With seconds to spare on the 1 AM deadline, Atreus's taxi pulls up to the front of the monolith standing tall in the middle of Kyoba: Kawada Tower. On the concrete lot, preceding the steps leading up to the building's entrance, is a diamond-shaped glass and metal fountain. The center sculpture's ten-foot tall form is a nigh indescribable tangle of shapes, yet the numerous spouts are still placed in symmetrical spots all around it. The crystal clear water in the basin looks clean enough to drink, through the uncountable amount of coins sitting at the bottom would make one think twice about a sip.
Surrounding the fountain is four metal benches, approximately four feet long each. From Atreus's perspective on the sidewalk, facing directly towards the building, two are placed at each side of the basin. Despite the time, there are several people spread around, either sitting on the benches or along the fountain basin, and passing foot traffic is still somewhat heavy.
Recalling the witness's description of himself, the gangster begins to scan the area for someone in a red and white striped hoodie, soon finding a person fitting that detail on the opposite, right side of the fountain, sitting on a bench closer to the tower entrance. The unknown person has their head down and hood up, ironically making himself look more suspicious than he's likely trying to be. Atreus casually approaches, his mind swimming with multiple thoughts about what might happen. Until now, he had been sure this was the only way to continue his investigation – and he still is – but now that he's steps away from this mysterious individual whose number was on a missing man's phone, the paranoia is finally starting to kick in.
“Hey,” Atreus softly calls out as he steps up to the shady-looking man who's slouching forward in a clear effort to hide his face. “Are you the one I'm supposed to meet here?”
“Possibly,” the unknown person responds without lifting his head, though his slightly high-pitched voice sounds familiar. “Are you the same person in the picture you sent?”
“Yeah, that's me,” the augmented man quickly confirms.
The hooded person finally looks up, revealing a young, slightly lean face and tired, half-open eyes that seem to have not experienced a full night's sleep in days. His expression immediately transforms from cautious suspicion to surprise as he sees Atreus's face and body.
“You're... Atreus, from the Asano family,” the self-proclaimed witness says, remarking instead of asking.
“Yeah, that's right,” Atreus furrows his brow, puzzled that he was so quickly recognized. “You... know me?”
“Of course I know you, everyone in the clan does. Here, have a seat.” The haggard young man moves over and gestures to the surface of the bench.
“Wait, so you're a member of the Sanada-gumi too?” Atreus asks as he complies with the invitation to sit. “Who are you?”
“I'm Edward Takiyama, man. From the Hoshino family.” The man points to himself to emphasize his identity. “You called me from my own phone.”
“Holy shit,” the would-be detective utters, baffled by the sudden turn of events. Seconds ago, he was worrying that this was possibly another attempt at a setup. “Where the hell have you been? What's your connection to everything that's been happening? You need to start explaining.” He snaps out of his shocked stupor to begin his interrogation. For some reason, he feels like unleashing all of his frustrations with the investigation on Edward, now that he's here.
“Hold on, man. Chill out for a second.” Edward swings his head around to scan the area around them for anyone who might be eavesdropping. None of the other people in the area stand out as suspicious, but he isn't totally convinced. “Look, I'll explain as much as I can, but you gotta keep your voice down.”
“Alright, fine. Just tell me everything you can tell me. First off: how are you involved in this?”
“Billy – Will – was one of my best friends from middle school and through high school,” Edward begins giving some context while punctuating every few words with a paranoid glance to his surroundings. “After he went off to college, we kinda lost touch, but after he graduated, we started talking again every once in a while. He knew I joined the Sanada-gumi in the time we were apart, but that didn't bug him much, though it made it harder to hang out in person.”
Atreus hangs on every word of Edward's explanation, and tries to silently put together his words with other details collected about the investigation, though it's somewhat difficult with Edward practically speaking a mile a minute.
“Then, like three weeks or so ago, he suddenly starts talking about needing my help with something, said one of his classmates in college got a job with Zephir Industries on network security, just like him, but found out some shady shit the company was doing behind the scenes.”
“Wait, wait, hold on,” Atreus, finally struggling to keep up, halts Edward. “Who is this old classmate?”
“It was that guy who went fucking missing, man,” Edward utters desperate voice and frightened eyes. “They found his body a few days ago. Didn't you see the news about it?”
The augmented man recalls the news report on the television in Takahashi's place; the body of a missing Zephir Industries employee was found in the forest just outside of San Francisco. While the news struck him as odd and unfortunate, he didn't seriously believe it was somehow related to Camlin's death.
“You mean... Isaac Noah? I remember seeing something about that, yes,” Atreus responds, trying to keep the conversation going despite being very bewildered. “So what exactly did this guy find out, and what did Camlin do to get involved?”
