With the ring of the bell, class was over…

Things were relatively normal, this peaceful time that the detectives used to enjoy was now a feeling too uncomfortable for them to burden. The changes and truth of their entire lives made living without taking action unpleasant to feel throughout the day.

Hyde sat by the railings on the rooftop opening and closing his lighter at random intervals with a calm mind. He turned his head to look beyond the bars of the railings thinking if he should jump off and end it all to reach the paradise that awaited all murderers and criminals.

A place where he could take his time and not have to think about the problems he faced. Sasaki, Levin, Cran… if he had a chance to speak to them one more time to convince them or to apologize for… for what exactly..? They were in the wrong but Hyde still wanted to apologize for not being enough.

Someone's shoes came into view. They placed their soft hands on Hyde's face and forced him to look up.

"..." Hyde blankly stared back at Hoka who was upset at him sulking alone. Joining her was Lloyd, Mary, well… seemingly everyone. They felt the same as he did; lost, afraid, confused, alone. Their melancholy expressed throughout the weather, a cold evening with a smooth breeze of wind blowing in seemingly random directions. And the grey cloudy skies covering every ounce of light.

"Why is everyone here?" Hyde nudged Hoka's hands away and stood up shaking off the ideas he had.

Mikael sat beside Him "Well uh…" he wanted to say something playful like but the overwhelming feelings in his heart prevented him from putting on that mask. "We really...don't know what to do now."

Shiki crossed her arms "I was dragged here."

Yulie promptly plucked the back of her head "You could at least look happy!"

Ibuki leaned on the railings. "Happy? How can we be happy when everything we once knew turned out to all be a lie?"

"That's the price of learning the truth." Shiki replied.

"Come on everyone, we should know what to do." Mary nervously laughed "W-we're detectives. Er… former detectives but we still have our skills."

Hyde made a nervous smile "I still don't know why you choose to be around someone like me."

"I guess you could say this bond is all we have now." Shiki turned around and yawned, "It's the only thing we know for sure is true."

What Shiki said was true. This friendship, whatever it was, Hyde could always come back to it without fear of it being torn away or revealed that it was fake all along. He stood up and closed his lighter, letting out a deep sigh.

"I want to say sorry guys for running away. I was being so stupid and I didn't know what to do. But now I think I have the answers I need."

"It's no problem!" Mary winked and Hoka made a V sign with her hand. Friends needed to rely on each other to get through tough times and they were all going through tough times.

Lloyd nodded at this "We were in a similar position after losing Kamui. Hell, we're still pretty lost ourselves."

"I hate to admit it but yes, we are not total geniuses." Yulie pouted. "But Soap, er, I mean Cran is still out there. The longer we mope around, the sooner he does who knows what."

Mikael stood up and pocketed his hands. "Best to finish things for real this time. We lost the cafe and we have a trial ahead of us. Feels like there's no light at the end of the tunnel."

Hyde looked at his lighter. There was no getting around it. This pain and sorrow he was going to have to live with. The future was uncertain. There's always a possibility of him getting lucky and who knows, winning the lottery. That'll turn his life around making him happier but it was just one of many possibilities. For now, right now, he could make the most of his life with his friends before the good times completely end.

"Tch! Screw this world!!!" He shouted and threw his lighter off the roof. Letting out all his frustrations in that one moment.

It made the others all cringe.

"Why did you do that..?" Ibuki questioned.

It was symbolic…

"Yeah…" Mikael agreed with him and lowered his head, they were not just dealt a bad hand at life but were fated to this path they took. If it were any other way then they wouldn't be the same. Hyde then regretted that he threw it and immediately left the rooftop to retrieve it again.

Normally they would head to the cafe afterwards but since it was closed they simply had nothing noteworthy to do until Midare found where Cran was heading. Their day was going to remain uneventful until Rine bursted into the dormitory lobby, surprising Yamiko behind the counter and Ibuki sitting at the couch.

She was wary of him after Cran's reveal. But he was practically begging for her help. "Cran he...he…"

"We know." Ibuki sunk in her seat. "We were all there when it happened."

"We have to go now before he does god knows what!" Rine exclaimed. "Where are the others?!"

Yamiko closed her magazine "Please relax Tangerine. We have no way of knowing what action he'll take next."

