Disclaimer: The standard "I don't own anybody" thing. You know.

Dear, dear, dear readers. Please don't brick me for delaying this for so long, or for what you got at the end. We have come to the "thrilling" conclusion of Today, and I'm happy to say that there's something after this as well. Thank you all so much for your kind words and your delightful thoughts and reflections- they make my day, to read what you all think and wonder. To be honest, your watches and favorites and so on were what pressed me to finish this. That said, if you're shy or lazy, please don't feel pressured at all to make a response. Knowing that people read this is really enough for me.

Well, I've been building up to the inferred conclusion that a certain character makes for a while now, and hopefully this conclusion is painfully obvious to the reader. If it isn't, don't worry, don't fret, in the next bit I have going now it will be stated explicitly and the mystery will be solved.

Yes, this is all part of one single mystery. Ah... uh... enjoy summer vacation, if you happen to be on it, and I really do hope that you all enjoy this!

Running down the street, breath coming in sharp staccato pants, fogging like marshmallow puffs of urgency in front of her, Yako pushed all thought from her head. She had to get there in time. She had to find Neuro, and Samish. Samish and then Neuro, more like. The blizzard was howling, and the wind was so intense she kept on slipping and falling, but she had- to- keep- going-

When Ami was released from jail, the coroner's report supporting Yako's findings, Yako thought that perhaps the mystery would turn out to be something like, "why Ami didn't reveal her sister's accidental overdose". Maybe, "Ami's secret stalker"? "Ami and Karoliyv's secret love triangle", even. Not:

"...officials have stated that the eyewitnesses are very reliable, and that their statements prove the murderess guilty quite conclusively. For those of you just tuning in, the Nationals coach Menkinov Karoliyv was found murdered last night in the soon-to-be-held Nationals' skating rink. Eyewitnesses state that Ami Abe, sister of the late figure skater Yurika Abe, walked into the gym in an extremely disheveled state. She was apparently deranged, muttering something about the storm outside, and shot Karoliyv three times in the chest before ending her own life. Police have called in multiple gang contacts, trying to understand how such a young woman came into possession of a firearm..."

Yako and Godai stared at the television blankly until Neuro leaned down and put in a video cassette. It had been with the rest of their mail, and while Godai was convinced that it contained porn, and 'sexy lady' porn at that, Neuro had smelled the aroma of a mystery on the tape and so kept it.

The screen was black, and then it flickered and there was Ami Abe, smiling honey-warm into the camera. Yako felt herself tear up and blinked hard. She wanted to see this, wanted to understand, desperately.

"Hello. If you're watching this, I, Ami Abe, older daughter of a sad, middle-aged couple with a single dead daughter, have completed my task. I went into the storm last night and felt the voice of my sister calling to me. But I knew that I couldn't come to her empty-handed." Yako choked back a sob and shook her head. Godai tossed her the box of tissues, his eyes glued to the screen. Neuro was leaning forwards over his desk like a hunting dog to a duck, his expression schooled into neutrality. Yako couldn't tell if he was upset, or if he was pleased and trying not to get slapped again. Either way, she was grateful. She couldn't handle Neuro's moods right now.

"So I planned to bring her a gift in the form of her true murderer: her coach. He drove my little sister," Ami breathed in, her serene expression blurring into grief, the kind that consumes and leaves blankness behind, "he drove her to incredible heights. But she fell, and nobody caught her, and she died. I should have been there for her. I failed her. But her coach failed her as well. We failures can go to heaven to beg for Yurika's forgiveness together." The camera swung around to reveal the ice rink. Yako stifled a cry: Karoliyv was behind her on the ice, dead. Three people were huddling behind the plexiglass of the rink boundary. Yako frowned. Something... was very strange here. But what?

Godai had noticed, too, but he seemed to have solved the mystery and was obviously somewhat alarmed by it. "Now he is gone, and it is my turn to pass through this illuminatory storm and go on to heaven at my sister's feet. Please forgive me, please forgive me, Miss Yako. I know you worked very hard to free me. The storm sends you its love instead of mine. Please forgive me." Godai lunged forwards and pulled Yako to him, covering her face in his stomach and wrapping his arms around her ears, just as a bang went off and the people behind the plexiglass began to scream.

