? Alright, that's… um, great!" It's definitely something new… but it is great. She supposes. "Okay, then, just, let me…"

"You're taking way too long in there, aren't you?!" an angered voice shouts from below. "What the hell are you two doing?! Now's not the time for a make-out session! We're trying to figure out a murder case, for the love of God!"

Hatate flushes bright red, but Aya only hears the latter part of the loud exclamation. "Murder case? But isn't this just a kind of complicated suicide…?" That does remind her – why had the police come to Hatate's house on the same day Mrs. Himekaidou had died, and why had there been investigators all around the suicide scene? Suicides happen all the time in Japan, especially within Aokigahara. How is this one so special?

"I think I have some questions for this lady, too," Aya mutters under her breath, before gently taking the brunette's hand in hers. Hatate looks up at the reporter, almost confused. "Hey, um, Hata. I think… no, I'm sure there's something off about your mother's… your mother's, um, situation. And. I just, I think you'd want to hear about this sort of thing. So, if you can come down with me, and…"

Aya sees the beginnings of a head-shake, and she mentally smacks herself – of course the brunette would be opposed to the idea, she witnessed the scene with Kanako and the other blonde in school, she'd be at least somewhat intimidated by them! Why had she even bothered?

Another look at the brunette shows that she is actually nodding her head.

Oh.

Man, is she pissed.

It's not like Kanako asked for this job. Mostly, it's for Suwako, and because it'd just feel weird to be sitting around the house all day while her wife went out and did all the work. She's all for relaxing and drinking sake and telling Sanae old wives' stories, but then she'd just feel bad to see Suwako go home after two straight days of staying awake and suitcases hanging under her eyes.

For the first few weeks, months even, maybe, she was fine with it. Sure, getting answers out of stubborn suspects was frustrating as all hell, but it all worked out fine in the end somehow. It always did. And that's where she comes back to: she sure as hell hopes this entire murder case will be figured out by the end of the week or some such.

Soichiro Shameimaru, killed in his flat by a pair of scissors, which were taken out as soon as the police turned their backs. Nobody had ever found out who had killed him, even after a year or two, and so the case was closed. Needless to say, Sanae had wanted to follow in her mothers' footsteps, and decided to snoop around that certain case. About a day after she had reopened the case and directed everyone to the Himekaidou household, she had told Kanako everything, and that she hadn't actually been expecting to find a likely suspect that hadn't already been suspected.

Too bad that suspect was dead. And her note: your dad caught up to me, what the hell was that supposed to mean? For the love of Christ, Kanako thought, if it meant that Hilda Himekaidou had been haunted by the ghost of Soichiro Shameimaru and eventually killed herself from it, then Kanako was going to blow a fucking fuse. This is not a horror story. This is a murder case. And Kanako is going to solve this fucking murder case, or so help her, and everyone who gets in her way.

Finally, after, like, what, two hours? The two students come down, one looking vaguely irritated, one with her shoulders hunched. Thank God, she thinks. If they had taken any longer, Kanako would have stomped over to their refrigerator and eaten raw meat or something just to spite them. Or to spite herself – same thing, in the end.

"About time," she hisses, before clearing her throat and attempting a cordial response. "Let me ask you some very important questions that I demand you fucking answer or I will eat your lettuce." It does not work. She is not surprised.

"Sorry, but can I ask a few questions of my own?" Aya – that Goddamn kid who won't stay out of business that isn't hers – asks. She places a hand over her chest for some reason. Dramatic effect? If she isn't approaching forty, Kanako would have guffawed. "I heard you say 'murder case', but this is just a regular suicide, isn't it? Why are you all treating this as so important? If the police really do this for all normal suicides, maybe you should go over to Aokigahara? I wonder if you would be able to stay in there without getting scared by the ghosts?"

Oh, my God, Kanako thinks, her face a blank sheet of stone. This fucking kid. Suwako would be so much better for this job. "This is not an ordinary suicide. Hell, we aren't even investigating this because of the suicide," – 'well, of course we aren't, you fucking idiot, why the fuck would we' – "we're investigating this shit because of the murder Hilda Himekaidou supposedly committed. She's a suspect in a murder case from years ago, and a certain someone just opened it back up, and so we're taking another look at this so we can get that Goddamn case out of the way." A pause. "Also, who the fuck gave you permission to ask me, a fucking police officer, questions?"

