A day has passed, and the moment for Chiori to fulfill her promise has arrived. A sleek black car comes to a stop near the edge of an empty park. A person in all black, wearing a hoodie, steps out of the passenger side of the car. The person walks into the park and heads to a set of benches near the middle, next to a playground. The person grabs a small purple bag under a red bench and heads back into the black car.

Inside the car, Shunji sits behind the wheel curiously. Next to him, the person removes the hood, revealing Yuto.

“You think she actually did it?" Shunji asks.

“I don’t know. We’ll only find out after we play it."

Yuto opens the purple bag and pulls out the recorder. Taped to the recorder is a piece of paper with a handwritten note that reads, “YOU’RE WELCOME.”

“Aheh, yeah, Shunji, I think she did it.”

***

Shunji and Yuto make it back to the house and head into the basement. Inside the basement, the two get ready to listen to the voice recordings.

“Well, this moment came sooner than we thought."

“No backing out now, Shunji. We’re all in."

“Hah, like I’d ever back out.”

“Well, first, let’s see if she actually broke the encryption.”

Shunji plugs the recorder’s USB into the computer and presses on a random recording. The recording starts, and the voices are no longer muffled and static.

“Damn, she really did do it.”

“I knew I was right to trust her."

Shunji stops the current recording and scrolls down until he finds the recording labeled 02/11/2021 and presses play. The recording starts, and Shunji and Yuto lean in to listen to the uncovered voice. As the recording continues, Shunji and Yuto’s eyes widen as they realize whose voice it is.

“That voice, it can't be! Is that Mayor Hosiga?”

“No! That can’t be, Shunji. He wouldn’t do that! He stepped in and helped me get back up after my parents’ death. Him and my dad were good friends! He wouldn’t!”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I know how you feel, Yuto, but that voice... that’s him."

“Why the hell would he want to kill my parents?”

“It was your dad. In the recording, he’s talking about your dad. He was digging too deep into the underworld. I remember there was a time I told him to stop, and I thought he actually listened to me for once. But then I got the call a year later, during the Red Raid, that he needed help. I didn’t know he was looking into Haru Hoshiga.”

“Then we go and confront him! Make him talk!”

“No, Yuto, it won’t be that simple.”

“Why?”

“For one, we don’t even know what Yuri had on Haru. We can’t go barging in blindly and expect to get anything done. Two, even with the evidence we have now, the corruption and power that the underworld holds is too much. They’d easily be able to get Haru out of any situation. If he’s as corrupt as it seems—probably worse—he likely has deep ties to the underworld that can keep him safe. We need something that’s one hundred percent definitive, or else it won’t matter. Take Shou Jiro, for example. Those girls anonymously admitted to the public that he was attempting to rape them, and he was freed the next day without the media saying a word.”

“...So what do we do?”

“Here’s the plan.”

***

Yuto stands in front of the DIPD in a black hoodie and pants. He heads into the building and walks heads to the room labeled “Citizen Service.”

“First, I’ll save the files of Shoma and Haru talking about killing your parents and then delete them from the recorder. We don’t want even the smallest clue coming back to hurt us.”

As Yuto heads into the room, he stops in front of the fire alarm and pulls down the level. The alarm goes off, and everyone evacuates the building. Yuto sneakily heads further into the building without drawing suspicion.

“Second, take the recorder and place it on Detective Yamato Fujimura’s desk. In order to do that you’ll have to sneak into the DIPD and pull the fire alarm. The department is less guarded at night due to most of the patrol and detectives being out handling crimes. The only problem is the captain of the DIPD James Sanders. Lucky for us today is his day off. Make your way into the detective room and leave the recorder along with a locator beacon on his desk.”

Yuto sneakily makes his way into the detective room and looks around for Yamato’s desk. After finding the desk with Yamato’s name tag, Yuto places the recorder, a small rectangular black device, and a paper note on the desk and scurries out the DIPD and away from the scene.

“After that, it shouldn’t take long for the DIPD to realize they actually have enough solidified evidence for an arrest. They should arrest him early in the day. Then that should attract the queen's attention and finally give us a chance to talk to her. Remember Shoma has been giving her more and more money. Without his support, she’ll lose significant amount of power. But because the tensions between the rulers of the underworld, she won’t have the time to focus on you. That should make it so that hopefully she’ll try and give us what we want as long as we leave her alone.”

***

Yuto makes it back into the house where Shunji waits for him.

“How’d it go?”

“Good, I put everything on his desk.”

“Alright, now we just wait till morning.”