Chapter Text
"The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God."
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend
"Por favor ponga atención a un importante anuncio de seguridad, en el caso de una pérdida de presión en la cabina, se necesitarán las mascarillas de oxígeno, jale la mas cercana a usted y colóquela sobre nariz y boca."
Yako sighs and offers a polite smile to the flight attendant as the woman strolls down the aisle, displaying an oxygen mask as the normal safety instructions are droned out.
Later, when the cabin is dim and Akane wriggles against her neck, Yako leans back in her seat and has to suppress a laugh. She would be lying if she said she isn't just as eager to get back to Japan; she enjoys her cases and all the people she has the opportunity to meet along the way, but there’s just something about coming home that not even the most exciting—or epicurean—new country can seem to match.
She tugs gently on the small braid of hair her ghostly secretary is possessing, as a silent warning to calm down before the person seated beside her can notice that anything is amiss. Even years later, it’s surprisingly easy to cart around a supernatural phenomenon, even without Neuro’s aid. Or at least, very little of his aid.
It doesn’t take a genius to understand that, even with the very pressing danger of Sicks looming, Neuro had still made arrangements for his so-called ‘slaves’. A few extra traps here and there had been his generous parting gift to Yako and Godai, but there had been an untouched demonic battery for Akane, hidden in Troy’s trick drawer.
It was, she can ruefully admit, exactly what they had needed. She and Godai are (arguably, in her case) perfectly able to function on their own, but Akane needs some form of supernatural energy to sustain her or she might simply revert to her natural state: a corpse, buried in the cement of the office’s wall.
Nowadays, Yako keeps Akane either attached to her own hair or to her cellphone and—
Her train of thought, which has been growing more and more nostalgic and sluggish as her head dips and her drowsiness creeps up on her, is abruptly shifted back on track.
She lets out a belated, soft noise of discomfort and raises her head. She rubs her fingers, now sleep-clumsy from a nap she hadn’t quite managed to sink into, over where the jolt had come from: Akane herself. The braid is wriggling frantically against her palm, and her focus sharpens nigh-instantly. Akane isn’t one to make a scene over nothing; if anything, her secretary has a protective, cautious streak a mile wide and counting, now that Neuro isn’t dogging Yako’s every waking step.
She glances around from beneath her lashes, her fingers cupped to hide her flailing braid from any would-be witnesses. Her seatmate is fast asleep, as is the young couple across the aisle, slumped together in a picturesquely domestic scene of exhaustion. The overhead symbols all seem to be in order, and her tote is still balanced on top of her feet, untouched since take off.
That leaves one last likely avenue for Akane’s distress, barring the event of some underhanded sealed-cabin murder suddenly being discovered. The latter case is not, unfortunately, a particularly unexpected occurrence in her daily life, but she still opts to glance out of the window first.
Her breath freezes in her lungs.
It feels like an eternity drags by as she stares, transfixed, at a familiar shoe sole—a maddeningly welcome profile in the pre-dusk gloom, slanted at a maddeningly impossible angle—a glimpse of acidic, glowing green burning into her own eyes—
And then, with a roaring clash of thunder that shakes its way through the plane and a blinding flare of lightning, it’s all gone.
She practically plasters herself to the window even as the man beside her jolts awake along with the rest of the dozing passengers. Somewhere on board, three babies start wailing. She blinks away the bruise-colored afterimages of the flash as best she could, but no matter how she strains her gaze, she can’t find any trace of what she was sure she had seen. She can’t see any trace of Neuro at all. The only consolation is that Akane is still twisted around her ring finger and shaking like a leaf, practically rattling the digit in its socket out of sheer excitement.
Her pulse is pounding in her ears frantically, like a drum, like a clock.
Ba-thump. Ba-thump.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
Ba-thump.
Three years, she thinks, curling her fingers around Akane in a loose squeeze. It’s a far cry from the uncertain projections Neuro had originally made—decades, centuries, perhaps even longer—and something inside of her burns with delighted vindication. She was right. More than that, she has succeeded; he found her. Her growth—her evolution—she’s worked so hard all this time and this moment makes it so utterly worth it.