"Turn it fucking off," Godai hissed, covering Yako's ears more tightly as his body went rigid.

"I need to see something," Neuro insisted, his voice hard, impatient. The storm outside was stirring itself into a relentless howl, probably the worst it had ever been. It almost sounded like an animal screaming its death call.

"No," Godai growled with enough force that his stomach tensed, "turn it off now. She's got enough of this kind of thing to deal with already." Yako heard a few more seconds of sobbing little skater girls in silly outfits and tights before Neuro listened to Godai.

Godai let her go gently, smoothing her bangs down in a rare fit of tenderness. "Turn on the news or something. Jesus..." Yako smiled at him blearily, wiping her eyes. She'd seen the same tissues the old man at the rink had gotten from his granddaughter on sale. Unable to resist a bargain, she'd picked them up, and that was what she dabbed her eyes with now, even as the news came on. Neuro drew back and stalked around to stand behind Yako and Godai.

"...police repeat that nobody is to leave their homes, not even for the most basic of items..." Godai raised an eyebrow and shook his head.

"Tch, come on. People are so weak about storms here." Yako bit at her lip, dabbed at her eyes.

"...Is this a mystery?" Neuro shook his head. He seemed on-edge. He seemed... uncertain. Scared, or as close to it as Neuro could come. It cast a terrifying feeling over the office, as if some kind of horrific monster was going to burst in on them. Yako turned her gaze back to the television, trying to distract herself from what... what she had just heard.

"Nobody was holding the recorder," Godai breathed, running a hand over his face, then through his hair. "And how the hell did we get the tape? The witnesses didn't say shit about a tape. I'm sure those little kids..." he trailed off, expression turning tragic for a second, before he went on, "sure they would have said something 'bout a tape being made."

"So one of the slaves was paying attention," Neuro snapped, his teeth clicking on every word. Yako frowned at the news. She was still too shocked to follow what the announcer was saying, but it seemed... odd. Like everything else today. There was something wrong.

"They said she was mumbling. She was probably making the tape." Yako couldn't think of a single way the video tape could have been made, though. Godai was clearly having the same problem, because he started muttering about pinprick cameras and flying bats and all those crazy sorts of things you ran into in anime and manga. The bats tickled something in Yako, though, and after a nearly mind-breaking moment her gaze flew to Neuro. Tools. Demon tools.

He met her eyes with a grim clench of his jaw that showed more teeth than looked comfortable. Yako covered her mouth, too appalled, too scared, to say what she was thinking. Another...?!

Just then what the news announcer was saying started to filter through.

People were killing themselves like it was a new sport. At first it had seemed like the work of some bizarre cult, but after enough police had rushed to apartments of residents who had their windows opened when the storm kicked up, people began to figure things out. (Regardless of what Neuro said, people actually did think, Yako mused.) The police and firefighters were suited up for a chemical attack, ready in white moonsuits. But normal people, grandmas and grampies and sisters and little dogs named Pon-chan... well, there were no moonsuits for them.

Neuro knocked Godai out with a single punch. Yako screeched, more so when Neuro just walked over his body to sit on the couch, grinding his heels on Godai's spine.

"Neuro! Is this... I thought demons weren't allowed to bring attention to themselves like this?!" He tilted his head to the side and stared out the windows, mercifully closed, at the storm.

"This one is skirting a very fine line. If he hadn't hooked himself into that Videotape Girl just now, he could probably get away with it down in Hell." Yako shuddered.

"What are we going to do? Will it... er, he, just- just go away on his own?" She didn't like that idea at all, but she didn't want to become homicidal or suicidal. Neuro apparently did.

"We're going out to stop this whole thing. It's a mess, absolutely disorganized and obvious to even the casual wood louse." He shut his eyes in thought. "But... it might be difficult for me." Yako thought he was kidding at first, but when his eyes stayed shut and Akane stilled, looking somewhat drained, she realized that he was absolutely serious. To Yako, there was nothing stronger than Neuro, and here he was, gathering up as much of his energy as he could get to attack a giant winter storm with anger issues.

