Rain poured like punishment. The city swallowed its own noise, streets gleaming with oil and sin. Kaito ran, boots slapping the pavement, breath breaking in sharp gasps. Every step echoed between the skeletal towers of District Nine—the place people came to disappear.
Behind him, sirens howled. Blue and red lights flashed across the puddles, staining the world like a bleeding wound.
Shadow was just a few steps behind, his laugh half-crazed, half-defiant. "Told you it was a setup," he shouted, voice bouncing off the alley walls.
Kaito didn't answer. He couldn't. The blood on his hands said enough—still warm, still fresh, not his own. Ryo's face flickered in his mind: eyes wide, throat carved open in a warehouse that smelled like rust and betrayal.
They burst through a side street, breath steaming, the world shrinking to heartbeat and rain.
"Keep moving," Kaito muttered. "We can clear our names later."Shadow barked a short, bitter laugh. "Later? You still believe in later?"
The sirens grew closer. Tires screeched. Floodlights roared to life, blinding white slicing through the dark.They were surrounded.
"Hands where I can see them!""On the ground!""Don't move!"
Shadow's fists clenched. Kaito saw it—the twitch in his brother's jaw, the old fury ready to explode. He stepped between him and the guns. "Don't," he hissed. "They want a reason."
For a moment, the world froze—just two brothers standing in the rain, drowning in everything they didn't say. Then the cuffs came down. Cold. Final.
As they were dragged to the patrol car, Kaito glanced up at the skyline—a black tower rising in the distance, its top lost in the storm. He'd heard stories about that place.
Black Veil Penitentiary.
They said no one left it unchanged.Some said no one left at all.
The car door slammed. Shadow turned his head, meeting Kaito's eyes through the cage of steel between them. He grinned, blood on his teeth.
"Guess we're going home, brother."
The sirens wailed again, carrying them through the dark like a funeral song.