2025-10-04: Crash into the Dark Hour
- Log: Crash into the Dark Hour
- Cast: Saika Kikuchi, Katsuya Suou
- Where: Konan - Main
- OOC Date: October 04, 2025
- IC Date: July 21, 2012
- Summary: Saika, deciding to go speak to Katsuya Suou, gets a little bit waylaid. However, she's in luck: in the depths of the Dark Hour, she finds the man in question and pumps him for information about the serial murders case.
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
12:07 PM
"Fwah! What a great lunch for breakfast. I should go see that Katsuya guy today," says Saika Kikuchi to herself as she finishes rinsing off her dishes. "I just have to get all the backlog stuff caught up a little."
4:32 PM
"Godddd what a pain in the aaaaaass," moans Saika Kikuchi as she finishes consolidating and storing a somewhat off-peak shipment of hides and supplies for her working. "But alright, I'm just gonna get dinner ready and then I'm going to hit the road and see Officer Suou!"
7:23 PM
"OKAY," says Saika, as the freshly hung out laundry on the inward-facing balcony is set, at last, to drip. "FUCKING FINALLY. I'm going to hit the road -- what the fuck just broke?"
8:02 PM
"MOTHER OF SHIT! It's already fucking DARK!"
9:11 PM
A checkout counter beeps. "So that's 210, plus you was on pump 3... three liters?"
"Yep," sighs Saika, surrendering her money.
9:58 PM
"Fucking finally," mutters Saika as she turns up the volume on her single-earbud, finally pulling in past the district sign for the Konan Ward. "My ass hurts."
10:20 PM
Saika emerges from a conbini with a fortifying egg salad sandwich. The earbud is replaced and she turns it up, finally exhaling. "NOW I can start finding cops."
10:21 PM - 11:52 PM
Imagine, if you will, a top-down view of the entirety of Konan ward, with a graceful red dotted line travelling throughout, stopping at about seven different kobans, all of which had the late-night crew, if any, somewhat bemused at a punk girl asking about a particular officer. ("It's for an investigation," Saika tells them. "I can't just talk freely about it. I need to find Officer Katsuya Suou!")
11:55 PM
A puttering low-powered motorcycle, the kind of thing you can ride quite a long way but which will get you promptly reduced to donor sauce on the highway, sits impatiently at an intersection directly behind a currently powered-down deko tora, which Saika gazes at wistfully. An ukiyo-e style face that Saika thinks might be J*nichiro Boizumi gazes at her, but thankfully he is cast in shadow.
11:58 PM
The light finally turns. Saika exhales and starts to motor down the long boulevard of the increasingly decrepit industrial district. The dekotora turns right into one of the surviving plants for manufacturing or trans-shipment or some goddamn thing Saika doesn't care about; instead, she opens it up with a little grin on her face. "Finally," Saika says with a widening of the eyes. "I can open it up!"
11:59 PM
Saika opens it up, feeling the familiar press of acceleration as she hangs a left with a completely sick skid and straightens out as she orients towards the road that's supposed to lead five blocks up and land in the middle of a currently-probably-mostly-quiet shopping area which is, by process of elimination, either going to have Suou OR a guy who KNOWS Suou. She feels the motorcycle straighten out as
11:59:59 PM
*tick*
the Dark Hour begins.
The puttering growl of the gasoline engine stops completely.
Saika blinks once, enormously. She looks downwards to see that the headlight is also out, as well as the little pin-lights that let her check the RPMs, current speed, and gas tank status without squinting in the dark.
Saika raises her head. "Huh," she says.
The motorcycle screams silently, the motor completely silent - inertia alone carrying the bike forwards.
The wind whispers past Saika's helmed head. "At least I still had like a half tank," Saika says, philosophically. "Dunno why I didn't think of this. Jeez. Big goof on me."
Saika pumps the brakes.
THEY DO NOTHING
"GAAAAAAAAAAH"
AND THAT'S WHY
A motorcycle just crashed into a small copse of bushes and trees, currently cast in stark darkness by the Dark Hour but still a lot better than pavement. The rider is hurtled forwards, landing in the comfortable-by-comparison surface of a playground sand pit, skidding out and rolling onto her side.
"fuck," groans Saika Kikuchi, and by the time she rears up, she looks... different; clad in defiant garb, and held together by colorful stitching, she pushes herself up and dusts her legs off. "Fuck," Saika continues.
She walks over to look at her motorcycle.
