Chapter Text
"The higher-ups are hellbent on closing this case. I do not know why; it does not matter. All that matters is producing results. Your suspect is the leader of the Phantom Thieves. Show me a thorough investigation of his entire life."
"You will be assigned the Phantom Thieves case, Hasegawa."
It was like a slap in the face, being assigned the Phantom Thieves case -- at first. Zenkichi could've cared less about it, except Akane adored them, which meant he cared. And he didn't believe that they were responsible for the current Change of Hearts epidemic, as the police dubbed it. Staring at the mugshot of the leader -- staring at the face of a kid who was only a few years older than Akane -- it was hard, to believe that someone like him had terrified all of Tokyo only a handful of months ago.
(The public adored the thieves and saw them as purveyors of justice, and the police was left to pick up the pieces after Shido like obedient dogs.)
Still. He was assigned a case, and so he tried to gather as much information as possible -- modus operandi, the history of the subject, possible connections, yadda-yadda. The usual spiel. He cross-referenced dates and times and everything, ending up with almost little to no data, and when he went to the higher-ups to ask for more files, he was met with a wall.
Access denied, they'd said to him, time and time again. Restricted information on a need-to-know basis.
So Zenkichi tried again, from a different angle; before he came to Tokyo -- where was the Leader of the Phantom Thieves from?
A small town called Inaba.
Zenkichi tried to gather intel on that, only to be met with another invisible wall he was unable to cross. "The information is locked, Inspector," an officer said, and when Zenkichi asked why and by whom, because Inaba was a backwater town in the middle of the country, the officer answered: "by the Kirijo Group."
The Kirijo Group, famous for its wealth and money and ties to the government -- and its weapons, though that was the kind of unofficial information that Zenkichi wasn't allowed to know, on pain of death, probably. And its ethically questionable experimentation, some odd twenty years ago. Less, if the rumors were true.
But still. Why would the Kirijo Group ban any information on Inaba that wasn't public-level access? It couldn't have to do with the Phantom Thieves, now could it? The timelines didn't match up.
He was given scraps of intel after begging like a mutt, and drew together his own string of events: shortly after starting his term at Shujin, Ren Amamiya and his compatriots sent the first calling card for Suguru Kamoshida, the truly vile PE teacher. The logo had been different and the wording on the card quite crude, but it had captured the attention of the school's public like no other. Smaller changes of hearts followed it. Then Ichiryuusai Madarame, with the new and improved calling card. The Phantom Thieves gained even more notoriety, and by the time they targeted notorious yakuza don Junya Kaneshiro the public had their affection.
It honestly reminded Zenkichi of Kaitou KID, back when he still held heists in Japan, and his over-zealous fans. How quick they were on turning on KID, too, at the slightest possibility that he could've murdered someone, just as the Phantom Thieves' fans had done following Medjed and the wake of Kunikazu Okumura's death. Then nothing except smaller targets once again, before they took on Masayoshi Shido.
What was important to Zenkichi -- what was glossed over carefully in the reports -- was what had happened before Shido:
Joker had been captured by the police and his identity had been revealed, and he reportedly committed suicide before announcing that the Thieves would topple Shido in what had seemed to be their swan song: thief activity had gone down to almost zero, Amamiya had been captured and sent to juvie (again; there was a lot glossed over that Zenkichi would like to investigate properly), and then some associates of his -- notably the formerly-disgraced politician Toranosuke Yoshida and his prosecutor-turned-defense attorney Sae Niijima -- had gotten him out again with his record cleared.
Amamiya disappeared into obscurity afterwards, the Phantom Thieves seemingly disbanded.
To reappear a few months later without a single sent calling card? It did not fit into their modus operandi.
Still. Zenkichi's research led him to Shibuya and then led him to the other members of the Phantom Thieves, and lastly, it led him to Joker himself, the reported mastermind behind the new changes of hearts.
And to an identical twin, which really wasn't what Zenkichi had signed up for, no matter that he'd been assigned the case scant a week ago.