"Um…" Oscar peeked his head from around the corner of the stairs and stepped out with his hand raised. "I-I might have a way to find Cran. When I was held hostage he used me to locate special weapons. I think that might have something to do with what he's searching for."

Ibuki picked herself up and turned in her seat. "What would he need special weapons for if he wasn't going to use them?"

Oscar shrugged "I think it was to find something. Maybe if we do the same then we can find what he's looking for too."

Ibuki slouched over once more "Sounds like a waste of time if we aren't completely certain."

"And what other alternatives do we have?! We have to stop Cran at all costs." Rine said loudly. "Let's meet at the cafe. Tell the others too."

Ibuki dropped a sweat "Shouldn't we wait for Midare?"

"There's no time!"

Ibuki groaned and got out of her seat to gather the party to head to the cafe. Once they all got off their asses, they shockingly found out that the cafe was locked.

Mikael shook the door by its handle before stepping back. "Midare's not here yet to open it and we weren't given the keys to it."

Shiki crossed her arms under her shawl "I'm not surprised. Try lock picking the door."

"I would but our tools are inside." Mikael lowered his hat.

That's when Lambda and Lan came to their assistant, looking for Midare but not having a clue of her whereabouts. Luckily she was given a second key to the cafe and opened the door to the dark and lonely feeling cafe they all once worked at.

The chairs were flipped upside down on the tables and boxes full of bottles, ingredients and more filled the spot behind the counter. Dust littered the edges of the wooden framework and piled into balls in the corners of the room.

Hyde imagined what it was like before, then compared that to now. There was little time to remmence what was once here and no time to wait for Midare, wherever she was.

Oscar told them his idea of gathering all of the special weapons they had to potentially 'sense' whatever Cran was searching for. The idea was far fetched but still manageable. But Shiki had an even better idea.

She crossed her arms under her shawl "We might be able to find documents regarding Cran's plan if we look in the building we used to work at. I remember you 4 visiting to steal our hard work."

Mary sheepishly rubbed the back of her head, the idea being mostly her doing. And Yulie discreetly helped them. Shiki proposed they go back to nab their old documents as well as the special weapons they had left. "But I'm worried the TGA might've already cleared out our offices."

"Doesn't hurt to try!" Lambda threw down the wrapped sword she carried onto the table. The first of many special weapons they had, "Let's split up and do both."

"Splitting up? Isn't that a bit dangerous?" Lan worried before her Lambda smacked her on the back playful though it hurt still.

"They're brave enough to handle anything! Isn't that right guys?"

Mary hesitated but they were stressed for time "We aren't going to mess it up this time!"

Needless to say, she was nervous. Shiki frowned at her hidden reluctance. "Stopping crime is our duty but is it worth the cost of our lives?"

Mary paused briefly then nodded "M-maybe it is!"

Lambda cheekily grinned because it sounded really awesome "Hehe! Sis and I will go with Shiki just in case we need to hack into their system. For the best results of finding a powerful magic source, Hyde can go to the roof of some hospital in Osaka."

"I'll go tooー"

"You can't Yulie. Hyde's going to need you." Lloyd quickly interrupted.

Hyde raised an eyebrow "Why Osaka?"

Lambda raised her finger "You can find some pretty tall buildings over there and something tells me Cran is going to go far. You'll need to find the strongest magic source out of the many you'll feel."

It was a difficult task but Hyde was up to the challenge along with as usual Ibuki, Mary and Mikael with Rine joining them to oversee the operation. But Mikael sought to go with Shiki to give them an extra helping hand in case they ran into trouble. Instead, Hoka forced herself into their group not letting go of Hyde until he agreed to let her join them in their mission.

He pushed Hoka aside gently "I don't know why you're so eager to go but whatever."

"Maybe we'll find Midare along the way." Lambda marched towards the door "Alright team, let's move out!"

After the first group took their leave, Mary, Ibuki, Hyde, Yulie, Hoka and Oscar were left to prepare for their long trip. Rine was the first to break the silence "I'll get a bag to carry our weapons." He awkwardly shuffled out of the building followed by Hyde and the two children.

"You better take good care of me while I'm in my true form." Yulie flipped her bangs before her chest began to glow and within a flash of light, changed form back into a sword that fell into Ibuki's hands. She felt immense power just by holding the sword and gave it a few swings before setting it down on the table.

