2025-11-29: Tsubasa Taps Tamaki In
- Log: Tsubasa Taps Tamaki In
- Cast: Tsubasa Seki, Tamaki Uchida
- Where: Kuzunoha Detective Agency, Aoba
- OOC Date: 2025-11-29
- IC Date: Sat, Aug 18 2012
- Summary: Tsubasa goes to Tamaki for help with the human trafficking they got evidence of in Eiji's dungeon, and Tamaki struggles to keep her cool hearing the extent of his crimes. But when Tamaki brings up the Phantom Thieves, Tsubasa really loses their cool -- and after accusing the group once again of causing their Psychotic Breakdown, they flee in the wake of their own embarrassment over yelling at a woman who was just trying to help.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Tsubasa... has been doing gruntwork for Kuzunoha over the Summer holidays!! And so it's not unusual that they send back their notes, though, like, generally it's an email. (Remember emails? It's 2012. Even teenagers use email.) Those notes have been -- pretty detailed for amateur work; Tsubasa's evidently a thorough kind of guy. Today, though...
Today, they show up at the Agency! Sans dog, though they do stop to offer some yen to the poor destitute cat outside. They also pet its cute little head, because they're pretty sure no one's looking.
"Yo," they call, as they open up the door; their wig today is neon blue, with a checkered tank top over board shorts and, of course, that incredibly loud binder that they don't even BOTHER trying to hide properly. (It's no good advertising how poisonous you are if you then hide the warning.) They're a mess of bright colours, obviously. Pernelle would be proud.
"Uchida-san...?"
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
Tamaki's lost deep in focus as Tsubasa initially enters, reading what looks to be some sort of academic paper on her computer monitor. With how much she's leaning forward to squint at her screen as she tries to muddle through terminology beyond her current level of understanding, though, she looks precariously close to developing eye strain.
By contrast, Tamaki's in her usual business attire in softer muted hues of brown, beige, and faded yellows. Her six-coined choker adorns her neck, same as it ever does.
It's not until Tsubasa calls out that she closes the window she was reading in a hurry, rears her head back, sits upright, and wheels her chair to face Tsubasa with a bright and sunny smile. "Seki-kun! It's a pleasure to see you. You've been doing really good work with what you've been sending me; that's been a big help."
She stands up to dust off her jacket's sleeves, then gestures to the larger table in the center of the room, surrounded by couches on either side. "What brings you here? Would you like a drink, or something to snack on?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Sure," Tsubasa says. "You got any --"
WAIT FUCK DON'T ASK THE DETECTIVE IF SHE HAS ANY BEER
"-- uh, like, soda or shit?"
safe.
They wander up, grabbing some papers -- also strangely-coloured -- out of their pocket. "It's just, uh," they start, looking down at them. "Got... given a real fucked up lead, here, an'... like, shit's kinda above my pay grade. Y'know? Like, uh --"
Tsubasa gestures, with their free hand, as they try to figure out how to say this tactfully.
"Human traffickin' shit," they fail completely.
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
Backtracking very slightly, the cat statue emits a tinny "Thank you, nya~!" through what seem to be speakers at Tsubasa's donation. Such kindness deserves to be acknowledged, nya~!
In all fairness, Tamaki is a private investigator, not directly part of law enforcement proper, so she wouldn't flinch at a high school kid asking for beer ...
... at least not as much as, say, Katsuya Suou. She'd still absolutely say 'no'. She still has to comply with the law, after all. The thought just wouldn't immediately rankle her.
As for the question of soda, Tamaki furrows her brow as she steps back towards the kitchenette. "Hmm. We have canned coffee, a few kinds of tea, some fruit juices ... I think we have a few bottles of melon soda, though, let me check." Lo and behold, she returns holding a glass bottle of clear fizzy liquid and offers it to Tsubasa! In the meantime, she's grabbed a can of coffee for herself.
Tamaki takes the papers and looks them over, taking a sip from her own can as she scans the text. She has several questions, but that can wait -- Tsubasa's clarification warrants a serious nod. Sometimes, the situation calls for just being direct. "You did the right thing in asking for help. Generally, such a serious matter would be for the police, but -- "
She flips the stack of strange-colored papers back and forth in her hand several times, then holds them up for Tsubasa as she flatly asks: "I get the feeling that this was obtained through some interesting back-channels, and thus, isn't exactly admissible evidence."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Soda!! "Thanks," Tsubasa says, as they take it. Crack-fzzzt...