"Why, Neuro?" She sat down on the couch opposite him, brows knitting. "I mean.. Won't Hell send somebody better-equipped, if you're... why will it be difficult?"

He lunged forwards and had his claws on her before she can scream.

"I am a demon that survives on organisms. There are types of demons that survive not on organisms, like you and I do, though, but on collections of things such as rain, or misery." He hissed the last word, his claws digging into her shoulders enough to cut the fabric there. "I solve mysteries and consume them. This demon incites a mass of feeling to his will and then consumes its source. In short, stupid slave number one, while perhaps Hell will send somebody eventually, the mechanisms to do so are too slow. What we need is what you humans call a ground response." Yako wasn't sure what to say the that, so she put a hand on his, still clawing into her shoulder. He stood, shaking her off, and motioned to the door. She could feel a little blood seeping through the fabric of her blouse, but his sudden clandestine, serious nature dissuaded her from saying anything about it.

"What? I- Uh, Neuro..."

"Hurry up, wood louse," Neuro purred, already halfway down the hallway. The lights were flickering in time with the wind of the storm, which could be felt through the floor. Yako felt as if she was inside a reed, or a strip of cloth.

"Neuro, wait...!" Yako exclaimed, chasing after him in a hurry. "Neuro, if humans are getting sick from this demon, why are you bringing meeEEEEE!!"

It was cold outside, she reflected. Very, very cold out. Neuro was ahead of her, standing still. Ice was rapidly forming on the sidewalks, heaps and heaps of matted-down hail forming a slick surface. Yako had to pick up her booted feet to shake the forming ice off, moving her arms and legs to keep from being coated and enveloped. Neuro was circling, motion the only familiar thing about him, looking up and down and all around, his horns out, his claws bared, his teeth at the ready. He was fully demon-shaped, something she might have taken more note of if she wasn't so petrified.

"I am happy to see one such as yourself," a tenor voice screamed out, the words ringing around and around the air like a trapped bird. Yako gasped- somebody had appeared from the blizzard, somebody with a long white scarf and flowing ash-blonde hair down to his feet, somebody with teeth too big for his grin, just like Neuro. But his teeth were icicles and his nails sheeted ice, his hair snowbound and his clothes infested with wind. Where Neuro was... frightening, alien, but ultimately there, this stranger with eyes on Neuro like a cat on cream was like something from another galaxy- too frightening, too alien, too far away. Yako found herself drawing away and back as if by instinct.

The tussle was shockingly brief, simply this snow-storm demon introducing himself as, "Samish, at your service, oh famous detective" and then backhanding Neuro into the side of their building so hard the wall collapsed and Neuro lay in the lobbey, unmoving, covered in building dust and being consumed by snow. Samish stepped forwards, nodding cheerily at Yako, before picking up the stunned demon and sliding him onto his shoulder.

"Wh- Leave Neuro alone!" She gasped, running towards them. Samish gave a chirrup of surprise and smiled at her. Yako slid to a stop in front of him, panting, frightened out of her mind but determined to rescue Neuro like he always did for her. Even if she was just a human, even if she was scared witless, she was conscious and Neuro wasn't and that- well, some days that seemed to be all that mattered.

"What are you doing?!" She screamed at him over the winds.

"I am his number one fan," He screamed back, smiling exactly like Neuro. Yako shook her head hard, hard, as hard as she could while still fighting the incredible wind. Her eyes stayed fixated on Neuro, being dangled over somebody's shoulder like a bunch of fabric.

"You can't do that! Neuro is- what are doing?!" Samish fixed his white-blue gaze on her and stepped close, close enough that Neuro's feet, coated in ice now, dangled near Yako's shoulders. She looked up at him, angry, her mouth forming into a strict, serious line. "You have hurt so many people and you can't just take Neuro-!"

