Wednesday

"You sure you don't need me back for this?"

The smell of cheap burgers and fries that had no business being as delicious as they were was wafting through the open front door. Apparently the family of three had decided to bring back dinner, which was absolutely fine by me, because I knew this conversation I was having could very easily go one of two ways.

Hours of yelling, or a few minutes of companionable peace.

Thankfully, the grace of Mirko could both giveth and taketh away. It had been remarkably easy for Gentle and La Brava to believe she'd asked me to hurl her towards the sun. I could only hope to hear the story of what actually happened in the time they spent before Twice and I had returned.

Speaking of Twice…

"Yes, I'm sure. Around the clock means around the clock, Twice."

Before I got here, I probably wouldn't have decided to make this call. I'd be eating horrifically unhealthy food while it was still warm, wondering exactly how I could go about my announcement without alienating the few people in this world I could confidently call my friends. I'd stumble, I'd probably fuck it up, and I'd move on, bitter with yet another failure that was just added atop the pile.

Before I got here, I was a moron.

"Giran can survive for a couple hours without me. He won't even notice I'm gone."

They'd been with me since the start of this, the three of them. La Brava had been the one that I'd initially sought out. Gentle came part and package with her. But Twice? My best friend in this reality, against any expectations that I might have had?

He'd come on recommendation from a man that had no basis or desire to help me, until I was funding his retirement. Until my very actions barred him from that retirement, because suddenly I was the one that the movers and shakers of his world wanted his info on.

I owed Giran a lot, beyond the money I'd already paid. The nutcase that had blown up my house, and laughed himself silly all the while, was beyond a price. They all were.

Which was why things would be changing after tomorrow.

"That's probably what they're waiting for." My frame couldn't really be called bulky, but I was still much wider and heavier than the swingset we had in the front lawn was designed to carry. The tiny seat held up to a remarkable degree as I sank down into it, likely because my feet were still carrying the vast majority of my weight.

"They'll wait for him to be alone, or until they can't wait anymore. They'll come sometime this week, without a prior appointment, and they'll doom themselves once they do."

I leaned forward on my precarious perch. The chains holding my seat up groaned ominously. It wasn't quite up to the level of dramatic lightning and booming thunder, but they were unfortunately on the rapidly shortening list of things that I couldn't control.

Yet.

"Once I know what they want, I can tear it away from them. Before that, I'll be running the risk of guessing wrong, and that'll be annoying." Not impossible. It would be an afternoon or two of looking through things that I wasn't supposed to have access to, but I had a busy week ahead of me. "They're only going to get angrier as time goes on, after all."

"But-"

"Trust me."

Twice fell silent on the other end of the line. He was pacing, loud enough for his footfalls to come through clearly on the phone. I could see him clearly, as if he was wearing a trail in the dirt right in front of my eyes. Wrestling with himself, with the thoughts running through his head.

That was why I had to call. That was why I had to lay out the evening for him as plainly as I could. Because I knew he would struggle against the changes I was enacting. I knew he would have to debate with it. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was inviting problems unto myself that would only compound with every passing day.

Finally, with a thump of high quality leather, Twice found a place to sit. If I had to guess, he was hunched over, breathing shallowly into the phone. Whatever he was staring at, I knew he wasn't really looking at it.

"You're leaving them behind."

I chuckled. The chains of the swingset creaked in protest as I pushed myself back and forth idly. "We're still going to live in the same house."

"Then what's the point?"

His voice had picked up a growl, one that I couldn't recall hearing before. The swing shuddered as I shifted my weight, pushing myself up to my feet. The pulse of Overhaul I sent to restore it to pristine condition took up none of my focus. The tree roots that ran a tangled maze across my entire property and a decent way beyond quivered with the deep breath I took.

"The point is that I've already asked too much of them." Even though I knew nobody was listening in, I still lowered my voice until it was barely above a whisper, setting a slow pace towards the main road.

If I had to refill a ditch in the dirt that hadn't been there before Mirko's visit, well. I'd probably have to get used to that sooner or later.

"I gave them a fucking kid, Jin." The road was empty by the time I'd climbed over the gate and landed lightly right next to it. This road was almost always empty, with our nearest neighbours far enough around its bends and gentle slopes that we couldn't see each other.

