Lane switchin'
Same mission
To die and blame my addiction, bitch
- $uicideboys, Kill Yourself (Part III)
///
6 / 22 / 2016
"Why were you late coming home today?"
"I saw Niijima on the way home and I wanted to speak with her about...what had happened in the Palace."
Instantly his expression softens. "How is she?"
"She's still reeling from everything. I...felt like talking would help."
"Did it go well?"
"Inasmuch as it could, I suppose. Still pretty sure she hates me."
He exhales. "That's the best I can hope for, I guess. When it comes to you two."
"Yeah."
"How about you?"
"Me?"
"Did talking to her help you, in any way?"
Such a diligent therapist. "Honestly, yeah. It helped put things into perspective, I guess."
"How so?"
I know exactly what I want to do, now more than ever. "Kana's dead now, and there's no bringing her back. No matter what I do, or who I direct my anger toward."
"Would you... like to talk about it?"
"Not today, got a lot on my mind as it is. Sorry."
"Don't apologize. We'll talk whenever you're ready. Now... I've got all the ingredients ready. Would you like to learn how to cook spaghetti?"
He tries an uplifting sort of tone, but he tries too hard; so hard I can see the creases under his eyes deepening, the way his brow twitches as it furrows, the creaks in his voice.
I close the app then, pulling open Google Chrome, "Sure."
He smiles, "I'm glad."
Someday I'll figure out how the hell to do this without breaking Maruki's heart. But as the days go on I feel that might be the best option for us overall. "Maruki. Apparently there's going to be some kinda field trip at Inokashira Park on the thirtieth."
"Field trip...?" he says warily, hazily, tiredly, his eyes foggy as he tries to keep his tone upbeat.
"Yeah. We'll be...volunteering, or something. Cleaning the park of litter and shit."
"I see. You should go, then."
What? "Really?"
"Yes. I...think the outdoors'd be good for you, honestly. It'll be all you'll get for the next two weeks."
Ah. "Good point there."
He smiles a smile that doesn't reach his eyes at all, "Take care of yourself out there. Oh, wait."
"What?"
"You should know that, tomorrow... Yoshizawa-san's going to visit the apartment."
Yoshizawa? "She's coming here?"
"She woke up during the week you lay comatose in bed."
Thank God. "How...is she?"
"Doctors couldn't find anything wrong with her. I told them she'd fainted. Was surprised that her blood count hadn't lowered significantly... must've been something to do with Morgana's healing spells. Physically she's fine; the doctor had let her go a day after she woke up. But as of now, she still feels unsafe heading out into the city, though. While you're at school tomorrow, her parents'll bring her here. She'll be gone before you even arrive. If ever she decides to return to school soon. If ever she's still willing to talk with you..."
"I understand."
"Good. Now...we should get to cooking."
He's lost so much sleep since Kaneshiro, and who could blame him? I told him he was milquetoast and he said he wanted to help me and all he got in return was a buncha fucking fly monsters screaming in his face about how much they wanted to eat him. He doesn't belong with psychos and madmen and murderers; he should be making self-help books or cooking recipes or hell, getting married to that childhood friend of his.
He deserves to be as far away from me as possible, too.
So as he and I make a pot of spaghetti that ends up tasting reasonably dull and bland, I think of realizing a future where he leaves me to my world and I leave him to his, a future where the SIU Director lays gasping for life at my feet and nobody's there to fucking stop me.
.
.
.
Late that night.
"Hell."
No Candidates Found.
"Castle."
No Candidates Found.
"Prison."
No Candidates Found.
"Bank."
No Candidates Found.
Something else. "Home?"
No Candidates Found.
"Tower?"
No Candidates Found.
"Drug den."
No Candidates Found.
What the fuck would a high-ranking cop think of his HQ? "Monument."
No Candidates Found.
Maybe he has a sense of victimization? "Graveyard."
No Candidates Found.
Entitlement? "Mansion."
No Candidates Found.
"Cellar. Dungeon. Asylum. Old folks' home. Bar. Strip club."
No Candidates Found.
Fucking old prick.
I don't even know if I still have to deal with Kaneshiro. For all I'm aware he might have just straight up killed himself like Kamoshida had tried to, if Niijima had gone far enough.
And then I remember I have a journalist's number in my phone.
Apparently he'd texted me before I even ventured into the Palace, and I'd not read it at all between then and now. Because everything was too fucking crazy for me to slow down, I guess. Text told me he wasn't responsible for my well being after he'd unloaded all that info. Too little too late.
Holy shit. Feared the worst when you didn't respond to my text there, kid.
"And yet you gave me that information, knowing full well the kind of man Kaneshiro is."
No skin off my nose what some kid does with the names of gangsters.
"Suppose I can understand that."
That said. How ya been?
"Alright, all things considered."
Good on you. Now, can I finally have my fucking interviews?
"What? Oh."
What happened to my goddamn interviewees? The ones ya promised me? Sent 'em texts and everything. No one's responded.
Because you're a sleazy paparazzi piece of shit. "One of them got into a car accident, the other's been through some shit. Neither's in the right headspace to interview you right now."
...well, fine. I'll wait it out another few weeks, I guess. This Kaneshiro shit's gonna be flooding outlets all over the place.
Kaneshiro. "What exactly... happened?"
