Episode 9 - "Heart Failure"

The memory came back in fragments, like glass shards reflecting different angles of the same terrible truth.

Kisuno sat in the machiya's living room, morning light filtering through shoji screens in patterns that painted everything gold and shadow. Akari had arranged cushions in a circle—her, the three kids, and a recording device that sat on the low table like a silent witness. The detective's expression was gentle but focused, her notebook open to a fresh page.

"Take your time," she said. "Start with what feels safest. We'll work toward the harder parts."

Kisuno's fingers twisted in the fabric of his black cloak—he'd worn it since finding it yesterday, refusing to take it off even to sleep, like the weight of it kept him anchored to reality. Hazuno sat on his right, Josu on his left, both close enough to protect but respecting the space he needed to navigate his own trauma.

"The house was big," Kisuno began, voice small but steady. "In Kyoto. Traditional style, like this one but bigger. Gardens with cherry trees. Koi pond." His blue eyes went distant, seeing things three years removed. "That night, Mama made my favorite dinner. Omurice with ketchup faces. Papa came home late. He was angry about something but trying to hide it from me."

"Do you remember what he was angry about?" Akari asked gently.

"Business. Always business." Kisuno's brow furrowed with concentration. "He was on the phone in his study. I wasn't supposed to be listening, but I was hiding under his desk because we were playing hide and seek. He said..." The child's voice wavered. "He said 'you betrayed us' to someone. Then 'this partnership is over' and 'I'll tell everyone what you did.'"

Akari's pen moved quickly across her notebook. "Did he say a name?"

"Daichi-san. He called him Daichi-san." Kisuno's breathing had become faster, shallower. Hazuno's hand found his, squeezed gently—I'm here. "You're doing great," Akari encouraged. "What happened after the phone call?"

"Papa found me under the desk. He wasn't mad, just... scared? I'd never seen him scared before. He picked me up and took me to Mama. They whispered to each other—I couldn't hear all of it, but I heard 'dangerous' and 'need to be careful' and 'protect Kisuno.'" His small hands were shaking now. "Then the doorbell rang."

The room had gone completely silent except for Kisuno's voice, everyone holding their breath, witnessing this child excavate his worst nightmare from the depths where he'd buried it.

"Mama told me to go upstairs. To hide in my room. But I..." His voice broke. "I wanted to see who was at the door. So I hid on the stairs instead. Behind the railing where I could look down."

"What did you see?" Akari's voice was barely above a whisper.

"A person. Tall. Dark suit. He smiled when Papa opened the door but his eyes didn't smile. They were cold. Like..." Kisuno struggled for comparison. "Like the koi pond in winter. Frozen over."

"Did you recognize him?"

"Daichi-san. From Papa's business parties. He always brought me expensive toys and said I was growing so big." Kisuno's breathing was rapid now, panic creeping in at the edges. "But that night he didn't look at me. He was looking at Papa. And he said 'We need to talk about your unfortunate decision, Takeshi.'"

Josu's hand found Kisuno's hand, creating a circuit of support. The child was trembling but continuing, driven by some internal need to finally speak the unspeakable.

"Papa told him to leave. Said he'd already called the police. But Daichi-san just laughed. He pulled out something—I didn't know what it was then, but now I know. A gun. And something about my family not paying the bills. At the time I was of course to young to understand bills, but now I know what they are." Tears were streaming down Kisuno's face, but his voice remained steady, clinical almost, like he was narrating someone else's trauma. "Mama screamed. She ran toward me but Daichi-san—"

The sound that came from Kisuno's throat was barely human—grief and rage and horror compressed into pure vocalization. His small body curled forward, and both Hazuno and Josu moved instinctively, wrapping around him like shields against memories that cut deeper than any physical weapon.

"We can stop," Akari said urgently. "Kisuno, we can stop right now—" "No." The word came muffled against Hazuno's stomach but absolute in its conviction. "No. I need to finish. I need to say it or it'll own me forever."

He pulled back slightly, those blue eyes now red-rimmed but blazing with something fierce and necessary. "He shot Mama first. She fell on the stairs, trying to reach me. Then Papa tried to fight him and there was another shot and Papa fell too. And Daichi-san just stood there, looking at them. Looking at what he'd done."

"Did he see you?" Akari asked.

