Author's notes: HA. An update. Okay, excuses this time: school, writer's block (like, you don't even know) and the fact that I've learned how to make GIFs. Yeah, it's kinda addicting. Sorry.

Thank you so much for the reviews, I'm so happy people are interested in this story! ausidlfhja *squeals and rolls around the floor*

Writer's block is killing me. ;_; It took forever to write this chapter and I apologize for any grammar/spelling mistakes that I might have made but I felt so guilty for not updating anything in forever that I just had to upload this.

Warning: This chapter contains slight gore and some traces of violence.

Warabi, Japan
August 29th, day 19, 8:30 pm

For some reason, Leon was having a lot of troubling focusing on his test. The letters seemed to move around quite a lot and he was having the strangest urge to grab the piece of paper and throw it at his teacher's head. Said teacher was sitting on the edge of the desk, watching everyone like a hawk to make sure there was no cheating in his class.

Sadly, summer school was even worse than "regular" school. Since Leon had failed his last test, he was stuck here with a few other students who had failed one of their classes or were simply so interested in history, that they couldn't stay away from it. Leon on the other hand, hated history class and continued to stare at the thin paper. The test was about Japan's role in the Second World War, and something about Pearl Harbor, but that was about everything Leon remembered after reading the first page five times.

Studying for this test hadn't been that hard, but now it was as if all the information had floated out of his head and disappeared. He couldn't remember anything about World War II and was now probably faced with the awful consequences. His parents weren't going to be very happy to hear he had fluked another test.

"You have five minutes left."

"What?" Leon exclaimed, shocked. Everyone looked up at him, several people snickered, other people quickly whispered something to their neighbor, and others just stared. His teacher looked down upon him, over the rim of his square-shaped glasses.

"I said you have five minutes left, Schroeder. Go back to work. Everyone, eyes on your own test."

Leon had no idea 45 minutes had already passed. He looked at his answer sheet and sighed inwardly at seeing he had barely written anything down. There was no way he was going to be able to save himself out of this one.

He got up, handed in his test and walked out of the classroom. Several pairs of eyes were watching him leave and he felt his face heat up in embarrassment. Another student rose to her feet to hand in her answer sheet and followed him on the way to their lockers. Leon felt awkward, knowing that they were the only one in the hallway and that he had absolutely nothing to talk about.

He had always been rather shy and especially around people he didn't know. The kid that was now standing a few feet away from him was Miho. Other girls had spread rumors about her, saying she was a very shy girl and didn't have any friends. Her long lilac hair was tied back into a high ponytail and she had placed a ribbon on top of it.

Leon could see she was hiding her face behind her long bangs so he could barely see her eyes. She always paid attention, wrote everything down in her notebook, got good grades, and yet refused to talk to anyone. Whenever a teacher asked her a question, she always knew the right answer, but talking to anyone else? Never.

Anger started spreading through his body; Miho probably thought she was too good to talk to the others. The anger was rising up in his chest and before he could stop himself, he turned to her, eyes glaring daggers at his classmate.

"Bitch," he muttered under his breath. He blinked and waited for her reaction, which was a soft squeak.

"Sorry?" Miho turned to him with a tiny smile. "Did you say something? I-I easily get lost in my own thoughts, especially after a test."

"I said that you're a bitch."

Her smile quickly faded away and a small frown appeared on her face. "What?"

"You're a nerd and probably too arrogant to talk to anyone else who's 'beneath' you. You're just a little twit who wants to show everyone that she's so perfect she doesn't need anyone else."

Miho looked beyond confused. She was clutching her books close to her chest and staring at him as if she couldn't believe what he was saying. "W-what? I don't—"

"Just get outta here. No one likes you," Leon spat, throwing one of his indoor shoes at her. Miho wasn't quick enough to dodge the flying slipper and it hit her square in the eye. She yelped out in pain, doubled over and clutched her injured eye.

The others from class were on their way to the lockers as well and saw the little scene. One of the taller guys in class yelled, "Oi, what's your problem?"