He’s finally back.
She takes a slow, shaky breath, a silly, exuberant smile stealing over her lips as she finally peels herself away from the window, flopping back against her seat. He isn’t on the wing any more, which she is dubiously grateful for; she immediately suspects that this is one of his usual ploys, trading immediate physical trauma for exhaustive emotional trauma via gas-lighting, since she isn’t immediately and privately accessible to him.
It would be par for the course for him, if a little mild. She rubs a hand over her eyes, blinking back a sudden prickling wave of tears. After missing him for so long, even this assholish greeting is a welcome change of pace. He’ll probably be waiting for her when she gets off the plane, hoisting up some utterly degrading sign filled with insults towards her and sporting that damnably innocent grin all the while.
She can’t wait to see him again.
Neuro is not, as it so happens, waiting for her when she disembarks. Even when she returns to her house, she finds no trace of him—nor her mother, for that matter. That much is to be expected, though; she already knew that her mother was away on a business trip with the rest of her editorial department. Kanae is similarly absent, on a trip to Hokkaido with her latest boyfriend, but they speak at length on the phone once Yako is back in the country.
“You’re probably right,” Godai agrees the next day. The weather is just as gloomy as it had been during her flight, filled with torrential rain and booming thunder. It feels like salt being rubbed into an open wound each time the sky lights up. “If that monster finally decided to show his face again, screwing around with us’d definitely be the first thing on his To-Do List.” They spend a moment in quiet, exasperated solidarity over the fact that it would hardly be the first time he put them through some sort of weird abandonment play for his own sick amusement.
Not long after that, once Mochizuki pops up and, like clockwork, so do an alarming number of veins on Godai’s face, so Yako sees herself out. She moves down the list of people she needs to touch base with and swings by the Police Department to check in for any open cases—and to drop off souvenirs.
“He’s such a jerk,” she vents to Higuchi, not long after she finishes making her rounds.
“Usui-san?” Higuchi guesses, sipping his coffee.
Usui is as abrasive as ever, staunchly refusing to let her work unless clients have requested it separately and specifically. Tsukushi claims he does so as a way of forcing her to take a break, rather than continue exhaustively throwing herself into her work the way she does while abroad. Given the fact that she caught a glimpse of the cute little porcelain clown marionette she had gotten Usui the last time she was in France half-hidden on one of his office shelves, Yako can admit the theory might hold some credence. Maybe. If she ignores the thirty-minute lecture she ended up subjected to before she snuck off with Higuchi.
“No,” she sighs, pausing to chomp into a pastry and ignoring the familiar whispers and stares of the other café-goers. “Neuro.”
Higuchi chokes, quickly falling into a fit of hacking coughs. “H-He’s back?” The older man pounds his chest lightly a few times.
“I’m pretty sure, yeah,” she nods, sipping the iced coffee she ordered. She’s been frequenting this café with Higuchi for years, and the staff have long since learned to just give her an entire pitcher. “He’s keeping out of sight, though. It’s infuriating.”
“Probably why he’s doing it,” Higuchi says, a wry twist stealing over his mouth.
“I’m being ridiculous,” she admits. “I mean, I’ve waited three years; this shouldn’t bother me so much. I know I can be patient.”
Higuchi looks pensive, for a moment. “It’s hard,” he says, “when there’s something you want, but can’t have. It’s ten times worse when it’s within reach and you still can’t have it.”
She goes silent, recalling just how early he had learned that bittersweet life lesson. His own parents had lived with him in only a purely literal sense, so she’s honestly preaching to a choir far more experienced than her in this particular breed of frustrated anticipation.
“So, I just have to be patient,” she says again, to banish the black mood before it can fully settle.
“Being a mature adult kinda sucks sometimes, doesn’t it?” Higuchi seems more than willing to roll with the redirection, even managing to tack on a teasing grin.
“You ritually set fire to a tie at the end of each month,” Yako points out. “I don’t think you have the right to call yourself a ‘mature adult’ just yet.”