THE HEADLIGHT IS BROKEN
"FFFFFUUUUUCK"
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
It is, just as Katsuya had thought it would be, a long night.
There's still the chance that this is merely a case of what schedules could be crafted. Maybe it's to be expected that sometimes, you end up stuck on the night shift for an extended period for no particular reason.
But sometimes, you also get to take a look at recent actions, take into account the alleged corruption of your workplace, the connections of certain shadowy members of the government in local politics, and... and, even the most trusting and upstanding member of the public gets to wonder, just a little bit.
But only a little bit.
He has no particular ire for the Dark Hour in particular, outside the initial shock that it, well, existed at all in the first place. Most people can't get up to commiting crimes because they're also affected. The problem comes when people who are able to sustain themselves in the Dark Hour get up to no good, because what's the plan to stop them, exactly? As far as he knows, outside Akechi, he's the only member of law enforcement with this sort of power. And how does one even cover enough ground in a time when all vehicles and communications grind to a halt?
For those who can stay 'awake' in the Dark Hour, the world is their proverbial oyster -- well, outside the threat of Shadows, that is. And of course, this is a niche that hasn't gone unfilled. There are people who use the Dark Hour to their advantage, and worse, they've allied themselves with the Joker Killer for reasons that Katsuya can't begin to fathom. And there's nothing he can do about it, at least, not if he's so lucky as to happen across a crime in progress.
On nights like these, when he's working, he prefers to take the excuse to patrol rather than stay in the office and catch up on reports (it's not like he can do reports except by hand between 12 and 12:01 AM anyway). At least, outside, there's more that he can do, or potentially prevent, even if in practice it's usually 'quiet' (relatively, please ignore the Shadows slumping around) and 'calm'.
Rubber screams against asphalt.
...Usually quiet.
Something crashes into the bushes over there. A motorcycle-- its rider is thrown free, and rolls in a child's sand pit! Katsuya breaks into a run towards the site of the accident.
...Usually calm.
The rider, clad in an outlandish costume, rises, having a few things to say about her predicament. Fortunately, no children are around to hear them.
Katsuya's a homicide detective. He also hangs out with Ulala, at least in recent months, and it's not like Baofu has particularly 'clean' language, either. This doesn't scandalize him. He still takes a polite minute to regard Saika.
"Are you... alright, miss?" he asks, finally.
Good news! You might have broken the headlight, but you did, in fact, find Sergeant Katsuya Suou! Hooray! (wait does saika know what he looks like)
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
The strange woman looks at her motorcycle.
"You know what," Saika answers him, "I'm really NOT, and I know that's not very cool of me to say but I've had a real god damn asshole of a day and I'm going to break it down for you. OK, so I was going to try to get here by like, five, you know?" Saika says, turning to face the homicide detective.
She raises her hands. "Six at the latest. I was gonna try to find the person I was looking for, have a chat, and probably be home in time to sleep at a regular hour like a *loser*. Instead, I get this late delivery of supplies for my handicrafts job and so, okay, that's fine, at least I HAVE it, but that slows me down."
Saika ticks on her fingers. "Then I had to cook dinner, which, again, is fine, except I'm often the one who has to cook for everyone or at least I *TRY* to have something edible for everyone even though I have dietary restrictions so I know half the time they're going to eat out so they can hog out on meat!"
Another ticking finger. "I get THAT done and then I realize the laundry machine's full! So I have to RUN THAT, and then I have to set everything OUT, and of course it's already like getting near sunset so I know they're going to dry kind of weird but WHATEVER, right, even without the sun it'll get done, but THEN someone I STILL DON'T KNOW WHO knocked over a plate, so I have to clean THAT up, and already it's dark and I'm just getting on the road."
Saika sweeps a hand up. "And after THAT I realize I'm having to go stop by stop to try to FIND the person because do I have his phone number? No. Do I have his description? No! I realize TOO LATE, when I've already RIDDEN out here and burned like two liters of gas JUST GETTING HERE, that I've got NO IDEA where this guy actually works other than," swirl of the hand, "Konan Ward, Sumaru City. UGH!"
Saika looks at the dark skies of the Dark Hour.
Then back down. "So no," she says, "I'm not fine. But at least it can't get any worse."
A pause.
Saika claps her hands together.
"You wouldn't know a guy named Suou, would you? Katsuya Suou?"
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
He asks if she's okay.