"She is," Leon said, pointing an accusing finger at Miho, who was now crying softly into her hand. Another girl rushed over to her and put an around her shoulder in a comforting way. "Don't pretend that you care."

"Of course I care!" the girl yelled. "Stop acting like an ass. She did nothing wrong."

"Whatever, I have better things to do in my life." Leon threw his other slipper on the ground, put on his outdoor shoes and was about to walk away, but the same taller guy stopped him.

"Chill. What was that all about? Miho's a nice girl."

In less than a second, Leon had punched the guy right in the face and ran off. The other classmates gasped in horror and the guy cried out in pain. He ran off, ignoring the yelling from the others, feeling a rush of satisfaction pumping through his veins.

Tokyo, Japan
September 7th, day 28, 03:29 pm

It was pretty heavy to stare at a corpse for a long time, especially if you are not sure what you are looking for. The body of Arthur Hopkins had been dead for over 12 hours and it was showing by the stiffness of the muscles and the trouble Yami had moving his arms up and down.

By looking at all the cleaned up gaps in the pale body, Yami had no doubt the cause of death was simple, so there was no question about that. There was a light bruising on his upper arm, which looked somewhat fresh, so maybe he was grabbed by the murderer while he tried to fight back.

Yami ran his gloved hands over the body, studying the gaps. There was one on the left side of his chest, and more all over his chest. From what he could tell, the wounds were quite random, because they looked like half-assed stabs.

He wrote everything down in his logbook for personal notes (and maybe to avoid other paperwork) and references. He was alone in the cold room, surrounded by creepy looking utensils and other things to help with the autopsy. Shizuka had been here a few hours ago to identify the body and when she saw the almost unrecognizable face of her neighbor, tears started trickling down her pale cheeks again.

After a few minutes, Yami gently led her out for he was pretty sure she hadn't slept ever since she discovered the body. Kaiba wanted to keep her here for further questioning and after a quick argument, Yami gave up (knowing it was best not to argue with his boss) and said, "Fine, she's all yours. I'll stay with the body."

And so, here he was, waiting for his boss to finish up. Yami grimaced at the corpse's face and pulled the cover over it again, deciding he was done. Just when he was about to leave the room, Kaiba walked up to him, motioning for him to go back inside again.

"Yo, chief," Yami said casually, turning around after Kaiba closed the door. He was carrying a large plastic bag with the word "EVIDENCE" on it, and Yami felt his heartbeat fastening.

"Found anything out of the ordinary?" Kaiba said, tipping his head towards the body.

"Nothing, at all," Yami answered, reaching for his notes, skipping through the pages. "About thirty stab wounds, some bruises on his arm, but other than that," his lips curled into an apologizing smile. "nothing. Typical murder if you ask me."

For a moment, Kaiba's lips formed a thin line on his face and looked at him, making Yami almost raise an eyebrow. "About that," he started, walking towards one of the silver tables so he could lay down the bag. "Observers found this in the neighborhood."

He reached for the end of the bag and gave it a rough tug, so the content fell out. There was a small crumbled up pink vest, some glasses and a bloody kitchen knife.

"Told me they found it about twenty feet away from the house, after Shizuka had told them in which direction Rebecca went running. I asked Shizuka if she recognized any of these things and she claims the vest and the glasses belong to Rebecca, but she didn't know the knife."

Kaiba smoothed out the vest and Yami scrunched up his nose when he saw several blood patches on it. "Whose blood is that?"

"They already took a sample. It's either her grandfather's, or the murderer's. Or maybe her own. Her glasses are useless, but the knife…" Kaiba turned round and faced Yami with an almost obsessed look in his cold blue eyes. "Get out the body again so we can compare the knife and the wounds."

Yami didn't need to be told twice and quickly removed the large cloth off the body. The knife was held close to the largest wound, which was the one near his heart and to both adults' content, it fitted. The width of the knife was the exact same size as the wound.

