Entry 8

.. 5 Months

I've killed and torn up about six humans now. I don't watch TV anymore; I have no interest in the politics or events of the humans. All I want to know is what makes a human a human; I know that if I look deeply enough into their cells, I'll learn what critical thing it is I'm missing. Or that I have and they do not.

Yako's been busy as well, rushed around by school and Neuro. I haven't seen him in weeks, and it's been hurting me almost as much as my uncertainty with my own composition. When I'm around Neuro, the pain of not knowing what I am goes away. Just a little bit, but just enough. Around Neuro I know I am not the only one who is not human, who lives among them, pretending to be one of them. I see the pretenses that hide me hiding Neuro as well, whenever I turn into the best friend of my sister or he acts like an intelligence-impaired assistant whenever a client for Yako comes in. Around him, I feel like there's someone there with me.

I want to cut Neuro open and look inside him. I want to see what his cells are, how they can be different from mine and different from the humans at the same time. I know that he and I are not the same thing. But I wish I knew what he was, as well—I'm sure it will be a key to what I am. Neuro, I'm sure I will find myself within you.

Yako came home today and dropped tiredly onto the couch. She looked exhausted. I looked at her, thinking about her and what she'd done for me. She'd taken me in, but with what motives? What was she to me, really? She still smiled at me like nothing had happened since I had first woken up, like nothing had changed in me. What was I like before I had woken up? Did she even know me then? Were we siblings? Did she know I had changed? My life was all questions, now, it seemed.

Shortly after she fell to the couch and said hi to me her cell phone rang. She ignored it because she was too tired. The ringing stopped, splitting the silence in the room, and suddenly the phone flipped upon and an enormous, monstrous hand reached out of the phone and grabbed Yako's head.

"Come to the agency," Neuro's voice said through the speakers, the deep voice he had when he was being serious and not hiding behind any of his pretenses. Excitement filled my body. Neuro! Hearing his voice filled me with excitement and joy. Neuro, the other one like me. I got greedy just at the sound of his voice. I wanted to see him again, be near him again. "Bring Sai with you." The hand rushed back into the phone and there was silence once more in the room.

I jumped from the back of the chair I had perched myself on and landed lithely on my feet.

"Come on," I said, reaching out for Yako's hand but taking it away before she could touch it. "Neuro wants us. We shouldn't keep him waiting." Yako moaned tiredly but stood up. She didn't know why I was in such a hurry. She thought it was because if we took too long Neuro would torture us—this was true as far as she was concerned, but it wasn't the case for me. I wanted to see him. I wanted to be next to him again, by the monster so much like me again. I didn't want to keep him waiting—I didn't want to keep me waiting, either.

I've never moved that quickly in my life. Always skipping ahead, having to go back to Yako who was walking so slowly. I couldn't wait to see Neuro again. Neuro, who made me feel so comfortable.

We finally got to the agency after what seemed an eternity and a half. When we walked in, the TV was on, but paused—Neuro had decided to buy a new DVR system for the television so he could record interviews of Yako with the press and torture her with them at a later date.

I saw Neuro, and my body filled with excitement. There he was. Towering over me, that smug face, those green eyes that glowed with malice and power and intelligence. Neuro, it's so good to see you again.

Yako shuffled in the door behind me, too tired to even notice that I was hopping up and down minisculely. I shed the form of Yako's best friend and appeared as myself again, a small boy with light gray hair, two braids, and loose pajama-like clothing. This wasn't really myself, though that was what I called it. It was the form I identified with the most, though there was no true identity in it. My "default". Was it really me?

Maybe Neuro would know.

"What do you want, Neuro?" Yako asked tiredly, walking past me and slumping onto a couch. Neuro smiled evilly, and I felt the same smile pull over my face. He smirked to himself and looked at the frozen television.

"You seem to be busy lately, you louse," Neuro said, glaring out of the corner of his eyes at Yako. She nodded exhaustedly. "You haven't been watching TV have you?" She shook her head. He smiled to himself. "Too bad, or else you would have seen this."

He clicked the button on the remote control and it started to play. I leapt onto the back of the couch and perched there. It was the news—I recognized the anchorman and anchorwoman, though I couldn't remember their names. I had turned into both of them several times. Neither of them had made me feel human, either. Maybe I should examine their bodies next.

The ticker at the bottom showed that the recording had been for two hours before. What had been so important that Neuro had recorded it? Beyond mysteries, what interest did Neuro have in the humans' happenings?

