Detective Izumi Shingo felt he should have seen it coming; who had more experience than he did with mortally wounded bodies getting up and simply walking away? He hadn't believed that Eiji would restore Ankh, though, no matter what Hina said about Ankh coming from the future. It wasn't that he didn't believe his sister; it was more that he knew how much Eiji wanted Ankh to come back, and Eiji's enthusiasm was contagious. He was willing to believe she thought she'd seen Ankh more readily than that the projection of the monster that had worn his body for a year had followed a Kamen Rider into the past.
Truth be told, Shingo wasn't sure how he felt about Ankh; there were days he actually missed having someone else inside his head, days when the silence felt unbearably lonely. It wasn't something he could readily explain. His first reaction to seeing what was clearly Ankh wearing Eiji was something he would never admit; it had been now Eiji knows what it feels like.
Partly for that reason, Shingo suggested that Hidari start the legwork of looking for Ankh in the surrounding neighborhood while he went to the hospital to speak with the staff. He wasn't ready to see Ankh, not yet, and he knew Ankh wouldn't have returned to the hospital. The look Hidari gave him said that he knew perfectly well Shingo was avoiding said legwork, although Shingo didn't think Hidari knew why.
The hospital was precisely as productive as Shingo thought it would be; he learned nothing he hadn't known from the file, except that several people had seen Eiji leaving. They just hadn't connected the blond wearing too much eyeliner with their comatose Yamada Taro. He caught up with Hidari outside a convenience store a few blocks away. "Yo," he said.
"Anything?" Hidari asked.
Shingo shook his head. "You?"
"Nothing," Hidari said, disgust evident. "It's like he was trying to disappear."
Shingo didn't think Ankh was trying to disappear, necessarily, but even having had Ankh in his head for a year didn't make him easy to predict. "Try the local parks," he said. "He still needs to sleep."
"Parks," Hidari said flatly, clearly doubting Shingo's insight.
"He likes trees," Shingo said.
"Of course he does." Hidari did not look reassured.
"Because he's a bird," Shingo clarified.
Hidari's look of skepticism deepened.
"Did no one explain this to you at all?" Shingo rubbed the bridge of his nose with one hand. "The Greeed, the Yummy, any of it?"
"The Kougami Foundation is reluctant to share some of their information," Hidari said.
"Then please take this on faith," Shingo said. "Ankh's base is avian, and when he was possessing me, he spent more time than not sitting in trees. Or on something else high."
"Your sister may have mentioned possession," Hidari said.
"It's a wild story," Shingo acknowledged. "Let's try the parks." It was dark enough out that Shingo didn't think they'd necessarily be able to see Ankh even if they walked past him.
Not finding Ankh meant that Hidari only looked at Shingo more skeptically; he wasn't even trying to hide it. Shingo didn't necessarily care. He'd handled too much skepticism when he'd first gone back to work to be uncomfortable seeing it on the face of a man Ankh had only met briefly while wearing Shingo's body and whom Shingo hadn't met at all before the previous week.
Morning brought with it a thought that Ankh might possibly go looking for something familiar, particularly if Eiji wasn't conscious enough to answer questions. Shingo headed for the nearest train stations, Hidari following him without much objection. It was more or less Shingo's case now, he felt, no matter what the Kougami Foundation had to say about it. Eiji was his family before he was their employee.
The second train station brought their first success – one of the employees not only remembered Ankh's distinctly spiky hair, particularly coupled with Eiji's salt-stained and worse-for-the-wear clothing, but knew what train he'd boarded. "We're lucky," Shingo said. "Next stop for that one is Sapporo Station."
"Oh, good," Hidari said.
They weren't that far behind Ankh, and his eccentric combination of clothes and hair still stood out in the relative crowd of people making their way through Sapporo Station.
"Let me guess," Hidari said. "He's on a train bound for Hakodate. He's headed back to Tokyo."
Stretching his authority just slightly, Shingo contacted the appropriate personnel at Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto to see if anyone matching Eiji's description had shown up, sending a picture along.
"Oh, that guy," came the immediate answer.
"I'm sorry?" Shingo said.
"He tried to walk across a set of train tracks." There was a brief pause, and then, "He's in custody right now, but we were about to let him go with a warning. You want us to hang on to him?"
"Please," Shingo said.
"He part of an investigation or something?" The tone said what the man did not, that Shingo was just a little ways away from Tokyo.
"We think he may have some information," Shingo said, which was of course answering without saying anything at all while at least pretending courtesy. It was exactly the kind of condescension that made interregional coordination so difficult. "We're looking for a missing person," he amended. "This man may know where he is."
