Smoke and dust clouded his vision, making him cough as he tried to get his bearings. The steel ceiling support groaned ominously as he shifted his grip, holding it up with one hand as he pulled the unconscious kid up to sling over his shoulder. Glowing sparks flew amongst the debris like fireflies, belying the dangers of exposed wiring and crumbling infrastructure around him. Who else had been on this floor just now? Orienting was hard when so little had survived intact. The girder made more and more noises of protest; he jumped clear before the other end joined the wreckage on this floor.

The kid groaned at the sudden jerking, and silver hair bobbed as he tried to fight the tight grip of the older man trying to balance him in a one handed fireman's carry.

Wait… silver hair? This wasn't Wantanabe bleeding out on him...

Ryotaro Dojima felt the air driven from his lungs as he looked into his nephew's pale face grow grey as the floor gave up its fight with gravity-

-to his credit, he didn't scream or bolt upright when his snapped open, finding himself not in bombed out police headquarters, but in his own home, sunlight streaming through the living room sliding glass doors. A movement caught his eye, and pink filled his vision as he felt something being placed on his head. "Nanako, wha-"

Spots swam in front of him as he tried to blink away the bright light of a camera's flash. Quite sure that his nightmare was just that, Dojima grunted as he attempted to sit up. Had he fallen asleep on the couch? The dry, nasty feeling of his mouth suggested as much. The dozen playing cards that tumbled into his lap suggested what the kids had been doing to keep entertained.

"Ah, Daddy, I almost finished!" Tiny hands scrambled to pick up the scattered remains of the deck. A suppressed snicker drew the detective's attention up to Yu, phone still held in photography mode.

"Delete that, now." It wasn't his best growl, but it still would put the fear in most men.

Yu wasn't most men. "One second, it's almost finished sending to mother…"

The older man's eyes narrowed. "You wouldn't dare…."

The teen smiled, then shrugged. "She and dad had seen the news. They were worried." His uncle hid his surprise well. The Narukamis were not usually ones to reach out.

"What time is it? I need to find out what's happening after…." The older man's voice trailed off, unwilling to remind them of the terrible events of the day before.

"Just before 10, uncle. Your sergeant called an hour ago, though. All officers involved in the incident are on mandatory leave for the next 48 hours." The teen winced at the absolute murderous look on the detective's face. He could still hear the relief of his uncle's supervisor when he learned that he didn't have to deliver that particular order directly. "All schools are closed today as well. They want to do a full sweep before letting classes resume."

His uncle sighed and nodded at that; no doubt he'd have wanted them to do that anyways. The protective way the man was stroking his daughter's hair, still loose from the night before, told Yu the detective was worried Seitou was going to start targeting *them* as well, and he couldn't protect them twenty-four seven. Knowing Dojima, though, he might actually try if someone didn't talk sense into him.

The ding of the toaster brought them all back to the relative here and now. "Ah, I need to finish the eggs!" Nanako wriggled out of her wedged spot between her father and the sofa cushions. Her 'Big Bro' moved to help with the last of the preparations, and for a moment, Dojima felt entirely useless. The pity party didn't last, however, as a whiff of his own unwashed self made him realize he was in desperate need of a shower. "God damnit, I'm a mess. Nanako, sweetie, I'm going to clean up; I promise to be right back."

Cool water seemed to help dispel the last of the cobwebs. So Seitou had managed to put a bomb on the top floor's bathroom, somehow knowing there would no one there to stop him or question him. How had he gotten past the security and dozen officers in the station? It wasn't like no one knew what he looked like….hell, there were times lately when he was sure he knew Seitou's mug better than the one staring back at him in the mirror.

A shiver ran up Ryotaro's spine, and had nothing to do with the temperature of the water. The top floor men's restroom had a wall of mirrors by the sinks. They were so ostentatious (and frankly, unflattering) that most people avoided using it. But if whereever Seitou was hiding was behind mirrors, like the world behind the tv...then it'd be a perfect place to slip in and out of without ever being seen.

And he knew exactly how this supernatural terrorist had found out about it.

Tohru Adachi.