“Hey,” he says, puffing up as though honestly offended. “I will have you know I play the stock market and pay taxes and work for the government. I’m totally mature.”
“Two weeks ago you declared a blood-feud with a ten-year-old from South Korea over a video game.”
“That little rat bastard knows what he did,” he sneers darkly, taking another long pull from his cup.
Yako sighs, and they dissolve into relatively pleasant discussion about her travels. She hasn’t had the chance to hit up many electronic stores while meandering through South America, but honestly she learned early on not to bother getting him technology, as he sometimes gets extremely judgy about certain brands or parts, and she doesn’t know enough to avoid his circuitry-based pet peeves. Getting fifteen bags of coffee beans through Customs had certainly been… something, but Higuchi seems honestly interested in trying out the one he received, so she tallies it up as a win.
Thirty minutes after they slipped out, on the dot, Usui rings up Higuchi and nags him until they say their goodbyes and part. After a quick glance at the time, she stops by Mutsuki’s school and catches her just as classes let out—literally, as the younger girl stuffs her unopened umbrella back in her bag, bolts across the front yard and physically throws herself into Yako’s arms upon catching sight of her. She nearly makes Yako drop her umbrella, but she catches her balance before they end up tumbling back into the half-flooded street, through sheer practice.
“Welcome home, Big Sis!” Mutsuki beams. “I saw a few pics on JiffyGram this morning from people on your plane. You looked pretty happy!” She bounces on her toes, and Yako ignores the feeling of something stiff and metallic under her sweater sleeves, through sheer practice. “Did you miss Japan? How many cases did you have this time? What did you bring me?”
“Yes, something like six or seven, and if you let me go I can show you.” She laughs and ruffles Mutsuki’s hair as they head for the relatively dry safety of a nearby shop’s canopy, earning a pout in the process. Eventually, though, the girl reluctantly releases her. After a bit of digging in her bag, Yako pulls out a stuffed Tapir from the airport and a business card. “There’s a company in Brazil—I met their current head at a restaurant Aya-san recommended to me—and they’re looking to import toy brands.”
“Awesome!” Mutsuki gives an excited little hop, squeezing the stuffed animal just like any cute little middle schooler. The next moment she accepts the card, and her sweet smile turns positively wolfish. “This is the best one yet, Big Sis. I’ll definitely bring it up at the next Board meeting; we’ve been looking to break into new markets for ages.”
“Happy to help.”
“Hey, hey, so back to your cases—did you make any new friends?”
“A few,” Yako lies through her teeth, thinking of the dozens of criminals, activists, victims and military personnel she ended up connecting with. It’s more or less the same wherever she ends up going, like a switch she just can’t turn off. She ends up invested in peoples lives, and now has a social network that spans penitentiaries, police stations, high-class businesses and tiny little villages all over the world. “I had Godai-san make some arrangements for meeting back up with them later.”
Mutsuki, sweet child that she is, doesn’t call Yako out on that filthy, flagrant fib. They meander their way back to Mutsuki’s apartment building through the gloomy weather, chatting idly about her first semester as a middle school student.
“In a few years, you won’t have a single spare minute between social calls,” Aya teases her when she visits her in prison the next day.
Yako pulls a face, but…
Well.
Aya isn’t exactly wrong about that.
“That partner of yours will have to drag you away when it comes time for cases,” the singer continues, as if that hadn’t always been Nero’s modus operandi.
“Maybe if he ever shows himself,” Yako grumbles sullenly, resting her cheek on one loose fist.
“Now, now,” Aya says. She looks, not for the first time, like she wants to reach through the glass and draw Yako in for a comforting embrace. “I’m sure he has a good reason.”
Yako thinks Aya is being a bit overly-generous with her definition of ‘good,’ but holds her tongue.
“Maybe it’s the weather,” the older woman hums, glancing at the windows in the back of the visitation room.
