Mai

"What do you think the police would make of all this?" Teiichi asked, softly but suddenly, turquoise eyes troubled.

I looked up from where I had been cutting up Azami's lunch.

"What do you mean?" I asked, curiously.

Teiichi simply blushed and shrugged, looking away from me and all of us who stared, his streaked hair momentarily obscuring his face. Only Azami didn't react, simply staring into space as she had been doing ever since when…

"Do you think the police are even going to come, at this point?" Eizo asked shakily as he pushed his own food around the plate.

Distracted, I looked back up again. That was something I had been wondering. Why had we not been found yet? Did anyone know that we were even missing? Was anyone looking for us? I thought of my grandmothers, hoped that they were okay.

"They have to." Kimiko said. "Surely they will."

"Psh, right, that's totally why they still haven't turned up even though more and more of us are dying." Sen'ya spat at her.

"Now, that was uncalled for." Seiko said, calmly.

"It's fucking true though, isn't it?" Sen'ya responded.

"Guy, guys…" Ayuna said. "This isn't helping.."

"Though we have been here for a long time, yes?" Lilian asked, absently.

"This does bring up an interesting point, though."

We all stared at Eikichi, who regarded us all just as calmly as he'd spoken, the demeanour seeming to amplify the iciness of his eyes.

"Though there isn't a way of knowing if we will be rescued, if and when we are, we will need to think about what to say."

"What do you mean?" Ayuna asked. "We'd just tell them what happened, right?"

Eikichi sighed, and ran his hands through his matcha-green hair, before shaking his head.

"Really? You'd tell them what happened? Exactly what happened? Do you really think that would work out for us?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ayuna flared up.

"Osamu." Seiko murmured, before turning to look at Eikichi.

"You think we won't be believed, right?" she asked calmly.

"Tch," Sen'ya curled his lip, before sighing. "To be fair, I wouldn't believe this if I wasn't here."

"But it's not just that, is it?" Teiichi spoke up again. "It's…what Komiya-kun, Amai-kun and Kamiya-san…what they did…."

"A-Akari?"

"Azami-chan?"

I turned, quickly, and looked at her. She seemed to be looking around her, but then, just as suddenly, she seemed to shrink back into herself.

"Azami-Chan, here." I said, taking a forkful of food and holding it to her lips. "Here, eat."

I concentrated on feeding Azami while the others talked. I didn't look over at them, but I listened, curious despite myself.

"Also…we can be implicated, yes?" Lilian asked.

"That's true." Seiko acknowledged.

"I don't…I don't understand…."

"What they mean is that they might decide that we should be the ones punished, since, you know, the only thing that's telling us to do all this is just a fucki-"

"There's no sense in lying to the police," Kimiko said. "I think they'd be able to find the truth, anyway."

"Again, we're still here, aren't we?"

"Okay, this really isn't helping anything…"

"Osamu's right. We need to stop. We can worry about this once we are rescued-and I think we will be."

I woke up with tears in my eyes, my breathing ragged. I sucked in a deep breath, trying hard to not wake up Juro. You think we won't be believed, right? The more time went on, the more it seemed that it would be true. They would not believe us. They would think the worst of us. They would…they would…

"Mai?" Juro murmured sleepily.

"Juro…"

"Hey, what's wrong?" he whispered, turning over to look at me.

I tried to answer him, but I couldn't. Juro had never taken issue with me not talking about what had happened. All these years, he had been here for me, my one hope, giving me a place in the world. But now, what would happen? He would find out the truth about what happened, and where would that leave me? What would happen once Akio knew the truth-because after all, now he knew I had been there in the first place? I knew all the reasons that we should tell the truth now. But equally…

You think we won't be believed, right?

How could anyone believe it? Like Sen'ya had felt, if it hadn't happened to me, I wouldn't have believed it myself. If Juro ,my children, if they were to think badly of me after all this, what would I do? Who would I be?

"Mai, Mai. Shhh, my love."

Juro wrapped his arms around me, pulled me to him. I clung to his nightshirt, and let him stroke my hair and back and continue murmuring comforting things to me, things I only half heard. I tried to keep my cries down so that Sachi and Akio wouldn't hear, but I cried.

"It'll be okay, Mai, I promise."

Oh, I hope it will be.