"A murder?" the reporter gasps, completely ignoring the rest of Kanako's speech. Jesus Christ, what she would give for a drink right now. "Mrs. Himekaidou might've killed someone. She's a suspect… for a murder case…" Aya whirls around to face the brunette, who's shaking like it's snowing in the house. (Well, it's not like Kanako can really blame her, especially since people had been talking about her recently deceased mother having possibly committed murder.) "H-Hata, your dad…"

Hatate's shaking intensifies. Poor kid looks like she's ready to fold.

"Your dad… he's never around whenever I visit… is he…"

"He is dead," comes the mechanical voice from the brunette, her shivering having stopped cold. Not exactly what Kanako had expected from Hatate, but… "He is dead. I never knew him."

There's something in the brunette's dry, throaty, almost croaky voice that scares the police officer – something that reminds her of death and darkness and what-could-have-beens, something that would make someone like her, someone who has faced grisly murder scenes and torn intestines and run-over corpses wince. There is something in Hatate Himekaidou's voice that is not healthy.

It's almost like she's possessed by her mother's ghost.

As for Aya, well, she's thoroughly freaked out, that much is certain, as one can observe by the way the reporter's eyes are bulging wide and her knees are knocking together.

"H-Hatate?"

"He is dead," Hatate continues, her voice now low and can barely be heard. "Dead and gone. Life drained. Eyes blank. Chest still. Nothing can change that." Then she rises slightly to look Kanako in the eye, and quite suddenly, their noses are just touching each other by the slightest bit. The brunette's voice echoes; "Why bother? The answer is clear. I'm sure my mother killed him. Who else would have done it? Why else would dear mother treat me like this for the past seventeen years? If I were not born, perhaps father would still be alive." She tilts her head at a near ninety-degree angle, which Kanako is sure is impossible by human standards, but a crazy thought runs through her brain that maybe Hatate Himekaidou doesn't exactly fit the definition of human. "If father had chosen logic over love, maybe he would still be alive, and I would be another star in the sky, alive and dead at the same time, just how I would like it."

It's the most she's spoken in a long time, Kanako can tell, judging by the sound of her voice. Scratchy. Hissy. Above all: dead. Brown eyes vacant, Hatate steps back a few ways until she's beside Aya once more, still keeping that horrifyingly empty expression on her face. "There is nothing else I know about mother, and what she might have done to dear father. Ask someone else."

That's all Kanako needs to hear before she stands up, pushes her chair back, and heads out the house.

Kids these days. No, more accurately: parents these days. Thank God Sanae's my kid, she thinks.

"So we have no leads. How fucking lovely," Suwako drones, throwing her arms up in the air. Kanako shrugs out of her jacket and hangs it on a nearby peg, sitting back down by her desk. Suwako continues; "What in the living hell do we do now? Sit around and Google shit until we get lucky?"

"We could ask Sanae," Kanako suggests. The blonde's mouth drops. Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell her that it was Sana who reopened the case. Oops.

"She is a shrine maiden in training, Kana," Suwako says, clearly annoyed. "You really think she can help out with a murder case?"

"Well, she did reopen the case and told us about our new favorite dead suspect."

"She… what?"

Yeah, that's what she thought, Kanako supposes, as Suwako attempts to make a coherent sentence but fails as her voice all but dies down to a gurgling noise.

A few more minutes later, after a demanded explanation from the police officer, Suwako is back on her computer, typing furiously in the Google search engine. "I can't believe this. I cannot, literally, believe this." She almost wrenches out the Enter key from her pure rage. Kanako flinches as the loud click sound echoes in the office. "Fine. Whatever. Our daughter has mad detective skills and she should probably get a job here instead, but right now, our main priority is to get this stupid case out of the way."

"We have no leads, or clues, except for maybe that Hatate kid's testimony that Mother Himekaidou really is the one who killed Shameimaru."

"We have established that," Suwako hisses through gritted teeth. She mashes the Page Down button furiously. "Can you take a look at the evidence, then, Kana? I think the two sisters brought some stuff back, could be useful."

"Alright. Try not to pull out too many of those keys." She leaves the office to the sound of Suwako's enraged yelling and the painful noises of a fist against the spacebar.

In the evidence room, the two Aki sisters are supposedly guarding it, which is to say they're poking around various items and chatting animatedly to themselves such as who asked who out and who dumped who. Of course, once Kanako enters the room, they quickly clam up and cower in one corner of the room. Shizuha mutters something to Minoriko, and the younger sister hides a smile. One glare turns that smile into a quiet yelp.

"Suwako said new evidence recently arrived?"