"I hope we're making the right choice by doing this on our own." Ibuki turned around and saw Mary take Midare's white trench coat from the coat rack and wore it despite the sleeves going past her hands.

She brought the sleeves to her face so she could smell it, "I'm really worried…"

"..." Ibuki nodded firmly without another word.

────── 〔✿〕──────

They took a train to Nara, heading to the same office the detectives infiltrated once to steal their reports on Evelynn, Nakata and the special weapons they had found. Mikael was surprised to hear they had a case on Nakata but then remembered that it must've come from the collusion between Kamui and Soap.

Shiki stopped at a distance from the building. "It's really odd because they used to work together but in hindsight now it seems they were all at each other's throats the whole time."

Lambda pointed at the police station located at the street corner "Is that the place you used to work at?"

"It is. Let's continue." Shiki led the group into the building.

Entering the black and white eerie building made evermore creepy by the empty lobby with a mix of lights on and lights that were out of power. From the window covered by curtains, light partially shined in giving some color to the colorless room.

The secretary at the counter looked up from her newspaper and in her old raspy voice said "Station's shutting down. You'll have to contact Osaka police if you want to investigate a crime."

Shiki took out the badge she kept for purposes like this. "We're investigators that previously worked in this building. We came to pick up some stuff we left behind."

The female secretary closed her newspaper "Go on right ahead." And when they left down the halls, she picked up her desk telephone calling a number. "Dulivale..? Seems like Midare's detectives are on the move…"

Mikael peeked his head up from the elevator shaft and climbed the rest of the ladder to enter their once lively attic office. "Well this is certainly a way to enter."

Their office room was more spacious than Midare's, looking much like the lobby of the dormitory with two couches and a table on one side of the room, two tables pushed together with computers and folders on top of folders and a small corner with a computer, file cabinets and other stuff that used to be Kamui's personal area.

Many of the decorations had been packed up in cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other and the room had to be lit up by a lamp because the dark cloudy skies weren't bringing in light from the small tinted windows.

Lambda bounced onto the office chair almost spinning herself away before Lan grabbed her chair from behind and pushed her towards the computer "Let's hack!"

Mikael was called over by Lloyd to help put the special weapons found in a cardboard box into a bag. Shiki on the other hand, was shifting through Kamui's file cabinets looking for any documents on Soap. What she found were many papers that should be shredded and that's what she did, destroying many reports and papers overfilling the shredder and getting lots of scrap pieces of paper on the floor.

"I think I found something~!" Lambda said in a tune. Shiki pulled Lambda's chair away from the computer to get a look at the hidden away files she accessed.

Shiki was unsure what she was looking at. Lan had to point out "It looks like a registry of names… and here… the ages and the place they're being sent to."

It was all children, Kamui must've been apart of the child trafficking ring but what made this worse was that the TGA was in on it as well. Lambda had unknowingly stepped herself into a whole other case.

Lambda peeked her head from behind Shiki "What is it? I decided to test myself and broke into their most secure files."

"It's not related to Soap but it's worth looking into. Can you put it on a flashdrive?" Shiki asked.

"Right on itー!"

"Oi oi! Is this elevator working now?" From the elevator shaft below, they heard a familiar voice. The voice of no one other than Dulivale. Lambda quickly got to work to extract as much data as she could while Lloyd, Mikael and Shiki looked for an escape route or place they could hide. Since much of room was already cleared and packed up, they had only one option.

Mikael slid open the window and turned to face Lambda and Lan "Well..?"

"T-the window!?" Lan nearly screamed.

Lambda took out the flashdrive and was handed a backpack full of special weapons to give to Hyde. She picked up her skateboard and ran to the window "That looks like a long drop." and it was quite the fall. "What about you guys?"

Mikael moved his poncho to show his red katana "We'll try to weasel our way out of this. If worse comes to worse, then We'll fight our way out."

"Wait, we're not joining them?" This was news to Shiki. Mikael's reasons for this were not the greatest. He said that he didn't want to get into any more trouble with the law since they were acting as vigilantes rather than detectives.

"So it's better to turn ourselves in? Is that what you're saying?" Shiki hissed.

