Kaminari and Jirou turned around to face the voice coming from behind them. It was a man, a bit taller than Kaminari, wearing a dark tuxedo. He was wearing sunglasses, and he appeared a bit like someone from Men in Black or an agent from The Matrix.
"Hello Denki, Kyoka." the man said, taking his sunglasses off. He pulled out a dark blue handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped off the left lens of his sunglasses. He had somewhat short brown hair that was combed to the side, looking quite formal. Which was odd, because he didn't look like he was from this town at all, plus it was quite hot out to be wearing all of that clothing.
"Uh, who are you?" Denki asked, confused as to who this guy standing strangely behind them was.
"That's not particularly important at the moment, Mr. Kaminari. You're both looking for the boy, no? Kenji?" he asked.
Denki took a step back, surprised that this dude knew both his first and last name. Kyoka felt like her insides were being ripped apart. Hearing this suspicious man utter her brother's name sent shivers down her spine. Now she knew that this man was responsible, or at least knew who was responsible for her brother's disappearance.
"What do you know about him! Where is he? What have you done with him?" Kyoka asked, trying to walk towards the man. Denki held her back and prevented her from attacking him, however. Kaminari noticed the man had a gun holster, and figured this was not someone to mess with.
"Easy now, your questions will be answered. But you'll need to come with me to find out those answers," the man said, looking around as though he didn't want to be heard by anyone else.
"Why should we go with you? How do we know you won't kidnap us like you kidnapped my brother?" Kyoka asked.
"You don't have to come with me. Nobody's forcing you to, Ms. Jirou. But if you want to see your brother again, it would be a wise decision to consider." the man replied, putting his sunglasses back on his face.
Kyoka tilted her head up to look at Kaminari, sort of to ask, 'what do we do?'. Kaminari understood the gesture, and he replied with a nod. The pair walked towards the man, who then turned around and started walking in a direction, away from where their car was and through a passage between the trees.
They must've walked for 20 minutes before coming across what appeared to be a large warehouse or factory of some kind. It looked quite dated, evident by the overgrown foliage on the sides of the building. It appeared as though it had been abandoned long ago. The man walked up to one of the back doors of the warehouse and opened it. He held the door open for them, but Kaminari and Jirou didn't want to walk in first.
"What's the matter?" the man asked.
"You walk in first." Kaminari said.
"I'm not going to lock you in here, if that's what you're worried about." the man said. Regardless, he walked in first, and waited for Kaminari and Jirou to enter. They walked in, and he closed the door behind them.
"So, what even is this place?" Jirou asked.
"This used to be a sugarcane factory. First opened 120 years ago, it belonged to the Del Mar Sugar Company." the man said, walking a bit away from the door towards some large rusted containers. The pair followed him as he spoke, looking around at the dusty and worn-out factory interior.
"The company shut down in the 50s as a more modern facility was built a bit further away. As a result, this factory was abandoned for decades, collecting dust and vegetation. It was quiet," he said, before stopping and turning around to face the two. "until 4 years ago."
Kyoka remembered what else happened 4 years ago, which was the disappearance of her brother.
"What?" Kyoka asked, wanting him to elaborate.
"I suppose this would be a relatively..good time for me to introduce who I am. You see, I am an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency. For simplicity's sake, you can call me Agent Tim," he said, raising a badge to them for a split second then putting it back. They felt somewhat more comfortable with this man at first, at least knowing that he was with the government. But at the same time, that might also be a bad thing.
"About 4 years ago, our databases picked up a rather strange anomaly whose epicenter was located right here, in this exact spot, in this very factory. Specifically, we picked up extreme amounts of what we believed was nuclear energy." the agent continued.
"Whoa." Kaminari said.
"Our first thought was that some nut job was creating a nuclear reactor in this abandoned factory. We had seen something like that before. But after we sent agents to inspect the area, we found that it was something far more powerful than nuclear energy. It was immeasurable. Something no one had ever seen before." the agent added.
"Okay, all of that is cool and all, but what exactly does my brother have to do with all of this?" Jirou asked, eager to skip ahead in the story, and you really couldn't blame her.
