Chapter 20
[34]
Ichirysu Madarame quickly rolled his way through the halls of his home early in the morning, the tires of his wheelchair loudly squeaking as they strained under his speed. After last night, he had no doubt that the police would soon be onto him which meant it was time to vacate the premises and go underground. Before he could do that, he needed to collect the money that he kept on hand in the event his bank accounts were frozen.
It was a shame he would have to leave behind everything he’d built here, however he could still support his students from the shadows. He had been prepared for this kind of scenario and made sure that if need be, his program could still function without him.
There was a loud knocking on the front door downstairs and Madarame began to panic. ‘No! They can’t be here yet! I need more time!’ The old man thought to himself as he frantically searched through a drawer before pulling out a remote. ‘It’s still refueling, but I need it ASAP.’ He thought before pressing a button on it.
“Hello?” A voice sounded from downstairs as the door was opened. It was Yusuke who had answered the door. ‘No! You fool!’ Madarame thought as he exited his bedroom.
“Ichirysu Madarame!” The unmistakable voice of the Detective Queen called to him from downstairs. “We are here to bring you in under suspicion of criminal activities!”
“What is the meaning of this!?” Yusuke asked incredulously. “Sensei hasn’t committed any crime! He is an upstanding man!” He was pushed out of the way of the officers as they entered the home, hands to their holsters, prepared for whatever may come.
The police quickly searched the estate and found Madarame on the second floor, trying to use the elevator to escape to the roof. They pulled him out of his wheelchair and carried him back down to the ground floor where Detective Shirogane awaited him, her right arm in a sling from last night’s events. Madarame didn’t speak as he was brought outside to the front lawn and towards the squad cars.
“Cuff him.”
“Uhh Detective, he’s a 60 year old amputee. I don’t think he’s going to put up much of a fight.” One of the officers nearby commented.
“Did I ask for your opinion? This man is a dangerous murderer. Cuff. Him.”
“Er, yes ma’am.”
As the officer brought out a pair of handcuffs, Naoto heard a humming sound from a ways off. Madarame began to struggle in the officers’ grasp. “This is ridiculous what could you possibly be arresting me for!?”
“We’re not arresting you. We’re simply bringing you in for questioning as well as searching the premises.” Naoto responded as she gave the man a knowing smirk. “There shouldn’t be any issues. So long as you have nothing to hide.”
“Sensei!” Yusuke called out in concern. “You can’t do this to him! He’s done nothing wrong!”
Madarame turned his head towards his student. “Go back inside Yusuke.”
“But Sensei-”
“GO BACK INSIDE!” Madarame yelled to the young man, but not in an angry tone. It seemed desperate more than anything.
The student hesitantly obeyed his teacher and went back into the house, shutting the door behind him. The humming sound from before grew louder.
“Detective, should we bring in the boy as well?”
“No, we focus on Madarame for now. Continue searching the house when we leave.”
As they opened the door to the squad car and placed the suspect in the backseat, Madarame sighed, a sad expression crossed his face.
“Got something you want to admit?” The officer standing nearest to him asked.
“Yes.”
“And what would that be?”
“I’m sorry that you all had to die.”
Naoto suddenly noticed that the humming from before had stopped. “GET DOWN!” She yelled before diving for cover. The officer next to Madarame was skewered through his chest by a large metal blade from above. A dozen more blades rained down onto the front lawn and impaled several more officers.
Less than half of Naoto’s squad remained and were hiding behind what cover they could find. When the deadly rain finally ended, Naoto glanced from her position and saw the cause of the attack. The Vulture’s wings were functioning independently from their owner and had lowered themselves close to the ground where Madarame was strapping into them, now free of his handcuffs.
“No!” Naoto attempted to reach for her pistol, only to realize that she couldn’t due to her sling. Thinking quickly, she reached into her left pocket with her good arm and pulled out a small device before throwing it onto the wings. The device was a spider tracker, something that she’d developed for Yu to help him track criminals to their hideouts.
Madarame was fully strapped into his wings now and took off without a word. The remaining officers ran to the wounded to attempt first aid and call for help. Before helping her fellow officers, Naoto pulled out her phone and texted Amamiya an S.O.S. along with a link that would allow him to find the tracking device with his phone.
“It’s up to you now kid.” She said to herself before running in to help the injured.
[35]
The students of Shujin Academy were spending their Monday morning doing some community outreach. Picking up garbage at Inokashira Park was the school’s way of improving PR, which it desperately needed after one of its teachers became a murderous psychopath.
So now, rather than being in class today, Ren was absent mindedly picking up trash alongside Ryuji, Ann, and Morgana. Luckily, they let students pick their own groups, so he was able to hang out with his friends.
“Ugh, this suuucks!” Ryuji leaned against a tree, his half full garbage bag lying forgotten next to him.
“It would probably go faster if you actually worked.” Ann chided the blonde boy as she took apart a destroyed umbrella.
“Not like we’re gettin’ graded on this anyway!” A man in a suit then walked past Ryuji and dropped an empty coffee cup onto the grass next to him. “Hey asshole! There’s a garbage can like two feet away!” The man didn’t pay any attention and simply looked at his phone as he walked off.
“I don’t mind it at all. As long as I get to spend more time with Lady Ann.” Morgana’s trash bag was almost completely empty. Rather than picking up garbage, he’d spent the entire time staring longingly at his crush.
