Author's Note: Welcome to 2025! This is the first item of the main Wasteland project of the year. I decided to take all of the Psalms I didn't get to in the first Psalms halo, added a couple more people and here we are. It was a bit shaky at first, but it all started to come together when I made it to Nakamura's part. From there, this halo wrote itself. On another note, I am now on BlueSky. I am .social. I look forward to hearing from you lovely wastelings. Meanwhile, I already know what I am doing next week. Plus, this season will be going until the last week of February. For now, enjoy this first halo of 2025.

Halo Twenty-Two: Psalms II:

Michiko

It's falling apart faster than I can keep up. More holes keep appearing in the dam faster than we can clog them up. We have some allies but I don't think it's going to be enough this time. I have a suspicion of what's causing the change in this timeline.

Mikado suggested a cause of the problem.

"What did you say?" I asked. He looked uneasy at first. I cut him a cold glare.

"I think I might have found what's causing things to speed up," Mikado admitted sheepishly. I followed him to his room. He already had his computer booted with a map on the screen. I had a confused look on my face.

"What is this?" I asked. Mikado had been tracking her for quite some time. I asked him what he was talking about. He sat me down and told the whole story of Sonomi. From what I can gather is that she is some sort of deity. The whole thing was confusing to me too.

"Now let me get this straight," I said. "You came across this girl in another timeline."

"Yes."

"You took her in and took care of her?"

"Yes."

"Now she wants to help you? Help you fix everything?"

"Yes."

I frowned as I made a face at him. "But you feel like she's making things worse?"

"Yes."

I just stood there. My brain tried to piece it all together. I pinched the bridge of my nose as I closed my eyes. This was making my head hurt. That would explain it.

"Where is she now?" I asked.

"That's what I am trying to figure out," Mikado admitted. I opened my eyes and stared at him. Ryugamine looked uneasy about that. I dropped back my head and sighed. How did this keep getting out of hand? Why did I get the feeling that things were about to get worse?

Noriko

I don't know how long I have been gone. The last thing I remember is being at that art gallery. There was a picture on the wall. Yes. A photo of a couple on the beach. What were they doing? I think they were hugging. No. The woman… She was crying. The man was trying to calm her down. They lost their son.

My heart began to ache in my chest. They lost their son. They lost their son. They lost their son.

A hand rested on mine. I turned my head. Artemis was probably shaking her head at me. I pressed my lips together. Right, right. I couldn't focus on that right now. I breathed out and rubbed my forehead.

"I don't know what to do."

"I know, dear. I know."

I just sighed. I haven't been sleeping well lately.

I haven't been sleeping well lately. Well I do, I keep having weird dreams. Sometimes I can remember them while other times I can't. Last night, I was in a land made of metal. It wasn't like I was standing on the ground. My body drifted over the tall metal spikes poking out from the hard black ground. I think I tried to gain some ground as I got closer. My toes almost touched the spiked ends.

I looked in front of me to see two figures moving ahead of me. One of them looked like a person dressed in black samurai armor. I could only see the limbs as they moved. The back was covered up by a woman dressed in a long white dress. Her long white hair was braided and pinned up in a messy bun. She had blood running down her back like two wings had been ripped out. She held on tightly to the samurai-clad figure as they kept running. Her protector wouldn't let her go either.

I watched as black steel skeletons rose from the ground. They started grabbing at the couple. The woman tightly closed her eyes as she held on tightly. Her protector kept moving. It looked like he was about to break down in the legs. That didn't stop him. Not even the chains around his legs could slow him down.

I had no idea where they were going. I just hoped that they would make it.

Somehow, I get the feeling that's supposed to be Mako-kun and I. I've tried to ask him more questions about how we used to be but he refuses to say anything else. I was getting so close too. Ever since Christmas, he shut down and kept pushing me away.

I put my hand to my chest.

I don't know what to do here. He won't talk to me. He won't even let me into his room. I squeezed my eyes tightly as the tears started to form. I can't stand him shutting me out.

Makoto

Why can't she stop digging? I thought I could keep her away from all of this. I clenched my teeth and slammed my fist down on the floor.

Damn it!

Why does this keep happening?! It's like they want her to be some sort of a sick martyr for this stupid game! Why can't they just leave her alone?! Michiko doesn't get it.

"We're running out of time!" she told me three days ago. I didn't have to hear what was coming next. I wish she would shut up about it. What's the point anymore? We're all going to die.

No.

I don't want her to die. Noriko-chan doesn't deserve to go through this hell again. She doesn't deserve to be killed for some man's twisted whims. She should live a long and happy life. She should be thinking about graduating from high school. She should have dreams about her future. She should be doing things that normal girls her age do.

But she wasn't a normal girl.