…

Eizo

I walked up to the door, checking the number with the details I'd written down on my phone to be sure I had gotten the right place. A small block of flats like this wasn't where I had expected Azami to be living. Then again, it was not as if I had expected anything. Just hoped, for all sorts of things. I glanced at my reflection in my phone screen, silently cursed those flyaway strands of hair I could never get to behave before attempting to smooth them down, turned over my necklace as the pendant had somehow flipped over during the walk from the place I'd parked my car to here, and then I pressed the doorbell.

There was a long wait, or what felt like one. I could hear the world whizzing around me, but I was in a bubble, waiting for Azami. Everything else was just background as memories circled and circled in my head. Then, finally, I heard the sound of bolts being pushed, and the door opened, on the chain. A blue eye in a sliver of familiar face peered out at me.

"Azami, it's me."

"Eizo…?"

The same voice. A lump rose in my throat, and with some effort, I swallowed it down. Azami stared at me for a moment longer, then she stepped back, and with a rustle the chain was unhooked, and she pulled the door open enough for me to see her fully. She was neatly dressed in a midi-length floral skirt and a plain light brown round-necked blouse, and her hair was in the same slightly-shorter-than-shoulder length bob that it had been in when I'd given her my business card two years ago.

"So, um, hi." I grinned. "Can I come in?"

Azami inclined her head, and I stepped in. As I took off my shoes, she locked the door. Double-bolted, I noticed. When I straightened up again, she was still standing by the door, one hand on the knob, the other over her heart as she looked at me. I looked back, absorbing every detail of her, committing it to memory. She looked so very different-of course, it had been twenty years, but all the light had been leached from her, and if you'd asked me before this all happened whether she'd look like this twenty years later, I would have said no. Sure, she would have probably gone back to her natural hair colour and her dress style might have matured, but in the different universe where we were happy and whole and still twinned, she'd still be bright. But still, to see Azami here, in the flesh after thinking that I'd just have to resign myself to the stupid, stupid promise we'd all made-it was a beautiful sight.

Eventually, Azami sighed, and spoke.

"I didn't imagine…" she trailed off, shook her head, tried again. "I never would have thought I'd see any of you again."

"No, after all that, neither did I." I laughed, awkwardly. "But it's good to see you again."

"Mhm…"

Again, another silence. Azami tilted her head.

"Eizo, why are you crying?"

"What-oh?"

Reaching up to feel the slight wetness against my cheeks seemed to break something, because suddenly more tears flowed, a veritable river, sliding over my hands as I tried to wipe them away.

"Sorry, sorry." I laughed. "It's fine, don't worry, I'll be fine in a moment."

Azami didn't respond, simply going to a faded blue raincoat that was hanging on a hook on the drab wall, and rootling in a pocket. Eventually, she came up with whatever she had been looking for, and then she crossed the small distance so she was standing right in front of me, and with some effort-she seemed so tired, what was I doing, blubbering like this-she pulled a tissue out of a packet which was presumably the item she'd just retrieved. Holding it out to me, she waited, expectantly.

I gave her a smile, and then reached for it, but instead of taking it, I instead held her hand in mine. Azami's eyes widened, but she didn't move away. Instead, she looked down at our hands for a moment, and then took the tissue with her other hand, waving it slightly as if to remind me to take it with my other hand-which I did, wiping my eyes, from which tears were still flowing. Then, she subtly shifted the hand that I was holding so that our fingers laced.

And just for a moment, we stayed like that.

…

Nobuyuki

"Alright, I've got lunch for us!" I declared, rushing back in and holding the takeaway bags aloft. "Whose den shall we convene in?"

"Oh, um, I already have lunch." Juro said apologetically, looking over his shoulder from where he was fixing something on the incident board.

"That's cool, just bring it with you. Mai's cooking?" I asked, drooling at the thought. Not because his wife's cooking could ever outrival my Kanon's, but because Mai had the tendency to cook some fairly interesting things.

Juro simply nodded at that. Usually he'd smile softly in pride at the acknowledgement, but today his face was clouded. Indeed, it had remained so at any mention of her these past few days, which was understandable.

"Hey, I'll take his portion, I forgot to grab something this morning!" Evalynn, Juro's work partner called out. "Also, we're going to your office, Kurosawa-ours is as poky as hell, right. Arisato?"

