Mary dragged Ibuki through the dormitory halls and stopped outside of Hyde's room. The jittery girl's face was red as cherries and she quietly repeated to herself how 'she could do it,' and 'it's just visiting nothing more,' needless to say, Mary was overly nervous to spend the night with Hyde alone.

From the tablet Ibuki held came Cherri's voice. "Is everything okay over there? Mary sounds anxious."

"Everything is alright, just Mary being Mary." Ibuki shrugged then grabbed the door handle to open the door and enter Hyde's room unannounced.

The boy was sitting on his bed with a game controller in hand playing a game that took his focus but seemed all too easy to him. He defeated the boss creature in game which allowed him to safely place the controller aside and glance at his uninvited guests.

His room was still undecorated and bland. Still looking the same as when he moved in.

"H-h-h-hi Hyde-"

Ibuki stepped ahead of Mary. "Ello ello Hyde!" She turned the tablet so Cherri could see him. She waved and gave a hearty greeting.

"Hey Cherri!" Hyde was slightly more enthusiastic about seeing her. He noticed the telescope in the background of her dark room, "Where are you at? On a secret mission?"

Mary closed the door behind her and took the time to calm herself down while Cherri explained to them her patrol duty given to her by Midare.

"There's a lot of interesting things I have seen at night. I witnessed a cosplay meet up and someone almost getting hit by a car once..." Her stories were something else.

Hyde let out a small chuckle. "You're supposed to be looking for unusual sightings, right? Wouldn't you consider that unusual?"

"Not exactly…" Cherri tapped her chin "I'm looking for people in dark trench coats meeting up with normal dressed men. The mafia men hidden in plain sight, that kind of thing."

"I'm sure Cherri knows what she's looking for." Ibuki reassured him. Suddenly Cherri gasped and pointed her camera out of the window to show the strange cosplayers she saw once before.

"They're wearing masks that make them look like cute anime characters. Their costumes are very well designed." Cherri zoomed in on their meeting. The two cosplayers, which could only be described as 'realistic anime girls' , seemed to be taking pictures with each other. Their masks had a permanent smile along with eyes one would see on moé characters from fiction. Their brightly colored hair reflected the light more than real hair did but their serafuku school uniform was tightly fitted on their body.

Hyde found the sight disturbing but this was the first time any of them have seen something so vividly real. "This is pretty strange."

"Mhm!" Mary agreed, finally getting over her anxiety to join Ibuki and Hyde in watching. "Do you think they're the culprits?"

Cherri returned the camera to herself. "This is just one of those funny things you witness after hours. The culprit we're looking for is aiming to escape the city. The cosplayers here just are here to converse. Kameoka is a nice place to relax."

"If you say so Cherri." Ibuki frowned. The next person to be investigated was Ruudachi. Ibuki had a little feud to settle with the maid. During her and Mary's time with Hyde, Ibuki thought of ways to get answers out of Ruudachi.

────── 〔✿〕──────

With the ring of the bell, class ended. Normally Hyde would return to the cafe with Mikael and Mary but due to the circumstance the agency was in, they were reluctant to be around each other. Mikael was the most distant of the group, leaving early and not saying much when spoken to.

Hyde thought nothing of it until he was pulled aside by the wannabe cowboy in the hallway. Mikael had a distressed look, obviously affected by something he couldn't get his mind off.

"This memory I saw in a dream keeps bothering me." Mikael touched his cowboy hat "Everything about it felt so real. It can't be just a dream because my mind keeps telling me it happened."

Mikael's problem seemed way overblown to Hyde. He opened his mouth, about to tell him to calm down and not take it so seriously but Cran interjected.

He butted into the talk from behind Hyde "Tell us about this dream of yours. It could clue us in on who the traitor is."

"You mean like a vision?" Mikael lowered his head a little. "It can't be since the only thing I saw was myself and… the blood on the ground in front of me."

Hyde rubbed his chin "It could be a metaphor."

But a metaphor for what..?

Was this Mikael's subtle way of implicating himself or was this entirely unrelated to the agency's problem?

Hyde looked at Cran whose eyes narrowed in disappointment. He ran his fingers through his brown hair and said. "I recommend not telling anyone else about this. We can't afford to accuse the wrong suspect."

Hyde agreed with the sentiment and was about to add some advice of his, but his eyes were drawn to... Shiki?!

