We are so back 
The longest chapter of the Wild Masks after what might be the longest break in between chapters 
I sincerely apologize for the intermission, but I can now say with confidence that Saturday… is over.
Tonight on Top Gear
I get on the wrong flight
James chickens out of a swim
And Hammond gets a facelift
I am absent in both 
He is just like me (trying to make history) fr fr
—
Chapter Thirty Three
Causatum
—
The elevator doors slowly opened.
The figure that emerged from them was silent, sullen, and methodically scanned the floor as he walked. The door he approached looked like a large inset panel instead of an intended portal, but the peculiar metal key he inserted in the only visible notch in the door prompted its opening all the same, sinking slightly into the floor before sliding inside the wall and disappearing from view.
A young woman sat inside, showing no visible recognition of the door having opened. There was a small television at the opposite end of the room displaying footage taken from the body camera of a police officer, which shakily recreated the arrest of a masked individual at Fukanuma beach from the dramatic perspective of the officer on the scene. The young woman was visibly distraught, her otherwise effortlessly flawless hair frizzled where she had repeatedly pulled on it, and gave some vague recreation of the motion as the masked figure in the footage was forced to the ground.
After a moment of tense silence she suddenly and violently registered the presence of her silent guest, and her red skin went pale as she jolted away violently, tipped over the computer chair she had been sitting in on her knees, and came crashing down to the floor with a dramatic squeal.
Pulling herself up the back of the chair, she got a better look at the incredibly short man standing in front of her. He would have appeared slightly taller than he was if his chestnut hair were curled into an afro instead of sitting matted on one side and pulled about on the other, as if a tornado had whipped him about. Half his face was stained with grey dust, which also coated most of his suit and pants, occasionally interrupted in its gradient across his body by a smear or imprint of something pressed against it.
“You…” She gulped, forcing down her heart out of her throat as the little man slowly approached. “You’re with Corey? Where is he? Is everything okay?”
The man was motionless for a moment, eyeing her throat with an air of suspicion. Then he removed one of his hands from the pocket it had comfortably occupied, his eyes returning to watch hers as he gently presented a small, matted mess of golden hair.
“Hurry, Kohaku.” He whispered, his voice too weak to do anything else. “We must hurry.”
—
“I’m here, I’m right here.”
Ren’s eyes blinked rapidly. The hand that Race was not holding had been poking into the side of his arm with some force, and it felt like a bruise was inevitable. Oisim stood at the other end of the room, his shirtless body mostly obscured by a large Japanese cloak thrown over his shoulders, and making it clear by his mannerisms he had been watching the entire display unfold. Ren tried and failed to suppress a nasal exhale at his flustered frustration, earning him a slow blink in reply.
“…Tone, where’s Tone?” He blurted out, trying to swing his curled-up legs off of the hospital bed to little avail, as Race held him firmly in place. “We need to get to him, I don’t know- I can’t-”
“Wolf Mask.” Oisim’s voice growled slightly as he spoke, dominating the small room with absolute ease. “He is being escorted here by my police. I will tolerate only your silence until he arrives.”
“They’re my team.” Ren tried to snarl back, but a creeping shudder marred the energy he attempted to convey. “I won’t have you or anyone else telling me what I can or can’t do to protect them.”
“I believe you will find silence wiser than this protest.” Oisim sneered, and it seemed as if he would say more, but his attention was drawn to the hall, and he swiftly exited the room, leaving Ren and Race alone for a brief moment.
“Where’s Corey? We need to find Corey-” Ren whispered, trying yet again to stand only for Race to grab his knee and forcefully pull him back onto the bed. “Race, we need to find Corey!”
“Corey was found near the shore by Oisim,” Race breathed, finding it just as difficult to whisper as she had before. “He carried him to the hospital and scared the staff to death just by showing up. Ren, this thing has gone public, they’ve got footage of Tone at the beach where they arrested him. We can’t get out of it this time.”
“Corey must’ve known.” Ren breathed, clutching his bicep in frustration. “He saw this happening and chose to move forward. We’ve gotta have faith that whatever he saw, whatever plan he came up with, it’ll be alright. That everything will be okay.”