Well. Don't tell anyone I told you. But. Word on the grapevine is that he just up and left.
So Niijima's plan worked? "What do you mean by that?"
Willing to share more for a guaranteed interview.
Fucker. "You can interview me about Kamoshida this July. I'm grounded for like two weeks."
Grounded?
"Personal matter."
Goddamn, fine. Kaneshiro hasn't been seen or heard from in over a week. Didn't leave a note or nothing. Brought with him only a few of his clothes. No signs of struggle, no signs of foul play. All signs point to him just leaving. Or maybe they just dragged him off to be executed without issue and took a few clothes he liked, which is unlikely.
"How the hell are you privy to all this."
Let's just say some slimeball reporters know how to make the right connections in the right places with the right people, for the right amount of money and information.
Damn. This is contraband then. "Why're you telling all this to some stupid fucking kid you barely even know?"
Because this stupid fucking kid is Kazuya Hikawa, the son of Cybers Communications Chief Technical Director Morishige Hikawa... and the young man responsible for rendering Masayoshi Shido comatose.
I don't respond for another ten seconds. "How'd you know all that when the records kept everyone in that case anonymous?"
Right connections. Right places. Right people. Right amount o' money and intel.
"How many people actually know about this shit?"
Not that many, but enough do. Many o' Kaneshiro's connections're pretty pissed they can't go after the kid who fucked their businesses up, on account of the gravy train that is the Tokyo PD needing your father's equipment and shit. At least that's what it seems. And it appears they were right to not do shit. After all, just so happens that after that kid asked me about Kaneshiro, a week or two later the guy disappears off the face o' the planet.
"Had nothing to do with that."
Keep tellin' yourself that, kid. Asshole got what he deserved. Reporters're scrambling to verify facts before this goes public. Your secret's safe with me.
"In exchange for juicy stories on Shujin politics."
And this Phantom Thieves of Hearts shit I saw all over Shibuya.
I've been blackmailed twice this fucking year now. "Good to be working with you, Hijiri."
Anytime you need me.
I close my phone then.
Hideyoshi Tsukioka took the reins after the last SIU director fell victim to a mental shutdown in the middle of a train station. Has had a fantastic track record as far as police chiefs are concerned. Is well known for cracking down hard on drug dens and human trafficking spots, dozens of obscene motherfuckers being put behind bars under strike teams he'd sent out. But knowing what we know now, Tsukioka was most likely handed information by Kaneshiro or whoever the fuck else he's connected with to get any competitors out of the way. Half the time, when he shows up on the news, he looks like he has bouts of dementia and doesn't know where the fuck he's going or what the fuck he's saying. The other half he's saying things in such a fixed, monotone voice that either he's reading off a script offscreen, or he's rehearsed and rehearsed what he's saying in his head.
Sae Niijima may very well be connected to this man's illegal activities, on a level which disturbs Makoto Niijima and excites me. Because more knowledge towards whoever the hell Shijima is, the better. Hell, in preparation for all of this I even tried looking up the location of Niijima's Palace, and lo and behold.
Palace Ruler: Sae Niijima
Palace Location: Special Investigations Unit Courthouse
Palace Distortion:
The only thing better than a fucked up Palace-ruling bitch is a transparently fucked up Palace-ruling bitch. All's left is the distortion.
I'm not gonna kill her. Don't know any faster way to get her bike-riding sister on my ass than that. Makoto Niijima's capable of kicking my ass both in this world and in the Vortex World, considering she's prolly got self-defense training under her sleeve and a Persona that can strike at my weaknesses. And if push comes to shove, if she has to choose between a sick psycho motherfucker like me or her sister, she'll have me incinerated to my bones in a heartbeat.
And who the hell's gonna destroy Shijima then.
So the most I'll be able to do is probe the older Niijima's Palace for information, and hope she decides not to be like Kaneshiro and jump me when I least expect or want her to. But first, Tsukioka. Guy's my most prominent lead and I don't intend to lose him for someone else who is most likely but not confirmed to be a part of this fucked up conspiracy bullshit. If I go too far, Niijima'll be on my ass then as well; can't imagine she'd take too kindly to a family friend throwing himself off a roof, regardless of how fucked up he is. So there're two paths I could take potentially.
One.
I wait out the two weeks and hope Niijima's traumatized enough to leave this fuckery behind forever, and let me do my shit.
Two.
If she decides she will go after this guy and I help her and hope she mentions Shijima somewhere down the line, pretend I'm shocked to hear about it, and work alongside her to stop them before it's too late.
And then she finds out I'm already planning to kill these motherfuckers myself and she'll try to stop me because she just won't let me kill people. And then she realizes I'm not gonna give up on this point and she'll just have to stop me by any and every means necessary. And then I realize no matter how much I incapacitate her she'll keep coming back again and again and again, because for as long as she lives she will never let me cross that line. And then she realizes that she has to kill me and I'll have to do the same.
Or Maruki just throws me in jail for being a duplicitous murderous psycho bastard piece of shit. Like he in all honesty should have, I dunno, a month ago?
Everything could go right. But I know if I do this, everything will go wrong.
Unless I let myself be a stupid bastard again, and actually put my faith in the people around me.
Ha. Don't be so stupid.
.
.
.
