I woke up with a sharp pain on my forehead, then opened my eyes to a dark room and looked around for a few seconds. I couldn’t see a thing. Even after I had thought my eyes were adjusted to the darkness, I couldn’t even see my own hand stuck out in front of me.

“Why are the lights off in here? Isn’t it the middle of the day?” I thought to myself. On top of my head hurting and not being able to see anything, my face was hot and wet. I picked myself up off the floor and looked around again, but still couldn’t see anything. I walked forward until I hit a wall, then put my hand on the wall and started feeling around for a door handle, a light switch, or even a window. I couldn’t stand the dark.

Finally, after what had felt like hours, I found a door handle. I tried to twist it open, but it wouldn’t move at all.

“God damn it!” I screamed. Why wouldn’t the door open? The dark was really getting to me, and my head was still throbbing. I slumped against the wall and slid to the floor.

“What the hell is going on?” I muttered as I closed my eyes slowly, passing out once more.

I was awoken once more, this time by a loud bang from the door. The room was still dark, but my face wasn’t too hot anymore, though it was still wet. I rubbed my hoodie against my forehead to wipe off the dampness.

“Is anybody in there?!” A low voice yelled from the other side of the door.

“Yes! I can’t open the door from my side, though!” I yelled back.

“Gotcha! Get away from the door if you’re close!” Said the voice. It’s a good thing I wasn’t close to the door, because the person barely gave any time for me to move before I saw a blinding flash of light, followed quickly by the deafening sound of a gunshot. As the smell of gunpowder drowned my sense of smell, the door slowly opened, revealing a scruffy looking man holding a flashlight. My eyes recoiled at the sight of such a bright light.

“Are you OK?” The man asked.

“My head hurts, but besides that I think I’m fine. What’s going on here, though? Do you know?” I asked quietly.

“I got a call from your neighbors about an hour ago saying they heard gunshots, so I came as fast as possible. There’s a squad of three others searching the rest of the house as we speak,” He explained to me.

“Gunshots? What do you mean gunshots? Where are my parents? Where’s my sister?” I asked frantically.

“I think you’d better come on outside with me, kid. Even we don’t know what happened yet.” The man said as he grabbed my hand and led me out the door and to a set of stairs.

“I don’t remember having a basement,” I thought to myself, “what’s going on??” As we reached the top of the stairs, I looked around and noticed we were in the kitchen. The lights were on, and it was still light outside, though I could see the sun setting between the buildings. I saw flashing lights outside, maybe from an ambulance?

“Holy shit, kid, your face looks way worse in full light than I thought,” Said the man.

“Well that’s just rude,” I responded.

“Not what I meant,” He said, “Look.” He held out his phone’s camera.”

“What the…” I muttered. My face was almost completely covered in dried blood, and there was a pretty good-sized gash on my forehead.

“Let’s get outside, the paramedics can clean you up,” He said. We continued out to the front of the house, where a number of police were setting up crime scene boundaries and three paramedics were getting first aid kits ready.

“I thought you said there were only three others,” I said.

“Three others searching the house,” he responded, “there’s about ten people here, not including your neighbors.”

I looked across the street at their windows and counted four faces peering out at the scene. We walked to an ambulance at the far side of the street, where a short lady wearing a paramedic uniform was waiting for us.

“Is this the only one?” Asked the paramedic.

“Yeah, at least so far,” said the man.

“Got it. Thanks Takahashi,” she replied.

“No problem,” Takahashi answered. The paramedic tapped me on the shoulder.

“Let’s get that fixed up, huh?” she said as she patted the bumper of the ambulance. I took a seat on the bed of the ambulance and she began cleaning my forehead. So much was going on, and I was still way out of it from my headache.

“What’s your name? Mine’s Hina Ito,” said the paramedic.

“Uhhh, I’m Touma Tanaka,” I muttered.

“Nice to meet you, Touma,” said Hina, “All right, you’re all patched up.”

“That was quick,” I said, genuinely surprised at how fast she worked, “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Hina responded with a smile.

I looked around some more, and noticed that everyone was still moving around a lot. I could hear the running engines from most of the cars, so I figured that they couldn’t have been here for very long.

