*** Planning on updating at least once a week, is that possible? Guess we'll never know /o/ ***

Chapter 16: Turning The Tables Around

"Okay, that's enough. That's a weird move there, even for you." Kaito quickly intervened. What was wrong with her? First she wanted Len to repair a 'broken' mirror and next she wanted Rin to cut her arm off? What's next?

Well, she's wrong in general, and to be honest this game she was playing wasn't exactly that out of character for her, but still.

'I get that Mayu's not the most normal human being in the world, but more importantly I get that Rin's panicking... And she's not in the right state of mind to make a decision with Mayu right now, she's in an emotional train wreck! She might actually consider doing it unless I do something about this!'

"What are you talking about?" Mayu pouted. "You've known me for a long time, I don't see why this is weird."

"No, it's just that… I know you could do better than this." He took the butcher knife and before Mayu could open her mouth to protest, Kaito continued. "Ah, you know what, I'm beginning to think you're doing this on purpose. It's just so weird of you to do this, you know?"

"Again!" Mayu stood up and tried to take the butcher knife from Kaito's hands. "What are you talking about?"

"You want her to cut her arm off, right?" Mayu nodded. "It's weird that you let her decide if she wants to or not. What'll you do if she says no?"

"That seems unlikely. Do you want to make a bet right now? I bet she's going to say yes. You wanna know why?" She somehow managed to take the butcher knife from Kaito's hands and pointed it to his neck. "If she says yes, she'll be saved, that detective's life too, and they'll make it out of here alive with a souvenir. If she says no, that detective will die, and being a good girl like her, she'll live the rest of her life carrying the burden of such a guilt."

"Are you saying that even after if she says no… You'll let her out?" He took one step backward from the butcher knife.

"Maybe… Ah, you know what? I will let her out even if she says no. It'd hurt her more, don't you think? If she lives, she'll have to carry 'that' burden. Everyone'll point their fingers at her and say 'The death of her precious boss over there is her fault.' That's just something you can't run away from, ever!" She giggled a bit, not unlike a child. "So, what's your problem? Why did you say this is so weird?"

She didn't think things through. She's only doing this for the hell of it. There's still hope.

At least, for a millisecond Kaito thought so. Because Len's death wouldn't cause Rin to be blamed. She'd be hailed as a hero. Most people back home feared Len and his status as an ex-convict after all.

As a murderer.

Please, brain, think up a plan quick!

"Well, at first I thought you were jumping in this too early and I thought maybe you should use your words to scare her more… But that's done, good job with that. I can feel Rin's head spinning around as we speak and I bet she's going to throw up any second now." Kaito walked over to Rin. "Now on to another problem."

So far he didn't have much of a plan figured out, he was just improvising along the way. All Kaito knew was he needed time. He wasn't sure how long he could keep the conversation up, though he knew Mayu couldn't wait for another hour or so for an answer. Kaito could see it in her eyes; Mayu wanted to see blood, she wanted to hear screams, she wanted to see someone suffer for no reason right there. Only that, the other was just justification she thought up without consideration. He knew she'd been waiting for this and to wait for more than another hour would just be too much for her.

"And what would that problem be?"

"I've known you for a while now and I bet you didn't choose this request just because you wanted to see blood. For her to cut her arm off? Doesn't that sound vaguely familiar…?" He patted Rin's head, hoping it'd help her calm down a little. Which it didn't, it startled her more than Kaito had expected. "Of all the body parts, why does it have to be her right arm?"

"You're thinking way too hard into this request, I just think it'd be cute!" Somehow Mayu's mood lit up as she sat back on her chair and grabbed Rin's hands, the butcher knife still on her other hand. "Can't you just imagine it?"

"N-not really, no." As much as Rin wanted to let go of Mayu's strong grip on her hands, she couldn't. Or rather, she was afraid that if she lets go of her grip Mayu would… Do something about that.