"When we searched the area, we found no nuclear reactor. We were puzzled. We did however, find a young boy living in this factory by himself. He was severely malnourished, and his clothes were ripped and torn. He looked like he had been out in the wild for a few days. At first, we were going to follow typical procedures of a missing child and return him to his parents. However, we discovered something that prevented that from happening." the agent said.
"Like what?" Kyoka asked, stepping forward. The agent took a deep breath looking like he was about to explain some serious shit.
"Kenji is not an ordinary boy, not by any means. It may be difficult for you to understand, it was for us at first, but Kenji has.. supernatural powers. Something that quite frankly, has never been seen before on this Earth." the agent said.
"What the fuck? Supernatural powers? No way!" Kaminari exclaimed.
"Supernatural how?" Kyoka asked.
"Well, when we tried to help him, he appeared unable to control his 'powers'. Kenji was constantly producing these..projectiles of highly concentrated energy, seemingly at random. Fortunately, nobody was seriously hurt by these, but fearing for the safety of the general public, we had to place him in a sort of.. quarantine. At least until we could learn more about his powers and his condition." the agent said.
The agent pulled out an envelope from his suit, opening it up and reaching for a paper clip. He gathered several printed images and handed them to the two, showing that he was indeed telling them the truth. The images showed Kenji, in his malnourished and weakened state with a bright blue orb of energy next to him. He looked scared in these images, as though he didn't trust anyone around him. Several scientists can be seen in the background of the image.
"I.. I don't believe it..he.. never showed any signs of being capable of doing anything like that!" Kyoka said, amazed at looking at the pictures. She began to cry, since these were the most recent photos of Kenji that she had seen, and she was very puzzled. Kaminari put an arm around her to try to comfort her.
"Shortly after we discovered Kenji, another case of a child with supernatural powers was uncovered in a different part of the world. Then another, followed by another. It appears that your brother was among one of the first of these, well, superhumans. I don't know what else to call them." the agent said.
"So, where is he now?" Kyoka asked, wiping away some of her tears.
"That's where the problem lies. We don't know." the agent said.
"What?" Kaminari asked.
"What do you mean you don't know? I thought you guys were keeping him in some quarantine or whatever?" Kyoka asked, outraged.
"We did. In the four years of studying him, and hoping to help him control his powers, we managed to learn more about his power. We were able to determine that a mutation in some of his genetic code was responsible for this. As for controlling his powers, he managed to be able to voluntarily emit these orbs of energy. We wanted to keep him for a bit longer to run some more tests, but he began to show signs of rebelling." the agent said, pulling out more pictures from the envelope.
He handed them pictures of some kind of facility security camera. There appeared to be a habitation, the one in which Kenji was living in quarantine, with a giant hole in the wall.
"A few months ago, angered by what he called, 'imprisonment', he blasted a rather enormous hole in the wall. He managed to escape the facility, and we haven't been able to locate him since." the agent said. Kyoka was suspicious of the agent, figuring that for Kenji to act out in such a way, they must've done some kind of strange or cruel experimenting on him.
"Well, you guys were able to find him once, weren't you? You said you detected abnormal radiation or whatever?" Kaminari said.
"Unfortunately, he hasn't used his powers since he escaped. We believe he's attempting to 'lie low', so that we can't find him. That's where the two of you come into this equation." the agent said.
"Speaking of us, how do you even know our names?" Kaminari asked.
"We're the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Kaminari. We know everything." the agent said, somewhat hauntingly.
"Fair enough," Kaminari replied.
"What sort of things do you want us to do?" Kyoka asked.
"Well Ms. Jirou, we know that you've been spearheading your own.. private investigation, into his disappearance. And since you're so closely related to him, we figured it would be a potentially good idea having you on board with this operation." the agent said.
"And what exactly is this 'operation'?" Kyoka asked, unsure of his wording.
"Help us find Kenji." the agent said.
"And we'll be able to have him back, yeah? No more of this quarantine lab rat experiment crap, right?" Kyoka asked, not wanting his brother to be experimented on.
