Chapter 2: Prison and the Katsudon Bowl
Part 1
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead — a sickly, relentless whine that felt less like illumination and more like a medical instrument probing the hollow space where Kyle’s Chi used to live. Too white. Too clean. Too sharp.
The precinct doors clicked shut behind him with a soft, final thud.
“Please take a seat over there.”
The older officer’s voice was polite in the way museum guides are polite — detached, rehearsed, meant for strangers who don’t matter. The room hummed with vending machines and stale coffee, a low mechanical heartbeat that made the air feel like a cage built for something no one had the vocabulary to describe.
Kyle lowered himself into a cold plastic chair. His armor was gone. His bracers — which had endured dragon fire, divine lightning, and the crushing grip of a titan — were tagged and shelved under a label that read: BIZARRE FILM PROPS
The crisp white tag weighed more than any curse. It was an official, bureaucratic erasure of his heroic narrative.
His hands floated uselessly in his lap, numb and weightless, as if he were wearing gloves made of air. Instinctively, he reached inward again, searching for the familiar torrent of Chi.
Nothing.
Just the hollow ache of a body that no longer remembered how exist.
His chest tightened — not from pain, but from the unbearable lightness inside him, a void so vast it felt like it might pull him apart.
Across the table, Detective Doka flipped through a manila folder with the bored precision of someone sorting lost-and-found items. Kyle watched the man’s fingers — clean, efficient, indifferent. The rhythm was the same as a clerk processing a misplaced pet.
“Name?”
Kyle hesitated. The word felt foreign in his throat, stripped of its title, its weight, its meaning.
“Kyle,” he said.
“Full name?”
Kyle opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
His throat constricted, as if his own body refused to let him speak — refused to let him claim a name that no longer fit, or invent one that didn’t exist. The word Hero lodged in his throat like a stone.
Detective Doka sighed, tapping his pencil. The sound was soft, but it landed heavier than the Demon Lord’s final blow. Each flip of the folder wasn’t just paperwork — it felt like a tally of Kyle’s humiliation, page by page.
“Son. You don’t know your own name?”
The silence stretched. Far too long.
Kyle swallowed the bitterness rising in his chest.
“Detective Doka…” he muttered at last, the lie tasting like ash. “I’m telling you… we’re just… cosplayers.”
The detective scribbled something down without looking up.
“Right,” he said flatly. “And I’m a magical girl.”
The fluorescent lights buzzed louder.
Kyle stared at the table.
He had fought monsters. He had saved kingdoms. He had died for a world that no longer existed.
And here — in a room that smelled like instant coffee and disinfectant — he couldn’t even say his own name.
Part 2
The interrogation room was small, windowless, and aggressively beige — the kind of space designed to make even innocent people feel guilty. A single bowl of katsudon sat between Renji and Luna, steam curling upward in soft, fragrant ribbons.
The detective across from them leaned forward, polite but visibly exhausted.
“Madam, can you understand Japanese?”
Renji stiffened. During the police car ride, he had begged Luna — begged — to stay quiet. Tilt your head. Blink slowly. Let silence do the work. Anything to avoid her usual theatrics.
And so she sat perfectly still.
Elegant. Composed. Regal.
Her Western European features made the officers hesitate. No one wanted to accidentally offend a foreign dignitary or spark an international incident. The detective sighed, rubbing his temples.
He’d seen this before — tourists, diplomats, influencers. Management had already decided to contact a few embassies before taking the next steps.
Then her stomach growled.
Soft. Embarrassingly cute.
The detective blinked, then nodded to himself. A moment later, an officer slid a steaming bowl of katsudon across the table with the reverence of a peace offering.
The scent hit Renji like a punch to the chest.
Soy. Egg. Crisp pork cutlet. The warm, heavy sweetness of caramelized onions.
Memories surged — late nights, quiet streets, the small, private comfort of being nobody. The bowl wasn’t just food. It was proof that his old life had existed. Proof that he had once been ordinary.
His breath hitched.
“Oh right,” the detective said gently, “you probably haven’t used chopsticks before. I’ll get you a spoon.”
He stood to leave.
He froze.
Because the strange woman across from him — the one who had been silent, dignified, inscrutable — was now visibly salivating. Not politely. Not subtly.
Like a starving dog.
Renji didn’t hesitate.
He lunged forward and buried his face in the katsudon, tears spilling freely.
“I knew it,” he sobbed into the rice. “This is why I was brought back to Japan. This is what I died for!”
Luna shrieked, horrified, fighting for control.
“Stop, you fool! You told me to play coy and now you—” She gasped. “Oh my. The texture… this is truly exquisite.”
Their shared body convulsed — bliss battling dignity, gluttony wrestling aristocracy. One eye glazed with culinary ecstasy; the other widened in scandalized fury. One hand clutched the bowl; the other tried desperately to pry it away.
Then—
A cough. A choke. Panic.
An officer rushed over, performing the Heimlich with brisk, practiced thrusts. A wet, humiliating splatter of rice and pork hit the table.
Luna screamed.