6 / 30 / 2016
After half the week was over and done with, I'd see Sakamoto, wandering around school grounds, a cast on his arm. He'd have this unhinged but exhausted look in his eye that'd drive people even further away from him than usual. The one time his eyes met mine over the course of the whole week was when I saw him in the courtyard getting a drink; instantly, he darted his whole body away from me and went the opposite direction.
He doesn't wanna even look at me, why the hell would he wanna help me take down another sick bastard? I don't even know if he knows what I did to Kaneshiro. Group chat all but shut down the day after Yoshizawa's thigh got ripped out. Nobody's talking with anybody, and perhaps that's for the best, considering that every one of us just gives the other shitty memories. For all I know Sakamoto probably thinks we haven't even kicked Kaneshiro's ass yet. Unless Niijima or Takamaki informed him somewhere down the line, or if he saw the calling card.
But whatever. Point is he's not onboard and that's probably a good thing.
Niijima's bad enough. Don't need more people on my case, especially considering how close I am to finding shit out.
I'm in my red PE jumpsuit I go off to face a bright day cleaning other people's shit, in a park my school only wants to clean because it'll help them look good for one fucking day in the face of all this horrible press. It's hot, of course, because it's near summer, and for some godforsaken reason Principal Sawamura told all of us to wear these thick red jumpsuits, and I can't do shit about it. I checked. He doesn't have a Palace, so he's prolly just a lesser asshole compared to Kobayakawa. Sawamura may be covered in less shit but it doesn't stop the stink from jammin' itself into my nose.
In Shibuya station I'm passing through the crowds, mulling over just how the hell I'm gonna get into Tsukioka's Palace without drawing attention from Maruki, when I hear a sleazy, scratchy voice: "Y'go to Shujin, right? Heard things've been rough down there lately, all those bizarro incidents... wanna go talk about it somewhere?"
The second voice gets me to turn my head: "Thank you for your concern, but... I really must be going, now."
Polite and somewhat firm but otherwise nothing that anyone would be scared off from. I see a red bob in the crowd that stretches into a ponytail and it's Yoshizawa, Kasumi Yoshizawa, the girl whose leg had been bitten off by a fucking fat Shadow all those days ago - and she's bowing respectfully to some creep in glasses who'd only be able to get it on with anyone unconscious.
Something that he proves correctly when he grabs her arm, "C'mon, there's no need to be shy."
She's squirming, sounding on the verge of tears as she trembles at the knees and turns around, "Get away from me, p-please, I-I said-"
"If you're busy, I'll put my number in your phone so you can call me later. Sound like a plan?"
"Stop it...!" The crowd does nothing, and the few others who can hear turn away elsewhere, as she darts terror-ridden eyes everywhere and mutters things I can't even hear, things I can't hear even as I get myself right beside the both of them.
"Excuse me," I say, clutching at his wrist as tight as I possibly can.
"Wh-what the-?" he unhands her then, shoving me away from him, "The fuck're you supposed to be?"
Yoshizawa dashes behind me, shrinks as I stand tall, "You were hurting her."
"Don't get worked up, kid. I was just bein' friendly here," and he glares at Yoshizawa then, "and what the fuck're you doing, huh!? Gettin' all jumpy - like you're anythin' special!" before making a Tch noise, seeing that people're looking at all the commotion, and without a word he slinks off into the masses, sulking like he'd just been rejected.
I turn to Yoshizawa, who doesn't even meet my gaze.
I don't make a habit of paying attention to whatever goes on in Shujin, so for all I know, she might've come back to school in the past few days or so.
And she'd never messaged me, never even messaged the group chat she'd be coming back.
Today of all days.
"Th-thank you so much," is all she says, stepping away from me and bowing again, "I'm sorry for the trouble..."
She won't even look at me as she says these things, preferring her red shoes. "Are you okay?"
"I-I'm fine now. It was...scary. Ah, um...I...I just need to..."
"Yoshizawa?"
Her knees are trembling and she's grabbing them like she can't stand to see them the way they are, clutching at her thigh-high socks and twisting the fabric furiously.
"Do you...need help?"
"What?" she lifts her head up to me now, finally, and the poor girl looks scared stiff.
Shouldn't have said that. "Okay."
I turn around then, heading towards wherever the bus is, but before I can make my way past the crowds I feel a tug on my right sleeve.
She's grabbing onto me, pulling me back towards herself with both hands, still unable to look at me. When she speaks she's tremulous, "Please...I'm sorry, but...please come with me. I left my gym uniform at school. I'm sorry, I...I thought I could do this on my own..."
You'd have to be a cold-hearted bastard to say no to that.
.
.
.
School's virtually empty, save a janitor here and there, and teachers who don't notice us at all.
Courtyard of the school again, near the vending machines. We procured her gym uniform from the lockers and felt we could use a drink before heading to the park.
"How long were you cooped up in that hospital?" I ask her.
"About a day or two. Maruki had apparently told my parents I just...fainted. The doctors couldn't find anything wrong with me, though, so they advised me a day's rest and a new diet, told me to take practice off for a few weeks."
Do healing spells regenerate blood cells? Not surprising. Considering even I remember how much blood she'd lost after Kaneshiro bit through her thigh, the fact that the doctors found nothing wrong with her blood level is astounding. "I'm glad you weren't hurt otherwise. It could've gotten worse, if the cat hadn't healed you up."
