The humid air in the hotel room seemed to thicken as the weight of the recording settled over them. The high-pitched, clinical voice of the masked "Doctor" and the desperate, weeping joy of Mrs. Kagawa played on a loop in their minds.
Akira leaned forward, his hands clasped so tightly his knuckles were white. The detective in him was back, fueled by the metallic tang of the blood-honey he'd consumed. "We're moving too slow," he rasped, his eyes darting between the international hero and the white-haired boy. "If this doctor is operating out of a bunker in Naha, he's already three steps ahead of a standard investigation. We need a catalyst. I should go in."
Yoichi blinked, his teal hood slipping back. "You? As a patient?"
"As an associate," Akira corrected, his voice a low, rhythmic crawl. "I spent three years in the Akagura Vault. And I'm labelled as an escapee. I'll tell him I have a 'sensitive' problem that needs a private touch. Once I'm inside, I can map the layout."
"Absolutely not," Yoichi said, his voice firming with a rare authority. "Akira, if they figure out who you are, they'll most likely know your quirk, and with how private they seem to be, if you go in there, you're dead. Or held captive. A man who can 'taste' secrets? To a black-market doctor, you could just end up as an infinite source of high-value data. You'd be a specimen before you could even say hello."
Yoshi let out a short, dry snort of agreement from his spot by the wall. "He's right, Detective. Besides, you're broke. We're all broke. Did you hear the envelope that lady dropped? That was four million yen. The 'youth' surgery she was talking about? That's life-savings territory. We don't have the capital to buy a seat at that table."
Yoshi tilted his head, his obsidian eyes narrowing as he stared at a stain on the carpet. "And let's say we do figure out who he is. Then what? We burst in with your little sliding-boots, Hero?"
"They should be brought to justice," Yoichi said instantly, his hand chopping the air. "If they're performing illegal, dangerous surgeries and extorting the elderly, they need to be shut down."
Yoshi looked at him like he was an interesting species of insect. "And how? If we can figure out this place is here in two weeks, do you really think the Commission and their heroes haven't noticed? An operation that can turn people back to their spring? That isn't a secret you keep from the people at the top. It's a service you sell to them."
Makoto's eyes widened, her journalist's instincts sparking. "You think the Commission is involved?"
"Something that valuable?" Yoshi shrugged, his tone mockingly light. "Think about it. Why isn't this on the news? Why aren't there riots of rich people demanding a turn? It may already be a controlled resource. Okinawa is a satellite, the old lady was practically wandering in circles before she got to the door. This isn't the hub. It's a localized tap."
Yoshi turned to Akira. "If the method for bringing back youth is grim, if it requires 'materials' that wouldn't look good on a pamphlet, the people in power have every reason to keep it behind a steel door. They get the years, the public stays oblivious, and the 'Doctor' gets protection. It's a perfect circle of rot."
Yoichi rubbed his chin, a look of profound discomfort on his face. "Or people just want it so badly they don't care how it's done. And the people who do care want it destroyed before it can be used for something worse."
"Where is it?" Makoto asked, her pen already hovering over a notebook. "The specific location? I need to see it."
"None of your business," Yoshi said rudely.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me," Yoshi said, a cold smirk touching his lips. "I can see the look in your eyes, Reporter. You want to bust in there and stick your nose in a place where your safety isn't even a variable. You'd be a corpse before you got the lens cap off."
"He's right, Makoto," Yoichi added softly. "Don't go. Not yet."
Akira let out a long, frustrated sigh, his fingers drumming a frantic rhythm on his knee. "I wouldn't be surprised if the Commission was the primary silent partner. If they're 'optimizing' orphans, why wouldn't they be 'optimizing' their own lifespans?" He looked around the room, his eyes sharp. "Tell me. Has anyone noticed any major political figures or Commission heads becoming reclusive in the last few years? Anyone dropping out of the public eye for 'health reasons' or trying to hide themselves?"
Yoshi didn't answer, his knowledge of current politics was as wide as most kids his age... maybe a little more expansive, but still small.
Yoichi scratched his chin, his brow furrowed in concentration, but no names came to mind. Makoto just shrugged her shoulders.