"I think so. For a second. Our eyes met." Kisuno's voice dropped to barely audible. "But then Papa moved—he wasn't dead yet, just dying—and he said 'run, Kisuno, run.' So I ran. Through the house, out the back door, into the gardens. I grabbed Papa's cloak from the genkan because it was cold and I was small and scared and it smelled like him and I just... ran."

"You ran all the way to Tokyo?" Akari responded back.

"I don't remember. Maybe I walked. Maybe someone gave me a ride and I forgot. Three years is fuzzy. But I remember the running. I remember looking back and seeing Daichi-san in the doorway, watching me go. And I remember thinking he'd follow. That he'd find me and finish what he started."

The confession complete, Kisuno collapsed inward, sobbing with the intensity of three years of suppressed trauma finally finding release. Hazuno and Josu held him while he broke apart, both of them crying too—for this child, for themselves, for every broken thing they'd witnessed and experienced and survived.

Akari had tears running down her face as well, but her hands were steady as she stopped the recording. "That's enough. More than enough. Kisuno, you were so brave. So incredibly brave. This will definitely help with the case."

"Will it help?" Kisuno asked through tears. "Will it stop him?"

"Yes," Akari said with absolute certainty. "This testimony, combined with what I already have—financial records showing Takeshi discovered Nakamura embezzling from their company, communications proving premeditation—it's enough for a warrant. Enough to bring him in."

"When?" Josu asked, voice hard.

"I'll take this to my contact at the prosecutor's office today. If everything moves fast, we could have him in custody by tomorrow." Akari began packing up her equipment. "Until then, you three stay here. Don't go anywhere. Don't contact anyone. Nakamura has resources and if he knows we're moving against him—"

The machiya's front door exploded inward.

Not metaphorically—literally exploded, wood splintering as three figure's in dark suits forced entry with professional efficiency. The lead person held a gun, suppressor already attached, his expression cold and businesslike.

"Nobody move," he said calmly.

Time seemed to fragment, everything happening simultaneously yet distinct: Akari reaching for her service weapon, the lead persons gun swinging toward her, Josu's body moving on pure instinct—

The gunshot was muffled by the suppressor, a sound like a heavy book dropping. Akari sprung backward, red blooming across her shoulder, her gun clattering to the tatami floor.

"I said don't move," the figure repeated, irritated.

Josu had already moved, throwing himself at the gun persons with all the rage and training from countless street fights condensed into pure violence. His shoulder caught the persons midsection, driving them both backward into the shattered door frame. The gun went flying, skittering across wooden floors.

"Run!" Josu shouted at Hazuno and Kisuno. "Take him and run!"

But the other two people were already moving, cutting off escape routes with practiced coordination. One grabbed Hazuno as he tried to shield Kisuno, throwing the thirteen-year-old against the wall hard enough to leave a dent in the shoji screen. The other reached for Kisuno—

And stopped, staring at the child with something like recognition.

"Minazawa's son," he said. "Nakamura-sama will be pleased we found you."

Kisuno looked at this figure—who worked for the person who'd murdered his parents, who'd probably been there that night or knew about it, who represented everything he'd been running from for three years—and something in his expression hardened.

"My name is Kisuno," he said, voice clear despite the terror and chaos. "And I remember. I remember everything." The persons expression darkened. His hand shot out, grabbed Kisuno's arm with bruising force—

Hazuno hit him from behind with a heavy ceramic vase that had been decorating the alcove. The impact made a sound like a melon splitting, and the person went down hard, not moving.

"Kisuno, come on!" Hazuno grabbed the child's hand, pulling him toward the back of the house where Akari had mentioned a rear exit leading to the garden and the narrow alleys beyond.

Behind them, Josu was still fighting the lead persons—they'd become a tangle of limbs and violence, rolling across the floor, Josu's street-fighting instincts against professional training. Blood streaked the tatami from Josu's split lip, the persons broken nose. It was brutal and ugly and Josu was losing, outmatched by size and skill and experience.

The third figure had recovered, moving to intercept Hazuno and Kisuno's escape. He was faster, cutting them off before they reached the hallway. His hand caught Hazuno's collar, yanking him backward with enough force to make the teen's teeth clack together.