Time moved slowly as he watched her walk past. Her medium length brown hair swaying like the ocean and her expressionless face captivated Hyde in a way no other girl could. Maybe because he started to notice the bandages around her neck, hidden behind the high collar of her buttoned gakuran. And the black thigh high socks hid the bandages around her ankle up to her knee.

Why did she look so sad?

Was all Mikael could think of.

Why the hell was she here?

Was all Hyde could think of.

He nor his friends had never seen her inside Ibunroku before. There was never a hint or clue that explains her appearance now, so why? And how?

Hyde's mind began to turn into static. His thoughts spiralled like taking a pencil and scribbling on paper. Even though there wasn't a clear picture, something was there and it was trying to break through his perception.

"Grk!" Hyde winced and covered his left eye. Time resumed and Shiki was moments away from leaving the hallway. "W-wait!"

He chased after the brunette. Mikael did the same, mostly following behind Hyde as he always did but Cran paused for a moment to quietly talk with himself. "Dreams of blood can only mean one thing…"

Hyde caught up with Shiki and reached out to touch her shoulder. The moment his finger came into contact with the fabric of her gakuran, she spun around with an arm outstretched.

"GET AWAY FROM ME!" She screamed. But noticing it was Hyde, she didn't have enough time to slow down her hand which slapped across his face.

Hyde fell back into Mikael who caught him in time. The nerve of this girl…

His cheek was left red and it hurt a lot. Shiki covered mouth and bowed, saying a quick apology before running away. The students in the hallway all witnessed the event and gave their theories as to why it happened. All weird and witty theories obviously lacking in any context of how Hyde and Shiki viewed each other.

Many of the comments Hyde overheard gave some clues on Shiki's appearance in the school. He pieced together that she was apart of the student council and had been away from the school for quite some time, but none knew about her working as an investigator for Noble Third.

Ibuki and Hoka came rushing to his side after hearing the loud slap. Naturally they were worried for Hyde after seeing the harsh red hand mark left on his face.

Ibuki expected Hyde to brush it off or proclaim that it was nothing but instead he was thoughtful about it. He looked at his hand saying, "Why is this all happening?”

The traitor in the agency, hints of memories resurfacing, all he needed now was the girl in white to pop up in his dream again to say something absurd. Mary said she was decapitated so it didn't seem like she was going to come back anytime soon.

Hoka stood on her toes to reach Hyde's head to pat it. Everyone in the agency was on edge and their future wasn't going to be better.

“...” Hyde lifted his head confidently, “Well all we can do is try to continue living normally. I’ll meet you guys at the cafe alright?”

He took off on his own waving as he did so. Mikael nodded slowly and brightened up a little “He’s right. We should be using this as time off from being a detective. C’mon Ibuki, Hoka, Levin is probably looking for us.”

Ibuki knew he was just faking the normalcy of life just as Hyde was. This was the boy’s way of going back to Shiki seeking answers and he was going to get them no matter what. He needed them.

Stopping at the bottom of the steps, Shiki seemed to be gone. Hyde looked both ways down the hall unable to find the girl that captured his gaze. Where did she run off to? Hyde frowned, figuring she was already gone, until he turned around and looked up to the top of the steps; or rather the person falling towards him.

"Shikiー?!"

It was a complete mystery to how she tripped on the stairs and even more of a mystery when they crashed into each other and spiralled into a roll that was physics defying. It ended when Hyde's vision was obscured by soft and round and squishy bazongas. Boobs that were smaller than Mary's, Hyde could tell by them suffocating his face but not completely.

"This can't be happening." His muffled voice tickled the center of Shiki's chest and caused her to jump off him in a hurry. Once again eyes were on the crossed detective and investigator. Bad luck was forcing them together like trying to make opposite sides of a magnet touch.

"You…" Shiki's cold and low tone was back, just as Hyde preferred it to be. He picked up his school bag and stood up awaiting his apology because this certainly wasn't his fault like the first time.

Shiki slowly stood up and lowered her head. "Can we go somewhere to talk? Like a date..?"

Hyde would normally believe this was some kind of unwarranted nightmare he didn't deserve. It still was partially a bad dream but he wanted to talk in private anyways. He had the perfect location for it too, "We can meet at the arcade."

He turned around after the blunt response and walked out in a hurry. The students were remarking how surprised they were at Shiki choosing to go on date with probably the weirdest person in the school because of how out of the ordinary he was. Hyde had no strong opinions, no interests, nothing to talk about. It was often his friends that carried the conversations. He didn't care how they perceived him.