"Now all we need is to wait for the lab's results and we can probably confirm this knife is what killed him. There were fingerprints on it, too," Kaiba's eyes were glittering with so much excitement that it was scaring the younger police officer. "And luckily, there was a blonde hair stuck on the glasses, so we have Rebecca's DNA as well. Let's see if—"

"Wow, stop," Yami raised his hands, a confused look in his eyes. "You think Rebecca, a fourteen year old chick, murdered her own grandfather? And then, what, disappeared into the night? That—"

"Makes perfect sense, yes, I know," Kaiba finished, smirking in victory. "It's the perfect story. Teenage girl loses her mind, kills her own grandfather and runs away so no one can find her. 'Twas a bit stupid she left the knife behind, though. Obviously she's not very experienced."

The thought of a teenager being capable of murder made Yami feel incredibly sick. Of course it comes with the job of being a police officer, but he hadn't expected to deal with a boss who thought adolescents were that crazy. They had to find Rebecca to get some answers.

"If it turns out that the blood on this vest," Kaiba picked up the vest and looked at with disgust, "belongs to Arthur Hopkins and the fingerprints on this knife," he held up the knife with his other hand, "match Rebecca's DNA, then we can officially connect the dots and say that Rebecca's the murderer here. Even if it sounds crazy. I've seen crazier anyway."

He shoved everything back in the bag and ignored Yami's protest.

"She could've been forced by the real murderer," the other muttered stubbornly.

"I don't care. That means she still committed a crime. If I were forced to murder my own family, I'd kill myself in their place," Kaiba growled, facing Yami again. "That way, I would go flying into that stupid light, knowing I did the right thing. I wouldn't be a murderer. I'd never kill my family no matter what."

Both men stared at each other for a good few seconds. Yami refused to believe it, even after what Kaiba told him about never killing his own family. Maybe Rebecca didn't want to kill Arthur at all, or maybe she was indeed forced and Arthur told her it was okay. No, someone had been gripping his arm; he had obviously struggled…

But—

"Boys."

They looked up to see Mai in the doorway, holding her long arm against the door to keep it open. She had a serious look in her big violet eyes, and Yami knew what she was going to say right away. A rush of adrenaline pumped through his veins and his brain was on red alert.

"Another murder."

Without any sign of hesitation, Kaiba took a step forward and nodded. "On it. Fill me in," he said, grabbing Yami's tie and dragging him along while the three of them walked towards the exit of the building. Mai grabbed her notepad and looked through it. Yami grunted and tried to get out of Kaiba's grip, but his grip was so strong that he was forced to stretch his neck out and follow along.

"Three minutes ago, there was a distressed woman on the phone who claimed that she saw her own son killing her husband in front of her. She managed to get away before her son took off with the wrench still clutched in his hands. Other men are already on their way to Warabi to investigate. Her name is Chisako von Schroeder, her son, who apparently killed him, is called Leon and her husband's, the victim, name is Hayate."

Yami was barely keeping up with what she was saying as she spoke at rapid speed. But apparently that was the way things worked around here because Kaiba merely nodded at what she was saying, still pulling Yami along.

"Killed a loved one, ran away with the weapon… Sound familiar to you, Yami?"

"What, you think these two murders are connected?" the younger one breathed out since he was having trouble keeping up with their fast pace. Damn his shorter legs.

"Depends. How old is this Leon kid?"

"She didn't say. But I agree with you; these two murders could be connected to one another. Maybe those kids formed a club of some sorts. Whatever's going on, you two are going to figure it out one way or another. I'll be here if you need me. I've already texted you the coordinates."

She waved at them as they got into Kaiba's car to drive towards Warabi. Yami was still trying to comprehend what was happening. After almost a month of boredom, there were suddenly two murders in one day. He felt Kaiba pulling his seatbelt over his chest and securing it in place since he had forgotten to do so.

"See if you can find anyone with the name Leon von Schroeder," Kaiba said, turning the keys in the lock, letting the car roar to life. He practically slammed his foot on the gas pedal while Yami got out his phone to web-search the guy's name.

After a few seconds of driving, Yami opened his mouth, "Leon von Schroeder, student at Warabi Junior High, 3rd grade, fifteen years old, went to summer school because his grades had started dropping. Found a school picture of him, which I will show you later—"

"No, show me now. I can multi-task." Kaiba snatched the phone out of his hands and stared at picture of the teenager for two seconds before he fastened his eyes on the road again. "Okay, so he's also a teenager. Don't tell me you don't see a link here."