"Niijima-senpai told me you had to be sent to one, too. She told me about the calling cards in Shibuya when I was able to visit you."
"You visited me?"
"I felt I owed you that much. My father was with me, all the while. Did you really stop Kaneshiro, you think...?"
"His Shadow and Palace are gone. Niijima told him to go into hiding so he wouldn't be killed off in custody. As far as his Shadow's concerned, he's done. Spoke with my contact in the news...he said the guy's just gone, without a trace. So I think we won't have to worry about him anytime soon."
She exhales gratefully. "I suppose that's all I can ask for, now."
She turns then, facing me like she wants to say something; only thing that comes to mind is something like Thank You, but what would she be saying that for? My willingness to dredge up the trauma of a sexual abuse victim as a move? She decides against whatever she was gonna say, and looks down, clasping her hands together, "I don't think I'd ever be able to even think about doing what you'd done. But... his Palace is gone, and that couldn't have happened if it wasn't for you. So for what it's worth, senpai, I'm..." Satisfied? Overjoyed? Furious? Miserable? "I'm grateful."
Grateful.
This girl didn't deserve any of the things Kaneshiro had done to her. "I'm just glad you're okay."
"And I'm sorry."
What? "You're sorry?"
"I remember getting angry with you. Back then, with Kamoshida. At the time I thought what you did was horrible. I couldn't accept it, I didn't want to. I wanted to accept even less that I was a part of it in any way. But at the same time...looking back, I don't doubt you did what you felt was necessary. And I'm fairly certain anything less wouldn't have had much of an effect on him, either..."
"No way to no for sure now. You don't need to dwell on it, Yoshizawa."
"When I woke up in my hospital bed, I remembered my sister," she says starkly, eyes staring through me much like Kana's had.
No, no, no. Get her grounded.
Her sister.
She's mentioned her before. "May I... ask what her name is?"
"...Sumire," she looks pained as she says it, but the light's returned to her eyes. "She's...she's always been shy, and, and demure, and she always put her everything into whatever she did. But, but she was, she was always a little, always a little fragile. She'd have panic attacks, nervous breakdowns - sometimes she'd just cry her eyes out in the middle of class and I'd have no idea why. I didn't know what it meant to be in that headspace until now. What it meant to feel the way she did, and, and for all I know I probably still don't really know, I'm probably just projecting what I think she feels, and I - I just..."
"Yoshizawa."
"I always...believed that everyone should be able to stand up for themselves, on their own two feet."
"What?"
She wipes at her eyes. "I thought that relying on others made you dependent on them. That entrusting your problems to be solved by others wouldn't actually fix anything. But I... I didn't believe in her. I didn't believe in anything she could've been, I didn't convince her to believe in herself. I did almost everything for her, I even arranged our rooms myself - I didn't think at all about how she must've felt and that's why she..."
She said something about a family tragedy, way back when. Something that Maruki had helped her through? "You mean...she tried to...?"
"She and I walked home one day from practice and she had an outburst. She was...furious at me, suddenly, out of nowhere, said I was controlling and she dashed ahead, ran right into traffic," her voice breaks when she says traffic, and she wipes her eyes again, "I didn't see anything she felt, what she believed I was, what I really was to her, until it was too late."
Why is she telling me this? "Yoshizawa, what are you trying to...?"
"I thought I'd be able to follow through with what I said I believed in. But then there was Kamoshida and Kaneshiro, and for all my talk of letting people solve their own problems I still wanted to help stop them, because I couldn't just turn away when I knew I could do something."
"Nobody could have blamed you for that."
"But now, I... it all feels too big for me. I made all these promises and I broke them and for what?" She gazes down at her thigh, the thigh Kaneshiro had torn out, "She and I made a promise. We were gonna go to the big leagues, together. Now that she's not here I have to fulfill that dream myself, and I almost, I almost lost everything..."
"It's over. He's done. You won't have to worry about him any longer."
"But...," she breathes like she has asthma. "But what about you?"
"What?"
"Will you keep going after people's Palaces?"
Her eyes. They're red and wet and glistening but they cut through me like a spear, taking with it all my insides as it pierces out my back. All I can say is another dumbfounded "What?"
"I hope not."
"Yoshizawa."
"Why? Why aren't you saying no?"
"Yoshizawa."
"Why would you do that to yourself!?" she throws her soda can at me (nothing spills, thank God), before grabbing my shoulders. "You don't need to do this! You, you don't need to sink yourself down to their level anymore, you're done! You did it, you stopped him, you can forget all of this ever happened, so why!? Why would you want to-!?"
"Stop." Gently I get her hands off my shoulders as tears dash down her cheeks. The more she scrubs at her eyes the more they pour, and the more they pour the more she scrubs at them. I take one of her hands and I sit her down upon the damned bench and tell her quietly, "Calm down."
"I can't. You're just, why would you - you're going to get yourself killed, I can't just...after everything that happened to you you'd just..."
"Yoshizawa."
"It's crazy. It's, you're just, I don't understand it at all, I can't even believe it. I can't believe, that after everything you've seen and done, after everything that's happened to you you'd want to go back."
What kind of horrible person would lie to this emotionally volatile girl? "I don't intend to, Yoshizawa."
