Chapter 47
[66]
Futaba heard her phone ringing next to her as she sat at her computer. Checking the caller I.D. showed that it was Ren, no doubt calling back to talk about their conversation earlier, the one in which she had chickened out of talking about her mom.
Futaba contemplated answering the phone before realizing she wasn’t ready to talk about this yet. She let the phone stop ringing and resumed her work, only for it to start up once more.
“Ugh! I’m not ready to talk yet!” Futaba shut off her phone, wanting to escape social interaction for a few hours.
“I just need time!”
Across the city, in the part of Shibuya that hadn’t been blown up, Ann Takamaki had just started her 5 minute break from her modeling shoot. This shoot was going to be big, the biggest gig she’d gotten yet! She was going to be on the cover of Vague magazine! Well, her and a few other girls, but this was huge! She couldn’t wait to tell the others.
Speaking of which, as she sat down, she noticed that she had a missed call from Ren. Seeing as she had the time now, she decided to call him back. He picked up after one ring.
“Hey Ren you’ll never belie-”
“ANN! Thank god! I need your help!” He sounded out of breath and hurt.
“Are you okay!? You sound awful.”
“Ann there’s no time. Where are you!?”
“Shibuya, why?” Ann was concerned now.
“Great! I need you to get to Leblanc right now!” Ren said.
Ann looked around for anyone listening before whispering back. “I’m kind of in the middle of something right now. Can it wait?”
“Ann, this is an emergency! Futaba and Sojiro could be in real danger! I already tried getting in touch with Futaba but she turned off her phone, Yusuke is on the other side of the city and Ryuji is out of town with his mom! You need to warn them, tell them to run!”
“Okay give me a sec.” Realizing the importance of the situation, Ann knew she had to act. Leaping from her seat, she ran over to the nearest person she could find. “Mika!” Ann shouted to her fellow model. “Tell the producers something came up! I have to go!” Mika gave Ann a smile and a thumbs up as Ann ran out the door.
Hopping onto the nearest subway, Ann attempted to call Futaba, only for it to go straight to voicemail. “Dammit!” She said under her breath as the train took off to Yongen.
Meanwhile, Ren set the unconscious Black Cat on a rooftop far from the Shido Sciences building. Hopefully, when she woke up, Mitsuru would be back to her normal self. Ren grabbed his phone and dialed another number.
“Naoto!”
“What’s the situation?”
“The person causing the random crimespree! I know who it is!” Ren said as he swung towards Yongen.
“What!? Who is it?”
“Her name is Wakaba Isshiki. She’s an employee at Shido Sciences and she’s Futaba Sakura’s mother. I don’t know how, but she’s got some kind of mind control power! She made Black Cat attack me!”
“Are you alright?” Naoto sounded genuinely concerned.
“A few scrapes, but I’ll live. Look, I think she might be headed back to Leblanc, I’ve gotta stop her!”
“I can’t arrest her without proof Ren. If we don’t have a positive I.D., my hands are tied.”
Ren thought about it for a moment. “What about Sojiro and Futaba? If they’re suspected targets, then you could hold them for protection, right?”
“If they’re willing, yes. You really think she’d attack her own family?”
“I don’t know, but what I do know is that I don’t want them anywhere near this. Those two are the best thing that’s ever happened to me, I’d die before I let her hurt them.”
“Do they know?”
As Ren continued to swing, he let out a sigh. “About her? No. It’ll crush them when they find out, Futaba especially. I don’t care if she hates me for what I have to do, I just need her to be safe.”
“...”
“Naoto?”
“Sorry, it’s just...You sound so much like him.”
Ren grimaced, knowing exactly who she meant. “It’ll be fine Naoto. I’ll be safe, I promise.”
He heard a small sniffle from the other end. “You’d better.”
Ms. Negative could feel her grip on Wakaba slipping, she’d overexerted herself and needed time to recharge. As much as she hated it, if she wanted to exact her revenge, she had to relinquish control before she collapsed in the street.
The photo negative villainess exited the Shido Sciences building and ran into an alleyway a few blocks away, leaning on a dumpster while breathing heavily as her light flickered and began to fade. Concentrating the last of her power into her fingertip, she burned her other half a message into the wall for when she woke up.
With her message complete and her body exhausted from overuse, she sunk into the back of her host’s mind to regain her energy. “See ya soon roomie.” She said to herself.
When Wakaba Isshiki came to her senses, she was standing in an alleyway. Where? She had no clue, but she knew it was the fault of her alter ego. What had she done this time? The last thing she remembered was running into the therapist on the street corner…Oh god.
Did she kill him? In broad daylight!? This was bad, this was really really bad. The migraines, they were becoming more and more frequent. Growing at a rate exponentially faster than before, why did she come back here? This was a terrible idea! She should’ve just written Futaba a letter explaining everything rather than risk hers and thousands of other lives by coming here.
Wakaba’s breathing became ragged as her heart raced like crazy, she was breaking into a cold sweat and the alleyway felt like it was spinning. She slid down the brick wall behind her and hugged her knees.
“What am I gonna do?” Tears welled up in Wakaba’s eyes. She felt like a scared child, alone and afraid of what she didn’t understand. “Maybe it’d be for the best if I just...No I couldn’t do that to Futaba, not without her understanding.”
As her thoughts drifted towards her daughter, her next course of action became clear to her. She had to confess to them, Sojiro and Futaba, tell them everything. What she had done, what had been done to her, all of it. From there, she would figure out what came next.
Looking up at the sky, she checked to see how late in the day it was, she’d presumably been her alter ego for hours. Who knew how much she’d gotten into? Her view was clouded however by the overcast sky, it looked like there would be a downpour tonight.
When her gaze fell back to her surroundings, she noticed the wall across from her. Seemingly burned into the brick wall across from her was a message, recognizably written in her own handwriting.
The message consisted of a single ominous word that sent panic back into Wakaba’s body.
“HIDE.”