So I drown it out like I always do
Dancing through our house with the ghost of you
And I chase it down, with this shot of truth
Dancing through our house with the ghost of you 

GHOST OF YOU, 5SOS

Perhaps, beneath the sickly veil of hope, Atsushi was trapped in a spider's web.

It was not an unfamiliar feeling—the queasy, unsettling wave of guilt that ravages his ribs. He simply felt deluded by his own self, that he trembled as the fly on the web, not a spider among spiders.

Atsushi sighed, what the hell was I thinking?

He had flung open the door to the Agency, his feet carrying him so quickly that he stumbled in his footing, hand awkwardly pressed against the doorframe. If it weren't for his cat-like reflexes after years of huddling in the basement of the orphanage, he would have fallen flat like an idiot in front of his colleagues. Ah yes, colleagues. That word was far too formal for a boy who was itching in fresh, cotton shirts. It was an adult-like term, a coming-of-age syllable that seemed to align him with maturity rather than inexperience.

Any person with eyes could tell Atsushi stuck out like a sore thumb in terms of his ineptitude at well, anything. He fumbled his entrance exam and on a fluke, soft-spot decision, Dazai had allowed him in—he was sure of it. It was always pity that was sewn into the words spoken at him, into the quiet, pining looks. Even he pitied himself.

His arrival at the Agency came from a less-than-an-hour walk around the city, some much needed alone time. And yet, entering the door only exaggerated his self-deprecation since it seemed no one had taken notice of him in the cesspool of fighting. Atsushi had been so occupied with fervent worries over his new-found friends' potential annihilation at the hands of the Port Mafia that perhaps he had forgotten one key thing: he is not the only one who has an Ability.

"Uh," It was not exactly a stare that came out of his heterochromatic eyes. Maybe the look a child gave when the party clown performed a trick they didn't understand.

Atsushi's stomach lurched at how the unconscious bodies littered the workplace. It seemed too casual, too light for a battle. His mind was ravaged by ill imaginatory nightmares of bloodied tiled floors and twitching fingers, the kind of tales the children at the orphanage would whisper during the night. An exchange of thoughts, an omen for their future, a merciful punishment.

This is the Black Lizard? Atsushi was baffled. How paradoxical it seemed. The tall, coughing man—Akutagawa, was it?—was far more terrifying than this. The memory of the hours earlier in the back alley, staring past the red, bricked wall and at the raven hair on the devil incarnate; the dark coat that cloaked him amongst the shadows and the utterly dead look in those eyes—it was a true, horrible reminder that Atsushi had been caged up for too long to understand that there were more nightmares than what the orphanage had only told him.

And his voice, so angry. Those who desire death have an equal desire to die. What the hell did that mean?! Atsushi did not want every enemy he encountered to speak in riddles. He felt he was too stupid to understand it.

Atsushi pushed the image of his archnemesis quickly away. Any more thinking of that man and he was sure it would end with a puddle of his own urine at his feet.

No, no, the words were flooding back at him now. You will cause ill for everyone around you, just by being alive.

An unfamiliar voice broke the nightmare Atsushi had barricaded himself into. "Why does this guy look like he's about to piss himself?"

The teenage boy broke his gaze at the limp bodies strewn across the room like paint a white canvas, looking at the source of the question. A young woman sat perched on his desk, her legs on his chair, checking her fingernails. "Yeah, you. I was talking about you."

"Me?" Atsushi gaped, shuffling forwards.

He watched Naomi slap the woman's back, "Mito-san! You've only been here for twenty minutes. No need to bully our other new member. Go on and introduce yourself."

She did not introduce herself. Atsushi got the feeling she was not to be crossed. The woman closely mirrored Akutgawa's expression from back then. A sort of 'Do you want to die?' look. And well, as much as Atsushi hated himself, today was not the day to die.

"This is why I hate raids," Kunikida sighed, hands in pocket. He pulled out his book of Ideals and scribbled something down in it, "They really throw off our budget projections. How much do you think repairing the office and replacing inventory will cost?!"

So nonchalant, Atsushi was stunned. He had been so busy fretting over the worse case scenario that it had never occurred to him how powerful these people were.