Akira slumped back against the headboard, his expression one of biting, sardonic disappointment. "Fascinating. A room full of 'active' citizens, and nobody knows who's missing from the podium."
"Why don't you know any, Detective?" Makoto asked, her tone slightly defensive. "You're the star investigator."
"I was in prison," Akira answered, his voice dripping with jagged irony. "I wasn't exactly keeping a social calendar for the people who put me there. I didn't think I'd be coming out to find the world turned into a medical horror show."
The conversation hit a stagnant wall of frustration, a goofy, disjointed mix of high-stakes conspiracy and total lack of information. They were four people trapped in a humid room with a secret they couldn't afford to keep and a plan they couldn't afford to execute.
Suddenly, Yoshi stiffened.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the receiver for the stealth bug. The small LED on the side, which had been a steady, rhythmic green, was dark.
"The signal," Yoshi said, his voice flat. "The device in the old lady's jacket. It's gone."
Yoichi stood up instantly, the "Hero" mask snapping back onto his face. "Gone? Like, she left the building?"
"Nah," Yoshi said, his obsidian eyes flashing with a sudden, predatory focus. "Disconnected. Missing from the network."
Without a word of explanation or a plan, Yoshi turned and bolted for the door.
"Wait!" Yoichi yelled, scrambling after him.
"Hey! Where are you going?" Akira shouted, leaping to his feet and stumbling toward the door. "Wait for me! We need a perimeter!"
But they were already gone. The hallway echoed with the frantic, wet sound of Koichi's Slide and Glide and the silent, terrifying speed of the boy who didn't listen to reason. Akira reached the doorway just in time to see the stairwell door swing shut.
He stood there, breathless and gaunt, looking out into the empty hall.
"Detectives," Akira muttered to himself, a tired, bitter laugh escaping his throat. "We are supposed to be the first ones to run into the fire without a hose."
___
The humid air of Naha felt thick, like a physical barrier pressing against Yoshi's lungs as he ran. Internally, his mind was a storm of frantic, rhythmic calculations. He was angry at himself. He hadn't noticed the buzzer, not at first. It had been pulsing in short, high-frequency bursts every three minutes, a digital heartbeat he should have caught. He had been too focused on the detective, too caught up in the "Hero's" idealism.
Next to him, the ground seemed to blur as Koichi Haimawari slid with a low, mechanical hiss. The Crawler's movements were fluid, his teal hoodie snapping in the wind, his eyes fixed on the horizon. Yoshi realized, with a flicker of silent disgust, that he didn't mind the proximity. He was fine with this man tagging along.
"Yoshi! You think it's something bad?" Koichi yelled over the roar of the wind.
"She probably just threw her jacket in the wash," Yoshi lied, though he didn't believe it.
They rounded the corner into a quiet, high-end district, a gated estate where the tropical plants were meticulously manicured and the houses smelled of wealth and security. The massive iron gates were slowly groaning shut as they approached. This was where Ms. Kagawa lived.
"She'll probably sell her house for whatever that 'Doctor' is charging," Koichi muttered sarcastically, eyeing the opulent architecture. "A do-over doesn't come cheap."
Yoshi ignored him, his face shifting instantly. He dropped the scowl, replacing it with a mask of urgent, professional duty. He walked straight toward the guard at the gatehouse.
"Pardon us," Yoshi said, his voice smooth and authoritative. "We're here on official hero business regarding an ongoing threat assessment. Has Mrs. Kagawa returned to her residence recently?"
The guard, a man with a tired but kind face, smiled. "Mrs. Kagawa? Oh, she's a gem. She left about half an hour ago. She looked... well, she looked in a hurry. Is everything alright?"
"Standard check-up," Koichi interjected, trying to lean into the act. He gave a forced, awkward laugh. "She asked for a follow-up a few days ago. You know how it is, she's getting to that age."
Yoshi stared at Koichi with a look of pure, unadulterated incredulity. The guard's smile vanished, replaced by a stunned, confused expression. The joke landed like a lead weight in the dirt.
"Right," Yoshi muttered, grabbing Koichi by the arm. "We'll find her. Thank you."
They sprinted away the moment they were out of the guard's line of sight. Yoshi's heart was hammering, not from the exertion, but from the sudden, sharp spike in his spatial awareness.
