Chapter Text
The wipers make a slow, rhythmic pass across the windshield. Whine. Thud. Whine. Thud.
The snow falls in slow spirals, hesitant, as if uncertain about whether to stay. It's the kind that melts as soon as it lands—not heavy enough to paint the streets white, just enough to blur headlights and soften the edges of the city’s harshness. Inazuma City in the winter has a way of swallowing sound, pressing its cold hand over everything like a long-held breath. Even now, the sirens are distant. Muted.
Raiden Ei’s fingers rest on the steering wheel, unmoving. The car idles. The vents hum warm air into the cabin, but her body remains still, spine straight, eyes fixed through the windshield at the street ahead. Blue tape flutters halfheartedly between lampposts. A small crowd has formed on the far side, with people bundled in scarves and thick coats, curiosity and morbid interest holding them in place. The smell of burnt rubber clings to the air, even from here.
She exhales slowly, only now realizing she’s been holding it in.
No commission. No call. She isn’t supposed to be here. But the moment she heard the initial report on the police wire—a single-vehicle explosion at 6:47 a.m. on 26th Street—she knew she was going. Something in her gut twisted when she heard the details.
She eases the car into park and kills the engine.
The world dulls. The hum of the car fades, leaving only the soft hissing of snowfall against metal and the quiet thudding of her own heartbeat. A deep ache stirs behind her sternum—old grief with a fresh coat of silence. She shoves the door open and steps out of her cruiser.
Cold air slaps her face. The city smells like soot and steam, with something beneath it she can’t name yet.
Across the street, beneath a streetlamp that flickers every few seconds, stands Yae Miko. Elegant as ever, even wrapped in a wool coat. Her gloved fingers are curled around a paper coffee cup, and she sips from it slowly as she watches the site like it’s a painting she’s been staring at too long. Her expression is unreadable.
Miko was the first and only person she’d called after she heard the news. Because Ei knew that she’d be here. And that she wouldn’t have to be alone again.
Miko lifts her gaze and spots her. Her lips quirk into the ghost of a smirk.
“Hey, detective,” she greets, as Ei approaches.
“Miko.”
“Kind of you to show up,” Miko teases. She makes a show of looking at her wristwatch.
Ei doesn’t answer. Her days don’t need to start this early.
Her eyes shift past her to the wreckage on the side of the road. It's become a hollow skeleton of a car, burned to its frame, twisted like an insect’s shell left to bleach in the sun. Firefighters have already done their job. The smoke has thinned. But the scene still pulses with the afterimage of violence.
“They said the driver didn’t make it,” Miko says, more quietly now. “Though I suppose you already knew that.”
Ei nods once. “Did they ID the body?”
Miko’s silence is strange. It’s soft, almost gentle.
“Kuki Hiroshi.” She looks at Ei out of the corner of her eye. “You know the name?”
“Shinobu’s brother,” Ei murmurs, more to herself than anyone.
“The same.”
Ei takes a slow breath. Shinobu—razor-sharp, unflinching Shinobu. It’s hard to imagine her shaken by anything. But the look on Miko’s face tells her this isn’t going to be a clean case.
“No one’s touched the car yet,” Miko adds. “We’re waiting for forensics. I didn’t want to go in alone.”
“Good.”
They fall into a strange silence. Not unfriendly. Just heavy. Familiar.
Snow floats between them, catching in Miko’s hair like tiny stars.
Ei speaks first. “You didn’t have to come.”
“Maybe not,” Miko says, sipping her coffee again. “But you called.”
“Thank you, nonetheless.”
There’s a long pause. Something like a breeze moves through the wreckage, stirring ash and broken glass.
“I didn’t think I’d feel this again,” Ei murmurs. Her eyes stay locked on the burnt-out car. “This… quiet after a blast.”
Miko doesn’t ask what she means. She doesn’t need to. Neither of them need to communicate about it. The presence of a now-familiar hollow feeling in Ei’s chest.
It’s the same street. They don’t mention it. But it’s on both of their minds.