He gets an answer. Oh, boy, does he get an answer! "Is there something that I can do to help--"
She's going to break it down to him, in fact, exactly what sort of day she's had. Exactly. In exacting detail, at that.
"Miss, I, if there's something that I can..."
He might have a hard time getting a word in edgewise.
"That seems... quite difficult to have experienced. Have you--"
It might actually be impossible.
"--Miss--"
There's a thing, though. There's a thing about Katsuya Suou, that makes him uniquely ill-equipped for handling Saika's tirade right now. It goes something like this: swearing for the most part doesn't make him bat an eye, even from a woman. And he likes women -- really, truly. He wants to do right by them, to defend them as needed. But the problem is, at the same time he's trying to make sure that other men don't treat them poorly, isn't he still expecting... women to behave... in a certain...
Perhaps put another: he's mildly terrified of Ulala even if they are allies (and even... good acquaintances?) and unfortunately, Saika is giving him the exact same sort of vibe right now.
You know.
That this is someone who could kick his ass in the worst way possible: verbally.
He's not even the target of this tirade, and he still feels like he's the one under attack...
Katsuya has, to all appearances, drowned under the deluge of Typhoon Saika by the time she concludes her tale of woe and misfortune, stating that at least things can't get worse.
"...Is there... some way that I...?"
Yes, there is, in fact. Slowly, quietly, he lifts a hand to readjust his sunglasses. Does he know someone named 'Katsuya Suou'?
"Actually, I am Katsuya Suou," he says. Then, a little more hesitantly: "You came here... to find me?"
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
There is no response for Saika for several seconds.
And then a slow smile dawns on her face, a smile that would be better suited for a certain nuclear safety engineer who has just figured out that he can get a donut.
"You ARE Katsuya Suou...? That's great!" Saika says, clapping her hands together. "Congratulations!"
Saika walks towards Katsuya then, her voice lowering. "C'mon, we got like an hour so we have time to chat. This is actually lucky, I guess I was paying my bills for this good luck, but in here we don't have to worry about people overhearing. See, I'm here to ask you... well, sort of join forces with you..."
She raises her hands to gesture. "You know about the 'Joker Killer', right? I heard this was... your case."
"You are such a good listener, I really appreciate that in someone," Saika concludes with a huge breath of air. "Like I mean I guess it's something you can study or practice, right? I bet you kind of like mentally took notes of everything I said, right? I bet you got like, a detective notebook on you. Right?"
Another beat. "You usually seeing this shit, by the way?" Saika asks, gesturing in a sort of general sense to indicate 'the Dark Hour.'
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
Slowly, Saika smiles. It does not, in any way, make Katsuya feel any more at ease. Neither does that declaration of 'Congratulations!', if he's being honest to himself.
Somehow, he's able to keep himself from taking a step back from her as she advances. He's not sure what she's getting at, actually, or even who she is, and she's asking him about--
"Well..." Katsuya hazards, starting to get a somewhat clearer idea of where this is heading, "You could say that. However, I should be clear. I was involved formally with the investigation into the serial killings, but that is no longer the case. ...That being said, I cannot let the circumstances slide. I know for a fact that the Joker Killer is a Persona-user like you and I. I--"
He stops himself, and looks at her again. "You... are a Persona-user, correct, miss...?"
After all he, again, doesn't know her name.
He's a good listener, isn't he. He probably filed all of that down in his head and he'll take notes down later, right. He's got a cool detective notebook, doesn't he. It takes all of Katsuya's willpower to not fish for his notebook that's in his jacket pocket, because that is how he does it. Just... probably... not about all of that. At some point, he'd found himself wondering if that, experience, was what it was like to die.
"Yes, of... course," he says, coupling it with an uncertain nod, because sometimes the only way out is through.
Does he usually see the Dark Hour?
"When I am on night shift, yes," he replies, which is pretty much the long and short of his usual experience with this particular 'bonus hour' of the day. He looks then at her damaged motorcycle. That's not going to be street legal, if the headlight is out.
"...There is a shop not far from here that you should be able to take it. My younger brother used to go there sometimes, I think." He pauses. "That is, once the Dark Hour has ended."
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
Why not feel easy, Katsuya? It's not like Saika looks like she got thrown through a very polite and sharp deli slicer but was mostly put back together in the right way. She didn't *ask* to look like that. Who's the real enemy here? Is it the cops? It has to be the cops.