“How long have you guys been here for?” I asked.

“Oh, maybe twenty minutes,” Hina said, scratching the back of her head, “Though detective Takahashi has been here a bit longer. Maybe a half hour?”

A half hour; that meant Takahashi had been here for fifteen minutes before finding me. How had he not found anybody else? I looked around some more and saw that my dad’s car wasn’t parked in its usual spot in front of our house.

“Do you know where my dad is? His car is gone,” I asked Hina.

“Your dad’s car? What type is it?” Hina asked. She looked a little panicked.

“It’s a dark green Honda Fit,” I responded, “Why…” Before I could finish asking her why that mattered, Hina had run to one of the police cars on the opposite side of the street.

“Man , this is confusing,” I thought to myself, “nothing good is happening, though. That much I can tell. I hope everyone is ok.”

Another half hour passed in what felt like seconds, and detective Takahashi emerged from my house once more, this time carrying my little sister in his arms.

“Sana!” I yelled. She looked up at me slowly, her eyes full of tears. I got up to go to her, but the pain in my head quickly knocked me back in my seat.

“Sana, are you okay?” I asked as Takahashi set her down on the ambulance floor.

“Mhm,” she mumbled through a closed mouth.

“Oh thank god,” I thought.

“Kids, I’m gonna have you guys go to the station with Fumio there,” He motioned to a tall officer with dark black hair standing by the street, “We’ll get you some food and rest, OK?”

“But,” I started to say.

“No ‘but,’ you’re going,” Takahashi said, his face much more serious than before.

“OK,” I said, “Let’s go Sana.”

“OK,” She whispered. I grabbed her hand and we walked over to Mr. Fumio’s car.

“Mr. Fumio? Detective Takahashi said…”

“I know, let’s get going, Ok?” Mr. Fumio responded before even letting me finish.

A few hours had passed since we got to the station, but we hadn’t heard anything from Mr. Fumio, detective Takahashi, or any of the others. Sana was fast asleep on the couch in the lobby, but I couldn’t let myself sleep. My gaze fell on the window, revealing the skyline of downtown Tokyo. It was dark now, but the city lights made it seem almost brighter than earlier.

“One dead, one injured,” I heard from the TV, “There are no suspects as of yet.”

“That’s too bad,” I thought as my eyes shut slowly, “I wonder how bad the injuries are.”

“Hey kid, wake up,” I heard. I opened my eyes to detective Takahashi standing over me. I rubbed my eyes and sat up slowly. He was about to wake up Sana too, but I tapped him firmly on the shoulder and shook my head.

“She needs the rest, I think,” I whispered, still only half awake.

“OK, but we need to talk right now,” Takahashi said.

“Whatever you tell me, I’ll tell her when she wakes up,” I responded.

“If that’s what you want, then fine. Let’s talk,” He said in a lowered voice. I got up and followed him to his office, where we both sat down.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“Kid, I need to tell you this, but I need you to keep as calm as you can about it, OK?” He said, still in a lowered voice. His tone and facial expression started to worry me, and I started to think about the worst. The TV from earlier. What did they say? One dead, one injured? Surely…

“We found your mom,” he said, “She was in really bad shape when we got to her. They took her to the hospital, but she died about twenty minutes ago.” I was shocked. I didn’t want to believe him. My Mom? Dead? Nothing made sense; the only thing I could do was let out a silent stream of tears.

“Your dad was dead when we found him. He was in the trunk of his car, fifteen kilometers away. The driver seat was empty except for a note that read ‘yours truly, HA.’” He continued.

“What does that even mean? Why are my parent’s dead?!” I said through choked tears.

“We don’t know,” Takahashi said.

“Well then who did it?!” I asked, getting more frustrated.

“We don’t know,” he said again.

“Well then what do you know?!” I yelled at him.

“Only that you and your sister are OK,” he muttered through his clenched jaw.

“What do you know…” I mumbled as I sunk back in my chair. I felt my face getting hot again as tears began to stream down my face.

