"Get in!"

A bruised Hyde was thrown haphazardly into the small grey room. He stumbled over his feet and nearly bumped his head on the table beside the wall. Two men in black suits entered after, one holding a clipboard which he tossed to Hyde.

"Looks like you detectives overstepped your boundaries. Needless to say you've been doing that for quite some time. Acting above the law."

Hyde's wrists were restrained by cuffs. He looked at the clipboard and sat up grabbing it as the man in all black listed off some of the crimes he committed while he signed his name

"Obstruction of justice, illegal possession of magical artifacts, homicide…" The man in all black scoffed "Still we don't have a motive for that last one. That girl you killed." he dug in his coat pocket and took out a photo of a brown haired girl with short hair tied into twintails. Her school uniform was different, a yellowish cardigan over her buttoned shirt and red plaid skirt. The man in all black kneeled down in front of Hyde to show him the photo. She looked so happy…

"You know her right? Your girlfriend?" he asked.

The girl didn't look familiar at all and Hyde never interacted with any other girls being a select few, all of which he never harbored romantic feelings for. This girl was completely foreign to him.

"Is that right?" The man gave Hyde a sharp glare and placed the photo on the table before grabbing the clipboard slowly. "Is that right!?" he whacked Hyde in the head with it making the wood crack. He would return to the door with his partner "Dulivale will be here shortly. Try anything sudden and she won't hesitate to throw you back in solitary confinement."

Back in solitary confinement?

Hyde was confused. Was he there once before?

His splitting headache made it hard to think and it wouldn't take long for Dulivale to enter, now dressed more professionally in a buttoned white suit jacket and white pants with heels that made her much taller. On the front pocket was a badge, a four sided star with a ring around it and the letters 'TGA' engraved in the emblem.

Dulivale picked Hyde up by his arm "The sooner you spill it, the sooner we can reach a stable conclusion." She assisted him in taking a seat at the table then sat across from him. The single light in the room hung above them, making it seem like they were in the void of darkness. It might as well be.

"We worked together once, as friends I like to believe. But that's long behind us." Dulivale's words stung, "It's unfortunate to see a kid like you wrapped around Midare's finger. She had it long coming but you could have refused. Same goes for Mikael and Mary. But everyone in her agency willingly followed her lead. All I can do is try to lighten your sentences."

She would pause "However you in particular… might be facing the worst out of everyone in that agency."

…

Hyde didn't have any comment.

Dulivale closed her eyes letting go of her remaining sympathy. "Alright… now tell me," she tapped the photo of the girl "Everything leading up to the death of Sasaki Sasasemarve."

This is a story wrapped in layers of grief and plight. Finally Hyde had the pieces to remember who he was but regretted knowing it immensely after putting the puzzle together. He wasn't alone in this regard but his story was unique.

This is the story of how he could finally see the girl who stood behind.

────── 〔✿〕──────

3 days after the death of Levin, Kamui, and Noble Third's disband.

Hyde completely distanced himself from everyone in the agency. He didn't care about their injuries, he didn't care to know.

He didn't care…

He sat by the railings on the school roof secluded from the world as a whole. His cheek covered with a gauze and bandaids and his body still injured. If he made sudden movements or tried to stretch then the immense pain would come back.

All he had here were his thoughts but they were slowly eroding. He stared at the lighter in his hands and opened it letting the flame come out...then closed it. Everytime he opened it the flame ignited but when Levin did it, the flame was never there.

"..."

…

…

Someone's shoes came into view.

"Get up."

It was Cran…

"Get up." he repeated.

Hyde slowly looked up to see Cran looming over him with the same stare he gave back then. And Hyde would return the same look albeit more fed up with the state of things than Cran was.

"I can save you."

What kind of suggestion was this? After losing so many people to the far reaches of their personalities. Hyde dropped his head muttering "Just who am I?"

Cran's smile grew wide, now he had Hyde tied to a red string attached to his finger. It was fate, "I like to preface this by telling you that it's not as despairing as you think. I wouldn't come here to you if I didn't have something to deliver."

Hyde didn't respond, Cran twirled around and paced a few steps left. "Shiki told me that when you took her to the arcade, she really tried to kill you. She hated you a lot and was just following orders from Kamui to get rid of you detectives so you couldn't catch onto him. They had a super elaborate plan to set up your deaths in such a way that it would seem like poisoning from using magic and since Noble Third doesn't investigate many magic cases then your deaths would never be solved. And the police would be too occupied with investigating the murder of Dulivale and those children. Those poor poor children."

He leaned over the railings to look out at the vast open land and city on the horizon, "Your friends Yurobei and the other one don't want you near them either since you're incredibly weird. Everyone in this school thinks you're pretty repulsive. Mary in all her attempts trying to get you to notice her advances gave up. Does that make you jealous that she'll fall in love with another guy? Probably not since you never cared in the first place. If I didn't rush to that parking garage and saved Oscar, I bet you wouldn't even look off the edge of the building to see if he was okay or not. You'd just let em die because you don't care."

…

…

"What does that have to do with me?" Hyde said coldly.