"Do you mean it?"
"I'll call the reporter who gave me details on Kaneshiro. Confirm what's happened to him since. After that I'll leave it behind. Same as you."
She blinks at me, little droplets running down the edges of her eyes. She nods in a rushed manner, moving her thumbs over her eyelashes, sniffling gracelessly as little by little her breaths stabilize. "I-I think I need to go home," is all she says afterwards.
"You should rest for another week." She looks at me stoically, all the sadness in her features having faded in an instant. She's looking not into my eyes, but at my face, as though there's something upon it she hasn't noticed before. "Y-Yoshizawa...?"
"I don't want to lose you like I lost my sister. I don't want you to disappear one day because of something I couldn't see until it was too late. So please...don't lie to me, when you say you won't go into Palaces."
You're killing me. "I'm not."
"Do you promise?"
I look her, right in the eye, and lie through my teeth, "I do."
If ever she finds out the truth, it'll honestly be for the best. No matter how she may react when she does find out.
The more these people avoid me the better.
"You should call your father. Ask him to pick you up. And...speak to Maruki some more."
"I will. Thank you for coming with me," she says as she taps away at her phone. "I'm sorry for keeping you."
"It's no trouble. I'll wait here with you."
"You don't have to."
"I'll wait here with you."
"Senpai."
I face her, unwilling to entertain any argument. She understands there's nothing she can say to dissuade me, and so we wait.
.
.
.
By the time her dad picks her up, it's eleven. Her father, an old and hard-edged man with black-rimmed glasses and soft eyes, addresses me warily for a moment, but Yoshizawa vouches for me and that's all it takes for him to lighten up.
"Thank you," he says simply, almost timidly. "For watching over my daughter."
I just nod.
"Would you like me to take you to the park?" he asks. "My daughter said there'd be a cleanup event there..."
"I'll be alright, sir."
"Are you sure? It's a ways away. Please, allow me to show my gratitude."
"I appreciate it. But I'll be fine. You should take your daughter home safely."
"Senpai, are you sure?" the daughter asks.
"I'm sure."
She looks pretty upset about it, but doesn't argue back. The father accepts it, too.
"Alright then. Thanks again. Take care. Come on... let's go home."
The father brings a large arm over her shoulder, and side by side the two approach their car and leave me there, somewhat confused but ultimately relatively satisfied.
In any case. Time to get to the park.
It does take a while to get there. But it's fine overall. And thankfully pretty much everyone's at least partway done with the sweeping and shit, by the time I do get there. Everyone's just chatting next to garbage bags full of dead leaves and litter, or they're just eating soup brought over by the teachers presiding over the whole affair. Don't see Takamaki anywhere. Don't see Sakamoto anywhere. But guess who I do see.
As always, she sits alone and separated from the crowds, a bento in her lap with rice and fish. When the crowds of my schoolmates see me passing through they part and turn away and go elsewhere, far from the delinquent who just might stab 'em if they so much as look at him wrong.
She sees me and she's surprised. Takes her a few moments to register I'm actually here, but when she does the tiredness in her eyes fades. She straightens her back and pulls a somewhat dignified tone.
"You're very late."
"Ran into trouble on the way here."
"I'm not surprised."
She doesn't oppose me sitting on the bench next to her, but she doesn't face me either. Just continues eating her lunch.
"I met Yoshizawa on the way here."
She immediately turns to me, her tone all concerned, "Yoshizawa? How is she?"
"It's...difficult for her to go out. I waited with her, waited for her father to pick her up. She really thought she could come today, but..."
Niijima nods, "I hope she'll be okay."
"It's up to her now. She'll be just fine so long as she stays away from Palaces."
She doesn't say anything for a time. When she does it takes me aback, "Bascilica."
Then my phone vibrates. "What?"
"Check."
I pull my phone out my pocket and lo and behold. Of course I block the log so she doesn't see her sister's name.
Palace Ruler: Hideyoshi Tsukioka
Palace Location: Special Investigations Unit Headquarters
Palace Distortion: Bascilica
Goddamn. "How'd you figure it out?"
"At some point, a few nights ago, I presumed he must think of the building as something...prominent. Like, a holy place, or something of that nature. At first I tried church, cathedral, holy city, mecca, and various other terms related to it. Bascilica was a lucky guess."
Girl deserves far more than the shit I spew at her everyday. "So...what happens now?"
"That depends."
"Depends on what?"
"On if Maruki's still grounding you. Either you, Morgana, and I go into the Bascilica by ourselves...or I go with Morgana." I turn to her. She's stronger now, brasher, even sitting down on this park bench she looks like someone willing to take over the whole fucking world. "I don't intend to do nothing while knowing what I know, knowing what I can do."
"Then we're on the same page. The cat's really onboard with it?"
"Yup!" A small black head pops out of Niijima's bag.
"What the hell?"
"I stopped by the school early in the morning to coordinate with teachers before heading here. Morgana offered to come with. My bag was the only place I could carry him without anyone noticing."
"And it worked?"
"Everyone on the train was looking down at their phones anyway."
"So we're gonna do this? Beat this old fuck and take his Treasure?"
"Not necessarily," sighs Niijima. "We're going in for information, first and foremost."