"—after three months of silence, Kaitou Sai has returned," the female anchor said suddenly. I looked at the television and really watched it now. A phantom thief with my name? Yako bolted up as if she'd been bitten and stared at the television with her big eyes. "A sixth box has been found today in a residential home in the Kanto area. The victim was a forty year-old man named Yarahashi Miramoto.

When Yarahashi-san did not show up for work today after a spotless record, his boss decided to call the police and, upon searching they house, they found the box shortly after. Although the bodies were not found in clear boxes, the victim was found as a block of… meat… and there is little doubt in the authorities' minds that this is the work of Kaitou Sai, returned once again."

My eyes had widened and widened as she spoke. They knew? They knew it was me? They knew that this boy named Sai was the one killing people and tossing their useless cells aside? My name… they even had my name attached?!

Neuro turned the TV off.

"Sai!" Yako shouted in dismay, wheeling on me. "Why did you do this?!" My mind was torn between denying her accusation and just giving her a straight answer. She already knew it was me. The TV people already knew that I was a killer of humans. They knew, and I hadn't shown them my face or told them my name once.

"How do you know it's me?" I demanded, my voice cold. She recoiled and bit her lower lip. There's something more here. I've seen it before, their chases on the TV as they hunt a murderer. Back before I started to doubt what I was, when my composition wasn't what consumed my thoughts. They never knew that quickly. They never had a name that quickly. But they knew me.

I stood up, glaring down at her.

"How do you know it's me?! How do they know my name?" I heard it again, in my head. The report that Kaitou Sai—me—was back after a three month hiatus. Three months. I had started tearing bodies apart two months ago, when this so called "hiatus" would have ended. Three months before that… I don't know. I didn't have memories.

Pieces clicked, and a sharp sword of bone burst out of my arm and curled over my hand.

"Who was I before I lost my memories? What am I? You know—don't you? What happened the day I lost my memories? You were there, weren't you?" I looked at both of them, glaring. Everything I doubted… My memories… Even now the ones I had from before seemed so thin, like smoke wafting away. They were thick, clear within the last couple of weeks, but near the beginning, when I woke up… I can't remember a thing. When was the first time I left the apartment? What did I feel? I don't know. I don't remember.

"Sai—" Yako started, but Neuro interrupted her.

"Your little experiment is over, Yako. His time as your pet is through." Neuro, I knew you'd tell me. I knew you'd know. My memories, the time before… I'd never cared so much before. You know, of course you do. You know everything, Neuro. Everything about me. You know what I am, too, don't you? I know it, Neuro. I knew it. Neuro, Neuro…

"What am I, Neuro. You know." Neuro shrugged nonchalantly and sat on the edge of his red desk.

"You're a mystery, Sai," he said. "Even I do not know what you are. But unlike you, I know what you were before you lost your memories." He smirked as my face grew to one of cold need—he knew what I had been? I knew it! I knew it, Neuro!

"What was I?!" I demanded. He smirked at the childish way my voice cracked as I screamed. Neuro… you make me feel like such a child. You're amazing Neuro, I'm so happy I met you. You make me feel so powerless. It makes me want to tear you apart and take all of your power for myself. Then I'll be the strongest person in the world again—just like I felt I was until I met you. The humans have nothing on me, Neuro, nothing on us. You and I… there can't be two most powerful beings, can there? I want to see your cells, Neuro. I want to know what makes you you—I don't care what you are, that you aren't human. I've already decided that I'm not human, so I don't need to try and be that. I don't need to be something, just to know what I am—and Neuro, I'll become whatever you are. I'll rip apart your cells and read them like Yako's textbooks, learning everything there is to learn about you. I'll be whatever you are, Neuro, and I'm sure it'll feel right. We're the same, Neuro. We're the same.

"First off, your name isn't Sai," he said. I could tell the only reason he was telling me this was so he could enjoy the destruction of my world. I could see it in his cruel smirk, in the demonic glint in his eye. But he didn't know—he didn't know that I had already destroyed my world long ago, that all I needed was the information Neuro could give me to build it back up and find my place in it. "You are the Phantom Thief X, the bane of the human existence. You're famous for how you tear apart your victim and shove their body in a box." Yako looked horrified that Neuro was telling me all of this, but she didn't have the strength to tell him to stop. Poor, weak little Yako. She could never stand up to beings like Neuro or I. Poor, pathetic little human. Neuro saw how I had glanced at her and his smirk grew larger. "Yako isn't your older sister—you are half-siblings, but you are older than she is." I knew it, I had known it for a long time. But we're half-siblings? I will admit I hadn't expected that—I could feel that Yako and I weren't what she said, but we still shared a parent? And I was older than her? But I looked so much younger… But what do looks care to a being who can change his appearance and gender and face and hair and eyes and structure with a whim?