Ann shot the boy an annoyed look.“You’re even worse than Ryuji!”
While his friends argued, Ren walked over to the dumpster nearby to toss his full garbage bag. As he approached, he saw a girl with long red hair trying, unsuccessfully, to lift her bag into the dumpster.
“Need some help?”
The girl flinched in surprise and turned to Ren. “Oh S-senpai! You scared me.”
The girl’s name was Sumire Yoshizawa, the first-year girl whom Ren was helping with her social anxiety. He had met her his first week in Tokyo on the subway when she’d offered her seat to an elderly woman and a rude businessman had taken it instead. The two had tried to help the woman get her seat but ended up failing, nevertheless they bonded and became friends over time.
The younger girl stared at him, smiling and seemingly lost in her thoughts.
“Sooo...Do you need some help?” Ren asked once again.
That seemed to snap her out of her thoughts. “Oh! Right! I-if you d-don’t mind.” She blushed and looked down.
Ren chuckled at the cute display. “No problem.” He picked up both bags with ease and tossed them in.
“T-thank you.” Sumire said quietly, still looking at the ground.
“Anyti-”
“Sumire!” A female voice interrupted him. It was Kasumi, Sumire’s twin sister and avid hater of Ren. She approached the two of them and stood in front of her sister defensively. “Leave my sister alone, criminal!”
Ren sighed, “Hello Kasumi.”
Sumire walked out from behind her sister and turned to face her. “It’s fine Kasumi! Senpai was just helping me dump the garbage. How many times do I have to tell you, he’s actually really nice!”
Kasumi turned to her twin, “Don’t fall for it Sumire! That’s how he lures people in! Just look who he spends his time with, do they seem like the kind of people you should be associating with?”
“He spends time with me! We’re friends!”
“Why would you even want to be his friend!?”
While the two sisters argued with each other, Ren slowly backed away unnoticed. It seemed like no matter where he went, people were fighting. As he walked back to his group, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. Checking his phone revealed it was a text from Naoto, the text only had the letters S.O.S and a link which he clicked on. Suddenly his phone pulled up a map of the city with a moving dot currently over in Shinjuku.
Ren gathered the situation immediately and ran over to the nearest teacher, which happened to be the biology professor, Dr. Maruki. The one-armed doctor was helping a group of girls cook beef stew for the students.
“Dr. Maruki! Excuse me, but do you think I could leave early?”
The professor was surprised to see his favorite student trying to leave. “What for Ren? We’ve only been here an hour, there’s still a lot of work to be done.”
“I know but it’s an emergency!”
“What happened?”
Ren struggled to come up with something. “Uhh, my cat got run over!”
A look of shock crossed the professor’s face. “Oh my! Alright, I’ll head over to the school to grab the release forms.”
“No, that’ll take too long!”
“I’m sorry Ren, but rules are rules.”
“Nevermind.” Ren ran off to his group.
“Wait! What about your cat?” The professor called after him but Ren ignored it.
“Yo dude, where ya been?” Ryuji greeted his friend while still lounging against the tree. Ann and Morgana were nearby actually doing their work.
“Guys, I need your help!” The group turned to Ren with concerned looks on their faces.
“What’s up?” Ann asked.
“I need a distraction so that I can get out of here. There’s a security guard watching our bags` and I need to grab my stuff.”
“Aw dude I wanna leave too!” Ryuji chimed in.
“No, it’s actually important.” He leaned in and whispered, “It’s y’know...A Spider-Man thing.”
The group realized the urgency and surprisingly, Morgana was the first to spring into action. He got down on one knee in front of Ann and announced loud enough for the park to hear, “My beautiful Lady Ann, would you do me the greatest honor and become my wife?”
Ann looked around, embarrassed at the display. Some people had turned their heads in curiosity, only to then immediately go back to what they were doing (This was not the first time Morgana had done this.) Ann and Ryuji looked to Ren who shrugged and silently pleaded for them to continue.
Ryuji sighed before speaking up, “W-wait! You can’t marry her because I love her!” He announced loudly as if he were in a play. Ann turned to Ryuji with a look of surprise as he also got down on one knee. This actually managed to grab the students’ attention and they began to watch the scene unfold.
Ren rolled his eyes at the soap opera they were putting on but was thankful nonetheless. Now if they could just distract the security guard-
“You son of a bitch! She’s mine!” Morgana tackled Ryuji to the ground and began beating on him. Ren got the strange feeling that he was no longer acting, but luckily for him, the security guard ran over to break up the fight.
Ren very casually walked over to the bags, grabbed his, and began to walk out. That was until he was stopped by the student council president herself.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Makoto Nijima asked with a stern expression.
“Oh heeeyy Nijima-san.” Ren tried to look anywhere but her eyes. Glancing down, he couldn’t help but notice how good the student council president looked in track shorts. He immediately turned his gaze elsewhere to avoid looking like a creep. “I w-was just going to the bathroom.”
“With your bag?”
“Umm...Yes?.”
“Care to explain why?” Her red eyes were fierce and Ren knew she could see right through his masterfully crafted lies.
“I would but it’s kind of an emergency gottagobye!” With that he ran past her went straight past the bathroom and out of the park.
Makoto just stared at his retreating form with a befuddled look on her face.