Chapter 2: Just Show Your Face, In Broad Daylight

A/N: Apologies to my readers for the long wait. Been going through a lot in my life recently, including my first full-time job! Great to be being paid, but it has prevented me from finishing this chapter for a while. Things should be stable going forward, and I aim to release chapters no slower than every two weeks. Additionally, I'm retconning the story a bit. The story's events now begin in 1913, as I'd forgotten to account for Tanjiro's two years of training.

Joe Caldwell fruitlessly tried not to chew his nails again as he looked poured over a table overburdened with more sheets than a paper mill. Ever since his brush with an avatar of death, both he and Rehnquist had been put under de-facto house arrest for fear of another attack. Japanese soldiers patrolled the area day and night, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police had launched several sweeps of the city searching for additional 'conspirators' and illegal weapons caches. Almost certainly, the whole effort would go to waste. Rehnquist had been quick to concoct an account of the event which kept the basics of the attack truthful whilst avoiding any mention of Demons or other supernatural phenomena which could have called both their sanities into question. Although the true nature of the attempt on his life would have made international headlines, the incident had nonetheless made him into a minor celebrity overnight.

As it turned out, while the policemen's extensive search efforts failed to turn up any demons, it did unearth a conspiracy to murder several members of the opposition who still vehemently protested Japan's recent annexation of Korea. One of the conspirators they'd caught had sung like a canary to save himself from the gallows, and the trail of names the police had promptly followed led back to the Prime Minister himself, along with many of the country's most powerful movers and shakers. Now Caldwell didn't know much about Japanese politics, and his research into its ubiquitous secret societies was only on account of it being necessary for the investigation. Having done that research, however, and having accidentally brought down a government the societies were very fond of, he knew one thing for certain: some very, very dangerous people wanted him dead.

But the detective couldn't just do nothing and wait for it all to blow over. Not now, not when they finally had a name for the demon-thing that killed the Ambassador, the one who must have led them all. Muzan. Although Caldwell couldn't do so much as walk by an uncovered window, let alone leave the building, The demonic incursion's other survivor had no such trouble. With the secret societies fixated on the detective, Rehnquist could freely step out whenever Joseph needed one bunch of documents or another. He'd certainly made use of that offer, enough that he wondered if having a man in his sixties do so much walking counted as being cruel to his elders, even if Arthur had insisted he didn't mind. This was a murder investigation, the detective reminded himself, and however harsh on the old man's knees the effort may have been, it had given him a treasure trove of data.

Unfortunately, it being a treasure trove was exactly the problem, and that was what had been driving him to the edge of madness for days now. He'd scoured every public record in Tokyo for anyone named Muzan, but there were just too damn many of them, much to his exasperation. As it turned out, a samurai bodyguard of Oda Nobunaga who'd died defending his lord had the same name, and for that reason it had become a rare but timeless men's name in the centuries since. He'd worn himself out so thoroughly trying to distinguish one Muzan from the hundreds that he'd forgotten to look for one in the Tokyo Police's arrest records, an amateur-hour mistake. Rehnquist had just left not too long ago to fetch them. Hopefully, he prayed, 'Muzan' had been brash enough with a previous killing to get caught, although how he escaped conviction for murders this chillingly brutal was beyond even Caldwell's ability to rationalize. His fingernails seemed fated to come under fire again as he prepared to run his head in circles around another impossible question. Before he could, however, he heard footsteps barreling down the hall, turning around just in time to see Rehnquist swing open the door with vigor, covered in sweat and gasping for breath.

"You alright?!" asked Joseph, bolting up out of his seat. "Anybody come after you? One of them?" he inquired as he made sure that the beleaguered old man didn't keel over and expire right then and there from his exhaustion. Rehnquist shook his head on the first question, but gave a noncommittal head tilt to the second, making Caldwell even more confused. After a few more seconds, his breathing steadied enough to speak.