"Using machine guns for a raid was a little over the top," Yosano commented bleakly, dragging a body across the floor. It made a squeamish sound. "It's your turn to go around the neighbourhood with apologies and gifts, Kunikida-kun."

Kunikida groaned, a frown on his face. "So it is the worst case scenario!"

"Shouldn't it say somewhere in your little Ideals book about the importance of being compassionate and humble?" Hiro folded his arms, kicking his legs up on his desk.

"Huh?! So this is the worst-case scenario?" Atsushi blurted out. It most certainly was not what he was expecting.

Hiro turned to face him and it occurred to Atsushi that he had the same eyes as Akutagawa. A shade that flits between grey and silver, dark in the light but burning bright in the shadows. The kind of grayish colour which appears in violent storms, when one strike of lightning can burn your spine inside out. "You joined what, two days ago right? The Port Mafia and the Agency always have fights like this. It's pretty considerate of you to be worried but you're in safe hands, Atsushi."

Hiro looked away, as if just saying that made him nauseous. "Besides," his folded arms tightened, "Keep in mind that this attack was sent by Higuchi, not Mori—the blonde woman you conferred with earlier this morning."

Kunikida narrowed his eyes and what came next seemed almost accusatory, "Hiro, you seem very confident in understanding the Port Mafia's activities."

Before Hiro could reply, Kenji dispersed the uneasy tension cast between the two. "Kunikida-san! What should we do with them?" The attention shifted towards the bodies on the floor, unconscious but alive.

"Throw them out the window," It was an unexpected order. Atsushi was afraid of opening his mouth to speak or even move his legs less he collapses from the rapid anxiety that had swollen inside him earlier. It was the kind of feeling he would experience moments before being punished.

Such a thing was not parallel with Kenji Miyazawa's beaming smile; the boy grabbed as many bodies as he could, piling them onto his shoulders and started throwing them out of one of the open windows. Maybe, Atsushi should pinch himself. Ya know, in case the last few days had indeed been a dream. Who knows, he pondered, slowly making his way to his desk, despite the fact that Mito was guarding it, maybe I was in a coma and dreamt I changed into a tiger.

"Roger!" Kenji beamed with a smile as he grabbed unconscious people by the legs and began throwing them out the window.

"For the umpteenth time, I wish they'd give up on raids." Kunikida muttered in annoyance.

"They'll never stop doing raids, Kunikida. You just need to keep wearing them down," Hiro shrugged. The two were so unbothered by the fighting that it would likely worry a normal person but Atsushi supposed he would need to keep reminding himself that the definition of normal had changed greatly.

With a wary expression, he slumped into a seat and concluded he was not dreaming. This was his reality.

"Atsushi! Pick up the can of paint and paint that wall over there," Kunikida's tongue clicked as he pointed at the wall beside the door, where curiously, a number of scratch marks were etched together into the brick.

The boy did as he was told. And as he hid a small, fractured smile from his friends, his thumb curved around the handle of the paintbrush. It could have been way, way worse.

***

Bittersweet love was the same as unfurling the bud of a spring flower, something testament to human temperance. Such vile damage comes across as so bloody in one's palms but he could never understand why flowers were pretty until now. Stretched thin in the heart of webs, a spider's home, was her, sewn into his mind.

That's what Chuuya could only equate her to — the bloodied petal of a roadside flower, gasping for breath when it drowns on the battlefield gods force their slaughter onto.

She seemed like the smoke webbed into the air from one of his lit cigarettes, for no matter how many times he stumbled towards her in vain, choking on the ecstasy and cotton candy scent she brought with her, she would fall away.

Slowly, bit by bit, he had lost her, but he couldn't admit it. Perhaps it was on him—if only he chased after her. If he ran across the world and searched every crevice, every corner, every light and shadow.

In his apartment, the world folded within like a paper heart, and he laid on his bed with aches tightened around his rib cage, having thrown everything he ever knew out of the window. Not literally, of course, but he had scrawled down letters of loss and love and jammed his fist inside a cookie jar and watched it fall out of an eight story building with no remorse. It was something stupid that he did on a whim.

