The house was dark and quiet, silent save for the padding of tiny footsteps on wood floors.

  The young boy whimpered at the long shadows crawling along the walls. He’d woken up from a frightful nightmare, and his mother was nowhere to be seen.

  He shivered at the top of the stairs, looking down into the dark hallway.

  “Mommy?” he called, to no reply.

  He sniffled, taking one step then another down the stairs.

  This wasn’t the house they’d lived in before, so they didn’t have any furniture. None of the pictures or chairs, none of his toys or books or games. It made the house feel cold and empty.

  A crash came from the kitchen and he trembled, calling out “Mommy?” once again.

  More noise came from the kitchen, and he tiptoed towards it. The door was cracked open, letting just the littlest of light through. He nudged the door and began to go through, stopping when his toes got wet.

  He looked down at the puddle of water, trailing up to the broken gss cup on the ground. Just beyond that was a trail of red, dripping onto the tiles.

  The door fell open more, and he looked up.

  His mother was sleeping on the ground, a red puddle slowly growing around her.

  “Mommy?” the boy called out, inching forward despite the water on the ground. Silly Mommy. Their bed was upstairs, and she’d spilled water everywhere.

  He approached her limp form, shaking her shoulder. She didn’t stir.

  “Mommy?” he said. “Mommy, le’s go bed. Sleepy. Mommy? Mommy? Mommy!” He began to sob as his mother continued to not respond. He didn’t understand! Why wouldn’t she answer him? He was scared!

  “Shit, there’s a kid?”

  He looked up, seeing a man standing by the other door, the one that led outside. His bck clothes were covered in the same red that was spttered on the ground around his mother.

  The man began to approach, just as the child let out a loud wail.

  And suddenly everything was bck.

  Kaoru sat back against the sleek bck couch as the screen in front of him dimmed and lifted back into the ceiling. He scratched behind Patch’s ears, contempting.

  “What do you think, Master?” Patch asked. “Are you willing?”

  Kaoru frowned. It wasn’t like he had much of a choice, right now. He only got choices when he was doing well, and after a string of bad missions (all successful, for the most part, but he hadn’t been able to keep to his vilin role very well, much to Patch’s superior’s chagrin), he had this mission and one he wasn’t willing to do, involving an implied history of molestation, and threats of further in the main work. There were some lines he wasn’t willing to cross.

  “Yes, alright,” Kaoru said, rising from the couch. He pushed his bangs out of his face, tilting his head back with a heavy sigh. He straightened himself up and looked down at Patch. “Let’s make the preparations to go.”

  Patch yipped as it jumped from the couch, prancing over to the pod. Kaoru made to follow, but paused by the Memory Lock. Deftly, he pushed a series of buttons, something he’d done many times before. The screen lit up, showing off the day he’d died, the way he dashed out into the road to save Ayumu, the way Sayuri cried over his body.

  That had already been twelve lifetimes ago. Kaoru felt so disconnected from it, like it was no longer him in that world. He knew it was, the Memory Lock made sure of that, but it still felt surreal to him.

  He went to click a button to close the Lock, but misclicked and instead found himself looking at a memory that his stomach lurch. A younger him, with three little girls throwing themselves at him, the smallest of them trying to climb on his back. His sisters. He couldn’t remember their names anymore. If he opened the Lock further he knew it would come to him, but their names always seemed to fade quickly, even if he tried to keep a tight hold on them.

  They shared features Kaoru recognized in himself. Sandy hair inherited from his mother’s side, small frames and ruddy cheeks, upturned noses. All identical, until you got to the eyes. Kaoru had ended up with their mother’s green eyes, and the eldest girl had ended with their father’s red. The green had split and fractured between the youngest two, leaving the middle sister with yellow and the youngest with blue. They only thing any of their eyes had in common was their jewel like shine, just like his aunt’s.

  Even without the Memory Lock, unbidden memories of the girls began to flood Kaoru, making him weak in the knees. The youngest was always the most delicate of the girls. She cried easily-- was she okay after Kaoru’s death? Who had dried her tears? The middle sister was the fighter, more strong willed. She was always so angry instead of sad. If she got hurt, she’d rage and scream instead of cry. The one boyfriend Kaoru had met had gotten the tires of his bike sshed after he cheated on her.

  It was the oldest of his sisters who was always trying to ease Kaoru’s burdens (though caring for his sisters had never been a burden), always acting more mature than she had to. Kaoru was always acting like a parent, but she acted like a parent to the youngest girls too. Was she… Who was drying her tears, letting her know she wasn’t alone?

