"Niijima-san. I understand you need to question him for your case, but he's in no condition."

Sae nodded, setting her briefcase on the desk and rummaging through for a set of paperwork. "I'm working on a warrant. Akechi-san is a person of interest regarding Masayoshi Shidou."

The doctor didn't look but gave a sad smile, "I understand, but he's weak. It's been touch and go since coming out of his last surgery."

"Conscious?"

"There are a few lucid moments here and there," the doctor explained. "We're keeping him comfortable under partial sedation."

"Is there any chance to wean him and bring the patient around? I don't need long, but need to confirm some details."

The doctor shook his head, "You need to realize that he's dying."

This gave a moment of pause. "I see. How long?"

"Can be anywhere from hours to a few days. There's some minimal liver function, but the organ's not salvageable. Even if we could find a donor at this point, the infection's barely responding to broad spectrum antibiotics and Akechi-san is already on the verge of multi-system failure. It's a miracle he's made it this long to be quite honest."

Indeed. The reports hadn't made sense. An unidentified body outside the Diet was conspicuous in itself. With bullet wounds and half-disemboweled it looked like a Yakuza hit, except they wouldn't have left someone out in the open, not even to send a message. The anonymous body hadn't been her case and it was left to colleagues. They had Kaneshiro and his associates in custody. They could visit the barely legal parlors and bars in Shinjuku for leads. Kobayashi even went as far as to try to drag any leads out of a model kit shop with rumored mob ties. There was nothing tying it into the Phantom Thieves or her final prosecution of Masayoshi Shidou.

The disappearance of Goro Akechi should have triggered something as a curious coincidence. It had not until she received the call from the hospital.

Instead she spent the couple weeks after the confession and arrest of Masayoshi Shidou chasing the shadows of an accomplice. Shidou himself maintained that he only had suspicion of their relationship and had seen the kid as little more than a throwaway pawn. It seemed unfathomable except for a dead end paper trail. In fact, all that existed of Goro Akechi's life was a series of starts and stops. No family registry, just a series of intake and discharge papers from institutions and foster homes, many left half complete.

"He's as much a victim as anyone," Kurusu stated in their first discussion after being booked into the juvenile prison. "In every way possible society failed him. We couldn't save him. He was far too gone for that, but the tragedy is that those failures died with him."

That was close to true. Evidence procured from his apartment was fruitful in regards to his cases. As part of his detective ambitions, Akechi proved meticulous in detailing each case, everything from the statutes to pieces of evidence to potential motives. Sae herself was familiar with this trait through their collaboration, even going so far as to borrow his journals on several occasions.

Her coming to him for such trivial tasks meant a lot to him. Something he jotted down in the margins as part of a case where a semi driver plowed into oncoming traffic and a crowd in Ikebukuro. At the time she thought more cute than useful. A kid playing a grownup. Such contradictions wouldn't have mattered up until a couple months ago and yet now she had to offer something to the courts that could be admissible. That meant understanding the contradictions she had waved off as nothing more than personality quirks.

"Do you think he's capable of collaborating a few details at least?"

"You do realize you're asking to interrogate a dying child."

Sae's expression softened as the doctor become more bristled. She was trying to catch herself in moments where she went too hard. "Does he know?"

"Yes. To a degree. He knows the odds. He didn't identify himself by name until we gave him a reason for asking for next of kin."

Poor kid. At the age of twenty Sae had to face her father's death and even authorize the hospital to take her father off life support. It was while picking up Makoto from her middle school to that she could feel her heart grow cold before it hardened over. She hadn't been old enough to face that. Goro Akechi wasn't even that. He was the same age as her little sister.

"Perhaps then I should visit as a colleague in this case."

She could not blame the doctor for his skepticism.

"I'm not going to push him into anything he wishes to withhold. Perhaps all this will just help in giving him closure."

The doctor closed the records binder with Akechi's name before pushing up the rim of his thick rimmed glasses. "He's in room 1431. I can't actually stop you with your warrant. Just be mindful."

Sae nodded. Walking through the ward, she looked at the numbers in front of each glass paned room. Those where the curtains were open had weeping family at bedside of mostly elderly patients on a host of machines. The faint sounds of weeping his almost as strong as the scent of antiseptic. And then she reached her destination. A sign at the door implored for masks and gloves to be used in the room, a task she followed as she entered and saw the items on a counter next to a sink.

The sound of his breaths were wet and heavy, punctuated by the occasional wheeze or cough. As she approached, she could see the frailty under the maze of tubes and wires. Jaundice had already settled in, along with a degree of mottling that was particularly prevalent in his lightly sunken cheeks and in the puckered scars of his right hand. His eyes were closed.

"Akechi-san. Can you hear me?" Sae said, the tone of her voice firm despite being little more than a whisper. His eyelids shifted and fluttered, but did not open.