"We'll see when we get there."

They fell into a pretty awkward silence for the rest of the short trip. It took about ten minutes to get to Warabi, since Kaiba was driving (tolerably) fast, and when they got out of the car, Yami stared at the gigantic house in front of him.

Apparently the von Schroeder's had enough money to buy a house that was about as big as their entire department. He could hear Kaiba muttering something along the lines of, "Bragging bastards," when he brushed past him. The rest of the neighborhood was deserted, and Yami had a nasty feeling this family had shut itself out from everyone.

There was a short woman sitting on the doorstep, clutching an expensive looking phone in her hand. She had long brown hair, which was pulled back into a messy bun, and was wearing a white summer dress, covered in blood patches. Her brown eyes were staring at the ground; they were full of grief and horror at the same time.

Clearing his throat, Yami followed Kaiba, and then he suddenly realized he had forgotten his notebook back at the department. Oops.

"Ma'am? Are you Chisako von Schroeder?" Kaiba asked when they were standing in front of her. Probably unable to speak, she nodded and the corners of her lips trembled. Now that they were closer, Yami could see that there was also blood sticking to her clammy hands and that she had freckles on her cheeks, just like her son.

"We're from the Criminal Investigation Bureau," Kaiba said, tapping the logo that was imprinted on his jacket. "I'm Seto Kaiba, investigator, specialized in homicide and this is Yami Tanaka, police officer. You called us and said you witnessed a murder so we came here to ask you some questions and examine the body." Both he and Yami bowed politely and waited for her to respond.

The woman was so shocked still she just stared up at Kaiba, appearing to be looking for answers on his face. Her lips moved slightly, her upper lip going up and down as if she was trying to speak, but she couldn't. Yami felt a sense of guilt; she had just watched her own son kill her husband, the love of her life. And now her son had run away as well. She had lost everything in just one day.

She kept looking at him, a few leftover tears streaming down her cheeks. A small choking sound came out and she continued to stare at the ground. Yami's eyes softened, fighting the urge to sit down next to her and comfort her.

"Ma'am, I—"

Chisako let out a small whine through her trembling lips and pointed behind her with her shaking index finger.

Both agents followed her finger and stared at the front door, which was still open. Kaiba was about to open his mouth again, but Yami gave him a rough push towards the front door, whispering something in his ear. His boss grumbled and entered the house, shoving Yami's hand off his back.

Yami took a deep breath and knelt down in front of Chisako, fishing out his personal handkerchief and laid it in her lap. She slowly reached for it and tried to unfold it, but her hands were shaking so badly that she failed miserably.

"I'm very sorry for what happened," Yami uttered softly, grabbing the handkerchief and unfolding it for her. "It's very good that you called because we can help you."

Chisako opened his mouth again, a few more tears leaking out of her bloodshot eyes, obviously trying to speak.

"You can just nod and shake your head to answer my questions. I understand this must be very hard," Yami said gently, feeling overpowered by the situation. He had always been pretty good with people, but actually comforting them in these kinds of situations was something he had yet to learn.

"… Do you have any idea where your son might have gone?"

She shook her head, clutching the piece of cloth Yami had given her. "No…" she croaked out, her voice barely audible.

Yami smiled kindly, glad she found her voice again. "Which way did he go?"

Chisako made a small noise and pointed to her right and Yami looked at said direction. There was just grass, a few bushes and trees here and there, but there were some other houses in the distance.

"I'll be right back."

If the murders were linked, he might be able to find the connections. Maybe he could find something that belonged to Leon, or the weapon he had used to kill his father. Yami started walking towards the other houses, keeping his eyes on the ground, in case he would find anything out of the ordinary.

He probably should have asked her some more questions, but he could always do that afterwards. That, and Kaiba would probably be very pissed if he walked out of the house now and saw that Yami had left Chisako behind. Slowing his pace a bit, he noticed small footprints in the mud. They were not that big, so they could be Leon's.