Something acrid rides the wind, beneath the smoke and the metal. Faint, but sharp. Floral, almost. But wrong. Like it’s gone bad already.
Miko’s nose twitches. “Do you smell that?”
“I do,” Ei says. “Not gasoline.”
“No. It’s something else.”
They both say nothing after that.
Ei feels it like a wire pulling tight between her shoulder blades—that too-familiar stillness in the aftermath of something monstrous. And somewhere, buried in the soot and snow and city static, is the beginning of something she knows is going to eat at her.
The city holds its breath.
That evening, Ei makes it a priority to visit a specific forensics analyst. She’s been in this neighborhood a few times, visited the row once or twice. But never like this.
Tonight, the street is quiet. The sounds of Ei’s heeled boots crunching against the carpet of snow is even louder to her ears against the muffle of the weather.
Rowhouses line both sides, narrow and tall, their steps dusted in a fine coat of snow. Streetlamps flicker overhead, casting golden cones across the pavement, glowing softly in the hush of winter. Inazuma City has moods; tonight it feels half-asleep, lids heavy, breath visible.
Ei stands at the foot of the steps, gloved fingers tightening around a paper bag. A thin gust of wind pulls at the hem of her coat. The townhouse door in front of her is a plain navy blue, old paint weathered by salt and seasons.
She knocks, three firm taps.
After a few moments, the door opens with a short creak.
Kuki Shinobu stands in the frame, sharp-eyed and alert despite the shadows under her eyes. She’s still in slacks and a work shirt, sleeves rolled up, collar half-buttoned. Her hair is tied back, though loosely, and her stance is straight.
“Detective,” she says. Not cold, not warm. Just factual.
“Ei,” she corrects. “I’m not here for work.”
The shorter woman looks at her for a second, processing. There’s a pause. Then, she nods once.
Ei inclines her head. “I brought a few things. Thought you might need them.”
Shinobu’s gaze dips to the bag in her hand, then back up. “You didn’t have to.”
“I know.”
They stare at each other. The bag still elevated in between them like an unfinished conversation that neither of them are willing to broach.
Shinobu steps aside. “Come in.”
The townhouse smells faintly of sage and lemon cleaner, like someone tried to tidy up quickly but gave up halfway. The front door opens directly into the small living room—compact, neat, impersonal. A jacket hangs on the coat rack. A mug sits untouched on the coffee table, beside a police-issued folder she’s clearly been staring at.
Ei sets the bag on the kitchen counter and doesn’t comment on any of it.
“I wasn’t expecting anyone,” Shinobu says, walking around the couch but not sitting. “I thought you might’ve called ahead.”
She stays by the kitchen, hands still half-curled from carrying the bag, fingers faintly pink from the cold outside. “I didn’t plan on coming,” Ei lies, for some reason. “But I was nearby.”
Shinobu nods once. She folds her arms, leaning against the wall. “Why else are you here? Do you have questions that you want to ask me?” It’s not accusatory, just clear. Not judgmental, just efficient.
Ei pauses. She did mean to ask about Hiroshi—his habits, his contacts, why he might be targeted. But those questions feel hollow now, against the backdrop of the apartment’s quiet. It would be imprudent for her to, she supposes. “I didn’t want you to be alone,” she responds.
Something in Shinobu’s posture shifts slightly. A narrowing of the eyes. A flicker of hesitation. Then it’s gone.
Ei sits on the edge of the armchair. Her coat rustles faintly as she folds her hands in her lap. “We’re not ready to release the scene yet,” she says. “I’ve asked the cleanup to hold. I want more time with it myself.”
Shinobu nods. “Good call.” Her voice is steady, but quiet. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with anyone who might’ve seen him.”
They both stare at the coffee table with Shinobu’s words hanging over them like a dying lightbulb in a storage room. Not enough presence to fully illuminate the details, but just enough to suggest. Leaves plenty of room for questions and blind spots. It makes Ei feel a little bit choked—akin to scrambling in the dark.