“Make him stand.” Oisim’s voice announced his presence before he reappeared in the doorway. “Bring him to the hall. We have much to discuss before the departure.” His ominous face disappeared as quickly as it had reasserted itself.
“Take it slow.” Race cautioned, but to no avail, as Ren immediately threw his legs over the edge of the bed and tumbled onto the floor. “I guess it’s been a while. Do you need a hand?”
“Yes,” Ren grumbled, one hand gripping the frame of the bed as the other gripped the side of a shelf, and between the pair he raised himself up enough to let gravity slowly pull his knees open again. “It’s the kind of thing I didn’t know I could forget. Is Kohaku here?”
“I don’t know.” Race replied, sliding her shoulders under Ren’s arm and raising him up from his lowered position. “I’ve been in here the whole time. Now take it slow.”
Ren suppressed an instinctual exhale of frustration at his clear weakness, but Race’s advice had to be heeded lest an explanation be necessary for Kohaku. His weak knees finally found the strength to at least partially support his weight, and with significant assistance he trudged through the door and into the poorly-lit hall.
“Wait a second.” Ren paused, his eyes widening as he looked around the hall. Kohaku’s awkward expression and the appearance of Bekko and Shusui were almost completely ignored by his realization, but as the moment passed his eyes fell upon Goshiki, whose scowling face was made even fatter by the neck brace he wore, and the equally white sling holding a fractured arm padded with bandages failed to diminish the threatening presence he possessed. An IV drip stand was at his side, and the padded appearances of his attire implied there were more injuries than the clear fractures and the sickening black eye he wore.
“This is the same hospital.” Ren said after he recovered his bearing, looking to Oisim for some sign of reply. “The one after the fire. Tone was down here.” He looked around the long hallway for some indication of the elevator that had taken him even deeper into the structure.
“Save it for the autobiography.” Tone’s voice broke into the scene, his steps quieted by the power of his mask. Kohaku flinched away from his approach, revealing his hands coated in cotton bandages and medical tape. The rest of his body was relatively untouched, and Ren’s searching glance for the alleged blood-stained portions of his suitcoat was noticed by the subject of his gaze. The two locked eyes for a second as Tone continued marching until he was right in Oisim’s face, the three members of the Kin Gin Rin freezing in place.
“Makuei.” His voice shifted to a much more dangerous tenor as he stared down the giant out of the top of his eyes, the undamaged eye of Goshiki rounding on him with fury as he continued. “You owe a lot of explanations to everyone here, explanations that can’t wait until later. Koi Blood was waiting for me when I moved the limo, Koi Blood tried to kill Race last night, and several days ago Koi Blood tried to kill me and Ren. You had every opportunity to give us advanced notice about these attacks, and you’ve instead put us and everyone else directly in harm’s way thanks to your actions.”
Ren’s eyes traveled to Kohaku. Her posture was noticeably shrunken, looking up in fear at the imposing figure of Oisim across the hall, and was so focused on his presence that Ren escaped her attention entirely.
“I want to know why we weren’t informed.” Tone continued, his bandaged hands slowly curling into fists and straining the medical tape atop them. “About the attacks, about your activities in the Pangolins, and about the civilians at the hotel.”
“But they got escorted out.” Ren looked at Tone with clear confusion on his features, and when the metal mask refused to acknowledge his inquiry, Oisim took his focus, returning the stare with a tipped head and a dismissive glare from the bottom of his eyes.
“They weren’t moved.” Tone continued staring into Oisim’s eye sockets, never breaking his stare for even a moment. “Bodies are still being discovered. No survivors have been located thus far. I don’t know what exactly he’s told you but you can assume the rest of it’s a lie, too.”
