“Jesus-fucking-Christ,” Devin curses as he stands up from the sofa after ending the call. “How can a phone with so much security on it that a world-class hacker like Tetsuya needs three fucking days to manually get through it all end up with nothing fucking on it? Like, what's the point of going out of your way to install a custom operating system just to hide damn near nothing?”

“Maybe it had more stuff on it, but Takiyama deleted it all before abandoning it at his apartment?” Atreus gives his own theory as he stands up, too. “Either way, that one number is the only thing we have to go on now, so we shouldn't dismiss it completely. It could lead us somewhere important.”

“I fuckin' guess. We'd better head over there, then,” Devin remarks with a sigh and starts for the door leading out of the office with Atreus following close behind. “If we're not back soon, we'll see you tomorrow, aniki!” He bids farewell to the family head as he exits.

“Try not to get up in anything bad after you call that strange number,” Ryuji gives last-second advice before the door closes behind the two men.

The Asano family lieutenants make their way down to the first floor and across the lobby, which is inhabited by only a few younger members who have yet to return home for the night. On the way out to the sidewalk, Devin orders an Automa that arrives with impressive promptness. They hastily enter the vehicle and make their way to Tetsuya's apartment complex near the northern side of Kyoba, little more than a stone's throw away from Atreus's building.

Once they arrive, they make a brisk approach for the elevator, which they take to the fourth floor, where the nicer, more expensive apartments are. They walk down the well-lit hallway to room 421, the door with a copious amount of lock mechanisms decorating it, specifically a keyless deadbolt, an eye scanner, and – exclusive to Tetsuya's room – a fingerprint reader on the door lever. As soon as the room is with arm's reach, Devin stretches forward ahead of his own feet to hit the doorbell. After a brief moment, the audible clacks of multiple locks unlocking at the same time are heard, and the thick, heavy, dark mahogany door opens by itself by just a crack.

Devin is the first to walk in, with Atreus closely in tow and shutting the door again behind him. Upon entering the apartment, he's greeted with the same sight he witnessed in his last visit: the kitchen countertops loaded with empty fast food bags and pizza boxes kept in neat stacks – unsure if those are the same bags and boxes he saw three nights ago or new ones – and Tetsuya himself, sitting at his computer and multiple monitors held up with wall-mounted arms that face the front door. Despite the ugrency of the visits, Atreus silently wonders how the hacker manages to stay thin despite a clearly sedentary lifestyle and poor diet. Lucky genes, perhaps?

“Tetsu, where's the phone?” Devin asks loudly and aggressively upon entering the apartment.

“Right here, boss man,” Tetsuya grabs the device, which was simply sitting on his desk, turns his chair around, and tosses it to Devin, who sits on the couch to open it. “By cracking it, I was able to get rid of all the lock screens entirely.”

As the hacker states, Devin is able to reach the phone's home screen without any lock screens preventing access. Also as the hacker stated, the home screen is empty aside from a few standard apps that come default with the installation of the custom operating system. The gangster opens the gallery, which holds absolutely no pictures or videos of any kind. He opens the basic notepad application and finds no documents of any format. He searches the downloads folder and sees nothing.

“Fuck, you weren't kidding,” Devin gripes. “This thing is totally fucking empty.”

“Trust me, I scoured every nook and cranny on that thing to find something – anything – but it came up with nothing,” Tetsuya admits with a shrug. “I even tried to use data recovery to see if anything was deleted recently, but that came up with jack shit, too. It looks like this was a really fresh install, and this Takiyama guy didn't have time to use it much before he abandoned it. That number I mentioned is in the call history, by the way.”

Devin checks the call history and sees that a few calls were made both to and from an unsaved contact in the few days leading up to the murder.

“Should we call them and see who picks up?” he asks aloud, looking at his friend.

“I don't know,” Atreus gives a reluctant response. “There's no telling who'd answer, if anyone.”

“Can you, like, hack the mobile network and see whose number this is or something?” Devin turns to Tetsuya to ask for another request.

“Fuck no!” the hacker immediately and strongly refuses. “I have a good working relationship going on with most of the top mobile network companies. I'm not going to jeopardize that; it's my job. Plus, these service providers have better network security than the fucking government; even if I did do it, it'd take another few days. I'd have a higher chance of success hacking into the goddamn Pentagon or something.”

“I guess we don't have much a choice, thenm” Devin concedes with a sigh. “You want the honor?” He hands the phone over to Atreus, who pauses for a moment before slowly accepting it.