"What, why? I wanna bust heads! The last Treasure was boring as fuck."
"What even was it?" I ask the cat.
"Two human skulls turned into fuckin' teddy bears when we got back to the real world. They weren't even old enough to be vintage."
"The reason I don't want to steal his Treasure just yet," Niijima says thickly, "is because I don't want to stir the pot too much. No matter what Kaneshiro's done to himself since we stole his Treasure, we've caused ripples in the underworld. Criminal gangs from all over will be affected in ways I'm not even aware of yet-"
"He's missing."
"Wh-what?"
"I called my contact from the papers. Apparently he's missing. Just up and left and so far it seems nobody knows where he is or what he's done."
Niijima's surprised, cups her chin thoughtfully. "So it actually worked. Or...maybe I sent him in the woods to commit seppuku or something..."
"Point is, he's done. No need to worry about him for now. But yes, we can assume this'll cause lots of freaking out among the gangs and families he'd helmed. It'd be good to get info from the head of the SIU; undoubtedly he's received word of Kaneshiro's sudden disappearance by now. Maybe get a better angle on what exactly's going on behind the scenes. Getting rid of his Treasure now will probably get him offed by others who're in the know."
"This is all too precarious... if we steal his Treasure too soon we run the risk of making the situation more unstable. If we do nothing, though, he'll keep on victimizing innocent civilians through the drug trade. But... I don't intend to let this go. Hikawa. There's something you should know."
"About what?"
"When we defeated Kaneshiro...he said that there was another group of people out there using the Vortex World for their own gain. Other Persona-users, most likely."
"Not most likely. It's a definite," says the cat. "You need a Persona to fight, let alone survive, in the Vortex World. To have gone on long enough to be able to do what they've done, they must have Personas."
"They call them Shijima," Niijima says. "Part of the reason I'm planning to go through with this is... I want to find more information on them. You heard of those incidents in the papers lately? Those psychotic breakdown incidents, cropping up everywhere? They're, they're most likely responsible for them. If other Persona-users are out there, using their powers to harm others, I don't want to stand by and let them go on. You needed to know...before heading into this, if you really want to."
The cat just stares at me, curious.
Let nothing show. "I understand."
"Y-you do?"
Never even hint at anything brewing underneath you. "I'm willing to help you find intel on these guys."
"K-Kaneshiro said...that even at his strongest, they could have beaten him."
"Well, then we'll just have to do to them what we did to Kaneshiro." Niijima's completely unhappy to hear that. "We'll find intel on these guys. Work our way up from there. Build up our Personas' strength and then deal with it as it comes, if ever it does."
"I know the perfect place to train," smiles the cat. "But not here. Soon enough."
Niijima sighs. "Are you sure you'd like to go through with this, Hikawa?"
"Positive. And you?"
"I...won't deny that I'm scared," again though, she lets a fierceness shine through her eyes, "But I'm ready."
"Good."
"How'll you convince Maruki to let you go, though? He'll be suspicious if he sees you coming home late again, especially considering you're grounded."
"What, you're concerned about me?"
She faces me, huffing, "I don't want to put you any closer to being sent back to jail. If there's any way I can make the situation less dangerous for you-"
"I'll convince him."
"How."
There's no way I could convince Maruki from a logical standpoint of the necessity of beating this motherfucker upside his skull until he gives me answers. No matter how many reasons I put forth to stop him Maruki will reject the notion that we have to go into this guy's Palace, risk our everything just to get rid of one more bastard fucking shithead - because trying to convince Maruki how terrible this man is will only provide him ammunition, give him all the more reason to not pursue him so. "Only one way I know how."
"And that is?"
I clear my throat. "I could always tell him the truth."
"Which is?"
"That the head of the SIU is going around overseeing crime gangs all over the place, that he probably knows a thing or two about this Shijima group that's been making rounds, and hopefully he'll be convinced by the necessity of our vigilante justice. Or whatever the fuck this is."
"And you think that'll be enough?"
"It has to be. Maruki's a bleeding heart type of guy. All I can do is hope I appeal to him well enough. And besides. He might be willing to even help us. Not an ideal situation, but... he's unbelievably helpful on the field. Considering we'll only have Takamaki along with us, it'd help if we had him."
"Would he even want to help?"
"If he knows what's good for him, he wouldn't."
"Like you two do," cat rolls its eyes.
We both eye it in annoyance, before turning back to each other and I say, "I'll do my best."
She nods back, "I appreciate it. I hope...everything turns out for the best."
"Me, too."
"Your team's in the center of the park. You'll be picking up litter as soon as I use the megaphone."
"Megaphone-?"
"ALRIGHT EVERYONE, LUNCH BREAK IS OVER. IT'S NOW ONE O' CLOCK PM SHARP, TIME TO RESUME THE CLEANUP." My left ear groans, a scratchy echo in the eardrum, as Niijima lowers the megaphone and turns and smiles a smile so sweet she could strangle someone with it, "You'll have to pick up the pace, since you were so late. I'm giving you two garbage bags."
.
.
.
Dinner doesn't go well at all, that night.
"For God's sakes."
"Maruki, listen."
"Listen to what!?"
We were having another round of paella, primarily cooked by me. And it was good, actually passable. When things were winding down I thought to drop the bomb and now the whole goddamn city's scattered.