The papers absolutely do NOT look legitimate. For one thing, there are at least five fonts on display, with at least ten different font sizes -- some of the paper has been covered with diagonal hash-lines, and other parts of the document are nothing more than squiggles which are roughly approximating kanji, as if the document had been received in a dream.
But there are names of girls, names of companies, and locations, and all of those... seem to at least be real.
"Uh -- cool it's been helpin', by the way," they add, as if they just now absorbed the compliment Tamaki paid them. The fact that it's hard for them to focus on how great they are probably speaks to how bothered they are by all this. "Actually -- noticed shit with that with this, like -- I know this looks like bullshit," they add, a touch defensively. "But like, that RTB Shiohara Group? It really exists, man, I saw it when I was doin' me audits. Wakabayashi and Mizukoshi, too." Indeed, the listed companies are all actual companies.
"But the police can't do shit, man," they insist, leaning on the side of a couch as they scowl down at their soda. "Cops are in on it. Like, one a 'em took Ichika in when I went to ground after that Aoba Park Arson bit, an' like... when they let her go, asked her to fuckin'... say hi to..."
The metal of the can crinkles, as their grip tightens.
"Cops ain't do shit," they insist, with more venom.
They glower in silence, for a moment, before they take a long drink of that soda and a longer breath. "... anyway, uh... got this shit from a guy, calls themself Phoenix... said they got it from a 'Palace', but not, like a literal castle or some shit? Guess it's another one a their metaphors, or whatever... anyway, that's all metaphors, but they're like, metaphors 'bout real people. This guy -- fuckin', Eiji Kamiya -- fuck's stealin' girls what no one's gon' miss an' sellin' 'em off to work."
Tsubasa pauses.
"Or... y'know... 'work,'" they add, glancing away.
"Real piece a work... he hurt Ichika real bad," they add, quietly. "Fuckin' obsessed with her. But he jus'... treats people like... nothin'. Fuck, man, said he'd do me like that if Ichika didn't get back with him..."
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
At Tsubasa's insistence that the 'cops ain't do shit,' Tamaki bites the inside of her cheeks, raises her eyebrows, and points at Tsubasa with her free hand while she grimly nods in agreement. "And there's the other half of it." Katsuya's fine, most likely. And that Akechi kid seems alright to her ... though given Tsubasa's response, she refrains from mentioning either of them for now.
" -- Can you repeat that for me really quick?" At the mention of those companies, Tamaki quickly steps back to retrieve a pen and her notepad from her desk before rejoining Tsubasa by the couches. She taps her temple with the clicker-end of her pen. "I know it's in the papers already, I just like keeping some notes regardless. The act of transcription helps me to remember, ironically, without actually needing to consult what I've written."
There's a reason why Tamaki veered this way instead of the other. When the authorities end up perpetuating injustice rather than fixing it, that's where she sees her role.
She continues to listen to Tsubasa. Her response is initially chipper: "Oh! Phoenix, yeah, I've met -- them. Him? It was a chaotic moment, so I couldn't really -- "
And then her face falls as she remembers that particular situation. More somber, she continues: "... there were more important things happening." As she takes a moment to recompose herself, she clears her throat.
"A Palace ..." She did recently read something about that on the Dark Side boards. "I haven't been to one, myself." She pauses, then tilts her head to quizzically add on: "... I think. There's a wide variety of those kinds of metaphors out there."
Tsubasa mentions his name: Eiji Kamiya. Tamaki jots it down in her notepad, just by the same companies they mentioned earlier ...
As they mention him 'stealin' girls what no one's gon' miss', a scowl instantly clouds over Tamaki's face. It only deepens when they mention that he's hurt Ichika. Finally, as they mention Eiji's particular brand of coercion being levelled at Tsubasa themself, there's a loud 'snap' --
Tamaki looks down at her hand and quickly gets up. Cupping her other hand underneath, she quickly makes her way to the sink in the kitchenette by the back. " -- One moment, Seki-kun. I need to wash my hands."