Damnit, and there was no way he'd be able to question his former partner about it now. No doubt they had someone at the prison monitoring his visitations, and honestly, it would just look suspicious in general for him to speak to a convicted murderer right after the station blew up. Seitou may have claimed responsibility, but no detective worth his badge would simply take confession at its word, and there were plenty of other people who would enjoy watching a police station become rubble. Adachi was as good a suspect as anyone.

The bath was starting to become thick with steam, the anger and frustration feeding the fire within him to inferno levels. Breathe. He needed to breathe, and remember he couldn't fix everything, and not give into every moment of rage like some animal. The water still sizzled as it hit his skin, but he could feel the heat shrink back to more manageable temperatures.

"Daddy, breakfast is ready!"

With a sigh, he flipped the water off, and toweled up. He needed to remember there were important things beyond just solving cases and chasing perps. Maybe if he spent more time focusing on these chances to breathe, he wouldn't spend so much time fighting himself.

Yeah, right.

Breakfast was a quiet event, and it was hard to keep his mind off possible clues and replays of the events of yesterday. More than once, Nanako would have to repeat her requests to have him pass the salt. The apologies he offered felt weak and stupid, he knew, but nothing he did could keep Dojima from drifting in a fog.

Small hands patted his hair, startling the detective, only to have his daughter drag him half out of his chair in a tight hug. Her voice was muffled as her head was buried in the crook of his neck against his button down shirt.

"Daddy, you'll stay safe, won't you?"

"Hmm?" Her question caught him off guard.

"I know you worry about me an' big bro, but who is out there protecting you, daddy? I...I love you, daddy, and I know big bro told me you're ok, but sometimes he and you don't tell me things, just 'cause I'm little, and it's not fair, daddy. I worry, too!"

Calloused hands wrapped around her, returning the affection, and pulling her into his lap, her head tucked under his chin. "Nanako, I'm so sorry. You shouldn't have to put up with such nonsense, but you do, so well. I'm sorry you have to worry so much. Everything right now...yes, its scary, and it means I have to work a lot, but I promise you that I'm doing it to keep us all safe. I almost lost you once, and I never want to have that happen again… I admit, your father's got some pretty selfish reasons to want to make sure you never get hurt."

Her big brown eyes were halfway closed, lulled into sleepiness by the warmth of her father and the steady, strong sounds of his heartbeat in her ear. "What do you mean, daddy?"

"Well, when you're hurt, your daddy hurts too. He worries that he didn't do a good job keeping you safe, and your all he has." Fingers combed through tiny pigtails. "Sometimes I wonder if you're more of an adult than I am, Nanako. You're so much like your mother…."

Nanako didn't say anything at first, and Dojima wondered if she'd drifted off back to sleep. "Dad… before, when you spent all your time at work, and didn't play with me… was it because I reminded you too much of Mom?"

Deep breaths and clenched eyes were all he could do to keep his heart from shattering at the truth in his child's words. "...A bit. I was also scared, to be honest. Your mom did so much for both of us, and when she was gone… I was scared I'd do everything wrong and you'd leave me too." Hot tears pricked his eyelids, so sad that a child so young had to realize such an awful truth.

"But we're going to get through this, Nanako, I promise, and I will stop at nothing to make sure you, your cousin, and I can have a safe place to live." He looked down at her innocent face and forced himself to smile. "C'mon. We better help Yu with the dishes."

The rest of the morning was spent attempting to cheer themselves up in a variety of fashions; they made a trio of snowmen (snowpersons, Nanako had corrected him) out front, Yu had tried to teach them both how to make paper cranes, and they'd taken some time to help Nanako on her homework.

By the afternoon, however, Dojima felt himself getting more and more restless. Twice during lunch he'd snapped his chopsticks in half just reaching for seconds. His nephew shot him a sympathetic look while Nanako scolded him on being more careful.

"Uncle, why don't you go out for a bit? I can tell Nanako we needed things for dinner. You're starting to look like you're about to gnaw off your own arm to do something."