I froze at that thought. Denying it wasn't going to work. I should've known my wife wasn't a normal woman. Why would Noriko be any different? I wished that wasn't the case.

I gave off a dry laugh.

Luck and I have a divorced relationship. It's always managed to stab me in the back in some way. As much as I hate to say it, but it's only going to get worse for me. No, scratch that. It's going to get worse for all of us.

I shut my eyes and sighed as I heard the knocking again. Either one of them is willing to give up, will they?

Nakamura

I looked over the latest three crime scenes.

Kamiya Asuna. She was the perfect daughter in her family's eyes. Her future looked so bright. The girl had just graduated from Todai. She was going to intern at her father's company. It was rumored that she was going to get married to the son of a family friend.

Or rather, that's what she wanted everyone to believe.

Asuna had never graduated from Tokyo University. She had never been enrolled at all. The victim had barely passed high school. Asuna had been living a lie for the past three years. She went through the trouble of keeping it up. The more I looked, the more I found this web of deceit rather impressive. She would spend her days in many hotels around the city. Sometimes, she would crash at a friend's place for nights at a time. Asuna didn't have a job either. She sponging off her parents' money.

When it came time for graduation, Asuna started to panic. Her lies were about to be exposed. So, she did the unthinkable. Yep. She murdered her whole family. Asuna cooked them a dinner laced with arsenic. They all died around her. She thought that she was going to get away with this short-term plan.

And then the Dante Killer got her.

All of her internal organs were frozen and covered in frostbite. It was like she was frozen from the inside. The team is still trying to figure out how this is possible. They are thinking that there is some sort of drug involved. Something that came from the dark web.

I shook my head at the autopsy photos. All of this to keep up your lies. It wasn't worth it.

Uehara Kazuha. On the surface, he looked like a kind old man. But I came to learn that he went by the name of Kim Seok. He had been a spy for North Korea in the sixties to seventies. It's been rumored that he was responsible for a handful of unsolved kidnappings of Japanese citizens by North Korea. From what I could gather, Kim was the middleman. Somewhere between the late eighties and early nineties, he must have grown a conscience or grew tired of his job and stopped. Since then, he tried to live a quiet life. His neighbors didn't know about his criminal past. Uehara hit the truth so well. That was until his murder.

One ice bullet to the heart. I didn't think it was possible. Nakata insisted that was the case. Honestly, I don't have a sound argument against that. This one baffles me in that Uehara didn't do anything to stand out. Someone had to have given the killer the information about him.

Iwasaki Suki. She made a career out of playing host mom to several foreigners over the past six years. On the surface, Iwasaki looked like a saint with her career in hospitality. However, it would turn out that she had a darker side to her. Several missing foreigners had been last known to be staying in her home. The former nurse made the excuse of her guests moving on to other countries. The reality was way more gruesome.

The investigation turned up a secret room in her apartment. Yes, you can see where this is going. To make a long story short, Iwasaki was torturing and murdering all of those missing foreigners. There had been suspicions that she was the one responsible, but we just couldn't prove it. Iwasaki had a clean record. She had never been in trouble with the law. There was no reason to look into her. She had been questioned several times but nothing came of it. Well… It looks like someone solved it for us.

Liquid nitrogen to the heart. It looked like she had been shoved into a tank of it. I do know one thing: there are a lot of cold cases that are going to be solved because of this one. I am not saying that this is a good thing.

I leaned back in my chair.

Betrayal to one's family, betrayal to one's country, and betrayal to one's guests. That just left betrayal to one's master. I have been doing some thinking. That left yazuka to boss or employee to boss. That's when I saw the broadcast for the bounty hunt on members of the Dollars. I saw the founder's picture. Chances were that someone in the Dollars would try to save their own neck and offer Ryugamine up as a sacrifice.

And with that, I knew right where to start.

Aya

Everything is lining up in perfect order. There have been a couple of odd factors who have played in our favor. The gods want a hand in this. But it looked like there was someone else involved. I managed to track them down. And hello.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me back up a bit. First, let me talk about the deities that have been creeping into our game. This was bound to happen. We were playing gods with trying to wake her up. The question is whose side are they on? Kitano isn't too bothered by any of this.

"What should we do with those deities?" I asked him the day after Christmas.

"Leave them for now," he said.

"Leave them?"

"Leave them and observe."

So, that is what I have been doing. I have connections that can tell me what I need to know. While more information pours in, I still have to do my part in this game.

My part is coming up faster than expected. (I have a theory as to why that is, but I will get into that later.) I booted up my computer and clicked on the folder on my desktop. The box for my password popped up. Once I typed it up, I had access. A black box popped up on my screen. I watched as a woman in a black and red kimono appeared from the bottom.