Wailing sirens echoed in the distance and Yami looked up, squinting. The others were probably on their way and going to evacuate the place so he had to hurry. He picked up the pace again, following the footprints until he reached a few trees. The footprints had stopped and Yami sighed.

"Leon?" he tried, feeling rather stupid. No response and no startled gasp, just like he expected.

He ran a hand through his bangs and looked around the trees, hoping that he would find something useful.

"Something like that," he muttered to himself, picking up a bloody wrench laying next to one of the trees. Even through the gloves he could feel that the object was still a bit warm, indicating that someone had been holding it not too long ago. And there was something else sticking to the wrench as well.

"Damn." Yami studied the bronze wrench some more, holding it closer to his eyes. If he was not mistaken, that kid had beaten his father to death because there were pieces of brain tissue sticking to the sharper parts. The awful smell of blood and skin was more than enough to answer his question.

Next to wrench lay a shoe, which he picked up as well. Hopefully Chisako will recognize the shoe as her son's and maybe the wrench as well. Since the footprints had stopped, Yami was staring at a dead end.

It was just like the first murder; Rebecca had run away, some of her possessions were left behind, but she had disappeared. Yami sucked in his lower lip, gnawing on the soft flesh, trying to think. They should send a team to look for Leon (another team was already looking for Rebecca), but Yami had this nagging feeling that they would not be able to find him.

The sirens were now so close that Yami was pretty sure the others were at the house now. Turning around, he saw that there were a couple of men talking to Chisako, trying to reason with her, while others were examining the outside of the house.

Kaiba walked out of the house, holding a plastic bag in his hand (probably some evidence he found, thought Yami) and looked around him. Yami figured he had to hurry back so he quickly clutched the two items to his chest and ran back.

His boss was still looking around like a child who had lost their mom, and Yami called out, "I'm here! I found something!" Kaiba stopped looking around and their eyes met; Yami slowed down and decided to jog the last bit.

"Congrats, that's your job," Kaiba said, obviously not impressed. He looked down at him as Yami finally came to a stop in front of the stairs. Chisako had been taken to the side of the house to answer the others' questions. "What'd you find?"

"The wrench the guy was beaten with and the kid's shoe, I think." Yami held up both of his findings for Kaiba to see and smiled sheepishly. "What about you?"

"Well, half of the guy's brain was smacked out his head and he was probably dead before he hit the floor. Other than that, I looked around Leon's room and, just like I thought, it was a complete mess, like Rebecca's. Everything was on the floor, things were torn apart, etcetera," Kaiba stated simply. "Did you find the kid?"

"No, I followed his footprints and they just… stopped at a certain point and that's when I found his shoe and the wrench. Right next to each other," the other replied.

"You're saying he disappeared?"

"That's what it looked like…" Yami muttered, feeling the heat rushing to his face. He should have tried harder; he didn't even check if Leon had climbed one of the trees, or something.

Kaiba glared at him for a good ten seconds before he rolled his eyes and made a weird gesture with his free hand. "Go check inside to see if you can find anything else. I'll go look if the kid's still around somewhere. He couldn't have gotten that far. If I can't find him, we'll get help."

Yami cleared his throat, rubbing at his red nose when he entered the house. The living room smelled like blood, just like the wrench, and from the corner of his eyes, he could see the other colleagues heaving the body into a huge black sack. A huge puddle of blood was in the middle of the room, causing Yami to scrunch up his nose.

It was such a nice place, elegantly decorated, just like a typical classical household, except for the blood patches on the white walls and the knocked over furniture.

Carefully stepping over the blood, Yami went upstairs, trying to look sharp. Even though he should be used to these kinds of things, he had to admit that it was a lot harder to look at in real life than in some kind of crappy horror movie.

He was not exactly sure what he was looking for; if Kaiba had already examined the place so surely there would not be anything else.

Examining Leon's room was exactly like examining Rebecca's room. It looked like he had been in such a bad mood that Leon had thrown everything on the ground, things had been torn to shreds, but what hit Yami right in the gut was the fact that a photo of Chisako, Leon and, Yami guessed, Leon's father had been ripped in two. The three of them were laughing happily and looked like any other ordinary family; there was nothing wrong with the picture at all.