Finally, Shinobu continues with a slightly more strained voice. “Hiroshi. But the name barely registers. It's like he was a ghost.”
Ei tilts her head, meeting her eyes. “How long since you last spoke?”
Shinobu exhales through her nose. “Four years. Maybe more. Last time we argued, he left. And he didn’t look back.”
There’s steel in her voice. But not anger—just something preserved. Untouched.
Ei watches her for a long moment. She can see the subtle tension in her arms. The way she grips her own elbows like she’s holding herself in place.
“I wasn’t close to my sister, either,” Ei says. Her voice is quiet, but not delicate. “Not when it really mattered.”
Shinobu doesn’t reply. She keeps her eyes forward. But her stance eases, just a fraction. Her arms drop.
“He was a pain in the ass,” she mutters after a while. “Ran with the wrong crowd. Blew all his savings on some startup and didn’t tell anyone until it crashed. I thought… if he ever came back, I’d yell at him first.”
Ei doesn’t smile. She understands.
“I called my sister,” Shinobu continues. Her voice is low now, almost lost in the hush of the room. “She’s flying in. Said she’ll be here before dawn. She sounded… I don’t know. Shocked. Angry. Like she blamed me and didn’t, all at once.”
“People feel strange things when they grieve.”
Another pause.
“I wasn’t grieving yet,” Shinobu says. She finally sits down, across from Ei. Her shoulders sag just slightly. When she opens her mouth to speak again, it’s quieter, as if she simply didn’t have the energy to initiate any muscles. “I kept waiting for someone to say there was a mistake. That it was the wrong guy. That it wasn’t Hiroshi. But his name’s on the report. His watch was still on him.”
She reaches up and pinches the bridge of her nose, but doesn’t cry. She blinks twice, slow. No tears come still, but her amethyst eyes adopt a more faraway look, making her look dazed. A thick lock of green comes and falls in front of her eyes, masking the expression.
“It’s like... if I move too fast, I’ll miss something.”
She leans back on the sofa, slowly playing with the cuff of her sleeve.
“I can’t tell if I feel anything,” she murmurs. “Is that normal?”
Ei thinks for a moment. “There isn’t a normal.”
More silence. More snowfall outside the windows, silent and continuous.
Shinobu closes her eyes. “I didn’t get to say goodbye,” she says with finality. It’s little more than a whisper.
Ei’s not sure what to say to that. So she doesn’t say anything at all. The silence between them stretches again, not awkward this time, but shared. Outside the window, a distant train hums through the city, wheels on steel blurred by snow.
She just stays there a little longer, breathing in the low warmth of the room, until Shinobu begins to doze. Not sleep, exactly, but that disjointed half-rest people fall into when their bodies are too tired to stay upright anymore.
Ei stands quietly, retrieves her coat, and steps out. The door closes behind her with a soft click. Outside, the city is dusted in a powder-thin layer of white. It’s still not enough to stick, but it’s enough to change the shape of things.
The street is quieter now, if that’s possible. Every footprint is fresh, every light haloed in frost. Ei pulls her coat tighter, then dials.
Miko picks up on the second ring.
“Evening,” she says, voice warm and lilting. “I thought you’d be asleep by now.”
Ei watches the steam from a nearby vent rise into the night sky, disappearing.
“Could we find some time to talk?” she asks.
There’s a pause. Then the faint smile in Miko’s voice returns. “Of course. Whenever you’re ready.”
Ei hangs up and slips the phone back into her coat pocket.
The wind stings her cheeks, and snowflakes catch in her lashes as she turns toward the station. She keeps her eyes trained on the sidewalk, trying to find her old footsteps, but they’ve already disappeared. Just like her resolve.
The café is still open, but barely.
Most of the chairs are stacked, and the staff clean quietly in the back, too polite to shoo them out. The place smells like cinnamon and dish soap, the final breaths of warmth before the overnight chill sets in. Outside, the streets are hushed, empty but for the glow of the snow and the occasional hum of a distant engine.