"Good evening, Otomo-san," she said as she bowed. "What can I assist you with today?" I was still getting used to this computer assistant.

"Please enact the Hell Courtesan program," I said.

"Of course, madam," the AI assistant said. She vanished up from the screen and green text about the program I had my daughter work on started to load. I sat back in my chair.

And now I will wait until the first task is complete.

Shinra

Once again, I have been tasked with doing research. Dad keeps giving me busy work. I know what he is trying to do. It's a good thing I have Celty to try and keep him from doing something stupid. He already named me head of the project. It's like he's trying to make it official.

I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead.

I don't have time to worry about that right now.

I stared at my laptop screen. What was I looking up again? Oh yeah. More about Chou Mori Institution. I know what you are thinking. What else can there be about that awful place? That was what I was thinking too. But then I came across a case that had been forgotten by the public.

There was a therapist named Aikawa Fusao. He worked at Chou Mori from 1964 to 1990. He came up from Nagasaki to Tokyo for work. Rumors said that Aikawa had been fired from his last employment. (You will have a guess as to why. It will become clear in a moment.) So far, everything had been going great in Chou Mori.

However, accusations of sexual misconduct from Aikawa began to surface. Several complaints were filed about him. He tried to deny them, of course. He saw himself as a highly respected psychiatrist. Yeah, sure buddy. That didn't stop the complaints from coming in. The administrators at the time finally decided to investigate.

And what was the outcome? They never got around to doing that investigation. Why? Aikawa drove out to the entrance of Aokigahara Forest on January tenth of 1990. He took out a gun, put the barrel in his mouth, and blew his own brains out. He didn't even go into the forest to do it. A cop on a bicycle was the one who found the body and called it in. And then, the case was buried. Well, there was a little more of an investigation post-mortem. But that was about it.

And you will never guess who filed one of those complaints. Go on, guess. Why none other than Kitano-sensei himself. I find it rather baffling, to be honest. What was the goal with that one? I doubt that he did it because he cared about the patients. Knowing him, he probably did it to see what he could get away with.

Aikawa-sensei's case is fascinating. I couldn't stop reading. It makes me wonder what else was going on in Chou Mori.

Yukio

I knew that something else had to be done. I took the time to break us down into little groups based on skills. Intelligence, combat, defense, healing, and other. I would be in the intelligence group. I mean, I make people reveal what they really desire. With me in this group are Mikado, Chie, Erina, Yukari, Reo, Shingo, Yusuke, Mio, and Tomoya. We will be collecting information.

I looked through the lists on the table in front of me. I looked over at the defense group. Sota, Madoka, Saori, Sur, Miya, Kenma, and Iori fit on this list.

Next is combat. So far it looks like Nami, Tetsu, Akiko, Anzu, Megumi, Naoki, Hifumi, Yamato, Shuichi, Haru, Sojiro, Wez, Kanta, and Ritsu fall into this category.

Then there is healing. I would put Kohaku, Itori-chan, and Honoka on this list.

Finally, there is other. I don't know where to put some of them. Midori, Riku, Naomi, Taishi, Yokio, and Katori are in this list.

These aren't perfect categories. I will have to find a better use for the other list. I don't know what Katori's powers are yet. Plus, there are still more tadpoles that are out that and need our help.

I sat back in my chair. Maybe I could use a second pair of eyes on these. I turned my head when I heard a knock on the door.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Do you have time to talk?" Mika asked. I raised an eyebrow.

"Sure…" I said. I turned my head as the door opened.

Sonomi

I was born the day the sun died. I don't remember much before I met Mikado-san. I just remember being in a dying land. There was a woman holding me as she pushed herself to walk. She was heavily breathing. She has to stop and clutch her chest. She might be sick. I can't see her face. She doesn't have long to live. This lady tried to say something to me. Her words were barely audible.

I held the sides of my head.

Why can't I remember anything else? Lately, I have been having that dream of her. I still can't see her face. Her wheezing still haunted me while I was awake. I think she was supposed to take some sort of medicine for her heart.

I reached up to the stained ceiling overhead.

"Mama."

A tear ran down my cheek. I couldn't save her back then. But Mikado-san shouldn't have to suffer through the same fate that we both are. He's lost his home, his friends, and most of his family. He's lost like me. I have no home. I have no family. There is and was someone. Still, it's not right. It's too late for me. But not for him. I have to do this for him. I have to give him his left back.

I put my hand to my chest. It's been getting worse lately. I don't know how much time I have left. But I can't stop now. I feel like I am so close. I just need to find the spot where it went wrong and fix it.

But what if you can't?

I froze. No! That can't be! I shook my head. I'm so close. I have to keep trying.

I sat up on the hotel bed and closed my eyes. It was time to go.