Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Uru was glad that despite how new he was to ABIS, he had at least managed to not get stuck with as much hazing as was probably typical. Even though it’d been half a year, Yukuto still had to put up with plenty from Boss.

He couldn’t tell if Yukuto didn’t register it as harassment, or if he was just happy to please. Either way, his easygoing attitude made him much easier to cajole into doing stupid shit than Uru.

Case in point, Uru turned on the TV. Boss had asked him to watch, somewhat politely by her standards. He said he might, which seemed to make her happy enough. The quiz show she had dragged Yukuto to seemed… like a typical quiz show. Not very interesting, though Yukuto seemed quite pleased to waste an evening as Boss mandated.

Tama was recording the whole thing, whether or not Uru kept the station on (Iris needed him to have the footage, for a video? He didn’t know how she could possibly monetize it, but Iris could always find a way.) Uru kept watching out of mild boredom and curiosity.

The man running the show, an unusually square-faced person, was someone apparently notable in certain niche circles. He knew this now, because Tama refused to stop telling him the man’s storied history.

Information passing through one ear and out the other, Uru tuned in temporarily to see the square man - who he now knew to be Andes Komeji, thanks Tama - pause the show.

“Now then! Let’s take a little break, shall we! We need to get to know our contestants!”

Uru knew this was somewhat routine, but he found it exceptionally boring. What quiz show watcher wanted to know the history of the people playing the games? Tama had the answer, of course, but he refused to ask her. He’d probably get a lecture on the power of pathos in retaining an audience.

“Team popo! I’m just dying to know - what made you join the police force?”

The camera switched, and Uru saw Yukuto’s excited face flash onto the screen. Boss sat behind him, cool and confident as ever. Clearly, she was more than willing to let him answer in her stead.

Yukuto leaned forward, grin wide on his face. It never stopped, not even as he began to speak. “Well, I have an older brother. He went missing when I was very young, so I joined the police to get a chance to save him! I want to help everyone I can, so that nobody has to live with a missing brother.”

Yukuto was practically beaming, proud to tell all the people who were watching about what had happened. Uru, sick to his stomach, turned off the TV.

Soon after Yukuto had joined ABIS, he’d started telling the story to practically anyone that would listen. It bothered Uru, but what the fuck was he supposed to say about it?

Uru decided he’d rather go to sleep than do anything else tonight. It wasn’t like he had any active cases, so being early to bed couldn’t hurt, even if it took a while to sleep properly.

His apartment was very nice for what it was. A kitchenette, a table, a couch for him to watch TV, and his own bed and bath. Uru didn’t tend to decorate much. Tama insisted his apartment was depressing, but Uru called it clean instead. He wasn’t a teen anymore, desperate to claim his space as his through any means necessary, up to and including putting terrible posters all around his room. Uru couldn’t have even told anyone what was on those posters, anymore, if he’d ever known.

As he finished cleaning off his plate and went into his room. Even after so long living in his own apartment, he once again appreciated having his own space. His room was… how did Tama put it? “Cave-like.” She meant it as an insult, but he loved it. Not too big, just enough to feel comfortable. And, of course, fully set up with blackout blinds.

Without much fanfare, Uru set Tama to charge and readied himself to sleep. Tomorrow he’d mostly work on editing for Iris, given that he didn’t have ABIS work to do. With that, he shut his eyes and waited to get tired.

Luckily, he and Tama had long since established a routine for Uru’s insomnia. It was only a real concern if it was a few days in a row, and otherwise she wouldn’t bother him - her reminders would only make it more difficult to sleep unless she was ready to bring out a real solution.

Neither of them particularly liked doing that though, so it was a last-case-scenario type of deal. Luckily, tonight it wasn’t anywhere near a necessity - he felt himself drift after a few minutes.

Uru had been asleep enough to be entirely disoriented when he was woken by the sound of his ringtone coming out of Tama, and he ungracefully grabbed her and shoved her in his eye to take the call.

Tama wouldn’t have let it ring if it wasn’t from someone important, at this time of night. Not that anyone called him outside of work, except maybe Iris, who preferred to text instead.

Boss’s voice rung out in Uru’s head. “Somezuki? We need you at Dvaita. Were you watching the show?”

Uru tried to not sound as groggy as he felt. “I watched the beginning, but turned it off..” He tried to estimate how long ago he’d done so, but failed.

Tama spoke up for him. “About forty minutes ago. What do you need us for? You’ve got a perfectly good Yukuto right there with you!”

Boss snickered, but then went right back to a straight face. “I’m giving you a case, I’ll explain when you get here. Tama, catch Uru up on the news on your way over. There’ll be plenty of recordings.”

Abruptly as it started, Boss shut off the call. Uru tried to gather himself, putting himself back into the work clothes he’d taken off scarcely half an hour ago - no point in getting a clean pair, he’d probably be back to sleep in a couple of hours, max. Even if not, nobody tended to comment on cleanliness in the early hours of the morning, he’d learned.

Uru had, in fact, been filled in on the drive over. There wasn’t much to be filled in on - a few second long recording of the show, with half a body appearing on the broadcast before it was shut off.

By the time he walked in, the scene was already pretty cleared up. Forensics was here, along with Boss and Yukuto, but the witnesses had already been sent home. He’d have to track them down himself, tomorrow. Annoying.

Boss nodded at him as he entered, and he nodded back. He was annoyed to lose sleep when Yukuto was right there, but clearly she must’ve had a reason…

Yukuto was braver than him, because he bit first. “Um, now that he’s here, can I ask why this is Somezuki’s case, not mine?”

Boss didn’t flinch under Yukuto’s pleading eyes. “I want this case to be handled with the help of an AI-Ball. That’s all.” From Boss, that meant it wasn’t all, but she didn’t feel like sharing. Though he had no idea if Yukuto understood Boss’s proclivities, Yukuto at least accepted it with grace, nodding as if that made sense.

“So…” Yukuto turned towards Uru. “Do you want my account of what happened?”

“I already saw the clip on the way here, but sure. What did you see?” Uru found these parts of the investigations quite mundane, but that was mostly the fault of ABIS making things far more interesting than the average investigation. Before Tama and Psyncing, this was the meat of what Uru did.

“It was pretty much as the clip showed. The lights went out abruptly, for maybe two seconds or so? Not enough time for anyone to get in or out with a body the normal way. When the lights came back on, there it was, as if it’d always been there. The one thing the clip might not’ve shown was…” Yukuto shuffled, grabbing something out of a pocket. “These started falling when the lights went out. This one almost hit me on the head, so I grabbed it. My prints are already all over it, so…” He held it out to Uru.

Uru didn’t have any gloves on, but Yukuto had already handled it, so he didn’t bother grabbing them. He paused a moment to look at Boss, to confirm the story.

Boss only nodded, seemingly satisfied with the way Yukuto told the story, so he assumed that meant she had no further comment. 

Looking back at what Yukuto had given him… Uru didn’t exactly know how to identify it. It was like a little booklet, except it only had a few pages in the middle. It was mostly blank, except for the front and back.

“Oh, that’s cute!” Tama unexpectedly spoke up. What the hell was cute about this? “It’s like a little playbill!”

“... And how do you know that?”

“Check the inside cover, it’ll tell you the characters, and who they’re played by! It’s used for theater, most of the time.”

Reluctantly, Uru opened it back up to the inside cover. Indeed, Tama was right, though most of the names were blacked out. The top billing was for a character called ‘Tearer,’ but the actor was blacked out. The second billing was ‘Mother,’ with her name similarly illegible. However, the third name was different.

It read ‘Evil Doctor - Chikara Horadori.’ Even as vague as it was, it made a few things very clear. The clips were already circulating online, headlines surely already being written about the strange death of Chikara Horadori, broadcasted live on television.

There was only one name beneath - Kind Helper, with the first name visible. Someone with the first name Jin, though that didn’t exactly narrow it down.

The rest of the cast list was blank, which was odd. It had another page that was yet to be filled in.

Uru thought to Tama. “Looks like they’re going to keep on going, then. Too much empty room to be filled in later.”

She didn’t respond as grimly. “Check the front and back cover, maybe we’ll get a plot summary or something.”

The front was a title, about as expected. “To Nirvana.” Not very helpful for clarifying anything - plenty of people liked to use Buddhist words and aesthetics, or they very well could be a real Buddhist. The population of either was quite wide.

On the back was a very odd little description.

“All the world is an illusion, one only a select few can see through. Those of us who can see the truth will free everyone, no matter how insignificant.”

Was that supposed to be the plot summary? Uru had no idea what to make of it, except…

“This is ideologically motivated. Even if Chikara’s death might be partially grudge-based, it takes a lot more effort to make something like this, and set up the body the way this was.”

Tama hummed her agreement.

Uru flipped through the playbill a couple more times, before thinking. “Tama, is there any way you could identify the art style? Something like this would ordinarily be a group effort, so maybe there’s a consistent group of people who make things like this?”

Tama shook her head. “It’s not common to get digital scans of playbills like this - usually people toss them, or keep them as collectibles, but they aren’t posted online very often. You think this was a group effort, though? Why’s that?”

Uru stepped away from Boss and Yukuto, towards the body. There were many more of the playbills spilling everywhere. Uru wouldn’t be surprised if a few of the witnesses stole more of them.

“To make so many, you need some ability for mass production. Whoever did this would need a lot of different skills and a decent amount of money to make all this on their own, especially to such a similar standard. Can you pick out any differences between the playbills?”

“Hmm… you’re right, they’re all pretty much the same, even down to the staples. Whoever did this must have some sort of standardized way to put out posters, or else they’re just really good at stapling things.”

Uru raised an eyebrow at that, but let it lie. Finally, he went up to investigate the body.

If there was any particular oddity about his investigations, it was that he liked doing things backwards. Uru always felt that if he went to bodies first, he might miss something important about the scene in his rush. Besides, it meant that by the time he got to them, forensics already had plenty of details.

Uru failed to introduce himself to the person working, jumping straight to business. “So, give me the basics.”

“Yes, sir! Well, the victim is one Chikara Horadori, head of Horadori Institute. Cause of death is, well… being cut in half. No other injuries on this half of the body, time of death was around a day and a half ago. There’s some prints on his clothing, but we’ll have any results for matches by tomorrow. That’s all we have.”

“Any idea on where the other half of the body is?”

“None, sir. You’ll be the first to know when we find it.”