“Eek! Your boorish manners have caused a staining to the Saint’s Gown!”
Their body spasmed — half sloppy, half elegant — like a raccoon fighting itself over a trash can. The smell of sweet sauce and bile clung to the sterile air, the physical residue of their emotional collapse.
Every officer in the precinct stared in stunned disbelief.
The lead detective leaned back, expression unreadable. Then, with quiet resignation, he marked the file:
MENTALLY UNSTABLE.
Part 3
The precinct’s “children’s area” was tucked into a quiet corner of the station, as if the building itself wanted to hide it. The walls were lined with faded posters of cartoon mascots offering safety tips — a bear holding a stop sign, a rabbit wearing a seatbelt. Their smiles were cracked, peeling at the edges, like they’d been comforting scared kids for far too many years.
A vending machine hummed in the corner, its blinking lights steady and indifferent. The sound filled the space like a mechanical lullaby, cold and impersonal.
Masayuki sat cross‑legged on the floor, hands folded neatly in his lap, eyes closed. He had no sword. No armor. No battlefield.
But his posture was perfect — the disciplined stillness of a warrior awaiting judgment.
“I refuse to speak,” he said calmly, without opening his eyes, “until I am granted an audience with the Daimyo of this era.”
The female officer kneeling in front of him blinked. She had no idea what a Daimyo was. She tried anyway.
“Sweetie… how about a juice box instead?”
Masayuki bowed — slow, formal, ceremonial — a gesture of profound respect and absolute rejection. He held the bow a beat too long, making the air feel tight.
The officer swallowed and moved on.
Kotaro and Kokoro sat together on a bench, small shoulders pressed so tightly they looked like they were trying to fuse into one person. They hadn’t spoken since the arrest. They hadn’t even looked up.
Something about them tugged at the officer’s memory — a faint familiarity she couldn’t place.
“Hey guys, I know that it might seem scary...” she crouched down, voice soft and practiced. “Would you happen to know your parents’ phone numbers?”
Kotaro flinched. Kokoro’s fingers tightened around his sleeve.
Their silence wasn’t passive. It was defensive. A wall built out of exhaustion and fear.
The officer hesitated.
Behind her, another officer whispered, “Hey… aren’t those the Kamado twins?”
The name hung in the air.
Then it hit.
The officer’s eyes widened as recognition clicked into place. The commercials. The magazine spreads. Japan’s Famous Siblings.
And then — two years ago — the sudden disappearance.
Kotaro’s breath hitched. Kokoro’s shoulders curled inward.
The name had struck something brittle inside them. Something buried. Something they had tried to leave behind in a world that no longer existed.
Kokoro wrapped her arms around Kotaro, pulling him close with a desperate, involuntary strength. Kotaro buried his face in her shoulder, trembling.
The officer recognized the posture. She’d seen it before — in runaways, in trauma cases, in children who had learned that silence was safer than truth.
She backed away slowly, giving them space.
By the end, Kokoro’s eyes were red, fixed on the floor. Kotaro stared at the vending machine lights, watching the red and green blink in a steady, hypnotic rhythm.
Neither moved.
As if still waiting for a director’s cue.
Part 4
The precinct had settled into its late‑afternoon rhythm — phones ringing, printers chattering, officers shuffling paperwork with the weary efficiency of people who had long since stopped being surprised by anything.
Until today.
A cluster of officers gathered around the central desk, comparing notes with the uneasy energy of people trying to assemble a puzzle whose pieces didn’t belong to the same box.
“Alright,” one officer muttered, flipping through a stack of forms, “let’s go over this again.”
He pointed to the first file.
KYLE — unidentified male, no ID, no address, no occupation. Delusional. Possibly homeless. Possibly injured. Possibly both.
A sigh rippled through the group.
Next file.
LUNA/RENJI? — foreign national, mentally unstable, severe identity confusion. Possible dissociative disorder. Possible language barrier. Possible possession?
The officer reading the report paused. “Is this… is this the one who tried to eat the katsudon bowl?”
“Face‑first,” someone confirmed. “Then choked. Then screamed something about holy garments.”
A long silence followed.
“Right,” the officer said finally. “Moving on.”
Next file.
MASAYUKI — minor. No ID. No guardian. Refuses to speak until granted audience with ‘the Daimyo.’ May be a runaway. Highly skilled with a katana.
Someone added, “He rejected a juice box with a formal bow. I don’t know what to do with that.”
Another officer shrugged helplessly.
Next file.
KOTARO & KOKORO — minors. Confirmed match with missing celebrity siblings: The Kamado Twins. Severe trauma response. Non‑verbal. Clinging to each other.
The room went quiet.
Everyone remembered the news stories. The commercials. The sudden disappearance. The unanswered questions.
The lead officer closed the folder with a soft, defeated thump.
“So,” he said, “what do we do with them?”
No one answered.
They were too strange to process normally. Too harmless to treat as criminals. Too damaged to release.
The precinct wasn’t equipped for this. No one was.
The officers exchanged helpless glances — a silent consensus forming in the stale fluorescent air.