“He found out that Zephir had been making under-the-table deals with some suspicious characters and used his position as network security to get some info. He was able to steal copies of loads of different documents proving something was up, but he became too paranoid to act on it, so he asked Billy to keep them secure.”
“Jesus, this is a lot to unpack,” Atreus comments, rubbing his forehead in total exasperation of the overwhelming information being suddenly presented to him. “Who the hell are these 'suspicious characters' and what kind of deals are they making? What's on these documents?”
“I don't know. Billy was never clear on that stuff. He didn't come to me for help until he was certain he was already being tracked down.” Edward's mouth curls slightly down into a frown and his eyes bare a deep regret.
“Okay, so, let's jump ahead here. I came here because you said you were a witness. You watched Camlin get shot, right? Down the street from the Hoshino building?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Why were you and Camlin there to begin with?”
“It was Billy who wanted to meet up there. He knew we'd be safe from the police drones for the time being in that specific spot, and knew there were no security cameras. It's a tangled path of cramped alleys behind those buildings, so it'd be safe for some sort of secret meet up.”
“So Camlin did purposely set up a meeting with someone there, but it was with you, not the killer,” Atreus summarizes to himself with a thoughtful rub of his chin. “I found out that none of the drones caught any of the action because the crime happened in a blind spot that had only a window of several minutes of no surveillance, so I knew then he intended to meet someone there.”
“Yeah, it was to meet up with me. He wanted to give me a thumb drive containing all the documents, which I have.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“You have it?” the augmented man reels back in surprise. “The killer didn't take it?”
“No, he only took Billy's phone and took off immediately. He arrived before I did and I got there just in time to see the motherfucker... He put two into Billy's chest and one into his head.” Edward casts his gaze downward. Wrought with guilt and frustration, he rubs his forehead and tries to take a deep breath. “Man, I keep fucking seeing it in my head, over and over,” his strained voice laments, punctuated by a sniffle.
“Hey, I'm sorry you lost a friend,” Atreus responds softly, trying to console Edward, but also needing to continue the conversation. “I'm here to find the asshole who killed him, because if we don't, his crimes might be pinned on the Sanada-gumi, and more innocent civilians may be caught up in this.”
“What do you mean? How are civilians in danger here?” Edward brings his glassy eyes up in confusion.
“I spoke to a woman who works at Atmos, she's loyal to the Sanada-gumi. She mentioned that Billy's job was extremely important – that he more or less single-handedly keeps the network in working order because of his programming skills. It's common for their security to have some holes in it after each major update, and he's usually the person who stitches them up. We don't know if it's a coincidence, but whoever wanted him dead might also be looking to breach Atmos's servers.”
“Shit, I have no idea about all of that stuff, man.” Edward scratches his head, perplexed at everything Atreus just mentioned. “All I know is that Billy's friend at Zephir found some iffy documents, entrusted them to Billy, who entrusted them to me. I don't even know what the documents have in them, because the thumb drive's encrypted. I've had it all this time and I can't even look inside.”
“Do you have it on you right now?”
Edward shakes his head. “No, I don't. I didn't want to risk bringing it in case you weren't someone I could trust.”
“That's fair. Would it be possible to meet up again sometime soon for it?”
“Yeah, I'm staying at a really low key place outside of Kyoba. I'll let you know tomorrow.”
“Good. Also...” Atreus pulls out Edward's phone, the one he had been using to communicate with him. “What's the deal with this? How were you able to call your own phone?”
“Billy got himself and me some burner phones so it'd be safer for us to communicate. He even installed some complex security-based operating system on them both. He mailed mine to me a couple days before he was killed. The phone you have was mine, and the one I have is Billy's. I got it from his body, along with the thumb drive.”
“Didn't you say the killer took his phone?”
“His normal, everyday phone, yeah. But the burner and the thumb drive were both hidden at his ankles, inside his socks.”
“I see. He really did think ahead as much as he could,” Atreus comments, quietly admiring the good judgment Camlin held up until the very end. If it weren't for the burner phones, he wouldn't be talking to Takiyama right now, and the investigation would almost certainly be dead.
“He was a really smart guy. He had a lot going for him, but all this shit just sort of fell into his lap.” Edward hangs a bit as he thinks of his late friend.
“So, if this is your burner phone,” Atreus continues, holding up the phone in question, “then where's your usual one?”
“It's back in the apartment I'm hiding out in. I ripped the battery out of it as soon as I could, paranoid that I might be tracked with it. Haven't put it back in since the night Billy was killed. I can only imagine how many calls and texts I've missed from other Hoshino family members. Bessho must be so fucking angry.” Takiyama rubs his forehead, thinking of the fury of his boss, another source of stress he would rather do without.