Cran eyed him then started to walk "Follow me. I know someone who might bring a memory back or two."

And so Hyde did, beginning to follow the trail of black. Shiki took this path, Midare took this path, and a lot of people he knew did. The real question was if he was going to return alive.

Cran brought him to a grassy hill in Kyoto. Standing beside a different stone bridge than the one that led towards the shrine. He left Hyde there while he went to fetch this 'guest' of his.

Hyde stared at the shallow water alone. His head was empty and thoughts gone. Cran was right about him not caring for anything or even himself but he didn't understand why he felt this way. It was so compelling to feel this way…

"You!!!" a female voice shouted. Hyde was kicked into the river and quickly turned around to see who his attacker was.

A girl around the same height as Mary still dressed in her school uniform just as he was; she held a pistol with one hand aimed directly at him while glaring at him with sharp green eyes. Her soft brown hair was tied in short twin tails and her cheeks had a gentle red blush. Hyde was captivated by her beauty as if he had seen her before and he had! Her name surfaced from a memory.

"Sasaki…" Was all Hyde could say.

A click from the gun was heard and Sasaki scoffed. "What?" She took aim again and pulled the trigger multiple times until the top of the gun slid back. "Damnnit he gave me a fake gun!?"

"Hey hold on you!" Cran said from afar.

Sasaki tossed the gun about to run off, but before she did she gave Hyde one last look. He looked very pathetic sitting there allowing himself to die. This wasn't the same person she once knew. "Tch!" she turned her head and ran away before Cran could catch up.

"Crap..!" Cran hopped off the side of the bridge and landed on the grass in front of Hyde. "Looks like she got away before I could catch her. Guess I'll have to resort to plan B."

The coldness of the water finally set in and Hyde stood up unphased by his wet uniform. "Who...was that?"

"Our ticket to getting your memories back. Unfortunately she now has plans of her own." Cran shrugged "Hate to drag you everywhere but this time I got a place where our information won't run away."

"He doesn't look phased either. Did it not work? Maybe I have to hit him in the head a few times to get him to realize." Thought Cran.

────── 〔✿〕──────

Hyde and Cran were met by silence when entering the dormitory. No piano, none of his friends were hanging around the couch, just complete silence occasionally filled by the turning of a magazine page from Yamiko behind the counter.

Cran approached her with an outstretched arm "Rine says he wants to move in. Mind giving me a room key so I can get his room settled?"

Yamiko placed her magazine on the table to grab her keyring and pulled off a key. She tossed it to Cran "Third floor; room 20."

Cran caught the key and continued walking upstairs with Hyde. Where he took him wasn't the third floor, instead, a door tucked away in a corner where one hallway ended. The door was unrecognizable to many unless you stepped closer, like an optical illusion that door didn't exist if Hyde stood far from it. In fact he didn't notice this small hallway either.

Cran shook the doorknob making sure it was locked before pulling out a different key. "I found this just by poking my nose around. You won't believe where It goes."

A click followed by the creak of the heavy door. They entered and Cran shut the door behind leaving them in near darkness of the staircase they descended. Light came from a single room in this 'basement' and once exposing themselves to it, Hyde found himself in a file room?

Shelves and shelves of folders filled to the brim with papers, boxes on tables full of dust covered books and a board on the wall with post it notes and newspapers pinned to it. Cran quickly brought Hyde's attention away from the distractions and to a folder left out on one of the tables beside a cardboard box.

"I thought we were going to help Rine move in." Hyde asked.

Cran shook his hands "Not yet not yet! That'll come later. Here, you should read this." He took out a paper documenting Hyde's past, well a piece of it. "Yamiko has archives on all of us. Not everything's in explicit detail but I'm curious to know why she has this information."

Hyde read the document. Of course it had the usual name, occupation and…

His birth date was listed as unknown, as well as his birth place. Continuing on yielded much of the same results, even Yamiko placed a note on the side saying that he was a 'mysterious boy given to her'.

He flipped the page and that's when his eyes widened in horror. It was a old newspaper report that explained the supposed murder of Sasaki. There was a picture on the side of her body severely cut up supposedly with a knife. The culprit made no attempt to run or hide his identity.

There it was, a picture of young Hyde Tetsuya with an emotionless look on his face. No sadness, no happiness, no remorse, no regret…

nothing.

But Sasaki was alive and well..?

This report was written 7 years ago when Hyde was 10. He couldn't remember anything beyond being told to meet Yamiko at the train station. Nevertheless this crushed him inside.

"Is this…" he lowered the documents in his hands "...Really who I am?"

Cran shrugged "Is it..?"

This really was a question Hyde had to answer himself. He wasn't a murderer now but he was before. If he told this to the others, what would they think? Were they in the same boat as he was, a killer in their past life? A vile person who didn't feel anything when taking another's life?

Maybe this is why Hyde didn't care at all. Deep inside was this true persona, someone who killed an innocent girl, maybe more!

The article said Hyde was thrown into solitary confinement, a padded cell. How much of a threat was he to deserve this as a mere 10 year old…