"Unfortunately, these things are not for me to decide, Ms. Jirou." the agent replied.
Kyoka frowned, but she knew that there were very few, if any, alternatives to save her brother. She didn't have much else of a choice, other than to say yes.
"Alright, we'll help you." Kyoka said. Kaminari nodded in agreement, since he was going to support Kyoka with whatever choice she made.
"Very well then. There are some other matters that I have to tend to, unfortunately. Believe it or not, this place is not as quiet and peaceful as it may seem. Meet here again tomorrow at this time. And..be prepared for the storm.." the agent said, a half-grin appearing on his face. He turned around and started to walk away.
"Wait, what? Prepared for what storm?" Kaminari asked.
"You'll find out tomorrow. Oh, and one more thing," the agent said as he turned back around one more time to face them from across the factory. "if you tell a single soul of our little..meeting..you can forget about the safety of your beloved Kenji. Are we at an understanding, folks?" he asked.
Kyoka was furious. She looked like she was about to charge at him, but Denki held her back once more.
"Yes. Understood." Denki said. They watched as the man turned back around and walked through a door, disappearing into the wilderness. The door shut by itself behind him, and Kyoka fell to her knees once more. She let out a scream of pure built-up anxiety and nerves.
"Kyoka? What's wrong?" Kaminari said, kneeling beside her and hugging her.
"What is this? How could this be happening to my brother? Supernatural powers? I.." she said, looking at the pictures that the agent gave her.
"It's definitely weird, Kyoka, I know..but we can save him.." he said. It started to get cold inside the factory, and he helped lift her up to her feet.
"Come on, let's get out of here.." Kaminari said. Kyoka stood quiet and nodded her head, and they walked out of the facility. They returned to their car, talking very little to each other on the way there. Kaminari almost forgot that he was supposed to break the news to her, but at this rate, he didn't think he would ever get to tell her. Maybe it was the universe's way of telling him that she wasn't supposed to know.
Either way, they got into the car and drove back into town, the experience tainting the rest of their day, especially Kyoka's. She felt many emotions, such as wanting her brother to be safe out there on his own, as well as the fear of what the agents might to do to him when they find him.
They had a late lunch together at Kyoka's apartment, but it was a very silent meal. Kyoka had her face down most of the time, her hair covering her eyes. She was not at all happy, but Kaminari's attempts to cheer her up proved ineffective.
"So, how's my cooking? I'm sorry about the chicken by the way, I didn't know you weren't supposed to cook it in the plastic." he said as they ate.
"It's good. Thanks." she said, her head still facing down. She had an elbow on the table and was resting her forehead against her fist.
Kaminari glanced up at her as he took a sip of water, rubbing the spot where his mustache would be, if he had one.
"Fuck, what do I say? I'm the worst at cheering people up.." he said to himself in his mind.
"So, got anything planned for later?" Kaminari asked.
"No. You?" she replied.
"Yeah, I've got work in an hour or so." he said, his heart skipping a beat as he remembered what's likely going to await him at work. He hadn't been to the library since the night he had his encounter with Mina. He wasn't sure if he even wanted to go to work, but he knew that if he wanted to get paid, he was going to have to suck it up and endure the discomfort. He wanted to play stupid games, therefore he was going to get stupid prizes. He stood up and threw away his disposable plate, then got his coat from the chair and put it on. He figured that Kyoka might just need some time to herself for now.
"My shift won't be that long. I'll be back later, Kyoka." he said.
"Okay. Take care, Denki." she said, her eyes still fixated on the plate. Kaminari noticed she had barely even touched her food.
He walked over toward her and put his hand on her cheek, immediately realizing how cold she was. He made her look up at him and he smiled, then leaned in and gave her a kiss on the forehead.
"I know this is a lot for you, Kyoka. But things are going to turn out okay in the end." he said, trying to be as sincere as he could. He hoped that it was going to at least put a smile on her face, but not even that occurred. He looked into her eyes, which appeared pale and colorless. She simply nodded.
Kaminari turned and left the apartment building, a tear falling down his cheek.