The storms have gotten more brutal, even as they gradually shifted, and several cities have already experienced severe flooding and wind-damage near the coasts. Yako woke up to the news that southeast Asia was dealing with hurricanes, and there were several earthquakes shaking up the entire map, hours apart. There were projections for possible volcanic activity popping up ahead of schedule in some regions, and most of the buzz on the radio and news stations had been interviews with increasingly bewildered experts and dotted with warnings from Safety Committees. It’s terribly, gut-wrenchingly familiar, but she hasn’t allowed herself to properly think over the implications just yet.
“It reminds me of three years ago,” Aya comments softly, ruthlessly and good-naturedly tearing through Yako’s desperate attempt at oblivious optimism.
“…yeah,” Yako sighs, because it’s true and it would be a very good explanation for what’s kept Neuro away. They may have cut off the head of the proverbial snake, but she knows the New Bloodline is still out there. They had never gotten an official headcount for everyone that Sicks had recruited and ruled over, like some great and terrible king, so if they tried to stir things up just as Neuro got back, it would make sense that the demon would opt to immediately clean house, for the sake of his future meals.
“I’m sure he’ll come around soon,” Aya comforts her, letting her fingers splay against the glass separating them. “So cheer up, Ms. Detective. I hate to see you so glum, after all this time.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Yako rubs the back of her neck with a rueful little grin. “You’re right. I’m home, and we finally get to talk to each other, instead of just writing letters. I should be happy to catch up, not moping over Neuro being a jerk.”
“You very nearly beat your last letter back, actually.”
“Did I?”
“Yes. I’m feeling a bit spoiled, getting so much of your attention in such short order.” She smiles, slow and bright and dazzling in a way that not even three years of self-imposed imprisonment seem to have dampened. “I hope I can expect a little special treatment, even once your schedule fills up with all those new friends and sushi dinners.”
“You’ll be right near the top of my list,” Yako promises.
It’s one that she fully intends to keep, but visits with Aya always leave her feeling heavy and bloated with some emotion or another. This conversation is no different, giving her an unpleasant brand of food for thought, unpalatable to even her. But, it reminds her of another visit she needs to make, all the same. Godai squabbles and yells at her when she asks him to make the arrangements, trying to cite the poor conditions, but the next day, eerily, those same conditions have calmed down. Reluctantly, he clears his schedule and personally picks her up.
“Can’t believe you’re doing this again,” he grumbles, fingers twitching on his steering wheel as he fights the urge to light up. He paid off his old car—may its poor, abused automotive soul rest in peace—and is now in the process of paying off an even bigger, shinier SUV. “Do we have to go so often?”
“It’s been about a year,” Yako mumbles, working her way through an entire duffle bag of snacks she brought for the trip.
“Way too often.”
Yako lets him grouse and complain as much as he likes, since he makes no motion to turn the car around or really stop her. Just like the last few times they visited. He even hikes with her into the woods, hanging back for a smoke at the edge of the clearing in order to give her some privacy while keeping her in sight. Just in case.
Godai might not have spent much time in school, but he can pick up on the possible reasons for such a sudden, coordinated surge in natural disasters just as easily as Aya has.
Yako settles under the forked tree, noticing how it has shot up again since the last time she saw it, and how the dirt underneath it has finally gotten a thick cover of grass. She leans her head back against the bark, and peers up at the gloomy, overcast sky filtering in through the foliage.
“Hello again, Sai,” she says quietly. Her shoulder gives a phantom twinge, and she runs her fingers over the scar there through her shirt. Akane rubs against her cheek soothingly, and a small smile quirks over her lips. “It’s been a while. I went to South America, this time. Chile, Peru, Venezuela… I went all over and in between, even took a trip up to Mexico for a bit. I met a lot of good people, this time, though I guess I’ve probably said that every time I visit. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to any of those places but… oh, who am I kidding? That’s not the news that you’ll enjoy hearing.” She huffs out a laugh. “Neuro’s back.”
The tree, as ever, is silent save for a sudden gust of wind rattling through the branches.
Yako isn’t sure whether she’s disappointed or relieved that her revelation didn’t prompt a hand to shoot out of the dirt and grab her, zombie-style. She lets her eyes fall shut, and her smile grows. “Yeah, that’s definitely what you would care about. I haven’t seen him since the first little glimpse, but he must be busy; apparently the world is falling to pieces, these days.”