Minoriko jumps. "Y-Yes, ma'am! In Mrs. Himekaidou's bed, we found, u-um…"

"A pair o' scissors," Shizuha finishes, crossing her arms and trying to uphold a tough front. "It looks pretty clean, but it makes no sense to have some scissors in between mattresses, right?"

Kanako grunts and leaves it at that. She ignores the fuming Shizuha at the corner of her eye as she moves towards the edge of the table, where new evidence is usually placed. Indeed, it is a pair of scissors, dark violet with still-sharp gleaming blades. It makes no sense why the thing would still be in tip-top shape, especially since most items between mattresses would typically be forgotten and left to rot until they turned into tsukomogami or some other child's tale, but this thing seemed to be cared for… however one can care for a pair of scissors, anyway.

She picks it up and holds it up close, peering at it intently. There's something off about this pair of scissors. It doesn't look like it had been used very recently, seeing as it had been squished between mattresses, but…

… killed in his flat by a pair of scissors, which were taken out as soon as the police turned their backs…

"No way," Kanako breathes. The scissor blades are gleaming and bright white, as if they've never been used, never cut or stabbed, never been plunged into a man's throat and used to rip out veins and arteries…

She shoves the scissors towards the two sisters, who jump in surprise. (And this time, it's not like she can seriously call them cowards, because she's a hot-blooded woman holding a sharp object, hello.) "Do a forensic analysis on this right now. Make it fast or I'll use these to go snip-snap on your arms, for God's sake."

"R-Right away!" Minoriko squeaks, taking the scissors into her shaking hands and nearly dropping it twice on the tiled floor. Shizuha ushers her sister out of the evidence room and slams the door shut behind them.

Kanako pinches the bridge of her nose, closes her eyes, and counts one to ten. This fucking murder case. She still doesn't see what Sanae likes so much about detective work.

Why had she done that? Oh, God, why had she done that? What had gotten into her?

They're back in Hatate's room again, with the brunette seemingly back to normal, shaking and shivering and overall distressed over her previous actions. God, what had that been? Why the hell did I do that? How the hell did I do that?

"Hata?"

Oh, God, no, please, anyone but Aya –

"Hatate, it's… yeah, no, it's not okay. But you just have to… to calm down. Take a minute to breathe. Just… Just be still and… and talk to me," the reporter murmurs, tapping their foreheads together as a rough hand delicately traces the brunette's jaw line. It makes Hatate shiver, but for a different reason this time.

But she does do as Aya says, does her best to stop her cowardly trembling, takes deep breaths and shakily lets them back out. She doesn't know if it's working, exactly, but she is calming down some, her shivers dying down until only her chest is moving, in, out, in, out.

Peaceful.

"You okay now?" Aya asks, voice barely more than a whisper. Hatate musters up the strength for a weak nod, groping around blindly to grab Aya's free hand and grip it tightly. It's like her lifeline now, her only salvation, her last hope to keep going on. And damn if it isn't working. She feels a smile on the reporter's face as she says, "That's good. I… I'm sorry it didn't work out like how we planned it, me getting questions and you giving answers, but…"

It's not like it would have worked out any other way, no matter what you might have done, Hatate thinks, just to fill up the empty space in Aya's trailing words. The brunette sighs, the sound tremendous in the now-silent room, as Aya grips her hand one last time and pulls away.

(Hatate almost wants to pull her back, but remembers that she's already in the darkest bottom of the pit, and there's no helping her now.)

"That cutter over there," Aya whispers. "Why is it…"

The brunette pauses, before she takes off the gloves on her arms and unravels the stained bandages under it, nearly wrenching them off with how disgusting she feels. And there are cuts – shallow but long ones, twisting and curving every which way, designed to look like a tattoo of her failures. She's cut before, but it's never actually been this sort of way, like the waving wind and the swirling seas crashing together to form a haphazard arrangement of pain.

She can hear Aya's stifled gasp, can feel the reporter's touch drifting over the entirety of her shame. Hatate can hear the soft murmur of Aya's voice, "Hatate", and she feels so tired. She just wants to sleep, to lean against Aya and never ever have to worry about anything ever again. But the cuts will remain, the scars will not heal, and they will be there to remind her of her existence in this accursed world.

It hurts, she thinks, almost absentmindedly, and it's not going to get better, but I think I would like to rest for now.

The next day is a whirlwind of activities.

When Aya gets back to school, Nitori's jumping over her in both excitement and anxiety bunched up in one, asking questions in rapid-fire like her mouth is a machine gun. Momiji intercepts before the blue-haired girl goes wild and starts foaming at the mouth.