And now he was drunk, not on the expensive bottle of champagne that he barged into a winery at 1am for, but on the memory of something that could have been. Someone who could be real to him and for him. On the idea that there was more to Chuuya that the voice in his head and the image of murder painted so deeply into his mind that he became it just as much as it had become him—Arahabaki.

Fingers curled around his bed sheet, he turned over and looked at his phone, blinking back tears. It was fine to cry...right? There was no one here.

And it's not like she would walk in any moment, and laugh about how the oh-so great Chuuya Nakahara, vessel of the Arahabaki, was crying.

He was about to break and maybe he would be swallowed by the darkness once more. He would burn out in his lonely apartment, facing grey walls and thinking about when he was fifteen all over again.

Fifteen and angry. Now, twenty-two and broken.

He'd lost her... not that he ever tried to have her in the first place. But now, he looks at his bruised fingers and up at the ceiling and he realises he still remembers everything.

(You don't forget that sort of stuff anyway.)

He bathed in a flesh-filthy massacre and his head was lost in a tornado, separated from his body with panging tears smashing to the ground and causing earthquakes at his feet. He stirred, as if the devil inside him threatened to awaken once more. Why must he feel separate from himself, if there was ever him in the first place, if he could coax back the real him because it seemed the real Chuuya Nakahara was as dead as the flowers outside the Jewellers' compound—fifteen was too fucking bittersweet.

As he sat up, staring at the wall which could do nothing else except stare back at him, he exhaled. That day, seven years ago, hangs duly in his tormented mind like a crown worshipped on the head. It felt like she had stabbed him, really that was the only metaphor he could come up with. His heart was no longer a heart but a black, devouring hope, destined to kill him the moment he faced Fuji Miyamoto again.

So, when he cast his phone to the side, ignoring the files that Nene had probably sent over regarding his mission, he thought about that promise he made to himself all those years ago.

Don't go looking for her. Fuck Mori.

Meanwhile, five blocks down from his place was Yokohama University and Fuji Miyamoto was in her last class of the year.

***

The thought of leaving Japan briefly crossed Mito's mind as she trailed Ranpo Edogawa and the new kid down the city street. It was a rich fantasy—boarding the plane, listening to the engine's roar, breathing in fresh air and a new identity. Discarding herself is a dream that was not yet cut loose from her mind. The chains of her younger self still clinked as it dwelled in the caverns of her thoughts: the isolated girl with no parents. To kill that person and become someone else took a sort of strength very few would discover in their lifetime. To murder and to exist is a sin worthy of committing. She's almost salivating at the idea of redoing her entire personality and running away again. Mito was deluded by the false hope of ever escaping her past. Being here was simply a means of coping with the truth she needed to confront—the truth Fukuzawa was trying to convey back in his office. And then, a certain and quite frankly annoying detective broke the illusion.

"Mito-san, you walk like a toddler! At this rate, we'll never get there," Truely, it was a feat Mito had not yet managed to murder the real toddler here, who was most definitely posing as a twenty-six year old male detective.

In the same way that Mito had fought battles before, cut through enemies and opponents and fellow Birthstones from a mirth of a troubled childhood, her newest foe was not a gang member or an assassin but her 'work colleague': Ranpo Edogawa.

Perhaps it was his smug smirk that irked her so much, a lipped smile which tugged hard at his ivory cheeks. It was so nauseating that Mito knew if she took a knife and went at it in a dough of bread, it would look exactly the same. People who put themselves on a pedestal only seemed to drag others down with them. She knew this too well.

Or maybe it was how boisterous he was back at the Agency, sitting on his desk as well, except his eyes were closed and he chewed on the same brand of sweet that Fukuzawa had given to her—not the same sweet, no. Mito would have been livid. And the man would not be skipping merrily in front of her right now if that was the case. She knew that being employed here would likely mean different methods of handling things but alas, as her amber eyes remained fixed on the messy, blackness of Ranpo's hair, surely death is an occupational hazard in any field?