"You could say that, yeah," Saika agrees, about the Persona User. She puts a hand on her hip and says, with a pooch of her lips to the side that makes one of the stitches on her neck strain a little, "Though that feels so matter of fact, right? Like... it's honestly pretty miraculous stuff but we make it sound like something out of a comic."
She sniffs a little, not at anyone in particular.
"They took you off the case, huh?" Saika says, with something like sympathy. "Were you getting too close to the truth?" She reaches up to sweep a hand through her hair. Her head turns to look back to her motorcycle. "... yeah," she sighs, "probably. I guess I probably can't ride it back without the front headlight, huh?"
"See," Saika says, "I try to obey all the traffic regulations, believe it or not. I know that most of these rules are kind of a compromise, but there's like a network effect, right, with traffic stuff? Like half the safety IS that everyone's following the same rules rather than just flying by the seat of their ass!"
Saika walks over, hups up the motorcycle, and begins to wheel it forwards, soon enough returning to Katsuya. "C'mon, show me where it is, we can chat while we walk."
"So like I was saying... you're probably wondering why I give a shit. I don't claim anything that high minded, but I saw the guy try to burn down this art exhibit in Aoba... can you believe that? Just sort of popping up and... ugh! So though, we're talking about a serial killer? Did you guys have a profile before you got taken off the case?"
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
He's trying not to stare. Most men might stare at other parts of Saika's body, but his gaze is fixed on her neck and the way that the stitches there... strain. He'd thought (hoped) at first that it was some sort of costume, like the ones that he assumes that the Phantom Thieves are wearing. But it's looking less and less like that's the case and he's not sure what to make of it. Very... good makeup? Very, very good makeup? Maybe? She must be human, though. A demon wouldn't be so...
...so...
"A.... comic?" he repeats, as if uncertain about the direction this has taken, here. "I merely had meant..."
So they took him off the case.
"They did," he admits, and he wonders if maybe he shouldn't be saying this to someone he doesn't even know the name of. Then again, isn't one of his actual allies in this matter a man of even more dubious intent and means than she is? And that's remained true even after getting to 'know' Baofu better. "It is... possible," he hedges, as if to underscore the fact that he doesn't know her from Eve, so to speak. "Excuse me, but what did you say your name was?"
She hadn't, actually, but he's just afraid to approach her head-on, as it were.
"That's correct," he says, about the headlight. "It's unsafe, particularly at this time of night. Another driver might not be able to see you coming." Which is more or less the thing she's saying to him, just in another way. Except, he sort of mislikes the way in which she's saying it. "Now, that being said, I don't think it's quite like that. Rather, it's... we are not all of us islands. We must rely upon each other," he tries to explain.
Same thing, different way of saying it.
"Er, do you need a hand with that?" She's got it well in hand, Suou-kun. So instead he walks alongside her as he leads the way, feeling a little bit useless, but only a little bit.
It'll still be a time before the shop is 'open' again, but at least they are open this late. He'd rather not dwell on the possible reasons why that can be so, in Konan.
"You were there as well? I see..." he says, of her own witnessing of #501's crimes. "Yes, but... the situation had gotten worse prior to that. At first the killings were... merely killings. To be quite honest, we had no way of knowing whether or not they were connected," he explains, trying to put everything into context. "Around the time that the media began to report on the story in earnest, it was as if they had taken a turn. Each subsequent killing became more intricate and cruel. Before it was 'merely' murder. Now... it's more like torture." He shakes his head, glancing up once at a sky smeared in otherworldly green. "We had some likely suspects at first, but we had to exclude them in the end. Airtight alibis, or... the evidence didn't match. If you've seen 'him', however, then you know why he cannot be caught by the police."
Not only can the Joker Killer use a Persona, but he can appear wherever he needs to be, whenever he's called.
"As the rumor says, if you call your own cellphone, you are able to contact the Joker Killer. He'll kill anyone you name. It's absolutely ridiculous," he says, with a weary sigh, "and yet-- that is how it works."
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
Demons would probably make more sense. Sewn back together or not, Saika has an ineffable *humanity* to her. It's not just the sweat from wearing a shirt while riding her motorcycle and biking around on a humid summer night.
"Mm," she says. "Oh," she says, "call me Saika," before loking back to him and not elaborating. Is that her first name or her last name? Well, it's a given name for sure -- she just gave it to Katsuya! DOHOHO. She rubs the bridge of her nose. "Yeah," she says. "Yeah, I guess it ends up that way more often than you'd think."
