A Name That Stains the Tongue.
Chapter 14: A Name That Stains the Tongue.
The Amanika house was quieter now. Emiya was gone, sent away to a place untouched by the storm brewing within these walls. But the silence wasn't peaceful-it was a pause before something inevitable.
Not the kind of silence that came with acceptance. Not the kind that signified healing.
This was the silence of something coiled in the dark, waiting to strike.
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Iruma sat at his desk, fingers tapping against the surface, his mind elsewhere. The dim glow of his monitor painted shadows across the cluttered space. Reports and files lay scattered, some crumpled, others marked with red lines that led to nowhere.
He had spent hours combing through every record, every database, every report from informants. And still, every thread led him to the same dead end.
One name.
Aqua.
Not in any registry. No birth certificate. No identification.
No tax history, no employment records, no medical files, no legal footprint.
Nothing.
And yet, the name kept appearing. It slipped through the cracks of closed cases, whispered through intercepted phone calls, buried in the notes of officers who never realized what they were looking at.
It didn't belong anywhere, but it was everywhere.
It carried weight, but no shape. A ghost.
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Iruma exhaled, rubbing his temples. His badge sat on the desk beside him, heavier than it should be. The law was meant to expose, to bring the hidden into the light. But this?
This was something different. Something the law wasn't built to fight.
His phone vibrated. A new message.
Unknown Number: "Still looking for me?"
A chill traced down his spine.
No number. No trace. No way to call back.
Iruma didn't move. His eyes flicked to the shadows in his office, to the corners of the room where the darkness felt too thick, too unnatural.
For the first time in his career, he felt watched.
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Across the city, Suzuki set down her scalpel.
The morgue was cold, sterile, but something lingered in the air-something that had no name but clung to the walls all the same.
The body on the table was like all the others. Unremarkable. A man with no history of illness, no visible wounds, no signs of trauma.
And yet, he was dead.
She peeled off her gloves, staring at the corpse.
The reports used neutral, calculated language to avoid the truth. No clear cause of death. No toxins in the bloodstream. No physical damage.
A corpse with no history of dying.
And yet, Suzuki knew.
She had seen this before.
People who got too close to something. To him.
She turned to her assistant, a younger doctor with tired eyes, fingers gripping the clipboard a little too tightly.
"Cause of death?" Suzuki asked.
The assistant hesitated. His eyes darted back to the file, as if looking at it too long might burn him.
"We... We don't know."
Suzuki exhaled, slow and controlled.
The name was there, even if it wasn't written down.
Aqua.
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At the Amanika house, the air was thick.
Ichika and Tatsuya sat in the corner of the room, unmoving, eyes closed.
They had been like this for hours. No one disturbed them.
Rukia and Koji sat at the dining table, untouched cups of tea growing cold between them. Miko stood by the window, arms crossed, watching the wind stir the trees outside.
It was Iruma who finally spoke.
"I dug through police records," he said, his voice low. "No birth certificate. No legal documents. No tax records, no work history, no medical files. If he exists, the law doesn't know him."
Suzuki leaned forward. "Then he exists outside the law."
Iruma nodded. "Exactly."
Rukia's fingers tightened around the rim of her cup. "I spoke to a judge today. Off the record. The courts have never handled a case tied to him. Not even an accusation. Like he's been erased before he could ever be written."
Silence.
Then, Ichika stirred. Her eyes fluttered open, but she did not look at them. She looked through them.
"The spirits do not know his name," she said softly.
A pause. The weight of those words settled over them, pressing down like unseen hands.
Tatsuya, still unmoving, finally spoke. His voice was a whisper, barely there. "That is unnatural."
The spirits knew everything. They remembered names long after they had faded from the tongues of the living.
They whispered truths to those who could listen.
But not this name.
This name had no past. No history. No echoes in the places where the dead gathered.
Koji closed his eyes. "Then we aren't hunting a man."
Miko turned from the window, her voice quiet but firm. "We're hunting a ghost.'
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Somewhere, far from the house, a man stood in the dark. His breath curled in the cold air, his face unreadable.
He didn't need to listen to know his name had been spoken tonight.
Aqua smiled.
Then, his fingers twitched.
The cold suddenly felt sharper, cutting through his coat, sinking into his bones. The street was empty, but the shadows stretched too long, curling at the edges of his vision. His breath slowed. He listened.
Nothing.
But that was the problem, wasn't it?
It was too quiet.
Aqua clenched his jaw, his smile stiffening. His name had been spoken-his name. And yet, it never truly felt like his. A borrowed thing. A mask worn over skin that no longer felt like his own.
Because what if he was listening?
The real one. The one whose name he had stolen.
His fingers curled into fists. The night pressed in around him, thick, suffocating. He had built this persona carefully, weaving fear into the very syllables of his stolen name. To them, he was untouchable, unknowable, a phantom lurking just outside their reach.
But he knew better.
He wasn't untouchable.
He was an echo of something much worse.
Aqua swallowed, forcing himself to move. One step. Then another. His own footsteps felt too loud, ringing in his ears. He pulled his coat tighter, as if that could keep him out.
Because if he came back, if the real one ever decided to step into the light-
No.
He couldn't think about that.
Aqua exhaled sharply, shaking off the thought. He was here. Now. The name was his. The fear belonged to him.
And yet, as he walked away, he couldn't shake the feeling that the real one was already watching.