Chapter 1 / The Null Hypothesis, Part 3
As the morning started, Murasame already had his clothes on for the day. Even if he wasn't heading to work today, he needed to be presentable to the people of Tokyo at all hours of the day, representing the Houou name. Before he left his room though, his phone started to ring when he was putting on his expensive watch.
"I don't recognize this number."
It was always unwise to answer phone numbers that the person doesn't personally know, but as a businessman, Murasame had to be prepared to answer all and any incoming calls. However, this wasn't his work phone, but his personal smartphone. Regardless, it probably wouldn't do him any favors if he ignored it. It looked like the caller was persistent enough to wait patiently for the recipient to answer.
Murasame finally hit the accept button before it went to voicemail.
"Murasame Houou of the Phoenix Conglomerate."
"[Ah, thank goodness. I was starting to believe I had the wrong number for a moment. This is Detective Masanori. We talked yesterday at the hospital. I do hope you remember me. How are you doing this morning, Mister Houou?]"
"Erk."
Murasame was thinking the day was going to be pretty good before now. It was incredible as to how quickly his mood was turned upside down, but it would be far too rude to end the call right there in the moment, despite him wanting to.
"Skip the pleasantries, Detective. How did you get my number?"
"[The hospital provided me with your contact.]"
"And here, I was thinking that the hospitals are supposed to protect the information that they have on hand. This seems like a violation of my privacy."
"[Hospitals protect the information of patients. That same protection agreement does not extend to dependents or visitors, though as a member of the police force, we can get our warrants in accessing such restricted information regardless, truth be told.]"
"I'm suddenly having doubts about how secure security on data can be these days."
Murasame sighed, but any further on this topic and they would be brought into a different conversation altogether. Extending this conversation was not something he wanted to do. The inverse had been his utmost priority, so like yesterday,. he skipped to the point.
"Tell me what you want. Are you contacting me to have me repeat what I said yesterday? How do you forget things that you were supposed to pay attention to not even a day later?"
"[No, it has nothing to do with that sort. I'll keep things brief.]"
Murasame prepared himself by moving to his couch and sitting there. For a detective, brief could honestly mean anything.
"[I was unable to question the victim yesterday. I didn't even get to know the room number to meet the victim.]"
"Your police department can't get a warrant for that?" Murasame rolled his eyes.
"[It is not due to accessibility. They could have told me at any time]" Manasori responded. "[No, it was because the victim was giving the staff a difficult time. They were unable to record any medical information about the victim due to him being problematic.]"
"Problematic?" Murasame straightened himself on his seat. "How?"
"[Do you know the saying of how a wild animal acts when it is cornered? I believe the saying would be fitting to use in that scenario as for how they were describing the situation.]"
"I don't think that was a good explanation."
"[You're welcome to come see for yourself.]"
"Why should I care what happens?" Murasame grumbled. "They aren't doing their jobs and you expect me to do it for them?"
"[If this continues, we will not be able to procure any necessary information concerning the victim. No medical information, no testimonial information.]" He could imagine Masanori pushing up his glasses on the other end. "[It would be quite an unfavorable situation that will most likely result in a cold case]."
For the sake of it, since he was talking to a detective, he put as little energy as he could into pretending that he cared as he picked at his nails. "That's fine, isn't it? It's not as if this case needs any answers. All the important parts are trivial at this point."
["I could agree with that. It's one of the reasons as to why this case is not prioritized within the department, but that is no reason to try. I believe it's in everyone's best interest if you make an attempt to visit in order to better the situation.]"
Murasame could refuse here, but the insistence in Masanori's tone made it feel like if he did, they would end up on a roundabout discussion as to why he should consider it. Instead of that, Murasame decided to pull out one of his reliable conversational crutches.
"We'll see what happens. I am rather busy, so I'll need to check my schedule to see when I can slot in a visit. I won't have any promises that there will be any room. My father's business comes before random strangers working at a hospital."
"[Instead of that, I'd like you to think about helping the victim. From what I've heard from the receptionist, the victim appears to have a fondness for you as the one who saved him. Do you not think that in his time of weakness, he will be thinking that you would come back to help him out?]"