"I know…his full name," Rehnquist managed between gasps, "It's-

"Kibutsuji Muzan! I'll never let you get away, no matter where you go!"

Until he heard those words, Arthur Rehnquist had been walking back from the police office in complete defeat. As expected, they'd had a few men named Muzan on the books, but none matched the description of a murderous cult's mastermind. Two had been in for larceny, one for assault, three for disorderly conduct, and perhaps most amusing, another for drunkenly crashing his Ford automobile into a gate of the Imperial Palace. Amusement aside, their best hope coming up empty was a considerably troubling sign. The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed bribery was involved. Otherwise, how could any group of giants dressed as 'demons' run about committing murder for this long? He could try to escalate matters, and get Washington directly involved, but if he was wrong, and they put him under a microscope…

He shook his head and kept walking. No one knew what had happened before that thing killed Charlie, and no one was going to know. If he was going to be forced to close the case for 'lack of evidence' to save his own career, even if it meant leaving a murder unsolved, then so be it. As turned the corner however, and ran straight into a massive crowd, he heard a young man's voice shout those words, and immediately knew who he was speaking to, even if he'd never seen him before. Stopping to get a better look at the scene, he could see what had drawn everyone to it.

A young woman had been attacked, blood pooling on her shoulder as passers-by attended to her injuries. As for the voice, it was indeed a young man, an older boy on closer inspection, who had on an awfully peculiar, mismatched getup. A bright blue woolen hood, green checkered cloak, and a black uniform jacket and trousers underneath. Before he could critique the boy's lack of fashion sense, though, he noticed why he was rooted to the spot, that being his desperate struggle to hold down her attacker: a man who looked for all the world to be possessed. His eyes bulged damn near out of their sockets as he writhed about in impotent fury, trying to attack everyone around him.

His red eyes.

It only took one look into those eyes for Rehnquist to know exactly what the poor soul had become. A bone-chilling shiver ran up his spine as he made the other connection: the ringleader himself was here, and he'd have to confront him. For a moment, he didn't dare move. The other one or two had been gigantic, superhuman avatars of death, and Muzan Kibutsuji would surely be no different. But he had to do it, he knew. He'd been a shy, retiring paper-pusher all his life, and he'd go back to being one after this was all over. But not now, not after everything that bastard had taken from him.

Taking a deep breath and a gulp of courage, he forced his gaze away from the boy and down the street, in the direction he'd been shouting his curses. At first, he couldn't pick anyone out of the crowd. Far too many were staring back at the commotion, none fitting the profile. Among them, he noticed one woman staring back similarly aghast at the display. A man beside her carrying a young girl in his arms, her husband he presumed, protectively put an arm over her shoulder to keep her moving away from the madman. Before they kept walking, however, the husband looked back at the situation one last time, and as the two took notice of each other, Arthur Rehnquist III gazed upon the face of pure evil.

As those accursed, unnatural eyes bored into his, all his doubts about demons, the supernatural, or anything of the sort shattered. The Lord may not be real, he thought, but Satan most certainly was, and the living icon of all his mortal sins was a devilishly handsome man in a suit and white fedora. The temptation to run and hide grew stronger and stronger, his heart beat as fast as it could, and trickles of sweat began to become a downpour. Then the demon took one step towards him, or perhaps he imagined it, and he lost his nerve completely. At a pace a 63 year old man ought not to have been capable of, Rehnquist bolted back the way he came, and then away in the other direction.

By the time he stumbled back to the gates of the American Embassy, he could hardly get air into his lungs, let alone move. The poor fellows guarding the gate were scared half to death for fear that another axe-wielding maniac was coming for them, but he hurriedly reassured them, in what speech he could muster, that they would be fine. Stumbling into the building with legs that protested with every step at being treated such a way in their old age, he pushed himself the last bit of distance to the room he'd left his friend in what felt like a millennium ago, to give him the one lead he hadn't miserably failed to pursue.