"It is, yes." Juro said, coming over to join her as she approached me and yanked a bag from my hand to inspect the contents.

"Are you coming, Gabe-kun?" Juro asked.

Gabe was the only other person in the room at the moment, with everyone else who was on the case off doing various different tasks that me, Gabriel and Evalynn had delegated, with Onoe overseeing and, well, delegating the delegating. Well, either that or getting food-nobody could do good work when running empty, after all. He looked up from the old interview transcripts he'd been reading, and smiled brightly, his cherry-red hair seeming to have somehow become messier in the last hour.

"Sure, " he said. "Where are we going again?"

"My office." I said. "Apparently it's spacier."

"Alright then."

We didn't talk much on the way there, considering the Cold Case Department wasn't too far away from the incident room, and then once we were there, our thoughts were occupied with taking seats and passing our food around. Evalynn, naturally, made a big production out of being hungry, which was entertaining, and we all managed to filch a little of Juro's lunch-something vegetable based. But of course, somewhat inevitably, even though we were technically grabbing a break, our talk went back to work.

"So, it turns out that Jin Kirigiri has advanced Alzheimer's'" Evalynn said. "So trying to talk to him is going to be as much use as a chocolate teapot. But, he has children."

"Does he really?" Juro asked. "I thought that was just a rumour."

"Nope, he does. He was estranged from them back then though, but apparently they're footing the bill for his care. Unfortunately, they're both detectives in Miyoshi, so I'm having some trouble getting a hold of them. I'll keep trying though." She responded with a shrug.

"They might be a good source of information," Gabe said, earnestly. "And if they're helping with his medical issues, they've probably got power of attorney, right? Perhaps they'll know something that we didn't uncover."

"Hopefully. Though one was a teenager and the other was a toddler-different mothers-back then."

"That must have been hard for them, though." Juro said thoughtfully.

"I guess we'll find out once Evs pins them down." I grinned jovially.

Evalynn skewered me with her classic red-eyed glare.

"I told you, Kurosawa, drop the nickname."

"Hey, hey, I bought you food, didn't I?"

Evalynn considered this for a moment, before glaring at me again. I mock-pouted at her, and eventually she shook her head, letting out a laugh.

"Still."

"Did you know that four of the survivors mentioned that their ear hurt when they'd woken up in the abandoned school building?" Gabe asked, fiddling with his animal-print tie absently.

"Their ears?" Juro asked. "I think I remember…why?"

"I don't really know, but I'm pretty sure it was never followed up."

"There was a lot of things that were never followed up, back then." I said.

Amongst other things, there was the Inaba School, the horrible place my Naomi had attended before she'd come to me and Kanon. The offical investigation into that school, the last big investigation that the four of us had been on together, had not bought anything up apart from the outlandish claims that the school had insisted on making. But Gabe had been convinced that there had to be more to it than that, and I was wondering if perhaps he'd be right. If that was the case, we'd find out this time, I hoped.

I just hoped that it wouldn't be found that Hope's Peak itself was culpable, both with this and with the Inaba School. The injustice of that would have been too much to bear.

"Which is why I'm stoked we're finally getting another crack at it." Evalynn concluded.

"Perhaps something will come up with Kimiko Tsukuda's exhumation." Gabe considered.

"Oh yeah, you have to go to attend that, don't you?" I said.

"Mhm," Gabe nodded earnestly. "I'll be witnessing the re-examination, too. But Tsukuda-san's coming for the actual exhumation. I cleared it with Superintendent Onoe, though naturally he won't be able to attend the re-examination."

"Good, good, I would have recommended that myself, actually." I said. "It won't bring her back, but I think it'll help him."

I thought back to then, the dizzying days of the original investigation. I had not been on Cold Cases back then, far from it, and I was sure if it wasn't for that case I would have remained a Forensic Psychologist. It was the same with Gabe-he'd just been a newbie like Juro, but the case had propelled him to Juvenile Crimes, finalising a decision a personal tragedy had skewed him towards anyway. As for Juro and Evalynn, they had climbed steadily from success to success from that day on, but that case too had been a pivotal one in their lives. I suppose that was why over the past twenty years, we'd been a solid crew, in both friendship and work whenever our departments needed to work together, and sometimes just to bounce ideas.