"C'mon, don't be like that, listen to me!" I cry out to Maruki. "If the asshole in charge of the SIU gets away with it he'll just institute some other cunt to take Kaneshiro's place and everything we did will have been for nothing!"
"You nearly died in the middle of a pile of pig corpses, and the week you get back up, you're entertaining thoughts about nearly getting yourself killed all over again."
"Maruki, you and I both know I can't let this asshole get away with it!" I grab my phone and show him the Log, "We have his name, his location, and his distortion! We're not even planning on stealing his Treasure yet!"
"The fact that you said yet doesn't really inspire much confidence, Kazuya."
"We need to get information. We have to find out exactly how in deep he was in Kaneshiro's whole operation, what we can do to curb whatever's coming next. Kaneshiro had his grip over a ton of different families all over Tokyo and he's gone fucking AWOL. You get what I'm telling you!? If we do nothing we might be jeopardizing hundreds! Power vacuums and shit, families and clans'll be fighting and killing one another and a ton of innocent people are gonna be stuck in the middle!"
"Kazuya."
"Maruki, believe me, we have to do this, we don't have a choice!"
"Of course you have a choice! You have a choice now, you could just forget all this and act as if this never happened, like a normal human being would, instead you wanna throw yourself into a den of wolves again!"
"Well let's see, what else can I do, exactly? If I sit and do nothing then the yakuza fuck everyone's lives up, including their own, so that's a no-go. I can't ask the goddamn cops for help, because they're in league with the fucking yakuza. And even if you convince me the yakuza somehow won't eat each other alive or cause a shitstorm from the fact that their head's been cut off outta nowhere, it won't change the fact that you'll just be leaving Niijima to fight this on her own."
"You're dragging Niijima into this, too?"
"No. She wanted to do this, herself. I just assumed she was going to go back into Palaces again and she confirmed it. She wants to stop this guy, too. She knows him, he's a family friend, part of her feels like she has to stop him. You can't let me let her do this shit alone, right?"
"Alright then, I'll help her take this guy down, while you just stay in my apartment and let this addiction of yours subside."
"What the fuck."
"This isn't healthy for you, in any capacity, Kazuya. If there's any one of us that needs to stay as far away from this Palace nonsense as possible, it's you. Especially since you know what you've got inside you, you know if you do this you'll just be feeding it, when the only thing you need to do is let it go!"
I shake my head at him, eyes locked, "I can't do that, Maruki."
"You can if you choose to. That's what you told me, that's what separates Kingdoms from Palaces, you can choose to let go of them, you need to-"
"Then I won't do that, Maruki."
"Why not!?" he shouts, actually angry for the first time in these few months of knowing him. "Why!? Why would you do this!? Why would you put yourself through any of this!? You're finally free of all this, and you'd just throw yourself back in!? What happened to staying as far away from all this as possible!? You have that chance, nobody could blame you if, if, if you just stopped right here and now and you'd go back like an abuse victim! Why!? Tell me, why!? What about the promise you'd made to Kana!? What changed!? Kazuya!"
I look at him. The words come slowly, painfully, each syllable causing something in my chest to drop further and further down, by inches. "I'm not free, Maruki. I haven't been free, not since the day I assaulted a man."
"That has nothing to do with this."
"It has everything to do with this, Maruki."
"Kazuya, please-"
"They took Masako from me." I see far too late that it was a mistake to tell him. It stops him dead in his tracks, and I unravel the vines wrapping around my throat bit by bit by bit. Kana is behind him now, her black hairs wrapping around his neck and arms, and I realize this is the first time I've seen her in weeks. "My father told you what happened. Kana's mother attacked me and her and her daughter in her room and stabbed me and beat Kana unconscious and killed Masako. She killed Kana's daughter, she killed her, threw her around her own living room then chopped her to pieces right in front of me. Her eyes were rolled in the back of her head and blood poured out her eyes as she did it. But she was not the first and she won't be the last."
"What...?"
"There've been multiple victims of these mental shutdowns, Maruki. All across the board. Eyes bleeding, they'd scream and kill whoever's next to them, or drive straight into traffic, or off the street, or what the fuck ever, and they'd never remember a thing after the fact or will have killed themselves before questioning. There're people responsible for this shit, out there, somewhere, and I have to find them."
"What are you talking about!?"
"They're Persona-users, you dumb shit!" I shout at him, grabbing his shoulders. "They're using the Vortex World to drive people fucking berserk! They made Kana's mother attack us, they killed Masako, nearly killed Kana and me. Because of them Kana's Palace grew a thousand times larger and swallowed up the whole planet! Because of them I went into her Palace and stole her Treasure! Because of them she slit her wrists in my goddamn bathtub and you're telling me I should let this shit go!?"
"Kazuya, calm down...!"
"Fuck you! Fuck you, I'm not calming down! I should rip your tongue out, say that shit to my face-"
"Kazuya..."
"I don't know anything for certain but this is at least a step in the right direction, or, or, or at least I hope it is, because fuck. Fuck, Maruki. What," I let him go and sit back down in my chair, hold my head in my hands, "what do you even want from me? What do you expect me to feel? What do you think I could do otherwise?"
