It wasn't much effort to make those poor fools bend to Tsukiko's, or Izanami's, will. She wasn't sure what her name was anymore. It'd all started to blur, Damascenes and Shakudos, Himura or Izanami, Knight or criminal.

Still, after all the convincing and menacing, Tsukiko'd found herself a bit hungry. Kazuo could tell, somehow. Maybe in the way her voice sounded, or maybe he'd discovered some kind of tell that she shared with Haruka.

Kaz offered to get her something, since she couldn't exactly order anything herself. Meanwhile, she had to sit alone, in some secluded space, having dismissed her Shakudo guard. As much as she was starting to warm up to the idea, she didn't need them breathing down her neck all the time.

Alone time meant more time to get her thoughts together and start to plan. Every time she tried to really focus on the future, though, the world in her mind went all hazy and smudged like a lens covered in grease. All her best plans were better undone and all her best ideas slipped away. She wondered what had happened to her brain.

Thinking back, her own actions frightened her. She'd awakened something that'd made her almost immediately fall into the same behaviors of all the gang leaders she'd spent years fighting. It felt about as natural as putting on that damn jacket every morning.

Tsukiko wasn't unsatisfied, though. A slight smile spread across her face when she thought about it. She was a bull in a china shop, a wolf among sheep, she wanted to bite down on Ishikawa's neck. The future was cold, and uncertain, but she'd grabbed fate and twisted it, wrung it out like a wet rag.

She was being selfish. Tsukiko was letting it all go straight to her head. Was it really such a bad thing? It felt like she was making progress again, her spinning wheels finally escaping the muck.

As proud as she was, she'd traded one abandoned place for another. She was kneeled down in some shaded little strip of asphalt between two commercial buildings, a barely walkable gap that couldn't be called an alley even in the most charitable of terms. Still, it was dark there and there was plenty of scrap lying around to hide behind, so it wasn't like anyone was going to notice her.

"Tsuki." Kazuo's voice startled her. "I'm back."

Kazuo squeezed back into the narrow space, holding a greasy brown paper bag with both hands. His body movements were cautious, like he was holding some priceless antique, but his fingers were so tense it looked like he was carrying a bomb instead.

"I didn't know what you wanted." The bag crinkled as Kazuo reached in and pulled out a small paper wrapped bundle. "So I just got some cheeseburgers."

Tsuki unwrapped it about as quickly as Kaz handed it to her. It was a small thing, two thin patties, two slices of cheese, ketchup, mustard, diced onions and pickles. Any other day, it would've been a pedestrian meal, but in that moment, Tsuki would've killed for it.

"This is good." Tsuki muttered as she brought it up to her mouth.

"When'd you last eat?" Kaz asked.

"Dunno." Tsuki spoke with her mouth full.

She tore into the thing without a second thought, letting all the flavors hit her all at once. The taste of onion and mustard would be stuck on her breath for the rest of the day but she didn't care.

Kazuo took a moment to choose his words before he finally spoke. "...are you doing okay?"

"...I'm fine." Tsuki stopped eating for a second to reply. "Well, not fine, but..."

"Yeah, I figured." Kazuo nodded a little.

"It's just something I have to deal with, Kaz." Tsuki replied. "I'm in my hole, now I have to crawl out."

"I just hope you know what you're doing." Kazuo looked down at her.

Tsuki stopped everything. "I've had this conversation so many times..."

"Sorry."

"No, I get it." Tsuki reassured him. "I don't know what's gonna happen. Nobody does. I'm just doing what feels right in the moment. I'm sorry."

Tsukiko's response hadn't been rehearsed, but it'd been bouncing around in her head for hours. It was the truth, or at least what she thought was the truth. She could hardly tell anymore.

"...right." Kazuo didn't want to bother her.

"Thanks." Tsuki said before she returned to her food.

There was a long quiet.

"Why are you a bartender now?"

Tsuki let out a long, frustrated sigh. "Peer pressure."

"You know how to mix drinks?"

"No."

"You don't?" Kazuo recoiled.

"I don't!" Tsuki admitted. "I usually just drink my liquor straight, maybe with some ice."

"On the rocks."

Tsukiko lowered her head. "On the rocks..."

"Sorry." Kazuo laughed a little. "It's just that... from all that Fumi's said--"

"I am... a whiskey enthusiast, okay?" Tsuki defended herself. "Besides, she practically poured the bottle down my throat in half those stories."

"...a whiskey enthusiast?" Kazuo raised an eyebrow.

"It's what my Dad drank." Tsukiko looked away. "I got used to it."