I gathered up everyone's rubbish, and was just about to lob it into the bin and suggest we get back to the incident room, particularly so Gabe could wrap up what he had been working on before he went to the exhumation, when the phone rang. Automatically, I reached for it.

"Hellooo~," I half-trilled. Based on the ringtone, I didn't need to identify myself.

"Oh, hello Detective Kurosawa," the uniform on the other line said. "There's someone on the line for someone dealing with the Hope's Peak case, are you free at the moment?"

"Sure, sure, put them through."

"Got it."

A click, and a moment later, a low voice spoke.

"Hello?"

"Hi, this is Detective Kurosawa from Towa Central Station."

"Is that as in Nobuyuki Kurosawa? I thought you were a psychologist."

"Yes, yes, that's me-may I ask who this is?"

"Right. It's Eikichi Hanamura. I gathered you'd want to talk to me."

"It's one of the survivors." I mouthed to the others before returning my attention to the call. "Oh, Eikichi-san, how are you?"

"Reasonably well before an officer left a message on my phone to inform me the investigation was being re-opened."

Evalynn leant over and pressed the loudspeaker button on my phone, while Juro went to close the door.

"Ah, yes, well," I said affably. "I'm sure this must have come as quite a shock to all of you, huh?"

"I don't know about the others, but to me, yes. I had imagined you'd written this off as a failure."

"We closed the case as unsolved back then, yes, but I can assure you that I did not just write it off. I'll be honest; I've been thinking of you all every day and hoping you're alright. And I know a lot of us cared, back then. "I said.

"But you still want us to rehash it."

Evalynn pulled a face, and I mock-glared at her and shook my head before I thought about how to respond to Eikichi.

"Yes, well, it is going to be necessary for you to come in. We'll make it as…pain-free as we can."

"With all due respect, Detective, that will be impossible."

I paused at that. He was right. I knew that, for all you could soften the blow of these things -and god knew, I was always trying to do that-, you could never completely take away the pain. The original investigation had certainly been a good lesson in that.

But still, that didn't mean I couldn't try.

"But I see the need to cooperate, so I just wanted to let you know that I will," Eikichi continued, sounding vaguely tired. "I'll be coming down there, so please don't send anyone up here."

"Oh, you don't need to go to all that-"

"I'd prefer it that way. But with that being said, I do need to sort out things up here first. I'm a teacher, so I can't just up sticks."

A teacher, huh? I thought of how Eikichi had been, in that very first interview, when I'd recommended that they could finally be interviewed solo, going against some of the others' judgement at the time (they'd wanted the separation to be sooner, and I had disagreed-after all, for more than a month they'd only had each other). It had been horrible, seeing him and the others in so much pain, but not only was that standard for the job, it further proved that I'd been right in taking the gentle approach.

The boy's hands were shaking slightly as he walked away from his friends, but I noticed from the way he clenched them tightly, that he was trying to hide it. I, for my part, pretended not to notice as I ushered him into the room, and closed the door behind me.

"Now, there's nothing to worry about, we just need to-"

I broke off my spiel as I noticed that now, away from the others, Eikichi was trembling, all over, looking paler than before.

"Eiki-"

Before I could ask or say or do anything, Eikichi had stumbled to the further corner of the room, dropped to his knees, and thrown up.

I wanted to tell him that I was proud, and ask him more about his career, but I had a feeling he wouldn't appreciate it. He didn't want to deal with small talk over the phone. He just wanted to make his intentions clear, and let us know that he'd be here.

"That's fine. Thank you for calling in."

"Not a problem, Detective Kurosawa." Eikichi said in a voice that was clearly meant to imply that it was one, before he hung up.

Eikichi's voice seemed to hang in the air for a moment before I put the receiver down and pressed the button to take the phone off speaker.

"Mai mentioned a couple of the other survivors were coming down, I think." Juro mentioned, absently. "She's recently been in touch with one of them."

"They'll be able to support each other then, that'll be good and oh!" Gabe exclaimed, looking at the clock on the wall and getting up. "I need to get going!"

"Oh, right, yeah, we've gotta get back down to work too, right?" Evalynn said.

"Yeah, " I agreed. "Let's get back to it."

