The Egocentric Police Dick

LOW ACTIVITY. MUTUALS ONLY.

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Naoto could only roll her eyes almost in sync on how a poster of that sort even existed in their PD. It was supposed to be a place for people who disagreed with the Phantom Thieves and tried to stop their grey sector businesses but apparently a poster had found its way here. She had a lot of conflicting thoughts on the method of their choice and that it was scarily similar to mind control.

“The person who put that flyer in a location they know is against Phantom Thieves is pushing their luck or thinking that they can change minds with their adorable campaign. Extremely funny.” Naoto sighed and mentioned how her opinion was going to probably cause a lot of confusion as a PI who worked oftentimes solo and acknowledged the hidden corruption underneath the surface.

Still… there were better ways to go on about this and this wasn’t a good approach if you asked her. “If you want my brutal opinion on the Phantom Thieves, it is that they’re suspicious. Based on what I have seen so far and read online, they are using desperate methods to target the criminals what cannot be captured by traditional ones and that way are vigilantes who use an extreme way. They have a gift what could be misused and in the worst case pin the blame on wrong people.”

She wouldn’t usually have accepted a case such as this due to how it caused a rush for her several months ago Kyoto PD’s case but the severity and how this PD seemed equally clueless as Inaba PD was why she didn’t think twice. She’d be in Tokyo for less than a year, get a place to bunk in from her relative’s colleague and then return to Kyoto.

“It seems like you also want to bring them to justice… how long have you tried to catch these menaces?”

Luckily, Shirogane-san seems to have some sense, and is just as wary of the Phantom Thieves as he is. Not that her disagreeing would have made the prosecutor change his mind, he would have presented his argument as to why they were childish and irresponsible no matter what, but it was a small comfort to his sense of justice and his ego that she thought the same way.

"You call it a gift. I think it's a method of getting what they want. Either way, I agree, it's being heinously misused."

Apparently there was a website where people could recommend a target, he'd read in the newspapers just this week. He couldn't shake the feeling that the Phantom Thieves case and the mental shutdowns were somehow linked. Failed attempts at confessions, perhaps?

"When I heard about the links to Kamoshida and Madarame, I mostly just assumed they were some sort of juvenile justice group that would soon be caught by police, and therefore not worth my time. They're getting... really pervasive, though. Especially among teenagers."

Thank goodness Makoto at least seemed to have some sense about it, even if she agreed with their motives. They'd talked about it some at the dinner table, and Adachi could be content with the fact that she had logical reasons for not minding them.

Adachi had made sure to hang up the phone well before he got to his apartment, just in case Naoto got any idea of the conversation he'd just had.

Balancing school, multiple jobs, and raising a kid was proving to be harder than Adachi thought, and once or twice, he'd had a test where the score slipped underneath the As he strove for. Fundamentally, he knew that a B wouldn't have been the end of the world, but of course his parents kept tabs on his grades, and he'd just been on the receiving end of yet another lecture from them on him not trying hard enough, and what did he need all those extra jobs for, he could get money once he got his education and a good career.

When Naoto got old enough to where her grades came from exams and not art projects, Adachi knew he wasn't going to act the same.

Inside the apartment, he could hear Naoto watching cartoons as he hung up his jacket and set down his satchel, and when she ran up to him, excited, he gave the best smile he could muster.

"Hey, kiddo."

Clearly, she could tell that not everything was alright, because as soon as he had a seat on the couch, she was asking him what was the matter.

"It's just been a long day. You know how little things stack up? It was kinda like that.

   a… gift. part of you wants to laugh incredulously at how insufferable that answer is ( not the answer itself, of course, for all you know it really was some twisted gift, like your own powers were, in a sense. like akechi’s powers… ) no, it’s the smarmy grin and the devil may care attitude about it all.

   like… adachi has to know, right? they have to know about the countless lives that have been ruined because of them; not just the victims, but… everyone who ever knew them, everyone who has to go day by day knowing their loved ones were ripped cruelly from them… some even before their lives really began. wasn’t one of the first victims a high schooler?

   ( you remember mom on the phone constantly that summer, pleading with your grandparents to close the teahouse and stay with you where they’d be safe from the maniac running around. remember her being glued to any and all news outlets, hoping against all odds they’d catch the bastard terrorizing her hometown… )

“it’s tempting,” you say flatly, “i mean, what the hell did a high schooler ever do to you?”

   you leave it there, though, finally sitting down on the table’s edge and looking through your bag of supplies for the thermos of coffee you packed. even with adachi’s horrifying strength doing a lot of the heavy lifting, switching from damage dealer to tank to healer and back again is… taking a lot out of you.

“i’m not, but my mom is.” you say after a long moment, putting aside your irritation. the coffee is helping. you fill a second cup and offer it to adachi. it’s no concern of yours whether he takes it or not, but you’re doing your due diligence as leader of the phantom thieves. mass murderer or not, you need to take care of him in here, too, “and my grandparents still live there… they own the amamiya teahouse. i’d ask if you’d ever been, but part of me is sitting here like ‘actually, maybe i don’t want to know’. mom was losing her goddamn mind back then, you know? she was so scared grandma or grandpa would be next.”

Adachi has enough experience with people and with Fujiwara to know that he’s holding quite a bit of frustration with them about the Inaba case. People were always going to suffer with his consequences, and that was a fact that Adachi had long accepted. They’d done the crime, then done the time, so to speak. It wouldn’t be enough for a lot of people like it was for them.

Their amends to their actions were in places that they weren’t ever privy to share with other people. At least, not with the kid, they didn’t trust him enough to mention it. Yet. And even if they did, they’re not sure he would take it well, having emotional attachment to the town and all.

The smell of coffee is enough for them to raise their head from the pillow of the couch, and silently reach over to take the offered coffee. It’s bitter, bitter enough to make them grimace, but they take a sip or two anyway. It is pretty energizing, and it had been a while since Magatsu-Izanagi got to strut his stuff. They were rusty.

“Well, you can sleep easy at night, since I never went.” The truth, but Fujiwara has the choice whether or not to believe it.

“Might have met the old folks once or twice at Junes, but trust me, unless anyone directly slighted me, they were not particularly on my radar back then.”

Also an indirect answer to his earlier question. A small, probably most moral, side of Adachi wants to say something about how their thought process was a lot different back then, but the same feeling that keeps them from telling him about how they’ve changed crops up again.

Besides, they had a feeling that Fujiwara had enough of other people’s problems to deal with. Their problems were what the court-ordered therapists and the pills were for, not some kid.

“All I’ll say is that being in a place that you don’t wanna be in for circumstances that feel outta your control, aside from other things that philosophers could take hours arguing whether they were a product of nature or nurture, and then a power from some damn crazy dimension, can make a dangerous cocktail in an otherwise normal guy.”

Their eyes finally make contact with Fujiwara, and their expression suddenly gets more serious.