It seemed Atsushi had caught wind of how murderous her stare was at the back of Ranpo's hand, for the boy had started to match her pace. "So, Mito-san," His nervousness seemed almost too childish for her to tolerate. It was bringing her sadness in a way, as if she was concerned if his childhood had been taken away by this. "You're also new right?"

Mito glanced a look at the surrounding areas, muttering a brief reply. "Yeah." It was short and evidently strained but Atsushi was glad there was an inch of progress being made. He would hate to be on the bad side of his colleagues, especially since he knew that they would be the ones having to contain him if his Ability ever got out of control.

"What's your Ability?" Atsushi asked and Mito knew he was only trying to make conversation so she decided to relax because her day would only be ruined if she let it be. That's right, she thought, today will be nice and calm and boring and then I'll go to sleep and wake up and repeat.

The woman felt her hands dig deeper into her pockets, "The Last Raindrop at Night. Put simply, I control water but only during the night. Whoever decides on Abilities clearly has favourites."

Ranpo stifled a laugh, "So you are Aquaman? Or Aquawoman, as I should say? An interesting Ability but no match for mine! That's right. Even though you're a detective agency, you lot don't have the deductive powers of a single monkey. The only reason you can call yourself one is my ability, Ultra-Deduction."

Someone clearly overfed his ego, was the first thing Mito thought. She then promptly did what any normal person would do: she kicked him in the knees and watched him stumble.

Atsushi found himself giggling but quickly straightened his expression. After all, the two were his seniors. Although Ranpo did not recover from the humiliation of being punted across the street like a football, he remained his annoying self and babbled about something reeking of self-indulgence. Such a shame that Mito had already learnt how to tune out his words and was now idly engaging in some light-hearted conversation with Atsushi.

By the time the three of them reached their destination—the riverside on the east of Yokohama—Atsushi finally mustered the courage to ask Ranpo what they were doing there, having been kept in the dark this whole time.

"We have a job! Like I said earlier, we're a detective agency. We solve crimes," Ranpo clicked his tongue with a grin as if to say I solve crimes, not sure what the others do. And Mito hid her burst of laughter as if to say I commit crimes, not sure why I am here again.

Meanwhile, Atsushi looked around at the muddy area while they neared the swarm of police huddled by the river. He gazed at the forklift and crane that had been brought over, the end dipped into the water, having broken it's icy, feverish surface.

Mito watched the police officers' expression remain pitifully solemn, even as she and Ranpo approached them. Then she saw why. Laying on the ground was the corpse of a young woman, drenched in icy water with three bullet wounds in her chest. Her head lolled to the side, eyes shut, and long twisted brown hair fell on her pale face.

Her chest tightened. Mito had seen many dead bodies in her lifetime but the peaceful expression on this woman's face was almost frightening. One would think she had passed in her sleep, but then again one would be blind because unlike Atsushi, Mito did not recoil at the blood puddling around the dead body. It was a rotten smell as well, like the water rinsed her down to the bare bones and flesh. Mito was more accustomed to quick, flighty deaths. The light passing quickly in the eyes, the skin stilling like paint on a canvas. She had seen a couple waterboarders in her lifetime but death by drowning was still new—viscerally raw and cold, it was the water hugging you until the very end.

Atsushi bit his lip, having grown worried at how apathetically Mito was staring at a dead body. The teenager on the other hand, could not even bear to glimpse at it. Looking would make it real. Looking would only bring back the nightmares.

"Oh, boss! Looks like we caught something!" One of the officers called out, prompting everyone to swivel and look at the crane's hook being pulled out of the river. There was an unsteady silence rocking the air as everyone watched the hook break the water's surface and something was dragged up.

It looked to be another body trapped in a fishing net, all tangled up and messy. Mito quickly raised her arm and blocked Atsushi's eyes, "You're like twelve, don't look."

Atsushi, having frowned at that, pried her fingers away from his eyes, "I am eighteen! And that's. . . Dazai-san?"

Dumbfounded, he blurted it out but it seemed he was correct. Dazai's body was dripping wet and his arms were facing forward. He smiled sweetly, waving at Atsushi. "Hello, Atsushi-kun," He greeted him as though he wasn't trapped hanging upside down which seemed almost delusional.