…

Gabriel

As it turned out, Kenichi had been on his way to collect me when I'd come haring out of Nobuyuki's office, so we just went straight out together. There was nothing particularly to say, so we didn't talk at all. If it had been any other case, I would have picked his brain about all the odd little details that I had noticed-back when I'd still been new, he'd been more than happy to discuss the finer points of forensics, pleased that a police officer wanted to understand what it was they were using to solve their cases. But of course, I couldn't really do that here. Besides, somewhat understandably he wasn't really the same happy guy I'd once had an extremely short-lived crush on, so the days of cheerful chatting about techniques were long gone.

As we got out to the front, I could hear the sounds of somebody arguing. At first, I thought it was just an aggressive homeless person, or a suspect, or a family member of a different victim, but then to my surprise, Kenichi swore under his breath, and took off in a run.

"Ah, Tsukuda-san, wait!" I called out, jogging after him.

"Just try to make me leave, just try!"

"Jesus, I told you not to come."

Kenichi and Tetsuji were facing each other, both of them glaring at each other, while the officer at the desk looked on nervously.

"Should I call the Superintendent, or maybe the Captain?" he asked.

"No, don't worry, I've got this." I said.

It had been twenty years, so of course Tetsuji would have aged a lot, much like I had. But the man standing in front of me seemed to have aged so much more than that. Still tall and spindly, but now looking as if he would blow over in a slight wind, rumpled clothes and all.

Albeit, he'd blow over while glaring all the while, just as he was doing now. My goodness, I don't remember him being this scary.

"Kamiya-san, it's been a while," I said. "I can't imagine what this situation would be like for you."

"You don't need to imagine," he snapped out gruffly. "Just tell me, what are you actually doing?"

"Well, you'd know better than anyone that we can't share pertinent details of an investigation with a…." I trailed off.

Despite the fact it was technically true, I didn't want to label Tetsuji as simply being a 'civilian'. It would have been unfair. I thought a moment, and then continued.

"-someone who isn't on the investigation, but I can assure you, we are working hard to look into it!" I said. "There's a lot of stuff I wasn't able to pursue back then, but we're exploring all avenues."

Tetsuji continued to glare, but at the same time, he quietly scrutinised me.

"This is Detective Matsu," Kenichi supplied after a moment. "Technically Detective Matsumoto-Fujioka, but that's a mouthful so he's been going by Detective Matsu. He was just an officer back then."

"Oh," Tetsuji blinked, surprised. "You had a brother, right?"

"Y-yes…" I said, taken aback.

"I remember that case. " he said, simply, seeming gentler for a moment.

"I…"

But just like that, before I could think of anything to say, the moment was gone and Tetsuji returned to glaring at me.

"All the same, give me one good reason why-"

"We're going to Kimiko-chan's exhumation…ah, you can't come, of course but…." I thought frantically. "How about I ask one of the other detectives to come and take a statement from you?"

"I told you everything before." Tetsuji said, before suddenly coughing abruptly.

I startled, and he must have noticed, because he raised an eyebrow at me.

"Don't mind the cough. It's not contagious."

"Just do it." Kenichi said, tiredly. "We're getting late."

Tetsuji's shoulders slumped, and he muttered something under his breath before looking at me.

"Fine."

"Alright then, Kamiya-san, if you just take a seat here!" I said cheerily, before turning to the wary officer. "Could you call either Detective Kurosawa or Detective Dupont and ask them to come down to talk to Kamiya-san please? And offer him a drink if he wants one."

"O-of course."

"Right then, we'd better be going, right?"

Kenichi simply nodded at me, and I gave what I hoped was a reassuring smile back, and then we left the station.

…

Tetsuji

It was the same as twenty years ago.

The faces of the investigation had changed, sure, and for what it was worth they seemed to at least care, and not be so beholden to Hope's Peak's so-called thrall. But in the end, that was what it would come down to, I was sure. Whoever the bastard was that had kidnapped Moeka and her friends, and killed her along with twelve more of them, he was going to get away with it, because nothing was going to change. And he'd get away with all the other crimes that he had committed.

Because he had, I was sure of it.

Those homeless people found in the abandoned beach-hut in 2007, the runaway teenagers who'd befriended each other in that hostel only to die basement of a newly-built house in 2020, the family massacred in 2010, and more besides. All the ones that had come before, they should have noticed at the very least, and the 2020 one should instantly have flagged up what had happened to Moeka. Yet it had not. I knew it had not. I'd made a point of telling Detective Kurosawa all this, but no doubt, he thought I was crazy.