Murasame wasn't that kind of a good person that the detective was making him out to be, but butterflies were fluttering within his stomach. It might have been the lack of breakfast, but perhaps he didn't realize that there was some guilt looming in there. The image of the boy waving back to Murasame, hesitant on leaving with the nurses, flashed in his mind.
"I said that we'll see. Now then, if that's all you wanted to speak about, I need to go. You were already holding me up from my schedule."
"[Of course. My apologies, Mister Houou. Have a nice day.]"
Murasame was quick to end the call first as he leaned back into his couch, but his hand still held onto the phone rather tightly.
"You know, now that I think about it…" Murasame mused to himself. "If I just dropped by to resolve their situation for them, they'll all look upon me very favorably, right?"
With a smirk, Murasame pondered at the positive attention that he would be receiving. Although it has been more than a year since he was deprived of such a thing and brought back into the spotlight since then, the exigent feeling was always something that could easily resurface for Murasame. Once the potential was there, his mind could not tear away from it.
He opened his phone's calendar app on the empty day ahead of him.
"Well, why don't you look at that?" he said to himself. "It looks like my schedule cleared up. I might as well pay the kid a visit to see how he's holding up."
-/SK-EV/-
After breakfast, Murasame made his way down to the hospital. The same receptionist was there. They were looking through some of the documents on their computer before Murasame strolled up to the counter and leaned forwards to get their attention. As expected, they were surprised to see him.
"M-Mister Houou? You're here again?"
"Have we met before?"
The receptionist was a bit stunned at the fact they were forgotten so quickly, but they didn't even bother making a correction. "Sorry, uh, never mind. What do we have the pleasure of helping you with?"
"There's word on the street that the hospital has been having a difficult time doing their jobs."
"Someone contacted you about the boy's situation?" The receptionist quickly looked through their computer. "That's strange. Who was it that spoke with you?"
"That part doesn't matter. I've got eyes and ears everywhere. Someone like me needs to know the word on the street at all times, so that I can make the most of my time." Murasame boisterously laughed, almost as if he was believing in his own lie. "Look, let us not waste my daylight here. I'm here to help. I'm sure you would be grateful to have my presence here."
"We do need to make sure everything is in order first—"
"In order?" Murasame scoffed. "Simply point me to the direction and I'll be on my way. That's the order that I'll be giving."
"If we had contacted you, that would have been easy, but—"
"Are you choosing to slow down my schedule? I'll have you know that I have an important meeting lined up very soon. The earlier I can finish this up here, the better. Surely, you can't keep me waiting like this! Don't you know who I am!?"
"I'll see what I can do for you as soon as possible."
The receptionist dropped everything they were planning to do in fear of being interrupted again and made a few internal phone calls. Murasame kept himself leaned up against the reception desk, glancing around the lobby. There were already a few people waiting for their turn. With their frowns and narrowed eyes, they weren't good at holding back their displeasure for this random rich guy who barged in and started demanding things.
If such things had bothered him, he would have been someone else a long time ago.
"Mister Houou? There will be someone that will come down to bring you over."
"Sounds good enough to me."
As long as he came out with positive results, Murasame couldn't care for the criticism of those lower than him despite that contradictory stance.
"Over this way, Mister Houou."
One of the nurses met him in the lobby and brought him up to one of the upper floors of the hospital. Their walk was padded with the nurse speaking about the situation on hand and how they were glad that Murasame came by to check up on them.
"We didn't think much about how anxious the boy was acting," the nurse explained, "since there are many people who are afraid of the hospital. However, the boy has become highly aggressive when we were trying to put him through the regular check-up. A few of the nurses were hurt in the process, though none of their injuries were too bad."
"I'm not sure what that would be all about," Murasame shrugged. "I randomly came across him in that river, so your guess as to why this is happening is as good as mine. I barely know about him as much as the next person."
"We managed to contain him inside of a locked room, as unethical as it may be, but it is for the safety of the staff and possibly other patients in the hospital. We haven't made much progress in recording any medical information about him, but if you could perhaps talk to him, we may be able to progress a little bit."
"Why else would I be here?"
The room ahead had been watched over by police officers, making it look like they were there to prevent people from coming in, but in reality, it was to ensure that the person inside wouldn't be able to get out and pose a dangerous threat to everyone else. It certainly didn't give the vibes of a hospital, but there probably wasn't any other resolution as for now.