"So you seriously have no idea about mixed drinks... at all?" Kazuo interrogated.

"I leave that stuff to Fumi." Tsukiko shrugged.

"So you go to the club with Fumi-- Don't deny it, I know you two go clubbing--"

"Why's everyone so hung up on that?" Tsukiko muttered between bites.

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"...and you order, what, a bottle of Suntory?" Kazuo looked at her with a slight smirk. "Well, I know what to get you for your birthday now."

"Please don't." Tsuki put her hand on her forehead. "I'd never hear the end of it."

"C'mon, broaden your horizons." Kazuo teased her. "You seriously can't be drinking straight from the bottle every time, right?"

"Of course not." Tsuki groaned. "Sure I'll have a mixed one here and there, but don't ask me for specifics. I usually just drink what she puts in front of me."

Kazuo hesitated. "Is... is that a good idea?"

Tsukiko shrugged.

"...I'll teach you next time." Kazuo suggested. "How to order, I mean. We'll... go drinking together. When this is all over."

"Sounds nice..." Tsuki reached into the bag again, hoping to get another cheeseburger.

There was another uncomfortable, protracted silence. Tsuki looked at Kazuo while chewing on her second little cheeseburger. The look in his eyes showed pity. Tsukiko had to avert her gaze, but the guilt didn't leave her.

Talking to Kazuo felt strange. They laughed at one another's jokes, and they shared so many memories, yet occasionally, he felt like a stranger. When Tsuki ran out of things to say, new words tended to get caught in a lump in her throat.

"How's Haru doing?" Tsuki asked. "Haven't talked to her much."

"Figures." Kazuo tugged on his coat sleeve. "I always thought you two would've gotten along better after everything with Morgan."

"We do get along." Tsuki explained. "We just... don't talk as much as we should."

Tsukiko went quiet, having accidentally slipped back into a sore topic. She'd just said the first thing that came to mind, the only real thing she knew for sure they could relate with one another about. Her mouth had just gone a bit faster than she could think.

"You should call her."

"...doesn't feel right."

"Why not?"

"It's just... I dunno. She doesn't need to hear from me right now. I don't wanna put more on her plate." Tsukiko lowered her eyes.

Kazuo looked to the side as he thought the best way to approach her. Tsuki took the biggest bite of her burger she could.

"You're her sister, you shouldn't have to worry about that kind of thing." Kazuo tried to comfort her. "You care about one another, don't you?"

"'Course I care about Haru." Tsukiko spoke with her mouth full. "But she's got a lot going on. She's an adult, with her own life. She's made her decision."

"Yeah, she is an adult, but that doesn't mean she's made a good decision. That doesn't mean you have to isolate yourself." Kazuo urged. "You used to be one of the most stubborn people I knew, always fighting and arguing... Why're you rolling over and letting her treat you like this?"

Tsuki really didn't have an answer for him. "It... feels like I have to. I have to respect her choice."

"A duty." Kazuo said. "Well, my duty is to protect her, make her happy. I wanna make sure that she's not doing something stupid and making things worse for herself."

Tsukiko couldn't muster up any words. She went back to her burger.

"I'm not afraid of going against her wishes because I know that what she wants and what she says she wants are two different things." Kazuo insisted. "Haru'll lie through her teeth and say the world doesn't bother her, but I know it does. You know too."

Kazuo looked at Tsukiko, the look on his face was bright, as if he was expecting her to change her tune, to stand up and rebel against her sister once again. Tsuki just looked up at him, then away, mincing the words in her head.

Tsuki spoke up. "As long as I've known her, she's been off doing her own thing, making her own life. I'm not always a part of that."

"You're family."

"Kaz, we don't even have the same last name anymore. She's not a Himura... She's Shimizu Haruka now." Tsukiko's voice trailed off. "And you're... part of the family now..."

"Is that a problem?"

"No, it's just..." Tsuki hesitated. "I never really thought that far ahead."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I never really imagined her getting married, for one." Tsuki almost laughed. "I didn't imagine her getting so serious about you and your work, or about being a Knight again, or getting all serious about her own future. Maybe I don't know her as well as I thought."

Tsukiko looked up at Kazuo, expecting him to reply, but he didn't.

"There's always been a gap between Haru and I." Tsuki continued. "She's a couple years older than me, and after everything with Mom and Dad, and the wedding, I've felt awkward around her."

"Why?"

"I guess I just... feel like I'm talking to someone older and wiser. She's got real problems. She's got a family. She's got you and she's taking care of Lily." Tsukiko sighed. "Me? I'm stuck here. Hiding, like this."