"Sure, if you want, but I've got it pretty good," Saika answers. "It's just 50cc, you know? I can't really get assed to go get a license and I ain't got much reason to leave the city." Which may engulf Sumaru as well as Tokyo, as opposed to, what, the Inaba? Excuse us: Inaka.
She sniffs a little. "Yeah," she says. "It was pretty crazy, so... I could tell a bunch of people were there. You see that graffiti person got burned up? That was horrifying. I mean, like, I'm aware I sound like a smartass but I was seriously pissed off. I guess it was a false alarm, but..."
"I don't like it," Saika says, "when I end up feeling that way."
"So!" Saika continues, as the rest of it. She nods along while frowning; information that may disappoint her, may disturb her, but doesn't seem to be shocking her. Her lip curls for a moment. "Yeah," she says. "Even if he didn't have a single fuckin' other advantage than THIS shit," another gesture at 'the Dark Hour generally,' it's already going to look crazy if you were standing right there, right?"
Saika gestures back the way she came. "Like I was ripping past this factory (I was obeying the speed limit) and then I was making kind of a sick left turn to get in here, you know, and that's when it hit... if you were watching me from the roof of the factory, it's going to look like I just disappeared."
She clucks her tongue. "Crazy."
Another pause.
Saika asks, more steadily, more quietly, "How do you know it's how it works?"
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
Saika? Is that her first or last name?
"Saika-san," he hazards, because what else is he supposed to do here? He may never emotionally recover from this once he does find out otherwise.
"If you are certain," he says, though he studies her for just a moment, there. "Please be certain to obey the laws regarding where you may use your vehicle," he says, and it's almost reflexive. You know, just in case he's preventing some sort of... crime, here.
"Yes," Katsuya answers, and because he's gotten a little bit more of a clue now and isn't flying so blind (even if he doesn't get it get it), "fortunately, they are alright. For a moment there, I had thought..." That Tsubasa was dead. That he was, once again, too late to prevent a murder. He shakes his head. "We cannot allow this to continue. He must be stopped." So now he's including Saika in this 'bring the killer to justice' element, is he?
Then again--
"I don't think that anyone... cares to feel that way," he says, fidgeting with his glasses. Even now, someone could be making a call. Another person could be about to die, and there wouldn't be much he could do without forewarning or straight up 'luck'.
Perhaps it's better to be lucky than unlucky, in these regards, but he'd rather not need to have to use 'luck' in the first place.
"In the beginning," he says, speaking again about the case, "there were not even any of those 'calling cards' that the news media likes to talk about. Sometimes, I wonder if... are you familiar with 'feedback loops', Saika-san?"
Which is another way to ask, does she know about rumors? Which, she must, at this point.
"Even a Persona's power is limited to supernatural spaces. Unfortunately, it seems there are many such places in this city." He nods, as she remarks on the Dark Hour, and how it would look to an observer (oh thank goodness she was obeying the speed limit) once time resumes and she's no longer where she was. "The Dark Hour alone would allow you to do as you pleased to most people. In fact, as I understand it, there is a group about that does precisely that. Unfortunately, they appear to have allied themselves with the killer, as well, which makes this all even more complicated--"
How does he know that's how it works?
Katsuya stops in his tracks.
"Well, I... we have it on good authority that..." He trails off. The thing is, he hasn't actually tried it himself, has he? His merry little band has proposed making an attempt to do just that to confirm a thing or two, but there's a difference between planning a thing and doing it.
"Other rumors have worked as dictated, once spread," he explains, "so it stands to reason that one that everyone else speaks of would also work." He's even helped spread a rumor himself! It's why you can now buy guns in a bar.
[VOLITION] In retrospect, it perhaps wasn't such a good idea.
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
You only need one name. Now her portrait isn't ?????.
And that is some distinctive hair on Saika lastname, or perhaps Firstname Saika, isn't it?
"'course," Saika says, dipping her head. "That's one of those things that's like, OK, this isn't natural moral law but it lets everyone use it and it doesn't really bite anyone's bag, right, like you're just driving in a polite and friendly manner that lets everyone use the road, and if you don't you get fined a billion yen and a slap on the ass."
what court system is she in
Her lips thin. "Yeah," she says. "You can have virtuous cycles that balance themselves or vicious cycles that don't. Kind of like, I can't remember exactly the word... like if a signal tells something to cool off if it gets too hot, instead of the other way around, telling it to keep getting hotter until it catches fire."