He'd overhauled three of his theories with the sudden appearance of this twin, the sudden fake-suicide not so seemingly impossible anymore, and tailed the group for some time for clarification before he'd reveal himself (or not, depending on their character). It was laughably easy to tail everyone who wasn't Amamiya, the kid having some weird supernatural sense for when he was being followed.
Zenkichi had to stay back so far that he couldn't hear what they were talking about or read their lips, which was annoying, though Amamiya's almost paranoid detection sense seemed to dull when around his friends and heighten when around his twin.
Things Zenkichi had learned in those three days: the twin's name was Akira and he didn't seem to be involved in any of the Phantom Thieves' activity. They had high-ranking connections. Three of the other members -- all technically minors, and there'd been some deals going on back then that made the police wipe their names and information from their files -- were connected to Kaneshiro, Madarame and Okumura rather personally. Makoto Niijima had lost her father to the yakuza boss, Yusuke Kitagawa was one of the painter's 'students', and Haru Okumura was the daughter of the late Okumura and heir to Okumura Foods. Futaba Sakura too, inasmuch as her legal guardian, Sojiro Sakura, had been a former government officer in some classified field.
All of them were quite paranoid and surveyed their surroundings with keen eyes, reminding Zenkichi of -something, that he couldn't put his hands on.
And none of them trusted him as far as they could throw him, as he'd found out when his coffee was slammed onto the table before him, the others eyeing him with different degrees of wariness.
(Props to Okumura-chan, though, her smile was downright scary.)
They still didn't trust him after the night was over and he'd offered them his services, because -- well.
He'd been tailing these kids for the past three-ish days, and read everything that was available on them, and he couldn't fault them for having lost faith in the police after the year that they'd seemed to have, with their targets. He didn't truly believe that they were the cause of the changes of hearts. They were kids.
(Though, props to them for tailing after Alice, Zenkichi had to admit, and Niijima had a sharp mind. All of them did, really, which was why Zenkichi offered to work with them and even called the Commissioner. Told them that if they worked together, he would spare them an arrest. Transparency was the key, here, if he wanted to gain their trust.)
They hadn't believed him, but that was okay, because Zenkichi didn't really believe himself either; after all, all it would take was one word from the Commissioner, and Zenkichi would have to put them behind bars.
...they were kids.
(It really seemed that Amamiya's twin wasn't involved at all, as he'd made himself scarce by checking out the local universities and hadn't appeared in any subsequent meetings or gatherings between the Thieves…
aand the kids were talking about Alice Hiiragi, so it was Zenkichi's turn to announce himself with information on the idol, to another scary smile from Okumura-chan.)
It also seemed like they ignored Zenkichi completely while solving the case, but he still had to crack a secret smile when the calling card was announced, wondering if Akane was watching it from home. He had to admit that it was done with style, hacking into the public broadcast system to deliver it, even if it would only draw the police's and public's attention to them. But the question was, did they know the prickly situation that they were in?
Zenkichi had honestly not expected that they'd accept the deal so easily, all things considered; Amamiya's eyes were clouded, their color shifting into something that seemed to be a murkish orange briefly before going back to their steel-gray, and Zenkichi dismissed it as a trick of the light while following after them and to the crossing, listening to their bizarre story about jails and monarchs and desires.
"What do you say we go get you tested for drugs now?" He remarked, only partially joking and actually getting really worried. "If you're gonna cook up some fantasy to sell me, maybe try a little less spice next time."
He saw most of them tense, out of the corner of his eyes, and could've sworn that Sakamoto's eyes flashed the same murky orange-gold shade that Amamiya's had done, earlier. He kept thumbing over his heart, now, in what seemed to be a nervous habit. Then Niijima spoke up, her voice booking no arguments.
"Just save it for now. We're about to take you into the cognitive world."
Zenkichi frowned. "'Cognitive' world?" They hadn't mentioned anything about cognitive worlds on their way here, though he'd recognized that word; he'd read it once or twice in the notes he'd been given at the precinct, together with the little information that he'd found on how Joker had been taken into custody.