Sae put a gloved hand over his shoulder. She kept the pressure light, waiting to ensure there wasn't any pain. She shook, ever so careful. "It's Niijima. I need you awake."

The reaction was even groggier than Kurosu during interrogation. Although in this case it looked to be a blessing. Getting him to turn his head toward her voice was not too complicated, but his eyes fell as soon as they could open and when his lips parted it was to let out a groan.

"Listen, I know your condition. I'm not here to badger you, but need your help filling in some details if you're up for it."

He blinked slowly and mumbled into the mask over his face.

Sae leaned in, unable to make out the words, "I can't hear you."

"Apartment,' Akechi barked as loud as he could manage, "my journals."

Just those words alone left the boy panting. Sae reached over to brush a fringe of sweat matted hair out of his eyes. She couldn't help recoiling at the clamminess of his forehead. "I have them. I should thank you for being so meticulous."

"You called it chicken scratch," he said with just a bit more strength. "Can I die in peace now?"

Sae cut to the point. "Shidou's confession will get him a conviction, but to ensure a long prison term I need to confirm details on your involvement. I need to know what led up this. Your past leading up to what transpired in that world."

Akechi's eyes closed. Had she lost him?

With a grunt his hand traveled over the covers to his abdomen. "It hurts."

"Should I get a doctor?" Sae asked. Watching as his face contorted in pain, she found herself rubbing her temple, "the doctor is right. You're in no shape for any of this."

Akechi's fingers clenched and released several times, his breath hitching several times before it evened out, "Don't. Don't want to sleep."

Sae rose and returned to the sink. Taking a clean washcloth from a small pile, she wet it and returned to the bedside. With gentle strokes she wiped his face. As though by instinct he leaned into her.

"He really confessed?" Akechi asked.

Sae nodded and took out her phone, "I can show you the conference video if you wanted to see for yourself."

There was no response from the boy, but his eyes stayed with her as she found the video and played it, setting her phone against the bed rail so he can see. His face was slack at first the sight of Shidou at the podium bringing out the first bit of emotion in the form of pursed lips. As it went on, his eyes slid in and out of focus. Several times he had to blink off whatever medication or exhaustion lingered in his system, yet there was a determination in that weak body.

"They did it," he breathed as Shidou broke down. Tears of his own pooled in the corner of his eyes before they fell down. "Kurusu-kun did it."

As the stream end, Sae took her phone back, not saying anything, but wordlessly offering the small towel to dab at his eyes.

"It's fitting," Akechi finally said, "that we both go down. As long as he rots."

She had him. "Then help me fill the gaps."

Akechi nodded, "I will. But where's Kurusu? He should hear."

Sae shook her head. She was already pulling every string possible to build a defense and get him out. She had favors out with a couple professional acquaintances from law school to avoid additional abuses. It was the least she could do as she couldn't keep him out of solitary confinement. She was at the limit of her good graces and favors. "I can't do that. But I can relay any message."

At first it seemed like he had shut up into his own world, eyes closed.

"Akechi-san?"

"Niijima-san?" he sounded like a child, his voice high and pitiful, "I'm tired."

His voice was breaking and his heart rate was rising. Sae sat in quiet patience as her former colleague alternated between fits of pain and blankness. When a nurse approached with another dose of medicine, she watched the empty stare overtake Akechi as his senses appeared to fade. She waited long after, looking for a hint of recognition to come back in his eyes as the sun outside the window set early in the winter sky.
Realizing the futility, she stood to leave when a hand reached out, blind. "Akechi-san?"

His eyes opened in response, barely more than glassy slivers. "Hurry up," he said as though they had been speaking minutes ago instead of nearly three hours.

"This won't do," Sae admitted. A few months earlier she would have pushed until someone gave whatever drug would keep the suspect roused. If if made the lips looser all the better. It wasn't as though Kurusu was the first case she heard to go through such treatment to get a case.

Perhaps it was in the aftermath of that interrogation her heart softened. Perhaps it came because she had most of the sordid details and asking an eighteen-year-old to relive every moment society failed him in his final hours was a cruelty even she could not withstand.

"Please…" Akechi said, "do it."

Even in his pathetic state, Akechi had a determination in his face, weaker than when he saw the confession video, but present. Sae considered for a few moments, knowing she only had so much time. Setting out a recorder, she turned it on.

"I'll tell you what I have. Just nod yes or no if those details are true. Add only what you must. Do you understand."

Akechi gave a small nod.

"Let us begin," Sae said. She knew where this story began and what the end would bring. Her last prosecution. His last case.

"According to Shidou he had an affair with Sachiko Akechi, your mother. This appears to be collaborated in journals obtained from your apartment and records with social services."