Uru acknowledged the man, and hummed to himself over the details. Nothing particularly unusual. Multiple prints on clothing could be anything - coworkers, patients, possibly his murderer(s), but Uru wouldn’t be able to tell unless they got a hit on any of them, which they likely wouldn’t.

He looked around one final time, looking for anything out of place, but he’d never been here before. There wasn’t anyone here, anyways, besides forensics, Yukuto, and Boss.

Uru sighed, and walked back over to his coworkers.

“Well, I think that’s all I’ll be getting for tonight. Thanks for the info, Yukuto.” He inclined his head, and ignored Yukuto’s grin. “And Boss. There’s no way Chikara was killed here, could we get someone over to check out Horadori Institute?”

Boss grinned. “I know just the person. Tama will have the witnesses’ contact info by tomorrow. Good luck, Somezuki.”

With that, Uru tried to find sleep again.

Chapter Text

Uru rested… poorly. It wasn’t very surprising, turning the details of the case over in his mind tended to lead to poorer sleep than usual, which wasn’t exactly stellar anyways. But it was nothing to be concerned about as of yet.

Still, he was grateful that Tama waited for him to get up, trying to let him rest the best he could. By the time he was willing to accept defeat, the other half of Chikara’s body had been found an hour ago.

He got himself together quickly, skipping breakfast in favor of a few cups of coffee from the anxiety. He’d had plenty of cases in his life, but this was the first important case he’d gotten from Boss. He wasn’t eager to let her down, even though he knew it was stupid to be skipping breakfast for it.

Telling himself he’d fix that later, he drove down to Misetan Department Store. It was an odd place to deposit a body, but given the circumstances so far, the murderer in question seemed to have some sort of plan.

The first thing he did upon entering was ask how on earth the proprietor or their workers wouldn’t have found the body earlier than when the first guest went onto the rooftop.

However, the answer he got was somewhat odd. There apparently should have been a guard on that night, and even recordings. But the recordings of the event had been erased, and the night guard had vanished. Apparently, they’d been hired on an individual basis, and not from a company - probably an unreliable person who’d run away at the first sight of something unusual, or maybe they hadn’t been there at all.

They might be an important witness if Uru could track them down, but in the meantime…

Leaving the proprietor to curse the missing night guard, Uru went to look at the body.

The first thing that was obvious upon seeing the scene was that Chikara hadn’t been killed here, either. The scene was entirely too clean for that, nothing but half a body and more playbills everywhere.

Luckily, upon a glance, they were the exact same production that the previous half had been - sensical, given that the bodies were very likely to have been placed around the same time, though of course Uru couldn’t take that fact for granted.

As for the body itself… it was all the same, with one vital exception.

There was evidence of a minor head injury. Not enough to kill, the method of death was still the halving of his body, but enough to daze. A small fight had broken out before Chikara’s death, it wasn’t as entirely clinical as the previous half would have made it seem.

Uru still believed that the most likely place of the murder would be Horadori Institute itself, but Tama said that Boss’ team were still looking to find evidence of that - or any evidence at all at the institute. He’d wait on their report, then.

He went over the list of evidence he found at the previous body, before turning to the forensics man at the scene.

“Did we get anything back on the prints from the other half of the body?”

“Oh! Yes sir! No matches, unfortunately, but we did confirm that there were at least one and a half sets of prints on the body!”

Uru furrowed his brow. “One and a half?”

The forensics man sounded a little uncertain when he kept talking. “Well, yeah, one and a half. There’s one very distinct set all over, and there’s one hand of another one, and then a bunch of… smudges? They don’t have a distinct print, but it’s not like a glove either.”

“Tama?”

“I don’t have anything in my records that matches that description… let’s keep an eye out.”

“Hmm. Alright, thank you. Anything different on this half?”

“No, we compared them to the ones on this half, and it’s exactly the same. One regular set, and one half set.”

Uru couldn’t help but grin self-satisfactorily. Already, he was being proven right that it was a group effort. “Thank you very much.”

He turned and left, already sorting out his imagined crime scene in his head.

One of the two culprits had shoved Chikara against… some sort of wall, most likely, dazing him. Then, the two of them had… well, he didn’t have any answers for how the halving occurred. 

Of course, that was the easy part. The hard part was always figuring out why. An especially important question, given that Uru was certain that they would kill again.

There was too much empty space in the playbill for them to not.

Settling down back in his car, Tama popped out to sit on the steering wheel and spoke up. “So, what’s our plans?”

She liked it when he laid it all out, saying it made him much easier to corral into making better choices. He indulged her.

“We have practically no leads here, besides this extremely vague playbill and the list of witnesses. So, we’re going to visit the witnesses.”

Tama leaned forwards, and somehow Uru knew he’d fucked up somewhere. What on earth had she latched onto this time..?

“Sooooo, wanna stop by ABIS?”

Uru couldn’t stop himself from letting out a long sigh. “Now why on earth would I do that?”

“Yukuto! He’s one of the witnesses, don’t you want to get him in on this?”

Uru grumbled, loudly. Tama had very quickly grown attached to how sociable Yukuto was, and tried to make Uru harass him at any given moment. She wanted him to ‘be more friendly’ and ‘make a real connection,’ neither of which Uru wanted to do with Yukuto. She was like a mother hen, constantly fussing over the fact that he would much prefer to be on his own in his room, rather than go and talk to people.

“No, I already took his statement last night. We’re visiting Iris first, because I actually know her. You can route me to the rest of them in whatever order you like.”

Tama didn’t seem bothered by his dismissal, and just brought up navigation to Hitomi’s house.

Hitomi didn’t seem very shocked to see Uru, which was nice. The three of them sat together in the main room. Iris was… down, but not as much as she likely was last night.

Tama stood sternly in the back of his mind. “You had better cheer her up before you get started.”

Now this was a mission Uru could take seriously.

As blankly as possible, Uru spoke. “You’ll have to bother one of your other editors for the next couple of days, Iris. They finally decided to start making me do my job.”

Iris startled, and then giggled furiously into her hand. After a moment, Uru let his serious mask slip into a grin.

Iris grinned back at him. “And what if I don’t, huh? What if I say you have to keep on working on my videos during an investigation?”

Uru relaxed into deadpan as easily as ever. “Well then, I suppose we’ll have a conflict of interest… How could I possibly get a reliable statement from my boss about what happened? I suppose I’ll get fired from both my jobs and be desolate for the rest of my life.” He shook his head sadly.

Iris shook her head as well, mimicking him. “Such a shame. The loss of a wonderful editor… and an investigator as well, I guess.”

After a second, both of them stopped the serious play and laughed. His little sister was back to normal, even if just for a bit. Hitomi even smiled gratefully at him.

Another minute passed, then, and the grin slid off of his face. He did have work to do here, after all…

“In all seriousness…” He paused, and Iris looked back at him, confident as could be. “I do need to get your version of events. If it’s not a problem..?”

Iris relayed the exact same events that he’d known. She went to the quiz show with her friend, Amame, and when the lights went out nobody knew what was going on until the body appeared. Iris… struggled when bringing up the body, but got back her steam afterwards. Uru still always forgot that the vast majority of people had never seen a dead body before in their life.

Still, Uru was glad that Iris didn’t have anything new. Unfortunately, it meant that if he did get leads from someone else, he’d have to keep talking to people he didn’t know. Not that it wasn’t worth it to make things easier on Iris.

Glancing around the room, Uru was mildly surprised.

“Ms. Sagan, is Date out?” Uru would’ve expected Date to be here, helping comfort Iris.

Hitomi’s face took on a soft quality. “No, he’s sleeping. He got a job recently, a night shift. He’s been very tired, and we insisted he sleep.”

Uru just nodded. He didn’t have nearly enough familiarity with the man to give his congratulations about the job. After all, he hadn’t even known about it.

With that, Uru didn’t have any more reason to stay. Well, any more reason besides the fact that he wanted to, but he had a job to get back to. Still, on the way out, Iris interrupted.

“You get that quiz show interrupting meanie, Uru!”

He couldn’t help but laugh.

The Kumakura’s office was someplace Uru was only allowed reluctantly, after a mention of what Saito might do if his coworker was hurt or unable to progress his investigation due to them.

Honestly, he had no idea if the Kumakuras were aware of their true relation, but Uru had no intention of speaking about it openly. As far as he was aware, it was a very limited circle of people who were privy to that knowledge, and he had no intention of widening that circle. All that mattered is that he was allowed to get the basic information he needed.

Of course, Moma Kumakura didn’t know anything in particular - unfortunate, but not a surprise. The Kumakuras were very… tame, these days. Based on a few things Iris had tossed out flippantly, Moma had probably joined the show just because Iris was participating as Tesa.

Even though Uru would have liked to press more - he didn’t have any leads yet, which was worrying - he left quickly. He had no intention of gaining the Kumakura’s ire, even if they were as tame as everyone said.

Instead, he went to Sunfish Pocket. Even though he’d known Iris for quite a while, she’d never introduced Uru to any of her friends. He considered this generally a good thing, as he had no real desire to befriend a bunch of high schoolers.

Despite that, it was a downside now. Uru had no real relationship with Amame, nothing to incentivise her to share something she might not with a total stranger. 

Upon sitting down, Uru was instantly uncomfortable. The entire place screamed exploitation, going every which direction. The outfits exploited the young waiters, which exploited the customers, all to put money in someone else’s pocket.

However, if he wanted to make good time in his investigation, he’d decided he’d much rather meet Amame at her place of work. His only other option was having to wait for her shift to be over.

He wasn’t exactly happy when Amame kept treating him like a customer, however. It was probably easier for her to keep the mask on all shift, but it didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.

It wasn’t that Uru wasn’t sympathetic, though. Despite all her cheeriness, Amame seemed shaken by the whole experience. But she wasn’t Iris. He couldn’t possibly guess how to calm her down, even if he was allowed to, which he most certainly wasn’t.

All he could do was give the same empty platitudes he’d give anyone else - he had plenty of experience investigating, and he was going to find the culprit and ensure society was a little safer. Not like it undid anything.

As he left, Uru felt a familiar twinge in him. Amame wasn’t any older than Iris, was she? And she worked at this place, even after such an event, even after school.

Not that he didn’t understand. That sort of desperation couldn’t be more familiar, after all.

On the way to Komeji’s apartment, Uru had braced himself for plenty of Tama’s trivia. By the time he’d finally arrived, it was dark. Unexpectedly, Komeji simply wasn’t there.