The kids had started to walk towards nowhere in particular, as far as Zenkichi could tell, Niijima glancing at him and pursing her lips. "Follow us," she'd said, and he did, intrigued. They made their way over to a not-so-populated spot of the crossing, a wall some ways off of the main platforms, and then -- the world kind of went sideways around Zenkichi, and he felt like throwing up. He squeezed his eyes shut against the onslaught of vertigo.
"Shiho had weathered this much better, hadn't she?" One of the kids asked -- probably Takamaki, and Amamiya hummed something affirmative.
"So are you gonna answer me, orr--" Zenkichi looked up and over to where the metro line should be -- focus on should be, because it wasn't, and he was looking at something that looked like Shibuya but all-- wrong.
A cold shiver travelled up his spine. "Wh--" Zenkichi stopped. Took a deep breath. Tried again. "What -- where… how? This-- this isn't real--" His voice might've cracked, and then heard Niijima's voice as she spoke again, grave. "Everything here is real. Every last bit you can see."
He turned around and flinched back, eyes flickering from one kid to the other -- from one Phantom Thief to the other, all decked out in some weird clothing that they hadn't worn seconds before, Amamiya's silhouette a familiar one from the broadcast from the previous evening. From the broadcast back when Shido's card had been sent.
Zenkichi felt a headache forming, a pressure in the back of his head that pulsed to the beat of his heart, and the kids were sharing glances with each other as if this was some… game to them, all nonchalance while he was loosing his sanity. One started speaking to him, a girl with red hair that hadn't been there before, and there was a thing in the place of the fluffy cat that looked vaguely cat-shaped, a pressure surrounding them that felt -more. And then Amamiya's eyes glowed a garish yellow, almost as if in amusement, before he shook his head and it was gone again, and Zenkichi--
--seems to be having a meltdown, the red-haired girl said, and Okumura-chan actually looked sincere for once when she said, "That still sounds rather worrisome…"
Everything after that was a blur, but Zenkichi remembered exiting the not-right Shibuya and making his way over to the overhead crossing again, could feel the concerned gazes of some of the Thieves as he muttered to himself, trying to rationalize everything.
And then the cat talked, and Zenkichi was officially done for the evening. Bottling up all of the confusing mess of emotions and stashing it away like the responsible adult that he was, he calmed down enough -- seemed calm enough -- to finish their conversation and to tell the Thieves that he would contact them later.
"I'm going to try to understand," he'd told them, and Zenkichi had meant it. He'd also meant it, about keeping them safe, he'd realized, back at his apartment, and was genuinely looking forward to meeting them again in Sapporo.
But until then, he had to get over a crisis or ten, and read up on anything and everything regarding cognition.
The kids ended up calling Zenkichi to Sendai, because they'd somehow found a --a jail there, and he hurried over as soon as he could, gathering information along the way. They were upholding their part of the agreement, so he would be upholding his.
Apparently Sophia smelled it or something, but that was not the important part there -- what was important was seeing how the kids switched from being carefree kids to Phantom Thieves, how their postures became alert despite their casual banter. He'd gotten into touch with one of his accomplices and procured all of them tickets to the gala Natsume was holding. It was a very official-looking and formal thing, as he'd found out, and so everyone was probably expected to wear their Sunday best. He glanced at Amamiya and his friends with a critical eye, frowning slightly. The gala was at eleven, and it was already past six in the evening -- they probably haven't bought anything formal with them. It should be all right, if they pretend to be working-class fans of the novels, though.
And then Amamiya surprised him. "Is this a white tie event?" His head was tilted, slightly to the side as if he was listening to someone talk, a movement that he'd seen all of them frequent once or twice from when he'd been tailing them.
"Black," Zenkichi answered, surprised. "It's semi-formal black tie. It's not mandated, though."
This time it was Okumura-chan who gave him a wry smile. "But everyone will follow it nonetheless, won't they? That's how these things go. We have to blend in if we don't want to attract attention."
Takamaki nodded, eyes narrowed in contemplation. "Don't worry about us, gramps, we'll come up with something."
Strangely, Zenkichi found himself believing them, and then their reflections followed him outside and around the corner, until he couldn't see the van anymore.