"You're absolutely certain that's what you saw? That not only was he one of them, but that this was the man himself looking you dead in the eyes?"

"Beyond...any doubt."

After Rehnquist, Arthur, he reminded himself again, had come back in a terrible panic and wheezed out the whole story of what he'd seen, Caldwell hadn't the slightest idea of what to do with it all. He'd been given a flood of new details, but precious little context to make any sense of them. So, as much as he hated to press an old man who was already exhausted, he kept pressing.

"What about the boy? He questioned. "We can safely assume he's also a victim, but what about that uniform? Did you catch any identifying marks on it anywhere?"

"I-I don't know," Rehnquist answered, "I wasn't looking long enough to see what might have been on it."

"Shit…" the detective grimaced, "that would've been a good one." He tried to think of anything else he might have gotten a better look at.

"What about the man he'd been restraining?" Caldwell again suggested. The way you described it, whatever Muzan had done to his mind, he had to have done it just before you arrived, otherwise he would've been free and clear of the place long before you got there. Did you see anything he could have delivered the poison with? A vial, a needle, a-"

"I don't know!" Rehnquist shouted out. "I just- I'm sorry; I don't know, I didn't see anything. I've completely bungled the whole thing! If it hadn't been for my cowardice, if I hadn't just stood there and ran, if I'd just pointed him out, I could have finally gotten him."

"Your cowardice?" The detective cooked his head in confusion at the assertion. "Arthur, this is perfect! You did exactly what you needed to do in that kind of situation. You saw the most dangerous man in the country, caught his full name, and ran like hell when you realized he'd seen you. Not to mention…" Caldwell paused for a moment, leaning in closer, "unless both of us had the same lucid dream last week, you and I both know full well he isn't the type of man who can be taken off the street by just two policemen. Assuming he's a man at all."

Rehnquist nodded, but his morale didn't seem to improve much at all in response to the praise.

"I know," he spoke, still casting a dejected look down onto the floor, "I know it wasn't my job to bring him in, or to investigate, but I've got to do something about him, Joseph. You saw what he or one of his men did to…Ambassador Bryan," he continued, a hint of anger still present in his tone, "and now we know for certain he wasn't the first victim. He isn't going to be the last either, and if we never find him again, it'll be because I wasn't brave enough to confront a man hardly 20 feet away from me."

Again, Caldwell noticed, Rehnquist seemed to struggle to mention the late Ambassador's name. Or rather, to refer to him by his title rather than his first name. Not that he was at all surprised by it, they'd been speaking with each other the same way, even though he'd only known Arthur for a rather short period. The way he mentioned Ambassador Bryan's name though, especially whenever the topic of his murder came up, had something other than a disdain for formality behind it, and he suspected he knew why. Again, he hated to press the old man, especially on a subject as sensitive as a murdered colleague, but if Bryan had been more than just a colleague, he needed to know. Widowed partners, especially the men, could be driven to spectacular heights of stupidity in their attempts to get revenge on the murderers who tore their lives apart. He'd only known Arthur Rehnquist for just slightly less than two weeks, but that was plenty long enough to identify a good man with a broken heart, and he couldn't have him getting himself killed attempting to mend it.

"Arthur?" Caldwell asked cautiously, still how to phrase the question delicately.

"Yes?"

"Might I ask you something before we continue?"

"Certainly." Rehnquist readily replied, albeit with a raised eyebrow.

"Please understand that I'm only asking this for the sake of the investigation, but…"

"But"? Rehnquist requested, growing increasingly confused.

"What was your involvement with Ambassador Bryan before he was killed?"

For a moment, Rehnquist's expression remained confused. As his mind had time to process the question, however, his look of befuddlement became one of raw, unadulterated dread, as if he'd just been read a death sentence and Caldwell knew his assumption had been right on. For a man of his age, he knew, any prison sentence would almost certainly be.