“Bold assumptions-”
“Now you listen to me.” Tone snarled, his voice growing even more threatening. The muscles that could be identified under Goshiki’s padded attire visibly tightened. “I have had to kill a lot of people this past week, and every single one of them is your doing and your responsibility. You’ve actively tried to destroy this group over the last few days with information that could only have come from you, provided to these hit squads to strike as effectively and efficiently as possible-”
Tone flinched away from Oisim’s massive hand, which darted out with lightning-like speed to the side of the Wild Mask’s head a fraction of a second before a cloud of steam erupted from the massive figure. Goshiki’s hair rapidly unfurled, the sai holding it in place now pressed into the knuckles of Oisim’s hand, the majority of the main prong broken having broken off with a sharp SNAP and landing on the floor. Oisim’s forehead stopped glowing a moment after, and the startled expression on Goshiki’s face quickly relented into his typical stern scowl as he snapped to an apologetic bow.
“How did you get that?” Tone’s voice sank to a low rumble, his eyes furiously staring at where the oni mask had jumped out of the tangle of tattoos across his forehead.
“I have kept you safe.” Oisim lowered his hand, still focused on Tone with an unchanging expression. “I have fed you, clothed you, healed you. I do nothing by compulsion. You question me in arrogance. You will be answered with action.”
Oisim’s head tipped back as his gaze shot over Tone’s head, forcing all but Goshiki’s eyes to turn towards the man that had appeared next to Kohaku. He was dressed in a surgical gown, his gloveless hands folded behind his back, and if he were ever to straighten his hunched, aged posture, he would be the same height as Ren. “Shinkoku na risuku ga arimashita ga, kare o antei saseru koto wa kanō deshi ta.”
Oisim slowly inhaled a long breath during the statement and quickly exhaled it through his nose once it finished. “English.”
The man gave an apologetic bow. “I am sorry. I said there were serious risks, but it was possible to stabilize him. It is unclear how things will turn out. We request that someone close to him remain on call in the likely event that he wakes from his coma.”
“No.” Tone immediately replied, but his slow turn towards Ren indicated it was to his superior he was speaking, as the verbal command interrupted the motion of Ren drawing his phone out of his pocket. “I’m staying here.”
“Tone,” Ren tried to respond, but felt at the pit of his stomach with a groan before studying the floor for a brief moment. “Alright. But, if I need you, I want you to show up.” He took a couple large breaths as Oisim blinked repeatedly at the display. “When you’re occupied Rook can-”
Ren became silent, looking down at the floor in melancholy for a brief moment before returning his eyes to Tone. The Wild Mask’s questioning glance was almost immediately answered by Oisim’s gently extended hand.
“Wolf Mask.” The giant mumbled, his vicious scowl and glowing eyes descending into visible weariness as the silver mask in his grip prompted a violent start from Ren. “It is said that the Demon can restore life. We are fortunate that your Rook is now as incomprehensible as the mask he has become, and such drastic measures are unnecessary.”
Ren weakly reached out and cradled Rook in his hands, the seam lines where the mask had fragmented impossible to detect under a silvery sheen of strong-smelling paint. There was no word in reply to his touched expression, but the sensation of sight through the lifeless eye holes of his mask made it clear Rook was as present as he had ever been.
“Take me to him.” Tone continued, marching up to the surgeon and staring directly through his soul. Before any other demands could be made, he slowly turned around and escorted Tone down the hall and through a heavy door on the right.
“The police are waiting.” Oisim’s voice broke back into the scene, his eyes locked onto the apathetic expression of Shusui. With a glance at his superior, the boom operator gave a sharp and decisive nod before walking past Tone and extending a hand towards Race, the sodden cigarette in his mouth eternally disintegrating into ash.
“This is where we part ways.” He mumbled, showing little concern for Race’s flabbergasted expression. “No, there’s no backing out now. We all have sacrificed a great deal, but there’s no limit to sacrifice. The authorities are going to want a lead on Koi Blood, an answer for why the Makuei family split apart. I have to be the one to give it to them.”
“It’s life in prison for me,” He smirked, ignoring Ren’s nonverbal attempts to interject and offer an alternative course of action. “To buy master Makuei and the faithful of Koi Blood a little more time. It’s a shame you’ll never be able to visit.” He reached further, pulling Race’s static hand upwards to shake his before letting it drop limply to her side.