“We’re going to get the guy who did this. I promise you that,” Takahashi said. He grabbed my hand, “first, we have some things we need to figure out. Primarily, do you have any family that you can live with?”

“Not in Japan, my mom’s brother lives in the U.S.,” I answered through tears.

“That’s no good,” Takahashi said.

“Yeah, I agree. They hadn’t talked in years either, so I’d be surprised if he even knew about Sana,” I replied, trying to regain my composure.

“What about family friends?” He asked.

“Not really, no,” I responded, finally holding back any more tears.

“OK; I have an idea, but I don’t know if you’ll agree to it,” Takahashi started.

“It’s not like we have many options,” I said, drying my tears.

“You can live with me. I don’t have much room, so it’ll be tight, but we can make it work. Only if you want, of course,” He said. I was surprised; I mean, I’d only met this guy a few hours ago, but he was offering up something like this to us. Either this guy was crazy, or he had some kind of ulterior motive.

“I don’t know if we can impose on you like that,” I started to say.

“I wouldn't have offered if it was a bother to me,” Takahashi said in a firm voice.

“OK. If that’s really fine, then I’d really appreciate it,” I said, feeling relieved.

“I’ll get the paperwork filed. Next thing on our list is school, but we can take care of that later. For now, let’s get your sister up, OK?” He explained.

“OK,” I answered. I definitely didn’t want to tell Sana about what had happened on my own.

All things considered, Sana took the news fairly well. She cried, which made me cry more than I already had, but eventually she calmed down. I told her that we would be living with detective Takahashi from now on, which she was surprisingly on board with.

“You’re surprisingly OK with going to live with a stranger,” I said with a puzzled expression on my face.

“But he saved us, right? Why wouldn’t I be OK with that?” She asked, looking just as puzzled as me.

“I guess you’re right,” I responded. Maybe it was because she was so young, or maybe that was what she genuinely thought; either way, I was happy that at least something was going to work out for us. Detective Takahashi still had some work to do, so Sana and I tried to sleep on the couch. Sana was asleep again within minutes.

“I wish I could do that,” I thought. I was still in shock about what had happened. I was worried about what the future held for us, about how we would live from here on, about how Sana would grow up without parents. There was so much going through my head, I felt like I was going to puke.

“Touma?” Takahashi called from his office.

“Yeah,” I muttered back.

“Could you come here for a few minutes? We need to talk about a couple more things,” Takahashi said.

“I guess,” I said. I lifted Sana’s head off of my lap and stood up. There weren’t any pillows around, so I took off my hoodie and rolled it up. It was still blood stained from earlier, but I didn’t have any other ideas. I put the hoodie under her head and went into Takahashi’s office once more.

“You can take the jacket off the hook if you’re cold,” he said. I took it and sat down, the jacket across my lap.

“Alright. What are we going to do for your schooling? What’s your current situation like?” He asked.

“Mom taught us from home since I finished year five in elementary, and that was about a year before Sana was going to start elementary school. If I had to guess, I’d be a second year in high school, and Sana is probably in year eight?” I responded.

“Homeschooled? We’ll just go off your age for the sake of simplicity,” Takahashi said.

“Well, I’m sixteen, and Sana is eleven,” I said.

“You said Sana is at a year eight level and she’s only eleven?” Asked Takahashi, visibly shocked.

“Well yeah, mom taught her faster than the schools do. Plus, Sana always tried to do my work with me, so she’s picked up some things,” I explained.

“There’s a high school close to where I live, but you’ll have to take an entrance exam to get in. As for Sana, there’s a junior high school a little closer than the high school, so she can go into year three there. Do you think that would work?” He asked.

“I don’t see why not,” I replied, “which high school is it?”

“Asuka,” he replied flatly.

“You’re joking, right? That’s one of the top schools in Tokyo, how am I supposed to get in?” I asked almost angrily.

“Take the entrance exam, how else?” He replied. I felt like he was teasing me, but his expression was totally serious.

“Didn’t you say that your mother taught you at an accelerated pace? If you aren’t comfortable, you can try testing in as a first year,” he said. There was no way I was going to go in as a first year; even if I’d been out of school for a while, I had enough common sense to know that being a year older than everybody else would only get me looked down on.