"What a strange coincidence," He laughed, eliciting a wary expression on Mito's face.

"Dazai like Dazai Osamu?" Mito inquired slowly, her amber eyes caught on the man before her. This is him? The guy that wouldn't stop terrorising us back then?

Mito forgot how to breathe and air was suddenly trapped in her throat. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why did she have the horrible feeling that this guy was going to be a huge thorn in her plans?

Surely Hiro knew who he was as well? Why the hell was a former Port Mafioso here? And how did he know Atsushi? The kid had only been on the job for two days.

"Yes! Wow, am I really so famous amongst beautiful women?" He exclaimed happily, wiggling in the fishing net to get free. Mito thought he looked like an earthworm and she would gladly bury him six feet under if that's where he needed to be. "But do not fret! I know who you are too. It seems the Ninth—"

Mito shut him up by yanking on the fishing net and watched him fall to the ground. He landed with a thud and thankfully it seemed his sentence was cut short. "Yes, yes, we both know each other or whatever. Now, stop kissing dirt," She brushed the dust off her clothes.

Ranpo was the only one at the scene who was unfazed, "Another drowning attempt?"

"What, committing suicide alone?" Dazai grinned, eyes shut. "That's so passe, Ranpo!"

"I have come to realise that if I am to die, I will die with a beautiful lady!" He continued, turning around with gleeful smile, "Ah, double suicide... What a sweet ring it has. It feels so empty to bid this world farewell to my lonesome. So, I'm currently on the lookout for a beautiful woman who'll die with me!"

Mito figured she was about to throw up so she made sure she would be vomiting on Dazai's trench coat if it came to that. Wasn't this guy obsessed with Mina?

She pulled him up by the collar, "You fucking playboy, Dazai. Christ, you haven't changed. You were just drifting along the river like some fish?! Is that what you do in your free time when you're not murd—"

Dazai pressed his finger against her lips, muffling the words. "I don't do that anymore! Besides, what are you guys doing here? Why are you here?"

Mito made a mental reminder to tell Mina the next time she saw her to break up with this douchebag in the most painful way possible, something really, really sappy like a heated argument in the rain—ah yes, perfect, they'd all die from hypothermia. She could bring Ranpo along too. Two birds, one stone.

"We're on a job," Atsushi pushed some strands of hair out of his face, "Mito-san just joined us today."

"At the recommendation of Fukuzawa, I assume," Dazai grinned, "I'm sure you didn't even need to take an entrance exam. Probably because your entrance exam was something else entirely that you didn't know at the time."

Ranpo was adamantly surprised to see Dazai's face was still intact after saying that, "Let us show you the job, Dazai-san. Then you can all crow and celebrate when I solve it."

When Atsushi led Dazai and Mito closer to the body, Dazai's whole façade fell apart in the blink of an eye. It was as if he was a puppet strung closely to a spider's homely web, and that figment of his personality had collapsed just as a puppet does when it is not controlled. His eyes were widened and he was visibly shaken. Tears fell down his cheeks but no one was sure if it was just for show or whether he was actually sorrowful for the woman's death.

"Wh-wh-wh-wh-what a great tragedy this is that a young beautiful woman in her prime has lost her life..." He exclaimed, kneeling before the body which laid on a blue plastic sheet. "My sorrow is crushing my heart!" If you had one, Mito remarked in her thoughts. "She may as well have committed double suicide with me!"

Atsushi gave Mito a quick expression as if to say 'Please don't kill him.' Mito supposed that Dazai could live, for now. She was curious about his situation anyway—if the past was going to be truly put to rest, she would need to ensure Dazai wouldn't go blurting around about the Jewellers'. Seven years on, the story of the Jewellers' had become a myth passed around small-time gangs about how greed can kill, how love can kill, how power falls apart just as easily as it is caught. Even the name Kufa Miyamoto was now taboo—speak of the man, maybe his ghost will appear right behind you!