"When you leave this place alive and you two have your lives back solving cases here and there, everyone who sees you two together will say 'wow look, those two are missing an arm! They make such a cute couple together!' or something along the lines." She shrugged. "They'll give you nicknames! Like… The 'matching missing arm couple'! Or the 'armless duo', or, uhm…"

"The one arm-ies."

"Whoa, how creative! A one armed detective couple! How romantic is that! Thanks Kaito! So yes, you'll get all the cute nicknames if you'd just say yes~!"

Mayu said it to Rin with a grin, and a step closer.

"Hold on, I'm not done yet. Is that really the reason? Just so people could call them nicknames later when they leave?" Mayu was getting impatient there… Hopefully she'd play along just a little longer, Kaito came up with a plan A, somehow.

"There is another reason and I'm guessing you already know the answer to that." She let go of her grip on Rin's hands, the butcher knife too. "Care to explain?"

"You explain things better than me, you should do it."

"It's not just the cute names, it's not just the pain of losing an arm and to live with it too, it's what the detective'll think later. I don't want to go through the details on what I think he'd say later, I mean, I'm trying to encourage her to say yes here!"

"Right… Len's gonna say: 'Wow I should've been there for her, this is all my fault, I hate myself,' the one who'll suffer regret will be Len if she says yes, huh? And if she says no…."

"Ugh, stop talking! Why're you so chatty right now? Let's just hear her decision out for now!" Kaito was right, she was getting impatient.

"I get it, you know she's gonna say yes. My bet is she's gonna say yes to this decision too. Still, if you really want both of them to suffer more before they live off their happily life full of compliments and cute nicknames, there's one little adjustment you could make to the deal." Kaito took the butcher knife from the table again, this time though, Mayu didn't try to take it away from him. "We could drag Len in and make him watch."

"Make him watch…" Mayu took a second to consider that… Kaito hoped against all odds that she didn't think of better torture, which included letting Len go earlier.

Please let it be her whims!

"Nope, I'm good. This is good enough."

Kaito cursed inside his head

"Are you sure? I kinda sorta want to see him in this thing. Can't you just imagine it? Just take a second and imagine that kind of scenario. It'll be... Super cute and everything."

"Whenever I try to imagine it, I have this disturbing feeling that everything'll fall apart. Why did you think I want you to guard the door earlier? I just don't want him here." She folded her arms and pouted again. "You know what? You're distracting too. Get out."

"W-what?" That wasn't the plan, it wasn't supposed to go that way…

"Get out." Mayu was pissed, and a pissed Mayu was never good. He returned the butcher knife to her and sighed. "You're annoying."

With heavy steps and a sour look on his face Kaito left the room. Was it already… a failure? Can't anything else be done? With every step he tried to think of all the things that he could do to save Rin… Then he remembered his promise to Len. 'Whatever happens to you after the next ten days, I'll tr-, I'll make sure Rin's safe and sound.'

What a friend he was.

"Your answer is yes, right? It must be. It has to be! I know we've just met and everything, but I feel like I know you. You're one of those people who just can't say no, right? Who'll put others' needs first before them, right?"

"I'm a bit curious so I'll just leave the door half opened here, okay?" There was no way he could intervene from where he was standing there. What should he do? What could he do? Set the building on fire? That wasn't a really bad idea, but…

"What are you talking about? Close the door, we need some privacy here! If you're really all that bored, why don't you go and check whether that detective had escaped or not, shut the door, now!" Kaito didn't want to make her mood worse than it already was, so he closed the door shut.

'In the end… Nothing can really be done here, huh?'

'I'm such an idiot, I'm such an idiot, I'm such an idiot!' It was Rin and Len who were supposed to be suffering the most in that situation, though for some reason Kaito felt like the pressure was all on him. 'She'll live the rest of her life carrying the burden of such a guilt.' No, it wasn't just Rin. He had to suffer, everything was his fault. If only…

'No, this isn't time for self loathing, I'll have an entire lifetime to think of reasons on why I hate myself but… Right now… What CAN I do now?' He was on his way to Mayu's office as instructed, though a part of him knew he won't find Len there and he was sure Mayu knew that too. There was the chance of him meeting Len on the way there… 'And when that happens… What'll I do? What'll I say?'