  “Master, it’s ready!” Patch decred.

  “Right,” Kaoru said, taking one st gnce at the screen before letting it shut down and heading over to Patch.

  He climbed into the pod and waited for Patch to jump in as well before shutting it.

  He needed to do this, to get back to them. If he could complete all one hundred worlds, he could go back to his world, and prevent those tears.

  “Preparing to send to world… Gathering host’s memories… Analyzing host’s skills… Data successfully gathered. Entering world in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…”

  And everything went white.

  On the street of a nondescript house in the suburbs, Detective Ryōta Nakai stood looking over the notes taken from the initial look through of the house where the body of Nanaka Maki, twenty-seven, had been found.

  The house was retively empty, having no furniture or personal affects in it. The only items of note had been a bedroll on the third floor, a box with a few dishes and nonperishable food items, and a box of clothes for a mother and child.

  A vein twitched in Ryōta’s forehead.

  Said child would not stop crying.

  Riku Maki, three years old. He had been found next to the brutalized body of his mother by their neighbor when he had, as he was doing now, screamed his lungs off for his mother. He’d calmed down for an all of three minutes when he’d been told they were there to help, but had started screaming again when he was told he couldn’t see his mother.

  “Will someone shut him up?” Ryōta growled, pinching the bridge of his nose. It had been almost half an hour. He was getting a headache and the screaming was distracting.

  “Sorry, Nakai-san, we’re trying.” Ryōta turned to gre at the rookie he’d been paired up with for the investigation.

  Naito Mochizuki was as fresh faced and incompetent as they came. He’d barely finished his training two months ago, hardly ready to get on the field with Ryōta. He looked too… pure for such dirty work, and he stood out more than a whore in church with his slick silver hair and pale skin and bck eyes. He was, on top of it all, a twig. Any vilin out there would snap him like a fucking pencil if they got their hands on him.

  Mochizuki was, in all regards, a dunce. If he thought he could make it in their field…

  The man in question cringed, hands together as he bowed in apology. “The social worker should be here soon, Nakai-san. No one here is really equipped to take care of children…”

  If that wasn’t the fucking truth…

  A car pulled up, and a tall woman with an elegant bun and sharp business suit stepped out. Her eyes zeroed in on Ryōta and she marched over to him, heels clicking on the harsh gravel. She stopped on the other side of Mochizuki.

  “You are Detective Nakai, correct?” she said, continuing without waiting for his answer. Her gaze turned towards the crying brat. “And I assume that’s the boy. Tch. Imbeciles. No one can care for children anymore…”

  Without taking another moment, she began her march towards the screaming heathen and the group who’d been trying to calm it.

  “Hey, you can’t come this way!”

  “Sorry!”

  Ryōta growled as his attention was once again pulled away from the case and towards yet another disturbance. A young man pushed through the crowd, followed by a tan and white dog. A border collie mix. Well trained enough to keep by the man’s side without needing a leash. The man himself was tall, taller than Ryōta, and broad. Light brown hair, tan skin. A panicked expression. Suspicious…

  The man skidded to a stop, looking between the house and the bodybag on a stretcher being loaded into the waiting car.

  “Shit… Shit, no, that’s- That’s Nanaka’s house…” He looked around wildly as Mochizuki went to approach him. Mochizuki cleared his throat to get the man’s attention.

  “You knew the deceased?” he asked.

  The man’s eyes went wide. “De… Deceased? I… Shit…” He looked back towards the house. “I helped her pick it out just a couple weeks ago, I was supposed to come show her around today-”

  The man cursed under his breath, but the way he was so fidgety, Ryōta could tell he was hiding something. He approached. “Detective Nakai, I’d like to ask you-”

  The man looked around wildly again, eyes going wide. “Where’s Riku?” He followed the sound of the crying, immediately running over to the source and the group. The menace had been set on the ground, and the man leaned down to pick it up, though it was fighting against the man the entire while. “Oh thank god you’re okay…”

  The brat wailed louder, making Ryōta grit his teeth. “Oh for fuck’s sake…”

  “You shouldn’t curse where children can hear you, Nakai-san,” Mochizuki said, leaning over with his hands behind his back.

  Ryōta glowered. “Go make yourself fucking useful,” he said, kicking Mochizuki towards the group around the man.

  Mochizuki yelped, rubbing his backside as he obediently followed after the man.

  The man gently rubbed the boy’s back, speaking softly, too quiet to hear over his sobs until Naito was right within the circle.