From where I finally stopped, on the other side of that road, I could catch the barest glimpse. The corner of a house, peeking out over the top of a concealing hedge.

"I can't expect them to follow me into hell."

For a while, Twice was silent. I crossed the road again, willing my hair to push the gate open, and to seal it behind me. The smell of the food, if it could really be called that, had dulled. My stomach rumbled, eager for some energy after all the activity I'd gone through earlier, but that was easy enough to ignore for now.

I needed Twice to acknowledge this. I needed him to look beyond the idea that I was just leaving them behind. I needed him to understand.

We were beyond the work of a gentleman thief. Various billionaires were one thing. The Yakuza was a step up, even if that was where we'd started. Idealistic opportunists who just wanted to make the world a better place had their roles to play before.

Now, though? Now, I needed killers.

"Friday."

I tilted my head, but the click of the call ending cut me off before I could ask for clarification. The gentle evening breeze felt cold as I pulled the phone away from my ear, staring at the screen for a moment. Friday… Friday was going to be filled with travelling, ass kickings from my girlfriend, and whatever the hell Twice had in mind, I supposed.

With a shrug aimed at myself, I stowed my phone away, hopping over a second trench in the dirt on my way to the front door.

It was weirdly nostalgic to be sitting around this table like this again. We might have been missing Twice, but his spot had been taken up by Eri, who was probably actually going to be more useful for the planning process.

Of the four of us, Eri and I were the only ones who were still eating. Eri had an assortment of colourful plastic bags in front of her, each one containing pieces of sliced apple. I knew from the one that she offered me that they were actually rather dry, but she didn't seem to mind.

I had cold fries and a burger that was just this side of congealed. Not incredibly appetising, but the sarsaparilla that came with it at least washed the grimy feeling in my throat away. It still tasted fine, but the trick was in the name when it came to fast food; you wanted to make sure you ate it fast. Otherwise it would return to its natural state, a slab of colourful concrete mixed with enough chemical preservatives to inspire a supervillain.

Like that slippery bastard, the Goone-!

"You're escalating, aren't you?"

With the most elegant snort you could imagine accompanying my journey through time and space back into my own mind, I extracted my teeth from where I'd been biting into the burger's wrapping paper in search of more oily… goodness? Decentness? …Food?

None of those fit.

Gentle was giving me a very familiar look. Right about now he was questioning his role in life and destiny, and how it could have possibly become intertwined with mine. It was probably a bad thing that I'd been on the opposite end of that look enough times to recognise it immediately.

"Yes." I answered with as much regality as I could muster, with wrapping paper still in my mouth.

"Whatever you're going to be doing…" Gentle trailed off as I very discreetly swallowed the paper. It was much easier than trying to pick it out from between my teeth at the dinner table. I wasn't a fucking animal.

With a shake of his head, he regathered his thoughts, staring up at me with narrowed eyes. "It's dangerous, isn't it?"

I considered his question for a moment, how many people across the globe that I'd be outright mocking with what I had in mind. About eighty percent of them, as a matter of fact.

"Potentially ruinous." The 'potentially' was a lot less likely than the 'ruinous'.

A small hand nudged my side. Without looking, I accepted the offering of slightly dehydrated fruit, making sure to Overhaul any remaining moisture from my hand before I gave Eri a head pat as payment. She made a sound not unlike a content cat, burrowing into my side despite needing to be halfway out of her chair to do so.

Gentle nodded to himself. He didn't seem the least bit surprised at that, almost as if he'd been putting up with my bullshit for close to a year now. "If that's the case, then I'm afraid we won't be able to help you, going forth."

Eri's head pats slowed to a stop. She didn't seem to notice, reaching for another little plastic baggie of apple slices to tear into. This would be her ninth, but she probably knew what she was doing. She was the smartest of us all.

Gentle's face betrayed nothing as I glanced at him. I didn't spend too much time scrutinising him, though, because I knew he wouldn't crack. There had been nobody close enough to the door to actually hear my phone call, and as wily as I knew the man to be, there was no hiding from Overhaul.

Unless he'd somehow balanced on a patch of elastic air and kept it so still that the vibrations didn't make it to the house or ground somehow.