Ei sits across from Miko at a small corner table by the window. A cup of hot tea rests between her palms. She hasn't drunk from it.
Miko, by contrast, sips leisurely from a short latte, looking too relaxed for the hour. She’s draped in a wool coat the color of overripe cherries, scarf loose at her collar. Her nails are perfect, as always. The corner of her mouth pulls slightly, a permanent suggestion of a smile.
“You haven’t changed at all,” she says, breaking the quiet.
Ei’s gaze lifts. “That’s not true.”
“No? Maybe a little more bleak. You always had that strict posture, though. Back then, I thought you were military-bound.”
“I was considering it,” Ei replies.
Miko hums. “Of course you were. Structure and hierarchy—your two great loves. But then you went to college instead. No thanks to Makoto, I assume?”
A faint, almost imperceptible twitch at the corner of Ei’s mouth. “She did convince me.”
“She had that talent. Making you do more than what you wanted to, until you realized that you wanted to all along.”
“It was her version of ‘liberation’.”
“You mean ‘interference’.”
The shared smile between them is brief, quiet.
Miko leans her elbow on the table and rests her chin against the back of her hand. “You remember that stupid neon couch she bought in senior year?”
Ei snorts. “The green one.”
“Green is a generous term.”
“It glowed,” Ei says.
“It radiated,” she corrects. “She was so proud of it. And it barely fit through the stairwell, and she refused to leave it behind even when she moved.”
“She made me carry it. Twice.”
“Of course she did.” Miko’s laughter is quiet, fond. “‘I just want my living room to feel more postmodern and outer space-themed,’ is what she said.”
“She always talked like that.”
Miko watches her for a moment, the smile fading just slightly. “I miss her too.”
She doesn’t answer immediately. She stares out the window at the falling snow, fingers slowly rotating the teacup in her hands. The lights of a distant taxi glide past. Miko’s hair colors her periphery, giving her a further sense of surrealism at this hour.
“I didn’t at first,” she says. “Not properly. I told myself I’d accepted it. That people drift. That some people disappear. People die.”
Miko lets the silence sit. Then, gently: “It’s more than that, though. And I think you agree now, right?”
“I don’t know.”
Humming, Miko gently sets her cup on the table. Her hands circle around it, mirroring Ei from the other side of the table. A single manicured finger taps silently against the side of it.
Ei continued, slowly. “We drifted apart after graduation. We thought we were going in the same direction.”
I hope you are able to find yourself.
“We weren’t.”
Miko tilts her head, gaze soft. A distant look slowly came over her. “She never stayed anywhere long. Even after she started working in the city, I could never pin her down.”
“She told me she was trying to make something new,” Ei murmurs. “Something the world hadn’t seen. She always said she couldn’t do it if she stopped moving.”
“She said that to me too,” Miko says. “To be honest, I don’t think I really ever fully understood what she meant.”
Ei finally takes a sip of her tea. It’s gone lukewarm. She declares it to also be her last sip.
“I always admired how you two understood each other,” Miko adds. “Different species, you and her, but the pairing just worked.”
“Not forever.”
“No,” she agrees, but without accusation. “But that doesn’t mean it didn’t matter.”
The low jazz playing over the speakers fades into another instrumental. Someone behind the counter laughs too loudly. The world goes on.
Ei sets her cup down, shoulders easing slightly.
“I didn’t come here to talk about Makoto,” she says, even though she obviously did.
“I know.” Miko smiles again, just a little. “But you needed to, anyway.”
Ei doesn’t respond, but she doesn’t disagree. The two of them sit in silence again, more comfortable this time, more worn-in.
She pushes her cup away from her slightly, enough so that she stops playing with the rim of it. “I wonder where that stupid neon couch is now.”
Miko chuckles softly. “Probably gone.”
Not probably—certainly. But neither of them correct it. They don’t speak of that time.
An old framed photograph of their whole family. Ei’s grip is unsteady and shaky.
It goes in the keep pile.
“Maybe I should get one for my apartment,” Ei comments. “A pink one.”