Instead, his young son, Shoma Enda, was sitting in the small living room, perfectly ignoring Uru now that he’d done his duty of letting an officer inside.

Far from being annoyed at this, Uru was duly impressed. He’d been similarly obstinate many times at around the same age, to the many adults who feigned interest but inevitably walked away.

So it was simply a matter of earning the kid’s respect, and showing that he didn’t think Shoma was just an annoying obstacle in the way of getting information.

At a glance, there didn’t seem to be much that would give Uru an in, except for what Shoma was doing. He seemed to be messing about with a small toy in his hands - not unusual, except for the fact that he seemed to actually be making it, with a full toolkit and all.

Given his age, it was probably a real passion. Uru would be willing to bet on it. In fact, he’d have to.

“So, engineering?”

Shoma seemed surprised to be spoken to at all about what he was doing. But after he recovered, he only hummed “mhm.”

Okay, on the right track, he’d need to give Shoma a little more then.

“I always liked the sciences best when I was in school. Feels nice to make something with your hands, doesn’t it? You can look at what you’ve made and be genuinely proud that you made something. These days, I do more software than hardware, but…” He checked over at Shoma, who was only sort of paying attention. Right, Uru probably seemed too self-interested.

“So, what’s your project there?”

Shoma - brightened. Tama joined him on patting himself on the back.

“So, this is mostly just a side project…” he trailed off, seeming slightly embarrassed. “But! I’ve got a big robot I’m nearly done with. I did all the work myself, hardware and software! And it can carry stuff around!”

Uru, as a rule, didn’t like kids. They were too loud, too much. At this moment, he decided to make an exception. Shoma’s excitement about his project, and the surrounding nervous silence was too familiar for him to not.

He listened for a while as Shoma talked on about his plans, potential fixes for a next version, different ideas he might work on. No reason not to, given that Komeji wasn’t here, and he was going to go home after this interview was done.

Eventually though, Shoma lapsed into silence after a demonstration of his robot’s auto-balancing design.

“You’re… here to ask about dad, aren’t you?”

Tama strongly recommended him to pretend as if he’d forgotten too, which Uru didn’t mind listening to. “Ah, yes. Thanks for the reminder. If it’s alright…?”

Shoma shrunk, but nodded.

“Well, I didn’t have much to ask, besides the basic facts of what happened. But since he’s not here… well, why isn’t he here? Do you know?”

Suddenly, it struck Uru that it wasn’t typical to leave a kid alone at home. Not that he could do much for Shoma, but it was odd.

Shoma just shook his head. “He didn’t say anything… I just figured he was out trying another stand-up night or something.” His voice was bitter, biting out the last few words.

Uru didn’t have anything to say to that. There was nothing more for Uru to get about Komeji, nothing pertaining to the case, but…

He stood up, looking back at Shoma. Fuck it.

“I’m… sorry. I don’t know what I can do but… if you want, you can have my number, for if you need anything.”

Shoma shook his head. He seemed so small from here.

“Then… that’s all I needed to know. Thank you very much for your help, young man.”

With a disappointingly heavy heart, Uru left for home.

Chapter Text

The last day had been one of the most frustrating of Bibi’s life. Finally, after all this time, she’d been given a chance to investigate Horadori Institute as she pleased, and there was nothing there.

No evidence of misdeeds, none of the rooms she knew existed, just clean white walls that she would not let get to her.

Bibi really wished she had the AI-Ball that was in production for her. It would really help, given that she kept seeing shadows in her periphery, much closer than they would have been with two eyes.

However, Bibi had decided it didn’t matter. In the daytime, under official pretenses, she couldn’t get what she wanted. At night, though? Nobody could prevent her from finding what she needed. And hell, maybe she’d actually find something for the case.

The case was also not going very well, not that it mattered as much. None of Chikara’s coworkers knew who would do such a thing (liars, all of them, she saw how nervously they shifted, how relieved they looked when they thought she didn’t see them) and none of them knew anything besides the fact that he’d been the last one left on the night he died.

They found a point where Chikara’s head might have been hit against the wall, but there was no trail that indicated where he had been dragged to to be killed.

Bibi had decided that she’d keep an eye out for that too, just in case, but she didn’t exactly think they were likely to see those sorts of clues in the dark. No, she was going in for the purpose of breaking into old cabinets and seeing what sort of documentation they had about the horrors that had shut them down.

And for that purpose, she needed Lien. He wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about going back to breaking and entering, but he was willing to do it for her, and that was all that mattered.

The place was far worse in the dark, Bibi quickly decided. But it was kind of hard to be too intimidated, given how boisterous Lien was… at least attempting to be.

Nobody was supposed to be there. Which is why Bibi was almost willing to write the sound off as her head doing things to her, given the location.

Lien looked about as nervous as she felt, though, so he’d heard it too.

It sounded like mumbling voices.

Shit. Okay.

She put a finger over her lips and gestured at Lien to stay put. He really wasn’t cut out for anything that might be dangerous. Somehow, Lien managed a great dumb thumbs up.

She turned back and-

Someone was rounding the corner. Bibi practically jumped out of her skin, and she barely saw Lien doing the same.

The person rounding the corner - also screamed. And then ran.

Shit, shit, shit shit shit. She wanted to give chase, but she was still shaking from the scare.

She watched a short, very square..? Head dart past her.

Was that the fucking comedian from the quiz show? Her heart was beating too quickly to keep up. The man was already at, then out the door. Fucker.

Wait, wasn’t he talking to someone else? She darted into the next room, but… nothing.

What the hell had just happened?

Chapter Text

Uru woke up the next morning, both happy and not to hear that another body had been found.

Despite how objectively bad it was, he seriously needed another lead. He shoved down some food to mix with the coffee on the way out the door, at Tama’s insistence.

Yoyagi park was an odd place to have a murder investigation. It wasn’t the sort of place that Uru often went, of course, but the image of the place cleared out so the police could operate was uncanny nonetheless.

The scene was once again clean, the victim had been killed somewhere else and been transported here. Like last time, the only thing that really marked the scene was a bunch of playbills.

Tama seemed excited to see them, so he picked one up. The cover art was the same, but on the inside there were two major differences. The last person on the list had changed their role, it seemed. The previous kind helper was now an… “Unfortunate sacrifice.” Attached to the role now was a full name, Jin Furue.

There was another name, too. The role didn’t seem to be defined, an uncanny blank space on the page. But the actor attached was Kaname Date.

Uru… didn’t know what to make of that. Tama apparently didn’t either, both of them lapsing into silence.

Putting the playbill in his pocket, he decided to walk over to the body itself.

Exactly like Chikara, there was only half here. Tama hadn’t notified him about another half when he woke up, so he assumed it hadn’t been found yet, but he’d ask anyway in case of new updates.

Without any preamble, he asked the forensics officer. “So, we haven’t found the other half of this body yet?”

“No sir. Do you want the rundown on what we’ve got here..?”

Uru just waved him along.

“Alright then. The victim is Jin Furue, 23 years old. No apparent connection with Chikara Horadori, but his prints match the half print we got on Chikara’s clothing.”

“So, we think that he helped the other killer with Chikara?”

The man just nods.

Uru sighs. Honestly, some parts of this make sense, but other parts just leave him… confused.

“Uru, talk to me.”

Tama’s gentle voice attempted to lead him somewhere more coherent.

Uru closed his eyes, and tried to release the tension in his shoulders. “It makes sense that… Tearer, that was the name in the playbill, correct? Would kill their accomplice. Having someone like that just out there would be too dangerous. But it’s odd that they’re doing so this early on. The empty space doesn’t indicate that they’re done yet, and ordinarily killing your cooperator would be the final killing you do.”

Tama nodded, but didn’t agree. “Unless Tearer hadn’t intended to work with someone else in the first place. Then killing your accomplice first would be the most logical operation.”

That did make sense. But… “I don’t know if we’re dealing with someone logical here. The playbill reads like dogma more than anything.”

“But we can’t assume anything about Tearer yet, besides the fact that they’ve put themself in the role of protagonist, at the top of the cast list. So, we should focus on other things.”

“I don’t know what to make of Date being here.” Even in his own head, Uru’s voice is uncomfortably uncertain.

“Then don’t make anything of it yet. We haven’t checked everything.”

They hadn’t? Uru was pretty sure they had…

“Check the back. Maybe they’ve updated the plot as it progressed!”

She seemed fairly certain, so Uru went with it.

As Tama had said, the text was longer now.

“All the world is an illusion, one only a select few can see through. Those of us who can see the truth will free everyone, no matter how insignificant.” That much was the same. But it continued beyond this time.

“We will tear through the seams of this false world and ascend to Moksha. This is Tearer’s one and only goal, and it will stop at nothing to destroy the simulation we all are trapped in.”

Okay, so it continues with the Buddhist wording but with a side of conspiracy. “Tama, does this ideology match any stated ideology of any group? If you can, any group in Japan?”

Only a fraction of a second passed before Tama laughed triumphantly. “Oh yes it does, our very own Naixatloz, right here in Tokyo!”

Finally, something to hold on to.

Uru had been surprised to be let into the president’s office so easily, even in accordance with police investigation. Usually big companies liked to resist, make them wait, say ‘the person in charge is busy, but we can get you in with a mandated spokesman if that’s alright?’

But today in a mere few minutes he stood in front of Tokiko Shigure, president of Naix Japan. Uru didn’t really know what to make of her. The room was plain, a little too large for a president’s office. Seriously, what did she need an indoor water feature for? And the statues, too? What parts of it weren’t pure function were tacky. 

Tama, on the other hand, was impressed by the setup. “The woman knows how to make an impression!”

And that was the goal of the whole setup, wasn’t it? To make an impression upon visitors as to how… something she was. Uru didn’t know quite what she wanted to impress upon visitors, besides some vague notion of grandiosity, but there probably was something behind it.

After a moment of looking, Uru focused. Tokiko didn’t seem exactly shocked at his examination of the room, waiting for him to initiate.

“You are… Miss Tokiko Shigure, president of Naixatloz’s Japanese branch?”

She nodded. Her entire demeanor was deliberate and controlled.

“Yes, that’s correct. What does the MPD want with Naix?”

Straight to the point, Uru appreciated that. He pulled out the playbill, turned to the back with the plot summary, and handed it to her.

“Does this seem like the sort of rhetoric you and your organization use?”

As she read through it, her face was carefully flat. That was only to be expected with someone of her position, but Uru was somewhat hoping that he could find her having betrayed some feeling, some recognition or lack thereof.