"And get a new pen."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Uh, sure. Like, cops told Ichika to say hi to Eiji when they let her go, like it was some kinda favour to him, an'..." Tsubasa recaps the rest of it, but it is helpful that they make the police's crimes explicit in the second telling.
Katsuya is cool, and Akechi is Not A Cop, but indeed there's a reason why Tsubasa hasn't gone to either of them.
(Not that they wouldn't trust Akechi with this -- but Ichika is a little slower to trust him, and they'd rather her be cool with the people they're telling.)
"Uh, they a 'them,'" Tsubasa clarifies, in the bustle, on Phoenix. "It's cool. They ain't showin' up less shit's fucked most times, so..."
And on the Palace, they say: "You get in with this, like, Meta-Nav thing? Ain't sure how ya get it on ya phone, tho' -- 'pparently it just showed up..." Well, it's plausible they've heard all this second-hand, certainly. Tsubasa has no Resonance to their name!
(They haven't been in Sumaru enough to hear that Rumour about the domestic violence code in the carpark...)
When it's Tamaki's turn for her grip to tighten, though, Tsubasa's attention snaps up to her alarmingly quickly. "Uh? S--sure," they say, as they try to pretend they didn't just jump.
"So, uh... these names is... the girls he took, I reckon," Tsubasa starts, a touch awkwardly, when Tamaki finds her way back out again. "I -- I dunno if all this ain't jus' dream logic bullshit, but -- but if it ain't -- I can't... man, I... uh, they told me what they saw in there," Tsubasa grasps their can with both hands, because if they do that it might not be quite so obvious they're shaking. "Girls, like... in maid costumes, an'... chained to beds an'... straight gettin' tortured, like... uh... I..."
Tsubasa trails off, for a moment. "... uh," they try again, eloquently. "Jus'... they had reasons to reckon... he'd ship me off to fuel some snuff film or somethin', like... that's how it is in his head. Gettin' rid a me... y'know."
It's terrifying, and that's not really something they're able to hide, even under their dark-to-orange fake tan and concealer and obnoxious white and cyan makeup and entire-ass wig. "It's 'cuz me father wouldn't give a shit," they say, quietly, instead of expressing that. "Fuck, me folks'd prolly send him a gift basket fer takin' care a me... uh, an' that's... the kinda people what disappear, I reckon? I... looked it up, like, none a them girls got any official MIAs with th' police or nothin'... ain't no one reported shit, or... maybe the reports got 'lost' or somethin'... I dunno. First thing I thought when -- when they told me, uh -- thought I'd jus' break in, bust 'em out, but... man, what happens when they catch me? So... so, like... s'why we need help with this shit, man."
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
'Cops ain't do shit,' indeed. And Phoenix is a 'them,' Tamaki confirms with a thumbs-up and a quiet nod.
At the mention of the Palace, presumably before the pen-snap, Tamaki flips open her own phone and scrolls through. "What, like, an app or something?" Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling ... nothing on the app store, either (of course not, but she's doing her due diligence in at least checking). She looks up and shakes her head at Tsubasa. "There are some variations on stories like those, though. There's a message board online that's mostly conspiracy theory nonsense, but every once in a while, I've stumbled across a glimmer of truth." Something's tickling at the edges of her memory, but she doesn't recall enough of the details of the post juuust yet.
-----
Tamaki finishes cleaning up and drying her hands before she picks up another pen from her desk and takes a seat back on the couch. Whatever momentary lapse of composure she had there just earlier is gone now, and a placid smile remains in its place -- albeit a visibly forced one.
The smile fades as she listens to the rest of their tale. She then folds her hands together and leans forward with a haunted look on her face. The gravity of the situation leaves her silent for several long moments.
Finally, she speaks up. "You're not doing that alone, at least. I can put out a word to some people I know." At the very least, she and Eriko did promise each other to go talk about things while taking their frustrations out on some Demons or Shadows, so exploring this Palace may be a good chance for that. Not to mention plenty of other of Tamaki's contacts.