Some say all the Jewellers' died in the fire but the police couldn't find their bodies because none of them were registered with the government. Others claim that even if the head of the snake had been cut off, the body was still intact and most Jeweller compounds were functioning to this day. But most have come to the agreement that the Jewellers were nothing without their Birthstones, and if the Birthstones lived, then so do the Jewellers.

Mito joined Ranpo and Atsushi a couple feet away from Dazai, as though they were oddly giving him privacy to mourn a stranger. Atsushi had his shoulders slouched with second-hand embarrassment written all over his face, while Ranpo's arms were hidden behind his brown cape.

"Who the hell is he?" A middle-aged detective in a khaki coat looked like this was not even in the top five of the weirdest things he had seen today.

Ranpo was equally exasperated, "A colleague at the Agency. That's just how he is."

If Mito was a cat, her ears would have perked up at this. A colleague, huh. She started to understand why Fukuzawa had spoken to her so earnestly about good and bad. It seemed Dazai had been in the same predicament.

"But rest in peace, milady!" Dazai sobbed, wailing his arms around like one of those inflatable wavy men at car tire shops. It looked entirely like a joke being made from an already somewhat sad situation—Mito didn't really care since she didn't know the lady—and if any person who had never encountered Dazai before today saw this, well, they'd call the police right away.

Dazai did not relent in his extravagant method of grieving, "An extraordinary great detective will avenge you. Right, Ranpo-san?" He turned to face Ranpo, almost giving a strickenly confident and falsely emphatic glean in his eyes.

Ranpo shrugged, "But I have yet to get the job itself. Why? Just ask this man." He gestured to the even more unamused detective to his left.

"We have no need for private investigators," He commented snarkily. "In fact, all of my subordinates are far superior to any private detective."

Mito tilted her head cockily, taking his words as a challenge. "Alright then, why don't we prove it?"

She looked around at the nearest officer and pointed to him gleefully, plucking him out as if she was a magician on stage. "What's your name?" While a question, it was said more like she was about to interrogate him for committing domestic terrorism.

"What?" He stuttered, trembling so hard that Atsushi was worried he would explode like a volcano, "I am Sergeant Sugimura!" He saluted the group with his hand to his police hat. "The victim, Ms. Yamagiwa, was my senior colleague."

Mito knew what a murderer looked like so she simply gave a quick glance to Ranpo as if to say This is your guy, can I go home now? Ranpo, on the other hand, responded with a freakish and overly-enthusiastic laughter.

His eyes floated back to the trembling Sergeant Sugimura. He was a young man with scruffy short brown hair and dark brown eyes. Ordinary. Nothing special about him. Which in hindsight could be considered pretty sad, I mean, Mito would be furious if someone stared at her the same way she did for him. But alas, she's not the one who committed this murder.

Ranpo placed his hand on Sugimura's shoulder, "All right, Sugimoto-kun. Solve this case in sixty seconds, starting now."

Not only did he say his name wrong but Ranpo pulled out a stopwatch from his pocket. Poor guy, Atsushi sighed, He's going to explode.

"What!" He exclaimed, pushing Ranpo's hand off his shoulder and stepping back.

Ranpo smiled, "I can solve it in under a minute." He turned to the expressionless detective, "Let's see if your subordinate really is superior to me. If he's as good as you say he is, then he should be able to do the same."

"It's a case with zero leads as well," Atsushi explained quietly to Mito , "No relationship. No witness. Nothing."

"Not nothing," Mito noted, glancing at the three bullet wounds in the body. "It was sloppy work. But then again, shooting your lover is hard enough as it is."

"What?" Atsushi mumbled confusingly, before Mito could elaborate, Sugimura was already rambling. And well, could you call it rambling? It was more like Sugimura was telling his whole life story at gunpoint.

"Um, okay, well..." His hand was clawing at his head as his eyes widened. "Sixty seconds is a bit over the top, isn't it?"

"Okay, fifty seconds left!" Ranpo smiled, a stopwatch in his right hand.