Taking one last pull of his cigarette, he dropped the butt on the floor and ground the heel of his shoe into it. Silently he turned, walking down the hall behind Oisim and entering the door to the stairs.
“It is time for you to leave. Goshiki and Bekko will show you to the exit.” Oisim folded his arms across his chest, refusing to make any further eye contact with anyone in the room, conveniently ignoring both Ren’s nervous glances and the shock on Goshiki’s features. The command could not be ignored, however, and despite the clear physical incapability advertised by his bandages, the puffy-faced bodyguard moved forward with a threatening presence, ushering Ren and Race along as quickly as Ren could stagger, Bekko having to take as large of strides as he possibly could to keep up.
After what felt like an eternity of silence, Kohaku’s eyes traveled up to meet the giant’s, the latter showing just as much difficulty in locking his eyes onto hers. She stood in silence with him for a moment longer, both trying to understand the silent language their eyes spoke so well.
“Hi dad.”
—
Tonight on Top Gear
I get sad
James gets mad
And Hammond puts on makeup
Since the major fight is finally out of the way, I figured it was a good a time as any to cover a few of the theories that have been proven right (or wrong) regarding information that has come out over the course of the last few chapters. Don’t worry about accidental spoilers if you got quoted; I split each user’s quotes into its own dropdown inside the big dropdown. You’re welcome 
Correct
The Assassin’s sunglasses are/were his mask. The fact that he was incapable of sight without them should give you an idea of what exactly they do.
I don’t know no nothin’ 'bout no ice I’m just cold (consider this your just desserts for not theorizing triumph:)
Correct
Incorrect
Correct
Incorrect 
This got answered in other dropdowns and I forgot to respond at the time it was posted, but correct
Correct
…because he signed up for the story so yknow 
Oisim Makuei has been watching over the Wild Masks and stepping in on occasion. He not only removed Ren’s damaged car but supplied him with a replacement.
Next chapter’s going to be a pretty big revelation so stay tuned 
—
Chapter Thirty Four
Atone
—
“The old man is dead.”
The silhouette turned, his blue eyes glistening in the limited light. “How do you know for certain? He could be putting us through another test.”
“Surviving that kind of explosion?” The man scoffed. “Come off it. There’s no way he could have gotten out of there in time, on such short notice. And he definitely didn’t hire the masked group that attacked him.”
“What, the Serows?” The blue eyes blinked in confusion. “I thought they disbanded after the airport attack. You’re telling me they’re still working together?”
“They’re not the Serows.” The man backed to a window, leaning his arm against an old wooden table and looking out into the moonlit night through the dirty window. “They never were. One of the Serows went rogue and killed the rest of them, from what I’ve heard. Rikuto called him a renegade, a traitor to the yakuza and the Serows, and ever since then he’s worn the title as a badge of honor.”
“So wait.” The blue-eyed man held up a hand in protest. “He managed to kill all the Serows, and then he, what, made his own Serows instead? How much of this did you actually see?”
The man at the window turned towards his compatriot, revealing the jagged scar running down one side of his face and sealing his eyelid shut. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just… This is a lot of information at once. Why weren’t we told? Why didn’t Rikuto lay low with the ceremony, like I told him to? Doesn’t that old codger have more masks somewhere that he could’ve-”
“Didn’t.”
The blue eyes rolled in annoyance. “Yes, Shingo, whatever. So.” He stepped out of the shadow, the moonlight falling on his flax-colored moustache. “What do I tell the men?”
“You’re the boss, tell them whatever you want.” Shingo replied with a casual shrug. “There’s nobody left to run the Kumagai clan, if the old man really is dead, so it’d be wise to hold on to as large a piece of the yakuza as you can. Being a foreigner puts you at a pretty big disadvantage in terms of your legitimacy, and your name isn’t exactly easy for us to pronounce.”
“I appreciate the honesty.” The man replied with a sarcastic smile. “Tell the men to disperse for now. Get the idea across without saying it that this death is just another one of his loyalty tests, and we’ll be hearing from him soon. That way we’re likely to hold out longer than the other disconnected parts of the clan, and give a clearer impression of loyalty.”