His belief wasn't wrong-placed, all of the kids sans Morgana waiting for him in front of the gala building and dressed to the nines -- Takamaki and Okumura-chan had done their hair differently, and even Sakamoto had gelled his back, and they were wearing strangely color-coordinated outfits to their Thief getup, but still subtle enough to not attract all of the attention.
They were the literal definition of 'blending in with your surroundings', and Zenkichi whistled, impressed. He'd thought that he'd have to do most of the socializing and small-talk to get information about their host, leaving the Thieves to enjoy the gala, but everyone took part in blending into the crowd as the night dragged by. Sakamoto and Takamaki had stuck together with Sakura and were talking to one of the reporters while Okumura-chan and Kitagawa mingled with some snobbish-looking men. Amamiya and Niijima periodically checked in on Zenkichi as if he was the one not used to these kinds of occurrences, and Zenkichi let them, amused.
Especially Amamiya was good, and Zenkichi wondered if the kid had ever thought about joining PubSec as an undercover operative, raising in ranks until his codename would be the only thing known to the public; like Zero, though only the heaven know what had ended up happening to him -- Zenkichi was a different part of PubSec. Amamiya was a natural, and Zenkichi found himself doing a double-take, barely recognizing him with his hair neatly combed and his glasses gone.
Niijima, champagne-flute in hand, snorted. "Ren learned almost everything he knows from Arsene, which gives him an advantage in situations like these." She said, as if the name Arsene was supposed to mean anything to Zenkichi. Another member perhaps?
"Something like that, yes," Niijima conceded, before everyone gathered back around Zenkichi as the evening dragged to a close. Then they'd overhead Natsume and his cronies talk about the Sayuri and Madarame, and Zenkichi could see all of their metaphorical fur bristle as Takamaki was ready to walk over and defend the painting, only for Kitagawa to do so.
Zenkichi had one second of internal screaming happen before he forced himself to calm down, noting how unbothered Amamiya seemed despite the less-than-ideal situation. Zenkichi honestly expected Kitagawa to explode into Natsume's face in well-deserved anger, but the artist kid calmly and boldly lied to the writers' face while underhandedly insulting him and then even rendered Natsume silent when dropping the bomb that his mother had been the one to draw Sayuri.
He'd also secured them the password to the jail, so, really -- the kids certainly knew what they were doing.
"My apologies," Kitagawa told them, once they left the venue, and the others immediately defended him. Zenkichi quirked a lip. These kids…
"You do yours and I do mine. Good work tonight."
(Then they proceeded to keep him out of the loop and do their thing in the jail, only informing him that it was time to send the calling card when they'd seen him help the lost kid. Zenkichi felt like screaming when they accepted his reasoning of not breaking into the shopping mall and then practically blackmail-volunteered him, Amamiya holding an amused expression that made Zenkichi believe that they could've probably broken into the place and scattered the cards without even a hair left behind.
But also-- it was quite rewarding, seeing Natsume flip out over the calling cards, knowing that Zenkichi was the one to place them. He wondered what Akane would think of him now, helping her beloved Phantom Thieves, even if he complained about it afterwards.
He did not feel any warmth spreading through himself once they'd decided to call him Zenkichi instead of Gramps, though, nope.)
The aftermath of Natsume's jail went down like Alice's, right down to traces of tampering on his phone that were detected by Sakura. It was only right of Zenkichi to let them go to the festival, considering they really deserved it, and the fact that they could go to the University's lecture held by Konoe was simply a plus; nothing was happening in Sapporo, as of yet.
And it gave him some time to update the Phantom Thieves dossier that he was working on with all of the new information that he'd gained, from working directly with them on the night of the gala. The kids were much more competent than he'd previously given them credit for, even looking back at their cumulative record as Thieves. They switched into business-mode quicker than he'd anticipated, and the fact that Amamiya knew the difference between white and black tie events was surprising, considering Zenkichi had found nothing indicating any interest into that direction.