After a few moments, she handed it back. “Yes, it does bear a strong resemblance to our teachings. However, I have no knowledge of or involvement in the writing that you showed me.”

Uru felt his face compress in anger, not entirely with his permission. He hated the sort of precise language people like Tokiko used to escape responsibility. He couldn’t exactly find fault in her words, given the fact that they were completely useless. She wasn’t even absolving herself of knowing about the playbill as a whole, just the section at the back. But he didn’t exactly know how to breach that to her.

Instead he sighed, and let his face fall back into neutrality. “Do you know where these were found?” He didn’t want to indicate what they were, exactly. Maybe she’d let on that she knew their nature.

Tokiko shook her head and waited for Uru to continue.

“They were found at the site of the recent murders, the half bodies. Are you familiar with either of the victims?”

She paused a moment to think, before answering. “I did not know Chikara Horadori, except by the news he was caught up in a few years ago. The second victim has yet to be named on the news, so I cannot answer you, unfortunately.”

Uru heard Tama whisper “damn, she’s good at this” in his ear, and had to repress a chuckle. She in fact was very good at this, quietly implying that the reason she knew Chikara’s name was only because of the news. Of course, it could be true. Uru had no idea of Tokiko’s affiliations.

Instead, Uru forced his mouth into a smile that couldn’t have possibly reached his eyes. “Of course. The second victim is Jin Furue, he was killed sometime last night.”

But Tokiko only shook her head. “I don’t know the name, unfortunately. Do you have any indication as to why those playbills were found with the body?”

Hah! Finally, something of substance. “Playbills? Is that what they are? I wasn’t sure what to make of it, myself.”

Tokiko’s eyes widened for half a moment, but she pulled her expression back near instantly. “Ahh, I see. Well, I don’t see plays often, but one of my subordinates greatly enjoys them, and talks to me about the details sometimes. While I only saw the back, not many little booklets have that sort of writing on the back. Even though it is a little odd, it seemed the most likely answer to me.”

Uru just nodded amicably. It was a poor excuse, but he’d pretend to accept it for now. “That makes sense, thank you. As to your question, we believe that the playbills might be related to the motive behind the murders. This is why we came to you, actually. We were wondering if you knew of anyone in your organization willing to kill for your cause.”

Tokiko - of course - shook her head. Given that she was likely involved, he’d be surprised if she exposed anyone. “I’m sorry, I don’t know all of the people involved with Naix well enough. We’re a large organization, and as the head I’m more focused on organization than knowing everybody.”

Uru nodded. “Well, please contact us if you or anyone you work with notices someone acting odd. It could be a great help to us.”

With that, Uru turned to leave. There wasn’t much more to be gained, given the fact that she wasn’t likely to ever volunteer information.

As he passed through the door, Tama remarked to Uru. “You know you’re never going to get a call from her about that, right?”

This time, he didn’t bother hiding a gentle laugh. “Absolutely not.”

As he walked back to his car, though, Uru became less and less satisfied. Even though he’d need more evidence to get anything useful out of Tokiko, he didn’t have anything else to work on in the meantime.

By the time he got back, he slumped in the seat and sighed. Even though he felt like he had something, he was just as unsure of what was going on this morning.

Tama sighed loudly in his ear with him.

“Y’know Uru, I think there’s a reason that Boss mostly doesn’t hire people from the normal police.”

Uru let out a very unintelligent “Huh?” in response.

“You keep forgetting you have other options!! You keep treating this like it’s a normal investigation, like I’m a human investigation partner and not an AI-Ball!”

“So, what’re you getting at?”

“You can Psync, dumbass. Of course people aren’t gonna tell you the truth, you’ve just gotta extract it from them anyways!”

Uru grumbled. She was right, of course, but he was annoyed at it. “So what, do you want me to just walk back up there and tell Tokiko I changed my mind, and now I want her to come to the police station with me?”

Tama snorted. “Stop waving your arms like that, you look ridiculous. And no, you don’t have to make a fool of yourself in front of Tokiko. Think, Uru, we have another lead still!”

Well… right, yeah. Even though they had no idea what Date had to do with anything, they could ask and then… Psync if they had to. Given that he was listed as one of the actors, he had to have met Tearer.

Slowly, he exhaled, and sat up. “Right. Thanks Tama. Set the directions to Hitomi’s house?”

Tama relaxed, and giggled. “Anytime, dumbass. We’re on our way!”

Hitomi was calm when she saw Uru at the door, which he appreciated. Even when he asked to talk to Date, and to clear the room she didn’t seem concerned.

Without much leadup, Uru handed Date the playbill to read for himself. It was the quickest way to get to the point, and though he didn’t know Date very well himself, he trusted Hitomi’s feelings on the man.

Date seemed confused until he opened up the cover. Seeing his own name there was clearly a shock, right next to two more victims. Eventually, he handed it back to Uru.

He seemed a little lost in his head, not unjustly so. But Uru had a job to do.

“I don’t know what happened, Date, but to me your name in this book means you met the person who’s making them.”

Date just shook his head, still caught up in his own thoughts. He seemed distraught in a way that was hard to nail down. Clearly there was some context he was missing here.

“Look, I’m not trying to get you on anything here. I just need to know what happened, there might be something I need to know. Have you met anyone recently that stuck out to you in any way?”

Date again shook his head and looked back at Uru. For the first time, Uru considered how weathered Date looked.

“I don’t mean to obstruct anything but… I have no idea.”

Uru somehow doubted that. He decided to leave it, for now. He’d find a way back around to the vital point later.

“I heard from Hitomi that you have a job doing a night shift? I’m surprised at how awake you seem, I would’ve assumed you’d just be waking up around now.” Uru had plenty of experience taking awful night shifts at convenience stores and such, he knew the routine.

To his surprise, however, Date only seemed more nervous about that line of questioning. “It uh… it’s not really working out.”

Uru’s face was flat, now. Something was up. “Sorry to hear that. The schedule just doesn’t work for you, or did something happen?”

Date couldn’t stop getting more nervous at Uru’s line of questioning. “Well, yeah, you could say something happened.” He scratched his chin. “Not much anyone could’ve done, but it means I probably won’t be getting a job there again, is all.”

Well that was impressively vague.

Tama chimed in. “Uru, wink Psync?”

Right, yeah. “Good idea, Tama. Let’s do that.”

In a moment, half his vision was nothing but a dark rooftop, and a figure not far away. The figure had a gun, and it asked “Who are you?”

After a moment of hesitation, the memory jumped forwards, to Date’s vision blurring as he turned and ran. There was a flash of motion in his periphery, something Uru couldn’t quite make sense of, but he wasn’t chased. He gasped to himself at the bottom of the stairs.

And then it was over, Date none the wiser. That wasn’t nearly enough - had that figure been Tearer, or an accomplice? What had happened between the figure appearing and Date fleeing?

“Tama?”

“I’ll get permission from Boss. Let’s do it.”

The moments surrounding the Psync were a blur. He’d glanced up, seeing Saito watching down at him as he prepared for the Psync. Saito hated wasting his time monitoring Uru and Yukuto, but apparently Hitomi’s business was Saito’s business. That of course made Date his business too, since whatever concerned Date concerned Hitomi.

Then, six minutes passed in a blur. Uru didn’t like Psyncs. The very rigid laws of reality all falling apart wasn’t exactly appealing, but they were useful.

Uru had known the bare bones of what had happened between Saito and Date, but Saito never liked sharing the details, and Uru wasn’t exactly about to incur his wrath by digging for it himself.

From Date’s view, it was clear. Even after becoming himself again, he couldn’t just pick up his life and keep on going. He wasn’t exactly a fan of violence, but he knew his own skills. Being where he was, of course he’d choose to try to work in security.

Push come to shove, however… he’d rather run for Hitomi and Iris’ sake than fight for nobody in particular.

Uru couldn’t help but be annoyed. Of course he sympathized, but Date could’ve caught Tearer by himself after just one death. And he was too embarrassed to even admit he’d run away and lost his job to the people who he did it all for?

Despite his annoyance, he walked back to the control room, cataloguing what he’d seen of Tearer the entire while. Of course, he couldn’t take any singular detail for granted, given that it was from a Somnium, but the whole would be somewhat reliable.

The most important fact was that Tearer had in fact called themself Tearer, when Date asked for their name in exchange. There had been some sort of voice changer on them, and of course the mask muffled everything they said in addition. 

Then there was the getup. It was frankly ridiculous. It was like some sort of dark and light jester costume, not that Uru could tell if the colors were due to the night sky or the actual colors. Though - there did seem to be brighter colors on the inside of the cloak. All in all, an extremely recognizable outfit that they could easily put searches out for.

Then, there was the matter of Date and Tearer’s brief conversation. That, Uru would deal with in a moment.

He passed through the door to the control room, and was surprised to see Saito missing. Instead, Yukuto was there. Even Boss had apparently left to deal with something else.

He considered turning and leaving then and there, to just deal with his thoughts by himself but Tama interrupted.

“Don’t be rude, Uru! At least say hi to him!”

“I have no idea why you’re so attached to him.”

Despite that, Uru turned back to look at Yukuto, who was already waving.

“Hey Somezuki! Good job on that Psync!”

Uru had no idea what he was supposed to respond with. “Yes.”

Yukuto seemed to find anything acceptable, because he just giggled. “I know you’re wondering - Saito left a minute or two into the Psync. He was talking to someone on the phone, he seemed pretty nervous, actually.”

Saito? Nervous? Uru furrowed his brow.

“Not much makes Saito nervous.”

Yukuto nodded. “Not sure what it was, but I doubt he wants either of our help.”

That much was certainly true.

Ugh, Uru hated awkward conversations. This is exactly why he wanted to avoid this.

“How much of the Psync did you see?”

“Most of it, after Saito left. I was wondering if it was something in it that had bothered him, but I wouldn’t think so?”

Uru just nodded, and got back to thinking about the conversation he’d seen.

The first thing Tearer did was point a gun at Date. It was almost certainly defensive, given what they’d said about someone stealing the body. But it was odd… why would someone be “supposed” to steal the body, if Tearer was trying to defend it? It indicated some sort of fore-

“What Tearer said about defending the body was odd, don’t you think?”

Uru grumbled. Yukuto looked damn well clueless that he’d interrupted Uru’s train of thought.

His voice was perhaps lower and more strained than it would normally be when he opened his mouth again. “Yes. It was odd.”