They all did.

You are acting a little crazy, aren't you? A little voice told me, very quiet, but oddly insistent. If it had been someone telling me that, I would have glared, but as it was, I stuck my hands deeper into my pockets, and continued my insistent limping march back to the apartment I was staying at, looking around me, remembering places I'd been to and passed back then, when Moeka had been alive and I had been with Hanami and the world had been a better place for it.

I considered a side-road for a moment, knowing that down there lead to a short-cut to where we'd all lived together. I had no idea whether Hanami even lived there, but since it was close to where she and Moeka had worked, it was likely that she did. My heart clenched, but I didn't pay any attention to it. What use was it walking there? She, too, was someone else I had failed. Instead, as I reached a street corner, I paused, and pulled out a cigarette and my lighter.

Carefully and cautiously, I lit the cigarette, then shoved the lighter back in my pocket while I looked around me at the city. A few people stared at me, but I glared back and they soon averted their eyes. Who knows, I wondered. Who knows what happened back then? Who holds the key? I knew a survivor still lived here, and another a couple of towns away, and for sure, they knew something none of us did. But they couldn't be the only ones. They just couldn't be. Because if they were, then that would mean…

As I took another puff of my cigarette, I became aware that there was someone staring at me. I turned, and then startled abruptly as I realised the person in question-a girl-was standing right next to me. Huh, when did she get here?

"Who are you?"

The girl, slender and young, with bright blue eyes and wavy gray-ish blue hair that brushed shoulders exposed by her ruffled blue off-the-shoulder blouse, grinned at me and held out a hand for me to shake.

"Otsuka Jihara, at your service."

I stared at the hand, and didn't accept it.

"You're just a kid."

"A soon-to-be-SHSL-kid. SHSL Journalist." She smiled even more.

"You're one of the new students?" I asked.

"I am indeed, and I know that you happen to be Tetsuji Kamiya, father of the former SHSL Mortician."

"Moeka," I corrected gruffly. "Her name was Moeka."

"Moeka, of course," the girl said smoothly, apparently unruffled. "I understand you're unhappy about the way the investigation is being handled."

"How do you know this?"

"I have my sources."

I considered this for a moment. What a classically journalistic thing to say.

"Why do you want to know, anyway?"

"I want to know what really happened, same as you." She said. "There's a mystery to solve and I want to solve it and bring the truth to light."

"So you're suggesting we…work together?"

But she's just a kid. Sure, she was more than likely on the older end of that spectrum, probably 17 or 18 from the poise with which she held herself. But a kid was a kid. Moeka had been a kid.

"Oh, not quite." She shrugged. "I mean that is what essentially it comes down to. But I was thinking more that we could exchange information as and when we come by it. And in return, I could interview you. I'm thinking that putting some more public pressure on Hope's Peak and the police will cause something to leak out. There is a fine line, of course, because as I am sure you know revealing too much can jeopardise an investigation, but a little tightening won't seriously hurt. "

Back then, I had not really talked to journalists. Not really deliberately-though they had felt a lot like vultures to me, especially after it had been confirmed that Moeka hadn't made it-but because I was more interested in trying to get justice and vengeance for her. Any actual fending off had been left to Hanami, in the end. And once the dust had settled, I just hadn't considered it as an avenue.

But things needed to change, and this was as good a place to start as any. I could worry about the other little niggles later. I blew out a ring of smoke, then crushed my cigarette on the ground before stooping-somewhat painfully-to pick it up and lob it in the nearby bin. Then, I looked at this girl, so young and full of enthusiasm.

Just as Moeka had been.

"Alright. Tell me what you need me to do."

Characters introduced:

Survivors

Eikichi Hanamura, former SHSL Fencer (created by: arans)

Investigators

Nobuyuki Kurosawa, Cold Case Detective (created by: tobi-is-an-artist-too)
Evalynn Dupont, Murder Detective (created by: Crimson Spider Lily)
Gabriel Matsumoto-Fujioka (created by: Abitat Eco)

Prospectives

Otsuka Jihara, SHSL Journalist (created by: Crimson Spider Lily)

Victims

Teiichi Kazama, former SHSL Rock Climber (my OC)