The Null Hypothesis, Part 3
The day after, Murasame was back at the grind of work. His pile increased a bit due to his father's trip overseas, so he needed to take care of a few of his things while he was away. It wasn't as if his father was going to basically disappear from the company for the entire trip, but while his father was getting situated in America, it was for the best that the opportunities weren't wasted because no one was there to take advantage of them. It was only for a single day, so Murasame didn't really mind.
After all, it didn't even feel like work to him. It was more trivial, if anything.
As he was working though, a sudden phone call came for him. It wasn't out of the ordinary to get more than a handful during the workday, but when he looked at the caller identity, Murasame had to pause a bit since it was one of a private number. It was strange, but he decided to pick up.
"Murasame Houou," he responded, "of the Phoenix Conglomerate."
"Salutations. It's Investigator Masanori. I hope you remember me from yesterday."
"The investigator that wasted my time yesterday, huh? Yeah, sure." Murasame spun his chair around to look out the window behind him. "I remember someone like that."
Masanori chuckled on the other line, not realizing that it wasn't supposed to be a joke. Murasame truly meant it when he said that. "I'm sorry for disturbing you at your workplace. I'm certain that you must have your hands full dealing with your current partners and cases."
"It's fine," Murasame sighed. "As long as you get to the point of why you're calling me like this. I'm not a big fan of sudden calls from the police department, after all."
"Do you remember the boy that you've admitted into the hospital?"
"Obviously. How could I forget? He was the only reason why I was waiting in the hospital." Murasame spun back to his desk and leaned forwards. "So what? You called me to say that you found out something about him? Sorry to say this, but I don't think I'm the one who you should be updating here."
"Actually, it's not that. The tests were run through with the boy, but…" Brief silence held the conversation still. "Nothing is coming up."
"Even with all that data you're getting from him? That's pretty incompetent if you ask me."
"You can't cross samples with a system that doesn't have his information to begin with. It doesn't work like that."
"What are you saying? That the kid doesn't exist?"
"Not to that extent, but there is suspension surrounding the boy. The hospital is unsure what to do with him, especially with the strange circumstances that are happening with him. They can't keep him in their confines."
"It's only been a day and they already want to kick him out?" Murasame rolled his eyes. "Amazing work from the hospital."
"You see, he sustained no injuries. He has no wounds. The boy is the definition of good health. There is no reason for the hospital to keep him there."
Murasame narrowed his eyes. It wasn't his imagination that the boy recovered too quickly after drowning. The hospital should have found something that might have signaled that he wasn't alright, especially with his possible brain damage, but if they couldn't find anything, that doesn't explain the amnesia that the boy has. Then again, there wasn't a reason why Murasame needed to look too deeply into it. It wasn't his job to do that; it was the investigator's.
"Okay…? What are you calling me again?"
"As the investigator on this case, I've brought it upon myself to have the boy be moved to a secure location until further notice. It would be a place that would make him feel safe and comfortable until we can figure out his identity, but we ran into a problem this morning."
Murasame could hear Masanori take a breath.
"The boy refused to come with us. He said that if Murasame Houou didn't approve of it, he wasn't going anywhere. There's no way we would be able to force against him, so this is the best, or rather the only, way to have things resolved. In other words, we're asking for your assistance."
"Oh, seriously?"
Murasame scratched his head as he did another spin around in his chair.
"I mean, if the boy needs affirmation from someone who knows the best, I don't mind making my way over there after work. Really now, I think that boy has good taste. If something doesn't have my approval, it must be something not worthwhile to go along with!"
"It is appreciated. We'll be busy dealing with another case around the time that you're finished with the work day, I presume around five o'clock in the afternoon, so if you can head into the hospital ahead of us and speak to the boy for a bit before we get there, that would be perfect."
"Huh? Why do I have to be the one to use my time efficiently?" Murasame slumped on his desk. "How long do I have to talk to him? You're really leaving me with nothing here."
"Do not worry. I'm sure it will work out. After all, you are Murasame Houou."
"... Yeah. Yeah, that's right! I can do anything I set myself to do! That's what the might of Murasame Houou is capable of!"
"I'll take my leave now. Thank you, Murasame."
The investigator dropped the call, leaving Murasame nodding to himself. He was rather easy to convince once a compliment was sent his way and the last few minutes was mere proof of that. Murasame even spun around with a smirk on his mouth for a little while before realizing he was still at work.
It would seem like that little distraction cost him a few minutes of his lunch.
-/SK-EV/-
Murasame walked into the hospital's lobby and headed up to reception. It was the same person from yesterday, so they immediately recognized him. It wasn't as if someone of Murasame prestige needed the reminder in the first place.
"Oh, Mister Murasame. Are you here to see the boy?"
"Something like that…"
"I take it that Investigator Masanori has told you about the circumstances?"