“I can make it as a second year,” I said, though I didn’t quite believe it myself.

“I’ll call in the morning. For now, go get some rest,” he told me. I nodded my head and went back out to the waiting area where Sana was laying. She opened one of her eyes.

“What were you guys talking about in there?” She asked me.

“Stuff that you can worry about tomorrow. Go back to sleep,” I said with a soft smile on my face.

“If you say so,” she muttered, closing her eye. I decided to follow suit, and finally, after so long, was able to fall asleep.

“Touma, wake up,” Sana whispered in my ear.

“Hnggnh, I don’t wanna,” I mumbled back. She blew a cold stream of wind right into my ear, sending a chill down my back.

“Mr. Takahashi said we’re gonna go to his house now,” she said quietly. I stood up and promptly flicked her on the forehead.

“Don’t wake me up like that again, got it?” I ordered.

“You’re no fun, you know that?” Sana exclaimed.

“What of it?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she murmured, “can we go now? Mr. Takahashi is waiting for us.”

“Yeah, whatever,” I said. She led me to the elevator where the detective was waiting for us.

“Is there anything you guys want for breakfast?” Takahashi asked.

“Maybe some coffee?” Sana quickly answered.

“You’re way too young for that, it’ll stunt your growth. How about some pastries and tea from that café?” He asked, pointing to a small shop across the street. It looked pretty old, but the sign was a bright green and read “Café Tranquille.”

“That works, I’m actually pretty hungry right now,” I began, but was quickly interrupted by Mr. Takahashi.

“Crap, I forgot you guys were still dirty,” he explained, pointing at my head, “we’ll have to come back after you’re all cleaned up.”

“Couldn’t you just go in and get food to go?” Sana asked with a confused look on her face.

“Hehe, I suppose you’re right. What do you want?” He asked.

“May I have a chocolate croissant and an iced chai tea?” Sana asked with her puppy-dog eyes. She knew he wasn’t going to say no to her if she asked like that. It was almost scary how aware she was of her manipulative ability.

“I guess that’s ok,” Takahashi said, feeling his pockets. It looked like he was maybe worrying about how much cash he had on hand. After all, he definitely hadn’t planned on having to feed two kids and himself.

“May I just have a plain croissant?” I asked.

“Sure, sure,” he replied, looking a little too relieved. We waited by the entrance while Mr. Takahashi got our food.

“Are we gonna be OK?” Sana asked with a slight frown.

“We will,” I said, “As long as we’re together, we’ll be OK.” I didn’t even believe myself, but I had to be strong for both of us. After a few minutes had passed, Takahashi emerged from the café.

“Got the food!” Mr. Takahashi said with a wide grin, “They gave me an extra croissant if you guys want to split it.”

“Did you get food Mr. Takahashi?” Sana inquired.

“Nope, just a coffee,” he replied proudly, though that was nothing to be proud of.

“Then you take the extra,” Sana said promptly.

“If you insist,” Mr. Takahashi said, almost as if he were hoping that Sana would respond that way. We started walking to his car, which was parked a block away from the station.

“Mr. Takahashi, why did you park so far away?” Sana groaned. I was thinking the same thing.

“Because parking in front of the station costs money, and the parking garage is only for squad car,” Takahashi explained to us.

“Cheap-ass,” I muttered under my breath, almost amused.

“What was that?” Takahashi asked.

“Nothing!” I snapped. Crap, I didn’t mean to say that out loud.

“He called you a ‘cheap-ass’,” Sana said. I froze in my tracks.

“I’m not cheap, just economically inclined,” Takahashi said with an amused grin, “Touma, if you’re going to say something like that about someone, at least say it to their face next time.”

“Yes sir,” I replied sheepishly. I could tell that he let me off easy.

Mr. Takahashi pulled out his car keys, and as he unlocked his car, I saw the lights from a nearby car flash on and off.

“Is this your car?” I asked, pointing at the car whose lights I had just seen.

“Yeah, it is,” he replied with a grin. The car was a 1983 Trueno GT Apex, from a really famous racing anime.