  “There you go, gotta breathe now, right?” the man murmured encouragingly. “I know right now’s scary, right? All these weirdos hanging around and you can’t find Mama.” The boy hiccuped and nodded. “You gotta be brave though, alright? Gotta be a brave big boy for Mama.”

  “Where Mommy?” the boy demanded.

  The man hesitated, looking over to the car that held his mother’s body. “She’s… gonna be gone for a little while.”

  Tears welled up in his eyes again, and he looked ready to continue wailing. “Mommy come back?”

  “I… Hmm. We’ll see. But she wouldn’t have left if she didn’t think you could be brave. So, can you be brave?” The boy shook his head. The man wiped his tears away. “Really? Well then, I must be thinking of the wrong Riku Maki, who Mama told me was a big, strong, brave boy. I think the one in my arms is just a little boy.”

  The boy shook his head stubbornly, and even though he still looked ready to cry, mumbled “I be brave.”

  The man smiled and patted the back of the boy’s head, urging him to y his head down on his shoulder. “Good boy, good boy. You must be sleepy, hmm? Take a nap, and it won’t hurt so much.”

  “Mommy back after nap?” the boy said.

  “Hmm.”

  Blessed silence filled the street. Naito smiled at the man. “You seem very good with him.”

  The man chuckled, his tone strained. “Yeah… I suppose. It surprised me a little, actually.”

  Naito raised a brow. “Oh? You don’t have a close retionship with him? But you knew his mother…”

  The man adverted his eyes, looking back towards the house sadly. “Yeah… Sorry, let me introduce myself. Masami Miyazaki. I’m Nanaka’s older brother. Nanaka only technically moved in a few days ago. We haven’t had much contact in a few years, we lived too far away and had different lives to live… Truth be told, I didn’t even know about Riku until Nanaka told me a few weeks ago.”

  Naito nodded along to Miyazaki’s words. “I see,” he said. “I’m sorry for this sort of family reunion.”

  The social worker cleared her throat before Naito could go on. “I hate to interrupt the investigation,” she said, in a tone that implied she was not sorry at all, “but I would like to verify some things with Miyazaki-san so he can cim custody of the boy until the father can be found. I will return him to you for your own… questioning, momentarily.”

  The social worker marched off, Miyazaki following behind with his dog trailing behind him. Mochizuki returned to Ryōta’s side.

  “He’s not taking the brat,” Ryōta said before Mochizuki could say anything.

  Mochizuki tilted his head as his eyes went owl like. “Oh? But he’s Maki-kun’s uncle, isn’t he? There’s no other proof of other retives, so the uncle is the best option, isn’t he?”

  Ryōta scoffed, flipping his notebook closed. “You’ve got a lot to learn, rookie. Get back in the house and tell me what you see.”

  Mochizuki straightened and saluted Ryōta, turning and leading the way to the house. Ryōta followed, hands deep in the pockets of his coat.

  “The front door was untouched until the neighbor who reported the murder entered,” Mochizuki said. This much Ryōta knew. “And by that I mean it probably hadn’t been opened in months, or even over a year. Only someone like the neighbor would have been able to open it. The lock wasn’t done up, but it was so rusted that the door was stuck. Maki-san probably used the kitchen door for everything, despite the hassle it was.”

  Mochizuki pointed to the rusted, but unlocked, lock of the door and the bck marks on the floor. Photographs had been taken of them and there’d been specution that the killer had to be a strong man (like Miyazaki) to be able to open it and enter the household. But Ryōta had ruled it out, because-

  “It also couldn’t have been the killer who opened the door because of the fact it’s so heavy. Even if they’d managed to open it, it would have made a lot of noise, which would have alerted Maki-san to the fact someone was in her house,” Mochizuki continued. “Upon hearing the noise, she likely would have been brought to this front area to see what it was, and her body would have been found here, or trails of blood leading into the kitchen if she was dragged. The only other entrance was the kitchen door.”

  Mochizuki led the way into the kitchen. He stopped at the doorway, leaving space for the crew to gather blood samples and other evidence from the room.

  “So the killer walks in through the door she forgot to lock as Maki gets a drink, stabs her while her back’s turned, and leaves,” Ryōta said, rubbing the back of his neck. “What else?”

  “That’s not the full story,” Mochizuki said. Carefully moving around the crew, he came to the back door, swinging it back and forth. Ryōta gritted his teeth at the creak the door made, and Mochizuki’s obnoxious grin. “There’s no sign of forced entry. The lock wasn’t picked, it’s not broken. The door was unlocked.”