“It was actually Bessho who sent me on the errand of finding you the afternoon following the murder. He tried to gather up all of his boys in the office so they could easily cooperate with the cops who were about to storm the place, thinking they had something to do with it. You were the the only one who wasn't answering calls, so I volunteered to get you.”
“So you went inside my apartment, and that's how you found the phone?” Edward asks, filling in the blanks on his own.
“Yeah, exactly. Considering how important that phone was, I'm surprised you just left it there.”
“Actually, I didn't leave it there on purpose,” Edward hangs his head again, guiltily. “I just forgot it because I lost track of time. After Billy was killed, I didn't bother going back to my place at all; haven't been anywhere near the building in the last five days.”
“Listen, I don't want to make you any more paranoid than you already are, but you should know that the killer almost successfully framed you,” Atreus, wanting to be transparent, decides to inform Edward of the setup attempt.
“What?” The already agitated and nervous Takiyama becomes wide-eyed. “How?”
“The killer knows where you live, and he tried to plant the murder weapon in your home. I caught onto him thanks to security videos recorded by the cameras in the lobby and was able to interfere by taking the gun for myself after a second visit to your apartment, but if I hadn't done that, the detectives I ran into in the hallway would've found it, plain as day, tucked under your bed. It was a really close call.”
“God dammit,” Edward utters with gritted teeth as he buries his face in his hands. “How the hell did the cops even know to come by my place? Did someone report me missing?”
“No, there was actually a second body found, but this time it was a Blue Star member.”
“Blue Star?” Edward's expression turns from worried to confused. “What do they have to do with this?”
“I was able to acquire Billy's autopsy report, and Daisuke, from the Abe family, was able to deduce the cartridge used to kill him was called a VF+ round, which is something sold by Blue Star vendors.”
“So the dead Blue Star member was the vendor?”
Atreus shakes his head. “No, it wasn't the vendor himself. You see, they get new customers through a referral system. If you're a first-time buyer, you need to be taken to a vendor. The dead guy was named Marvin Choi, and he was supposedly the one who took our killer to the vendor.”
“This fucking psycho's willing to kill anyone to tie up loose ends, huh? And he knows where I live. Fuck,” Edward lets out a stifled exclamation of growing frustration. “So you have the murder weapon? It's not on you right now, is it?”
“No, it's not. It's in a safe place. I don't want to hand it over to the police until I can pair it with some definitive proof of the killer's identity. Speaking of which, did Billy ever give a reason as to why he didn't go straight to the police to begin with?”
“I asked him the same thing, and all he said was that it wouldn't do any good; that if he went to the police with only the documents in hand, it would only address a part of the problem, not the source, which could buy them out in a heartbeat. I'm still not sure what kind of 'source' he was talking about, since I can't access the damn files without getting through the fucking encryption. I almost went to the cops after watching Billy get killed, but I don't know how to fucking explain all of this shit, man. I was dragged into this mess so goddamn fast.”
“Don't worry, I know someone who can probably get past it. It was the same person who cracked open your phone so I could call you.”
“Okay. That's good to hear.” Edward nods meekly, more to calm himself down than to simply acknowledge Atreus's words. “How long are you gonna keep holding on to the gun?”
“Honestly, the hiding place is it's in right now isn't very ideal,” the reluctant detective comments with an unsure expression, feeling conflicted about leaving a hot gun in Ryuji's desk. If the stars align and the wrong person discovers it somehow, it would make a swift end for the entire Asano family.
“Well, if you want, I can keep it for you.”
“What?” Atreus reels back in bewilderment. “I'm in possession of that thing in the first place to save you from being framed, but now you're volunteering to keep it?”
“Do you want to keep it where it is, then? I've been under the radar this whole time with little issue. It's not like I own the place I'm staying at, anyway.”
“...Fine,” Atreus hesitantly concedes. No matter what point of view he looks from, neither he, Devin, or Ryuji are fond of having a murder weapon stashed in the Asano family building. It might truly be better off kept in a place outside of Kyoba, unassociated with the Sanada-gumi. “If you're sure it'll be safe there, then I'll bring it when we meet. I guess it could also help if you could identify it as the murder weapon.”
“I'm not sure about that, it was pretty dark, and I can't imagine it would look much different than any other pistol I've seen. But I can try.”
“Oh, speaking of identifying, I have one – admittedly shitty – picture of the man who broke into your apartment to plant the gun.” Atreus retrieves his own personal phone to bring up the picture he received from Bessho and show it to Edward. “Can you confirm that this is the man who shot Billy?”
Edward squints his eyes at first, but follows up with a telling nod. “It definitely seems like him. I couldn't see his face very well that night, either, but he was wearing the exact same clothes, had the same short hair, similarly shaped head. He looks about the same height too. If I had to wager a guess, I'd say it's probably him.”