"More or less…"
He felt tired just being here, but there was a job that needed to be done. Though, the more he went on with this little charade, the more he started to think that a case like this wasn't going to make good headlines anytime soon. Reporters might not even want to flock to the news, even if it was spread out like crumbs to seagulls.
"Don't tell me this is going to be a waste of time and effort?"
"Excuse me, did you say something, Mister Murasame?"
"Nothing."
"Eep!"
Murasame sighed, seeing the receptionist still being a little jittery around him, but there wasn't any need to make them suffer too much. "What's the room number again?"
"Th-The boy is in Room 6012. That is to say, the sixth floor." The receptionist pulled up the file, just in case, and nodded to themselves. "We usually have active patients residing on the second and third floor, but because of his unique case, we couldn't admit him into those rooms. We had extra rooms unused up there, so I hope you don't mind the scaling."
"Is that so? Guess I'll be taking the elevator then."
Murasame followed the signs up to his destination. When he arrived up to the sixth floor, the place looked a little empty. There were still nurses going around, but it was obvious that this was a floor holding more of the low-priority or something along those lines. He wouldn't know; he wasn't a nurse himself. All he needed to do was to find this boy.
One of the nurses noticed him and asked for him to follow them. It would appear that they were already expecting Murasame to show up, so not before long, Murasame found himself entering the room. It was a bit more spacious than he expected.
"Huh? M-Mister Murasame! You came to visit!"
Excitedly, the boy came over to Murasame's side. Luckily, the boy knew what personal space was and only came up to a comfortable distance. It seemed from yesterday, the hospital provided him with some basic clothing. It was only a beige-colored t-shirt and similarly-colored shorts with pockets, but it was far better than whatever hospital rags Murasame found him in.
"You should have been here with me yesterday!" the boy pouted. "They were doing all sorts of weird things to me!"
Murasame frowned. If what was to be believed from what he heard prior, the hospital should have simply been doing tests on him to check on the state of his body and clues towards his identity. There shouldn't have been anything weird about that, so he glanced silently at the nurse.
They quickly looked at a clipboard belonging to the boy.
"We only performed the standard procedures. There was a bit of extra testing, but that was simply due to the lack of information we were working with."
"How is putting a needle in my arm a standard procedure!? Then taking out my blood from that!?" The boy was flailing his arms in a tantrum. "And then you were taking see-through pictures of me too!? That can't be normal!"
"You mean, x-rays?" Murasame raised his eyebrow.
"Huh? Y-You mean to say that was actually a thing!?"
"Yeah, the hospital was trying to see if you were hurt."
"I didn't feel hurt! Except when they poked the needle in my arm!"
"Some injuries hurt so much that it loops right back around to not hurting." Murasame started spewing things that weren't necessarily true, but it wasn't entirely false either. Adrenaline could technically make that statement true and while the nurse wanted to proclaim the technicalities of it, they decided it might have been better to stay quiet. "They had to make sure that it hadn't been that case."
"They were trying to help me…?"
"Obviously. Why else would I put you here?"
"Oh, I guess that makes a lot of sense!"
Without much debating, the boy was immediately convinced. While Murasame was content on having someone believe so much in him, he was starting to think that the brain damage did a little more than cause amnesia. The boy wasn't very bright when it came to common concepts.
"Look, I'm sure they even bandaged your arm once they were done sticking the needle in you."
"Actually, Mister Murasame…"
The nurse leaned in to whisper to him as they brought up some of the boy's paperwork to him.
"Something strange apparently happened during that time."
"Strange in what way?"
"We didn't… give him a bandage."
"Shouldn't that have been standard procedure?"
"If he was bleeding, of course. However, once the nurses working with him had extracted the blood sample, the wound mysteriously closed itself up in a matter of seconds."
"Huh? Come again?"
"We don't know what to make of it." The nurse started shaking their head as they flipped through some more pages. "It's not morally correct to give him another needle when we already have what we needed, but it's not something that the nurses were able to shake off so easily. They made a note of it in his paperwork here, but there are other irregular occurrences."
The nurse pointed to one of the brain scans.
"There's research to support that drowning does inflict a change in how the scans are produced, but no matter how the doctors pick it apart, the brain scans appear similar to a healthy seventeen year old. Nothing here suggests that he was even drowning to begin with. Not even water in his lungs."
It looked a bit bad for Murasame himself. If there wasn't anything to point to what he claimed to have happened, the doctors might end up assuming something bad about him.
"Are you calling me a liar…?" Murasame grunted defensively. "I'll have you know I spent time in drenched clothing for a while! It was an uncomfortable position to be in!"