"Ah." The tone of voice that came back was warmer than Shingo would have expected. "We'll hang onto him until you get here, Detective."
"Sorry for the inconvenience," Shingo replied.
"Don't mention it."
"I knew it," Hidari said as soon as Shingo hung up the phone. "He was heading for Tokyo."
"Might have been," Shingo said. "He illegally crossed some train tracks and got picked up for it. They were about to send him on his way when I called."
"Fate is on your side."
Shingo twitched. The rest of the several-hour trip was almost silent, with Hidari tapping away on his phone. Shingo assumed he was either reporting to the Kougami Foundation or talking to his partner, and either way Shingo was oddly nervous about meeting Ankh. He found himself straightening the cuffs on his jacket and adjusting his tie more times than he could count. Hidari declined to either overtly notice or comment, which made Shingo like him a little more.
Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto hadn't changed since the last time Shingo had seen it, which meant he knew exactly where to go. The room where Ankh was being confined was in part of the station that most travelers never saw; Shingo made his way through the maze of people more or less on autopilot, with Hidari stubbornly glued to his elbow. At the final door, his breath caught, and he couldn't quite make himself move forward.
"Do you want me to go in first?" Hidari asked, quietly enough that Shingo was the only person who could hear him.
Shingo took a deep breath. "No," he said, and found that it was true. He opened the door to see Ankh sprawled across an uncomfortable chair.
At some point between Sapporo and Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto, Ankh had found the time to find new clothes; he was wearing dark jeans and a red t-shirt under a white button-down shirt. As he turned toward the sound of the open door, Shingo vaguely noticed that he'd even had the time and motivation to replace the left sleeve of the button-down shirt with a red one. "Eiji," he said, even though he knew better.
Ankh's mouth twisted in a familiar grimace; Shingo had never seen it, but he'd felt it dozens if not hundreds of times. "Tch," he said. "You know better, Mr. Detective."
"Ankh," Shingo said, and then he frowned. There was a subtle sense of disorientation; the feathered blond hair was on the wrong side, he thought, and then he realized he'd always seen Ankh's face in the mirror. The red sleeve, though, that should have been on the right.
Ankh tilted his chin up, eyes flashing, mouth stubbornly shut.
"What happened?" Shingo asked. Ankh leaned back insolently, one foot tucked up under his hip. Red scales glittered very briefly across his left hand before melting back into soft pink skin. "Ankh," Shingo repeated, aiming for an authoritative tone.
Ankh refused to answer, glaring at him for another full second before looking away.
"Um," Hidari said, from behind Shingo. Shingo moved farther into the room and was rewarded with the sight of Ankh leaning slightly away from him. "We've met," he said to Ankh. "Hidari Shotaro."
Ankh looked him up and down, slowly, and then stood. He held out his right hand. "You had a partner," he said, deliberately ignoring Shingo.
"Philip is doing well," Hidari said, taking Ankh's hand with an uncertain glance at Shingo. "I'll tell him you asked after him."
"Hn," Ankh said, withdrawing his hand with a very precise amount of courtesy at odds with his words and tone. "You can tell him whatever you want."
"How's Eiji?" Hidari asked, and it was the first time Shingo had heard him refer to Eiji by his given name.
"I like you, Hidari, but not that much," Ankh said. "Are we done here?"
"There are people worried about Eiji," Shingo interrupted.
"Are there," Ankh said flatly. "I don't care what you tell them, either."
"Ankh," Shingo said, but Ankh turned his back on both of them, sitting on the table as though he intended to remain there forever.
"You still owe me ice cream," Ankh said suddenly, voice tight.
"On the train to Tokyo," Shingo said, and Ankh's shoulders loosened slightly.
"Fine," he snapped, and strode out of the room. "I'll go with you as far as Tokyo," he said over his shoulder.
Shingo had to jog to catch up, and didn't notice until they were actually on the platform that Hidari wasn't still with them. He was about to curse at the unexpected obstacle when Hidari showed up with popsicle in hand. He handed it to Ankh with a questioning look. Ankh snatched it, glaring at both of them. He stalked down the platform and made himself comfortable on the back of a bench.
Shingo opened his mouth to tell Ankh to please sit like a normal person, and then thought better of it. He also considered cuffing Ankh to his own wrist, but what he knew of Ankh told him that there was no better way to ruin even the tenuous rapport he'd managed. Shingo leaned against the other side of the bench and checked his watch while Ankh slowly ate the popsicle. The train couldn't come fast enough.