With a few pushes on the buttons, a paper cup dropped to the dispenser and was then filled with hot liquid.

Along with the other cup in his hand, Amon brought the beverages to Shinohara. "You sure you don't want some beer?"

Shinohara received the cup. "Coffee's fine. My wife has been nagging me to cut down the liquor anyway."

Amon slotted his legs in between the long bench and table, facing Shinohara.

"This brings back old memories." Shinohara scanned the darkness behind Amon.

The mess hall was closed at that hour, but they had switched the corner fluorescent lamps on, above where they were sitting. It seemed so peaceful.

"I kind of understand why Harima chose this place to study." Shinohara knew Amon would stare, so he looked at the latter with a smirk. "What's with that face? Didn't think I knew you had been her sentry?"

"You'd never said anything."

Shinohara shrugged his shoulders. "Well, it wasn't that big of a deal."

"Come to think of it. We were quite silly back then."

"That's the proof of youth. As long as you grow out of it, those follies aren't all bad."

"An epiphany from someone who woke up from a coma?"

"Hey, I was young once, alright?" Shinohara sipped on the coffee and breathed out. "Can't believe it's been ten years."

Amon looked at the varnished table. He could see the faces of his classmates under the dim light. Their voices and the noises they made were still fresh in the back of his head.

Even though they were gone. All killed in the line of duty.

He survived. Even that came at a cost. One that he did not choose. "Shinohara-san. Sorry for not visiting you sooner."

"Don't worry about it! I was enjoying my retirement too much to receive any guests anyway." Shinohara sighed. "Fun fact: if you ever wake up from a coma, don't look for the old photos you had taken. Because, the faces in those pictures, probably eight out of ten are no longer alive."

Amon frowned. That jest Shinohara made failed to mask the pain. Too many had lost their lives. They were comrades and friends.

They were family.

"Is that why you greeted Instructor Ashikaga that way?"

"No, I was just pulling his leg." Shinohara's laughter reverberated in the empty hall.

Amon knew Shinohara did not mean what he said. Everyone dealt with loss differently. As they aged, the fear of losing someone would only get magnified. In Shinohara's case, waking up to find most of his friends gone was just like having thousands of knives stabbing him in the chest at the same time.

That silence proved that the wound had bled again. "Thanks, Amon, for being alive."

Amon snapped his head up at Shinohara. His frown deepened.

"What's with that face? You're not going to cry on me, are you?"

Amon carried a faint smile. "This is the first time I hear someone thank me for being alive." He looked down again. "If it were Mado-san..." He still didn't dare to think.

Shinohara snorted. "If it were Mado?"

Amon faced Shinohara again, anticipating the latter's answer.

Shinohara's stare pierced Amon. "He would kill you and take your kagune to make a quinque."

Amon's face darkened, brow twitching. "I thought as much." After all, he had become what Mado hated most. He was an idiot for hoping otherwise.

"Hey!" Shinohara slapped Amon's shoulder. "Can't you see that I was just teasing you? There's no way Kureo would have hurt you. You're like the son he never had."

"Shinohara-san..." Amon smiled bitterly.

"Dating his daughter though..." Shinohara tilted his head. Eyes looked up.

Amon gulped. Face writhed. "I owe Mado-san too much." He snatched the coffee, chugged it down his throat, slammed the empty paper cup onto the table, and sprang up. "But I am not giving up Akira!" He crumpled the paper cup in his hand. "I can't!"

"Okay, okay! No one is telling you to break up with her, alright?" Shinohara sighed. He tapped the back of his head, watching Amon. "You love her very much?"

"Mmm." Amon nodded his head, face flushed as if he just had ten shots of tequila. "I can't imagine a life without her."

That answer was expected, yet it amazed Shinohara. He had never seen his junior act like that, at least not with women. "Thinking about her already? I can understand the fascination of someone who steals your shirt."

"What?" Amon raised an eyebrow. "Why would she do that? It doesn't fit her anyway." His mind was picturing the dangled sleeves and the base reaching her knees. On her, it would be like a poncho at best. But then, the fabric was never meant to be waterproof.

Shinohara looked away and cleared his throat. "It's something you need to find out yourself, Amon." He patted Amon's shoulder. "Trust me."