The officers stepped aside for the nurse to unlock the door. It was even reinforced with chains, but even that looked like they were at the brink of breaking off. Murasame could only imagine what the hell happened during the hours that he wasn't here.
The nurse carefully opened the door, but there was no reaction from inside. They allowed Murasame to step in first, in the fear that the boy would turn aggressive on sight of the medical staff, so he took the first glance around the room.
It took a few seconds to realize how much of a mess the room had been. It looked big enough to house a few patients, but all the equipment and furniture were upheaved from their normal position.
"That detective wasn't kidding about the wild animal comparison. I'm starting to understand what that guy meant by that."
Murasame glanced over to the corner of the room to see movement. The boy had been there, still in the clothes he had from yesterday, but he had more of a distant gaze to him. For some reason, it was rubbing him the wrong way, so without any regard for his safety, he called out to the boy.
"Hey, kid! Mind explaining all of this!?"
"Huh? Mister Murasame! It's you!"
As if waking up from a daydream, the boy flinched and turned his attention to Murasame. He stood up so quickly that the blood rushed improperly and left him slightly dizzy, but he caught himself as he stumbled over to his savior.
"You've got to help me out here! The place you left me here is so scary!"
"There's nothing scary about this. The people here are only trying to help you out."
"How is that possible!? They have strange machines and sharp needles!"
"Hnhh." Murasame could already see that a normal conversation wouldn't go anywhere anytime soon. The boy was too anxious to rationally think. "It seems scary, but I can promise you that they won't do anything crazy. That being said, I heard you tried to hurt some of the people that wanted to help you while I wasn't here."
"I-I…" The boy looked away. "I didn't mean to, but when they pulled out that scary needle, I didn't want them to put it in me. I mean, look at it! How is that not going to hurt!?"
"Scary this, scary that. That seems to be the only reason why you fought back against them. They're not trying to hurt you and you're excusing yourself by saying it was scary?"
The boy bit his lips. Clearly, he was remorseful, but he held onto his arm tightly. "My body just moved when I saw it. I couldn't help it. My heart started to pound."
"Heavy palpitations?" Murasame pondered. "You must have really been stressed out, but you shouldn't give them a hard time. Listen to them properly, alright? They know better than you. I'm already wasting my time in coming here because I heard of the problems you were causing for them."
"I'm wasting your time?" Despite all of the other reprimands, that one made the boy's face pale in color. "I-I'm really sorry, Mister Murasame. I'll do my best…"
With the boy bowing his head like a scared child, Murasame had to feel a little bad if he had some heart in him. He was glad that the words got through, so he didn't have to worry about that, but something told him that the problem wasn't yet resolved. Leaving things here wouldn't fix anything and he would likely need to make a return visit when he really didn't want to.
"In the business world," Murasame announced as if he was doing a presentation in a business meeting, "stress is something that the average worker has to face on a daily basis, especially if they're on a high-level. Of course, an influential man such as myself has learned to revel in that emotion to the point where it doesn't bother me anymore, but everyone needs to take a breather at some point of their day. Even me. After all, humans aren't emotionless machines."
Scoffing, Murasame pulled out his phone.
"A bit of mindless distraction helps out."
The boy looked at his phone with widened eyes. It was as if they were sparkling at such a compact contraption, despite it being an everyday item. "What is that?"
The boy's curious gaze was met with Murasame's deadpan eyes.
"You're kidding me, right?"
"I've seen something like that before. Maybe I have? I can't remember."
"It's a smartphone. There's no way that you haven't seen one before. What kind of amnesia did you suffer that you can't even name the mundane?" The boy couldn't have been older than twenty years old. He must have been born during the rise of cellular devices.
Murasame sighed while shaking his head. "Never mind that. If you don't remember what this is, you probably don't remember how to use one either."
He handed the boy his phone. There was a sort of pleasure, seeing the innocence of the boy holding up the phone like it's a trophy. Murasame turned it on in his hand which surprised the boy.
"On these devices, you can play some games to pass the time."
"Games?"