"You'd get along with her just fine if you just spoke to one another." Kazuo insisted. "She's still your sister."

"Kaz." Tsuki chose her words. "She wasn't around for the most important years of my life. It was just me and Fumi for so long. When she comes walking back into my life, she acts like I'm still that dumb middle schooler I was when she left. As much as I care about her, that will always be difficult."

"But you can still bridge that gap. You can reconcile, reconnect." Kazuo was blunt. "What happened between you two? I know you stopped talking for a while, but Haru's never talked about it and Fumi's always told me to just ask you."

As much as Tsukiko wanted to say that her past was behind her and that it didn't matter, it still hung in her ear, a constant low droning. There was so much that Kazuo didn't know, so much she couldn't tell him. She hadn't learned to escape it, she'd just figured out how to tune it out. Acknowledging it made her feel sick.

"...when we were kids, our parents split up. My Dad started drinking and my Mom... She never really respected Haru and I." Tsukiko let out a groan. "When it came down to it, I stayed with my Dad and Haru went with Mom. He was never around, but he never judged me either."

"It's been years, though."

"Sure, but... we fought back then. It got ugly. Haru thought I'd come with her, but I didn't. I stayed with Dad and Fumi. She did the same thing Mom did, and told me I wasn't thinking right. I slapped her."

Kazuo let her keep talking.

"Haru... She's always been like this. Always trying to take the high road." Tsukiko frowned. "It makes it hard to relate. Maybe I'm just an idiot. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about and I really am just... digging my own grave."

"She buries herself in work so she doesn't have to face these things." Kazuo looked away. "Everything she's put toward the agency, everything she does for me and Lily... Maybe I should ask Shizuka about this next."

"Haru's still holding out on you?" Tsuki asked.

"Why wouldn't she?" Kazuo smiled a little. "She's got her secrets, things too tough to talk about, everybody does. I respect that."

"Honestly, I don't know how Haru kept the whole Knight thing under wraps for so long." Tsukiko wondered aloud. "Then again, I hardly knew Shizuka either growing up."

"Haru's got loads of stories about her."

"Wouldn't be surprised." Tsuki nodded. "When I finally met Shizuka, Haruka'd been taking care of her. She was feeding her, nagging her to shower and washing her clothes."

"Depression." Kazuo said.

"Yeah." Tsuki nodded again.

They went quiet again. Tsuki finally had something to say, something to get off her chest.

"Y'know, I didn't speak to her again till a couple days after they stabbed Fumi." Tsuki started. "She just knocked on the door and tried to come in like nothing happened."

"What'd you do?"

"I slammed the door in her face at first." Tsuki hissed. "Then I opened it up and... well, she led me to Sylvie and the Damascenes."

"...as much as I'd like to defend your sister for what happened next, I really can't." Kazuo let out an awkward laugh. "Sorry for her behavior back then."

"Don't apologize for her, she's her own person." Tsuki shook her head. "Besides, we worked it out."

"You didn't really have a choice." Kazuo admitted.

"Yeah..." Tsuki reminisced. "I think I'd go through that a thousand times before doing any of this again."

"That bad, huh?"

"It's been fun catching up." Tsuki let out a sigh.

Tsukiko stood up and started stretching her arms and legs. Kazuo reacted quickly, motioning towards her, but ultimately not moving to stop her.

"Hey, are you sure about this?" Kazuo asked her, sincerely.

"Dunno." Tsuki gave him the only response she could muster. "My gang is probably worried sick about me."

"Please." Kazuo looked her in the eye. "Just speak with your sister. If you can."

"I can't make any promises..."

"Tsuki." Kazuo's tone made his intention very clear. "Do something to let her know you're safe. That's all I'm asking."

"If you really wanna go that route..." Tsukiko held out a cherry red lollipop still on its plastic wrap. "Hand this to her."

"Candy?" Kazuo pulled it from her fingers.

"A gift she gave me. Told me I'd look cooler with one in my mouth." Tsukiko almost wanted to take it back.

"Is it really right to give it back to her, then? It's a gift."

"It's candy, Kaz." Tsuki glared. "You take it, you eat it. It doesn't last forever."

Kazuo put the candy in his pocket.

"She'll probably just take it and bite down on it as hard as she can with those teeth of hers." Tsukiko joked.

With that, Tsukiko turned and walked away, leaving Kazuo behind. She could feel his gaze on her back the whole way down the alley. Turning the corner, she started back for the warehouse.