He had picked up a ring of keys with one finger as he spoke, and both he and Shingo stared in silence as they began rattling against each other. The latter swiftly drew a handgun and approached the old metal doors at one end of the woodshop, while the former slowly moved towards the small wooden door at the opposite end.
“I’ll be honest,” A figure behind a stack of wooden boxes murmured, prompting the blue-eyed man to almost instinctively snap to face him. “When I heard you were not only the head of the last Kumagai branch, but the brains behind Rikuto’s whole outfit, I was kind of expecting a better hiding place.”
“Who are you?” The man shot a glance at Shingo, who stared into the metal doors without the slightest change in his stance or posture. “How did you get in here?”
“I mean, c’mon.” The silhouette rounded the tables in the middle of the room, passing by and bumping into Shingo, who immediately toppled sideways and crumpled into a heap. “Rikuto’s workshop is the least subtle place to show up at, even if he’s not been to Yubara in quite a while. I’m beginning to think you don’t have any other hideouts left.”
“Answer me.” The distinctively scandinavian accent was somewhat stereotypical, but blended in with a genteel coolness that commanded both attention and admiration. “You’re one of those renegades, aren’t you?”
The metal mask the silhouette wore reflected off the light coming from the window, which also revealed the jacket atop his dark hoodie. “We knew you people would show up somewhere, so we chose to watch the most obvious spots. I guess we read you like a book.”
“There’s a wealth of info you two possess. And while you don’t know that we’ve already cleaned up the remaining branches, there’s still plenty we can use. So why don’t you scrape up your partner in crime and we can tend to that fainting episode I caus-”
He had glanced back at Shingo as he spoke, giving the man plenty of time to pull out a handgun from his pocket and pull the trigger. His eyes blinked through his visceral reaction to the sight of Shingo’s new piercing, freeing up his previously trapped eyelid and redecorating the wall behind him.
The gun rattled for a brief moment as it was aimed at him, and the safety snapped into place when the slightest pressure was applied to the trigger. “Right, Tone. Guns first, Tone.” The silhouetted figure grumbled under his breath, occasionally pausing between sentences to force back down his gag reflex as he strode across the warehouse and closed the gap between him and the man who was now frantically trying to force the safety off again. “They can shoot you, Tone, take the guns out first. Remember to take out their guns, Tone.”
Forcing the safety back into place, the man pressed the barrel up against the bottom of his chin and pulled the trigger, only for the hammer to softly tap against the firing pin. The next second the gun was ripped from his fingers, a gloved hand gripping tightly around his throat, and the silhouette pushed him through the old wooden door and down the sharp gravely slope.
“I’ll be honest, I was only interested in Shingo.” The silhouette, now revealed in the bright moonlight to be the broad-shouldered young man under the alias Tone, kept his grip around the fellow’s throat with a steady level of choking pressure. “You’re just another threat to take out. He could’ve told us where Rikuto’s masks are hidden. He could have given us all the information we need to cut off your little group’s funds for good. But you just had to kill him, didn’t you?”
The man tried to respond, but a sudden tearing occurred in his throat, and the scream that followed was little more than a hoarse whisper. “I know the first thing you’ll do once I’m gone is call up your boys and tell them where to hide. But without killing you, there’s no good way to shut you up in the meantime.”
“That pain you’re rolling in is the sensation of your voice box being torn out.” Tone’s eyes rounded on his victim with pure malice emanating from them. “I tried to make it as painful as possible. But that can be fixed, can’t it? A little surgery, a nice organ donor, and you’ll sound enough like yourself that nobody will question anything.”
The man, who had been sending swipes at Tone’s face which fell just short of his mask, suddenly gripped the sides of his head and wheezed out a growl. “That’s the feeling of a brain lesion right where your body controls speech function. Foreign accent syndrome, they call it; only my version completely destroys that particular subsection of your brain. No matter what kind of help you conjure up, you’ll never sound like yourself again.”