"We heard Hatate's mother… died," Momiji starts, and Aya's confused expression drops to be replaced by a scowl.

"Where… Who did you hear that from?"

"We got Sanae to tell us under the condition that we don't talk about it to anyone else." She frowns. "We haven't, don't worry. But… is it true?"

"… Yeah," Aya says, to which her voice drops down to a whisper. "Suicide. Apparently, it's connected to a murder case, but I don't know much about it, so don't bother asking me. Plus, it probably isn't safe to talk about something like this in, well, school…"

"Good point." Momiji sighs, before leading Nitori away, the pigtailed student still flailing about and her aqua eyes wide in shock. As soon as the two figures turn the corner and disappear from Aya's sight, the reporter sighs and leans against a wall to steady herself. God, these events were taking a toll on her, especially since her grades have been dropping and she hasn't had much time to write many articles for the October issue. Thankfully, there was still a number of days until the distribution date, but with Hatate clearly out of commission for the time being…

Well, she's done it by herself time and time again. What's another month alone going to change?

Rikako looks over the pair of scissors one last time before handing it back to the waiting Kanako. Goodness, that woman has never been able to be at least somewhat patient. "It's old, ridiculously old, and I can't see why it hasn't at least rusted a little yet. A curious case if ever I've seen one, especially since there's the faintest hint of blood on it."

"Blood?" Kanako all but blurts out, eyes wide. "You're serious. Blood. Whose blood?"

"I'm not sure myself." Her violet eyes narrow behind glinting glasses. "It's old enough that the blood has all but disappeared, leaving only the faintest inkling, so there could be a number of suspects. Want me to keep it for a little longer and investigate more?"

"No, wait, here–" Kanako fumbles with the scissors a bit, before handing it back to the scientist and forming her words into a coherent sentence. Dear me, what's gotten into her? Is this case with the scissors really so important? "Try to see if the blood matches this man. Soichiro Shameimaru. If not, see if it's Hilda Himekaidou's, or any other person related to her."

"It'll be done." Rikako takes the scissors back and places it next to her laptop, before pushing her glasses up her nose and sighing. She hasn't gotten much sleep lately – there've been a number of cases that she has to investigate an item or seven, and so it's been a little troublesome. At least she's got Rika to help.

Kanako looks the scientist over with scouring eyes. "What about you take a look at those scissors and see if they match the blood, report back to me, then take a few days off? You've been investigating stuff with Sanae as well, haven't you?"

… Ah. How had she known that? "I… might have. It's just, it's not like I can say no to her–"

"Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Hurry up with your job and your relaxing time speeds up." Then the police officer walks away, back to her wife's office.

Rikako picks up the scissors, looks them over, and sighs. Maybe she can stick with this job a little longer.

Cuts heal over time. But some scars stay.

Hatate drags herself over next to the trash can, where it's still filled with scraps of paper, many torn and crumpled and folded, and also where the bloodied cutter lies.

She picks it up and draws a line at the edge of her wrist, before throwing it away in the trash can, amongst the mounds of paper. Right where it belongs.

She's been doing nothing but lying around in her bed and thinking for so very long, and all her thoughts lead to one thing – the question of why. Of course, there are a number of questions within the why: why does my mother have to be a suspect? Why does my father have to be dead? Why does it have to be me with the dysfunctional family, or lack thereof? Why do I have to live this way, with claws dripping shadows on the floor and a hideous self that I can't get rid of?

The questions have remained unanswered ever since she thought of them.

She tries. Oh, how hard she tries. She tries to calm herself down, to stop her thoughts from running amok, to remember Aya and how her presence is the best thing she can ask for. But she can't, because the scars that run over her arms, up and down and left and right, keep reminding her of who she is and why. She wishes she hadn't done it, wishes she hadn't grabbed the cutter from her drawer in a fit of rage and dug the blade deep into her flesh and wished it would pierce something vital, wishes she hadn't dragged it lightly across her neck and almost stabbed herself right then and there.

How she wishes.

God, what is she even – what is she even good for? The only thing she actually knows how to do right is writing for a newspaper nobody actually reads, and–

Her breath hitches.

Her hacking.

The days spent in her room solitarily scrolling through the Internet hadn't been wasted – years and years spent learning how to dig deep through the codes buried behind bright and flashy screens, learning how to extract lines of letters and numbers that wouldn't make sense to anyone else, learning how to manipulate them to do exactly as she wants them to. Learning.