"How old am I?" I demanded.

"By the theory we've all but proven, twenty years-old." I had not expected this number, but I was not surprised. I looked young, but felt like I had always been, like I had always seen time. I couldn't remember it, but I had always been there, tormented by the question of what I am. "After witnessing the gruesome murder of your mother, you grew desperate to kill—the fact that you could change your body made you wonder what you are." Neuro, you're amazing. You know—you know everything about me, all of these things that have been tormenting me. I knew it. I knew it, Neuro. "You came to Japan and killed Yako's father trying to learn more about your mother—you killed your own father that night, as well." My father. I couldn't remember him, couldn't think of what he might have looked like. I had killed him. This didn't sadden me. This didn't surprise me. I'm a monster, and monsters don't have parents.

"Every six months my memories start themselves over," I continued. This I could feel, this was what had been creeping over my mind the last couple of weeks. I could feel it, now. In one month, no time at all, my memories will erase themselves, and my body will be torn apart through agony as everything I've built myself and my world on crumbles to pieces beneath my feet. "Not again… I don't want to lose my memories again!" My hands drug at my hair, clawing at it. The pain… I could feel the pain just thinking about it. The terror of losing who I was—again. The pain of losing everything I'd fought to gain, this smoke-and-mirrors identity. This was why I couldn't have an identity—I had no memories to build a self off of. No face, no parents, no past. There was nothing to make me me.

I screamed loudly, making Yako flinch. Neuro just stood there. Neuro, that damn sentinel of everything I wanted to be. Strong, like I was, different, but relishing in that difference. Damn you, Neuro, damn you! What the hell gets to make you you while I have to wallow in this fucking ignorance?!

"When I forgot… when I forgot…" I started. My mind was breaking—breaking in my own anguish. Words wouldn't come—nothing but pain.

"That's right," Neuro agreed. "Yako just couldn't let me destroy you and allow you to die like you begged me. Even though you killed her father, she demanded to take you with us and save you from the temple crashing down around our heads. She thought she could raise you as a human, to ignore everything that made you you. That worked so well, ne, Yako?" He smiled evilly at her and she went bright red. My hysterical laughter cut through this tender little moment.

"Human? What makes me me? Don't you get it?! I'm neither of these things!" I stared at both of them, my eyes wide. Nothing, nothing… I am nothing… "I'm not human! Can a human do this?!" I switched through every form, every shape I could remember. Men, women, animals, children… "My" words came out of their mouths, their voices screaming and breaking with "my" own laments. "Who am I?! Am I a boy, am I a girl?! A child, an adult?! What am I?! What color was my skin, how long was my hair?" African, Japanese, American, German, every color slipped from "my" skin, the pigment boiling beneath the surface. I skipped from boy to girl to boy to girl. Neither felt right, neither felt wrong. "What am I?! How can there be a 'me' if I have nothing to build myself off of?! No experiences, no memories, no face, no name! What the hell am 'I'?! How the hell can you decide what I am?!"

"Sai!" Yako cried out, her voice anguished and scared. Her voice cut through the pain and made me double up, my eyes still closed tight, my muscles screaming. Sai… I'm not Sai. I'm just a… thing. Not even a "person", not even a "boy". What am I? How can I know if I don't have memories? Yako… was she trying to help me through kindness or pity? Through her own selfish desire to take care of her "brother" or because she didn't want to see me in this pain? Because when I woke up the next time she wanted to still be there, to help me try and live?

That's why Yako made me keep this damn stupid thing! She knew I would lose my memories again from the very first day. She knew that my world would break apart and I would once again become nothing. But this "journal" piece of shit would be a record—a source of identity for me. Ha! Maybe I could have kept this set of smoke-and-mirrors up, but I could always just erect a new one. What the hell were you thinking you could make me, Yako? Just like you? Some pathetic human who lived a life drowning in monotony? I wish, Yako. I wish. I don't want this pain. I'm tired of it. I'm so tired of this pain, just make it all end…