The river was swelling from heavy rain, and its speed had greatly increased as a result. “I hope you can swim after an injury like that. I’m not sure why you’d choose to do something so dangerous.” Tone wickedly grinned beneath his metal mask, looming over the horrified fellow as he bent him backwards over the river’s edge. “But at least we didn’t kill you. We’ve got a no kill rule, after all.”
The man dug his fingers into Tone’s sleeve in an attempt to hold on, too disoriented to do much else. Tone responded by raising his terrible fist in dramatic fashion and slamming it into the man’s skull, smashing him into the riverbed and sweeping him downstream. His frantic thrashing was quickly lost around a bend in the river, and the last second lieutenant of the Kumagai clan was gone.
Slowly trudging back up to the wooden door, Tone passed through the woodshop with all his neck muscles tightened to their limit to prevent his glancing at the body of Shingo. The metal doors opened with a rusty squeal, and Tone’s footsteps across the loose gravel in the drive received a pulse after he stepped out of them, smoothing out the gravel and erasing any indication of his having walked there.
“And thank you for the ride out of here.” Tone smirked, slowly approaching the lone vehicle in the empty gravel drive. “I know you won’t be missed, but I still appreciate the sacrifice.” Sidling into the driver’s seat, Tone reached down and pried open the front panel to hotwire it.
A pause to allow a glance towards the rear of the vehicle helped personify the thought going through his mind. Repeated attempts to distract himself from it proved unsuccessful, and with a sigh he exited the vehicle, walking to the rear of the sedan and opening the trunk to see if anything was inside.
Tone immediately lowered the trunk lid until it almost closed, giving him an excellent view of the back windshield and the distorted reflection of his wide-eyed shock. Softly opening the trunk again, he stared in silence at the sleeping figure of a boy nestled inside, having wrapped himself in a thin blanket and fallen asleep nearly in the fetal position.
Tone’s fingers closed hard around the handle for the trunk lid. There were only two possible reasons for this; one of them, however distasteful, was still one he could easily live with. The other…
—
Corey’s eyes slowly opened.
Almost immediately he could feel the same drugged sensation he had detected several hours before. Sleep had waned it considerably, but it still held power over his senses, and slurred his reaction to being in the passenger seat.
Lifting himself off of the passenger door, he wobbled in place for a moment before a paper cup was practically shoved directly into his face. “Here. You’re horribly dehydrated. Take sips every now and then.”
“Mm.” Corey mumbled, accepting the cup with his hands close to his chest, kept in place by a much more efficiently wrapped blanket. After his tongue had tasted the much-needed water, the realization suddenly hit, and he blinked at the stranger to his right several times before speaking. “Who are you?”
“I’d say I’m a friend, but I have no idea who you are.” Tone replied, his hoodie having been slid to the side to obscure the left side of his face as best he could. “Want to tell me how you got trapped in the back of this car?”
Corey looked out the passenger window. The sun was just beginning to turn the dark sky indigo, slowly building to the monumental reappearance of the celestial body. “I… Dad gave me something. Said it would… Help…” He smeared his hand across his face, rubbing his thumb across one of his eyes as he looked out across the mountains whenever they weren’t obscured by the terrain.
Tone’s breath grew sharper. “You’ve been drugged. Did your father do that?”
“No, he wouldn’t-” Corey murmured, cutting himself off as the situation forced itself back into his cognizance. "Where’s my dad? Who are you?"
“I’m not your brother.” Tone huffed, his voice becoming defensive the moment he opened his mouth. “It’d be easier if- look, what’s your dad’s name, kid?”
“I think,” Corey swallowed, his hand tightening around the paper cup and denting the side. “You ought to tell me your name first.” His eyebrows raised slightly as he leaned forwards, catching quite enough of a glimpse of Tone’s face to comprehend what it looked like. “And take your mask off.”
Tone’s hands tightened around the steering wheel as his face tightened into a scowl. “The mask,” He snarled, ripping his hoodie off his head and revealing his beanie-covered scalp and charred shin fused to the metal face covering he wore, but catching himself a second after and forcing a long and methodical breath. “Doesn’t come off.”