"No, that's not the case." The nurse looked like they were backtracking heavily on their momentum. "W-We're simply saying that the boy is currently an enigma, if we are to take the testimonies as truth. We still can't explain the disappearing needle entry. We're unsure as to what is happening right now, but we can't go further than what we've done so far because a hospital's role is to bring someone back to good health. And, well, the boy is in good health, so our job is done."
"Is that so? Then, speaking of which…"
Murasame turned to the boy who was patiently waiting by the side.
"I heard you refused to go with a few people this morning."
"Obviously! Why would I go along with strangers!? I barely know who they are!"
Murasame wanted to snap back, saying that the boy barely knew who he was, but that would have been rather counterintuitive to the image he was trying to portray.
"Everyone has a job they need to do." Murasame stood straight, holding a hand on his hip. "For those people this morning, they were trying to help you as well. you don't know anything right? It's their job to find clues to who you are. All you have to do is go with them and listen to what they say."
"R-Really…?"
"Would I lie to you?"
The boy shook his head. "There's no way that Mister Murasame would lie! You're too amazing!"
"That's right!" Murasame could feel his nose getting longer. "That's why you have to listen to me, right? I know what's best in a given situation, after all."
"Right…" The boy nodded. "Then when they come back, I have to go with them?"
"What? Are you nervous or something?"
"I wouldn't say that, but…" The boy started to turn his ankle back and forth while glancing at the ground. "They seem a bit scary."
"Whenever I need to calm my nerves, not that it happens to me…" Murasame pulled out his second phone, the one with all the games on it. "I distract myself a little."
"What's that?"
"You don't even know this is? It's a phone and more importantly, it has all sorts of games on it."
Murasame urged the boy to sit down on the patient's bed as he handed over the phone.
"Take a look at it and have some fun."
As the boy took it into his hands, he was pinching it by the corner. It was like this was his first time seeing a phone. Being in this day and age, it was a strange sight, to say the least. Even old grandmas would be able to understand it rather quickly, if only for its basic functions.
"There are… games on this? Like Tag?"
"No, not those types of games," Murasame sighed. He took the phone back and showed the boy how to turn it on. The screen popped, almost scaring the boy in his place. "How do I explain this? You can control the phone by touching the screen and if you tap on this square here…"
A game popped up when Murasame tapped on it. It was an infinite runner style of game where the player had to swipe up to jump and swipe to the sides to change lanes. It was all to avoid incoming obstacles in the effort of reaching a high score. Murasame tried to explain it like he was dealing with a toddler and while the boy picked up on the controls easily enough, he kept crashing into the obstacles.
"Kid! You're supposed to move! You're not going far if you keep staying still!"
"Why do I have to move though? Can't I keep going forwards through the obstacles?"
"That's not how the game works! Why can you understand jumping over pits, but not moving away from the rocks!?"
"Because it's harder to climb out of a pit."
Murasame didn't understand the logic that was going through the boy's head.
"I don't get why there are so many rules to this though." The boy tilted his head along with the phone, treating the game as some type of foreign object. "Tag and hide-and-seek are so much easier."
"That's what makes it a game. People make the rules and you get points by respecting them."
"I don't like this game."
Murasame grumbled. "That's what all people who are bad at games say. Put in a bit of effort in following the rules and maybe you can see the enjoyment from it."
"If you say so, Mister Murasame." The boy energetically nodded. "I'll do my best!"
He was starting to think that the boy had a very linear way of thinking, something that probably wasn't stemming from his amnesia to begin with. Regardless, Murasame was rather exasperated at the end of his homemade tutorial, so he sat over by a chair as the nurse chuckled a bit at the scene.
"What's so funny?"
"It looked like you were enjoying yourself a bit."
"What was funny about that!?"
It took a few minutes, but the boy was starting to get into the infinite runner. While he might have been slow-starting to understanding why the game needed to be played the way it was, the boy was a quick learner. He even figured out how to use the power-ups properly once Murasame explained them, though they were awfully simple when it came down to it. A distance boost, a shield, a point multiplier—it was all the generic stuff one would expect from a game like that.
In twenty minutes though, the boy already did something unexpected.
"Huh? Y-You broke my record!?"
"Is that bad…? Oh no, did I do something wrong!?"
The boy's eyes widened, almost as if he was going to start crying.
"I-I mean, uh… N-Not really. I mean, of course you got better at the game over time. I was the one to teach you, after all. Anyone who learns under my tutelage is expected to be amazing!"
Like a coin being flipped, the boy's fears turned into excitement.
"Really!? I have you to thank for that, Mister Murasame! I think I'm getting better at the game and it's starting to be really fun! You really know what you were saying!"
"Of course!" Murasame smirked, taking the boy's achievement as his own for some reason. "I wouldn't be Murasame Houou for no reason!"
With a boisterous laughter, the boy started clapping.
However, it was at that moment that everything turned on its head.
