This fanfic contains spoilers for the MTNN manga. Please do not fillet me.

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RELEASE [CAPTIVE]

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He had let her go.

The fiery glow of the setting sun reflecting off the windows were a nothing but a blur of light and color, due to her surprising speed as well as the unending tears that filled her eyes. But she didn't stop running.

Not even when she had to push past people walking leisurely on the sidewalk or stumbled. She kept running until she made it home. Once inside the front door, she barely allowed herself any time to kick off her shoes before tearing up the stairs to her room. Ignoring the distressed calls from her mother, Yako shut her door and fell on her bed in a mess of sobs.

He had let her go.

After almost a year and a half years of relentless abuse, unfair servitude, and constant ridicule…he had let her leave.

Yako couldn't understand why she wouldn't stop crying. When she first met him, when he first started dragging her around town, she could remember asking whether or not she had any say in her 'Detective Work'; to which he replied that he wasn't likely to give her opinion any thought in her lifetime. She could remember the constant punishment he laid out every time she objected or talked back to him; his 'training' her to be the best detective was far from easy or painless. She could remember getting up in the morning praying that he wouldn't call or appear at all.

He had let her go.

Where was the relief of her finally getting away from him? Why wasn't she able to leave the office calmly, rather than running away like a child? Why couldn't she look at him and feel the weight of everything she had seen leave her upon his releasing his hold? Why did it feel as if the very air was trying to crush her? She didn't have any answers for her own questions.

All she knew was that the intense pain in her chest, the feeling as though someone was ripping her apart from the inside, would not leave her. Still ignoring the knocks on her door, the concerned questions from her mother, Yako knew that she should have been relieved.

He had let her go.

But she found she could only cry in complete misery for her newfound freedom.