  Ryōta gave Mochizuki a look. “So a single mother of a crying brat forgot to lock the door. Tragic, but we’d already deduced it.”

  Mochizuki tapped his chin, head tilted to the side as he looked up to the ceiling. “True, true. You do know everything, Nakai-san. But what about the cigarettes and alcohol?”

  Ryōta’s eyes narrowed at Mochizuki. “There weren’t any cigarettes or alcohol,” he stated. How was Mochizuki pulling things out of thin air…

  “Oh, no, I hadn’t found the actual sources yet,” Mochizuki said, ughing as he waved his hand about dismissively. “But alcohol stains differently than water so that’s what I thought was on her sleeve and there were cigarette ash smudges on the inside of her wrist. Do you think she rubbed them when anxious? It was my first thought, but you know better than me, Nakai-san.”

  Ryōta ignored Mochizuki’s continued ramble. Still, Mochizuki followed behind him (still talking) as he made his way outside.

  If one wasn’t looking for it, the footprints in the dead grass wouldn’t be noticed. Difficult, due to how many people had come through since that morning, but Ryōta found the smallest of the footprints. (While being average in height and weight she’d had strangely small feet for an adult woman)

  Mochizuki continued to ramble as he followed behind Ryōta over to the fence. It didn’t take long to find a small pile of cigarette ash next to a dirt pile, a space that didn't have much of anything growing around it. The ash had been flicked over the fence, so it created a small bck pile on the concrete on the other side.

  Ryōta looked back towards the house. From his position, he couldn’t see the kitchen door or through the kitchen window. The only window he could see was the one that led to the living room. Despite not being so far away, he couldn’t really hear the crew members coming in and out of the house. Ryōta’s brows furrowed, a scenario coming together.

  Further down the fence was a trashcan, where Ryōta found an empty bottle of alcohol and a ruined package of cigarettes. The stench was heavy. It had been dampened, making the cigarettes unusable. She’d probably tossed the box in first, poured the bottle out over it, then tossed the bottle. He couldn’t deduce how much she’d drunk from the bottle before throwing it away. He’d need to wait for the autopsy report for that.

  “Back inside,” Ryōta said, shoving Mochizuki’s shoulder. Mochizuki cheerily followed behind him.

  “Did you find something, Nakai-san?” Mochizuki asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

  Ryōta took out his notepad and scratched out the specutions he’d had on the killer. They were all useless now. “After putting the brat to bed, she went outside for a drink and a cigarette. She left the door open so she could get back in, since she hadn’t brought her keys out with her.” Those had been found by the bed in the upstairs bedroom with the rest of her belongings. “In that time, she couldn’t see or hear the back door. It would have been ample opportunity to get into the house unnoticed. This is added by the extra few moments to get to the trashcan to throw her things away, likely with the intent to not pick them up again. She entered the house, getting a cup of water to sober herself up before going to bed. However, her murderer was already in the house when she entered. That being the case, it wouldn’t have been very difficult to murder her.”

  Mochizuki cpped his hands, eyes having gone wide in appreciation. “Wow, you’ve got it all figured out, Nakai-san! We came to the same conclusion!”

  Ryōta gred at him and Mochizuki pouted, pcing his hands on his hips while tilting his head.

  “You weren’t listening to me at all were you!?”

  “Why would I?”

  “I’m supposed to be your partner-!”

  Mochizuki was quickly silenced by a death gre from Ryōta. Ryōta turned on his heels, heading back towards the house. Behind him, Mochizuki’s shoulders slumped and he sighed heavily.

  “Yeesh… Always so difficult…”

  He trailed after Ryōta through the house and back out to the front. The social worker bowed to Miyazaki as Ryōta and Mochizuki approached. Riku had woken up and, while no longer crying, was petuntly sitting a ways away on the concrete sidewalk, back turned on the two adults and arms wrapped around his knees.

  “Thank you for your time, Miyazaki-san,” the social worker said. “I’ll be by in a few days time to make sure your address is temporarily suitable for a child.”

  Miyazaki chuckled awkwardly while rubbing the back of his neck. “Of course… And I’ll work on finding somewhere with more room for both of us.”

  The social worker bowed once more and left Miyazaki’s side, coming to join Ryōta and Mochizuki. Miyazaki went over to Riku, kneeling in front of him. “Maki-kun will be going with Miyazaki-san,” she stated, leaving no room for argument. “And he will not be interrogated today.”