"Yoshi, wait," Koichi panted, his Slide and Glide sparks flickering. "If we're in such a hurry... why aren't you just teleporting us? I saw you do it when we dropped off the building to help the old lady."
Yoshi stopped abruptly. He looked at Koichi, surprised that the man had actually paid enough attention to the mechanics of his quirk to link it to teleportation. He let out a long, weary sigh.
"I don't teleport other people," Yoshi said, his voice dropping into a low, technical rasp. "My quirk... well when I do it for myself, my body is the anchor. When I include someone else... things get messy."
He looked at Koichi's shoulder, his mind visualizing the horrific possibilities. "A partial transfer is a death sentence. If the boundary of the collapse isn't perfect, parts of you lag behind spatially. Your organs briefly misalign. It's like pulling a rug out from under someone while they're half-standing on it."
He didn't mention the Spatial Desynchronization, the way the atoms might not reassemble in the same phase, leaving a person feeling 'not fully inside their body' before they may even collapse into a coma. He just shook his head. "I can't do it. It's too dangerous."
Koichi didn't flinch. He stepped closer, his expression softening into that earnest, infuriatingly brave look that heroes always wore. He reached out and pressed a hand firmly on Yoshi's shoulder.
"Try it anyway," Koichi said.
Yoshi's eyes widened. "Get off me. I just told you, I could turn your lungs inside out."
Koichi laughed, a genuine, warm sound that felt jarring in the humid Naha air. "You can't ever figure it out if you don't try, right? That's what being a hero is, failing until you get it right. Besides, I trust you."
Yoshi stared at him. He trusts me? The thought was absurd. He was a murderer. He was a brat for trauma. And yet, the weight of Koichi's hand felt... real.
"Should you even be allowing me to use my quirk like this?" Yoshi asked snarkily. "Aren't you supposed to be the law?"
"Would you listen to me if I said no?" Koichi countered with a grin.
Yoshi shrugged. He closed his eyes, focusing on the coordinates of the street three blocks away. He reached out, grabbing Koichi's hoodie, and visualized the space between the two points as a piece of paper he was folding.
Ripple.
The world snapped.
The sound was a sickening, wet pop of displaced air. Yoshi hit the ground perfectly, his knees absorbing the impact. But beside him, Koichi crumpled. The hero hit the pavement hard, his body out of sync with gravity for a fraction of a second. He immediately rolled onto his side, retching and vomiting into the gutter, his skin a sickly, translucent gray.
Yoshi looked down, a small, genuine surge of worry piercing through his apathy.
But the worry was instantly eclipsed by something else.
From the corner of the street, a woman came skipping.
She wasn't limping. She wasn't clutching her back. She was humming a light, airy tune that sounded like a nursery rhyme, her feet barely touching the ground. She was beautiful, a girl in her early twenties with vibrant, glowing skin and eyes that sparkled with a terrifying, artificial light. She was dressed in Mrs. Kagawa's expensive, oversized cardigan, which hung off her small frame like a shroud.
Koichi was still down, his head between his knees, gasping for air. Yoshi ignored him. He stood in the middle of the sidewalk, his gaze locked on the girl. He knew those eyes. He knew the way she tilted her head.
"Mrs. Kagawa?" Yoshi whispered.
The girl stopped skipping. She turned her head, looking at him with a wide, radiant smile. It was a youthful expression, but there was something... wiggly about it. Her features seemed almost too perfect, like wax that had been moulded by a master who didn't understand human warmth.
Yoshi stepped forward, his obsidian eyes dark with a sudden, visceral realization. "Was it all worth it?" he asked, his voice a jagged edge.
The girl's smile didn't falter. She let out a peal of laughter, a sound that was musical, young, and entirely hollow.
"Yes," she chirped, her voice a melodic bell. "Oh, yes. I can breathe, little boy. I can dance again."
She didn't wait for a response. She turned and skipped down the street, her humming fading into the humid evening air.
Yoshi stood still, his hand trembling slightly. Koichi was still gasping in the gutter, but Yoshi didn't look at him. He felt a nasty, oily sensation in his heart, the same feeling he had when he was a ghost, watching his world rot from the inside.
He marched forward.