“More true than you know, actually.”
Yako’s eyes shoot open, some strange, primal klaxon blaring at the back of her brain and Akane bristling at her throat.
There’s a man in front of her. …No. Yes. No. She frowns, leaning forward and slowly gathering her feet under her. The person in front of her—if they actually are a person—is masculine, with a dapper suit under his sharp trench coat and a pair of obviously expensive, custom-made shoes. They have a checker-print on the toes, to match his gloves, tie, hat, and part of what seems to be a tattoo peeking out of one side of the mask on his face. The mask and part of his hat are metal, however, and Yako feels her hackles raise as she gets to her feet.
The sky above is now a strange, sickly lilac, shot through with the occasional stutter of electricity that makes no move for the ground.
“Excuse me?” she says, her voice firm and casual even as she realizes that she can’t see Godai any more. The edge of the clearing is draped in a sudden, inexplicable fog, like somebody decided to blur reality at the edges.
“I said it’s more true than you know,” the checker-faced… person continues, his tone blithe. “About the world falling to pieces. That demon of yours has put us in quite the predicament.”
“What,” slips out of her numb lips. She should be quicker on the uptake, but something about this man makes her brain twitch and turn in circles, like a dog hearing a sudden whistle from three houses down. There’s something she should be seeing, but isn’t, or something she is seeing that she shouldn’t. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know, but she’s beginning to suspect she’s been drugged, because the fog seems to glow when she looks at it from the corner of her eyes but not head-on, and something like fire is seeping up from the ground beneath her feet. It jags toward her unexpected conversational partner in blur of purple, forcefully stopped mid-air when he idly raises a hand off of his cane.
This has to be drugs, Yako thinks more firmly, deciding to disregard the floating fireball for the moment. Drugs and the New Bloodline, just like last time.
Nope, that primal, screaming part of her brain tells her, with one hundred percent certainty.
She’s so sure.
Nope, that little bundle of neurons insists, firmly.
“What are you?” Yako asks, unable to stop herself.
“What a strange thing to ask a person,” he says, as the gout of purple flames—growing to the size of a basketball out of what she somehow recognizes as indignation—drifts back and makes another lunge for him. It bounces back, before darting in again and again, like some cat single-mindedly focused on a bird behind a glass door. Akane twitches and grows longer, as if she wants to disconnect from Yako and join in on the attack.
“You aren’t human,” Yako says, and it tastes like a lie and the truth all at once. She frowns, and furrows her brow. “You… aren’t like any kind of human I’ve ever known.”
It’s worrying, how right those words feel. Like she stumbled onto some simple, founding principle of the universe, by merely following her gut instinct.
The person—man?—seems quietly amused, and his smile widens. “That is also more true than you realize. But, if it makes you feel any better, I can assure you I don’t have anything to do with that little cult you and Nougami took apart.”
Yako isn’t sure what alarms her more—the fact that he can call the New Bloodline a ‘little cult’ or that he can mention Neuro so casually in the same breath as mentioning his true species. “Then,” she says, and falters. “Then… you’re…?” Friends won’t even fully form as a thought. Not for Neuro. Not even this strange, wrong, sharply dressed man.
“I suppose you could call me a fan of his work,” he says, stroking his chin, idly. “It’s part of why I’m here; I’m especially impressed with what he’s made of you.”
Yako’s mouth drops open, but she doesn’t even know where to begin to respond to that. Luckily, he doesn’t seem to need one, and presses on.
“For now, let’s just call it a ‘professional courtesy,’ hm?” He adjusts the brim of his hat. “With the pleasantries taken care of, let’s get to the heart of the matter.” He shifts, and she finds herself nearly buckling under a sudden, piercing stare. “Katsuragi Yako, if I were to tell you that this world would end in the next ten… no, I apologize, five minutes, would you believe me?”
“No,” she says automatically.
Yes, her brain insists.
“Really?” His smile turns sly.
Yako doesn’t respond.
“I thought so.” He’s practically oozing smugness now; even more than he was to begin with. “Then, what would you say if I told you I could more or less ensure the good health and survival of you and those dearest to you?”