No, there hadn't been anything out of the ordinary near the front door, especially with the limited space and his… formal attire. Instead I turned an amused stare onto La Brava, shooting her an innocent smile that she couldn't see with how quickly she'd averted her eyes.

She squirmed, hands in her lap. I could hear her nails tapping on her phone.

"You were listening to my call with Twice, weren't you?" The question was aimed towards the room at large, but the flinch La Brava couldn't contain was better than any signed confessions I could have asked for.

I wasn't even annoyed. It would be a bit hypocritical, seeing as I'd been talking about them behind their backs at the time.

"Sound carries exceptionally well through an open door." Gentle didn't even blink as he fed me a second pile of shit. At least this one was warm.

I chuckled at that, then laughed a little bit harder at the look of outright alarm that flashed across Gentle's face. If he'd expected me to call them out on it, he'd probably be a bit disappointed.

We were all criminals here. Especially Eri. If she weren't so good at hiding evidence I would have had an idea of what she'd done, however brief. Alas, I was still a ways off from being on her level.

The table shifted slightly at the moment I glanced down at her. She was still preoccupied with her apples, seemingly ignorant of the world around her. I knew better though. She was planning something, and it would be hilarious once it happened. Maybe in the future she'd take me on as a minion.

Short arms looped around my chest. My head snapped back to the table, though I managed to stay in my seat. Which was a good thing, because I didn't want to know how Gentle would react if I accidentally launched his partner across the room.

La Brava couldn't reach more than halfway around my sides, but she wasn't really trying to. I raised my arms up slowly, in surrender more so than to return the hug. Gentle was no help when I glanced over at him; he looked as shocked as I felt.

With her cheek laid across my sternum, I had little choice between settling my arms around her, or peeling her off like an old bandage. It was a close vote, but eventually I settled for the former, using every little bit of self-control I had to not squeeze too hard.

She just clung to me tighter, like my name was Danjuro Tobita.

"Thank you." Her voice was barely above a murmur, but given my confused gesticulating had come to a stop, we all heard her. With one last glance at Gentle, I hesitated for a moment, before throwing caution to the wind and offering her the same head pats that her daughter had been enjoying.

"Don't thank me yet." My voice was just as low, and just as legible as hers had been. "You have no idea what I'm about to ask of you."

She endured three before detaching herself from me. Scampering back across the table, she passed her own chair entirely, choosing instead to hop down into Gentle's lap.

He hid his grimace with the kind of grace that told me way more about their bedroom activities than I needed to know.

"Is there another child?" La Brava leaned forth, her elbows leaning on the table and her head supported by her hands. I politely pretended that I couldn't see the way her hips were shifting back and forth.

"Nope, it's much worse than that." Carefully, I nudged Eri back over to her own seat, before clapping my hands and rising from mine. "See, I'm going to spend the rest of the week on a bit of a recruitment drive, starting tomorrow."

I raised a hand, counting down on my fingers. "I'm booked out on Friday, and I have some other… hopefuls to look into, let's call them, on Saturday. And I don't want to do this after my date on Sunday, so that leaves us with tomorrow."

The hand I'd been counting on shifted until I was pointing at the ceiling. Pounding it into my other palm, I spun around, aiming directly at the computer specialist that had thankfully stopped her movements. "Manami, how confident are you in your abilities?"

"As a hacker?" I nodded, and she tilted her head to the side, eyes twitching side to side for a moment. Serious thought was being put into my question, before her head snapped back up. "I'm probably the best in the country."

There was no cockiness or bravado. She said it like it was a simple fact. Which it honestly, most likely was.

"Excellent. I need the best." Surreptitiously, I slid my hands over Eri's ears. She looked up at me with a mouth full of apple, returning my wide grin with her own before I turned my attention back to her parents. "How do you feel about getting me into Tartarus by this time tomorrow?"

"Fucking what."

I smiled wider, knowing damn well that it wouldn't help my case any. Manami was still gaping at me, though I could see her hands automatically reaching for a keyboard that wasn't actually in front of her.

Gentle, still acting as her chair, tilted his head back until he was staring directly at the ceiling.

"You know?" He gestured in my general direction, then to the table, and then around his head. It looked like he was trying to smack away invisible mosquitoes. "I don't think I'll miss this."

Rude.