He lays a hand on my back, slowly running it down as I breathe heavy, heaving over the dinner table, covering my eyes. My shoulders hunch as I hang my head low, pressing it further into my hands. "Kazuya. You're not wrong to feel the way you do. I can't even begin to put into words what you've lost, what they've taken from you. But you have to understand. If you go down this road, it won't solve anything. It won't, it won't bring you whatever you're looking for."
"I know they won't come back, Maruki, I don't need this lecture-"
"It's not a lecture, and this isn't about them. This is about you. Ever since I met you, you've been deadlocked in your self-hatred to the point where you hate yourself more than literal criminals and drug lords. You put yourself in horribly dangerous and life-threatening situations, and every time someone worries about you, you don't even care. You push people away from you, not because you hate them but because you think you're a danger to them. Kazuya. This isn't any way to live. Kana wouldn't want to see you like this."
"She already did."
"What?"
"She already did. Kana knew exactly what I was. That's why in her Palace, I was a six-headed thousand foot tall kaiju that spewed nuclear hell from his mouth."
"...what?"
"She...was scared of me. Before I, ever even... after I beat Shido to near death in front of her, she was terrified of me. She only ever told me she loved me in a letter, Maruki. The letter she left in my room before she killed herself. I don't need anything else. I just need this."
"And what happens after you're done with...this. What happens then? Will you, will you just, will you just join her, is that it? After all your fighting, all your struggle, all your self-hatred and all the people you've helped, you're just going to-?"
"Who the fuck have I helped!? Stupid fucking idiots who licked the shoes of a goddamn rapist because they'd fuck themselves if they spoke up!? Dumbass kids who sold themselves to fucking yakuza because they were scammed by asshole street urchins, I haven't saved anyone! The only people I wanted to save died on my watch!"
"Then for whose sake did you go out and nearly die to Kaneshiro for?"
"It was for me. All for me. Because I didn't - I couldn't-!"
"You couldn't what?"
"I couldn't let him go off on his own, not after, after-"
"After what?"
"I couldn't let him go after what he did to all those people! After what he did to us! After what he did to Yoshizawa! I wanted to crush him, I wanted to stuff my fucking foot down his throat, pull it out and bring up all his insides. I wanted to fucking KILL that bastard and I wanted to do it because I wanted to punish him for everything he did. He deserved everything he got, he deserved worse than what he got, he deserved to fucking burn in Hell forever and not hide away in some fucking shack in the middle of nowhere like Niijima told him to. He needed to die, he needed to die a thousand times over, I'd put a thousand pictures of his sister all over Tokyo if I could! I'd do it again and again! And I'd fucking laugh!"
"Because you're doing to them exactly what you wish you could do to yourself."
"YES!"
"But Kazuya. You don't deserve any of it."
I laugh at him, extremely loudly, so loudly I'm certain we'll be getting noise complaints from every tenant in this apartment building. "After everything I've done, you don't think I deserve this? You don't think I, I deserve to be this way?"
"You tried to save her."
"And what a fucking excellent job I did!"
"But you tried something, and you tried it because you loved her, and you loved her so much you would have done anything to save her! And she knew that! She understands that, and she wouldn't begrudge you for anything you've done! Everything you've done up to this point, externalizing all your anger and resentment upon other far worse people, people who are far worse than you ever were, all you've done is trample upon everything you could be! Everything she'd want you to be, don't you see that!?"
I take my hands off my face, and tent my fingers, looking down at the table. "I don't deserve to be what she wants me to be, Maruki. I deserve to be what I am."
Maruki exhales, slowly, sadly. "And what will you to them? The people responsible. What are you going to do?"
"If you and Rumi had a kid and she died the way Masako did, would you be able to let it go? Would you ever be able to just forget it ever happened? If you found them and saw them, would you let them go? What would you do if you killed Rumi, and they were still out there? What would you do? Maruki, tell me. What would you do?"
He doesn't talk for an extraordinarily long time. Until he does. "If I endured everything you have... I honestly don't know what I would do next. What I'd do to those who took my child from me, how I'd feel towards myself, if I'd drive anyone who tries to get close to me away. If anything, I might feel exactly how you do, perhaps go about it in an even more self-destructive manner. I've never been a strong person, Kazuya. But I wouldn't want to lose myself, or hurt people, or push people who just want to help me out of my life. I wouldn't want to use the pain I feel to hurt others, because that part of me isn't the part that Rumi loved me for. And that part of you isn't what Kana loved you for."
I can't find it in me to say another word to him.
"In that letter you told me about... did Kana tell you why she loved you?"
I face him. I try to keep my eyes locked on his, I try to keep myself stern and strong and stoic and lock whatever I'm feeling away, but it doesn't work. I cover my eyes, lower my head, a growling noise crashing through my skull. "She said she loved me the day I said I'd help her out with studying. She said she...loved me, the day I told her about my parents. She loved me, when I told her I wanted to be a Featherman, and, and a detective, and...she said she loved me every day I stood by her, even when she was at her worst. She said she didn't want me to think what she would do to herself was my fault."
Maruki closes his eyes, pulls me in close to him. It isn't something I'm receptive to, and for a second I think to pull away, but I bury my face into his shoulder soon enough, and everything is let loose. He just holds me, in the middle of his kitchen, as my eyes pour and everything I'd kept within me from the beginning charges outward in ways I could never have understood until now.