"Enough of this," the person growled, pulling a knife from somewhere, pressing it against Hazuno's throat. "Everyone stops or the kid gets—" Akari shot him.

She'd crawled across the floor, blood soaking through her shirt from the shoulder wound, and retrieved her fallen service weapon with her off-hand. The shot wasn't clean—her aim compromised by injury and non-dominant hand use—but it caught the person in the gut, sending him stumbling backward with a scream of pain.

Hazuno broke free, grabbed Kisuno, and they ran.

Through the back hallway, into the garden where morning light painted everything in deceptively peaceful colors, over the low wall that separated the machiya from the alley beyond. Behind them, sounds of fighting continued—Josu's shouts, another gunshot, Akari screaming something about backup.

They ran through Kagurazaka's winding streets, Kisuno's black cloak streaming behind him like smoke, his white hair catching sunlight, those blue eyes wide with fear and adrenaline. Hazuno held his hand tight enough to hurt, pulling him along, navigating by instinct through a neighborhood he barely knew.

Behind them, footsteps. Pursuit. One of the figure's had broken away from Josu, was chasing them with single-minded focus.

"This way!" Hazuno yanked Kisuno left, into a narrower alley barely wide enough for their shoulders. They squeezed through, emerged onto a busier street, dove into the morning crowd of workers and students and people living normal lives who parted around them like water around stones.

A hand grabbed Hazuno's backpack. He twisted free, the bag ripping, but losing precious seconds. The enemy was right there, close enough that Hazuno could see the cold calculation in his eyes—this was a professional, someone who killed for money and did it without hesitation.

They wouldn't make it. The math was simple and devastating. They were exhausted, the person was trained, and any second now he'd—a truck horn blared.

The enemy turned toward the sound, and in that split-second distraction, a figure appeared from the crowd—Josu, face bloodied and fierce, having somehow broken away and followed their trail. He didn't hesitate, didn't slow, just slammed into the figure with his full weight, driving them both into the street.

Directly into the path of an oncoming delivery truck.

The driver slammed the brakes, but momentum was a law that didn't negotiate. The truck hit the figure at thirty kilometers per hour, the sound of impact making Hazuno's stomach turn. The persons body folded wrong, physics overriding biology, and when the truck finally stopped, he lay in the street not moving, blood pooling beneath his head.

Josu had rolled clear at the last second, landing hard on the pavement but alive, conscious, looking up at Hazuno and Kisuno with wild eyes. "Go," he wheezed. "Police are coming. Can't be here."

"We're not leaving you—" "GO!" The command carried desperation. "Take Kisuno somewhere safe. I'll handle this. I'll find you."

Sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer. The crowd had gone from parting around them to actively staring, phones out, recording, the exact kind of attention they couldn't afford.

Hazuno made a decision that felt like tearing himself in half. He pulled Kisuno close, turned, and ran.

They fled into Tokyo's maze of streets and subways and anonymous crowds, two kids wearing fear like second skin, leaving behind Josu and Akari and a body in the street and any semblance of the safety they'd briefly known.

Kisuno's cloak billowed behind him as they ran, black fabric stark against the morning's brightness, his white hair catching light like a beacon. His blue eyes reflected the sky they couldn't reach, full of tears and terror and the terrible knowledge that speaking truth sometimes made things worse before they got better.

They ran until their lungs burned and their legs gave out, collapsing finally in a small park somewhere in eastern Tokyo, hidden among trees that provided inadequate shelter from the world closing in around them.

"Is Josu okay?" Kisuno whispered. "Is Akari okay?"

Hazuno had no answer. He pulled out his phone—six missed calls from unknown numbers, a text from Josu sent three minutes ago: I'm fine. Stay hidden. Will find you. Promise.

"They're okay," Hazuno lied, pulling Kisuno against his shoulders. "Everyone's okay."

But his hands were shaking, and Kisuno was small but not stupid, and they both knew that sometimes promises broke no matter how hard you tried to keep them.

Above them, the October sky stretched infinite and indifferent, beautiful and terrible in its vastness. And somewhere in Tokyo, Nakamura learned that his hire's had failed, that a child had spoken, that everything he'd tried to bury was clawing its way back to light.

The brightness before dark had arrived. And the darkness was coming.

TO BE CONTINUED... [Next Episode: "Breaking Points"]