The detective grimaced, but couldn't deny the truth in his nephew's observations. He was starting to bounce off the walls. If anything, his energy levels had skyrocketed over the last few hours, and nothing he'd tried had done anything to abate that. "Yeah... yeah, probably a good idea. I just wish I could get away with one day of not having to deal with this crazy crap. One of these days I'm going to forget and some scientist group is going to lock me up in a lab…."

A strange cloud of emotion crossed Yu's face. "Maybe… maybe it would help if we sought someone out, instead? Maybe someone has more experience with this than we do."

The older detective snorted in disbelief. "Yeah, right. What can we do, just look folks like that up in a phonebook? Yu, I know you mean well, but the second the wrong people find out, its only a matter of time before we're all in danger. Leave it… we'll…. We'll figure something out." His voice betrayed how much faith he had in that plan, either.

"I'll be back soon, I promise. Call me if anything comes up."

After the door closed behind his uncle, Yu's finger hovered over an entry in his contact list. Kirijo, Mitsuru.

His courage wasn't high enough to press 'call'. Not yet.

Just west of the house was an old growth forest that made up part of a national park. Usually, the only time people were in there was during the summer, or during the school's annual attempt at instilling fear of community service in its students. The dead of winter, however, saw only the few brave (and foolish) nature lovers, and the occasional criminal who thought they could rough it until the heat was off.

So it was little surprise that his car was the only one in the dirt parking area. Boot sinking into the drifts, Dojima shucked his jacket off, the fire in his core pulsating with the energy he'd built up. When he was far away enough from any path or road, he paused to consider his options.

After a moment, an old pine tree that had succumbed to one too many winters caught his eye. At least 50 meters in height, its trunk was nearly as wide as he was tall at its base, it'd be a hazard in the summer when the dry weather would turn it into a fire hazard.

His fingers sank into the rough bark, driving like nails into the old, rotting wood. The pent up energy singing inside him was making his muscles twitch, so desperate to just let go. He paused; trying to take deep calming breaths, and not feel like a complete idiot.

It was like when he tried to lift the car before; part of him was felt foolish for even trying this- who was he, Featherman? Another part of him was just as frightened that he *could* do this… pulling out a 50 meter tree like it was a weed in the garden. The idea of being more than just a regular human made him feel like a monster, and that line of thought was terrifying. If he wasn't human...what the hell was he?

Fuck it, might as well see how much he'd changed. If Seitou was going to play dirty, the detective knew he'd need every weapon at his disposal to take him down. The idea that worthless, despicable asshole was using *his* city to play a murderous game of cat and mouse snapped the last threads of restraint holding the detective back, and with an inhuman grunt, he pulled.

The ancient tree exploded out of the ground in a shower of snow, mud and roots; as he held it fast against himself, the trunk groaned ominously at the strain, and he could hear the sound of fracturing wood deep within. Changing his grip, he raised the tree high above his head and tilting it until it was parallel to the ground; the trunk bending under gravity and the top branches brushing the ground. Shifting slowly, he moved himself a bit further up the trunk, before slamming it down sharply on his knee, splintering the massive body in two in a blur of movement. He raised the remaining part of tree back up and split it again. Again.

Dusting off his hands, Dojima surveyed his work. The tree had been reduced to a couple of massive logs and a few dozen sheared off branches. It'd felt like light yardwork; if he'd kept his eyes closed, the five foot diameter trunk would have felt like a twig as he snapped it into pieces. Sure, the poor thing was dead before he'd reduced it to kindling, but it was far from rotted through. Not for the first time did he wish there was a more accurate means of finding his limits, but he was no fool. Someone was already taking too close of an interest in him, and there had been rumors of a secret military branch sniffing around the department after last year - it wasn't often limos drove down Inaba's street. Sure, his nephew had hand waved at his concerns they were interested in his activities, but he'd gotten this far being a paranoid bastard. Who knows what they'd do to them, if they knew what he was capable of? Probably cart him off to some laboratory, as far away from the field and Inaba as possible.

His anger was fueling his energy levels, building him up faster than he'd been able to burn off with his private little show of excess. If he didn't calm down, he'd be worse off than when he started. Damn it, he didn't need this!

