The Maple House was silent. Nobody dared to speak, nobody was willing to. Not after what they all knew had happened to one of their residents.
Nyu, or Lucy, or whatever she was now, had said that she had something to do, and Kohta had chosen to believe her. Thus, he had not seen the battle between her and the police force, though Nana had said that she could hear the gunshots from far away.
It had been several days, and there was no sign that she would return. Every time someone knocked on the door, Kohta, despite the depression he'd fallen into, would jump up and answer with a grin, but every time, it was someone else, a police officer come to ask them a few questions or a stranger asking for directions.
Each time the pink-haired girl, for Kohta still couldn't see her as anything but despite the memories awoken in him when he'd seen her kill those soldiers, neglected to show her perpetually innocent face, it only made him feel worse, until he finally stopped answering the door entirely.
Yuka had taken to staying as close to Kohta as possible. She knew what he was going through, knew the deep-seated feelings he'd had for the missing...she didn't know what to call her, after what she now knew of Nyu's real personality. Monster, that was her first thought, but then again, Nana was one of...them...too, and she had never so much as tried to hurt a human being.
Nana. Poor Nana. She was as shaken up by the death of her adoptive father as Kohta was over Nyu. She had always been a somewhat fragile girl, but now, not even Mayu could bring her out of her doldrums.
The Maple House was silent. No one wanted to speak, and so, no one spoke. All that could be heard was the sound of the grandfather clock in the hallway, having inexplicably started working despite nobody having fixed it ever since that day.
The clock didn't help the mood in the slightest. If anything, it only made the depressing air more obvious as it ticked in its regular intervals.
There wasn't even the usual sound of a big house settling. Just dead quiet, punctuated by the tick-tock of the pendulum. No sound at all from the residents, not even the usual sound of the music box playing in a corner.
Not that the music box worked anymore. It was broken now, as inexplicably and unexplainably as the clock's repair. It was as if the house itself was despairing for the loss of the horned girl.
A knock on the door stirred Yuka from her place next to Kohta, who had fallen asleep at some point, a deep frown on his face.
Yuka sighed, standing up, though she didn't want to leave the warmth the man provided. As much as she didn't want to, someone had to answer the door. She still clung to that little sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, there would be news about Nyu. Even if that news was just that they had found a body, she knew that that would be enough. Even seeing such a sight would be able to bring Kohta out of his disconnected state. She knew that the fact that they didn't know her fate was far worse on him than knowledge of her being dead would be.
It was another soldier, wearing the black combat uniform that had been proven time and time again to be totally useless against Lucy's wrath.
Yuka looked down, and was about to close the door without a word to the soldier, before he put a hand on the knob, keeping it open.
"Is this the residence of one Kohta Saori?" the soldier asked. "I'm here as a messenger for the Diclonius Research Institute."
Diclonius. The word meant nothing to Yuka, and she voiced her thoughts. "I don't know what that is. Leave us alone, we don't want to associate with-"
"It is related to the fate of the one you know as Nyu."
That shut Yuka up, and she stared wide-eyed at the soldier. "You...know what happened to her?"
The soldier nodded. "She has been successfully recaptured by the Institute, under orders of the new Director."
Yuka gritted her teeth. She didn't know about an Institute, but she could tell that the soldier was talking about some organization studying the horned humans Nyu was a part of. "How is she?" she asked, a tone of concern catching in her voice. Nyu had been captured, and she had no doubt she wasn't being kept under the best circumstances considering the past of the weird other self she contained.
The soldier nodded. "She is safe, don't worry. In fact, she may be safer there than anywhere else in the world. The new Director is far more forgiving than the last."
Yuka didn't care about the new Director, whoever it may be. Nyu was alive. That was all she needed to hear, and all Kohta would need to hear.