It took three hours to wring all the information I wanted out of Giran.
Not to say the delay was any of his fault. The man had integrity, the very same integrity that would be protecting my own ass from whatever fallout came of the Yakuza raid. I could live with a bit of extra time spent while he ensured that he wasn't just going to be an enabler for a senseless murder spree.
I didn't ask how he knew Chisaki's fate before it was released to the public and he didn't offer to tell me. Even if he really did retire off the money I'd given him, his clientele wouldn't just disappear overnight.
Well, if I had my way, some of them would. A handful pretty soon, more in a few months, maybe some stragglers in a year.
Eventually, my cards were on the table. The people I wanted information on, and the kinds of things that made me see them as expendable. Giran had disagreed on a few and I'd let him, seeing as I'd included them on the list just so he could find fault in it.
The more suspicious a person's nature, the less they would trust perfection, after all. If something was perfect then that meant whoever was presenting it to you had managed to hide the flaws, and that would almost always come back to bite you in the ass.
Had he seen through it and gone along anyway for his own purposes? Maybe. Probably. He had far more experience than me. All I needed to know was that Giran held up his end of the bargain, and I had the info I wanted.
And all it had taken was arranging a marriage interview.
What a weirdo…
With my phone in my left pocket I made my way for the stairs, pulling my hair back onto my head as I went. It had been working while I'd been arguing, and aside from my wardrobe of resized clothing, the product of its labour was jingling in my other pocket.
It was one of the most obnoxious sounds in the world, but I had made them from spare coins I'd found around the place, so that was to be expected.
The kitchen was empty as I peeked into it. Some dishes remained near the sink, probably from when Eri had been fed before Gentle and La Brava took her shopping for extra clothes. That left Twice as the only other person in the house, and I found him in the living room, reclining against the couch upside down with his head on the floor and his slipper-clad feet resting against the wall. His mask was back on his head, though the bottom portion had been lifted up so he could shovel popcorn into his mouth from a bowl that was sitting on the couch normally.
"Catch."
Masterful communication, thy name is Mineta. Twice jumped from my sudden appearance, his attention torn from the kaiju movie playing on the television. He teetered precariously, kicking his legs for balance, and seemed to find it- for all of a second before the object I'd thrown hit him in the side of the head.
He went down slowly, like a toppled tree. He also landed like a toppled tree, with a slight "oomph" and a slipper flipping off his foot and landing on the back of his head. That last part probably wasn't true. I'm not a lumberjack.
"Hey, watch where you're-" Twice rubbed the side of his head, my little present catching the mask and lifting it up a little. With a confused grunt at the sensation, Twice lifted his hand away, cradling the object in between his fingers. "A key?"
"Yeah, one for each of you. You're all free to stay even while I'm gone." Befitting the house, the lounge room was fairly extravagant. One of the biggest televisions I'd ever seen in my life was bolted to the wall, hovering above a cabinet that was all sleek black wood and glass doors. Aside from the couch that Twice seemed to not be able to figure out, there was an armchair on each side, flanked with small tables. A loveseat sat further into the room, adjusted so the back would be facing the setting sun, across from the armchair I was sinking into.
Aside from the seating, the room was actually quite empty. Two bookshelves lined the walls on either side of the room, with one being close enough for me to touch if I stretched a little bit. There was also a coffee table, though judging by the indents in the carpet, Twice had moved it to make more room for himself.
Speaking of Twice, he'd clambered to his feet, holding his arms out to steady himself. His eyes were hidden behind the mask, but I could imagine how bleary they would have been, given all the blood that had been rushing to his head.
"Wait, gone?" Twice shook his head, which didn't seem to help with whatever he was feeling. He then smacked one flat palm into his temple, which miraculously did the trick of fixing his lightheadedness. "Where ya going?"
I considered him for a moment, weighing the benefits and risks in my mind. Strictly speaking, actually telling him would be a bad idea. I'd already planned out the moment people realised what I was doing, and having that leaked early would be disastrous.
Even so, I held my hand up. My palm wavered for a moment, before peeling away from my skin was a sheet of paper. Another pulse of Overhaul had a few strands of hair sticking onto it, extending out in an offer.
"Here, I wrote a list."
Usually, someone using their hair to offer you something would give you pause, but either the world was more accustomed to it or Twice just rolled differently from the rest, because he plucked the paper right out of my grasp and sat down to read it without a sound. With everything but his mouth covered by the mask, that mouth was all I had to go off regarding his reactions, and he couldn't have gotten very far down before he was grimacing.
"You're not going to bring these people here, are you?"
"What?" For a second, my mind conjured up an image of what the house would look like if those names I'd written down turned into the actual people staying in this house. All I could imagine was a smoking crater, much like the last place I'd called home. "Fuck no. I'm going to them."
"Good. We would have had words if you tried bringing a predator into a house with that little girl."
Even with the mask, I could tell that he was staring directly into my eyes as he said that, only returning to the paper when I gave him a serious nod. Eri must have had powers beyond my understanding if she could get people this fiercely protective in a matter of hours.
Then again, if I did want to incite a situation like that, I could only hope that someone would be able to knock some sense into me.
Twice took another minute with the list. It wasn't just names, there were also locations and times they'd last been seen at, and rough speculation on which direction they'd been heading. Each section of the list ended with a number, in no particular order or sequence. The top of the list had the number three hundred and eighty-nine and the bottom had two.
All part of the plan.