Their conduct had also been, while influenced by their youth and extuberant personalities, not what he'd expected, especially from the likes of Sakura, Sakamoto or Kitagawa. Takamaki he'd expected to know some things, considering she was a rising star in modelling, and Okumura-chan was managing her father's business since last summer. Niijima and Amamiya were the wildcards, because Zenkichi had put both of them into both categories, but all of them did really well on the impromptu mission.
Especially Amamiya. The kid was like a chameleon, with how smoothly he'd changed his demeanor the second they'd stepped a foot into the gala building.
And then there was that mysterious Arsene, who'd apparently taught Amamiya the finer points of high-class behavior. A quick search proved the European-sounding name to be French, which collaborated with another of Zenkichi's notes on the apparent bilingualism of Amamiya. He and Okumura-chan could be found talking in French, sometimes, and Morgana and Takamaki liked to trade what sounded like Spanish with each other, and all of them spoke English to some varying degree of fluency; Takamaki was fluent, no doubt due to her split nationality, and Sakamoto had a pretty good vocabulary with a rather strong British accent, despite class records stating that he'd been utterly abysmal at the language the year prior. Okumura-chan and Niijima spoke mostly business English and Sakura had a frightening online vocabulary that Zenkichi only recognized because of Akane; Kitagawa was the weakest in English, and Amamiya's knowledge seemed to be roughly on the same level as Sakamoto's.
Zenkichi wondered if being bilingual was a requirement of joining the Thieves.
He still had too little information on who this Arsene was to map him down as a member of the Thieves, considering that Amamiya's twin wasn't one, despite being a, y'know, twin. Maybe a relative from France? Who even knew! Not Zenkichi, that's for sure. He sighed. They'd be in Sapporo by noon, and he'd let them have the afternoon free before conferring with them, silently wondering how they'd end up dealing with Hyodo.
It was all a mess -- everything, from start to finish. Especially the Metaverse. It didn't matter how much Zenkichi read up on it, it still confused him.
(Also, as most things regarding the Phantom Thieves, access to data and intel regarding 'Cognitive Worlds' was hidden behind high-level access that Zenkichi wasn't allowed to, y'know, access, despite being the leading investigator of the Change of Hearts epidemic case.
But that was derailing from the topic at hand -- the only information regarding the Metaverse that he'd gotten his hands on was a paper written by the now-deceased Isshiki Wakaba, and it was confusing. Zenkichi only got through the first few pages before the kids had called him to Sendai, and he'd only managed to read one more chapter before they arrived in Sapporo.)
And it's not like Sakamoto was wrong, about Zenkichi not being of much help -- he couldn't (didn't want to) follow the kids to the jail, because those places were downright terrifying to experience. Instead he helped them out by gathering as much information as he could about the major of Sapporo, and surreptitiously trailed after them because it was a habit, and breathed a sigh of relief when they went exploring the city, the next day. He kept in touch with Amamiya and tried to ignore the building guilt at thrusting the kids into such dangerous activities.
They met up again on the tenth for the speech, Okumura-chan looking paler than usual, her smile just a tad too fake--
and worry hit Zenkichi all at once, like a freight train.
"Is everything all right there, Okumura?"
The young heiress smiled, brittle and in the way Akane had done, when Aoi died and Zenkichi hadn't been there to help her, and--
but Okumura-chan was a stronger person that Zenkichi gave her credit for, and after telling him that she'd known Hyodo from when she was small, she added, "and Milady is here, now, too, so I'll be fine. Don't worry too much, Gramps."
Zenkichi ignored the jab and focused on the other information that was provided to him, like a breadcrumb. "Milady? Is that-- someone like Arsene?" A European-sounding name mentioned, without any face, that the thieves seemed to trust implicitly.
Okumura-chan's smile turned more real, more mysterious. "Arsene, but yes," she corrected, and nothing more. Zenkichi rolled his eyes and decided that the kid would be fine, and focused his attention back onto the speech when Okumura-chan leaned against Niijima's side in comfort.
He had other things to focus on.
(Still, he added Milady's name to the same column as Arsene's, a question-mark drawn behind it and traced over and over again.)