Neuro stirred then, a faint tremor followed by a full-body motion resemblant of a whip cracking or a cobra striking. But Samish caught him and laughed, teasing Neuro with his hand and hitting him again when Neuro snapped at him. The blow made Neuro's eyes cross, which made Yako start to tremble: Neuro was strong. He was much, much stronger than her, and he could take a bullet or twenty to the eye and come right back to full function in a fairly tiny amount of time. Yako was... human, and small, and weak.

She gritted her teeth and stomped her foot, locking eyes with Samish. Compared to his victim, Samish was nothing in terms of sheer intimidation; his eyes didn't glow or swirl, and his teeth didn't look as if they were being shown for your singular benefit. Yako felt a draining of fear at that- no matter what, she was going to rescue Neuro, moaning and bleeding and still as he was right now. It was her turn, her turn to help him as vitally as he had helped her, and she was going to help all the people that Samish had hurt and was hurting right now–

"Stop hurting Neuro," Yako said, quietly. Samish backed up as if she'd brandished a hot poker at him. Faster, probably, since he was a demon from Hell and all. "Let him go." She took a bold step towards him, tossing a surprised, questioning look at her feet when she didn't feel the resistance of that terrible creeping ice. "Leave my city. Leave us alone."

"I came a long way to get him for our use," Samish choked out. "I'm not giving up just because some- some-...?"

Yako looked up from her feet, surrounded by greenery and tiny blossoms, puzzled. Was Neuro doing something? If he was, he certainly wasn't being subtle about it. Samish didn't seem to be too pleased about whatever it was, though, because the storm picked up with a violence Yako hadn't known a storm could have.

"Tricky bastard, you tricky, tricky bastard," the storm demon was humming nervously, looking at the ground. Yako watched the plants; they were nothing special, just some grass and some dandelions and some vines, but they were so green. In the midst of all this whitewashed cityscape, that taste of green was beautiful beyond words. They were poking through the snow and melting it, too. Yako drew some more courage from looking at those innocuous human-world plants before advancing (it must have been some kind of last-ditch effort by Neuro)

and the plants did too. She turned her head- Samish leaning around her to look at well- and realized that the plants were following her steps. What.

"He knew it! He knew all about it, of course! Ohhh, truly the best..." Samish folded himself and Neuro into the billowing white of the storm, leaving Yako to dash after, screaming Neuro's name as if his life depended on it.

Maybe it did.

So now Yako was running, following the liquid splash of blood that was coming from Neuro. She had to find him on time, had to, had to- because while she didn't think that Neuro was in any way a damsel in distress, well... There were violent scratches and clawings in the roads, dotted with hissing demon blood, that Yako ran across from time to time. He was fighting, but oh, oh. He was losing, and losing blood too.

The plants followed her in a green little strip, marking where she'd been and which way she'd come and once, when the ice brought down a power line, they held fast to her shoes and wouldn't let her pass until they'd wrapped themselves around the line. They burnt, but they protected her, and Yako felt her heart quicken with a small bit of love for the greenery.

The world was narrowing into one white strip of blankness, a long line of events blending into one, spots of Neuro's blood marking time like periods after a sentence, and Yako, out of breath, still running, her body screaming in pain and weariness, was so so stumblingly tired, so weak, ready to fall and rest and let the ice creep over her, just for a moment, just for a time,

she staggered forwards and felt the sun on her face.

When she'd taken a rest, she sat up, ruffling the soft little grasses under her. There was a beautiful tower of ice in front of her, sparkling in the sun but unmelting.

"Samish," Yako said, her shoulders dropping and her mouth tightening. She had come to the heart of the storm, and she was going to rescue Neuro or die trying. He'd said it himself: Hell was slow. Nobody would be coming to help them before it was too late. (Even if somebody did get sent in time, Yako had the lurking suspicion that they'd be just as bad as Neuro had been when he first came to the human world and twice as poor at hiding it.)

While Yako would have loved dearly to simply cuddle down somewhere hidden and dark and sleep away this nightmare, something nagged at her... it was her turn to be the knight in shining armor, really, and she wasn't going to balk from her duty.

One boot in front of the other, one step at a time, followed diligently by tiny plants rustling like fussing maids-in-waiting, Yako strode up to the hazy blue doors and pushed them opened.

"Neuro!!"