The ladder in the elevator shaft fell and the machinery started humming. Lambda grabbed Lan by the arm as she screamed. Lambda jumped out back first and flipping back to line herself up with her skateboard. She carried her sister in her arms and used magic to mitigate some of the recoil when landing.

Mikael closed the window just as Dulivale along with two TGA officials arrived from the elevator. She stepped out looking around, the clack of her heels filling much of the silence, then directed her attention to the detectives. She had a look of disappointment for having to encounter them on bad terms again "What is it this time..?"

She sounded like she was going to let them off but it was her duty to arrest criminals that acted above the law. Mikael playfully shrugged "What can we say? Duty calls."

But Shiki wasn't going to go along with Mikael's plans. "Forget that! How about you tell us what this is!?" she pointed at the monitor with the registry of names. Dulivale took a look at it while Shiki explained "I didn't know the TGA was apart of Kamui's child trafficking scheme. This is a list of children, orphans, taken and sent to a magic research facility."

A magic research facility? Such a thing existed? Dulivale, during her time with the organization, never heard of magic research facilities. That kind of thing was banned by the TGA. But the officials who escorted her seemed to know something because they drew their pistols and shot the monitor as well as the PC to destroy the evidence.

Dulivale hopped back to avoid being hit "What are you doing?!" she shouted.

Her own guards pointed their guns at her "Destroying all the evidence. Are you crossing your oath to the Tokyo Magic Government Agency?" He spoke like a machine dedicated to the cause. Unwavering in his decision to join the TGA no matter how true and horrible the controversies and conspiracies behind the organization were.

Mikael unsheathed his sword and Shiki armed herself with a dagger. Lloyd wished he had Yulie for assistance and took cover behind stacked boxes. Dulivale had to make the choice that will affect the rest of her life forever. Either be subservient to the TGA or become an outlaw like the detectives.

"Why do I have to make a choice. We're supposed to enforce the law properly." Dulivale tried to reason with the two men.

"Eliminating hostiles."

"Fine then I chose to become an outlaw!" Dulivale fangs grew sharp and a single abstract wing of pure shadow emerged from her back to shield her from the bullets shot by the two men. The end of the wing balled up into a fist that slammed down on the two men who managed to dodge just in time.

"Shit they dodged it!" Dulivale hoped to disarm them or end the battle peacefully but the TGA grunts were skilled at their job of countering foes that used magic.

Mikael ran forward and swung his blade down as the TGA official blocked it with his pistol. He struck again and again only getting a scratch on the man's arm before he retaliated with a gunshot. Either it was luck or pure skill but Mikael managed to strike the bullet out of the air when he swung his sword wildly. The surprise of pulling off that feat made him hesitate for a brief moment, almost getting hit again had not Dulivale guarded him with her wing.

Shiki meanwhile, clashed her dagger on the second man's gun and twisted it around to cut his wrist making him drop the weapon. She kicked it away then was punched in the face and kicked on the side. Thankfully Duliavle picked up the gun and shot at both men once making him fall to hold their wounds.

Mikael stepped on the first TGA official's gun, keeping it in place "We'll have to escape out the window." he said to the others.

Lloyd slid open the window and dropped a sweat after seeing how far they would fall "Umm… We might die."

Dulivale grabbed Shiki's and his hand then sprouted a second wing. "Mikael, will you be able to escape on your own?" she asked.

He nodded with a grin "I got a plan."

With that confirmation, Dulivale hopped out of the window with Lloyd and Shiki fearing for their lives. Dulivale's wings safely glided them down...until.

"Here I come!" Mikael placed one foot on the window frame and jumped forward with all his might, grabbing onto Dulivale's leg making her freak as they descended uncontrollably and crashed to the ground. They were left in a pile on top of each other and it was only Mikael who found it humorous.

Shiki pushed him off from her back and stood up from the pile "That was idiotic and dangerous!"

Lloyd rolled off Dulivale to lie on his back "Agh… at least we made it out alive…"

The same couldn't be said for Dulivale who was crushed under the weight of 3 people taller than her. Her muffled voice eating the cold hard road "My back hurts…"

Shiki helped Dulivale back on her feet and brushed off her white suit and hair. "We have to keep moving before they find us."

They escaped from the area without being seen. Now the rest was up to Hyde and Lambda.