With a frustrated roar, one of the larger pieces of the trunk was thrown into the air like a rocket. A full minute passed before its trajectory faded, and the log began to tumble back to the ground, quickly reaching terminal velocity. Just before the wood met earth, a single fist punched right through the center, dissolving the mighty trunk into a cloud of splinters. Pointless, but it did make Dojima feel better.

He flexed his fist, trying to judge how he felt after each ...extraordinary action. Seemed speed burned energy just as well as acts of brute strength. He'd been loathe to get too far away from the car, but he needed to do something to cool off. A jog quickly became a sprint, the individual sounds of old trainers hitting the dirt eventually blending into one constant note in his head. Individual trees became a blur of green and brown. Track had been one of his best sports in high school; pity foot chases weren't as common in police work as television suggested.

The blare of traffic brought him skidding to a halt. He tried to remember where the roads were in relation to forest, but his memory failed him. Maybe he'd becoming disoriented and ended up back at the side street he'd taken into the park. Ignoring the slap of the underbrush against him, Dojima looked for a traffic sign to orient himself, while avoiding being seen by the cars rushing by. It certainly didn't look like the side road.

His mouth felt horribly dry as he read the overhead highway marker. According to the characters, Inaba was 40 km away. There had to be a mistake. Hands trembling, he pulled out his cellphone from his pocket, taking a few missed keys to bring up the gps feature.

The groan stuck itself in his throat. Well, he'd been half right; the sign was off. He was 60 km from Inaba proper, not 40 as the sign said. A few more minutes at that pace, and he'd have hit the ocean. Sixty kilometers in what...five minutes? He was faster than his own damned car!

It took a decent amount of concentration to keep from hyperventilating; he focused on the feeling of the cold air filling his burning lungs. He'd assumed before that his speed had been momentary bursts of adrenaline; not something he could keep up long term; once again he'd underestimated the ways the energy coursing through him. At least he wasn't shooting lasers out of his eyes or...flying. Yet.

Pausing for a moment, he jumped experimentally in the air. Nothing, thank god.

He picked out his footprints from before, and began to make his way back through the deep blankets of snow and trees; still sprinting, but slower and keeping an eye on his own tracks. This time the trek was slightly less than an hour, but still put him will beyond 'normal' limits. Thankfully, though, the energy had its outlet, and it died to a slightly pleasant hum behind his eyes.

Not quite exhausted, but decently worn out, he climbed back into his car and tapped out the take out number for Aiya's.

Somewhere in the Central Office, a phone rang with an Inaba area code in front of it.

"Sir, you asked to be called if there were any updates…."

"Mmhmm… has the target been provoked by the attack yesterday? I pegged him at being more sensible than that…."

"No, sir… it's, well… the Kirijo Group has become interested in the bombing here. Apparently some of their tech was stolen and used in the bomb making…."

"Damnit, when will they learn to keep their nose out of other people's business? The private sector shouldn't have such a monopoly on extraordinary events; Ikutsuki's betrayal should have proven to that to their CEO. Can't be helped, though. What's done is done. If they just focus on the bombing, and our target keeps his head down, we may come out of this in the black."

"Understood, sir." There was a click, and the line resumed its dial tone.

Almost of full year's worth of work, and suddenly all of it was teetering on the edge. Dojima Ryotaro had been a perfect fit for their needs, even more so when something had awakened in the detective, giving him such abilities beyond anyone else they'd 'recruited' for this program. Who knew that their previous target, in his spectacular fall from grace, had pointed them to an even better candidate in the form of his partner?

Still, the involvement of the Kirijo Group was… troubling. Sure, they were useful, cleaning up supernatural messes that sprung up, but they'd been stingy with their research and had poached far too many good prospects from the field. They would need to be watched with care; enough to head off any inquiries, but not enough to raise suspicion or draw their attention to their quarry.

"To the victor goes the spoils, Ms. Kirijo."

Author's Notes:

I'm so sorry for the long absence. Real life in the form of my master's practicum, emergency surgery and multiple hosptial visits wiped me out, but I'm back! Really! Sure, this was mostly filler and exposition, but, but, Dojima vs tree! ...Hello? Aw, sugar, everybody left already, didn't they.