Why would he?

Why?

Why…

Hyde dropped his school bag back at the dormitory and immediately made his way to the arcade he visited once before. This was where the entire journey began. It was where he met Ruudachi and Midare for the first time and the first of many encounters with Soap.

"You're still in your uniform?" Shiki questioned which took him out of his thoughts. She followed him inside the building.

"You are too. Besides, you wanted to talk." Hyde replied.

"But this is a date as well."

The way Shiki drove in that point started to get irritating. He was dragged by the arm deeper into the cabinet filled arcade.

"This is pissing me off-- just what does she want? I know she's hiding something but is that the reason why she brought me here?"

Hyde's dull eyes stared at the screen of the intense battle going on between him and Shiki. His movement of the arcade stick was automatic and slick when he moved it forward, back, in a quarter circle motion and so on.

"Is she planning to attack me here? Could she be the one behind the attack on Yamiko? She's hiding those bandages behind her clothes. What should I say..?"

The next game was a zombie shooter game where he and Shiki worked together to defeat waves and waves of zombies to get to the next stage. Hyde was a decent shot with the plastic gun in his hand despite never wielding a gun during his cases. Shiki on the other hand had skills that far surpassed his.

"She hasn't said anything to me yet. All we've been doing is playing together. Maybe I'm overthinking things."

"I want that one." Shiki poked the glass pointing at a small plush of a girl from a particular anime with antlers.

"Huh?" Hyde was taken out of his thoughts and looked at the doll Shiki was pointing at. It had a similar resemblance to Hoka because of its pink hair.

"That one, I want it." Shiki repeated. She turned her head to look at Hyde with emotionless eyes. "Are you paying attention? I tried but these games are tough."

Hyde was so caught up in his head that he nearly forgot where he was. He slowly nodded and grabbed the handle of the claw machine "I can try."

Games like this often felt rigged because of how easily the prize slipped out of the claw's grip. It was also harder to get the more rare prizes laid in the back, which the plush Shiki wanted was. The position of the plush was at an odd angle but if he could get the precise aim…

"Failure." Shiki said in a fake deep tone.

"Shut up you. This takes a bit of practice. I'll get it for you." Something compelled Hyde to overcome this challenge. One more time this time giving it his all.

The claw descended and… captured! Then his heart sunk when the claw's grip on the plush started to loosen while it rose.

"Heh looks like I gotー"

In one swift motion his mouth was violated by a stapler and scissors partially open around his tongue. "Don't move." The cold tone Hyde preferred was back.

"I got careless."

“You think too much. I can feel your thoughts through my scissors.” Shiki’s grip on the scissors was more still than the cold air itself as well as the stapler arm pressed on the inner cheek of his mouth. Both arms didn’t tremble or twitch. Her hands were faultless like a surgeon's, maybe even better!

“How am I supposed to talk?!” Hyde’s eye twitched once.

Shiki’s gaze was unmoving as it stared directly into his soul. “It’s better if you don’t attempt to speak or move at all. It would be a tragedy for me to accidentally cut your tongue when I didn’t mean to.”

Accidentally? Yeah right…

And a tragedy? In what way?

Tragedies are invoked by the fault of the protagonist’s own ignorance to his faults. Hyde at least wanted an apology before he died. The nerve of this girl…

“You’re surprisingly calm.”

Hyde didn’t completely understand it himself. The moment Shiki placed the lethal weapons in his mouth a new memory of his past slipped through and the feeling back when he stood up to face Morren returned. This situation brought feelings of deja vu. The last time he was in a predicament like this he had defended himself, but he couldn’t help but feel that doing such was wrong. Was it the girl to blame or himself for putting blood on the street?

His brief flashback was interrupted when Shiki slightly tightened her grip on the stapler like she was moments away from closing his mouth permanently. Right right… again he was in his head and she had to bring him out. This time was the last warning.

“Ooo-oo…” The only sound he could make with his mouth full was a desperate moaning. He wanted one question to be answered and that was the bandages hidden behind her clothing.

“So that’s what you want to know about?” She assumed his question correctly, seeing his eyes move downwards to her legs. “I could feel your eyes pressed against me like tentacles in a poorly written anime. Though the slap afterwards was not my fault entirely, you did startle me.”