Yukuto seemingly didn’t notice the tone, because he just kept talking. “I also thought it was odd how Tearer reacted to hearing Date’s name. It was like they were really thinking about it, trying to square it to some sort of preexisting idea.”

Hmm. Well, that was odd. “Maybe they were trying to match it to a role in the play?”

Surprisingly, Yukuto shook his head with confidence. “What would a name have to do with that? A role is about the actions you take, right?”

That much was true, he supposed.

“I’ll keep that in mind. I’m more curious about Tearer saying they knew someone was going to steal the body.”

Yukuto considered it for a moment, but just shrugged.

Tama heaved a sigh and spoke up. “You could both just be overcomplicating things. It’s pretty easy to assume that a building like Misetan has security, and that you’ll get caught dropping a body off.” She paused to chuckle. “Silly boys.”

“Is that comment truly necessary, Tama?” He crossed his arms and tried to relax. “It could just be nothing. But it felt significant to me.”

Yukuto leaned forward and propped his head up with his hands. “Well, it’s your case! Let me know if you need anything, though.”

Uru couldn’t repress a wry grin. “You really don’t have anything better to do, do you?”

At that, Yukuto leaned towards the side of the chair. “Just getting the report in on the scene from yesterday… you should be happy, letting me deal with the paperwork so you don’t have to take a break from investigating.”

Uru was, in fact, glad. He was sure that it would be even more aggravating to give an eyewitness report in addition to the usual cataloguing of every single event possible.

He defaulted to his escape route. “Well, I’ll ask you if I need anything.”

Not that he ever would.

Chapter Text

Bibi was so, so mad.

She’d spent the entire day chasing down some stupid fucking balloons, because this wasn’t really her case anyways, so why not chase down a red herring.

And instead of getting anything useful, they lead her right back to Horadori. The door wasn’t even locked, and someone was waiting for her inside, and she was right back after a single day spent doing something else.

She had all the time in the world here yesterday, found nothing, and was now being invited back inside.

Of course she knew that she’d missed something. She hadn’t found anything, so clearly something was there that she was overlooking.

But now someone was inviting her in. For some reason.

Nothing for it but to do it, though. She couldn’t exactly afford to be a fucking coward, even if she liked it less this time around without Lien to break the tension, the big idiot.

The door wasn’t locked. When she went over the safety protocols with the security people yesterday, they’d told her that they locked automatically after hours. So someone had unlocked them just for her.

Great! Just what she needed.

There were a few lights on, this time. They lead to Chikara’s former office.

Evolver held tightly in hand, Bibi looked around the room. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was supposed to be doing here. The room was the same as the investigation the day before had left it.

There was a sound, though Bibi couldn’t tell where it was coming from in the slightest.

“... Hello, Mizuki!”

It was a weirdly cheery voice, for someone who had led her here, in the middle of the night.

“How the hell do you know my name? And who are you?” Bibi growled.

“Oh, I’m…” The voice hesitated to name itself, for a moment. “I’m Tearer! And I know your name because I found it in Chikara’s records.”

The records did exist. But this person had them. Tearer… that was the name in the things that had been at the crime scene, wasn’t it?

“What do you want?” This was an easy blackmail setup, wasn’t it? Shit, maybe she’d have to call Mama for help.

“Oh, I know you’re probably nervous, but I just wanted to talk to you. I was looking through the records, and most of them were pretty boring, but…” Tearer paused, as if they were turning over what they wanted to say. “I saw yours, and the whole history, and for the first time I really thought I could meet someone like me!”

Tearer sounded so… genuinely excited. It was uncanny.

“You aren’t like me! You’re a murderer!” It was all Bibi could do to throw anything back in their face.

For the first time, Tearer sounded angry. “Chikara deserved it! You know that too, don’t you?”

Of course she did. Of course he deserved it. But that wasn’t how things worked. That’s why she wanted the records, all of them, to throw in his face and watch him lose everything. She despised Chikara, she had thought maybe more than anyone.

Tearer continued. “Are you mad that I didn’t include you in it? I mean, you deserved to get your piece of him too, with what I saw…” They seemed genuinely sorry. The speed at which they flipped through their feelings was about to give Bibi whiplash. “But I only saw the records after he was dead, so I couldn’t do anything about it. Sorry. I just… want us to be friends?”

This was a lot of feelings to deal with from someone Bibi didn’t know. “If you want something from me, you have to tell me who you are.”

Tearer sighed. “Sorry. I can’t say right now. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about this at all actually, which is why I had this whole setup. Apparently you’re scary strong!”

This was goddamn pointless. Tearer wasn’t gonna tell her anything, and she didn’t even know if they were in this building, let alone anything about them.

“I’m leaving. I’m not some fucking action figure for you to play with. And I’m not dealing with anything you’re a part of.”

She passed through the door, faintly hearing Tearer’s slowly vanishing voice.

“Oh, alright? It was…” They said something under their breath that Bibi couldn’t hear. “It was nice to meet you!”

Tearer had her fucking records. She needed them, and Tearer had them. Why had they taken the records from the system? That would explain why they weren’t there when she looked, but why?

The only reason she could possibly think of is that Tearer had wanted to… keep them safe, in some way. Out of some random person’s hands when they inevitably looked through Chikara’s entire life for a motive.

It sat uneasily in Bibi’s stomach.

Chapter Text

Saito was, to put it mildly, annoyed.

Looking down at Uru in the Psync room, it was clear he understood this fact too. That much was marginally satisfying, he supposed.

He really hadn’t wanted to do more work than he signed up for. Everybody knew that, even Boss mostly respected it.

But… as much as he’d tried to maintain a nonexistent relationship with Kaname Date, he still had a responsibility to Hitomi.

Frankly, he wanted nothing to do with Date. After their disastrous run in, it seems they were both on the same page: they’d massively fucked up each other’s lives, and neither of them were going to bother each other again. They’d both move on, simple as could be.

Despite all that, here Saito was overseeing Uru’s Psync with him. Aiba was happy about it, at least. She said it displayed a strong moral judgement to do things for people you didn’t like on principle.

It was a good joke, as long as she didn’t actually believe it. He would be shocked if she did. To be honest, he would be surprised if anyone but Yukuto had a good moral judgement, given the way ABIS was.

As Uru entered Somnium, Saito was already beginning to get bored.

Aiba’s voice interrupted that, however. “Saito, you have a call. You’ll want to pick it up.”

“Who is it?”

“Mizuki.”

Saito’s hand darted to his phone pocket. Sure enough, his permanently silenced phone was ringing.

“Hello?”

“Saito? Um… there’s a weird guy in the apartment.”

“What?” His voice let on more stress than he’d like. “What’re they doing?”

“Just wandering around… they have a weird costume, too? Should I punch them?”

As much as Saito would like for her to, “No, no no, we don’t know if they’re dangerous. Stay away, leave the apartment if you have to. Better for our stuff to get damaged than you.”

“Alright…” Mizuki’s voice was shaky. It was so easy to forget that she was a kid, with how confident she was sometimes.

“I’ll stay on the line, okay?” He was already leaving the room. “I’m coming home now. Don’t hang until after I get there.”

The drive was painfully slow even as Saito disregarded most usual traffic safety rules. He kept his phone pressed up against his ear the entire way, nearly jumping every time he heard Mizuki squeak, or yell.

By the time he’d got home the person had simply left.

Not that it mattered. He barely even glanced around the apartment before dropping himself on the couch right next to Mizuki. He didn’t really… know what to do from here.

Mizuki sat with her legs tucked up against her chest. Pointedly, she was not looking at Saito. Mizuki wasn’t always a fan of being touched, so he instead reached over to turn off the call from her phone.

Saito wasn’t good at being comforting. He had no idea what would calm Mizuki down, especially if she wasn’t going to admit to being worried.

“Hey. We’re alright, aren’t we?”

Saito was useful in an emergency. Could get there, stay on the line, give advice. In the absence of it, he didn’t know what to do.

Mizuki’s voice was already thick with tears. “Yeah, no thanks to you!”

He really didn’t have anything for that.

“Sorry I wasn’t here. I’ll…”

Did Saito know what he’d change next time? What could he have done differently? How could he have prepared for someone simply walking into his home when his daughter was there?

It was easier to have a problem to solve, but he didn’t know how to fix this one. He didn’t even know why…

He could ask Mizuki. But he couldn’t do that now.

Mizuki just leaned into his arm. “You’d better be sorry. Stupid old man…”

Saito leaned back into her.

Chapter Text

Uru woke up half expecting to catch news about another body. However, while he ate slowly, he didn’t hear a word from anyone about the half bodies.

Nobody had found the other half of Jin Furue’s body. In a city like this, that meant they probably wouldn’t find it. And nobody else had died, there was no new body.

That left Uru to go over old facts, once again. 

Tama, seemingly on the same page, wandered over the tabletop towards Uru and spoke up. “Want to get everything straight before we go out?”

Uru nodded. “So, four days ago, Chikara Horadori was attacked in Horadori Institute by Tearer and Jin Furue. We knew it occurred in Horadori Institute because of the indent on the wall the other team found, and we know it was Tearer and Jin Furue because Jin’s prints were found, and Tearer has… indirectly taken responsibility.”

“The prints are still an oddity though. Jin’s prints are weird, and we can’t confirm that the other set was Tearer’s.”

“Right. And whoever Tearer is, they either have technical know-how or know someone who does, because the team that went to Horadori found blank spots in the camera footage.”

Tama wasn’t quite satisfied by that. “Don’t you think it’s possible that Jin Furue had that knowledge? Being a young tech CEO makes that a possibility, even if running a business is pretty different from actually working in it.”

Uru thought about it. “No, I don’t think so. Because the night after, when Tearer displayed both halves of Chikara’s body, they had to remove the footage from Misetan by themself.”

“Couldn’t someone have joined Tearer after Date fled?”

“It’s possible, but why? Shouldn’t that person have been on the roof with Tearer?”

Tama crossed her arms. “But it’s still a possibility, however unlikely.”

Uru huffed a sigh, and continued. “Sure, but Jin Furue or not, either Tearer knows by now how to erase footage or they don’t.”

Tama just nodded, so Uru picked up where he left off. “Three nights ago, half of Chikara Horadori’s body appeared out of nowhere at Studio Dvaita, while a show was being broadcasted live. At that time, Tearer was at the rooftop of Misetan, so whatever mechanic was used to turn off the lights and drop the body would have to be automatic. Both halves of the body were displayed with an array of the same playbills, largely empty, featuring a small amount of propaganda at the back and labelling Chikara an evil doctor.”