"Yeah, tasks are given to you with some rules on top of them and you get points based on how well you do them." Murasame grimaced a bit. Now that he broke down what a game is in essence, it sounded a lot less like a game. "Try this game out. Your character is running down a path and you have to control him to make sure he doesn't stop running. The further you go, the better score you get."
"How do I control him?"
"Flick the screen of the phone like this and then…"
Murasame's tutorial of the endless runner game went on for a few minutes. The boy didn't understand a single thing at first, but gradually through failed attempts, he started to get the hang of it. He followed Murasame's instructions precisely, doing exactly as Murasame intended for him to do it, but the only problem was trying to explain the purpose behind it.
Some of the nurses were stopping by, seeing the rare sight of the high and mighty Murasame taking the time to teach an innocent boy something fun to do. Opposed to the scared and frightful expressions the boy wore yesterday, there were genuine smiles coming from him, but not just from the boy himself. Murasame was smirking from time to time too, though no one would dare to mention it just in case he realized.
"You're getting real good at this, but uh…"
After Murasame watched the boy play through some runs by himself, Murasame started to bite his lips. The current run had the high score going up and up and up, all without using a continuation.
"Don't you think you might be going for too long?"
"Aren't I doing well though? This is the furthest that I've gone!"
It was the furthest that Murasame had seen on his phone.
"You caught on pretty quickly."
"It's only because you're a great teacher for this game!"
A smile escaped from Murasame, flipping his mood. "Of course I am! You wouldn't have gotten that far without my supervision, after all!"
"Mister Houou?" A nurse called out to him. "I'd hate to interrupt, but if everything is all fine now, the staff would like to proceed with the medical check-up."
The boy's current run immediately ended with a high score announcement popping up, but he was too distracted to notice it.
"Are we really still doing that…?"
"Hey, kid," Murasame said. "You seem to like the phone, so why don't you hold onto it for now? You can watch videos to pass the time too, and those don't require you to even do anything. It might make for a good distraction from your stress."
"I can watch videos on this too!? What kind!?"
Murasame was thankful that the boy at least remembered what a video had been.
"I'll throw up random videos on the phone and we'll see what interests you."
"Please do, Mister Murasame!"
"Perhaps you should have the video play on another phone instead," the nurse suggested. "Mister Houou will need his phone once he leaves."
"But I want to watch videos on Mister Murasame's phone…"
"It's fine." Murasame sighed as he shrugged.
"If it becomes damaged in any method, the hospital does not want to be liable."
"You think a phone like mine can be damaged? I had my phone custom-built. Not only is it very durable, but it's actually waterproof and electric-resistant. You can even smash it with a hammer and it won't make a crack. The signal strength is really good too. You could be underground and you could still get some connection."
"And how about your time?"
"I can stay here for a little longer," Murasame said, glancing at his watch, "as long as the medical check-up happens as soon as possible. It's still not an excuse to waste my time, so go get what you need to get the check-up done."
"Of course. We'll get started right away."
As the nurse left, the boy looked at Murasame with a grin. "You're staying here?"
"I can't leave my phone. It might not have the important documents and contacts like my business phone, but it still has some of my personal information in it. Even if it's locked behind passwords, I'd rather keep it within my line of sight if it's outside of my pocket."
As the boy was still holding on to the phone, distracted by the video, Murasame heard something coming from outside the door. It was like the sound of an object colliding with something. It wasn't a very good descriptor, but that was all Murasame could pull from the ambience. He decided it wasn't anything worth looking into before—
—the door opened up again.
"Are you already set to bring the boy over for his check—?"
Murasame looked over his shoulder again to see that a nurse hadn't opened the door.
"Hold on a minute."
He turned off the phone in the boy's hand, but he didn't take it back yet. He only turned it off because the noise would distract him from his strange encounter.
"Who the hell are you?"
A masked man stood where Murasame thought a nurse would be. Dressed in a rugged outfit, like what a street hoodlum would wear, Murasame's gaze panned down to the metallic bat that was resting in the man's hand. A sight like this was already frightening to come across in the streets, but to see it within a hospital, that stirred up a cause for confusion as well.
"I'm a person here to do a job," the rough voice answered.
"A job?" the boy naively asked. "Are they the nurses here for the check-up?"