"What?!" Sugimura exclaimed as Ranpo came closer and closer to him. "Oh right," He began, having calmed down somewhat, "Yamagiwa-senpai was pursuing a political corruption case and also investigating the Port Mafia. I believe the murderer's M.O is similar to the Mafia's method of exacting retribution. Maybe she was killed by the mafia members she was investigating-"

Mito interrupted him. It seemed she had gotten a taste for blurting out her opinion if it was superior to others. Dammit, I have the Ranpo-virus. "That's not true," She spoke, making eye contact with Dazai who looked like he was about to say the same thing.

"What?" Sugimura had fucked up, hadn't he? He went as pale as a sheet.

Mito waited for everyone and upon seeing Ranpo and Dazai nod, she spoke. "The Port Mafia's retaliatory methods are as highly specific as a government-issued ID. First, the traitor is made to bite the curb. Then they kick the back of the traitor's head to shatter their jaw. As their victim writhes in agony, they fill them over and then shoot them in the chest three times."

Although Atsushi could count three other times that had scared him shitless today alone about Mito, it was probably right now that he couldn't hide the mixture of surprise and fear tangled up in his expression, pointed between his scrunched-up nose and furrowed eyebrows. She was so distant from the brutal, jutting violence of her tone and such a cruel description, how it came calmly at her lips, so naturally.

Mito buried the image of finding Kia's body in the rain that day, and the holes punctured in her chest, leaking out against the water from the sky. And no matter how hard she tried, the rain would not relent. The tears would not stop. And Kia's jaw was as limp and loose as the rope after Kimchi's failed suicide attempt.

"If we're being precise, yes, but..." Sugimura mumbled in contradiction, but it was a futile attempt at swaying the jury's conviction on him.

"So this M.O is similar to the Mafia's but not the same. I believe the murderer shot the woman three times because they were trying to make it seem like she was killed by the Mafia. But why no jaw break? Because whoever killed her couldn't bear to see her in agony. Probably didn't even mean to pull the trigger. So they shot her twice more and dumped her body in the river, trying to cleanse themselves of their sins. Which means... her lover killed her. And her lover... was you!"

Mito pointed at Sugimura for dramatic flair and smiled, "I'm confident it was you. No one trembles that much around a body unless they have something to hide. Only Dazai was crying but that's how he is. As for motive, well, it would be kind of sad if Ranpo didn't get his share of screentime so I will let him do that." Totally not because Mito did not have a fucking clue what the motive was as she had made half of her deductions up. 

"Beep!" Ranpo exclaimed, scaring Sugimura from behind. "At the very least, your subordinates have a taste for murder, detective."

"Stop reading pulp fiction," The detective scorned, "Proper detectives conduct thorough investigations; they don't just pull lies out of thin air!"

"Ah you don't understand. My special Ability, Ultra-Deduction, allows me to know when and how and where the murder was committed. Furthermore, I can see in my mind's eye how I can make the killer confess and where the evidence lies, as if it is an epiphany. I am gifted, after all."

Mito, who was well-aware Ranpo did not possess an ounce of the curse that was an Ability, quickly blurted out a coughing fit to cover the laughter she threatened to erupt. She elbowed Atsushi in the arm and he followed suit.

Once Ranpo had explained in overly elaborative, excruciating detail the events of the murder, Sugimura sung like a canary and confessed following the guilt. Ranpo, Mito and Atsushi watched as he was handcuffed and taken away.

And as Mito's eyes remained fixed on the glinting silver of the handcuffs, she could not help but wonder if her uncle had given her this job as a way of showing who she could have been if not for her choices—if she was in those handcuffs, would it be fair?

She felt Ranpo tug at her coat, pulling her away. No, it wouldn't be. How do you save someone from themselves without punishing them? It looked like the answer is, you don't.

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two updates in two days??????? the procrastination is real... anywayz this was 5.8k words long i lost my mind writing this ... also if u see the text-to-speech thing its bc my story got selected for wattpad beta stuff idk how to explain it lmao but i can also see it and i use it as a way of proof-reading for mistakes LMAO the ladys voice is so funny when she tries to say stuff. i think i applied for it by accident or something i am not sure...  OK bye also thank You illya for the idea of atsushi in a diaper im tempted to write a chapter where atsushi is pranked like that the poor kid rip