How could she have forgotten?

The yellow-checkered phone is in her hands in an instant, calligraphy brush dangling from it as she boots it up and allows her fingers to fly across the screen, intent on causing pure, absolute destruction. There's nothing else she's good for. So why bother being good for something if all she can do is break things?

And that's why she is going to dismantle websites everywhere, one by one, just to vent. She can't be bothered to think straight by this point; she just wants to watch the world burn, wants to watch entire universes fall apart by her hands in a simple flip-phone that everyone insists is out-of-date. Screw them. Screw this.

The only thing that exists now is the cyber network, Hatate Himekaidou, and her keyboard.

Break it to pieces. Take them apart. She'll see it through until she can make sure her horrid, horrid emotions have faded away. It's what she's always done before, when her mother screams and yells and shrieks at her – but now she's dead, and she's doing it for that. She's doing it for mother.

She's done this millions of times, destroying coded galaxies with sharp fingers. What's another time to everything else?

It's ten in the evening when the news arrives, and eleven when they finally get everything sorted out.

"Let's arrange this nice and slowly," Suwako says, evidently still a little peeved at the thought of Sanae and detective in the same sentence. "Alright. So. Soichiro Shameimaru lived in Japan, married Makiko Shameimaru and had a kid they named Aya. About a few months after that, Soichiro flew to America on a business trip, but fell in love with Hilda Himekaidou. I think these documents are fake, they don't exactly look legit, so I'm gonna guess it was something like a one night stand. Anyway, that's where the trail stops. I can't find anything else." She glances over at Kanako, who's sitting beside her and listening intently. "Fill in the gaps with what you've found out."

Kanako clears her throat. "Fine. From the murder scene, Soichiro was killed in his flat by a pair of scissors that disappeared when no one was looking. Maybe about a month after that, Hilda moved to Japan for some reason. Her kid, that Hatate girl, was born on March 14, 1997, and from what I can gather, Hilda moved to Japan at around September 1996, eight or so months before Hatate was born, and since Soichiro was killed at August 1996, a month before that, we can probably assume that Hilda was pregnant with Hatate at around the same time Soichiro was killed.

"Then we found this." She holds up the pair of scissors, glinting unnaturally in the dim office light. "Asakura ran a forensic analysis on this and found hints of blood long washed away. She compared it to the blood of Soichiro Shameimaru's, and it was a near-perfect match. As I said, Soichiro was killed by a pair of scissors that were taken away as soon as the police turned their backs, and we found these scissors in between Hilda's mattresses. Also, in her note, she mentioned that she committed suicide due to Hatate's father having 'caught up to her' or something. That probably means she had been close to insanity to start thinking that Soichiro's ghost was haunting her, which drove her to suicide.

"In addition to that, we have Hatate Himekaidou's testimony that it's likely that Hilda killed Soichiro, for a reason we won't be able to find out. Makiko and Aya Shameimaru also said that he, Soichiro, had somehow disappeared during his business trip and never returned despite having said that he was to return in two months' time, and that had clearly never happened for obvious reasons."

After a slight pause, the blonde sighs and leans back heavily into her chair, eyes narrowed – or are they just heavily-lidded? Either way, she looks more tired than Kanako's ever seen her, and the police officer doesn't like it. "In conclusion, it's likely that Hilda Himekaidou killed Soichiro Shameimaru at the same time she was pregnant with Hatate. She was also probably the one who nicked the murder weapon when no one was looking, cleaned it until it fucking sparkled, but never threw it away for some demented reason. And because she didn't want the police to find her, she moved to Japan, where Soichiro lived, and raised her kid there. Judging by her note and her kid's mannerisms, it's safe to assume that she verbally assaulted Hatate due to bad anger management and the guilt of her murder."

Suwako closes the window and turns her laptop off, closing it once the screen goes dark. Then she sighs a very big, very tired sigh. "I'm exhausted and I'm in kind of a bad mood. Can we get some ice cream before we close the case?"

Kanako smiles, this one out of actual, genuine happiness rather than the crazed one she sometimes wears during particularly sadistic interrogations. It's what Suwako does to her sometimes. "Whatever you say. We should get some for Sanae too, don't you think?"

Aokigahara is a forest in Japan infamous for the multiple people who have died/committed suicide there, and Hatate's birthday is on March 14 because that's the same date Double Spoiler was released. Sue me.

Next part: The murder arc is closed up nicely with a flashback, so you guys can get all the details.

Slacker, 1/25/15