"H-Hey, excuse me!" Murasame heard a nurse shouting in the hallways. "You can't be here! What do you think you're doing!?"
"Huh?" Murasame stopped and glanced over to the door. "What's all the commotion?"
The nurse pondered. "I can go check and see if it's anything—"
A sudden blunt noise echoed from the hallways, stopping the nurse's words in their tracks. It sounded awfully like a baseball bat hitting something, but Murasame was worried that the something might have not been a thing, especially when screaming started to surge from the hallway.
The nurse went over to the door, peeking outside, but returned with a pale expression.
"Y-You two stay in your rooms."
"Hey, what's happening here!?"
"I…" The nurse was flabbergasted for words. "I'm sure things are going to be handled soon."
"That's not what I'm asking about!"
Before the nurse could leave, the door opened wide by itself. Or rather, that wasn't the appropriate way to describe it. Someone else had opened it wide in her place, forcing the nurse to back away from the only exit.
A masked man walked in, as if he was already owning the place. Being dressed in an unkempt uniform suit, Murasame was more focused on what was in his hand. A baseball bat rested on his shoulders with blood on its end.
Without hesitation, the masked man knocked out the nurse and swung to their stomach, causing their body to fling to the opposite wall. They would have been lucky to only be unconscious from that, but with the door opened wide, Murasame could hear more screaming through echoes.
Murasame sweated as he glanced over to the boy, but for some reason, the boy didn't have the same fears as he did. It was as if he didn't understand what was happening.
"Ah," the masked man chuckled, "you must be the one we're looking for."
"These people look different from the ones from this morning." The boy glanced back at Murasame. "You said I should be going with them?"
"N-No, these are… different people…"
Murasame gulped, sitting up from his seat. He could feel the weight on his chest pressing up against the pressure of the situation. It didn't take him much context to understand what was happening and he was willing to bet that this masked man wasn't working alone.
"Different people?" the boy asked, clearly confused.
"Well, I don't know what your plans were, but we're certainly here to pick up something."
The man pointed the baseball bat at the boy.
"We'll be taking him off your hands."
It would have been easier to comply, but there was no telling what the intentions were with the boy. This situation might have been part of the explanation to why the boy was floating down the river to begin with, so after wiping the sweat off his face, Murasame took a deep breath.
"Y-You… You know who he is?"
"We're here to complete a job. Hell if I know what this is all about."
"Wait, so they're not the people you're talking about?" the boy asked again.
"No, they're… I think they're bad guys."
"Bad guys!?" At the very least, the boy understood that much. "Then I'm definitely not going with them! I don't like bad guys!"
"Ohoho…" The masked man rested the bat on his shoulder again. "I'm afraid you don't have a choice in the matter."
"M-Mister Murasame…!"
"What…!? Why are you pleading with me!?"
Tears welled up in his eyes from genuine fear. "Y-You can help me out, right!? I really don't want to come with them if you say that they're bad guys!"
"U-Uh…!" The boy failed to realize that Murasame was suffering through the same kind of fear. "How do you propose that I do that!?"
"I-I don't know! You're amazing, right!? Can you figure something out!?"
There was clearly no way to talk his way out of this situation. If the masked man and his comrades were insane enough to siege a hospital and knock out all of the nurses that were in their way, they wouldn't hesitate in doing the same to a businessman.
However, the boy looked up to him as if he was the only person that could do something about this. To be fair, Murasame was the only line of defense from the masked man getting what he wanted.
"It's… a real fight, huh?"
Murasame never really experienced a fight outside of scheduled tournaments, in which he would rank low in, or his training sessions, to which his opponents were practice dummies. It wasn't a lie to say that he was forced to fend himself off from some yōma attacks back in Kyoto, but during that time, his tribe-and-true tactic of running away worked fabulously since he was alone.
Even with his fights of hatred with Ikaruga, his opponent didn't hold any bloodlust towards him.
This wasn't the case here.
If he ran away, the boy was put in danger.
If he fought, there was the risk that he would end up like that nurse against the wall.
And then again, why did he even care to begin with? The boy was a stranger, a commoner even, who was found within the river, drowning his head off before Murasame stepped in to save him, but perhaps that was the error of his actions. Being someone that Murasame helped out, he would be damned if all of the assistance that he provided would go to waste over this stupid situation.
Either way, it was obvious what needed to be done.
"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!"
Murasame grabbed his scroll from his jacket and brought out his kusarigama. The chains wrapped around his arms by themselves as he grabbed onto the sickle tightly and the weighted end with a slight twirl to it. Sweat was dripping down his head, his throat felt clogged and his body was shaking frantically, but now that he had shown his intention to resist, the masked man scoffed.
"Hah! You really think you can stop me?"
The masked man ran forwards, swinging the bat.
"I'd like to see you try!"