Like an art display.
A few more revolutions of her bike's tires, and Saika comments, "Who's that group you heard of?" but it is... parenthetical. Though Katsuya can probably tell that Saika has gotten a lot more careful, relatively speaking, about just what she is saying at this point. She's frowning, too, but hearing that a guy named 'Joker Killer' has a posse is not a happy thing to hear.
But then...
"Heh," Saika says.
"I wouldn't've judged you if you did it," Saika says. "But I guess if you did it twice... that'd be on you. How would you be to suspect that any of this bullshit is actually true unless you try it for yourself? But I'd hope you'd have done something like named, I dunno, one of those loan shark guys instead of -- oh man," Saika continues, and HERE she's a lot more 'authentic' seeming, "I just realized, this is actually INCREDIBLY good that we're both looking at this guy, because me?"
Saika points at herself. "I've never killed anybody, and you look like you haven't, either."
But then...
"Rumors really do that?" Saika asks. "Can you like... spread a counter-rumor or something? Like say the Joker Killer gave it up and went into a monastery, so now if you call that number it'll come give a blessing? Or is that one of those things that's..."
"A lot more complicated than it seems," Saika concludes, deflating slightly. "Just like every goddamn thing in the universe."
"It just... it seems like it's horrible, you know? Imagine if someone was spreadin' a rumor about you."
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
Katsuya is not a particularly emotive guy, generally speaking, under normal operating conditions.
Here though: behold! He's fixing Saika with the sort of expression that suggests that the world has somehow... tilted? Or that he's ended up on another planet, for some reason, one in which the laws no longer equal total logic.
"Is that... I do not think that is how it works," he says, as a person who studied law in college and appears to have a negative value for a sense of humor.
"Yes. At times I wonder, if it's something akin to that. The more that the media writes about the killer, the worse the murders become. Is it because of rumors that it's become like this? Or am I overthinking it?" he says, of feedback loops. "All that I know is, the longer this goes on, the worse it gets. If he isn't stopped..."
Then what? Where does this end?
So she doesn't know? Perhaps she's newer at this than he is: an uncommon event, he's found. "You are familiar with 'Darkside of Sumaru'?" he explains. "It is a website with a BBS that is frequented by other Persona-users. Not everyone who poses on there is a Persona-user, of course, and not everything that is posted is true. Yet, it can be useful. And... that's where I first learned about 'them'. They call themselves 'Strega', and it appears they kill, among other things, for hire. That woman who was with him at the park, I think that she is one of them."
But he hasn't tried the rumor for himself. How could he try it?
It almost seems like a fire's been lit under that otherwise stony (at least, when not discomfited) exterior. Vehemently, Katsuya shakes his head. "Of course not-- to risk someone else's life like that, even if I could not be certain...! It was enough to verify that rumors can become true. If the others have worked, then is there any reason why this one wouldn't, also? Saika-san, I cannot-- I will not trade someone else's life like that... even if they are a terrible sort of person..."
Flames, of course, are destined to die out, and something like a pall hangs over him following as he reflects on what he's just said. 'He won't trade someone else's life', but isn't that what... No, he had told Serizawa himself, he wouldn't let her do it alone. She'd seemed so determined, he'd thought she might try it on her own, but at least this way...
It doesn't make him feel better, though.
"No," he answers Saika. "I haven't killed anyone."
But, can rumors really do that in the first place? He nods. "We did try," he says, "after a fashion. There was the rumor about the Seven Sisters school emblem being able to protect its bearer against the killer. I suppose it has something to do with how interesting or believable it is. We were able to get the emblem rumor to spread because it's similar to other stories about lucky charms or protective talismans. But, a story about him giving it up and retiring... I can't think that the public would find it believable at this stage." He sighs. "It's ridiculous. And yet, with every rumor spread successfully..."
Just imagine, if someone spread a rumor about you.
"Yes," he says quietly. "It, too, if it were believable..."
He stops again, pointing ahead. In the pall of the Dark Hour, shadows (lowercase) seem to crawl erratically against the dimmed shop sign. "Over there. I remember coming here to check after repairs to his motorcycle a year ago," he explains. "Once the Dark Hour ends... it should still be open. This place is involved in something illegal, I'm certain of it, but without any proof, there isn't anything I can do. But no normal business like that is open this late..." He folds his arms over his chest and shakes his head.
And if it's vice, like he suspects it probably is, it's overstepping, anyway.