  Ryōta glowered. “Brat’s got a short attention span, we have to find out what he knows-”

  “At a ter date,” the social worker stated, unphased by Ryōta’s foul attitude despite Mochizuki practically vibrating with nerves behind him. “That child has been traumatized by the death of his mother. He’s in no position to be interrogated by someone with no tactical grace at this time. The earliest I’ll allow it is tomorrow.”

  Ryōta’s eyes widened. “Tomorrow-!?”

  “Tomorrow,” the social worker reiterated. She folded her hands in front of her over her clipboard. “Which one of us was it that majored in child psychology? It was me, in case you were simply too enraged to understand that.” She turned sharply on her heels away from them and towards her vehicle. She looked back over her shoulder. “Oh, and Miyazaki-san and I will be in contact, so if I find you’ve done anything untoward, I’ll be having words with your superior.”

  Without another word, the social worker walked off and climbed in her car, quickly driving off.

  Ryōta growled. This. This was why he hated dealing with social workers. Why he hated taking cases where children were involved. There were too many fucking restrictions.

  With a sharp turn that made his long coat fre around him, Ryōta turned to bark out an order to Mochizuki, only to find that he was already gone. When his eyes finally nded on him again, he was leaning over Miyazaki’s shoulder.

  Ryōta growled, but turned around to head back into the house for one final walkthrough before heading back to the office.

  “Come on, Riku-kun,” Miyazaki said, holding out a hand for Riku. “Do you want to come with me?” Riku shook his head, not looking up at Miyazaki. “Do you just want to sit here all day?” Riku shook his head again. Miyazaki hummed, shifting to sit on his butt. He leaned his elbow on his knees, chin on his fist. “Is there something you do want…?”

  “I want Mommy,” Riku said, voice still horse from his screaming fit earlier.

  Miyazaki looked down, sighing softly. “Mommy’s… not gonna be back for a while, Riku-kun. But you can hang out with your oji-san and my puppy.”

  Riku looked up at Miyazaki finally. “Puppy?”

  Miyazaki chuckled, holding two fingers to his lips and whistling. The dog that had followed him immediately stood from where it had been ying out of the way and ran over to Miyazaki. Riku’s eyes went wide.

  “Puppy!”

  “Yup,” Miyazaki said, ughing as he pulled the dog in close. “This here is Patchwork. You can call it Patch, though.”

  “Pat-Pat?” The word came tumbling out of Riku’s mouth, and he frowned at it. It was an English word, so felt strange to speak it.

  “Good job,” Miyazaki said. He beckoned Riku over. “Wanna pet it? It’s a really good dog.”

  Patch yipped as Riku scrambled to his feet, running over to Miyazaki and Patch. The small child barreled into the dog, wrapping his arms around it and petting the soft fur. Patch nuzzled him, making Riku giggle.

  “What do you say, Riku-kun?” Miyazaki asked. “Wanna come hang out with me and Patch?”

  “Yes!” Riku said, jumping up and down excitedly. Miyazaki pced a hand on Riku’s head, but that didn’t deter the young boy from his bouncing at all.

  Miyazaki stood, nearly bonking heads with Naito as he did so. “Oops, sorry!” Naito said, quickly backing off.

  “Nah, it’s fine,” Miyazaki said, dusting his jeans off. “Didn’t see ya there though. You’re a sneaky bastard, ain’t cha?”

  Naito chuckled, waving a hand about carelessly with his eyes closed. “I just wanted to let you know that you’re off the hook for today,” he said, opening his eyes back up. “But Detective Nakai and I will be in contact soon, for both you and Maki-kun. But he’s had such a long day already…”

  Miyazaki nodded, giving a small relieved sigh. “Right… thanks.” He looked over his shoulder at Riku, who was entirely distracted by Patch. “This is gonna be the worst part… tryin’ to expin to him that Nanaka ain’t coming back…”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Naito said. He pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it to Miyazaki. “Please call if you think of anything that might be of use, or if Maki-kun says anything. We’ll be in touch soon.”

  “Of course,” Miyazaki said, bowing slightly. “I’ll be going first then.” He turned around to Riku and Patch. “It’s time to go home. Do you wanna walk or should I carry you?”

  “Wanna walk!”

  “It might take a while… You might get tired and be too tired to py with Patch ter.”

  “…Maybe walk a little bit, and carry ter!”

  Miyazaki ughed loudly, shepherding Riku and Patch along the sidewalk. Naito thought for a moment about offering them a ride home, but felt, just from Miyazaki’s attitude, that he probably wouldn’t accept. Perhaps he would use the walk home to clear his head. After all, a lot had happened today.

  Verona_Nightshade