The augmented man stares at the call screen with eyes of uncertainty. He silently wishes that helpful information would just conjure out of thin air and save him from calling an unknown and potentially shady and dangerous number. However, his stalling only delays the inevitable. He highlights the number with his thumb, and presses the 'call' button that appears, and puts the call on speaker so the others can listen in.

The first ring sounds, then the second, then the third. All three men in the room leer at the device without blinking, so intently – and almost threateningly – that an outsider watching them would assume they were trying to set it on fire with their vision. The fourth ring sounds, then the fifth, then the sixth. By now, most calls would either go straight to voicemail, or perhaps be purposely silenced by the recipient. In the brief instant between the sixth and seventh ring, Atreus ponders the implication of the phone ringing so many times. Is the receiving phone abandoned like Takiyama's was? Or maybe the recipient is there, but just as hesitant to answer as Atreus was to call?

The eighth ring begins, but is abruptly cut off before it finishes. Everyone's first thought is that it finally reached voicemail, but neither a prerecorded message or beep play to signify that. There's only silence. Atreus, Devin, and Tetsuya all glance at each other, wondering what to do or say. Atreus decides to wing it before the call ends.

“Hello?” he asks somewhat meekly. “Is someone there?”

A tense pause follows; whoever is on the other end doesn't respond. However, the extremely faint sound of an unsteady breath can be heard once Atreus places his ear close enough to the phone, meaning that someone in definitely there, and listening, but not speaking.

“I found this phone and your number was the only thing of note on it,” the gangster, not knowing how else to proceed, simply gives an honest but slightly omissive explanation. “Do you know the owner of this phone, or how I can contact them?”

The unknown person on the other end of the line continues to stay silent, though a strong huff of breath is heard – possibly a sigh of some sort.

“I'm... a member of the Sanada-gumi. I believe this phone belongs to another member, and I'd like to return it to them,” Atreus, risking giving too much information about himself, continues his approach of transparency to try and elicit any type of reply.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Another short sigh is heard, but with a subtle, flustered groan or similar sound accompanies it, possibly out of confusion or hesitance. From what Atreus can gather, it seems that the person on the other end of the call is beginning to consider talking.

“Do you know how I can contact the owner of this phone? I have something important I wish to discuss with them, something that could affect the whole clan,” the gangster continues to plead his case without giving away any specifics, but tries to underline the urgency of the situation.

A sudden, short rustling sound is heard on the other end, followed by another strong sigh. Whoever Atreus is speaking to, they're not very composed and likely extremely conflicted about speaking. As the pause between them grows longer, Atreus begins to mentally construct his next statement, as he feels the right words might finally push this mysterious person into finally answering his questions. However, his thoughts are cut off.

“Prove you're with the Sanada-gumi,” a slightly high-pitched but still clearly masculine voice is finally heard from the other end, shocking the three men.

“H-how do you want me to do that?” Atreus quickly responds, willing to cooperate.

“The fastest way would be to just send me a picture of yourself wearing your pin. You have a pin, right?”

“I do, yes.”

“Then send me a picture. You don't have to show your face, but I will do a reverse image search on different online search engines to make sure you didn't just find a random picture on the internet,” the mysterious person becomes demanding and aggressive. “If I discover that you did, I'll be blocking your calls. And you have two minutes to send it. Any longer, and I'll block your calls. Two. Minutes.”

Before Atreus can even think of a response or even accept the request, the screen illuminates with a 'Call Ended' screen. The three men in the room look at each with bewilderment.

“Send a fucking picture?” Devin repeats the demand, his eyes narrowed with obvious confusion. “Is that even a good idea? We don't know who the fuck this person is.”

“It could be Edward,” Atreus gives a counterpoint. “And if it's him, he's probably this way because he's spooked by something.”

“Yeah, he'd be spooked because we're calling him from his own fucking phone. He probably figured that we broke into his apartment to get it in the first place.”

“But then whose phone was he actually using just then?” Tetsuya chimes in with his own question.

“No idea. He seems really adamant on receiving proof that I'm Sanada-gumi, though,” Atreus replies, bringing the unknown person's demand up again.

“Yeah, but is that safe? Is that a good idea on this network?” Devin replies, apprehensive of cooperating.

“I actually forgot to mention this, but that phone's actually just a burner,” Tetsuya remarks, pointing to the device still in Atreus's hand.

“How can you tell?” Atreus responds, looking at the phone with a befuddled expression.

“I got curious after you guys left the last time you were here and opened up the entire back panel, and I noticed that it actually doesn't have an embedded SIM card that's soldered directly into the board. In fact, the card that it does have is a special dummy SIM that has information of a phone that's on the mobile network, but isn't actually registered to anyone.”