“Are you a nerd?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied candidly, “You got a problem with that?”

“Nope,” I said, trying not to laugh. I opened the door and slid the passenger seat forward so Sana could get in, then got in after her.

“How far away do you live?” Sana asked.

“Not too far,” Takahashi replied, “maybe ten minutes away?”

Thirty minutes later, we arrived at Mr. Takahashi’s apartment.

“Ten minutes my ass,” I thought scornfully. How poor an internal clock could this guy possibly have? We got out of the car and headed up the stairs to his door. The stairs were so rusty and old that I was almost scared to walk up them, but after seeing Mr. Takahashi nearly jump up them, I walked up them comfortably. We followed him to the end of the walkway, and finally stopped at his door. It was a little rusty, though not as rusty as the stairs.

“Come on in,” Takahashi said as he walked in the door. The apartment wasn’t very big; there were two small rooms, a bathroom, and a main living area. The décor was lacking, with no more than a couch and an entertainment stand in the living room. Takahashi led us to the room on the left side of the hall, right next to the kitchen.

“This is where you guys can sleep. I’ll have to move my desk and computer back into my room, but we can do that pretty quickly. Right now I only have one extra futon, so you’re sleeping on the floor for tonight Touma,” Takahashi quickly explained, pointing to the folded futon in the corner of the room. I looked at the desk Takahashi was referring to. It was a pretty small desk, but it had built in shelves on either side of it. Not to my surprise, each shelf was full of manga.

“You looking at something?” Takahashi asked curiously. He must have noticed how long I had been looking at the shelf for.

“Nope,” I replied, “When will we be able to pick up more bedding?”

“I’ll go get some tomorrow,” he answered, “for now, can you help me move the desk and computer into my room?”

“Sure,” I responded. He was right about it not taking too long to move, as we were able to move everything into his room within three or four minutes of starting. We rejoined Sana back in what was now our room and continued talking.

“Touma, I called Asuka High and asked about you taking an entrance exam earlier this morning,” Takahashi started, “they told me that they don’t usually allow it, but that they had a student leave. You’ll be taking the exam in a week, so start studying up.”

“I’m not sure if that’s lucky or not, but I’ll study for it at least,” I mumbled back.

“What about me?” Sana asked curiously.

“Meio Junior High is pretty close to here, so you can go there whenever you’re ready Sana,” Takahashi answered. A large smile sprouted on Sana’s face.

“Can I start when Touma starts?” she asked intently.

“Sure, I think that can work,” He replied, his gaze focused on me.

“I guess I kind of have to get in, huh,” I mumbled.

“Damn right,” Takahashi replied, ruffling my hair.

“Could you not? My head still hurts,” I explained, gesturing toward my bandaged forehead.

“Right, sorry,” he answered, “Well I’m gonna go get your clothes and stuff from the other house. Is there anything in particular you guys want me to grab? Maybe some of your books?”

“Actually,” Sana began. She listed off every item that she wanted from her old room; honestly, it made me feel bad for Mr. Takahashi. He was going to be doing a lot of lifting for the rest of the day.

“And you?” Takahashi said, steering his eyes toward me.

“Nothing I can think of,” I said. His expression changed from stress to relief in a matter of seconds.

“You sure?” He persisted.

“Come to think of it, I think my phone is probably still over there. It’s the same one you have, but in a dark red case. If you can’t find it, no worries.” I said.

“Gotcha. I’ll be back in a while. If you get hungry, there’s leftover takeout in the fridge,” Takahashi said as he walked out the door, “See you kids later.”

As soon as Takahashi closed the door behind him, Sana looked at me and quietly asked, “Are we going to have a funeral?” The question took me by surprise.

“I don’t know,” I replied, tears forming in my eyes, “We should do something for them. Let’s ask Takahashi when he gets back.”

Sana nodded, then slumped on to the floor. We really had nothing to do, so I suggested the first thing that came to mind.

“I’m still kinda tired, aren’t you? Let’s take a nap until he gets back.” I said as I rolled out the futon from the corner across from where I stood. I gestured at Sana for her to lay down.