'Sorry, I couldn't save Rin. She's being tortured as we speak.' It was just impossible. He couldn't look at Len in the eye and say that, who in the right mind would? 'There's also this chance that she might die and bleed to death even though Mayu promised you two could leave this place alive.'

'Her arm's getting cut off by the way and you two are gonna have a matching… Oh crap, what am I THINKING? Am I really giving up? Am I really accepting the fact that Rin's going to lose an arm today? I can't do that! But I can't just rebel against Mayu now, that'll just make the situation worse…'

"KAITTOOOOO" Just when Kaito thought things couldn't get any worse, it did. He heard a loud hysteric scream, and it was Rin's voice.

A thousand thoughts raced through his head, one thing for sure though, he knew he shouldn't just stand there and guessed what had happened to her and Mayu in the hallway. Kaito wasn't all that far from the interrogation room to begin with, so it didn't take him more than a minute to return. And what he found there…

"Rin…?" He saw Rin up against the metal door holding the handle. They could hear loud knockings and Mayu's frantic voice from the inside, though he can't make up the words she was saying, he knew it wasn't good and they were probably curses. Then Kaito turned his attention to Rin again, who he noticed wasn't 100% clean; there were traces of blood around her fingers, and judging by the zero number of new wounds on her that's Kaito could see, he knew that wasn't her blood.

"What did you do?!" Kaito wasn't disappointed at her, not at all. He was actually happy and relieved. Whatever Rin did inside, it saved her, and more importantly, her two arms were still attached to her body. He couldn't help but smile, and since Mayu wasn't there, he let out a big sigh of relief. "I didn't know you were capable of actually hurting another human being there!"

"That's… Well…" He hit the nail on the head, Rin didn't look comfortable at that comment at all. She looked like a scared little cat, all guilty and fidgety; and on the other side of the door was a savage demon who could burst out of the door any second. "It's…"

"Let me give you a hand there." Kaito and Rin switched places. He was honestly really amazed Rin could hold the door out for that long… "Whatever happened the past few weeks must've been really rough on you too, huh?"

"It's…" Rin could only avoid his gaze.

"You need to tell me your side of your story once we're done here, I doubt you were just sleeping most of the time, I really doubt that. Let's just focus on what to do for now." He kept his voice low, he didn't want Mayu to know he was changing sides already. "Let me guess. You have the antidote with you, right?"

"…How did you know?" Rin took out the small vessel of hope from her dress' pocket and forced out a faint smile. "If what she said is really true, that Len is dying right now…"

"It's true, he is." He didn't bother to sugarcoat it that time. "Let's see, let's see… We need to find Len right now, give him an antidote and leave. I can't stay here and hold the door off forever, so the second I let Mayu out she's going to hunt down both of you."

"I'm sorry…"

"Don't be! You're alive and that's what matters." Kaito still couldn't figure out what Rin did to Mayu in the interrogation room… She harmed her, probably, though the story couldn't possibly have ended just there. "Alright, here's the plan. Go find Len, give him the antidote, and leave. The safest exit here is through the kitchen, and yes, we do have a kitchen here. Use the stairs near Mayu's office, Len'll know where it is, go up one floor, turn left on an intersection and just follow the hallway. Think you can memorize that much?"

"Go up one floor… Turn left… Okay." It wasn't that Rin couldn't memorize it, it was just that… Kaito talked a little bit too fast for her to actually take note on her head. "What about you?"

"I'm going to stay here for another hour, you have to leave by then. As much as I want to leave this door, eventually someone'll walk by and suspect something, so I really can't leave."

"…Kaito?" The knocking sounds suddenly stopped, and Kaito's heart skipped a beat at the sound of Mayu's voice calling his name. "Is that you out there?"

"Leave, now." Kaito whispered. "Good luck."