Uru took a small breath, trying to cover everything that had happened. “When Tearer dropped the body at Misetan, they ran into Kaname Date, who was working as a night guard there. They had a short conversation, after which Date fled and Tearer removed all video footage of that confrontation.”

Tama interrupted, briefly. “Based on Date’s memory of Tearer in Somnium, I ran a search for them on any footage available to me. I haven’t seen anyone matching the description. No reports on To-witter of anyone wearing a strange costume, either.”

“Strange… I suppose Tearer is skilled at hiding.” Not much Uru could do but shrug at that. “Two days ago, Tearer killed Jin Furue, with no evidence of struggle in Jin’s home. Given that Jin assisted in the ideologically-driven murder of Chikara Horadori, perhaps he agreed with Tearer’s motives?”

“It's a bit far to die for someone you agree with.” Tama’s voice was rather dry.

“I don’t disagree, but…” Uru hesitated, trying to come up with an explanation. “We don’t really know much about Jin’s personal life. We can’t really speculate as to his motives until we know more about him. Until then, that’s the only connection we have between them.”

Tama sniffed. “Fine. Acceptable.”

“Glad to please you, lady Tama.” Uru was almost done. “One day ago, half of Jin Furue’s body was found. The other half remains missing. It was found alongside more of the playbills, this time updated with Date’s name and more ideology in the back, this time visibly recognizable as Naix ideology. Since then, we have no idea of Tearer’s actions.”

Tama straightened up and grinned. “Alright! So, our options.”

In contrast, Uru slumped. “Date’s Psync didn’t give us much to go on. We now have a more definitive sense of Tearer’s appearance, but like you said, we don’t have any evidence of someone spotting them. They acted strangely, too, but that’s no help to us. We’re not trying to diagnose a killer, we’re trying to find them.”

Tama’s grin twisted into something more sinister. “I have an idea. Do you want to catch Tokiko in a lie?”

Uru found Boss’s office shockingly crowded this morning.

In addition to the billion decorations she liked having around, today her office was also host to Yukuto, who was currently trying to get Mizuki’s attention (and failing) as well as Saito and Boss herself.

Whatever Saito was talking about, he stopped when he heard Uru enter the room.

“...Am I interrupting anything?”

Saito looked shockingly tired. Usually he was quite put together.

“Last night, your Tearer walked into my apartment.”

Was life just designed to mock Uru?

“What happened?”

Saito sighed, and leaned back on the desk next to Boss.

“It was during your Psync. I got a call from Mizuki, saying that someone had just walked in. I never saw them, but the description was just like what you saw in the Psync.”

So that’s what the call was about, and why Saito had rushed out. What that didn’t explain, though, was…

“Why?”

Saito just shook his head and looked down.

This was… his responsibility. Uru had to deal with it.

He glanced at Mizuki, still impressively ignoring Yukuto’s attempts at friendly conversation.

“I’ll fix this. Actually, that’s why I’m here. Boss, could I get a sketch of what Tearer’s costume might look like?”

“Why a sketch? You have pictures.” She was impressively incredulous about the thought. The way she acted, you’d think sketches cost them thousands a year.

“The contrast is terrible. An image under actual lighting would be better, to make sure it’s recognizable.”

Saito looked back at him, and his face turned into a grin, imagining what sort of trick Uru was pulling.

“Right, I’ll get you one.”

Uru turned to leave, grinning back at them. “If I do this right, I should be back in a little while.”

Even though Uru was somewhat confused, he refused to let that dull his petty joy at finally having won against Tokiko. She’d already been escorted out of the building by Yukuto, leaving Uru to piece together what her Somnium meant.

Despite how unlucky he’d been the past few days, Uru seemed to have caught a break. Tokiko Shigure recognized the sketch of Tearer exactly as he thought she would, and thankfully was polite enough to look shocked for him - a good enough reason to bring her in for a Psync. The Psync itself, though…

Clearly, she did know Tearer. Even if Uru wasn’t able to get much out of the Psync, he knew that much. Maybe it was a lack of compatibility? Pewter liked to talk about the details of how Psyncing worked, and as much as he’d like to, Uru had never had the time to learn about it properly.

Whatever the reason, Uru hadn’t been able to go deep enough to see what he really needed to. There was one more thing he’d only caught a glimpse of, a door he didn’t recognize, somewhere seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

For now though, he would take what he could get. He’d seen Tearer in Tokiko’s Somnium, and that was enough. Tearer was a part of Naix, and if he went through everything to do with Naix, he’d surely find Tearer. Even if Tokiko was protecting Tearer, nothing was going to stop Uru and Tama.

Chapter Text

Bibi had been… severely sidetracked yesterday. The morning had been slow, the entire time spent debating with herself if she wanted to tell Mama what Tearer had told her last night.

She hadn’t, at the end of the day. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her with it… really, she didn’t know why she hid it. Habit, maybe. What the hell was Mama supposed to do? The person who they were already trying to track down and catch now had her files that she’d been looking for for years. All Mama could do was say ‘sorry’ and wish her luck.

She swallowed it at the end of the morning and went to resume her life before yesterday. Tearer had interrupted her investigation - two nights ago, she’d seen that quiz show guy, Komeji, at Horadori Institute in the dark. Clearly, he wasn’t supposed to be there.

In her slow morning, she got the benefit of slowly remembering that she actually almost knew him. She’d never met the man, but she knew a few things about his son, Shoma Enda. So, she supposed that’d be her first step.

Arriving at the Enda household in the middle of the day wasn’t a problem. Shoma was there, as reliably as ever, though he seemed a little out of it today.

Not that she’d expected him to engage her, but this time he walked back to his place at the kotatsu and immediately started… not quite fiddling with something. Usually he would have been properly working on something, but today he kept bringing out a screwdriver, and just… messing with it, until he put it down.

“Hey Shoma, what’re you thinking about?” Bibi always thought that bluntness was the fastest way to get to a solution.

Surprisingly, Shoma didn’t really even answer beyond a mumble. Sure, he was shy, but she would’ve expected him to talk about his project, or something.

“Dad’s not here. I dunno where he is, so don’t bother me about it.”

Well, that was a rejection if Bibi had ever heard one. But she still had a problem, even ignoring whatever was bothering Shoma.

“Alright, um… could you get me Amame’s number? I don’t have it, maybe she’ll know?”

Shoma huffed like he was an old man having to deal with some day-ruining bullshit, but brought out his phone and showed her Amame’s number.

Bibi fired off a quick text, slightly awkwardly under Shoma’s distracted gaze, before turning to the door.

“Hope you feel better, Shoma?”

She didn’t hear an answer, so she left.

Bibi was quite pleased with how quick to respond Amame was. They didn’t know each other very well, but Amame had always seemed like a very responsible person.

She had in fact known where her father was - trying to do a show at the roof of Misetan, for some reason. Bibi had no idea why it was even open, given a body had been found there two days prior.

Nonetheless, it was open, and Bibi was here, waiting for Komeji to give up trying to crack jokes to a practically empty audience. Honestly, she was shocked anyone was here in the first place, both because of the recent murder and Komeji’s jokes.

Eventually, the torture ended, and Bibi was free to approach him. Luckily for her, it didn't seem like he recognized her from their extremely poorly lit encounter two days ago. All she had to do was say she was here to ask some questions about the murders, and she had a private audience where he couldn’t run away a second time, the both of them stuck in the ferris wheel.

Needless to say, Komeji was extremely shocked when she opened by telling him, “I saw you two nights ago at Horadori Institute.”

Unlike many of the people she met in this line of work (or in her other, less savory one) Komeji was a terrible liar.

He looked like he was halfway to crying, but he still spoke clearly. “Well… yes.” He sort of sat there helplessly for a moment. Clearly he didn’t have any idea what she wanted out of him.

“Could you tell me what you were doing there? I heard you speaking to someone, could you tell me who that was?”

He looked around helplessly for an exit, and slumped back down. “Umm… I just…”

Bibi raised an eyebrow, familiar with this sort of struggle. “Unless you killed someone, I don’t need to persecute you for anything. It can stay off the record, nobody the wiser.”

Mama let her get away with plenty. Actually, she was pretty sure Mama would do that for most of the Psyncers, but she’d go above and beyond for Bibi. One of the many things Bibi had learned over the past few years with Mama was that many, many details could be smoothed over.

Komeji’s involvement could easily become a brief statement, no matter what he’d done. All for the sake of his children.

Komeji stared at his hands, and spoke. “I… Tearer told me he wanted bombs. So I provided them.”

Now how in the hell was a former quiz king turned failed comedian getting ahold of bombs? The question must’ve shown on her face, because Komeji responded. “I’ve been doing this for a while… my debts…” he seemed too ashamed to continue.

Bibi knew this story. She’d met a few Kumakuras, and plenty more down on their luck. It wasn’t exactly like Komeji’s story, but the broad strokes were easily familiar.. She could already see the statement forming, ‘the documentation of an arms dealer, one we’ve been unable to identify, allowed us to know more about Tearer’s motives’ or something.

She didn’t think about Shoma or Amame. Did Amame know? No, no, not now.

“Tell me about Tearer. How did they contact you, and do you know why they wanted the bombs?”

Komeji was confusingly relieved to hear a different line of questioning. “Uh… well… I don’t know much about Tearer. I just got a text, with another job… the unusual part for this one was the location, but it was pretty normal. Tearer was talking weird, but… haha, the people I work with in that… business, tend to be pretty weird!”

“Could you describe them?”

Komeji’s voice strained more and more, but he went on. “Well, he was smaller than I’d expected. He was wearing a weird black and white jester costume, with a mask and all. His voice sounded weird, but I couldn’t tell if it was processing or just muffled, like with a filter or something. Couldn’t see any features under the costume.”

That matched with the description she’d heard this morning of the Tearer seen in Date’s Somnium.

“Alright. Anything else that stuck out to you?”

“Most of what he said was nonsense, but there was something weird… he practically gave me an invitation. For tomorrow, actually, obviously I’m not gonna go but…”

Bibi sat up. “Where to?”

“The chemical factory? He wasn’t very specific, I don’t know what it means, haha…”

Bibi didn’t know either, but she could find out.

“Alright, thank you! Not a word of this will get out, of course.”

Komeji just nodded like he was held at gunpoint. Fair enough, she supposed.

But tomorrow, she’d be there. Wherever there was.