Shinohara might have said the wrong words, and the light went out. It was pitch black. Inside and outside.

"Seems like someone forgot to pay the bill," Shinohara said.

On cue, the light returned.

"Well, look at that!" Shinohara watched Amon stepping out.

"Sorry, Shinohara-san. I have to go. I'll see you again?"

"Mmm. Sure! I'll hang around."

With the door swayed to a stop, Shinohara looked back at the paper cup on the table. He picked up the cup, poured the coffee in his throat, and set the cup on the table. He began to miss his whiskey.

Damn it, Houji!

If he wasn't too busy keeping an eye on Suzuya, he could have picked up the telltale too.

Could he?

"Akira Mado? Kureo's daughter?"

"Boy!" Tanakamaru smoothed his mustache. "Is that destiny?"

Marude raised a brow. "You sure she's the right choice? I've heard mixed comments. Most aren't positive."

Arima's eyes swept everyone with a brief glance. For someone who had never appeared in the Special Class' meeting, Arima sure had an agenda to push, and he was not someone who would back down just because the room was full of skeptics. "That's just bias and nothing but a hearsay. Her data analysis was what expedited the mapping of the labyrinth."

Operation Whack-a-Mole. The final rest place for many great people. Most not older than the age of twenty-five.

Marude snorted. "You mean the notorious Mado intuition? Sorry, I don't see how having another seer is going to help CCG."

"That seer saved many investigators, including myself."

"Really?" Aura, who had always been quiet, finally spoke. "Then that should qualify a rare feat."

Which shut Marude's mouth for now.

There was just one fallacy.

"I don't doubt Akira's potential," said Shinohara, "but Amon is still a Rank-One. He's not qualified to take a subordinate yet."

"He'll be if he keeps performing as he's been doing now. I'm sure you would agree with that, Special Class Shinohara." Arima came prepared and he rested his case.

Shinohara's lips thinned. His hand kept polishing the back of his shaved head, as if doing so would save him the hassle for a haircut. He could not refute Arima's reasoning.

Amon was a fit horse even without Mado by his side. Correction. Amon did way better than that. He was a beast.

"Akira may be reckless at times, but it's not unusual for someone new and lacking field experience. Amon's first-hand experience working under First Class Mado would come in handy."

That was exactly what worried Shinohara.

"How romantic!" Note by Tanakamaru.

Shinohara begged to differ. He saw Arima's logic, but a partnership was never that simple. They were people, not some mindless machines that got coded to function as told. While Akira was said to be a copy of her father, she couldn't replace what her father had with Amon, nor was the comparison fair to her and Amon. Putting those two together would force them to be constantly reminded that Mado had left them. That was cruel and unhealthy.

The discussion never went far, as Yoshitoki Washuu, the then CCG Director, put a stop on that topic. His reason was that such trivial matters should not have been brought to the table. He then ordered Arima and Shinohara to study that topic elsewhere.

Shinohara did not see such need. He could see it in everyone's eyes. The nail had been hammered in. Even if it was not, they would never shake away an ace's testimony.

He never got to know why Arima went so far to put Amon and Akira together. Arima was never the kind to portray that much interest in staffing.

Perhaps Arima saw something he did not, like what Houji did, but way earlier? How would Arima feel if he learned that he had become a matchmaker?

Shinohara laughed.

Crybaby Amon and Kureo's daughter.

On second thought, it was not a bad combination at all.

Amon gazed at the neatly arranged jewelry inside the glass display.

Rings in unique designs and various sizes, neatly nestled between rows of black velvet grooves. Gold, silver, platinum. Blinding reflection from precious stones. All vied for his heart. None had successfully captured it.

"Sir." A woman in a black suit approached him. She opened a square case in her hands, revealing a shimmering platinum ring decorated with a small stone—the ring which had snared him years ago.

Amon's lips curved and gently parted. He recounted times when he thought he had to give up. Finally, the struggle and disappointments were behind him.

"You've come at the right time." Smiling, the staff watched Amon take the ring out and examine it. "We were about to melt this ring. Maybe it's destined."