"We'll, I…had known him for…several years, and…"

He tried to say more, to desperately stall for a few more seconds while he invented some kind of explanation. As he tried, however, it was as if his throat had closed up completely. Forget trying to make excuses, he couldn't breath. Well he could breath, technically, but it was all coming out in gasps and wheezes that just would not quiet down. He was shaking too, why was he shaking? Now that was just silly, he knew, this was nothing worth shaking about. Joseph knew nothing, he had no reason to expect anything out of the ordinary, and this was all entirely coincidental. Now, he thought, to just get up and exit the situation as calmly as possible…

As he tried to stand, Caldwell could see Rehnquist lose his balance completely, thankfully sprawling back against the wall rather than onto his face. Rushing over, to his horror it looked as if the old man was dead, as he vacantly stared a hole into the ceiling. If it wasn't for the noise of his shallow, stop-start breathing, Caldwell would've been certain he'd finished Muzan Kibutsuji's job for him with a single question.

"Arthur? Arthur! Are you alright?" The detective panicked, shaking the Ambassador's shoulders.

Rehnquist's expression remained the same, his head still unmoving, but slowly he began to speak.

"So it's done then," he croaked, "You go and tell the rest of them, they'll telegram Washington, and in a few weeks I'll be back in Virginia, at the gallows-"

"I will do absolutely no such thing!"

Rehnquist's eyes finally moved down from the ceiling, and his face began regaining some of the color that had been sapped from it.

"You won't?"

"No Sir, I won't." the detective confidently asserted.

"Why not Joseph?" Rehnquist demanded, stability returning to his voice, "For Blackmail? I haven't got any money, if that's what you're after. Never did."

"Not quite," Caldwell quipped, "To tell you the truth of the matter, I have a small secret of my own."

"And what would that be?"

"Five years ago, if I remember correctly, the Bureau gave me my first proper investigation. Anarchist cell in Chicago. The sort of job that could get somebody killed if you didn't pin them down fast enough."

"Were they going to?" Rehnquist inquired.

"Kill somebody? Oh yes, the whole State Senate. Took months to get their guard down, but eventually one told me everything: they'd been working on a bomb, revenge for the Haymarket Affair. A week more, and they would've had it ready for them."

Caldwell paused for a few seconds, as if he were lost in thought, before shaking his head.

"Forgive me- I let my mind wander too long. As for how this all relates to why I don't hold your practice against you, while I never could abide by their violent habits, some of what they said made too much sense to me to just reject it out of hand. I never did understand why I was meant to detest anyone just for being a homosexual-"

"Shhh!" Rehnquist frantically hissed, wide eyes looking to the door.

"Right, sorry." The detective apologized, continuing in a more hushed tone, "I suppose my point is that while your way of living is peculiar to me, and I may never fully understand how it all works, it's ultimately none of my business. After all, it hasn't the slightest ill effect on me or anyone else, so why should I be up in arms about it? You've already lost a good man, by all accounts, a husband in more understanding time. What right do I have to bring you any more grief when you've already suffered so much? As I said, I will find your killer, Arthur, and you'll have your revenge for Charles."

The old man beamed with a genuine smile for the first time in weeks.

"Thank you, Joseph."

"None necessary."

Both men got up from where they'd been resting against the wall, but Caldwell noticed Rehnquist's legs were still trembling as he stood.

"You should rest, Sir, it's been an eventful day for you." He offered.

The old man snorted. "Certainly has been. I suppose it wouldn't hurt, but are you sure there's nothing else you need?"

"Nothing worth another brush with the demon-master." Caldwell reassured, "With what you brought, I'll be busy for a long while yet, don't worry yourself."

As Rehnquist left for his much-needed rest, the detective strolled back over to his desk, and all but collapsed into the chair. The more he thought about the whole exchange he just had, the more he despised himself. He hadn't entirely lied to Rehnquist. He didn't despise him for who he was, nor did he intend to expose his relationship with the late Ambassador to anyone anytime soon. But he had made a note of it, putting it in the back of his mental filing cabinet in case the investigation somehow went south and he needed a scapegoat. It was a talent he'd developed in his climbing of the ropes, and one he loathed himself for every day.