She leans back in her seat, closes her eyes, and folds her arms. "Going through a more legal route may take up precious time which you don't have. Going in guns blazing carries its own risks, like you said ... I've got too many gaps in my knowledge to immediately provide you with sound advice, but give me a day or two to do some research and make some inquiries, and I'll be in a better spot to help. I'll see what we can still actually do with this -- " she gestures at the stack of papers that Tsubasa had brought in. " -- but let's consider that one prong of a two-pronged approach. The other one entails Palaces ..."
MIAs with the police. Police codes. Snuff films and torture. Domestic violence. Finally, the circuit in Tamaki's memory closes and she bolts upright to run to her computer. While still standing but hunched over, she rapidly types something on the keyboard, then gestures for Tsubasa to follow to see what's on-screen. "C'mere. That site I mentioned before ..."
Dark Side of Sumaru's message boards. "... that post. Even mentions Kamiya by name. So others such as myself might be able to get in, after all."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"It's like that, huh..." Tsubasa sure as hell can't tell Tamaki how to find the Meta-Nav; it just kind of appeared. Freaky.
Tsubasa stays standing, though they lean on the side of the couch. "... yeah," they say, when she insists they don't have to handle this alone. It's not like part of them doesn't want to just handle it, but...
Like...
Ichika. Y'know. They're pretty sure she'd be upset. Mad, too.
Anyway, what if they fuck it up, and those girls get like -- lost forever?
"Uh, it's cool, like -- be worried if you knew what to do 'bout somethin' like this off th' back a ya hand?" Tsubasa guesses, rubbing at the back of their neck. This isn't exactly... a normal problem. They nod, though, as Tamaki talks about figuring out their approach with the data, and --
"Yeah?"
Tsubasa dumps the empty can in the recycling on the way over, grasping a hand on the back of Tamaki's chair as they lean over her shoulder. "Uh... so you say that English shit an' get in?" They ask, peering at it. "Hipporita... I wuueddo shii... man, that don't even look like proper English!" Tsubasa: saved from realising just how fucked up the rumour is by their complete inability to speak foreign languages.
"Still, uh... uh, Phoenix said that buildin', uh, th' Akiyoshi one, that were where they found that shit, so... seems like it could be legit." Their frown deepens, though, as they straighten up, leaning on the desk instead as they fold their arms. "Still... they reckon it's part a th' conspiracy? Tch..."
Tsubasa drums their fingers on their arm. "... th' cops knew me father... an' cops knew that fuck Eiji... an' they'd rather blame me fer th' fire up in Aoba than th' Joker Killer. Tchah," they click their tongue to their teeth again, frustration with a touch of disgust. "Yeah. Could be. Shit."
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
Tamaki shares Tsubasa's concerns, both unstated and stated. "Something of this magnitude certainly doesn't come across our desks with any sort of regularity." She stretches her arms out to crack her knuckles. "Buuut I think we're up to the challenge."
She winces as she rereads the passage herself (as Tsubasa tries to do so aloud) and hisses a sharp intake of breath. She stands up to cover her own eyes, then waves them off. "It's a much older dialect. Don't, uh, don't bother -- well, trying to understand that passage is about as futile as healing a scab by picking at it." Goddamn, does Tamaki think that Tsubasa got the message already with everything else.
Phoenix's theories strike Tamaki as mostly sound, but ... "It's a good hypothesis. If I had to bet, I'd lean towards it even being entirely correct. There's something nagging at me, though -- who ultimately benefits from ..." Tamaki vaguely gestures at the air. "All this? Don't get me wrong, what they're doing is cruel, and they're absolutely worth stopping on that basis alone, but to really unravel it at the seams, we need to pinpoint who stands to gain the most, as well as why and how."
Tamaki steeples her hands together and gives a half-lidded stare at the computer monitor for a few more seconds. "So ... I'll go with a friend to check the Palace out, and I'll try to see if we can't track down where the missing girls end up."
She leans forward to type on the keyboard again to open a new tab and navigate to a different site: the Phan-Site. "Those metaphors cut both ways, too. I don't know if you've heard of the Phantom Thieves, but supposedly they've 'changed the heart' of at least one person in power; Kamoshida, a now ex-teacher at Shujin. If what they say is true, they made him confess to ... well, some stuff not too far removed from what Kamiya's doing. I don't know exactly what they did, but given everything else I've witnessed in my time, I can see their claim potentially having at least some truth to it."