Destined or not, today was the day he received his paycheck. Using his hard earned money to trade for the ring, the meaning was beyond measure. "Please wrap it for me." Amon placed the ring back into its holder. "I'll pay with cash."

"Thank you, sir." Her hand directed him to a partition at the back. "This way please."

Moments later, Amon came out of the store. Eyes glued to a blue, hand-size paper bag, both hands held it close to his chest, the big man looked like a child carrying an injured sparrow. For something so small to have owned his world, it was unthinkable.

Just… don't make me wait too long.

He still remembered how hurt she was that day. If only she knew his heart was bleeding inside.

Looking at the paper bag that had nested in his hands, he was so glad and proud that he didn't make a compromise, because she deserved the best.

Sirens in discord yanked his head away. Ambulances. One, two… he counted three. A fire engine chased behind. They all made a hard turn to the right at the traffic light two blocks away from him.

He looked further up. White clouds billowed behind the tower like clusters of balloons, reaching the sky. His ears soon tuned to the clamor that surrounded him, while he stood right in the middle of the crosswalk. His eyes found the big screen outside the shopping complex, where the news was airing.

"A power surge at around seven fifteen p.m. has caused fires across the Fourth Ward. Multiple witnesses claimed that they saw cars and electronic devices shut down simultaneously before the fire started—an aftermath that resembled an electromagnetic pulse attack..."

Leaning his back against the fence, a man pulled out the cigarette from his lips. His nostrils blew out dense smoke. He flicked the cigarette butt onto the concrete pavement.

A cab came in his direction. He quickly withdrew into the alley. With caution, he stuck out his head.

A blonde, perhaps in her late twenties, came out of the cab. The woman slammed the door and spat at the driver in the face.

While the woman staggered her way into the residential area, the man grinned and turned to his phone, hoping that he had hit the jackpot.

Nasty as she seemed, that woman was just a deer on tranquilizer.

Too bad, as the picture on his phone showed, she was not it.

The man pressed the button on his earphone. "Hey, hey. Where's the girl you have promised?" He pulled the edge of his beanie down to cover his forehead. "My men and I have been very eager to meet her." He glanced behind. Someone thumbed the blade of a machete. Another rattled his tongue.

They had been waiting for too long.

He was sitting on the floor, listening to the whistling wind that had seeped through the broken glasses.

Without electricity, that place was long forgotten by humanity. Rather than being engulfed by darkness, he embraced it. Visibility was never an issue to him anyway. Cold or hot, they didn't matter.

His only concern was the girl in his arms.

A gentle stir brought his eyes to the girl's. After a short flutter, her closed eyes finally pried.

"Shou..." Tears rolled in her eyes, threatening to fall. "Shou-chan!" She threw herself at him.

"Midori—"

"It's my fault! It's all my fault! Nat-chan would not have gone out if it weren't for me!" Her fists crumpled his coat. Face buried in his chest. "They will lock him in that room again. Nat-chan can't be in there. He is scared of that place!"

"We'll find him." Shou stroked the crown of her head. "But you must not go out again, or you'll be taken too."

Sobbing, Midori finally looked up to Shou. "You promise?"

Shou smiled. "Promise."

Midori then turned to her right. "What about her?"

Shou blinked. He then peered to his left, where a wall stood.

Head tilted. Arms limped. Both palms faced up, flanking the straightened legs on the floor. Like an unstrung puppet, Akira's slumped form was barely supported by the wall against her back.

Midori arched her neck to meet Shou's eyes. "She was on the roof. I saw her watching Nat-chan being taken away." Her grip loosened as Shou rose to his feet.

Shou went to Akira and crouched next to her. With two fingers dug into her collar, he applied a firm pressure right beside the throat.

The coldness, the static, and the absence of fluidity—the verdict was clear.

"I killed her, didn't I?"

Shou threw a glimpse behind. "I'll take care of her." The details did not matter. He would take care of it. He always did.

This time though...

Shou looked at Akira and withdrew his hand. "Sorry," he muttered. "You shouldn't have been there." He did not know why he even bothered. Regret, penance, or sentiment. He had none.

Shou stood up, only to lower his head after.

A hand had cuffed his ankle. Under his very eye, the grip was tightening in the most sluggish way.

Impossible...