"After all," a voice whispered from a crevice deep in a part of his mind he desperately wished he could forget, "It wouldn't be the first time you sacrificed someone you 'cared about' for that career of yours, would it?"

He brushed the intrusive thought aside, although it was harder now than usual. It didn't help that it had a point, nor that his only way to get rid of such thoughts was to continue proving them right, by diving back into the job that he himself had fashioned into his tomb. This time, though, was different. Now he had a purpose, a real one, not just to impress a superior he loathed for a job that had lost its luster to him a long time ago. He'd always assumed the hopes of the naïve optimist who'd entered this job years ago would be buried by the weight of everything he'd had to do. Perhaps he'd find a way to the surface yet.

Turning his attention to the files poor Arthur had just about gotten a heart attack delivering, Caldwell returned to his specialty: finding the data, even when it would bore any other Investigator to tears. Laboriously scanning each name on page after page of the arrest records, nothing stood out. Another dud, more than likely. Reaching the last page, he wondered how they'd ever find Kibutsuji if these last records didn't pan out. Another random encounter in the streets? Unlikely. No wonder he was finding his name in arrest records either, the man wasn't stupid enough to let himself get caught with Serial Murder for an occupation.

But then, he noticed a name shining like an electric light, the very last one on the very last page, and Joe Caldwell couldn't believe his eyes. Maybe he really had been stupid enough.

KIBUTSUJI, MUZAN

2ND DEGREE ASSAULT

6 CHOME-10-2

ASAKUSA, TAITO CITY

TOKYO

Finding Rehnquist's murderer hadn't taken nearly as long as he thought. Once he could get a hold of the Tokyo Met tomorrow, it was time to pay Muzan Kibutsuji a visit.

Never in their lives had Caldwell, Rehnquist, or the good people of Asakusa seen so many policemen in one place, and the first of the three was one himself. The locals certainly didn't appreciate the racket they were causing either, as a seemingly endless cavalcade of officers arrived by automobile.

From the grizzly nature of Ambassador Bryan's murder, to their own near-deaths at the hands of one of his monsters, both men knew full well what Muzan Kibutsuji was capable of. After finding his address, they'd formulated a foolproof plan to take him in. The Tokyo Met had been reluctant to say the absolute least at the notion of sending nearly a hundred armed officers to arrest one man, but Caldwell had managed to convince them. Kibutsuji was a man who relied on sticking to the shadows, he'd insisted, and once his cover was blown, he would have no choice but to surrender himself to arrest. Thus, he and Rehnquist found themselves outside an entirely unremarkable apartment building at the crack of dawn, long before either of them had any time to properly wake up.

"Are you certain this'll work, Joseph?" The elderly Ambassador asked, nervously fidgeting with his collar.

"Certain? Arthur, we brought half the department! If this doesn't cut it, I don't know what will." The detective replied, watching as the policemen began blocking off the area.

"I know, it's a silly feeling, but…"

"But?"

"There was just something terribly wrong with him, fundamentally wrong. When he looked back at me that night, I don't have any way to substantiate this, but I swear to the Lord Almighty I could see the hate in his eyes. As if he wanted to run me through right then and there just for looking at him the wrong way. You're right that we'll get him, but I just can't imagine he'll come quietly."

"Perhaps not," Caldwell grimly mused, noticing as a Police Inspector approached the building with a megaphone, "I suppose we'll be finding out here shortly."

A crowd of curious onlookers began to gather around as the policeman began directing demands towards the still-silent apartment.

"Kibutsuji Muzan! We have a warrant for your arrest! Present yourself at once!"