Chapter Text

Yukuto felt kind of like crap when he walked out of the ABIS building.

Honestly, he had ever since he saw Chikara Horadori’s body at what was supposed to be a fun night out. Well, the night was sort of thrust upon him because Boss needed someone to go with, but Yukuto didn’t have any problem making the best of an unexpected situation.

Really, it wasn’t about the body itself. It wasn’t even about a fun night cut short. It was the sinking feeling in his chest since Boss gave the job to Somezuki.

She’d said it was just because of his AI-Ball, which… might have been true. Maybe it was just the same as giving a difficult seeming case to a more experienced investigator, which Somezuki was by leaps and bounds.

It just didn’t sit well with him. He and Somezuki had joined ABIS together, even though Somezuki had joined from the police, and Yukuto had just gotten out of school.

Of the many things they’d been told that day, one thing was that… well, AI-Balls were incredibly useful. They made investigators work better, gave them someone to bounce ideas off of, and the only thing they’d have to sacrifice is half their vision.

They didn’t even have to do that properly. The AI-Balls provided sight among their many other functions. There was the hassle of charging them, apparently, but…

Yukuto hadn’t been sure about the procedure. Somezuki had been. Somezuki had said that he’d benefit from a partner, he knew as such from years of experience, experience Yukuto didn’t have.

Maybe he’d regret it, he’d thought. Maybe he wasn’t sure if he was willing to do something so drastic. Maybe there were long term effects they didn’t know about, since apparently Saito was the first person to get one. He didn’t have the experience to say whether he even wanted a partner like that for the rest of his life.

He couldn’t get his eye back if he lost it. So he turned down the offer with a smile.

Automatically, Yukuto walked to the nearest train station. Of course, he brought his car on days he needed to investigate - but that wasn’t so often these days. He spent more time doing Boss’s meaningless chores. It was a nice walk, he’d thought the day he got the job.

If he was being honest with himself, Yukuto knew that not being chosen for the job wasn’t that bad. He’d forget about it in a few weeks or months, most likely, and move onto happier thoughts.

Yukuto continued to drift in his head as he stepped onto the train with a thousand other people finishing their work days.

Really, what was getting him was the people. He was helpful to everyone, as much as he could be. The memory of Dad’s voice tended to bounce around his head, ‘You need to be nice to your classmates, Yukuto. It’s how you show that you’re a team player.’

Dad’s voice was nice, but it didn’t know about Boss, who was happy to haze him plenty until she finally gave him a job to do. It didn’t know about Saito, who was perfectly willing to intimidate anyone who bothered him, even a coworker. Or Somezuki, who seemed to tolerate him the most, even though his reluctance to talk was visible.

Still, they seemed to be nice people underneath all that. Saito clearly would give up the world for Mizuki, he’d even brought her in for her safety earlier today. Boss rarely let down her guard, but he was pretty sure she was fiercely protective of everyone in ABIS, some offhand statements being more telling than she might have thought. And Somezuki still let Yukuto bother him, still relatively gently rejected his help.

Yukuto was pretty sure that come time, they’d grow warm. He hoped so, at least.

Maybe he needed to talk to Boss about giving him some case or another. He needed something to occupy himself with so he didn’t get so bogged down by useless shit.

He stepped off the train. What would he make himself for dinner? He didn’t think he had anything good, but he could hardly remember. He’d figure it out once he got home.

Another day awaited.

Chapter Text

Saito put down his phone, frustrated. He wasn’t exactly frustrated for his own sake, but moreso for the investigation he’d found himself invested in.

He couldn’t help but be invested, after his apartment was broken into. Suddenly, the HB case had become his problem, too. Just as suddenly, it was derailed.

Iris Sagan had been missing the entire day. He’d actually found that she’d been missing since last night, too. She’d been assumed to be with one of her friends, but it turns out that Amame had cancelled their usual hangout after Iris’ recording session.

So, as it turned out, Iris had simply vanished the second she walked out of Lemniscate, alone.

Iris was a good person, and Hitomi deserved to see her daughter come home. So, he’d spent the entire day trying to track her down by any means necessary, until not a few minutes ago that Aiba told him they’d gotten a signal for Iris’ phone in the middle of the damn Kabasaki district.

It felt… pointed, in a way it simply couldn’t possibly be. Two people in the world knew about Saito’s involvement in the Kabasaki district, especially in the building that he was sure Aiba’s navigation was pointing to.

All he’d done was make a suggestion, to make himself worthwhile.

Not important right now. Mizuki was safe, with Hitomi and Date, and he was going to go investigate this, and hopefully save Iris.

By the time Saito made it to the abandoned factory, there was already something happening inside. Muffled conversation floated in from the next room, a room he couldn’t possibly sneak into without being noticed.

He weighed his options for a moment, but abruptly stopped.

A gunshot rang out.

He raised his own Evolver and burst through. On the catwalks above were three people, one of them kneeling in seeming pain, and two more standing above them. Both of the standing figures had guns, fuck.

Surprisingly, though, one of the figures immediately fled. They were wearing nondescript clothing, a mask and a hood that covered all of their features. There was nothing to identify, even as Aiba quietly noted that she’d recorded all of this.

The second figure remained. They were obviously Tearer.

Nothing else could be concluded by the distinct costume they wore. A black and white jester’s outfit, a cloak that shone with colors on the inside layer, and a smiling mask. This had to be the person that had intimidated his daughter.

Tearer’s posture… shrunk when they saw Saito.

“You’re not who I wanted to see…”

The voice was muffled, but it carried decently enough. Despite watching the footage from Date’s Psync, Saito was surprised by how small they seemed. Obviously, they loomed over the person that had been shot and made to kneel, but not by as much as Saito would have expected.

And their voice Saito could only describe as… petulant and boyish, maybe.

He raised his gun in answer and let out a short laugh. “Seems you have to deal with me. Where’s Iris?”

Tearer jolted back in surprise, before fumbling with their off hand for a pocket. “Oh right! Thanks for the reminder!” They pulled a phone out of their pocket, and tossed it towards him. “Not here, sorry!” Saito was almost caught off guard by how suddenly playful Tearer’s voice was.

Aiba scanned the phone on the floor, the both of them knowing that there was no way he could pick it up to investigate it himself while Tearer had a gun in their hand.

“It is Iris’ phone. It’s been offline for nearly an entire 24 hours, only reactivated a few minutes ago so it could send a signal to us.” Aiba’s voice was impassive.

Saito felt much the same. He would’ve been surprised if Iris really was here, but it was still a letdown.

At that moment, the other figure on the catwalk started to move. Tearer didn’t seem to really notice, so Saito had to get their attention.

“So, what do you want from this?” Saito called.

Tearer responded reluctantly. “Well, I didn’t want you… it was supposed to go differently. But I suppose you’ll do for backup?” Tearer started bringing the gun up towards Saito, instead of the still rising figure, seemingly oblivious of their danger.

In a moment, the figure lunged.

They didn’t make it very far, with a shot leg. Despite that, Tearer still spooked, running from the figure on the ground.

Saito raced up the catwalks, knowing that by the time he got there he wouldn’t really have any options.

Tearer ran, and Saito would have to chase. He approached the two figures, one fleeing, the other collapsing.

He had every intention of just running past to catch Tearer. Even with a gunshot wound, this person could hopefully handle it. Catching Tearer was the highest priority.

Between one step and the next, Saito caught a glimpse of blue hair and a face that looked just like his daughter.

Chapter Text

Bibi hated hospitals. But when Saito said he was bringing her to one, she didn’t bother resisting. She’d leave as soon as she was bandaged up, and that would be that.

She’d seen the man plenty when she was keeping an eye out for Mizuki, and she couldn’t honestly say he’d done badly. What was happening was just another proof of it - even though he didn’t even know her name, she looked like Mizuki, and that was all that mattered. Her appearance marked her as someone he would insist on keeping safe, and it didn’t matter if it was a selfish instinct or not.

So she didn’t bother arguing with him. That’d just mean she’d have to explain, and she’d rather this experience be a one time deal.

“So, you’re a part of ABIS?”

She nodded from the passenger seat, gritting her teeth every time they drove over a bump.

“Fine.” He looked bothered by her. Probably how young she was, if she had to guess. “Call Boss when you’re in there. If she wants to tell me why she has a secret ABIS agent who looks…” he trailed off. “She likes her secrets, and I respect that. I’m curious, now, but if she wants to keep it a secret, that’s her business.” He sighed, clearly dissatisfied.

Bibi supposed that that statement extended to her as well, not just Mama. But she didn’t want to tell him, so she just nodded. She’d have to tell Mama about the hospital visit anyways.

He seemed to be content with not asking her anything more, which pleased her as well.

She was annoyed by how that encounter had turned out. She’d hoped to get the jump on Tearer with Komeji’s tip, and instead there’d been a surprise accomplice.

Hopefully her leg would just bounce back like her other injuries tended to. And hopefully the doctors would leave her alone fast enough that they wouldn’t see it.

Maybe she could leave the hospital as soon as Saito left?

What did she get from this, though? The person that had surprised her, Tearer had called ‘Tragedy.’ Bibi wasn’t really sure what the name was going for, but a name was a name. Tragedy had seemed… hesitant, maybe? But they’d still put a bullet in her leg.

Tearer had also seemed reluctant, now that she thought about it. Sure, they’d pointed the gun easily enough, but once again they’d seemed happy to see her. Tearer welcomed her, like she was a friend.

Then, of course, they turned to Tragedy, and said “Tragedy, shoot.”

Like it was some sort of requirement that they sadly had to fulfill, and not a choice.

Chapter Text

Despite the… detour he had to take yesterday, Uru returned to the investigation. Nothing had been achieved yesterday, so he returned to what he’d been looking for two days ago. Iris was missing, but they had no idea where she could be, so it was better to… forge onwards, and hope.

The door he’d seen in Tokiko’s Somnium was difficult to find, to say the least. Tama had been scouring the internet for similar photos with metadata pointing to where it was taken, and come up with only a few viable options. They were slightly different, but, well, of course they were. Somnium was still a dream, small changes from reality were to be expected.

Uru was pretty sure they’d gotten lucky, walking around the second location on Tama’s list and seeing the door right in front of them.

It wasn’t locked, and it opened onto a set of spiral stairs that just went down. Nothing for it, Uru supposed.

He was light on his feet, instantly hearing echoes from farther away. He wasn’t sure what they were as he kept going down. The pattern to the sounds were unusual, irregular.