The silence that followed prompted Tone to send a glance at Corey, doing a double take as his brain registered the horrified expression written across the kid’s face. “Look-” He apologetically covered his head back up, refocusing on the road as much as he could. “Maybe it’s better if we don’t tell each other too much. I don’t want to get you into trouble. But if you want my help finding your dad you’ll have to tell me who he is.”
“Nooa,” Corey replied, a practiced Finnish accent slipping effortlessly into his otherwise perfect American before disappearing immediately after. “It’s like Noah, but it- you have to-”
Tone’s demeanor changed to the degree that Corey was able to notice the shift in attitude. All the irritation that had infected his character was gone, a cold and sobering reality bearing down on him in its place. The agony in his hands from gripping the wheel was incomparable to the icy chill which swept over the rest of his skin. “Do you know him?”
Tone’s mouth hung open for a moment, his saddened eyes searching desperately for a way out of saying what seemed inevitable. “I… I’m sorry. I think he’s dead.”
“What?”
Tone instantly regretted looking back at Corey, who was now visibly shivering, the water in his hand rippling back and forth inside the paper cup. “What? No- He’s just, I saw…” His pause gave his small body the opportunity to start hyperventilating. “You’re wrong. You’re LYING. He didn’t say he was dying, he said he- You’re WRONG!”
The fist that slammed into Tone’s arm was by no means threatening, but his fragile skin smarted heavily as it made contact. “STOP LYING!! He’s alive, he HAS to be! He HAS to be alive!!” Corey’s voice started warbling as tears streamed down his face, unknowingly crushing Tone’s heart into a ball with each staggered inhale.
“Why would you take the only one I had left?” Corey swallowed, his eyes pleading with Tone for some kind of solace to contradict the horrible truth he now had to face. “I CAN’T go on alone! PLEASE-” His hand dropped the cup of water, letting it tumble onto the floor and dash its contents along the way as his newly-freed fingers clung desperately to the sleeve of Tone’s jacket, quickly losing the battle with his emotions. "PLEASE TELL ME HE’S ALIVE!!"
Tone’s neck muscles fought as hard as they could, but as Corey’s final plea broke into anguished sobs of Please bellowed into the sleeve he smeared his face against, as his body slowly slumped over the center console, the Wild Mask could fight back no longer, reaching a gloved hand across his body to rest on Corey’s trembling head and offer some words of consolation which, while barely effective, would have constituted doing something, at least.
His hand never made it there.
As Corey’s desperate cries came and went without relief, Tone slowly drew his extended hand back towards his body, rotating it until the soaked palm of his glove could be seen, a pair of red droplets having already rolled down the inside of his forearm into his sleeve. A long and shuddering inhale followed as the driving became instinctual, the anguished wails faded into white noise, and the rest of the world grew blurry and abstract as an unrelenting rhythm of pulses echoed in his mind…
“…Over…My soul…”
—
Corey’s eyes slowly opened again.
Despite not falling asleep, he had lost track of time, driven to absolute exhaustion by his cries. Wiping a sleeve across his crusted nose, he deeply inhaled the cold morning air as he slowly processed his new surroundings.
The town of Minakami was normally scenic enough, but the autumnal colors of the mountainside made it much more desirable, even if the autumn was so young only a small part of the trees had turned. The western sky was glowing orange, promising that before long, the sun which touched the mountaintops would soon brighten up the rest of the sky as well. A side road that ran under the highway lead to a quaint crossing overlooking the town, and there Tone had parked, leaving Corey alone in the vehicle to process his emotions.
Corey’s eyes landed almost instantly on the burly figure, standing at the side of the road, staring at the mountain range with a melancholic air, his hands folded behind his back. Despite his heart still feeling so raw — or perhaps because of it — Corey softly opened the car door and stepped out.
Tone processed the sound of the car door opening and the soft approach of Corey, pausing to pull his blanket even tighter around himself, but was so consumed in his depressed reverie that he did not prioritize it until Corey asked, his voice weak from its prior effort, “Are you yakuza?”
Tone snorted, catching himself a split second afterwards and tempering his cynical inclinations. “Maybe it’d be easier if I was.” He mumbled, tipping his head down towards the descending valley and the numerous homes dotted around inside it. “Was your father involved?”