“You don’t want that,” Miko says.
They look at each other—Miko’s face is soft. Ei finds herself staring.
Miko looks away. “Stick to green.”
Outside the window, the snow continues to fall in slow, patient spirals.
The wreck is nearly buried.
Snow clings to the corners of the ruined car, filling the cracks and curling in windblown spirals across the blackened ground. Tire tracks are fading. Soon the outlines will disappear entirely, swallowed by white.
Ei stands at the perimeter, gloved hands tucked into the pockets of her coat. Shinobu is crouched beside the frame, flashlight in one hand, metal probe in the other, her movements sharp, economical. She doesn’t say anything when Ei approaches—just gives the slightest tilt of her head, acknowledging her presence.
The sky is low and gray. The kind that never brightens, no matter the time of day. Snowflakes catch on Ei’s lashes. She doesn’t blink them away.
Shinobu shifts, brushing a layer of snow off the edge of the passenger-side door. What remains of it, anyway. The panel is scorched, warped inward. Beneath her coat, Shinobu wears a plain black sweater and dark pants tucked into weatherproof boots. Her face may as well be armor. She does not speak, not unless there’s something to say.
They work like that for a while. Quiet. Focused. Shinobu circles the wreck. Ei kneels near the rear axle, peering at where the undercarriage was shredded by the blast. Snow gathers on the edge of her collar, melts into the wool.
A crow caws somewhere in the distance.
Ei straightens, joints stiff. Shinobu’s already across the wreck, brushing a hand over something near the edge of the blast zone. A fragment of mirror, half-buried. The glass has spiderwebbed, but the chrome on the edge still glints faintly under the gray light.
Ei watches her for a long moment. The other woman’s shoulders are squared, mouth set into a thin line. This isn’t the same Shinobu she met yesterday. She’s a blade now. All edge. All function. Not grief, not now—grief will wait its turn.
They don’t need to speak. Shinobu gestures slightly toward the concrete barrier nearby. There’s a scattering of metal shards along the base. Shrapnel, maybe. Something embedded.
Ei nods and steps toward it.
Her boots crunch through the snow. Every sound feels muted out here.
She kneels again. Fingertips tracing the line of a gouge in the concrete. Not recent—older than the blast. But something about the shape…
Her mind drifts.
Makoto used to collect glass—colored glass, mostly. Bottles, trinkets, shards she’d find in antique stores and secondhand markets. She’d line them up on her windowsill, where the morning light would catch them and scatter color on the walls.
“You have to see it at the right time,” she’d said. “Otherwise it just looks broken.”
Ei remembers looking for that light and never quite finding it.
She exhales slowly, breath blooming into frost.
Another piece. A bent washer, a scorched bolt. Evidence. Everything they find adds to the picture, but the picture is already too large. Too many years. Too many names. The snow keeps falling.
Shinobu makes a low noise—acknowledgment, not alarm—and points to a scorch trail leading outward. Ei follows it with her eyes, then her feet. They move in tandem now, each adjusting to the other’s rhythm. There’s no language more precise than shared silence.
When the evidence bags are full and the camera’s memory is nearly spent, Shinobu brushes off her gloves and checks her watch. She looks off into the distance.
“Miyuki’s in,” she says simply.
Something catches in Ei’s throat.
She says nothing. Just stares for a moment longer, her breath catching in the wind.
She remembers going home once, after the call.
The hospital. The paperwork. The news that dropped into her life like a sharp knife through paper. She remembers the train ride. The color of her coat. The way her hand shook when she turned the doorknob.
Makoto had opened it. Her face was dry, but her eyes were red at the edges. Trying to be strong. None of them said much that night. The house felt too big, suddenly, as if a cold front filled the corners and crevices before any of them could.
She hadn’t known what to say back then. She doesn’t now.
Shinobu zips her bag. Ei watches her for a long, quiet moment. Wordlessly, Shinobu turns around and walks away.
Ei goes the other direction.
The snow, ever the conversationalist at the function, continues to quietly accompany them.