"In short: what if you can get him to flip like an Othello piece?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Cool." They need people to be up to it. This isn't something Tsubasa can fight alone.
But -- "Tch... so it's some fucked up shit, huh," Tsubasa reads between the lines, when Tamaki talks about that language being an older dialect. "Figures."
They frown, though, as they try to figure out who benefits. "... dunno. Don't even know why my father would get involved in this shit after I found th' dirty money in City Hall... tho' I reckon that's when he got into it. But like, he works for Kimpara Electronics, they do like, phones 'n shit, ain't like he got... no need a bodies. Still, like... people get dirty money from somewhere, an'... human misery's pre' good at makin' it."
Who stands to gain, as it happens, is a question that's plagued Tsubasa for some time. They have an entire whiteboard devoted to it.
... it looks like a shipping grid, because Myunghon advised them not to use people's real names.
They take a breath, and nod. "Cool."
But then, Tamaki opens up another site -- and Tsubasa's face grows stormy, as they glance aside to it.
"Get that shit outta here," they growl, their arms folding tighter across their chest. Their lip lifts, in a sneer.
"Maybe th' Phantom Thieves cleaned their act up... but you know what else looks like makin' a guy do somethin' he'd never do? Psychotic Breakdowns, man. Even fuckin', Mental Shutdowns... you really believe you can rely on those pieces a shit?" They clap a hand down on the desk, as they turn to face Tamaki more fully, as their other hand reaches up to angrily tear their wig from their head.
Half of their hair is buzzed close to their head -- the usual Japanese dark brown.
Half of it... can't grow, any more.
The scarring is too dense to allow anything to grow -- and, without concealer over it, pale enough to stand out starkly.
"How's their brainwashin' gonna fix this shit when they the ones that made me snap an' set meself on fire to start with?! Tell me!"
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
Apparently Tamaki's put her foot in her mouth somewhere along the line. Wide-eyed and completely taken aback by multiple elements of Tsubasa's outburst, she holds up both hands in surrender. ... After a beat, she lowers one hand to unsteadily maneuver the mouse to close the tab with the Phan-Site open before returning it to its previous pose in the air.
She blinks several more times as she fully processes what Tsubasa's actually said. She regards what they look like without their wig, what that must have felt like in the moment, what it must have been like to deal with the aftermath of it. (For her part, Tamaki has experienced the first part herself ... but not the second.)
It's of little wonder why they had reacted to Tamaki's 'creative writing' the way they did.
Tamaki leans forward to bow towards Tsubasa. "... I had no idea. I'm sorry. I'm somewhat removed from being fully 'in the know' here. I know stories and rumors about them, but only from a distance. You have a solid point, and I was overly hasty in suggesting them." She glances back to her computer monitor, now back to displaying the Dark Side of Sumaru post. "I was ... naively hopeful for a moment, there, but with how much I personally understand of those phenomena ... it'd be like giving a layman a scalpel and telling them to perform brain surgery." Pause. "No, not a scalpel, a steak knife."
She closes her eyes again and wags a finger -- not to chide, just to emphasize. "... this is why I wanted time. To think more slowly and deliberately, to not grasp at straws like so."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Tamaki throws her hands up, and Tsubasa -- who, in most things, act before they think -- realises how threatening it probably is to have them snapping like this, when they're this kind of thug. They take a step back, glaring at a bookcase off to the side as they fix their wig back on their head. "... it's whatever," they grumble. "Don't worry 'bout it."
Man, they think, why they gotta lose their shit like that...? She's just tryin' to help...
"I... don't got no proof it were them or nothin'," they add, rubbing at an arm. "Jus'... the kinda shit what changes a heart... it's gotta be the same kinda shit what makes me set th' office on fire when I ain't never been no kinda firebug 'fore that. No way they just started work an' made a guy confess to everythin' first thing... they been practicin'. Tch... practicin' on me, I reckon... whatever."
They glance to the other side, squirrelesque, as they step away from the desk. "I, uh -- I better -- I'll see you later, yeah? Sorry, uh..."
Tsubasa's already hurrying out as they settle on,
"Sorry."