“I don’t know.” Corey blinked away an incoming tear. “He always kept things hidden. He tried to keep me hidden too, especially from those men in suits that kept showing up. I don’t think they ever found me.”
Another long pause was finally broken by a sniffle from Corey, pushing Tone to redirect the conversation in reply. “What’s your name?”
“…Corey.”
Tone looked back at Corey in surprise, the same resolute determination in his voice now radiating from his face as he stared up at the Wild Mask. There was a finality as well; whatever was at stake with Corey sharing his identity had been thrown to the wind, the blonde-haired boy solemnly standing to face whatever came from his decision.
A gloved hand was extended, but as Corey reached out to meet the handshake it faltered, flinching away slightly from the incoming hand. Corey responded by gently grabbing Tone’s wrist and keeping his hand still long enough to complete the gesture.
“I’m tired.” He said, trying to keep his face as flat and cold as possible to prevent any emotion from slipping through. “Could I rest at your home for a while? Just long enough for me to…”
Tone stepped forward and knelt down to match Corey’s height, placing his hands on his shoulders as he tried to fight back a fresh wave of tears. “I’ll do whatever I can to help. That’s a promise, kid.”
Corey replied with a very shaky nod, letting out a shuddering breath as Tone wrapped his arms around him and gently pressed him against his shoulder. The rhythm of pulses in Tone’s mind slowly synced up with the beat of Corey’s heart.
—
“I am.”
Ren looked at Tone with an air of incredulity, a smile slightly cracking through his otherwise suspicious expression. “You didn’t drop his ice cream or something?”
“This is serious.” Tone’s voice grew threatening, Ren rolling his eyes and snapping off a piece of a narrow chocolate bar with his molars. “I already told you I’m putting my foot down about this, and I won’t take no for an answer under any circumstances.”
“Could you at least ask first?” Ren raised his eyebrows while keeping his eyelids at the same level. “I’m much more receptive to ideas if they’re politely introduced.”
“Fine.” Tone hissed through his teeth. “May I please force you into taking in this orphan kid that I found in the trunk of a yakuza’s automobile for the foreseeable future, no questions asked?”
Ren leaned off the restroom door, cracking it open slightly and peeking out. Corey was in the middle of arranging refrigerator magnets on Race’s stomach while she slept in the computer chair, looking back with dinner plate-sized eyes at Rook’s mask which sat on the computer table and repeatedly egged him on.
“I think that’s a unanimous vote.” Ren softly closed the door, turning his attention back onto his associate. “But… While I’m not going to make you say anything, it’d really help if you gave me some information about what happened. I’m kinda left guessing otherwise, and you know how much I love jumping to conclusions.”
The slight smile worn as he delivered the sarcastic self-deprecation fell in response to Tone’s silence. The room grew still as the two locked eyes, the unrelenting stare of Tone speaking without words that which he could never say aloud.
“Does he know?”
Tone shook his head to the most minimal degree in reply. Ren’s eyes shifted their focus to the wall behind him, his fingers tapping against the side of his thigh as the familiar irritation gnawed on the back of his mind.
“When will you tell him?”
Tone slowly blinked, walking forward and resting a hand on Ren’s shoulder, his unyielding presence making him seem much taller than before. Several more seconds would pass before he spoke again, his voice no longer threatening in its inflections, now dominated by a controlled application of notes and emotion, each word now characterized not by an impulsive striking out, but by a much more powerful reservation implying the strength lying underneath was far greater than anything he had displayed before.
“I’ll leave that up to you.”
—
And there it is 
The super-long flashback chapter Nota predicted existing forever ago has finally come to fruition, and I’m sure he’ll be disappointed by it when I finally read it to him
Oh, did I mention? Nota thought he could escape his theorizing responsibilities by not theorizing, but I have been keeping him up to date by other means 
He’ll have thoughts on this chapter before long.
Tonight on Top Gear
I go to the bathroom
James goes for a drive
And Hammond has a magnetic personality