"Some of these places are across the country from each other." The man made no mention of the other names on the list. If he did recognise any more of them, then he'd probably already figured out just what I wanted to do with them. The paper was placed back onto my hair and I reeled it in, securing back onto my hand with a brief flash of white and slight tan. "What's with the numbers?"
"That's the order I'll be going in to throw people off."
For a moment, Twice was silent. I only realised he'd been waiting for me to continue when he shook his head and let out a sigh.
"I don't really get it, but thanks for the room." The key that Twice had idly been twirling in his free hand was flicked onto the coffee table, landing perfectly in an unused ashtray. An open packet of cigarettes stood beside it, likely the result of some hasty ground rules. "How long will you be gone?"
The armchair called to me, lulling a sweet siren song to remain just for a moment more. Alas, I pushed myself to my feet, replacing that angelic melody with the creaking and popping of bones clicking back into place.
Overhaul could do a lot of things, but it couldn't fix my shitty posture.
"Number one tends to stick around places for less than a week, so that's how long I'll have to get up to Sai." I raised my arms, feeling my spine click as I shifted from side to side. My hair followed along, rising up and fanning out as I felt the glorious strain of my trapezius the further out my arms spread. "After that I'll try to get to Tozawa in a day, and then I'll be back here for a while."
"Aren't you worried about getting caught?"
I sent Twice a wink. If I didn't know any better, I would have sworn that he gulped in fear at that.
"Getting caught will all be part of the plan."
For a moment, he just stared at me, one of his eyebrows raised so conspicuously that I could absolutely see it through the mask. With a silent shake of his head, he pushed himself to his feet after me, stretching out his limbs and spine much like I had done. Before he was finished, he grabbed his chin with one hand, jerking his head to the side with a sound that I would have guessed came out of a gun.
Apparently that was what he needed, sighing in relief and letting his arms flop down to his sides.
"Sometimes I get the feeling you're somehow saner and also more insane than I am."
I drew up, crossing my arms over my chest. There was no insanity in what I was doing, it was all pure motivation! Anybody would burn down and house, or challenge the yakuza and win without them realising they'd been in a fight, or kidnap a child to- alright now I could understand where he was coming from.
"You seem perfectly sane to me." Even to my own ears that sounded feeble. If the flat look I got in reply was any indication, Twice had more than picked up on it.
I uncrossed my arms to cough into my fist, not entirely sure how to dispel the awkward air that had settled over the conversation. Usually if there was an awkward conversation happening to or around me I would just leave, but… oh wait.
"I'm heading off." With a wave, I turned on my heel, making my way to the door. Before I could disappear into the hallway, I glanced over my shoulder, seeing that he hadn't moved from this spot. "Call me if you need anything, alright?"
Twice's lips twitched for a brief moment, but then the mask was pulled down and I'd lost my only visual indicator for his mood. Being the social savant that I was, I had absolutely no fucking idea what this conversation had led to or how it got there.
"You're not going to wait for the others to get home?"
Despite the tense line to Twice's shoulders, I chuckled. His head shot up as I raised a hand to muffle a snort, to no avail.
"I'm no good with kids. Plus the last time she hit someone with sad eyes for suggesting they leave her, she got adopted." With a shake of my head, I turned around fully, my hands drifting down to my pockets as I leaned against the wall. "I'm not taking my chances."
The rigidness of Twice's stance remained for a few seconds, before it all seemed to bleed out of him. With his hands shoved deep into his pants' pockets and one foot kicking at the ground, he looked more like a child working through some issues more so than a grown man seeing a friend off.
"I… I appreciate you telling me you were leaving."
And suddenly it all clicked.
People didn't usually become villains because everything worked out perfectly for them. That sort of evil existed, it always had even without superpowers, but the evil that was caught usually ended up being the evil that was a product and not the source.
I didn't have a perfect recollection of the series I was now in. Not by a long shot. But I didn't need to recall what had happened to read between the lines of what was unfolding right before my eyes.
"You heard me when I said I was coming back, right?"
"Yeah, but, you know…"
Without warning, I pulled my hand out of my pocket, flinging the contents of it at Twice's face. Likely out of reflex, his hand came up to snatch them out of the air, an indignant sputter catching in his throat as he looked down at the keys I'd tossed his way. All identical, with the only difference being that one was bronze and the others silver.
"I'll pick up the phone if you call." His gaze snapped back up to me. The twist settling upon my lips was more a smirk than a smile, but it was what felt natural in the moment. "If you need help, if you just want to talk, even if you want to tell bad jokes that only the two of us find funny. I promise I'll pick up, alright?"
Hesitantly, he nodded, and my smirk morphed into a real smile. With slight tremors running through his hand, he dropped the keys in the ashtray with the first one, joining me on my journey to the front door. Before I could reach for the handle, his hand was on my shoulder, squeezing just hard enough to get his point across.
"Be careful out there, alright?" His hand slackened, then fell away. I turned back to him and almost jumped at the face that greeted me. The mask was nowhere to be seen. "I've heard of some of them, and they're bad news. Be careful."
With another snort of poorly suppressed laughter, I threw a punch at his shoulder. "I'm always careful." With a strand of hair, I unlatched the door and swung it open, stepping backwards over the threshold and into the afternoon sun. "Now quit moping before I start charging you rent."
"You wouldn't!"
I laughed at his widening eyes and horrified tone, letting the door swing shut in both our faces. With a flex of mental muscle that was getting easier and easier, my hair unfurled, creeping along the ground around me as I made my way over to the side of the garage.
Japan wouldn't tremble at my name, or anything silly like that.
The right crowd, though?
They would take notice.
I was counting on it.