As he stepped down step after step, it clicked.

They must be human voices.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

Okay, so if there were people down there, he could still go down by himself.

Tama gently chided him. “Uru, don’t be stupid. What if Iris is down there? You’ll need backup.”

Uru resisted a sigh, keeping it tightly within his head. “She can wait a few minutes until we get more people here, I suppose.”

It was a long walk back up the stairs, quiet as he could make it. But Tama was right, it would be stupid to go by himself, especially if Iris was down there. It could easily be a hostage situation, he would need backup if it was. If he went down alone, neither of them would come back up.

Of all the people Uru was expecting Saito to arrive with… well, really he wasn’t expecting Saito to arrive with anyone at all. Instead, he showed up with Mizuki and… Date?

Yukuto had already arrived a few minutes before, as eager to help as Tama had said.

Uru’s expression must’ve said enough, because Saito answered him readily. “When I got your call, I was at Hitomi’s. They insisted on coming along.”

Mizuki nodded vigorously, saying “I couldn’t let the old man leave me behind again and run off into something dangerous without me!” Date just nodded, solemnly.

“Alright, that’s fine. We’ll all need to be quiet as we go down, there’s a significant echo, and we don’t want to give away the element of surprise.” Uru wasn’t sure about Date’s agility, but they’d figure it out.

Of course, the more pressing question was why the hell Saito brought his twelve year old daughter to a potential combat situation, but the fact that Saito didn’t force her to stay behind said… something, he supposed. It wasn’t his business to ask.

Together, they went down.

Getting into a fight with their motley gang was… informative. Uru had always preferred to keep his distance and use his evolver for nonlethal shots, with Tama’s assistance with aim.

Date, with no hesitation, swung into the fray, far more effective than his age would have indicated. Uru realized after a moment that he wasn’t just going for it, swinging wildly into the crowd, but instead carefully aiming to get in the middle of groups and disrupt them. He was effective, in a way that Uru didn’t anticipate.

Yukuto was probably the most sloppy, hesitating to shoot and instead using the butt of the evolver as a weapon itself. Spotting an enemy Yukuto didn’t, Uru snapped another shot into the shoulder of some poor fool that thought he’d found an easy target. After another moment, Yukuto turned and waved, grinning. Uru just waved him towards the next threat.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mizuki and Saito stuck to each other’s backs. Uru nearly winced upon seeing her metal pipe smack firmly into the head of some poor fool, sending them flying. Saito stayed at her back, neatly keeping her from overstepping and putting them in a vulnerable position, only occasionally stepping in to disable an opponent.

Uru thought he saw a savage grin on Saito’s face for half a moment as he drove a sharp knee into a man’s gut, until he turned to look back at Mizuki, and herd the entire group onwards.

As they ran through the frankly gigantic cavern, Yukuto asked “Who the hell were those guys?”

Well, the clothes were anonymous enough, but… “Naix members, if I had to guess.”

A moment later, the obvious end point came into view. Stairs ascended to something that nearly looked like a throne, and…

Date burst out, seemingly surprised at himself. “Iris!”

They all leapt up the stairs.

Iris didn’t look great, but she wasn’t injured, just distressed. “Uncle! Uru! Please, get me out of here!”

As Uru took a look around to get a good sense of the situation, Date jumped on the reassurances. “Just a minute, we’ll be alright.”

Uru wasn’t convinced of that. Behind where Iris was tied up, there were bombs. Uru wasn’t a bomb expert by any means, but he’d picked up a few things from some research in his spare time.

He hoped Iris wasn’t seeing the dire looks on Saito’s and Yukuto’s faces. Date was still too caught up in being there for Iris, but in a few moments, they’d all realize…

“Hello, guests!” A bright voice called out from at the bottom of the stairs.

It was Tearer.

“I’m so glad you’ve all gathered here! I’ve been wanting to see all of you!”

The theatrics were up to fucking eleven, but even as he felt the instinct to raise his gun, Tama focused on something. There was a detonator in Tearer’s hand.

He glanced over, and saw Saito similarly reluctantly lowering his gun. Yukuto’s was still raised, not being able to spot it.

Uru hissed over to Yukuto. “Tearer has a detonator.”

Yukuto looked back at him, wide-eyed.

“That’s right, I do! Very astute, but I shouldn’t put it past investigators like yourselves!”

“So what do you want?” Uru called back to him.

Tearer looked up at them, mask eternally grinning. “I just wanted to talk to you all for a moment, we’ll get on with the main event momentarily!”

Uru growled, but didn’t say anything. He saw out of the corner of his eye Saito holding a hand over Mizuki, a hissed conversation occurring.

Tearer raised his other hand, pointing at them one by one. “You’re… Mizuki. Your other name is… you’ve had so many, right? It’s slipped out of my head.” Saito held back Mizuki harder as she nearly hissed at him.

Tearer continued, unbothered. “I know you, of course! Saito Sejima!” Uru felt Saito flinch, only barely resisting the urge to tear into him, like he did with anyone who called him a Sejima.

“Of course, we have Kaname Date and Iris Sagan, who I’ve already been introduced to.” Date squeezed Iris’ hand, and Uru couldn’t tell which of them was trembling.

Tearer pointed his hand at Uru, now. “Uru Somezuki.” His voice was… low, suddenly. 

Without another word, Tearer moved on. “And of course, we can’t forget Yukuto Ryuki!”

He waved his hand back over all of them. “What a wonderful cast! I’ve been so glad to meet you all, though there is one odd thing…”

Here was the trick, Uru was certain. This is where they all became hostages.

“Well, half of you are supposed to be dead!”

What? What did ‘supposed to be’ mean?

“You three, Saito, Uru, Yukuto! You shouldn’t be alive, not at all! It’s been bugging me…” Tearer looked to the side, for the first time the smile looked unfitting.

“Saito, who’s supposed to be unrepentant for what he’s done. Uru, who’s supposed to be a fanatic. And Yukuto, who… was never anything at all, haha!”

The longer Tearer spoke, the more certain Uru was that there was something wrong with him. Because all of it was… nonsense. Uru was a skeptic, always doubting, how could he ever be a fanatic? And the other two… Uru didn’t know them well enough, but... none of this sat right.

Tearer recovered his attitude. “Ah well, it doesn’t matter. I’ve been having to rearrange things the whole way through, I can always adjust. Now, let’s get to the main event.”

Uru tensed. There was no way they were all getting out of this.

“Now, Ryuki raises the gun against Uru…” Tearer was… narrating?

Something clicked. It was a stageplay, wasn’t it? Somehow, Tearer thought all this was some sort of play, and that they’d what, somehow gotten their own characters wrong?

Now wasn’t the time. Yukuto kept staring at him, wide-eyed.

Yukuto spoke, for the first time since they’d gotten onto this pedestal. “What? Am I really supposed to…?”

Tearer nodded, and gestured to Yukuto to move on with it.

Yukuto did, bringing his gun back up against Uru’s chest. Uru couldn’t look away.

He thought out of the corner of his eye he saw Saito, trying to cover Mizuki’s eyes.

Fuck, was he going to die?

Tama whispered fervently, insisting that she’d find a way out, he was not going to fucking die on her watch.

Uru didn’t believe it.

Tearer finally broke the silence. “Now, either you shoot him, or I detonate this!” He waved his hand with the detonator around. “And don’t try shooting me, if I die it’ll go off anyways!”

Yukuto’s breath hitched. He looked around frantically, trying to avoid Uru’s gaze. Uru couldn’t look anywhere beyond the gun held in Yukuto’s hands.

Tearer seemed a little confused at the hesitation. “If you need motivation, I can provide a countdown!”

“10… 9… 8…”

Date held Iris’ hand as tightly as he could, and moved to be between her and Uru.

“7… 6… 5…”

Mizuki gripped onto Saito’s wrist as he stood completely in front of her. He stared down at Tearer, trying to calculate a way out of this.

“4… 3… 2…”

Yukuto’s hands trembled. Uru thought distantly that if he really tried to fire like this, it would probably jam. Maybe he wouldn’t die.

“1…?”

Yukuto lowered his gun.

The loudest thing Uru had ever heard sounded off to his left, and for a moment his mind was completely blank.

Uru was pretty sure he hadn’t passed out, but he couldn’t describe what he was doing now as anything besides regaining consciousness. He hadn’t been shot.

Around him, the world was in shambles. There was tinnitus in his ears, a high continuous awful noise.

“Uru! Are you alright?” Tama’s voice was clear, despite the dullness of the sound around him.

“I’m…” He pulled himself up, and stumbled. “I’m alright.” He was bruised, but no broken bones, and hopefully the hearing loss was only temporary.

He took stock of his surroundings. His vision only blurred for a moment as he turned his head.

His hearing was clearing, the shifting of rock becoming more obvious. He had to get out of here. But the tinnitus wasn’t fading?

It wasn’t… tinnitus. He turned the other way, and saw Saito, his body leaned over Mizuki.

She screamed, and held her head. Saito was saying something Uru couldn’t hear as he slowly picked her up. Mizuki panted, leaning into Saito’s body. Uru could barely see blood painted onto Saito’s chest by the action.

Saito made his way towards the exit as quickly as he could, near frantic, before stopping.

He turned, and found Uru.

He’d never seen Saito so distraught. He could barely catch a glimpse of Mizuki, face bloody.

Saito needed to leave. But he needed to be there.

Uru shouted at him, voice strange in his own ears. “Go! I’ll take care of this!”

Saito’s face coalesced into a solemn expression for a moment, before glancing down again and collapsing. He nodded, once, and ran.

This was Uru’s job, now. He needed to find everyone else. He kept scanning the room.

Across the room, Date was leaning on Yukuto. He was carrying Iris, thank god. Yukuto’s back hunched, and he glanced back. For a fraction of a moment, his eyes caught Uru’s, and he jerked away.

They headed to the exit, slowly. Uru heard the rocks continue to crumble.

Tama sounded scared. “Uru, we need to go. This place isn’t stable, it could collapse.”

He knew that. He knew that. But he needed to catch Tearer.

The room was nearly unrecognizable as he turned to try and find the place where Tearer had stood. He thought he recognized it, but.

Nothing was there. Tearer had vanished.

Uru stood in a room with nobody but himself and Tama. Everyone had left.

All of this for nothing. All of it for fucking nothing.

Uru wished he felt angry. Instead, all he felt was a bottomless pit in his gut.

All of this, and nobody was here.