Her reaction was unprecedented. She was beyond simply startled, she was terrified, but of what? If Hyde could speak he would press the issue but there was no need to say anything as Shiki knew he wanted more answers to her condition. But she would play games around the issue; the corner of her mouth angled upward changing her cross expression into a more coy smirk.

“The investigations Noble Third conducts is a lot more dangerous than your agency’s way of brute forcing answers towards the truth. We did not get where we are because of our connections with the past, no. I used to be a normal high school student but now I’m another piece in Japan’s political board games. We, Noble Third, were hired through our hard work.”

Hired...by...who?

“Hired. That’s all there is to it. I sacrificed my pleasant position as student council president to delve deeper into my past because I lost it.”

So she wasn’t the only one. At this rate it might as well be everyone.

Her smirk faded when she saw Hyde’s eyes widen at that realization. “So you lost yours too huh? At this point it might be everyone in the world.”

“Yeah…”

The top scissor’s blade pressed down on Hyde’s tongue prompting him to silence his thoughts immediately. It was out of instinct since he couldn’t tell if she heard him or not. Nonetheless, she continued speaking for the both of them, “I saw Midare with the same injuries and Dulivale has injuries so severe that she lost the ability to walk. This is going to get worse. The more any of us try to uncover the past of who we are, the more hurt we will become and eventually we will die. I’m willing to take that to the extreme which is why I’m like this.”

Her grip loosened a bit, “But also because… someone is impeding my path.”

There was a brief pause filled with silence before she spoke again. “I’m sorry for slipping on a banana peel and falling on you.”

Now she was just making shit up.

“From now on you are to address me as Shiki-sama. Whenever I call your name I want you to save me no matter where I am. If I’m to die while looking for my past then I want to drag down as many people as I can with me.”

Shouldn’t the name thing be the other way around? It would be more meaningful if she called out his name ‘Hyde-sama!’ if she ever faced death’s door. The rule didn’t make much sense unless it was a test, a weird and twisted test to test his hearing ability..? And on the second note, that is just plain evil of her to do. If Hyde was any dumber he would suspect her of being the culprit behind injuring Yamiko and trashing their cafe. She didn’t say or mention anything close to those incidents so Hyde could cross her off the list of suspects and just chalk up her behavior as just being weirder than he is.

“Well..?” Shiki slowly removed the scissors away from his tongue and mouth all covered in warm saliva. Hyde kept his stiff position as she started to do the same with the stapler but in a more sluggish manner, keeping it there to see if he would.

“S-shi…ki” Still with the stapler in his mouth he tried to say her name. It sounded more like he was saying ‘shi shi’ but the answer he provided seemed to be satisfactory given her mood lightening up a little. His nervousness subsidedー

KERCHUNK!

The nerve of this bitch!

Hyde collapsed on the ground expecting a wave of pain to come like a tsunami. The last tsunami in Japan was 4 years ago and occurred in the southern region. How come he could remember that!?

“Shiki-sama.” She repeated it properly. Shiki had full force shut the stapler on his cheek making the stape dig deep into his flesh. The taste of aluminum and iron spread throughout his mouth dulling any taste.

Shiki stepped past him to grab the spoils of her reward that Hyde won for her. “There’s a donut place I want to go to. Come on, we don’t have all day.”

The sounds of her steps got lower and lower until he was all alone. It was clear Shiki wasn’t going to take no or his absence as an answer since she could kill him right where he stood at any time if they encountered each other on bad terms.

“...” normally his thoughts would be all over the place because he would be bleeding out but he didn’t feel anything when the staple pretrated his cheek. Just like when Morren hit him with the fireball, the pain was nonexistent but the wound was still there all the same. It could be the adrenaline kicking in but even with that rush he still would feel the impact of his soft cheeks being pierced whole by the staple.

Hyde touched his cheek feeling the ends of the compressed staple and wasted no time in twisting it outwards so he could reach in his mouth to pull it out along with blood spat out on the floor. Since he was completely conscious this time, he described the ‘ordinary feeling’ as something that was always on the tip of his tongue. ‘

To put it into a proper explanation with words is impossible…

“... Doesn’t she know I could’ve died?” Hyde muttered while looking at the staple in between his finger tips. He flicked it away and picked himself up, again, touching his cheek. The holes made by the staples were already healing but the inner cheek still bled a little. He let out a sigh believing this was all bad luck. The story Shiki gave he didn’t understand entirely.