"Something tells me that they're not nurses," Murasame stiffened.
The boy was scared of the needles and medical equipment, but he couldn't sense the hostility coming from the intruder? Murasame couldn't make sense of it, but that wasn't the problem right now. He instinctively took a few steps back and when he did, the boy noticed as if sensing Murasame's wariness.
Looking back at the masked man, the boy moved to behind Murasame quickly.
"That's… not a nurse? What's going on?"
The masked man lifted the bat and pointed it to the boy. "I'll tell you what's going on. You'll be coming with us. Don't worry. Come peacefully and we won't hurt you."
"H-Huh?" The boy looked over to Murasame for an answer. "H-Hey, Mister Murasame? What do they mean by that? Is he a nurse or not? Why else would we go with them?"
"Look. That guy isn't a nurse," Murasame grunted. "I don't know who that is, but all I know is that they're not supposed to be here."
His gaze caught the sight of the two police officers in the hallway, lying on the ground while unconscious. The impact must have been from the masked man swinging his bat at them.
"Then I won't go with him!" the boy exclaimed.
"You seem to misunderstand." The masked man chuckled as he spun his bat. "Your choice isn't to come with us or not. It's whether or not you want to get hurt in the process."
A pale color rushed through the boy's face as he grabbed onto Murasame's suit, tugging himself back and forth. "M-Mister Murasame! You can do something about this, right!?"
"Why are you asking me!? Don't pull me into this!"
Tears welled up in the boy's eyes. His teeth were chattering. "Are you saying you aren't going to help me? Mister Murasame! Please! I know I'm not worth much compared to you and you've already done so much by helping me out of the river, but I don't want to go with them!"
"You want to get in the way?" The masked man pointed his weapon at Murasame. "Then I'll deal with you first! Join the others in their sleep!"
The last thing Murasame wanted was to get involved in this mess, but when he looked behind him, the boy was staring back earnestly, as if he truly believed Murasame could do something about this. In a way, Murasame was the last line of defense for him.
But there was no other way around it.
The masked man didn't feel like the type to talk things out—rather, it was as if he was excited to get some swings in for the job. Surely, running away for his own sake was the safest play he could make. He had absolute confidence that he could somehow slip away and leave the hospital with minor injuries, but that would leave the boy alone to the masked man's motives.
"So it has to come down to that…"
Ever since Murasame accepted his sister as part of the family, he never found a situation where he needed to partake in a fight. His life between then and now had been relatively peaceful and the only time he pulled out his weapon was when he was training for an epagomenal moment—a day that will never come. Only now, it would seem like hell had finally frozen over.
"A real fight."
He didn't know why he was staying. The boy was a stranger. It shouldn't have mattered to Murasame whether or not the boy was taken by this masked man. If anything, the logical response would have been to pass the boy straight into their hands to secure his own safety.
Why did he even care?
"Nnnh!"
From his suit, he took out his ninja scroll and unraveled it. From a layer of smoke, his trustworthy kusarigama emerged and he grabbed onto the sickle as the chains wrapped around his body to its intended position as if it was alive. The weighted end fell into his other hand as he started spinning it for initial momentum..
The masked man was actually taken back that a weapon had simply appeared out of thin air. The boy gasped in excitement to see Murasame performing an incredible feat. In reality, it was the absolute basic thing that a shinobi could do in order to carry around their weapons without a hint of public suspicion. And it was the most Murasame Houou could do.
Even so, Murasame lifted the sickle's blade and bent his knees into a battle stance. His eyes fueled with a fire that he was desperately lighting with whatever kindle he could grab.
"Damn it! Damn it! This isn't how I thought this day would turn out!"
"That's a nice magic trick you got there!" the masked man laughed as he rolled his shoulder. "But you think it's enough to scare me off? You think you can stop me like that!?"
The masked man closed the gap with a swinging bat.
"You'll think twice about crossing me!"
Murasame clicked his tongue. There was no turning back for him.
"Big talk from a low-level grunt!" he spat, puffing up his chest. Not that he could say anything about it, but he could at least pretend. That was how he managed to get through the former part of his life, so it wasn't an unfamiliar feeling. "You want some?"
It didn't mean he was optimistic about it.
"Bring it on!"