Looking closely, Caldwell could see the curtain on a doorside window raise ever so slightly. A pair of eyes darted into which immediately went wide open at the sheer number of police surrounding the building. Several voices began shouting inside, a man, woman, and young child by the sound of it. Still, the door remained closed and the curtains drawn, and the Inspector with the megaphone called out to whoever was inside again.

"Kibutsuji Muzan! Present yourself immediately or we will enter by force!"

Again, there was a great racket inside the apartment. This time, though, the voices drew closer to the door, and Kibutsuji, or whoever was inside fought frantically with the doorknob, having forgotten the lock in their frantic attempts to get out and surrender. Now Caldwell was beginning to sweat in anticipation. For a career criminal and cult leader, Muzan Kibutsuji was awfully eager to surrender himself to the authorities. His residence was completely unguarded, too, not what you would expect from a man who knew a police raid could be busting his door down at any moment. We're Arthur's instincts right? Had they really gone and assembled this whole effort just for a false positive?

As he felt the temptation to bite his nails again, Muzan Kibutsuji finally opened the door and put his hands up; and they had their answer.

"Oh-"

"-fuck", Rehnquist finished, too mortified at the sight before him to apologize for the language.

They'd found a Muzan Kibutsuji alright, but if this man was the Muzan Kibutsuji they'd moved heaven and earth to find, he was an even more capable murder cult leader than they'd first assumed.

"What is the meaning of this?!" The old man limping out of the apartment door angrily demanded, "What do you people think gives you the right to come to my house every week, and harass me for this thing, or that thing, or anything that I keep telling you I never did?!"

The Inspector, equally as stupefied, looked back at Caldwell and Rehnquist, before angrily marching up to the two. Firing out a barrage of rapid-fire Japanese at the both of them, Rehnquist exasperatingly pleaded that he couldn't speak Japanese, in the exceedingly limited Japanese he knew. The Inspector, for his part, recognized that the older man couldn't understand, and proceeded to turn his furious barrage of curses specifically towards Caldwell.

"You said, "highly dangerous, surrounded by cultists, almost certainly armed", he bellowed, pointing at the irate and confused old man, "what the fuck is this?!"

That the Chief of Police took a great deal of convincing that a man named Muzan Kibutsuji was responsible for the murders now made considerably more sense. Upon closer inspection, Caldwell noticed 'Muzan' was even more geriatric than he'd first thought. In addition to the limp, a cataract blinded his left eye, and he had his hand cupping what was almost certainly his one good ear in an attempt to better hear what was going on.

He turned back towards the fuming Inspector.

"It would appear," he slowly began, trying to find a tone and choice of words that wouldn't enrage the man even further, "that I mistook the identity of Mr. Kibutsuji. I apologize."

"Apologize?! Apologize? Spare me your apologies, gaijin. If it's an apology you're after, don't bring another one of these fantasies into my department again!" The officer spat.

Storming off, he gave a flurry of orders to his men, and they began to remove the cordon and get back into their automobiles. Within a few minutes, with the same efficiency they'd arrived, they were off, leaving Caldwell, Rehnquist, and a baffled 'Muzan Kibutsuji'; all trying to comprehend what in God's name just happened.

"You can go back inside Sir," the Detective said wearily, "sorry for the trouble."

"I did my time. Harassment, harassment, that's what this is…" the geezer muttered like a mantra, before slamming the door to his apartment shut.

"We're done, aren't we?" Rehnquist wondered aloud to no one in particular. "They've all but spat in our faces, and we needed them to make any meaningful progress. They're going to demand our resignations, aren't they Joseph, and then…?

Caldwell saw Rehnquist's hands begin to shake again.

"No, they won't. Not in the slightest." he assured, trying to steady the old man's nerves before panic could take hold of him again. "I won't let them get you, Arthur, you have my word."

"Hopefully." Rehnquist spoke softly, head down.

"Hopefully."

"Y-yes Sir, absolutely. Won't be a problem again."