“So what the fuck does that all mean? Why would someone need that?” Devin asks.

“To talk to someone on the most private line possible. The only problem is that you have to use it very sparingly or the service provider will notice activity from the unregistered number.”

“Jesus, why the hell would Takiyama have this?”

“Do I send a picture or not?!” Atreus exclaims to get the other two back on topic. “The two minutes are almost over.”

“It should be safe to send a picture from the phone, yes,” Tetsuya reassures with confidence.

“Alright then.” Atreus opens the camera application on the phone and takes a quick picture of his torso, making sure the the pin on his vest lapel is visible, but also ensuring that his face is mostly left out and that Tetsuya's apartment isn't distinguishable. “That should work. Now, we wait,” he says under his breath as he sends it to the mysterious person.

“Do you really think that it's Takiyama?” Devin asks.

“I don't know. I've never met him before, so I wouldn't be able to recognize his voice. It's not like Bessho's here with us to confirm it, either.”

“You sure it was a good idea to send them a picture before we find out who they were?”

Atreus shrugs. “Not like we had much of a choice. He gave us an ultimatum and only two minutes to decide to accept it or not. If we didn't, we might not hear from him again, which could be bad if he knows something important.”

“What if he doesn't? Or worse, what if he's the killer and trying to take out anyone on his trail? And you just took a picture of yourself!” Devin rambles, becoming increasingly paranoid.

“It's fine. He even said that I didn't need to include my face. He didn't even ask for a name. Plus, I doubt the killer would sound so... conflicted about the call to begin with,” the augmented man suggests, thinking about the clear hesitance and urgency heard in the unknown person's voice; it clashes with the evidence they have on the killer's cold and professional-to-a-fault methodology, unless they're also a very good actor.

“I hope you're right. I wouldn't want to be in the way of someone who eluded the police, the Sanada-gumi, and the Blue Star.”

“Well, they haven't totally eluded us yet,” Atreus, feeling a bit offended as the person in charge of investigating on behalf of the clan, points out a technical truth. “If anything, we're closing the gap, and we're probably ahead of the police, too.”

“They might already know that; hopefully we catch them before they can make things harder for us somehow,” Devin remarks somberly.

The three wait with bated breath and heightening impatience for a return call verifying Atreus's photo. He has the phone resting in his hand, the blank black screen staring back at his anxious eyes like a void. Devin fiddles with his own thumbs while bouncing his left knee as if it were some nervous tic that's afflicted him his whole life. Tetsuya sits cross-legged in his chair, pensively rubbing his chin and mouth in spite of the working computer and four mounted monitors that could distract him.

The would-be detective continues to stare at the device without blinking. His eyes become dry and irritated by the fast food and pizza-scented the air of the hacker's apartment, but refuse to close to alleviate the agitation. After what feels like an hour, the phone's screen lights up almost blindingly with an incoming call notification, and the blaring sound of the default ringtone follows in a fraction of a second, causing all men to jump to attention.

“Oh, fuck!” Devin exclaims after being particularly startled.

Atreus scrambles to slide his thumb across the screen and accept the call. “Hello?” he answers loud and clear after setting the call to speakers again.

“Your picture's legit,” the voice responds, seeming more calm than they were in the previous conversation. “I suppose I can trust you.”

“Absolutely; you can,” Atreus nods passionately at the phone. “Do you mind telling me who you are?”

“Not so fast,” the unknown person interrupts. “I need time to think things over before I can talk to you about... everything. I figured it was a matter of time before someone contacted me, but I didn't think it'd be this soon. I assume this is about more than just returning a phone?”

“Yes, it is,” Atreus readily admits, seeing as how there's little reason to deny anything anymore. “So, exactly how long do you need? I don't want to put any additional pressure on top of what you might feel already, but we're in a bit of a rush.”

“'A rush?' How bad is the situation from your point of view?”

“Well, we're sort of racing the police to solve things, plus we still haven't caught the person responsible for... the crime.”

“...I see. Can't say I'm surprised,” the stranger acknowledges the circumstances after a short pause. “Then I'll call you tomorrow to tell you the meeting place I decided, and at what time to head there. From there, we can talk.”

“Okay. Fair enough.”

“And by the way,” the unknown voice continues before the call ends, sounding more grim than he did a second ago, “I saw it. I saw the murder.”

“What?!” Atreus exclaims as he and the other two men reel back, not expecting to hear such a blunt and immediate confession.

“I'll tell you more once we meet tomorrow,” the mysterious person tacks on one last statement before promptly cutting the call, causing the 'call ended' notification to show up on Takiyama's phone's screen.