“I’d ask what the catch was,” Yako says, this time without any backchat from her own mind. Both of them are—or rather, all of her is—more or less clear that offers that are too good to be true generally are. Even for fantastical, impossible situations like the one he’s proposing.
“I don’t have much time to explain,” he said, checking a watch he pulls out of a coat pocket. “We’re down to about three minutes and ten seconds. The long and short of it is that the price of survival will be to continue surviving. I’m sorry if that comes off as cryptic.”
He’s not even remotely sorry. Yako doesn’t need sudden brainchatter to tell her that. But, she takes a moment or two to settle herself, and considers the issue as though everything else he’s saying is actually true.
“Two minutes, forty-seven seconds. And still counting.”
“I suppose I’d take you up on that offer,” she says, grimacing. “If the world really was going to… what, just disappear?”
“Crumble and collapse,” he says, now grinning like she just made his day. “That demon of yours really has put us in quite the predicament.”
Yako feels her blood run cold. “Neuro did? You mean, when he came back, he—”
It makes the worst kind of sense, she realizes.
“Well, he didn’t really come back,” the man hedges, as the purple fire grows larger and more aggressive still. “He tried to, and was here for a moment, but the backlash sent him the way he came. Ah, one minute on the clock.”
“He…” She raises her hand shakily, feeling her ears pop as the rumbling of the clouds grows louder. Akane twines around her fingers, comforting and protective. Neuro had said that getting back would be a tricky, twisted business, but she just can’t link him to an act that would jeopardize all of humanity. Not after everything he had put on the line to stop Sicks from wiping them out, after everything he’s shown and taught and told her. But she knows, for all his strength and cunning, he isn’t perfect by a long shot.
Maybe even demons can make mistakes, she thinks uncertainly, but before she can continue to probe that thought—
“Ah, show time.”
The man snaps his pocket watch shut, and everything goes dark.
When Yako opens her eyes, the first thing she sees is the ceiling in her bedroom.
It was all just a dream, she most notably does not think, because the first thing she feels, and the second and third things she sees are, respectively, two bodies sprawled with her under the cover.
…What.
What.
“What?” Yako asks the world at large, her voice sleep-muddled as she sits up in bed. When the covers fall back, a breath stutters and catches in her throat, leaving her wordless because—
Because—
“Stop being so loud Katsuragi Yako,” Sai huffs, reluctantly lifting their head. They are as whole as they were that day in the forest, before Sicks ripped out their heart and killed them. Which Yako remembers vividly, because she was there. Because she helped bury them. Because she has been visiting that grave on and off for years.
“Don’t talk to her that way,” Yako’s other bedmate insists, narrowing… her? eyes at them, her(?) arms still twined around Yako’s waist. After a moment of uncertain staring, recognition suddenly dawns. The fine, pale features of this person are entirely new to her, but the hair…
She would know that lustrous, beautifully maintained braid anywhere.
“Akane-chan?”
“Yes.” Akane squeezes her waist in a tight hug, beaming.
“What?” Yako demands again, but the world at large is still apparently completely unwilling to cooperate. Well, her phone is buzzing furiously on her nightstand, but that’s on the other side of Sai so it can wait until things make sense. Which they may not ever actually do, she’s not sure of anything right now. In fact, to further rub this fact in, a soft knock sounds at her door, and she goes still.
“Yako?” Her mother calls, apparently no longer in Kyoto in the middle of her five-day business trip. “That famous singer friend of yours is here. I’m headed off to work, now, but she’ll be waiting downstairs.”
“Okay,” Yako says faintly, staring at the two should-be-dead, possibly naked people in her bed and silently willing her mother to keep that door shut, for the love of all that is good in this world. “Have a good day.”
“You too!”
Yako flops back into her pillows and stares up at the ceiling. Right now everything is strange and wrong, and it feels as though it will never makes sense again.
“Oh, Aizawa-san also brought pastries, so make sure to leave her one for breakfast.”
Yako sits back up, because maybe she spoke too soon.