Caldwell hung up the telephone, and several deep breaths. As it turns out, he didn't have to pull both his and Rehnquist's careers back from the brink. Instead, it was exclusively his own.

The Tokyo authorities had directly phoned Washington to express their disappointment with the detective assigned to the case. They couldn't believe that this was the best effort of the man the Bureau of Investigation had insisted was one of their best. Of course, Caldwell had no idea the exchange had ever happened, nor that the Japanese were that incensed, until he was blindsided by a call from the Bureau demanding an explanation as to what he was doing.

That alone was hardly any real cause for concern. The Japanese wouldn't swap him out for another detective without the Bureau's say-so, and he still had plenty of good reputation left to burn before they would ever consider replacing him. No, it was that Albert Heidegger had been the one calling.

A chill went down Caldwell's spine at the thought. Heidegger was the Bureau's infamous second-in-command, second only to Charles Bonaparte himself. You wouldn't assume he was infamous just from looking at him. Cheerful-looking fella, always upbeat, at first anyone would be overjoyed to work for him, and Caldwell had been, at the start. Eventually, though, you'd fall behind, or perhaps even begin to take it easy, assuming that it was an easy desk job outside of investigations. Only then, would you discover the masterclass in sociopathy that lay behind that smiling face.

'Smiling Al' Heidegger earned his sardonic nickname through his God-given talent: to get inside your head and instill a fear of him greater than you thought possible within it; all in a sickly-sweet tone of voice and maintaining a toothy smile that would haunt your nightmares for the rest of your miserable days. As a testament to the effectiveness of that ability, the phone call had only been a few minutes, but Caldwell felt sick to his stomach. A feeling still gripped his throat, and he didn't know if it was to vomit or to cry, perhaps both. Heidegger hadn't been "concerned for his career" in ages, and he was usually competent enough at his work to keep him focused on other potential victims.

Not since Chicago…

"Joseph? Are you alright?" a voice called out from the door, saving him from another unconsenting dive into his memories.

Looking up, he could see the face of a man who was genuinely concerned, and whose expression actually changed to reflect that feeling, unlike the static-faced monster back in D.C.

"Perfectly fine, Arthur, thank you, just…a bit under the weather is all."

The old man didn't buy the excuse for a second, but thought it would be best not to pry.

"How unfortunate. If it would lift your spirits, I have some news you might like to hear. There are people at the gate who want to see you. They want to talk with you about Kibutsuji."

Caldwell's face turned a shade paler than it already was, assuming the worst.

"-Not policemen." Rehnquist hurriedly added, much to the detective's relief.

"A woman, some kind of doctor I believe, and her companion. Scary looking fellow, didn't talk much, just stared me dead in the eyes like he wanted me dead."

Peculiarities aside, the thought of having potential witnesses was all it took to put the wind back in Caldwell's sails, and those horrid feelings quickly began to subside as he got up.

"Have you let them in?"

"I did, yes. Assumed you'd be eager to see them, good to see I wasn't wrong! They're waiting in the lobby.

As they walked, Caldwell still struggled to fully banish the intrusive thoughts that kept poking into his consciousness. All he could think of was hearing that voice again on the next call if this turned out to be another fib, and he had nothing to show for himself…

Shaking his head, they finally turned the corner into the lobby, where the mysterious visitors stood waiting

On one side stood one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen in his entire life, dressed in a purple floral-patterned yukata. On the right stood a man in a white-colored gown, currently staring at him with a look of white-hot fury.

"Of course he is! You're ogling his wife, you dolt!" The detective mentally kicked himself in realization.

He swiftly looked away, clearing his throat. "Apologies for my slowness, ma'am, I hadn't expected visitors this late at night. Might I have your names?"

"Certainly." the woman spoke, her voice similarly beautiful. "My name is Tamayo, and this is Yushiro, my assistant. I understand you're searching for a man named Kibutsuji Muzan?"