Yami reached for the broken frame and wiped away the loose pieces of glass. Small droplets of blood coated the glass, so he guessed that Leon had punched the glass himself.

Maybe they had had a big fight, but then again, you would really have to piss off your son in order for him to kill his own father. With a small sigh, Yami laid the photo back on the ground and was about to look for something else, but something caught his eye. A large purple piece of paper had been under the photo and Yami recognized it immediately.

Another ticket to the Yugi Mutou show. Frowning slightly, Yami reached for it and as the tips of his fingertips touched the corner of the ticket, he felt a sharp pain shooting through his arm.

In a flash, he saw himself tied in a chair in an unknown spare room. No one else was there, just him, gagged and beaten. There were several wounds on his face, including one dangerously close to his temple, which had knocked him out. His gun, handcuffs, bag and everything else were so close to the chair, but not close enough for him to be able to reach for them.

Someone appeared behind him, wrapping Yami's very own tie around his neck. A muffled scream echoed through the room, followed by gagging noises and desperate pleas for mercy. After his head was pulled back and his neck was stretched as far as it possibly could, a low voice whispered, "Stay out of it."

And suddenly, he was back in Leon's room again, as if nothing had happened. Yami quickly reached for his neck, letting out a small breath when he felt nothing but the sweaty skin beneath his fingers.

The sound of heavy boots racing up the stairs yanked him out of his shock and he turned around to see one of his other colleagues: Ryuuji Otogi. The lieutenant had pulled out his gun and was checking the room for any signs of danger. His emerald eyes were scanning the area carefully, his body ready to pounce if needed.

"…What are you doing?" Yami said, semi-amused.

Otogi turned to him, his green eyes staring at him in horror. Usually he looked pretty relaxed because he always had everything under control so Yami felt utterly stupid. "Are you okay?"

He nodded and rubbed at the back of his neck, faking a smile. "Yeah, why shouldn't I be?" His voice was surprisingly calm.

Otogi raised an eyebrow and folded his arms over his chest. "You were screaming so loudly that I could have sworn you were being eaten alive."

Awkwardly shifting his weight to one foot to the other, Yami tried to come up with a good excuse. The fact that he had been screaming was truly freaking him out, but he was absolutely sure that if he was going to tell Otogi what he had seen, he wouldn't be taken seriously.

"I probably should have mentioned that I have um… arachnophobia," he continued to lie, feeling very hot. He could hear Otogi snort and looked up to meet his hardened gaze.

"That's it? That's why you screaming like some— okay." Otogi let out an non-amused chuckle. "Next time, give us a warning, will you? The others have already called the department for help and now I'm going to have to call them back to tell them that you freaked out because you saw a fucking spider."

"Arachnophobia is a very serious—"

"Yeah, whatever, I don't have time for your issues. I'm gonna get back to work and please," Otogi glared daggers at him. "don't start screaming again, or I will give you a real reason to scream. And not in a good way."

He stomped off and Yami casually coughed to conceal his laughter. Even if he had to say so himself, he thought he had handled that pretty well. But now that Otogi was gone, he was left alone with his thoughts again and he felt a shiver running down his spine.

There was another thing that connected these two murders and—

"TANAKA!"

Yami's left eye twitched.

He left the room and looked around the corner to see Kaiba running up the stairs. "Get your ass to the car, we have to get back to the department. Someone broke into the office."

"Wait, what—"

But before he could utter a response, Kaiba grabbed his tie once again and dragged him downstairs.

Author's note: A few weeks ago, I was ready to go to sleep and saw this creepyass spider crawling towards my bed and I wanted to scream so bad bECAUSE IT WAS THE SIZE OF THE SUN. So, Yami's excuse was slightly inspired by me. xD

You will get some answers next chapter. I promise! I shall try my best to beat this stupid writer's block and also update Heavenly Hell because damn I haven't updated that fic in a while.

See y'all later, lovelies. Thank you for your patience and please leave a review~. x3