“I’ll look for a blanket or something first,” Sana said, standing up.

“Suit yourself,” I responded, laying down on the floor next to the futon. I closed my eyes, and all the sounds around me slowly began to fade away as I fell asleep.

I opened my eyes again, but this time all I could see was an open door and the silhouette of a man standing in its opening. The rest of the surrounding room was pitch black. I tried to stand up, but my legs wouldn’t move.

“I’m sorry, Touma,” the silhouette said in a distorted voice as it slowly approached me, “I’m sorry I have to do this.”

“Do what?!” I asked, panic setting in my voice. “Who are you?! Where am I?!” The silhouette continued walking towards me yielding no response, as if it couldn’t hear me. As the silhouette stood directly in front of me, it raised its hand above its head, as if it were about to hit me. I tried to move out of the way, but my body still wasn’t responding.

“Wait,” I began, but the silhouette had already begun its downward strike, connecting with my head. I fell to the ground, and the light from the door slowly faded away.

“Touma, wake up,” Sana said as she violently shook my shoulder, “Mr. Takahashi is back.”

“Already?” I asked as I sat up.

“You were asleep for like four hours, but yeah he’s back,” Sana replied.

“Good morning, princess,” Takahashi said with a grin. “I found your phone.” He threw the phone into my lap.

“Thanks,” I muttered.

“Sure. I also grabbed some of your books,” He pointed to a bag at his feet. “I like your taste.”

“You can have those, I don’t read that much anymore,” I started, but was promptly interrupted.

“Reading is a good escape from reality, kid. Even if you don’t particularly like what you’re reading, it takes your mind off of your troubles,” Takahashi explained. “Just take the books, OK?”

“OK,” I said half-heartedly. As I grabbed the bag, a few books spilled out. My heart dropped, as I realized why he had said that he liked my taste.

“Why did you only grab my manga?” I asked, my face pointed straight at the ground.

“I wanted to see how you’d react after you realized I knew you liked manga. Plus I want to read that one,” Takahashi said, pointing toward my copy of Rascal Dreams of Cat Girl Senpai. I felt my face turn bright red. Takahashi burst out laughing.

“Oh man! That was worth all that searching,” he said between breaths. “Your face, oh my God!” I was tempted to throw one of the books at him, but I figured that it probably wasn’t a great idea to do that. Sana was also having a fit of laughter. Normally I would’ve joined in, but they were laughing at me, so any laughter was unacceptable.

“Would you guys shut up?” I begged as I picked up the books that had fallen out of the bag. They were still laughing, so I stood up and stormed out of the room.

“I guess it’s good that Sana isn’t thinking too much about what’s happened,” I thought to myself, though I was still mildly upset that they were laughing at me.

“It’s not too late, so we probably have time to get more bedding,” Takahashi said as he emerged from our room. “Unless you just want to wait ‘til tomorrow. We can do that, too.”

“I’d rather not just sleep on the floor if it can be avoided,” I answered.

“So yes, then?” Takahashi asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. “How far to the closest store?”

“Summit is only a few blocks from here,” Takahashi started. “We should be able to get pretty much everything you guys need from there. There’s also a Uniqlo not far from here if you don’t like the clothes at Summit.”

“Couldn’t you have grabbed clothes from…” I began, but was once again interrupted.

“I figured you guys should have a fresh start, and the first place to start on that is a new set of clothes, you know?” Takahashi explained. I appreciated the sentiment, but all new clothes were going to be pretty expensive.

“Don’t worry about the money,” Takahashi said, as if he could hear my thoughts, “I’ve got more than enough. Living cheap does wonders for your bank account.”

“You say that like it’s cool to live cheap,” I said flatly.

“It’s cool to have money, isn’t it?” He retorted.

“I suppose. Can we go now? I’d like to get there and back before dark if possible,”

“Yeah, let’s get going,” Takahashi confirmed. “Come on Sana, we’re getting clothes!”

“YES!” Sana yelled as she ran from our room to the door. “Well? Let’s go!”

“Yeah, yeah,” I sighed as we walked out the door. “We’re right behind you.”