Chapter 44
[62]
Ren awoke the next morning to the sound of his phone buzzing. Reaching over to grab it, he was surprised to find a text from his favorite detective queen.
The text simply read: “Check the news.”
Realizing immediately that this meant business, Ren ran downstairs to check the TV, almost running into an unconscious Yusuke on the couch. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he was surprised to see Sojiro and Futaba already watching the news with Wakaba sitting at the counter.
He was hardly acknowledged by them as they were so engrossed by the report. Ren turned to see just what it was that’d occurred. As he read the report at the bottom, images of smoking buildings and officers arresting groups of people played above.
The text at the bottom read: “27 Dead, 58 Injured in a series of crimes committed seemingly at random. Perpetrators claim mass hysteria.
“Holy shit.” Ren murmured under his breath.
“This happened right outside of Yongen.” Sojiro said before getting on his phone. “We need to invest in some stronger locks. I’ll order some new ones-”
“I’ll go!” Ren interrupted. “I’m going out anyway, I’ll pick some up and bring them back this afternoon.”
“You don’t have any money.” Futaba chimed in.
“Thanks Futaba.”
“Here,” Sojiro slid him his credit card. “You can use that. But I swear to God, if I see one other purchase on there…”
“I know, I’ll be out on the streets.” Ren replied as he walked upstairs to get dressed.
“So mom,” Futaba turned to her mother. “Today, I was thinking that the two of us could-”
“Sorry dear, but something came up with work. I have to-ugh” Wakaba nursed her head. “I have to go, I’ll be back tonight...hopefully.”
Futaba’s smile drooped as her gaze fell to the floor. “Oh, okay. I’ll just...see you tonight then.”
“I’m sorry dear, I love you.” She patted her daughter’s head before heading out the door.
“Love you-” The door shut loudly. “Too…”
Upstairs, Ren climbed out his window in full costume with his phone pressed to his shoulder. Ren felt that the costume was more snug than usual. As he finished packing his clothes into his bag, Naoto finally picked up on the other end.
“Naoto, I saw the report. Do you have any leads?”
“None. Everyone’s claiming some kind of psychotic breakdown. And the perpetrators are completely random, police officers, homeless people, little old ladies. All of them committed violent crimes with no prior offenses.”
Ren leapt from Leblanc to another roof. “Shit. I’ll go on patrol, see if I can find any leads for myself.”
“Y’know, usually people leave that job up to the police.”
“Aww c’mon Naoto, I know you save the best jobs for me.” Ren leapt from the roof and attempted to shoot a webline to a nearby building. To his surprise, rather than a webline, a flurry of small web pellets shot out instead.
As Ren slammed onto the road with a loud thud, the voice of Naoto sounded from the other end.
“Ren? Ren are you okay? What happened?”
Ren picked himself off the ground. “Naoto, I’m gonna have to call you back.” He hung up and dialed another number.
“Hello?”
“Hey Futaba, quick question. Would you mind explaining to me what the hell happened to my webshooters?”
“Oooh, I left it on rapid fire didn’t I?”
“Rapid fire!? Since when is there rapid fire!?”
“Since I installed it. You’re welcome by the way.”
“Yeah, tell that to my possibly broken nose.” Ren felt around his face to make sure nothing was actually broken.
A small giggle escaped from Futaba. “Did you faceplant?”
“Oh, I’m glad you find it funny. How do I fix it?”
“There’s a dial on the wrist, you can change between settings there.”
Ren examined the wrist of the device seeing that there was a newly installed dial. “Huh.” Changing it from ‘rapid fire’ to ‘classic’ he tested the device and thankfully it worked like normal.
“Okay then, thanks for the upgrade.” Ren began swinging once more.
“Hey Ren…” Futaba’s voice was shaky.
“Futaba? What’s up?”
“I-It’s nothing. Um, good luck out there.”
“Wait, Futaba what’s-” But she’d already hung up. “Dammit. I’ll have to talk with her later.”
As he swung through the city, he kept an eye out for any crimes that may be happening, but saw nothing. When he finally reached Akihabara, he changed into his civilian clothes on a rooftop before climbing down discreetly.
He entered a tech store and searched around for electronic locks, finally discovering them after 20 minutes of searching. After setting them on the counter and paying he walked out of the store with his items in a plastic bag.
As he set down his backpack to put away his items, his phone buzzed. Checking it revealed a text from Naoto, there was no text, only a video attachment. When he clicked on it he was shown black and white footage that seemed to be a traffic cam.
Out of the corner of the screen, a figure stepped into view. The figure was strange and seemed almost photo negative, but the picture was too blurry to see them clearly. From the other corner, a car arrived at the light and honked at the figure. In response, the figure held out their hands and a black wave shot out and engulfed the vehicle.
“Holy shit!”
Ren set his bag down and texted Naoto: “Where was this?”
Before he could get a response, someone bumped him from behind.
“Hey c’mon man!” As Ren turned his head, the person behind him took off running. This wouldn’t have been a problem if it weren’t for the familiar backpack in their hand. “Hey! Stop!” Ren took off after the thief, as he was about to use his webshooters, he realized he was in his civilian clothes and there were people around.
As Ren chased the man with his bag, he couldn’t help but notice how no one even attempted to help stop the thief, despite ample opportunity. ‘Wow, why do I defend this city again?’
The thief rounded a corner and Ren followed soon after. As he turned the corner himself, he tripped over his own discarded bag.
“What the? Why would they just leave it?” He reached into the opened bag and searched around. “Okay, the locks are still there. So what did he-? Wait, oh god my wallet!” He continued to search desperately but to no avail.
Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. As has been mentioned numerous times at this point, Ren Amamiya had absolutely no money. However, today Ren had decided to put Sojiro’s credit card in his wallet.
Ren looked up from his bag to the busy Akihabara streets, unable to see the thief among them.
“This could be very bad.”